#I apologize to those caught in the crossfire

[love-toxin]

I'm so sorry, I'm still stuck on Jason 😩 Have you seen the 2009 reboot yet? Because, hubba hubba. This is a Jason who RUNS, LIKE A DEAD FUCKING SPRINT, AND IT'S SO MUCH MORE TERRIFYING. He's also got a bit more of a wilderness survivalist flavor to him, like this man uses a crossbow, and he lives in a network of underground tunnels in and around the camp. He literally kidnaps one of the college girls from the group he kills in the cold open and keeps her in his tunnel lair because she looks like his mom ❤️ like, the mommy kink fics write themselves!!! This man comes with yandere tropes included, right out of the box

I wish he was in my box I mean what who said that

unnghhhhhh i want him!!!! NYEOW!!!!! I'll slay u if u apologize for bringing him up again hannah that mf is in my brain and he is squirming <33 ur so real for this

see I'm thinking--to get around the whole 'no sex no drugs no NOTHIN' rules--Jason prays or makes an offering or w/e to mama's shrunken head after he kidnaps you. cause he loves you you're so pretty but he has all these feelings what does he do? 🥺 how does he not break the rules? 🥺 but he picks up that it's okay if you're in love & there's nobody you're looking after & he can take care of you so it's okay. you're adults now. he just has to make sure you're really the one and he knows you are. there's nobody else. there will never be anyone else.

so yay! mama approves! 🥰 now he can fold you on those dirty sheets and sling your legs over his shoulders while he reams you to hell and back. watches you cream around him like he's railing a pretty little pie. make the mattress squeak and croak under your combined weight that he's pounding deeper into it. making you sweat all over him and his clothes and prying open your thighs to spread them wider--you're just so warm, he needs to get in deeper--manhandling you like a doll and that's what he thinks of you as. your pet name. dolly. he engraves it on the little wooden sculptures he carves for you. it's so fitting for you because you're so pristine and cute and pretty and small. you barely measure up to his height and you look like you're about to break under his weight. he could be crushing your spine and you'd probably gurgle and scream the same amount you do when he's pumping your guts; but girls like that, that's what he's overheard from the counselors he's killed, so he does just that.

and yes on the yandere soooooo hard. when you first get dragged into the underground tunnels you're certain you'll never come out, and you're only a little bit wrong. at some point he'll bring you up for sunshine and to do some activities with you, but before you 'settle in' you're staying right next to him down there. he just makes sure the chains don't inhibit him from fucking you. one time a stray somehow stumbles across one of the entrances and walks in on Jason on top of you, and you hear his screams for days from the other room because Jason gets so pissed about him seeing you without clothes on. he's somehow even more brutal than he was because he's just so protective. he's had enough of counselors escaping and victims getting the jump on him--you can't get caught in the crossfire, so he just has to make sure he gets the jump on everyone else first. stronger weapons, sharper blades.

[ode2rin]

Was it because he sometimes fail to call you due to opposite time zones? Or was it the frequent periods when he wasn't at home? Had the distance finally played its game in your relationship?

Out of all people, you were the last person Sae would have expected to betray him like this.

Yet, it happened. You blindsided him.

“I’m just three episodes ahead! Stop being so dramatic!” you protested from the other end of the couch.

Yes, that's the grave betrayal you've committed. Was it worth fighting over? Maybe. Was he being petty? Of course not. The act itself could be the equivalent of your partner lying to you. A literal crime, if he can say so himself. 

“We were supposed to watch it together,” he frowned, his eyes fixed on the Netflix series playing on the TV with its soft glow highlighting the contours of Sae's face as he continued to express his mock indignation. “Together.” He stressed every syllable, dragging out the pettiness, much to your annoyance.

And there you both were, caught in the crossfire of a relationship dispute sparked by the unspoken rules of synchronized streaming. 

Were there any rules in the first place? Well, according to Sae's book, there certainly were. Because, much to his denial, Sae loves your relationship’s traditions. One of them being this – the two of you wrapped in thick blankets with you curling up to his side and his hands fiddling with yours while you both spend the night away watching a show you mentioned in your call with him when he was away. 

Now, however, the two of you (mainly him) are faced with the big question of how to enjoy said tradition when you're already three episodes ahead.

“I apologized already,” you point out.

“You said sorry after saying oh yeah, I kind of watched it and shrugged. Talk about sincerity.” 

You bite back your laughter at his words. You knew your boyfriend had a great tendency to be dramatic, but he surprises you every time he pulls out a fit like this one. 

“And look, you’re even laughing.” he glares at you. “You find it so funny that you broke your promise to watch it with me, is that it?”

“Oh, come on! How did you even know that I already watched it?! I was acting pretty well!” you exclaimed at him while inching closer, trying to get close to where he’s seated. 

Five minutes before this whole theatrics, Sae was sitting close to you. However, after realizing your betrayal, the sheer spite in him compelled him to retreat to the opposite end of the couch, far from your lying ass.

“Your acting skills are shit,” he tells you before rolling his eyes again.

It was a lie. He almost couldn’t tell except after one passing comical scene of the show.

Sae has developed a habit of looking at you whenever there’s a scene he thinks you would find remotely funny, no matter how ridiculous the said scene might be for him. At every joke and witty banter, he would turn to you for your own laugh.

You never caught on to this habit, and Sae would rather feed on those horrendous french fries than tell you how he seeks the way you throw your head back, and how your eyes momentarily shut from laughing because the sight spreads an indefinable warmth in his chest and how the sound fills every quiet corner of his once empty space. 

So imagine his surprise when you weren’t laughing. You were smiling – yes, but it wasn’t a laugh he seeks.

Sae was on the verge of turning his head again after hearing a sigh escape your lips. You’re sighing? And it was deep too, like it was telling him you’re getting sick of it. The absolute nerve.

“Did you just sigh–”

But before Sae could finish his sentence, your arms gracefully snaked around his torso, enveloping him in that comforting back hug you always bestowed upon him.

“I said I’m sorry,” you whispered against his shoulder blades, your right cheek caressing his back as you planted a feather-light kiss in that spot. You saw him momentarily close his eyes at your touch, making you smile secretly in triumph. 

You’ve loved this man long enough to memorize how to soften his rough edges.

“I was bored to my wits’ end last week, I couldn’t help it but check it out,” you added, your voice carrying a persuasive tone.

Last week. He was supposed to be home by that time. If he was, the two of you would be comfortably cuddling on this very same couch. But some lukewarm fool managing the team decided to extend his misery in Spain for another week.

“I don’t like that look.” 

His thoughts were cut off by the sound of your stern voice. Unbeknownst to Sae’s preoccupied self, you’ve been staring at his face far longer than a minute to notice his miniscule change of expression when you mentioned last week. Turning to his right shoulder where you were, he raised an eyebrow in question.

“I know you. Spit it out,” you demanded, a knowing glint in your eyes.

And truth be told, you do know him. You were right. For a moment, his thoughts lingered on how much easier it would be to have more nights of just you and him if he wasn't away all the time.

But he couldn’t tell you that, not just yet. Maybe when the timing finally called for his proposition. “I’m sorry my stay got extended,” is what he said instead, hoping to convey what he couldn’t put into words.

“You know I don’t mind, besides, I understand.”

“I know.”

Sensing an unspoken ‘but...’ in his words, you looked up to him, meeting his perceptive teal eyes. He didn’t need to say anything more. You knew him, after all.

To lighten the mood, you decided to test your luck by teasing him. “Oh, my big dramatic baby,” you cooed.

“I’m not a damn baby,” he snorted, beginning to squirm out of your embrace as if to prove a point without letting his ears betray him by turning red.

“Shh, you are. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone else. I wouldn’t dare sabotage the Japan prodigy’s aloof badass rep to shit.”

You saw his mouth twitched, holding back his own amusement. God, even after all of those tender affections from you, this guy is still trying to be petty as hell.

“I don’t have an aloof badass reputation.”

“Yeah, because what you are is a dramatic spiteful boyfriend who thrives on being petty.”

“You’re really making it hard to forgive you, y/n.”

“Forgive me already!” You gaped at him, “And you say I’m the dramatic one in this relationship!”

Sae, like the rude person he is, ignored your whines, reaching for the remote to turn the show to the fourth episode. He then carefully placed you in his lap, turning you to face the TV, your back now pressing against his chest. As you watched everything he did in bewilderment, you turned to him, “but you won’t enjoy the story if we start on the fourth episode.”

True, but he preferred it when you were the one enjoying. “I’ll ask you questions along the way, and you can tell me about it,” he reassured you before pressing a kiss to your hair.

Exactly as he anticipated, your excitement to catch him up on the last three episodes was palpable. 

The living room transformed into a sanctuary of your laughter as you animatedly narrated each event that happened. He could barely understand the fourth one with all of your extra comments and snarky remarks on the characters that he doubts is even a part of the actual plot. The night danced away in the soothing rhythm of your voice and the murmur of a TV show, until your breaths finally eased into the cadence of sleep.

Silently, Sae turned off the TV, reveling in the tranquility of the room as he gathered you in his arms to head into your shared bedroom. Gently placing your slumbering form on your side of the bed, he settled beside you and draped the blanket over the two of you. Pulling you close, he nestled your head against his chest, one arm securing you at the waist.

But before sleep could fully claim his senses, he heard you mumbling.

“Sae?” 

Responding with a gentle hum, he felt your movements, your hands exploring the contours of his back as if tracing invisible lines and circles.

“About earlier,” you start, your voice barely above a whisper, “I’m not going anywhere. I'll be here, waiting for you to get home.”

His eyes opened, the drowsiness dissipating in the wake of your words, replaced by your warmth all over his body next to yours.

“So, it’s okay,” you continued, your words a tender caress against his collarbones, “We have plenty of time for movie nights and catching up on shows.”

Silence embraced you both, the room a canvas painted in the soft strokes of your steady breaths and the gentle thud of his heartbeat. Sae didn’t verbally respond to your assurance. Instead, you felt him pressed a soft kiss to the crown of your head and his arm around your waist tightening its hold.

He didn’t say anything, but his silence and his embrace was loud enough for you to know everything he wanted to say.

Of course, you both had time— a wealth of moments to spend more nights like this. He’ll make sure of it. After all, he looks forward to spending his days off in the tranquility of your presence. No matter how mundane it could get — as long as it’s with you.

note. it's been a while since i wrote this man.. i still cannot stand him and his petty ass by the way.

[kalixora]

Bounty PT2

[Back at Base]

“Why don’t you join the Autobots?” a little human girl named Miko asked you, her eyes wide with curiosity.

"I have mouths to feed and no time for pity parties," you answered, crossing your arms. Your hounds rested on the floor, while your largest stayed by your side, warily watching Ratchet, the medic Optimus assured the both of you to trust.

"But the Autobots are the good guys! You’re a good guy, you take the bad guys!" Miko exclaimed dramatically, her enthusiasm unwavering.

The sound of your youngest hound whimpering as the medic worked filled your helm. Your largest hound growled, but you quickly waved your servo, making them stop.

"Always fighting, always leaving a mess behind," you muttered, frustration evident in your voice. "Where we have to clean it up. Planets destroyed, so many species, lives taken because—"

"Of the cons!" Miko interrupted. You looked at the human girl eyeing her coldly. "No," you shook your helm slowly. "Autobots and Decepticons. They’re both to blame."

Miko looked taken aback, glancing between you and the Autobots. Miko’s eyes landed on Arcee who stared at the ground, looking away from you.

Optimus lowered his gaze, the weight of your words hitting home as Ratchet continued to fix your hound while grumbling under his breath.

Your youngest hound whimpered again, your optics shifting to the medic, you let out a soft pitch and spoke a few words in cybertrioan from where you stood, and your youngest became calm.

"This endless war," you continued, your voice firm but no less intense, "it affects everyone. Not just those on the front lines. Someone has to deal with the aftermath, and it’s people like me who get stuck with that job."

Optimus stepped closer, his voice calm yet resolute. "We strive to protect and restore, but I understand your perspective. The war has taken a toll on many, and for that, I am truly sorry."

You looked up at him, meeting his optics with a mixture of anger and resignation. "Sorry doesn’t fix what’s broken," you said quietly, standing up. "My hound was shot; it was a scrappy attempt at ending his life. Imagine a child's blood on your hands, in front of his mother. This is the first hound to be born after so many missed cycles. How would your Autobots feel if your leader lost their life over a misunderstanding?"

Optimus's optics dimmed slightly, the weight of your words sinking in. "We understand the gravity of what has happened," he said solemnly. "It was never our intention to cause such harm."

Miko watched you, her face unsure and conflicted, struggling to grasp the depth of your anger.

"You have to understand," you continued, "this isn’t just about sides. It’s about the innocent lives caught in the crossfire, the collateral damage that doesn’t get fixed with apologies."

Optimus nodded, his expression serious. "You’re right. We must do better. Strive to protect all life.”

You tilted your helm toward the Prime, noticing how he stood to block your view of Arcee.

Optimus shifted his optics to your hound standing beside you and knelt down before her. “I am sorry. Forgive them, as your hatred should be targeted towards me.”

Your hound snarled, baring its teeth and getting into an attack position. The other hounds stood up, shaking their heads before beginning to circle the kneeling Prime, a low growl resonating among them.

“What’s happening?” Miko asked, peering from beside your feet. “Are they gonna hurt him?”

“No, this is revenge,” Arcee said, narrowing her optics at you.

You watched the scene unfold, the tension thick in the air. “If it were revenge, you would have been dead, on the spot.” you said.

Optimus remained still, his optics unwavering. ���Do what you must,” he said, his voice steady. “But know that my actions come from a desire to protect. I ask only that you spare my team from further harm.”

Your hounds paused, their growls still rumbling but their eyes flicking to you for direction. You could sense the resolve in Optimus’s optics, the genuine regret in his words.

You sighed deeply, the anger warring within you. "This war has taken too much from too many," you said. "But maybe it’s time for a different path."

With a slight gesture, you signaled your hounds to stand down. They hesitated but obeyed, moving back to your side.

Miko let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. "Thank you," she whispered, looking up at you with a mix of relief and admiration.

Optimus rose to his feet, his optics meeting your hound. "Your mercy is not unnoticed. We will strive to be better, for all affected by this war."

"All done," Ratchet said with an unamused laugh. "He needs rest. Should be able to do—whatever it is that you all do—in the morning. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going into recharge."

"That’s a first," Miko giggled.

You walked over to the medic table and smiled as you placed your servo on your hound’s head. "Thank the All-Spark…"

Arcee headed out of the area with Smokescreen and Bumblebee trailing behind her. The Wreckers and Ultra Magnus stayed put, watching you as you remained by the medic table.

Wheeljack crossed his arms, his optics narrowing. "How’d you become a bounty hunter, anyway? Was there a class or something? And what’s with all the hounds? You an animal lover, or are they just tools for the job?"

Ultra Magnus stepped forward, his presence imposing. "Surely you can provide more than a simple answer. Your skills are exceptional. There must be a story behind them."

"They’re not just animals—they’re my partners, my family. In a galaxy full of mess, they’re the ones I can rely on."

Bulkhead optics flickered with a mix of skepticism, you didn’t answer the question fully. "Guess that makes sense. Out here, you need all the help you can get. But don’t think for a second that trusting us is the wrong move. We’ve got your back if you’re willing to give us a chance. That is…"

You glanced at your hounds, now resting peacefully, with your largest still faithfully at your side.

As the Autobots slowly dispersed, you remained by the medic table, feeling a cautious hope for the future.

"Is it just me, or did Optimus give her a look?" Miko said, perched on Bulkhead’s shoulder as they watched Optimus turn to face you again.

"Not now, Miko," Bulkhead sighed.

"Let me guess, you want me to stay and fight for your cause?" you questioned the Prime, your tone tinged with skepticism.

“Only if you choose to,” Optimus said calmly, his optics steady. “But the cause is for our home, for Cybertron.”

“That so? The line has been blurred for a while now, hard to tell if it’s still for Cybertron,” you replied, folding your arms across your chest.

Optimus took a few deliberate steps closer, standing shoulder to shoulder with you. His presence was commanding yet reassuring. “It has always been for Cybertron,” he asserted firmly.

You glanced at him, studying him. Despite your doubts, you couldn’t deny the sincerity in his words.

“And what if I choose not to fight alongside you?”

“Then that is your choice,” Optimus replied evenly. “But know that our offer of alliance and support stands, should you ever decide otherwise.”

“That so?” You hummed. “Let me ask you this then Optimus, do you want us to stay?”

Optimus looked at you, his optics staring into yours with unwavering sincerity. “Yes,” he said simply. You raised an optic ridge, surprised by his straightforwardness.

“I’ll make a decision by dawn,” you replied. “You should rest, Prime. Another day of fighting Decepticons can be draining, I’m sure.”

Optimus nodded, appreciating your understanding. “Thank you. I look forward to your decision.”

. . .

“I’m telling you, I saw it! With my own two eyes! Optimus definitely has a crush on her!” Miko insisted.

“Get real, Miko. Optimus is too busy for stuff like that,” Jake rolled his eyes.

“No one’s ever too busy for love!” Miko said, clasping her hands together. “Right, Bulk?”

Everyone exchanged glances as they waited in the training room for Optimus to return.

“Please, Optimus knows better than to get involved with a bounty hunter of all people. She doesn’t believe in any sides of the war, as if it wasn’t the Decepticons who started it,” Ratchet huffed. “Making me fix her hound was just absurd. Couldn’t she have done it herself? What kind of person doesn’t know how to fix their animal?”

