#YOU CAN’T MAKE A CHARACTER MARKETABLE IF YOU DON’T MARKET HER IN THE FIRST PLACE YOU FUCKS

[jaybirdscoffee]

anybody else notice the startling lack of elita-1 content in most of the transformers one promo stuff?

[otaku553]

Can we ask why you’ve distanced from Genshin? I’m thinking about it bc of the representation issues but was wondering abt ur thoughts

It’s a bit difficult to put this succinctly!

I have a lot of thoughts on this, so I’ll sum up a few on the topic of character design.

I think when most people talk about representation in Genshin, the first thing they talk about is skin tone, which is fair and definitely valid. I think, as someone who has grown up with a lot of East Asian beauty standards around me, what Genshin does is cowardly but understandable from a viewpoint of marketability. I’m sure that they know their lack of representation is controversial overseas, but either this controversy is just giving them more attention and free promotion, or they’ve calculated that the controversy generated won’t actually deal any damage to their profits. That’s mostly why I’m not vocal about it: at best, they scroll past an extra opinion that they’ll probably ignore, and at worst, they’re getting free unintentional advertising out of me.

I will say, though I think plenty of people have made great posts about the representation issues, I think Genshin’s problems with character design and representation go much deeper than just skin color, and have been a growing issue even since Liyue; it’s just gotten exponentially worse with the introduction of Natlan.

I feel like Genshin is actively making regions more modern just to avoid historically accurate cultural representation, and nowhere is this clearer than in Natlan. To begin with, Genshin introduced itself as a historical fantasy, and that is, I think, why it worked so well compared to, say, Honkai— you can tell characters come from the same game due to unified elements such as the Knights of Favonius’s crest as a motif, and the central idea of history. Though the idea of “historical fantasy” is kind of nebulous, since they don’t actually claim to be trying to replicate any real world locations or cultures, you can infer some things about the time period and general location based on the existing technology and architecture and stuff.

But it feels like the moment you get to somewhere not European or East Asian, Genshin starts making designs from a far more modern approach. Some of the Natlan and Sumeru characters, I don’t think I’d be able to place as Genshin characters if I hadn’t played the game. I actually thought that one of the teased Genshin characters for Natlan that I’d seen around online, Citlali, was a Honkai Star Rail character, and was super surprised when I saw her in the Genshin 5.1 trailer. When you can’t even tell that a character belongs to the game you’re designing for, then what are you doing as a character designer?

This is more speculation than anything, but it’s almost as if they’re avoiding proper representation of cultural clothing by making things look modern, and it’s clashing terribly with what they established the game as from the beginning. For fuck’s sake, Mavuika, who’s the archon, meant to represent her nation, is wearing a leather biking suit. She looks so incredibly out of place in the fourth anniversary art of all the 5 archons together. They seem to be losing sight of what made them successful with character designs in the first place just out of a fear to do proper research or make something less than “conventionally aesthetic/attractive.” That’s my main issue, to be honest— not necessarily the skin colors, but the clear lack of thoughtfulness in character design, not only for representation but also for what suits their setting and premise best.

I have a lot more thoughts on Genshin Impact so feel free to send another ask if you’re curious!

[princessmisery666]

Just Don't Say You Love Me

Summary: Dean believes you have a good thing going. When you tell him your moving on, he realizes he needs to reassess the relationship and his life before it’s too late.

Warnings/Genres/Troupes: angst, miscommunication, unrequited love, friends with benefits, implied smut, Dean doesn’t get a happy ending. 

W/C: 4,776.

Characters: Dean Winchester, Jody Mills, Sam Winchester. 

Pairing: Dean x fem!reader (you - no descriptions of body type or ethnicity).

Bingo: @jacklesversebingo Square Filled: Just Please Don’t Say You Love Me by Gabrielle Alpin.

A/N: I tried to fix the angst, but it’s not happening, so the unhappy ending will remain (for now). Special shoutout to @kazsrm67 and @pink-sparkly-witch for helping and offering words/comments of encouragement.

Betas: @deanwinchesterswitch // all mistakes remain my own. 

Graphics: made by be on canva. Dividers by @talesmaniac89

Master Lists: JAcklesVerseBingo / Dean Winchester / Main

You knock on Jody’s door, taking a deep breath to calm yourself, some residual adrenaline still playing havoc with your nerves. It’s been a long and insightful day. 

Dean opens the door with a smile, but it quickly morphs into an appreciative grin as his eyes travel the length of your body. “Wow,” he says, “who knew all that was hiding under that uniform.”

You laugh, stepping through the door, not in the least bit phased by his comment. It's not the first time you’ve been told that. “Yeah, that uniform is like an invisibility cloak. I put it on, and no man sees me. Guess you're no exception,” you explain, turning to look at him again. 

“Well, I see you now,” he says, quickly lifting his focus from your ass to your face. “Um, they’re through there,” he gestures for you to go ahead of him. 

“There she is,” Jody says, embracing you with one arm while she places the huge bowl of salad on the table. “How’re you doing?”

“Guess I’m still a little shell-shocked, but I’m okay.” 

“Well, we’re all here to help you…adjust,” Sam offers with a kind smile.

Discovering monsters are, in fact, very real and not just a Halloween marketing ploy is definitely going to be an adjustment. But what choice do you have? These people have given you an in. They’ve let you into their secret club, and honestly, you feel privileged that they trust you and think you are capable enough to help.

If you weren’t capable, neither Jody nor Dean would be here right now, a fact Sam keeps thanking you for over dinner.

“Thank you for being so cool about this,” he says again, lifting his beer bottle to clink it against yours. 

“I’ll freak out later,” you joke, though you probably will. 

“Seriously, you rushed in there, no hesitation, and you held your own,” Jody adds to Sam’s praise. “You certainly proved I picked the right woman for my team.”

“And I can’t thank you enough for that,” you say, genuinely grateful for the opportunity to work with her.

You’ve had some awful bosses and equally shitty jobs over the years, so it's nice to have found Sheriff Mills. Okay, so you’ll be fighting real-life monsters occasionally, but what’s a little compromise? 

They answer all your questions, and you’d be lying if you said it wasn’t a little overwhelming. Dean keeps flashing a tight smile in your direction, and you’re not sure if it's meant to be reassuring or if he’s biting his tongue and trying not to be rude. Regardless of his intention, Jody and the boys’ promises to help you come to grips with it all make it seem manageable.

“Am I going to get to hear the story of how you met those two?” you ask Jody in the kitchen later. 

“Definitely, but not tonight,” she explains, handing you a clean, soapy plate to rinse and dry.

Dean and Sam laugh in the other room, and Jody smiles wistfully. It’s so sweet and motherly it chokes you up a little.  

“The years have not been kind to those boys,” she says, focusing back on the dishes. “They keep their circle small, and I’m grateful that they let me be a part of it, and now you get to join it, too.”

“It’s a damn good-looking circle,” you confess.

Jody chuckles, “Ah, so you noticed Dean as much as he noticed you.” 

“Don’t go all matchmaker on me again,” you warn, “do I need to remind you of the disaster that was Paul?” 

“No, you do not. I’m just making an observation. The circle is indeed good-looking, and Dean has been doing a lot of observing of his own.” 

“Yeah, not sure that’s for the reasons you’re implying,” you say, “Dean doesn’t seem like he wants me to be helping out.”

Dean’s voice startles you, “You saved our asses.” You jump, twisting to look at him, “that’s enough.”

“But if I can do more…”

“The life of a hunter isn’t a life I'd recommend,” he explains, reaching for a beer from the fridge, “ it’s messy and painful and usually ends badly.”

“That’s life in general,” you counter, “and if something is happening and I don’t do anything to help, I’m part of the problem.”

“That’s fine,” he says, throwing his bottle top into the trash. “You’re a bigger part of the problem if you get into a situation you can’t get out of.”

“Dean,” Jody scolds, “take it easy. You said it yourself, she saved our asses today. She’s proven she’s capable.”

“All I’m saying is I’ll help where and if I can,” you explain. “I’m not going to go all Buffy the Vampire Slayer and start patrolling graveyards.”

It’s faint, but a slight quirk tugs his lips, breaking the building tension. 

“Besides, I’m sure our uniform makes us invisible to monsters as well as men.” 

He laughs properly at that, “Not invisible to me anymore,” his tongue sits behind his teeth, and you're suddenly jealous when he wraps his lips around the bottle.

“Good to know,” you say.

You hold each other’s gaze, perhaps a challenge to see who will shy away first. 

“Cool it, you two,” Jody warns, flicking water off the tips of her fingers at you both. 

“Sorry, boss,” you laugh. “And on that note, I’m gonna get going.”

“Need a ride?” Dean asks, a smug smirk in play. 

“I would love one,” you wink, but follow up with, “but it’s a nice night. Think I’m gonna walk, work off some of that wine.” 

“Why don’t you walk her home?” Jody suggests. 

Dean nods, “lead the way.”

When you’d balked, telling Dean you didn’t need an escort, he’d countered, saying he needed the fresh air, but you think it’s more to check up on you and maybe flirt a little more without an audience if your instincts are correct. It’s been nothing but small talk since leaving Jody’s until you're standing on your porch facing one another.

“So how are you really taking all this?” he asks. 

“I had a little freak out before I got to Jody’s,” you answer honestly, “but truthfully, it makes me feel a little better about the world.” 

He huffs a laugh, and his confused frown is adorable. “Okay, that’s a first.” 

“There’s so much evil in the world. It’s scary enough without knowing what I know now,” you explain, adding, “Maybe some of the unexplainable evil that’s all over the news is explainable. Maybe it’s not humans being horrible. Maybe it’s actually something evil.”

“Huh, I never thought of it like that.”

“I’m not saying I’ll remember that the next time a vamp is kicking my ass,” you laugh. 

“Hey,” he scolds, “you agreed, no hunting.” 

You hold your hands up, surrendering. “I won’t go looking for it, but if it comes to Sioux Falls, I’m all over it,” you promise, but your body has other ideas as an overall ache spreads through you as the day's events catch up with you. “Well, maybe in a few days when I’ve recovered from the last one.” Subconsciously, your tongue rolls over the cut on your bottom lip.  

“That hurt?” he asks. 

“I’ve had worse.” You shrug. The way he’s looking at you dulls the sting of the cut, and the tired ache in your bones shifts and reshapes into a simmering itch that needs scratching.

“You gonna be okay?” he asks, pointing over your shoulder toward your door. The implication of you being alone goes unsaid.

“I’ll be fine,” you say, trying not to roll your eyes. “But maybe you want to come in? Have a coffee or something, distract me a little longer so I don’t freak out too much?”

He smiles, wetting his lips. He knows that’s not what you're asking, and you wonder how often the offer of ‘coffee or something’ has been used successfully on him. He looks down at his shuffling feet, heaving a sigh. “I should get back.” 

The hesitation is clear, yet he doesn’t move. A surge of adrenaline spreads through you, and your heart rate increases. When he looks up, catching your eyes, the intensity of the long, loaded pause is enough to make you wonder, if monsters exist, then maybe that electricity everyone talks about is real, too, because it feels like if you touch your hand to Dean’s face, sparks will fly.

“Thanks again for the save today,” he whispers.

“Anytime,” you smile. 

You don’t know who moves first, but suddenly you're as one, mouths connected, exploring the other’s, hands groping and gripping, and your lip stings for a split second, but then Dean has you pinned against your door, and you forget about it.

