#the only exception is if he's a sleaze <3

[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.

[glassheartstonesoul]

opinion dump on saltburn and the public response to it bcs my opinions r the most valid and superior

this is mainly geared towards the response on tiktok, saying u were undisturbed by the bathtub scene or grave scene doesn’t make u superior or cooler it actually doesn’t mean shit yall r giving “im so mysterious and misunderstood” energy it’s actually embarrassing tbh this has the same energy as thinking ur mental illness is a personality trait and inherently makes u cooler and more interesting than the average person REALITY CHECK it doesn’t

the period sex scene being placed in the same category of “disturbing-ness” on social media as the grave and bathtub scene just goes to show how much society hates women and their bodies the period stigma is crazy it’s for sure a personal preference no hate if u think eating someone out when they’re on their period is weird or maybe unhygienic but to compare it to borderline necrophilia and whatever vile pathetic shit the bathtub scene was is just pure misogyny I said what I mf said

I love emerald fennel and i’m so dissapointed in her I thought this movie would’ve been better I feel like she had everything going for her the plot was incredible the aesthetics were so cool the cast was astounding and yet…

ok elaboration on my last point basically the film lacked any intelligence or nuance plot wise and storytelling wise don’t get me wrong the film is full of insane references and deep sociopolitical metaphors however the ending was shit the idea that this was oliver’s plan all along has the same energy as when ur in 2nd grade and u end ur creative writing piece with “and it was all a dream” and so many fucking things don’t fit in with the ending like they never explain to what extent was this his plan like did he intend to kill them ? pick them off one by one ? wait years till he could get to elspeth ? and why are his issues with his family never explained why is he the way he is what made him so obsessive what made him a pathological liar ????? there r just too many loose ends and unfortunately not in a “open ending audience interpretation” way but in a bad writing kinda way :/

THE FASHION !!! why was it so mid I was superrrrr excited to see a film set in 06/07 but the fashion was majorly lacking elspeth is mother her costumes ate of course but the rest of the cast and extras were so mid there were a few exceptions here and there but there’s so much to explore in terms of fashion in this time period yet the costumes weren’t great venetia’s outfits hurt my soul she could’ve been such a cool character think indie sleaze vibes (ik this wasn’t a thing back then but something similar rather than the glittery bullshit she’d have on) farleigh also could’ve served cunt but was painfully lukewarm

the movie left SO MUCH to be desired it actually hurts if only they could’ve leaned into the campy vibes upped the ante on the fashion and had much better writing </3

[wandering-willows-2009]

Name: Wandering Willows (2009). Only close friends call me Willow - stick to Wander until we’ve kissed with tongue.

Gender: Nah

Pronouns: just be cool about it

Age: Timeless/Adult (22)

About, Tags, and Content Warnings Below!

🎃🐈‍⬛🕸🍂🍁🦷🍫🪦⚰️🔪🪓👻🫀🩸💣

I’m a security guard/college dropout from Idle Town. My interests include autumn season, Halloween, trespassing urban exploring, vulture culture, bugs/entomology, the alt scene, pop punk and bad indie, the fae, making cringe art, cake, and hanging the fuck out.

Content Warnings: Unless I have made a mistake, this blog will be mostly SFW, and not have any explicit smexy imagery, but may have fake/prop/movie blood and suggestively/crudely worded posts. Be warned! Untagged bugs (except my beloved roaches, cuz my roommate will vommie if he sees one), swears, scary images/body horror, and more down yonder! Will try to tag for fake blood and flashing lights, but I am oftentimes low on spoons knives and forgetful by nature, and this blog is intended for my personal consumption and not others ^__^"

Main Tags

Angel Aura - angel tag!!

Badlands

Cake - mmmm yummy!! i love a slice of fucking cake!! :D

COBRA Enclosure - COBRA sightings in the wild

Dog Tags - dom stuff. are you mad at me. do you want to be

Hogposting - 30-50 wild boar inside

Home - my fuckink domain <3 welcome to my cage what can i get u

Fashion

Fave

Fiend Group - me n COBRA n Roadkill n Fishbone, friendcore motherfuckers

Food

Idle Hands - 😏

Idle Town - hometowncore lol

Indie Sleaze

King - St. Jimmy tag

Little Dead Things - things COBRA tags me in

Living Dead Boy - cute zombies =__=

Living Dead Girl - DON'T OPEN, DEAD INSIDE!! my personal zombiecore :3

Lost Tapes - Smidge & COBRA dynamic =^w^=

Michael Wave - microwave go brrrrr!!!! :D

Music Box - sounds and songs I've saved

PVP

Sadwich - COBRA's gross fucking sandwich moodboard

Saint of Who Gives A Shit - COBRA goes through enough weirdo religious shit in my living room that I now have a tag for it

Scrawlings - my art

Sooths - my writing

Stray Bullets - AU i'm working on wif some frends

Suburban Hell

Willowbee - mecore tag

Zombabe - personal/original posts tag :3

Friend Tags

The Artist Formerly Known As Paul, Bossman, Bunnyrabbit, Can Be Trusted with Lab Equipment, Clover, Crow, Doc, Doctor Worm, Ezra, Feesh, Fink, Fishbone, Fleabag, Fleischwolf, Foxie, Frankie, Frey, Gerber Baby, Glish, Greaseball, Houndthing, Howl, Jeebz, Jonesy, Kuno, Lovebug, Lovecraft, Margo, November, Penny, Pet Peeve, Pixystix, Robin, Scuffle, ScurvyDog, Smidgeon, Snowhare, Sparky, Static, Syd, Wolfie, Zoey (more to come~)

[ultraphobic]

Hi Lane! ☃️

Wow Taime Downe's style is incredibly cool! He's style truly sleaze glam and I think your look will be just as great!

Oh you dressed like Paul Stanley at the concert? this is great! what songs did you like the most?

Ohh thank you sm! You're very nice! I'm sure your glam shirts will be incredible.

I think your collection is incredible because all the Warrant albums with Jani on CD are my dream haha.This year I bought two albums with Jani on vinyl and it was quite expensive (about 50€ per record) since it is a limited edition.

I hope you can find something suitable in this store! Wow the Joan Jett song is a really interesting choice! It has some interesting slides and I did a cover with ghost notes that sounds pretty cool. And I’m sure your performance is even more beautiful.

Oh, that's normal! If you have a band in the future, you can work on material together and come up with some great songs.

OMG! YOUR COLLECTION IS THE COOLEST IN THE WORLD. I'd love to see pictures of some things after Christmas if you don't mind.

I envy all the people who were on any of the tours because THEY LITERALLY MADE HISTORY.And unfortunately I didn't find a single video from this tour on YouTube. nothing but an advertisement for the Poison tour with Cinderella lmao

Oh I'm so sorry you have to work until Christmas Eve. I hope you have a good rest afterwards. And the festive mood will definitely come after the party!

🎄in answer to one of the questions you mentioned Bon Jovi and Skid Row. Do you have any favorite songs from these groups? Trying to create a festive mood, I can recommend you the song performed by Jon "Please come home for Christmas"

🎄if you had more free time what would you like to do?

🎄Do you have any comfort foods or foods that you like to make yourself the most?

Your Santa ☃️🎄

hey santa!!!

i did dress like paul it was so fun & i loved when they played war machine & shandi! it was such a good show

oh yea those limited records will get ya. i got the limited coloured pressings of each of the warrant albums that they made (drfsr, cherry pie, dog eat dog, greatest and latest) and they each cost me about $60-80 so it was a lot! except cherry pie which was about $200 before shipping bc that was the signed one. it was worth it though bc i think they only press 2500 of each record!

the joan jett song was pretty fun! i think my school changed the arrangement because they made the bass have the solo instead of the guitars which was good for me but then i listened to the original song and i was like hey... this sounds different...

and yea! i can definitely show you some of the stuff in my collection! the patches are all sewn onto my vest so i can show you the whole vest, but all the picks n stuff i keep safe and stored away so i'll grab pics of those as well

i knowww if i had a time machine i'd set it to 1986 sunset strip start with poison and their first album and just go from there following tours and meeting bands, collecting original merch y'know?

the good thing is i only have to work until 3:30 on christmas eve so i can get a good afternoon's rest before christmas day! i'm working boxing day as well but at least i get public holiday pay for that

i actually started out my glam listening with bon jovi last year! my favourite songs are i'll be there for you, have a nice day, i wanna be loved, wanted dead or alive, bad medicine, it's my life, and also jon's solo song billy get your guns

i still need to listen to some more skid row stuff but rn my favourites are in a darkened room (i'm a sucker for a good power ballad), here i am, get the fuck out, 18 and life, and rattlesnake shake

if i had more free time (which i will hopefully be getting in the new year) i'd restart guitar lessons! hopefully i'll be able to do this in the new year once we (crossed fingers) get a new team member for our store so we all don't have to overwork ourselves as much

i don't really cook just because i'm not rly a foodie or anything but kfc chicken nuggets are a comfort food for me :)

hope to hear from you soon santa :)

[tteokdoroki]

an ode to winter | dabi.

♡ pairing: dabi/touya todoroki x fem!reader.

♡ word count: 14.1K

♡ rating: mature, 18+, mdni.

♡ genre: manga war arc!au, single-parent!au, unplanned pregnancy!au,  angst, fluff, smut.

♡ summary: touya todoroki had broken a lot of things, your heart, promises, your window a few times, but you swore he'd never leave your child feeling that way. but when he wants back into your life, will he take no for an answer? And do you even want to say it?

♡ warning(s): please read ! heavy smut, ( literally 5k of it ), MANGA SPOILERS IN THE EXTENDED ENDING,  mentions of pregnancy, mentions of semi-toxic!relationships, struggling with parenting, blackmail ??,   unprotected sex ( wrap it before you tap it, losers ), handjobs, oral sex ( female receiving ), fingering ( female receiving ),  choking, branding, squirting, spit!kink, needy touya lol <3

♡ author’s note(s): OK so this started out as a fic for my bestie @ozzy-bozzy​ but then turned into this long ass vent fic bc i do be struggling!! i’ve barely written for touya so apologies if his character is off. special thanks to @bakugous-trauma for beta reading n @doinmybesthere for the summary and beta reading and thanks for 4.7K MWAH <3

♡ masterlist | requests

the snow had fallen heavy that day, its flakes dancing along the window panes while you’d brought her into the world. you hated the cold, the way it nipped at your nose and stung at your cheeks, how it could freeze over a heart so badly that it would take years to thaw it out. you’d complained about the ice sheets that frosted your windows to the doctors, the ones on the roads too, but they’d simply wrote it off as your anxieties related to bringing kori home for the first time in such weather.

funnily enough, your daughter much resembled the cold in many ways. you’d named her ‘kori’; meaning ice, since her hair was white as the crisp blanket of winter outside and her eyes a piercing shade of aqua marine, that for a while, had no meaning written behind them except for a cool curiosity that you knew didn’t come from your side of the family. she wasn’t warm either, the first time you held her, her flesh against yours was almost a painful spark of frostbite— you expected that it was related to the lineage she came from too.

you thought that you’d resent kori when she was born; for the struggles that her new life had brought to you. you’d given birth alone and afraid, having lost friends and contact with your family due to keeping your pregnancy a secret. if they had known who caused you to end up in this situation in the first place, you were sure you’d have lost them all anyways. you hadn’t a chance to attend maternity classes due to the hours you worked in order to ensure yourself and your child’s financial security. although, prior to her arrival, dabi had told you that if you chose to give your daughter the todoroki name; you both would be looked after when the right time came.

and like a fool in love, you’d believed him, avoiding the apologetic gazes of the doctors and midwives who’d delivered your baby as you filled out her paperwork and birth certificate. one nurse even asked you if you wanted to contact endeavour for support, and you couldn’t blame her— the rumours of your child potentially being that of natsuo todoroki’s had spread fast through the hospital and it was a given, figuring his bad boy college reputation. natsuo and his ventures into the college life were no stranger to the media, so it didn’t surprise you nor the doctors to believe that this wasn’t the first time a girl had given birth alone to a todoroki child. you suspected that if there were any, enji todoroki would have paid them off.

so you let them believe what ever false truth that might have plagued the hospital walls about yourself and your daughter— not having the heart to tell them that you’d probably receive a much larger sum of money to keep hush about the child that you mothered and the child who’s father belonged to endeavour’s deceased, eldest son.

so you realised, thumb held by the chubby hand of your sweet infant girl; that you couldn’t hate her for the mistakes you’d made and the mess you’d become tangled up in— you could only promise to do your best in raising her despite the odds and difficult circumstances, you could give her the life and childhood that her father never had but most certainly deserved.

“miss yn...”

your midwife; himari enters the room, calling for you— tearing your gaze away from the hypnotising sea-foam eyes belonging to your daughter, the way she looked at you only reminding you of dabi. you’d told him once that his eyes always took you to the mediterranean sea, to which he’d laughed and mentioned you’d never seen it before. when the pair of you realised that this was true, the boy with the black hair and intoxicating stare made an oath to you, that he would take you there someday so you could bask in the warm sun and dip your toes into the clear oceans. you only hoped that this oath still remained true.

“miss yn...” himari tries again, this time stepping further into your hospital room. your thoughts had carried you so far away that you hadn’t realised how close she’d gotten as she lingered by your cot. her hands lay flat against her pale blue uniform, nails you note—neatly trimmed— and a smile that would have made you feel comfortable had you not known she’d volunteered to care for you because she too believed she’d be paid off by endeavour. you almost felt bad that she thought the silly lie was true and that she had a shot at a big time bonus but it was funny to think that no one would believe her when she eventually took to the news to claim that she cared for the next heir of the todoroki empire. “it’s says here, that kori is scheduled for feeding— i was wondering if you wanted to continue breast feeding or try pumping a bottle or two today?”

chewing on the inside of your cheek, you hum with hesitance. feeding kori was something you’d never discussed with dabi, some of the nurses had assured you that it was possible for you to do both— so that you could grow closer to your daughter and form a tight bond whilst also giving the opportunity to others to feed her when need be. there weren’t many others, but you figured that dabi might want to give bottle feeding a whirl when he finally returned from the league business. the business that had made him miss his little girl’s birth.

kori gargles from hunger in your arms, drawing your attention back to her tiny form. a stray strand of hair curls against her forehead from underneath her blankets and swaddling— the end you notice has a slight tint of red to it. the icy shell around your heart thaws. glancing back up to himari; you grin with a decision in mind. “i’d like to try breast feeding again, we can use the pump tomorrow.” you say, voice quiet.

“do you need any help getting her to latch?” your midwife asks, aiding you into a comfortable position to feed kori.

“no,” you smile after getting settled, pushing down your gown to expose your breast to your little girl. “i’ve got her, i can take care of her.”

you say the words more so to yourself than to himari, a hidden reassurance that you’re more than capable of raising your daughter on your own.

for now at least.

that winter, dabi never came home.

the snow melts, the flowers bloom and the seasons change. your daughter grows with the swift transition of the weathers too, her hair is a little longer now but the small curl of red against her forehead remains hidden and the same. her eyes open wider, still that deep shade of ocean blue, she can sit up on her own, throws toys out of her crib  and her favourite movies are bambi and bambi two. they’re the only things that she watches, which you hate, because they remind you of her. an innocent child who loses one parent and is left in the care of the emotionally closed off other.

you hadn’t realised how much you would need dabi, but still he is nowhere to be seen.

raising kori on your own proves a challenge, especially now that she’s a little bigger— it was easy after she was born; she was quiet and only made a fuss when she was hungry or needed to be changed. went down easy too, that was until her wails reared their ugly head as soon as the colder parts of winter hit. no matter what you did, the girl would cry for hours on end until her face would hurt from how scrunched it was and her fingers would turn red from the grip she had on your hands.

since her birth, you and kori had to move three times due to the noise complaints about her consistent crying throughout the day, evening and night. by the time february rolled around, you’d ended up in an apartment not so far from dabi’s old neighbourhood— it was a shitty area with high crime rates and an eerie feel to it that made you clutch your purse tighter when you walked home from the late night shifts— you had never had any intentions to raise kori in a dump like this, you wanted a better life for her than what dabi had, but your shabby two bedroom apartment in the dark side of town would be enough for now.

the rent was cheap since your current boss at the local grocers market was close friends with the building manager, but your boss was also a sleaze who thought offering you an extra 10% off of your weekly shop and an expired coupon for the coffee joint down the street would be enough to get into your pants. he was just another thing on your list that you hated about the world, about the current life you lead but you needed to keep him close to keep your rent low and a roof over your head.

besides, it had been a few days since you last saw him at work— the asshole was probably taking a few days to himself while you and your colleagues practically ran the store.

you can’t leave kori with a sitter; they never worked with her. your daughter was far too temperamental for the average person and would spend one night with her before taking their pay and quitting. the only person able to handle your beloved little girl was the old lady who lived two floors above yours, mrs. yamamoto. she was a sweet woman, widowed by fifteen years and had taken a liking to kori that one time you’d helped with her groceries when she couldn’t make it out in the february winter after your little girl was born.

it seemed kori liked mrs yamamoto as well, she was only ever quiet in the woman’s presence and you put it down to how high she had the heat up in her apartment. one time, it was up so high the power in the building went out for an entire night— which was hell for you since kori wouldn’t stop bawling. however; you appreciated the help, you’re sure that without the help of the elder woman you would have been far under the surface— drowning in regret.

but sometimes, it’s easy for the darker emotions to slip through the cracks— take a choke hold over your sanity. there would be nights where guilt would consume you and tears would flow heavily down your cheeks while your daughter slept. it was hard being alone, no one to confide in about the troubles of parenting or to reassure you that you were doing a good job at taking care of your child.

it didn’t help that winter was coming up again, kori’s first birthday fast approaching. the sudden milestone only made you wish that dabi was around more — it hurt you to know that there was possibility he’d run out on you and his responsibilities as a father but part of you believed that your lover was better. the eldest todoroki son appeared way too excited throughout your pregnancy to leave you with nothing.

despite not being able to make it to appointments due to his criminal nature, dabi had somehow manged to find the money to get you a 4D ultra sound of your baby, telling you a few odd jobs here and there allowed him to scrape the cash together. you never asked what it was that he did, afraid of what you might find in the eyes of the man that you loved so much.

why did you allow yourself to love a man who wouldn’t have given you the time of day if he hadn’t broken into your home? his seafoam eyes a glowing shade as he threatened your life through shards of broken glass and then wails of cop sirens outside. were you just as broken as he? had you not realised it yet? you could blame this whole mess on the fact that he kept coming back, but you always let him back in. dabi was a broken man who only knew blood and grit and grime and you were the girl with a chance to lead a normal life— yet you poured all of your heart and all of your soul into loving him because you were so sure that you could fix him.

and every single time you’d convinced him, convinced yourself that what you had could be normal and domestic— dabi would slip between your sheets, pinning you to your bed with your name heavy on your lips and the emotion of love painted into the turquoise flecks in his eyes. they burned with passion while his heated cock sunk between your plush thighs and welcomed him into your warmth. the moans you’d share while your skin slapped together, creating a bubble of safety where you were the only two people on the world.

dabi made promises against your swollen lips as his fingers swirled hidden messages of desire into your slick, puffy clit. he couldn’t give you the ring, the wedding or the house with the white picket fence and dog barking at the post man in the front yard— but he could give you every part of him from the good to the bad, the beautiful to the ugly and he would seal that promise with a throaty groan of ‘you are mine and i am yours...’ into your ear as you came together.

but it seemed that like all things, dabi’s promises were broken like shattered glass— never meant to be kept or eternalised. the shards cut your delicate fingers, the pain numbed as you were left to pick up the pieces and be strong for the small life you were now responsible for.

you were careful to not let the door fly in and hit the wall opposite as you unlocked it, stumbling into your two bedroom with kori’s chubby legs locked around your hips and bag full of groceries in your other hand. “look princess,” you coo down at your daughter sweetly, watching as she drools all over your staff lanyard from work. “we’re home!” bending down, you dropped the produce off by the door before heading off to your living room area, propping kori in front of her toy mat.

smiling down at her, you brush the pure white hair that curls over her cobalt eyes and kiss her freckled cheeks— heart swooning at the way kori giggles in your arms. she’d been on her best behaviour the entire week, keeping out of trouble with the staff at her daycare and mrs yamamoto in the place upstairs, so it was only right that you treat her.

“you hungry babygirl? want mommy to make your favourite, hm?” kori is barely old enough to talk aside from a few babbles and repeats of mama but that doesn’t stop you from asking.

“mmmamamamaa!!”

you press another kiss to her baby fat cheeks before heading to the kitchen to prepare her favourite dinner— spaghetti. ever since kori started eating her solids, she hadn’t been a picky eater and you noticed that her appetite much resembled dabi’s, who couldn’t afford to be fussy about any of the meals you’d made for him before he disappeared.

making the sauce is easy, a dish you’d prepared from when you were a child and used to cook with your parents— you retrieve the ingredients from the groceries and pull out the stuff you’ll need to cook them. you mince the vegetables easily like you’d been taught as your mind gets away from you.

you wish that dabi was here to enjoy the domesticity of your current life— maybe him being around would lift the dark cloud over your life. sometimes it hurt to know that he would be missing out on moments like this and you could imagine him sitting by the couch while kori played with her toys and you cooked for them both. in this world, he’d laugh at her fascination with colder toys and magnets— make a joke about how much your little girl resembles him and kiss your cheek when you served them both up their favourite meals.

tears pool in your eyes at the thought of your wish never being granted and that’s all it takes for you to slip and cut your finger while chopping up the garlic. “fuck!” you boss, dropping the knife and squeezing your hand around the wounded digit. you know that the clattering of the knife has scared kori, and from the way she looks at you, you can already tell that she’s seen you injure yourself. “god, fuck...that hurt.”

there’s a pause in time, while you rinse your cut under the tap, cold water soothing the sting before kori starts to wail like her life depends on it. in a rush, you grab a tea towel in hopes that it’ll stop the bleeding and head straight for your baby, hoping that you’ll be able to soothe her. by the time you reach kori, her eyes are red with tears and snot dribbles from her nose down to her chin while she babbles loosely all the new words she’s learned— in a whiny tone.  

“baby, don’t cry mommy’s got you,” you murmur to her, reaching out to the little girl with open arms. your heart breaks at the way her bottom lip wobbles in a watery pout. kori crawls into your arms, white mop of soft baby hair buried into the junction between your shoulder and your neck— her tiny body shakes with awful heaves and cries while her tears dampen the old hoodie of her father’s that you wear, effectively ruining the fabric. “come on honey, it’s okay! momma didn’t mean to scare you...”

she snivels in your arms, quiet for only a second while you walk around the apartment bouncing her. walking kori up and down seems to soothe her for the most part, a trick that worked when she was first born and had her horrible crying fits. “good girl, mama’s got you...” you continue to soothe her, brushing a finger under her white lashes to remove her tears. all is well for a second and it seems her tantrum has calmed, until she grabs onto your wounded finger and makes you curse in pain again.

“shit!”

“m-momma-!” kori whimpers, face creasing in pain as her cheeks start to heat up again. you fear that if you don’t do something soon she’ll bust a lung from crying.

you shake your head in an attempt to calm her down, baby sobs striking right through your body and resume bouncing her, hoping that it’ll work. “shhh kori, honey, it’s okay— mommy’s okay and so are you...” in the process of comforting her, you somehow trip over the discarded knife, sending it flying into the cabinets across from the island and making another loud noise that further spooks kori.

at this she screams bloody murder, the sound of her little chest heaving giving you a splitting headache. you were tired, tired of your daughter’s crying , working long hours with no help and raising a child all on your own. you were tired of the pain spreading through your head and your body and your heart. you needed an out or break at the very least.

you should feel guilty for what you’re about to do, heading for the nursery with a heaving baby in your grip. you can’t think of anything better to do than put kori down for a nap and hope that her crying tires her out— you do your best to pry the little girl from clinging onto your clothes and tuck her into her crib as she sniffles, quickly backing out of her room before she can call for you and make you feel even worse than you already do.

you close the door quietly behind you, somewhat sliding down it while your own sobs take over your body— shaking you violently as you hug your knees to your chest. you don’t know how long you sit there, biting your lips and holding onto in your whimpers while tears stream down the apples of your cheeks, but eventually

you find yourself drifting off with dreams of your happy family.

you jump awake a few hours later, surrounded by a thick darkness from the sky outside. the hum of the city streets helps to bring you back down to earth as you rub the sleep from your puffy eyes and blink away the exhaustion. you don’t quite remember when you’d fallen into a slumber but you figure that kori must have eventually, judging by the quietness that surrounds your apartment.

the blanket of the night allows your guilt to burn brightly in your chest— you shouldn’t have left her alone. scrambling to your feet, you stumble over to the kitchen counter and grab your phone to read the time. 11:06pm. it’s just about time that you check on your daughter, but with two steps of heading to the nursery and you’re met with foreign sound that doesn’t quite fit in with the usual creaks and squeaks of your apparent.

happy gurgles belonging to your baby creep out from underneath her bedroom door, low humming or singing to accompany her sweet sound. humming that you don’t recognise. with a pang of fear to your heart, you reach for the knife on your kitchen floor as a weapon of defence— this would go down nicely with the police. a single mother on self defence...yeah, that could work out.

the knife shakes in your hand as you approach kori’s nursery, barely steady even when you push open the door.

“...touya?”

nothing could prepare you for what you’d see after walking into that room but when your eyes fall witness to your love standing in the centre of the room with a little tuft of white hair cradled to his bare chest. the air around you tingles with warmth as if dabi has heated the place up with his quirk and your little girl curls into him as if she’s known him all her life. but she hadn’t, he hadn’t.

all at once, your heart heals just as it breaks— it’s been so long since you’ve seen the villain that you can’t help but notice all the changes in him, the way his eyes droop a little more with exhaustion and his hair dusted with a the slightest bit of white. he was noticeably thinner too, maybe from being away from a warm bed and good food for too long...so a half of you was relieved that he was home, the other— hurt and betrayed.

“hey beautiful,” dabi’s timbre voice fills your entire being, stimulating your senses into a dull tingle. his lips a drawn into soft smirk as he rocks kori back and forth, your  baby’s eyes flutter with the gentle indication of sleep. “how’ya been?”

if you weren’t frozen in shock, you would have given the villain a piece of your mind. how dare he...after all this time apart from you, from his daughter...ask how you were doing? your eyes flutter to the open window behind the oldest todoroki son, as if you need to look away from him to convince yourself he’s real and he won’t disappear when you look back.

proven right by meeting the cool, chartreuse sea of his eyes— your throat runs dry as all you’d ever dreamed of saying in this moment, flees from your mind. “what are you doing here?” you say, trying to sound firm even though your voice falls through.

touya stays quiet, twirling a long finger through the small curls on his—your daughter’s head. “i was in the neighbourhood.” he mumbles, gaze tearing away from you to focus on the content infant he has in his arms.

you should feel angry, you should be screaming and kicking at dabi— forcing him out of your home with your child safe in your own arms but your body doesn’t will you to. hurt seeps through your veins at the casual aura in his tone. of course dabi would treat the situation as if it never existed and that he’d been with you the whole time. the pain of seeing him with her as if he’d been in kori’s life from the very start wraps around your heart in a poisonous grip and squeezes hard until you’re choking back a sob, letting it sit in the base of your throat.

you refuse to break in front of him.

“you need to go. you need to put her down and you need to leave.” you attempt to assert yourself in a harsh bark, almost making dabi jump. he’d never seen you like this before, but then again he hadn’t seen you in a year. he could only imagine what motherhood had done to you, especially facing it on your own. touya hesitates, kori shifting in his soft grip— one he didn’t even know that he had as a villain but you steady yourself and repeat your words. “touya, i said you need to leave.”

“why? so you can fall asleep and leave her crying on her own again?” the villain spits out, harsher than he intended. he watches your face fall and your body curl in on itself and he feels bad. dabi had promised you a lot of things since realising he loved you, and not hurting you like his father hurt his mother was one that he’d just broken. relenting, the dark haired villain eases kori from his pec and tucks her into her crib.

there’s a beat of silence and then. “i’m sorry.”

“you should be.”

“yn,” he sighs, running a hand through the light roots of his hair as he leans over his child’s crib. the young father tilts his head, scanning kori’s face while he identifies every characteristic she has from the family he’d done his best to free himself of.   “i’m sorry, it’s just— just that she was cold and crying, so i took off my shirt and held her and she warmed up and—“ dabi pauses his quiet rambling, finally looking up from the slumbering baby tucked away into powder blue silk and locks eyes with you. “and she probably has my mom’s shitty quirk. and i can’t get over how much she looks like them, how big she’s gotten.”

touya finds his shirt after admitting that, throwing on the thin white material before closing the window he came through. he moves with the swiftness that comes with his job, and it’s almost peaceful to watch. you stay plastered by the door, torn between falling right into the palm of his hand and demanding the answers that you and your daughter deserve.

it makes you feel a little sick when he gazes down at kori with pride, it makes you queasy at how easy she was to handle to him. touya todoroki doesn’t know half of what it was to raise his child...but did that make you a bad mother? was there something he shared with kori that you didn’t? dabi hadn’t known what it was to love someone other than himself until he’d met you, but you’d spent your entire life around family and friends who took care of you and made you feel cherished every day. you had all of that before you had dabi, and you’d given it all up for him.

shouldn’t you be the one to easily put your daughter down for a nap? to soothe her tears? and for him to come so briskly into your lives and take care of it all when he doesn’t even know what you’d been through, hurts most of all.

“you don’t even know her,” you start, tremble to your bottom lip as the sob in your throat builds up and threatens to burst. “you never saw her after she was born, never cut the cord, never knew her weight. you don’t know how tiny she was when she came into the world, you don’t know because you didn’t come!” with each word, stray tears manage to escape from your tired eyes, but you’re too fixated on dabi to bother to wipe them. it hurts to cry, it stings even as they stream down the apples of youth cheeks but you don’t move.