“… You think she has a bounty for Optimus?” Smokescreen questioned.

“No,” Ultra Magnus shook his helm. “She would’ve killed him in front of us if that were the case.”

“She has a young hound, right? Maybe it’s not ready to fight yet,” Raf said, leaning against the wall with a contemplative look.

“Pft, wish you guys would’ve called for backup. I would’ve ended Miss Sunshine on the spot,” WheelJack chuckled, his bulky frame vibrating with suppressed energy as he pounded his fists together.

Ultra Magus glanced at WheelJack with a raised optic ridge. “Easy there, Wrecker. She’s not our enemy.”

“Yeah, but she’s no ally either,” WheelJack grumbled, his expression hardening.

Ultra Magnus stepped forward, his demeanor composed yet authoritative. “Regardless of our opinions, she has proven formidable. We must remain cautious and focused.”

Bumblebee beeped, “Let’s not forget, she did allow us to treat her hound. That counts for something.”

“I still think he has the hots for her,” Miko shrugged nonchalantly. Bulkhead chuckled softly. “Maybe you’re right, Miko.”

Arcee shook her helm folding her arms. “Optimus is focused on the mission, Miko. Romance isn’t exactly his style.”

"What! Come on! Weren’t you in love with somebody!" Miko questioned the two wheeler.

"No," Ratchet grunted. "Romance and war don’t mix well, that’s for sure."

Ultra Magnus folded his arms, "Our priority remains securing peace and stability."

WheelJack snorted. "Peace and stability? Easier said than done. The cons know nothing about that."

Raf shrugged slightly. "I mean… she might have a point. You guys needed help from humans for your war on our planet… even though you were defending it from the cons, you’re still leaving something behind that could affect us."

Arcee’s optics flashed with offense, her voice firm. "Raf, we’ve fought to protect Earth from the Decepticons. We’ve sacrificed much to ensure its safety."

Ultra Magnus’s demeanor turned stern. "Our actions have always been in defense of Earth. We do not take lightly the consequences of our battles."

Ratchet’s expression darkened. "Do not mistake necessity for indifference, Rafael. We strive to minimize harm, but sometimes there are no easy choices in war."

Bumblebee looked between them, sensing the tension. “I think Raf just meant—”

Ratchet interrupted, his voice carrying a hint of disappointment. “No, Bumblebee. He needs to understand that we fight to protect, not to endanger.”

Raf shook his head, his voice earnest as he interjected, “I know that, I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. It’s just… seeing the aftermath sometimes makes me wonder if there could be a better way.”

Arcee softened slightly, “We understand, Raf. We all have the same goal at the end of the day, to go home.”

Raf smiled up at Arcee, his expression relieved as they heard the ground bridge open and footsteps echoing through the base. Soon, Optimus and you returned, your hounds trailing behind, their watchful gazes scanning the room as everyone emerged from the training room and converged towards you and the Prime.

Optimus placed his servo on your shoulder and addressed everyone with a solemn tone, his optics sweeping over the gathered Autobots. "Autobots, Y/N has decided to stay and help us."

Ratchet, standing nearby with his arms crossed, couldn't help but groan audibly. "So many mouths to feed," he muttered under his breath, eyeing the hounds that trailed behind you and Optimus.

Miko squealed excitedly, "Finally, another girl! Hi! Nice to meet you again, I'm Miko! And this is Raf and Jack!"

You looked down at the humans as they waved at you. Nodding your helm in acknowledgement, you spoke a word in Cybertronian, prompting your hounds to move forward from behind you, their tails wagging eagerly. All of them, except your largest hound, who remained by your side, glared defiantly at Arcee.

"Y/N, and this is [hound's name]. She keeps the others in check," you introduced, gesturing to your largest hound beside you.

"So, what made you want to join us Autobots, sunshine?" Wheeljack asked, narrowing his optics at you.

You glanced at Optimus for a moment, then back at Wheeljack. "Timing," was all you said, leaving the implication hanging in the air.

[deliciousangelfestival]

Cozy Secrets || Bucky Barnes

Character: Spy!Bucky x Roommate!Reader

Summary: Y/N discovers her seemingly perfect roommate, Bucky, is a spy.

Chp 1, Chp 2 , Chp 3 , -

Main Masterlist || buy me Ko-fi 🥹💓

Thank you to anyone who gave a like, reblog, and left a comment. It motivated me to write more. 

In the heart of the bustling city, Y/N  found herself looking for the perfect roommate. Her previous housemate had bid adieu after getting engaged, leaving Y/N in the lurch to find a suitable replacement.

After countless interviews, Y/N finally stumbled upon what seemed to be the answer to her roommate's quest – Bucky, a sports photographer with a penchant for cleanliness and a propensity for quiet nights.

His nocturnal work hours meshed well with Y/N's daytime routine, and his willingness to contribute to the apartment's upkeep made him the ideal housemate.

The first three months of their living arrangement went smoothly. He was always punctual with rent, impeccably tidy, and even willing to take on household chores without complaint – he was the roommate Y/N had always dreamed of.

However, something twisted happened one day when she returned home later than usual.

As she swung open the door, ready to unwind in her sanctuary, her eyes widened in disbelief and horror.

Her once-immaculate living space was now a chaotic mess, and right in the middle of the turmoil were two men engaged in a heated scuffle, with Bucky caught in the crossfire.

"Excuse me, what the heck is this?" Y/N exclaimed, her initial shock transforming into a mix of rage and confusion. The three combatants froze, turning their attention to Y/N.

The two men, realizing they were caught in the act, exchanged nervous glances but didn't utter a word. Bucky seized the opportunity for a strategic move in the split second of confusion.

With a swift motion, he expertly maneuvered between the brawlers and shut them down with a series of impeccably executed moves, leaving them in a stunned heap on the floor.

"Bucky, what in the world is happening here?" Y/N demanded, her eyes darting between the mess and her roommate, who was now defensive.

Bucky, seeing the need for a more honest approach, took a deep breath and decided to come clean. "Y/N, there's something you should know. I'm not just a sports photographer. I'm actually a spy."

Y/N stared at him, her initial anger giving way to sheer disbelief. "A spy? Are you serious, Bucky? Is this some sort of elaborate prank?"

Bucky shook his head, his expression serious. "No, I'm dead serious. I chose this apartment because it provides the perfect vantage point to keep an eye on a target across the building. Those guys you just saw? They were after the same target, and things got a bit out of hand."

Y/N blinked, processing this unexpected revelation. "Wait, so you're telling me that all this time, while I thought you were just a neat freak sports photographer, you've been living a double life as a spy?"

Looking genuinely remorseful, Bucky began, "Y/N, I'm really sorry about the mess. This wasn't supposed to happen, and I didn't mean to put you in this situation. It was a mistake, and I take full responsibility."

Y/N, arms still crossed, nodded. "Apologies won't fix my now-ruined living room, Bucky. This is unacceptable. I thought I finally found the perfect roommate, not a spy who turns my place into a battlefield."

Bucky, understanding the gravity of the situation, nodded solemnly. "I understand, Y/N. My agency will cover the expenses for the repairs and replacements. I'll make sure everything is back to normal. You have my word."

True to his word, Bucky coordinated with his agency, ensuring a team was dispatched to clean up the aftermath of the brawl. Broken items were replaced with new ones, and the apartment was restored to its former glory.

A few days later, as Y/N surveyed the now spotless living room, Bucky approached her tentatively. "I hope this makes up for the mess, Y/N. I really didn't mean for any of this to happen."

Y/N, now feeling a bit more forgiving, sighed. "Fine, Bucky. You've cleaned up your mess, literally. But I still need time to get over the fact that my roommate is a spy who uses my apartment for covert operations."

Bucky hesitated, "Y/N, I hope you don't want me to move out. I really like it here."

As Y/N contemplated whether she should ask Bucky to find a new place, her phone buzzed with a notification about her upcoming high school reunion. The idea of attending filled her with dread.

"Ugh, a high school reunion," she muttered to herself.

Bucky, overhearing, raised an eyebrow. "Problem with the reunion?"

Y/N grimaced. "I despise those events.” She doesn’t want to meet the popular girl from her school who constantly bullies her. But this time, she wants to show off. She got an excellent job nice apartment. But there’s one she doesn’t have. 

A boyfriend. 

Y/N looked Bucky from head to toe and mumbled, “What if..." But this idea was insane; she shook her head. 

Bucky looked curious. "What if what?"

“Nothing.”

Bucky, understanding the high school dynamics, chuckled. "Ah, trying to one-up the mean girls from the past. So you need someone to accompany you? I'm in.”

Y/N fell silent for a moment, a realization slowly dawning on her. "You knew about my personal life?"

Bucky rubbed his head, a hint of embarrassment coloring his expression. He didn't deny it, saying, "Well, I'm a spy, and my agency does background checks on everyone."

Her hands now covering her face, Y/N sighed, "Oh no...."

Bucky couldn't help but chuckle at her reaction. "What do you think? With my spy skills, I bet I could impress everyone at the reunion. In exchange, please don't kick me out. Pleasee...."

Y/N grumbled, her frustration apparent. "Fine."

Bucky grinned, a mix of relief and amusement in his eyes. "Thanks Y/N. I swear you won’t regret this."

As they navigated the quirks of their unique living situation, little did they know that more surprises and adventures awaited them in the days ahead.

Chp 1, Chp 2 , Chp 3 ,-

Main Masterlist || buy me Ko-fi 🥹💓

Thank you to anyone who gave a like, reblog, and left a comment. It motivated me to write more. 

[python333]

residual self-image — python³

― ― ― ―

synopsis residual self-image is the mental projection of your digital self; it refers to your own physical appearance that is understood by you, that is projected unto you by yourself. you see yourself as something to be ashamed of. price sees something different.

relationships platonic!captain price & gn!reader.

characters cap. price.

word count 7.6k

warnings anxiety/panic attack [not sure exactly how to classify it; i think it's more of an anxiety attack?], reader takes SSRIs [zoloft/sertraline], suicidal thoughts and almost-suicide attempt, reader is the most unreliable narrator known to mankind, second person pov [you/your/yourself], usage of [name], usage of [c/n] for call sign/code name, bad matrix references/spoilers for the matrix and the matrix: reloaded.

note please please PLEASE let me know if this comes off as me romanticizing having anxiety or taking antidepressants so that i can fix/rewrite it /srs i don't take any form of antidepressants or anxiety medication and i also am not diagnosed with either of those!! nothing i say is final!!! i do not have firsthand experience with what reader goes through in this fic!! sorry i disappeared for a second, have some food as an apology. again, feel free to correct me on anything you think is inaccurate and i will (most likely) change it!! also sorry for like 3k words of backstory oopsies

In The Matrix, Morpheus gives Neo two options: blue pill, or red pill?

He says that if Neo takes the blue pill, “the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe”. But the second option, the red pill, if Neo takes that, he will “stay in wonderland and [he] show [Neo] how deep the rabbit hole goes”. Neo, of course, takes the red pill, and is shown the “real world”. 

Neo is thought to be “the One”. With the “O” in “One” being capitalized, so you know that it’s a pretty important title. 

In the end, Neo becomes confident in who he is and what he can do, and defeats the “Agents”. Trinity confesses her love to a “sleeping” Neo, their ship is getting attacked by whatever those weird fuckin’ creatures were called, and Neo defeats the last of the agents. The end. 

You take pills too. But yours are blue. They’re matte, powdery, baby-blue pills that are branded with the name “ZOLOFT”. It’s sertraline, to be specific, and you’ve been taking it for the past few months. You’re new to pills like these, ones meant to treat anxiety and depression and a number of other medical issues, so you didn’t know how much to take at first. You asked your doctor so many questions. You think about it often, and wonder if, even though it’s their job, that doctor had gotten annoyed at some point because of your inquiry. 

These pills do similar things to the ones in The Matrix, though. You take them, preferably at night, and wake up in your bed like you always do. You believe whatever you want to believe, and another chapter is closed at the end of every day, marking another page closer to the end of your story. 

Some days, the story feels like it’s going to end sooner than expected. 

A side effect of sertraline―or, well, Zoloft specifically―happens to be suicidal ideation. It’s not that common, not that talked about, and isn’t the most well-known. But then again, most mental disorder-treating medicines have some kind of side effect like that, and plenty of people take things like antidepressants without an issue―or so you thought―so surely you could deal with something as simple as sertraline, right?

Wrong. So, so, wrong. 

It’s probably really bad for a person who works in a military group to be dealing with such thoughts. You think about quitting sometimes, for the sake of the other people in the task force, because what could happen if the wrong straw breaks the wrong camel’s back while you’re doing an assignment? What if, caught in the crossfire between your team and your enemy, you say fuck it and decide that it’s all just too much? What are the odds of that happening? What are the odds of anything happening? What were the odds of the Earth being created, of the first animals evolving, of the first humans speaking the first languages? Statistics are so important, chance is so important, and odds determine everything. What are the odds of you deciding whether or not you have the will to live? The ability to keep going, to keep the routine you’ve always kept, to keep from taking one of those G19s from the armory and turning off the safety before pulling the trigger? To commit to such a permanent solution, one you’ve deemed as the “s-word”, because thinking about it sometimes is too much.

Or maybe it’d be a rope, your brain continues without your consent, A chain. Anything that will hold your body weight up enough for you to dangle from the fan on the ceiling―an image that makes you lean towards a chain, sickeningly enough, because of the idea of your abnormally stretched neck on display. The purple bruising that would appear, the indentations of each link, the smell of your blood and the metal of the chain unable to be told apart. Maybe your eyes would still be open, and it would look like you’re staring down at anyone who walks into your office. There’s so many possibilities. They add up, and create new odds, new chances. Every time you simply think, you are creating a new way to go about life, and that creation is sometimes stored so deeply in the back of your mind that it haunts you. It comes back around, becomes more common, the chances of it happening go up. 

Sometimes the odds feel like they aren’t in your favor at all. Sometimes you wonder how you could’ve ever thought that any part of the universe was against you. It’s not bipolar; it doesn’t come and go in extremes, it just comes and goes. The odds will lower in your favor some days, and you will deem those days “bad days”, and other days they will be so high you don’t even think about “good days” or “bad days”. But those other days are almost as bad as the “bad days”, because they go by so quickly. You take them for granted so easily, too easily, and they leak through the thin lines between your fingers, leaving you with nothing by the end of the day. 

Sometimes on “bad days”, your hands go from cupped to praying, and you will plead with yourself to just get better. You never do, on those days, and after taking your medicine you will go to sleep and believe that the next day will be better. Or, at least, convince yourself that the next day will be better. 

You would’ve understood if Neo took the blue pill. If he stayed in blissful ignorance, even after all of the weird shit that happened to him. If he continued to wake up every day in a “normal” world, to sell computer systems and hacking programs, to be anyone but “The One”. 

Because that’s what you do. You take your medicine, and go on with life as normally as possible, even with all of the things that you’ve been through. You wouldn’t want to be the one responsible for saving the world, or beating up robot-alien-things, or whatever. Just like how you don’t want to be held responsible for really just… taking care of yourself. 

Which you’re shit at, by the way, if that doesn’t make things worse. 

You take your sertraline and that’s about it. It’s not like it doesn’t work, it’s just underwhelming sometimes. Before you got on it, you would take more things to heart, think about things more, and were probably a little more prone to actually killing yourself. After starting to take it, it was admittedly pretty rough. It felt like your anxiety had increased a little, like your paranoia had only heightened, and everything felt so elevated. 

Then, maybe a few months after beginning to take it, everything dimmed out. Like one of those lightbulbs you can dim, everything gradually came back down, and even lowered to a more tolerable level. You were glad, at first, that you had endured those first few months the way that you did because you’re not sure you would’ve even been here to this day had you not. Reading several articles and Reddit posts about Zoloft definitely didn’t help, especially as someone who was taking it partially for anxiety, but still, you managed. 

And then you realized that just taking the medicine didn’t do as much as you hoped it would. 

It helps you deal with anxious and depressive thoughts, yes, but you still feel like something’s missing. That lightbulb in your mind has dimmed, but it’s only just enough light to see ahead of you. Before all of this, the light was bright enough to blind you, to make you see that dreadful stark-white that still sometimes haunts you―when it dimmed down to where it is now, it was obviously a relief, but you feel like now there’s not enough light. 

You understand the whole point of the medicine is to dim that light, to help bring down your mental state to a more “normal” one, but you think that even people who don’t have diagnosed mental disorders feel strong emotions like you used to. Maybe not as strong, but definitely something adjacent to it. You miss that, funnily enough―getting strong enough emotions. 

Right now, you’re sitting at your desk in your office, staring down at the plate of mashed potatoes in front of you. You get it almost every time it’s offered, and endure the teasing you get from your teammates, all for one purpose. 

To hide your pills in it.

Mashed potatoes are starchy, yes, but easy to swallow without chewing. They’re thick enough to help hide the feeling of the pill going down your throat, and don’t leave that weird aftertaste in your mouth that taking your medicine with water does. You tried taking the pills with water at first, like you would with any other medicine, but with this specifically you just can’t. It’s too easy to notice, they’re too big to just hide with water, and it feels like swallowing a rock every time you take them with water. 

So, mashed potatoes it is. 

The pill is already mixed into it. You had folded the small blue tablet into the mushed vegetable with a plastic fork, trying to keep it as hidden as possible, making sure no hints of blue bled through the beige-yellow of the potato.

You’re now watching the mashed potatoes, unblinking, as if it’s going to grow legs and run away from you. It’s never truly easy swallowing the medicine, even with the mashed potatoes coating it, but it’s usually easier than it is today. Then again, today was deemed a “bad day” the moment you woke up, so this was to be expected. 

