#Look at that poem it was so pretty i had to type it up and use it as the middle

[zozo-01]

in which mydei helps this lovesick fool (his friend and brother-in-arms) confess his feelings, the kremnoan way (aka, the best way) <3

Despite what many people think, Lord Mydeimos is quite adept at dealing with his emotions in a healthy way. The assumption that the disgraced Prince of Castrum Kremnos was a brute who couldn't tell anger from sadness isn't an unfounded one, but it's false nonetheless.

As a war leader, Mydei knows the importance of keeping your feelings in check, lest you let them take over and have your men die. For most, this meant burying your feelings in the darkest parts of your heart. Mydei however, found that counterintuitive. If you cram every single thought and emotion into a small space, it will build up pressure and then blow up in your face.

So he wrote poems in Kremnoan to put words to feelings that the local languages could never capture. (Part of it was so that he could hear his mother in his words.) He'd speak to his fellow Chrysos Heirs whenever the Flame-Chase burden became too heavy to carry. (Castorice was a good partner to talk to, for only she knew death more intimately then he.) He even baked honey cakes as a treat whenever the somber days seemed never ending. (With the help of the pretty baker of course.)

Some may question his manhood, that was fine by him. He knows it's better to wallow your feelings with cakes than with childish outbursts.

His comrade, on the other hand, is the type that would rather swallow his own head than swallow his own pride.

Is it a custom on Aedes-Elysia? To pine so heavily, it's making the people around you uncomfortable? If that's the case, then perhaps the lost nation was not the paradise Phainon made it out to be.

Speaking of the Deliverer, instead of performing his heroic duties like settling disputes at the market or saving cats from trees, he stood in place like a fool. His eyes were stuck on a fellow Chrysos Heir, hands constantly pressing his clothes down to make sure his clothes were perfect. Mydei looked back at the woman who had captured his friend's attention.

Lady (Y/N). Where she was from, nobody knows. She had golden blood flowing through her veins and the will to see Amphoreus to enter the Era Nova, so Aglaea lets her do as she pleases. Though her place in the Flame-Chase journey was a mystery that he couldn't solve.

So many questions surrounded her being.

"Do you think Lady (Y/N) would like me better if I had cat ears?"

Of course that is what the lovesick fool wonders.

"No," Mydei scoffed, not wanting to dignify that question. "If she were to like you, I would assume she'd like you better if you were fully human." He crossed his arms and hoped that was enough to end his questioning.

"But Lady (Y/N) always pets the cats she sees on the street! It's clear she has a fondness for them," he whined, turning his pathetic face to his feet. "Maybe if I were like them, she would finally return my affections."

Mydeimos slapped the back of Phainon's head for even entertaining such a foolish thought.

The Deliverer groaned and rubbed his head where the Prince hit him. He turned his head to the side and glared at him, and for a second, Mydei could see the rage in his blue eyes over what happened. But just as quickly as it blazed over him, anger dissipated from Phainon's body and he continued mope and yearn.

(There was a hidden anger, a festering rage, that would spark in his eyes. Perhaps if Phainon let his feeling's out, he would be less angsty all the time.)

"I know!" Phainon's head perked up like nothing happened. He turned his body before the Prince, and Mydei knew he wouldn't be able to brace himself for whatever nonsense would come out of his mouth. "Why don't you tell me how Kremnos confess their love to each other!" he exclaimed, not realizing how awful of an idea that was.

It wasn't that Kremnoans didn't believe in love, it was that the idea of romance was foreign to them. Love wasn't romantic poems that go on unnecessarily about someone's eyes. It was defending your lover in the battlefield, ripping your enemies to shreds before they could lay a hand on your partner. Perhaps not a suitable way to confess to someone. The intensity would probably scare (Y/N) off.

Still, as much as he teased the Deliverer, Mydei still considered him a friend and did want to help him out.

"In Kremnos, we prove our love through battle," he began. "If you cannot suitably protect your partner on the battlefield, then you aren't worthy enough to be with them."

Phainon pondered on that sentiment, what he was thinking, Mydei didn't want to know. A few minutes later, he came up with his answer.

"So what you're saying is that I should show my love through fists?" Phainon asks.

"Essentially, though, there might be better ways to confess your feelings," Mydei said. The Deliverer seemed like the type of man who would fit more closely to Mnestia's definition of love, rather then NIkador's. "Have you even tried to use your words?"

"I have, but everytime I sit down and try to write about my feelings, it never comes out right." Phainon sighed and turned his head to look at (Y/N) over his shoulder. "Yes she is beautiful, but there's so much more to her. She's fiercely loyal to those she cares about, from all of the Chrysos Heirs to every single child in Okhema." Phainon's eyes glazed over and Mydei could see the depth of his adoration.

"She's kind, extremely so, almost to a fault." He chuckled, "did you know that a boy tried to rob her, and instead of calling the guards or apprehending him, she gave him the money needed, no questions asked." Phainon looked down with a smile. "She even gave him tips on how not to get caught next time. If I ever get the honour of being on the receiving end of even a fraction of her kindness, then I would truly be the blessed man in Amphoreus."

"She is what a hero should be, and next to her I don't even deserve the title of 'Deliverer'. Her light would be enough to guide us all safely to the Era Nova." He concluded with a sigh. Phainon looked back at the Prince, and Mydeimos was at a loss of words. He truly does love her.

"For someone who claims that he is not good with words, you almost moved me to tears," Mydei snarked. His sarcasm covered for the fact that he would swoon if those words were meant for him. It almost made him want to become a better poet for his own romantic endeavor.

"She deserves more than the measly words that I can give her." Phainon's angst has once again taken over, which meant that he needed cheering up.

Mydei started walking in (Y/N)'s direction, looking back when he noticed Phainon wasn't following.

"What are you waiting for Deliverer?" he smirked and looked forward. "You have to prove to your woman that you can protect her in a fight by beating me." 

Phainon's eyes lit up at the challenge, not being the kind who can turn his back on a fight.

"You're on!" he exclaims running up to his side. Phainon whispered his thanks in Mydei's ears, to which he nodded in response. Some people just need a little push before they're ready to take a big leap.

Mydeimos was a fan of love more so then he is a fan of war. One more secret that the Prince keeps close to his chest is that he loves weddings. He better get an invitation to Phainon and (Y/N).

(You remind yourself that the next time you see Phainon, you'll let him know that he does speak very loudly whenever he's passionate about something. You just didn't know that his passion extended to you.)

[silhouettecrow]

365 Days of Poems: Day 4 (January 4th)

Spurious Memory

they tell me

what i remember

is quite “spurious”

“spurious” is rather

an interesting word

for my experience

it means fake

false

illegitimate

to my mind

and applied to

what happened to

me that night

it means planted

fabricated

forged

if the bright lights

of magenta and teal

in saturations beyond sight

and the disappearance of

my rusted-out pick-up truck

in wide barren acres

along with my own

cold and trembling vanishing

longer than seasons know

was all fake

false

illegitimate

that i didn't feel

smooth ceramic and blood

against my bare thighs

ice pool inside me

from the tessellating terror

parts of myself breaking

like glass in suspension

then someone gave them

to me for nightmares

to dread and haunt

- - - - -

Here's the link to the corresponding writing prompt post

[understrangeforbiddenskies]

with you, there's no pretending

ellie williams x fem reader

↣ LOSER ELLIE LOSER ELLIE LOSER ELLIE cus there is not enough representation

*+:｡.｡ warnings / kissing, so much fluff, some angst, joel mention, smoking weed, SLIGHT nsfw but it's really just a makeout

𝄞  juna - clairo

author's note: ellie was the reason i accepted i like women so this is a trip down memory lane (sorry if it isn't accurate i haven't properly read an ellie fic since i was 15 </3)

+ probably stuttered like crazy when she first met you. just imagine it, her cheeks pink, an uncontrollable smile plastered on her face, and all she could say was "i am ellie" as she stuck her hand out in a poor attempt to shake yours.

+ you had to ask her out. it was during a particularly boring patrol which mainly consisted of you and ellie exploring random abandoned stores. she started rambling about some space book she found until you blurted out "do you wanna go on a date?". safe to say she was speechless (still managed to say yes of course).

+ your first kiss with ellie was so sweet. it was after one of the many movie nights you two had. at this point you were both yawning, almost falling asleep in eachothers arms until you tilted your head up, looking her in the eyes for a moment. she couldn't stop smiling when you finally pressed your lips against hers.

+ you said i love you first. no way in HELL did ellie get the courage to say it first. once you had said it to her she said it back immediately, a wide grin plastered on her face as she tackled you into a hug. now, she says it all the time - especially during the most random moments like after you successfully shoot a clicker.

+ would ramble about her comics to you in great detail every time you came over. it would consistent of her sitting cross legged on the bed, arms flailing, voice getting slightly louder as she explained everything that happened. you'd get confused half way through but do your best to pay attention.

+ if you’re also into comics, space, dinosaurs, or whatever, ellie would love it so much. one of her favourite activities would be talking about one of those topics for hours on end with you. has this sometimes lead to arguments? yes. did you both stop and realise what you were arguing about before bursting into laughter? also yes!

+ ellie has definitely drawn you before. in fact, she probably found a whole new journal so she could dedicate it to drawings of you. one time you came to her place just before she got back from patrol and noticed the journal was open; she was in the middle of writing a poem about you.

+ matching bracelets!!!!!! you found some string and some beads the kids left over from arts and crafts so you snagged them before anyone else could. you spent your evening picking the perfect beads for ellie's bracelet, with the one in the middle being the colour of your eyes. she wears it absolutely EVERYWHERE.

+ if you don't already play, she would try her best to teach you how to play guitar. she's a horrible teacher and you both know this, but it gives you another excuse to hang out and be as close together as possible.

+ she’s the type of person to finish your sentences for you. it get a little annoying sometimes but it’s also really cute so you just put up with it at this point. plus you think it’s sweet that she knows you so well.

+ you and ellie got high together so many times before. but that was usually with dina and jesse. this time, you two were alone, sat on her bed. you knew ellie rambled a lot when she was high. as much as you love hearing her voice, you could not stop thinking about kissing her. so you did. you grabbed her face in your hands, shutting her up with a hard kiss, slowly getting on top of her.

+ despite ellie being a massive loser, she can be pretty protective (and get jealous pretty easily). she'll get jealous over the silliest of things. this one time you were sat beside dina, your arm draped over her shoulder as you talked to one another. jesse, who was sat across from the both of you, had to nudge ellie's shoulder to stop her from glaring staring at you.

+ if you were having a rough day or just felt upset for whatever reason, ellie would feel slightly awkward. she wouldn't really know what to do other than hug you or crack a joke here and there. usually it works and she gets you smiling again within no time.

+ ellie would open up to you about joel. it would mainly be her complaining or talking about “that weird look he gave her before she went on patrol”. at other times, however, when it was just the two of you laying in each others arms late at night, she would tell you about what joel was like before jackson. what joel was like before ellie shut him out.

+ adding on to that, we know that ellie isn't one to talk about her feelings often, or even at all. if you two got into an argument or she was just being really mean to you one day, you probably won't get a verbal explanation. ellie would feel really guilty and write up an apology/explanation letter, slipping it into your mailbox, along with a sketch of you.

bonus modern!au headcanons:

+ ellie would most likely wear glasses. she’s the type of person to game until her eyes are red (me too). joel noticed she was squinting at him during a conversation and forced her to go to the “eye guys” as ellie called them. yeah her eyesight sucks.

+ i know everyone and their mothers say ellie would study physics/anything spacey but what about art student!ellie… we know she’s really talented and clearly enjoys art. i would like to imagine you’d be her muse.

+ (you definitely cracked a “paint me like one of your french girls” joke when she asked to draw you)

+ your first date with ellie would either be at a cafe or a museum. or both. oh and best believe it’s a dinosaur museum (only because you begged her to go to one). overall, it’s cute and filled with big smiles and some really shy hand holding.

+ okay this is really random but i think ellie would LOVE dr pepper. she's basically addicted to it. every study session, you show up with a dr pepper and she thanks you by plastering kisses all over your face.

+ has, and will continue to, steal your lip balms. she never buys her own because she claims they are a "waste of money" and "yours are always better anyway". the taste of your lip balm always reminds her of you when you're gone, it's perfect.

[minkieater]

who in nct 127 fucks ⛓️ & who makes lurrrrv… 💕

A 127 ASK AHHHH JUMPING AROUND MY ROOM DOING CARTWHEELS SCRRAMING CRYING TNTOWING UP i know u said detailed but this what my brain give u

FUCKS: freak bitches

1. johnny

u cannot tell me this man don’t Fuck. maybe u might have sweet nice time sex on like anniversaries or if u had a bad day and need him to be mister nice man but on the regular he’s Fucking. he’s straight dogging your shit. he’s bending you over the kitchen counter and fucking you within an inch of your life, folding you into a pretzel in the backseat of his car until you’re damn near concussed from your head hitting the car door, he’s breaking your bed frame like the sex scene in twilight. sex with johnny is never calm and casual it’s always gonna have you wondering whether or not you’re making it out in one piece (one piece mention) i need to fuck him like i need to breathe air

2. yuta

this freak bitch OH MY GOD he’s the type to have chains and rope and handcuffs in a box under his bed always ready to whip it out. dildos and vibrators in the bedside drawer type shit. blindfold and nipple clamps on hand SUE ME he’s the type to call sessions ‘scenes’ and thats honestly exactly what they are. he’s the sex is art type, always pressing on boundaries, seeing how far he can go until you’re safe wording, just to see where the hard line stop is, until you cant take it anymore. he expects you to do the same to him too, and you DO until he’s a crying whimpering mess, and he still doesn’t want you to stop until HE cant take it, playing with him through a chastity belt or edging him with a cockring on YEAH! i said what i said hes so hot

3. haechan

hyuck a diff kind of freak he’s the type to pee on u. bro is cumming on your stomach and licking it up, spitting it on your mouth, the type to have you sitting on his face or laying you out spread eagle, fingering you until you’re squirting, licking every OUNCE of it up. he’s nasty, his mouth is filthy, he’s whispering the most vile shit in your ear, shit that should NOT make you as horny as it does. he’s the type to fuck you in public, make you walk around with cum sliding down your thighs, laughing at you when its so clearly visible to anyone who decides to look down. im actually fucking feral writing this i need him so badly

MAKES LOVE: sweet angels

1. doyoung

if you try to pull any kind of freak shit w doyoung i think you’d scare him off or flat out give him the ick. he’s the sweet type, kissing you while he fucks you, fingers locked, praising you for how pretty you look, how good you feel, sex is meaningful to him and if you treat it like anything other than that he’s not gonna feel good about it. quickies will not be a thing unless either of you is truly desperate, even then he tries his best to make it special, taking you in a dressing room while whimpering in your ear, tears lining his eyes because he doesn’t want you to feel like he’s using you awwwwwww he’s so cute

2. markie

Grade A Whiner, mark might fuck but it’s in a pathetic way, in a submissive way, in a i cant stop because you feel so fucking good kind of way. he’s bringing you flowers to each date, a handwritten card hidden between petals, poems he’s written himself, song lyrics too special to be publicized. then he’s taking his sweet time after each date, kissing every inch of your skin, coaxing you to orgasm through concentration on all of your reactions, the way your breath hitches when he curls his fingers a certain way, how your eyes roll back when his cock hits that spot. not even worried about his own orgasm. could prolly cum untouched just from watching you cum. pathetic but in a hot way. #Needthat

3. jungwoo

THE BABBYYYYYY THE FUCKINF BABY sex with him is honestly probably so fun. all giggly and soft, innocent in a way, never serious or desperate, much like two people in their first relationship having sex for the first time but its like that all the time. it makes it special, light hearted, no pressure at all, just the two of you exploring each other, finding out what feels good, how to make it feel better. I <3 JUNGWOO

SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE: both ways

1. taeyong

taeyong could go either way i think he’s mad versatile. when the situation calls for it i think he can be really really submissive, but i also think u could work him up into a lil fuck machine. bro got stamina and with that navy body LAWDDDD hes fucking you into the mattress and flipping you around like youre a FEATHER. if he’s feeling particularly needy tho i think he’s very pliant for you, super vocal, whiney, telling you how good you make him feel, how much he loves you, how good you are to him, he doesn’t know he got so lucky w someone like you. he’d def call u mommy. he’d also fuck you like he’s turning you into one

