#I do not care if they had reasons for what they did they still did bad stuff 🙏

[osarina]

ᡣ𐭩 WERE WE BETTER UNKNOWN?

FEATURING: dazai osamu

SUMMARY: your story with dazai comes to a close... but is it really the end?

AUTHOR'S NOTES: guys. oh my god i have so much to say, i will put it all at the end. but i am so annoyed because the heart in the title looks wonky as hell—for some reason it looks fine on desktop but on mobile it’s fucked ip :’) comments & reblogs appreciated!

GENERAL WARNINGS: fem!reader, port mafia executive!reader, civilian!dazai, dazai's struggles w suicide & sh, reader partakes in mafia business, dazai isn't dazai without a bit of obsessiveness and possessiveness (the possessiveness doesn't come til later but the obsessiveness starts from day 0).

CHAPTER SPECIFIC WARNINGS: hardly edited. mentions of past suicide attempts (dazai). non-sexual nudity/intimacy. reader has 1 scar that dazai points out.

SEE: WASTELAND, BABY! SERIES MASTERLIST

Dazai dreams of a vast frozen lake.

Is he dreaming? He’s not sure. It’s cold, he shouldn’t be cold in dreams, right? 

He lets out a shaky breath, and he can see the cool air fan around him. He shivers, hands running up and down his arms to try to warm himself up, but it’s futile—the snow that flutters from the sky is sharp against his skin and the air is bitterly cold, but the wind is oddly still. Eerily still. His shoes crunch against the snowy bank as he draws a bit closer to the edge of the lake, trying to figure out where he is.

“... are we going to…”

Dazai startles at the vaguely familiar whispery voice, eyes wide and searching as he looks around trying to pinpoint who had spoken, but there’s no one in sight. He can hardly see

Hell, he thinks dizzily, is he in hell?

Dazai’s fascination with literature began with his fascination with death. It started as a child—morbid and odd as it might’ve been, he was bored with life. He supposes that it’s part of the reason why his siblings didn’t like him, besides his ability, of course. He always had questions that people couldn’t answer—what happens after someone dies? They go to heaven, honey, his mother would reply. How do you know that? We just do. But how? What if we don’t? What if we just die? Stop asking so many creepy questions, Osamu, his sister would snap at him, curling into his mother’s side. But what-

He would keep asking until his sister got visibly upset and his mother had to take her out of the room. He never really understood why—they were legitimate questions—but his mother’s evasion of the topic and his siblings’ aversion did not deter his curiosity. In fact, when the first of his cousins died at the hands of one of his others, it spiked his curiosity. He almost found himself jealous that they would have the answers to the questions that have been plaguing him for years.

His questions of self-worth and his place here on earth didn’t come until he was a bit older, but he supposes at some point they probably merged together. His own doubts about himself and his lack of normalcy compared to other people led to his general fascination with death slowly turning into fascination about his own death. He found it quite ironic, and maybe a bit disheartening—he can’t even die correctly—that of all of the many members of his family, the one obsessed with death was the one that survived the longest, in spite of actively striving for eternal rest.

His fascination with death was put to an abrupt halt by Odasaku’s arrival in his life. Or well, that’s not exactly right. His fascination with his own death was put to a halt—Odasaku humored all of his questions, even if some of his answers were absurd and nonsensical, but when Dazai tried to spin the conversation back to himself, Odasaku would put his foot down. 

Dazai only tried to kill himself once while he was living with him—it was around when Odasaku first took him in, and Dazai didn’t think the man would care all too much if he was gone. Ango was the one who found him in the bathroom, funny enough it was his first time meeting the other man, but when he woke up in the hospital, Dazai decided he never wanted to see that haunted expression on Odasaku’s face ever again. 

It was around then when Odasaku started telling him about his book, and he helped redirect Dazai’s unhealthy fascination with death to a different outlet: literature. The Divine Comedy, the Aeneid, the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice—it was Odasaku who introduced him to them all. He enjoyed reading other peoples’ interpretation of the afterlife; he and Odasaku would have full blown debates over which interpretation was nearest to truth. 

Dazai isn’t particularly convinced there is an afterlife at all, but he always thought that if there was one, it might look most like Dante Alighieri’s vision. 

Like this. 

“... can’t just stop, he’ll never let it be…”

This voice isn’t unfamiliar. Dazai’s head snaps up, eyes wide and searching as he tries to seek you out. Your voice sounds like it’s coming from all around him—the wind carries it, he can’t tell where you are and the icy air makes it hard for him to keep his eyes open to try to track you down. The wind is strange though; it stops blowing all around him, and instead begins billowing inward toward the center of the lake.

A foreboding feeling suddenly settles over Dazai.

Lake Cocytus—if this is what Dazai thinks it is, then it’s meant to represent the Ninth Circle. Treachery. A little ironic, maybe, considering loyalty is what got Dazai killed—your loyalty to the Port Mafia. 

Is he dead? He realizes suddenly that he very well might be, not quite as pleased with the idea as he might’ve been in the months before he met you. He feels… unfulfilled almost. He never finished Odasaku’s book. He didn’t even manage to get his degree. He felt what it was like to be loved for a few months, but it wasn’t enough. He’d wanted more. He wanted a life with you. 

He still wants a life with you, he thinks miserably. Even after everything that happened, he still wants it.

He must not be dead, he thinks absently, kicking at the snow on the banks of the lake before slowly treading out toward the center of it. If he was dead and really in the Ninth Circle of Hell, then he’d be stuck in the lake with the rest of the betrayers. Although, Dazai thinks if he really was going to hell, it wouldn’t be this circle—he doesn’t think he’s ever really betrayed anyone to this degree.

Or maybe he did, his thoughts take another dejected turn. Would his ‘betrayal’ to you count? It’s not like he actively tried to deceive you, so he thinks he should be given some leeway. But maybe it wouldn’t be too bad, if he’s here because he deceived you, then you would certainly be here for betraying him—he wouldn’t mind being stuck in hell if you were there with him. You both could be buried in the ice together, eternally frozen and suffering for betraying each other. 

It’s kind of romantic, if you really think about it.

Something bubbles in his chest—maybe a laugh, or maybe a sob, he can’t tell, he thinks maybe he’s a bit hysterical. 

It must just be a dream, he thinks again for some minimal solace. Or maybe a warning, maybe he’s somewhere caught in-between and God is striking down his hammer, warning him this is where he’s going to end up if he doesn’t change his ways like the message of the Divine Comedy itself.

The thought makes him laugh.

He sobers up quickly though as he starts his trek across the lake, thinking that maybe if he got to the other side, or the center, he’d wake up. He thinks you would find this funny—one of your first conversations with him had been about The Divine Comedy, and he spent many nights at dinner roping you into conversation about it, and convincing you to read some of the other books and poems that Odasaku had introduced him to. You-

“... one life or hundreds, that’s what he said…”

Dazai nearly slips on the ice when he hears your voice again, looking around as if you would just magically appear around him. You don’t, but it does leave Dazai a little disheartened hearing you repeat the words that Mori had said to convince you to kill him. He sighs as he keeps his gaze trained ahead, careful to not look down at the ice lest he find himself looking at something he would rather not.

The outskirts of the water were the traitors to kin—Dazai remembers that well. The first time he read the poem, he realized that this is where the majority of his cousins and older brothers would be. They spent almost two years killing each other for their grandfather’s inheritance; Dazai went from having seven siblings and almost two dozen cousins to three siblings and a handful of cousins by the time of the coup.

Traitors to country in the next section—Dazai thinks a bit gleefully that Mori would end up there. The Port Mafia isn’t exactly a city or country, but it’s still an entity, and Mori certainly betrayed it when he killed Dazai’s grandfather in his own bed, no matter what the reason for it might be.

Traitors to guests in the next section—this gives Dazai a bit of pause, he doesn’t know if he knows anyone that would fit in that section. Ui, maybe? Inviting him to work with his journalism house only to give him up to the Guild. Maybe Mori again, Dazai thinks, highly amused, because Dazai was a guest to you, and therefore, the Port Mafia, when everything happened. 

And the last section—traitors to benefactors. He can’t avoid looking at them; they’re the only ones above the surface of the lake, grotesque sculptures of ice that decorate the surface of the center of the lake. His steps slow as he walks through them all, a heavy feeling settling over him as his gaze focuses on the oddly familiar sculpture in the very center of the lake.

Is that-

“There’s only one way this ends.”

Dazai’s breath catches sharply. He slips on the ice as he rushes forward, eyes widening and hands flying forward to catch himself, but his stomach lurches painfully and before his hands can hit the ground-

Dazai sits up with a ragged gasp, eyes wild and nails digging into the fabric of the soft couch he’s laying on. His head is aching and he feels sluggish; he’s still reeling from what he’d just woken up from, but his heart rate is starting to calm down.

Just a dream, he confirms, but now he’s more preoccupied with trying to figure out where the hell he is and why he isn’t dead, because the last thing he remembers is you lifting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger. The room he’s in is small—there’s no windows, there’s a tiny kitchen on the left side of the room, and on the other side-

“Everyone out.”

Dazai’s gaze settles on you. You’re standing near the far wall—you haven’t changed from what you were wearing at the conference room with the other Port Mafia executives, and Dazai can see Ace’s blood still crusted around your finger nails and splattered on your shirt. Your gaze is focused on him, an unreadable expression on your face, and Dazai is so tunnel visioned on you that he hardly notices that there are a handful of other people in the room: your three subordinates, Nakahara Chuuya, Albatross and one other who had been at the fight against the Guild.

They don’t argue with you, most of them file out of the room without a word, only Albatross and Chuuya linger. The ginger gives you a long look before saying, “We’ll buy some more time. Just… figure out if this is really what you want to do, okay?”

You finally look away from him at Chuuya’s words, cringing and averting your gaze to the ground. You say quietly, “It doesn’t matter what I want. It has to be done.”

Chuuya sighs but nods, motioning for Albatross to leave with him—and then the two of you are left alone. You don’t approach him. Ironically, you look like the one akin to a cornered animal as if you hadn’t been the one to shoot him. If anyone should feel like a cornered animal right now, it should be him.

Instinctively, he lifts his hand to his forehead, frowning at the bandages wrapped around the top of his head. He looks back up at you curiously, but you grimaced and looked away as soon as he touched his forehead, so he can’t catch your eye.

He has a million questions he wants to ask. What happened? Why didn’t the bullet kill me? Why didn’t you kill me? Did you believe me? Do you believe me? Are we okay?

Dazai doesn’t know if he wants to know the answer to the last question, so he settles with: “Where are we?” 

Though you’d stiffened as soon as his lips parted to speak, you relax when you hear the question he asked.

“A safe house in Sakae,” you say quietly. Dazai starts to sit up but his vision swims so he has to stop and rest back down against the arm of the couch, blinking furiously. “You should take it easy… You’re probably going to feel a bit off for a couple of hours.”

Dazai is about to ask you what exactly happened, but the words die on his lips when you finally draw closer to him. You sit down on the couch next to where he’s laying, your body brushes his and Dazai feels warm. The remnants of the frigid cold of his dream vanishes as soon as the warmth of your body grazes his—he knows that there are many things that need to be addressed, but he would be content to avoid those topics and bask in your comfort for as long as he can. 

His eyes slide shut as you reach up to cup his cheek. He doesn’t even bother reopening them when he feels you lift your other hand to remove the bandages from around the top of his head—he thinks maybe he could almost doze back off. It’s only when you let out a soft sigh and fasten them back on does he finally bother to open his eyes again. 

“I don’t have enough bandages on me already?” he asks, his voice is light and the smile on his lips is teasing as he tries to lighten the mood a little, but it doesn’t work.

You don’t respond to his comment. You look down, and the small smile on your lips doesn’t meet your eyes, so his falls off his face as he stares up at you carefully and finally asks the much dreaded question that would lead to even more dreaded questions:

“Will you tell me what happened?”

--

“We need to go,” Chuuya says, hand wrapped around your wrist tightly. You don’t budge from where you’re standing, staring at where Dazai had fallen back over the edge. It was a short drop with mud softening the fall, he would be okay—if everything went according to plan, that is. Otherwise, the bullet you just shot at him killed him anyway, so the fall is inconsequential. “Come on. We can’t stay here. We have to go.”

“How do-”

“Not here,” Chuuya hisses. “Come on.”

“Chuuya-” you breathe out, voice wavering over his name. You can’t bring yourself to move even as Chuuya tries to drag you away. “Chuuya, I need to kn-”

Need to know if this worked. Need to know if he was able to stop the bullet. Need to know if you actually just killed the boy you’re in love with.

“Not here,” Chuuya replies, voice harsh, cutting you off before you can say anything more incriminating. 

This time, he doesn’t wait for you to follow him—he yanks you along with him, not even bothering to steady you when you stumble. You know you should snap yourself out of this, you know Mori has people trailing you to ensure you follow through with Dazai’s execution, but you’re haunted by the expression on his face when you pulled the trigger.

He accepted it.

You had the gun to his head. You asked him to forgive you. He said he did, and he accepted that he was about to die at your hands. A part of you is eager to convince yourself that maybe he saw through your plan, that he realized you weren’t going to kill him, but that look in his eyes…

He didn’t know, and he accepted it anyway.

Your stomach churns. The ragged breath you take in cuts off abruptly as you gag over it—you saw the blood, you don’t know if Chuuya was able to stop it. You don’t know if Dazai’s nullification ability prevented Chuuya from using his own ability to slow the bullet before it killed him. You don’t know if he fell backward because he was shot or because the high dosage sedative that you swiped from Mori’s office set in as quickly as it was supposed to. You don’t even know if Chuuya had been able to inject it in him with his ability. You don’t know anything.

“Don’t you dare throw up on me,” Chuuya mutters as he opens the car door and ushers you inside. 

Instead of sitting in the front with Albatross, he sits in the back with you, sharing a sharp look with Albatross before the other man finally pulls away from the ports. He still doesn’t say anything else—he knows better. This is one of the Port Mafia’s cars, tapped and actively being transmitted to one of Kouyou’s subordinates who will report to her and Mori anything that seems off, and you need to buy as much time as you possibly can before Mori realizes Dazai isn’t dead.

Because Dazai isn’t dead. He can’t be dead.

It worked. It all worked.

It had to have. 

Just as you expect, your phone rings as soon as the car starts moving. Mori has eyes on you—he was waiting for you to finish with the execution before calling. You’re certain that he’s going to send someone to check the body now; he doesn’t trust you to finish the job, not when something as fickle and unpredictable as love is involved. 

Klaus will have to be quick—you don’t even know if he was able to find a lookalike to kill so he could swap out the body. You only were able to give him a twenty, maybe thirty, minute heads up. Dazai is plain looking, yes, and the mud he dropped in should do some work at concealing his identity, but if Mori’s shadow sends him a picture to confirm the kill, the slim amount of time you hope to have bought with your fake out will be halved.

You stare down at the phone and let it ring once, twice, and finally on the third ring, you lift the phone to your ear and accept the call, waiting for Mori to speak.

“Has it been done?”

“Yes,” you reply, voice steady even if your fingers are trembling around the phone. “Do you need me back at headquarters?”

“No, I’m sure that wasn’t easy for you. You should get some rest. I have a meeting with Tolstoy in a bit anyway. I’ll meet with you tomorrow after I have tea with Elise-chan so you can debrief me on the meetings with the Guild,” Mori says easily, his tone is light and airy, and it makes you angry, because how dare he sound so flippant after what he just expected you to do. “... I’m sorry things had to end this way, dear. I’m proud of you. You did well.”

“I know,” you say tightly in response before hanging up and putting the phone back down in your lap. 

Chuuya watches you carefully, but he doesn’t say anything, and you stare ahead at the back of the driver’s seat. It’s a twenty-five minute drive from the ports in Naka to Sakae—for better or for worse, it’s going to be a quiet one. For better because you think you might start crying if you have to speak, and for worse because now all you’re plagued with is your own thoughts and the image of Dazai’s face before you shot him.

You didn’t shoot him. Not really.

But you did, you don’t know if Chuuya was able to stop it. You don’t even know if Chuuya knows if he was able to stop it. There was a splatter of blood. You saw that, and there shouldn’t have been blood if this worked, so the worst case scenario looms over you heavily. But you won’t know until you get to the safe house—until you hear from Klaus. Your breath hitches over a sob you’re forced to swallow; your chest burns and tightens uncomfortable.

You had to do it, this was the only option. Anything else and there was no shot he wouldn’t have been killed. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but he would be killed. You wouldn’t be able to protect him from Mori otherwise—he would’ve put a hit out on him, and Dazai would have all of the most dangerous assassins in the underworld out for him trying to get the bounty. You can’t protect him from that. You needed to buy time. You needed to buy time so you could-

You don’t finish the thought. 

You don’t think you’ve come to terms with what has to be done if you want to protect Dazai. A part of you doesn’t even know if you’ll be able to follow through with it, but you’ve already set yourself down the path of no return and you’ve dragged Chuuya down it along with you. Either you follow through, or the three of you are going to be on the run for the rest of your lives.

Shit.

Your gaze tracks back down to your phone. Still nothing from Klaus—nothing from Akutagawa either. The silence is too loud, each second that passes has you aching with a pain that feels like knives dragging against your bones. You just need to know, you need to know that he’s okay, that you didn’t-

You rest your forehead against the window when nausea builds back up in your stomach. It’s cool, and a welcome reprieve from the heaviness weighing down on you, but the moment your eyes slide shut, you’re faced with Dazai again and no amount of deep breathing and grounding techniques can stop the way your heart rate sky-rockets, breath becoming quick and shallow.

You see him. You see him, and he’s looking up at you, dark eyes wide and adoring as he looks at you like you’re the only thing in the world that matters to him, and his lips part to say something but before he can, you see something thick and red trickling down his face over his lips, and suddenly something is weighing cold and heavy in your hand but you can’t bring yourself to look down at it, but you can’t drag your eyes from his face. Can’t hide yourself from the way his warm eyes are suddenly wide and glassy, void of all of the emotions that you’d just-

Your arm hurts—sharp and painful and so sudden that you’re dragged from the images haunting you. Your gaze cuts over to Chuuya, who’s giving you a concerned look. You realize he must’ve shifted over a bit, brushed his arm against yours to use his ability to jolt you out of your spiraling thoughts. When he realizes that you’re back in the present, he gives you a pointed look and then directs his gaze outside.

