#the adult realization of teenage dreams

[in-tua-deep]

asleep me has just decided to start world building i guess

Imagine: you are a misfit teenage boy, a con artist. You have a best friend - or maybe a brother? You two are as close as family regardless. You're in a refugee camp when you pull a con - you pass your best friend off as the newly orphaned son of a noble or something. It's just a ploy - to give him an in with the other wealthy kids so you can steal.

Except… he doesn't really give it up? You ask a couple of times when you're leaving, but Will, your best friend, keeps putting it off. He's fallen in with a new crowd. One that respects him, elevates him. And those new friends? Well, they don't exactly like you.

Will starts sending you off on errands when he's with his friends. You go easily, because you want to be helpful, and you ignore the hushed laughter of his shiny new friends. You go on your fake little missions designed to get rid of you.

That's how you meet the Goddess.

Imagine a clearing, golden light, and a beautiful woman who calls you a trickster and says you are destined to be enemies. Imagine freeing the three chained sun gods by accident. (By fate?) Except you tell the goddess that you don’t believe in fate, and what if you become friends instead?

(You offer to steal her, and she agrees - a fine trick indeed, wouldn't you say?)

After this instance you find something out. You can use magic now? But also it seems like you have been cursed as well - you can’t die. Fate rearranges itself every time. A shield moves to a position it wasn’t in before. A sword misses its mark. You are Loved By Fate and it is an Issue.

Time passes and your best friend grows - and you have to use magic to grow with him. He’s a king now. You love him - he’s still your brother - but his smile is more and more strained every time he sees you.

Your goddess takes many forms travelling with you. Sometimes she is a woman, sometimes she is golden magic inside of a pouch. Sometimes she is a child and travels with you, and somehow you get separated with her like that. The king finds her, and immediately is taken with her. He decides to try and find a family for this child who is shy of everyone, and offers for any individual to come and try their luck to see if the child will take to them

You are the last person to try, not because you don't think your goddess will choose you, but because you are worried even if she does the king will not let her go

The king's friends stop you. You know their faces - they are the same bullies they have always been. They accuse you of being cursed because you never die no matter how many dangerous missions the king sends you on. The suicide missions.

They attack you, and they might be cruel but they aren’t stupid. Their ringleader realizes that it must be magic shifting his shield to protect you from the lethal blows.

(You can see every lethal blow that doesn’t land play through your head. The worlds that did not come to pass. You don’t tell them the number of times they murdered you in this fight. It wouldn’t change anything.)

You manage to escape and run up to the king’s room. Using fate’s magic so much has stripped you away of other magics - you look young again. Awkward and gangly with no facial hair (the way you always have since meeting a goddess and becoming something more than human)

He’s in there with an elven woman, a noble of some kind who is wise and anyone with eyes can see the king is in love with her. (You can see in her eyes that she does not love him back, not in that way.)

The king, after some debate, decides to let you try

(He doesn’t comment on your appearance - maybe he just thinks you have a baby face without your beard. Maybe the way he avoids looking you in the eyes means he doesn’t even notice.)

You reunite, and it is beautiful - your goddess surges forward into your arms and kisses you, and you feel fates magic coursing through you and soothing over the exhaustion from the fight.

But the king doesn’t see a goddess and he doesn’t see the magic - he sees a child and he draws his sword. He says many things - that he didn’t expect you to stoop this low. That he once called you his friend.

(How long has it been since that felt genuine?)

Something goes cold in you and enough is enough. Your goddess’s magic courses through you, and you will not be separated again. You use magic to blast them back, use magic to stun them, and use magic to make you and your goddess into a rat that scurries away into the walls

The magic is powerful enough that a cascade of golden chains has manifested down the wall of the room, branching downward like a geometric tree and each one tipped with an amulet with a large inset ruby

The king and the noble awaken, and the king is furious. But the elven woman looks like all her questions have been answered

She talks about how there haven’t been terrible fires throughout the lands, despite all signs pointing to the fact that the sun gods have been unchained

She names you - trickster, calamity

In mythology apparently you are symbolized by a massive golden peacock, each "feather" in your tail with ruby-gem eyes like the chains on the wall

You are named such because you are the only creature capable of going against fate and changing it

(your train of feathers is instead a train of chains - all the fates that you have broken)

(It should make you enemies with your goddess, but you decided in that clearing twenty years ago that you were friends instead)

Apparently on your suicide missions, you have been helping. Wherever you could, you changed the fate of entire cities and towns and prevented the wildfires of the Sun gods from ravaging the kingdom

The elven woman opens a portrait that has a nook behind it. You are sitting there - well, not you exactly. But a copy of you. You are a trickster and love mischief, and you love secret spaces and those who choose to look in them. That’s enough for a part of you to be present, looking sixteen and glowing with golden light

She speaks in the ancient language to you - and you speak it back without thinking. You tell her she’s just as hot as Will with a wink and it makes her laugh. Will cannot understand what you are saying, but you don’t care right now. He’s your best friend, but you aren’t his, and it hurts

He calls you immature, and the elven woman says you’re only sixteen. He snaps back that you are a thirty-six year old man. She shakes her head, and says that you haven’t been since you Awakened. Gods are different, after all

(Maybe it was the differences that drove you apart? Maybe it’s your fault? But if that is the truth then why was there already so much distance between you? You do not ask your goddess if there was a path where you still would have been close.)

You don’t feel like a god, you feel like a person who is just trying their best. You feel tired. You feel sad. Maybe that’s why you are the one who bends fate - you’re the only one that cares enough to try.

Anyway that’s when I woke up but I like my trickster - important to note that he is a redhead with a bit of a baby face

[theygender]

My gf finally found a video game that she's interested in and tracked down a copy of it at a local used game store, so we spent tonight playing Ghostbusters: The Video Game (2009) on my old PS3 and eating pizza that we ordered straight out of the box and I think it fixed me

[lionblaze03-2]

sometimes I think about writing and singing music not because I’m an incredible singer but because no one has my fucking voice, especially in popular music, and its disheartening to be born a girl, told you’ll only get girl roles or try to voice match other girls, or ‘sing with the girls’ and then only be able to match male voices because you’re a fuckin tenor and not anything higher. I can’t think of any girl Broadway roles I can hit all the notes on. Most songs I love I have to pitch down for myself or use falsetto for singing along to. It bothers me a lot less now because I’m an adult who’s more secure in myself but as a teen in kids musical theatre it FUCKED with me, BAD style. And I know for a fact that even now when I hear people with a voice like mine singing I get excited and immediately invested in their work because they’re like ME, finally, for once. A brother in this world of being afab and having the voice of a recently pubescent boy forever. Maybe I should be that brother too.

[nellasbookplanet]

Book recs: black science fiction

As february and black history month nears its end, if you're a reader let's not forget to read and appreciate books by black authors the rest of the year as well! If you're a sci-fi fan like me, perhaps this list can help find some good books to sink your teeth into.

Bleak dystopias, high tech space adventures, alien monsters, alternate dimensions, mash-ups of sci-fi and fantasy - this list features a little bit of everything for genre fiction fans!

For more details on the books, continue under the readmore. Titles marked with * are my personal favorites. And as always, feel free to share your own recs in the notes!

If you want more book recs, check out my masterpost of rec lists!

Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor

Something massive and alien crashes into the ocean off the coast of Nigeria. Three people, a marine biologist, a rapper, and a soldier, find themselves at the center of this presence, attempting to shepherd an alien ambassador as chaos spreads in the city. A strange novel that mixes the supernatural with the alien, shifts between many different POVs, and gives a one of a kind look at a possible first contact.

Nubia: The Awakening (Nubia series) by Omar Epps & Clarence A. Hayes

Young adult. Three teens living in the slums of an enviromentally ravaged New York find that something powerful is awakening within them. They’re all children of refugees of Nubia, a utopian African island nation that sank as the climate worsened, and realize now that their parents have been hiding aspects of their heritage from them. But as they come into their own, someone seeks to use their abilities to his own ends, against their own people.

The Scourge Between Stars by Ness Brown

Novella. After having failed at establishing a new colony, starship Calypso fights to make it back to Earth. Acting captain Jacklyn Albright is already struggling against the threats of interstellar space and impending starvation when the ship throws her a new danger: something is hiding on the ship, picking off her crew one by one in bloody, gruesome ways. A quick, excellent read if you want some good Alien vibes.

Dawn (Xenogenesis trilogy) by Octavia E. Butler*

After a devestating war leaves humanity on the brink of extinction, survivor Lilith finds herself waking up naked and alone in a strange room. She’s been rescued by the Oankali, who have arrived just in time to save the human race. But there’s a price to survival, and it might be humanity itself. Absolutely fucked up I love it I once had to drop the book mid read to stare at the ceiling and exclaim in horror at what was going on. Includes darker examinations of agency and consent, so enter with caution.

Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson*

Utterly unique in world-building, story, and prose, Midnight Robber follows young Tan-Tan and her father, inhabitants of the Carribean-colonized planet of Toussaint. When her father commits a terrible crime, he’s exiled to a parallel version of the same planet, home to strange aliens and other human exiles. Tan-Tan, not wanting to lose her father, follows with him. Trapped on this new planet, he becomes her worst nightmare. Enter this book with caution, as it contains graphic child sexual abuse.

Rosewater (The Wormwood trilogy) by Tade Thompson

In Nigeria lies Rosewater, a city bordering on a strange, alien biodome. Its motives are unknown, but it’s having an undeniable effect on the surrounding life. Kaaro, former criminal and current psychic agent for the government, is one of the people changed by it. When other psychics like him begin getting killed, Kaaro must take it upon himself to find out the truth about the biodome and its intentions.

Do You Dream of Terra-Two? by Temi Oh

Young adult. A century ago, an astronomer discovered a possibly Earth-like planet. Now, a team of veteran astronauts and carefully chosen teenagers are preparing to embark on a twenty-three year trip to get there. But space is dangerous, and the team has no one to rely on but each other if - or when - something goes wrong. An introspective slowburn of a story, this focuses more on character work than action.

The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord

After the planet Sadira is left uninhabitable, its few survivors are forced to move to a new world. On Cygnus Beta, they work to rebuild their society alongside their distant relatives of the planet, while trying to preserve what remains of their culture. Focused less on hard science or action, The Best of All Possible Worlds is more about culture, romance and the ethics and practicalities of telepathy.

Mirage (Mirage duology) by Somaiya Daud

Young adult. Eighteen-year-old Amani lives on an isolated moon under the oppressive occupation of the Valthek empire. When Amani is abducted, she finds herself someplace wholly unexpected: the royal palace. As it turns out, she's nearly identical to the half-Valthek, and widely hated, princess Maram, who is in need of a body double. If Amani ever wants to make it back home or see her people freed from oppression, she will have to play her role as princess perfectly. While sci-fi, this one more has the vibe of a fantasy.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Life on the lower decks of the generation ship HSS Matilda is hard for Aster, an outcast even among outcasts, trying to survive in a system not dissimilar to the old antebellum South. The ship’s leaders have imposed harsh restrictions on their darker skinned people, using them as an oppressed work force as they travel toward their supposed Promised Land. But as Aster finds a link between the death of the ship’s sovereign and the suicide of her own mother, she realizes there may be a way off the ship.

Where It Rains in Color by Denise Crittendon

The planet Swazembi is a utopia of color and beauty, the most beautiful of all its citizens being the Rare Indigo. Lileala was just named Rare Indigo, but her strict yet pampered life gets upended when her beautiful skin is struck by a mysterious sickness, leaving it covered in scars and scabs. Meanwhile, voices start to whisper in Lileala's mind, bringing to the surface a past long forgotten involving her entire society.

Eacaping Exodus (Escaping Exodus duology) by Nicky Drayden

Seske is the heir to the leader of a clan living inside a gigantic, spacefaring beast, of which they frequently need to catch a new one to reside in as their presence slowly kills the beast from the inside. While I found the ending rushed with regards to plot and character, the worldbuilding is very fresh and the overall plot of survival and class struggle an interesting one. It’s also sapphic!

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah*

In a near future America, inmates on death row or with life sentences in private prisons can choose to participate in death matches for entertainment. If they survive long enough - a rare case indeed - they regain their freedom. Among these prisoners are Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker, partners behind the scenes and close to the deadline of a possible release - if only they can survive for long enough. As the game continues to be stacked against them and protests mount outside, two women fight for love, freedom, and their own humanity. Chain-Gang All-Stars is bleak and unflinching as well as genuinely hopeful in its portrayal of a dark but all to real possible future.

Parable of the Sower (Earthseed duology) by Octavia E. Butler*

In a bleak future, Lauren Olamina lives with her family in a gated community, one of few still safe places in a time of chaos. When her community falls, Lauren is forced on the run. As she makes her way toward possible safety, she picks up a following of other refugees, and sows the seeds of a new ideology which may one day be the saviour of mankind. Very bleak and scarily realistic, Parable of the Sower will make you both fear for mankind and regain your hope for humanity.

Binti (Binti trilogy) by Nnedi Okorafor

Young adult novella. Binti is the first of the Himba people to be accepted into the prestigious Oomza University, the finest place of higher learning in all the galaxy. But as she embarks on her interstellar journey, the unthinkable happens: her ship is attacked by the terrifying Meduse, an alien race at war with Oomza University.

War Girls (War Girls duology) by Tochi Onyebuchi

In an enviromentally fraught future, the Nigerian civil war has flared back up, utilizing cybernetics and mechs to enhance its soldiers. Two sisters, by bond if not by blood, are separated and end up on differing sides of the struggle. Brutal and dark, with themes of dehumanization of soldiers through cybernetics that turn them into weapons, and the effect and trauma this has on them.

The Space Between Worlds (The Space Between Worlds duology) by Micaiah Johnson

Multiverse travel is finally possible, but there’s a catch: No one can visit a world where their counterpart is still alive. Enter Cara, whose parallel selves happen to be exceptionally good at dying. As such she has a very special job in traveling to these worlds, hoping to keep her position long enough to gain citizenship in the walled-off Wiley City, away from the wastes where she grew up. But her job is dangerous, especially when she gets on the tracks of a secret that threatens the entire multiverse. Really cool worldbuilding and characters, also featuring a sapphic lead!

The Fifth Season (The Broken Eart trilogy) by N.K. Jemisin*

In a world regularly torn apart by natural disasters, a big one finally strikes and society as we know it falls, leaving people floundering to survive in a post apocalyptic world, its secrets and past to be slowly revealed. We get to follow a mother as she races through this world to find and save her missing daughter. While mostly fantasy in genre, this series does have some sci-fi flavor, and is genuinely some of the best books I've ever read, please read them.

The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings*

In an alternate version of our present, the witch hunt never ended. Women are constantly watched and expected to marry young so their husbands can keep an eye on them. When she was fourteen, Josephine's mother disappeared, leveling suspicions at both mother and daughter of possible witchcraft. Now, nearly a decade and a half later, Jo, in trying to finally accept her missing mother as dead, decides to follow up on a set of seemingly nonsensical instructions left in her will. Features a bisexual lead!

The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden

South African-set scifi featuring gods ancient and new, robots finding sentience, dik-diks, and a gay teen with mind control abilities. An ancient goddess seeks to return to her true power no matter how many humans she has to sacrifice to get there. A little bit all over the place but very creative and fresh.

The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson*

Young adult. Young artist June Costa lives in Palmares Tres, a beautiful, matriarchal city relying heavily on tradition, one of which is the Summer King. The most recent Summer King is Enki, a bold boy and fellow artist. With him at her side, June seeks to finally find fame and recognition through her art, breaking through the generational divide of her home. But growing close to Enki is dangerous, because he, like all Summer Kings, is destined to die.

The Blood Trials (The Blood Gifted duology) by N.E. Davenport

After Ikenna's grandfather is assasinated, she is convinced that only a member of the Praetorian guard, elite soldiers, could’ve killed him. Seeking to uncover his killer, Ikenna enrolls in a dangerous trial to join the Praetorians which only a quarter of applicants survive. For Ikenna, the stakes are even higher, as she's hiding forbidden blood magic which could cost her her life. Mix of fantasy and sci-fi. While I didn’t super vibe with this one, I suspect fans of action packed romantasy will enjoy it.

Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany

1960s classic. Rydra Wong is a space captain, linguist and poet who is set on learning to understand Babel-17, a language which is humanity's only clue at the enemy in an interstaller war. But Babel-17 is more than just a language, and studying it may change Rydra forever.

Pet (Pet duology) by Akwaeke Emezi

Young adult novella. Jam lives in a utopian future that has been freed of monsters and the systems which created and upheld them. But then she meets Pet, a dangerous creature claiming to be hunting a monster still among them, prepared to stop at nothing to find them. While I personally found the word-building in Pet lacking, it deftly handles dark subjects of what makes a human a monster.

Bonus AKA I haven’t read these yet but they seem really cool

Lion's Blood by Steven Barnes

Alternate history in which Africans colonized South America while vikings colonized the North. The vikings sell abducted Celts and Franks as slaves to the South, one of which is eleven-years-old Irish boy Aidan O'Dere, who was just bought by a Southern plantation owner.

The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow

Young adult dystopia. Ellie lives in a future where humanity is under the control of the alien Ilori. All art is forbidden, but Ellie keeps a secret library; when one of her books disappears, she fears discovery and execution. M0Rr1S, born in a lab and raised to be emotionless, finds her library, and though he should deliver her for execution, he finds himself obsessed with human music. Together the two embark on a roadtrip which may save humanity.

Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase

Lelah lives in future Botswana, but despite money and fame she finds herself in an unhappy marriage, her body controlled via microchip by her husband. After burying the body of an accidental hit and run, Lelah's life gets worse when the ghost of her victim returns to enact bloody vengeance.

Orleans by Sherri L. Smith

Young adult. Fen de la Guerre, living in a quarantined Gulf Coast left devestated by storms and sickness, is forced on the run with a newborn after her tribe is attacked. Hoping to get the child to safety, Fen seeks to get to the other side of the wall, she teams up with a scientist from the outside the quarantine zone.

Everfair by Nisi Shawl

A neo-victorian alternate history, in which a part of Congo was kept safe from colonisation, becoming Everfair, a safe haven for both the people of Congo and former slaves returning from America. Here they must struggle to keep this home safe for them all.

The Splinter in the Sky by Kemi Ashing-Giwa

Space opera. Enitan just wants to live a quiet life in the aftermath of a failed war of conquest, but when her lover is killed and her sister kidnapped, she's forced to leave her plans behind to save her sister.

