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farfromstrange · 2 years

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hi can i request for angst w no comfort, matt murdock fic wherein the reader died i like angst 🥲, specially your work "angel on the roof" thank you !!!

Thank you so much for your request, lovely! I was so excited (that sounds horrible in this context) when I saw it and I was even more excited when I read what you requested (Yeah, it still sounds horrible). Angst is my forte, and I've really been in an angsty mood lately. So, I wrote this in two hours and I cried while writing it. I hope you like it! (And I also hope you're doing okay, sweetheart.) This is not about suicide like the other hurt/no comfort fic, but it still hurts the same. I hope I could live up to your expectations!

Back To December | Matt Murdock x Reader

Masterlist

Pairing: Matt Murdock x Gender Neutral Reader

Summary: He fell for you hard and fast, but all good things eventually slip through Matt Murdock's fingers, and he is left alone all over again.

Warnings: ANGST, hurt/no comfort, Character death, mentions of blood, there's a really creepy guy at the beginning (but no sexual assault!), yeah this is just angsty as fuck

Word Count: 3.2k (I got carried away)

It’s a cold December afternoon. The remains of this week’s snowfall are covering the ground and it’s cold, so cold, but he can barely feel it. Something else, something colder, something far more painful is creeping up his spine. It’s not because his clothes are soaked or the snowflakes that have latched onto his hair. He feels as if the floor has been ripped out under his feet, and it has been a long time since he last felt this way. Loneliness has become his closest companion over time and he got used to always losing and hardly ever winning. Over time, he got used to grieving, he got used to being left, and he got used to a painful hollowness in his chest that eventually started to occur more often. The hole in his chest has always been there, but merely a few days ago it had been somewhat filled.

Matt Murdock has never experienced much happiness in his life. He tried to fight the demons in his head, but eventually, he succumbed to them. He succumbed to the claws that tore at his chest and dragged him down into an endless abyss. He used to associate the color gray with his life because when he thought about it, there has never been much color. He got used to existing rather than living until someone stepped into his life that was anything but dreary.

It was in summer, he remembers, the third of July when he was walking the streets of Hell’s Kitchen on his way home from work. The noise of the city moved into the back of his mind as he tried to focus on anything but the deafening sound of injustice and everyday life. They often blurred together and mixed when he wasn’t focusing, and sometimes that was worse than when he purposely focused on his surroundings.

He was just casually walking when he heard the distinctive fast sound of footsteps straight ahead. He tilted his head curiously, not sure if it was just another teenager playing tag with their friends in the middle of the night or someone walking fast, or perhaps someone who needed his help. It was then he stretched his senses out to judge the situation, but by the time he focused on the erratic heartbeat coming his way, the person who it belonged to already stood in front of him.

It was the third of July, he knows, when you came into his life.

You were just walking home from work when a man emerged from behind one of the cars parked along the street of the shop you were working at. You had closed early, which was rare but not impossible, especially not with the heat so heavy that no one wanted to set foot outside. Even with air conditioning, you felt like dying every time you went to work.

You tried not to think too much about the stranger, your keys already clutched tightly in your hand, but when you sped up, the man sped up too. It was then your fight-or-flight response kicked in. You were a terrible fighter and would have broken your thumb before you could have caused any serious damage, so instead, you ran. You ran until the streets got lighter and finally, God finally, someone else walked the street you were on.

Not paying much mind to who the stranger was, you stopped right in front of him. Your hand caught his sleeve - you felt guilty because well, if the glasses hadn’t been an indicator, his cane surely was, and using a blind guy to get out of being mugged or God forbid, possibly even raped, felt wrong but he seemed like the kind of guy that wouldn’t mind helping. It was something about him that made you feel safe, almost.

“I need you to pretend we know each other,” you said entirely out of breath, one of your sweaty strands of hair caught on your dry lips.

He frowned, tilting his head in the direction of the other man’s steps and he realized just what you were running from.

“Please,” you begged, and he could only imagine the panic in your eyes.

He licked his lips. “What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know, just- oh, for fuck’s sake! Kiss me.”

“Sorry, what?” Matt stammered. He thought of many things, one of them being completely screwing his disguise and beating whoever was following you into a puddle until he couldn’t walk anymore, but your request was… odd and a complete surprise, at that.

The more he thought about it though, it made sense. The man would only ease up if he saw Matt as your boyfriend and not a strange blind guy.

You looked at him expectantly and the closer the man behind you came, the faster your heart beat. If he wasn’t willing to help you, you would have to run again.

Fortunately, he caught himself fast enough to pull you in by the waist - his strength surprised you - and pressed his lips to yours. That he would do it, you never expected. It had been a weird request, of course, but the only thing you thought of that would make a possible rapist turn the other way.

You caught yourself on his arms, leaning into the kiss as if it were real, and partly it felt like it. He was an amazing kisser, you noticed, and if this had been a date you would have thoroughly enjoyed it, but the only thought in your mind was getting rid of the man that was following you. Or had been following you, anyway, because upon seeing the kiss that looked more realistic than it was, he stopped and turned back around.

When the stranger pulled away, you forgot how to breathe for a second. Your cheeks flushed, the blood rushing to your head immediately, and you pressed a hand in front of your mouth. Matt thought it was cute, although he had to contain himself from hunting down the man that even led you to make such a rash decision in the first place. Perhaps it was the fact that he was blind that made you believe he was on the good side, and the kiss seemed to have saved your ass, which he was glad about because fighting someone right in front of the eyes of an unknown stranger was not on his to-do list. The kiss hadn’t been either, but it had already happened and the awkward silence made matters worse.

Your breath hitched in your throat again. “I’m so sorry,” you said, muffled through your hand.

“Um,” Matt forgot how to speak.

“I just wasn’t sure what to do and you know, most men don’t take no for an answer and I thought- God, I am so sorry. You probably think I’m a psycho now.”

He quickly caught himself again. “Oh, no. No, I absolutely don’t think that,” he said. “I was just… surprised?”

“Okay, I’m sorry, I promise I’m not usually like this.”

“You were scared, I understand.”

“I really didn’t know what else to do.”

It was the truth, and the more he spoke to you, the more he realized your heartrate was going down. You were safe.

“Okay,” you bit your lip, “Okay, I should probably go. Nice meeting you. I’m just gonna-” as you distanced yourself, you pointed behind yourself in the direction you were originally headed, “Yeah, I’m just gonna go.”

“Wait,” Matt heard himself object to your attempt to leave.

You halted, surprised he would even want to talk to you after what happened. A small smile rested on his lips. The same lips you had just kissed.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

The first time he heard your name was on July third, the night dark and hot, and it was the same night you kissed him for the first time. It was a kiss out of desperation, a way to save yourself from the grabby hands of a stranger, and yet, when he asked for your name, he received an answer.

“I’m Matt,” he introduced himself.

July third was the day you came into his life and from then on, you refused to leave. His senses got used to your scent, your taste, and the feel of your skin under his fingers when he had first kissed you. His ears got used to the sound of your voice, and the feeling of your name on his tongue became natural.

One meeting turned into two and eventually, only a month after, in fact, he realized he had done the one thing he never expected himself to do ever again: he fell for you. He fell fast and hard, the first tint of color in his dull life, and the pain in his chest got a little more bearable with you by his side. You became the light in the darkness, the one person he could always turn to, and when you found out who he was - who the man behind the black mask was, you didn’t run.

You found out one night when you used your key to get into his apartment. He hadn’t answered any of your calls and he felt guilty, but then you stood in his apartment just as he walked through the door. He had a huge gash on his side and he was sure he wouldn’t make it to the couch in time. When he heard your heartbeat and the way it jumped when you saw him, he was sure death would be kinder than having to listen to you leaving, but the anticipated moment of rejection never came.

The light of his life stayed. You had dropped everything to hold him up. You patched him up and you held him as he writhed in pain, and when he was finally patched up and safe, he caught your wrist.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” you asked him.

He hissed, not sure if it was because of emotional or physical pain, but perhaps both. You sounded small, worried almost, but the sound of your heartbeat was the most familiar to him and so he knew that you weren’t scared, you were merely curious.

And that was when he knew that he had fallen head over heels in love with you.

“I wanted to protect you,” he said.

The thought of losing you had been his greatest fear. You were the color he desperately needed, the reason for him to keep going. He thought that, with your help, he could make it. He thought his life could finally be normal.

But even the most beautiful of flowers die eventually. It’s a slow death, usually, a constant process of withering. With you though, it was fast and it was the hardest thing he ever had to do. You weren’t a flower, you were human and he realized that too late one night.

On July third, he swore to protect you, always. He swore to save you, to hold you and take care of you until his dying breath. On the third of December though, his worst fear became reality, and suddenly, the tint of color in his life was flickering like the billboard outside of his apartment that you had often complimented. The tint of color in his life, the beautiful flower, the light that kept him going, stood right in front of him and he barely had the time to open his mouth when the shot rang out.

Why did you have to follow him, anyway? You were foolish but you had been so worried, you stormed out of your apartment, determined to find him. The rooftop you finally found him on was dark just like his life had been before you.

You were so relieved to see him alive, you didn’t notice the dark shadow on the floor or the clinging of metal that filled the air. “Matt!” you called out, but his mouth opened and instead of words, you could hear the faint blow of a gun.

The shot rang out and for a moment you thought it hit him. For a moment, you were worried, and then the sharp pain tore through your abdomen and you knew, the shot wasn’t meant for him.

His arms caught you as you fell. Matt wasn’t sure what was worse, the feeling of your blood running through his fingers as he pushed on the gaping wound on your abdomen or the erratic sound of your fading heartbeat as it tried its best to beat for you, to supply your body with blood, but it couldn’t pump so fast as to catch up with the speed you were losing it again.

“Matt-” you smiled when you saw his face. “You’re safe,” you said. “I thought you weren’t safe.”

“Shh, sweetheart,” he told you, and he tried hard not to sob - your heart had become his favorite song, a symphony that was unique in itself, but now it was running out like a broken record. The sand in the hourglass ran faster than he could catch you.

You choked. The missing fear in your voice told him that you knew. Oh, you knew you weren’t going to make it.

“You foolish, foolish- Jesus,” he bent over you, his hand still tightly pressed against your abdomen, but the sharp pain you had felt was gone. You just felt numb now. “I told you to stay home,” he said. His voice cracked at the end because now even he knew, deep down, that you weren’t going to make it out of this.

And he had just found you. It didn’t seem fair.

You sucked in a sharp breath. “I was just-” you coughed again, and he could taste the copper in the air from where it ran down the corner of your mouth. “I was worried,” you breathed.

He shushed you again. “It’s okay,” the first tear descended his cheek and met with yours, “You’re gonna be fine. We’re gonna get you out of here and fixed up, okay? Hey-” Your eyes drooped, but he held your face with such force, you felt compelled to open them again, but you were tired. Oh, you were so tired.

It was your time to tell him, “It’s okay.”

Your body was wracked with a terrible wave of shivers and even though he was holding you tightly to his chest, his body was just cold air to you. Everything was cold.

“No, don’t close your eyes! You have to stay with me, sweetie, okay? Just a little longer.”

“I can’t.” And he knew you couldn’t.

“You don’t get to do that, not yet. It’s not time yet. We have so much-” he grunted in the back of his throat. “Remember you told me about the pyramids in Egypt? You wanted to go there,” he said, and at this point, he was crying more than he was smiling. “So you have to stay awake, okay? Stay awake for me, baby.”

You reached out your weak hand, touching his cheek. There was blood on your fingers and it smeared on his cheekbone. Your touch was cold. You used to be so warm and now you were simply cold, and your heartbeat turned into tiny beats after another.

“We both know I’m not gonna make it,” you said with all the strength you had left.

“No,” he was determined, “Don’t say that. You’re gonna be fine.”

“Matthew-” the call of his full name was almost unfamiliar. “Matthew, listen. Listen to my heart.”

“I am, baby, and it is still beating, that means there is still time. I can save you. I can-”

“No, you don’t understand,” you said. Your hand moved from his cheek to the left side of his chest. “I’m always going to be here.”

“Stop,” he sobbed. “God, don’t do this to me. You can’t do this. You have to hold on.”

“It’s time,” you said.

“No, baby, please-”

“It’s time for me to go, Matthew.”

“No.”

Your hand dropped, your muscles too weak to hold your body up anymore. Thud, thud, thud. He focused on your heartbeat, but he soon realized that it wasn’t yours, it was his. His own heartbeat was louder than yours, but it had the same beat, it played to the same rhythm as yours. Your bodies aligned, but the blood, oh the blood. Your scent was overshadowed by the smell and the taste of pure blood and it made him sick.

“I-” you choked again, but the sentence you wanted to say needed to be said, no matter how strong those claws were that were just waiting to pull you underwater. “I love you,” your voice broke like fragile glass upon impact, “and I always will.”

His forehead fell against yours. You were so cold. Matt held you, he held you to keep you warm, but you were getting colder by the minute and your blood seeped through his fingers, through his shirt, and that was when he realized.

“No,” he desperately felt for your heart, but the familiar melody was gone. He couldn’t feel you, he couldn’t touch you, he couldn’t smell you. He could only hold your limp body as the life left your body and your soul with you.

On December third, you died in his arms. On December third, he had to deliver your body to the hospital, but you were long gone when they found you. He knew you were gone, but he had held you for a while longer, trying to find the life inside of you, trying to keep his hope alive, but on December third, you died, and with you, all the color in his life faded into the darkest of blacks.

Matt Murdock remembers the day he met you and he remembers the day you died. As he is standing over your grave now, the snow feels numb on his soaked clothes. What is creeping up his spine is worse than the cold of December. The pain of losing you is colder than snow, it’s colder than anything he has ever felt before. The cold has crept into his heart and frozen whatever life had been left inside of him. You died and he couldn’t save you. He had to bury you because he just couldn’t save you.

You were the light of his life and Matt lost that, too, like he has lost everything in his life. It's then he truly starts to believe that everything he touches is supposed to rot and die. Everything he has ever touched, no matter how beautiful, has turned ugly, dark, and gray, and then eventually, dead. Cold, dark, and dead.

You were an explosion of wonderful colors but now you were gray, just like his life. A gray stone on the cemetery behind Clinton Church, your body cold, your blood branded into his skin and he cries. He stands at your grave and cries because you’re still in his head, you’re still in his heart, and it kills him that a memory is all he has left of you. He longs to touch you, to kiss you, to hold you like he had many times before, but you’re gone.

His sweater smells of your perfume, his sheets smell of your bodywash and your essence still lingers in the air of his apartment, no matter how many times he opens a window, and then there is your name that suddenly everyone seems to have. He searches for you when it rings out, but you’re not there.

On December third, you died, and with your memory lingering everywhere, he would go back to December all the time. And it breaks him to know you’re not there.

#tw: death #matt murdock x reader #daredevil x reader #matt murdock x gender neutral reader #matt murdock #daredevil #matt murdock fic #daredevil fic #hurt/no comfort #matt murdock angst #this is pure pain #request <3

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variousqueerthings · 9 months

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If you've watched both Doctor Who and Black Sails this frame alone can kill you dead (sincerely, someone who has also been losing their mind over Casanova)

oh yeah it was very fun seeing rupert penry-jones in this!

