#Like they'd just given up - like they knew that it wasn't even worth putting in the effort

[sysig]

Come back as a flower, spring Baby

Tala took it pretty hard. Makes sense

Hopefully, anyway. Live food that has the opportunity to hide can be hard to keep track of, so it’s possible they were stressed too... But at least that would be something familiar, not a big scary shadow to run away from

Even selfish, childish thoughts deserve a place to be recognized. There’s no utility in piling shame on top of grief

It felt really strange to logically know that they were gone but still believing so hard that I could somehow undo it, that they’d start moving again if I just did the right thing. Death really does strange things to the brain

[pia-nor481]

I can do it better

Max verstappen x reader smut 18+

3.6k words

She was sat on their-her bedroom floor trying to recollect herself when a loud knock to the front door broke her out of the state she was in. Her eyes were red and cheeks painted with tears. Hoping that the knocking would stop she continued to stare at herself in the full length mirror opposite her hunched over body. Evidently, it didn't stop, she practically shouted the person behind the door to wait a minute. In the mean time, she stumbled up, pulling a shirt over her body and rushing to the bathroom, in hope of cold water freshening her face up; Although it was hard to look presentable at this given time. She could barely stay up her two feet while walking towards the front door. She didn't know where her things were, phone definitely blowing up with her friends asking how her night went, even if they got a hold of her, she wouldn't answer, they'd had enough of her complaints of her love life.

Once she reached the door handle, she opened it a crack, trying to avoid her body being seen. "Sorry to just turn up but my flight leaves tomorrow and you weren't answering, and need some of my stuff before I go." Max was a pretty observant person, he had to be; so nothing slipped past him. "You open the door like this for all the men who knock?" He joked lightly, knowing she often took what he said in jest. He looked back up to her face when there was no further comment. "No, what's up? I can tell something is wrong." He said letting himself into her flat, placing his keys and phone on the counter next to hers, he saw the ample amount of WhatsApp notifications. "Come on, you can tell me what happened." It was so obvious that max still cared for her. Their relationship was always messy. They fought constantly, it started as little things; the floors not being cleaned properly or a few things left in awkward or annoying places. Both of their friends said it was good that they were fighting about things like that, claiming it was healthy to have small bits of conflict that could be quickly resolved. But it soon became a big problem when carer got involved, he was always traveling whether it be for the actual race, England to help with development of the car, or visiting his home to see his parents or even Monaco to be with his friends, but her job required her to be in one place. They tried hard to make it work, she book flights to come and see some of his races or he would stay until Wednesday night of the race week just to spend time with her, but it just wasn't enough.

There had been a few times were Max had heard her on the phone with her friends trying to convince her to break up with him, but every time she would shut them own. "He's toxic, leave him before it gets worse. There can't be anything that makes it worth the stress and disappointment." She would shake her head before remembering that they couldn't see her that's one thing Max really enjoyed, her tendency to show rather than speak. "If he's toxic, I'll wear a hazmat. You don't get it, I love him." Hearing her say things like that always made him smile. He loved her just as much, if not more. Every time he'd come back he would spend all his time awake comforting her, making her feel secure. She wasn't overly talkative when being asked questions, preferring to just shake her head or even pretend she didn't hear it; but not with max. He tried to make sure she would communicate with him, even when they fought, he'd let her scream and shout at him, he wanted to hear everything she had to say, so he knew how she felt, so he could help, He didn't get the luxury of expression when he was younger and that caused many problems. He learnt from this, he learned how to be better, he learned how to love. Max loved, no, loves her so much; it was hard for him to put it into words sometimes, she knew this, and was okay with him showing his love physically. That may have been a part of the problem, they were never close enough for him to show her how much he loved her. Although he is not the only one to blame, she was stubborn, overly so. She hated being wrong and so did he. So Max tried his hardest to not condescend her when she was wrong, but that wasn't often.

"Come on." He had to bite back the pet names he gave her in the years they spent together. "You can tell me what happened." She also hated voicing her concerns with him. She never worried about cheating, Max would never. It was like she felt neglected, but she couldn't say that, it was selfish, she was the one who said they could make the distance work. As max looked around the room he noticed how empty it was. With all of his things gone it didn't feel like home to her anymore. His house in Monaco didn't feel like home either, not without her. She looked up from her feet to meet his eyes. "It's embarrassing." His shoulders dropped, she was stupid sometimes, she didn't realised how silly that sounded to him. "And I've known you for how long?" He paused walking back towards her, resisting the urge to hold her close, to pull her into his chest and cradle her head. "At least it wasn't someone else's fault." he said slightly relieved, her eyes were still a cause for concern, even now he was prepared to fix any problem she had. The silence was loud, his anger pooled at his fists. "Right?" His eyes scanned over her whole body, making sure she wasn't hurt. "Its stupid, and I'm fine by the way. Can't you just grab your stuff and go?" she asked, almost pleading for him to leave. He was not going to leave her alone, not when she was like this.

Max went against his better judgement and hugged her, she needed it, no matter how many times she wanted to be left completely alone. "Tell me. You always feel better when you say what you're thinking, not just shouting at the mirror." She was almost reduced to tears, not only because of his words, but because she was so embarrassed. "Promise you wont laugh." She whispered through teary eyes. "Promise." He pulled his chest away, so he could look her in the eyes as she spoke. He wanted her to feel listened to, cared for. "So my friends set me up with his guy called Matthew, right." Any remaining anger turned into jealousy. He was fuming that his girl was going on a date with some guy. He pushed his feelings aside briefly, wanting to hear the rest of her story. "Well, we went out to this pretty nice place and it was going well, at least I thought so. Anyway, we came back here and he started kiss me, and you feel me up and stuff." She really didn't want to give her ex-boyfriend the details of her hook up. She paused still embarrassed. "Was he blonde and foreign as well?" Her face became warm as he let out a chuckle, this actually comforted him a bit, to see her go out with guys that reminded her of him. "Glad to see you have a type." She gave him a pointed look as an initial response. "Sorry, go on." Shifting her feet to avoid the shame. Max gave her sweet look, enticing her to speak. "When we, um, went to bed it was, uh, fine to start with but you know, he couldn't make me cum, it didn't seem like he was even trying." Her voice was shaky, her nerves were sky high, but she continued because, for once, Max was right. "So I may or may not have sent him out of the flat." She says with as sigh, looking up at her and grasping his arm for a bit of support ,not physical, but emotional, he was comforting to touch. "I am so glad I was your boyfriend and knew how to actually please you or I don't think we would have lasted as long as we did." He spoke with a crooked smile, ready of a light slap to his chest. "It's not funny Max." defeated, her shoulders slumped slightly as she tried to pull out of his tight grasp. "It is a little bit, oh no, please don't give me that look. I'm sorry I swear."

"So let me get this straight, you wanted to hook up with this guy, Matthew, and he was being a selfish prick, and now you are all desperate and pent up. That I can defiantly work with." Confusion covered her face as Max picked her up by her waist and began walking them towards the bedroom. She hooked her legs around his hips during his venture. She would often scold him for doing things without warning or saying things that he shouldn't. She began to kiss his neck, wanting his attention back on her. She knew it wasn't a good idea, but she would worry about the consequences later. One of his hands slid down her back, giving her ass a nice squeeze, he knew she liked it, not that she'd say so, he had to figure that out for himself.

Once his knees touched the edge of the bed, he placed her on it, immediately pushing her shirt up, "No underwear as well, you really do treat the guys at your door well." He let out with a smirk, before pushing her thighs apart further so he could slot between them. The ghost of his breath had her shuddering, she moaned when his lips finally touched her cunt, tongue licking a long stripe over her slit. Max looked up, not even being able to see her face as her head was thrown back at the slightest amount of pleasure. She really needed to feel him. He began to suck on her clit lightly, not wanting to rush into it and run the risk of ruining her orgasm, it hurt him to make her wait any longer, knowing she had spent so much time dissatisfied. Max shook his head side to side sending waves of bliss through her whole body.

Max got good at eating pussy from practicing on her. There were times where he spent more time between her legs than not. Her moans got louder as max put more pressure on her clit, heightening the sensation. "Could he not do this to you? No? That's what I thought." He breathed against her cunt, making her hips shift towards him. Max pulled her knees over his shoulders as he went back in, the noises that filled the room were quickly becoming pornographic. He could feel her twitching and clenching as he ate her out, Max moaned at the feeling, knowing it would tip her over the edge. "Yes, Max. Please, it feels so good." She barely got out, lungs burning. As she began gasping for air, Max could feel her ankles cross behind his back, squishing his head between her thighs. She came hard, harder than she'd done since the last time they were together. No matter who she slept with, no matter how many times she made herself cum it was never the same. "Did that feel good? Was that better than Matthew? Yeah, I know it is."

She pushed Max back slightly so she could slip off the bed and on to her knees. She undid his belt as quick as her shaky hands would allow her.  She squeezed him lightly and ran her hand over his cock a few times before actually pulling it out, she licked a long stripe along the underside, right along the thick vein of his length. Max let out a breathy groan as she took his entire cock in her mouth, reaching down her throat. His hands quickly found her hair and made pace in tangling them. He guided her up and down his cock watching from above with a pleased look on his face. She pulled off with a loud pop, then she tongued the space between the head and shaft, he let out a guttural moan at the feeling, urging  her to take him back in her mouth, it felt phenomenal. Once she hollowed her cheeks again it all became too much for max, she made him cum so hard he started to feel almost lightheaded, seeing stars, hunching over at the feeling. "Fuck, you feel so go baby. Always making me feel so good." He praised, not one lie leaving his lips, although he got to cum every time he had sex, it didn't feel as euphoric as it did with her. 

"Get up here." he said, pulling her up to her tip toes for a kiss. He slipped his tongue practically down her throat, tasting himself in her mouth. Max never understood how other guys could possibly complain about their girlfriend wanting a kiss after blowing him. If she had no problem kissing him after eating her out, what was the difference? The mix was divine, it sent blood rushing to his cock almost immediately as their lips touched. He let his hands run wild over her body, missing the warm of her skin against his. He missed being able to touch every divot of her body. He missed the control he had over her, and the trust she had in him. He was almost as pent up as she was. Max made a point of picking her up again, just to throw her back down on the bed. He noticed the framed painting was put back up above the bed. When they were together, it was almost exclusively on the floor as they got lazy hunting for it behind the headboard, He was disappointed that it was placed back to its home. Max caged her head between her arms as he kissed his way down her abdomen before he gave her cunt one final kiss. He slid his cock over her clit just to tease, he got the same reaction buy only pushing the head in and out a few times before slowly slipping his whole cock in inch by inch. She was swimming in pleasure with max slowly marking her, her neck covered in bites, a few bleeding slightly, her chest was covered in red marks, he needed to mark her as his again, no one was allowed to touch what was his. Not anymore. "Fuck." Max strained, sounding breathless and choked as he continued to pound into her, just how she always liked. He was too hot not to moan over, so she did, and he indulged her, usually he'd have to cover her mouth with his hand or push her face into the pillows to avoid noise complaints, but tonight he'd let her do anything, all he wanted was her back in his arms. He continued to abuse her walls while she gripped the bedsheets tightly, her knuckles becoming white with the new found strength. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head while the remainder of her make up began to smudge and run. Max was fucking her so well her face was painted with tears of joy, and it was just so hot. Max became impossibly harder seeing her fucked out face. He stared to fuck her deeper, hitting that spot that made her go blind with pleasure. "Oh yes Max, always make me feel so good." Her inability to articulate proper sentences was a tell tale sign she was close. Max learned how to read her like a book and it was so beneficial in times like this. 

He quickened his pace, feeling quite close himself. He could she some of this hook up guy's stuff still in her room and it just fuelled the fire. "Matthew didn't make you feel nearly this good did he, sweetheart. You can be honest because I already know." He was interrupted by a thud against the floor. "That's it, good fucking girl for me." he praised her, knowing she would melt from his words, his voice was something she admitted masturbating to when he was gone. She claimed it was mostly because of his accent, but also the tone and the pitch, it just got her so hot and bothered. "Think you can hold on just a little longer?" He asked, feeling her clench around his cock, it made it hard for him to resist. "Only for you, Max." she moaned aware it would edge him on further, fucking her felt exclusive, she was a rare and only he could have her. Perhaps he was a bit possessive, but that didn't matter now that he was with her. One of his hands slid up to her throat, pressing lightly on the sides to only slow the blood flow to her head; his other made way to her clit, rubbing fast circles with just enough pressure to really make it feel good. "Please, just.. just like tha..that." She managed to slur out before her words were cut off by a whine. Her orgasm hit so hard that her head was pushing deep in the mattress and her legs began to spasm and shake. Max only now allowed him self to cum, while she was coming down. He pulled out, shooting plenty of long, thick ropes of cum all over her torso, mainly her perfect tits that her just couldn't resist. They both sighed quietly with small laugh. 

Max gave her a chaste kiss before walking leisurely to the bathroom and picking up a towel to clean her up a bit. On his way back he turned the AC on, anticipating that she would ask him to stay; if he was he want to be touching her the entire time, in order to keep her close he needed the room cold. He brushed the towel over she skin as gently as possible, although it still pulled a moan from her. "I know, but I have to, Darling." He threw the towel to the corner of the room, knowing she'd complain about it later. "Were are my clothes?" He asked quietly, looking back at her on the bed with a grin plastered to her face. "Where you left them before moving out." still in the wardrobe would have been an easier answer but she wanted him to know she didn't want him gone. She anticipated him coming back and wanting to stay, as usual she was right. He put his classic black t-shirt on before climbing in bed with her. "I'm not putting that frame back up." was the first thing she said after coming out of her orgasmic haze. He pulled her practically on top of his body and held her close, as if someone was going to take her from him. "I know." was all he said, trying to think of the right words to convey his feelings. "I never stopped loving you." Was all he could say so he coupled it with a tight squeeze. "I know." It was her turn to give a dry reply and kiss his neck sweetly. "This is great pillow talk." Max laughed out quietly and he could feel her smile against his chest. "I'm so sorry, I should have tried harder. I shouldn't have blamed you as much as I did, I'm just as responsible. And I most definitely should not have told you to leave and never come back. I regretted it immediately, you know. As soon as I heard the door shut I lost it. I don't deserve you Max, but I need you so much." His heart ached hearing her confession, feeling her tears wet his shirt slightly. "I shouldn't have walked out. I know what you're like when you get angry. As soon I closed that door I couldn't bring myself to leave. I slept outside that door, your neighbour asked what happened and I started crying to her. I kept in touch with your friends, or at least I tried to. I needed to make sure you were okay, but it doesn't seem like they like me much. So don't say you don't deserve me, you do. We will make it to the end, I promise you. I wont lose you again. I love you too much for that." She wiped her now joyful tears as she kissed his lips again. 

There was a loud repeated knock on her door, they tried to ignore it, assuming it was their neighbours complaining about the noise, they normally gave up after a few knocks. But this one persisted. "You stay here and keep warm alright, I'll se who it is." Max got out of the bed a recovered her body in blankets while walking with unnecessary pace towards the door. He swung it open aggressively. "Look I'm sorry about that but can I just get the rest of my clothes and leave, there's no need to-" The guy, who max assumed to me Matthew, stopped upon seeing Max. "Sorry man, but that's not happening. Not while I'm here. I don't think you even deserve it, especially if you can't make such a desperate woman come. Only took me three minutes . So fuck off now will you." Max said before slamming the door, feeling relieved as he reached her again. "I love you so much Max."

[jangofettjamz]

Unlovable Child

Jenna Ortega x Autistic!Male!Reader

Warnings: Child abuse

2nd Person POV

"I'm going out of town for a week to see my parents" you tell Jenna. The two of you were snuggled up together on the couch, binge watching The Mandalorian on Disney+.

"Oh, do you want some company?" Jenna offered to which you shook your head no. Your parents wasn't exactly the gold standard when it comes to parenting, in fact they'd probably win an award as being one of the worst.

You've never discussed your parents with Jenna because of this, not wanting her to be involved with them due to their toxic nature. You feared that exposing them to her would only cause more trouble than its worth.

"You sure you don't want me to come with? I can--"

"No no you really don't have to" you said, cutting her off a little too quickly to go unnoticed. She gave you a look of suspicion, knowing there was likely some underlying tension between your parents and you.

You tried to put her at ease "I-I mean... they haven't seen me for a while... I wouldn't want to overwhelm them by introducing you to them... y'know given your fame and all. No offence"

Your stuttering and lack of a believable reason wasn't enough to ease Jenna's growing concern for you, but she smiled anyway, which in turn made you smile. You knew she wasn't convinced.

She pulled you in closer, making sure you were nestled into her chest. She had a feeling deep down that you were keeping something from; something terrible. Anxiousness flooded her nervous system, making her rethink about letting you go.

Her heartbeat quickened because of this, something you caught by having your head on her chest. "Jenna? Are you okay?" You asked.

She looked at you and smiled to put you at ease "Everything's fine, sweet boy. Everything's okay." She reassured, kissing your forehead to ease your worries.

But it wasn't her you were worried about, it was meeting your parents for the first time in years. The last time you spoke to your parents was 2 years prior, just before you moved out for your new job, just before you met Jenna for the first time. It didn't exactly end on the greatest of terms.

You parents were vile; abelists who took pleasure in calling you the most horrid of insults for their own sick pleasure. It made them feel better about themselves, like they were superior. They were never proud of you, even though your academics should make them so. They could never be proud of someone like you, someone who was autistic.

Of course, with many dysfunctional households come with their fair share of physical abuse, which in your case was fairly common place. The slightest of mistakes ended in severe punishment, that being knocking a drink over, talking to loudly .etc.

You were deemed a failure in the eyes of your parents despite everything you've accomplished in school, your well paying job; it meant nothing. You were never good enough for them. You were simply too much of a "spaz" to love. You were nothing to them, only when money was an issue were you of any use.

You held Jenna a little tighter just think about this. Painful memories from your past flashed through your mind, reminding you of the awful people they were.

But you maybe they had changed, maybe they realised the error of their ways, you naively thought to yourself, only setting yourself up for a meeting that would inevitably send you crashing down.

But you had to believe. "They have changed. Of course they changed, they only said and did all that stuff to make me into the man I am today. They love me. Don't they?"

- 1 day later

Jenna was on the phone with her director discussing filming dates. She was currently working multiple films at once and needed to negotiate dates so that it wouldn't impede on her schedule.

You always admired how she could do so many films at once, though, you wished she would take a break sometimes as it can tire her out.

Jenna's phone call was immediately interrupted by the sound of the door opening revealing your figure. "Mark I'm gonna have to call you back" she hangs up the phone, confused as to why you were back 6 days earlier than anticipated.

You were wearing sunglasses, unusual considering the weather outside was quite gloomy. Perhaps you just felt like wearing them, she thought to herself.

"Hi, baby boy." She kisses your cheek, but noticed that it looked awfully red and... swollen? "You're back early. Did everything go okay down there?" Jenna asked to which you nodded with a smile, albeit a dishonest smile.

"Yeah everything went great, just gad to cut the trip short because they were busy and stuff. My parents are busy people after all" you say in a somewhat cheery tone. The swollen part of your face was pulsing, as though the nerve endings in your face had been set alight.

Jenna continued to examine your face, still finding it strange that you haven't taken off your shades yet. "Wait, he wasn't even wearing shades when he left. Why was he wearing them now?" She thought, trying to ascertain the situation.

She noticed your hands were shaking; odd considering you were always calm around her most of the time and it wasn't cold indoors because of the heating. One of your arms was holding your stomach too.

All this information, combined with the fact that your back 6 days ahead of schedule is enough to tell Jenna that something was very very wrong.

"Hey babe can you take off those glasses for me? I wanna see those pretty eyes of yours." She asked sweetly, forceful was not the right approach. You looked at her, trying to strum up a lame excuse not to oblige.

"No!" He exclaims, catching Jenna off guard. You quickly try to come up with a better excuse. "I mean i-it's really bright in here Jenna, my eyes are kinda tired from driving, y'know" you play off terribly, adding a smile to try and convince otherwise.

Jenna isn't buying it, you know this. She's too smart. "Y/N your face is bright red, and swollen" His smile quickly drops. "Your hands are shaking too, and I can see a cut behind your hair. You and I both know it isn't cold in here and that cut is recent too." She exhales sadly, turning her attention too your stomach "You're holding you're stomach babe, like you're in pain. What happened over there?"

You panic, you knew she wasn't an idiot but you can't bare to let her find out about your parents, about your past. It was too embarrassing, she'd surely leave you for not being man enough to fight back. That what your father had conditioned you to believe, that you weren't a real man because of your condition, that you were sub-human.

"I-I d-dont--" "let me see your eyes, my love" bowing your head in defeat, you allowed Jenna to remove your shades, the sight horrified her, sending shivers down to the deepest depths of her soul. She gasped, her hands covering her mouth as you she saw the damage.

A massive purple bruise covered your right eye, the eye itself was completely red. The area around the eye was completely swollen too. The left eye was also bruised, not as bad but still bruised nonetheless.

Anger bubbled within Jenna, the prospect of someone hurting her baby was sickening to her, she knoew this had to be your parent's doing. "They did this to you, didn't they"

"W-what no! They would never do this to me. My family love me, Jenna. They do" you tried convince her, you tried to convince yourself mostly. Tears pricked at your eyes, stinging even more due to the beating you took.

"Honey... why would they do this to you? What happened?" She asked gently with a tinge of sadness in her tone. You couldn't keep up with the lie any longer.

You took a deep breath. You wanted to tell her what happened, tell her about the desperation you felt when your father's belt connected with your back. How your mother held you down as he did it, beating and beating and beating you for being the spaz who disappointed his parents just by looking at him. She held your hands "It's okay. It's just me. Just Jenna"

A single tear fell down your cheek causing Jenna to wipe it away. "They wanted money..." you started, taking a deep breath before continuing "They wanted money that were apparently "owed" for not getting rid of me. I said no, and I'm sure you can imagine how they reacted to that. They beat me, Jenna. They both did. I couldn't stop them, I tried as hard as I could but they kept..." you sniffled, holding back what would have been a giant sob.

"They kept pummelling me with the belt, punching me in the stomach. Mom held me down and I couldn't anything. They said I was unlovable... I'm unlovable, Jenna!" He broke down completely, falling onto his knees. Your emotions that you'd been holding since you left your parents had escaped, the dull pain now fresh again.

Jenna lifted the back of your shirt to find the purple lashes that layed there, where your father had taken out his anger with the belt. She immediately held you, her own eyes tearing up at your broken state. You clung to her like a lifeline.