You’re almost there. How much time had passed?

Why hasn’t Klaus or Akutagawa reached out to you?

What is going on?

Albatross doesn’t stop in front of the safe house—there are too many cameras in the street and all of the Port Mafia’s cars are tracked. Instead, he takes a left on the next street because it’s one of the few without a red light camera and a blind spot on the corner. His gaze flickers up to the rearview mirror and he pointedly raises the volume of his shitty music a few decibels louder to cover the noise of the car doors opening and closing as you and Chuuya slip out when he stops at the red light.

You leave your phone in the car and you’re careful to avoid the camera near the bakery on the corner as you follow Chuuya around to the alley that leads to the back entrance of the safe house. It’s not a Port Mafia safe house—it was Itou’s. This was where he stayed in the few months during the Dragon’s Head Conflict where he was on his own, after he left Strain but before you recruited him to the Port Mafia. It was well hidden and well protected, you hadn’t been able to track him down here until he brought you here—he made sure that it was a blind spot in the Port Mafia’s ever-watchful eye over Yokohama, and you made sure to keep it that way once he was gone. 

It’s only once the steel door is shut behind you that you can finally speak, gaze focusing on Chuuya desperately as you wait for him to tell you if he was able to do it or if Dazai’s ability…

“Did you hear from Klaus or Akutagawa?” he asks quietly, and that’s enough of an answer.

He doesn’t know. 

You feel sick—your stomach lurches and you don’t know if you start to stumble toward the bathroom or the couch or straight to the floor, but it doesn’t matter because Chuuya is darting forward to grab you and guide you over to the couch.

“Chuuya, if I-” you start to say, your words are raspy and you can’t even bring yourself to finish them. “If I-”

“Don’t,” he says, wrapping an arm around you. “Don’t bother going there yet. Wait for Klaus and Akutagawa.”

“But-”

“Stop,” he insists. “All you’re going to do is torture yourself.”

Isn’t that what you deserve? You want to say to him, nails digging into the palm of your hand so deep that it draws blood. Chuuya catches what you’re doing and immediately moves to unfurl your hands. Everything you’ve done. You killed Dazai’s family. His siblings. His cousins. You ruined his life, and then after everything, it wasn’t enough. You ruined his life and then you took-

“Hey, stop,” Chuuya interrupts your thoughts, clearly realizing what path they’re going down. You don’t realize your breath is ragged again until he grabs your chin and twists your head to force you to look at him. “I know what you’re thinking, but we can’t do this right now, we need to plan. We don’t have time, and when Klaus and Akutagawa get here with him, we need to know what we’re doing. You need to snap out of it.”

You don’t respond to him—your lashes flutter and you see Dazai again, you see blood, you see empty eyes, you see the gun in your hand, and you feel something warm and wet trickling over your cheeks. Chuuya spits out curses to himself and wipes away the tears streaming down your face. He’s gentle now, the rough grip on your chin disappears and is replaced with his hand cradling the back of your head as he pulls you closer to him. He presses your ear to his chest, hoping that the steady thrum of his heart is enough to ground you.

“Where the fuck are they?” he spits out more to himself than to you. His breath hitches and you can hear the stammering of his heart, and you know that he’s nervous, but he’s trying to hide it for your sake. “I need you here. What we just did-fuck-”

You try to snap out of it—you do, but every time you blink you see him. You see what you did. You knew this would happen from the very beginning, you knew it, and everyone warned you, but you’re selfish. You’ve always been so selfish.

You don’t know how much time passes. Ten minutes. Twenty. Thirty. It all blurs, it all feels like eternity, but eventually, the door to the safe house slams open, and only a handful of people know about it.

Your gaze snaps up, and you don’t realize you’re holding your breath until Klaus steps into the room with a familiar figure slung over his shoulder like a sack of flour. Both of them are covered in various substances that you think you would rather not know what they are, but you can see the steady rise and fall of Dazai’s back. You rise to your feet abruptly and Chuuya lets out a relieved breath, shoulders slumping.

Klaus immediately points an accusing finger at you. “I had to hunt down a civilian, kill him, crawl through shit and trash with a dead body to swap it out for your boy, I had to carry him across half of the city, and I couldn’t even channel Mephisto because he nullifies him. You better not complain about any messes I make for the next six months,” Klaus demands, and then points wildly back toward a very clean Akutagawa, who casts an unimpressed look his way. “And he didn’t even help me. He stood there and watched.”

“I was ensuring that no one saw what we were doing,” Akutagawa replies primly. “Even more important than your job, considering if someone saw it would all be for naught. You should be thanking me.”

Klaus’s face goes red with anger as he whips around to face him and roars, “More important? Thank you?!”

You laugh. It’s so startling that all of the anger washes away from Klaus’s face and the goading expression on Akutagawa’s disappears. Or you think you laugh—you think you might be crying again too. Both boys look aghast by the sight of it, looking at each other as if waiting for the other to do something to make you stop.

Eventually, Klaus steps forward and unsurely tries to pass Dazai’s unconscious body over to you as if to try to make you feel better by shoving him in your arms. Chuuya slaps him hard over the back of the head causing him to yelp.

“Put him on the couch, what the fuck is wrong with you? Why are you passing him over to her like he’s a fucking stuffed animal?” Chuuya snaps, giving him a plainly judgemental look before resting his hand on your shoulder. 

Klaus looks disgruntled, but he does as Chuuya asks, laying Dazai down on the couch where you and Chuuya had just been sitting. You drop to your knees next to him, and the room is oddly silent as you look down at him. You don’t feel their gazes on you, so you assume they’re giving you privacy as best they can.

He looks… peaceful. You could almost imagine that you were coming home to him napping on your couch after he spent the whole night playing some stupid video game in your living room. You try to imagine that’s what this is, but the bloody indent in his forehead prevents you.

It almost broke through his skull.

He almost died.

You almost killed him.

You feel a bit sick as your fingers trace up to the wound on his forehead. It’s still bleeding, but his forehead is clean compared to the grime that covers the rest of his body. Klaus and Akutagawa must’ve had the brain to stop and clean the wound before it could get infected—that’s probably what took them so long.

You feel someone come to your side, glancing up to see Akutagawa hovering next to you with bandages in hand. He passes them over to you silently before quickly walking away. You let out a soft breath as you unwind the bandages, gently lifting his head so you can wrap them around his forehead. Immediately, they’re staining red—you grimace and look away.

The silence hanging over the room only lasts so long.

“What’s next?” Klaus asks quietly. “This won’t work for long. What’s the plan?”

Your gaze lowers as you rest your hand against Dazai’s cheek, memorizing his face as best as you can. The heaviness in your chest returns, and along with it, the damning reminder of your reality.

“I have to kill Mori.”

--

Dazai suddenly understands his dream.

“It’s the only option,” you say quietly when Dazai’s expression immediately twists at your words. Your eyes look so heavy and your expression is so crestfallen that it makes Dazai ache. His fingers twitch to reach out for you but you shift away, shaking your head. “It’s the only option, Osamu. It has to be done.”

“But-”

“He tried to have me kill you,” you snap, and he almost rolls his eyes because he doesn’t need reminding of that. He’s abundantly aware of the fact that he almost died at your hands because of Mori. He refrains if only barely. “Why do you care about what happens to him?”

“He’s your father,” Dazai says, watching as you go stiff. He knows he might’ve just made a mistake saying that, but he doesn’t even know if you fully understand the gravity of all of this or if you’re just running off heightened emotions right now. “I don’t care about him, he can go fuck off and die for all I care. I care about you-“

“He’s not my father,” you spit out, voice tight, “and maybe you shouldn’t care about me.”

Oh, here it comes, Dazai thinks dreadfully. That was the opening you needed to bring up the subject Dazai desperately wanted to avoid. He has made a fatal mistake. He should’ve just nodded along and agreed to your plan.

“You’re right he’s not your father,” Dazai immediately agrees to appease you and try to avoid the imminent conversation. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Hey, do you have food here? I’m so hungry all of a sudden, wow, do you hear my stomach-” 

You sigh, looking away. Your eyes are suddenly very tired and Dazai’s words falter on his tongue as his gaze settles on you. His fingers twitch to reach out for your hand but you draw them back into your lap. Dazai’s gaze drops at the blatant rejection, but as soon as you notice, you reach back out to intertwine your fingers with his. He feels placated, but only a little, because he still has a tight feeling in his chest that he can’t push away. A looming fear that something is going to go terribly wrong.

“Can we please talk about this?” you finally ask quietly, and even though Dazai does want to say no, he simply cannot bring himself to. 

So, instead, he nods, and braces himself for what he knows is bound to be a terrible conversation. He waits for you to say something—you look like you want to, but he thinks that maybe you’re struggling just as much as him at opening the conversation. 

This isn’t going to go well, he realizes again, swallowing thickly. 

“Come on,” you finally say, rising to your feet. You hold out your hand to him and Dazai stares at it for a moment, confused. “Let’s get you cleaned up, you smell disgusting.”

“I wonder why,” Dazai mutters, and he means for it to come out as a joke, but when the small smile on your lips falters, he realizes it probably came out much too bitter so he quickly grabs your hand instead, letting you help him to his feet. He tries to get you to smile again by giving you a soft one of his own, but now the expression on your face is heavy and conflicted. “Are you gonna take a bath with me?”

“You should probably rinse off before we get into the bath,” you say dryly, thumb running along the back of his hand before you let go of it. “Otherwise we’ll just be sitting in shit water.”

Dazai almost gags. “Don’t remind me what I’m covered in right now,” he pleads. “Where is the shower?”

The light returns to your eyes, a smile flickers to your lips, and Dazai considers it a win even if he is covered in shit and god knows what else. He glances back down to where he’d been laying and winces when he sees the stains. His eyes flicker back up to you and he cringes when he sees the displeased expression on your face.

“I’ll make Atsushi and Akutagawa clean it,” you say more to yourself than to him, shaking your head and motioning for him to follow. “Bonding exercise.”

Dazai raises his eyebrows, unsure if the couch is even salvageable, and almost lets a comment slip about it considering you were so quick to throw out his couch to replace it, but he refrains when a sad expression crosses your face when you think he’s not looking. He frowns, looking around a bit more scrutinizing now.

This place looks nothing like your apartment.

Your apartment is… plain. Minimalistic. The most you have decorating it is a handful of paintings on the wall and a couple of antiques displayed on dressers. Other than that, you have your furniture, your television, and that’s just about it. Dazai had joked once about it feeling like a hotel room, and promptly stole your credit card to buy things to decorate with—gaudy Christmas lights even though it’s not Christmas, a couple of fake pumpkins to line against your wall and a plastic skeleton to pin up near the window. He even bought an inflatable snowman to put in the middle of the room, but it hasn’t come yet. You rolled your eyes every time you came back from work to see some new, seasonally inappropriate decoration in your apartment, but he could tell the more things he added to your apartment, the happier you seemed to be. 

This place was actually decorated. Pictures and trinkets set up on the dressers, all of the furniture matched and the walls were a warm burgundy instead of the off-putting, psych ward white of your apartment. You said this was a safe house, but it seems more like a home than your actual one. 

“What is this place?” he asks again, because it’s something more than a safe-house, he just doesn’t know what.

“I told you,” you frown. “A safe house.”

Dazai’s lips curl down in response but he doesn’t press, gaze flickering over to one of the side tables against the wall, trying to figure out who exactly is in the pictures on it, but as he strains his eyes to focus on it, pain ricochets through his head and he has to abandon the mission. Disappointed, he follows you into the back bedroom and realizes he’ll just have to figure it out later.

He almost stops in his tracks in the doorway when he sees that the bedroom is just as homely as the rest of the safe house. It’s weird—the same burgundy walls, dark mahogany furniture, there’s what looks to be a handmade quilt draped over the foot of the bed. It’s just so unlike you that it almost has Dazai reeling.

You give him an odd look when you see the twisted expression on his face, but motion toward another door. “The bathroom is in there—go rinse off and run the bath, I’ll be in there in a minute, I’m going to grab a change of clothes for you.”

“Mkay,” Dazai agrees, a jump in his step as he rushes over to the bathroom. 

He only pauses for a second to take in his surroundings when he gets in there—he’s not as surprised now by the style. Less modern, more rustic, just like the rest of the house; it’s more like something he’d expect to see in one of those American holiday movies. He leans over the tub to run the hot water before pulling off his clothes. He squints as he starts to unwind his bandages, looking into the shower and realizing that the only soap in there is an unopened bar soap, and a men’s shampoo and conditioner set. 

A bit suspicious now, he glances at the door leading to the bedroom before kneeling down in front of the cabinets beneath the sink. With one hand, he unwinds the bandages around his legs, and with the other, he reaches out to open the cabinet so he can snoop. Just as he expected: men’s deodorant, a spare baking soda and peroxide toothpaste that he knows you hate, and a handful of different colognes. There’s one bag off to the side and Dazai reaches for it, peeking in and finding your typical bath soaps and hair care.

Whose place is this? He wonders, pausing for half a second before taking out your soaps and bringing them into the shower with him. It’s not Chuuya’s—Dazai knows that because he hasn’t seen a single tacky hat yet, but then whose?

He’s quick to clean himself off, eager to be with you and still a bit anxious that you might disappear when he’s not looking. The water runs brown as it rinses over him, but it feels nice—Dazai realizes that this is his first shower since he got kidnapped by the Guild, and a part of him wants to bask in it. He wants to wash off all of the unfamiliar touches and the dirt and the blood, but more than that, he wants to surround himself with you instead. Which means he has to hurry out of here and drag you into the tub with him. 

He thinks maybe he should be biding his time. He has a lot to think about before he actually talks to you—he’s hardly even had a chance to process everything that happened—but still, he finds himself rushing to scrub himself. It couldn’t have been more than ten, fifteen minutes before he’s stumbling out of the shower and grabbing a towel to wrap around his waist. He almost expects you to be waiting in the bathroom for him, but you’re not, so he frowns and creaks the door back open to look for you.

Your name is on his lips as he steps back into the bedroom, but he falters when he sees you standing in the same place he left you: right outside a closet, except now the door is open and there’s a sweatshirt in your hands. The expression on your face is destroyed, and Dazai isn’t exactly sure what to say, luckily, he doesn’t need to because you hear the door open and turn toward him.

Whatever you’re about to say dies on your lips as your eyes trail over his body.

Another fatal mistake.

Dazai instantly realizes that he has never taken off his bandages in front of you before—that night at the beach house, he thought you were going to ask him to take them off, but you didn’t. He was glad for it, because he wasn’t sure if he was ready, and after that… Well, everything went downhill after that.

Dazai suddenly wants to flee. He becomes acutely aware of all of the scars on his body plainly in view. The warm, dim lighting becomes spotlights shining down on him, highlighting all of the flaws that he’s feared your reaction to. He waits for your face to twist—or, he knows you, you probably wouldn’t have such a visible reaction, so he focuses on your eyes instead.

But they only curve up along with your lips, a fondness in them that he doesn’t expect. You place the clothes down on the bed and approach him, his breath catches when your hands rest on his hips right above the towel. The skin-on-skin makes his chest ache—he’s missed you so much, he hadn’t even realized how hard it had been to breathe without you until he was back with you again.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he breathes out loud, lashes fluttering when your thumbs circle over his hip bones, right over a jagged scar that cuts across his lower abdomen—the product of an unfortunate encounter in Suribachi. 

“I missed you too,” you say softly. Your eyes trace over his face like you’re trying to memorize each little detail—usually he feels uncomfortable when under a scrutinizing gaze, he never wants someone to look too closely at him in fear of what they might find, but he feels warm beneath yours. “I’m sorry.”

He’s not sure exactly what you’re apologizing for; it could be anything from almost killing him to letting him into your life at all. He’s not yet ready for this conversation to start, he hasn’t even gathered his thoughts yet, so instead he glances pointedly back toward the bathroom. You let out a soft breath—he can’t tell if it’s irritation or you’re just tired, it might be both, but you do motion for him to go in and he can hear you following him.

The water is still steaming as he lets the towel drop to the ground and sinks into it. His muscles instantly relax, eyes sliding shut as he rests against the back of the tub, letting out a soft sigh. For a moment, he can almost forget everything that’s happened, his head falls to the side to focus on you as you undress, folding your clothes and placing them on the side table. He blinks when you pull off your dress shirt, gaze zeroing in on a scar marring your upper back. It’s small, circular—a bullet wound, maybe? It doesn’t go through to your chest though, he would’ve noticed that. 

“How did you get that?” he asks curiously, belatedly realizing he probably has no right to ask about scars considering his body is riddled with them and he’d probably evade most attempts at your prying if you asked. 

“Hm?” you ask quietly, looking over your shoulder at him as you finish undressing.

The words falter on Dazai’s lips as his gaze roves over your body. You’re beautiful, he thinks again, a bit more dreamily this time. You’re beautiful, and he’s missed you so much, and he just wants all of this to be over so he can go back to lounging in your apartment and spending your money all day. It’s only when you raise your eyebrows that he clears his throat and nods his chin to your back.

“The scar on your back,” he explains. “How did you get it?”

“Oh,” you realize, making your way over to the tub and tapping his shoulder, motioning for him to shift forward. You slip into the water behind him, circling your arms around his waist and Dazai’s chest feels warm and full as he rests back against you, eyes sliding shut. “An assassination attempt when I was eighteen. I was… reckless, saw it coming and… Well, luckily, the Flags had been in the area. Iceman figured out what was happening and they got there quick enough to stabilize me and get me to Mori.”

Dazai’s throat swells at the implication of what you’d said, trying to distract himself with the feeling of your fingers tracing across his abdomen. He notes softly, “You’re never reckless.”

