#when the sun sets in the east universe

[oh-katsuki]

the notebook theory (tsukishima kei x reader)

masterlist | ao3

Pairing: Tsukishima Kei x Reader

Summary: Kei has a cynical and jaded outlook on love. When his friend Tadashi figures out that Kei has feelings for you, Kei isn’t sure how to react. After all, love is not something he does but rather, something that happens to him.

"There’s a notebook that Kei likes on his desk. No matter what he does, nothing is good enough to put a permanent mark into the thing. Even if he used a pencil, Kei feels like the evidence of the mark would still be there even after erasing it, a molecular change that can’t be seen with the naked eye. Kei calls it the notebook theory.

He thinks that might be what’s happening to him. A molecular change, imperceivable to someone not looking at him under a microscope. It’s like his DNA is being rewritten and stitched together with bright pink yarn. He feels himself steadily come apart and come together. It’s uncomfortable, like trying to dream when he has a fever. Kei is nearly certain that you’re the reason."

Content Warnings:  fem!reader (gender neutral pronouns), no real manga spoilers, slow burn, one-sided pining, angst, mentions of divorce and broken homes, toxic relationship (kei's parents), smut, fingering, oral (f!receiving and m!receiving), pinching, mentions of mark making, overstimulation (m!receiving), multiple orgasms, hair-pulling

Word Count: 24.8k

A/N: i know i spent forever working on this but it's finally done and while i have a lot of thoughts about it, idk rly what to say. anyway, here's my first attempt at a tsukishima long fic. also i already know that im not beating the tsukkiyama allegations, okay? i tried and failed to beat them okay i just think there is no way to put them in a situation without it being a little homoerotic bc.. they r them okay? anyway, i hope u enjoy and would love to hear ur thoughts <3

The morning comes without warning. Kei thinks he’s read that somewhere, though he’s just sure just where he saw it. He also thinks that whoever said that is right. Morning is always a harsh assault and never as gentle as people describe it to be. 

Kei’s room, the one he rents at university, faces toward the east. In the mornings, when the sun peeks over the horizon, it shines directly into his room and onto his bed before creeping across the light wood floors. His blinds, as useful as they are, always let some through the cracks and the light cuts the ground like butter to a knife. Kei doesn’t think it feels half as romantic as it sounds. 

The light works better than his alarm. No matter how set he is on sleeping in, he never fails to wake up as soon as those slats of light make their way across his bedspread. It wakes him like fever and he’s never quite as comfortable as he felt falling asleep. This morning is no different. 

He rises like he always has, running a hand over his blonde hair and dragging it down his face after sitting up. Then, he stands once in an attempt to gather his bearings before sitting right back down on the edge of the bed. He fights the lingering remnants of sleep, feeling the ray of sunlight beat down on his back. Then, he reaches towards his glasses on the nightstand and slides them up the bridge of his long nose before standing up again once and for all. 

Yamaguchi lives in the other room. His best friend since high school, perhaps his only real friend. They’d miraculously attended the same college and decided to room together, though his other friends from his youth aren’t too far. The arrangement managed to make it all the way until their fourth and final year. Living with each other has become par for the course. 

Tadashi wakes up later than Kei does on most days, except for Tuesdays and Thursdays. On those days, he has an 8 am and is usually in the kitchen before Kei has even stood up for the first time. Today is a Wednesday, so Yamaguchi is asleep in his room. The morning light doesn’t wake him the same way it does Kei. His room faces west, so it isn’t until the mid-afternoon, when Tadashi is chased from his room by the afternoon rays and heat, that he notices the sun on its blinding conquest across the sky. 

Kei’s room is clean and neat. There’s no clutter, no collection of items that don’t have a proper place. Everything is itemized and stored exactly where he intends for them to be. His floor is void of stray clothes, of socks he’d discarded the night before, his nightstand is bare and his desk is surprisingly empty save for one notebook sitting in its center. It’s a room that he could leave at any time, despite living here for nearly two years. If Kei chose to do so, he could pack his things and be gone in a day. 

Yamaguchi’s room is different. It’s lived in and well worn. There’s clutter on the floor, socks and pants he’d taken and tossed away to be dealt with later. Certain things don’t have a place and end up living on semi-crowded surfaces filled with things he likes to put down as quickly as he’d picked them up. Kei envies that way of living. A non-temporary way. He envies the rug in Yamaguchi’s room and the way he fills the space with himself. Kei thinks that even after they’re long gone, future tenants would still be able to feel Tadashi’s presence. 

To say that Kei is cynical would be accurate. He tends to lean more towards paranoia in his own strange way. He keeps things in order to quell the anxiety in it. Things stay where they are meant to be. As a result, he’s earned himself somewhat of an uptight attitude that makes Kei feel more awkward than relaxed even when he’s in his own spaces. Not that he minds it. 

Tadashi’s dish from last night is sitting next to the sink. Kei moves around it as he fixes a tea, making an effort not to drag his feet across the floor because he hates the scuffing sound. Every now and then, the glass of his mug will clink against the cheap kitchen tile and Kei will cringe in some paranoid worry that it will wake his friend. 

As he gathers his things to leave the quiet apartment, Kei wonders where his cynicism comes from. He’s sure he could pinpoint it if he tried. His parents divorce, his previous experiences with dating that have left him jaded, the holes that wore even in his most sturdy of sweaters. Inconsequential nothings that piled up until Kei had developed an undeniably cautious outlook on the world. To him, all of these things are the same. Like the morning, they’re intrusive and unsightly, but none is less important than the other. 

Kei does have things he likes. Art, for one. He likes paintings, sculptures, little pieces of history, and all of the things people make with their hands that he could never do. Kei is hopeless at crafts. His fingers are lithe and long, but they’re clumsy and hard to control. Despite his need for order, Kei has trouble controlling his urges. The subtle twitches of his fingers always mess up whatever it is he’s trying to craft. 

He likes writing best of all, specifically curatorial writing. It’s easy for him to pick which pieces belong together and how to organize them in a space, it suits his talent for compartmentalizing. Kei gets to tell a story that way, be it historical or artistic, sometimes both. The essays that his classmates find tedious, he finds relaxing despite the stress. For him, writing about art and history is a pleasure much like sipping tea that is the perfect temperature, unintrusive and natural. 

By the time he arrives at the library, it’s nearly 9 am. He works better here, in the quiet section at a table hidden by three tall shelves of books. It’s almost never occupied and there are hardly ever people seated in the immediate area. Kei doesn’t go out of his way to avoid others, but he finds that if he doesn’t approach people, they often won’t approach him. He prefers things this way, it makes the good and bad people easier to weed out. 

From this spot in the library, Kei can see where you usually set up shop for the day. You arrive after him by about 45 minutes and he convinces himself that it is always coincidental. 

Strictly speaking, you’re Tadashi’s friend, not his. You’ve known each other for a little under a year and have been by the apartment a few times, but yours and his conversations are limited entirely to pleasantries. How are you? What are you working on? We’re graduating soon, huh? Casual conversation that Kei can weasel his way out of at any time. Like his room, it’s impermanent. 

Kei has had the idea that nothing stays stuck in his head since middle school. The house he lived in when his parents were together, weekdays with his mother and weekends with his father, graduating seniors, the apartment he lives in now. To Kei, all of it is so temporary that he finds it difficult to get attached to it, not that he’s devoid of emotion. He quite loves the little things he has, but his grip on them is loose and half-hearted. Whatever leaves, Kei thinks is meant to leave, so he makes no effort to hold on. 

It’s probably unfair to think of you that way, but Kei can’t really help it. He can’t change what he is. Besides, it’s not as if he doesn’t have a reason to think so. He’s often approached by people for his looks, people who want to get close because they think he’s tall and handsome, people who collect others like trophies. He’s not heartless, so he’s been hurt more than a few times. Kei thinks he owes it to himself to be cautious, not that you’ve done anything to earn that type of subtle hostility. 

“Thought you might be here,” someone’s hand lands on his shoulder. 

“Shit,” he groans, “is it that late already?” 

Kei glances down at the watch on his wrist, reading the time as just past 10:45 am. He’s been here for an hour and 45 minutes and hasn’t gotten anything done. Tadashi pulls the chair next to him out and sits down, resting his chin on his hand. 

“Spacing out?” 

“A little,” Kei responds, tapping his pen against the table and turning back toward his book. 

“Got something due?” 

“Yeah, on Friday,” he exhales. “Haven’t started it yet though. You?” 

“Nah,” Tadashi smiles. “I’m just chasing you around.” 

“You’re like a girl with a crush.” 

Tadashi shrugs and lets out a good natured laugh. It’s a little too loud for this part of the library, but Kei lets it slide, smiling with his friend. 

Tadashi is the opposite of him, he thinks. He smiles often and says exactly what’s on his mind when it crosses it, even if it's a little mean. Tadashi used to be a follower, but in his final year of high school and university years, grew into someone befitting of his somewhat sunny and sarcastic personality. Thoughts and words come easily to him and he has no trouble vocalizing his joy or his disappointment. 

Yamaguchi has freckles covering the entirety of his body. Kei knows this because he’s seen far more of Tadashi than he thinks he should have. His skin is tawny and warm like him. Kei finds himself looking at the ones on his hands as Yamaguchi begins to write in his notebook. Kei can’t read his handwriting because it’s terrible and he doesn’t much feel like working on his own project, so he watches his friend’s hand mark the page. Then, his gaze slinks across the library to you. 

You’ve got your head down and look like you’re falling asleep despite it only being 11 in the morning. Your hand moves lazily across your computer keypad. By the time Kei realizes that you’ve spotted him staring, it’s too late to look away. His gaze was too intentional, so he smiles at you instead, nodding his head a little. 

You smile and wave, standing from where you sit and collecting your things. They fill up your arms because you don’t bother to put them in your bag, making your way clumsily across the room and setting your stuff down across from him. 

“Hi, Tsukishima,” you smile. “Hi, Tadashi.” 

You use his friend’s given name and Kei feels a pang of jealousy hit his chest. 

“How long have you been here? I didn’t see you,” you ask, settling into the seat across from Kei. 

“I just got here,” Tadashi smiles, looking up from his notes. “He’s been here for a while though.” 

Tadashi motions towards him. 

“Aw, why didn’t you say hi?” 

“You seemed busy,” Kei lies. 

You pout, filling your mouth with air. “Next time just come say hi, ‘kay?” 

“Sure,” Kei nods. 

Tadashi tosses him a sideways glance and Kei shrugs it off. He’s not interested in being teased this morning, though when is he ever. 

Kei doesn’t like the way you make him feel. When you’re around, he becomes prickly. It sets Kei on edge in a way that he hates. His world, previously so rigid and organized, quickly begins to feel cluttered and structureless. 

You make his heart pound. You make it hammer against his chest so hard that he can feel it in his ears and behind his eyes. It goes all the way down to his already-hard-to-control fingertips and the tops of his thighs. A previously pastel colored world goes vibrantly candy-colored like it’s been plunged in saturating liquid. He nevers knows how to hold himself, never knows how to act natural. What does it mean to act natural, anyway? How should he rest his hands on the desk? Would it be weird to lace them together? Does he look as stiff as he feels? It’s entirely possible that he is suffering a massive heart attack. 

You whisper across the table to Tadashi, leaning forward and laughing at something he’s written in his notebook. You can read his handwriting, something Kei is equally jealous about as he is angry. Kei just watches your conversation, unable to really listen into it on account of the stroke that he thinks he’s having. 

The three of you stay like this for a while, earning the occasional irritated whisper or dirty look from some of the more studious people in the library. Kei pretends to ignore them, remaining quiet throughout the duration of your study session with Tadashi. His quiet corner is invaded and painted bright pink with your presence and he doesn’t know whether to feel giddy or irrationally angry. Maybe it’s both. 

“Crap, is that the time?” Tadashi exclaims, hunching over himself when someone nearby shushes him. “I’ve got class across campus in 10 minutes.” 

He hurriedly collects his things. Tadashi does it so fast, in fact, that Kei hardly has time to beg him not to leave him alone with you. So he just watches as Tadashi throws his things clumsily into his bag and tosses it over his shoulder. 

“Bye, ___,” he says in a rushed whisper. “I’ll see you at home, Kei!” 

“Sure,” is all that Kei can muster. His voice cracks when he says it and he immediately avoids looking at you and stares at nothing in particular in his textbook. 

It’s quiet for a while. Kei pretends to busy himself by glancing between his textbook and his computer and you sit with your head bowed as you take notes on a lecture you’re listening to through the single earbud in your right ear. Then, you tap the end of your pen lightly on Kei’s notebook to get his attention. 

It’s only been about 10 minutes since Tadashi left, but the library now feels like an entirely different place. His heart pounds as he struggles to keep a straight face. 

When he looks up, you’re looking at him with a tilted head. Your expression is soft and unintrusive, friendly but a bit guarded. You smile softly at him. 

“You don’t like me very much, do you?” You ask gently. It doesn’t sound accusatory, but rather a casual statement tinged with friendliness. 

“Huh?” Blood rushes into his ears. 

“I just kinda get the impression that you’re uncomfortable around me,” you say. “Am I wrong?” 

“Uh, no- it’s not that I don’t like you.” 

He’s quick to correct you and he feels heat rush to his cheeks. 

“Then what?” you question lightly. There’s no ulterior motive behind your smile, Kei can tell, but your openness makes him uneasy. 

“I dunno,” he calms himself a little. “I don’t really know how to act around you, I guess.” 

You laugh, leaning back into your chair. “Is that all?” 

“Well, yeah…” he feels awkward and his palms are sweaty. He drops them below the table to wipe them. “You’re Tadashi’s friend and I’m pretty different from him so I just…” He trails off, shrugging his shoulders.

“I was worried you hated me,” you smile, chuckling to yourself. 

“That’s definitely not it,” he loosens a little, smiling lightly despite the thudding of his heart. It slows down steadily. 

“I’m your friend too, ya know?” 

“That so?” 

“Well, yeah,” you shrug and lean all the way back, crossing your arms. “I just kinda figured that we would be.” 

“Friends?” His tongue feels heavy in his mouth. His word placement is awkward. 

“Duh,” you laugh a little. “You know, you don’t have to speak formally with me.” 

“That’s just the way I am,” he huffs at being read. 

“Well, you can drop them with me. I don’t mind.” 

“Tall order,” he snorts. 

You tilt your head to the side. “Did you just make a joke?” 

“Uh, yeah…” 

“Funny,” you smile. “What are you studying?” 

“It’s not really studying…” he says, glancing down at the near empty document. “I’m supposed to be writing an essay I have due on Friday. Not going well.” 

He looks up at you through his lashes. You’re leaning forward across the table now, your chin angled upward as you try and peek at what’s on his screen. He turns it so that you can see better. 

“Baroque art?” You read aloud. “Oh yeah, Tadashi mentioned that you’re an art history major. Do you draw too?” 

“No,” he scoffs. “I’m hopeless at it, but I like art. It’s nice to look at.” 

“Huh, you look like you’d be good at drawing,” you say. 

“What’s that mean?” 

“I dunno, like a manga author or something,” you shrug. “You’ve got nice hands too. Like an artist.” 

“Manga?” He laughs a little, trying to play off the color he feels rushing to his face from the compliment. 

“Yeah, you look like the manga type.” 

“Is it the glasses?” He raises an eyebrow. 

“Maybe,” you laugh. 

Kei looks down at his hands. They’re big, like the rest of him, and his knuckles are thin. He’s hyper-aware of them now that you’ve complimented them. He studies them briefly, following the barely visible veins up the back of them, following the line of his fingers to his nails. They’re trimmed and somewhat well kept, save for the spots that he tends to bite at when he lays in bed at night. His hands look nothing like Tadashi’s. Tadashi’s fingers are thick and his nails are short on account of him biting them. Kei wonders if you prefer them to his. 

—

There’s a notebook that Kei likes on his desk. It’s only a bit bigger than his fist—a little thing, really—and it’s completely blank. Kei’s never written anything down in it, nothing has ever really been worth sullying the thing. It’s got brown fabric binding and a semi-thick cover. It’s malleable, but not so flimsy that he’d need a desk to write in it. 

Kei’s not too sure why he bought it in the first place. Maybe he liked the size of it, small enough to fit in his pocket, but not so small as to be ridiculous. It’s practical, much like he is. He’s considered turning it into a daily planner and putting to-do lists in it, but Kei isn’t much of a list guy, it’s Tadashi that likes making lists. Nothing has ever really felt like it suits the book. He’s considered journaling in it, but his life is one big routine and he doesn’t think there’s anything worth writing about. 

No matter what he does, nothing is good enough to put a permanent mark into the thing. Even if he used a pencil, Kei feels like the evidence of the mark would still be there even after erasing it, a molecular change that can’t be seen with the naked eye. Kei calls it the notebook theory. 

He thinks that might be what’s happening to him. A molecular change, imperceivable to someone not looking at him under a microscope. It’s like his DNA is being rewritten and stitched together with bright pink yarn. He feels himself steadily come apart and come together. It’s uncomfortable, like trying to dream when he has a fever. 

Kei is nearly certain that you’re the reason, not that he’s about to admit to anyone else that he likes you. Tadashi managed to weasel it out of him, though he didn’t really have to ask. In fact, it was less of an admittance to Kei than it was confirmation of his own feelings. If Tadashi can tell that he likes you, then he must. 

People seem to know things about Kei before he even knows them himself. At least, that’s how it seems. He’s always confronted with his own feelings by other people, not that they’re really ever wrong, but it seems everyone catches onto what he’s feeling rather quickly. He’s not too sure why that is, maybe he’s just obvious and hasn’t realized it. 

Come to think of it, when Tadashi had confronted Kei about his feelings for you, he’d been deeply annoying about it. Kei couldn’t even try to deny it because Tadashi had come out with his guns blazing, cornering him in the living room and throwing facts about you at him until his face was beet red with embarrassment. Then, with a serious frown on his face, he’d simply stated you like them and that was the end of it. Kei couldn’t even deny it. Even he knew that it read plainly in his expression. 

To be frank, it sucks being told in plain speech how he feels about someone. Whenever that happens, it makes Kei feel like he’ll never be able to keep another secret in his life. Sometimes, he wishes that he was able to make the decision to tell someone else on his own, but even Kei knows that that is a little beyond him. Kei can think the feelings just fine, but when it comes to speaking them aloud, he seems to have a padlock around his throat. 

Tadashi knows this about him and if it weren’t for him, Kei would have agonized far longer and far worse over certain situations of emotional turmoil. Most of the time, Tadashi gets it without needing to ask or say anything. It’s nice to have someone understand him in that way, even if it does mean he can’t keep a secret to save his life. 

Feelings lately make Kei a little angry. He’s always known that he’s had somewhat of a sour personality. Kei doesn’t need to be told that he’s smug to know that he is. He’s snarky and usually touchy, picky about the people that he hangs out with. It’s not really a secret that Kei is a hard person to get along with, but lately, he feels like it’s been worse. 

Maybe it’s because this is new territory to him. As conceited as it sounds, Kei has never liked someone first. It’s not because he doesn’t think anyone is worthy, but rather, because there are very few people he doesn’t find grating. Despite how he seems, Kei is incredibly sensitive about things, so naturally, it’s easier to get on his nerves. 

He’s dated before, though not for long, and all of his relationships have started the same way. Kei is approached by them, usually on the premise of looks, and he accepts. He’s not sure why he does. Sometimes it’s because he thinks they’re pretty, other times it’s because the romantic in him hopes that it will actually work out. It never has. 

Most of the time, Kei turns out to be different than they expected. He’s too touchy, too sarcastic, too awkward in his way of trying to love. To Kei, it has always felt like it’s ended just as he was beginning to develop real feelings. 

If he’s being honest, it’s given him a twisted inferiority complex. He’s worried that somehow, on a fundamental level, he’s not enough. Sometimes, it even goes so far as for Kei to think that he’s just generally disappointing. He tries not to be. Kei wants to be relied on. He wants to be someone his friends can go to when they need something sturdy. 

Despite his personality, Kei considers himself sturdy. Well, maybe stubborn is a better word. Kei considers himself stubborn enough to be made sturdy. He’s just a little awkward. That’s all. People seem to mistake that for being unreliable. It’s a peeve of Kei’s. 

Tadashi isn’t like that. Tadashi is bright and warm, reliable in every sense of the word. Kei actually looks up to him a lot, not that he’d ever say anything like that to his face. Sure, Tadashi’s not perfect, but at least people rely on him. At least Kei relies on him. 

Tadashi is more easy going than Kei is. He has an easier time going with the flow, which makes him more personable. Kei thinks that Tadashi is the closest thing that he’s had to a better half. In truth, without Tadashi around, Kei isn’t exactly sure what would have become of him. 

It’s pointless thinking about these sorts of things though. Kei realized a long time ago that thinking about being better won’t automatically make him better. This is just the way he is and Kei’s learned to accept that, whatever it means. Still, none of this changes the fact that he likes you. 

Kei could mull over thought after thought and he doesn’t think it would have any effect on the fact that he’s definitely developed a crush. He’s positive it will go away. In fact, he’s not even sure if it’s real. Maybe Kei is just jealous of you the same way he’s jealous of Tadashi. You’re bright and warm like he is. You and Tadashi are cut from the same cloth, so maybe that’s why the two of you get along so well. 

In all honesty, Kei wishes he could be a little more like Tadashi for that reason. Maybe if he were more like Tadashi, he’d have the courage to fully accept these new and uncertain feelings for what they are. But he doesn’t have that kind of courage, not right now at least. He doesn’t have the courage to solidify and lean into his feelings. Kei doesn’t want to risk what little comfort and security he has. If the relationship between you both is a blank page, Kei doesn’t have anything important to write. What if it ruins the paper? What if when he erases it, it changes the thing on a molecular level for the worse? The notebook theory. 

— 

Despite everything, Kei is rather self-aware. At least in his own head he is. Kei knows that when he pretends he doesn’t like you, he really ends up liking you more. He knows that he’s touchy, that he’s awkward, that he comes across more crass than he intends to. Kei is clumsy, not stupid. That doesn’t mean that he has to acknowledge it. 

You’ve been coming around more often since the conversation Kei had with you in the library. Maybe you’re more comfortable now knowing that he doesn’t hate you, so you’re happier to join Tadashi in their shared apartment. 

Kei feels bad about making you think that he hates you. Actually, he feels really bad about it. Like, astronomically bad about it. Embarrassingly enough, it actually keeps him up at night. So he goes out of his way to be a little nicer to you. The only other person he’s ever done that for is Tadashi. 

He greets you properly when you pass, despite the flare up of a medical condition he’s yet to fully diagnose brought on by your presence. He asks you questions about your studies, partially because he is genuinely curious and partially because he doesn’t want you to hate him. He thinks he’d die if you hated him. Kei’s being brave in his own way. It’s little, but he’s doing it. 

As a result, the two of you have grown a little closer. Kei has your phone number now, though he rarely has any reason to text you. Typing out a message to you makes him nervous. It makes him red in the face when you’re not even there. Somehow, having your phone number feels vulnerable to him, like he has access to you whenever he wants and you him. It means that if you wanted, you could make him nervous without even being nearby. That’s a lot for Kei to think about. 

Kei sees you in the library sometimes too, but he never takes the initiative to speak to you. You always come up to him first, clumsily gathering your things the way you did the day you and him sorted out your friendship and plopping them down in front of him. 

Sometimes, you both go several hours without saying anything to each other. Other times, you’ll chat away about something while leaning forward on the desk and Kei has to pretend that he’s not wildly nervous at your proximity. You’re so friendly. So genuinely warm that Kei can physically feel it when you talk. Despite his nerves, Kei would describe you as comfortable. You’re a comfortable person to him, as alarming as that is. 

His crush is out of hand. It scares him, not that he’s actively thought about that. What started as him noticing you has quickly ballooned into him being painfully aware of you at all times. He kind of feels bad about it. You don’t seem to think that he’s anything more than a friend and it makes Kei feel bad that he thinks of you as anything but that. He doesn’t want you to be just a crush to him. Kei wants you to be like Tadashi, someone he can rely on and be comfortable with. He almost feels like he’s reversed what’s been done to him his whole life, like somehow he’s only become your friend because he wants something more. 

Truth is though, he doesn’t want anything more. Kei wants to stay exactly where he is. He doesn’t want his crush to develop any further. He doesn’t want to confess, he wants to forget. Even now, sitting on a couch in the library, he wants to imagine he doesn’t feel anything at all for you.  

“Hey, are you okay?” You tilt your head at him. 

“Huh? Me?” He questions. “Yeah, I’m fine.” 

“You seem a little distracted,” you smile. “You’ve been staring at your computer for like… 10 minutes with this blank look on your face.” 

“You’ve been staring at me for 10 minutes?” He raises an eyebrow, trying to play off the embarrassment of being caught like that. 

“Not staring at you,” you huff, “but I definitely noticed.” 

“Ha, creep,” he tilts his head up a little, blowing air out of his nose. 

“You’re twisted, you know?” 

“Whatever,” he shrugs his shoulders and looks back at his computer screen. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees you shake your head and smile before looking down at your work. 

Tadashi has said the same exact thing to him before. In highschool, after Kei had made a joke about his teammate Hinata’s height, Tadashi had given him a look and snorted that he’s so twisted. He’s been hearing that sort of thing his entire life. 

“Hey, are you cool if I skip out of here early?” You ask a few moments later. 

“Oh, yeah sure. I don’t mind,” he nods, hiding his disappointment. “I didn’t realize that we had like… set times to be here.” 

You laugh lightly. “Well, we don’t, but we tend to come and go at the same time, no? I kinda look forward to it.” 

Kei envies your honesty. You’re so honest all of the time. You say what you feel when it pops into your head. He wishes he could be like that, maybe then he would be able to say that he does too. Instead, he just nods and swallows his heart back down. You smile at him again and then gather your things. 

“You’ll be home on Friday night, right?” 

“Uhm, yeah? Why?” 

“Tadashi invited me and a few friends over, did he tell you?” 

“I think he mentioned it.” Kei has actually been thinking about it for the last couple days. 

“Good, I’ll see you, right?” 

“Yeah, you will.” 

“Great, talk to you later then!” You smile and with that, you walk away. 

You sounded so certain in that statement. Talk to you later. You said it like it was inevitable. Thinking about that, Kei can’t help but watch you go. He even likes looking at the back of you, though he wishes he could see your face too. It feels worse to be walked away from than walked towards. 

Kei can’t tell anymore if what he feels is romance or jealousy. It’s probably both. It’s probably some mix of the two that he can’t quite sort out. He wishes it weren’t that way. Kei gets the feeling that he might be ruined. 

So he just watched you leave the library. Someone is waiting for you at the top of the stairwell. Kei can tell they’re a guy and despite the reluctance of his feelings, his stomach drops anyway when you nudge his shoulder with yours and loop your arm around his. That’s something you haven’t done to Kei before. Touch him. You touch this other person so easily. It makes Kei jealous. 

It makes sense that you might be seeing someone, that there might be someone else. After all, you’re you. Desirable. You look up at the stranger, leaning on him, smiling and flashing your teeth. Yeah, it makes sense. 

Turns out, it’s easier to pretend that he doesn’t feel anything when he thinks you’re interested in someone else. He likes to think it will save him the time of wondering. 

—

Kei has cleaned his room approximately four times today. Sure, it’s overboard, but every time he goes into it, he notices something else that needs to be spruced up. Like a pot with a leak, there is always something that he seemed to miss the last time he went through and cleaned up. 

It’s not like you’ll be in his room tonight anyway, but you will be in his apartment and that’s close enough to his room that he, for whatever reason, needs to make it so spotless that it looks like a set. Kei knows though, that even when you’re here, he’ll be wondering if there’s something else that he missed beyond the closed door and he’ll think about it incessantly. 

He’s been avoiding the thought of him liking you. Instead, Kei cleans and cleans and then cleans some more for good measure. It’s not like he has any sort of claim on you and he knows that it’s stupid to feel jealous over one interaction he witnessed by chance, but his mind is running away with him. Was that person your boyfriend? Has he been begrudgingly pining over a taken person all these months? Do you think that he’s creepy because of it? 

He doesn’t get to be upset over the idea that you’re seeing someone else. Why wouldn’t you be? Kei’s done absolutely nothing to indicate his interest in you (or lack thereof), besides maybe telling you that he doesn’t hate you. He has no right to feel the way he does, but he spirals anyway. His insecurities, the ones that gnaw at him in the hours before he falls asleep, play in a constant loop in his head. His unreliability, his unpleasant personality, his cynicism, the baggage he carries with him like a badge. All of it piles up one by one. 

Kei feels like a kid again, losing himself over such a simple interaction, over something so miniscule that it might not even be considered anything at all. There are a plethora of reasons for his feeling like this and Kei thinks he could draw one of his issues out of a hat and it would still somehow address the situation at hand, but all he really feels is hurt and he doesn’t want to explain it away. Kei finds that liking someone hurts. It hurts more than it feels good and the uncertainty chews at his patience and leaves it razor thin. It’s not your fault, nor is it the person Kei’s convinced himself you’re seeing, but he needs someone to blame and it can’t be himself. 

The idea of you relying on someone else makes him nauseous. He’d never considered the thought before, that you find him as unreliable as others do. Kei wants to be relied on, most of all by you, and that fact makes him upset. He’s afraid of what you think of him and without the confidence to accept his feelings, it threatens to crush him. 

Kei’s got this itch over it, so he tries to distract himself. Cleaning his space to prepare for you helps him delude himself that he doesn’t quite like you at all. It’s not your fault. He’s just confused, like his parents were when they married each other. It hurts. Like they were when they had him to try and fix their marriage, which had started to fall apart even when Akiteru was an only child. He’s confused. He’s jealous over your ability to live the way Kei has always wanted to. That’s all this is. Nothing more and nothing less. He feels like he’s being split in two, stretched thin between two modes of thinking. 

Kei glances over his shoulder and into his room one last time. He’s forgotten to wipe the mirror. He goes back in and the cycle starts itself over. 

—

He’s not proud of his behavior. Kei thinks only a seriously huge asshole would be proud of the kind of behavior he displayed tonight. He regrets it immensely, though some part of him is begrudgingly holding onto the idea that maybe he was right to be so short tempered. Of course, that’s a lunatic’s idea. 

Tadashi is standing by the apartment door, mumbling something to you behind it. Over Tadashi’s shoulder, he sees you shake your head and in response, Tadashi gives a small bow before shutting the door to the shared apartment. Then, Tadashi turns and walks towards him. 

Kei doesn’t want to look at him, but Tadashi, for some reason, commands his gaze. 

“Is there a reason you were such a huge cunt tonight?” Tadashi sort of spits the words. They land at Kei’s feet and roll around before settling. 

“What are you talking about? I was normal,” he answers, though the statement sounds like a lie the moment it leaves his lips. 

“Bullshit,” Tadashi says. “You were being an asshole the second they walked through the door and you’ve been one to me all day.” 

Kei scoffs, his cheeks burning, “I’ve just been tired, dude. Besides, what does it matter? You’re closer to all of them than I am.”

“What? You’re tired so you just get to be a huge asshole?” 

“No,” Kei responds. 

“So then what was that?” 

Kei doesn’t really know. He doesn’t know what prompted him to act so cold or make such snide comments. It’s true, he’d been in a bad mood all day and he knows that Tadashi has borne the brunt of his misplaced emotions, but even Kei is confused as to why he’d acted the way he did. Still though, there is a part of him that knows that it was connected to his spiraling and what he saw in the library. He’d sound insane if he said it out loud, like somehow his growth was stunted in the third grade, but Kei is sure it had something to do with liking you and the hurt that comes with it. 

It’s not as if he’d been outwardly mean, but he had been cold. There are parts of himself that Kei doesn’t want you to see, sections of his personality that he ropes off from you because despite not liking you, he wants you to see the best in him. Tonight, he managed to somehow show off the worst. 

It started with the noise when everyone had arrived. You, Hinata, Kageyama, Tanaka, Kiyoko, and Yachi had all piled into the apartment in one large group. Kei’d been sitting on the couch and the sound of the door startled him right off the bat. He assumed that by the time they all had rounded the corner into the living room, his face was already sour, because everyone had greeted him cautiously. 

It’s no surprise that everyone was so loud. Kei has known this particular group for many years and they, having all gone to school or work nearby, pile into his apartment often for events like these. You were really the only new factor in all of it and while Kei is known as a touchy person, he certainly was more touchy than usual tonight. 

You’d been trying to talk to him all evening and Kei, in a desperate attempt to avoid whatever lingering feelings he had for you, had been shutting you down at every turn. Thinking back on it, he’s endlessly embarrassed. You didn’t deserve that. You’d been nothing but kind to him and there Kei was holding a grudge over you for something he had no right to be angry about whatsoever. He had been holding a grudge over something that he’d learned later that evening that wasn’t even true. 

Kei thinks that what Tadashi is referring to, was deliberately picking a fight with Tanaka. Kei and Tanaka have never been particularly close. Even in high school, his boisterous and somewhat obnoxious personality has always rubbed Kei the wrong way. Despite that, Tanaka has somehow managed to maintain a connection to him through university and the two of them have established a tentative but honest friendship. 

You had been sitting on the arm of the couch beside Tanaka, leaning over him to look at something he was showing you on his phone. Then, you laughed a little too hard and Kei felt that familiar sense of injustice rise to his throat, thick and heavy. It’s an ugly feeling, the kind that makes Kei feel sick when he’s in bed late at night. Bile rose in his throat in the form of harsh words. Jealousy in the form of the verbal venom Kei excels at. 

For Kei, Tanaka was an easy target, someone he could poke at and get a satisfying rise out of. In the moment, the rise he’d gotten from Tanaka by making snide comments about the volume of his voice and his particular obsession with pretty girls had been exactly that, satisfying. 

He’d picked a small fight. Nothing physical, but just enough to get him irritated. Kei’s not proud of it, but he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t done it deliberately. After all, Tanaka has never been the type to be the bigger person and turn his nose up. 

Sometimes, when Kei is experiencing emotions he’d rather not deal with, he decides to obsess over one single thing. Usually, it’s cleaning or schoolwork. Tonight, it happened to be the volume of Tanaka’s voice, which he knows was a shitty thing to do. Despite wanting to be reliable, Kei can’t help but feel that he was endlessly immature, lashing out at someone completely unrelated to the situation just because he could. 

Tadashi pulls him from his thoughts. 

“I thought you liked them, dude,” his voice is even, letting up on the anger. 

“Who?” Kei plays dumb. 

Tadashi responds with your name and Kei stiffens slightly. “I thought you guys had gotten closer. What happened?” 

“Nothing happened,” Kei says. It’s the truth. Absolutely nothing happened. Kei had spiraled all on his own. 

“Why did you ignore them then?” 

“I didn’t ignore them,” Kei says. Again, it’s not a lie. He may have shut conversations down and been a little cold, but Kei couldn’t ignore you if he tried, it’s sort of the whole problem he’s dealing with now. 

“Maybe, but you were cold. Like… needlessly.” 

“I was fucking normal, Tadashi. You should know me well enough by now to know that,” Kei spits. 

“That’s the problem though, isn’t it? I know you and I know that shit wasn’t normal. You’re twisted, but you’re not an outright asshole, Kei. What’s going on?” 

“I was normal, Tadashi. Just because I didn’t bounce around or get rowdy, doesn’t mean that something is wrong,” Kei answers. 

“Yeah, but you were like… majorly fucking weird, Kei. You were being an asshole. Don’t you like them? Don’t you want to be nice to them?” 

“I don’t.” 

“You don’t want to be nice to them?” Tadashi scoffs, rolling his eyes. 

“No, not that. I don’t like them like that anymore,” Kei lies. 

“Oh please, that’s such horseshit,” Tadashi laughs bitterly. 

“Get off my ass, Tadashi. I don’t fucking feel that way about them anymore,” Kei insists. 