“yn, sweetness, i—“

“i know how much she weighed when she was born, four pounds and thirteen ounces. she was so tiny i was scared that she would break—“ you’re gasping now, almost choking yourself out on the pain that burns brightly in your lungs and claws its way up your throat. “i know her favourite foods, what fabrics irritate her skin, her favourite stuffed toys, how she likes to be swaddled in her blankets at night or that her curls make her face itch but they’re practically untameable.”

you start to heave, losing breath with every word and dabi does nothing but watch, keeping an eye on kori to make sure she stays sleeping as he steps towards you. “i know that i love her more than i’ve loved anything in my entire life, despite how much i suffered alone bringing her into this world. and i know that i named her kori after the ice that frosted the windows of my hospital room while i waited for... you.”

touya remains emotionless while you descend into madness, letting you cry it out. “i’ve been watching...”

you want to scream, beat his chest and blame him for how insane you’ve become. “watching isn’t enough touya, she needed you. i-i needed you.” you whimper, falling limp against the door frame as your hands move threateningly towards your hair as if you’re going to rip it out from the root. “...you couldn’t come and visit? not once i-in the eleven months that she’s been alive? not once while she’s been breaking me down and giving—“

“giving you a hard time? i tried, i took care of you from afar...i’m the one who made your boss disappear. the one who put his hands on you.” dabi sneers towards the end of his once gentle words, standing a breaths width away from you. you hate that you crave the same touch from him as he gave to kori, but you’re still so mad at him.

eventually, it all becomes too much and you succumb to the tears that wrack your exhausted body. you sway with each choked wail that tumbles from between your chapped lips and dabi surges forward to catch you after kicking the knife from earlier away, letting you sink into the warmth of his embrace. he feels like home, smells like safety and not a word is uttered as he brings you to the floor and cradles you like he did with his daughter.

dabi doesn’t need to say sorry when he shows you through how close he holds you to his heart.

when you finally calm down, dabi lifts you bridal style to your bathroom and draws you a bath with the salts and lavender extract from the cupboard above the sink. neither of you speak except for when he softly offers to help you undress— to which you decline— and when he tells you he’s going to fix something to eat.

you knew damn well that the villain could not cook, he hadn’t been when he was little since endeavour took away the entirety of his childhood and you’d only taught him the basics when he was still on the run and stopped by your place from time to time. his favourite thing back then had been to watch you cook to the weird music you kept playing, hips swaying to the beat and a sparkle in your eyes— but you didn’t do that anymore, he could tell those days were long gone.

dabi orders in takeout in the end and you have half a mind to curse him out for using your money— but the day’s events have exhausted you beyond your wits end, so you eat with him in silence atop your double bed after dressing in an old shirt of his. “stay the night.” is what you tell him, scared that he’ll leave. he puts his cigarette out on your balcony. the doors usually stayed locked so kori couldn’t crawl out on her own but you opened it for him since dabi liked to smoke and you hated the ash.

he promised to quit back then, and he hadn’t now.

“i’ll stay.” dabi says, throwing the butt over the ledge and stripping his clothes as he follows you to bed. he decides not to mention he wanted to stay anyway. you peel back the covers enough for him to slip in behind you, heated arms wrapping around your waist and settling on your tummy, where he rubs small patterns into your skin. the villain’s chest is  overwhelmingly warm against your back— reminding you of the days where you would spoon and he’d wait with baited breath for kori to kick.

both of you lay together, wide awake in the dark for goodness knows how long. touya’s breath balmy against the nape of your neck and if you focused hard enough, you could feel his eyelashes fluttering against your skin. he pretends to sleep, refusing to acknowledge that his proximity to you affects him in the worst of ways— evident in how his prominent hard on presses against the swell of your ass.

rolling over, your heart skips a beat at the way your love’s eyes still manage to glow brightly in the dark— ignited by the flames of his quirk and emotions of angst from the past.

they flicker as he looks to you, pale skin illuminated by the silver moon slipping in from your balconies, scars as enticing as ever. tentatively, you reach a hand out to cup his face, not kidding the apprehension that paint his matured features even as you run your fingers down the scars on his jaw. “been a while since we’ve been like this,” is all you can muster up, leaning forward to press a kiss to his cheek while your free hand snakes between your bodies in an attempt to pleasure the man.

fear strikes you right in the chest, leaving you panting as dabi flips you onto your back quickly, pinning your wrists against the bed. “don’t,” he growls, almost feral in tone and in his eyes. “don’t do something you might regret in the morning.”

you lay still, staring at the man above you in an attempt to read him. doing so had always been hard, but tonight you can see every detail of his life and every part of him.  the fear of being his father and disappointing another group of people, a broken man torn between the people he loved and the life he led— you could finally see him. you wondered if it hurt him to be away from you and his child, if he ever thought of you.

you take a deep breath, fabric of the sheets fuzzy in your ears as you shake your head up at him. “i could never regret being with you,” you sigh, dabi’s gaze lowering. “i just need you...”

your proclamation is all the permission dabi needs before he ascends on your neck, almost whimpering at the taste of your skin against his tongue. you know that he’s avoiding your lips, scared that things may not feel the same if he kisses you there— as if your love might have fizzled out from the months that you’ve been apart. the villain’s mouth is hot against your skin, sharp teeth sinking into the column of your throat— it’s not hard for him to find the spots that make your back arch and body tingle, the dark haired man  would be embarrassed to admit that he had your body mapped out in his brain. you were all that he thought about in the months between then and now.

you miss his lips, but you fear that if you push your love to far he’ll clam up and withdraw from you completely. you can’t lose him while you have him now. in the meantime, your bodies press against one another hotly, burning while dabi paints shades of blue and purple deeper than his eyes against your flesh before lapping at each love bite with an odd tenderness people wouldn’t think he possessed at first glance. as he works, touya loses grip on your wrists, allowing them free roam across the expanse of his back.

your nails leave light tracks across his back, trailing up from his muscled back to the nape of his neck— curling in the white roots of his hair in an attempt to tug him up to your lips. “baby,” the old pet name tumbles from between them before you can catch yourself, laboured from where you’re short of breath. “please kiss me, please..”

with newly mussed hair, dabi is still for a moment before leaving one last mark at where your jaw meets your neck— wet tongue lolling over the fresh bruise while his large palm move back to cup your head. a thumb belonging to a scared hand runs over your bottom lip, pulling the plump flesh down while he watches your face for a reaction. “are you sure that’s what you want, beautiful?” the villain chuckles into the dark of the night, pink muscle running over his own lips to wet them in anticipation. “you want your man to kiss you?”

your senses go into overdrive, desperate for any kind of contact from the man above you— he feels so close and yet, a million miles away, even with his body making its way between your thighs and your chests pressing together eagerly.

“touya—“ you breathe, barely able to finish your sentence before the man himself delves deep into your mouth. his lips move with hesitance at first, sucking on yours slightly and parting for air more often than he should but you grip him by the whites of his hair firmly and tug him further into the kiss. your tongue dances along the seam of his lips, prying them open as you seek permission for entrance— dabi groans lowly as you tug on his roots and force your way into his mouth, tasting him as if it were your last time.

you swallow each of his moans that mingle softly with your own, while your tongues dance together messily— the kiss were and sloppy as if the two of you were out of practice. your worries fly out of the window from there, it’s good to know that neither of you had been with others during your time apart instead you feel like a teenager making out with their highschool crush for the very first time. dabi’s hips rut into the plush bed beneath you both and you can tell that even the slightest touches are riling him up beyond belief— it’d been almost a year since he’d felt you against him in any way and it didn’t help that you were so ready to accept him.

that you still wanted him.

whimpering at the thought, the villain pauses against your lips to catch his breath— panting softly. you can feel him pulling away, questioning if he deserves to be with you after everything he’d put you through. so, cupping dabi’s jaw, you let your free hand slip between your heated bodies and glide your fingertips along the waist band of his sweats.

“yn, i ain’t so sure about this,” dabi sighs, body twitching at the proximity of your hands to his hardness, his eyelids flutter shut and lock away his beautiful blue eyes— holding fear, insecurity and desire. “what if ya’still regret this later on?”

smiling up at him, you thumb at his cheek and work your hand deeper into his pants, past his underwear. “you’ve been away too long baby, i would regret not being with you more,” you coo up at him just as you grasp at his hardened length, watching as dabi shudders in your grip. his cock leaks hotly against your soft palm from going untouched for so long, your fingers explore him— tracing down the thick veins on the underside of his length. “let me make you feel good tonight.”

“fuck, sweetness. talk pretty with that filthy fuckin’ mouth of yours.” touya breathes heavily against your mouth, both of yours falling open in hot moans. cheekily, you run a thumb over his tip, circling the slit at the top. dabi collapses on top of you, burying his mop of salt and pepper hair into your neck as he drives his hips into your hand at his own leisurely pace. “y’better live up to those words—shit, don’t go letting me down, princess.” jade orbs finally open, heavy with lust and desire as the air around you tingles with a newfound desire to make each other feel good, settling on the planes of your marked and scratched skin.

your grip around dabi tightens while he fucks into your closed fist, wet sounds filling the room from where he leaks at his bright red tip— almost hot as his hands that dance up your sides and tenderly touch at your hips. so unsure, yet so needy. clear, thick precum guides the movement of your hand as it slides up and down your lover’s girth— he’s much bigger than you remember, swollen with an impending orgasm and dabi stutters when you reach further down his boxers to grip at weighty balls full of his seed, just about ready to burst.

he howls from deep within his chest, the noise only muffled from the drool that glides across his tongue before the villain’s wandering and scarred palms stop at your rib cage, settling just under your breasts. you don’t bother to stop pleasuring him even as his quirk ignites, blue flames burning right through your night shirt to expose your skin to the cool night air.  without even a second thought, dabi’s mouth ascends on your tits, taking one into the hot cavern while his free hand seers marks over the other.

the thought have being branded by your man makes your hips jump and your hand squeeze his cock in your grip— a reminder of what’s to come later on. his strawberry tongue rolls across your hardened nipple and you yelp in surprise with the sudden feeling of cool metal across the exposed flesh. “y-you have your tongue pierced?” you squeal as dabi repeats his actions, loving the way you arch your back into his mouth and your heart rate speeds up.

“never know when a bit of metal’s gonna come in handy, sugar tits.”

you barely have time to formulate a response before your boyfriend’s mouth is back on you, biting and sucking and marking your raw flesh like a man starved of his last meal— you don’t let up either, quickly pumping his cock as he continues to leak, painting your hand with teases of his incoming release. you’re sure that his sweatpants and the sheets below you will be stained with his arousal from how much precum oozes from his dick, slicking up your hands and creating the perfect flashlight but you don’t dare to think of anything else but the way dabi’s face twists with pleasure as he desperately thrusts himself into the softness of your palm.

his cheeks flush red, globs of drool connecting the roof of his mouth to his tongue while his eyes grow fuzzy at each step he takes closer to orgasm, the very drool from his mouth covers each of your breasts as dabi switches between them— creating a layer of wet against your supple skin that shines under the moon. you flick your wrist around him, faster, harder— giving the villain everything you’ve got to make him feel good.

“shit pretty girl, y’gonna make me...cum,” touya shakes in your grip, eyes crossing and tongue becoming lazy against your marked up chest. his salvia pools against your skin while he pants and fucks your wet hand as if it were your pretty little cunt clamping down on him. “fuck, fuck, fuck. don’t you fuckin’ stop, don’t you dare fuckin’ stop...”

he barks out the demands, but there’s a neediness to his tone and whine to his voice that makes you grin with pride, even if you’re barely there from having your nipples stimulated beyond belief. “cum for me touya, please, wanna feel you come undone for me.” you beg him, ever so slightly and it’s just enough to push the villain over the edge, sending him into an earth shattering orgasm. you don’t dare to stop as you jerk him off, guiding down from his high as his cock twitches from release and paints your knuckles with the thick white of his seed. he mewls contendly into your breasts, slowing his hips while the world of colours dance behind his cerulean eyes.

“here with me yet?” you murmur to him, grasping his wild locks to tilt his head up towards your face— dabi looks so blissed out but the smirk on his raw and bitten lips tells you the night is far from over.

pressing a searing kiss to your sternum, your boyfriend’s pierced tongue makes yet another appearance as he trails the muscle down your soft tummy— biting your navel as he goes. “never left gorgeous, but don’t you fucking dare think for a second that this is over, y’got that?” he sits up quickly, grabbing hold of your doughy thighs and using them to pull you down the bed. the pads of his fingers start to burn marks into your skin, dancing along your legs and stopping just above the waistband of your underwear. “gotta stretch this cunt open before i give you my cock, remind you of who the fuck you belong to.”

spreading your thighs nice and wide, you release a breath you hadn’t realised you’d been holding as dabi’s hands finally come into contact with your slit, prodding at your slick folds from over your panties. lowering his face between your open legs, your boyfriend hums in satisfaction as he peels your sticky panties away from your pussy. “why, babydoll, you’re so fucking wet down here. this can’t all be for me, can it?” touya teases you, hot breath fanning against your unused sex while his fingers play with the string of your slick that coats them. “y’must’ve missed your man badly for your lil cunt to look this fucked up, s’pecially when i haven’t even touched’ya yet.”

you shiver and nod weakly, willing to say or do anything to feel more of your boyfriend against you. “s’all for you dabi, o-only you could get me this wet, n-no one else could take your place...” you mewl, hips bucking into the air while the man himself watches you grow needier and needier, hormones expelled into the air. dabi grins, leaning into your core once more to press his nose into your wetness, sniffing your spiked panties like the dirty man he is— only to then lay his pierced tongue flat against your folds, tracing your hole with the muscle while his nose bumps at your clothed clit.

“saved this all for me, huh? you’re so loyal, sweetness. waiting for me all this time…” he kitten licks at your cunt until you’re writhing amongst the already solid sheets, forcing his spit into your hole from over the thin fabric of your panties, creating a more prominent outline of your puffy lower lips as your thighs quieter around his head. they threaten to close as he works on you through your underwear— teasing and prodding at your sex to see if you respond the same way to his touches as you used to.

you force your shaking through his black and white locks, grabbing hold of his roots in an attempt to pull dabi back to your heat when he lifts his head from between your thighs— pushing your lips into a pout. “no, no no, baby, please— need you to eat my cunt, want your mouth on me, please!” you cry out, but you’re quickly pacified by his scarred hand which cups your pussy— seat of his hand grinding into your clit.

“god, if i had known you were still this eager to fuck me i woulda come home a long time ago, babydoll.” he chuckles, licking up your inner thigh and biting down on the plush flesh. “need’ta get rid of these though, they’re getting in my way.” the villain gestures to your panties, making you watch as his quirk burns it’s way through the silky material until it’s nothing but ash against your sheets. you gasp as soon as your cute little pussy is exposed to the cool air, missing the warmth of touya’s pink tongue against it. “better.” he sneers, eyes bright and glowing in the dark with a new sense of feral desire.

thick digits press into your tight hole at the same time touya takes to sucking on your swollen clit, forcing their way up your velvet walls in search for your pleasure spot. dabi chuckles against your sticky folds as you begin to whine, hips rolling up into your lover’s face while his tongue draws rough patterns onto your bud. you’ve missed him, missed this. the nights where the villain dabi would sneak into your home, becoming your touya todoroki between the four walls that you shared— where you would spend nights seeing stars by his hand or his cock and he would make you his over and over again. the memories have you clamping down on his digits like there’s no tomorrow, greedily sucking them in as he strokes at the walls of your sex and makes your whole body shake.

touya works hard at pleasuring you, apologising for his absence through slurping the juices from your folds only for you to gush and paint his scarred chin with more of your nectar. the way you taste makes him dizzy, he could spend the rest of his life between your thighs and never miss the outside world like he did before tonight. he wants to be good for you, make you feel good too and it’s not enough to feel the ecstasy roll off of your heavenly body in waves— he wants all of you, mind, body and soul to belong to him.

you can barely breathe, leaking with every swipe of his tongue against you and every twist of his fingers inside of you. you can feel everything at once, the euphoria crackling across your brain, high on the way touya makes you feel. “god, t-touya, don’ stop...feel so fucking good…” you heave in a drawn out moan, barely able to tell what’s up and what’s down as the villain pulls his fingers from your slick hole and replaces them with his tongue ( only after they’ve pushed down on your g-spot over and over again ).

“you’re not the one giving orders, sweet stuff, oh no.” dabi reminds you sloppily, looking like a child with no table manners as your nectar smears across his face. for his own satisfaction, he delivers a harsh smack to your pussy, watching as your entire body jolts and jumps up the bed. “your cunt is mine and i’ll do what i want with it, show you how much i missed it.”

his possessive words almost set you off, the knot in your stomach growing tighter with every pinch of your nub and every swirl on his tongue inside your walls, committing every ridge to memory. your body burns and you’re not sure if it’s from dabi pressing against you so hotly or because of the desire that fuels the fire inside you.

“yours, yours, yours!” you chant like a mantra, high pitched and whiny— your voice mixing with the crude sounds of your own pathetic cunt, that grows louder when dabi spits on your clit to add to your wetness. he lets it drip between your folds, fingers to busy with stimulating you to catch it before it slides between your lower cheeks, opting to use his tongue on you instead.

“ya’like that don’t you? missed your whinin’ pretty girl, fuck, even missed making you a fucking mess.” you keen into his touch, babbling incoherent praises to the man between your legs as he spreads you wider by the ass with one hand and forces his fingers back into your cunt with the other. his fingers curl into a come hither motion, repeatedly pressing down on your spongy spot as he sloppily makes out with your puffy nub— taking only one, two, three strokes to make your eyes roll into the back of your skull and your orgasm to wash over you.

your body convulses, shaking as you’re hit hard by your release— juices gushing all over your lover’s face even as he refuses to let up. “t-touya no...no no...can-can’t,” you whinge, tears clumping in your lashes. dabi spreads your lips again, using three digits instead of two to continue stimulating your clit until another release builds up inside your lower belly— clear liquid gushing out of your abused pussy and staining the sheets below.

he hums proudly, pressing a lasting kiss to your fluttering hole before reaching up to your lips to do the same, barely allowing you the time to catch your breath— chest heaving while you come down from your high. “so pretty when you squirt for me like that, sweetness,” dabi moans into your mouth, allowing you to taste yourself on him. but as soon as he comes, he’s gone— rolling you onto your stomach and lifting your hips so your ass sits in the air for him. “gonna take my cock now, kay?”

“kay,” you mumble into the sheets, brain too  fuzzy to resist as the villain manhandles you the way he wants.

after shoving down his sweatpants, the eldest todoroki grips the peachy soft flesh of your ass— smacking it a few times with his heat activated palms to watch the flesh jiggle and his handprint sink into the skin. you lean back, watching over your shoulder as his cock stands at full attention, hard from seeing you come undone on his fingers and tongue. it burns bright red at the tip, another fat glob of precum making it shine and making you dribble with anticipation. “y’such a fuckin’ slut, my beautiful slut… hungry for my cock even after i’ve wrecked your lil pussy so bad,” dabi says with a cocky lilt to his voice, the very tone making your hole clench around nothing. he taps his sticky cockhead against your slit, running it up and down your cunt three or four times— groaning as it slides between your cheeks. the sensation causes your back to arch as you wail, fingers gripping the bed covers so tight that you almost cause them to tear. “don’t you worry baby, ‘m gonna make up for lost time, you don’t have to miss me anymore.”

there’s a double meaning to his words that you don’t ask him to elaborate on, too caught up in the way he teases your hole as he dips his length in— only to pull it right back out. “don’t tease, need you badly,” you plead, earning yourself another harsh spank to your raw ass cheeks.

“shut the fuck up and let me fuck you,” the words are harsh against his tongue, but dabi utters them softly as he relents to his wishes. his cerulean gaze flutters down to where your bodies begin to join, his large hand gripping his length before he starts to push into your dribbling entrance. “god, you’re s’fuckin’ tight, you might as well be a virgin.” pussy spasming at his words, you leak against touya’s cock, creating a lewd squelching sound as he pushes more of himself into you. the weight of dabi’s thick girth causes painful, yet delicious burn which he eases by rubbing soothing circles into your clit once more. “been s’long, i outta fuck you open again, huh?”

“uhuh, take me again touya. make me yours, all over again.” you slur over the spit drowning your tongue, eyes fluttering shut when the villain’s hips surge forward his dick brushes against your cervix. his rough, calloused palm grabs your neck from behind, forcing you down into the sheets while he bottoms out inside of you and pushes the last of his cock past your entrance. the two of you groan in unison, touya sitting heavy inside of your walls before you muster up the energy to say. “move.”

he doesn’t need to be told twice, whilst dabi was enjoying the feeling of being engulfed by your soft, warm insides— cock twitching in relief from time to time— he finds it within him to pull back from your selfish cunt to thrust into you with all his might. the force pulls a broken squeal from between your bitten and bruised lips, your hips pushing back against dabi to keep him inside of you. the pair of you move in sync, bodies dancing in a sensual grind between lovers that moulds your cunt into the shape of your boyfriend once more. “oh fuck yeah baby, oooh, missed your cunny s’bad…” dabi yowls loudly, listening for the squashy sounds of your sexes moving against one another. “christ, you like when i talk about your pathetic little pussy like this?”

you bite down on your lower lip, embarrassed by your own bleats of pleasure when he degrades you like this. annoyed by your lack of answer, touya grabs onto your hips and pulls you off of his cock, only to slam them back into you seconds later. his pace is unforgiving and relentless from there, forcing your body up the bed with every thrust into your core. “yes! like it, love it, missed your cock so bad touya!” you cry, holding onto the sheets for dear life as his dick drags along your pleasure spots and his hands burn marks into your ass and hips.

weakly, you attempt to match his thrusts. circling the meat of your ass back onto dabi and squeezing around the head of his girth every time it plunges into your sopping pussy. your arousals mix as he pounds away at your hole, a thick string hanging between your bodies and dribbling down your inner thighs, tainting innocent skin. the wet noise reverberates across the room, creating a passionate symphony with dabi’s deep, pitiful moans.

even though it had been a while since the two of you had been intimate like this, dabi still knew all the ways to get your body going. he took you from behind but still let his marred hands wonder and explore the planes of your skin, pinching here and there, marking your body as his to use and his alone. there’s love hidden beneath his rough touches, little signs that he missed having you so close to him— having you split open on his cock while you dripped on his pelvis and ruined your bedsheets, was his own way of unleashing his pent up emotions of love, anger and despair onto you and you wanted it. you wanted his good and his bad while he fucked you like his life depended on it, balls deep inside the pussy of the woman he loved was where he was most vulnerable with you.

“s-shit, sweetness, you’re such a pretty mess, so fucked up on my cock, can feel you clamping around me like my greedy bitch should.” you’re stuffed so full, clenching every time touya drives his cock deeper into your gummy cunt, head prodding at the sensitive bundle of nerves inside of you. he’s losing his mind at how you choke out his iron hot girth, clear liquid seeping down your thighs at every thrust. “you’re my beautiful brain dead baby, letting me fuck you like this, yeah? missed you baby, missed this,” despite his words, touya is no better than you, mind hazy with thoughts of you creaming around him because of how good he’s made you feel. him, and no one else. you saved yourself for him after all these months, the least he could do was bring you to cloud nine.

he does so by angling his thrusts up to meet your pleasure spot every time, howling your name in the way he knows you like just to feel your hot cunny spew more of your juices out against his tummy. “missed you, thought about this for months,” you lament, elbows that kept you up finally giving out as your body tiredly collapses into the sheets— dabi’s balls still clapping against your ass. he follows you down into bed covers, chest pressing hotly against your back as the jackhammers into you from behind. “thought about your fat cock in my tight pussy, t-touched myself to you...made being alone worth it, made waiting for you to come home worth it. ‘cause i get to see your beautiful face when you fuck me…” you barely register what you’re saying, babbling incorrectly while the temperature of your body rises with your level of arousal.

behind you, touya’s cheeks burn with a new feeling. deep down, all he wanted was to be validated as a lover to you, he’d always been deemed as the bad guy incapable of feeling anything for anyone other than himself. but you, you had proved him wrong so many times and he still found your words hard to believe. yet, it felt good to know how much you loved him. snaking a hand down to your face, the villain squishes your cheeks together and brings you up to his own face despite the arch to your back— he keeps up his sinful pace, your lower cheeks bouncing with every push and pull of his length while he drips a globule of his saliva into your pouting mouth. “shut up,” he grunts harshly, although love is written across his cobalt eyes.

you smile up at him dopily, keeping eye contact with him as you swallow gratefully. “anything for you,” his hands slip from your squashed cheeks to your throat, cupping it as he holds you against him. more arousal pools in your lower stomach, turned on by the thrill of him being able to end your life right then and there, all it would take would be one flame but you know more than anything that dabi loves you and would never hurt you. “i love you, touya todoroki. i a-always will.”

your admission makes dabi’s heart stop in his chest, heated pants tickling your ear as he continues to take you and claim your body as his. with newfound vigor, he links his free hand with yours that lays against the bed and rams his cock into your core as hard and as fast as he can, determined to make you cum. “i—oh fuck, i love you too, sweetness…” the arsonist can feel the way your cunt flutters around his girth at his confession, tears building up in your eyes once more. god, you were so pretty like this, arched for him perfectly in the moon, stars illuminating every curve and dip on your body— showing off the stretch marks from where you’d carried his child. everything about you turned him on in the best possible ways and everything about you that turned him on, also turned out to be everything he loved about you.

your stupid big heart, your stupid big eyes when you say that you love him, your stupid smile when he used to kiss you and hold you and even now when he fucked you. touya todoroki was in love and in the worst possible way but he couldn’t say he regretted a single moment of it, not when you stayed true to him after all these months of being apart. you raised his child and you loved him all the same and a part of him is grateful that you never turned your back on him like everyone else he’s ever loved.

so the least he could do is make love to you, push his creamy cock into the depth of your core while kissing down your spine to watch you shudder oh so cutely. it’s messy and sloppy and the pair of you should feel nasty for the stench of sex in the air, lingering against your skin. but you don’t, how could you? not when love and adoration tingles in the air as well, it’s messy because of the unadulterated emotions you feel for one another— deep in vulnerability is where dabi grinds his cock slowly into you, hitting all the right places that make you scream his name into the night. makes him mumble incoherent praises against your bruised neck and squished cheeks as he lewdly licks a stripe up the column of your neck to behind your ear.

you gush around him and he grunts with ecstasy into your ear, tightening that knot in your stomach as you both step closer to your highs. “you like the way i fill this cunt up, huh? yeah? when i hold you like this, when i fuck you like this?” dabi mutters to you lewdly, holding onto his sanity by a thin thread as his own release sneaks up on him. “tell me you like it...fuck sweetness, please.”

“i love the way you fuck me touya, fuck! only you can make me feel this good,” you moan to appease him, bouncing back against his cock while his hips begin to stutter and your eyes begin to cross. it’s true, you love belonging to him, being able to bring him such pleasure and you know he feels the same way. the villain prods at your g-spot over and over again, stealing your breath away as he pulls you up and into your chest, changing the angle of his hips to bring you to the last hurdle. “baby—ohmygod—-touya! ‘m sososo close, don’t stop...don’t stop, gonna cum, give it to me, give it to me please!” you chant, eyes fluttering shut as you lean your head back against his shoulder and search for his hand, voice rising with every octave as you get closer and closer.

“fucking cum for me sweet girl, shit, cum all over this fucking cock.” dabi manages through gritted teeth, grasping your hand while the pace of his thrusts grow inconsistent.

that’s all that you need to hear before the damn breaks and arousal floods through your entire body courses through your veins. white dances behind your eyes in flashes as your release flushes out of your pussy and drips between touya’s balls, coating them in a layer your honeyed slick. you slump against your boyfriend, not able to mutter a word as you convulse in a silent scream and squeeze both his hand and cock alike.

gently, he pushes you down to the bed and pulls his cock from your intoxicating heat— his free hand clasps around his cock, palming himself towards a swift release. “yeah, oh fuck yeah, fuckin’ love you baby,” he cums on your back and your ass, thick, potent and milky seed landing on your flushed skin before he collapses beside you and exhaustion settles in his bones.

you black out for a few minutes after, fingers still intertwined but dabi manages to slip out long enough to retrieve a washcloth that's damp and warm to clean you both up with. you wake up just as he crawls back into bed with you, kissing your hairline while he makes himself comfortable. “almost thought i’d killed you for a second,” the villain jokes, slinging a loose arm over your bare waist and pulling you to lay on his chest.

“you couldn’t, even if you tried.” you counter sleepily, drawing star shapes on your boyfriend’s naked stomach. a comfortable silence sweeps over the room, despite the thoughts that linger on your mind. looking up at dabi, you notice him drifting off but still can’t help the words that slip from your lips. “why didn’t you ever come back?”

you feel dabi’s chest rise and fall with a deep sigh, fingers coming up to scratch at your scalp— something that used to help you to sleep when you were together before. “i was figuring out a way to get out of the league, to be with you and kori.” he says after some time, catching your eye as you give him a confused look. “shigaraki doesn’t know about her, i never told him. but i knew from the moment we found out about her, i didn’t want her to be a part of the life i’m involved in and knowing how the league works, they’d find a way to make use of her.”

you stay quiet, not knowing what to do with the new information and dabi’s reasoning for staying away for so long. on one hand you were grateful to him for keeping your daughter quiet and safe but part of you still wished he’d given you a sign to let you know it’d all be okay. grabbing your chin, he forces you to look up at him—passionate flames burning in his eyes. “i need you to trust me on this one sweetness, i promise nothin’ will happen to you nor kori. so long as i’m around.”

“pinky promise?” you ask him sweetly, feeling the truth to his words.

you hold up your pinky to the villain’s face, smiling through exhaustion as he rolls his eyes down at you. “pinky promise, babydoll. now get some shut eye, kay?” touya links your pinky with his, scoffing when you make him kiss them.

“g’night, touya.”

“sleep well, babydoll.”

the bed is cold when you wake up the next morning.

the panic sets in quickly, speeding up with the chirping of birds from your balcony outside. you shouldn’t be tearing up over the childishness of a pinky promise. he always made you promises but never actually kept the and as quickly as dabi had waltzed back into your life, he had left you alone and in the cold once more.

gathering yourself together, you stumble out of your bed— avoiding any mirrors that may show the cascade of marks dabi had left against your skin from the previous night. you feel embarrassed and ashamed that you let him back into your life so easily, especially now that you had kori to think about. tears start to well in your tired and puffy eyes as you head to the kitchen, thinking that a mug of coffee will calm you down before you prep your daughter for the day.

but as you wander out of your room, the familiar sound of your baby girl’s laugher drifts through the air— seemingly coming from the kitchen.  the sweet melody calls out to you and suddenly your casual stride to the kitchen becomes a brisk walk so you can reach her faster. “kori? baby? did you climb out of your crib again—?” you call out to her, stopping in your tracks when you round the corner.

dabi stands in the middle of your kitchen, still shirtless, with kori balanced on his hip— in one hand he holds a small blue flame, which you’re sure he believes is safe enough for kori to play with while the other steadies your baby girl while she claps and squeals. a first. you’re not too sure when the last time you’d seen her happy was, but you figure her father’s presence had something to do with it.

“i was going to make you breakfast, but the little shit woke up and i didn’t have enough free hands to make you a grilled cheese.” touya smirks over at you, diminishing his flame to grasp kori’s hand and use it to wave at you. she squeals happily, curls bouncing and eyes lighting up in a similar way to her father’s. your heart melts at the sight of them being together, seeing the mannerisms that they share and how joyous they seem. they both grinned the same way, shared the little twitch in their noses and even their sneezes. kori todoroki was an exact replica of touya todoroki, right down to the tiny red curl she had lost in her white locks.

“you know, i thought you’d left,” you make your way across to the island where dabi sets his daughter down and check her temperature— just in case her sudden change in mood is down to any sickness. “the bed was cold when i woke up.”

“didn’t i make you a promise last night, sweetness? i’m not going anywhere,” the arsonist reminds you, wrapping his arms around you from behind while you wipe at kori’s pudgy baby cheeks and give her the once over again. “if you’re checking the kid’s temperature, she's usually pretty cold because of my mom’s quirk. something ice related will be coming through, but she must’ve inherited your strong constitution. guess she has a normal body temp when i’m around ‘cause it balances her out.” while dabi explains the inner workings of kori’s incoming quirk, she claps and babbles excitedly from her place on the island— making a game out of throwing her toys off of it. all of dabi’s logic makes sense and you seem a little more relieved knowing how to take care of her from here.

picking her up, along with her stray toys, you set your baby down by her playmat again and switch on some baby-safe cartoons while you fix yourself and dabi some coffee, kissing all over kori’s face beforehand. he had whined when you pulled away the first time to give your daughter some attention, it was almost comical how the big bad villain had pouted then. “i wonder if there’s anything of mine she inherited or if it’s all you and todoroki genetics.”

