#I do have like two other sagas planned after this one

[zombiewritingblog]

i need to stop myself because im more than halfway through writing this saga and uhh the poll hasn't finished yet so like i need to calm down and do other things

[musclesandhammering]

The way the director/writer for Loki season 1 & the Quantumania creators explain the multiverse is completely different from the way it’s explained in Loki season 2 & Multiverse of Madness and I’m so damn confused.

[brunchable]

How's retirement, Bucky? | Bucky Barnes x f!reader.

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x f!reader

Themes: Funny. Bucky trying to find things to do to kill time, while also being a menace to Y/N and the neighbours. Prequel to 'Ouch, My face.'

Summary: Bucky decides to retire and leave the super hero world behind, but now he doesn't know how to be normal citizen.

A/N: Just another scenario tha rudely popped into my head. . .

Bucky Barnes was retired.

It still felt strange, even after months of settling into a life of quiet mornings and unhurried afternoons. He had fought in wars, spent decades as an agent of chaos, and dedicated years to redemption and healing. Now, here he was—waking up whenever he pleased, making breakfast in a house that didn’t have bullet-proof glass windows or a panic room, and trying to figure out what to do with the rest of his day.

Today, like most others, started off simple enough: a run through the neighbourhood, a cup of coffee, and a lazy scan of the news. He’d even managed to fix the leaky faucet that had been bothering you for weeks, earning a soft kiss on the cheek as a reward.

But then… the day stretched on. There were no missions, no tactical planning, no world to save. Just the quiet ticking of the clock and the gentle hum of suburban life around him.

So, Bucky set his sights on something—or rather, someone—far more interesting: annoying you.

And thus began the saga of Bucky Barnes’ Retirement Phases.

Phase 1: The Handyman Hero Phase

Duration: One Month

Bucky started off strong, becoming the ultimate handyman of the household. Everything was fair game for improvement. Leaky faucets, creaky floorboards, wobbly shelves—if there was a screw to tighten, Bucky was on it like a well-oiled machine.

“Bucky, what are you doing?” you asked one morning, sipping your coffee as you watched him carefully measuring the distance between each picture frame on the living room wall.

“Making sure they’re exactly one inch apart,” he said without looking up, his voice deadly serious.

“Why?”

“Because last night, I noticed this one—” he pointed to a frame on the far left “—was slightly off-center, and it’s been bothering me ever since.”

You blinked. “Bucky, it’s fine.”

“It’s not fine, Y/N. It’s one and a quarter inch apart. Do you know what happens when things aren’t balanced?” He gave you a haunted look, as if you’d just suggested destabilizing the world order.

“Chaos,” you muttered.

“Exactly.”

Within weeks, Bucky had rebuilt half the house, repainted the walls (twice), and installed a state-of-the-art security system that even Tony Stark would envy. You came home one day to find the couch moved three inches to the left, the coffee table completely gone (“I dismantled it; we don’t need it”), and Bucky seriously contemplating whether the kitchen would look better with marble or granite countertops.

“Bucky,” you said slowly, trying to remain calm, “I’m begging you—stop fixing things.”

He blinked at you. “What do you want me to do then?”

You panicked. “Anything. Just—find a hobby!”

He gave a solemn nod, as if you’d just entrusted him with a new mission. “Okay. A hobby. Got it.”

You breathed a sigh of relief. If only you’d known what was coming next.

Phase 2: The Google Scholar Phase

Duration: Two Weeks

With his newfound free time, Bucky discovered the internet. And when Bucky Barnes discovers the internet, chaos ensues.

It started innocently enough. You’d come home to find him glued to his laptop, his brows furrowed in concentration.

“What are you doing?” you asked, setting down your bag.

“Research,” he said ominously, fingers flying over the keys.

“Research on… what?”

He glanced up, his eyes wide. “Did you know sharks have been around longer than trees?”

“Uh—”

“And that banana slugs can grow up to 9 inches long?” He leaned forward, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “There’s a whole website dedicated to weird animal facts. I’ve been reading for hours.”

And so, you were subjected to two weeks of nonstop trivia.

“Hey, Y/N!” he’d shout from the kitchen. “Did you know an octopus has three hearts?”

Or: “Did you know cows have best friends?”

And: “Do you want to hear about the deepest point in the ocean?”

“Not really—”

“It’s called the Mariana Trench, and it’s seven miles down!”

You tried banning Wikipedia, but he just switched to obscure forums. You blocked YouTube, and he found a random chicken fact blog. The worst part? He’d share his newfound knowledge with anyone who’d listen.

“I’m calling Sam,” you muttered one evening after hearing Bucky recite the entire history of the humble potato to the mailman. “You need social intervention.”

Phase 3: The Home Décor Perfectionist Phase

Duration: Two Exasperating Weeks

Denied access to his newfound internet pursuits, Bucky turned to interior design. You were caught off guard one Saturday morning when he asked, “What do you think of paisley?”

“What’s a paisley?”

“Pattern. I’m thinking of reupholstering the couch.”

“Bucky, no—”

Too late. Within days, every room was a different colour. You came home to find polka-dotted curtains in the bathroom, and he’d somehow managed to install a chandelier in the laundry room.

“Bucky, why is there a 10-foot mirror in the hallway?”

“It makes the space feel bigger.”

“Bucky, this is a two-bedroom house!”

He paused, squinting at the living room wall. “I think the polka dots need to go.”

You nearly wept with relief when he announced he was moving on to the garden.

Phase 4: The Amateur Detective Phase

Duration: One Overly Suspicious Month

After redecorating the entire house, Bucky set his sights on the neighborhood.

“Y/N, did you see that guy across the street?” he whispered one morning, peering through the blinds with a pair of binoculars.

“That’s Mr. Henderson. He’s eighty-five.”

“Yeah, and he’s up to something. No one goes to the mailbox that often.”

“Maybe he likes getting his mail?”

“I’m telling you, something’s not right.” He tapped the binoculars. “I’m gonna get to the bottom of it.”

And so began Operation: Neighborhood Watch. Every delivery truck was scrutinised. Every dog walker received a full background check. The poor Girl Scouts who came to sell cookies left looking slightly shell-shocked.

The Girl Scout Incident: When Bucky Barnes Met Thin Mints

The Girl Scout incident started out innocent enough—just a kid selling cookies to the neighborhood. But when Bucky Barnes answered the door, things took a turn.

It was a sunny Saturday morning. You were in the kitchen, enjoying a rare moment of peace, when you heard the doorbell ring. Before you could even get up to check, Bucky’s voice echoed from the living room.

“I got it!” he called out, already making his way to the front door.

Curious, you peeked around the corner just in time to see him open it. Standing on the porch was a sweet-looking little girl, no more than nine or ten, decked out in her green uniform, clutching a clipboard and flashing a bright, eager smile.

“Hi, mister!” she chirped, clearly undeterred by the stern look on Bucky’s face. “Would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies today?”

You watched as Bucky’s expression softened just a bit, his head tilting to the side in confusion.

“Cookies?” he repeated, as if she’d just offered him nuclear launch codes.

“Yep!” She held up a laminated chart with pictures of the various cookies, pointing to each one with a tiny, rainbow-colored pen. “We have Thin Mints, Tagalongs, Samoas—uh, I mean, Caramel deLites—”

He squinted at the chart, clearly trying to make sense of it all. “Why would you need to sell cookies?”

You nearly face-palmed. Oh no.

The girl’s enthusiasm didn’t waver. “It’s a fundraiser! To support our troop activities and trips.”

“Fundraiser?” Bucky’s voice dropped suspiciously. “Who’s your troop leader?”

The girl blinked, a little taken aback. “Uh, Mrs. Patterson?”

“Uh-huh. And how many boxes of these so-called ‘cookies’ are you supposed to sell?”

Her smile wavered just a fraction. “Um, as many as possible?”

Bucky crossed his arms, leaning against the doorframe. “And where does all this money go?”

“Bucky—” you tried to interrupt, stepping forward, but he held up a hand without looking back, eyes still locked on the bewildered Girl Scout.

“It goes to our troop!” she answered nervously, glancing down at her clipboard as if for reassurance. “For badges and supplies and—”

“Supplies,” Bucky echoed, his tone suddenly sharp. “What kind of supplies?”

“Uh… arts and crafts…?” she stammered, clearly starting to get uncomfortable.

“Arts and crafts?” He leaned in, dropping his voice to a low, conspiratorial whisper. “Or something else?”

You saw the poor girl’s eyes widen, her grip tightening on her clipboard as if she was contemplating using it as a shield.

“Bucky, stop,” you hissed, stepping forward to intervene. But he was on a roll now.

“Who gets the money, huh?” He narrowed his eyes, peering down at her like she was an enemy combatant. “Do you get it?

“Or does it go to some mysterious ‘troop leader’ who’s hiding behind a desk somewhere, raking in profits from innocent cookie sales?”

“M-Mister, it’s just cookies,” she squeaked, glancing nervously at the boxes stacked beside her. “We just wanna go camping this summer.”

“Camping?” he repeated slowly, as if tasting the word. “And what kind of ‘camping’ are we talking about here? Deep-woods recon training? SERE training?”

The girl blinked up at him, clearly having no idea what he was talking about.

“Bucky, she’s nine!” you practically shouted, rushing over to save the poor child from what was rapidly escalating into a full-blown interrogation.

“But Y/N, this could be—”

“It’s not a conspiracy, Bucky!” you snapped, turning to the girl and giving her what you hoped was a reassuring smile. ���Sweetie, how much for a box of Thin Mints?”

“Uh… f-five dollars?” she stammered, still eyeing Bucky like he might suddenly sprout fangs.

You reached for your wallet, pulling out a ten-dollar bill and handing it to her. “Keep the change.”

“Thank you, ma’am!” she squeaked, stuffing the money into her pouch with trembling hands.

You shot Bucky a glare. “Apologize.”

He crossed his arms, looking mulish. “But—”

“Bucky.”

He let out a sigh, running a hand through his hair. “Fine. Uh… sorry… for, um… asking about your troop leader and, uh… the money laundering?”

The girl blinked up at him, clearly not following.

“Bucky!” you hissed, elbowing him sharply.

“I mean, sorry for… for… being weird,” he mumbled, shoving his hands into his pockets.

The girl gave a hesitant nod, glancing back at her stack of cookies. “Um… would you like another box, mister?”

Bucky frowned thoughtfully. “Maybe. Which one’s the best?”

“Bucky—” you started, but he was already leaning down, listening intently as the girl launched into a detailed explanation of the flavour profiles of Samoas versus Tagalongs.

Twenty minutes later, Bucky was the proud owner of a dozen boxes of Girl Scout cookies, which the girl somehow managed to upsell him into buying. The look of relief on her face as she walked away was palpable.

You turned to Bucky, hands on your hips. “Really, Buck?”

“What?” he said defensively, clutching his armful of cookies. “I needed to make sure it was legit!”

“Uh-huh. And that’s why we now have enough cookies to feed an army?”

He shrugged, looking entirely too pleased with himself. “I guess I got carried away.”

“Just… try not to scare any more children, okay?”

“Hey, I was just being thorough,” he muttered, glancing down at the boxes. “Besides… these ‘Samoas’ are actually pretty good.”

You shook your head, laughing despite yourself. Because only Bucky Barnes could turn a simple cookie sale into a full-scale interrogation—and then end up buying out the entire stock.

“Whatever you say, Bucky. Whatever you say.”

He gave you a sheepish grin, holding up a box of Thin Mints. “Want one?”

“Sure,” you sighed, reaching out to grab a cookie. Because, at the end of the day, this was Bucky Barnes: ex-assassin, super-soldier, and now… terrifyingly dedicated Girl Scout cookie connoisseur.

The Girl Scout incident, unfortunately, didn’t mark the end of Bucky’s neighbourhood watch endeavours.

“Hey, Y/N, that’s the third day in a row Mrs. Higginson has gone jogging past our house,” Bucky muttered a few days later, scribbling furiously in his notebook.

You glanced over from your spot on the couch, raising an eyebrow. “Uh-huh,” you replied absently, already wondering if now would be a good time to text Steve for a little ‘rescue mission.’ “Maybe she likes jogging?”

“Nah,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s not natural. It’s a cover for something. Probably espionage.”

“Bucky, she’s seventy.”

“Exactly. No one that age moves like that. She’s gotta be a retired agent.”

“Or she’s trying to stay in shape?”

“Or she’s spying on us.” He narrowed his eyes, peering through the blinds. “Maybe she’s HYDRA.”

“Bucky, she brought us homemade banana bread last week.”

“Which tasted suspiciously good,” he muttered darkly, tapping his pen against his chin. “I’m keeping an eye on her.”

It didn’t stop there. He began obsessively tracking patterns—when neighbors took out their trash, when they left for work, who picked up their mail first thing in the morning. His conspiracy board rivaled the one you’d seen at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, complete with photos, string, and a suspiciously large map of the neighborhood.

“Y/N, I need to talk to you.”

You blinked, looking up from your book. “What’s up, Buck?”

He leaned in, his voice low and serious. “Did you know Mrs. Patterson’s dog peed on our lawn three times this week?”

“I—what?”

“And Mr. Thompson left his house twice yesterday. Twice.”

“…is that a crime?”

“Yes. Who leaves the house twice in one day? He’s clearly up to something.”

“Like… groceries?”

Bucky frowned. “No. Something bigger. I saw him walking to his car, get this—without any bags.”

“Maybe he forgot something?”

He shook his head, eyes narrowed. “It’s a diversion tactic. I’m keeping a close watch on him.”

“Please don’t tell me you’re stalking the neighbours.”

“Of course not!” He paused. “I’m… observing. For science.”

“For science?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, Buck. I’m putting my foot down,” you finally managed. “You need to stop this. The neighbours think we’re crazy. You’re scaring the kids and… the mailman won’t come to the door anymore.”

Bucky looked genuinely confused. “Why not?”

“Because you interrogated him about his route last week!”

“He was being shady!”

“He’s a mailman!”

There was a long pause as you stared each other down, Bucky looking defiant and you looking exhausted. Finally, you sighed and ran a hand through your hair.

“Buck… I know retirement is hard. But you need a new outlet. Maybe something a little less—”

“Paranoid?” he offered, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah. And a little less terrifying for the neighbours.”

He sighed deeply, like you’d just asked him to hang up his shield all over again. “I was just… trying to be useful.”

Your heart softened immediately. Because that was what it all boiled down to, wasn’t it? The man who’d spent his life fighting wars and doing battle against his own mind was now left trying to figure out how to fit into a world that no longer needed him to save it.

You walked over, placing your hands on his shoulders and giving him a soft smile. “You’re always useful, Buck. Even if you’re not interrogating the mailman about federal postal regulations or… spying on seventy-year-old retirees.”

He snorted, shaking his head. “I might’ve gone a little overboard, huh?”

“A little,” you agreed with a grin. “Maybe you should find something else to watch over.”

“Like what?” he asked, looking genuinely curious.

You bit your lip, thinking. “I don’t know… Maybe get a pet? You could… I don’t know, babysit a cat or something.”

Bucky blinked at you. Then his eyes lit up like you’d just handed him the Holy Grail of retirement activities.

“A cat,” he murmured slowly, as if testing the word. “A cat.”

“Yes, a cat,” you repeated cautiously, wondering if you’d just unleashed some new kind of havoc on the house. “You could train it to… I don’t know, not scratch the furniture or something.”

“Or… I could train it to keep an eye on the pigeons,” he muttered to himself, looking thoughtful.

“Wait, what?”

But Bucky had already gone inside, the gears in his mind clearly turning. You shook your head, deciding to let him have this one. After all, how much trouble could he really get into with a cat?

Phase 5: The Pet Phase (aka Operation: Find a Feline Friend)

Duration: Ongoing, with Fur Everywhere

You didn’t think he’d take it seriously. Until you came home the next day to find Bucky sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, a small, white ball of fluff curled up in his lap.

“This is Alpine,” he announced proudly.

You stared at the kitten, then at Bucky, then back at the kitten. “Bucky, what… why…?”

“You said get a pet,” he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “So I did.”

And that’s how Alpine, the grumpy old woman in a cat’s body, became part of your household. Bucky spent weeks trying to train him (“Sit, Alpine! Sit! … Okay, fine, just glare at me, that works too.”), set up elaborate obstacle courses (“Alpine, jump! No, don’t walk away—okay, you know what, just do your thing”), and spoiled her rotten with toys and treats.

With each phase, Bucky’s retirement became a new adventure. And while it drove you absolutely crazy at times, you couldn’t help but smile when you saw Bucky lying on the couch, Alpine curled up on his chest, both looking completely content.

“Retirement isn’t so bad, huh?” you teased one evening, curling up beside him.

He hummed thoughtfully, scratching behind Alpine’s ears. “I don’t know… I think I could use a new project.”

You groaned, but your groan turned into a laugh when he grinned at you, his eyes sparkling with mischief.

“Oh no,” you said, narrowing your eyes. “No more projects, Barnes. You’ve nearly redecorated us out of house and home, scared the mailman half to death, and—”

“Don’t forget the gourmet cookies,” he interjected with a cheeky smile.

You shot him a playful glare. “I’m trying to forget the cookies, thank you.”

“Aw, come on. I think I finally got the recipe down. I’ll just try one more—”

“No!” you practically shouted, your voice echoing through the living room. Alpine, unbothered, merely lifted her head, gave you both a disinterested look, and went back to napping.

Bucky chuckled, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay. No more cookies. No more redecorating. No more… scaring the Girl Scouts.”

“Or spying on the neighbors.”

“Or spying on the neighbors,” he agreed, still looking a little too amused for your liking.

You sighed, leaning back into the couch and resting your head on his shoulder. “You know, most people take up hobbies like gardening or painting in retirement.”

Bucky nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, but those aren’t as exciting.”

“They’re not supposed to be exciting. They’re supposed to be calm. That’s the whole point of retirement, Buck.”

He glanced down at you, his gaze softening. “You really think I’m the ‘calm’ type, doll?”

You snorted. “No, not really. But it would be nice if, just once, I didn’t come home to find you plotting to build a moat around the house.”

“Moats are an excellent defense mechanism,” he said matter-of-factly. “But okay, I get it. I’ll tone it down.”

You gave him a skeptical look. “You promise?”

“Scout’s honor,” he said, holding up his right hand. The glint in his eye, however, told you he was already planning something new.

“Bucky…”

“What?” he asked, all innocence. “You don’t trust me?”

“Not for a second.”

He chuckled, then pressed a gentle kiss to your temple. “Alright, no more projects. I’ll just focus on Alpine. She’s a full-time job anyway.”

You glanced at the cat, who was now sprawled out like she owned the place. “You’ve turned her into a diva, you know.”

“He’s just refined,” Bucky said defensively. “He’s got standards.”

“Uh-huh. Like the way he refuses to eat unless you hand-feed her?”

“Refined,” Bucky insisted.

“And how she sleeps on your side of the bed and shoves you off with her tiny, evil paws?”

“Selective.”

“And how she sits on the counter staring at you like she’s plotting your demise?”

“Observant.”

You shook your head, laughing softly. “You’ve created a monster, Bucky.”

“Eh,” he said with a shrug, smirking down at you. “I’ve handled worse monsters. She’s a good one. Besides,” he added, scratching Alpine’s head fondly, “she’s family.”

Your heart softened at his words, and you smiled up at him. “Yeah, I guess she is.”

There was a comfortable silence as you both sat there, content in the peaceful moment.

Then Bucky cleared his throat, and you glanced up to see him shifting slightly, like he was working up the nerve to say something.

“So… I was thinking…” he began slowly.

“Bucky.”

“No, no, hear me out,” he said quickly, raising his hands as if to ward off your incoming refusal. “What if we… I dunno… made a baby?”

You blinked, certain you hadn’t heard him correctly. “What?”

“A baby,” he repeated, his voice steady, though there was a telltale blush creeping up his neck. “You know, a little human—our human. Someone we can train to take over the world… or at least keep me entertained.”

Your jaw dropped open. “You want to have a baby—because you’re bored?”

Bucky gave you a sheepish grin. “I mean, I was thinking it could be a good project… long-term investment… future troublemaker…”

“Bucky,” you interrupted, placing your hands on his shoulders and staring at him, bewildered. “Are you seriously suggesting having a child like it’s another DIY project?”

He shrugged, looking as nonchalant as ever, but his eyes were soft and serious. “Maybe. But I was also thinking it’d be nice to have something, or someone, that’s just… ours. A mix of you and me. Something that isn’t tied to the past, or fighting, or… all the other stuff.”

You stared at him, trying to wrap your mind around the sudden turn the conversation had taken. “You really want a baby, Bucky?”

He nodded slowly, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. “Yeah. I do. Don’t get me wrong, Alpine’s great and all, but…” He sighed, his smile turning tender. “I just think it’d be amazing to have something more. I’ve spent so much of my life taking orders or fighting ghosts. But starting a family with you? That’s something I get to build. Something that’s ours.”

You bit your lip, heart swelling at his words. Despite the completely unromantic way he’d suggested it, there was sincerity in his gaze, a yearning for something deeper than fixing leaky faucets or buying out the Girl Scouts’ entire cookie stock.

“And you think you’d be a good dad?” you teased, raising an eyebrow.

“Please,” he scoffed, pulling you closer and pressing a kiss to your forehead. “I’d be the best damn dad. I’d teach our kid how to throw a proper punch by age five, dismantle a toaster by six—”

You laughed, shaking your head. “So, what you’re saying is… you want to raise a tiny super-soldier?”