He pulls away and kisses your neck, “Maybe,” he says, scraping his teeth against your jaw, “we should take this inside.”

Your arrangement with Dean works. No pressure, no expectations. Summer comes, and winter fades, but your relationship remains mutually beneficial. 

He rolls through Sioux Falls, that charming smile - that you’re not sure he knows quite how charming it is - “passing through,” but he stays a few days. He always claims it’s to catch up with Jody and the girls, but he spends most of his time at your place, and it’s too coincidental that you’re never on shift or scheduled for a few days when Baby pulls up outside.

Jody insists she has nothing to do with it. Yes, she's the sheriff, yes, she’s your boss, and makes the rotas, but “The only thing I swing is that I get to work with you,” she’d promised, winking. And you love her for that. Some of the men are still stuck in the past, and though they don’t say it, you can tell they don’t think women can do the job.

If only they knew. You’ve helped on a few hunts now. There’s no doubt in your mind that your relationship with Dean wouldn’t be what it is if you didn’t know about the real evils of the world. But each hunt ended the same: a dead monster and your body beneath Dean’s. 

You're in your room lacing up your little white summer pumps when the Impala’s engine announces his arrival.

You jump to your feet, quickly check yourself in your mirror, smoothing down the already smooth summer dress, and call out, “It’s open,” when his knock echoes around the house.

“Wow, look at you,” he says, freezing partway over the threshold to admire you as you bounce down the stairs.

You deliver your usual greeting, a swift kiss to his lips, and the unmistakable aroma of leather and cheap motel soap assaults your senses - damn, you’ve missed him - but you won’t say it. Instead, you show it, making the kiss deeper.

He shuffles inside, uses your hips to steady himself as he kicks the door closed, and then wraps his arms around your waist to hold you tightly against him. 

Your phone rings, and you fumble to find it on the table by the door, but as soon as you do, Dean releases you, kissing your neck and collarbone. 

“Hey, hi,” you answer. 

“Hey babe,” your best friend sings, and you know it's because she needs something. “Can you grab some ice on your way over?” 

“Yeah, sure, okay.” 

“You okay?” 

No. Yes.

Dean is kneading your breasts, nibbling on the skin that spills out the top of your sundress. “Yeah, just rushing, I’m running late.” 

“So late,” he mumbles into your skin.

“Well, hurry more,” she says before hanging up.

“Oh fuck, Dean, you gotta stop,” you whine. 

He groans, dulling the sting of his bite with a sweet kiss, and pulls back to look at you. “This a bad time, isn’t it?”

You nod, feeling as disappointed as he looks. “It’s my friend's birthday. She’s having a barbeque.” 

He sighs, leaning his head on your shoulder and mumbling into your neck. “Damn it.” 

“I have to at least show my face,” you say, using your hands on his cheeks to pull his head up to look into his eyes. “But you can stay here, take a shower, watch a movie or something, and maybe in a couple of hours, I get a headache and need to come home.” 

Wetting his lips, he smirks before delivering a brief kiss. “Or,” he draws out the syllable, mild hesitation clear in his eyes, “Maybe I can come with you?”

Since Chuck is no longer an issue, Dean has been making an effort to live in the moment, opening himself up, if only a little. So you try to quell the shock of his suggestion. It quickly evolves to a pleased grin when your mind flashes to your friends' faces when you walk in with the infamous Dean. They will lose their shit. You like spending time with Dean but don’t want to cross any lines or make assumptions. “I’d like that,” you smile, “but you really don’t have to.”

“I’m sure I can survive a couple hours with your friends, and you know I can always eat.”

“Okay,” you nod, smile widening. “If you’re sure.” 

He kisses you again, a simple but effective peck on your lips. “But maybe we both get a headache in a couple of hours.” 

“Deal,” you agree, sealing it with another casual kiss. “Maybe lose a few layers. It’s summer.”

He laughs, shrugging off his jacket. “I’m sure I have a clean Fed shirt in the trunk.”

“Perfect,” you say, grabbing your bag and keys. “Want me to drive?” 

He rolls his eyes, jesting, “Did that kiss fry your brain?” as he follows you out the front door.

He opens the passenger door for you, and before you slip inside, you tell him, “Oh, and whatever my friends say I’ve said about you, it’s all lies.”

He grins smugly, “Oh, this is going to be fun.”

The shower has done wonders for your developing hangover. Your friend's barbecue lasted longer than you had anticipated, but the day couldn’t have gone better. 

Dean fit in well with everyone and crushed it at beer pong. It was a success all around, and when you’d quietly asked if he wanted to leave, he’d said no, that he was having too much fun.

The fun continued when you got home, and Dean is undoubtedly still feeling the effects as well. It’s almost midday, and he’s still sound asleep in your bed when you enter your bedroom in clean sweats and your bra while you towel dry your hair. 

Dean is lying on his stomach, with his face smushed adorably against the pillow he’s hugging, taking advantage of all the space now that you’ve vacated.

You crawl across the bed, leaning over him, and he still doesn’t stir. You put your lips close to his ear and half whisper, “Morning.”

His brow instantly creases, and he squeezes his eyes tighter, groaning, “No, no, you have to go away.” 

“You gotta get up. It’s almost midday.”

“Nuh-uh,” he grumbles, eyes still squeezed shut. “You have to take your horrible talking, talky mouth away from me.” 

“Okay, you asked for it.” You laugh, sitting back and wringing your hair out so the excess water drips on his naked back.

“Ah,” he groans, arching up off the mattress.

You jump off the bed, laughing as you walk to the mirror to start doing your hair. Turning over, he rubs a hand over his face and then both through his hair, causing it to stick up adorably. He catches you staring in the mirror, and you quickly avert your eyes. 

“Damn, your friends can drink,” he says, sitting up against the headboard. 

You laugh, that’s an understatement. “They definitely know how to have fun.” 

“They seem like a good bunch.” 

“They liked you too,” you smile at his reflection, and he grins back. “Laura told me to invite you to her and Chris’ wedding.”

His expression shifts, staring off into the distance for a singular moment as if he’s imagining how that would play out. But as quickly as it appears, it drops when he scrubs a hand down his face to put the mask back on. “That’s cool, but I can’t make that kind of commitment.” He swings his legs off the bed, putting his back to you. “I don’t know where I’ll be.”

You hadn’t expected a solid answer, but the double meaning behind his words settles thick disappointment in your stomach. You’ve never asked for any commitment nor discussed the arrangement between you, but hearing him say it aloud singes the hope you always try to contain.

Dean quickly gets to his feet, swaying at the abruptness. “I’m gonna grab a shower.” He mumbles, avoiding eye contact as he heads to the bathroom.

It’s been less than ten minutes, and you’re sitting at the kitchen table, scrolling through your phone, when he finds the courage to face you again. He’s talking to Sam on his phone, obnoxiously loud, as he descends the stairs, trying to make a point of his hasty need to depart.

He appears in the kitchen doorway, jacket in hand, hair dripping onto the shoulders of his henley. You guess you should be grateful he wasn’t cowardly enough to have just shouted goodbye from the door. 

“Listen, I’m sorry about before.” He moves closer to the table, eyeing you as he raps his knuckles on the polished wood. “It’s just that, even with Chuck out of the picture, I’m not sure how things are going to play out. I can’t make any, uh, long-term commitments. Sam and-“

“I get it, Dean.” The last thing you want is any tension between you, so you nip the growing uncomfortableness. “We don’t need to have any awkward conversations.”

He bobs his head, hope swimming in his eyes. “So, we’re good?”

You take your mug to the sink, and once your back is to him, you say, “Yeah, we’re good.”

“You sure?” You didn’t hear him move, but the air shifts behind you, bringing his warmth along with it.

Plastering on a smile, you turn to face him and nod. “Take care of yourself.”

The corner of his mouth curls upward, and he kisses your forehead before heading to the door, “Talk to you soon,” he calls before the door clicks shut.

Fools rush in. Dean is no fool. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel like being one sometimes. Usually, it’s when he’s on the road, heading home from a hunt or supply run, he daydreams about how things could be with you. 

The daydream isn’t much different from how things already are. The sex would just be coupled with more official dates – dinner, movies, watching him, which for some reason turns you on, ‘do his thing’ as you call it when he’s hustling suckers at pool. Hell, even grocery shopping. He’d sneak unhealthy snacks into the cart because you promised Sam you’d take care of him, and you would. Dean knows you’d be good to him, that you are good for him. But he’s lived that life. He doesn’t need a wake-up call to know how it ends.

It’s a nice daydream. It gives him a much-needed boost of serotonin when he’s in short supply. But like the gas that fuels Baby, the thought has vaporized by the time he shuts off the engine.

Chuck isn’t calling the shots anymore, but that doesn’t mean the big bads aren’t still gunning for the Winchester's demise. Sam has it all figured out with Eileen, and Dean wishes he could be as sure about what he wants life to look like now. But he can’t be sure of anything, at least not yet. He’s still working on adjusting to a life not consumed by hunting. Trying to come to terms with the fact that there isn’t something lurking around every corner, that the choices he makes – good and bad – are truly his and not fueled by some life-ending curveball Chuck tosses at them. 

The doubts bore deeper, and as always, when he’s drowning in his own head, he thinks of you.

He remembers how you busted down the door with borrowed equipment from Sioux Falls. You’d looked frantic but still in control. Your mere presence had calmed him, and not because you were there to rescue him. You didn’t waste a breath with a witty comment like he would have. You let off two shots, dropped the ghoul about to take a chunk out of him, and then untied him.

You’d been cool and calm, checked him for injuries, but didn’t believe he was truly okay till he kissed you breathless. That adrenaline-filled, kiss-swollen lips, slightly frantic edge to your eyes, is the picture he conjures whenever he thinks of you. 

It’s been a while since he’s seen you. You’ve exchanged a few calls, but now that his mind is stuck on that picture of you, he has to see you.

He shoots Sam a text, telling him he’ll be in Sioux Falls if Sam needs anything, and then pulls an illegal u-turn to put himself in your direction. 

Dean’s not phased that you aren’t home when he shows up. It’s not like he called ahead. He never does. But now that he’s here, he doesn’t want to waste time tracking you down, so he calls. 

“Hey,” you greet brightly.

The smile in your voice brings out his. “Hey, yourself. I’m at your door.” 

“Shit, sorry, I’m not there.”

He chuckles, “Are you around, or does my timing suck again?” 

“No, no, it’s kinda perfect, actually,” you say. “I was gonna call you later anyway. But I need a half hour or so.”

“I can wait.” 

“Greasy Sal’s?” you offer. 

He smiles, already salivating at the thought of a Greasy Sal’s cheeseburger. “Throw in some curly fries,” he requests.  

“Okay, got it,” You laugh.

Dean sits on the Impala’s hood while he waits, head tilted toward the sun, eyes closed while he catches the day’s last rays. The sound of your car’s engine isn’t as distinct as Baby’s, but he knows it well enough that as soon as he hears it, he opens his eyes and watches you turn onto the street. It’s not until that moment that he realizes how eager he is to see you. Maybe Greasy Sal’s can wait; he has another hunger he needs to sate.

He waits till you shut off the engine to open your door, “such a gentleman,” you quip, taking his offered hand to step onto the sidewalk. “Or are you clambering for food?” 