I've seen him in quite a few things -- spooks (back in the day we watched all of spooks for richard armitage... I was one hell of a completionist back then, I've mellowed since, but it did introduce me to rupert penry-jones, alexander siddig is briefly in it, raza jaffrey who's barely in anything gets a truly thankless arc etc... I'm digressing about the no-good-awful-propaganda show that is spooks, let's stop me here), whitechapel, cambridge spies, one iteration of persuasion, the strain, and of course black sails

I always enjoy him, he seems to turn up in in the 18th and 19th centuries now and again, enough that I associate his face with those kinds of periods, although he's solidly a 20th and 21st century face as well, I'm like "no, get back into the eras you belong in!"

and now a little tangent on the casanova and grimani scenes: something I found very interesting was that casanova was portrayed as straight but also... kind of not? they'd show scenes of him insisting he very much wasn't into sex with guys and then there'd be a sort of "but this exception perhaps" almost tacked on at the end (including, of course, with bellino, but there's a get out of jail freecard there in that bellino is neither a cis man, nor a trans man, nor intersex, but genuinely a cis woman in disguise -- I have some thoughts on how that was done just based on my partner's reading of the wikipedia of the real bellino)

I'd always had a sense that casanova did have sex with men, but I'll have to wait on that one until I've read the diaries -- with grimani very early on I jokingly said "well this is a hateship" and then it seems that rtd very much wrote it that way on purpose, with the you want to kiss me so badly right now line, casanova attempting to insert himself into the marriage bed by offering grimani to give him advice (jabbingly, but you'd think he would do it) and the framing of grimani/henriette/casanova as a cursed threesome, especially in grimani's and casanova's last interaction with one another

to the point that I almost thought grimani's confession wasn't going to be that he genuinely loved henriette, but that he's a closeted gay man, which, in hindsight, somewhat based on true events, I presume grimani's sexuality was neither here nor there in the actual diaries

but yeah, am gonna be turning over the grimani/casanova scenes in my head and what they all meant by having these particular framings -- I do feel like rtd operates in a way that when I read queer text it's because he put it there on purpose -- this across doctor who, including, gratifyingly, the bigeneration in the giggle, and all the doctor/master stuff, and of course in everything he did that's just very very gay in your face. which I think is why I was surprised that casanova as character wasn't written as more bisexual, considering queer as folk + bob&rose already existed by this point. but then also why I was wondering why he'd played with the idea of him being a bit more bisexual than the man doth protest -- perhaps there really isn't anything definitive in the texts, but rtd had a feeling and so just left the viewers with the same feeling, rather than making a choice either way, which is interesting, considering of course that a biopic is allowed some (many) liberties

on the whole this show left a lot of imprints of Stuff, without fully being able to dig into any of it as much as I'd want it to, but really that's just the nature of biopics -- either they narrow themselves down to a very particular Moment in time, or they give you various ideas across a life. with casanova there's a bunch of diaries to fill in the blanks

#im watching movies #im watching david tennant movies #im watching casanova #he's very contentious online isn't he

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amorhedera6 · 2 years

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the superparty

or if the party was a team of superpowers, who i think they’d be

el: obviously her current powers. telekenesis, and seeing other people from far distances (whatever her void things called) would definitely be helpful in fighting supervillains. i think her superhero name would just be eleven. this is assuming in aspects other than being a superhero, they have normal lives and her name is jane.

will: similar to el, but a bit more scarlet witch. he has psionic abilities like she does and he can fly, but he doesn’t have the mind control ability she does. i like to think his superhero name is cleric, but i’m open to suggestions, i don’t like that one super much.

mike: i don’t want to say “super soldier” bc im not a big mcu person and i already used the scarlet witch comparison for will but yeah, basically, he’s a super soldier. he’s super strong, fast, has better endurance, reflexes, all that jazz. enhanced senses too, smell, sight, hearing, etc. and a higher pain tolerance! he joins the team immediately because he goes straight to will and is like i just got siperpowers out of nowhere what the fuck do i do and will is like come join the team and that’s that. his superhero name is battlestrike, chosen by lucas because all mike could come up with was fighter man.

lucas: for lucas i’m thinking a beast boy power, he can change into any animal at will. can talk to all animals, befriends all animals really easy. he’s got like a herd of stray animals following him at all times and it pisses erica off which is basically why he does it. he’s called beastmaster, which for those of you who don’t know is something a ranger can become in dnd, and i love him.

max: super speed!!!!!!! she is a speedster and i know it in my heart of hearts. her superhero name is zoomer and she’s the reason i started this. love this so much. i need to see speedster max and animal powers lucas so bad like actually. i would pay for someone to draw me zoomer max.

dustin: dustin’s got invisibility! he can turn it off and on like a light switch bc he’s super cool. he goes by ghost and he’s one of the few that actually picked his own name instead of being assigned one by the public, because he was a spider-man type vigilante before he joined the team, and people asked his name. he likes to help people, feels like it helps him achieve his true purpose. not like in a religious way, but he feels like he (and all the others) were given these powers for a reason and that’s to help people.

steve: steve is an empath. the closer a relationship he has with a person, the better he can tell. he can sense what a stranger is feeling from a little bit away with clarity, but from the other side of the world he can tell dustin’s emotions as if they were his own. and he also has the ability to differentiate, he can tell whose emotions belong to who as he feels them. so even if he’s feeling themself, he can tell that the emotions are someone else’s. he is one of the team’s best fighters, and also the team member who keeps the healing station in business. they were still brainstorming on his name when he first went into a fight and was named redwood, after a strong and sturdy tree. he’s one of the public favorites.

robin: super knowledge!!! she can absorb knowledge super quickly and knows a whole lot more than the average person. helpful more in the planning stage, mostly does research on people, helps in the pre-stage. works mostly with jonathon, but has some basic training in fighting and helps out on some missions occasionally. when she does she uses a bow and arrow, because she did archery as a kid and can do that well. has the name cerulian bow, because the public only knows about the fighting figure of her and not her behind the scene work.

erica: erica has telepathy. for a while she didn’t tell anyone and just used it to freak people out, but then she asked lucas what someone with telepathy would do on his loser team and he’s both like how did you know i was on a team and also what the fuck. so she joins the team and basically uses it to figure out the villains plans. she’s not in the public eye at all because she’s the youngest of the team and no one wants the slack bc she’s a teenager (she’s like 16 in this au), they just bring her to fights to get information and get her out before anything happens. she then comes back to base and works the comms with robin and jon.

nancy: nancy’s got mind control!! and she struggles with it sometimes, with making people do things against their will, but she’s so good with her power. she can put her power into her words, and anyone she directs it to will do as she asks. think allison from umbrella academy, or piper from heroes of olympus. she can have short term control over a person to do what she wants them to, and it’s an incredibly good skill. she doesn’t use her power unless it’s against provably awful people, never on henchmen or the like. i’m the meanwhile, it’s good she’s handy with the gun. because she uses her gun and mental manipulation, her superhero name is neurobullet. mike calls her nutribullet

jonathon: i think jon’s our hacker, oracle style. he found out that will was doing this and insisted on helping him, and this is how he chose to do it. taught himself how to hack, how to do all sorts of techy things to help out, and as they both were recruited for the team, how to help everyone else too. he makes a lot of the plans, checks the security cameras, all that. he’s not in public eye, but he’s been discussed by the public before, because it’s known they have a computers person of some kind. he’s referred to as cyberear, since the public’s only experience with him is the voice in the team’s earpieces.

argyle: i think argyle’s out transportation guy. he’s a teleporter. he can take up to five people with him depending on the distance, but can go pretty much anywhere in the world. i like to think he’s not on the team, just besties with jonathon, so hen they need a quick lift somewhere, jon calls him up and asks him to help. he’s been invited on the team multiple teams, but doesn’t want to officially join. he likes to spend his time seeing the world and just like doing his thing. he’s not in public eye at all, and it’s widely believed that the team simply has teleportation devices.

eddie: shadow manipulation!!!!! think of nico from the percy jackson verse? that. he can shadow-travel, but only by himself and not super far without basically passing out (they typically rely on argyle for that). he can manipulate shadows, night vision, general umbrakenesis, etc. he’s obsessed with his darkness aesthetic and tries to pull off like a whole dramatic kjng of darkness vibe but he’s a nerd and a goof and he’s trying his best for the aesthetic and tbh we respect it. he’s called the dark shadow

hopper: hopper’s definitely the big-n-strong one. he’s the thing, the hulk, the guy who turns big and strong at the drop of the hat. i think he turns from a person to like a massive muscle man that’s like the color of like veins. i’m not attempt to Science it, but like his skin stretched out to become the big guy so he’s the color of his veins. like blueish purplish greenish mixture color. he’s called smasher and yes, mike mocks it for eternity.

joyce: i think joyce would be our healer. she can take away someone’s pain or solve their injuries by touching them. she used to just volunteer at a hospital that had a lot of “miracles” but when she found out what will and jonathon were doing she joined their team and helps them instead. she still fights like a badass when it comes down to it, but she tends to do the post-fight work. and she also still volunteers at the hospital when she has the chance. she’s not in public eye nearly as much as the others, but she’s called divinity.

murray: murray has the power of power control. he can give people powers and take them away at will. he chose the party to give powers, and either watched how they reacted to the power gain and made his choice, or recruited them immediately to his team. he’s basically the leader, the handler, whatever. he does the behind the scenes work that allows them to be a superhero team without governmental fire coming down and then and leaves them to do the work. he reveals to all of them that he gave them their powers, and they all ask how he got his, and he does not answer. he doesn’t travel a code name either, though they’re all becoming increasingly convinced that murray is a fake name.

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silver-blooded-synthetics · 2 years

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@bleedingviolet asked:

Some Munday questions! For whichever of your muses feel like answering them! Do you genuinely want your muse to be happy? What do you think would make them most happy in life? If you could tell your muse one thing, what would you tell them?

Do you genuinely want your muse to be happy?

I genuinely want most of my muses to have happy endings and experience happiness periodically throughout their journey. But I will admit, I also want them to suffer so they can experience challenges and overcome them. I need that sweet sweet character development, and I fully subscribe to the theory of forging my characters in fire and beating them into shape just like a blade. I am not a merciful god, lol. But I do want them to have happy endings, with some exceptions. Namely Evan. He deserves a terrible ending for himself. Abel, I’m neutral on because he wouldn’t appreciate a happy ending even if I did give it to him. The rest tho, yes, I give them happy endings and chances at redemption for their shortcomings.

What do you think would make them most happy in life?

For Alma, he just wants a peaceful life, but not a stagnant one. Nothing would make him happier than to spend his life learning everything there is to know about everything. Arda is very similar and wants to experience life, but also help people. Deep down, both Alma and Arda just want peace, I think. The only thing that would make Abel truly happy is if he were to somehow acquire a soul/sentience, but as he is now, he’s content, or at least complacent, with his life as it is. Gayle would be most happy if she were able to contribute something significant and groundbreaking to the scientific community without it backfiring in her face like her synthetics did. She would settle for finding a solution to the problems she’s created where everyone ends up happy though. Evan would be happiest if he could gain complete control over other people without ever having to deal with negative consequences (this is why he doesn’t get a happy ending). Errol is a little different, because what he thinks will make him happiest and what actually will make him happiest are two very different things. He wants power and control like Evan, but if he were to get it, he would let it go straight to his head and would go insane, which is actually one of his biggest fears. What would actually make him happy is meeting someone special that he could make a genuine, strong emotional connection with and having someone to care for besides himself for once. It would give him a sense of purpose and belonging that he lacks now. It’s something he’s given up on though, without even really trying, because he thinks it’s impossible. He doesn’t realize that he’s a low empathy psychopath, not a no empathy psychopath, and that he has a need to connect with others just as much as anyone, it’s just difficult for him so he’s been neglecting that need.

If you could tell your muse one thing, what would you tell them?

I would tell Alma that he is good enough, just as he is, and that he will figure out who he is someday, but it’s okay if he doesn’t know right now. He’s still enough, even if he doesn’t know.

I would tell Arda that the world is sometimes cruel, but never to lose sight of her own kindness. Never let the cruelty of the world win and change her. Because that cruel world needs people who are kind in the face of everything awful more than anything.

I would tell Abel to listen to Alma when he says your logic is flawed, because Alma understands things that your logic and programing doesn’t take into account, and you need that human element to make sure your mission priorities don’t become corrupt.

I would tell Errol that he is not a monster, and that his thoughts do not define who he is. What he chooses to do with them are what matters, and he is in control of that. He gets to decide if he is good or bad, and it’s a choice he will have to make every day for the rest of his life.

I would tell Gayle that she needs to not be so hard on others, especially her synthetics, because it’s only pushing them away. I know she only wants what is best for them, but if she wants them to thrive, she needs to support them as individuals with the right to make their own decisions, not try to control them and force them to be what she wants them to be.

I would tell Evander to go eat a bag of dicks. :)

#answered ask #munday #all muses #all ocs

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postmirror · 10 months

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Chapter 2 – Hope You Are Well

The pergola outside is as magnificent as ever. I wonder if everything is still the same in my room. This is the place that raised me – and once trapped me. When I open the door, however, there is nothing inside.

Steward: Sir, Master asked to have all of your personal belongings disposed of because he didn't want you back here.

I know they want me out of the family, but man, they sure are determined. My family cut ties with me right after I graduated from college, but life wasn't unbearably difficult for me. Because every now and then some people would pay me to write screenplays for them. I didn't even need to guess to know that my brother was behind it. He probably thought I'd never find out.

Except it's been quite a while now since anyone last asked me to write them screenplays. Looking back now, it should have been clear that something was wrong.

Yueniang: Good.

With my last hope shattered, I walk out of my room and head straight for the other side of the long hallway.

Traveling through the hallway, the wind stirs up the fallen leaves piling by the staircase. A certain someone who's no longer in this world used to live in the room behind the tightly shut door at the end of the hallway.

Steward: What are you doing?

Yueniang: I'm just here to look fro something.

Steward: You can't go in there!

Yueniang: Stop me if you can.

Steward: Sir, please don't make this difficult for me.

??: Let him be.

Coming from behind us is a crisp voice, purposely kept so low to exude an authoritative air. The shadow on the floor towers over me and traps me within it. Dumbfounded for a split second, the servant lowers his head politely.

Steward: Sir Zicheng.

Yue Zicheng: Off you go.

When I raise my head, I see him–dressed in a silver-edged long robe, with buttons properly done all the way up the collar. The long robe most certainly isn't his most fashionable of outfits, but it matches the air he carries. Looking sharp. Guess that's what makes all the ladies crazy about you, huh?

Yue Zicheng: What are you doing back here, Zilang?

It's been a while since someone last called me by that name. There was a time when I went by Yue Zilang, but that was quite a while ago.

Yueniang: I'm here to collect my belongings.

Without saying anything else, I turn around and open the door. As the door creaks open, a smell of age comes rushing out of the room. The closet in the corner, the beaded curtain, the wooden casket–everything in the room is exactly as I remember where they were. This is the room Mother and I used to live in.

Yue Zicheng: How are you?

Yueniang: I've been doing as well as you have.

Yue Zicheng: What are you taking with you? I can get someone to help you with it, but just don't let Father see you around, or else...

Yueniang: Or else what?

Yue Zicheng: Or else he'll pretend you don't ever exist, he said.

Yueniang: Well, I'm so broke now that I'll probably starve to death in just a few days, which I suppose must be good news to him.

Yue Zicheng: Wait, let me get one of our servants to make you some food.

Yueniang: No!!!

This guy hasn't changed a bit–he always pretends to care about you when he never actually cares about what you really care about.

Yue Zicheng: Let me know if you need any financial support. I'll make sure Father doesn't find out. If you need a job, we can definitely help you get one, too.

Yueniang: Help me get one? The same way they helped you get yours?

I want to bombard him some more in the heat of the moment, but couldn't manage to get words out of my mouth when I see him shocked by what I said. I can't be sure if he's just saying all these out of a sense of responsibility as the family's heir, or is he just being nice because we're siblings.

Regardless, he chose to side with the family after Mother's death. He covered up the past and the truth alongside the family.

Yueniang: I'm taking this because it belongs to my mother.

I wave the hairpin at him that I just found as I close the drawer. As I hold the hairpin in my hand, I see a photo fall out of a crack in the drawer. In the photo, Mother is holding me, with Yue Zicheng standing right beside us.

Yue Zicheng: You were just two then.

We both reach out for the photo. Looking him in the eye, I straighten myself up. Transfixed, he quietly picks up the photo. Dusting it with those long fingers of his, he walks down memory lane.

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saturnrevolution · 3 years

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Understanding your mars sign ♂

Aries Mars ♂

What motivates you: You are motivated by doing things your way, being independent and using your loads of energy on things that make you happy. Expressing your identity also motivates you a lot and sometimes you can get motivated by the most childish things ever.

How you deal with conflict: You process negative emotions best by expressing them outwardly through conflict or physical activity. This is why, sometimes you might have short outbursts of anger which in reality are part of your personality and have nothing to do with the other person. When you are in defensiveness, you are stubborn and go straight for what it is that you want and might get really upset when losing.

Attraction: You are attracted to straightforward energy, you need someone that shows you how they feel with action, sometimes even in the most obvious way. And you are attracted to strong looking people. At the same time, others are attracted by your way of knowing how to respond when faced with conflict, being quick to react and being perseverant with your goals. Your ability to not take everything too seriously can be either your attractive point or an annoying trait of yours.

Weakness: impatience

Taurus Mars ♂

What motivates you: You are motivated by anything that gives you comfort. You know who you are and you are not afraid of doing the same things as long as it makes you feel comfortable, you always take the way that offers you most stability and that matches your values. You are motivated by certainty in all areas of your life and that's why you work hard on making sure you have everything you need in all of them. Other things that motivate you are money and things that assure you a good living situation.

How you deal with conflict: You know how to react in conflict, even if you might be seemingly quiet, you actually have a well thought strategy and motive behind every argument and you only bring them out when you need to. You are calculated, sometimes even too lazy to put up a fight, but if you feel personally attacked - then you won't change your mind even if you know you are wrong. You hate it when people try to push you and impose rules to you.

Attraction: You are attracted to a combination of luxury and simplicity. You like people that have a natural charm, but not so mysterious that they are hard to read - you want to know that these people will be there for you and offer loyalty if that's what you're looking for. Others are attracted by your way of doing your own thing and not caring, your consistency in terms of your self worth. You cannot be bothered sometimes and this can also intimidate others.

Weakness: resisting change

Gemini Mars ♂

What motivates you: You are motivated by information, conversation and ideas. You like your mind to be used at the best capacity and you love engaging in things that offer you a different outlook on life. You also love understanding others and yourself by observing behaviors and coming up with theories. You probably love movies or there is at least one subject that you cannot stop talking about. You might sometimes get motivated or caught up in the wrong things, such as gossip or oversharing.

How you deal with conflict: For you, words hold great power. While not everyone understands why, words are the things you get most irritated by if someone says something hurtful. You can sometimes be changeable, so if people get you at your best, you will talk things out. If not, you might do the silent treatment. Talking to someone about rough times is your way of processing bad events or just simply finding something else to occupy your mind with as distraction.

Attraction: You are attracted to people that have a way with words. You like it when you have things in common with someone and you are quite a flirt and need someone that can keep up with that. Others are attracted by your friendliness, you have the ability to get all eyes on you, usually with the stories you tell. You do get bored quite easily, though, and this sometimes might make others feel like you are indifferent about them.