“Did something happen?” 

“No, literally nothing happened! Why does something have to happen? I just don’t like them,” Kei feels himself getting indignant. Tadashi doesn’t deserve this either, but he seems to be indiscriminate with his poor behavior tonight. 

Tadashi looks at Kei for a moment, studying him and calculating all of the things only Tadashi could know about him. Kei tries to hide it. 

“Jesus, Kei, you’ve got to stop doing this shit,” Tadashi touches his hand to his forehead. 

“Doing what?” 

“Getting all in your head about every single connection you’ve ever had with a person,” Tadashi raises his voice. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“It means I’ve seen you do this a million times! You start to really feel something for a person and then you fucking back away like a dog with its tail between its legs!” 

“I don’t do that!” 

“Yes, you do! You sabotage yourself until the other person is forced to do something about it!” Tadashi exhales. 

“I’ve never done that deliberately! What does someone else’s actions have to do with me?” 

“It doesn’t have to do with you,” Tadashi says, “It has to do with your parents.” 

The wind is knocked out of Kei, air sucked from his lungs. He furrows his eyebrows at Tadashi, his mouth slightly open. 

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Tadashi pushes, angry and trying to make him listen. “Not every relationship is like your parents’, Kei.” 

Tadashi knows he’s stepped over the line the moment he says it. If it hadn’t registered before, it registers clearly on his face now, regret settling over Tadashi’s usually bright features. Kei gapes at him for a moment, running through his thoughts and trying to pick out one that best verbalizes what it is he feels. Kei comes up empty. 

“Shit-” Tadashi starts towards him. “Kei, I’m sorry I didn’t mean that. I’m just pissed off I didn’t mean to-” 

Kei pushes past him. “Tadashi, I know you mean well, but don’t try to tell me about my fucking parents.” 

Tadashi doesn’t try to stop him when Kei flings the front door open and walks outside.

—

Kei remembers it like it was yesterday. He remembers all of it. 

He can clearly recall the way shattered glass looked on the marble tiles of his childhood home. White porcelain, broken up into multitudes by his mother and father. They never laid hands on each other, but everything else in the house was fair game. Kei’s lost count of the amount of broken glass dishes and picture frames he’d swept from the floor. 

Kei’s parents had always been on and off in their affection for each other. One minute, they were deeply in love and the next, they were at each other’s throats. Neither of them were bad people, but they made each other bad people. The two of them brought out the worst in each other, maybe on account of knowing the other so well. 

Akiteru was an accident. His brother knows this because when his parents argued, they never let him forget it. In their spats, leverage was whatever they could get their hands on, and that just happened to be Akiteru and the unfortunate circumstances of an accidental pregnancy. 

His parents got married at 19, thinking that they’d be able to handle a child, that their marriage was anything but rushed. They convinced themselves that it was love, when the reality was that Akiteru came because they were too young and stupid to prevent it. At least, that’s what Kei and Akiteru had settled on in the evenings after the yelling had died down and they were left to make sense of it in their shared bedroom. 

They had Kei to fix the marriage. Kei knows this because, like Akiteru, his father’s marital “solution” in the form of a second child was constant leverage to his mother. Kei grew up asking Akiteru why his mother and father even had children in the first place. 

Their relationship was rocky and unstable, predictable and toxic. They, like Kei, would do things to get rises out of each other. They’d make digs, do things to get under the other’s skin. They did it for attention, for affection, or out of loathing for the person they’d decided to make their life partner. When things settled, they got bored. His parents often mistakened calmness for complacency in their relationship. His parents loved each other, but they hated each other just as much, and it was he and Akiteru who paid the price. 

They got divorced when he was fourteen and any chance of Kei having a normal family went to the courthouse with the divorce papers. Akiteru was 20 at the time and managed to avoid the brunt of the custody battle. Kei still gets unexplainably angry with Akiteru for leaving him alone, though he knows that it’s not his fault. The only way Kei could make sense of it was through blame and it was easier to blame Akiteru for lying about volleyball or leaving him alone than it was to blame himself. Both Kei’s father and mother tried for full custody, not because they loved him that much, but because they knew that it would destroy the other. In the end, Kei spent his weekdays with his mother because she lived closer to his school, and weekends with his father just because. 

It happens all the time. People grow together, then grow apart, and grow to loathe each other. Kei watched it happen to his parents, he watched it happen to his friends, he watched it happen to himself with his own reflection. That’s just the way it goes. 

The air outside of his apartment is cool and breezy. He can feel the wind through his sweater, cutting through the gaps in the stitching and into his skin. Kei feels like he can think a little better out here, sitting on the short concrete wall with his back to the apartment building. He stares at his feet, outstretched in front of him. He's still wearing his house slippers. 

Kei did this once when he was younger. The fight that night had been particularly bad and his parents had resulted to throwing things across their bedroom. Kei could hear picture frames shatter through two walls and he wondered which memories they’d decided to trash. A particularly loud shout had sent Kei out of the front door and onto the curb in front of the house. 

He remembers crying, staring at his house slippers on the pavement, afraid because he could hear the shouting even from the lawn. Akiteru had come out to get him, sitting down beside him on the curb and putting his arm around him. 

“Are mom and dad gonna get divorced?” Kei had asked through sniffles. 

“Divorced? No, no,” Akiteru answered. “It’s just a rough patch. It happens to all couples. Mommy and Daddy will be fine.” 

“It’s normal?” Kei sniffled. 

Akiteru paused for a moment. Looking back, Kei realizes that Akiteru was debating on whether or not to lie to protect him. Kei wishes he hadn’t. 

“Yeah, it’s normal.” 

Normal. Kei realizes that he doesn’t exactly know what a normal relationship looks like. He is his parents' son. What they had in them, he has in him. Kei knows that those habits, the digs, the sour statements, the passive aggressiveness, are all things he’s picked up from watching them. Some role models they were. 

He needs to apologize to Tadashi. He may have overstepped, but Kei knows that he’d been an asshole tonight. He’ll need to apologize to Tanaka as well. And to you, which is perhaps the scariest part of this. He wants to apologize for his behavior, but apologizing means that he has to admit that he’d acted the way his parents did, out of jealousy and a pull for attention. Yup, he’s his parents’ son alright. 

Kei tilts his head up toward the sky. Only half of it is visible, the other half blocked by the three story apartment complex directly behind him. It’s a clear night, but he can’t see any stars and the moon is nowhere to be found. Kei wonders when the morning will come. It’s a few hours off, but he thinks about how the sky will look when the sun begins to rise. 

“Kei,” a familiar voice calls from in front of him. 

You’re a few feet away, your hands clasped in front of you. 

“Thought you went home,” he says. 

“Yeah well, I had intended to,” you start, “but you seemed off and I felt weird going back without checking on you. Can I sit?” 

Kei shrugs his shoulders, mortified and angry at being caught like this. He appreciates the thought, but you’re the last person he wants to see right now. It just means he needs to face his shortcomings sooner. 

“Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” Kei answers automatically. 

“Just decided on some fresh air?” You smile a little and Kei blows air out of his nose. 

“Yup, that’s exactly it.” 

You sit next to him with your legs outstretched the same way his are, your hands are laced together in front of you, hanging down between your thighs. Kei doesn’t make an effort to say anything and neither do you. Instead, he just trains his head back up towards the sky and attempts to collect his thoughts, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. 

Strangely, tonight he doesn’t feel nervous. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t have the energy to. Maybe he’s too preoccupied with being sorry to pay any mind to the heart palpitations he gets when you’re around. Maybe it’s because even though he showed you the worst of him tonight, you still came back. It’s a small hope, but it’s there. 

“Hey,” your voice comes quietly, “I don’t know what’s going on, but if you need- I mean- if you want to talk about it, I’m a pretty good ear.” 

Kei nods a little. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, “about tonight.” 

“I didn’t come here for an apology, you know?” You exhale a little. 

“Yeah, but you deserve one,” he says. “I was pretty shitty to you.” 

“Yeah, you were,” you agree, catching Kei off guard, “but it happens to all of us. Sometimes we feel things and just can’t keep them inside, you know?” 

“Yeah,” he agrees, swallowing down his shame. 

There’s another long silence. You don’t move to touch him or talk to him, instead, you provide steady company. Kei, as strange as it is, is comforted by your presence. 

“I fought with Tadashi,” Kei says after a few minutes. 

“Today?” 

“Yeah, tonight. After everyone left,” he says. “I deserved it though. I’ve been pretty shitty to him all day.” 

You hum, leaning back on your hands. 

“I did the same shit in high school too, you know?” Kei starts. “We’ve uhm- we’ve known each other for a while, the group that was over tonight. Around the end of middle school some shit happened and I uh- I took out a lot of what I was feeling on Tadashi and the others, but mostly Tadashi because he was the only one who knew.” 

Kei isn’t sure why he’s telling you this. Maybe Tadashi was right. Maybe this is another attempt at self sabotage. 

“You bullied him?” You ask, a little surprised. 

Kei shakes his head. “No, but I wasn’t very nice either. Anyone could tell you that. I thought I was past it, though,” he admits, a little defeated. 

“Did you ever apologize?” 

Kei looks up at you in surprise. Your eyes are full of something, curiosity, maybe pity. 

“For what you did in school?” 

He nods. “Countless times, and not just to Tadashi either, to everyone.” 

“You know, stuff like this happens,” you say. “When I was little, I used to hate sharing. Toys, food, friends. I’d hate it when my friends were friends with other people. It made me insecure and I’d get mad at them for it. I grew out of it, but sometimes I still get that way and I have to apologize later.” 

Kei laughs. It’s strikingly similar to what’s happening now, not that you’d have any way of knowing. 

“I can’t imagine you doing that,” he says. 

“I’m serious,” you say. “I still get weird over it sometimes.” 

Kei shakes his head a little, smiling. 

“All that I’m saying is that sometimes we slip up, that’s all. It’s normal,” you continue. “Not that I’m condoning it. Just saying that it doesn’t make you a horrible person. It makes you human.” 

“Thanks,” he says softly. 

“No problem,” you respond. 

“So why’d you fight with him tonight?” 

“He was angry with me because I was an asshole,” Kei shrugs.

“And you’re mad that he called you out?” You give a quiet and somewhat incredulous laugh. 

Kei shakes his head. “No, I’m angry about what he said after.” 

“What’d he say?” 

Kei debates on telling you. He doesn’t want to make himself out to be a victim. After all, Tadashi meant no harm, even if his comment did exactly that. 

“The argument kind of switched subjects,” Kei tiptoes around the fact that the subject was you. “He brought up a bad habit of mine and I got defensive.” 

“Okay,” you say, waiting for him to say more. 

“Remember when I said that something happened at the end of middle school and only Tadashi knew about it?” When you nod, Kei continues. “My parents got divorced. They were a bad match and it was messy. He brought it up.” 

You nod again, your eyes wide. 

“He didn’t mean any harm, I know that,” Kei inhales. “But uh- that stuff kind of sticks with you. Well, it’s stuck with me and I didn’t like having it used to explain my behaviors, even if he was right. I’m not deflecting or anything though. I know I was the problem tonight.” 

“Sure,” you say. “I’m sorry about your parents.” 

Kei shrugs. “It’s in the past. They’re both remarried now with new kids.” 

The last sentence leaves Kei with a sour taste in his mouth. His parents are good people, but after his childhood, he doesn’t think they have any business having more children. Maybe they’re capable of being good for them, but Kei doesn’t like to imagine that. It makes him feel like their marriage wasn’t the problem, but he and Akiteru were. 

“You say that like they got a new pet,” you smile a little. “Are you still in touch with them?” 

“Yeah,” he says. “I visit whenever I go back home, though they’re really not too far from here.” 

“That’s good of you.” 

“Well, they are my parents,” Kei says plainly. 

You’re the only other person he’s divulged this to by choice and your reactions, understanding and level-headed, make him feel better. It’s like getting a weight off of his chest. This is the worst of him. This little bit of information, his history of being unable to fully confront his feelings, of taking anger out on others when he was young, is where his problems originate. 

“Yeah, but you’re allowed to feel what you feel about it,” you say. “My mom died when I was eleven. Texting and driving. I’m still angry at her for it.” 

“I’m sorry,” he says. 

You shrug and offer him a wry smile. “It’s in the past, but I’m still angry even though I shouldn’t be.” 

“At her?” 

“Yeah,” you nod. “She made a stupid mistake that we’re constantly warned about and left my dad and me behind. I was so angry with her, still am. I love her though, perceived faults and all.” 

Kei thinks about whether or not he loves his parents. He thinks he does, even if he resents them. Kei can’t imagine what he’d do without them. Even though his childhood had few emotional comforts, he still can’t think about a world where he doesn’t visit home to have his mother’s cooking. That’s a world that you live in. 

“That’s hard.” It’s all Kei can think to offer. 

“It was,” you say. “Got easier though as soon as I started accepting things. Now I just miss her more than I hate her.”

Another bout of silence follows this. It must be close to two in the morning and he’s been outside so long that he can no longer feel the tip of his nose. 

“Anyway, about tonight,” you say, “it’s not a crime to feel what you feel, but if you need help, that’s what we’re here for. It’s easier to accept feelings and get hurt than to ignore them, don’t you think?” 

“Yeah,” Kei says, looking to face you. “Thank you.” 

You’re so pretty. It’s striking. The curvature and angles of your face, the gentle look in your eyes, softened by the conversation. Kei finds himself thinking that despite not wanting to face you a few hours earlier, he’s grateful that you showed up. You’re good in ways that Kei can hardly fathom. 

“You should go inside. Tadashi is probably wondering where you are,” you say, standing up. “Plus,” you pinch the tip of his nose between your middle and pointer knuckles, “your nose looks like a cherry tomato.”

“Rude,” he says, startled by the sudden touch. 

“Payback,” you shrug your shoulders and Kei rolls his eyes. 

“Do you need me to walk you home?” Kei offers, a bit nervous about you walking home on your own. 

“I’d love to take you up on that, but you seem tired and I don’t live very far,” you respond. “I’ll call you when I get home though, okay? Since you’re so worried.” 

Kei laughs a little and then nods, standing up. “Yeah, I am.” 

His honesty surprises even him, but you just tilt your head and give him a small smile. 

“I’ll see you on Monday,” you say. “Thanks for the apology” 

“Anytime.”

“I hope not,” you laugh and Kei follows suit. 

You begin to turn on your heel, giving a small wave. 

Kei doesn’t know what overcomes him, but he calls out your name and reaches for your wrist. Before he has a moment to think about what he’s doing, he pulls you to his chest in a hug. You stiffen and then relax in his grip, wrapping your arms around him. Your body is warmer than his, sending heat through the gaps in his sweater. 

“You can call even if it’s not to tell me you got home safe,” he says. “If you want to.” 

You squeeze him around the middle. “Okay, I will.” 

When Kei lets go, he finds that his face is burning. The cold has been replaced by a flush of blood, making his vision a little syrupy.

“Thanks for coming back,” he says. “Get home safe.” 

“Of course,” you sound a little dazed, wearing an expression that Kei thinks might match his. “And I will.” 

Then, you smile at him, flashing your teeth and giving him a wave. You hold up your phone and point to it. 

“Expect a call!” 

Kei nods and raises his arm to wave goodbye.

He stands and watches your figure as you walk down the sidewalk and turn the corner. When you’re out of sight, he lingers by the door to his building, just in case you decide to come back. You don’t come back, but Kei lingers anyway, considering the conversation. 

He goes inside, intent on apologizing to Tadashi. When he opens the door to his apartment, the lights are still on in the living room and Tadashi gets up from the couch and walks quickly down the hall to him.

“Kei, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to-” 

“Don’t worry,” Kei says. “I know. I’m sorry about tonight too. And for treating you like that today. And for high school.” 

“High school?” Tadashi says, confused. “Why are you bringing up high school?” 

“Just wanted to apologize again.” 

Kei can feel his eyes drooping, exhaustion creeping into his body and replacing the elated feeling he had moments before. 

“I didn’t mean to bring your parents into it. How you like someone is none of my business,” Tadashi says. “I was out of line.” 

“So was I,” Kei admits through a tired sigh. “I shouldn’t have acted that way. I’ll apologize to the others in the morning.” 

Tadashi narrows his eyes a little and nods. Kei, besieged by that sleepy late night feeling, moves towards his bedroom. 

“Hey, Kei,” his voice comes out a little louder this time. “You’re being surprisingly easy-going. Are we good?” 

Kei scoffs a little, rubbing his eyes. “I just had some time to think, that’s all. And yeah, we’re good.” 

“Okay, are you good?” 

“Yeah, I am,” Kei says. 

Before he closes the door to his room, he furrows his eyebrows and makes a firm decision. 

“By the way,” Tadashi turns to him, cocking his head to the side in response. “I lied. I do like them.” 

“Could have guessed as much,” he responds, laughing a little. “See you in the morning.” 

“Yup, see you in the morning.” 

Kei shuts the door to his room. It clicks into place quietly. His room is spotless. It looks like a room that could be easily emptied at any time. He sighs, stepping into it and laying down on his bed. His phone is on the comforter next to him, lying face up. 

When it lights up, it illuminates the ceiling above him and he answers the phone without needing to check who's calling. 

“Hello?” 

“Hey, I got home safe,” he hears your keys clink against something and then the sound of a door shutting. Then, he hears the sound of you laying down on your bed. He imagines you’re lying the same way he is. 

“Good, I’m glad,” he says. “No trouble?” 

“No trouble at all,” you say. He can hear your smile. 

“Thanks again for coming back tonight,” he says, turning over onto his side and letting the phone rest on the bed in front of his face. 

“Of course,” you say.

He doesn’t know what else to say. His nerves have caught up to him and your voice through the speaker sounds so close, like you’re whispering directly into his ear. 

“Okay, well I’m going to go to bed,” Kei starts. 

“Kei?” you say. 

“Yeah?” 

“I’m gonna take you up on your offer. About calling you. Just wanted you to know.” 

“Okay,” he swallows. 

“I feel a lot closer to you.”

“Yeah, me too.” 

“Goodnight, Kei,” you practically whisper. 

“Goodnight,” he responds, lowering his voice the same way you did. You hang up the phone and the call ends. 

He blinks at his phone for a moment before standing up and getting ready for bed. Kei goes through the motions while thinking about how the evening got here. He’d been certain before it began that he no longer liked you, that he was confused. Now, he’s certain of the opposite. 

He decides that he’ll like you for real this time. Even if he’s afraid of hurting himself, of hurting you.

Kei lays down in his bed and faces the ceiling. He thinks about his parents, about your mother, about you. The cadence of your voice, the slight tremor in it. He thinks about your expressions, understanding and unintrusive. He thinks about your history, the anger you’d admitted to him and the grace you’d given him in his own circumstances. 

He dreams of braids, like DNA. Coils of pink yarn woven together in an intricate pattern. A molecular change not visible to the naked eye. Morning comes like liquid gold, spilling across his bedspread in slats through the window.

—

Kei’s apologies go smoothly. Tadashi’s friends—his friends—are good people. They know him better than most and field his awkward, stumbling apology with steady hands. 

He’d explained his sour mood in as little detail as possible, deliberately omitting his feelings for you while doing so, and he made a special effort to apologize to Tanaka. He’s easygoing and quick to forget, but Kei knows that even after accepting the apology, Tanaka will lord it over his head for a week or two. Tanaka thinks those kinds of things are funny and Kei won’t try to tell him otherwise. 

You do take Kei up on his offer. You call him twice a week now. Sometimes it’s to tell him something relevant to him, other times, you just whisper into the phone that you just felt like talking. Either way, it’s not good for his heart. Kei thinks that at this rate, it might just give out. 

There are a lot of things that Kei could say about liking you. It makes his days a little brighter. When he remembers that he has someone he cares about like that, he feels a surge of excitement for no particular reason. He finds that he looks forward to seeing you and goes out of his way to do so, more than he did before he was willing to admit it. 

He’s noticed the way you eat, like every bite of food is even better than the last. He’s noticed that you wipe the condensation off of your cups before each sip. He’s noticed that when you’re studying, you’ll pull at the collar of your shirt absentmindedly and then become frustrated when it is stretched out of place. Kei likes all of these things about you. 

Kei has also found that liking someone hurts. It hurts worse than he thought it would. Insecurity weaves its way into even the most minor of interactions. He’s self conscious almost all of the time, adjusting his hair, clothing, glasses right down to minor details. As of late, Kei appears more put together than he ever has, but the reality is that he’s probably the least put together he’s ever been. 

When you’re around, Kei is awkward and clumsy. He drops things, trips over nothing, loses control over his lanky limbs and overshoots things. He feels like a teenager again, not that he’s that far off from one. 

Still, one thing overshadows all of this. Kei is so comfortable around you, so peaceful despite the nerves and insecurity, that he’s able to forget about the worst of it. Forgetting about the worst of things is not something Kei is particularly good at. He’s cynical by nature. You help to ease the burden of it. 

The coffee shop he’s visiting with you today is quiet. The room is decorated with dark oak wood and the tables are accented by the rings of the trees the wood was cut from. The early spring light filters in at angles through the windows letting out onto the street. It falls across your notebooks and the knuckles of your hand, wrapped evenly around a black pen. 

You’d brought him here to study instead of going to the library and Kei can’t help but think that it feels like a date. His tea sits half-finished in a mug beside his laptop, beginning to cool to room temperature. Your coffee sits by your unoccupied hand and every now and then, you’ll reach to take a sip of the warm beverage without even glancing up. 

Kei has spent so much time watching you today, that he’s hardly gotten any work done. His computer is open on a document with a paragraph of writing about nudity in the classical period, which he hasn’t touched in about 10 minutes. He’s been clicking blankly around the page, adding spaces and then deleting them and then glancing up over the edge of the screen to look at the way you purse your lips when you’re focused. 

“You’d get a lot more done if you stopped staring,” you say, not looking up from your notebook. 

Kei chokes on his exhale. “What?” 

You laugh a little, looking up at him through your lashes. God, you’re pretty. 

“The document?” You chuckle. “You’re not fooling anyone by clicking around randomly like that.” 

“Oh,” Kei furrows his eyebrows and shakes his head a little. “Yeah, just can’t seem to focus.” 

“What’s the paper on?” You set down your pen and cross your arms on the table. 

“It’s not really a paper,” he says. “It’s a visual analysis on the Aphrodite of Knidos.” 

“Is that the one without the arms?” 

“No, but they come from the same family of statues,” Kei smiles a little. 

You hum a bit. “Do you like it?” 

“Like, do I think the statue’s pretty?” Kei closes the screen of his laptop to see you better. “Yeah, I do. Learning about the history of it is a bit depressing though.” 

“Why?” 

“Well, Aphrodite was one of the most powerful Greek gods, right?” He says, and you nod your head and roll your eyes because you know that already. “But this statue group intrudes on a private moment of hers. She’s trying to cover up her body, probably just before or after a bath. It’s meant to be humiliating.” 

You tilt your head. “Sounds more interesting than molecular structures at least.” 

Kei laughs a little. “Yeah, I think it’s just a bit more interesting.” 

“Why did you choose to study art history?” You question, leaning forward on your elbows. 

Kei feels awkward at receiving the question. He doesn’t like talking about himself much, let alone his passions. They tend to get away from him. 

“Probably because I’m no good at art,” he smiles a little. 

“Such a shame, what with your artist’s hands and all,” you reach across the table and tap his knuckle. 

Kei feels the color rise to his cheeks. 

“You’re no good at art, so you study art history instead?” You press for more. 

“Yeah,” he says. “I like things that people make with their hands. There’s a lot of human expression in ancient art, good and bad. Gives a bit more context into who we were before.” 

You lean back in the chair, grinning at him. Kei bites the inside of his cheek and tries not to notice the slope of your neck. 

“Why are you studying molecular bio?” He changes the subject. 

You shrug your shoulders. “I want a good cushy job that makes me a lot of money.” 

Kei watches the corners of your lips curl up. 

“Plus,” you continue, “I wanted to show off a little bit.” 

“So you put yourself through four years of torture?” He raises an eyebrow. 

“Yup, I’m a huge masochist,” you grin. 

“You STEM kids are unbearable, you know?” Kei snorts. 

“But you like me anyway, yeah?” 

Kei nods, heat creeping up his neck, and watches you return to your work. 

It’s true, he does like you anyway. Kei likes you so much, in fact, that it frightens him. Well, the idea of liking someone has always frightened Kei, whether he’s noticed it or not. Commitment, or lack thereof, make Kei nervous in the same way heights do. He feels like he could lose his footing at any moment. 

That’s probably why he doesn’t want to do anything in particular about his feelings. Kei is content with just feeling them. He’s content to just be able to like you in his own way, even if nothing ever comes of it. He probably shouldn’t do anything about them, considering the back and forth battle he’s waged in his mind over the last few months. He’s too indecisive to do anything but like you, and even that feels herculean to accept. 

Not that liking you is a hard thing to do. You’re easy to like. It’s easy for him to picture touching you. It’s easy for Kei to imagine late night conversations and little intimacies shared over damp pillows. You’re easy to talk to, floating through conversations and navigating conflict with a sure step, something Kei can’t do. It’s not hard to find things to admire. 

Kei imagines what it would be like to be with you. He imagines the feel of your hands in his, how you might look spread beneath him, the inside of your thighs pressing against his hips. He imagines how his glasses might fog up with your breath and slip down the bridge of his nose. What do you taste like? What do you feel like? 

A little alarm bell sounds in his head. This is a dangerous line of thought, a greedy one. Kei doesn’t think he can handle greed, not when it comes to you. He got a taste of it that day when he saw you leave with someone else and again the following Friday. Kei doesn’t mix well with it, with wanting. Still, he wants. 

—

It’s a breezy day. It cuts the growing humidity as the beginning of May creeps on. This is no doubt one of the best times of year, though Kei prefers the fall or winter. Still, even with the slightly sticky air, his walk to class is pleasant. He’d even venture to say that it’s good. 

Light filters through the trees, blooming with their spring flowers, and in the distance he can see a familiar row of cherry blossoms just beginning to bloom. As he approaches them, he finds himself admiring their delicate petals, wondering just how brief their bloom will be before they come cascading down. One tree among the pink rows has yet to open its flowers. The buds sit on their branches, shades of green and gray. A late bloomer. This tree will no doubt flower once the other petals have fallen, and when it does, it’ll become the most eye-catching thing on the street. 

Kei admires it for a moment, standing below the thing and looking up through its twisting branches. It’s so small, much smaller than the rest of its counterparts, and its branches don’t look too full of yet-to-bloom buds either. 

There was a tree like this outside of Kei’s childhood home, the one his family lived in together when it was whole. It would always bloom a week after the others and every year he would worry that it never would. Of course, he kept this fear to himself, but he often watched it from his bedroom window when Akiteru was out. He’d press his face against the glass and pray for the flowers to come so that it didn’t get left behind. Sure enough though, it would bloom without fail and leave scattered pink petals across his yard and doorstep. Kei wonders if this tree in front of him will do the same. 

“Thinking about changing your major to plant sciences, Kei?” 

He jumps, started by your voice and your proximity. 

“Jesus,” Kei turns, “you need a bell or something.” 

“You’re the one standing in public staring at a tree with no flowers on it,” you laugh a little. 

Kei shrugs his shoulders, not really willing to give an explanation for the train of thought he was just on. 

“Where’re you headed?” he questions. 

“Dropping off an assignment,” you smile lightly, “wanna come with me?” 

“I can’t. I’ve got a class in 15.” 

“Fifteen minutes is fifteen minutes,” you shrug. “We’ll make it.” 

“We?” Kei raises an eyebrow. 

“Yeah, you come with me to drop off my paper and then I drop you off at class. It’s a win-win.” 

“Sounds like I’m just doing a lot of extra walking,” Kei snorts. 

“Yeah, but you get to do it with me so it’ll be more fun.” 

Kei folds and goes with you to drop off your assignment. It’s an essay assigned by an old-fashioned professor who doesn’t like electronic submissions. You comment off-handedly on what a waste of paper it is and Kei nods, just happy to hear about it. 

It’s strange. Kei is normally very tied to his routine. It keeps him sane, helps him to organize his thoughts and feelings into neat compartments. For Kei, an orderly life is an orderly mind. Somehow though, you ask him to deviate from that and he’s more than willing, eager even, to oblige you. Better yet, he does it without feeling off-kilter. Well, without feeling as off-kilter about his daily life. When it comes to you, Kei is about as stable as a pogo stick. 

The walk to your professor's office is only a few minutes from his classroom, just a few buildings over, but by the time you both arrive there, Kei’s palms are sweating. He resorts to shoving them in his pockets and wiping them on the inside of his pants, mortified at the idea of accidentally touching you like this. 

“Hey, about tonight,” you start after dropping the paper off with a quick bow. 

You’re supposed to come over. It’s the first time you and Kei have agreed to hang out at one of your places alone and Kei has been compartmentalizing his nerves so harshly that he’d almost forgotten about it entirely. Maybe that explains his easy-going mood. 

“Yeah?” 

“So, Tadashi may have mentioned it in front of the others,” you give him a sheepish grin, “and they may have asked to come and I definitely told them ‘the more the merrier’.” 

“Oh, yeah?” Kei’s a little disappointed. “So they’re coming too?” 

“Yeah, is that okay?” You furrow your eyebrows. 

Kei can’t very well come out and say that it isn’t, because his reason for thinking that is entirely about monopolizing your time. Kei says he doesn’t want to do anything about these feelings, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t indulge just a little into the foreign feeling of accepting that he’s ‘in like’. 

“Yeah sure, why wouldn’t it be?” 

You raise an eyebrow at him and Kei misses the message entirely. 

“I dunno, you’re not really a fan of bigger groups right?” 

“Not really,” Kei shrugs, “but I’ve known them for a while so it doesn’t count.” 

You nod your head and then smile. “Great! Now, where is your class?” 

“Social Sciences,” Kei glances down at the brown watch on his wrist. “In about… four minutes.” 

“Wanna run? Can’t be late, can you?” 

Kei does not want to run. He runs anyway. You’re faster than he is and your step is louder. The soles of your shoes thump on the floor with every step you take and your whole body lurches forward with each bound. When you reach the end of the hallway his class is in, Kei is completely winded. Considering that he plays volleyball as a hobby, he should really be in better shape. He attributes his lack of breath to your presence. Maybe he’d been holding it while watching you run. 

You glance into his full classroom, giving him a relieved look upon seeing that the professor has not begun her lecture yet. Then, you bounce twice on the tips of your toes and start jogging in the other direction. 

“Have a good class!” You call. 

“What’s the rush?” he questions. 

“I’ve got class now too, dummy. Just wanted to hang out with you for a few more minutes.” Then, you turn and run off, your bag bouncing against the side of your leg as you round a corner and fly down a set of stairs. 

That’s the thing about you that Kei can’t get enough of. When Kei takes a step back, when he resigns himself to being okay with just a chance meeting and a brief hello, you take a step forward. Whatever Kei lacks, you make up for tenfold. Your outstretched hand makes him greedier. It makes Kei want more than he’s ever wanted before. He goes to class starved for something that isn’t food, a feeling Kei hasn’t experienced often, let alone leaned into. He lets himself feel the hunger. 

—

Day melts away to a cool evening, still slightly wet, but like the dampness before rain. The air loses its warm touch, creeping into something chillier. Kei opens his bedroom window to let the air in. He likes the smell of cool nights. He wants his room to smell like it when he sleeps tonight. 

“Sorry that I spilled the beans about tonight,” Tadashi leans in the doorway of his room. 

“It’s not like that,” Kei rolls his eyes, already irritated with the implication that whatever you and Kei had organized was anything more than two friends hanging out. 

“Sure it isn’t,” he laughs. 

“I’m serious dude,” Kei fights the urge to throw something soft at him. 

“You wanted to hang out with them alone, right?” Tadashi tilts his head. His dark hair falls to the side and around his neck. 

“I just said it wasn’t like that!” 

Tadashi gives an even laugh. “You’re the one making it dirty, Tsukki, not me.” 

Heat floods Kei’s face, painting it red. 

“Caught ya,” Tadashi smiles. 

“When the hell are you moving out?” Kei grumbles and Tadashi gives another good natured laugh. 

“Not until you do. You’re stuck with me.” 

“Not if I kill you,” Kei doesn’t smile when he says this. 

Tadashi barks a laugh. “So what changed?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean with you. You seem a little more upbeat lately,” Tadashi says. “Nothing like the sad sack from a few months ago.” 

“I was kidding before but now I’m serious. I really will kill you.” 

Tadashi shakes his head a little but doesn’t say anything, intruding on Kei’s space until he gives an answer. 

“I just got tired of it, that’s all,” Kei says evenly, though it’s a little hard to admit. 

“Tired of what?” 

“Pretending,” he says plainly, glancing up at Tadashi in the doorway. 

“Because of them?” 

“No,” he starts. “Maybe. I don’t know. Can you leave now?” 

Tadashi shakes his head. “Too curious to leave.” 

“I don’t have an answer for you,” Kei grumbles. “I got tired of pretending I didn’t want them.” 

“Not like you were very good at pretending,” Tadashi laughs and Kei tosses him a sharp look. 

He raises his hands defensively, tucking his chin downwards and laughing lightly. “Okay, fine. I’m gone now.” 

“They’ll be here in an hour or so, by the way,” Kei adds and Tadashi gives a little hum to confirm that he’s heard him as he leaves the room. 

Kei glances around his room. The floor is bare, save for a small mat by the side of his bed to keep the shock of warm feet on a cold floor in the morning away. That notebook, dear to him as it is, still sits on the desk. It’s empty, but Kei likes the look of it. 

The hour before you and his friends are meant to arrive goes by so slowly that Kei worries that he’s gotten the day wrong. He incessantly checks his watch. It’s a brown leather watch with a square face. Thin and somewhat old fashioned, Kei prefers it to pulling his phone out to check the time. His Dad has one like it, almost matching. It had been given to him as a gift at his high school graduation and Kei had accepted it begrudgingly. He’d not been on good terms with his parents then and having them both in the same space for his graduation day was more trouble than it was worth. Still, he wears the watch almost daily. Despite having the impression that his parents never really cared about him, it was a fine gift for him and the brown strap suits his light skin tone in the same way it suits his father’s. 

He walks to the mirror in his room, hanging on the wall beside his nightstand, and peers into it. Kei’s curly hair is somewhat unruly. It’s hard to manage, especially in the warmer months when his waves turn into frizzy curls that he can’t seem to keep down. It’s gotten longer, coming down to just above the bottom of his ears at the back and curls upwards in licks of thick blond. 

Kei fiddles with it for a moment, tucking it behind his ears and then deciding to pull it forward. He could put gel in it to help calm it down, but he hates the greasy look of it and he’s never been one to primp and preen. He adjusts his glasses on his nose, square frames in a tortoiseshell pattern. They look expensive, though they’re only a cheap pair that he’d found at the drug store and had the lenses replaced. 

He looks normal. Kei looks like himself, if not a bit flushed in the face from his nerves. His reflection is one he is oddly unfamiliar with, despite it being his throughout his entire life. At some point during high school, he’d stopped recognizing the man in the mirror as Kei and started viewing him as a separate entity. Kei Two, a version of him that can make a home out of a space and find things to write in his notebook. Kei Two’s family is still whole and unbroken, and he likes to imagine that he’s a little more friendly than the real-world version. He looks away from the mirror, content today with being the original. 

Kei is in the living room and around the corner when the front door latch clicks open and is followed by a symphony of raucous voices. He takes a sharp inhale, unsure of why this feels so different from the hundreds of other times you’ve all piled into his living room. 

“Where’s Kei?” He hears you call, dragging out the syllable of his name in a soft hum. 

That’s why. It’s because this time, you’ve come here to see him specifically. You’re not here to see Tadashi or by chance, you’re here because you’d made plans to see Kei. That’s what makes it different. 