Your fingers pause in the absent patterns you’re tracing on him, and Dazai wonders if it’s a sore topic, about to retract his words. Before he can, you let out a soft breath and drop your forehead down on his shoulder, arms tightening around him.

“This was Itou’s house. All of the stuff in here, it’s his family’s—stuff he was able to salvage after they were killed. He tried to keep the house like how his mother used to keep it as a way to memorialize her,” you say quietly. Dazai’s eyes widen as he recognizes the name of your old partner. “We were enemies when we first met, y’know? It was during the big conflict six years ago. He was part of one of the foreign organizations. I ended up recruiting him, but he spent a few months on his own here. He was careful to keep it a blind spot to the Port Mafia even after he joined up, I always thought he was paranoid about it, but he was quite insistent that there was no need for people to know about it.”

“Makes sense,” Dazai says dryly. “I wouldn’t want Mori knowing where I’m living either.”

It’s an off-handed quip, but you still stiffen and again, Dazai fumbles to say something else because he clearly upset you. He starts to add, “I-”

“I killed him,” you finally say, voice weak and airy. Your arms loosen around him, but his hands drop to cover yours, holding them in place. “I killed him, Osamu.”

“I thought you said he died on a mission,” Dazai murmurs, hand tightening around yours when he feels the way your fingers are trembling. 

“I… Itou was born into this life. Was born into a Yakuza-family based in Tokyo, trained since he was old enough to walk how to use his ability… how to kill. The Yakuza syndicate his family was the head of was wiped out by the Sun and Steel when he was eight… nine, maybe. His mother was able to get him and bring him back to Australia—that’s where she was from. It’s how he ended up with Strain,” you explain, and the water suddenly feels a bit cold—what happened to Itou’s family sounds a lot like what happened to Dazai’s. From the way you pause, you wonder if you realize the same thing. You quickly change the subject, “He tried getting me out of the Mafia.”

“What?” Dazai asks, surprised. He shifts to physically look at you, catching the wistful expression on your face. “You wanted to leave the Mafia.”

The wistful expression shifts into something much more conflicted. 

“I didn’t-” you start to say before cutting yourself off. “I don’t know. I think maybe a part of me might’ve wanted to. I was… curious. He was sneaky—he was always such a sneaky bastard. He tried to ease me into it, show me what a different life was like. Called them training exercises, wanted me to blend in with kids my age.”

He remembers you telling him this at the beach house, but he listens anyway because now you do sound wistful. His eyes slide shut as you hold him tightly, pressing your lips to his shoulder blade before resting your chin on top of it. 

“His gift to me for my eighteenth birthday was an acceptance letter to university. He pulled some strings. It was for YNU, actually, funny enough,” you say softly. Dazai’s eyes widen as he turns to look at you again; there’s a small, sad smile on your lips and when he turns, you take the chance to steal a kiss from him. “Imagine, we could’ve been first years together.”

Dazai doesn’t dare to respond. His hand tightens around yours—if it’s painful, you don’t let it show. Odasaku dragged him to orientation, and he imagines meeting you there. You’re good at socializing—charming—Dazai can be too when he wants, but he definitely did not want to during orientation. He mostly sulked away and waited for it to be over so he could go back home. He imagines that you’d be in the same group with him, and although he’d probably ignore you the first few times you tried to talk to him, he’d eventually give in. Dazai is weak to pretty women, especially when that pretty woman is you.

Or maybe, you’d meet during a shared class. You would probably be a poli-sci major, but he’s taken classes in the field for requirements. He hated them, thought they were boring, but he probably would’ve enjoyed it much more if he had you to admire all two hours of the class. And maybe-

“I was curious,” you repeat, voice tighter. There’s more of an edge to it now, and Dazai realizes that this story is about to take a turn. “I… I wanted to try it. I told Mori.”

Dazai’s eyes widen and he sits up straight. The water sloshes around him as he physically turns around to face you. He asks, but can’t finish, “Did he…”

“He said it was a great idea,” you say tightly. “He encouraged it. I accepted the spot, and a week before orientation, Itou died on a mission that we got bad intel for. My whole team, they died to make sure I got out alive. Mori denied having any involvement, said he wouldn’t risk an ability user as powerful as Itou, but I know. I know he had a hand in it. I’ve always known it. The government had been after Itou for years—they said he was a national security threat. A couple of weeks later, we suddenly have the skilled business permit that Mori’s been trying to get for months. It was a trade-off. I know it. Two birds, one stone. The skilled business permit and my full focus back on the Mafia for Itou’s life.”

Dazai’s lips part to say something—anything—but he can’t. Your eyes are misty, and the foreboding feeling that’s been haunting him since he woke up intensifies. You shake your head, blinking back tears. 

“I never should’ve brought you into this world, Osamu.”

Dazai needs to think now. He needs to figure out how exactly he’s going to go about this, whether he should be soft and demure, appealing to your heart, or if he should be more forceful, triggering your guilt. 

He goes with the latter.

“Well it’s too late for that,” Dazai says, keeping his voice steady until he knows how you’re going to react to it. When you instantly shake your head again, his voice hardens. “It’s too late, I’m already in it. You can’t just get rid of me. Take accountability.”

“You don’t think I have?” you question dryly, looking away from him. But he needs you to look at him for this to be effective, so he reaches out to grab your hand, dragging your attention back toward him. “I killed your family, Osamu.”

“She was a girl my age—the previous boss’s granddaughter—she was asleep, had a bear tucked in her arms and a nightlight on the right side of her bed. I slit her throat, then both of her older brothers. They were kids.”

Her name was Akane. Bunji and Touma were her brothers. 

They were Dazai’s brothers. Dazai’s sister. The stuffed bear was called Coco, and Akane would clutch it and cry whenever Dazai started talking about things like death. She was scared of dying; more than that, scared of the people she loved dying. She cried for weeks when their grandmother passed, and got angry at Dazai when he didn’t even cry at the funeral. Dazai used to share a bedroom with her and Touma, but he hated her nightlight—it was purple and it was always right in Dazai’s eyes when he laid down. He convinced his mother to force Bunji to swap rooms with him, so Dazai had his own room on the second floor of his grandfather’s estate.

“You were a kid too,” Dazai rasps out the same thing he said at the beach house, but it comes out a bit weaker this time knowing exactly who the people you killed were. “You were fourteen. You-”

“I played a role in tracking your mother down,” you continue. Dazai’s breath catches as his fingers loosen around yours. “It was my punishment for not making sure all of the grandchildren were… eliminated. I was the one that was tracking her down, and I was the one that was going to interrogate her for your whereabouts when I found her.”

“Stop,” Dazai says quietly, voice wavering.

“No,” you reply firmly. “No. You need to understand this-”

“I do,” Dazai insists, voice cracking. “I do understand-”

“You don’t, Dazai,” you raise your voice and Dazai cringes back. You sigh and soften your voice, but the damage has been done, Dazai’s fight or flight instincts have been triggered. This conversation is not going to end in his favor, so he needs to run before he gets hurt, but he can’t because you have him stuck in the bath with you. You reach out again to take his hands in yours, fingers absently running along the scars on his wrists. “You don’t, otherwise you wouldn’t have been so quick to join me in here. You haven’t even had time to process it.”

“Yes, I have,” Dazai whispers weakly. “I have.”

“I ruined your life, Osamu,” you say quietly. “Everything bad that’s ever happened to you started with me.”

“That’s not true,” Dazai argues, nails biting into your skin as he clings to you. “My life sucked before everything really went to shit. The first time I tried to kill myself, I was eleven. You saved my life. I was going to kill myself that night we met at the bar. You saved me.”

“Osamu-”

“You’re not listening to me,” Dazai interrupts, voice taking a more manic edge as he shakes his head. He can talk himself out of any situation—why is he failing now when it matters most? “You’re not listening. You saved me. I love you.”

“I love you too,” you breathe out, but the words don’t settle his nerves because they’re heavy and full of sorrow, and the tears that had been pooling in your eyes finally start to spill over.

“Then why does this still feel like a goodbye?” he begs, breath shallow as he searches your face for an answer.

You don’t respond, but you don’t need to. He finds his answer in your eyes. He always does. You look at him again with that desperate, longing expression, like you’re trying to memorize the details of his face even though you know it’s futile. 

This is a goodbye.

--

Dazai hasn’t spoken to you once since your conversation in the bath.

Chuuya, your subordinates, and the Flags are back now, and Dazai is sulking in the bedroom watching one of his dumb reality shows. You can hardly focus on the conversation at hand because of it, and you know the others are starting to get irritated by your distraction considering the stakes at play right now. If one thing goes wrong, all of your lives would be forfeit. They’re risking everything by helping you right now, and you can't even bother to give them your full attention.

“Out,” Piano Man suddenly says. Your gaze snaps toward him, as does all of the others’ in the room. When nobody immediately moves, he raises his eyebrows and continues dryly, “Are you all hard of hearing? I said get out.”

“Where are we supposed to go?” Albatross demands. “Her boy’s in the bedroom. This place is small-”

“Go crowd in the closet for all I care. Get out,” Piano Man says dismissively. Still, no one moves until his gaze sharpens and they realize he’s being entirely serious. You shift to leave with them until his eyes land on you. “Not you.”

You feel like a child about to be scolded, which is ridiculous because you’re a mafioso, and though Piano Man is technically the same rank as you, he’s not really. He can’t scold you, but you shift awkwardly on your feet and share a concerned look with Chuuya anyway as they all wander out of the safe house and into the small hallway outside.

Once the two of you are alone, you finally glance back at Piano Man, who’s watching you carefully. After a few moments he says, “I take it you told him the plan?”

“I did,” you reply quietly.

“He didn’t take it well?” Piano Man questions.

“You know the answer to that,” you say a bit more dryly before shaking your head. “Would you have taken it well?”

“Of course not, I’d be livid,” Piano Man says immediately, making you cringe. “Does this mean we’re changing the plan?” 

“No,” you tell him. “We can’t. This is the only option.”

“I know,” Piano Man says with a thin smile. “So stop sulking and get your head in the game so we don’t all die trying to perform a coup.”

You’re startled by the sudden sharpness in his voice, but you suppose you shouldn’t be. Piano Man has always been capricious, going from his whimsical moods to more cold and ruthless ones within a matter of seconds. You can hardly meet his eyes now, looking down at the ground to avoid them.

“Why are you helping me?” you ask after a few moments.

You don’t have to look at Piano Man to see the way he raises his eyebrows judgmentally. “Excuse me?” 

“I was going to kill you earlier. I held a gun to your head. Why are you helping me?” you press, the words weighing heavily on you as you remember the way he met your eyes when you lifted the muzzle of your gun to his temple.

Piano Man has the audacity to look amused. “When I first recruited Lippmann, I tried to drown him in the harbor because I got paranoid he sold me out to the feds after a mission went wrong. It happens—the next time it does, I’m going to be pulling my own gun out though. So, don’t let it happen again, yeah?”

“Yeah,” you agree quietly. “I’m sorry.”

You don’t apologize often, even when you know you’re entirely in the wrong. Mori has taught you only to apologize when it serves you, otherwise you should never make an admission of guilt or liability. So it’s not surprising when Piano Man’s eyebrows shoot upward, but his expression softens after a moment. He reaches out to pat your head.

“I know this isn’t easy,” he murmurs, “but we need you at the top of your game if this is going to work.”

“I know,” you reply. “... I know.”

“Good,” he says, patting the top of your head yet again before sighing. “Let me go get them and we’ll get back to planning, okay?”

“Mkay.”

You lean back against the wall as you look down at the table Lippmann set up for planning. The Flags, your subordinates, Kajii Motojiro—they’re non-factors in the planned coup. The Flags will support it, your subordinates will support you, and all Kajii cares about is his experiments. Paul Verlaine is not quite as secure, but Chuuya is confident that he’ll support whatever Chuuya goes along with.

The issue lies in Kouyou and the Black Lizards.

You already feel a headache come on just at the thought, lifting your hands to your head and rubbing your eyes as you knock the back of your head against the wall and let out a heavy sigh. Kouyou and Hirotsu won’t support the coup, you know it. They’re both loyal to Mori—both victims of the previous boss who found refuge in Mori when he took over. They’ll fight for him, and you know better than anyone that during a forceful transition of power, all dissidents must be removed, especially ones that hold significant power and influence.

But it’s Kouyou and Hirotsu. Kouyou, who was the one to teach you how to do your makeup properly, who bought you your first kimono to match her own. Hirotsu, who was always quick to execute anyone that openly disrespected you, who took you to a movie on your fifteenth birthday when Mori was busy dealing with the power transition so you didn’t spend it alone. The thought makes you sick—they were family, and maybe Hirotsu could be convinced. He’s loyal to Mori, yes, but more than that, he’s loyal to the Port Mafia. If you can manufacture a legitimate reason for the coup…

You sigh as you glance down the hall where Dazai is hiding in the bedroom, startled when your gaze catches his familiar brown. He’s seemingly just as surprised that you caught him spying, immediately slamming the bedroom door shut to retreat back into the safety of the room. Your lips curl up into a small smile, which is quickly washed away when your subordinates, the Flags and Chuuya all file back into the room.

“I’ll talk to Ane-san,” Chuuya finally says, reigniting the conversation. “I’ll make her see reason.”

“There’s no time for talking, Chuuya,” Piano Man tells him. “This all has to be done within hours. If we let word get out about what we’re doing… The coup is risky, and a civil war would be the end of this city.”

Frustration flashes across Chuuya’s face. “I’m not budging on this,” he says, voice tight with thinly restrained anger. “Either you give me the chance to talk to her, or I’ll withdraw my support.”

“Chuuya,” you sigh tiredly, wanting nothing more than to just sit down.

“No,” Chuuya interrupts you. “I won’t actively stand against you, but I won’t stand with you if you don’t give me the chance to talk to her.”

“Fine,” you finally say even though you know it’s a mistake. It’s asking for trouble. Piano Man gives you a sharp, disapproving look, but you shake your head. “It’s fine. She won’t be keeping her executive position.”

Chuuya’s face twists. “But-”

“No.” This time you interrupt him, holding up your hand. “I’m not budging on this. If you want the chance to talk to her and convince her this is the best route, I’ll give you it, but you need to meet me halfway. She’s not retaining her executive position.”

Chuuya looks unhappy, but after a few moments, he nods. “Fine.”

“I can’t risk it, Chuuya,” you tell him quietly. “I need people who I trust in the inner circle. I can’t trust her after what just happened.”

“I get it,” Chuuya says. “I just don’t like it.”

“That leaves three executive seats we need to fill.” Piano Man lets out a heavy sigh as he sits on the edge of the table, tilting his head back in exhaustion. “Your’s, Ace’s, and Kouyou-san’s. Do you even have three more people who you trust?”

Klaus and Akutagawa, you think to yourself, but neither of them are executive material. Your gaze drifts over to Albatross, Iceman, and Doc, each of them pointedly looks away, none of them want the open seats. Lippmann can’t take it, not with what you have planned for him. So, who else-

“Verlaine?” Chuuya offers. “He’s got a ton of experience with the European organizations—we’ll probably need it considering Dostoevsky’s involvement with the Guild, and this Book that’s apparently somewhere in the city. If it gets out to the public, we’ll have organizations swarming just like during the Dragon’s Head.”

You don’t like the idea of Verlaine being an executive, and you don’t think Piano Man does either considering his unfortunate first meeting with the man, but Chuuya raises good points. You have your own experience with the European underworld, but it’s nothing like what Verlaine has.

“Okay,” you agree, “and the other two?”

The Black Lizards are its own command unit that answers directly to the Boss. They don’t have a seat at the table because it’s not their field. Their field is war, not politics… but what other options are there? The people you trust are far and few in-between, you can probably count them on one hand.

“What about Tolstoy?” a familiar voice asks quietly from down the hallway. You look up immediately, gaze focusing on where Dazai is standing in the door of the bedroom, hands shoved in the pockets of his sweatshirt, shoulders hunched. He doesn’t like the attention of everyone on him, so he keeps his eyes trained fully on you. “Mishima?”

“They’re not part of the Port Mafia,” Chuuya dismisses, “they don’t get seats.”

“But what if they were?” Dazai presses, shuffling forward. He hardly spares Chuuya a glance before looking at you again. “The transition of power is going to be shaky, you need to strengthen your position in other ways, otherwise…”

“You think we should merge with the Three Deaths and the Sun and Steel,” Piano Man realizes, sitting up straighter as he considers Dazai’s proposition. “Doesn’t that risk destabilizing us even more though?”

He looks at you for an answer, but your gaze is focused on Dazai. He’s not even gone yet, but you already miss him desperately; all you want is to be with him, but it’s just not possible. You can’t have him and run the Port Mafia at the same time; he will die because of his affiliation with you, just like he almost did when the Guild captured him. It wouldn’t matter how safe you tried to keep him, one mistake and he would die. And that will lead to every decision you make being centered around him, not what’s best for the Port Mafia and that will lead to its inevitable ruin. 

“No, Osamu’s right,” you say, and Dazai preens at the praise, but then quickly deflates again. You want to reach out for him, but you refrain. “Not a merger. An acquisition. The Three Deaths and the Sun and Steel are already pretty much extensions of the Port Mafia, we would only be formalizing it. I trust Tolstoy and Mishima—I pretty much built the Three Deaths into what it is today myself. We’d give the Port Mafia an official foothold in Russia, more sway over everything that happens in Tokyo. It’s a good plan. Great one, even.”

“Will they even agree to it?” Chuuya asks doubtfully. “Go from being fully autonomous to answering to us.”

“They pretty much already do just answer to us,” Albatross mutters.

“They’ll agree to it,” you tell him quietly. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Tolstoy won’t be hard to convince. He, Chekhov and Gorky are all good friends of yours, you helped them build the Three Deaths, you helped them win territory battles against the Pale Flame and the Red Chamber. All it would take a few words of convincing for them to agree to it. Mishima might be more difficult, but all you have to do is convince his daughters, and they hang off your every word.