“well, her pretty smile certainly didn’t come from me, babydoll.” dabi muses with a light chuckle, arms trapping you against his chest once more as you continue to make you both some much needed caffeine. the coffee machine whirrs as you sway together in the early morning sunshine, warmth from the sun brushing against your skin and touya’s hair tickling your neck before he presses kisses over your fading love bites while kori’s annoying shows play in the background. everything feels complete and at peace. you feel like a real family. “i could get used to this, this life with you.”

you spin in dabi’s arms, cupping his cheeks and taking in his face for the millionth time in the last twelve hours. “then stay, or at least visit some more now that you’re back. you may not feel it, but kori and i need you. everything has always been better when you’ve been around touya… and i mean that. stay.” you stare at him with pleading eyes, standing on your tiptoes to stare him down and communicate just how much you needed him here with you both.

and for once in his life, touya todoroki feels the most loved he’s ever really felt. here in this shitty two bedroom apartment with his angelic little girl and his beautiful girlfriend during the winter season— touya knows this is right where he needs to be. “i’ll stay, for as long as you’ll fuckin’ have me.”

“forever, then?” you ask, eyes lowering to your boyfriend’s lips.

“forever it is, babydoll.” the villain nods, following your gaze before leaning down to capture your lips with a promise written into your sweet kiss.

extended ending

you thought that the best kind of weather was when the sun peeked out from behind the clouds but the air around you was still as cold as a december’s day. the breeze is enough to make your nose run just a little, but occasionally the warmth of the sun’s rays radiates across your skin like a warm blanket, balancing it out.

it was the kind of weather where people didn’t know how to dress, some wore mismatched shorts and jerseys whilst others were decked out in scarves up to their cheeks and sandals where their toes flopped out. it was the kind of weather that reminded you of dabi and kori, they were your warmth and your cold, they balanced each other out and made your family whole.

kori sits on your right hip as you push the car door closed and wave goodbye to an accomplice of your boyfriend’s— your driver for the evening. your little girl’s curls are combed back into two even pigtails, dark blue bows in each one while the red lock of her hair ( now, much longer ) curls against her forehead stubbornly. she looks so pretty, all fancied up a dress that dabi had chosen for her on this particular occasion, the lace irritated her only slightly but the decapitated endeavour plushie her father had gifted her served nicely as a distraction.

you bounce her once, cooing down at your baby before you look to the hospital in front of you— a look of determination in your eye. ever since the night touya had visited you and swore to stay, he’d kept his word to the best of his abilities. being a villain was still a major factor in your relationship, he came when he could stayed if his job permitted it— taking care of your daughter when your shifts were long and even going as far as to learn his and kori’s favourite recipes to cook on the nights where you couldn’t or you didn’t fancy take out.

in the last few weeks his visits had become slightly more scarce with shigaraki becoming more and more demanding, but touya’s plan to leave the league was slowly coming to fruition along with endeavour and the hero society which had both carved a life of struggle for the three of you.

your boyfriend being busy had given you more time to reconnect with the friends you had lost over the last year, meeting up with those from college, mina and tsuyu ( who’d simply thought you’d gone off the radar ) for kori’s first birthday. they absolutely loved her and your sweet girl loved all the attention she was getting. you even had the chance to reunite with your parents, who were more remorseful that you felt you couldn’t come to them for help than the fact that you’d gotten pregnant during college.

of course, they all asked who the father was and you simply told them that he had died ( which was half true ), using the excuse that you were embarrassed to be widowed and with a child at your young age.

shaking your head, you enter the hospital and recite the words that touya had made you practice the night before. you were here by endeavours orders and needed to see mrs.todoroki. your lover had used some sort of hack to put you on the list of visitors for his mother but one look at kori was all the guards and staff needed to let you through. a few nights prior to today, dabi had asked you to do one thing for him before it all went down, kissing your knuckles over some sushi take out.

so despite your nerves, you would go through with this for him, especially if it meant your family could be together. some guards escort yourself and kori to rei todoroki’s room, leaving you with a curt nod and slightly more polite wave to your daughter. the room itself is slightly bleak, a chair and some blue cushioned sofas positioned in an L-shape parallel to the blanketed bed. there’s a tv in the top left corner which and a set of draws underneath where a clear vase sits— containing blooming blue flowers.

rei looks up when you enter, grey eyes flashing with confusion despite the blank look on her face as kori babbles happily in your arms. “who are you?” she whispers, hands retreating from her flowers and  folding neatly in her lap.

“oh! i’m yn, your son’s fiancé and this,” you beam kindly, further entering the room and being sure to lock the doors behind you. you nod your head down to your daughter who waves around her endeavour plushy— paying no mind to the situation unfolding. “this is our daughter, your granddaughter...kori todoroki! she’s just turned one and daddy thought it was about time she met you, isn’t that right pretty girl?”

“dada!!!”

rei blinks and you smile again. “she’s a daddy’s girl,” you explain and lift your hand to snow the small sapphire engagement ring on your ring finger. touya had proposed last night as well, certain your plan would work out. “and quite frankly, so am i! how can i not be when your son treats me so well.”

nodding slowly, the wife of endeavour looks down at her hands which you note, nervously fiddle with a stray petal. “so, natsu and you—?” you can see her trying to work it out, curiosity written across her features. you could see why the woman might think kori was natuso’s child— they looked a lot like each other just by first glance but rei was missing an important feature. the colour of kori’s eyes.

“oh no, your other son. the eldest one.” you correct her with a sinister shake of your head. swiftly crossing the room to set your daughter down in rei’s lap. you watch with an evil air of satisfaction as rei todoroki freezes with fear, as the mistakes her family paid out to touya suddenly come to the forefront of her mind. she wobbles with kori still in her grip and you shoot her a dark glare— reaching over to fix her flowers in their vase. “touya picked these out, always said that you loved them. such a pretty shade of blue, no wonder why they’re your favourites, right?”

“please leave.” she looks up at you pleadingly, shaking like a leaf in the breeze outside. oh how you wish your fiancé was here to see this but he had more important things to do.

rolling your eyes, you grab the remote to switch on the tv— pinching kori’s nose affectionately to make her laugh again. “come sit with me rei, let’s watch some tv to help you calm down.”

the woman nods weakly, barely moving an inch as you take a seat beside her with a smile. you skip channels a few times, pride swelling up in your chest when you finally land on the right one, touya’s broadcast flashing across the screen. he sits leisurely in a chair, shirtless with all of his beautiful scars on display— a painful reminder of his childhood and what he’d become. “i, touya  todoroki, was born as the eldest son of endeavour. today i’ve killed over 30 innocent people until now, some to protect my family. my daughter, who i have not been able to see due to my father. i would like to let everyone know why i’d end up committing such a hideous act.” he speaks such calmness and clarity, and you can’t help but feel emotional at how he stands in front of the world.

kori grins, leaping up at the sight of her father on the screen and claps her hands. “dada!! dada!! lookie s’daddy!!” she squeals while rei struggles to breathe, panic set in her eyes.

you put a hand on the woman’s shoulder, offering her a sweet grin in an attempt to calm her before the oncoming storm. “keep watching, mrs.todoroki, touya said we’d be one big, happy family after this.” the words are sugar coated and sickly sweet, carrying the dark meaning across to your fiancé’s mother.

looking away, your heart swells while touya tears down the hero society and spills the truth for all of japan to see. you were grateful to the man he’d become— loyal to you, to your daughter and the dreams that you had. the satisfaction of seeing the real villains of the world fall was much greater than any hush money enji todoroki could ever offer.

fin.

— TAGLIST:

@husband-to-tomura-shigaraki @grace-todoroki @toshiuwu  @whet-ones-write​

[kakubun]

boo boos

about: where bonten gets patched up by you.. eh except for a minoorrr error

a/n: i hate writing bonten because it's so damn cliche and "you're the only one i love" type of bs but it's addicting🔫🔫

warnings: mentions of blood and violence, chapter 189-206 spoilers‼️‼️, kissing in kakucho's part

tag tag: @rindousarus, @lucylikesbluehairedmen

(lucy idk who you like in bonten but here you go😭😭)

sanzu

obviously sanzu is the type to be careless and he sometimes would scratch his face whenever a bastard had a chance to touch him but he easily kills them off

most of the times (would say 3 times), he would be high and it's a completely wrong time for him to be sent off to a mission but he lives the risks of being high so he'll just take whatever the hell mikey gave him

it would be a lot more messier execution and blood would stick and drip down his face while rindou and ran asked him to wash off the stains of his face (no sanzu, doesn't matter if it's the results of your hardwork after pill popping and killing idc)

he eventually does clean off the grime on his face and felt a stinging sensation on his cheek, he touched up everywhere on his face and the scar was lined on the left of his cheek

he sighs with a grin and pressed the wound again and again, feeling the burn of the scar opening and closing

he hums as he slid into your private room to find anything to patch him up or maybe you.. if you could

he peeked from the door way and you were writing down.. who knows? whatever you were writing down was long forgotten when you looked up cause you felt a precense and immediately rushed to sanzu

"cmere you idiot" it's the shocking way to find out, you the partner of sanzu being the bigger person than him. the other members of bonten just watches sanzu being nagged by you like a mother a lot of times when his wild ass doesn't do things right and perhaps one of them let a snicker escape.

you grabbed onto his face gently but quickly pushing him onto a chair and he whistles like a tease to your concerned actions and you grumbled under your breath because of your wreck of a husband. you stopped going through the medkit and paused to look at him, he knows you wanted to pop a question so he tilted his head yo let him know what is it.

"um.. are you okay with hello kitty bandaids?" it was reasonable for him to laugh very loudly because you looked so nervous when you couldn't find any normal bandaids and you didn't say anything when you wiped a clean rag over him. well until he stopped laughing.

"i don't want to make you look like a fool infront of the other members, you clown"

"what are you a kid, why do you even have hello kitty bandaids in the first place hm~?" you told him with a smile threatening to grow on your lips that it was ridiculously cute that you had to buy it. don't waste your chance before it's out of stock <33

so he agrees,

one of the many things that his sweet partner can intoduce him is wearing hello kitty bandaids that fits his hair colour

he DOES NOT give two shits if any of bonten were to make fun of him, he doesn't care if he had to be called preschooler or that you were sending him to school but all that matters is to be showy with his glamarous bandaids that he had so he could remember that sweet expression on your face when he decides to wear them

it's completely okay if you called him extra because you know this man has the audacity to ask if you had hello kitty bandages if his arms bled

extra!!:

"sanzu, do you think this is a fashion show" you deadpanned at him when you see him sneaking on bandaids on his face, to what show you? because you know damn we this fool is wasting precious stuff during the time he won't need it.

he slowly starts peeling off another one when you start scolding him, giving empty threats on how you'll wrap him up in bandages to bury him later and the time you turn around again is where he quickly pushed the sticky bandaid on you.

"there, we're matching!" he points at the mirror or better he shifts you towards the mirror by grabbing your waist and loosely hugging it when you look at the glass when both you and sanzu had the cute bandaid on both your noses.

perhaps you shouldn't rub your temples and stress about this a lot because your husband will not take this seriously.

mikey

this was a boss we're talking about so mikey had to intervine because this smart group of asses are actually breaking into bonten's bank, carefully taken care by the haitani brothers

the boss got held at gun point before the last few seconds of his breath to get him to spill but mikey got impatient and accidently killed him too soon

mikey gripped the gun in frustration that his fingers could form a bruise with how hard he's holding it, an unfortunate turn of events had happened when the windows in all the rooms got smashed in by the other members of the sleaze he killed and managed to land a kick on his head

sanzu dealt with the problem quickly, blocking mikey from the enemies slinging the katana he had lazily on his side with a crazed glint in his eyes threatening the other members from getting way too close

the kick was unnessarily strong for no reason that mikey wobbled to his knees to the sheer impact the feet of the slain man (sanzu specially killed) could effect him so much

kakucho swiftly lead mikey out of the room whilst shooting down any person running in

mikey settled in your shared bedroom as he informed sanzu and kakucho to put him in the room whenever anything serious occured because he atleast wanted to see his beloved when he wakes up

the soft plush pilliows greeted his head as his half unconscious form laid on the bed before his eyes gave up and met darkness (like his impulses‼️‼️)

the taps of a wet cloth made him jolt out of his slumber and you panicked, telling him it's just you and you were just taking care of him while he's asleep. his head hurted when he shifted to look at you and you gently told him to rest when he feels bandages wrapped around his head.

he sensed your worry when your lips trembled on the face of his skin when you pecked kisses all over him and he couldn't help pulling you over into a hug which you squeled when you stumbled out of your chair.

"sleep with me love" he kissed you back on all the places you touched him with your lips to calm down the hurting beats of your heart when you see him writhing from the danger he put himself in, you held his face which he tiredly nodded to your thoughts which were all concerned for him.

you're worried if the head injury's bad, nah don't he shakes his head if you ever think that, he just needs to bask in the comfort of his love.

hours passed as mikey fell asleep in your arms, relaxed by your side when he wakes up but eventually he had to talk to the other bonten members for them to fill him in on any news

he reluctantly gets up because he wanted to still admire your sleeping face, the serene peace you were in as your chest slowly bumps on his arm when you breathe in and out when he shifts away made him feel bad but he had no choice

this was sonething he worried about and he didn't want to happen but he felt your fingertips on his back when you reached for him to stay

"mm.. mikey, your face.."

he touches his face feeling baindaids on it and he got on his knees to stare at your lips and to hear what you wanted to say

"um.. we ran out of actual bandaids from the last time you got hurt but i found my rabbit bandaids but i don't know if you want to go out to the others like.."

you stopped rambling when he puts his head down to laugh quietly to how worried you got, he shushed you to not get so concerned and he looks in the mirror to see the bandaids plastered on his cheek. he waved at you before going and shut the door noiselessly.

there's no need to be scared of his public image or whatever, mikey nonchalantly wore it around the members, he didn't mind if they let out an amused sound of them when the feared leader of bonten walks around with cute rabbits plastered on his face.

even he couldn't keep a grin from slipping out.

kakucho

they had divisions and they were given to kakucho and sanzu, mikey's trusted men

they supervised their own divisions and trained them with the basics they need to know in bonten, also giving the excuse to watch out for any spies or 'traitors'

with that the two had the time of their lives.. minus kakucho, sanzu was going crazy on his men and if you glanced quickly, you wouldn't notice how hard sanzu was on his men

there were times that sanzu might've just played all of them and kick their teeth out instead of doing warmups with them but kakucho's a lot more responsible while sanzu was respected in fear, everyone respected kakucho because of his strength and level headed behaviour

the division each took turn with kakucho, sparring with one another eventhough it might've taken a whole day because he wanted to see how capable they are without dreading that their lives would be in danger if he took his eyes off one of his men

let's just say some of them were really aggresive

while kakucho would applaud them for this to be absolute beasts in beating the hell of out of him in the session, he still tasted spite from getting pushed back and forth but he kept cool and thought this as a process for his patience

by the end of the day, everything's dismissed and sanzu would look at him with a toothy smirk because of how much damage he endured

sanzu calls kakucho reckless as he spits at him to clamp his mouth shut before a gun goes in it as bruises and scratches were on his face, the same with sanzu who liked the pain and took a while to patch up

kakucho looks in the mirror to see how bad it is and to how bad he flinched, he gets twitchy

he thought of you, he didn't want to hurt your feelings and see you glare at him in sadness on how rough things were at the headquarters when he trained so he tried his best to get rid off any visible marks on his face

it was time for him to go back so he bowed to mikey, a sign for him to leave and trudged home to see you again

it was at dead of night, clock nearing 1am when he greets the safe home an "i'm home" and he hears the television on, he slowly walks into the living room and placed a hand on the couch to pull himself to it to see you wrapped up like a burrito and snoring a little.

he smiled to himself, his lover leaving the movie they loved playing and accidently falling asleep which made him frown a bit when he realizes that you were probably waiting for him to reach.

he patted your shoulder and whisperes that he's home and asked for you to hold on when he carried you in his arms and hugged you tighter when you were all warm but your hands cold when he felt it sting against the back of his neck. he planted you on the cold sheets of the bed which you stretched like a cat to look up at him and he hisses at you not to get up so quickly when you held his face.

you smashed your lips on him which he didn't expect and he felt himself heating up to how straightforward you are, you missed him so much although it's been a day. you cursed at him for being an idiot for hurting himself all over and rested your forehead on his and he feebly says his apologies.

"but you're my idiot, c'mere" his ears red when you got off the bed to open up a medkit and he tells to stop and you were not having it and you grabbed his chin for him to look at you while he squirms a little when you also have to observe his face to look at his state.

you dragged to the shower and though he hates how troubled you were when he's hurt, he finds it endearing when you start bossing him around. he really needed someone to pull him out of his roughed up state with a little scolding.

also a bonus that he's also a simp for you so it's two good things in one to obey.

extra!!:

after the warm shower and the scrubs you did to each other, he felt relaxed while you threw yourself on the bed in sleepiness but you had to deal with some things first.

you straddled his lap while applying the bandaids on his face and he squints and looks closely at it, they were small [animal/s] dancing around on the bandaid and he left out a soft chuckle that made your heart leap.

"these [animal/s] are like you" you lift an eyebrow while pressing it down on his jaw and he explained on how you were the bigger person than anyone and 'ferocious' you were but he knew that you cared deeply about the people you love.

you lightly smacked on his cheek which made him yelp, if that wasn't the cheesiest bullshit he spewed then you didn't know anymore, kakucho has his face recognized as the respectable bonten 3 but he still had the heart of a boy holding his gifted new puppy.

[justkending]

Moral of The Story. Chapter One.

Summary: Marrying too young out of highschool leads to a naive and failed marriage. Now 10 years later, word comes that the divorce was never actually completed. Bucky and Y/N have to come back together after all these years to settle what wasn’t all those years back. Passive attitudes, miscommunicated endings, and reminiscing of an old love all comes back for the two.

Pairing: Bucky x Y/N

Word Count: 2600+

A/N: Ok, here is the first chapter! If you have not already listened to the song that evoked this idea from my imagination land, I suggest giving it a go! Moral of the Story by Ashe. I’m excited for you guys to see what this story brings and I really hope I do it justice! As always, comments and thoughts are welcome as they help me grow as a writer and let me see what you guys notice:) ENJOY MY LOVES!!! <3

(The posting will be once every other day until I have finished the series. If I finish early, I will post an update once a day:)

Read the Prologue here first!

Chapter One:

"You already got the flight?" Nat asked, perched on Y/N's couch as she ran around frantically packing. "Don't you have a huge meeting next week with that new business? What was it called? Bee's Knees?"

"Yes, but it's not until Monday evening. I highly doubt I will be there longer than a weekend to sign a few divorce papers. I'm planning on coming back early that afternoon, so I shouldn't miss it," she answered, not even stopping to look at her as she ran through the rooms and bathroom in the apartment.

"How soon did you book that flight?"

"As soon as I hung up the phone with Murdock," Y/N sighed. Nat sent her a questioning look not knowing that name. "New lawyer. The guy who took over for the sleazeball known as Justin Hammer," she rolled her eyes.

"Right," Nat nodded. "So, are you staying at your dad's house?"

"I would take my dad's house over my mom and Jerry's any day. You know this," Y/N paused in her actions, sending her a bitch face.

"I know. Just didn't know if you'd be all fancy and rent a hotel room to escape the smothering that is bound to happen from good ol' Mr. Y/L/N," Nat grinned.

"It's been so long since I've seen him not via facetime. And we both know that's barely seeing him as he doesn't know where the camera is even after a hundred calls," she laughed.

"Parents. Either they're technologically challenged or know how to work it better than us. Never in between and it's weird." Nat watched as Y/N froze in her stance and looked lost trying to think of something else to pack. Deciding she needed a distraction, Nat changed the subject some. "Hey, did you get Melody to go on that date tomorrow?"

"Yes!" Y/N answered proudly. "I know your aunt wants grandbabies from her daughter, but that girl just needs a night on the town more than anything. She's in her early 20's and holes herself up at the office almost more than I do, and I'm the boss."

"Cousin's got my work ethic. What can I say?" Nat shrugged smugly.

"Well, she needs to get your spirit in living some too."

"Touche," Nat pointed. "I need to have Yelena take her out. She's the real party sister out of us two."

"That is true. How she's able to party for 48 hours straight and still wake up at 8 am for mimosas, blows my mind," Y/N commented on Natasha's younger sister. "She's only a few years older than Melody, right?"

"Yeah, Yelena is 24, and Melody is 22. They were best of friends growing up, but once they got to high school, they kinda went different routes about life. Lana, the party gal, and Mel the studious bookworm."

"I'm not surprised by either of those," Y/N shook her head before collapsing next to Nat on the couch. A loud breath and sigh escaped her body.

Nat watched as her mind escaped back to the original issue at hand.

"What's going on in that brain of yours, Y/N/N?" she said, softly touching her shoulder. "Not that I don't already know, but maybe letting it out will help unscramble those thoughts."

Y/N lazily rolled her head to the redhead next to her.

"How is he?" she asked.

Nat was a part of their friend group from middle school through high school. She kept up with all of them still, whereas Y/N kept up with all of them except one.

"I actually haven't talked to him in a while. Steve on the other hand..." Nat nodded. "From that source, it sounds like Barnes is just as surprised and freaked out as you."

"He's freaked out?" Y/N asked, a hint of interest peeking out.

"Who wouldn't be? You get a call from a lawyer saying your marriage is still intact after 9 years of breaking it off, I would be freaked out too."

"He deserves it. I hope he's just as freaked out as me, if not more," she responded bitterly, crossing her arms across her chest like a pouting child.

"Y/N," Nat sighed.

"No. Don't. Don't defend him to me, it's pointless," she put up a hand. "I know you're still friends with him, but you guys still don't understand the pain that that man brought on me."

"He fought for you, Y/N. He didn't mean-," Nat countered.

"Again, you're wasting your breath. Defending him now does nothing to change the past," she said stubbornly, getting back up and carrying on with her packing. "You can still take me to the airport tomorrow, right?"

Her best friend wanted to keep pushing, knowing she had harbored this heartbreak for too long. Sure what had happened between them sucked and was a horrible chapter of their lives, but neither made an effort to talk it out and understand the other's side of the story. Faults of being young, immature, and not knowing how to handle a grown-up decision.

"Yes, I'll pick you up at work at 10. Flights at 11:25, right?"

"Yes, and you know California traffic. That will probably get me there 10 minutes before my gate closes. I had to get an early flight though because that time difference is going to kick my ass. It'll be close to 5:30 in my head and 8:30 there by the time I land... " Y/N huffed, rolling her bag to the front door for tomorrow. "You mind taking this tonight and keeping it in your car for now? That way I don't have to lug it to work?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'll grab it on my way out. But we're still having a girl's night, right?"

Y/N laughed some before going to the kitchen to grab beers. "I Survived is already recorded and ready for us."

___________________

"Shit man... When's the last time you talked to her?" Steve asked, sitting across from his best friend in the chair diagonal from the couch, leaning forward on his knees after listening to the new news.

"Since I was supposedly signing our divorce papers. And even then, we didn't really talk. She sat there quietly straight-faced until it was signed and then rushed out the doors," Bucky sighed, still trying to wrap his head around the situation. "She was out of the state within the next hour."

Steve nodded before falling back into the single seat.

"So, do you guys have to see each other again, or is it one of those situations where you can sign separately?"

"I don't know. I just got off the phone. All I know up to this second is that Y/N and I have been married for the past 9 years without knowing it," Bucky said somewhat harshly. Steve didn't flinch at the tone knowing it wasn't directed at him. "I'm sorry. I-I just can't wrap my mind around this."

"It's ok. This is crazy shit, Buck," Steve waved off. There was a long pause before Steve decided to ask the question he was sure anyone would want to know. "Do you want to see her?"

Bucky slowly looked over to the blonde. God, he had been asking himself that question for the past 10 minutes himself.

On one end, yes. He wondered where she was now in life. How she was doing. What accomplishments he knew she would be making. He knew a few small things just by the whispers and small talk of her with their shared friend group that he still hung out with, but a majority of the time, they didn't bring her up around him. They knew what it did to him.

On the other end, he never thought about facing her again. I mean maybe for the year after their divorce, but when he never heard anything back from her all those times he still tried to reach out and she blocked him on almost all forms of social media, he gave up any hope of them falling back into good terms again. He hated it, but he wasn't going to push her when she clearly hated his guts.

And honestly, he deserved it. His young, stupid, college self was not a smart guy when it came to relationships. Even ones that had been there from the beginning of time practically.

Yet again, she wasn't perfect either. She made some mistakes of her own that pushed him to act the way he had.

"Hey, you both are older and more mature now. I'm sure you if you guys do have to see each other again, you can handle it like adults," Steve reassured, seeing Bucky's face turn to a soft frown. "Ok, so she may be a little stubborn..."

"A little?"

"Ok, a lot. But she's older now. She's not the 19-year-old girl that you remember," Steve defended.

"I believe that but I'm sure she still holds a grudge that is very, very, very, very-," Bucky was going to go on about 10 more very's before ending with BIG, but Steve cut him off.

"You don't know that," Steve shook his head.

"Really? Because usually when you no longer hold a grudge against someone, you might just reach out to that person and reconnect possibly," Bucky argued. "I mean that's what mature people do, right?"

"Not always..."

"So she's either not mature or still just as stubborn. Hell, for all we know, both," Bucky shrugged, pursing his lips.

"If you go into this with that mindset, nothing good is going to come out of it." Steve pointed an eyebrow at him.

Bucky rolled his eyes not replying to Steve. He knew he was right, but he was still bitter after all these years about how Y/N handled the situation. Sure, he messed up, but she had to. Yet she made him into this big bad wolf that was at 100% fault in the downfall of their relationship. It made him feel like shit, and though he tried to make amends knowing he did some fucked up things, she acted like she was Miss Perfect and didn't do anything wrong the entire time.

Damn, even after all this time, it still lit a fire in his chest with annoyance and hurt.

"When's the meeting?" Steve once again interrupted his thoughts.

"I guess Saturday morning. They said they were coming in on their off hours to fix up a few cases they found like ours," Bucky answered.

"How many cases were there?"

"Eh, I think he said it was single digits, but there were a shit ton of other cases in different areas that were worse off. The divorce ones are a small number compared to those."

"Damn. That sucks for all the couples who got a call today then," Steve huffed, running a hand down his face.

"Yeah, you're telling me..."

"Hey, we were going out with Wanda and Vis tonight. You still up for that, or...?" Steve stood up.

Bucky looked back at the beer on the coffee table and then at the TV still playing I Survived stories quietly in the background.

"You know what? I'm going to need a stronger drink than an IPA to get me to sleep tonight," Bucky nodded, standing and wiping his hands on his jeans before walking to his room.

"Looks like I'm the DD tonight then..." Steve sighed.

___________

"Vis," Wanda motioned to her fiance as he came back from the bar. "Nat just texted."

"About what? How is she?" Vis smiled as he sat next to her with Sam across from him. Sam tagged along at the last second since his other plans got canceled.

"She's good, but it's not about her," Wanda waved off, still reading whatever lengthy text was sent her way.

"Wow, that looks like a novel," Vis noticed with wide eyes as he looked over her shoulder.

"Wait 'til you hear what it's about." 

Sam shook his head as he took a sip of the beer Vis had brought over.

After reading the rest of the text out loud from where she had left off, everyone at the table looked at each other with shock ridden faces.

"They're still married?" Vis said softly as if it was a secret.

"Apparently..." Wanda nodded with wide eyes.

"So that Hammer guy was a sham?" Sam questioned.

"I told her not to go to him. He had some shady hole in the wall kind of establishment," Wanda chided. "But she said they needed something cheap and fast. She hated his guts and wanted it out of it then and there. Plus, they were 19. They didn't have much money anyway."

"Why didn't they just ask their parents for help?" Sam questioned. "Isn't Y/N's mom loaded?"

"Yes, but she refused to help her. She said it was her own fault for getting married so young and that she had warned her. Told her she had to get out of the mess on her own," Wanda answered.

"What about her dad?" Vis jumped in.

"Bucky and her dad were close. She was off in Colorado for school and didn't want to put her dad through that or make him have to help her in cutting him off. Bucky was like the son he never had and they were bonded at the hip. No matter how much Y/N hated Bucky, she wasn't going to ruin or take away his relationship with her father. That would have been cruel, and Y/N is anything but that."

"Weren't Bucky's and Y/N's dad's best friends?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, they were old-time war buddies. They're the reason Bucky and Y/N had known each other since birth. But Bucky's dad died when he was about 13, and Y/N's dad, Thomas, kinda took him under his wing. Growing up a teenage boy without a father figure messes with you, and Bucky was on the edge of a bad path after losing his father."

"He's still rather close with Thomas, but I'm sure Y/N doesn't know that. Unless Thomas has said something, and with how everything came to an end for the two, I'm sure he doesn't bring it up knowing how tender of a subject Bucky is to her," Vis added.

"Makes sense..." Sam nodded. "I only knew you all from the start of college, so I'm still a little lost in all the beginning stuff."

"All good. It's complicated with those two. Their past and upbringing are so interconnected with the other, it makes their downfall all the more intense and messy," Wanda sighed. "God, if this is the news, he's going to be a wreck tonight..." She looked up worriedly at her fiance who shared the same concerns.

"It could go two ways. Either he comes in all solemn and says three words all night, or Steve's going to be the DD and he's waking up with a head-busting hangover," Sam noted with a small grin at the thought. "I'm going to go with the latter though."

"Poor guy," Wanda sighed, taking a drink with a sad face. Ever the sympathetic one.

"We'll be here to listen if he wants to talk. If not, we act like we have no idea and don't bring it up," Vision spoke up, throwing his arm over her and running his hand up and down her shoulder.

"I'm going to tease him still most likely," Sam shrugged nonchalantly. Wanda sent him a warning glare. "Fine, mama bear! I'll be nice... Until he starts making a fool of himself." He added the last part quietly.

Moral of the Story Taglist:

@taylormobley @ximaginx @vicmc624 @leyannrae

Marvel Tags:

@thejourneyneverendsx @death-unbecomes-you @heyiamthatbitch @lizzymacy555  @srrymydood @xa-dia @redhairedfeistynerd @morganclaire4 @connie326 @captain-asguard @mollygetssherlockcoffee @teenagedreams-bucky @shower-me-with-roses @pham-tastical

My Lovelies forever:

@natura1phenomenon @lauravicente @kakakatey @traceyaudette @notyourtypicalrose  @laneygthememequeen @awesome-badass-cafeteria-sauce @sandlee44 @thorne93 @thefaithfulwriter @essie1876 @greyeyedsmile14 @capsiclehan  @xostephanie @averyrogers83 @awesomenursingstudent @gh0stgurl @cs-please @carls1022 @jjlevin @rainbowkisses31 @anise-d-castle6 @deannotmoose @their-bibliophile @kitkatd7 @willowbleedsonpaper @mariaenchanted @snffbeebee @couldabeenamermaid @rebekahdawkins @alyispunk​ @princess-annna

Bucky Barnes Tags:

@chloe-skywalker @charmedbysarge @jbarness @bellamy-barnes @katiaw2 @aikeia

[augustheart]

46, 48, 51?