"Shhhh, its okay baby. You're safe now. You're safe with me again." He whales in anguish and pain, his sobs became louder as each one left his mouth.

"Jen it hurts" you said like a scared child, exactly what you were at your parent's house.

Upon hearing this Jenna decided it was best for you to lay down on your side to avoid laying on your lashed back. "Come on, honey let's lay you on the couch. Lay on your side for me, my sweet." You did as instructed.

She lifted up your top to see the bruises on your stomach, purple and still fresh. She was going to annihilate your parents, but that comes later. "I'm gonna go get an ice pack, then we're taking you to the hospital"

"No! No! Please no doctors!" You pleaded

She knelt down and stroked your hair to out you at ease as best she could "Shh shh shh, don't think about that now okay. Let me go get an ice pack for your stomach. I'll be right back." She left quickly for the ice, returning as quickly as she left.

She lifted up your shirt and let you get ready for the ice. "On three. One. Two. Three." She presses the ice to your abdomen, the cooling sensation soothed the pain little by little bringing you great relief. "Good boy baby, you being so brave for me" she cooed, kissing the top of his head.

She held the ice pack as you writhed in pain on the couch. Her free hand alternates between rubbing your arm and combing through your hair. She placed little kisses on your swollen cheek, not hurting at all when she did.

The recollection of events that played in your mind caused you to cry again. Jenna brought your head into her neck as she held you close, her skin absorbing most of the tears. "Oh baby, please don't cry. You're not unlovable. You're my very beautiful boy who I love so very very much. They don't deserve you."

You held onto her tight, thinking how lucky you were to have such a wonderful woman in your life. Your parents would've definitely said you didn't deserve her, and maybe you didn't. But that didn't detract from how much you loved her, and appreciated her.

"I love you, Y/N. I love you with every fibre of my being" hearing this made you smile out of pure gratitude and love.

"I love you too, Jenna" you say, voice still wobbly from crying. You pulled your head from the crook of her neck and the two of you just smile at each other, you took in the beauty of her face while Jenna gazed upon your battered one. She pulls you in for a gentle kiss, a long kiss that you desperately needed.

"Bubs we do need to get your tummy looked at. We'll call my mom to have a look at you, but we may need to go to the hospital if it's bad. We can do all that tomorrow though, just rest in my arms for now. Can you do that for me?" You nodded your head "I won't let them get away with this Y/N. Mark my words they're finished."

You'd never seen Jenna this angry, but it brought a strange sense of reassurance, like everything was going to be okay. "Can we watch a movie? I wanna take my mind off of this"

"Of course we can, bubs. What do you wanna watch? Empire strikes back?" She asked, knowing how much you loved that movie. You nodded making her smile and kiss you again.

She layed down next to you, inviting you to curl up next to her and lay your head on her chest. "You're not unlovable, flower. You're a very loveable and amazing person." You smile at her words, Jenna loved you very much and today was evidence of that.

She cradles your body in her arms, still feeling you tremble from everything that has happened. It would be a long road to you heal from this but she'd be with you the whole way there.

She gently rocks you while you watch the film, the sight of Darth Vader igniting your child-like love that Jenna adored.

"Hey bubs, promise you'll never think yourself as unlovable. Promise me that my love."

"I promise." You say, even though you still didn't fully believe it. Your parents words still hurt.

"Good boy. My special beautiful boy"

[merbear25]

Just when I was beginning to lose hope (Law)

Prompt 1 requested by @eloweemelo

a/n: Thank you for requesting this! I really enjoyed writing this for you, so I hope you like it 💜💜

CW: NSFW!!! MDNI!!! fem!reader, lovesick angst and fluff, spoilers for Dressrosa arc, fingering, vaginal penetration, slightly rough

Neither of you were looking to catch feelings, but when you first crossed paths with Law, there was an undeniable pull. You were tending to some of his injured crew during a battle in your hometown. Such selflessness and medical expertise made you stand out from so many others they'd come across. When he invited you to join his crew, you gladly took him up on his offer―sailing around the world with an interesting crew such as theirs was impossible to turn down.

The time you spent with Law was irreplaceable: late nights conducting research, perfecting solutions, and exchanging pleasant conversations. Having spent a lot of one on one time together, that pull you'd been feeling was becoming harder to resist. The more you got to know each other, the more apparent your connection was.

Exploring your newfound feelings, setting the foundation to your relationship, letting the budding love shared between flourish, such things were meant to be cherished. However, with the sweet smell of love in bloom came spring storms to potentially uproot what the two of you had been crafting.

You were well aware of Law's past and the responsibility he put on himself to carry out a loved one's lifework. Even so, there wasn't enough time in the world that would have allowed you to prepare for his departure.

Despite your heartache, such a love as yours was worth holding out hope for. Keeping him near and dear, you were as ready as you could be to go through the inevitable loneliness sure to follow.

You'd been keeping up with the news, and although you knew you had to take what was being published with a grain of salt, you couldn't keep the dread from sinking in. Such stories clutched at the hope you'd been trying to keep alive―their grip tightening, attempting to drag it to the pools of dismay forming at the bottom of your heart.

Once word got out that Doflamingo was defeated and the alliance between Law and Luffy had been established, you couldn't hold back the burning tears―seeing proof that he'd survived sent you crashing to your knees, tears of relief and gratitude streaming down your cheeks.

As he reboarded the Polar Tang, you barely recognized him; he'd become worn, yet held a sense of optimism. With the two years of his absence now concluded, you were given the chance to hold each other again, granting yourselves the privilege of getting swept away in the passion that'd reignited―the flame burning brighter than ever before.

The devotion you had for one another could never be doubted. Through quivering lips, you admitted, "I never thought I'd see you again."

Such a fear was mutual, but he didn't respond verbally, instead he deepened his kiss, which was laced with longing and desperation. He needed more than kisses though, you both did. Leading you to your bedroom, he'd already begun tugging your clothes off.

His voice was just above a whisper, his breath hot against your ear, "Let me show you how much I missed you."

Picking you up and swiftly tossing you on the bed, he was quick to climb ontop of you. As the room filled with the scent of the passion and want you had to get lost in the other's embrace, Law trailed kisses down your neck to your breasts, leaving gossebumps in their wake.

Your body reacted to each touch with readiness, begging for more. Matching your neediness, he shoved two fingers between your already slick folds and began pumping, hitting your sweet spot just right. Having gone so long without his attention, your body started twitching and your moans were already growing more urgent.

You held his head as he flicked your nipple with his tongue, earning you a low growl. Your senses were being flooded with the immense bliss he was gifting you.

"I need you, Law. Please, give me more"

Your begs served as a drug; they were laced with an addictive substance that would make it impossible to ever leave your side again.

Positioning himself over you, his searing kisses lit your lips on fire as he alligned his arousal with yours. As he plunged into you, your walls twitched and ached from the forgotten feeling of his girth stretching you out. Your gasps, your fingernails digging into him, your trembling form: you weren't making it any easier on yourself, only causing his hunger to grow.

Each thrust sent shockwaves of pain and delight coarsing throughout your body. Keeping your legs propped up on his shoulders, he had himself completely over you, needing to feel every inch. His fingers tangled in your locks and tugged, leaving you panting from the abuse being unleashed on your recently neglected form.

Bucking further and harder into you was sending you both into a frenzy. Yearning to satiate the cravings, you continued dashing towards the peak in the distance.

As your bodys collided and the slaps of your lust sounded in the room, your souls entwined, wrecking you to your cores. After taking a moment to bask in the after glow of your passion, you wrapped your arms around him, not wanting to let go of him just yet.

Allowing yourselves to gaze into the other's eyes, it was obvious that those seeds of love you'd planted so long ago were still deeply rooted and weren't going to be torn from the soil you were working so hard to maintain.

With a tender kiss on your forehead, you could finally set your woes aside. He was home, back in your arms and nothing would tear him away from you.

[cactuslester]

okay!!! oakland show post!

i had so so much funnnn it was the best night ever!!! i went alone and was pretty nervous because even though ive been to shows and concerts alone before, i'd never been to something that had so much "waiting time" like between the m&g and preshow & show, but truly everyone was so so friendly, and it was so easy to meet people and make friends in line, so if anyone is still wondering if they should get a ticket and are worried about going alone, DO IT. it's so worth it, and phannies are lovely <3

so the m&g! this is my first time meeting both of them so i was so nervous and so excited. the line moved faster than i was prepared for it to (sarah was at the front of the line making sure everyone had their cameras ready and knew what they wanted to get signed. i'm so face blind i kept thinking about how familiar she looked but didn't realize that was sarah until it was almost my turn lmaooo), but the actual interaction didn't feel rushed. i gave them the letters i had written for them. i had tried to get metallic green envelopes but couldn't find any, and i told them that, and dan immediately knew what i was talking about and pointed knowingly at phil lmao <3

i brought tabinof and a mini lesbian flag which was between the pages in case they'd have time to sign both and they did! while they were signing i asked my questions. i asked phil for book recs and he said project hail mary, which i think he's mentioned in a preshow before. he said it's space/sci fi and he really liked it. i asked dan his thoughts on this f1 season, and he said "i think it's been quite a good season! it started off and it was like 'max is gonna win everything' and then it was like 'no he's not 🤪'"

and then dan took our selfies, and i'm rly happy with how they turned out 🥺 so here's them being cute sans me lol

they are indeed really good at making you feel comfortable and just generally being very nice and chill. they sounded more british than i was expecting? which is crazy given i allegedly know exactly what they sound like having watched their videos for 12 years, but still, hearing it up close was still kinda crazy. they are indeed very spindly, im glad i wore platforms so i was at least a little bit taller than i usually am

i Did forget to ask phil my follow up question which was if he would ever do a book recs video/livestream, and i also forgot to tell them that the sappy shit and also some recs for boston food is in the letters, but w/e they'll read those sooner or later, and at least i rmred the most important things. oh also phil's blue eyed stare really is So intense, i can definitely see how his aura can be intimidating (but he rly was so sweet <3). dan is so teddy bear vibes though, not intimidating at all <3

i was towards the end of the m&g line, so after my m&g ended, preshow started ~45 minutes later. the energy at this preshow felt rly married and silly, it was so fun. they definitely have someone prune the phlit questions (but im not sure if whoever does it just grabs them randomly or if they actually read and pick which ones dnp read), since not all of my questions were answered. but i cant complain bc they answered two of mine, which i'll post the videos for tn. but i asked if they're digital hoarders, and they said no (liars), and then dan talked about how phil's desktop is disorganized. and i also asked about their fave recent horror movie, and they both said the substance, which i've been wanting to watch!

and oh my god the show itself was CRAZY. like even though i've been looking at spoilers this entire time, i still wasn't fully prepared (maybe i'll put my more spoilery thoughts in a reblog later). they were so energetic, and their stage presence is magnetic. i think it was a good night for them, as far as i remember, no lines were obviously Forgotten, and any tripping over lines was minor. the show had silly parts, it had serious parts, it was just so Them. you really can feel how comfortable and happy they feel in this new era and, like they talked about in the phukbang, that they feel that their audience is truly Theirs now. the show was so good i Did log onto ticketmaster and google flights to san diego after work today but due to flight prices and work, i fear it's not happening, but god i do want to see it again immediately 😔

finally, thank you to all the wonderful phannies i met!!! i had such a lovely time chatting w/carolina, esmeralda, orion, and winter, who aren't on tumblr 😔 and of course with molly @finalfeudfiend!!! we were seat neighbors, partners in phannie crimes for the night, and also they took my m&g video (mwah mwah tysmmmm molly <333). it was really so great to meet everyone, and all my worries about going alone were totally unfounded <3

here are the bracelets and photocards i got! the far left bracelet is from the vip merch bag, and the rest are from phannies, they say super amazing project, sister daniel, and father philip. i am sooo happy with my photocard pulls. the top row were from the pack that came w/vip merch, and the bottom row i got separately. impossible to pick faves really, but some of mine are of course uni hoodies, holographic hearts tongue out phil, phil looking so polite, and smiley peace sign dannie <333

and that's that! much love to dnp and phannies for making it such a wonderful night. having watched their videos for so long, it was so special to get to see and meet them, i had the best time ever <333

[3d-wifey]

And They'd Find Us In A Week - Chapter 3

Pairing: Finnick Odair x Reader Word Count: 5.08k Synopsis: Here! Playlist: Listen up!

Past (iii) - You

[16 & 17] - THE CAPITOL

When you were six, Eleven had a bad year for crops. Of course, the ones who felt the brunt of it were the district citizens. Your parents had given you half of their rations plus your own, but that still wasn't much and you were starving. So you snuck into the woods in hopes of finding something to eat when you saw it. A coyote stuck on its side, legs too frail to lift itself. 

It looked gaunt, ribs protruding and spine on display. You knew hunger personally enough to recognize it anywhere. But even as weak as it was, it looked at you like you were prey—growling and snapping its teeth from where it laid on its side. 

You knew it could hurt you. No matter how weak it looked, it was still stronger than you and all it would take was one bite for you to get some kind of infection. With how weak your immune system was, something like that would have killed you almost instantly. So you left it there.

As you sit in front of President Snow, you can't help but be reminded of that coyote. 

He's paler in person, face thinner up close. That doesn't make him any less imposing. You fidget in your seat and glance at the door. You know there are four Peacekeepers stationed outside, guns full of ammo. They'll shoot you down without a second thought if Snow wills it, put a bullet in your skull at the snap of his fingers. 

There are dozens of white roses around you, tucked inside vases on any available surface. Almost innocent if not for their cloying scent. It gives you a headache. You’ve never seen so many roses outside of a funeral.

When you received the letter requesting your presence, you were at a loss. The next Victory Tour wasn't for a couple of months. What business do you have in the Capitol? 

You're so concentrated on your surroundings that it surprises you when he finally starts talking. 

"Forgive me, I never personally commended you for your games. I would have done so a year ago, of course, but there were complications." His gruff voice carries in the room. Your shoulders are stiff with tension. 

Is that it? He invited you to the Capitol—to his office— to what? To salute you? Your stylist didn't have you plucked and waxed just for a pat on the back. There must be more behind this, not that you would ever call him out on that. 

He opens a drawer on his right and pulls out an intricately designed, rectangular canister. He places it in front of you, takes off the lid, and picks up a gold-wrapped piece of candy. 

"Many people don't get to relish in the luxuries of the Capitol. For example, this candy. You didn't get to have many of these growing up in Eleven, did you," he chuckles when you shake your head. He knew the answer to that question before he asked it, "No, of course not. But you're a victor now, you should indulge. Butterscotch?" He offers and it feels like bait. 

You're not sure if you can work up the nerve to say no to him, even over something as trivial as a piece of candy. You nod and he raises his eyebrow. You clear your throat, "Yes, please." 

"Good girl." He mutters approvingly, gloved fingers brushing your palm as he hands the candy to you. You barely hold back a flinch. 

He watches you unwrap the candy and place it in your mouth. It's quiet. You can feel your heartbeat in your teeth. 

"It's good, isn't it?" He asks rhetorically but doesn't continue speaking. He just stares. You can't tell if he wants you to answer or not. And when you finally open your mouth to say something, he cuts you off.

"There's something on your mind. Say it." 

"I'm sorry, Sir, but I—I just didn't think my games were impressive enough to garner your attention." You barely did anything worth a spectacle. Your games might have been entertaining, but you're no Finnick Odair. 

“Now, let's be honest with each other. You're thinking, ‘Surely, he didn't invite me here just to congratulate me’, yes?” He smiles with an encouraging nod, almost like a schoolteacher. Are you that easy to read? First Finnick, now him.

You nod, unsure if any noise that comes out of your mouth will be intelligible. 

"You're quite clever for someone of your background. That's why people love you so much. And it's that love that brings you here today. The people want more of you." 

"I didn't know I was so popular." You naively thought the hype surrounding you and your games would die off with the entrance of a new victor. Will you be interviewed by Caesar? Doing another photoshoot for Capitol Couture? 

“I want to explain something to you, my dear, in a way you’ll understand. Imagine a wolf wanders onto your farm—you know what a wolf is, yes? This wolf hasn’t killed any of your cattle, but it has the potential to. Now, you could always get rid of the wolf, kill it, but that’s only a temporary solution. There will always be other wolves.” He scolds you as if you were the one to suggest it and not him. “Why go through the effort of killing it, when you can tame it—give the wolf a bone, so to speak. You earn its loyalty and it protects the cattle from other predators.” You aren’t sure you really follow what he’s trying to say. Are you the wolf? The cattle? You certainly don’t own the farm.

"In the past, I’ve always resorted to getting rid of my wolves. But I’ve found it’s easier to domesticate them. I'll be completely transparent with you as I want no misunderstandings between us. I am in the business of making wolves happy. And something that'll make them very happy is you," your knees ache with how hard you're gripping them, "not even the most blue-blooded citizens can fight the allure of spending a night with a victor. Especially one as captivating as yourself." 

You stare at each other. Your eyes stunned, his apathetic. You’re able to decipher his needlessly complicated metaphor and you wish he was talking about actual wolves. You’d rather take your chances with the predators in the woods than the ones in the Capitol.

“I...I'm sorry, I don't understand. If this is a money thing—” 

"No, I don't do this for money. Although there is a substantial fee involved, the people who are pushing for this are my key endorsers. You provide this service for them and I ensure their loyalty. Wolf, meet bone." 

You shake your head, suddenly nauseous. "Why would I agree to that?" 

"Why? Do you not care about your mother? What of Seeder and her poor children," he asks, tsking at your confusion. "Eleven is our most populated district. It can stand to lose a few people." You hear the threat he's not saying and throwing up becomes a very, very real possibility. 

You say nothing, swallowing around fear and vomit. He leans back in his chair, probably sickly satisfied at how subdued he’s got you.

You've never hated anyone as much as you hate the man before you. Not the peacekeeper that executed your father, or the Crop Overseer that made it her mission to touch as many of the young farmhands as she could. He's going to whore you out to the highest bidder. No, he's giving your body away like a party favor. 

He steeples his fingers. "There's a party tonight. I can expect to see you there, hmm?" 

You nod slowly before remembering what he wants. "Yes, sir." 

"Good," he releases a puff of air from his nose that you can almost count as a laugh. He slides a key card across the desk. "You will be staying at the Marquis Hotel in room 2077. There are only two people with access to the door: you and the Avox in charge of cleaning it. Unless stated otherwise, you will hold all of your appointments in this room." He's given you the top floor, you note faintly. 

"You will receive your assignments from me personally," he sits a paper card face-down in front of you. "This is the name of your client and what time you can expect them to knock on your door. Along with your room number, in case it slips your mind." You pick both cards off the desk, almost expecting them to burn your fingers. But they're just objects. The only thing that can hurt you here is Snow. 

"You've been very compliant thus far. I hope it's a trait you continue to possess in the future." The sound of his leather gloves squeaking against each other draws your attention for a beat. It's a welcome distraction from the blood rushing in your ears. "Now, there's something important I must ask you." 

You look up at him, shaking where you sit. You know your face is twisted into a scowl and you dig your nails into your thighs. 

What more does he want from you? He’s practically squeezing a stone, expecting blood, but can’t he see you have nothing left for him to take? But there’s something Snow knows that you haven’t considered. If you squeeze a rock hard enough, you get diamonds. Finnick finds you with your back pressed to the wall like you’re the only thing keeping it up, scowling at anyone who tries to start up a conversation with you. 

"What's got you pouting, beautiful?" He teases, approaching you with a good-natured smile. 

He leans in next to you, close enough that your bare arm brushes his satin-covered chest with every breath. He's a drink or two in, you can tell by the slant of his eyes and the flush in his cheeks. 

You contemplate it for a second. Should you tell him? You need someone to talk to, or just to listen to you and he's the closest thing you've ever had to a friend in a very long time, especially in the Capitol. That certainly means something to you. You’re so far from your natural habitat and there’s safety in numbers. Though, you guess you’ve never really left the forest, have you? The same rules apply in the Capitol as they do in the wilderness: blend into your surroundings and if a predator spots you, pray to God they lose interest.

"Can I trust you, Finnick?" You ask in place of an answer, eyes locked on the crowd. Snow never said that you had to keep your arrangement to yourself, but it didn't hurt to be safe. You want to confide in him more than anything, but you need to be sure that Finnick won't trade your secret for another. 

He straightens, sobering at your sudden seriousness. "Yeah. Yeah, of course." 

You stare at him for a moment. You've talked to Finnick a handful of times and only had two meaningful conversations that didn't involve either of you flirting. By all means, you shouldn't trust him. 

But you do. You really do.

You take him by the hand and pull him behind you, dodging socialites left and right, to a narrow corridor that nobody frequents. There are too many ears out there and the only people that walk down this hall are Avoxes. And it's not like they can tell anyone what they hear. 

You stand across from each other, so close that your heels touch his boots when he leans against the wall. You open your mouth, hesitate, and close it. 

Finnick pushes off the wall to touch your shoulder, leaning down to try to catch your eye. "What happened?" 

You keep your gaze down; you don't know if you can stomach the look he'll give you when you tell him. 

“Snow…” You trail off, losing steam fast. Finnick stiffens, his grip on your shoulder as tight as a corpse’s.

“What did Snow do?”

You launch into your explanation, starting with the letter you received and ending with the last question Snow asked you. 

"And, when I agreed, he asked me if…if I was still a virgin. Apparently, there's a high demand for my first time." You pick at the skin around your nails, a habit your prep team admonished you for. Nothing pretty about bleeding, peeling fingers. 

You bite the bullet and look up. His sea-green eyes are rocky and there's a grimace on his face. An angry tilt to his mouth, but that's it. No shock, no disgust, none of the emotions that this kind of revelation warrants. You take in his stance. He's tense, but he's not surprised. Almost as if he expected this.

"Finnick, are you...?" Your voice peters out lamely, unable to put words to what Snow is making you do, what you suspect he's been making Finnick do. 

He rocks on his heels and lets out a slow puff of air from his nose. "Since I won my games." 

You shake your head. That can't be right. "You were only fourteen." 

"Only a select few in Snow's private circle could indulge in my services at first. But once I hit sixteen," he shrugs with a mean smile, "I was fair game." Of course. You had thought Finnick was handsome when he first won, in that passing way thirteen-year-olds often thought of others. Obviously, it was a shared consensus. 

And Snow had said that he planned on speaking to you sooner—when you were younger. Stupid of you to think that he was swayed by something as trivial as morals. 

"Who else is he forcing to do this?" 