Weak points: lack of consistency

Cancer Mars ♂

what motivates you: You are motivated by making sure that the ones you love are safe and by getting your own needs met, nurturing yourself. Also by finding emotional fulfillment - if this is covered, then you are able to focus on other things. You do not like feeling alone. Emotional connection and empathy motivates you.

How you deal with conflict: Your first reaction in conflict is to get defensive and feel like people are against you and then what helps you a lot is letting yourself feel your emotions in order to get it out there. You are not afraid to get vulnerable if needed, but this can sometimes make you seem rather moody, as you might not say what's bothering you.

Attraction: You need someone that accepts you for who you are, you are attracted to people that make you feel like home, people that somehow need your affection, but you also feel dawned to the darker side of people. Others are attracted to your warmth and your way of making them feel like they belong, understood and the way you can actually set boundaries when you make up your mind and know when to draw the line. Your eyes are also very attractive and draw people in.

Weak points: lack of practicality

Leo Mars

What motivates you: You are motivated by finding meaning in life, self expression and creativity. You might not show it, but being in the center of attention motivates you. Also, there is a deep connection you have with your childhood, so anything that gets you back to those times - be it an old activity or simply being around children gives you a lot of strength.

How you deal with conflict: You are the type of person that goes big or goes home, so whenever there is a conflict you make sure the other person knows you have been hurt. You can sometimes be overly dramatic when reacting to a situation, especially if you feel like you have been wrongly judged or humiliated. You do understand where others are coming from, but you first need to put on a show.

Attraction: You are attracted to people that inspire you, you are in love with this idea of people that are seemingly out of your reach, people that are fiery, determined and perseverant. What others see attractive in you is knowing what you want and whenever you show your passion, that's when you are most attractive. There's also something really confident about your appearance, even if you feel like that deep down or not.

Weakness: not listening

Virgo Mars

What motivates you: You are motivated by reaching perfection and minimizing flaw as much as possible, achieving things that are seem to be out of your reach. Also, you are motivated by order and having structure in your life and by having a clear routine and purpose everyday.

How you deal with conflict: You can be a bit uptight in conflict, in the sense that you want to seem like you have it all together and this can make it difficult for you to be vulnerable and show your emotions. You are aware of your flaws and you are scared that they will be exposed. You can easily criticize others when in conflict, however you are very calculated with your words and because of your awareness you know how to solve the problem right away, practically.

Attraction: You are attracted to people that help you build those things that you are going towards, that are very practical and that allow you to help them strive for the better, people that have a strong presence when they enter the room, a type of cleanliness to their energy. Others are attracted to your eye for details, your attentiveness at the way you carry yourself and self awareness, advice giving and your elegance and purity.

Weakness: anxiousness

Libra Mars ♂️

What motivates you: You are motivated by beauty, in all shapes or forms. You see the potential in things and anything that is visually aesthetic to you has a lot of potential. You want to use your voice to raise awareness on the things you care about and you are motivated by showing and receiving love. In your constant battle for peace, you can sometimes get caught up onto other people's opinions unintentionally and base your decisions too much on those and neglect your own.

How you deal with conflict: Conflict makes you feel uncomfortable, as you are doing your best to please everyone and you take not being liked a bit too personally. You process anger best by talking it out, even complaining about your experiences and letting the feelings out. You like it when people give you validation for your anger, they support you and tell you that you are right to be feeling that way.

Attraction: You are attracted to kind hearted people, those people that somehow embody the ideal energy that you also want to embody and you do love someone that has a great style, you also need someone that brings harmony in your life and treats you nicely. You love receiving compliments and good looking people make you flattered. At the same time, this is what is attractive about you. You have a great sense of style and a subtle sweetness that is remembered. Your way with words doesn’t go unnoticed.

Weakness: not standing up for themselves

Scorpio Mars ♂️

What motivates you: You are motivated by things that are a bit taboo, that not everyone is approaching, things that are even unseen and hidden. Also by things that intrigue you and it doesn't need to make sense. You need to be careful to not dive to deep into it, as you can get motivated by things like secrecy or get a bit too obsessed.

How you deal with conflict: You can find different ways of getting your way out of conflict by omitting things, but you never forget the details. You can get really mad and be possessive, so that's when you become explosive if you feel like people have betrayed you. You make sure that the other person knows that you are mad at them and sometimes you can use their past to your advantage. Not to say it's all bad, you actually know how to manage conflict when you feel the hurt and understand the reason behind that person's action and then you are a great mediator.

Attraction: You are attracted to anything that's sexual, that's mysterious and that doesn't reveal themselves. You do not look for straightforward energy, but to things that allow a bit of imagination from your part. Others are attracted to your darker aura and also by your ability to open up.

Weakness: not letting things just be

Sagittarius Mars ♂️

What motivates you: You are motivated by having stories to tell, by adventure and the thrill, you are motivated by travelling and freedom. You are at the same time chill and you are not motivated by rules, but just taking things as they come. Humor is another motivating factor for you.

How you deal with conflict: You are a really positive person and do not like any bad energy around, but sometimes life does get sad and it does get bad so you eventually will have to deal with all those problems that arise and that maybe you have the tendency to overlook sometimes. In conflict, you might simply run away, but if you do get yourself together, there's lots of wisdom that lives inside of you.

Attraction: Attracted to bigger personalities that make you laugh, people that open your eyes and that you never get bored of. Others find attractive your free spirit and the way you are very down to do anything and also the fact that you are not afraid to be anything you want to be. Even if that means waking up one day and feeling like you want to approach life differently, you do not compare your journey to other people's and you do your own thing.

Weakness: no organization

Capricorn Mars ♂️

What motivates you: You are motivated by your career, you are motivated by maximizing your time so that it gets used efficiently and productively, because in reality you really like doing the work and putting in the effort. You push yourself a lot, sometimes too much.

How you deal with conflict: You don't really know how to react. Instead of letting your emotions take over and just flowing with how you actually feel, you start questioning your own responses and this can make you detach from the actual conflict and be in your own bubble and can make you seem rather cold. You inhibit yourself and try to keep yourself together, but when you do get vulnerable, that's when others see the real you and that's when you know you really care for that person. But you usually keep your cool.

Attraction: You are attracted to people that appreciate your goals, people that offer you stability and long term, also those that have this type of maturity that you can rely on. You are very consistent and there is a lot of inner strength and work in you that others really feel intimidated by, but also somehow find very hot. People aspire to be you and try hard to impress you.

Weakness: not letting loose

Aquarius Mars ♂️

What motivates you: You are motivated by social dilemmas, saving this world, societal injustice. You have an innate talent that has to do with spotting the problem and actually naming it. When everyone is trying to avoid a problem, you are actually just honestly talking about that and that's when you feel most seen, because when you are different, that's when you are most appreciated. You are not as motivated by being liked as you are by wanting to get a message across and make a difference of a subject that really speaks to your heart.

How you deal with conflict: With the people you care about, you are able to rationalize things and talk about them with a very mature approach, but in general you might just need to take some time off and recharge whenever you are in conflict, you like dealing with it on your own. Sometimes, you simply ignore the situation all together and play it cool.

Attraction: You are attracted to anything that's out of the ordinary and that helps you see a different side of things. At the same time, you have the ability to reason with logic in ways that surprises others. You are unique and others see that and people are unexpectedly attracted to you.

Weakness: saying things they don't mean

Pisces Mars ♂️

What motivates you: You are motivated by achieving your dreams, you need people around you to be there and see it and you somehow are achieving dreams also to show the ones you love you care. You are also motivated by the good in this world, you know that it exists and you are setting the example of proving that the world can be a better place.

How you deal with conflict: Your ability to get angry is really underrated, cause when you are mad you really show it. Depending on your confidence, you just react on it on the spot or when you are by yourself, but your reaction is very all over the place and you have no idea what is going on at first, your instinct is to just put the emotions out there. After a while, you can mend things over and rationalize it after calming down and you have the ability to forgive easily.

Attraction: You are not attracted by superficial things, but by meaning, to anyone that is poetic and surprises you. Random acts of kindness. You are attracted to those that get closer to the idealized version you have in your head. People love your selflessness. You are quite chill and a very good friend and there is this sort of artistic and attractive energy you carry.

Weakness: lack of clarity

#astrology #mars #aries #taurus #gemini #cancer #leo #virgo #libra #scorpio #sagittarius #capricorn #aquarius #pisces #zodiac #posted #like #follow #reblog

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zukuist · 3 years

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𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐦𝐬

“just really random mannerisms they like about you”

my 1.5k special

fandom/s: 僕のヘロアカデミア // boku no hero academia [bnha]

includes: several characters

your name is shortened to y/n, gender neutral!

side note: lol i’ve been gone for 22 days 💀 so sorry for the wait guys! it was finals week during the first half of the month. but now that i’m done with the 9th grade, i can post more! there’ll be more to come later this week

thank you all for 1.5k !!

—

bakugō katsuki

— SPIN

when you do that cute little spin when you’re showing off your outfit for the day, especially before dates

he claims that he thinks it’s dumb, and that you should ‘knock it off’ or ‘quit fuckin’ spinning around like that’ but he actually thinks the opposite, believe it or not. he’ll still react like ‘🙄’ and smirk, like he’s going to make fun of you. however, if you look closely, that smirk of his is actually him smiling at you genuinely, and endearingly. i don’t think katsuki would be someone that would shower his s/o with presents constantly, especially with things like clothes (like.. you could just borrow his sweater, if you needed one) but! he finds himself buying you more clothes, just so you could sit him down, and do that little spin for him.

but, as to be expected of him, he’ll never outright admit that he finds it adorable. but maybe if you push the right buttons, the blond will admit it under his breath.

midoriya izuku

— GESTURING

when you start talking with your hands during conversations and debates.

usually, he’s the one that rambles, and you’re the listener. and though he’s very grateful that you’re his #1 listener, he also really enjoys returning the favor by listening to you too! especially when he gets to stare into those heavenly eyes of yours. but! how can he do that, if you’re the type to speak with your hands? there’s something about it that intrigues him to no end. izuku doesn’t point it out right away when he first notices, but he tends to stare at them like ‘👁👁👀👁👁’, not at all conscious of his own stare, and until someone, or something snaps him out of it. try not to tease him about it, he’s just so infatuated, it’s excruciating for everyone to witness.

he probably has this mannerism written somewhere in his notebook. it’s not at all creepy, but the fact that he thinks it’s important enough to be written in his notebook makes you happy.

todoroki shōto

— QUICK FIX

when you fix his hair, or appearance when he himself, doesn’t notice the disorganization

todoroki shōto is not a messy person. he’s organized, level-headed, and most of the time, he knows how to keep his appearance clean. but like everyone else, there’ll be that instance where he just.. doesn’t see it. and this is where you enter! he dislikes it a ton whenever people try to touch him, but when you do it, he really can’t find himself being angry about it, despite initially hating the idea of being touched without permission. if you’ll go out of your way to fix his appearance, he’ll be grateful! especially when you fix his hair, so his middle part is split nicely and perfectly.

of course, there are other things, like fixing his tie, and making sure that his collar is centered, and even smoothing down his eyebrows with your thumbs. sometimes, he’ll even mess up his appearance on purpose! he’s whipped.

kirishima eijirō

— SQUEAL

when you squeal whenever you’re surprised, and most especially when you see something you like and dislike

it actually does aid him a lot, in a weird sense. not sure if it’s because he finds these sounds helpful, or if he just finds those little squeals, and sounds of approval or disapproval adorable. it also helps him a lot, if you weren’t talkative in the first place. either way, it does help him navigate what you like or dislike. some may say it’s because it gives him an ego boost, or that eijirou gets a weird kick out of it, but it can’t be less genuine than this. whether if it would be a sound of adoration that escaped your lips when you received a post workout selfie, or if it would be a sound of disapproval when you feel the leftover hair gel in his scalp. either way, he finds it super adorable, 10/10.

but.. if you were to ask him, the faux red head would say that he liked your sounds of appreciation more than the ones of disapproval (duh). eijirou kirishima takes pride in making his s/o happy!

kaminari denki

— VICTORY DANCE

the victory dance you do whenever you accomplish, or win something

it’s actually quite iconic at this point. the first time denki witnessed it in person, he was elated, mesmerized. first of all, where did you get those moves? and second of all, do you know how attractive this actually is to him? at this point, he should pull out a camera every time you do your little ‘dancey dance’ because he would like to learn the dance itself. i don’t care if you think the moves are absurd or random, nah. absurd is out of the question, because denki will just admire you, as you danced cheerfully.

people will sometimes ask him “out of all of the things he could’ve found cute, he chose this?” and he’ll just be like “yep.” shamelessly.

shinsō hitoshi

— TOYING

when you start toying, or fiddling with his fingers out of nowhere

please, as if this man’s oblivious about his level of attractiveness. newsflash, he’s aware. he knows that some people like his hands, but in his honest opinion, hitoshi doesn’t know why. he doesn’t have a physical quirk, so he doesn’t need to rely on his hands 100% of the time. but that doesn’t mean that this habit of yours didn’t catch him by surprise. you even did it when you guys weren’t officially together so, he kind of just.. allowed you. so that’s how things are. you’d talk to someone, and your hands would reach to play with his fingers under the table, and when you were a bit nervous than usual, you’d do the same.

he didn’t have to ask you too much about this habit, raising a brow when you first did it, only to receive a sheepish look in return. either way, he finds this habit really cute, and he’ll even start offering you his hand.

amajiki tamaki

— GRASP

grasping onto his hand, especially when you’re anticipating something, or when you’re nervous

he’s usually the one that needed some form of encouragement, support, or comfort. it’s always been that way for him, and there’s a part of him that desperately wished that he just woke up with mirio’s personality. he wishes he could be stronger, and the timid soon-to-be hero wishes there was an instant remedy. which is why, tamaki loves this habit! yeah sure, it flustered him, reducing him to being beet red, and a stammering mess, but moving past the first touch, he adores it. i mean, he doesn’t know if there’s a way he could say it, without making it seem weird but.. it feels nice, knowing you’ll grab onto his hand for comfort.

it makes him feel.. strong. knowing that he’s the one that’s doing the comforting, and not the other way around like how it’s always been. even if not a lot of words are exchanged during these times.

monoma neito

— FOOT POP

when you go to give him a hug or a kiss, and your foot lifts off the ground

yeah, i’m kind of referencing the princess diaries here. but out of everything neito could find cute, this would be at the top. man didn’t notice it at first, because well.. he’s usually kissing you, too absorbed to even notice anything else. but when he realizes it when your foot pops at a little peck on the cheek, he’s proud, boastful like how he usually is. this habit is very dreamy to him, something straight out of a old romcom, or a fairytale. to him, a good kiss would also be defined by this habit. he’ll smirk, “ohoh, your foot did the foot pop! guess i’m that good” he wants to see more of this little habit (habit or not, he still wants to see it)

he’ll boast about this cute habit to everyone, especially when the chance to boast arises. “can you make your s/o’s foot pop?!” he’ll erupt in laughter, absolutely proud of himself despite everyone not really knowing what that even is

—

3K notes · View notes

anashins · 3 years

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The Right Kind of Wrong

Title: The Right Kind of Wrong

Pairing: Jaehyun x You

Genre: hate to love, cheating, college!au, friendship, romance, smut

Warnings: smut, cheating, cursing, toxicity

Word Count: 8.454

Summary: There are many reasons for you to hate Jung Jaehyun. Aside from being cocky and selfish, the fact that he is dating your best friend is another one of them. But his mesmerizing smile - to hell with it - just isn't.

____

There were at least a hundred things you hated about Jung Jaehyun.

The fact that he was dating your best friend was just one of them.

Not a single day had passed by in the last year in which she hadn’t complained about her boyfriend having flirted with another woman, having ditched her again, going to a party and ignoring her all night, or simply dragging her mood down by one of his unpredictable and hurtful actions.

Aside from being cocky, selfish, arrogant and reckless, Jung Jaehyun was absolutely incapable of being a decent human being for more than ten seconds, and you were wondering why he was so damn popular despite all his faults.

When you went out with your friend group, he mocked the boys trying to hit on you, telling you they were so desperate for that move. When you were attending the same class, he purposely sat down next to you to distract you from the lesson. When he was at your dorm, he kept moving your things onto high shelves, knowing you couldn’t reach them.

And his smirk everytime he did so… his smirk every time he mocked you was so annoying. But also so hot.

Fuck, you thought whenever his mischievious eyes met yours again, and you had to turn away, at a loss for words and afraid he’d caught you flushing. You were so ashamed, because you actually wanted to hate him.

There were many reasons for you to hate Jung Jaehyun, but his mesmerizing smile wasn't one of them.

You hadn’t hated him from the first moment that you two had officially met as you had gotten introduced to each other through your best friend who was also your dorm mate, though. She had found him on a dating app, and you had found him sitting in your class two days later, talking back to the professor.

Back then, you had started admiring his intelligence and courage. But those were the only two positive things you had spotted so far as you only tried to stay as far away from him as possible, emphasizing his negative character traits over and over again.

But the truth was that staying away from him was a very hard thing to do, and you fought every day for your sanity, trying to be a good friend and suppressing your controversial feelings for a man who was absolutely forbidden to you.