Honorary mentions AKA these didn't really work for me but maybe you guys will like them: The City We Became (Great Cities duology) by N.K. Jemisin, The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull, The A.I. Who Loved Me by Alyssa Cole

[wisdomssdaughterr]

I never listen to men’s opinions in general but ESPECIALLY when it comes to movies. you’re going to tell, as a man, that the barbie movie was bad? you just can’t possible understand the complexities of the transition between girlhood and womanhood that happens before it should. you have no idea what it’s like to cling so desperately onto your own imagination as an adult after spending your pre-teen/teenage years pretending that playing with dolls and wearing pink was so beneath you. you don’t understand fighting with your mother only to one day realize she is living through you and doing all that she can to make sure you go leap and bounds further than her. men couldn’t possible grasp the impact watching Barbie herself cry and say she wasn’t perfect or pretty anymore, when your whole childhood was built around carrying her in your backpack and knowing that one day you’ll be the president, an astronaut, and a model because she was. because she was yours and you were her! yeah, the movie was silly and funny and self aware and maybe you don’t think it’s “that deep”, but as a woman you just get it. as someone growing up still in your childhood bedroom that no longer has a dream house but the dolls are still above you in the attic because you can’t throw them out, you get it

[itoshi-s]

wld u have any input on perv!reo w an innocent/oblivious reader??

──✧ ˚ · “ 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞

*.✧ ft. 𝐫𝐞𝐨 𝐦𝐢𝐤𝐚𝐠𝐞

*.✧ wc: 10.1k. nsfw & dark content / 17+ only / minors dni ! - fem reader, characters are 18+ (but meet as teenagers), dub-con, slow burn, reo's a whore and a sleaze, manipulation, corruption, slight obsessive behavior, misuse of power (reader sees reo as kind of a brotherly figure), cunnilingus, reo's needy, mentions of taking unsolicited sex pics, panty stealing. // notes: reo is either a perv or a sub and there's no in between ! reo fuckers enjoy (☆ω☆)

the first time reo sees you, he’s barely fourteen and  it’s in his family home, sitting straight in your seat at the dining table.

you look gorgeous with your big, curious eyes, long lashes, and a lip balm giving your pout a pink sheen. you’re different from all the other girls he’s seen around at school - you don’t try to look older, and actually look your age. a nice change for once. he steals a few glances upon your way from his seat diagonally across, fork digging into the tender steak on his plate. it was nice for a change to not be the only teen at the table, and actually, it was a bit surprising too. your parents were frequent guests at his house, due to the many links between their company and mikage corp, but this was the first time you tagged along. actually, reo doesn’t think he’s ever heard them mention having a daughter - but then again, his head is always anywhere but here, at the table, when the adults discuss over business details and joke around topics that make his head ache and confusion settle on his features.

“what about you, love? got any plans for the future?” reo moves his eyes from his glass of juice to his mother upon hearing her address you. she’s so sweet, just like always. 

you blink once, twice, and nod quickly, “oh- oh, yes, actually. i want to help people.” you beam, the smile you’re sporting making your cheeks plump and full. “maybe, um, set up a foundation, or something? i dunno, like the one that organized the ball a week ago, right papa?”

reo has to hold back a roll of his eyes, the interest you first sparked in him long gone. now this was something he’s heard from about every other girl he knows - the other option either being fashion or a family company heir, just like him. you sound a bit clueless, too, the sheepish tone of your voice making you seem even more childish. (not like he’s grown up, of course, but then again, you’re even worse.) 

despite how cute you are that day, reo doesn’t feel any interest in you whatsoever. the reason behind why you looked so innocent compared to his other friends, who already started to experiment with makeup and more mature clothing, doesn’t make it any easier to like you either. you are a year younger, and from what his mother tells him once you leave, your parents are very strict on keeping you unscathed by the pressure social media and society puts on young girls. now the thought of you hanging out at his place more often sounds so nohow, it doesn’t even make him excited to finally have some company. you seem immature and a bit naive, and while reo’s anything but aloof, he doubts that he’ll ever get along with you.

or, at least, so he thinks after the night you first meet. as expected, you start coming over to his place more often, now that a brand new deal between your families is about to be signed. while your parents discuss future plans over wine, reo is shocked to hear that for once, maybe he can show you around the house instead of sitting next to them and getting familiar with the investments. 

you’re not actually that insufferable, reo realizes after several long hours of you hanging out together in his room. you have an older brother that’s a professional volleyball player now, and he sees the longing in your eyes when you mention him playing overseas. it sparks his interest, how your brother began his career when he was just about his age - he had everything a teenage boy could ever dream of, and yet, he’d rather move to the other side of the world to chase a dream that didn’t gave him any certainty. the more you talk, the softer and less infantile you seem - reo realizes that you actually do know a lot about worldwide humanitarian issues, a lot more than any other kid your age. he listens intently as you tell him about the things you like to do after school, about the many hobbies your parents put you on, and somehow, you manage to find a common ground. you talk and game and laugh for hours, until the night falls and your mum comes up to reo’s room to collect you. 

reo gives you a little wave goodbye, and from now on looks forward to your visits - for a while.

years pass by, and while reo manages to keep up his spot on top of his every class, all while meeting up with friends and traveling the world with his parents, you just seem… the same. yeah, you got smarter - a scholarship from the states being the best proof - and prettier, too, which reo is sure other boys notice as well. but you still have this little dreamy edge to you, your laugh all too high pitched and random at times, and you still blush profusely whenever a boy comes anywhere near. you’re still nice, but just not as fun to be around; you're different, than him and the other girls he knows and starts to surround himself with. it’s not your fault either, as reo figures it must be your parents keeping you away from all the opportunities - better or worse - that teenagery has to offer. you’re busy with the scholarship now, thinking of going on a student exchange to the usa, even, and while reo sees it as praiseworthy, you two just seem to lose the common language you once had. 

second year of highschool comes by, and you’re merely just a thought at the very back of reo’s head when he meets nagi. the two get along as if they’ve known each other their whole lives, even though seishiro needs a little (uh, maybe a bit bigger) push, and the friendship and newly found passion about football gets reo going. he doesn’t even see you around too often anymore, considering he’s barely at home after school, and even if he is, the time is spent on arguing with his parents. the only times he remembers about you is when you’re brought up by his father - a prime example of how one should take advantage of the privileges they were born into, instead of picking up a worthless dream. he knows you’ve got nothing to do with this, and yet still, the thought of you makes reo hurl.

reo doesn’t really miss you a lot during his time at blue lock - and he doesn’t think it’s anything harsh, considering you were barely good friends and only ever hung out when your parents did, and it was still long years ago, back before you two even properly hit puberty. there’s enough going on during the selections to keep his mind busy and muscles taut with stress - he doesn’t need any interruptions in getting to the top and so, the thought of you is pushed to the very back of his mind. it only ever changes the day of the u20 match, when the buzz of the blue lock’s team victory is still making his skin crawl and blood rush. he’s tired, his legs feel like jelly, and yet, he still makes out the familiar voice from the front row stands as he goes to leave to the locker room.

“reo!” he turns his head upon his name being called out, brows furrowed as he wipes the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. he recognizes the sing-song voice, but the memory is a bit blurry as violet eyes scan through the crowd and eventually fall upon the hand vigorously waving around - moving down, they lock with your bright orbs, a vibrant grin on your lips.

to say that he’s surprised to see you is an understatement - he takes a quick glance around you to check if you’re there with your parents, but he sees that you’re in fact alone. must’ve been your idea now, wasn’t it? reo jogs over to the barriers, and only after closing the distance between the two of you does he notice the changes in your appearance that must’ve happened over the past few months. 

he spots the way your features look way more mature now, and how you seem to finally have started to accentuate them with the right makeup. your skin still has the girly glow to it, though, or it might just be the wide smile on your face that’s lighting it up - either way, you definitely look even prettier than the last time reo has seen you, which must’ve been around his sixteenth birthday. 

“you won!” you exclaim happily, leaning against the barriers and reaching a hand out to high-five him once he’s in arms reach. he’s a bit hesitant, but only out of surprise.  “thought they would never bring you out,” you quip, watching reo roll his eyes. geez, thanks. “doesn’t your head hurt from that save?” your dainty fingers touch at reo’s reddened forehead, and it makes a foreign flutter wake in his chest. 

“not really,” he shrugs, letting you ruffle his hair slightly. were you really that touchy with him these few years ago, back when you were children? he can’t recall. “what’re you doing here anyway?” he rubs at his eye, the other one glancing up at you curiously. from his spot under the bleachers, he has just the perfect sight of your cleavage - and usually it wouldn’t affect him in any way, but to his surprise, his gaze is met with bare skin. reo has to swallow thickly upon the initial startle, eyes momentarily locked with the gold  necklace that he now remembers you wear even years ago - but this time, it rests right between the valley of your perky breasts, barely visible from the spot where your tits squeeze together. fuck - he knows that puberty can be a blessing sometimes. but could that really be the same you?

your voice brings him back to the present, gaze quickly tearing away from your chest, “i could finally see you play, reo! i never even heard you mention soccer,” you state, voice falling a bit near the end of the sentence. almost as if you regretted the way your friendship turned out. “do you still have the same number?” the question brings a hopeful tilt to your voice, and it makes reo smile a bit. there it is - the same awaiting, sweet sound.

“yeah,” he replies, looking up to lock his eyes with your doe ones. the clumpy, thick mascara on your lashes really does the trick, he thinks as he watches your lips stretch in a smile. “i don’t have my phone on me at blue lock, though - but we will catch up once i’m back, yeah?” now you were not the only one that has undergone a major change throughout the years, and while reo didn’t look all that different, there was definitely a shift in his personality. yeah, he was still real sweet with everyone, barely ever getting into any fights or arguments and staying on good terms with pretty much everybody. he always could have any girl he wanted - could pick and choose from tens of them at school, and then everywhere else he went - and yet, not even one of them grew suspicious of the way he is. not one of his previous girlfriends or the ones he only hung out with once or twice seemed aware of how his eyes naturally rested lower than on their face when they spoke. they only grew giddier at the way his hands would grope at the soft fat of their tits, their hips, squeezing at their bottom in a way that made their head spin - in a way they’ve already heard from their friends, who also got lucky enough to catch reo’s attention. maybe they were also just glad that it was finally their chance, and didn’t give his hungry touches any second thoughts? maybe they really did think that he was just like all the other horny teenagers, buzzing with hormones, and that his long days of practice only spurred him on even more.  sometimes, reo was surprised, even, at how quickly they would respond to his sly texts, a picture attached with no trace of shame. did they ever let the thought of him keeping these pictures linger, or were they really just this dumb?

the more recognition he gets thanks to the blue lock project and neo egoist league, the larger his range of possibilities grows. there’s girls flooding his dm’s, his name being thrown around different thirst tweets, and yet, it’s not like reo’s not used to it already. he's turned eighteen barely a few months before the blue lock project, and so he's already had plenty of time to finally let up all of this pent up tension. he meets up with a few girls during his breaks, spends the night, and is off early morning - with a pair of lace knickers in his back pocket, if he’s lucky (and the girl oblivious enough). some of them don’t even notice the flash going off as they ride him, their back to his face, taking just a little memoir to keep locked under a passworded folder in his gallery - something that he can play back in his mind, when he’s back at the blue lock facility, alone in the showers.

between his little hook ups, he still finds the time to keep his promise - and drives over to your house, which he is a little surprised to find with no sight of you the first time he comes by. “oh, she’s living on her own now! had to move closer to her university.” oh. "she'll be so happy to see you, though, reo! it's been ages since i've seen you, too." to say that he’s shocked by your mother’s words is an understatement - hell, you could even fly a private helicopter to uni each and every day if you only ever wished for it - so did your parents, always so overprotective, really let you move out and start living by yourself? nonetheless, reo is actually kind of content to be hanging out with you again. (the way you carry yourself, so soft and sweet as if your looks weren't enough to fill any guy's thoughts with pure filth, might just be the main reason.) he learns that you got into the university of tokyo on top of the acceptance list and are floored with not only work, but also the uni life that everyone else has been telling you about. ah. so that’s where the sudden change in looks came from, he realizes as you tell him about how happy you were that your best of friends managed to get in with you.

“she’s so cool! i think you would’ve liked her, reo,” you tease, a grin on your lips as you tell him about one of your friends and even go to show him her instagram pictures. he hums, “yeah, she's-" "if only she wasn’t into older guys.” you elbow him in the side with a giggle, and it makes him wonder how to wrap his head around the dissonance you’re giving him.

reo starts to feel less and less surprised with the way you turned out the more you tell him about the girls you befriended in high school, and then the ones you were hanging out with in your sorority house as well. you’ve always been kept in a bubble, as your parents’ greatest treasure - their sweetest little girl, as if you weren’t in your golden age to start experimenting with life and all it had to offer. it was honestly only a matter of time until you slipped away, the blinders your parents wore making them oblivious to your newly born adventurous nature. she’s not like that, he bet they’d say. have you seen her? she’s as innocent as they get! how the hell you managed to stay just that way, reo couldn’t figure out for the life of him. you’re wearing the skimpiest skirts he’s seen on a girl in a long time, your tits spilling out of your top, lashes curled to the heavens and yet, when you look at him, you have the same childish excitement in your doe-like eyes - and it feels as if you haven’t grown at all from when he first met you.

you were never really insufferably dumb to begin with, and reo knows that. your parents made sure you got the greatest education possible and you were a straight A student, keeping interest in many fields - starting from finances and economics, through arts and finishing at high tech. maybe that’s what makes it so appealing and easy to talk to you, spending long hours on bickering and discussing, even though your mind seems so, so much more innocent than his - hell, than any other girl’s your age, too. whenever he slips a dirty joke in the conversation, you frown slightly, a pout on your lips as if asking, what do you mean, reo?, and it doesn’t make any sense to him. yet again - how can that be possible, with the way all of your little friends are carrying themselves?

you start spending more time with each other, considering how close your condo is to the blue lock facility, and it becomes a little routine for him to come right over to your place whenever he gets a few days of break. you spend the time watching tv shows, stuffing your face full of snacks, going to the arcade and gossiping about reo’s teammates or whatever one of your girlfriends did since the last time you two have seen each other.

“m’so happy we’re friends now, reo,” you mumble one night, curled up to his side on the couch, nearly dozing off with some random action movie playing from the flat screen tv. “y’remind me of him so much, yanno?” 

ah, so there it is - the reason behind you always staying hooked to his arm. even though you were coming from a very similar background as him, reo was still a little more experienced in life - having seen more, thanks to the blue lock, among other things - and after all, he was a year older than you, wasn’t he? he carried himself with this confident, yet playful smile all of the time, and made everyone in his company feel warm - very much like your older brother did. thanks to him (or more like your stories about him), reo manages to get a good glimpse at how a sportsman’s life really looks like - how even though your family was so close, his visits happen thrice a year at most, and it leaves you missing him so bad, he even has to comfort you and wipe away your tears on one of your movie marathon nights.

sometimes, it seems like there’s two sides to him. one, that makes every girl’s knees buckle at just one glance; and the other, showcased by a bright grin and giddy behavior. either way, reo doesn’t really think of himself badly. it’s not like he’s doing any of it against the girls’ wishes, isn’t it? some would even consider it a good deed, even, he’s pretty sure, with the way he’s the very first one to be touching them that way, taking their innocence away. the only time he ever starts to feel guilt eating away at his insides is when the same filth spills all over his mind, clouding over his senses whenever you are around.

it’s been a year since the neo egoist league has ended - a year full of you, amongst soccer and other things that tore his mind and body down with exhaustion. movie nights, adventure parks, helping you study, going to frat parties with you, even - cause none of the girls are comin’, reo, please, just this once! - as if he really needed any convincing to come. some of the guys there were his high school friends, he realized, and so the thought of catching up with his old colleagues made the party even more appealing. (not to mention the tens of girls that would kill to have him lick the salt off their tummy, the tequila on his tongue bringing a bitter taste to their mouth as they kissed later - one of his favorite party activities, honestly, considering how hard it made him in his pants.) 

the first time it happens, reo’s by the makeshift bar, chatting up with a friend he used to sit with at chemistry lab as he pours them a drink - and his head lazily tilts to the side upon hearing your voice calling out to him.

“reo!” you sound as excited as always when addressing him, and he has to chuckle at the way you stumble over your own feet as you strut over to his spot by the bar. “reo, we’re- we’re playing beer pong. wanna team up w’me?” 

the amused laughter dies down in his throat as his eyes zero in on your cleavage, the fat of your tits jiggling with each step you hurriedly take towards him. he sees the slight sheen of sweat, watches the way it reflects the neon lights, how it accentuates the glitter of the body spray you put on right before you left the house. reo is glad he has his hand stuck in his pocket, cause now he can quickly fix his hardening dick without making it suspicious - he gives himself a slight squeeze and clears his throat as you approach him.

you smell of coconut, and the scent overwhelms his senses as soon as you press yourself up against him - a giggle leaving your mouth as you wrap your arms around his neck and pull him in to press a wet kiss to his cheek. “pretty, pretty please? y’know i’ve never ever played it, and if i lose it’ll make me a loser, won’t it now, reo,” you babble on, a laugh leaving your mouth as his friend gives your nose a flick. he must’ve told you something amusing, reo supposes, but the both of you are drowned out as blood thuds in his ears - as it throbs in his pants, cock aching by how ridiculously hard it got at the feeling of you pressed up against him. he feels your tits as they squish against his chest, feels the rumble of your laughter, the flutter of your lashes against his neck-

“‘xcuse me,” he mumbles, hurriedly, and pries your arms off - earning a surprised look from you (and a cute drunken stumble). making his way through the crowd, the smell of spilled liquor and sweat and mixed perfume makes his head even dizzier, to the point that he’s stumbling into the bathroom, kicking the door shut behind him.

one hand works on turning the lock while the other undoes the button of his plaid gray pants, a shaky groan slipping past his lips at the crumb of relieved tension. he dips a hand past the waistband of his boxers and pulls his throbbing cock out, thumb smearing the milky white pre-cum all around the reddened tip as he grabs onto the sink tightly for support.