2. jaehyun

gonna try not to lose my mind writing this 😁

jaehyun is sooo go with the flow i think he can be super sweet, he’ll go at your pace, would never think of taking things farther than what you set. always asks permission, asks how you’re feeling, if what he’s doing is still okay, super cautious and aware of his partner. he’s a fucking angel. on the other hand if u been together for awhile and u piss that man off he’s destroying your shit genuinely he’s ripping ur panties off ur body and fucking into you no prep. degrading words spat in your ear, a hand wrapped around your throat, using your ponytail to guide you through a bj at HIS pace. gagging you til you’re crying then laughing at you cus its your fault this is happening silly! he’s definitely edging u or fucking u until HE cums, denying you of an orgasm completely. FUCKKKKKKKKKKKK i actually beed him so bad Jaehyun please come home the kids miss you

anyways that’s my take on 127 hope u enjoyed and hopefully i did mark and yuta right 😛

[airybcby]

Now I'm Covered In You

(bllk boys as boyfriends)

a / n — thought making another post in this form would be fun, so i hope you enjoy!

content — bllk characters x reader, gn! reader, pet names used in a few parts, sadly canon otoya i fear, misspelled words are there for a reason i swear, cheater! otoya and oliver, some characters repeated, lmk if i missed anything!

synopsis — bllk boys and what type of boyfriend they'd be

✿.｡. “ how's one to know? ” .｡.✿

—The Romantic One

is always planning surprises for you, and i mean always. there's not a single week where you aren't being taken on 'adventures' that always lead you to a different restaurant.

what's the point in having all this money and not spending it on you?

they are constantly writing you love letters and poems. well, they try to anyway. they're not the best with their words and with many spelling mistakes, rather liking to show with actions, but they tried for you.

usually their poems end up something like this

' roses are red

so is my heart

my darling

my deer

my sweet buttercup

you taste just like a

tasty soda pop '

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ ISAGI YOICHI, shido ryusei, jyubei aryu, ALEXIS NESS

— The Player

you know the famous saying, "how you get them is how you lose them?" yeah that's exactly how this relationship is.

you'd been one of their many side quests while they had a relationship going on. eventually after they'd ended said relationship, they'd chose you as their next partner.

they do spoil you with many gifts, mostly after you catch them cheating on you for the umpteenth time, but you stayed because they 'loved you'

sure they told you they loved you, but that wasn't really the case when they'd broken up with you because you were 'boring' them.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ OTOYA EITA, oliver aiku

— The Protector

is constantly worrying about you and is looking out for your safety.

with them being this 'big bad' soccer player, many people refuses to even look you in the eyes when you were with them. but if someone dared to hit on you when they walk off for a second? please pray for them.

some guy could be asking you for directions and he'd come up behind you and wrap an arm around you without even uttering a word. you didn't have to look at them to know the look they were giving the man was nothing but deadly.

some may call it controlling, but you knew them, they just wanted to keep you safe from all these men.

you had him, who else would you need?

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ KUNIGAMI RENSUKE, rin itoshi, SHOEI BARO, tabito karasu

— The Funny (insane) One

is constantly making jokes- some that aren't funny - but you laugh anyways.

everyone always asks you how your relationship is doing so well, and the answer is always, " i don't know," because you genuinely don't. yes, the two of you get into arguments, and sometimes the two of you get heated enough to have to take time apart from each other, but you always come back together.

how?

because they always forget what the fight was even about and come back into your space to show you some cat meme they believe you would like.

and the two of you laugh until you feel better again.

maybe you don't know how your relationship is so healthy, but you know why you're happy.

because they take the time to make you laugh.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ BACHIRA MEGURU, RYUSEI SHIDO, gin gagamaru, seishiro nagi

— The Traditional One

dates. Dates. DATES!!

they took you on soooo many dates before officially asking you to be their partner.

they definitely give the vibes of "my mom taught me i needed to..."

just the best gentleman!

you need to step over a puddle? they're putting their jacket down over it for you (it wasn't necessary, but they insisted on it)

you talked about wanting to see a movie once? he's already bought the tickets.

if you get married? he's insisting you stay home

" a pretty face like you doesn't need to work, i'll provide us everything." in his words

will do anything for you, really.

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ YUKIMIYA KENYU, michael kaiser (pls ignore the mom part), REO MIKAGE, oliver aiku (again)

✿.｡. “ i'd meet you where the spirit meets the bone ” .｡.✿

likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated!!

[pomefioredove]

So idk if I'm requesting in the right place. But I would love a twst scenario with a yuu that just says all their intrusive thoughts. Like just out of NOWHERE, as they reach for a water bottle hanging out with the first years they go.

“I robbed a house back home”

Or when Azul tries cornering them with the twins for something they just blankly turn to Floyd going.

“duck off you look like you can't steer a shopping cart”

But feel free to do it with whoever you want and if you don't want to do mine that's perfectly fine and I hope you have a great day :)

certainly!!

summary: reader who speaks all their impulsive thoughts type of post: headcanons characters: heartslabyul, octavinelle, scarabia, diasomnia additional info: platonic or romantic, reader isn't specified to be yuu, reader is gender neutral author's note: for some reason I had the hardest time thinking up new nonsense, so many of these dialogue lines are from lewis carroll poems, which I have a wonderful nostalgia for. check those out as well!

Ace and Deuce are pretty much used to you saying whatever's at the top of your mind... with no filter

so used to it that it barely even registers with them anymore

whenever it's quiet, they can expect you to come out with some incomprehensible nonsense.

if you didn't, they'd probably ask what's wrong

"I robbed a house back home,"

"Yeah, okay,"

Riddle, on the other hand, gets frustrated alarmingly fast

despite running an entire dorm based on nonsensical rules, he has a low tolerance for outside nonsense

and... well, despite his name, he's not really a fan of riddles

Trey matches your energy immediately

no joke. he doesn't even bat an eye

"I eat plastic,"

"hm. sometimes I eat muffin wrappers,"

honestly, sometimes his tangents get even weirder than yours

Cater probably wasn't listening very closely when you first started going off, or maybe he's just become accustomed to riddles, though the next time you say something he just thinks it's cute

might use your "thoughtful anecdotes" as a caption for his next post

would it be surprising if I were to say Azul is used to randomness?

Floyd has a tendency to say the strangest things out of nowhere, after all, and the sea itself can be a surprising place

he does not, however, appreciate how you keep speaking in tongues when he's trying to have serious business conversations with you

(seriously, how hard can it be to swindle one person?!)

"Please, just talk normally,"

"But the mome raths outgrabe!"

he doesn't know what that means, but it sounds like an insult

...and then will refuse to converse with you again until you're in a "better mood" (in his own words)

Jade, on the other hand, finds you quite fascinating

he keeps a little notepad on him just to jot down the things you say. why? you can't imagine. he just finds it interesting, you suppose

"'Twas brilling..."

"Really? How interesting. Go on,"

Floyd isn't really paying much attention

your funny words amuse him at best and annoy him at worse

if you ever find yourself in a bad place with the octotrio, you can just say something like:

"You look like you can't steer a shopping cart,"

and Floyd will take actual offense to that, and just straight up leave

(much to Azul's dismay)

Kalim adds on right away

and keeps going

and keeps going... and keeps going...

"How doth the little crocodile improve his shining tail..."

"Oh, I know! He pours waters on every shining scale,"

at one point Jamil has to pull you aside and beg you not to encourage him

"No promises!" is your answer

Kalim even buys a parrot to add onto the fun

it becomes a three-person (or two-person-and-a-bird?) act

...even if you're not really doing it on purpose

Jamil is who ends up taking care of the parrot while it squawks your old nonsense thoughts, though

he likes the parrot much better than either of you

Malleus will entertain you based on his own curiosity

none of his other human classmates speak in such odd and puzzling words, so he knows it's a "you" thing

might try to solve them if they sound like riddles

but he mostly just thinks they're cute

"O, oysters, come and walk with us,"

"How interesting... I do wonder where you come up with all this,"

Sebek will listen to you because Malleus does, and Silver has enough nonsense to deal with as it is. will definitely fall asleep while you're talking to him

Lilia responds in like terms

meow at him? he'll meow back

in fact, he'll meow at you every time he sees you until you say something else to capture his curiosity

might go ahead and start speaking to you in tongues before you even say anything

he just thinks you're neat!

[chuulyssa]

jealous monster trio + law and ace x reader

a/n. not proofread!! i wrote this on my phone in the middle of watching a movie ong. idk why there aren't many dialogues in ace and law's part, but im lowkey pleased with how everything turned out

tags. fluffy fluff fluff, established relationship

crack tags. sanji gets a nosebleed (again), sanji tries to steal you away, sanji (that's it, that's the warning), marco bepo and robin are the best matchmakers, nami robs someone 😴

luffy wasn't the type to be overly possessive about the things he liked. growing up with two brothers, he had learned to share all mundane things in his life; his clothes, his blanket, even his toothbrush.

but not you.

luffy didn't understand the feeling that was developing in the pit of his stomach at the sight of you working out with zoro in the crow's nest. it was nice to stay healthy, right? that was what he had thought when he saw you reject his offer to play board games with him. he watched you walk away and up to the crow's nest where the swordsman practically lived, and sulkily climbed his special seat on the head of the sunny.

"oi, luffy! come down," usopp called out from the deck, and he glanced at the latter. "robin's telling us another story of the ancient civilizations of the west blue!"

"i'm not in the mood," luffy shouted back, still gazing wistfully at you.

he watched your face contort into one of pain when you moved to do the crunches, and zoro laughed at you before showing you how to breathe in the position as you lifted yourself back up.

"are you sure? i think you're just hungry!" usopp called again. "robin said we can have some of the special pancakes sanji made for her."

luffy stared back at his friend, his eyebrows furrowing as he thought hard. soon after, he yelled back, "i'll come down, give me one second!"

as you got back up from the crunch you were performing, you saw a long arm on the glass wall of the room and nearly screamed. luffy accidentally slammed his face into the wall, his cheeks comically enlarged as he spoke something incoherent to you. zoro rolled his eyes from beside you.

"i think he's saying break time is over. you've gotta go deal with him now."

.

zoro was rather secure in your relationship. he didn't mind it when other people commented about how nice you are, or about how pretty you look. he let it all slide, seeing as he knew all of the comments were true, and you deserved to know that. so he wasn't one to get mad when such things happened.

except when it came to the idiot cook.

it had been almost fifteen minutes past your usual time and you still hadn't shown up. zoro had gritted his teeth in the middle of a set and set out to find you. it didn't take him long, however, to figure out what was keeping you.

"my dear y/n, you must listened to this acoustic poem i have written in your name," the cook had one of your hands in his, blocking your way up to the crow's nest.

"i'm sure it's lovely, sanji, but i'm in a hurry right now--"

"ah, where, i wonder, must i look to find another beauty such as yourself--?"

"oi, cook! buzz off, will ya? no one wants you around," zoro's voice came from upstairs, and you turned to look at him.

the cook glared at him from behind you, but immediately pouted wistfully when you turned back at him. "don't say that, 'ro," you scolded, and the cook's face lit up at your words, eyes gleaming at the sight of zoro's annoyed look.

"i said what i said," zoro walked downstairs, twirling a strand of your hair around his fingers when he reached you. "buzz off, prince of the perverts."

.

sanji is a little bit of an idiot. insecurity runs in his veins, and thus so does jealousy. you would have felt bad for him too, had he not been making you feel the same way since day one.

his face streamed with tears as he followed you around the marketplace. a few minutes earlier, you had caught him shooting to the sky with a nosebleed because of some poor woman's smile. he had landed right at your feet, the sight momentarily disarming you before you kicked his frame out of the way to walk.

it had been about half a minute of you ignoring him and he was on his hands and knees, begging for you to spare a glance at him. you would have felt bad, had this not been the fiftieth time in a week. you instead chose to turn to usopp, who had grown to learn to ignore sanji and his antics around women ever since they first met at the baratie. sanji's ears turned a bright red at your movement, and he clinged even harder at you

the two of you silently agreed to not wait for nami while she was busy robbing civilized people in a restaurant, and sped up at the looks the passersby were giving sanji, who was practically hanging onto your waist right now.

"i'm sorry, i'm sorry, angel, i know that's not gonna cut it but i beg for your humble forgiveness, i will not ever-"

"how do you deal with this moron?" usopp whispered to you, and you whispered back an "i don't know".

sanji kept mumbling things into your hips and pressing soft kisses into your waist, until you gave in when chopper hurried up to where you were, polaroids of your smile hanging around his neck; your boyfriend was just in rehab!

.

ace didn't think you looked half as good with anyone else but him. that is another way to say, he couldn't stand anyone who was within a certain radius from you. he wouldn't talk about it at all, and whenever you would bring it up he would play dumb.

but he hated it; not in a you're-mine-and-belong-to-me way but more in a im-just-a-boy-who-needs-external-validation-to-exist kinda way.

so he didn't like the way you were the only 'daughter' in whitebeard's crew among all the 'sons' who spoke about you like you were a trophy. he didn't like how you were placed under marco's division and not his. he didn't like how both whitebeard and marco laughed at him whenever they caught him looking at you.

after a particularly rough mission, the first division was having a blast with all the treasure they had managed to get back. ace looked at you with a longing pout on his face, about ten feet away from you. you were laughing with thatch at the moment, and he was busy fantasizing about how you would react if he carried you into your shared room on his shoulder, kissed the back of your nape and sucked hickeys to spell his name on your neck--

marco slapped the back of his head and his face fell into his plate with a loud crash.

"thank me later," marco said, eyes unwavering as the man in front of him fell asleep face-first into a plate full of food.

he went away as ace woke up shortly after, his face covered in curry, with men laughing at and mimicking him, but among all of them, his ears only heard the sound of your laughter before you quickly got up to hand him tissues.

.

law did not care. or at least, he pretended not to. after all, it had taken multiple tantrums from bepo to get him to confess to you, and even then he had made it clear he was not a fan of whatever you might have thought to be an 'ideal, loving relationship'.

that was, until today, when you had learned just how far you had to push his buttons to transform him into a romantic man. you could feel law's gaze on you as you laughed at whatever dumb thing luffy had just said, but when you turned around, he was busy conversing with robin about who knows what. once again, you turned to luffy, felt weird, turned back and saw nothing. for every minute you talked to the straw hat about something, you could feel law breathing down your neck, albeit in a subtle manner that no one but you seemed to catch.

"law," you finally came up to him, and he looked up at you as if he hadn't for ages. "is something wrong?"

"what makes you think so?" he challenged, and you could feel robin chuckle next to him. after shooting her a perplexed look, you shrugged and walked back to where the group was having fun, staying a bit closer to chopper this time, for luffy's safety.

it wasn't until the two of you had retreated back to your shared room for the night that you had realised what you felt had not been a hoax. law was on you the moment you lay next to him on the bed, nuzzling up to you and pressing gentle kisses to your forehead and cheeks.

you were confused, to say the least, but you had a faint suspicion that this strange side of law was the idea of a certain archaeologist.

[comic-sans-chan]

Fic I'll never write where Dukat decides the biennial Cardassian Festival of Whatever the Fuck (it is never actually specified) should be hosted on Deep Space Nine as a way of bridging the gap between the Cardassian and Bajoran peoples. Sisko and Kira are both Ehhhh about it, but Dukat is obnoxiously persistent until finally the Bajoran government and Federation higher ups are like “K”, on the condition that no Cardassian military (or Order) personnel be allowed. All security for the event will be handled by Odo and Starfleet. Dukat is suspiciously cool with this, which puts everyone on alert, but soon Cardassian vendors and decorators start showing up and they turn out to be pretty chill people, so they let it happen.

While the preparations for the festival are underway, another operation has started. A motherfucker from Garak's past is doing typical motherfucker things on the station. One of these things is scouting Garak's quarters, learning the layout, tracking Garak's routine. It becomes clear very quickly that the rapidly increasing number of Cardassians on DS9 is putting Garak on edge, though, because he seems to be fiddling more with his security protocols, so the motherfucker realizes they need to make their move and they need to make it fast.