“He went drinking last night and I saw an instagram story of him grinding against another girl on the dancefloor!” your best friend complained in your arms, tears on the verge of flowing. “Who’s doing that even?!”

A few pairs of eyes turned into your direction, but when you threw fierce glances at the people staring at you, they passed by very quickly.

When you had been invited to your friend Johnny’s house party, you hadn’t expected to be spending the evening comforting your best friend, even though that had been your daily routine for the past three weeks.

It had grown toxicly usual for Jaehyun and her to fight in a two to three day rhythm over the smallest things, and although their wonky relationship or whatever it was hadn’t been very steady before with them breaking up nearly monthly, lately it had grown almost obnoxious.

“Why don’t you just break up with him?” you suggested again and immediately felt your heart sink.

It wasn’t like you wanted them to break up because you wanted Jaehyun for yourself. You’d never do that to her.

Your best friend was just constantly hurting, and it hurt you just as much when you saw her suffering so greatly. Jung Jaehyun wasn’t a good guy, and you both knew. Yet, she couldn’t let go of him. You knew exactly how that felt.

Even if they were to break up, he wouldn’t belong to you. Because a friend’s ex was a taboo. So having Jaehyun gone entirely from your lives would kill two birds with one stone.

“Not that again!” your friend whined and retreated from you, sinking into the couch with her arms crossed and no signs of tears anymore. “I can’t! I mean… look at him! He’s so hot, and don’t get me even started about his skills in bed. That’s where we usually make up, you know, so-”

“I’m going to get you something to drink!” you interrupted her and jumped up. “You totally need a cocktail now! To come to your senses!”

You loved your best friend dearly, but you didn’t want to hear about Jaehyun’s skills by all means. At some times, your friend didn’t have a filter, and then, it only spiraled downhill from there. You heard them often enough in the dorm, that was already pushing you to your limits.

When you entered the kitchen, you reached up to get a glass from the shelf, but like most of the times, you were too short for the remaining ones at the very top.

“Here, let me help you.”

A soft voice echoed from behind you, but before you could turn around to follow the tone, the guy had already heaved up his arm and reached over you to the very top of the shelf to get you a glass.

Shifting around, you faced the mischievous expression of the young man you had wanted to avoid and who your best friend was currently crying over.

Without a “thank you”, you reached out your hand to grab the glass from Jaehyun, but he immediately shot his arm up to bring the glass high over his head and far out of your reach.

“You think a simple ‘thank you’ is too much for you?”

“Fuck off, Jaehyun.” You crunched with your teeth and narrowed your eyes. “I’d rather die of thirst!”

“What did I do again?” He rolled his eyes in an annoyed manner as though his high spirits got ruined. “What did she tell you?”

“She told me everything she saw from last night!” you defended your friend. “That’s enough for me to get the picture!”

“Okay, and did the picture somehow include me pushing the girl away after she had grinded on me?”

You gulped.

“Just as I thought.”

He placed the glass on the counter, but somehow, this hadn’t got your both’s attention anymore.

“There are two sides of the same coin, yet all you've ever done was looking only at one.”

He approached you, and the rising hotness in your cheeks made you withdraw until your hips bumped into the kitchen counter.

Jaehyun leaned in and propped his arm against the same spot right next to your hip as he asked, “I know you’re her best friend, but being a friend doesn’t mean supporting your friends delusional, one sided thoughts into oblivion. Being a friend sure means to support, I’m not denying that. But being a true friend means to tell someone when they’re wrong. And I am not the one at fault here, y/n.”

“You were doing many stupid things to hurt her in the past!” you started blabbering just to bridge over the silence you’d get when you would stare at his mesmerizing eyes for a little longer. “How am I supposed to believe you?”

“You aren’t supposed to believe me.” He retreated, with the glass in his hand. “All I’m asking for is a chance to explain myself.”

Again, you were flabbergasted by the way he expressed his thoughts that stood in contrast to his questionable behavior. One of the main things that fascinated you. But you quickly turned this feeling into hate by recalling his wrongdoings from the night before.

Looking at the glass, Jaehyun continued, “Yes, there were many things I did wrong in the past. And I’m not going to pinpoint my finger at my girlfriend to tell that she was doing just as many questionable things as me. But people have reasons for doing the things they do. That’s probably why we’re such a good match.”

You didn’t understand a word. In your eyes, and you only knew about their relationship by what your friend told you and what you observed when you were hanging out, the two weren’t a good match at all.

He was the one constantly hurting her feelings, and she was the one to always get hurt.

Or... wasn’t it?

Jaehyun then thrusted the glass into your hand. “You’re lucky, y/n, you know that? It must be so great, living that freely, without any burdens… So oblivious to everything.”

With these words, he disappeared from the kitchen, leaving you behind all alone with the glass in your hand.

You looked at the item, your face getting reflected in the crystals to unrecognizability while Jaehyun’s words still kept you occupied. They had such an impact on you that you suddenly started to question whether your hate against him was actually valid.

When you stepped out of the kitchen yourself with a full glass of your best friend’s favorite cocktail in your hand, you found her in Jaehyun’s arms again, wildly kissing, his kind words suddenly vanished from your mind upon spotting them.

Instead, there was a little monster called jealousy sitting right inside your chest.

___

“8am in the morning! Who even places classes that early?!”

With a groan, Jaehyun flopped down in the seat next to you.

“Shut up, class is about to start.”

“Man, you must be really fun at parties,” he replied. “The professor is not even here yet.”

“You’re annoying, Jung Jaehyun, and if you weren’t dating my friend, I wouldn’t actually talk to you at all.”

“What are the odds we’re still connected to each other, huh! Tell me, y/n, what did I ever do to you? How did I ever hurt you? We’ve never even really spoken with each other ever since we’ve gotten introduced.”

“And I am grateful for this every single day.”

“What is it that you hate about me so much?” he questioned further, his eyes challenging.

But with your eyes straight ahead and no words on your lips, you ignored him as the professor entered the room only a short moment after, announcing the class’ start.

Your pen flew over the sheet, noting down the professor’s words when suddenly, goose bumps spread all over your arm.

When your eyes followed the trail to its source, your right elbow touched Jaehyun’s left one as a result of your hectic writing motions as you had moved too far to the side. The spot on your skin was so warm and so…

You withdrew your arm right away, placing it back to where it usually belonged, but Jaehyun’s own limb had moved so far to the left that you had no place to rest it next to your notes anymore without having his skin barely one inch apart from you. You weren’t touching anymore, but he was so close that you still felt him somehow.

Of course you could drop your arm and place it on your lap as the professor had stopped presenting the most important points of this lesson. Of course you could just move further away with your entire belongings, but the fact was that you didn’t. That you couldn’t.

Instead, you were fixating your eyes on the board right in front of you, listening to your professor’s words but not actually understanding a single syllable that he uttered as your heart beat fast against your chest.

You hoped that Jaehyun didn’t notice how desperate you were for him not to shift away right now. That you actually enjoyed it, but felt so much hatred at the same time. Not against him, but against you - for feeling this way.

“Can you answer my question, Miss y/n?”

Your eyes widened in shock as you got addressed by the professor by your surname. You were actually a good student who was always paying attention in class. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t have happened. But now you got caught red handed not listening to him, and he was a very strict lecturer.

“I… um…” you stuttered.

“The answer to my question, Miss.”

“Yes… the answer…” You gulped as you didn’t even know the question. “The answer is…”

From the corner of your eyes, you perceived how a sheet was slowly moving into your direction from Jaehyun’s place. His finger was pointed at a paragraph that you had also noted down only shortly before.

Suddenly, you knew what the question was about and answered formally to the professor’s task.

With your heart having calmed down after the shock, you let yourself sink down on your seat again. You had gotten distracted only once by something that shouldn’t bother you at all.

This wouldn’t happen again, you swore to yourself.

____

“No ‘thank you’ again from you?”

You turned around to Jaehyun who had rosen a brow at you. “Is this becoming your thing now? Asking for ‘thank yous’?”

“Is this becoming your thing now?” he returned. “Not saying ‘thank you’? I saved your ass in class.”

“Well, I haven’t asked for that, so go beg somewhere else for attention.”

You made your way through the crowded club, feelling the bass under your feet and the techno music in your ears. Jaehyun was following suit.

“Do you want some kind of reward from me? Because you’re not going to get it.”

“I don’t want a reward. Hey.”

He reached out and grabbed you by your arm, right there on the dancefloor. The feeling from this morning returned, but in a higher intensity as it spread all over your body.

“All I’m asking for is respect.”

You snorted. “Respect? Do you respect my friend when you destroy her weekend plans to go drinking with your friends instead? Do you respect my friend when you dance ass on ass with another girl? Do you respect my friend when you hurt her feelings with your rude words? I don’t like you, Jung Jaehyun, because you’re a bad person, and respect is the last thing you’ll ever get from me!”

You yanked yourself out from his grip and disappeared in the mass. What was up with him? Why was he bothering so much lately and evoking all these controversial feelings inside you by acting like this? He should just stay away.

With your eyes closed, you started to move with the music, all by yourself there on the dancefloor. You wanted to collect your thoughts, but as the music flooded through your body, you realized that thinking about nothing was probably the best way to cope with your inner struggles right now.

You opened your eyes widely when you suddenly felt a hand on your bum.

Turning around with much anger reflected in your mien, you stared at a boy around your age who grinned at you seductively. Your fierce gaze was probably mistaken for an invitation when he approached you further, grabbed you by your hips from the front and pressed you against him.

With his lips on your ear, he whispered, “I like what I see.”

And you wanted to scream. You probably did, but it got drowned out by the loud music, and his grip was way too hard for you to free yourself that easily as you shuffled in his arms.

“Let me go!”

Yet, his hands roamed around your private areas like they owned it.

“HEY!”

Before you could scream once more, the guy got dragged away from you by the last person you had expected it from.

“She said let go of her, you asshole!”

Jaehyun grabbed him by his collar, and his height and angry expression alone were probably enough for the other guy to nearly piss his pants as he hastily mouthed,

“I’m so sorry!”

When Jaehyun let go of him, he slipped off silently and wasn’t seen again.

You stood there awkwardly with your arms hugging your chest, still digesting the happenings.

“Did he hurt you?” Jaehyun asked when he leaned in for you to understand better.

You shook your head.

“Do you want to go outside?”

You nodded.

Jaehyun took you by your hand to lead you through the dancing crowd, and you didn’t protest.

This gesture was the total opposite to the disgusting one from the guy who had harassed you shortly before. This touch was raw and chaste. Nothing to be ashamed of and fight against, but something you wanted to accept wholeheartedly.

When you stood outside of the club, Jaehyun let go of your hand, and you finally whispered the words that he had been longing to hear for quite a time,

“Thank you.”

Against your expectations, he didn’t mock you or return witty words. With his eyes locked with yours, he sincerely told you,

“You’re welcome.”

That was the moment it dawned on you that Jung Jaehyun had more positive sides to him that you had always wanted to blend out. But perhaps, you had reached a point in which this wasn’t possible anymore.

You couldn’t continue keeping your eyes closed to all the kind sides of him. Because the more he showed you, the more you’d open your heart for him.

To you, Jung Jaehyun had to remain a bad person, otherwise you’d fall for him, and falling for your best friend’s boyfriend was a taboo.

“Hey, what are you two doing outside?!” Speaking of the devil, your best friend jumped out of the club’s door and into your direction. “Isn’t the music fun?”

Jaehyun looked at you, waiting for your reaction. You knew that if you wanted to go home, he’d follow. If you wanted to stay, he’d stay too, not letting you out of his sight. Because - and you couldn’t repeat this often enough - Jaehyun was actually a good person.

“I want to go home,” you decided. “You can stay, though! Please just let me be the party pooper all alone, I don’t want to spoil your night.”

“Oh, what a pity!” your friend said with a pout. “You always leave when the party is about to start!”

You shrugged with a weak smile, tired of fighting. “Yeah, I guess so. But I still have a lot of pages to revise.”

“Shall we take you back to the dorm?” Jaehyun offered in a caring voice that you apparently encountered for the first time, and your friend immediately shot a reproachful glare at him.

“Are you being serious right now?” she complained. “She’s a grown ass woman who can go home alone!”

His eyes hadn’t left yours. “I’m talking to her, not you.”

Had it always been like this? Her caring about herself more than about you? If it were the other way around, you wouldn’t let her go home alone in the middle of the night, no matter if you knew something had happened before or not.

Suddenly, you saw your best friend from a whole other perspective. Suddenly, she was the one having Jaehyun on a leash, and he was the one fighting back for his rights, not against her.

Two sides of the same coin… If you were to flip it, would your entire world view change?

For a moment, you hesitated. But not wanting to disturb your friend’s evening, you gave in with a, “It’s okay, I can go alone. Have a nice night!”

But Jaehyun held you back when he insisted on calling you an uber for which he even paid while your best friend continued pouting on the side.

____

“FUCK YOU, JAEHYUN!” you heard your best friend scream later that night from her room, every syllable of hers clearly to hear in your own room while you laid in bed later that night.

The hours before had passed by in a trance as you had only fallen onto your mattress face forward after having quickly changed into your pj’s, that was how much of a toll the day had taken on you.

You just wanted to forget what had happened in the club, but also the thoughts that had constantly been in your mind all the way home that only revolved around Jaehyun. So sleep was the best solution, and you would have gladly continued doing so if there weren’t your best friend and Jaehyun arguing loudly next to you for an hour already.

Then, Jaehyun seemed to return something to which she screamed again, “I DON’T FUCKING CARE!”

Stomping followed the brief silence, a door getting opened, then shut again, and footsteps moved into the direction of the entry door before it fell close behind Jaehyun.

This was a nearly weekly experience for you lately, and usually, you’d just miss hearing their arguments, but this time you couldn’t help but to wonder what they had been yelling about. You just hoped it wasn’t because of you and what had happened to you earlier, because in your eyes, Jaehyun had done nothing wrong.

He had been so incredibly nice and thoughtful that you started to doubt their relationship.

You turned in your bed, wanting to fight those thoughts so badly. Jaehyun was your best friend’s boyfriend, and hence, forbidden fruit for you. But you just couldn’t stop your imagination from running now.

What it would be like in your best friend’s place and get treated like this every day, and the worst part was that you didn’t even feel bad about betraying her in your mind.

Fuck, you only thought and sat straight up in bed, now surely not being able to grasp a light thought to accompaby you back to lseep anymore.

Feeling safe to leave your room ten minutes later as your roommate must have fallen asleep by now, you didn’t think about sleep anymore but wanted to get a glass of water from the kitchen to calm yourself down.

Perhaps, tomorrow, you’d have another look at the entire situation, you tried to convince yourself. After a few more hours of sleep, all these confusing thoughts and feelings might have already been forgotten.

“Cannot sleep yet?”

You turned around and found a half naked Jaehyun only dressed in boxers right in front of you. The empty glass of water in your hands got placed back on the counter with shaky fingers.

“What are you doing here?” you contered.

“Well… she suddenly left.” He shrugged. “We’ve been arguing. You sure haven’t missed that one.”

“I didn’t.”

Still, you were wondering what that was all about, but didn’t want to ask. He lifted the weight off your shoulders himself though.

“It was about you.”

“Oh…?” You gulped.

“When you were gone, I went back to that guy and didn’t let him go that easily. They threw me out of the club and your friend thought I'd ruined the night for her.”

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

You wanted to make your way around him, but he blocked your way as he didn’t move to make space for you to pass by the door.

“What’s making me a bad person, y/n?” Jaehyun suddenly asked. “ The way I saved you in class? In the club? Tell me.”

“You cannot be serious right now. It’s 5am, draw a number for another day.”

You wanted to slip under his stretched out arm, but he moved his body to block you again. “Number one. Now tell me.”

“Because those have been the only times you were nice to me, Jung Jaehyun!” You clenched your fists, breathing in deeply. “When we go out with our friend group, you mock the boys trying to hit on me, telling them they’re so desperate for that move!”

“Because I heard them speaking about you before,” he declared. “They were not looking for something serious but only fun, one had even placed a bet. I tried to spare you from this embarrassment and eventual lovesickness. Go on.”

“When we’re in the same class, you purposely sit down next to me to distract me from the lesson!”

This one let him smirk. “Because I always saw you sitting there alone. You have no friends in that class, and I thought you might need some company. Besides… I knew you couldn’t afford that book we needed, and I purposely always shoved it into your direction when the professor read from it. Have you never noticed?”

Now you have. And you were flabbergasted.

“Wh… when,” you stuttered, “you’re over here, you always move my stuff onto high shelves, knowing I cannot reach them!”

“Because I love to see the defeated look on your face and your cute pout when you have to ask me to get the things for you.”

You didn’t know what to say further as you stood there, frozen on the spot. You hadn’t seen this answer coming.

“Anything else?”

Yes, there were many things you hated him for, and you wanted to throw them all into his face, but as he was standing there in front of you, not even one more came into your mind.

“I just hate you to the core!” you hissed.

But with calmness in his voice, he only turned, “No, you don’t.”

And then, it was all only a blur.

You wanted to push him away, but instead, you found yourself nudging against his body. You wanted to free yourself from his grip, but instead, you wrapped your arms around him. You wanted to escape from his kiss, but instead, you kissed him back in the same passionate manner he kissed you.