“Not what I’m hungry for,” he says, guiding you against your car. He presses himself against you, feeling the coolness of the air conditioning on your clothes. He circles the tip of your nose with his own, whispering, “Hey,” against your lips before claiming them as his own. 

Frustratingly, you push a hand into his chest after the first brush of his tongue, and he pulls back to look at you. You're looking up at him from under hooded eyes, and he feels like his heart skips a beat, or maybe he’s just a little out of breath. But he knows that with you gazing up at him like he’s a beautiful sunset, he really has missed you. 

“Maybe we should take this inside.”

“Absolutely,” he says, slightly impatient that he can’t get you naked then and there.

He walks to the trunk to get your shopping bags and follows you up the path. He has a bag packed with his essentials but never brings it inside until the next morning. Something about bringing it in before you’ve had sex seems presumptuous, which is crazy because, as per the arrangement, that’s exactly what he’s here for.

“It’s good to see you,” you say, entering your kitchen with him close on your tail.

“Yeah, you too.” He genuinely means it. It’s like things fall into place when he’s around you. 

“How’s Sam?”

“He’s good,” Dean explains, placing the grocery bags on the countertop. “He’s taken Eileen away for a couple days.” 

“Good for them.” 

You unpack the groceries and take a beer from the fridge; as always, it's his favorite brand. Though he never warns you of his pending arrival there is always a supply cooling in the refrigerator and his favorite snacks in the cupboards. 

He takes the open bottle from you, leaning in to deliver another kiss, but you turn to grab more groceries, and he realizes it's a not-so-stealthy way to give him your cheek.

It seems to be the day of revelations because he’s super aware of how easily you flow around each other in the small kitchen. Dean plates up the burgers, grabbing another beer for you from the fridge, and he’s surprised to see that it’s the only one left. That, coupled with the kiss avoidance, gives him pause. Something’s wrong. 

You sit at the table and take a large gulp of the beer. “You okay?” he asks once you’ve swallowed the beer and the nervousness you're exuding. “You seem a little…off.” 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” you say, then inhale deeply before adding, “Actually, no, I’m not. We need to talk. And I hate how cliche that sounds, but I don’t know how else to bring it up, and I don’t want to get all emotional on you, but I need to tell you something.”

He feels the panic fizz in his gut. You can’t be pregnant. He's seen you take birth control, and he uses protection every time. So it can only be one thing …you're about to ruin everything.

You're going to utter those three words, and it's going to be the death blow to all the good stuff between you. 

He takes a swig of his beer, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Please don’t,” he begs, looking you dead square in the eyes. “What we’ve got going on is good, we’re good…” 

“Dean, I …” you try, but he holds a hand up to cut you off.

“Don’t say it.” he pushes his chair back and rubs his hands on his thighs, palms suddenly sweaty. “I like what we have. It works, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t look forward to it or that I don’t miss you. But I just got back a little peace of mind and…” he pauses, clearly searching for the right word, “caring about someone…” he shakes his head, reaching to wrap his hand around his beer bottle. “...Loving me, even with Chuck gone, it doesn’t make it any less of a death sentence. So please don’t say it.”

You reach across the table for his hand, clenched around his beer, but he’s quick to pull back. “Dean,” you choke out, the remorse you feel slipping from your eyes in a single tear. “I’ve met someone.” 

He stares at you, mouth agape, not sure that he heard you correctly. 

“It’s still new,” you continue, rushing to explain as your tears spill. “But it’s going somewhere. Somewhere great, and I don’t want to mess it up.”

Of course, you haven’t been sitting at home waiting for his sporadic visits. You’ve been out living your life as you should be. The possibility of meeting someone else, someone you could say those three words to, and it be a life sentence and not a death sentence, had occurred to him more than once. It poked at him like a swarming gnat, knowing you deserved to find someone better than him, but selfishly, he swatted at it until it went away. 

He’s holding his breath and will get light-headed soon if he doesn’t find the ability to breathe again. 

“Dean,” you coax, “say something.”

He feels as if you’d blindsided him, come out of the left field, and taken his legs out from under him. Now he’s on his back, the wind knocked out of him, and waiting for the feeling in his limbs to return. 

Abruptly he stands. He sees the panic in your eyes and knows what’s coming. As you plead, “Don’t leave,” he says, “I gotta go.”

He strides quickly toward the door. You call his name as he goes, but he doesn’t stop. 

He rushes out your front door, leaves it open, and as he reaches Baby, he has a singular moment of wondering what will hurt the least - holding on or letting go.

“Dean, please,” you call from the door. 

He slides behind the wheel, deciding to let go.

Part 2 - The Right Guy On Paper.

Tags info

/ @alexxavicry / @b3autyfuldisast3r / @deandreamernp / @deanwinchesterswitch / @fandom-princess-forevermore / @foxyjwls007 / @jc-winchester / @justagirlinafandomworld / @katbratsupernaturalwhore / @leigh70 / @letsbys-library / @lyarr24 / @mrswhozeewhatsis / @nancymcl / @shanimallina87 / @stoneyggirl2 / @waywardbaby / @wildbornsiren / @writercole / @dean-winchester-is-a-warrior / @pank0w / @kmc1989/ @deans-spinster-witch / @spnbaby-67 / @roseblue373

Master Lists: JAcklesVerseBingo / Dean Winchester / Main

[moonlightsapphic]

thoughts on xo, kitty:

i had the time of my life getting straightbaited in s1, loved it and very much believed it was set up beautifully for a kittyuri ending

i once again had the time of my life getting straightbaited by the s2 trailer (which had initially dissapointed me), and then once again squealing at kittyuri moments in the actual season lol

god yuri is so hot

god minho is so hot

this show is bisexual propaganda if there ever was any

i have said it before and i will say it again: this is the queer/sapphic teen asian american romcom we want and need! it’s just like the dumb straight shows! WE DESERVE TO GIGGLE AND CRINGE TOO

i was surprised (but not displeased!) to see a setup for another season rather than an ending with this one. manifesting an easy renewal. (thank u, straight taltbilb fandom, for helping feed the netflix marketing beast for our chaotic bisexual show.) that being said, they could totally have ended it here and idk what the fuck they’re even going to have as a plot for s3.

i have a love/hate relationship with new characters being introduced and the silly plotlines and also the somewhat disjointed dialogues sometimes but it’s also all very endearing lol.

i love the family drama in the show! the execution is lighthearted yes but fellow asian viewers know what i mean. <333

i genuinely don’t know who kitty is going to end up with! but that’s jenny han to you. tsitp would feel the same if the source material didn’t already tell us the ending, too.

i was a kittyuri truther after s1 but now i’m leaning mooncovey just because of how the development/excecution went … and i’m not mad either way lol. all i can tell you is that something viscerally bisexual was happening to me everytime i saw kittyuri on screen in s1 and mooncovey on screen in s2 (with some overlap. screams)

i did feel a little dissapointed to see yuri always chasing what she can’t have this season but really it made a lot of sense and i’m excited to see her development next season.

while yuri has commited many crimes which is what makes her iconic, minho is so babygirl and has never done anything wrong in his life. the shoujo manga/kdrama mooncovey moments were just *chef’s kiss* YES MA’AM GIVE THE VIEWERS WHAT THEY WANT

my girlfriend ships mindae and i think she’s crazy but also i see it, dae is the only one other than kitty that minho could satisfactorily end up with. god i was so mad when i thought they were making an ohio rando his endgame lmaoooo and i was GENUINELY concerned that the kittyuri hate train from mooncovey shippers would descend like bloodthirsty sharks if that happened. praying to god they don’t just push minho or yuri with any ole new character at the end of s3 just to have them not be single. that would be lame. mindae is more than fair game though. 😝 they get into so many fights, it has to mean something … brb getting lost in the gay dae theories …

yuri & dae’s friendship will never grow old to me. i love i love i LOVE

also love it when the characters speak korean amongst themselves, which really drives home how multicultural the show really is. (also it’s hilarious how madison, a literal white girl, speaks better korean than kitty lmao.)

a part of the mooncovey fanbase is very biphobic and lesbophobic and we really need to shame them for it because it’s super annoying. like yeah i know you’re coming from tatbilb which taught you queers exist only in the form of the gay guy best friend for the straight girl protagonist but! jenny han has grown! have you not seen tsitp?! have you also not noticed kitty was never like lara jean?! she wore a mf suit to their dad’s wedding for god’s sake sigh. disrespectfully, if your ship can’t exist without lame excuses on why an alternate ship isn’t as “valid”, then your ship probably isn’t that great in the first place. which is sad, because mooncovey is an awesome ship.

overall a slay. jenny han i know we have a fraught relationship but they could never make me hate you. truly one of the few people in mainstream cishet romcom media that said “actually queer people should be included af because they’re FUN and an underappreciated goldmine!” she also never lets the fandom tell her what to do. you keep doing you, queen!!! i mean it! 💖

[halexxsam]

Mushy May: Day 8 - Subtle Affection

Thanks to @forlorn-crows for mushy may! Calendar here. Divider from @wrathofrats.

words: 895

characters: dewdrop/rain/swiss/phantom/mountain/cirrus/perpetua

The ghouls noticed it a few days after the tour began. Small things left in the bunks from the city they were in. They thought it was one of the roadies or crew members at first, but later it became clear that it was someone on their bus. The ghouls first thought it was Mountain, who always had a knack for sneaking out to go shopping, loving to explore the food markets in Europe. When the gifts changed from sweets to personalized gifts, the ghouls suspected Phantom, or even Cirrus, but they were just as surprised at the gifts on their bed. On traveling days, they would find their bunk bed all made up, or stripped and their sheets being washed on the small washing machine. It was odd, but loving. 

One night, drinking over a lovely bottle of wine that was left on Mountain’s bed, the ghouls got to talking. 

“I don’t know who it is, but I have been eating all the little snacks I’m left. They are so good! I swear I can’t ever find them again.” Phantom whined out, missing the small piece of walnut chocolate he was left earlier. He had searched the markets for more of it but came up empty handed. 

“Me neither! But I keep on being left funny socks or fresh bandage wraps. I even got a pin to put on my boot.” Dew adds, knocking back his glass, red wine falling slowly from the corner of his mouth. 

“Maybe whoever it is doesn’t want to be found,” Cirrus says, though everyone can tell she wants to know who left a small lavender soap on her bed last night. 

The ghouls sit in peaceful silence, glad another successful show is under their belt. The bus moves along the dark roads of France, onward to Portugal. Perpetua pulls back the curtain and heads towards the lounge, nodding at the pack. 

“Hey, wanna join us?” Swiss asks, raising a spare glass. The human nods, and Phantom quickly makes room, moving onto Mountain’s lap. 

Swiss pours his Papa some wine, watching the man intently as he settles back against the cushions. Unbeknownst to his pack, Swiss quirks an eyebrow, covering the label of the wine from Papa. He watches him take a sip, savoring its taste. “What do you think?”

Perpetua nods, swallowing, his tongue darting out to savor the last of it on his lips. “Beautiful,” he hums, ��a Bordeaux, very nice.” 

At that, Swiss let out a gasp. “You’re the one, aren’t you? Putting things on our bunks, leaving us gifts?”

The whole pack watches as the man blushes, looking down at his lap. His wrist moving still to swirl the wine. He hums out an affirmation. “Thought you guys would never guess.” 