“shit,” reo nearly whines at the image playing out in the very front of his mind. it’s almost like he can still inhale you, feel you as the heat of your body against his turns his legs to mush. he bites down on his lip, hard, in an attempt to quiet down the needy gasps that leave his mouth every so often, with every jerk of his hand. he tightens his grip on the porcelain, wrist flicking hurriedly and it makes him squeeze his eyes shut, strands of violet hair falling over his forehead as he groans quietly. please, pretty please, reo. it reverbs in his ears, but this time, it’s breathy, needy - as he imagines you giving him your prettiest wide eyes, tears sticking to your lashes, mascara running down your cheeks as he holds your thighs wide open, watching the way your pussy struggles to fit him in-

“ah- fuck, take it-” a mewl-like sound catches in his throat, toned abs spasming as white spills all over the bathroom sink. he struggles to catch his breath, hips needily thrusting into his hand as he rides out the high that leaves a loud ringing in his ears. throwing his head back, he groans softly as he feels the thick cum pool on his fingers, dripping down onto the pearly white porcelain - staining it with filth.

 it takes him a breather to finally flutter his eyes open, the bring white light stinging the bloodshot orbs - and he hums to himself, softly, a sigh following soon after as his shoulders relax. he lets go of the edge of the sink and instead turns the faucet on, cleaning his hands off any filth and patting any residue off his cock with a paper towel in relative silence. a random tune booms through the speakers outside, but the bathroom door do their job mellowing it out as he cleans after himself, taking his time to fully come down his high.

the realization only hits him when he’s finished zipping his pants back up and about to fix his hair, glancing up at the mirror - and sees the red tint on his cheeks and blood clinging to the torn skin of his bottom lip, glossy eyes staring right back at him.

maybe he is a bit fucked up, after all.

you wake up in your bed the next morning, a glass of water along with a tablet of aspirin left on your bedside table. loser :p, the note stuck right next to it says, and you honestly wish you remembered what the little joke is about. 

“this is so embarrassing,” you whine into your pillow a few hours later and reo chuckles under his breath at the way your legs kick out, body overcome with shame. “i can’t remember a thing! i don’t know what i was even doin’ most of the night,” you mumble, eyes almost teary as you pull your face away to give reo a discontented look. he hums softly, glancing over at you just for a split second before focusing back on the stocks on his phone screen.

“see, that’s why i told you not to drink this much.” he says matter-of-factly, “you’re lucky i was there. you never know who’s at the party with you, kiddo, so you need to stay aware at all times.”

now, reo has to admit that the sight of your eyes glazing over with tears, a subtle pout on your lips, shouldn’t be making him feel as hot as it does - and yet, he continues, and digs the hole underneath you even deeper. 

“there’s many bad guys around and you know it,” he mumbles, lilac eyes momentarily catching yours. you gulp and pull your knees up towards your chest for comfort, tears of shame tingling at your lashes. “you’re a smart girl, after all, yeah?”

were the things he said true? definitely - especially for such pretty and sweet girls like you, too good for your own good. but were you really in any danger last night, with him keeping an eye on you the whole time (except for his little… getaway)? not really - but seeing the anxious expression on your face was worth it. sometimes, it made reo feel like he should just grab you by the shoulders and tell you that you had to grow up eventually, for your own safety and comfort. but then again, he doubted it’d even work anyway, and besides, the adrenaline rush he experienced each and every time he instilled a crumb of fear in your heart was just too good to let pass.

it does feel good to have you cling to him even tighter, after all, he figures as you climb on his lap weeks later asyou two hang out in the evening. your hair blocks his view of the game he’s watching, but it only takes a little squirming for you to get fully comfortable and allow him the full look on the tv screen.

“who’s playing today?” you chime in, leaning forward to grab a handful of popcorn. reo’s voice catches in his throat, unable to help the way his eyes cast down, to where your ass is pressing firmly against his crotch and thighs. the waistband of your shorts sticks away from your flesh, allowing him to take a peek of the thin elastic of your thong - bright purple, just like his eyes. it makes him shudder.

“real madrid and barcelona,” he mumbles, clearing his throat and his hand almost flies down to cup his growing bulge in a weak attempt to hide it. the idea dies down in his mind as soon as he realizes your full attention is on the screen, soft hums leaving your mouth every so often along with little comments about the play. you’re absolutely oblivious to his cock prodding at your bum, hard on pressing right against the fat cheeks and aching. some would say it’s embarrassing how quickly reo could stand to full alert, but honestly… who wouldn’t, right? he shifts in his seat, an arm reaching to rest on the backrest of your sofa. he tries, really fucking struggles to keep his eyes on the screen as well, but your small sounds of excitement or frustration make it near impossible. you fidget slightly, 

“ah! it hit the pole,” you mumble, brows knit in focus and hands resting on top of reo’s knees, bare and bruised up from the hours of training. reo closes his eyes, deciding to try his luck - and he bucks his hips up, slowly, as to not scare you off his lap. instead, he’s met with silence - and he glances at you shortly, just to make sure.

he has just the perfect view of your back, skin smooth and glowy, and his hands itch to rest on the curve of your waist. experimentally, he places a hand on your side, and feels you shiver under his fingertips.

“your hands are cold,” you whine, but instead of pushing it off your bare skin, you do the thing he doesn’t even dare to dream of right now - you squirm. reo moves his other hand to his mouth, leaning back into the plush sofa as his hips do the very contrary and thrust up against you.

you don’t seem to acknowledge how uncomfortable the position generally is, how it should be for any other male friend whose lap would be occupied by you. instead, you lean forward slightly, hips rolling against reo’s crotch just slightly, and you sigh softly as you give his knees a gentle squeeze.

can you really be this oblivious? honestly, it’s hard to tell which thought makes him harden more - you just putting up a little facade and actually just teasing him by this point, or, which is more likely considering your sweet nature - you being truly, absolutely unaware of how your fidgeting was making his dick throb and ache. the sounds of the game are long forgotten, barely a haze in reo’s mind, as blood pumps in his ears and mouth salivates at both the sight and sensation on you almost bent over on his lap. he feels your dainty fingers tap against his knees mindlessly, or giving his flesh a gentle squeeze whenever you tense up in excitement over the match. he has to lean his head back, eyes closed and teeth nearly sinking into his hand as to not make a sound.

he rolls his hips up against your bum languidly, the friction sending sparks down his thighs, and it feels heavenly. he thinks of how your small hands will feel as they rest in the same exact place as now, but instead, they work as support when you lower yourself down on his cock. he wonders how you’d squeal if he grabbed at your ass, left his hand prints all over the soft flesh, setting a rhythm for you to ride him. for a second, it even occurs to him that maybe, just maybe, if he pushed himself to make a move, the little sleepover with your best friend really could end up with him splitting you open on his dick. 

reo hears his breath hitch in his throat, the familiar tension in his abdomen growing stronger, and it urges him to grind against you just a bit faster. upon realizing that you really are absolutely oblivious to how he’s using you to get off, it seems like most of his limits broke loose. (it’s not like anything would happen if you ever did find out, though, right?) his cock throbs and pulses against the thin gray boxers, pre-cum already sticking to the material and it feels fucking disgusting, but so good. he tips over his climax, eventually, hips stuttering beneath you and just as he feels the first spurt of cum soak into the soft cotton, you let out a gasp, and jolt in his lap. 

the sensation is enough to make reo’s eyes widen, a choked groan leaving his lips at the way your ass rubs down on him just perfectly, as if helping him ride his high out. his head feels airy as he listens to your little squeal of excitement mix with the sports announcer’s lively comments, the sound tuned out and barely a buzz in his ears. the sticky and thick cum pools in his boxers, and he wonders if you really cannot feel the obvious wetness through the material of his shorts.

you shift in your seat on his lap, ripping a groan from his throat at the way you press down against his overstimulated cock. turning around to give him a puzzled look upon the sound, the sight of your eyes wide and bright almost chokes reo up. 

“you okay?” you ask, a hand reaching towards his face to brush a strand of hair out of his eyes. you don’t seem to notice the way perspiration clings to his brows as you touch him.

he gives a nod, swallowing down the saliva that pooled in his mouth, before clearing his throat. 

“yeah,” he speaks, and he’s surprised how collected he sounds for someone who had just creamed his pants. his eyes follow the screen, watching the player’s goal from a minute ago replay and it’s actually a little silly how lucky he is to get such a good cover, in fact, as he watches the camera zoom in on his favorite club’s goalkeeper and his sour expression.  “just really want barca to win, s’all.” 

reo gives up on the hope of you finally growing more self-aware anytime soon when a few more months pass and yet, you still don't notice how your panties would disappear from the hamper or how reo has to excuse himself from the room when you're around - only to come back minutes later, eyes glossed over.

you're starting to make it hard for him not to make a move, and he's honestly stunned that he went so long without finally having his way with you. hell, he even brings you along to the small weekend trip he's came up with, just before the new u20 squad was to be announced. the blue lock team deserves some relaxation before the season starts, even if it is barely a few days, and you do too, considering you had just finished your finals (on top of your class as always). and so, he brings you with him and the rest of the guys and their partners - who at first ask how long you two have been together and then give a surprised look when you laugh, oh! oh no, reo's like a brother to me, really! (something about his longing looks and the way he'd grab your hips tells them different, but oh well, that's not any of their business, right?) the sight of you in all the skimpy bikinis, skin glowing with the tanning oil and cheeks kissed by the sun might just be the breaking point - or at least, one of them, the other being you, going on a date with one of his teammates, and getting your little heart broken.

the sight of you on his doorstep, head hung low and soft little sniffles sounding through the rain outside, is a shock indeed - and reo only has it in himself to coo softly as you stumble right into his arms.

"hey- hey, what's goin' on?" he tries to pull you back from his chest, but the grip you have on his waist is surprisingly strong. instead, he reached for the handle and clicks the door shut, hands moving to rub up and down your arms afterwards. "what happened, bunny?"

your shoulders tremble once, nimble fingers tightening on the material of his white tee. "don' wanna talk," you mumble, and reo wraps his arms around your shoulders, lips pressing to the crown of your head soothingly.

"okay," he mumbles, breathing in the all too familiar scent of your shampoo mixing with the sweet, sticky coconut of your perfume. it brings him back to the frat party months earlier - and makes heat pool in his stomach, even now, as you're sniveling against his broad chest. "i'll run you a bath, okay? you'll get sick."

you don't have it in you to refuse, and in a span of an hour, you're already curled up in the middle of reo's bed, wearing a spare pair of your joggers and one of his sweaters. there's two half-empty cups of ginger tea on the bedside table, and you lay on your side, knees hugged to your chest as you ramble.

reo stares at your face as you speak in a hushed tone, propping his head up on his hand, the other busy with rubbing small circles into your hip. he knows it's bad, god, he knows it's fucked up, but he feels his abdomen tighten at the sight of crystal tears sticking to your lash line.

"and then i said..." you take in a breath, bottom lip jutted out. "said that i- i don't want to do it anymore. that maybe we shouldn't after all, so he got annoyed and tried to change my mind, but-" you cut your rambling off at the silence you're met with, eyes glancing up to check on reo's expression.

he's always been an attentive listener, but this time, the silence almost sounds different. the boy hums, and tugs you a little closer to him. "shouldn't do what?" he inquires; and if it wasn't for the tears smudging your vision, you would've noticed the way he swallows thickly.

you feel your cheeks heat up and scrunch your nose, shaking your head. "you know what, reo," you mumble and he has to force back a sly smile. you're so shy, and now also slightly shaken still from what happened mere two or three hours ago. "i told you already.."

you trail off, the topic clearly bringing you discomfort and yet, reo doesn't drop it entirely. you've grown used to him being so thorough in your conversations, but this time, it makes you fidget slightly.

of course he knows. god of course he does, and the thing keeps him awake some nights, especially after he's scored a goal or two and he has to blow off some steam.

reo's well aware that you've never been with a guy. you've kissed a few of them, yeah, sure. you could've even made out with them, had their tongues down your throat - but you were still innocent, in more ways than one. you were drop dead gorgeous, and yet, the way you would be absolutely oblivious to other guys advance's still hadn't changed one bit since you were barely a young teen. maybe that's why you've never had a man grope you, please you, ruin you - make you stumble over your own feet the morning after.

he's wonders if you've even ever thought of it - if you ever desired to be played with.

"i know," he chuckles slightly and dips his hand under the hem of the thick sweater draped over your waist. a thumb starts to smooth tiny circles across your flesh, mimicking the gesture from seconds before. "i know, bunny. but i've told you already, didn't i, how there's plenty bad guys around." he points out, hand giving your waist a slight squeeze upon feeling you tense up. "why didn't you tell me that you were meetin' someone, hm?"

you can't stand the intensity of reo's violet eyes boring into yours, and so you only give a slight shrug and avert your gaze, "i dunno, reo. just wanted to try something new." you admit, the words now sour on your tongue and you know that this'll be the last time you ever try to go out of your comfort zone for a long, long time. "everyone already did it. i stick out." you grumble, expression soft even as you frown.

your words don't leave him undisturbed - in fact, the expression on reo's face doesn't give out any of the things he's thinking about. if it did, he's sure his eyes would turn black with greed, and he'd most probably drool over the thought of him being the one you turned to instead-

oh.

"why didn't you just ask me?" reo sits up slightly, the arm used to support his head up now straightened. you look up at him, hand itching to brush the hair out of his face - something you seem to always do whenever he has his hair down - but the intensity of his gaze leaves you flustered enough to back down.

"ask you?" you squeak out. it's cute how shocked you sound, reo thinks.

"yeah, why not?" his hand moves further up, warmth resting on your ribs now, just barely below the swell of your breast. you're not wearing any bra - of course you aren't. it's not like you've ever thought of being the slightest bit embarrassed in front of him - not like you've ever noticed how he had to fix his boner at the glimpse of your nipples perking through the shirt you would wear at one of your sleepovers.

the feeling is so unfamiliar, it makes your head dizzy. you and reo have always been touchy with each other - but it's because you were best friends, and it was your way of keeping close, so it wasn't anything out of the ordinary. but now, as he looks at you with such intensity and pushes on the topic that brings you so much embarrassment, the touch seems out of place.

"you know that your first time is really important, right? you'll compare all of your next boyfriends to this," reo hums, giving your flesh a light squeeze. "s'why you have to be real careful who you're pickin' to be your very first, doll." eventually, he pushes himself up straight, and it feels like the air around you has thinned and finally, you could breathe free again.

"still- wouldn't that be... weird, if i asked you to?" you prop yourself up on your elbows and you're surprised you even managed to force the words out. your heart hammers inside your chest, "we're best friends..." you mumble, and reo shrugs - nonchalantly, as if the ache in his boxers wasn't driving him crazy.

"that's what best friends are for," he points out and reaches a hand towards your ankle, fingers gently skimming along the delicate skin. it makes you shiver and fidget slightly as he massages along your calf. "it's nothin' weird. i could just help you out, so you know what you like and how to make a guy feel good, yeah?" you roll your head to the side, face burning. this sounds insane - reo, your sweetest best friend that almost feels like an older brother to you, telling you how he can be your first. what's worse, no matter how uncanny it feels, it surprisingly doesn't raise any objections in your mind.

you must be silent for a short while, because soon he drums his fingers against your knee. (you didn't even notice when his hand moved upwards, and how good it feels.)

"hey, we don't have to," not now, at least. but god, it's getting so exhausting to hold himself back. "but it would be easier for you that way, bunny.. you trust me, don't you?" your heart pulls in your chest at the words, teeth sinking into your bottom lip and reo almost feels sorry for how he's messing with your head.

but honestly, he's not even trying to - after all, he's just saying the truth. if only you gave him the green light, he could show you so much. he knows you better than anyone else, better than any guy out there ever will. he could make you feel things you didn't know were even possible, pull sounds from you that would make you blush with embarrassment. all he needs is just a chance.

the quiet rustling of the sheets brings him back from the train of thoughts and the sight of you, legs slightly spread in front of him, eyes glossed over and cheeks reddened, is enough to choke him up.

"f'course i do," there's a slight whimper to your voice, breath soft as your chest heaves. "s-so, reo, please..."

a grunt catches in his throat as he grabs your ankles, gently, and pulls you towards him - hands immediately moving to roam up your middle. goosebumps rise along your skin, back arching slightly, and you glance up as reo wraps your legs around his hips.

"will make you feel good," he promises, breathily, as he leans down. you can see how blown his pupils are - the pretty violet barely a halo around the black by now. he licks his lips, gaze darting towards yours, but goes to vocalize his question anyway. "can i?"

you would've answered, but the close proximity between you two and the way you can feel reo's soft breath his your mouth makes you act before you can think. you lean in, lips pressing against his in a chaste kiss, and carefully cup his face in your hands.

reo moans into your mouth, shameless, and brings one large palm to rest back on your hip to grab at the soft flesh. you're so sweet, so gentle - treating him with reserve still, but it feels heavenly anyway. just the way he always imagined.

his tongue slips into your mouth, a surprised little sound muffled against his mouth, as he deepens the kiss languidly. your head spins at the feeling of reo's warm tongue, sliding against yours and lapping lazily, fingers lacing together at the nape of his neck. you're pulling him closer, ankles locking behind his hips as he presses himself against you.

there's a bashful mewl slipping past your lips as you feel reo's hard cock rut against your clothed core.

"you're so pretty," he breathes into the kiss, breaking it as he pulls away just slightly, enough to look at you. "see? you're makin' me feel so good, bunny, and we're just kissin'." he grabs your hips with both of his hands now, moving them against his crotch.

the feeling reminds you of when you'd touch your little pussy yourself - late night, under the covers, when the tension and warmth in your tummy would just get too much. but never, ever would you ever think that someone else rubbing at your sweet spots could feel this good. your clit throbs against the cotton of your sweats, and it's almost as if reo feels it at the way he grinds your hips against his harder.

"reo-" you gasp, hand grabbing at his bicep 'cause it's starting to feel like too much. his hands are firm and heavy, holding you against him and handling you however he likes - however he seems fit. it's good, but you have a feeling that it might get even better.

"i know," he coos, chuckling at the way your eyes flutter when he pulls away. he gives your - well, his - sweater a tug, "take it off for me, doll."

you give a small nod and quickly work on taking the clothing off, the air cold against your heated skin. you shiver slightly, both from the change in temperature and the way reo looks at you.

he sighs shakily, hands moving to rest on your waist before slowly moving up and grab at your breasts. you lull your head back into the pillows, the feeling of reo's warmth palms making you shudder. it's new - you've never had anyone touch you like that, ever - and makes warmth pool in your abdomen.

"fuck," you hear him whisper under his breath as he massages at the plush of your tits - fingers experimentally giving a pinch to one of your nipples. you whimper at the feeling, jolting slightly, "fuck, feel how they fit right in my hands?" he flexes his fingers on the flesh for emphasis. "like they were made f'me." a soft groan leaves his mouth, before he leans down and wraps it around your areola.

your eyes widen slightly at the tickling sensation, reo's tongue warm and heavy against your hard nipple, and your back's arching off the mattress before you can register it.

there's a hand slipping past the waistband of your sweatpants, rough fingertips skimming against the skin of your abdomen, just right above your pussy. your hips stutter and chest heaves, making reo moan out at how you stuff his face full with your tits. you're so fucking needy, and you don't even seem to notice. your body acts on it's own, natural and by instinct upon feeling so much pleasure all at once, and it makes his head spin.

he gently dips a finger between your folds, drawing a little circle against your hole and his breath hitches in his throat at the way wetness oozes right out. he pulls away from your chest, a thick ribbon of saliva connecting his reddened lips with your nipple, and looks up at you.

there's one of your forearms resting over your eyes, lips fallen apart as soft little moans slip past. you only pull your arm away from your face when his hand pushes your pants down and doesn't return to it's previous place between your thighs - instead, he taps his fingers on your lips.

you look up at him, eyes tentative, as he breathes out, "lick them for me, baby. so it doesn't hurt."

he knows damn well that you're wet enough to manage a finger or two, even if it is your very first time taking something longer and thicker than your dainty fingers - but the sight of you obediently parting your lips, tongue lolling out to lap at his digits before softly suckling is worth the lie.

reo feels his cock throb as he watches you, intently, as you circle your tongue around his fingers and struggle to fit them in your mouth past his second knuckle.