You round the corner and Kei is hit full force in the chest with his emotions and his nerves. It happens all at once, keeping the air from his lungs. You’re smiling, beaming even, and Kei thinks that maybe it’s because you can hear the hammer of his heart against his chest. 

“Hi,” you breathe, plopping down next to him on the couch. 

“Hey,” he chokes out. 

Kei chides himself for his nerves. He’d been doing better about getting weird around you, but today he feels closer to blowing up than he ever has. 

Hinata, Kageyama, Yachi, and Noya make their way into the kitchen, each one clapping Tadashi on the back as they do. They beeline for their fridge, opening the door and flooding the floor with artificial white light as they pull out enough beers and sodas to supply a small army. Kei wonders why he and Tadashi ever bought so many of them. Kei hardly drinks, but he supposes that Tadashi just likes to host. 

“Tanaka and Kiyoko?” Tadashi questions as he makes his way into the living room with the group. His beer cracks open with a satisfying pop. 

“Date night,” Noya says, sinking into one of the arm chairs situated around the coffee table. “So annoying.”

He groans about Kiyoko, someone he’s all but worshiped since high school. 

“You’re just mad it isn’t you,” Kageyama quips, giving a somewhat mean grin. 

“Not true,” Noya argues. “I am the happiest person in the world for them! But now they go on dates and I can’t come. It’s like I lost a bro.” 

“You’re so overreacting,” Yachi adds, her lips forming around high pitched syllables. “They’re here most of the time.” 

“Yeah, most but not all,” Noya pouts. 

“Give the same energy to Daichi, Suga, and Asahi next time, kay?” Tadashi laughs. 

Their friend group is a large one, consisting of most (if not all) of their highschool volleyball team. While Hinata, Kageyama, and Yachi are the same age as Kei and Tadashi, Tanaka and Noya are a year older, and Kiyoko is two. Daichi, Asahi, and Suga all went to universities outside of Sendai, meaning they hardly ever see them. All in all, the rest of the group is pretty bummed about it. Kei just finds that he misses having Daichi around to reel everyone in. Now that he’s gone, that job has somehow gone to Tadashi, who is more of an enabler than anything else. 

“They’re different and you know it,” Noya frowns, opening his open beer with a hiss through his teeth. 

You lean to the side, bumping your shoulder against Kei’s. 

“Who’re Daichi, Suga, and Asahi?” You ask softly. 

“You’ve never met?” Kei furrows his eyebrows and you shrug. 

“Maybe, but if I have it was only once or twice.” 

“They’re friends from our volleyball team in highschool, but they’re two years older.” 

“Okay, so one year older than me?” 

Kei blinks a few times. “You’re a year older than me?” 

“Yeah?” You laugh a little like it’s obvious. 

“But aren’t you a fourth year?” He furrows his eyebrows. 

“I took a year off before starting college,” you shrug your shoulders. “Thought that I had to get my sillies out.” 

“Your sillies?” Kei laughs a little. 

“Yeah,” you smile, “and I had to save up some money. It makes the world go ‘round, you know?” 

“What are you guys whispering about?” Tadashi gives Kei a wry grin over the top of his beer can. 

It’s only then that Kei realizes the way you both are leaning into each other. He’s tilting his head down to hear you better and you’re leaning forward. It gives off the impression of two people conspiring, of closeness that Kei hadn’t even realized had crept up on him. 

“I was asking who Daichi, Suga, and Asahi are,” you shrug off the moment, leaning back in the chair. 

This prompts a chorus of disbelief, everyone jumping in to describe them to you. Kei takes it as a moment to breathe, inhaling and exhaling. He can feel your thigh against his, just barely there and bleeding warmth through the fabric of his jeans. 

They delve into stories about nationals, little details that Kei had forgotten a long time ago. Every now and then, someone will bring up Kei’s more-than-sour personality and he will feel the need to hide the embarrassment on his cheeks. Even though you know about it, it’s still mortifying for Kei to hear. He wants you to see the best in him, but any hopes he had of you forgetting are quickly washed away as someone brings up Kei’s relentless prodding of Kageyama’s easily pushed buttons. 

You laugh along with them like you were there, amused to hear stories about your college friends in their high school years. Kei finds himself thinking that you fit very well into this scene. 

Still though, despite the fun he’s having, Kei’s battery begins to run out quickly and after a long game of cards, he gets up to take a quick break in the kitchen. It’s not that he wants the night to end, but rather that he just needs a minute to himself and uses the idea of more snacks as an excuse for it. 

He reaches into a cabinet, pulling out a half-finished bag of chips and setting them on the counter. They’re clipped with a bright red chip-clip from the grocery store and Kei thinks that because of that, they shouldn’t have gone stale yet. If it were the peak of summer, Kei might think twice, but this time of year, they should be fine.

Then, he bends down to get a large white mixing bowl from a lower cabinet. Their plates and bowls are kept in various different cabinets, though the only reason they stay somewhat organized is because of Kei. 

“Done already?” You lean your hip against the counter. 

“With what?” Kei struggles to keep his eyes from following the line of your body. 

“Hanging out,” you smile lightly. 

“Not really,” he says. “Just needed a minute and decided to get more snacks.” 

“Wanna go sit outside for a bit then?” 

Kei glances into the living room where the group chatters away. He’d hate to be stopped on the way. 

“Relax,” you laugh. “They’re so caught up they won’t even notice that we’re gone.” 

Kei furrows his eyebrows and then shrugs, swallowing his heart down with the spit that has pooled in his mouth. He follows you out of the front door, shutting it with a quiet click and heading down the steps of the complex and to the concrete wall lining the shrubbery outside. It’s the same place you’d come back to talk to him at all those weeks ago, though he is in considerably better spirits than he was then. 

It’s a cool night, the gentle heat of the day completely burned off to make way for a crisp breeze. He inhales, wishing that he had brought a drink to fiddle with and sip on to distract him from his nerves. 

You sit beside him, leaning back on your palms with your legs outstretched in front of you. Your hand is only a few inches from his and Kei sucks in a breath when he accidentally touches it while he gets comfortable. You only offer him a little smile in response. 

“Sorry again about bringing the troops here,” you speak first. 

“That’s really okay,” he says. “Contrary to popular belief, I actually really like them.” 

You snort. “I hope so.” 

Kei inhales louder than he intends to and when you look at him like he’s going to say something, he just holds his breath and shakes his head. The air only leaves him when you finally look away. 

“Kind of a bummer though,” you start, “I was kinda excited about just hanging out with you.” 

Kei’s breath catches in his throat. He swallows to move the metaphorical blockage. 

“We hang out all the time though,” he says like it’s enough. Of course it’s not enough. 

“Guess so,” you smile a little, though Kei can hear the distinct turn of disappointment in your voice. 

“You know,” he starts, already embarrassed at what he’s going to admit. “I wanted to be your friend for a while.” 

“Oh yeah?” you smile, opening up again and turning towards him. “Why?” 

Kei shrugs, resisting the urge to shut down completely. It’s embarrassing admitting to someone that you wanted to know them before you actually knew them. 

“You kind of reminded me of Tadashi,” he says. “And you both got along so well.” 

“Tadashi? I’m nothing like Tadashi,” you laugh, shaking your head. 

“What? No, you two are so similar,” Kei insists, lacing his fingers together. 

“What about us is so similar?” 

“Well, you’re both sociable and warm and…” Kei trails off. He can’t really think of anything else. You look at him with an expectant look in your eyes. 

“See?” 

Kei realizes that the two of you are not similar at all. Your warmth is where the similarity stops. He’d been likening you to Tadashi this entire time, not because the two of you are similar, but because you make him feel similar to the way Tadashi does. Safe and comfortable, though with the added addition of deeply awkward. He realizes that without the safety net of you being like Tadashi, he’s never had any ability to deny his feelings and with that they rage full force around the corner and slam into his chest like a heavy blow. 

“We’re nothing like each other,” you laugh and lean back against your palms. “Though, it would be cool to be like Tadashi.” 

Kei experiences the sudden realization that he doesn’t want you to be like Tadashi. Kei wants you to be like him. He wants you to be greedy and want him the same way he wants you. He wants you to be able to keep up with his turns and his moods, something he didn’t realize he wanted in the first place. If you’re like Kei, then Kei doesn’t have to be afraid of showing you the worst. You’ll have already seen it. If you’re like Kei and he loves you, then what is stopping you from loving him? 

“Even if you’re not like Tadashi, that’s fine.” His cheeks burn. 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah, I like you all the same,” he admits quietly. 

“The same? As Tadashi?” You purse your lips a little. “I thought I was a little different. Was I wrong?” 

Kei wants to kiss you. Kei wants to kiss you so badly that his mouth has gone dry and his lips feel like they’ve separated from his body. Anything he’d thought about not wanting anything with you flies out of the window with your proximity. You’re so close to him. Close enough that if he leaned a little to the right, his shoulder would be against yours. You’re so close and you’re looking at him like you’re waiting for something, implying that somehow you’re different from Tadashi. Implying that you want him to like you differently than the way he likes his platonic friend. 

“No, you’re different,” he says, taking the bait you’ve laid in front of him. His heart pounds and he can’t look at you. He thinks he’ll kiss you if he does. 

“Am I?” 

Kei can hear the smile in your voice. It makes what you’re saying sound honeyed and curved. 

“Yeah, you are.”

“How so?” 

Kei finally raises his head to look at you. You’re grinning, leaning towards him like you’re watching a show. He feels the way his nerves rise into his throat, pressing against the very back of his tongue. He doesn’t know how to answer or what to say. Well, he does know what to say, he just doesn’t think he can. Kei is good at thinking about emotions, but when it comes time to speak them outloud, it seems that he’s still got a padlock around his throat. So he does what any logical person would do. 

Kei leans forward, pushing against his screaming nerves and trying to ignore the tremble in his hands, and kisses you. It’s awkward and his teeth click against yours before his lips fully settle against your mouth. He feels the breath you draw in, like surprise and relief mixed together, and he finds that he does the same. 

He can see the way your eyes flutter closed through his barely open ones and he realizes that your lips are so warm. He screws his eyes shut when you dip your head forward to move your lips against his. Yours are so warm and soft, like satin. A kiss has never felt like this to Kei before and he finds that he wants to catalog every single one of your reactions. Maybe that’s what he could write in the notebook. Maybe he could write down every single thing that you do that leaves him winded and wanting more. 

Neither of you reach for the other, but he can feel the knuckle of your pinky against his as you slowly kiss each other, tilting your heads side to side. There’s hunger within him, the need to take more than what he’s receiving and a greed he isn’t quite familiar with, but there’s also romance. It’s like a spell that’s yet to be broken, fed by the click of your mouths as they move together. Kei sighs, flooded with the relief of this kind of physical affection, of being honest with himself at how much he likes it. Kei loves the feel of your mouth. He loves the way your lips and tongue feel and he loves that they’re all that he can feel right now. 

The kiss lasts longer than Kei thought it would and by the time he pulls away, you’re both steadily panting and attempting to keep your breathing even. He wants to do it again. He wants it so badly that it makes his chest swell. He wants to do that with you forever, but he swallows down the desire. It’s a temporary fix, but it’s enough for him to choke out what it is he wants to say next. 

“I think I’m in really hot water,” he squeaks. 

“What do you mean?” You breathe out, the playfulness from a few moments earlier long behind you. 

“I think I want you way more than I thought I did,” he admits quietly, the first out loud admittance of his feelings to you. 

You smile a little before speaking. “I think it’s only hot water if the other person doesn’t feel the same way.” 

Your face is still so close to his. “Yeah?” 

It comes out a bit desperate, like he needs reassurance. Kei does. He’s so afraid that he thinks he could die. Afraid of the spell breaking, afraid of losing whatever moment this is and being forced to return to his one-sided pining, afraid that you don’t feel the same way.

Your face moves closer to him, breath trembling lightly. “Yeah.” 

You kiss him again, pressing your lips against his lightly before parting them. He’s so overwhelmed and so immediately lost in it. Kei feels the way your tongue teases the inside of his mouth and it makes him feel like a teenager again, swelling with desires and emotions that he can’t name. You move your hand over his, placing it lightly on top of his, and he reacts by lacing your fingers together and pushing forward more. 

Kei wants to touch you so badly, to reach up and hold your face, to touch your waist and your legs and your chest. He wants to do it all, to feel you right here under the cover of night, but he doesn’t. Instead, he kisses you and stews in the desire, letting it swell in his chest as he listens to the clicking of your mouths. You kiss him so slowly, moving your mouth at a languid pace. It drives him crazy. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get enough of this.

“We should go back inside, I think,” you break away, your bottom lip shiny with a sheen of spit. “The others might think something’s up and Tanaka isn’t exactly good with discretion.”

Kei automatically reaches up to swipe it with his thumb. He doesn’t know where this affection comes from, where the possessive action found its origins, but he finds that he likes the way it feels to be able to do it in the first place. 

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Kei responds, though he would have been happy to continue sitting out here with you, kissing you silly. 

You stand first, dusting off the back of your legs and waiting for Kei to follow suit. When he does, you reach quickly for his hand, giving it a quick squeeze before walking in front of him. 

Kei is not sure how he should act when he goes inside. He’s tense all over, desperate to pick up where the two of you left off, and unsure if his face betrays that thought. 

“Where’d you guys go?” Tadashi asks as Kei closes the door behind him. 

In the time you’d both been gone, the living room has been transformed into something nearly unrecognizable. Empty beer cans are strewn about the tables and the blankets and pillows from the couches are now haphazardly laying around beside the couch or over people’s bodies. Then again, maybe the room always looked like this and he was just too busy thinking about how close you were to him. 

Kei doesn’t know what to say. Why had they gone outside in the first place? He’s not even sure that he remembers. 

“I wanted a cigarette and I made Kei come with me,” you answer evenly. “Why? You jealous?” 

“Of inhaling second-hand smoke? No, thanks.” Tadashi laughs, but he tosses Kei a sideways glance. Tadashi knows him well enough to know that Kei wouldn’t voluntarily stand outside with a smoker unless he was particularly fond of them. 

“Aw, man, I thought you quit?” Hinata pipes up, tilting his head. 

“I did, hot stuff,” you respond, sitting down on the couch. “Don’t worry. I won’t smoke anymore.” 

Hinata huffs and Kei takes the opportunity to sit down next to you. 

His thigh is pressed against yours, warmth seeping through his pants and into his skin. Kei feels like he could explode. You’re so close to him again, closer than before, and he can’t stop replaying the kiss in his head. He’s desperate for it, fidgety with his desire. He keeps thinking about the hot press of your mouth and the languid motion of your tongue. All he can imagine is the few points of contact between you both, mouth and hands, and how badly he wanted it to be more. He needs it. 

You touch him a few times throughout the night and the tension is so palpable that Kei is convinced he can see it. It’s like there is a rope pulled taut between the two of you. If he doesn’t stick his ground, he’ll go flying towards you, grabbing and touching and taking in the way he’s desperate to now. 

After an hour, his friends begin to grow restless. Their faces are flushed with alcohol and the things they’d been amusing themselves with are no longer enough stimulation. 

“Hey, we’re going out to the bars. Who’s coming?” Hinata speaks up. 

A chorus of agreement rings out, but the last thing Kei wants to do is go out.

“I think I’ll probably stay back and start cleaning,” he says somewhat disdainfully. “It’s a mess in here,” Kei tosses you a small glance. It’s unintentional but he’s glad for it because Kei is hoping that you’ll stay back with him, that you both can pick up where you left off. 

“I’ll stay and help too. I’ve got an early morning tomorrow anyway,” you smile and Hinata pouts. 

“You guys are so boring,” he protests. “Leave the mess for tomorrow and come out with us.” 

“I’ll pass, pipsqueak,” Kei scoffs. 

“Fine, but don’t complain to me when you’re full of regret tomorrow,” he points a finger at Kei and then moves it over to you. “And you’re too nice for your own good.” 

“Do you hear that?” You say, beginning to usher the group to the door. “I think it’s the sound of the bar and all that alcohol calling to you guys.” 

“You guys are so full of shit-” Kageyama starts, speaking up for the first time in a while, but Kei just waves him out. 

“Yeah yeah, let the grown ups clean while you guys have fun. We’ll see you tomorrow.” 

The rope is so taut between you both that it’s unbearable and by the time the door closes, you are spinning around on your heel toward Kei. 

“We’re not cleaning, right?” 

Kei shakes his head and starts towards you. The tension breaks when his hands find your hips and he hungrily leans down to press his mouth against yours. 

This kiss is different from the first, desperate and full of desire. It’s fast and your mouths move together quickly as he starts to walk you back towards his bedroom, his hands eagerly roaming up and down your hips. Vaguely, he acknowledges that his glasses have been moved out of place, but he pays it no mind as you turn the knob to his bedroom door with your back to it. 

There’s an urgency to his movements. Kei feels it in his chest, this desperate desire to be closer, to consume everything that you’ve laid out in the palm of his hand. You stumble backwards into his room and Kei catches your shifted weight with a hand around your waist. His other hand comes up to cup your cheek, feeling the warm skin on your jaw and neck. His fingers tremble where they touch you, half out of desperate need and half out of the nerves that threaten to spill from his mouth. His lips though, are occupied with yours, clicking together, all tongue and teeth. 

Kei kisses sloppily down your jaw, his lips smearing across your cheek and dipping down below your ear. He sucks a trail there, unsure if he’s leaving marks, all the way down to your collarbone. Every part of you tastes better than he’d expected it to and with every push he delivers, you pull. 

You make small sounds, little pants and groans that make Kei’s hair stand on end with wanting. Your voice, so familiar and fond to him, spills out in small, breath-like bursts that make Kei want to coax more out of you. Kei’s never been one to want this way, but right now, it’s all that he feels. So much tension and impulse that he feels like he can hardly control himself. 

You reach blindly behind you for the bed and Kei guides you down, placing his hand on one side of you as you sit. Then, without disconnecting your lips, he guides you up toward the wall. 

He feels the cool tips of your fingers at the hem of his shirt, pulling downward and then upward to get him to take it off. Kei obliges you, leaning back on his knees and pulling it off over the top of his head. You eye him for a moment, the two of you slowing down enough as the urgency settles into something heavy and lingering. 

Kei leans forward again, one of his hands reaching for your hip. He slips his fingers underneath the hem of your shirt, sliding his long fingers up your stomach as he kisses you again. You’re so soft and he can feel the way your chest heaves against his palm. His touch is feather light and he slides it up evenly until it reaches just below your breast. When you nod, Kei moves it up over your bra and he feels you shudder. Kei does the same, overwhelmed by your pliability. 

He can feel the goosebumps that have raised on your skin, little pinpricks of skin that indicate that some part of you feels good. When Kei squeezes your breast, you gasp into his moan and he groans his response, letting you bite at his bottom lip. 

He feels you suck at his lips and swipe your tongue along the ridge of his mouth. When he opens it to let you in, he’s overtaken by the warmth of the soft muscle. He groans, tilting his head down to kiss you deeper, letting the taste of you spread over his mouth. It’s hot and your breath fans across his face. 

Kei hands drift from your breasts along the sides of your body. He feels the heave of your breath there against your warm skin, his palms resting on your waist. You raise your knees, the sides of them pressing against Kei’s hips. He shifts downwards slowly, dragging his mouth along your skin, past the cloth of your shirt. 

His hands make their way from your waist to your hips as he dips lower. Kei takes off his glasses, already fogged up and in the way. When he meets your eyes, you nod your permission and Kei slips between your legs, his flat palms moving to spread your thighs. 

You’re so warm and soft, so pliable in a way that Kei can’t articulate. It makes his mouth water with his desperation and he’s grown hard against the bedspread beneath him. 

“Touch me,” you breathe out. 

Kei nods into your stomach, looping his fingers around our waistband, and pulls down your pants. Your panties come with it and it’s with a slight wave of regret that he realizes he won’t get to see the way you stick to them. 

When he sees you, his heart leaps into his throat. His eagerness and his nerves catch up to him and he lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. You shudder when the air hits your exposed cunt, an unintentional side effect of Kei’s nerves that has him grinding down against the bedspread. 

He slides his palm to rest over your center. It’s warm and sticky, wet beyond what Kei had imagined and he gingerly presses a finger between your folds. You gasp, mouth falling open above him. Then, he slides his finger into you to the first knuckle, curling up. Kei goes deeper on the second pump, curling his whole finger inside of you and feeling the way you tighten around him. 

You arch your back up off the bed and Kei groans and rolls his eyes, resting his head on the inside of your exposed thigh. He curls his fingers in you, watching the way they coat with your pleasure. His eyebrows are knit together, like he’s asking whether you like how he touches you or not, and you seem to pick up on his insecurity, nodding your head before letting it tip back against Kei’s pillows. 

Kei thinks your expression is incredible. Your eyebrows pull up in the center, pretty face twisted and mouth slightly open in an expression of undeniable pleasure. Kei’s stomach winds at the look of it and he ruts his hips against the mattress to quell the growing ache of need. His fingers, which curl at a slow and even pace inside of you, are warm with your enjoyment. It leaks between his knuckles, sliding down the back of his hand like a slow moving syrup. He wonders whether you have more to give and how you taste, his gaze slinking from your face to the place just above where his fingers disappear. 

He lowers his mouth to you without thinking, curious and needing the taste of it. Sure enough, you have more to give. Your voice comes quickly, a small gasp that is stifled by the back of your hand when he sucks sharply on your clit. Your hips push forward against his hands and then you arch up off the mattress with a small cry. Kei wonders if you’ve cum. He wonders if he’s sent you over the edge, but if he has, you’re taking all of it so well that he doesn’t dare stop. 

The taste of you spreads on his tongue, tangy and warm. You invade his senses violently, like you are gripping his throat. Kei holds his mouth to you, pressing the length of his cock into the mattress and moving his hips like he plans to fuck it. 

He moves his free hand down your thigh and onto the inside of your leg. Your skin is so soft. It’s so vulnerable, something easily pierced and bled. Kei’s pointer finger rubs gentle circles there, feeling the slight pull of the soft skin with his fingers, so thin that it almost feels like tissue paper. He’s sure that with a little pressure, you would bruise. 

The thought surprises him. He works his tongue across your clit and his fingers against that gummy spot inside of you, but his mind drifts to the softness of your inner thigh, the way it would be so easy to leave a spot that might hurt later when you press on it, remind you of exactly where he was. Then, Kei pinches you on the inside of your thigh and when you cry out, tightening around his fingers with a tapered moan, he pinches you again, harder this time. 

You whimper slightly, like you like it. No, you sound like you love it and Kei finds himself holding back a choked moan as he tries not to cum prematurely. He pinches along the inside of your legs and around the back. Not too much. Only when he feels like it. Only when he wants to hear what kind of sounds you’ll make. 

“K-Kei wait, wait,” you pant, grabbing him by his tufts of blonde hair. It hurts. He doesn’t think you mean to hurt him, but it doesn’t matter. He likes it and he twitches in his pants. 

“Huh?” He hums, detaching from your clit and slowing the movement of his fingers to a halt. Your legs shake around his handiwork. “You okay?” 

“I’ll cum if you keep going like that,” you breathe, screwing your eyes shut like you’re still on the edge. “Drag it out for me, yeah?” 

Kei furrows his eyebrows and sucks in a sharp breath.

“Cum if you want to.” He tilts his head down to reattach his lips. 

“Not yet,” you tug at his hair. “I like chasing it.” 

Kei stares at you, unblinking and awestruck. Your chest heaves and despite the pleasure on your face, you look uncomfortable as your orgasm slips away from you. Kei likes that look on your face and he finds himself growing greedy. 

“Come here,” you coax him onto the mattress. 

Kei watches as you slip your hands into the waistband of his jeans and pull them down, leaving him on his back with his tented boxers exposed. You crawl down his body and settle between his legs with your arms between his thighs. He shudders when you run your hands up them and he briefly sees his boxers jump. 

You smile, pressing your mouth to him through his boxers. Kei can’t stifle the groan that escapes him and heat floods his face when you raise your eyebrows in response. 

“You don’t have to,” he says through gritted teeth as you slip the waistband of his boxers down. 

“But I want to,” you mumble, taking him in your hand and placing a kiss on the side of his dick. 

Kei’s head falls back against the pillow and he swears under his breath when he feels the warmth of your mouth close around the tip of him. He jerks his head up to see, awestruck by the way your lips look around the head of his cock. 

For some reason, Kei is already so sensitive. He feels everything, and when you swipe the tip of your tongue along his slit as you bob your head, he makes a noise he didn’t think he could make. His fingers knot themselves in the bed sheets, white knuckled and trembling while you bob your head over him. 

Your mouth is so warm and wet. It’s a little messy, dripping down the length of him and onto his balls. Kei feels the warmth, the heat of you. He can still taste you on his tongue. Kei can still feel the stickiness left behind from your arousal on his mouth. The combination of you between his legs and the taste of you on his tongue is overwhelming. 

Kei can feel his orgasm growing in his lower stomach, turning over until he’s bringing his long fingers to your head in an effort to steady himself. There’s nothing he can do but give in, watching you through damp eyes as you watch his expression. 

It’s embarrassing how quickly he cums. It doesn’t take long and he teeters on the edge for a few moments before fully cresting over. Kei can’t help the way he lifts his hips from the mattress, his voice caught in his throat as it hooks on a high pitched groan. His voice cracks and he feels the way his cum collects on your tongue and across the tip of his dick in your mouth. 

“Fuck,” he mutters, red faced and panting, “I didn’t mean to- I didn’t mean to finish so quickly, you’re just-” 

“It’s fine,” you come up, your eyes glassed over and lust-filled. “I like making you feel good.” 

“Yeah but-” 

“No buts,” you crawl over him and straddle his waist. Kei winces when your weight briefly nudges his cock. “There’s still fun to be had. Can I kiss you?” 

He nods and you lean down to do as you’d asked. Your tongue moves slowly against his, less desperate this time, like you’re trying to work him down and back up again. You place your hands on his chest, settling your weight down so that your bare cunt is pressed against his sensitive cock. Kei thinks he might die. 

He brings his hands to your waist, the fatigue creeping from his bones as he digs the pads of his fingers into your fleshy sides. You draw in a breath when he does and it makes Kein feel like he’s tipping sideways with arousal. Everything that you do, right down to the involuntary twitch of your hips or eyebrows, is sexy. 

Kei turns you over, growing hard between your legs again, and gently pins you to the mattress. He kisses you for a moment longer, his lips working clumsily across yours before he pulls away to catch his breath and find his bearings. 

You chase him with your mouth, tilting your head up to kiss him. Kei feels his chest swell with arousal and his cock strains almost painfully against his pants as he peers at you. You’re so pretty. Everything about you is so pretty. On his chest, he can feel your fingers, splayed over his pecks, across his collarbone, and grazing the side of his neck. He leans closer, loving the pressure of your body and the desperation that pours from your skin. 

Kei kisses you again. He kisses you the way he wanted to outside, dipping his tongue into your mouth with a desperation that he can taste. You take control back, reaching between the two of you, and Kei shifts himself upward instinctually to give you access to him. He feels your fingers fumble for him and there’s a pause in which Kei doesn’t know what to do. He wonders if this might be the part of him that you like. The awkward part, the one that doesn’t know what to do. Kei’s thoughts are interrupted by the feeling of your hand wrapping around him and tugging upward. 

His head drops and a low groan escapes his lips before he can even think to stop it. Kei’d almost forgotten his sensitivity, how desperately he wants to be touched, how overwhelming it feels. He shivers, looking down at where your hand wraps around him and pumps. When he looks back up, he finds that you’re looking at his face, your eyes glassed over and observant as you commit all of his expressions to memory. 

“What?” he says, letting out a shuddering breath and the slight overstimulation. 

“Your face is red,” you reach up with your free hand to run your thumb along his cheek. 

Kei huffs, dropping his head and you fiddle with something between the two of you.

“No,” you pick his chin up. “I like it. It’s cute.” 

You tighten your grip around him and Kei feels his expression twist, a new rush of heat and desire flooding his belly as he realizes you’re sliding a condom onto him. Then, you guide the tip of him between your legs and he feels the wet press of your entrance against him. 

“Christ,” he groans. 

You smile slightly, shifting your hips a little and then placing your hands on his shoulders. Kei pushes forward slowly, his thighs twitching. It takes everything he has to keep from cumming again and every muscle in his body screams with a desire to let go. 

Kei is so overwhelmed, partially because you feel so good, but also because there is some part of him that knows this feels different. Kei feels different about you, about being intimate with you, than he has with anyone else. There’s something alive in him, something with its own mind. Something greedy and vulnerable that stirs when your face is this close to him, when he’s buried all the way in you to the base of his cock. Emotional and sensitive, Kei feels it kick. 

His first instinct is to run. Agreeing to let himself like you, to let himself do something about it, was not agreeing to letting something live inside of him. Kei’s first thought when he registers the difference is to cut it off and suffocate it so that it stops thumping against his chest. He’d grown so used to the hollow feeling that the feeling of living emotion makes him nervous, it puts him on edge. But when he pulls out a few inches and fucks back into you, the anxiety dispels into insurmountable pleasure. A pleasure Kei can’t describe, something fulfilling and whole. 

He picks up his pace, letting himself do what he wants while you grip his shoulders with blunted nails. He likes the expression you wear. Truthfully, he likes all of your expressions, but this one is new. Pressure and pleasure, a newness to the feel of him inside of you that you can’t quite keep from your eyes or lips. He kisses you as if he could taste it, slipping his tongue between your lips. 

“I really like you,” you mumble against his mouth, breath hot as it fans across his cheeks. 

Kei’s heart hammers and his hips stutter a little. 

“Me too,” he chokes, trying to think about volleyball to stave off a second orgasm. All that comes to mind though, is you. 

“Are you close again?” you breathe, voice laden with pleasure. 

“I have been since we started,” Kei admits. 

“Cum then,” you say softly, reaching behind his head to pull his mouth back to yours. Kei likes the control you exhibit. He groans his approval.

“You first,” he mutters.

There’s this possessive part of Kei that wants to watch you fall apart on him. He wants to see it, to watch you feel good too and commit it to memory so that he can always keep it. He thinks it’s a pride thing, something attached to his desire to succeed, to his reliability. Maybe though, it’s just because he thinks it’ll look hot. 

He reaches down and lifts one of your legs up by the back of your knee, pressing it down to give himself better access. You whine and Kei feels the way you clench down around him, your fingers knitting into the hair at the back of his neck. It hurts in a good way. 

Kei slips his hand between you, rubbing circles on your clit to get you there faster. Frankly, he doesn’t know how much longer he can last like this, staring down at your face while it twists with pleasure. You’re so attractive to him. Everything about you is sexy. It makes Kei a little crazy. 

He listens as your breathing quickens, as your voice wavers further. He feels the way your cunt begins to flutter faster, pulsing around him until you attempt to cry out and warn him. Then, you clamp down around him, arching your hips up off the mattress and pulling at his hair. Kei moves his head with you, relishing in the way you tug and scratch. 

He builds up to his orgasm so fast that it hurts. There’s pressure and then the mounting feeling of nearing the top, and then the peak and crash. He cums so hard that it hurts, pushing his cock as far as it will go into you and feeling the warm spill of his cum in the condom. He moans a long, drawn out sound that you mimic, his fingers knitting into the pillow behind you and his head dropping so that his lips sit near your neck.

He lets out a shaky breath, letting himself sit inside of you for a moment. You turn his head towards yours and kiss him. It’s gentle. A smooth and languid kiss that neither of you moves to deepen. Your lips move against each other and Kei closes his eyes to savor the taste. 

You tap his shoulder and Kei rolls over onto the bed beside you, snapping the condom off with a small wince and tying it up in a quick motion. He places it in the trash bin beside the bed. When he turns over, you’re already moving to slip under his arm, resting your head on his chest. 

There’s a passing moment of silence, not unlike the ones you both have fallen into before and you sigh lightly against his exposed chest. Kei follows suit, watching the way you move with his breath. 

His skin is sticky against yours and Kei can vaguely register the smell of sweat in the room. He doesn’t know how long it’s been since everyone left, nor does he know when they’ll be back, but he estimates that it won’t be more than an hour. Kei briefly wishes that he could pause time so that he can stay here with you, just like this. 

“I’m not good at this kind of stuff,” Kei admits quietly. 

“What stuff?” You ask, tracing your finger along the ridges of his lean abdomen. 

“Liking people,” he says. “Dating.” 

You give a small laugh. “No offense, Kei, but I could tell that from the moment I met you.” 

“Shit, seriously?” 

“Duh,” you breathe out. “It’s a little charming to me, though. I like that part of you.” 

So it’s true. You like the parts of Kei that he’s always worried were the worst of him. 

“Huh,” he says. “Could you tell?” 

“That you like me?” You ask, shifting your head to look at him. “Yeah, it was obvious after we established that you didn’t hate me. I always noticed you staring in the library.” 

“Really? I thought I was being a little slick with that,” Kei feels heat and color flood his face. 

You let out a good-natured laugh. “People can always tell when someone’s staring, Kei. It’s like a sixth sense.” 

“Good to know. Hindsight is 20/20 and all.” 

Another bout of silence follows. 

“You can keep staring though,” you say, “if you want to. And calling.”

“Okay,” Kei responds, “I didn’t really plan on stopping.” 

“Ha, freaky,” you laugh a little and Kei reaches up to flick the side of your head. “Wanna start going out?” 

Kei thinks about this for a moment. He thinks about being able to hold your hand, brush hair out of your face, watch movies on the couch and fix your breakfast the next morning. Then he thinks about not being able to do those things. 

“I think I’d be a little upset if we didn’t,” he admits. 

“Good,” you say. “Me too.” 

He’s fighting off sleep. His eyelids are heavy and he tries to blink away the shroud of rest that’s falling over him. Kei knows you’re fighting it too. Your breathing goes in and out of that familiar breathing that comes with sleep. Kei likes the way it sounds coming from you, restful and quiet. 

“We should… really get up to clean just a little,” he mumbles. 

“Five more minutes,” you say softly, your voice heavy and laden with drowsiness. 

“Okay,” he says. 

It’s just five more minutes. Kei fights sleep to hear you breathe like this a little longer. 

—

There’s a period after which Kei doesn’t know what to do with himself. Like the awkward start to a new hobby or passion, Kei finds himself enthralled with his budding relationship while simultaneously stumbling continuously along the way. You’re gracious with him though, letting him make mistakes and fumble until he finds his footing. 

It’s all very awkward for him, very new. He finds that it’s easier to just do the nice things he wants to do for you than to agonize over it and slowly, he begins to grow comfortable in the relationship that took you both so long to begin. 

At first, only Tadashi knew about you both. Kei thought that there was no point in hiding it from him, since you were over at the apartment all the time. Of course, Tadashi somehow already knew. That’s how it usually goes anyway, and Kei is relieved to find that his internal change did not trigger some global shift that would turn his life upside down. Everything is normal, save for the fact that Kei now tries to love without hindrance. 

Kei discovers that he’s possessive. That’s a new trait of his that he didn’t know belonged to him. Before you, before Kei had found something he so desperately wanted to keep, he’d been rather detached. Possessiveness was rare because Kei hardly ever got attached enough to want. Now though, he wants so badly that it hurts. You lean into it. Kei suspects that you like it when he wards off people who hit on you, when he pouts a little because he wants to be close to you, when he gets a little jealous. Kei doesn’t really mind it either. After all, despite his possessiveness, he never feels insecure. The both of you make sure of that. 

This sunny period with you, the one Kei worried would only last a week, drifts easily from one month into two and before he knows it, it’s been five. Kei had worried about that fundamental change. The one imperceivable to the human eye. He’d worried that slowly, it would begin to spoil what is so good between the two of you. 

“Kei,” you snap him out of it, placing a hand on his shoulder, “you okay?” 

He sets down his cup of tea, barely touched. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” 

“Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet?” You give him a wry smile. “This was your idea, after all.” 

