#( she has no more blood left to give )
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poorly-drawn-mdzs ¡ 5 months ago
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Not beating the allegations.
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icantalk710 ¡ 2 months ago
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Wish the party loyalist "stop making Harris look bad bc Trump" people would realize that a) denying reality is exactly what the right does and b) it is on the candidate to win votes by not being a genocide enabling sellout moderate getting endorsed by the fucking Cheneys for her hawkishness on foreign policy while promising little for people at home, not on the voter disillusioned by said issues that the candidate could rectify
#i say i'm done but seeing another one of those posts will make me roll my eyes hard again#this has been going on since 2016 and it's wild how much narrower the overton window has gotten to push these neoliberals#trump is shit but his being shit does not absolve blue team of the shit and blood on their hands#people really need to demand more for their votes#when they lose GA and NC bc of reneging on those $2K checks or saying no to giving Helene victims more aid#[and likely FL too if they follow suit with Milton swinginess aside]#the same people will likely rage at the people left to their rubble for not voting harder#like i'm sure they have at the muslims so rightly outraged at our support for the 🇵🇸 genocide that they refuse to vote for either party#meanwhile i get an email from work saying we have more payroll deductions this next year for our healthcare plans and there's been no talk#of M4A or even some mealy-mouthed means-tested version of it to win votes#and ofc there's student loans starting back up and their burning even more youth votes they were already losing with Gaza#let alone record homelessness... a housing crisis... lead/chemical poisonings... and so on#'we can push her left' they say knowing she takes money from people opposed to her going left on any policies--#and that they're going to brunch anyway#'fascism 2 is coming' *points at Dem-admin/Dem-mayor cop cities* *points at IG accounts being censored bc of being pro-Palestine* been here#anyway pre bed vent over 😴
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rustedleopard ¡ 2 days ago
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I wonder if Flowey ever just... let Clover stay dead for longer than a few seconds after they died in a fight just to see what happens. I mean, he basically is the master of their fate and would probably get bored of seeing them repeat the same three routes over and over and over again. I feel like in between trying to push Clover to fight Asgore, he'd probably find the time to entertain himself watching other characters react to Clover's death to mix things up a bit.
#undertale yellow#he'd be busting out popcorn and treating everyone's psychological breakdown as a dark comedy#oh? starlo succeeded in killing Clover and now that he can see the blood spilling into the sand and suddenly everything isn't some#dumb cowboy roleplay where everyone plays at justice and starlo really for real murdered a child? lmaooooooo#let's watch this grown man break down crying as his best friend has to cope with the fact that he's a child murderer.#or axis kills clover in a pacifist route and Ceroba has to cope with the fact that because she told them to not fight back#they couldn't defend themself properly and now another kid died because of Chujin's creation AND she can't use their soul#for her husband's legacy.#or how about dalv killing clover and he realizes that it wasn't a hallucination. he just fought another human.#or martlet's fight where she wasn't seriously trying to apprehend them but they died anyways and she realizes that#a part of her job entails killing kids.#or the Feisty 4 fight where starlo leaves for 5 minutes and comes back to all his friends having murdered a child#why stop at pacifist/neutral though?#Martlet was reluctant to fight clover the first time in a no mercy run. yeah she stopped a dangerous killer but they could've turned#things around and tried to be better but now they never get the chance to do that.#or Ceroba beats Clover and realizes that she has absolutely nothing left for her. her husband is dead. her daughter is in limbo.#her best friend died in front of her. there is nothing left for her now.#..... actually. flowey. pass me the popcorn too. i wanna sit down and see where things go as well.#i know flowey wouldn't give a damn about all the emotional aspects but I'd more than happily eat that angst up!
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shrineofprophecy ¡ 3 months ago
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"Miss Lingsha please provide me a task to do for the afternoon so I can get away from people."
"Are these people not the friends that you travel with?" Lingsha chuckled. "But you're right. Sometimes it's good to give your mind a break."
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"If you insist on working, there are a few ingredients I require for making incense. I'd appreciate it if you could buy them on the market for me. Oh, and be sure not to run into Jiaoqiu. I have no doubt that he'll try to make this situation worse."
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iniziare ¡ 5 months ago
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Re-tag drop: Yelan
#yelan: ic. [ that's a worst-case scenario. but all too often; the most pessimistic speculation turns out to be the closest to the truth. ]#yelan: inquiries. [ oh? you'd like to know more about me? what will you give in exchange then? ]#yelan: countenance. [ an old friend of mine once privately commented to me that yelan “is always smiling; but never with her eyes.” ]#yelan: introspection. [ like a phantom she appears in various guises at the center of events; and disappears before the storm stops. ]#yelan: meta. [ the chances are if i open this door; there can be no witnesses left alive. is that a sufficient reason for you? ]#yelan: little notes. [ how can things ever be the same again: knowing your life was saved when others weren't? salvation can be a burden. ]#yelan: wishes. [ that which hides inside her… that constant calling; it is the blood of heroes which has been howling for 500 years. ]#yelan: etc. [ every round of finger-guessing is a tiny adventure; and every roll of dice sends sporadic thrills down her spine. ]#yelan: home. [ i'm guessing you've fallen for the rumors about me being very wealthy; having high demands for my standards of living? ]#yelan: yanshang. [ the teahouse has really brightened up after the boss took over and kicked the fatui and gamblers out. ]#yelan: lantern rite. [ every year on this day; the lanterns light up the night. may the fire never die and may humanity endure. ]#yelan: chasm. [ perhaps she will plunge into that darkness one day; and the ill fate that once befell her ancestors shall find her too. ]#yelan: scope. [ i serve ningguang. the tianquan of the qixing. the scope of my work includes some of liyue's biggest secrets. ]#yelan: weaponry. [ water. divided it is as streams uncounted: close yet untangled. united it is as a giant wave: inexorable; unstoppable. ]#yelan: uncle tian. [ there's nothing wrong with wanting to win other people's respect. but when has uncle tian looked down on anyone? ]#yelan: ningguang. [ we both made a mistake: we shouldn't have involved ordinary folk in what we do. / ordinary folk? ]#yelan: xiao. [ you think you're oh-so cold and ruthless. i'm not buying it. - losing one of us so the rest can escape? some victory that is#yelan: keqing. [ if something happens that they didn't anticipate; it throws their plans into oblivion. but the yuheng is different. ]#yelan: ganyu. [ i could never work non-stop like she does. certainly not at that level of efficiency. i guess being half-adeptus has its pe#yelan: yanfei. [ when i help her out; i always get some invaluable leads in return. gotta say though: i think she respects me a little much#yelan: traveler. [ you don't have to be on guard around me. i never scheme against people who have my stamp of approval. ]#yelan: v youth. [ you're still young. be patient. believe in yourself; and don't look outside yourself to prove your value. ]#yelan: v. pre-qixing. [ i don't do these things to help the powerful or mighty get rid of dissident forces. but because water too has a sou#yelan: v. qixing. [ seeing isn't always believing. and if you can't trust your eyes; you certainly can't trust rumors. ]#yelan: liyue. [ liyue will never plunge into disaster without clue of the danger like it once did. she will see that it is not unprepared.#yelan: wriothesley. [ don't fight over fleeting gains or losses. focus on where your heart is leading you and move forward. ] delusionaid.#yelan. [ i can't change the facts. but if it's a choice between the cold; hard truth and blissful unawareness: i'll take the former. ]
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opens-up-4-nobody ¡ 1 year ago
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You don't understand how unhinged I feel trying to construct an ending for Bleach that I personally would enjoy while knowing Bleach does not deserve my time and also not remembering enough to actually make anything coherent. And yet here I am.
#god. no one gives a fuck abt bleaching. i am screaming into the void. y cant i put this energy into being productive#i just want there to be themes and a satisfying ending. and ending that is sad and yet happy#i just think. for me. ichigo kurosaki died on the night rukia pierced him with her zanpakto. oh fuck i cant spell. fucking strap in#i kno he didnt technically die according to the rules of the universe but i think as soon as ichigos soul left his body. that body became#a corpse. so when he goes back into it its not suitible to live in anymore and he only starts to feel that with the fullbring arc#i think when rukia jumpstarted his powers she lit the fuse of a bomb and becoming a visor allowed him to chanel his resentment#bc he does resent. ichigo is an emotional person. he felt emense guilt when his mothet died bc he felt he couldnt protect her bc he was#being raised to protect. the boy has a complex and its kinda fuckrd up and its 1000% isshins fault. so when thr opportunity comes for#ichigo to sacrifice himself for his family he does and he literally and metaphorically dies. his life from that point on is overtaken by#death. so what do we do with ichigo after everything is said and done bc he cant go back to being human he cant be a living corpse. he has#to go to the soul society. bc i like to imagine everything hes done to his soul. his twisted cosmically weird special boy soul. hes like a#bomb. its unstable and they need to teach him to control it so he doesnt tear a hole in reality and let thr hollows pour in. so its safer#if that happens in thr soul society. and rukia lil miss ice princess can teach him to do that. i would also make it weird with god stuff but#i never read the blood war stuff so i dont kno enough abt the gods. also i would make rukia more at odds with everyone who was gonna let her#fucking die and who overlooked her bc she should b held with more reguard for her fighting. but misogyny 😒 so then what do we do with#ichigo in thr soul society? i cant stand the idea of him becoming part of the institution. i cant. i think he should be rogue. rebell. idk#train to be strong and battle agaisnt the 13 court guard squad who r clearly going to try to control him as he tries to control himself.#send my boy to therapy so he can control his reatsu? is the the word? idk. maybe he should go to that dead dog district and look for kids#with spiritual pressure. he needs to feel useful. maybe id just give him weird god powers. i am an ichigo special boy apologist#thats as far forward as i can think. ichigo has to b dead. has to learn to control his power before he can go fight. rukia can teach him#he rebells against the institution. encourages rukia to go apeshit bc fuck everyone. and then idk. he keeps trying to save ppl forever#or he dies and destroys the universe. a big ball of resentment and bad feels and secrets upon secrets upon secrets. god y am i thinking#abt this so much. ive got bullshit to deal with. anyway. idk i just like ichigo a lot and i think thr ending to bleach is th worst forever#bleach ramblings
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hella1975 ¡ 2 years ago
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loveeeeeeee when my one very spoilt flatmate says some shit about how she treats her mum/how she talks to her mum and me and my other flatmate just look at each other for a silent moment and both just go 'no id be dead'
#like flatmate no.1 is the spoilt one and ive known her as well as flatmate no.2 since not just first year but FRESHERS#like these are my uni 4lifers we've known each other since the first two weeks flatmate no.2 i met on my first DAY#so it's quite funny bc ive SEEN flatmate no.1 change her atittude over time#and i think it's a joint effort of being exposed to different people at uni#and also bc ive just beaten her down every time she says something even remotely ignorant/spoilt#like i normally wouldnt give myself that much credit for a single person's character arc but flatmate no.2 BARELY saw us last year#and me and flatmate no.1 were basically joint at the hip so it was a proximity thing more than me just being super cool and inspiring#so basically what im getting at is that in first year she was sooooo shamelessly spoilt#and it was so clear she just had never hung out with people who WERENT spoilt#and nowadays she's v good at letting herself be the butt of the joke and she still gets iffy about dumb shit#but generally speaking she takes what we give her now whereas she used to ARGUE and that boiled my fucking blood#and it means we can talk more easily about these things and one thing that comes up A LOT is the difference in parenting#like i shit you not this girl uses a baby voice on her parents. it's actually uncomfortable#me however i was raised with a bloody mercenary whose genuine worst insult for us was to call us middle class LMAO#like my mum put tough love into the dictionary her VERBATIM catchphrase is 'fall in or fuck off'#and flatmate no.2 is ESTRANGED from her mum and has a very on-off relationship with her dad that has all round left her very independent#like for her there was no one there to spoil her and for me the person that was there would literally have rather died than have spoilt kid#so flatmate no.1 will say some bratty shit and me and flatmate no.2 are just there like??? are you fucking deranged???#the example that caused this post is that flatmate no.1's mum went into her room#and she was like '.... it smells like weed in here darling....' and my flatmate POINTED AT HER WEED AND WENT 'YEAH THAT'S WHY'#and she was telling us as a haha funny and i was like. THE DISRESPECT?#like my mum would be less angry about the weed than she was about the fact i didnt even respect her enough to hide it if that makes sense#she'd fucking clobber me id be out on the bloody street LMAO#spoilt kids and/or pushover parents just baffle me like i have never won a fight against my mum what are you even doing#'why didn't you do [rebellious thing] as a kid' BITCH I WAS SCARED LMFAO#hella goes to uni
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tonycries ¡ 6 months ago
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Unmistakably Yours - G.S.
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Synopsis. In which the strongest bends space and time - literally - after coming back from deatḣ, to do what he’s always wanted to do - you.
Pairing. Gojo Satoru x Reader
Content. MDNI, fem! reader, best friends to lovers, Satoru goes a little (very) INSANE, oral (fem receiving), fĂ­ngering, manga spoilers, use of jujutsu powers, unprotected, crĂŠampie, spitting, overstim, fĂŠral Satoru, heinous things, happy ending, pet names, swearing.
Word count. 4.5k
A/N. Yeahhh that poll was cooking up something devious heheh. Gege give me back my man.
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Gojo Satoru was going to kill someone.
He was going to kill someone and it didn’t matter who. It didn’t matter how. It didn’t even matter if he had to haul his broken body - scarred and barely-healed - out of this stiff infirmary bed, because the great Gojo Satoru awoke and the world shook.
Because you weren’t here.
“Ah. The oh-so deadest one, I see you’re awake.” Satoru flinches at the sharp, exhausted drawl from his left. 
Slowly, he blinks away the haze in his aching eyes, desperately trying to adjust to the cold room. Shoko’s voice was too loud. The lights too bright. His waiting arms too empty - where were you? 
With a low hiss, Satoru’s body is moving before his mind, sitting up like a man possessed. Goosebumps prickle his skin as the thin blanket falls off his shoulders. Temples throbbing because the world was spinning and spinning and you-
“Calm down, Satoru.” Shoko sounds almost panicked now - as much as she could, anyway. Uselessly trying to push him back onto the mattress. “I don’t care if you’re the ‘strongest’. Sukuna did a number on you and you have to rest-”
“Where is she?”
---
It was the final nail on your coffin - that slight, steady rumble beneath your feet. So fleeting that you’d written it off as your weary brain, too goddamn tired from today. Heaving out a sigh, you rub your eyes in frustration, so fucking alone in this too-large penthouse. 
Fingers jittery, you rifle through your best friend’s closet for his box of blindfolds, because you knew he’d be complaining about the sensory overload at the infirmary if- when he woke up. Though, you think that was more an excuse for Shoko to send your wrecked self away than anything. 
Grabbing a few more than necessary, your heart lurches as you eye that dusty framed photo by his bedside. A much younger Satoru, Suguru, Shoko, and you - probably the last time any of you smiled so carelessly. 
One dead and the other just on the cusp of it.
He’ll be okay. He’ll be okay. He’ll be okay. He’s the strongest, right?
Swallowing heavily, you try to put your mind to something - anything - other than the memory of that battlefield and the blood. So much blood. Everywhere. 
God, you should’ve stayed. What if Satoru-
That was when you felt it. 
The tight, uncomfortable feeling of atoms standing at attention all around you. The air was so stagnant and heavy that it was almost hard to breathe. 
You don’t know how you realize what it is - but you don’t get the chance to wonder about it either. Because the thought has barely even crossed your mind before everything else is thrown at the window at those two words. 
Hoarse, and whispered, voice ever-so-slightly cracking at the end. One you recognized, one you knew you always would.
“My love?”
Satoru.
It was a miracle that you didn’t get whiplash from how fast you whirled around to face the doorway - and it was an even bigger miracle that you didn’t trip at how your legs were carrying you to that tall, familiar flash of white hair without a second thought. 
Hell, you don’t think you’ve ever run this fast in your life, and it still wasn’t quick enough when Satoru engulfed you in his arms. Letting out a soft sigh as he hugs you tight enough that it hurt, like he never wanted to let go. 
All familiar warmth and a rapid heartbeat that matched your own. 
A shiver runs down your spine at that scent of the infirmary, tinged with something so dangerously metallic, miles away from the usual hints of pine and candy. But you only pull Satoru closer - not even realizing the tears staining his snug t-shirt, nails digging into his sculpted back. 
“S-Satoru?” you murmur wetly, as if you still couldn’t believe it - even when you were in his strong arms. 
It killed you to pull away, and Satoru wasn’t any better, pulling you firmly to his heated body with a guttural grunt as soon as you showed any signs of shifting away. Grip almost bruising, fingers tight on your hips. But you didn’t mind, why would you? 
Because the strongest was nothing under your will - he always was. And it’s only once you break the embrace just a fraction of an inch that you confirm that this actually was Satoru - your Satoru. 