His grin widened. “Hell yeah.”

“Bucky, we are not turning our child into a mini-Winter Soldier.”

He pouted dramatically. “Not even a little bit?”

“Not even a little bit,” you affirmed with a chuckle. You leaned in, resting your forehead against his. “But… maybe we could talk about it. You know, actually talk. Not just… plan a tactical baby mission.”

Bucky’s eyes softened as he brushed his thumb along your cheek. “Yeah. We can talk about it.” He paused, then added with a mischievous glint, “After we practice a little more.”

You rolled your eyes but couldn’t help the smile tugging at your lips. “Oh my God, Bucky.”

“What?” he asked innocently, his grin widening. “Practice makes perfect, right?”

You shook your head, letting out a breathy laugh. “You’re incorrigible.”

“And you love me for it,” he murmured, leaning in to capture your lips in a soft, lingering kiss.

“Yeah,” you whispered when he pulled away, your heart fluttering in your chest. “I do.”

You glanced down at Alpine, who was still sprawled across Bucky’s lap, looking utterly uninterested in the conversation. A baby. You hadn’t really thought about it seriously before, but now that Bucky had put the idea in your head… you couldn’t help but wonder.

There was a brief pause as Bucky gazed at you, his expression growing thoughtful. “You know,” he began quietly, “after that whole Girl Scout cookie fiasco… I kinda started thinking… I’d really like to have a daughter.”

You blinked at him, surprised. “A daughter?”

“Yeah,” he murmured, his voice softening. “That kid was just so… brave, you know? Standing there, staring me down even though I was being a total idiot. It reminded me of you—fierce and unafraid. I couldn’t stop thinking… what if we had a daughter like that? Strong, smart, and completely capable of putting me in my place when I get out of line.”

You felt your heart clench at his words, his quiet admission making your chest ache. “You want a little girl because she’d keep you in check?”

“That,” he said, smiling softly, “and I think I’d like the challenge. I’ve spent so much of my life dealing with people who only saw me as a weapon. I just… want to prove that I can be something else. That I can be gentle… and kind… and love someone unconditionally. The way I love you.”

You reached up, cupping his face gently. “Bucky, you don’t have to prove anything to anyone.”

“I know,” he murmured, his gaze warm and intense. “But I still want to try. And I want to be the kind of dad who isn’t just a protector, but a friend. Someone who’d sit through endless tea parties and help her build pillow forts… and buy all the Girl Scout cookies she wants without scaring anyone.”

You laughed softly, tears stinging your eyes at the picture he painted. “You’d be a great dad, Bucky.”

“Yeah?” he asked, his voice low and hopeful.

“Yeah,” you whispered, smiling up at him.

There was another beat of silence before Bucky leaned in, his breath warm against your ear as he whispered, “So… when do we start?”

You felt your cheeks heat, a mix of laughter and surprise bubbling up in your chest. “Bucky!”

“What?” he asked, his smile as innocent as ever. “I’m just asking. I mean, you know I’m a man of action. Gotta have a timeline.”

“Oh my God,” you muttered, burying your face in your hands as Bucky laughed softly, his arms wrapping around you.

“Okay, okay,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to your hair. “No rush. We’ll take it one day at a time, sweetheart. But just know… I’m ready whenever you are.”

And somehow, you knew this next phase—whatever it looked like—was going to be the best one yet.

× × × ×

Ten months later

The soft glow of the nightlight bathed the nursery in a warm, golden hue, casting gentle shadows on the pale blue walls. The room was still, save for the quiet creak of the rocking chair as Bucky swayed back and forth, holding the tiniest bundle of joy in his strong, yet tender arms.

His daughter, barely a week old, was nestled against his chest, her small, delicate breaths in sync with the steady rhythm of his own. Her tiny fist curled around the fabric of his shirt, as if she knew just how safe and loved she was in her daddy's arms.

Bucky hummed quietly, the familiar melody of an old lullaby drifting into the air. It was a song his mother used to sing to him when he was no older than his sweet little girl was now. The words came softly, almost whispered, as if they were sacred—meant only for his daughter.

“Darling, you're my bloodYou have my heartbeatYou have my heartbeat, beating loud,”

His voice was gruff, yet softened by emotion as he sang, the gentle rocking lulling his daughter further into her peaceful slumber. His fingers brushed through her soft, downy hair as he looked down at her with nothing short of awe. How had he, of all people, gotten so lucky?

He had been through so much darkness in his life—seen and done things he would never be able to forget—but here, in this quiet moment, everything seemed to fade away. The world outside could wait. Right now, his whole universe was cradled in his arms, and for the first time in a long time, Bucky Barnes felt at peace.

Unbeknownst to him, you stood at the door, your heart swelling at the sight before you. You had come to check on them both, worried that Bucky might need help with the baby. But when you saw him there, rocking your little girl and singing so sweetly, you couldn’t bring yourself to interrupt.

A soft smile tugged at your lips as you leaned against the doorframe, content to watch the love of your life in this vulnerable, beautiful moment. 

Bucky was a natural, even if he didn’t believe it. You had seen the worry in his eyes when you first brought your daughter home—the fear that he wouldn’t be good enough, that he wouldn’t know what to do. But here he was, proving himself wrong in the most heart-melting way possible.

The lullaby continued, each note filled with so much love it made your eyes mist over.

"You are my lighthouseA peak of light from the dark cloudsI've lived under my whole life. . .And there's nothing I won't do for you."

Bucky’s voice cracked just a little on the last line, overcome with emotion as he gazed down at his daughter and carefully wiped his tears away. 

She had his eyes—bright and full of wonder, even when they were closed in slumber. He couldn’t help but trace the delicate features of her face with his gaze, committing every tiny detail to memory.

Finally, you couldn’t resist any longer. You stepped into the room quietly, not wanting to startle him. Bucky looked up, surprise flickering across his face when he saw you standing there. His expression softened when he realised you had been watching him.

“How long have you been standing there?” he asked, his voice low so as not to wake the baby.

“Long enough,” you replied, your smile widening as you walked over to him.

Bucky blushed, a sheepish grin tugging at his lips. “I’m not exactly a professional.”

“I beg to differ, I think you’re the best dad in the world.” you whispered, leaning down to press a soft kiss to his temple. 

Bucky’s heart swelled at your words. He never imagined he would be here—sitting in a nursery, holding his newborn daughter while the love of his life stood beside him, calling him the best dad in the world. It still felt like a dream.

“She’s so small,” he murmured, looking back down at the baby. “So fragile. I didn’t think…I didn’t think I could love someone I barely knew this much.”

Your hand gently rested on his shoulder as you gazed down at your daughter. “You’ve got a big heart, James. I always knew you’d be amazing as a father.”

He glanced up at you, eyes soft and full of affection. “You’re the amazing one.”

You reached out to gently stroke the baby’s cheek, and Bucky leaned into your touch, feeling more complete than he ever thought possible.

“I never thought I’d have this,” he admitted after a long silence, his voice barely above a whisper. “A family. A reason to feel…whole again.”

You knelt down beside him, resting your head against his shoulder. “You deserve it, Bucky. You deserve all the happiness in the world.”

Bucky kissed the top of youe head, holding you close as he continued to rock your daughter. The world outside could be chaotic and unforgiving, but in this room, in this moment, everything was perfect.

× × × ×

Baby at six months

The house was peaceful, the late afternoon sun casting a warm glow through the windows. You were out running errands, leaving Bucky home with their now six-month-old daughter, who was currently kicking her chubby little legs and babbling on her playmat. Her eyes sparkled with curiosity as she reached for her favorite stuffed bear, the one Bucky had given her the day she was born.

Bucky sat beside her, legs crossed, watching her every move like she was the most fascinating thing on the planet. He leaned down, his voice dropping to a playful whisper. 

“You know, blossom,” he began, glancing over his shoulder dramatically as if checking to make sure Y/N wasn’t around. “Your mom thinks she’s the boss.”

Their daughter let out a high-pitched squeal, and Bucky grinned. 

“Right? Can you believe it?” he continued, keeping his voice low as if sharing the biggest secret in the world. “She thinks she’s in charge around here. But between you and me, we know the truth.”

His little girl giggled again, her tiny hands grasping at the air as if she was agreeing with him.

“See, you and I?” Bucky said, tapping his finger gently on her nose, “We’re a team. We know how to get things done. I mean, just look at us—surviving nap time, figuring out how to stack those weird little ring toys, and we don’t even need to look at the instructions. Meanwhile, your mom still thinks I can’t fold laundry properly.”

He paused for dramatic effect, raising his brows. “Can you believe that? Laundry. I fought in World War II, and she’s worried I’ll mess up the towels.”

His daughter let out a delighted shriek, her little legs kicking excitedly. Bucky reached over and tickled her belly gently, making her burst into even more giggles.

“Oh, yeah, I know you think it’s funny,” Bucky chuckled. “But trust me, your mom’s got some pretty high laundry standards. I tried to fold one towel, just one, and she came over with this look like I’d committed a crime. 'Bucky, that’s not how you fold them!' she said. And I’m standing there like, ‘It’s a towel, not a top-secret mission.’”

He leaned in closer, as if telling her something top-secret. “She doesn’t know this, but I might’ve folded them wrong on purpose so I wouldn’t have to do it anymore.”

His daughter cooed, her tiny hand reaching out to grab his finger, which she promptly brought to her mouth to chew on. Bucky let her, his heart melting at the sight. She was his little sidekick, always hanging on his every word, even if she didn’t fully understand yet.

“And don’t even get me started on the bedtime routine,” Bucky continued, shaking his head in mock exasperation. “Your mom’s got this whole plan—bath, story, lights out. Meanwhile, you and me? We’ve got a better plan. We chill, we rock, maybe sing a little. You get all cozy, and bam—out like a light.”

“Bababababa,” His daughter babbled something back at him, her little voice full of enthusiasm, and Bucky nodded seriously. 

“Exactly. That’s what I’ve been saying. We’ve got this figured out.”

He scooped her up from the mat and held her close, her head resting comfortably against his chest as he walked them over to the couch. He sat down, cradling her in his arms, and continued his lighthearted rant.

“And the thing is, she’s always right, which drives me crazy. Like, the other day, she told me you were gonna try to crawl soon. I thought, ‘Nah, she’s too young.’ But then what happens? Two days later, you’re scooting around like you’ve got places to be. I swear, your mom’s a psychic or something.”

Bucky gazed down at his daughter, who was now looking up at him with those wide blue eyes that never failed to melt his heart. She let out a happy gurgle, and Bucky chuckled softly, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead.

“You know I’m just kidding, right? Your mom’s the best. She takes care of both of us.” He sighed, feeling a rush of affection as he thought about Y/N. “Don’t tell her, but I’m pretty lucky to have her. She keeps me in line.”

Just then, the sound of the front door opening echoed through the house, and Bucky’s head shot up in mock panic.

“Uh-oh,” he whispered to his daughter, his eyes wide with exaggerated worry. “The boss is back. Don’t say anything.”

You appeared in the doorway, raising an eyebrow as you saw Bucky and the baby cozied up on the couch. “What are you two up to?” you asked, a knowing smile on your lips.

Bucky gave you his most innocent look, bouncing your daughter gently in his arms. “Oh, nothing. Just hanging out with my best girl here. Right, darling?”

The baby let out a little squeal, clearly delighted by the attention.

“Mmhmm,” You said, stepping closer and giving Bucky a playful look. “You haven’t been filling her head with nonsense, have you?”

“Me? Never,” Bucky replied, trying to keep a straight face. “We were just talking about how great you are. Isn’t that right, kiddo?”

Bianca, oblivious to the conversation, giggled and reached for you, and took her from Bucky’s arms and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“Well, if she grows up thinking she’s in charge, I’ll know who to blame,” You teased, casting a glance at Bucky.

He grinned, leaning back on the couch. “Hey, she’s gotta learn from the best.”

You smiled, shaking your head in mock defeat. “You’re lucky she likes you so much.”

Bucky stood and wrapped his arms around you, resting his chin on your shoulder as you both looked down at your little girl, now happily nestled between you. “I’m lucky to have both of you,” he murmured softly, kissing the side of your head.

And in that moment, with his two favorite girls in his arms, Bucky couldn’t imagine a better kind of luck.

[minarinnn]

“notice me”

luke castellan x aphrodite!reader (pt2 here)

content/trigger warnings: fem! reader, doesn’t follow the plot of tlt!, mentions of smut, sexual tension, manipulation?, groping, reader making luke jealous

a/n: the show has once again sparked up my love for the percy jackson book saga and charlie bushnell has me weakkk ughhh.. i normally don’t write for pjo characters but oh well, lmk if y’all want a continuation of this or just more luke castellan in general ;)

you had always been so used to being the center of attention. as a daughter of aphrodite, you had always been the most popular girl in school, and there was no shortage of boys falling for your charms

arriving at camp half-blood didn change that, nothing was different. except that, for the first time in your life, you found yourself chasing after the attention of a certain boy. luke castellan, the son of hermes and the head counselor of his cabin, he just wouldn’t fawn over you like the others would. despite your best efforts, luke had always remained indifferent to your constant flirting, leaving you feeling frustrated and determined to change his mind

you found yourself spending every waking moment trying to get his attention, trying to find some way to charm him and make him see you the way the other boys did. but no matter how hard you tried, luke remained distant and unimpressed

this week you were extremely busy, you were helping out in the infirmary, one of the apollo kids who usually worked in the infirmary had been sent on a quest and you were asked to fill in until they came back. juggling that with all your other responsibilities as counselor had you beyond occupied

during that week, annabeth barged in with two other guys; percy and luke. apparently their sparring session had gone a little out of hand and they were both injured

luke was already aware of how you’ve been trying to get his attention these past few years. he actually seems to quite like having you, the most fawned over girl at camp, fawning over him instead. he liked the attention you gave him, though he knew that if he ever gave in to your charms you would stop, so he didn’t

he was fully prepared and expected you to be the one to tend to him, so when he sees you head to percy and tend to him while an apollo girl tended to him he was confused

what happened? why would you choose percy over him? we’re you tired of him? did you give up on trying to win him over? luke’s confusion quickly turned to frustration, and he couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy as he watched you tend to percy’s wounds

"how are you feeling, percy?" you asked, giving him a warm smile, one that always had the boys weak in the knees. "n-not great, but i’ll manage" he laughed awkwardly, suddenly nervous. you put your hand on his shoulder, giving it a small squeeze "oh, i’m sure you’ll live”

out of the corner of your eye, you saw luke. he was watching you, watching the way you cared for percy. this was the first time you had ever caught him staring at you with such intensity

so you’re plan was working. you had tried everything to get his attention and you had only one trick left in your arsenal; jealosy. no boy is immune to jealousy, and that was exactly how you were gonna get him

in the end, all you had to do was throw some water at percy and he was good to go. luke though, he had to spend the night in the infirmary

the other apollo kid had left a few minutes ago, something about ‘having other things to do’. so it was just luke and you in the infirmary. you walk over to luke's bed and start tending to his wounds

“oh so now you wanna take care of me? how nice of you” he speaks, sarcasm dripping from his words. “you can tough it out, can't you?" you tease, dabbing away at his cuts with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball. luke is watching you intently and you can feel the tension in the room increasing, his eyes fixated on your hands as you work

luke’s eyes narrow, and you can see the rage boiling beneath the surface. he’s frustrated, jealous, and he doesn't know what to do with all these emotions. you’ve never seen him like this before, and it's a thrill to know that you have the power to make him feel this way

you try to ignore the tense atmosphere in the room, focusing instead on luke's wounds. you finish cleaning and bandaging the cut on his wrist, holding it up to your face to land a soft kiss on the bandages. “all done” you whisper. he tenses at the feeling of your soft lips, and you can see the anger in his eyes. however, you can also see a hint of something else— desire

you look up at him with a smile, knowing that you've got him right where you want him. his eyes are locked on your every movement. you know that you have him wrapped around your finger, and it's a delicious feeling of power

luke’s expression is one of confusion, a mix of rage and desire. he wants you, and he wants to hate you at the same time. it’s a weird combo, but it's working for you.

you lean closer to him, your lips inches away from each other. you can feel his breath on your skin, the heat of his body as he's lying there

"you’re not stopping me" you state, breaking the silence. it’s a quiet, soft whisper, filled with a tiny bit of amusement

"maybe.. maybe i don’t want you to stop" he says, his eyes locked on yours, voice low and husky. you can see the desire building in him, how his gaze trails down to your lips

luke’s breathing quickened, and he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. he knew that this was a game for you, a game where you would always be determined to win him over, but now, in this very moment, he felt like he was losing

he lets out a hiss of frustration, of desire, of... something. he’s sure knows that you're proud of it, but he’s not quite sure what to do about it

you leaned in for the kiss, your lips pressing gently against his, your hand running through his hair. you could feel his body tensing, his hands gripping your waist as he attempted to pull you on top of him

you pull away from the kiss slowly, your lips still pressed to his. luke is still trying to catch his breath, his eyes fixed on yours, searching for any hint of what your next move will be

"not bad" you whisper. "you’re playing a dangerous game here” he chuckles lowly, making your lower regions throb. you smirk softly and brush his hair out of his face “i’ll take my chances”

despite being injured, he pulls you on top of him, making you realize just how hard he’s been this whole time. his eyes are dark, and you can see the lust burning within them

you lean in for another kiss, this one soft and gentle. luke groans when he feels you grind against him, his hands moving down to grab hold of your ass

“i need you s’bad” he mutters out. you smirk as you slide off him, making him furrow his brows in confusion. you land a soft kiss on his cheek. “let’s do this when you’re not injured” you whisper in his ear. now he was alone and hard in the infirmary, how nice

© MINARINNN 2024 - please do not plagiarize or upload my content on any social media platform.

[xmoriartea]

SVSSS!Sibling Transmigration 2: Electric Boogaloo

a continuation of this nonsense that ya'll seemed to enjoy

While Shen Yuan and Luo Binghe hold hands and jump into the abyss, Airplane is left holding no pizza with the sect on fire (and him-damnit. He could really use a pizza right now)

Shang Qinghua helped organize the Immortal Alliance Conference fiasco, but with his brother's guidance and Mobei Jun's shocking willingness to listen to both of them, Cang Qiong suffers only two losses that day: LBH and SY (none of the other major sects are so lucky, shifting even more power into Cang Qiong (and thus SQH/MBJ)'s sway as they planned)

Shen Jiu (named Qingqiu now ofc, but still Jiu-ge to SY) does not handle his part in this well at all. Did he shove LBH into the abyss? He would say no. He just maneuvered an awakening and unstable Heavenly Demon away from his brother. (Bro did NOT account for said brother to throw himself at LBH and basically take both their asses into the abyss. Not even Airplane saw that one coming tbqfh)

So yeahhh. SJ is not handling this well. While his brother is missing SJ qi deviates no less than two times which has Qing Ding and every peak lord walking on eggshells. No one mentions either of his missing disciples unless absolutely necessary around him. Unfortunately, he spends entirely too much time researching the abyss, tearing through every tome on the peaks

When the lords try to discuss a way to help SJ's instability, the mention of dual cultivation is floated once and while YQY is hand on the trigger to volunteer as tribute, the vehement refusal from SJ has YQY declaring it off limits without hesitation (there are some murmurs about this, but YQY takes pride in protecting SJ and shuts everyone down)

Airplane and SY know each other well enough that he knows SY would be devastated if something happened to SJ (he knows SY had siblings, that he misses them, that his heart aches twice for the family here and home and he won't let him come back to an empty bamboo house. Airplane knows the pain of an empty home and he will find something in his brain to fix it)

This leads to one tense conversation with SJ like "Look I know you fucking hate me but for SY's sake please just listen one time: your brother is coming home. I don't know how exactly, but we both know he's too stubborn not to" (this does not endear him to his villain son, but he would swear SJ glares a little less at him after)

There is then a Sun-Moon Dew Mushroom tier research saga but it's Airplane alone digging through tomes and notes and getting a little xianxia stoned to try and remember the obscure world building he created. (You know what he remembers? That's he created TOO MUCH world building shit while three energy drinks deep at 2am for any one man to remember!! Cucumber-bro get back here!!)