46. I wish they killed off ___ instead of [x].

obviously i wish they'd killed off almost anyone except for sue but other than that i'm having a hard time answering this question. i do definitely think that they should've killed off someone else instead of gehenna in blackest night, though. and i think it would've been better if al (or someone else, because i love al, but like... narratively... it'd fit best if it was al, in my opinion) died instead of grant (also in blackest night).

48. ___ should have stayed dead, let me explain…

barry should never have been brought back to life. his sacrifice meant something to the characters, especially the people who were closest to him, and it meant something to the readers that he'd gone to the marvel universe died saving just about everyone from a catastrophe at the end of crisis on infinite earths. there was no reason to bring him back other than nostalgia. they didn't even keep his backstory the same when they brought him back! they didn't even do anything interesting with him! speaking of which...

eobard thawne also absolutely should've stayed dead. his death was important because it marked a change in barry's character, and because of time travel nonsense we were still able to see him from time to time without it feeling like the death was undone (see: wally encountering him during chain lightning). we had a different and quite frankly more interesting character in hunter! his relationship with wally was interesting and weird! we didn't need to bring eobard back, and they clearly knew that when they did it.

51. Who’s the most misunderstood character?

ralph <3 i'm barely even joking it's ralph nobody gets that the only times he was an annoying sleaze it was an act to cheer up the people around him (or annoy whatever was annoying him, like in the waverider issue of justice league europe) or that he's genuinely incredibly smart. he's not stupid, his love for sue isn't shallow, and he loves his friends and family more than anything else, even fame.

[delaber]

Just Friends (Part 3)

Story Summary: After moving to America for a 3-month long internship, you meet two interesting characters on a boring night out.

Word Count: 2.2K

Pairing: Rafael Casal x Reader

Warnings: Alcohol, minor drug use, smut, slight dom!Rafa, swearing, and loads of British references (sorry not sorry lol).

Chapter Note: let me know what you think

Tag List:  lonelydance mysearchforgratification

Other Parts: See Masterlist

FIVE WEEKS LATER

With the amount of work you had had in the lab in December, five weeks passed by easily, and before you could truly process what had become of time, you had spent your first Christmas ever away from England.

Still, even though five weeks had passed by, you caught yourself thinking about this guy, this Rafa, annoyingly often. 

You couldn't believe that you had fallen for (what you assumed were) his regular normie cad tricks: He had talked you up, walked you home, made you feel special, and then he hadn't given you any sign of life since then - and now the complete lack of contact was driving you insane! You knew that he was only interested in the shag, and so were you to be honest, but it still annoyed you immensely that the mere thought of him roughing you up had taken over most of your thoughts.

As if Rafa was a professional womaniser, it had only taken him a couple of hours and an obnoxious fuck boy-attitude to etch himself into your brain. And five weeks later, he was still on your mind?! What was going on with you? If you'd only invited him inside to boff back then, he probably wouldn't even have been the least bit interesting here five weeks later.

Thus, irritated with yourself and your flair for the dramatic, you often cursed yourself for having left him on the pavement that night back in November. On the night in question, however, the need to stand up to his spoiled attitude had been stronger than the urge to let him win and shag him senseless - and as a result, you often found yourself fantasising about him when you lay in bed at night. So in a way, he had won anyway.

And you hated it. You hated that he had somehow gotten to you. The way he had acted around you had made you aware that this boy was an avid smooth talker who was probably used to get whatever and whomever he wanted by any means necessary.

And you were having none of it. Forgetting about him was definitely for the best. You needed someone to knock the naughty thoughts of him out of your mind. By any means necessary.

You had never really cared much for New Years Eve, but this year, you found yourself in the right spirit for the first time ever. You had changed into the most form-fitting, festive dress you owned in the hopes of meeting a cute guy with whom you could spend the night. A guy who could knock the last thoughts of Rafa out of your head.

In the mood for an eventful evening, you had showed up for Miranda's all-girls pre-party right on time, tagging your roommate Samantha along with you. The first part of the evening passed by quickly; you had loads of champagne and ate a fancy dinner at Miranda's place surrounded by all of her best friends and some of your colleagues from the Hospital. You had all clinked to the new year as the date shifted to January 1st and you soon found yourself in a taxi on the way to an exclusive party downtown that Miranda's friend had secured you all tickets for. Big, fancy parties like this wasn't normally your scene, but you could make an exception for tonight. It was New Years, after all.

You had arrived at the club, had had a few drinks at your private table, and had even talked to some pretty cute guys, but for some reason they all bored you. At one point you found yourself cornered by a handsome - but particularly boring - gentleman when Samatha finally saved you.

"I just flirted my way to a bottle of champagne!" she squealed as she came running towards you with a magnum flask in hand.

"You did what?" you laughed at your bubbly roomie, the bore of a man by your side already forgotten.

"I just asked a random guy at the bar if he wanted to buy a table of pretty girls a drink - and the patsy did," she laughed, "not in my wildest imagination had I ever expected him actually to do it," she squealed as she twisted off the cork with a loud pop.

"So you just let the poor guy pay for it and then you ran away?" you laughed at her while holding out your glass, waiting for her to fill it.

"I reckon he did it to make me go away - I think he may have found me annoying," Samantha laughed, "He told me to take the bottle back to my friends' table and clink his glass from a distance. Look, it's him over there," she raised her glass to a guy that you recognised immediately; you would've recognised those fluffy black curls anywhere.

Rafa's friend Diggs.

When he noticed you looking at him, he too raised his glass and sent you a warm smile, silently telling you that he definitely recognised you too.

"Hey; I know that guy," you said slowly, "I met him when I'd just moved here."

"You know him?" Samantha stared at you with a sly smile, "Probably why he was so eager for me to bring the champagne back to the table instead of drinking it at the bar with him. How well do you know him if you don't mind my asking?" Samantha wriggled her eyebrows.

"Not like that," you laughed, "I only talked to him for a couple of minutes."

Samantha nudged you with her elbow, "you should go thank him."

"Yeah," you hesitated, turning away from him, "I'm honestly surprised he even recognises me."

"Well, you must've made quite the impression," Samantha was still looking at him from over your shoulder, "Oh shit, he's coming over here right now," she squealed in a whisper.

"Be cool!" you laughed before turning around, suddenly face to face with Diggs.

"Happy new year," he smiled and squinted his eyes slightly, "I think we've met before."

You nodded, reciprocating his wide smile, "we have. You're Rafa's friend," the words escaped your mouth before you could stop them.

He nodded, "...and you're Rafa's girl."

You could feel your cheeks getting warm now, "I've had like an hour long conversation with him. I would hardly refer to myself as his girl," you squinted your eyes at the handsome man in front of you.

He shrugged and laughed, "you know what I mean."

You cleared your throat, "well thanks for the champagne. You really didn't have to."

"I wanted to," he smiled, "I was hoping to catch your attention."

"Why? We've exchanged about ten words..."

"Yeah, but I'm sure Rafa would love to see you again."

"He's here?" your eyes widened. The mere thought of meeting Rafa again tonight was making your heart beat faster. You reminded yourself that you needed to keep your cool. He may be handsome and charming but he was also loud and obnoxious and a sleaze.

"We have a table in the back," Diggs nodded and pointed to an area that was cordoned off with red rope, "you should come with me."

"I don't think so," you managed to say with as much clarity as you could muster. You needed someone to help you get rid of Rafa - not indulge further in him. He was dangerous.

"Aw, come on," Diggs smiled charmingly.

"What makes you think he even wants to see me?" You tried, "as I said; I've had an hour-long conversation with him over a month ago."

"Trust me," he smiled convincingly, "I know my best friend. Are you coming or what?"

You weren't exactly sure whether it was a good idea or not. You were quite sure that if Rafa was acting just half as charming as last time, you'd be throwing yourself at him at the first chance you got and you were scared that his bad boy demeanour might lead to you wanting more even though you were going home in a couple of weeks. ..But then again, you were on the prowl for someone who could knock Rafa out of your head. Maybe actually being with him would be enough to finally close that chapter.

"Oh, she's coming!" Samantha said loudly while giving your back a small shove.

"Great!" Diggs shot you a blinding smile and stretched out his hand for you to take.

"Uhm, okay..." you said, actually glad that Samantha had made a decision for you.

As Diggs pulled you towards him, you looked back at Samantha who was looking at you with huge eyes and moving her lips without any sound, "who's Rafa?" she mouthed.

"I'll tell you later, okay?" you whispered to your friend.

Samantha tilted her head and whispered back, "well, if all of his friends are just as handsome as that guy," she nodded towards Diggs, "you're coming back for me!"

You laughed at her, "of course. I'll see you later," you said before taking Diggs' hand, following him straight through the club's dance floor and towards the closed off area.

When he reached the bouncer, he pulled up his sleeve and showed him a stamp on his wrist. "She's with me," he nodded towards you and the bouncer stepped aside, letting both of you enter the scene behind the red rope.

"Is this some sort of VIP area?" you asked Diggs as you took in the room that had been closed off to the rest of the party. The tables back here looked far more fancy and were lined with much more expensive booze than what had been available where you had been sitting only moments before.

Diggs looked at you with a weird expression, "Uh yeah..."

"It looks very expensive."

"Yeah, well..." he looked a bit uncomfortable, "we  - uh - we have a good friend who's a bit over the top with these things, but we just roll with it."

He sounded weird. Almost as if he was lying. You quickly shrugged it off, however, telling yourself that of course he was being honest; it would've been a weird thing to lie about. "Must be a good friend for you to spend this amount of money on his comfort," you mumbled as you watched a girl open up a bottle of ridiculously expensive vodka.

"Yes, well... come on," Diggs said and urged you to follow him.

You scanned the room as you tagged along Diggs, noticing several low-key famous people that you were sure were known for something semi-popular but that you couldn't quite place your finger on. You'd never really been the type to care for fame. Still, you turned to Diggs and asked, "hold up; are you famous or something?"

Diggs sent you a shrug, "...or something," he said mysteriously and pointed to a table in the far back, "our table is over there."

Slowly, you turned your gaze away from him with a feeling that you were definitely missing out on something. You followed the direction that he was pointing in and found a table lined with people. You quickly scanned their faces, eyes landing on Rafa almost immediately.

Just as you had expected, he was laughing obnoxiously loud, his Adam's apple bouncing up and down in his throat in time with his vociforous outbursts of laughter. He was wearing a dark suit and he had his blonde hair slightly slicked back, making him look particularly dark and handsome. It was pure sex.

Okay, you definitely needed to keep your cool.

He was chatting up a very attractive girl who was twirling her black hair between her fingers and smiling suggestively at him. His signature charming smile was in place as he leaned closer to her and whispered something in her ear. Whatever he was saying was definitely working as she kept touching his arm and batting her eyelashes seductively. He seemed to enjoy the attention, scooting closer and closer to the beautiful woman with each passing sentence. The sight of it made your stomach drop slightly.

You contemplated turning around and go back to Samantha before Rafa had had the chance to see you. Clearly, he was busy. You told yourself that you didn't want to be the reason why he was striking out with this girl who he was clearly trying to charm the knickers off - when in reality, you were angry with yourself; It was stupid of you to think that he actually wanted to see you when he hadn't stopped by since that night five weeks ago.

You took a step backwards to go back to Samantha but immediately felt Diggs standing behind you like a concrete wall. His palm came into contact with your back as he gave you a light shove between your shoulder blades, pushing you towards the table. "Hey Rafa!" he called out, "look who I found!"

[keldae]

SWTOR Character Meme

Thanks for the tag, @starknstarwars! Tagging.. hmmm. @corey-067 @dingoat @kunoichi-ume @lumielles @andveryginger @elveny @sheyshen

Do you have more Imperial or Republic characters?

18 for each side, thus far! Unless we’re counting how many of my Imps are secretly defectors (so far... I think 3 of my Imps are officially working with Jonas, and this isn’t counting how many of my Imps are, in RP’verse, Imp versions of Pub characters), so technically the Republic wins! (That being said, I might be deleting a couple of the almost-never-played alts... so that might tilt things in the Empire’s favour. We shall see!)

Which class do you play as the most?

Surprisingly, the smuggler, at 7 characters! Followed by knight, inquisitor, agent, and hunter at 5 each. Trooper is the least-played class, with only two characters.

Which race to you play as the most?

Human or cyborg. Am basic. I have played each species at least once though! Except Togruta...

How many have completed KotFE/KotET?

I have one from each class (plus an extra smuggler, aka Pub!Reanden, and I think my original hunter, Cuyan?) who’s finished KOTXX. With the exceptions of Pub!Reanden and Cuyan, all of them have also finished up to Meridian Complex.

How many have completed up to Secrets of the Enclave?

Only Xaja (Knight) and Sorand (Inquisitor) have finished SotE so far. Korin (Smuggler) and Reanden (Agent) still need to go save Satele and help Shae with her rebel issues.

Who stayed loyal to their class romance? Who didn’t?

Technically, Korin has stayed (kinda) loyal to Risha, only because I can’t romance Kira with him (DAMMIT BIOWARE DEVS, LEMME HAVE MY OBSCURE PAIRING). Xaja likes Doc well enough, but she dropped him like a hot potato when Theron came on the scene. So far, everyone else either didn’t get shipped with anyone in their class stories (Sorand and Ashara get along, but not like *that*, and Reanden is waaaay too old for Raina, or for Kaliyo’s shenanigans), or they’re alts who I’m not invested in.

Who started a romance with Lana, Theron, or Koth?

As mentioned, Xaja went straight for Theron when he rocked up in Forged Alliances. Korin flirted with all three of them, but couldn’t commit. Sorand kinda flirted a bit with Lana, but that didn’t feel right, so he went back to his introverted ace ways. So far, I haven’t rolled up any other toons who I think would work well with Lana or Koth, alas! (Or Arcann... Xaja might actually have worked out okay with Arcann, but I can’t pull her away from Theron. And she says she’s not into three-ways. ;) )

(I’m trying to remember if Reanden used any flirt options with Senya, considering she’s the only person he could flirt with without feeling like a sleaze. >.>)

Who is your oldest (having played the longest)?

Xaja, followed closely by... either Korin or Sorand. They’re all old enough I don’t remember the exact order they came in. XD I started playing in earnest in... 2012? So they’re all that old!

Who is your newest?

That would be Femakin, my newest baby Knight! She’s... I think two months old? (And hasn’t quite reached Coruscant yet.)

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/4/2020: SOCIETY

Without having a survey to back me up, I feel comfortable asserting that as a horror fan, you go through different phases with SOCIETY. It’s a basic fact of life, and yet it morphs and mutates underneath you, shocking you anew just when you think you’ve got a grip on it. You never forget your first time, because there is simply nothing like it. Then, after you get over the initial shock of its patented brand of body horror, you start to take it for granted; it's so broad and monolithic that it becomes something like the Grand Canyon--when it’s not right there in front of you, you begin to experience it more iconically, as part of the wallpaper of existence, rather than an in-your-face confrontation with the limits of experience. Then, you revisit it every few years (or months, depending on what sort of person you are), and the prophylactic layer that your brain has wrapped around your memories of it--the one that allows you to think of SOCIETY as a fun, wacky cheap thrill--begins to crumble, and you realize all over again how iconoclastically vile it is. Wherever you happen to be at, with this inimitable genre landmark, you'd be hard pressed to deny that it earns its royal status among horror movies, just for being so uniquely fucked up.

Filmmaker Brian Yuzna is best known as the co-creator of the indispensable RE-ANIMATOR (or as the co-writer of HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS...depending on what sort of person you are, again), itself a milestone achievement in the blending of sex and gore that so characterized '80s horror production. That film clearly brought out the best in Yuzna and frequent collaborator Stuart Gordon (also of HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS fame...among other things), but it's interesting to see how they operate apart, to understand the unique ingredients that each filmmaker brought to the more perfect union of their classic Lovecraft adaptation. Gordon skewed darker and more intellectual, as evidenced by the end of his career with the shattering mob thriller KING OF THE ANTS, the disturbing true crime drama STUCK, and the Mamet-penned EDMOND. Yuzna, for his part, is almost anti-intellectual, preferring to cook up blackly comic, semi-pornographic nightmares like his two increasingly horny RE-ANIMATOR sequels, the terminal S&M fantasy RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 3, and the shamelessly hokey comic book adaptation FAUST: LOVE OF THE DAMNED. Yuzna's lack of shame is really his defining feature as an artist, and nowhere is this more obvious than in his directorial debut and signature masterpiece, SOCIETY.

Salvador Dali's "The Great Masturbator," a chief visual inspiration for SOCIETY.

Yuzna was able to leverage the success of RE-ANIMATOR to lock in two directorial opportunities, BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR, and a bizarre body horror exercise about a Beverly Hills orphan who discovers that not only are his adoptive family from a different bloodline, but they're not even from the same species. That both pictures employed the writing team of Woody Keith and Rick Fry gives you a little taste of what to expect from SOCIETY, but to be frank, the latter threatens to make the former look like a very special episode of ER; "overkill" barely begins to describe SOCIETY’s ambitious assault on the human body. In a recent interview, the philipino-american director giggles perversely, "I think my friends were a little embarrassed for me (when they saw SOCIETY)," and this sound bite reminded me that the last, most important ingredient that Yuzna contributes to any project is unabashed joy. It's a little hard to imagine stomaching SOCIETY without it.

In this unusual scene from the class struggle in Beverly Hills, Billy Warlock (son of HALLOWEEN 2's Michael Myers, Dick Warlock) plays Bill Whitney, a rich, handsome, athletic high school student with a heavy duty anxiety disorder. Although he appears to have it all, he is plagued by nightmares and hallucinations, reflecting suspicions that the family that spoils him is also out to get him. Perhaps this is all understandable, though. Bill is under a lot of pressure these days, with his parents devoting all of their attention to his sister's coming out party, and his narcissistic girlfriend pushing him to ingratiate himself to the assholes higher up the social ladder; it's enough to make any teenager feel alienated and insecure. But, do these garden variety anxieties account for his visions of his sister's body deforming itself unnaturally, or the dubious evidence he finds that her debutante ball involves incestuous orgies and human sacrifice? Is Bill simply crumbling under the strain of societal expectations, or is the friction with his shrink, his parents, and his peers all symptomatic of an elaborate plot against him by elites who are truly less than human?

I can’t believe they use this cheapo blanket trick MORE THAN ONCE in a movie that is famous for its unforgettable special effects, and I guess I kind of love it.

In case I haven't made the answer abundantly obvious, I'll add that while SOCIETY is the purest expression of Yuzna-ness on the market, it has an important co-author in Screaming Mad George. The eccentric japanese FX master, whose name is apparently an amalgamation of Mad Magazine, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, and...George, has produced some of horror's most outrageous makeup and visual effects, mostly for Yuzna, many of them in SOCIETY. If you've seen even a trailer for Alex Winter's 1993 oddity FREAKED--which is itself a grossout criticism of American social standards--then you are already familiar with SMG's trademark style. He specializes in twisted perversions of the human form that would make a cenobite blush, driven by a penchant for puns, and influenced equally by THE THING's Rob Botin, and Big Daddy Roth’s Rat Fink style. Screaming Mad George is instrumental in articulating Yuzna's premise: that behind the shimmering veneer of success and sophistication, the upper class are just a bunch of degenerates, who literally degenerate into something unimaginable behind closed doors. It's impossible to imagine SOCIETY without his sinuous, slithering monstrosities, or his indescribable realization of their most important social event, "the shunt".

One of many great images from a zine I wish I owned, on SMG’s Facebook page.

It's easy to get overwhelmed by SOCIETY's visual impact, but its message is just as potent now as it was at the end of the Reagan era: Rich people are not only different from the rest of us, but in fact, they aren't even human. Writers Keith and Fry make an interesting choice of hero to help put this across. A lazier writer would have selected any archetype from the Freaks and Geeks set to create an easy Us vs Them tension, but SOCIETY is led by a promising young man who, for reasons he himself does not yet understand, is just not "the right kind of people". Bill appears to have every advantage in life, including a level of popularity that wins him presidency of the debate team despite his nerdier rival’s superior prowess--and yet, he suffers from a stigmatizing psychiatric disorder that is the natural result of feeling indefinably different from one's peers, and intuiting that, as a consequence, they don't even really like you. The shallow jock with deep-seated emotional problems is a much more interesting protagonist for this kind of social allegory than the charismatic outcasts that you get in movies like THE FACULTY and DISTURBING BEHAVIOR, for whom the idea that the elites could be aliens is just de rigueur.

It's worth noting that this complexity of character extends to Bill's love interest, sympathetic society girl Clarissa Carlyn (Playboy Playmate Devin DeVasquez). At first, she seems villainously eager to introduce Bill to the many splendors of "the shunting", but as the plot against him mounts to its horrifying conclusion, she defects. There appears to be a reason for this, although honestly, this is the most difficult part of SOCIETY for me to wrap my head around. Clarissa lives as an essentially independent adult, only burdened by her mother (Pamela Matheson), a possibly brain damaged hulk who lurks in and out of various scenes just to be disturbing, always announced by some toots on a tuba, before eventually siding with our heroes. I'm really not sure what's supposed to be going on in this part of the movie, except that this character contributes to a number of distasteful jokes. But, I hold on to the idea that by virtue of whatever disorder Mrs. Carlyn suffers from, she serves the purpose of priming Clarissa to rebel, since her very existence makes her daughter something of a societal outcast herself. That's the best I can do.

In any case, everyone working on SOCIETY commits completely, with Mrs. Carlyn being no exception. The movie's climactic orgy of the damned is an all hands on deck operation, just as reliant on Screaming Mad George's artistic abilities as it is on the actors' responsibility to make you believe that this fucked up shit is really happening. There's a visceral patina of sleaze spread over the entire film, dripping from the way that characters talk to and touch each other, flirting and flaunting their bodies in a distinctly unseemly fashion, even when it stays within the realm of mundane reality. This constant sinister, insinuating attitude on the part of the whole cast lays the foundation for what is to come, and while I appreciate everybody's hard work, my favorite performance is from an actor who only comes in at the very end: David Wiley as society king Judge Carter. Wiley's career consisted almost exclusively of the most ordinary sort of television work, which makes his outrageous turn in this alien porno flick all the more respectable. While other characters transition from suspicious pod people to full-on mutated perverts, Judge Carter has to show up just for the finale, establish his authority, rip off his clothes, and plunge straight into a sea of slime, happily fisting his way through the cast. Wiley meets this challenge with aplomb, making of himself a hybrid of Robert Englund and Gene Hackman, perfectly embodying the movie's joyful absurdity, and never betraying the slightest hint of embarrassment. 

SOCIETY is very much a don't-look-down type of endeavor, a fairy that could expire at the slightest lapse in faith. There's a visual pun in the last act that's so gross, so offensive, so frankly idiotic, that I don't have the courage to describe it; my whole body tenses up when I know this scene is coming, as if it were the meat hook scene in TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE or the brutal rape in the middle of SHOWGIRLS. I don't like it, but at the same time, I respect Yuzna's unhesitating commitment to show it to me, and I think that actor Charles Lucia should get some kind of award for shouldering the burden so valiantly. SOCIETY is a daring movie in the truest sense, a film with more balls than brains, and in this it exposes the limitation of intelligence and taste, and the real need for pure transgression, in producing art of any real value. You might argue with me about whether Yuzna's masturbatory magnum opus really qualifies as art, but to respond to that, I'll quote the great transgressor Alejandro Jodorowsky: "If you are great, EL TOPO is a great picture. If you are limited, EL TOPO is limited." So stick that in your shunt and smoke it.

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PS Here, have this stuck in your head for the rest of your life.

[doopcafe]

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Seasons 1--6), Final Analysis

Well, I made it through. 

Let’s be absolutely clear: The Clone Wars (TCW) is not good television. For the most part, it’s not even watchable television. The show suffers from serious fundamental issues in nearly every aspect of storytelling. Characters are underdeveloped and inconsistent; the dialogue is expository and contradictory; the tone is disjoint and jarring; and most episodes serve no greater purpose than to be a twenty-minute vessel to house lightsaber fights. 

So I want to put this part of the show to rest before I move on to Star Wars: Rebels (and before returning to watch season 7). 

With two exceptions, the show poorly handles twists and reveals. In the earlier seasons, reveals were spoiled mostly due to telegraphing: Captain Sleaze in Cloak of Darkness, Senator Clovis in Senate Spy, and Yolo (?) in Senate Murders come to mind, but there were others. In later seasons, telegraphing was supplanted by “small universe syndrome” as the primary cause of spoiled reveals. In The Academy, a cloaked figure was seen doing shady, back-alley deals, but his identity could only have been the Prime Minister. During the “Ahsoka framed” series, Barriss was obviously the traitor, simply because her character suddenly reappeared after four seasons and there were no other candidates. 

Probably the most successfully executed reveal was that of Krell, as his assholeness was at least initially masked as military rigidity. But even so, it was so over-the-top that when the reveal finally came to light, it felt more like an overdue disclosure than a dramatic twist. It didn’t help that, by that point in the show, the format of “asshole = upcoming reveal” had been firmly entrenched into the show’s DNA. 

I would argue that the most effective plot twist of the entire show was when the dancer/singer girl shot and killed Ziro the Hutt in Hunt for Ziro. Although irrelevant to the greater story, it was an actual twist because it was strongly implied the opposite would happen (i.e., Ziro would betray the girl). If there is to be a second place, that award would go to Ahsoka’s decision to leave the Jedi Order at the conclusion of The Wrong Jedi. But this leads me into my next point...

Who was the main character of The Clone Wars? If we go by the logic that whoever had the most screen time was the main character, then Anakin probably wins over Ahsoka. But if we go by the logic that the most developed character was the “main character,” then this is a show about Ahsoka. Ahsoka---more than any other character---grows in a noticeable way (from impatient, violent child to impatient, slightly less violent teenager). In contrast, Anakin in Rising Malevolence is the same character as Anakin in Voices (only a little more violent and angry for some reason). 

It’s unfortunate that her major character moments were never capitalized on. Intentionally sacrificing herself for the greater good in Weapons Factory apparently led to no lasting repercussions on her character. Her impatience and disobedience led to the deaths of thousands in Storm over Ryloth, but was similarly forgotten immediately afterwards. Even Ahsoka’s major character moment at the end of The Wrong Jedi resulted in her walking away from the show, never to address the implications of that decisions (although I suppose that’s the subject of Season 7). 

On a different note, the show was riddled by a shameful amount of “references” and fan service, for reasons exclusively external to the story. These “nods” ranged from the obvious “Obi-wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope” (or whatever Senator Jimmy Smits says in Cat and Mouse) to the innocuous design of a droid or background device. 

These “references” are objectively problematic for at least a few reasons. (1) They contribute to the sense that the universe is a really, really small place. Is the Mos Eisley cantina really the only place in the Outer Rim where shady deals go down? Is carbon freezing really the only way to store a person in stasis for transport? How long do Rodians live for anyways? Greedo’s gotta be what, like 80 when Han shoots him in A New Hope? It’s ironic that ultimately, this incomprehensibly large, diverse galaxy actually feels much smaller after watching this series because we keep going to the same twelve places...

(2) “Fan service” is tricky to get right because different people have different memories and impressions of the source material. In result, copying material will oftentimes comes across as a blatant misunderstanding of the original content. For example, to me, Vader put Solo into carbon freeze because it’s what Lando had lying around. It’s not a galactically established method of transporting people. Obi-Wan trained Luke with those laser balls aboard the Falcon because Han had them lying around and Obi-Wan needed to improvise a training exercise to kill time. 

(3) "References” and “nods” usually are just a band-aid for a lack of creativity. Some of the better episodes in the initial seasons were just direct rehashes of famous movies. Seven Samurai, Godzilla, Stray Dog, The Most Dangerous Game, King Kong... I mean, it’d be pretty impressive to mess-up stories like these, but it’s concerning that there were just so many episodes made from other people’s stories. 

These “references” even seep into the most innocuous of scenes. When Prequel!Wan lands on Mandalore to attempt a rescue of Satine from Darth Maul, one of the Mandalorians takes aim at him, only to have their blaster pushed down by their companion who’s shaking their head. This is a direct reference o the Tusken Raiders on Tatooine when Luke went after R2 in the desert. Even if this scene served an important plot purpose (it didn’t), there’s undoubtedly a multitude of ways to communicate the same thing. Instead, a small reference to the OT is interjected into the show, deimmersing the audience from the events shown. Unfortunately, this is just one (very small) example of hundreds over the whole show. 

Let me say something positive. The episodes that worked best (especially early in the show's run) were ones that focused on mortal people, usually the clones. Innocents of Ryloth was one of the first watchable episodes, simply because we didn't have to sit through twenty minutes of unlikable, unrelatable “Jedi” and instead followed around a pair of troopers helping a little girl using their limited abilities. Likewise, Pursuit of Peace was way more enjoyable than it probably should have been, simply because the story was understandable, the consequences clear, and the drama real. Plan of Dissent (when the clones actively rebel against Krell) was also noteworthy for similar reasons: clones we liked must subdue a “Jedi” we’ve learned to hate. 

This isn’t to say that episodes focused on the major characters were inherently unenjoyable, it’s just that none of these characters had any room to grow (with the exception of Ahsoka). Dooku, Grievous, Anakin, Prequel!Wan... They were the same characters as portrayed in Episode II and III. As presented, there was nowhere for these characters to go. Dooku was literally identical at the beginning of the series as he was at the end, and the same can be said about the others. 

But these are false constraints the writers imposed upon themselves. Grievous was not in Episode II and was introduced in Episode III. TCW could have started him however they wanted and then illustrated his change into the character he later becomes. Who was he? What was his motivation? Why did he hate Jedi so much? The show was handed a completely clean slate to deliver a character from scratch, but instead we were immediately shown “Episode III General Grievous” with zero introduction because fans were expected to already know who he was. 

This is partly why the backstory episode to Grievous was so compelling, at least in premise: viewing his home was personal to his story and it represented a chance to learn a bit more about the character and where he came from. Of course, it was mostly mishandled by a reliance on meaningless action, but the high ratings of that particular episode suggest there was room for quality television here, it just was never capitalized on.

Instead, we have completely static caricatures, especially for minor characters from the movies. Admiral Tarkin, Admiral Ackbar, Greedo (among others) were written out of cardboard and their roles in the plot could have just as easily been played by anyone else (there was nothing unique about their roles that required them to be these characters). 

This is a shame because a lot could have been done with the established premise to really focus on Anakin, his motivations, and his relationship to his Padawan. I would have been okay with a lot of backtracking if it meant I could begin to grasp his “fall” to the Dark Side. Instead, I’m honestly more confused than ever about his motivation.

One argument is that Anakin joins the Dark Side because he like, “loves” Padme (or whatever). However, what we’re shown in this show---consistently, clearly---is that Padme and Anakin have a toxic, dysfunctional relationship. He is uncomfortably jealous and rarely trusts her. They argue nearly every time they’re together. Their “love” (or whatever) must remain secret, equating their relationship to something “wrong” or even “illegal” that must be kept secret, even on the verge of death. In a later episode, Anakin orders Padme to listen to him because he’s the “man” and, as his wife, she doesn’t have a say in the matter. This is clearly a broken relationship and the best result is the one that actually happens: They stop seeing each other. Anakin wants to save this woman from a vision? Why? 

