#(theyre chocolate i swear)

[daughterthethird]

Trick or treat, many rhymes to bleat, i'd rather some lollies and not some feet! Words are hard- you think I'm a card, wandering the bouvelard? If you serve me a sweet dish, granted will be my wish! Heheheh

my GOODNESS snakesy i didnt know you had such bars??? ANYWHOO for ur awesome rhyming im giving u some of my favourite candies of all time!!! :3c

[nakahras]

i ran out of tag room but this installment was sooo good. the leak in her apt and then being brought to dazai’s AND MORE CHUUYA AND DAZAI BANTER EEEEEEEEE

ᡣ𐭩 FIRST LIGHT

FEATURING: beast dazai osamu

SUMMARY: dazai severely overestimated his self-control. it takes approximately six days and thirteen hours for him to break, seeking you out again. when he does, he knows that nothing will ever be the same. {wordcount: 14.5k; fem!reader; romance & tragedy}

AUTHOR'S NOTES: PART TWOOOOOOO, we have one of my fav parallels in this one, i know you guys will catch it immediately but u still must tell me when you do. also, there's another hint about badlands!reader & dazai's relationship in this chapter that happened after the events of the last installment so u must let me know if you catch that too. reblogs are always appreciated! thank you guys & i hope you guys love this as much as i enjoyed writing it

GENERAL WARNINGS: again, i'll just leave this warning on every chapter - dazai struggles a lot with disassociation/derealization & losing himself in the pages of the book. + we have a bit more of unhinged thought processes on dazai's end. as always please let me know if i forgot any warnings!

SEE: UNREAL UNEARTH SERIES MASTERLIST READ: BADLANDS SIDE A

He understands now the temptation that Eve must have felt in the Garden of Eden with the forbidden fruit dangling right in front of her face. Traditional interpretation of the Bible places the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden on day six of creation; Dazai’s restraint has thus far rivaled that of the two Biblical figures. He’s on day six now, in fact; it’s been exactly six days, twelve hours and forty six minutes since he met you in the hallway of the club and each passing second has been more agonizing than the last. 

He isn’t sure how much longer he’s going to last. 

His office is dark and suffocating, the atmosphere so cold and unwelcoming that it has him craving the return to your warm and homely apartment so intensely that he thinks it might be making him sick. He turned off the light earlier when he felt a migraine coming on, hoping that the darkness would let his eyes and mind rest enough to catch it before it fully came on, but he’s realized that it probably wasn’t the light causing his headache, rather it was you.

He sighs as he tilts his head back, willing the migraine to go away even though he knows it's to no avail. But he can’t even rest his eyes in peace, because every time they slide shut, the image of you burns the inside of his eyelids—your soft gaze and bright smile, the way you held your hand out to take his and the way your lashes fluttered as you leaned into his touch. 

Six days, twelve hours and forty seven minutes. 

He thinks he would prefer the nightmares of his other lives to this. At least with those, they fuel his drive to press forward with his master plan, the reminder of your fates in the other worlds would scorch away any desire to seek you out in fear of bringing it upon you again in this one.

Now, every night for the past six days he’s been plagued with dreams of you—pleasant dreams. Dreams that when he wakes from them, he finds his cheeks wet and his chest heavy with such an intense longing for you that it makes him physically ill. He dreams of having you in his arms, kissing the top of your head as you do your best to study even with him making every effort to distract you. He dreams of watching sunrises with you, seeing the way the early morning colors wash over your face, your skin glowing and eyes glittering in such a vivid way that Dazai swears he can even picture it now. He dreams of a ring, and he dreams of his palms sweating as he walks with you down to the beach you met on to watch another sunrise, and he dreams of getting down on one knee in front of you just as the sun breaks over the horizon. He never dreams of a wedding, so Dazai theorizes that you never made it long enough for one to take place. 

And the realization of that alone should be enough to make the yearning for you evaporate but it’s not, because dangerous thoughts have been circulating through his head since the night he left you. Thoughts of how maybe this could be different. Dazai is the boss of the Port Mafia in this life, he has enough resources to protect you—more money than god and enough armed forces behind him to rival the nation’s government. He has the power to keep you safe in this life, more than he ever had in any other. 

If there was any life that he could be with you and ensure your safety, it’s this one. 

Six days, twelve hours and forty nine minutes.

Does he really want to give this up?

Dazai rests his arms on his desk, lowering his head down, eyes sliding shut again. He can see you again, the image of you from last week, laughing wildly at something he’d said—he can’t even remember what it was, he was so nervous that he can’t even recall half of the night, but he doesn’t really care at all what he said anyway, too enraptured by the way you react to it. 

He wonders if you’re there now. At the bar. Because what he does remember, of course, is your teasing grin as you tell him that of course, you’re scheming out a second meeting between the two of you because naturally you’ve decided that you already like him. And he remembers the hope thinly veiled behind your eyes, as you look over him, knowing that if the two of you are to meet again, it would be reliant on whether or not he decides to come back to the club, because you’ve already made your intentions clear.

Six days, twelve hours and fifty minutes.

Dazai’s throat feels swollen, his nails dig into his palms. He imagines you waiting there, he imagines the disappointment on your face as you slowly realize he’s not going to show up. And you’re so damn beautiful, radiant even beneath the shitty lighting of the club—he’s sure you saved a seat at the bar for him, and you’ve probably had dozens of interested men who’ve offered to buy you drinks, asking if you’d come to the club alone. And you’ll probably turn them down at first, telling them that you’re waiting on someone, but he wonders how long it’ll take for you to finally take one of them up on their offer after you’ve realized that Dazai isn’t going to show. He wonders if you’ll follow them out to the dance floor, he wonders if you’ll give them the same teasing smile you gave him. He can picture slim fingers caressing your hips, pulling you closer. He can picture your lashes fluttering as they lean their head down to ghost their lips against your neck, swaying to the music. He doesn’t want to picture anything else, but his mind, as always, betrays him. 

He wonders if you’ll take them back to your apartment—would you get right into it or would you sit and talk with them for a while? His head spins as his thoughts take an increasingly more dangerous spiral. It’s a bitter cold night out, maybe you’ll take the opportunity to make them the hot chocolate you’ve made him hundreds of times, thousands of times before—no, he corrects as the lines start to blur in a treacherous way, you’ve never made it for him in this life. Maybe it’s so cold out that you’d forgo small talk altogether, instead seeking out the warmth of someone else’s body—you’d take them by the hand, lead them into your bedroom and lay them back on your bed. 

Would you be gentle with them? Like you were with him? No, he reminds himself again, you’ve never been with him like that, not in this life. The pages of the Book pile around him, memories flooding him with an intensity that he’s never experienced before; he can hardly even remember what his reality is, all of the others blending and shifting together in his mind, making it impossible to decipher the lines between them. 

You’re dragging him to the beach to watch your first sunrise with him and you’re telling him that you want to see as many as possible with him—he wants to tell you that he thinks he might love you but he doesn’t know how to say it  You’re laying him back against a bed, asking him if he trusts you—of course, he does, how is that even a question? You’re leaning your head against his arm, standing before a familiar grave and accepting him for all that he is even after he strips bare down to all of the worst parts of himself for you—you shouldn’t, he wants to say desperately, but instead he’s telling you that he loves you, even though he knows it might kill you. And then-

And then he’s ripped violently from his fall into the pages of the Book as his phone vibrates and it’s not him anymore, it’s someone else, someone unworthy and undeserving, a stranger that you’d turned to because Dazai wasn’t there.

Dazai nearly heaves. He never should have indulged in you that night. He should have known he was never going to go back to normal after it. The difference between the memories and actually having seen you and heard you and touched you and smelt you was so much more severe than he ever could have expected. Now, the memories aren’t enough; he wants a life with you, he wants it to be his reality. He thinks that it’s not fair that he’s the only one who can’t be with you. He wants to make new memories with you so he no longer has to struggle with the blurred lines, so he doesn’t have to yearn for a life that he’ll never be able to experience, having to watch every single other Dazai get to have what he can’t.

Six days, twelve hours and fifty eight minutes.

He can do it, his thoughts are a bit manic as he tries to ground himself after the spiral. He has the knowledge. He has the power. He has the resources. If there’s any life that he’s able to be with you and keep you safe, it’s this one. He doesn’t have to hide from you, he doesn’t have to deny himself of you to protect you—he has the knowledge, he has the power, he has the resources. He can keep you safe. Instead of being the only Dazai who never gets to be with you, he’ll be the only Dazai who can actually spend his life with you—a long one, a happy one. He’ll have what none of them did. He can do it.  

Before he can stop himself, he speaks.

“Gin-chan,” Dazai calls softly, knowing that he doesn’t have to speak any louder for the girl to hear him. As soon as he hears the door to the backroom open, he continues with, “Have Albatross be ready downstairs with one of the cars.” 

“Of course. Where to, sir?” 

To Gin’s credit, she doesn’t sound at all caught off guard by Dazai’s sudden request, as if it’s normal for Dazai to randomly decide to leave the Port Mafia base even though he can count on one hand the number of times he’s left the base since he ascended to the position of boss four years earlier. 

“... The club we own in Naka,” Dazai says after a few moments, fingers thrumming against the mahogany of his desk for a moment before he adds, “... Don’t tell Chuuya.”

“... Yes, sir. I’ll have Albatross get everything ready immediately.”

At exactly six days and thirteen hours, Dazai’s self-control shatters. 

You sigh. 

The seat next to you remains damningly empty despite the many attempts of handsome strangers trying to join you at the bar. You’re sure you must’ve turned down half a dozen by now in hopes that the stranger from last Friday will end up showing up but those hopes are very quickly disappearing. You want to convince yourself that maybe you’ve just missed him—it’s a rather large club, after all—but it’s not half as packed as it was last week; you think that if he were here, you would’ve spotted him by now. Or he would have spotted you.  

Dazai Osamu, you remember his name, eyes sliding shut briefly as you take a sip of your water, wondering if you should just switch to alcohol and drink your sorrows away, seek out one of the men who’d approached you already so you don’t end up spending the night alone. The thought leaves you unsatisfied, a pout rising to your lips around the rim of your glass as you finish off yet another glass of water. 

You swear that you’re not usually this pathetic—especially not over a man—but there’s just something about this Dazai Osamu that has you acting up. Like honestly, who even are you? Going to the club alone on a Friday night with nothing but some faint hopes that the man you’d met here last week would show up too? It’s so embarrassing, you think you might die—but somehow you’re not embarrassed enough to leave because you’re still hoping that he shows up. 

God, you think again, who are you anymore? You barely even know this man. You know his name and you know he’s handsome. And that’s just about it, but here you are, sitting bummed at a club because he isn’t showing even though he has absolutely no reason to. 

The bartender raises his eyebrows with a small smile and you pass the glass over to him, letting him refill it. He’s the same one from last week and he recognized you as soon as you took a seat at the bar, making sure to get you what you need and keep you company whenever there’s a lull in patrons flagging him down. It’s a stark contrast from the treatment that you got early in the night last week, where it had taken you twenty minutes to get a single drink and even then you could barely hold his attention long enough to tell him what you wanted. You can’t help but notice that he seems hyperaware of the open seat next to you.

As the bartender passes you another glass of water, you flash him a wavering smile, unconsciously sparing another awkward glance to the empty seat next to you. While the club isn’t quite as packed as it was last week, it’s not exactly empty and you’re starting to feel bad hoarding the seat when plenty of others probably want to sit down too. 

“I’m sure he’ll show,” the bartender tells you before he’s waved down by another patron. You wonder if he’s guessed who you’re waiting for or if it’s just meant to be some general comfort. “Probably just running late, he’s a busy man.”

Oh, you think, eyes widening, but before you can question him as to what he means, he’s rushing to go refill the drink of a blonde man on the opposite end of the bar.

A busy man. 

Who are you, Dazai Osamu? 

Even in your drunken state, you knew from the moment you met him that there was something off about him. The way he held himself, the way he looked at you, the way people treated him—it all screamed danger. Once you’d sobered up, you remembered all of the things you didn’t notice while you’d been intoxicated. You remembered the way people would rush to get out of his way or show him complete deference, eyes a bit wide and faces a bit pale. You remembered the way Takeda looked sick and scared when Dazai told him to go, and Takeda is usually a bull-headed and fearless man, it takes a lot to make him back down. You remembered his driver—he had a driver!—and how when he stepped out of the car to open the door for the two of you, you swore you caught a glint of gunmetal holstered at his waist before Dazai gave him a cold look and he quickly covered it up.

And you’re not usually a girl who seeks danger out, for as much as you went on your spiel about living life on the edge the last time you spoke to him, you’re usually a pretty careful person. If you were smart, you would have woken up the next morning and pretended that you were too drunk to remember the night before, forget all about Dazai Osamu and his dangerous smile and intense gaze. 

But you aren’t smart, evidently, because instead of forgetting about him, you spent half of the next day mourning because he didn’t even leave you his number and the other half of it scheming out the best way of running into him again. 

You sigh, resting your cheek on your hand as you prop your elbow up on the bartop, idly tracing the rim of your glass.

What is it about you, Dazai?

One meeting and you’re captivated. He must be some kind of witch, or siren, there’s no other explanation for how you’re so utterly enchanted by him. He spoke your name with the familiarity of a lover, watching you with gentle eyes even though they become cold and empty whenever they avert to someone other than you. And you—you felt as if you’ve known him your entire life. You’ve never had such an instant connection with someone like that before, you’re convinced that it’s fate at work, even if he’s adamant against the thought.

You want to see him again. You wonder if it was maybe just your drunken brain misconstruing things, although somehow you doubt it. You need to talk to him again to know if the connection is real, and if it’s real-

“Is this seat taken?”

At first, the voice doesn’t register as familiar, so you let out a soft puff of air, trying to figure out if you should deny another person. But as you turn to face the newcomer, your eyes widen a bit as you catch sight of the long, burgundy scarf hanging in your peripheral, stark against a long, sleek black suit jacket.

Your lips part in shock, head snapping to the side so you can fully look at the person to your left. Dazai Osamu stands there, hands resting comfortably in the pockets of his jacket, head tilted to the side, a small smile curving at his lips and a soft look in his eye as he looks down at you, comforting and warm compared to the cold emptiness you vaguely noticed from him at certain points last night.