There might be some dissent from the Sun and Steel executives, but even then, you think it would be minimal at worst. It’s a good plan. Having Tolstoy and Mishima sitting at the executive table would lend you some much needed support during the transition, and with the Port Mafia subsuming the Three Deaths and the Sun and Steel, it would provide a major deterrence against any foreign movements from Cao Xueqin or Yi Sang.

“What about Hirotsu and the Black Lizards?” Akutagawa asks, shifting awkwardly when all eyes turn to him. He doesn’t meet anyone’s eyes, and you know it’s because he actually cares about what your answer might be. Akutagawa likes to pretend that he doesn’t care about anyone, but you know he has a soft spot for the unit that took Gin in so easily.

“We can’t afford to lose the Black Lizards,” Iceman notes as he lights another cigarette. “Especially if we’re bringing in other organizations. We don't want our own people to feel like they’re being lost in the mix, y’know?”

“I’ll handle Hirotsu,” you finally say. “It’ll be fine. I just need to figure out how to frame this. Needs to be framed in a way that makes him feel like this was the best, and only, course of action for the Mafia. He’s loyal to Mori only to the extent that he’s good for the Port Mafia. I’ll figure it out. Leave that to me.”

“Ace’s subordinates?” Albatross prompts. “They been handled? We can’t have them knowing about him. Can’t have anyone knowing about him.”

“Dead,” Akutagawa says. “I killed them.”

“Security cameras? CCTV? Any record of this kid being affiliated with us?” 

“Wiped,” Klaus answers flippantly. “We’ve gone through it every day since they met. Weren’t allowed to sleep ‘til made sure everything from the day was wiped. There’s no physical record of him ever being around us.”

“Okay, so we get this settled, and then we wait on Repin for the rest of us, right?” Albatross asks. Dazai cringes at the mention of Repin, and you look away from him, unable to watch the pain that crosses his face.

“Yeah,” you say quietly. “It all needs to happen within no more than a couple days otherwise we risk the wrong people finding out so…”

“So we should get started,” Chuuya sighs, pushing himself off the wall. He squeezes your wrist as he passes by you, walking in the direction of the door. “We’ll give you guys some time. I’ll let you know how things go with Ane-san.”

You nod, eyes following him as he leaves. The others follow, filing out of the room until it’s only you and Dazai left again. You turn to look at him, so many words on your lips but incapable of pushing a single one out. Instead, you reach out to cup his face between your hands, running your thumbs across his cheekbones. His lashes flutter shut as he leans into your touch.

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” he whispers, brown eyes heavy and glassy as he looks down at you. “We can figure something else out. I know we can. Just give me some time, I just need a little time, I’ll figure something out.”

“We don’t have time,” you say, voice cracking over the words. “I love you, Osamu.”

Dazai pulls away, shaking his head. He wipes quickly at his eyes before looking at you again. You expect what he says, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

“I won’t forgive you. Not for this. Not ever. I can’t.”

“I know.”

--

SIX WEEKS LATER

“I must say, I wasn’t expecting this invitation,” a familiar voice hums as the door to your box opens. You don’t turn to look at him, keeping your gaze trained down on the performance taking place below. “Not from you, and not after everything that’s happened.”

“No?” you ask absently. “It’s unlike you to not expect something, Dostoevsky. Less like you to admit it.”

“Fyodor,” he corrects as he comes to stand next to you. He’s close enough to you that you can feel his body brushing yours. You finally turn your head to look at him—his lips are curved up into a deceptively soft smile, violet eyes glittering with a type of mischief that you know is dangerous. “We are well enough acquainted to be on a first name basis, no?” 

“Dostoevsky,” you repeat pointedly, looking back down at the show as the first act reaches its climax. Of all of the shows you’ve seen, Tosca is still your favorite. This rendition here at the New National Theatre isn’t quite as good as the one at La Scala, but you’re enjoying it well enough.

Dostoevsky lets out a huff of laughter, you don’t turn to look at him when you feel him reach out to touch you. His fingers trace along the maroon scarf hanging loosely over your shoulders. You barely withhold a shiver when you feel his knuckles skim your neck—rumor has it, skin-on-skin contact alone with Dostoevsky is enough to kill. You don’t die, but it’s enough to beckon your attention back to him.

“Red is your color,” he murmurs, looking down at you through his lashes. “You look beautiful.”

“It isn’t yours,” you reply quickly, glancing down at the red tie tied neatly around his neck. “Neither is flattery.”

Dostoevsky does laugh this time—it’s soft and short, pretty like a bell. Unbefitting of him, just like the color red and false flattery. 

“It isn’t?” he asks, keeping his voice deceptively playful. “I wore it for you. Since you invited me, I thought it appropriate that we match. I heard of your success in Yokohama. I should congratulate you on your new promotion. Or perhaps extend my condolences for the death of your father? Are condolences still proper when you were the one to drive the knife into his back?”

It’s a dig, an attempt to get under your skin and throw you off before getting into the meat of the conversation. You can feel his eyes on you, the soft playfulness gone and replaced by a sharpness that has you on edge.

“You said it yourself. One life or thousands.”

“It was a bullet to the head,” you correct idly—the words taste like poison on your tongue, but you’re careful to not let it show on your face. “Condolences are unnecessary. He was not my father.”

“It’s okay, dear, this was how it was always meant to be.”

“Hm,” Dostoevsky hums, amused. “I was quite pleased when I found out about the coup. I wasn’t expecting it.”

He wants to add something else but he decides against it. He’s very calculating with his words, he always has been, but he is especially now. You know that each word he speaks is chosen for a specific purpose, and it’s hard, even for you, to break down each one as he speaks it to understand why he says it so you can choose your own words carefully in return. Fyodor Dostoevsky is the only man capable of consistently beating you in exchanges of words, and that is concerning. 

It’s why you invited him here—you need an idea of what he’s planning while you solidify your newfound position.

“It seems you struggle to expect many things I do,” you note. “I should add it to my resume. I doubt many people are capable of repeatedly surprising Fyodor Dostoevsky.”

“It is true,” he agrees with an airy laugh. “You are a… difficult opponent. I will admit it.”

 “Is that so?”

Dostoevsky makes a soft noise of agreement, lashes fluttering as he glances over at you once before he looks back down at the show taking place down on the stage. 

“You are not guided strictly by logic,” he muses. “It's there, of course, you are very intelligent but it’s laced with so many emotions. It is difficult for me to determine your course of action because I can never predict when you will lead with emotion, and when with logic. And even then, there are grades to it. I could account for dozens of plans of action and miss the one you take because you are just a bit less emotional than I anticipated… I did not predict that you would go for Zelda Fitzgerald, it was quite bold—there was a high risk for failure. You make things… much more interesting. I enjoy it.”

“You would find something like that enjoyable,” you say sarcastically, taking a sip of your champagne. “There is something seriously wrong with you, Dostoevsky.”

“Fyodor,” he corrects again with a light smile. 

“Dostoevsky.”

“Heh,” he laughs quietly. “I will… wait for things to settle before making another move here in Yokohama. I’m curious to see how all of the chips fall on their own. You’re in for quite the storm with that bill that just passed through the Diet, aren’t you?”

You don’t respond. You got the answer you needed, so there’s no reason for you to keep entertaining his snide comments; you’ll just watch the show in peace. You’ll have the bit of time you need to get things settled before Dostoevsky makes his next play. Though the man is a compulsive liar and you have no reason to trust him, Dostoevsky has never lied so blatantly to your face, so you’ll take him at his word until you have reason to believe otherwise. 

Dostoevsky takes your silence as an opportunity to continue talking, naturally.

“I did have a question for though,” he says, a bit too thrilled by the prospect of your answer. You don’t like the way his eyes are lit up, and you especially don’t like the smile on his lips. “Entertain me?”

You raise your eyebrows pointedly, waiting for him to ask it. 

“I heard rumors that the reason behind your sudden decision to overthrow your father was more… intimate than most believe,” Dostoevsky murmurs, leaning like he’s sharing in some schoolgirl gossip with an old friend. Your brows furrow as you process his words. “You must tell me what boy has managed to steal your heart. He must be something special. Not even I was capable of that, I’m almost jealous.”

You look at him now, gaze sharp but confused as your eyes trail over him before focusing back on his face. He seems surprised by your reaction, tilting his head to the side and studying you carefully.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

--

to be continued in ... the land is inhospitable (but are we?) [est. release: early feb]

--

WOWWWWWW GUYS WE FUCKING FINISHED CIVZAI .... or well, ;) civzai1. some notes:

i promised a happy ending, i know ... but i promised it for civzai in general, and they DO have a happy ending ... just not yet. pls dont bully me ill cry i'm so proud of this. i didn't lie.

i always intended on there being two parts to this series because i feel like time apart is essential in the pmreader universe. when dazai defected in canon universe, and now with her taking over as boss and wiping her memories of him. the first part was always gonna be the guild arc, the second arc is gonna be my rendition of the hunting dogs and the decay of the angel

this is the ONLY universe where pmreader becomes port mafia boss ;) i actually had it noted that there was only one universe on the background page in wykyk once i started writing wasteland, baby but no one caught it ;) i was wondering if anyone would put two and two together

i actually went back and retconned chapter 1 to have them talking about the divine comedy instead of petrarch because of the first scene in this chapter. i thought it would be neat coming full circle with the themes of betrayal and death, + the hozier song this chapter is based on is about the 9th circle in the divine comedy. so everything just tied together too neatly for me to not add it.

;) just remember now with repin involved, reader's narration is now entirely unreliable. we don't know what's truth and manufactured by repin.

i was actually really tempted to base civzai2 off of a mother mother album just because hayloft II fits what's going to be the first half of it SO fucking well, but i had to go with mitski because the whole album literally captures the vibes of the second series perfectly

[levisjinchuriki]

truly, madly, deeply - toji fushiguro

summary: since you left him, toji has been indulging in nothing but bad habits. he makes an impulsive decision stumbling home from the bar one night

warning: post-breakup angst, mentions of heavy drinking, depression, being numb, a whole lot of angst

it’s late—too late for toji to still be out. the bar is nearly empty, quiet except for the scraping sound of chairs as the staff begins their nightly routine of wiping tables and stacking stools. the bartender shoots toji an unimpressed glance as he sets down another glass of whiskey in front of him, grumbling about closing tabs soon. toji doesn’t argue, just wraps his calloused fingers around the glass and lets the amber liquid burn as it slides down his throat. it’s painful, but the familiar sting is something he’s come to crave recently. as much as it hurts, he tries to savor the taste before throwing some cash on the table and heading out.

it’s the kind of quiet that makes the weight in his chest feel unbearable, pressing harder against ribs that have long since forgotten what it’s like to feel light. 

he stumbles out of the bar, unsteady on his feet, muttering curses under his breath as he fumbles for his phone in his coat pocket. outside, the cold bites at his skin, the damp air clinging to him as the rain had never truly stopped. 

the screen glows dimly, the battery dangerously low, but it’s enough to illuminate the list of names he hasn’t touched in weeks. his thumb hovers over the screen, scrolling sluggishly past contacts that don’t matter. then he sees your name. and time stands still. 

for a long moment, all he can do is stare. his thumb trembles, hesitating, like his drunk mind is at war with itself. there’s a part of him that knows better, that knows he should put the phone back in his pocket and walk away. but the other part—the louder, more desperate part—wins. his thumb moves, and the call begins to ring.

once. twice. three times.

toji squeezes his eyes shut, already regretting his actions. he’s not your problem anymore. he lost the right to call you, to hear your voice, to ask for comfort. and yet, here he is, a fool hoping for a miracle at a time when no one should be awake.

“toji?”

he freezes. he hasn’t heard your voice in… how long has it been? the days have blurred together into a haze of alcohol and sleepless nights since you left. he grips the phone tighter, his throat suddenly dry.

“hey” he drawls. there’s a pause on your end. he cringes when he hears a muffled yawn from you. 

“it’s late. are you okay?”. your voice is soft, groggy from the sleep he undoubtedly pulled you from. his heart breaks at the sound of it. 

“yeah. -m fine. jus’….” he slurs. 

“toji… are you drunk?” your voice, laced with concern, strikes a nerve. you sound just as worried as it always did when it came to him, a tone he doesn’t think he deserves anymore. you’ve seen these parts of him before—the ones he hides from the world but somehow always let slip in front of you. 

“nah” he lies. “just a little… tipsy”. his feet shuffle clumsily against the wet pavement as he stumbles down the block. he feels everything and nothing all at once—silly, hopeless, in love, and heartbroken. 

“toji–” your voice is soft but unmistakably disappointed. it’s a tone he’s heard before, one that digs under his ski. he knows that sound. it’s the same one you used to have when he broke promises, when he let you down, when he let himself down.

there are countless reasons why you and toji aren’t together anymore—reasons that keep replaying in his mind whenever he has too much to drink. but none of those reasons stop you from caring about him, even now. and that makes it worse somehow.

“listen…” his voice drops lower, thick with the slur of alcohol. “i know it’s late. s’probably real stupid to call, huh?”. he laughs, but it’s half-hearted, a dry, almost painful sound.

your silence is heavy and suffocating. toji knows you’re probably shaking your head right now, caught between concern and frustration. he can picture it so clearly—how you’re probably biting your lip, wanting to say something but holding back. it almost makes him smile.

as the silence stretches, the sound of heavy rainfall in the background fills the space, a constant, rhythmic sound that matches the beat of his tired, aching heart.

“where are you?” you ask, your voice barely audible above the rain.

he blinks, his mind swimming in a fog that doesn’t seem to clear. he’s disoriented for a second, now realizing that he’s walked in the wrong direction. “why?” he mumbles, a slight frown tugging at his lips.

“because i’m coming to get you” you reply, your tone gentle but firm. “you shouldn’t be out alone”. toji closes his eyes for a moment, your words sinking in, a warmth creeping through his chest despite the alcohol and the cold rain. he hears the shuffle of movement on your end of the line, and he can almost see it—the way you’re probably slipping into those ridiculous bunny slippers he always teased you about. 

a small, tired smile threatens to break through as leans back against a lamppost. “don’t bother” he mutters, the words slipping out before he can stop them. “i’m fine”. another lie, but he doesn’t expect you to believe it.

“tell me where you are” you demand. he’ll take your tone over no contact with you any day. 

“always so good. so… responsible” he mutters, the words slurring as his mind drifts. “you don’t gotta save me, y’know? i’m fine. always fine” he drags out.

“toji, tell me where you are” your voice is stern. it’s the same tone you used when he was in trouble, the same one you’d use when he messed up, the same one you used when you finally told him you were done.

he slumps against the cold, damp wall of the nearest building, his phone clutched tightly in his hand. he mutters the name of the street, barely audible, his words jumbled and ragged.

“i’m on my way” you tell him. there’s a brief pause before you add, “stay there”. for once, he listens. toji just stands there– drunk, stupid, soaked and numb to the rain as it continues to hit him. 

he doesn’t know how long it takes before your car finally pulls up. the headlights shine bright, momentarily blinding him. he blinks a few times and there you are—stepping out of the car, pulling a coat around yourself and wondering how he’s been out here this long. you look at him, and for a split second, toji sees everything he’s been trying to drown out. disappointment flickers behind your eyes, sharp and painful. but there’s something else there too—worry. 

“toji…” you sigh, a sound filled with exhaustion. he feels it in his chest like a punch. he’s happy to see you, but upset that you’re out here in the storm, chasing after him like this.

“you didn’t have to come” he mutters, but even as he says it, he stands up straighter—forcing himself to make the effort, even if it’s not convincing. his legs feel heavy, like they’re made of lead, but he tries to pull himself together. he doesn’t want you to see how much he’s been drowning.

your gaze doesn’t miss anything. he’s drenched, soaked to the bone, his clothes clinging to him, but worse than that—he’s drunk. and sad. more sad than he’s let on, even to himself. he knows it. you know it. it’s clear to you both that he hasn’t been taking care of himself—not in the way you always hoped he would.

“get in the car” you say, the command simple but firm. your voice is steady, unaffected by the storm, and it somehow cuts through the haze of his thoughts.

he doesn’t argue. not with you. not when you’re looking at him like that, not when he knows you’re right, and you’ve always been right about him.

---

the drive is quiet at first. the only sound is the soft hum of the heat, keeping toji from succumbing to hypothermia, and the rain as it taps steadily against the windshield. toji sits slouched in the passenger seat, arms crossed tightly over his chest, his eyes half-lidded as he stares out the window. his gaze is distant, unfocused—lost in the mess of his own thoughts.

“you shouldn’t drink like this,” you say, breaking the silence. your voice is soft but firm. “it’s dangerous.”

toji doesn’t respond immediately. you can see the way his jaw tightens, his shoulders stiffen just slightly. he’s a big guy, tough, but even toji has his limits. he might not show it, but you know how close he is to the edge. and tonight, it’s clear that he’s just a few drinks away from being completely inebriated.

“don’t start with me” he mutters, his voice rough with frustration. you’ve heard that tone before—the one he gets when he’s pushed, when he knows he’s in the wrong but doesn’t want to hear it.

you sigh quietly to yourself, knowing exactly where this conversation is going. you’d always had a habit of acting like his mother, trying to take care of him, trying to get him to listen to reason. it’s inevitable, really—toji always acted like a child in so many ways, and you, stubborn as you are, always fell into the role of the one who tried to save him.

“how many times have i—” you begin, but he cuts you off before you can finish.

“i know!” he snaps, his voice sharper than he means it to be. “i know, alright?”

the words hang in the air between you, heavy with the tension that always lingers when the two of you argue. you’re quiet for a moment, the only sound now the swish of the windshield wipers fighting against the rain.

you grip the steering wheel a little tighter, steadying yourself. the urge to push, to argue further, is strong, but you know better than to start that fight now. the last thing he needs is more words thrown at him, more of your frustration tangled up in his guilt.

right now isn’t the time to argue.