“You’re here.” you breathe out unsteadily, not knowing where to look first - his heaving chest, as if he’d run all the way here, or those faint scars along his exposed skin. Jagged, running down his pale skin like he was too impatient - too distracted - to let them heal properly. Satoru’s face was scarily blank, pretty lips set in a tight grimace like every second you weren’t locked in his arms killed him. 
He doesn’t answer - like he didn’t know himself. Nervously, you raise your eyes to meet his and-
Oh, Satoru, he was here. Alive.
Looking like he was ready to make sure that no one else was.
You just wondered where they’d pile all the casualties. Too many to bury at Jujutsu High if those tiny blue flickers of lightning at the corners of Satoru’s eyes were anything to go by. 
Gaze hooded, pupils blown, he didn’t look at you with that usual warmth. No, he looked at you like a man that had crawled back from death just to rip you apart. And you had half the mind to wonder whether this was some special grade curse that had just come disguised as your best friend. 
“Are you okay?” you try again, raising a hand to cup his cheek. “Toru?”
Oh, you might as well have just signed your own will, because no sooner are the words out of your mouth before Satoru’s jolting. Like the mere sound of that stupid little nickname from high school was enough to shock him to his very core. 
Electrify him just enough to finally look at you like it was the first time. Like he was seeing you after a thousand years. “My love.”
There it was again, that quiet, strained little mantra. 
Followed very closely by the deafening slam! of the door behind him, so hard that you spy one of the hinges rattling off. Startled, you look over Satoru’s broad shoulders just to catch a glimpse of the single, large handprint charred into the wood, slight steam wafting from his hand.
Shit. He’s lost it.
Almost like the strongest has forgotten his restraint - or didn’t care about it either way. Heated, you wondered what this boded for you. 
Will you be lucky number one on his kill list? You wonder, as Satoru presses his mouth right above your pulse. Racing. Dangerous. Feeling the rapid thump! thump! thump! under his lips.
Breathing you in, dragging his nose up, up, up- He mutters into your skin, “Y’can kill me if you don’t want this.” Will you go down - if there’s anyone left to remember, that is - as the casualty that surely and officially signaled the honored one’s descent into madness? Only the second best friend he had to kill?
Or, Satoru pulls away slowly from his little haven, breath ghosting your lips as he gasps out a shaky, “No God can take me away without doing this.” Will it be something else entirely?
And then he’s kissing you - and you’re kissing him. 
Because fuck, how could you not? This is Satoru, and this is all you’ve ever wanted since those late night convenience store runs in high school, hand-in-hand and teleporting away from a furious Yaga.
The same Satoru that had cockily winked at you goodbye before facing Sukuna - leaving you crying with nothing to hold onto but those cold, cold hands and wishes that you’d have just fucking kissed him before. Maybe even put aside your pride to just tell him.
But none of that mattered now, because Satoru was so desperate - drinking you in like you were the last breath of air on Earth. Like it hurt more to part with your lips than it was to be cleaved in half.
Such a mess of teeth and saliva, and you were addicted. Drunk off his sweet taste - like candy, almost, and those cheap mochi he always got from downtown - and the electricity pricking at you each time your skin grazed against his.
It almost hurt - but it hurt so good.
Gasping, you pull away for air - impossible with the way Satoru was like a madman, kissing your swollen lips again and again and-
“Toru!” you squeal, muffled through his lips. “Aren’t you-” His mouth drops into a soft oh! at the delicate strings of saliva snapping in the non-existent space between you two. Surging forward like he couldn’t help himself. “Battlefield- mmpf- now?”
With a pained grunt, Satoru finally halts, just a hair’s breadth from your lips. And if you were in any better state of mind, maybe you’d have noticed the brief flicker of blue lightning all over his body. The way the lights flicker. 
“Special curtain.” he pants against your open mouth, a muscled thigh shoving between your weakening legs. “Time barely passes in here.”
You don’t know what your head is reeling more from his words or his hands - hands that kill - caressing you like a lover everywhere. Unable to decide between your hips, to your ass, to your pretty pretty face. Kiss-bitten lips uttering, “Everyone’s waiting for you.”
“So?” Satoru lets out a humorless laugh. About an octave higher than usual, like he was at the end of his rope now. Eyes hazy and glowing, looking as if it took everything in him to not just tear off that uniform and take you right now. 
“But-”
“Shut up and let me ruin you, my love.”
Your back is hitting the mattress before you can even start to wonder what the fuck is happening. One second standing at the doorway and the other all sprawled out on Satoru’s bed.
Besides yourself, you blurt out, trying to make sense of the situation to both of you two. “Did- did you just teleport us?”
“Don’t know.” he answers. And Satoru sounded like he genuinely didn’t know, as bewildered as you were. Powers acting before him - way, way before he can think - as he fists your shirt in his hands. “Don’t care.”
And you half wondered whether Satoru was even aware of what he was doing as he pulls, down, down down. 
Rip!
It tears through the air - both the sound, and the way he’s just pulling your shirt to shreds. All depravity and no repentance as Satoru throws it behind God-knows-where. Buttons hitting the floor at a maddening little rhythm to which he was slowly losing his sanity. 
He was kissing you like he was angry - taking it out on your poor clothes. Because before you know it, he’s pulling your bra off. Fingers searing on your skin, skirt just tatters on the floor. 
“Waited too long.” he groans, leaving wet, open-mouthed kisses down your neck. “Always wanted to do this.” And once he started, it was like Satoru just couldn’t stop, rambling into the valley of your breasts, “Ever since I first saw you and oh-”
That was it - only one look at your panties, all flimsy and drenched - and you’re back to wondering what Satoru’s kill count would be. You shudder as his eyes widen, letting out a strangled gasp from some deep, primal part of himself. Voice so broken and starved as he muses, “-can’t believe I waited this long.”
Shit. You weren’t making it out alive.
Immediately, Satoru’s dropping further down the mattress, easily pushing your knees up all the way till they were at your breasts. 
And it was so unfair. 
Unhair how he was still fully clothed, while you were spread so shamefully. Unfair how he was sliding his underneath your panties up and down, grazing your swollen folds. Up and down, up and down up and- Pooling your sweet sweet juices on his fingertips before pulling, marveling at how sinfully soaked they were. 
And it was like something snapped - maybe his whatever restraint he had left, probably you by the end of this. Because just a split-second later, Satoru’s tearing right through your panties. Not even taking a second to breathe before burying his pretty face into your dripping cunt. 
Unfair how you were liking it so dangerously. Being so used. 
And Satoru knows - he thinks, with whatever rationality he has left intact - that he wants to admire your pretty lil’ cunt. To finally drink in what he’s been dreaming about for years all these lonely nights. But, no, that’s for later - for a different Satoru, one that didn’t feel like he was going to fucking die if he didn’t taste you right now. 
“Ah! Hngh- T-Toru-” you arch into his hot tongue, as he licks erratically up your folds, long, sloppy movements of his tongue all the way from your base to your swollen clit. Lapping at your juices like he couldn’t stop.
“Tha’s right.” words muffled into your cunt. Throwing your legs over his sculpted shoulders. “Gimme more, use me. Use me- fuck fuck fuck- yeah.”
He sounded as delirious as you were already, flinching with each word spat into your sensitive cunt. Drunk off your pussy and so messy, like he was well and fully intent on ruining you. 
And it’s all you can do to sob so needily as he swirls his tongue around your sensitive clit. Seemingly unable to decide between sucking on it harshly and dipping into your sloppy hole. In and out. Wanting everything. Anything. 
“Fuck. S’too deep. Sh-shit.”
“Oh yeah?” he’s grinning, a cruel, cold little grin. You can feel it as he rolls his tongue against your clit over and over. “S’not deep enough.”
You pathetically try to close your legs around his head in shock, as the tips of his long fingers spread open your pussy further, teasing your entrance. 
But who were you against the strongest? The one that got everything handed to him on a silver platter since birth? Except you - until now, that is.
Because Satoru’s swatting thighs back open like it was a mere inconvenience, and feel your cunt clench in- fear? Anticipation? as you realize how gently he was throwing you around like a ragdoll, in comparison to that door from earlier. 
“No.” he sounds absolutely wrecked, babbling around your throbbing clit. “Need this- need you.”
And then he’s plunging knuckle-deep in your plushy pussy, so greedily that your slick is trailing down his wrist. Drinking in your pretty gasps of his name as he roams for that one spot he knows will have you seeing stars - only the best for his girl, right? The only thing on his mind right now, like a predator starved.
You can only tug on his hair and buck wildly underneath him, inching Satoru closer to where he was desperately searching for. Close - so close. 
“Toru-” you moan, like a prayer. 
But it wasn’t fast enough. 
Not for Satoru, at least.
Even through the haze in your eyes, you could make out that brief flash of electric blue in-between your legs, eyes widening as ah-
That cheat. 
You wondered if he even knew he was using his powers right now. Or whether Satoru was too far gone at this point. Way too smug with the way he hits that one spot. Hard. 
Ah, you quiver as something so dark sparks in his eyes. Looking like a man starved, that had finally come across his favorite meal. Moving with frightening accuracy as he pumps his fingers in and out, hitting it each and every time. 
“Shit, ngh-” you let out a shrill moan, “It’s too good. You’re so fucking-” 
One hand was so messy toying with your dripping entrance - the other digging into your hips. Dragging your sloppy pussy senselessly all over his mouth. 
Hard enough that you were sure it’d leave marks for tomorrow. If you even made it that long, that is, if the tiny shocks of electricity at his fingertips told you anything. 
Desperate. Violent, even.
So it only makes sense that your orgasm was the same. “Fuck- m’cumming m’cumming, fuck fuck fuck-” You’re shaking as you cum, crying out Satoru’s name and delirious little moans that you’d otherwise be embarrassed of. 
And he doesn’t stop. Not when you’re blinking your vision back. Not when you’re shying away from his tongue, the stars behind your eyes too much with each flick of his tongue. 
“S’too much- too- fuck, sensitive, Toru.” you whine, big fat tears clinging to your lashes. 
Ah, there it was again. Just when Satoru was beginning to think that he might just be veering into a state of mind that could be considered sane - you have to call him that goddamn nickname again. And it’s only driving him wild. 
Well, he muses, fumbling with the hem of his t-shirt, it’s really on you then. 
You let out a fucked-out little whine as Satoru finally takes his shirt off, revealing such milky, toned skin. All sharp curves and dips like he was sculpted so meticulously, going down, down, down and- Your breath hitches at the large, pink scar standing out of his torso, so uneven and fresh that you feel a fresh wave of tears - different ones, this time. 
You take a steadying breath, eyes unmoving from the injury. “Satoru-”
“No.” Satoru’s tone is firm, so different from the metallic tinkling of his belt. He was moving now, shifting in between your legs to kiss those tears away. “Need this. Need you. Need you need you need you so bad-”
“But your…” you trail off. The words catch in your throat as he finally unbuckles his belt, pulling down his pants just enough that his throbbing cock springs out, hitting his sculpted abdomen. Red, and so so angry, soaked in precum. 
He was so…massive. Now, you expected your best friend to have a big dick, but this was ridiculous. He was so intimidatingly long, thick enough that you could feel the slick beading out of your sloppy hole already.
Yeah, you definitely weren’t making it out alive. 
Satoru sees it too, of course, because his cock twitches furiously. A low hiss leaving those pretty pink lips before he’s spitting on your quivering cunt. Once. Twice. 
And you know that if this shameless bastard could use six eyes to find your g-spot, then he could’ve done the same for this. But, no, he lets some of it miss, splattering against your inner thigh, smearing all over as Satoru thumbs in his saliva with your slick. 
God, he was treating you like some object. Wordlessly throwing your legs over his shoulders, dragging his weeping tip down your swollen folds. So fucking filthy. 
And then you feel like you’re been split apart - because Gojo Satoru was unforgiving. As was his aching cock. He’s barely even pressing through the first ring of muscle, and you already feel like he’s pushing all the way into your lungs. 
“T-Toru.” you yelp, glancing down at the way your pussy was stretched so lewdly around his thick cock. Quivering as he keeps pushing and pushing and- no mercy. Absolutely none at all. “Can feel you so deep inside ngh- I don’t think I can…” 
“No no no no no-” he’s panting into your open mouth. Fucking into your heavenly cunt in mindless, shallow little thrusts just to squeeze deeper inside. “Need this. Want this. Always did. God, fuck fuck fuck, you can do it-”
“But-”
God, Satoru can’t help but kiss you - to shut those cute lil’ whines up more than anything, he’s sure he’ll cum right there and right now if he didn’t. 
Because Satoru wasn’t any better. Body bowing into yours, eyes rolling to the back of his head, mouth falling into a delirious oh! as he finally bottoms out. Balls smacking your ass too hard, your pussy too tight, you too beautiful underneath him. 
Blindly, he reaches for the headboard - white-knuckling it so hard that it’s a wonder it doesn’t break. 
It does - and later you’ll find a pile of splinters behind the bed. It’s just that neither of you notice. Too high off the feeling of Satoru’s cock pushing inside you. You’re clawing at his back now, gasping for air. Letting him fold you in half to filthily lick away the tears pooling at your cheeks. 
“Shit- y’got this, my love. You gotta- ah- Breathe-” he can’t even speak properly, sharp tongue so heavy. Eyes glowing with such insanity as he rocks his hips harder into yours.
He was right - you needed to breathe. To finally wrap your head around the fact that this was Satoru - your best friend - the same one that binge-watches sappy rom-coms with you after every breakup. Every. Single. One. Somehow, you wouldn’t have it any other way. 
Both of you were barely-lucid at this point. And he was out of control now.
Funny, how in all his dreams when you were screaming his name - Satoru was always suave, methodical, playing with your pretty pussy like a fine instrument. Right now, he was anything but. Sloppy - like he didn’t have enough time, never would, even in this room where time slowed.
“Don’t you run away.” he grunts at the way you’re so adorably torn between running away from his cock and bucking for more more more- “Waited twelve fucking years for this. N’ m’gonna take it.”
You almost sob at the pressure as he laces his fingers on top of your head to slide you impossibly deeper. Down, down, down. “S’too good, Toru. Wan’ more-”
“More.” Satoru breathes, more to himself than anything. Eyes widening almost comically, a fucked-out smile spreading all over his face. “Y’want more even when you’re filled to-” He traces an invisible line halfway down your tummy. “Here?”
“Yes.” you gasp as he reaches down to toy with your throbbing clit, drawing tight, frenzied little circles. Balls smacking your ass so painfully, thumb pressing down right where his tip was hitting your cervix - as if he used six eyes to see. “Always wanted more. Always have, Toru.”
And you swear you could see something physically snap inside Satoru. Because his eyes glaze over, grin dropping instantly from his face. 
If you weren’t so cockdrunk maybe you’d have caught the way the bedroom lights flicker, the one down the hallway bursting. 
“Always, huh?” he’s muttering, grip on your body tightening like a vice. “Wanted more like me?” Rocking into you so sloppily, cock twitching so painfully as he speeds up. Fingers just as desperate - as depraved as his hips.
And this time, he doesn’t even have to use six eyes to find that one spot. Knowing your body well enough to hit it over and over until you were sobbing. “More more more more- fuckin’ take it then.”
At this point you didn’t know whether Satoru was always this ruthless in bed or you’d just broken him. It felt so good that it was almost scary. And your delirious mind wandered into the thought that maybe the bed would break - and your bones to follow. 
Well, they would have if Satoru hadn’t been using reversed cursed technique. But you didn’t need to know that just yet. 
“Satoru-” you squeal as he only gets more erratic.  “I’m…”
“Close?” Satoru’s grunting, smacking his lips against your own.
It’s laughable, really, that muffled question - because Satoru knew you were close. Losing his fucking mind, actually, at how you were squeezing so hard around him. Balls squeezing so painfully right now, but he wanted you to cum first - needed you to cum first.
“Yeah, so close. Wan’ cum- Ah! Please-”
“Then cum. Fucking cum, wan’ed this so bad.” he’s babbling deliriously. Little sparks of lightning visible even to your glassy eyes, fingers humming with a dangerous little energy that stimulated you so good. “Yeah, yeah yeah yeah fucking cum, wanna hngh-”
And then you are. So sudden and hard that you don’t even realize it at first. Just that you’re seeing stars behind your eyes, blood roaring in your ears. Rocking your hips into Satoru’s like such a slut. 
Oh, if heaven was really then the part of Satoru that can still form coherent thoughts thinks this just might be it. 
Because only the sight of you creaming all around his swollen cock and he’s cumming and cumming so hard that it hurts. Thick, hot ropes of cum that he can’t seem to stop. Doesn’t want to stop, and God he thinks he could cum until you beg and beg and beg it’s too much. Until you’re yelling for-
“Mercy!” you moan, head spinning with how fucking overfilled your pussy was. “Please, Toru-”
Satoru lets out a slight gasp, “Mercy?” Chuckling so cruelly at your dazed nod, “No mercy, my love. None at all.”