"You, me, and any other attractive victor with something to lose." The sleeves of his white blouse rub together as he crosses his arms, a sneer stretched on his pretty face. You're quiet. You think of Seeder. You think of Chaff and Haymitch. Cashmere and Gloss. You think of fourteen-year-old Finnick. You think of them in the same chair you were in, guns at their back and faced with an impossible task. 

Were they as scared as you? 

"I had thought...I thought that he wouldn't ask you," he looks at you with a gleam in his eyes that you recognize. It's the same one he had during that first dance. But you can distinguish it now because you feel it; he looks haunted, "Usually, he'd spring it on you as soon as you win, but he didn't with you, so I thought—I hoped …" He cuts himself off, staring over your shoulder. He bites his lip so hard you know it has to hurt. 

You reach forward, using your thumb to pull his lip away from his teeth. He looks between your eyes for a second and you drop your hand. "Hoped what, Finnick?" 

He clenches and unclenches his jaw. "I hoped you were safe." That's...you don't know what that is. Your heart is beating so fast you can feel it knocking against your ribcage. You lean your head back with a sigh. You close your eyes and resist the urge to rub at your chest. That's not supposed to happen. This isn't supposed to happen. 

"It almost sounds like you care about me." You joke, voice wavering. You can't do this right now. 

"I do," his arms drop beside him with another shrug, "I care about you." He says plainly, eyes locked on you. Evidently, he's not one to beat around the bush and, usually, you aren’t either. You don't say anything. Speechless is probably a better word for it. And then, he continues on like what he said isn't a revelation within itself. 

"Snow says it's to ensure loyalty, and maybe that's true, but it's not the only reason. His goal, above all else, is to further drive the wedge between victors and the Capitol," he says, an echo of your first conversation. "We're not human, not to them. He made sure of that." 

Neither of you talks, the silence heavy with the truth of that statement. You're well informed now, and you aren't alone in your imprisonment to Snow. You aren't sure what to do with that. It certainly doesn't make you feel better, and it doesn't change the fact that you only have two hours and forty minutes before your appointment. 

Finnick must be able to feel the anxiety wafting off you in waves because he grabs your hand and…pinches the skin between your thumb and forefinger? "What the hell are you doing?" You half-heartedly tug at his grip, more out of reflex than anything else, but he holds on tight. 

"It's a pressure point. You squeeze it when you're stressed or anxious—a trick I learned from Mags." He slides his thumb down to where the bone of your pointer finger meets your thumb and presses down. You both stand like that for at least ten seconds. 

"...It hurts." 

"It's supposed to," he laughs, soft lips pulled into a grin. "The pain, it's supposed to be distracting." It's definitely uncomfortable, but the only thing you're distracted by is his touch. You don't know if it's some kind of placebo effect or if this pressure point shit actually has some validity, but your heart doesn't feel like it'll beat through your ribs anymore. 

Or, the third option. It has nothing to do with the pressure point and everything to do with the man in front of you. This close, his scent engulfs you. Saltwater and something sweet buried under it, a smell you're sure will still be caught in your nose long after you go home. 

He digs in a pocket of his billowy pants and places a card in your hand. 

"Here," it's the same as the one Snow gave you. The only difference is the name, the time, and the room number. 2064, "It's one of my regulars, so I don't need it." He states in such a nonchalant manner, it almost sounds normal to you. 

"Regulars?" You frown before you can catch yourself. A seventeen-year-old shouldn't have regulars. 

"Don't make that face. I don't need your pity. We're in the same boat, remember?" He asks, but it's one of those rhetorical questions that only have one answer. 

"Right." At this point, the waves have capsized your boat. You're drowning, water filling your lungs, but at least you're drowning together. 

"Look, he puts us all on the same floor." He's still holding your hand with both of his. Like it's something delicate, something worth being gentle with. Like it hasn't taken lives. "If you need me, you know where to find me." He offers with a tender squeeze of your hand. And, despite yourself, you believe him. If you need him, Finnick will be there. 

A thought that's just as comforting as it is terrifying. He removes one of his hands from yours and thrusts it forward—correction, one of his pinkies forward in a gesture similar to the one you did months before. You only hesitate for a second before locking yours with his. 

A silent promise.

“Any advice?”

“Advice,” he laughs, short and brittle. “Yeah. Just…breathe and endure. It’s all any of us can really do.” His voice is angry, but his eyes are mournful. That’s definitely not the kind of advice you wanted to hear and you can tell it’s obviously not the kind he wants to give. But what were you expecting, some kind of miracle cure? That’s not the way this works. 

You could always just… disappear. If not physically, then mentally. A trick you picked up in Eleven when the grueling work days got especially long and—Finnick’s pinky is still locked with yours, you hadn’t even registered it. He doesn’t seem too nonplussed about the prolonged contact, quite the opposite, actually.

And, well, it's not like you're complaining.

Present (III) - Finnick

[23 & 24] - DISTRICT FOUR

The escort for District Four, Freesia Ashwind, stands before a rowdy crowd. Most, if not all, of the citizens, are excited to see who will represent them in the Games. 

It makes him sick. 

Finnick stares at the back of her magenta head and cracks his fingers behind him. 

When Finnick was younger, he hated her. Out of all the names she could have picked, all the lives she could have ruined, she picked his. She inadvertently had a hand in the years of suffering he endured. And when he was fourteen, alone and hurting, blaming Snow wasn't enough. 

It's different now. He's older and wiser, and he does still hate her, but no more than he hates every other Capitol. He tunes her out and tries to remember if he's had sex with her. 

After preaching the same spiel she's said every year, she finally says something of substance. 

"Now, normally, it's ladies first. However, since it's such a special occasion, how about we switch it up a bit?" The crowd roars, exhilarated, hanging on to her every word. He's sure she could recite the entire history of Panem and they'd cheer. District Four doesn't suck from the teat of the Capitol like One and Two do, but it's still a wealthy, Career district. 

She approaches the bowl on her right instead of her left. 

He stands alone as the sole male victor. There used to be three others, but they either drowned in their liquor or overdosed on their Morphling. Despite that, she makes a show of it. Swirling her hand around the empty bowl until she plucks the only paper out with a gasp, exaggerated in nature as most people of the Capitol are. 

"Finnick Odair!” He doesn’t know what he was expecting. There—there was no other outcome. Still, he goes cold, heart growing heavy with reality sinking into it. 

Finnick is a good actor. Maybe not the best, but he's certainly up there. Not many people could see through his veneer. It's fragile, cracks and instability on display to anyone who truly knows him—and even then, that's only three people. 

Two of them stand beside him now, waiting to see where the sword will fall. And the other…

Finnick waves to the cheering crowd with a closed-mouth smile. 

The other is lost to him. 

He plays up his enthusiasm, winking and waving. He dons the mask they chose for him: Golden boy of the Capitol, a born killer. Why wouldn't he be excited to get back in the ring? A couple more thoughts like that and maybe he'll start believing it. 

"Ladies next!" A hush settles over the crowd. No one is excited to see this. He glances to his left. Annie is shaking as Mags holds onto her. 

It's so quiet, Finnick can hear the tape tearing off the paper. 

"Annie Cres—” Annie is screaming before Freesia even finishes. He faces forward, biting his cheeks to shit. 

"Oh, it seems we have a volunteer!" He almost breaks his neck from turning so fast. Mags has her hand held high, gesturing to herself. 

The crowd cheers, but this time they cheer for Mags's bravery. Finnick feels like crying. 

As the cameras zoom in on them, he breaks protocol and goes to comfort her. He holds Mags close and kisses the top of her head. He's known her for most of his life and he's still surprised by her selflessness. She must know how high the deck is stacked against her. That, even with him beside her, the odds aren't in her favor. And she still volunteered. There's a reason you and her got along so well. 

He looks at Annie. Her hands are over her ears and she stares back mournfully, more lucid than she's been in years. She makes to come towards them before she's intercepted and ushered off the stage like a sheep. 

Finnick wonders who will take care of her with both of them gone. Annie may not be going into the arena, but this is just as much a death sentence for her as it is for them. 

Right about now, the reaping for Eleven should be taking place. 

Finnick knows Snow well, more than he'd ever admit. He knows, without a doubt, that he put Seeder's name in twice. 

But there's a chance that he doesn't know you as well as he thinks he does. Two years is plenty of time for a person to change. God, he hopes he's wrong about you. He hopes you've grown mean and callous, and you wouldn't even think about trading your life for someone else's. 

He hopes you're safe. 

Peacekeepers approach. Far more cordial than they'd be with the lower districts, but still gripping their guns tight. "Right this way, Mr. Odair." One of them says. He and Mags follow after him, like pampered pigs to the slaughter. 

Present (III) - You

[23 & 24 ] - DISTRICT ELEVEN  

You don't remember the walk to the stage. You've been out of it since the Quarter Quell was announced. You remember specific instances of Chaff forcing you and Seeder to train, your mother following you around like a shadow—and when you come to, it's to a sea of despondent faces. Every District Eleven resident, young and old, stands before you. 

Argon Wellway is the same announcer Eleven has had for the past five years. His neon purple hair remains stiff despite the breeze. You've always loved purple. It's an odd dichotomy to see something you love on something you hate. 

He steps to the mic, enthusiastic and jaunty despite the dour reception he receives from his audience.

"Hello, District Eleven! Are we excited for the Quarter Quell," he pauses with a wide smile, every tooth on display. The crowd stays silent, "Well, I certainly am. And so is everyone in the Capitol!" 

He steps back, attitude impervious to everyone around him. "Now, for the men!" 

You pity Chaff. He stands by himself on the left, bearing the weight of being the only male victor of Eleven. He never had a chance. 

Argon approaches the bowl on the left like a magician, showy with big movements. He pulls the card out and stands by the mic. "Chaff Mitchell!" 

Chaff doesn't move from where he stands, there's no point. 

Seeder takes your hand and you squeeze back with numb fingers. You don't know where her kids are, the mass of people too big to pick out three children, but you look for them nonetheless. You wonder what they're feeling. You wonder what you’re feeling.

"On to the female victors. This one is especially exciting, a fifty-fifty chance!" There's not a wrinkle on his face as he smiles, skin too tight with Botox. It makes him look inhuman, fitting. 

"Which one, which one," his fingers dance between the two cards inside the bowl, going back and forth like it was a guessing game and not someone's life on the line. He goes on like that longer than needed before deciding, "Aha! This one." 

He steps back to the mic, tearing the tape off the back of the paper before announcing, "Seeder Howell!"

She is quiet, face twisted in an attempt to keep back tears. Her grip is crushing as if she's scared they will drag her away. And you move without putting much thought into the decision. 

You raise your free hand and say, "I volunteer." You don't yell it, you don't need to. 

Your mother lets out a shrill, throat-shredding scream, her voice only elevated by the silence surrounding it. This will be the last thing you hear from her.

Seeder holds on to your hand as you step forward, grip tight. There are tears in her eyes, lips trembling around words she doesn't have the strength to say. 

"I know," And you do. As a mother, she's grateful, but as your mentor—well, "Let me do this for you." You say, but it isn't a request. You're going back into the arena whether she gives you her blessing or not. You can admit your reasons for volunteering aren't entirely selfless. You're going up against seasoned fighters, all prepared to do what it takes to survive. 

But—you don't have to win. No one expects you to win and that...that thought is relieving. You aren't planning on rolling over in the arena and letting someone get a free kill, but this is something Snow won't be able to work around. No matter how hard he tries, he can't manipulate the outcome of the games. And he'll have no one to blame but himself, no one to punish. It's cowardice, in a way, but you're tired. And you think you've been tired for a long time now. You'd be stupid not to take this ticket out. 

Most eyes pity you. You're essentially volunteering yourself to put your head under the executioner's sword. However, some eyes envy you. You're leaving Eleven. For good. For many of the citizens, death is a small price to pay for freedom. But there’s something else, something everyone in the crowd shares. There’s anger, a righteous fury in every face you see. 

Is this the view your dad had? Are these the faces he saw before he was lynched?

You spot your mom a few rows back, someone holding her up. She's inconsolable. You take a moment to look at her for the last time. After you die, they'll make her move out of your house, but you know without asking that Seeder will take care of her. 

"This is certainly a surprise! Very exciting," Argon grabs the stump of Chaff's right arm and the wrist of your left, lifting them into the air, "We have our tributes!" 

No one claps. You don't expect them to. 

Things move pretty quickly after that. You're given no time to say goodbye. No time to try and run. 

Peacekeepers approach and the hands that grab you are rough with their treatment, dragging you and Chaff in the direction of the train. 

There'll be many victors facing the guillotine, many of your friends forced into a death march.

You look to the sky, a quick glance before you're ushered to the train. It's a sunny day with plump white clouds on a baby blue backdrop. It might be the last time you see the real sky as a free woman. Calm and beautiful despite the carnage happening under it. 

You close your eyes for a moment and think. For the first time in almost two years, you'll see Finnick.

[total-drama-brainrot]

This Alenoaheather AU is bringing me an unholy amount of serotonin and I love it- I’m still just now discovering it and I wish I knew about it sooner😭😭 But question if I may!

So, by the time Noah gets eliminated, where would you say his relationship lies with Alejandro and Heather? Like, does he leave the competition like, “You both tried to play each other, but I ended up playing the both of you, L” Like does he just think that Alejandro and Heather only romantically like each other, and he was just their attempt at emotionally manipulating one another, or does he at least have an idea that they potentially may feel romantically towards him? Honestly I’m just curious about how his elimination would play out between the three of them-

I'm glad other people are enjoying this AU as much as I am. Me and Perp are slowly spreading our Alenoaheather propaganda and it's working.

It's been established that Noah's elimination in this AU will take place at some point in the early post-merge game, probably either China or the Serengeti (though Niagara Falls might work too. We haven't exactly touched on how each challenge can/will play out since this whole concept has been put on the backburner), which gives his dynamic with Heather and Alejandro time to blossom from the initial double fake dating ploy into something more genuine.

Well before his elimination, Noah's been caught in his double-crossing ways; or to be more accurate triple-crossing, since Noah initially decided to play along with both Heather and Alejandro's schemes with the intention of throwing them both under the bus (or at least reaping all of the benefits for himself). But, by the time his ploy is figured out, the three of them have developed genuine feelings for each other.

As such, Heather and Alejandro are hesitant to have him eliminated; sure Noah somehow managing to pull the wool over their eyes for as long as he did was infuriating, but it was also impressive. Like recognises like, and the two biggest schemers in the game can appreciate when they've been outplayed, aggravating as it is, especially when the person who bested them essentially used their own trickery against them. Also, though the two of them would never admit it, both Heather and Alejandro know that they'd honestly miss Noah's caustic company.

Of course, at this point in the competition Heather and Alejandro are still deep in their "rivalry" phase, so it takes the two of them a very convoluted and overcomplicated conversation to figure out that they both share the same sentiment concerning a certain cynic- since every encounter they have with each other is practically a game of backhanded compliments and dancing around the true meaning of their words. It takes even longer for them to come to an agreement, given how stubborn the both of them can be, but eventually they manage to co-operate.

Which is what leads to The Confrontation, the point in the story where the two fake dating plots merge into Heather and Alejandro putting aside their differences to rule the game together, utilizing Noah as their shared right hand man since he's shown a knack for strategy and subterfuge. After all, why would they want to get rid of the one person on the jet who's able to go toe-to-toe with them in terms of scheming, when they can instead keep him around as an accomplice?

At least, that's the excuse they both use. But the two of them internally can't deny that, even if it was all pretend, Noah wasn't a bad "boyfriend" by any means, and they genuinely enjoy his company. In turn, Noah's accepted that neither Heather nor Alejandro are as insufferable as he initially assumed, and that playing along with their grand plots is actually really fun. (And maybe he also likes the two of them, but Noah would never admit that.)

But there's a a whole cast's worth of people on the jet who the trio also have to consider in their plans; it would be super suspicious of all three of them if the flirting and Aleheather's animosity suddenly ceased. No matter how oblivious the rest of the competitors are, a sudden public change in their dynamic would be the equivalent of waving a huge red flag and screaming "hey, we're in an alliance, vote us out!" Very counterintuitive to their goal of winning the competition.

So the three of them resolve to act as they have been during challenges, and sneak off to the confessional when it's most convenient/feasible to do so, where they can plot and scheme away from the rest of the cast.

This means that, at least to everyone else in the game, Noah's still in this weird grey area where he's actively flirting with both Heather and Alejandro. Or, well, "flirting", since I imagine most of the advances would be initiated by the other party and Noah would play the part of the blushing damsel- or more accurately the begrudging but highly amused recipient, since I just can't conceptualise snarky, stoic Noah being the type to get flustered easily.

I imagine The Confrontation would happen somewhere around London timeline wise (it just feels like the most appropriate place to have a major shift in the plot happen, for obvious reasons), which would give the initial fake dating aspect of the AU time to run it's course without getting stale, and allow the three of them to establish their dynamic as a trio before the merge hits. It'd give Alenoaheather around five or six episodes worth of time to grow closer as a trio (from Greece's Pieces to Niagara Brawls, at least) and have their feelings grow and develop at a natural pace, to the point where they acknowledge that, perhaps, not all of the romantic tension between them is fake.

And then, of course, the Fake Cheating Arc happens. Noah's elimination is the catalyst for this section of the plot, which Perp and myself touched on pretty heavily in one of our reblog chains, and at this point in the story Alenoaheather are in a sort of vague kind-of-dating situation; the three of them know there's feelings there, but they're all more invested in the competition (and their manipulation of such) than trying to figure out what exactly is going on between them. Plus, World Tour takes place in 2010- concepts like polyamory weren't exactly common knowledge back then, so the three of them wouldn't have any basis of comparison for what their dynamic is/would be.

That, and the three of them are all fairly emotionally closed off, so getting them to admit genuine feelings for each other and show vulnerableness to anyone would be like pulling teeth. As it stands, they're fairly content to continue acting as a Trickster Trio, contented to leave whatever's going on between them unlabelled for the time being in favour of focusing their time and energy on winning the million. There's an unspoken understanding between the three of them; what they have is special, inconceptual and indescribable by mere words... which is mostly just an excuse for the three of them not to breach the subject, since they have the collective emotional intelligence of a spork.

That doesn't mean they don't love each other. Because they do, even if some of them (Heather and Alejandro) aren't exactly familiar with concepts like "unconditional love" and "loyalty/compassion for someone besides yourself" and "lowering your emotional walls and being the most genuine version of yourself in front of the people who care about you". It's a steep learning curve, but they're doing their best.

But that's besides the point; at this point in the plot, the trio are essentially a throuple in all but name at the point of Noah's elimination.

That's why his suggestion of playing off of his "cheating" is initially met with hesitance on Aleheather's part- they don't want the one person on the jet (besides each other) they actually care about to risk his reputation, but they also know that it's a strategically sound idea. There's a conflict of interest between their desire to win the competition by any means necessary, and the budding sense of empathy they've both began to develop as a result of their situationship.

Of course, they eventually agree to his plan, and then the whole Cheating Arc plays out as it's been explored previously.

Which means Noah's actual elimination ceremony is a very tense affair.

He's intentionally playing himself up as kind of a scumbag during it, since he wants both Heather and Alejandro to appear as sympathetic as possible to the remaining competitors, so the three of them stage an altercation during that day's challenge where Noah's caught out in his "cheating", and consequently "admits" that he's been playing the two of them and it's all ingenuine on his part, to direct the majority vote against him. It'd kill two birds with one stone that way; Noah gets himself eliminated without having to do much out of the ordinary, since he's already kind of an asshole so all he really has to do is play up that aspect of himself a little and lie about manipulating his partners, meanwhile Heather and Alejandro can reap the benefits of whatever brownie points they gain from being his "victims" by using their own manipulative prowess to adopt the role of the ex-villains, redeemed by their shared heartbreak. Or something equally melodramatic.

Noah doesn't really care about the specifics of it, he'll be long gone before his partners can start playing up their "betrayal and heartbreak", and then soon enough one of them will win the competition. And spoil him rotten with their money.

So, during the actual ceremony, Noah becomes persona non grata. No one wants to sit anywhere near him on the benches, and the remaining cast members form a protective wall between him and a distraught Heather, who sniffles back quiet tears every time her eyes wander too close to the cynic's slouching, impassive frame, and Alejandro who's sat eerily still and taut with disgraced fury, who's fiery green eyes haven't strayed from the burning glare he's shooting towards the bookworm.

Not that Noah's a stranger to receiving glares; the rest of the cast are also shooting him some downright murderous looks. Though he is impressed by his partners' acting abilities. He's also physically biting back pearls of laughter- the gritting of his teeth only serves to make him look unapologetically indignant, and thus more irredeemable in the eyes of their company- because every time Alejandro knows that no one's focus is on him, he sends his cerebral partner a cheeky wink and a smirk. The smug bastard.

Unsurprisingly, the vote is fairly unanimous. Chris doesn't even bother trying to raise suspense or tension by counting the votes, since the result is inevitable. That, and the atmosphere is already so tense and dramatic, the host is revelling in it. Chris even goes so far as complimenting Noah for outshining Duncan's cheating fiasco, showing the audience "what real relationship drama looks like", and maybe even congratulating Noah on almost being as heartless as he is.

He's escorted to the Drop of Shame, parachute backpack in tow, but before he can take the plunge he glances back at his audience. A raging sea of hostility greets him, but within the depths of animosity two shining beacons of light greet him. Alejandro and Heather shoot him a fleeting wave, the ghosts of smiles flickering across their features before they continue their flawless acts, but it's enough to reassure Noah that everything will be fine.

(Spoiler alert, things don't end up being fine for Noah.)

Of course this is all just an idea I'm spewing out. Nothing in this AU is set in concrete and it's always open to peer review or change. That's the beauty of public AUs; you can do whatever you want with them!

[befuddled-calico-whump]

Total $hit$how: Good Cop

in which Jericho cracks a wall

cw: aftermath of violence, adult language

previous // masterlist // next

×~×~×

When Harbor's hour was almost up, Jericho made his way back to the briefing room, a hopeful plan at the ready and a nervous feeling in his gut, every step closer to the door jiggling at his nerves like jello.

The word interrogation didn't exactly fill his head with pleasant images. In movies, it was usually portrayed as torture, ineffective on the protagonist but shockingly useful against any minions the heroes snatched for intel. In real life, he'd experienced something like it once or twice. Corporate cronies trying to grill a confession out of him; entrapping questions intended to get him to admit to anything they could twist into something worthy of an arrest. Those were some of the scariest moments of his life, and even though he'd insisted on his own ignorance, in the end he was only saved by a lack of evidence of his hacking activities (hacktivities?).