Jaehyun’s hands roamed all over your lightly covered body while his lips moved against yours, touching every spot he had missed out on during the entire time he knew you, because you had always pushed him away.

But now that you had opened up to him, you were scared the time window was about to close very soon, so you had to work fast.

You jumped on him, hooking your thighs around his waist while his hands instantly clung around your buttocks to give you the support he needed to carry you to your bedroom. Your hands remained interlaced on the back of his neck when he placed you onto your bed and laid himself between your legs.

Thrown overboard were all your morals, priorities, and the friendship to the person that meant the world to you. You didn’t want to think about all that, but were longing for him so desperately that you wondered for how long you had been suppressing that desire already.

Jung Jaehyun was hot. But he was a bad person.

Or… wasn’t he?

You desperately ground upwards against him, feeling him growing between your legs, and you brought your hands down to massage his length. Jaehyun interrupted your kiss as he hadn’t expected this move to come, and groaned into your ear.

You smirked triumphantly, your hands kneading muscles until he was pressed hard against your palms. Tucking your fingers into the waistband of his boxers, you slid the garment from his hips, revealing his bum. Your hands glided along his curvy, soft mounds, grabbing into them like you were testing ripe peaches.

Jaehyun was pecking your lips as you slid your hands under his body again and closed around his entire girth. He stopped for a moment, but the second he continued on, you started moving your hands, top on top, along his length.

Not being able to concentrate on the feeling down there and kissing you simultaneously anymore, you perceived how Jaehyun got weak with supporting his body on his own arms that he had rested to the left and right of your head. So you decided to take the lead from here on.

Sitting up yourself, you put your palms on Jaehyun’s chest and pushed him backwards onto the mattress. He watched you with surprised eyes, but didn’t protest as you sat on his thighs, eyeing his member with much anticipation.

You slid further down his legs, nearly close to his ankles, and bowed down. With your fingers wrapped around the base of his dick, you led him to your mouth. First letting the tip pass by your lips, then his entire length up until the very middle.

You only heard him swearing, “fucking shit,” before Jaehyun covered his face with his arm placed over his eyes and his other clasping the sheet by his side. Your hair grazed over the area around his navel while you moved your head up and down, cautiously slow at first to give yourself time to adapt to his length.

Then, you started bobbing your head, increasing the speed with every time you came up and nearly let him slip out, your fingers that had closed around him sliding in the same rhythm, adding to the pleasure. The slurping noises that came along with this act filled the room until they got drowned out by Jaehyun’s moans.

He directed his hand towards your head and grabbed it by the back, ruffling your hair between his fingers while he started to thrust upwards, meeting you halfway in the fast motions. Like this, he was able to reach deep within you, but still not far enough so that he could hurt you.

When you witnessed him twitching his legs, you stopped, held him still by the base and decided to tease him further a bit before you allowed him to release himself. With the tip of your tongue, you touched his glans, trailed along the slip and then circled around the entire top part.

Jaehyun’s swearing words came in a never ending trail like a waterfall that you couldn’t really understand all syllables from, but you were sure you did a good job and rewarded him for being patient with the motions from before again, but this time with added pressure and passion.

Suddenly, he grabbed you by your arm, urging you to stop.

“Or else I’m gonna cum,” he said and sat himself up, flipping you around so that you laid under him again.

Hastily, you got rid of your top while Jaehyun worked on your sleeping shorts until shortly after, you were both lying naked on top of each other. You wanted him desperately inside you, because you just didn’t know when you’ve had had sex the last time, but instead of wanting to get through this fast, Jaehyun took his time.

That was when you realized that this entire joining was probably more to him than just sex to get it off. You had thought that because he hadn’t been able to get it tonight from your best friend, he’d take it from you. But the way he touched you insisted otherwise.

If it wasn’t more than just sex, he wouldn’t trail his fingers over your ribcage in feathery-light motions, admiring every inch of your body. If it wasn’t more than a body-focused act, he wouldn’t place soft kisses not only on your mouth, but also onto your forehead, your cheek, your neck… If it wasn’t more, Jaehyun wouldn’t be so damn thoughtful and tender.

He remained his tenderness and his gaze didn’t leave your eyes as well when he finally nudged between your thighs, pushing forward until he filled you up to the brim.

Restraining himself from starting to move right away, Jaehyun took his time to ask you whether you were okay at first when you let out a quiet “oh” that alarmed him. But you were eager to calm him down when you explained that it was only because you hadn’t been with a man in so long, and somehow, after speaking it out, it made you feel embarrassed.

As the boyfriend of your best friend, he’d surely know when you had been in contact with a man the last time, and you hated yourself for being so pressured by society to feel ashamed of who you were and how you lived your life.

But instead of judging you, Jaehyun only nodded and tucked a strand of your hair behind your ear, and suddenly, you were flooded with such a warm feeling towards him that you nearly cried. Rarely had you encountered a man so considerate and caring.

“Tell me when I can go on.”

You bit your lip and felt the uncomfortable pressure in your nether regions getting replaced by a feeling that you hadn’t encountered in so long. A feeling that made you want more, want him.

Holding onto his shoulders with both of your hands, you nodded back at him with a smile which he then returned. When Jaehyun started thrusting in and out of you, your eye contact didn’t break, and you were sure that right now, you were looking at the real Jaehyun at this very moment.

Not the guy you hated. Not the guy your best friend was dating. But instead the person who wanted to protect you from guys that only wanted to use you. A person who offered you company in class and shared his equipment with you. And a person whose cheekiness and affection he showed through childish acts because he didn’t know how to express his feelings otherwise.

This was not the person you were sure of knowing all along. Probably because you hadn’t even gotten to know him in the first place.

One arm now clung around his neck while with the other, you grabbed the pillow beside you. You threw your head back in excitement, his pushes coming in short intervals one after another, and he was hitting all the right spots with them.

Jaehyun propped his arms up to the left and right of him, lifting his upper body to gather all his strength in his groin area and stopped for a brief moment before he thrusted inside you with such force that it nearly knocked all air out of your lungs, and you couldn’t respond with anything else than moaning.

It felt so good, so… right. But how could something so wrong still feel so right?

Right now, you didn’t hate Jaehyun or your best friend the most, but yourself and the fact that you continued on and on. That you brought your hips up to meet his thrusts with hazy thoughts and his lips all over yours when he slowed down with his movements to dedicate himself to caressing your breasts.

You felt Jaehyun’s hot tongue swirling over your buds, and you shook under him. Not because it felt cold, but because his tender caresses just felt so good. You didn’t have the feeling that he could do anything wrong with whatever he carried out, that was your impression about how well your bodies meshed together.

No, you didn’t hate Jaehyun. You had always only hated how he had presented himself to you. But there was so much more to him.

Sweat droplets showed on his forehead when he continued with the hard thrusts again, the sound of you both breathing heavily mixing together with the sloppy noises of your bodies moving against each other filling the room, but no matter how messy sex was, it was the most romantic thing you had experienced in a long time.

Your eye contact also didn’t break when Jaehyun arose above you, his sweaty chest glistening in the dim light that shone through your windows, and increased his pace even more. When he dropped his head and bit his lip in the process, you wrapped your arms around him and added pressure to your nether regions as you felt him approaching his heights.

It felt very good to you too, but you were by any means not as far as him yet, so you didn’t blame him when he came only a short moment after with a groan that sounded sexy as hell to you.

You held him tightly when he fell limply onto your chest, still breathing heavily from the orgasm that slowly faded. Staring at the ceiling, you smiled with him in your arms, just enjoying the moment when Jaehyun moved away from you.

“We’re not done here yet,” you saw him grin as he laid himself next to you, rolled onto the side and placed his head in his palms as he propped his elbow against the mattress.

You wondered what was to come when you felt his finger tips dragging from your thighs to your navel, then lower again and stopped right at your most sensitive spot.

“Oh!” you let out as he placed two fingers on your folds and started moving them up and down with your remaining juices as lube that made the intense feeling kick in almost immediately.

You screamed when he added pressure and now directed circling motions around the sensitive bundle of nerves. From your half-closed eyes, you witnessed him looking at you with such admiration but also cheekiness as you writhed and wreathed under him, yet spread your legs even wider as release was so close.

Jaehyun leaned in to you, his fingers not letting go of the continuity as he half covered your body with his and just kissed you passionately. Like this, he encountered first hand how the orgasm took over you, and you moaned into his mouth, riding it out against his hand.

It felt like the most natural thing in the world when he wrapped his arms around you right after and pulled you onto his chest, and you drifted off into a slumber shortly after.

Even though the first tendencies of your bad consciousness set in before you closed your eyes, you decided that this would be the problem of tomorrow.

No, you didn’t hate Jung Jaehyun.

If anything, you should probably hate yourself.

___

“YES… YES… YESYESYES, OHMYGOD!”

You heard your friend from the other side of the wall, having rudely awakened you in the early morning hours. At least you thought so. But a glimpse at your phone through sleepy eyes told you that it was past 11am already.

Within a second, you were wide awake.

You were still naked, but the clothes on your floor only belonged to you, and the spot next to you in the bed was empty.

“OH!MY!GOD!.... YES! OH… OH.... AAAAH… OHOHOH… YES!!”

Jaehyun was gone. At least from your room.

Your best friend’s headboard constantly bumped against the wall, and you grabbed your pillow to cover your ears with it. You didn’t want to hear the sounds. Not because they stole your sleep, but because somehow, for the first time, you didn’t feel disturbed by the noise, but actually hurt.

In your mind, you imagined Jaehyun’s mesmerizing smile, the witty expression he was constantly wearing and his deep voice that had showed you for the first time last night that there was a certain softness within it.

You felt hurt, because you knew all the things from last night had been real between you two, yet he was still fucking your best friend mere hours later. What you had shared and felt had been special, yet he was still with her.

And suddenly, you felt hate again. But towards yourself. For betraying your best friend with him. But first and foremost, for betraying yourself.

You had never hated Jung Jaehyun.

You had always felt some certain kind of attraction towards him, but kept telling yourself you hated him to push him as far away from you as possible. If this wouldn’t be so wrong under these circumstances, this attraction would feel right and could blossom. But like this, you could never come to enjoy this feeling entirely.

Your relationship had been doomed from the very start, because given the wicked circumstances, you would never be able to form a healthy relationship. It was like a stain that would never vanish on a white sheet.

So you just decided to continue as usual. To keep this a secret between the both of you and just to carry on with your life.

And to hate Jung Jaehyun just a little more.

You just didn’t know how to feel and act towards your best friend without feeling so much… regret.

“Good morning.”

But the young man stepping out of your best friend’s room wasn’t Jaehyun. But Johnny.

You sat there in the kitchen with a cup of coffee, your mouth agape. And then it started to rattle in your head.

Lately, there were times when your best friend had screamed the name “Jaehyun!” loudly during the act. Those were the times you had actually seen him the next morning. But the nights she hadn’t screamed a certain name, no one had ever come out. And those times, you had counted more than the ones with Jaehyun in the past weeks, just when their loud arguments started on a nearly daily basis.

“Where’s Jaehyun?” you asked without greeting her good morning as you walked into her room.

“Oh, we had a fight last night,” she explained to you while getting herself dressed casually. “And then we broke up. I went away to be with Johnny after throwing him out, and we’ve only gotten back this morning. I hope he left last night already and didn’t stay here.”

“What?” you wondered.

“Yeah.” She shrugged. “I’ll get over it.”

“You actually already got over it as I’ve seen!”

“Oh, Johnny?”

“You’ve been fucking him for weeks already?” you provoked.

She shrugged again. “Perhaps a month… So what?”

You stood there, totally lost for words. “You’ve been crying about Jaehyun to me ever since you got together! That he flirted with other women, ditched you, went to parties and ignored you! And now you’re telling me you’ve been cheating on him for quite a while?! And this instagram story drama from last week?”

She sighed and flopped down onto the bed. “Okay, admittedly, I’m not an angel in this story, but he is by far neither! He was not. There were many things he has done wrong in the past. But then he actually started… doing nothing wrong. Being the picture perfect boyfriend without all these flaws and drama. And perhaps, this is not something that I want, so I started to look around elsewhere.”

“So…” You paused, still processing the shock. “Was it all an act? All the times you’ve cried to me over him lately while cheating behind his back?”

“Not an act, precisely,” she said reluctantly. “Yes, he explained every situation to me. And I was being dramatic over it for nothing, perhaps. I don’t know… I still enjoyed being with him though, but it just didn’t feel right anymore. I want to have men just… telling me I’m right, always coming back to me… what’s a relationship without fire? But Jaehyun didn’t want to do this anymore.”

In your head, you recalled everything that Jaehyun had told you. About there being two sides of the same coin, about you being so oblivious. All this time, he knew that she had cheated on him. He knew what you thought of him, yet he had never made a move to ever explain it to you.

But why?

“As he should,” you then stated. “How you treated him was awful!”

“Only because I cheated on him a few times?” she chuckled. “Come on!”

“I’m your best friend, and yet you lied to me! You twisted and turned stories so that you’d always be the one at right! But the truth is, you’re the bad person here. Not him.”

“Now what? He’s gone from our lives. Don’t care about him.”

But the truth was, you did. Now more than about her.

That was why, an hour later, you found yourself in front of his dorm. When he opened shortly after you had knocked, you stared at him, still gasping for air as you had run the entire way here, with all the memories from last night coming back with each step.

“She’s been cheating on you,” were the only words you brought out.

“I know.”

“For how long?” you asked.

“I assume for just as long.”

You breathed in heavily, not understanding a word. “But why did you stay with her?”

Jaehyun smiled meekly. “Because I don’t think I deserve a good person like you are.”

It ran hot and cold down your back. “I… I don’t understand.”

He leaned against the door frame with crossed arms, and even though he seemed uncomfortable talking about his feelings, he still did.

“I haven’t been the best boyfriend for her most times in this relationship, I admit this openly. We weren’t really good for each other and it destroyed me to the point that I wanted to change. But when I started being the boyfriend she had wished for, it wasn’t right either and she started cheating. So I just settled with it. Because I thought I screwed up to that point where I won’t be able to make anyone happy anymore and also don’t deserve the same in return. Even though I only wanted you...”

“You douche!” You stomped with your feet on the ground.

“What?” he returned perplexed with furrowed brows.

“Everyone deserves love and to love! And you’re not different from anyone else!”

His confusion got replaced with a mild smile. “You’re so kind, y/n. That’s one of the things I like the most about you. But you’re also oblivious.”

Jaehyun pulled out his phone, scrolled through his messenger and started playing a voice message from a very familiar person.

“Why do you even care about this bitch, Jaehyun?!” In the background, you heard music and other people talking. “She’s a stupid nerd, and I’ve only befriended her because she helps me studying and listens to my complains since we’re dorm mates, so don’t even waste a single thought about this party pooper!”

You stood there as though you had been rendered motionless. Your heart had dropped to your feet.

“This is from last night when I quickly went outside again to check whether you rode away safely with your uber and she couldn’t find me directly. That’s why we argued and broke up. No, it’s not the first time she’s talked about you like this.” He put his phone away. “I thought letting you hate me would make it easier for a kind person like you to keep their distance from someone like me. Because, in the end, I will only hurt you too. But the more I started to genuinely like you, the more I felt protective towards you. I couldn’t see her speaking about you like this anymore.”

Your breathing came in hitches as your whole world suddenly crashed over you. Your best friend wasn’t your best friend. She had probably never been.

You stumbled backwards, and Jaehyun stepped forward to grab you by your arm, but you pulled it away.

“I…. I just…” you stuttered. “I have to… talk to her.”

“Sure.”

The whole way home, you only cried.

Not over Jaehyun, but over the betrayal of someone you had considered your best friend, yet had hurt you in the most painful way like no man ever could. And the fact that you had been an asshole to her to the same extent after having slept with her boyfriend the same night they had broken up was probably the final straw.

You were no saint here. You had added to your both’s downfall just as much. And it hurt much more than any heartbreak you had experienced so far.

You had to sort your life out and right now, and amongst this chaos there was no place for Jaehyun in your life.

____

You put the last vase with dried flowers on your shelf, stepped backwards to your room’s door and inspected the final set up.

“Finished!” you praised yourself.

It had taken you three months to move to a new dorm, but this was your last step to a new chapter in your life.

You hadn’t had contact with your former best friend ever since your final conversation in which you had handed the keys over to her. The many conversations before had only consisted of screams, accusations and tears.

She had admitted to saying all those things about you, but also to genuinely have come like you. You weren’t so sure whether that was real or one of her lies again. You had admitted to sleeping with Jaehyun, and she would have forgiven you for that as she hadn’t been really in love with him anymore at this point, but you were sure you didn’t want either in your life anymore.

Your best friend because she had hurt you deeply, and Jaehyun because of your burdensome history. All of you had done so many wrong things, and you were only a bundle of toxic people together, so chaotic that you were better off apart from each other.

But you didn’t want to be this toxic kind of person anymore. So you moved out and left your old life behind.

You didn’t go to that class with Jaehyun anymore, and although you missed him, the touches of your joint night still present on your skin sometimes, you wanted to move on from even the mere imaginations of him as well. You were sure that you’d find a guy just like him, but you missed him wherever you went and couldn’t help but ask yourself “what if?”