Meanwhile MBJ is playing a differently game entirely while every cultivator is stressed out of their minds. He's got a spy who is assisting him with power grabs that his father would never have imagined. He's courting a pathetic little mouse of a man. LBH is not a name that means anything yet. MBJ is THRIVING. Everyone else is in a drama and he's in a dating sim

And with two Shangs? The first time he does something too aggressive-demonic in his attempt to court a flailing sleep deprived Airplane, SQH is there to be like 'wtf do you think you're doing you beast?' Does SQH nearly get his ass beat for this insult to his king? Maybe a little bit. But!! Airplane gets woo'd! Without bloodshed!! (his own anyway. SQH picks his battles and cannot pry MBJ's desire to hunt big, rare game to prove his worth as a partner to Airplane which ofc leads to moments of the Shang brothers just standing over the corpse of some ancient-possibly-mythical beast just... in their living room on An Ding like 'wtf do we do with this? my king pls')

Of course, the plot finds everyone eventually. And however the fuck it happens, MBJ crosses path with a power-grabbing LBH, is forced to surrender to return home alive to his consort-to-be (MBJ is waiting for the MBJ title to be 100% his before cementing the courtship), becomes second in command to this brat, and goes home to his Shangs to lick his wounds (MBJ does not expect Airplane to shake his face and demand to know if there was a human cultivator with this half-demon brat and then demand to be taken to them if so when MBJ just 'wtf' stares)

Turns out, several years in the abyss even for the protagonist and a man who knows far too fucking much about abyss nuances for a human is still not an easy time Being human in the abyss? It's a dinner bell for every big monster that SY wants to just observe like the worst tourist. LBH cannot figure out why his shixiong keeps putting himself in danger like this (shixiong!! if you know the deadly thing is hiding in this swamp what if!!! we didn't!! go in the goddamn swamp shixiong!!!) But! That abyss knowledge is hard to beat. SY is able to guide LBH through safe routes and help guide him on his demonic journey (LBH ofc asks how his shixiong knows about any of this and SY panic changes subjects like a dozen times. Even in the back of LBH's head Meng Mo is like 'kid IDFK what this brat is but it's not normal and I need you to 1. understand that and 2. do not let him get away') And you know what is great for SY (and by extension LBH)? SY isn't juggling a persona that isn't his. He's allowed to come to terms with himself and his feelings on his terms. He gets to watch his white lotus LBH fight alongside him in the abyss and save his life and oh. OH. Maybe. Maybe he can have this? (SY being SY is still like PLOT EXISTS!! HAREM!! WIVES!! And look. He figures his own shit out a little bit, he's still a blind bastard. He doesn't notice how many wife plots he and LBH have stumbled into together, or how many LBH has skipped entirely. He can just be part of the harem, that's fine. He can live with that. Totally normal thoughts) LBH meanwhile can't even spell harem cause he only has eyes for this weird wonderful shixiong of his Given that the plot is a mess (happening, sure, but a MESS) they stumble into a new wife plot in the abyss (How was SY supposed to know full humans triggered nonsense plots down here?? It's not like LBH's human wives were ever down here with him!!) and so SY might be dying a second time. (Whoops! Whoops! Whoops! (Hey System? STFU if you have nothing useful to offer thank you!!!) But you know what could help this mortal cultivator trapped in the abyss? Demon qi. You know who has a lot of demon qi he doesn't know what to do with?? Best boy Binghe, that's who (they're both young and awkward and SY is dying and Binghe can't lose him. He can't be left alone again. It's declaration and promise and hope and when he kisses his shixiong he wills the transfer of qi between their lips and he can feel the way SY grows stronger in his arms with it) Let's just say that even when they clear the realm of the abyss that threatened SY, LBH still persistently insists that his shixiong share his qi mwah! (SY does not put up half as much complaint as he once might have over his sticky shidi) Also you know SY is going to find some horrific abyssal monstrosity and decide it's just the best and cutest most perfect and loyal pet (it's an honest to god nightmare and everyone they encounter is afraid of it and Binghe shoots it glares whenever it steals his shixiong's affections HOW DARE??) With SY's omnipotent abyss GPS sense and LBH sharing his excess of demon qi with SY, they're able to find Xin Mo, break the seal on LBH's powers, and then continue on his training montage (definitely too unstable to go back to the mortal realm early), also he has a fantastic anchor in SY at his side to soothe the Xin Mo urges and (don't ask shidi, pls he's begging) also teach him how to tame the sword

Cut back to several years of time passing, Airplane squishing his king's face, demanding to know about a human cultivator with this heavenly demon only for MBJ to (still face squished) say he wouldn't call the man at LBH's side human per se but if this is what his Airplane wants, he will take him with him to the meeting LBH has arranged for the following day (now please, let him pout and huff and receive head scritches)

Hey you know how people always get taken aback by Xie Lian being just absolutely filled with ghost qi??? SY is a cultivator, not a god, just a lad trying his best to follow that immortal master path, and he just spent SEVERAL years in the abyss and getting regularly dosed by HEAVENLY demon qi — this boy ain't right anymore, guys. He's definitely feeling some kind of demon-tier different™ after all of this and man is THRIVING because Now That's What SY Calls Lore

Please imagine heavenly demon LBH with a demon-touched SY holding demon court with their weird demon allies when MBJ shows up flanked by two totally human Shangs and the just.... the awkward staring these four members of Cang Qiong do at each other (LBH, oblivious to the spy on the mountain plots, just 'why tf is Shang-shixiong and Shang-shifu here??) (SQH looking at LBH and SY and just taking furious mental notes about these Developments and how this may affect his brother's safety) (SY and Airplane just seconds away from slapping the shit out of each other like cats in a bag just 'where the fuck have you been???' 'what have you done???')

Court gets to proceed as planned, but Consorts Shen and Shang make hasty exits together to figure out just what the fuck has been happening to Airplane's plot (There is minimal sibling-tier beat downs in the process and neither is free from sin)

Airplane explains that SJ is a mess and that they need to do something if SY wants to continue having a brother ('bro, he will go off the deep end soon if he doesn't find you but if he finds you like this BRO WILL GO OFF THE DEEP END!! DO YOU SEE THE PROBLEM??')

Their scheming gets them on the idea the Sun-Moon Dew Mushroom and between both their whipped demons, it's very easy to acquire it, cultivate it, and prepare it for SJ (ofc monster loving son SY shares some with a cute snake he sees, obviously)

SY sneaks onto Qiong Ding with their near ready science project and meets with YQY who is... not thrilled with the demonic influence all over his shidi's brother. But he listens, because end of the day they both care for SJ. SY can't risk SJ having another deviation if he sees him, so he entrusts YQY to present this fix to SJ: a way to repair his broken core and shed the scars of his past (ofc they both know he will be suspicious, but after doing his own research, he would take it in a heartbeat)

When SJ has a shiny new and powerful body, that's when LBH and SY return to the sect. No demon army, no attacks, no Huan Hua bs. Just two lost disciples making their return from the abyss. (There is much distrust. SQH plays his role as well as ever, siding with the other lords that certain tests must be passed to ensure they are not demons--- oh wait one of you IS a demon. and the other has been influenced by that one. Mhhh. Mhmmm. This is fiiiiiine)

SJ doesn't deviate! But he is! Mad! There is much yelling and shouting and disciples are made to run around Qiong Ding peak while every other lord just has to sit through the most chaotic family reunion.

But things can go back to normal from here right? Just casual transmigration, not plot threats? (System? System you're laughing. They're having a nice moment and you're laughing)

[koyagifs]

𝓪𝓵𝓵 𝓪𝓫𝓸𝓾𝓽 𝔂𝓸𝓾

pairing: yeosang x reader au: idol | best friends to lovers | genre: fluff word count: 1.5 k synopsis: everyone knew how head over heels yeosang is for you. and everyone knew how head over heels you are over yeosang. warning(s): fluff, sweet tooth rotting - literally will get cavities.

It was one of those unspoken truths, like the sun rising in the east or Mingi always forgetting where he left his keys. Everyone knew Yeosang was completely, unapologetically head over heels for you. His gaze would linger a little longer when you laughed, his tone softening whenever he spoke to you. And everyone knew you were just as captivated by him—the way your eyes sparkled when he entered the room or how your voice lit up when you said his name.

The rest of the group was thoroughly amused by it. Wooyoung, in particular, never missed an opportunity to tease either of you about the "mutual pining saga" that, in his words, "could put a K-drama to shame."

San would smirk knowingly every time Yeosang stumbled over his words when talking to you, while Yunho would silently cheer you on from the sidelines, rooting for one of you to make the first move. Jongho and Seonghwa, ever the more composed ones, usually just shared quiet, exasperated glances that seemed to say, When are they finally going to figure it out?

But none of the teasing or quiet nudges mattered because, in your world, it was just you and Yeosang. Even if you hadn’t said the words out loud yet, everyone could see it written all over your faces.

Wooyoung had hit his limit. Watching you and Yeosang dance around your obvious feelings was like watching two magnets desperately trying to stick together but somehow always missing the connection. It was infuriating, hilarious, and tragically adorable all at once.

One evening, after a group hangout where Yeosang spent the entire time stealing glances at you while you giggled at everything he said, Wooyoung had enough. It was near valentines day and Wooyoung had a plan. He flopped onto the couch dramatically and announced to the room, “hey yn, do you have a valentines ?”

You looked at him confused as the room quieted down, Yeosang sending Wooyoung a sharp glare.

"well no i don't but it's a stupid holiday anyways" you mumbled.

A malicious smirk was placed on Wooyoung face as he laid his head on your lap, looking up at you with ease.

" be mine? "

The room froze. All eyes darted between you and Wooyoung, tension thick in the air. Yeosang’s sharp glare deepened, his lips pressing into a tight line. Your cheeks flushed crimson, caught completely off guard by Wooyoung’s bold declaration.

“W-What?” you stammered, staring down at Wooyoung, who was now grinning like a cat that had just cornered a mouse.

“I said,” Wooyoung repeated with exaggerated slowness, his smirk widening, “be mine, Ynie. You don’t have a Valentine, and I’m available. It’s a win-win, right?”

Yeosang’s hands clenched into fists at his sides, but he stayed silent, his jaw tightening. The others in the room exchanged wide-eyed glances, unsure whether to intervene or let the chaos unfold.

You blinked, utterly flustered. “Wooyoung, I—”

Before you could say anything more, Yeosang abruptly stood up, his chair screeching loudly against the floor. All heads whipped toward him as he glared daggers at Wooyoung, his normally calm demeanor completely shattered.

Yeosang’s glare flickered with something deeper—hurt, frustration, and maybe even panic. Without a word, he turned on his heel and stormed out of the room, leaving everyone stunned. The door slammed shut behind him, the sound echoing in the suddenly tense space.

You jumped up, pushing Wooyoung off your lap with more force than necessary. He landed on the floor with a loud thud, groaning dramatically as he looked up at you, but you didn’t care.

“Wooyoung, what the hell is wrong with you?” you snapped, your voice sharper than usual.

“Hey!” Wooyoung defended, sitting up and rubbing his arm. “I was just helping! You two are painfully slow, and I figured—”

“Figured what?” you cut him off, your anger bubbling over. “That you could just push Yeosang like that? He clearly—”

You stopped mid-sentence, the realization hitting you like a freight train. Yeosang had left because of you. Because he thought… he thought you might actually say yes to Wooyoung.

Wooyoung’s smug grin faded, replaced with a sheepish expression. “Okay, maybe I miscalculated a bit,” he muttered, glancing at the door Yeosang had disappeared through.

You huffed, shoving Wooyoung back to the ground for good measure as you made your way to Yeosang.

" can you two finally kiss to?! I'm tired of the sexu- ow hyung!"

Wooyoung’s cry was cut off as Seonghwa smacked the back of his head with a pillow, his face a mix of exasperation and amusement.

“Shut up, Wooyoung,” Seonghwa muttered, though the slight twitch of his lips betrayed his amusement.

You didn’t stick around to hear the rest. Rolling your eyes, you huffed and stormed out of the room, determined to find Yeosang and fix whatever Wooyoung had managed to break—or at least, whatever Yeosang thought was broken.

As you stepped outside, the crisp air nipped at your skin. It didn’t take long to find him. Yeosang was sitting on the edge of the porch steps, staring out at the darkening sky, his shoulders tense and his head hanging low.

“Yeosang,” you called out gently, walking up behind him.

He stiffened slightly at the sound of your voice but didn’t turn around. “You don’t have to be here. I get it,” he said, his tone distant, like he was bracing himself for the worst.

You frowned, coming closer until you were standing beside him. “Get what?”

“That you don’t…” He hesitated, then shook his head. “Never mind. Just go back to the others.”

“Yeosang,” you said firmly, lowering yourself to sit beside him. He glanced at you briefly, his expression guarded. “You’re being ridiculous. Wooyoung was just being Wooyoung. You didn’t actually think I’d say yes to him, did you?”

He looked down at his hands, his fingers fidgeting nervously. “I don’t know. Maybe. I thought… maybe you’d want someone more confident, someone who could actually tell you how they feel without messing it up.”

Your heart clenched at the vulnerability in his voice. “Yeosang,” you said softly, reaching out to take his hand in yours. “You’re the only one I want. I’ve wanted you for so long, and I thought you didn’t feel the same.”

His eyes snapped up to meet yours, wide with surprise. “You… you thought that?”

You nodded, smiling a little despite yourself. “We’re both kind of hopeless, aren’t we?”

He let out a breathy laugh, the tension in his shoulders easing as he looked at you with a mixture of relief and adoration. “Yeah, I guess we are.”

For a moment, the two of you just sat there, the world around you fading away as the weight of unspoken feelings finally began to lift. Then, Yeosang’s gaze flickered to your lips, and his voice dropped to a whisper.

“Can I…?”

You didn’t let him finish. Leaning in, you closed the small distance between you, your lips meeting his in a soft, tentative kiss. It was sweet and perfect, everything you’d imagined and more.

From inside the house, Wooyoung’s muffled voice rang out. “Finally! Thank you! I’ve been waiting for months!”

“Wooyoung, shut up!” San yelled, followed by another loud thud and what sounded suspiciously like a wrestling match breaking out.

You and Yeosang pulled away, laughing softly as the chaos continued inside. He rested his forehead against yours, his smile so radiant it made your heart skip a beat.

“Be my Valentine?” Yeosang asked softly, his voice barely above a whisper, yet it carried the weight of his feelings.

You hummed playfully, pretending to think about it, a teasing smile tugging at your lips. “Hmm… I don’t know. Maybe I’ll have to consider it—”

Before you could finish, Yeosang’s hands moved to your sides, his fingers finding the perfect spots to tickle you. You let out a surprised squeal, squirming as laughter spilled from your lips.

“Yeosang!” you protested between giggles, trying to push his hands away, but he only grinned mischievously.

“Say yes,” he said, his voice full of laughter as he continued to tickle you.

“Okay, okay!” you managed to choke out, your laughter echoing in the quiet evening air. “Yes! I’ll be your Valentine!”

He finally relented, his hands dropping back to his sides as he leaned back slightly, a triumphant smile lighting up his face. “That’s what I thought,” he said, his tone teasing but his eyes soft and full of affection.

You huffed, still catching your breath, but you couldn’t stop the smile that spread across your face. “You’re lucky you’re cute, Yeosang.”

“And you’re lucky you said yes,” he shot back, his grin widening.

The two of you sat there for a moment, the world around you feeling brighter and warmer despite the cool evening air. Inside the house, the muffled sounds of bickering and laughter reminded you that the others were probably eavesdropping, but you didn’t care.

Right now, it was just you and Yeosang, and for the first time in forever, everything felt perfectly right.

[ingravinoveritas]

Lovely new article about Michael in Paste magazine. Article is behind a paywall, so here is a transcription (with thanks to the person on FB who transcribed it, and the parts in bold are my own emphasis).

There’s so much to love about Prime Video’s Good Omens. A delightful adaptation of the popular Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett novel of the same name, the series is romantic, thoughtful, hilarious, and heartfelt by turns. The story of the almost-apocalypse and what comes afterward, it wrestles with big concepts like destiny, free will, and forgiveness, all framed through the lens of an unorthodox relationship between an angel and a demon whose love for one another is a key to saving the world.

As anyone who has watched Good Omens already knows, nothing about this series works without the pair of lead performances at its center. Stars David Tennant and Michael Sheen—who play the demon Crowley and the angel Aziraphale, respectively—have the kind of lighting-in-a-bottle chemistry that’s the stuff of legend, and their characters’ every interaction conveys both their deep affection for one another and the Earth they’ve made their home. Their romance is the emotional linchpin around which most of the series turns, and their heartbreaking separation in the Season 2 finale is so devastating precisely because we’ve seen how necessary the two are to each other’s lives.

But it’s Sheen’s performance in that final scene that really twists the knife. As Aziraphale’s face crumples following his and Crowley’s long-awaited kiss, the actor manages to convey what feels like every possible human emotion in the span of less than thirty seconds as the angel realizes what he has both had and just lost. The moment is emotionally brutal to watch, particularly after sitting through five and a half episodes of Aziraphale looking as lovestruck as the lead in any rom-com. Sheen makes it all look effortless, shifting from giddy joy to devastated longing and everything in between, and we really don’t talk enough about how powerful and underrated his work in this series truly is.

Though he’s half of the central duo that makes Good Omens tick, Sheen’s role often tends to get overshadowed by his co-star’s. It’s not difficult to see why, given that Tennant gets to spend most of the show swanning around in tight trousers looking like the Platonic ideal of the charming bad boy, complete with flaming red hair and dramatic eyewear. Tennant also benefits from Crowley’s much more sympathetic emotional arc. I mean, it’s hard not to love a cynical demon with a heart of gold who’s been pining after his angelic best friend for literal millennia even after being cast out from Heaven. Of course, viewers are drawn to that—likely a lot more easily than the story of an angel who’s simply trying the best he can to do the right thing as he wrestles with his role in God’s Ineffable Plan. Plus, let’s be real, Tennant’s sizeable Doctor Who fanbase certainly doesn’t hurt his character’s popularity.

As a performer, Sheen has a long history of playing both real people (Tony Blair, David Frost, Brian Clough) and offbeat villains (Prodigal Son’s Martin Whitly, Underworld’s Lucian, the Twilight Saga’s Aro). In some ways, the role of a fussy, bookish angel is playing more than a bit against type for him—Gaiman himself has said he originally intended for Sheen to be Crowley—but in his capable hands, Aziraphale becomes something much more than a simple avatar for the forces of Good (or even of God, for that matter). With a soft demeanor and a positively blinding smile, Sheen’s take on the character consistently radiates warmth and goodness, even as it contains surprisingly hidden depths. The former guardian of the Eastern Gate of Eden who gifted a fleeing Adam and Eve his flaming sword and befriended the Serpent who caused their Fall, Azirphale isn’t a particularly conventional angel. He enjoys all-too-human indulgences like food and wine, runs a Hoarders-esque bookshop that never seems to sell anything, and spends most of his time making heart eyes at the being that’s meant to be his hereditary adversary.

Given the much more difficult task of playing the literal angel to Tennant’s charming devil, Sheen must find a way to make ideas like goodness and forgiveness as interesting and fun to watch as their darker counterparts. It’s a generally thankless task, but one that Sheen tackles with gusto, particularly in the series’ second season, as Good Omens explores Aziraphale’s slowly evolving idea of what he can and cannot accept in terms of being a soldier of Heaven. His growing understanding that the truth of creation is colored in shades of grey and compromise is often conveyed through little more than Sheen’s deftly shifting expressions and body language.

Our pop culture consistently struggles to portray the idea of goodness as something compelling or worth watching. Explicitly “good” characters, particularly those who are religiously coded, are frequently treated as the butt of some sort of unspoken joke they aren’t in on, used to underline the idea that faith is a form of naivety or that kindness is somehow a weakness. For a lot of people, the entire concept of turning the other cheek is a sucker’s bet, and believing in something greater than oneself, be it a higher power or a sense of purpose, is a waste of time. But Good Omens is a story grounded in the idea that faith, hope, and love—for one another, God, and the entire world—are active verbs. And nowhere is that more apparent than in Sheen’s characterization of the soft angel whose old-fashioned waistcoats mask a spine of steel and who refuses to give up—on Crowley, on humanity, or on the idea that Heaven is still something that can be saved.

Though he and Tennant have pretty much become a matched set at this point (both on and off-screen), Sheen’s performance has rarely gotten the critical accolades it deserves. (Tennant alone was nominated for a BAFTA for Season 2, and Sheen was categorized as a supporting actor when the series’ competed in the 2019 Saturn Awards.) But it is his quiet strength that holds up so much of the rest of the show around him, and Sheen deserves to be more frequently recognized for it. That he makes it look so easy is just another sign of how good his performance really is.

I love this so much. The thoroughly well-deserved praise for Michael's incredible performance as Aziraphale, but also that Aziraphale and Crowley's relationship is specifically described as a "romance." And of course, the first sentence of the last paragraph that acknowledges how much Michael and David are indeed a "matched set" that cannot (and should not) be separated...

[chukys-mouthguard]

I know youve probably been getting a ton of rempe request which I have to add to it too (I’m so sorry) but a good enemies to lovers with a bit of angst would be 😮‍💨

Party’s Over

Words: 3.49k

Featuring: matt rempe x female reader

Genre: angst, fluff; enemies to lovers

Summary: who the fuck invited matthew rempe to your birthday party?

“So, guess what Braden just told me.”

Your friend setting her phone down after reading a text from her boyfriend, an awkward smile on her face. “No, absolutely not, tell him no!”

Not needing her to even give the answer you were already fully aware of what Braden had said. But there was no way in hell you were okay with it.

“If those boys dare to bring Matthew Rempe to my apartment, they are going to get beers thrown in all of their faces!” She laughed as you pointed to the case of beers you were getting unboxed into an ice bucket for the guys to dig into once they arrived. The rest of the girls just silently munching on chips and queso as they all knew this saga between you and Rempe all too well. And as much as they would love for you to join the club and start dating a Ranger like the rest of them, they weren’t planning on that being Matt.

While you loved all of their boyfriends, the one Ranger you couldn’t stand was Matt Rempe. From the day you two met he had gone out of his way to be nothing but a dick to you. Constantly ragging on you, taking jokes too far, and now he was going to be in your apartment. No doubt any little action of his would piss you off to your maximum, simply because he was in your place.

“Look, it’s your birthday, I don’t think he will be an asshole to you today. Plus, they are already on their way here. What are they gonna do, throw him out of the car?” “Yes! That sounds like a great plan!” Rolling your eyes you finished setting up the appetizers and drinks before the guys arrived.