“Yeah, well it was a pretty shit idea actually,” he breathes, “My parents aren’t exactly easy.” 

“You want to cancel?” You ask, your eyebrows pulling up in a clumsy attempt to hide your disappointment. Kei can see right through it.

“No,” he shakes his head. “I want you to meet them. I just don’t want you to meet them.” 

The truth of it is that Kei would like to cancel. In an ideal world, one where the sun rises on the opposite side of his bedroom window, he’d forget the whole thing and take you out to get dinner and see a movie. Things would be simpler that way, less uncomfortable for the both of you. But as uncomfortable as it is, Kei wants you to be a part of their lives too. You’re too important to not introduce to his parents and Kei can’t see it any other way, though he’d like to. 

You snort. “What does that even mean?” 

Kei gives you a pointed and somewhat irritated look. 

“Okay, sorry,” you raise your hands defensively and walk over to place them on his shoulders. “I know you’re worried, but I think it’s going to be okay. I’m excited.” 

Kei huffs out a laugh, unable to vocalize his nerves in their totality. “Excited to meet my dysfunctional, divorced parents that kind of hate each other?” 

“Yup. I’m excited to meet the people who raised you.” 

Kei smiles a little. “You should meet Akiteru, then,” It’s an exaggeration, but for some reason the prospect of seeing both of his parents together has him feeling a little more bitter than usual, even if it was his idea. 

You give him a little grin through narrowed eyes. There’s an understanding that passes from you to him, like you’re acknowledging that you haven’t forgotten what he’d told you nearly six months ago. Kei feels the tension in his shoulders relax a little. 

His parents are already at the restaurant when he arrives. It’s a swanky Italian place. The kind you go to on birthdays or for anniversaries, where the pasta dishes are things like lobster mushroom ravioli or truffle oil fettucini in tiny portions. Kei made sure to book somewhere that his parents would have trouble making a scene in, not that they ever had much of a mind for decorum when they were married. He’s surprised to find them chatting cordially when you both arrive. 

“Kei,” his mother stands from the table and crosses to give him a hug. He pats her back gently.

“Hi Mom,” Kei responds and she gives him a small smile. 

Kei’s dad adjusts the lapel of his suit, the same one he’s had for years, and reaches to give him a hug around one shoulder. 

“Guys,” he inhales, “This is my partner, _____.” 

You grin at Kei and then introduce yourself formally to his parents. Kei watches in awe as you blend right in, like you’ve known them for many years. He sits down while trying to keep the nerves from his face. 

“We’re so happy to meet you,” his mother starts, “Kei’s never introduced us to any of his partners before.” 

“I’m the first?” You smile a little, raising an eyebrow at Kei as if to tease him. 

“There really haven’t been that many to begin with,” Kei grumbles as if that somehow makes it better. 

You laugh again and the ball of conversation begins rolling. His mother tells you how pretty you are and his father nods a quieter approval. They talk about his university’s graduation ceremony, which they attended separately, as if they were together the entire time and then ask about your major, if you graduated with him, where you plan on going. You tell them what you want to do and that you want to go wherever Kei goes. He marvels at how smoothly the evening moves onward.

There are moments where the tension in his family becomes obvious. Little swells or comments that bring up a sour or shameful memory that cannot be ignored. Moments when the air thickens and it feels like the hammer is about to come down. It never does though. The tension, rather than snapping, simply fades away. 

He’d expected everything to blow up for some reason. Kei had expected that, like his childhood, the restaurant dishes would end up smashed on the floor. The glassware always ended up broken in the house, why shouldn’t they be broken here to shatter the illusion of things being good? He braces himself for a ball that never drops.

It takes him until the ride home, after a successful dinner, to realize that the dishes haven’t been smashed in years. Not since he was fourteen and his parents fought for custody. Not since his mother got remarried to her now husband almost 6 years ago and his father met his new wife. Kei wonders why he still feels like he lives in that house. The one his parents were at their worst in. Why can’t he feel like he lives in the apartment he rents with Tadashi? 

“I think that went well,” you say softly on the drive back. 

Kei nods his agreement. “I think so too.” 

You don’t bring up the fact that they didn’t fight, or that they spoke about their new kids with each other as if they were old friends. You don’t accuse Kei of being wrong, of being paranoid even though he most definitely was. 

“I’m glad that I got to meet them,” you say. “You look so much like your mom.” 

“Really?” Kei asks. 

“Yeah, you’ve got her eyes and her nose,” you smile a little. “It makes you two look similar.” 

“Huh,” he says. “I never really gave that much thought.” 

Kei turns the idea that he has his mother’s face over in his head. He’d spent so much time dreading that he was like them on the inside, that he never paused to consider the outside. So much of his life has been spent worrying that he’s just like them. That he breaks the plates and lashes out and acts cruelly even when he’s trying to love. But he has his mother’s eyes and for some reason that unsettles him. It’s like evidence. 

“You don’t really act like them though,” you say as if on cue. “You’re a little gentler.” 

“Me? Gentle?” Kei scoffs. 

“Yeah!” you say. “I mean, sure you’re prickly, but there’s a goodness to you that’s really obvious if you look.” 

Goodness. What a strange word to use to describe someone. Kei thinks that if there’s any goodness in him, if there’s anything that hasn’t been tainted by his parents’ sour personalities, it’s from Akiteru. Kei likes to believe that whatever good he got was from him. No matter how strained his relationship with him might be now, Kei is certain of that. 

“That’s a relief,” he admits in a flat tone. 

After a long pause, he speaks again. “Thanks.” 

“For what?” You laugh. 

“Bearing with me… and with them,” he says. “Couldn’t have been easy.” 

“It was easy,” you say. “Because I wanted to meet them. And I care about you.” 

Kei feels color rise to his cheeks. He turns to look in the sideview mirrors as he pulls the car into a parking spot in his apartment complex’s garage. 

“You say that stuff so easily,” he huffs. 

“What? That I care about you?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Well, I do,” you laugh a little.

Kei’s face grows hotter and he distracts himself by putting the car into park and taking the key out of the ignition. 

“Me too,” he says quietly, waiting for you to catch up so that he can take your hand in his. “Sorry that I don’t say it a lot.” 

“Not to be rude,” you say, “but even if you never said it at all, it would be obvious. You’re kind of a sucker.” 

Kei supposes that that’s true and he gives a small laugh before nudging your shoulder with his. The parking garage is humid and stuffy, but he holds your hand in it anyway. 

—

You’re half asleep in bed beside him and your breathing comes in even sweeps the way it does just before you fall asleep. Kei listens to it for a moment, admiring the sound of it and the way your chest feels expanding against his. 

He thinks about dinner, about how good it feels to have introduced you. How real it makes this relationship feel despite the uneasiness surrounding his familial situation. Kei thinks about his parents. He thinks about their inability to be good for each other. He thinks about the worst of them, something he’s familiar with, before thinking about the best of them. Kei imagines the way their faces looked at dinner, talking about the children they’re raising properly. They’re good people, they just made each other bad. Molecular shifts that changed them for the worst. The notebook theory in its most frightening form. But they were good too. 

Kei thinks about loving you. His reluctance to do so originally isn’t quite beyond him yet. He’s unsure, in fact, if he’ll ever really get past the fear of the fall, the fear of becoming what his parents made each other. But he also thinks about his promise to love you for real. Love is not something that Kei does. He knows now that it's something that happens to him, like it happened to his parents. They loved each other once, even if it made them so blind that they couldn’t see just how bad it made them. 

Kei still resents the fact that he was born to fix a marriage that never would have worked in the first place. He resents being a fix rather than a gift, but at the very least, his existence is proof that his parents cared enough about their family to try. Even if it was misguided, at least they tried even a little. 

In the quiet after of an emotionally charged evening, loving you seems like an easier task for him now. It’s not hard to love you. What’s hard, Kei thinks, is not hurting you. He carries a lot of baggage that, for a long while, felt like too much. Kei thinks he can manage if it’s for you. He’ll bear the brunt of it. He’ll put in the work. 

Yes, Kei is his parents’ son, but he’s also Tadashi’s friend, Akiteru’s brother, the person who loves you. He doesn’t live in the house with a bin full of shards and no glassware anymore. 

“Are you awake?” He whispers across the pillow. 

“Mhm,” you hum, pushing your cheek into his arm.

“Let’s move in together,” he says. 

You tense against him and slowly attempt to blink away sleep. “Are you sure?” 

“Yeah, I’m sure,” he responds. “I want to live with you.” 

“Okay then,” you smile a little. “Let’s do it.” 

—

In the fall, when his lease with Tadashi ends and his friend gives him a tearful, yet somewhat silly goodbye, Kei moves into your new shared apartment. Two small rooms in a modest part of town, a shared kitchen and living room, one bathroom, a mismatch of furniture from both of your old places, and an empty fridge. The first night is spent eating take out on the floor with you in front of a TV with no proper stand. Kei has never been happier. 

And in the morning, when the sun comes through the slats of his window, broken up into gentle dots by the orange-leaved trees outside, Kei rises slowly. He rises gently. Kei doesn’t want to wake you, not before he’s made breakfast. He pads out to the kitchen, where boxes are strewn about, half unpacked, and grabs the little brown notebook from the box it’s been temporarily living in. In it, he writes a grocery list full of the things you like. It’s a good enough reason, a good enough change. 

The notebook theory. 

[tacitoru]

Gojo wants to try your cherry lip balm.

He tracks the slow, methodical slide of the balm against your chapped lips and licks his own. 

Back, forth.

The east coast sun is oddly sweltering for a spring afternoon, but Satoru has been taking the swift change in weather to stride. More than happy to strip down to basketball shorts with his bare back warming to the sun. To be on a court outdoors, where he feels like he’s got a little more room to breathe.

It makes him excited for summer, when the semester would be over, the season behind them, a little more free time on their hands. He wants to check out the beach on this side of America. See if the ocean is as blue as his jerseys like his host university claims. Barbecue and bikinis, shaved ice and sunscreen. He can practically taste the saltwater taffy if he closes his eyes for long enough. After a long winter, the sudden heat wave feels like a blessing. 

Had felt like a blessing.

Back, forth.

The motion is practiced. Instinctive. It’s like you hardly notice you’re applying the salve, staining a darker shade of red with each pass. But you definitely notice him noticing.

“You’re staring.”

“I’m not!”

For a lumbering mammoth of a man, Satoru boasts a pout that would put the cutest three-year-old to shame. The rebuttal is immediate, slips out before he even has the decency to glance away while denying it.

You give him your best glare over the line of your shades and cap the cherry-red Chapstick with a sharp snap! nonetheless. Roll your mouth to spread the balm over evenly, then gesture for him to gather his things. Satoru’s eyes struggle to leave your face as he scoops up his duffle bag and basketball. He’ll obsess over the motion of your lips, pursing and unfurling over your teeth for days.

Your bottom lip comes back a bit shinier than the top and Satoru has to stop himself from wetting his own again. For nights.

“D’you want some water? Or something? You shouldn’t keep licking your lips like that.” You admonish, hardly paying him any mind as you pass him your water bottle, and in that moment Satoru recognizes the bits and pieces of you that mirror Suguru. The way you sigh his name, try to set him straight, albeit with a lot less of the easy familiarity his counterpart carries. 

You mumble, cut your gaze in the opposite direction, turn in on yourself not a second after you’ve scolded him. Like you’re still afraid he’ll bite you.

You don’t wait for him to drink, already turning your back to march towards the gravel parking lot where Suguru’s car idles nearby. Satoru spots where your balm stains the lip of the plastic water bottle a translucent light pink and presses it against his mouth. Takes a sip, tongue swiping over the rim.

Maybe he will.

[sometimesanalice]

In a Place Just Right

Summary: It's your first year hosting Thanksgiving in San Diego for the Daggers and Bradley can tell you're a little nervous about it. But he already knows it's going to be one for the books, because any holiday spent with you better than anything he could have imagined.

Pairing: Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw x Female Reader

Length: 5K

Warnings: fluff and allusions to smut (minors dni)

(author's note: this fic is set in the 'Like I Can Universe', but can be read on it's own! Happy Thanksgiving, friends!)

For the last six years Penny has been the one to host Daggersgiving, but this year hostess duties had fallen on your plate. Needless to say, Bradley knew you were more than a little stressed about it.

When you had asked him about his opinion on the merits of canned cranberry sauce versus homemade he’d blinked at you a few times before asking, “Is this a thing people care about?”

He’ll never forget how adorably aghast you looked to learn that he had no preference on the matter. And maybe if you had asked him when the sun was up instead of at 3 AM he might have known better than to give you such a noncommittal answer.

“Both, we’ll have both,” you’d stated resolutely.

“Whatever you want, kid," he’d murmured as he’d pulled you to his chest and wrapped an arm around your stomach. His smart and beautiful wife. "Now go back to sleep, you’re supposed to be dreaming of sugarplums not cranberries."

“Wrong holiday, Bradley,” you’d sighed contentedly, relaxing against him. And it hadn’t taken you long to fall back asleep with that cranberry crisis having been averted.

But now people were due to show up in less than an hour and you are frantically fluttering and huffing around the kitchen like a madwoman in a very pretty green dress, "I knew that quickie was a bad idea. You're never quick, Bradley."

He’d been away and missed many holidays over the years due to his career.

Your mom had always made it clear that he had an open invitation to join in whatever merry festivities were happening with your family, but more often than not it rarely aligned with him being stationed all over the world. But he’d always been happy to get to have a phone call with you and eat the homemade cookies you’d sent him on those years spent apart.

But now Bradley got to look forward to spending every holiday with you in the home you shared with him.

Over the last week the house had slowly but surely transformed into something that was straight out of a magazine.

There was a display of pumpkins, ribbons, and a garland of strung dried orange slices that decorated the fireplace. And overpriced candles from your favorite store flickered cheerfully on every surface that wasn’t a fire hazard to a bunch of enthusiastic Naval aviators. The dining table was dressed up to the nines and everyone spot with their names painstakingly written in your pretty script on a place card sitting in a pinecone.

You had even made some oversized confetti in the shape of oak leaves out of some old books, the copy of ‘Why Men Love Bitches’ that Nat had given him years ago as a joke was finally repurposed and recycled into something more festive over where the beverages had been set up.

The whole house smells amazing. Warm cinnamons and nutmegs mixing with bright citrus and rich vanillas. The kitchen island and countertops were filled with various plates and platters and bowls of dips, charcuterie, fruit and vegetables, nuts, and other savories. All the other dishes were being kept warm in the ovens for when everyone arrived and was ready to settle around the dining table for dinner.

Bradley was positive that no one would leave feeling hungry. He also wasn’t entirely sure where the things his friends are bringing were going to go, but there were worse problems to have.

Penny had taken Amelia with her to visit her family on the East Coast. They’d decided it would probably be better for Mav to hang back in San Diego for the holiday, those tensions with her dad were still a bit strained even though they’d been married for almost four years now.

Which is how the Bradshaw’s were hosting their first Thanksgiving for everyone.

This morning had been organized chaos. Some of the last minute-things had only managed to be checked off with the assistance of strong coffee and a good playlist.

However, he’d still managed to sneak in the opportunity to spin you around the kitchen to your wedding song when it came up on shuffle. After all the cranberries were still popping and boiling down; there was time for it, he'd always make time for it.

But that was then.

Now, you are glaring at him like you’d been personally victimized by him and his cock.

“You complaining, sweet girl?” he asks with a smirk, leaning his hip against the kitchen island watching as you briskly stir the gravy heating up in the copper sauce pot on the stove. “Don’t think that’s what I was hearing thirty minutes ago when we had that pretty green dress of yours bunched around your hips. Sounded something like ‘more, Bradley, more’ to me.”

You shoot him a look that would make a weaker man wither, but he’s built up an immunity to it over a lifetime of having it directed at him.

“I think that’s quite enough out of you,” you reprimand, but he sees the amusement in your eyes even as you fight to keep the annoyed façade on your face. “We’re behind schedule now. I thought I buffered in enough time, just in case-”

“Just in case you begged me to give you an orgasm to, and I quote, ‘help me chill out’?”

“I was kidding,” you say, stopping your agitated whisking to go fluff the stuffing instead.

“All I’m saying is that if my beautiful wife is begging for me, I’m certainly not going to say no. I’m only human,” he says with an all too pleased shrug.

Bradley grabs the can opener and works on opening the canned cranberry sauce. He reaches for a couple plates, holding them up for your approval and you point to the one on the right, the scalloped white one with gold rim.

“For the record, I certainly did not beg,” you say primly, glowering into the homemade stuffing that you’d had him get the bread from the nice bakery across town for.

“Sure, sure,” he drawls, the smirk growing wider on his face as he sets to freeing the jelly from its rippled container.

He knows he shouldn’t tease you right now, but you’re so cute when you get huffy that he can’t help himself. He’s known that petulant raise of your chin his whole life. And sometimes when he looks at you he can so clearly see the little girl he’d been forced to entertain for hours when your moms were hanging out.

You went from being his favorite nuisance to his best friend to his everything.

“Do I still look ok? Or do I need to do a quick refresh before everyone gets here?” you ask. You turn to fully face him, tilting your head one way and then another for his inspection.

He would happily stare at you all day if you’d let him. He loves your pretty eyes and what you’ve done with your hair.

“You’re beautiful,” he grins, “And if anyone asks, we can just say you’re flushed from all the cooking.”

“Bradley,” you whine setting down your wooden spoon down on the counter with a sharp thwack.

“Ok, ok. I’m done, I promise,” he says putting his hands up in surrender with a chuckle.

He pushes off the counter and grabs a glass off of one of the floating shelves and fills it with some ice water.

“Good,” you tut haughtily, as you fiddle with the white and orange striped kitchen towel hanging on the oven door, “I was about to threaten to make you sleep on the couch tonight.”

“You wouldn’t.” Even the thought of it makes his stomach feel unsettled.

After nearly two decades of hard beds on foreign bases and on lumpy carrier mattresses, he’s never slept as well as he did since the two of you found your way to each other.

His peace was found under a fluffy green duvet on a wooden canopy bed with you tucked under his arm.

“No. No, I wouldn’t,” you agree, leaning in to place a soft kiss to his cheek in thanks when he presses the cold glass into your hands.

Bradley tugs you away from the warm stove and you reluctantly follow and sit on the barstool he’s pulled out for you on the other side of the kitchen island.

He runs his hand up and down your back comfortingly as you take a few sips, “We’re in a great place, sweet girl.”

“Mhm, yeah. Sure, of course.” You couldn’t sound less unsure if you tried. “It’s just… I’m nervous about the mushroom and leeks bread pudding. I’ve never made it before. And what if we run out of wine?”

“What’s been our motto?” he asks, taking over the helm at the stove whisking the gravy together as it begins to thicken.

“‘In Ina we trust’,” you say with a serious nod of your head. 

“Atta girl, we sure do. And Nat said she’s is bringing a few bottles she picked up from when she went to Napa, the good shit. It’s going to be great. Trust me,” he says giving you a warm smile. “Will it make you feel better to go over everything again?”

“Yes, please,” you say, anxiously drumming your fingers along the side of your water glass.

He’d stepped up where he could like making sure the house was pristine and cleaning up the yard by blowing off the wrinkled remainders of the yellow Tipuana flowers. He’d even been able to source and rent some more chairs to make sure that everyone would have a seat at the table.

Bradley wasn’t a schlump in the kitchen. He knew his way around a cookbook and a stove. His knife skills were pretty damn good too, if he did say so himself. But he also knew when somethings were out of his wheelhouse. So he’d taken to being your sous chef, and had taken to washing and prepping the ingredients for you so that all you had to do was toss them in whatever shiny pot they were destined for.

He even made his mom’s favorite pie. It had been years since he's had it, and he was excited to share it with everyone.

Your mom had mailed the copy of the original recipe she had that was written in Carole’s rounded, flourished script. You had made a photocopy of it to use so that the original didn’t get ruined, and then pointed out a spot on the wall where you said you’d thought it would look nice in a frame hanging in the kitchen. And he'd fallen a little more in love with you.

“Ok, hit me with it,” he says turning the heat to low for the gravy and putting the lid on.

This was a partnership through and through, he was going to give you all the support you needed.

“The turkey?”

Bradley picks up the fancy digital meat thermometer he’d bought for the occasion to check, “Big Bird has an hour and twenty more minutes to work on his tan and then he’ll rest for another thirty. Giving people time to graze and mingle and get some drinks in them, just like you wanted.”

You nod and hum contemplatively, “I’ve been thinking we need a salad. I don’t feel like we have enough vegetable options.”

He knows better than to point out that you’re currently snacking on snap peas from not one, but three, of the veggie platters the two of you had put together the night before.

“We’ve got the crispy brussels sprouts, the garlic and hazelnut green beans, and the honey glazed carrots with lemon. We’re more than fine on the fiber and beta-carotene. Michelle Obama would be proud, kid.”

That gets a little laugh from you.

“Well, as long as you think Michelle would be happy than we’re probably fine,” you say with a smile around your water glass that tells him you know exactly what he’s doing invoking your favorite First Lady.

“What else are you thinking about?” Bradley asks peering in the lower of their double ovens, where foiled covered dishes are lined up in perfect symmetry are warming away having been prepared in advance.

“Do you think two bags of rolls will be enough? Or should I text Mav and ask him to grab one more?”

He doesn’t miss the way your eyes dip down to his ass in his gray slacks. So he might linger as second longer than necessary to let you enjoy the view, since it’s for the female gaze and all.

He’s never understood wearing the most restrictive clothing on the holiday that involves the most eating, but that was Penny’s tradition to have everyone dressed in their nicest and you had insisted on keeping it going even if she was on the other side of the country.

You’d teased him earlier when you’d seen him emerge from the bedroom wearing the short-sleeved green cashmere polo you’d gotten him a couple years ago. It fit a little more snug that he remembered it, but he thought he still pulled it off well.

“When did we become the couple that matches?” you’d asked gesturing to your dress as you gave him an appreciative onceover.

If the past was anything to go off of, you would be running your hands over the soft material covering his chest and back all night.

“I just like reminding people who I belong with, sweet girl.”

He might have had something else in mind to wear for the evening before he saw you in that dress, had ironed the shirt the night before and everything, but last-minute pivot it was well worth it when you looked at him like that.

When he stands back up, he gives you knowing wink.

And in return you throw a baby carrot at him with a laugh.

Bradley isn’t surprised in the least to hear the quick clack-clack-clack of nails on the wood floors as their fluffy black and white Portuguese Water Dog rounds the corner. Having been summoned by the sound of food hitting the floor from where he had been dozing near the fireplace in the living room.

The carrot is gone in an instant and he comes to sit at Bradley's feet by the stove, looking up at him from under his curly eyebrows clearly hoping he'll get another snack.

“Nah, bud. You’re barking up the wrong tree over here,” he says leaning down to scratch his floppy ears.

“Ah, come here, Duck,” you croon, calling him over to your side of the island. “He’s so mean for a man who claimed he just saw God not too long ago, isn’t he?”

Bradley snorts and shakes his head at you amused.

He still doesn’t know how he ended up with a dog named Duck.

At the dog park, more often than not people mistook it for ‘Buck’. And you were usually off to the side more than happy to let him take the lead, biting your lip to keep from laughing at his less than enthusiastic expression when he’d have to warily explain yet again It’s Duck like quack.

You’re not even subtle about the piece of cheese you pull from the charcuterie board to feed him.

“I saw that,” he says, giving you a pointed lift of his eyebrow, “You know Bob is going to be spoiling him all night.”

“It was just a little piece of cheese. Plus, I don’t know who you think you’re fooling. I saw you go over there and deliver him his own little veggie platter with some of the leftovers we had while I was making the apple cider sangria.”

“That’s different, that’s good for him,” he says rounding the island, reaching over and snagging his own slice of cheese to snack on.

“And cheese is a protein. He’s just a baby, Bradley, what am I supposed to do? Not give him a piece of swiss?” You slide off your chair to squat down and rub Duck’s belly, you’ve always been his favorite.

“He’s almost five,” he replies flatly.

“A youth!” you exclaim, “He’s a growing boy.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bradley says affectionately with a little roll of his eyes. He knows a losing battle when he sees one.

He offers you his hand to help you stand back up, but you wave him off and pull yourself up using the edge of the island. You take a moment to readjust your dress before making your way to the sink by the big windows that look out into the backyard.

“Speaking of Bob, do you know if he’s bringing his fiancée?” you ask from over your shoulder as you wash your hands.

“Not this time, sweetheart. I guess she volunteered to cover a shift in the NICU when she heard they were short staffed.”

“Oh that’s too bad, I was excited to see her ring in person,” you say drying off your hands and heading to the pantry.

“It’s all he can talk about at work. I guess they’re thinking about a Spring wedding next year. They don’t want to wait too long to get married.”

“I’m so happy for them,” you say, digging around for a moment and then emerge with a stack of some sturdy plastic plates and set them on the last free spot on the countertop. “Don’t let me forget to make them up a couple plates that he can bring home for her, before Fanboy declares it time for ‘second dinner’ and eats all the yams like he did last year.”

“I won’t forget, promise,” he says fondly.

If you were facing him, he knows you’d probably tease him for the look on his face and just how gone he is for you.

You’ve always been so generous, it’s one of the things that he loves most about you.

You were always good about hustling him out of his well-earned money from is part time job scooping ice cream in high school, like with the fundraiser you did for the local soup kitchen and the one for the elementary school summer arts program.

He’s always been wrapped around your finger, it just took him awhile to realize why.

It’s the same reason why there’s been a donation that comes out of his bank account every month for the last five years for one of the San Diego animal shelters.

Bradley had made a rather sizable donation and then set up a smaller reoccurring monthly one after the chaos that was the time Bob had set you up with his friend who worked at the shelter, back before the two of you had gotten together.

Even after all these years, he still can’t help but get a little irritated every time he sees that guy’s face in the monthly newsletter that comes to his email. He’s pretty sure Casey still might have a little crush on you, but Bradley can’t blame him. He’d have a hard time getting over you too, so it’s a good thing he’ll never have to.

On newsletter day, Bradley always finds himself giving Duck extra treats.

You are his wife. And Duck is his dog. Ridiculous name and all.

He couldn’t wait to surprise you with the golden tennis ball that the shelter sends out as a thank you after a decade of donations.

Only five more years to go.

You’re over by the bar that’s been set up off to the side, straightening the already very straight rows of gleaming wine glasses when he hears you suck in a sharp gasp.

Bradley drops the dish cloth he had in his hands as he attempted to give what little counter space there was left a final wipe down and is in front of you in half a heartbeat. Was there a fluke with some faulty stemware? Are you bleeding? There’s a reason Thanksgiving is one of the busiest days at the hospital.

“The butter!” you cry out as you whirl around, your pretty eyes welling up with tears, “I let you fuck me and I forgot to pull the butter from the fridge. It’s going to be too hard for people to spread now!”

He knows it’s more than just hosting jitters that’s got you like this, but it still catches him by surprise sometimes.

“Woah, woah,” he says as he catches you on the way to the fridge and pulls you to his chest, “C’mere, my sweet girl.”

You make a distressed noise but allow him to keep his hold on you, “But the butter…”

“I already pulled the butter, see?” He points to the sticks that are already softening away on the counter. “This place looks and smells amazing. We did good, baby. Will you take a couple slow breaths for me, please?”

Bradley takes in a couple measured breathes with you, and feels the moment your body relaxes into his.

He presses a kiss to the side of your temple as he smooths his hands down your soft, pretty green velvet dress and the warm, firm curve of your rounded stomach soothingly.

“Ugh, I’m sorry. It’s the hormones,” you sigh, as you lean your head back against his shoulder.

He hums empathically as he sways gently side to side with you in his arms.

“I would like to go on the record saying that I like pregnancy hormones, especially the ones from earlier,” he jokes lightly.

“That makes one of us,” you say with a watery laugh, “Just wait until I am waking you up at 4 AM because I am craving something from a drive-thru that’s not open.”

“Mm, can’t wait,” he murmurs before dropping a few kisses along the soft line of your jaw.

Bradley still can’t believe he gets to be this lucky in life.

He doesn’t want to forget a single moment of this. With you, with his family.

“We did a really good job with this one,” he whispers into your ear, still stroking your stomach and enjoying this moment of calm with you.

“We really did, da--” Bradley groans and cuts you off with a kiss. He can feel the impish smile plastered on your lips as he kisses you. His favorite menace.

He knows you’re pretty sure it was the spontaneous hook up in the storage closet at the Hard Deck on the Fourth of July that’s responsible for the noticeable bump you’re sporting. Call him a romantic, but he likes to think it was that night in the Bronco overlooking the ocean when he’d taken the long way back home.   

You pull away all too soon for his liking to grab his left hand. He sees the flash of the two diamonds on your engagement ring, one from his mom and one from yours, as you take it and press it to a spot near your bellybutton.

The feeling of the fluttering under his palm will never get old. He’s not too proud to say he’d shed a tear or two the first time he’d felt it.

You hum in contentment, your finger lightly tracing over the shiny gold band of his wedding ring.

Bradley lets himself bask in this moment as the two of you stand there in the kitchen of your dream house.

There are a few pops from the wood in the fireplace, the refrigerator is humming away in the background, and he can just hear the sounds of a melodic piano from the playlist he queued up earlier playing over the speaker.

Of all the delicious scents that waft through the house, the smell the floral and musk notes in you perfume is still his favorite.

There are times in the soft quiet of night, usually when you are asleep and his mind won’t quite settle, that he sometimes thinks he was put on this Earth to hold you.

It’s the only reason he can think of that explains why you fit so perfectly against his body.

Why his palms can fit so perfectly over your rounded stomach.

Why it’s his hands that you have trusted to protect your heart.

And he’s still holding you in the warmth of the kitchen when he hears the front door open.

Bradley knows he’s going to have to play host soon and he just wants to keep you in his arms for just a little longer.

“Hey kids, I brought the turkey,” Mav calls out from the entry.

You spin in his arms, looking at him wide eyed and confused as you two exchange a look. He presses one last kiss to your cheek before letting you go.

“Thought you were going to bring the rolls, Mav,” Bradley calls out just in time to see him round the corner.

Pete stands there proudly grinning holding a few bags of bakery rolls in one hand and a turkey in the other.

The sound of your delighted laughter makes his heart swell in his chest as he takes in the sight.

“Cooper Mitchell Ford Bradshaw, you are without a doubt the cutest turkey I have ever seen,” you gush as you go to greet Mav with a warm hug and a kiss on his cheek. Your son’s chubby arms reaching out for you.

Mav has dressed your almost two-year-old son in a soft, plush turkey costume that is complete with tailfeathers and a beak. He’s clearly a fan of the outfit too because he is grinning widely, showing of the more of the baby teeth that have come in over the last few months.

Mav had swung by early this morning to take him off your hands to get ready for Daggersgiving without chasing an almost-toddler around. While it was nice to have some time just the two of you while you got the place in order and took care of the last-minute things, like that homemade cranberry sauce, but he’d missed not having his son around.

The sweet sound of Cooper’s giggles and your coos fill up the kitchen as he watches you pepper his face with kisses. You bounce him a little and do a little spin, making the little boy laugh even more. The two of you in your own little bubble.

“You doin’ ok over there, kid?” Mav asks. A soft, knowing grin on his face as he sets the rolls on the counter to pull him in for a hug.

The two men had made their way back to each other over the last few years, just another thing that Bradley was grateful for in his life. The man had always been his father in everything but name. That is until he’d seen the man who helped raised him hold his son for the first time.

“Yeah, Dad,” Bradley says, clearing his throat a bit, “Everything’s perfect.”

From there it’s a flurry of activity as people start to arrive.

Nat comes with her longtime girlfriend and the extra bottles of the fancy Napa wine she promised to bring. Only handing it over once he promised to give her the name of the contractor the two of you had worked with and the exact shade of green that was used on the lower cabinets during your kitchen renovation.

Payback and Fanboy and their wives show up wearing oversized turkey hats on their heads each carrying a bakery box of pie.

Bradley isn’t surprised when Duck ditches the attention that Coyote was giving him the second Bob shows up with the famous Floyd family scalloped potatoes. Bob has always been a sucker for a pair of puppy dog eyes.

And in between checking on people’s glasses, swapping out empty appetizer trays for fuller ones, and making sure Jake doesn’t tamper with his perfectly cooked turkey, he’s got his eyes trained on you.

There are no words for the pride and love that washes over him every time he looks over and sees you with his son propped up on your hip and the way your pretty dress stretches around your growing family.

He had missed this stage of your pregnancy when he was deployed and you were pregnant with Cooper. He was determined to savor every second of this one. Every butter related freak out and every late-night milkshake run.

Being in his house surrounded with all the people he loves, minus a couple who are here in spirit, isn’t something he could ever take for granted. It’s more blessings than he ever hoped to receive in this lifetime.

You look over your shoulder at him and everything about the way you’re looking at him is picture perfect.

Your smile sunshine gold and just for him as you hold his gaze for a moment as time ticks on around the two of you. You send him a little wink before turning back to Mav who has his phone held up for a FaceTime call with Penny and Amelia.

Bradley sees his son peek his head up from where it had been nestled into your neck. Cooper grins when he sees him, his tiny hand reaching out for his dad. For him.

As he makes his way over to the two of you with his heart full, he makes a mental note to ask Mav later where he got that costume. He’s already planning on running out tomorrow to see if they have any more in stock now that it seems they have a new Bradshaw tradition on their hands.

He’s going to have three little turkeys running around this time next year and he couldn’t wait.

Twins.

Bradley sometimes still couldn’t believe it. When the tech has announced that you were cooking not one, but two future Bradshaw’s, his heart had nearly burst from his chest from the shock and joy. A gift from his late father’s side of the family.

Cooper and him were going to be outnumbered soon.

The two of you had found out earlier in the month that Everly Wren Bradshaw and Millie Lark Bradshaw were going to be the newest members to join your little family.

His girls.

It was an announcement the two of you were excited to share later tonight with everyone else when the slices of pies were being passed around.

He scoops up Cooper from you with one arm, dropping a kiss onto his little boy’s perfect curls as his small fist clutches as the soft fabric of his shirt. And then Bradley kisses the crown of your head as he wraps his other arm around you, his thumb stroking the swell of your belly.

With you- because of you- he gets to have it all.

The wife. The family. The house. The dog. The life. The dream.

He’s right where he wants to be.

He’s right where he’s supposed to be.

Happy Thanksgiving! This was such a joy to write, thank you for reading!

It might not be Carole Bradshaw's famous pie, but it's one of my favorites! And who better to share it with than you! Cranberry-Lime Pie

If you haven't read the 'Like I Can' series you can read it here!

You can read my other stories here!

Taglist:

@gretagerwigsmuse @sehnsuchts-trunken @notroosterbradshaw @tongue-like-a-razor @laracrofted @bradshawsbitch @starryeyedstories @top-hhun-main @startrekfangirl2233 @callsign-viper @teacupsandtopgun @shanimallina87 @angelbabyange @oneelleandaneye @mizzzpink @cornishkat @alana4610 @20th-centu-fairy-girl @pono-pura-vida @donttouchmycarrots @eg-dr3amer3 @whaledots-blog @a-beaverhausen @hangmanscoming @mandolin22 @theweekndhistorybook @lilpeekabooze @high-bi-imgonnacry @ahintofkiwistrawberry @ruewrote @spiderman-stilinski @jayniebop @my-soulmate-is-mycroft @imaginecrushes @keyrani @chicomonks @artemissunn @mayempress @eddiemunsonreader

[moonlitdesertdreams]

Follow Me

Request: Can you do something like Vault 4 in the show but with Coop and the reader and how they'd react to friendly faces (or what seem like friendly faces?) A/N: This prompt GOT ME GOOD. I started out with Vault 4, scrapped that, and somehow ended with hippie Ghouls singing Uncle Kracker songs that we're pretending are original because they definitely didn't exist in the pre-war Fallout universe a totally realistic Fallout story that involves hippies and the ocean Tags: Fallout, Cooper Howard, Cooper Howard x F!Reader, Cooper Howard x You, Ghoul x Reader WARNINGS: Canon-Typical language Summary: You can't help but be suspicious of everyone you meet in the Wasteland, but a group of friendly, musically-inclined Ghouls just might be the exception.

