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chuluoyi · 2 months ago

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𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐄

xavier x reader

while the entire kingdom of philos rejoices over the soon-to-be-born heir to the throne, the king’s unwavering priority remains clear: his queen

genre/warnings: mildly suggestive, fluff, fluff, fluff, comfort, king!xavier and queen!reader, pregnancy, spoilers! from xavier's myth shooting stars and taking elements of xavier's card silvery polyphony

note: i'm not actually a xavier girlie... but ever since his myth and anecdote when shooting stars fall, he's been marinating in my head :')

“Your Majesty, here are the gifts meant for the Queen by the townsfolk.”

Xavier’s gaze swept over the various trinkets that filled the throne room—from fine fabrics and glistening pearls, to handwritten messages with heartfelt wishes for the future royal baby and your wellbeing. He raised an eyebrow, a flicker of curiosity crossing his face.

"All this? You’ve inspected every single one of them?" he questioned, gaze flicked to Jeremiah, his aide. His cerulean eyes narrowed slightly. "Nothing with malicious intent?"

Jeremiah shook his head with a smile. "No. They are purely tokens of love and respect for Her Majesty."

"I see..."

Xavier hummed softly, the stiffness in his posture easing as the assurance settled over him—no harm would come to you. In the fifth year of your reign as King and Queen of Philos, it had become clear that the people had come to adore their queen to such an extent.

As they should. The king found himself smiling despite his usual composure then. You were due their respect for all of your service and compassion. And now, with you carrying the future heir to the throne, it was even more deserved.

"Has the Queen been well? She hasn't been around much," Jeremiah asked, a knowing look crossed his face. "After all, you're counting down the days now..."

With the royal physician declaring you were at full-term, you could give birth any day now. Xavier would be lying if he said he wasn't antsy, but the least he could do in front of his subjects was showing an air of indifference.

But of course, Jeremiah knew him best after you.

"Why don't you pay her a visit? And oh, yeah, I think I've heard the maids saying Her Majesty is missing having the King serenading her!"

Your husband had been busy these past few days that he had little time to spend with you each day.

Of course, you missed him. There wasn’t much you could do while in confinement. And so when he entered your chambers on this windy winter day, you were more enthusiastic than you should have—

“Xavier!” You turned to him and smiled so brightly, your excitement making you rise to your feet and scamper towards him.

But he was faster, closing the distance in an instant and catching you before you could take more than a few steps. His hands steadied you, as the heavy weight in your womb proved to be a challenge.

“You’re supposed to be on bedrest,” he scolded, a frown tugging at his features. His hands rested firmly on your shoulders, holding you in place. “Don’t move around too much.”

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” You giggled as he led you to your bed, but before you could settle in, a sharp wave of pain rippled through your abdomen and spine. The smile faltered on your lips as you sucked in a quick breath, instinctively leaning into him for support.

“What's wrong?” Xavier’s voice tensed with concern, his arm tightening around you as his eyes widened in alarm. His free hand hovered protectively over yours, which was clutching your swollen belly. "Is it hurting? I’ll call for—"

“No, no!” You declined amidst your labored breaths, mustering up a smile despite the discomfort. “I’ve consulted the royal physician. It’s perfectly normal for me to experience this... I just have to bear it.”

“How is this normal?” Xavier's brow furrowed with worry and sternness. “If this keeps up, how will you preserve your strength for the real labor?”

He had always detested seeing you in distress. It was evident in all his actions, from the earliest moments of your relationship to this very day, and it made your heart warm.

When the pain subsided, you made him sit on your bed and brought both your hands to cup his face, trying to coax a smile from him.

"Don't worry too much, love." You grinned, eyes crinkling. "On the bright side, it just means that our little star is thiiis close to meeting us."

Xavier found your gaze and for a moment, he stayed silent. His clear blue eyes softened as they held yours. You had always been like this—diminishing your own discomfort in favor of reassuring him, and if you thought it would make him feel better, then you were sorely wrong because his instincts to protect you were deeply engraved in him, and it only fueled his concern further.

His hands settled over yours, pressing them to his face.

“From what I’ve seen, this baby really enjoys bullying you,” he muttered sullenly.

You pursed your lips. “A friendly reminder, you’re the one who got me with child.”

“I’ve always thought that sexual act is the pinnacle of showing the depths of my undying loyalty towards you.” His tone was mock-serious, the edge of a grin tugging at his lips. “The baby is a pleasant gift, what I enjoy more though—”

Before you could protest, his fingers skimmed over your figure, landing with unmistakable familiarity on your ample breasts—

“I like these the most.”

“Xavier!” You swatted his hand away with wide eyes, crossing both arms over your chest in an attempt to block him from further groping.

He chuckled openly at how defensive you were, a playful glint in his eyes. With a soft pat on your head, he stood up and extended his right hand towards you.

“What?” You stared at his hand, almost squeaking, wary that his hands might wander to your sensitive skin again. Xavier let out another chuckle, clearly amused by your reaction.

“I’ve heard through the grapevine that Her Majesty the Queen wants me to serenade her,” he said with a teasing smile. “And as your humble servant, who am I to refuse?”

. . .

You has always adored how Xavier plays the piano.

He claimed he didn't like the instrument that much, but the way his fingers moved over the keys so effortlessly, each note flowing with such precision—it was one of the many ways he captured your heart.

You sat next to him by the grand piano, your head gently bobbing along with the beautiful rhythm he drew from the keys.

“You used to play this a lot back then,” you commented as Xavier started playing the piece he composed himself, one you often referred as ‘his very own soundtrack.’

Celestial Serenade. Xavier even had a name for it. Solemn and playful, it was the beginning that always got your heart racing. But when he reached the bridge, a gnawing sadness would creep in, tugging at your heart.

And suddenly, in that moment, you had an epiphany.

From the days you had loved him as a student in the Academy, and then as a knight and your crown prince, those lonely years of waiting for him to come back the first time, until that decisive heartbreaking day when you let him go into the unknown once and for all—

—and those gruelling, painful years of waiting that followed afterwards… up until the day he finally came back to restore Philos, to retake his throne, and to make you his queen in the truest sense—

Tears pricked at your eyes at the flashback of everything the two of you had gone through, right after he finished the outro.

Xavier paused, his fingers still on the keys. He turned to you, but his eyes widened as he noticed the tears spilling from your eyes. “Why are you crying?”

“Nothing, I’m just—” Startled, you quickly wiped the tears from your face, but Xavier gently lifted your chin, his touch soft but insistent.

He was worried, his gaze searching yours as if he was struggling to find the right words, his eyes full of concern. “Tell me,” he urged quietly, the hint of a tremor in his voice. “What is it? What made you cry?”

How could you explain what you had just realized— the weight of all that had brought you to this moment? The journey, the sacrifices, the love that had never faltered even in the darkest of times?

And it all culminated into one single sentence, as you stared right into those beautiful eyes of his:

“I love you, Xavier.”

In that very second, Xavier could’ve sworn his heart was entirely in your grasp. His breath caught, and the world around him seemed to fade, leaving only you—your teary-eyed confession and the raw honesty in your gaze.

Through countless dawns and twilights, through many starry sea expeditions and a daring voyage to the past— everything he had done to protect you. All these long years of yearning to see you again had led to this precise moment, where happiness was finally within your reach.

To know his beloved returns his feelings in full… He was overwhelmed by love you gave him, it made his heart so, so full.

Xavier cupped your face with both hands, his thumbs gently wiping away the tears that streaked your cheeks. “Don't cry, you big crybaby. Save it for when we welcome our child later.”

You sniffled, frowning at him. “So, you don’t love me?”

A soft smile played on his lips as he pulled you into his arms, wrapping you in his warmth. He buried his face in the crook of your shoulder.

“Silly... I love you more than anything in this world.”

Three days later, you went into labor.

The palace descended into chaos, with attendants scurrying through the halls. But amidst all the commotion, Xavier was the one who struggled the most to maintain his composure.

Your cries from behind the doors felt like a blade slicing through his chest. He wanted nothing more than to rush in, to hold your hand, to do something—anything—but the midwives had firmly insisted that he stay out of the way.

Xavier’s mind raced with worry, his eyes fixed on the door as though sheer willpower could ease your pain. The only thing that mattered right in this moment was you and the child you were bringing into the world—and it was taking everything in him not to lose his wits.

Then, amidst his fervent prayers, hours later, a piercing cry broke through.

Xavier froze, his heart lurching. Relief and disbelief flooded him all at once as he realized—it was his baby's first cry.

But what about you?

He so desperately wanted to see you that Jeremiah had to physically restrain him. The women assured him you and the baby were being tended to.

When they finally allowed him inside, he rushed in so quickly he nearly stumbled.

There you were, seated on the bed, hair disheveled, exhaustion etched into every line of your face, yet to him, you were radiant—utterly so. His heart swelled as he watched you cradle the newborn, cooing with a tenderness that stole his breath.

“Now, say hi to Papa...”

Your voice was almost feather-like, yet it was in that moment the truth hit him with full force—his baby was really here. He stared at the tiny bundle in your arms, awestruck, before his gaze shifted to your pale face again.

And you smiled at him so brilliantly. So warmly.

“Xavier... say hello to our son.”

He felt like he was in a daze as he slowly kneeled and took the baby into his arms. The small, fragile weight felt both unfamiliar and extraordinary. This child— was a part of him, but most importantly, he was a part of you too.

The baby stirred, and when his eyes blinked open, Xavier’s breath hitched. Those tiny blue eyes, a mirror of his own, locked onto him.

“Ah, he—” Xavier faltered, his chest tightening as emotions overwhelmed him. Holding his son, seeing him so clearly now, felt like an arrow straight to his heart. Before this moment, he hadn’t thought much about how the baby might look. But now, he couldn’t help marveling at the sight. The little one had his hair and eyes, yet your delicate nose and soft, heart-shaped lips.

In that instant, all his doubts and fears melted away like snow under the sun, replaced by a feeling so intense, so overflowing, it brought a lump to his throat and tears in his eyes.

This was love—raw and undeniable. A love he never knew he could feel so deeply, now cradled in his arms.

And also in you.

As his gaze found yours again, Xavier made a vow—to every god and deity that might be listening, that no matter where his life led him, no matter how cruel fate might twist his path again, if it meant getting even a glimpse of this unparalleled happiness with you, then—

He would endure it all. Every storm, every trial. For you, for the love you shared, and now for the tiny life in his arms. And if you were ever separated again—

No matter how, no matter how many times, through all means, he will definitely find you, always.

#xavier x reader #lads xavier x reader #love and deepspace x reader #lads x reader #l&ds x reader #love and deepspace x you #xavier x you #xavier x mc #lads x you #lads smut #love and deepspace xavier #lads xavier #xavier love and deepspace #lads x reader fluff #love and deepspace smut #love and deepspace #lads #love and deepspace scenarios #love and deepspace fluff

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zevrra · 3 months ago

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—𝐠𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐫 [⋆｡°✩]

syn: just some random sfw & nsfw hc’s i have for jayce and viktor from arcane!!

includes: gn!reader, 18(+) only, fluff, established relationships, mention of kïnks, mention of drinking/being drunk

extra(s): may flesh these out a little more at some point but these are just little thoughts i’ve had in my head recently AAA (check out my other arcane stuff if you enjoy <3)

JAYCE

a heavy sleeper!! can sleep through all 11 alarms he’s set(they’re all set 5 mins apart) but when he does finally wake up he’s somehow a morning person…wakes up full of energy and ready to start the day

drinks black coffee straight up. no sugar or cream and hates the taste but says it helps him “wake up”

sleeps in just boxers

a light WEIGHT!! it takes a total of 2 drinks before he’s buzzed. his max is probably 6 drinks before he’s almost black out drunk

takes 2 hour long showers

hums! he hums aaaalllll the time just anywhere and everywhere! is always humming some kind of tune

when he’s nervous he bites his lips

runs so so hot! like is a natural heater and is constantly warm so he prefers winter over summer

also packs on some weight during the winter like a bear getting ready to hibernate (he hates it, you LOVE IT)

i feel like he LOVES to swim

book smart not so much street smarts

is terrified of insects, specifically wasps (isn’t allergic he just thinks they’re the spawn of satan)

secretly dislikes most sweets. he doesn’t mind them but he wouldn’t reach for sweets over salty snacks if they’re offered

oh he looooooves spicy food!

pet name king. loves calling you everything but your name. especially enjoys calling you “baby” or “babe”

physical touch is 100% his love language!! keeps his hands on your waist or your back he just enjoys touching so much

clingy

clean and perfect handwriting

he’s also either a really good cook or a really bad one i can’t decide jshsjsjd

when he has a bad day he droops like a little rain cloud but is so easy to cheer up

has two left feet and dances for shit (does it anyway because he enjoys it)

is a whole ray of sunshine; laughs with his whole chest, smiles just as bright as the sun, always looking on the bright side of things

[—NSFW BELOW]

obedient asf!!

literally loves being told what to do and how good he makes you feel

is the definition of service top

THRIVES OFF PRAISE!

stamina goes CRAZY, takes some pretty good build up before he comes

100% is a munch

he loves coming home, shutting off his brain from being at the lab for too long, and sitting between your thighs while he makes you feel good

begs for you to sit on his face

begs in general all day every day for it though

“pleaseee pretty… let’s just sneak away…”

says please so much it’s incorporated in his everyday vocabulary

loves kissing too

wild rutting thrusts, fast and rough reaching the deepest parts of you with ease

list of kinks i think he would have; public outings, bareback, begging (receiving or giving), marking (hickies), püssy/cöck worshipping, size kink, breeding, exhibitionism, face sitting/fucking, somno (w/consent!), and sqüirtïng

is huge and he knows it

thick at the base, keeps his girth until the very tip, where he’s a light brownish-pink. veiny and girthy; 7.5 inches

VIKTOR

rarely EVER sleeps (at most he sleeps for prob 5 ish hours every night) but when he does it’s never in an actual bed; says sleeping anywhere else is more comfortable than a bed

a light sleeper for sure, he def wakes up at every little noise and it drives him nuts

is NOT a morning person. he wakes up groggy and irritated before he morning coffee

always asks for “five more minutes” when he needs to get up

either he sleeps in the clothes he wore the day before or when he actually changes he wears a t-shirt and swaps between shorts or actual sleep pants

sometimes needs to be reminded to eat because he gets so focused on working in the lab he forgets to eat a lot

is actually a decent cook! can make basic and simple dishes but nothing extraordinary

drinks very rarely and when he does it takes him chugging liquor to get drunk

messy but pretty handwriting (only he can read it)

a blanket HOG! he has to be fully wrapped up in at least 2 blankets before he can get comfortable enough to sleep

always runs cold and favors summer over winter!