You grab the white plastic fork after a brief moment of hesitation and pierce the food with it, hand trembling ever-so slightly as you do―not from anxiety, but from your lack of water intake―and pick up a clump of potato with little strength. The vegetable oddly weighs your hand down the tiniest bit more than usual, but you ignore this in favor of pushing yourself to just force the food into your mouth. You try your best not to chew, your jaw only really moving to chew the side of your cheek instead to satisfy your urges, and eventually manage to swallow the food. 

Right off the bat, you can tell the cluster you swallowed had the pill in it. Lucky me, you think almost bitterly, not sure whether you should be happy or uncomfortable, at least it’s over with. It’s not that it’s a bad thing that you got to the pill so quickly, but usually you’re able to get a few bites of medicine-less potato in before the actual medicine itself. Nonetheless, you scoop up another fork-full―fork-full?―of mashed potatoes and try to eat as much as you can to get rid of the weird feeling of having a pill going down your throat. 

Just the fleeting thought of having a pill that big going down your throat makes it feel like your esophagus is closing. You feel yourself grow closer to nausea at the feeling, setting down your fork and pushing the paper plate of your dinner aside, just to rest your elbow on the table and put your forehead in the palm of your head. It’s bad enough that you feel ashamed because of the fact you even have to take antidepressants, so it’s even worse that those same antidepressants are throwing bad side-effects at you. 

Ashamed because needing medicine to function the same way anyone else does feels so pathetic to you. Maybe it isn’t pathetic. Actually, you know it isn’t; you don’t look at other people who do the same thing and think that they should feel as ashamed as you do. But you still look at your bright orange prescription bottle, labeled with your legal name, and think that you shouldn’t need it. 

You think, for a moment, that it’s because of how much you’ve dehumanized yourself. 

Dehumanized is such an ugly word, and it leaves a strange bitterness in your mind after thinking about it, but deep down you feel that it’s true. You know that you’re human, obviously, because physically that’s what you are. You are, undeniably, a homo sapien―a person, a living being that is a bipedal primate mammal. You, in a less literal sense, have those same cords attached to you that Neo did when he first went to the “real world”. 

But you need those cords, you think, lifting your head so that your chin is resting in your palm instead of your forehead, you need to stay attached to the Matrix. 

Because you took the blue pill. You found a way to keep yourself attached to the Matrix, to keep yourself grounded to what you wish you could experience without them. And those cables weigh you down, and that pod you stay encased in limits your movement―sometimes you feel more like the pod than the person inside of it―but it all seems so worth it to you, doesn’t it? To keep believing what you want to believe, to wake up everyday and dose yourself with that fifty-milligrams worth of sertraline hidden under a pile of food, to eat that food and swallow that pill even though it makes you feel like a mutt? 

You take a shuddering breath in, your thoughts building up in volume and mass, more questions entering your mind too fast for you to process them all. You feel that familiar rush of adrenaline, the kind that triggers your ‘fight-or-flight’. It lights your nerves on fire and causes them to jump, to electrify, and you feel your fingers twitch with the feeling. It almost feels like there’s something crawling along your nerves, under your skin, and the thought almost triggers your gag reflex. Your eyelids flutter, barely shutting for just a moment before you force them open. Your gaze flits over to the still-mostly-full plate of mashed potatoes. 

You’re usually able to finish them, even on “bad days”. But today, with nausea swirling uncomfortably in your stomach, and a too-big pill going through the thin tubes inside your body, you find that it’s much harder to even think about picking that fork back up. You can almost feel your heart beating through your palm, that continuous th-thump, th-thump growing exponentially faster, and your palm getting sweatier by the second. You shift your feet and find that invisible needles are poking at the bottom of them, small pins that push and prod at your skin that leave a strange hot-cold feeling. It forces you to take the pressure off of your feet by holding them up ever-so slightly, the soles of your shoes just barely touching the ground. 

You swear your heart rate increases at all the different sensations lingering on your body. You can feel your breathing starting to pick up, and for God knows what reason, you suddenly find it difficult to keep your eyes locked onto one object. Your gaze dances around the room as a surge of chills runs up your spine. A trail of goosebumps rises after each wave of biting cold, passing over the bony projections of your dorsum. After having so many of them, you know instinctively the signs of an oncoming anxiety attack, and know how quick those symptoms escalate from simple shallow breaths to the inability to keep your breathing consistent at all. Yes, they develop slower than a panic attack does, but the gradient from fine to not-fine is hard to view as slow when there’s so many symptoms to keep track of.

At the thought of such a thing happening, your gaze instantly locks onto the prescription bottle sitting on your desk. It’s still uncapped―fortunate for you, because you’re seriously doubting your ability to uncap something with a child-proof cap on it right now―and in your eyes is practically glowing. It’s so tempting, because it’s just right there, so easily accessible, so easy to just grab and pour however many pills you need down your throat. The thought makes you realize how dry your mouth feels, how constricted your throat feels, but your mind is too filled with a flurry of incoherent thoughts to dwell on such feelings. 

With your free hand, you grab the uncapped bottle. It shakes with your hand, now more from your building anxiety than your dehydration, and makes the tablets inside rattle. You bring it to your lips, ignoring the chiding voice in the back of your mind telling you how disgusting it is to just put it on your mouth like that, and shake it just enough to get a single pill out of it. The dryness of the pill sticks to the wetness of your mouth, just below the border of your bottom lip. You set the bottle down and poke at the pill with the tip of your tongue, the weird vanilla-like taste of the medicine spreading across the muscle easily. 

Your mouth is dry, so you have to use the residual saliva sitting on your tongue to slick the pill up enough to go down somewhat-smoothly down your throat. It’s still rough, and some areas of the pill remain powdery, the feeling of it sliding down your throat enough to make you gag. For a brief moment, the action causes the pill to lodge in your throat―it’s not big enough to make you choke or anything, but it’s enough to make your heart beat faster and your hands grip onto the edge of your desk tightly. Your thumbs are tucked under the edge, the first knuckle at the tip of your finger bent and the flesh of the tips of your fingers turning lighter from the pressure. 

You cough once you feel the pill go down your esophagus entirely, and breathe raggedly afterwards. Deep down, you know that the medicine takes some time to work, and that if you gave it a little longer than a minute that you’d start feeling better. But the reeling anxiety that wraps around your throat like a chain seems to pull you impossibly farther away from that betterness, and forces your throat to tighten to a point where your breathing feels limited. You go from breathing through your nose to your mouth, where you can still taste the lingering artificial-vanilla with every inhale. 

It’s getting worse, an annoying voice tells you, one that manages to be louder than the others, the medicine’s supposed to help. You’ve only taken a hundred milligrams so far. Another and it’s a hundred and fifty. An overdose is only if it goes over two hundred.

It’s stupid logic but more tempting the more you think about it. It is, after all, only a third pill. You’d be pushing it—

Do you really care all that much that you’re pushing it? What if you want to break that limit? The limits you made, to keep yourself alive, that you still sometimes question the existence of? 

―but that doesn’t really compute well in your mind, and you soon find yourself reaching for the bottle again. Each pill shakes with your hand, and with each tremor another wave of tablets hits the sides of the bottle, like a visual representation of the thoughts that bounce off of the walls of your brain. You lift the bottle, and bring it to your lips, the area that makes contact with your mouth cooler than the rest of the bottle from earlier when you had done the same thing. You’re about to tilt it up before you hear a sudden knock at your door. 

The noise is startling and makes you drop the bottle, the pills spilling over the edge of it and onto the table. 

“Shit,” you curse quietly under your breath, quickly flattening your hand and sweeping all of the pills into a pile, and picking them up in clusters. You manage to get them all back in the bottle before another knock sounds out, and cap the bottle before opening up one of the small drawers on the side of your desk and shoving it in there. 

“Come in!” you call out in a strained voice, praying that you’ll be able to keep it steady for as long as the person at the door needs to talk to you. You close the drawer just as the door creaks open. 

Much to your horror, you look up to see your Captain. 

Your palms are still sweaty as he walks in, so you try to discreetly wipe them off on your pants, and hope to whoever can help you that he doesn’t pay too much attention to the sweat gathered on your forehead. You take a deep breath as silently as you can, attempting to gather yourself before Price can notice anything being wrong.

“It’s a quarter past two,” Price comments once he walks in, closing the door behind him, “why are you still awake?” 

You look over to the digital clock on your desk almost immediately and, oh shit, it is exactly 2:15. You look back over at Price, who is busying himself with pulling the chair that was once in front of your desk around it, presumably to sit next to you. You still feel the dreadfully fast pace of your heart, that th-thump, th-thump, th-thump that you can hear blaring in your ears. It makes itself known in your chest, in your wrist, even in the base of your throat―almost every pulse point in your body has forced you to become aware of its existence.

You swallow dryly, trying to ignore said feeling, and reply, “Why are you still awake?”

Price raises an eyebrow at you, pulling the chair up beside you and sitting down in it, “I asked first.” 

You look at him with an unimpressed look on your face. “Can’t sleep. Why are you up?”

Price hums and leans back in his seat, arms crossing over each other, “Same reason.”

It doesn’t sound like a lie, but it doesn’t sound entirely true either, in your opinion. It’s not that you don’t trust him, but he just seems like he’s up to something. What that something is, though, you aren’t sure. 

“Why the food?” Price nods over to the plate of mashed potatoes, very noticeably unfinished. 

Your gaze follows his to the mashed potatoes. You can still feel the moisture on the palms of your hands, the small tremors that wrack your fingers, and Price’s presence does nothing to soothe your flaming nerves.

“Wanted dinner,” you shrug as casually as you can, forcing a neutral expression onto your face―you briefly overthink what a neutral expression looks like, and decidedly just let your face relax the best you can, “I didn’t get any when everyone else went, I was busy with something, and didn’t really want to head over to the mess with so many people over there, plus I was busy.” 

You look over at Price after your lengthy explanation, not realizing just how lengthy it was, and watch the corners of his lips quirk up into an amused-yet-worried smile. 

“You said you were busy twice,” he points out, before pausing, and pointing out again, “and it looks like you’ve taken a few bites out o’that at most.” 

You don’t bother to look at the mashed potatoes again; you know very well how they look, and know how undeniably full the plate looks. 

“Didn’t feel that hungry,” you make up a poorly thought-out excuse, that even you can understand is unbelievable. 

Price blinks at you, slowly, before sighing. 

“Are you alright?” Price asks, looking more concerned than amused now. You should’ve known from the moment that he walked in that you wouldn’t be able to hide anything from him. If not for the fact that he always seems to know what’s going on, then because of the overwhelming presence of your disquietude. 

You look at him and try to figure out what to say. What is there to say? You were panicking just two minutes ago, with your prescription bottle in one hand, the other too shaky to hold up the damn thing. You can still taste that vanilla. You can still taste the plastic. The bottle itself never once touched your tongue, but every time your tongue rests in your mouth, the tip of it pokes at the same exact place the bottle made contact with. You expect it to taste of vanilla, like its contents, but it doesn’t; it tastes like the pharmacy you got it at. It tastes like the sterile white of the counter, the fingers of the person who handed it to you, the money you spent on it, and the time it took you to get it. 

It’s nothing pleasant. The strange vanilla of the pills aren’t either, but they’re preferable to the bottle itself. 

Price notices you zoning out for a moment, and waves a hand in front of your face. Your eyes unconsciously track his hand for a moment before you blink back into reality and look at him. You knew you were fucked earlier, but when you look at his expression, at the look in his eyes as he watches you snap back to reality, you know that he knows. Maybe he doesn’t know exactly what happened, or how it happened, but he knows something. Fuck, he knows. 

Or, maybe he does know. Maybe he heard your cursing through the door, even with your low voice, maybe he heard the pills spill onto the desk, maybe he heard the opening and closing of the drawer, maybe he―

He’s staring at you.

―has security cameras set up in here, because he does in every room, every hall, everywhere but the bathrooms and the sleeping quarters―

He’s talking. It’s muffled by the sound of your own heavy breathing.

―or maybe it’s just intuition, a gut feeling he has, where he just knows that something’s wrong, that same gut feeling that everyone seems to get when something isn’t the way it’s supposed to be―

Your palms are sweaty. Your heart is pounding out of your chest. You’re starting to feel a little lightheaded.

―the same “gut feeling” that you experience every day but have to ignore because it’s not a gut feeling it’s anxiety and your real gut feelings feel the almost the exact same way anxiety does so you may never know if you ever get an actual one―

Price grabs onto your arm, though the feeling of his skin on yours can’t push past the skin-crawling sensation that coats your skin.

―but how do you really know that your gut feelings aren’t gut feelings? How do you know that anything is anything? That it’s really Price that’s sitting next to you, that it’s your own office you’re sitting in, that―

“[name]!” Price’s voice snaps you out of the trance you seem to be in, and you sharply inhale at the sound of his voice, his volume much louder than you expected it to be. 

You didn’t realize how fast and heavy your breathing had really gotten until this point. You look at Price, a little more on the panicked side now, with restless eyes that can’t stop flitting all over his face. He takes his hand off of your arm before you can even notice it was there in the first place, and leans back away from you. 

You try to take deep breaths, but each breath feels like trying to breathe underwater, and each inhale-exhale leaves you shuddering. You look down at your lap, breath hitching and stuttering, and the moment you open your mouth in the hopes of breathing easier, you are all too aware of just how dry it’s become. You’re sure you let out some kind of sound that alerts Price of your growing distress, because he hesitantly leans forward and takes a deep breath. 

“[name],” Price keeps his voice soft and quiet, quieter than he’d been just a few seconds ago, his soothing voice a gentle wave crashing against the rock of your mind, “you’re okay. Look at me, soldier.” 

Like a remote to TV static, the noisiness of your mind is partially calmed and the waves that wash over your brain provide sweet escape from the overwhelming adrenaline and cortisol thrumming in your veins.

Mindlessly, you do as he asks, his words grounding you and tugging you back down to Earth more effectively than any anchor could. When you look at him, his eyes are clouded with concern and there’s a small frown on his face that almost perfectly juxtaposes his usual quokka-smile.

You know you’re still trembling. You can feel the hairs that stick up on your legs and arms, the weird hot-cold feeling that creates pinpricks of discomfort across your body, the way your heart is trying to escape the prison cell of your ribcage—but none of it compares to the unbelievable dizziness you feel. Your head is a balloon filled with helium and it is slowly deflating, but not fast enough. You feel like you’re no longer in control of your own body—or were you ever in control? 

Your stomach is churning. There’s a sense of dread that dwells there. You might throw up. 

Cutting through your thoughts is Price once again.

“You listenin’?” your Captain asks, to which you nod after a delay of a few seconds. Price holds a hand out and gives you a questioning look, the question of ‘can I touch you?’ clear enough on his face that you nod lightly and he takes your hand gingerly.

“Do y’know where you are?” Price asks. You nod, and he softly requests, “can you tell me where?”

“My office,” you answer simply, the gravel in your voice making you wince. The warbling that escapes your mouth is nowhere near your usual voice, and for a moment you think you might be right about needing to vomit, but you manage to push it down and pray. Price ignores this and pushes on.

“And who am I?” he asks, as if he doesn’t know. 

“... The Captain.” Price purses his lips—he doesn’t really want to accept this as an answer, because he wants you to say his actual name, but he knows what you mean, and you know what he’s doing. He knows that you mean that you’re here, that you’re present, and you know that he’s trying to ground you the best he can.

“Do you know my name?” he questions, to which you nod again, though a little more moderately, seeing as the repetition of nodding your head only makes you more lightheaded, “what’s my name?”

You take a few shaky breaths, ones that are shallow and uneven, ones that hitch enough for it to be so noticeable that Price manages to pick up on it. You open your mouth to talk, but find that your tongue is too heavy to lift to create coherent sounds. The thought somehow heightens your anxiety, something that seems to be noticeable to Price, judging by how his expression shifts to something impossibly softer.

“Here, let me—” Without another word, Price cautiously brings your hand up to the middle of his chest, where his sternum is. 

He exaggerates his breathing, taking long, deep breaths in, and similarly long exhales. His chest rises and falls satisfyingly, and it’s clear that he wants you to copy him. You try your best at first, taking that same too-deep breath that he does and fail almost immediately as you choke on the air you attempt to inhale. Price brushes his thumb over the back of your hand and takes another exaggerated breath, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. You keep your gaze more focused on the lower half of his face as you copy him, oxygen going in through your nose, and carbon dioxide going out through your mouth. 

That one successful breath is followed by an unsuccessful one, then another successful one, then another, and it’s a little rocky but you find that soon enough you’re breathing. There’s air flowing in and out of your body smoothly, with each exaggerated breath you take, almost in sync with Price, until finally he puts your hand back into your lap but continues to hold it. He squeezes it once before letting go, and clasps his hands together. 

“What’s my name, soldier?” he asks, and this time you think you can answer him. 

“John Price,” his name feels weird coming out of your mouth, especially with no honorifics, but he accepts the answer anyway. 

“Good,” Price praises, giving you a small smile, “you’re doing good.”

The approval he gives you helps to calm your nerves the tiniest bit, and you feel yourself slowly coming down from the God awful high that you’d just been on. Again, you’re not sure how he knows, but he senses that you’re calming down―is it because your breathing is steadier? You aren’t nearly as restless? You’re no longer zoning out?―so he leans back in his chair and watches as you do the same. 

“Now,” he breathes out, “can you tell me what’s going on with you?” 