“Hello hello? We heard there’s a birthday going on?” Vinny Trochek called out before the boys filed into your apartment, each of them with a significant other soon joining them, the few single guys and girls introducing themselves as everyone was grabbing drinks and getting food.

You had greeted everyone but were also too preoccupied with being a host, in hopes that it would distract you from how angry you were with Matt being in your apartment.

“Y/n…it’s your party and you’re making drinks for people. What the fuck? Go drink, mingle.” Braden’s girlfriend quick to take the bottle of Tito’s from your hand and push you toward the kitchen island, your sudden presence stopping a conversation between Matt and Chris Kreider. “Oh I’m sorry, did I interrupt something?” You glared at Matt, your tone a bit harsh as he sipped his beer. “Actually yeah, Matt was just saying how good you look tonight.”

Shaking his head in protest, Matt quickly swallowed down his beer, “more like the opposite. I said no such thing, don’t flatter yourself.” He smirked at you while Chris just shook his head, hating the constant immature bickering between the two of you.

“How about, you take that beer bottle, and show it up your ass Rempe? I think that would be such a fun party trick.” Flashing a fake smile you quickly left the kitchen, heading to your bedroom to cool off.

Glancing at yourself in the mirror, you began to second guess your outfit.

knock knock

“Y/n, what’s up? Chris said you stormed off after Matt made some smartass comment. Are you okay?”

“Do I look okay? Like, should I be wearing something different?” Chris’s wife Francesca rolling her eyes as she took a seat on your bed. “Really? Rempe said shit about your outfit and now you want to change? Have you ever thought that maybe the two of you just need to fuck and get it over with or something? I really think this whole act you’ve got going on needs to stop.”

Ignoring her comments completely, you went right to your closet, pulling out a white short sleeved bodysuit and a new pair of jeans. Quickly pulling them on and then pairing them with some heeled black boots.

“Okay, thoughts?”

Francesca lightly chuckling at how self conscious you’d become the second Matt said anything negative about how you looked. “I mean, you look hot as fuck. But, I feel like you’re trying to look good for him now.”

“Don’t be silly, I’m simply just trying to look hot and make him eat his words. And if the boy starts drooling about my tits practically being on display, that’s his problem not mine. Now let’s go do a shot!”

After you reappeared from your bedroom, newly clothed, you couldn’t help but notice how Matt’s demeanor had changed. He kept his distance and didn’t say a word to you. Though he didn’t have to, his eyes on you almost constantly and you were happy to know he was eating his words.

Three rounds of shots later, everyone was piling into Uber’s to head out, of course everyone finding it funny to put you and Matt in the same car, as well as make you both sit in the back seat together. Keeping your back somewhat to him, you tried to not as much as bump him with an arm or a leg, though his hand had tapped you multiple times as his arm was draped across the back on the seat.

Once at your destination you quickly pulled out your lip gloss and turned on your front camera to aid in your application.

“You know, I never understood the point of lip gloss. Like, it’s just gonna come off on your drinks or when you kiss someone.”

Matt practically whispered in your ear as he peeked his face into the view of your camera, making you roll your eyes. “Yeah well,” turning to face him, you hadn’t noticed how close his face was to yours, causing you to swallow a breath, “guess you’re in luck, I definitely won't be kissing you tonight.”

The group headed inside the club, having a table reserved at the back as to hopefully not draw too much attention having a handful of the Rangers with you. Everyone getting comfortable and situated with drinks as you threw back a few shots to erase the backseat interaction with Matt from your mind. This was your birthday, you were not going to let that cocky asshole ruin it.

The night had so far consisted of Vinny Trocheck getting so drunk he attempted to dance shirtless in your section, Chris and Matt competing to see who could chug their beers the fastest, and you losing track of just how many drinks and shots you’d had. But one thing you knew for sure was that you were about to pee your pants.

“I’ll be right back, bathroom.”

Slowly making your way through the crowd by yourself, Matt’s eyes followed you, making sure you made it to your destination. “Dude, cut the shit. This tough guy act, being dick to her. It’s not working for you.” Matt scoffed, taking a sip of his beer, “Krieds, I have no clue what you’re talking about.” He tried denying it, but Chris could see exactly what Matt thought he was doing. And despite his efforts, majority of the guys could see right through him. “All I’m saying is, for someone who dislikes her so much, you sure do care a lot making sure she made it to the bathroom safely.”

“Look, there’s a difference between me not liking the girl but knowing how to be a decent human being. Should I want her to not make it safely? Gosh Krieds now you sound like the asshole.” Matt attempted to put an end to the conversation, turning away from Chris, though keeping an eye on the bathroom.

After what felt like a thirty minute wait, you were able to evade peeing your pants in public and were headed back to your party. Though not before a drunk guy could try and creep on you, immediately making you remember why you didn’t go out to clubs anymore.

“Hey beautiful, you here alone?”

“Nope, actually here with friends.” Flashing a soft smile you attempted to brush past him in the hall, but he moved with you. “Oh, so you’re the one celebrating a birthday. How about I get you a drink?” Again flashing a smile you shook your head, “no thank you, we are stocked on drinks. I’m good.” The drunken man catching up to you as you could barely maneuver your way through the crowd. His hand snaking around your waist as he pulled you into him. “How about more than just a drink then?”

Immediately pushing against his chest to get out of his grip, you questioned the man but he didn’t let go. However soon enough, another arm reaching around to pull you free, to which you were surprised. Ready to thank the individual who likely saw the event and stepped in, until you saw the face of Matt Rempe appear next to you.

“Pretty sure that’s not any way to treat a lady. You wanna tell me why you put your hands on her?” Rolling your eyes you didn’t bother to stick around for Matt to be the hero and ask for your praises. Matt noticed you run off, but made sure the drunken man wouldn’t cause any more trouble for the night. Heading back to the table and immediately downing a shot before asking your friends to dance.

It was now 2am and you were down for the count, not able to hold your head up and just wanting food and your bed. Your friends helping you to your uber as everyone was more than happy to head home for the night. None of them partying like this in awhile and already anticipating the hangovers that were on the horizon.

“Okay, so as much as I want to take y/n up to her bed, I’ve got to get Chris home before he’s knocked out and I can’t deal with him alone.”

Francesca doing her best to keep Chris awake next to her as you were in the back seat once again with Matt, though you were oblivious to that as you were asleep with your head on his shoulder. “I can take her.”

Francesca a bit shocked at Matt’s offer to help. “You sure you’re not just gonna take her up there and draw on her face or something to mess with her?”

“Oh come on, I’m not that much of an asshole.”

Matt laughed, shaking his head as he looked down at you sleeping.

“Y/n…Y/n, wake up. We are back at your apartment.” Your eyes slowly fluttered open as Matt was attempting to help you out of the Uber. “I can do it myself.” Pulling your arm away from him as you were adamant about getting yourself inside, though only stumbling up the sidewalk and practically breaking your ankle in the process. “Y/n, just let Matt help you please. I gotta get Chris home before he’s sleeping on the street tonight. Stop hating him long enough for him to get you into bed.”

“I will never let this man get me into his bed!”

Francesca shaking her head with a sigh, “that is not what I meant, Jesus Christ…Matt, please let me know if you need anything. But I gotta get this man home.”

Matt laughed as Francesca guided a drunken Chris to their car, knowing that he would never let him live down this moment of being carried by his wife because he couldn’t hold his alcohol.

“Alright, let’s get this over with.”

Matt put a hand to your lower back as he helped guide you inside, trying his best to keep his distance so as to not upset you any more than he already had. The ride in the elevator was silent as you just stared at the numbers slowly counting up until you had reached your floor. Doing your best to walk to the door without issue, though now you were in for it as you tried to fumble with your keys and unlock it.

“Can I-” “No, I got it.”

Quickly opening the door you tossed your bag on the counter, soon collapsing on your couch. Not caring that the walk to your bed would have been only sixty seconds more, you needed to be horizontal and not in these boots any longer. Trying your best to kick off the boots, but having no luck, Matt soon came over to help. Your need for the boots to be off stronger than your want to be Miss Independent.

“I guess I will get you some water, heat up some of the food from earlier…”

His voice trailed off as he walked to the kitchen, your eyes opening to watch him. Why was he being nice all of a sudden? You didn’t like it, after he had made it his mission to be an asshole, all of a sudden he starts trying to be nice? He was clearly trying to get something out of you, praises or thanks for stepping up and taking care of you. Most likely to rub it in your face later and laugh at you for thinking he was a changed man or something.

“I don’t need your help, you know. I can do all of that myself.”

Matt just ignored you, continuing with making you a plate of food before he brought it over to you on the couch. He smiled softly as he held out the plate, and as much as you were starving, you couldn’t bring yourself to accept anything from him. “Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

He looked at you confused before setting the plate on the island in the kitchen. “Pretending like you care! Trying to be some hero and swoop in to save the day. You know what your problem is?”

“What’s my problem?” He leaned against the island, crossing his arms as he let you continue with airing your frustrations.

“You think that anyone is going to fall head over heels for you and just give you everything you want. You’re so full of yourself. And then, the second a girl doesn’t fold for you, you treat her like shit, like how you did with me. Do you know how annoying it is? Being friends with all those guys, and you’re the only one who hates me? Who talks shit about me, bashing me whenever he can? I fucking changed my outfit tonight because you made me feel like shit about myself! And for what? Because I didn’t drop my pants for you the first day we met or something? Get a fucking grip, and stop thinking so highly of yourself. I didn’t need your help at the bar, and I don’t need your help now if you’re only doing it to hold over my head later or try to use it against me. I don’t need you trying to embarrass me for ever thinking you were actually a nice guy and gave a shit. So if you’re only doing this to look good to everyone else, then please leave.”

You stomped off to your room to change, needing your jeans off and sweats on. Removing your bodysuit and replacing it with a hoodie, a deep sigh leaving your lips as you pulled the fabric over your head.

knock knock

“What!”

Glaring towards the door you saw Matt slowly appear from behind the frame. His demeanor a bit defeated as he tossed a small box onto your bed. “Here.…happy birthday. I’ll call an Uber then head out.”

Your angered facade fading as you looked from Matt to the small box on your bed. Only moving to open it once you’d heard him head back down the hall. As you untied the blue ribbon, you lifted the lid to reveal a beautiful necklace of your birthstone that you had been eyeing for months. Instantly your heart sank, regretting all the words you just spat at him. But, you weren’t actually feeling bad for Matt, or regretting something negative you said to him, you couldn’t. Because you were supposed to hate each other. Though this was an expensive ass gift for someone to buy if they hated you.

Setting the necklace down on your dresser, you darted out of your room and down the hall. Stopping in your tracks when you saw Matt still in your kitchen. “Sorry, I’m leaving, it's just raining and I figured I’d wait until my Uber got closer. I’ll be out of your hair in a minute.”

He went back to his phone as you could tell he was embarrassed and upset. Clearly this not being how he planned for the night to go, and you shared in the embarrassment for all the things you’d just said.

“Matt….how did you?”

Playing with the hem of your hoodie you awkwardly closed the distance between the two of you, eventually resting on your forearms against your kitchen island.

“Francesca told me you’d been eyeing it for months. I asked what was something I could you for your birthday, I wanted it to be something nice, special. But, clearly I fucked that up because I’m such an asshole.”

He wasn’t even making eye contact, his voice low as he mumbled his responses, shrugging it off like it was nothing. But it was clearly something.

“I just, I don’t get it…why get me such a nice, thoughtful, expensive gift. If you hate me?”

Matt laughed, finally looking up from his phone. “You really don’t get it do you? I don’t hate you y/n, it’s actually quite the opposite. When Chris told you earlier I was talking about how good you looked, he wasn’t lying. I really did think you looked good. And I felt awful when you went and changed clothes. I mean, you still looked hot as hell, but I felt bad that you thought I really didn’t think you looked good.”

He locked his phone and set it on the island as he made his way over to you.

“I acted that way because I've never met a girl like you. For starters, you never seemed interested in me, and I didn’t know how to take that. You were hard to read, and I thought if I messed with you, I would learn your personality. But you only dished shit right back at me just as I gave it. So I thought you weren’t interested and truly did not like me. Not to mention, coming into this group of people, when everyone is close already. I was trying my best to fit in, but I’m awkward okay? I wanted you to like me, and I fucked that up, clearly!”

You laughed along with him as he ran a hand through his hair. “And, I thought tonight I would fix things. I’d be able to give you that gift, and apologize for all the shit I started. But then, you got so mad at me when I tried helping at the club. And then when we got back here, I know I brought it on myself with being such a dick. But, I figured, there was zero chance I even got to make this right.”

“Well…” You sighed as you walked closer to him, your brain still trying to make sense of all this. “How about we start over? Blank slate, and we can forget everything. Stop this pretending like we hate one another and just be ourselves?”

Holding out your hand, Matt smiled before accepting and shaking it. “I’m Matt.” “I’m y/n.”

The two of you chuckled to yourselves, soon moving to the couch after you’d reheated the food Matt got for you which was now cold.

“Oh, um, aren’t you gonna cancel your Uber?”

Matt looked at you with a sheepish grin, “I never called an Uber.”

Your jaw dropping to the floor as you punched his shoulder. “Oh, so somehow you just magically thought things were going to work out and we’d be sitting right here on this couch? You thought you could easily just win me over and get a second chance with me? Matthew Rempe I swear to-”

Before you could finish your threat, Matt had placed his lips on yours, cutting you off with a kiss. Though shocked by the action, you didn’t fight it. Relaxing into the kiss before he pulled away.

“I just figured, with that gift I got you we were a little past first introductions.”

“You know, you’re lucky your cute Matthew Rempe…”

“Oh, so you do think I’m cute? I knew it!” He shot you a cocky grin as he dipped a chip in some queso. “We still have plenty of beer bottles, don’t make me bash you on the head with one.”

“Sweetheart, I get punched in the face on almost a nightly basis, I think I could handle a little beer bottle.”

[moongothic]

Rereading Dressrosa for the first time in quite a few years, after having become a Crocodad Truther specifically, was a really interesting experience, mainly due to the relationship between Kyros and Rebecca and Luffy's very strong feelings about those two in particular

Starting with the latter point; watching Luffy get really passionate about making sure Rebecca reunited with her father, instead of the two never seeing each other again as Kyros had planned, was just really facinating to me.

Now there ARE layers to this; Luffy saw first hand how much Rebecca and Kyros love each. Even if he didn't know or understand all the details, he knew these two were family forced to live apart due to Doflamingo's rule and that, even though Rebecca didn't know Mr Soldier was her father all those years, he still looked after her and did all he could to protect her. Luffy understands how much they matter to each other. Luffy also gets that Kyros was trying to make a sacrifice out of self-loathing; Kyros saw himself as a bloodstained monster who did not deserve to be by his daughter's side, thus his insistence on them going their separate ways. But not only is that "sacrifice out of loathing" not a thing One Piece rewards within the narrative*, but Luffy emotionally understands what Kyros was trying to do was stupid as hell. *(See; Robin trying to save the crew in the CP9 Saga, Sanji trying to offer his head to Kuma to spare everyone else (because he saw himself as the "least worthy", compared to Zoro who believed he was the only one who could actually tank Kuma and survive), Sanji again during Whole Cake Island, etc)

Adding to that, in what I feel also harkens back to Alabasta (vaguely important since Dressrosa in many ways is a reflection of Alabasta); Vivi made her decision to stay in her home because that's what she wanted deep in her heart, because she loved her country. Just the same way, dethroning Doflamingo, getting revenge for her mother and reuniting with her extended family were all fine achievements. But all Rebecca wanted deep in her heart was to stay with Mr Soldier (regardless if he was her father or not). That's what mattered the most to her.

How could Luffy even think about leaving without making sure Rebecca was able decide on her own if she wanted to stay with her father, instead of him making that decision for her, not because it was truly "for the best", but out of Kyros' own guilt and self-loathing.

All of that to say; Luffy becoming so emotionally involved in Rebecca and Kyros' father-daughter relationship is perfectly normal and on-brand for him, it's not strange at all.

...At the same time. I could not help but to wonder if those two's relationship could somehow reflect Luffy's relationship with his estranged parent(s), and more importantly, kind of debunk the fandom idea of Luffy as someone who 100% does not care if people are related or not and has ZERO interest in Dragon etc

Like I have discussed this before but I've been meta posting for so long on here I'll repeat myself just a lil; I feel like it's less "Luffy doesn't care Dragon is his father" and more "Luffy doesn't know HOW to feel about Dragon". We don't know what Garp told Luffy about his parent(s), presumably and based on the conversation post-Enies Lobby it just seems like Garp never mentioned ANYTHING to Luffy? Like he didn't even tell Luffy a white lie about why his parents weren't there for him? We simply do not know. But what we do know is these three things: 1. Luffy hates being alone, even more than "being hurt". Being alone is his worst fear 2. Although Garp was responsible for raising Luffy, he wasn't always there, meaning other townspeople and Shanks' crew alike were equally "responsible" for looking after Luffy. 3. Meaning Luffy was essentially an orphan. Fans will joke about Luffy's surprise at him having a father being because he's stupid, an asexy and doesn't know where babies come from, and while I may not be fully able to debunk that conceptually. Like. It's just as possible that because Luffy was raised like an orphan, he might have assumed that either his parents were dead or had abandoned him because they didn't want him. And I'm going to argue that if that's what Luffy always assumed was what happened, yeah, it'd contribute to his fear of being alone. It'd explain why he'd be surprised to find out he actually does have a father out there somewhere. And yeah, Luffy might not know how to feel about Dragon if that's the case. Should he hate Dragon because he wasn't ever there for him (from Luffy's POV)? Why wasn't Dragon there for him? Did he really not want Luffy, or did he have some reason for leaving Luffy? What is he like anyways, is he nice or cool or a dickbag?? Should Luffy even care about any of that stuff??? All of that to say; I don't think Luffy is completely disinterested in Dragon, I think he doesn't know how to feel or think about Dragon, and it's not relevant to Luffy right now anyways because Dragon's like, out there somewhere while Luffy is on his journey. Where as, if Luffy were to meet Dragon, get to know what he's like, why he wasn't there for Luffy and most importantly, how he feels about his only son (does he care about Luffy and his wellbeing? Is he a Kyros or a Kaidou?)- yeah, I think then Luffy COULD learn to be interested in Dragon and care about him Not out of obligation (because of their blood) but out of Luffy's own will, out of Luffy's acknowledgement of Dragon's love for him

And yeah, then we get to add the ever-delightful layer of Crocodad Trutherism to this mess.

You know how my personal theory goes; that Crocodile's been trying to find a way to overthrow and nuke the WG (potentially with an Ancient Weapon) to make sure his long lost child would be able to live freely and do whatever the hell he wanted without having to fear the WG would ever target him because he has Evil Revolutionary Leader Blood coursing through his veins. That's what makes the most sense to me as Crocodile's ultimate motivation. To protect his child, no matter the cost, even if he had to become the devil himself.

And hey, what was the story between Kyros and Rebecca again? Kyros trying to overthrow a corrupt government (a fallen Tenryuubito to boot) to protect his child so she could live freely without having a target on her back?

I don't need to explain how One Piece does have repeating themes and motifs, surely. (Also there's something to be said about fathers in One Piece who would go to hell and back for their daughters, Kuma being another example, but that's a whole different essay. But Oda's Girl-Dad Agenda is showing)

But yeah, what's even more interesting here is how Kyros believed he didn't deserve to have a reunion with Rebecca. He commited a murder decades ago, and although everyone else seems to have forgiven him for that crime, Kyros himself still thinks of himself as a horrible murderer with bloodstained hands. Not helped by how Kyros thought him teaching Rebecca self-defence skills was a failure on his part as a father (instead of him doing all he could in the horrible situation they were stuck in; teaching Rebecca how to defend herself was absolutely justified, and Kyros shouldn't have blamed himself for anything there).

Kyros didn't think he deserved to be with his daughter because he wasn't a good father, because was a monster. And Kyros could not believe anything other than that until Rebecca essentially forgave him, by explicitly telling him she wanted them to stay side-by-side. That she wanted him, and no one fucking else, as her father.

And I once again repeat myself just a little as I ask; how would Luffy feel if he found out Crocodile was his father? How would Luffy feel if he found out the reason Crocodile was going to destroy Vivi's country was because he was trying to protect his son from the WG? And that son was Luffy himself? How would Luffy feel that the asshole who stabbed him through the gut, mummified him and poisoned him was his very own family? Who also saved Luffy's life the second he learned of their blood connection? How would Luffy feel in that situation, if he found out Crocodile cares about Luffy, and wants him to be okay? And how does Crocodile feel? After stabbing Luffy through the gut, mummifying him and poisoning the brat, does Crocodile feel like he has any right to call himself Luffy's parent, let alone father? He knows Luffy rightfully hates him for all the horrible things he has done, how could Luffy ever accept him?

The past is in the past and it can't be changed. But you always have the choise, the free will, to change yourself and become a better person. You can choose to do better things, to help others and be kinder. You can have a second chance.

Robin was given a second chance. Hacchi was given one too. Kyros was given that chance to become better. So why not Crocodile?

[catiuskaa]

SAUVAGE.

jupiter, you’re hard (to get).

sum. jupiter may not smell like woody ambery trails or smoky accents, and he may seem like just a really big planet who’s really far away, but juno will always find him.

wc. 3.2k

cw. spacecrafts, stars, and planets, roman mythology, kudos to sabrina carpenter’s juno, producer!reader x idol!han, friends2lovers, a beer (if i must content warn you, i will) smut! car! heavy on kisses with a side of unprotected piv sex (don’t!) switch!jisung x switch!reader (undefined tbh)

scent. (♡) the perfume saga.