it just gives you a nice excuse to hold his hand out in public

will drop something on purpose just so he can bend over and struggle to pick it up then act like you’re being mean to him jshshfk

will hit you with his cane if you ask him a stupid question

has the BIGGEST SWEET TOOTH

secretly snuck candy whenever he could growing up so now he constantly has it on him

says it helps him focus if he has a little bit of sugar

is actually packed full with sarcasm and makes so many sarcastic comments throughout the day

doodles when he’s trying to figure out an equation

his pet names for you consist more of “my love” or “darling”

his love language is quality time and gift giving (while he HATES receiving gifts)

writes you notes and leaves them around everywhere for you to accidentally stumble across and see

if you manage to get him to accept a gift, he uses/takes it everywhere with him

[—NSFW BELOW]

is a power bottom!

loves it when you dress up for him

SENSITIVE KING

oh he’s so sensitive, especially around his thighs

comes so so so easily (but can go several times in a row)

like a little handjob and some kissing could have him weak in the palm of your hand

well placed, slow, and methodical thrusts. never misses and it always leaves you breathless.

after a really good night spent together is about the only time he’ll ever sleep comfortably in a bed (next to you of course)

would try ANYTHING once

is not shy when it comes to telling you when he wants to fuck

will grab you by the waist with his cane and pull you closer to him just to tell you he wants you sitting in his lap right now

gives me a lil bit of a brat vibes

“why don’t you try asking nicely darling.”

list of kïnks i think he would be into: dacryphilia, edging, overstimulation, choking, blindfolds, biting/marking, degradation/praise, püssy/cöck worshipping, oral, cüm play, roleplay (secretly loves professor/teacher stuff)

not as thick as jayce but he makes up for it with length, pale until the tip where he’s a pretty pink. slightly curved upwards, 6 inches

#zevrra zevrra!#zevrra’s hc’s #spicy zev!!#arcane #arcane hcs #arcane fluff #jayce arcane #arcane jayce #viktor arcane #jayce headcanons #viktor headcannons #jayvik #jayvik x reader #gn!reader #jayce x gn!reader #viktor x gn!reader #my personal hc’s btw!

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beefcakekinard · 4 months ago

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top 5 times tommy kinard was husband-shaped

turns out i've got opinions about this.

5. attending a cowboy funeral (8x05)

you don't watch your beboiled boyfriend give a eulogy to a 200-year-old cowboy mummy in a full suit if you're not in it for the long haul. this is a show of commitment on the same level as promise rings.

4. getting that coffee (7x05)

who but a future husband would look at buck like this after being caught in the blast radius of his self-destruction on a first date?

3. bringing buck breakfast 'in bed' (8x05)

8x05 gave and gave and gave with acts of service tommy. you just know he set his alarm early enough so he knew he'd be up before buck, and he set his phone to vibrate so buck wouldn't hear it. he spoils his man and i love to see it.

2. taking care of buck (8x05)

fluffing his pillow (not a euphemism). changing his ice pack. sleeping on the couch with the smallest blanket in the world just so he'd be right there in case buck needed something in the middle of the night. related to the last entry, but disinct enough to deserve its own mention.

1. the loft dinner (7x10)

look. this is it for me. this is the moment that made me go oh. he is husband-shaped. i think this moment in particular gets overlooked because it immediately precedes tommy giving buck the green light to call him daddy, but look how soft he is! how concerned and caring - how attentive, to notice that buck was feeling off! this moment is unbeatable to me, but if the writers want to take that as a challenge, well, i certainly won't stop them.

#rose.txt #bucktommy #tommy kinard #my main criteria for husband shapedness wrt tommy are Soft. Sweet. and So so beautiful #shoutout to the WONDERFUL AND SUPREMELY GENEROUS GIFMAKERS who share their creations with us!!

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neferaskingdom · 5 months ago

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♡ Sign Here… Wait, What?! | CL16

NEFERASKINGDOM

Summary: Two strangers hit the courthouse for a ticket and a typo fix—next thing you know, they’re accidentally married. Chaos, a clerk who couldn’t care less, and a fiancée on the verge of a meltdown, convinced it’s all some evil plot. Spoiler: it’s not.

"For the last time, Brittany, it wasn’t on purpose!"

A/N: Inspired by my writer's block for my other fic and that one video of Charles just randomly signing anything he's handed.

CHARLES LECLERC MASTERLIST | MAIN MASTERLIST

The courthouse was an absolute disaster. It was understaffed, overcrowded, and seemed to be held together by the fragile thread of everyone’s fraying sanity. You had been stuck there for hours, and all for a minor spelling error in your legal name. At this point, you were half convinced you’d be old and gray before they got to you. The whole place felt like a purgatory of paperwork.

The guy sitting next to you looked equally miserable. He had a baseball cap pulled down low and sunglasses on like he was trying to go incognito in the world’s least glamorous place. You hadn’t exchanged many words, but the mutual annoyance simmering between you two was almost palpable.

“This is hell,” you muttered, crossing your arms tightly. “Who knew fixing one typo would take all day?”

The guy let out a long, weary sigh. “Tell me about it. I’ve been here for hours. And all for a stupid speeding ticket.”

You shot him a sideways glance. “A speeding ticket? In this city? I didn’t think that was even possible.”

He gave a small chuckle, shaking his head. “Yeah, I guess I just had to be that guy.”

The shared complaint was enough to crack a small smile out of you. But that was the only bright spot in this nightmare of a day. Every time the overworked and increasingly agitated clerk called someone forward, she did it with the enthusiasm of someone trapped in the seventh circle of customer service hell. Her eyes screamed “don’t even think about making my day worse,” and the way she barked out “Next!” like she was calling people to their doom wasn’t helping anyone’s mood.

Finally, the fateful “Next!” came again, and both you and the guy next to you jumped up at the same time. You both stared at each other, disbelief and irritation flaring up.

“I think it’s my turn,” you said, arms crossed.

He raised his eyebrows under the brim of his cap. “Uh, no, I’ve been waiting way longer.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve been waiting forever for a typo correction!”

“And I’ve been here since this morning for a stupid speeding fine!” he shot back, his voice rising in frustration.

You both stormed toward the counter, practically shoving each other out of the way, bickering like children. The clerk didn’t even look up from her screen, clearly sick of everyone and everything. “Names,” she demanded with the enthusiasm of a broken vending machine.

“Charles Leclerc,” the guy said, jumping in before you could even open your mouth.

You blinked at him in surprise. Charles Leclerc? Who just throws out their full name like that? You barely had time to process before the clerk barked out her next order.

“Both of you, step forward.”

“Wait, what? Why me?” you blurted out, confused as hell.

The clerk didn’t respond. She just jabbed her finger at the space in front of her, signaling for you both to step up. You shot Charles a questioning look, but he seemed just as lost as you were, though he didn’t argue. Sighing in defeat, you stepped up beside him.

The clerk slapped two pieces of paper on the counter with the grace of a war general deploying a tactical nuke. “Sign here.”

Charles didn’t even hesitate. He grabbed the pen and signed his paper with an alarming speed, as if this was something he did every day. You stared at him like he’d lost his mind.

“What are you doing?” you whispered, still unsure why either of you were signing anything.

“I dunno,” he muttered back, not looking up. “People give me stuff to sign all the time. It’s muscle memory.”

Muscle memory? Who just signs things without reading them?! You were about to protest when the clerk shot you a look so sharp it could have pierced through solid steel.

“Sign,” she repeated, her voice low and dangerously calm.

Your stomach twisted in confusion, but the clerk’s death stare was enough to make you scribble your name down without another word. It didn’t feel right, but you were too exhausted to fight. The ink had barely dried on the paper when the clerk slammed a stamp down and said, with zero enthusiasm, “Congratulations, you’re married.”

A beat of stunned silence.

Then chaos erupted.

“WHAT?!” you and Charles screamed simultaneously, both of you staring at the clerk in absolute horror.

Charles dropped the pen like it had just burned his hand. “Wait—what do you mean married?!”

“I’m here for a speeding ticket!” he continued, his voice cracking in disbelief.

“And I’m just here to fix a typo!” you added, throwing your hands up. “How did we just get married?!”

The clerk just raises one eyebrow and looks at her computer screen “But it says here that a Charles is supposed to get married today”

“Well clearly it’s not me!” he screams.

The clerk, utterly unfazed by the chaos she had just unleashed, didn’t even bother to look up from her computer. “You signed the marriage certificate. You’re married.”

You blinked at her, feeling like the room was spinning. “How—no, there’s got to be some mistake. We can’t be married. Can’t you just, I don’t know, not register the paperwork or something?”

The clerk slowly raised her eyes to look at you, her expression blank and dead inside. “It’s against the rules,” she said, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Against the rules?!” you repeated, your voice reaching a higher pitch.

Charles let out a panicked laugh, running a hand through his hair. “This is insane. This can’t be happening. I’m not even supposed to be getting married!”

Suddenly, a man in the back of the room shot to his feet, waving his arms frantically. “WAIT! WAIT, NO! I’M CHARLES ANDERSON! I’M THE ONE WHO’S SUPPOSED TO BE GETTING MARRIED TODAY!”

The whole room turned to look at him as he came barreling toward the counter, his crumpled papers in hand.

“YOU CALLED FOR CHARLES!” he shouted, pointing accusingly at the clerk. “I’M CHARLES ANDERSON! THEY’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE MARRIED! I AM!”

You and Charles Leclerc whipped your heads toward each other, eyes wide in absolute disbelief. “Oh my God,” Charles muttered, shaking his head. “This is an actual nightmare.”

You stared at him, trying to make sense of everything. “I don’t even know you!”

Charles Anderson was now pacing in front of the counter like a madman, his papers flailing in his hand. “My fiancée’s going to kill me! They took our spot!”

You turned to face him, throwing your hands in the air. “We didn’t ask for this, okay?!”

“Can we fix this?” Charles asked the clerk, his voice cracking slightly from panic. “Like, can we just undo it? Cancel the whole thing? Please?”

The clerk let out a slow, dramatic sigh as if they were asking her to climb Mount Everest. She clicked a few buttons on her computer, then looked up at you both with the same bored expression. “Closest annulment appointment is… this Tuesday.”

“TUESDAY?!” you both screamed, causing half the room to turn and stare at you.

Charles Anderson let out a high-pitched shriek. “But my wedding is supposed to be TODAY! WHAT ABOUT MY WEDDING?!”

You whirled on him. “NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR WEDDING, CHARLES ANDERSON!”

Charles Leclerc was pacing now, hands on his head like he was trying to keep himself from exploding. “I can’t believe this is happening. This can’t be happening. I came here to pay a stupid speeding ticket, and now I’m married?”

You pinched the bridge of your nose, feeling like you were going to hyperventilate. “I came here for a typo correction. This was supposed to be the easiest thing ever, and now I’m married to someone I don’t even know!”

Charles Anderson, still flapping his marriage certificate, looked like he was going to start sobbing any second. “My fiancée is going to leave me. She’s going to walk out of this courthouse and leave me. We’ve been planning this for months!”

You threw your hands in the air. “This is not about you, Charles Anderson! We just accidentally got married, and you’re worried about yourself?!”

Charles Leclerc spun around to face the clerk, practically begging. “Please, can’t you just… not file the paperwork? We didn’t mean to sign anything!”

She stared at him, eyes glazed over, before sighing deeply. “It’s against the rules.”

“AGAINST THE RULES?!” Charles repeated, his voice reaching a panicked squeak.

The clerk took another slow sip of her coffee. “You can get an annulment. On Tuesday.”

Charles threw his hands in the air, pacing faster. “This is insane. I can’t just—Wait.” He turned to you, blinking rapidly. “Who even are you?”

You blinked back, equally confused. “I don’t know! I mean—I’m me? Who are you?”

“I’m Charles Leclerc,” he said, as if that was supposed to mean something.

You squinted. “…And?”

“And I drive in Formula 1.”

You stared at him blankly. “What’s that? A type of bus?”

Charles Anderson finally chimed in, “Oh my God, you don’t know who Charles Leclerc is?!”

You turned to glare at Anderson. “I don’t care! I just want to undo this whole mess!”

Charles Leclerc let out a frustrated groan. “This is the weirdest day of my life.”

“Oh, you think?” you shot back, throwing your arms up. “This is not how I imagined my day going either!”

Charles Anderson was now pacing in circles, mumbling about his ruined wedding day. The clerk, unbothered by the chaos she had caused, sipped her coffee again, clearly wishing she were anywhere else.

“This is insane! Can’t you just shred the papers or something?” Charles Leclerc was practically pleading now, his hands gesturing wildly like he was on the verge of losing it. “We didn’t mean to get married! Just pretend it never happened!”

The clerk, still sipping her coffee like none of this was her problem, took an agonizingly slow sip and deadpanned, “As I’ve said already, it’s against the rules. The paperwork is in. It’s legal. You’re married.”

“WHAT RULES?!” you cried, throwing your hands in the air. “There’s no way we’re stuck because of a technicality! This isn’t an episode of Law & Order! No one’s going to arrest you for this!”

The clerk blinked at you, her expression as blank as ever. “The rules are the rules,” she said, like she had this line tattooed on her forehead. “Take it up with a judge.”

Just as you were about to lose your mind, there was a loud crash behind you. You turned in time to see a woman in a wedding gown who was most definitely Charles Anderson’s fiancée, kick a chair out of the way, marching up to him like a woman possessed.

“YOU’RE DOING THIS ON PURPOSE AREN’T YOU?” she screeched, pointing an accusing finger at Anderson, who shrank back in terror. “You just didn’t want to marry me, so now you’re pulling this stunt?”

“What?! No!” Anderson yelped, looking around the courthouse like he could find an escape hatch. “It’s not my fault Brittany! They—” he pointed at you and Charles Leclerc, “—they’re the ones who got married!”

Brittany wasn’t having it. “Yeah, right! You’ve been making excuses for months, and now you’re going to try and pin this on them?! What, did you pay them to mess up the paperwork?”

You waved your hands in a panic. “Lady, we don’t even know each other! I’m literally just here to fix a spelling mistake in my name!”

Charles Leclerc jumped in, looking equally panicked. “And I’m just here for a speeding ticket! I don’t even know what’s going on!”

Charles Leclerc looked like he was officially losing his mind. He was pacing in circles, gesturing wildly at the air, as if the universe might suddenly intervene. “I have a race next week! I can’t be married right now! This is insane!”