And God, it was so fucking hard to look at him too - eyes half-lidded and miles away, flushed and looking like he was anywhere but laid out on a hospital bed just a few minutes ago. In fact, Satoru looked like he was in heaven on Earth as he only milked his painfully hard cock on your snug pussy.
Pretty. Always so fucking pretty. 
And he kept whispering that, over and over in your ear as you both ride out your highs. Oh how he loved you.
Your eyes fly open, and Satoru knew he’d said that out loud. Shit. But, well, with the way you were immediately pulling him to collapse into your arms, he thinks he really doesn’t mind.
“Love you, love you. Love you so much. Always did, always wanted to love you- to fuck you.” You barely even notice him marking down your neck, sharp canines digging into the flesh like he wanted to break something. Hard enough that you distinctly wondered whether he was out for blood. “To ruin you.”
It was oozing out of you, both Satoru’s cum - dribbling down your legs in thick globs, pooling on the overpriced sheets below - and his power. Jolts of electricity running down all the way from your poor, abused cunt to your hazy mind. 
“So do it.” The air was crackling - crackling with intensity and the smell of jujutsu. It was in your veins, in your words as you whisper, “Ruin me. You’re the- ngh- only- one f’me, Toru. Always was.”
The lights go out. All of them - all across Tokyo, in fact. Shining so bright that it was blinding, until they burst. The last thing you see are his eyes - electrified with blue lightning, burning into your brain. 
And then it’s black. 
---
“I’ll be back before ya know it, my love.” he whispers against your forehead, cooing at the way you stir sleepily. “Gotta pest to take care of.”
Taking down that curtain wasn’t the hard part, the hard part was actually fucking regaining his senses enough to do so. 
And now, all cleaned up and fucked to sleep on his bed, you were looking so unbearably delectable that it made some part of Satoru just want to stay behind this curtain. To forget the waiting sorcerers on the battlefield. Saving the world be damned.
Well, no matter, Satoru had time. He was the strongest, right? After all, how could he give you the world if there was no world to give?
“N’ when I’m back, m’gonna kiss ya to death till you go out with me. Till everyone knows you’re unmistakably mine.”
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A/N. GET IT - that unmistakable bit from the panel? 
Plagiarism not authorized.
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fatal-blow ¡ 5 months ago
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growing up, my mum always told me, whenever i went to the doctors or any sort of health professional, that it was important that i told them that i was hypermobile. she'd done the tests with me (herself being hypermobile and disabled in large part because of it) and though she didn't know the details, she knew that hypermobility was important to have in my health record.
so it was to my great surprise and displeasure that, whenever i told doctors i was hypermobile, it was skipped over. never addressed, never touched on, not even a comment to belie what that meant for me. i myself didn't know the impact hypermobility could have on a person, but my mother had been insistent about that fact. it was important, so why did no one else seem to think so?
i grew up with kids in school who were on the extreme ends of hypermobility. i knew a boy in middle school who could put both feet behind his head. i knew a girl in high school with long, spindly fingers who showed me how far backwards her arm could bend.
both of them had health problems, which became more profound as they aged. i never knew the details, but it stuck out that they were hypermobile, and so was i, and with my own health declining there HAD to be a connection.
common knowledge gives the vague definition of hypermobility as extra stretchy muscles, of being double-jointed. it comes with warnings not to push your hypermobile body into the extremes. don't overextend, you will hurt yourself.
the warnings are warranted. the importance isn't overplayed. these things i knew, but i didn't know why. and without knowing why, they were warnings that i could never truly obey, despite how conservative i became with my movements in a vain attempt to protect what little ability i had left.
hypermobility is NOT stretchy muscles. muscles are supposed to stretch. in fact, it's important to their health (those conservative movements prolly hurt more than helped!). hypermobility affects connectives tissues, and lands under the umbrella of Ehlers-Danlos Sydromes (there are a few) which can range in severity from affecting skin and tendons to affecting blood vessels and organs.
severity is rare, and much easier to catch. this post is for the people who are "a little hypermobile" so that they can understand what makes their body different.
a muscle and its associated tendons are like a hammock. the muscle is the fabric you lie in, stretching to accomodate the load. tendons are the rope that attaches the fabric to the trees, providing a secure anchor for the muscle to operate.
so, what happens when the ropes on the hammock are also stretchy? well, you sit in the hammock and your ass hits the ground.
now imagine that the fabric of the hammock has the ability to clench like a muscle. a normal hammock doesn't need to work that hard to stop ass from meeting ground, because it has sturdy anchors. a hammock with stretchy rope, however, must exert several times more effort, because the more the muscle pulls, the more the tendons stretch.
in short, hypermobility forces your muscles to work harder, because they must first pass the threshold of stretch the tendons are capable of before it can actually do the task it's meant to do. the stretchier the tendons, the harder the muscle needs to clench, the easier it is to overwork.
this info reframed everything i was doing with my body. small tasks of strength required the effort of much larger tasks, and larger tasks ranged from extremely difficult to impossible. holding my arms up so i could work above my head required monumental effort. with an anatomical peculiarity of the feet, i needed to use several muscles in my calves and hips just to stand without losing balance.
so no fucking wonder i crashed and burned in my 20s, when everything i did took all of my strength to accomplish. no wonder i would contort myself out of shape, so flexible that i could anchor myself into extreme poses just to give my muscles a moment of relief, overstretching myself without ever realizing why, and what damage i could be doing.
so, some things to remember:
overextending isn't good for you, but it shouldn't be your biggest concern. instead, be aware of overexertion, both how LONG you are using a muscle without breaks and how HARD you are using it.
small, frequent breaks are your best friend if you need to do something for awhile.
when you take breaks, stretch the muscles you'd been using.
if you need to exert effort to maintain a pose (whether it's sitting, standing, etc) examine whether you need to be clenching those muscles, and why.
actually whenever you are using muscles, try to train yourself to use as few as possible. you can practice by sitting or standing, and relaxing as many muscles as you can before you tip over. finding a sense of balance can make your life so much easier.
become acquainted with what relaxed muscles feel like. chronic tension can distort your perception of this, and result in habitual tension.
so yeah. if you're hypermobile, that's important. don't let a doctor's dismissal make you think otherwise. take care of yourself and know what you are and aren't capable of.
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envy-of-the-apple ¡ 2 months ago
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Third Wheel
Dark!SatoSugu x reader
(Warnings: Yandere, dark content, dark, misogynistic language, delusional behavior, kidnapping, blood, violence, +ShokoHime x reader, choking (not in the sexy way tho), threesomes, oral!F!recieving)
Synopsis: Regardless of what Satoru and Suguru tell you, you've always felt left out in this relationship. But when you leave, you quickly find out there's no line your ex-lovers won't cross to get you back
Word Count: 7.3k
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When you come home that night, they're already cuddled together, watching TV. 
It's cute. Your boyfriends were always so loose with their affection. When Suguru was cooking, Satoru would lean on his back, more than happy to talk his ear off. Suguru would hold Satoru's waist, steadying him, being his anchor. At night, you'd catch them reaching for each other, trying to hold hands even in their sleep. 
It's clear to even the blind: they are soulmates. 
And you were just extra baggage. 
You don't know how you caught their eyes, but this past year was fun. They've been sweet, both of them have. Inviting you into their lives, into their home, into their bed. Everything moved so fast, but you didn't mind. You were young and a bit spontaneous. Two beautiful men showing a glimpse of interest in you wasn't something you could pass up. This was nice, while it lasted. 
But unlike them, you aren't forever. Their bond would never come close to anything they could have with you. 
It took a while for you to accept that, but eventually, you did. 
"Hey, babe," Satoru calls. "Rough day?" He lazily waves you over. Suguru grunts, before shifting over to make space. 
Despite it all, you're a coward. You don't announce it; you just stare at them. Fondly. Yes, this was nice. You don't think you could handle telling them, though; that would be too much. Seeing how little they cared would break you. 
"Yeah." You give. "Rough day." 
You weave through the house. It's theirs. Not yours. That they've made clear. You're an afterthought. It's the little things. Their toothbrushes are together, yours on the other side of the sink. Their shoes were neatly stacked side by side, and yours were always tucked away in a corner. Left out. Forgotten. Why wouldn't it be like that? They've been together for years. You were still an outsider. 
You only have a little to grab. You just grab your extra clothes, the hair clips you have a terrible habit of leaving around. Just a few items. And then the bedroom looks like you'd never been there at all. 
When you come back out, they don't notice your suitcase. Satoru laughs loudly at something happening on screen. Suguru chides him sternly. Good. It's better this way, you think as you take your suitcase to your car. You don't need any additional heartbreak. 
You make a few more rounds, collecting everything you need. Suguru only catches you when you are about to leave their house forever. 
"Angel?" He calls. "Where are you going?" 
He's looking at you, head tilted in mild curiosity. You manage to smile, looking down at your car keys. 
"Out for a drive." You shrug. "I'll be back." 
Suguru takes it at face value. He lets you go with a small 'have fun'. The walk to the car is heavy. Metal dumbbells on your shoulders. 
When you get in the seat, you finally allow yourself to sob. 
~
I'm sorry, I just can't do this anymore
That's how you ended the wall of text before blocking them. It was the coward's way out. 
"No." Utahime's quick to tell you. "It's the only way. Those bastards would've never let you go otherwise." 
You shouldn't be so quick to listen to her, considering she hates them both. Still, she was more than happy to offer you her home while you picked yourself back up, and started looking for an apartment. You'll humor her for the time being. 
"She's right," Shoko pipes up. Her dark circles are even more prominent tonight. You guiltily think it has more to do with you than with her patients, but she and Utahime have insisted that you stay with them. 
"It was for my sake, more than theirs." You say honestly, tucking yourself into the couch. "They...don't care about me. At least, not like they do each other." 
Utahime rolls her eyes. "You are blind." She says. "Those two were obsessed with you. I'm just glad you got out while you could." 
You laugh, but it beats crying all over again. Utahime doesn't find what she said as funny. She chides you again, something about being oblivious before she settles down to watch the movie she put on. Shoko falls asleep right at the intermission. Her head falls against your shoulder. Utahime leans against you too. And it's nice to have friends to fill the void they left. 
~
Satoru appears first. 
You woke up later than you would have liked. Your eyes are itchy and red from crying all night. Utahime was more than happy to give you her guestroom, but you know you can't take advantage of her kindness for too long. Tomorrow, you'll start apartment hunting. 
Today, you'd sit on the couch and eat ice cream. 
When you go downstairs, you hear a hushed whisper. Utahime's by the door, using her body to keep someone out. She looks angry. 
"-No one's here but me. Now get the fuck off my property." She seethes. 
You recognize his voice. You aren't ready. "Have you heard anything? Anything at all?" 
"No." Utahime gripes. "So go, Gojo-" 
He catches your eyes. Your heart gets stuck in your throat. 
He's taller than her. It takes little to no effort to barrel through her body, easily shoving her aside to get to you. You flinch, his touch burns when he grabs you, pulling you into his arms. 
"Oh, baby." He sighs into your hair. "There you are. Missed you." 
It's too soon. You aren't ready. You can still feel the emotions bubble up from that night, when you collapsed in Utahime's arms, sobbing your heart out. This wasn't fair. They never made it fair. 
You cast a glance at Utahime. She was scowling, close to boiling right over the edge. It gives you enough strength to try to push Gojo off, but he only lets go, when he wants to. 
"Okay." He smiles, reaching down to grab your hand. "C'mon. Let's go home. You had us both so worried for a sec, but if we explain everything to Suguru it'll be okay." 
You find your voice then. As well as your strength. His grip on your hand isn't all that tight. It slips away when you gently shake him off. Satoru stops, confused. 
"Satoru..." You start. "Didn't you get my text?" 
He rolls his shoulders, agitated. "Yeah, but-but it doesn't matter." 
There it was. His lovable personality. Casual careless, nonchalance. For once, you aren't annoyed by it. Maybe your grief made you numb to it. 
"I did mean it," you say as plainly as you can, "every word." 
He freezes. You smile at Utahime. 
"Could you give us some time?" You ask. 
She frowns, but she's never been able to say no to you. 
"Ten minutes." She finally says, before she's marching back to the kitchen. You still hear her muttering while leading Satoru back to your room. 
"I'm sorry." He says when the door shuts behind him. 
"For what?" 
He runs a hand through his hair, taking off those glasses he loves so much. You can't look him in the eyes for too long. It brings up too many memories. 
"I fucked up, right?" He says, he sounds desperate. You've never heard him sound like this before. "I'm sorry. I dunno what I did, but I'm sorry." 
You shrug, picking at the lint of your sleeves. "You didn't do anything. I just...it felt like a good point to just-" 
"-Leave us?" He cuts in. "Come home, baby. I'm so sorry, just come home and we'll figure this out." You look away because you can feel the tears burn up. 
"You didn't do anything." You insist, but your voice is weaker. 
"Was it Suguru? Did he do some bullshit?" Satoru interrogates. "What'd he do? I'll kick his ass, I promise." You hide your smile underneath your sleeves. 
"He didn't do anything either," you assure, "neither of you did." 
He's getting more and more desperate. "Then why did you leave us? What's wrong with us? Why can't we go home and talk this out? Please come back, baby; home doesn't feel like home without you." 
Isn't this what you wanted? A confession. Evidence that they wanted you just as much as they wanted each other. Satoru certainly did. Suguru did, too, considering how hurt Satoru implied him to be. A week ago, you might have been over the moon, too wallowed in self-pity to do anything but agree, run back into their arms, and willingly sink back into 2nd place all over again. 
But the thought of going back to their home makes you feel sick. 
"I can't." You decide. "I just can't. It's over, Satoru." 
I'm sorry. You keep that last line to yourself because you're too scared to crack in front of him. Shatter. Splinter. 
Satoru doesn't share the same sentiment. You hear movement, and when you look up, he's crying. 
A part of you wants to hug him, but you hold yourself back because he isn't yours anymore, and maybe he never was. Still, it hurts seeing him like this. The piece of you that still wanted him is ready to forgive and forget. Your vindictiveness keeps it at bay. 
"That's not fucking fair." He's saying through his tears, even when he's crying, he's beautiful, "You-you can't just ditch us like this. You don't get it; we can't live without you. It's killing us; you're killing us, baby." He staggers forward, in a way that makes you afraid he might fall. In the end, he just collapses on the bed. Eventually, you take a seat next to him. 
He's looking around, you catch him eyeing the pile of clothes in the laundry basket. The hair ties on top of the drawer. The plushies on the bed. You think it might finally be starting to sink that that you're truly gone. 
"Suguru can't sleep these days, y'know that?" He starts, a sardonic laugh in his throat. "He pretends to, but he can't. He stays up all night just wishing you'd come home. The guy is miserable without you, and you can't even gimme a fucking answer." 
His voice cuts you just the way it's supposed to. You wince, feeling his words slice into his skin, finding their way into your heart. You look at his shoes for a moment. He didn't bother to remove them. Maybe that's another reason why Utahime was so pissed. 
"I was starting to feel like an afterthought with you two." You speak. "I mean, it makes sense, you two were together, first. I thought the barrier would just take time to go away....but then it didn't." 
How many times has Suguru taken Satoru's hand over yours? How many times has Satoru forgotten your drink but not Suguru's? How many inside jokes you didn't understand? You always felt petty for being jealous over the tiniest things, but those tiny things kept getting bigger and bigger until it felt like they'd been purposely building that barrier themselves.
You were sick of feeling like the third wheel in your relationship. 
"Baby..." Satoru's voice is tinged in guilt and you can't look at him because you can feel the tears start to well up. "I-I didn't realize." He grabs your hand. 
"Come home." He pleads. "We'll fix it, I promise. We'll be better. We'll do better." 
You shake your head, slipping away from his grip. 
"It's too late." Your voice is shaky. Please let him not notice. Please, please, please for once can his oblivious about everything but his one and only work in your favor? "You can't fix anything, Satoru. Not now." 
"You haven't even given us a chance to-" 
"You should go." You stand up. Satoru follows you out the door. Utahime's already outside. She catches your eyes and nods. 
"Gojo." She speaks, tone clipped. "Get the fuck out of my house." 
He stills, frozen like the prettiest painting in the world. His eyes turn to ice as he stares at her. Utahime doesn't budge. If anything, she advances, pulling you close, acting like a human barrier between you and your ex-boyfriend. You take it immediately, nestling into her side, taking refuge from his icy stare. 
There's silence. You only relax when you hear his footsteps fade and the door slams ricochets into the apartment. And that's when you break down into Utahime's arms completely, letting her coo you into comfort. 