You look away from him for the briefest moment, sparing a glance at the cabinet you know the bottle of your pills lays in, before looking back at him. If he noticed you pulling your gaze away from him for a split second, he doesn’t mention it nor does he make it known that he did. 

“There’s not really anything going on,” you shrug, to which Price scoffs. 

“[c/n],” he looks at you, disbelieving, “two seconds ago I had to help you breathe normally. I know that there’s something that’s going on, somethin’ that had to trigger what just happened.” 

You stay quiet and he gives you an expectant look. The pressure from his fixed glare makes you feel like you’re about to explode. 

Finally, you answer him defeatedly, though vaguely, “I was in the middle of taking my medicine when you knocked.”

Price stays silent, expecting you to elaborate. 

“And…” you try to find a way to make it sound less awkward than it does in your mind, though you suppose there’s never really a correct way to go about something like this, “I almost took more medicine than I needed to.” 

The silence continues, but now Price looks less expectant, and instead more of a mix between concern and something else you can’t identify. That something, though, is still soft, and still has a hint of pity―maybe sympathy?―to it.

“Almost?” he repeats, “was that on purpose?” 

When you think about it, it’s complicated. You didn’t necessarily intend to overdose, you just dismissed the idea of it. Or, at least, you don’t remember trying to overtly kill yourself. Then again, you knew the risks of taking more pills than prescribed to you; had you taken that third pill, you would’ve only been one more away from an overdose, and even then you’d still probably get some kind of health issue. 

Price’s face hardens when you don’t answer immediately. He must be taking your silence as a “yes”. 

“Not… really,” you answer slowly, “I don’t know what I was thinking.” 

He nods, waiting a few seconds before asking, “Have you thought about it before?”

By it, for some reason, you sense that he isn’t asking exclusively about taking one too many tablets.

It’s tempting to be dishonest about it; it’s a shameful thing to you, to use the things that are supposed to help you to harm yourself, to be so careless with your own life. You know that it isn’t necessarily all your fault, but there’s still that small part of you that can’t help but feel guilty for using something so many other people try so hard to get to almost kill yourself with. 

After a few beats of silence, you decide to answer, “Yeah.” 

Price nods again, and he looks like he expected that answer. “D’you want to tell me more about that?”

You could, hypothetically, go in-depth about all of your weird thoughts about committing. The ones you’d been having just, what, fifteen minutes ago? Thirty minutes ago? The ones about chains wrapped around your throat, stolen guns from the armory, deep purple bruising and a stretched neck. Those thoughts, the ones that try to make ending your life sound pretty, that try to make it sound appealing. It’s not to convince yourself, you don’t think, but rather to help you come to terms with the fact that you were already convinced that you were going to commit at some point. The thought still scares you, because you’re a pussy―terrible, terrible choice of words, a voice at the back of your mind insists, you’re not a pussy, you’re just like anyone else―but you felt like you just knew that you were gonna die by your own hands. That you’d already made the choice, and now you have to understand it, to realize it. 

You are in that room full of TVs, with The Architect in front of you, telling you that you have no choice. That, in fact, the problem is choice. You are surrounded by a million other yous, all protesting, all denying that you have no choice but to kill yourself, all yelling “Bullshit!” because deniability is the most predictable of all human responses. 

But, you remind yourself, The Architect was wrong. He told Neo that he couldn’t do anything to save Trinity from her “fate”, but Neo did save her. He plunged his hand into her chest and forced her heart to beat. 

That’s true. 

And, you add on, The Architect is a computer program, tasked with mimicking human emotions, despite never having felt them. He could never understand the power of human will, of the desperation so many humans have to live. 

Because The Architect was never alive. He is a sentient computer program, whose job is to create a world in which humans can “live” while they are fed on in the real world, but his problem was his inability to create anything less than perfect. We aren’t expected to be perfect, and are taught that flawlessness doesn’t exist, which is why he came to the conclusion that he needed a “lesser mind” to help him create a better Matrix. 

You aren’t supposed to succumb to the idea of having no choice. Because that, in itself, is a choice. Everything you do is a choice. Even if everything you do will only add up to the same ending, to the same fate, why should you waste time not making the choices you want to make? When you assume that you have no choice, you assume that everything you do will go to waste, but that’s not true. You aren’t the only person that exists. You aren’t the only person who makes choices. The choices you make affect other people’s choices, and those choices affect another person, and another, and another. You still have to live through the choices you make, as does everyone else, so even if everything will end the same, why should you make inherently bad decisions when you could be making good ones? Why should you go through things you don’t have to go through, just because you believe that nothing matters in the end?

“Not really,” you answer Price, snapping yourself out of your thoughts, “I don’t… want to think about it too much right now.” 

Price looks a little more worried now but he doesn’t protest your decision.

“Is there anything in here that you could use to hurt yourself?” he asks after a moment, “Or that you’ve already used?” 

You bite your tongue. Technically, the pills count, you suppose, but those are your meds. You can’t really have those confiscated.

“Other than the medicine, no,” you answer truthfully, much to Price’s relief, as is evident on his face as his hardened expression softens. 

“Good, good,” he shifts in his seat. 

He’s gearing up for something. You can tell with the way he subtly presses his clasped hands together, the way his face goes through a mix of emotions, and the way the deafening silence of the room really seems to be getting to him. 

Suddenly, he asks you, “D’you think you’re going to… ?” 

He doesn’t ask you explicitly, but you have a good idea of what he’s asking.

“I was thinking about it,” you respond softly, “before you came in.”

Price nods, having expected that answer. You’re not sure if it was obvious, or if he just assumed you were thinking about it because of you confessing to having thoughts of it before this. 

“Y’know I have to tell someone about this, right?” Price reminds you gently, as if you didn’t already know, “Someone up the chain. Might be Laswell.” 

You hum affirmatively, because you didn’t expect anything less from him, and know that it’s for the better. It doesn’t make you feel any better, obviously, but you know how to be realistic when the time calls for it, and you know that if the roles were reversed you’d do the same thing. Not because it’s mandatory, but because when you imagine Price in your situation, the thought wraps itself around your heart and twists. 

The room is silent for a beat, and you get the feeling that Price is somehow more uncomfortable with the quiet than you are. He shifts in his seat while you stay still, and he clears his throat to break the silence for a brief moment before speaking up again. 

“It’s late,” he points out the obvious, before pausing and irresolutely asking, “do you want to head back to my quarters with me for the night?” 

His words confuse you for a moment. You open your mouth to ask why, before it suddenly hits you―oh, right, you just basically confessed to being suicidal. He doesn’t want to leave you alone right now. 

“Yeah, sure,” you agree, less questioning than Price expected you to be judging by his momentary look of surprise, before he nods and begins to get up. 

He pushes his chair behind him, standing up straight, and holds a hand out for you to grab. You grab it gingerly and use it to haul yourself up, your knees cracking as you do after having been sat for so long. You wince at the sound and Price gives a light-hearted chuckle.

“I thought I was s’posed to be the old one?” he teases, making you give him an unimpressed look and let go of his hand. The room falls back into soundlessness.

You both remain silent as Price leads you out the door of your office, turning off the lights and closing the door after you, and continues to lead you down to his sleeping quarters. His are farther down the hall from yours, because of his higher rank, and therefore takes longer to walk to from your office. The long walk is quiet enough to hear a pin drop, but you both don’t mind this, as the atmosphere here is more comfortable than the one in your office. 

Eventually, you make it to his room, where he opens the door for you and signals for you to walk in first with his hand. You enter the room and hear him enter shortly after you, and go to sit on his bed before pausing. 

“I’m still in my…” you gesture to your clothes, gear-less but still not your “normal” sleeping clothes. Price raises an eyebrow at you as you wave at the state of yourself. 

“I’ve seen you sleep in worse,” he points out, “and I think you sleep in this than in your actual sleeping clothes.” 

You’re about to ask how he even knows about that, before he answers you before you can voice your question, “I’ve seen you walking back t’your quarters in these clothes and hear you snoring a second later at least ten times.”

You close your mouth and sigh through your nose, before muttering, “Didn’t know I was talkin’ to fuckin’ Sherlock Holmes.” 

Price snorts at your retort, “If I’m Sherlock, are you Watson?”

You think about it for a moment, before shaking your head negatively. 

“No?” Price toes off his boots and walks over to you, sitting on the bed, “Then who are you?” 

You sit down next to him, “I dunno. I’m like…” 

“Like Neo,” you continue, ignoring the way Price’s eyebrows immediately raise, “and you’re Morpheus. But less smart.”

“You’re not Neo,” he scoffs, “and I’m not a less-smart Morpheus.” 

“I wasn’t askin’ you,” you grumble, shaking your already-loose boots off of your feet and crawling up Price’s bed. You manage to snake under the covers and feel Price’s eyes on you as you do, staring holes into your face.

He hums in acknowledgment, not bothering to answer you verbally, and instead gets up to lift up the covers and get into bed. The bed is small enough as-is, but with two people inside of it, it obviously gets much smaller. Price doesn’t seem to mind, though, and turns so that his back is facing the door and his front is facing you. Directly in front of you is the base of his neck, but if you tilt your head up, you can see him looking down at you with tired eyes. 

You let out a soft breath through your nose and realize just how tired you are. Price seems to notice this, because his arm comes up and rests across your side, his hand splaying across the middle of your back. He gives you a comforting sweep of his hand, before settling it on your upper back, absentmindedly rubbing his thumb in soothing circles against your clothed back. 

You close your eyes, and he closes his, and it feels like you’ve woken up in the real world and removed the cables from your body.

[rottenpumpkin13]

need the firsts to play paintball. who takes it WAY too seriously? who gets paint in their mouth accidentally? who does it on purpose?

The story of why/how Cloud got court martialled for dunking Sephiroth's head in a bucket of paint

• Nothing good comes out of Genesis being bored at 2PM during a slow work day. Following that logic, horrible horrible things come out of Genesis dropping a paintball gun on Angeal's desk.

Genesis: We're playing paintball. Whoever shoots the most paint at their target wins.

Angeal: You are unbelievably childish. Do you really think Sephiroth is immature enough to go along with this?

*Sephiroth appears at the door and shoots Angeal and Genesis with paintballs*

Angeal:

Genesis:

Sephiroth: Tell me, what does defeat feel like? I wouldn't know.

• Sephiroth runs away.

• Sephiroth didn't think this through because now Angeal is running after him with a paintball, vowing to shoot Sephiroth's hair with paint.

*Angeal shoots, Sephiroth ducks*

• It hits Zack with red paint. Zack immediately throws himself to the ground.

Zack: I'M DYING.

Angeal: It's red paint.

Zack: I'VE BEEN PAINTED WITH DEATH.

Angeal:

Zack: MY DREADFULLY SHORT LIFE HAS COME TO AN END. WHO WILL TAKE CARE OF MY TAMAGOTCHI WHEN I'M NO LONGER HERE TO CARE FOR THOSE I LOVE?

Angeal: You're literally fine. The paint didn't even hit a fatal area.

*Kunsel and Roche appear. Kunsel starts drawing a chalk outline of Zack's body while Roche hangs up crime scene tape*

Angeal: ???

• Meanwhile Genesis gets to Sephiroth first. He corners him by the data room and shoots him with paint.

• This angers Sephiroth greatly.

• Sephiroth starts walking towards him slowly.

• Genesis tries to shoot him again. but the paintball is stuck.

• Sephiroth continues to approach.

• Genesis starts sobbing while trying to shoot him.

• Sephiroth is near.

*Lazard walks in on this scene*

Lazard: Are you two serious? I'm in disbelief. Never would I have thought you would sink to this level.

• Genesis panic-shoots Lazard instead.

• This time the paint does come out.

• There is now yellow paint on Lazard's expensive suit and glasses.

Genesis: Oh no. Sephiroth, help. What do we do?

*Genesis looks to Sephiroth for help. Sephiroth is long gone*

Genesis: Son of a bitch.

• Lazard drags Genesis away by the ear. They walk by the break room, where a funeral for Zack is being held. Kunsel is reading the eulogy while Zack (alive) lays in the casket. Angeal is screaming "FOR FUCKS SAKE. HE'S ALIVE. IT WAS RED PAINT."

• Sephiroth appears out of nowhere and panic-hits Lazard in the head with the paintball gun.

• Lazard is knocked out.

Genesis: Sephiroth! Did you shoot the director just to save me? I'm flattered. I cannot believe I ever doubted your friendship.

Sephiroth: I don't know what you mean. I simply intend to finish our game.

*Sephiroth points the paintball gun at Genesis*

Genesis: You motherless whore.

• Sephiroth shoots.

• Genesis ducks.

• It hits Cloud Strife, who had just arrived on the 49th floor to attend Zack's fake funeral. Cloud is now covered in purple paint.

Sephiroth: Oh, Cloud, my apologies. I had meant to shoot Genesis to settle our dispute, but you were unfortunately caught in the crossfire.

Cloud:

Sephiroth: While I understand why this may be a cause for anger, I believe in your ability to handle matters calmly without holding onto resentment or taking it personally.

Cloud:

Sephiroth: Right?

Cloud:

Sephiroth: Why is my sword in your hand?

[lilacura]

Fading Embers | Jang Wonyoung

pairing: wonyoung x reader

>wc: 2,680

content warning:  contains themes of angst, car accidents, and emotional distress.

sypnosis: When Jang Wonyoung receives a life-changing phone call, will love be enough to overcome the unimaginable challenges that lay ahead?

The Fourth of July was supposed to be a day of celebration, a day where fireworks lit up the sky in vibrant colors, and laughter filled the air. But for Y/N and Wonyoung, this day would forever be etched into their memories as the day their world shattered.

Y/N and Wonyoung had always been inseparable. They were two souls intertwined, sharing their dreams and fears, their joys and sorrows. Their love was a fire that burned bright, but even the brightest flames can be extinguished with a single gust of wind.

That morning, the sun rose with a deceptive warmth, casting gentle rays of light on the small town where Y/N and Wonyoung resided. But inside their hearts, a brewing storm threatened to tear them apart.

The tension had been building for weeks, their love caught in the crossfire of miscommunication and unspoken frustrations. As the hours ticked by, the weight of their unexpressed emotions grew heavier, straining the fragile threads that held them together.

It was a seemingly insignificant disagreement that sparked the flames of their fight. Words were exchanged with sharp edges, fueled by insecurities and pent-up resentments. Y/N's heart ached, but she couldn't find the words to bridge the growing chasm between them.

"Why don't you ever listen to me, Y/N?" Wonyoung's voice trembled with frustration, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. "I feel like I'm talking to a wall sometimes."

Y/N's brows furrowed, hurt flashing in her eyes. "I do listen, Wonyoung. I just... I have my own thoughts and opinions too. Can't we have a conversation without it turning into an argument?"

Wonyoung's frustration turned into anger as she felt her defenses rise. "It's not just about having different opinions, Y/N. It's about feeling like you dismiss mine. Like they don't matter."

Y/N's voice grew sharper. "Well, maybe if you didn't always assume that you're right and I'm wrong, we wouldn't have this problem!"

The room fell silent, the weight of their words hanging in the air. Wonyoung's eyes widened, her breath catching in her throat. She never intended for their argument to escalate this far.

The silence stretched on, tension thickening between them. Y/N's voice softened, her hurt transforming into resignation. "Maybe we need some time apart," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "To figure out if we can find our way back to each other."

Wonyoung's eyes welled up with tears as her heart shattered into a million pieces. "Y/N, no... Please, don't say that. I can't bear the thought of losing you."

Y/N turned away, her voice heavy with unspoken pain. "I can't keep going like this, Wonyoung. We're hurting each other more than we're making each other happy. Maybe it's better if we take a step back and reevaluate."

And with those words, Y/N walked out of the room, leaving Wonyoung standing there, tears streaming down her face, feeling the weight of her regret and the realization that she might have pushed Y/N away too far.

Hours turned into days, and days turned into sleepless nights. Y/N replayed the fight over and over in her mind, each word a dagger to her heart. Regret washed over her, but pride held her tongue. She wanted to reach out, to apologize, but fear held her back.

Meanwhile, Wonyoung, tormented by her own doubts, questioned whether she had made the right decision. She missed Y/N's presence, her laughter, and the way they fit together like puzzle pieces. But the pain of their fight lingered, a constant reminder of their brokenness.

Then, on that fateful Fourth of July, Y/N decided to take a drive alone. The open road beckoned her, promising solace and clarity. But fate had other plans.

The radio played softly, the notes of a familiar song filling the confines of the car. Y/N's mind wandered, lost in a sea of regrets and what-ifs. She didn't see the stop sign until it was too late.

The screeching of tires filled the air as Y/N's car collided with another vehicle. Glass shattered, metal twisted, and the world spun into chaos. Pain radiated through Y/N's body as the impact jolted her senses awake. She was trapped, a prisoner in her own wreckage.

Meanwhile, Wonyoung, unaware of the impending tragedy, felt a sudden unease creeping into her bones. A nameless dread settled upon her like a heavy blanket. She reached for her phone,only to find it silent, devoid of any messages or missed calls.

With a sinking heart, Wonyoung dialed Y/N's number. Panic rose within her as the call went straight to voicemail. Her mind raced, connecting the dots between their fight and Y/N's sudden disappearance.

Wonyoung's heart skipped a beat as her phone rang, displaying the number of the local police department. With a sense of unease, she answered the call, her voice trembling.

"Hello?" Wonyoung spoke, her voice filled with worry.

The voice on the other end belonged to Officer Smith. "Is this Jang Wonyoung?"