[🔺☆ 🚀 ☆🔺]

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System.

It is a gas giant with a mass more than two times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, and slightly less than one-thousandth the mass of the Sun. Its diameter is eleven times that of Earth, and a tenth that of the Sun. Its name derives from that of Jupiter, the chief deity of ancient Roman religion. Jupiter orbits the Sun at a distance of 5.20 AU (778.5 Gm), with an orbital period of 11.86 years.

However, Han Jisung isn’t quite as big or gaseous. He likes to believe he isn’t made up of metallic hydrogen, but rather stardust, he had said once —and you remembered, of course, because how couldn’t you—. He isn’t the oldest planet in the Solar System. He doesn’t run hotter than the Sun. He doesn’t have many many moons (95!) that spend ages to rotate around him.

Well. Not moons, anyways.

Juno is a NASA space probe orbiting the planet Jupiter.

It was built by Lockheed Martin and is operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Juno entered a polar orbit of Jupiter in 2016 to begin a scientific investigation of the planet. After completing its mission, Juno was originally planned to be intentionally deorbited into Jupiter's atmosphere, but has since been approved to continue orbiting until contact is lost with the spacecraft.

Thing is. You’re not a spacecraft either. You weren’t built by whoever Lockheed Martin is. You can’t orbit around planets. And most definitely, you don’t keep in contact with NASA. Nevertheless, a part of you can’t help but relate, because, somehow, even after your mission was ultimately done, you couldn’t stop orbiting around Jupiter.

Well. Not Jupiter, anyways.

you: let’s do some cardio next day

jisungie🎀💫: cardio, you say? 😏

jisungie🎀💫: not even a coffee before taking me to your place? 🤨📸

Jupiter couldn’t even reach to make you feel the giddiness that Han somehow could trigger and make it overcome you. You kicked your feet, but when you entered and found your reflection in the elevator mirror, you clicked your tongue.

“Don’t be such a schoolgirl”, you mumbled to yourself, pressing the button, and heading up back home.

you: tsk tsk, you’re always thinking about food

And you’re always thinking about him, a mean voice in your head snapped back at you. You cursed, damning your own mind for betraying you. But, to spare you, it wasn’t that serious, you thought. You two interacted just the right amount.

He was an idol, for god’s sake. You weren’t catching feelings. That would be dumb on your side, the least.

So of course, when your phone chimes in the specific ringtone that, of course, you hadn’t set just for his contact, of course, you didn’t almost drop your purse when you read what he replied.

jisungie🎀💫: as if, silly

jisungie🎀💫: i ain’t eating no one for free

The text made you dizzy, so you forced yourself to back off from replying the first thing that came to mind.

Hungry? Eat me.

“Think straight for once,” you cursed out loud, passing your hands through your hair. Closing the door to your apartment and knocking your shoes off while your mind went off to other, far more interesting places and memories.

You clearly remembered the moment you met quirky, loveable Han Jisung. How inevitable it had been to just start orbiting around him with the excuse of your mission— producing one of his solos for an upcoming skz-record.

Headphones. It had been such a silly first encounter, yet so fitting for you two that you couldn’t help but cherish it dearly.

Lost in thought, you hadn’t been paying attention to where you were headed. Neither had he, and, which had ended with a little crash against each other. A meteor, not quite as devastating as so to kill a couple dinosaurs, but to leave a crater in your heart and create a small moon out of the pieces that scattered away shyly.

“Sorry!” You bowed your head, then stared at him.

“Hi,” he had said in a sheepish tone, hints of panting that you attributed to how he must’ve run back in hopes of catching you. “Guess you like wave to Earth too?”

And while he giggled, you told yourself you weren’t going to fall, but both Jupiter and Juno knew.

They had said the same thing about Rome.

jisungie🎀💫: entering jyp

you: at 21:43? jeez

jisungie🎀💫: what? i ain’t afraid of success bbg 💪

jisungie🎀💫: come over if you want

What would happen with any other person was that they’d smile and turn off their phone.

Well. Not Juno.

Not you, no.

[🔺☆ 🚀 ☆🔺]

The studio smelled like bubble tea, and that’s how you knew he was still there.

“Oh, hey! I wasn’t sure if you were coming in.” Han smiled.

Sleepiness oozed off of him, and you grinned, cleaning the table from leftover crumbles as you set your bag down. Your heart twirled imaginary hairs when Jisung’s hands —hands with several rings, something that could sometimes be a lot to manage— left the keyboard and settled on his thighs, softly stroking them as he turned the chair to face you.

“Yeah. Wanted to work on a demo I owe to the girls,” you mentioned, taking your jacket and your mask off.

“Actually,” he started, and your hands tingled with the feeling that you’d help him in whatever he needed. Damnit, hands. Damn you, heart. “Could you help me with this demo? Jeonginnie asked me to go over it.”

You sipped from your own drink, as if to fake giving it a bit of a thought. You were going to say yes, of course. But instead, you scratched your arm, frowning lightly.

“Innie asked you?”

“It’s for his solo stage.” He clarified, turning back to face the computer. “We all have them for our tour.”

The way he entered the recording booth seemed distant, and a part of you couldn’t help but wonder why as you fidgeted with your necklace and settled everything on the desk comfortably. Ji turned the light off, something slightly weird. He never did that with you, after all these years, and considering you two were the only ones there, you asked.

“Is it a high register?” You wondered, pressing the button on your left so he could hear you in his headphones. You blinked when you saw his figure slightly jolt in something like surprise.

“Uh, no. It’s just the… style of the song,” he giggled, putting his beanie on and tucking in the hairs that fell over his eyes.

Oh. That’s the one you gifted him.

“Sure. Mind if I give it a listen first?”

“Go ahead,” he replied without looking at you through the window.

Helping him came off naturally. The track for the girls was an excuse, one you had already forgotten. And as he started singing, you weren’t sure you’d remember any time soon.

“T-those are some bold lyrics, huh?”

Hallucination.

Jisung covered his eyes with his beanie, giggling.

“It’s Innie’s fault. He gets it from Chan.”

“What’s Chan’s solo about?” You asked with a laugh.

You didn’t expect Jisung to stare at you and swallow dry.

“He says it’s about trains.” He shrugged, as if he had remembered suddenly that he was supposed to answer your question.

When you both were done, it was late. Really late. He insisted you two grabbed a beer in the convenience store nearby, but you took a juice, claiming you had to drive.

“I’ll uh, I’ll get the bus, seriously,” he raised his hands as you both exited the store, beer in hand.

“Ji,” you deadpanned, finishing your juice. Thank God you liked him, because sometimes you wanted to hit him. Softly. With a pillow. “Shut up. I’m taking you.”

[🔺☆ 🚀 ☆🔺]

“How come I didn’t remember you have a driver's license?” Han smiles sheepishly.

The drive to his apartment is silent, as if you two were submerged in a no-conversation. No words, no nothing, just the sound of the tires against the asphalt and the yellow lights from the streetlights that lightened your way.

It’s late enough that there are little to no cars on the driveway. But weirdly, Jisung sips from his beer and sighs.

“Actually, could to take a left here?” He says softly, his voice surprisingly low.

“That’s not the way to your apartment, is it?” You ask, as softly as him, turning anyways.

“Nah, it’s this place I found and I wanted to show you.”

Alcohol doesn’t get easy to him —not from a beer, at least—, but he’s smiling like silly, and you can’t help but smile too.

You park where he tells you, and surely enough, there’s no one there. It’s a secluded, empty area, far from the center and high enough so that the city can be seen clearly.

“Think I left my jacket here last time I came.” He snickers, and you can’t help but chuckle. His hand travels to your knee and he squeezes it gently. “I’ll come back in just a second.”

One blink. Two blinks.

Hot fucking damn.

Your head falls against the steering wheel as soon as he closes the door.

Get your shit together.

Looking up, the car tells you it’s way past midnight. Your head tells you you’re crazy, your heart giggles at the fact, guilty as charged. Sighing, you raise your face enough to look at the stars. Only to find Jisung’s silhouette, now with a dark jacket on, waving at you as he stands in front of the car.

You’re blushing, but you wave haphazardly, smiling, and still frown when instead of getting back to his seat, Jisung goes and opens your door instead.

“Hey,” he giggles, and your grin matches with his.

“What are you doing?”

Jupiter can sometimes be seen from Earth, when the Sun’s light hits it just right and the night is dark. Still, its shimmer doesn’t compare to that of Jisung’s eyes when he rests his forearms on the car’s roof and bends down to your height. You haven’t moved, your own eyes fixated on how he licks his lips.

“I think I’m being stupid,” he chuckles. You’re a goner, not even noticing how his hand slides in for a moment and turns the headlights off, leaving you two only illuminated by the shy light in the car that indicates that the door is open and by the moonlight, who cheekily shines at the both of you.

Instead, you blink. Normally you just get him, just as he gets you, but you’re almost as lost as how you feel when you stare into his dark brown eyes.

“Stupid?” You smile lightly. “Why?”

At your tender tone, Jisung lets his head fall down, shyness getting the best of him. And yet the little alcohol he’s had boosts him back.

“I, uh, had a dream. Been having these dreams for like, a bit over a month,” he swallows dry, much like he did at the studio, and his eyes suddenly feel darker than before, maybe because his gaze stops avoiding yours for longer than a minute.

A meteor shower threatens to fall over your heart.

“You were there. And I was there, too.”

For someone who composes and uses words for a living, he was struggling a lot to piece together what he wanted to say.

“This… there was… this… feeling, like, inside of me. Here.”

Not only does he not use his hand, but he takes yours from the steering wheel and settles it over his chest. His heart.

You’re frozen. Completely out of it. Is it possible that maybe you fell asleep in the studio and that none of this is real? Could that be it, you wonder, until Jisung groans and leans his forehead against the roof of the car with a thud.

“I’m being an idiot, am I?” He snickers, with an undertone that lingers in something that resembles resignation. “I just- I saw you the other day, and I was… you were with Hyunjin, and I…” he clenches his fist, and he tries to back off, rubbing his face and passing them through his hair.

“No, Ji, wait.”

He chuckles breathlessly. “I made it awkward, right?”

“Ji.”

Your hand pulls him back closer by the zipper of his jacket, and only the crunchy-like sound of the gravel beneath him as he walks echoes through the night and follows how you move your hands toward his wrists. Towards his own hands, stopping him from picking on his nails further.

“Tell me, Ji,” you mumble. “What were you saying?”

His voice threatens to tremble before he speaks. His eyes don’t move from yours, and you think you’re completely out of your mind, just as much as he thinks of himself too.

“I keep having these dreams where I see you and the ache of wanting you swells up in me, like I’m on a raft that’s sinking and I just can’t even escape thinking about you when I sleep because I-”

He’s rambling, but with a sudden move from your side, he’s not anymore.

The cold of November doesn’t hit you when you stand up bluntly and you link your arms behind his neck and kiss him like you have been wanting to do for years.

His lips crash against yours like the sea crashes against the sharp rocks against the shore, even if the coast is much further away than you think, but you don’t mind, because you can’t think.

You’re kissing him. Finally.

You’re kissing Han Jisung.

And then, just a beat after what you’ve done —what you’re doing— sinks in, he reacts. His hands travel underneath your jacket and in the blink of an eye, he’s letting you push him against the car. No words, no nothing, only the scent of his cologne that suddenly fills you.

You tremble beneath him, and he pants.

He’s not blinking, his eyes glued to you. He can’t think either.

You should say something. What should you say? ‘Me too’? That’s lame. How come your brain can’t work when you most need it?

As if to answer your question, Han kisses you this time. Of course you can’t think, not when his hands travel underneath your clothes and he twists you in a way that somehow it’s your back against the car now. He’s not breathing, and neither are you, because you’re not kissing anymore, not when your lips can feel the teasing dent of his teeth nibbling on them and when the only thing you can taste is his tongue.

You’re not against the car anymore, because he closes the driver’s door with a kick and he opens the one to the backseats while he keeps kissing you.

Crazy. You’ve gotta be, because dreaming something as wild as this and for it to feel real, as real as it gets, as real as it could ever be, it has to mean you’re crazy. And you’d die on that hill if it means you get to keep dreaming how Jisung takes his newly-found jacket off and throws it to the front seat, in the same foreign path as where he throws his shirt, or how you two barely fit in the car and so he settles his knee between your legs to help you move back enough so that he can close the door.

And now you’re there. Alone together.

He gasps against your neck, as if he remembered that he had to keep breathing to live, and you don’t lose your opportunity, taking your sweater off and throwing it towards the trunk.

You lean your head back, the car feeling heavy with only the sounds of both him and you panting.

“I… fuck, I need you to tell me you want this.” Han swallows dry. “I need you to say it. Please. I want this too much.”

A meteor shower? Scratch that. This is a meteor storm.

“I think this is a dream, but still, I want you. Please.”

No words, no nothing, just the sound of the leather against your sweaty skin when you sit up straight and kiss Jisung like you mean it. It’s all nasty, teeth and tongue and a string of saliva that lingers when you break the kiss to fumble with his zipper.

“What if it is a dream,” you gasp, out of breath, out of control, completely and irrevocably out of it as your eyes stare at his. “I want you. Even if I wake up right now.”

Your shirt is discarded as fast —if not faster— than the rest of your clothes before.

“So if it is a dream, let’s keep going until we wake up.” You swallow dry too. “Until the stars can’t be seen.”

The kiss is like a heroin kick, although it is one that seems familiar. Or maybe it’s that your lips have become used to kissing his, considering that breathing has become a second priority with how raw is the need to consume him. A wave of pleasure takes claim inside of you with each caress of his tongue, with every touch of his fingers on your back, with every eager breath next to your jaw. He pulls you closer and moans with his mouth buried in your skin unfinished phrases that drive you crazy little by little —more than you already were.

“It may end right away,” Jisung says in a hoarse voice, clinging to one of the headrests that are closest to him. “But I’ll make it up to you. With my mouth. Or with my fingers. Or both. Yes, fuck...”

It’s a mix of quick and ruthless kisses, mouths open. Wet and urgent, almost in bites, as if you’d want to eat the other alive as he takes his pants off and helps you with yours, going down to kiss your neck.

“You’re so... f-fuck, ah...” he mumbles while he runs his tongue down your throat and to your collarbone. “I never want to wake up.”

His lips taste like the feeling that overcomes you when you look at the sky on a starry night. Emotion. Ecstasy. You want to drink it whole until there’s not a single drop left. Drink him.

Jisunh squeezes your ass, while your mouths are a mess, while he bites your lip and pulls it, smiling like a cheeky bitch, while your mouths fight for the control of the kiss and your tongue caresses his, and before you can piece together that the windows are foggy because of the two of you, he’s sliding inside, his hand lacing with yours.

God, you want to moan. Moan so loud. And so you do, because there’s nothing in this dream that could stop you.

And he moans, too, because you are like a dream come true.

Juno and Jupiter.

[🔺☆ 🚀 ☆🔺]

~kats, who accidentaly went full autism, space and mythology on the meaning of ‘juno’ by Sabrina Carpenter.

catiuskaa, november 2024 ©

[hanahanumana]

From AnaMaria Abramovic on Fb

Paste magazine has done an article about Michael and how underrated he is in Good Omens and I found a transcript since it's behind a paywall. Here's the link if anyone wants to subscribe. 💙

https://www.pastemagazine.com/tv/amazon-prime-video/good-omens-michael-sheen-underrated-performance-explained-streaming

There’s so much to love about Prime Video’s Good Omens. A delightful adaptation of the popular Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett novel of the same name, the series is romantic, thoughtful, hilarious, and heartfelt by turns. The story of the almost-apocalypse and what comes afterward, it wrestles with big concepts like destiny, free will, and forgiveness, all framed through the lens of an unorthodox relationship between an angel and a demon whose love for one another is a key to saving the world.

As anyone who has watched Good Omens already knows, nothing about this series works without the pair of lead performances at its center. Stars David Tennant and Michael Sheen—who play the demon Crowley and the angel Aziraphale, respectively—have the kind of lighting-in-a-bottle chemistry that’s the stuff of legend, and their characters’ every interaction conveys both their deep affection for one another and the Earth they’ve made their home. Their romance is the emotional linchpin around which most of the series turns, and their heartbreaking separation in the Season 2 finale is so devastating precisely because we’ve seen how necessary the two are to each other’s lives.

But it’s Sheen’s performance in that final scene that really twists the knife. As Aziraphale’s face crumples following his and Crowley’s long-awaited kiss, the actor manages to convey what feels like every possible human emotion in the span of less than thirty seconds as the angel realizes what he has both had and just lost. The moment is emotionally brutal to watch, particularly after sitting through five and a half episodes of Aziraphale looking as lovestruck as the lead in any rom-com. Sheen makes it all look effortless, shifting from giddy joy to devastated longing and everything in between, and we really don’t talk enough about how powerful and underrated his work in this series truly is.

Though he’s half of the central duo that makes Good Omens tick, Sheen’s role often tends to get overshadowed by his co-star’s. It’s not difficult to see why, given that Tennant gets to spend most of the show swanning around in tight trousers looking like the Platonic ideal of the charming bad boy, complete with flaming red hair and dramatic eyewear. Tennant also benefits from Crowley’s much more sympathetic emotional arc. I mean, it’s hard not to love a cynical demon with a heart of gold who’s been pining after his angelic best friend for literal millennia even after being cast out from Heaven. Of course, viewers are drawn to that—likely a lot more easily than the story of an angel who’s simply trying the best he can to do the right thing as he wrestles with his role in God’s Ineffable Plan. Plus, let’s be real, Tennant’s sizeable Doctor Who fanbase certainly doesn’t hurt his character’s popularity.

As a performer, Sheen has a long history of playing both real people (Tony Blair, David Frost, Brian Clough) and offbeat villains (Prodigal Son’s Martin Whitly, Underworld’s Lucian, the Twilight Saga’s Aro). In some ways, the role of a fussy, bookish angel is playing more than a bit against type for him—Gaiman himself has said he originally intended for Sheen to be Crowley—but in his capable hands, Aziraphale becomes something much more than a simple avatar for the forces of Good (or even of God, for that matter). With a soft demeanor and a positively blinding smile, Sheen’s take on the character consistently radiates warmth and goodness, even as it contains surprisingly hidden depths. The former guardian of the Eastern Gate of Eden who gifted a fleeing Adam and Eve his flaming sword and befriended the Serpent who caused their Fall, Azirphale isn’t a particularly conventional angel. He enjoys all-too-human indulgences like food and wine, runs a Hoarders-esque bookshop that never seems to sell anything, and spends most of his time making heart eyes at the being that’s meant to be his hereditary adversary.

Given the much more difficult task of playing the literal angel to Tennant’s charming devil, Sheen must find a way to make ideas like goodness and forgiveness as interesting and fun to watch as their darker counterparts. It’s a generally thankless task, but one that Sheen tackles with gusto, particularly in the series’ second season, as Good Omens explores Aziraphale’s slowly evolving idea of what he can and cannot accept in terms of being a soldier of Heaven. His growing understanding that the truth of creation is colored in shades of grey and compromise is often conveyed through little more than Sheen’s deftly shifting expressions and body language.

Our pop culture consistently struggles to portray the idea of goodness as something compelling or worth watching. Explicitly “good” characters, particularly those who are religiously coded, are frequently treated as the butt of some sort of unspoken joke they aren’t in on, used to underline the idea that faith is a form of naivety or that kindness is somehow a weakness. For a lot of people, the entire concept of turning the other cheek is a sucker’s bet, and believing in something greater than oneself, be it a higher power or a sense of purpose, is a waste of time. But Good Omens is a story grounded in the idea that faith, hope, and love—for one another, God, and the entire world—are active verbs. And nowhere is that more apparent than in Sheen’s characterization of the soft angel whose old-fashioned waistcoats mask a spine of steel and who refuses to give up—on Crowley, on humanity, or on the idea that Heaven is still something that can be saved.

Though he and Tennant have pretty much become a matched set at this point (both on and off-screen), Sheen’s performance has rarely gotten the critical accolades it deserves. (Tennant alone was nominated for a BAFTA for Season 2, and Sheen was categorized as a supporting actor when the series’ competed in the 2019 Saturn Awards.) But it is his quiet strength that holds up so much of the rest of the show around him, and Sheen deserves to be more frequently recognized for it. That he makes it look so easy is just another sign of how good his performance really is.

[manachiichan]

Sailing against Fate

(Alabasta Saga)

Synopsis: If you want to survive on this world, you have to lean on to the strongest, to your luck, you somehow ended up with the Strawhats.

Pairing: Strawhat Pirates X Isekaid!Fem!Reader

Pre-Timeskip! This takes place during the Alabasta Arc. I planned on making this into a mini series with other scenarios.

|| One Piece Masterlist ||

|| Alabasta Saga Masterlist ||

|| Next Chapter||

It has to be a dream...

One moment ago, you were just studying for your college midterms and the next thing you knew, black spots covered your vision causing you to pass out on your desk. Well maybe passing out was your fault since you stayed up for a whole two days straight with nothing but caffeine to keep you energized.

But how did it comes to this?

"Oi...Are you dead?"