You stared at him, completely lost. “What are you even talking about? Why does a race have anything to do with this?”

Charles paused mid-panic, looking at you like you’d just said the sky was purple. “For the last time I’m a Formula 1 diver!.”

You blinked and scream out in frustration. “…YOU KEEP SAYING THAT LIKE IT SHOULD MEAN SOMETHING TO ME!?”

Charles looked at you like you’d just spoken in a different tongue. “Formula 1! It’s international. Fast cars, precision driving, circuits all over the world?”

You squinted. “So… like NASCAR?”

Charles’s eye twitched. “NO! It’s not like NASCAR! It’s—" He took a deep breath, clearly trying to calm himself. “Formula 1 is completely different. It’s the pinnacle of motorsport. We race on tracks, not ovals, and the cars are way faster and more advanced.”

“Oh,” you said, not even pretending to be impressed. “So it’s like NASCAR with extra steps.”

Charles groaned, pressing his palms into his eyes. “I can’t do this.”

Before you could respond, Brittany threw her hands up in the air, clearly fed up. “I CAN’T DO THIS EITHER!” She pointed at Charles Anderson, who was now trying to hide behind the counter. “I knew you were stalling this wedding on purpose, Charles! You’ve been dodging this day since we got engaged!”

“Brittany, no! I swear it wasn’t me! It’s just some kind of mix-up!” Anderson tried to reason with her, his voice cracking under the pressure. “It’s a misunderstanding! I didn’t plan this!”

“Oh, so you just accidentally handed over our wedding slot to complete strangers?!” Brittany’s voice was so loud now that other people in the courthouse were starting to stare. “And now we have to wait while you run around trying to fix your mess!”

You slapped your hands over your face, feeling the absolute ridiculousness of the situation weighing on you. “This is the dumbest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Charles Leclerc was now pacing frantically again. “I can’t be married! This is… this is a PR nightmare! my career is ruined! Fred's gonna kill me!”

“Oh my God, no one cares about your stupid racing career!” Brittany screeched, cutting him off. “My wedding’s been hijacked, and you’re worried about PR?!”

Leclerc turned back to the clerk, his voice rising in desperation. “Can’t you just void the paperwork? Pretend this didn’t happen? We didn’t actually want to get married!”

The clerk, completely unaffected by the chaos swirling around her, let out a slow, tired sigh. “It’s against the rules.”

“SCREW THE RULES!” you shouted, slapping your hand on the counter. “No one cares about your rules! Can’t you just— I don’t know— delete the file or something?”

“The government cares about the rules,” the clerk responded flatly, barely looking up from her computer screen.

Charles Leclerc, utterly exasperated, ran a hand through his hair and muttered, “This can’t be happening. This is the worst day of my life.”

“Your life?!” you shot back, eyes wide. “I just came here to fix a typo, and now I’m married to a stranger who yells about race cars!”

Leclerc threw his hands up in frustration. “I’m not yelling about race cars!”

“Yes, you are!”

Brittany stormed back up to the counter, where Charles Anderson was practically cowering. “And you,” she hissed, jabbing a finger into his chest. “You think this is some big joke, don’t you? Delaying the wedding again just because you don’t want to marry me?!”

“I swear, it’s not what it looks like!” Anderson pleaded, trying to grab her hands. “I love you! This is just a mistake!”

“Mistake my ass!” Brittany shrieked. “We’ve been engaged for three years, and now, instead of us getting married, I have to watch these two idiots get hitched by accident!”

You threw your hands up, eyes darting between Brittany and the hysterical Anderson. “We don’t even want to be married! This isn’t some elaborate plan! I’ve literally known this guy for less than five minutes!”

Leclerc, looking like he was about to snap, turned back to the clerk. “There’s nothing you can do? Nothing at all? Can’t we get, like, an emergency annulment or something?”

The clerk glanced up lazily from her coffee. “Like I said next available appointment for an annulment is this Tuesday. Wait no, it’s actually next Tuesday”

“NEXT TUESDAY?!” you and Leclerc both screamed in unison, your voices echoing off the courthouse walls.

“Can’t we just get another slot today please?!” Anderson wails

“Sorry but the fastest I can squeeze in a wedding is on Saturday 25th” the clerk says sipping her coffee nonchalantly.

“The 25th?” Anderson whimpered. “But… my wedding is today! The 25th is like 2 weeks away!”

“Oh, shut up, Charles!” Brittany yelled, practically shoving him. “There is no wedding today! You’ve ruined it! And you know what? Maybe that’s for the best!”

Charles Anderson looked like he might burst into tears at any moment. “But Brittany—”

“Save it!” she snapped, before turning to you and Leclerc. “And you two? Good luck with your stupid accidental marriage. I hope you’re very happy together.”

Leclerc, who had clearly had enough, shot back, “Oh, we’ll have a blast. Trust me. This is exactly what I wanted out of today. To marry a complete stranger in the middle of a bureaucratic nightmare.”

You rubbed your temples, feeling a headache coming on. “This has got to be some kind of cosmic joke.”

From behind, Anderson was still shrieking about his doomed marriage, while Brittany yelled about commitment issues and a wedding that would “never happen at this rate!”

Charles Leclerc leaned over the counter, looking like he was about two seconds away from losing it entirely. “Is there nothing you can do?”

The clerk just looks at him. “Next tuesday.”

He threw his hands up and muttered under his breath, “I should’ve just paid the speeding ticket online.”

The clerk, unfazed by the circus happening in front of her, sipped her coffee and calmly called out, “Next in line, please.”

And that ladies and gentlemen is how you ended up accidentally married to Charles Leclerc in the most ridiculous courthouse mix-up of all time.

823 notes · View notes

hongism · 1 year ago

Text

what lies beneath us. - c. san (m)

➼ genre; fluff, smut, slight angst for the first half but i make it better quickly promise ➼ pairing; san x afab!reader ➼ au; established relationship, college au ➼ warnings; explicit smut ➼ rating; m/18+ ➼ wc; 6.4k

one busy semester is all it took for you and san to find yourselves struggling to find footing in the storm that is your relationship, yet rather than let go, he asked for one more week, one more day, one last chance to help get you back to shore

part of the ...and it's snowing collab.

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➼ smut warnings; unprotected sex, oral: m, vaginal fingering, praise, body worship, service-top san, san has some slightly submissive tendencies, coming inside

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You normally wouldn’t find yourself in Wooyoung’s apartment on a Tuesday morning, sitting at the bar counter beside his roommate with two mugs of coffee sitting on the granite between you, but you also haven’t had any leisure time to waste lately. It’s a miracle that Wooyoung is even up before ten o’clock, though that might be in part due to you pleading desperately over the phone to come over.

“Oh, you make her coffee but not me? The fuck is up with that, Hwa?” Speak of the devil, Wooyoung comes into the kitchen still rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“She’s a guest, you live here. And I had to wake you up because you slept through three alarms so my sympathy levels are close to zero right now.” Seonghwa flashes a faux shrug despite the heated glare he’s sent. Wooyoung lets out a huff but lets it go in favor of redirecting his attention to you.

“Right, well, what did you need to talk about so badly that it couldn’t wait until the afternoon?”

“San is coming over tonight, I couldn't do the afternoon,” you mumble.

“Is it about him then? Did something—” he waves a hand through the air like that’ll explain his thoughts, and when confusion shows on both your face and Seonghwa’s, he gives up “—did something happen between you guys?”

“It feels a bit awkward,” you admit over the rim of your coffee mug. Wooyoung scoffs at that, but Seonghwa is far more forgiving than your best friend in that he sends you a sympathetic grin.

“Awkward?” he prompts, toying with his own drink. Wooyoung pushes away from the counter and turns to the coffee maker.

“I don't know. Yeah, awkward, a bit. I guess. Like we don't know what we're doing or how to be in a relationship anymore.”

The brutal semester you both just suffered has been the main factor in the wedge in your relationship. Weekends full of studying, ones that you spent together at the start of the semester when he would come to your place or vice versa so that you could be together even while working. Then, San started picking up more shifts at his part-time job, and you had to redirect your focus to a particularly important internship that required you to forgo those weekends in the blink of an eye. You did have two weekends free of school and work, but San had to rush home during one of those on account of his mother falling ill. The other one was shot by you falling ill with the worst cold you’ve known in all your years of living. San came by that Friday with your favorite chicken and beer, but you couldn’t bring yourself to risk getting him sick when you knew how important the semester was to him too. It didn’t keep him from coming by again Saturday and Sunday both, soup was delivered to your front door along with voice messages wishing you well throughout the night. Even your text conversations were fizzling into oblivion by the time finals rolled around, which only served to amplify your feelings of dread.

“Has he been acting differently?” Wooyoung tunes back into the conversation, this time more serious with his tone. “Like, he's pulling away or something?” Wooyoung stands on a different footing in this conversation and knows things Seonghwa doesn't in terms of your relationship with San. He's been there for you since well before you started dating San, and you're certain that he'll be there for you if it were to end tomorrow, the next day, or years down the line.

“It's gonna sound so childish and stupid but he hasn't been calling me nicknames since the semester ended.” You tuck your hands into your lap and shrink into yourself a little, feeling the hot burn of shame well up inside.

“That's not stupid at all, y/n,” Seonghwa reassures barely a second after you finish your train of thought. “That's not.”

“He's right. That's totally unlike San.”

“Not! Helping!”

“I'm just being honest?!”

“Look, y/n, I don't want you to start having doom thoughts or thinking the worst — that doesn't mean his feelings for you have changed.” You’re starting to think that you should’ve asked Seonghwa for advice from the start instead of Wooyoung. “Maybe he's feeling that awkwardness you are too, or maybe he's feeling insecure. The only way to know is to ask. Have an open and honest conversation about it.”

“But…” You glance past Seonghwa to look at Wooyoung's back. Without even needing to look back, he seems to feel the weight of your stare.

“You're scared that if you bring it up, the worst will happen and y'all will break up.”

“We've been dating for so long that I don't know what I would do if that happened. I don't know how to be single, no offense to either of you, but it's just that we've been together for so long now. I wouldn't know what to do with myself if it ended.”

“If…” Wooyoung bites his words back as though he's unsure of how they will come out. “I don't want this to sound harsh, but if all it takes for him to lose his feelings for you is one busy semester, then that's not someone I would want you to have a future with. I know it's not up to me and it's not my business, but I want you to value yourself more than you value your relationship with San.”

“I truly don't think he's lost his feelings for you, y/n,” Seonghwa cuts in again, hand darting out across the counter in your direction. “Woo is right; you should value yourself more than the relationship you're in, but that doesn't mean you can only have one of those things. They can coexist.”

“What if I’m fighting for something he doesn’t want any longer?” you inquire softly and under your breath.

“The spark isn’t gone, y/n, I’m certain of that much. Maybe you just… need to find a way to reignite it!” The coffee maker dings loudly behind Wooyoung. And like it’s turning on a lightbulb in Wooyoung’s head, his expression turns suddenly bright. “Why not do just that? It’s been half a decade, to be fair, so really you can’t be blamed if things feel a little stale. If you went and did things that made you fall for each other in the first place, wouldn’t that help a bit?”

“I hate to say it…”

“You always say that when I’m right!”

“Ignoring him, that does sound like a good plan, y/n.”

Despite the reassurance from both your best friend and someone you consider to be far more mature and wiser, it doesn’t fully quell the concerns settling in your gut.

It’s only been six days since you last saw San, though you would argue that it feels a lot more like six months given how absent you both have been from each other’s lives of late. While that isn’t particularly your fault or his wholly — it’s definitely a joint effort that’s kept you apart — it does make your skin itch with anxiety every time you think about seeing him again.

It’s all culminated into this moment right now, where you sit on the edge of your couch waiting for the doorbell to ring and announce his arrival. You want to see him, desperately so, you’ve missed him so incredibly much that you can hardly stand it. And yet — you’re rooted to the cushions riddled by anxieties. You tried to rid yourself of the lingering stress after leaving Wooyoung’s apartment by doing chores properly for the first time in months, going so far as to run to the grocery and restock some necessities as well. You hate to be the type of partner who cannot do anything alone without associating it with your partner, but San was on your mind throughout the day.

Will he feel the same as you even though the flame keeping your relationship alive has been inching closer and closer to nothingness? The two of you don’t fight, in fact, your friends like to say that things go a little too smoothly between you two, and while that’s true, they aren’t aware of what it looks like when you and San aren’t getting along. It looks the way this semester has, slow conversations that lead nowhere and less time spent in each other’s presence. You aren’t fighting right now, but you certainly aren’t all sunshine and rainbows. The weather mirrors your emotions — dim greys shrouded by white flurries of snow that have been falling since early afternoon.

You clench your fingers around the seam of the couch cushion. No part of you wants to play the part of the overbearing partner: if you’re too eager to see him, wouldn’t he find it off-putting?

The doorbell rings.

It takes a moment for you to brace yourself for impact, standing and walking over to the door as slowly as you can manage without it seeming like a deliberate delay. The second you open the door, however, your worries melt away for a moment.

San smiles so brightly like you’ve not gone a second without reveling in each other’s presence. The weather is clinging to his coat still even though he had to climb three flights of stairs to reach your door. The little snowflakes are beginning to melt into the fabric.

“May I come in?” The facade cracks a bit. It’s not like him to ask such things, but you choose not to hold it against him now.

“Yeah, yeah, I finally had time to clean the other day so everything’s — nice.”

If your smile is strained, he says nothing about it, stepping over the threshold and into your apartment like it’s the first time he’s ever done so. He’s polite all the time, but now it makes those seeds of doubt sprout further because you’ve been together for five years now, what reason does he have to act like a stranger in your home? A home he’s been in time and time again, one he’s slept in, fucked you—

“Do you want ramen or pizza?” You force the thoughts to come to a halt before your expression turns bitter.

“Let’s do ramen, I’ll cut up the vegetables for you.”

There’s an elephant in the room that it seems neither of you wants to address, and so you keep your mouth shut just the same as San with the thought of “maybe this awkwardness will pass after tonight”. You watch him remove his coat and hang it up on the door while still picking at your nails. He extends a hand to you, one you take eagerly, and you lace your fingers through the gaps between his. A bit like a well-oiled machine, you think, something that Wooyoung had noted about the two of you as far back as freshman year of college. San presses his lips to the top of your head. You lean into the touch ever so slightly.