Wonyoung's breath hitched. "Yes, this is Wonyoung. What's happened?"

Officer Smith's tone turned somber. "I regret to inform you that there has been a car accident involving Y/N. She has sustained injuries, and we are currently at the scene."

Fear gripped Wonyoung's heart, her mind racing with thoughts of Y/N's well-being. "Is she going to be alright?" she asked, her voice filled with desperation.

Officer Smith's voice held a hint of reassurance. "We have called for an ambulance, and they are en route. It would be best if you could come to the accident site. It occurred on Oak Street near the intersection with Maple Avenue."

Tears welled up in Wonyoung's eyes as she processed the gravity of the situation. "I'm on my way," she replied, her voice trembling with anxiety. "Please take care of her."

Officer Smith offered a sympathetic tone. "We will do everything we can. Just come as quickly as possible."

As Wonyoung hung up the phone, her heart raced with worry. Without a moment's hesitation, she grabbed her keys and rushed out the door, her mind consumed with thoughts of Y/N's safety. Every passing second felt like an eternity as she raced towards the unknown, praying that she would reach Y/N in time and that they would find solace in each other's arms once more.

The sight that greeted Wonyoung was a nightmare come to life. Emergency lights flashed, illuminating the twisted metal and the devastation left in the wake of the collision. Her breath caught in her throat as she spotted Y/N's car, mangled and broken.

Paramedics worked frantically, their voices a blur to Wonyoung's ears. She pushed through the crowd, desperate to reach Y/N's side. And there, amidst the chaos, she found her love.

Wonyoung's voice trembled as she knelt beside Y/N, her eyes filled with tears. "Y/N, oh my god, are you okay? Please, please be okay!"

Y/N winced, pain etched across her face. "Wonyoung... I... I'm sorry."

Wonyoung's heart shattered at the sight of Y/N's pain. She took Y/N's hand in her own, her voice choked with emotion. "No, Y/N, this isn't your fault. I'm sorry too. I never should have let it get this far. I love you, and I can't lose you."

Tears streamed down Y/N's face as they both realized the fragility of their love and the depth of their regret. "I love you too, Wonyoung," Y/N whispered, their voices barely audible amid the chaos surrounding them. "Please forgive me."

Wonyoung nodded, her grip on Y/N's hand tightening. "We'll get through this together. I promise."

As the paramedics worked to free Y/N from the wreckage, the echoes of their fight faded into the background. In that moment, all that mattered was their love and the hope of rebuilding what was broken.

The Fourth of July would forever be a reminder of their darkest hour, but it would also be the catalyst for their journey towards healing. Their love, once a fire on the verge of extinguishing, now flickered with renewed determination, ready to rise from the ashes and burn brighter than ever before.

a/n: this is so ass omg

[genshinluvr]

At Arm's Length

Pairings: Various Genshin Men x Isekai'd!Reader

Summary: After being forced into a marriage with the twenty-five men— technically, you agreed to it, so you weren't really forced into it, you couldn't help but yearn for a genuine connection with the men. You end up expressing your feelings about your marriage with your twenty-five husbands to Lumine, who is also your sister in law.

Note: Short-ish fic for this week since it's been a hectic week for me ;v; Not really sure how I feel about this fic since I do feel burned out from not only school but from writing fanfics as well 😵‍💫 It's a new quarter for me, and I'm just trying to keep up with school, my readings, and writings. I don't think this would count as angst, but just to be safe, I won't be tagging people that don't want to be tagged in angst or hurt/comfort. Next week's fic might be either Tagic Outcomes or Caught in the Crossfire since it's been a while since I've typed something for those two fics. I don't post anywhere else but on Tumblr (Genshinluvr) and on AO3 (Aaliah_exo).

Warnings: Would marriage count as a warning?

Word Count: 7k

This strange relationship you have with twenty-five men— it’s fake. There are no feelings attached, no physical touch or intimacy. No strings attached, as your world would call it. Usually, relationships that have no strings attached to them would be friends with benefits. You hate the friends-with-benefits title. It sounds depressing to you because it’s a “friendship” between two people where they do everything a typical relationship would have, only there are no romantic feelings involved. 

You have been in that situation before, but it ended fast because you wanted to be more than that, and the person left because you broke the number one rule. Not to catch any feelings, and that is what you did. Oh, what a fool you are. How could you, a hopeless romantic, be in that kind of situation? You didn’t expect to be in an arranged marriage situation with twenty-five men from an open-world game you’ve been obsessed with for quite some time.

A stack of paper is slammed on the table in front of you, pulling you out of your thoughts. You look up at the older woman, who looks like she does not want to show up to work today.

“Please sign your first and last name here, and your… husbands will sign their names after,” the lady instructs, sliding a large stack of paper toward you.

You look at the stack of papers with wide eyes. These are marriage certificates, and you have to sign twenty-five pieces of paper. You turn to look at the twenty-five men standing two feet behind you. Pierro nods as if he’s signaling for you to go ahead and sign the papers. The majority of the men look uninterested, almost bored. 

You swallow the lump in your throat and turn to look at the papers laid out in front of you. Marriage certificate, huh? You will be legally binded to the twenty-five men for who knows how long— perhaps until they all get bored of you and leave you one day without any notice. Just the thought of being abandoned so suddenly makes your heart clench. How did you end up in a situation like this? 

The woman sitting at the front desk clears her throat, raising her eyebrows at you. “Are you going to sign the papers or not?” She asks with an attitude.

Your face heats up with embarrassment while you mutter an apology before grabbing the pen lying beside the stack of papers. You begin to sign your name on the marriage certificates. A marriage certificate is a contract, and contracts can’t be broken unless necessary. Well, at least that’s what you assume. You don’t have much knowledge when it comes to contracts, but a certain former Archon may know a thing or two about contracts. 

After signing all twenty-five marriage certificates, you step to the side and let each man sign their name on the paper. Each paper is a marriage certificate between you and one man. While you’re technically married to twenty-five men at once, the marriage certificate and the government of the men’s respective regions (if they have one) state that you’re married to one man. Though, you have no idea how that’s going to work out since most of these men live in the same region as the other. 

“There. It’s been done,” Xiao says, grabbing your attention.

You watch each man hand their pens over to the lady behind the desk. She takes the pen and begins to put the marriage certificates in a white envelope with gold borders. You walk to the woman, who begins to hand you each envelope. 

You’re not sure how this works or how it’ll work. You weren’t prepared for marriage, nor did you plan on getting married so soon. The stack of envelopes in your arms starts becoming heavy the more the woman stacks one envelope over the other. While the envelope is thick and glossy, holding the stacks in your arms feels like lead. The woman puts one last envelope on the stack and nods.

“You’re all dismissed,” she says.

You and the men walk out of the building without saying a word to each other. I mean, what’s there to say after something like this? These men found you unconscious outside of Dragonspine. When you came to consciousness, you were met with various weapons pointing at your face. It took you a while to reassure them that you’re not a threat— how can you be a threat when you don’t have a vision or any weapons on your person?

Tensions are high, and silence hangs in the air. The tension is so thick you can suffocate in it. The sun is high in the sky, the birds are chirping, and the civilians are going on with their day, unaware of the situation.

You break the silence. “You guys are acting like I’m forcing all of you to marry me when I never brought up that idea. We can go back to the clerk and destroy the certificates if that makes you all happy,” you said.

“There’s no need to go back to the clerk to have the marriage certificates destroyed. What’s done is done, and you cannot break a contract once it's signed by the party involved,” Diluc says.

Archons, you hate this so much. You weren’t the one that brought the idea up to the men. It was them that suggested it for your “protection.” Ever since you revealed to them that you weren’t from their universe, they suggested that you should get married to them so that they can protect you from the Abyss and other potential harms that could come your way. 

Because you know too much about what happened in their world that they’re unaware of, it was best for them to be betrothed to you to protect you and your identity. At least that’s what you were told. Quite frankly, there could be a better alternative. Still, the twenty-five men were adamant about the marriage option, and you weren’t sure why. You didn’t want to start any more issues with them, so you went along with their choice, and now here you are— married to twenty-five men.

A few months go by, and it’s been a few months since you have been “married” to the twenty-five men, and while you’re their significant other, they keep you at arm's length. Everything feels awkward between you and the men. They weren’t cold or rude to you. They didn’t mistreat you or make you feel alienated from the rest. You’re unsure if it’s because of your lack of relationship experience or if it was something else because everything felt awkward.

Since you are legally their partner for however long, the twenty-six of you need to put on a show to prove that your marriage is legitimate and not illegitimate. No matter where you all are, you have to get used to calling each other partners. They’re your husbands, and you are their spouse.

You’re going to be really honest here. It feels like you’re putting more effort into this role than these men are. It almost feels like you’re the only person that is trying to make it work despite how awkward it is. After all, it feels like an arranged marriage because these men don’t have feelings toward you— at least, that’s what you’re assuming. Since you’re not a citizen in Teyvat, you spend your time at the abode, cleaning, cooking, and watering the plants in the backyard because there’s nothing for you to do, really. 

Instead of Thoma cooking food for everyone, you’re the one that does it. Of course, Thoma was opposed to it at first, but you insisted on cooking because they have jobs and duties to tend to, whereas you’re at the estate doing house duties. 

You wake up around close to six in the morning to start your day. While you hated waking up early in the morning, you thought getting up before everyone else would make the men feel relieved in a way. After all, you don’t work or go to school. You could apply to Sumeru Akademiya and be a student there, but it would raise some suspicions, according to Al Haitham and Kaveh. 

You’re not a fan of waking up at an early time, but ever since you and the twenty-five men have signed the marriage contract, you have been making it a habit to get up early in the morning to start your day ahead of everyone’s schedule. You’re standing in the kitchen in your pajamas, packing twenty-five lunches for each man. You made sure to cook their favorite dishes and include some snacks from the regions they’re from. It’s a lot to do, but you’re getting the hang of it.

“And we’re done!” You mutter to yourself, sighing in relief when you wrap the last lunch bag for the last man. 

You yawn and stretch your arms in the air. You lined the lunch bags next to each other, labeling each bag with the men’s names on it so they wouldn’t mix up their lunch bags with someone else’s bags. That would’ve been a disaster if it did happen. You rub your eyes and walk to the stove, cracking eggs into the pan and begin to cook yourself some breakfast. 

The kitchen door creaks open. You turn your head to see Thoma walking into the kitchen dressed for the day but with a bedhead. You crack a smile and look away before Thoma can see it. Thoma hums softly, walking over to where you’re standing.

“Morning, Thoma. I hope you slept well last night,” you said softly, cooking the eggs before you while Thoma dug through the refrigerator for water.

“I slept well. I hope you slept well, too, because it’s almost seven in the morning, and I don’t understand how you’re able to pack everyone's lunch before we all wake up,” Thoma murmurs, leaning against the counter beside you after grabbing a cup of water to drink.

You shrug. “It’s not as easy as I hoped it would be. That’s all I can say. Everyone has their likes and dislikes, and I have to make sure to prepare the ingredients the day prior,” you reply.

You look at the clock hanging on the wall and reach for the spatula. It’s almost time for everyone to get up for work, and Thoma is the only person that is awake. You’re not sure whether it’s because Thoma is used to getting up early ahead of every other man in the estate or if he’s used to waking up early because of his duties at the Kamisato Estate. But either way, you’re happy to have some kind of company, even if it’s short-lived.

“Thoma, it seems like you have yet to fix your bedhead,” the voice of the Kamisato heir breaks the short silence between you and the housekeeper of the Kamisato Estate. 

Thoma laughs and rubs the back of his neck. “I tried to fix it, but there’s no use in getting it down when it’s stubborn,” Thoma sighs in defeat.

You continue to cook your breakfast while Thoma and Ayato hang out in the kitchen, chatting quietly near the island of the kitchen. You grab a plate and scoop the eggs, putting them on the plate while debating whether you should cook some bacon to go with your eggs for breakfast or not. The kitchen door opens once again, and more men walk into the kitchen, rubbing the sleep out of their eyes while muttering under their breaths.

You let out a silent gasp and smack yourself in the forehead, mentally cursing yourself for being forgetful. How could you make lunch for your husbands to take to work when you forget to brew them coffee and tea?! Dammit, dammit, dammit!

“Don’t hit yourself!” Scaramouche grumbles, smacking your hand away from your face with a small scowl on his face.

“Yeah! There’s nothing to beat yourself over. You made us lunch like you promised,” Gorou says, grabbing the small lunch sack from the kitchen island.

You sigh and rub your throbbing temples. “Of course, I would make you all lunch to bring to work with you all, but I forgot to brew coffee and tea for you guys,” you murmur. “Archons, how could I be so stupid and forget that?” 

“You’re not stupid for forgetting to brew tea and coffee for us, [Y/N]. You were occupied with cooking lunch for twenty-five of us. There’s nothing worth beating yourself over,” Dainsleif says, walking over to the coffee pot.

“I’ll do better next time, I promise. My forgetfulness has caused everyone to be late for work,” you mutter, chewing on your bottom lip. 

Childe throws his arms over your shoulders and pats your head. “Late for work? The clock just struck seven! If anything, we’re up pretty early, and we should leave the house not too long from now. Plus, some of us don’t thrive on coffee and tea,” Childe says.

“You do not need to worry about anything. You’re doing fine, and none of us are upset with you just because you forgot about coffee and tea. Plus, you cooked lunch for the twenty-five of us to bring to work. The least we can do is make our coffee and tea,” Al Haitham says, entering the kitchen with a peeved Kaveh following behind.

Kaveh stands beside you, crossing his arms over his chest with his chest puffing out. You look at Kaveh worriedly and lightly tap his arm. Kaveh continues to glare at Al Haitham before looking at you. You freeze for a moment when he looks at you with the same expression on his face. Kaveh notices your change in demeanor before relaxing.

Kaveh pats your head. “Sorry, [Y/N]! That glare wasn’t for you. It’s for that idiot over there with his stupid noise-canceling headphones,” Kaveh says, shooting a glare over at the Acting Grand Sage.

You weren’t sure if Al Haitham didn’t hear what Kaveh said because of his noise-canceling headphones or if he was intentionally ignoring Kaveh’s comment. You smile at Kaveh and pat his arm lightly before continuing what you were doing before the other men entered the kitchen. Once everyone is awake and ready for work, you pass everyone their lunch bags with their names on them. 

You stand by the door of the estate and bid them goodbyes as they walk out the door. Some men pat your head on their way out, and others either give you a hug or squeeze your shoulders. Despite being married to them for a few months, this is the only kind of affection you were getting from the twenty-five men.

Just when Baizhu is about to close the estate’s door, you quickly stop him by grabbing his wrist. Baizhu stops in his tracks and turns to look at you, surprised and confused. You release Baizhu’s wrist and give him a strained smile.

“Remember to take your medication, alright? I know you work at Bubu Pharmacy, and your job is to take care of others and give your patients their medication, but please take care of yourself as well,” you whisper.

Baizhu looks at you with surprise before giving you a warm smile. Baizhu chuckles softly and pats your head, almost ruffling your hair. You laugh quietly and grab Baizhu’s hand, gently squeezing them.

Baizhu nods. “Of course, I’ll take care of myself. I promise,” Baizhu says, making a crossing motion over his chest.

Baizhu leans over you and presses a kiss on your forehead before walking out the door, leaving you at the entrance of the estate, speechless. You touch your forehead, feeling heat rush to your cheeks. You press your lips into a thin line to prevent yourself from smiling widely. You close the estate’s door and lock it.

Before you and the men got married for your safety and to keep Teyvat at peace, they promised to each other and to themselves that they would keep you at arm's length. You’re sweet and down to earth, but because some of them have dangerous professions and you’re not from their world, they wanted to keep this distance between you and them. Your husbands do not hate you, and they’ve made it very clear on multiple occasions.

“If we seem cold toward you, we do not hate you. We don’t hold any disdain toward you, nor do we hold any grudges toward you.” Cyno would say as he is sitting across from you.

You nod and dig your nail into the wrinkly skin of your right ring finger— a bad habit of yours when you were a child that dragged on to your adulthood. You usually dig your nails into the wrinkly skin of your right ring finger when you’re stressed, nervous, or bored. It doesn’t hurt at all, nor could you feel it.

Tighnari clears his throat. “Do you have any other questions?” Tighnari asks, gazing at you curiously. 

You hum to yourself and tap your fingers on your thighs. “I want to know why some of you will be acting cold toward me,” you mutter, puckering your lips.

“To be fair, some of us do it unintentionally,” Albedo interjects.

You couldn’t help but agree with Albedo on that. Some men do come off as standoffish and cold even though they’re not. It’s how they are to people in general, not just you. For example, Xiao is standoffish, but that doesn’t mean he hates you or holds any grudges toward you. If anything, Xiao wanted to distance himself from you because of his karmic debt, and because you’re mortal and don’t have a vision, he doesn’t want to harm you in any way or put you in harm's way. 

“Just don’t do anything reckless that could put you in danger,” Pierro comments, leaning against the wall.

You bite the inside of your cheek. You don’t think you can guarantee that— staying away from danger, you mean. It’s not like you intentionally dive headfirst into danger without warning! You’re getting married to Archons, Harbingers, an Adeptus, a Knight, and many notable figures of Teyvat. There’s bound to be danger in almost every corner now that you’re associated with these men. 

The men stare at you intently while you stare off into space, gnawing on the inside of your cheek. That’s another habit of yours the men noticed almost right off the bat. When you’re deep in thought, you tend to zone out and are not aware of your surroundings. It’s almost like your head is always in the clouds. It’s almost endearing in a way, but your head being in the clouds could also be the reason for your downfall.