You try to say no, it’s not taken, but no words leave your lips, so instead, you shake your head, eyes following Dazai as he takes a seat next to you at the bar. The bartender rushes over, all but abandoning the couple he’d been helping on the opposite side of the bar, pouring Dazai an expensive glass of whiskey and giving him a nod before going back to who he’d been helping before. Your eyes follow the man curiously before you turn your gaze back to Dazai, not speaking for a moment as you observe the way he stares down at the glass of whiskey for a second, the warmth in his eye slowly dissipating.

You don’t like it, and not because it makes you uncomfortable or anything, but rather because you just don’t like how alone he seems. So, you lean forward, smiling, and say, “Fancy seeing you here.”

Dazai turns his gaze back to you and the warmth returns, pools of honey rather than the endless void. You melt beneath it. 

“I vaguely remember a beautiful woman mentioning scheming out a second meeting,” Dazai drawls, dark eye lidded as he looks down at you, a half-smile decorating his face. “It would be quite remiss of me to be the cause of her failure.”

Your cheeks feel a bit a hot as you grin down at your drink. “While we’re on the topic of things I may or may not have said last week, I have to be honest with you. I totally lied about something,” you say with a laugh, leaning on the bar. He raises his eyebrow curiously. You give him a sheepish smile as you continue with, “I have absolutely no idea how to charm someone, drunk or sober, I was entirely speaking out of my ass, so keep your expectations low.”

The smile that curls to the corner of his lips is soft enough to make your heart skip a beat. “I think you just being yourself is plenty charming,” he murmurs.

You let out a noise caught between a groan and a whimper, face going hot. “Oh my god, you’re the charmer,” you accuse loudly, burying your face in your arms. “I’ll never survive. Handsome and charming, a deadly combination.”

As you peer your eyes open to look at him, you can’t help but notice the way his smile briefly falters at your words. You promptly decide to change the subject with: “Thank you for making sure I got home safely last week.”

“You don’t need to thank me for that,” he says, one pale, lithe finger tracing along the rim of his glass. Your eyes linger for a moment on the digit, mind wandering, before you force your gaze up; you can see the bandages peeking out from beneath the sleeve of his dark coat as your eyes drag his arm back to his face. There’s a knowing expression on his face, the smile on his lips a bit more sensual. Your breath catches as you avert your gaze, feeling quite like you’ve just been caught doing something bad.

“Sure I do,” you try to make the words sound casual and easy but despite your most sincere attempts, your voice is strained. “Not many people would go out of their way like that for someone they just met.”

Something akin to amusement flashes through his eye. You’re not sure what he finds amusing, but you decide you don’t care because you very much prefer it to the distant look that had been painted in them before.

“An unfortunate world we live in, then,” he says softly, but there’s a lilt to his tone that makes you feel like he knows something that you don’t. He doesn’t give you much time to dwell on it though as he asks, “Are you going to have anything to drink?”

You startle slightly at the question, glancing down at the glass of water you’re drinking before you tell him with a laugh, “I don’t know if I want to force you to deal with me drunk twice. Didn’t I promise I’d stay sober this time?”

“If I remember correctly, you only said ‘not quite as drunk,’” he says, lips tilting up a bit and god, the way he’s looking at you has you flustered, gaze lidded and intense, as if you’re the only one in the room and not in a club with hundreds of other people. “Let me order you something, I think you’ll like it.”

“Oh, that’s bold,” you warn, tossing him a teasing smile. “I'm very particular about my drinks, I’ll have you know. I’m almost curious what you have in mind that makes you so confident.”

“I have a good feeling about it,” Dazai says, tilting his head to the side as he waits for your decision.

You give a heavy sigh, pretending like it’s a difficult decision even though you know it’s not. “Fine, but only if you promise to cut me off after two. Whenever I hit three, I hit the floor.”

You extend your pinky toward him, waiting for him to take it, and when he does, you swear a jolt of electricity shoots up your arm. As he wraps his finger around yours, your heart skips a beat, your eyes meet his and you think you might get lost in the dark pools, you don’t think you would mind if you do and that scares you. You’ve never had someone make your heart flutter and mind haze like this, especially not so quickly.

“Promise,” he breathes out, barely audible above the thundering music and crowds. 

You dip your head down to press your lips against your thumb to seal the deal, and you think you fall even more when you don’t have to tell him to do the same, following your lead and kissing his own thumb to seal it. And you briefly wonder if this man might be your soulmate because he didn’t give you a single odd look and didn't hesitate for a second whereas when you’ve made pinky promises with some of your other friends and past partners, their expression always twists a bit in confusion or oddity at the second part.

Rather than letting go of your hand, he swaps to his other hand, intertwining his fingers with yours and resting it on your lap before he flags the bartender down—quite easily, might you add—and leans over the bartop to say something quietly to him. The man nods and rushes off, and you give Dazai a scandalized look as he turns his attention back to you, hyper aware of the warmth of his fingers against yours.

“You won’t even tell me what it is?” you gasp in mock offense. 

Dazai rests his other elbow on the bar top, resting his chin on his hand as he watches you through his lashes. You couldn’t drag your gaze away if you wanted to, tunneled onto him.

“It’s a surprise,” he says with a smile. “You’ll like it, trust me.”

“Quite confident for someone that hardly knows me, aren’t you, Dazai?” you giggle, raising your hand to cover your lips, and god, he looks so amused again, and so handsome. You might die. “That’ll be for me to judge.”

“Very confident,” he agrees, and you think he winks but you can’t tell because one of his eyes is covered by bandages. 

“So,” you begin, waiting for the drink. “You’re from around here then?”

You hope he is, at least, because you’d like to keep seeing him. Something about him is just so intoxicating, like a drug you just can’t get enough of. You think he must be, from the way he seems so familiar with the bartender and other patrons, but you could always be wrong.

You hope you’re not wrong.

“Mhm,” Dazai agrees, humming around the rim of his glass as he takes another sip. You hope the excitement you feel doesn’t flash across your face. “Yokohama born and raised… you?” 

Distantly, a part of you feels like the question is just an afterthought, as though he already knows the answer and you wonder if you’re that obvious, but you pay no mind to that, instead nodding. “Same,” you say, and then, “... I wonder if we have crossed paths before then. You’re so familiar, I can’t imagine that we’ve never met before… Maybe uni? Did you happen to go to UTokyo? I graduated there last year.”

Dazai seems to hesitate at the question, as if considering his answer. You wonder why, but he leaves you little time to figure it out because he finally replies, “No… I was in Tokyo for business for a while a couple years ago though.”

Your eyes light up. “Really?” you ask, leaning forward as you speak. “Where did you work? I know the area pretty well.”

He hesitates again, this time more blatantly, and you can see the confliction that briefly flashes across his face. How curious. 

“It wasn’t a particular storefront, or anything, just my line of work had me in the area for a while.”

You’re about to press into what his line of work is, desperate to know more about the man sitting in front of you, but you’re interrupted by the bartender returning with a martini so stunning that if it tastes half as good as it looks, you might fall in love. 

But you’re not going to make it that easy. 

“Go on,” Dazai says, leaning a bit back in his seat as he watches. He looks at you as if he already knows that you’re going to like it and you’re adamant on destroying his assumptions, you will hate this drink if it’s the last thing you do. “Tell me what you think.”

You lift the martini glass up to your lips carefully, the dark liquid so close to the brim that you’re nervous it will spill over the sides. He watches you expectantly, you pointedly hold his gaze as you take a sip of the drink and-

“Oh my god.”

Dazai looks utterly vindicated, raising his chin as you take a sip of the drink and stare at it in shock. It’s so… tasty. It’s creamy, and sweet, and you can hardly taste the alcohol but you can feel the tingle on your tongue and the light burn in your throat. All thoughts of the conversation you were having before the drink showed up disappear, and you’re focused solely on the glass in your hands and the man before you.

“So?” God, he’s evil. He almost purrs the word, as if he knows exactly what your response is going to be. He leans forward a bit, looking down at you through his lashes. “Give me the verdict, Your Honor.”

“It’s good,” you say, raising your chin in spite, hoping that your expression doesn’t betray but from the way his lips spread into a wider smile, you fear that you completely failed. 

“Just good?” Dazai croons. 

You pause for a second, debating on lying and telling him yes, just good, but the words you intend on speaking do not leave your lips. Rather, you say, “Okay. It may or may not be one of the best drinks I’ve had in a while. You have to tell me what it is so I know what to ask for.”

“Hmm.” Dazai lifts a finger to his chin, as if considering your words. “I don’t think I will.”

“What!”

His smile becomes a bit softer, his expression more teasing. “I think I’ll hold that information hostage, so you have to come out with me again if you want to drink it.”

A jittery feeling spreads through your chest, heart fluttering, cheeks hot. “Oh? Look who’s scheming out our third meeting already,” you taunt lightly. “How the tables turn.”

“Of course, I’m scheming out our third meeting, maybe our fourth and fifth too,” he mimics your words from last week shamelessly. “I’ve decided I already like you, bella.”

The pet name rolls off his tongue easily, as if it’s second nature to him, and your face is on fire but Dazai looks like he’s shocked even at himself. You fumble with your words for just a second, it takes you a moment too long to recover but you think that Dazai doesn’t even notice in his stunned state. 

You decide to return fire. 

“I hope all of our dates aren’t just going to be at clubs,” you tell him with a smile that edges on flirtatious, cocking your head to the left.

Your words hardly register until you notice that his cheeks have become bright and rosy, hand instinctively coming up to hide his face. He looks entirely like he’s at a loss for words, lips parting and closing several times. It’s so endearing that you think you might really die now, but then the gravity of your words hit you like a train.  

Oh god. A date? A date?? This is only the second time you’ve met, that was way too soon. You-

“I’ll make sure the next place we meet is somewhere special,” he finally says, voice smooth and gaze gentle and- 

And just like that, you’re a goner.

You’re not sure how long you sit there talking to him. Hours, probably. It feels like no time at all and forever all at once. You lose yourself in his gaze, and his smile, and you think the whole world could be burning around the two of you and you’d have no idea just because you’re so tunnel visioned on him. The music drowns out, and all you can hear is his voice. The people around you blur out of focus, and all you can see is him. 

It’s insane, you think. You’ve never felt like this with anyone before. You’ve had so many flings and so many boyfriends over the years, but the way your stomach twists and turns and the way your head feels fuzzy with Dazai is so incomparable to how you felt with anyone else. 

You feel like you’ve known him forever. 

You feel like you’ve only just met him. 

How is it possible to feel like you know someone you’ve only just met so intimately? When you know you don’t actually know much about him personally but it still feels like you can read into the depths of his soul?

God, you don’t know, but you do know one thing, and it’s that you never want to lose this feeling. 

And that’s how it began. 

Every Friday for weeks, you find yourself at the club, sipping cheap martinis at the bar until a certain handsome man in a dark suit decides to finally grace you with his presence. Sometimes, the two of you would just sit at the club’s bar until the sun threatens to rise, when you finally go your separate ways and you make your way back to your apartment, falling asleep with a smile on your face and waking up with a giddy feeling still sparkling in your chest. Other times, he only comes by the club to pick you up, fulfilling his promise of making sure to take you somewhere nice when you find yourself fine dining at the fanciest rooftop restaurants in the city. 

He never stays over your place, even when he does drop you off. Sometimes he’ll hang around for an hour (you made him your favorite hot chocolate, he liked it so much that he nearly cried although he vehemently denied that was the reason why his eye got all misty), but he always leaves. You try not to let it bum you out, convincing yourself that it’s just because he doesn’t want to keep his driver waiting (albatross, you remember his name, he’s funny. you like him), but sometimes you can’t help the heavy feeling set over you when he makes his abrupt leave, wishing for just a bit more. He hasn’t even kissed you yet, for god’s sake. 

You also distantly note that you don’t really know much about him, even after all of these weeks his personal life remains a mystery to you. The closest you were able to get to prying anything out of him was when he showed up so late that you were on the verge of leaving because you doubted he would even show, he apologized and said a work meeting ran late. You asked him what about and he hesitated, as if he was about to say it, but then gave you some vague response and steered the conversation to something less personal.

That’s what’s happened every time you try to learn a bit more about him. You don’t really notice it in the moment because he’s smooth and charming about it, but he always manages to turn the conversation to you or some other general topic. You want to respect that he doesn’t want to talk about his personal life because maybe he’s coming to you to have some sort of escape from it, but you also want to know him beyond just the flirting over drinks and the slim things you can gleam from his reactions, words hidden between the lines of what he actually says.

Your friends think you’re crazy. They think he’s bad news. They’ve come with you to the club a few times to wait with you until he shows up and every time they see him you can see the weary looks that they shoot at one another. You don’t care what they think—or well, that’s a lie, you do care what they think, you’re just too enamored with Dazai for their words to have any weight. Which probably should be concerning, but that’s something for you to think about another day. 

Because now, you’re focused on him again. He’s been talking more tonight than he usually does—most nights, he’ll spend the majority of the time just listening to you, a soft smile on his face and a captivated look in his eye, but tonight, he’s been rather vocal, people watching with you and making sly advances that you think is just plain cruel considering he hasn’t even kissed you yet. 

But tonight, you’ve decided, will be the night. 

You’ve been trying to figure out how to go about it, if you should just invite him back to your apartment—something you’ve done before, so there shouldn’t be any nerves but you still find yourself wavering because you don’t know how you’re going to proceed once you get to your apartment. You are not a seducer. You have no experience in seducing. In fact, you are usually the one being seduced. So every time your lips part to ask if he wants to leave the club, you find yourself withering and faltering, waiting for a ‘better’ chance as if one will magically arise.

It does. 

It’s when a fight breaks out on the dancefloor a bit too close to where you’re sitting, certainly the result of some sleazy man trying to put his hands on a woman who already has a date, when you finally force yourself to stop pussying out. You let out a shriek as you stumble forward off your barstool when one of the men careens a bit too closely to you, and it’s only by Dazai’s swift reaction, arm wrapping around your waist as he pulls you to him and steadies you, that you don’t go toppling onto the floor. 

Your eyes widen as you watch the fight escalate, a bit entertained now that you’re safe in his arms from becoming collateral damage, but Dazai looks distinctly unimpressed by the scene taking place a few feet away, lips twisted into a deep frown. You watch as he shoots a sharp look to one of the bouncers lingering by the door, and you note how the man immediately moves forward to break up the fight. Interesting. You’ve noticed that the people at the work tend to be respectful to him, but that’s the first time you’ve seen them seemingly take a silent order from him.

You steel your nerves and you decide to try your hand.

“Would you… maybe want to get out of here?”