You share in a quiet synergy that carries you through the motions of preparing food, with no conversation exchanged aside from a “watch for the knife” and “careful, behind you” on occasion. You’re still trying to psyche yourself up to bring up what’s truly on your mind, so you aren’t sure that you’d be able to get any conversation out without it spiraling into insanity right off the bat. For the moment, for now, you want to simply drink in San’s presence.

He hums as he opens a cabinet in search of bowls, but they aren’t there.

“Oh, I—I moved the bowls to the other side.” Three months ago, your mind adds. It would do nothing but add salt to a blossoming wound. San stops dead in his tracks too. He seems to suffer the same crisis that you do right then. After a few seconds of mental buffering, he resumes his humming and shifts to the adjacent cabinet like the moment didn’t happen at all.

You sit beside each other at the bar counter, atop the uncomfortable stools you’ve had for well over two years now, but it offers a weird comfort because it’s familiar, it’s something San knows, it’s something you share and have shared for years.

“Thanks for the meal,” San says, still wearing a bitten-back smile.

“Of course. Thank you for helping.” But the detrimental reality of not speaking to someone properly for a long while is that part of you forgets how to make conversation with them. There is nothing for you and San to “catch up on” seeing as you’ve been keeping each other updated on your lives through dry text conversations. “Um…” He’s eyeing you carefully now, and you could pass off the watering in your eyes as the spice of the food, but he would call your bluff in an instant. The funny thing about doubt is that once it’s taken root, it’ll keep growing back no matter how many times you chop at the stem.

“What’s wrong, y/n?”

“It’s just — I don’t — are we breaking up?”

San freezes halfway over his ramen, chopsticks nearly falling from his fingers as he rushes to put his noodles back down. Your shoulders start shaking before you can stop it. He doesn’t stop you from turning away from him, but San has always been endlessly patient and gentle with you so you don’t expect him to ask you to look at him anyway. He does rest a hand atop your forearm though, and his thumb drags small, comforting circles over your skin.

“Talk to me, y/n, what do you mean by that? Why would we be breaking up?” The words themselves sound calm. There’s a slight quiver to his tone, however, that makes you want to crawl inside yourself and disappear. “A-Are you wanting that?” Your continued lack of response makes San more urgent than ever, and he shifts his hand to your leg, spinning you to face him. You can’t be certain of the expression on your face (though you’d wager there is some degree of hurt); whatever San sees makes him let out a distressed noise from the back of his throat. “Come here, duck, talk to me.”

Standing on somewhat shaky legs, you push yourself closer to San, and he instinctually moves his knees apart to let you tuck yourself into the space there.

“Don’t cry, baby, I’m here, you can talk to me,” he murmurs, hands cupping your face in his hands. You reach down to cling to his shirt like it’s a lifeline.

“That’s the first time you’ve called me that in weeks. This is the first time we’ve spent time together in six days. We’ve barely spoken or spent time together all semester, and I know why — I know we agreed that school and work have to come first. I know that.” Your voice drops to a whisper as you lose the confidence to speak. “I didn’t think it would mean losing you though.”

“You haven’t lost me, y/n. I’m still here, with you, loving you just as much as ever.” San smiles a little as you push your cheek further into his palm. “My feelings have not changed. I thought about you every day, wondered how you were doing, and if you responded to my texts late, I hoped you were eating well and getting enough rest. I listened to your voice memos rooting for me every night. Your face was always the first thing I saw in the morning because I still keep that slideshow of you as my lockscreen.” Reaching around to the back of your neck, he gives you a little tug, and your foreheads bump together. “The thought of you helped get me through the semester because I knew that it was you who was waiting for me at the end of the tunnel.”

“Sannie…”

“How long have you been worried over this, baby? You should’ve come to me the moment you started having doubts. I wouldn’t have let this go on if I had known.”

“I thought I felt you pulling away so I was scared to bring it up. You weren’t calling me nicknames anymore, and I started reading into it too much and freaked myself out.”

“I’m so sorry, y/n. Don’t put the blame on yourself, it’s not a crime to have anxieties. I didn’t even realize I stopped using them. I suppose I just got swept up in my own feelings and wanted to call you by your name as much as possible.” He nudges you with his head again. “Because I missed you so dearly.” Your lips turn up at the corners, a gesture that doesn’t go unnoticed by your boyfriend. “And because I adore you so so much, my y/n.”

“Stop that.” You hope he doesn’t, truly.

“But I’m so mushy and full of love for you, y/n.”

“You’re gonna make me blush.”

“Oh, I can think of other ways to do that, baby.” San stands, subsequently pushing his body into yours, but your hands are still on each other, his moving down to caress the back of your thigh before he hooks his fingers around the bend of your knee and hoists your leg up over his hip. “I haven’t been good to you, my sweet,” he murmurs close to your lips. “What kind of boyfriend am I if I let you feel unwanted?” Your heart skips a beat as he grips tight at your other leg, then you’re suddenly weightless for a second as he hoists you up to his waist.

“We just ate—”

“I don’t plan on letting that stop me.” You let out a gasp as San traces the line of your jaw with his lips, hot breath spilling across your skin as he carries you from the kitchen. “Unless you want it to?” This damned man knows what he’s doing, he knows the hold he has over you — your brain is already turning into a foggy mess of want, and even the prospect of waiting two minutes for him to lay his hands on you is too much to bear. Your nails drag across his shoulders, tugging at the thin material. He misses the doorknob to your bedroom thanks to your antics, sending you against the wood a little harshly and forcing the air out of your lungs. “Sorry, sorry.”

“Still on the pill.”

“Hm?” he echoes, managing to turn it right on the second try and popping it open properly.

“I’m still on the pill,” you repeat. San freezes in place to stare at your face. You bring a hand around to toy at his parted lips with your thumb. “So you can fuck me raw.”

San becomes so dumbstruck that his jaw moves up and down over and over without any semblance of noise coming out.

“Fuck, you’re gonna make me come in my pants like a horny teenager,” he says under his breath. You drop your head back and laugh. San’s hold on you feels so blissfully warm. You didn’t even have time for this during the semester, sometimes thanks to your workloads but more often thanks to sheer exhaustion. A few solo jaunts before bed are hardly enough to please you the way San does. Based on how tightly he’s gripping your ass, he seems to feel exactly the same.

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

He manages to get you both to the bed without further incident, laying you down on the mattress with a sort of reverence that makes your chest swell with emotion. Even through the barrier of clothing, his fingers are hot and sear a path from your hips up your waist then right back down again as San wastes no time in stripping you of your pants.

“I missed you so fucking much it’s insane.” You want to respond, but the sight of your lover dropping to his knees at the foot of the bed stops you in your tracks. All you can do is lie there and watch him tug your pants off, lips moving to kiss each bit of exposed skin along the way. Goosebumps rise across your body when he kisses his way up higher. His broad frame cages you in the closer he gets to your face, and despite his hands being on the somewhat small side, they feel all-encompassing when they’re sneaking under your shirt and exploring the skin beneath.

“I missed you more,” you murmur, catching his chin between your fingers and angling his face upwards so you can properly look at him. “I love you so so much, San. More than I can put into words.”

“Yeah?” You make no effort to pull him higher although he moves as though you do and climbs all the way up to be right over your face. He hums before dipping down to kiss the corner of your mouth. “I think I’ve missed you more still though—” another kiss, this time to the opposite side of your mouth “—but you’re welcome to challenge me on that.”

“San,” you whine. He pulls back and sits back on his knees. Your brain goes totally blank watching him take his shirt off. It’s something you’ve seen time and time again, truly nothing new or foreign to you, but something about it now makes your gut twist in on itself. He’s lost a bit of the muscle you’ve grown accustomed to seeing on him, now softer around the edges, at the waist and across his stomach. It doesn’t curb your desire for him in the slightest; if anything it makes you want him more, to cling to him tighter and feel him firmer against you.

He throws the shirt down to the floor and drags a hand through his dark hair. His legs are splayed around yours, putting the prominent bulge in his pants on full display before you.

“I want you to use me, y/n.” He grabs your hand from where it’s resting against the bed and brings it to his chest. You dig your nail into his flesh like it’s second nature to do so. “Tonight, for your pleasure.” His eyes trail after your every moment, watching as you sit up and pull your legs out from under him. You graze the underside of his dick ever so slightly yet it’s still enough to make his lashes flutter.

“Then…” San is like putty in your hands, conforming to every move you make while still maintaining that unbreaking eye contact. He turns with you, and you climb off the bed to stand despite feeling seconds away from toppling over. All it takes is the slightest push against his chest for him to lie flat on his back. “Will you be good for me?”

His response comes in the form of a bitten-back whine thanks to you cupping the bulge of his cock as you withdraw your hand. It’s intoxicating to strip him of his jeans and feel every inch of his pretty tapered waist. You urge him to move further up on the bed, making room for you between his legs once you’ve tossed his pants down beside yours on the floor. The tip of his cock peeks out the top of his underwear, already stiff and leaking precum onto the elastic band. Saucy nudes here and there don’t do him nearly enough justice, you think. You tease just the bit of him that's exposed with your tongue, licking at the sensitive and swollen head, and he twitches beneath the fabric. Humming to yourself, you inch his underwear down just far enough to put his whole member on display, along with his balls, but you don’t go any further than that. It’s enough for you to get your mouth around him, after all, and that’s exactly what you do without giving San any time to brace himself for the touch.

He lets out a desperate moan the moment your wet heat envelopes his length, fingers curling into his palms around the comforter. His hips twitch with the desire to thrust upwards, but he keeps himself firmly planted on the bed, fulfilling his end of the bargain for you and being so delightfully good. The weight of him on your tongue isn’t nearly enough; you want him buried deep inside you as soon as possible, and you’d go on and do it now if you didn’t think it would hurt like a bitch given how long it’s been since you’ve taken him. San isn’t distracted enough to miss the way you retract a hand to touch yourself, and he fights to speak through broken moans.

“I w-wanna touch you, pretty.” You lift yourself off his cock until just the tip sits on your lower lip.

“I’ll let you later when I ask you to fold me in half and fuck me into the mattress.” You sink two fingers into your hole, taking San back into your mouth to revel in that full feeling again. You’re just as needy as he is, in reality, because your walls are already coated with arousal and it pools around the base of your fingers in such a way that it makes your cheeks flush. San’s noises aren’t helping in the slightest — for as quiet as he is in day-to-day life, he is ever so vocal when it comes to sex, especially when his cock is buried in your mouth. He’s just long enough to push right into the back of your throat, making it far easier for you to take him fully.

“Your mouth feels so — fuck, fucking good, baby.” If you weren’t preoccupied, you would love to return his words with your own, so you settle for tugging at his balls a little. It earns you a delightful little yelp, and his hips buck up to drive his dick further into your throat than expected. “Hngh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“I want—” you don’t finish your train of thought, too rushed to bother with it as you scramble to rid yourself of your underwear. San greets you with his hands when you climb back onto the bed and grabs hold of your waist. He tugs and pulls at your shirt until it’s gone too, leaving you with nothing more than your plain black bra. However, even that San seems to find issue with, because he toys with the clasp until it comes loose and throws that aside too.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs, settling back against the mattress. He’s always told you this is his favorite position, to see you straddling his hips and bouncing on his cock, though he favors missionary quite a bit as well because it lets him see your body and face while he’s fucking you (despite how much he loves your ass). His cock is trapped between your pussy and his stomach now, hard and throbbing for the same kind of stimulation you so desperately crave. You drag your folds along his length a few times just to tease San, but he grips your hip in warning. In hindsight, you should have let him finger you open more before because the stretch is far more than you remember — not enough to hurt, but enough for you to really feel every inch of him entering your body. It makes you writhe atop him, your spine arches, and you drop your head back. San holds you like you're a precious gem, thick arms circling around your waist as you rest your hands on his chest. The position gives you some much-needed stability, but San's fingers have begun to get severely distracting. He rolls his thumbs into your skin, pausing only to squeeze and pinch at the more sensitive parts of your sides.

“I’m gonna start moving,” you whisper like being too loud will break some sort of seal. San nods and unwraps his arms enough to simply hold your hips. Despite the decrease in definition of his muscles, his strength doesn’t seem to have gone anywhere, because he lifts you with such ease that it’s a bit dizzying. Still, he lets the control rest in your hands. You sink down slowly on his cock, letting your walls get used to the drag, before doing the same motion two, three more times. The first whimper to fall from your lips is what snaps your resolve. San’s hold on you remains firm but only to ease the strain on your thighs as you begin to pick up your pace.

“Beautiful, beautiful, you’re so beautiful, my sweet.” San rolls his hips up in time with your movements, driving his cock up into your cunt as you drop yourself onto him, and it reaches so deep inside you that you see stars behind your eyelids. “Missed you so much, missed this, seeing your body through photos wasn’t enough — fuck, it wasn’t enough.”

“How many, ah, times did you come to those photos, hm?” You crack one eye open to watch San’s face. He’s already flushed with want, but the red in his cheeks deepens more upon hearing your question. You lean your weight further into your hands. “I fingered myself so many times thinking of you, Sannie. B-But, hngh, it wasn’t good enough. Not as good as your cock. Nothing… n-nothing feels as good!”

San thrusts up with more vigor now, all but taking over for you to go slack above him as he drives your hips down with his hands and pushes his length into you from the opposite direction. Then, suddenly, his movements falter and stutter to a halt, and he looks just as shocked as you are when his cock twitches against your walls. A blooming of warmth fills you right after, along with the realization that San has just come inside you without warning.

“I-I’m sorry, I — I didn’t mean to, ah, I thought I would last longer.” He slings an arm up over his eyes, and the red in his face deepens in hue. “I’m sorry, I should’ve let you come first.” You click your tongue against the roof of your mouth. Leaning down over him, you peel his arm away from his face so that you can see his shamed expression better.

“Your dick is far from the only thing that can make me come, babe. Right?”

He nods a few times, but there’s still a pout on his lips. You kiss it away.

“Then—” you detach yourself from his body, bringing about an unwelcome emptiness as his spent cock slips out of you, and roll onto your back beside him. He watches with rapt attention as you spread your legs and open your pussy to him. “Why don’t you?”

San moves with surprising haste for a man who has just come, rolling into the space between your legs, and while you expected him to just use his fingers to get you off, he hooks his hands around your thighs and shoves his face into your used cunt instead. It yanks a startled moan out of you, and it’s only amplified when he closes his lips around your clit. He’s lucky you don’t give him a concussion with how quickly you slam your thighs around his head. You don’t notice that he’s moved a hand until fingers are prodding at your leaking entrance and urging the come he just pumped into you back into your hole.

“O-Oh, San.”