“What’s on your mind?” Heizou asks, leaning back in his seat while watching you closely.

You sigh and chuckle to yourself. “I don’t have much going on in my mind, to be really honest. But I do have other questions, but I don’t think any of you are going to give me a clear answer,” you said.

Kazuha sits beside you and gazes at you curiously. You clear your throat and look away, feeling heat slowly creep up your neck. He’s even prettier in person. You wonder if Kazuha knows how pretty he is because he’s breathtaking. Then again, the twenty-four other men are just as stunning as Kazuha. 

“If you want, you can ask us now, and if we know the answer, we’ll tell you. If not, we’ll try to answer it when we have the answers,” Kazuha suggests, giving you a small smile.

You pursed your lips and debated whether you should ask the question. If you were to ask them the question, you worry you might receive the answer you didn’t want to hear. But if you don’t ask the question, you’ll never know what will happen or what to expect. Itto lets out a loud grunt and stands up, stretching his arms out in front of him.

Itto props his hands on his hips and gives you an encouraging smile. “Whatever question you have for us, I think some of us have the answer for it, depending on what it is!” Itto says, tilting his head to the side while gazing at you curiously.

How long will this marriage last? Is what you wanted to ask the men. How long will it last? A few weeks? A few months? A few years, maybe? How long? The time in Teyvat is vastly different from your world, you’re assuming. The days in Teyvat are much faster than the days in your world. You and the men never went out on a date to get to know one another or to form a bond with one another. Would the marriage be convincing because of the lack of bond between the twenty-six of you? Or, well, between you and each man? 

“I don’t know if I want to ask the question,” you mutter shyly.

Venti giggles and trots over to you, throwing his arms around your shoulders and giving you a pat on the head. “It’s okay if you don’t want to ask the question! We won’t pry!” Venti says, releasing you from his hug before walking over to where he was standing previously. 

Zhongli clears his throat. “I would like to remind you all that what we’re all getting into involves a contract. Everyone has to agree to sign this contract mutually. If one person does not agree, then the contract will be invalid,” Zhongli says, crossing his arms over his chest.

Right, you nearly forgot that marriage is a contract with the party involved. It’s not a relationship where people can break up and go their separate ways after. Marriage is a contract, and to get out of marriage is breaking a contract. It’s a long process, and people can’t walk away from it so easily. 

You didn’t remember who proposed the idea of every one of them marrying you to keep you away from danger and to keep your real origins hidden from the rest of Teyvat. It’s strange to you that you have to marry notable figures to keep your identity hidden, even though that’s putting more spotlight and target on you. You don’t mind getting married to twenty-five handsome men but getting married to them so suddenly is something you didn’t expect.

“Are you listening?” Capitano asks gruffly.

You nod mindlessly. “I’m not opposed to continuing this process. I mean, it’s not like I have a choice, really,” you mutter.

“It’s for your safety. If word gets out that you’re not from our universe and you possess the knowledge of Teyvat, you will be hunted down by the Abyss,” Dottore interjects from the corner of the room.

You didn’t realize he was in the same room until now. Now that you think about it, these Harbingers are scattered around the large office inside Dawn Winery. You puckered your lips and leaned back in your seat, crossing your leg over the other. 

You sigh and tilt your head back. “Is the Abyss really a threat to me right now? In case you all have forgotten, you’re all notable figures. Some of you are Harbingers and Knights—”

Diluc makes a disgusted noise.

“Some of you are Adeptis and Archons—”

Scaramouche rolls his eyes and pretends to gag. You stare at Diluc and Scaramouche blankly while the two avoid your eyes. You huff and stand up, propping your hands on your hips. You look at the other men in the room, who gazes at you cluelessly.

Kaeya smiles at you and waves. “Ignore Diluc. He was once a Knight as well, but now he holds a grudge against us,” Kaeya says nonchalantly.

Diluc rolls his eyes in response and glares at Kaeya from the corner of his eyes. You scratch your head, wondering how in the world this marriage is going to work out of some of these men hold grudges against certain groups of people, especially when the others are part of that group.

“So, what do you say? Do you agree to marry all twenty-five of us for your protection? This is also no strings attached, so you can do whatever you want without us controlling you. That applies to us as well.” Pantalone says, holding his hand out toward you.

You sigh for the trillionth time, staring at Pantalone’s hand. No strings attached? How would a marriage work if it’s no strings attached? There are many strings attached to marriages! That only applies if it’s a friends-with-benefits situation, but marriage? Does that even apply to marriages? This got you scratching your head because what?

“I’m not sure what you mean by no strings attached,” you mutter, furrowing your eyebrows. “But yes, I will marry you. All of you. Although I did not think this is how the marriage proposal is going to turn out….” you trailed off, grabbing Pantalone’s hand and shaking his hand.

Childe smirks, cocking an eyebrow at you. “Oh? Did you perhaps want us to dress fancy and make it special?” Childe asks.

“Yes.” you deadpan. “Honestly, if I was dating all of you and this is how you all propose to me, it would’ve been an automatic no,” you add.

“Huh!? Then what should we do to get you to say yes other than making it special?” Itto asks, giving you a look of disbelief.

You hum thoughtfully, tapping on your chin after releasing Pantalone’s hand. “Well, last time I checked, an engagement ring is involved. If we’re going to make this ‘real,’ there needs to be a ring, or else people won’t believe it,” you explain.

“Oh? Do you want us to get you an engagement ring?” Pierro asks, looking at you with an amused look on his face.

You feel your face heat up, and you look away with a “hmph!” The marriage is real, but at the same time, it’s not. Yes, a marriage certificate and license will be signed and given to the twenty-six of you, but this marriage is a loveless marriage. At least, that’s what you assume it’ll be. If you have to marry the twenty-five of them for your safety, you might as well make it convincing, right? Then again, you don’t want them to spend a lot of Mora over a ring.

“Yes, I do. I mean, unless people in Teyvat do it differently,” you mutter, stroking your chin. You shake your head and wave your hand. “You know what? Forget it. It’s not even a real marriage, so why should I want a ring to be involved?” You sigh.

Aether looks at you quizzically. “What do you mean? It is a real marriage,” Aether says.

“Not when the marriage is rushed, and none of you have feelings for me,” you mutter under your breath.

“Either way, the wedding is real because a contract is involved. If it were fake, the marriage license and certificate wouldn’t be signed, and it would’ve been more of a role play,” Tighnari interjects, shrugging his shoulders.

Well, Tighnari’s not wrong about that. Still, the marriage isn’t genuine between you and the twenty-five men. You shouldn’t be complaining when they’re doing it for your safety, but what Pantalone said really bothers you. A marriage that has no strings attached. How would that even work? You get attached easily! 

“[Y/N].”

How would the men react if you told them you wanted the marriage to be real? By that, you mean you wanted them to love you as much as you love them. Is it too early to tell them you love them despite knowing them for only a short amount of time during your stay in Teyvat? I mean, you technically knew them longer than they know you because—

“[Y/N]!”

You feel something smack you in the face. You blink and rub the tip of your nose, looking at the item that fell onto your lap. A bread roll. You clear your throat and grab the bread, glancing up at Lumine, who sighs and props her head up on the table with her arm.

You put the bread roll on the plate, giving Lumine an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Lumine. I didn’t mean to get lost in my thoughts,” you said. “What were you saying?”

Lumine lets out a long sigh and leans back in her seat, staring at you closely while tapping her fingers on her biceps. “I was wondering how your marriage is going with those twenty-five men. Specifically, my twin brother,” Lumine says.

“Oh!” You look at her surprised, reminding Lumine of a startled fox she came across many times while on her and her brother’s exploration around Teyvat. “It’s… uh… it’s going!” You say, giving her a strained smile.

Lumine deadpans. “Listen, [Y/N]... I invited you to lunch at a lovely restaurant in Mondstadt so we can chat and catch up!” She leans on the table and looks at you worriedly. “You stared off into space for a while, and you look very upset, maybe almost annoyed as well,” Lumine says.

You gulp and reach for your teacup, sipping your now cold tea. Have you been spacing out for that long? You didn’t even realize it until Lumine snapped you out of your thoughts. You’re not sure if you should tell Lumine what’s been bothering you. Surely she knows the state of your and the twenty-five men’s marriage, right? Plus, it’s not like Aether would be hiding the truth of his marriage with you.

Lumine chuckles, shaking her head. “You know, when Aether told me he was getting married, I was genuinely shocked. My brother? Getting married? That’s something I never thought would happen.”

“It’s a loveless marriage, though,” you whisper in defeat, slumping forward and resting your chin on the table. “My marriage with these men is loveless. There are no strings attached, which I find odd because there’s no marriage like that! I mean… unless it’s an arranged marriage that is strictly business,” you mutter, pressing your lips into a thin line.

Lumine gives you a sympathetic look, reaching for your hand across the table, and gently squeezes your hand. “Have you expressed your desire of wanting the marriage to be real instead of it being an excuse to protect you and keep you within close range?” Lumine asks, chewing on the inside of her cheek.

You shake your head glumly. 

Lumine looks at you with confusion and tilts her head to the side. “Why not? I mean, marriage involves a lot of communication, right? How would the marriage work out if none of you are communicating about your wants, worries, and desires?” Lumine asks.

“Lumine, these men barely show me affection as my husbands. They talk to me, yes, but it's always awkward between us when we speak,” you say, pulling your hand away from hers before reaching for the bread roll and breaking it apart.

“Sounds like you all need a marriage counselor,” Lumine says nonchalantly, leaning back in her seat with a sigh. “I’m no love expert, but trust me, communicating your wants, needs, desires, and worries will make marriage much easier!” Lumine says.

“The last time I did that, my ex laughed in my face and left me for my ex-best friend,” you deadpan.

Lumine blinks at you and laughs nervously, grabbing her cup of water and taking a sip of it. You lightly slam your head on the wooden table, causing the cutlery to clatter from the impact. You close your eyes and turn your head to the side, staring off into space. 

Even if you were to express your wants, needs, desires, and worries to your husbands, you worry that it’ll drive them away from you. Not only that, but you worry that it’ll make them snap you back into reality— the reality that your marriage with them is loveless. The purpose of the marriage is to protect you and your identity from the people of Teyvat, from the Abyss Order.

While Aether and Lumine aren’t the Abyss Prince and Princess, the Abyss Order is still as active as ever. Heck, they might be out looking for you and either kill you for knowing too much information or, worst case scenario: make you the new ruler of the Abyss. You sit up and prop your head up with your elbow on the table, sighing wistfully.

“I didn’t think I would be thrown into marriage a few weeks after my arrival to Teyvat. Now here I am, a few months later, in a loveless marriage with twenty-five men who are unobtainable due to their status,” you ramble, rubbing your face with a frustrated sigh and tugging at the roots of your hair.

Lumine smacks your hand away from your head with a scolding look. You release your hair and let your hands fall on your lap, poking the inside of your cheek with your tongue. You don’t care that you’re married to the handsome twenty-five men. You care that it’s a loveless marriage that is “no strings attached.”

You close your eyes and tilt your head back, resting it on the top rail. “A hopeless romantic like myself shouldn’t be in a loveless marriage. I try to find hope in the littlest things, only to be disappointed in the end because I have a hard time accepting that none of these men will ever love me,” you let out a shaky sigh. “There are times when I question if I’m worthy of love because of how many people left me heartbroken. Look at me. I’m in a loveless marriage with twenty-five men who keep me at arm's length. They refuse to get close to me or show me affection. I don’t know how much longer I can handle it,” you murmur.

Lumine glances over your shoulders and then back at you, reaching for her fork. It’s supposed to be a day where you and Lumine hang out with each other. You did tell your husbands that you’ll be meeting up with Lumine, and they’re okay with it. Of course, why wouldn’t they? Lumine stares at you intently, biting on the inside of her lips. Your eyebrows are furrowed, Lumine can see the dark circles under your eyes, and the frown on your face has only gotten deeper. Dear Archons, how unhappy are you? You look like you’re barely hanging on. You look defeated and exhausted.

Lumine clears her throat. “I’m sure they show they care about you somehow, correct? You’re married, and while it’s not like any other marriages, I’m sure they show a tiny bit of affection,” Lumine murmurs.

You crack your eyes open and rest your chin on the table. “Even if they did, it’s not enough that is convincing. They have tried to reassure me they don’t intend on being cold toward me, but it’s hard to tell sometimes.”

Lumine raises her eyebrows at you and taps her fingers on the table. “Do you want the marriage to be convincing, or do you want it to be genuine? No offense, but I’m confused about what you want from my brother and your other husbands,” Lumine comments.

You let out a sharp exhale and bury your face in the table. “I want it to be real. The marriage certificate and license are real, yes, but I want….” You trail off, turning your head to the side so your cheek is resting on the wooden table.

“You want….?” Lumine furrows her eyebrows.

You sit up straight and scratch your cheek. “I want them to love and care about me as much as I do for them. Since this marriage is, according to Pantalone, no strings attached, it makes me feel like I’m not meant to be loved even if I do love someone or something. If that makes sense.” You run your fingers through your hair and puff your cheeks out. “That’s all I want. But knowing them, they will never feel the same way, and I need to accept it.”

You stare at Lumine, who looks like she just saw a ghost for the first time. You look at her quizzically while she slowly lifts her hand and points behind you. You freeze and close your eyes, mentally cursing to yourself. You slowly turn in your seat and open your eyes, only to see your beloved husbands standing there with their arms over their chests, looking at you with unreadable expressions on their faces.

“We need to talk,” Diluc says.

Your shoulders slump, and you nod. You get up from your seat and bid Lumine goodbye before walking outside of Mondstadt. Lumine gives Aether a look when he walks past her alongside the other men. The way back to the estate was silent, other than muttering from other men here and there. You couldn’t help but feel embarrassed and ashamed for admitting it out loud. Even if you said it to Lumine, you didn’t expect your husbands to walk up to your table while you were rambling.

Now, you’re sitting on the couch while the men are standing in front of you. You feel like a child getting ready to be scolded by their parents for misbehaving. You feel so small, almost inferior. 

“Can you explain to us what you and Lumine were talking about?” Xiao asks, raising his eyebrows at you.

You purse your lips. “Lumine and I were talking about our,” you gesture to yourself and the twenty-five men in front of you, “marriage, and I was expressing my feelings about the marriage.”

“Care to tell us more about it?” Kaeya asks, sitting across from you.

“Do I need to explain it to you all again? I have a feeling that all of you heard what I said to Lumine before I realized you all heard what I was saying,” you commented.

Gorou nods. “That is true, yes, but we want you to say it to us. We are your husbands, after all.”

Archons, this is embarrassing.

“I…” You sigh, staring off into space.

You can’t say what you said to Lumine earlier today. It’s not like you didn’t want to. It’s because you have a hard time expressing your emotions and saying what’s on your mind. 

You shake your head, burying your face into the palm of your hands. “Sorry, I’m having a hard time.” You whisper.

Aether gives you a sympathetic look. “It’s okay! Take your time!” Aether reassures you, sitting beside you and rubbing your arm.

“We want to let you know that we’re not mad at you for telling Lumine how you feel about the marriage,” Heizou says, sitting on the other side of you, sandwiching you between him and Aether.

You give Aether and Heizou a strained smile before looking down at your hands on your lap.

“I don’t know how you all feel about this marriage, but lately, I feel like you all have been avoiding me. The better way for me to put it is you’re all keeping me at arm’s length, and I feel like I can’t get through the walls you’re all putting up.”

“Like Pantalone said, the marriage is no string attached,” Dottore says passively.

You stand up. “That only works for friends-with-benefits situations. We’re married. Marriage isn’t supposed to be like this unless it’s a business transaction like those arranged marriages, but this isn’t arranged. It’s sudden, and I’m an idiot for thinking I’m strong enough to be in this situation.”

“What are you trying to say exactly?” Capitano asks.

“Am I really that hard to love to the point where you all keep me at arm’s length? If I am, we could just end the marriage and go our separate ways,” you suggest.

Al Haitham shakes his head. “That’s not why we keep you at arm’s length. You’re not hard to love. We do care about you, [Y/N].”

“Then why put a wall between us? I’m doing everything I can to have you all open up to me, but it's futile.” 

Kaveh kneels in front of you and grabs your hand. “We put you at arm’s length because we worry that if we end up developing feelings for you, you will return to your world suddenly. We do care about you, and it’s hard for us to act like we don’t love you. We do, and it’s not easy for either of us to keep this distance.”

“I see where you’re all coming from, but we don’t know when I’ll return to my world. I’ve been in Teyvat for, what, a few months now?” You look at the men quizzically.

“That’s the unfortunate thing. We don’t know how or when you’ll return to your world. It’s a constant guessing game, and falling in love with someone and them disappearing out of thin air without warning is terrifying.” Albedo interjects, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“And so is marrying someone and keeping them at a far distance until they disappear! It’s almost a cruel and unusual punishment.” You retort.

“Would you be okay with us starting all over again?” Kazuha asks.

You press your lips into a thin line and squint at Kazuha. What does he mean by that exactly?

“We want to form a connection with you. While we treated you with respect (and will continue to do so), we want to treat you like our spouse instead of a stranger/roommate.” Scaramouche replies. 

You nod, feeling your face gradually become warm. You continue to keep your lips pressed into a thin line to prevent a big smile from forming on your face. They wanted a fresh start. A start where they treat you like a lover rather than a stranger. You’re okay with that! In fact, you like that idea more than whatever’s been happening for the past few months.

“I like that idea.” You say softly.