You look nervous, Dazai watches you carefully as he leads you across the club to the exits, so he figures that there’s something else going on in your head right now. You’ve been quiet most of the night, he realizes, and he wonders if something is wrong. If something happened. His mind immediately catapults to the worst case scenario: that someone found out about the two of you, despite how careful he’s been in making sure that the places he’s brought you to were locked down by the Port Mafia before you arrived with him, and you’re being threatened.

His thoughts race. Albatross should still be waiting where Dazai left him, so if something goes wrong, he’ll be ready. Dazai glances at you again, and he slowly realizes that you don’t seem nervous because you’re fearful of something, and his anxieties slowly are edged away. 

But that only gives rise to new anxieties because then what’s making you so nervous then? What did you mean by get out of here? Do you want to go somewhere else? (but where, the longer he’s out in the open, the more of a risk there will be without him taking precautions beforehand like he usually does) Do you want to be dropped off back at your apartment? (that’s what he initially assumed, but he doesn’t want the night to end yet) Do you want to invite him to your apartment? (it wouldn’t be the first time, but it doesn’t leave him any less nervous. he’s terrified of making the wrong move) Do you want him to invite you to his apartment? (god, he hopes not)

The last option cannot happen. You’re already suspicious from the way the bartender and the other club patrons have been treating him the past few weeks, and now you’re doubly suspicious, Dazai can tell from the way your eyes squint as the bouncers at the entrance of the club nod their heads to him. If he brings you back to his place, the tallest of the five towers making up the Port Mafia base, there’s no way you won’t put together that something’s up with him and the last thing he wants is to scare you away. Even if you don’t know what the buildings are exactly, you’ll definitely question him about his occupation, go back to the dangerous line of questioning you’ve been treading on lately, and when he can’t give you a straight answer, it’ll become all the more apparent that it’s something shady and if you’re smart, you’ll make an excuse to leave and then never seek him out again.

Realistically, he probably won’t be able to hide this from you for long, but it just has to be long enough for him to woo you so the news isn’t so jarring that it makes you cut off all contact with him. Although, Dazai isn’t sure if any amount of time will make the knowledge that he’s a mafia boss not jarring enough to flee. His heart feels a bit heavy, wondering if this is all a mistake because how the hell is he supposed to just accept it when you inevitably decide to leave? And isn’t that what he should want, anyway? He wants you to keep yourself safe, no matter what the cost, and if you’re the one to cut him off, then he won’t be tempted to come looking for you again. He can protect you from the distance as he initially planned with the memory of the nights he’s spent with you pushing him forward. So maybe this is for the best.

You accepted all of the other Dazais, the traitorous part of his mind tried to convince himself that isn’t a hopeless cause, even though he knows that there’s a stark difference between who he is in this lifetime, the face of Japan’s underworld, drenched in blood and rotting from the inside out, and who he was in all of the other lifetimes, desperately trying to make himself a better man so that Odasaku would be proud of him. 

Maybe you’ll understand, he thinks weakly as the two of you leave the club. It’s drizzling now, and his eyes cut across the parking lot looking for Albatross, but his thoughts are lost—you understanding would mean he would have to tell you everything. He can’t do that. Not just because you would probably think he’s delusional, or psychotic, but because it would put the very fabric of this reality at risk. He can’t tell more people than necessary and stage five… 

His plan. 

Dazai’s gaze shifts back over to you, the sudden remembrance of what he’s been planning since he came in contact with the Book so many years ago spreading like ice through him. He should take you by the hand and lead you to the car, the rain is going to start coming down harder any second now, but Dazai is frozen because in his manic state, when he’d decided he can protect you in this life, be with you in this life, he hadn’t even given any thought to what would become of his plan, and he’s been so consumed by thoughts of you the past few weeks that it’s hardly crossed his mind.

He has to force himself to move forward, ignoring the way his mind is reeling—if he decides to live, what does that mean for Odasaku? For Atsushi and Akutagawa and Chuuya? For the world? Would he be condemning everything he’s worked to protect? He still thinks he can do it—protect you, that is—but would it be at the cost of everything else? He feels sick, trying to figure out if he’s going to have to plot out a whole new plan, as if this one hadn’t taken him years to come up with and implement. 

But you don’t move to follow him to the car where Albatross is waiting when he steps forward. Instead, you tilt your head up to the sky, lashes fluttering as rain begins to drizzle down from the dark sky. 

And Dazai’s spiraling thoughts halt. 

He thinks you look beautiful—you’re always beautiful, but he thinks there’s something magical about the picture of the small smile on your lips as rain drops slide across the smooth skin of your face. He tries to force himself to look away so he doesn’t seem creepy staring at you, but he can’t bring himself to.

You don’t seem to mind though, because you turn your attention to him, eyes lit up in a way that makes his heart race. “Dance with me,” you say suddenly, holding a hand out to him, the soft smile on your face is a bit mischievous now.

Dazai looks down at you, raising his eyebrows. “Here?” he asks, voice tainted with a hint of incredulity. “Now?”

“Mhm,” you say, unperturbed, holding your hand out more insistently. 

Dazai thinks he isn’t capable of denying you much of anything, but he can’t help but hesitate. Not because he doesn’t want to dance with you—he would sell what’s left of his wretched soul for just a single dance with you—but because the longer he’s out in the open, the more of a chance there might be an assassination attempt on him. Every time he goes out, he’s gambling his life. It would put you in danger, and it’s not like he brought Chuuya along for if something goes wrong. Albatross is capable enough, but his ability is not combat centric. 

Being seen with you in general could put you in danger, doubts begin to sprinkle through his head again, his heart lodged in his throat as remembers that Fyodor Dostoevsky and Agatha Christie aren’t the only threats to your life. He’s been as careful as he could be but even with all of the precautions in the world, there are still risks. He’s made new enemies in this lifetime, hundreds of them over the years, and if any one of them caught wind of you and his apparent attraction to you…

“If you wanted to dance, shouldn’t we have done that inside?” Dazai drawls instead, trying to play it off. Inside, where it’s significantly safer. Inside, where Dazai knows that there’s less of a chance of unsavory eyes falling upon the two of you because the club is owned by the Port Mafia and everyone let in is screened. Inside, where Dazai can still convince himself that he has the power to keep you safe. You’re entirely unbothered by his question, so he continues before you can shoot him down, “Where it’s not raining, and where there’s actually music.” 

“Haven’t you seen all of the romance movies?” you complain, smile widening. “Dancing in the rain is romantic, Dazai. Who needs music anyway? C’mon, dance with me.”

And how is Dazai supposed to say no to you when you look at him like that? Eyes wide and imploring, smile gentle—you look at him in a way that Dazai’s only dreamed of, and he knows that he’s a goner. Well, he’s known since he first met you, but it’s being made abundantly more clear right now with the way his heart, which he usually has such keen control over, beats rapidly in his chest. His lips part because he still wants to try to deny you—for your sake, not his—but no words leave them.

You don’t wait for his response anyway, hand darting out to catch his so you can drag him out into the parking lot. His eyes widen, stumbling forward and trying to catch his balance—you only laugh, intertwining your fingers with his while your other hand finds his waist, spinning the two of you in a reckless circle. 

“Keep up!” you tell him with a smile that causes his breath to catch. 

Dazai thinks he might die. His head feels fuzzy as you lead him in a wide ballroom dance, sweeping across the vacant parking lot with ease. He thinks he must look like a fool being dragged along in your dance like a puppet, hardly able to keep himself from tripping over his own feet. 

He’s not sure how you’re able to keep yourself so graceful, heels splashing in puddles as you lead him through spins and turns and pivots, but Dazai thinks you’re beautiful. Again. Extraordinarily so, even. Rain is pouring down over the two of you, the drizzle quickly becoming torrential, and your hair is wet and matted to your face, mascara a bit smeared underneath your eyes, but you’re laughing, and Dazai thinks you’re divine. Heavenly. Too ethereal to be tainted by the likes of him and yet here he is, the putrid skin of his fingers intertwined with your untarnished ones. You raise your arm and his, beckoning for him to twirl beneath it.

He does, and it’s awkward and clumsy because he’s too tall to comfortably perform the move, but you giggle loudly so it makes up for the embarrassment. And for a moment, Dazai can almost convince himself that this isn’t a life where he’s been forced to let the dark consume him for the betterment of the world; rather, it’s a world where he’s gone unsullied by the dark, his blood still runs red and you’re beautiful and you’re alive, and he’s just a boy who’s fallen so terribly in love with a girl so far out of his league that he thinks he might be dreaming when you return his interest. As he spins, he notices that his cheeks feel a bit strained and sore, and he realizes that there’s a smile on his face that matches your own, the muscles of his cheeks and jaw unused to stretching in such a manner and he hopes, anxiously, that it doesn’t look quite as unbearable as it feels.

If it does look unnatural, you don’t seem to mind. The rain blurs his vision and he’s forced to blink away the raindrops that keep falling into his eye, and for a split second, you’re standing before him in a pretty red dress on a sidewalk, and he’s the one leading you in the theatrical dance, dipping you down as lightning webs across the sky above the two of you, and he’s about to beg you for a kiss, he knows it but then-

He’s drawn out of his thoughts when you pull your hand back from his, but you don’t give him time to mourn the loss of your touch because then you’re slipping your arms around his neck, loose and casual. You’re pressed up close to him, chest brushing his and head tilted back so you can look up at him—a slower dance, swaying to the music of the wind and rain—and Dazai can hardly breathe. You’re so close. So close that he could kiss you if he wanted to. God, he wants to. He’s wanted to for weeks but every time he tries to gather the nerve to do it, he backs out.

“Where’d you go?” you ask softly, and he can barely hear you as thunder rumbles in the distance, brows furrowed in confusion, unsure of what you mean. You tap his temple twice gently, “Left me for a second there.” 

Oh, his throat feels a bit dry, realizing that you must’ve noticed when he started to slip back into the pages of the Book. Terrifying. Beautiful and terrifying, that’s what you are, if you can read him that well after meeting him once a week for a few weeks, he dreads to know how well you’d be able to read him once you start spending more and more time with him. But would it be so bad? To have someone that knows him so profoundly? He’s so alone all the damn time in this world, and you’re giving him a taste of a life where maybe he wouldn’t have to be. It’s terrifying. Tempting. He forces another smile onto his lips, and this time your eyes narrow, as if you know this one isn’t as genuine as the last. 

“How rude of me,” he murmurs, lifting his hand to tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear. He’s so close, he realizes again, hyper aware of the way his lips are almost brushing yours. He could kiss you if he wanted, he repeats, and he wants so badly but he doesn’t want to scare you away. “To leave behind such fine company.”

You don’t look content with his apparent attempt at avoiding the subject, and Dazai’s throat feels tight because it’s not really a conversation to have with you here. Now. Ever, really. 

For once, mother nature appears to be on his side, because before you can press on the subject, lightning strikes dangerously close to where the two of you are standing, making you jump, eyes wide. He takes the opportunity to wrap an arm around your waist, guiding you over to where he left Albatross earlier in the night. 

The car is already running, Albatross is leaning back in the seat scrolling on the phone and Dazai nearly commits an atrocity when he sees that the man has his gun laying haphazardly on the dashboard. As if Albatross can feel Dazai’s murderous intent, he looks up from his phone and his eyes shoot open when he sees you with Dazai and he scrambles to holster his gun back at his waist. 

Luckily, you don’t notice. Or maybe unluckily, because your attention is still fixated on him and Dazai is not ready to have that discussion with you because how the hell is he supposed to say “Sorry! Lost in some worlds that don’t exist, and just so you know, we almost got married in some of them! And just so you know, I got you killed in all of them!”

Yeah. That would go over well. 

Instead, he opens the door to the car for you, letting you hop in the backseat. He follows after. Albatross slides his glasses to the bridge of his nose, an unscrupulous smile on his face that instantly has Dazai suspicious. He hopes the man knows that no friendship with Chuuya will save him if he decides to purposely embarrass Dazai in front of you. 

“You’re back!” You recognize Albatross immediately, a smile spreading across your face at the sight of him. Dazai is almost jealous until he remembers that you’re still holding his hand. “You weren’t driving last time.”

Right. Because of the raid on one of the Scarlet Gang’s warehouses in Tokyo. A mission that Dazai definitely should have been more available for on the off chance that something went wrong, but he was far too busy indulging in you. In his defense, he had no doubts that the mission would go according to plan—the Scarlet Gang is dangerous, yes, and Kawabata is a force to be reckoned with, but he’s simply not Dazai.  

“D’aw, didn’t think you’d recognize me, doll,” Albatross grins, tossing you a wink. “Good to see you again too. You’re significantly more sober tonight, aren’t you?”

Dazai’s eyes narrow a bit at the pet name, but he’s more focused on the way you throw your face into your hands with a groan, reminded of just how drunk you’d been the last time Albatross was playing chauffeur. You’re a messy drunk, he remembers fondly, he doesn’t remember ever seeing you drink in any of his other lives with you, and he feels a bit giddy at the thought that he gets to experience a side of you that the others never did. Even if he was spending half of the night holding your hair back while you threw your guts up, spluttering apologies through sobs and heaves. He would do it again. Without even the slightest hesitation, he would do it again. 

“I wasn’t that bad, was I?” you ask, peeking one eye between your fingers to look at Dazai for confirmation. 

Dazai doesn’t even have the chance to assure you that no, you weren’t that bad, because Albatross is speaking again. Of course. 

“You were pretty damn bad, doll,” he grins, and you groan even louder, leaning your body over to rest your head on Dazai’s bicep. Dazai’s heart nearly leaps out of his throat. “S’alright though, boss took care of you.” 

“Did he?” you ask with a teasing smile, eyes glittering as you look up at Dazai, who suddenly feels a bit embarrassed, but Albatross rescues him. 

Maybe he does deserve the vacation he’s been bitching about wanting. 

“Where to?” Albatross asks, putting the car in gear, gaze flickering between you and Dazai briefly. 

Dazai is about to tell him your apartment when he catches the sudden apprehension on your face. He hesitates and waits for you to say whatever you want to say, but you don’t, instead you let out a puff of air and let your eyes slide shut. 

“Where do you want to go?” Dazai asks you.

You still look uncertain, but then you finally say, “I was meaning to stop and get some groceries at the convenience store on the way home. There’s one a few blocks away from my apartment. I can just walk over there if you drop me off at my place though, it’s fine.”