Normally, he takes his sweet time eating you out, bringing you to the precipice of orgasm before sending you right back down time and time again without release. Though, either out of lingering shame at coming early or simply out of a desire to make you unravel, San laps at your clit so eagerly that it sends shudders through you. You can feel your blood rushing lower as he urges you to come, walls clenching around his fingers. It only takes another second more for the first wave to hit you, and it makes you scramble to grab hold of San’s hair as he keeps curling his fingers over your sweet spot. He does so throughout each wave of your orgasm until tears burn the corners of your eyes and you’re all but pleading for him to grant you some mercy.

“You — you had nothing to prove, you know,” you say between desperate attempts to catch your breath. San giggles and looks up at you from his lewd position. “Ugh!” You shove his head away from you half-heartedly just to spare yourself more embarrassment.

“Oh, come on, don’t be like that, duck!”

You only go as far as the pillows, turning back to him immediately and opening your arms to welcome him into them.

“I came too early, of course I had something to prove,” he adds once he’s snugly placed against your chest. You slot together like two pieces of a puzzle, his head under your chin and your breath stirring the messy strands of hair in your path. “I’ve fallen out of practice. When was the last time I did that? It’s embarrassing…”

You can’t contain your laughter.

“You always come a little early when I ride you.”

“That’s not fair!”

All you can do to soothe him is pat his head. You feel a tad sticky and gross all over, but San’s warmth more than makes up for it, and if you’re not careful, you’re certain you’ll fall asleep within minutes. A small sniffle coming from the man atop you chases thoughts of rest away in the blink of an eye though.

“San?”

“’m okay, promise.”

“You’re crying, baby, that’s not ”okay“.”

“I just,” he inhales and licks over his lips, skating across your sternum in the process. “I wasn’t sure I was gonna stay afloat without you.” You comb your fingers through his hair.

“Tell me when you need me and I’ll be there. Always.”

“I didn’t want to disrupt your schedule and get in the way.”

“You have to trust that I’ll take care of myself and my responsibilities even if I help you too. You always tell me that when I worry over the same things. It goes both ways, San, okay?”

“Okay.” He nods against you. “Okay, I’ll try to remember that. As long as you don’t lock yourself away when things get tough. Rely on me if you need strength. And talk to me when something is on your mind.”

“Alright, we have an agreement.” Out of nowhere, you remember Wooyoung’s suggestion from this morning. Picking at a stray piece of San’s hair, you mull over your thoughts some more. You could let things settle as they are now since things seem to be back to a pleasant state of balance. But even so, would it do any harm to try anyway? “I’d like to go on a first date again. With you. I want us to go on a first date again.”

“Hm?”

“Like… I want us to go out like it’s the first time all over again. And feel that excitement and giddiness we had back then. We don’t have to, it’s just a thought. I don’t know. Maybe it’d be a good thing after this semester.”

Silence overtakes the room. San’s breathing is so steady that you think he’s fallen asleep, but the second you try to shift and see his face, he tilts his head up and looks into your eyes.

“Alright. Let’s go on a first date again.”

…

“I figured we’d go to that little Thai place by the grocery before heading over to the Christmas light show?”

“Oh!” Your thoughts rearrange themselves around his words. “That sounds really nice, yeah.”

“The guys wanna meet up at Wooyoung’s after for chicken and beer, but I told them I’d leave the decision up to you.” He tilts his chin a bit to the side as he speaks, lips quirked up at the corners, and you find yourself so incredibly fond of him all over again.

“Let’s see how we feel after walking around.”

You offer to drive tonight, but he denies you quickly, whining about how he filled his tank full of gas just for tonight so you don’t push the matter any further than that (though, you still tease him a bit once he opens the passenger door for you). When he turns the car on, music starts blasting through the speakers, a song you recognize well, and the dash shows that he’s been listening to the playlist you made for him at the start of the last school year.

“Sorry, forgot the volume was up so high.” He scrambles to twist the dial down, but you stop him with your hand, gripping his wrist lightly and giving a firm shake of your head.

“I didn’t realize you still listened to it. Normally you just have the radio going.”

“Ah, well,” San’s cheeks are a bit flush under the low lights of the car, “I suppose I’ve been feeling a bit sentimental these days.” His next move is a bit hesitant; he reaches across the console and lays his hand atop your thigh. You reassure him by putting your hand over his, fingers curling around his once again. It feels normal and familiar, though you can’t count on two hands the last time you’ve done something as menial as holding hands with San.

“San?” He makes a noise of acknowledgment while watching the road. “I’ve missed you.” His nails dig into your flesh a little, and the pressure makes your heart clench in your chest.

“I’ve missed you more.” You can only see his side profile, but it’s enough for you to catch the upturn of his lips.

“I’ve missed you most then.” The statement slips out through a pout.

“And I love you more than the moon loves the ocean.”

The weight of his hand is comfort enough for you to be at ease for the rest of the drive.

────────────

please like & reblog this work and consider leaving a reply or sharing your thoughts in a reblog or ask!

this work belongs to caly / hongism (2023). do not copy, repost, or plagiarize in any way.

#ateez smut #ateez x reader #san smut #san x reader #choi san smut #choi san x reader #ateez fic #ateez fanfic #ateez imagine #ateez imagines #ateez ff #san imagine #san imagines #caly.writes #fic; and it's snowing #winter fic fest 2023 #fic; what lies beneath us

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abbyfmc · 8 months ago

Text

[Together in the afterlife]

Yandere Emperor! x Concubine! Reader:

TW: Mention of murder, kidnapping, harassment, rape, poisoning, and yandere behavior.

Postscript: Here I mention a practice in ancient China in which emperors prior to the Qing dynasty. When these died, I understand that their concubines were forced to commit suicide or were buried alive to follow the emperor in the afterlife.

Oh, and I don't own the text separators.

It's been years since the emperor kidnapped you in the palace. You were a young woman with desires for a peaceful life with your former fiancé and starting your family with him; However, you had the bad luck that the emperor saw you on one of his trips around the country, and consequently he became obsessed with you no matter how much you rejected him.

He gave you many opportunities while he insisted on you, but his patience ran out when he kidnapped you in his palace; He kept insisting on you; he forced you to marry him; He basically carried out genocide against your family, partner and friends and then he raped you in his room not once, but several times. He forced you to give birth to his children, the fifth prince and the seventh princess.

You continued to hate him greatly and you let him know it, which he didn't like at all. You avoided him; you tried to escape multiple times, resulting in confinement and punishment, or having your right to raise your children taken away (although they were later returned to you). You tried to dodge turn-down service, which caused him to lock himself in with you; He forced you to be with him and hug him, kiss him, pamper him, take walks, eat and even talk to him. But NOTHING made you forget what he did to you.

-"Tell me you love me".- He told you constantly as an order, and he wouldn't leave you alone until he heard you say it.

He subjected you to his desires and whims, only to receive secret hatred. He named your son as crown prince, while your daughter is about to get married far from you. You didn't want your son to be like him, and you didn't want your daughter to get married far from you. You were honestly sick of everything you had to suffer.

Luckily, the emperor returned from a trip during which he accidentally contracted smallpox. You took advantage of this to approach him with the intention of "taking care of him", when what you were actually doing was poisoning him. You saw how he weakened and you had to hide your face full of pleasure at seeing him suffer. You managed to find the decree that named your son emperor; you erased your son's name and replaced it with that of another prince.

You were NOT going to allow the pressure and ambition of an emperor to fall on your son and then completely corrupt him. I didn't want him to become greedy, narcissistic, ambitious or cruel like your husband was; However, you did not find any decree regarding a marriage alliance between your daughter and someone else.

It all continued until his last day, when you coldly confessed to him EVERYTHING you did.

-What?, Why did you do that?!- He asked you, alarmed.

-Like why, your majesty?- You asked, starting to feel some annoyance and helplessness. -Don't you remember everything you did to me?- The emperor began to hyperventilate and feel sick due to the poison. This time you gave him a lethal dose.

-I… the only thing I did was… love you with all my heart.- The emperor joins with difficulty, sitting in his bed while you only stayed with his back to him. You let tears fall down your cheeks by remembering everything he made to you.

-If by loving you mean harassing me, kidnapping me, forcing me to marry you, killing my loved ones, keeping me confined, raping me until I become pregnant and forcing me to submit to you, you are what I hate the most!; I HATE YOU!- You claimed him with rage, hatred, pain and anger while you cried. You turned around only to see him dying and spitting blood on the ground, fighting for his life as you felt his heart shatter from such cruel words coming from you.

-You are… ungrateful- He responded with noticeable disappointment even with some difficulty; However, that turned into a weak and strange laugh. -But do not worry. I also have a future surprise well… in store for you.- This last one disconcerted you a little. Before you had any chance to ask, the emperor passed away.

The funeral was carried out quickly. You pretended to cry out of sadness, because you didn't feel anything about your husband's death except coldness. Who would have imagined that the eunuch would read a secret decree that stated the following:

"If I, Emperor Yeng, die one day for whatever reason; I order that consort (Y/n) not only be posthumously promoted to empress, but that she be buried along with me in my same coffin dead or alive, to remain together forever. Funeral rites worthy of a couple of emperors must be followed. No one is authorized to separate us, and anyone who does MUST BE EXECUTED BY THE EMPEROR IN TURN IMMEDIATELY."

Horrified, you tried to run away to save yourself, but the servants caught you and no matter how hard you fight, you couldn't free yourself in any way. They had to knock you unconscious to prevent your escape.

While you were unconscious, they dressed you in the imperial ceremony costume of an empress and even put makeup on you and then took you to the coffin of your husband whom you had hated so much, put you in there and left you there and then buried you… still alive.

When you woke up you realized your terrible reality and you were terrified to the point of starting to scream and bang on the lid of the coffin, without any success. The emperor loved you so much that it didn't matter how much you hated him, because even in death he wasn't willing to let you go.

He loves you to the point of not letting you live with anyone else after his death, since he can't stand how you abandon him, which has caused him to take advantage of a bloodthirsty and cruel tradition and use it as a way to be together forever in the afterlife.

-The End.

#yandere #yandere oc #cw yandere #yandere love #yandere x you #yandere male #platonic yandere #tw yandere #male yandere #yandere x reader #yandere boy #yandere x darling #obsessive yandere #yandere aesthetic #yandere emperor x reader #yandere fanfiction

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gallusrostromegalus · 16 days ago

Note

Do you have any plans for what happens with Urahara's shop once Aizen is dealt with? I mostly ask cus the other day I binged the AIEWAM tag, then had a dream about the Shinigami using it as a base of operations in Karakura. I don't know if that is likely, or plausible, but it was fun to picture random shinigami doing customer service.

No that's more or less what happens to it!

After Aizen is dealt with, Urahara is facing some pretty significant personal problems: his rejection by the 12th division, being pregnant with his first child (and Yoruichi's nervous breakdown of impending parenthood) and Nihofornia's National Tax Agency finally catching up to him. As a shinigami, Urahara is aware of the many ways to shimmy around death, but there is no certainty like Taxes.

It's Don Kanonji, the most reasonable and level-headed adult in the whole damn fic, who proposes the solution: between his careers of swimsuit model, UN Translator, exorcist and fashion designer, Don is also a Certified Accountant. After going over she shoebox full of miscellaneous receipts and assorted Papers That Might Be Important, Don negotiates a deal with the tax agency around Kisuke's dubious status as a citizen and even more dubious bookkeeping: kisuke will sell the business to someone with a real social security number and pay up a large percentage of the staggering amount of money he owes in exchange for being allowed to rent the building from the new owners and continue his path to legitimate citizenship and no further financial chicanery.

"Okay, but who's going to pony up the cash? I don't have that kind of money!" Kisuke wails, fully in the grip of second-trimester hormone swings.

"Urahara-san. Kisuke. Sandalhat. Buddy. Pal." Ichigo's classmate Keigo sighs, fondly patting the man on the shoulders as he sat down on the couch beside Urahara. "We're friends, right?"

"We're people who know each other's home addresses." Kisuke sniffles.

"Close enough!" Mizuiro waves, sitting down on Urahara's other side. "-and you're former second division, real cloak-and-dagger stuff. So you know that sometimes it's best to not ask so many questions, right?"

Kisuke frowned with growing suspicion. "I might have been..."

"Great! All you need to do is make Tessai clean out the garage, turn the paperwork over to me and Mizuiro, keep an ear on the line to soul society, and focus on getting this place ready for your little bundle of joy-" Keigo smiled, gesturing around the decidedly bachelor padded living room.

"-and don't worry about where this came from!" Mizuiro chirped happily, hefting a large briefcase onto the table with a loud thud that popped open the lid, revealing a frankly alarming amount of cash inside.

"I'm worrying." Kisuke grimaced.

"We very specifically requested the opposite of that." Keigo pouted.

"That's at least thirty grand in there." Don remarked with a casual glance at the carefully packed but decidedly used bills inside.

"There is Thirty-one thousand, two hundred seventy-eight point oh-six Troyen, which is exactly two and a half times this shop's discretionary income last year, and a very generous price for the business!" Mizuiro beamed.

"Why can't you guys use a normal currency like Kan?" Kisuke pouted, trying to do conversion rates in his head.

"Well for one thing, fiat currency is a hell of a lot better than anything based on the value of rice." Keigo nodded. "Though it is kinda stupid that we didn't update the name after we went off the gold standard during world war three."

"There was a third world war?" Kisuke yelped.

"A cold one, back in the eighties. You didn't notice were busy making sure Isshin and Masaki Kurosaki didn't implode." Tessai called from the kitchen.

"Oh." Urahra mumbled.

"Look, it's really quite simple- you'll go on basically as you have been with the candy shop-" Mizuiro smiled with the soothing demeanor of an unexpected adder. "-only I'll be your landlord and Keigo will be your manager!"

Urahra stared blankly at the boys, then looked up at Don Kanonji, who was reading over the contents of the file folder Mizuiro had handed him when the boys came in. "...That can't possibly be legal, right?"

"Hm?" Don hummed, looking up over his glasses. "Oh, yes. The government would really prefer a check but cash is perfectly legal tender to settle all debts with."

"But they're kids!" Kisuke gestured hysterically between them.

"Okay, Mizuiro might be babyfaced but he turned eighteen last spring and I'll be an adult by the time we turn in all this paperwork in April." Keigo groaned.

"And- and this is clearly Mob Money!" Urahara continued, waving at the briefcase of cash.

"Mister Urahara! I would NEVER-!" Mizuiro gasped with great offense. "I'll have you know all this money came from Perfectly Legitimate Enterprises!" He sniffed, arms crossed and lip pouting.