Cirrus is the first one to get over the shock. “Well, thank you, Papa. It is very sweet of you.” 

The man just nods, smiling a bit. “My brother mentioned how you all like gifts, so,” He trails off, finally looking up at him, a nervous look on his face. 

They all nod, looking at each other. “We do, thank you. Can’t really have any possessions in the Pit.” Dew says, a hand digging in his pocket to pull out every single chocolate wrapper that was once left on his bed. 

Papa just laughs at the sight. “I’m glad you all like it. I didn’t know what else to do.” 

At that, Phantom makes a noise. “What do you mean?”

Papa blushes again. “Well, my brother told me about how he was with all of you. But I know I’m new, and different, and you are missing another ghoul this time around. So I didn’t want to impose anything.” 

Rain finally makes himself known, smiling devilishly. “Oh, is that right? Does our Papa want something?”

The man in question makes an odd noise, almost like he choked on his spit. “You are all very beautiful, you must know.” 

They all laugh, grins adorning their faces. Swiss moved closer to him, placing a warm hand on his knee. The man jumped slightly. “You know, Papa, you can be close to us and touch us, we are your ghouls, after all.” 

“I didn’t want to assume anything. I wanted you all to come to me when you were ready, if you ever were going to be.” He admits, a hand coming up to Swiss’, holding it softly. 

Rain flashed his eyes, his water ghoul siren blue coming out. His gills fluttered, tail coming up to play with the belt on his Papa’s waist. “You should come to the dressing rooms before the show tomorrow.” 

“Oh, okay. Do you need help with anything?” Papa asked innocently, taking the change in subject as an end to the previous conversation. 

Rain just nodded, his tails beginning to touch at the soft skin of the man’s hip. “Yeah, I think we all do. We have a part of our costume that is quite hard to get on, actually.” 

Dew laughed, his head falling back against the cushions, his second glass of wine sloshing at the movement. Rain moved from his seat, finding home in Dew’s lap, a hand moving up to his bare neck and taking hold. Dewdrop just whined, pressing into the hold. 

“Want you to put our collars on for us.” Rain smiled, “Dew likes his real tight.” 

[dream-thief-forever-amen]

I love that the “hero” is still the absolute worst in season 2.

Let us explore the evidence.

Spoilers below:

1. Does not get on the plane to be a father to his child… his supposed motivation to earn money in the first place. Even when he has billions. In fact he’s become even more distant and unreliable, not even communicating with her any longer.

2. Promises to care for that girl’s younger brother but dumps him off on an old woman without explanation and a bag of cash. Continues to watch this old woman raise this random kid while working her old bones off in an outdoor market. Just like he watched his own mother work herself to death to care for his fully grown butt.

3. Does not use his considerable fortune to get the kid’s mom out of North Korea - just does the bare minimum with one broker.

4. Hoards his wealth to pursue his private obsession. Spends two years wasting away in his private hobby hotel and still does not have a solid plan or even good ideas about how to handle the murder island - and has not attempted to outsource this large problem to others better equipped to solve it.

5. Still has not realized the old man’s gamble at the end of season one with the homeless man only required that HE go down and help the dude or go down and get someone else to work with him to help the dude instead of just watching and hoping something would happen (This is arguably the theme of the show).

6. Gets back into the game but does not tell a single soul it’s a murder machine until AFTER they have all signed up, been photographed, and marched onto the field to be slaughtered.

7. Did not check in on or help his friend from season one, even though they were still in the same city and his friend was struggling. Now that poor sod is also in the game.

8. Doesn’t make his impassioned speech to convince others not to continue the game after round one - nope, not until over half have already voted and his own side is losing.

9. When the majority votes to continue the game, he makes no attempt to try to reason with or plead with those who voted to stay, even though they only lost by a narrow margin. The entire group stays divided and refuses to work together. Ironically it is two characters from the other, majority side who make a point to reach out to him. One of them shares his personal story of why he voted the way he did - swaying hearts and minds - which is ironically what our “hero” should have done. Except he doesn’t have a sad story of circumstances - he is the sad story.

10. Later our male lead finally thinks it’s time to perhaps attempt to sway some hearts and minds and is instantly talked out of it cause it might stir up trouble… in the murder game… the irony…

11. The completely haphazard plan to take over the facility by disarming the uniformed guards. Even though he knew they were outnumbered, there is surveillance everywhere, and he had zero plan of what to do next. Leaving the majority of his “team” to fend for themselves (and be murdered) while he secured the strongest among them to hide in wait.

HE IS THE WORST.

Is it a case of being your own worst enemy, of mental illness, of selfishness, stupidity? Is it soupical tendencies born from disappointments? Is it just in our DNA?

I don’t know. But I do think this show has gone to great lengths to show us repeatedly that the male lead is someone who doesn’t know how to care for others.

His sweet daughter loves him dearly but you could already see she was old enough to be disappointed in him. There was pity there too.

Money can’t change your bad habits or your crap personality.

This man didn’t even invest his money so that at least the interest could fund a few orphanages or homeless shelters in perpetuity. Nope, he’s got it sitting around on a mattress.

I also find it interesting how many older women are still trying to raise fully grown men in this show. The male lead’s mom. The mother of his dead friend who our male lead tosses another son onto. The mom contestant in season 2. There’s too many for it not to be commentary.

I’m glad we have shows like this though. Cause there are no easy answers. This island is just a symptom of a larger problem, one that can’t be fought alone. It will take many heads coming together to even start to unravel the mess we are in.

Anyways… looking forward to the finale. I would not be surprised if our lead male becomes a new commander of the games at the end.

[jisokai]

You always thought the circus was where you yearned to be. At least, until it finally let you in—and introduced you to Hanta Sero.

[circus AU where seamstress!reader and acrobat!sero realize that their lives have been running parallel for a long time, and it’s up to you to weave them together]

part 5: but yours is my guide.

sero hanta x reader ch 5/6 | 22.3k words | masterlist | ao3

cw: more smut but it's very mild and also emotional, depictions of racism & microaggressions notes: meteor shower by owl city, walking in the wind by one direction

sero fell first; sero fell harder.

(my long overdue character study)

✰.

“Perhaps we know each other in the future and you’re only remembering backward.”

- Heartless, by Marissa Meyer

Sero is occasionally struck by a feeling he can’t describe. 

At first it occurs because he is a child, not yet able to translate his experiences into words: discomfort, elation, anger, sadness, amusement—they all strike him in various ways, pulling at his chest or his stomach or his skin. He reacts as anyone without a proper vocabulary would, with cries and frowns or grins and laughs. As he grows he learns their labels, remembers how they feel, accepts them and moves on. He learns how to share them with others. He knows that some will never be named, existing only as a cluster of sensations in his body—but that’s okay; he doesn’t always need to know.

However, there’s one in particular that he can never move on from.

It’s a recurring feeling—a special intensity that festers in his chest and radiates through his entire body, all the way to the tips of his fingers and toes—and yet with each visit he finds himself still baffled, still incapable of explaining it to anyone else. He thinks perhaps it’s too special to share, meant for him only, to chase and understand on his own terms.

The first time it strikes him is after he’s gifted a book from his oldest tío for his fifth birthday. Mamá suggests they read it together, since it’s targeted for a couple grades above. For the next few weeks they sit in the evenings and take turns sounding out the paragraphs, mamá helping him through the big words he learns on the spot. Those nights are warm, tender in her lap as they sway in a hammock through the late summer air—cradled by the buzzing of insects and distant howling of monkeys.

There in mamá’s arms is where Hanta meets Santi, Marco, and something burrowing deep deep inside his heart. It’s too much, like something standing over him that he can’t comprehend the size of, making him feel impossibly small, nearly nothing. Nearly dissolved from existence, and therefore everything.

It scares him, sends panic through his chest that he’s never felt before. All he can do is burst into tears. His mother stops reading, closing the book to ask Hanta what’s wrong.

He cries harder.

The second time he meets this terrifying emotion, is when his eyes first land on you.

“Hanta!” 

Early December in Ecuador is warm. The sky is clear in Quito, bright blue looming above with a light breeze rolling in, pushing fluffy clouds out of view. They disappear behind the buildings lining the streets, tall and towering over hot pavement, heat that seeps through the soles of Hanta’s thin sandals. He runs towards the street from the sidewalk, into the crowd of bodies, a smattering of colors from umbrellas raised to block the glare of the sun.

He’s suddenly yanked back, shirt bunched in the tight fist of his father. When he’s turned around, back towards the sidewalk, mamá’s hand slips into his.

“Don’t run off like that,” his father says gruffly, every syllable of Japanese roughly punctuated. Hanta nods beneath his gaze, grin not discouraged in the slightest.

The three of them shuffle along, trailing one of his tíos—mamá’s brother—who encouraged them to come spend the weekend at his place to catch parades and markets. It’s Hanta’s first time walking through the capital on his own legs, only knowing the jungle and ocean in the east for the first years of his life. He’s exhilarated to be surrounded by so many people, to see characters strutting through the streets beating drums or twirling in skirts. He gravitates towards it, wants to be part of it too.

But Hanta is five, and after two hours and four llapingachos, he’s on the verge of tears, head fuzzy from the noise and body slumped with exhaustion. He watches the performers with a pout and furrowed brow, admiration turned to jealousy the longer he’s forced to watch—only to watch. Mamá’s grip is stern over his hand, and his legs couldn’t carry him through the parade even if he managed to get there. Wetness pools under his irises, dancers smearing into blobs of white and red against the canvas of grey pavement.

He presses his face into the folds of mamá’s skirt, a soft yellow fabric that blots the water from his lashes. He grasps the cotton, almost ready to tug and whine for home. Then her leg shifts, hand landing against his back to press him close as she takes another step towards the street, and he calms for a second, her touch a balm to his irritation.

He leans with her as she cranes to get a better view, his small frame able to peek through the openings between people and see further down the road. The sight dams his emotions, walled by a newfound curiosity when he sees a group of feathered performers. His hands tighten, gripping the skirt as he waits for the figures to come closer. It’s a small group, only eight or so people in a practiced choreography. He’s able to make out some of the costumes—a parrot and a blue macaw, and what he assumes is a toucan.

The toucan grabs his attention: a small figure wrapped in black, the darkest of the birds. Another child, like him. You’re not the only kid—there’s an even smaller figure dressed in brown and red—but you’re the only dancer moving with nervous motions, or maybe half-hearted ones. You’re watching your abuela’s movements, as if copying them on the spot while you shuffle and wave your arms.

You’re nervous, but you’re out on the street, at the center of everyone’s—his—attention.

His stomach clenches in secondary nerves, rooting for you, hoping you can finish the performance cleanly. Suddenly you spin, arms circling above you and in sync with everyone else, and your gaze tears away from your grandmother. Instead you tilt your head back, face to the sun and fully exposed now that the beak is pulled away. You look excited, at ease.

When you complete the twirl, you’re a different person. A grin splits your face and you move with confident steps in tune with the pounding drums walking behind you. Hanta blinks, stomach unclenching while a new constriction grabs in his chest—one that reminds him of the feeling he has when he tells someone I miss you. His feet itch at the soles, begging to run forwards.

Your head turns, eyes meeting his. His breath catches, taken aback by your intensity. You’re both small in this crowd, less than half the height of everyone else, but under your gaze you’re the only two on this street—the only two in the entire world. 