This brings up a second point, which is that Anakin can’t stand the pain of losing someone. His desire to protect those close to him may be Anakin’s only redeeming trait. He has a single selfless scene (in the entire show) during the opening of Jedi Crash where he sacrifices himself to delay an explosion and save his companions. I want to stress that any other scene where Anakin saves or helps someone isn’t done because he’s a good person, it’s done because he’s a broken person. It’s done because he, personally, would struggle with the emotional toll of knowing he allowed someone close to him to be hurt or die. In other words, he’s doing nice things for selfish reasons. 

As far as I’m concerned, Anakin has always been Darth Vader. He is given choices between being a Jedi and allowing a lot of people to die, and he enjoys choosing the second. In Ghosts of Mortis, we’re shown that the threshold between “Anakin” and “Darth Vader” is disconcertingly low, requiring only a few choice words and less than a minute to convert him. In short, what I’ve learned from TCW regarding Anakin Skywalker is that he was an unlikable dick, and his ���turn” to the Dark Side was just a long-overdue reveal. 

While the later seasons worked towards the events in Episode III in a way that at least made a bit of sense, earlier seasons were focused on adult-themed wacky hijinks. In a way, the show almost would have worked better as a kid’s show, but this was clearly meant for adults: politics, war, slavery, and lots and lots of horrific violence. In comparison, the silly adventures of Star Wars: Resistance worked well because the show didn’t take itself too seriously. It was very clearly, from the start, a lighthearted show about kids going on fun adventures. In contrast, TCW suffered because its themes were adult in nature, but was portrayed as a Saturday morning cartoon show. The humor was misplaced, the tone disjointed from actual events, and the violence excessive. 

Let me say a few words on the “Jedi.” Initially I labeled them as overpowered (OP), because in earlier episodes they seemed invincible and dissolved tension in every scene. Later, we see a slew of them get cut down as plot fodder, even against widely different situations. We see Luminara and others push through hoards of droids only to see “Jedi” Master Yoda-like dude get taken down by a dog. We watch as Fisto *heh* powers through entire battalions and the cone-head guy counting coup against an army, only to watch as pink girl gets shot in the face by a single clone who stands in front of her for several seconds before pulling the trigger. 

It’s nearly impossible to feel tension in these scenes because the metrics for judging the true strength of a “Jedi” keep shifting as a function of the plot requirements. Anakin suddenly forgets how to use the Force when the plot needs his help to fake some drama. Prequel!Wan pointlessly fist fights with a slaver cat for an hour until the plot needs him to get back up again and OP everyone in the room. Even their ships are only as strong or weak as the plot needs them to be. Plo Koon’s fleet is devastated in seconds in order to portray the Malevolence as being a threat; Anakin’s fleet powers through a larger force three times its size because Anakin’s like, really mad about something. 

Secondly, the “Jedi,” in general, were unlikable assholes. They were consistently portrayed as violent and ignorant and I struggled to understand them as real people. Frequently, we witnessed them torture victims, default to a lightsaber to solve problems, and enjoy death to the point of counting coup against sentient life forms defending their homes. Anakin threatened civilians with his lightsaber. Ahsoka was annoyed when she’s asked not to murder a defenseless creature in Jedi Crash. Prequel!Wan and Anakin team up to hurtle enormous rocks into a beaten monster in Dooku Captured. A trio of Jedi Masters mentally gang bang a shackled Cad Bane. They supported state terrorism when it suited their needs, but agreed to abandon their friends for political reasons. 

I mean, these are not good people...

This is a shame, because my impression of true Jedi comes from Luke, Yoda, and Obi-Wan in the OT, as well as the expanded universe novels that take place afterwards. It always seemed to me that being a Jedi was about conquering oneself, one’s fears, and learning to use the Force to selflessly help others and let go of all worldly attachments. You know, like the Buddhists they were originally inspired by. I always had the impression that the Force was extremely powerful and that Yoda was only showing Luke a portion of what was possible. That the Emperor was only using Force lighting to toy with Luke. That Vader only Force choked his officers because it was visually intimidating and kept them in line. 

Instead, we’re treated to some garbage about how a “Jedi” is nothing greater than an actuator to swing around a lightsaber. When Luke enters Jabba’s palace in Jedi to rescue his friends, it’s not with lightsaber swinging, cutting shit up, flipping around like an acrobatic monkey. Imagine Anakin and Ahsoka in the same scene. They’d blaze through the palace corridors before Force choking Jabba as the Darth Vader theme plays. Forget the rancor, these are demigods. They have lightsabers. Have you seen them? They go “woosh woosh.” 

In short, there was little to look up to in terms of a “hero” character. I can see how children can look up to Luke as a role model, someone they want to emulate or play with as a toy, but looking up to Anakin? Ahsoka? Hey kids, wanna learn to become a psychopath? First, you use your power to abuse those who are weaker than you. Then you need to get really really angry and uncontrollably choke someone, preferably your sister or one of your cousins. 

And so, for a Saturday morning cartoon show, it is very unclear who we’re supposed to care about. I liked when Ahsoka went against Anakin because I hated his character so much. I liked everything with Hondo, a pirate. I liked Ventress a little, because she was actively seeking to kill the main characters. I liked some of the clones, but I don’t know which ones because they all looked the same. I cared about Darth Maul because I’m honestly a little worried about him, especially after the loss of his brother. I kinda liked General Grievous just because he hates the “Jedi” and was therefore relatable (even though the reasoning was never explained). And... that’s it. 

At no point did I ever “look forward” to the next episode. I painfully died a little on the inside hitting the “watch next” button every single time.

This “review” is already way too long, so let me summarize by applying my five-star rating system (developed for movies) to each episode. In review:

5. Amazing, classic, culturally important. Something everyone should watch.  4. Great; very well done, no significant flaws. 3: Entertaining with only minor gripes/criticisms.  2: “Watchable,” but suffers from flaws and has some poor parts.  1. Uncomfortably bad; suffers from serious flaws. 0. Painfully bad, would actively fight against being forced to watch a second time. 

The 3-star episodes were: 

Hostage Crisis

Lightsaber Lost 

Pursuit of Peace

Carnage of Krell

The Wrong Jedi 

Hostage Crisis was the introduction of Cad Bane, Lightsaber Lost was the remake of Stray Dog (and the only episode to include a real Jedi), Pursuit of Peace was the random Padme/politics episode that was strangely well-executed, Carnage of Krell was the reveal of Krell as a bad guy and his clones working to apprehend him, and The Wrong Jedi was Ahsoka leaving the Jedi Order (and the only episode to include a true character moment). 

Also, I scaled the IMDB ratings of each episode to my ratings and then detected outliers in their overlap. In other words, I wanted to answer the question, “which episodes did I rate the most differently from others?” 

Turns out, I rated every single episode lower except for seven. Those seven were: 

Mercy Mission (+1.853) - R2 and 3PO discover an underground world with ents. This one is universally panned by “fans,” but was a competently handled episode apart from the disappointing resolution. 

Pursuit of Peace (+1.382) - Padme struggles to win support for a Senate bill. Another competently handled episode that focuses on Padme and politics and is ranked low by “fans.”

Lightsaber Lost (+0.6471) 

Weapons Factory (+0.4118) - An average episode with a dramatic scene of sacrifice by Ahsoka and her “friend” Barriss. 

Shadow Warrior (+0.3824) - Grievous is captured during some dramatic moments on Naboo. 

Hostage Crisis (+0.3529)

Front Runners (+0.0882) - One of the rebels episodes, I don’t remember which. 

In conclusion, Star Wars: Rebels is next and I am somehow still alive.

[tabloidtoc]

Globe, November 9

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Prince Andrew fails lie detector -- new crisis rocks the palace 

Page 2: Up Front & Personal -- Bruno Toniolo shirtless, Heidi Pratt at a pumpkin patch in L.A., Jacqueline Bisset catches some rays in L.A. 

Page 3: Larry David leaves an L.A. office, Ellen Pompeo, Pete Wentz 

Page 4: Kathie Lee Gifford is talking to NBC bigwigs about coming back to Today and they’re hot over the idea but Hoda Kotb is not pleased and Jenna Bush Hager is feeling threatened because Jenna never really grabbed the audience like Kathie Lee did, Martha Stewart and Gwyneth Paltrow are heading into the holidays trash-talking each other even more than usual and their pals have nowhere to hide -- they’re snippier than ever and can’t get through the week without saying something crass but the trouble is they have the same friends and they use some of the same chefs and caterers and crew -- all their friends in the Hamptons including the Seinfelds and Beyonce and Jay-Z and Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley and Rachael Ray are trying to keep out of it but it’s impossible because Martha and Gwyneth are both screaming for loyalty 

Page 5: Legal hotshot and writer Jeffrey Toobin has been shelved by the New Yorker magazine for showing off his willie to co-workers during a Zoom conference call -- witnesses say Toobin was masturbating but he insists it was a blooper

Page 6: Dolly Parton was so lovestruck when she met Elvis Presley that she nearly chucked her marriage and career to shack up with Elvis -- Dolly is ready to tell all about Elvis after decades of protecting her husband Carl Dean and Elvis’ only child Lisa Marie Presley -- Dolly was in her late 20s and Elvis was in his late 30s when they had their sizzling encounter where she got dolled up to meet Elvis in a Nashville office and discuss working together and he wanted to do a duet but she didn’t trust herself to work with him and she didn’t even let Elvis do a cover of her song I Will Always Love You -- even though Dolly didn’t actually cheat on Carl she sure was tempted and she’s felt guilty about it ever since 

Page 8: Just two weeks after splitting with his wife of 14 years former Home Improvement kid Zachery Ty Bryan was arrested and jailed on charges of trying to strangle a terrified galpal -- after a night of partying where he was photographed surrounded by four gals with an iced bottle of vodka at the table Zachery reportedly got into a heated clash with his galpal and she claims Zachery grabbed her by the throat and squeezed then tried to snatch her phone when she attempted to call 911 so she ran to a neighbor’s home where she hid while cops were called 

Page 9: Distressed Kelly Clarkson and her two toddlers are in therapy to help cope with the anguish brought on by her divorce from Brandon Blackstock -- the talk show host is especially struggling because the split is playing out so publicly and the kids are seeing things about their mom on TV and she feels immense guilt about the divorce but knows it was the best decision because she wasn’t happy married to Brandon though she did try but staying in a marriage just for the kids wasn’t an option for her -- Kelly was deeply wounded when her father-in-law Narvel Blackstock’s management company recently sued her for $1.4 million in alleged unpaid commissions but she’s speaking with her ex privately in an effort to resolve the issue out of court but Kelly suspects he’s using it as a bargaining chip for a bigger settlement and also feels he’s using the kids against her as a weapon 

Page 10: Showbiz legend Michelle Phillips has become a shut-in who sits home alone tippling wine while watching movies on TV and listening to her hits from The Mamas & the Papas where she is the last surviving member of the band -- she’s sad the rest are all gone  and she’ll put on a record and sit in the dark; she misses them and so many other people -- she’s become a shut-in due to the pandemic and can’t bear for people to see her so old and haggard and overweight and all those years of partying have done their damage to her once-beautiful face -- she also hasn’t been able to see her young grandson and she’s grieving the loss of her longtime lover who died in 2017 

Page 11: Baywatch hunk Jeremy Jackson’s cover girl ex-wife has been found homeless wandering California’s mean streets in worn and shabby clothes -- lost for two years Loni Willison is now virtually unrecognizable with missing teeth and her long blond tresses cropped short -- she was found pushing a grocery cart filled with her battered possessions in Venice -- despite her tragic situation she insists she’d doing fine and doesn’t want help despite reportedly having drug and mental health issues 

Page 12: Celebrity Buzz -- Rita Ora in a see-through frock (picture), Lily James got caught brazenly canoodling with the very much married Dominic West who plays her father in the BBC miniseries The Pursuit of Love, just weeks after Cardi B filed to dissolve her marriage to Offset she’s put the split on hold and all it took was Offset to spend bucks on a heart-tugging Sunset Strip billboard and a Rolls-Royce and a Hermes Birkin bag, Kate Hudson’s getting loose-lipped about gross snotty smooches with her leading man Matthew McConaughey 

Page 13: Vinny Guadagnino eating in Beverly Hills (picture), Kaitlyn Bristowe has a puffy trout pout (picture), Shia LaBeouf doesn’t let an apparent injury keep him from getting out and about in Pasadena (picture), Alanis Morissette says the fame that came with her 1995 revenge song You Oughta Know wasn’t so sweet but instead was an isolating experience 

Page 14: Nicole Kidman is starring opposite Hugh Grant in the thriller series The Undoing but she really wanted to plays Hugh’s love interest in Notting Hill except she wasn’t well-known enough, Reba McEntire has landed herself a brand new TV show which is a modernized Fried Green Tomatoes drama series in which she’ll play the present-day Idgie Threadgoode, Fashion Verdict -- Regina King 8/10, Isabelle Huppert 2/10, Queen Maxima 5/10, Tracee Ellis Ross 9/10, Cher 4/10 

Page 16: How John F. Kennedy stole the White House from Richard Nixon -- Chicago mob rigged the 1960 vote and cheated Nixon out of the presidency 

Page 19: True Crime 

Page 21: Parkinson’s patient Alan Alda is refusing to slow down at age 84 and friends fear the fragile M*A*S*H legend is headed for a devastating health crisis and he’s busier now than he ever was even during his sitcom days and he bravely says he lives with it by staying active but medication can only do so much and his friends and family including wife Arlene are worried he’s pushing himself too hard, teary-eyed Ringo Starr confesses his last conversation with dying Beatles bandmate George Harrison was heartbreaking and unforgettable -- Ringo wanted to stay with George until the end but his daughter Lee had been diagnosed with a brain tumor and Ringo had to rush to Boston to see her and when Ringo told George he had to go to Boston George said D’ya want me to come wit’ ya? so even on his death bed George made his best buddy smile while both faced unspeakable grief 

Page 22: 10 Things You Don’t Know About S. Epatha Merkerson, Today show host Hoda Kotb reveals Frank Sinatra Jr. was the show’s worst guest because he clammed up instead of touting a book about his famous dad in 2015, Khloe Kardashian confesses she once worked as Nicole Richie’s personal assistant because she just needed a job and they went to school together -- Nicole’s reality career crashed in 2007 which was the same year Khloe’s series started

Page 24: Cover Story -- Disgraced Prince Andrew has flunked a lie detector test on his close relationship with murdered American pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and now the rogue royal insists he’ll never cooperate with the FBI for fear his testimony will land him behind bars but Queen Elizabeth’s favorite son has his back against the wall as new evidence surfaces on both sides of the Atlantic -- Andrew is terrified newly released secret testimony from Epstein’s accused madam Ghislaine Maxwell is just the tip of the iceberg of what she’s prepared to reveal and Maxwell’s revelations detailing her twisted sex life come on the heels of an explosive new British book accusing Andrew of attending debauched events with Epstein where teenage girls were parading around topless -- even though friends close to Andrew say he did nothing wrong and has no reason to fear the prince may not have a choice about spilling his guts because the fed-up royal family is threatening to cut off the cash-strapped rogue unless he plays ball 

Page 25: Prince Andrew has been banished from the gift shop at his mother’s Balmoral Castle -- tourists can still purchase postcards her Her Majesty’s kids Prince Charles and Princess Anne and Prince Edward but Prince Andrew has disappeared which is a sure sign that Andrew is in the doghouse since items featuring Elizabeth’s beloved corgis are still up for sale 

Page 26: Health Report 

Page 27: Dirtiest places on planes exposed 

Page 30: Serial sleaze Matt Lauer’s ready to pop the question to girlfriend Shamin Abas over the holidays and he hopes for a brighter future with her a year after his 20-year marriage to Annette Roque ended in divorce -- Matt showers Shamin her with gifts and wants to buy a house on the East Coast where they can make new memories and Matt’s hinted he’s already bought the ring and plans to propose by New Year’s and he hopes to have a celeb-studded wedding at their new home, Kathleen Turner will be back at Michael Douglas’ throat as his acid ex in The Kominsky Method to fill the hole left by Alan Arkin who abruptly pulled out of the third and final season of the show

Page 35: Matthew McConaughey’s father predicted he’d die while making love to his wife and he did, desperate to turn back time Marie Osmond is going whole hog on a head-to-toe makeover -- Marie is no stranger to cosmetic fixes and she is considering a slew of procedures to get a new look that’ll knock ‘em out including everything from Botox and fillers to face-lift to boob job and lipo-sculpting to enhance her waistline -- the makeover is motivated by revenge because she’s bitter over recently being pushed off her co-host gig on The Talk and now she’s counting on a younger look to land her a plum new TV gig 

Page 38: Real Life Monsters 

Page 39: Kris Jenner blames social media for ending the 14-year run of Keeping Up with the Kardashians because when the show started there was no Instagram or Snapchat or other social media platforms but now she gripes that now there are so many the viewer doesn’t have to wait three or four months to see an episode but instead information spreads online in real time, Phil Collins’ ex-wife has traded him in for a 31-year-old guitarist who never managed to make much noise in the music industry -- Phil was furious when he heard Orianne Cevey married Tom Bates in Las Vegas, Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman died without a will according to his widow -- Taylor Simone Ledward filed a probate case in L.A. asking a judge to name her administrator of Boseman’s estimated $938,500 estate with limited authority

Page 44: Straight Talk -- Bruce Willis and Demi Moore’s daughter Rumer Willis claims posing for raunchy bondage shots proves she’s a liberated woman free from sexual stereotypes but it’s not that simple 

Page 45: Jeff Bridges is battling non-Hodgkin lymphoma which is a rampaging cancer that often spreads through the body to the liver and bone marrow and lungs -- while the cancer can be deadly experts say the five-year survival rate is 73 percent 

[anthropwashere]

i’m still, still dreaming magnificent things (part 4)

part 1 | part 2 | part 3

(Alternate site locations, plus a handy dandy GSheet of all the Resembool folk, plus a Spotify playlist to come. Head’s up, this chapter’s 19k words.)

=

It can't be.

It can't be.

Dad ran off. Dad left them. Dad died penniless and alone, with neither identification or cenz on him, and so was buried in a pauper's grave in some far-off corner of the world. Once upon a time—when Alphonse had still been alive—Ed had declared this to be the only acceptable reason for Dad's continued absence. It's a sad scenario to be sure, but it's one Alphonse reluctantly agreed with, then and now, if for no other reason than that it's the only one that makes sense.

More recently—and more hardened by the world and all its indifferent indignities—Ed considers Dad—"That bastard"—the type of creep to leave a string of broken-hearted single mothers behind him. Granny had all but boxed his ears the one time he'd said as such near her, and Ed had fled back to East City in a huff that same day. He didn't come back until his automail was practically a dead weight dangling from his stump, and then it'd been Winry's turn to berate him senseless.

(Ever since then Alphonse has tried not to linger on the bitter thought. He likes to think Mom had been a better judge of character than that, and even if she hadn't been there's no way the Rockbells would have ever opened their arms to a sleaze like that. Better he be dead, taken by the same illness that took Mom, taken by a terrible accident, taken by a petty thief with an itchy trigger finger. Better orphaned than abandoned.)

Dad is dead and gone. He has to be.

But there's no mistaking him.

Alphonse has seen this same face smiling sheepishly out of aged photographs a hundred times if he's seen it once. He knows this is the same face found in the family portrait pinned to the corkboard in the Rockbell's house. Ed had wanted to get rid of that picture but Granny wouldn't hear of it, so he'd compromised by covering the half of it with him and Dad entirely with pictures of Alphonse. That photograph is what, thirteen years old now?

And Dad still hasn't changed at all.

Without warning the little flock of birds all scatter in a burst of shed feathers and furious wittering. Alphonse shields his face out a habit not yet broken, only lowering his arm once the sound of flapping fades. The man—Dad, it can't be, it can't be, it is—watches them fly off with an absent-minded furrow to his brow. Alphonse is too far away to see what color his eyes might be behind his glasses, but he knows they'll be the same rare yellow as Ed's are and his were and something about that stings.

"You can't be here," he whispers aloud.

The man—Dad—moves on, heading up the dirt road out of town. It's baffling to see him in motion. There've been too many years with only photographs to know him by, too many years speaking of him in only the past tense. This—

This doesn't feel real.

He follows, half-expecting the broad-shouldered man to be a figment of his imagination, half-hoping he'll wink out of sight at any moment and things can go back to normal. He's almost—offended by the appearance of this absurd apparition, this inane interruption to his perpetually dull purgatory. He no longer expects surprises from any corner but Ed's, and even Ed can be fairly predictable in his own off-kilter way. In the years since Mom died, the only family he's had is Ed and Winry and Granny. Everyone else has gone away, taken away too soon, Dad in that number. But here—impossibly—he is again.

"You can't be here," he repeats, more adamantly this time. "This isn't—it can't actually be you. There's no way you're really Dad—"

The man stops, frown deepening as he turns back to regard the town proper laid out behind him. Alphonse follows the line of his gaze on reflex. It's a nice view from here, sure, but he's seen it a thousand times before and he'll see it a thousand times again. He looks back at the man in time to see him startle like he's just remembered something urgent. Whatever it might be doesn't matter a whit to Alphonse, of course, so he shelves that instinctive curiosity and glares up at him.

"No," he says, churlish and childish and damn near pissed. "This is stupid. This is bullshit. Why'd you come back now?"

The man says, "Alphonse."

The man—Dad. Dad isn't looking at the town proper. He isn't. His gaze is lower, focused on something far closer. But this is an empty stretch of dirt road, no houses nearby, nothing interesting to catch the eye at all.

There's nothing here except him. And Dad just said his name.

He shakes his head like a dog. No. No way. He—he heard wrong. He imagined it. There's no way Dad could possibly know he's standing here. Dad's alive; the fresh footprints in the road are proof of that. Only another ghost could see him, so there's no way Dad said his name—

Dad breathes shakily. Dad has the audacity to say, "It is you. Oh, Alphonse. What happened to you?"

He can't speak. He can't even move. If he does either thing he's sure this impossible dream—nightmare?—will fall apart. Dreamstuff and wishes, all of it useless to a dead thing like him.

This can't be happening.

Can it?

(Oh god, please. Please let this be real.)

"You—" His throat isn't real enough to choke, but he feels the need to clear it and start again anyway. "You can see me?”

"Of course I can," Dad says.

"He shivers. That—that was a reply. A real reply, not happy coincidence. A real reply from a living person. "Y—you can hear me too?"

"Yes. Yes, of course I can. Alphonse—"

"Stop."

Dad stops. His hand has twitched from his side, reaching out, reaching like he means to touch Alphonse. A hug, or to ruffle his hair, or whatever small gesture fathers do to sons they haven't seen in ten years. Dad doesn't know. Dad hasn't realized.

"I'm dead," Alphonse chokes out. "I died. Years ago. You shouldn't be able to see me. No one can."

Dad's hand hovers a breath longer, then falls. His overcoat hisses against itself. Hush, it says. Hush. "What happened?"

Everything. Too much. Too many years. Too many moments Dad should've been here, should've helped them, should've taught them to know better, should've stopped them—

"You left," he musters. "You left."

"I...." Dad seems to straighten. To harden. He recovers from his shock, and becomes so still he could pass for a statue. "I had to. I was always going to come back."

The laughter that bubbles out of him is nothing short of arsenic, bitter and foaming. He's as surprised by it as Dad seems to be. "Back to what? There's nothing left!"

Dad looks away from him, out across the rolling hills and the silver ribbon of the river bifurcating Resembool proper and Resembool rural. He looks to where their house once stood, to where there's only a tree half-blackened and a shrug of weedy ruins. Dad looks, and looks, and after a heavy moment he asks, "Where is my house?"

Not "our." His.

For a moment Alphonse hates this man just as much as Ed seems to. He hates him for his arrogance and his ignorance, his narcissism and his dismissal of the only living family he has left. Alphonse would be sick with fury if he were still capable of feeling anything, and so he sees no reason to be kind when he snarls, "Ed burned it down after he became a State Alchemist. You left. Mom died—" He clenches his fists raising his voice to be heard over Dad's sharp inhale, "—I died. Ed's gone. There's nothing left for you here, so why'd you come back?!"

"I—I didn't...." Dad steps back from him, shaking his head. He wavers; unmoored, floundering. "I didn't know. I don't—I'm sorry. Alphonse, I'm sorry, I don't...."

Alphonse knows he should do better than sling accusation and demand answers. He should be better.

But it's too much.

He can't. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Anger, black and stormy, fit to rival Ed at his most unhinged and spiteful, all but overwhelms him then. For all that he has no throat he still finds himself choking on bitter grief for what should have been.

(If only Dad hadn't left. If only Dad hadn't left when he did. If only he'd been here when Mom got sick. If only he'd been here when Mom died. If only he'd been here when Ed first voiced the idea of human transmutation. If only, if only, if only—)

He jabs a finger up the road. "Go talk to Granny. You owe your old drinking buddy a visit, at least. She'll be happy to fill you in on everything you missed."

"Alphonse—"

But he kicks off of the ground before Dad can finish, uninterested, unable, darting away. He doesn't care where, so long as it's somewhere he can be alone, away from living and dead both. He needs to be alone. He needs time to calm down. He needs time to breathe for all that he can't breathe, to find his center the way Teacher taught them to. He needs to find some distance so he no longer feels like the stupid little boy asking Mom when Dad will come back. Mom's gone, dead twice over—

(And guilt gnaws at him, as cutting as it  had been the day he watched Granny bury the thing they'd made.)

—and Dad is—

Dad is—

Dad's alive.

Dad's come back.

None of this makes any sense. None of this fits the tidy little afterlife Alphonse has resigned himself to; watching the rest of his family live out their lives and pass away without ever knowing some shade of him was still here, crying out and going unheard.

From the moment he realized even Ed couldn't sense him he's known he'll have to watch the three of them die. He's been dreading the inevitable report of Ed's messy death in the news for—for too long, really. Granny's only getting older. Already there have been a few occasions where he found her napping and thought the worst before some small twitch or snore relieved him. Winry's the only one he expects to see 1920, and beyond that besides. She'll finish her apprenticeship in Rush Valley and no doubt follow a similar path as Granny did at her age. She'll travel for a few years, or many years, but eventually she'll come back to Resembool to keep Rockbell Automail going strong where it's needed most. Maybe she'll marry one day. Maybe she'll have a child of her own, or even children. She and Granny have talked about that possibility once or twice, and Alphonse had laughed at the way she'd wrinkled her nose. But it's a nice thing to imagine on her behalf. A lineage that will last beyond her own small lifespan, the Rockbell name carrying on.

(Winry doesn't really strike him as the type to take her husband's name. Not with the weight Rockbell carries in the world of bioengineering.)

He's seen how the other ghosts all keep wistful vigil over the generations that have survived them and come after them. Watching them watch the living is the closest thing to a mirror he's got, and it's a sobering reflection. Sobering, lonesome, and yes, more than a little creepy, but it's all he's had to look forward to. He'd resigned himself to a state of uninterrupted observation, of decades and eventual centuries of quiet obsession.

But now here's Dad again, come back from the metaphorical rather than the literal dead to throw an enormous fucking wrench in everything!

He's had to watch Mom die twice already. He's going to have to stand over Ed's grave one day soon. He doesn't want to have to do the same for Dad too.

=

In hindsight, he realizes he ought to have gone to Rockbell Automail too. He could've heard word for word what Granny's spitting in Dad's face right now, found some petty gratification in whatever justified vitriol she's slinging. But it's....

It's too much.

All of it is too much. Dad here, alive, seeing him. If he were so inclined he could ask Dad any old question that comes to mind and be answered. He could tell Dad all the nasty, cruel things Ed might snarl if he were here in his stead. He could fill Dad in on every nasty, cruel detail Granny might be so inclined to gloss over out of kindness toward her old drinking buddy. He could do more today than he's been able to since that nasty, cruel night, and it's—

It's too much.

He's retreated to the cemetery for now. Not many people come out here to visit their dearly departed in the middle of the day, nor are there any ghosts perched on their headstones either. There's only him and the encompassing, comforting silence of a summer morning not yet overwhelmed by buzzing insects or birdsong. There's a breeze, heard rather than felt as it hisses through grass in need of a trim. There's the crinkling of the paper wrapper on a bouquet of flowers on a nearby grave (infant son of Filip and Katerina Danchey, born September 18, 1913). The sun is high. The sky is clear. It's probably warm out, not that he can feel it. He can't feel any of it; not the sun or the wind or the grass or the fabric of the clothes he died in. He can't feel anything, numb in a way the vocabulary of even the most precocious of ten year olds can't express.

(It still manages to surprise him, sometimes. How much dying has hollowed him.)

Dad didn't know.

All these years since Mom died, all these years since they tried and failed so terribly to bring her back, and Dad didn't know.

What kind of world can allow that? There must have been a thousand opportunities that Dad could have saved them from years of grief and pain and loneliness, a thousand days he could have picked up the pieces of their broken home before they could cut themselves to ribbons on the terrible hope of what if. A thousand chances at salvation, but Dad hadn't known he was needed here. All these years, Dad thought a happy home waited for his return. He'd thought Mom perfectly fine, taking care of their too-clever-for-their-own-good sons, living in a home Ed hadn't burned down just so he could keep treading water all on his own.

It's too much.

Better Dad dead than ignorant.

He sits at the foot of Mom's first grave, curled up with his arms wrapped tightly around his knees. Granny's been by recently; the headstone looks freshly scrubbed of moss, the nearby grass pruned of weeds, a small bouquet of white gladioli only just beginning to wilt beneath Beloved Mother. He sits, tightly wound, listening to the wind. His thoughts are a perfect match to the rushing, senseless noise.

He's overwhelmed. Overstimulated even, if such a word can be applied to someone who only has sight and hearing left of his senses. Either way, this tight knot of mute panic is a sensation he'd nearly forgotten the feeling of; the sticky way it clings, the choking way it squeezes. Funny, how quickly things fade without new stimuli.

Fucking hilarious.

He doesn't know what to do. How to react. How to act in the first place. There's someone new and alive to interact with, and it's Dad. Can Dad see other ghosts, or just him? If it's only him is it a matter of blood that lets him? If that's the case, then why can't Ed? If Dad can see ghosts, period—why? How? Is it something that can be taught? Would he be willing to teach Ed? Could Ed be restrained from punching Dad long enough to learn?

(Mm, that last one probably not. Granny though, she's impressively patient. She'd been putting up with Ed and Winry's constant fighting for years now. She deserves a sainthood for that alone, honestly.)

Time passes. Hours, probably. The shadows of the headstones are beginning to stretch thin and dark when he hears footsteps on the dirt road skirting the cemetery. He doesn't look when the footsteps soften on the grass, coming closer. He doesn't look when a man's broad shadow spills through him, darkening his own edges so that, for a moment at least, he almost looks solid in the burnt afternoon light. He doesn't have to look to know who's there. Funny, how he already knows—remembers?—the sound of Dad's footsteps.

Nothing is said for a long time.

Alphonse chooses to break the silence first, lifting his gaze to Mom's headstone. Her name, her birth, her death. The pretty but meaningless words carved beneath those facts to sum up her few years. 26 had once seemed like such a mature and far-off age. Funny too, how perceptions can still change even when you can't get any older.