"good girl," he croons and gives his hard on a firm squeeze through his sweats, just a little something to relieve the painful pulse. your eyelashes flutter momentarily, blood rushing to your cheeks, and he can't help but push his fingers deeper.

you choke slightly, eyes squeezing shut at the sudden intrusion as you feel saliva pool in your mouth and dribble past the corner of your mouth.

"open your eyes," you can barely hear reo speak over your quiet choking. "look at me."

you force your eyes back open, vision blurry with tears as you try to catch eye-contact. tears pool at your lash line as finally, he retracts his fingers from your mouth and pulls his hand away entirely, satisfied.

you sputter, gasping for air, and feel reo's other hand rest on your cheek. he wipes your tears away with a thumb, cups your face in his palm gently and sighs.

"see- that's what other boys would do if they saw you like that," he soothes, voice warm as usual and it brings contrast to his words. "s'why you have to be careful, bunny. don't want anyone to be rough with you, don't you?"

you shake your head quickly, throat still burning and scratchy as you look up. he really does look almost worried, with his eyes soft and focused on you entirely - but it almost seems like there's a haze behind the lilac.

you don't dwell on it too much, 'cause there's already a finger rubbing against your slit again, and this time it slips right in. the sensation isn't entirely new to you - you've played with yourself before, after all - but reo's fingers are so much thicker and longer than yours, feel so rough, and seem to press against your sweet spot almost instantly. you moan sweetly, hips bucking against his hands involuntarily as his fingertip rubs against the front of your pussy. it tightens around his finger, makes him dip it even deeper.

"right there?" he asks breathily, watching as your face contorts with pleasure, and it's enough of an answer. your tummy spasms slightly as you suck in a breath, hips starting to grind against his hand. there's another finger prodding at your entrance, teasingly, before slipping right in next to the other. "wanna see if you can handle two."

there's a slight stretch and burn as you try to accommodate to the girth of reo's fingers, much wider than anything you've ever played with and it is giving you a small struggle. you whimper and shift your hips, hand moving to push at his wrist instinctively.

"can't," you moan out, swallowing thickly as reo gives you a look - almost disappointed, yet intrigued at the same time.

"you've never had anything other than your fingers playing with this little pussy, didn't you?" it comes out as a slight groan, and you turn your head to the side to avoid his gaze. even as you act so sheepish, the slick that coats reo's fingers tell him enough - you're enjoying this.

you're getting off on listening to your best friend talk so sweetly about your pussy, playing with your body how he pleases.

you gulp heavily as you feel his weight shift on the bed, one arm resting across your abdomen and pinning you down firmly. and then, you feel a hot breath fan across your wet cunt, throbbing and creaming for attention, before he takes a long lick up your clit.

your hands grab at reo's hair, fingers tightening to tug and it vibrates against your pussy as he groans. "fuck," you whimper, and he chuckles breathlessly.

"watch your mouth," he muses, humored, before wrapping his lips around your throbbing little clit.

your eyes roll backwards, head pushing into the pillows and you have to bite back a cry at the overwhelming pleasure that seems to hit you all at once. it makes your muscles tremble and head spin how reo seems to work the same exact spot with both his fingers, massaging and thrusting inside, and his tongue, messily and hungrily slurping away. your hips stutter, but don't lift off the bed whatsoever as he keeps them stuck to the mattress with his arm, whining against your heat.

"you can- you can tug," he breathes, purple eyes glancing up at you as he knows exactly what you'll do - give him a little puzzled look, as if to ask you sure, reo? - and moans as his gaze meets yours. you look entirely fucked out already, spit wet on your lips and face pink, eyes wide and needy. he wonders if he looks just as filthy right now, hips rutting into the sheets and soaking his sweats with pre-cum and with his face stuffed in your pussy, devouring you as if he was starved.

he just might be, after years of trying to control himself.

he feels your fingers give a sharp pull at his hair, then push his mouth right back against you until his nose nudges against your groomed mound. it starts to get hard to breathe, he realizes, but you taste just to sweet - almost like honey, thick and sticky on his tongue as he suckles and licks and nibbles, soft little hums and whines buzzing against your twitching pussy.

you feel your back nearly stick to the sheets, thighs trembling against his head as you feel the strange sensation creep up - your muscles tense up as reo's hand presses on your lower abdomen, firmly, a breathy sigh hot on your clit. your eyes widen slightly and you jolt,

"aah- stop- reo, stop," you babble, tongue heavy in your mouth and head hazy from pleasure, but you have to go. embarrassment is dense on your mind as you push at his head, breath picking up and hips bucking up involuntarily. "please, please reo, it feels - ngh- feels funny." you don't realize there's big, fat tears running down your temples now, clear streaks streaming down the heated skin as your voice cracks.

why isn't he stopping?

you choke back a sob, the pleasure white hot in your veins as he groans and pulls back just slightly, enough to speak, "fuck, cum for me. cum on my face, baby." he sounds desperate - looks just the same, too, as you glance at him and the way he works his fingers in and out of your tight heat, fluttering and tightening. big, needy eyes stare up at you, bangs held back by your hand as your fingers pull at the hair, and he lolls his tongue out, grinding it against your clit messily.

you throw your head back, eyes unfocused, as it hits you like a heavy rainfall. the pleasure comes in waves, muscles taut and shaking as your back arches and quiet little cries slip out of your mouth - almost like a chant, and nothing like the sounds all of the other girls made, reo realizes. you sound so, so much prettier. perfect and sweet as you grind against his hungry mouth, cream oozing onto his tongue and juices spilling on his chin. he nearly whimpers, hips rolling against the bed and it takes all of his self restraint not to cum in his pants, too, at the sight of you trembling in his grasp.

the pleasure leaves your limbs warm and fuzzy, a soft buzz in your ears as your climax slowly dies down - but you realize that reo doesn't let up, fingers now having dropped their pace, but tongue still flicking against your oversensitive heat. you whine, swallowing back tears and pulling his mouth away, tugging at the roots of violet hair.

"reo," you sound broken enough, he thinks, and so he gives your clit a last kiss, the smack sounding so obscene it makes you close your eyes in shame. he eases his fingers out of you and gives the inside of your thigh a little peck as well before sitting back on his heels, breathing heavy as he takes you in.

you struggle to catch your breath properly, hair sticking to wet cheeks as you swallow thickly and grab at the sheets - as if you wanted to tug them over your body, cover yourself from his stare and the realization that sits heavy on your mind. reo sighs, nearly dreamily, and sucks your juices right off his fingers as you watch - too exhausted to show any sign of shame.

"m'gonna have you ride my face next time, okay?" he breathes out, giving your hip a squeeze - and before you let his words settle in, you're already nodding along, a soft little whimper leaving your mouth in agreement. it makes his cock jump in his boxers, the way you're so compliant and don't seem to realize the weight of his words.

if only he had known you'd be so easy to convince, he would've made a move a long time ago already, reo thinks to himself as he pulls you up for a kiss. grabbing your wrist to push your hand behind the waistband of his boxers, he drinks up the little moans that slip out your mouth, needy and sweet, nearly enough to make his teeth rot.

reo is so content he's met you, even if it took him long years to realize that your innocence and purity are actually the very thing he needs and wants.

and yeah, you're still different than the other girls - but you're just as oblivious with the way you don't notice his phone propped up on the nightstand.

reblogs are greatly appreciated ! :)

© itoshi-s. do not plagiarize, repost as your own or mention on other sm platforms.

[deadsetobsessions]

Once more the hallucinations hit, and once more I am here writing it out.

My brain is fucking terrifying and I want out, so bad. This came to me in the form of a nightmare.

Also, please don’t take the timeline into consideration, because I have no idea what’s going on. Again, nightmares and dreams tend to not have the best coherency when it comes to plot and timelines. The reincarnation doesn’t have a name, I was too busy feeling terrified. Shit in parentheses was how I experienced the nightmare. Everything else is just me adding sprinkle sprinkle.

——

Ra’s al Ghul.

Talia al Ghul.

Two names that she had been aware of, in the peripherals of her hyper fixation. Two characters meant to enhance the story of the Dark Knight. Side characters, on a good day. Perhaps, a main antagonist on a better day.

On a bad day?

Main characters. Real, living people. Real, living, breathing assassins.

Unfortunately, they’re her new family. One she remembered coming into, bathed in a pool of blood and screams.

She was not a baby.

She is now, a baby. The first of Talia al Ghul’s children. The eldest, once Damian al Ghul was born.

Swaddled in emerald green and gold silks, she was presented to a man with silver streaked hair and a receding hairline. He too, was robed in green and golds.

“A daughter, Talia?” He rumbled, the smooth Arabic flowing out of his mouth failing to hide the acrid disappointment. The child, past the haze of confusion of suddenly being deported from her own adult body into one of a helpless child, felt a stirring of irritation. It’s good she learned the language, because now she knew exactly how Ra’s felt about her. The child grumbled a displeased sound. Not that she would have ignored the fact that her grandfather was Ra’s al Ghul. (He smelled like moth eaten fabric and blood- but I think that was because my cat accidentally scratched me.)

“My apologies, father.”

“Do not tell the young detective of this. Had it been a son, perhaps things would have been different. No, a daughter would only hinder him.”

Talia bowed, hands tightening on her daughter. “May I raise her, father?”

“A resource is still a resource. Go ahead, Talia.”

“Yes, father.” Talia took the dismissal and bowed before leaving.

On her way back to the room with the reincarnation’s crib, Talia al Ghul stroked her daughter’s head.

“I wish you were born a boy, my daughter. I am sorry my beloved will never know of you.”

The reincarnation looked at her new mother. She’s young, the woman-child realized. A teenager.

“You’ll have to be useful, my daughter. Your grandfather is not so kind as to keep the useless. I… do not wish for your death,” her mother muttered.

Great. She got new life and it’s already in danger.

——

She learned to swing a knife. Swords. She learned and devoured the teachings. She learned to be useful.

But then they asked her to take the life of a man who did her no wrong.

Her baby blues clashed with her grandfather’s Lazarus green.

She was still young. A child.

“No.”

“No?”

“He did no wrong.”

“He failed, granddaughter.” Ra’s smiled down at her, patronizing. Cruel. “Perhaps you possess your father’s heart, and you are foolishly sentimental, as women and children tend to be. But in the end, you are an al Ghul and you will obey. Plunge in your blade and I will reward you.”

The reincarnation looked at the man kneeling in front of her, resignation and a hint of pity in what little she could see of his face.

She’s already died before. What did she have to be afraid of?

“No.”

They tried to beat the weakness out of her. It didn’t work.

——

The reincarnation stared at the mirror, left alone in an opulent cage of gold and emeralds and precious stones that meant little to her now.

Her hands traced her back, small fingers finding purchase in soft skin. Her mouth opened fruitlessly, noise refusing to escape. She still felt the burning magic, the brand her own blood had carved into her skin and soul because she refused to kill. The chains her grandfather had shackled around her with magic and cruel amusement.

She had killed him, in the end. Obey, or be punished. Her body had moved without her permission, the reincarnation a prisoner in a body that refused to do as she commanded. The knife swung, a life taken, her hands dipped in red.

She learned a valuable lesson that day.

There were things worse than death.

“This is an order, granddaughter.”

The Magic had flared a searing heat at her neck, forcing her to kneel on broken legs. Ra’s loomed above, authority in his voice. She was bound to obey, regardless.

“You will never speak another word of affection, you will never speak another word to anyone unless I allow it. Perhaps this will teach you of your folly, and your place in this world.”

The loss of her freedom and the fear that came with it was a bitter and devastating lesson.

——

Ra’s al Ghul was so much worse than what little she knew of him.

She was right to be afraid for herself.

Her mother had worried, when she’d withdrawn and refused to speak to her. Even if she could, the reincarnation would not have wanted to. The reincarnation had felt furious, back then, when she thought of Talia. Her mother who refused to protect her. Her mother, who claimed she loved her but refused to see the chains Ra’s wrapped around her neck. She who plied the reincarnation with a supportive hand but forced her into the fighting pits.

But, as the reincarnation stumbled out on bruised and used legs from Ra’s al Ghul’s meeting chambers where he had allowed his business partners to partake in her, she realized that Ra’s was a monster in a human’s body and her mother was a victim of his making.

The lesson Ra’s taught her that day was that if she was not useful, if she did not kill, he would take what was left of her and make use of her.

Hate flared in her heart, and the beginning of Ra’s downfall began the day he let her go from the chambers alive. Injured, but alive. Injured and violated, but alive and furious.

——

She carved her hate and rage and helplessness and fear in the bodies of the people he bid her to kill. Her silenced screams were expressed in the way she splattered blood, the way she covered herself in it. A killing machine first, a stress reliever second, and a child… wasn’t on the list of things she was allowed to be.

His enemies were felled, one after another. He gave her his approval, something she detested.

But still, she continued, bodies racking upwards, tens turning to hundreds, hundreds edging into thousands.

The red in her ledger became ichor and guilt. Her language became violence and obedience.

“You have become a sharp tool, granddaughter.”

She was a genius, after all. And now, she could not disobey. A blade that Ra’s believed will never point towards him. She kneeled. She obeyed.

“Thank you, grandfather.” Her words were only allowed to come out- without searing, terrible pain- when she was thanking him. She tried not to do it as often as he wanted. He thought he broke her when he read the obedience she carved into her body language.

But she never bowed. Never. Not to him. Never.

——

“My weapon could learn much from your granddaughter,” David Cain sat across from Ra’s, wine in their stupid goblets. How she detested the green and blacks he’s seen fit to dress her with. She’s dressed provocatively, not of her own choice. She doesn’t have much of those- doesn’t have much in ways of choices- these days.

She was twelve, and Ra’s al Ghul deserved to die.

“Her combat is a higher form of what my daughter has achieved. How did you do it?”

When Ra’s began to reply, she slipped away.

She found the girl. She found… the cage- the black box- the child was placed in. The child flinched from her when she opened the metal box, fear only easing as the reincarnation kept her body language neutral and kind. (It was pitch black, and about the size of like, a closet. No light. Only from whatever door the box had.) (Cass’ hands hurt from banging on the walls to be let out)

David Cain’s daughter, her mind whispered, the memories of another life once more making itself known.

“Cassandra.” She whispered, regretting it immediately when pain wracked her body. She fell to her knees as the punishment for disobeying an order slammed into her.

The girl looked at her in concern, but did not move closer. The reincarnation stared at this girl and saw a reflection of herself.

David Cain would be here for a month. She will free Cassandra in those days.

——

The weapon stared at the girl in front of her, kneeling in pain.

She did not understand.

-

The girl came back. Water. Food. Kind.

The weapon felt warm. The girl was quiet. No sounds. Good. The weapon knew the girl understood. The weapon thinks that the girl is a weapon too.

-

The girl comes back, again. This time, she makes a sound. It hurt her, but she did it again. The weapon understands when the girl points at herself and repeats the sound. The sound means the girl. The girl expects something from the weapon.

The weapon makes the sound, flinching to see if the owner will come to punish it. The girl purposefully sits, relaxed but vigilant… and protective. Of the weapon?

The weapon relaxed. It repeated the sound, pointing at the girl.

The girl smiles, in pain. But approval. The weapon feels- the weapon is warm, like under the blanket. Approval.

The girl teaches her to make sounds but the weapon communicates without it. It does not like the sounds, does not need them, but the girl seems to think it’s important.

The weapon likes the girl, so the weapon learns. They still understand through no sounds, through reading each other.

-

The girl comes back, silently. Secretly. The weapon does not notify the owner. The weapon feels- does not want to.

The girl- the girl with the sound- she says a different sound. Her body tells the weapon that it’s important, this sound.

And when the girl points at herself and says her own sound, then points at the weapon and says that new sound again, the weapon begins to understand.

The girl had given the weapon her own sound.

“Cass—n- ra.”

“Cass,” the girl said, and Cassandra understood.

“Cass.” Cassandra pointed to herself.

-

The owner wanted- wanted Cassandra to end a life. Cassandra watched the owner kill and gesture to the dead thing.

Cassandra did not want to.

When Cassandra is placed back into the pitch black box, she waited for the girl.

The girl came.

“Don’t want.” Cassandra clung to her, reading the welcome and the sadness in the girl’s body. Cassandra tucked her face into the girl’s shoulder. She is cold. The girl is warm.

The girl hugged her back. The girl understood. Sadness hardened into lines of determination. Cassandra felt… light. Felt hope.

-

Cassandra slipped away from the place, water in her pack for the dessert and money to run from the country. The girl stayed behind, seeing her off. The girl tells her to never come back.

Cassandra did not want to leave the girl behind, but the girl could not go.

“Be free, Cass.” The girl had whispered through the pain. “For the both of us.”

——

Her grandfather knew. He allowed David Cain to break her, not kill because she was of use to him still, as a lesson. She found that she hated his lessons. But, she hated his attention more.

And still, she could not regret. How could she, when Cass trusted her with what fragile hope she had?

So, she lets him beat her, and provokes him with smirks and fearless eyes because the longer he’s focused on her, the more time Cass has to run.

Then, he gets too angry, and insults Ra’s, whose eyes grew cold. Her grandfather gestured and while she usually hated the command that followed that gesture, she could not feel that hatred now.

She got back up, legs broken and arms twisted once more, and attacked David Cain.

Ra’s would not follow Cass. Not when she was not his business to deal with, and not when David Carin’s fury amused him so.

David Cain would not follow Cass. Not while she still drew breath. The reincarnation stood, and threw herself at one of the best assassins of the century.

She tore his throat out with nothing but her teeth. She felt, for once, not like a monster. Not even when Ra’s nodded in approval and ordered for David Cain’s broken body to be cleaned up.