"Maybe I am being overdramatic," you say when Shoko comes back later that day. Utahime was enraged since Satoru left, pacing around the apartment. It's only after both you and Shoko coaxed her back into the couch that she calms down enough to take a seat next to you. 
"Maybe this whole thing is ridiculous. I-I should just go back and-"
"No." Shoko is immediately saying voice firm. "Absolutely Not." 
You can smell the hint of smoke when she came back from the hospital. You try not to assume it's because of you. 
"No way in hell are we letting you go back there after what he did." Utahime gripes. 
"He didn't do anything." You argue. "I swear, I-I was just...being pathetic." 
Warm hands lift your head up. You struggle, still shuddering from your sobs as Utahime forces you to look at her. 
Her eyes are brown. Not as glittery as Satoru's, who's eyes shine like the burning sun itself. Not like Suguru, with his celestial purple. No, hers are just brown. 
You didn't realize how beautiful brown eyes could be. Not just the color of home; the color of chocolate; the color of brownies. The way the light cast down at them made them deep and dark, like a night sky. If you looked closer, you could see tiny stars swimming around. 
"Listen. Are you listening?" When you nod, her voice softens. She tucks your hair behind your ear. 
"You deserve better." She insists. "You deserve better than them. So so much better. I know you can't see it right now, but there is better out there waiting for you." Her voice loses all momentum all at once. "Just...trust me, okay?" 
Her desperation to be heard makes you smile a bit. You nod. Her frown loosens, just the tiniest bit. She relaxes. 
"Thanks," you say after a beat. "I...I needed that. I'm glad I have goods friends." 
Utahime's hands drop from your face. She collapses into the couch cushions with a groan. Shoko laughs. 
"Told you." Shoko says, mirth and alcohol on her tongue. 
Utahime flips her off, and Shoko takes her place. She settles into your side. 
"They were assholes." She tells you. "Forget about them. And she's right, you deserve better." 
You were glad they were there for you, even when you weren't there for yourself. It felt nice that they cared. Vouched, Advocated for your comfort. They made better boyfriends than your old boyfriends ever did. Their support helped heal the Satoru and Suguru-sized holes left in your heart. Every day became a bit better. 
When Suguru eventually turned up, you were a bit more prepared. 
He's a bit nicer than Satoru was. He actually knocks, instead of relentlessly pounding on the door. He doesn't barrel through Shoko when he spots you cowering behind her. His face betrays nothing. He's still. A polite smile is stretched on his lips. Shoko isn't happy about letting him into her home, but when she glances at you, you nod. You needed to do this. You needed closure. 
And so did Suguru. 
You don't speak to him until you're shut in your room. Geto cuts the silence first. 
"How have you been?" He asks nicely. 
"Good." You respond. "You?" 
"Good." 
Conversation stilts. You don't know what to say. Luckily, your ex is never the man who stays silent for long. 
"How's living with Shoko and Utahime been?" He asks, "I'm surprised you've put up with them for this long. They were pretty scary in high school." 
"I bet you two were scarier." You counter. 
He smiles. It's soft, looks good on him. You find yourself smiling back. When you take a seat on the the of the bed, he doesn't follow. You don't know whether to feel glad or not. 
"Yeah, I'm not the proudest of those times." He admits with a sheepish laugh. 
It dies down, and you know the artificial barrier between you two has broken. You shift, waiting for the inevitable. 
"Satoru told me what happened." He sighs. "I'm sorry, Angel. We-I didn't know how you felt. Everything was so perfect, I just thought you felt the same." 
"It's fine." You assure, and this time, your throat doesn't clog up, and your eyes don't feel itchy. "Really. It's-it's fine." 
"It's not." Suguru shakes his head. "You'd be in bed with us if it were." 
That comment pricks something deep within your skin. You swallow, turning away from his piercing purple eyes. They were much like Satoru's. Breathtaking, you could stare at them for hours. You used to. 
But now, you don't have that desire anymore. 
And maybe now that you aren't so attached, maybe you could try being a little more honest. 
"I was jealous." You finally admit. "I couldn't help it. I-I always felt like I was fighting within my relationship. You two were so much closer to each other than I was. Than I ever could be, honestly." 
Suguru frowns, troubled. 
"That's not true." He insists, soft, but something's burning underneath his tone. "Satoru and I have history, but that doesn't mean-" 
"I was runner-up." You cut him off. "For both of you. Looking back, I'm not really upset. It was always impossible for anything to come between the two of you. This-" You gesture between you and him "-was always inevitable." 
"It's my fault." You smile at him, hoping it comes across as sincere as you feel. "I couldn't stand being second place." 
He moves then, kneeling in front of you. Eyes the widest you've ever seen them. He catches your hands in his. You let him. A parting gift. 
"Angel." He starts. "We never once thought of you as that." 
You shrug. "It doesn't matter." You reply. "It's how I always felt. You can't really change the way I feel about things, Suguru." 
You think he's realizing that he's beginning to lose you. His grip gets tighter as if he can physically keep you with him at the very least. He shifts until he's right at your knees, looking up at you desperately. 
"Come back." He insists, abandoning his persuasions. "Just...come back. At least for a little while? We can try again, can't we? Just give us a second chance?" 
It's strange, they don't look too similar, but you can see the similarities. Wow, they're just perfect for each other, aren't they? Yin and Yang. Two halves; one whole. 
You were always a leftover. You just had to learn that the hard way, through days of heartbreak, crying, and sobbing your heart out. It took you awhile to understand that the affection they had for each other is different from the affection they had for you. 
You shake your head. His hands nearly crush yours. 
"I love you." 
It takes you a while to figure out what he said. When it does sink in, your world tilts. Your heart stops at his abrupt declaration and you must stare at him because why? At first, you think he's just desperate: lovebombing. And then you look into his eyes, his sincerity. No, he means it. It makes you feel worse. 
"Satoru does, too, but you know him-he'd rather die than admit something like that." Suguru gives a bitter laugh, one you find familiar even after all this time. "I've always wanted to tell you but thought it was too soon. I thought we had all the time in the world." His voice tapers so he doesn't have to say the obvious but clearly you three didn't. 
You want to reach over, tuck a stray lock behind his ear but you stop yourself because he isn't yours anymore. You gave it all away when you ran. Instead, you curl your hands around his in silent understanding. 
You don't know how you didn't realize it before, but Suguru is less put together than usual. His hair is typically well-groomed and shiny, but now you see split ends. His eyes are clear and bright, but today...they aren't. A dull purple. Hazy violet. 
He's miserable. 
You did this. This was all you. 
"Satoru misses you," he says, "always had. Barely smiles anymore. I don't think I can blame him." 
They loved you. They love you. This was all what you wanted. Just a bit of recognition. There's a tiny part of you that's still itching to jump back in Suguru's arms, kiss him until you're out of breath 'just kidding! it was a prank! let's go home!' and then you two would leave hand-in-hand back to Satoru. 
Going back to them would make them happy, but not you.
But Shoko was right. You deserved better. 
 "It'll get better." You assure. "You'll heal." 
Day by day, the cracks in your heart start to seal. Bit by bit. It may never heal over completely, but you know you'll be okay one day. And they'll be alright too. Who knows, maybe in a couple years, you'll all laugh at this. 
Suguru shakes his head and stands up. His eyes are just the bit glassy, but he's blinking them away before anything gives. It's just like him, honestly, so you're not too upset. 
"You don't get it." He's smiling, not quite in humor. "I don't think you'll ever do but..." He trails off, mid-thought. 
"But what?" You press. 
Then he sighs and closes his eyes. When he looks at you again, his signature pleasantly cold smile is on his face. 
"I did all I could, I think." He turns around, abrupt. "I'll see myself out." 
You're caught off-guard by his sudden departure, but by the time you're following him, Shoko's already leading him out the front door, locking it with exasperation. 
"Is that it?" She asks. "They won't be barging in anytime soon, right?" 
You stare out the window, watching as Suguru gets in his car. Something bubbled in your stomach. 
~
It was one of those nights. Shoko had come back early. Utahime was back from the school. You had planned a cute little evening for the girls and a relaxing night in. You had everything: wine, freshly-prepared dinner, a cheesy horror movie, and an announcement you're sure they were more than happy to hear.
You had just settled down the blanket when you hear Shoko come through the door. You take off her coat before she can even touch it, excitedly flitting around her. 
"What's gotten you in such a good mood?" Shoko asks, her dark circles even more profound than before. You don't have to feel guilty about those for long. 
"You'll see!" You chirp back. 
Utahime strolls out of the bathroom, fresh from the shower. Her hair is still wet. You'll ask if you can blow dry it later. 
"That's what you've been saying for nearly an hour now." Utahime groans. "Just tell us already. Or at least, me."
"Patience." You chastise. "But, it's a good surprise, I promise." 
She's not satisfied, but she sits down anyway. They eat dinner, complimenting your skills all the while. You preen at their praise. It's a stark contrast between Suguru and Satoru, how cold they'd often been whenever you did something nice for them: tilted smiles, less-than-receptive words of 'oh baby you didn't have to'. 
As you lived with both couples, you can see the similarities. Utahime's temper is close to Satoru's, but that's where the similarities stop. She's more serious and less likely to blow off your feelings with a playful huff. Shoko and Suguru share the same laid-back personality, but Shoko is always there to listen to you instead of cutting you off with condescending sympathy. 
Wow, maybe Satoru and Suguru were a little more shitty than you initially thought. 
Eventually, the night draws to a close. They're drunk, full, and smiling. Perfect. You clear your throat just when Shoko refills her fourth glass. 
"Again, I'd really like to thank you for letting me stay." You start. "It meant so much to me to have two amazing people to support me like this. So, thank you." 
Utahime smiles. "Don't thank us," she says, "again, you can stay for as long as you want-forever, honestly!" 
You nod. "Well, I don't think I have to do that anymore." 
Shoko freezes mid-sip. 
"What?" She asks. 
"I talked to my parents." You tell them, oblivious to their stone faces. "And I'm going to move back in with them, just until I get back on my feet. Isn't that great? Now, you two won't have to-" 
You stop when you finally notice how cold they look. Utahime looks close to tears. 
"What's wrong?" You ask. 
"You're leaving?" Utahime asks, her voice nearly cracks. "Why?" 
That...wasn't what you were expecting. Shouldn't they be glad the third wheel is finally out of their house? Why does Utahime look so heartbroken? Why is Shoko so quiet? What was going on?
"Isn't-isn't this what you wanted?" You fumble with your words. "Now, you don't have to share the house with me anymore. It'll be just the two of you again." 
They exchange glances, and it reminds you of those secret conversations Suguru and Satoru used to have. Except this time, you can read their faces. 
"What if...we don't want it to be just the two of us anymore?" Shoko starts, hesitant, reproachful like she's approaching a scared wild animal. 
Your eyebrows scrunch. "I don't understand." 
At that, Utahime drops her head in her hands. "Oh, c'mon! We've been doing this for weeks! You can't be that oblivious-" 
And then, she stops herself. Looks at you. You stare right back, and the three of you have the exact same realization at the exact same time. 
"Oh." You breathe. 
"Oh." Utahime whispers. 
"We're all idiots." Shoko says behind her glass. 
"Wait wait. Hold on." You backtrack. "You-you two want...with me?" 
"Yes!" Utahime exclaims. "Yes! God, now everything makes sense. I thought you were just trying to let us down gently, but this whole time you just weren't even paying attention!" 
"No." You argue, face hot. "You two were just really subtle." 
"We all sleep in the same room, these days." Shoko lists. "'Hime sat on your lap with nothing on but a bra and panties." 
"I thought we were just doing friend things!" 
"What kinds of friends sit on your lap, half-naked?" Utahime asks, mortified. 
"I-I-" You give up. 
All this time. You were mourning over something you lost months ago, even when there was something blooming right under your nose. God, you're an idiot. 
Hands. They clasp your own. You look up into Utahime's pretty brown eyes. 
"We want you to stay." She whispers. "We want you." You take a glance at Shoko. 
"Do you want us?" 
You take a deep breath. 
You nod. 
She's smiling, and then Utahime's kissing you. Soft, so soft, nothing like the possessive kisses Satoru gives you. It's innocent and adoring and you find yourself melting into her completely. 
Utahime disappears and before you can mourn her warmth, Shoko's lips join yours. You can smell the alcohol, the slightest sting of cigarettes. You don't mind it. Her kisses are nothing like Suguru's, all powerful and domineering. She takes what you give her, asking ever so nicely for more. 
You break away, panting. 
"You good?" She asks. 
You nod. 
"Good." Shoko hums. "Cuz we're gonna fuck you now." 
"What?" 
Shoko pushes you down on the couch. You land with an oomph before Utahime's descends on you with a flurry of kisses. 
"Waited so long to do this, baby." She's sighing into your lips, fiddling with your shirt so she can pull it off. "Weeks and weeks." 
She pulls down one of your bra cups, massaging at your tits. You hadn't had action in so long, so you eagerly encouraged her movements, kissing her back with just as much fervor. Shoko takes her place next to her girlfriend, pawing at your other tit. 
"Look." Shoko purrs. "One for each of us." Her soft mouth sucks on your nipple, swirling it around her mouth. Your head leans back with a pleasant sigh. 
"Feel good?" Utahime asks. "She's good with her tongue, isn't she?" 
"Yes," you nod, and Utahime gives out a delighted giggle, peppering your face with kisses. You gasp when you feel her hand shift through your shorts, palming at your dripping pussy. 
"Poor thing." Utahime's cooing, and there's a brief hint of mockery in her tone. You've never heard that before. It turns you on even more. "They never gave you attention back there did they?" She circles your clit. "They were too busy sucking each other's dicks to pay attention to such a pretty pussy." 
Shoko pops off your tits, shifting down. She kisses her way to your stomach. You blearily watch as she adjusts herself until she's right at your shorts. Utahime follows her lead, tugging off your shorts. Your panties go next. 
And then you're staring down at them with trepid anticipation. 
"I meant what I said." Shoko says softly. "You deserve better. You deserve someone who cares for you." 
"You deserve us." With that, She and Utahime latch onto your pussy. 
They're everywhere. You have to stop yourself from cumming right then and there, arching your back as one of them sucks on your clit while the other licks into your hole. She manages to stick her tongue inside of you, and it's enough to shoot sparks through your eyes. 
"So tight." Utahime's hissing into your cunt. "Sho, after this, you wanna try to fuck this pussy with your strap?" 
There's a soft laugh, and Shoko pulls away from your clit to answer, much to your disappointment. You whine, thrusting your hips in the air. She stills you with a hush. 
"I don't think we're ready just yet." She hums. "Yet." 
When you glance down, they both are making out with your clit. It's debaucherous. Their soft lips are connected, your tiny bud locked in the middle as their spit trickles down into your pussy. Utahime groans and when you look further down, you realize she's touching herself. 
You don't know which part of this makes you cum, but you cum. It's the hardest you've ever orgasmed. There's so much stimulation that your hips buck up, trying to chase the sparks of pleasure. They let you, licking you through your orgasm. 
When you come down, your thighs fall apart, splayed against the soft cushions. Utahime still isn't finished, licking at your clit. You shudder at the overstimulation, whining until Shoko is pulling her off of you by her hair. 
"Good, baby?" She asks, crawling back up to you. You kiss her as an answer. She melts in delight. 
You break the kiss, glancing over at Utahime. 
Taking the silent request, she kisses you again. You can taste yourself on her lips. You don't mind it. For some reason, it's sweeter on Utahime's tongue. 
When she breaks away, she stares at you, face soft. "You're staying, right?" She asks you. "You'll stay with us? Because after this, I don't think we could ever let you go." 
You give a shy nod, and Utahime beams. 
"Then, you're ours now," Shoko says, settling into your side. "And we're yours. Always." 
"Always." You breathe, content, happy. You could almost go to sleep. 
Shoko slaps your thigh. 
"Not yet." She warns before propping you up. "First, I want you to sit on my face." 
Hours later, you wake up delightfully sore in bed. The two girls are curled up next to you. When you move, you can still feel the bruises Utahime left. You never knew she liked to bite so much. 
You can't even begin to remember what happened, but you don't regret any of it. Hours and hours had passed as they fucked you and fucked each other, and you fucked them. 
Shoko shifts beside you. She was always a light sleeper. 
"Awake?" She asks. 
"Yeah." You softly say back. 
She hums, shifting a little more to face you. Utahime's behind you, arms protectively curled around your waist. At your voice, her eyes twitch. 
"Shut up." She grumbles, but her arms cinch around your waist. 
Shoko stretches as she rises up. You miss her body warmth but you don't mind the view she gives as she saunters over to the dresser, pulling on some clothes. 
"I'm gonna get food." 
Utahime mumbles out her order. You say nothing because you don't want to come in between them, and then Shoko looks at you. 
"What do you want?" She prompts. 