He asks, "Why can you see me?"

Silence.

Then—

A soft, stifled sob.

He twists around to look up at the man, expecting....

He doesn't know what to expect anymore. All of his expectations have been wrung out and frayed to meaningless scraps in the wake of Dad's return. But tears? Dad's face contorting as he sinks to his knees? Dad tearing his glasses off to scrub his eyes? Dad, overcome with grief?

Shame is a salve and a salt both. Alphonse finds it easy then, a relief even, to let his anger and resentment bleed away. He was cruel to think so poorly of Dad, and an idiot too.

By the time Dad quiets his face has become a splotchy mess, eyes red-rimmed and a few strands of his hair clinging to his damp cheeks. Hair and eyes the same color as Ed's. The same color Alphonse's were too. He looks nothing like the man in Granny's old photographs, nor like the closed-off paper cutout Alphonse had built in his head out of secondhand stories and fuzzy memories. Dad looks miserable and wrung out. He looks like anybody would when they'd been told their whole world had crumbled when they hadn't been there to do anything.

Dad paws his eyes dry, slipping his glasses on again. "I didn't know," he says hoarsely. "I didn't. I thought she'd be.... I didn't realize I'd been away so long. If I'd known—" He takes a shuddering breath. "I would have come back. I swear to you—"

"I believe you," Alphonse says.

"I'm sorry. Truly I am. Trisha—" Dad's whole face crumples.

Alphonse considers him for a moment. "You never got any of our letters, did you?"

"...No."

Well. That's alright then, isn't it?

"Why can you see me?" He asks again.

Silence.

Then—

One large hand reaches out to cup the empty air where Alphonse's shoulder hunches. He grimaces, pulling away. "Stop that. I can't feel it."

"I...." Dad lets his hand fall back to his lap. "I've been able to see the dead for a long time. A very long time."

All those old photographs. Decades passing Dad by without touching him. "How?"

Dad breathes.

"I'm a monster."

=

It's dusk by the time Dad finishes his story. His impossible history. Lost Xerxes and the Philosopher's Stone. The Dwarf in the Flask. Unwanted immortality at the cost of so many dead. Centuries spent hiding away in Xing, learning the breadth of his curse. Learning too, everything he could about every single soul caught inside him. The sheepish admittance when pressed for details that the Xingese think rather highly of the man that came to be called the Western Sage. Friends come and gone, come and gone, come and gone. Growing weary of a reverence he'd never asked for nor sought to keep once given it. Going west, and farther west still. Decades spent wandering until Pinako strong-armed him into a friendship that led him following her hangdog to Resembool. Building a house, meeting Mom, falling in love.

On and on, and every word as impossible as the story all told is absurd. But it's true. It has to be. What reason would Dad have to lie to him? He's hardly even real.

"Are you alright?"

Alphonse blinks. Dad's moved to lean against Mom's headstone, slouched like it's become too much to support himself. Like he'd be leaning against her, shoulder to shoulder, if she were still here to be part of this. Dad seems thinner for the telling, scoured and sore, but relieved all the same.

Alphonse musters up a smile. "Yeah. It's just.... It's a lot to take in."

Dad's own smile is the one from the old photographs, small and sheepish, like he knows he's the butt of a joke he can't take offense at. "I'd understand if you didn't believe me."

"I didn't say that." He leans back on his hands, lets his elbows fail. He stares up at the sky, painted deep purple and burnt orange, too early still for the first dusting of stars. "It'd be pretty crazy to believe you," he says. "But I mean, I'm a ghost. It's... it's just a lot. That's all."

He falls quiet, turning everything over in his mind. Dad stays quiet too. Giving him space and time to reconcile. It's an unexpected kindness, and he feels a pang of shame for assuming it should be unexpected. Granny never shied from telling stories about Mom and Dad. He should have kept listening even when Ed turned tail and ran.

The sky deepens. By now the wind has calmed. No one else has come by, nor are their any houses within shouting distance. He tucks his chin to look at Dad discreetly. To drink in the realness of him through his eyelashes. Dad sits so still, carved from stone again. He's powerfully built, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested. He'd look like any older farmhand if he weren't dressed like a scholar, his clothes well-tailored and well-cared for. Under a patina of dust his shoes look hardly broken in. His beard is neatly trimmed, though both its styling and his long hair are, from what Alphonse has gleaned reading magazines over any number of shoulders, out of fashion. There's a touch of crow's feet to his eyes, laugh lines bracketing his mouth, a roughness to his large hands that are at odds with how eloquently he speaks. He sits with one wrist perched on one knee, his other leg stretched out before him.

He sprawls the same way Ed does.

"So," Alphonse begins slowly. "You can see me because you're a Philosopher's Stone?"

"That's right."

"Do you know about the other ghosts here?"

"I do."

"Private Shriver? Mister Teller? Nurse Nichols?"

Dad nods. "And the rest, yes."

"Mister Sauter died after you left," Alphonse points out doubtfully, sitting up. "Mister Cuttler too."

"Sauter," Dad says, turning the name over in his mouth. "I know that name."

"Steffie Sauter's one of the other ghosts you'd know. She died in a house fire in 1870. Owen was her husband. He remarried eventually and took over his family's—"

"Boutique," Dad finishes. "Yes, I recall now."

"Did you see him when you got off the train? He died when a group of Ishvalans came here and bombed the station. That was near the end of the Civil War."

"I think I must have. I didn't realize he'd died."

Which begs the question, "What do ghosts look like to you?"

"Like anyone else, more or less."

When the Sauters get upset, they burn. Mr. Teller falls apart in a terrible streak of gore. Mrs. Morgenstern and Mr. Cuttler pale and bloat, spilling a poor shadow of foamy water. Private Shriver's face goes to ruin, and Ada gets flushed and waxen as her fingernails and lips turn blue and her voice goes hoarse and wrecked by the cough that tore her lungs apart. Uschi, Mr. Tafano, and the scritch-scratch ghosts are all too far gone to really show how they'd died, so that just leaves Mr. Beckenbauer as the only one of them unscathed by the heart attack that took him too soon.

Well, maybe. Alphonse only ever looks the way he did the night he died, at least to his own eyes. He's seen the others' gazes drift when he gets in a snit about something (usually Ed), tracing the edges of something he can't see. He's never had the courage to ask what they might be seeing.

Dad sighs, slipping thumb and ring finger under his glasses to rub his eyes. "And Cuttler?"

"Gil," Alphonse offers. "He was a soldier. Granny outfitted him with below-the-knee automail a long time ago. He drowned in a flood in the year the Civil War ended."

"Ah," Dad says. And that's apparently all he has to say.

Alphonse narrows his eyes at him, scrutinizing, calculating. He's tempted to ask—of course, it doesn't matter what he wants anymore.

But—

But it could, at least with Dad. He could ask questions, and be answered. Who's to say he'll ever get an opportunity to talk to another living person again? Why is he hesitating? He ought to just ask—

"What—" He winces anyway, and the wince turns into an irritable grimace at his own hesitation.

Dad's smile is gentle. Reassuring without words, the glint of his eyes nearly a tangible weight. Something about being looked at with so much—intent, forgiveness, love—leaves Alphonse almost dizzy. "It's alright. Ask whatever you like."

Alphonse looks away, out across the rolling hills of Resembool. His home and his purgatory both. The shadows have all been gently smothered by nightfall now.  In distant fields lightning bugs are beginning to blink, blink, blink. Calling out to each other in a language he can't understand. "What's it like not being able to die?"

Dad hums. Thoughtful rather than offended as Alphonse had half-feared he'd be. He seems like the type of man to always turn the other cheek no matter how hard he's pushed. Patient. Well, with how old he must be—as old as the scritch-scratch shadows? Older?—patience is something that he must have had to learn or break otherwise.

"Well," Dad says softly. "It's.... I'm not going to lie and say it doesn't come in handy. But it's not worth watching everyone I love die before me."

"Like Mom. And me."

Dad's face threatens to crumple again, but his voice remains even. "Yes."

Sympathy pangs in the place Alphonse's heart once beat. He thought he'd become accustomed to being dead. The emptiness, the loneliness, the boredom. The threat of inches shaved off his reach every year until one day he's as trapped in as narrow a space as the rest.

Resembool is a little town with little worries and even smaller aspirations. It's unlikely this will change no matter how many decades pass. Only the faces, the fashions, and the brikabrak inside each home are sure to change as generations come and go. He's realized this, rejected the finality of it for as long as he could, but ultimately he's resigned himself to joining the others in their quiet madness. Mr. Tafano, snarling at anyone who comes too near his tree. Ada feverishly taking inventory in the clinic's supply room. Mr. Beckenbauer stood in the corner watching his great-grandson, tapping out a noiseless pattern on his thigh from a time before the radio and the gramophone, a song from when he still lived and breathed and laughed, tapping and tapping and—

Clinging to their coping mechanisms for lack of anything else to hang onto. Breaking under the weight of their own inanity all the same.

His own inhuman existence has only lasted four years, and some days he feels driven half-insane by it. He does everything he can to stave off imagining the centuries that await him still, obsessively follows the townspeople so as not to think of his own inexorable winding down, tolerates even the dullest conversations and radio broadcasts so he doesn't think of the inevitable day Ed will go where he can't one last time, for good.

He wrenches himself out of that dark turn. There are better things to focus on right now. "I don't remember," he admits. "Dying, I mean. All I can remember is our transmutation circle going... wrong."

In the failing light he can just make out Dad's frown. "How do you mean?"

"The color," he says, and describes the event as best he remembers. It's a truncated summary, all the blood and terror wiped carefully away because Dad doesn't need to hear those details. Not when his frown deepens after hearing only the barest outline. "Like I said, I don't remember what happened to me. Everything went dark, and the next thing I was alone in the basement, apart from—from what we made."

"I'm sorry," Dad says after a moment. "I should have been here. To stop you from trying, if nothing else."

Alphonse nods. He'd thought the same a hundred times if he'd thought it once since that night, and now he knows for sure that Dad would have stopped them, if only he'd known he needed to. "Mom used to tell us you were coming back," he says. It's petty to say so, even cruel, but someone's got to. It might as well be him.

Dad does the right thing by flinching. "I... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Alphonse, I—I thought you'd all be fine without me here."

They'd thought so too, even after Mom died. So much for that.

He floats easily to his feet, slipping his hands into his pockets as he nods toward Rockbell Automail. "You should head back. Granny'll be expecting you for dinner."

=

It's strange, watching Dad and Granny have dinner together. How they so easily share new stories and reminisce over old ones. They've been friends for decades and it shows in how easily they fall back into finishing each other's sentences, in how naturally they move around each other, in how Dad knows where the cutlery drawer is and which cupboard Granny keeps her shot glasses. It's strange, because for the first time since he died a living person knows he's there. He feels almost—guilty whenever Dad's eyes flicker in his direction. He feels like he's intruding on something especially private, like he's eavesdropping on the adults when he ought to be in bed. It makes him feel more like a kid than he has in—years.

(Granny certainly wouldn't have recounted that particular story about the man she'd bested  in a drinking contest when she was 22 if she'd known he was there, listening in. At least not without a significant amount of censoring.)

He sits in a corner out of the way beside Den, who remains a coiled, growling knot all evening. The usually even-tempered dog doesn't so much as flick an ear at the sound of his cajoling. "What's the matter with you?" He asks in a huff, running his hands down and through Den's raised hackles. "Easy boy, easy."

Dad's eyes meet his again; when Granny's not looking he twitches his shoulders in a mute apology that baffles Alphonse for a moment until he puts two and two together. Half a million souls squeezed into one man's body, and dogs are sensitive enough to hear ghosts... well. Alphonse might not be able to hear so much as a whisper out of whatever might be in Dad, but clearly Den doesn't want any part of it.

"And I suppose you'll be needing a place to stay while you're in town?" Granny asks with a sly look over the rim of her glasses. Dad in turn smiles wanly.

"Oh, I wouldn't want to impose. The inn will be—"

"Don't even think of finishing that sentence." She grins at him, sharp despite the whiskey she's put away. "The nice guest room belongs to Ed these days, so you'll be in the new one. You've got good timing, you know; I freshened it up just the other day."

The new guest room is Auntie Sara and Uncle Yuriy's old bedroom. Granny, pragmatic as always, had boxed up their things while he and Ed had been in Dublith, selling or freely giving away anything that would do better in someone else's possession. She'd bought new linens, hung up a few paintings bought from a couple local artists, but to Alphonse's eye all that hard work carved something intrinsic out of the Rockbell's home. The room is too ascetic now, too barren. It's nice enough, but there's nothing homey about it at all.

Dad leans back, dismayed. "I couldn't possibly—"

"Oh, look at the time, you daft old man. Do you really want to drag Reuben and Starla out of bed now?"

"You might as well give it up," Alphonse says over Den's surly growling. "There's no winning an argument with her about anything."

This time when Dad's eyes flicker in his direction there's a faint smile to his mouth. "...Thank you."

=

In the morning Dad goes for a walk after breakfast, nodding discreetly when Alphonse asks him if it would be alright if he came along.

(How strange, to feel the need to ask permission for anything. How gratifying, to be answered.)

It looks like it's going to be a clear day, presumably still chilly out as Dad takes his coat from the stand as he leaves. A strong breeze comes and goes like it can't make up its mind, sheeting through the fields along the road. There's a riot of birdsong that breaks apart to angry chattering as Dad passes beneath them. Alphonse watches a particularly furious male scold Dad from the safety of a fence post, all its iridescent feathers puffed up and gleaming in the morning sun. As scared of Dad as Den is, who'd spent breakfast backed into the corner with his teeth bared and his tail between his legs.

"That must get old," he says, nodding at the bird when Dad only looks at him curiously. Had he really not noticed?

"Oh." Dad chuckles. "It can make things awkward, sometimes. There's nothing I can do about it though."

"Can all animals sense you? What you—are, I suppose?"

"Just about, yes."

"Can people? Granny didn't seem to notice anything weird."

"It's not common, but it's possible." Dad's gaze travels east, his eyes heavy with memory. "In Xing some are naturally attuned to the Dragon's Pulse, while others dedicate their lives to learning the flow of it. Alkahestrists, warriors, monks; any who wish to  know the body's strengths and weaknesses see this understanding. These individuals are able to sense the presence of people and even animals around them by the energy flowing through their bodies. So too, they can sense things that go against that natural flow."

Alkahestry had been one of many topics Dad had spoken of yesterday, embarrassed as he'd glossed over the Western Sage's influence on the Xingese practice. Until yesterday Alphonse hadn't even known alchemy of any kind was practiced east of the Great Desert. Then again, what he knows of Xing could fit on an index card with room to spare. Here in Resembool there's been virtually no influence from any quarter but its own. Sure, there are a few odds and ends to be found in a number of homes, purchased by traders from before the Civil War or brought home from larger cities. Some tapestries and small statues, a handful of silk scarves and embroidered slippers. Little things easily fit inside a suitcase. A touch of the exotic in otherwise firmly rural Amestrian homes.

Their home hadn't been different in that regard either. For one, Mom had owned at least one Xingese-styled dress. And for another—

"You had books written in Xingese," he says, faltering as he tries to drum up details from the hazy memories of their home. He can only reach back so far before it becomes so much dreamstuff and hearsay.

"Yes," Dad replies softly. "I did."

"What? Oh! Oh, no no, Granny saved those. There's a crate full of your things in her basement."

It was the only other time Alphonse knows for sure she went to their house after she'd buried Mom again. He knows she'd done it while Ed had been off in Central earning his pocket watch and Alphonse had been clawing uselessly at the invisible barrier all around Resembool. He hadn't learned she'd taken anything until months after, when he'd found her one evening paging through one of Dad's strange old books. As far as he knows Ed still has no idea Granny salvaged anything from their house. Ed had never asked Winry to collect anything he couldn't make use of.

Dad's expression softens. "Did she? I'll have to thank her for that."

"After you figure out a way to explain how you know she did it," Alphonse points out wryly.

Or maybe she'd write it off as one more of Dad's harmless oddities. God knows she puts up with some odd habits  from him, and accepts him for the whole of it with hardly a question or wary side-eye. But then, she's known him for so long; either she already knows all about him or trusts him enough to leave well enough alone. That's just how Granny is, honestly; whenever she sees someone hurting she'll offer them a good meal and her dry humor, and a bed to sleep in too if they need it. She helps others because she can't bear to sit idle, never mind a person's personality or history. No wonder she and Dad get on so well.

It's only as they crest the hill to where their home once stood that Alphonse realizes Dad wasn't walking for the sake of some fresh air. He slows, stops, hangs back as Dad presses on to the soot-blackened fence. Shame curdles within him, visceral enough he very nearly feels it twist a memory of his stomach and winch his throat tightly shut. He tangles his hands together as if he might wring out some fitting justification for everything that's happened these last ten years. He wants to say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, we both are, we just wanted to see Mom smile again, I'm so fucking sorry—

But what good would that do?

So he stays silent, choking on guilt he doesn't know how to express to a man he barely knows.

In the end, Dad doesn't ask any questions. He doesn't hurl accusations or fall to pieces again either. In the end, Dad wipes his eyes and turns away from the ruins of their home without saying anything at all.

=

"So," Granny says after lunch, and the way she glowers as she cleans her glasses on the hem of her apron makes Alphonse flinch clear across the kitchen. "Do you plan on sticking around?"

Dad doesn't even bat an eyelid at the ice in her voice. He must be hell in a poker game. "No. I have unfinished business elsewhere. I'll be leaving in a few days. Sooner, if you prefer."

She harrumphs. "Is this business of yours going to take another ten years to sort out?"

"No."

Unimpressed, she puts her glasses on and seems to leave it at that, right up until they've settled on the porch with fresh cups of coffee. Then, in true Granny fashion, she goes in for the kill. "I expect Ed to turn up soon, if you can afford to stay a few more days."

Dad tenses. It's subtle, but Alphonse had caught the grimace with which he'd looked at the few pictures of Ed up on the corkboard. He gets it. There's something off about Ed's smile these days, something that sets a set of teeth on edge, and that's not even taking the new scarring into account. One look's enough to know Ed's been through too much for somebody who's only fifteen.

Granny, shrewd as she is, doesn't miss it either. "That's right. I heard from Jeannie Mandelbaum that Ed and a few other odd characters went out East recently. Practically bought all their horses, and cleared out the general store too."

Dad looks nervous for a moment, then his face smooths back into the familiar mask of passivity. "East? Not to Ishval, I trust."

"Ha! As I hear it there's not enough left of Ishval to still call it that." Granny sneers. She's spent plenty of evenings down at the tavern exchanging vaguely treasonous opinions with the other old timers. Almost no family in Resembool escaped the War unscathed. Far too many headstones were planted in the cemetery during that time.

"No one's sure where they went," she continues, "Only that it was likely they'd be sleeping rough and bringing along quite a lot of water besides. There's nothing beyond the mountains but desert, of course, and all that sand's going to be hell on Ed's automail without proper protection. Makes you wonder why he tore off without visiting me first, doesn't it?"

Dad hums, giving away nothing, and Granny barks laughter again. There's a game happening here Alphonse knows neither the rules nor the score of, but he's pretty sure Granny just took the lead.

"That was some time ago," she adds. "He ought to be back any day. So long as he intends to come back, anyway. I'm sure there's quite a few things he'd like to talk to you about."

Alphonse can't help but snort. "That's one way of putting it."

Dad's eyes flicker between him and Granny dubiously. She grins.

"Ah, like you deserve anything less and you know it. He deserves some answers out of you, don't you think?"

Dad sighs, and nods.

=

There's a comfortable lull the three of them fall into. Routine settles in with its usual mute and mule-headed determination. Having Dad around again, however temporarily, becomes normal.

Turns out, Dad and Granny don't need to say much out loud to understand one another just fine. Alphonse has seen the same familiarity among a lot of the older folks in town; in long-time spouses that hold hands after dinner and have whole conversations without saying a word, and old friends that developed elaborate bartering systems built on decades of inside jokes and IOUs. Dad and Granny know each other inside and out so well that a decade apart has done nothing to diminish their laughter and harmless ribbing.

It makes Alphonse wonder, the second night after Dad's return long after he and Granny had gone to bed, how time might touch him as it spools by. If he'll fall apart like Ada, or if he'll still be able to muster up a joke for Mrs. Morgenstern when loneliness drags her down to the bottom of the river. What was Mr. Tafano like when he first died? What other ghosts huddled in the hills of Resembool long before a town was ever built here?

He wonders what things will be like fifty years from now, and a hundred, and on. The stories he'll tell Uschi and Mrs. Morgenstern and Mr. Cuttler of the going-ons in town. What other unlucky dead will wake to find themselves mute and invisible but to a handful of people who'd died long before. He thinks of the jokes that lose all humor when explained to someone who hadn't been laughing along from the start. The petty slights that no number of years can soothe, the bickering that will continue out of habit long after the first argument's been forgotten. The private things kept between two people; not out of a need for secrecy, but out of a soft desire to keep something good going a little longer.

Well. He's already doing all of that, isn't he?

Fifty years, a hundred, and on. How will Resembool change in that time? Cars, certainly. Plumbing and telephones and electricity in every home too. Paved roads, at least in the town proper. What else might come and go or turn the town on its head?

He's not sure he'd admit it out loud, least of all to Dad, but he's... kind of excited to see what the far-flung future might bring, for all that he'll never get to do more than observe it.

"Pinako," Dad murmurs, drawing Alphonse out of his musing. He and Granny are sat at the dining table, going through a new shipment of approximately eight thousand sizes of screws. She hums absently, so Dad waits until she marks down a number down on the notepad next to her coffee before asking, "Why isn't there a headstone for Alphonse?"

Alphonse flinches.

There's no way Dad doesn't notice.

"...It was Ed's decision," Granny says. Her tone is neutral, her narrowed gaze anything but. "He's convinced he can bring Al back one day, you see."

Dad says nothing, though his eyes narrow in turn.

Granny nods like he's confirmed something anyway. "Yes. He's gone—mm. A bit strange, after everything. Joining the military didn't help that any, but I think in some ways it might have been the best thing for him. Lord knows he's never minded anything I've tried to tell him. Of course, for all that I might think he sounds half-cracked whenever he gets going on all that—" Another nod, this one at the corkboard where all the pictures of Alphonse are prominently on display, "—I never could make heads or tails of alchemy. Maybe he really is onto something. Or maybe not. Maybe he's just dead set on killing himself."

Alphonse flinches again, unable to stifle the miserable sound that escapes him, hating to hear his own morbid fear said aloud by someone so steadfast and reassuring as Granny. If she's thinking the same thing, then there really is no doubt about it. Ed's going to die trying, and there's not one thing any of them can do to stop him.

The seconds stretch. Dad remains silent, passive, counting out screws as if he hadn't heard her.

Granny's measured look deepens to a glower that could curdle milk. "The way I see it," she says archly, "Ed needs someone else he can blame before he runs himself aground. And the way I see it, you're the best candidate for the job. Being his father and all."

"Blaming me won't change what happened," Dad replies coolly.

"He's fifteen, you idiot," she retorts. "Do you think he cares? All blaming himself for Al's death has gotten him is a short leash and a trail of gossip rags hounding his every step. No boy his age should go through half of what he's endured, and all without more than me left to try and talk sense into him whenever he manages to limp all the way out here for maintenance." She takes a swig of coffee like she wishes it were something stronger, then sighs out her anger until she's just—tired. Old and tired and afraid of standing over another grave of someone she loved. "I've known you for a long time, Hohenheim. I know you're a coward and a bastard to the core, but you don't get to run from this. I'll tie you to the goddamn bed frame if I have to."

Dad's eyes flicker to Alphonse as the silence rings. Then he looks away, hunching a little, grimacing at his own coffee mug squeezed in his two large hands. "I know," he says. "I... I know. I'll talk to him."

On the one hand, Alphonse is glad to hear Dad's willing—more or less—to at least stay long enough for one conversation with Ed. On the other hand, oh, but that won't go well.

"He won't appreciate a thing you have to say," Granny warns. God, but Alphonse loves her.

"I wouldn't expect him to," Dad replies, and Granny nods like he's passed another test, and that's the end of that.

=

One of Granny's out-of-towner customers arrives the next day. Krista Lusk's service dog Charlie likes having Dad around even less than Den does, so Granny gives Dad a wad of bills, a grocery list, and a stern order not to come back until suppertime. She locks the front door after she's shoved him through it for good measure, and Alphonse smothers his grin behind one hand as Dad's left blinking in the mid-morning glare without even his overcoat.

"You better hop to it," he says. "She hates it when people don't do as she says."

"I know," Dad says, but he's smiling too. It seems to come more naturally to him with every passing day. Granny's a good influence on him. He ought to stick around for that alone, though Alphonse is beginning to suspect the man's as bad as Ed is at taking care of his own needs before anybody else's. Exhibit A: Dad remains standing on the porch like he doesn't have a lengthy honey-do list burning a hole in his pocket, staring down the dirt road with another one of his impossible to read expressions. His eyes flicker behind his glasses; left, up, then down in a grimace. Chasing after ghosts again.

Alphonse waits. A couple of days of—acclimating, is perhaps the best word—to Dad's myriad eccentricities has been long enough to learn that waiting is better than hounding Dad when he gets distracted like this. It must be terribly noisy in Dad's head with half a million souls clamoring around in there. He's only one more ghost vying for attention.

Eventually Dad blinks, looking down at Alphonse with a shrug of his broad shoulders in a gesture that'd look like nervousness on anybody else.

(Will Ed's shoulders ever be so broad? Will Ed live long enough to find out?)

"So," Dad says bracingly, "You seem to be adjusting well."

Alphonse stares.

Dad stares back.

The unspoken part of this observation—that he's adjusting well to being dead—sits between them like overripe roadkill that Dad doesn't appear to notice at all. Alphonse does his best not to laugh out of sheer disbelief. "You—you're not very good at talking to people, are you?"

Dad shrugs again, slipping his hands into his pockets as he goes down the porch steps. "Not really, no."

Oh boy. Well. Dad's trying, which has to count for something, right? He ought to at least try to meet him halfway.

He steps lightly into the air, staying a few feet off the ground to be at Dad's eye level. It'll be a little less awkward if they happen across anybody on the walk into town this way. Dad looks at him as he floats an easy half-circle around him, eyebrows raised but otherwise perfectly content to give him all the time he needs to sort his thoughts out. "It's not what I expected—" he begins, then corrects himself. "Well, I don't suppose I ever expected anything, really."

Organized religion and all its trappings is a concept he's never put much stock in, too much of a scientist even as a little kid to find comfort in the plans of some abstractly benign celestial being. Especially not any thing that had the audacity to try and justify orphans. He never chafed as brazenly as Ed did when well-meaning people told them God took Mom for a reason, but he'd bitten his tongue every time he'd held Ed back to avoid causing a scene.

"Ed and I, we never talked much about what we thought might come after death. We wanted there to be something, and it made sense to us that there would be more to a person than their physical composition, something more fundamental than a series of chemical reactions. But we never believed in all that, you know—" He waves his hands vaguely to encompass all the fluffy clouds and harps horseshit, as Ed would absolutely call it if he were here for this conversation. He's a little tempted to say the same, but he doesn't want to put his foot in it if it turns out Dad can still somehow muster faith in a higher power after everything he's endured.

"I mean, what Pastor Darbinian talks about sounds nice, sure, but it never sat right with me, and Ed—" He can't help but laugh a little, and is gratified that the corners of Dad's mouth curl upwards rather than down. "Well, if God's real, I don't think Ed would be happy with anything less than a chance to take Him in a bare-knuckle brawl."

Dad's mouth twitches outright, but he doesn't say anything yet.

"We believed there had to be some spark, divine or otherwise, something we could reach and subsequently bind to the body we designed. I guess that's a long way of saying we liked a good ghost story as much as anybody else, but we never believed they were real. Not really. So to wake up like this after we tried bringing Mom back...."

He shrugs off the old horror, the old terror, the bleak realization that he'd died—

Well. It happened, and there's nothing left for him now but the after party.

"It took some adjusting," he adds slyly, and grins when Dad has the decency to look chastised. "But the others all helped me understand what had happened."

Dad hums, almost starts saying something, then notices the cart coming up the adjacent road as they approach an intersection. He purses his lips into another bland smile that doesn't really seem to mean anything at all. Omar Springer gawks openly at Dad, barely reacting to his polite greeting. His son Rick, turned fifteen not even three weeks back, shows off the gap in his grin where Ed knocked out his tooth years ago as he waves. It's only after the dust of their wagon's passing has nearly settled that Dad speaks.

"There's a girl," he says. "A little younger than you. There used to be a gristmill out on the edge of the western woods—"

He's surprised enough to drop out of the sky. "You don't mean Uschi, do you?"

Dad stares. "You know about her?"

"I know her," he corrects, momentarily baffled when Dad only stares harder. "Wh—oh. Right. You wouldn't—I mean. I've got a much wider range of movement than the others."

"Really," Dad says.

"Yeah. I can reach just about anywhere within Resembool's borders. I"m not sure why, but I think it's because of how I died—" Oops, maybe he shouldn't be quite so glib about that. "—uh. I'm the only ghost here who, uh. Was in an alchemical accident?"

That's a stretch by every definition, but for all that he's certain it wasn't a rebound that killed him he still doesn't have a clue what really happened. It's likely he never will. If he's honest with himself he's still grappling with that. Not just not knowing, but being completely incapable of taking any steps towards knowing eventually. He's intangible, invisible, mute, useless, pointless—

Well. He'll get over himself one day.

"I see," Dad says, looking more uncomfortable than ever.

Desperate to pave over that particular gaffe Alphonse offers, "I had no idea anybody used to live out there until I met her. I don't think anyone else does either."

Dad is quiet, again, as he so often insists on being. Then he surprises by offering more than his usual wry noncommittal replies. His tone turns wistful as he speaks, in the same manner as Granny and other older folk in town whenever they reminisce about the days when they were young and the world's hardships still seemed worthwhile. "Pinako and I first came across the gristmill not long after I bought my house here. She was livid that I discovered something she'd never known about so quickly. Of course, I only knew something was there because I saw Uschi flying above the treeline."

Alphonse bites back the urge to ask what year that was because—

Because Uschi can't go that high anymore. Sometimes, not often, he finds her floating on her back, pressed flush to the invisible ceiling that keeps her trapped beneath a clear view of the countryside. She cries if he tries to distract her; this terrible keening that guts him straight through. When she gets like that... well. He's learned the hard way that it's best to let her grieve alone.

"Do you—?" He falters. "I mean, I've never asked outright what happened to her. She gets upset whenever I bring up anything about—that—for either of us. Do you know?"

"It was before I came to Resembool," Dad replies, instead of It was before my time, which is what any normal person would have said. Of course, he's older than the entire country. Talk about putting things into perspective. "I did some digging after I'd spoken with her a few times. The first settlement was located on the western end of the valley. It was all but destroyed in a fire. The Žitnik's gristmill was the first to burn down." Dad hesitates, mouth thinning, eyes flickering. "From what I gathered, her family was targeted by the other villagers."

"What? Why?"

The bland mask Dad's proven to be so keen on wearing slips; for a moment his eyes blaze. "For being different. Why else?"