"That's the name of the Mobile Tech Support business Mizu and I have been running since freshman year!" Keigo beamed. "Makes a good packet, you wouldn't believe the kind of tips the old biddies will give a Nice Young Man in a Smart Uniform who scrapes malware off her online mahjong machine!"

Urahara stared at them blankly, gaze slowly tipping down to the briefcase full of money. "I should learn how to use living world computers."

"NO." Every single person in the building, including the shop kids and Ichigo, who had been passed out under the table after training, but was stirred to consciousness by an impending sense of danger before passing out again.

"Killjoys." Urahra muttered, sulking under his hat.

"Regardless, its a perfectly legal and honestly very generous offer for this heap, and as your financial advisor, I urge you to take it." Don Kanonji glared over his glasses at Urahara.

"So what, you boys get a cut of the candy money and rent? Cause that ain't much of a savvy deal on your end. This place runs at a debt."

"Oh no, you can keep the candy revenue and I'll only ask for enough rent to cover utilities." Mizuiro smiled. "What we want is a cut of your commission as a licensed Gotei-13 outlet contractor!"

"...But I'm not a contractor?" Urahara blinked.

"...Do you just. Not read things before you sign them?" Keigo glared.

"Yeah, you're not just in hock to the NTA, the Soul Revenue Service is after you too for running a fake Gotei-13 service center, and bailing on a century's worth of filings by faking your death." Mizuiro frowned at him with concern. "So e of those papers you signed when you resumed your identity and job as captain- however briefly were the result of Captain Kyoraku cutting you one HELL of a parole deal with the SRS, but the agreement was that Urahara Shoten would be the base of operations for ALL the shinigami operating in Karakura, under the direct supervision and control of the Gotei-13 and he sure wasn't stingy with the budget he gave you! Well. The budget he gave me and Keigo to spend since I'd be the property owner and Keigo would be the business owner."

"Aaaand since you also signed the soul society official secrets agreement, it's not like you can ask someone else to buy you out from the NTA, so not only are we your best offer, we're your ONLY offer!" Keigo grinned.

Urahra stared at them blankly. "You've set me up." He mumbled.

"You sent yourself up for this when you failed to do your due diligence when signing contracts." Don Kanonji corrected him, pulling some documents out of the folder and signing them, before pushing them across the table. "Please actually read these before you si- you've already signed them." Don Kanonji groaned as Urahara slapped the pen back down on the table with spite.

"Fine, fine- I guess I'm back to following orders instead of giving them. What do you want, Boss?" He glared at Keigo.

"Put your feet up and finish putting together that gift list for the baby shower." Keigo nodded. "We weren't kidding that your first priority is getting this place ready for baby... Does it have a name yet?"

"...No." Kisuke wilted despondently. "Yoruichi still isn't answering my texts!"

"Hm." Keigo nodded. "Okay, put your feet up, finish that baby shower list and think of a name for the little rugrat. Just leave the rest to us for now!"

"You guys are good kids." Kisuke smiled weakly.

"Would you be willing to make a sworn statement to that effect, so we can have it on file for any future HR disputes?" Mizuiro smiled.

"Absolutely goddamn not." Kisuke glared.

#aeiwam #an elephant is warm and mushy #bleach #bleach fanfic #kisuke urahara #mizuiro kojima #keigo asano #Don Kanonji #yoruichi shihouin #Kisuke and Yoruichi are T4T in this fic and the prospect of parenthood is hitting her pretty hard #but she comes around sooner than later #she just needs to shake the generational trauma of growing up in a household of Ninjas and Ghosts

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fanfics-i-find-here · 2 months ago

Text

Do I know you? Part 5

Jason Todd x reader

Synopsis: You meet Tim and Steph, Jason is not happy about it.

Notes: Some drama is finally here brought to you by Tim and Steph. This is the power of embarrassing a sibling.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Masterlist

The past week had been… odd. And that was putting it nicely. True to his word, the next evening was filled with Red Hood replacing your window locks with newer fancy ones attached to an “Out of date” alarm system (his words not yours). He showed you how to set it up and how to attach it to your phone, so if anyone got in while you were away you would know. It seemed a bit excessive to you, living on the sixth floor and all but he was adamant about it, so you let him. He told you if you wanted him to come in and share tea you would have to leave the window unlocked for a frame of time. If he didn’t show in that frame of time, you were to lock the window anyway.

“No later, understand?” He had ordered gruffly, and you had just shrugged. You’re pretty sure he rolled his eyes in response, but you couldn’t see them. In the days following he showed up every day even if it were just for a couple minutes. Sometimes you shared food, sometimes just tea. If he stayed for longer than a few minutes, you would sit amicably at the dining table or at the island. Sometimes in comfortable silence and sometimes conversing about your days, mostly you than him. You finally settled into a routine. After his visit, you would get ready for bed and repeat the day over.

Work at Jackie’s was booming. With the fall season in full swing, people came in requesting pumpkin this and pumpkin that, only to be disappointed to find out Jackies only had one pumpkin item and that was pumpkin bread. It was a blast. You kept up with the regulars and Darla would edge her way around you, collecting gossip. Over the next week and a half, she would sporadically bother you about if you had gotten Jason’s number or if you had fallen in with some other guy. She said she saw some of the signs of a guy but wasn’t too sure. When you asked what she meant she didn’t offer you any explanation.

It was a Thursday when you met Steph. When she came in, you mentally prepared yourself for another no-pumpkin showdown. You try not to judge a book by its cover, but her blonde hair and purple athleisure made it hard not to.

“Hi, Welcome to Jackie’s. What can I get for you?” your lips twitch into a customer service smile. She grins at you like this was the most excitement she had had all day.

“Hi, I’m Steph. How are you?” she asks politely.

“I’m good. What can I get for you?” she sags slightly at your shutdown of the conversation. Overly friendly new customers in Gotham were never good. They usually wanted something.

“Right,” she perks back up, “One hot chocolate and one black coffee.” She pauses for a moment while you put in the system. When you look back up, she asks “Do you know Jason?”

The sudden question slightly takes you aback and don’t answer, so she continues.

“He's about this tall,” she holds her hand in the air, “black hair, looks like he could punch a brick wall.” You nod slowly and she smiles, “Great, where does he usually sit?”

You point to the table nook he usually hides in, and she nods, “We’ll sit there. I heard that you bring the drinks out?” You nod again, still confused about this girl. No Pumpkin spice latte, and she knows Jason? Strange.

“How much do I owe you?” you finally snap out of your stupor. She pays, you thank her and tell her it will be out momentarily. She turns and greets a lean boy as he walks through the door. She tugs him to the booth quickly and they talk to each other in hushed tones, both glancing up at you occasionally. You try to ignore them as you stumble through making the two easiest items on the menu.

You glance up when the bell dings and a smile flits across your lips when you see Jason before it turns into a frown as he frowns. His eyes staring at his now occupied table. You pause in your task and come up to the register as he takes a few slow steps towards it.

“You okay?” you ask as you glance at the two at the table. They’re looking at Jason like they’ve won the lottery.

“Did they talk to you?” He ignores your own question.

“She did. Only to order though. Do I need to call the cops?”

Jason snorts at the question, “Yeah that’ll go well. She just ordered? She didn’t ask you anything?”

You give him a strange look. What is with people and odd questions today?

“She just asked where you sit. Sorry, I gave you away.”

He breaks his glare from them and meets your eye with a softness.

“It’s okay, Sweetheart. They would’ve figured it out even if you hadn’t given it to them.” Your heart flutters at the pet name. He had called you that the few times you had seen him since your walk home and it was starting to get to you.

“You want me to dump out their drinks and just make yours?” you ask as you try to force your focus away from the warmth on your cheeks.

“And ruin your hard work?” his eyes stare into your own and he finally breaks it when you hear giggles from your spies. You drop your chin down. “It’s okay,” he repeats, “I’ll sit with them.” He nods at you and heads for the table. The two sat there leaning together and whispering. You wonder who they are and how Jason knows them.

You get to work make the drinks, no longer stumbling, and with bounce your step. Darla stands next to you with a smug smile and makes some refills for customers.

“You could have asked for his number when he was alone but now there are people. Your poor self won't ever be able to do it.” She says teasingly.

“Thank you, Darla,” you say with an eye roll as you load the drinks on the tray. You take your time to meander to the table as Jason looks like he's berating the two that sit across from him. It doesn’t look like it's working as they both sit there with smug grins. You set the tray on the table and all eyes are on you. You keep your own eyes down as you move the drinks from the tray to the table. Your eyes try to catch Jason’s book for the day because you know you won't be asking like you normally do. You pull the tray from the table and rest it between your side and your arm.

“Anything else I can get you?” you glance at the two but meet Jason's eye. He looks flushed, possibly upset. Steph speaks up.

“No that’s okay. What was your name again?” she says like you had already told her. You break eye contact with Jason and look at her. She’s smiling and you can't find any malice in it, so you tell her. She nods like she already knows and points to the boy sitting next to her.

“This is Tim,” she points to Jason, “and obviously you already know Jason.” You hear a quiet thud from under the table and Tim flinches but smirks as he looks at Jason.

“You missed,” he turns to look up at you, “It's nice to meet you fin-” he cuts himself off and you wonder what the last word was.

You nod politely, “you too,” you say and look at Jason again for some explanation and a defeated look crosses his features as he shrugs.

“Brother” is all Jason gives, and you nod in semi-understanding. Based on the few mentions of family in passing conversations, you had always guessed he had a tense relationship with them.

“I didn’t know you had siblings.” You look back at the two. Tim and Jason could definitely be brothers. Aside from their stature and slight skin tone difference, everything else is similar. Black hair, blue eyes. Though you would argue that Jason’s were prettier because they were green sometimes. Not that it mattered. Your eyes meet Stephs again. Blonde hair, green eyes, bright smile. Very different looking than the two boys.

“Are you the only girl in the family?”

Steph makes a gagging sound, “I’m not family, Thank God!” Tim snorts at her over dramatics.

“I’m sorry.” Your face flushes slightly as you flounder, “Then what…?” Your hand gestures to them all sitting at the table.

Jason's eyes narrow on your embarrassed state.

“Don’t worry, she’s just a leech.”

“Hey!”

“Would you mind getting me one of those chocolate croissants?”

You shift on your feet with a look of confusion. He never asks for anything else. You nod, “Sure, anything else for the table?”

Tim looks like he’s about to ask for something, but Jason cuts him off with a glare. Instead, he shakes his head no. You hesitantly step away from the table but take your time going back to the kitchen to pull out one of the chocolate croissants and warm it up. Your eyes periodically glance back at the table. They crouch over the table and talk to each other. You worry for a moment that they’re talking about you and then decide that it doesn’t really matter. You had only met Tim and Steph today. Their opinion of you was worthless and You knew Jason wasn’t one for gossiping about others. You’ve watched Darla try and fail. Once you finally make it back over to the table with the croissant, Tim and Steph are gone leaving their half-full drinks on the table.

As you set the plate on the table you ask, “Scare them off?”

Jason lets out a sigh.

“If only. I’m sorry if they made you uncomfortable.” You shake your head in response.

“I'm sorry I made assumptions before I had all the information. I hope I didn’t offend.”

“I doubt you could ever offend anyone sweetheart” Your cheeks warm again.

“That’s not true I work in a public job, and I offend people all the time just standing” you joke. Jason smiles and nods.

“That’s fair. How could you be so lazy?” he teases. You giggle.

“Speaking of lazy, I should get back to work.” You point a thumb over your shoulder where a man leaves a table full of dishes.

“What time do you get off?” he asks. Your body freezes mid-turn at his abrupt question.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to” he adds on, “I just enjoyed walking with you the other day and I parked my bike around the same area again, so I thought maybe…” He trails off his own cheeks flushing. Your body relaxes as you look at your watch to think. He had convenient timing; you were off soon. It was nice having someone to walk with and it wouldn’t hurt to see him on his bike again. You nod with warmed cheeks.

“I get off in about thirty minutes if you don’t mind waiting?” you say as your eyes meet his. He nods, smiling.

“It’ll give me time to read.” He lifts his book that was sitting on the table, the cover reading Pride and Prejudice.

“Again?” You can't help but ask. He looks at the book cover and rolls his eyes.

“You really want to have this conversation again?” you shake your head quickly at his question.

“I'll see you in thirty minutes.” With that, you walk away from him and throw yourself into your finishing tasks.

Additional notes: This was originally a much longer chapter but I decided to split it up. So, the next chapter is about them walking home. I have to tell you I cannot wait for ya’ll to read the next one cause I got carried away for like three seconds and had to do some backtracking. The plot was happening where I didn’t want it. I loved having Tim and Steph involved in this and just not being subtle about anything. Jason may have tried to kill Tim once but that won't stop him from being a little shit. Thank you for your love guys. This has been such an interesting experience, so the support has been lovely. Tag List: @little-miss-naill, @nikilolo787, @joonunivrs, @uzxotic, @qardasngan, @stormz369, @g4bbi3xx

#jason todd x reader #red hood x reader #do i know you?#fanfics-i-find-here #kandywrites

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philomelek · 16 days ago

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shitty infopost (if you have anything to add or correct, please let me know!!)

Wayne Harris

Wayne Hallagin Harris, as well as his wife and son have stayed away from publics eyes regarding the massacre so we know very little about him. Many who knew Wayne or had an encounter with him described him as a very nice but stoic army man, talking about the massacre and his own sons death like a soldier would report, some even going as far as to say he was mentally abusive towards Eric ?

Before Columbine

He was born in Colorado, USA, his mother Thelma Harris, his sister Sandra Harris but his father remains unknown. He attended the Englewood High School and later met Katherine Ann Pool whom he would marry in 1970.

He was a U.S Air force pilot, his flying "skill and leadership" helped in the testing of strategic missile and space systems; Air Force records show. He earned the meritorious service medal, 4 oak leaf clusters, 2 bronze service stars and an award for small arms marksmanship. His military work forced the family to move all across the country, Eric was born during their stay in Wichita, Kansas, then they moved to Beavercreek, Ohio, then to Oscoda, Michigan, then to Plattsburgh, New York before finally retired and settled down with his family in Littleton, Colorado in 1993, where they lived in a small rental home and then settled in 8276 S. Reed Street in 1996.