They succeed. Sort of. With the circumstances as they are, they had to get a little... creative, but it should do the trick.

By early next morning, every PADD, screen, and computer system on the station is streaming seventy-two different poems on a constant loop. Love poems. Ardent, anguished, often utterly indecent love poems, all with the central theme of being about one Doctor Julian Bashir.

Quark is one of the first to notice the problem, being the type of asshole who opens early despite this only increasing his bottom line by a fraction of a fraction. At first, he's furious that his systems have been tampered with, but after reading a few lines of what his normal menu and advertisements have been replaced with, he's laughing, and by the end of the third poem, he's on the floor.

"Odo!" he shouts, banging on the bastard's door twenty minutes later. "Odo, open up! We've got a problem!"

Odo slinks under the door and slips up between it and Quark's pounding fist with a glare. "Quark! I'm not on duty for another hour. What could possibly be so urgent?"

Quark's sharp little rat teeth are splitting his face clean in half as he holds up the PADD. "Take a look."

Odo scrolls through a couple poems, then squints and scrolls through several more. "Erotic love poetry? I didn't peg you for the type."

"To like erotica? Hoo, I thought you paid better attention than that, Constable."

Odo returns the PADD with a dry expression. "To read."

"Oh, you're hilarious." He taps Odo's chest with the PADD. "The whole station is filled with this stuff. My bar, the Replimat, the Celestial Cafe, the promenade. Someone's either desperate to make a statement, or we've been sabatoged."

Dramatic sci-fi music swells and we get a close-up of Odo’s eerily hairless face and nasal cavity.

The next few hours are dedicated to trying and failing to seize back the servers and briefing the bridge staff on the situation.

"Are we sure these are all about Doctor Bashir?" Sisko's voice booms across Ops. He's on his second cup of coffee and a pile of useless PADDs lay beside him.

Julian has remained stoic throughout the discussion and he remains so now, avoiding eye contact with anyone who's smiling a little too wide. Like Jadzia. "Oh, definitely," she says. "He's mentioned by name in three of them, and several others make a point of highlighting the subject's 'golden sand dune skin', 'aristocratic' features, and 'voice that never stops singing.' Sounds like Julian to me."

A few snickers break out, but Sisko is taking the matter seriously. Thank fuck, Julian thinks. It actually looks like it's giving him a headache, which would make two of them if Julian was capable of having headaches. The captain's rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "And the source..."

"There's a clear data trail back to Garak's quarters. Whoever did this, they wanted us to know where it came from," Kira reports. A muscle jumps in Julian's cheek.

"I tracked Garak down for his statement on the issue," Odo says, gruff, "and he told me he had nothing to do with the virus. In fact, he denied ever having laid eyes on the poems in his life. He's claiming he's been framed." He rolls his eyes.

"Okay," Jadzia says, "we all agree he's lying, right?"

"But which part..."

"Oh, they're Garak's. I've read enough Lloja of Prim to be familiar with traditional Kardasi meter and syntax, and that isn't even going into all the parallels drawn between our doctor and Prime. Sand, heat, rainforests. Bit of Romulan imagery in there, too, if I'm not mistaken. A lot of flowers and vines. Wasn't Garak a gardener?"

"I see no reason why anyone would want to embarass themselves like this," O'Brien cuts in before Jadzia can make it worse. "Even if he is trying to distract us or something, this seems counterproductive in the long term. Everyone’s watching him now, not just us. The rumor mill is running rampant. Not exactly a spy’s MO."

"He did blow up his shop once."

"Because someone was trying to kill him," Julian pipes up for the first time, looking concerned. "Do you think this might be another cry for help?"

"Oh, it's a cry for something," Jadzia quips, and Julian shuts the fuck up.

"Dax," Sisko snaps, like the good benevolent Wormhole Alien Jesus he is, and Dax shuts the fuck up, too. Sisko gives them all the stink eye. "Constable, you're nearly as familiar with Garak as the doctor is," he says, and holds a hand up before any jokes can be made. "What do you think?"

"I don't think he's behind this, sir. None of the pieces add up, and he seemed genuinely agitated when I spoke to him, in his way. At present, I believe he is as much a victim here as the rest of us."

Sisko sighs. "All right. Do we have any idea who is behind this?"

The room is silent for a time, before Odo reluctantly answers for everyone, "Not yet, sir."

"Find out," Sisko demands, "and Chief, get these damn poems off of my reports. Dismissed."

Julian is out of the room before anyone else has stood up.

The rest of the day is spent ducking in and out of his office, only treating those who ask for him by name and keeping all conversations strictly professional. Any mentions of poetry, the festival, Cardassians, or Garak are firmly sidelined, and on a couple occasions, rewarded with a none-too-gentle hypo. He skips lunch altogether and extends his shift by two hours to avoid the dinner rush.

By the time he's leaving the Infirmary, it's late. Unfortunately for him, not late enough that the halls aren't still speckled with observers to his personal soap opera. With the Festival of Frank’s Hot Dogs less than a week away, DS9 is becoming increasingly crowded with tourists, mostly Cardassian, but a surprising amount Bajoran, too–apparently this festival was a rare bright point during the Occupation, when their oppressors were not only lenient with them for once, but generous with food and drink and freedoms. It doesn't hurt that the only Cardassians on board are civilian rather than military, so the atmosphere is rather more colorful, courteous and conversational rather than cold, dark and aggressive. It would make Julian smile if he wasn't so busy being gawked at.

"I don't see it," one Cardassian man grumbles and Julian's accursed augmented ears pick up. "He's even smoother than a Bajoran."

"Oh, yeah," his companion replies, "just think of how easily he'd slide around."

"Tanett!"

"Oh, hush, Grandpa. You're just xenophobic. He's cute."

"Well, you be careful who hears you say that. That Garak fellow is in the Order, you know. Ears everywhere. You don't want to know what things a man like that is capable of."

"Wasn't he exiled? Hardly intimidating now. Apparently all he's capable of anymore is whimpering over an alien like a pakrela."

Julian covers his ears and walks faster.

But that just brings him within range of a cluster of Bajorans. "Oh, there's the doctor now," one is saying, up on the balcony. 

"The one the Cardassian tailor wrote about?"

"That poor fool. He thought they were friends, but here this whole time it was perverse. I can only imagine how much that hurts."

"Happened to my friend once. He thought a glinn was being kind because he was having a crisis of conscience and wanted to help him escape. No, he just wanted to–"

He could go to his quarters, but a flash of memory - Garak's bright eyes at the end of his bed, his figure encased in shadow - sends him in the opposite direction. Before long, he finds himself on an oft-unused Observation deck, since it offers no view of the wormhole or either Bajor or Cardassia's suns. It's blessedly empty, as usual, and Julian settles on a bench and stares into the dark nothingness of space for a long time.

At some point, he finds that his hand has retrieved the PADD from his medical bag, and the screen is lit up automatically with the first poem.

He reads well into the night.

—

The next morning finds Garak with a tall glass of rokassa juice and two eggs, staring intensely into a mysteriously operational PADD at the far end of Quark's bar. Quark pops out of his backroom like a jack-in-the-box.

"Ha! Well, if it isn't the man of the hour himself, gracing my fine establishment so soon after nearly destroying it. Do you know I've had to have menus printed, like we're in the dark ages? Do you have any idea how extensive my menu is? I ought to sue you for damages." He catches a glimpse of the PADD's screen and its decidedly unpoetic contents. "Hey, you fixed it? How?"

"It was just a simple virus. Viruses can be purged," Garak says without looking up. He barely seems aware of Quark's existence.

When no other words are forthcoming, Quark huffs. "Well, can you purge it from the rest of the station, then?"

"I gave the program to the Chief last night."

"And he didn't immediately come here to fix my bar? I'll have to file a complaint.”

Garak offers no reply. Just continues to stare into his PADD.

There are other customers he could be seeing to, but Quark can't pass up this golden opportunity. He's known Garak a long time and known of him even longer, and now that he has the guy's guts all neatly lined up on several dozen isolinear rods, he's never felt closer to the man. He makes a point of knowing things about his customers, but before yesterday, the most he knew about Garak was that he was an assassin, a tailor, a mean, weepy drunk, and friends with Bashir, Odo, and a smattering of other shopkeepers. That was it. But now...

He leans over the counter, closer to Garak's unblinking face. "You know," he says, with a smile rising slow on his cheeks, "if it's humans you like, I have a couple holosuite programs that might be just what you need."

Garak's gaze ascends as if on a motor, smooth and mechanical.

Good. He’s considering the bait. Now he just has to get him to bite. "All completely customizable. Skin, eyes, hair. You like long legs, they've got long legs. Scrawny, they're scrawny. Whatever you want. Although if you're really hung up on the one face, that can also be arranged. For the right price." When Garak just looks at him, Quark switches tactics. "Or maybe it's the uniform that does it for you? I've got 'em, but I'd suggest something out of my lingerie databases. I've still got some little Cardassian numbers filed away that I think even a man with your discerning tastes could appreciate. Just imagine, Doctor Bashir in a–"

He doesn't see the hand coming until it's already crushing his windpipe. Quark claws at it for several long, desperate moments while Garak continues to look.

Leeta scuttling over and yanking him away is what ultimately puts a stop to it, and it's while Quark is gasping in dramatic bursts of air that Leeta says in a rush, "Garak, please! Whatever he said, he didn't mean it!"

"Oh, I meant it," Quark coughs out with a high, strangled laugh, "he just didn't like it."

"Whatever conclusions you've drawn in the last twenty-six hours, allow me to dispel them," Garak says primly, as if he hadn't almost committed murder in broad daylight. "I am not a xenophile and I do not have feelings for Doctor Bashir. There are no less than two-hundred Cardassians currently aboard the station, and I assure you, none of them like me. Those poems were obviously planted."

Oh, but Quark is a little pissed now, unwise as that is. "Please, Garak," he says, "who has time to write that many poems about Julian just to mess with you? Two or three, maybe, but over seventy? If you're going to lie, at least don't insult our intelligence."

Garak's eyes flash and Quark ducks behind Leeta, repentant. Leeta sighs. "Garak, what's so bad about loving Julian?" she asks softly. "I thought the poems were really touching. It’s sweet how much you care for him."

But he's already staring into his PADD again. "I'm sorry, Miss Leeta, but I am a bit busy. Perhaps we can discuss my hypothetical feelings for your paramour another time."

"Julian and I have never been serious," she tries to assure him, but he's engrossed again, or at least pretending to be. Her and Quark share a look and leave him to it. Lesson learned.

"Let the bastard be pent up and miserable, then," Quark grumbles from the other end of the bar as he pours Table 3's drinks. A prickle on his neck has him looking up and there Garak's eyes are again, piercing, and Quark rushes off to deliver the drinks.

The three young Cardassians there are much more friendly. One has their nose stuck in one of the useless poetry PADDs while the other two smile at Quark while he sets out their orders.

"Three Raktajinos, extra bitter," Quark says, and is thanked. Polite. One even praises the drink's exoticness. Klingon coffee, exotic. Heh. "Your food will be out in a few."

Before he can finish turning, though, a hand is touching his arm. "What is the title of this anthology you include at every table?" the young man asks.

"Oh, that's not..." He sighs. "It's new. I can't remember."

"Find out for us, please," he says. "Works like these can be hard to come by on Prime and we make it our business to collect them. Whoever this author is, they're very unique."

"If these aren't banned on Prime already, they will be soon," his friend comments with a giggle.

"No doubt."

"'In my desolation, I am as weeds: Cut my roots and Let the waters take me, To drown and bloom anew, in You,'" the one with her nose in the PADD reads aloud, and shivers. "They'd burn the whole Central Archive down just for this one. It's so explicit."

"Let me see that," the boy demands, as the other one is already surging over to read over the girl's shoulder. Watching them fight over the PADD has Quark thinking back to the isolinear rods in his safe, and he hums thoughtfully, glancing over his shoulder.

Garak isn't looking.

—

Glinn Halon Duvur. Former underling of Gul Dukat. Out of uniform, vacationing on Deep Space Nine with his wife and nine children. Spends his days gambling while his kids play unsupervised in the holosuites and his wife visits old friends. 

Beloved uncle sent to trial by the Obsidian Order in 2356 and executed that same day for crimes of attempted sabotage against Cardassia.

Garak watches the man wander down the promenade sans his proud lineage, jingling a fat little bag of gold-pressed latinum and yet-unconverted leks. He wanders out of range, so Garak switches to the next camera and there that unfortunate face is again. He drums his fingers on the desk. It won't be long now.

An alert rings in his ear and he almost initiates the shockfield on impulse, but the flash of smooth, brown skin on a monitor stays his hand. The knocking comes, and that haunting voice calls out, "Garak! Are you there?"

Garak rests his head next to the surveillance screens.

Predictably, the doctor tries to input his override, but the door remains shut. There's a long pause.

"Garak..." Julian sounds irate. Garak hums. "Did you deprogram my override code? Nevermind how illegal that is, that's dangerous! What if you're injured? Or fall ill?"

He says this just after attempting to abuse his station privileges for personal reasons. Infuriating hypocrite.

"Oh, my barging in at random, odd hours is no less than you deserve, Garak," Julian says as if in response to Garak's thoughts. "You set that precedent in our relationship yourself."

Terrible man.

"Fine. I'll give you some more time, since you want it so badly, but I'll be back and when I am, that override had better work. If it doesn’t, I promise there will be hell to pay, my friend."

Beautiful man.

"Goodbye, Mr. Garak."

Goodbye, Doctor.

Glinn Duvur dies two hours later of alcohol poisoning while his wife is in bed with Gul Rilimn's wife.

—

“I just can’t believe it,” Kira is bitching. Jadzia smiles and sips her drink, looking out over the Replimat balcony at all the happy brunchgoers. “A Cardassian writing poetry about something that isn’t conquest or the wonders of dictatorial rule or, at best, the pride of the traditional family nobly bowing and scraping. I’ve never seen it.”

“It would certainly seem to run counter to Cardassian values.”

“And about Julian!” she shrieks in her inside voice, slapping her hands down on the table. “Garak the spy, writing love poetry about Julian. Going on and on about his–his...”

“Ass?” Jadzia offers.

“Eyes. His eyes! Ohhh, I knew he wanted to have sex with him, everyone knew that, but to write about his eyes like... like that? It’s practically Bajoran.”

“That’s true.”

Kira stops long enough in her tirade to eye her, and presses her lips into a thin line. “How are you so calm about this?”

Jadzia takes another sip. “I’m just fascinated,” she says. “I’ll admit, I’ve been looking at this more through Tobin’s eyes than my own. Have I ever told you that he met Lloja of Prim during his exile?” 

“He did not.”

“He did, and Lloja flirted with him outrageously. It was embarrassing, looking back. Of course, nothing ever came of it, because Tobin was always hopelessly blind to those sorts of things even without the language barrier, but his children liked to joke that many of Lloja’s poems were about him.”

Kira’s jaw is hanging. “Were they?”

Jadzia grins and shrugs. Kira laughs.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Perhaps,” Jadzia allows, “but I do wonder... Being able to call nervous, asexual Tobin the lover of Lloja of Prim would have been quite the notch in my belt. Think of the stories I could have told! And now here Julian is with the opportunity. I know it’s not the same, I mean, it’s Garak. But, you have to admit, to write about him like that...”

“He must really love him,” Kira finishes for her, stumped. “I just can’t wrap my head around it.”

“I didn’t see it, either,” Jadzia confesses. “I was still wrestling with the idea that they were actually friends. I thought their association was strictly professional and all the books and flirting were just a front.” She cradles her head in her hands suddenly and sighs. “Ugh, but those poems. The poems are so good! Kira...”

“I know,” she moans. “They’re heart-wrenching. Which one are you on now?”

“Thirty-nine. I came back home, but I came back gone.”

“Ouch.”

“I know.”

A shout from below interrupts them and they both shoot out of their seats. Below, a Cardassian man has just had a beam fall on top of him. Jadzia and Kira bound down the stairs to him, Jadzia already slapping a hand on her comm badge. 

“Dax to Infirmary, a man has just been crushed, possibly impaled. Send a medical team to Replimat and be ready for emergency beam out.”