Cyno smiles and pats your head. “Good.”

A fresh start with your twenty-five husbands. That’s something you didn’t expect would happen, but you’re not complaining. It’s better than having them keep their distance from you.

Note: I'm thinking about giving Zhongli his own collection of one-shots, but I'm not 100% sure if I should do it. I have a lot of ideas for this man, and I want to make it happen, but I'll have to wait a bit and see how it goes before I make it happen. I might make it happen once my spring quarter is over, but who knows. I was distracted by the new Obey Me game, and I was also farming for Baizhu. That's why the update is a bit late-ish other than me tagging people in this post. To my new and/or returning readers, please keep in mind that I ONLY post on my Tumblr (Genshinluvr) and my AO3 (Aaliah_exo)! Nowhere else except Tumblr and AO3!

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Read more of my works on my Masterlist | Maybe support me by tipping me on Ko-Fi or by reblogging my fanfics! ^^ I will also be posting exclusive fanfics on Ko-Fi as well very soon! I might post all of my stories on there too, but who knows. You can also tip me on Tumblr if you'd like as a way to show support! ^^

[mitsybubbles]

Age swap Serizawa and Tome edit

Plus some ideas I wrote about it below after talking at lenght about it with @acekindaneat

Tome runs spirits and such but keeping herself at a small distance because she’s terrified of sharing with other people and being dismissed so it’s a way of doing things “herself” but she’s not a psychic even though she wants to be and she needs People. Because of this she’s a little more interested in pursuing urban legends cases, haunting cases, or mysteries and tends to be disappointed if there is a normal explanation for it

Serizawa is a former shut in who was coaxed out by Tome after his mom hired her (since she claimed to be a psychic consultant) and is currently “training” him in his abilities. He just moved to a new middle school and is very anxious about being a member of society and fitting in without losing control again

Reigen is a year below Serizawa at their school and acts like a normal student during class hours and is well liked but not close to anyone but after hours he spends his time trying to “become someone of note” because he feels isolated by the norms of society. He keeps getting obsessed with and switching hobbies every other week. His current one when the story starts is private investigation. His sister is a year above Serizawa and is a top student

Mob is a NEET in who hid himself away after his powers caused several accidents and fractured his relationship with his younger brother. He only leaves to get amenities and he relies on his parents support or on a work at home job for money

Dimple is a new spirit who doesn’t know what his place in the world is yet. He doesn’t have a human form or memories but he still has human desires and impulses so he feels out of place in it.

-Serizawa finds Reigen researching into the LOL cult after he joined it hoping to make some friends and they both get sucked into the supernatural conspiracy behind it. Reigen realizes Seri is a psychic and decides he’s now into the occult and demands his boss hire him and drags him to Tome’s office

- Tome meeting adult Mezato and then coming to blows ala Reigen and Roshuuto because Tome is annoyed that Mezato is seeking out the occult “because she’s bored”

-Serizawa being cajoled by Toichirou to join his little gang and Serizawa actually enjoying it and seeing claw as his friends even tho he felt guilty about hurting other gang members but “it’s okay because Master Kurata says it’s okay to protect yourself from bad people right?” Also he was given the umbrella as a gift and Tome and Reigen notices how much Seri’s been using it and Tone mostly goes “huh you’re skills are coming along ig” because while shes supportive she also isn’t very attentive and Reigen’s more suspicious because seirzawa is spending less time with him. Due to being scared that his first real friend would leave him, Reigen is a little threatened by that so he lashes on seri. They argue and seri stops hanging with reigen. Then reigen feels bad and decides to apologize and gets caught by Toichi + co in a small hazing ritual to get seri to stop comparing himself as the same level as “commoners” by denouncing his friendship with a nonesper. So then they fight when seri refuses to and finally seri insists that he doesn’t have to be stronger or weaker than anyone else to get to have proper connections and he breaks the umbrella saving Reigen from crossfire

And then later Reigen feels bad about everything (and he also realizes Toichirou was right that he was only friends with seri because he was an esper) so he gives seri some pokemon cards playing it off by saying he had those laying around his room and gets thrown off when Seri is openly emotional about it and hugs him. Meanwhile Toichirou is reevaluating everything because everyone sort of ditched him after he wasn’t giving them smth in return (except Hatori sort of lol- Hatori likes his presence Enough and the StuCo leader Joseph who was trying to get him suspended)

Minegeshi is like 20 here and runs a flower shop that the kids hang out in. It’s probably destroyed now. Sorry my dude.

-Reigen wanting to search for the dragger after his sister tells him he can’t keep “goofing around” otherwise his parents will force him to settle on an proper interest

-Some kids hiring Tome to find a “ghost” that lives on their street and it ended up being Mob who refuses to interact with them in a meaningful way. Seri makes it his mission to help him. Serizawa wants to ‘prove’ hes better now by helping someone like him but then he and Mob make a connection and Serizawa understands that he has to let Mob accept himself and make that step himself.

Also Tome shows Mob the benefits of releasing one’s emotions in a safe space.

-Reigen and Mob meet at the office and really hit it off

-Teru hiring the gang to come exercise a spirit in his TV studio and he and Mob end up fighting because he thought he was the best esper ever, you know the deal. And meanwhile Tome and the kids deal with the spirit of Mogami who was a psychic child star that haunted Teru and possessed Minori because he’s jaded by people who lie and use others to get notoriety

-Roshuuto is like a wannabe popular kid that annoys the hell out of Reigen because he pretends to be people’s friends and dumps them for someone better and now he’s trying to do occult stuff for clout

-Hoshida is an exorcist without any powers that we know of but he’s really nice and genuinely cares about helping others. He’s one of Tome’s informants

-Separation arc where Tome closed spirits and such briefly after Serizawa leaves to “be a normal kid” for a while because she thinks she won’t find anything meaningful about the paranormal she was searching for because she’s only humoring people- it ends up with her meeting people from middle and highschool she fell out of touch with because of simmilar things and her realizing she should continue to do whatever she loves and she should also pay more attention to the kid who she genuinely cares for and vice versa even if he isn’t going along with her whims 24/7

-Mob trying to reconnect with Ritsu

-Confession arc where Serizawa injures his mother in an incident after he thought he was doing “better” so he runs away and has to confront his own powers- and Tome having to come to an understanding with him too

[tubbytarchia]

The thing about Evo Jimmy that makes me happy is that he’s so much more of a menace and messes around with people!! Sure everytime he does it he loses or something goes wrong but he’s not afraid to do it and doesn’t even think of the consequences!! He only acts civil is when Martyn’s there and if he’s not, no one is safe.

Netty and Jimmy’s friendship is also really sweet because she likes to join in on his mischief and follows him without hesitation,same goes with Jimmy. They both share half a brain cell and they couldn’t care less!! I also love the fact that they both had the most episodes on Evo, they quite literally ran Evo together. Even if they weren’t that lore based or whatever,it was still there and Jimmy’s listener lore needs to more appreciated!!! I wish Evo went on longer so I could’ve seen what would’ve happened. Jimmy also out right hated the watchers and didn’t care at all what they said. After the Listeners gave him his little mission he realised it immediately that the watchers weren’t good people. I also love how Jimmy makes small hints of the watchers but never outright says it,or he mentions them and just brushes past it.

To sum it up: I want Jimmy’s mischievous ways back. I miss him being a little asshole and messing with people

I wholeheartedly agree that I wish Jimmy was mischievous more often like he used to be even if he would often get punished for it, although I do think we've been seeing a bit more of that in places, and I also very much miss Netty and her and Jimmy's banter. I don't think Jimmy was that much of a menace though, rather he just sassed people back, especially those who he felt had done wrong by him, but his entire shtick in Evo was to be a cop and he did very genuinely try to be one, setting out to prove himself to be good rather than a troublemaker when Martyn wasn't around; to prove to Martyn that he was good. Eg when he helped mine resources for Netty's library, gave every piece of it to Netty, surprising her, and then said something like "did you get a picture?". But that might be the culprit, that he was overly punished for any mishaps and quips to the point that he wanted to prove his potential and capability till the end of Evo and started feeling progressively more culpable over the course of future SMPs

This is a trend in most of Jimmy's playthroughs where he just gets caught in other people's crossfire and painted as bad rather than doing anything actually worth punishing himself. I like when he has the assertiveness to get back at people, to turn pranks back around like he did in Legacy and for some of X Life, to hold Martyn accountable in Evo rather than always taking the blame himself, to almost beat Sausage to death in SOS after everything Sausage had said and put him through, when he rejected Scott's poppy in RL and proclaimed that Scott wasn't forgiven for getting him killed. I wish he'd gotten back at people in ESMP2 calling him a toy the same way he did at the Mafia in Evo which continuously villainized him. I like when he's sassy, I like when he gets back at people, I like when he stands his ground, I like when he does pranks, I like when he doesn't let himself be shot down, especially when trying to take charge (another trend, where he keeps trying to take charge as he sees necessary in relationships and otherwise, only to be knocked down 500 pegs). I like when banter involves him rather than just being aimed at him. But I genuinely don't think he's ever been a proper asshole, he deserves to stab and kill and I wish he did but he's only done so when he believes to have been wronged, or he'd stop himself and often apologize or feel guilty etc. I wrote a long post on my thoughts on Evo awhile back where I went more in debth

Don't have much to say about the Listener stuff, the time that Jimmy spent without Martyn at the end is important to his character imo but the end of Evo just kinda lost me in general, any kind of watcher/listener lore passes me by unfortunately but if other people enjoyed that whole bit then more power to them absolutely

[jpitha]

Between the Black and Grey 49

First / Previous / Next

The sound of Fen's high heels clicked on the terrazzo floor with an intimidating intensity. The 'thock thock thock' noise echoed in the hall ominously. As she strode down the hall, people would quietly stick their head out of their doors - well after she passed - to see where she was going. She was alone, and walked fast enough that the small cape that was part of her daily uniform fluttered behind her.

The pressure doors in the hall slid open with a whine of servos as she walked, deeper and deeper into the palace. As she passed, they slammed shut and the seals swelled with pressure. The lower levels ran at positive pressure, partly to help keep the Venusian atmosphere out of the lower levels, and partly to keep anything down here in. She was much further than the decorated, beautiful parts of the palace. Those were for the tourists and the dignitaries. As she walked down ramps and through halls, the terrazzo turned into tile and then bare concrete, looping down ramps and through halls.

Deep, deep in the Palace, in the parts where only the secret police, secret military detachments, and secret investigators work, Fen strode into the main office, the pressure door unlocking and sliding open for the Empress. The two people sitting at their desks facing the door both jumped simultaneously in surprise. They both immediately stood and bowed quickly

"E-Empress! What-" The one on the left started to speak, but before they could continue, Fen glared at them and continued walking.

As Fen walked through the office, people looked up from cubes, saw her expression, and quickly averted her eyes. Everyone in the palace had learned in the past year that Fen was known to have dark moods, and if you got caught in the crossfire, it was... 'career limiting.' She made her way to the director's office and everyone out on the floor sighed in relief that it wasn't them.

The door to the director's office slid open and Director Gagnon sat at his desk, impassive. He was familiar with the Empress' requests. Additionally the front desk people had warned him she was on her way down. "Empress. Please, have a seat. Can I bring you a coffee? Tea? Something else?"

"Director Gagnon you know why I am here."

"Fen, I assure you-"

"You will address me as Ḙ̶̲̆͜m̵̨͙̉̆̐ͅp̸̩̼͗r̵̡̘̯͋̓̌͘ę̷͐͋͆͘ṡ̶̝̙͋̄ͅṣ̴͓̘̄"

He flinched at the Voice. He had known that unlike the previous Empress, she wasn't afraid to use it, but it hadn't been turned upon him yet. "Y-yes, Empress, I apologize w-wholeheartedly. But let me assure you that I do not k-know what you are referring to."

Fen nearly shook with rage. "I will ask you once more. Then I will ask again with the Voice. If I have to ask with the Voice, you will tell me, and then you will join him. Where is Tam'itarr."

The Director stood and bowed immediately "Empress you m-must understand, we have been devoting our resources to ensuring that you are safe when undertaking your myriad tours of the new Gates as well as r-rooting out any sedition as p-per our original edict."

"Å̴̘̣̇n̵͇͠s̷̲͐ẉ̶͍̇e̶̢͍̒ř̸̛̲ ̴̟̣͆̈m̸̳̀͂y̴̔ͅ ̶̖͓̅̉q̸̡͇̌́u̶̺͋̋e̷̘͛̏ś̷͙t̵̳̱͒ì̵̞̔ö̸̳́n̸̬̜̓!"

"We don't have him!" The Director squeaked. "He was tipped off to our work and ran. We can't find him."

"Director, why do I have a secret police if they can't do anything SECRETLY!" Even though she was not tall, Fen in heels, with her daily regalia on cast an intimidating profile. Her uniform was cut like a military uniform, but made of a much richer fabric. It was a deep purple with gold highlights and she had a cape on her shoulders made of the same material. Her boots where tall, black, and mirror polished.

Director Gagnon's eyes widened, and sweat glistened on his forehead. Fen had left the door to his office open, and the outer area was utterly silent. "Your goons made such noise that Tam'itarr was tipped off and has dropped off grid. Now what was going to be a simple smash and grab will turn into a whole thing." Fen snapped her fingers.

The door to the outer office opened and four figures in armored pressure suits appeared, each carrying a battle rifle across their chests with the barrel down. As they tromped down the isle single file, everyone freely stared. Their reflection stared back, distorted by the mirror polish on the black suits. They took up station behind Fen.

"Director Gagnon. You are relieved. I will be taking my Dreadnought and I will seek out Tam'itarr myself." She turned her back on him. "Take him away."

Two of the soldiers got on either side of the Director and placed their hands under his arms. They easily lifted him out of the chair and when he started to struggle, one of them pressed something to the back of his neck, and he fell limp. As they dragged him out, Fen turned and looked at the office. "You." She pointed at a woman sitting near the office. "You're director now. What's your name?"

"R-Regan Olivier, E-Empress." She was a young woman, maybe in her late twenties and she was terrified.

"Congratulations, Director Olivier. I hope you do better than your predecessor." Fen said, as she walked out of the office.

****

Helen Raaden sat at a large wooden desk, reading a pad. There was a pot of coffee next to her, with a delicate china cup on a saucer. Every few seconds, she touched the pad, turning the page.

"Yes, Fen?" She said without looking up. "Did Gagnon find Tam'itarr?"

"No. His goons spooked him and Tam went to ground. Now I have to go in loud with my Dreadnought and make an example until someone turns him in."

"Hmm, I figured as much" Helen turned another page. "He was a career bureaucrat, never was very good at hiring people." Helen looked up. "Is he alive still?"

Fen nodded. "Yes. He's getting sent to Luna for retirement." Looking around, she found a mug on a tray near the door. She grabbed it, sat in front of Helen's desk, took the pot of coffee and poured her some.

Helen raised an eyebrow, but didn't look up. "I would have ordered him to stop breathing right there in the office as a warning to others." She continued to read for a few minutes. As she read, Fen sipped her coffee and crossed and uncrossed her legs. "How goes the Gate deployment?" Helen asked, casually.

"We've accelerated construction to two a month. I would like to go faster, but we cannot without another shipyard and more material. We're this close to having to disassemble Ceres for raw material as it is."

"I mean..."

She shook her head. "No, they're supportive. I don't need to make more enemies. I'll find the raw material elsewhere." Fen took another sip. Helen always had good coffee.

Another few moments went by.

Helen closed the pad with a snap. "Fen, why are you here? Really."

Fen looked at Helen, the mask fallen, her eyes wide. She put her hands out, palms up. "What am I doing Helen? This whole 'intimidating Fen' thing is - I will admit - sometimes kind of fun, but it's not who I am."

It's who you need to be

"No, it's who you need to be. Fen, the Empire works when there's a strong Empress. Someone to lead by example. Someone to make sure everyone falls in line. Someone with vision. You've built more gates in one year than the previous three empress' built in 10; I'm impressed."

We are as well. You are doing quite well.

Helen stood up and started pacing. "Not only that, but you attend every Gate opening. You link there, give a speech, and take the Gate home. You're showing everyone that even though we still have wormhole generators - and still use them - that we're not above using the Gates. It's quite clever."

Though, we think you should be using the Gates more. Why even link anywhere?

Fen tried to ignore the Nanites speaking in her head. They always chimed in with opinions and options and - sometimes - catty observations. For the most part, they were pleased with her work.

"Fen you need to be feared and loved in equal measure. Melody knew that, I knew that, my daughter... mostly knew that, my granddaughter sadly never learned." She continued pacing. "You should have killed the Director. Spaced him, or had him shot. Something visible. It explains to everyone the price of failure."

"He was hauled away by my guards, unconscious. Everyone in the secret police will know to keep their heads down." Fen picked up the coffee pot and shook it. Empty.

"That's just it Fen, they're the secret police! Do you not think they have connections? They'll see that you sent him to Luna. They'll see that you're a soft touch. No, this will not do." Helen sat back down and opened her pad. Her fingers danced over it for a moment. "There. I've send the termination order. He'll never make it off the transport."

"You're countermanding my orders?" Fen's shock nearly overrode her anger.

"I am giving the order you should have given. If you want to be a success then we need to be like steel." Helen closed the pad again.

Fen stood. "Helen, you ơ̵̻̹b̵̛͕͒̈e̸̼̓̈̕y̷̗͒̌ ̵̛̗̘̒̚m̵̯͔̊é̶̳͋͝. Not the other way around. Do not countermand my orders again." She turned on her heel and walked stiffly out of Helen's office. The door clicked shut.