Word Count: 1.9k+

(Gif Credit to @オレは強い)

“You get the caps?” 

Cooper tosses a bag tied with twine your way in response. It’s heavy, the sound of bottle caps clinking in a soft reassurance that you can afford to rest your aching body for more than just a couple nights.

“There isn’t anything in these damn dunes but sand and rocks.” You kick at the ground, “Might as well start pedaling back east.”

There’s a moment of hesitation before Cooper answers. 

“Not this late. We’ll go west. Follow the coastline.”

You sigh in defeat, resigning yourself to the fate of slogging through thousands of tons of sand. 

“Problem, sweetcheeks?”

A scowl curls your lip at Cooper’s sarcastic jab. He’s already walking west into the orange halo of a setting sun. 

“Just don’t want to hike back through more miles of dunes if we don’t have to.” You mutter and follow behind him. 

If he was going to be a prick, you were at least going to use his already-irradiated body as a sun shield. 

After a substantial payout on your most recent bounty, Cooper and yourself were both ready for a break. It had been a long few months of job after job and patience was wearing thin. You’re both getting more snappy with each other as the days slip by; Cooper is more dependent on his Vials after exerting himself, and you’re plain exhausted. Sunburned, sweaty and dry all the same. It is a volatile mix of attitude and flaring tempers, both of which you and Cooper possess a staggering amount of.

The drop location for the bounty had been far west in the sand dunes, nearing the coastline. Cooper had made the drop while you sought out shelter for the night. Sought being the key word, as you’ve been hiking through sand for hours with nothing to show for it. You met back up with Cooper at the crest of a dune, where he’s huffing down a Vial and pacing like a caged animal. 

And now, you’re back on the move. 

You trail in his shadow even when the sun sinks below the sand and a full moon rises. You’re comforted by the absence of heat and creeping relief of dusk as it soothes away the day’s burns, but desperate for a reprieve from the elements. It takes you a few moments shuffling through your pack while walking to find the salve you’d mixed up months ago and slather what remains of it on your roasted cheeks. Trying to put the lid back on and not fall flat on your face is a chore, made more difficult by Cooper’s sudden stopping in front of you. 

“Damn, a little warning would be…” You trail off, looking ahead. “Nice.”

It had been years since you’d seen the ocean, and its grandeur isn’t lost on you. Waves lap at the thirsty shoreline, breaking up the moon’s silvery reflection. For miles and miles, as far as the eye can see, water dances and shifts until it mixes into a twilight sky on the horizon.

A childish bout of excitement washes over you as you observe. Only one more hill of sand separates you from the water. Cooper sighs as you weave around him and hustle towards it. 

“Don’t you get in that water, woman.” He barks, “I ain’t fishin’ you out.”

You ignore him and hike up the next dune. Forever seems to pass as you climb upwards and you curse the sand once more. You’re almost to the top, ready to make a mad dash to the water when a voice stops you. 

“Hello!” A surprisingly happy voice catches you off guard, coming from your left, “Welcome, friends!” 

Cooper is immediately on guard, pulling his pistol. The Ghoul persona steps up to bat, his face all hard edges and glaring eyes. Despite the arguing and bickering you’ve been putting each other through, his protective streak drops over you like a shield. Now at your side, he nudges a shoulder in front of you.

Ghouls can take bullets a lot easier than a human, after all.  

In the direction the voice came from, you take stock of not one but several figures in a circular camp. They’re grouped around an old cable spool that’s topped with bottles of various liquor and drinks, and they move to the twang of what you think is an old guitar. A small fire crackles next to the table. The guitar chords reach your ears in slow waves, an inviting tune that makes you want you go down and dance with them 

The figure who’d called out is closer, hands held up in a placating manner. You’re surprised to note the familiar lack of a nose and wrinkled skin that labels him a Ghoul. He’s apparently younger than Cooper - as most Ghouls are- with skin a little less warped and blonde hair that still seems to grow rather wall from his scarred scalp.

“Woah there, brother. Take it easy.” 

Cooper doesn’t relent. “We ain’t here to make friends. Just passin’ through.”

There’s something about this stranger that’s genuine. That’s not to say you haven’t met real, genuine people in the Wasteland, but kindness is something found few and far between these days. You've met a few Ghouls outside of Cooper, most of which are inherently more friendly due their outcasting from a lot of the major settlements. They’re usually chatty, comforted by the sight of a smooth-skin traveling and being in close quarters with another of their own kind.

Your Ghoul, though, is less willing to accept friendship on the fly. 

“It’s not about the destination, folks. It’s about the journey.” He pauses, “And the people you meet.”

You blink at him and turn to Cooper, who snorts. “Well ain’t that sweet.”

“Listen brother, I know life is rough out there but I swear- we’re just here to enjoy what we can.” He motions over to the camp, where another male Ghoul is picking the guitar and laughing with the others.There’s no weapons lying about, and a clear line of sight in every direction.

A smile pulls at your lips, and you place one hand on Cooper’s forearm. The music is washing away any sort of hesitation you had, reinforcing the desire for rest. 

“Sorry, my partner here is a little paranoid. We wouldn’t mind stopping.” 

It takes a few moments of convincing (half of them being threats of physical violence) for Cooper to stand down. You’re fairly certain he knows these Ghouls are harmless, but can’t escape the suffocating paranoia that comes along with two hundred years of Wastelanding.

Shortly thereafter, you're introduced to the ragtag group, sharing only your first names and settling your things against the side of an overturned car that only has half of the roof sticking up from the sand. Kevin, Phil, Desiree, Cody and Mallorie regale you with their stories, about leaving the major settlements for a life on the road and somehow being happy and relatively unscathed by Wasteland violence. 

Through it all, Cooper is predictably standoffish, amber eyes shooting daggers into anyone that gets too close.

Which, with this group, is everyone. 

They aren’t just friendly, but physical, rubbing your shoulders and patting you on the back. One of the female Ghouls braids your hair while Cooper sits stock still across the firepit. They attempt to make conversation with him, most of which ends with no response. You scowl at his rudeness each time, and nudge his shoulder to prompt one word responses once you’re returned to his side of the fire. 

“So, where are you folks headed?” The female Ghoul who’d braided your hair inquires. 

Cooper is quiet beside you, cigarette dangling from between his lips. 

“Not sure.” You answer, glancing to your side to look at the ocean. “We kind of just... Move. Wherever we can find work, we go.”

“A shame that we’re still slaves to money after being nuked.” Phil, who’s been strumming on the guitar since you joined, speaks up. “You’d think everyone could just be peaceful now.”

And that statement actually gets a reaction from Cooper. It’s a snort, but a reaction nonetheless.

“Ain’t nobody peaceful out here.” Cooper stubs his cigarette out on the rotted metal of the car, “Everybody wants somethin’. Money, drugs, power.”

“Guns.” You add, lighting your own cigarette. 

“Not us.” Desiree, the very same that braided your hair, looks around the group, “We left all of that. All we want is peace.”

While it was a nice thought, you’d seen too much to ever believe it was true. The Wasteland truly metamorphosizes people, and not always in a good way. There’s always someone clamoring to be the newest leader, the brightest glow of hope for the world. 

“True that, sister.” Phil lifts his drink and the group follows, toasting to her words. “And to our new friends, I hope you can find peace someday.”

You smile in spite of your own thoughts, raising the cigarette in your hand in a lazy nod to their previous toast. The group cheers once again and lifts their drinks towards the sky. You bump playfully into Cooper’s shoulder, and your Ghoul stares at you from under the brim of his dirty hat. His eyes are narrowed and you know deep down he’ll never be able to escape the grip the Wasteland has on his heart, but that doesn’t mean you won’t try your damndest to get a smile out of him. 

“I got something the cowboy will like.” Phil pats his guitar as if it’s a shiny new car, “I dabble in the country genre.”

Cooper tilts his head back and steals the cigarette from between your fingers. “This oughta be good. You gonna regale us with some Johnny Cash this evenin’?”

Kevin pipes up then, smoothing out his blonde locks. “No Johnny Cash here, man. Phil’s got some original stuff. We call it ‘new age’ country.”

“Well, I’ll be.” Cooper finishes your cigarette, and starts working on lighting a second to make up for it. “Let’s hear it.”

The sarcasm drips heavy from his voice, and you resist the ever-so-common urge to slap him for his rudeness. You’re plucking the newly-lit cigarette from scarred fingers when Phil starts strumming the guitar again, now in a slow beat that immediately makes you think of the ocean swirling behind you. It’s a melody far different than that of the Wasteland radio stations, something new and creative that sends an excited tingle up your spine. You nod your head with each note, nudging the Ghoul beside you. He takes a long swig of whiskey, watching your swaying out of the corner of his eye. 

“You don't know how you met me, you don't know why

You can't turn around and say goodbye.”

Happy to have something cheery  in the sprawling hellscape you’re forced to live in, your smile cracks wider. Cooper is watching Phil now too, one hand resting on his thigh and the other loosely gripping his whiskey. 

“Follow me, everything is alright. 

I’ll be the one to tuck you in at night. 

And if you want to leave, I can guarantee

You won't find nobody else like me.”

Warmth washes over you at the lyrics and you lean into Cooper’s side. He shifts around to make it comfortable for you, and the fingers of that arm find your hip. Phil keeps crooning into the night, lulling your eyes shut as your cigarette turns to ash. Your eyes flutter when Cooper takes another swig of liquor, sweeping over the group. Everyone’s swaying to the tune, singing along and dancing. It’s not until you move to settle back down that movement catches your eye and a shit-eating grin spreads across your face. 

Cooper’s boot just so happens to be tapping along with the beat.

thanks for reading, much love ❤

Read More: Fallout Masterlist

[revasserium]

oh don't ask me for requests, you know I deliver. What about Zoro with number 30?

send me one + a character and i'll write u a drabble

30. invention of the dictionary

opla!zoro; 882 words; fluff, teeth-rotting fluff, strawhat!reader, gn!reader, no "y/n", unconventional format, whipped!zoro

summary: truth, love, still, and stolen

a/n: been a while since i've written something so chill but i rly like this one u__u nice, short, and sweet!

He has never been a man of many words, but meeting you has made him wonder about the exact reason dictionaries were invented. What scholar (for it must have been a scholar, Zoro thinks) could have amassed such a knowledge of words and meanings that they decided the only way to keep track was to write it down? Or perhaps it was simply someone in love — someone who felt too much and yearned too hard and never had the words big enough or heavy enough, wide enough or deep enough, to fully encompass the way they were feeling.

Because he’s never been a man of many words, but meeting you has him reaching for the tattered dictionary they’d found in a treasure chest, washed ashore on a small, insignificant island — not unlike you. You with your windswept hair and your skin smelling of salt and cream and a thousand midnight mysteries. You, and the way your eyes hold worlds that Zoro’s certain he’d never have the privilege of seeing.

But sometimes when he kisses you, he thinks he can taste the remnants of their exotic fruits beneath the sweet of your tongue, and sometimes when you kiss him back hard enough, he can feel it in the crescent moon marks you leave inked into his skin. Like dotted lines on a treasure map.

You’d been a traveling bounty-hunter, not so unlike who he’d been in a past life, one that he can barely even remember. And your laughter had been just the right shade of lost for Luffy to take notice. No one had thought twice about it after that — and you blended in with the crew as a shot of rum in a morning espresso — which is to say perfectly.

He finds himself flipping through the thin, water-warped pages of the dictionary, pausing on words he’d always thought he knew — words like truth, and love. Words like still, and stolen.

And so, here are some words that Roronoa Zoro has learned and re-learned the meanings of. All because of you.

truth noun.

the quality or state of being true

a fact or belief that is accepted as true

a thing so fundamental that it never has to be questioned — like the rising of the sun in the east or the setting of the moon in the west; something that pulses with the very rhythm of the universe, like the ebb and flow of the tides or the way that autumn always feels a little bit like goodbye — or how birdsong will inevitably be followed by the sprouting of spring, and how March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, and how Zoro’s never questioned just how much he’s loved you, or even whether or not he’d fallen in love. He simply woke up one day and knew.

love noun.

an intense feeling of deep affection

a great interest or pleasure in something

you, your smile, the way you hold your chopsticks, how you press your hand to your stomach when you laugh, the way your lips feel as they trail along Zoro’s jawline, the way your heartbeat rhymes with the gentle rush of the sea

verb.

to feel deep affection for someone or something

to like or enjoy very much

to dream of a life with you, and all the things you might do — to lie awake at night counting your breaths as you fall asleep next to him, to press his lips into the seam of your hair and know that when he wakes up in the morning, you’ll still be right there next to him

still noun/adj./verb

not moving or making a sound

deep silence or calmness

to make or become still

the way the world feels the first time you cry, how the planets themselves seem to grind to a deadly halt, how Zoro’s world tilts on the axis of you and doesn’t stop until he wonders if everything around him is upside down and inside out — how you curl into yourself when the monsters in your past become more than shadows and whispers that creep in the dark, or when the darkness comes knocking and you bury your face in his shoulder, your voice a whisper as you beg — please… help me.

adverb

up to and including the present time mentioned

nevertheless; all the same

how he knows he loves you, the way that the sea loves the sky — even after a devastating rainstorm; how there’s blood on his swords, blood soaking through the wooden planks but he’s got you in his arms so it’s going to be alright; how you let him carry you and hold you close; how he lets you carry him as well; how the pair of you curve around each other like a parenthetical, two bookends to a library of memories stored in the negative space between you; how you are with each other after all of this, still.

stolen verb (*past participle of steal)

take without permission or legal right, without the intent to return

move somewhere quietly or surreptitiously

his heart, his mind, his body, his soul — and him with you.

[farfromstrange]

Interview With The Vampire | Vampire!Matt Murdock x F!Reader

-> Main Masterlist

Pairing: Vampire!Matt Murdock x F!Reader (she/her)

Summary: You are the first journalist to interview Hell’s Kitchen’s resident vampire vigilante after he requested you personally to tell his story. He’s offering you a way out of your miserable job—to make your voice be heard. You’re desperate and curious, so you decide to take the risk. Most people only know him as Daredevil, but you are about to learn who’s really behind the mask. How hard can it possibly be? As it turns out, interviewing a vampire is a lot more complex than you expected it to be, and Matthew Michael Murdock has set his mind on ruining you for any other man to come.

Warnings: SMUT (18+ MINORS DNI), alternative universe, blood play, marking, scent kink, slight Dom!Matt, unprotected p in v, oral f!receiving, biting, vampirism, angst, religious imagery & symbolism, Catholic guilt, mentions of violence, allusions to suicidal thoughts, lots of plot, age gap

Word Count: 12.2k (this is a beast)

Other Characters: Vampire!Elektra (mentioned), Ben Urich (mentioned)

A/n: I finally got this one edited. This is a beast, y’all! I drew inspiration from Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire, but particularly the 2022 AMC series (I fell in love with it then and there), but it’s not based on it, so I just played around with the idea and this came out. It’s a lot, but it wasn’t enough for a full-blown series, so you’re getting a big ass One Shot instead. I used my usual Smut tag list, but since this is slightly Dead Dove Do Not Eat, heed the warnings and proceed with care! Don't read it if you don't want to. Anyway, I hope you like it!

Read Me On AO3!

The sun has long set over the Big Apple. Artificial neon, cars, and ceiling lights burning in the highrises along the riverfront cancel out the darkness that has befallen the country’s east. Noise melts into a flood that rolls over people’s senses, but most in New York City have grown numb to the city that never sleeps. 

Sirens follow cacophonies of screams. Teenagers get into clubs with their fake IDs, adults get drunk in bars or go to work the night shift at their underpaid jobs, and the other half cry themselves to sleep, knowing they will have to get up in the morning and go through the same hell all over again. 

Life has become a miserable existence, and it leaves human beings wondering, ‘How much longer do we have to endure this before we all finally drop dead?’

The system fails them. The law fails to protect them. All they can do is lie down and wait to die. And they will die sooner or later. That’s inevitable. 

In Hell’s Kitchen, in a penthouse with a view of the Hudson through colored windows that gloss over during the day and show the city throughout the night, resides someone who most of the city only knows by an alias—Daredevil. 

If anyone crosses him, he will suck them dry. It’s not a metaphor, I’m afraid; his reputation precedes him. Criminals fear the red eyes that come with fists and a sharp set of teeth that will surely run them into the ground. The rest of the city feels a little safer with him, but so far, no one has dared to question his nature. 

Fear is known to work as a paralytic. And this man living in the penthouse by the Hudson is the personification of what one might consider fear-inducing. Without the fear of others, he would not be thriving. 

An apex predator like him lives for the thrill of the kill. When the adrenaline spikes, it makes the prey start running and the blood taste so much sweeter. It is to a creature of his kind what a good glass of century-old red wine would be to a human being; he savors every last drop of it.

Two years out of your Master’s degree at Columbia University, you have become one of those hard-working adults who fall into bed later than they should, and you lie awake at night, wondering how much longer you have to exist before you can live.

You interned at the Bulletin; you ran the true crime and mystery column for over a year before the newspaper shut down. A billionaire from downtown Manhattan bought it to start his own magazine, and you were the only employee he didn’t fire. Instead of relying on your top-tier education and experience though, he has banned you to the lifestyle and beauty column. He’s a beast if you have ever seen one. 

On a Monday in June then, after the sun has risen and is now falling again, you find an envelope on your desk. You glide your fingers over the fancy paper. The letters are written in handwriting that resembles the old letters from the 18th century you had the pleasure of using as research material for your Bachelor’s thesis.

Your heart skips a beat. Could it be…

It is no secret that vampires exist.

Over two decades ago, scientists published papers on the existence of blood-sucking creatures after years of valuable research, and now governments around the world have set out to burn the inhuman species out before they can cause any more damage. Vampirism though is older than humanity itself and unless law enforcement has evidence of homicide, vampires have the right to exist amongst humans. 

They are excellent at hiding their true nature, that much is true. The lore that has been passed down since the beginning of time is only partly true. They know how to adapt and rise from the ashes like elegant phoenixes. The misconceptions surrounding their existence stem from fiction, horror, and fear, but they persist. 

And a rule has been established in society ever since the truth was revealed: don’t talk about vampires! 

Don’t talk about them unless it’s in a fictional context. Don’t put your research out there. Don’t fraternize with them. Don’t risk becoming prey. Don’t be fascinated by them, and God forbid, don’t you dare write articles about them for the public records. If you want to know about vampires, you have to dig, and you have to do so quietly or society will deem you crazy and a freak. 

The worst thing to be is not a flying android or a super soldier with a shield; the worst thing you can be, in this day and age, is a vampire. 

You were a curious child who turned into an even more curious adult. At times even a bitter one because she couldn’t get the answers she yearned for and had to do it herself. So, of course, the We Don’t Talk About Vampires rule came across as rather absurd, learning about it back when you were merely a teen. 

You started researching, and you found out more than you thought you would—more than you thought you could. You wanted to cover the issue in the Bulletin back when you still worked there, but since humans were raised to fear the very mention of vampires in the real world, no longer romanticizing the concept but rather running from it, the truth shall remain hidden. Again, that seemed absurd, but you had to accept it to get ahead. 

You kept researching to the point you convinced yourself you could be one of them if you tried. You felt like you understood them, but nothing could ever fully answer all of your questions to the point it felt truthful. Honest. Real. 

Growing up, everyone told you dead things aren’t supposed to walk. They aren’t supposed to breathe and exist among the living. They are cruel, and vampires are killers that leave trails of bodies the government is hiding from us. Greediness exceeds common sense. The human mind tends to get sick and twisted, and those who don’t fit in hardly ever stand a chance.

Hell’s Kitchen is particularly quiet on the issue. Rumor has it that the vigilante chasing criminals at night and leaving the worst of them dry at the shore of the Hudson while, at the same time, surrendering those he deems worthy of rehabilitation to the authorities, is one of those vampires. 

They call him Daredevil; the savior of innocents and the downfall of the vile. Only a handful of people know who he is. The truth is caught in a spider web of lies, unable to come out unless someone were to tell his story for the world to hear. 

That Monday in June when you open the mysterious envelope on your desk, everything changes. 

He addressed you personally. Your name resembles a masterpiece, the letters swirling at the edges. 

You don’t know me, but I know you.

It’s strange to read your name out of the mouth of a stranger.

I must admit, Miss, I’m a big fan of your writing. And I’m not talking about the lifestyle and beauty column Mr. Doherty of the ‘Silver Lining’ has confined you to.

No, I am a big fan of the work you used to do for the New York Bulletin. I remember your name headlining many articles on crime here in Hell’s Kitchen—a column my late friend Ben Urich used to call his home.  

It’s a shame that the paper was shut down. I tried to prevent it, but the disappearance of half of humanity and Wilson Fisk’s irreparable damage to the city’s foundation tied my hands. 

The token female journalist reporting on unsolicited beauty advice and lifestyle choices no one is going to follow in the days of social media and fake marketing. It must be frustrating, right? Not having a story to tell. Not getting recognized for your impeccable talent. The Bulletin gave you a platform, but Mr. Doherty and his goons took that away from you.

What I’m asking myself is, are you satisfied? You were probably imagining a different future for yourself. A woman of your caliber must want to be more than a mere object used to make a bottomless magazine look better on the market. 

Excuse my overstepping. I read one of your essays on the magical and the mythic—lore versus reality—the other day, and it inspired me. My life has been taking quite a few turns lately, so I required some new… let’s call it insight. 

You don’t know me, but I am one of those creatures you are fascinated by. I’m the kind of creature people have been telling you not to write about because the weak minds of the public would not receive it well. The Catholics, the church, the fragile and fearful human beings that can’t imagine anything in fiction being real and want to remain the superior species—trust me, I know what it feels like to be backed into a corner. To be abandoned. To be underestimated. Not quite like you, I admit, but I have a few years of experience in and with this world to show for myself. 

I imagine you’re tired of your position. I imagine you’re dissatisfied with human idiocy. You crave answers to your questions. Questions you have been asking yourself ever since college failed to answer them. My kind is being censored—partly for good reason—but that doesn’t sit right with you, does it? To live life in a monotone line with no clear way out of this boring rhythm you have had to fall into? 

I can offer you a different path. A story. Answers to your questions. And the unfiltered truth of a 242-year-old man. 

You are going to find a card with my address attached to this letter. I can assure you, sweetheart, we both want the same thing. I will wash your hands if you wash mine. Think about it, and come find me when you have made your decision. Preferably after the sun has set. 

Yours sincerely,

M.

The paper crumbles in your hands, but only at the corners. Your eyes are glued to the lost drops of ink, the blue blood of an old fountain pen caving under too much pressure. 

He chose his words carefully. Every paragraph circles around your head. You breathe in, and it suddenly feels as though the whiff of the unknown is an inhalable drug, twisting your brain inside out. 

The pull threatens to submerge you in a stormy ocean. You’re flailing your arms around helplessly, but there is nothing for you to hold onto. All buoys have drifted into oblivion, leaving a sea of utter emptiness behind, and in the midst of it, there you are, drowning.

In a moment of clarity, you fold the letter back down on the desk. It lands with a thud, and you look around frantically, checking if anyone is watching you. They aren’t. 

M. That’s all he’s giving you. And the fact he is over two hundred years old proves the rumors to be true. He’s standing by it, but only to you. He wants to reveal himself to you, show you his true face for a story, but he’s a vampire. 

You’re alone. You can wash his hands, but is just showing up enough for him? You don’t even know him. 

You’re in trouble. This time though, you didn’t even do anything. You did your job, and he caught an interest in you. How does that work? 

Your heart skips another beat. It should not, but it does. The danger is exciting. It shouldn't be exciting. You hate what your body is doing, but how can you make it stop? You can’t. You can’t do anything but take it.

This stranger has got you in a chokehold, but in his hands, you might as well surrender to your certain demise. You don’t consider vampires inherently evil, but there is a reason people warn you not to walk alone at night in Hell’s Kitchen. He’s dangerous, no matter his nature, and he is not supposed to lure you in the way he does.

But you’re a curious kitten, and he is offering you the holy grail of answers to questions you have been grappling with for years. He hit the nail right on the head. And it doesn’t even scare you how well he knows you. 

This is a gold mine. Realistically speaking, telling a vampire’s story could make or break your career as a journalist. If you do it for the magazine, you’re done before you can even bring your words to print, but if you do it individually and you do it well, people will certainly eat it up. The question is just, are you going to play your entire life safe, conforming to your boss’s view of you until you get the freedom you crave, or are you going to take the risk and fly? 

The answer is as clear as day, but it takes you a moment to process. It’s as though someone is in your head, steering you in the direction of whoever this M is. Daredevil. This vampire who wants you to interview him, and for what? That’s still an open question you don’t have the answer to. But you do know what to do.

You scramble for your laptop, your notepad, and the letter in the envelope. The clock strikes four. You have another two hours on the clock, but you can’t be bothered to stay. 

Upon hearing the sound of your shoes hurriedly scraping against the linoleum floors, one of your colleagues turns in her chair. “Where are you going?” she asks.

“I, uh, have somewhere to be,” you tell her as you brush past her.

“What, now?”

“Yeah. I forgot I had an appointment.”

“What about Mr. Doherty?”

You stop on your way out, looking back over your shoulder. “If everything works out,” you say, glancing through the window to his office at the other end of the hall, “He’ll have my letter of resignation by the end of the week.”

She gasps softly. “You’re quitting?” her voice is barely above a whisper.

Almost sinisterly, you chuckle. “That’s the plan, yeah.”

“But—”

“Tell your daughter Happy Birthday from me. I gotta go.”

Your steps echo for minutes still, but you are long gone with the wind.

Silver linings are considered an advantage that comes from an unpleasant situation. The name has proven to be entirely unfit for the magazine that replaced a big piece of Hell’s Kitchen’s history. The Bulletin had cultural value as much as it was laden with decades of the city’s stories told to the average person. 

Wilson Fisk was the dynamite that sent New York alight. The Bulletin’s destruction was mere collateral damage in the fight to get the city back on track. You have had so many reasons to leave presented to you, yet you never took them. If you had, maybe you wouldn’t be here, making bad decisions on what started as just another Monday in June. 

The fact is though, you didn’t leave, and you are here now. Facts are what matter. They count. Your hypothetical past, present, and future have no place in this reality because you can’t travel back or forward in time. Vampires may exist, and the Avengers time-traveled to save the world, but things aren’t quite as easy once you look at the bigger picture. You are not a superhero, you’re just a journalist chasing the kind of story that will finally make her voice be heard. 

You know that Ben Urich, at least, would be proud of you.

His address weighs heavy on the small card you pulled out of the envelope earlier that evening. You passed it on to the cab driver, and he began to navigate the dark streets of Hell’s Kitchen. The luxury condominiums in this part of the city can be counted on one hand. You know exactly when you’re there. 

The sun has once again set over New York City. You’re wide awake, not quite sure though if you’re ready to face what you are walking blindly into. Even your driver refuses to take you past a certain point, and that is how you know that you’re not dreaming. This is real, and it’s supposed to be terrifying. 

How come you’re not scared then?

You slip twenty dollars to the cab driver, then climb out of the backseat. The salty air from the Hudson River a few blocks down wafts around your sensitive nose. In the distance, you can hear waves crashing into the docks as the wind picks up in speed. The boats must be moving wildly by now, swaying from side to side and possibly even making the fish in the depths of the water seasick. You would be if you were them. 

With every step, you grow closer to your target. On second thought, maybe you should have brought more than just a pathetic bottle of pepper spray and your precious laptop. You could have brought your grandfather’s cassette recorder, at least that would leave a mark if you hit someone over the head with it. 

Do vampires get concussions? That is another question you can add to the seemingly endless list in your mind. It’s a confusing place as of late, and the weird sense that someone is playing with the controls won’t leave you alone. Either you are overthinking, or you are worse off than you originally thought. 

The apartment complex the card directs you to stretches high above you. You look up, seeing not a single light on. That’s odd, you think, but then again, you are meeting with the city’s most notorious man. If he is who everyone says he is, and if the rumors are even true, that is. 

As you are about to approach the entrance, your fingertips start to burn. A gasp escapes past your lips. Staring down, the cubical piece of paper goes up in flames. You are mere feet from the door, nowhere near close to an open source of fire, and the card starts to burn like a wildfire. 

You pull back, your heart hammering against your ribcage. The ashes fall to the ground, but before they can hit the asphalt, they vanish.

“What the–” before you can finish, the doors before you swing open toward the inside. The lights turn on. Someone even has called the elevator for you. 

Another step forward, and a voice stops you. “Fourth floor, down the hallway, first door to your right,” the voice says through the speaker. Only then do you notice the lack of a doorbell. 

Everything in you is screaming for you to run, but you are rooted in the spot. He dragged you here with a mere letter, and you were more than ready to jump. Desperation was the only thing that drove you here. Your brain seems incapable of rational thought.

What if that is what he wanted all along? To get you complicit by playing on what you so desperately need, which is a story and a way out of this boring everyday life that is threatening to slowly kill you.

He’s like a siren, luring you into his deadly trap, but even knowing all of this, you still can’t find it in yourself to run. 

The second you enter the building, the door shuts behind you, and your only way out is officially locked. You made the decision; you have dug your own grave, possibly quite literally, and now you have to lie in it. It’s better to die chasing a good story than dying at a desk in an office that doesn’t respect you.

You are a disgrace, you can hear your father’s voice in the back of your mind. He always warned you not to be too reckless or your bad decisions will eventually catch up with you. He always taught you not to trust strangers, and to stay the hell away from those who disgrace God, but you have never cared much about being a good girl. 

Your thoughts are as morbid as your obsession with the walking undead. It is time you embrace what people are already saying about you.

The elevator ride feels like an eternity. It goes up and up and up until it finally stops on the fourth floor. The walls smell like nothing but a faint hint of bleach. It’s clean, parquette not carpet, and the walls are kept in a shade resembling a mixture between crimson and maroon, and it is blending into a sort of marble.

The metal doors slide open. Again, you hesitate. A sweet whisper echoes in your ear, dragging you toward the edge. You breach the border between the elevator and the hallway that waits behind it. The voice is distant, and it doesn’t sound human—it reminds you of a siren’s song, calling for you. He is calling for you, and a fog settles over your mind. You’re not in control anymore, he is. 

You imagine him to be an old man, possibly middle-aged. Vampires stop aging when they’re turned. Their mind doesn’t. You’ve read the research plenty. They are wise beings, more intelligent than human beings could ever fathom. That makes them dangerous. 

Their venom rivals the intoxicating feeling of heroin, you’ve heard, and it heightens your senses to the point all you can feel is the one who bit you. Research suggests it’s a million times stronger than an orgasm, for both the vampire and the human being. 

Part of you has always wanted to try it. Part of you wants to know what it feels like to be sucked dry. You want to know what it feels like to be carried into a new dimension by someone who knows how to play the human body like a fucking piano, eliciting the sweetest melody through your very essence and the symphony of your moans.  

This M—Daredevil—is inherently dangerous. He’s as mysterious as they come; a man in a mask lurking in the dark corners of Hell’s Kitchen every night, turning the fight for justice into his hunting ground. 

It’s as though he curled his fingers, and you followed. 

You walk the dark hallway down to the door on the right. Paintings litter the walls. Masterpieces, blotches of white, red, and color. You recognize the red marble as a decorative theme on the wallpaper. Tracing your fingers over it, the rough drywall scratches at your skin. 

You reach out a shaky hand toward the golden knob. Before you can turn it though, the door already flings open. It must be witchcraft. 

Red appears to be his favorite color. At least judging from the hallway, that is true. When you step into the room with a pounding heart and blood pooling in your cheeks though, the inside of the room is a lot more… human. You wouldn’t have guessed it from the gloominess surrounding you on your way there.

A leather couch and armchairs stand in the middle, facing toward the window front. Colored windows, as you have gathered from the rumors. They are see-through now though, showing the city skyline and the moon up high. The chandelier on the ceiling is the only piece of furniture you would consider old. Browns meet hues of blue and dark green, a forest at midnight, and you suck in a sharp breath. The apartment is beautiful. 

You look to your left and see a bookshelf stretching the length of the wall. You can’t help but run your hand over the backs. You would have expected original editions from the 18th or 19th century, but when your fingers trace over the bindings, you are met with the bulging of Braille underneath the elegant golden writing of the titles. None of them seem to have collected dust. It surprises you to only find a mere handful of classics that haven’t been transcribed in Braille and a realization you did not expect starts to crawl its way forward.

“I stole that one from a library in Paris.”

Your racing heart stops beating. The book you’ve been holding falls to the ground, its worn-out leather cracking further around the spine. The thud is deafening. You gasp, turning around. Your shoulders fly up as the tension ripples through every last muscle in your bone. Your bones ache just from how stiff you’re standing, but you can’t move.

The man before you moves as quietly as a mouse. You didn’t hear him coming. The moonlight reflects off his dark brown hair, making it appear almost ginger. He’s wearing a simple suit without a tie, and the white of his shirt is as pristine and clean as the cut of his beard. You can see chest hair poking out from underneath the two open buttons, as dark as the locks on his head. His jawline is irresistibly sharp, leading up to a pair of plump lips he is wrapping around the brim of a crystal glass filled with rum.

Your heart remains frozen. Not a single drop of blood pumps through your veins, yet your cheeks burn brighter than a bonfire on a pitch-black night. 

But his flawless appearance is not what catches your attention the most. Looking up into his eyes, wanting to know whether they are as red as those set into the devil’s mask, you find nothing but your terrified reflection staring back at you. It’s as blurry as the picture of your face in a still ocean’s water, your wide eyes staring back at yourself. 

The red glasses are all you can see. Round with a black rim. Silver would have looked better on him, or maybe even gold. The black reminds you of an endless pit, a sinister embrace of vampire stereotypes, but you can’t look away from the maroon that won’t allow you even a glimpse into his eyes. They are shielding him from the world, and his eyes from curious, stupid humans like you.

He nods toward the ground. “You gonna pick that up?” he asks. His voice reminds you of rumbling gravel. 

He looks like a man. He talks like a man. If you didn’t know better, you would say he is human. There seems to be blood in his cheeks and air in his lungs. 

You have to pull yourself together. Clearing your throat, you bend down and pick the book back up.

“Thank you,” he utters your name. “It’s been a while since I’ve received visitors that don’t work for me.”

You put the book back on the shelf. Your lips are sewn shut; you can’t find the words. Every time you open your mouth like a fish on dry land, you close it again, and it is embarrassing to be standing in front of him with your guard down. 

“Welcome to my home,” he says. You wish you could see his eyes to know if he’s mocking you. “Do you want a drink, or do you need another minute to process?”

He is mocking you. His tone is gentle, as is his voice, but he smirks like a smug motherfucker, and your anger boils to a tipping point. The candle is about to burn out. 

“I–” you stammer. Internally, you curse yourself for being such a fool. 

“Another minute it is then.”

You don’t need a minute though. “You’re blind,” you blurt out. 

The beautiful—deadly—stranger nods. “Yeah.“

“How?”

“Accident when I was a kid.”

“But you’re…” you leave the missing part of that sentence hanging in the air like a noose. 

“Say it,” he murmurs. You want to say it sounds like a growl, but you’re not sure. He isn’t asserting dominance or trying to force you into submission by scaring you away, but he is toying with you regardless. 

You take a deep breath. The word, the truth, numbers your tongue and your lips with its weight. “A vampire,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper, matching his. 

His smirk broadens. He pushes his tongue against the inside of his cheek for a moment, then releases it as it darts out to wet his bottom lip. “I’m a blind vampire, yes,” he answers. “We’re rare, but we do exist.”