As if. The idea of you walking anywhere so late at night makes his skin crawl, especially considering there’s been a rise of violent crimes in the city that the Mafia has yet to get a handle on. He needs to push for that to be taken care of if he has to worry about you leaving your apartment to wander around so late. He makes a note to himself to bring it up to Chuuya later. 

“We can stop there on the way there. It’s no trouble.”

Albatross gives him a look, as if he’s asking if the boss of the Port Mafia is really about to go grocery shopping with a civilian in the middle of the night, forcing the Mafia’s best getaway driver to be their chauffeur. Dazai only gives him a cold, sharp look in return—if you need groceries, then they’ll stop for groceries. Simple as that. In a life where Dazai thought he’d never even be able to look at you, the chance of doing mundane chores like grocery shopping with you is not something he’ll just pass by. 

He can pretend to be normal. If only for a little longer. 

Until he has to go back to the base, and his lungs are clogged with corrupted air, being slowly suffocated by his surroundings.

Until you figure out who he is, and he’s alone again, being consumed by the void in his chest once more. 

He hardly considers the fact that he’s going somewhere with you where his subordinates haven’t made extensive efforts to ensure that no one suspicious is around to see the two of you. 

“Alrighty,” Albatross agrees, backing down as soon as he sees the expression on Dazai’s face. “To the convenience store.”

Your eyes brighten, a smile lights up your face. “Thanks,” you say relieved, and Dazai wants to say that you don’t ever have to thank him for everything and that he’d give you the entire world if given the chance, but he thinks that might be a bit weird so instead he settles on just giving you a small smile. “I’ll make you the best hot chocolate of your life when we get to my apartment. Just wait.” 

Dazai’s chest feels warm. “I don’t doubt it.”

“Wait here,” you tell both Dazai and Albatross as Albatross pulls into the parking lot of your apartment complex and stops the car outside of your building. Dazai, who’d been about to follow you, pauses from where he’s ducking beneath the doorframe to step out of the car, looking at you and waiting for an explanation. “... My apartment is a mess… I, um, wasn’t expecting company. Let me just… tidy up before you come in. I’ll only be a few minutes.”

Dazai’s visible eye crinkles up in amusement as he sits back down in the backseat of the car and you immediately take off up toward the steps leading up to the second floor of your apartment, giddy and excited, grocery bag swinging and bumping against your hip as you make your way quickly up the steps. You don’t know what’s gotten into you. You feel like a schoolgirl dealing with her first real crush, flustered and giggly, hardly able to hold a conversation without stuttering over your words. 

He’s just so… you don’t know how to describe it. Intense. But intense isn’t even the right word, because he’s not so intense that it makes you uncomfortable or overwhelmed, and that’s usually what you think of when someone is intense. Or maybe overwhelmed is a bit fitting, because you swear every time he sets his soft gaze down on you, your heart might leap out of your chest. Intense. Familiar, you don’t know how it’s possible to feel like you’ve known someone you’ve only met a few times your entire life.

Your fingers fumble as you try to unlock your door. One, two, three, it takes three attempts for you to finally slide the key into the lock, pushing open your door and stepping inside, free from the torrential rain and wild wind outside.

You sigh and rest your back against the door as you shut it behind you, eyes sliding shut. 

Who are you, Dazai Osamu?

Someone important. 

Of course, you noticed how he was treated by the workers of the club—the bartender, the bouncers, even just the regular patrons. The restaurants he’s brought you to the past few weeks, they all treated him the same way. There were plenty of men there that were dressed in expensive clothes and held themselves highly, but none were treated the same way Dazai was.

Someone dangerous. 

You’d also caught a glimpse of the gun on the dash of Albatross’s car. (His driver, another point to note because who has a driver except very important people) Only three types of people have guns in Japan—military, police, and criminals, and you’re pretty sure he’s not part of the military or police force…

Someone you probably shouldn’t be so drawn to.

That should be enough to make you run. It really should be. You have no explanation or excuse for why you’re not besides the fact that you might not be as smart as you herald yourself to be. You shouldn’t feel giddy when he smiles softly at you, you should be nervous. You shouldn’t be longing for his touch, you should be avoiding it. Instead, you’re leaning against your door, smiling like an idiot after making him wait for you to clean up your apartment so you don’t embarrass yourself. 

Oh, you’re such a fool. But how could you not be with how he treats you? Tucking hair behind your ear, setting a gaze so soft on you that you think it might make your heart stop, dancing with you in the rain clumsily with rosy cheeks and wide eyes. How is it possible for you to reconcile the way the man acts with you to the way others treat him? Or maybe that’s just delusion speaking. It could be, honestly. You think if your brother was living with you, he’d be horrified, might lock you away for the rest of your life; you think your friends already want to put you in a psych ward and they’d only become all the more insistent if they knew half of the things you’ve noticed. 

But your brother left you and your friends don’t know, so nothing is stopping you from making what might be a terrible decision. 

You let out a breath as you push yourself off the door, placing down your grocery bags on the table by your door so you can scramble to pick up all of the stray clothes you’d tossed around your apartment as you frantically tried to find an outfit earlier in the night. You reach over to turn on your light, flicking the switch once, then twice, and then three times.

No way.

You sigh deeply, head falling back against the wood door of your apartment, knocking the back of your head against it twice in frustration. Letting out a irate puff of air, you push yourself off of the door and force yourself to get to work. It’s not the end of the world, hopefully it'll come back soon, the providers are usually quick with getting the outages fixed, even in your shitty area. 

You force yourself to move forward, frowning deeply as you scoop up all of the paperwork spread out on your coffee table, making sure to keep it all in order as you move them over to the desk you have by your window seat. You drop the pile down and cast your gaze out to all of the clothes strewn haphazardly around your apartment, cursing yourself for having been so messy earlier when you were trying on just about every outfit you own and then flinging them around frustrated when you decided they weren’t good enough.

You scowl as you bend down to pick them all up, deciding you’ll just stuff them messily in your closet and fold them later when you don’t have company. As you zoom around trying to snag all of the dresses and different pairs of bras and underwear scattered about, your mind races. Your stove should still work because your landlord refuses to install any modern appliances into your apartment, for better or for worse, so you have an old model that shouldn’t be affected by the outage. But you think it’ll be awkward sitting in the dark, you think you have a few candles stored away in your room—you’ll have to find them and set them up. 

Candlelit evening, how romantic! you think to yourself, a bit dreamily. You wonder if Albatross will be coming up to join the two of you in your apartment, you’d offered to make him a drink too but you figure it’ll be Dazai’s decision if he’ll be waiting outside or…

Or maybe, he’ll send him home. 

You get giddy at the thought—candlelights, slightly tipsy after a night out, you take a peek under your dress to try to figure out which underwear you’d decided on earlier and if you should change into a different pair but are delighted when you realize that you’d gone with your pretty red ones. 

You think he’ll like them. 

Hopefully. 

You like them, they’re your favorites.

Oh, you have to clean your bedroom too, you think to yourself in partial agony because you don’t know how the hell you’re going to clean up everything in there without making Dazai wait out there for an hour. You get anxious at the thought, worrying that if you take too long, he might leave, so you pick up the pace. You snatch the last stray bra hanging on the arm of your couch before taking off into your bedroom.

You hardly get a step into the room before you’re freezing in your tracks.

No way.

You stare at your bed, arms falling loose to your side, lips parted in shock. The clothes you’d cleaned up all drop aimlessly to the floor around you. Your bed is drenched with water—your sheets soaked, your mattress soaked, the ceiling heavy with rainwater from a leak you didn’t know you had.

“Oh my god,” you breathe out to yourself, unsure of what exactly you should do, never having had a problem like this before.

You think this is what you get, seeking out the cheapest possible apartment complex to stay in because you’re trying to save all of the money you have for school. Now, your mattress is ruined, your ceiling looks like it’s on the verge of collapse and oh my god, you left your laptop on your bed. 

A noise caught between a whimper and cry of frustration leaves your lips as you dive forward, fishing your laptop out of the massive pool of water flooding your bed. You hold it in front of your face between two fingers, watching as water drips from it down to the ground. 

There goes your laptop too.

You think you might be sick. 

Now, you have to deal with a landlord who is decidedly not helpful when it comes to issues in the complex and you have nowhere to sleep. Maybe you can call one of your friends to stay at their place, but it’s already the middle of the night and you know two of them have their own entrance exams tomorrow for the programs that they’re applying to.

Unless…

Your gaze shifts to the window in your room, looking between the blinds to see Dazai and Albatross still waiting outside in their car. 

Okay. Most urgent problem temporarily fixed. Maybe.

Dazai has a place. He has to. He’s clearly rich. It’s probably a much nicer place than yours too. You can go there, at least for the night. He wouldn’t just leave you with nowhere to go… right? No, of course he wouldn’t. You need to pack then, instead of cleaning. 

Okay, this is fine. 

It’s fine. 

It takes you about five minutes to grab a few spare pairs of clothes into the duffle bag laying at your bedroom door, occasionally tossing dirty looks at the leak ruining your bed. When you finish throwing your clothes in the duffle—unfolded and hastily, of course, they’ll be terribly wrinkled—you rise to your feet and swing the bag over your shoulder, making your way back to your door and grabbing your groceries. 

You don’t know what to say to him when you get back to the car. You’re probably being a bit presumptuous. Okay, a lot presumptuous—Dazai has never invited you back to his place, you’ve invited him to yours—but you don’t really have another choice.

You exhale as you step back into the rain, locking your apartment and making your way back down the steps to the complex’s parking lot. You don’t let yourself hesitate as you dart across the parking lot toward the car, fearing that if you take a second to actually think about what you’re doing—inviting yourself into someone else’s home!—you’ll probably back out.

You open the car door. You slide back inside, taking a seat behind the passenger seat. You drop your duffle bag on the floor between your feet and place your groceries back down between you and Dazai. You can feel both Dazai and Albatross staring at you. You stare ahead.

“... My apartment is flooded,” you finally say after a few moments.

Dazai doesn’t say anything, brows furrowing as he watches you. You can hardly bring yourself to look at him, trying to peek at him from the corner of your eye as best as you can without being too obvious about it. He’s not responding. Albatross isn’t moving the car. You’re getting the urge to bolt, to run upstairs and drown yourself in the puddle of water on your bed. 

Finally, Albatross clears his throat. “Boss?”

Dazai still doesn’t respond. You think you might be doubly sick now, and embarrassed. An awful combination, really. You know that he knows what you came back here hoping for, and you realize that he might just send you back to your flooded apartment instead because he obviously did not sign up for taking in some random girl that he’s met a few Fridays for the night because she has nowhere else to go. 

You finally turn your face to look at Dazai head on and you can feel that your eyes are glassy, chewing on the inside of your cheek. You don’t know how pathetic you must look for Dazai’s expression to shift the way it does, his conflicted expression crumbling as he turns away from you. You don’t want to know how pathetic you must look, you’d only feel even more humiliated.

After what feels like an eternity, Dazai finally says: “Drive.”

Albatross’s eyes shoot open, he physically turns to look at Dazai, “But-”

You don’t catch the look that Dazai gives Albatross, too busy basking in the relief of having somewhere to stay for the night, but whatever it is, it makes Albatross turn back to face the wheel without another word, turning the car back on and shifting it into gear before pulling out of the parking lot. 

As soon as you’re on the move, you turn your attention back down to your phone, trying to figure out if you should message your landlord now or in the morning, dreading the inevitable argument you’re going to have with him. You fiddle with the device, occasionally sparing looks at Dazai, but the man is lost in thought next to you, visible eye distant and conflicted.

You can’t bring yourself to say anything so the whole drive to Dazai’s apartment is long and quiet. Even Albatross, who’s had no difficult sparking conversation the whole drive to your place, stays silent.

You’re bummed, all of the excitement you felt about bringing Dazai back to your place is long gone, feeling the stress of having to replace everything that’s been ruined by the leak and the anxiety of dealing with your landlord; all you want to do is sleep and die. Okay. That’s dramatic. But you’re exhausted and you really do want to sleep. Maybe not die, but definitely sleep. 

You lay your head against the window, eyes starting to droop shut, and you can feel Dazai glancing at you now but you can’t even bring yourself to look over at him. Instead, you keep your eyes trained outside the window, only perking up when Albatross finally starts slowing to a stop.

And then, you’re suddenly not tired at all. Your eyes widen as he pulls to the front of the tallest of the five black buildings that tower over the Naka ward, lips parting as you crane your head to look up out the window and then look pointedly back at Dazai, stunned.

Dazai refuses to meet your gaze, staring ahead. 

… You think that your instincts about this man must be spot on. 

Too bad you’re not listening to them.

“You’ve gone crazy.”

Dazai’s gaze draws up from the paperwork he’s definitely not doing, far too preoccupied with thoughts of you; it’s cold and cutting as it lands on Chuuya. His executive enters the room without any type of announcement, his voice just as cold as Dazai’s expression—he supposes it’s testimony to how angry he is, because Chuuya is only frigid in his anger when he’s really been pushed to the brink.

Naturally, Dazai only smiles, a slow and taunting one that he knows presses all of Chuuya’s buttons from the way the man’s bicolored eyes flash with fury. Chuuya storms over to Dazai’s desk, making his way until he’s standing right in front of him. 

“How so?” Dazai drawls, folding his hands over his lap as he leans back in his chair, tilting his head to the side questioningly. 

“How so?” Chuuya spits out, slamming his hands down on Dazai’s desk. Dazai raises his eyebrows and then lifts his chin, looking pointedly down to where Chuuya’s hands are splayed against his desk. Chuuya doesn’t flinch—of course he doesn’t, he’s Chuuya—but he does pull his hands back to himself, albeit snarling as he does it. “The hell are you bringing some random woman back to our base? Back to your room? Going out alone the past few weeks when you know you’ve got a bounty on your head higher than most world leaders? I was letting it slide but this is too far, why the hell is she here? You’ve gone crazy, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Careful, Chuuya,” Dazai warns, voice quiet, expression growing a bit flinty when he brings you up. Dazai doesn’t care if Chuuya wants to rail on him for being reckless, but he’s not allowed to drag you into it. He decides to not acknowledge the comment about you, focusing on the end of his tirade, “I was with one of the Flags, I wasn’t alone.”

“Albatross isn’t cut out for that type of combat and you know it,” Chuuya snaps, glaring at Dazai. “If one of those bounty hunters came after you, you both would’ve been killed. What’s gotten into you? Never took you for the type to be this reckless. You get a taste of a woman’s c-”

“I said careful, Chuuya. Know your place,” Dazai repeats, voice icy. The warning is gone, only a threat remains—Chuuya doesn’t need to finish his sentence for Dazai to know where he was going with it, the way the man’s eyes darted over to Dazai’s bedroom was more than enough to confirm it. 