——

She’s been granted a mission in New Jersey, once her months of discipline- of torture- ended. She does not get ordered to find Cassandra. She’s fourteen now, and as silent as ever. Her mother had adjusted to her silence by then- long ago, actually, taking it as a quirk her daughter had developed. She hadn’t been a terribly vocal child, after all. Talia praised her for being useful even as a woman- the self degradation something the reincarnation had no doubt Ra’s had insidiously trained into Talia- and for being loyal to Ra’s.

Sometimes, she hates Talia for being- for-

Never mind. She couldn’t afford to hate anyone else.

She killed her targets early, determination and wistfulness urging her movements into sharp . Then, she made her way to Gotham and slipped into the city of darkness- where her father was.

She watched as he hid in the shadows almost as easily as she did. She watched as he flew and glided with the younger Robin. (He was younger than her by a year. She checked.) He was free. They were free.

She wished…

As she turned away, she saw a child tumbling from the edge of a roof. It was an instinct she’d thought Ra’s had managed to bury after the months he’d spent making sure she killed only children.

She hated him.

She caught him, swooping in and tucking him against her side as she plucked him from the air and plopped him back onto the crumbling roof of Gotham’s slums.

“Oh, thank you! So much- are you a vigilante?” The boy asked, looking at her masked face. It’s a good thing she wasn’t exactly dressed like a regular League operative.

She shook her head. Her eyes fell onto his camera, faint memories rising once more. She had an inkling-

“I’m- uh- Tim!” The boy introduced himself nervously, edging away from her silence. “Thank you for saving me…?”

She nodded. She pointed to the camera, tilting her head.

“Oh- you… want to see it?” He clutched his camera closer. Oh, he did have some sense of self preservation. She wondered why a seven year old was allowed to roam these streets… but she did worse at seven.

She held her hand up and back up. The boy hesitated, and then showed her the camera. “Uh- I took pictures of Robin and Batman!”

They sat on that roof for hours, and she let Tim Drake tell her stories about her father and his son. Ward. Son.

She could tell that Tim didn’t have anyone to listen to him.

She didn’t have long until she had to go back or risk severe punishment, but… she could make time for Tim, to listen to him.

She wondered if Cass managed to escape completely. She wondered if her sister all but in name and blood learned how to smile.

——

Tim had never had a friend before!

She listened to him! And gave him hugs the one time he was brave enough to ask! And she seemed to like Batman and Robin as much as he did! No one who didn’t like them would listen to his endless rambling otherwise, right? (Tim was super skinny, like ribs poking out skinny. He looked like a sickly Victorian child and he was kind of cold)

“And then, Robin went like this,” he pantomimed the awesome punch Dick Grayson did on a Joker goon. “And the guys got knocked out just like that!”

His new friend nodded, looking interested.

“Sorry, am I talking too much?” Tim asked anxiously. He didn’t want to make his friend hate him!

She shook her head, and gestured for him to continue.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded.

His new friend was so cool! She even taught him how to throw a punch and to fight!

——

When she had to leave, she prepared Tim for it.

“Do you have to go?”

She nodded and placed a hand on his head, ruffling his hair. Her other hand held a duffle bag with an assortment of weapons she carefully kept from him. (One of the blades still had guts on it, which, ew.)

“Try not to fall off anymore roofs, little photographer.” She said, smiling at his shocked look before leaping away.

“Wait, you can talk?!” He shouted at her back. She smiled a little wider.

——

“A son, this time.” Ra’s al Ghul’s voice echoed in his disgustingly flashy throne room. It rings of approval.

The reincarnation stood behind her mother, eyes cast downwards.

“Well done, Talia. I finally have a worthy heir.”

Damian al Ghul cooed.

The reincarnation was scared. But… she could not allow her younger brother to be trapped like she was. She’s fifteen now, a decade of slavery having worn her down and nearly broken her. But with her brother… no, she could not allow it.

She met her mother’s eyes and knew then that they agreed. Protect Damian, at all costs.

She ignored the sting of envy. So what her mother could not find it in herself to protect her daughter? So long as she protected Damian, it didn’t matter.

Maybe she didn’t matter. Maybe she wasn’t worth anything. Maybe- maybe- maybe.

She also ignored the seed of disgust she had for mother’s actions in conceiving Damian. She couldn’t do anything about it. Talia was also a victim.

A louder voice in her asked if she could really excuse that, when Talia had a choice and she chose to hurt and violate Bruce Wayne like that. She wondered if she could truly ever forgive Talia. She wondered if Bruce Wayne got therapy.

——

She stared at the tome in front of her, eyes blank. (Actually, she had no eyes. Like? Empty sockets, but then later she had eyes???)

The brand- the shackles- the chains could only be broken if Ra’s died. She wasn’t opposed to that. But if he died, so did she. She couldn’t even kill herself to get out, because the chains would be there even if she died. If she was revived- a high chance, thanks to the fucking pits- then the chains would still be there.

Perhaps… she could use the pits?

Her mind turned and turned.

——

“This is your ukht.” Her mother pointed at her. Damian stared up at her, and she melted. Her brother was too damn cute.

“Ukhti?”

She nodded as her mother smiled in joy. “Yes, habibi.”

She was better at hiding the pain, now. She was better at enduring it, too, that fucking burning feeling. She spoke more, but only to Damian.

It would not do for her brother to grow up not knowing how to receive verbal expressions of affection. Not like she did, in this life.

Still, it hurt to speak. But then, she had an idea, based on Cassandra.

She could not speak, but speaking wasn’t the only way of communication. She’ll teach Damian sign language- standard, as commanded- but also her own version. Yes, she could do it. It wouldn’t be hard.

She was a genius, after all, and creating languages wasn’t as hard as people seem to think.

——

Damian copied her, small fingers patting his hand four times.

She did it back to him. “I love you.” She tells him, with sounds and with motions.

He does it back, excitedly, because he had a secret with ukhti!

——

Sometimes, she dared not to touch Damian. She wants to ruffle his hair and give him hugs but the ichor on her hands reminds her to not get to greedy. She did not deserve it.

Not when her hands were stained with the lives of so many people.

——

Another mission.

She was twenty now, and not much closer to escaping her bonds. Though, once she hit her majority, Ra’s lost interest in her in that way. A blessing, even if she had to seduce his “business partners” into giving him better deals more often now.

She stops by Bludhaven. The Robin she watched so many years ago- six, by her count- had grown new wings and moved. She wanted to see if he could fly still.

He could. He flew as free- no, freer than his days as Robin.

She dipped away to complete her mission (nuclear weapon trading, really?) and swings back to see a spider trying to break the former Robin’s wings.

“No.” Nightwing whispered, staring upwards at the cloudy sky blankly. “Please, stop.”

She didn’t need to hear any more. She saw red, and dove feet first straight onto the spider’s head, knocking her out.

She picked up a near-catatonic Nightwing, and helped him to his apartment. She left Tarantula in the rain and felt zero guilt about it.

He changed mechanically, some kind of instinct keeping him from removing his domino, but it was a bit pointless considering she escorted him to his personal apartment.

She watched as Nightwing slipped into an exhausted sleep before leaving. She had a spider to squish, and traces to hide.

——

Dick wakes up, drained and exhausted. He… someone saved him.

He sees a scrawled note, handwriting impeccable enough to be a font, written with his pen. He picked it up from his table, and his eyes tiredly read the message.

“Don’t worry about Tarantula. Or your identity.”- A friend.

He remembered- the mask- the mask of the stranger that saved him vividly. He’d remember. And he’d thank them if they ever came back.

——

She was in charge of training assassins, these days. A year and a half later after Bludhaven, she was back in Nanda Parbat, and she’s devoured every magical tome she could get her hands on. They all say the same things.

Her assassins were trained well, and Ra’s praises her with more responsibilities as he followed the pit in his obsessions. Her mother began to splinter the group, not knowing that as Ra’s began his descent into madness, people looked towards her instead of Talia for leadership. They did not know that her unwavering presence by Ra’s side wasn’t voluntary but it is their true that she became his right hand out of pure skill. And flawless obedience, of course.

Then, someone new joins.

Someone with pit rage and empty eyes that goes rigid when she approaches.

Then again, most of the operatives freeze up when she walks towards them.

Her memories roar. A child.

He bowed, and her eyes followed the streak of white hair at the forefront of his skull.

She gestured at him to follow, and ignored the pitiful eyes the rest of the assassins gave to the kid- they act like her training was hard when she went easy on them (it was)- and led the kid towards the training rooms.

She knew who he was, even if her grandfather and mother didn’t think she knew.

Her… Bruce Wayne would probably appreciate his son being returned relatively sane.

But first, she had to beat the Pit out of him. Then, she could assign body guarding duties to him, in an attempt to protect him.

——

“Grandfather, I will take Damian’s punishment.”

“A whipping girl, granddaughter?” But he nodded anyways. He made Damian watch.

She kneeled and allowed the punishment. She couldn’t always protect him from Ra’s, but this she could do anytime. It’s not like she was unfamiliar with the torture. (The whip had barbs. Rusty. And they sprinkled salt.)

——

“I liked poetry….” Jason Todd tells her after a training session. “I think.”

“Sure. I’ll call you Grave, then.” Pain. But she was used to it.

He tilted his head, eyes going blank once more. She sighed. There went his memories again. (His eyes were blank and glazed. Like looking at someone you love and knowing they’re looking through you.)

——

“I would not trust her,” she says to the air, next to a Red Hood emerging from Talia al Ghul’s chambers. She could see it, the beginnings of Gotham’s new crime lord. But still, “Talia al Ghul is known for her lies.”

She pushed away from the wall. It was up to Grave if he listened. It was out of her hands now.

——

She’s twenty-five, and she’s helping Damian pack for his first meeting with Bruce Wayne.

“You must not tell him about me.” Because he’d come rushing here, and she had worked too hard to save Damian for her fool of a father to come and ruin all of that effort.

“I promise.” Her little brother said solemnly. Ukhti said it out loud, which meant it was important and she expected him to keep that promise.

The only other time he’d heard her speak was to tell him she loved him.

The reincarnation smiled and told him through their special sign language, to treat the current Robin with respect and to try his best to get the current Robin to pass down his title.

‘Robin is earned. They have different rules, over there. Try your best to learn those rules.’

Her brother was sheltered. She loved him, but he was spoilt and sheltered. Of course she was worried. Talia barely mothered him.

“I know. You do not have to remind me so often, ukhti.”

She smiled, and patted his head.

“Be safe,” she whispered. “I will miss you.”

Damian darted in for a hug. “Of course. Goodbye, sister. See you soon.”

She hoped not. It was hard enough to convince Ra’s that Damian would learn more under Bruce Wayne.

(She was locked in a small closet- like Cass- for about a week, because she brought up the idea first.)

——

She found it.

The answer to pit rage laid in an old, all but crumbling tome from Atlantis- answers “from a ghost.”

——

Bruce Wayne died. Months after Damian came to live with him. That- irritating- she sighed and worked with her mother to turn Ra’s al Ghul’s attention away from Gotham, lest he called Damian back in Bruce Wayne’s absence.

The little photographer caught grandfather’s attention. She stood vigil as he played chess with Ra’s. His interest in Damian wavered. Anticipation blurred in her veins.

She saved his friends. Her assassins. She let them go, telling them to wait for the little photographer’s plan. (Y’all miss girl had fucking bloody handprints on her pants like someone tried to grab it.)

The first few people who had an inking she might not be loyal to Ra’s… and it was them.

When her other assassins attacked Red Robin, she cut them down before they could touch him, helping him with a furious League of Spiders or whatever operative. She hated spiders.

“What…?”

“You’re a lot of trouble, little photographer.” She sighed. His jaw dropped.

“It’s you!”

“Go,” she cut him off. “Blow this place up. I left a surprise for you outside.”

——

“Owens?! Z?!” Tim trembled, exhaustion and shock and wonder hitting him at once.

“Heya, boss!” Z chirped. Owens helped Tim up while Z helped Tam. Pry walked around them, looking out for further threats. “The nightmare trainer let us go. She knew you, I think.”

Tim smiles, all shark teeth and zero hero. (In the background, the song zero to hero from Hercules 2, played in reverse.) “Tell me more.”

——

Damian grunted, bracing himself for the magical creature’s attack.

“Robin!” His father barked out, panicked. Damian hoped he’d survive-

Shhhlk!

He looked up and there stood his ukht. She bounded forwards, using the odd fauna of the magical plane to bolster her movements as she sliced the creatures apart with her swords, magic humming brightly as she cut through them… and the magicians attacking them.

“What- what are you doing here?” He asked. She greeted him, three fingers curled over her shoulder.

‘My question is,’ she signed. ‘Why were you here without a magical weapon.’

Damian sighed as father stepped in between them.

“Who are you.”

“Batman. Cease your excessive worry. I trust her with my life,” Damian snapped. He stepped around a shocked Batman, looked him in the eyes, and unsheathed his katana. He handed it over to his ukht, who took it with amusement.

‘See?’ His eyes seemed to say. Father tensed when his sister unsheathed her own blade and handed it to him.

‘Are you here for a specific reason?’ His sister signed to him.

“Uh, you gonna introduce us, little man?”

Damian sent the Flash a derisive look and ignored him.

“We’re looking for a magician. He set a squadron of demons loose into D.C. last night. He has a tower.” Damian added.

“Robin,” Father growled. “Who is this.” Damian shot him a look and turned back to his sister.

The reincarnation tilted her head. ‘Tower… it’ll have to be that way.’

“Could you take us there?” Damian asked. Truthfully, he could find the way himself. But he wanted more time around his ukht. She nodded and Damian straightened.

“I feel like we should be concerned that Robin’s friend just murdered a bunch of people.”

His sister glanced back and ignored them.

“Silence, incompetents. Speak another word against her, and Batman’s no killing rule will be applied creatively.” He hissed. (The fucking surroundings hissed with him y’all what the fuck)

He turned when his sister ruffled his hair (Superman muttered a super shocked “what the fuck.”) and Damian allowed it. He had missed his sister.

——

[kissitbttr]

can u please do one where Eddie asks to sucks on ur titties, and he super shy about it because ur his first girlfriend but u ofc let him and I think it’s absolutely adorable

BIG YESSSS oh mannn, he’d get so tittydrunk!! also i changed it up a little bit towards the end <3

-

eddie has seen tits before. not in real life, though. he’s seen them in magazines and home videos and he thinks they’re absolutely divine.

growing up, he never experienced what dating is like nor sex. he never even had a girlfriend before! does it bother him? not really, but it’d be such a blessing if he was gifted with a woman of his dreams. someone like debbie harry or cindy crawford. yeah, he was pretty unrealistic about that one. i mean, don’t all teenage boys?

and that’s when you happened. soft, girly looking princess who stole his heart with your gorgeous smile and rockin’ body. he admits he was a little shallow at first, but how could he not when he sees you dressing up in small clothings that shows the shape of your perfect tits? he’d drool.

eddie, just like any other hormonal teenager, has dirty thoughts that consumed his brain. but he never really acts on them, seemingly afraid that he’d do something wrong or make you feel grossed. he doesn’t want that.

but god, does he want so badly to touch and suck on your tits. just imagining his hands wrapped around the soft flesh makes his cock twitches.

“you okay there, eds?”

a soft voice pulls him out of the train of thoughts. he blinks rapidly and find your eyes looking at him in concerned. you’re sitting beside him, with legs tucked under your butt and his eyes casts down to see your thick thighs hugged perfectly by the grey cotton shorts.

he’s definitely not looking at your tits too right now. definitely. not

“hm? oh, y-yeah” he chuckles nervously, gliding his sweaty palms against his jeans. is your room always been this hot?

“you sure? you look a little red” as you lean over towards him to brush the sweat coating his forehead, he tenses. maybe it’s because your chest is now pressing against his arm. “did i do something?”

“n-no! you didn’t do anything wrong, princess. it’s just that-“ he pauses to glance down at your tits, gulping at the sight of them almost spilling out of your cami top. “you’re distracting. that’s all?”

raising an eyebrow, you crossed your arms. which isn’t helping the case because your tits only pop out more. “how am i distracting?” he doesn’t give you an answer, only to eye at your chest once again and that’s when you realize,

“are you kidding me? my tits?! that’s why you’ve been acting weird?”

“what? I’m a guy! tits and ass make me hard! and yours are…” he trails off, tilting his head. “perfect—shit I’m sorry, i don’t know why I’m acting like this”

his tinted cheeks just make him ten times more cuter. like a kid getting caught hiding an adult magazine under his bed

“you know, just because you’re a virgin that doesn’t give you the right to be a perv” he knows you’re joking but he can’t help to blush when you say that,

“i’m not a perv! and god—you promised you’d stop making fun of me about that!” he pouts, brows tipping in as he watches his girlfriend laughs,

“i’m kidding” you give him a peck on his cheekbone, staring at the adorable boy who’s blushing like crazy as he looks at you, then a sudden question pops in his mind,

“c-can i… touch them?”

“what?”

“you know—uhm, c-can i feel…your tits?” he points at your chest, voice grows quite and shy when he asks the question. looking over to you hesitatingly as he plays with his fingers. a habit of his when he’s nervous,

“you want to play with them?” a smirk plays on your lips, toying with the material of your top, “fondle a little and make a mess on my tits, baby?”

“god don’t say it like that. it sounds dirty” he rubs his face vigorously with his hands. also to hide the blush on his cheeks so you won’t have to see. “but y-yeah. can i ?”

“you’re so cute. asking for my consent and all. such a good boyfriend” you giggle, and his lips stretch into a smile when you say that. he likes being complimented that way. means that he’s doing a great job and hasn’t done anything to make you feel weird around him,

“of course you can. thought you’d never asked” you shift yourself into a much more comfortable position,

“really? that’s—oh shit—“ he gets interrupted by you plopping down on his lap, legs kneeling beside his. hands going over around your waist to keep your body steady. “okay uhm—wow—princess, god, you’re very close to me.”

your breasts are now at his eye level and dangerously close to them. wouldn’t be surprised if his nose brushes against them.

he feels goosebumps arise on his skin when your hands making their way towards his neck, tugging on his hair to get him to look up. he whines at the sudden contact,

“you can play, eddie—besides” you halt your sentences by giving him a soft kiss. “they belong to you, anyways. right?”

eddie feels a sense of pride inside of him when you mentioned that. confidence grows knowing he’s the only person that gets to feel and see your tits. one lucky motherfucker, that he is.

“y-yeah. fuck yes” he replies almost too shyly. watching you drag the straps down to your shoulders. enough to make your tits bounce free from the material.

eddie’s cock just turns painfully hard.

“they’re so—pretty” he breathes out, eyes locked on your breasts. hypnotized by the fullness of them and perky nipples just begging to be touched by him.

slowly, his shaky hands come up to rest them on your chest. a sigh of relief leaves his mouth when your nipples graze against his palms. he gives them a squeeze, cursing under his breathe by the softness of it,

“you like em?” you tuck a hair behind your ear. looking down at his hands. “how do they feel?”