A pair of curious eyes poked your form the moment you started to wake up. A somehow familiar face greets you. Tan skin with a noticable scar on the lower left side of his eye and a straw hat. Unlike him, His crew had a look of suspicion as they surround the two of you.

'No way....'

How come you found yourself staring face to face with the Strawhat pirates?!

"What...?"

You can only gawked in shock. There in flesh were Luffy, Sanji, Nami, Zoro, Usopp, Vivi and Chopper. All staring back at you with a mixed of bewilderment and cautiousness.

"Where....Am I...?"

"Hey....Are you okay?! Stop that! Your hurting yourself!"

You questioned yourself, slightly distraughted.

Sweet Chopper got worried seeing how tightly you started gripping your hair with both of your hands. Because of his natural caring nature as a doctor, he immediately approached and grab your hands to stop you from hurting yourself further.

"Nooo! I can't take my exams now!"

Seeing that Vivi and Karoo are with the crew, you concluded that you were transported during the Alabasta arc. With Chopper already being there, that means that they had already been to Drum Island and are now on their way to stop the war brewing in the sand nation.

The Strawhats were somehow nice enough to let you stay with them for a while, although deep down, you knew it was because of seeing you in your most pathetic state.

Well most likely since you're a woman and Sanji is the type of man that will never deny a damsel in distress.

But ofcourse, you didn't want to end up on any of their bad side, and since they allowed you to stay with them, you decided to atleast try to be useful to help around the ship.

Only to find out that you have zero experience in managing a ship. You can't tie knots nor lift heavy equipments, Chopper had to help you out when the Going Merry's cannon accidentally fell on you.

All you could do was learn by observing others do their tasks, respectively.

Zoro was far more suspicious along with Usopp who was wary of you, so you couldn't ask any of them for any pointers. Nami, tried to teach you how to stir the ship but you somehow managed to get off course, so she had to step in, not after yelling at you ofcourse.

As much as Chopper helped you out whenever you were struggling, he was a bit too afraid to actually talk to you. And you like Sanji, but you hate how he treats you like a delicate and fragile glass to the point that he never let you help out whenever he's nearby.

Luffy and Vivi were the only ones who are normal around you. Luffy being somehow curious with your mannerism and weird habits. You were slightly glad that he was still the Luffy you knew in the show.

"Where did you came from, (Name)?"

He would often ask the most random questions about you. And whenever you answer, you could feel the eyes of the crew lingers your form.

"Some where really far away..."

"But I doubt that I can return back..."

You answered honestly. It had been a few days since you got sent into this world and you still don't understand how you managed to get here. You knew that you don't belong here, and without the Strawhats, you would probably be dead by now.

The Grandline is indeed a terrifying place, so you have to do what you must if you want to survive in this world.

Luckily for you, you read a few isekai mangas along with those popular korean manhwas back in your world. So with your One Piece knowledge, you have a slightly advantage of knowing what will happen next. However, you kept silent of that, as you were still trying to figure out what you were suppose to do.

In the world of pirates, a sane person would ask the crew to drop them off to a nearby island, however you were far from sane.

You are in the One Piece universe, how can you miss all those major event, nor miss the opportunity to meet some of your favorite characters.

There were two options for you, To become a pirate or marine. You did considered trying to join the revolutionary army, but you didn't like people bossing you around as you go on missions.

As much as you want to see the adorable Captain Koby as a marine, you weren't that keen to get beatened up by pirates. What if you meet those famous characters of the series, you'll definitely die.

So your only option is to become a pirate, being already on board the Going Merry. Besides, you doubt Luffy will let you go now that he has taken an interest on you, not that you know what he saw on you anyways.

You stayed up a few nights, trying to recall the future events that might happen soon. You wrote them down on a notebook that Nami gave you, not before giving you an interest of paying her back. She was slightly suprised on how you just smiled and told her that you'll somehow find the berries for it.

And now, your habit of not sleeping came back. It's like your studying your notes for an upcoming quiz again. You wrote down everything you remembered regarding the current arc you were in right now.

But first, you have to earn the crew's trusts. So you made a lot of effort to get to know them.

Their personalities were still the same like how it is on the series. There was also somethings that weren't mentioned yet you were able to notice small details while being around them.

Whenever Luffy goes feral at the sight of meat, he would let out small growls when someone approached him. It became noticeable whenever he's really hungry.

You were never a threat, Zoro saw that. You were just a weird helpless woman who somehow just ended up in their ship. Surely he was cautious around you, but seeing how you trip on your own two feet made him rethink of his assumptions that you were a spy sent by baroque works.

"Please...! Teach me how to fight...!"

At your most desperate tone, you plead Zoro to train you. If you have to survive, then you need to learn how to fight.

"Worry not, Mademoiselle! For I shall be there to protect you from those filthy trolls that dares to lay a even a finger on your delicated skin...!"

Sanji straight up told you with hearts on his eyes as he fawn over you having him as your Prince charming on a white horse. You won't learn anything from him.

"Sorry, (Name). I'm not exactly an adept brawler like Sanji, Luffy or Zoro."

"Fighting is not really my expertise. Just ask the guys about it."

Nami and Usopp aren't really much of a fighter, so they wouldn't be able to help that much. And Luffy is out of the question.

"Fighting? Just throw hard punches like this! Oh wait, you can't stretch..."

As much as you like Luffy, his fighting style is a bit too reckless for your liking and you doubt that he can teach you without getting side tracked.

And you can't just ask Vivi, like Nami, she's more of a dictator rather than a fighter. Surely she can fight, but you doubt using whip like weapons is fit for you.

So Zoro was your last hope. Watching anime for as long as you can remember, swords is something you were familiar of and You always wanted to learn how to use a sword, and Zoro being a skilled swordsman could maybe teach you a thing or two to atleast defend yourself.

"If you're asking for my help, you must have a good reason. But why should I help you..?"

Zoro was still wary of you, yet you can see that he was less hostile than he was when you first ended up at Going Merry's deck.

"Unlike any of you guys here, I'm the most vulnerable...! I'll die the moment the Navy or another pirate ship appears!"

Okay, you could have sworn that you sounded and look like another Usopp in his eyes.

"If you're serious about learning to fight, you'll have to prove your dedication. Show me you're worth the effort, and maybe, just maybe, I'll consider teaching you a thing or two."

Zoro was dead serious. But it also look like he's willing to teach you how to weild a sword if your resolve was strong enough.

"I'll do it! I want to learn how to defend myself. I can't rely on you guys all the time."

Seeing him suddenly grin, you knew you were about to experience hell.

[jjungkooksthighs]

Claws of Carnality | jjk (m) (17)

Pairing: alpha jungkook x omega reader

Genre: (fluff, angst, and smut) abo/werewolf,  fantasy

Rating: 18+/nsfw

Word Count: 10.6k (Listen we don't have consistency here but we do have quality alr)

Summary:

With his mate in his arms, the Pack Alpha brings her home.

Warnings: MINOR CHARACTER DEATH (parents), mentions of taking one's life (I promise most of this is fluff and fun), dom!jungkook, alpha!jungkook, sub!reader, omega!reader, cursing, praising, possessive!jungkook, teasing, marking, manhandling, omega in heat

Author's Note: Hello again, lovelies! I apparently am really bad at following schedules if you didn't notice, so I apologize (again) for really long periods between updates on this story. Rest assured that the next chapter will be the long awaited mating between our two soulmates, which will be the final installment to this saga that I have now been writing for five years.

Crazy how fast time flies.

Anyway, I felt like it had been too long since the last update to just...have them go at it in this one. I had had plans to make this shorter, but somehow 20 pages were written between this week and last and...yeah. Here we are.

I dedicate this chapter to @h-g-bts and @jeonwiixard, because without your support, encourage, and love, this chapter would never have happened. I have never seen such contagious enthusiasm and excitement that you two always are jumping at the chance to share with me, and I adore you two for all of the wonderful rambles we have about this story amidst all of our other shenanigans.

I hope that those who read this chapter–especially you two– enjoy it to the fullest. I always worry I won't do justice to the ideas in my head or even to the existing story I've written, so please share your thoughts and love for this story if you like it. I have discovered that I write faster if I am inundated with praise and love for my work. :)

That's enough from me for now. I now give to you the seventeenth chapter of COC!

Series Masterlist Previous Chapter

The scraunch of grass under his feet surrenders to the steady song of your heart while he carries you, your smaller form tucked snugly against his chest while you sleep peacefully in his arms. 

Slumber had welcomed you happily after you’d lost so much blood to the beast of greed that lived inside him, and as his still human body moves on instinct through the night with the moon as his witness, that beast only clutches closer at the covetousness of his savior–of this mortal goddess– who had come to save him.

Many still had been milling about when he’d departed with her from the bathhouse, the interested eyes and ears of alphas and omegas alike all trying to confirm the undeniable truth of his choice in you and yours in him. 

That he had been awake and of the conscious world astounded them enough as he’d walked through them, their widened eyes and gasps enough to indicate that. The irrefutable proof of your maturing bond was present in the serene, calm expression that the beautiful creature held against him had amidst the two new reddened, raised punctures he’d left on her wrist that fell gracefully by his side while he, who should have been without operation of one arm and restricted to a bed, was well and amble.

Namjoon had been there, Yoongi’s dried blood still dirtying hands and arms, but his loyalty to his alpha–his friend– mattered more than any odorous stench that Yoongi the deceiver could concoct. 

He’d shared one look with Namjoon, and it was one that needed no words between it. There had been a silent nod from his second-in-command, a lowering of his chin out of respect for his strength in combat before his fist had come upon his left breast in a sign of acceptance and recognition for the choice his Pack Alpha had made in his chosen mate, and the action had brought with it the parroting of all males–all alphas–who had been in the audience. 

Not one male failed to mimic the action, the Pack Alpha’s absence of injuries and state of near death that he had administered to his enemies all that they needed to recall. 

Seokjin, a taller male who just managed to reach Namjoon’s high height, had been standing dutifully by the other male’s side, the reaction of his mate one echoed in sentiment as he’d crossed each of his hands over each other between both breasts and bowed, the gesture one of approval and approbation of she who would become highest in rank and power over all omegas; of she who would lead them and guide the Omegean dynamic–of she who would become the Pack Omega. 

Niva, a long-time companion of yours who was a rather short woman, had mirrored the motion with tears in her eyes out of the happiness she felt for the female that the Pack Alpha held with such affection lighting the golden discs of his own as he stared warmly at her, not a fractal of the cold from before when he’d been in the ring with the males who tried to win her from him. 

Deference to them both had had each wolf stepping aside like parting ferns as the Pack Alpha had stepped between them, the dense cluster of all wolves in the compound bending to their knee as he passed. 

No one had asked where he was going. Such was common knowledge– the only thing left now was to seal the bond between two fated souls and fulfill the vow he had made to you in the remnants of their shared blood that had been left clinging to your flesh.

In the present, he proceeds with purpose through the forest, your soft breaths coaxing him toward his destination amidst the symphony of crickets chirping in celebration and owls calling excitedly to each other while the flowers and fallen leaves offer their embrace in support to his ankles as he steps through them.

It is impossible not to let the music of nature return him to when he’d first heard it years ago, when he’d first stepped foot in the greenery of the woodland.

He had been in a much smaller body, his paws much tinier while he’d been running through the forest, his father’s stern, unamused shouts lost to him while the colors of the earth ran past him in streaks of brown, black, and green.

There had been a wonderful, pleasurable burn in his lungs while he’d pushed his haunches to keep going, to dash to freedom from the asphyxiating restrictions of training for responsibilities he had no concept of yet, the wind racing through his fur and whistling through his ears while his claws upended the soil in clouds of dark plumes as they raked through it. 

He’d not known where he was going–only that he was chasing something he could never reach, no matter how hard he tried. 

Inevitably, his little furry body could only handle so much, and upon slowing to a stop in the middle of a clearing that held its own town of daffodils, lilies, roses, wisteria, gardenia, marigold, and tulips, each swaying with the wind he’d brought with him. The myriad of colors had been pleasing to his eye, and when he’d let their vibrant scents blossom under his nose, their coalescence had been an aroma sweeter than the finest sugar. 

But then…then he’d heard a voice, a voice that was daintier than any flower. A voice that harvested something in him he’d not known a name for yet. 

Curiosity had carried him toward the origin of that voice, his wolf refusing to ignore the soft melody as it sang a nursery tale of two lost souls helplessly drawn to each other no matter how many times the earth tried to tear them apart. 

“Alone he ran, alone he remained, seeking that which was forbidden-”

He had been quiet as a mouse while he neared the curtain of vines and climbing plants that had grown along the expanse of the rocky wall toward the forest’s edge, the voice that reached for him behind it too pretty to resist. He’d never ventured here thinking there couldn’t possibly be anything behind it. And yet…

“Forbidden it was, he longed for respite from the rivalries and revelries that were but a curse of his kin-”

His paws drew him forward, the clink of his claws against the rock drowned by the spring ahead of him, the crystalline water that streamed over the larger slabs of rock each stacked around each other enough to silence it to the female who stood on two hairless legs with her back to him in the watery pool ahead of them that was deep enough to cover her to the waist. On the other side of the rocks there fell clear water from one pool to another, a smaller pond sat surrounded by smaller stones of colors he had no names for in their darker and lighter hues. 

“Onward he journeyed toward the unknown who took a form fascinating to him, a form of long, flowing hair and kind, gentle orbs for eyes that the moon sculpted after herself in their color. For the moon had longed for many years to bring forth a child of flesh and blood as she grew lonely in the dark skies after mother nature had birthed her own child of hair and blood -”

Like invisible force had been urging him on, he continued, helpless to the pull that began from his heart and tugged him toward this fair creature who wore but a frock that was a halo of gilded white, silver, and gold around her in its long length and trailing sleeves that left a high neckline across her front and back. 

She floated there, in the middle of the water, as she moved with a grace no ordinary child could ever hope to have with a tune only she could hear. Transfixed, he could not force himself to look away if he tried. He had to know who this goddess with a voice light as the stars was. 

“She wept, and she wept, and she wept in her solitude, and from those tears that fell to the earth, she molded her daughter from mist, cloud, stars, and her light. From the earth there came her offspring who was molded into a girl with all of the knowledge poured into her from her mother, her body no younger than eight winters, but no older than ten-”

Something deep in his chest had begun to pound at that sight, and when the young girl before him turned toward him in a sweep of her arms through the air, that had been when he’d been unable to move any longer, amazement forcing the oxygen from his lungs as he’d beheld her. 

Her beautiful hair, which flowed with the wind that breezed through it, had been bound only by the gardenias that had been strewn down its wisps framing a face that was unlike anything he’d ever gazed upon before. Her cheekbones were high, nose straighter than a line yet cuter than any button, her lips pink as any chrysanthemum. And her eyes? They were closed while she was lost to the words she spoke.

“With no one but herself in the world, the moon’s daughter cried and wept, her own loneliness a curse even her own mother could not make her forget from so high a place in the sky’s throne. The earth took pity on the young girl of flesh and bone, so it sent her its son, who was of the same time on land. The two, recognizing kindred spirits in one another, were inseparable-”

As if his limbs had been captured by whatever had begun to wind him around this goddess’s hand, his haunches lowered so he sat on the rock by the creek, his shadow reaching toward the girl in the water before him. 

“The earth’s son and moon’s daughter spent many moons together, their hearts irrevocably becoming entwined in the other’s, and upon their eighteenth winter together, the earth became jealous of her son, wishing with her entire being that she could reach her lover that the clouds kept imprisoned within them yet never being able to except for when the skies cried, releasing him so he could be with his lover.”

The birds had stopped chirping as she’d turned her face down toward her feet, the darkness claiming her features so he could no longer admire them while sadness clogged her throat and watered tears from the corner of her eyes that remained closed to him.

Though he had heard the tale uttered from many mothers before, somehow, when this creature before him chanted it, it struck the chords of something he would not know a name for for many years after. He’d never really listened nor cared for it before. Not until now. Not until this female who breathed every syllable with emotion that none had mustered before. 

“The earth became vengeful watching her son love the woman that he took for his one and only love, so she trapped him, just as her own lover had been, deep within the confines of rock and soil. The daughter of the moon, just like her mother, wept, wept, and wept for the other half of her heart that she had given to her lover, and the moon, out of love for her daughter, begged the skies to release to the earth her beloved.”

The goddess in white had raised her hands toward the large orb in the sky almost as if to welcome its pain. 

Why he had felt a need to rid her of it before it could reach her, he didn’t know. All that he did know was that the very thought of her receiving any harm, of something swallowing away her radiance, was unbearable, his chest panging at the idea of her light being snuffed out. Watching and listening to her…it was like stepping into a sea of warmth and luminescence, the darkness of everything else falling away into nothingness. 

“Disgusted at the earth’s selfishness, the sky refused, but the moon begged, the sad tears and pained wails of her daughter over her lover’s absence making her mother sad and doleful. Her daughter’s siblings in the sky grew dim in their own pity for their sister, and too did their mother. The tides began to become restless, the seasons did not obey their call, and darkness began to eat away at the mother of the daughter who roamed restlessly, longingly, and devotedly in her search for her other half.” 

Like the tide, the girl let her body sway with the water’s ripples as she spun around on her heels thrice, each rotation bringing her closer to him and yet, not close enough. 

“Unable to cage the chaos that had taken hold of her body, the earth asked the moon to share her light with the world once more, but she could not. Not until her daughter’s lover had been returned to her. The skies, seeing that the world would soon turn to ruin, decided to offer a bargain: The earth’s beloved would be granted to her only during the rain showers of the skies tears that the moon would permit, and in return, the earth would relinquish her son to one who truly cared for him.” 

The deity in front of him, unseeing of the world around him and now at the water’s edge, let her hands fall back to her sides until the cloth of her trailing, billowing sleeves covered them from sight once more. The darkness had receded to only one side of her face, the other receiving the tender light of the moon. 

The wind blew gently around them, his scent continually swept away by it so that he could remain undetected by her even in this close vicinity. 

“The earth accepted, but not before the daughter of the moon had collapsed from exhaustion on the ground before the cave that mother nature, the earth, had trapped the one she’d been searching for in. The daughter of the moon’s body had grown weak, the life inside it that they had made together stealing what little of her energy remained.” 

His heart now hammering in his chest at her closeness, he could only hold his breath as he watched her, mesmerized by the ethereal glow that seemed to shine underneath her rosy cheeks.  

“The earth’s son revoked his mother upon seeing the shaking shell of his lover, and on his back he carried her to the highest mountain before the widest plane where even the clouds shielded him from his mother’s vengeful eyes. There, the moon and sun fashioned a healing tonic flowing from the sun’s rays themselves, and with it, the son of the earth nursed his love back to health, their child soon born days later.”

As if the goddess before him could sense him, she delicately fell to her knees, hands folding in her lap as her chin rose toward the sky with eyes that still did not see nature before her. Had it not been for the cascading water from the little waterfall behind her, there is no way she would have missed the thundering whims of the muscle nestled under his ribs.

“The earth was resentful, and so she too became pregnant with more like her son when her lover was released to her through the rain. To her three sons came, each growing faster with the meats she fed them, and it was not long before they were sent to end the life of her first-born, each of them deformed by their hatred with a mind bent on revenge and wishing to rid their brother of his son and take what he held dearest–his beloved bride– for themselves. None were successful, but the largest of these monsters, after 10,001 nights, nearly was.” 

 She had paused, a silver streak of wetness falling down her cheek. An irrational desire to wipe it away had been quick to take him, his paw reaching out toward her. That tear did not belong here. Before he could make it there, the female who had sat on her knees only inches from him used her sleeve to clear it away, yet the redness around her eyes lingered as more tears fell and her chant descended in its lovely pitch almost as if life itself had been fading away from her. 

“His brothers had wounded him, scarred him, hurt him in their many battles of blood, but the second eldest had been cunning. He’d waited until the female who had mated the eldest had gone into heat, her vulnerable state easy to trick her in when he’d covered himself in the blood of her mate. It had been easy to capture her and secure her to the nearest boulder at the cliff’s edge while he’d waited for her mate to return, and upon seeing her wrists and feet bound and their only son dead at her feet while the young pup’s lifeless heart was in the maw of his brother, he’d seen red, the thunder piercing air while rain had pelted them hard as lightning flashed.” 

Each word had stirred a hole inside him that could not be filled except with the mellifluous sound of her voice, its mournful melody making him lower his own head in how heavy it suddenly felt. Her own hands had since opened and turned upward, palms facing upward as if to beseech something–anything– to comfort her. Again his paw had moved of its own accord, pads of them just a hair’s length above hers. 

“Taking advantage of his brother’s anger, the second-eldest had almost managed to rip his brother’s head from his shoulders–if not for the moon’s daughter, who had seen through the second-eldest’s plans and warned him before it was too late. As a strike of lightning that had arced across the sky, the first son of the earth blinded the second-eldest with his claws before tearing his jawbone off of him and sending him howling off of the cliff to his death. This was not before he himself had been fatally injured, his brother’s teeth sinking deep into his nape and skull. Just enough strength he had had to loose the bindings on his lover before collapsing on the ground next to their lifeless son, his life draining away from him with the river of blood he lost.”

The female in white paused, shaking her head as if trying to will the image of it away, and her brows had reached toward each other as if to seek comfort while her small fingers had curled in on themselves. Still he holds his paw above hers, fearing that if he touches her, the trance will be broken. That this moment of respite he had found in this alluring creature that unknowingly welcomed him as her listener will come to an abrupt end. 