“Is this a goddamn joke to you?” Chuuya asks, keeping his voice low, his lips flat and his eyes narrowed. “I don’t get it. You’ve always been so careful, more than anyone else. What the hell does one random woman have that’s making you risk all of this?” 

“I’m not risking anything,” Dazai tells him coolly, “and she’s not just some random woman.”

Chuuya’s expression shifts, brows furrowing deeper; Dazai can see the tiny cogs working behind his eyes as he thinks. He wonders if Chuuya has been drinking tonight, catching the pink hue to his cheeks and the hazy look coating his eyes. 

No wonder he’s so angry then, Dazai muses, he must have been out with Kouyou when he got word that Dazai left the base again without any protection detail and then brought someone up to his room who in Chuuya’s mind, could be an assassin for all he knows. 

Suddenly, the confusion clears and something closer to realization sweeps across Chuuya’s face. His gaze turns back pointedly in the direction of Dazai’s bedroom.

“That’s her,” Chuuya says, disbelief dripping from his tone. “The girl you’ve had Kouyou looking over for years. What the fuck, Dazai? I thought the whole point of having Kouyou look after her was so that you kept away from her.”

Dazai stares at Chuuya, only for a moment, because then his gaze drifts back to the door leading into his bedroom, mind drifting. He supposes that he shouldn’t be surprised that Kouyou told Chuuya about it—Dazai wasn’t explicit enough with his orders, only telling Kouyou to ensure that Dazai himself never knew anything about her. Of course, the woman would bring it up to Chuuya, probably hoping Chuuya had some insight into why Dazai is so insistent on your protection. 

Chuuya didn’t, of course, but he guesses that only made the topic of you and Dazai’s apparent random attachment to you even more of an interesting topic for their wine sessions. Honestly, he’s surprised that Chuuya didn’t realize earlier that the girl he’s been seeing is the one he’s had Kouyou assigned to. Kouyou surely should have known by now.

You’re fast asleep by now. He got lucky because of how exhausted you were over the stress of the whole situation: he didn’t have to deal with the questions that he was certain would arise as soon as you caught sight of the Port Mafia base. You were all but falling asleep on your feet as the two of you stood in the glass elevator leading up to Dazai’s apartment, the penthouse in the centermost of the five buildings consisting of the Port Mafia base. Dazai thought he was about to have a heart attack when you swayed on your feet and ended up resting your head on his bicep, eyes drooping shut. You only managed a few sleepy protests as he led you to his bedroom, asking where he was going to sleep if you take his room (the fact that you worry about him when you’re even on the brink of falling asleep on your feet made his fingers tingle), but you gave in quickly at his insistence. 

He should feel some sort of pity, or sympathy, because he could see the weariness in your eyes and the fatigue plaguing your body. Dazai might not be capable of feeling pity or sympathy for most people, but if he could feel it for anyone, it would be you. But he does not, and it’s for a selfish reason, of course: your misfortune led to you turning to him for help, and the thought of that alone makes his chest feel light and giddy. 

Yes, he’s going to have to figure out some sort of excuse tomorrow for when you wake up and inevitably have questions—he is not ready for you to know about his position in the Port Mafia—but right now you’re sleeping in his bed and you’re relying on him for help. His fingers thrum against his desk, jittery with excitement, he almost forgets Chuuya is there until he hears the man let out a sharp noise of disgust at Dazai's apparent exhilaration. 

Distantly, very distantly, he knows this is bad. You’ve been smart and observant in every universe, you’re going to put together that something is seriously wrong—you were not supposed to come back to his place, but how was he supposed to say no to you when you were looking at him with teary eyes and nowhere else to go? The thought itself feels like sacrilege. 

“You know what we are and what we do,” Chuuya says, voice calmer now as he shakes his head and fishes a cigarette from his pocket, lighting it with his free hand before he turns to leave. “I don’t know what the hell you’re doing, but you’re putting this girl in danger after the lengths you went to keep her safe. I don’t get it.”

He squints a bit as Chuuya’s words ring through his head. That’s what he had thought too, but he’s the last person to admit to Chuuya that he might be right. A cold feeling starts to set over him, spreading through his chest like ice. If he’s going to think about this realistically, you’re probably already in danger just from being around him. The likelihood of someone catching sight of the two of you the past few weeks is higher than he’s comfortable with, even with the precautions that he’s taken, especially with tonight outside the club and at the convenience store. The thought is terrifying, enough to immediately kill off the jittery excitement that had been running through his body. 

Dazai’s index finger traces the outline of his lips, his mind races. What does he do? If you’re in danger, he can’t just let you go back to your apartment and leave you undefended in a sketchier part of the city. His enemies will jump on it. They’ll target you. But he can’t just keep you here. It’ll be too risky, you’ll figure out who he is and what he does, and that’s not even considering the fact that maybe you won’t even want to stay. You might wake up in the morning and head to someone else’s place—you’d made a vague comment about not wanting to intrude and going to a friend’s house tomorrow but the thought makes his stomach twist a bit. 

God, he’s so conflicted. 

But the first thing to handle is making sure that you don’t go back to your apartment alone. The rest he can figure out later on—he has to decide if he’d rather try to keep you around the base and risk you figuring out what he does (god, he wants to keep you around) or if he should just send you off to a “friend’s” (he still stands by the fact that your ‘friends’ are shitty because what sort of friends leave their drunk friend alone at a bar with a stranger—even if he knows that he’d rather let the world burn than see harm come upon you, they don’t know that) with an extra protection detail. One that you wouldn’t know is there, naturally. 

But how does he make sure you don’t go back to your apartment after the leak is fixed? 

He thinks to himself, an idea coming to him swiftly. It’s a bit dark, yes, and he’s sure that if you knew, you’d run for the hills but… to keep you safe, he would do whatever it takes. Even if you’d hate him for it if you knew. 

But what you don’t know won’t hurt you. 

“Chuuya,” Dazai says before the man can leave his apartment. Chuuya stops dead in his tracks, not turning to look at Dazai, but waiting for whatever he has to say. “I’m going to text you the number of her landlord… make sure he doesn’t get her apartment fixed any time soon. And let Gin-chan know I might have a guest for the next few days so she’s not caught off guard tomorrow.”

Chuuya scoffs. “You’re a freak, Dazai.”

Dazai only smiles idly to himself, eyes sliding shut as he leans back in the chair at his desk, Chuuya leaves without another word, Dazai loses himself in thoughts of you. 

A freak? Yeah, maybe. In love? Definitely. 

Should he convince you to stay with him? The thought bounces around his head frantically. He doesn’t know the answer. The more careful part of him screams no, tells him that it’s too dangerous to keep you around. It’s dangerous for you, because the longer you’re around here, the more at risk you’ll be of getting hurt. It’s dangerous for him, because the longer you’re around here, the more at risk he’ll be of getting exposed,

But the less logical part of him, the one that’s consumed by the idea of you, and the chance he has of being with you, is much louder. 

You came to him, he reminds himself. You found him. He tried to be good. He did everything he could to stay away from you, but you still found him. And you chose to seek him out again. You chose to. It’s easier to blame it on you, convince himself that you brought this upon yourself, as if you had any idea what sort of sick and fucked up person Dazai really is, as if you have any idea what’s happened to you in every other universe because of him.

He can never go back to how he was living before meeting you; he can’t. 

You came to him. 

Why should he have to let you go now?

With that thought in mind, Dazai thinks the answer to his question is made abundantly clear. 

[modest-magnemite]

I need a slightly mean chef in my kitchen who will taste test everything i make because i cannot trust anyone around me

[stevie-petey]

i just think that steve would 100% be stitching bug’s initial into his levi’s like tom holland stitches little z’s into his. it’s such loverboy behavior and i don’t think any thing has screamed steve more

steve and bug are so tom and z coded oh my GOD he 100000% does and here is how bug found out <333

enjoy !

"honey, can you pass me the chocolate chips?" your arms strain as you whisk oatmeal raisin batter. "it should be up on the shelf in the pantry."

"on it," steve kisses the base of your neck and quickly goes to find the missing ingredient. the small act of affection warms you, shielding you from the december cold.

its nearing christmas and youve been spent the last three days frantically baking your annual holiday treats. each year your list grows more and more. alex is a new addition, it had taken quite a bit of begging and pleading before he finally told you what dessert he liked (he hadnt wanted to bother you, which you find very endearing yet unneeded).

however, with the addition of alex comes also the loss of the byers. this year youre only baking two batches of oatmeal raisin, not four, and your kitchen lacks the scent of joyces favorite muffins. you miss them terribly, wills latest drawing came in the mail yesterday and you had nearly cried when you realized he drew a silly doodle of you surrounded by a million cookies and sweets. underneath the drawing will had written, save me some cookies!

"where did you say the chocolate chips were?" steve calls from the pantry.

"top shelf," you respond, blowing a strand of hair out of your face. "next to the sugar."

"i cant find them!"

he sounds distressed, you know steves trying his best to help you, and you cant help but laugh at him. he always does whatever he can to dote on you. setting the whisk down, you walk over to the boy. "here, let me show you."

steve is standing on his tip toes, arms stretched above his head as he looks for the sweets. his frame lithe and long, and his sweater rides up slightly as he strains. "i swear, i can find it-"

"whats that?" your eyes land on the hem of steves jeans. hes wearing his usual levis, the denim taut against his lower body. theyre faded from years of use, and theres something stitched onto the waistband of them that you havent seen before.

"whats what?" steve strains his head to look at you, still on his tip toes.

your fingers graze the stitch, warming his waist. he stumbles at the unexpected touch and nearly falls against you, but you dont notice any of it. all you can focus on right now is that there are small, messily sewn initials on his jeans with red string. it stands out harshly against the denims blue. the messy lines are familiar, the letters resemble the S.H. that currently resides on the sleeve of your cardigan.

"did you..." youre breathless, so in love that it threatens to suffocate you. "did you sew my initials onto your jeans?"

steve looks down, eyes widening when he realizes what youre referring to. he clears his throat, his face reddens a soft cherry hue. "oh, that? i-uh. well, you know. i-i mean, yeah."

he stumbles over his words and tries to step away, but his back presses against the shelf and hes cornered. he hadnt meant for you to see the initials, he nearly forgot about them entirely, if hes being honest. he had sewn them onto a few pairs of his jeans one night, missing you and unable to sleep. he had some spare needle and string leftover from when he sewed his own initials into your cardigan last christmas, he wanted everyone to know that he was yours, too.

and yet a small part of him hadnt wanted you to know about it. he had sewn the initials early into your relationship. steve knows youd never be cruel to him for showing so much love for you, but some days the fear of loving too hard still lingers.

seeing his fear, you grab one of steves beltloops and tug him forward, pulling his hips flush against yours. wrapping your arms over his neck, you bring his forehead to yours. "i love you."

"i love you, too." and hes put at ease. the fear dissipates, steve hasnt scared you off quite yet. he clears his throat again, allows himself to be vulnerable with you. his heart resides in the palm of your hands, he knows youll always be gentle with it, but sometimes he needs to breathe you in. steves fingers tug gently at your sleeve. "wanted to match with you."

you laugh, your entire body opens up with pure, unfiltered joy as your chest revibrates happiness. youre so in love with him that it hurts, that it blinds you sometimes. cheeks burning, you kiss the top of steves head. "youre as sweet as honey, have i ever told you that?"

"once or twice," he shrugs, trying to be coy, but his body radiates warmth and his voice drips saccharine.

you bury your face in his neck, inhale everything that he is. nose pressed to his collarbone, your lips find the smooth expanse of his skin and you kiss him softly. steve shivers at the softness, which you smile at. "think you could sew your initials onto some of my jeans?"

"only if i can get some of wheelers brownies."

"deal."

[the-s1lly-corner]

Making s'mores w/ the proxies

Bro I made cajun shrimp a while ago and I wanna make it again it's so good but my dad doesnt like cajun seasonings💔

Notes: reader is GN, admin shows his bias against smores and its so obvious LMAO, masky and hoodie are stubborn about their masks

CWs: none

MASKY

loathes smores, he just thinks theyre too much and not worth the mess.. he doesnt have much of a sweet tooth, and the only reason he would eat one is because you went through the effort of starting a fire and bringing the stuff out and meeting him in the woods

has his back to you while hes eating his, hes not quite to the "hes fine with lifting his mask up around you" stage, and its going to stay like that for a long while

viscously rubbing his face afterwards to get rid of any leftover mess, he hardly ever talks or makes a sound but you can hear him hissing under his breath as he works

snatches up any napkins or wipes you hand him and rubs his face clean- may rip his mask off to clean the insides of it because he put it back on not realizing there was still more mess on his face

rage rage anger he hates it so much

HOODIE

you have to beg him to take his nasty crusty gloves off before you even open the bag of marshmallows- for both your sakes... you love him, really you do, but you cant stomach the idea of him touching the same food youre going to eat with said gloves

doesnt much care for smores actually, he thinks theyre too messy... it gets absolutely everywhere and he isnt too fond of the feeling of his mask sticking to his face where he missed some spots

it also doesnt help that he doesnt fully take off his mask, only lifting it up enough to eat the damn thing... he wouldnt have to worry about it if he just took the entire thing off... but oh well

likes the marshmallow moderately roasted- far from burnt, but toasted enough that its softened

would prefer a different treat next time

TICCI TOBY

you know what? blasting him with the beam of "has never tried a smore before in his life because the author has never gotten to try one"

burns his marshmallow but he prefers it that way, both texturally and flavor wise, you may think him insane for roasting it until the outside looks like coal but it brings him joy!

doesnt mind the mess it makes, if he gets some of the melted marshmallow on his hands he might wave it in your face and pretend hes about to touch you

very passionate debate on whether or not the chocolate goes under or above the marshmallow- he thinks it tastes better above but most people do it under.. he swears it tastes better this way! just try it!

you know how some people will take those cracker/meat/cheese lunchables and make a giant stack? he does that with the smore and its as messy and horrific as it sounds

[nottswitch]

hey! i lovelovelove your writing and i was hoping you could do a fred weasley x ravenclaw!reader (fem) and theyre just being cute and fluffy at the library brainstorming products and he suddenly ropes the reader into a prank and the reader pretends to disapprove but after a lot of banter she eventually admits that she does think hes brilliant and just. fluff.

thank you!

hi there and thank you! <3 i’m so sorry it took me this long to get to your request, but i hope you’re still here!! love the fred x ravenclaw dynamic so so much, i hope you enjoy this!

warning: ravenclaw!reader, light swearing, fluff fluff fluff

wc: 1.3k

» navigation ; masterlist ; fred m.list ; how to request

When Fred got you, he was, for the lack of a better word, absolutely thrilled. Not only were you absolutely gorgeous and could handle his and George’s sense of humor, you were also a Ravenclaw – and the top of your class, no less, which for the Weasley brothers was similar to hitting a gold mine. It was only a matter of time before they could, using their irresistible charm and maybe some of Fred’s personal tactics, persuade you to help them with new developments for the Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes shop. And you did from time to time, reluctantly, as it wasn’t entirely appropriate for a prim and proper Ravenclaw like you, but you secretly enjoyed it.