The fact that he hadn’t reached out to you either made it easier, and as summer break came and passed, and the new semester started, you had kissed two news guys already, made a new friend group and were just overall happy.

But you still missed Jaehyun dearly and all the possibilities of what could have happened if only your timing had been right in life. Even if he wasn’t the right one for you.

“Is this seat taken?”

And then, one day, there he was again. Taking the seat next to you as though no time had ever passed between the two of you, smiling that mesmerizing smile you didn’t hate.

You only stared at him, and his kind expression didn’t break. When you moved your head to the front again where the professor introduced himself, you couldn’t help but to smile too. Because this wasn’t the expression of a bad person.

People changed, and just like good traits could turn into bad traits, a bad person could turn into a good one also. And they all deserved a second chance.

You had only known the Jaehyun from your best friend’s perspective, and then also his body. But even though you had gotten a glimpse of the real Jaehyun here and there, you didn’t quite know him entirely yet.

But you wanted to. The good, the bad, the real. Jaehyun wasn’t the right one for you, but such a thing didn’t exist. What mattered were only your feelings.

Because in fact, you didn’t hate Jung Jaehyun. At all.

#jaehyun #jung jaehyun #jaehyun imagines #jaehyun scenarios #jaehyun smut #jaehyun x you #jaehyun x reader #nct imagines #nct scenarios #nct smut #nct x reader #nct x you #kpop scnearios #kpop x you #kpop imagines #my writing #one shot

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lokiskitten · 3 years

Note

Hiya can I request a bucky imagine where he comes across one of your sex toys (preferably a vib or dildo ;) be creative) and then you walk in on him finding it, then he decides to use it on you wondering if you can really take it etc

Bucky Barnes | adult playtime

Bucky Barnes x fem!reader

Author’s note : so I decided to add a little twist.. I hope you’ll be able to enjoy it ;)

plot : Bucky stumbles upon one of your intimate objects and decides to show you how to efficiently use it. However, he unexpectedly decides to switch to another method.

warnings : smut, mention and use of sex toy, Bucky using his vibranium arm for inappropriate purposes, masturbation, overstimulation.

After you had forgotten one of your belongings in his room, Bucky had no choice but to make his way to yours in order to give it back. He had traveled throughout the avengers’ compound and finally managed to find the place he had been looking for. His hand delicately moved up to the door, knuckles offering gentle taps to the wooden material which resulted in none but light knocks. Surprisingly enough, the man earned no answers. Bucky felt annoyed and frustrated, thinking about how he would have to give you your belonging back another time which would make him loose some of his own. However, no one would know if he decided to break in in order to drop the object off before disappearing behind the door again. It would only be a matter of seconds...

His hand twisted the handle, door opening and revealing the inside of your small bedroom. “y/n?..” Bucky called discreetly, wishing to double check on your presence before getting engaged into this upcoming illegal act. A sigh escaped his lips upon noticing that no one was here, a light head shake coming from the man as he dropped the book down on your desk. However, right as he was about to exit, Bucky’s eyes caught glimpse of a purple length resting on top of your bedsheets. He frowned, feeling too curious to back away as his feet were now leading him towards your bed on which he took the initiative to sit. Was that really what he thought it was?

His hands didn’t hesitate to take ahold of this object which had probably been in contact with your intimacy, his vibranium finger pressing down onto a button and allowing the man to watch the object begin to vibrate. He bit down on his gum, eyes remaining staring at your vibrator. Bucky couldn’t help but imagine how you must’ve probably used it not too long ago if it was resting on top of your bedsheets- though you could’ve never expected someone to penetrate into your room and accidentally bump into it. Perhaps you should learn to lock your doors and fear noisy intruders. Unfortunately, Bucky was caught off guard by the sound of the door opening, revealing your tired silhouette which felt surprised and embarrassed to see your friend in here, holding your vibrator.

Out of shame, Bucky desperately attempted to turn the object off by pressing onto the button again, which only resulted in him switching speeds and rythmes a couple of time before the vibrator finally agreed to turn off. “I was just umh.. you know. Giving you your book back.” He affirmed on a flustered tone, yourself barley leaving him time to place the vibrator down as you were soon to scoot until the bed and yank it out of his hand. This move led a smirk to appear on his face. Bucky admired your embarrassed silhouette. “Hey, tell me something y/n...” he began, adjusting the position he held on the edge of your bed. “You’ve been feeling lonely, huh?”

This question caught you off guard, and obviously led you to feel even more embarrassed than you previously were. It felt as if someone had written down “I’m lonely and crave sexual attention from another human being” on your forehead with the help of a black marker. Visibly, Bucky read right through you. “Whatever I am, it is none of your business, Barnes.” You responded, earning a surprised chuckle coming from the unstable being. He leant back on his palms whilst watching you put the vibrator back into your nightstand’s drawer- feeling nearly saddened face to such a turn off that was this sight. “That’s a shame.” The trained soldier affirmed seriously, blue eyes then diverting up at yours when you finally agreed to turn around. “We could’ve had some fun.”

Had Bucky just offered you to spend some intimate time with him? Out of all the males you knew, he had been the first one to do such a thing. He could tell that he had caught you off guard, and the fact that you didn’t answer straight away could only indicate you were seriously thinking of accepting his proposition. Bucky therefore decided to make a first move, and all of that whilst remaining perfectly serious. “How about you get that vibro back out, mmh? Will you, doll?” He requested, your submissive self having no choice but to allow your organism and mind to crumble under his appetizing offer. And that, Bucky could perfectly sense it. He longed to watch you squirm and clench under his touch.

As previously ordered, your hand pulled open your nightstand’s drawer before your digits could wrap around the purple sex toy to take it back out. It was a basic vibrator, but it remained efficient due to its multiple choices when it came to vibrations. You then proceeded to sit down beside your soon to be one night stand companion, teeth biting down on your bottom lip out of envy and impatience. Bucky didn’t hesitate to take ahold of the toy which he examined for a couple of seconds, blue eyes then diverting towards your head as a gentle smile appeared onto his face. “Is this really what you use to please yourself at night?” He asked, the cocky tone he used making you want to change the truth in your upcoming answer. A chuckle escaped his lips.

“Well, buttercup, let’s see what it can truly do.” Bucky finished, watching as you began to undress yourself for him and the experiences he enjoyed to lead on the human body. It didn’t take long for all of your clothes to be removed- Bucky getting rid of his upper pieces of clothing as well- and you were now laying down with your head pressed against the pillow. Your legs remained spread, knees stuck to your chest as you exposed your bare and pulsating sexe to the older man. Your core, which had yet to soak up, couldn’t appear to wait for Bucky’s touches and what would certainly come along. The man smirked, laying down beside your body as his eyes remained glued to your chest.

His free hand took ahold of the fleshy mound, lips soon wrapping around your areola which he sucked on from a brief moment before setting it free in order to focus on your cunt. A gentle moan escaped your lips, your organism simply reacting to receiving some masculine attention again after spending all this time pleasuring yourself. When the sound of the working vibrator finally began to echo throughout the bedroom, you felt your body automatically fill itself up with bliss and excitement, toes clenching as you eagerly waited for Bucky to begin to work his magic. It didn’t take long until the tip of the vibrating sex toy finally collided with your clit, gliding up and down your slit before going back up to your sensitive bud.

Bucky managed to find his way through your clitoral hood in order to properly reach for your clit, which resulted in shockwaves of pleasure travelling through your crotch and overall lower abdomen. It felt divine, yet still hard to handle and had you clench against the bedsheets. “Buck-“ you began, only to be stopped by the man himself who made sure to keep you within his strong hold to guarantee stability. He now began to rub the tip of the working vibrator in circles against your clit, being perfectly aware that it would make you feel even weaker than you already were. However, you now had grown used to the vibrations, and it didn’t affect you as much as he would’ve wished.

“Feeling anything yet sweetheart?” Bucky asked as he took the initiative to coat the tip of the vibrator in your love juice before allowing himself to slide it within your entrance. The toy vibrated against your walls, though it only started to feel nice once Bucky began to thrust the length in and out of you. “Mmh..” you responded briefly, earning a frustrated sigh coming from the working man. Persuaded that this vibrator was useless, Bucky took it out of you before turning it off and carelessly tossing it to the side, earning a rather upset state coming from your confused self. “Why’d you do that?” You asked before sensing the tip of his cold vibranium fingers come in contact with your clit. It didn’t take long for you to understand his upcoming plans.

“Mmh..” his fingers held just the right type of vibrating pace, which seemed to be growing stronger through time. Your eyelids shut close, head peacefully resting against the pillow as Bucky carried on making his digits rub and vibrate against your cunt. “Are you feeling it now?..” he asked again, blue eyes staring at your clenched face as he appeared to enjoy watching your facial expressions twitch and change. “I am..” you responded breathlessly, those words leading Bucky’s fingers to accelerate the rythme. This was seriously beginning to send you head over heels, allowing your climax to build up within your crotch as Bucky continued to willingly work his magic on you.

In the corner of your mind, you were seriously beginning to wonder if the man’s arm wouldn’t overheat and explode- but it thankfully didn’t. Instead, it carried on vibrating against your clenched core which was desperately seeking for release. It soon became too hard to handle, a burning sensation taking over your legs and sexe the more Bucky’s fingers remained pressed against your clit- offering it pats and rubs. Before you could know it, your orgasm showed up and filled your body with pure bliss, your muscles contracting and tensing up- feeling secretly grateful about the fact that Bucky was here to hold you down and restrain you from hurting yourself. Bucky’s digits progressively paced down, wishing to slowly take away the reason to why you had gone physically crazy.

“That’s it.. you can’t imagine for how long I’ve been wishing to see you purr like a little kitten for me.” Bucky revealed proudly, hand finally moving away from your sexe. “Quit wasting your money on useless toys. Save up some cash by calling my number instead.” The man advised with a wink before sitting up onto his bum, allowing you to recover from the intense overstimulation you had just been put through.

@bucky-soldat ,, you deserve to be tagged in this. I love you!❤️

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traumatictouch · 4 years

Text

why tomura reads like a sexual abuse survivor

ive noticed that a lot of survivors - including me - easily read tomura as a csa survivor. ive decided to try to put these impressions into words, mostly for myself, but also for anyone curious as to why he’s so frequently read this way, or why i personally write him as such. i will mostly be elaborating on the reoccurring sexual assault imagery and csa survivor traits tomura exhibits.

triggering themes ahead, including discussed child sexual abuse, incest (sibling and pseudo), trauma and its effects, and sexual assault imagery (from the bnha manga itself). also spoilers for the most recent manga arc.

(disclaimer: i realize symptoms of trauma are pretty much common all across the board, and depression also comes with a lot of these behaviors - but there are some that crop up more commonly in cases of sexual abuse (especially from a young age) than in others. csa survivors also frequently end up with depression, too, so that doesn't necessarily take away from it.)

i’ll start with the cover above. the hands touching him here are much more expressive than the ones he usually wears. it's also framed in a way where you can't see the ends/cap things very well, and they don't appear so symmetrical, making them feel much more like real, living hands grabbing him.

there's also the fact that his face is exposed, which is something we had rarely seen him do willingly at this point in the manga, and even when he had he was still covered up with a hoodie or completely alone. the way he's covering half his face gives off the impression that he's not okay with the way he's exposed.

all of that, plus the obvious distress tomura is in, gives this very glaring assault vibes.

also, the hands on his head are clearly someone's actual, living hands as well. my guess is afo, especially since they seem to be petting him, which is reoccurring imagery between tomura and afo.

tomura's total lack of privacy

there's a clear lack of boundaries between tomura and the adults in his life. most of the spaces that seem to belong to tomura (the bar - he feels safe enough there to take Father off, and his room) are accompanied by cameras and audio transmissions from afo. he has no privacy, and doesn't even seem bothered by this fact.

he also doesn't seem to set boundaries with other people in general. toga can hold a knife to his neck, spinner can grab him and yell in his face, the doctor can shout over his earpiece, dabi (or anyone, really) can say whatever rude or callous things he wants to him… really the only time i can think of that even comes close was when mr. compress made a joke about working with overhaul and tomura said "hey, not funny."

he seems to kinda just let whatever happen to him. earlier in the series, tomura seemed to rely on kurogiri to notice when he needed space and step in for him rather than ask for it himself. that's a pretty telltale sign of someone who's had their needs and boundaries violated (or even punished) for a long time.

Tomuras over-attachment to afo and his praise/affection

obviously afo groomed tomura whether it involved sexual abuse or not, but it is something that could have easily lended itself to that as well. early in the series, tomura clearly highly valued afos opinion of him, and seemed to strive to please and repay him for his kindness. these are feelings afo incited in him on purpose and did, canonically, take advantage of to turn tomura into a villain and pawn - who's to say he didn't use it for other purposes, too?

it's also the kind of thing survivors tend to latch onto to cope with their abuse. it can be easier to think of the event as being affection, returning a favor, and/or special treatment, than to think of it as abuse. tomura looked up to afo so much that it's possible he could have considered (or been convinced) that it was special that someone as great as afo wanted to do something so intimate with him.

also, if this is really tomura realizing his sensei isn't as special and powerful as he'd been led to believe, then his reaction being to cover up while looking angry might, well… be a reaction to feeling used.

Tomura & older men

there's not a lot of people besides afo that tomura seems very quickly, openly… invested in. there are two major ones i can think of, and they are both 1. older men, and 2. mentor figures (even if not to tomura.)

the most obvious of the two is aizawa, who tomura has seemed pretty fond of since his first appearance and, even in the most recent chapters, can't seem to help but think about how cool aizawa is. aizawa isn't a mentor to tomura, obviously, but he is a teacher and tomura knows this. (and seems impressed by the way he tries to protect the students in his care--something afo very specifically does not do for tomura.)

the second, and perhaps less obvious to most, is Stain. i wrote up a whole post trying (trying.) to explain the way tomura seemed interested in him, and you can see a bit more about that and how tomura was hoping he'd be a mentor to him here.

in other words, tomura has shown reoccurring interest in older men, who are mentors, that he does not show for anyone else.

early sexual abuse can influence a person's attractions. survivors tend to be drawn to what is familiar, even if it hurt, and so it's pretty common for them to be attracted to and/or desire a relationship with those who resemble their abuser(s).

and afo is an older man who is a mentor to tomura (and others.)

immaturity (& age regression)

tomura, in early canon, is often described by characters in-universe as being childish, especially in regards to how he processes his emotions. (i don't really like to conflate these things with "age" or "being childish" - but the way the manga itself presents these qualities is clearly intended to give tomura a immature/childish vibe.)

tomura's emotional processing, simple motivations, fixation with video games, toys littering his room, and need for close caregiving (kurogiri) all give off the impression that he's had trouble developing the way he "”should”" have--kind of like he didn't really move on at all.

this sort of stunted development tends to occur in people with childhood trauma, especially csa survivors. ptsd at its core is the brain getting "stuck" in the moment of trauma, so if the trauma occurred as a child, then one's development is somewhat halted there, especially in areas of emotional processing, because the brain and body have to dedicate so much energy to just trying to cope and survive. it's pretty common for csa survivors to have trouble coping with and controlling their emotions.

relatedly: i have no real way to confirm this right now, but i’ve heard that during the mla arc, while tomura was kind of going in and out of flashbacks, he started switching to using “boku” - a self pronoun for young boys - as opposed to his usual “ore”). ive since had to wonder if this is a reoccurring state for tomura - it might partly explain why he keeps his toys around despite never showing interest in them on-screen, and has such close supervision from kurogiri.

again, age regression can go for any kind of childhood trauma, but seems very common in child sexual abuse survivors in particular.

Lack of hygiene (esp oral)

look at how tomura's teeth are drawn compared to even another villains. dabis teeth are straight and clean, whereas tomura's have holes and chips, and tend to be drawn uneven with wobbly lines, like they're covered in plaque.

not caring for one's hygiene is common for people with depression too - but failure to care for teeth also frequently crops up in survivors of sexual abuse, due to an aversion to things touching or being inside their mouth, because it can remind them of the abuse.

in a similar vein, tomura's hair looks unwashed and greasy to me, especially when it gets long. it sort of gathers in clumps and appears heavy. survivors may avoid taking showers because they aren't comfortable removing their clothes for long periods of time, or because the abuse occurred in proximity to bathing. (which is a convenient time for parental figures to groom and abuse their children, since it already involves them being naked and the parent touching them closely.)

in general, there just seems to be something off about tomura's relationship with his body. maybe it's the way he barely bats an eye at major injuries, doesn't care for his hygiene, self-injures, and didn't mind undergoing a surgery that altered its shape and function pretty heavily--but i get the impression that tomura sees his body as just a tool more than anything.

which, if someone grew up having their body regarded as nothing but a means of pleasure, kind of makes sense.

his clothing

im not sure if this has the same “connotations” (for lack of a better word) for flat chested people, but tomura always wearing a lowcut shirt that shows off a fair amount of his chest, but covering the rest of himself head to toe--including his face--feels significant to me. as well as the way he covers up even more (his hoodie) when he’s stressed. the hands, too--being covered up seems to be calming for him.

the placement of the hands afo gave him

you can't tell me little tenko placed these hands where they are by himself. the ones on his chest aren’t even from his family or meant to resemble them - they’re additional hands afo gave him to wear. pretty weird place for “afo”’s hands to go...