When she had spoken again, there, in the back of each word, had been the inklings of hope, of the same brilliance she seemed to shine with under each of those long lashes of hers. 

“The moon and sun, having observed the wicked earth from above, took pity on the sky-shattering screams of the lone female that had been left behind, her beloved’s dying breath that he wished he could have held her in his arms one more time while he told her that his love for her would never die. The moon and sun took pity on the two, reshaping and reforming their bodies yet housing their souls in them just the same, bestowing upon the lone female a gift– the gift to heal and restore with the same lips that had drank the life-giving tonic her beloved had fed to her through his kiss.” 

Somehow, the tale had elicited images–remnants of another time– that he’d never thought about before. It was like uncovering something long buried, but it was fleeting. Gone before he could really process it as it buried itself again in the dirt of memory he would not recall for many years later. And in the face of her staggering divine beauty that no other girl her age should have possessed, it was easy to forget. 

“The two found themselves together in each other’s arms in bodies that were of human craft, the ability to shift from their previous lupine,werewolf self to that of a human bestowed to them by the mercy of the gods above who soon created their likenesses, in different forms, sizes, and shapes, and populated the earth with them. Mother Nature corrupted some, but not all, and those that were not corrupted followed the first-born son of earth and the daughter of the moon, who mourned the loss of their son every moon until they were blessed with another, many moons later.” 

Their shadows, now one, had melded together while she had sung the words as if they were a blessing. She had been at peace in the finality of the tale, her brows releasing from the tense position they’d been in, and where her lips had thinned where she had pulled them together, they had parted in their fullness, a strange impulse to touch where she had spoken so charmingly from fixing itself in him.

“Such is the tale of the Lupine Antiquis, the first of our kind. They were each other's heart and soul–fated by the moon and sun– by our gods above. May their tale always bring light in the darkness of lone wanderers in the night.”

Such ethereal sounds departed her lips that she breathed such life into, and he’d been so sure he had been enchanted by them, by her, his paw summoned by them to hers in the urge to dispel her own loneliness that loomed behind her like a penumbra even through all the luminousness of the moon’s silvery streams around them from the moon above. 

The moment they’d touched, her eyes had opened, a look of surprise slowly transforming her once serene, relaxed features while he stared, drawn hopelessly to the glimmering, shining rings of silver that orbited her orbs for eyes. They were brilliant–she was brilliant– and instantly he had felt gravity somewhere in his chest shift, something flipping and turning upside down while he’d continued to gape, pulled immediately into the infinite space of compassion and curiosity that coursed through each of her eyes. 

“Who…who are you? How did you find me?” She had asked the words so entreatingly, no inkling of fear in them. Even her questions compelled him to answer, for the young wolf deep inside him wanted her to hear him, to see him, to know him. 

It had been that creature inside him that had made his bones move and change him from waist to head, his black fur falling away from him hair by hair while the young maiden’s eyes had widened larger than any planetary system. 

“My name,” he had found himself answering honestly, “is Jungkook. I was wandering through the forest. I heard you singing.” 

For no one else had he ever spoken so openly. There were few with whom his father would allow him to talk to, but this female… he felt like the walls he’d been taught to put up crumbled to mere specks under the endless expanse of her gentle gaze. 

“You are,”  she started in astonishment, “a boy. I’ve never met a boy before.” 

Where his black paw had been resting over her upturned hands in her lap, there had since morphed from it a human hand, his baser being wanting–needing– a connection that he could not explain.

“Is that because you are a goddess sent from the stars?” The question had come out before his mind had even caught up with his lips, and the most ariose music of laughter that he’d ever heard had been performed for him by the female whose eyes had shone brighter than any light above them.

“I am mortal, Jungkook of the Forest. Why do you ask me this?” There was a soft rhythm even in her small movements, each of the pads of her fingertips tapping at his as if to tune her understanding of him into her mind. 

There had been no hesitance in his answer, the song of her word and instrument of her beauty easily moving him.

“No siren nor angel has a voice like yours. No witch could harness the moon and shower themselves in its dust and light as you shine with its favor.” He had let her experimentally turn his hand over in her lap, both of her hands taking his between them and holding him there while he let his tongue loose the thoughts that made his heart race like an imp under his ribs at her touch that felt so impossibly right when he knew it shouldn’t have. “You sing of lone wanderers and finding someone that will end the torment of that inescapable loneliness when you are alone here–under the moon–in the middle of night. Like a fallen goddess.”

She had gone still under the staggering admissions of the boy from the wood, for he had seen in seconds what no other had. 

That she was lonely. That she was searching for the end of that horrid, cold hell. 

And the hand she held between hers? Not even the sun could burn that away, but his…it did. Somehow, holding him was like touching the purest of summer rays. It was… it was wonderful. 

Perhaps that was why her own answer had spilled from her mouth to his eager ears. “No one that knows my name calls me by that term, Jungkook of the Wood. But you have earned a favor because of your perceptive eyes that have seen more to me than even those who birthed me are willing to acknowledge. Name it, and it will be yours.”

Greed had not been a concept known to him yet. But when he looked at her, its wings had unfurled, the promise of more making his hopes high and a selfish need soar. 

He had to see her again. Had to hear her sweet voice again. Had to have her nearby and around him again. 

In his mind, the subtle, dainty movements of a dance she’d done for the silver disk hanging above them had played, the shadings of his desire forming. 

“I would ask that you grant my wish to meet here, in this creek, when the moon is full just as it is now.” 

A smile had bounded across her lips, and she’d giggled to herself at his rather demanding request,“You are a strange boy to ask for my presence alone. Still,” she closed her eyes, cupping his hand in both of her own before bringing it against her chest where her heart kept trying to leap toward him. ”Let this be my promise to you, then, Jungkook of the Wood. We shall meet here, with the moon as our witness, when she is full on a night like this one. Allow me to sing for you to seal this vow.”

As if the atmosphere itself wanted to be her orchestra, the wind shook the branches and leaves, their chimes the perfect backdrop for the springing water behind and around them as she chanted to the gods in bits and pieces of a language not yet mastered, yet one that had been largely lost to time’s hand. 

He had not understood a word of it, but somehow, her euphonious crescendos and trills that carried through the air like a feather had been enough to lull him into a most peaceful sleep after they’d both lain down beside each other along the soft bed of grass by the creek. 

Dreams of her frolicking through a field of wheat with him tailing behind her while she’d had an angelic, carefree smile on her face were all that found him that night. And many, many after. 

When he’d woken, the goddess he had been sure he’d met had disappeared, the only trace of her left behind in his hand being two gardenias that looked as if they’d been frozen in time at the pinnacle of their bloom. 

Just as she had promised, she had found him in their meeting place under the mother of the stars when she became full. The female’s luminous laughter joined with his on those nights when he made it his mission to show her the joys of childhood that adults could never understand. 

From the games of tag to making dandelions fly, their exploits were as infinite as the sky above, and inevitably, the sun would steal away the night–and her– from him when she would sing him to sleep with her dulcet songs while she stroked his hair from where his head had rested atop her lap from where she sat by the creek after they’d exchanged stories only innocence could conjure. 

Each meeting brought them closer, an unexplainable union forging between two souls so alone yet so yearning for a companion that they were soon not willing to be apart from each other without their dreams interfering. 

Years passed, but one cold, dark winter night, she did not appear to him again. 

Devastation had stolen his joy from him, and for many moons he visited that creek, hoping that he would encounter his goddess once again. 

 When it became clear to him that his son had been afflicted by a sickness of the heart, his father had forced him out of the forest and down to the milling compound of wood and wolves like him for a supply drop at the forge that his father alone manned and trained him the arts of metal, crafting, and woodworking in. He hadn’t wanted to go, the little muscle in his chest aching and hurting as if stuck with thousands of needles in the absence of the goddess-turned-muse that he’d found in the wood. 

He’d hardly been there a minute before he’d meandered from his father’s side, his nose catching a whiff of a pleasant, heavenly scent he had come to have a liking for where everything else was wretched and disgusting. 

There, laying in the middle of a flowery field with an aged leather tome far too big for her hands, sat the figure of the only girl who could harness his attention to her. He’d called out to her instantly, but when she turned to him, the eyes that once looked at him like he was something so special had changed to ones of unfamiliarity. She’d cocked her head curiously at him, her usual light there in her orbs, but it was as if the lack of recognition refracted the usual rays of it that reflected her warmth straight to his core. 

It had not taken his father long to pull him away from her, the young girl’s own mother dragging her away from him in a flourish of silks. 

When her mother had informed the young girl’s father of Jungkook’s interest in her, the door to his home in the woods had been shattered to splinters by that father. 

He had answered the older man’s call, a rigidness to the lines stiffening the older man’s face when he admonished Jungkook for coming too close to his precious daughter knowing that, as Jungkook was a pureblood, his urges and impulses would be much more uncontrollable, dangerous, and powerful. 

That Jungkook’s father had bested this man in combat and taken from him the rank of Pack Alpha had only founded a dislike and disapproval of him even deeper. 

Jungkook had not felt an ounce of fear, the thought of you, his glimmering goddess of flesh and bone, bespeckling him in intent. Intent that refused to let itself be snuffed out. 

He had gone to his knee that night, bowing his head as a sign of respect when he’d told the young girl’s father about all that they’d done and promised under the moon, asking if there was a way her father would allow him to remain by her side even though she had forgotten him.

Her father had responded to his question with a challenge: injure him in combat, and he would accept Jungkook as his daughter’s silent protector and guardian in exchange for the chance to be near her, but absent from her everyday life until he could prove himself to be stronger than him. 

He’d accepted the challenge without a second thought, and though he still had not been full grown at the time, he’d known enough from training with his father, who had been the Pack Alpha before him, to leave a scar on the man’s arm when he’d foolishly rushed toward him thinking speed would be enough to best him when he was more agile than any wolf the pack had ever had. 

One thing he knew for certain had always been that the very thought of you brought music and color to an otherwise bland, dull world. 

And if you could not remember him, he would rebuild anew. As many times as it took, he would start if you were at the finish.

What began as childish selfishness soon became adolescent fixation, and as the years passed and he grew taller, stronger, and older, that fixation morphed to a quiet obsession for the female that he’d discovered was, like him, a werewolf. 

Her life, he had also discovered, had been one absent of the light and warmth she carried in her eyes.

For her whole life, she had been raised to be the Keeper of the Scrolls (one who attended to, studied, and taught all of the sacred knowledge and texts as well as enforced the traditions of the lupine antiquis) second only to being groomed to become the next Pack Omega, the highest ranked position an omega could hold, which was a position that afforded its bearer to preside over and have authority over all omegas in the pack.

She'd had to sacrifice her childhood for aged parchments and leather bindings of books older than her, the duty of nurturing and instructing the pack's litters of pups falling to her when the previous aged omega became too sick and frail to even leave her bed.

His lover's parents, thinking only of another shiny acumen to add to their perfect daughter that they hoped would attract the next Pack Alpha, had not given her a choice to take that role over. It had been a mandate.

And because her nose had always been buried in a book or scroll either in her chambers or in the archives, she had had very few to talk to. Those that did only did so out of the hopes that one day, she would grant them favors.

He knew this because he heard those insipid, manipulative  creatures spin their cruelties in their speech behind his beloved's back when they believed she was out of earshot.

He'd taken the liberty of handling them, making sure that any vile words spoken about his female were never spoken aloud again with threats of exposing their own dirty secrets that so easily slipped from their lips when he gave them even the slightest bit of attention. 

Such was easy when all of the females in the pack fancied him to the point that they would all but throw themselves at him when he took over the forge that his father had alone been running.

But sometimes, even he could not silence all of the toxic whispers of female jealousy. It was like a disease, and though he had done his best to cure it, there inevitably would be an outlier that slipped under his nose.

On those nights, his love wept alone in her chambers,  her face buried in the mound of pillows on her bed that could not satisfy the need for another's companionship in the bitter solidarity that her parents had caused with their suffocating projection of their own will over her own.

Those were the nights he wandered closer than he should have and left you notes on your windowsill, wishing with everything in his being that he could be by her side, that he could do more than just be your besotted guardian phantom.

Your mother had become sick with an incurable illness your thirteenth winter when she had ventured too far in the forest and been pricked by a nature spirit’s curse that made her see things that were not there, her mind twisted by apparitions that made her forget all but her mate–even her own daughter. Your father, too, had been afflicted by his feelings for her mother that all but consumed him, and when she’d fallen into a sleep that had stopped her organs in your fifteenth year, her soul had joined those of their ancestors. 

Unable to live without his mate, your father had gone, too, so that he could be reunited with his love in the after. 

In his final moments, he’d sent for Jungkook, and he’d damned Jungkook such that, for many moons after, he would wish he could be rid of that night from his mind.

The dying man, who held tight to the blade in his chest that he had put there, had revealed to him that he had traded your memories with Jungkook in exchange for a release from your mother’s torment. With his last shred of life he had ordered Jungkook to protect you from a distance until his daughter came of age–until you were ready to give yourself to the next Pack Alpha. 

You had not even been able to mourn them in peace, the duties your parents had bound unto you too tight to escape, and for three years you wore smiles during the day that never reached your eyes when the elders, like owls, had swooped down over you to caw at you to do more, more, more for the litters of pups you had to teach as the sole Schoolmistress, to be more firmer on the edicts and laws you were to enforce as Keeper of the Scrolls.

For years he had been your shadow and had kept to your father’s dying wish, and he had been content in simply being in your presence. Just seeing you had been enough to quiet the rampant thoughts that roamed his head when he closed them at night. 

But when the heavy weight of it all became too much for you, it was no longer enough for him to linger by your window.

It was why, when the firelight had died and you laid on your bed in a deep sleep, he entered your chambers from the window you’d left open and stoked that fire so that the cold of loneliness did not find you. For a long time, he'd just sit there, watching your beautiful expressions while you slept with the flames licking at his back.

How he had longed to embrace you, but doing so would leave his scent on you. So instead, he did the only thing he could do for you.

He sang for you. Sang the very song he'd first heard you sing in the creek when they had been but children. And when the creases between your eyes would disappear, peace falling over your expression, that's when he'd confess his feelings for you and pour his very heart out to your unknowing form while you whispered his name as if you heard him. As if to beckon him to your dreams. 

You’d had the cutest habit of rolling around and somehow twisting the sheets around your body in something akin to a cocoon. On the draftier nights that left a shoulder or leg exposed, he could sooner resist tucking you in than a leaf staying still when the wind blew. He’d kiss the space right next to where your hand was, the silky material of your bedding a poor excuse to the soft flesh of your hand or cheek. 

Your mouth had always been off limits to him, but there were nights that you called so sweetly for him, your mind begging you to remember what had been taken from you. 

Everytime he thought to wake you and tell you everything, it came just as soon as it retreated, the image of your father’s pallid form drenched in his own blood forcing itself upon him while he’d spurted the words of warning: 

“She must never be told her memories were taken. If you do, the dark spirit that hurt her mother will steal away whatever memories she has left and she will wake every day with no anamnesis of you. As the only pureblooded female directly descended from the Lupine Antiquis, she presents a threat to their power that they wish to destroy.  If you truly wish to be her shield, you will heed that, boy.”

He’d lost count of how many suns had risen with that warning pervading his mind like venom. Always looming over his head, he had never managed to cure himself of it. 

Relief only came when he watched her, from behind the cover of foliage, and she ran through the fields, her hair unbound and free, with a smile that did find its way all the way into her irises. It seemed to glow brighter than the candlelight she’d leave by her bedside when she read through the letters he’d leave on her windowsill. He swore that from her perch on her bed, those orbs were impossibly more luminous. 

That same luminescence stayed there only when she spoke to her grandmother or close friend, Niva, of her mysterious suitor from the paper left on her window. When she found him, inevitably, in their dreams that, for years, she had thought only to be a fabrication of her mind’s whims. 

He moves toward the same rocky wall, walking through the curtain of vines and greenery without pause toward his destination.

He’s careful as he parts the strands of nature’s green hair, not wanting it to touch you and disturb your rest. 

The rustling sound of the grass beneath his feet is quieted by the same flowing water that had greeted him when he was a child all of those years ago, the proud creek she’d made her refuge when home became asphyxiating from the demands of elders children that asked much of her. 

The water sparkles now like thousands of diamonds atop of it, the green of the grass surrounding the bank of the pool emeraldine in color before the rocks bordering the pool of water. Even the trees stand at attention, devoted to shielding them from the rest of the world with boughs that contained leaves of every color that rivaled the precious stones he had fashioned into jewelry for her.

So much had happened since he’d first stepped foot here. And though your memories of him from before had been stolen, you’d never forgotten this place. 

And neither had he. 

His feet continue on past that creek, past the long basin of water that flows toward the smaller crevices in the earth, the thick forest around opening up to a meadow of lilies, lilacs, and lavender, the soft breaths of his slumbering beloved easing him while he carries you in his arms toward the large house of wood and glass in the distance. 

You’d always loved the color purple, your hands lingering a little too long on fabric of the shade or flowers with petals of the hue as if you wished the entire world could be painted in it. 

Purple like area around his wound had been when he’d come across her in the forest one night so many years ago and when they’d rendezvoused under the moon.

Not wanting to disturb her while she sang, he’d forgotten about the prick lodged in one of them when he tried to back up, only for him to have made a sound of pain. 

It had been enough to make the human figure before him finally turn, familiar kindness in those eyes of hers dispelling the dark of his doubts and troubles. 

She’d noticed right away the source of his discomfort, offering her gentle hands to him without a second thought. 

He’d been taught his entire existence never to show weakness to anyone, but this creature–this goddess with a voice tuned and tailored by the gods– she had him quickly lain on his belly and his head on her lap within minutes, the melodies of feelings that could neither be seen nor understood streaming from her lips while she quickly, effortlessly, and painlessly pulled the thorn out before wrapping his injured paw in a bandage of leaves and moss. 

He wonders if, somewhere in there, she’d been holding on and grasping for those little reminders of their time together even if she could not recall them fully. Like trying to grab for hay that kept disappearing no matter how many times one tried to get to it.

Still he walks on to the place he had built for her—a home he had crafted with his own hands, each beam and stone chosen with care.

The cabin stood there like something from the dreams he’d shared with her, its dark gray stonework grounding it firmly to the earth, while the warm, golden hues of the wood siding seemed to beckon the fading sunlight, blending seamlessly with the natural beauty of the forest. A towering stone chimney rose from one side, smoke curling lazily into the sky.

But it was the windows that had taken him the longest to craft—the massive, sweeping wall of glass that spanned the entire second story. It framed the forest like a living painting, offering an uninterrupted view of the wild landscape beyond. The black frames around the windows gave the structure contrasted with the light brown of the main paneling composing the main frame of the house, while a glass-railed balcony stretched across the upper floor, inviting the master bedroom’s inhabitants to step out and drink in the vastness of the wilderness.

The soft glow of light spilling from the lower floor's windows added a warmth to the cabin, making it feel like a sanctuary tucked away in the forest's embrace. And the deck, broad and covered, stretched out beneath the overhang of the second story that was lined with the same bevy of vines from the curtain of it that veiled away her little creek. It offered a perfect space to sit and listen to the whisper of the trees in the wind that he knew she liked to hear. 

He treads board over the porch, the flickering flames that burn from their bronze sconces casting an inviting welcome upon the lower walls of stacked grey stone around them. 

He’d placed each stone by hand, fashioned every fixture and wood paneling, and been the sole architect and builder of this place from the ground up since he was a child.

All for her. 

And as he opens the double doors of glass, she is all he sees, his one hand tucking some of her fine hairs behind her ear. 

He looks not at the rugs of earthly colors he’d woven himself, nor the tables, chairs, or other pieces of furniture he’d built here, in this space, that decorate the main foyer that opens to the left to a grand kitchen, and to the right a spacious dining room. He doesn’t glance at the main den with its impressive stone chimney past the kitchen that, like the front of the house, has tall windows for walls that leave a grand view of the surrounding forest and valley beyond. 

In the back of that den are two doors opposite to each other on either side of the space–one a library full of books he’d spent years procuring from traders and adventuring merchants. 

And the other was a study complete with her writing desk, her writing utensils, her favorite velvet-lined lounge chair. 

All for her. 

He doesn’t spare a second of attention on any of that as he climbs the spiraling staircase around the chimney, the dark metal rail complementing the wood of the steps as he holds the greatest of his treasures in his arms while the candles he’d left lit in their bronze candelabras sitting on the end tables and countered nooks flitter about, his shadow and his beloved’s joining together behind them.

When he arrives at the top of the staircase, his footfalls are light over the floor in effort not to awaken his lover’s rest, her dark lashes fluttering minutely when he deposits her on the nest of white and black pelts blanketing the bed. Its four wooden posters hold a curtain of grey fabric that, in the moonlight, looks like it is speckled with moondust.

Still he lovingly gazes upon you as he sits beside you, his fingers tenderly carding their way through your hair as he whispers, “When you wake, my love, I will be waiting for you. Until then, rest. May your dreams be sweet and your slumber peaceful.”

He pulls the cord from around one post of the bed and then the other, not looking away from your beautiful form for a moment. It is because of this that he notices one of your hands, even while your eyes are still closed, reach toward him, his name tumbling from your lips when his weight disappears from next to you.  

That thing palpitating in his chest becomes fuller with the blood of his love for you at that, and he is quick to return to you after throwing another log into the stone fireplace built into one half-wall so that the chill of the night will not discomfort you even though the pillar candles he’d set into brass holders fan their warmth over to you.