"Yes, Empress." Helen said, grinning.

****

"-can't believe she had the unmitigated gall to-" Fen was muttering to herself as she stomped back up towards the upper palace.

Well she has a certain way she wants things done. We tend to agree with her most of the time.

"But I am the Empress, not her. I say what happens, I give the orders, I decide."

This is true, Empress. And you used your Voice to ensure that it remains that way.

"You're not doing anything to her, are you? Letting her get around my Voice?"

Never Empress, your word is law.

Fen walked into her office. It was a pleasing bustle of activity. She had a staff of over one hundred people who personally reported to her. Helen had mentioned that when she ruled, her staff was small, and Melody's even smaller, but the Nanites pointed out that previous Empress' had staff in the hundreds or even thousands. Fen decided that she needed all the help she could get, and staffed up with experts from all over Sol and beyond.

A young K'laxi bounded up to Fen as she came in. "Empress! The latest Gate has been completed a week ahead of schedule. Shall we deploy it?"

"Already? That's excellent news Heni'tara. Attach it to my Dreadnought. I am leaving for Gren space, and I will install it while I am out."

He snapped a perfect human style salute, and his tail and ears flicked. "Yes, Empress!"

Fen moved to turn away and then turned back. "Heni - will you accompany me? I could use your expertise with the Gate deployment."

Heni'tara's tail bushed out and twitched slightly. "I would love that, Empress. Yes! I have a few ideas about how to improve the deployment process. We could optimiz-"

Fen grinned and put her hands out, gesturing for him to slow down. "I'm glad you're excited Heni, but tell the deployment techs, not me. Wear your uniform and my sigil and they'll listen to you."

"Yes! Empress! Of course, Empress! Oh, I should go and pack, I'll head to your ship right away." He bounded away, barely touching the floor with excitement.

Fen continued though the office and came to a small pool of humans, K'laxi and Innari sitting together. "Do you have the report on the Sefigan ready?"

"We're putting the finishing touches on it now, Empress. It will be ready for publication in two days." One of the Innari in the group trilled happily, their breathing mask no impediment to their speech.

"Give me the high level now please."

"Yes, Empress." A human stood and bowed quickly. "The Sefigan government - Hardclans - are divided about your overtures for them to be human clients. Half of them think it's an excellent idea and a way for them to gain an advantage over the Gren. The other half think it's a poisoned cup which will bring about their downfall. We believe that when you push for an answer, they will defer."

She nodded. She had heard as much from the Secret Police. "Hmm, and what about my offer of installing more Gates?"

A K'laxi in the group piped up. "They are unanimous in support of that. Humanity is the only group making and installing Gates, and everyone wants greater access to the Galaxy. The Sefigans are planning on petitioning you for permission to colonize one of the empty systems once you install a Gate there."

"We believe this is an opportunity for you to get the support of the Sefigans. Trade a colonization opportunity for client status." The Innari nodded their head and their iridescent feathers shimmered in the light.

Fen nodded. "Good. Put out a rumor that I will grant colonization rights in exchange for client status."

"Empress!" The entire group stood and saluted as one.

[weeb-polls-with-pip]

Autistic Anime Boys Side B Round 1 Match 11

Propaganda:

Mikey -

"This is a headcanon that didn’t originally occur to me, but then I encountered it in the wild, and something in my brain kinda lit up like ‘!!!’. I couldn’t stop turning the idea over in my head, like a slow roasting marshmallow, getting dangerously close to an open flame. So, here we are. First of all, Mikey is the leader of a biker gang. He has an immense interest in motorcycles (including their parts and repairing/building them), something of which he is able to bond with other delinquents over. He is frequently commented on by others as showcasing ‘childish’ behavior, such as whining when he doesn’t get his way, taking naps on his vice-commander, Draken’s, back or getting upset when he receives a kid’s meal with no flag in it. He often relies on Draken in a caretaker sort of role, such as providing the aforementioned flags to avoid meltdowns, tying his hair up just the right way in the mornings, going to his house to wake him up (all these things appear frequent activities/rituals Mikey relies on), and being “his heart.” Mikey appears to have naturally low empathy. Pretty early on in the series, he and Draken pay a visit to a girl who was put in the hospital by a rival gang, for being affiliated with some of their members. Her parents encounter them and they are furious that anyone involved in gang activity would even dare show their faces, despite Mikey and Draken not being the ones to actually hurt her. He insists they shouldn't apologize to the parents, because it's not their fault and they personally didn't do anything, failing to comprehend the bigger picture, that the lifestyle of delinquency and crime in general and the violence it breeds, not just between those who partake, but innocents caught in the crossfire, is what led to their daughter's assault. And they are feeling grief and anger, thus acting irrationally and lashing out (which, while illogical to Mikey, is a typical emotional reaction to this sort of situation). But he eventually amends his opinion at Draken’s urging—reserving emotional consideration for when his friends are involved primarily. Difficulty regulating emotions, selective listening, and self-centeredness are also all traits that Mikey has exhibited. He often has atypical/repressed facial expressions. He has safe foods—preferring sweet things like dorayaki and taiyaki above all else. He has a comfort item in the form of an old, raggedy towel, which is, in his words “his whole life,” and refuses to give it up even when his family urges him to throw it out. “The tip of his towel” is canonically his “favorite spot”—He is seen stimming with it by rolling it up and kneading it with his hands and fingers. He also prefers to dress for comfort, in loose and baggy clothes whenever he is outside of his gang uniform, and he always wears the same flip-flops, even when it would seem inconvenient. Some other things that don’t necessarily point to autism, but maybe could be considered in the broader picture with everything else?

Routine night motorcycle rides with his brother and childhood friend, which he continues, same time and route, after their deaths, while talking like they are still there with him (though this is more him just honoring their memories and finding comfort in these old actions)

‘Dark impulse’ flare-ups could be interpreted as meltdowns that cross into violent territory? (Like after Sanzu allegedly broke his new toy as a child) But again, dark impulses are a whole other can of worms that could probably be likened to other things better than autism

He is canonically considered a martial arts genius/prodigy, which could be read as some sort of savantism, but also just typical shounen anime shenanigans Despite some of the shakier things to consider, I find myself really liking the idea of autistic Mikey, and I do think there’s a lot in the story in favor of that reading of him. I’d love to see him represented here!"

Yotasuke -

"He has terrible social skills and doesn't filter his words, and although he does not have bad intentions, he often comes off extremely cold or harsh, saying things like "Talking with you irritates me so can you please leave me alone?". He struggles to make friends, especially since he purposefully pushes people away. Yatora, the main character, brings the number of contacts on his phone to a grand total of three. His wardrobe consists of almost exactly the same shirt over and over again. He holds his pencil and chopsticks extremely weird. He loves animals and is often pictured with them, for example cats and rabbits. He was considered extremely talented at art when he was a child, and his art is still amazing but it has messed up the way he interacts with others. He feels as though art is all he has. This causes him to resent Yatora, who appears to have so many skills and career options, as well as a thriving social life. Yotasuke also has a very strained relationship with his mother, who can be quite manipulative at times. He is also very silly if that means anything to you. Everyone should go read Blue Period actually."

[serial-killers-hope]

May I get an angsty but also very very sweet V x Reader oneshot? Like both of them love each other so much but always acknowledging it wouldn't last cause V is literally a serial killer? 👉👈

Ah, a beautiful angst vortex that could swallow us while. Shall we…? ~ DP

V swore he’d never love such a beautiful bird as yourself.

You swore it wouldn’t last, no matter the situation.

Both souls are tethered to the forgotten foundations…

CW / TW :

- Spoilers for V’s Route ( Killer Chat )

- Murder ( mentioned )

- Gore ( mentioned )

- Dead Bodies / Death ( mentioned )

You have been warned… now sit back and relax.

Enjoy.

Oh Gracious Bird.

You stared at V as he came in. His coat, covered in blood and viscera you didn’t need to see OR smell. Copper hung heavy in the air as he slipped the coat off and looked over to greet you.

“Hello Birdie, I hope I wasn’t too long in my endeavors.”

V; ever the kind one, only smiled as he put his coat away and folded his coat to slip into the laundry later ( after a rinse and wash of it ). He immediately sensed you’re uncomfortable aura and frowned slightly as he slid into his spot right next to you.

You shifted a bit away from him, only worrying him even more in the process. Even when you were skittish, you never truly inched away. Possibly even when you needed time alone.

“Are… you alright my dear?”

You jump a bit at his words, looking away with a quiet nod and your arms wrapped around yourself to bring some semblance of comfort… even if it was very little. After all, this was important.

“… You reek of blood.”

“I apologize, I knew I should have gotten changed before I came. I can shower if you’d like…?”

You can feel his gaze on you but you dared not to look back. Only grunting slightly in agreement as you sighed with a shaky breath.

“Why do you do this?”

It reminded V of when you both had made your first call. Those rather tacky responses and his serious questions were amusing to the vigilante’s ears and heart. It made you shake slightly as you faced him properly to search for an answer, something in his eyes.

“Well, you are my partner. I suppose it is only-“

“Why are you still with me? Why do you still keep me knowing that this-“

You pointed to yourself and him in rapid motions, tears pooling I’m your eyes. V was undoubtedly worried now with his deep gaze that shed his full emotional state. Was he… crying?

“This won’t last V. You kill people for fucks sake! I’m just some person who happened to get lost in the crossfire.”

V shifted in his spot, wiping his eyes ( with an odd elegance ) as he looked away to not even face you. He was hurt was all, never mind that he wouldn’t ever show it but… this time was different, wasn’t it?

“I love you. I do, but this is my act alone my dear Bird.”

He looked over at you, his eyes stared deep into yours. It prompted your own tears to fall as well; you did love him, that’s a given. But you didn’t want to get caught in V’s own misdeeds ( even if he deems them justified )… it hurt. Stung. The morbid reality of the situation weighed on his shoulders as he quietly nodded.

“Yet I won’t hurt you. You know this… please, let’s us-“

“Me? What about everyone else? They might be bad people, they might have made mistakes. But I can’t live with the fact knowing that you feed them to animals as if they’re red meat.” You inhale shakily. “I love you too, I really goddamn fucking do. But this has gone too far my sweet…”

“…” V stays silent for a bit, his eyes glossed over as he heard the words leave your mouth…

“I can’t trust that you won’t hurt me.”

[eikaprime]

What do you think of c4llie since you mentioned that before

I don't remember mentioning it before, but sure, why not.

4 is Callie's squid in shining hero suit. 4 is a kinda short, shy, smiling squidkid with country manners (the art book has them coming from quite a ways away from Inkopolis) who has a habit of calling her Miss Callie. (They do not call Marie Miss Marie. It's 'agent two' or 'Oh come ON MaRIE!' or 'Yeah, yeah, grandma, I'll get right on--not the charger NOT THE CHARGER!'). But with Callie? It's always Miss Callie, polite and respectful, at least for that first month.

And then Four relaxes. And then Callie's there and Four doesn't realize it, when Four tries yet again to soak Marie through that cursed umbrella, and Callie's caught in the crossfire and Four is so, so horrified, flushed all down their neck in a blush babbling apologies, hero dualies dropped on the ground as Callie's soaked through with ink, and Callie laughs. She laughs, and laughs, and darn near falls off that bench--the bench she's been on, every day, to look at the sky and remind herself--and then she picks up one of those dualies, the first time she's touched (the first time she's trusted herself with) a weapon since... since...

Four's first to hug her when Callie starts crying, realizing just what she's doing, and also freezes and babbles apologies and shoves Callie at Marie and runs. But Callie remembers.

Callie remembers, and the next time she comes down, offers Four a free shot. And Four takes it.

And clam blitz. Clam blitz was designed while Callie was away, but Four understands it. Four enjoys it. Callie needs to get stronger, and takes up turf, and Four--Four coaches Callie through the basics, through how to make a power clam, and then deranks on purpose, not quite throwing just not playing as hard as they could, until they're B- and takes Callie into league. They throw clams back and forth, laughing, until they've got the sort of silent understanding, knowing where the other will be and how to help them, that Callie never thought she'd have with anyone but Marie.

And Four is just there, with that stupid shy smile and for every two steps forward comes a retreat, a return to Miss Callie and impeccable manners held up like a shield that shatters when Four turns up with a book on the history of Inkopolis News and starts babbling about all the news hosts before them. Four is there, when Callie has a panic attack, and they're Callie's rock until they realize how close they are and that Callie's stopped crying and then they panic in turn. Four is there, and Callie could never ask for anything more.

...well. Maybe for the silly little squid to stop ranking Squid Sisters below Off The Hook in all their music tierlists. Sheesh!

(Honestly, I didn't realize I had quite so many opinions until I did this.)

[trappolia]

i’ve never made an official stance on this before because i only come here to write and read and i admittedly do not know enough about politics to lecture anyone on the matter, but in light of recent events i have to make this known: if you support trump in any shape or form, i wish karma is delivered to you in the worst form possible.

i extend my deepest apologies and pities not only to my american audience, but to those in palestine and any other place of conflict. inducting trump in the presidential seat does not only doom women, poc and lgbtqia+ people in america, but also the innocent civilians who have been caught in the crossfire of conflicts that could have been easily resolved with the power of the united states of america. your system has failed you. your own people have failed you. as a person living in europe and with no ties to the american government, this injustice being done against you makes me sick— i cannot fathom how you must feel to live like this.

i don’t know how much of a comfort this will be, but know that i stand with you. the american government is flawed and corrupt, but you must know that the rest of the world values your life. there are so many who condemn the man who calls himself your president, who hope and pray for your safety. as a born and raised catholic, i want to say these “christian morals” that the republican party preaches are heresy; no matter your faith, culture, gender identity, sexuality, the colour of your skin, no matter what, you have a right to live. you deserve to have a life, to be fought for and defended. i am sorry that the system has failed you. i am sorry that they’ve given your life to a man who cares only for himself and his selfish needs.

please, stay safe; but know that you matter. a government cannot place a value on your life and decide your right to live.

[burr-ell]

🤍, 🖤?

🤍: Which character is not as morally bad as everyone else seems to think?

So this is gonna seem contradictory to my reblog of blorb's post; this is not intended to be read as a counter to it, but as a complement: Percy.

If I'm being honest, one of the things that kinda bothers me about C1 group fanart is when I see everyone else in the party at their fully developed state, like with their Vestiges and powerups and everything, and then Percy's out here...with Orthax. Whom he expelled from himself with a natural 20 wisdom save, for the record, in episode 35. He spent more time without Orthax than with him!

It is objectively true that Percy invented the gun knowing what harm it could do but did it anyway. He once permanently maimed an innocent boy because he wasn't giving the answers he wanted. He gave Grog a cursed sword and didn't tell anyone because he didn't want it to be his responsibility and he thought Grog could handle it. It is also objectively true that he expressed doubts about what he was doing even during the Briarwood arc and admitted he was scared of who he was becoming and outright asked the group to stop him if they thought they should. He publicly apologized to Desmond and admitted his wrong and assured him recompense in both money and job security. He participated in a resurrection ritual for a child he didn't know who got caught in the crossfire of a battle. He fought to provide the people of Westruun a safe haven in their city, while still encouraging people to leave if they wished, because he wanted to honor the fact that what they had built there was important to them.

I think Percy is one of those characters that people view as either a silly little Human Disaster™ or as Vox Machina's Token Evil Teammate (the audience who projected onto him as the Facts and Logic guy seems to have dissipated after it became clear that he was. very much not doing that), and neither of those things are true. When Laura remarked that she looked at Percy and said "I can fix him", it was very clearly a joke, but I think people take that seriously and think Vex is the only reason he's not Lawful Evil or something. (Taliesin once said that without Vex's influence Percy could potentially have turned out Lawful Good—Laura's reaction was "eugh".) Percy didn't believe he could EVER be worthy of Vex and never once intended to act on his feelings; the change in him between episodes 35 and 68 was because he personally chose to be better, over and over again—even through several instances of him having Fucked Up Big Time—for its own sake. His forgiveness of Ripley is what inspired Vex, and I don't think people acknowledge that enough.

🖤: Which character is not as morally good as everyone else seems to think?

I kind of alluded to this in the ship question but to be clear at the outset, I think Vax is a good person*, but I also think his flaws tend to be overlooked. He gets Soft Boy'd a lot, and while I don't think characters who operate on emotion are bad or stupid by default (my favorite superhero is Starfire), I think fandom tends to assume people who operate on emotion are good by default. Vax does a lot of reckless things that he's repeatedly called out for by everyone in the group, and he generally lets it roll off him because his metric for success is "but did you die". He saw a kid that he thought needed some tough love, and his first response was "bludgeon him over the back of the head and instantly knock him unconscious". He ran into a trap that nearly got Cassandra killed and never once apologized to her. He ran after Raishan and attacked, an action that actually did get Vex and Scanlan killed, and not only did he never apologize to them, he openly said in front of them that he didn't regret doing it (after being rightfully angry with Percy for getting Vex killed and having seen some proof that Scanlan might not be doing great!).

Like, to be clear, again, none of those things make him a bad person; I think overall he's a good person, and I think they're good character choices!* What I'm saying is that he has some genuine rough edges to him, and I think a lot of that gets ignored or sanded down in fanon to make him "the nice twin" or a perfect YA Hero love interest for a Keyleth who is being projected onto, and that simply isn't the character Liam played.

*I wouldn't normally put in that kind of good-person caveat—I don't think the end-all be-all is whether or not a fictional character is a good person—but a) this is a question about morality and b) some folks are weird about Liam.

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