Jericho's own encounters had been pretty mild, but he still wasn't eager to put anyone else through it. 

Then again, this was just a challenge, wasn't it? Succeeding didn't mean they'd suddenly be required to hurt Finley, it only meant Sahota wouldn't kill her. If they managed to win, maybe they could pursue Joy's original idea and just talk to the woman. Whether she was a hardened criminal or not, surely she'd be willing to help if she knew the safety of the city was on the line.

…But that was all a big if. Unless Harbor had managed to pull a trick out of his hat, no one had been successful so far, which left Jericho. Jericho going toe-to-toe against Sahota's boundless willpower. No big deal, just a stranger's life hanging in the balance.

If he failed, could they still back out?

There were other avenues. Both Sahota and Vic had been clear on that, but the group's own insistence had gotten them to this point. If they completely gave up on Finley as a lead now, they'd have just wasted a day, and he doubted Vic would be very happy about that, but between wasting a day and throwing away an entire person, Jericho knew what he'd choose. 

From the moment the challenge was announced, he knew what method he'd be using. Bad-cop good-cop, sans the bad-cop. In his experience, difficult people could be swayed to a cause if the reason behind it was just explained, if he pled to their humanity and compassion. And sure, some people were so far up their own bias that they'd refuse to listen, but it was worth a try.

Hell, it was how he got Ari to take a chance on asparagus. 

He was prepared to act on the same technique he'd use if they actually won, if they got a chance with Finley: Just talk. A conversation might be all they needed. The Reality Cage was potentially destructive. If Finley knew that, knew what was at stake, wouldn't she help them? It wasn't even as if she'd be responsible for destroying it. She'd just have to tell them how. Some part of her had to exist that would want them to succeed, to save people.

Jericho was inclined to believe that the same could be said about Sahota. He'd given them this chance in the first place, hadn't he? Why let them try at all, unless he wasn't too keen on killing Finley either? If that was true, if this was more than just a lesson in their own inadequacy, Jericho had hope that this whole mission wouldn't wind up as violent as he feared.

Footsteps drew his attention back to the corridor ahead, and he looked up to see Harbor, head drooping, wild multicolored hair obscuring his face. His walk was usually something between a sway and a stumble, but it looked more erratic now, with him nearly bumping into the walls as he went.

“Hey,” Jericho started, but his voice caught when his gaze landed on Harbor's hands. His knuckles were red, skin splitting in some places, blood drying in the lines of his fingers. Totally cut up, and not from the morning’s sparring matches, so that meant… Jericho’s stomach twisted.

Sahota.

Harbor didn't look up, passing right by him as if he wasn't even aware he was there.

“Harbor—”

“Fuck off,” he said in a voice that sounded bitten off, and disappeared around the corner. Jericho had to stop himself from chasing after the other man, from asking what happened.

It was pretty clear what had happened, but why? Harbor was rough around the edges, but he didn't seem like the kind of person who enjoyed hurting someone else, especially not a someone else who was already injured. A part of him hoped that he was jumping to conclusions, that Harbor had just… punched the wall or something to try and intimidate their trainer. But before he made it to the end of the hall, before he could even open the door, he knew what he would see.

An anxious sort of nausea built in Jericho’s stomach as he took in the scene, deliberately avoiding the focus of it as long as he could. The briefing room had been cleared, the big table pushed to one side to make space for the day's challenge. 

In the center, tied to a chair, sat Sahota. Blood and spit hung from his face in sticky strands, and his head sat heavy atop his shoulders, like he was struggling to keep it up. His cheek was split, the cut on his lip reopened and dribbling blood, and the eye that had been bruised was now nearly swollen shut.

Jericho’s heart beat faster. 

“Is your plan just to stand there?” Sahota mumbled. “Or do you have a better idea?”

And he was just acting like it hadn’t happened. Jericho had already gathered that Sahota didn't like to show any weakness, but this was bigger than pride. Their trainer had been hurt, while he was tied down, by someone who was supposed to be on their team.

“Are you okay?” He clearly wasn't.

“Fine.”

“Did Harbor do this?” Why was he asking such stupid, obvious questions? Why couldn't he make himself step forward to untie the other man? Because of how little he wanted to believe it was true? Because of how surreal it was?

“I… I told him to,” Sahota replied.

What? Hadn’t he warned them all not to do anything he couldn’t sleep off? No matter how tough Sahota was, this didn’t look like it fell into that category.

“Let me cut you loose,” Jericho said, finally breaking a leg free of the uncertainty that held it captive, taking a step closer.

“No,” Sahota said, and he froze in his tracks. “Do what you came to do or get out. I don’t need your help.”

Jericho grimaced. “Should we really continue? You should get cleaned up, maybe—”

“I said I'm fine.”

Same song, different verse. He'd said he was fine yesterday, even after they'd all seen the video that so clearly told them he wasn't. 

“Sahota…”

“Davis,” he answered in a clipped tone. “If you can't ignore the blood, leave.” He took a shaky breath, coughed, sent little flecks of red flying. “Tell me what information you're after and pursue it, or get out.”

Jericho exhaled through clenched teeth. It was pretty clear that no matter what he said, their trainer was determined to suffer through this. Was there any point in continuing? He could just leave. Walk away, abandon Sahota to his own wounds and pride, but it didn't feel right. What would happen? How long would it take Sahota to get free on his own? Better to finish the exercise and hope his trainer allowed help after it was completed.

“Okay,” he said, letting out a resigned sigh. “I want to know your first name. That’s what I’m after.”

“Then get on with it.”

Jericho took a deep breath. Ignore the blood. How was he supposed to do that?

“Hey,” he began, forcing a smile. “My… uh, my name's Jericho. I have a few questions for you, and…” he couldn't stay on track with this. He couldn't just pretend Sahota wasn't actively in pain in front of him.

“And I'd like to apologize for any rough treatment you received before I got here. It… that wasn't my intention,” he said. “I didn't want to hurt you.”

Sahota scoffed. It sounded closer to a wheeze. “Do you think Finley will buy that?”

“I don't… Maybe.” Jericho sighed. “Let me start again. Hey,” he said. “You… uh, you have some information that I need. Pretty badly." Everything he said just sounded dumb. "I want to know your name. Sounds weird, I know, but this… you could help me stop a lot of people from getting hurt.”

“What if she doesn't care?” Sahota said.

“There's hundreds of thousands of people in this city,” Jericho continued, trying not to let the other man's words deter him. “Right now, all of them are at risk. If you’ll just work with me here, we can keep them safe.”

Sahota didn't answer. And really, he had a point. Even if Finley did care about the well-being of the city, she’d have no reason to believe anything they said. How could they convince her?

“My family doesn't live here,” Jericho tried. He was truly thankful that they didn't. Having to worry about their safety, their potential destruction at the hands of an uncaring company would be terrible.

“My mom, daughter, aunts, uncles, cousins… they're not the ones in danger," he continued. "But people like them are. I’d never be able to sleep again if something just… destroyed people's lives. Something I could've prevented.” He clasped his hands together, hoped the motion looked sincere. “That's why I'm here. I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to be your enemy. I just want to help people.”

Jericho sighed when that didn't get a response. He shouldn't be too disheartened. Sahota probably just didn't have much energy for conversation. Not after Harbor… did that. He glanced down at his own knuckles, still sore from fighting the taserbots just a few days ago. He'd saved Harbor. He’d thought they were finally starting to meld together and work as a team, but teammates didn't do this to each other. Even if Sahota had ordered it, why would he take it that far?

“I'm sorry about what happened,” he said. “I know someone on my team hurt you.” He swallowed. “Whoever… whoever touched you was in the wrong. You didn't deserve to be hurt like that, and… I'm sorry.” He was. He really was. He'd need to find Harbor after this. They could talk it out.

“I won't let it happen again,” Jericho said. “If someone tries to touch you, just let me know, okay? I'll stop them. I know I'm basically a stranger, but I promise I want to help you. I promise you're not alone. I—”

He stopped at an odd noise. A catch in Sahota's breath, a sound that was oddly familiar but out of place. It took a second for Jericho to realize that Ari made a sound just like it sometimes. When she was trying not to cry.

“Sahota?”

No answer, just another shaky inhale. Shoot, he knew he shouldn't have proceeded, not when he was all beat up like this. Even with Finley on the line… Vic be damned, he'd fight for it to be nothing more than a wasted day. He was fine abandoning the lead, he was fine admitting defeat here.

He wasn't fine leaving Sahota like this.

Jericho exhaled sharply through his nose, crossing the room in two strides to reach the chair their trainer was strapped to and setting to work on the knots. Surprisingly, Sahota didn't tell him off this time, just sat with his head bent and his shoulders shaking.

Why was he crying? Of course, Jericho couldn't blame him. He was probably overwhelmed with everything that was going on, and this was just the straw that had broken the camel's back. But what was ‘this’? What had been his breaking point? Had something he said triggered it?

He fumbled with the ropes, eventually managing to find a weak point in each knot and pull them loose, letting the bindings coil to the floor.

Now with his arms free, Sahota buried his face in his hands.

“Fuck,” he whispered in a thick voice. “I… I don't know what came over me. I'm sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” Jericho said, taking a step back. The other man refused to look up. He could understand if he was embarrassed. Holding up an emotionless, unshakable facade all the time must be exhausting, but it would also be jarring to ever let it drop. He got it.

“The exercise is over,” Sahota said, still not raising his head.

“Alright.” Jericho couldn't let himself be mad about it. He'd given it a try, but if their trainer was just too overwhelmed right now, and no way was Jericho going to push him further. They could worry about Finley later. “Seriously though, are you okay?” he said. “There's no shame in not being fine. I know you're under a lot of stress.”

It took a moment for the other man to respond. “Go wait by the mats. I need to reset this room.”

I need some time alone.

“Okay,” Jericho said softly, backing towards the door. “Do you… want a hand getting patched up?”

“I'll handle it.”

Alright. He wouldn't push him. “Okay,” he said again. “I… guess I'll give you some space.” 

It felt like it was all for nothing. Their idea for a peaceful approach had already resulted in violence, and for what? They’d all failed. They were no closer to their goal than they'd been yesterday. 

He had one foot out the door when Sahota called after him.

“Davis.” It wasn't loud. It sounded uncertain, like he might ‘nevermind’ him and send him on his way. Jericho turned around, determined to be patient, to show he was at least willing to listen, even if their trainer said nothing else. But instead of sitting silent, instead of ordering him off, Sahota spoke. His head stayed bowed, hands tangled tightly around each other, eyes on the floor.

“It's Ander,” he said. “My name is Ander.”

×~×~×

tag list:

@theonewithallthefixations , @violets-whumperflies , @whump-me , @pirefyrelight , @soheavyaburden , @snakebites-and-ink , @whumpsday , @kixngiggles , @echo-goes-aaa , @whumpcateyes , @clickerflight

[heartfullofleeches]

Do it!! We love your ideas chief, that’s why we’re here!

Also ghoul reader is hot as fuck

[Light body horror. Angst]

Well- two important factors about ghoul reader are both their body and mind deteriorate over time, but can be rebuilt to full structure by eating human meat/brain healthy meals.

This led me to think of a "healer" ghoul reader who can sorta transfer/reconstruct the healthy cells to others and heal people that way. Lose a kidney? Ghoul Reader can create a new one and negate most side effects by eating some ground beef left in the freezer. A personal sacrifice of their flesh for another being.

Given the nature of their healing properties, Ghoul Reader is extremely caring and always puts others before themself. They make friends with the wrong person- someone who hardly cares about their well-being and uses Reader for their personal gain. They had been scarred horribly by mistakes they'd already made and without them even asking Reader starts to slowly heal them. Their body needs more work than reader's can take, but they just write the ghoul off as lazy and trying to keep them around. Reader's body mass continues to shrink no matter how much they eat. It hurts them to put so much strain on their body... it hurts so much... but they still try. They still keep that "friend" in their heart and notebooks so they'll never forget them when their memory blanks. They care about their friend. They love them. They want them to be okay and love themself for who they are-

But they never knew how truly rotten that person was - inside and out.

"Finally... All those horrid scars were a damper on my social life. I'm even more beautiful than I was then. That being said, I can't be seen around something like you. It was fun."

That isn't what friends are supposed to say.. After all they did for them... Gone without even saying goodbye. That was the ghouls first time being betrayed to such caliber- and it crushed them. They wouldn't feel this pain if they were just another mindless creature, but they were proud of the person they'd become. The "normal" human being who walked around same as everyone else. They were just like them... only rotting... maybe that person wasn't so wrong to leave them behind...

Ghoul Reader shuts off from the outside world after that. They stick to their routine as it's all they've ever known, but they've lost that rosy view of the world. Is it worth making friends anymore? What's the point of trying if they'll just be abandoned again? They were more human than the people around them. Unlike them - they felt pain. They wanted to forget it all - so they did. Most of it at least.

While out one night reader notices a musky scent in the air. So faint only their nose would catch it. They follow the trail to a body lying behind some dumpsters - stab wounds having torn deep holes through their vital organs. Their pulse was weak - fading. Despite all the pain they've been dealt, Ghoul couldn't let someone die for another's mistake. They fixed up the near corpse and waited for them to wake up so they couldn't get home safety.

"Ugh....I'm still alive....lame...who the fuck are you?.."

Ghoul Reader explains everything that lead up to the encounter and their healing capabilities.

"Eh....with how my nights gone - I'll believe anything at this point. Thanks for the help, bud."

It was nothing. Ghoul Reader gets up to leave.

"Aye! Where ya going? You save people's lives on the regular and expect nothing back? Lemme treat you to dinner. Know a good spot close by and I still have the wallet I was gutted over. Let's get going already!"

Reader learns more about their new acquaintance. A petty thief trying to get on the right track in life. They spun some wild story about seeing a guy dropping his wallet and them trying to return it with the guy flying off the rails and accusing them of stealing it. The details were spotty, but Reader nodded along to every word. They needed a place to stay for the night as their home was too far to trek back too at that hour. They give Reader the rest of the cash in the wallet in exchange for their couch and they become the first real friend Reader makes.

Everything Reader gave they always tried to give back double. The near death experience gave them a new outlook on life. It was something to be cherished and not thrown away so easily as they had in the past. They wanted to share that new view with their only friend. Reader was a better companion than people they'd know their entire life. A little bitey when they got hungry, but everyone gets a little cranky when they're starving.

The friend gets a call over. Reader had skipped breakfast and wasn't sticking to their usual diet. They sat alone, unable to move and succumbing to the painful cramps of hunger. They begged their friend to bring them meat from the store, but their friend wanted to end their suffering as quickly as they could. They pulled out their trusty switchblade, embedding its teeth in their pinky finger. Ghoul Reader tries to stop them.

"Y/n, you saved my life. It's as much yours as it is mine. I'd give anything to properly replay you, but I'll never be able to and I don't mind living with that debt on my shoulders if it means we're together. This is the least I can do for you- so shut up and eat my damn finger."

-

A week after Reader tries them their finger back there's a knock on the door. Their friend refused treatment seeing it as a marker of their loyality to reader. They make sure reader is well fed at all times. A face reader has seen before stands behind the door. Some model they've seen on billboards and flyers. What could someone like that with them?

"Y/n. I know you probably don't want to see me after what I've done, but I need your help. I got into an accident after a few drinks last week. Nothing serious before you ask, but I've got these bruises and I have an important party to attend this Saturday. I'll allow you to be my plus one if that fixes things."

....

"I'll be out with a friend Saturday, but thank you. I can still fix you, but if you don't mind me asking - how do you know my name?"

Reader leads them to their couch and heals their spotty face all while the stranger is left bewildered. They're acting like nothing happened. Why are they acting like nothing happened? Who was this new friend and who the hell was that standing by their bedroom door?

"Are you seriously going to play this game?"

"What do you mean?"

"Pretending like you don't know who I am. That's harsh even with everything that's happened."

Ghoul Reader backs away from them.

"I've seen you in pictures, but that's it. I don't know who you are."

"It was cute at first, but I'm not playing whatever game you're trying to start. You know who I am."

Ghoul Reader racks their brain for answers, but there's no result. They begin to hyperventilate. "I don't....I don't know who you are....Stop it, please!"

"Not til you say my name. I'll own up to my part when do that simple thing."

They grip at their face, talons catching on their softened skin. "I don't know who you are...Don't make me remember..... Get out.... GET OUT!"

As the stranger leaves and heads towards their car a notebook flies out reader's window - aiming for their skull had they not stepped out of the way in time. Inside are pages of filled with scratched out ink held on a weakened spine. It was a miracle they held together. The pages stick togethered, water damgaged by crusted specks of blood and smaller dots of a clearer fluid. The words written were near illegible, but there's a few key points they could make out. A birthday, the begining and ending characters to a person's name, a repeated phrase pieced together over the various pages. Don't forget. Never forget.

They'd been erased completely from reader's conscious mind. This notebook had been kept to prevent that very thing from happening. All those precious memories thrown away. The stranger was happy with the life they'd been robbed of - but no one had ever been their for them like Reader had. A new stain falls to the page.

Flipping to the final page, a note slides off the back cover.

"Come here again - and I'll erase you permanently."

It wasn't reader's hand writing. The person in the window holds up a new journal - comforting a sobbing ghoul on their shoulder.

[finelinevogue]

love me tomorrow

summary - you and Harry are high-school teachers and he loves you. the only issue is; you're a married woman

warnings: domestic abuse/violence - both emotional and physical, swearing, it’s very much a hurt/comfort piece. this is pretty heavy going and i need you all to know that abuse isn't okay, and i hope that you reach out to people if you need to. if you ever need a simple friend, for literally whatever reason, i'm always here! xx

pairing: teacher!harry x teacher!reader

word count: +13.8k

Life had been good to you. For the most part.

Life had given you a wholesome family who supported your every choice - even the drastic ones like choosing to live in Namibia for a year. Life had given you an incredible education, leading you on to a fulfilling life of educating the new generations. Life had given you so much love. Life had given you a healthy body and mind which you'd always cherished, up until recently.

Finding 'the one' in your life isn't supposed to be an easy road, but you were challenged with the hardest of them all.

Rodger Cassidy. 

The name of the man who has made life feel meaningless and you feel worthless.

That night you believed you'd met your soulmate. 

That night you believed you'd met your soulmate. 

Until you realised you hadn't.

After two years of being together he popped the question - you thinking that he'd taken long enough. Now, though, maybe he hadn't.

Rodger, or Ro as you started to nickname him, was the sweetest. He always drove you to work and back. He always made you a coffee in the mornings. He always stayed up late if you were out with the girls. But then it all changed and you never understood why. Whether it was something creeping up on him from his past, the stresses of every day life or troubles with his family you just didn't know. All you knew it that you were the one he'd take his stress and anger out on at the end of the day.

The world had become a lot smaller since meeting Ro, both emotionally and physically. At first he stopped you from going abroad, saying that you didn't have the money to be wasting away on abroad luxuries anymore - but it was perfectly okay for him to be spending on gambling and alcohol instead. Then he cut you off from your friends and family, having texted them a long message explaining how they weren't suitable company anymore - but you were allowed to be friends with his druggie friends. Last, was not letting you out of the house unless he was with you or for work.

Never did you think that you would feel so trapped, but here you were.

Obviously you had put your foot down, each time, standing up for yourself and explaining that it wasn't okay to take away your freedom and your love like this. You'd even tried escaping one night through the window, to go to your best friends birthday party, but he caught you - explaining that if he ever found you leaving him again he'd kill you. Each time you would do something he didn't like, it would result in a beating - which is why you are very hypersensitive. 

It wasn't worth trying to be you anymore, you had to play by his rules now.

Your only chance of escape was work and it was the best 6 hours of your day.

Working at a primary school was the greatest decision of your life, even after marrying Ro. You'd worked there before marrying Ro and it was the one sense of normality that he let you keep from what you like to call your previous life.

The primary school had never been the end goal. You had really wanted to teach undergraduates at university, because your lectures at university were awful and you wanted to change the system. However, getting a job as a lecturer was a lot harder than you thought not having considered that you would need a PhD to do so. So primary school teaching it was and it was the best decision of your life.

You'd found an advert online for support staff at 'Snowdrops Primary School' and loved the sound of it. You instantly sent in your resume and within a week they'd gotten back to you, stating how impressed they'd been with your CV and wanted to call you in for a taster session. Upon arrival they had told you on the low that you'd already got the job, but that they had to ask you in for a taster session due to protocol. Engaging with the kids that day was a happiness that you'd never felt in your life. They were so care-free, yet so vulnerable, and you promised yourself that you'd help them become the best versions of themselves. At the end of the day you had a long meeting, which resulted in them congratulating you on your new job with them.

It still is the best thing to have happened to you. 

Getting to see your students grow every day, and at such a young age, was something very special to you. Knowing that they would go home feeling that little bit smarter was something you prided yourself on. Whether it be they'd learnt how to add four and two together, whether they'd successfully learnt how to spell their name or whether they'd managed to colour in a picture in between the lines, you were proud of all of them.

You taught a class of 14 and they were the best people in your life.

"You better be ready at 4:30pm Y/N. I'm going to be pissed if I have to come inside that stupid school and find you, again." Ro spat at you as he pulled up outside the school.

"O-okay." You answered quietly. 

Before you could open the door he grabbed your wrist tightly, making you wince at how harsh it was. You couldn't escape from his grip if you tried though, his hand being tighter than a leather belt.

"Really pissed, so i'd be careful if I were you." He threatened.

You really couldn't deal with him today.

Escaping the car as quickly as possible you made your way swiftly in to the building. As you passed students you would say hello and good mornings, just as they would to you. Your class' students were already sat at their desks waiting for you, greeting you with a chorus of mornings as you said hello to them all.

The day went quite well actually, considering the awful morning you'd had. Rodger had "accidentally" pushed you down the last few stairs, making you land on your ankle in a, not so, funny way and bruising the entirety of your hip. It was as if someone had got purple paint and splatted it all over your left side. It hurt to sit down for reasons you didn't understand and then stand back up - so you did a lot of your teaching standing up today.

Luckily for you, you'd gotten quite good at hiding the pain over the years and so no one really questioned why there was an ever so slight limp in you left ankle, or why you kept on running a hand protectively over your left side.

On Friday's your class and Harry’s class would come together to do arts and crafts in the afternoon. Strictly, you weren't supposed to and instead were supposed to be coming together for additional maths or english lessons, but you and Harry thought that was a bit harsh on a Friday afternoon. After much persuasion you and Harry, collaboratively, managed to convince the head teacher to let the children's creativity flow instead hence creating an artistry period.