"then why?" you ask quietly, your voice barely rising above the sound of rain hitting the car.

toji presses his head back against the seat and lets out a humorless laugh. “why not?” he replies, his words slurred but sharp enough to sting.

you furrow your brows. he’s being difficult, like always—pushing you away with his deflection, his refusal to take anything seriously. “that’s not an answer” you say, glancing at him briefly before returning your eyes to the road.

toji turns his head to look at you then, his expression unreadable in the dim light of the car. the streetlights outside streak shadows across his face, highlighting the dark circles under his eyes, the weariness etched into his features. he looks tired—not just from tonight, but from everything.

“i don’t owe you an answer” he says after a moment, his voice quieter now.

it’s true. he doesn’t owe you anything, not after everything. not after the way you left, after the way you shattered him. you feel a pang of guilt in your chest, sharp and unforgiving, but you push it down.

“i’d still like to know” you admit, your voice softer now, almost hesitant.

he doesn’t respond right away. instead, he turns his gaze back to the window, watching the rain streak down the glass. the silence stretches between you again, heavy and unyielding, but you don’t press him further. you’ve learned by now that toji won’t be pushed into answers he’s not ready to give.

the road ahead blurs slightly through the rain, and for a moment, you wonder if you’ll ever be able to bridge the distance between the two of you.

he scoffs, turning his gaze back to the window. “what’s the point?”. it’s not a question meant for you—it’s one he’s been asking himself for a while now. you chew on your bottom lip, trying to think of what to say next, though you’re not sure anything will make a difference.

“you don’t always have to carry everything by yourself” you finally sigh.

toji snorts, a bitter sound that cuts through the tension. “yeah? and who’s gonna help me? you?”

the sharpness in his tone catches you off guard, and you flinch despite yourself. his words hit harder than they should, not because they’re unfair, but because they’re true. you left. you made the choice to walk away, and now you’re here, pretending you can fix something that might never be fixable.

he notices. if there’s one thing toji’s always been good at, it’s noticing things, even when he’s drunk and falling apart. he exhales heavily, rubbing a hand over his face. “sorry” he mutters, his voice quieter now. “i didn’t mean that”.

you know he didn’t. toji’s harsh words were never the ones that hurt the most—it’s the truth buried in them that stings.

“it’s fine” you reply quietly, your gaze fixed on the road ahead. but it’s not fine, and you both know it.

neither of you says anything for the rest of the drive. the rain continues to tap against the windshield as the distance between you grows wider.

---

toji doesn’t move after you park your car. he just sits there, staring blankly at the dashboard like it holds answers to questions he’ll never ask. his shoulders are slumped, his jaw tight. even with the alcohol dulling his senses, his thoughts refuse to let him rest.

“you wanna go inside?” you turn to look at him, suppressing the urge to reach over.

he blinks, the question pulling him back to the present. “yeah” he mutters, but his body remains rooted to the seat.

you don’t rush him. moments like these are rare—when toji lets you see him vulnerable. it’s heartbreaking, and it makes you ache in ways you thought you’d forgotten.

instead of pressing him, you wait. he’s always been a man who needs time to gather himself. and tonight, for whatever reason, he’s letting you stay long enough to witness it.

eventually, he exhales, a slow, shaky breath that seems to release some of the tension coiled in his chest.

finally, toji looks at you. really looks at you. his eyes are glassy, the alcohol making them more vulnerable than you’ve seen in a long time.

“you’re too good for this” he says, his voice heavy with sadness. it’s not just the words that hit you—it’s the way he says them, like he’s admitting something he’s been too scared to face. for the first time, toji acknowledges there’s something wrong with him. that something is his fault.

“for what?” you ask, your voice barely above a whisper.

“for me” he says almost defeated. “i’m no good. i’m just… this” he gestures vaguely at himself, his hand falling back to his side as if the effort of even that small movement is too much.

it’s clear in the way he’s looking at you that he means it. that he’s thought about this, felt it deep in his bones. you’re not sure if he’d ever admit it sober, but tonight, it’s out there in the open.

you don’t know what to say to that. words feel inadequate, like they’ll only make things worse. 

“you should get some rest” you whisper instead. “it’s late”.

toji releases a breath, his gaze shifting to your apartment building. he’s been here countless times before. but it’s different now. where he used to feel at home, he suddenly feels like a stranger. 

“okay”. his footsteps echo softly behind you.

when he walks in, all the memories come rushing back. the faint scent of the candle you always light fills his nose. the throw blanket draped over the couch is in the same place it’s always been. even the little details—the spaces in your home where you’d made room for him—are still there. his boots still sit by the door, his favorite mug in the cabinet, the sweatshirt he thought he’d lost folded neatly.

you lead him to your room without a word, offering him a towel and setting a pair of dry clothes on the bed. they’re his– clothes he left behind when things fell apart. you didn’t have the heart to throw them out, and he didn’t have the heart to come back for them.

“you’ll get sick” you mutter, setting a black shirt and grey sweats on the bathroom sink before turning to leave. you always fussed over him like this—still do, even now. toji doesn’t know what to do with the tight ache in his chest. he wants to cry.

by the time he emerges from the bathroom, freshly showered and dressed in warm clothes, he hears the hum of the dryer from the hallway. of course, you’d snuck in while he was washing up to scoop his sopping clothes off the floor.

in your room, you’re finishing fixing the bed, smoothing the sheets and adding extra pillows—just the way he likes. it doesn’t escape him, the way you still remember these small details.

“i can take the couch” he says, his voice low and reluctant.

you shake your head, dismissing the offer as you grab a pillow and blanket for yourself. “sleep” you say firmly, leaving no room for argument.

he hesitates for a moment, but the exhaustion weighing on him makes it hard to fight back. his body aches for rest, and though a part of him wants to address the unspoken words that hang heavy between you, he knows it’s not the time. 

“we’ll talk later” you whisper as you step toward the door, your hand brushing the light switch.

toji watches you for a moment, standing there in the dim glow of the hallway. his throat tightens, and he wants to say something—anything—but no words come out. instead, he nods silently as you turn off the light and leave him alone in the room.

“thanks” he murmurs, his voice so quiet it’s almost lost in the stillness of the room. but you hear it.

toji lies awake in the bed you once shared, staring at the ceiling. the familiarity of it all threatens to undo him—the soft sheets, the faint scent of you lingering on the pillow. it’s overwhelming. 

he wonders, not for the first time, how someone like you ever loved him. the thought twists in his chest, sharp with regret. he thinks about how things ended, how he pushed you away, and yet here you are—offering him kindness he doesn’t deserve.

the bed feels empty without you beside him, but as his heavy eyelids finally close, he clings to the comfort of your lingering presence. it’s enough, for now, to ease the ache as he drifts off to sleep.

---

to be continued... thank you for reading!!!

part 2

[sinofwriting]

Karma - Charles Leclerc

Words: 1,396 Summary: Charles and her had plans. 2025 would start with her fully moving in with him and then at the Monaco Grand Prix, they’d become public. A certain rapper ruins that in Vegas. Note(s): Lamar!Reader, Reader has the nickname ‘Butterfly’, slight smau, changed results of Abu Dhabi, also yes the title is referring to the Taylor Swift song, lol. Thank you @burningcupcakefire for encouraging me to write this when I mentioned the idea!!!

Masterlist | Support Me!

Charles could privately admit that when all the diss tracks started to come out, he more than paid attention to them. He had always appreciated Kendrick’s music but in the past year had gained a new perspective of him as both an artist and a person. All because he had started seeing the artist’s younger sister.

They hadn’t gone public yet, were still unsure of when they wanted to. He had reservations about putting more eyes on her and considering how his fans, how motorsport fans were, he could only imagine the baseless claims they’d made, the attacks they’d lay at her feet and Y/N, or Butterfly as she had been nicknamed by her brother’s fans, a nickname that had quickly caught to everyone in her life, had her own reasons.

She didn’t care about what fans would say, they were behind a keyboard, she could be perfect, and to Charles she was, and they would still find something to pick at, there was no winning. It was the attention he brought. She was already sometimes followed around by paparazzi just because of her brother, she knew that as soon as the news broke, she really would never be able to get her groceries in peace without some divorced thirty-year-old shouting questions as he took photos of her.

So they both had agreed that after the new year, when she was finally fully living with him in Monaco, and then at the Monaco Grand Prix, they would reveal their relationship, that of course didn’t go to plan because of one Instagram story.

—

—

Butterfly is fuming when he gets back to his hotel room, the curtains drawn back and letting the lights of Vegas spill into it, onto her. She’s nearly as stunning here as she is on his balcony in Monaco that faces the coast. A gorgeous backdrop that can’t even come close to her beauty no matter how much it tries.

Her fury makes arousal simmer in the pit of his stomach and his lips twitch upwards when she leans into the kiss he presses to the corner of her lips.

“You're nearly as mad as when he mentioned Whitney.”

She scowls at the verbal reminder of that shit. “He’s lucky I’m a civil adult.”

“Very civil.” Charles agrees.

“I mean, honestly what the fuck does he think he’s doing. Acting like he got an interest in F1.”

Charles listens as she starts to rant, having clearly waited for him, and he listens as undresses. Gathering his clothes up as her voice increases in volume and he gently tugs her with him into the bathroom, turning on the shower before easily lifting her onto the bathroom counter, her hands pausing their gesturing to run over his arms in thanks before she continues.

She rants through his brief shower, nearly slipping when she begins to read out texts between her and her brother.

“He is pissed?” His voice is nearly high, head poking out of the shower to look at her with wide eyes.

Butterfly looks at him in confusion, head cocked to the side. “Baby, of course. Your family. We don’t stand for shit like this against family.”

Charles can’t even point out that said shit is just an insta story of Drake saying he’s betting on him to win the grand prix, because he knows it feels deeper than that, especially with Drake’s history of betting. His mind is far too focused on the word family.

“I’m family?”

She lets out a laugh, tongue running over her teeth. “Baby, you got with me right before one of the worst times for our family and stuck through it. You never had to prove yourself, but that did it. You're stuck with all of us now.”

He feels warm all over at the words and he ducks his back into the shower, quickly rinsing off before climbing out, barely remembering to put a towel around his waist before capturing her lips in a kiss.

Her hands eagerly run over his back, legs opening to pull him closer and he tries to keep his upper body away from her, not wanting to get her shirt wet, but she pulls him closer and he can’t resist her, has never been able to.

“You’ve made me all wet.” She teases when they break apart.

He tries to apologize, but then she’s taking his hand and pressing it between them, against her leggings, and the feeling of wetness pulls a moan from the back of his throat.

“You are very lucky that I don’t listen to Andrea.”

“Very lucky.” She agrees.

—

“K said you had an idea.”

Charles lets out a hum, fingers trailing over her ribs.

“He wouldn’t tell me what.”

His fingers pause. “I was thinking instead of staying in Vegas tomorrow we go and see him.”

“We leave for Qatar on Monday.”

“We can make it back to Vegas in time for our flight. It’s barely a two-hour flight from there to here.”

This time she hums.

“Can we go public?”

He nearly chokes. “What?”

“Public, I want to go public. We had kind of talked about doing it before Monaco next season, but things have changed a bit.”

“Because I’m family.”

She laughs, “Yeah, baby, because your family.”

“What if we do a uh soft launch?”

“A soft launch?”

“Yeah, I’ll take a picture with your brother for my insta stories, start following you, you follow me back.” Excitement starts to build as he speaks.

“I post a little something about being in Qatar.”

“We do a little date night in Abu Dhabi.”

She hums, “You kiss me after you win Abu Dhabi.”

“You think I’m going to win?”

“Fuck yeah, baby. First Ferrari driver to win there and you’ll overtake Norris in the standings and maybe Ferrari will finish P2 in the constructors.”

“I like this plan.”

She smiles. “I like it too.”

—

—

—

—

“Yes Charles!”

“Yes!” He screams over the radio. “Where did Carlos finish? Where did Norris, Oscar?” He wants to celebrate the win, but the constructors and drivers are far more important.

“Carlos P6, Norris P3, Oscar P10. You are second in the drivers. And we are second in constructors, 2 points between you and Norris, four points between us and McLaren.”

“Fuck.” The excitement in him is simmered with resentment. Four points was all it came down to and of course it wasn’t in their favor.

“Charles, Charles,” Fred’s voice is thick over the radio. “You did fantastic, another win for you and an amazing drive!”

He smiles, taking his hands off to wave at fans as he slowly moves around the track. Italian easily spilling from his lips as he thanks Fred, Bryan, the mechanics, engineers and the whole team.

It’s satisfying to pull his car to the number one spot as Lando takes off his helmet, jaw twitching. Charles wants to shake him because how can he be this focused on second in the drivers when him and his team won the constructors. He stares at him for a second before getting out of the car and throwing himself into his teams arms.

They easily catch him, hands patting all over, his name spilling off lips over and over again. They grip him tighter before letting him go to take off his helmet and balaclava.

The air is refreshing against his face and normally he's taking a drink of water, starting to put back on jewelry, but today he’s searching through the crowd of red, heart thumping when he finally notices her.

She’s to the side, beaming at him as Bryan stands on her left while his mom and brothers stand to her right. And he goes to her.

His hands easily going to her face, holding it gently before kissing her.

She’s mumbling something against his lips and he wants to know what, but he can’t stop kissing her. Not when she’s clutching at his arms, pressing closer to him. But a nudge to the ribs makes him pull away, breathless, and his tongue runs over his swollen lips.

“So proud of you, baby! So fucking proud!” She yells at him as he’s pulled away for a post race interview and he can’t help but blow her a kiss, happy to have won in front of her for the first time and in front of his family again.

[daisymbin]

Ok so this might be very suggestive but imagine getting on the bus with hansol after a casual coffee date and the bus is crowded so you're standing in the standing area and he's standing facing u, kinda Like shielding u frm the crowd or smth & u r sharing earpods (🎵: double take ~ dhruv) & he's staring out of the window & you're staring at him and you randomly say 15. "you’re my favorite person, you know that?" Cuz u just realise u might still hv a crush on ur long term boyfriend

(This is my 5th ask pls bear with me i just love u too much)

Also I can get this look of his out of my mind

!!!! thank you for coming back!!!! i chose another song as requested!!! 🥲🤍

full prompt list!

check out my masterlist! // hansol's m.list

the bus was packed, the kind of crowded where personal space became a luxury, and you found yourself standing shoulder to shoulder with strangers. it wasn’t unusual, but today it felt different. maybe it was the warmth of the coffee date still lingering between you and hansol, or maybe it was the way he looked so effortlessly himself, casual and calm, as if the chaos of the world couldn’t touch him.

he stood beside you, one hand gripping the railing above while the other tugged at his earphones. he handed you one without a word, the gesture so familiar it made your heart ache in the best way.

“thanks,” you mumbled, slipping the earbud in.

“you don’t even know what song it is yet,” he teased, his lips twitching into a small smile.

“doesn’t matter. your playlists are always good.”

the faint intro of be your everything by boys like girls filled your ears. you bit back a smile at the song choice, wondering if he’d put it on for you or if it was just a coincidence. hansol didn’t say anything else, just turned to look out the window, his profile bathed in the soft, golden light of late afternoon.

you shifted slightly as the bus jolted forward, trying to steady yourself against the sway of the vehicle. the standing area was cramped, people pressed too close for comfort. and then it happened—a sharp stop at a red light sent someone stumbling into you, their shoulder colliding with yours.

you stumbled forward, a soft gasp escaping your lips as you tried to regain your balance. hansol’s arm shot out instinctively, his hand catching your elbow and steadying you before you could fall.

“you okay?” he asked, his voice low, filled with concern.

“yeah,” you breathed, your heart pounding for reasons that had nothing to do with the near fall.

he frowned slightly, his hand lingering on your arm for a moment longer before he shifted, stepping in front of you. “here, stand like this,” he said, positioning himself between you and the crowd. his arm stretched out to hold the railing above your head, shielding you from the jostling around you.

you blinked up at him, surprised by the sudden closeness. “hansol, you don’t have to—”

“just in case,” he interrupted, his gaze flickering to yours briefly before returning to the window. “i don’t want you getting bumped into again.”

the way he said it, so matter-of-fact and protective, made your chest tighten.

the song played on, and you found yourself more focused on him than the music. his eyes were distant, watching the buildings pass by, his expression soft and almost thoughtful. you’d known him for so long, but moments like this still caught you off guard—the quiet way he cared, the little things he did without needing to be asked.

as the chorus swelled, you caught a lyric that made your breath hitch: “i’ll be your shelter, i’ll be your storm. i’ll make you shiver, i’ll keep you warm.”

something about those words hit you differently. they reminded you of everything hansol had been to you, everything he still was. he wasn’t just your boyfriend—he was your safe place, your calm in the chaos. and in that moment, staring at him as the music played on, you realized something.

you still had a crush on him. after all this time, after all the little moments and big ones, after he’d already become yours, the feeling hadn’t faded. it had only grown, deeper and stronger, filling every corner of your heart.

the words were out before you could think. “you’re my favorite person, you know that?”

hansol froze, his eyes flicking to yours, wide and disbelieving. “what?”

you felt the heat rise to your cheeks, but there was no taking it back now. “i said you’re my favorite person.”

his lips parted slightly, and for a moment, he just stared at you. then, slowly, a shy smile spread across his face, the kind that made your heart do flips. “me?”

you rolled your eyes, trying to play it off despite the fluttering in your chest. “obviously.”

he blinked a few times, his cheeks flushing a soft pink as he turned back to the window, suddenly unable to meet your gaze. “oh.”

you laughed softly at his reaction. “that’s all you have to say? ‘oh’?”

he rubbed the back of his neck, a sheepish grin tugging at his lips. “you caught me off guard. i don’t really know what to say.”

“you don’t have to say anything,” you said, your voice quieter now, more sincere. “i just… wanted you to know.”

hansol finally looked at you, his eyes warm and filled with something you couldn’t quite name. “well, for the record,” he said softly, “you’re my favorite person too.”

the bus jolted again, but this time, you barely noticed. your hand brushed against his where it rested on the railing, and instead of pulling away, he let his pinky hook around yours, the small gesture sending a wave of warmth through you.

and as hansol glanced at you again, his lips twitching into a smile that was just for you, you knew one thing for sure—you’d never stop having a crush on him. not now, not ever.

the song faded into the next, but neither of you moved to change it. the bus ride continued, but the world outside felt like it had fallen away, leaving just the two of you in this small, crowded space.