Your hand drifts up to offer a small wave. Hanta inhales, pressing into mamá for just a second before he uncurls one fist and waves back. You smile, wide, and he—

He feels that intense, overwhelming feeling that still has no name. It floods his system without warning, seeping through his heart and stomach and limbs. It’s terrifying, shocking enough to freeze his body as he tries to figure out if he’s dissolving or expanding. It’s neither; it’s both.

And then you’re out of his view, passing further down the pavement to be obscured by the leg of a stranger. Hanta panics, jerking from his mother as he yearns to steal another look, and maybe your attention for one more second. He hears his mother’s voice, a confused call of his name as she reaches to stop him—for the second time that day. The restriction blooms a lump in his throat, heart galloping as he strains against her hold, face stinging with tears as that earlier overstimulation unpauses.

He cries, this time wailing with a face twisted in anger and pain and fear.

Hanta doesn’t see another Fiestas de Quito. The following December he’s in Japan, wrapping up the second term of first grade in Musutafu. Mamá agrees with otōsan that he should receive a Japanese education, where the schools are more competitive.

Hanta’s been to Japan before, on holiday to see his father’s side of the family. He knows festivals and shrines and how to wrap his own kimono just as well as any elementary schooler. Ojiisan and obāchan, his fathers parents, are always kind, their wrinkled hands spoiling him with sliced fruit and new linens. Sometimes his cousins visit, but they’re older than him—old enough that he has to crane his neck to make eye contact. Still, they’ll read with him sometimes, sounding the kanji he doesn’t know. One likes to do crafts, so they fold paper squares and string lanterns together when his parents leave for a nice dinner.

But school here is different. He’s no longer Hanta. In school he becomes Sero-san, an extension of his family—his father.

He’s different from most of the kids in his class, but only slightly. A girl compliments his eyes, the crease in the inner corner that makes them open wide, and the long lashes that frame them. A boy asks him why his parents let him go in the sun so much, pressing his arm against his to compare their skin tones, Hanta’s warmer and darker and speckled from days outside. The boy warns him about wrinkles and dark spots. At lunch the students ogle at his bento, asking about the beans next to his rice, and why his fish smells like that.

Hanta doesn’t mind the changes and the questions too much. He takes the comments in stride, not always able to read between the lines. He answers the best he can, and he moves on.

But sometimes the comments strike him. They hit a softness in his heart, bruises that he wants to curl inwards to shield.

“Sero-san, you shouldn’t ask things like that,” the class representative scolds.

Hanta frowns in confusion. “What? It’s just a question.” He probed about a classmate's mother—if she works at the conbini by his place. Mamá told him about it yesterday.

The girl—and alleged victim of his rudeness—watches him with a grimace. Is she embarrassed?

Another girl chimes in, with nicely curled hair. “Hey! He’s not from here, remember? Maybe he doesn’t know that it’s wrong yet.”

He frowns. What?

“Yeah, he’s just a foreigner.”

The comment is a punch to his stomach, leaving him breathless and nauseous. A foreigner? A gaijin: a word said with a particular tone, a connotation of annoyance. People who shouldn’t be here, inconveniences that clog the orderly busy cities.

“I’m Japanese,” he retorts. “My otōsan is from here. I—I’m speaking Japanese!”

Curly hair rolls her eyes. “Yeah, but you’re not really Japanese. You’re from Ecuador.”

Hanta has never had his identity pitted against itself like this before. In Sudamerica, the most he gets is a curious question, usually easily explained when he says his dad’s from Japan. Here it’s always side eyes, a whisper to a friend, never a confrontation, always something lingering around him unspoken. The questions and comments dancing around the topic of where he’s from, his eyes and his skin and his advantage in English class.

Hanta doesn’t know what to do.

So he does what he’s learned is failsafe for any situation. He turns to the first girl involved—his victim—and he bows at the hip, a flat apology on his tongue. It does the trick, like he knew it would, and he leaves to sit at his desk. 

That night in his room, under a brightly striped duvet, he frowns while staring at the ceiling. He longs for misty evenings and howling monkeys, and then he scowls at himself for his yearning—another reason his peers see him as different, not even as a hāfu—half japanese—but a gaijin. A foreigner entirely. An alien. He shifts, turning on his shoulder with sigh. Now he’s facing his bookshelf, the spine of his favorite book staring back at him. His face crumples, and he turns to lay on his opposite side.

He decides to bite his tongue moving forwards.

It only lasts a week.

The next time he gets scolded, it’s for speaking his mind unprompted, annoyed by another passing comment about his lunch. He can admit it was harsh, but the edge to his voice was compensation for the lack of reaction he gave comments earlier in the week. The boy across from him makes a face of surprise and then annoyance, and Hanta’s chest bubbles with an irritation he doesn’t feel often. In this moment he decides it’s even an Ecuadorian thing, this need to respond to people’s behavior when he doesn’t want to hear it. It’s a Sero-san thing. A Hanta thing.

Aside from the cultural tensions, he adjusts fairly easily, life pushed forwards by assignments and expectations. Sometimes he misses the ocean and the rainforest, but he sees them on holiday, and for most of summer break. In the meantime he searches for peace between his two worlds, split across the vastness of the Pacific. He finds it through that little black book tío gave him last year.

He doesn’t make it to another Fiestas de Quito, but you never leave his mind. On especially melancholy nights, when the cicadas buzz in sync through his window, he opens the spine under warm lamplight and whispers the story to himself. It takes him back, momentarily, to the warmth of Sudamerica and the starry sky of the remote coast. A faint brush of that overwhelming feeling sweeps over him in microdoses.

When he reads he thinks of you, wrapped in night-dark fabric that frames piercing eyes—only piercing for a moment between uncertainty and glee. He finds that when he reads, he reads from Santi’s view, Marco’s figure in the pond taking your eyes and smile. When Santi stretches the stars and weaves them together to pull himself through, Hanta feels that Marco’s touch is cool, like the water he lives in. He imagines Marco’s world is full of birds and bright colors, an adventure of flight and magic and memories.

He wonders if he’ll ever get to see you again.

That feeling carries him forwards, a compass through life. It leads him to the dancing club, where he starts to learn the boundaries of his own body. At the start of middle school he sees an advertisement for a circus show, flashing on the wall of the large department store his grandparents take him on weekends. His eyes turn to saucers, heart racing at the three figures on the screen—in sparkling bird costumes. He tugs at obāchan’s hand, begging to go, saying with his wide eyes that he doesn’t want any clothes or shoes or toys. He just wants to see that.

Grandparents cave in easily, discipline leaving them when the child isn’t their own. So they agree, buying the clothes and shoes and toys too. When a few weekends pass, he sits starry-eyed in his seat at the story before him, the closest thing to magic he’s ever seen. For a few minutes, long silks fall from the ceiling, a white fabric that turns purple under the darklight, and that gut wrenching, full force, overwhelming feeling slams straight into his chest.

Grandparents cave in easily, so when Hanta asks to start lessons and his dad coldly disagrees, they’re the ones to respond to his teary eyes and sniffles. Obāchan coos and turns to her son sternly, asking why he has to be so harsh to a child. They argue, above Hanta, as he sits sadly and quietly. Mamá takes him to the kitchen and peels a mandarin to help calm him down, placing the little slices in his palm. They’re tangy, flavor slightly different from the green-peeled oranges in Ecuador. He likes them a little more.

When ojiisan and obāchan say goodbye, warm hands cup Hanta’s cheeks. Obāchan leans to say goodbye with a cheeky smile that Hanta doesn’t feel like returning. 

The next weekend he’s still subdued, quiet when the grandparents drop by. They tell him to get in the car, but Hanta doesn’t want to go out today. He says he doesn’t want anything, that he’d rather stay at home and read or fold those little paper cranes. Ojiisan smiles, and says they’re going somewhere new—a surprise.

It’s a half hour drive, to a building that looks like a warehouse on the outskirts of the city. Hanta frowns in confusion, from the car to the bare, grey front. Ojiisan pulls him along by the hand, gently pushing the door so Hanta can enter first. There’s a person standing behind a counter, adjacent to a wall of square lockers and a wide doorway to the next room. Through the opening he can see unfinished walls, scaffolding stretching tall, a concrete floor.

Hanta runs forward when his eye catches a tall armature, long metal poles extended at an angle, a small bar at the top where a long length of silk is rigged. Ojiisan laughs at his reaction, a sweet and light sound, hand holding him back from making his way into the other room. Hanta turns to his grandfather, his sweet and wrinkled face, and grins happily. He turns around, small arms wrapping around one of the old man’s legs, face pressing into the outside of his thigh. Hanta feels warm, and small.

The Saturday visits with the grandparents become weekly aerial lessons, easily what Hanta looks forward to the most every week. His teacher—Saeko-sensei—says he’s tall for his age, normally a disadvantage in acrobatics, but he has a head start with his flexibility from the dancing club. She says he’s strong too, likely from his time in the ocean. 

Every Saturday at these lessons, that special feeling returns. He feels at home in the warehouse, surrounded by other acts and students—ranging from his age to mamá’s—but he rarely has the chance to talk to them. The most he gets is a passing hello, or an encouraging compliment from the older crowd. Regardless they liven the space, populate the other props: a spinning lyra, a set of springboards, the bars and blocks of a handstand table, trapeze bars with a net that spans the back of the room. Hanta has the chance to play around on the other acts, but his attention doesn’t hold, returning shortly to the wide strings hanging above the mat. The brush of silk against his fingers and wrists ignites a tingle across his skin. Every movement fans the flames in his chest, both in fear and awe, from suspending himself at heights he’s never known before.

He improves quickly according to Saeko-sensei. He learns how to hold himself securely while stalking up the fabric, and then to wrap himself and unravel. It’s a slow process, only once a week. But Hanta does what he can at home, taking his stretches seriously and practicing wraps with one of mamá’s forgotten scarves.

After a couple months, he exchanges his first words with the other kid his age: a quiet, very Japanese boy. His hair is two different colors, reminding Sero of a candy cane, and a scar marks his face, the deep red of only recent healing. He normally practices with a boy sporting similar features—just no scar and two blue eyes, and hair mixed red and white in a different way—on the springboards, timing their soaring jumps and falls so the other can twist and spin in the air from the momentum. Hanta watches them and wishes he had a partner sometimes, too. He looks up the length of silk and wonders who might be on the other end. If it’s Marco, or the Marco he imagines—who looks like you.It’s only a passing exchange, a sorry when Hanta accidentally bumps into him by the lockers. The boy only grunts in response. Hanta brims with questions, wanting to ask for his name, about his scar, if that other boy is his brother. He’s about to open his mouth, to ask the first question, when he walks away. Hanta deflates.

The boy talks to him eventually. It happens at the start of second year when Hanta’s at the gym for the first time in months, having been in Ecuador for the summer.

“You should quit,” are his first words.

Hanta frowns. “Why?”

“You’re not gonna get good fast enough if you can only come once a week,” he reasons bluntly. Sero blinks at the words, not used to this confrontation in Japan. “You should tell whoever’s making you do this that it’s a waste of time.”

He blinks and tilts his head as he takes in the words. Good? Hanta just wants to do it; there’s no question of whether he’s good or bad. “I like it,” is his only response.

The boy frowns. “You like it?”