“Acknowledged, we’re on our way,” Girani says, but already Kira is looking up at Jadzia helplessly, the man’s wrist laying limp between her hands.

“He’s gone.”

“Shit!” Jadzia hunches over, hands on her knees. “That’s the third one today. Are Cardassians always this accident prone? No wonder you won the war.”

“No,” Kira says. “They’re not. You don’t think...”

“I don’t know,” Jadzia says grimly, and looks around at the crowd that’s formed. All Cardassian, all terrified. “But we need to find out.”

—

A Cardassian is sitting at the bar. This isn’t an unusual sight now, with the Festival of 90s Funk and Beyond coming up, but seeing one so young and looking so hunted is odd. Quark approaches him casually.

“What’ll you have?”

The Cardassian’s eyes dart. “Uh...” He leans over suddenly, cups both hands over his mouth, and whispers, “E. G. Special.”

Christ, these kids are going to kill him. “Coming right up,” he says in a normal person voice, and reaches under the bar for a glass. A little drink-mixing magic later, a beautiful fizzy blue drink is sitting between them, with an isolinear rod tucked neatly in the straw.

The Cardassian takes the drink between both hands excitedly, and Quark snaps his fingers in front of him. “Oh! Right,” the kid stutters, and all but launches the latinum at Quark’s face. “Thank you!” And off he goes, out of the bar with the glass still tight in his grasp.

“Idiot,” Quark mutters to himself, crouching carefully down to pick the latinum up off the floor without dirtying his expensive pants. “You’re supposed to take the straw, not the entire glass. That’s it, I’m switching to plastic. These little rebel brats don’t deserve my ni—Oh, hello, Constable! I didn’t see you there. What can I get you?”

Odo looks as unimpressed as ever. “That’s a funny question since last I checked, I don’t drink.”

“Ah, right, because you’re a liquid. How could I forget. You know, one of these days, I ought to serve you up with a little umbrella, see how people like it. I’d bet you taste bitter.” Odo harrumphs, and Quark makes himself busy with wiping down the counter. “Well, out with it then. What nefarious scheme am I up to now? I love to hear your little stories.”

Four isolinear rods drop onto the counter, right where Quark was just cleaning. “Hey now,” he says, throwing a performative glare at the changeling. “Careful. If you shatter glass in my bar, you’re cleaning it up.”

“I just had the most interesting conversation with the Tokal family,” Odo says, steamrolling right over him. “It seems their four darling children had somehow come into some questionable reading material. They tried searching for it in the Central Archives and yet, despite it being clearly Cardassian in origin, they could not find it. And I don’t need to tell you that when a piece of Cardassian reading material isn’t in the Central Archives...”

Quark, from his plastered position on the floor, stares up into Odo’s face directly horizontal to his and smiles. “What?”

“It’s illegal,” Odo sneers, stretching his body even further over the bar and nearly sending Quark starfishing. 

“Okay! Odo! I get it! But what does that have to do with me?”

“Quark!”

“Okay, okay! Whatever it is you think I’ve done, I’ll stop! I’ll stop, okay?”

“I know you’re going to stop, because I am going to confiscate every copy of Garak’s poetry that you have absconded with and destroy them.”

Quark gasps. “Book burning? In this day and age?”

“Garak did not give his permission for you to sell his work! He didn’t even want anyone to see it in the first place! Those poems were stolen. Now, I expect a list of every person you sold a copy to and a full and complete refund to be issued by tomorrow morning. Do I make myself clear?”

Quark glowers. “You’ve made yourself something, all right.”

“Quark...”

“Okay! All right. Consider it done.”

-

Turora Lumok. Obsidian Order operative and old colleague. Usually in deep cover in the Organian sectre, but has abandoned post to explore the space station. Barren, unattached. Cold. A model agent, if you ignore her unfortunate habit of going rogue and eliminating civilians on a whim. 

Recruited into the Order by Enabran Tain’s former right hand, Euluk Bucun, who was assassinated by Elim Garak in 2341 under orders from Enabran Tain for suspicions of treason. Turora Lumok disciplined shortly afterward by Elim Garak for complaining that she had wanted to be the one to kill that bitch.

Garak watches as the woman pretends to touch up her makeup while scouting for cameras. “Oh, Lumok, you always were woefully obvious. Have you been expecting me? I wonder why.”

Satisfied with the positions of the cameras, she puts away her mirror and strolls out of sight.

Garak shakes his head. “Fool. You forget how long I’ve lived on this wretched station. I don’t need to see you every second to know where you are.”

But then, the smell of antiseptic. Starfleet issue soap. Herbal shampoo, unique, robust. Gels. Oils. Sweat. 

He’s near.

Forcing calmness with a deep, measured breath, he takes off his eyepiece and slips it into his sleeve. He pays for the food he barely ate. He stands. He turns.

And is promptly thrust into the dark, deep woods of Julian Bashir’s eyes. “There you are, Garak! I’ve been looking all over for you,” the doctor says as if it’s just a regular day on Deep Space Nine. His hot, mammalian body caging him tightly in place against the table betrays the ruse. “Who was it you were talking to?”

Garak tries to step around him. Julian steps with him. “Oh, only ever myself. Forgive me, but you’ve caught me just on my way out. I have a strict appointment at 2.”

There’s Julian’s hand now. On his shoulder. Garak is calm. This is normal. “Well, why don’t I walk you there then.”

“My dear Doctor, I couldn’t rob you of your meal. Clearly you’ve just walked in.”

“Actually, I’ve found I’m craving something a bit different now.”

Garak makes to step around Julian again, and still Julian’s steps match his. It’s like they’re dancing. He doesn’t let this deter him. He’s not sure he’s capable of letting anything deter him now, with his heart trying to pound out of his throat. He keeps stepping doggedly forward, and Julian keeps mirroring, still with that damned hand burning through his tunic. “Well, you only have so much time before you must return to the infirmary, I know. Do not allow me to delay you in securing a table at a different locale.”

“Oh, but you’ve already delayed me so long. What’s a few more minutes?” A peek of teeth, a hint of warning. “Though I will admit... I’m not sure how much longer I can wait.”

“Then don’t.” Finally, Garak manages to elbow past this madness and shoot out of the restaurant. The station is so crowded these days, it’s short work to get lost in it. In a sea of ridges and black hair, Garak slips his eyepiece back on and lets the wave take him. 

“Garak!”

Oh, for the Union’s sake—

He does not run. He does not stumble. He walks normally and not desperately, keeping his eye on both the path to the turbolift and Lumok. She’s down the corridor now, pretending to check her makeup again like an imbecile. Just a few paces more. Almost there...

“Garak, you’re the best dressed one here! You are not difficult to spot, you ridiculous dandy! Oh, no offense, Ma’am. Lovely scarf. Excuse me.”

There.

In the reflection of the mirror, Garak makes eye contact with the rogue and taps in the correct sequence on the device sewed into the seam of his pants just as the turbolift doors close behind him.

Like that, Turora Lumok is beamed into space and dies instantly, without a soul to mourn her, and Elim Garak walks back to his quarters with a hand over his mouth and a warmth on his shoulder, without a soul to mourn him, either.

—-

The Festival of Fierce and Fantastic Frogs is two days away and already it is being protested.

Outside Quark’s Bar is a growing army of dissident children with voice amplifiers and holoprojectors shouting to the stars that if they don’t get their porn back, they’ll tear it all down. Signs are projected in the air with essays cycling through them that look to be several pages each, a small holographic fire barely reaching ankle-height is lighting up the length of the promenade, and – perhaps most disturbingly – a comically inaccurate approximation of Odo is rotating at the center of the group, fitted in the typical regalia of the Cardassian military and holding a Klingon bat’leth. It is certainly... something.

“They’re Cardassians,” Quark is saying as he pours out some root beers. “They’ve probably never seen a protest in their lives, they don’t know what they’re doing. The Union puts an end to things like this pretty fast on the surface.”

“Heh,” Jadzia says, “what happens on DS9, stays on DS9.”

“Where’d you hear that?” Kira asks.

“It’s something Julian likes to say. Basically, they figure they can get away with speaking their minds here.”

Kira drums her fingers on the bar, staring into the flailing protestors thoughtfully. 

Right then, Odo arrives back on the scene. It looks like he’s trying to get through, respectfully, but the protestors are not making it easy. Jadzia and Kira come to his rescue just as about fifteen Cardassians start forming a blockade around him.

“I walked around as you do, investigating the endless stars,” one young woman is yelling at him while he stands there with big helpless baby eyes, “and in my net, during the night, I woke up naked, the only thing caught, a fish trapped inside the wind!” 

“I don’t know what that means,” Odo says consolingly.

“Clearly!”

“Okay, okay, let him through!” Kira wiggles her way between the crowd and Odo, snatching him by the arm like a fish with a hook. “He’s not your enemy here, he was just upholding your laws!”

“The Cardassian government has no jurisdiction on a Bajoran station!”

“He made his choices!”

“Beautiful Julian would be ashamed of you! Repent! Repent!”

Kira and Jadzia manage to reel him most of the way through the protesters and he shapeshifts the rest of the journey. The protestors try to follow, but Quark bustles over to stop them. “No, no demonstrations inside! Remember who your allies are,” he says, and they all cow back. “Thank you.”

Odo ripples his form a couple times to make sure everything’s back in the right place and harrumphs. “Allies, Quark?”

“Yes, allies. It’s terrible what you’ve done to them. You can’t police art, Odo–-this is culture we're talking about here, the very bedrock of society.”

“And I’m sure this virtuous attitude of yours has nothing to do with the incredible profit you made and lost at the expense of our mutual friend.”

“Oh, I did him a favor.” Quark uncaps another bottle of Kanar and gestures back to the entrance, with its swarm of frothing Cardassian children. “Look, he’s got fans!”

“How has Garak been handling all this?” Kira asks Odo, sharing a look with Jadzia. “I haven’t heard a peep out of him since he gave us that antivirus program.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Didn’t you have breakfast with him yesterday?”

“Hmmm, that would have been routine. Except he didn’t show. When I made it back to my office, I found a message from him apologizing, telling me he’s so busy with orders he’s lost all track of time.”

“How has he been getting commissions?” Jadzia asks. “His shop’s been closed all week.”

Odo rolls his eyes. “Oh, I’m sure the reality is he’s simply avoiding the issue. Dr. Bashir has informed me he’s been treating him like ‘the black plague’ as well.” 

“Julian’s one to talk. He practically pole-vaulted over a vedek the other day to get away from me.” 

“Speak of the devil,” Quark says, looking towards the door, and everyone turns just as the commotion starts–or, more accurately, the commotion abruptly stops. 

The protestors have all gone quiet, in apparent awe as they part around Julian like the red sea around Moses. He’s smiling stupidly as he stands in the center of them, nodding at something a Cardassian man is exclaiming. It’s an incredibly awkward scene, and Quark starts choking at some of the things his ears are picking up. “They’ve deified him,” he tells them, and Jadzia bursts into giggles at the idea, but Quark isn’t joking. “Really. He might as well be one of the prophets to them. You read the poems. You know.”

Ugh. Kira wrinkles her nose in disgust. The worst kind of blasphemy–horny blasphemy. “What is he even doing here?” she asks. 

“Getting his head inflated,” Jadzia says dryly, because now that Quark has mentioned it, it’s pretty clear from the shit-eating grin on Julian’s face that that’s exactly what’s happening. 

“Poor Garak.” Quark says it absentmindedly, but the comment gets several eyes turned on him. He’s shaking his head as he watches the scene unfold. “First, he falls for a human… humiliating… but then that love becomes public knowledge and several young beautiful Cardassians decide that he’s onto something, and now that human is going to get more action in a week than he’s seen his entire life. I’ve witnessed the rise and fall of more than a few star-crossed romances, but this might just be the saddest.”

“Julian wouldn’t have an orgy the same week the whole station found out Garak’s in love with him,” Jadzia says, insulted on his behalf.

Quark hefts a tray up onto his shoulder. “He just did,” he says as he leaves to go do his job, and Jadzia whips her head around to see Julian escorting two attractive Cardassians away from the protest. Her jaw drops.

“Bastard,” Kira spits, surprising everyone, herself most of all. Those poems must’ve affected her more than she realized.

Odo clears his throat unnecessarily. “I’m no expert on the behavior of solids, but it seems to me that neither party is handling this situation well.”

“I’ll tell you how the pakrela should be handling this,” an older Cardassian sitting at the far end of the bar cuts in, with a twitch to him that makes it clear he’s more than a few deep. “He should be settling his assets, because he doesn’t have long now. Whatever his human is doing is the least of his worries. Ha. Hehe. Being a traitor wasn’t enough for him. No, now he’s gone and corrupted the next generation with his degeneracy. Exile was too soft a punishment. Uh-huh.”

Kira opens her mouth to tell him to fuck off, but Odo touches her shoulder. “You speak as if you know him,” he notes mildly, because of course, the exact reason for Garak’s exile isn’t public record. It’s barely even private record. The Order doesn’t work that way–or didn’t, as it stands. It is interesting that this man is acting like he has classified information despite being a civilian. 

But then, sometimes day drinkers just like to spout speculation as fact.

The man looks into his glass and laughs at his reflection. “Who doesn’t know Garak these days? But that’s temporary. He’ll be forgotten soon enough, just like the Order.” He finishes his drink and gets up. He insincerely mutters some friendly Cardassian farewell and starts to walk past them, but Kira can’t let it go.

“Excuse me, but what’s your name, sir? You’ve been so informative.”

He looks at her for a long moment. “I don’t know,” he says, and elbows past the protesters.

—

“Solt Mebol, left behind a widow and child six years ago when he was tragically killed in a transporter accident. In reality, he accepted an undercover mission which required him to fake his death and have his bond dissolved. A significant sacrifice. Certainly not one many Cardassians could have made.”

The Cardassian stares at Garak sitting on his couch. Turning, he tries to exit his temporary quarters, but the door won’t open.

Garak tuts. “Oh, you know better than that, Mebol.” He taps his disruptor with his forefinger, resting harmlessly against his knee. “The festival isn’t for another couple days, yet here you are. Catching up with old friends before the festivities, I assume? Only I haven’t found you in anyone’s company but your own. You must be lonely. Please, let me alleviate your loneliness for a while.”

The Cardassian sighs at the closed door. “Solt, is it?”

“I can tell you the names of your wife and child as well, if you’d like, and the city they live in. Do you know your wife never rebonded? Unusual behavior for a Romulan. Quite dangerous, as I understand it.”

Solt steps carefully into the small living space and sits in the chair opposite Garak, with the coffee table between them. “As one of the last living members of the Order, I don’t suppose you would consider letting me go?”

Garak smiles pleasantly. “I would be delighted.”

“Would you? I had a deal with Central Command and they’ve been good to me so far. You, however, have been known to…” He eyes the disruptor casually turned in his direction.

“Yes, I imagine I must be something of a mystery these days to my people. I have been… squirrely, is what I suppose a human would say, and I must as well now that I’ve been painted with their brush. Oh, it is an incredible sin, I know. That I should enjoy the company of an attractive alien while in exile.”

Solt snorts. “You expect me to believe those poems were the natural result of a fling?”

“I don’t expect you to believe anything you do not wish to. I only say that it’s convenient that I should be seen as even more traitorous just as a swarm of Cardassians should enter the station.”

“What’s convenient is that you’re still alive. You have friends in high places willing to go to bat for you, in spite of everything you’ve done. It’s a disgrace. You are a selfish disloyal anarchist and no one is holding you accountable, because you just happened to be good at your job once and everyone likes the idea of having you as a potential weapon should the need for one arise. Until then, they’re content to keep you in a cabinet collecting dust and sentiment. You can wave that disruptor all you want, but we both know you make a poor operative now. You’re in love.” 

Garak is still smiling, but Solt can see the signs of a grimace. Dusty, indeed. Too passionate. Too human. “I’m hardly so foolish. You know better than I the dangers of such things in our line of work. You’re little better than a puppet now that you’ve had a whiff of the truth, Mebol.”

“You’re right.” Solt attempts to raise one eye ridge, despite it being unfit for such maneuvers, and leans forward towards that disruptor. “Pull my strings, then, and let’s test that grip Bashir has on yours.”