[unpopularly-opinionated]

Almost every week, for the last maybe 2-2 1/2 years or so, I (27) have been going out to different bars with the same group of people, all of whom are at least twice my age or more and I honestly couldn’t recommend it more for younger people.

I mean to get the bad aspects out of the way upfront, I did (and sometimes still do) have a minor insecurity about being the “annoying child of someone in the group that everyone has to pretend to tolerate”. My stepdad is the one who initiated the hangouts originally, and I initially was just tagging along for free food and booze. No one’s ever done anything to make me feel that way mind you, they are always SUPER accommodating, almost too much sometimes. Sometimes they’ll straight up change topics if they’ve noticed I checked out because I wasn’t interested in what they were talking about. It’s just my own irrational insecurity that crops up from time to time. I also struggle sometimes with explaining this friendship to other people, often referring to them as “my stepdad’s friends” even though we’ve been out together so many times that I could and should very reasonably consider them my friends too. Again, this is a me thing, nothing against them.

We started out doing it with a purpose, we were doing bar trivia every week and having a blast. But over time, we grew kinda bored of the trivia, the format kinda changed, and it started pretty late into the evening, and we ultimately just realized that we actually were just cool hanging out and chatting without needing to have an excuse to be there.

But being the youngest among them, I just find them very interesting to talk to. They’re always talking about their jobs, the good, the bad, and the ugly of them all. Most of them are managers of several people, and they’re the type of managers who care more about their employees than the businesses, so I always feel like I’m hearing a fair assessment of whether an employee is being completely insane, or if the company is screwing them over somehow, or what not. And just how the working world works from their perspective. Not to mention how they got to where they’re at. One went to college and has a masters, one went to college but dropped out and taught himself to code, another just worked his way up from the bottom to the top (yes, they all work in the tech industry lol).

This isn’t even mentioning the fact that my grandfather is there with us as well, and he’s retired now but he had been an electrician for 60+ years prior, and being the oldest of our group, he has like a whole extra generation’s worth of experience to add to the mix too. It’s really great because it kind of adds that extra layer that makes me feel more comfortable in the group (like yeah, I’m the clueless youth compared to most of these guys, but they’re all youths to him too).

I can’t really explain it too well, but I feel like I just absorb life experience by hanging out with this group of people. It’s not all just work talk either, they talk about their personal hobbies, trips they’ve been on or are going on, their kids, food, alcohol, sports, politics, lots of politics, social media nonsense, etc. No one ever gets worked up over things, even when talking politics.

TL;DR: I recommend befriending people much older than yourself. It’s not creepy or weird, and you could learn a lot, even if you might not think so. Just sitting there and absorbing it all I think would benefit a lot of younger people.

I need you people to realize that you can be friends with people older than you. like, much older than you. like, decades older than you. you can be friends with these people. regular friends, just like anyone your age. it is possible.

[nightlyrequiem]

Valeria Garza X reader mutual masturbation 👀 maybe it turns into the reader and Valeria scissoring really hard with one another until they squirt idkkkk

Hiding behind anon because im a pussy LMAOAOAO (I am over the age of 18 though ^^ /gen)

You're so real for this, anon. (I'd also hide behind Anon, can't be caught lacking.)

I did some research for this one (Thank you twitter.) I've wrote smut before but there's only so much I can do when I've never experienced it myself #maidenlessloser

Hopefully that means the scissoring part was written well.

Tags/Warning: Pure Filthy Smut, Mutual Masturbation, Scissoring, Squirting, No Plot At All, LESBIAN SEX!!!!

Quid Pro Quo

'You owe me.' those were the words muttered after Valeria lent you money to pay off your debt to different loan sharks. You didn't ask her for the money and you're not sure how she knew about your debt. You were hesitant in accepting her money because then you're just in debt to her. The loan sharks were starting to get inpatient and that was a health hazard. You thought she'd ask you to pay her back or do a bunch of neck breaking tasks. That's not what she wanted.

"What?" You ask, wondering if you heard her right. She stares at you from under hooded eyes across from you. Leaning back in her chair with her legs spread.

"I said, I want you to touch yourself for me." She enunciates slowly, like she thinks you're stupid.

Your face heats. "Like masturbation?" You ask carefully.

Valeria rolls her eyes, ringed fingers tapping the wooden table impatiently. "Is there another way to interpret 'I want you to touch yourself for me' that I am not aware of?"

You sit stiffly with your hands politely folded in your lap.

"You want me to masturbate in front of you."

"Yes." She says with exasperation.

You furrow your brows at her, trying to come up with a reason as to why she'd want that. Your mind blanks. "Why?"

Valeria leans forward, eyes locked on yours. "Because I want you humiliated and leaking all over my desk."

Her words are brash and to the point. Sending heat across your face and to your lower regions.

"Right now?" You ask quietly. Looking around. The door behind you is closed but not locked. You picture yourself with your fingers deep inside of you, Valeria sitting there still as a statue, and someone barging in.

"Yes, now." Valeria says. "Take off your pants."

"... Will you kill me if I refuse?" You ask nervosuly.

Valeria's lips curl in disgust. "Killing someone for rejecting my advances is beneath me. I'll just have you fired."

That's not very ideal either but it does give you a choice. 

Do you really care about your job enough to degrade yourself like this? You let your eyes wander over her toned and tattooed forearms, over the swell of her chest under that gray tank top. She's an evil bitch. An evil bitch coercing you into doing a sexual favour for her. It feels erotic in nature, as much as you hate to feel that way. Were you not attracted to her you'd say no and look for another job. 

"Well?" Valeria raises a brow.

"Okay." You mutter reluctantly. Valeria's lips curl into a small smirk. She gestures for you to take a seat on her desk.

You hesitate before climbing up onto your knees and sitting. You wait for further instruction, but Valeria just stubbornly stares at you. You sigh and lean back, fumbling with your pants before sliding them off, not bothering to make it look nice. You're already giving her a show after all. You let them fall to the ground and begin to work on your underwear next.

"Slower." Valeria barks.

you swallow back an angry reply, slowing your movements. You peel your panties away from your body, embarrassed by the way they stick to your folds. You're surprised by how wet you already are. And a little ashamed.

You carefully set down your panties next you and spread your legs. Too aware of how visible you are. You feel a twinge of insecurity. You've had partners in the past, but not once have you been this exposed or scrutinized. You slowly trail your hand over your stomach. Slowly you push your fingers through your wet folds, gathering up slick onto your fingers. You prod around your entrance before rubbing circles around your clit.

Valeria makes no noise. Just sits there and watches. Honestly, her insulting you would make this experience less uncomfortable than her stony silence. You rub a little harder, hitting an angle that makes you arch your back with a gasp. Your fingers trail down once more, and you slip one inside of you experimentally. It slides in with ease and you slowly pump it inside of you.

Rusling fabric reaches your ears, and you tilt your head to see what it is. Just in time to watch Valeria discard her pants. You go still when you see her slip her hand beneath the elastic band of her panties. She meets your gaze with a scowl.

"I didn't say you could stop."

Quickly you resume. Valeria's heavy breathing sends heat through you, making your walls flutter with excitement. You moan a little louder, exaggerating it just a little for her. You buck against your own hand after adding a second finger. Sqeezing and pulling them deeper into your wetness.

Valeria matches your pace. Swiftly pounding into her cunt with her own fingers. Soaking her panties and the chair from the sight of you spread open on her desk. She can see the cloudy liquid of your arousal leaking around your fingers. Slowly dripping down onto the desk and collecting into a small puddle.

she curls her fingers, seeking that spot inside of her that makes her vision blur. Your moaning makes her inner walls pulse. Throbbing out with need. She stops, unable to take it anymore. Valeria wasn't planning on touching you, but she can't control herself. She stands and grabs you, forcing you onto your stomach. You blink in surprise, hand retreating from your pussy. She clumsily peels off her underwear and lifts one of your legs onto the desk, taking in the sight of your raw, puffy cunt.

Without hesitating she slots herself against you, sliding her folds into yours roughly. You gasp and whine, not complaining at all about the turn of events. This wasn't a part of the deal, but you don't care. Not while she's grinding into you and moaning in your ear. Her pace is fast and rough. Her hands grip onto your hips, aiding in her task. Your pussy throbs and weeps. Thick arousal leaking from you and dripping down your thigh, wetting her mound. she slams herself into you, grunting and panting. The loud slap of skin on skin almost drowns her out. Valeria reaches up and squeezes her breast painfully, adding to the stimulation. Something inside of you snaps. The pleasure and sensation becoming too much. You feel wetness rushing out of you. Each pulse sending more of it to the ground. You hear it audibly splash.

Valeria groans. Feeling it hit her legs. She trembles and sobs, feeling her own dam break. she doesn't stop or slow as she releases. Liquid squirts from her hole, soaking her legs and the floor, accumulates in her folds. she's left recklessly humping on you while the both of you cum. Making a mixed mess of arousal. Her legs shake and she finally falls still. Leaning on top of you, crushing you to the desk. Both you and Valeria can smell the aftermath. Covering your legs and the floor. Her warm breath hits your shoulder blade as the both of you catch your breath. She slowly pulls off you, the space between her thighs wet and slippery.

Your ass is left hanging off the desk, the consequences of your copulation running down your legs. She spreads you, watching your empty hole glisten and flutter.

"Consider your debt repaid." She says.

Your leg twitches. You're too fucked out to form a response. you think you may need to borrow money from her again sometime soon.

[shiny-jr]

Dear author, I’m so sorry that someone plagiarised your work especially since you work so hard on your stories 💔😞

We want to help the plagiarised book get taken down so can you please share the link?

If enough people report, the fanfiction site admins will finally listen and take down the plagiarised book, instead of the plagiarism claim being buried.

I hope this issue gets resolved quickly and I hope you have a better day.

UPDATE! Based on this and that and also this.

Thank you, anon. I appreciate your words, but as I stated in one of my previous posts, Wattpad reports are finicky. I believe at this point, we're at day thirteen of dealing with this plagiarizer and day four of it being public and yet despite it all, the plagiarizer has still yet to budge.

So, I thought I'd give another update and give the information we discovered in our findings. As to what we know is copied and from who. Keep in mind, one of these four copies stories has already been taken down and done with. I'll specify which in a moment.

Before I proceed, if you happen to be one of the original writers mentioned in this post and you want your portion removed from this post for whatever reason, let me know. I do not want to upset anyone, except the plagiarizer. At this point in time, I care little for their feelings on the matter when they've had plenty of time to make things right.

The plagiarizer: Kristynaka1

FIRST.

Obviously, the first story that was discovered was mine, with all the information linked in the posts at the very top. I was made aware of this by the inbox from a kind reader. Ever since then, I've been dealing with this plagiarizer.

My mutuals and I found it weird that somehow, the plagiarizer had relatively good grammar with few mistakes in the story. Yet every little note or message they sent, had many spelling mistakes and was sometimes difficult to read. It was inconsistent and strange, and we couldn't make sense of it until we had a theory which some readers in the comments here have already suggested. We theorize that the plagiarizer began to use AI.

Of course, we can't prove this but how else would a user who can't format and type proper messages be able to write whole paragraphs that are actually legible and understandable?

ChatGPT was available to the public sometime in 2022. Before 2022, many of their "stories" were copy and pastes from Tumblr. After 2022, there were differences in the copied stories that made it harder to find the original story and connect it to the original writer. Differences in writing that I doubt the plagiarizer wrote themselves if we go by their messages like:

So yeah. Onto the evidence.

SECOND.

After a few days, one of my mutuals began to suggest searching for the origins of other stories as they doubted any of the posts belonged to the plagiarizer. Low and behold, we found three others. The first of which belonged to @monst and their post. Just by comparing the first paragraph was enough to confirm that.

I won't go into too much detail as the links pretty much say all you need when you actually look at the evidence.

THIRD.

Not even an hour later, we found the second copied story from that oneshot book. Thankfully, there were only two stories there, so there aren't any more copied parts from that series they claim is theirs. The original is @ppsycho and their post. This one again looks like a direct copy, even the image is the same.

FOURTH.

This is the one that was already deleted, thankfully. So there is not many good screenshots I can present, except one before it was gone. So the original writer is @mint-yooxgi and their post.

Here is the only screenshot I have of the wattpad version, just to showcase that it did in fact exist, and it was copied.

So yeah, that's everything for now. If you check out the plagiarizer's profile and recognize the other stories I did not name, please let me know. We thought we found one of them on Quotev, but it wasn't.

Please continue commenting discouragements and reporting the account!

I think I'll leave this off with something I typed last night in a chat:

In whatever way this ends, know that it will end badly for the plagiarizer. They can choose to ignore, but that won't make everything go away. People will remember, I will remember. If they go radio silent and try to forget everything but keep the stories up, comments will still be there. If they try to delete the comments, new comments will just be made. The comments will serve as warnings to others that might stumble across their account, and it will immediately make them click off the account or story because no one wants to read a plagiarized story. The account we see now will just be empty of real readers, so it will remain a miserable little place where each comment will serve as a reminder as to why plagiarism is bad.

Even if they do decide to delete and make another account yet again, whether they decide to copy the same stories they did before or pick entirely new writers to prey upon, it doesn't matter. Readers will either recognize them from before or new readers will notice the plagiarism taking place. It doesn't matter what they do. They will be found and dealt with in some way, shape, or form.

I hope those two or so years of small internet fame were worth it while they lasted.

[maythevoidnotscreamback]

For this Alex Hirsch to try to slap human morals or emotions onto what is essentially nature itself personified is weird to me, ngl.

Like, the Unicorn didn't ask to be, essentially, drugged and grabbed from her 'bed' by Mommy Fortuna when they happened upon her and while Schmendrick did help release her, he didn't have to follow after her. He chose to do that of his own volition for his own reasons under the guise of 'leading the way'. Something we all found out was a lie, unintentional or not, when Molly reveals they've apparently been going the wrong way the whole time. As it is, the Unicorn, when he got himself in trouble, did not have to rescue him from his plight; not even as repayment for releasing her.

Why would I say that?

Because 1) she's not human and thus not beholden to our laws or rules or sensibilities of reciprocation or what-ever-else and 2) she is, as said previously, nature personified. You can make offerings, you can make sacrifices, you can beg and pray and plead but nature will not care for what humans want it to do or why. The harvests could still fail, the animals could still get sick, the ships might still not return or the fish not plentiful, the seasonal dangers could still kill you. It doesn't matter. It will do as it will. Because while we humans need nature in any and all its forms to thrive, nature doesn't need us at all. It'll still be here long after we might all be gone.

As it is, did Schmendrick even give her thanks for that? It's been a while since I last saw it, mind, but I think I remember him blustering about how 'he had it handled' even though he clearly didn't. And while, yes, Molly was emotional at finally getting to see a Unicorn, the Unicorn herself is confused but willing to offer what comfort she can to someone in distress. Molly even goes so far as to 'forgive her' when she most likely doesn't care for or even need forgiveness because, in all reality, what the Unicorn represents is what humans have made of it. Not what it actually is.

And then there's Prince Lir. Looking back to my childhood thoughts after watching this movie, I remember I felt bad that he and Amalthea didn't stay together, but looking at those same memories as an adult? There's a bit of an unsettling... vibe to it. He actually complains to Molly that he felt guilty for killing a dragon that I'm pretty sure, I could be horribly wrong since I haven't seen it for a while as said before, he didn't have to kill. It wasn't threatening anyone, wasn't 'holding a hostage' for him to rescue, it even looked to be living in a remote place. He did it because he wanted to. To show off. But he complains because Amalthea didn't care he did it. That she wasn't fawning over him as he was expecting (mind, it could be because he was raised to expect that) because he killed a dragon. That she wasn't interested in him just 'cause he was a Prince, adopted or not.

All that aside, I loved the movie then and I still love it now. The songs felt perfect to me, the artwork was gorgeous, the characters were memorable and the climax was amazing.

Following the author of The Last Unicorn on Facebook is the only thing that makes being on that site worthwhile.

(source)

[mythblossoms]

cherry wine

pairing: sylus x gn!reader

content: mutual pining, slight angst, music used as metaphor (poorly), pre-relationship, hand holding and dancing

a/n: sometimes a specific scene sticks in your head and you have to write something around that only. i also just love the sound of a cello ;-;

wc: ~1.4k

Music was honest. It spoke plainly about its desires and was vulnerable. The melodies openly conveyed emotions and stories, imploring those who heard to succumb to their passions. There is a beauty in patterns and themes laced between the harmonies.

At the least, that’s what Sylus told himself as he leaned casually against the gilded pillars decorating the gala floor. 

Your invitation to some musicians gala hadn’t been unexpected - the connections and intel privy to him had become a bonus to your missions, and Sylus was happy to oblige. But your openness, that was new. Your willingness to reach out and discuss tactics and invite him as something more, more than a source of knowledge at least.

He was happy to watch you work, your acting skills so finely honed now as you smiled coyly at other guests perched at the bar - your eyes, in contrast, sharply focused on your surroundings. You were an unknown force in your element, poised to strike. 

The musicians began their arrangement, the opening notes notifying the guests of the story they aimed to tell.

The aching thrum of the cello, the pining glide of the violin - woven together to create a song of want, grounded by a repetition of keys played softly on the piano. Sylus knows the story that inspired the peaks and valleys of this piece - the undying devotion of some underworld god to his spring bride, the names long forgotten but the sentiments still clinging to the notes. For you, I will wait. For you, I will suffer time and space. 

His eyes find your form across the gala floor. You, so warmly illuminated by the overhead chandeliers, cherry wine in hand and the pomegranate stain of your lips. Would you also eat the seeds — if offered? Would you stay — if asked? Your eyes flicked to his, offering a near imperceptible nod in his direction. For you, he would ask again and again.