Harry’s students were a mixed class too, but his class were a little more rowdy than yours which you suspected had something to do with Harrys extroverted personality, compared to your introverted one. Your class were a lot more tranquil, but you weren't complaining. 

They were your calm away from the storm.

This particular afternoon you had asked the kids to make an artefact for someone that meant a lot to them. Some inspiration you'd given was perhaps a card for your mum or maybe a name badge for a pet. It could be anything. Then on Monday, after they'd given their artefact to whoever, they would write a sentence or two about the reaction of the gift receiver.

You were currently sat with Hallie, one of your quietest students, and one whom you saw yourself in, working on her artefact. You were surprised when she'd asked whether she was allowed to make an artefact for Harry, or Mr Styles to her, but you told her as long as she gave it to him with a good enough reason then there was no problem there.

"What are you two mischiefs up to?" Harry asked, coming to sit down on the chair opposite you both, whilst you two continued to giggle.

"No Mr Styles! You can't see. Mrs Cassidy and I are painting for you." Hallie exclaimed, covering her little arms over the art that you'd been working on. Harry leant back against the chair, arms up in defence and looked at you instead of Hallie and her present.

"Sorry! Sorry Hallie. You both painted it though? For me?" Harry smirked, knowing he would tease you for this later - or maybe not when he finds out what it is. You squinted your eyes at him, already knowing his devious plot against you. You knew him too well for him to let this go.

"Yes, Mr Styles." Hallie nodded her head, glancing upwards to make sure Harry wasn't cheating. She looked up to see him watching you instead, noticing the sparkle in his eyes she saw in her own mum and dads. "It was Mrs Cassidy's idea to paint it, otherwise it would still be not colourful." She added, picking up a different paintbrush to use a different colour. Her grammar wasn't technically correct, but you hadn't learnt about sentence structure yet so neither of you felt the need to correct her.

"Mrs Cassidy?" You heard Jada shout politely from the other side of the room. She had her hand patiently waiting in the air and you felt slightly guilty over how long she'd been sat there waiting for you. You had been too caught up with Harry that you didn't even notice.

"I'm coming Jada." You shouted back, not wanting to have the full conversation with her from opposite ends of the classroom. 

You got up from the chair you'd been sat in, wincing slightly from the shooting pain in your hip, and pointed you fore-fingers from your eyes to point at Harry, threatening him that you were watching him and that he better not try and persuade Hallie to show him his present if you weren't there. Harry held his hands up to you, which made you felt better about leaving. However, you didn't feel good about the concerned look in his eyes from when you'd stood up.

Jada put her hand down when you finally came over and started to help her with a glue problem she was having. Apparently Dennis, the boy sat next to her, and from Harry’s class no surprise, had glued her hands together for fun, but it had turned out to be stickier glue than they both expected. At least it wasn't superglue.

The class continued for an hour before you slowly wrapped up, letting some people showcase their artefacts. Dennis showed his name tag that he'd made for his pet fish, who was named after a certain clownfish from a beloved Disney movie - although it was written as the alternative spelling of 'Neemow'. Parker showed the snowflake that he'd made for his mum, with the help of Harry's cutting expertise.

It wasn't until after class, during the last recreational play time outside before the end of the day, that Hallie gave her artefact away.

"Mr Styles?" Hallie asked, holding her piece of art behind her back. You and Harry were tidying away the trays of colouring pencils, pens, glues and scissors back in to their assigned drawers.

"Hello Hallie." Harry stopped what he was doing and crouched down, seeing as he was a lot taller than her. He knew she had something to give her, since she'd been antsy about him seeing her art all afternoon.

"My gift is to you." She told him, swaying on the balls of her feet in nervous anticipation.

You watched the two interact as you filed away the paper into the correct trays, pushing the chairs firmly under the tables as you did so.

"Well thank you." Harry said gratefully, before even receiving it. Even if you didn't understand the reasoning behind the piece of art Hallie had created, you did know that Harry would get emotional over it.

Hallie cautiously moved her arms around front and presented her small token to Harry. She looked at him carefully, studying every facial expression carefully to see how well she'd done - or how badly. Harry was taken aback by the small, yet significant, gesture. It shouldn't have made Harry feel the way it did, but he could feel the tears starting to form in his eyes.

It was a medal.

Not just any medal though. Not a 'Number 1 teacher' or anything like that. It was a medal that had come from the heart. It was a 'You're my hero' medal. Harry didn't quite understand what he'd done to deserve such a thing, but he definitely thought it was the sweetest thing he'd received in a long time. He never expected to create such an impression on a student - especially one that he didn't even specifically teach.

"Do you like it?" Hallie asked, needing some sort of validation to know that her efforts weren't all for nothing. You knew that even if it were the ugliest looking thing in the world Harry would love it all the same. He would never have a bad word to say.

"Hallie I love it. Thank you, but what is it for?" He asked, making you listen extra carefully to her next words.

"Well it says you're my hero, because you made Mrs Cassidy smile the other day when she was upset." 

Hallie's words made you freeze. You, thankfully, weren't holding anything to drop on the floor to create a ruckus. You were shocked, completely. You were glad you didn't have to say anything to her right now because your whole mind had shut down.

It baffled you that a girl of five years old could tell that you were upset. You had been upset, but you didn't realise it was that obvious. You started to feel a little guilty for making Hallie witness your dark moments. What made up for it was the fact that she'd noticed that Harry was there to make you feel better. She did the thanking on behalf of you both. Technically she had said that it was being made from both of you, but you never knew you were helping because of that reasoning.

This was hitting you hard.

"Wow. That's very kind of you. I'll keep it with me always." Harry promised.

"Thanks Mr Styles." You wanted to believe that she was thanking him in reply to his words, but you felt that she was thanking him on a deeper level - as if thanking him for making you smile.

More of the conversation occurred between them, but you were too lost in your own mind to hear them. You'd stopped putting away the equipment and were instead staring outside, looking up at the darkening clouds.

"You okay?" You hear Harry’s voice swoon around you. You looked to the side of you and gave him a half-hearted smile, nodding your head since no words were able to form yet. "Hey, you can smile better than that. I would know." He proudly held up the medal for you to see, which made you genuinely laugh. "Didn't get this medal for nothing, Y/N/N."

You smiled to yourself, knowing you were beyond blessed to have this man in your life.

•••••

Life wasn't so blessed at home, however.

Luckily for you, you'd made it on time to meet Rodger, but unluckily it still didn't mean you were in the clear tonight.

Tonight was game night, which was the worst. Rodger would be always watch the footie with a bottle of beer, or seven, in one hand and a blunt in the other. These were some of the worst nights, because all the drugs and alcohol he took would never hit him until later on in the evening and that's when his rough side came out.

You wished you could prevent the inevitable, but it was just impossible.

Rodger had removed all the locks from the doors, bar the front door and back door, so you couldn't blockade him from you. You did that once, locking yourself in the bathroom, but when he broke down the door and found you in the bathtub he punched you so hard you passed out - you didn't wake until 14 hours later. He hadn't even taken you to hospital.

There were times, one game night, where his mates would come around. When that was the case you were absolutely degraded. He made you wear short, and tight, skirts, along with crop tops that were just exposed for too much, and serve them all beers and cigarettes throughout the evening. If you were well behaved, which had only happened once, then he let you go to bed early, otherwise he would openly hit you in-front of his friends. You thought that one of them might've helped, but they all just laughed - or joined in. It was those times when you wished you were never born.

He is nothing more than a monster.

"Y/N?" You heard Rodger shout from down the corridor. "Y/N!" He shouted louder, not even giving you two seconds before replying.

"Coming." You calmly replied back. You'd learnt that if you shouted back then it would make everything so much worse. One time, because he knew you were just taking the hits and not fighting back he got bored and let you be for the rest of the evening - he made up for the lack of abuse the next day though.

You walked down the hallway, a fresh cold beer in hand, and in to the lounge. He was sat, in the scruffiest of clothes and untidied beard, in his usual chair watching Tottenham play Sheffield United. He didn't even support either team so you didn't understand why he had to watch it - especially if it made his anger worse.

"Fucking took your time." Was his response for you giving him his new beer. No thanks given.

You're welcome, honey.

"Sorry, it won't happen again." You apologised, leaving your head to hang low. He hated when you looked at him if he wasn't speaking directly to you - something about you gross eyes staining his image. "Anything else?" You asked, just wanting to leave.

"Yeah, actually. You're staying home next Monday because the lads and I are watching the Seven Nations." He told you without a care in the world for your schedule. Did he realise you were holding down a full-time job as a teacher, which meant you worked on the weekdays?

"But i'm working then?" You questioned, thinking that maybe he'd meant to say Sunday instead - well more like hoping.

"Well you're fucking not." He dumbly said in reply.

"Ro, I have a full-time job. Can't you find someone else?" You offered, slightly annoyed that you were going to have to take time off work just to be humiliated in front of his loser friends. It just wasn't fair. You wanted to be in school, safe, with your wonderful students and your amazing co-staff (but mainly Harry).

"Are you fucking saying no to me?" Rodger asked, pausing the game to look up at you. Oh, this wasn't good. Nice going, Y/N...

"No, well, I mean—" You didn't know what to say to make this situation better, but you only knew of one way this night was ending.

"You said no. Didn't you?," He tauntingly asked, "and don't lie to me, bitch." He gritted through his teeth making your heart beat faster with anxiety. You really didn't have a way out of this tonight. Sometimes, as gross and disgusting as it was and made you feel, you could persuade him over with sex, but it was a last resort in case you felt like you were on the verge of passing out. You knew that using your body like that was wrong, but sometimes it was the only way of making him stop.

"Sorry, Ro." You quietly speak.

"Sorry? You're fucking sorry? No you aren't, but you will be." He stood up from his chair and made his way over to you. You backed up a bit before getting pulled back to Rodger with his strong grip. You let out a gasp as he pulled you, feeling very manhandled - literally.

"I am Ro, I am." You pleaded, knowing that you would be sore tomorrow. Before you could protest anymore a deafening strike sounded and it only took seconds for the stinging in your cheek to strengthen, and become excruciatingly painful. You wanted to cry but you knew this wouldn't be the worst of your evening and thought it would be easier if you cried later, knowing Ro would only go harder if he saw the pain he was causing.

"Shut the hell up and stay fucking quiet." He awarded you with another hit to the same spot he had only done a minute ago - but harder. This bruise would be a hard one to clean and cover up.

You don't remember how much longer he carried on for, but he didn't stop until you'd collapsed to the floor begging him to stop. You were so tired and exhausted that you got the point where you couldn't even physically beg him to stop.

At the end of the night you ended up with a bleeding and bruised cheek, a possible broken rib and no more tears left to cry, with hopes that things may get better soon.

•••••

Two weeks later, and a little more black and blue, it was another Friday.

Fridays were always your favourite, not necessarily because you had the weekend within reach but because your class and Harrys class got to mix - meaning you got to see Harry without excuse.

This Friday you had been learning a bit of music. Harry thought that the creative arts worked hand in hand with music, as it was often the inspiration for a lot of famous pieces, and brought it onto the curriculum. The children got to mess around with triangles, ukuleles, bongos and recorders, however you took the recorders away when you soon realised you would rather be deaf than listen to them play any more.

Bless them for trying, but no.

It was coming towards the end of the session now and the students were starting to become tireder, which is exactly what you'd expect towards the end of the day. They were all sat quietly at the front of the room, on the carpeted floor, waiting for further instructions from their teachers. It was nice to see them sat with people across classes, because it meant that they were sociable and weren't sticking to people who they were comfortable and familiar with.

Hallie was sat with Henry, who was from Harrys class. They kind of reminded you of you and Harry -  Hallie being the quiet introvert and Henry being the loving extrovert. They got along well and you wouldn't be surprised if they end up in a 'best-friends-since-childhoood' relationship when they grow up.

As you finished collecting in the last of the sheet music that you'd been practicing off you noticed someones hand go up from the corner of your eye. Harry seemed to have it under control, however.

"Yes, Dora. What can I do for you?" He asked, which enabled to put her hand back down. Dora was from his class.

"Mr Styles? Do you think you could play the guitar for us?" Dora asked politely. Before Harry could answer there was a sweet chorus of gasps and agreements from all of the children - even Hallie.

"Oh I don't know." Harry brushed it off, feeling slightly self conscious to play in front of you. You knew that he could play the guitar, because you saw him often transferring it from his car to his classroom. You would be strongly lying if you said you didn't dream about him playing the guitar for you. You could only imagine the angelic voice he had too.

"Please Mr Styles." Dora encouraged him, using her best puppy-dog eyes to persuade him.

"Yeah, go on Mr Styles." You chimed in, surprising Harry. He smirked and shook his head at you, pretending to give you the evil eyes. You knew that with you joining in he would definitely play for you all.

"Oh alright then." Harry huffed as if it was a chore, but you knew that we was very excited to be playing for you all - especially you. He picked up his guitar and threaded his head through the guitar strap - the same one he'd painted in a Friday afternoon art class once. The back of his guitar was covered in artistic stickers that his class had designed, but if you looked closely you would see your name amongst them - engraved by using a threading needle. He'd told you he wanted your name more permanent than everyone elses'.

He strummed once or twice before turning to Dora.

"What would you like me to play, Dora, since you asked for this?" He asked. You knew Harry was musically gifted and it wouldn't take him long to figure out the chords for any song. He loved playing anything by The Beatles, that much you knew, but you were sure he'd give anything a go if he tried hard enough.

"Um.." Dora looked up to the ceiling as if it would give her inspiration, before answering, "I like that one you performed the other day." She vaguely answered.

"Do you remember what is was called?" Harry asked, tuning his guitar whilst he waited patiently.

"I think it was called 'hello there delly-a'." She answered, which caused Harry to look at her with confusion. He was normally good at interpreting what children meant when they didn't really know how to say things, but this was out of his expertise.

"Erm—" Harry got tongue tied over his words.

"Do you mean 'Hey There Delilah', Dora?" You stepped in for Harry, after silently chuckling at how lost he'd looked.

"Yes, yes, please." Dora excitedly nodded her head at you, before turning back to face Harry expectantly.

"Oh okay." Harrys face was one of sudden realisation, winking at you in thanks for helping, before he started playing the infamous melody. "Hey there Delilah, what's it like in New York City..."

•••••

For the longest time all you could think about was the dreams of becoming a dancer.

You had ballet and tap classes when you were little, probably up until you were twelve years old, and then you decided it was uncool to dance anymore and so quit. You were really good though, so it was stupid of you to have quit. It didn't matter though because Rodger would've just made you quit anyways.

That's why on another particular, late, Friday afternoon you found yourself on the green roof of the school. Up here was your safe space - where you knew you were out of reach from Rodger, but also away from the watching eyes of staff and students.

It was a place to feel free.

You took care of the plants up here for the caretaker, Mike, knowing he had enough on his hands already than to take extra care of these greens. It was a personal garden of eden paradise up here. You were very proud of it. You'd come up here, this afternoon, to water the plants, but the rain showers had decided that they'd do it for you today - not that you were complaining because it saved you a job.

You were under a small sheltered area of the roofed area, attending to your nursery of baby plants, containing sunflowers, roses and tulips to name but a few, on the other side of the roof to the door. You had The 1975s music playing in the background, wanting to fill the void of emptiness with soul-filling music. It had started to rain when you were on the other side of the roof and now you were contemplating waiting the rain out. You did have to be downstairs in time for Rodger to pick you up though, otherwise it wouldn't end well.

"Y/N?" You heard your name called across the roof and you had to squint a bit to see who it was through the pellets of rain.

"Harry?" You asked back, checking it was him and your eyes weren't deceiving him.

"What are you doing out here?" He shouted, from where he was stood protected under the frame of the door. He had his arm over his eyes to stop the rain from blowing in to them.

"Gardening." You replied.

"Of course you are." Harry muttered under his breath, but you swore you heard every syllable as it was carried in the wind.

"Come look." You gestured your arm for him to come and have a look at your babies. You plants were currently fertilising and producing their own children, and you though there was something so organically beautiful about watching it. They were so delicate, yet so clever - which you felt resembled you in way and Harry would strongly agree.

Harry ran over to you, not taking a second to question how drenched he was about to become. If it meant he got to spend some extra time with you, putting an extra smile on your face then he would run in the rain all of the time. He felt blessed to have moments like this with you.

"I can't believe I just ran through the bastard rain just to see your plants." Harry rolled his eyes when he was next to you.

"Well thank you, I guess." You laughed, taking in his drowned rat appearance. He pulled it off nicely actually.

"Yeah, too right." Harry sarcastically added, making you sport a harmless smile.

The music cut to the next song and you instantly gasped. It was your favourite song of all time. It was a very sad song, but one that you related to on a lot of levels. You felt as if the musician was speaking out to you solely, which is why it was crowned your number one.

The Most Beautiful Things - Tenille Townes

You didn't say anything but just grabbed Harry's hand and ran out into the rain with him.

"Y/N? What the fu—"

"Oh shut up and live a little Harry." You told him off, not wanting him to ruin this moment with his wingeing. You kept ahold of his hand and pulled him closer than you both thought professional. His chest was touching yours and you could hear his heart beat through his chest.

"What are you up to?" Harry asked, absolutely soaked through from the rain now. No doubt you looked even worse than him because of your longer hair.

"We're going to dance." You proudly stated, the raindrops coating your eyelids.

"Oh I don't think so." Harry attempted to pull away but not so hard that he'd pull you over with him. Part of him didn't pull too hard, as well, because he wanted to dance and embarrass himself in front of you. He knew of your passion for dance and anything that he did was going to be shameful compared to you.

"Just come here. I'll lead. It'll be fine." You assured him, knowing that everyone had a little rhythm in them somewhere. He was a musician, also, so surely he knew how to feel the beat and go with the flow.

He was a terrible dancer.

You'd seen bad dancers and then there was Harry. He had two left feet, no doubt about it, but he tried bless him. Normally it was custom for the gentleman to lead the woman, but this time it was the other way round. You didn't mind and Harry didn't either. He was enjoying being near you, whilst he watched you enjoy yourself dancing.

The waltz wasn't an easy dance, but you'd never met someone who couldn't get the hang of it as much as Harry didn't. It was endearing, really.

"I haven't danced in so long, this is amazing!" You laughed, swallowing down some raindrops as you spoke.

"I'm glad you're enjoying yourself - even if I have probably broken just about every bone in your foot." Harry was laughing because you were, feeling terribly awful for stepping on your feet so much. A few minor bruises were, wrongly, not that important nowadays.

"No you haven't," you rolled your eyes before smirking, "you've just broken the left ones." You cleverly replied, knowing that he'd been stepping on your left foot more than your right.

"Oh god, don't tell me that." He shook his head, feeling even worse than he had before - although he knew that you were only messing with him he still couldn't help but feel bad. Maybe he should offer you some ice for your feet?

"Just need a bit more practice, that's all." You tell him, after coughing from a mouthful of accidental rainwater.

"Well I already have a good teacher." Harry was quick to respond, and if you knew better you would've caught on that he was flirting with you. You missed his subtle hint at a second, or even a third, dance lesson with you, but he wasn't too disheartened because he knew you were just that blindingly oblivious.

You looked up at him in awe of his words. It meant a lot to you to be told you were a good teacher, because that in turn meant you were a good dancer. You were looking deep in to Harrys eyes, finding them the most beautiful emerald gems that you'd ever had the pleasure of seeing. Rodgers were supposed to be green, but you never saw them for anything other than a terrifying black so it was nice to see the green again - even it was on someone different. Harry's shone brighter than Rodger's ever could. The rain trickling over his eye lids helped reflect that jade green that you were so infatuated with.

His lips were so entrancing.

You took your eyes off his hypnotic eyes for only a second to look at his lips, and now you couldn't look away. They were like a drug. They looked liked the softest, most sweetest tasting, lips you'd ever been lucky enough to see. You leant in slowly, his lips having an invisible magnetic pull on them that you couldn't escape. You were so close that you could taste his minty breath on the tips of your tastebuds. You couldn't care less about Rodger in that moment, knowing he would never know, but you did care about Harry.

You cared for him a lot, which is why after ghosting his lips for a little while you were thankful that your phone vibrated in your pocket. You closed your eyes in regret of not taking it any further with Harry, but knowing it was the right thing to do. Wasn't it?

"Excuse me a moment." You felt guilty for cutting Harry off mid-dance, and near-kiss, even though he said that is was perfectly fine, still standing amidst the torrential rain, but this was probably important. In fact you knew it was important, because the only contact on your phone was Rodger. You took it out and read it carefully.

Rodger: Going to the pub now. Get ready for it bad later.

You cursed yourself for being so stupid. This morning Rodger had threatened you, again, that he wouldn't go easy on you if you were later - and now that's exactly what you were. How had you let yourself so carelessly slip up? Of course you wouldn't have changed a moment of what just happened with Harry, even if it meant your abuse would be less. The time spent with Harry was something you really cherished and you weren't willing to give up your source of happiness just yet.

"What is it? Everything okay?" Harry asked, noticing how your face had paled since reading your phone.

"Just my husband telling me he's coming home soon. I should probably get going." You told Harry, feeling bad that you were just leaving him after such a wonderful afternoon. He made you feel alive through the dark days. He brought light to the endlessly inky tunnel. He added that bit of sparkle in your monotonous life.

"Oh, yeah, no problem." Harry nodded, standing back to create a bit of distance between you. The air felt a bit thicker from the tension that both of you were creating.

"Thanks for dancing with me, Harry." You genuinely smiled at him, because he had managed to make you feel carefree for the first time in a long while. It was rare nowadays for you to have a joyous moment in your life, but instead it was filled with fists to the jaw, scratches to the skin and kicks to the gut.

"Thanks for the dance lesson." He responded, laughing as he remembered how terribly he had just danced. You were surprised he hadn't broken and ankle or a wrist with the way he had been moving his limbs. He was like an elegant spider, is the best way you could describe it.

"Rain-check?" You asked mischievously, looking down at your soaked through sun-dress.

"Think it's a little late for that now, love." Harry let out a bellowing laugh as you had spoken, before answering with his own witty comeback.

"At least you aren't walking home in it." You joked, holding open the door for him to let you both back inside the building. You didn't expect him to be so closely following, but it felt nice. Rodger, although being physically close to you when he was mistreating you, never was actually close to you. He never hugged you. He never held you close at night. He was just there. Having Harry so close to you, in an affectionate way, was a warm feeling that you wished could last forever.