You blink, and when you answer, Shoko smiles, and then she's out the door. 
The interaction makes your heart warm. 
Still, it can't last. 
When you go to get up, Utahime protests, grabbing your wrist. 
"And where are you going?" She prods. 
You fumble. "Back to my room?" 
"What? Why?" Utahime demands with a frown. "What's the point, you're already with us, now." 
"Oh." You blink, but you give in and slink back into bed. "Is...this really okay?" 
"For God's sake, " she hisses, but you don't count it against her because Utahime has always been a little grumpy after waking up. "Yes. We're obsessed with you. How are you so blind?" 
"We want you, and we're not like them." Her voice drops in disdain. "We'll treat you better. You're ours now. You're mine." 
"Yours." You repeat, something warm fluttering in your belly. 
"You can't leave, we'd go crazy, okay?" She seriously tells you. "If someone else takes you away, I'd lose it. And Shoko is okay with murder." 
You laugh. 
"That's not a joke." She warns. 
"I know." And you kiss her again. 
It's like that for a couple weeks. You live in peaceful domestic bliss with two wonderful girlfriends. Now that you're in an actual loving relationship, you can't tell why you ever contemplated ever going back to Satoru and Suguru. Shoko actually talked to you about your feelings. Utahime cared about your input. You weren't treated like an afterthought, second place. 
They were with each other longer than they had been with you, but they never made you feel like you had to fight for your relationship. Speaking off Satoru and Suguru, they never once contacted you after their first two attempts. They'd clearly given up. 
Everything was just perfect. 
And then, it just wasn't. 
You were in bed with them. Fifteen minutes ago, Utahime shuffled off to go to the bathroom. She still wasn't back. Half asleep, Shoko grumbled. 
"She's probably in there fighting a cockroach." She complains, but she rises anyway. "Sleep, I'll be back." She kisses you on the cheek, and then she's gone. 
Their body warmth fades, but they stay because they're tired. These days, you can't really sleep without them, so you wait for the girls to return. Two minutes pass. Then, five. Then, ten. By then, the bed is cold. 
You open your eyes, sitting up. It's so quiet. Are they okay? 
You pull off the comforter, stepping onto the cold wooden floor. The apartment feels strangely...haunted somehow. The air felt heavier now, thick with an invisible tension, like the house itself was holding its breath. It must be because you feel alone, you're sure of it. 
The bedroom leads to a dark hallway. As you make your way down, you can hear something. Voices? Murmuring. The relief almost makes you laugh. Seriously, what were you even afraid about? 
The living room is horrific. 
They look dead. You can't tell if they're breathing or not. Shoko's eyes are closed. Utahime's limp body is sprawled across the floor. There's blood on the wooden panels. 
Suguru doesn't even blink. 
"You're awake." He says it so casually, like waking up to your ex-boyfriends mauling your girlfriends is normal. 
"What..." Your voice fails, you weakly try again. "What did you two do?" 
Satoru answers, smiling with glinty teeth. 
"Isn't it obvious? We're getting rid of the competition." 
You don't understand, your brain hasn't caught up yet, you still think you can talk to these psychos. 
"It's their fault." Satoru's still smiling, but there's nothing happy about his tone. He's carrying a knife. There's blood on it. "It's all their fault. They manipulated you into breaking up with us, baby. That's how these useless sluts got you into their arms." He spits on Utahime's hair. You cover your face with your hands. 
"But, it's not like you aren't at fault, Baby." He points the knife at you. "You left us for them. I'm not letting you off the hook for that." 
You don't know what he's saying. His movements scare you, his eyes, the knife. When you glance at Suguru, you don't know what you're expecting. 
But you know you aren't expecting...that. 
His purple eyes are icy cold. Utterly devoid of any emotion. You don't think you're staring at a person, anymore. 
"You lied," Suguru says, "You lied about us not giving you enough attention. You just wanted to leave us. For them." 
You step back. They step forward. 
Those bastards would've never let you go otherwise. Utahime warned you. Looking at her limp body, you wondered if she thought they'd ever go this far. 
"I didn't." You weakly insist. "I-I wasn't lying about anything! It-it wasn't like I wanted to leave-" 
"Stop lying," Gojo insists. "Stop fucking lying already." 
He smiles again. 
"It's okay, baby. I know you'll come back with us. Right after we're done dealing with these two whores." 
"You'll belong to us." Suguru promises and he steps on Shoko's hands. "Just like always."
They were both crazy. Nothing could get through to them. Now, you would sit there and watch them maul the only things in your life that made you feel complete. 
The worst part is that everything was your fault. 
Shoko's pinky twitches. You can see Utahime take shallow breathes.
And you speak. 
"I'm sorry." 
Your weak voice makes them stop in their tracks. Satoru glances at you, Suguru does too. You can't convince them. The only thing you can do is play into their delusions. 
"You're right." You say, the tears finally feeling useful. "I just wanted to leave. I-I was just bored. I wanted something new." Suguru's lips curl and you quickly move on. "But-but the more I stayed with them, the more I realized...how much I missed you two." 
Satoru halts. You caught him. 
"I did." You stress, carefully making your way to him on feet that were close to dropping at any minute. "Every day, I thought about you two." You reach out, touching his face with shaky fingers. "I really really wanted to come back, but I was afra-afraid you wouldn't...want me back."
Satoru reaches up to touch your hand. His fingers are cold. You resist the urge to shudder. 
"You missed us?" He wonders. 
The lie feels like sand. 
"More than anything." 
His kiss is violent. He crushes you with his grip, touching and biting and everything you hate. You squeeze your eyes shut, letting him suck your soul dry. 
"Don't kill them." You whisper when he finally pulls away. "Please don't kill them. Everything was my fault." 
Satoru's face is pensive. His gaze drifts off to Suguru's. Those silent conversations you hated so much. 
Then, Satoru gives a delighted sigh. 
"You're lucky. I love you so much." He kisses your nose, before pushing you in Suguru's arms. 
"I'll clean up here. Suguru, go back to the truck." He demands. 
You don't fight, letting Suguru drag you away. Shoko and Utahime live in apartments, but you're afraid if you scream, Satoru might change his mind and gut them anyway. Before Suguru leads you off, you catch Gojo scoffing before he kicks at Utahime's face. You gasp and pray that when Shoko wakes up, she'll be coherent enough to call for an ambulance. 
I'm sorry, you tell them. I'm so so sorry. 
Suguru pushes you into the backseat of their vehicle. You obediently take a seat. 
"You shouldn't have left." He tells you. "You should've stayed." 
His face is cold, but his tone betrays the tiniest tremor. If you weren't so scared, you'd laugh. The irony is that he's the one who feels wronged here. 
"I'm sorry," you say anyway. 
He hums, not quite satisfied with your answer. 
"You aren't." He responds, and you hate how well he knows your tells. 
And then, he grins. 
"But you will be."
Hands reach out, gripping your neck. You flail immediately as Suguru cuts of your oxygen. You can't breathe. You can't fucking breathe. No matter how tightly you squeeze onto his wrist, digging your nails into his hands, clawing at his face. He keeps you still, keeping you there as you grow weaker. Your vision gets blurry. Your attempts get sluggish. There's a kiss on your forehead, and you black out completely. 
~
You wake up in a room you've never seen before. And your neck is sore. 
The pain drifts in as soon as consciousness does. You feel like you have a hangover, your head throbs, your eyes struggle to remain open. You can't go back to sleep either, not when it hurts so much. 
The panic doesn't settle in until you catch the cuffs on either one of your legs, keeping you attached to the bedpost. Silver chains, with enough lead to let you move around a bit. The cuffs are padded so you don't rub yourself raw. You don't care about the thoughtfulness. 
They're in the room with you, watching with silent eyes. Nausea builds up in your stomach, and you wonder how long they'd stayed there, just watching you. 
You miss Shoko. You miss Utahime. You missed people who actually loved you. 
Not these two. Monsters that lied and pretended, but deep down, they were just too selfish to share. 
"You were out for a while." Suguru comments. 
"I told you to use the syringe," Satoru remarks, but he doesn't sound too upset. At his voice, Suguru laughs. 
You shift in your spot. Suguru takes that as an invitation. He sits at the edge of the bed, watching you with satisfied eyes. You must look pathetic: shivering, in tears. He reaches up, catching your tears with his finger.
"So cute." And then he frowns. "You know why we're doing this, yes? You were bad. You need to be punished."
"I'm sorry." It's all you can say. You feel like a broken record, doomed to repetition over and over again.
"You aren't. You should stop lying." Suguru says sweetly. "But I'm sure, a couple hours in your new home will help you think about how much you hurt us."
You wanted to scream, but you can't cuz your throat still hurts from Suguru's hands, and you know he's not above putting his hands on you this time. Maybe he never was, you just never saw this side of him until you made him snap.
"You're leaving?" You stumble, moving as they back away but the chains only take you so far. There are no windows, and when Suguru shuts the light off, the only thing that's keeping you from the dark entirely is the light emitting out the hallway.
"Wait." You beg. "Please. Wait, don't-don't leave me here. I'm sorry. This is scary. I'm scared."
Satoru hesitates at your broken voice. Like a shark smelling blood, you pounce.
"Satoru, please."
"If you keep coddling, then the lesson will never be learned." Suguru warns.
Satoru stares at you. He's not wearing his sunglasses. You can see him for what he is now.
"I love you." He says it so sincerely, you almost believe it. "This is for your own good."
The door shuts, and everything goes dark.
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mostly-imagines ¡ 4 months ago
Text
The Alchemy vol. II
jason todd x fem!reader
aka the progression of your relationship with the red hood
part one
warnings: depictions of blood and injury, standard gotham violence, jason doesn't know how to have feelings, reader is angry, threats against readers life, implied concern of sexual assault
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It might be a matter of deficiency in self-preservation skills, how the sound of your window sliding open does nothing to phase you. You don’t know if that’s your fault or his.
“How’s it goin’ down there?” You mumble, not sitting up from your position on the couch.
He pushes the window shut in his wake, huffing. “I am up here for a reason,” he says factually.
You crane your head back just in time to see him tug the red helmet off his head, setting it down on your side table. He has on his under-mask that covers the lower half of his face. You don’t like that one.
He glances around your apartment as he approaches with slow steps. “Why are all the lights off?”
“Forgot to turn ‘em on,” you tell him simply.
He frowns at you, confusion evident.
You pay him no mind though, taking an exaggerated breath and pushing yourself up off the couch before trotting over to the kitchen. You open the fridge and scrummage for a water bottle. Jason thinks it’s odd how long it takes you to find one in your own fridge. 
Once it's (eventually) in your hands, you chug down several gulps and toss the half empty bottle towards the counter where it lands with a sloppy thump and rolls.
When you return, he’s leant against the armrest of your chair, watching you. You stop in the middle of the room, a contemplating stare on the floor. He tilts his head at you, wondering what you could possibly be thinking so hard about.
You take a deep breath before plopping down to lay on the carpet all in one go. 
He peers down at you, barely trying to hide his amusement. “You’re drunk.”
You shake your head, “I’m not sober.”
“That’s—yeah.” He stands all the way, coming to lay down on the floor next to you, using significantly more coordination than you had.
He lays in between you and the couch, though it doesn’t seem you’d left him much room. If he minds, it doesn’t show. “What’d you do?”
“I jus’ went out with my friend,” you tell him, closing your eyes. “She moves pretty fast..”
It occurs to him that you might be laying on the ground because you got nauseous. He turns to look at you, scanning you over. “You good?”
“I feel great,” you keen. “I feel…swooshy.”
He gives you a bemused look. “Dizzy?”
You shake your head with a great deal of consideration on your face, “No, not even dizzy, just…swoosh.” You throw out a hand with a theatrical flick.
“Mhm.”
You pucker your lips to the side. “You come here a lot,” you comment, clearly working up to some greater observation.
“You’re in my neighborhood,” he shrugs. 
Your head tilts, “You live here?”
He pauses before correcting himself, “My territory.”
You hum, “Still. There has to be other people around here you know. ‘Specially if you’re passing out on balconies on the reg.”
He frowns, “I try not to make a habit out of it.”
You continue on, “Why do you always go to my apartment? There’s—”
“I don’t always come to your apartment—”
You deadpan, “You’re here like three nights a week. And I don’t even help you that much anymore, you’ve used up my whole first aid kit.”
You can literally feel the eyeroll like you have a sixth sense for it. “That thing wasn’t exactly impressive to start with..”
“Did enough for you, didn’t it? Anyways, my point is: I think you like me,” you say with a nod.
That has him going absolutely rigid, “What?”
“I’ve heard you’re an asshole.”
“What?”
You nod, “Like, people that run into you. They say you’re kind of a dick. You help ‘em ‘n everything, but also while being a dick. Sometimes.”
“Okay...”
“But you’re nice to me. Sort of,” you squint. “I think you like me.”
He hasn’t felt this straggled in a conversation in a while. “I—well I’m not here because you’re a world-class medic.”
You scoff, “There’s no world-class medics..” But then your tone switches up, into something lighter. “We’re friends aren’t we? I think we’re friends.” 
He shakes his head, staring up blankly. “Sure, we’re friends.”
“We’re friends and you like me,” you reiterate.
He really wishes you’d stop saying that. “Okay.”
“I like you too. Even though you’re kinda sketchy.”
He doesn’t know what to say to that.
You hum into the silence, looking up at the ceiling. “J…James, Jack, John…”
He smiles, gaze dancing across the egg-whitened popcorn texture of the ceiling. “I’m not going to tell you.”
You ignore him, “Jake, Jaden, Jason, Josh, Joe, Jesse…”
You’re about three shots too drunk to notice the way he briefly stiffens. 
“Juuhhh…” you lull your head to the side, the letter fading out slowly as you look into his eyes. If you focus, you think you can make out a few of those little specks of green again.
He seems to already be running his own study on your irises, his eyes now softer than you can remember seeing them before. 
His next words are whispered, the sounds barely escaping. “You’re pretty.”
What?
“What?”
“What?” He seems taken aback by his own words, like he also wasn’t expecting them to climb out of his mouth.
You can literally feel sobriety seeping back into your blood. “I’m…pretty?”
He blinks a few times, apparently trying hard to decide on what position he’s going to take here. “I—well…yeah.”
You blink once, relaxing. “I think…I think you’re pretty too.”
“What?”
“We can’t do this again.”
He breaks eye contact, looking almost dejected.
You turn your head down to where his hand thrums against the carpet. “I mean, I know I haven’t seen your whole face in one go, but I see the top half now and the bottom before, so I…maybe I shouldn’t be saying this.” You reset with a shallow breath, “I don’t know what your whole face looks like.”
“That was,” he blinks, eyebrows raised. “Fascinating.”
“Thanks,” you say flatly. You close your eyes again, though this time you remain facing him.
He feels a slight pang of guilt for the way he continues to ogle at you, eyes tracing over every detail of your face. But that ounce of guilt does nothing to outweigh the reward of gazing upon you. He didn’t mean to say it but he definitely meant it: you’re really fucking pretty.
Your eyelashes flutter for a moment before stilling, a display of peace washing over your features. It’s when your breathing steadies over and your face relaxes completely is when he starts to feel like a creep. It takes a lot of strength for him to force his eyes shut, depriving himself of the view.
And he doesn’t do it on purpose, but after a few moments his inhales and exhales take to the same rhythm of yours. The thin layer of the rug isn’t doing much to protect his back from the hardwood below and he’s pretty confident later he’ll curse himself for lying like this for so long. 
But as he lays, he doesn’t find himself focused on the dark red-gray of his eyelids like usual, so much as the warmth from the proximity of your bodies. He’s usually so concentrated on whatever the hell is going on in his head and it prevents him from really truly resting, but now, the only thing taking up his attention is physical sensations.
He feels this warmth in his heart that if he didn’t know any better, he’d call burning. His hands feel numb and he can distinctly feel the beat of his own heart in his chest, thrumming away.
He presses his lips to your forehead with a feather light touch, slow to pull away. He doesn’t make it all the way back to his original position before his movement lulls and his body relaxes again, joining you gladly in unconsciousness.
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Gotham City has a particular gift for inconveniencing you at the worst possible moment and doing it multiple times a week.
Tonight's round of problems resulted in an entire city district getting shut down, the district which is regrettably right between your job and your apartment.
So on top of having to hole up into your work for two hours longer than you were supposed to, it took you an extra 45 minutes getting home while trying to maneuver around every other person in the same situation. And just to cement the quality of this night, the door to your apartment building slams nice and hard against your side and the light in the hallway is out.
You groan when you fail to get your key the lock the right way for the third time, lodging it in a final time and shoving the door open. You flick on the kitchen light and dump your bag onto the counter, kicking the door shut behind you.
You take a deep breath, eyes closed, as you lean your head back against the wall. The second you crack your eyes open again, a pile of red mass on the floor behind your couch catches your attention and startles some energy right back into your chest.