I feel like theres a little bit something to tomura frequently having his clothes ripped off during fights

not that it's particularly uncommon for bnha characters to get their clothes a bit shredded during fights, but i can't help but feel like there's something to tomura getting torn down to nothing but his pants twice, with both battles heavily involving tomura's traumas, including the ones related to afo. the vs mla arc with how tomura met afo and how he turned him into what he is today, then the war arc where the methods afo used to control and abuse tomura (the hands) are brought back again--and afo repeatedly takes tomura's bodily autonomy away from him.

AFO's predatory behaviors

tomuras own behavior aside, All For One himself has some behaviors and imagery that gives off very predatory vibes. i’ll start with Ragdoll…

most people theorize that she was going to be turned into a nomu, but there are two important things here. ragdoll was found 1. alive, and 2. naked. all nomu are made from corpses - if afo had time to take her quirk and undress her, he certainly had time to kill her, especially since three days had passed since she was kidnapped. (and, what benefit would there be to making a nomu out of a quirkless hero?)

her dazed state is also curious - we've never been told taking or giving quirks has a side effect like this, and i would think itd at least wear off after three days…

there's also not actually a lot to suggest she was submerged in one of the tanks (that i know of); in the full body image, she doesn't seem to be soaking wet or anything. there's no water dripping off her. there's just a bit of liquid on her face and neck, which could merely be sweat, or… other fluids.

this next part is more debatable due to it being more dubiously canon (although My Hero: One’s Justice has been known to basically spoil villain related lore before it appears in the manga) - but he has some dialogue that makes him sound... pretty fuckin enthusiastic about sexual violence.

and time and time again, afo has been... very creepy and obsessive about his brother. who happens to look an awful lot like tomura, and is vaguely connected to nana as a user of OFA, and we know how far afo would go to spite both of them.

The "wow this is pretty much confirmed now" page

i always thought i was just projecting when i read tomura as a csa survivor - until i saw this page, which was so viscerally uncomfortable that it made me nauseous. it definitely made me decide i wasn't just reading into things that weren't there. that's not exactly to say this panel 100% confirmed it (though it certainly did in my mind, personally) -- but the imagery here can't not be deliberate.

tomura is literally shirtless and bent over before afo, and sure, afos not completely standing behind him, but that's partially because his lower half is inside of tomura. and from our previous example of afo taking over tomura's body…

i wish i could find the translation i first saw - this is the viz translation, which is notoriously horrible - but the one i read felt much more along the lines of "i saved you, so i get to do what i want with your body."

that is a line of logic that could have EASILY applied to their earlier relationship. the way afo saved tenko was very much on the forefront of tomura's mind early in the series, possibly either an idea he clung onto to justify the abuse he experienced from afo, or something afo personally reminded him of frequently.

also… part of afos body is definitely wrapped around tomura's upper thigh, and in certain panels seems to be emanating from between his legs.

speaking of, tomura's stance is also notable to me. compared to the panel where tomura first realized afo was taking control of him, where his knees are pretty straight on or outwards in a powerful balanced brace, in these panels his knees seem to be bending in towards his body, like he wants to squeeze his legs shut. huh.

i touched on this before, but it's interesting to me that what finally let afo fully take control of tomura's body, was having a hand (one afo very specifically used to control and abuse tomura into doing what he wanted) placed upon his body without permission.

so, all in all, afo is "inside" tomura's body, using it for his own means, against tomura's wishes.

what else does that sound like? no wonder deku feels like tomura needs help, despite everything...

again, this isn't to say that csa is definitely the cause of these things, just that tomura does have an abundance of behaviors and imagery that could easily be read that way.

#shigaraki tomura #tomura shigaraki #Tenko Shimura #boku no hero academia #all for one #afo bnha #bnha #long post #ITS FINALLY HERE #i did my best i hope it makes sense #csa tw #child abuse tw #meta #ooc

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stryc-9 · 2 years

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Part 2 in my 5 part series of obvious things Lauren Seal completely misunderstands about storytelling... coherent plot

In a perfect (or even acceptable) story, the plot would be not only coherent, but also compelling and consistent. I think we all know that's far too much to expect in LN's case, so we'll stick with only one C aspect for now.

I'm going to admit something that makes me feel dumb but actually makes LN look dumb... I do not know what season 4 was about. Truly. I could guess at themes (that fall apart if you try to carry them through) and point out messages she thought she was maybe kinda conveying, but I honestly can't give you an elevator pitch to explain the season.

The homages / straight up copies of religious iconographies (which didn't belong in the first place) were so muddled.

The Romeo & Juliet fish tank homage -- both characters die. The scorpion and the frog fable -- both characters die. Cupid and psyche -- they end up together despite all kinds of obstacles and a trip through hell. And don't even get me started on Jesus, especially with how LN has followed up saying Villanelle was too self-serving to sacrifice her life for Eve. That was his whole deal.

So in 2 of these, both characters die. In 1, they end up together. And in Christianity -- why do I even have to address this -- there is the sacrifice of one for all.

I probably missed some of her fables / mythologies because honestly it was too much to keep up with considering the constant conflict. But of the ones I remembered, none fit the story.

And before someone lets her open her dumb mouth again to say something like "well Eve died too. She was being cleansed of all the death to be normal again." Honey, sweetie, darling, precious moron, Eve died A LONG TIME AGO. It was literally the point of her character journey. Her true self was being revealed while her "normal" persona was being stripped away.

She didn't become SOMEONE NEW. She embraced all parts of herself to become SOMETHING ELSE. Not new. Complete.

Now we can now discuss what we were presented with as maybe I guess might have kinda a little bit been the plot for season 4... the 12. They make no sense (in the show) as either an organization or a big bad. One minute they are all knowing and no one can ever break free of them and the next they're sending out e-vites.

Characters were used as objects for no reason. Konstantin was back with the 12. Why couldn't he or Pam decode the text from Helene's phone that apparently only Villanelle could crack in 4 seconds?

You all know I have 9,857 questions about this season. That one happened to pop up simply because I'm trying to find the thread that held together 8 episodes.

But here's the thing... a month and a half post-finale and I still can't. In fact, it only falls apart more on further inspection.

When we finally do "resolve" the storyline of the great and seemingly omnipotent (yet incompetent) 12, there's no point whatsoever. They never had faces that mattered to us or the characters. They had no bearing on the actual story. They just kinda existed, I guess? The only purpose ever given in the show was that they "create chaos," whatever the fuck that means.

Luke Jennings, at the very least, understood the concept of plot. His 12 are cunning and competent and they HAVE A PURPOSE. They're largely faceless still (as any actual secret cabal should be), but their presence is FELT and their reach is CLEAR. Their kills are strategic and each one is part of a bigger picture to crumble world governments. In short, they're terrifying.

Oh and I do hate to slap this point on with little to no transition, but I'm just following LN's lead: time jumps should be used incredibly sparingly and only by the best writers. If, however, one absolutely must (against all sound advice in this case) toss one in a narrative -- it is 1000% that person's responsibility to show the audience how we got from point A to point B in order to pick up the story further down the road.

There wasn't even an attempt at that, which honestly gave the plot no chance from the get go. Addressing 3 things in a short amount of time would've been a jumping off point: 1. What happened between Eve and V after they looked back on the bridge? 2. Why is Eve indifferent toward V as if she's an annoying kid sister and not a formidable foe / equal love interest and V essentially begging for scraps of attention? 3. Why church camp? (I can't even with that, and would've settled for the first 2 answers.)

It would've taken under 5 minutes to lay that groundwork, but instead we got half an episode of Carolyn in the 70s, new characters all the way through the finale, and a relationship between Villaneve that's never been more contentious while they hooked up with everyone else and never had an honest conversation. BUT WHY?!?!

And I've failed to mention how the time jump wasn't discussed IRL either. Sally said 7-8 months, Sandra said 2 years, and Jodie said 4-5 months. Those are VASTLY different timeframes. No blame on the actors whatsoever, but WHAT?! Kind of important facts to the plot of filming too.

The long and short of it is this: if all anyone is left with after your story is questions, you didn't have a coherent plot. And if this post lacks one, blame LN.

Part 1 | Part 3 | Part 4

#killing eve #villanelle #oksana astankova #eve polastri #villaneve #killing eve season four #as always fuck lauren seal #fuck laura and sally and sid gentle and and and

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astaroth1357 · 4 years

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Demigod MC Series: Hermes

Hey guys, still doing what I can to stay healthy (and entertained) in quarantine. Staying still, keeping calm, and trying not to exert myself too much because of the shortness of breath thing going on. My lungs just can't get enough air it seems… 😅 Anyway, I've gotten a lot of suggestions on this series and I'm excited to keep it going. Just going to be a tad slow until I'm feeling better. Thank you for the support, y'all!

Demigod MC Series: Intro, Aphrodite, Hermes

Lucifer

Oh no… it’s everyone’s worst nightmare… Another Mammon, but competent. Devil help us all…

Had he known who their father was, he'd have never assigned Mammon to watch over them. Hell, he would have made sure those two never even met. They became a new handful for him to manage from the day they first arrived…

When even more things started going missing around the House than normal, he knew he had made a grave mistake… They were clever, quick, and skilled. About the best WORST combination for a burglar to be…

Worse still, they were fast on their feet. He would pretty much have no way to nab them on foot and always had to resort to his wings or magic to have any hope of catching up to them… At least Mammon usually gets himself cornered!

But, paradoxically, he also came to notice that the mortal had an odd honesty streak to them... Like, they’d steal but they’d always admit to it, unlike Mammon who would try to deflect till he was blue in the face.

Were they proud of their work, maybe? Or just didn’t see the point in trying to get away with it...?

There would be several occasions where they’d take something, sell it with Mammon, and then steal the thing back later just to put it back where it belonged, seemingly never with Mammon’s permission to do so either…

Is it better that they returned the stolen item or worse because their actions went from just robbery to a full-on scam? Either way, it gives him headaches trying to deal with it…

He pretty much gives up getting the mortal to stop after 6 months, they are legitimately that good, but makes them swear to always put back whatever they take at some point. It seems to work out and he lets more things slide, but please someone get them out of here soon…

Mammon

Soulmatesoulmatesoulmatesoulmate, or maybe more accurately “Partner-in-Crime” but that means pretty much the same thing to him anyway. 🤷‍♀️

He’s never met a person better at thievery than they were. The day they met, they managed to pick his pockets without breaking a sweat (or a finger) and that was it. He was in love.

They could teleport! Actually teleport!! Suddenly, NOTHING was off limits to him any more! Lucifer’s rare records? Easy. Levi’s secret safe? Cakewalk. The Castle vault?? Child’s play!! It was like they could steal anything they put their mind to!!

He didn't even have to worry about them when they made getaways because they were fast too, the two actually have parkour races through the streets for the hell of it!

On top of all that, they were wicked creative. He’d come up with a money-making scheme then they’d offer him all sorts of little tricks to help get away with it...

HE’D have never realized that they could turn themselves into rats in order to frighten and sneak past Barbatos, but they thought of it the instant they heard of his fear of things. They're a mad genius!!

The only real downside was they seemed to like stealing for the sport of it instead of for the money… so they always steal back whatever they took.

That kind of defeats the purpose of all that work in the first place, right? Ah well, at least that's more money for him.

These two pretty much became a walking menace to Devildom society- Sorry, not sorry.

Leviathan

Not another Mammon!!! WHY?! What did he do to deserve this?!?

When he started noticing that EVEN MORE of his stuff was going missing than usual, he straight-up flipped! Like, had the mortal not been pretty tough in their own right they would have been Lotan-chow. End of discussion.

… And then they started using their powers for good? Kind of?

Like, first off they would always give back what they stole, which was a nice change from Mammon. Annoying, but at least he didn't have to go buy replacement games or anything…

And then they started stealing him limited edition merch or tickets and stuff because they… liked him?? He guessed???

Why else would they go to all the trouble of swiping one of the five ultra-rare Kitsune Ruri-chan figurines from its original collector? He would have had to pay Mammon half his tail for something like that but the MC just brought it to him one morning because they could!

Is… is this love? Has he grown to love that which he hates?! What is even happening anymore!?! Who is he?!? 😫

Eventually he has to reconcile his conflicted feelings by dubbing them the real life Peony Phantom Thief, Jane and even making them a cosplay. Yes, they have to wear it when they bring him things. No, it's not weird, shut up.

Satan

He wants to be irritated, no - furious, that they keep taking his stuff… But he’ll be damned if they aren’t making Lucifer’s life a living hell right now. 😏

He's honestly not even sure how they managed to swipe half of the priceless portraits in the Castle (a considerable feat since there's one for Every. Room.) but they pulled it off in under a week. Barbs didn't even notice the replicas…

If that's not mildly terrifying, he doesn't know what is. Who knows what things he could be missing at any given moment...?

At least the mortal had the good sense to return his things, unlike Mammon, which gets them off his shit list for the most part. 🤷‍♀️

It helps that they’re also impressively well-traveled. They claim to have been across every human continent and sailed every ocean. Though he was skeptical at first, just hearing their stories eventually convinced him.

What sort of person has sailed the Amazon River, hiked through Arctic tundra, seen every major capital city, and still had time to explore the sights of the French Riviera?

One that has magical teleportation powers apparently.

Frankly, he could listen to their stories of the human world all day and still ask for another. He's told them that they may as well just write a book of their own for him at some point, it'd be beneficial to their poor vocal chords.

Asmodeus

Ugh! Really? Another thief in the House?? Wasn’t one hard enough to deal with?!

Honestly, stolen beauty products aren't exactly something you can just sell or give back, so unfortunately a lot of Asmo's clothes/accessories get targeted and he is NOT happy about it...

Around the time his favorite scarf was stolen for the third time, he was about to gut the mortal himself, but they struck a deal with him. They could nab his clothes SO LONG as they returned them with an extra little "gift."

Jewelry, perfume, creams, nail polish, etc. Asmo kept a running list and pretty much treated his thieving friend like a less moral version of Akuzon. Whatever he asked for, no matter how rare or expensive, they always got their hands on so who was he to complain?

He once decided to test them by asking for the Hope Diamond - which they got for him - but he made them return it after a week after the curse on it made him ruin a particularly intricate manicure so…

Like Satan, he's also pretty impressed with all the places they've seen. He's pretty traveled in the human world himself so they exchange travel stories all the time!

He may bother them to him out traveling from time to time. There are so many gorgeous and romantic places to visit in the human world after all, it's not like anybody could stop them from just… popping in to have a look. Right? 😏

Beelzebub

They learned very quickly that his food is absolutely off limits and after that, they were good.

Seriously. Beel caught them once trying to swipe a piece of pizza from his dinner and he nearly ripped their arm off for it…

But on the flipside, he also knows that he can go to them if he REALLY needs a snack and is short on cash.

It's pretty comical watching the fleet-foot mortal running from angry demon vendors with a basket of stolen apples for their buddy… But he appreciates their enthusiasm! 🙂

Beel actually likes to hear about their travels too, but mostly what they've eaten. They can keep him enraptured for hours by describing all the food they've come across in the human world…

Watch out for the drool, though.

Since they can teleport, they'll sometimes pop up with a human world treat for him and the man internally swears his undying love for them every time...

Outwardly, though, he just smiles. 'Cause he's a sweetie.

Belphegor

They… they opened the attic door on, like, the first day they met… They didn’t even make it look that hard, they had some kind of knack for breaking and entering…

Seriously, imagine the look on his face when they just walk into the attic to say hello… He had this whole, “Lure and Trick the Human” plan all thought out then they pulled out a magic lockpick or something and BOOM! Freedom!

He laughed, perhaps a little closer to the edge of sanity than he was intending, and he tried to attack them but they were so damn fast he couldn't land a single hit!

Damn was it embarrassing when the others came in…

MC: "LUCIFER! LUCIFER!! There's a monster in your attic!!!"

Lucifer: "That's not a monster that's my brother!!"

MC: *stops midway through kneeing Belphie in the stomach* …. Ooooooooh!

MC: Whoops.

It was a… rocky start.

After they settled their differences quelled Belphie's bloodlust he found that they kind of grew on him rather quickly… Something about that mischievous energy and how much they gave his brothers (minus Beel) grief with it.

He absolutely helps them with their plans if it will annoy Lucifer in any way. Occasionally, they'll even take Belphie out on raids instead of Mammon.

Turns out he's surprisingly good at distractions because all he has to do is pretend to fall then take a nap. People around him will legitimately believe that he needs medical attention so the MC can sneak through crowds undetected...

Of course, Mammon gets PISSED when they do this, though. How dare his baby brother try to steal away his perfect partner!! Get your own damn mortal, Belphie!!! 🤬

#obey me #obey me shall we date #shall-we-date-obey-me #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me headcanons #obey me scenarios #obey me demigods

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wkemeup · 4 years

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Sunrise (1)

summary: After an explosion takes his arm and his only sense of belonging, Bucky is content to live out the rest of his days in the hollow comfort of the dark. This is, until Sam drags him down to the local VA and he meets you. (Modern AU) pairings: bucky x reader chapter word count: 3.5k warnings: heavy focus on Bucky’s PTSD/anxiety, the first splinter in the wall around Bucky’s heart 🧡 series masterlist / series playlist

This was a bad idea. A monumentally bad idea.