Blind vampires. In all of your years of fascination, that has never crossed your mind. You used to believe that they had healing abilities that far exceeded your own. You were wrong. He lost his eyesight before he got turned into a vampire. He lived as a blind human being and didn’t regain his most crucial sense when he died. 

He came back to life, but he died. It is surreal to stand across from him. He’s not just letters on a piece of paper, he is very much real. And he’s blind. 

“Oh, my God,” you curse.

That elicits a soft chuckle from him. “I was starting to think you wouldn’t come,” he says. 

“I was considering not to.” 

He sees right through you with those empty glasses. “That’s a lie.”

“How would you know?” you counter. 

“I can hear your heartbeat. The blood pumping in your veins…” His head tilts ever so slightly in your direction. You take a step back. It’s an instinct. “Your pulse picks up when you lie, or when you’re nervous, or both,” he states. “When you first saw me, your heart skipped a beat. It did again when you lied to me.”

Your eyes trail down to his thick thighs perfectly fitted in his tailored trousers. His thick digits pat the rhythm with his fingers on the fabric. Thud-thudthudthud-thud. You place a hand on your chest. He wasn’t wrong; your heart is racing. 

His smirk turns into a smile, but only briefly again. It’s a glimpse of humanity he doesn’t want you to see. “I like that sound,” he says. “Has anyone ever told you that you smell good? Sweet, sour, and a little salty. Natural. You don’t use a lot of artificial perfume, but you like cherry chapstick.”

You swallow, taking a whiff of your arm. Besides your deodorant masking the scent of your nervous sweat, you smell nothing. How good must his nose be? His hearing? His sense of taste? 

“Right now, sweat is dripping down your back, and your muscles are tense enough to strain against your bones every time you breathe. Your heart just skipped a beat again. You find it weird,” he muses. “I can’t turn it off, but I get it must be strange for you.” 

“You–” The blood has collected in your head, pushing the temperature in the room to an all-time high. “Get out of my body!” you snap. 

He laughs. “That’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear.”

“And I never thought you would ask for an audience with me, but here we are.”

“Here you are.” 

You want nothing more than to wipe that smirk off his face. He looks so smug, standing there with his drink, wearing a suit too fancy for his own home. He’s fully in his element. It’s scary how alluring he is, too. You don’t want to think that way, but as soon as your eyes gaze upon him again, your chest contracts, and you forget how to breathe. 

He’s a wolf, and you’re a lonely little sheep that doesn’t know any better. That lonely little sheep just wants to be a part of something bigger, even if that means surrendering herself to the big bad wolf. He wants a taste of her, and the sheep would give him that in a heartbeat if he just asked. 

You blink. There is a voice in your head, and it isn’t your own. Far from it. You don’t want to be associated with this stranger. She thinks she knows you. She thinks she knows what you want—the sheep in the eyes of her natural enemy. This voice is the most irrational you could be, and you need to stop letting her win.

And yet you—not just the voice of the lonely sheep you appear to be—would follow this man anywhere, even to hell if he asked you to. 

Your eyes drill knives into his skull, but they are also full of curiosity. Can he hear your thoughts? Your heart beats in your throat. You can taste it on your tongue. If you bit your lip, you would bleed, and he would probably fall into a frenzy. Still, your teeth dig into your bottom lip. What if he can hear your thoughts—hear how fucking needy you are? You’re pathetic. What he must think of you, standing across from him, smaller than human life itself. 

You want to read him, but he is far from an open book. He’s not Braille you can run your fingers over, and even if he was, you don’t know how to read it. He’s an enigma. His face is set in stone; an iron mask you can’t penetrate. 

His chest heaves with another chuckle. He sets the crystal glass down on the coffee table, taking a step forward. “No, I can’t read your mind,” he says. 

You flinch. “What?”

“Your breathing pattern. The way you look at me. I can sense that you’re thinking about something.” He adjusts his glasses. “It’s just… Most humans ask me if I can read their minds, you know. I can’t. Some vampires can, but my senses are the only heightened ability I have.” This time, when he chuckles, a hint of bitterness dances in his voice. 

“At least you’re not in my head then,” you say. 

“No.”

“Good.”

A pregnant pause follows. You clutch your bag to your chest, your fingers digging into the frame of your hidden laptop. 

“Can I offer you a drink?” he asks, pointing to his empty glass.

You wave him off. That’s the last thing on your mind. “No, thank you.”

Sometimes at night, you fantasize about diving into the abyss of darkness. It looks and sounds a terrifying lot like him. You want to know him. You need to know him. When it comes to him and this—whatever this is—the lines between want and need are blurring into an unidentifiable mess. It’s an ocean of emotions with no land in sight. A total eclipse of the heart, if you will. You’re losing your mind.

“What you can do–” You straighten your shoulder, hoping it will add height to your beaten confidence. “You can tell me your name. Sir,” you say. 

He nods. “I suppose it would only be fair, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, it would.”

“Matthew. My name’s Matthew.” The softness of his features as his lips move to the rhythm of his words takes you back anew. His eyebrows raise slightly, and you catch a glimpse of a pair of beautiful, unfocused hazel eyes that steal your breath away. 

Matthew. It is a name that easily rolls off the tongue. It suits him.

You repeat his name aloud. “That’s an odd name for a 200-something-year-old man,” you point out. 

Matthew scoffs. “My parents were both Catholic.”

“I suppose you’re not?”

You hit a sore spot. His head dips, fingers running over his nails and tongue tracing his teeth. “Not anymore,” he says.

God died for him a long time ago, and all churches burned down.

Your grip on your bag loosens. “Then why Daredevil?” you ask. 

His lips part. “I, uh, have the Bulletin to thank for that one. After centuries of existing in this world, and being despised for no matter what I do, I’ve decided to embrace it. I am Daredevil, not even God can stop that now.”

Matt grabs his glass, turning away from you. He doesn’t use a cane to navigate from the couch to the mini bar on the other end of the room. You carefully follow his movements. One of his hands remains at his side, snapping his fingers as he navigates the familiar terrain of his home. 

He uncaps a half-empty bottle of Whiskey to pour himself another glass. 

“You know, Matthew,” you prompt, daring to step forward an inch, “as big as your reputation is in this part of the city, Silver Lining is not the kind of magazine that would cover your story.”

“You still came,” he says. 

“I could lose my job if anyone knew I came here.”

“And yet you’re here and not where you should be.” He turns his head over his shoulder. “You wouldn’t risk losing your job if it wasn’t important to you, would you?”

You stammer, “I–” He’s got you. You’re a fish with a hook in her mouth. 

“If Silver Lining Magazine won’t cover my story, why are you here?” Matt turns back to you, leaning back against the shiny Mahagoni of his minibar. It offers a beautiful contrast to his strong physique and the slight paleness of his skin. “Could it be because you’re fascinated by the mythic?” he asks, teasing. “By werewolves and witches and vampires?”

It’s your turn to scoff. “I won’t confirm or deny. My boss wouldn’t let me write a vampire vigilante exposé even if I begged him to.”

“And that’s why Mr. Doherty doesn’t deserve you.” Your body visibly recoils when he pushes forward, moving just an inch toward you. “Your curiosity is a virtue,” he purrs. The moonlight sets your reflection in his glasses alight. 

“Is that why you lured me here?” you ask him. “Because my curiosity is a virtue and you consider yourself better than the people in my life?”

“I didn’t lure you here, and I think you know that. That’s not what this is.” The distance between you starts to shrink, backing you into a corner. “I believe you came here because the thought of interviewing a vampire and sharing your findings with the world on your account excites you,” he says. “You want to be heard. You want to be taken seriously as a journalist, and you want to make people happy.”

The only way for you to come out of this with your pride and dignity still intact is to put up walls before the already existent labyrinth of walls keeping your heart guarded and your soul safe. “Again,” you ask, “why me?”

“Why not you? As I stated in my letter, I’m a fan of your work.”

You roll your eyes. “Yeah, about that. How did you write that if you’re blind?”

“I didn’t, my secretary did.”

“Of course.” Of course, he has a secretary. “I… I just don’t get it,” you say. “You’ve been hiding for so long–” 

Matt cuts you off with an urgency you didn’t expect, “Things have changed. Circumstances…” he trails off. 

“Wouldn’t it be a suicide mission?” 

His answer is silence. You let out an exasperated sigh. “If you want me to interview you, you have to be honest with me.”

“I’m not on the record yet.”

“Right. Maybe you can answer this though—off the record, of course—how can you be certain I didn’t call the cops or the FBI before I came here?”

His eyes crinkle. “I’m not stupid, sweetheart,” he says. 

He’s amused. You’re amusing him. 

“Don’t call me that,” you growl. 

He’s spreading you open, holding up a mirror for you to look into. It’s your miserable self in all its glory, and he knows you better than you know yourself. 

You ignore the sharp pain in your left ribcage as you pull the arrow out of your heart. “Unless someone holds up a sign that they are pro-vampirism, how would you even know I’d listen to you and not just refer you to the Journal of Psychiatry?” 

“Are you telling me you don’t believe in vampires?” Matt quips.

“That’s not… Answer my question!”

The sound of your heartbeat must sound almost like the rapid firing of a machine gun, that’s how fast your pulse is racing. Your veins threaten to burst with the excess blood. It’s a heat like no other. You’re a witch at the stake, and Matt is holding the torch to your gasoline-doused body. 

He clears his throat. Your face falls at the words that tumble out of his parted lips, and the rapid firing turns into a deafening silence and a monotone line on a heart monitor. 

“After what I’ve learned from reading Dr. Rice’s research on the phenomena of vampirism, I can confidently say this species is no different than an animal like the great white shark or the Homo sapiens sapiens—our kind,” he recites. “Vampires are a medium of fiction and propaganda to induce fear, but they are also a widely misunderstood species that is being silenced rather than heard. Our species, the human species, likes to consider themselves superior, even when we’re in a position of being someone’s natural food source. Dr. Rice’s research is based on a comprehensible set of facts, and isn’t that what we have been relying on ever since the beginning? Our psychology makes it possible for us to change the narrative in our favor, and more often than not, we ignore the very facts deemed by humans as an intellectual importance to spread the message of an entirely different agenda. Dr. Rice’s research only proves that egotism and humans themselves will be humankind's certain downfall.”

“My investigative journalism essay,” you breathe out. 

“Published by Columbia University.” 

Your heart restarts with a rush of adrenaline. “How… how do you know all of this?”

“I may be blind,” Matt says, “but I know how to read between the lines.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

The alcohol in his drink seems to have little effect on him. “I know you have questions, and I’m willing to answer them if you promise to publish a detailed report somewhere other than Silver Lining Magazine.”

You look down at your bag, then back at him. “Ben Urich could have told your story in a way that would’ve made people listen,” you murmur. “I don’t have an impressive career like him.”

“Yeah,” he smiles, “but you could have easily written ‘Attack on NYC’. Ben was a good man, an even better journalist, but he could not have written your college essay. And he could never have been you.” 

Your name rolls off his tongue—not a pretentious nickname that makes you want to vomit but your name, and it flicks a switch within you. 

You glance around the spacious living, pulling your laptop out of its confines, and you bridge the distance between you, finally. You notice he smells of sandalwood cologne and scentless soap. “Okay,” you cave. “Where do you want me to set up?”

Session 1.

The spacebar clicks underneath the tip of your index finger. The white of your screen fills with a series of red sequences as the microphone takes in every little sound around you. Except for the two of you and the fading footsteps of one of Matthew’s assistants though, the world has fallen silent in the dead of the night. He’s sitting across from you, legs crossed, head tilted; your life is about to change.

“So, Mister Murdock,” you begin, “tell me. How long have you been dead?” 

His mouth opens in a wide grin. “242 years,” he answers. 

“And what happened the year you died?”

“Well, it was 1782. I was a good few years out of law school. I was a good lawyer, but I wasn’t successful. That year, I met a beautiful woman at a banquet. I wasn’t rich—trust me, I was beyond penniless—but she had been adopted into a wealthy family, and that made her one of the richest women in the room. Everyone wanted her, but when I sensed her across the hall, she only had eyes for me. And she was the first woman to not see me just because I was blind.” He chuckles sadly. “I thought she was the woman of my dreams, the love of my life, but a few weeks later, after letting her into my life, I realized that she didn’t look at me that night because she was interested. She was hunting me. El— Miss Elektra Natchios…”

The year 1782 becomes apparent before your inner eye. As he tells you about the night he met her, you can see the dark-haired beauty making her way across the ballroom. Red lips and a gown to die for. Her dark eyes were full of mischief, but the passion in them could have knocked a grown man off of his feet. And that is just what she did to poor Matthew. 

“I was going to marry her,” he tells you.

He went to church regularly. His knees were bloody from praying, his senses already heightened before he died. God’s soldier, that is how he puts it. He was told that the accident that left him blind happened for a reason, and he had to fight a war that went beyond the country’s fight for independence. 

That summer, Elektra drained him. He didn’t know what she was. She fooled him. He was obsessed with her. Her dark eyes he couldn’t see lured her in, and it was the venom in her blood that became his downfall after she dug her teeth into him.

Matt tried to beg his priest for forgiveness, but he didn’t even make it past the marble stairs before the doors locked. He knelt in a pool of blood—both his and that of the first human he ever sucked dry to survive as a newborn vampire—offering an eternal sacrifice to Catholicism, but God abandoned him on his doorstep. 

The church walls would have been set on fire if he had touched them from the inside. 

You look up from your notepad to find him now standing at the window. He’s not looking out, of course, but he seems so deep in thought, the memories that aren’t your own but his start to dissipate, and you’re brought back to the here and now.

Matt poured his heart out to you. You expected answers, but not this kind, and certainly not of this magnitude. You see him in an entirely different light. He’s vulnerable, fragile, and human. He has endured trauma that killed him, but he couldn’t die because the woman he loved made him immortal. It’s a bigger curse than growing up with the belief that an accident made you God’s soldier. 

He lost everything. For centuries, he has had to live with that. It’s killing you, feeling his pain, the pure agony that radiates off him. 

Your voice is quiet when you ask him, “What was it like?” You don’t have to say it out loud for him to know what you are referencing.

Matt chuckles, the sound a mere breath in the atmosphere. “Like she took my soul from my body, setting fire to my belief system and already heightened senses,” he says. 

You swallow. “That sounds… overstimulating.”

“It was. Is. My heart stopped, but when that happened, something else awoke inside me. The hunger… the hunger was the worst part. It’s insatiable. One hour passes, and you feel like you’ve been starving for weeks.”

“Like you’ve been possessed by a demon?”

“Like I am the demon.”

“But you’re not.” You should stop the recording. You’re not on track; you’re incorporating your feelings into Matt’s story, but you can’t help it. The words tumble out of your mouth without a second thought, a train that cannot be stopped. 

He raises his eyebrows, you can see it in his reflection in the windows. “Are you religious?” he asks.

You shake your head. “This isn’t about me.”

“Are you?”

The veins on the back of his hands bulge as he balls them to fists at his sides. Your throat is a desert, and your heartbeat resembles a storm that burns right through it, sending the sand flying in all directions of the horizon.

You adjust in your seat, crossing one leg over the other. He takes a whiff. He’s smelling you, and that doesn’t help the speed of your pulse to calm down. 

Tapping your pen on your notepad, you watch the red sequences fill the white space of the recording program. It moves with the sound of your voice when you finally dare to answer. “It’s a complicated question because there is a difference between believing in God and believing in the church,” you say.

“Do you believe in God then?” Matt asks. It’s as though he’s trying not to seethe at the mere mention of someone he used to worship. You make a note of that.

“There is so much bad in this world. So much cruelty. I can’t…” You take a deep breath. “I don’t know how to believe in a God that would let the things humans do to each other happen. If God existed—if he was as merciful as Christians like to claim, he wouldn’t let this happen. And I’m so sick and tired of people using their faith, and their beliefs in God and the church as justification to be disrespectful. I don’t understand it. How can anyone? Why is someone who has to drink blood to stay alive—someone who didn’t even choose this life—worth less and the devil’s breed when humans do worse things to each other? Why would God allow us to start wars that kill innocent people? Children? It’s just not fair that we treat ourselves and others as though we are already in hell, and we’re just supposed to accept that God doesn’t care—” You stop yourself, the tears burning behind your eyes. 

Matt turns back around. You can’t look away. “When I was still human,” he murmurs, “I used to believe everything that happened to me was God’s will. The accident, God’s will. Me going blind, God’s will. I went to confession, prayed until my knees were bloody and bruised. I tried convincing myself that every scream I heard from down the block, every person who lost their life or their innocence was my responsibility. God made me this way for a reason, right?” The scoff is as bitter as the liquor in his glass. “I fell apart, you know. I was a kid, so I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand what was happening to me,” he tells you. 

You hold your breath. The glasses slip from his eyes as he takes them off with shaky fingers. You are met with the most beautiful pair of hazel eyes. Emotions dance a heated tango in a tornado. If you look closer, the green specks bring life to his eyes. It’s human nature in the purest sense of the word. 

Your reflection stands in his irises, his unmoving pupils, and the tears glisten in his eyes. They’re as red as blood, watered-down crimson essence. You want to reach out and stroke his cheek, but that would be crossing a very big line that you can’t bring yourself up to touch. 

“I studied law because I thought it would change something,” he continues. You listen. It’s the only thing you can do—listen. “It wasn’t enough. Nothing I ever did felt like it was enough. I lost my father. Jack. I didn’t know my mother until it was too late. Maggie. I had no one. No money, no prospects, just me and those voices in my head, telling me I was supposed to be God’s soldier.”

“You’re not,” you cut in. 

He shakes his head. “I prayed; I crawled up the stairs of the church, and I spent hours repenting for my sins. I bled myself dry for Him. I sacrificed myself. I sacrificed my youth, my heart, and my soul, and I got nothing back. I begged for help until my voice was sore, but nothing… God, nothing was ever good enough. Until Elektra came around,” he says. 

“She changed everything for you. It makes sense. She turned you into a vampire, but she also loved you.”

“She did love me, in her own twisted way.”

“It’s what you deserved,” you say.

He isn’t yours, but the pang you feel in your chest is treacherous. Your heart cracks like a porcelain vase, jealousy creeping in like a parasite of toxic waste.

In response, Matt only chuckles bitterly. “She made me believe again, then took my soul and crushed it in her hand.” The correction makes your shoulders slump. “Instead of feeling like my world ended though, I felt at peace when she sucked the blood out of my veins and fed me her venom,” he says. “It’s sick, I know. I was aware I died that night, that she turned me into a devil who could only survive if he drank the blood of others. The Catholic in me struggled to accept it, but I had no choice but to embrace what she made me.”

“And where is she now?” you ask.

“Gone.” The light in his eyes has fully disappeared now. “I stayed with her for a while until she died in my arms. She showed me what love is, and she showed me heartbreak. She made me hungry for blood, awakening the devil I’ve been trying to tame. She taught me how to feed, how to hunt, and how to chase. But she also cursed me,” he says. “I only exist for myself now. I only bleed for myself. No God, no church, and no more religion. I’m not Jesus, I’m Judas, and I retired the cross the day I was crucified.”

You have run out of questions to ask. Too overwhelming is the sight of his walls crumbling down, this stranger you now know better than any living being seems to. You no longer see money in this, or a story to chase, you only see Matthew, and the halo above his head he still believes is a pair of horns. The world broke him. His faith in God broke him. It crushed him, and he lost everything. How broken he must be. 

“Not such a pretty story when I say it out loud, huh?” He scoffs.

The spacebar clicks again. The recording comes to a sudden halt. One hour and fifty-eight minutes, the first session of your interview with the vampire. You need to put a halt to it now because what you are about to say or do as you reach your hand out to brush his cold, dead skin is not something that should be found on a record. And you won’t ever tell.

Matt pulls away when your warm fingertips brush his. You’re standing across from him now, so close he can smell, hear, and feel all of you at once.

Your touch is the holy water that burns his skin, but the fire sustains him and shoots straight to his core the same way the blood rushes to yours.

“It’s not a pretty story, no,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper, “but it did tell me what I already knew.”

“And what’s that?” he asks.

“That you’re not evil. You’re not the Devil. You’re misunderstood. You’ve been beaten; you’ve been abandoned, hurt, and broken. That doesn’t make you a monster. Trying to make this city a better place does not make you a monster.”

“If you only knew the things I’ve done…”

“I know the rumors suggest that you were the one who fought Wilson Fisk and got this city back where it needed to be. You’ve saved countless women from the worst of fates. You are the reason the innocent people of Hell’s Kitchen feel safe. By picking up that mask, you became a hero, not a villain, and that is the story I want to tell.”

In lightspeed, he has moved you from the window to the other end of the room. Your back hits the wall. 

Matt towers over you in all of his intimidating glory. His eyes spark red, but you hold his unfocused gaze. He has such beautiful eyes. This pull between you is far from human; it’s unhealthy, and it is exactly where he wanted to get you. You’re trapped, pinned underneath him like a deer caught in headlights. 

Exhaling, your breath strokes his cheeks. He closes his eyes, savoring the taste of you. Every particle in the air, he inhales. His tongue darts out to lick his lips. Oh, what you wouldn’t do to suck that tongue into your mouth. 

Your pheromones play his head like a puppeteer pulling the strings of his marionette. He growls. “Do you have any idea how dangerous I am?” 

The moonlight catches his sparkling white teeth. This time though, you come face to face with the sharp edges of his previously concealed fangs. Your jaw drops open. He’s ethereal. 

“I could snap your neck—” Matt places his hand on your neck, “I could make that heart stop beating, take the air from your lungs. I could eat you…” He traces the vein in your throat from your jaw to your collarbone. “I could bite you and suck your blood until you’re empty. I could kill you, sweetheart. My kind is your natural enemy. You shouldn’t be here.”

You shudder. His nose brushes the sensitive skin below your ear. He’s so close you can smell him. On inhale, and his scent consumes your senses. He is all you can feel now. You reach out to hold onto his arms, his muscles tensing under your teeth. He’s big and strong, and those hands have a mind of their own as they begin to wander but never where you need him most. 

You shouldn’t be here, yet you came. He asked you to him, and you complied. Is this your fate now? Chasing after your big bad wolf like the helpless sheep that you are?

Your walls clench around an agonizing emptiness, your swollen clit brushing against your soaked underwear. Whatever he is doing to you, it’s the cruelest form of torture. 

A strangled noise breaks out of the back of his throat, rumbling in his chest. “You have no idea how badly I want to taste you,” he breathes. 

“Do it,” you beg. “Taste me.”

He utters your name again. “Stop.”

“Please.”

Your tone shatters him. When he kisses you, finally, fireworks explode in the universe around you. All the stars seem to finally align. Your heart opens, and it sucks him right into you. Your soul yearns for him. He’s so close yet so far away. 

The moon stands between you, but you cross even that ocean as you push against him, forcing your tongue into his mouth. He takes like heaven and hell; he’s the apple Eve bit into and cursed her for all eternity. But he’s also the snake, the one who compelled you to take this journey of bad decisions and jump right off the cliff’s edge. You melt into him like a broken candle. 

He pulls away. Those fangs are alluring, as sharp as a knife’s tip. You want to know what it would feel like gracing your skin, digging into your as he thrusts his cock into your tight cunt. The thought alone sends your mind into a spiral.

Your lips are swollen, but he has yet to draw blood. Matt looks as though he wouldn’t dare, his eyes darting around in a darkened conflict he feels might cost him more than your dignity. You are begging for it, as is your body, but he’s holding himself back. He’s the one who tied himself to an invisible pillar, keeping his hands locked behind his back. But that is not the Matt you want. 

You lean your head to the side, exposing the length of his neck. All control has slipped from your fingers. It’s in his hands now—you are. He cups your head gently. A mere few inches lie between your fountain and his lips.

You press a kiss to his calloused palm—a desperate and needy kiss, tracing your tongue over the lines that tell his life’s story in a way no interview can retell—and it is then he is forever done for. He’s doomed, and you are the second woman to pull him under the pits of hell. 

Saliva drips from his fangs. You hold your breath. He hisses, a weak admission of surrender; the words die miserably on your tongue when his lips close around your pulse point with all his might, and his teeth drive home. 

You moan aloud. Your fingers tangle in his hair, forcing him deeper as he sucks the dark red essence out of your vein. The sensation is more than you bargained for. It’s a drug that wrecks your system. The synapses in your brain backfire with all their might, and what follows the initial explosion of pleasure shooting white hot through your being is complete and utter silence as this God of a man feeds on you. 

The invisible string between you glows a bright crimson. It slings around you, tying you together like the roots of a tree. It’s an eternal sacrifice. You are giving your all to him, the very core of your existence that is now flowing into his mouth. You swear you can hear his thoughts mingle with yours. Yes, more, please. You taste so good. Your knees buckle, but you remain standing strong. He makes sure you don’t fall. Don’t slip away from me. I need you. 

A tear rolls down your cheek. You could sob. It feels so good—too good to be true. In that moment, you become one. There is no telling where one begins and the other ends. The coil in your stomach tightens, and the only pain you feel is the pleasure threatening to overwhelm you. He’s taking everything as you give him everything, but it is not enough. It has never been enough. 

When your body struggles to catch up with the lack of blood, he pulls away. His fangs drag out of your neck agonizingly slowly. You whimper at the sudden loss.

Matt catches you as you stumble into his arms. “You okay?” He cradles your face, brushing the hair out of your face. Your blood stains his lips. Blinking up at him, the force of your metaphysical connection slaps you awake. 

You cease to exist in all solar systems but his. 

He pokes the tip of his index finger with the sharp edge of one tooth, sliding it over the two holes that are pulsating with the work of your heartbeat.

“I shouldn’t have—” he begins. 

“No,” you say. “You did exactly what you should have.”

“I couldn’t stop.”

“But you did.” You wipe the blood from his mouth. “And I felt you. I only felt you.”

The living room passes by you. Before you know it, your back lands on something much softer than a concrete wall. He’s not a monster, that one, but he surely is an animal. 

You taste your blood on Matt’s luscious lips as he devours your tongue. It tastes of copper and a little bitter, but that is what makes him moan. That sound is the last thing you could ever grow tired of. 

His palm rests on your chest. Your heart pounds against his palm. “You’re so alive,” he says.

You cradle his face in your hands. “And you’re more human than you think.”

If he wanted to pull your heart out and hold it, you would let him in a heartbeat. 

He leans you back. He strips you bare. He kisses down your body like you are a fucking masterpiece for him to explore. That is how he sees you. 

Your head falls back. The kisses wander from your hips to the inside of your thighs. Every kiss brings his breath closer to your center. Matt pulls them apart. He opens you up to him. Your scent clouds his senses, and he groans, but he doesn’t touch. 

His fangs graze your skin. “Mine,” he growls. 

You gasp. He bites into the sensitive flesh. Hard, passionately. Your legs wrap around his head, trapping him there. He sucks, and he sucks, and he drinks, and the wetness pools out of your cunt in an obscene amount. This is foreplay to him. It drives you toward the edge leading to an abyss you are afraid you might never be able to crawl back out of. There is no bottom, it is just a pit, and he’s pushing you closer and closer, and—

Your back arches, but he pulls away before the coil can snap into a million butterflies. He pries your legs away from his head, spreading them further on the mattress, as far apart as they will go. 

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner have been served on a silver platter. He breathes in. The scent of your soaked pussy sticks to the hairs in his nose. It isn’t enough. He breathes in again, your arousal sweeter than fiction. You’re everything and more. He wants to taste that part of you more than anything, suck up the slick that is soaking the sheets—and you didn’t even think that was possible—but he waits because he needs to savor it. He doesn’t want it to be over too soon. neither for him nor for you. 

The blood is still dripping from his tongue and his fangs, and the raw inside of your thigh. He runs his finger through it. The sting runs from the wound to your folds, then back down. Still, he doesn’t touch. He plays with the blood, sucking on his fingers until they’re clean, and then he dives back in for a taste. He doesn’t bite, he kisses and sucks, but he doesn’t push it further. He doesn’t hurt you. 

You’re his saving grace; he has to worship you. Pain only has a place in pleasure. 

“Matthew,” you moan. 

He chuckles, kissing where his fangs left deep indentations. “No one will ever touch you again,” he purrs. “I’ll make sure of that.” 

You try to protest, but the words die on your tongue when he leans in, capturing your clit with his hungry mouth. The wound on your thigh closes. The blood from his lips mixes with your juices, and you cry out at the intensity of it all. 

He eats you with the ferocity of a man starved for weeks. He eats your pussy like he ate your blood, savoring every drop but still feasting for the taste to spread out in his mouth like wildfire. Sour, sweet, and copper. He sucks your sensitive clit into his mouth. His tongue drags through your folds, up and down, and then the tip slides inside, tasting your walls. He grows bolder as your moans accelerate. 

Matt cradles your thighs. He forces your hips back down to the mattress, stronger than the average human man. You have to endure his beard scratching and burning, and the pace he has set.

The orgasm creeps up on you. Before you know it, he has plunged his tongue into you, and your body convulses around him. You scream into a pillow as you come. 

You are each other’s forbidden fruit. No prayer in the world could keep you apart. 

Faintly, you can hear him say, “Good girl.” Your legs quiver. He pulls away, then comes right back like a boomerang. 

He’s warm now. He was cold before, but when he kisses you this time, he’s warm. He’s hot. You run your hands over his bare chest, the scars that lie under the dark strands of hair. You tug at it, and he moans. You can tell he is a little insecure, but by pressing your lips to one of the cuts on his shoulder, he relaxes. 

What he must have endured, what he must have lived through before he died and was resurrected in the same breath, just without a beating heart—you don’t want to think about it or you will break, but you can still feel him through the crimson tie that holds you together, and you know that he has suffered enough for more than two lifetimes. You wish you could take it all away from him. You wish you could have saved him before it was too late, loved him more than the woman who turned him, but turning back time is an impossibility. You are both acutely aware of that. 

“Hey.” Matt tilts your head toward him. “Where did you just go?” he asks. 

“Thinking about you,” you murmur. 

“Me?”

“You.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to be your salvation.”

You. His salvation. He kisses you, softly this time. He pours gratitude into his lips and bleeds them out in poetry as they slide into your mouth, and you swallow every last drop. 

If someone had told you a week ago where you would see yourself on that particular Monday, you would have laughed at them. And if someone had told you a week ago that you would be making love to the devil, you would have called them crazy. But it’s happening. 

He thrusts into you without a warning. His thick cock fills you like nothing and no one ever has before. Your cunt has been molded to fit him, you’re sure. You take him in, and you moan at the stretch. It’s a pain so delicious you could fall apart right then and there just from the feel of him inside you. 

Every thrust drags the tip of his cock along your sweet spot. Every added sensation drives you closer to your death. 

Your body tingles. He explores your face with his lips rather than his fingers, moving to your neck again. You cling to him, oh-so-desperate for him. He likes you like that, and you like him like that. 

“You’re fucking with my head,” he tells you. “Offering your pussy to a vampire. Letting me drink your blood. Begging me to fuck you. You’re in my head, baby. Can’t get you out of my system. Fuck.”

You are his downfall, his salvation, but he is all of those things to you as well—all of those things and more. If he could read your mind, you would tell him that. Words can’t do justice to how you feel. Not right now, maybe not ever. 

“Bite me again,” you beg.

His thrusts falter. He searches your body for any sign of regret. His fangs come out, and he buries them deep in your jugular vein. The floodgates open wide. Your walls clench around his cock, your clit pulsates, and the wave crashes into you. 

You come as he devours your neck and your blood. You transcend into another dimension, far away from everything and everyone but never him. Never Matthew.

The sensation of you wraps around him like a weighted blanket. His balls tighten, your blood unfolding its taste on his tongue. You are all over him, inside of him, everywhere at once. He falls head-first, dragging you down with him. 

He comes with a shout that is only muffled through his teeth buried in your flesh, his cum spurting into you and filling your cunt to the brim. Your eyes roll back. You’re flying and falling all at once. 

Oh, how good it feels to be consumed by him. To be fucked and sucked dry. You would have never expected this to come out of your week, let alone your life, but now that it has happened, you are floating on cloud nine. 

Dizziness threatens to take over, but before you can pass out, he forces himself away, allowing your heart to catch up with the lack of blood in your system. He collapses on top of you. His cock softens, but he stays inside. You need him there. You want him there. And that is the only place he wants to rest tonight. 

He heals the wounds on your neck. “You have a mark,” Matt rasps, tracing your skin with his finger. 

You choke out, “Yours.”

“Yes, you are.” He kisses you there. Once, twice, even a third time. “Mine,” he says.

You’re his. He’s yours. It doesn’t get any better than this. 

The minutes tick away on the obnoxious clock on the wall. Matt pulls out eventually, wrapping you up in a blanket. He coaxes you to drink, but you’re barely lucid. Only when he begins to stroke your hair you start coming back to yourself. You thought you might regret it, but as you look at him, his almost guilty eyes staring back at you, all you can do is reach out for him. 

“Session two tomorrow?” you ask.

He chuckles and retorts, “Have I not scared you away?” There is some truth to it though.

He’s covered in your blood. It sticks to his lips, his hands, and his chest. It’s sickeningly intimate, in a way.

You shake your head in response. “You could not possibly.”

He listens to your heartbeat. You’re as honest as they come. 

“Okay,” Matt says. “Session two tomorrow then.”

That night, you fell in love with the Devil, but he also fell in love with you, his angel in the form of a reckless journalist, and the only blood he ever wants to taste again until the end of his miserable, cursed days. 

Matt Murdock (Smut) Tag List: @shouldbestudying41 @theradioactivespidergwen @cheshirecat484 @1988-fiend @acharliecoxedfan @gpenguin666 @linamarr @mcugeekposts @itwasthereaminuteago @norestfortheshelbywicked @yarrystyleeza @littlenerdyravenclaw @etanordoesbullsh1t @thychuvaluswife @harleycao @schneeflocky @imjustcal @pipsqueakkitten @merlinbtch @sya-skies @amberritonicole @ravenclaw617 @pigeonmama @bohemianrhapsody86 @a-girl-has-n0-name @winkev1 @callsign-ember @chittaphonstar @buckyyyismahhlife

[paradiseprincesss]

intro (end of the world) | jonathan crane

summary: jonathan reflects on how much he truly adores you.

warnings: none, this is pure fluff.

word count: 800 words

masterlist

"jonathan, you don't have to do all that." you say with a giggle (which makes his heart soar), watching your beloved boyfriend from the couch whilst sitting comfortably.

"yes i do." he says matter-of-factly, picking up the heavy boxes and moving them around.

the two of you were in the process of moving in together, having found a gorgeous but quaint little apartment on the east end of gotham - perfect for the two of you. the sun was setting and the rays of light shining through the glass sliding door, which lead to the balcony, was reflecting onto jonathan; making him look like an angel.

he insisted that you sit this one out - by "this one," he meant the entire process of moving. well, the physical part of it, that is. he hadn't let you carry a single box, acting as if you were a delicate flower that would crumble at any given moment.

earlier on, he had let you carry one box, just one; and it was the lightest one out of all of them, weighing maybe ten pounds, at most. as you were putting the box down, it had accidentally slipped out your grasp, causing it to fall from your hands and snag the side of your freshly done acrylic nails - causing one of to break.

before you could even say "ouch," jonathan was rushing to your side going into full-blown doctor mode, doting on you in his own way - which you found adorable.

you tried to reason with him about it, telling him that it didn't hurt very much, and that you could manage - but he wasn't having it.

and that's how you ended up spending the rest of the afternoon on the couch, not lifting a single finger while jonathan did all the heavy lifting and hard work.