Alphonse—

—stills.

He knows how isolated he is. How isolated his childhood was. As he is now, he hears and sees all the things the adults do their best to keep from children, yes, but Resembool is only a village, and not a very large one at that. More than that, it's thrived the way it has for generations. It's comfortable with itself, all its people familiar and familial and wary of upset. It's a place founded on traditions and expectations. Worse, it's insular. He knows there had been two Ishvalan families who had lived here before the Civil War that are gone now. The why and how behind their absence is a mystery he's never heard spoken of since his own death, which in some ways is a red flag all on its own. There are a handful of other races and ethnicities besides pure Amestrian here still; there are mixed families, and families that don't attend church the same day as everyone else, and plenty more who’d spit in God’s Eye if they believed there was an Eye worth spitting at. He knows those people are looked at askance, but he's never sensed any malice.

But that isn't the same thing as acceptance, is it?

Broadly speaking, Resembool is as uniform as the minuscule military unit on the northernmost edge of town. The same families have lived here since its founding, the population bolstered by farmhands and soldiers and the rare handful of those who wanted and could afford a fresh start away from the hustle and bustle of city life. He's heard stories of what the Civil War cost so many other places in Amestris, Ishval most of all. He knows, perhaps better than most, that a human life is worth more than the sum of what can be measured and weighed.

Still. Still, it's disheartening to be told that the cruelty and ugliness of the world at large festers here too. That people, long gone now, but people just like those he's gotten to know so well since his death, could look at another person and think something positive could come from murder.

"That's awful," he says.

What else is there to say?

=

The townsfolk all circle Dad like a flock of vultures as soon as he steps foot onto Main Street. Word of his return has clearly been making the rounds, and from the toothsome expressions flashed at him it's not likely all opinions are positive. Not that Alphonse can blame any of them; he and Ed were hardly the only ones to assume Dad had died, and most of the adults are appalled that their parents never married to this day. Scandals, however small, get their mileage here.

Mrs. Cartwright hails Dad from the newsstand with an artificial smile and a lot of arm waving. Alphonse doesn't even bother to stifle his laughter as Dad visibly steels himself before approaching. It'd be nothing short of delightful to watch her put the metaphorical thumbscrews to Dad, but she'll be at it for roughly forever. He can happily spend that time better elsewhere, so he leaves Dad to suffer on his own and hangs a left onto Miron Street.

He goes past the smithy, a rush of clanging and billowing black smoke as always, heading for the poorest part of town. Cris Street, all its houses settling crookedly into their foundations, are some of Resembool's oldest homes. Few of them are kept up half as well as those just a street over. No part of Resembool is impoverished, not really, or at least not to Alphonse's limited experience. Whole swaths of Dublith had been run to ruin by the on-and-off troubles with Creta and the terrible toll the Civil War had wrecked. He knows that for all that Resembool had been targeted directly once, it survived almost entirely unscathed.

That's not to say there aren't those hurting here. Alphonse has gotten to know everyone in town intimately in the years since he died; some better than they know themselves. He's learned that even in sleepy little villages there are people that hurt in ways there might be no way to ever fix.

A prime example of that—and the reason he's gone onto Cris Street—is George Petrescu. Mr. Petrescu only left the Eastern region once in all his 64 years, and that excursion left all but five of his company dead and his leg and shoulder riddled with shrapnel. All he'd gotten out of continuing the family tradition of military service was a few shiny medals, a lifetime of chronic pain and debilitating nightmares, a failed marriage, and a disability paycheck that just about covered the cost of whatever booze might pickle his liver fastest. Once upon a time he'd been a happy husband and loving father; Alphonse only knows he'd had twin girls once upon a time because he's seen the photographs Mr. Petrescu fishes out when he gets too deep into his cups. He's watched the man's face soften to a spongy mess of grief over what he'd had and thrown away more times than he cares to think, and every time he steps inside this ramshackle house he walks away sick with shame and second-hand embarrassment for all that this good man had once been.

He comes back anyway, because no one else bothers to intervene anymore.

Once upon a time, Mrs. Petrescu—Claudia, and Alphonse only learned her name through tutting gossip one night when Mr. Petrescu had embarrassed himself once again two years ago at a wedding he hadn't been invited to—had grown sick of her husband's unpredictable rages and called it quits after he'd hurt one of their girls. Molly or Holly, Alphonse has never heard which, only that Granny had needed to get involved, and that things had grown grim enough that Mrs. Petrescu had decided that the shame of raising her girls on her own elsewhere didn't outweigh whatever love she still harbored for the good man her husband had once been before the military had torn him to pieces. She'd left long ago, before Ed had been before, before even Aunt Sara had come to Resembool to apprentice under Granny. Mrs. Petrescu had left with her girls and all their belongings and gone north, and no one's heard anything from them but hearsay and supposition since.

There are a number of people in town with long, lonesome histories and no one living left to lean on. God knows Granny's three-quarters of the way to joining that number, for all that she'd deny it if Alphonse were capable of pointing it out to her. He worries after her, but at least she still has Winry calling two or three times a week. There are too many unlucky few who don't receive so much as a letter from those who might feel some obligation to keep in contact, but don't for their own reasons. Alphonse has come to know too well since his own death that there are worse things in this world than being invisible, things worse even than being dead. He could still be alive, still be heard and seen and everything living entails, but instead be purposefully shunned by his fellows. He could be shameful. An embarrassment. Someone the whole town pretends its hardest to never notice, never mind he could be stood right in the center of things screaming his head off.

Mr. Petrescu is one of those unlucky few, but it's not his fault. Not really. Not in any way that counts.

Alphonse passes through the front door of Mr. Petrescu's ramshackle home, all peeling green paint and sloughing apart roof. He squints into the darkness until his eyes recall he doesn't need to falter in the half-light. Old habits, still unbroken. Inside is the usual heap of detritus; stacks of broken, useless things that inch higher toward the cobwebbed ceilings with every passing year. Deeper inside the house is a bedroom, and buried in that dim room is a bed—that must surely reek to high heavens if the scrunched-nose expressions everyone makes around Mr. Petrescu when he fumbles his way out of his house is anything concrete to go by—and in that bed is the man of the house himself.

"Oh, for Heaven's sake," Alphonse tuts to himself. "I leave you alone for three days and this is what you do with yourself?"

There's no reply, of course, not that Alphonse expects one. Besides, from what he's gleaned Mr. Petrescu isn't a chatty man even with people who are willing and able to have a conversation with him. He doesn't even spare more than a few grunts for Mr. McElligott or the gaggle of teenagers that run the register at the General Store, and they're the ones he interacts with most not that the Pugh family won't let him patron the tavern anymore.

"Come on now, rise and shine!" Alphonse says, hopping over a pile of something-or-other to kneel on the bed, wiggling his fingers menacingly for his own small amusement.

It's the same thing he does for Granny, and for a number of others besides. Those lonely living souls who sink too deeply into maudlin rituals that hide them away from friends and neighbors alike, clinging to the outskirts of their own lives out of something adjacent to stubbornness and second cousin to habit. He's invisible and essentially mute, sure, but a cold spot like him can be a right tenacious little shit when he's so inclined. He grins as he sticks his hands through the blankets and wriggles them around until the lump on the bed grunts, grunts louder, swears even louder than that, and finally sits up.

Mr. Petrescu might have been handsome, once. Now he's a gray and pallid thing, gaunt in some places and flabby in others, covered all over in bristly gray hair that looks as coarse as steel wool. He snuffles and hawks up something thick into the trashcan by his nightstand. He reaches for the bottle by the full ashtray, scowling when it turns out to be empty.

"Good," Alphonse says. "You ought to get some sun, you know. It's a lovely morning out. A bit chilly, I think, but you'd be the better judge of that. Why don't you go and find out?"

The man looks around his dirty bedroom blearily, grumbling something that's more vowels than consonants and completely unintelligible for it. Then finally he fumbles for his cane and hoists himself to his unsteady feet. It always worries Alphonse terribly, those first few hobbled steps that seem to cost Mr. Petrescu more than he can afford. Sometimes he yelps like a wounded dog and sinks defeated to the floor, and those are days that are better left smoothed over and forgotten. Today is a better day. Not good, no. It would be unkind and inaccurate to ever say Mr. Petrescu has good days anymore. But he gets to the bathroom and sorts out that business and gets dressed in clothes with no obvious stains, and none of it with more than a few yawns and sleepy grumbles.

Alphonse leaves the man to all that personal stuff, more interested to see what the rest of the house looks like. He hasn't been by since Dad turned up and he's curious to glean what he can about what Mr. Petrescu's been up to. Hopefully more than dulling his senses with drink, and if he's not in much pain today that might not even be a fruitless hope.

The curtains are all drawn tightly shut so only thin outlines of gray light spot the living room and kitchen. Spots of reflected light glitter damningly throughout every room he peers, bottles left to gather dust where they'd been dropped. It looks like the house is dry, though there perhaps something was squirreled away in the bathroom because Mr. Petrescu starts to whistle as he gets dressed. That's alright. Alphonse can understand needing a little help to get a hard thing done.

Mr. Petrescu totters out of the bathroom, snuffling some as he paws his wet hair out of his eyes. Alphonse steps close to wriggle his cold hands up and down the man's spine until he jerks absentmindedly toward the couch to fetch an oversized knit sweater. It might have fit him well once, but that would have been years ago. Still, it's another layer to warm him, a bit of armor against the cutting gazes of his neighbors. It's better than nothing.

All told it must take twenty minutes of nagging before Mr. Petrescu gimps outside, but that's the hard part handled. From here Alphonse can trust the man to make his way onto Main Street. There the usual gossips will cluck their tongues to see him buying booze so early in the day, but there will likely be food bought besides and if it's Mr. McElligott or Ilya Jarrett running the register at the general store they might coax him into getting a few other necessities besides. If Alphonse hadn't been by today it's likely Mr. Petrescu would have gone without anything until nightfall, if he'd decided to leave his house at all.

It's the little things that matter. The little things are all that are left to him, and to Mr. Petrescu, and to who-knows-how many people out in the world. He has to appreciate the good he can still do, no matter how small it might be.

The truth of the matter is that there's a kernel of unlovely familiarity he sees in Mr. Petrescu. There are times the man barks insults at his fellows, scowling thunderously when no one has the spine to give him the fight he's angling for. There are times the man can't leave his bed for the pain he's in, bitterly cursing as he kneads the knotted muscles of his thigh. There are times when he stares unblinking at old photographs of what he'd had once upon a time, and his eyes become two nickel coins in his lined face. There are times the man rouses from another terrible nightmare sobbing apologies to the dead, and the rest of those nights are spent huddled near a lantern or sat on the rickety chair in his backyard watching the stars wheel overhead.

How can he see the rut Mr. Petrescu has slowly but doggedly dug himself into and not see a funhouse mirror reflection of what Ed might become one day? If Ed hangs on half as long as Mr. Petrescu, will he retreat into a bottle for comfort? Will his myriad hurts twist him hunchbacked and limping even on his good days? Will he become too bitter and sharp of edge for anyone to consider him worth befriending?

It is so, so easy to see the worst of what Ed might sink to in what Mr. Petrescu's life has quietly fallen apart to. He hopes things will improve for the man one day, that one of the living will take pity on him, that they'll take the time to help him when the scrap of pride and stubbornness he buoys himself with won't let him. Alphonse doesn't want to be the only one who cares. Not when he can do so little to help. He wants there to be others for Mr. Petrescu to lean on, and Ed too, and all the lonely hurting souls beyond his reach.

=

He catches up with Dad in the general store—it is Ilya running the register, that's a welcome relief—and perches on the counter to watch as the pair haggle through Granny's list. Then it's to the café for a coffee and sandwich to go that Dad takes to the station. There's a terrible moment where Alphonse briefly thinks Dad intended to leave now, but then he recalls the long-since memorized train schedule. There's no train due until tomorrow, and it won't leave until the day after that. He watches Dad give Mr. McCahan and Ms. Seelin a bland smile as he passes them at the ticket station, then settles himself on one of the white benches on the platform.

"Well, there's the talk of the town himself!" Mr. Teller calls out cheerfully, floating up off the tracks to land beside Alphonse. He hovers his hand over Alphonse's head, as close as he can get to ruffling his hair.

"Is it as bad as that?" Dad asks.

"If I know the hens are all a-flutter, then you know it's worse."

Dad grimaces. "What seems to be the common thread?"

"Oh, they're all right scandalized, of course. Aston had to break up an argument before it came to blows. I heard it secondhand, of course, but I think it had something to do with your imaginary fortune again."

Dad tuts, though it might be because he spilled coffee on his fingers. "I thought Pinako had taken care of that nonsense."

"Yes, well, you've not been here to remind folks of the facts stood right in front of them. Welcome back, by the way. Missed your arrival with all that hubbub with the hogs."

"Aston, you said?"

"Aston Clark. That'd be the painter. Or, well, I don't know if he'd picked that up yet before you left."

"What the fuck," Alphonse says loudly. Both men blink at him like they'd forgotten he was there.

"Oh," Mr. Teller says, looking guilty.

"Mm," Dad agrees, making a face like he thinks he should be unhappy his youngest has figured out foul language in his absence, but also knows he doesn't have any right to chastise. Good thing he realized that, because at this current moment Alphonse is discovering heretofore unrealized depths of outrage that might rival Ed and Winry both at their most rancorous.

He turns the full force of it on Mr. Teller. "You knew he could see us?!"

"I thought you knew," Mr. Teller says defensively.

"I think I would have mentioned it if I did!"

So it turns out every ghost that was around when Dad left Resembool knew he could see and hear them, and none of them thought this an important enough fact worth mentioning to Alphonse in the years since his death. Alphonse spends several minutes telling Mr. Teller—and Mr. Sauter too, when he decides to turn up with an altogether too cheerful wave greeting for Dad like there's nothing absurd about greeting a living person—exactly what he thinks of this slip-up, raising his voice every time the man ineffectively hides his grin until he's shouting. Dad, as ever, appears unaffected. He eats his sandwich. licks his fingers clean, and only then bothers to intervene.

"I don't think it's something that would come up too often."

Alphonse whips around to give him a distinctly unimpressed glare. "I'm pretty sure it should have." It's not like there's a wealth of gossip for the dead in Resembool to busy themselves with! It would make sense for one of them to mention to Alphonse that his own father would be able to see him if he weren't dead and did end up coming home one day, as turned out to be the case. Torn between keeping the glare on Dad—who's proven thus far to be wholly harmless, and apologetic to the point of second-hand embarrassment—and Mr. Teller—who won't stop grinning like the Winter Solstice has come early, the bastard—Alphonse opts for the middle ground of glaring at Mr. Sauter.

"Hey," Mr. Sauter protests, holding up his hands defensively. "I died after he left. How was I supposed to know?"

Alphonse goes back to glaring at Mr. Teller. "You didn't tell him either?"

"Nope," Mr. Teller says, entirely too giddily.

He throws his hands up. "What's the point of you!"

Mr. Teller pretends grave offense, clutching his chest like Alphonse has put a knife through him and making a whole laundry list of ludicrous faces. "Ah! D'you hear that, Hohenheim? No respect! No respect at all. What did that ol' Pantheress teach him for manners without you there to mind her, eh?"

Dad hides his amusement behind his paper cup. "Pinako's always known better than to listen to my advice."

"Shut up," Alphonse says, stamping on the urge to strangle—nobody, yes, but that’s only on a technicality he hasn’t figured a loophole around. "Stop. For—god, seriously? Don't make jokes. I've been dead almost four years and nobody thought to mention my own father happens to be an—an immortal medium? What the fuck!"

"Well hang on now, scale it back, lad," Mr. Teller says, turning his delighted grin on Dad. "What's this about being immortal now?"

"He's immortal, he's ridiculously old, we can talk about that later," Alphonse snarls. "The subject at hand right now is that you knew he was weird from the start and never said!"

Mr. Teller continues to be an absolute bastard and waves his hands dismissively at Alphonse without taking eyes off Dad. "Hush it, you. You might be able to talk to any ol' stiff you please, but shy of a funeral you and Owen are the only ones I get to talk to, especially after this one took off without so much as a warning! I never mentioned his, whatever, ability I suppose, because I figured the same as you; that the ol' bastard was dead."

"Hey," Alphonse says feebly, and only when it becomes apparent Dad's not going to speak up in his own defense. Being untroubled by some persnickety dead guy insulting him suggests he won't mind Ed calling him the same in a few days, which is good, though time will tell how well being a Philosopher's Stone will protect Dad's teeth.

"I don't make a habit of announcing what I am," Dad says, neutral enough that Alphonse can't tell if he'd like it if Alphonse stopped going on about it or doesn't care if he starts shouting it from the rooftops. Whatever, it's not like more than four people'd be able to hear him if he did that.

"What are you, anyway?" Mr. Sauter asks curiously. "It's been—what, a decade since you left? And you haven't aged a day!"

"Looks the same as when I was still alive too," Mr. Teller adds pointedly.

"It's a long story," Dad admits. "I'm sure Alphonse would be happy to share it on my behalf another time. I'm afraid I need to g—"

"Granny's stuff can wait," Alphonse says. Dad raises his eyebrows doubtfully. "It can. She only tossed you out because the dogs don't like you—"

"Oh, I remember that!" Mr. Sauter says. "My Lalea just about strangled herself on her chain whenever you came near. Course, she didn't like most folk, but she hated you. What's that got to do with anything?"

"Oh my god," Alphonse says loudly. "Never mind all that. Can we please, for thirty seconds, stay on topic? Mister Teller, you knew! Not just that he can see us but also that he's—weird! The kind of weird that made it liable he wasn't dead in a ditch somewhere!"

Dad blinks. "A ditch?"

"We had to assume something. It was that or go with Ed's idea."

"Oh, don't," Mr. Sauter interrupts, distressed, while Mr. Teller—bastard—giggles outright. They'd both been at the station for that cheerful conversation between Ed and Winry. Mr. Sauter steps up, hovers his hands over Alphonse's shoulders like he'd try to settle him if only they could touch. "Al, come now, that's enough. You know Walt only meant well—didn't you, Walt?"

Mr. Teller bobs his head, as sincere as he ever gets. "I can't say what the rest were thinking, but you always look so torn up whenever the topic of your parents came up. I didn't want to be the one to bring your dad up when the chance of him coming back seemed slim to none."

Dad's mouth thins. Alphonse ducks his head to hide his scowl, embarrassed of all things. It's Mr. Sauter who speaks into the empty space couched between them, smiling genially. "It is good to see you again, Van."

=

Ms. Lusk won't be leaving until the train wends its unhurried way back down to Resembool in three days time. Granny, usually happy to let her out-of-towners stay under her roof free of charge—seeing as how they're already paying out the nose for the limbs she's built them—surprises Alphonse when she phones Mrs. Forney to arrange for a room at the inn instead.

"I'd have you here as long as you needed any other time," Granny tells her as she finishes writing up the bill, nodding toward the back porch where Dad stepped out to put some distance between him and the dogs, "But that one's a dear friend of mine and he won't be in town long."

"It's no trouble," Ms. Lusk assures her, and even goes out of her way to stick her head out the back door to wish Dad a good day. Then she gathers her things and her usually even-tempered guide dog Pepene and strides off down the road. She'd come up with an obvious gimp in her ankle but today she strides off whistling. Alphonse likes when Ms. Lusk has to stay a few days. She's always good for a few fun stories. Maybe he'll stop by the inn around suppertime to listen in.

Granny waits until Ms. Lusk is all but a speck in the distance before she goes to stick her head out back. "You can stop hiding now."

"I was admiring your garden," Dad corrects woodenly.

"Get in here, freeloader," Granny says, grinning. "I've got a lot of work to get through today. You can do me a favor and make dinner."

Dad smiles as he comes up the steps, holding the door so both Granny and Alphonse can walk "Any requests?"

"A fellow so well-traveled as you has surely picked up a few novel recipes along the way," Granny replies dryly. "Surprise me."

Turns out Dad expected Granny to put him to the test at least once while he's here, because along with everything else she had him but he'd added a few purchases of his own, paid for from his own pocket.

(How do wandering alchemists slash itinerant scholars earn money, anyway?)

"What are you making?" Alphonse asks, perching up on the corner counter out of the way to better watch him work.

Dad hums. "She's always liked it when I make something she won't find elsewhere. I… hmm. Yes, I think so." He offers a smile in Alphonse's direction. "Do you like eggs?"

"Not anymore," Alphonse replies archly.

"Before, then," he corrects, completely unruffled.

"I did, yeah."

"Would you like to learn how to make a Xerxesian dish?"

There's a note of hesitation in his voice, so soft that Alphonse nearly misses it. But for all that Dad tries to go around like he's carved from stone, he looks away from people he's wary of hurting the same way Ed does. For that alone Alphonse has no trouble hopping down to join him by the sink, grinning up excitedly. Dad falters, then returns it as honestly as whenever Granny startles laughter out of him.

"Well, then. It's a bit like an omelette, or perhaps a frittata is a better comparison…."

Dad doesn't share the same sure grace as Granny or Teacher have in the kitchen. He pauses at odd moments, chops and measures everything as if being even a hair's breadth off would mean having to scrap the whole dish and start fresh, and for all his caution he nearly burns it anyway. Dad's panic is charming in its own way; in how another rough edge in Alphonse's impression of him is smoothed away by watching this impossibly complicated almost-stranger nearly spill his hard work on the floor no less than three times. Still, he lays out a charming spread for two before going downstairs to fetch Granny.

Kuku sabzi, he'd called the dish. Alphonse turns the foreign words over in his mind, regarding it like a clear piece of polished quartz found among river stones. Unexpected and almost alien, but beautiful in a way that demanded curious hands to pick it up and take it home to display.

Of course Xerxes had its own language. He wonders if anyone else survived the country's destruction, merchants or soldiers or a handful of lucky farmhands working just beyond the array. Are there any descendants of those few? Are there any others who still know Xerxesian?

(Has Dad had even one opportunity to speak his native language with anyone outside his own head in four centuries?)

Dad comes back up after a few minutes and, after another of his pauses, moves the pan to the sink to soak before attending to the fresh-brewed coffee. "She'll be up shortly," he murmurs.

Alphonse hums, still half-lost in thought, imagining how Xerxes might have been once upon a time. The faces, the fashions, the brikabrak inside each home. So many dead. So many ghosts caught up in an even smaller space than the scritch-scratch ghosts huddle and weep, an even smaller space than the buried basement he'll huddle in one day too.

"You must miss it," he says. "All of you, I mean."

Dad does not flinch, nor freeze. There's no hunch of his broad shoulders as he stirs in milk and sugar, no tremble to his hands as he picks both mugs up. When he turns, however, his smile is brittle. His eyes are as flat as two bronze coins. "Yes,” he says. “Very much."

=

The following morning Dad goes for another meandering walk. When he meets other people he dips his head and bids them good day and always seems completely immune to the gobsmacked looks he gets as he hops over a property fence or through somebody's garden. Alphonse can't decide if Dad's just that distracted by so many conversations in his head or if he's a fan of petty vengeance. Granny had been thorough on filling Dad in on all the unkind things said about Mom and Ed, and who had said them.

Honestly, Alphonse prefers meandering the countryside with him instead of following behind in town. There, as yesterday had proven, any number of toothsome so-and-so's were eager to know just what Dad's been up to, and where he's been, if he's heard Ed joined the military, has he heard a fraction of the madcap adventures Ed gets into, and isn't it a fright, the military taking him at such a young age? What's the world even coming to, child soldiers and the threat of war on three borders, it'll be Ishval all over again if Bradley's not careful—not that Ed would be shipped to the frontlines at his age, surely things aren't so dire as that! But he must worry, mustn't he? And oh, how terribly sad it is, Trisha and Alphonse, what tragedies, so young when they passed, and he and she never did get around to tying the knot, properly, did they? The poor dear, it was so hard on her after he left, raising two boys on her own, such a strain on her frail nerves, it's no surprise what happened—

On and on they'd gone, killing Dad with kindness until he managed enough feeble excuses and pleasantries to satiate them for the time being.

Yeah, Alphonse is nothing short of relieved that Dad opts to avoid town altogether today.

Dad had told Granny that he didn't want to be in the way while she worked through a small backlog of paperwork, and she'd told him about the box of his things she'd kept without prompting, clearly keen to keep him around. She's coerced a number of people in town to keep an eye out for Ed and bribed a few more to strongarm Ed up to Rockbell Automail if need be. Dad had given her a look like he knew exactly what she was up to, but thanked her anyway.

(Alphonse loves watching them snipe at each other.)

Of course, Dad's real reason to leave the house is so he can talk freely with him. Alphonse didn't even need to ask; Dad had smiled at him first thing this morning, then told Granny he was going to get out of her hair for a couple of hours.

So they walk, and they talk, and every time Dad meets his eye and replies to something he’s said it’s a thrill that nearly electrifies him, leaves him almost-warm and almost-shaky, giddy and tripping over his words.

But.

But there’s only so long he can skirt the edges of what matters, however uneager he is to breach an unhappy topic. He wants to know why Dad left. He’s desperate to know, but terrified all the same. What if Ed was right? What if, despite or because of what he is, Dad fled from the responsibility of being their Dad and into the arms of another woman? Women? What if Dad really has left a string of brokenhearted single mothers behind him, going back farther than even Ed’s cynicism could ever imagine?

What if, what if, what if?

The memory of physical pain is a slippery thing he’s lost his grip on, but grief and fear wound him daily. For all that he yearns for answers, for information and truth and knowledge, this is something he finds himself shying from. He fills the morning, as he has the previous days, with inanity. How did Dad meet Granny? What other countries has he been to? What was the tastiest thing he ate in Hermetica? Did he ever learn to play a musical instrument? Has he ever seen the ocean?

These are safe questions with answers that almost always require lengthy anecdotes to explain the answers. Alphonse exults in the new information, in tales of far off places and wonders that make Dad light up with fondness and nostalgia for people who’ve long-since passed away.

But.

But something akin to guilt gnaws at him the longer he puts off asking the obvious. His time with Dad won’t last forever, this he already knows. Soon, in a handful of days at most, Dad will face whatever cruel—and justified—vitriol Ed will sling at him, then be on his way to….

To what?

He doesn’t know. This is what he’s been too afraid to ask. He’s been too cowardly to ask.

It’s far, far from Rockbell Automail that he finds his spine. He wheels a tight circle in the air to meet Dad face-to-face and asks, “Why’d you leave?”

And Dad tells him. More than that, he tells him why he has to leave again. He doesn’t soften it; the danger, the stakes, the truth of what’s coming. He pays no lip service to the age Alphonse was when he died, speaks as plainly as he would to Pinako or any other adult he trusted. He tells him that nothing short of the fate of the world hangs on the outcome of next spring’s solar eclipse. All of Amestris will die in a handful of moments if the Homunculus isn’t stopped, killed the same way Dad’s people were. He tells him about the array he’s spent the last ten years designing and implementing. How even if he’s incapacitated it will remain a viable—and the only sure—counterattack. Dad tells him he left to save the country and who-knows how many millions of innocents.

It all sounds so absurd, so impossible. The same as every other story Dad’s told him, really. Van Hohenheim: the impossible man. A liar, many would call him. But even as small a town as Resembool has more than its fair share of liars, and Alphonse has seen them all caught in the act time and time again. Dad’s no liar, of this much he’s sure. He’s just a man caught up in a very long and very strange tale.

But a word settles like a bruise he can't ignore. “Incapacitated?”

Dad’s eyes crinkle like he knows exactly where the conversation is going, like he’d much rather not have the conversation at all, but knows better than to try and change the subject. “I’ve never been one for fighting. If it came to that alone, he’d have the upper hand.”

“He’ll kill you,” Alphonse realizes, horrified.

“I’m sturdier than I look—”

“So you’re going to let him keep killing you, or maiming you, or whatever, as a distraction until your counter-array can un-kill the entire populace?”

Dad hesitates, which says enough.

“What about after? It’ll still be you versus him. If all you do is stand there, he’ll just kill you again and again until you stay dead, and he’ll still be there afterward to do whatever he likes!”

“I won’t be facing him alone. My friends—”

Alphonse barks unkind laughter right in Dad’s face. “What use are any of them? They’re dead!”

For a moment Dad towers over him, broad and burly and strong despite the scholarly way he dresses. For a moment his face clouds with anger. For a moment it seems he might shout. For a moment it seems as if he would do more than shout if Alphonse were as real enough to punish as any other child that’s spoken out of turn.

The moment passes.

Dad sighs, his eyes shuttering. Whatever strange anger that filled him gutters to so much smoke. “Are you upset you don’t have a headstone?”

“Wh—? What?”

“I said—”

“I heard you.” He shakes his head, blinking like that’ll bring some sense to this conversation. “Who cares? You’re going to die next year if you don’t—”

“I do.”

“What?”

Dad starts walking again, charging ahead with his long-legged stride through grass tall enough to tickle his knees. Alphonse keeps up for as far as he can. “I care. About you, and Edward. Would you feel more at ease if there were a headstone for you beside—beside your mother’s? Do you think it would help put Ed’s mind at ease?”

“I don’t see how that—”

“Was there anything left of your body? Have you looked?”

“Wh—no?”

“No, there wasn’t? Or no, you haven’t looked?”

“No! I—what does it matter? You should be worried about yourself!”

Dad turns abruptly, fast enough that his ponytail whips over his shoulder. “I’m not,” he bites out. “I’m nothing but a cage for the dead inside me. I wanted to be more with your mother, but I squandered that too. If I’d been here, I could have—” He sucks in a breath, forces it out slowly before speaking again. “I owe you so much, Alphonse. More than I have time to give now. Please, answer the question.”

This—

This means a lot to Dad.

And they’re running out of time. Ed will be here any day, and after that inevitable fallout Dad will leave for….

Maybe for good, depending on how this apocalyptic eclipse turns out. Alphonse is still reeling, still trying to make sense of the scale of such a thing, of the chance that all of Amestris could be gone in the blink of an eye on the whim of a false-faced monster from a fairytale. How absurd. How terrifying.

“I….” He takes an unnecessary breath, watching the wind play with the loose ends of Dad’s hair, ruffle the grass in waves. The edge of the forest is a song of whispers, leaves rustling and boughs creaking. They’re far from any house out here, on the very edge of Resembool’s border. "Whatever happened that night, it wasn’t a rebound. There was nothing left of my body before Ed burned our house down.”

“Was there any blood? Any sign of injury at all?”

“I followed Granny back to our house when she went to bury the thing we made. All that was left of me were my clothes. Not a drop of blood or anything on them. I just….” He makes a popping gesture with his hands. “Pfft. Atomized, or something. I don’t know. What does it matter?”

Dad—

—turns away without a word. He walks off, the tension sloughing off his broad shoulders. “If I’m remembering correctly, there are a few others like you out in these woods. Their Aerugan is a bit older than what I picked up, but last I was out to see them we could get on well enough.”

“They’re back the way we came,” Alphonse calls after him. “South of here.”

“Three of them, yes, but there’s another half dozen just beyond that ridge. All killed in a skirmish around the founding of Amestris. Signore Rovigatti was an alchemist, incidentally, and he—”

“Dad.”

“—has the most fascinating opinions regarding the applications of geothermal energy in large-scale transmutations—”

“Dad.”