On one of those days, on a warm, spring evening, you were sitting at the library, studying, as usual. As your nose was firmly in a Potions book, you didn’t hear footsteps slowly approaching you from behind. Only when a pair of soft yet firm hands obstructed your view of the academic text did you realize that you’d been creeped up on.

“Guess who?” a familiar voice with an unmistakable hint of mischief wondered. You giggled and pressed your hands against his, even though there was no real need – you’d recognize them anywhere.

“Freddie,” you murmured, a smile spreading on your lips. You hadn’t seen your boyfriend in a while, and the unexpected encounter was more than welcome, in your book.

"In the flesh."

Your eyes ached a bit after the hands covering them were removed and the warm, bright light of the library candles hit them again. But the ache was quickly soothed by a pair of lips pressed against yours in a short yet passion-filled kiss. You frowned when Fred pulled away, your face jerking forward to chase him, but the grin stretching his mouth immediately erased the crease between your eyebrows. You could never be upset when he looked this happy.

"Studying again?" Fred asked, smirking as he mindlessly flipped through the pages of the book in front of you, not paying the texts any real attention. You nodded, letting out a sigh – of course, for someone as smart as you, studying wasn’t the biggest chore, but sometimes, even the greatest of minds needed some rest, some distraction.

Seeing your covertly tired expression, Fred’s eyes softened, but the mischievous smirk on his lips never left. "Come on, honey cheeks, lighten up," he said in a lighthearted manner, plopping down into the chair next to you and closing your textbook shut with a loud noise.

"Fred!” you whisper-yelled, hoping that Madam Pince didn’t hear the sudden disturbance of the silence in her precious library. Your boyfriend simply grinned, seemingly unbothered, and rummaged through his bag for a moment. With a victorious ‘got it!’ he fished out a small bar of what looked like chocolate and placed it on the table, giving you a proud look.

The look should’ve been a clear sign, but your hand still reached for the bar, thinking it was just one of the usual sweets Fred got you from time to time, “just to see your pretty smile”, as he himself put it. But evidently, it wasn’t the case, because his hand quickly moved to shield the chocolate from yours.

"Oh no, hun, I wouldn’t eat it if I were you," Fred said, the smirk on his lips widening, making a dimple on his left cheek pop out. "Unless you want to have your ears wiping the ground, that is."

You raised an eyebrow in confusion at first, but as the gears in your brain turned, you started understanding exactly what was happening. The realization made you roll your eyes.

"Again?" you breathed out, looking at Fred with an exasperated but also somewhat amused expression. It seemed like every week him and George would come up with something new for their shop, and this time, it seemed to be… a chocolate bar.

"Oh, you know it, honey cheeks."

Fred grabbed the product, tossing it into the air, catching it and swiftly bringing it to your face, which made you flinch and giggle at the same time.

"Let me present to you, my love, the best punishment for the especially nosy – Prying Prick’s Plague. The title’s a work in progress."

You chuckled, shaking your head at his antics. It wasn’t the first time, and of course, wouldn’t be the last, you knew it all too well. You pretended to give him a disapproving look about the ‘prick’ part, but all that came out was a very adorable – in Fred’s opinion – scowl.

"What?" Fred asked, raising an eyebrow back at you. He twirled the chocolate bar between his nimble fingers, tossing and catching it again. "It makes your ears turn really damn huge. Just what nosy pricks need."

"Yeah? Why do I feel like this was made with someone in mind?" You narrowed your eyes at the boy in front of you, suspiciously staring him down. He looked a bit too mischievous even for his usual self.

"Ah, darling, perceptive as always," Fred praised in a dramatic manner, giving you a pat on the back. You rolled your eyes for what felt like the hundredth time tonight. "We did have someone in mind. And here, my love, is where you come into the picture."

"Huh?"

You furrowed your forehead, your expression turning a bit dumbfounded. Sure, the brothers appreciated your expertise on their stuff, but they had never tried to actually… use you in one of their endless pranks. And it seemed like Fred was suggesting exactly that.

Fred let out a short chuckle at your cute, puzzled face, and reached out with his hand to caress your hair, as if he was soothing you. A ‘tsk’ could be heard coming out of your mouth, but you didn’t pull away, letting him pet you.

"Don’t worry, hun, it’s nothing too bad," Fred murmured, but the smirk still tugging at the corner of his mouth was too playful for your liking. "You’re tutoring Malfoy in Herbology, right?"

"Yeah," you confirmed, irritation briefly flicking through the depth of your eyes. The guy’s ambition to become a Healer was a commendable one, but his skills in Herbology were, for the lack of a better word, not present.

"And you would agree that he’s a prying prick, right?"

"Um…"

Sure, Malfoy could be annoying. And he always seemed to have his nose in everybody’s business, thinking his "valuable input" was, in fact, valuable. But surely, Fred didn’t mean…?

"Yeah." Fred’s single word seemed to confirm your thoughts, as if he was reading your mind.

"No way. You actually want to…?"

"And with your help, no less."

Fred grinned when the scowl on your face turned even more disapproving. He slipped his hand from your head down to your face, her knuckles softly brushing against the apples of your cheeks. He always thought you were totally adorable like that, all mad at him for yet another disturbance of peace he was planning to cause. This time, it was even better, since you were also going to be involved. And he knew that you were going to – even underneath your prim and proper exterior, a spark of excitement always flickered whenever he told you about his and George’s pranks.

"Merlin, you’re insufferable," you groaned, still leaning into Fred’s touch, unable to resist the warmth of his loving hand caressing your face.

"And you love it, hun," he responded, giving you a sly wink, knowing exactly what it always did to you. "Just admit it – I’m brilliant. And my dear brother, of course, but mostly me."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," you muttered, begrudgingly agreeing with his cocky statement. The image of Malfoy with huge floppy ears was indeed a pretty hilarious one, and his inevitable tantrum would definitely be a sight to behold.

Fred laughed at your reluctant admission of his superior thinking and affectionately pecked your cheek. What a delight you were – gorgeous, smart and secretly, a bit wicked. His dream girl.

[callmefloryy]

I JUST FINISHED BEELZEBUBS BUTT CARDS PROLOGUE and I'm telling you its so cute!!! I love the whole story so much!

From the way the devils in abyssos love the MC, it's so cute that they celebrated Valentine's day just for them! Even going so far as to mention them as "First Valentine's day with Solomon's descendant" (which I wish they couldve just said our names but oof)

AND WE'RE INTRODUCED TO A NEW CHARACTER!

He's so cute oh my gosh he has a puppy crush on the MC and he actually loves them for them and not because they're the Solomon's descendant! HE HAS SUCH A CUTE PERSONALITY TOO I was screaming and squealing every time omg why isn't he one of the 72 devils omg I need him to be an actual character hes so cute and I know I mentioned that quite a few times now but omgoshhhh

And we also get more in depth relationship with Beelzebub!! Which I really like because we know more about his character and the lore of abyssos, I also liked to think that he ate all the chocolates because he was jealousss

We also get a rare scene of the 5 people we never thought we'd see together, being beel, bael, stolas, amon and nabarious (I say this sarcastically because yk beel didn't run away, bael didnt scold beel, the trio didn't act like crazy fans)

Oh but I do feel bad when MC thinks that the chocolates are for Solomon tho that was ouchy

But overall I really liked this cards story, mainly because of beel, the new cutie that we see(HAVE YOU SEEN THIS HORNS THEYRE SO CUTE), and people of abysoss celebrating Valentine's day for us

There is so many memorable parts that are great for lore lovers that I didn't screenshot so go check the card out pls you will not regret I swear

[numberonecodwomenfan]

ok yall heres my thoughts for a potential olympics au.

price boxes. 100 percent. no clue why but he just has the Vibes. it’s definitely not his first olympics. he’s getting close to retiring from the olympics (which no is not an old man joke, they genuinely just have a very small age window to be like in their prime to compete. simone biles is 27 and she’s considered on the older side for olympic athletes).

gaz does gymnastics. look at him man he just looks like a gymnast. it’s his first olympics and while he’s not really an underdog he’s not very well known. he is however definitely getting the stephen nedoroscik treatment (immediately becoming the country’s sweetheart, having tons of fan edits, etc).

soap plays soccer (IT’S CALLED SOCCER 🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸) as a goalie and again, scotland’s sweetheart. they eat him UP. i mean look at him why wouldn’t they. he and gaz become immediate friends in the village and post online together. they make jokes on tiktok about getting freaky on the cardboard beds (ilona maher and nicole heavirland style) and no one ever shuts up about it. he’s new to the olympics as well.

ghost plays rugby because he’s massive and angry. i feel like this is his second olympics and he’s lowkey still mad his team lost last time but he’s pretending not to be 😭 he doesnt participate much in the dicking around, but since he, price, and gaz are all team england he gets spotted in some of the online shenanigans (can u tell i pay more attention to the athletes goofing off online than the actual games)

farah i feel does beach volleyball. shes tall (5’8” which is crazy because she looks SHORT next to some of the other characters) so good for volleyball, and i’d imagine urzikstan’s team would unfortunately be pretty small considering. yk. so they might only have enough athletes for beach volleyball since it only requires 2 players. im imagining this to be set in a world where farah wasn’t leading the ulf but the occupation and stuff still happened, but it’s over and urzikstan is slowly healing again. throughout the competition farah is very vocal about her pride for her country and she talks about her brother and parents, and says that she’s competing in honor of them. she also becomes one of those athletes that everyone roots for no matter where theyre from, simply because of a) how good she is, and b) the way she speaks about her family and her country, and how emotional it makes people.

alex surfs. look at that man and tell me he doesnt surf. i know we agreed he’s from some podunk midwest town but i can also totally imagine him being from like socal and being the most doofy surfer dude. he meets farah in the olympic village and is immediately infatuated. also i feel like he would have an obsession with one of the foods there like that norwegian swimmer with his chocolate muffins and post about it online.

(again can yall tell i pay more attention to the athletes dicking around on tiktok than the sports)

i wanna say rudy and alejandro both do equestrian because yk. vaqueros. but i cant tell if it’s too on the nose. let me know ur thoughts.

laswell does archery. i believe its one of the sports that is more likely to have “older” athletes (although i could be wrong) and i imagine laswell is like 45 ish. lesbians love her. this is not her first rodeo she has olympic’d before. people see her talking to alex on the boat during the opening ceremony and theyre like “is she his mom or smth wtf???” bc they look similar and they eventually just lean into it. like yeah this is my mom she’s like 7 years older than me. dont think about it too hard the numbers make sense. i swear.

könig wrestles because he’s massive. i fear booktok gooners would obsess over him and it would simultaneously give him a huge ego boost but also make him deeply uncomfortable. he’s a good wrestler tho so he toughs it out 😭 the gooners see him without the doofy little wrestler cap for the first time, realize he’s fugly, and move on. he can live in peace again.

horangi does shooting because i keep seeing that hot korean shooter kim yeji everywhere and shes so cool. also bc horangi is in the military in game so um. yeah. dude is cool as fuck and he knows it.

[ofc-vi-writes-too]

More Bucky Headcanons just because ✨✨

some are +18 so if that makes u uncomfy or u are -18 please scroll!! It is clearly labelled where they start, so if u only want one or the other the division is there!!

this got kinda long lol sorry

—————————————

PG 13 SECTION:

• He has a lot of old fashioned/outdated beliefs so sometimes he’ll say something and you just have to look at him and go 😀😄😀 “no.” and then have a conversation with him about why what he just said is objectively morally corrupt. He’s very open to it and it doesn’t happen a lot but when it does he’s willing to understand and he asks questions about whatever messed up thing he said. He’s very progressive for a man who was in his early 20’s in 1945.

• he has a lot of old fashioned/outdated beliefs so ur dates are literally superior and your instagram is filled with people commenting things like “if you look closely you can see me swinging in the background” or “hey god its me again” and you cant forget the classic “when will it be my turn.” He brings you flowers at least once a week, and chocolates are a MUST for him, and as soon as he found out about edible arrangements there is one on your desk at work at least once a month. you tell him your gonna get fat from all the sweets he brings you and he says “good” and thats the end of that convo.

• on the note of food, he’s a fantastic cook. Most of the time. He has tried on multiple occasions to feed you depression era foods (balogna caserole, jello molds, pea pasta, etc) one time he made you a jello mold with olives and tuna in it and you got physically sick (it was the first time he saw you throw up so he kinda just stood there like 😬 and patted your back like “there there, my bad ill never give you tuna+jello in the same dish again” which he STILL makes for himself) so he decided to stick with more modern recipes for actual meals (which are always delicious). But he swears on his life that dessert recipes were better when he was a kid, and he always bakes you the sweets his mom made when he was little such as, apple pie, wacky cake, water pie, prune pudding, frozen fruit salad.

• he really likes crispy cookies so he’ll take urs out when theyre cooked the regular amount, and he leaves his in the oven for like another 10 minutes at minimum. He likes it best when the edges of the cookies are literally burnt and when the chocolate even gets crispy. He dips em in milk though which i guess is slightly redeeming? But the crunch on his cookies should be punishable by law. It counds like crisps when he chews.

• Texts like:

Bucky ❤️❤️

Hey…

hey?? u good?

Yes. I just wanted to say

I love you…

ilyt.. y r u being

so ominous?

I am not…

I just wanted to send you

this big long paragraph chunk

about how much I love you. It

has to be grammatically correct

because I’m old and it will take

me 15 minutes at minimum to

finish typing this text because

I am typing with one hand, and

I have big thumbs. Thank god

for voice memos. Also what

does OMG mean?