Hanta nods happily. “Yeah. Do you not like it?”

Mismatched eyes—one a stormcloud and one the sky—avert from his, looking towards the springboards. “Not really.”

“Oh,” he doesn’t know what to say. “You should try another one, then.”

He shakes his head. “I already have. Springboards are on the weekend but I have to do staff on Monday and Wednesday, and balancing on—”

“You get to practice every day?” Hanta asks, bewildered. And extremely envious, a feeling that claws at his chest and stomach.

But the boy frowns, eyes sharpening into a glare. Hanta thinks he asked too much again. He quiets, jealousy pooling in the silence. No scolding comes his way.

He lets his gaze slip back to the half-colored boy, saying before he can stop himself, “I’m Sero.”

Blue and grey eyes stare intensely, almost piercing right through him. He’s reminded of a gaze shrouded in black, a parade in the clear blue sky on hot pavement. A tingle of that mysterious feeling buzzes in his chest. He thinks it means that he needs to hold onto this boy and keep him close.

“Todoroki.”

Sero grins.

Hanta learns that Todoroki is actually very sweet and a good friend. He just has trouble talking to kids his age, something about his dad never letting him have friends. But he and Hanta talk when they can at practice, small flurries of conversation on break—ones that bring a mutual twinkle to their eyes. Hanta learns that the other boy is Touya, that they’re brothers, and that Shouto wishes they could be normal brothers. Instead they train together, against each other, every day. Touya has more natural talent for the staff, an act Shouto hates. But the older eldest’s body is fragile, and especially can’t handle the other training their dad forces on them. At least, not as well as Shouto can.

Hanta wishes they could hang out after practice like other kids get to do. He wants to have a sleepover, the kind he hears snippets of when he tunes into his peers’ conversations. Instead he brings manga he thinks Shouto would like, for him to enjoy in secret. They talk about the books quietly and just for minutes each practice, but Hanta thinks it’s enough.

And when Shouto gives his volume back one day with a timid and unexpected, “Gracias,” Hanta grins so wide his vision blurs.

It’s enough.

Over a decade later, Hanta has trouble fathoming how his life came to be: here, with Hoshi no Sākasu and ‘Roki and Touya. It’s a commonly asked question—What brought you here?—an easy icebreaker, a way to give common ground to everyone in the show. When Hanta is probed, he doesn’t have an answer. All he can think is that he lived. He lived day to day doing what needed to get done, and then left the rest to that funny feeling in his heart.

“You’re kind of a strange one, huh?” the pink haired girl asks—Mina, he remembers.

The comment feels a little like being in grade school, questions about his eyes and his skin and his lunch. He doesn’t feel strange, he just feels like himself.

Mina trails on before he can say anything. “Good thing you ended up here!” It’s punctuated with a laugh, and that’s the end of it. 

He finds a home in the circus. It’s a place where people embrace making a spectacle of themselves—an outlet for their differences that are also their strengths—all the while charging admission. People are themselves here, not blanketed by social norms and the mainstream. There’s a guy with ashen blond hair who speaks more abrasive than Hanta ever has, yet most responses are laughs or teasing words. And when Sero sighs and makes a return comment before he can stop himself, another blond—bright blond, electric—cackles and slaps his back as if to say good one.

Hanta feels warm with these people, welcomed. 

The circus, however, is also sort of unusual—more magic than it isn’t. The acts people here can pull off are beyond anything he ever thought possible. He squints in disbelief when he hears about the sequences planned, that the main tent only needs a night to be assembled. But he believes in magic, or some principle parallel to it. He learns to trust himself and those around him and their shared vision to make something beautiful, together.

The first show he’s a part of is an adapted retelling of The Tale of Genji. It’s a dramatized, overtly mystified version where the silk aerialists are meant to mimic the swirling strokes of calligraphy, him and Tokoyami strung one in front of the other so when they move, the audience can catch brief moments where kanji is legible through their stacked bodies. Tokoyami asks if it’s actually possible. Hanta just hopes he doesn’t have to hold poses the whole time.

“Man, your style is really something.”

Sero blinks at the words as he untangles himself at the end of a practice session. He turns to Kirishima. “Huh?”

The redhead grins. “It’s like, so different from the typical performances, y’know? Usually it’s about speed or drops or poses, but—dude the way you move is insane.”

He wouldn’t know. There was only one rig at the gym, only one person performing at a time, so all he knew was his own practice sessions. Saeko pushed him when it came to technical skills, the speed and drops and poses he assumes Kirishima alludes to. But when he eventually wrangled rides with Shouto during the week, he would rent the rig without coaching. Most of his time was spent freestyle, learning the intricacies of how the silk and his body could improvise together rather than learning new skills. Shouto calls it a flow, the same thing Touya can achieve with his staff. Sero doesn’t understand the distinction.

Their next show is a story about birds.

When Hanta hears the news he freezes, body and mind on pause while he tries to digest the words. 

“Birds?” he finally croaks out carefully. 

Todoroki remains deadpan at his tone. “Yeah, the animals.”

Hanta splutters, “I know what birds are.”

Todoroki’s face doesn’t change.

He pouts. “I’m just… I guess I’m surprised.”

“It is different from our current show, but it makes sense; we have a lot of aerial acts.” Shouto continues when Hanta doesn’t reply, “They want to include a short opera performance. I think it’s going to be a European-focused tour. Kendou’s talking about commissioning a dress.”

Sero’s used to this, getting the details early from Shouto, since his dad is the lead executive of the company. 

“Kendou proposed commissioning someone else?” He can’t imagine it—she’s normally one of the most protective over the Hoshi no Sākasu identity. 

“No. It was suggested by the marketing team.”

Hanta hums. That makes more sense. Suggestions from the marketing team are orders.

“They plan to put Midoriya on the research team, since he keeps coming to training.”

“Sounds like him.” Their friend is supposed to be on break for the week, for his strained arms. Instead he’s come in extra to train on the springboards. Hanta can sympathize, his daily practices a necessary part of staying sane. “Do you think it’ll work?”

Shouto shakes his head. “He’s going to be tired on top of overtraining, from staying up all night.”

Hanta laughs. He can picture it easily, Midoriya furiously typing and scrolling through articles. It’s a common joke that his roommates on tour are the poor victims of relentless fanboying—whether it’s watching old shows, scrolling through acrobats’ social media, or endless muttering, whoever shares a room with him either has to be a deep sleeper or equally obsessive.

Sero bunked with him once, before understanding he should never do it again. He prefers a quiet space where he can read in silence. Shouto is his usual choice—sometimes they’ll bring the same manga and discuss it in low voices—but he also appreciates the unpredicted peace that comes with sharing a room with Bakugou, or the steady darkness of Tokoyami’s presence when they’re alone. It’s part of the profession—one that forces people closer than comfortable for extended lengths of time—to constantly be confronted by unexpected knowledge of the cast. He’s also sometimes met with surprising information about his already friends—Shouto who happily lays beside Midoriya as they watch performances through the night, adding his own remarks.

Hanta grins as he thinks about his friend—how he’s changed and grown throughout the years. He’s still blunt and honest Shouto, but one who leans easily into his friends, opens up when things are hard. He’s Shouto who pays attention to others, so he can take care of them. He’s Shouto, voice trailing on quietly with unwavering faith in Midoriya, to find a way to make it work in the end.

Hanta is stepping into an early iteration of his costume when Midoriya bursts in. Kendou pulls the zipper up the back as the curly haired boy exclaims, “I think I found someone!”

“Already?” she asks.

Midoriya sets his computer on one of the dressing tables, sifting through a window with endless tabs. 

“I found a designer! Someone who goes by Verde and specializes in opera gowns, but has a background in parade costumes. They’re from Latin America originally, but are now based in Milan—it’s too perfect! They say they’re a huge fan of the circus and take a lot of inspiration from Cirque du Soleil, so their style is suitable. I haven’t found many interviews, but it looks like most of their personal projects are birds. And they’re incredible. The way they use fabric is so interesting, and they’re an expert at sewing—their work is very detailed—”

He flicks through the tabs as he talks, showing works ranging from classy gowns to chaotic costumes. Hanta notices a lot of green. There’s an inexplicable feeling blooming in his chest, familiar.

“Wow Midoriya, you’re really good at this,” Kendou muses.

He grins sheepishly, lifting a hand to rub the back of his reddening neck. “Aha yeah, I got lost in the research. This artist just seems so cool! I think if we contact them soon we could definitely have a chance. They work independently at the moment, so we wouldn’t be fighting a company for their time.”

Midoriya steps aside as Kendou flickers through the tabs, eyes lingering on the costume images. Hanta’s follow, and he can’t help but note that they’re different from what he remembers seeing in Quito. These costumes focus on silhouette, shapes carving through the air in deliberate angles and curves. The details are more particular, and they have a grittiness when you look close, despite reading as regal and opulent from a distance.

When Kendou lands on a social media page, she drags her fingers against the mousepad to look through the posts. It’s primarily a mixture of long gowns and occasional feathered costumes. She clicks on the thumbnail of two birds—one red and one green. The sight causes that tingle in Hanta’s chest and arms to intensify. They look familiar somehow, not just because they’re clearly macaws, but their shapes—or maybe the details ring somewhere in his memory. The caption is in Spanish, and Kendou hits the translate button before he can intervene, roman letters becoming a mix of Hiragana and Kanji.

“Where in Latin America are they from?” he asks.

“Costa Rica.”

Hanta hums, ignoring the stroke of disappointment in his chest.

That disappointment is long gone when only an hour later he’s blinking at Shouto, in surprise and excitement. “You want to read Si Estiramos Estrellas Como Seda?” 

Shouto nods, a curt gesture. “I’d like to make more of an effort to practice my Spanish.” He pauses, mismatched eyes narrowing. “And I’d like to get to know that part of you, even if it’s quite delayed.”

Hanta could cry from the gesture. An earnest grin crosses his face. “‘Roki, that—I really appreciate that, thanks. I’d love to read it with you, I… I love reading that book out loud, with others.”

Shouto only nods in response.

Sero hums. “It’d probably help to practice some more first, so you have the vocabulary. I mean, I can explain as we read, but it’d probably be more enjoyable to not be interrupted so much.” He recalls sitting in mamá’s lap and sounding out the words as a child. “Well, it’ll be fun either way. But we should do it when we have the free time.”

Shouto hums, eyes darting in thought. “What if we waited until the start of the tour? We will have plenty of time while traveling.”

“Oh! That’s a good idea,” Hanta says, brightening. “Are you okay waiting that long? That’s more than half a year out. It’ll be more than enough time for you to practice, though.”

The edges of Shouto’s lips quirk upwards. “It would be most fitting, to read it on tour.”

Hanta recognizes this tone, a playful jab referencing the many late nights before a show flipping through a book he’s read dozens of times. He can’t help reaching for it, safely tucking it in his bag, when Hoshi no Sākasu leaves Japan. It gives him a similar feeling to the circus, of magic and impossibility.

Hanta smiles. His cousins and friends never understood his attachment, why he still clings to the book like a lifeline. Shouto won’t either, most likely, but he and Hanta have been trading books for years—enough to understand each other and how they think about their favorite media. Hanta trusts Shouto with this, to take it seriously and recognize what it means to him. To attempt to genuinely understand him.