Wayne and Eric

Wayne would play basketball with his two boys when he came home from work, he would often take Eric's side saying things like "boys will be boys" and even siding with him during his incident with Brooks Brown in 1997, not offering to pay for the damage. However many note him being a strict father, including Randy Brown leaving an Amazon review of Cullen's book where he stated "-a mentally abusive father for Eric" , some reported he yelled at Eric often, calling him an idiot and berating him however this is all based on assumptions and this wasn't an unusal thing for a father to be yelling at their child, there was no record of him being really "abusive" in mental or physical sense, but some neglect and strictness? Sure. One known fact is that Wayne kept notes on Eric and Kevin, there were 2 Steno notebooks, one named "Eric" the other "Kevin" Eric's book documented Eric's troubles from allegations by neighbors about property damage to the felony case and repeated interactions with school officials, and an issue between Eric and Brooks Brown. His writting of his son was often described as him "analyzing an animal" particularly later in life after the van break in and near the massacre where Eric lost motivation for keeping up his routine so Wayne imposed stricter rules on his studying and his screentime, including "light's out at 10pm."

His full writting and the transcripts in the notebook can be found online, despite Wayne previously fighting to keep it private

Harrises were much easier on firearms due to Wayne being a military man so they had knowledge of Eric owning weapons and being subscribed to a gun magazine but they only understood it as his deep interest in the game Doom, nothing to worry about. Wayne would discover a fishing tackle box named "Explosives" Eric owned and in there he would find a pipe bomb. This however didn't raise any alarms for Wayne as he only made Eric bring the bomb to a deserted area to detonate it and told him to not do it again, despite Wayne returning him all of the bomb making materials (fuses, detonators, cartridges etc.) When Eric ordered clips in Wayne's name and Wayne got a phone call he only told the store that he "Didn't order any clips." and "Must be some mistake" and he hung up without second questions. Wayne said that he did notice his sons behavior such as him punching a brick wall, having outbursts, struggling with suicidal thoughts and anger. He knew something was odd but chose to ignore most of it. Many say that because of the way Kevin turned out to be a perfect dream child, both Wayne and Kathy just didn't know what to do with Eric so they just let him be.

Waynes writting on the van break in:

Eric has said his family was very disappointed in him so its no doubt that Wayne never really trusted him and continuously criticized him

After Columbine

As soon as Wayne heard about what was happening at Columbine HS he would call 911, immediately assuming his own son had something to do with this, which left so many people shocked how absolutely stoic he was about the fact he would hear about a massacre happening and think his own son would do it, showing the extent of just how much he knew but ignored.

The subtitled 911 call can be seen here:

youtube

Wayne and his family were absolutely devastated, having their home searched and bombarded with media, death threats and lawsuits. They chose to stay quiet and any attempt at contacting them would go straight to their lawyer. It didn't help that Sue got extreme backlash for speaking out so they could only imagine how much worse they would be treated. Since it's been almost 30 years it's unlikely we would hear much about them. (except the 2027 depositions, which i can't find info on so if you have it it would mean so much to me^^)

Him and Kathy would go stay at a different place for 6 months following the massacre grieving with the loss differently. Though no public funeral was held for Eric it is unknown wether they held one privately or not. They chose to move completely just a couple of years later, putting the house for sale in 2004. (Some state they stayed in Colorado and some say they moved to Washington) Him and Kathy would watch the Basement Tapes but they would take breaks every 20 minutes to have a moment with their therapist and cry. It is said Wayne was so angry with what had happened and this would spark many rumors like him "flushing Eric's ashes down the toilet" and them "not picking up Eric's belongings", though it was revealed that Eric's ashes stayed under their private investigators posession (next to Timothy McVeigh's ashes) and wether they had been picked up or not remains a mystery. Wayne has in fact picked up Eric's belongings though Jeffco gave him a lot of difficulty with it, forcing him to get each item separately.

Things Wayne picked up, amongst other things:

Some school books/papers

Hand written notes

1996,1997 and 1998 yearbooks

Magnets

CDs, posters, photos, Doom books, Eric's class schedule and report cards

Clothes

The boots, socks, underwear, right hand glove and the natural selection shirt he wore during the massacre (other things he wore have been destroyed)

His wallet, leather case and a match sticker

Eric's body bag, nail scraping and hair

People who ran into Wayne or known him after the massacre have described him as absolutely crushed, "not seeing the beauty in the world anymore" and at the same time being "oddly calm about it".

Though him and Kathy stayed silent at each victims attempt to contact them, one time, Linda Mauser (mother of Daniel Mauser, who passed away in the massacre) wrote them a letter in which she stated that she forgave Eric and only wants a chance to possibly connect with them and understand "Why?" Harrises both agreed to meet Mausers and they had a long conversation with them but it wasn't quite fulfilling as Linda hoped it would be. They trully had no new answers to give and Wayne was noted to be indifferent the entire time, only answering questions and most importantly "accepting his son was a psychopath"

Wayne has also made his own site in 2010 though after many people found out about it he would be forced to edit out any mention of Eric or Kevin, because his wording to a lot of people seemed like he was saying his son was just another victim in the massacre. He would then take down the site completely so we only have some screenshots

Before and after he edited it:

"Mount St Helens blew her top" reffered to a volcano that had a big eruption at the time. It's a freudian slip in a sense as Eric famously blew the top of his head off when committing suicide His frequent blowing stuff up also comes to mind. He could've said "when the vulcano erupted" or activated or anything, I've never heard someone describe a vulcano as blowing its top off

Wally Lamb, a famous writter, who also expressed curiousity about Kevin and Byron (Dylans older brother), had an encounter with Wayne during a book singing in Denver in 2008. 50 signed books into the line a man would approach Mr. Lamb and say "Do you think this would be a good book for Eric's brother, Kevin, to read?" Mr. Lamb was confused and quickly realized it was Eric's father, Wayne. He described Wayne as "the walking embodiment of sadness and grief" The two shook hands for a good long moment before having a small conversation, Mr. Lamb breaking out in tears and stating "I don't have any answers to give you" and asking about Kevin to which Wayne replied "I don't have any answers, either" and explained how Kevin was in great pain, joining the military to distance himself from it and at the time being in Afghanistan. Mr. Lamb praised Wayne for being a brave man and gave him his email in case he ever needed to talk about it.

Wayne Harris, Kendra Harris, Kevin Harris and Kathy Harris pictured at Kevin's and Kendra's wedding in 2009.

Somewhere around here it is said Wayne became happier.

"We continue to be profoundly saddened by the suffering of so many that has resulted from the acts of our son. We loved our son dearly, and search our souls daily for some glimmer of a reason why he would have done such a horrible thing. What he did was unforgivable and beyond our capacity to understand. The passage of time has yet to lessen the pain." - Wayne and Kathy, April 15th, 2000.

All in all Wayne tried his hardest, even though he was trained to be indifferent and strict by his military life and with his first child turning out fine it would end up being his flaw as he just continuously ignored Eric's problems though its harsh to say he was "not affected by the tragedy" because him and his family were greatly greatly affected and saddened by it. I hope they're doing good today wherever they are. Let me know if you have more to add ^^

#wayne harris #tccblr #true cringe community #teeceecee #tcc columbine #eric columbine #tc community #columbine 1999 #eric and dylan #tcctwt #Youtube

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saywhat-politics · 30 days ago

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Musk's Junta Establishes Him as Head of Government

Imagining how we'd cover overseas what's happening to the U.S. right now

I’ve long believed that the American media would be more clear-eyed about the rise and return of Donald Trump if it was happening overseas in a foreign country, where we’re used to foreign correspondents writing with more incisive authority. Having watched with growing alarm the developments of the last 24 and 36 hours in Washington, I thought I’d take a stab at just such a dispatch. Here’s a story that should be written this weekend:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — What started Thursday as a political purge of the internal security services accelerated Friday into a full-blown coup, as elite technical units aligned with media oligarch Elon Musk moved to seize key systems at the national treasury, block outside access to federal personnel records, and take offline governmental communication networks.

With rapidity that has stunned even longtime political observers, forces loyal to Musk’s junta have established him as the all-but undisputed unelected head of government in just a matter of days, unwinding the longtime democracy’s constitutional system and its proud nearly 250-year-old tradition of the rule of law. Having secured themselves in key ministries and in a building adjacent to the presidential office complex, Musk’s forces have begun issuing directives to civil service workers and forcing the resignation of officials deemed insufficiently loyal, like the head of the country’s aviation authority.

#donald trump #second term #elon musk

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sapphoscreature · 2 months ago

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Caitlyn and the Grey- Symbolism

I think it’s interesting to consider the Grey, within the narrative, as symbolic of Caitlyn’s character arc throughout Act 1, and how she is influenced by and influences the wider context.

The Grey is, I think, a morally grey choice. Its symbolism and use encapsulate the tensions at the time both within Caitlyn’s character and within the wider context of Piltover and Zaun. It also preludes the outcome of Act 1, and where this leads Caitlyn, Piltover, and Zaun.

I’ve tried my best to unpick the threads which twine together in the narrative, but this is only my interpretation and there are aspects I may have missed. Along the same line, I have decided to focus on Caitlyn, so my analysis of why other characters (like Jinx and Vi) make their choices is not as in-depth, and definitely deserve their own analysis.

(I made an earlier post about Caitlyn & the Grey, but some of my wording was a bit shoddy and the analysis not as explored as it could have been. I hope this offers something better.)

Caitlyn- loss, the crown, and vengeance:

Following the attack on the council which kills her mother, Caitlyn is grappling with her emotions.

She feels a deep, deep grief for the loss of her mother. She is also guilt-ridden, blaming herself for not stopping Jinx whilst she could- ‘I had the shot.’

And she is angry. Incredibly angry. Jinx is the target of her anger- literally; Caitlyn fantasises about shooting her. ‘I want to tear that laugh from her throat forever.’ Clearly, she wants some kind of vengeance.

On top of this, she now has the ‘legacy’ of the Kiramman house sitting on her shoulders. Guilt-ridden, she admits to her father she feels neither ready nor deserving of becoming the matriarch. But nonetheless, people are now looking to her. Her father can collapse at the funeral, but she must stand tall. The only people she admits vulnerability to are those closest to her- Jayce and Vi (especially Vi emotionally, crying in her arms).

The crown is heavy, the grief is drowning her, but Caitlyn does recognise that her anger is having a negative influence on her thinking. ‘I know,’ she says to Jayce he expresses alarm at her desire for revenge (this is a line I will come back to later).

And that self-reflection is important to consider, too. Caitlyn in season 1 is intelligent and perceptive, and recognises in her succinct, direct manner both her own ignorance to and the extent to which the Piltover/Zaun divide stretches. ‘This city needs healing. More than I ever realised.’ ‘Please,’ she asks Ekko, ‘let me help you,’ or else, ‘the cycle of violence will never stop.’

Following the council attack, some kind of conflict does, unfortunately, seem inevitable between the two cities. Whether this be all-out war or not, the cycle continues. But whilst Caitlyn is impacted by the attack, she retains being driven by the same empathy and perception which made her open to recognising her own ignorance.

Both Caitlyn and Mel are reluctant that a full-scale invasion of Zaun occur, knowing this was the act of a ‘single deranged individual’ and that ‘innocents could be caught in the cross fire.’

With Ambessa’s interjection, however, the invasion is set to go ahead, although without the use of Hextech.

Ambessa fans flames further by aiding the chem-baron attack on the memorial service. And this attack exacerbates all of Caitlyn’s negative emotions.

The pressure on her shoulders as the Kiramman heir, her guilt, her grief. Her anger, absolutely. I think that this is when they become the prevailing emotions which influence her choices and cloud her self-perception, as well as her perception of others.

And this is when things get grey.

Establishing the Strike team:

Caitlyn and Vi’s relationship in Act 1 definitely deserves its own deep dive. I’m painfully aware I’m not giving it the attention it deserves here. But, for the sake of brevity, I think, for Caitlyn, Vi anchors her to the self-reflection she is beginning to lose sight of.

Following the memorial attack, Vi is looking for the Caitlyn she knows, the Caitlyn who took on the council in season 1. The Caitlyn who, after that failed, was ready to make a new plan and ‘fix’ things. The Caitlyn who was a misfit to her own society. The Caitlyn she fell for.

But Caitlyn is hemmed in by the Kiramman pressure and her emotional struggles. Vi urges her to stop the invasion- this will only lead to more hurt on both sides- but Caitlyn cannot think of how to ‘fix’ things. ‘She dies and leaves this giant hole, and I’m just supposed to fill it.’

She needs Vi to anchor her. ‘Everything is falling apart,’ she laments. ‘We won’t let it,’ Vi promises. She retains that connection, that grounding and belief in Caitlyn, in the woman she knows (and loves). They can stop the invasion, take matters into their own hands.

This holding onto their optimism to ‘fix’ things remains important, even as tensions are incredibly heightened after the memorial attack. Even as they are trapped in these tensions, part of the cycle. The choices they make becoming part of the cycle.

It’s a battle within itself. Vi is trying to hold onto Caitlyn for as long as she can throughout Act 1. And Caitlyn is still there, but she is battling with herself. With her grief, guilt, and anger.

And as they devise their plan, we see Caitlyn at the Kiramman archives. She is taking up the mantle. She uses the literal symbol of her family- their key- to discover the archives, the vents, and the Grey.

The Grey reflects back on her face, her pensive expression. In an earlier post, I said this represented the dark path Caitlyn is going down. However, I think it is more complex. I think it reflects her struggling to grapple with her emotions and the pressure and tension of the current situation and how these are convincing her to make a morally grey choice.

It is important to place the establishment of the strike team and their use of the Grey within this context.

The Strike Team and the Grey

The Grey is indicative to me of the situation in which it is used. This is reflected in how it is used, and in its very nature itself. It is a morally grey action because of the what, why, and how.

The wider context is also important, and we are invited by the framing to consider the comparisons and contrasts in the strike team’s use of the Grey the historical precedent of its presence in Zaun.

I want to explore what the Grey actually is and the strike team’s use of the Grey first before turning to Caitlyn specifically and why she chooses the Grey and what it represents.

There are a lot of layers you could consider when breaking down the moral greyness of the Grey. In the process of writing this I saw more and more from other people (I will link an interesting reddit post at the end). I have included some, but I think I’d rather this just add to the conversation than be in any way an attempt to make a ‘definitive’ post about the Grey.

Zaun: Context:

First, a brief summary of what is happening in Zaun when the strike team enters to provide context.

Jinx puts it best- ‘it’s all going to shit.’ Fighting has broken out amongst the chem-barons now vying for power in the vacuum Silco has left. The ‘Sucker’ sequence shows fighting on the streets, fires breaking out. Children like Isha are running from the chem-barons’ goons, part of the child labour they employ in the shimmer factories. The Firelights are bringing people to their safe haven because of all the fighting. Deaths are referenced in a meeting with the chem-barons organised by Sevika.