————————————————————————

it drives you insane but he physically cannot comprehend any other way to text. He also had a flip phone until you forced him to get a new one. When he gets it he doesn’t send you texts anymore, and instead only sends voice memos (its so much faster)

• loves a sweet treat but is terribly embarrassed about it. Literally the trope where the big scary guy orders a black coffee “for himself” and his cute girly gf gets like a sugar unicorn rainbow suprise, and after they get their drinks they switch. He makes you order it with extra whipped cream and sprinkles. If you like sweet drinks too, he will still order the black coffee and not drink it. He will consistently order 3 drinks despite there only being 2 of you. Sometimes he drops it off w Steve because he knows he likes black coffee and he hates waste, but he is still too embarrassed to just order his drink.

• cried watching Up, Toy Story 2, The Princess and the Frog, Moana, The beauty and the beast (which was ur halloween costume the year he first watched it. His choice.) and Cars (you still don’t know why he cried about cars to this day and it has been YEARS.)

• despite being an ex assassin, when he’s not in fight or flight mode he’s terribly unathletic. He talks big game before a bowling date and he literally bowls a 45. You didn’t know anyone over the age of 8 could score that low in a game where you simply roll a ball. You also took him to In Shape to play tennis and he hit a car with the ball.

• his body physically cannot handle energy drinks. as much sugar as he consumes, energy drinks make him jittery and paranoid for some reason, and despite being a relatively quiet man, he doesn’t shut up when there’s a red bull in his system

• pro legalizing weed in all states. Tried an edible one time before bed because he overheard someone say it or read somewhere that it can help with sleep, and he swears he had never slept that good in over 100 years of being alive. Even pre super soldier serum.

• He’s a man of few words so in the beginning of u 2 going out there would be long periods of awkward silence. He took you on a lot of movie dates so he could avoid this problem as much as possible.

•Def doesn’t wear his arm to bed so you guys have an easier time spooning. You don’t have to deal with the problem that a lot of couples have where you wanna cuddle but his arm falls asleep cs ur laying on it. but for him theres no arm to lay on!!!! yippeee!!! Cuddling in bed typically looks like him being the big spoon with his right arm around your waist. His left shoulder is in whatever position his decides is comfortable that night. He also has a habit of not sleeping with his head on the pillow so you typically feel his nose/breathe against the small of your back. He often kisses you there while rubbing your side to put you to sleep

• cuddling is a little different when he has a bad nightmare tho. Sometimes he doesn’t want to cuddle so he’ll lay on the floor on your side of the bed and go back to sleep there, or at least try to. Thats usually what happens if you don’t wake up. If you do, you go and get him a glass of water, and a cold rag to wipe is sweat off. You give him a minute until he’s ready to lay back down. He lays on his back, and you suction yourself to his side. One leg over his and your arm on his chest, rubbing soothing patterns to try and slow his hammering heart. You kiss where you can reach, but he’s huge, so its usually just his shoulder and chest, and you tell him all your favorite things about him, and how much you love him, and how safe he is here in your arms. It works 95% of the time.

RATED R SECTION:

• its ur lucky day if ur a pillow princess! he likes being able to physically take care of his partner without them having to do any work. He feels like it’s his way of saying thank you for staying with him thru all his trauma and whatnot

• if his s/o is plus sized he will make the effort to be able to lift 2 times their weight bare minimum (which doesn’t take that much effort on his part), and he gets a little smug when he lifts his partner up against the wall the first time and they’re a little shocked because hey no one has ever been able to do that before what is happening oh noooo BOOM you’re in love

• usually not the one to initiate anything. He feels like he’s pressuring you when he does, but you can always tell when he’s in the mood because he gets clingy and cannot look you in the eye.

• in the same vein, he doesn’t really get horny that often but when he does… whew chile GOOD LUCK. Super human stamina is a gift and a curse with him!!

• he doesn’t like to mark you up, but he loves it when you do. He likes getting done and seeing the scratches on his back in the mirror, or having to cover up hickeys with turtlenecks. His favorite is when he makes you help him cover the harder to hide ones to his with makeup. (he bought the right color for himself but didn’t know how to use it). LOVE LOVE LOVES when you bite him.

• Again, he’s typically a man of few words but he will mumble random things “to himself” but loud enough for you to barely hear it too. a lot of “so fucking good,” “pretty girl” “all mine” “all yours” “tell me I’m yours” “say your mine” and other things of that nature

• I think I said this in the last one but I’m a firm believer that he wouldn’t wear his arm unless he had to/felt unsafe. and I would argue that he feels pretty safe if yall are doing the shaboingboing. SO holding you is a little difficult for your amputee bf. Getting into a good and comfortable position for both of you tends to bring a lot of laughs.

•He likes to touch you a lot while y’all are getting down and dirty. It helps ground him in a way. He struggles a little bit with dissociation, even when getting intimate so being able to feel your skin under his palms helps keep him on Earth and focused on getting his s/o off.

————————————————————————

A/N: thank you if you resd this far. dont be shy and leave a note behind! i have more chapters of friends dont on the way i swear. Im genuinelu just slow IM SORRY AHH

anyways good night cuties 🌙💫⭐️✨

[ohwormwood]

random thoughts i have while playing isat pt. 1

(compiled so i dont keep spamming others and my own blog, o7)

[woe! spoilers be upon ye!]

the daydreaming one is just like me for real and by that i mean they also think about found family tropes constantly

what the hell does siffrin have against croissants,,,, and isn't pan au chocolate just the same kind of pastry but with chocolate,,, is this the french equivalent of comparing hamburgers to meatloaf

odile, every time siffrin makes the deliberate choice to be close to isabeau while also being aware that they are OBLIVIOUS:

"i'll always be by your side, whether in battle or in bed" "what i nice guy" siffrin would be the type of person to say "they seem like really good friends" when looking at a pair of lesbians i swear

i had a thought last night where the forgotten language is just french but reversed and i have no idea where that came from but i think its funny

i really like worldbuilding so i am the type of player in rpgs to go through every single book that contains lore,,, and that's why it takes me so long to finish games,,,

HELP THE NOTE ON TIME CRAFT,,, WITH THE FACE,,, IS THAT THE CHANGE GOD

siffrin is uncannily good with people, at least at the start of the game,,, like, the charisma is off the charts, theyre so sweet and kinda just get what everybody needs in a conversation,,, but as soon as the subject turns onto themselves they just. flounder.

mirabelle gets my second flower of the game

i LOVE bonnie's writing,,, kids being written as if they are ACTUAL KIDS without being portrayed as dumb or ignorant is so so so important to me,,,

THANK YOU KIND WIZARD. FOR MAKING ME A FROG.

i just looked up what samosas are and i am desperate to eat one,,,

I MISSED THE OPTION TO EAT MORE FOOD,,,,, IM A FAILURE,,, BONNIE IM SORRY,,,

odile and bonnie's dynamic means so much to me,,,, just a wine aunt and her favorite neurodivergent kiddo,,,

every time i make a decision that makes any of the party feel even remotely bad i cringe inside,,,, siffrin you and me should NOT be this similar,,,,

siffrin canonically just. picking up random shit is so corvid coded of him hehehehehe

[milkyst4rs]

Hi hi! Can i request diluc childe and thoma (seperate) with reader thats gentle and dosent get mad easily but whenver theyre alone they curse like a sailor over anything that made reader pissed off. Reader dosent like showing theyre anger so they release theyre anger alone and got caught by them one day (maybe even caught violently stabbing raw chicken and vegetables while making dinner hahshs)

(Sorry this was long)

You good?

diluc, childe, thoma x gn reader. crackfic

thanku for ur request! Hope u like it🫶🏽 Thomas one is so fluffy☠️ can yall tell i love him

Diluc

Flowery, angelic, soft. Those were the 3 descriptors diluc would often tell people when they would enquire about you, his s/o. You were like a saint, always understanding, talking to the children of the town, picking flowers for him everyday.

So why were you angrily cursing at a pile of burnt cookies in the kitchen?

Diluc had just gotten home from his nightly batman duties and was concerned when you didn't reply to his usual, "I'm home, dear."

He heard a commotion in the kitchen.

"I swear on the 7 fucking archons, if this next batch of cookies doesn't turn out perfect I will actually kill someone."

Diluc's eyes widened. What was going on in there? He had to see if everything was alright. He slid the door to the kitchen open.

"Dear? Is everything oka-"

"holy shit- oh hey honey! Welcome home! How was your day, love?"

Momentarily ignoring your change in vocabulary, he took a scan throughout the kitchen. A burnt mountain of chocolate chip cookies stood there on the counter.

"I, uh. I see that you're baking cookies..."

"Mhm! I got a little bored, all the ingredients I needed were all here so I thought of making something sweet for you!"

"I see, thank you darling. It seems like you're having...some trouble? I've never heard you so frustrated dear, though I must say it is quite amusing."

He said chuckling, he walked over to the burnt cookies and took out a...cheese grater? He walked back to you and pushed the cookies and grater toward you, was he expecting you to do something with this orrrr?

"Adelinde taught me this trick, if you have burnt your cookies, just grate the charred sides and it will look and taste perfect."

"Shit, really? Thanks love!"

He has no clue how your choice of words can go from vulgar to sweet and loving, but he finds it kinda hot.

Childe

You and childe were polar opposites. He was a bloodthirsty son of a bitch and you were caring and nurturing, against violence and hate.

The people of Snezhnaya have no clue how the two of you got together but hey, it seems like it's working out well.

Whenever you and your boyfriend would go out for dates, people would hesitantly greet the two of you so they don't get put on the Fatui's hit list. You noticed this, however, and decided to tell people that you aren't going to hurt or put in a bad word about them. After awhile, everyone was happy to see you waltz into their shop, taking a look around and initiating small talk.

Today, you had asked childe to help you with physical combat, he gladly accepted of course.

He brought you to his usual practice area so he could teach you tricks on a dummy. Practice went well, you managed to build up stamina and strength in your arms.

"Phew! You learn quick babe! Let's take a break, wait here I'll go get us some drinks."

He pressed a kiss on your forehead and walked out of the practice grounds. You decided to practice a little more while waiting for him.

You were fired up. Landing hits and punches on the dummy like it was your worst enemy.

"Fuckin' bitch."

A kick to the head.

"Argh! Yeah that's right, cry little fucker!"

A punch to the jaw.

This was fun! It's a great stress reliever too.

While you were cursing at the poor dummy, unbeknownst to you, your lovely boyfriend was standing behind a wall giggling at your vulgar choice of words.

He had come back 3 minutes ago, no harm in watching his precious s/o completely obliterate his training dummy right?

"I didn't know you were such a fighter [name]! You can land hits physically and mentally, very impressive sweets."

You flushed the moment you saw childe walk to you.

"Don't you dare tell anyone about this. I was in the zone."

Childe chuckled and passed you your drink,

"Ok ok! You're really cute when you get all fired up ya' know?"

Thoma

Ah my sweet sweet boy. He thought he knew everything about you, that you two were made for eachother. Imagine his shock when he sees you repeatedly stabbing a boiled chicken while cursing at it.

Where did the soft and loving [name] go? Is the chicken okay? (Obviously not since it's boiled but thoma is too concerned to think logically.) He remembered you saying that you'd be the one making dinner today, he's never seen this kind of cooking method before. Ah! Maybe you're using a technique from...what's his name? Gordon Rambly? Corden Ramsly?

He jumped out his thoughts and rushed to your side, worried that you might stab your hand accidentally.

"[name]! What's going on?? Are you alright?"

"Oh! Thoma! Thank the archons, please help me. This dumb crusty ass of a chicken won't cook properly! I've been trying to make it nice and tender but IT KEEPS. GETTING. STIFF."

Thoma's eyes went wide as frisbees.

"Ah! [name], mind your language! People can hear you! And, the water has got to boil on medium heat, you set it way to high!"

"I DID SET IT ON THE STUPID MEDIUM HEAT THINGY. IT'S THE FUCKING CHICKENS FAULT!"

"Shh! Okok, come here. Calm down.."

He pulled you in for a warm hug, immediately your mind went blank at your anger dissipated. You felt him press a kiss to the crown of your head and you blushed.

"Sorry, I've just been a little irritated today.."

He laughed and held you closer.

"It's ok love. Come on, let's make dinner together!"

"But I wanted to make this awesome meal for you so you could relax...now you have to do all this. Sorry.."

He lifted your chin with his thumb and index finger, his gaze soft and loving.

"I am always at peace when I'm with you, love. No matter how mad you get."

He mumbled the last part but you heard it and giggled, leaving him a sweet kiss on the lips.

[rainofthetwilight]

Silly question but what is by far the stupidest thing you headcanon for the ninja?

HII ALIZIB!! TY FOR THE ASK!! <3333 (staring at every pixel of ur art rn)

hoo boy you're in for a ride, i have alot of them lmao

here we go:

-

lloyd has road rage, i am forever standing by this headcanon 😎 he also has his '3 am' days where he randomly goes out of his room at midnight to the kitchen just to eat some dry cereal, lord knows how many times he's scared someone from his glowing eyes

kai steals nya's eyeliner, also has road rage, takes long ass showers (and sings in em) and 100% wears those long acrylic nails for fun (he has so many scars on his hand bc of the amount of times he'd scratch on it)

yknow that annoying beeping noise for censoring swear words? zane has a switch entirely for that, it makes the team laugh their asses off especially when he goes into a fit (purposely just to make them laugh), like it's just constant "BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP" while theyre all already dead on the floor from laughter 😭

jay BARGES into lloyd's room whenever there's ANY update about starferer, and they go batshit when they rant about it, he's (canoncially atp) the MASTER of videogames and loves trolling random people, and he totally plays tomodachi life on his switch

nya's hoodies? theyre all stolen from everyone and she NEVER returns them (only under special circumstances), and she calls kai's stubble ugly while she goes crazy over jay's

cole dances at the most random of times, like he could be walking normally and then all of a sudden he just. V i b e s. one time he stood infront of jay's room and just started dancing out of boredom

pixal playfully fights with zane over what they should make for breakfast, only for her to lecture the ninja over how her blueberry pancakes are much better than zane's chocolate waffles

wu just. glows. at the randomest of times, and cringes at that moment he sang 'shake what ur mama gave you'

-

YEEAAHH i dont know if these count as stupid but AUGAHSHA I LOVE THESE IDIOTS SO MUCH <33 (i really should make a hc post bc i have alot of em)

[yourlegacysnotyourstosee]

I took notes on my thoughts while watching Nerdy Prudes Must Die because I did the same for Black Friday

DAMN Jon said “I am a TENOR”

I literally can’t get over how good he sounds

AHHHHHH LAUREN!!!!!