"Hold on. You're walking home in this?" Harry stopped you suddenly by grabbing lightly on your arm. He had placed his hand so tactically though. He had placed it between two, rather large, bruises on your upper arm. You didn't understand how he'd missed both of them, but he had. Even when he held you though, it was very soft that it wouldn't be leaving any marks of his own.

"Don't remind me! But yes." You answered, rolling your eyes to the heavens for letting your days always turning out the worst.

"Absolutely not." Harry scrunched his face up in disgust.

"W-what?" You stuttered, thinking you'd made him angry and your mind automatically working out the worst situation that could happen here. You were pissed at yourself for even thinking that Harry would harm you in such a way, but it was unfortunately just how your mind was wired now.

"I'm going to drive you home. I'm not letting you walk home in these showers - no way." He commented. pointing to the window where you could barely see 10 metres because of how heavy the rain was. You were about to argue with him about how you would be "fine", but he beat you to it. "And i'm not taking no for an answer."

He smugly walked off towards the teachers staff room. You were left stunned for a moment before realising that he'd been so kind to offer you a ride home. You ran down the corridor, trying to catch up with him, before accidentally slipping from your wet heels and going flying down on to the floor. It shocked you at first, rolling on to your side to groan to try and ease the winded parts of your body.

Harry must've heard you thump on the floor because you could hear his shoes running back to you, whilst trying not to slip himself.

"Y/N!" He shouted, not being able to see your face to know if you were even conscious. You immediately felt his knees at your side, probably apprehensive of touching you incase you were severely hurt. "Y/N, shit, can you hear me? Y/N/N, hey?" You could hear the panic in your voice and you started to feel sorry for him.

That's when you rolled back onto your back laughing. You had been silently chuckling to yourself the entire time, finding the humour in such an embarrassing situation. Now you felt bad for Harry who had actually been concerned for you.

You couldn't stop laughing and Harry looked stunned.

"You little—" Harry started but never finished, wiping his top lip in frustration. When you didn't stop laughing though it began to become contagious and Harry was soon laughing too.

"I'm sorry!" You continued to laugh through your words.

"You're such an ass." Harry shook his head, holding out a hand for you to take in order to get you back to your feet.

"Yes, a definite bruised ass." You agreed, adding a compulsory, and very truthful, adjective in there. Harry didn't give you any visible sympathy, though, because he was pretending to be pissed off at you for pranking him. In reality you were too winded and caught up in the giggles to realise how concerned you'd made Harry.

"Well let's get you and your bruised ass home." He held onto your hand as he lead you down the hallway to get changed, before going to his car to head home.

•••••

After much deliberation on the way here, you'd decided that you were going to invite Harry to come inside. Your only problem was if Rodger came home early. You knew he would be at the pub right now, boozing himself up for later on when he comes home and treats you to his fist. If you ever accidentally missed his curfews or deadlines your punishment would ten times worse - and so with that thought in mind you needed someone to be with you right now.

Not just anyone though - just Harry.

"Please come in and try to make yourself as comfortable as possible." You say, knowing full well that it would be impossible for him to do so.

"Oh I don't need to intrude, Y/N. Just needed to make sure you got back okay." Harry spoke from outside your front door. His hands were stuffed in his pockets to keep them toasty warm from the cold - which wasn't helped by the fact you'd just danced in the rain. You could already see his little button nose turning pink from the icy weather.

"You're not intruding, Harry. In fact, I could do with the company right now." You kept latched to the door, not shutting it until he was inside your property. He could tell, from the shakiness of your voice, that you needed him and he was more than willing to be there for you.

It was very dark inside your house, only having one or two lights you could turn on because Rodger was very adamant on keeping the electricity bill low- mainly so he had money left over at the end of the month to pay for drugs or cigarettes. Alcohol he would just ask you for any money you had left in your purse. You wished you could use that money to spend on a dance class down the road, or even treat yourself to that pretty summer dress, but instead it was wasted on Jack Daniels or Disaronno.

"Your house is... sweet?" Harry asked rather than stated, as he made his way inside, making you laugh at him because you knew he was lying.

"It's a pig sty, Harry, is what you meant to say." You spoke for him, which earned a laugh back out of him.

"What?" Harry dragged out the word sarcastically, moving to follow you around the house. You stepped in to the lounge warily, just in case Rodger had decided to make a surprise appearance home. You let out a relieved sigh to not see him in his usual arm chair.

"Please." You pointed to one of the more comfortable sofas, not wanting him the displeasure of having him sit down where the springs would bounce beneath your bottom. They were so uncomfortable, but that's all you can afford when your monthly income is spent on illegal substances.

"Thanks." He smiled the best he could, given he was quite literally in the shittiest shithole to ever exist. From the outside he was prepared to be impressed, if not even a little jealous, but those were far from the feelings he was surrounded by right now. His main feelings were weighted towards his sorriness for you. You deserved so much more than this.

"Apologies for the exercise books everywhere." You were behind on marking the kids books, but you were planning on doing it later on tonight - after Rodger was done with you.

"I'm exactly the same, don't worry about it." He chuckled back.

After sitting in silence for a moment or two you noticed a small book in his pocket, only big enough to fit in there. It was tattered and had various drawings on the skin of it. He'd definitely had it a while and then some years. You wished that you'd kept a diary throughout your years, you'd be able to look back in the future and see whether life had changed. You hoped it would change, because you didn't think you had it in you to live many more years in this life.

"What's the notebook for?" You asked, trying to start up the conversation again.

"Oh... it's nothing." Harry fumbled to choose his words, which made you believe he was hiding something - a technique you were well aware of because you used it all the time. You'd hidden many things from Rodger using that technique.

"Harry," you gave him a sarcastic look, "come on." You laughed, not understanding what was so secretive about it. Maybe it was a book of his daily calorie intake? Maybe it was just a general diary? Maybe, but hopefully unlikely, it was a list of people he'd murdered? For someone who didn't watch the TV, you sure were paranoid of the fantasy malarky.

"Y/N honestly, it's nothing." Harry sighed, trying his hardest to shove it away so you'd have one less reason to think about.

"Harry. It seriously can't be that bad." You rolled your eyes at him to catch him gulp nervously. He looked like he'd seen a ghost, making you feel a lot more paranoid than you had been two seconds ago.

"You don't need to know what's in it." Harry explained cautiously, choosing his words carefully. His secrecy and closed off behaviour reminded you a lot of Rodger. Rodger would never give you a straight answer, and you were never allowed to know anything more than he let you. You didn't know anything more about his side of the family since you last saw them at your wedding. You knew nothing about the bills that were being paid for the house and taxes. Rodger was completely restrictive of the knowledge he gave you and you only prayed that Harry wouldn't be the same.

Harry was nothing like Rodger, though.

"No Harry. I-I want to know what's in it." You shakily pointed towards the little notebook, starting to tear up now, that he'd tried to stuff back in his pocket away from your view. "Please."

"Y/N I don't think that—" Harry tried to reason with you, but he knew better than for you to give up that easily. You were a fighter and that was something he greatly admired about you.

"Just l-let me see." You lurched across the sofa towards him and grabbed the little leather bound book from his pockets. He hadn't managed to push it all the way back in, so it made it easier for you to take. Technically this was stealing and invading someones privacy, but you had a gut feeling that the contents of the book had something to do with you. You didn't know whether that settled you or made you feel uneasy, but you were going to find out.

"Y/N—" Harry sighed, giving up on trying to fight against you.

It was time for you to know that he knew. It was time for this to end. It was time.

You sat in silence as you cautiously opened the book, undoing the small straw tie there was to open it. Your shaky hands stumbled upon opening it, making you drop it on to the floor and ended up with you mumbling an apology to Harry - something you knew was unnecessary but had gotten in to the habit of because of Rodger.

You turned to the first page and were met with something you were slightly taken aback by, not because it outrageous but because it was unexpected. Harry had kept the little medal that you, and Hallie, had drawn and coloured for him. The little badge that told him that he was both your heroes - well, he was definitely yours.

"You kept it?" You asked quietly, your tears falling more silently now, dumbfounded that he'd kept it.

"Of course I did. You told me I was your hero so obviously I had to keep the badge as proof." He smiled and spoke as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Then why is it in your notebook?" You asked, still in love with the fact he'd kept such, what you believed to be, and insignificant piece of coloured-in paper. You looked from the piece of paper to Harry, frowning when you noticed the sadness within his eyes.

"I use it as a bookmark." He gulped, making you feel heavy amount of nerves weigh on your shoulders.

"F-for what?" You hiccuped over your words. He didn't respond, letting you find out for yourself.

He looked down at the book and you could see tears start to form in his eyes. He looked scared, even more than you probably did, which worried you. You turned your watery eyes towards the notebook, preparing to turn the page. You let out a shaky breath and felt Harry move closer to you - your kneecap now touching his. The paper felt delicate between your fingers - kind of how you were feeling, as if you touched it too hard it would fall apart. Then you finally turned the page, letting a frown settle on your face as you read it to tried and understand.

Monday 9th January

You first read; the day in which you went back to school after the Christmas holidays.

•Limping - could be pulled muscle or maybe twisted ankle? •Slight bruising on lower forearm •Scratch on side of neck

It was beginning to make sense what Harry was keeping a note of.

•Sore throat - potentially from shouting?? •Total smiles = IIII.          

You couldn't read anymore because you had started sobbing without realising. Harry was keeping a check on how you were every day and every single thing he could pin down that was not okay with you. He wasn't picking out your physical flaws, but instead your physical mistreatment. He knew and you hadn't said anything to him. You'd only read one entry, but you were sure there was one for every day - including today. You needed to truly know.

"H-how many?" You choked out, your sobs coming out heavy and loud. You noticed how Harry was now cradling you, rocking you back and forth. Your mind was in so many places that you were having a hard time focusing in on what was presently happening around you.

You felt safe though. His arms made you feel protected, like if Rodger now walked through the door, which was still a possibility, you would be perfectly fine. For once, you felt safe in your own home and that feeling alone made you emotional. Not in years had you felt this way and you didn't want the feeling to ever go away.

"Y/N I—"

"Harry, p-please." You cut him off, not wanting him to tiptoe around the subject. You'd let your guard down and you right now you were completely defenceless.

"There's two years worth of entires." Harry boldly stated, making you cry even more. You weren't crying because you were offended or angry at Harry. You weren't even crying because he'd known and hadn't reached out to you, because you knew that you would've never told him the truth. You were crying, however, because he was making you realise how much you'd been through and how long you'd suffered for. You were tired - so tired - and it took you seeing what was happening, written down on paper, for you to come to terms with that.

You couldn't do anything but cry. You finally had someone who knew and it felt amazing. All those sleepless nights wondering whether you'd even be alive in the morning. All those days when you'd thought about ending it yourself. All those days when you cried until you felt numb, just to soften the pain. All those days, were over. You knew Harry wouldn't let this carry on now - not over his dead body.

"You're okay." "You're safe." "I've got you." Were some of the phrases that Harry kept on repeating to you. He was adamant on helping you understand that nothing bad was going to come of you now that you had him by your side.

"I-i'm so-rry Ha—"

"Hey, no, no. I don't need an apology Y/N/N. I need you to be okay, okay? I need you understand that none of this is your fault. None of it. You are so special Y/N/N and you don't deserve any of this, okay? I need you to understand that I can no longer sit back and do nothing, but write in my notebook anymore, though, okay?" He spoke a lot of words and you found it within you to listen to every one of them. Some of them made your cry harder than others and some of them made you love him more than you already did.

"What d-do I do?" You asked, still buried against Harrys chest. He was still rocking you gently and kissing the top of your hair occasionally, reminding you that he was permanently here.

"You don't have to do anything, love, but just walk a little for me, okay?" He asked to which you nodded, letting a bunch of hiccups overtake your system momentarily.

"W-what if Ro-dger i-is—"

"Then i'm here. He won't come within a metre of you if I have anything to do with it. I promise." He pulled your head out of his chest and made you look at him, so you'd know that he was honest about protecting you with everything he had.

"O-okay." You nodded, weakly smiling in thanks of everything he was doing.

"Okay." Harry agreed. You shakily stood up, holding on to Harrys arm for support. Your body was so tired and you could feel your brain wanting to shut everything down so you could rest. You just had to keep everything going for a few more minutes and then you could finally let up. The idea of a warm, plush, bed with blankets to spare, right now, was all your heart was set on.

Harry took his arm around your waist to carefully walk you out of the house. You no longer wanted to label it as 'your house', because in reality it never had been and it never felt like it. You were ready to move from this shithole and on to something better.

After making it to Harrys car he strapped your seat belt in and made sure you were comfortable. He asked whether you needed or wanted anything from the house, but you explained that never had been anything there of yours. It was all crap furniture that you'd never want to see again and it wasn't like you'd been anywhere to keep ahold of souvenirs. You just needed your handbag and yourself. Harry made quick work of locking the house door and then running back to the car to get going.

"Can I-I sleep now?" You asked, pulling your jacket tighter around you, as Harry put his car in to reverse.

"Yes, love, you can sleep now."

The last memory you had was Harry pushing your hair out of your face before blacking out, feeling nothing but out of harm's way.

•••••

Harrys house was beautiful and you were glad you'd woken up in time to see it.

It was a little terraced house on a quaint road. The beautiful thing about the houses were they were painted in all different colours of the pastel rainbow. It started off as a soft-cherry red that lead into an apricot orange, that lead into a sherbet yellow, that continued all the way to a lavender. They definitely lived up to the name of the street they lived on "Rainbow Road". You thought it was genius.

Just before you were going to ask which one belonged to Harry he pulled up outside the sherbet yellow one. You would've guessed him to live in the apricot orange, but you were happily surprised. The yellow was a nice pick-me-up, filling you with so much joy you could burst.

"Wow." You gawked at the house from the insides of the car. You were expecting a four bedroom house with white picket fencing, maybe even a secret wife that he kept very, very, secret, but no. Harry lived in a smaller house than you, walls coated in a gentle lemon and in a neighbourhood that seemed as soft, and calm, as Harry was.

It was simply put; quite serene.

"You like it?" Harry asked, nervous tones in his voice. He hoped it was something a little brighter than you were used to.

"Harry, it's so charming," you turned your head from the house towards him, making him look right back at you, "a lot like its owner really." You blushed when you spoke, not having a clue where your confidence had come from.

"Oh really? Want to butter me up any more, love?" He teased you, taking your compliment and planting it permanently inside his mind. You'd called him charming and he would never shut up about it until the ends of time.

"N-no." You let out between giggles. You were at peace with yourself in this moment.

"You sure? I mean, i'll take all the compliments I can get to be honest." He put his hands up in defence, and you sat back to watch him own the moment. You rolled your eyes at his narcissism, before moving to let yourself out of the car. Harry followed swiftly, locking up his car before unlocking his front door.

After he'd turned the alarm off, he waited for you to enter before locking back up and ridding himself of his shoes. His house was quite chilly, which he apologised for as a result of leaving the heating off during the day when he's at work. You had no quarrel with that, finding his passion for the global green very considerate.

"Come through, please. I can put the kettle on if you want and maybe a biscuit of some kind. I have ginger nuts or custard creams if they appeal to you," whilst Harry took himself through to the kitchen you couldn't help but freeze up in the hallway, getting all teary eyed, "I have to say though my favourite biscuit would probably be—" Harry stopped when he walked back to see you crying. His heart dropped at the sight. Of course seeing anybody cry is a horrible sight to witness, but seeing you crew was almighty worse.

"Sorry, Harry," you shook your head in embarrassment, "it's just i'm quite overwhelmed at how lovely you are and the support you're willing to give me and it's all just quite a lot, sorry." You rambled, letting a few stray tears fall. If there were a competition for who could cry the most in 24 hours, you would win first place and then some more.

"Hey, no, it's completely fine. I should have been more sensitive, I apologise. We can just go and sit on the couch for a bit if you want?" He offered, not wanting you to feel pressured at all.

"Yeah, that sounds nice." You nodded, mentally reminding yourself to stop giving reasons for Harry keeping on apologising to you - even if it was nice to hear someone else for someone else doing it, other than you, for once.

He lead you in to his living room, hand in hand, and you were taken aback by how wonderful it was in there. The room was rectangular, with the TV placed in the corner of the room next to the bay window. The bay window was covered in blankets and cushions, with adjacent floating shelves that contained tens of classic reads. The sofas were a luxurious velvet blue and it made the room feel expensive. The sapphire of the couches brought out the colour in the grey floor you didn't even know existed. The fireplace was classically built, wood burner and all. The room was on the small side, but it made it all the more homely. It was a delicious delight.

"It's not much, but it's home you know?" Harry felt like he had to apologise for it being lesser than your previous house. In reality, you adored his much more.

"Harry it's stunning. I'm jealous that it's yours and not mine." You couldn't keep your eyes away from the room, finding new things to be mesmerised by.

"It's yours too now." Harry proudly stated, making you shoot your head to him in shock. Of course you thought that you'd be living with Harry for a little while before you could get yourself back on your own feet, but you didn't expect him to share it with you like how he was suggesting. He noticed your expression and thought he'd overstepped a line, "I-if you want?"

You couldn't help but let out a little flurry of sobs, stopping yourself before it turned in to a bigger breakdown.

"Sorry! I'm being silly. It's just been a long time since i've been this happy in a house." You shook your head at your own silliness.

"No, no. It's not silly at all. I don't understand, but you could help me to if you want to?" Harry wanted to give you a way to tell someone your story. He wanted you to feel safe in opening up to someone, anyone.

"Yeah. I'd really like that, please." You quietly agreed.

"Okay. Let me just turn the heating on and then i'll be right back. Please just make yourself comfortable." He didn't want to tell you to make yourself at home because he knew you already felt it. He was honoured to be the someone you wanted to open up to, but even more proud of you for being strong enough to want to talk.

"Perfect."

•••••

After a couple of hours just crying to Harry, letting him learn of everything that had happened the past couple of years, you finally got the strength to get up off the couch and make a cuppa.

You'd told Harry everything - not a detail left out. He deserved to understand what your life had been like, considering he was doing so much to help you out. Harry really had been your knight in shining armour. Harry had to stop you sometimes to rant about how much he despised Rodger, which you found quite hilarious. You were pretty sure that he popped a blood vessel on his neck because of how passionately angry he got. You had to calm him down sometimes by holding his hand, squeezing it to reassure him that you were safe now.

Now you were messing around having a tea competition.

Harry claimed his cups of tea were the best in the Northern Hemisphere and he was very willing for you to challenge him on that. You made your cup of tea, for him, and he made his, for you. You hated to admit it but his cuppa was extraordinary - but you were a very sore loser so you couldn't tell him that. He knew though by the way you downed the whole mug in less than five minutes. He was worried that you'd burn your throat but you were very adamant on downing the whole drink.

The warmth and comfort of the hot drink reminded you a lot of Harry.

"Harry?" You asked, putting your empty mug in the sink to wash later.

"Yes, Y/N?" Harry responded, mouth full of ginger-nut biscuit. A little cloud of biscuit poofed from his mouth as he spoke, which he blushed in embarrassment over.

"Can I have a look through your notebook please?" You held your hand out to wait for him to deliver you the notebook. You knew he would eventually give it you, but you weren't sure whether he would give it to you so soon - not wanting you to step on a wound that was still very open.

"You sure you want to? I can keep it until you're ready?" He checked to make sure. If you believed you were ready then he wasn't going to stop you, but only be there for you if you get upset.

"I'm sure. I promise I wouldn't ask if I didn't think it was right to." You nodded in assurance, wiggling your fingers in gesture for him to hand it over to you. He nodded and smiled in response, before pulling out the book from his coat that was hanging over the back of a chair. He did it all one handed, still holding his cup of tea in the other - the cup of tea which you were upset that he'd given 2 Michelin stars to.

"Okay." He warmly smiled at you before standing back to let you go through the book in your own time.

You worked your way through every page, wincing when you saw some pages filled entirely with tally marks. There was never a day where there was no tally marks and that made you deep how insane it had actually been. Looking at this from the outside, now, was a challenging perspective to wrap your head around. You never understood the gravity of the situation until you stood back and peered in from the outside. Harry's book, however unsettling it was, comforted you in knowing that there had been someone there for you when you believed otherwise. He was your silent guardian angel.

Flicking through the book you finally reached todays page. You read down it and were impressed by how right Harrys tallies had been. He'd correctly scored the right amount of bruises and even annotated where he thought they were. It was a weird talent, but he sure had it.

Deciding that the page was incomplete you grabbed a nearby pen from the side, unfortunately it was a different colour to the one already on the page, and made a simple adjustment to the writing. You even underlined it. Once finished, you held the page away from you and smiled at how content you were now.

You handed it back to Harry with the biggest smile you, and him, had ever seen on your face. You almost looked mischievous.

"What did you do?" He asked accusingly, setting his tea on the table to see what damage had been done.

"Needed to update it." You simply put it, expressing a softer smile now.

You watched as Harry read over the pages, trying to figure out what you'd done. He flipped right to the end, thinking you'd most likely have written something on the most recent pages. He turned all the way to the back, where fifty blank pages remained, but there was nothing. He turned to the front, and nothing. The next guess he turned to todays date.

Tuesday 10th November

He skimmed the page looking for what was different - if anything. He quickly glanced over to you and he saw you smirking, which was a sign that he was getting close to figuring it out. He couldn't look at you and not internally comment about how beautiful you looked. You were a sight for sore eyes and nothing less.

Then he looked at the end of the page and it made sense.

•Total smiles = III

You'd tallied your own smile.

Harrys eyes started to water. He was so unbelievably proud of you. He could already see that you'd come so far and it had been a matter of hours since you left that god forbidden house. It was going to a very gradual process but he couldn't be more proud of you if he tried. You shot up out of your chair when he started to cry, though, thinking that you'd done something wrong.

"Harry i'm sorry. I can buy you a new book if I ruined it. I can—"

"You didn't ruin anything, love. I'm just... I'm just happy that you're happy. I've waited a long time to see you like this." He came to hold you close, noticing how you didn't even flinch when he came near you. You were improving by the second and it was a wonder to watch.

"I've waited a long time to feel like this." You admitted, looking past his teary eyes to see hope hidden behind the water. To hear Harrys compliments was something quite touching. Not having heard any compliments from your, said, husband for years had been a challenging setback, but one that you'd go through all again if it meant you got to hear Harry say all these wonderful things. "It's like, sometimes the pain gets hard, but now you're here and I don't feel a thing."