Sevika calls these ‘turf wars.’ I have inferred that different chem-barons control different areas of the city- ‘you started this dance when you raided the Rapturewalk.’ Innocents are getting hurt because the conflict is in the city itself.

(I will discuss Jinx later)

What is the Grey?

There is actually a lot of grey area when it comes to the Grey in the specifics. But we do know:

Air in the fissures became increasingly toxic owing to the rise of industry, this toxic air became known as the Grey

This can lead to negative physical effects- reddened eyes, irritation of the lungs; long periods of exposure can lead to the deterioration of the affected areas

Kirammans installed ventilation systems to prevent the air from being so polluted

We do not know whose industry created such pollution. We do not see anyone die as a direct result of the Grey, but clearly, ‘factory smog’ is not a healthy thing to be breathing in over long periods of time.

How do the strike team use the Grey?

The strike team have three key objectives:

Locate Jinx

Dismantle shimmer

Neutralise any agents still loyal to Silco

The Grey is used by them to target these three objectives. We are shown this both in episode 2 and through the ‘Hellfire’ sequence in episode 3. They deploy the Grey on Silco’s goons, then the chembarons’ bases and the shimmer factory (destroying amounts of shimmer), before seeking out Jinx in the arcade.

To an extent, their actions could actually benefit Zaun. Destroying shimmer, something which stems from the damage Cait and Vi see shimmer cause, because of Silco and Singed, during season 1, would be to destabilise the power struggle going on between the chem-barons causing violence on the streets.

The literal use of the grey does de-escalate the violence. When chembaron Smeech reaches chembaron Margot’s base (a big statue of her face- someone’s got power), he comments that the Grey has ‘cleared the place out. Might have made our jobs a lot easier.’ They were anticipating confrontation, but it has been prevented.

The use of the Grey is not a long-term nor Zaun-wide affair. The strike team moves from one spot to another (using the vents to do so, something you could argue allows them an element of surprise on their targets which prevents them from fleeing to a place where innocents might be put in direct danger, and also prevents alarm among people at the sight of the strike team in Zaun), targeting the chembarons and their lackeys who monopolised the streets of Zaun for their violence and shimmer trade.

The Grey seeps from Margot’s base but the street itself is not flooded. As the strike team enter the arcade the Grey seeps in, but when Jinx escapes afterwards, the street outside is clear.

The Grey is used as part of a mission targeting specific objectives to prevent a full-scale invasion which could put civilians in danger.

And yet, the Grey is used. It functions as a weapon to debilitate their targets. It has unpleasant side effects, which alongside the strike team’s use of violence with their Hextech weaponry, allow them to incapacitate their targets.

(We can’t be sure how long the Grey takes to dissipate, or how long the chembarons’ people are exposed- we see some of the same characters at Sevika’s rally in episode 4, and they appear physically fine; I interpret it as short bursts of exposure- Caitlyn has control over the stopping and starting of the fans in the vents- we see her pulling levers, twisting handles).

The framing invites us to consider this morally grey approach through comparing and contrasting the strike team’s use of the Grey to its historical precedent in Zaun.

The Kiramman archive illustrations present it as a monster, a billowing mass which swallows Zaun. Through the eyes of both Jinx and Heenot, Smeech’s lackey, it also appears as such, as do the strike team who emerge from it.

This emphasises its harmful potential, which comes, more crucially, from the fear it derives. Vi argues with Jinx that they used the Grey to ‘clear the streets. To keep people safe.’ The violence has been de-escalated, there are no civilians being directly harmed by the Grey, but it has based itself on this fear owing to the historical precedent of the Grey in Zaun.

And yet you can also contrast. That the strike team are presented as part of the monster suggests they control the dissemination of the Grey, contrasting with the swamping monster, out of control, which floods through all of Zaun in the historical images.

A frame of Silco’s goons running from the strike team and their cloud of Grey is immediately followed by an historical image of innocents Zaunites running from a billowing beast. We are seeing once again the historical precedent of fear, but we are also noticing the differences- the Grey is controlled by the strike team, it follows them, and the only people in the frame are Silco’s goons, no innocent civilians.

(Once again, we don’t know how far it could spread but as others have suggested, the thick air of the undercity could impede its progress, and it never makes it down to the Firelight base. Combined with the targeted use, I think it is fair to therefore make this contrast).

All of this illustrates my earlier argument- the Grey is indicative of the situation in which it is used. The objectives of the strike team which could benefit Zaun intertwine with a way of going about those objectives which is morally grey and therefore underlines how the characters and their choices are becoming enveloped into the historic cycles of tension and violence which exist between Piltover and Zaun.

This neither makes them good nor evil- they are morally grey. It represents their interactions with their wider context, how they are influenced and influencing the wider context.

It represents how Caitlyn is doing this, how she is morally grey.

So why does she make this choice? What is influencing her which makes the good objectives of the strike team tainted so grey?

Caitlyn- Why choose the Grey?

‘Can I do the right thing for the wrong reasons? Is it bad that I’m making friends with my demons?’ - 'Hellfire'

What is key for me about the Grey in the narrative is how it symbolises Caitlyn’s emotions, her mental state. The Grey is a pollutant, and how its smog affects the physical body is a reflection of how Caitlyn’s emotions are affecting her mentally, and therefore how she in turn interacts with the wider context.

As I said earlier, the memorial attack exacerbates her anger, which is in turn exacerbated by her grief, her guilt, and the pressure of the Kiramman name.

As the strike team conduct their mission, we see how Caitlyn’s negative emotions influence her choices and cloud her self-perception, as well as her perception of others. This, for me, is why the Grey is the weapon of choice within the narrative.

There are literal considerations you could take into account as to the why, and I’ve sort of explored these in the how- preferable to full-scale invasion, vents allow for targeted use, short-span use non-fatal etc. But for me the symbolic nature of the Grey reflecting Caitlyn’s emotions, and crucially how these push her to make morally grey decisions, is what defines the why- the above lyrics to ‘Hellfire’ encapsulates this nicely.

So, what is the ‘wrong reason’?

Vengeance:

Vengeance. That is what Caitlyn wants. Vengeance against Jinx.

It is born, crucially, from her grief, her guilt. It stokes her anger and soon becomes an all-encompassing smog which clouds Caitlyn’s thinking.

Jinx remains the spectre of Caitlyn’s fantasy as the strike team carry out their mission. She appears as a silhouette in the vents. She taunts them in the arcade with the shooting game. Caitlyn hyperventilates before taking a shot at a figure which mirrors her earlier fantasy in her hideaway. The impact frame of her eyes is pretty disturbing, evocative of how twisted Caitlyn’s mental state is becoming the longer Jinx remains elusive.

She becomes increasingly aggressive as their hunt continues. She shoves wanted posters in the chembarons’ people’s faces. She is cold and threatening with Heenot. And the ‘Hellfire’ sequence makes clear just how vengeance is twisting her as she appears a figure tinted red, eyes fiery.

Caitlyn is losing sight of herself. Losing sight of the wider context. This is affecting how she treats others.

Recall her conversation with Jayce in the hideaway, his alarm at her anger. ‘I know,’ she acknowledges, and confesses, ‘I just understand now how easy it is to hate them,’ she admits. The attack on the council has made bolder the line of divide cycles of violence bring- ‘them’- but Caitlyn is hanging onto her self-perception.

But the memorial attack changes things. ‘Animals,’ she calls the attackers. This dehumanising word demonstrates how much Caitlyn is losing sight of herself. Her empathy, her prior reluctance to see any difference, on a human level, between Piltover and Zaun (hiding in Vi’s childhood home in season 1 she says, ‘we’re people, just like you’).

Losing sight of the humanity in others means Caitlyn is also losing sight of herself. Her own humanity. And, if the Grey is depicted as a monster, and the monster is reflecting Caitlyn (and under her control), this says a lot about how vengeance is twisting her thinking, suffocating her person, and causing her to contribute to cycles which divide and hurt.

‘Leader of House Kiramman’:

This ‘losing’ of identity can be reflected further, I think, in how Caitlyn’s personal motives define her using the Kiramman name, her first taking up the mantle.

She utilises the power of her family name to assert her choices over the council. Once again, it is important to consider that this does prevent the full-scale invasion, but I think it is fair to argue Caitlyn is also being influenced by her need for vengeance. The Kiramman name is tool, a key, which can get her what she wants.

And I think it is interesting to consider how her reversing the helpful intentions of her ancestors in installing the vents, utilising the Grey instead of dispelling it, represents both Caitlyn losing sight of herself and her prior issues with her family name.

‘I know you doubt the merit of your birthright, Caitlyn,’ Cassandra says. In season 1, we see her resisting the stifling confines of what her mother expects and wants for her. She is a misfit.

After Cassandra’s death, the pressure of the name Caitlyn does not even want bears down on her, along with the guilt of perceiving herself as complicit in her mother’s death.

And Caitlyn struggles under this weight until the Kiramman name is twisted, too, into a tool not dissimilar to the Grey. She is not yet ready for the responsibility and how such power and privilege affect both Piltover and Zaun. It is her ‘legacy,’ but Caitlyn is losing herself.

This is even more impactful when considering that many of Caitlyn’s issues and arguments with her mother derive from her being a reluctant and unwilling heir. The Kiramman name came between them in life, and in death is twisted, as Caitlyn’s grief and love for her mother become twisted themselves by vengeance.

There is irony in learning the Kirammans helped the undercity with the vents, something altruistic similar to Caitlyn’s own values when she is not choking on grief and vengeance. But the placing of the crown on her head happens at the hands of tragedy, and it rests twistedly for now.

The Grey becomes Black and White:

This is all key in why I think the Grey, what it represents, and how it is used, act as a prelude to the culmination of Act 1- Caitlyn’s appointment as commander.

Ambessa is impressed with Caitlyn’s assertion in the bunker, observant of her grief (and Salo’s) after the council attack, and perceptive of the power of the Kiramman name. As Salo says, ‘it bewitches people.’

By the end of Act 1, Caitlyn has failed to capture Jinx and left Vi after feeling betrayed by her for stopping her from shooting Jinx, therefore endangering Isha. By this point, I think there is no stopping the sliding slope into the black and white brooding figure of vengeance we see in the ‘Paint the Town Blue’ sequence.

She is choking on her emotions, and with Vi, her anchor, gone, is ripe for Ambessa’s picking. Caitlyn needs direction and Ambessa is offering it to her. She promises Caitlyn the thing which has slowly consumed her over the course of Act 1- vengeance. She steps further down this course.

Thus, grey turns to black and white. Caitlyn becomes complicit in, is the face of, the Piltover/Noxian occupation of Zaun, the violence this brings. Caitlyn has lost sight of herself in her hunt for Jinx and therefore others are harmed for her purposes (and Ambessa’s).

Caitlyn comes back to herself, slowly (from episode 4 we see her grappling her position), although of course, remains permanently changed (it’s interesting how the vengeance and idea of either doing the ‘wrong thing for the right reason’ or 'right thing for the wrong reason’ follow on in act 2 but that’s not my focus here).

Jinx and the Retaliation:

I think Jinx’s retaliation to the strike team’s mission and their use of the Grey underlines how its moral greyness feeds into the cycles of violence (I’m only going to analyse here her actions in relation to Caitlyn’s- this is already way too long and she deserves her own post).

Jinx is, like Caitlyn, motivated by her emotions, particularly related to Vi and her upset at seeing her as part of the strike team. She tells Sevika she is going to ‘finish what’s left of her family’ after their fight with Smeech, referring to their confrontation in the Temple of Janna.

She retaliates against the strike team to do so- setting trigger explosives in the vents, hanging vivisected dolls of them from a propellor she ties Heenot to in the first step of luring them down to the temple.

He says, ‘Jinx is off the rails, even for her. She’s got a real fire lit under her ass. She’s planning something big, right here in the pipeworks. She was heading towards the old tunnels. Something about rerouting the vents.’

Jinx begins using the Grey against the strike team. She breaks a pipe and, along with arrows, uses it to lead them to the temple. And, most significantly, at the conclusion of the fight, Sevika triggers explosives which puts Jinx’s ‘big’ plan into action. The rerouted vents drive the Grey up into Piltover, where it explodes in great plumes which flood streets and paint the town in a multicolour splash.

The cycles of violence have continued. Caitlyn wanted vengeance on Jinx, but Jinx has retaliated right back. In light of the ways in which Caitlyn and Jinx parallel each other near constantly throughout ‘Arcane’ (especially in season 2), I think this is suggestive of the futile nature of vengeance.

‘An eye for an eye,’ and you lose sight of yourself. Caitlyn’s hideaway is blasted with the Grey, the wind chime feature which had represented her feelings in episode 1 broken. There is no more space in herself, at this time, to piece apart her thoughts.

And the attack on Piltover allows Ambessa to consolidate her position as Piltover’s saviour and assert her will.

There is so much more you could say about Jinx and Caitlyn, especially because of how they parallel each other constantly throughout the show (how their uses of the Grey contribute to them becoming symbols of something of which they are doubtful is really fascinating to me), but for the purposes of this deep dive on the Grey, I hope this suffices.

Conclusion:

The conflict which so much defines the shared history of Piltover and Zaun is growing steadily more volatile during act 1, and it is interesting to piece apart how characters impact upon this- there are good intentions in the strike team’s mission, but these are inseparable from the morally grey means through which they go about it.

Means influenced by emotions which have grown from the prior continuance of the cycles of violence. ‘Arcane’ is a tragedy, and there is certainly tragedy in watching Caitlyn be so changed by events.

The Grey is a reflection, a symbolic representation, of how Caitlyn changes throughout Act 1. How she is influenced by and influences other characters, and the impact this all has on the wider context. The morally grey path she goes down in her quest for vengeance.

By act 3, we see her having realised the error of her ways, knowing what she has done cannot be erased, but willing to fight against cycles of violence, walk away from her vengeance, and ‘trust in tomorrow.’

But in the smog of the conflict, everything seems grey.

I hope this exploration of the symbolism of the Grey was interesting. If you’ve reached the end of this, thank you so much for reading- I realise it is really long. I’m just very much fascinated with this show, so… I appreciate it!

Reference: the reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/arcane/comments/1grizex/s2_spoilers_a_lot_of_people_are_misinterpreting/?share_id=6QplLMckmb2t4DnH3uGfw&utm_content=1&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1&rdt=56152

#caitlyn kiramman #arcane #arcane analysis #vi arcane

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