Bro these songs SLAP

Damn Mariahs hair is so long

Pete is such a mood

I’m literally terrified of being pantsed so bad

BRUH NOT MICRO-PETER

Omg hey Kim

When Cory enthusiastically agrees I’m dying

Omg Max likes Grace???????

Wait that’s so cute

Wait why’s he kinda fine

“His name is Jesus Christ” HELP 💀💀💀💀💀

It’s giving Apex Predator (from Mean Girls)

Damn these HARMONIES THO

My jaw is on the floor the way Cory is talking to her

“How am I supposed to study without listening to Spotify?” ME LMFAO

I KNOW HE DID NOT JUST MAKE AN ISSAC NEWTON JOKE

The way hes like “this is about thermodynamics” me me me. I hate when people make jokes about the things we’re not even talking about.

“NANI” NO WAY HE SAID THAT HELP💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀I LITERALLY CANNOT BREATHE 💀💀💀💀💀💀

Study date????????

Joey Richter my beloved ❤️❤️❤️

When Max enters and the crowd cheers

“Rondevuch”

Max literally has a God complex

Why is Kim everyones mom?

“Walen place”?????

“Mom will you pass the butt stuff????” HELP SHES BEEN CORRUPTED

NO WAY SHES FANTASIZING ABOUT MAX JAGERMAN

LITERALLY WHAT

Awwww Grace is experiencing Catholic Guilt™ ❤️❤️❤️

Girl wdym “he’s gotta go”???

Laurens character is bisexual???????

“WAIFU MATERIAL”?????? I literally can’t get over Jons character

Wait Grace is a little fucked up actually

Wait since the Waylons built hatchetfield high and the starlight theater, could they have cursed the town somehow? Like I know about the evil brothers or whatever, but I’m not super familiar with the lore

Wait I kind of love Grace now

Mariah slays

“Am I reading as Ghost, or Lin Manuel Miranda?” AWWWWWW❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

“Your fucking useless Pete.” Tgwdlm???? In MY npmd???? It’s more likely than you think

I’m very suspicious about how fast they seemed to put the plan together…

I know the plan wont work and Im so nervous I’m getting secondhand embarrassment so bad rn

“Skele-ens”

I need Max Jagerman actually

Awwww Max is a Theater Kid ❤️❤️❤️

AW FUCK HE DIED

HOLY FUCK HE DIED

GIRL WTF IS WRONG WITH GRACE

I love how upbeat this song is

WHYD SHE CUT HIS NIPPLES OFF WTF

Omg Dan and Donna!

Slay Mayor Lauter

His reaction to being asked to the game is giving- “she asked me for the time” “no way” “way :D”

THE NIGHTHAWKS MASCOT 💀💀💀💀

FUCK CLIVESDALE

DAMN THEYRE IN THE SPLITS GOOD FOR THEM

I like that the football team has only 2 players

I love when actors walk through the audience, but ESPECIALLY here when hes stalking Richie bro looks so good

Listen I know he’s about to kill Richie but HES SO FINE HELP

Im literally so Gay bro

THE SMOKE CLUB!!!!!!

THE NIGHTMARE TIME THEME

When she says hes not hot anymore girl speak for yoursef

Please let Grace swear

Oh fuck they’re giving themselves away

Grace Chastity said “acab”

Cory needs more songs

MAN IN A HURRY RETURNS!!!!!

Damn who is this girl in a trenchcoat 😍😍😍

GERALD OH MY GOD

Random side note but what happened to Robert? I was just thinking about how I wish we could see Hidgens again but is Robert still a part of Starkid anymore? Is he on to Bigger and Better things? Does anyone know what those are? I’d love to continue to support him.

Edit: NVM NVM I TAKE IT BACK I DO NOT WANT TO SUPPORT ROBERT MANION NO NO NO SIR

The invisible bird. Literally high school theater

“Heahs the thang about ah bahbecue”

“Ah wawna remember who ah ayum”

Ruth is so real for not know when to do the lights bc the cue lines were wrong

Ugh Laurens voice is so good and I know ive said that about pretty much everyone but it’s true

I know shes about to die rn

The red lighting gave it away

THE WAY HE LOOKS INTO CAMERA AFTER HE KILLS HER I NEED HIM SO BAD

Why did Kim scream like that

Awww Grace has religious trauma now ❤️❤️❤️

THE COPS THEME

OH MY GOD PAUL AND EMMA!!!!!!!!!

He gave her his number❤️❤️❤️

Hot chocolate boy!!!!!!!! I knew Peter was the hot chocolate boy but still

This duet is EVERYTHING

Obsessed with the fact he called MARIAH ROSE FAITH a MEAN GIRL

“Axe wielding maniacs?”

The Waylons did not dig that shit very deep…

OH FUCK THEY HAVE TO SUMMIN THE LORDS IN BLACK

I KNEW THE WAYLONS BUILT LAKESIDE MALL

im so sorry Zombie Max is So Fine

WIGGLY

THEY HAVE HUMAN FORMS??????

“Let me check my Christmas list”

“What do you want steph?” MORE tgwdlm? In MY npmd?

I feel bad for not knowing all their names

Max says bitch a lot

Damn this show is long

Omg this is so sad im tearing up a lil

Max is so fucking funny

Damn Grace is seducing Max this is hilarious

Fuck Grace Chastity or kill some nerds? One of the many difficult decisions in life

He decides to fuck Grace Chastity

OH MY GOD THATS SO SMART

Thats some fuckin Macbeth level shit

Kims teacher character is so cute awwwww

Paul and Bill dance Chaperones??????

Oh nvm that’s Jason

I don’t think I ever mentioned it but the dancing is really good

It’s very clean and crisp

In the last 2 hours I very quickly developed a massive crush on Will Branner

OH FUCK

WHATS GOING ON

WHAT

[cottondo]

hiiii! suffering rn...it's THAT time of the month </3

could u maybe write zooble x gangle x reader (platonic) and the rader gets bad cramps so its liike theyre trying to get readers mind off it, do smthn fun?

only if u want! <3

i’m so sorry lovebug 😭❤️ ik the feeelinggg, dw I got you ! ( i need this rn too but w jax lmao)

[ imagines ! ] zooble x reader x gangle

THEME; comfort

Weeeeell, it was that time again. That time when aunty flow feels the need to drop by. Even in the digital world, you still had to suffer.

Ughhh.

You’re curled up in a ball on the bed in your room. Caine was nice enough to give you a heating pad upon request, though he seemed confused about it when you tried to explain your cramping and aching pains. Nonetheless, you got the damn heating pad.

So now, you’re laying lifeless in a bunch on the bed. It didn’t take long for a knock on the door to break you out of your painful state, looking over your shoulder to see Zooble and Gangle standing there just . . staring.

You had a mountain of blankets and pillows thrown around you, burying yourself into the softness of it all. It was the only thing comforting you right now- - you had to take what you could get.

“Oh god. She’s starting to look like kinger.” Zooble makes a comment under their breath, and you glare.

“I’m dyiingggg.” You mumble out at them as they take a step inside your room.

“Come on, y/n. We wanted to get you out for the day . .” Gangle frowns up at you.

“Yeah. To be honest, I don’t like how shut out you’ve been.” Zooble crosses their arms.

“I swear, I’m not going insane.” You protest, sitting up to get a better view of your two friends. “I’m literally, in so much pain right now. I don’t wanna do shit.” Your voice whines out.

Zooble and Gangle exchange glances, and quickly walk towards you with outstretched arms. They grab you, and gently, tug the blankets away from your figure. “Yeaaah. Too bad. You need some digital sun.” Zooble argued.

You sigh, nodding your head as it hangs over your lap. Your body sits at the edge of the bed, soon looking up at them. “Fine.”

“We can go to the lake,” gangle suggests, her comedy mask now taking over her features. There was a crack in the middle of it, glued back together. You inwardly smile at her.

“It’ll be warm.” She adds on.

You nod, smiling, and stand up. “That actually does sound kinda nice.”

So, it was settled then!

You all grab some things to take along for your little gals day out, and head out. The sunshine was warm, and the salty air from the lake was refreshing. It was a nice change of scenery, which was definitely needed.

“Feel any better?” Gangle asks you, glancing over to your little set up on the sand. You sat there in comfy shorts, on a large beach towel. The sand felt nice under your toes, and the sun was the right amount of warmth to heat up your digital skin. It felt super relaxing!

“Yeah, definitely.” You smile over at her.

Zooble towers over you and reaches something from a beach bag. You look over to Zooble, curiously.

Taking it out, she tosses it down to your sitting figure. You squint up at her before glancing down to what you caught in your hands. Your smile pulls wider, and you look back up to Zooble, then glance to gangle. “You guys are the best.”

You tear back the corner of the chocolate bar, and lean back on your hand, smiling out at the water. Thank god you had these two to keep you sane.

[dudegender]

Have you read other SE Hinton books What are your feelings on the book? Who is your fave character OUTSIDE* of the main 7? Rank the main 7. What are your fave ships? What are some ships you dislike? What are your fave non-romantic relationships? (This can be close friends, familial, enemies or even just acquaintances) How did you get into Outsiders? What’s the favourite scene/moment from the book? Least favourite scene/moment? What’s your opinion of the movie? Have you watched the TV Show? Do you plan to? If you have, what’s your opinion on it? Who do you think is the most well-written character?

Five headcanons that are entirely self-indulgent Which characters would you have liked to see interact?

ALRIGHT BET

- yeah!! ive finished that was then, this is now and tex and am working on rumble fish!!

- i fucking love the book, best piece of outsiders media tbh :]

- probably tim shepard!!!

- steve [surprise surprise], two, soda, dally, pony, darry, johnny

- STEVEPOP 💖💖 then probs darbit and johnnyboy

- not counting anything weird or illegal probs cherrycola, parry [but i can be persuaded], and uhh dalpop or something

- curtis bros, two and pony [theyre brothers ur honor], and steve and darry [big brother/father figure hurt/comfort SAVE ME]

- if i said that fuck ass "how trans mascs look at you when you open the sour gummy worm bag" image and not reading it in like 6/7 grade would yall believe me

- probs the time pony talks abt going to church with johnny, soda, steve, and two

- uhhh idk actually, maybe the drive in scene im not sure tbh

- i LOVE the movie dude omfg!!

- i havent watched it, i definitely wanna get to it at some point

- .......if i said steve would yall believe me literally at all [i swear im not THAT biased guys 💔]

- RUBS HANDS MISCHIEVOUSLY steve is autistic as fuck [just like me fr], soda is a huge fan of butterfinger chocolate bars, two giggles randomly when hes nervous, steve and soda met in the 2nd grade and it took till recess at the end of the day for them to fully be best friends, and steves middle name is either scott [after his father, which i made up too] or silas [after his grandfather]

- uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh steve and literally everybody and then probs two and johnny!!

thank u anon for letting me yap 💖💖

[lowlaif]

Konpeito

never seen a star up close.

kinda wanna eat one.

and no, not one of those starlets hanging out in ridiculously overpriced LA villas - now finally available in "sustainable" minus an ecological footprint rivaling the size of their range rovers. the owner will fly in from two towns over so they get there early for their yearly yacht trip and ill activate adblock so palantir cant pester me with 50-euro airline ads to the maldives because shit, money is going to be a bit tight this month

i want to eat a star. actual heaps of gas and space dust and heat and whatdoiknow, im not a scientist, id rather not belie my words by googling the exact chemical configuration of something thats just bright and pacifying to me, something thatll melt on my tongue. 'm not even gonna chew. just gonna swallow it. the way i ate chocolate as a kid because relishing in something meant enough time for it to be taken away. the way i drink medicine because - if you gulp it down really quickly, it doesnt have time to taste bitter: anything can be honeyed milk if you clench your teeth hard enough

did you know thats what galaxy means anyway? milk? i wonder what galactical honey would be, then. whether id think its sweet or spicy, whether id like the taste or want to spit it out. if itd go down with well-rounded corners or lodge itself into my throat and stay there. fishbones. i also wonder whether astronauts ever feel scammed when they set foot on the ISS and realize theyre not going to bear witness to a sky made out of sparkling lights and silver threads and golden spots and rainbow clouds but rather just a sea so inky black it's going to make breathing difficult not just by lack of oxygen alone. earths much too reflective for any other luminescent object to be visible to the naked eye, ive been told, hence why youd just be looking at a planet so bright it surely hurts to stare at it, and i wonder what it feels like, being up there and gazing down only to be blinded when youre so used to looking up and squinting?

im homesick thinking of kids drawing earth into the upper right corner of their drawings. i dont actually know if theres stars up there though everybody tells me those pinprick lights are, and i cant breathe when im busy trying to figure out what exact level of depression the stale air around me tastes like. but something in my brain clicks when i think of shiny things and theres no empirical evidence that grabbing the sparkly stuff up above my head wont cure me so i want to, i want to, i want to. wanting always boils down to sinking your teeth into it and ive filed my canines far too often to fear the force of my bite now

people dance on the moon and i mimic their steps in my bedroom and though these are just small steps i dont know the names of the poor sods stuck on the ISS either, even though there's only been like 500 of them and they're all way better at living life than i am. my hands ghost over where i instinctively know the light switches of my flat are and wonder if up there somebody's got a nightlight, cheap plastic stars attached to their ceilings, one of those little projectors that put constellations on your walls. whether they ever have trouble sleeping and if yes, what the hell do they look up at then? who do they cast their wishes to?

never seen a star up close. never held one. but the concept is so familiar, so ingrained into whatever our shared consciousness is made out of, that i want with my molars. i itch to keep it in my tummy so it keeps me warm on the cold days and i only trust what i see so i want to look at it until my retinas burn, until the sound of the big bang echos in the confines of my brain. itll drown out all other unwanted thoughts and itll sing in the genetic make-up of my descendants long after my neighbours cant hear me sing in the shower anymore. ill cup my palms and pray into them. begging is easier when youre in position and im on my knees and i swear ill never run out of things to whisper to the radiant little ember in my hands because it is beautiful and because i like shiny things and because stars have always made us look up at them and

When I finally get my teeth on it and swallow it whole I'm sure a piece of the star will get lodged in my throat like. fishbones. in a last-ditch effort at vengeance. I'll spend the rest of my life attempting to choke it back up.

"I made it with love," I'll say after I finally managed to do so.

"Careful, it's hot."