“Oh, shit,” you scurry over towards the window, crumbling down onto your knees in front of him. Your eyes dart across the red helmet, trying to makeout any signs of consciousness. “Hood?” 
There’s no response from him, no movement. You tug his helmet off, finding him eyes-closed with blood running down the side of his head. You push a hand down on his chest armor, shaking him. “J? J!”
His eyes flutter open slowly under his domino mask, adjusting to the light. With the disorientation on his face he looks younger, more his age. His hair is tousled up and you can make out some distinct curls in it when it's undone like this. 
He grimaces, gloved hand coming up to his head. He looks wearily at the blood on his fingers, before plopping his hand back down and blinking up at you. “Hey..”
You sit back on your heels with a sigh, “What the fuck?”
He makes a strained effort to sit up on his own so you try to heave him up by his forearm. As he comes up all the way you glance behind his back at a bag crumpled discarded on the floor. You can barely see some sort of fabric poking out the top. “What is that?”
“Huh?” He throws back a tired glance, “Oh. They're..curtains.”
“Explain.”
He looks at you blankly, “You don’t have any curtains.”
You blink. “Explain.”
“It’s dangerous for people to just be able to look in and see you. So. Curtains.” For a guy who reads Dostoevsky, he’s not much of a wordsmith. Though that could be the concussion. 
You reach around him and pull some of the fabric out of the bag, inspecting the linen. They match the theme of your living room.
You set it back down, blinking. “Thanks.”
He only gives a half-hearted shrug.
You look back at him, “How bad is the…?” You gesture to the side of your head.
He feels at the blood again, “It’s mostly just a cut. Shoulda stopped bleeding by now.”
You nod, “I’ll, uh—I’ll clean it up.”
He looks at you, shaking his head. “You don’t need to. Your kit’s almost empty anyways.”
“I restocked it,” you tell him, rising to stand. He lets you go retrieve your aid box without protest, listening blankly to the faucet run in the bathroom while you’re gone.
You return momentarily, damp rag in one hand, kit in the other. “Here, sit on the couch,” you tell him, nodding him up. 
He lugs himself up off the hardwood and onto the cushion with a groan. You position yourself on the cushion next to him, leaning over to inspect the cut. You brush through his hair as gently as you can, though you have to suspect he wouldn’t have minded either way—if only based on the pain threshold you know him to have.
As much as you are completely in his space, you’re having trouble getting all the access you need to fix him up right. You turn and adjust your angle this way and that but none of it works. 
You huff, sitting back. “I can’t..”
He nods his permission at you without delay, and you shift yourself over to sit fully on his lap, straddling him on the sofa. You put your focus into cleaning his wound, but you have to notice how deep he’s breathing and how he’s seemingly trying very hard to avoid eye contact. You’re sure your own breath is uneven and telling, and frankly you’re kind of hoping he has a concussion just so he might not notice it.
An unexpected sting has him flinching and grabbing your hips on instinct, a certain heaviness lingering in the air after contact. His hand tenses and he’s about to remove them from you completely when you manage to catch his gaze, and the few moments of silent eye contact are enough to convince him to stay. He forces his hands to relax against your waist, his fix on your face wavering before fizzling away completely.
You go back to dabbing at the blood and it’s clear that his thoughts get the better of him quickly. “You should move.”
“But then where would you go?”
He makes a rumbling noise from the back of his throat at that, saying nothing more.
You continue to wipe away at the blood until you can’t see it anymore, beyond the slice of the cut. You misjudge your own spatial awareness as you pull back from him, and the tips of your noses graze. Though the contact surprises you, you don’t move away from it. You become very acutely aware of his touch on your waist, how warm it feels atop your shirt. 
His head leans forward just barely before stopping. He retreats slightly and his body ultimately decides to come closer. He doesn’t stop until his lips, slightly parted, skim across yours.
Your breath catches as he looms nearer, lips touching against yours softly. He tests that pressure out for a moment, before moving to kissing you with more intent. You kiss him back, and though there’s an increasing resolve on both of your parts, the connection itself remains gentle, reposeful.
The last slight movement of his lips gradually slips away as he rests his forehead against yours.
A long beat passes before he’s tightening his grip on your waist and pulling you up to stand. You aren’t given the time to process the shift as he’s moving straight past you, head down. He pauses only when he gets to the window, back turned to you.
“Sorry—I’m…” his shoulders drop, “Sorry.” 
He climbs out and scales the fire escape in total silence until he’s gone completely.
You stand frozen in position, staring at the window with incredulity burning across your face.
What the fuck?
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Two weeks pass of voided midnight visits. 
You’re not sure what to make of that. He kissed you, not the other way around. You couldn’t possibly have done something to upset him or throw him off since he’s the only one who did anything. All in all, it’s a little disappointing.
There had been tension there and it wasn’t shocking for you to learn that he wanted to kiss you. It was a bit of a surprise for him to actually do it, though not a bad one. But you were thrown for a grand fucking loop when he immediately bailed out.
Maybe you can’t read him as well as you think because you’d expected him to at least say something about it. It was a borderline given that he would come back and there would be a bonus surplus of tension but then there would be a resolution. Because he wouldn’t kiss you and then never come back. Nobody would do that, it doesn’t make sense.
It’s a little more than embarrassing to admit that you’ve been purposefully staying home in the hope that he’ll drop in. After fifteen nights of disappointment, you decided to put your focus elsewhere.
You’d asked a friend of yours to go out with you tonight, and never one to decline a night out, she agreed happily. 
The bell above the door jingles as you crack it open, peaking your head in. You find Chloe quickly, stood behind the bar with bottles in hand.
“Hey gorgeous,” she smiles at you, waving you in.
You step in, air conditioning hitting you hard. The sparkles on her cocktail dress catch your eye as she turns this way and that, trying to find the right spot for the whiskey. 
Chloe hums to herself as she searches, honestly taking a bit longer than she should. “You been cool?”
You nod, “Yeah, just—you know…” She doesn’t. Your affiliation with the Red Hood is something you’ve kept to yourself, though you don’t know why. It would be safer, more responsible to let someone else know about these drop-ins, but something about it feels personal. A strange feeling to tack onto it, you think. A regrettable one, at least. 
You take a deep breath, “You’ve been busy. Jessie call out again?”
She laughs dryly, “Oh yeah, of course. But it's fine, I love staying over an hour after close.” She sighs, “I’m almost done anyway.”
You circle around the bar, looking over the several yet-to-be-sorted bottles. “You need help?”
“No, there’s—” she cuts herself off as she looks over at the front door, face dropping. “Oh, shit. Duck.”
“Wha—” she yanks you down to the floor to crouch awkwardly behind the counter.
You hear the bell ring as the door swings open, followed by several pairs of footsteps and low voices.
“—Christ, if she forgets to lock the door one more fucking time I’m gonna kill her.”
You look at Chloe through furrowed eyebrows, her grip on you still tight. She shakes her head and puts a finger to her lips.
A second man mutters something you can’t make out.
The first voice continues, “Go around back and lug the crates in, we gotta start packing that shit.” 
Another voice, “The crates? They’re not here..”
There’s a heavy beat before the first voice speaks, “What the fuck do you mean they’re not here? She needs them now.”
“Well…the first shipments will be in later this week. The next batch’ll take until the end of the month, probably.”
A sigh, “Dumbass…”
The first voice huffs, “The end of the month? Are you fucking kidding me? I told you to get that shit ready weeks ago and you’ve got it coming in at the end of the month?” 
“I’ll…I’ll see what I can do to get it sooner.”
“Yeah, you do that,” he grumbles. “Motherfucker. I need a drink. Get a bottle of something.”
One of the men rounds the counter, tracks falling short at the sight of you and Chloe huddled against the counter.
“What the fuck?”
You and Chloe are wide-eyed and frozen as he sneers down at you. Still, he looks like he’s trying to be tougher than he is, compensating for size that he does not have, with an attitude that doesn’t match up with the way he sped around the counter to get the other man a drink.
Another guy comes around and you quickly recognize him as the man in charge. He frowns at Chloe, sighing, “You’re not supposed to be here still, Chloe.”
She shifts her weight, “I was just…finishing inventory…”
The bossman’s eyes move to you, laced with nothing but inconvenience. “Oh and you brought a friend. Great.” 
“Mr. Murray, we were just ab—”
He’s quick to cut her off with a hand, “Chloe. Stop talking.”
Her face falls flat and her words die off without hesitation.
“Get up.”
She’s pushing herself off the ground instantly while you’re still on the floor catching up with what the hell’s going on. As she moves out from behind the bar, you scurry to follow her. Your arm bumps against hers as you fiddle with the seams at the bottom of your outfit.
You dressed to go out with your friend on a Friday night, not to meet three mobsters in a closed bar with no witnesses. That’s to say, you’re feeling a little exposed.
You stand in the center of the bar, the three men looking various degrees of annoyed looks across their faces. Though the oldest looking of the bunch has something else in his eyes as he looks you up and down, in no rush to hide his engrossment in your bare legs.
“How old are you, honey?” Even without the blatant ogling, that’s never a good question to hear from a fifty year old man.
Your eyes avert to the floor, lips pursing. 
“Hey, don’t be rude. I asked you a question.” He nudges your chin up a bit rougher than necessary, forcing you to look him in the eyes. 
Somehow, you feel like there’s no answer here that would help you. 
The man at the bar serves as an unexpected saving grace of sorts, muttering, “We don’t have time for this.”
Your pursuer shakes his head, looking you over in a way that makes you feel very small. “I think we got plenty of time.”
“I disagree.”
All heads whip to the doorway where the Red Hood leans against the frame, checking his phone. A never invited but always welcome addition to the party. At least for you.
The man in front of you instantly steps back, putting some distance between the two of you. Hands across the room instinctively fly to holsters only to begrudgingly relax at their sides, probably figuring drawing on Red Hood isn’t in their best interest. Though your focus lies on the bell above his head that didn’t make a peep whenever he came in.
Hood shuts his phone off and puts it away with a quiet sigh before glancing up at the tension-filled room. He literally double takes when his helmet scans past you. You somehow feel more in trouble now than you did two minutes ago. 
“Hood..” the bossman says measuredly. “What are you doing here?”
He stares at you for a second longer before tearing his gaze away. “Just thought I’d check up on you, Murray. Make sure you’re not causing trouble in light of our agreement.” He makes a point of looking back at you and Chloe at that last part before looking to Murray expectantly.
He waves that off easily, “This is nothing. Just two late-shift employees.”
Hood takes a piqued breath. “You picked a bad time to lie to me,” he says flatly.
Murray shakes his head, “Look, we’re just cleaning up a mess. No harm.”
“Really?”
“This clean up benefits you too, they heard too much. The one girl—Chloe, get out. She’s fine, she’s not talking.”
Chloe wastes no time exiting hastily. Bye Chloe.
He continues, “We only need to kill one of them.” He says it like this is an ideal compromise. You’re feeling differently.
Hood huffs, pulling out a gun from his holster. “I’m thinking it’s implied that killing innocent people is a form of causing trouble. Which is in direct violation of our agreement.” He cocks the gun, pointing it at Murray’s head.
Murray steps back dramatically, throwing his hands up. “Hey, an alliance is an alliance!”
Hood wavers his head to the side, “Alliance is a strong word. Temporary tolerance maybe…”
The short man pipes up, “Okay, calm down, calm down. Nobody needs to get killed. We can cooperate.”
“That’s the spirit,” Hood quips, lowering his gun.
The older one shakes his head, “We don’t have anything on her, she’ll talk.”
The short man demurs, “We don’t know that—”
“She saw too much, we can’t have her walking around with that information,” Murray says, moving towards you. 
Hood puts his hands up like some kind of mediator, “Nobody’s killing anybody.”
Murray scoffs, “You were gonna kill me!”
Hood's hands drop as he stands in full, “And I still might!”
Boldly, Murray steps up to him.
But Hood looks down at him, easily a full head taller than him and at least twice his muscle mass. “Let's weigh out your odds here, Murray. Is that a fight you’re winning?”
The look on Murray’s face tells you it’s not and he struggles to maintain this chest to chest confrontation.
It only takes him a moment of wavering to decide to back off, though he sure as hell doesn’t look happy about it. 
Hood pushes past him, grabbing you by the arm and pulling you towards him. 
Murray splutters, watching you go. “You can’t—I-I know people.”
“I am people,” Hood grumbles, steering you towards the door.
Though you can be sure they have them, no one voices any objections aa he pulls you outside.
His stride doesn’t even falter as he marches you down the sidewalk in the direction of your apartment. Aside from the sound of the breeze wisping past your ears, it’s silent between you.
After two blocks you get the strong impression that this muted exchange of energy is just going to keep on, so you force yourself to find something to rattle off about. “That uh, that seems like something he’s gonna be mad about.”
He huffs, “Yeah, well he can get over it or die so I guess it’s a personal choice.”
You frown at his tone, “What’s your problem?”
That was, apparently, the wrong thing to say as his head snaps in your direction. “Why the hell are you out here?”
His sharp attitude has you stumbling a bit. “Why are you out here? You have a concussion.”
“I don’t have a concussion,” he grumbles. “And I just saved your life so maybe complaining about it isn’t your best move right now.”
You try to stop and face him but he doesn’t let you, keeping you moving along with him. “That’s what we’re doing? Really?” 
Are these about the social skills that you had expected from him based on your first meeting? Yeah. But that first meeting was months ago. He’s proven again and again that he has half a brain and the ability to read a room so you’re really not fucking sure what the hell his problem is. He won’t acknowledge that he kissed you and all but jumped out your living room window, but he will snap at you for asking about his concussion that there’s no way he doesn’t have. Especially if he’s acting like this. 
He ignores your comment, blatantly at that. “Did they say anything about a drug shipment?”
This is what we’re talking about? Sure. Fine. At least you’re talking. 
You open your mouth briefly before closing it again, eyes narrowed. “I don’t know.”
He tries again, “What about Nocturna? Did you hear that name?”
“I…I don’t know.” You weren’t exactly taking notes behind the bar counter. 
His head drops down heavily, “Okay, I think I’m seeing a trend for how this conversation’s gonna go...”
You gawk at him, astonished that he thinks it’s you who’s handling this discussion poorly. “You cannot be serious right now.”
He sighs, slowing as you approach the steps to your building, “Just—why’d they let Chloe go?”
You blink a few times, “I mean, she has a drug problem…” You guess that might be where she’s getting them from…
He nods solemnly, “Okay.”
You huff, turning to walk up the steps, shoulders heavy. You hope he’ll come up with you and maybe, just maybe, address the elephant in the room. 
“Are you—” you turn around to face him again, met with nothing but vacant air. 
A deep, tense, breath from you before calling out, “Really?”
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One month. One month. And he decides to show up tonight like it’s no time lost. But there was some fucking time lost.
Count ‘em up, that’s one period, two paychecks, three grocery trips, four laundry days, and thirteen showers. And that stupid fucking vigilante ransacked your head during every single one.
You went through the five stages of grief for this bizarre, undefinable relationship and then discovered about six more while you were at it. 
So when you walk out from the bathroom, you’re a little pissed to see him sitting there on your living room floor, helping himself to a glass of water. 
Maybe it’s his domino mask that gives his expression the illusion of neutrality. Or maybe he really has no idea how insane it is that he would occupy your apartment like this after skipping out on you for an entire lunar cycle.
He leans against your armchair, inspecting a scratch on his lower arm. You enter silently, watching him the whole time as you make your way over to the far end of the couch.
He doesn’t look up at you though, not until after a minute or two of silence. 
“You got any bandages left?” he asks, throwing a glance over his shoulder. 
You stare at him incredulously. 
After ten seconds with no response from you, he turns around fully, frowning. “What?”
“Are you kidding me?”
“I—” he squints, eyes flickering across your face. “No?”
You continue to gawk at him, not trying for any words.
He stares back, eyes wide. “I don’t know what you want me to say...”
You tear your gaze from him, preferring to stare at the wall. “You know what, I think I know what your problem is.”
He gives a laugh with little life to it. “I only have one?”
You bite down on your lip, “You only have one I’m ready to kill you over.”
He sits with that for a minute. A long minute, before asking softly, “What is it?”
You shake your head, glaring at an unoccupied nail in the wall. “That you’re an idiot,” you mutter. You start to walk away before turning around again after a few steps. “Where the hell have you been?”
He blinks, “Uh, there’s just been a lot of—”
“Bullshit.”
He’s about to argue his point, but quickly decides to concede, “Yeah.” He takes a deep breath, sitting back. “I…wasn’t prepared for this conversation,” he says carefully.
You scoff with a nod, “Yeah, neither was I, but it’s happening. I m—what did you think was going to happen here? I—you kissed me, you kissed me!”