“fucking amazing” he responds clearly amazed he’s too far gone now and refuses to look at you. “god, baby—they’re so” his hands give another squeeze. “soft and plushy—do they lactate?”

“jesus, eddie. I’m not pregnant.”

“you’d look hot if you were” he mumbles, hoping you don’t hear that but you manage to catch it,

“i’m still in high school dumbass. don’t even think about trying to knock me up” you swat his chest with the back of your hand, making him giggle childishly.

“after graduation then.” he shrugs playfully and he could sense you sending him a glare but chooses to ignore that,

his thumbs slowly drawing circles around the hardened nipples making you moan softly, and hearing it almost makes him cream his pants. eddie thinks you create the prettiest moans ever. plus, it’s an extreme ego boost for him.

“you do know how to make a man weak on his knees, sweetheart”. his voice grows cockier the minute you become putty in his hands. “fucking perfect.”

he’s in a trance at the sight of you. pupils dilating at your body arching back a bit with hands on your thighs. teeth sinking into your bottom lip and eyes screwed shut. making it impossible for him to stop playing with your breasts.

you’re looking like a proper dream to him,

“can i suck on them?”

you chuckle before nodding. “again with the questions? you should know the answers by now.”

“just making sure I’m not crossing any boundaries. trying to be a gentleman here.”

“stop with all the modesty. you literally have your hands on my boobs” with an eye roll, you push yourself back towards his chest. hands link around the nape of his neck. “need a little push maybe?”

he’s about to ask what you mean by that, only to be answered with your hips slowly rolling against his hard cock over the jeans. “jesus christ, y/n—“

“come on, now” you nod your head towards your chest. “do what you gotta do.”

in instant, his mouth is wrapped around your pebbled nipple. you yelp in surprise then giggle after seeing him like that, his hand flies to your ass and pull you close.

“easy, cowboy—i’m not going anywhere”

he can’t focus. you feel so good and soft inside his mouth. tongue messing around the nipple, painting it with his spit. suckling on the soft flesh like a baby with his eyes shut, his other hand moves to give a rough squeeze on your other breast.

“fuck i love them so much” he moans, leaving wet kisses on them. teeth dragging over the skin to mark you. “you have the prettiest of em all, sweetheart—i swear.”

he’s lost in them. truly hooked. and you thought to yourself that he could be just saying that because your tits are the only ones he has ever seen. when he knows for sure, that the others are nothing compared to yours.

“aw look at that. my baby is hooked” you coo at him, who’s resting his cheek on your body with his mouth still not letting go. his soft brown curls tickling the valley of your breasts. “enjoying yourself, my pretty boy?”

you pat his cheek to get him to respond, which he only hums instead while continuously flicking your nipple with his tongue. never wanting to stop. but he can’t stop the fluttery feeling in his stomach when you call him ‘pretty’.

circling your hips just a little harder now, you bury your hands in his hair. massaging the scalp that guarantees another moan from him. sending the vibrations down to your spine and straight to your core. he pinches your nipple between his thumb and fore finger, rolling it ever so gently. brown eyes snap open to see how you doing. smiling to himself when your jaw hangs open in pleasure.

“i have an idea.” your hands turn to grip on his shoulders, giving a firm squeeze before pulling his mouth off of you, making him whine. “how about i teach you how to fuck my tits now, eds?”

he has never felt more excited in his life.

[its-your-mind]

thinkin bout how orv starts with kim dokja actively working to ensure that kim namwoon dies during the first scenario

thinkin bout how kim namwoon was a teenager at the start of the scenarios, dealing with the apocalypse using the mental paths that came easiest, jumping into the new world with both feet

thinkin bout kim dokja as a teenager. tired. hurt. alone. his internal and external struggles ignored by the adults around him. choosing to throw himself off a rooftop because there wasn’t anything in his life worth living for

thinkin bout how kim dokja woke up again, even though he had planned not to

thinkin bout a teenage boy. lost, alone, broken, scared, angry, in need of someone to come and show him how to keep moving forward

thinkin bout a protagonist in a webnovel who is an example to you of how to survive against all odds. a mantra to repeat when living life as yourself is too hard

thinkin bout a hardened and powerful hero who knows exactly how this world works, who holds out a hand offers you a place with him

thinkin bout teenage kim namwoon, looking to yoo joonghyuk as captain, teacher, and protector

thinkin bout teenage kim dokja, looking to yoo joonghyuk as role-model, hero, and refuge

thinkin bout teenage kim dokja, who saw himself more as kim namwoon than any of yoo joonghyuk’s other companions

thinkin bout adult kim dokja, reclusive and unsocial, hiding his phone from his coworker so she doesn’t see what he’s reading. convinced that yoo joonghyuk would look down on him if he learns who he “really” is. ashamed of any details kimcom learns about his past

thinkin bout what happens to a life when the person living it has never seen in it any redeeming qualities or objects of value. how someone feels about life when they tried and failed to give up that life a decade ago, and every day since has felt almost accidental

thinkin bout the lesser fire dragon. the disaster of floods. the strongest in seoul dome. the devourer of dreams. the 73rd demon king. the industrial complex. the war between good and evil. the wager with secretive plotter.

thinkin bout the most ancient dream. an empty station. a cold and hard bench. bandages and a notebook and a too-loose uniform. smaller than he should be for his age and more broken than any child should ever become. alone.

thinkin bout an unbreakable faith, shattered. a family frantically throwing themselves at their heart to save him from himself. desperate hands prying a blade out of shaking ones, moments before the jagged edge pierced deep into vulnerable flesh

thinkin bout how the younger kim dokja, recently released from the hospital, does not watch. instead, he instinctively curls up to protect the parts of himself already hurting the most. he begins to repeat his mantra

thinkin bout how kim namwoon kicked and fought and screamed and stabbed. and then, when he realized there wasn’t anything he could do, he got down on his knees and begged kim dokja for his life

thinkin bout how kim dokja just stood over him, held him in place, and looked at him in silence as the clock ran out

thinkin bout kim dokja at the beginning of his story and at the end of his story. in a subway. looking down at a teenage boy.

making a choice. the same choice, both times.

the first time: an explosion, a blood splatter on his reflection, and a confused and wary protagonist who has lost one asset and gained another

the last time: arms holding him back, a family hugging him tight, and another protagonist who steps in front of him. holds the child close. forgives him everything. offers up anything more he could need. and kim dokja watches as the person with the strongest claim to vengeance upon this younger facsimile of himself instead gently gathers up the most ancient dream, tucks him close against his chest, and walks away with him safe and sound in his arms.

[jolynesmom]

aging yourself up or down in your dr (+ dating)

I actually refrained from talking on this topic on my tiktok since I knew I was going to get chased off the app and didn’t see a point in talking about it on tumblr since everybody here seems to be more open minded and mind their own business, until I saw multiple posts a few days ago here, where the op were shaming people for changing their age or changing the ages of people in their dr

those people definitely came from tiktok and I honestly hope this post reaches them as I didn’t want to directly interact with them

I think one of the posts was about how adults age ‘minors’ in their dr to date them is problematic, which made me laugh, because how is it problematic if they’re both the same age in their dr?

and the sad thing about that post is that the op said that they’re aware how shifting works and all that, but still finds it problematic and hopes people that do that never shift which is just… girly I hope YOU never shift because you don’t deserve it for shaming people trying to live their lives

I’m not going to go into details about the og posts, but they still have the outdated idea that if you shift for a character that is much younger than you here it’s ���problematic’. once again: how is it problematic if you’re the same age in your dr?

and then they hit you with another outdated take ‘it’s problematic because you find them attractive here’ which is ridiculous because of so many reasons

1.many characters (especially anime characters) don’t act or look their age. if your perceived a character as an adult initially then found out they’re a minor, I simply don’t care. ages in fiction never matter, if your mind perceived x as a certain age then they’re that age idc; 99.99% people are attracted to a character for who they are, not their age

2.many people had crushes on characters when they were younger or the same age with that character and still like them. let’s boo them that their crush on the character didn’t die and their fav character didn’t age, acting like you’re not going to be in their place in a few years

‘not true I’ll stop liking my favorite character when I’m of age 😡’

okay sweetie keep telling yourself that, because I keep seeing people on tiktok that had this mentality: they liked an underage character when they were minors and wanted to shift for them, now they’re adults, haven’t shifted yet but STILL like that character and regret having said they’re gonna stop liking that character when they’re adults because it didn’t happen lol

3.people don’t always script that an underage person here will be their s/o, it just might happen. I’m actually going to use myself as an example for this: so here I’m an adult and I’m also aroace which I dislike because I always dreamed of a fantasy novel like romantic relationship, so I’m straight or bi in most of my drs so I can date. in my jujutsu kaisen dr, all the people in jujutsu tech are adults because I don’t like teens or kids and don’t wanna hangout with them. in my 30+ drs I only have 3 scripted s/os which are all adults here. I didn’t script an s/o for my jjk dr, because I want to focus more on friendships and training there (but secretly hoped choso would pick me, a girl can dream ok); a few weeks ago I channeled multiple people from my dr (yuuji, megumi, nobara, gojo, nanami and geto) and I received normal messages from all of them. I expected all of their answers, except yuuji’s answers which had romantic aspects to them. that made me realize that he might have a crush on me and maybe we’ll even date in my dr or something? who knows, I didn’t think too much about it so idk

so now if a character that’s underage here likes me in my dr, am I supposed to refuse them or shift out? lmao you’re delusional if you think I’m doing that

4.people that have never experienced adolescence love here. a lot of people dreamed of having that sweet experience of teenage romance that disney and an insane amount of shows and movies love to push, but instead their teen years were filled with abuse and hate. why shouldn’t they shift to experience what was taken from them here?

ALSO let’s switch this around: why is okay for minors to date adults in their dr, but not the other way around?

‘it’s not as bad 🤓☝🏻’

imma be the devil’s advocate and say it’s just as bad

do you genuinely think it’s okay to be a minor here and date an adult in your dr? like do you really think your s/o would feel comfortable being sexualized by a minor and dating a person that’s a minor in another reality? you lowkey forced your partner to become a pedo if you think about it 🙁 /jk

and also if you shift to a reality where you’re a minor and become of age there, you’re officially an adult and shouldn’t date minors anymore, even in your ‘original reality’ where you’re still a minor. please keep the same standards for yourself

[tourettesdog]

DP x DC prompt where Danny is a young adult living in Gotham.

He's 24 and has been Ghost King since turning 18. Danny has been estranged from his parents ever since he destroyed their portal. It was his first act as king.

Danny shares an apartment with Sam and Tucker. Sam works with nonprofits in the city, while Tucker gets involved in WE with his genius programming skills.

Danny makes ice sculptures and sells them around Gotham for fun. He sometimes helps out with crime when he thinks he can do it quietly, but otherwise Danny lets Batman and the police handle it. He has enough work to do in the Ghost Zone as it is.

In his free time Danny likes to explore the Ghost Zone. He’s long-since given up dreams of exploring space. Danny can always fly to space if he wants to, but being able to rip open a portal to the Infinite Realms offers even more exploration opportunities than his child self could have dreamed of.

It’s during one of these explorations into the Ghost Zone that Danny finds a teenager sitting on a floating island. Danny rushes over to investigate, noticing that the kid looks very much alive, but as he draws near the kid’s arm turns invisible and he begins to panic.

Danny quickly realizes he’s faced with another halfa. The kid is a wreck. He looks barely older than Danny was when he died-- hell, he even looks like him with his black hair (with a shock of white) and blue eyes. It’s like looking into a mirror for Danny, and he immediately decides to take the kid under his wing.

It’s slow going at first. The kid, Jason, doesn’t remember much of his life, let alone his death. He’s scared and confused, with far too many questions. It takes Danny showing him his human form for Jason to trust Danny enough to go with him.

Danny takes Jason back to the apartment and introduces him to Sam and Tucker. They don’t pester him for answers, and instead jump at the chance to answer any questions Jason has. They help him understand his situation and learn about his new powers.

Over the next year, Jason becomes their kid. The trio homeschool him, with some help from several of the ghosts in in the GZ. They offer to help Jason figure out who he was, but he asks them not to. All Jason can remember of his death is that it was very violent and he’s hesitant to fill those memories in.

If Jason ever remembers more than that, he doesn’t tell them.

Jason’s a handful, but he’s their handful. He spends a lot of his time in the Ghost Zone (annoying Danny’s ghost friends, his adopted aunts and uncles) while they’re at work. Whenever Dani’s in town, the two are a force to be reckoned with.

Danny spends a lot of time visiting WE to annoy Tucker. He also becomes somewhat well known around town for his little ice sculptures. More than once, Danny finds himself in the accidental company of Bruce Wayne.

Bruce is curious about the strange young man. He has a lot of scars, and Bruce can’t make heads or tails of the strange ice he sells. He starts talking to him-- Danny-- to try and figure out if he’s a meta and/or potentially dangerous.

What Bruce figures out instead is that the kid is surprisingly quick-witted and funny. He’s also apparently a dad, raising a kid with his partners. Bruce still suspects that Danny might secretly be a meta, but he develops a pleasant rapport with him. They commiserate together about raising kids over coffee. Two unlikely friends.

Danny never mention’s Jason’s name. He has about a hundred nicknames for the kid and often calls him Magpie (partly due to his black and white hair, and partly due to his habit of bringing home random shit from the Ghost Zone). He’s very wary of using the kid’s real name around Gotham, in any case. They try to keep a low profile where Jason is concerned.

Bruce also never mentions Jason. His loss is still too much of a gaping wound and he doesn’t want to unload that on his young friend, let alone wallow in those memories.

One day Danny is wandering Gotham with Jason in tow, running some errands. They stop by WE to drop something off for Tucker and he spots Bruce. Danny decides it’s about time he introduced his kid to the man.  

Time seems to stop when Jason and Bruce lock eyes.

[lyomeii]

never forgetting about you

->warnings: yandere themes, manipulation, angst, maybe this can be read without being yandere at all? Spoiler from the main story ending

-> request by anon! Hi 👋 I know I requested the same thing, but I forgot to add some details. Can you do a yandere sung jin woo where the reader is from the real world but falls in love with sung jin woo even though the reader knew that he was going to fall in love with who I forgot her name is so the reader gives him a yellow tulip flower ( which I think means love from one side ) and then the reader goes back to the real world and after some years sung jin woo brings the reader back and keeps them with him (sorry English isn't my first language :) anyway have a good day ♥︎~

->a/n: have a good day too anon! I loved writing this one since i never got a request like that before :) it was kinda of a challenge, but trust me that only made me more happier when I finished this. and I changed the flower, since i do know that yellow roses means friendship.

-> maybe this was all a dream, a really realistic one, yet you don’t seem to find a way to awake from it no matter what. you are living in a apartment in south korea, that’s fine and you can handle it, you are a grown up adult inside a teenager body who knows to take care of yourself… but the huge portal in front of your ‘home’ was what caught you off the guard.

-> the design was similar and didn’t took much time to realize you are inside the world of solo leveling, as much that sound exciting and a little weird, you felt something bad coming up. Could that be since you know how the story is going to end? Probably so, but it’s a dream so why not spend your short time here to met this new place?

-> you didn’t care if it a school day or not, you dressed in comfortable clothes, got your backpack and began walking around the streets while admiring every corner. Even with you being incapable to enter the portals for oblivious reasons, seeing such new environment is enough to make you wonder if this truly a dream, not to mention the delicious desserts that you brought during you little journey til sun dawn.

-> the next day, you got scared when you realize you still inside of this new world, where your new parents discovered you ditch class to walk around. That’s don’t sound well neither the grounding you received it from them, you felt bad with how worried they look and the many tears in their eyes, making you feeling so guilty about it. Such a great way to find out you are stuck in solo leveling forever.

-> getting used to this new life and world is actually fast? studying is now easier since you were a graduate in past life, your slowly gained your parents’ again and continue to have what you consider a normal life if you don’t count the many portals and hunter you saw in daily bases, since one of your parents is an A-rank healer and the other one works for the Korean Hunters Association, in which area? You never bothered to ask.

-> they are pretty busy with their job, yet they always made time to spend with you growing up and letting you choose what path in life you wish to have. Many people were somehow disappointed when you told that you have no desire to become a hunter like your parent, much to their happiness, knowing that you are save from dangerous situations and seeing you following your dreams to reach whatever is inside your mind.

-> what they don’t know is that your dreams ( as much it sound stupid ) is to meet the many characters you adore from the story. It don’t need to be a full interaction or get to met them and friend them, just to be near them already make you feel happier. However it didn’t took much time to met some of them as you expected.

->first you met no other than the chairman of the hunter’s association, Go Gumhee, who turned out to be a closer friend of one your parents, how much you wished to learned more about your family prior of this meeting. The old man was what you expected, someone kind and somehow fun to be around, not to mention he treats you as a family member and his wife enjoy your presence.

-> and when you grown up to leave school and to get a properly job, the old man offered one at his work, but you denied and decided to enroll in the university in order to get a degree for one of the courses there. Life going normal, yet one day you manage to met another character you love, the protagonist himself, Sung Jinwoo.

-> he is already taller and more mature by appearance, meaning the incident already happen and now he is in his way to become the strongest hunter of all times, that only make you even more excited to let him and that what you do in the first opportunity.

-> with the excuse to visit one your parents at work, you manage to met with the chairman and he introduced you to the most recent S-hunter of south korea. Honestly, you don’t know how you didn’t pass out nor asked for an autograph, could that be you were to shocked to believe in your eyes?

-> that moment happen so fast and of course, you expect to never met the protagonist again nor have a great importance in his life, regardless of being thrown inside of this world, you don’t have any special skill that make you different than most people, yet something manage to bring you two together as closer friends.

-> it was weird, to befriend the main protagonist who everyone wants to be closer, but you just got enough luck to be considered someone important in his life. Jinwoo even introduced you to his sister and mother, both who adore you in their life, not to mention the many dinners you had with them.

-> stupidly you were in love with Jinwoo, well who wouldn’t fall in love with a man like him? Gorgeous, cares about his family, good personality and an amazing cook? You did and so did —-. You can’t really blame her neither the many girls who fall over his charms, however you always knew you didn’t stood a chance with the person he is going to end with, the story is already finished when you got inside this world and you fear that you might be here one day.

-> in what seemed to be another day in your life, you gave Jinwoo a yellow rose to him before he left to another dungeon. His cheek went little red, mostly due the fact that none has ever gave him a flower, his sweet smile almost melt you immediately.