"i think that's the last of the boxes." he announces proudly, and you just shake your head at him with a soft laugh. "you're ridiculous."

he comes over to you on the couch, smiling, and pulls you into his side as he gives you a loving kiss.

smiling.

that was something jonathan didn't do very often, if you ever worked with him, you would know that - but you weren't work.

you were everything to jonathan. everything. he could never get tired of you.

when he first met you, he couldn't tell whether you were a fragment of his imagination or not. you were just so beautiful, he'd never forget how it felt to cross paths with you for the first time. in that moment, he'd come to learn what love at first sight was.

through the course of your relationship, he was left astonished on a regular basis. "how are you real?" he'd ask himself, while watching you do the mundane, every day tasks of life. how could someone look so angelic while doing something as simple as watering a potted plant or writing down their grocery list for the week?

he knew the answer to that question; because it was you.

how could someone look so perfect on their worst day? because it's you. how could jonathan possibly let someone into his heart and see his vulnerable side, you ask? because it's you, that's why.

you were the answer to everything in his world, the beautiful soul that brought his flatlining soul back from whatever purgatory he was living in before.

and if said purgatory was truly a real place, then so be it. if he was to die right now, and his soul was sentenced to stay in a state of purgatory, hell on earth for eternity - he was okay with that, because in his living, waking life - at least he got a chance to know you, to love you, and to call you his.

your voice brought him out of his thoughts as he held you tightly on the couch, the sun gleaming it's golden glow on the two of you.

"if the sun refused to shine, would i still be your lover?" you ask, your paradoxical question making him smile as he answered you. "of course you would be, my love. you'd be mine in every universe."

with a sigh, he asked you his own paradoxical question. "if the moon went dark tonight, and it all ended tomorrow, would i be the one on your mind?"

you looked at him with that same lovedrunk gaze you always gave him, smiling cutely, and beaming like the sun outside.

"you never leave my mind, actually." you tell him, and you could've sworn he was almost tearing up as he looked away from you for a moment, and you could tell he's feeling a little emotional - but that's alright because it's with you, and you are his absolute everything.

in his past lifetime, this lifetime, and the rest to come.

[youryurigoddess]

A nightingale sang in the London Blitz

When exactly was that certain night, the night Aziraphale and Crowley met — and spoke for the first time in 79 years in the midst of the London Blitz?

And what’s the deal with the nightingale’s song, really?

Grab something to drink and we’ll look for some Clues below.

The night they met

The Blitz, short for Blitzkrieg (literally: flash war) was a German aerial bombing campaign on British cities in the WW2, spanning between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941. The Luftwaffe attacks were carried out almost non stop, with great intensity meant to force a capitulation and similarly strong impact on British life and culture at the time.

Starting on 7 September 1940, London as the capital city was bombed for nearly 60 consecutive nights. More than one million London houses were destroyed or damaged, and more than 20,000 civilians were killed, half of the total victims of this campaign.

The night of 29 December 1940 saw the most ferocity, becoming what is now known as the Second Great Fire of London. The opening shot of the S2 1941 minisode is a direct reference to recordings of that event, with the miraculously saved St Paul’s Cathedral in the upper left corner.

The actual raid lasted between 06:15 and 09:45 PM, but its aftermath continued for days. The old and dense architecture of this particular part of the city turned into a flaming inferno larger than the Great Fire of 1666. Multiple buildings, including churches, were destroyed in just one night by over 100,000 bombs.

Incendiary bombs fell also on St Dunstan-in-the-East church that night, the real-life location of this scene as intended by Neil. It was gutted and again claimed by fire in one of the last air rides on 10 May, when the bomb destroyed the nave and roof and blew out the stained glass windows. The ruins survived to this day as a memorial park to the Blitz.

Such a delightfully Crowley thing to do: saving a bag of books with a demonic miracle adding to the biggest catastrophe for the publishing and book trade in years. 5 million volumes were lost, multiple bookshops and publishing houses destroyed in the December 29th raid alone.

Even without this context, judging by the seemingly unending night, overwhelming cold and darkness, broken heating at the theatre, and seasonal clothing (like Aziraphale and Crowley’s extremely nice winter coats), it’s rather clear that it was the very beginning of the year 1941.

Everything suggests that Aziraphale and Crowley’s Blitz reunion happened exactly 1900 years after their meeting in Rome — which, according to the script book, took place between 1 and 24 January 41 (Crowley was right: emperor Caligula was a mad tyrant and didn't need any additional tempting; there's a reason why he was murdered by his closest advisors, including members of his Praetorian Guard, on 24 January 41).

Interestingly, both events involved a role reversal in their otherwise stable dynamic, with Aziraphale spontaneously taking the lead instead of letting the demon be the one to do all the tempting and saving, and ended with a toast.

The S2 Easter Egg with the nuns of the Chattering Order of St Beryl playing table tennis at the theatre suggests that the Blitz meeting happened on a Tuesday afternoon, which doesn’t match any of the above mentioned days, but sets the in-universe date for 7 January 1941 or later.

The Chattering Order of Saint Beryl is under a vow to emulate Saint Beryl at all times, except on Tuesday afternoons, for half an hour, when the nuns are permitted to shut up, and, if they wish, to play table tennis.

The nightingale

January means one thing: absolutely no migratory birds in Europe yet. They’re blissfully wintering in the warm sun of Northern Africa at the time. But, ironically, when the real nightingales flew off, a certain song about them suddenly gained popularity in the West End of London.

It might be a shock, but A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square wasn’t a hit from the start — even though its creators, Eric Maschwitz and Manning Sherwin, were certainly established in their work at this point. The song was written in the then-small French fishing village of Le Lavandou shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War with first performance in the summer of 1939 in a local bar, where the melody was played on piano by the composer Manning Sherwin with the help of the resident saxophonist. Maschwitz sang his lyrics while holding a glass of wine, but nobody seemed impressed. It took time and a small miracle to change that.

Next year, the 23-year-old actress Judy Campbell had planned to perform a monologue of Dorothy Parker’s in the upcoming Eric Maschwitz revue „New Faces”. But somehow the script had been mislaid and, much to her horror, replaced with the song A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square. She had never professed to be a singer but even so, she gathered her courage and went out onto the moonlit set dressed in a white ball gown. Her heartfelt rendition of the now evocative ballad captured the audience’s imagination and catapulted her West End career to stardom.

It was precisely 11 April 1940 at the Comedy Theatre in Panton Street and the revue itself proved to be a great success — not only it kept playing two performances nightly through the Blitz, but also returned the next year. And the still operating Comedy Theatre is mere five minutes on foot from the Windmill Theatre, where Aziraphale performed in 1941, and not much longer from his bookshop.

Now, most Good Omens meta analyses focus on Vera Lynn’s version of the song from 5 June 1940, but it didn’t get much attention until autumn, specifically 15 November, when Glenn Miller and his orchestra published another recording. And Glenn Miller himself is a huge point of reference in Good Omens 2.

According to the official commentary the infamous credits scene is establishing Aziraphale and Crowley’s final resolve for the next season using the same narrative device The Glenn Miller Story (1954) does in its most crucial scene. It starts with the tune (and audio in general) totally flat, then adds a piano on one side, and gradually becomes fully multidimensional. The Good Omens credits not only emulate the same sound effect, but bring it to the visual side of the narrative by literally combining the individual perspectives of the two characters together. Even though they’re physically apart, their resolve — and love to each other — brings them even closer than before. Aziraphale smiles not because he’s being brainwashed, but because he knows exactly what to do next.

Some of you might have noticed that Tori Amos’s performance for Good Omens is actually a slightly shortened version of Miller’s recording — much less sorrowful than Vera Lynn’s full lyrics that include i.a. this bridge:

The dawn came stealing up

All gold and blue

To interrupt our rendez-vous

I still remember how you smiled and said

Was that a dream or was it true?

Which is a huge hint when it comes to what we can expect from the main romantic plot line in the Good Omens series. The original song introduces an element of the doubt — it seems like there was no nightingale at all, only the mirage woven by the singer clearly intoxicated with love, much like Aziraphale and Crowley for the length of the last six episodes. Crowley’s comment in the season finale might allude to that interpretation, stating that there are no nightingales — never have been. It was all a dream. But the version we’re working with here is short and sweet, and devoid of that doubt. In the Good Omens universe angels were actually dining at the Ritz, the streets were truly paved with stars (or will be shown as such in the next season), and a nightingale really sang in Berkeley Square, as the omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent narrator, God Herself, had shown us.

All in all, it’s not an accident that the “modern” swing ballad activating Aziraphale’s memory and opening the 1941 minisode is the Moonlight Serenade by Glenn Miller. It’s a track naturally associated with A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square when it comes to music style and the sentiment in the lyrics.

But why the sudden popularity? In the great uncertainty and hardship of the Blitz, A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square provided solace and escapism for listeners, offering a glimpse of hope and love amidst the darkness of war. It became a universal anthem of resilience and a reminder of the power of love transcending difficulties. By January 1941 the whole city knew this tune by heart, including a certain West End aficionado with a cabinet full of theatre programs in his bookshop. Thanks to Maggie’s grandmother, he most probably had a record at hand to play during his spontaneous wine night with Crowley. We can only suspect the details, but it was was mutually established as their song exactly at that time or soon afterwards. Pretty sure we will see a third installment of that minisode for many, many reasons, but especially because of this “several days in 1941” answer by Neil:

The Man Hunt

In 1941 A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square gained even more popularity as the romantic theme of the Fritz Lang’s newest film Man Hunt. The 1939 story by Geoffrey Household first appeared under the title “Rogue Male” as a serial in the Atlantic Monthly Magazine where it received widespread comment, soon becoming a world-wide phenomenon in novel form. Its premise criticizes Britain's pre-war policy of appeasement with Germany, ready to sacrifice its own innocent citizens to the tentative status quo. Sounds a bit like Heaven's politics, right?

Yes, I'm trying to make you watch old movies again — like all the other classics, Man Hunt (1941) is easily available on YouTube and other streaming websites.

The next part will include spoilers, so scroll down to the next picture if you prefer to avoid them.

The plot of the movie seems simple enough: the tall, dark, and handsome Alan Thorndike, who nearly assassinates Hitler, narrowly escapes Germany and back in London continues to evade the Nazi agents sent after him with the help of a young trench-clad “seamstress” named Jerry, bridging the class divide and becoming unlikely friends-partners-romantic interests. It doesn’t end well though.

Jerry's small London apartment serves as a hideout for Alan when he was being followed by Nazis, similarly to how Aziraphale's bookshop is a safe haven for both Crowley and Gabriel in S2. She helps the man navigate the streets and eventually out of London — by sacrificing herself and getting forcefully separated from him by a patrolling policeman. The last time they see each other, Alan watches Jerry look back at him yearningly and disappear in the fog, followed by the elderly officer.

Unfortunately in the next scene we learn that the latter is a Nazi collaborator and helps the agents apprehend Jerry in her own flat. Staying loyal to her love and uncooperative, she’s ultimately thrown out of a window to her death, but posthumously saves Alan once again — through the arrow-shaped hatpin he gifted her earlier that is presented to him as the evidence of her off-screen fate.

Long story short, thanks to Jerry’s sacrifice Alan not only survives, but is able to join the war that broke out in the meantime and go back to Germany, armed with a rifle and a final resolve to end what he started, no matter how long will it take. The justice will be served and the dictator will pay with his life for his sins.

I wouldn’t be myself without mentioning that the main villain has a Roman chariot statue similar to the one in Aziraphale’s bookshop, an antique sculpture of St Sebastian (well-known as the gayest Catholic Saint) foreshadowing his demise, and a chess set symbolizing the titular manhunt/game of tag with the protagonist.

Aziraphale’s song

Will Aziraphale sacrifice himself as well? Or has he already? If his coin magic trick can be any indicator, we should expect at least a shadow of a danger touching the angel’s wings soon.

Let’s sum up the 1941 events from Aziraphale’s perspective: the very first time they’ve interacted after almost a century, Crowley actively sabotaged his entire existence twice by stepping onto a holy ground and by being outed by agents of Hell, both on the very same night and both because of his undying dedication to the angel. That’s enough of a reason not only for performing an apology dance, but also maintaining a careful distance for Crowley’s sake for the next 26 years. Only when he heard that his idiot was planning to rob a church, he gave up since he “can't have him risking his life”.

That’s when Crowley, sitting in a car parked right under his bookshop, offered him a ride. It wasn’t even subtle anymore. It was supposed to be a date, this time both of them understood it. But Aziraphale wouldn’t risk Crowley’s safety for his own happiness, especially not when he can name his feelings towards him and knows that they are reciprocated — the biggest lesson he learnt back in 1941.

So he did what he’s best at, he cut Crowley off again, but this time with a promise of catching up to his speed at some point. Buddy Holly’s Everyday, which was originally planned to play afterwards instead of the Good Omens theme, adds additional context here:

No, thank you. Oh, don’t look so disappointed. Perhaps one day we could... I don't know… Go for a picnic. Dine at the Ritz.

Aziraphale, carefully looking around and feeling observed through the whole conversation in the Bentley, consciously used the “Dine at the Ritz” line from A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, from their song, as a code only the two of them understand. Not as a suggestion to go out for a meal, but a promise. A hope for the privilege of being openly in love and together — maybe someday, not now, when it’s too dangerous — even if it leads to a bad ending.

Fast forward to 2023 when for one dreadful moment Crowley’s “No nightingales” robbed Aziraphale even of that semblance of hope. He looked away, unable to stop his tears anymore. Only their kiss helped him pull himself together and make sure that a nightingale did sing the last time he turned — just like in their song — this time without a smile, as a goodbye.

[one-idea]

Master list

This is more for me so I have a record of all my Aus in one place but incase anyone is interested.

Dream Dream Masterlist

A devil fruit user with the ability to steal a persons dreams/ambitions steals Luffy’s dream to become the pirate king. This leaves a despondent Luffy who doesn’t believe in his or any of his crews dreams (their dreams have become part of his) the crew is left to get his dream back.

(Big family feels for all of the Strawhats and some Zolu)

Reverse Strawhats Masterlist

In a parallel universe where Ace meets Whitebeard early and much like Luffy and Shanks makes a promise (to one day surpass Whitebeard) when he sets out to sea he meets with Kuina, Nojiko, Kaya, Reiju, and many others. They go on the strawhat journey (with some twist and turns)

One day (maybe in the Wano fight maybe not) a devil fruit activates sending Luffy and the strawhats to this world. Allowing for Luffy and Ace to reunite, but also Robin and Olivia (her mom) Chopper and Dr. Hiriluk, Law and Rosinante and many more.

Official Fic

Zoro’s arc Masterlist

I really wanted a Zoro arc. Where his old sensei contacts him about needing Wado Ichimonji (to defeat an enemy that can only be cut by one of the 21 great grade blades) Zoro has to return but he hates leaving the crew. He tells Luffy (there’s no way he’s leaving without an explanation) and Luffy is not letting him go alone.

There are many twist including old memories and new knowledge (maybe Kuina’s death wasn’t an accident)

Big Zoro feels, his relationship with the crew and some Zolu (cause I can)

(Pleant of Zoro and crew feels but mainly Zolu)

Nika cult Masterlist

A Nika worshiping cult wants to bring Nika back to the world, to do this they have to kill Luffy. They almost succeed, Nika takes over to keep Luffy alive. Now it’s up to the crew to find away to save Luffy. But it’s so weird to travel with Nika. Who knows them, because Luffy loves his crew, but Nika is not Luffy. So it’s like hanging out with your loved ones friend you never met.

Big focus on the crews love for Luffy. (All the crew including Jinbei) big focus on Sanji (whole cake guilt) Robin (she adores her captain and crew) and Zolu

Wado’s POV Masterlist

A retelling of One Piece from Wado Ichimonji’s point of view

Her pride in her dumb son Zoro, her adoration of their captain and king, her love of the crew, and her absolute annoyance with Sandai Kitsune. (Also the relationships with Yubashiri, Shusui, and Enma)

Sun god and king of hell / madoka magica fusion

If you’ve watched Madoka Magica you know. But Luffy loses himself to Nika. Maybe to save the crew of maybe the whole fleet, but Luffy’s no longer in control. Zoro truly becomes the king of hell and uses his power as Asura to block Nika’s influence over Luffy, allowing Luffy to be Luffy. But every now and then Nika tries to break free.

Please just watch the end of madoka magica revolution

Part 1

An actually plot?

Who remembers and why Ace is a problem

Roger and Rouge live and raise Ace/Sabo/Luffy

Roger doesn’t die for his illness and lives with rouge and Ace. Shanks finds Luffy and adopts him, but leaves him in the east blue. Roger comes to meet Luffy and takes him a and Sabo (who Luffy befriended) with him

Part 1: main concept

Shanks raises ASL brother Masterlist

This involves a lot of rearranging of cannon events. But basically Shanks realizes that Luffy is living alone and promises him the next time he comes to Dawn island he’ll take Luffy with him. Crap finds out and take Luffy to Dadan, where he meets Ace and Sabo. Shanks returns just in time to stop the Bluejam pirates from separating the ASL brothers. He spends some time getting to know the other two boys and decides to take them with him.

Skyward Sword/Zelda au

Luffy remembers his past Life and Nika while separated from the crew. The crew is trying to find him while slowly remembering their own past lives. They are only finding bits and pieces but one memory stands out. The death of Nika at the hands of Asura.

The whole story follows the idea of Skyward sword. That Luffy is Nika reincarnated and needs to finish the job Nika set out to do before he past. Other people (the red hair pirates or the revolutionary’s) are helping him remember his past life while stoping the Strawhats from interfering.

The main idea

Who is guiding Luffy/who is taunting the crew

The Strawhats past lives and feelings

The Spade’s save Ace Masterlist

Masked Deuce, Mihar, and Skull the officers of the Soade pirates chase after Ace when he leaves the Moby. They catch up just in time to pull him out of his fight with Blackbeard. Hurray Ace is safe, but they have a new problem. Blackbeard is going after Luffy.

One shot ideas/asks

DnD Ace/Sabo character sheet

Acedeuce: cooking

Part 2 the cookie saga begins

Cookie saga 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Zolu: a devil fruit that forces you to obey orders hits Zoro and the resulting angst from our boys

Part 2

Fem Ace runs into Sabo pre-cannon leading to some fun assumptions by the Whitebeard crew.

Art of Fem Ace by @vulnonapix1234

More Fem Ace

More are of Fem Ace by @vulnonapix1234

Jail break au: the strawhats head straight for Ace after Thriller Bark

Will Sandai Kitsune break

[mariacallous]

As war rages between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, it is hard to envision an end to the conflict. For decades, though, a growing movement of Palestinian and Israeli women has not only envisioned a peaceful coexistence, but also demanded it.

Just three days before Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack, thousands of women from two peacebuilding groups gathered at Jerusalem’s Tolerance Monument for a rally and march. Israelis from Women Wage Peace carried blue flags, and Palestinians from Women of the Sun flew yellow ones.

Members of the two groups traveled to the Dead Sea—believed since ancient times to have healing qualities—and set a table. Women from both sides pulled up chairs as a symbol of a good-faith resumption of negotiations to reach a political solution.

Women Wage Peace formed in response to Operation Protective Edge, which was Israel’s 2014 invasion of Gaza in the wake of then-U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s failed effort to restart final status negotiations.

“We, Palestinian and Israeli mothers, are determined to stop the vicious cycle of bloodshed,” reads the preamble to their campaign, the Mother’s Call. This campaign was nine months in the making, and it involved aligning around a single agenda that demands a political solution within a limited time frame.

They set the table to show the importance of dialogue and women’s involvement in decision-making. But in the war between Israel and Hamas that has started since then, women’s voices are largely missing from negotiations and consultations.

Ensuring women’s participation isn’t about equity or fairness or a show of inclusion. It’s about winning the peace.

In 2014, Laurel Stone, then a researcher at Seton Hall University, conducted a quantitative analysis of 156 peace agreements over time. She found that when women are decision-makers—serving as negotiators and mediators—the probability of an agreement lasting at least two years increased by 20 percent. The probability of the agreement holding for 15 years increased by 35 percent.

Many studies show that women tend to be more collaborative, more focused on social issues over military issues, and less likely to attack those who hold differing views. With women at the table, the potential for risk-taking behavior and attacks on perceived enemies may be lower. In diverse teams, decisions are more likely to be based on facts than assumptions.

While men are more likely to be fighters in war, the work of holding families and communities together more often falls to women, and according to some studies, it’s women who more frequently stand up for a return to negotiations, civilian protection, and an end to violence.

“We learned from the cases of Northern Ireland and Liberia,” Yael Braudo-Bahat, the co-director of Women Wage Peace, told Foreign Policy. Women’s active participation greatly strengthened these peace and recovery processes.

Ahead of the formal talks that led to the Belfast Agreement in Northern Ireland, Catholic and Protestant women’s groups formed the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition and gained two seats at a table of 20 in formal negotiations. As one of the few groups that moved beyond the sectarian divide, its members were seen as honest brokers. They represented civil society concerns and helped ensure that the agreement included commitments for social healing and integration.

Because the brutality of war falls disproportionately on women—they frequently are the first to go hungry, serve as the de facto caretakers, and become the victims of increased gender based violence—they are often committed to finding a path to peace even when male leaders won’t compromise.

During the Second Liberian Civil War, women played a heroic role by successfully pressuring male decision-makers to negotiate. The documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell, directed by Gini Reticker and produced by Abigail Disney, popularized the incredible story of how women convinced the warring parties to attend peace talks in Accra, Ghana.

“We were the ones watching our children die of hunger … we were the easiest targets of rape and sexual abuse,” said Nobel Prize laureate Leymah Gbowee, the founder of the Women for Liberia Mass Action for Peace grassroots movement, which played a major role in pushing then-President Charles Taylor to sign a peace agreement in 2003. This common suffering among women formed the basis for unity across political and religious divides.

In Israel and Gaza, women will need to play an important role in the implementation of any new accord between Israel and Palestine, Braudo-Bahat said. Her organization’s partnership with its Palestinian counterpart, Women of the Sun, has remained steadfast, even after learning that her co-founder, Vivian Silver, 74, was murdered by Hamas on Oct. 7.

“We continue our plans—we work together, and we don’t hide it,” she said. “It might be dangerous to the Women of the Sun, but they are so courageous.”

Although many Palestinians want peace, for others, “peace is normalization,” a member of Women of the Sun wrote to Foreign Policy via WhatsApp, choosing to go by the initials M.H. to preserve her anonymity and safety. Some Palestinians think that “it’s something shameful to be dealing with Israel,” she added, because it could imply that the Israelis’ treatment of, and policies toward, Palestinians are tolerable.

“I believe we should actively engage and collaborate, even if some label it as normalization,” M.H. said. “I am committed to working toward a better future for us.”

International law is on the side of these women. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, adopted unanimously more than 23 years ago, urges all member states to increase the participation of women in peace and security efforts, and highlights women’s essential role in preventing war, protecting civilians, and negotiating lasting peace.

Despite Israel’s deteriorating track record with regard to women’s rights and roles as decision-makers, women are involved in the war as politicians, members of the military and civilians. Women in politics have made important advances for gender equity, although among the 32 cabinet ministers sworn in a year ago, only five were women. One of those women ministers was dismissed amid the recent closure of the Ministry for the Advancement of Women.

The reality for women in Gaza is far more challenging when it comes to holding leadership positions. Women generally do not participate in public political activities or hold public office, although Hamas appointed 23-year old Isra al-Modallal as its first female spokesperson in November. She told the Guardian newspaper that she is not a member of Hamas or any political party.

At the start of the conflict, Hamas had just one woman, Jamila al-Shanti, 68, serving as part of the organization’s 15-member political bureau. Al-Shanti, who was also a founder of Hamas’s women’s movement, died in an Israeli airstrike on Oct. 19.

“You can hear amazing rhetoric and lip service, even from the Palestinian leadership,” Dr. Dalal Iriqat, an assistant professor at the Arab American University in the West Bank, told Foreign Policy. “But when it comes to practice, I always find a scarcity of women in decision-making.”

Women’s organizations in the Palestinian territories and in Israel have a rich history of political engagement, however. Palestinian women created social structures such as health clinics and orphanages for displaced Palestinians following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Following the Six-Day War in 1967, with traditional political structures in tatters and both Gaza and the West Bank under Israeli occupation, women of every social class stepped up.

It was through the networks they formed that a new cadre of women activists emerged as a force in December 1987, when Palestinian frustration with Israeli rule broke out in a popular uprising that became known as the First Intifada, or “shaking off.” Underlying this largely nonviolent Palestinian struggle was a collective social, economic, and political mobilization led by women.

Palestinian political leadership acknowledged women’s centrality in the Intifada, which paved the way for negotiations with Israel when it included three women—Suad Amiry, Zahiria Kamal, and Hanan Ashrawi—as part of the delegation that participated in the Middle East peace talks that culminated with the Madrid Conference in October 1991.

Ultimately, though, exiled Palestinian Liberation Organization leaders shunted the Madrid framework to begin secret negotiations with Israel that resulted in the security-focused Oslo Accords and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. Under their leadership, Israeli occupation, and the failures of the Oslo Accords, democratic ideals and women’s rights eroded.

Israel and the United States have discussed a potential role for the Palestinian Authority in Gaza after the military operation. The Palestinian Authority has three women ministers, including its minister for women’s affairs, though women still struggle for equal opportunities and freedom from violence.

“Women usually refrain from being [an] activist in politics,” said an activist in the West Bank who withheld her name for security reasons. “Women are frightened to be involved in political activities, because they will be put in jail or be subjected to any kind of violence.” And the conditions are much worse for women when funding is restricted, as well as under Hamas, she said.

Serena Awad, a Gazan nonprofit worker who is now living in Rafah, told Foreign Policy that Gazan women are directing and managing many aspects of the humanitarian response. These women work for the United Nations as well as in health, cultural, child protection, human rights, sports, and legal organizations.

“I have lived through six aggressions, and every time, I wait for my turn to die,” said 24-year-old Awad. “What I want the world to know is that women in Gaza are like any other women—we study, go to work, have our own family, but we suffer.”

Israeli and Palestinian women working as peacebuilders say they need more international support. Women’s organizations are notoriously underfunded in the best of times, with only 0.4 percent of global gender-related funding going directly to women’s rights organizations, according to calculations by the Association for Women’s Rights in Development.

During crises, women’s rights often take a back seat. Women of the Sun’s 2024 budget is approximately $100,000, and Women Wage Peace’s budget is approximately $1 million, according to the organizations’ representatives.

Women’s groups are more likely to be effective during negotiations and during the implementation of recovery programs when they have access to external funding. During the peace process between Sudan and South Sudan, for example, South Sudanese women were highly mobilized as delegates, but some had to pause their involvement so they could go back to earning money.

In addition to funding, democratic countries have a role to play by insisting on women’s participation in negotiations, said M.H. of the Women of the Sun. She and other peacebuilders say that the United States and the United Nations should be more active in promoting women as counterparts, negotiators, and experts.

“By will, things can happen,” M.H. told Foreign Policy “And if the US says it [that women should be involved in negotiations], it can happen.”.

Talks convened by Qatar, the United States, and Egypt to end the conflict between Hamas and Israel are underway. These countries and other regional players—including Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority, have previously created national action plans that recognize the unique impact of war on women and their crucial role in promoting peace, culminating in 107 countries worldwide forming national action plans to empower women.

Still, news coverage reveals little or no evidence of efforts by these countries to promote women’s participation in the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The U.S. State Department is “working to ensure the expertise of women from civil society and in government is incorporated in any process related to the current conflict in Gaza,” wrote a spokesperson in an email.

If the political will for participation exists, both Israelis and Palestinians have a robust list of women advocates from which to draw for official and nonofficial negotiations and discussions. A diverse list of 12 Israeli and Palestinian women who are qualified to participate in negotiations was provided by the 1325 Project run by members of  Women Lawyers for Social Justice—known in Israel as Itach Ma’aki—to the U.S. Embassy and other embassies and international bodies.

“At least one person will be engaging in Track 2 and 3 efforts, and she was approached through us by an international body,” said 1325 project co-director Netta Loevy, referring to nonofficial negotiations and consultations.

Braudo-Bahat, meanwhile, urged policymakers to involve women in discussions now—not after violence ends. “The day after the war is yesterday … we need to start now,” she said.

Back in Gaza, the water tastes like poison; it’s freezing, and Awad, the 24-year-old nonprofit worker, keeps losing weight. She asked almost a dozen Gazan women leaders what they think should happen to resolve the war and to ensure that women participate in negotiations.

No one could give her an answer. They were busy responding to humanitarian needs, and telecommunication and internet services were out.

“Nothing has changed, but what can we do about it? All we can do is waiting and praying for this to end,” Awad wrote to Foreign Policy through WhatsApp, which only works for her about once every four days.

Iriqat, the Arab American University professor, has one wish: “That someone considers that if women are in charge, and involved, a more strategic agreement could hold.”

[bonefall]

Have you thought about in-universe explanations for why Crowfeather (infected king!) was the only member of the Sundrown patrol to receive an Honor Title? Especially Tawnypelt, because I recall you mentioning she was leading the patrol at one point! In a perfect world I imagine they'd probably all get one, but I figure you can't just go around changing major character's names willy nilly like that.

In a perfect world the names would all become Honor Titles but yeah I try to avoid renames. I COULD be convinced to giving Tawnypelt an Honor Title though.

If I gave her an honor title it would be something like Tawnytreader, Sunsetchaser, or Sunsetter. It's in reference to how she eventually leads the Great Journey west through the mountain, towards the setting sun INSTEAD of directly North to the Lake, so that the Clans could meet with and get supplies from the Tribe of Rushing Water. Her leadership of the Sundrown Patrol and leading the Clans during the Great Journey makes her an immediate hero.

Brambleclaw probably gave up his Honor Title purposefully. He hesitated when Firestar was in the snare, and Mothwing leapt out of a bush to free the dying leader. He's ashamed of his inaction, so I think it's actually very poignant of him to say;

"I understand why you're taking away my deputyship... may I also ask for you to take this title from me?"

"But why, Northheart? You want to become Brambleclaw again?"

"...I was happy to have broken from his legacy, at first. But now I don't think I ever will. I think I need to be reminded of where I came from, or else I'll put it too far behind me."

Like, really drive home that what I'm doing here with Bramble is a tragedy. Everyone WANTS him to get better, to be good at self-reflecting and make good choices. They want so badly for him to break free of his father's association and be a positive representation of his powerful bloodline. Be he never does.

It doesn't bring him joy to be the way he is. And there's times he's so, so close to realizing that he should stay away from power. But time and time again, GIVING him that power is a mistake, and on his end, he always takes it.

"Northheart" isn't as punchy as it could be though. I have to think about it...

(Especially since I like how in canon, the "bramble claws protect the camp" prophecy could have applied to Thornclaw just as well. Maybe I'll change it so it could have applied to Brackenfur somehow)

Small recap: after their deaths, every member of the patrol is exalted and will become Directional Patrons. The two tagalongs also get associations.

Tawnypelt: West, towards the Ocean

Crowfeather: East, towards the Wilderness

Brambleclaw: North, towards the Lake

Feathertail: South, towards the Tribe

Stormfur: Patron of those who Leave (he is not joining StarClan though, these prayers go, symbolically, unanswered.)

Squirrelflight: Patron of Missions, most often invoked for Salt Patrols.

Stormfur didn't get a title because the leader at the time was Leopardstar. She wasn't very reverant of the mission to begin with, and Stormfur never returns to RiverClan after she let him be exiled by the False Sign.

Squilf actually does have an Honor Title-esque name in Clanmew! It's Pishkafsheek; "Red Squirrel Soars (like a bird of prey)." "Sheek" isn't regularly used to describe prey movements.

[kaylinalexanderbooks]

Heads up seven up

Wow these certainly build up when you're not consistently drafting/making large edits, don't they!

Not to worry! Replying to everyone at once!! Because I'm unfortunately the kind of person who wants to reply to everyone who tags me no matter how late...despite most of y'all probably forgetting completely about this...

The thing is, I was setting this up when I didn't think my break for world building would be *checks calendar* yikes, a few months?! And I'm not even anywhere near done?? So after finding a stopping point, I went back to revising TSP. Thank God.

And it didn't seem fair to stop keeping track of these. So here it is: all tags I've gotten for this game since March! See below.

Thanks to *DEEP INHALE* @mk-writes-stuff here, here, and here, @morriguscrawls here, @sleepywriter00 here and here, @late-to-the-fandom here, @hallowedfury here,

@andyswritings here, @winterandwords here, and here, @talesofsorrowandofruin here, @buffythevampirelover here, @chauceryfairytales here and here,

@romances-not-tragedies here and here, @dyrewrites here and here, @aziz-reads here and here, @eccaiia here and here, @serotoninshift here,

@space-writes here, @i-can-even-burn-salad here, @willtheweaver here and here, @melpomene-grey here, @cwritesfiction here,

@awritingcaitlin here, here, and here, @gracehosborn here, @duckingwriting here and here, @theprissythumbelina here, @leahnardo-da-veggie here,

@drchenquill here, @somethingclevermahogony here and here, @elsie-writes here and here, @honeybewrites here and here, @bookish-karina here,

@evilgabe29 here, @emabatis here, @mundanemoongirl here, @mysticstarlightduck here and here, @thepeculiarbird here,

And finally... @sarandipitywrites here!

Love y'all

Rules 1: post the last seven lines you wrote/edited

Alright so I actually got two different versions of this. The original purpose of the game (cast majority), and a new one (only a few).

Rules 2: post seven facts about your world

Version One - last seven lines

Alium's Earth rotates the opposite direction, meaning the sun goes from west to east.

This is the last bit of the add-on to Robbie vs Jason:

From The Secret Portal Part One (Robbie POV)

To be fair, I don’t pay attention most of the time, and I was focused on punching Jason. “But he did this!” Jason protested, pointing at the Jason-sized dent. Ms. Loudermilk reached inside her classroom and then pulled out a bag of sports balls. “Thank you, Isana,” Ms. Bradley said. “That’s not all, miss!” Jason interjected. “He also glowed and threw me across the hall and made the lights flicker!”

Version Two - seven facts

Alium's calendar only has six days in a week.

Alium is divided into 10 Sectors.

Alii children get their powers when they are ten years old.

Alium and Ceteri were two separate universes that crashed into each other, forming trillions of portals throughout the universe.

There are 20 powers in the Alii database, though two more are found throughout the series.

It is common practice for Alii children take the surname of the parent with the higher-Level power, or how many subpowers an Alii has. If it's equal, the Alii with the greater Class, or rarity, typically passes down their surname. If both are the same, the parents will usually hyphenate.

KEEPING THE TAG OPEN

TSP intro

TSP tag list (ask to be +/-): @thepeculiarbird @illarian-rambling @televisionjester @finchwrites

@nebula--nix @literarynecromancy @honeybewrites @the-golden-comet

[darkmagyk]

Thirty, Flirty, and Thriving

In honor of his 30th Birthday, have a fic about Percy Jackson's 14th Anniversary. Check it out here on AO3.

Percy had been a morning person for a very long time. He thought it was probably something to do with being an East Coaster in his heart. And that connection between the beach and the sunrise. He and Frederick had had a conversation about that, once, about how much they both disliked watching the sun set over the ocean, knowing in their veins it should be the other way around. There was a reason neither of them lived in California anymore, after all.

He was alone in that, at least in his bedroom, however. Frederick Chase had thought that the sun should rise over the ocean, not set on it. But he didn't much want to see it, except for on very special occasions. And his daughter was the same.

Annabeth was a night owl. Because of course she was, what else would she be? A lark? He suppressed a laugh at the idea of calling her that, careful not to wake her as he rolled out of bed. She needed her beauty rest. It was a Friday, but she'd taken the day off, and he intended to let her sleep in, just like she preferred.

She deserved it. Working so hard, and all that.