He turns back, the picture of surprise to see that Alphonse hasn’t moved from where he’d towered and demanded details and ditched the original topic of conversation entirely. “What’s the matter?”

Alphonse musters up a smile he hopes is more apologetic than grimacing. “I can’t go any farther.”

Between them is an invisible wall that may as well be a yawning chasm. Here they stand; the restless dead, and the wandering immortal.

“...oh.” Dad’s voice is very small. Very quiet. “Well. I…. Pinako probably finished that paperwork by now. Would you like to head back?”

Why is he trying so hard for so little? Isn’t he afraid of the Homunculus? Of the risk of dying? Of what might happen if he’ll fail? Does he even have a plan B? These and a hundred other questions squeeze the empty space where Alphonse’s heart once beat; he’s almost breathless, dizzy with worry for a man he’d thought dead until a few days ago.

But Dad doesn’t want to worry him. Dad’s treating him like a child, like he’s too young for the hard truths of the world. He wants to pretend, and make amends, and be as much of a father as he can be to a ghost.

A part of Alphonse is insulted.

A far greater part of him is grateful for the attempt.

=

While they were gone Granny dragged the crate full of Dad’s things up from the basement. The two of them go through it after lunch, Alphonse overseeing with a grin hidden behind his hands. It isn’t much, in the scheme of things. A shelf’s worth of old books and handwritten journals, a few photographs, an inkwell Granny had made him decades back, a few other odds and ends. Alphonse is really only interested in the books; there are pictures a-plenty of Mom strewn around Rockbell Automail, and plenty more of Mom and Dad in the same photograph book that’s got the pictures of Dad going back fifty years.

The enormous book of mythology that Ed had read obsessively during his rehabilitation is a beautiful thing, richly illustrated and covering a number of cultures. Dad lingers overlong on the scant chapter on Xerxes for Alphonse's benefit; the thinnest by a suspicious margin now that Alphonse knows the truth. It praises the Philosopher for hiding away the Stone that destroyed Xerxes in its hubris. Even the woodcut of the Philosopher is a mockery, broad-shouldered and square of face, lording over a sea of grateful followers. Dad-adjacent in a way that’d make Alphonse's skin crawl if he still had any.

In addition to that there are several other books written in Amestrian, none of them less than seventy years old. History and alchemy, chemistry and philosophy, medical and theological; a traveling scholar's primer on a foreign country's state of mind. There are a few slim volumes in unmistakable Xingese; intricate characters printed vertically in faint red columns, with the odd page filled with illustrations done in sweeping black ink. Alphonse recognizes the art style from a few houses around town, though those wall scrolls are all on wall scrolls all done in far greater detail and by hands of obviously better skill.

There are notes scribbled in the margins of all of them, indecipherable cursive that he and Ed had never been able to make heads or tails of. They'd concluded it was either a foreign language they'd never seen before, or a cipher, or perhaps even both. It's only after going from the medical text straight to the last book Granny saved from the fire that Alphonse puts it together. He doesn't think he makes any noise when he realizes he's been futilely attempting to read Xerxesian since he was five years old, but Dad does give him an appraising eyebrow when Granny isn't looking.

"I remember this old thing," she says, tugging it carefully from Dad's loose fingers and the soft cloth it had been wrapped in. She tuts when the spine cracks loudly. "Lord. How old is this anyway? It looks like it ought to be on display in a museum."

"A little older than you," Dad teases.

"Ha, so half as old as you?"

Dad hums noncommittally, and Alphonse can't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Granny leans closer to get a better look at the fully-colored illustration she'd opened to; a beautiful picture of two men in embroidered robes on a hillside. The younger man has been drawn with a beard the exact color of Dad's, and both have unmistakable yellow eyes. "You had this with you when we met. You clucked at me if I so much as breathed on it funny."

"That's because you kept breathing pipe smoke on it," he reminds her. She only cackles again.

"What language is this anyway? Ishvalan?"

Dad glances at Alphonse, clearing expecting—something. What though, Alphonse has no idea. "Xerxesian, actually."

Granny sits up abruptly, all the better to turn astonished eyes on Dad. "You're joking. It's not an original, is it?"

"I came across it in a museum in Almaliq just before I left Xing. Beautiful, isn't it?"

"You stole it."

"I did not."

"So you were more than a drunken scoundrel back in your prime, eh?" She's grinning now, wider the more Dad flusters. "Had to get your kicks with a little art theft, is that it? What other priceless artifacts did you ferret away? Should I have been prying up the floorboards for your secret stash? Are you the one who ran off with the crown jewels of Oirialla?"

“Pinako….” Dad practically whines. It’s incredible.

"That doesn't sound like a 'no' to me!"

"I didn't steal this." He plucks the books out of her reach, giving her a reproachful look over his glasses as he settles it back onto its protective cloth. "It was a gift."

Granny laughs herself straight into a fit of smoker's cough, deep and wracking in a way that always worries Alphonse a little to hear such a loud noise boom out of someone hardly taller than him. "From who? The Emperor?"

"A friend," Dad replies simply, but when Granny looks away to wipe her eyes, still chuckling, he looks over at Alphonse and nods.

"Of course you were friends with the Emperor," Alphonse sighs. "No, wait, I bet it was more than one. How many Emperors have you known?"

Dad thinks about it as he turns to another illustration in the book, this one of another blond and yellow-eyed man on horseback. Overhead, a bird with crimson plumage soars through a faded blue sky. After a moment of consideration Dad taps two fingers on the table, then taps again.

"Four?" A slight shake of his head. "Twenty-two?" A nod.

Alphonse doesn't even know why he's surprised.

Granny, recovered from her mirth, settles her spectacles back on her face and picks up her mug. "Why in the hell would a 'friend' give you something like this?"

Dad's mouth curls in a sly little smile. "He had a thing for blonds."

Granny toys with him like a cat that's caught a bird it hasn't decided if it'll eat or not, and he pretends to be cowed as anything right up until he sees an opportunity to make her choke on her coffee. No wonder she liked him enough to drag him back to Resembool.

=

There's a cold front coming in. The radio promises rain all through the southeastern regions, warning of flooding likely in some areas and reminding of the proper measures that ought to be taken for those who live near bodies of water. It's not likely to rain much here in Resembool, not this close to the cusp of summer, but Alphonse feels a twinge of anxiety all the same. He knows all the parents down in the town proper will be corralling their younger children inside until after the storm dissipates, barring windows and guarding doors from any of the more adventurous breakout schemes that might get drummed up as boredom sets in. He knows that tongues will wag, as tongues do, telling again the cautionary tale of the poor Elric brothers to any who need a sharp reminder of how dangerous the river can be.

Edward: lost a leg, lost his family, lost his mind, likely to lose his life off in the military.

And Alphonse: lost.

It's a shame, really. He loves rainy days otherwise. The smell (such as he remembers), the cool wind (such as he remembers), the peace (such as he remembers). He still has his sight and hearing at least, and he can still appreciate the cool gray skies, the pitter-patter tapping of strange music on rooftops and tree boughs, the flush of new green staining the countryside, all the little mushrooms that spring up like a magic trick. He tries to not let the story the town cobbled together to explain what Ed and the Rockbells won't sour his mood, but sometimes....

Sometimes the silence before a storm is the loneliest place to be.

But he's not alone now, is he?

He glances over at Dad, who appears as lost in thought as he's been. More, probably. Neck-deep in five hundred conversations at any given moment. Alphonse has no idea how he manages to get out of bed every day and pretend that nothing's wrong. Probably the same way so many others out there manage the same thing; knowing that the less attention drawn to oneself the better, no matter the personal cost. It's one thing to be weird or sick or broken; it's something infinitely worse to be caught in the act.

Alphonse looks back the way they came, where the sun's well along its westward arc. Sunset isn't far off. Most of Resembool is bathed in a warm afternoon glow, all its rough edges softened, made distant and easy to forgive. He and Dad had come up from the town proper before this; Dad carefully carries a modest bouquet in both hands. Mrs. Caddeo had made her usual attempts at simpering conversation, but it had run off Dad's cool passivity like water off a duck; she'd left him to browse in an uneasy silence.

Dad only went to the flower shop after Alphonse mentioned Ed's habit of making wreaths. Would it have occurred to him to bring flowers to Mom's grave otherwise?

He supposes it doesn't matter. It's not like Mom's ghost is hanging around to take offense.

There's someone else visiting the cemetery when they arrive. Mitch Corcoran nods politely as Dad passes, murmurs something too low for Alphonse to hear. Dad nods back without replying but doesn't stop. Alphonse is relieved when Mr. Corcoran takes the hint and goes farther down the row where he buried his wife in 1882.

They come to Mom's grave.

They stand there quietly.

Nothing needs to be said. Nothing needs to be forced. This grave doesn't hold Mom. There's a body quietly decomposing under their feet, but her soul's no longer bound to it. Mom's not here. She hasn't been here for ten years. Mom is a few pictures in Granny's collection, a few knickknacks saved from the fire, a few stories, a few memories. That's all.

Mom's gone. This grave is simply someplace for the living to come to grieve now and then, some place tidy to bury what she left behind. Alphonse hopes it's nice, wherever she is. He hopes she's happy. He hopes she's not angry with him and Ed for trying to bring her back. He hopes she's not disappointed they failed.

"I don't remember what she sounded like," he admits quietly.

Dad stirs slowly, swimming up out of whatever mental labyrinth he'd been caught up in. He kneels to place the bouquet before the grave. Alphonse expects him to transmute it into a wreath too, but he doesn't. The paper wrapping crinkles under his rough fingers as he adjusts the ribbon; purple, to match the flowers. Mom's favorite color.

"She never raised her voice," Dad says, standing again. "She never needed to, to get her point across. She had this way of looking at someone she was angry with that would make anyone feel two inches tall."

How many times had she given him and Ed the gimlet eye for making another mess? "I definitely remember that."

Dad glances down at him with a look like he knows exactly what he's not saying, though the knowing twinkling in his eyes is softened by memories. "She loved to sing. She had a real gift for it too, for all that she never had any formal training. She only needed to hear a song once to memorize it perfectly, and when she got tired of whatever the radio had on she'd come up with her own songs, just like that."

Alphonse remembers that too. Not the songs themselves, but the way she sang them. Swaying her hips as she washed the dishes. Spinning circles in the living room with him or Ed stood on her feet. A hum that vibrated down her arm, through her warm hand on his back, and settled deeply in his chest as he fell asleep.

"You met Mom when she was, what, eighteen? Nineteen?"

Dad hums noncommittally, like he's hoping Alphonse won't press for details so he won't have to say something like, Younger than that, but I'd prefer it if the ghost of my dead son didn't think I was a dirty old man.

Which, pfft. It's a bit late for that, not that Alphonse would ever say as such. A 400-something year old man showing interest in anybody can't really help but look like a dirty old man. There comes a point where what matters most is the intent behind the interest. If it turned out Dad really was the type to leave a string of broken-hearted young mothers behind him then sure, Alphonse would have happily shouted himself cross-eyed until Dad displayed appropriate contriteness. But he'd have to be blind to not see the way Dad loved—loves—Mom. He'd have to be cruel to ignore the waver in Dad's voice whenever he says her name.

He doesn't care that Mom had probably only been a handful of years older than Winry and Ed when she met Dad and decided this weirdo was the one for her. He just wants to know more about Mom.

So they talk. Alphonse asks the questions that he never thought to when he was still alive. Little things, little details that aren't—important. Not on any grand scale, not compared to the grand and tragic end of Xerxes, the rich history and political minefield of Xing, the far more literal minefield of Amestris' endless border skirmishes. He asks how they met, and where, and what their first date was like. He asks every single variation of "What was Mom's favorite..." he can think of. He asks if she ever wore her hair short, if she ever saw East City, if she'd ever gotten drunk and done something stupid for the sheer fun of it. Dad seems happy for the excuse to go on about her in detail, perking up even more once Mr. Corcoran leaves and it's just the two of them in the cemetery.

A question occurs to him that he mentally flinches from, but that only means it's too important not to ask. "Did she—want to be a mother? Or was Ed an accident?"

"He was," Dad confirms after one of his usual pauses. "You were too, though we'd settled here by the time she realized she was pregnant again. Ed, however...." Dad chuckles.

"What? What is it?"

"I'm a bit embarrassed now, but—well. Before, when I was still human, I always liked the idea of starting a family of my own. I was a freedman, with a title and more wealth than I'd ever dreamed of having, but it didn't feel right to keep it to myself. I wanted to share—everything with someone. There just wasn't time, not when I worked in the King's court, not so close to.... Well. It was only ever an idle wish. One the Homunculus never did understand. He only saw families as a handy unit of measurement for how humans breed for the continuation of the species—"

"Charming," Alphonse remarks dryly.

"Yes, well. What I mean to say is...."

Dad sighs deeply, considering his words with great care. "When she told me we were going to have a baby, I panicked. The idea of being a father terrified me. Of being responsible for something so fragile and temporary. Or what if turned out as monstrous as me? What if, what if. A baby isn't a choice to be made on a whim one day. Children are—important. Incredibly so. And there I'd gone, all but forcing Trisha into shelving every other potential thing she might be considering to do. Her whole life ahead of her, and she was so young...."

Another sigh, this one a quieter thing. A letting go of what was. Acknowledging that for all that the past can still wound, it can't be changed. "Well, she tracked me down in short order. Scolded me soundly for making her run around in her condition, then asked me what I was so afraid of and tore my every last worry into shreds in no time at all. She told me everything would be fine, better than fine, and of course I believed her. But I was still—nervous. Even after Edward proved to be perfectly human, and you as well, I was still so scared of hurting you boys. She never saw the sense in that. Loving you both was the easiest thing in the world for her."

Dad looks at him, direct and matter-of-fact. No room for argument at all in his eyes. "She loved you boys. Don't ever think for one moment that she didn't."

Alphonse smiles up at him, wishing he could do more than say, "Thank you. Really. I—"

"HOHENHEIM!"

They both twitch, though it's Alphonse who recognizes the furious snarl and the figure in black practically sprinting up the road. "Oh no."

"Is that...?"

"Yup. Sorry, in advance. Or maybe not." He shrugs, flustered. "Just—he's definitely going to keep shouting at you."

Dad visibly steels himself as he turns around. "I suppose that's the least I deserve."

===

((Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and stick with me to the end.))

[high-warlock-of-brooklyn]

001 The Internal Devices 002 Herongraystairs 003 Jem :)

001) The Infernal Devices

Favourite character: William Owen Herondale, Jem’s Parabatai, Gwilym, Edmund and Linette’s son, (I can go on for a while)

Least favourite character: Nathaniel Gray. I mean, I hate Benedict Lightworm and Axel Mortmain as much as the next person, but Nate is just a sleaze. Who gives off their sister like that! Who cares if she’s human or not! I hate how he repeatedly became the worst humanity had to offer, when all he needed to do was love. He killed his own mother, he traded his sister, he misled Jessie. I am absolutely disgusted by him at times.

5 favourite ships (canon or non-canon): 1. Herongraystairs. They’re all so in love with each other! With such ease they sacrifice their own love for the other ones!

2. Charlotte and Henry. They’re so in love, and they don’t even realize it for a while, and when they know that the other one loves them too, they’re so lovely! And that discussion about baby names was so cute!

3 Gabrilly. Cecily showed him a way to be the better version of himself. She needed someone to believe in, he needed someone to believe in him, together, they’re perfect.

4. Gideon and Sophie. Ah, the original disaster Lightwood! I mean, scones, really? At least get something you love! I love how they have both been through so much, and they find peace and love in each other.

5. Edmund and Linette. We don’t see much of them, but Edmund loved her enough to get himself deruned. And they are so nice people!

Character I find most attractive: Will Herondale. James Carstairs. Gabriel Lightwood. Cecily Herondale. They’re hot, I’m weak, okay!

Character I would marry: Okay, I could marry almost everyone in that institute except Jessie and Bridget (those songs are just depressing!) And of course, Magnus.

Character I would be best friends with: With my sarcasm and dramatic bi ass? Will, without a doubt.

A random thought: TID is my favourite of the entire TSC (TEC doesn’t count). I love the characters, I love the story, I love the ships, I love it.

An unpopular opinion: Will did not take advantage of Jem. Will and Jem are not in a relationship where they will take advantage of each other. Jem chose to pull Will closer when he tried to push everyone away, for a valid reason of course. Jem chose to be Will’s Parabatai. They didn’t do it because Will pitied Jem and Jem had no-one else. They did it because they genuinely are the best of each other.

My canon OTP: Herongraystairs, I mean, there’s nothing else I can do when the three of them are together.

My non-canon OTP: I don’t really have any.....

Most badass character: Sophie and Charlotte. Sophie is such an amazing character, she’s strong, and she doesn’t take crap from anyone. Sophie proved that you don’t have to wield weapon and have Angel blood to be a fighter. And Charlotte is a true leader, and a loving mother, and a badass Shadowhunter. She kept her head high, and didn’t hesitate to do what’s right, at the cost of everything, and I think that’s amazing.

Most epic villain: I actually don’t love Mortmain that much as a villain. I mean, I just didn’t think his final goal to procreate a new species with Tessa to defeat Shadowhunters is that much villain-y. I actually loved the Dark Sisters. They kept coming back with a vengeance, and they were definitely scarring.

Pairing I am not a fan of: I’m not a fan of Jessie x Nate. Jessie was wrong, definitely, and she could’ve chosen better, and Nate is just a terrible excuse of a human being.

Character I feel the writers screwed up: No-one really. I wish we had more of the Lightwood brothers and Cecily, but apart from that, I love it as it is.

Favourite friendship: Will and Magnus. Their friendship is so important. Magnus has seen Shadowhunters throw away utensils just because Downworlders touched them. And Will gave him the respect he deserves, and thought of him as a friend, and Magnus helped him through some of the darkest moments of his life. I love them.

Character I most identify with: I identify with Will a bit more than the others. I know what it feels to live without a sliver of hope, and the fact that Will has soldiered on is an inspiration to me. I love books. Oh, and I’m also terrified of ducks.

Character I wish I could be: I wish I could be like Sophie. Or Cecily.

002) Herongraystairs

When I started shipping them: When all three of them came to the breakfast table and Tessa joked about Will and the Six-fingered-Nigel. Jem and Tessa teaming up to make Will speechless is one of my favourite things about this ship.

My thoughts: My OTP in TID. They are so selfless for each other, ready to sacrifice everything to make sure the other two are happy. And that’s beautiful.

What makes me happy about them: That they all got to be together, in a way. Will and Jem were Parabatais for six years, Wessa had their marriage, and children, and now Jessa is living their life. At least they all had a chance to be happy with someone who knows that both of them share a part of their soul with the third one.  

What makes me sad about them: Clockwork Princess epilogue. And every time Jem talks about Will in present day. They both miss him so much, and so do I....

Things done in fanfics that annoy me: That there isn’t that much hype about this ship. I mean, I’ve read countless Malec fics, and there’s fics about other canon and non-canon ships too, but somehow Herongraystairs is not that much common, when there’s so much potential for them.

Things I look for in a fanfic: Well, I look for fanfics themselves... there really isn’t that much...

My wishlist: I hope we see more of Will’s ghost talking to Mina in TWP. It will be bittersweet, and maybe Jem or Tessa will see him somehow, and, well, a girl can hope....

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: I don’t think they can ever end up with anyone other than themselves. I mean, Tessa never got involved with anyone since Will died (RIP), until Jem, and I don’t think she ever will. Their hearts have only the names of these three.

My happily ever after for them: I want them to be all together, them, all four of their children (Kit is a Jessa child), in a house. They can be just having a normal life, or a Shadowhunter life, but it doesn’t matter. Just as long as the whole family is together, I’m happy.

003) Jem Carstairs

How I feel about this character: You want me to tell you how I feel about the only person in the entire Shadow World who CANONICALLY didn’t do anything wrong? The only one so sweet and kind that even a demon cat (Church is a demon cat, and that’s that) cannot help but love? Because I will go on and on and on! Seriously, I love Jem.

Any/all the people I ship romantically with this character: Herongraystairs. That’s it. The three of them are one, and there’s not choosing just any two for me.

My favourite non-romantic relationship for this character: I love Jem and Kit’s relationship. Jem became the father, the guardian, the parent, the shoulder Kit needed, after losing everything, and that’s beautiful. Kit could’ve been misled, or hurt, and Jem made sure that he wasn’t, that he is loved. And their relationship is one of my favourite parts of GotSM. Kit truly found a family in the Carstairs, a dad, a mum, a sister, couple of ghosts, and that’s wonderful.

My unpopular opinion about this character: To anyone who thinks Jem is too perfect to be a good character, there is no such thing as too perfect to be good. Jem is inherently good. He is kind, even when it hurts, and he is kinder still. He saw his parents die in front of him, and he lost any hope to have a normal life. But he didn’t turn into a bitter person. He didn’t let kindness and love dry up in him. Instead, he loved tenfold. And that’s heroic. Everyone can be kind during their happy days. But knowing there’s no future, and knowing the pain that he knows, and still showing kindness and compassion, that takes courage, and purity of soul. The kind of person that Jem is.

One thing that I wish would’ve happened to this character in canon: I wish Jem could’ve had more time with Will. He lost his Parabatai, yes after a long long time, but for Jem and Will, it isn’t enough. I wanted them to have one last day, not as Brother Zachariah, but as Will and Jem, just one day spending time by each other.

Favourite friendship for this character: I love how Jem is a constant comfort for Charlotte. With Will being, well, Will, due to his curse, and Jessamine being her usual self, Jem was the source of comfort for Charlotte, when she needed assurance. And I love how he always makes sure that she knows how strong she is. Also, I love Jem and Sophie’s friendship. Yes, it was infatuation on Sophie’s part at first, but then it was pure friendship at the end, and that’s really amazing.

My crossover ship: I love how Jem and Lily are together. Lily is never crossing the boundary, and Jem is never cross with her. And the names. Oh the names!!!!

Thank you @therealsasori for the ask!!!

[darthzeala]

Just here to “blog” and vent out feelings, doubt anyone will see these posts so whatever.

“Who’s In The Wrong”

He (N) left me. I was waiting for what felt like forever. He went to Utah, came back for three days. Those three days he told me he wanted to get married and have children. And then he left again. This time to Kansas. I had my suspicions when he started acting differently than the way he was when he was in Utah. He was always “too busy” for me now. Maybe I was paranoid, maybe I shouldn’t know his email password, but everything is linked to one email. Your whole life. Every app you download, everything. So it wasn’t that hard to find out through his email he downloaded dating apps and was “looking to score.”

I called him out on it. And he dumped me. Maybe that’s where our story should’ve ended, but alas it didn’t. He dumped me and the next day I went out with an old friend from high school who I recently got back into contact with. (We will call him “G”)He (G)was having a small party. I was single, so this was okay right? I had the time of my life. Except, I got blackout drunk and hardly remember sleeping with the guy. A couple days later, I get a call from him (N). He’s apologizing profusely saying he’s sorry he won’t ever do it again. He sent +$100 flowers to my office where I worked. He hadn’t done that in a long time. I relented and took him back. I didn’t tell him about (G) why should I? I was single right?

My suspicions got worse, and I decided to check on things. He (N) was back on the prowl looking to score. More dating apps. More messages. And I, just the house sitter while he’s away. At least it reassured me in the fact I failed to tell him what I did when he dumped me a week ago. And yet again, I called him out. He dumped me, called me psycho for being “in his stuff” and that was that. Yet again he comes back saying he was sorry that he wants to be with me but we “shouldn’t label anything until he’s home.” We’ve been together for two years?! And now he don’t want to label us. Right, because he’s still snapchatting his office lady that you claimed was “old, fat, and not a threat” and didn’t want to feel bad about it because, when in reality, she’s 20, petite, and blonde. The same very thing I was when we got together. So he finally relented, labeled us and “stopped” talking to her outside of work related things.

He comes home finally. 3 AM he surprises me in my sleep. We made love. Or what I thought was love. A few hours later I went to work. After that, there’s a concert we go to. It was fun, up until a lady flashed the band and he so far behind her that he ran up to where she was so he could see her tits. Desperate much? We got into a bickerment, and you left me at the venue. Not knowing where we parked. Walking alone downtown. And another argument arose when we got home, because he called his office lady to vent about our relationship. What happened to it only being work related?

Then I quit my nice office job so we could move to Kansas for his job. We got to Kansas and were staying at a hotel. And I found more messages to his office lady. Flirtatious messages. Messages clearly saying there was more there than what was being let on. And when I found out, he flipped out on me and sent me back home to Ohio. But not before he wanted breakup sex every night of the weekend. Not before he went to dinner with his office lady and came back and wanted sex from me. So I go home and hope I can get my old job back.

Almost a month goes by, I’m rereading old messages and accidentally call you. No answer. So I texted and apologized and asked you not to press charges because he said if I contactedhim again, he would press charges. The next day, he texted asking what I wanted. I reiterated it was an accident. We started talking again. He kept asking if I slept with anyone when I was single, I denied. I felt it wasn’t his business especially after everything he did. So what if I did? He was the one with dating apps asking for sex and whatever else. He comes to Ohio, we stay at a hotel and he figured out I slept with someone. He’s “heartbroken” yet brings me back to Kansas with him. But I owe him a threesome in return. Because “it’s not fair you got to fuck someone and I didn’t.” Which essentially tells me, “I’m so egotistical and couldn’t fuck anyone when I was single because no one wants a sleaze so I’m going to use you to help me score and so I can brag to my friends I had a threesome.”

We’re at the hotel for a month, we did lots of drinking, lots of sex. I asked for both of us to get tested since we were both single. He said no. I said whatever then. We found a home to rent and moved in. A week later, I find out I’m pregnant. And that’s where true hell begun. I wanted to be a mommy. I always have. He did, but he also didn’t. I’d lean more so towards he didn’t. He started saying things like “im not the baby’s father, he (G) is.” Even though I didn’t have insurance, I found a free clinic and got a sonogram and confirmed blood test I was pregnant. We got a sonogram done. I was almost six weeks pregnant. It’s the end of August currently, my last cycle started July 13. And they start counting weeks along by your period because that’s when old lining is shed and new is formed so an egg can attach at ovulation in two weeks. Almost size weeks. And that’s when him and I have been together. Because (G) and I happened about three months prior so there’s no way it’s anyone else’s.

Yet he still said those things. That he wasn’t the dad even though the timeline adds up. He said “you fucked one person, who knows who else.” And that’s was that my whole pregnancy. Not even after that, I found him snapchatting your old office lady even after she got fired. We got into a fight, and to make me more mad ge downloaded tinder again. He was mean, and he knew right where to hurt me. He started calling me a whore, that I “dick hop.” You’re mother was on the phone with me and heard some of the things he said. That’s why she and him don’t talk anymore. She took my side and he hates it. I bought him calling his friend sexy online. I caught him messaging his friend asking if “Latina pussy” was any good because his cousin was hot. He continued with his words and actions like this for a long time. For a long time we went into this circle of a good few days a week, then the rest him calling me a whore, and saying the baby wasn’t his. And once a month I’d catch you messaging a woman trying to make advances.

About three months into my pregnancy despite not having insurance I decided to go ahead and go to the OBGYN. When you’re pregnant they check for any problems that can occur like stds, cysts, etc. I found out I had an STD. And that added fuel to his fire. That I was diesease ridden, defiled, disgusting in his words. A few months go by, I’ve been putting the babies nursery together without the help of him. He’s taken no part in helping prep for the arrival. It hurts. Between his hurtful words, him messaging women, him throwing the past in my face it was making for a very horribly experience for my pregnancy.

We have the baby shower in January. Things were good for a while after that. He stopped calling me names, bringing up the past, even messaging women. I had real hope that things would be better. A month away from my birthday and the birth of our child, we get a 3D sonogram. She’s beautiful. She looks like me. He was mad and said she looks nothing like him and she looks black because “her nose is big.” It hurt all over again. Later, I have a checkup and I have questions about women getting hemorrhoids during pregnancy etc and have some things checked out. I found out I have hpv. But wait, didn’t I get tested for this? Yes I did get tested and it came back negative. Because they only test for cancer causing hpv. With him in the room the OB explained how HPV is so common and never shows symptoms for years. It’s so undetectable there’s no telling when you get it or who gave it to you. That essentially if you’ve had unprotected sex with four or more people, chances are you have it. And men hardly every get symptoms. The only reason I’m showing symptoms is because my immune system is weakened by pregnancy and either one of us had it for years without knowing. So he blamed me for that, even despite what the dr said.

Our baby arrived the day after my birthday in April. I was happy. He seen how she resembled him. It was nice. We came home and he was good to me for a week. (His dad was staying with us for a month and his dad is worse than him) between him and his dad things were rough going through motherhood. And I even caught him saying sexual comments to another women. After so long of him being so good, we were back to this. He was bringing up the past more. Fights were everywhere. He even wouldn’t have sex with me unless I called (N)him by (G) name. Not to mention he could barely handle being a dad. He couldn’t stand her cries, he could barely get the poop all the way off and out her lady bits. Simple tasks that came naturally to me, didn’t for him. His dad left after they both got into an argument. But that didn’t mean his (N) behavior left with his dad.

In June we went out for drinks with friends, he made a comment to the waitress about leaving her number for him right in front of my face. This was after he leaned to me at the table and asked if he could get her number for a threesome and I said no. I was hurt but we continued on the night with our friends, after all it was my first time going out since birth. So we went back to their place for more drinks and played board games and right in front of their faces he (N) brought up him (G). I was mad. I went for a walk and come back to him and his friend wrestling. He hurt him pretty bad. We go home, and he came onto me. And I got angry because of what happened earlier that night. I blacked out but you told me later you put me in a chokehold. And that’s when he knew he had to call the cops to “separate us” even though they arrested me because there was one singular scratch on him from where he wrestled earlier that night.

I spent a night in jail. It was degrading and humiliating. And they ordered a no contact order. So I couldn’t speak to you or go home. How was I going to see my daughter? The friend I stayed with went to the door when he dropped her off. He dropped her off at 7:30 in the morning and didn’t pick her up until 8:30pm. 13 hrs I got her. He only got her to give her the last bottle of the night and put her to bed. He wrote letters and snuck them in the diaper bag saying hes sorry and he loves me that he’ll do anything to see us back together. Except he still wants the threesome. Of course he does. That’s so typical him. The charges got dropped and I go home a month later. But he’s still nagging about a threesome.

So I said fine. And the month long search for a third begins. And I’d have to say this is worse than my drunken one night stand. I’m literally looking for a person for my boyfriend to fuck. But at the same time I’m comparing myself to them. Because he wants them skinny and beautiful and I just gave birth four months ago. I have stretch marks now and more weight. He calls them beautiful and hot and tell them how he wants to fuck them. But he hardly ever compliments me, he doesn’t come onto me anymore unless I do it first and beg him to touch me. He still calls me names and throws the past in my face. But the date is set for this threesome, the third has been found, and I’m still getting treated this way. He’s still on Reddit upvoting naked girls pictures so he can get a private nude sent to him.

In closing, have I not paid the price? My one night I can’t remember has been haunting me everyday for over a year. I made a mistake, I took ownership, I apologized. But I don’t deserve this. Maybe one day I’ll muster the strength to leave, maybe I won’t. I keep trying to make things work because I love him, but I think it’s safe to admit he’ll never feel the same.

-Honest life story from a human who makes mistakes.