The low lament of the cello hums through the room as your eyes leave his, searching the faces of each passerby as you swirl the untouched wine. Reasonably, Sylus knows that once you’ve completed your mission, you’ll be gone again. And he will wait again, until he is needed, until you are ready. The constant refrain his own frustrating internal melody - wait, wait, wait — again, again, again. He did not have the patience of some ancient god, and the yearning notes of the song left a sour taste in his mouth. 

As the music swells, melodic and mournful, Sylus finds himself pulled to you. He moves across the floor slowly, yet purposefully, eyes never leaving your face. 

“Dance with me.” Sylus offers his open palm to you, an open invitation, the corner of his mouth lifting into a slight smirk. 

You swirl the wine again in your glass, watching as the dark red liquid briefly coats the glass before settling. “Do you always ask people to dance to tragic love songs?” you mused, placing the glass on the bar. It’s easy, like this, pretending to be two strangers drawn together by the fervor of the strings. The hunger of their pitch echoing the feeling in your chest. 

“There’s a - sincerity to tragedy that makes it more memorable.” And for a moment, he seems far away, some distant memory clinging to the edge of his vision before he’s raising an eyebrow at you again.

“People will think you’re some sort of brooding crow.” You tease and gently take his hand, letting him guide you to the near empty floor.

“Do you think I care what people think, sweetheart?” Sylus smirks again, lightly holding your hand in one and splaying his other across your lower back. He pulls you in closer, chests nearly touching as he leans in closely. “I’m more interested in what your eyes see.” His warm breath sends a jolt of electricity down your spine. 

Logically, you think he means finding your target. Your vantage point from the center of the room certainly allows you to see more faces than you could from your singular place at the bar. And yet - the gentle way he holds your hand, the warm touch on your lower back, the softness in his eyes as he searches yours - you consider the outcomes of being bold, of being honest. 

Your hand flattens against the base of his neck, a thrum of energy flowing between the closeness of your bodies - your eyes fixed solely on his. “I’m not sure I’ve seen enough to make an informed decision.” The air stills around you, time seemingly frozen in this moment as the energy between you intensifies, the magnification of something bigger than both of you. “I’ll keep looking though.” 

The far away look returns to his eyes, his brow furrowing slightly - unexpressed sentiments hanging in the air. The instruments die down, the lack of sound somehow deafening in your ears, and Sylus slowly releases your waist - breaking the chord that hummed so loudly between you. 

Before you can step away, he captures your hand in both of his. Delicately, he lifts your palm to his lips and presses a light kiss in the center, holding your gaze before fully releasing you. Your palm tingles with warmth as you squeeze your hand shut, tucking it at your side. “Careful - don’t look too far or you may lose sight of what you're searching for.” His words feel ambiguous, leaving you sifting through context and emotion, the two swirling together as he steps closer. “On your right,” he murmurs before casually walking towards the exit. 

This is why pretending is easier, why leaving is easier - even when you knew you would come back. Staying meant confronting whatever ambiguity grasped onto each look or word between you and Sylus. Leaving granted space, a moment to breathe. Exhaling, you locked onto the man on your right, surrounded by others clinging onto whatever syrupy words he spun. Leaving meant gaining some control of this situation.

Sylus did not have the patience of long forgotten gods, but he did have their petulance. Standing at the end of the long hallway, shrouded in the shadow of a pillar - surely this is the type of brooding expected of a deity. 

Twice you managed to catch him in a moment. Twice, a fleeting sense of clarity that was quickly broken once he realized his surroundings and the scenario you both were in. You had truly looked at him this time, as if you could see each miniscule crack that deepened each moment spent together then apart. He felt a seismic shift beneath layers of protection he had spent so many years building up. The notes of the cello reverberated through Sylus’s mind, blending with his internal symphony - wait, wait, wait, for you. He had no clear path forward to you, no seeds to offer you - only the notes of song urging patience.

Footsteps interrupted his ruminations, the sound resonating down the hall moving closer to him. He doesn’t need to look up to know it’s you, the familiar determination underneath the light sound - letting you come to him. “Caught what you needed, kitten?” The teasing nickname falls easily from his lips, but he’s searching your face again - looking for something, anything to flicker across your face. Your determined mask remains in place and you’re barely slowing down as you pass him — leaving again.

“His notes were��off-key,” you state plainly, stepping out into the cool night air. Sylus huffs a laugh in response, bad intel. “But not a total loss, he had some interesting friends. Guess I’ll have to look closer.” There’s a subtle curtness to your voice, dismissive even, as you navigate the city street - Sylus still trailing behind.

“Be patient,” he almost bites out, the irony not lost on him. “True motives always reveal themselves, in the end.” 

You stopped abruptly in front of him, turning to face him with a boldness he’d grown fond of. “And if I’m not patient?” Your words are clear, daring to hold his gaze. “What if I’m impulsive?”

“The power is in your hands then - you have to decide how you want to proceed.” Another dance, another song — laced with hidden meanings. Your eyes soften slightly - were you playing the same tune? Did you understand the notes played under his words? Sylus extends his hand to you again, palm open and still. “For now, let’s get you home.”

You smile lightly, the corners of your lips slightly turned up. “It’s early for you - isn’t it?” You take his hand, gently lacing your fingers with his. “Why don’t you take me on the scenic route?” 

[lost-in-fandoms]

Winter Warmers day 19: Holiday magic. Maxiel, hurt/comfort. About 1k. (yes I know I am a couple days late. yes I also know they saw each other for padel, just...ignore it.)

When Daniel goes to bed, he's in Perth. He is in his bed, with his blankets, his white noise machine, his podcast, and his loneliness. He is a little too sad and a little too warm, thinking about all the ways his life has changed, is still changing. Thinking about the messages he has been ignoring, the calls he hasn't picked up.

When Daniel wakes up, none of those things are true.

When Daniel wakes up, he is in a different bed, just a light blanket covering him, with the distant sound of traffic filtering in through the windows, city lights slicing the shadows through the half closed curtains. He is a little confused, but comfortably warm.

And there are arms wrapped around his waist.

It's that really that makes him freeze, breath stuttering in his chest. Sometimes, with all the traveling, he does end up forgetting where he fell asleep. And even if he never got quite this confused, it wouldn't be too weird to be in an unfamiliar room, but there hasn't been anyone in his bed for weeks, so Daniel is pretty sure he would remember that.

Especially because whoever is spooning him is almost certainly male, broad chest pressed against his back, the slightest scratch of a scruffy beard against his neck.

He doesn't know what's happening. He doesn't know where he is, who he's with, and his heart rate is steadily picking up when whoever is holding him sighs, tugging him closer.

"Are you awake?"

And oh. Daniel knows this voice. Daniel knows the rasp of it, deeper with sleep.

But how in the hell did he end up in Max's bed?

"Stop panicking, Daniel, everything is of course fine," Max murmurs, moving his head to nuzzle his shoulder, one of his hands rubbing gentle circles on his hip.

Like this is normal. Like this is something they do, wake up together, in Max's bed. When Daniel was just in Perth, had not answered Max's calls in weeks, and the last time they had seen each other Daniel had gotten tears and snot all over Max's team kit, sweaty in the Singapore heat.

He tries to breathe, tries to will his heart to slow down, but all he manages is a small, breathless whine, as a shudder travels down his spine.

He feels untethered, shaken and lost, emotions mixing and bubbling over, threatening to spill, making a mess, like everything else in his life.

"Daniel, hey, no."

Concern drips from Max's words, and Daniel lets himself be turned around and tucked into his chest, hiding his face into Max's shirt. Lets Max breathe deep and exaggerated, trying to get Daniel to copy him. Lets Max murmur in his ear, careful and tender, almost the same tone of voice he uses for when his cats are spooked.

"I'm sorry," Max says, contrite, when Daniel's breathing is back to almost normal, even if he's still hiding into Max's chest. "I should have probably given you more space."

Maybe the reasonable answer to that would be a nod, since it was pretty confusing and scary to wake up in Max's arms, but at the mention of space all Daniel can do is tangle his fingers harder into Max's shirt, pressing closer.

He doesn't know how he's here, doesn't know what kind of miracle teleported him from his sad and lonely bed to Max's hug, doesn't know if he even deserves to be here, after avoiding him for so long, but now that he is here, he doesn't want any fucking space. Now that he's being held, talked to so softly, he realises how stupid he'd been, to shut everyone one like this, especially Max.

Max, who had been by his side on the worst weekend of his life. Max who had called, over and over, trying to stay inside of Daniel's walls, instead of being shut out. Max, who apparently held no grudges for all of it, taking care of him without questions.

He doesn't realise his breathing has picked up again until Max shushes him softly, rubbing his back with big, gentle hands.

"It's okay, you are okay, I am here now. You are here now."

"What happened?" Daniel finds himself ask, half choked, muffled by his unwillingness to move away.

Max's hands stutter on his back for a second as he shrugs, almost dislodging Daniel from his position.

"I am not sure. You appeared in my bed, and you did not even wake up. And you looked very tired, so of course I didn't wake you. I think..." Max pauses, uncertain, but then carries on. Never one to not go for the gap. "I think maybe I was thinking very hard about you, and you maybe needed to be here. Or not there."

As if the universe would be that simple. Daniel needed Max, so Daniel was with Max.

Daniel knows nothing worked that way. You don't get everything you need just because you want it, and you don't get everything you want because you need it.

And yet, here he is. Where he needs and wants to be, despite denying it for so long.

"Christmas magic," he says, forcing a rough chuckle out, feeling Max laugh a little with him.

"Yes," he agrees, as if Daniel hadn't been joking, trying to build up at least some of the fragile walls that Max had knocked down so easily, just with a hug.

"I think we should go back to sleep," Max adds after a while, still rubbing Daniel's back, "and then tomorrow I can lend you my plane, or we can talk about why you are sad."

Daniel flinches, still surprised, even after all these years, by Max's ability to cut straight to the core of things, no nice words to beat around the bush.

"I'm not..." he starts, but Max cuts him off, making his mouth snap shut.

"Don't lie to me, Daniel."

His voice is still warm but there's steel behind it, an order Daniel doesn't want to defy. So Daniel doesn't.

He doesn't know what time it is, how much he's already slept, but he's still tired, and he's comfortable and warm in a way he hasn't been in forever.

And Max knows him, and Max has got him, and Max won't leave.

So Daniel closes his eyes and goes back to sleep.

[arkadijxpancakes]

There are a couple of angles you can take:

1) Remember that "No" is a full sentence. You can just decline, without elaborating further. As she is your friend, you might want to cushion it a little bit, but you don't have to give any reasoning for not wanting to watch that show. You could try to offer some alternative, too. (Example: "Hey friend, I know you are interested in that new HP series everyone is talking about. Personally, It's just not for me. Therefore, I won't watch it. How about we watch/play/read [other thing] instead?")

If she keeps pushing after that, just redirect her to your "No". If she refuses to accept your boundary, it might be time to reevaluate (parts of) that friendship.

The other angles kind of depend on who your friend is, what she does and doesn't know about Rowling and on what she values. If you want to discuss this with her, try to make it personal. If she is passionate about something (trans rights, workers rights, etc.) focus on that. Avoid arguments she isn't interested in/doesn't care about. You can mix and match as needed, but try to stick to one or two main arguments. (That way, it's easier to keep the discussion on track. It's easy to get sidetracked or derailed, if there are too many arguments floating around. It could also cause her to get overwhelmed - and someone who is overwhelmed is unlikely to listen.)

But lets look at the different angles:

2) Focus on Rowling and her bigotry. She has (and, in a lot of cases, still does):

spread misinformation about transness and trans people. She constantly tries to stir up moral panics about trans women in public bathrooms, prisons and sports.

refused to accept the results of scientific research. She is just as anti-science as many climate change deniers.

used ableist and infantilizing language against autistic people. (This usually boils down to the idea that autistic people do not understand how the world works and should not be allowed to make divisions about themselves and their own bodies.)

supported involuntary conversion therapy. (She also named one of her pseudonyms after Robert Galbraith Heath, a pioneer of conversion therapy. When called out on this, she refused knowing about Robert Galbraith Heath. Apparently, she just really likes the names Robert and Galbraith and had to mash them together without doing a quick google search. She did not change the pseudonym and is still publishing books under that name.)

used her wealth and reputation to influence British politics and lobby against trans rights. (For example, the right to self-ID and the right to trans inclusive healthcare.)

caused and participated in multiple harassment campaigns against women of color, by claiming they were men. One of her targets is Imane Khelif, a female boxer who participated in the Olympic Games 2024. Rowling targeted her, after she won a match against an Italian boxer. She also targeted Lin Yu-ting, another boxer.

She is on record for denying crimes committed by the Nazis. In particular, she called the fact that trans people were targeted by the Nazis as a "fever dream". When called out on this, she doubled down and tried to hide behind semantics. She also allowed literal Neo Nazis to support her on this. Note: When people talk about this, they often use the term "Holocaust Denial" - which it totally is. However, I would refrain from using that term, because it could allow your friend to derail the discussion by focussing on semantics instead of on what Rowling did. Many transphobes and Rowling apologists love to claim that it isn't Holocaust denial, because the Holocaust was about the genocide against Jews and trans people aren't Jews. They will also claim, that it isn't Holocaust denial, because she isn't denying that the Holocaust happened. You really don't want to get swamped with that bullshit, so don't say "Rowling has committed Holocaust denial." Instead, try to be specific. (Example: Rowling called the idea, that trans people were persecuted by the Nazis during the Third Reich, a "fewer dream". This includes her denying the fact that the Nazis raided the Insitut für Sexualwissenschaft and burned its library. (At that time, the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft was the leading research institution for gay, transgender and intersex topics.)

3) Focus on the bigotry in the books. The books just don't have aged well. If the series sticks to the books, there will be a lot of questionable stuff in there. This includes in no particular order:

The houself-plotline that Rowling introduces in Goblet of Fire depicts an enslaved fantasy species that loves working for their masters and sees payment as an insult. They also react with mental health issues and alcoholism, when freed. When Hermione starts to advocate for them, her activism is treated as a joke. Her contemporaries laugh at her, the house elves resent her and the lesson she learns from all of this is "They like it that way!"

There is no fucking progress. At the end of the books, the house elves are still enslaved, Hermione has stopped her activism and “All was well.”

The way, female characters are portrayed in the books, is pretty misogynistic. Firstly, there is just a lack of important female characters in general. (Most characters, especially when it comes to important characters, are male.) Secondly, the female characters that do exist, tend to fall into iffy tropes. Hermione and Ginny fall into the “not like other girls” trope. Adult female characters are often reduced to their roles as wives and mothers. Female characters, who perform femininity wrong, get criticized and condemned by the narrative. (This includes feminine characters who are too feminine, characters who are too masculine and characters who refuse to be good little wives and mothers. Examples are Fleur Delacour, Lavender Brown, Rita Skeeter, Dolores Umbridge and Bellatrix Lestrange.)

There is a lot of colonialist thinking in the books. You can see this in how characters from other countries get stereotyped a lot. It’s also reflected in the way non-wizards are treated.

The teaching methods that are depicted in the books are just awful. Most teachers we see, simply shouldn’t be put into a classroom full of kids. And it’s not just Snape, either. (At least, his teaching “skills” get criticized in the books.) McGonagall plays favorites, while pretending to be fair, Dumbledore regularly endangers the kids in his care (and it’s not just Harry either) and let’s not even try to talk about Hagrid.

There is a lot of fatphobia in the books. It’s mostly reserved for characters who are bad or evil. (Just look at how Dudley is treated, for example.)

There is a lot of ableism in the books.

There is a lot of black-and-white-thinking in the books. Stuff the good guys do, is usually depicted as good, Stuff the bad guys do, is usually depicted as bad and evil. Even if they do the same thing. (Snape or the Slytherins bully Neville? How could they! Outright evil, all of them! Harry or other good Gryffindor characters bully Neville? Oh, that’s just a little bit of fun and comic relief. No big deal.)

In addition the black-and-white-thinking, there is also a lot of mean-spiritedness in the books. On a fundamental level, most characters are pretty mean. And it’s not just the bad/evil characters, either. At times, Harry, Ron and Hermione are pretty mean to other characters and each other. As are good characters like McGonagall and Molly Weasley, and lovely old Hagrid is even worse. Then there are all the bullies on the Gryffindor-side of the good-vs-evil divide. (Mostly the Marauders, but also Fred and George.)

4) Focus on the series itself. It’s very likely, that this series will be nothing but a cash grab. You can point at Fantastic Beasts. It might have started with a pretty solid film, but after that the quality of the films fell down a steep cliff. The films got canceled after film 3. It is very likely that the TV series will suffer the same fate. Because it’s not about revisiting the books and making a high-quality series about them. There are already movie adaptations of the books and they are good enough and new enough. There is no need for another adaptation. So no, it’s not about making a good adaptation. Warner is simply trying to milk their cash cow.

If you are a marauders fan/ you support or are in the queer community then do Not watch the upcoming Harry Potter show! Do not support it! Do not interact with posts in support of it! We do not need anymore content from jkr! Buy the books second hand! Don’t buy official merch! Stop giving your money to her! Stop being transphobic!

Edit: I have a reply in the reblogs to those mentioning to pirate the show

[nightplvmes]

*.⊹˚ ZAYNE | take a break

── ◜zayne x fem!reader — mini one shot 0.8k words ◜Zayne tries to get his girlfriend to take a break — author's note

There was a joke she constantly made and it was about how Zayne should stop working so much and take a break. It was ironic how things had changed now, she was the one who needed to take a break.

Zayne had his eyes fixed on his girlfriend who was pacing back and forth. He wasn't entirely sure if her hands were trembling because she was moving so fast but it wouldn't have surprised him. She had been drinking gallons of coffee all morning.

"Where are the papers? I'm sure I left them here." She grimaced and started walking to the kitchen. "I came to the kitchen later to make some coffee." She turned to walk back out of the kitchen and head to the small table where her laptop and hundreds of papers sat, but Zayne stood in front of her.

She bumped into her boyfriend's chest and looked up at him. She stepped aside to avoid him but Zayne blocked her path again. His cold hands wrapped around hers and brought them to his lips, feeling that she was indeed trembling.