For the first time in years, Hanta reads Si Estiramos Estrellas Como Seda aloud—in the Tokyo Haneda airport. He and Shouto sit against the wall, switching readers every few pages. Hanta gets to introduce the story and the setting of Colombia, while Shouto is the one who meets Santi’s family.

“Wait,” Sero stops him after reading the mother’s dialogue. “You aren’t gonna do a little voice for her?”

“Huh?” 

“You know, like make your voice high pitched or something, so we know it’s mamá.”

Red and white eyebrows furrow. “It says who spoke in the text afterwards. Why do I need to do a voice?”

Hanta hums, leaning his head against the wall. “Nevermind, it was just part of the fun when I was a kid.”

Shouto trains his eyes on Sero for another moment before picking up where he left off. The next line of quotes is Santi’s father. He clears his throat before speaking, attempting to lower his voice several pitches.

Hanta immediately bursts into laughter, mostly from surprise. He has to breathe deeply, to calm himself.

“Did I not do it right?”

“Wait no—” another fit of giggles rushes through him. “No, that was pretty good. I didn’t expect that.”

Shouto just nods, and continues with a stern face. Hanta bites down the next fit of laughs that threaten to surface. He relishes this bubbly feeling in his chest as he listens to Shouto read, raising and lowering his voice as he personifies Santi and his family. Hanta feels warm, on the floor of the Tokyo Haneda airport.

Milan is cold, similar to Japan at the beginning of the year. The city has an old, historic feeling, one that deeply contrasts the modern jungle of Tokyo. Half the streets are laid with black cobblestone, patterned in arches, or the scales of a fish. The buildings are ornate, beige and plastered with divots and curls, corinthian columns next to the spires of cathedrals. The language is reminiscent of home in Ecuador, with a slight shift in pronunciation and words that he nearly understands. When he tunes into the conversations of others he can intuit what they’re saying, but he has no idea how to construct his own response.

The show top stands tall the next day and no one bats an eye. The crew runs through the show in full, smoothing out the timing for transitions and props. Shinsou takes Aizawa’s place when he leaves to pick up the costume designer.

Near the end of their session, the producer passes through the curtain, Momo and Kendou trailing behind him. There are several rounds of reactions, cooing and praise as everyone takes in Momo’s appearance. Hanta blinks at the sight, deep red against pale skin, the array of feathers that line the shape of her head. She twirls to show off the mechanics of the dress, that dark fabric lifting to expose bright white beneath.

“Aw! You’re so pretty Momo!” Mina exclaims, running to give her an excited hug.

Hanta doesn’t register the conversation that follows, eyes trained on the ruffles and the beak and the beads sewn into the bust and torso. He hasn’t seen this style of costume before, one uniquely yours, but it makes him feel that special way, tingles all over his body. The way Santi and the parade and Shouto make him feel.

“Where’s the designer?” Shouto’s question jostles him from his thoughts.

“And Midoriya,” Kirishima adds.

Kendou grins. “Lunch! We sent them away.”

“Man, why does Midoriya get to skip all this stuff?” Denki whines, then darts nervous eyes to Aizawa.

“Midoriya deserves his fanboy moment after all his help. Besides, we’re willing to do anything to keep him from straining himself before the show.”

Sero has to reign himself in as he listens to them talk. A tightness clenches his chest and stomach, a mix of jealousy and urgency. Jealousy? He wonders, unsure why he would be envious. It’s a possessive jealousy, one focused on the fact that Midoriya’s with you—where Hanta should be instead. He frowns to himself; what gives him the justification to feel this way? He doesn’t even know you.

But that feeling doesn’t leave him. His eyes trail back to Momo’s dress. He wonders if it has to do with the earlier tingling in his being—at the sight of the gown.

“Fuck this. Why’s mine the most fuckin’ stupid?”

Kaminari laughs, a loud and bubbly sound. His shoulders shake as he wheezes and clutches his stomach. “Who did that? Kendou? God, I hope she gets a raise.”

The angry blond grunts, almost growls as he reaches for the other, hands aiming for Denki’s neck. The movement jostles the ends of his hat, lengths that stretch out around him in floppy cones topped with bells. The jingling probes more laughter, harder laughter, the blond swaying out the way just in time to miss Bakugou’s fists.

“Why’s it so… bright?” Kirishima adds, eyes trailing the saturated green and orange stripes along Bakugou’s hat, the purple on his ruffled collar, the patchwork of his shirt.

“Yeah, and why’d Hanta get an actual color palette?”

Sero frowns in confusion. “It’s just black?”

“Exactly!” Kaminari exclaims. “Kacchan looks like he’s auditioning for Beetlejuice and I look like I drew my clothes out of a hat.”

“I guess he does have a strange mix of clothing styles,” Kirishima muses, eyes trailing from Hanta’s pants to his shirt.

“Everyone shut the fuck up,” Bakugou interjects, pulling the hat from his head and tossing it on the ground. “I’m not fuckin’ wearin’ this. Tell ‘em extras someone else can ‘ave that shit.” He storms off.

“Katuski!” The redhead calls, following dutifully and leaving Kaminari and Sero behind.

The taller grins, watching the redhead try to stop the blond. Denki giggles again, recalling the sight and sound of Bakugou in costume. 

They leave as a pair, bumping into Shouto by the exit. He’s sporting a clown collar similar to Bakugou’s, swallowing his shoulders. It’s topped with a rounded woven hat for rice farming. Kaminari complains that he makes it work—even with the addition of Akado pants, flared at the thighs and wrapped around his calves. Sero invites him to join, but his friend declines in favor of waiting for Touya.

So Denki and Hanta roam the markets together, a pair of clowns in uniform. They mostly wave and smile at curious passersby, and occasionally take a photo or talk about the show starting tomorrow.

“Italians are nice,” Kaminari comments as they turn through another column of stalls. “But kind of intense… and loud.”

Hanta hums noncommittally, eyes trailing tables and shelves with products and food on display. His finger draws along a length of satin, lost in bright turquoise with swirls of yellow. The humming of strings waves through his ears, letting him phase out of the busyness of the festival for a brief moment. When he tunes back to his surroundings, Denki is gone. Hanta glances around unhurriedly, curious to where his friend wandered. Instead of looking for him, he continues down the line of vendors.

He turns through the next row, approaching the rattling of a tambourine, paired with fast notes on the accordion. They hum through the alley of tents, pulling him closer like a tug on his chest. He succumbs happily, gliding towards the open plaza. People walk by, holding street food and drinks and bags, and he weaves through their bodies as best he can. He's stopped for a picture that he happily accepts, crouching to match the height of the older woman. She holds her phone out to take a selfie, and the shake of the camera prompts Sero to take it instead. He holds it further away, steadily and smiling as his eyes return to the screen as he presses the button and—

You. You're standing in his periphery.

Hanta doesn't know how the picture turns out, distracted as he returns the phone and waves goodbye. Instead his eyes float to you: a smear of green in his vision, dancing merrily by the musicians. Your hand is holding a young girl—for a moment he wonders if she's yours—and you're stepping rhythmically from side to side, at a beat that doesn't match the music at all.

The scene lights something inside of his chest—something intense and overwhelming as it radiates down his torso and arms. The costume you're wearing… surely it’s you, the designer for Momo's dress. That bright chartreuse with feathers and swoops of fabric, they’re unmistakable even if he's only seen the glimpses from your social media. And your dancing—he knows that pattern, the forwards and backwards steps of salsa, obvious when paired with the sway of your hips. They only last a moment before you're matching the girl's movements, eventually coming to a still when the song ends. He watches as the kid scurries off, and suddenly he's stalking forwards, entering your path as you take a step and bump into him.

His heart constricts at the proximity, the brush of your bodies in contact, and then it squeezes again when you tell him, “Sorry.”

But that special, indescribable feeling is still there, growing stronger in his chest. He wants to dance with you, to see you move with someone who can match your steps. When he slides against you in the sensual glide of bachata, there are no nerves plaguing his heart—just glee.

Your skin has a chill, the breeze of winter air. But it warms him, ignites fire in the hand clutching yours, prickles of heat raining down his shoulder when you grasp it. He notices your fingers are calloused, a rough bump on your thumb and index finger. The detail makes you feel real. Hanta feels so light he thinks he’ll start floating to the stars. 

You move with him, fluid steps and rolls of your hips. It's perfectly timed, completely in sync despite the syncopation of the music. Your laughter is another instrument, another melody to guide him. Hanta’s warm, alive, in this moment. His hands trail to your shoulders experimentally to see if you’ll catch his signal.

You do.

When you drop into his touch, letting him hold your shoulders while you spin, a spark runs through his chest—a new feeling. This one is a pool in his stomach, a flaming heat that takes over his face. He wants to be closer, to pull you into his chest and run his hand down your spine, slotting your head against his heart and your legs entangled in his own. He wants to hold you there forever.

You laugh again, head tilted to the sky while your mouth splits your face beneath your beak and the black night, and Hanta thinks he’s six again, watching a show that expands the edges of everything he knew, making him feel so small and impossibly infinite all at once. Hanta is six again, watching you bring your head back down and twirl, this time with a hand in yours as it trails to press into your neck. He wants to cup his hand around it and pull you in, to press his face against yours—and maybe even your lips.

It’s you, right? Hanta is new to this desire running through him, but this other feeling… he knows this buzzing, knows it deeply and intimately even if he’ll never be able to name it. He wants to ask you, wants to indulge the many questions bubbling in his throat. Was it you in Quito? Surely—you as the toucan with your dancing and your smile. The words sit there, waiting against his tongue as his body lulls with the music. His heart hammers in his chest, face heating while he fishes for the words. What should he do? What should he say? What should—

“Yo! Hanta!!”

Sero grimaces, eyes begrudgingly tear from you to Denki. His heart skips a beat as it continues to race. You take a step back and he thinks no, no, no. An urgency floods his veins, one that finds himself clutching onto you as you try to part from him. Your face is twisted in confusion and he wants to let everything out somehow. There are no words he can muster, only a silent plea trying to communicate itself through his eyes trained on yours. Can you feel what he feels? Do you understand?

Denki waves him over. He has to go, but he doesn't want to let you go. Not when he feels like he's finally found something he's been unknowingly searching for. 

Not when you’re still looking at him like he’s a stranger.

He holds your hand for one more moment, between both of his as his mind wanders briefly. You’ll be back, he’s sure of it. There’s no need to rush. The night has only started; he can come back to you. His heart hurts when he finally releases your hand.

So he lets you go without asking anything—just a quiet thank you. His eyes bounce back to Denki, the blond waiting with a mirthful grin. Your hand falls to your side, eyes curiously trained on him. Good, he thinks. Please remember me.

When you barely whisper that you’ll see him around, that special feeling grows, blooms from deep within him, compounded by this aching desire. He knows that your paths will cross again.

Denki’s still grinning when Sero finally meets him. “Dude, I did not know you could dance. What the hell!?”

“What? I’ve invited you to social dancing at least ten times.”

The blond pouts. “I didn’t know you were working like that. Can I come next time? Please? Why do you never pull those moves when we go out?”

Sero rolls his eyes. “Because bars and clubs don’t play the right music? What’d you call me for?”

“Oh! We’re rounding up at Satou's stall. Kendou said it’d only be a minute, so you can go back to serenading your stranger.”

While Denki drags him by the wrist, Hanta takes a final look back. He only catches your back, the feathered shoulders and cape-like wings. You don’t turn to meet his gaze.