—

Kira crashes into Garak’s quarters and kickflips past all his booby traps like Indiana Jones’ hotter cousin.

“What the fuck, Richard?” is basically what she says, only it’s in character, so it’s more like, “What the fuck, Garak!”

Garak spins around in his maniacal villain chair with a look of surprise. “How did you get in here, Major?” Miles bustles his way in after her with his impractically enormous toolkit, and Garak lets out an, “Ah,” then, sedately, “I suppose Dr. Bashir filed a complaint about my tampering with the door codes. Of course, there’s a perfectly logical explanation. You see, it–”

“This isn’t about door codes, Garak,” Kira yells. “What I want to know is why our best suspect for the sudden influx of murders on the station was just found drowned in his own toilet!”

“Oh my,” Garak says. “What an unfortunate end.”

“Don’t play dumb. Not now. We know what you’re capable of, but we’re good people and we didn’t want to accuse a victim until we had exhausted the rest of our line-up. Only, interestingly enough, they’re all dead, so now…” she marches over with the fury of the Prophets on her heels and stands imposingly over him, her teeth clenched, “here we are.”

“That is interesting.” He runs a hand down a roll of fabric in his lap, smoothing it. “I suppose you must have some of that ironclad evidence that the Federation so treasures.”

Kira glares at him.

Garak feigns looking around. “Oh, but I can’t help but notice the good Constable isn’t here with you. What could that mean? Surely not that you broke into my quarters without due cause or a hint of warning–at your own word, not even to fix my glitching door. For all you knew, I could have been in here writing one of my vaunted Bashir epics.”

Kira’s hands are in fists now. “The evidence we have would be more than enough to have your face plastered on every viewscreen in Cardassia and you know it.”

“The Federation and Bajoran legal processes do seem a tad inefficient in moments like these, don’t they?”

“Okay,” Miles cuts in, because he has Turbo PTSD and is not in the mood for a flare up. “I think I'll just wait in the hallway, then. Holler if you need me. Good luck, Major.”

Kira and Garak spend a few moments watching him waddle out of the room and then go back to staring each other down. 

“Look, you ass,” Kira starts, “we couldn’t link every victim to the Cardassian government or some third-party organization, but we were able to link enough of them to recognize that these aren’t just random nobodies having ‘accidents.’ Someone was able to break into your computer and embarrass you and you don’t like that so you’re pitching a fit. I can’t have Odo arrest you – yet – but I can tell you to cut it out. This vigilantism isn’t helping–”

That gets a reaction. “Vigilantism!”

“Well, what would you call it?”

“Self-defense.”

“They attacked you?”

“Possibly.”

“Goddamn you, Garak! Just… don’t do this anymore, okay?”

Garak looks at her with innocent astonishment, like he’s still bewildered by her totally plausible accusations. “Well. You have my word, I suppose,” he says, bemused.

—

Gul Skrain Dukat. Blessed with a wife, seven children, two sets of living parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, minus one father. Habitually cheats with lower ranked military officials, slaves, and barely legal adults, unbenownst to his family. Father was interrogated by Elim Garak and executed by the Union over live broadcast in the year 2350 for the crime of being a piece of shit. 

Elim Garak was shortly thereafter levied with an amateurish execution attempt by Gul Dukat. It failed.

The second attempt will succeed, but at a great cost.

The Festival of Filthy Fucking Foot Fetishists has officially begun, but Garak is struggling to feel any enthusiasm. He is surrounded by his people. The station has been dimmed by 15% to better suit Cardassian eyes and misting stations have been set up in limited locations. Extinct and invented flowers crafted by Cardassian and Bajoran artisans decorate the banisters and doorways. A wash of blue, green, and sparkling gold lights up every direction. There is the smell of freshly prepared Cardassian sweets on the air, a gentle warmth suffuses the atmosphere, and children are laughing on the promenade. It’s the first time the station has felt not just tolerable, but nearly pleasant, in years. 

But then, Garak has never felt particularly welcome among his people. As a child, he was an orphan generously cared for by service workers and sponsored by a government official, and as an adult, he was a member of the Order, which granted him more fear and loathing than it did admiration and respect. Companionship, in its truest form, was a rare thing to come by and not something he was encouraged to come by at all.

Perhaps that is why Dr. Bashir blindsided him. 

In any case, Garak is delicately balanced on the line between proper misery and numbness. He gave up imbibing around the same time that he gave up the implant—or rather, the implant gave up on him—but he’s on his third cup now, wandering through the festivities with no particular direction in mind. The exact spot of this last operation isn’t important, only the timing.

He finishes his drink while a group play a spirited game of cold moba in front of him. It shouldn't be long now.

All the nearby screens suddenly flicker from the event schedule to Dukat’s sharp grin and Garak hums. There we are. He knew the bitch wouldn’t be able to resist showing his face.

“Welcome everyone to the biennial Festival of–” a baby wails, “generously hosted here on Deep Space Nine by Bajor and the Federation, and of course organized by our own prodigous Detapa Council. Ah, that wormhole… quite the view, isn’t it?”

Garak looks around for another food stall that serves alcohol. 

There aren’t any stalls in his immediate vicinity, but there is a young Cardassian couple marching towards him while making dogged eye contact. 

Oh no. 

Garak starts to make a break for it. Not too fast, it won’t do to cause a stir, but there are a number of very good reasons for him to stay far away from any Cardassians who might recognize him right now. Especially if the source of that recognition is those damn poems he was too stupid and sentimental to destroy.

Before he can make it more than a few steps, however, he looks up to see another few Cardassians working their way towards him, also making eye contact.

No, no, no.

He makes to move towards the stairs then, only for his eyes to land squarely on him. 

Him, wearing the silky green outfit he lovingly crafted for him a few months ago. Him, shining in the festival lights, casting him in an even more arresting shade of gold than usual. Him, looking determined and coming straight towards him.

Oh, fuck no.

“Garak,” Julian calls out, likely reading the panic on his face and stance and soul.

“Today, I am not a Gul, though,” Dukat is saying. “I am but a humble representative of the Cardassian Union in its totality, and as such, I would like to thank Colonel Kira Nerys and Captain Benjamin Sisko for their hand in this week’s festivities. They have been nothing if not accommodating these last few weeks while our coordinators ran rampant through their halls.”

He should have accounted for the possibility of this. Thinking of Julian had become excruciating as of late, but that was no excuse. Whatever interaction Julian had been hoping to have with him couldn’t be allowed, not now, and not only for the sake of Garak’s traitorous, disgusting feelings. Even if it would give the sweet man closure, it would not be worth his life. 

“Now, it may be a bit unorthodox, but I thought it would be only fitting if the first Reenactment was carried out by our benevolent hosts, and the Lakarian City Acting Troupe were all too happy to take them under their wing.”

More eyes are turning towards the screen now, the laughing and playing and sloshing of cups quieting down. Julian is nearly with him, his approach halted only by the gathering crowd, and Garak can only pretend to be interested in Dukat’s speech while he racks his brain desperately for a solution. Any solution. Anything.

“I trust that the history of Cardassia is in capable hands.”

The screen flickers again and changes to a shot of one of Quark’s holodecks, where a lone Bajoran man stands in a beam of red light.

A hand grabs Garak roughly by the arm, and he nearly cries with relief when he sees that it’s Lumok.

Well, Lumok with the face and attire of a Bajoran, but that ever-present spark of unchecked malice in her eye is quite unmistakable to someone who worked with her for over a decade. 

“Surprised, you ugly old regnar?” she asks under the actor’s impassioned opening monologue.

He sucks in a breath as the sharp edge of something presses into his back. “Impossible. They found your body caught on one of the station’s spires.”

“A simple bait and switch,” she purrs, pressing the weapon closer, slicing through his tunic. A pity. This was one of his nicer ones. “You’ve gotten sloppy.”

He manufactures a smile. “A knife, then? A favorite of yours, I recall, but terribly messy for such a public venue. Not to mention if your aim is even an inch off, I’ll be in and out of the infirmary within the day, as if nothing at all had happened.”

“Don’t lecture me,” she growls. “You can’t do that anymore. You’re not anyone to anyone. Your master is dead, and what did you do the second you were off leash for the first time in your life? You went and choked yourself on the first Starfleet sotl you could find. You’re pathetic.”

It took incredible effort to keep his eyes from rolling to the back of his skull. “Oh, just stab me already.”

“I’m not going to stab you. I’ve done a bit of outsourcing, in fact.” She slid the knife from his lower back to his side and looped her arm through his, pinning him in place with a wide smile. “All I had to do was suggest to my new friend that you were infiltrating the Federation. That you were poisoning them against Bajor from the inside, uniting Cardassia and Starfleet in a secret alliance under the guise of wooing the CMO. No, no, you won’t be killed by one of your peers. Your death will be at the hands of a perfect stranger. A pointless death for a pointless man.” She leans in and whispers into his aural ridge, “It always was so easy to make people hate you.”

The next few seconds are a flurry of chaos. One second he’s watching as Human, Bajoran and Cardassian actors alike are all holding hands and reciting ancient poetry and the next he’s on the floor with a searing weight bearing down on him from calf to shoulder. There are screams and footfalls coming from all directions and Odo’s voice is immediately discernible shouting over the commotion. His back is on fire, he can’t breathe, and there’s a slash in his side, but he doesn’t miss the thump of Lumok’s body a few feet away, dead before she hits the ground.

“Garak? Garak?” the weight on him is speaking frantically, pawing at his head and shoulders. The weight shifts and the hands flip him onto his back. Those same hands pat him down, blazing a path down his chest and his stomach and his sides, stopping at the superficial gash near his rib, and Garak knows who this is before he even opens his eyes.

“Garak,” Julian sighs with relief. Garak was meant to be dead by phaser blast right now, but instead Julian Bashir is smiling down at him like he’s important, kneeling beside him, his hands on him, branding him with their incredible heat. It shouldn’t be possible. No one could be that fast. 

“Doctor,” he manages on a wheeze. One of his ribs might be broken, actually.

“Dukat,” Sisko growls from the monitor in billowing robes and a long flowing wig, surrounded by flowers.

—

“Explain,” Sisko commands.

Having decided that showing weakness right now can only help his case, Garak is sitting hunched to the side, holding his reeling head in one hand. It’s through a hiss that he replies, “A woman named Turora Lumok was responsible for sabotaging the station with those poems forged with my data signature. The Bajoran woman who was just assassinated–she was no Bajoran, but rather one of the last remaining members of the Obsidian Order. She was hired by Dukat to kill me during the festival under the guise of a hate crime. No doubt because of her indomitable reputation, I’m sure. A number of Cardassian casualties these past several days were at her hands.”

Sisko walks to the viewport to stare out into the stars for a moment, processing this. “All his talk of friendship between Bajor and Cardassia…” he trails off, the ghost of a sneer on his lips as he turns back around. “His goal was just the opposite. He wanted to destroy any hope of cooperation.”

“And get me out of the way in the process,” Garak grumbles. 

Sisko hums and wanders over to Garak’s side, looking down at him thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to tell me who assassinated Ms. Lumok?”

Garak stares at the floor through his fingers, his eyes glazed.

“Or who your informant is on Dukat’s involvement?”

“Captain,” Garak mutters, not looking up, “I have sat here concussed after an attempt on my life and shared with you everything that I know, and here you have not even told me who the tailor of your magnificent robe is.” He tugs half-heartedly at a strip of embroidery on the fabric. “I must admit, I am feeling a touch betrayed you didn’t come to me.”

Sisko flicks his eyes up to Julian, who has been standing in the corner with his hands behind his back. “Very well, Mr. Garak. I release you into Dr. Bashir’s care for now, but I expect to continue this conversation soon.” He massages his forehead. “Once I figure out what to do about this damned festival.”

Julian comes over to help Garak out of his chair, but Garak snaps upright and to the door before he can touch him. Sisko takes the opportunity to lean into Julian’s face and whisper, “Get more information out of him.” The doctor nods.

Julian isn’t angry when he steps out of Sisko’s office and sees that Garak is walking in the exact opposite direction of the infirmary, but he is disappointed. 

“Mr. Garak,” he says urgently once he’s caught up to the idiot.

Mr. Garak interrupts him in the same tone, “Now, now, my dear doctor, we both know I have a dermal regenerator in my quarters, so we need not extend–”

“And I think we both know this is about much more than a few bumps and bruises. I’m afraid the time for beating around the bush passed quite a while ago.”

“You’re right, Doctor,” Garak says, coming to an abrupt stop and rounding on him with wild eyes. “There is an urgent matter we must discuss.” Julian’s eyebrows raise, and Garak nods severely. “Oh, yes, let us not ‘beat around the bush.’ We should talk about how you threw yourself directly into the line of a lethal phaser blast on the one in a millionth chance that you might save my life. The cost of such an action being almost certainly your own life, and yet, here you stand, and here I stand. Will wonders never cease.” Julian opens his mouth, but Garak raises a finger. “Nevermind that I was in the middle of an altercation with a very dangerous, very volatile woman who would not have hesitated for a second to dispose of you. She had a nasty habit of that. Now I knew that you were naive, Doctor, Doctor! I knew that! What I did not know – what I never could have guessed after all these years – was that you are an idiot.” 

Julian stares back into Garak’s hissing face, unimpressed. Garak feels a wave of deja-vu and does not like it. It has no place here. And yet, Julian takes in a breath and smiles, raising his shoulders. “All right, Garak. If it’s really so important to you, we can talk about your suicide attempt.”

“What?” Garak bites out.

“You were going to let yourself get shot, yes?”

“I was n–” Garak starts to lie, disgusted, but is stopped by Julian stepping entirely too close. He stumbles back a step, then another when Julian attempts to crowd him again, and the familiarity of the routine has him shutting his eyes, rueful. They’re dancing again. It’s humiliating, the things this man makes him do, how effortlessly he can gain the upperhand. Most of the time without even having to lift a finger.

“You figured out Dukat’s plan and arranged for Lumok to die if she succeeded, but you expected her to. You didn’t expect to be saved,” the doctor tells his blank, unresponsive face. His eyes are still closed, his hands tense at his sides, but he knows Julian’s stepped closer again by the heat of his livid breath. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

“Very well. I didn’t figure it out. I was informed.”

“So, the captain was right.” He sounds bored, but Garak seizes his chance. His eyes open in a sudden burst of animation.

“Yes, I had an informant. I believe the major was familiar with him, a fellow by the name of Damoc who was recently presumed dead? Though I knew him far better as Mebol. We first met on Romulus, you see. In the event of my death, he had strict instructions to reveal Dukat’s plot in my stead and protect my remaining assets. In return, he was to receive some valuable coordinates, which by now he will have long accessed. I suppose he’s already booked passage off of the station, if he hasn’t already gone.” 

“Quick to abandon you,” Julian says, completely off-script. Garak’s carefully measured breathing stutters.

“Surely Captain Sisko would like to have a word with him.”

“I’m sure.”

“Doctor…” Garak says, lost. “There isn’t time to was–”

Suddenly there are two hands slamming into his chest like they’re iron forks and he’s a slab of meat, rocketing him back into the nearest wall with a loud thud. Garak gasps at the strength of it, astounded, but all his attention is quickly monopolized by Julian’s snarling words.

“Stop trying to distract me, Garak! Stop racing away before I can even properly get into the room, stop begging off lunch, stop ignoring my comms, and stop acting like your bloody life is over just because it was found out that you have feelings for me!” 

“I–I don’t–”

“Lke hell you don’t! Thirty-seven.”

Garak blinks several times. “What?”

“Thirty-seven. That’s how many direct references to our literary discussions are in your poems. All chronologically concordant with the dates of those discussions, and six of which from that classic Earth album I recommended to you a year ago that you swore up and down sounded like a pack of voles had been crammed into a bucket and shaken around. I knew you were having me on. You love Mitski, and you love me.”

Garak’s face shutters. 

Finally, Julian takes a step back. His hands remain on his chest, pinning him in place, but he allows him some oxygen. Exactly twenty seconds pass like this, before the doctor becomes impatient and huffs, “You can’t possibly have nothing to say.”

“What would you have me say, Doctor?”