-> he thanked for such gift and left after hugging you while speaking how much your existence to him meant a lot and how he wishes to never loses you. Oh. that was weird, did something bad to Jinwoo to say something like this? Maybe, but your head is spinning so much that you can’t even think about that now.

-> the moment you stepped inside your apartment, you vision where fully black and you couldn’t hear anything nor feel when your body hit the cold ground. There is something holding you back from waking up and opening your eyes, but the sound and smell did help you recognize where you are. A hospital.

-> for what you thought to be ages, you finally open your eyes to confirm your suspicions. Laying down in a hospital bed and to make things even more crazier, you are back to the real world, not inside solo leveling. Was all of that a dream? It felt so real and you live there for years, but, according to the doctors, it was probably a dream since you were only in a coma for a few days.

-> you really don’t know what to do. was that all a dream? Those moment you had with yours parents from that world were fake? Like the people you interact there such the chairman, Jinah and even Jinwoo himself are nothing but part of your mind, still you keep those memories inside your heart, regardless of being real or not, you enjoyed every second at their side.

—

-> Jinwoo panicked when hearing the news from your parents. You just vanished from your apartment, your classmates nor coworkers saw for a few days and now you are considered missing.

-> how could that happen? you gave him that flower to him and disappear from earth, he told many of his shadow to search for you in all place of the world and yet, no sign of you anywhere. Just like you never existent at all, like you were part of their imagination, but the memories he and many others have means that you are real, just missing.

-> he desperate wants to look after you to find answer to why you vanish and where you are now, but with so many things happening right now. The monarchs are going to attack soon and he have to be there to stop them, Jinwoo has no other option than searching for you after the whole situation get solved.

-> and that he does, when he uses the cup of reincarnation, jinwoo spend years fighting the many the monarchs and monster send to defeat him, only to him being the victorious one. when he did return and began a normal life, he start looking for a way to look after you with the help of his shadow and that ‘person’ that has connections with the rulers.

-> his shadows didn’t find a trace of you and your parents even married in this new timeline, they didn’t have children, leaving bothering the rulers to know why your existence ceased and being scared, they told Jinwoo the true.

-> honestly, he never saw that coming, hearing that you are from another world and that you are back to your world almost broken him down in instant. He loves you and you left him so easily, is there any way to bring you back? Any way to use his power to make you stay at his side?

-> the rulers saw no other option than answering him and of course told him a way to bring you back with a relic of them, of course Jinwoo didn’t hesitate to bring you back to this world using the said object. And in minutes, you are back to this world, almost.

-> you exist now in this world, but you are laying down in a hospital bed in a coma that doctors fears that you won’t wake up soon. for what he knows, someone find you in a terrible state in their way to work and brought you to the closest hospital, where you are now staying. without any information about your identity or family, a doctor from the hospital and their significant other, a businessperson. those two were your parents originally in this world.

-> everything is going back together, except for you and him, Jinwoo feels that even you are back in this world, he feels empty and lonely. He can spend his time at your side, but can’t hear your sweet voice nor you laughs when he tells a stupid joke.. was this a mistake? Bringing you back in such state? Were you happier in your original world? He hopes to learn more about your true self when you finally wake up.

-> but for now, the doctors and your legal guardians wonder who is responsible for leaving so many gorgeous flowers in your room daily.

@lyomeii stuff || don’t repost

[cowboyjen68]

Hi!!

I just wanted to ask some advice from one butch to another.

I recently got my dream job of being a warden on a nature reserve (and i love it!), while interacting with people there I get called a young man very often (i am 18 lol) and it gives me euphoria to know im masculine enough to even pass as a man. I've also had some volunteers ask if I was a man or not (despite my feminine name).

But recently I got called a "lady" outside while out with my mother. It drove me INSANE I cried alot.

Don't get me wrong I do identify as a woman but I hate being seen as a lady.

I've even thought about using he/him pronouns recently and changing my name but i'm too scared to as most people won't understand bc im still a lesbian.

Is this strange?

ps love u and ur blog lots xx

This is an easy answer because I was 18 once and looked enough like a teenage boy that I got "hey sport" and "hey young man" all the time, especially when in my work clothes. I worked for The Mayor's Youth Corp in Iowa City in the summers of my 15th and 16th year. Mom and Dad let me get a work permit AND bought me a used Datsun Pickup so I could drive myself the 20 miles there and back each day.

I was a volunteer with the Corp of Engineers youth from 14 to 16 and Dad knew I was super excited about this job. Mom was not thrilled that I wanted to cut my hair but my "grand mullet" was really hot under the hard hat in the summer heat of Iowa. (in the 1980's boys and girls had the short in front long and permed in back look) We compromised and I cut the sides really short. (photo of my me at 16 in my uniform for reference)

Using "he" would never have occurred to me because "EWWW Boys". This is not to say, however, that I hated being mistaken for a boy, on the contrary, it felt good. When someone thought I was a young man it meant they treated me as such. They didn't talk down to me, I knew they assumed I was capable and willing to get dirty. I knew unconsiously that along with the mistaken identity came many perks. This was nothing I analyzed but little girls see very early on the difference in treatment they recieve from their brothers, male cousins and neighborhood boys. This difference leads us to become negotiators to control our circumstances and not entittled to treatment based on our skills and actual personalies.

When an adult recognized me as a boy, even for a second at first glance, I knew I didn't have to prove myself. They, for an instant, assigned to me words like "strong, capable, demanding etc". No negotations required.

When someone realized I was a girl they literally had a change in their face. They smiled at me, softened their voice. When I was called "young lady" or "Miss" it always seemed to be backed my the worst assumptions (in my mind anyway). Lady is steeped in all kinds of traits I didnt want assigned to me. "quiet, weak, likes to dress pretty"OR "motherly, submissive, meek" Nothing good in my teen brain, that is for sure. Lady felt so OLD, so married to a man and reliant on him for survival, so polyster pants and ugly flats and scratchy blouses with a flower imprint. NONE of these things are inherent to being a woman or even socially forced on us but that is not how things work sometimes. Words that describe people get stereotypes and myths and traits attached to them all the time. Woman and girl are no different.

I can tell you, the best feeling in the world when I was in that job was when my supervisor, who damn well knew I was a young woman, trusted me with all the same tasks as the boys. Who valued my opinions and abilities equally to the young men. He took time to teach me what I didn't know, just like with them and didn't assume I couldn't or didn't want to learn things on the job. He didn't shame ANYONE for not being strong enough or for getting tired or needing a break.

Don't let the assumptions of others force you into another box of conformity. You don't need a boys name or to use any pronouns you don't feel connected to just to please others. In fact, none of that effort will change perceptions of those around you. I can promise that one day being called Lady will just be another word that you can hear and know it does not change your personality or your interests or control the hope you have for your future. What does waste a lot of time and energy is trying to adjust things in your life to fit incorrect or snap assumptions about you as a person. You can never control the thoughts of those around you but what you can do is stop worrying about it and enjoy YOU.

You have a job you love and are sure to thrive in. You are solid in your sexuality and love of women, you are in a unique position to possibly change the perceptions of others when they think of "young women". Your interactions with the public are sure to effect the assumpions of at least some people when they think of young women and their roles in our society.

Congratulations on your new career and I bet you rock that uniform.

[autumnhobbit]

sometimes i like to think about the fact that tolkien wrote the definitive ending for each of his characters. if you’ve only watched the movies you probably haven’t heard of or read the appendices to lotr, which contains some details that didn’t really have a spot in the books’ narrative official, like aragorn & arwen’s love story and courtship, and the eventual fates of all the main players.

a lot of stories are self-contained and focus on a certain part of the character’s lives. their childhood, their teenage years, their 20’s 30’s 40’s, until their happily-ever-after and all else is left to the imagination. for some stories, that’s what they need and it works and you can rest easy knowing the characters made it and they’re alright now and they will be alright when we say farewell to them and go our separate ways.

and tolkien made the interesting choice to tell when and how each of his characters died. and it’s not like some stories where an unnecessarily sad death comes unnecessarily into a story for shock value or extra drama. the whole of lotr is seeped on death and decay and especially on passing away. the elves are leaving never to return and one day the world will forget they ever existed. their beautiful homes and joyful songs and eons under the trees forgotten and nothing more than a ruin and a memory that no one who saw them will even be alive to remember. the men of numenor come back from near extinction but even as their descendants go on there are still only a few who will remember the ones who were really there. so it’s perhaps understandable that tolkien chose to write the happy ending. the real happy ending.

the happy ending that was exactly what each character needed and what you would want for each character. they each live full lives with the ones they love, all their greatest dreams and hopes realized. aragorn and arwen marry, eomer becomes king of rohan, the hobbits return home and sam builds the family he wanted with rosie. and yet gandalf leaves, and frodo goes with him, and though there is joy there is parting, and it breaks your heart. and it feels very adult because isn’t that the truth of adulthood? you meet people you love and you live and you see each other whenever you can, and time passes and you go your own ways and though you remember them and love then you live your life and then one day it’s over.

and so tolkien wrote the ending and it’s exactly what you think each character would do and how it would go. and i think about sometimes the wisdom and the life experience needed to write the whole life of each character, how and where they died and who was with them.

[lovebugism]

❛ i’m telling you all of a sudden, but it isn’t new to me. i love you. ❜ with our boy Steve Harrington please?

i wrote this after watching little women, so this is like that one laurie and amy scene but stranger things coded <3 hope you like it!! (this is 5k words btw and barely proofread 🫣)

The R.V. smells like coopery blood, alternate dimension muck, and nine teenagers who haven’t showered in three days. But despite all that, Steve Harrington is next to you, smiling. 

As if there’s anything worth being happy about now. 

He tells you about a dream with a hopeful gleam in his honey eyes, like he believes it’ll all come true — like death is staring him in the face. “I know it’s silly, but I… I always dreamed I’d have this really, really big family. I’m talking like, uh— a full brood of Harrington’s. I don’t know, five… Maybe six kids?”

“Six?” you repeat with an incredulous laugh. You turn your body in the passenger seat to face him more, shoulder pressing into the worn pleather. You’ve got your brows raised to your hairline in shock at his admission and a beam on your face you don’t realize is there.

“Uh-huh. Six little nuggets. Three girls, three boys,” he says with an assured nod. There’s a distant smile hinting at the edges of his lips, and he looks at you with it for a moment before turning back to the road again. 

“And every summer, I figured all of us Harrington’s, we’d pack into something like this, and… just see the country. You know, the Rockies, the Grand Canyon, maybe Yellowstone. We’d end up in some beachside town in California and spend a week parked in the sand, maybe learn how to surf or something.”

You can picture the dream so effortlessly, almost like it’s one you’ve had yourself. 

In some ways, you did.

Steve Harrington was the kind of boy that filled you with butterflies and childlike daydreams. It was more innocent than lusting, more significant than a teenage crush. There was a time you’d wanted to be with him so badly that you could barely breathe. It kept you up at night, fantasizing about a future with a boy that didn’t want you. It haunted your dreams just as often.

You were, perhaps a bit begrudgingly, a part of that stereotype — a girl who wanted all of the things adults thought girls wanted. You longed for a pretty white dress and a husband that cried when you walked down the aisle. You wanted a small house with a white picket fence, a home that’s always loud with laughing children and barking dogs and loving parents.

It was a future you only wanted with Steve.

But he didn’t love you. Not the way he loved Nancy.

Not the way he still loves Nancy.

It’s not a crime he needs to confess to for you to know he’s guilty of it. You can see it written all over his face, in the way he talks about his future family and flits his gaze from the winding backroad up to the rearview mirror to look at her. He’s picturing her in his head the way you picture him in yours.

Knowing someone else is a part of this dreamt-up family and not you is a bitter pill to swallow.

It has you looking back too, at the gang of ragtag soldiers you’re about to save the world with. You glance over your shoulder at all of them, finding them dozing or outright sleeping in the back of the R.V. 

You don’t blame them. The past few days have been hell.

You’re just glad Max has finally found a moment of peace. The redhead lazes between Lucas and Dustin on the couch in the very back. She rests her head on the former boy’s soldier, but you can’t tell if she’s sleeping or not. Lucas has his eyes closed but a smile on his face as he lays his cheek on the crown of her head.

Dustin, on the other hand, looks dreadfully out of place among the two lovebirds. His head is tilted back and his mouth is wide open. Soft snores spill from his throat.

Erica, Robin, and Nancy all sit at the tiny table beside the tinier kitchen. Their heads are either resting on their folded arms or pressing against the window.

The small cushion adjacent to the couch is taken up wholly by Eddie. 

Your Eddie.

His long legs are spread and his back is slouched against the side of the R.V. He’s taking up every bit of room the thing has to offer, which wasn’t very much to begin with. His pink lips are parted and slightly chapped. He blows soft exhales from them that make his chest rise and fall with even breaths. 

Your hands begin to ache with the want to run them through his wild strands of hair, to ease his head to your chest and let the sound of your heartbeat chase away the nightmares that threaten to plague him.

You want so badly to sleep alongside him, but you know that slumber won’t come as easily to you.

Despite the exhaustion that weighs down your tired bones, whenever you close your eyes, you can only see Chrissy’s mangled body on the ceiling of Eddie’s trailer. The image of broken bones and sucked-out eye sockets is stained on the back of your mind.

It’s something you’ll never forget. Not in a billion, trillion lifetimes.

You’re scared you won’t ever sleep peacefully again.

But you’re glad Eddie’s finally resting. Even if you can’t. 

And maybe that’s what love is.

…Love.

You almost can’t believe you’re calling it that. It’s not like you’ve told him as much or anything. You haven’t been together very long, only a few months, but you’re not sure what else to call this feeling. Is it normal for you to want to fight the most powerful dark wizard known to man with your bare hands as long as it means keeping Eddie safe?

The realization that you’re actually moving on from Steve is perhaps more shocking. You were starting to think you’d be fawning over him for the rest of your life, destined to be alone forever while he got married and had kids. But then Eddie came out of nowhere. He swept you off your feet without even trying.

You’d spent so much of your life in love with Steve that you’d forgotten how it felt to be loved. But Eddie reminded you, most ardently so, and you’ve never been happier.

And Steve can see all that.

He can see how you’ve gone to hell and back — quite literally — to keep Eddie safe. He can see how Eddie still manages to make you laugh so hard your stomach hurts, even though death looms overhead like a big, gray storm cloud. It almost makes him angry. Not at Eddie, exactly. And certainly not at you. He’s more so mad at himself for waiting until you were out of his grip entirely to need you like air.

Steve wasn’t an idiot; he knew how you felt about him. He’s known for years. But Nancy was the only girl in his purview for… an embarrassingly long amount of time. Maybe that’s because she didn’t want a single damn thing to do with him at first, and it wasn’t like Steve to back down from a challenge.

But you? You were easy. You were always going to be there. Your love was the only constant thing in his life.

And then it just… wasn’t.

It was like his center of gravity had suddenly shifted or his feet had been knocked out from under him. The loss of you, of something that was never his to begin with, jarred him like he’d been awake with most vigor. Now, he finds himself living in a nightmare — forced to watch you fall in love with someone else while he ebbs slowly from your mind.

You sit with him now — with Eddie — while he and Dustin fuck around with the shields they’d crafted out of tin garbage can lids. You watch them with a smile on your face even though you’re shaking your head at them and telling them something that Steve can’t hear. 

You’ve got a sword in your hand, and you sharpen its steel with a rock. The too expensive thing had been hanging on the wall at The War Zone, and you told Eddie you just had to have it. 

“I’ll just… take up extra shifts at Wayne’s shop,” you reason with a shrug, gaze never leaving the bladed weapon.

“Do whatever you want,” the brunette boy responded nonchalantly as he dropped four cases of ammunition into the red basket in your hand. He smiled down at you. “That just means I’ll get to see you more.”

It hurts Steve for you to be so far away from him. 

You’re just across the small clearing. All he’d have to do is walk over to you, really, but it’s more than just the distance. No matter how close he gets to you, or how far you get from Eddie, your soul’s always going to be with him. 

Steve will never have you like that, and that’s what hurts the most.

He thinks he’s doing a pretty good job of keeping a stiff upper lip about it. He thinks he’s keeping some deep, dark secret, having no idea that he’s all but spilling his guts to Robin. Honestly, he’s just trying to make conversations while they make homemade bombs out of gasoline and glass bottles, but he’s more than obvious. As per usual.

“How long do you think they’ve got?” Steve asks her out of the blue while he pours the chemicals through the funnel and into the flask Robin holds out for him. He doesn’t wait for an answer. 

“Because I thought they’d be over forever ago, you know? I mean… it’s Eddie. She’s, like, totally out of his league, right? But I’m pretty sure they just had an anniversary or something because I saw him buying flowers at Bradley’s Big Buy the other day…”

Robin opens her mouth to get a word in, but Steve just keeps on going going going.

“Unless you think they were for someone else? But let’s be serious, right? He’s a freak, but he’d never do that to her. I don’t know… Maybe he’s just the sorta guy that gets her flower for no reason, and it hasn’t been as long as it feels.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure they—”

“Let’s face it, if he’s doing that for her, they’re probably gonna make it, right?” the boy laughs bitterly to himself. He stuffs a rag into the neck of the bottle. “God, I’m such an idiot… Maybe if I’d done those things, I’d still—”

“I swear to god, if you say you’d still be with Nancy, I’m gonna punch you in the forehead,” Robin snapped suddenly. She’s got a foreign sternness to her tone and a glacial hardness in her blue eyes. She glares at him with it. “You don’t love Nancy, Steve. And she doesn’t love you. So stop going for the easiest thing when you know it’s not what you want.”

He sighs. He knows she’s right. “I just—”

“I get it. It sucks being lonely. I’m pretty sure I’m destined to spend the rest of my life alone, so join the club,” Robin smiles, a tad bit cynically, at him. “It sucks being in love with someone you can’t have. Trust me, I get it. But you need to move on.”

Steve swallows. He almost winces at the thought of that — of never having you. He shakes his head as though to get rid of the idea entirely. “I can’t… I can’t do that, Rob.”

“Then what are you gonna do, Steve?” she asks him with a mirthless, but not unkind laugh. 

She nods her head over to you. You laugh as Eddie spins you in his arms, both of you marveling at how you’ve just nailed a tree on the far edge of the clearing with the knives you’d thrown at it. Steve can hear the sound of your bubbly laughter from where he sits. Its brightness rivals that of the setting sun. 

“Look at her. She’s happy. Finally. So… Just let her be happy,” Robin advises with a shrug. She sets the glass bottle in the box with the rest of them. “I mean, we’re about to stop a dark wizard from ending the world, you know? Some of us probably won’t make it out—”

“Don’t say that,” Steve scolds.