“No I—” he huffs, “I shouldn’t have done that, okay?”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
He sighs, throwing his hands up at his sides. “What do you want me to say?”
You shrug without genuinity, “Anything that could possibly rationalize that sequence of decisions. You kiss me, run away, ghost me for a fucking month, and then show up again like nothing happened.”
He shuts his eyes, shaking his head. “I know, I know, I’m sorry!”
“I’m not asking you to be sorry, I’m asking you to pick a fucking lane and stick to it!”
He falls silent at that, eyes on the floor. It’s quiet for long enough that you start to think he’ll accept the silence as his cue to leave. You’re not sure if you want him to or not.
You take a deep breath, eyes closed. “I need you to start being straight with me. Now.”
He doesn’t look up, taking his time to find his words. “I am sorry,” he tells you. “I…I’m not good at this. I’m not good with words so I shouldn’t have fucking done it.”
Honestly you weren’t expecting him to actually come up with a reason, so you’re not prepared to weigh out whether or not it’s a good one.
“I like you...a lot. And I didn’t know—I don’t know—what to do about it so I kissed you and I didn’t think it through, and…I guess I panicked.”
That’s more than enough for you to warrant looking back over at him. It doesn’t take long for your gaze to start shifting around awkwardly while you scratch at your neck. “I would’ve taken you for more of a fight over flight kinda guy.”
He nods to himself. “Jus’ depends..” he says quietly.
And then it seems neither of you have anything else to say. You’ve run out of angry words to spit and he’s run out of apologies and excuses. But neither of you feel like you’re done.
The quiet lingers on for a painful amount of time. Your annoyance dissipates into something else, something more uncomfortable, but you couldn’t find a name for it. It’s got your thoughts going faster though and your chest feeling more hollow. Maybe not hollow…maybe just softer. 
He cuts through your thoughts before you can, “Are you mad that I kissed you?”
You shake your head, “No. I’m mad about what happened after.” You’re just mad about what happened after. Should’ve said just.
He thinks about that for a moment. 
“I can be honest with you,” he tells you. The way he says it, it’s somewhere between a peace offering and an assurance to himself.
You look at him again. He reads oddly vulnerable for a man his size with his reputation. You believe him. 
He goes on, “I trust you, you know? I want you to trust me too, if you can.”
You blink a few times, processing. “I…I don’t know anything about you.”
He nods, an anxious aura radiating around him. He leaves you hanging for longer than a few moments, getting you convinced that the conversation is just going to end there.
It doesn’t though, and after a few minutes, he sits up and reaches up to his mask.
It has you sitting up too, like he just pulled out a gun. Your hands fly up instinctually, as though this is completely uncalled for, as if he’s crazy for doing it.
He pauses his movements for a moment, making eye contact with you. His eyes reaffirm his words. He trusts you and he wants you to trust him.
You allow your hands to relax onto your lap and he continues on, taking his mask off.
You’re not revealed to much more of his face than you’d already seen before, but entirely in view like this, he’s a sight. You try not to stare but there’s little reward to removing him from your sight whereas the alternative…
All together like this you can see how his features balance his face out so nicely and make for a warm countenance, if not rough.
He takes a deep breath, setting his mask to the side. “My name is J…” he says with assurance. “Todd,” he tacks on.
You don’t mean to, really, but you’re sure the frown on your face is evident as puzzle pieces start forming and connecting in your mind. 
J…Todd…J…Jay…Todd…Jason…Todd…
Your mouth hangs open, “You’re Jason Todd. You’re de—” Well a couple things are starting to add up. “How are you…how are you not—”
He waves that away, tiredly. “It's a long story. Not particularly happy, either.”
Autopsy scar. Fuck. 
“I mean, I’ll…” he hesitates, “I’ll tell you if you want me to.”
He says it, but discomfort is painted across his face. You’re quick to shake your head, “It’s okay.”
He nods, likely relieved.
You stand up from your seat, crossing the room to sit down next to him. You’d half-expected him to tense up, but his body relaxes when you lean back against the chair.
You close your eyes before asking, “Who’s Nocturna?”
“She’s just this woman that’s been causing trouble for us.”
You don’t say anything and he continues on, shaking his head. “She’s more annoying than anything.”
You open your eyes, looking over. “Yeah?”
He shrugs, “Just trying to take over the underworld, the usual stuff. Nothing you need to worry about.”
You give a laugh that’s barely more than an exhale, relaxing your body completely..
There’s the slightest lull in activity before he sets his hand down on the floor, right on top of yours. The sounds of your breathing are the only thing that fill the room for a few minutes, save for the occasional car horn.
He glances at the clock on the wall, nearing midnight. “I have to go...” He says reluctantly.
You try not to let the disappointment show through your body language. “Go where?”
He pauses before telling you,  “A cemetery.”
You nod vacantly, “Oh. Just for fun, or…?”
He gives a dry laugh, “Just meeting an associate. They’re a bit dramatic, so.”
“Yeah, I’d say.”
“I’ll come back—I’m going to come back,” he mutters against your hairline.
You don’t respond, but you both know he’s good for his promise.
He looks around your apartment for a second before seemingly getting an idea. He pushes himself up off the ground and heads for your kitchen. You watch as he rips a sticky note off the deck on your fridge and scribbles something down on it. 
He returns to you, kneeling down and pushing the square of paper into your hand. “Here,” he says, looking you in the eye. “If you need anything. Anything.”
You engulf the note in your palm, nodding sincerely. His eyes flicker across your face, like he’s thinking about something. He hesitates for a moment, turning towards you, away from you, then towards you again. He holds the back of your head tenderly before pressing a sweet kiss to your forehead.
You look at each other up close for a second with nothing short of starry eyes before he turns away and ducks out the window.
You open up your palm and look down at the paper, at the ten digits scrawled across it.
Huh.
Must be official. 
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fingertipsmp3 ¡ 1 year ago
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No one really talks about how the first period you have after fully coming off birth control will absolutely fuck you up
#haven’t freeballed my period since april and oh my GOD how have i put up with this for fifteen years#and i have probably close to 30 to go??? 😵‍💫#maybe i should rethink my stance on not wanting to be sterilised. like on the one hand i don’t want to have an unnecessary surgery#and i don’t trust doctors to give a fuck about whether they’re doing the surgery correctly or not#And i know someone who has inoperable stage 4 blood cancer because they left tissue behind when she had a hysterectomy#however. howwwwever. never having a period again? it is a compelling thought i won’t lie#i need to get my blood pressure to shoot through the floor so i can take microgynon again. i mean i’m 90% sure it was only so high because#i wasn’t moving my body because i was recovering from a knee injury. i have been moving more & i don’t eat as much salt now#i’ve cut crisps out of my diet and i don’t add salt to my food. please clap. i’m miserable#(i still eat food that has salt in it because cutting it out 100% is dangerous but like. i stay under 5 grams a day easily)#gotta get back on microgynon so that i won’t want to kay em ess once a month lol. or get put on antidepressants?#the thing about it is that every female doctor at my local surgery has gone on sabbatical for what i’m sure are fairly valid reasons#so there are just two male doctors now. and nurses and a pharmacist who can vaccinate you and do basic stuff#so i’d have to tell a man about my female hysteria and i’m sorry but i think i’d rather just let the thoughts take me#like does anyone have experience of telling a male doctor about EXTREME pms and him actually caring/doing anything#i’m not even going to bother mentioning the pain because i know even a woman doctor would just say it’s normal#but i need to do something because this… this can’t run. i can’t function if 1/4 of the time i want to die#personal
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nkogneatho ¡ 6 months ago
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𝐻𝐴𝑈𝑁𝑇𝐼𝑁𝐺 𝐿𝑂𝑉𝐸
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—a/n: hii i am pasi and i like to make people cry and suffer.
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He didn't mean it. right?
"You are so fucking insufferable. My wife was so much better than you. You can never be like her."
It stung you. your heart raced faster as fear, panic and pain seeped in your blood. You and toji had gotten into a petty arguement earlier. It was only a matter of time before it turned into a full fledged fight the way none of you were backing down. usually, you both would've just been mad for a few hours before apologizing to each other—although your apologies were in the form of long hugs and favorite food—but this one took the worst turn.
The room was silent for thirty seconds after the words left his mouth. Tears threatened your eyes. To be honest, you did not even have the energy to put a fight with them. So you just let them fall.
"I know." You finally spoke but it was a broken whimper. "I know, dammit." You bit your lips, holding in your loud cries. You wanted to sob till the neighbors knew something was wrong, but you suppressed them. "I can never be like her. She was perfect. She was beautiful. She—she would never get on your nerves like me." You stammered between sentences. "I get it. I respect her." Toji looked at you with raging eyes, his adrenaline still hadn't calmed down but you could spot regret when his brow softened a little.
"But, honestly toji...I don't give a fuck about being like her. I never tried to be. All I tried was to— to love you more that her so you could know your worth after you lost her." Every cell in your body tried to gather as much courage as it could to just stand there and being able to say this.
All the anger in his suddenly had vanished, replaced with regret and hatred for himself. He never wanted to make you feel like this. He never wnated to fuck this up, and make you cry. But now he had. He let his hand reached you, only to notice your leg stepping backward.
"I am never going to be enough, right? Fuck. I can't do this."
"No. Don't say it—"
"I think it's time I leave." Feet rushing towards you, his steps heavier.
"Don't say that. Fuck I am so sorry. I didn't mean it, baby. I..." Broken sobs left your lips. He wanted to kiss them away, but he didn't know if he could right now. Big thumb brushed away your thick tears, palm resting against your cheek. He picked you up and carried you to the bedroom. Placing your body on the grey mattress, he climbed on the bed, laying next to you with your head on his arms. There were no words exchanged for the rest of the night. When your sobs stopped, he kissed your forehead as you passed out from exhaustion. The sight bought him both peace and pain. He promised himself that he will make it up to you tomorrow.
The sun was brighter the next morning, or at least that is what Toji felt when the sun rays coming from the window fell directly on his body. Usually, he'd wake up to the shade of your body. His eyes widened as he hastily sat up, finding you nowhere on the bed.
"No. No. No. Please."
He rushed to the bathroom, but it was empty. Kitchen? Empty. Hall? Empty. Wait. He moved closer to the coffee table when he caught a glimpse of what seemed like a note.
"Thank you for everything and I am sorry I wasn't enough. Goodbye Toji."
A loud thud emerged as Toji's kness met the floor, clueless eyes scanning the room. It qas more silent than usual. The kind of silence that was killing him. Has it always been this quiet?
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3motionally3xhausted ¡ 2 months ago
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Redesigning the Fentons!!
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Hi yes this is for yet another Danny Phantom AU of mine it has nothing to do with the Apprenticeship AUs but unlike that batch I actually wanna turn this AU into a fic eventually once I get through a few other big projects I have *sobs*
Anyway individual files for each character under the cut along with my obligatory rambling about all the choices I made ;)
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Jazz! Honestly, when I was a kid, I always thought she was 18 not 16 so it was kind of a shock when I started rewatching the show about a yr ago and heard that. Anyway, she's 17 in this AU but already moved out to college on a scholarship bc living in FentonWorks is kind of hell and she has that Older Sibling Guilt for leaving Danny there. For her clothes, I wanted it to be a mix of tactical and preppy.
Danny! (Fenton) The effects of FentonWorks hell is much more visible on Danny than Jazz because she got out of there as soon as she could. Because of that though, a lot of the chores in the lab got pushed onto Danny, without passing on many safety tips, like replacing the ecto-filtrator, cleaning contaminated tools, organizing ecto-weapons, etc. And because he doesn't know any better when it comes to safety, he has many symptoms of radiation poisoning: visually, this comes through in the discoloration/scarring on his skin (Jazz has some slight scarring on her face and hands as well), the cataract on his left eye, as well as burst blood vessels in that eye. For his clothes, I wanted them to look a bit ragged and worn through ripped seams, tears in the jeans, & duct tape around his shoe.
Danny! (Phantom) I don't actually have a lot to SAY about my choics, but I am really happy with it. There are still a few things. I wanted his hair as Fenton & Phantom to be different but still reminiscent of the simplistic rendering of the original show: Fenton is kind of timid so his hair falls over his face, & Phantom is more active/aggressive so his hair is pushed upward. The only other thing I want to comment on is his skin: it's kind of about how I usually stylize Phantom (and I mentioned this when I redesigned Dani a while back) but a "healthy" Phantom in my style would have more bright cyan skin and an unhealthy Phantom has a more dull/zombie green. And lastly, as a ghost, the radiation poisoning kind of cleans up into more neat scarring rather than the muddy/bleeding look as Fenton.
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Maddie! Now, I'm gonna be honest, real vulnerable here,... I hate Maddie's canon haircut. It's ugly, I'm not sorry. But I can modify it, so it's fine: now it's curlier, a bit darker, and has a few grey streaks bc she's a genius and constantly pulling long working hours. And, it didn't come across as much as I wanted, but she's got some biceps, strong lady. Now, I'm not really sure why, but I wanted to shift the color of her and Jack's jumpsuit, making hers much more desaturated.
Jack! Big guy. I don't have many thoughts about him either, but I did give him glasses and some stubble for a little bit more dad energy (?) I mainly changed the color of his jumpsuit bc Orange is an extremely hard color for me to render for some reason, so now it's the classic Hazard Yellow. Finally, the most notable difference is the coat I put on him for a bit more scientist energy but my main reasoning for it is the potential visual of him being an absolute tank jumping from overhead with the ghost gauntlets and his coat flapping behind him. Also, I generally like the idea of him presenting himself as a big, dumb teddy-bear, always smiling, but completely unhinged below that facade: dropping the smile or not while towering over you in shadow. Wild imagery.
FINAL THOUGHTS: Do not count on any actual steps towards creating this fic in the near future, it's just on my mind right now, but I NEED to finish my other projects first 🙏🙏🙏 That said, I will (eventually) get around to a handful more character redesigns for this AU including: Vlad, Sam, Tucker, Valerie, Paulina, and maybe Lancer & Dash
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nereidprinc3ss ¡ 1 month ago
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trolley problem
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in which fem!reader has been gambling with her life and spencer reid is more than a little concerned
flangst, hurt/comfort warnings/tags: passive suicidal ideation from reader, she keeps risking her life, that really grinds Spencer’s gears, established relationship, existential dread, existential euphoria, lots of stuff about grief and death and self worth, not advocating for this, pretension from the author, blasphemy probably?, reader gets fuzzy from prescribed painkillers, arguing, hospital stuff, mention of sleep paralysis involving spiders, reader gets shot but she’s fineee, I pander to intro to philosophy takers, bau!reader, neurodivergent coded reader, if she’s not exactly like you I’m sorry, bean soup a/n: one day you’re in a writing slump literally the next you are in your notes app for six hours writing whatever the fuck this is but I think I love it even tho it’s weird and I hope u like it too!! btw this was gonna be called cotard's syndrome but then I never once talk abt cotard's but if u care that might be interesting context for the motif of not feeling human/alive, WC 3K
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Spencer hasn’t spoken to you since the doctor left the room five minutes ago. 
The air is antiseptic as you take it deep into the hollows of your lungs and trap it there for a moment, trying to optimize oxygen intake without actually having to breathe very often. Hospital smell is as universal as it is suffocating. It reeks of everything but death—flowers, blood, bleach, vomit. A humiliating, desperate scramble to defy the very thing that defines mortality. It’s pathetic. It reminds you of the worst instances of failure and loss and denial in your life. It curdles your blood. Literally rots you from the inside out. 
You’ve had ample time to ponder that smell over the last few months because you keep ending up here, and some time ago you decided the institution of the hospital is inherently absurd. It’s stupid to think you could avoid the one absolute condition on your corporeal form: impermanence. It is the only thing that is promised, and people still waste their lives away running from it. It is the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy. 
So around the time you acknowledged that hospitals are simply monuments to the self-importance of man, you gave up on trying too hard to preserve yourself. You’ve seen death too much and too often. You’ve tried staving it off with prayer and the miracles of modern medicine, and it never matters in the end because it’s all magical thinking anyway. All the wallowing and the bargaining and pleading never got you anywhere. 
You’ve accepted that from the moment you were born, you were marked for death. 
But you’re not a complete nihilist. You’re not even totally resigned to the abject certainty of death—because you’ve found a loophole.
Everyone has as many chances at escaping death as other people are willing to offer them at the cost of their own lives. Not many people are willing to make that trade—someone else’s life for their own—but you’ve decided you are. Because if not you, then who?
It’s not that you don’t see the value in your own life, as Spencer keeps making it sound. It’s just the opposite. You understand that you’ve got an extremely valuable resource, and you don’t just have to sit on it. There are things you can do. Choices you can make. Ways to defy death. 
Just… not yours. 
Or maybe you’re just in deep denial. 