"You need to rest, love." Zayne's lips pressed against the knuckles of one of her hands. She could see him trying to act too calm.

"I need to work." She shook her head and took a step back to try and get away from him, but Zayne's grip tightened, preventing her from retreating any further.

"Come here," Zayne's voice was soft, not wanting to stress her out any further. He guided her over to the couch, she was still too stunned to protest so she simply took a seat next to him. "You've been working too much."

"You can't blame me for that. You're a workaholic." She looked at him with a slight frown. It was true, maybe he wasn't the best example, but he had never entered an operating room without sleeping or with his hands shaking, or he would have been fired already.

"You need to rest. You can work later, I'll help you find the papers myself." Zayne leaned down to press his lips against his girlfriend's forehead, for some reason he had made her calmer.

She sighed and nodded. She wondered if Zayne was capable of tying her to the bed and forcing her to rest. She couldn't help but laugh at the thought.

Five minutes later she had her hands wrapped around a hot cup of tea 100% made by her boyfriend. His arms were around her in an attempt to make her feel comforted… or maybe he was just trying to keep me from running away and work again.

"I have a lot of things to do… my boss asked me for those papers and I…" Zayne's voice interrupted her.

"That's enough. You need to rest."

"But my job…"

Zayne sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. His gaze was hard, it was what she called 'his doctor look', the same one he used when she went to her monthly checkups and Zayne talked to her about her results. "You can find another job if necessary."

He took the cup from her hands and set it on the small table in front of them. He would give her a job himself if necessary. He understood the feeling of wanting to do everything perfectly, but his girlfriend's boss was taking her to an extreme that he would not tolerate.

"Did you know that you can get seriously ill from stress and not getting enough rest?" She rolled her eyes. Was he saying this as a doctor or as a boyfriend?

"I'll be fine." She sighed. She didn't resist when Zayne wrapped his arms around her and forced her to lie on his chest, it was like a warm pillow that she loved to sleep on.

"Get some sleep," he murmured, the scent of her hair hitting his nose.

"What if my boss calls and gets mad?"

"I'll take care of that."

She felt the weeks of sleeplessness take their toll on her the second she lay down on his chest. Maybe it was the tea or maybe she just needed a break.

It didn't take long for her to fall asleep, she needed it so much and she would make sure to thank Zayne when she woke up for caring so much about her.

Zayne didn't mind staying in the same position for almost two hours while she was sleeping. He knew he could pick her up and carry her to the bedroom but he liked being able to have her close and be able to keep an eye on her.

He still didn't know what he would do when she woke up but he knew he wouldn't let her go back to that horrible job, no matter if he had to pay her bills himself.

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

My dear lgbt+ kids, 

If you are online a lot, especially in spaces or bubbles where people often share their experiences „for awareness“, you may feel like it’s your obligation to share your own life experiences as well. 

This can be a subconscious thing. You would likely never sign your name on „Every gay person who had a traumatic encounter with a homophobic person needs to make a TikTok about it or else they fail their community“ or „If you’re disabled and trans you need to post about your specific struggles or else you don’t even care about visibility for your own communities“. But you may come across people who did make a video or post about their struggles - and feel some guilt or shame when you realize you experienced the same but don’t talk about it. You may feel like they’re using their voice to do something and you just sit around. Or alternatively, you may see those things and feel „inspired“ to share your own story, so you rush to do it.. and later on you realize you actually didn’t feel inspired, you just felt uncomfortable. You didn’t actually want to share your story with strangers and you kinda feel worse now, but you had to do it for awareness, right?

If you relate to any of that, here’s some things I want you to know: 

You don’t owe anyone a list of all labels you identify with. You don’t owe anybody a list of your medical diagnoses. You don’t owe anyone a list of all traumatic events in your life. Asking you for that would be considered wildly inappropriate in almost all circumstances offline… so it definitely can’t be the measure for how „good“ or „brave“ you are online, either. 

Most people who share their stories online don’t really only do it for awareness. They also do it because they want to receive sympathy, comfort, praise, the feeling of community, the unbiased confirmation that what happened to them was wrong etc… or even just the relief of getting it out of their system. And there’s nothing wrong with that! We are all human beings who need each other. But it may take some pressure of you to remember that those posts are not always some selfless, heroic deed purely done for activism. 

Sharing your story online doesn’t necessarily do that much. Don’t get me wrong, it can be really brave and it can definitely start conversations! I don’t mean to discredit anyone who decides to share something deeply personal. But: not every post gets viral or reaches anyone besides the people who already agree with it. So if you don’t really want to talk about being bullied in school, you certainly don’t need to feel like you have to. Who says that it would be YOUR post, out of all the posts about bullying, that’d end up super viral and start some big conversation about bullying and end up in the news? Maybe it’d just get 15 likes and two bot comments. No need to feel guilty on missing out on that. 

Talking about a traumatic experience can bring relief and that’s valid.. but it can also be counterproductive to your healing process. Sharing it „for awareness“ will not be worth it if it makes you feel overwhelmed, unlocks memories you’re not ready to confront in detail, comes with the risk of putting you into a depression spiral, re-traumatizes you by bringing back feelings you felt in that situation etc. Put your healing first. 

People can be real mean, especially when they can hide behind the anonymity the internet offers. Sharing something vulnerable can spread awareness but it can also make you a target of hate, ridicule, disbelief and bullying. This is especially important to consider if it’s something you’re still struggling with or healing from. Not wanting to get mean comments is a valid reason to not share something. Again: Put your healing first. 

You know all that and still want to share your story? All the more power to you! My point here is not to silence your voice. If you WANT to share your story, it can be a really great thing to do. 

I just want to remind you that you should only do it if you truly want to. Never do it out of pressure or obligation - there is none. Your story is yours. You have the right and power to keep it or share it as you wish. 

With all my love, 

Your Tumblr Dad 

[babyangelsky]

My Favorite Performances of 2024 💖✨

Welcome to Babyangelsky's 2024 Wrap Up! To commemorate my second year of watching QL dramas, and my first year of actually talking on my blog, I've compiled a series of lists to celebrate all the QL things I loved this year!

Please feel free to take my categories and make lists of your own and tag me in them if you do!

💜 All the lists can be found here! 💜

AKA, the "I Love Everything You Do With Your Face" awards. I mostly mean that figuratively but I also mean it literally because expressions are my favorite part of acting. However, it isn't only expressions that make a performance stand out to me.

♡ Chris Chiu & Kurt Huang (Unknown)

It's been months and I can still hear Chris' scream in this scene. It was gutwrenching. It hurt. Some actors are great with expressions, some with line delivery, but Chris is all-rounder. He acts with his entire body. The control this man has over his microexpressions and his body language is incredible to watch.

And Kurt is no slouch either. This man can create tension by simply entering a scene. He draws focus even when he's in the background. There's this intensity to the way he uses his eyes that almost makes you hold your breath. He's mesmerizing.

♡ Benjamin Tsang & Liu Dong Qin (The On1y One)

The sheer number of times I had to pause every episode of this show to have a breakdown about how much I loved this man's face and what he was doing with it. I'm obsessed and in love with him and his microexpressions.

The effect that Benjamin's face has on me can only be matched by the effect this man's voice has on me. He's so careful with his line delivery. He injects the perfect amount of emotion and nuance and breath into everything he says and keeps you hanging on every word.

♡ Fort Thitipong & Peat Wasuthorn (Love Sea)

I was so enamored with every single little thing that Fort and Peat did with their faces as Mahasamut and Tongrak that from the second episode onward, I posted about my favorite expressions every single week starting with this scene.

So much of acting is in an actor's expressions and body language and the two of them embodied these characters so well that you could always tell exactly what they were feeling and thinking.Their acting in Love Sea was leaps and bounds ahead of where it was in LITA and I am so proud of them both.

♡ Kim Nu Rim & Lee Sun (Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo)

I truly believe that there are only really two reasons why something is difficult to watch: either it's done poorly or it's done well. This show is an example of the latter.

Everything is done well. It was done so well and acted so beautifully, in fact, that it was brutal to watch almost the entire way through. Do Hoe's expression upon seeing his reflection in the mirror as he contemplated killing his father is something that's going to stick with me for years.

As is Ju Yeong taking off his cross necklace so he could confess to Do Hoe through the wall. It's absolutely insane to think that this was Lee Sun's first lead role. He did a spectacular job.

♡ Kamimura Kenshin (Our Youth)

This. Man's. Eyes. The way he can go from showing the most devastating, heartbreaking vulnerability to being the sultriest little minx you've ever seen would piss me off if I wasn't so delighted and impressed by it. He's intoxicating to watch. I've thought about that popsicle scene and the "infect me" line every single day since I first watched them.

♡ Becky Armstrong (The Loyal Pin)

Becky's portrayal of Anin was rich and nuanced and complex and I loved it. She was able to strike such a great balance between being so bold and ballsy when Anin was standing up for herself, being soft and loving with Pin, and being regal and intimidating when the situation called for it.

That scene at Pin and Kuea's engagement? Hoooo boy. Magnificent.

♡ Bible Wichapas & Fuaiz Thanawat (4 Minutes)

I waited so long to have Bible back on my screen and he did not disappoint. Great was a character that experienced a lot of fucked up things and complex emotions about those things and Bible was able to portray all of them beautifully. The way he carried himself as both versions of Great and how he interacted with his environment and other characters was a delight to see.

As for Fuaiz, every time I see him his acting gets better and better and I have a feeling that's not gonna stop any time soon. We got him in two roles this year and seeing him go from sweet innocent White in DFF to tormented, grieving, seductive Tonkla in 4 Minutes was a treat. He shined so much in this series. He drew you in, made you feel for him, made you root for him. Just an incredible job all around, I'm genuinely so proud of him.

♡ Lee Tae Vin (Love for Love's Sake)

From the very beginning of this show, it was so clear how much care Lee Tae Vin put into his portrayal of Myung Ha and how important it was to him to do it well, especially considering his past experiences. This is an actor who loved the character he was playing and there was never a second he was on screen where that was in any doubt. He bodied this role.

♡ Top Piyawat & Mick Monthon (Every You, Every Me)

Top and Mick each played several different characters in this show, all with different dynamics between them, but X and Namping were by far my favorites. Top's portrayal of Namping was so delicate and alluring with such an undercurrent of sadness beneath it all. The POV shots were a gift.

And Mick's X was so helplessly and hopelessly entranced by him. The way he looks at Namping like he's the most breathtaking work of art he's ever seen and also like he wants to devour him with his eyes is fantastic. I love the choice to let the silence and tension simmer between them because it was in those moments that you could really feel what they felt for each other.

♡ Yin Anan & War Wanarat (Jack & Joker)

The way Yin and War tore everybody's hearts out in episode ONE and then put them back and ripped them out again and continued in that cycle for eleven more episodes is insane. These two men are spectacular criers. They're spectacular with their eyes and body language. The Jack and Joke we saw pre-time skip may as well have been different characters entirely from the Jack and Joke that existed post-time skip.

And then on top of that, War had the extra challenge of portraying different characters every time his character took on the Joker persona and they ALL FELT DISTINCT. You can always tell when an actor puts their all into a role and Yin and War did that and then some.

♡ Namtan Tipnaree (Pluto)

I will always be impressed by someone who can not only play twins but play them well and man, can Namtan do it well. The styling obviously does a lot of the heavy lifting to help distinguish the two characters but she's got the mannerisms and microexpressions down so cold that even if the styling wasn't distinctive enough, you'd still be able to tell Ai-oon and Ob-oom apart easily. Even her voice changes between the two characters. Phenomenal job all around.

♡ Kim Yun (See Your Love)

Because the character that he's portraying is deaf, Kim Yun's performance relies entirely on his expressions and body language and he is doing a beautiful job. The fight he has in the hospital with Raiden's character where he breaks down and the conversation he has with his parents are his two best scenes so far. You don't have to hear his lines to feel the emotion he puts into them.

♡ Up Poompat & Poom Phuripan (My Stand-In)

You know what I really admire? When an actor can make me want to throw a character in front of a train and then turn around and put me in all my feelings while I still hate them and then slowly make me love them. That's what what Up did with Ming and I enjoyed every moment of it. This man plays toxic SO well. Ming was the worst the entire time and I still fucking loved him because Up is just that good.

Meanwhile Poom was over here doing devastating and wonderful things with those beautiful expressive eyes of his and hurting and delighting me in equal measure. He's insanely, insanely good at acting with his eyes but there were also so many little body language moments I deeply appreciated.

♡ Force Jiratchapong & Book Kasidet (Peaceful Property)

Force and Book were really only in one part of one episode of Peaceful Property but their story made such an impact that it left everybody watching crying on the floor. Their performances as Phoom and Vicha were incredible. The brought those characters and the love between them to life in such a beautifully poignant way.

I'm so excited to see them in Melody of Secrets next year. I know they're going to do great things with a more challenging script.

[arandomao3user]

As an Ao3 author, I love giving headcanons that'd probably anger a certain side of the Batman fandom, but I personally don't care because it makes great angst and, again, I'm an Ao3 author and chronically ill!

First up! Dick Grayson, I like the idea of him having ADHD, of course, BUT... joint hypermobility syndrome.

(Joint Hypermobility Syndrome: Joint hypermobility syndrome is a connective tissue disorder. Thick bands of tissue (ligaments) hold your joints together and keep them from moving too much or too far out of range. In people with joint hypermobility syndrome, those ligaments are loose or weak. If you have joints that are more flexible than normal and it causes you pain, you may have joint hypermobility syndrome.)

Chronic pain fits him, don't ask, because as the eldest child with chronic pain and hypermobiltiy syndrome, trust, he has that look in his eye that he's been walking on swollen knees for the past twelve hours, had three mental breakdowns, and is still pushing through because SOMEBODY has to deal with this bull.

That's also the reason he wears freakin' spandex-- only, it's for compression! He wears compression items to help with swelling and pain TRUST, and let me have this because the math maths (it probably doesn't, but let me have this.)

He's got chronic fatigue, he's gotten used to popping dislocated joints back into place, Bruce was so confused how he dislocated and sprained so many bones so quickly when out as Robin. It's genetic, of course, Bruce finds. But he has money, and Dick powers through it all! Till he develops arthritis in his early thirties/ late twenties and actually hates everything because WHAT AND WHY--

---

Next up! JASON TODD! I have no proof, evidence, and it doesn't have to make sense but I like giving him asthma sometimes for the angst potential of if he didn't have it, he wouldn't have died in the explosion.

He didn't die from said explosion, nor JUST the smoke inhalation, but because he had an asthma attack, on the ground, bones broken, unable to breath because his inhaler did NOT survive the blast, if he even had it on him.

And that's why he wears helmet with so, so many filters in it now...

Also, being a street kid who struggles to even get his medication that keeps him alive? Peak angst, being to poor to afford your medication because the American healthcare system is actually trashy garbage.

R.I.P. Jason Todd, you would've loved clean air--

---

ANEMIC TIM DRAKE! But I up you, Tim Drake with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS)

(POTS: Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) is a condition that causes your heart to beat faster than normal when you transition from sitting or lying down to standing up. It’s a type of orthostatic intolerance.)

Read ONE SINGLE FIC/ SERIES with this and I've loved it since because what do you mean he randomly falls asleep anywhere? No, forget your canon, he passed out and people think he just fell asleep... NOpe, he passed out, sorry random lady he was on a date with!

(The majority of people are AFAM but we aren't ready for my trans Tim headcanons yet either.)

(You’re at a higher risk of developing POTS after experiencing the following stressors:

Significant illnesses, such as viral illnesses like mononucleosis or serious infections.

Physical trauma, such as a head injury.)

Ngl, my dude gets a LOT of physical trauma (and mental--) also, losing a spleen? Surgery and at risk of viral illnesses? I'm sorry, but I need him to suffer more because I like when Tim Drake suffers horribly.

Now, despite having this condition, I am no expert, but also his caffiene/ energy drink addiction is from chronic fatigue, he shouldn't drink it, it's not healthy or good for him, but he stopped caring between the spleen loss and whatever the "Drake" run he did was because what even was that name?--

---

Damian is autistic and I will DIE ON THAT HILL--

No, I won't explain and you can't make me.

---

[tackykachowch]

Alright so I found another reason to hate the flashback in s2. Crazy right? Well tbf, it's not about the flashback in particular this time, but rather wasted opportunity. After rewatching some of Silco's scenes in season 1 I caught myself thinking: "Huh. This guy sure mentions sons and daughters/brothers and sisters a lot. Interesting thing to do for a character who treats people as resources". And then it hit me. There's just a GOLDMINE (heh) of untouched inner conflict to explore within Silco.

Just think about it. He probably went to work in the mines as soon as he was capable to and was raised by people there. Like he mentions in a dialog with Finn, they were a tightly connected community who always looked after each other, making sure everyone survived on the sparce resources they had. So wouldn't it be better to focus the flashback on that community rather than one specific person? We already know that Silco and Vander were the closest people to each other, so to introduce another person to the equation doesn't really make sense. The flashback can still happen at The Last Drop, but a party could be happening there. Maybe not even to celebrate something, but to just have a good time with everyone. And we could be shown how Silco interacted with all these different people, knew their personal struggles and goals, excitedly discussed what they're gonna do after liberation with them, what everyone is going to do once they'll be fully free of the mines. To really show us and emphasize the fact that BOTH Vander and Silco built the Lanes. Vander wasn't the only one to value the community, he just wasn't the one who was ready to sacrifice it for their goal. And this is very important too!! Because it's easy to think of Silco as a ruthless calculating machine that never cared for the people. But he clearly did. And we could be shown how desperation broke him, because even after everything he and Vander did their friends and adoptive family were still dying. Some from the accidents in the mines, some from diseases caused by the Grey, some from enforcers' brutality etc. So it was REALLY hard for him to cross that line and place the cause above all else. And a parallel can be created there: in ep3 Vander says that he cooperated with Grayson because he "didn't have another choice", so maybe Silco thought the same when he made a decision to stop valuing his people above else? A really interesting conversation can be had there, but "bLiStErS aNd BeDrOcK" is cooler apparently.