“I would like you to admit it.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve heard it from friends and coworkers and strangers and every tourist on this damn station, it feels like, but I haven’t heard it from you.”

Garak is silent for a long time. Finally, he quietly asks, “You would further humiliate me this way? Knowing what you do? My dear friend…” He, carefully, with only the gentlest of pressure, puts a hand over one of Julian’s. “Please. You’ve read everything I could possibly have to say. What more could there be?”

Julian’s hands are unforgiving, but his eyes soften at the simple lowering of the curtain. It’s not the direct confession he was looking for, the I love you completely, traitorously, ruinously that his poems professed and a deep, broken part of Julian desperately wants to hear, but it is, it is. For Garak, this is as explicit as it gets, and Julian can feel his heart trying to catch in his throat.

“Garak,” he starts to say.

Garak isn’t scowling anymore. His eyes are shining as he looks away and sucks in an aggrieved breath. “Oh, please, let us skip this excruciating precursor. I have no intention of remaining on this station.”

Julian goes unnervingly still. “Excuse me?”

“I will need time to pack up my shop and settle my lease, but then I promise, you will never suffer the consequences of my unfortunate… condition again.” When Julian only stares at him with mounting alarm in his lovely eyes, Garak grimaces. “You must know I had no intention of pursuing you.” At least, not after the implant had been shut off and he’d realized what horrors he’d stumbled into with the doctor while under its influence, and by then, it was already too late. He was too weak to stop speaking to him, but he was not a complete monster. “I wouldn’t have. My writing was never about nurturing the emotions, only managing them.” A bit of a lie, but only a bit. He does love to languish and he never could resist a good innuendo. Their friendship had been infinitely precious to him, though, and he couldn’t bear the slow death it would undergo now that everyone knew the truth.

The worsening rumors that would spread. The suffering of Julian’s reputation, career, and love life with the Cardassian spy’s drastic affections hanging over everyone’s heads. The danger it would place them both in, the damage it had already done. The way Julian would know every time Garak flirted now, it was never idle. It had never been and could never be. 

It would be a torture hitherto unthinkable. Better to sever the limb before it could rot.

Still, Julian is silent. The pressure on his chest is more a suggestion than a command now.

“Doctor, I…” he swallows back anymore hideous truths. “I apologize. Your rage is understandable, but I swear to you, I have every intention of righting this wrong.”

“Oh,” Julian says then, softly, as if he isn’t speaking to Garak at all,  “you don’t know.”

“Doctor?”

He makes a bizarre human gesture, skimming the heel of his hand off his forehead. “My God! Of course. I thought it was pride, or shame, or paranoia. Anything and everything but this, but of course you would be this ridiculous. Well. That’s an easy enough problem to solve.”

“Doctor–?!”

The hands on his chest are gone. Instead, they’re seizing him by the head and pulling him up to connect his mouth to Julian’s.

Oh.

If Julian’s touch was a brand before, this is lava running down his throat, into his stomach and down, down, down to eat through the twenty inch thick duranium floor. Slow, thorough, and final in its devastation. A transformation that cannot be persuaded. He grapples with it, hands scrambling stupidly over and across his doctor’s shoulders. Whether it’s to pull him closer or push him away, he doesn’t know. He’s too busy being brutally altered to give it much thought.

His hands settle for burying themselves in his hair at some point. When doesn’t matter. Time holds no power here. It happens, and then he knows how soft Julian Bashir’s hair feels, and there is no going back.

The loss of control becomes alarming enough that he finally manages to pry himself away, gulping in desperate, anxious breaths of frigid station air. It works. The fire and the madness that followed it calms down and he manages the strength to push Julian back, but the wet smack of their lips disconnecting will echo in his dreams for the foreseeable future, as will the dizzy grin on Julian’s face inches from his own. There’s a hand on his ass keeping him from tumbling through the hole in the floor and a couple unlucky passersby gawking at the gruesome scene and Garak is a different creature entirely, incandescent and strange, forged anew in the curious fires of mutual attachment. 

He feels insane.

“Doctor, you cannot truly be this naive.” 

Julian looks anything but naive right then. He can’t focus on that, though. He needs to focus on the fact he was nearly assassinated; the fact that the kindest man alive nearly died with him out of some misguided terran idea that all lives are of equal value and importance.

And yet, Julian is leaning in to kiss him again, so Garak puts a hand on his chest and says, “You know what I am.”

Julian’s expression turns complicated and it’s clear he understands. Garak’s roiling emotions can’t settle on being relieved or horrified. How to go on after this? After knowing intimately what he almost had, with the smoke of it still thick in his eyes and his throat and his heart?

A gentle hand on his jaw brings him back to the moment, where Julian’s eyes are serious. “I know,” he murmurs.

Garak sucks in a wet breath.

“The question is,” Julian continues, even quieter, “do you know what I am?”

His head is spinning. “Doctor?”

Julian just smiles sadly, and it's clear that there are some long conversations in their future. But for now… “About that dermal regenerator in your quarters,” Julian begins, and Garak is relieved to find out that whatever stupid, lovely thing he’s become can still appreciate an innuendo.

—

Not long after, in the middle of telling Sisko all about Mebol over Julian’s comm badge while its owner watches expectantly in a state of teasing half-dress, he’s horrified to find that whatever thing he’s become is also rather eager to please.

—

A couple days later, the two of them are picking from a generous cut of flaming taspar in the Replimat.

Or, Garak is picking, anyway. Julian is stuffing his face. Ordinarily, this would mildly scandalize him, but the fact it’s taspar, one of the most traditional delicacies of his homeworld, being shoveled enthusiastically into that pretty face makes it so he can feel only hope.

Rather than giving into that inadvisable feeling, he takes a dainty sip of his tea and tries to look nonsuspect. Cardassians from all sides and angles are staring.

“About Miss Leeta…” Garak begins.

Julian wipes his face with the side of his hand. Disgusting, but oddly compelling. “What about her?” 

“When will you be breaking the news to her?”

“Oh.” Julian smiles, bemused. “She knows.”

A tightness in his chest dispels slightly. “Does she?” he says faintly.

“She’s the one who first brought it up. We performed the Rite of Separation days ago. She said it was great timing, what with the festival and all. We didn’t even have to leave the station.”

“So you were together then.”

“Well, in a sense. We weren’t in love, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Garak takes another sip, lowering his eyes. “I wasn’t worried. Only concerned for the young lady’s feelings.”

Julian’s face is incandescent. A Cardassian to his far left is openly gaping. “Of course, of course.” He leans suddenly over the table then, moving a hand forward to rest on his knee. “So, should I take this line of questioning as an indicator that you’re open to a relationship with me?”

Garak shifts a little in his seat, moving his knee further under the table and its shadows, but otherwise doesn’t pull away. “It would be unwise,” he says quietly, without actually saying no.

The hand squeezes. “It isn’t as if people won’t assume anyway.”

“Rumors can be dispelled. Redirected. Altered.” He reaches forward to take a small saucière and pours a bright red sauce over a couple groatcakes. “There would be no coming back from a confirmation.”

Julian’s hand falls away. “Would it be so bad?”

“I don’t know,” Garak says, splitting a cake up into three neat sections. “Would it, Doctor?”

A Bajoran couple walks past their table then, and while one purposely avoids eye contact and seems to be giving them a wide berth, the other throws a meaningful glare Julian’s way. This is the fourth judgemental or pitying look he’s received since they came in for brunch. Julian calmly returns the look, refusing to be the first to look away, until finally the man averts his eyes and Julian looks back to Garak with a stern smile. Garak inclines his head.

“Be careful, Doctor,” Garak goes on. “Rumors can ruin lives. End careers.” He scoops up a bite of his cake, dripping with red sauce, and lifts it to his mouth. “Kill,” he finishes, and eats.

At that, Julian leans back in his seat with his arms crossed tight. Garak gives him his time. It’s a relief to have finally made a dent in Julian’s lovesick, idealistic conviction–and Garak can admit, after the last few days, that it is lovesickness. Julian’s decided he loves him back and there will be no stopping him from pursuing this, but there may yet be some tempering. A small, equally stubborn, sentimental part of Garak despairs at the whole horrid affair, but the behemoth of his good sense squashes this part down with little difficulty. 

It’s this moment that a smattering of young Cardassians, accompanied by one Jadzia Dax, arrive at their table. Immediately, Garak recognizes them as the ones that nearly intercepted his meeting with Lumok and his stomach drops. Julian, on the other hand, brightens back up.

“Well, hello there,” he says warmly.

Jadzia responds first, with each elbow leaned on a Cardassian’s shoulder and a knowing sparkle in her blue eyes, “Hello to you.” The Cardassians all echo with similar greetings, some shy, others giddy.

One young woman standing at the front, with her hair in three elaborately plaited braids and little makeup, is looking at Garak with particular interest. “You’re the one who wrote the poems about Julian.”

Garak looks at the girl coolly. “Do you mean Dr. Bashir?”

She goes blue. “Oh, um. Yes. I do.” She tucks an imaginary lock of hair into her perfectly coiffed hair and lowers her head respectfully. “My apologies, Doctor.”

“Hey now,” the doctor scolds with good humor, “none of that. We’re all friends here.” 

The girl throws another searching glance Garak’s way. “Friends?”

That’s enough of that. “This is certainly quite the surprise,” Garak says genially, plastering on his most pleasant smile. “Is there something you needed? As Deep Space Nine’s resident Cardassian tailor and reputed troubadour, I’m always happy to be of service.” Julian sends him a sharp look, which he ignores. 

Jadzia is looking as foxy as she ever does, with a grin nearly to her spotted ears. “Julian asked me to bring them here,” she says too happily, and Garak has to sit back in his seat to process that. Julian scratches his neck with a guilty smile, obliviously alluring. It cannot be overstated that there are, still, eyes on them from all directions and angles.

“Garak, sir,” the Cardassian woman-child begins again, earnest, “let me start over. My name is Inia Milam. I am the President of the Ivory State Liberation Library. We collect–”

“Madam,” Garak interrupts her quietly, stunned. “This is hardly the time and place.” He blinks, still shocked stupid by her brazenness, and leans towards her, peering into her distressingly young features with beseeching desperation. “And I am hardly the audience.”

Milam doesn’t appear to process his warning at all, though. She just continues to look inquisitive. She has that gleam in her eyes that is common in Cardassian women, calculating and intelligent, but there’s something else there. Something indefinable that he’s seen hundreds of times over an interrogation table, but without the fear to staunch it. Without the hopelessness. It makes his stomach flip. “On the contrary, you are exactly the sort of person we look for.” She bows her head. “Dr. Bashir promised that if we assisted him a few days prior, he would introduce us so that I could formally welcome your book of poems into our shelves. I apologize if this comes as a surprise. I wish only to thank you for your excellent contribution, E. G., and tell you that we hope to welcome many more pieces from you in the future. I’ll be in touch. Dr. Bashir.” She nods to him, returns his gentle smile, and walks confidently away. The rest of the group mirror her, voicing similar words of polite farewell and appreciation, and leave.

Garak forces himself not to track their departure and instead picks up his fork again, as if nothing world-shattering has occurred at all. The cake is tasteless in his mouth.

Julian is concealing nothing of his thoughts, however. He’s staring openly at Garak, as if he’s a bomb and he’s trying to figure out which color wire to cut.

Ultimately, it’s Jadzia that breaks the tension. “Well,” she says, “that is some harem you’ve got there, Julian.”

“Jadzia,” Julian barks. She laughs.

“I’m teasing, I’m teasing.” Uncharacteristically, her impish smile turns regretful. “Now that that’s out of the way, I do have to bring your friend in for questioning,” she says, and that explains that. “I’m sorry, boys. I stalled Ben as long as I could.”

Garak polishes off the last of his meal and takes one last gulp of his tea to wash it down. With that done, he stands with a placid, conciliatory smile.

Julian puts a hand on his shoulder before he can take a step. “I’ll come see you after my shift.” Those lovely, dark, deep eyes search his, pinning him like a moth above his fireplace. “Okay?”

Garak inhales. “Without end,” he murmurs, waits for Julian’s eyes to light in understanding, and then aloud says, “I am at your disposal, Doctor. Good day.” With that and a firm, friendly pat on Julian’s hand, he limps away.

Jadzia rather pointedly watches him limp to the exit for a few long seconds before throwing Julian a rakish grin. “Well, well,” she says largely. Julian pretends not to notice, and Jadzia pivots on her heel after Garak.

“Before we lock you up and throw away the key, could you sign my datarod,” Julian hears Jadzia asking, and he shakes his head, unsuccessfully trying to rub away his smile.

Without end Do I think of you and so Come to me at night. For on the path of dreams at least, There's no one to disapprove! Ono no Komachi

[fredswrite]

A/N: IT’S MY BIRTHDAY YAYAYA. So, as a special occasion, here are little drabbles of a few of Hayden’s characters' love languages (but more about how they treat you than how they want to be treated) and what they would get for your birthday.

WARNING: No warning, just fluff :)

ANAKIN SKYWALKER

words of affirmation

Anakin’s love language is definitely words of affirmation, so when it’s your birthday, be ready for a lot of "I love you, darling." "You look so pretty tonight." "Happy birthday, baby." He would never stop talking about the deepest feeling of his heart.

He’s the type of guy that’s so good with words he can recite you poem without hesitation. He can easily write you hundreds of letters to explain how 'I love you' isn’t enough to describe those feelings.

From the start and to your future together, you will always feel loved by his mouth.

Anakin is most likely to hand-make you a gift, not just a card you’ll throw away in a few years, but a really precious gift. Droids, mechanics, a personal speeder…

And being a Jedi didn’t bring him a lot of currency, so seeing his love through a poem was the best thing that could ever happen to you.

STEPHEN GLASS

receiving gifs

Stephen’s love language is giving gifts, he would buy you hundreds of presents if that meant earning your love. He always thought that love was partly materialistic, so if he had that on his side, maybe you wouldn’t leave him like the others.

On the other side, he was making sure you wouldn’t be mad over one gift he got wrong. Expensive jewelry, makeup, books, flowers, clothing, shoes, and it goes on with everything you ever said you liked.

He put all the chances on his side to get you to stay with him, although that’s not why you stayed with him. You loved him for his personality, his looks and his kindness. As much as you told him, he never truly believed you as he cried into your makeout session how he didn’t want you to leave.

SAM MONROE

physical touch

Sam would probably murder anyone who said his love language was physical touch. He hated, no despaired, contacts. He hasn’t let anyone touch him in ages, only because it wasn’t you.

The only reason he loved being physical in secret was that he didn’t have to prove anything to you. You loved him and he loved you.

Hugging, kissing, playing in your hair… Sam did it all in the comfort of his room, hidden from judging looks of the outside. You were somehow an exception to his coldness.

What he’d buy you? Man, he’d probably forget and procrastinate until it's the morning of your birthday. He’d rush to the dollar store, buy a few candies and snacks you liked and cigarettes on the way.

Then he’d show up to your house and drive you two to your favourite places until you could call it a day. He’d then crash out in your house, making out until he fell asleep in the cocoon of your arms.

JAMES KELLY

Acts of service

Repairing your car, fixing electronics in your house, getting you a glass of water whenever you asked him, anything. James would do every service you’d ask him, his way of showing he cared deeply about you.

"Let me get this for you baby." He’s said when you just got out of bed, yarning as he walked up the stairs with breakfast.

And that didn’t change at all when it was your birthday, it only developed. You wanted to go out? He’d call the restaurant prior, drive you there, and pay for both of your meals. A man.

With his criminal record, he knew better than to risk losing you over a small argument. May as well do anything to please you.

SCOTT BARRINGER

words of affirmation / quality time

Scott was never someone who cared about words. Stupid and meaningless, he thought. He knew how it felt and he had a reason. So having you say you loved him, not to get something out of it, just because you felt it was overwhelming.

The first time you told him those three exquisite words it was on a picnic date, both of you only caring for the presence of one another. He knew then that he just discovered the perfect combination; words of affirmation and quality time began his go-to.

For your birthday, he’d get you both a Jellycat. A matching one without really any meaning behind the choice, just cute enough for you to smile and think of him.