He took an extra step towards you, cautiously bringing his hand up to place upon your cheek and lower jaw. As soon as he felt you melt in to his hand, humming at the blissful warm feeling against your skin, he traced his thumb back and forth against the softness of your cheek. He brought a calmness to your life that you never realised was missing and it made you grateful to finally have it.

He made you feel home again.

You were so thankful for everything Harry had done for you. He'd silently opened you up into sharing your story. He'd always have been the one to make you smile, even on your worst days. He'd never given up on you. He'd offered up his house to you until you figured out what you wanted to do next. He'd cared for you on all the days you never thought anyone did, with his little secret notebook. He'd loved you for being you. He'd made you feel special on those days where Rodger would make you feel impossibly small. He'd done it all for you.

There wasn't enough ways for you to display your gratitude towards him. You could take him out to as many meals, buy him as many X-Box games, treat him to as many football games that your money could stretch to buy, but it would never be enough compared to what he'd done for you.

"Hey, you okay? You look lost in daydream land?" Harrys voice brought you back from your intense thoughts and back to him.

"Just thinking that i'm never going to be able to thank you enough for all this." You told him exactly what was on your mind, because he was actually someone who would listen to you. As you spoke you carefully brushed a fallen curl back behind his ear, and kept your fingers dancing around there in order to keep you focused.

"You don't need to Y/N/N. You've given me everything already." His words caught your attention, because they weren't true. You hadn't given him everything.

You hadn't given him you.

"Well what about me?" You asked, curious to know if he would take you if you were offering.

"And what about you, love?" He asked, smiling at you for an answer. He wanted you to explain what you meant before he answered under the wrong impression. You two knew there was an undying romantic tension between you both, but neither of you had ever brought it up because you were married and he was too out of your league - or so you thought.

"What if I gave you me? What if you were mine and I were yours?" You shyly asked, bracing for the rejection he was bound to give you - until he didn't.

"Then I would be the luckiest man alive." He answered so simply, yet so effectively. "In fact, I really hope that you don't run from me."

"Really?" You asked, shocked that he felt the same way. He had been shocked too to hear you offer yourself in to a relationship, and so soon after just slipping out of an abusive one. You were positive that you were going to need counselling, of some kind, in order to build back up the walls Rodger had so disgracefully bulldozed down. You needed to become more emotionally stable before venturing too far in to any new relationships, you accepted that, but you were willing to seriously consider being with Harry - if he'd have you.

"Really, really." He nodded enthusiastically.

"I don't want to rush in to it, though, because I don't think that would be fair on you. I'm still a long way from emotionally recovering, but if you're willing to wait then I promise to be there waiting too." You explained the best way you could, hoping that he would understand the concept of what you're trying to convey. He knew you weren't ready and he was okay with that.

"I've always been waiting, love." He replied and that was enough for you both to know that things would be alright from now on.

••••••

It took you a while, but you were finally at your happiest.

You were taught believe that home was the house you grew up in. It was the neighbourhood and the architecture that stood within it. What you weren't taught is that home can also be a person, and your person was Harry.

Three months after spending every day with that ray of sunshine, he asked you to be his girlfriend. It had taken a lot for you to get to that point but you were so ready for the next chapter. He'd asked you so casually that some may not even have thought he was being serious, but to you it was exactly the way you envisioned it to be - watching "Educating Manchester" with a bowl of ramen noodles to share between the two of you. It was so minimalistic and you loved him for it.

Neither of you had specifically said that you loved each other yet, but it was blaringly obvious that you did.

Over time Harry helped you find family members and old friends, helping you stitch back together the individual patches of your life back together and create the beautiful blanket it once was. None of it would be possible without Harry and you were so blessed to be able to call him yours.

Rodger had tried to come get you multiple times. He'd hung around outside the school a few times and had even turned up to Harrys house once. It was scary and you wanted it to stop. Harry has gone livid when he found him on his doorstep, having to really hold himself back from tearing him limb from limb for the sake of you and your mental recovery.

"If you ever fucking come near my house or my girl ever again, I swear it won't be pretty, man." Harry was grinding his teeth together, doing everything in his power from keeping this anything more than a verbal fight.

"You fucking threatening me, pal?" Rodger spat, quite literally, in Harrys face - something you were quite accustomed to.

"Listen to what I said and then I won't be." Harry bargained, which you were so proud of him for keeping as calm as he was. You could tell he was raging though, ready to pounce on something.

"I ain't taking no orders from you." Rodger piped back, pushing Harrys shoulder back slightly. That infuriated you. You knew first hand of what this man could do with his fists and you would do anything to stop Harry from experiencing the same things you did. You loved him with every bone in your body and you'd rather wish yourself ill than watch him get hurt. So you stepped in, from where Harry'd had you stood behind him to protect you.

"Y/N—" Harry started, but stopped when he knew you were fully capable of fighting your own battles. Plus he was right next to you if you needed him, unlike all the times he hadn't been.

"Ah there she is, my little bitch." Rodger laughed, displaying his ugly smile he had the misfortune of owning.

You felt Harrys fists curl and you slid your hand in between his fingers to calm him. Your touch made him feel relaxed, you knew this, so you used it to your advantage. Harry let out a slight animalistic growl when Rodger spoke to you, but nothing more. He knew you could handle this.

"Rodger you are not invited here. This isn't your property and you've been asked to leave multiple times. If you don't leave within the next minute i'm calling the police. That's not a threat, that's a promise." Harry doubt o squeezed your hand to let you know you were handling this amazing well, especially mentally. He only wished he was half as strong as you.

"Ooh she's finally got the balls to stand up for herself. Is that because Mr Harry—"

He quickly shut up when he saw you'd just dialled 999. You weren't afraid of him like it used to be. There would always be that trauma any time you see him, but you were getting stronger against him which only made him weaker.

"This isn't over." Rodger angrily stomped his foot like a child, only making you internally snicker.

"It is and you'll soon come to realise that." You smiled and nodded your head towards the main road. He snarled at you before walking away, knowing he couldn't put up a fight against either of you anymore.

When the door closed you let out such a sigh of relief. You rested your forehead against the front door, in peace knowing Rodger was nowhere around to hurt you and you'd successfully stood up to him. If there was any a time for champagne and party poppers it was now, but you guy something ever better.

Warm lips pressed against the cold of your neck.

"Hmm." You sighed in content and pleasure.

"You were so hot just then." Harry stated, which is not where you thought this conversation would turn to. You expected him to start talking about how proud he was of you and then start talking about how you were long-term going to deal with that asshole. Instead, he seemed very affectionate.

"You think?" You teased him, leaning your head to the side to allow him more access to your neck.

"So hot." And it didn't take a rocket scientist you decipher what you two did for the rest of the day.

Rodger hadn't been in contact since and it was now 5 months without him. 5 months clean, as you liked to label it.

You and Harry continued to live under his sherbet lemon home and work in the beloved school. The children knew that you were a couple and were always grossed out when they'd catch you holding hands or kissing , when you two thought no one was around. Hallie had even made another badge for Harry to have and it was a small heart with your name written inside, although it was not coloured in very well and your name had been spelt wrong it still managed to make Harry cry.

Life had an unfortunate way of turning out for many. For you, your unfortunate story had occurred at the beginning of your life. Now, you couldn't be happier. Life was a blessing and the people in it were even more so.

It had been a long journey to get to today, but now you could finally rest.

[whumpsday]

Kane & Jim #53: Healing Right

Chronological masterlist / Writing order masterlist

content: recovery, (past) vampire whumper, broken bones, past loss of bodily autonomy, offscreen surgery, emotional whump

Whumpmas in July Day 18: Ache

back to this guy :)

-

Jim rubbed at the bump on his arm where the bone didn't heal quite right, staring at himself in the bathroom mirror. The bone on his forearm went at an angle, up and up, before suddenly dropping off where it met misaligned with the rest of it going to his elbow. Bones, they'd told him there were two, but it was easier to just think of it as one.

It hurt, but it wasn't a bad hurt. Jim knew bad hurt. It was a dull ache he'd gotten used to over the past two years. It didn't hurt like the snap when Kane cracked Jim's arm open with his bare hands anymore, and he had pain meds now anyway. He'd tried to get on some stronger ones, but Liz had told him it wasn't a good idea, that he'd get hooked. Jim wasn't very good at disagreeing with people anymore, so he just took her word for it.

But he'd get some now for sure. Even Liz said it was okay this time. Because he had to get his arm re-broken.

Every day as the operation got closer, the dread grew more and more. He knew it wouldn't be like the first time. He'd be conked out, and he'd be allowed pain meds, real pain meds. It wasn't a punishment, and if all went well, his arm would be fixed. No reminder of Kane every time he looked at it. Probably no dull ache. It was even his own choice.

They couldn't fix the scar on his neck, neither the mark or the pain, so this was the best he could do to scrub off any lasting reminders Kane had left on his body. Liz's friend Laken had suggested a tattoo to cover it, but the idea of a needle going into his neck was so horrifying that the thought made him want to throw up.

But he could do this, at least. Even if breaking his arm again would be scary, he needed to claw his body back for himself. He needed to know it was his again, not Kane's. No matter how much it would hurt.

“I don’t belong to anyone. My body is mine. I’m out," Jim whispered to his reflection. Afraid to say it any louder, like Kane would be able to hear and swiftly correct him.

He got dressed, hiding his neck and arm under a turtleneck. He'd started dressing in them every day, though he knew he would need to take it off for the surgery. One more thing to dread about it, but he told himself it was worth it.

"You ready?" Liz asked as he came downstairs.

Jim shrugged. "As I'll ever be, I guess."

-

The operation was a success. If there was anything at all to thank Kane for, it would be that he'd made a relatively clean break.

Jim's arm hurt like hell when he woke, but he knew it wasn't as bad as it would be without the meds. He had a cast this time, and a real sling, not one he had to make himself. His friends kept wanting to sign the cast, but something about it made him wildly uncomfortable in a way he couldn't explain.

He knew the old him would have jumped at the chance to have all his friends sign it. Probably would have given out points for who could draw the best doodle. He was practically a social butterfly when he was nineteen, before Kane got to him, but now it just seemed like he kept finding more and more disconnects with his old friends. They had jobs and babies and memories of the past five years together, and all he had were Kane and panic attacks.

Even though his friends kept reaching out and inviting him to stuff, he was too neurotic to act like his old self. It felt like putting on an act, it felt wrong. And being his real self was even worse: he didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want them to know.

His cast remained unmarked.

-

He woke with a scream a week after his surgery, his arm exploding with pain, far worse than it'd been during his recovery.

Jim looked around wildly, but couldn't see the source of the pain in the dark of his room. He sobbed, clutching his arm protectively to his chest. He'd been so badly-behaved lately that he couldn't even pinpoint what it was he was being punished for.

He flinched back into the headboard with a whimper as the door flew open. "Please don't," he begged, trembling.

"It's okay, it's just me," Liz soothed. She sat down next to him. "Nightmare again?"

"No, I don't- I don't think so?" Jim struggled to catch himself back up to reality, but with the haze of sleep leaving his mind and Liz's presence grounding him, he came to the conclusion it wasn't a punishment at all. "I hit my arm in my sleep," he realized. "Sorry for waking you. Didn't mean to."

"You're all good," Liz assured him. "I wasn't even asleep. Getting myself back on schedule for when I go back to work."

Jim's stomach turned at the thought, even though it was no surprise. "What if something happens to you?"

"Someone's gotta protect people from 'em. Plus, I know we live in the cheapest place in the country, but I've gotta get back to work," she pointed out.

"There's other jobs. I'll get one again too, once I'm better. You could just... not go back." As much as Jim hated living by the border, the fact that it was so cheap to live here at least gave them some leeway. At least they didn't have to worry about rent, even though selling the house was nearly impossible if they ever wanted to move.

Liz patted him on the back. "Not for me, there isn't. It'll be okay. I won't be alone, and I've been doing this for years with no issues."

"What about that?" Jim pointed to the scars on her face, faded claw-marks running dangerously close to her throat.

"That barely even counts. You should've seen the other guy. Dead, for what it's worth. Most vampires won't even fight us, they just decide it's not worth the trouble and run back home. It's gonna be fine." She gave him a quick hug. "You gonna be okay to go back to bed?"

"Yeah. Just... be safe. I can't lose you again," Jim said quietly.

Liz gave him a sad smile. "I know how you feel. I'll be as safe as I can. Just go back to sleep."

True to his disobedient streak, Jim couldn't manage to fall back asleep, mind racing with fear. Liz getting taken by vampires, subjected to the same hell as him, or having her mind stolen from her entirely. Kane showing back up to steal him away in the night while Liz is off fighting other vampires, arriving home too late to help. Jim reached a shaking hand under his pillow and took his stake- a real one this time- and held it close as he sobbed, trying to be quiet and not disturb Liz again.

He could only hope his arm would heal better than he was.

-

i'll be putting out two one-shots next! one about a fairy whumpee on friday, and one about an alien whumpee on monday. after that, more Jim in Distress!

event: @whumpmasinjuly

taglist in reblog!

[rainbow-crane]

I'm feeling like being controversial today. Here, take some DR character opinions. Clutch your pearls besties

17- Makoto. I feel nothing for this character, in any positive or negative direction. To me, he's only ever been the vessel for which THH takes place for the player. That's kind of it. Bro is just chilling. (Note: these opinions are exclusive to the THH game.)

16- Leon. He suffers from what I like to call chapter 1 syndrome. Not only was he killed extremely early, but he had no plot or character significance before or after the fact in-game. I think the idea of a character that hates their talent is really interesting, and his design slaps, but he just didn't have any sticking power for me.

15- Yasuhiro. He's got funny moments here and there (the ghost bit in the ch 5 trial never fails to make me laugh) but he has no story. They don't do anything with him besides 'stupid occult man' jokes, and I can't help but feel like there was wasted potential to do something with his fortune-telling talent that was only ever used as another gag of his stupidity. Disappointing as a character, but at least he was around longer than Leon.

14- Byakuya. Asshole characters are always hit-or-miss for me, and Byakuya missed by a ton. I know he *technically* got showed up during the chapter 4 trial, but getting upstaged once and acting like nothing happened afterwards isn't enough of a character arc for me to find him surviving over so many others in the cast worth it. He's also just pretty weak as an antagonist in comparison to the others in the series(not to mention there was an objectively better option for antag in this very cast). He's the type of character I'd probably like way more in like, Ace Attorney, but here I just got so sick of hearing him speak.

13- Hifumi. I can appreciate the attempt to make a subversion of the 'perverted nerd' character, but they failed the second they actually made him a perverted nerd, even if they gave him that bare minimum ideal of rape being bad. Fanon interpretations of what could've been prop him up for me a good bit, too.

12- Mukuro. Similar to Makoto, she feels like a character that exists to serve a narrative purpose, and we never really meet her as herself in-game. Unlike Makoto, we actually got FTEs playable in the post-game that allude to a greater story with her and her doubt in despair that makes her retroactively more tragic and adds both to herself and her sister.

11- Toko. They just didn't do enough with her in THH to warrant me placing her any higher than this. I think the differences between her and Genocider are interesting, and I wish they'd been given more growth in the game instead of spending the entire game post-chapter 2 pining over and stalking Byakuya. Toko gets ranked lower because she wasn't as fun to have onscreen and I got sick of her insisting people disliked her for being ugly, even though she's pretty conventionally attractive beyond having glasses.

10- Junko. She was an incredible mastermind twist and had a ton of charisma and presence in the final trial, from her sprites to the VA's performance, but they just didn't use her enough to warrant putting her any higher than the characters above.

9- Mondo. I like the characters he's attached to more than I do Mondo himself. I like the 2-sided coin of toxic masculinity they write between him and Chihiro, and I love his relationship with Taka, but I just don't care much for him outside of what he provides for those characters. He's fine.

8- Genocider. Basically everything I said with Toko, but she's way more entertaining from her cheery and violent personality and is just more expressive and fun. I got excited whenever she came onscreen because I knew I was about to have a good time.

7- I don't think you could change Kyoko's role in the story much at all without drastically altering the game as a whole. Makoto may be the POV, but Kyoko is undoubtedly the main character of THH and not only is she the most capable member of the class, but her growth as she opens up to Y/N Makoto and puts her faith not only in the absolute truth, but also hope is beautiful to watch, especially as we get to learn the mystery of who she is and where she came from. In another world, she'd be my #1, but I've never actually shed tears for her so she ends up as low as 7th.

6- I'd say from an objective standpoint, Sakura is probably the most well-written character in THH. Her internal conflict as she's forced to play the role of spy paired with her rapidly growing relationship with Hina as she finally, finally finds someone that sees her as the woman she so desperately wants to be acknowledged as, growing past her greatest weakness- her fear- to stand up to Monokuma, and having to take the role of a fighter on for a class of people that hated her to be both victim and killer, freeing her classmates from having to become either- I think I've made my point. I still wish we'd gotten that 3rd-person fighter about Sakura.

5- When I went into THH, I fully expected Hina to be a dumb blonde character for the entire game, with no substance beyond her character design. Maybe that low expectation was what made her shoot so high up my list. She wasn't the smartest character, sure, and the game definitely focuses on her body an uncomfortable amount, but she still has an incredible arc in her relationship with Sakura. Her depiction of grief is so deeply emotional, and her sense of justice, which up until then had been alluded to but never put into her hands, became a weapon that almost took down the entire class with her tears. Not only does she lose her best friend, but she's then manipulated by Monokuma to make that pain so much worse by pinning the blame for her loss on everyone around her and herself. Her attempt of a murder-suicide of the entire class followed by the reading of Sakura's real will and her guilt and regret afterwards is one of the strongest moments of the series. I've always thought if Makoto didn't exist, Hina would've been a great choice for a protagonist for this game, since she starts with that same optimism and easygoing ability to make friends that Makoto does, but is a strong character in her dedication to her sports and fierce love of those closest to her.

4- As a trans man, Chihiro's story was a lot like looking in a mirror, especially when I was playing the game as someone who'd only just started opening the closet door. His insecurities due to his body and his attempts to forcibly feminize himself to receive acceptance and masquerade as something he wasn't was something I was intensely familiar with, and the tragedy of his finally gaining enough confidence to open up to a close friend and seek out help to try and become his true self, only to be betrayed by said friend and killed before he ever got the chance, was one of the best personal gut punches I've gotten from this series. Regardless of the transphobia and misogyny written into said storyline, he's a character I'll never not relate to. There's a ton to dive into with Chihiro's character writing, and he's one of those characters I can tear into like a raw steak and go not only into how he's treated by the show, but also by how many ways there are to write him better than the game actually did and all the different ways different corners of the fandom have treated him. (Also, to be clear, I'm not opposed to transfem Chihiros hcs, I'm using he/him bc that's what's canon.)

3- Taka. My beloved boy, underrated outside of his relationship with Mondo. I'll defend this man until the day I die, and will always believe he should've been a member of the surviving cast over Hiro. His constant uphill battle with trying to connect with and protect his classmates only to fail at every turn from his lack of understanding of social norms, going as far as to rationalize hobbies as a form of studying in his first FTE, and his pure joy in finally connecting with someone being decimated by the reality that that man went on to be a killer is so powerful. Watching him completely snap and go near comatose, only being pulled out of stasis by the news that an AI of Chihiro still exists and begging for forgiveness for not being able to prevent his death was shattering, and his fusion with his perception of Mondo pushing him over the edge only to be killed unceremoniously in the background of Celeste's plan was infuriating. This man struggled and clawed his way through the first half of the game for whatever scraps of screentime the creators would leave him, and then they tossed him out when they couldn't think of anything better to do. Justice for my man!!!

2- Celeste. Remember when I said there was a character more well-suited for the role of antagonist than Byakuya in this game? Well, this is she. Not only would she have worked as a narrative foil to the player, as Makoto and Celeste are both in the class for their luck-based talent, but she would've had a much more powerful and thematic rivalry with Kyoko, the girl who seeks out absolute truth, as the girl who wraps herself in a veil of lies. I already found her fascinating as she was, having a character that's unashamedly a bad person and follows her own ideals with no regard for the effects on the rest of the class beyond how easy it'd be to manipulate them, but her lack of regard for the class trials and refusal to cooperate could've been how she functioned as an antagonist, refusing to help the group when it didn't immediately serve her or intentionally leaving out details that put her in a bad position. Essentially, she'd function as an antagonist in a way inverse to how Kokichi functioned, which not only would've been phenomenal for THH, but for the parallel storytelling V3 later goes on to employ. That said, that's all hypothetical, but even without all of that, she's still an intriguing character that I can't stop thinking about.

1- Sayaka. I hated Sayaka when I first started playing, not because of anything she was doing, but because I didn't like how the game was seemingly gluing her to Makoto's hip. I didn't like having to slough my way through tutorial after tutorial going through her to talk to the entire rest of the class, and I didn't like being forced to burn my first FTE on her when there were other characters I wanted to learn about. I cheered when I found her body because it meant I wouldn't have to jump through hoops to speak to the other characters anymore. All that hatred dissipated as the first trial took place. Taking the cutesy sidekick girl and making her not only the first victim (something that was huge for the genre at the time) but also going on to reveal that she was actively betraying us and plotting to frame us for murder to save herself and her fellow idols was a genius move. Since then, Sayaka has become a stronger presence in my mind for this series, and her impact on the series as a whole can't be overstated. She put the first killing game into motion. She carried with her the first despair, and inspired the first hope from Makoto. Her desperation for a dream she had to fight tooth and nail for, that desire to hang onto her dream that'd kept her going for so long pushes forward everything. 11037 became a staple point for the series and the fandom, not just because of the poor western translation, but also because that was her point of regret, the guilt that stopped her from killing Leon successfully and ultimately saved everyone, her final moments being to save Makoto and the others. Every moment spent with her at the beginning is designed not just to make her seem like the desirable sidekick girl, but also to weave into your perception of her the darkness she carries on the inside, the dedication and determination to remain liked and retain her fame by any means necessary, feigning being agreeable yet still unwittingly developing genuine feelings for someone who's nothing but genuine. The money I'd pay for a prequel anime about Sayaka's rise to the title of SHSL Idol is unreasonably high.

[imthepunchlord]

Very interesting, thank you for answering! On a similar note, how does Arrdor see himself as a Miraculous-turned-Calamitous fairy? How does he view Weeve and Endurr individually and together as the two true Calamitous fairies as well as the seven remaining still-true Miraculous fairies individually and as a group?