“Some of us probably won’t make it,” she repeats, firmer this time, like it’s something he really needs to hear. “Something could happen to Eddie. Something could happen to her. Do you really want to be the selfish asshole that ruins what could very well be everyone’s last moments together just because you’ve got a bleeding heart?”

She’s being harsh. He knows it deserves it. Now is virtually the worst time to tell you everything on his mind — just when you’re starting to really settle down with Eddie and about to fight some wizard in an alternate dimension.

Something could happen to her. Those words left Robin’s mouth and stabbed him in the heart like a thousand unforgiving knives. Steve can’t fathom anything ever happening to you. Even with the end of the world, with all of you about to fight a war, it never crossed his mind. He can’t picture his life without you in it.

He can’t lose you without telling you how he feels — that he loves you, that he’s always loved you, and that he’s an oblivious idiot who learned that too late.

He can’t lose you at all.

So, against his better judgment and Robin’s sound advice, Steve abandons his work with her and hikes the relatively short distance over to you.

Eddie hasn’t yet let go of you. He keeps his arms tight around your waist and hugs you from behind, pressing the back of you to his chest while his chin sits along your shoulder. His chocolate eyes are stuck on the bullseye you’d carved into the bark of the tree on the far side of the clearing. The four knives you’d thrown, now stuck at the very center of the target, stare back at him.

“This is probably a bad time to be turned on, huh?” he half-jokes, chin bobbing against your shoulder with every word.

“Eddie!” you scold as you wrench yourself out of his grip.

Dustin’s face screws up from where he lounges on the grass beside the both of you. “Gross…” 

You walk away from the two boys to collect your knives from the poor oak tree. Eddie whistles lowly at you while you go — as though he’s never seen you in a pair of jeans before. You throw your middle finger over your shoulder at him in response.

That’s when Steve catches you, when you’re finally alone, and with a tiny white lie of needing to go back to the R.V. for more gasoline. You offer to walk with him, just like he figured you might, because none of you wants anyone to go off alone. Not with Vecna potentially watching you.

You walk alongside him through the thick wood, dodging low-hanging branches and uplifted roots. Steve notices the distant smile dancing on the corners of your lips — a beautiful stain Eddie’s left there.

“What are you gonna do?” he asks you suddenly. “You know, when this is all over?”

Your brows raise at his question, mouth falling softly agape and eyes widening with a far-off look. You look stumped by the simple inquiry, like it’s something you hadn’t thought of yet — of any of this being over.

“I don’t know…” you murmur. “Go back to work, I guess.”

Steve laughs. “We’re gonna save the world tonight, and you’re gonna be back in the office on Monday?”

“Who knows? Maybe I’ll take a sick day,” you joke, just to hear him laugh again.

He lifts a splintered tree limb to get it out of the way for you, then ushers you to walk ahead of him. You mutter a low and shy “thank you” as you walk beneath it. He lets the branch fall again as he follows behind you.

“What about you, then?” you retort. “What are you gonna do after? Since going back to a nine-to-five is so unreasonable.”

“Actually, I was thinking about writing an opera,” Steve quips with a straight face. “I would be the main character, of course—”

“You’re such an idiot,” you giggle with the shake of your head. The airy, sunshine sound makes him smile down at you. His honey-tined gaze swims with longing. You don’t catch it because you’re not looking back at him.

“What do you want me to do, then?”

You tilt your head to catch his stare. Your eyes sparkle and your brows arch with a look both soft and stern. “Honest answer?”

“Of course.”

“I think you should go work for your dad. Try and… I don’t know… make something for yourself—”

“Alright, that’s not…”

“—Because you can’t work at Family Video forever, Steve!”

“You’re not playing fair,” he concedes quietly, laughing under his breath and shaking his head.

He shouldn’t have expected anything less — you did preface an honest answer, after all. It doesn’t make him feel any less bad about it, though.

You’d supported Steve through a lot of shit. Every mindless fight with his parents, every breakup that had him swearing he would never love again, every aspect of his douchebag phase that almost ruined your friendship. You were always soft with him, but never dishonest.

So when he told you that his dad offered him a well-paying job in Indianapolis, it didn’t surprise him when you told him to take it. Despite all the other shit (his broken relationship with his father and his incessant daydreaming of settling down with Nancy, namely), you knew he wasn’t happy in Hawkins.

“Fuck your dad, Steve. This isn’t about him,” you’d said. “You should take it! Starting building your life in the city! And when you’re finally making more money than your stupid dad, you can rub it in everyone’s stupid faces.”

Steve, of course, ended up turning it down.

The salary was high — too high for a boy just out of high school — but he figured no amount of money was worth a wounded pride. 

Steve was scared that it was all a ploy, another thing his dad could hold over his head, another accomplishment that wasn’t really his. And, truth be told, he was less enthusiastic about leaving Hawkins without you. He isn’t quite sure where he’d be in life without you guiding him through a significant portion of it. It made it nearly impossible to picture a life that didn’t have you at the very center of it.

He happily took to be Robin Buckley’s schmuck at Scoops Ahoy (and then again at Family Video) and Dustin Henderson’s unofficial chauffeur instead. He didn’t mind being a casualty of rattrap small town as long as it meant he didn’t have to stray too far from you.

But here you were now, right next to him in this lonesome forest, and still so far away.

You meet his boyishly forlorn expression with a sincere, tight-lipped smile. “You know that I’m right.”

“Yeah, I do,” he scoffs in response. “That’s the problem.”

“When we kill Vecna and save Hawkins for the… thousandth time… You should take that job. I mean, screw your dad, you deserve a life outside of all this shit—”

“So do you,” he argues.

“I’ll make it without you, Harrington. I’ll try to, anyway,” you quip, turning your gaze up to the family of birds sitting high in an oak tree and wishing you were one of them. You shrug to yourself. “I’ll keep on being a secretary at the car shop… Maybe settle down with Eddie.”

That makes Steve stop dead in his tracks. He laughs bitterly to himself, a quiet and venom-coated scoff. “Right. Because living with his uncle in a one-bedroom trailer is such a dream.”

It makes you stop, too, and turn on your heel to face him. You’re surprised to find him so many paces back. Steve sees a flash of hurt strike like lightning across your features, but he’s too hurt to apologize.

“I get it,” you concede with a small, cynical smile. “You don’t like him. You never have. But… He’s a good guy, Steve. If you just got to know him—”

“It’s not that,” he mumbles, cutting you off before he has to suffer through a list of reasons why Eddie’s so much better than he is. The boy’s gaze falls to the forest floor. He kicks a bunch of green pine needles with the toe of his sneaker rather than meet your prying gaze.

“Then what is it?” you retort. “Because I was just trying to help you. I didn’t say to, like, hurt your feelings or whatever. I just know that you want a life in the city, with a big house and a whole bunch of kids—” A laugh spills from your lips as you remember the dream he was telling you about. “You want that picture-perfect life, right? Now you can have it!”

“You don’t know what I want,” he counters quietly.

“Oh, please. I know you better than you know yourself, Steve Harrington—”

“Break up with him,” he blurts.

Your playful smile fades almost instantly. Your eyes search his face for any hint that he might be joking, but all you find is a deeply heartbroken boy. His bushy brows are scrunched together, his eyes glimmering with unshed tears, a puppy-like hurt painting each of his features.

You match his expression of grief with your own. Your face scrunches with a mixture of confusion and sorrow. “Wh… What?” you manage to stutter after realizing you’d been holding your breath.

“I don’t want you to settle down with Eddie,” Steve confesses. A secret he thought he’d take to his grave before ever telling you.

You’re quiet. For several long moments, you’re eerily silent. Even the forest hangs on bated breath. Birds stop chirping, the wind stops blowing, leaves stop rustling. It’s just you and him and a great big world waiting on the both of you.

A frown pulls down the very corners of your mouth. Your eyes go glassy and wide, like a heartbroken baby, and your head jerks back softly, still defensive and unsure.

“Why?” you force through a tightening throat.

“Why?” Steve repeats, finding it somehow within himself to laugh. He takes several short strides to stand with you again. With him closer now, you can see the sadness in his smile and the flush that blotches his cheeks. “You know why…”

You only shake your head in response. The words are far harder to get out. “No…”

“I just… I know it feels like I’m saying it all of a sudden, but it’s… It’s not new to me, you know?” Steve tries his best to explain to you why he’s choosing now, of all moments, to pour his heart out to you. His eyes are as wide and hopeful as the palms he waves out in front of him. “I don’t wanna go into this without you knowing how I feel about you—” 

“Steve,” you agonize in hopes of ending his rambling. “Don’t.”

“—And I just want you to know, in case something happens, that I love you.”

“No,” you say with the defiant shake of your head, your chin quivering and your gaze ice-cold.

“Yes,” he replies, just as stubborn.

“Steve…” you choke out when the name gets hung in your throat. 

A warm tear falls from your lashes and onto the very apple of your cheek. You wipe it away with the back of your hand and use your free one to bat Steve away when he tries to reach out for you. You stumble back from him, heading back the way you came — back to Eddie.

“Don’t, Steve. Just stop it.”

“Why?” he grieves in the softest voice he can muster, wet and warm with his hurt.

“You’re being mean,” you scold.

“I’m being mean?” he echoes with a sad sort of laugh.

“When it comes to you… I have always been second to Nancy. Always. And I won’t be the person you settle for just because she doesn’t want you, Steve,” you rant, voice fragile like glass or flower petals. 

He wants to tell you that he doesn’t want Nancy — that being with the person he loves won’t be settling — but you continue in your lament, and he misses the chance.

“I can’t… I won’t do it, okay? Not after I’ve spent my entire life loving you,” you confess to him, face scrunched in anger. It’s a subtle sort of rage, pointed both at him and yourself.

He watches, feeling totally helpless, while you wipe bitterly at your damp cheeks. Steve’s seen a lot of assholes make you cry. He never dreamed he’d be one of them. 

Robin was right. He’d ruined everything. It seems to be the only thing he’s good at these days.

“I’m sorry,” he calls to you as you walk away. “I wasn’t… I didn’t say it to make you sad.”

“You shouldn’t have said it at all!” you shout back, angrier than you’ve ever been with him. You take in a stuttering breath and exhale a shakier sigh, trying to calm yourself down again. “I just don’t get why you waited so long…” you agonize, words wet with tears. “Why did you wait until I was happy? Eddie… Eddie’s so nice to me, Steve. And you just… You just throw this shit at me right before we... That’s not fair.”

“I know…” he murmurs. “I know…”

The world starts turning again. 

Birds sing their songs, sounding somehow sadder than before, as though in lament for the brokenhearted boy. The wind begins to whistle as it brushes through the trees. It’s only half successful in breathing air back into your lungs.

A rustling of the brush gains both of your attention’s. It sounds like something is slithering somewhere in the thick laurel — a rabbit, a snake, a dark wizard out to kill a bunch of sad teenagers. 

You and Steve are alone, heartbroken, and clear targets for a monster who feeds on traumatized kids.

Though it’s entirely unlikely that Vecna has crawled out from the depths of the Upside Down and into these woods, you and Steve reach for your respective weapons anyway — him for the axe strapped to his back and you for the knives hanging on your belt. You’re ready to protect each other despite your distant anger.

But instead of some shriveled skin creep, you find freaks of a different kind.

The pale human faces of Dustin and Eddie peek out from the brush with curious smiles. They maneuver through the thicket and try to avoid the thorns. “What’s going on over here, huh?” the oldest boy wonders with his signature sparkling grin.

It’s almost scary how you so easily contort your features full of grief into a sickly sweet, artificial smile. You swipe the back of your hand over your face again to clear the tears clinging to your lashes, though it looks like you’re only wiping away sweat.

“Nothing,” you answer quickly with the innocent shake of your head. “Steve was just being an idiot—”

“Imagine that,” Dustin scoffs.

“—And saying stuff he doesn’t mean.”

“That’s not true,” Steve mutters, then clears his throat when the words come out more choked than expected.

“Just wanted to make sure you weren’t out here making moves on my girl, Harrington,” Eddie lilts with a playful smile. He reaches you and wraps a heavy arm over your shoulder to tuck you into his side. 

His sudden touches stopped surprising you a long time ago. You realized early on in your relationship that he can’t go without touching you for very long.

Eddie squints teasingly at Steve. “Go get your own.”

The boy doesn’t have a comeback at the ready. He isn’t sure of what to say, anyway. Eddie’s jokes aren’t as funny when they aren’t jokesanymore. He was just sort of professing his love to you and getting his heart stomped on in the process. He should probably be used to the feeling by now, but it stings like it’s brand new.

You’re grateful for Eddie’s appearance and the bickering that seems to follow him wherever he goes. It’s easy to get lost in his words, let all the sarcasm run over you, and forget the bullshit that came before it.

“We should head back before the others think we got abducted by Vecna or something,” you urge, desperate to get away from these woods and from this moment.

Dustin listens to you without question because he always listens to you. And Steve listens because he wants an escape just as much as you do. He’d rather go back to Robin and all her “I told you so”’s than keep watching Eddie hold you like he is now.

“What do ya say we skip this joint and have our own fun out here?” the wild-haired boy jokes, already leaning down to press a kiss to your mouth.

“Eddie, don’t—” you huff, but otherwise don’t fight him. It’s only an innocent peck, a loud smack upon your lips, that makes Dustin mutter “gross…” under his breath as he walks away. 

And if he heard it, that means Steve heard it.

You keep your eyes open all the while. You feel a bit numb, actually. A little like you’ve just kissed a ghost. You feel as cold as one, as distant and not all there. Eddie holds your hand the entire walk back to the clearing, but you have a hard time feeling it.

You feel a bit like woods surrounding you. You’re all crowded and heavy with sadness. You can’t tell if your grief is your own or if you’re feeling Steve’s too, because you can’t seem to take your eyes off him.

There’s an entire forest within you, you find, and Steve’s carved his initials into every tree.

[to-the-stars8]

Reviving Love

Jason Todd x Reader Chapters AO3 MDNI 18+

Chapter 11

Jason didn’t like not being in control. 

When things weren’t under his control that meant the plan had been fucked. As Thalia had taught him, sometimes not being in control wasn’t bad if you could use your other skills to manage it. In regards to his job as a crime lord, vigilante, anti-hero— whatever the fuck he was, he could handle it without a second thought. He had experience with vigilantism. Recent experience, anyway. 

With love, the same couldn’t be said. 

As Jason pondered on the subject, he quickly realized that his infatuation with you didn’t stop at innocent liking. No, this wasn’t the same teenage, high school love that only involved hand-holding and shy kisses. This was serious—adult. 

Jason couldn’t get the picture of you bent over your kitchen counter out of his head. When he closed your eyes he could practically hear your moans and skin slapping against skin. Jason wanted to breathe you in, taste you, feel you in ways that would make anyone blush. 

And, the thought terrified him. 

At the ripe age of twenty-one not once had Jason known the touch of a partner. He’d been too focused on work and the thrills it provided. Granted, it wasn’t like there was much time for romance between him being dead at fifteen and him being an infamous crime lord. Now, thinking about touching you in such an intimate way scared him. 

He could hardly sleep over it. Every time he’d lie in bed Jason’s mind would battle it out on the subject of wanting to have sex and, when he finally managed to sleep, he couldn’t help but dream of it. 

In his dreams, you whispered the filthiest things in his ear as he sunk into you. Your hands would run over his body, touching every scar and muscle, as you begged for more. Jason’s mind, when he was asleep, could openly admit that he wanted to fuck you. When he was awake, it terrified him to think of such an admission.

“Fuck,” Jason seethed as he sat up in bed. Running his hand through his hair as he looked down at the tent in his boxers. 

There was a battle if he should just ignore his hard cock and slide back into sleep, but his body begged for some release. Slowly, like he could have been caught at any second, his hand slid into his boxers. When Jason’s hand gripped the base of his cock, he gasped. He hadn’t realized just how sensitive he was. 

He shouldn’t have been thinking of you under him because he didn’t know if he could do it. His biggest fear was that this whole thing with you was a dream. He wanted to be vulnerable with you, but he was afraid just when he got that little piece of comfort it would be ripped away from him. 

You weren’t like Bruce, Catherine, Joker, or Shelia. You were you. All he had were happy memories when it came to you. You were his first date, friend, and kiss—all of those sweet, comforting memories that got him through the roughest moments were due to you. Even now, you were his first date since he’d been back, and the one reviving his love life.

Sucking in a breath, Jason imagined you again. It wasn’t voluntary, but he didn’t push it away this time. Freeing his cock from his boxers, Jason gasped at how aroused he was. His cock was throbbing, the pink tip oozing precum, and all he wanted to do was finish. Running his hand back up his cock, Jason imagined it was you jerking him off. 

“Fuck, you’re hard,” You’d say into his ear. You’d kiss his neck, hand moving fast to get him off. 

Jason whined. “Oh, fuck, babe. Just like that.” You’d moan into his ear, hand gripping his cock a little tighter, and suck a hickey into his neck. Jason’s mind went into a haze as he continued to jerk his cock. 

Closing his eyes, he wished that you were there now. That, while his walls were down, you could be there to comfort him, kiss him, love him. Love, the word made his eyes snap open with a groan. Fuck, Jason would love you so good, and the thought of doing so made aroused him further. There wouldn't be a day when you didn’t know just how loved you were. All things beautiful deserved to be worshipped, and, goddamn it, if you didn’t deserve that at the very least. 

Jason’s hand was gliding over his cock, his precum acting as a lubricant, and closed his eyes again. He pictured you breathing against his ear, begging to be near him as you kissed his neck. 

“I miss you,” You said in his imagination. “I want you, Jason.”

“I want you, too,” He whispered before letting out a long whine. Damn, he was getting close. “I want you so fucking bad. I’ve missed you so much, baby.”

You chuckled against his ear, pressing your imaginary lips against his jaw before saying, “Show me just how much.”

Jason opened his eyes just as he came, coating his hand and boxers in cum. He breathed through his teeth in an attempt to hold back loud, aching moans. Squeezing his eyes shut again, he tried to imagine you again, but, like the fleeting height of his pleasure, you were gone. In an instant, his walls were up again. Jason let out a short breath of air before getting up again. He needed to clean himself up because the last thing he wanted to do was to wake up with this sticky reminder. 

When he returned his phone lit up on the nightstand and he grabbed it as he sat. Two messages had just come up on his phone, one from you and one from Dick. They were minutes apart, and Jason found the coincidence slightly amusing. He swiped on your name first, reading your message. 

I saw this and thought of you almost instantly lol

Under the message was a picture of a big angry-looking cat with the caption ‘socially awkward’. Jason chuckled, albeit not totally picking up what you were putting down. He simply replied with a ‘lol’ before opening up Dick’s message. 

So, when were you going to tell me about you and your new little girlfriend?