Then he would spend the day cuddling and watching movies in the comfort of your room. He never showed his room to you, but from what he told you, you had no intention to observe it. Most of the time, he would just end up crashing qt your house or seeking in your cabin at Horizon.

CLAYTON BERESFORD

receiving gifts

Everyone know Clayton Beresford is a rich man. This man would be a fool to not spend some of this money on his gorgeous partner.

He didn’t brought those things to prove anything, he brought them because you liked it, because they were meant for you.

"Honey just take it alright, it’s not much." He whispered into your ear when he attached the hundred-dollar gold necklace he brought for this special occasion.

He took his time, kissing your neck in a loving pattern, before turning you around and moving his fingertip to your cheek. "You look so beautiful, Mrs. Beresford…"

WILL BEEMAN

quality time

Will solution for any little fights was to spend time together to work it out. And that didn’t change when you were pregnant with your hormones, and neither would it now that you had your child.

He didn’t care if you forgot to cook dinner, he’ll do it with you. If you didn’t buy him anything for his birthday, it’s okay; he gets to cuddle with you. Laughing and talking were your love languages.

For your birthday, he’d get you a trip somewhere only the two of you, or a spa and massage day. Even though he hated those things, he knew you, on the other hand, loved relaxing in the warm pools.

AJ

receiving gifts

The money AJ owns is a secret to no one, the way he gets his money through… With all the dangerous missions he went on, it would be a waste not to have a girl to please with all the money.

When he first started robbing, he would rather One-Night stand, no strings attached. But when he laid eyes on you, talking with Rachel, he had a prey. You weren’t sure of his career at first, but with the many luxurious gifts he’d given you, you were sold.

For your birthday, he would get you everything you ask for, hell, he’d even plan the mission himself to go robbing that one place you like.

KURT

Physical touch

When the apocalypse first happened, the first thing he had to do was hide. He was all alone, and it showed. When he met you, he knew he had to do something, he couldn’t stay alone another second.

One thing led to another, and you stayed with him in his bunker. He could finally hold someone—hold you. He desperately needed those physical touch to feel less alone in this fucked up world.

For your birthday, he would probably get you something he found in the antique store or something he made himself.

But he’ll always end up cuddling with you.

JACOB

acts of service

Jacob was willing to do anything for you, you just had to ask. Protecting you at all costs, even if his life was at stake, you mattered most.

But he knew he wouldn't always be there to protect you, so he showed you how to use a bow and arrow, how to fight with a sword and most importantly how to flee.

It didn't matter what he would get you for your birthday, you ended up liking it anyway.

DON PIPER

words of affirmation

For Don, communication is key so if you’re quiet it’s obvious to him that he has done something to upset you, or simply you’re in a mood. He loves to whisper compliments in your ear whenever he get the chance to see that cute blush on your face.

He loves it even more when you are the one who starts it. A man also love to be told his hair are beautiful and that he owns a beautiful pornstache…

For your birthday, he would get you a typical celebration with all your family members. He thinks the most important thing is to be reunited with the ones we love.

But behind the eyes of the public, he hides a very cute and meaningful gift.

LEO

quality time

Leo loves to spend time with the one he loves. He even has a jar of cute date ideas he keeps in the pizzeria and lets customers put in their own ideas. Once in a while, he gets a paper out, and you two go do the activity requested.

Showing you care about him by spending your precious time together means a lot to him. Even more when you agree to taste his latest creation.

He loves to get you flowers for your birthday, it may be typical, but he loves to see your face smell the scent of fresh roses.

BILLY QUINN

words of affirmation

Most of the songs he wrote show that Billy is heavy on words of affirmation. He loves to write you songs for any occasion, publishing them or not, most of the time he keeps them in his notebook and you end up finding his sweet words.

He loves it even more to see your reaction to those. He would lie if he said he didn’t like your hundreds of kisses between I love you. It was rare for him to settle with only one person.

He would get for your birthday a cute night date, writing and singing songs with a good champagne bottle.

DAVID RICE

I’d say similar to AJ and Clay + physical touch

I’m not doing Lorenzo because I really don’t know IMAO

[riptunezune]

Headcanons of how Cabins decorating a Sleepy Hypnos child's hair

Personally I believe that each Hypnos child has soft curly hair which makes it easy for other campers from other Cabins to decorate their hair out of boredom and it slowly becomes a competition between the cabins on which cabin does it the most and which style is their favorite, etc. and here's how each cabin can tell ~this was inspired by some IG reels and a post by @/clovis-enthusiast

**Side Note: I would say some staff of CHB join in to represent some gods to avoid any potential conflicts**

Cabin 1 -Zeus: gold metallic lighting bolts

Cabin 2- Hera: peacock feathers (I like to think Argus decided to represent her cabin and protect Hera's honor in a way)

Cabin 3- Poseidon: little orange starfishes (like the ones in the Aquamarine movie-2006) and seashells

Cabin 4- Demeter: wheat and flowers (they negotiated with the Aphrodite Cabin on which flowers- the ones that represent/symbolizes any type of love or have heart shapes-i.e. heart shaped forget me not flowers are only for the cabin 10 and ofc both cabins have a list of which type their cabins can use)

Cabin 5- Ares: plastic sword toothpicks and mini metal spike balls (which the cabin later had to change them to those spiky porcupine balls for safety because Chiron said so)

Cabin 6- Athena: owl feathers, olive branch crown, maybe ripped up papers with favorite quotes from books

Cabin 7- Apollo: guitar string flowers, ripped up papers with poems/ music lyrics, music note paper clips

Cabin 8- Artemis: silver little stars (they only participate when they visit CHB)

Cabin 9- Hephaestus: nuts and bolts, flowers made out of wires

Cabin 10- Aphrodite: butterfly/flower hair clips, bow hair clips, hearts, and flowers and honestly anything that the cabin sees that's fit and pretty (the cabin was also asked to tone it down just so to keep it fun for all cabins and ofc it's no surprise that this cabin goes all out)

Cabin 11- Hermes: wind-up chatter teeth toys or those fake insects

Cabin 12- Dionysus: grapevine floral crown with little grapes

Cabin 13- Hades: tiny skeleton heads

Cabin 14-Iris: little rainbow hair clips or anything rainbow related

Cabin 15- Hypnos: probably leftover pillow feathers if they're awake long enough

Cabin 16- Nemesis: mini balance scales (the Hephaestus cabin def helped make them just to ensure safety)

Cabin 17- Nike: laurel's leaves (Apollo cabin was nice to give this one up-also yes I did look up some symbols to represent each god/goddess)

Cabin 18- Hebe: tiny clay cups/mugs of any style

Cabin 19- Tyche: mini four leave clovers/ horseshoes (as she is the goddess of fortune, luck, and prosperity)

Cabin 20- Hecate: battery operated flashlights in shapes of torches

Inspired posts:

https://www.tumblr.com/clovis-enthusiast/761509705120169984/your-mind-is-so-genius

Links for the image ^ (just wanted to show a few examples, but just in case anyone interested)

-https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5gP59FPomV/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

-https://www.instagram.com/reel/C9_ipR0SclU/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

-https://www.instagram.com/p/DA_HzsjSGKY/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

[pixiesfz]

jilly jilly jilly

this could be potential p2 and 3, thinking of a ends with us plot

secret love j.r x reader

plot: it starts with Jill

warning: none I don’t think

You had always been a good writer, whether it was a poem you were forced to write in class or a storyline in a movie or TV show you created in your mind, they were always good.

But you didn’t know you were good at song writing until your best friend convinced you to sign up for a competition.

Jill had always been your biggest supporter; she was always the one who encouraged you when you needed it the most. She always said it was because she loved you so much.

But it was a different type of love than what people thought.

Your parents were homophobic, disgusting people, you would never be able to come out to them without them kicking you out of the house so you tried to always keep your feelings secret.

But in the time that you lived with them, you held a secret that to this day nobody, but Jill knew.

The first time she kissed you was when you won the song writing competition. You were excited by the email you went straight to her house in the rain.

“Jill open this door right now!” you yelled with a smile as she was still in her soccer gear from training, she dropped her mouth open as she let you in.

“Y/n?”

“I won!” you smiled “What?” she asked “That competition you wanted me to do- I won it” you smiled, wrapping the blonde girl into a hug quickly after, squeezing her tight.

You had no confidence when you first saw the flyer, not bothering to enter but Jill told you to do it, she had hope in you.

“thankyou,” you said, nuzzling your head into the crook of her shoulder.

Jill wished that she could stay in this position forever, a pretty girl hugging her, a pretty girl that was you.

“I am so proud of you,” she said, laying her head on top of your wet hair, but she didn’t care.

You stayed in the position for maybe a bit too long for friends before Jill finally pulled back, lifting your chin up with her fingertips.

“What was the song about?” she asked, her eyes looking down into yours.

“Do you want me to lie?” you asked, knowing that she already knew by the way that you had been acting.

“no”

You watched as her eyes darted down to your lips.

“It was about you” you answered and your eyes now darted to her lips which beside the fact that she had been training all day looked soft.

“me?” she smiled and you nodded “you.”

“good” she licked her lips before leaning down to you and capturing her lips with yours, you moaned slightly at the feeling as she pulled you closer to her, you only separated when you thought you couldn’t breathe anymore and it seemed the same to her as you let out deep breaths after, your foreheads touching.

“Do you think we could do that again?” she asked and you nodded eagerly with a smile.

That’s how your teenage years went, sneaking around with Jill as everyone labelled you as best friends, it was good for you until all you wanted to do was hold her hand in public, tell the fans she had gained from soccer to stop flirting with her since she had a girlfriend.

And most of all you just wanted to go on a proper date.

When she started to get selected for the Netherlands team was when it started to get really hard, you would kiss her goodbye in a public toilet at the airport, she would leave then you would wait five minutes after to leave yourself, mostly every time in tears.

Whenever she would go, you would write your songs, and sometimes you would sing them for her when she got back but as time went on they got more depressing but she would always come back with a smile and stories to tell and you never gained the opportunity to tell her how you really felt.

Especially when you decided to be private in the first place.

It was on a Thursday night when everything came crashing down.

Jill came over at five to ‘study’ for your final SAC’s and you went up to your room and closed the door. You tried to study, really but when Jill took off her jumper to reveal a white tank top you were all over her,

Stradling her hips, her hands rested on your ass, squeezing them as your mouth danced along her neck, she moaned out, her leg accidentally kicking off a bunch of books from the bed which made a loud sound.

Not noticing that your parents had arrived home an hour ago you both didn’t think anything of it and you were both quite busy to notice the footsteps leading up to your bedroom door.

“Y/N-“ Your mother gasped from your bedroom door and you both scrambled off eachother as you stood up, facing your mother “Mum-“

“no!” she yelled stepping towards you “Mum please just-“

You were stopped as her hand hit your face, causing you to drop to the ground

“You ungrateful child!” She yelled and stopped Jill as she tried to go to you “Get out of my house” she told her

“You hit your child!” she yelled at her

“She is a slut” your mother seethed out and Jill took a step back, ready to curse out but you sat up

“Jill leave,” you told her and she looked down to you “What?”

“Leave.” You looked at her “Please” you croaked out before you looked out the window, telling her to leave.

You didn’t want her to run into your father on her way out.

A week had passed and you hadn’t gone to school, nobody had seen you anywhere and Jill was worried, she texted you many times and you never replied.

It wasn’t until she was told she would be leaving to Germany to play for Bayern Munich was when she physically showed up to your house.

She climbed up the tree to your window only to see a big lock that had been added. Not giving up she knocked on the door, squinting in to see if you were inside.

The room was dark but she could see the outline of your body under your covers. She called out for your name but you didn’t move.

You didn’t want her to see you in the state you were in, your other friend Georgia had told you about Jill moving, so you knew.

You didn’t want her last memory of you to be bruised and broken.

She might have never left if she did.

[ashwhowrites]

Hey! Really love your writing. Can you write where Eddie meets college gothic henderson reader when she visits Hawkins to visit family and is just smitten and fascinated because he's never seen a gothic person in Hawkins before. So when Dustin asks him why he's staring at his cousin, he's just shocked? (Perhaps the reader looks like this?)

Combining these together since they are pretty similar! Thank you for requesting 🫶🏻

Different

It was the peak of summer when Eddie met her for the first time. She had him stop in his tracks and stare. She was completely different than any girl he had ever seen. She had dyed hair, a mixture of blues and some white. Her makeup was fierce and bold. Her skin was painted white and her eyes and lips coated in black. She was gorgeous and gothic. She was so different but a good different.

Her nose was pierced and her face looked sculpted by God himself. Eddie was smitten the second he saw her and it only got worse when she talked to him.

"Dude, why are you staring at my cousin like that?" Dustin asked, they watched as she hugged Dustin's mom.

Eddie couldn't form words, staring as his mouth went dry. Dustin waved a hand in his face but Eddie didn't even blink. All he could feel was his heart racing and his palms getting sweaty.

"Hey Dusty," she said as she walked over. Her ring-covered hand messed with his hair. Then her attention moved to Eddie.

"Who's this?" she asked. Eddie gulped as her eyes settled on him. She was even more perfect up close. She looked him up and down, a small suggestive smile on her face. She made Eddie squirm but he liked it.

"This is Eddie, he's the master in Hellfire!" Dustin said, "He usually never shuts up so no idea what his problem- OW"

Y/N laughed to herself as Eddie gave Dustin a hard elbow to the chest.

"Well Eddie, my name is Y/N," she placed out her hand. Eddie admired her dark nails and clunky rings. He smiled as he shook her hand, his rings clicking against hers.

~~~

Eddie would like to say it only took him a few days to get a date with her, but it took him a whole month to get the sentence out. And then another month to ask her to be his girlfriend.

He wouldn't admit it, but he sobbed the day he dropped her off back to college. He cursed himself for not graduating when he should have because he would have followed her to any school. But they refused to break up. It was stronger than a summer fling.

Eddie was a lovesick puppy when it came to her. He wrote letters, wrote her songs, wrote poems, and always mailed some type of gift. She always wrote him back and he had a dresser filled with things she sent him.

The first holiday break was coming up and it was all Eddie could talk about.

"We get it, your girlfriend is coming," Mike groaned into his hands. The rest of the lunch table sighed as Eddie went on another rant about the things he had planned for when Y/N came into town.

"Don't forget she is coming to visit family, not just you," Dustin said as he rolled his eyes. He liked that Eddie and Y/N were together, but Eddie didn't know how to share.

"Yeah yeah" Eddie shrugged him off

~

"SHE'S HERE!"

Dustin and Eddie raced to the front door, shoving each other out of the way.

"She's my cousin!" Dustin argued

"She's my girlfriend!" Eddie fought back

~~~

It was clear Eddie was in love and that he would do anything for Y/N.

"Shit, I forgot to grab extra butter" Y/N groaned as she took her seat. The previews for movies were playing on the big screen as Eddie stood up.

"I'll get it, baby," he said without missing a second. He leaned down and pecked her lips, waiting patiently as she wiped off her black lipstick off his lips.

Then he bounced out of the theater to go get her butter

~

"Can you believe her boyfriend said that?" Y/N ranted, Eddie sat on her dorm bed as she complained about her roommate's boyfriend.

"What a dick!" Eddie said, he didn't think what the boyfriend said was a big deal but he wouldn't tell her that.

"Exactly! So will you tell him that?" Y/N asked as she placed her hand on her hip

Eddie gulped but stood up, "I got you, baby"

~

"Eddie, can you grab that can next to your foot?" Dustin asked, it was movie night at his house and Eddie and Y/N joined him. Except they spent the whole time making out.

"Kinda busy here," Eddie hissed as he pulled away, then placed his lips back on hers.

Y/N pulled away and handed Dustin the can. Dustin thanked her as he glared at Eddie. But his focus was only on her, his dopey eyes staring at her.

"I want popcorn, do you guys want any?" Dustin asked as he stretched out his legs and set his can back down

"No," Eddie said, leaning in to kiss Y/N again but she placed her finger on his lips.