He didn't ever work on Fridays. His classes were all on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and he preferred to do research at home on Mondays and Wednesdays. Sometimes, he got dragged to campus because of a departmental meeting, but he'd made it pretty clear to the chair that he saw his academic career connected to a university as a fun hobby, and if they tried to drag him a second longer away from his family that he was okay with, he'd leave it behind in a second for stay-at-home-dad-hood, or at least independent scholarship or a school that would give a classics prodigy everything he wanted. So they were pretty decent about not pushing for committees that did meet on Fridays, or when he wanted to be elsewhere. Who knew being a demigod made you such a hot commodity in the world of academia?

He had a plan though, because it was not just any Friday, it was a very special Friday. And he wanted to celebrate it like it deserved.

But he was a little surprised, when he got to the kitchen at 6:30 in the morning, to find what had been spotless when he'd gone to bed, now very much not that. There was a pile of flour on the counter nearest him, and something else on the kitchen island that might have been sugar. There was melted butter all over the cookie sheet. The sink was full of two of his stand mixer bowls, a shield--the baking kind, not the weapon kind, though that had happened once before--and the dough hook and whisk, plus two wooden spoons and two more normal mixing bowls.

“What are you doing up so early?” Junie demanded. She kept repositioning herself, trying to stand in front of the stand mixer, which is clearly going on, and shooting looks out of the corner of her eye at her little sister. The secret message being sent was apparently being understood, because Lucie was standing in front of the ovens, trying to raise her hands, presumably so Percy could not see what cooking was happening.

Behind Junie, on the counter, about a third of a bottle of blue food coloring was leaking onto the granite. He once again applauded his wife’s choice to go with the blue marble.

“I’m always up this early,” he pointed out, he glanced between them. “You aren’t, though.”

“I am,” Lucie chimed in.

“I know you are; I’m surprised you're not watching your cartoons.” Lucie, all of seven, was all Annabeth. Blonde curls and gray eyes and a warrior’s cunning. But in her sleeping habits, she was all him. That was one of his favorite things about having kids, picking out the pieces of him and Annabeth, and learning all about the awesome people they created together.

“This is more important than cartoons,” Lucie said.

“What are you doing?”

“Lucie,” Junie snapped, mouth tight.

Lucie snapped her mouth closed.

Percy looked between the two of them, going back and forth to see if either of them would crack.

They were holding up admirably well.

But though they were legacies of Athena, with all the wisdoms and battle acumen that might have afforded them, Percy had a work around.

Even wisdom had to bow to strength, sometimes. So, Percy walked up to Lucie, who looked up at him, staring at him gilessly. The eyes of a little girl who could steal from a gift shop and not even feel bad about it. He loved his kids so much.

He reached down, hooked his arms under her arms, and lifted.

The reaction was instant. She shrieked. Her kicks were not wild flailing, but rather well aimed and deliberate. Which was actually to his advantage, as it meant he could anticipate them a little bit, and tense up as he turned and set her back down.

“Shh, you don’t want to wake your mama or your sisters,” he said lightly, while he peered into the oven. He had already guessed it was a cake. He could only sort of make out the cake through the little window, in the dim yellow light. But it was clearly blue.

“Junie,” He said, not looking away from the oven, “would you please make sure the food coloring doesn’t drip on the floor?”

She gasped a little bit, and by the time he straightened back up. She was ripping a wad of paper towels from the under counter holder.

“It was supposed to be a surprise.” Lucie said.

“Well, I’ve got to make Mama her breakfast.”

“It’s your birthday, shouldn’t she make it for you?” Junie asked.

Percy raised an eyebrow, and Junie nodded, conceding his point. Annabeth Jackson was one of the most amazing people to ever have existed. She could slay monsters and fell giants and design monuments and lead armies and kiss booboos and sew historically accurate high medieval princess dresses from late Byzantium. But she could not cook.

“Right,” Junie said, and then she started nodding. “Exactly, Mama can’t cook. So, she never makes you breakfast, or special treats for your birthday, like you do for all of us.”

“So you two decided to make me a cake?”

“Yeah,” Lucie said, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Happy birthday, Daddy.”

“Thank you, Birdie.” She grinned up at him. She was missing a tooth. It was horribly adorable.

“Happy birthday, Dad,” Junie said, with much less enthusiasm.

“What’s wrong, Honey Dew?” She frowned at the childish nickname. Because his baby had just turned ten two weeks ago.

“It was supposed to be a surprise,” she said. “A special surprise.”

“It’s both,” he assured her. He kept a hold of Lucie but shuffled over to Junie, hugging her after turning off the stand mixer. The buttercream was more like sweet, blue butter at this point. But that was alright. They should probably wait until the cake had cooled before worrying about frosting. “Thank you for thinking of me.” He ruffled each of their sets of curls, and held them close. They were so grown up now. Able to wake up early and make a mess in the kitchen.

The smell of baking was filling the air, and it smelled like they’d probably done it mostly right.

“You’re welcome, Daddy,” Lucie said.

“Tell me about how you got the idea.”

“It was mine,” Junie said, her mother’s daughter, always eager for credit for her brilliant ideas. It had already cost her two schools, which was a lot for a rising fifth grader, though not quite his record. So he counted it as a win. “We’ve been having Mia teach us.”

“That was very nice of Mia,” Percy said. He really had hoped, after ten years, his mother would have gotten over her deep resentment over having a grandchild before she was forty, which had resulted in her absolute refusal to be called anything with the slightest hint of Gran in it.

Some of the skepticism must have leaked into his voice.

“I’m allowed in the kitchen unsupervised,” Junie said defensively.

“I’m pretty sure there was more to that agreement,” Percy said, chief among them being ‘the ten-year-old does not count as supervision for her little sisters.’ Though that was kind of in a gray area with Lucie, who just needed to not get distracted around heat. It wasn’t like they were worried about knives and their kids, after all. “But you’re not in trouble, baby, I promise. I am so happy you did this for me. But I am going to need help cleaning up. And then we’ll re-make some butter cream. And then you can start helping me prep the olives for Mama’s anniversary breakfast?”

At 9:30, he was something like done with breakfast. The spread of homemade cinnamon rolls, bacon, sausage, quiche, and olives were all laid out on multiple trays.

Left her to own devices, Annabeth would have liked to sleep later, but he knew she wouldn’t be. He went back into their bedroom, Junie and Lucie carrying other things, to find her sitting up in bed. Sophia in her lap and Thalassa next to her, the three of them acting out a Greek tragedy with stuffies.

“Happy Anniversary,” he said. Reminding Lucie to put the giant tray of Olives on the bedside table and Junie to set the rest of the quiche down and go get more plates so they could all eat together.

They settled in together, the six of them, sitting on the bed to eat breakfast. Their bedding was going to require a lot of washing when this was over. But that was okay, because fiber crafts were just one of Annabeth’s many talents. She was great with laundry. Everyone had cinnamon rolls, Thalassa got cream cheese icing in her hair, and Sophia sucked on a piece of bacon, while Junie and Lucie recounted their cake decorating adventure. Percy had to leave at one point to get another jar of olives. Proof, he thought, of how much he loved his girls.

When he got back, they had all shifted enough that he was able to sit right next to Annabeth. She leaned into him as Junie used the stuffed animals to explain the Allied powers' aviation strategy during World War II, because she spent a lot of time with her grandfather.

He felt Annabeth’s hand start fishing for his, and he grasped it, squeezing tightly. “Happy fourteenth anniversary.” Percy whispered, turning his head to plant a kiss on her close-cropped curls.

“Happy thirtieth birthday.” Annabeth replied.

“Best one yet.”

“You say that every year.”

“It's true every year,” Percy said, “every single birthday since my sixteenth has been getting better and better.”

“Well, I’m hoping this one can get better. I have plans, and they involve your favorite foods that I can buy from restaurants in New York City, and a Moana/Finding Nemo double feature, and my dad taking the girls for five hours after lunch.”

“Better and better, like I said.”

Something Junie had said caused Thalassa to break out into a pile of giggles. Not wanting to be left out, Sophia copied her.

Percy felt it in his heart, all of this. Happiness and love, and his perfect family.

“Happy birthday to me,” He whispered to himself before joining in the laugh.

[indieyuugure]

Wait,how much time have spent in the story from Chapter 1 to 12?!

I remembered Leo said 2k12 Leo was infected by krang just six hours ago

From chapter 1 to chapter 12 is roughly 20 hours.

Their birthday party is obviously sometime at night. Leo says that they had pizza for dinner and cake, so their party probably was an hour or so. While they’re out on the roof tops you can clearly see it’s nighttime, maybe 10 or 11pm. A few hours after that, let’s say 1 am, they discover the Kraang and fall into the Rise Universe.

Leo states that it’s probably around the same time there as back home, so they only will have about 4-5 hours or so until sunrise. They meet the Rise turtles, and after some pizza end up crashing in one of their room for the rest of the night. Well, accept for Leo and Raph, who probably only slept for 20 to 30 minutes before going off on their next adventure.

You can see in this page that the sun is rising from the East. It’s probably around 5-6am when the harbor get’s blown up.

While that’s happening, Mikey and Donnie even say that they haven’t been sleeping for that long, and that it’s about morning.

Later when 12 April and Casey meet Rise Leo, she explains basically everything I just said. “They disappeared sometime last night after their birthday party. We thought they had gone home, but this morning we discovered that they hadn’t been back since we last saw them.”

A short while after that, the Donnies meet up with Casey Leo and April and you can see in this cut to a little blurb of Draxum that it’s the insufferably early hour of 9am.

There aren’t many clues to infer durning Leo and Raph’s fight, but as the author I will tell you that it’s 10am when they get their mystic weapons and another hour until they get to the abandoned subway station. Their fight doesn’t actually last that long, maybe 10 to 15mins, but it’s very action packed. A little while after that and the others come. So we’ll say it’s maybe 11 ish when it cuts to them on the train headed for Splinter April and Casey’s location.

Splinter states that they’ve been waiting over and hour for them to come. They were most likely supposed to meet there at the same time and Rise Donnie admits that in addition to poor scheduling, they also had a few “technical difficulties” (12 Raph and Leo). By now it’s 1 or 2 in the afternoon, and they’re plotting their next move.

When Donnie is talking with Splinter about Leo’s issues, he estimates that the pills he gives Splinter will last a few hours, so you assume that the entirety of the TCRI debacle was 3 to 4 hours.

A little after that, you can see in this panel that the sun is up in the sky, though not quite perfectly, it’s early afternoon and there’s a storm brewing. (If I’m totally honest I fudged the sun a little because it looks cooler like this)

Once again, there are very few clues as to the amount of time that has passed during their adventure in TCRI. And even afterwards it’s hard to tell because of the heavy storm. I will just say that they spend roughly 4 hours there. This is including the time it took to get there, the time inside, and the time after when the building explodes and 12 Mikey is gone.

Chapter 10: Retribution spans approximately and hour and a half. The bit you mentioned is in Retribution

Rise Leo is clueing you in on how long it’s been since 12 Leo was under Krang’s control, and also flabbergasted by the fact that it’s been such a short amount of time and Leo is already on his feet trying to save the day. Of course he doesn’t know about Healing Hands, hence why he takes Leo’s exhaustion as he’s in pain.

After the Leos get’s back with Mikey, it’s sunset, around 7pm. It’s not super obvious in Retribution, but by the beginning of Hell on Earth the sky is washed in sunset colors and you can see the sun setting in the west in the backgrounds.

The Crystal Shards is basically just a continuation of of Hell on Earth with not that much time passing between them.

I don’t usually make a ton of references to the exact time in my stories, but there are lots of ways you can sort of guess what time it is and how long it’s been. I won’t say I make it easy though🤣

Good question! :]

[talonabraxas]

Orion's belt aligned with the Giza pyramids. Al Nitak points to the Great Pyramid. The gods left many signs using mathematics and astronomy, especially those signs built into the Great Pyramid.

Lions Gate Portal 8/8

August 8th, known as the Lions Gate, has been revered for several thousand years as the date that marks the peak of an influx of high-frequency energy onto planet Earth from the star Sirius, which is in its closest proximity to earth from July 26th through August 12th – the full period of the Lions Gate opening or Galactic New Year. Second in brightness only to the sun, to Ancient Egyptians this star was revered as their “Spiritual Sun” and referred to as Auset’s star Sopdet – Spdt, meaning “she who is sharp.”

The Lions Gate is the annual season when Spdt comes into her most pristine alignment with Re [the Sun], Geb [the Earth], and Sah – the Hunter constellation identified with ancient Egypt’s King Ausar – called Orion in Greek. During this cosmic portal, Sopdet – the spiritual Sun – emits an ancient activating energy so powerful as to cause the annual inundation which has sustained Nile River Valley communities over several millennia, whilst spurring the collective ascension of human consciousness throughout earth – the land or house of Geb/Keb. As God Djehuti proclaimed, “If the truth must be told, this land is indeed THE TEMPLE OF THE WORLD…” The August 8th peak of the Lions Gate is when Sopdet is said to perfectly align with the shaft from Queen Auset’s Chamber within the Great Pyramid of Giza, in concert with that from King Ausar’s Chamber aligning with Alnitak, one of the three stars of the Hunter constellation’s belt. Known as the “3 Wise Men” or the “3 Sisters,” these three stars form the cosmic blueprint from which the complex known as the Pyramids of Giza was built.

“As above, so below… As within, so without” are codes which remain key to Kemet’s ancient Mystery System. Thus, the Nile River represents the Milky Way (called Maziwa Mkuu in Kiswahili, meaning ‘great milk’) on earth ‘below’ as in heaven ‘above’. Two lions are said to hold open this magnificent time-space portal, one of which is represented by the Great Sphinx whose figure is an earthly representation of the constellation of Leo and a key piece of the puzzle of relationships within the Milky Way galaxy ‘above & below’. Lying on the west bank of the Nile river, the Great Sphinx is poised with its tail to the west [where the sun exits] as it faces directly east towards the sun’s reentry. The Lions Gate [7/26 – 8/12] opens within the astrological season of Leo, adding to the influx of regal energy from the alignment between Earth and the Universe’s Galactic Center, which reaches its peak on 8/8 over African soil. It is a powerful reminder of Heaven-on-Earth’s potency, symbolized ‘within & without’ through the quintessential Divine Love that exists between cosmic Hunter Ausar and his earthly Gatherer, Throne Queen, and Spiritual Sun – Auset.

According to the mythology of Ausar-Auset, in a jealous bid to usurp their Heaven-on-Earth throne, Set murders King Ausar, dismembering his body into 14 parts and scattering them in the wilderness [African Diaspora] so as to prevent his resurrection and return. Set the antagonist is god of chaos, foreign oppressors, violence, perversion, illness, and the desert who caused Egypt to be widowed of the gods and humanity to be trapped in his false predatory & parasitic matrix. After widow Auset searches the wilderness and manages to retrieve and mummify only 13 of her husband’s mutilated body parts, it is up to Heru, her posthumously/immaculately-conceived son with King Ausar, to become the Warrior who avenges his father’s fate and restores divine order to the kingdom by defeating Set…

Pyramid texts speak of Heru as the Great Lion: “Horus who comes forth from the acacia to whom it was commanded: ‘Beware of the lion’. May he come forth to whom it was commanded: ‘Beware of the lion’.” [Pyramid Text 436a-b]

Africa’s Acacia tree, which is sacred to goddess Auset, has long been associated with ancient mysteries including the secrets to life, death, healing, sustenance, and resurrection – hence their organic ties to matriarchal goddesses. Linked to the Akashic Records, the astral ancestral library where everything that has or will ever occur is recorded, the Acacia trees in Heliopolis were thought to have been the birthplace of the very first deities. Heliopolis (called On in Lower Egypt), was the ancient worship center of sun-god Re whose celestial boat was made of Acacia wood in its hind parts (palm wood in its fore-parts). The mythologies of Ausar-Auset are Heliopolitan in their derivation and orientation, e.g. the reference to Ausar as ‘the one in the tree… the solitary one in the acacia.’ This saying was based on the version of their story in which Auset releases her husband’s body from a pillar in Byblos [a prophecy relating to the scripted bible?] that had been fashioned out of the tree which enclosed the coffin King Ausar had been tricked into entering as Set’s ploy to usurp/colonize Egypt’s throne. Symbolizing the immortality of the soul in Freemasonry, the thorny acacia tree otherwise represents Ausar’s backbone, depicted as the Djed Pillar in this particular mythological account.

Trees act as resurrection portals and/or gateways between worlds in ancient Egyptian Mysteries, such as the Sycamores (associated with goddesses Nut & Hathor) through which Re rises as the Sun each day from the east: “I know the two sycamores of turquoise between which Re comes forth, when he passes over the supports of Shu to the gate of the lord of the east from which Re comes forth” [Book of the Dead: Ch. 109]. Auset & Nepthys were regarded similarly as “the two Acacias.” Thus, these Mother Trees act as do the two lions which hold open the portal for the “Spiritual Sun” Sopdet to rise as the consort of Sah during the Lions Gate season, in order to usher forth the blessings of the Galactic New Year with the annual inundation of the Nile River. Their child, hawk god Heru-Sopdu is referred to as ��Lord of the East,” thus presaging mythologies surrounding the Ausar-Auset-Heru trinity as archetypal personifications of key spiritual motifs that connect us organically to our higher selves… “As above, so below.”

“As within, so without” is a principle that plays out in the eternal relationship that exists between Ausar-Auset, their love representing a Heaven-on-Earth divine order, which is interrupted by the chaos that Set’s predatory & parasitic rule brings, i.e. until Heru is able to successfully accomplish his Hero’s Journey and restore Ma’at/UbuNtu… unity-consciousness. For Africa, the earthly source and staging of these love-as-salvation narratives, Set is representative of a false matrix built on slavery, (neo)colonialism, apartheid, misogyny, misogynoir, etc. – controlling foreign narratives which have in-formed external elite-run global systems & misled most of humanity into profound states of isolation, alienation, disconnection, and disorientation from organic & natal bonds. Heru – “[the Lion] who comes forth from the acacia…” [Pyramid Text 436a-b] – thus has his work cut out for him.

Again, in this case the acacia reference represents a fascinating organic matriarchal portal between worlds for Heru as a human prototype resident in each of those who do not entertain predatory or parasitic relationships of dysfunctional dependency [read “slavery… apartheid… (neo)colonialism… misogyny… misogynoir…”], but strategically translated into self-referential Europatriarchal scripture as mankind’s singular “savior” [Jesus]. Deep inside Africa – the regal lion‘s natal home – the acacia tree itself has a characteristic dome-shaped canopy due to the way indigenous giraffes graze, which they have to do carefully because the acacia senses this feeding activity and releases tannin, a defensive poison that can kill from the overgrazing of its leaves. The acacia then emits ethylene on the wind, a chemical that alerts other acacia trees to preemptively defend themselves against “predators” by producing tannin also. DMT, a hallucinogen associated with spiritual experiences, is present in various species of the tree such as the Acacia Nilotica.

The Lions Gate represents so much to so many, especially during this dramatic period of humanity’s ascension in 2020 (Gregorian timeline). Feline power, highly revered in Kemet, is front and center as the astrological symbol for Leo and also as the identity of the African goddess annointed as “Opener of Heaven’s Door.” Among her other titles, Goddess Seshat – “Foremost of the per-Ankh” – is also known as the “Panther Goddess” and “She of Seven Points” in reference to her highly emblematic dress and crown, respectively. Appropriated by Europatriarchs in their design of Lady Liberty following America’s post-Civil War end of slavery, Seshat‘s 7-pointed crown has symbolically countered the racist & misogynistic tendencies of false 3D matrix systems. Seshat‘s traditional panther-skin dress returns our consciousness to humanity’s African source and the need to descramble & purge predatory Victorian-era matrix codes which, during the receding Piscean era, morphed into parasitic neo-colonial arrangements, hijacking the human spirit and its potential. These & other ancient unity-conscious codes [UbuNtu] are key to human ascension and Heaven-on-Earth reparations in the dawning age of Ma’at... “Return, return, O Shulamite; return that we may look upon thee…” [SoS 6:13] “Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.” [Rev. 3:11] Blessed Be…

[its-in-the-woods]

The Woman Who Couldn’t Die Part 2

master list

Part 1

Pairing: The Ghoul/Cooper Howard x Original Character 

Alternative Universe where I make things up cause I can only research so much

Synopsis: Set a few years before Dom Pedro gets a hold of the Ghoul. The Ghoul is traveling back from the east coast, doing side quests for chems, after saving a girl from a closet. She becomes an unlikely companion, that softens the Ghoul’s hardshell.

MINOR GET OUT. Rating/Warning: This is based on fallout expect Canon typical: Drug use, alcohol, dEath, graphic viOlence, suggestions of SA, NonCon (not by the mc) suggestions of SH, body horror, angst, hurt/comfort, death or people, drugs and alcohol use, addiction, withdrawal symptoms, slow build,

Note: These will be spaced out as I am heavily editing and researching them. Each chapter will be 2-3+k words. Tags will be edited based on the chapter, please make sure you read them.

 He heard her body slump down as she nodded it off, being someone’s chauffeur wasn’t on his list, even if the caps and chems sweetened the deal The girl, Jade his mind autocorrected, was going to be more than deadweight. How the hell had she managed to catch up to him? She had sat down and passed out moments after coming into the little makeshift shelter. The best thing would be to let her sleep and leave. She will die if you leave her here. 

“Oh thanks for coming to my rescue conscience,” The Ghoul muttered to no one, “I don’t do guide work.”

She made it this far

“And? Chance are she won’t wake up tomorrow.” The Ghoul ground his jaw, since when did he give a mole’s backside about anyone?

Give her chance

“Fine. If she wakes up I will take her to the closest town.” The Ghoul muttered covering his face with his hat. “Leave me alone, before I smoke your ass out of my head.”

He waited for a reply but got none, letting out a huff he settled his gun in his hand and le t himself drift into something resembling sleep.

***

She woke with a start, someone kicking at her feet. Sitting up she blinked a few times, eyes still not used to being outside the box. Letting out a cough she moved her bag around to her and dug out some water. Take a swig of it before looking up at the figure standing in what passed at a doorway. 

“Time to get going, the sun is up.” The Ghoul murmured just loud enough she could hear him. 

Standing she swayed back and forth, the aches in her bones making her stiffen for a moment. Jade wondered if she’d be able to walk, she pushed the thought out of her mind. You either walk or you die, she thought. 

Her travel companion was already on the move, her feet felt heavy but she pushed herself after him. Until she was beside him, matching his hurried pace as best she could. The bag on her back dug into old scars and bruises, she winced as her feet slid into the shoes. Trying to keep the discomfort to herself. There was not a doubt in her mind that if she didn’t keep up he’d leave her in dirt. Payment or not he was on the move. Her stomach turned and she promptly threw up on the side of the road. She wiped her mouth taking a small swig of water, before hurrying to catch up to him. 

“Could you tell me where we are?” She asked, maybe the conversation would help take her mind off the pain and endless nausea. 

The Ghoul glanced at her, “West, Appalachian somewhere.”

“Shit. I didn’t realize how far they’d take me.” Jade cussed, her mind reeling at the knowledge she was hundreds of miles from the East Coast. 

“We are heading west, if you want to go east you’ll have to turn around.” His matter-of-fact tone was almost funny. 

“Nah, I’ve always wanted to go west,” She said trying to sound confident. The truth of the matter was she didn’t really know where to go. It wasn’t like anyone was waiting for her. The chance of the Enclave looking for her still was low, she was a failed experiment. Jade figured the value of her life wasn’t worth much more than the caps she’d give the bounty hunter. At least she was alive, for now anyway.

“I never got your name,” Jade asked, the silenes grinding at her, somehow making every part of her that hurt, hurt more. Stomach rolling, she briefly wondered if the small amount of water she’d drank would be coming up next. 

“Ghoul is fine,” The man’s choppy replies should have been enough of an indication to shut up. Not that Jade cared, she’d paid him, and the least he could do was talk to her. 

“That’s not name, not really. You have to be called something else.” Jade pestered, adjusting her bag so it didn’t dig in as much. 

The Ghoul sighed, and shifted his shoulder, “Well that’s all yer gettin’ ”

Jade inwardly groaned, great this was going to be a long trip with Chatty-Cathay here. She decided at least for the time being to keep her mouth shut and keep walking. Hopefully, she won’t lose anything else she’d eaten on the way. 

***

The sun was starting to set when they stopped to make camp, the Ghoul had tucked them off the main roadway. A small fire was started and cans of cram tossed in to heat up. They had barely spoken just walking, the bounty hunter would have just kept walking through the night if he thought his travel companion would have made it. The woman had thrown up twice more since this morning, her hands shaking every time she took a sip of water. At least she had managed to keep down the last bit of food they ate. Girl had started to lag behind near the end of the evening, he wasn’t surprised she hadn't kept up. He could see how pale she was as she flopped onto the ground. This girl had been locked in a closet yesterday for god knows how long and now had walked a dozen miles in a day. Maybe she was tougher than his initial observation. 

Flicking a can of cram out of the fire at her, she was holding her water bottle staring off into the fire. He took a moment to look at her, she was fair-skinned with black hair and huge brown eyes. Her features were marred by scars but still delicate, she was small but there was fire in her. Few people kept up with him when he was moving, at least he figured she'd make it to the next town. 

“Eat some food, got to get some sleep,” He gestured to the now cooling can of cram. “If we keep up the pace we will make it to the next town in another two days.”

Jade grabbed the can and opened it, “Two days is pretty good, do you know what the town is called?”

“Couldn’t tell you, but I am sure they will.” He murmured eating his food. “What are you planning on doing there?”

“I am not sure, probably look for work I suppose,” Jade said still staring at the dying fire.

“Not sure how big this next place is,” Ghoul replied, “But there is always work for those looking to make caps.”

Jade nodded, “I was a bartender in Atlantic for a bit. Pay was okay but they also gave me a room. Won’t mind doing that again.”

“How did you,” Ghoul stopped himself, gesturing into open space as he looked at her.

“Joel kidnapped me,” Jade answered as if it was nothing, “He knew I had been experimented on in the Enclave. Guess he figured I would be a good toy, and not have to worry about the consequences.”

Knowing she had survived being in the Enclove and was still sane. Mostly sane. Just to be kidnapped by the pieces of shit at that outpost and she still kept moving. Jade was much more than he had given her credit for.

“Consequences?” He asked, already having an idea what she meant. What he wasn’t expecting was for her to stand up and lift up the baggy shirt to point at the raised pinkish-grey scar going across her lower abdomen. Her whole torso was covered in various scars, some looked surgical in nature. 

“Don’t have to worry about me getting pregnant from their clients,” She stated matter of factly before dropping it back down. “Means they can charge more.”

The Ghoul felt his stomach turn at the thought, that Joel had purposefully taken her cause she had had her reproductive organs removed. Just so he could charge more for people to use her.

“Too bad I am a fighter, bit off a few people's ears, and ripped a guy's throat out once. So they kept me drugged, which I guess was a gift 'cause I don’t remember too much.” Jade continued, her calm even voice was stark compared to the horrors she told. “One guy was stupid enough to go in without drugging, watched him bleed out on the floor dickless.”

The Ghoul couldn’t help a harsh laugh at the last one. “You are more than I anticipated.”

Jade shrugged, “Kill or be killed. One of the only things my Daddy instilled in me.”

“Your Daddy was a smart man. I am surprised they didn’t kill you for killing their clients.” The Bounty Hunter said, tossing his empty tin into the now-dead fire. 

“Nah, piece of shit just used it to their advantage. Advertising me as being untamed.” She spit out adding her can to the pile. 

Ghoul nodded, her lack of emotion around the whole situation was worrying. The girl could be close to a mental break. The wasteland was hard on most people who hadn't been through half of what she had. Yet she sat there like it was just another Tuesday. 

“Should get some sleep,” The Ghoul stated, kicking out the last of the fire.

“I can take a watch,” Jade offered, pulling her bag against her chest.

The Ghoul settled down his old bones creaking as he stretched out. He tapped the side of his head, “Got good hearing.  Get some sleep, long day tomorrow.” 

Jade didn't argue, just curled up with her head resting on her bag. He waited until her breathing had evened out before shutting his own eyes.

***

The second day of traveling together went much the same. Mostly silence, with a few interjections of, ‘Drink some water’, ‘Take another stimpak’, ‘Your boots’re loud’, and Jade's favorite, ‘Keep up or I’ll leave yah’. At least the sun had been mostly off them, the trees in the Appalachian mountains made sure of that. She also had only thrown up once, which hopefully meant the worst of the withdrawals were coming to an end. 

By the time they set up camp, Jade was ready to stab the asshole. She flunked down and got the fire started. The Ghoul had wandered away to ‘take a leak’. As she worked the pile of sticks into a good flame she dug into her bag to grab a can of food. She wanted food and some water, it was unfortunate that she had failed to grab some moonshine from the outpost. 

A shuffle broke through the dead quiet. Jade scrambled to get up as her body protested against movement. The pistol pointed towards the sound. More rustling and the Ghoul stumbled out with a large bird-like creature in hand.

“Don't shoot, Pip-Squeak,” He grunted, flunking the carcass onto the dirt. “Found something fresh.”

Jade flopped back down and watched the man. A small smile played across the creature's scared lips. He stepped on both wings grabbing the feet and yanked. Jade cringed slightly as he degloved the meat from the feathered body in one fluid motion. Digging his fingers inside to get the entrails out. He looked up at Jade.

“In my saddle bag, there’s some metal skewers grab’em,” 

Jade didn't hesitate groaning as her joints popped, reaching over into his bag and pulling out the set of skewers. She stood and grabbed a couple of branches, the two working to make a makeshift roaster for the prize. 

Once the meat was roasting he sat himself down taking a puff of the inhaler. Those gold eyes rolling slightly, Jade wondered what the drug felt like. At the same time, bile came up at the thought of drugs. As much as she enjoyed the recreation here and there, it was probably best to avoid them for now. 

“Whatcha looking at?” The Ghoul’s eyes are now on her. Even having been beside him for two days she couldn't help how much he looked like a predator. His eyes flowed over her like she was the meat on the spit.

“Never tried that chem before. It's newer stuff.” Jade stated, trying to sound calm. She felt like a rabbit caught in a corner, her heart rate spiking and her lungs trying to grab air. 

Then his eyes were moving back to the meal, turning it over on the spit. The meat cracked and popped as it cooked. 

“Yeah, the Enclave, well that's the rumor anyway. Made it so that they could keep Ghouls from going feral. Word got out and a few ‘doctors’ started making it.” He poked at the fire. “Thought, in your state I won’t be temptin’ fait.”

Jade waves her hand, “No, I’ve had my fill of chems for a lifetime. But how does it make you feel?”

The Ghould tapped the inhaler against his chin pondering the question. “It enhances everything. But at the same time numbs the mind, makes it quieter up  here.” He tapped his forehead with a leather-gloved hand. “Being a Ghoul makes things enhanced, but it’s more like all my nerves are working as if my brain isn’t full of worms. As close to human as I’ll ever get.”

“Do you miss being human?” Jade prodded, this was the most conversation she had gotten out of him. 

Stretching out he pulled off his gloves, hands red and gnarled like the rest of him, and grabbed a bit of the bird from the screwer. “Can’t say I do, some things,” He tapped a finger to what was left of the bridge of his nose. “But otherwise it’s not such a bad deal.”

Jade nodded, she wasn’t sure what she had expected, her time with Ghouls was limited. They were still mostly shunned, but things were starting to change. Some understanding that Ghouls could be handy and weren’t the monsters that many made them out to be. There were even several settlements of just Ghouls now. 

“Did you ever think of settling down? Not many Ghouls do bounty hunting,” Jade continued grabbing a few chunks of warm bird, blowing on them before eating it. Tasted decent, at least it was warm and not from a can. 

“Mmm, just like to keep moving,” The man replied, Jade got a distinct feeling he wasn’t telling her everything. 

“Never thought of bounty hunting, maybe I will give that a go. Probably safer than bartending.” The girl groaned, eating more of the bird. 

The Ghoul let out a chuckle, “Yah, bounty hunting is safe. Just like radroaches are good eating.”

Jade joins in with a chuckle leaning back against a tree. “See what comes my way. Your ears on?”

He tapped the side of his head and Jade took it as an indication that she could get some rest. Tomorrow would be just as long a day, maybe they’d actually get a bed tomorrow. 

***

The road was well-trodden well-trodded, and evidence of other travelers where starting to pop up. He had mentioned it to Jade to keep her eyes peeled encase they had some unwanted visitors. In fairness he was just happy she was quiet, he hadn’t had a lot of company in his travels. The girl had grown on him, she was tough and didn’t seem to care about the Ghoulness. In fact, she liked to listen to him just as much as she liked to talk, the company was pleasant even enjoyable. Which was going to be a problem, he didn’t need dead weight. But she hadn’t been dead weight, had she? The Ghoul grumbled at his own inner voice, shoving it back into the hole it crawled out of. 

A twigged snap and they both froze. Another snapped on the other side, and the Ghoul found himself back to back with Jade. Guns drawn and pointed, he could feel her breath coming out in short pants. 

“Deep breathes, Tiger,” He said quietly, “if you see something shoot it.”

They moved in tandem turning in a circle trying to see if they could spot whatever was moving in the bush. Something crossed the pathway and Jade fired the shot making a thunk on impact. He didn’t bother to look eyes continuing to scan, something dark moved and he turned firing, a yelp coming out. Then they were on them, raiders, several.  He felt Jade shoot more than heard it, his own gun going off as a mist of blood spurted into the air. The head of one raider turning into a pulp, he felt the impact of something hit his shoulder, but he was already moving. Two more shots, one dead, one screaming. Shells hit the ground as Jade reloaded. He could feel her ducking and followed the same. A deadly dance of gunfire and blood splatter. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Raider jumping from the bushes, he turned covering Jade his knife coming out and sticking into the man’s throat. His hands dropped the weapons as he slid down the blade. A gurgling of icker coming out as he died on the Ghoul’s blade. 

Standing up, the once quiet woods were now littered with several bodies, at least three of them were trying to crawl away. Ghoul watched as Jade walked up to one grabbing his hair to slit his throat, the Ghoul did something similar to one. The third pleaded for his life, but the several holes in his torso said he wouldn’t make it. Jade looked at the Ghoul, he nodded and she put a bullet between his eyes. She stood there almost as if she was seeing the carnage for the first time. Her legs wobbled and the Ghoul caught her under her arms. 

“Easy now, easy,” He muttered helping her down against a large rock. She immediately grabbed her knees and pulled herself into a small ball. 

He knelt down in front of her, “Hey, hey,” He patted her shoulder, unsure of how to comfort her. “They’re dead, you did good.”

The girl’s eyes were glassy as she nodded her head, breath coming out in short pants. Ghoul stood up and let out a sigh, of course, she would snap a few miles from town. 

“I know you are going through shit,” The Ghoul spoke trying to reassure her as she rocked back and forth. “But we got to go, chance are there are more raiders.” The girl was still rocking, but her sniffles had slowed, “We should strip these guys of anything worthwhile and head into town.”

He waited a minute more, once the rocking stopped she uncurled herself. Holding out his hand he pulled her upright, eyes red-rimmed but the hard line of her jaw clenching let him know she was okay. Well as okay as she could be.

 They stripped through the bodies quickly, ammunition, meds, chems, weapons, and a handful of caps. The Bounty Hunter leaned back on his heels. None of them had bags or anything that suggested they had been traveling far. Jade let out a yip, dancing around in a pair of boots that fit. The childlike joy after the breakdown was stark, but welcome. 

“Think we should get moving. Think these were scouts,” He said standing and listening. 

Jade had stuffed a few more things into her bag. Head-on swivel as she moved towards the Ghoul. She stood beside him facing the other way as if they'd done this a hundred times. 

He turned satisfied that nothing was coming from behind them anyway. They both set off at a brisk pace towards what hopefully was somewhere safer than here.��

Part two

*If you enjoy the story let me know! It keeps me writing!

*more to come, this is fully plotted just a lot of editing and additions..

*Find me on AO3 here