Either way—this is a philosophy your boyfriend intentionally refuses to understand. He gets mad, or some kind of upset, every time you try to explain it. Usually he ends up leaving the room close to tears. You never feel good about it.
Right now he’s presumably trying to give you the silent treatment and not doing a very good job. 
“Stop holding your breath. Why are you—stop that.”
Spencer’s frowning, skin sallow and milk-blue under fluorescent lighting. Purple seeps from around his eyes like spilled wine on a white table cloth. Your stomach turns. 
“Sorry.”
He doesn’t tell you not to apologize. You don’t expect him to. 
“Why are you doing that? Does something hurt?”
Other than your entire bicep being on fire due to the 9 millimeter Luger it recently came into contact with?
“Not really. I just don’t like the smell of hospitals.”
At that, he gets stony again. Like, Medusa stony. You feel a tightening in your chest that has nothing to do with a lack of air. His arms are crossed. A silk lined blazer drapes over your lap, and you wonder if he’s cold in just that white button up. It’s translucent in this light, like onion skin, or maybe something less organic—the folds and wrinkles look like fabric, but lots of things look like something they aren’t. In the Pietá, Jesus lounges dead on his mother’s lap, his cheek pressed to her arm like either of them have warm flesh, and her skirts drape from her knees and fall to the ground in delicate folds just like Spencer’s jacket and looking at pictures of it you swear you could find comfort there too—but if you wanted to make space for yourself next to Jesus you’d have to do it with a chisel and mallet. You’re starting to think that’s what it’s going to take with Spencer, as well. 
“So stop walking into active gunfire. You’ll spend a lot less time here.”
Every deep sigh (of which there have been several) calcifies you further. Ironically, you never feel less alive than you do in a hospital. 
“I didn’t walk into active g—”
“I’m not debating it with you. It’s not a discussion.”
“So you’re just going to be pissed at me for the rest of forever? I mean, if it’s not a discussion—what are you gonna do? Break up with me?”
You feel yourself dripping poison in the well. Even as you say it. As his head tilts toward you slowly and intently from his spot against the wall, and his warning gaze is cold and unforgiving and weighs 3.35 tons.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Talk?”
“Don’t try and manipulate me by implying that there are no options between permissiveness and dumping you!”
“I’m not manipulating you. And I don’t need your permission to do anything.” 
The first part is an incredulous scoff as well as a blatant lie. You are manipulating him. Chisel and all. At least, you were trying to. It clearly doesn’t work very well. His jaw clenches.  
“Is this worth it to you? Fighting with me like we’re children solely so you don’t have to take accountability?”
“Accountability for what? I made a choice. I don’t regret it. You’re upset because I did my job.”
A beat. 
Silence always makes you feel the gravity of your words. 
“Do you believe that?”
His voice softens so much, so quickly, it splinters down the middle. 
You’ve never been known for your light touch. For someone who sees eviscerated bodies nearly every day, and prides herself on her evolved understanding of mortality, you often forget other people are not, in fact, impenetrable marble—they are flesh and blood and bone, and you’ve splattered yourself in the evidence of that. 
“What?” You murmur. You easily turn timid, when you’re afraid you’ve been too heavy-handed. Spencer’s seen you sob over the birds who hit the windowpane and never reappeared from the shrubbery—their delicate wings, their little beaks—he didn’t mean to, Spencer, and now he’s dead! He’s seen you spend forty minutes catching a spider with a cup and an envelope rather than smush it, even though you have reoccurring episodes of sleep paralysis wherein a giant arachnid is sitting on your chest, hissing and clacking its pincers. He knows you are, at your core, kind and good. 
It’s a little scary for someone to know that about you. It’s a little scary when you see your own vulnerability reflected in their eyes and the way they speak to you, the way you see it in him now. 
“Do you believe that the choices you make regarding your safety don’t concern me at all?”
“They’re… my choices to make,” you whisper, but you’re less sure than you were a minute ago. 
“I’m not talking about that—I’m talking about how it feels like you are trying to kill yourself every time we’re in the field.” His voice shakes. You swallow. “You have been hospitalized for four serious injuries sustained on the job in the past five months. Every time I bring it up, you—you talk about life like it’s optional for you. Like you’re not only willing to give it up but are actively looking to throw yourself in harm’s way every chance you get. You think that doesn’t terrify me?”
There’s a small chip in the paint on the wall next to him roughly the shape of Africa. 
“It’s not like that. I’m… I’m just having an unlucky streak.”
He snaps. 
“Luck isn’t going to get between you and a bullet. Ever.”
“It’s my job, Spencer.”
“No. It is a risk of the job. Not a defining feature or requirement. But you keep running toward gunfire like you have a quota to meet.”
“Spencer, I’m not doing it at you. I’m not trying to get myself hurt.”
“Well it doesn’t really feel like you’re trying to avoid it, either,” he shoots back immediately, and you feel the anguish radiating from him until it lodges in your own chest, like it was always yours. Maybe it was. 
You want to make it better, but you don’t know how, and even if you did, he’s pushing off the wall and crossing the room toward the door. 
“Where are you going?” You call, a little too desperately for your liking. 
“You need to eat something.”
Which translates roughly to he’s pissed and upset and he needs to leave the room. You’ve done this song and dance before. 
However, food and an absence of him are contenders for the absolute last two things you want right now. 
“Spencer, please don’t—”
But the door is already whooshing closed. 
You stare at the grey and white checkered floor. Light bounces off the waxen reflection—some sort of parallel universe you can’t reach, perhaps. The whole room is desaturated. A mechanical humming threatens to drive you insane. It doesn’t feel like a place for living humans. You’re not convinced you are one. 
When he comes back, maybe ten minutes later, nothing’s moved at all. In fact you’re not even sure you’ve been breathing. 
The door closes as quietly as it opens. 
This time, wordlessly, Spencer comes to you. You see his shoes first—his serious adult shoes. You wish he was wearing his Converse. 
Then you see the bottle of apple juice he’s cracking open for you. Blue lid. Same kind you always get. 
“You didn’t bring food.”
“You wouldn’t have eaten it.”
Fair enough. 
You take the bottle with your good arm and sip shallowly—all that adrenaline and the subsequent interpersonal strife has left you nauseous. The drink is too sweet. It clashes with the tang of metal in your mouth. 
Still, you drink enough to satisfy him, and then you’re tossing his jacket aside before balancing the bottle between your thighs so you can screw the lid back on. He doesn’t go back to the couch or his spot on the wall. 
Spencer doesn’t pull away when you lean into him, but it does take him a moment to reciprocate. You’re still grateful all the same when he cradles the back of your head to his stomach like you’re made of porcelain. 
“I don’t think you understand how upset I am,” he says quietly. 
Only Spencer Reid could be furious with you and still hold you like this. 
“I’m sorry,” you murmur. 
“That’s not good enough. You need to stop risking your life like that.”
He doesn’t get it. Your brows flutter as they try to furrow but even holding that expression saps you. Maybe the pain meds are finally kicking in. 
“I just wanna help people.”
“That doesn’t explain to me or justify your urge to do it at the cost of your own life. We all want to help people, angel. The whole team. That’s why we do what we do. But we don’t run into shootouts. We don’t split off and provoke people with guns when we’re unarmed and unprepared.”
“But it worked. She got away.” You feel a spark of fulfillment at the memory of Gloria Sanchez in JJ’s arms just before the ambulance doors had slammed you into your first cage of the night. 
“We don’t know if he was going to kill her. He might not’ve fired at all if you didn’t go running toward him. That wasn’t strategic, it was reckless and irresponsible and you know that. I know you do. So something else is going on.”
The pressure in your nose that usually precipitates tears comes as a surprise. 
“I just—if that’s how I can save someone, why shouldn’t I, you know? Why do they have less of a right to live than I do just because they’ve been deprived of the choice? If I have a choice, and they don’t, I should choose to… to help them. That’s my job.”
For a long moment, you listen to your own breath, muffled by Spencer’s shirt, and the mechanical humming, and something dripping, and the low, buzzy chatter of nurses far down the hallway.
When Spencer next speaks you get the sense he’s holding a lot back. His voice is taut enough it wavers slightly. Taut enough that if he weren’t speaking so quietly he might be yelling. It’s like pinpricks all over your body—not enough to hurt, but enough to make sure you’re paying attention. 
“You can’t help anyone if you’re dead. Do you understand me?”
And yes, in theory, you do. But that doesn’t negate your original point. It only takes one life or death moment for you to utilize the most valuable resource you have. What happens after is no longer your concern. 
“On the psych evals you helped develop it asks if you think it’s appropriate to sacrifice the one to save the many. The answer is supposed to be no. If you say yes you get flagged. The FBI frowns upon… lever-pullers. And that’s exactly what I’m doing if I let one person die when I could’ve potentially saved them.”
“Protecting your own life is not pulling the lever. What you’re doing isn’t smart or morally righteous. You’re just throwing yourself across the tracks, too. If you were to fail a psych eval right now it would be because you’re passively suicidal. And you know what? The FBI also tends to frown upon self-immolative delusions of grandeur and girls who like to play sacrificial lamb.”
“’M not a… sacrificial lamb…”
“No,” Spencer agrees quietly, stroking your hair. “You’re not.”
And you can’t react to the fragility in his voice, or the content of his words, and the fact that when he says it he means something different—you can’t do anything about it. You can only catalogue it. You can only know that he loves you, and feel a little guilty about it.
Some time passes. You don’t know how long he remains standing so you can doze against him. He does not smell like the hospital. He’s the antidote for whatever grief they distill from widows and orphans before aerosolizing it through the whole place. 
“Baby?” He asks eventually. You know the lilt of it. He’s been thinking. 
“Hm?”
He hesitates. 
“Can we talk about you maybe taking some time off of work?”
“You heard the boss,” you mumble. “I can’t come in for at least a week.”
“I mean beyond that.”
You intend to respond, but by the time you open your mouth you’ve lost the prompt in all the brain fog. 
“You’re so comfy,” you murmur dreamily. “Thank you for being mad at me.”
If he responds, you miss it. 
You’re imagining the bed waiting for you at home, once the doctor is done observing you—warm, neatly made. Blankets woven with soft fibers. A mattress that will sink under your weight. You think of Spencer, who’s shaping himself to you, Spencer, who intentionally inhales when you exhale at night to make room for the rise and fall of your chest against his. You think of the imprint of his buttons on your cheek. You are both flesh and blood and bone. 
Strange, pill-induced half dreams and visions and memories take over. You’re in that alleyway again. That man fires. You don’t blink or scream or feel. 
Just before the bullet makes contact you’re standing in front of the Pietá. It’s massive. Spencer is there, too, holding your hand. 
You can’t actually see him, only, you know he’s there. You feel his warmth, his presence, when he leans over to whisper in your ear. The way you know him goes beyond sight. 
The Pietá—meaning the pity, in English—is 6’7” and six feet wide. It weighs 6,700 pounds. Michelangelo had to quarry the block of marble himself. He was only 25 when he finished. The Basilica keeps it behind bulletproof glass. 
Jesus and Mary behind bullet proof glass. 
God. Who’d try to kill Jesus a third time? He’s already dead. 
Besides—they’re both made of stone. Bullets would probably just ping right off of them. Or maybe they’d shatter just like you did. 
Probably not though. You’re not actually made of marble. You’ve no idea what it feels like to be a statue and get shot at. You sure know how it feels as a human, though—and it feels like shit. You don’t really know why you keep doing it. None of your reasons are good enough for Spencer, and he’s, generally speaking, pretty smart about some things. 
Maybe you’re tired of being human.
Maybe you’re tired of sleeping on your arm funny and waking up to a hand in your bed that doesn’t feel like yours and remembering all the hands you’ve held moments before they couldn’t hold yours back. Or tired of those moments where you are being held and it’s so unbelievably perfect and then someone has to let go, or when someone you love hugs you goodbye and you realize that there will always be a final I love you, or simply getting older and watching potential life paths fall away like rotten fruit to the ground. Maybe life is sometimes so good it hurts and you can’t bear it. So you tempt fate. You walk a tightrope because even if you fall and it can’t ever feel good again—at least it can’t hurt either. At least you won’t lose anymore. 
And yet. 
It does feel good, sometimes. Sort of often, actually. Even when it’s awful. 
Dead Jesus and Mary, with their marble skin and their bulletproof glass and their holiness and their virginity and all the other things they have that you don’t. Nobody can hurt them anymore. Not ever. 
Maybe that’s something you envy.
But you doubt they’ve ever been so terribly, wonderfully alive as you’ve been, or as comfortable as you are like this, leaning into Spencer’s warmth and his softness, in the hospital, or the Vatican, or your dreams. Your bicep was ruined but it’s healing. You are capable of ruin and rebirth in the same lifetime. In the same day, in the same hour. 
You doubt that in 520 years, behind bulletproof glass and unyielding, eternally flawless skin, they’ve ever felt as invincible as you do now. 
You doubt they ever could. 
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teddybeartoji ¡ 4 months ago
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zombie apocalypse au where you end up in a settlement and meet a cutiepie satoru. he's lived almost his entire life there – sure, he goes on runs every once in a while but you've been out there. it's different.
right?
the dark bags under your eyes have yet to fade but satoru has never heard you complain. he knows everybody gets a talk when they first come to this place; where they can get help, who they can talk to when if they have any problems. if you can't sleep. or eat. or if you still feel restless. it's understandable that the change from having to fight for your life on a daily basis to not even having to carry a gun with you is hard.
the food tastes weird when you're not starving and drinking water seems like a complete waste when you're not dying of thirst. the bed you sleep on is too soft, the sheets feel like silk and it makes your skin itch. it's off-putting.
and yet, not a single complaint has left your lips. you observe your surroundings while handing out pretty little smiles like they're candy. you say thank you and goodbye, you offer to help out with the chores that weren't even yours to begin with and you're willing to entertain the kids with silly jokes. it's an almost perfect mask.
but you're tense; your eyes are always scanning your environment despite the fact that you've been at the settlement for almost a week now. you stretch your lips to show your gratitude, but satoru sees the way your fist tightens whenever the room is too crowded. the way you pocket smaller snacks when you think that nobody is looking. the way you flinch at a faraway sound of a child's laugh.
satoru finds you utterly intriguing.
people come and go, but you... there's something different about you.
maybe it's the dark, murky look in your eyes whenever you're handling a knife. carving a piece of meat like it's something you do every day; your eyes are the only things that change – you give a small smile to the lady working next to you as a thank you for whatever kind of advice she just gave you. she pats the steak while laughing and satoru doesn't miss the way your lips twitch.
you lick the remnants of the meat that stick to your fingers, the liquid that dribbles down the side of your hand the second she turns around. and satoru can't look away.
but there's no obvious malice.
it's interesting.
satoru is no detective, but he's done his fair share of people looking. what else is there to do when you're locked behind big walls; people are interesting, especially now that the world has ended. they tick faster, they explode bigger. they shiver more, they cry more. the lies have more consequences. it's hard to trust others, it's hard to trust anybody at this point. but satoru's eyes are keen, more so than anyone else's there.
you're not some caged beast, you're no dog on a leash, but you're an animal nonetheless. satoru just doesn't know which one yet. which of the living things that reside in the woods is calm enough to get so close to other people? confident enough. arrogant enough.
which one of them is as curious as you are? as sly? which one of them knows how to hide their sharp teeth behind a warm smile? satoru promises to himself that he'll figure it out, no matter what it takes.
or maybe the 'something' is the way you handle yourself when things go south. you didn't look away when a walker that managed to slip in through the gates sank his teeth into a man's neck. when everybody else was in shock, their eyes set on the gory sight in front of them – you were the first to grab the closest thing resembling a weapon and to deal with it.
blood splattered all over your clean clothes, your hair, your face. but you paid it no mind. this is what you're used to, this is what's normal. taking a knife to the poor wailing man laying on the ground was nothing special either. you kneeled down beside him and looked him in the eyes as you did it.
desperate hands reached out for you as fear settled in his stomach. he grabbed onto the collar of your shirt and pulled you closer, pleas stumbling from his lips like a waterfall. but to you, he was dead already. there's no remorse, there's no guilt. you're not a killer, you're a survivor.
satoru's mind raced as he watched you work while all the other had turned away, their sobs barely reaching his ears. no remorse, no guilt.
he just thought the blood looked beautiful on you.
but you're keen, too.
you try not to pay him too much attention, you try not to look but you feel his curious eyes wherever you go. you hear him laugh and you see his big smiles. he likes to play with the kids and he likes to tease his peers. he seems to know just about everybody, mingling in their lives by acting like a cupid or just indulging in gossip like some high schooler.
but something rotten sprouts deep inside him as well.
there's blood on his hands and you know it the second your gazes meet from across the big dining hall. the corners of his eyes crinkle and his dimples make a show as he gives you a grin, sharp teeth shining right at you. he knows you and you know him.
a survivor always recognizes a survivor.
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