"I kinda do," she whispered

"On it," Eddie said, standing up as fast as he could, his foot smacking Dustin's can and spilling it all over the floor. But he walked past it and headed into the kitchen

"EDDIE! COME ON!" Dustin yelled

~~~

Before he knew it, they were together for years. They both finished school and got a small apartment. On their days off they stayed tangled up in bed together.

"I love you," Eddie whispered as he pecked her lips

"I love you too," she said as she kissed him back, her hand on his cheek. He smiled as he felt the cold new ring on her left hand.

He gently grabbed her hand and kissed her knuckle. Then he kissed the new engagement ring he placed on her finger last night.

"I can't wait to marry you"

@bmunson86 @mxcheese @ladymunson @michaelfuckinglangdon @z0mbie-blah @biittersweet @mirrorsstuff @somethingvicked @micheledawn1975 @ago-godance @magnificantmermaid @tlclick73 @hargrovesswifee @cityofidek @silky-luxe @lokiofasgard616 @loving-and-dreaming @eddiemunsonsbitch69 @thegemaqua @ashlynnkennedy @strangerthingsstories5255 @harringt8ns @pleasinghellfire @whoscamila @stusdollface93 @gretavankleep37 @bellaisswagger @arlxt @ineedmentalhelp123

[quirekey]

pretty please write more abt d-16 and megatron im THIRSTY for more of him

Okay so anything about D16 / Megatron? Aight bet lets do this….. I MADE IT ANGST AAAAA

[ D16 / MEGATRON ] x [ GN!READER ]

[ d16 / megatron x cybertronian!gn!poet!reader ]

READER INTRO

You were a famous Cybertronian, known for your poetry. You loved to write about melodramatic stories that would give deep and unheard meanings. You are graceful and seemingly magical, being able to put somebody at ease with a few simple words. Your poems consisted of many types of romance because you thought that romance is something that really digs deep into somebody’s spark. You never had many friends because you weren’t social, but you did admire others that could socialise. Many cybertronians look up to you and you stay humble, including D16. Just to mention, you did have a cog.

HEADCANONS

- D16 has many idols that vary and one of them is you. He admires your fantastic vocabulary and the amount of emotional depth you are able to add to your poems. You looked so dreamy, the way you spoke, walked and wrote. D16 may or may not have a small crush on you.

- D16 was one persistent fan and his relentless want for your attention did give him a wanted ending. When you are out, many Cybertronians are talking to you and are wanting to receive writing tips, signatures or even just small glances and waves. D16 knew this so he made a gift (a little piece of energon and a letter) and was able to give it to you despite the crowd.

- You opened your gift when you got to your quarters and this warmed your spark so much. His gift was so miniture and cute. You then read his letter and it felt like you melted on the spot.

“From- D16 To- (Y/N)”

“Hi, I really wanted to talk to you in person but you seem out of my league so I thought a letter would fit best. I made this letter to tell you that you have inspired me to start writing myself. Your poems are so nice to read after every mining shift and I hope you make more in the future.”

- After you read the poem, this tiny miner has been lingering in your mind. You thought you had these thoughts because of his tiny gift, but they have gotten pretty far. You wanted this tiny bot in your arms, you wanted to show him the love and affection he deserves. You made a personal poem about how a mere gift has grown into undefined feelings.

- When you see him, you would talk straight to him first. This did catch him off-guard every time because his idol was talking to him. You would bring him gifts that you thought he would like and you would also give him one of your treasured pens. Though it was hard for him to take care of these gifts, he did try pretty hard to keep them clean and in-quality.

- You guys eventually became close friends and he does confess his love for you. He tried his best to be stoic but it was hard to keep his fluster away. You couldn’t resist him but decided that it’s best to be friends due to his and your part in society. You did like him back so there was still a chance.

- One day you were able to build the courage and tell the cogless bot how much you loved him. How you yearned to have him in your arms and for you to whisper words of sweet affirmation into his audio receptors. You had a serious problem with this lingering love so you had to spill it.

- Fortunately, you two started dating in secret. To make it short, it was very wholesome. Though you two were constantly distanced, you both knew that you were in each other’s processors.

- When he went from being D16 to Megatron, this conflicted you. Your brain told you to stay in Iacon with the autobots and Optimus Prime. Your spark told you to leave with the bot you have loved from the beginning and join the Decepticons with Megatron. Your spark that has been growing and blooming took over and you left Iacon for Megatron’s love.

- Megatron still had love for you and gave you a special role that did not require you to do any work. You wanted you to be happy. Just because he changed, doesn’t mean his spark has changed.

- All you do is write poems in your spacious and dim quarters. It's hard to feel comfort due to the yelling outside your room and it’s hard to get inspiration for your poems because all you are doing is evil. Sure, it isn’t impossible but it feels like it is in the situation you were in.

[theoneandonlycoralinejones]

Some General Ericson's Kids Headcannons

Louis

Despite it being the zombie apocalypse, he still takes a great care in his appearance. Maybe this could be tied back to his insecurities, but he generally just finds comfort in looking nice. He kept a few colognes from before, and maybe even still has a few hair products. Of course he’d had to be resourceful to make them last this long, probably pours water into the almost empty cologne bottles to make them last longer. He also just dislikes being dirty in general, always wiping down his clothes and typically taking breaks to freshen up. 

He wants to keep the artistic spirit alive, even in the apocalypse, and he really admires people who feel the same. Everyone knows he loves piano, but when somebody actually shows interest in it he can't help but get giddy. He can ramble about musicians and songs for hours and hours and hours, and if you ever found him some new records or sheet music you'd officially be his new favorite person; ever.

Definitely was an only child; his parents put all of their focus on him, watched his every move. He was expected to get good grades, go to a good college, get a hard well-paying job afterwards. He was definitely spoiled money-wise, but his family lacked in the love and affection department. 

Violet

I’d like to think that if she ever got the chance to, she’d try to give herself a piercing. Obviously it’d be unsanitary and sort of implausible during the apocalypse, but if you think about it, all she’d need would be a needle, the piercing itself, and some sort of disinfectant, so it could possibly happen. If she did get one, probably an eyebrow piercing or a septum. She definitely isn’t the type to care too much about her appearance, but she would feel super cool having a piercing. (She wouldn’t say it though, lol)

Violet lacked any sort of hobby in the game, and this upset me. (Ruby has gardening/being a nurse, Louis has music, Tenn has art, Mitch has weapons, Omar has cooking, Aasim has writing, etc.) I feel like if she had a hobby it'd be something she'd do in secret, maybe poetry or writing songs. She definitely is the type of person to bottle her emotions up, so writing poems about it would definitely be a nice way to cope with them. She’d never share her poetry with anyone though, it's just her thing; she's way too embarrassed of it. 

If she was able to listen to any music she would definitely like indie or punk music. (Pavement, she would LOVE pavement) She’s definitely the type of person to crush on more alternative people, so I could see her trying to get into goth music just to impress a girl she likes. 

Marlon

It's obvious that he's definitely got some hefty mental issues going on, he's the type of person to bottle things up forever till he just blows up. He panics a lot in tough situations, scrambles to fix things himself, but has a hard time making things work out alone. I'd imagine his parents were probably perfectionists of some sort; who pushed a lifestyle he didn't want onto him and he tried hard to succeed for them but could never be enough. Eventually one day he acted out, sick of being forced to live a life he didn't want to live, and then was sent to Ericsons's.

A lot of people hate Marlon, for reasons that are obvious, but I really don't think he was a bad guy. He was simply misguided, and made mistakes. 

Seems like the type to smoke or drink as a way to cope. Did it more often before the apocalypse and when it first started but cigarettes and alcohol are pretty much nonexistent near Ericson’s now so he was forced to quit. 

Mitch

I see many people sort of stereotype Mitch as just this guy who likes carving knives and making bombs, which definitely is true, but I think there’s much more to him. He has a very rebellious personality which leads me to believe he probably grew up in a home where being rebellious was necessary to get any attention from his neglectful parents. They are in the boarding school for a reason, so he probably was the type of kid that almost burnt down his house or something.

Definitely seems like the type to be a big softie once you get to know him. Certainly not the type to be all soft in public, but if you're spending time one on one his more gentle side will show. 

Ruby 

She has such a motherly vibe to her, so caring and sweet. Even hands out some tough love when needed. I think that's one of the reasons why she likes the greenhouse so much, she loves to take care of things; plants included. (Obviously she also liked it because of Ms. Martin, but yk)

She's certainly not the type to accept compliments easily, she just can't imagine that when people compliment her they're telling the truth. I'd imagine that the reason she punches Aasim If you dare him to kiss her is because she thinks he's playing a prank on her or something; she just finds it hard to believe that somebody would like her. (I love her, Ruby is my bae omg)

[psuedosugu]

just thinking about vox w/ a famous singer! reader…

cw: themes of stalking and heavy manipulation

gender neutral

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

✮₊ ⊹ || you guys probably met through velvette, she started helping you shoot music videos and things of the sort once your popularity started skyrocketing.

✮₊ ⊹ || and your popularity really did skyrocket, think ice spice.

✮₊ ⊹ || it started with him sponsoring you, asking you to include some voxtech products in one of your music videos.

✮₊ ⊹ || then, he had you on his talk show.

✮₊ ⊹ || after a while, vox started having an interest in you far past business relations.

✮₊ ⊹ || he started stalking you, not just your public socials but even pictures on your camera roll.

✮₊ ⊹ || we see in ep 2 that he can look through tvs and control what they show so im js assuming its the same for all electronic devices.

✮₊ ⊹ || he would watch you through your phone and tv, “just to keep them safe,” he said to himself.

✮₊ ⊹ || you two had more and more partnerships, more and more collaborations, perhaps even your own ‘keeping up with the kardashians’ type tv show.

✮₊ ⊹ || the pubic started speculating on you two’s relations and vox felt a strange sense of happiness and pride in his chest when he saw a post online shipping you two together.

✮₊ ⊹ || val definitely knew what was going on, subtly teasing vox about it every chance he got.

“if you put nearly as much effort as you do ogling at [name] into what we’re trying to do here, imagine the things we could accomplish.”

“wh- i don’t- shut the FUCK up.”

✮₊ ⊹ || vox made subtle moves at you, occasionally flirting with you, it didn’t matter if you flirted back or not, he kept going.

✮₊ ⊹ || flirting escalated to small touches to ur thighs and waist.

✮₊ ⊹ || he slowly coaxed you into a relationship, pretty much lovebombing you, buying you expensive things that you didn’t even need since you were rich already, writing you poems, taking you out on “dates”, ect.

✮₊ ⊹ || he could switch up fast, though, get angry and lash out at you verbally and maybe even slightly physically.

✮₊ ⊹ || he always made sure to apologize after, though, to put the bandaid on the broken bone.

✮₊ ⊹ || you went along with it at first because 1. being seen with him did improve your reputation, 2. he was a strong overlord, it would be hard to escape him, and 3. you genuinely did like him to an extent.

✮₊ ⊹ || he was pushing you into a box, leaving you no options.

✮₊ ⊹ || if you did attempt to leave or even show any sign of wanting to leave him, that would be when the hypnotization began.

✮₊ ⊹ || he didn’t want to do this, he wanted you guys’ relationship to come naturally, but you had practically forced the dude!

✮₊ ⊹ || you weren’t fully under his control, just enough so you wouldn’t leave. you wouldn’t want to leave.

✮₊ ⊹ || you were his trophy, his prize, his, his, his, he almost didn’t even see you as a person.

✮₊ ⊹ || eventually he started presenting you to the public as his too, and its not like you could refuse.

✮₊ ⊹ || you loved him, despite that doubtful feeling in the back of your mind, you loved him.

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

i do requests!

check out my masterlist!

[takeyrregrets]

Idea!! a reader who's pretty quiet and cold to people, causing people to dislike him and some people to try and pick on him but stop after seeing it isn't working. And the reader is pretty smart and enjoys writing poems, but a small thing no one knows is that he writes poems about the “weird kid” because he has a crush on him.

The weird kid is weird in the sense that he likes the occult and believes in demons and dresses a bit darker compared to others, he's also a bit temperamental.

- 🦭

𝗣𝗼𝗲𝘁𝗿𝘆 𝗦𝘂𝗰𝗸𝘀―𝗨𝗻𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗜𝘁'𝘀 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀 𝗪𝗲𝗶𝗿𝗱 𝗞𝗶𝗱 𝘅 𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿 I made him a lot more unhinged than I wanted to at first but oh well―still cute! Also there isn't really any mention of why he's weird but based off the request I'm sure you can use context clues:)

You are too quiet. Not shy, just… distant. Eyes like windows with the curtains drawn, always looking but never inviting. When you do speak, it's short, direct. No softness to it. Some tried to get under your skin once—jokes, sneers, comments behind your back loud enough to be heard. Rumors swirl: Your stuck-up, probably hates everyone, thinks you're smarter than everyone else. (you kind of are.)

They stopped when they realized you didn’t flinch at the remarks.

It wasn’t satisfying. You can’t bully someone who acts like you don’t exist.

So they left you alone. Everyone does. You don't mind.

So when you open up notebook in the library and sees the page with that poem torn clean out, your stomach drops―did someone steal it as a way to get back at you?

Gone was the worst of all your writings. The one with too much in it, The one you never meant to write so clearly, so foolishly about another person.

You flip through every page twice, check your bag, the floor. Nothing.

And then—laughter.

That sharp, theatrical kind that cuts through silence like a knife through tissue paper, Echoing beautifully off the books that line the wall. It’s coming from the back of the library. The corner everyone avoids. The corner he’s turned into a second home after school.

you almost didn't go.

But you do.

you round the shelves, quiet as ever, and there he is—boots kicked up on a chair, hoodie falling off one shoulder, and that stupid silver ring between his teeth like a toothpick. Reading.

Reading the poem.

You freeze.

The other looks up—grins like he was waiting for this. “Oh, hey. You dropped this.”

He waves the page. The handwriting is unmistakable.

You say nothing. Just stares. Your jaw tense.

"You know," the other continues, folding the page neatly but not giving it back, "at first I thought this was some dark romantic manifesto or something. And I was like, damn, I didn’t know our school had a secret poet with a crush on someone clearly unhinged and fabulous."

He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

"But then I read it again… and I realized…" Pause. Head tilt. “…this is about me, isn’t it?”

Silence.

"Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone." He shrugs. “Your secret’s safe with me. I think it’s kind of hot, honestly. Mysterious and brooding. You’d be my type, if I didn’t already think you hated my guts.”

“I don’t,” You mutter all too quickly.

“Oh?” His grin sharpens. “So you do have a crush on me?”

You flush—not visibly, but it’s in the stiff line of your shoulders. You snatch the poem from his hands and turn to walk away.

You hear the laugh behind you—low, pleased, as haunting as it is lovely.

It starts the next day.

After the poem. After the silence. After the look you gave him like he’d cracked open your chest and rifled through everything inside.

Now he’s everywhere.

He doesn’t do subtle. Wouldn’t know how if you paid him.

At lunch, he drops into your space like gravity forgot him. Slides across the table you’re sitting at like it’s a stage, kicks his boots up with a thud that makes you flinch.

“Good morning, my tragic little poet,” he croons, already pulling something from his jacket pocket. “I brought you a gift.”

He flicks a ring across the table. His ring. The one he always wears. It spins and wobbles before settling beside your tray.

“For inspiration,” he says, smiling too wide. “Put it on. Think about me. As if you don’t already.”

You stare at the ring. Then back at him. Then slowly, deliberately, push it to the edge of the table.

He gasps like you slapped him. “Wow. Cold. Rude. Unbelievable. I bring sentimental jewelry and get rejected in public?”

He pouts, resting his chin in his hand. “I’m starting to think you do hate me.”

You flip a page in your book without looking up. Your fingers are tense.

“Dangerous,” he murmurs. “You pretending like you don’t care. I could fall for that. I might have already.”

The grin widens. "I love the chase. I’m like a raccoon after shiny things—I will chew through walls.”

You don’t respond.

He sighs, sprawling across the table now like a felled tree, invading your space entirely. “You know, I used to think you were just quiet. Mysterious, now I think you’re mean. And it’s really working for me.”

You finally glance at him—just a flicker of a glare.

He smiles, victorious.

And somehow, as maddening as he is, you let him stay.

Neither of you says much after that. Just… silence.

But it’s a new kind of silence. Tense. Buzzing. Almost warm.

You could try to get used to this. You already are. And maybe—you hope—he is too.