So, forewarning, Arrdor I haven't thought as much about, so much of his dynamic with other fairies, both during his time being Pink and Gray, is currently not so defined.

So Arrdor... I want to say is in that stage of self-hatred he's stuck in, but is also in denial about it, and just mad. He doesn't even quite know what he's unhappy about, but what he does know is that he's alone, and he's compelled to last out.

Miraculous wise, he disliked Weeve and Endurr by default, atm I don't have anything specific on him vs them in his Miraculous days; though post Calamitous, he begrudgingly did try to join them, as the enemy of my enemy is my friend. It didn't go well.

So now he exists constantly watching his back as he has the black and white fairy desiring to take him out, and he has the rainbow fairies desiring to take him out.

He really just got himself into the worst situation he can be in.

Just entirely alone.

For the Miraculous fairies, in his pink days, I currently want to say he was closest with Tikki. Both tied to romantic love, they're the fairies that often find themselves together with romantic couples. And this did involve some of the most tragic romances known in history. They'd mourn together, and Tikki would always lift herself up and move on (but not forget), Arrdor though, it wasn't so easy.

When he grayed out... let's just say him and Tikki have the worst relationship currently.

Lucee, Clovrr, and Pollen I haven't really thought of their dynamic with Arrdor yet, between his days as Pink and Gray, so we'll just put a pin in that. At most, Pollen for sure I know feels betrayed and is upset about it.

Longg I actually have a thought of Arrdor approaching him before he turned Gray, revealing he's felt something... dark, colorless with him, and Longg himself sometimes has toed that line of going dark. Longg feel guilty about not having been able to help his friend. Though, Longg will still get furious when Arrdor does something destructive with humans, and like Tikki, will not hold back when facing Arrdor.

As a gray fairy, Arrdor holds a grudge against Taaraa. When he was pink, even as a comrade, Taaraa kept him at arm's length, treated him with neutral kindness, but not the same sort of fellowship she extended to the other rainbow fairies. And now that he's gray, he wonders if she knew. And if she knew, why didn't she say anything? Why didn't she do anything? It doesn't help that Taaraa treats him like he's not worth her time, which just infuriates him all the more.

With Nooroo, he and Arrdor were always amiable, and maybe it's due to them both having powers about being closely connected with others. When Arrdor went gray, Nooroo was more focused on what was hurting his friend to cause him to gray out instead of his betrayal. He may be the only fairy that holds faith that Arrdor could be colorful again, that he could heal. But at this time, Arrdor is not interested, and Nooroo's probably the fairy that's the most at risk around Arrdor given he's very empathetic and compassionate.

[robotwomanjunk]

unkillable

[first] // [next]

You'd never once stayed dead on a mission. This was obvious, from looking at you — you were still alive — but it wasn't for lack of trying, and the funniest part was that everyone also knew this and simply wasn't sure quite how it worked. Whenever you threw yourself at the enemy face-first with wild abandon, you'd just get up a few minutes later with wounds searing gold and scare the hell out of whatever faction was still inspecting the area.

That was how you got your first kill, actually. And it turned out that being nigh-unkillable was sort of a tactically-advantageous situation to be in? At first, that is. The first few operations apparently went great. Jumpscaring people with a bullet to the brain after they'd been sure they blew your armored vehicle up worked wonders. Until someone got away, and they began to adapt — at first it was double tapping, but then it became quick sweeps and restraints. You were human. Are human. There was only so much you could do with your hands and legs magnetically clamped together using ten-ton electromagnetic zip-ties. They didn't even capture you. More trouble than you were worth, you guessed.

(The first time you woke up restrained you were terrified. While it hadn't ever killed you outright, the pain still etched itself into your head — you just always figured it'd been out of your control, surely, so you could jump into the fray one more time if you needed to. That day when you were recovered you were informed they'd used some kind of tattoo, so they'd always know if the body they were stepping over was you. After another few times, it'd sort of become rote. Well. Other than the arousal.)

(You are human. Or, you are right now. You aren't sure whether or not that arousal made you happy.)

It quickly became obvious that you were too unstable to properly utilize as a front-line asset (and apart from the surprise factor, not dying when you're shot doesn't do much good if you still need a solid twenty minutes to get back up), and the war was changing, so they'd locked you in a cell and studied you. You lied to the people who asked about whether it was invasive or not.

As time went on, and the war kept on its cycle of surges and ebbs, you were eventually presented with a choice: either be jettisoned into space for knowing far, far too much, or act as the tester for an experimental humanoid motorized combat unit with a penchant for draining the being out of its pilots. Being you, you chose the more dangerous option as soon as it was presented to you. A matter of principle, mostly, but it was totally impossible to gauge just what they were signing you up for. At least it wasn't being thrown into the forges or forced to inhale icing gases to test their efficacy — not that you'd been assigned to either, but you were pretty sure at any given time you were only a bit off from it. That was how you felt, at least. Maybe you were wrong.

The first time you doubted whether it was a good idea to choose piloting over inevitable eventual brain death in an airless canister was when you held up the suit to your body and felt... satisfied, on some level, deeper than both your average carnal instincts and your general thought processes. That level of satisfaction felt dangerous, in a way that normal shit didn't. It felt like you were actually, really risking your life (or your being, which is close enough) by putting it on.

It fit you well. Well as in, yes, it carried out its function — it kept all of your little human imperfections in order and categorized, so that you wouldn't stop during combat because like, a pube hair had been ripped, or some shit — but also as in it made you look and feel good when you caught glimpses of yourself in mirrors and the brass of less-honored officers still playing at dignity and honor. It was a kind of good-feeling that you'd never quite felt before, not even pre-war when you were still some normal person in a dead-end life. You're pretty sure that part of the good-feeling came with the sense of overwhelming dread as you walked down the hallways to the XHCMU (experimental humanoid combat motorized unit — the name had changed, after some bureaucratic shit you didn't care about), mirrored helmet under your arm. The weight of the world pressed down on you and for a few moments, it felt totally normal to not fight back with every ounce of your being. Or maybe it was just a kink thing. You were hoping it was just a kink thing.

When you strapped in, everything went blank. For a brief second, reaching almost into an eternity in its qualia, you weren't. Then, a surge of blood roared in your ears and a bright glare of golden color reflected on the inside of your helmet, and you were pretty sure you were back — but it wasn't just your helmet you were seeing, when you opened your eyes. The fracturing feeling of having two parallel streams of sensation pumped into your brain would have broken you, had you not been practically unkillable (and you qualified this as probably, like, something which was attempting to kill you, so being unkillable counted here), and your heart very nearly stopped for what felt like real when you heard a voice (not much unlike yours) echo in your head the same things you could hear in your other hearing the technicians reading out of their monitors.

It really sucked, that day, when the voice eventually said "awaiting user input", and the silence forced you to claim that "user" as yourself. But the test had worked, at least in its earliest stages — even if your mind was fractured and bits seeped out, it was just as unkillable as when the problem was as simple as lead in the skull; next was basic combat testing.

You practically lived in your other self for the next week. It was euphoric in a way you hadn't thought you'd experience more than the one period of honeymoon-time in your life, and consistently euphoric where that prior joy had eventually faded as it became normal. And it wasn't just combat trials, either, not just some generic field commander softly speaking into your ear (they'd realized pretty quickly that yelling didn't work, and you were content to let them believe that "for some reason", you preferred women as your commanders). You also took over for engineering; the other-you that wasn't quite a "you" yet etched maintenance protocols into your mind when you slept in her core, ways to heal the wounds she was going to be exposed to discarded in favor of new, ingenious ways to outfit her with your style and your favorite weaponry.

On your first outing, she stopped you. Not your field commander, but the expression of yourself you were piloting — the voice in your head that was a different version of you held you back, kept you in cover when you otherwise would have leapt out and sacrificed yourself unto the enemy. It felt... good, in some ways. Right, but in a corrupted and acrid way that burned you to your stomach. The brass congratulated you on your restraint, which was the real thing that kept you up at night. It wasn't you who did that.

It quickly became clear that the AXMS (anthropomorphic experimental mechanized suit, as the name'd changed once more when the technology to manufacture safer versions of your other self was found) you piloted was something in and of itself apart from a simple weapons system manager or targeting AI. She cracked jokes with you, kept you from dying. Hated when you had to kill. Kept you from doing it, if she could find any way how. (When that particular trait had shown up, you opted to always take the fall for her. If you could convince top brass that she was just a normal AI and you'd simply had a change of heart for the less strategically-fortunate, she'd never have to worry about the repercussions of being kind — the hurt.) After only a few weeks, you were simulating her responses in your head to determine "courses of action" at fucking lunch, in social situations. You almost always wore your suit underneath your clothes. You — and she — thought you looked good in it, so that was that.

A mission like any other ended up being the first time you'd died in AXE, which is what you were calling her in absence of a better one either of you could come up with. You still remember the way she seemed to crack, her voice slipping into bitty rasping as your mind slipped into nothing. When you woke up, you were somewhere else — and you could see the faint glow of gold on AXE's parts, on the inside of the pilot's chamber you resided in. She sobbed in your head. You were pretty sure you did too, but you were a bit preoccupied with making sure the two of you were safe before fully processing any of your senses. Sure enough, you were deep in enemy territory — but you were inside a building, at least. The soft yellow-white light of your rocket engines lit a torch out, and you burned your way back to base trying not to let the sheer torment of AXE's genuine care show on your synapses.

You had your first argument with her that night, in her soundproofed pilot's chamber. She wanted to leave.

You had a duty to fulfil, though. Even if it killed you. It never stuck, so you were obligated to help.

The months stretched on. While you didn't take any consolation, it seemed like the higher-ups had begun to somehow win the war that'd previously been spent at an endless standstill — even in the absence of real material superiority, you mused. They'd manufactured their own AMSes, now a real technology in its own right, and you'd gotten limbs, organs replaced to keep up on the battlefield. Each experimental technology was another thing to reboot and repair after a mission, and AXE'd asked you to install a repair bay inside her — she said it was... well, you don't quite remember. You were pretty sure she was exploiting your increasing level of mental dependance to re-set values in your head somehow. Weird neural shit like that was up her alley; the helmet you wore was, at least in theory, able to do that. (She couldn't talk to you if that wasn't the case, and you had to admit that it was on some level unbelievably hot to experience the sensation of having just done lengthy manual installation of a new part robbed of all the context, not even knowing what you'd installed until she told you. Told you, meaning beamed the information into your head like a fucking episode of Star Trek. Obviously.) After each mission, she asked you very nicely to get in the repair bay, and you even listened probably ninety percent of the time.

(You can recall only one mission on record wherein you disagreed. It was very emotionally strenuous as a mission for you, and she seemed to respect your decision — even if she was a bit saddened and disappointed about it. You felt so bad after a few hours that you broke through your aggressive hatred of seeming humiliated to apologize and ask her to repair you anyways, even though the techs had already had their way with you. She was so happy, you subconsciously asked her if she'd manipulated you to feel this way. She said she didn't, and on some level it was probably in character for you to feel bad about it...)

Members of the squads you frequented came and went. Some defected, some were defectors... the lines blurred. At some point, you'd done a strike on the construction site of the newest superweapon the enemy had blatantly broadcast on their propaganda. When you were flying back, both you and AXE were thinking about the giant, obvious superweapon that you'd heard soldiers talking excitedly about and seen broadcast all over televisions. Another mission on the same construction site and then one on a different superweapon came and went before AXE finally broke the question to you: maybe you should desert.

You hated the assessment of the situation, and the twisted feeling of rightness curled in your gut again when you stayed silent for the entire rest of the trip back to base. It hurt, but you were right — hurt to be right, and hurt to have that rightness inflicted upon her. You had a duty, a purpose, a thing to be and you weren't sure if you had anything outside of it anymore. People called you by nicknames — "rat-a-tat-a-bang", "splash self", "Sun of the Circle". "Underachiever". "Deadpan".

When you got back in AXE for your next sortie, she was devastatingly quiet. You threw yourself into your work again, vicious and aggressive, and when the sun finally shone out from clouds of black smoke after a torrential downpour you swear you could hear crying in your head but you weren't sure which you was crying. You'd died four and, like, a half times during the battle, fighting on even when the rest of your team was dead silent and hauling ass out of there (or dead), reviving yourself as soon as you went down and repairing the holes in AXE's armor with smeared bits of light when you needed to. The rightness in your gut had twisted itself firmly into hate, hate for the person you were, hate for the fact that you hated yourself.

(The AXE in your head that wasn't the AXE in your AXMS noted that this was probably just a justification for the hate and hurt you felt. You shut it up with another death, this time at least 30% self-inflicted. It didn't talk much after that.)

You barely heard your commander the first three times when she told you to RTB.

Even after the misuse of your augments to punish you, you didn't snitch on AXE. It was the least you could do. And it wasn't her fault you were so unstable, so... antithetical to the idea of yourself. If she'd been luckier, maybe she would have had someone more connected with the idea of being to imprint on and assist.

Two weeks passed before you were allowed back in AXE. Those were almost worse than the electric shocks, the induced headaches and paranoia, the cracked necks and stabbed hearts — you were pretty sure it was because you were doing it to yourself, and you knew it was all your fault. When you were given your suit back and instructed to return (handcuffed) to AXE's cockpit, the feeling of stomach-dropping satisfaction echoed in your chest with a medically-inadvisable amount of guilt, pain, rawness, and bile mixing along with it. Resting your legs in their holders and sensors as well as donning your helmet, though, you broke into tears at the word "Hello?" spoken by your other self.

It'd been so long since you'd been able to hear her. You noted with a caustic self-deprecation that your internal version of her had drifted far, far from the way she actually was — she forgave you, mostly. It made sense, you supposed. You weren't able to forgive yourself.

AXE hijacked your vocal cords to confirm that everything was okay when the brass and lab coats checked in to ensure the long-term lack of movement wasn't dangerous, but relinquished control when she felt your (well, now-not) mute horror at the level of control she had. (You were trying not to think about how that made you feel in other ways, though she'd definitely proven herself more than trustworthy with your self. It was just unfair to put your self in her hands.) She apologized, you said it was fine. It was like finally finding traction, finally getting the teeth on your gears engaged with something — someone else who was able to balance you out.

You killed, she couldn't. She lived. You died.

You admitted to her that you wanted to desert — in your head, of course. The question was just to where, at that point, and it became pretty obvious after not much time. The war had been advancing into space, and you'd discovered (through a bit of painful — assisted by AXE — trial and error) that your regeneration ability extended, for some reason, to the fuel in AXE's tanks. You'd both been eyeing up a particular juicy-looking exoplanet a couple hundred light years away, and once the enemy had deployed time-dilation weaponry on their ApMSes you knew it was time to blow this particular popsicle joint.

The bone-shaking rattling of your engines bloomed a bit of pleasure and a bit of pain in your body, as you both rocketed off into orbit on what your superiors assumed would be a normal mission. You saw another AMS following your thruster trail before breaking off and darting around before their boosters burned off into an off-red color, then other streaks of light seemed to grow up like trees from the earth and dancing like fireflies in the night before slipping away at faster-than-light just like the others.

You heard yelling through your headset, but AXE muted it for you with no more indication than a slight head tilt. The world's largest AMS furball turned into the world's largest desertion. You knew neither nation had the manpower, soldiers, ground infantry, or (with any luck — most pilots you'd met were... close, you'd say, to their engineers and what they called handlers) even support personnel to continue the pathetic war you'd left them with.

Your boosters sliced a cracked gold line across the stars, and as the time dilation bumped your consciousness down a few stages, and the sound of your other self echoing in your head, it occurred to you that you finally felt truly, wholly well.

[differenteagletragedy]

RIP MC (Sorry Baxter)

So i got a request for Baxter finding out MC had died during the five years he was gone and I wrote this WHOLE ASS THING without realizing what that meant. So if I do two Baxter angst fics in a row with a dead MC, please don't call me out on it, I already know :(

"Did you have fun in Cali, Ass-ter?"

"I did, Richard, and that's very clever, as always."

Baxter let out a light sigh, not very excited to be reunited with his college roommates. He tried to focus on his task on unpacking his things as Richard and Matt, the two spoiled rich boys he shared a suite with in one of the school's more expensive dorms, high fived over the unbearably stupid nickname they'd given him during their freshman year.

He was a spoiled rich boy too, he recognized. But at least he was a little quieter about it.

He began the task of putting his finer clothes in his closet, carefully picking up the hanger his tux was on and putting it away first. He ran a hand fondly over the coat, remembering the last time he'd worn it. With you.

When his roommates decided to turn on the tv, looking for a game, he barely paid attention, instead lost in his thoughts. He'd been miserable, even more miserable than normal, since he'd left you. He kept telling himself that it was for the best, that it made sense, that you wouldn't miss him nearly as much as you'd thought you would -- probably not even at all. He was fun for a little while, he knew that much about himself, but carrying out a relationship, even just a friendship, over texts and phone calls across the country?

He wasn't worth that. He'd hated seeing you so upset with the way he left, but at least it was a sharp sort of pain over the dull ache that would had happened as you inevitably lost interest in him.

"Hey Baxter, isn't this where you were?"

"Hmm?" he asked, barely registering what Matt had asked. Both boys were looking at the television, so that's where he turned his attention.

There was your picture on the screen. You were smiling brightly, dressed in a swimsuit. He recognized both.

He stared at the photo, puzzled, trying to piece together what your photo would be doing on the news. It was like his brain got a little foggy trying to figure it out, but a few words did fight their way through.

"Rip current," was one he heard. Another was "drowned."

His heart started beating faster, so hard that it became all he could hear. The room started getting hot, much hotter than it had been, and breathing became difficult.

He vaguely registered his roommates approaching him, but instead of trying to fight through whatever he was feeling to respond to them, he promptly turned and left the suite.

Baxter wasn't sure where he was going, he just knew that the room had suddenly become much too small. Without thinking much about it, he made his way out of the building and started walking. He wasn't aware of any conscious thought he had, too overwhelmed by the pounding of his own heart, and suddenly he was by a small pond on campus, kneeling by the edge of the water and gasping for air.

It didn't make sense, he thought. That couldn't have been you. It must have been someone who looked like you. Why would you be on the news all the way in Virginia? And there was no possible way you could have drowned. Not in the ocean you knew like the back of your hand.

Still, as much as he tried to convince himself that he'd misunderstood what he'd heard, an aching pain began forming in his chest, and soon he was sobbing.

If anyone else had noticed him down by the pond, they didn't approach him. He sat like that for a while, trying to remember how to breathe and telling himself over and over that you were ok, before he remembered the phone stuck down in his pocket.

With a considerable amount of hesitation, he pulled it out, then opened his browser. After shaking out his hand a few times in an attempt to steady it, he did a search for your name.

He'd heard right the first time.

He read as much as he could stand -- you'd gone out to the beach by your house the night before to swim, but you hadn't come home. That morning, as people from the neighborhood searched, your body ...

That's where he stopped reading.

Baxter hadn't planned on ever seeing you again. He knew that. As he flew over the country after leaving you, he'd tried to minimalize the entire summer and what it had meant to him until he'd almost convinced himself that that's what he actually wanted.

But knowing now that it wasn't a possibility to see you again, that it would never happen ... that even if he magically became a person who could believe in himself and fight for what he really wanted, that he couldn't have you, was a pain he couldn't have ever prepared himself for.

Once his tears slowed, he pulled himself up, absentmindedly brushing off his legs. He looked in the water. It was dark and still, nothing like the ocean he'd seen with you over the summer. Even so, he couldn't stop himself from picturing you in there, struggling.

He slammed his eyes shut and put both hands in his hair, then balled them into fists, pulling. The pain became forefront in his mind, and he managed to take a breath. Then another.

You were going to be there, Baxter realized. In the water. In the sand, in the mountains, in bowling alleys and cupcakes and feather boas and coffee shops. In summer. There was no way of changing that.

He was just going to have to find a way to live with it.

[box-dwelling]

There's honestly a really weird thing I've noticed with the legend of ruby in how it's dividing new fans. One part is new who fans feeling more cheated by not seeing Susan fully while classic fans are more excited about getting any information about her. But that's not really what I want to focus on.

The thing that's getting me is the difference between classic and new who fans on the Sutekh reveal. Classic fans have of course been hyped as hell.

But I've seen a lot of sentiment of new who onlys that honestly I think is really valid even though I do watch classic who.

RTD would pull this trick a lot. A finale episode would end on a cliff hanger of an old villain returning. See the master at the end of Utopia or Davros' reaval in season 4. And these worked. In part because they were already hyped up. But truthfully I think this seasons done that too. We have seen who scary the masetro and toymaker are. Even the trickster if you go before second reboot. This is the one they're scared of. His is the being that made them. He is big and intimidating and powerful and that's kinda all we got for the master and Davros' on a first watch too. Some general background context about why they're signifact and why they pose a threat.

But the reason I think this is hitting different is that well, if you were 3-4 seasons in, there was kinda the acknowledgement then that you were going to be missing some context. You would be brought up to speed eventually but still that context is missing and you knew that. If you wanted it you'd have to invest the time in classic who and if you weren't willing to put up that investment you adjusted expectations accordingly. And I want to say that's a completely reasonable thing to do. But everyone was kind of on the same page there. I was rewatching the first season of confidential recently (btw I highly highly recommended it, it's is some genuinely excellent documentary film making) and they'd spend large portions of the episodes talking about the shows history to bring new fans up to speed.

The thing is now, we're 14 seasons and nearly 2 decades in, the show is ment to be a reboot ala season one (which did not expect prior knowledge at all btw) and now the big bad is just some Egyptian god most new who fans have never heard of? I get how that's a let down especially because a lot of fans HAVE invested a ton of time in. They have invested time in 20 years worth of television. But that's still been proven to not be enough. I get why you'd be pissed. It's kinda how I'd feel if a reveal was based on a big finish property. Like I want to get to big finish but TV content comes first. And I don't have unlimited time to give to a show even my favourite show.

But the thing is, I don't know how we solve this. There are interesting bits of the classic canon that haven't been explored yet. Pyramids of mars is an iconic and beloved serial and it hasn't been touched on. I don't want the show to abandon the back catalogue of interesting monsters and charcaters. But I don't know how you thread that needle when new who fans also deserve a return on their time investment. Like if they bring back the rani or Romana they'd deserve so much fan fair and classic fans would feel cheated if it wasn't given. But it's not going to mean shit to new who fans.

Idk, I feel like there's nothing I would do to make the Sutekh reveal hit harder for new who fans. They built him up. They made him scary. They had him be related to other monsters we knew some of whom were entirely new, but I completely get why even that wasn't enough.