When he lies beside you once more with the pelt he’d retrieved from the chest of birch wood at the foot of the bed, he gently covers you with it before slowly, tentatively guiding you toward him until your head rests on the pillow of his chest, a purring sound melting him when he hears it from your still figure. 

Still fast asleep, you rub your cheek into the solid plane of his pectoral, the pheromones of his that that wafts around comforting you as you lay one of your palms over his heart, its steady rhythm reaching for you even in dormancy.  

You nestle closer and closer until your front is somehow lain over his, your nose nudging up against his neck as you breathe in the black vanilla that only grew in the mountainside, the gardenia that you liked to grow in your garden, and pear that you liked to pick from the pear trees. It culminated into a heath of the scent of your love, his quiet breathing warming you more than any blanket could. 

When your purr is drawn down into a breath shaped around his name once more, your voice summons his mouth to your temple as he turns his head to leave a kiss there, strong arms wrapping around you to keep you close.

“I’m right here, my love. I always have, and I always will be.” He utters against your hairline, lips finding a spot at the top of your head to leave yet another of his kisses–this one softer than the last. 

With the love of his life secure in his embrace, he watches the way your lashes dance while you dream with unseeing eyes, wishing he could meet you in them. 

The sight of you so at peace makes his own lids grow heavy, and soon, he too is carried off into the realm of dreams. 

It is not until the wax of the candles on the bedside tables has begun to drip into the small bronze beds below them and the moon has risen to her throne in the night sky that the female in his arms is roused from her slumber. 

Your lids are still groggy with sleep as you blink at the view of your mate who lies beneath you, a serene expression tenderizing his features into one more youthful and absent of lines that mark the obstacles of maturity. 

Your wolf, now awake at the sight of your alpha, does not let you rest until you have satisfied the sudden need to touch him–to make sure this is real. 

That he’s real and finally, finally yours. 

So you sit up a little, using the hand you have on his chest to support you, the pads of your fingers on your other nimbly dragging across the area under one of his eyes. He doesn’t stir, and so you let your digits slide down the side of his cheek before they glide under his lower lip. 

His breaths are even as they billow against your finger when your thumb glides over the plush cushion of his lip, and when his eyes open to reveal those golden discs of the sun in them, it takes your breath away in how they are incandescent as the candlelight around him. 

“Good evening to you, too, my love,” his hand is there, wrapping itself around your wrist so he can bring your finger to his lips, both of them converging so he can present the proper attention to your digit as the pillows of both reach for you. “How are you feeling?”

Not even five seconds spent outside of sleep, and his first concern was you. 

The fact makes that emotion from before envelop you, and when you try to press yourself more against him, that’s when you realize you’ve been encased in furs around your lower half. You don’t remember those from before. The last thing you could recall was the bathhouse where you’d fallen into his arms from blood loss. 

As you ogle the bedroom around you, the air itself has been claimed completely by your alpha, his pleasing scent everywhere at once. 

Why was it getting hotter the longer that enticing aroma swirled under your nostrils? Why did it emanate your mate’s very name everywhere you looked?

The answer comes when your mate releases you from his hold, both arms bending under him so he can lean back on them while the muscles scaling his arms jump at the motion and a loud, sharp whine fills the chamber. 

Your skin feels clammy, but you know that the cold would be nipping at you if you were outside. 

You only realize you’re whimpering when one of his large hands settles on your hip and he croons, “It’s okay, my love. I brought you home. You can do whatever you wish here. This place is all for you.” 

Words seem insufficient now, but even if you could voice them, what comes out is: “Hot…I-I…I’m hot.”

“I know, my love. Your scent shifted as you slept.” He helps you kick off the blanket, for it fails to offer the warmth he did as you succumb to the insistent itch to be nearer, closer, nigher to him before you climb onto his lap while he lets you. 

“Why?” Your breath comes out short, like a pant, your dress suddenly feeling too heavy and constricting on your body. You try to pull at one of the sleeves, and when he watches that, the pink of his tongue slipping over his bottom lip, the answer becomes evident in the slick that rolls down your thigh onto the edge of his bare waist from where you straddle him. 

The hand he doesn’t hold you with curls into a fist in effort to control himself, his teeth biting into the flesh of his cheek as he tells you, “Your heat, my love. You are in heat.” 

The answer has your thighs closing themselves around him persistently, unwilling to let him go. As if your mind has been filled with water, it is difficult to breach for clear thought, your body acting for you even though your thoughts are leagues behind. 

It’s too hot here, under these heavy layers of your dress. You need to get out of it. 

“H-hot…alpha…please,” You whimper meekly, your fingers fumbling for the v-lined neckline of your gown in effort to get it off while your hips roll into his, the hardness your bare sex rubs against obvious in his want for you. 

His irises scintillate from where watches you above him, the hand he has on your hip squeezing strongly around you while the fingernails of his other leave crescents in the meat of his palm. By their nature, when an omega was in heat, they became vulnerable, losing most if not all of their rationale and reason over the impulse of their instincts. Instincts that demanded an omega to be bred by an alpha.

While your mind is clearly addled under the sweltering waves of heat, you can hardly say anything but the name of the only male your very soul yearned for. 

“Jungkook, n-need…w-want-”

Those are the words that he needs to hear, the nagging worry that had begun to set in expelled at the call of his name. An omega that was able to speak was one that was not too far gone into their urges such that they were unaware of their actions and incapable of deciding whether they wanted to be mounted or not by an alpha.

“I want to take care of you, my love. I want to help you so badly.” He sits up, his other hand sidling up your lower back, your spine, and finally along your nape where he cups the back of your neck so he can bring you to his waiting lips. “But you have to use your voice for me, my love. I need to make sure that it isn’t your heat that makes the choice for you. Can you do that for me, pretty girl?”

“Yes…a-alpha,” You let him affix his mouth to yours, the wet warmth of him making you moan into his mouth while you continue to tug at your neckline in how tight it has become. He makes no move to deepen the kiss, simply content to breathe in your air and feel you against him while your hips undulate against him.

There is no room for embarrassment when all you can think about is him. And he treats you as if you are a shy spirit that could run from him if your sudden boldness catches up to you.

You fight the eddies of your heat that make thoughts want to sink before they can make it to the surface of your mind, but his words and restraint had been the anchor that you needed to make it there for a momentary breach of lucidity. 

The mist of desire that had settled over your eyes clears when you open them for him, and there he sees the clarity of your decision that is unmistakable as the stars in the sky when you reach out for him through the invisible bond tying you together. 

I want this, alpha. Please, help me. I…I need you.

He dives into the depths of your eyes, plunging forth to unearth any unsurety in you. 

He finds none. 

His other hand scales up your side, fingers slipping under one of the thin straps of your gown that hides you from him. There they stay until you disconnect your lips from his, a string of saliva lengthening between you until it breaks. 

“Are you sure, my love?” He checks one more time, needing your assurance. 

“I’ve never been more sure of anything else, alpha,” you earnestly encourage, covering his hand with yours and coaxing one of strap over and down your shoulder. 

Slowly, the long train of your sleeve pools at your waist, one half of your chest now free from the prison of its fabric binding. 

His mouth waters at the exposed skin you have granted him the gift of seeing, the larger and calloused pads of his fingers tracing around your breast while you let out a sigh of satisfaction at the feeling. 

“You are so beautiful, my love. So, so beautiful.” He adulates while his fingers wander downwards toward your navel as your cheeks burn at the praise. Heat simmers under wherever he touches, and when the fabric of your bodice hinders him from going any lower, his digits ascend toward the other side of your chest. This time, you let your arm fall back toward your side, waiting patiently for him to unfetter your other breast from its confines. 

He tugs it down as if uncovering a prized jewel, your skin all but glittering in the moonlight and candlelight that convalesce against you. 

Little by little he undresses you atop of him, your hands falling over each of his shoulders when both of his arms wind around your back to untie and loosen the strings of your bodice one by one. You swallow his breaths like they are all the sustenance you could ever need, and he greedily sups yours when he doesn’t have his mouth latched to yours. 

When the last of the lacings are undone and your bodice and sleeves, like your skirts, lie in a heap around your waist, he pulls away and your breathless pants entice his eyes down where old blood, dried spit, and half-moon shapes made by his teeth mark you from navel to neck. 

He looks at you like you’re a goddess without wings, and that avid attention makes your heart take flight in your chest as he takes one of your breasts into his hand, holding you there while you make a sound of need that, to him, is a delicate song. 

“I had my fantasies of you, but nothing I could have ever tried to picture could ever have been as good as this.” He husks, his other hand cradling your other breast before each of his thumbs curve inward, the pads of them rubbing along that pink bud of your nipples. “Your tits are so fucking pretty. So fucking perfect in my hands. Just like the rest of you.” 

The stimulation makes a rush of arousal flood your body, your eyes misting over once again while you plunge back under the haze of your heat as you cry out for him, your hips, to their own tune, rutting into his in search of friction. When he squeezes, massaging and kneading his fingers into your tits, it only has your hips working harder against him while you moan for him.

He captures your mouth with his, flipping you both over after releasing your tits so he cushions your head with one of them and brace himself with his other, a smirk playing at his lips when you reach both arms around his neck in an attempt to pull him down toward your waiting lips. 

“I used to think about how I was going to mount you for the first time, pretty girl,”  the rings of gold in his eyes beckon your attention as he nudges his knee between yours so that you have something to rut your hips into, for he hadn’t missed the subtle sway of them when you’d been atop of him earlier. “This is exactly what I imagined. You, bare and waiting for me, on the bed I made with my own hands just for you. In the den I built just for you.” 

[kenzan-brainrot-mp4]

Hello! The twist ending of PYIH kind of shocked me. 'Twas really foolish of me for thinking that for the entirety of Kiryu's saga, Majima has just that twisted obsession with Kiryu, being a "Mad Dog" and all. I came across your PYIH analysis the other day and it really brought home what they were conveying with the ending.

I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around the premise of PYIH. Is the sole purpose of Majima's "filming/documentary(?)" is to rehearse telling it to Kiryu? Because if it had been, that would be even crazier.

Oh, and at this point, is it even reasonable right now to interpret their relationship as platonic or brotherly? What do you think?

YEAHHHHH imo I think yakuza kenzan yakuza 3 (rooftop scene) is where we first truly starting seeing a glimpse of a deeper dynamic between Majima and Kiryu that goes beyond the "weird twisted obsession" reading, and we see more examples of it later as the series goes on (gestures at yakuza 5 and IW) but moments like those were decently subtle/blink-and-you'll-miss-it (not to mention they lessen in frequency also probably in part to Majima's lessening screentime throughout the series), but pyih's ending really goes out of its way to ensure that you actually Know how deep and genuine Majima's feelings are, which I am both extremely appreciative of and Kinda Crazy about

I think the whole documentary thing is interesting. Given the fact that they went out of their way to get the equipment/crew/etc. for the "film version", I would say that the Majima's retelling of his story at the studio and at Kiryu's bedside serve different purposes, and that him telling the story on set was not specifically for Kiryu (what Majima plans to do with the "film version" I'm not completely sure, but I guess for now we can assume it's just a project Majima wanted to do while getting Majima Construction back off the ground?) I'd say the premise of pyih is both to retell Majima's story as he presents it to the "general audience" And Kiryu, hence why the game starts with one and ends with the other. It's the same story to everyone, for the mostpart, and the main difference between the two 'versions' is How he presents it (to the cameras/the players/main audience he puts on the fuckass pirate costume and the theatrics, to Kiryu he tells it to him straight, without the extra show stuff for the cameras. We can Assume the story he tells to each audience is practically identical, considering that the cutscene of him telling it to us in the beginning of the game and him telling it to KIryu at the end of the game use identical lines (cough cough in the Japanese audio), but his tone of voice between the two are notably very different)

Uhhhh shoot I don't know if any of that made sense 💀 Point is I think Majima telling the story of pyih is, in fact, meant for Everyone, it's just that Kiryu gets a sort of special, more authentically told version of it if you will (After all, Majima could've just shown Kiryu the film when it was finally done, but instead he went out of his way to tell it to him personally)

As for the question of "is kazumaji canon now", WOO boy. First of all I actually lowkey want to thank you for asking that question, I've been wanting to post about it for a while now but kept putting it off lol. I mulled over this exact question quite a bit during the week-or-so long time period that I was writing most of my analysis after finishing the game, and, despite the fact that I myself am very vocal about liking kazumaji in a romantic scenario/context, I would not personally call it canon, and I say it is still absolutely reasonable to interpret them as platonic.

While many of the aspects we see in their relationship (especially on Majima's end) such as obsession, devotion, etc. etc. are often associated with romantic interest (Especially in fandom spaces), I don't think they have to be considered specifically romantic. People who have read through my posts may remember a while back that I did an analysis of The Sun at 36.5 wondering if the song was written with the intent to represent Majima's feelings towards Kiryu (for the record this was incorrect and the meaning behind it goes past the scope of the game) and I was going pretty insane about it lol. That's because, had the song been written with that in mind, it would've meant with almost 100% certainly that they would be, in fact, canon, and that would've been Insane. However, this is not the case, and other than that theory I had there's nothing else in the games that would specifically state that either one has Explicitly Romantic feelings towards the other. Do they have a very deep and complex relationship, the likes of which they don't share with many other characters? Definitely. Is it explicitly romantic? I wouldn't say so

The main example I would like to bring up to argue against it would be minedai (*cough* my second favorite yakuza ship I fucking Love Mine Yoshitaka so much he's one of my favorites). I'll link this amazing post with all the examples but essentially, while minedai and kazumaji share many of the same themes in their relationship/dynamic (again, obsession, devotion, you get the drill (can you tell Majima and Mine are two of my favorite characters yet LOL)) the main difference between them is that, with minedai, it is basically outright said Multiple Times in Multiple Sources outside of even Yakuza 3 itself that Mine loved Daigo, with words used Specifically to convey strong romantic connotations, a choice rgg went out of their way to make every single time they wrote about them together. Kazumaji, on the other hand, does not use these kinds of words to describe each other, whether it be in words coming from Kiryu and Majima themselves, or official relationship charts, descriptions, etc.

Can feelings including romance be heavily implied without needing to be explicitly stated? Absolutely, but with the way rgg tends to Very Obviously and Explicitly state when characters Are romantically interested in each other, and also simply because there is still (imo) plenty of room to read kazumaji as Not romantic, I wouldn't say it's canon. And for the record, I wanna reiterate that this is coming from someone who is personally very enthusiastic about kazumaji as a ship, so I'm trying to be purely objective here, and that is my verdict (Also this is just a random aside, but I really don't agree with the people who are (unironically) labelling Kiryu and Majima's relationship as "queerbaiting". but that's a whole other discussion entirely)

Thank you for shooting an ask !!

[adaedellta]

Epic the musical soulmate au

Where nothing changes but all the words make you a lot sadder

I’ve been on a soulmates AU kick recently and thinking about the Ithaca Saga so imagine a first words tattooed on your body trope with young Odysseus and Penelope and he’s a little intuitive having heard of Penelope and thinking she’s so cool then he sees her and gets this feeling she’s the one

Maybe it’s an Athena’s pupil thing maybe they’re such a perfect match for each other that he can feel it in his bones but he has this almost tangible cord pulling him towards her

But he’s there tryna wingman for Menelaus, talks to Tyndareus abt the oath idea and when the king responds well he maybe quietly implies he’s set his sights on Penelope, and maybe Helen and Penelope are somewhere nearby just close enough to hear Odysseus’ pitch but not so close they hear his goals(I can’t find a solid source online for their first meeting so I’m making stuff up) and after, penelope is intrigued by him and he’s somewhere close and she comments something like “he chooses his words well” to Helen. and he’s like stupid smart, trying to impress her, even his subconscious is focused on her and he hears and says something like “it’d take a fool to be insolent in your presence” to her

and it clicks in her head immediately that those are her words and without any shock or question she just says “you’re mine”

And they’re so sickeningly in love, they call back to their words often, he’ll say “I’d be a fool to___” and she’ll repeat “you’re mine” and almost never call him his name favoring lovey nicknames like “my love” and “my dear”

And when he goes off to war she says “you’ll come home to me, you’re mine” and he says “It’d take a fool not to return to your presence”

Then things go south, but through his journey it’s all he thinks, that he has a promise to keep. When he loses his crew, when he faces and befriends Circe, hears his fallen brethren and family in the underworld, the sirens song having an almost “I’m yours” tone as opposed to “you’re mine”, he evades Scylla, he makes Zeus’ choice, all thinking “it would take a fool not to return to your presence”

And calypso, she doesn’t have the words of a soulmate. it’s a fate confined to humanity, from when Zeus split mortals in two and forced their souls to be forever reaching to connect the puzzle til they finally unite. But she knows what they are. And just like her using his sleep-spoken trauma against him, calling back to his dead friends and family, she repeats “you’re mine” in love in paradise even dipping into “my dear” and “my love” despite his unending denial of her affections. It puts even more emphasis on his already rightful aggression and pain at what should only be said by Penelope

Then “I plan to put an end to all the foolishness” in dangerous he already wasn’t going to let anything stop him but now he’s willing to do straight up anything (and he does) to get home. He has a firm belief. he would rather be savage and merciless than be foolish because in his eyes there is nothing worse.

And when he becomes monstrous, how will he sleep at night??? “NEXT TO HIS WIFE” we all say in unison.

That’s not even mentioning Penelope, she spent 10 years pushing back the suitors, because Odysseus is coming home, she knows her husband, he is no fool. He will come back to her. She will not let anything go, and she will keep what is hers. The suitors all having an approach of having her turning their already flat chances into the negatives, especially Antinous’ threats in hold them down all having a message of taking from her where to be with Penelope is to give her all of yourself so she can do the same in turn.

And he absolutely fucks shit up, the suitors and their threats, the harm they’ve dealt to his family, the way they continue to try nothing but take what’s Penelope’s, what’s his. Their foolishness will not be tolerated. The actions they’ve taken to his wife, to his son, the greatest creation their love has ever made, they didn’t stand a chance against the guy who just fought god and won.

And then what everyone has been waiting on for the entire musical the absolute masterpiece that is would you fall in love with me again will never not be heart wrenching. He’s not just asking her if she could look past all he did, fall in love with the man he’s become. He doesn’t know if he still deserves her, if he’s too far gone to be worthy, He’s asking “am I still yours”

And she’s as cunning as ever, even after every year they spent apart she will always know exactly how to push his buttons, how to set him off, how to force him to convey his desperation for her, and hell she’s from Sparta of course she’s gonna be into him after all that. The second he turns his back in shame she’s probably twirling her hair and fanning her face knowing what he did all to keep his promise and return to her. And she gives him the reassurance that he needs, tricks him into proving that no measure of distance and time could ever take away or change what they have, and for the first time in 20 years he hears her say “you’re mine” and it shatters any apprehensions and self doubt because he’s still Penelopes.

And overall it changes literally nothing about the plot or the storyline and only serves to make things a hundred percent more sad and angsty

and I’ve had this eating away at my brain all through a piercing appointment and shopping with my mom and sibling all day I can finally rest now that it’s escaped my head

[twstfanblog]

As Yuu's better adopted father figure, how does Crewel feel about their dates? Especially with the overblots... I feel like he'd be judging their taste in men. (And in friends. Floyd Leech????? Their best friend???)

Also how does Grandpa Trein feel. Is he scandalised by the fact Yuu didn't even know their first boyfriend's name for like a full year.

Crewel isn't even aware she's dating anyone for the longest time. 😅

Neither is Trein. They both respect their students' privacy (You couldn't pay them to care about all of the relationship drama on this campus (Thats a lie, Crewel is still peak mean girl energy in his early 30s)). They aren't that involved in Yuu's personal life past the impacts they make on it for the longest time.

Crewel would judge whoever Yuu picked even if they were an actual good person. He'd think they were boring, nothing would ever be good enough for his pup.

It was saved as a fun little reveal of the end of the period saga. But Crewel only learns Yuu's both sexually active and NOT ON BIRTH CONTROL after her period is over. Yuu is grounded for another 2 weeks.

Now, the way they feel about each of Yuu's boyfriends.

JAMIL

Crewel: He supposes his pup could do worse...much worse, some of the kids in this school are a shit show. Knows that Jamil is responsible and respectful (as far as he knows).

Trein: Thinks Jamil is a respectable young man. Thinks he could apply himself more but other than that he doesn't have any issues with Jamil other than the concern about his overblot.

AZUL

Crewel: Really? One of the fish? Well, he's not one to yuck someone's yum. He'll just...squint. knows Azul blackmails Crowley so he can only think that he and Yuu make a good pairing since they're both manipulative little shits.

Trein: ....At least it wasn't one of the Leech twins. Azul is a very well-accomplished gentleman...he's also an overachieving brown noser who's been blackmailing the headmaster since he started going to this school. He's concerned about a possible power dynamic, but seeing how they interact he's now worried about Azul.

MALLEUS

Crewel: HOW THE FUCK DID HIS PUP PULL DRACONIA???? Trying to understand how his pup could pull literal royalty and how she's already engaged and planning a baby. What do you MEAN you started dating two months into the school year? WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DIDN'T KNOW HIS NAME UNTIL FEBRUARY???

Trein: Has to take a shot, literally just grabs Crewel's scotch and takes a swig. What the hell do you mean you're dating the crown prince of the fae? How did you get engaged? Did Crewel agree to this? WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DIDN'T TELL ANYONE????