Bucky closed his apartment door behind him, pausing for a moment at the top of brownstone steps as a chill of autumn air swept by. Brittle to the touch, cool on his skin, it nestled into his spine and ached deep in his bones— in ones that had been long abandoned, too. The sun reflected against the shine of the pavement from last night’s rainfall, forcing Bucky to squint his eyes.

Was it always so bright outside? Maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t left his apartment for nearly a week before Sam threatened to turn him over to Steve that he’d forgotten how unpleasant the streets of New York could be. Loud. Cold. Chaotic.

He stepped onto the sidewalk, slipping out of the path of a jogger who nearly ran him over and had the gull to flip him the bird. Bucky groaned, curling his right hand into a fist and digging it deep into his pocket as he tried to calm the sudden racing in his chest. The free arm of his army jacket swung down by his left side, empty.

Not even a few steps outside the sanctuary of closed curtains, warm bedsheets, and the unattended static of a decade old television, and Bucky was already regretting ever knowing Sam Wilson.

Bucky turned towards the busy street ahead, staring up at the hustle of pedestrians and rush of taxis for a moment longer before he dared to take a step. His feet felt remarkably heavy and he had more than half a mind to tell Wilson to shove it and head back up to his apartment. He had better things to do than make a completely unnecessary trip to the VA.

What those things were, he couldn’t say, but they didn’t make his heart feel like it was about to beat straight out of his chest. He could stare at a wall for a few hours, for example – see if he could find the crack in the drywall again and follow it to the ceiling.

“Don't be a coward, Barnes,” Bucky grumbled to himself, earning a strange look from an elderly woman as she passed by. Her eyes held on him longer than she should; clearly a woman who had little shame in her degradation of strangers.

He gritted his teeth and commanded his legs to move. Those worked, at least.

As he made his way to the main street, his palm started to sweat inside his pocket. He could see his breath in every tense exhale, and still, he was boiling hot under his jacket. There wasn’t a chance in hell he’d remove it, because even with a sleeve hanging loose off his shoulder, he could at least keep up the pretense there was something inside. People would have to look twice before they realized. Wasn’t so easy to hide a missing arm in a short sleeve shirt.

Still—he was thankful as he weaved his way upstream through the crowd that he wasn’t as broad as he used to be. A couple months' worth of weight loss, diminished muscle mass, and one less limb will do that do a guy.

He used to be the sort of man that women would glance at as he passed by. Charming smile. Infectious energy. He could make a woman bite shamelessly at the edge of her bottom lip with a single trail of his eyes along her figure. Extend a hand, offer a drink and a dance. He used to hold confidence in every ounce of his body.

Now, he kept his eyes on the pavement. He hid from the sun and the curious looks of strangers under the brim of a baseball cap. No one looked twice in his direction. He was invisible these days and that was just the way he liked it.

By the time he reached the VA, he was surprised to find it a little less than pristine. The windows were dirty with handprints and smudges, the window panes covered in soot. A few of the roofing panels were missing from harsh New York winters. Even some of the outer brick wall had seen some weathering.

Though, if he were honest, it wasn’t usual at all. Made some sense that the VA was left to wash and wear on its own, deteriorating in front of a busy street of onlookers, right out in plain sight. It was how Bucky felt after he’d come home from his last tour— discarded. Placed upon a pedestal, but only as long as you wear the uniform, only as long as you’re staring down the other end of a barrel. Once you’re shipped back home and cast out from desert, you’re made to fend for yourself. Pull up your bootstraps. Adjust.

Bucky wasn’t sure how to do that anymore. Sam insisted this would help. The people at the VA were good, he’d said. They were like him. They’d understand.

While Bucky was suspicious, it was enough to drag him a couple blocks from his apartment. It was more than he’d done in weeks anyway. Sam would put on his makeshift shrink hat and call that a meaningful step. Bucky would call it pathetic.

He stared at the double doors, focusing on dark red rust on the metal hinges. He wondered if he put enough pressure on the latch if it would snap clean off. It looked sharp on the edges, too. Someone could easily cut themselves on it if they weren’t careful—

BEEEEEEP!

A jolt surged through Bucky’s chest enough to nearly knocked him off his feet.

Sudden flashes of a sweltering heat, the unnatural vibration of the desert under his feet. The car horn echoed into the back of his head, longer than it should have, and his ears started to ring. His vision felt tunneled and Bucky quickly stumbled his way through the double doors just to escape the blare of the horn outside.

It took a minute to adjust to the dim lighting. It was darker inside than what he was expecting. He blinked a few times, hand resting on the wall to hold his balance as he looked around, shaking himself from the memories.

Lamps were spread throughout the common room to offset the abrasive overhead lighting left untouched. Bucky started to wonder if he maybe it was on purpose, if he wasn’t the only one who had become sensitive to these things, when Sam walked into the room.

He froze.

“Holy shit!” Sam’s mouth rose up into that goddamn know-it-all smile, wide enough to show teeth and the dimples in his cheeks, and Bucky winced. Sam started to laugh as he crossed the space to where Bucky was standing. “I didn’t think you’d actually come!”

“Yeah, well,” Bucky shrugged, “I’m here. Don’t make this a big thing.”

“Who me?” Sam scoffed, feigning offense. “You know Steve’s the one who’s going to blow this up. He might throw a welcome party if you ever show up to the support group.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “That’s not happening.”

“Yeah, I figured as much.” Sam nodded, though he was still smiling. He looked almost... proud? It didn’t sit well in Bucky’s stomach. “Still, got you out of that cramped apartment, didn’t I? You open those curtains yet or are you still living like a vampire?”

Bucky glared at him. Sure, Sam was right... but he didn’t need to know that.

“Come on, I’ll show you around.” Sam put a hand on Bucky’s back to guide him down the hall.

He was only one of two people Bucky tolerated touching him at all and he was lucky he didn’t flinch anymore. Even an innocent touch from his own mother when she tried to hold his hand after he came back from his final tour had nearly left him in a panic attack. She’d cried as Bucky desperately tried to gather his breath, shoving her away as if she’d burned him.

Sam and Steve didn’t give him much of a choice. They didn’t handle him with kid gloves or treat him like he was about to break. Even if he was splintering at the seams, you’d never be able to tell with how Sam and Steve were around him; like old times, like nothing had changed, like they were still three kids dressed in fresh uniforms with chips on their shoulders and a whole new world ahead of them.

After a while, the small pats on the back and the nudges in his side became a small comfort; not that he’d tell them. It was a strange feeling to both be repulsed by touch and crave it. But the topic didn’t come up much these days outside of his friends anyway. No one tried to touch him and he didn’t seek it out. It was easier that way.

“The kitchen’s over here,” Sam said as he pointed into a room that had likely once been covered in white tiles and appliances, though now resembled more of a pale yellow. Two men were hunched over at the table, nursing coffee out of Styrofoam cups as a woman waited eagerly by a toaster.

“Everything in there is free rein,” Sam added. “Always stocked with food from donations, though I would make sure to check the expirations on the milk before adding it to your coffee.” He shivered at an unpleasant memory and Bucky found the edge of his mouth curl, though he suppressed it rather quickly.

The next room was mostly empty save for the wooden lined floors and chairs folded up against the wall. A sheet covered the small window peering inside that read ‘group in session when closed.’

“I know what you’re thinking,” Sam started, to which Bucky narrowed his eyes, “but I’m not going to force you into the support group, Buck. You go when you’re ready. If you ever are. Talking about this stuff, or even listening to it... it isn't for everybody. Steve will get that, too. We all find our outlets eventually. You’ll find yours, too.”

Bucky nodded, a swell of relief in his chest. He’d been forced into a mental evaluation by the army docs shortly after his discharge; something about routine testing, but he knew what they were looking for – what all those shrinks were looking for – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

The nightmares came first, soon after he’d returned to the States. It started in screams that burned deep into his throat, waking up neighbors at two in the morning, finding blood in his bed from injuries he’d caused in his sleep. Lately they’d manifested into sweat drenched in his sheets and a heart rate that couldn’t seem to even out until the sun rose.

Then came the jumpiness – the flinching at every loud noise, thinking it was a bomb or the latch of a safety. He’d broken more glasses than he cared to admit, knocking them straight of his hand at the sound of a gunshot on the television.

Then the paranoia settled in, then the hypervigilance. The anxiety in crowds and tight spaces was new, though. Add it to the list, he supposed.

Through all of it, he never let the shrink catch on. He’d put on a smile and tell them he was proud of his service, that he’d serviced his country with honor and he was thankful to return to the civilian side of things for a change.

It was bullshit.

He was pissed. He lost an arm and half his mind to a war that recruited him young and idealistic right out of high school, when he was looking for a better life than what his neighborhood could offer, to put food on the table for his ma and sister. Pissed was understated.

He wouldn’t find himself in Steve’s group; of that he was certain. You don’t talk about those things after you leave the desert. Hell, you barely acknowledge them while you’re there. It’s just how it works. It’s how you deal with it. Bucky didn’t allow himself to consider whether his method was doing him much better.

Sam walked him through the common areas, the lounge space, even a room with a pretty decent sized television and a shelf filled with DVDs. It was a nice enough place. Quiet. But so was his apartment.

“Now this is the best room in the house.” Sam opened a door on his left, the hinges squeaking under an old wooden frame as he stepped inside.

Bucky followed in closely behind and was surprised when a subtle scent of pine brushed his senses. A small candle was burning at the center of a coffee table, surrounding it were a few couches, all with mismatched fabrics, laid upon a carpet that looked to have been donated from an estate sale. The walls around him were lined with shelves, though they were completely empty. Cob webs hung in the corners and dust lined the wood.

What caught his eye was a single cart at the edge of the room. It was filled with books, all in bright colors on the binding and tags from the Brooklyn Public Library piled high on top of one another, far beyond the confines of the cart itself.

“Y/n? Where you at, kid? We got a newbie!” Sam called, nudging Bucky in the side with a playful wink he did not return.

A figure suddenly jumped from behind the couch with a book in hand covered in layers of dust and crumbs. The sudden movement forced a flinch deep in Bucky’s chest, his breath held tight in his lungs, though he kept himself firm on the surface, like stone. It took a minute before he realized how tight he’d barreled his fist and he slowly released his grip before Sam could notice.

“Been looking for this one for over a year!” you exclaimed, holding up the book for Sam to see. You brushed off the cover, restoring the original vibrant hue of the artwork. “Can’t even imagine the overdue fees I’ve racked up on this sucker...”

There was a strange lightness in your voice Bucky didn’t expect, a tenderness and a sunshine that didn’t belong amongst the dark overcast of the men and women who occupied these rooms. It certainly sat in dangerous contrast to the gravel and stone in Bucky’s voice and the clouds that usually followed in his wake.

He glanced down at his clothes as you approached; a pair of old ripped jeans from a few years ago, a faded t-shirt, and his army jacket hung over his shoulders. Dull and raggedy, ripping at the seams.

But you? Dressed in the warmest shade of a red knit sweater, a gentle glow on your cheeks, a softness about your movements, you resembled the sort of sunset at the end of a highway one would stop the car to capture on film. Inviting. Tender and ethereal. Lovely.

You stepped closer and he noticed the knees of your jeans were covered in dust, your palms too. Messy in the pursuit of happiness, like a child on a playground. You didn’t seem to mind the dust as you brushed it off your knees, holding the found book close to your chest like an extension of your own heart.

“Blame it on Lang. He's always losing stuff around here,” Sam offered as you set the book on the cart. You started to laugh and swatted Sam in the arm. A pout perched on your lips, though it didn’t seem to last long. Your laugh was infectious.

Bucky swallowed as he watched you; the way your smile wrinkled up into your eyes as if a face like yours was drawn and designed to curve at the lips and push dimples to your cheeks. It shined into the bright hues in your irises and Bucky wondered if you would keep smiling like that forever, if it were possible that he could stare into the sun and not be burned; if instead, he could find warmth in its embrace.

His heart stammered, his breath shallow, but it wasn’t unpleasant like it had been on the busy streets. It was something new, a sensation he hadn’t had since before he signed his name to a cause that took his arm and his dignity.

Y/n, Sam had called you. It was a beautiful name. He didn’t know if he could even find things beautiful again after what he’d seen overseas. You were the first, he supposed.

He must have been staring too long, because your lips were moving to words he didn’t hear, and suddenly two pairs of eyes were on him. His heart skipped, frozen in embarrassment.

“This must be your first day of school,” you teased, extending your right hand to him.

Bucky stared down at it, heart pounding, and before Sam could politely tell you that Bucky didn’t really do that sort of thing, he pulled his hand from his pocket and shook it. You had a firmer grip than he was expecting, but still soft. Your fingers were like ice and it was a nice contrast to the swelter he felt under his jacket.

Sam raised an eyebrow, surprised by Bucky's sudden willingness to take the hand of a stranger, though thankfully he didn’t say anything. A shit eating grin curved up upon his lips and that, Bucky could have done without.

“Thought it was time I checked it out,” Bucky said, his voice a little dry. You let go of his hand and Bucky found he missed the contact almost instantly.

“Dragged him here by the skin of his teeth is more like it,” Sam interjected and Bucky’s ears burned red. He shot Sam a glare, who only shrugged, unbothered by his humiliation of his friend. “Been trying to get his sorry ass through the door for a few months now.”

You nodded, though your smile never wavered. Your eyes remained on Bucky, listening to Sam, but intently studying the lines on Bucky’s face. It left him feeling exposed, but somehow, even as his own gaze trailed to the floor, he didn’t mind you watching him like that, like maybe you found worth in what you saw. He adjusted his stance, suddenly remembering the startling absence on his left.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here now,” you said, brushing Sam off in his teasing. “I’ve been volunteering at this place for a little over a year. We got good people here. I’m sure you’ll fit right in...” you paused, biting on your lip.

“Bucky,” he offered because he could tell you were waiting for it. You smiled at his name and a sense of pride burned bright in his chest. God, if he could just make you smile like that again...

“Bucky’s a cool name,” you grinned, though Sam rolled his eyes. “That short for something?”

“Don’t lie to the new kid, Y/n. We all know it’s corny as hell,” Sam interrupted playfully before Bucky could get a word in. You wacked Sam on the shoulder and Bucky felt the edges of his lips curve. It felt strange, achy, like he hadn’t done that in a while. Maybe he hadn’t.

“Buchanan,” Bucky answered, though he quickly added, “but my first name’s James. James Barnes.”

“Well, James Barnes,” you started, exchanging a knowing look with Sam that made Bucky’s stomach twist in knots, “I run a book club of sorts on Sunday evenings around six. You should swing by. We’re always looking for new members.”

“Y/n works at the Brooklyn library most days,” Sam explained. “We’re lucky to have her. Never thought I’d see so many tattooed men with biceps the size of my head sitting in a circle talking ‘bout books, but Y/n works magic. Everyone loves her. Helps that her book club is pretty unconventional.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes. “Unconventional?”

Sam started to say more, but you pouted your lips at him and he left the words on the edge of his tongue. He held up his hands in defense and took a step back, returning the smile to your face.

“Don’t listen to him,” you said, laughing so sweetly Bucky was sure his knees might give out at any second. “It’s a good time, I promise. No pressure at all.”

Bucky nodded, considering his options. The idea of seeing you again could make the walk down to the VA worth it, but he wasn’t sold on the concept of sitting in a room full of ex-combat vets probably using a shared book as a proxy for a support group. He wondered if you had them reading something about PTSD or adjusting to civilian life or a memoir of some guy embellishing his time overseas to make a quick buck.

But he wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, so he asked, “what are you reading?”

You shrugged. “Depends on who you ask.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow, confused.

“Just think about it,” you suggested as you unclicked the lock at the bottom of the cart. The front wheel was broken and you struggled to get an angle to move in the direction you pushed it. “I should head back to the library. It was really nice to meet you, Bucky. I’ll see you later, Sam.”

Bucky nodded, finding himself searching for something else to say, some kind of excuse to get you to stay longer, but came up empty. You smiled at him, all bright and starry eyed, and his knees felt weak again. Shit.

“Don’t let Stark talk your ear off on the way out,” Sam warned, a laugh in his voice.

“I think I know my boys around here by now, Samuel,” you teased back. Bucky couldn’t quite tell if it was a pang of jealousy in his stomach or an eagerness to be included. It was a strange rush of feelings he hadn’t tapped into in years; not necessarily unpleasant, but certainly unfamiliar.

You paused by the door, turning back and capturing Bucky’s eye one last time. “Sunday at six, alright? I’ll see you there.”

He didn’t say anything, but you seemed to take his silence as confirmation. You gave him a final wave before you disappeared into the hallway. He could hear the click of the broken front wheel on your cart echoing down the hall.

Bucky and Sam followed you out of the room and hung back by the makeshift library doors.

“What did I tell you!” Sam cheered, nudging Bucky hard enough on the side to knock him off his balance. He was too fixated on watching grumpy old men and stone-faced women pass by in the hallway with smiles on their faces as they saw you.

“It’s, uh, it’s not bad.” Bucky waited until you disappeared out the front doors and onto the busy sidewalks before he turned to Sam. He was watching him with a sort of I-told-you-so look that made Bucky want to slap the dimples straight from his face. “...what?”

“Nothing, man.” Sam shrugged, though there was something lingering in the smirk he wore, like maybe he knew something Bucky didn’t.

He didn’t care for that one bit.

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n

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