When the short debriefing with the staff is over and he hurries back to the cluster of musicians, you’ve disappeared.

“Illusion tents?” Momo asks the next morning.

Hanta nods, eyes wide with hope. He couldn’t sleep last night, mind racing with thoughts of you—thinking of ways to get your attention, to notice him. “Yeah like… a space where someone could walk in and experience a whole story laid out for them. Maybe something based on memories, something to try and trigger a connection.”

He wants to make something special—for you.

Dark eyebrows raise in confusion. “That’s… quite vague.”

He frowns. “I don’t have the full picture myself, but I have some ideas.”

“Sero… Who is this for?”

A long pause settles between them before he answers. “I think… I think I know the costume designer. But I’m not sure. I just—I want to see if they know me too. And… I want to do something for them. Something beautiful and meaningful, even if they aren’t who I think they are.”

Momo blinks, and then nods. “If you can come up with a clear design, I’ll do it.”

His face brightens. “Really? Thank you Momo, so much. I can come back in a couple hours with some ideas?”

She grins. “I should thank you—I’ve been wanting the chance to do something in return for them. Besides, we want them—for Hoshi no Sākasu. Maybe we can sway them with a personal show.”

Hanta’s eyes grow with surprise. He hadn’t heard about that. Was Shouto aware? “Wait—they’re joining us?” he asks, voice heavy with anticipation.

She grunts in denial. “Kendou asked yesterday; they seem interested but unsure. I haven’t heard the details, so I don’t know what their reservations are.”

You, traveling with them and working on the costumes back in Japan—the thought brings a twitch to Hanta’s lips. He presses his fist against them in an effort to contain his reaction. His chest is tight at the idea of seeing you almost daily, getting to work beside you. You and Shouto and the silks.

An hour before the show he stalks into Momo’s trailer. Kendou is there too, already filled in on the situation. She watches eagerly as Sero hurries through the door and approaches the table, pulling out a few pieces of paper folded in his pocket. They’re sketches, marked with crude and unsure strokes, but clear enough to get the main ideas across. Momo nods and hums as she listens to him explain his visions for the next few days.

“I can work with that, and the time we have,” she says. Sero exhales gently with relief. “They’ll be on the spot, and any gaps will be naturally filled in with my own imagination.”

“That’s fine, I’m sure anything you can execute will be perfect.”

Kendou hums in agreement. “These sound really interesting,” she adds. “There are still two more days of the festival, though.”

Hanta nods. “I have some ideas, but want to think about them a little longer.”

“It’s fine,” Momo interjects, waving dismissively. “As long as you tell me the day before and give me visuals like these, I can make it work.”

A lifesaver, Sero thinks. And a genius. “You’re the best,” he says. “Truly.”

She laughs. “I know, I know. Now put those away and leave unless you want to spoil the surprise.”

He glances at the time, realizing you must be coming any minute, and folds the papers back into his pocket. One final gratitude slips from him as he stands to leave.

There’s a knock on the door.

A matching knock thumps through his chest, heart racing at the assumption that you’re on the other end—Aoyama would have simply burst in. His wide eyes dart to Momo’s in surprise. She gives him a look, one that asks him what he’s waiting for. He steps forward slowly, hand hovering over the knob. 

Knowing that it’s you doesn’t prepare him for actually seeing you: you with a giant fluff of feathers wrapped around your neck—black and soft and breezing against your skin. Little clumps of snow stick to the edges, and against your hair. He wants to pluck them out and runs his hands through the strands, pulling your face close. He stands tall, a few steps above you, unable to withhold whatever embarrassing expressions are likely flashing across his face. You’re cute, and you look happy to be waiting there, clutching a paper bag against your chest. 

When you speak he has to reel himself back in. Yes, you’re seeing each other again—already. He wants to say something, anything, but the words don’t come out. Kendou intervenes for him, introducing you after you brush by to enter. He nearly shivers at the contact, you and cool air wafting in. His shoulder tingles, a familiar feeling overwhelming him. He grins at the sight of you, not fighting the joy as he finally says something.

“Nice to meet you properly.” Is that lame? Shouldn’t he say something… more?

“Sero was just about to get ready,” Momo interjects before you respond. 

His face falls, not wanting to go when you only just arrived. He pouts at the longing in his chest, a sinking weight, but Momo’s commanding expression is persistent—eyes not faltering as they glance from him to Kendou. He sighs.

“Yeah, I was on my way out,” he manages honestly. He doesn’t know what face he’s making as he leaves, too honest to contain it.

You send him off with a wave and an offering of one of your little sandwiches. It’s a small gesture, one he takes greedily. He pulls a tramezzini with prosciutto, lips tugging into a frown as the door closes behind him. He’s not a fan of cured meat. He eats it anyway.

He closes his eyes when he reaches the bottom of the steps, inhaling sharp cold air into his lungs. He holds the breath in his cheeks, palms cradling his own face. Enough time passes for Aoyama to appear, bumping Hanta aside to enter the trailer. He moves to let the holographic blond pass, shoving his hands into his pockets as he cranes his neck to the sky. 

Snowflakes dot his vision, slowly falling through muted blue. When they touch the skin of his face, feather-light, they’re akin to hesitant fingertips tracing curiously. He thinks of you and your cold skin, callused hand in his.

“Sero-kun?”

Midnight eyes fall to the horizon, then the freckled man before him. Hanta hums.

“Is everything okay? You’re… I’ve never seen you cry before.”

Hanta blinks in surprise, the wetness along his lashes not noticeable before. He gently wipes the skin, smearing the rapidly cooling tears against his cheeks.

“Yeah,” he manages, voice tinged with a rasp. “I’m just overwhelmed, I think. And a little confused.”

He grins at Midoriya, an earnest smile. His friend looks at him skeptically. Hanta laughs and walks toward the main tent, where Midoriya will be getting ready soon.

“You never get weird before a performance,” his friend persists. He follows Sero closely as they reach the entrance.

Hanta doesn’t have a response, settling for a shrug. He urges Midoriya to get on with his costume and makeup, assuring that he’s fine despite his unusual behavior. Curious green eyes don’t leave him, darting back to Sero even after the show starts and he begins his warm up.

Hanta doesn’t get nervous before a show, usually one of the most calm of the cast, all relaxed smiles. Going on stage is no different than entangling himself in practice—it’s just him and the silks, always.

Except for now, because you are in the audience. There’s a new tightness in his chest at the thought of you watching him, seeing him. But he’s learned to trust himself—himself and those around him and their shared vision. This is the first show for Gōyoku, but it will be beautiful and magical and everything Hanta’s ever chased.

Something in his stomach clenches when he sees Monoma strut backstage. His neck is wrapped in the fluff of black feathers, grin stretched wide as he proclaims he’s already stolen the show. Hanta’s mind races. Did Monoma touch you—take it without your permission? An ugliness burrows inside him, the one that first appeared when he heard of your lunch with Midoriya. His chest flares with the claim that he should be the one to with your boa, to have something from you.

Hanta speaks his mind, but he can also recognize that this is different from the honest nature within him. This is something irrational and possessive and ugly. The words don’t surface, a tamed righteousness. His fist tightens from the need to redirect his anger. He exhales.

When he finally enters the stage and sits under bright lights, he returns to confidence and ease. He scans through the crowd, meaning only to do a quick survey, but his eyes are drawn to you. Even without the boa he knows it’s you—it has to be. You’re a speck of white in the crowd, tinted purple from the blacklights. His heart tightens as your eyes stare back. Will you watch him? Will you see him?

Black silk falls—his blanket of safety—and he nearly smiles as he reaches for it.

This performance, he is entirely in his element. The silk wraps around him perfectly, smooth fabric that works as an extension of his body. He’s entirely unrushed, in euphoric focus as he wraps and unravels himself, gliding through his routine. He is nearly swimming through it—through air and threads and the darkness of the night, swimming through stars and dust and everything there ever was. He feels closer to you, held right against you, completely taken by that incredibly overwhelming sensation—that buzzing in his entire body. 

You watch him the whole time, really watch him. He knows without having to check, but everytime his eyes drift to yours, they are trained on him. A deep satisfaction roots into his chest at the end, at knowing he was able to show you something beautiful.

He nearly skips backstage when the act concludes, despite the fatigue.

“Midoriya told me that you cried earlier.”

He groans at Shouto’s voice, steps faltering. “Dude, at least let me sit first.”

Shouto’s eyes widen as he pauses and nods. Blue and grey watch closely as Sero grabs his water before sinking into one of the cushions.

“You cried earlier,” he repeats.

Hanta laughs this time, tilting his head against the seat. “Not really. I just got lost in thought.”

“Thoughts that make you cry?”

He smiles gently. “I’m okay. Sometimes it just happens.”

Shouto pauses. He stands quietly before saying, “You know you can talk to me, if you need.”

Hanta nods. “Of course I do.”

Shouto nods back, a curt gesture.

Hanta can’t withhold his grin, ever appreciative of his friend’s straightforward care. He catches the slight quirk of Shouto’s lips—and knows exactly what it means.

He excitedly debriefs with the others after the show—animated conversation with Mina and Monoma, Bakugou standing with a scowl to the side. Monoma is just beginning a monologue about the details of his enthralling performance, prompting Bakugou to leave, when Mina’s eyes light as she points excitedly.

“Oh, cutie spotted! With Deku!”

Hanta turns towards her gesture, eyes locking onto your form. His heart races with surprise, not realizing you would be coming backstage. But then that possession seeps back inside his chest, claws piercing right through it. You’re standing with Midoriya—closely, and talking with excited gestures. Your eyes are shining with delight and Midoriya matches your energy with his rapid speech. The envy catches him by surprise, layered with a twinge of doubt. Suddenly Hanta wishes he asked more questions, to Midoriya and Momo and Kendou—to have learned more about you in any capacity.

“Oh? Looks like my cue,” Monoma answers, reaching to untangle the boa from his neck.

Hanta moves before he can process his actions, slender fingers gently prying the garment from the blond.

“I’ll do it,” he says, uncharacteristically stern before starting forwards.

By the time he’s behind you, all tension in his body has evaporated, instead replaced by childlike giddiness. He catches you by surprise, draping the scarf over your neck. His grin is easy and lazy when you turn to him. The attention fills him with warmth.

And then you openly sing praise, shining eyes now locked on him.

“You were incredible,” you breathe. “I’ve never seen someone move that way—”

Oh.

This… this is unusual for Hanta. He’s never been the main character or even had a true solo for Hoshi no Sākasu, but you’re here noticing him, telling him he’s one of a kind. The attention is an embarrassing ambush, flooding head through his chest and face. It prompts him to be shy, to hide himself and hold this warmth carefully in his hands.

But it’s you, with excited eyes that are opened so wide, so focused—all on him. You want to know more about him, greedily soaking in his answers. More heat overtakes him until he feels like he’s buried in it. It’s a new type of feeling, a flush he’s never experienced before—something beyond nerves or self-consciousness. Maybe it’s the heat of being known; the heat of being seen. The heat of being special to someone.

He thinks you deserve to feel this way, too.

He feels a little betrayed then, when Midoriya butts in, pulling a laugh from some sort of inside joke you share. Momo shortly after steals your attention, the two of you trading special glances and tenderly touching hands. Hanta has the urge to pout as others join, continuously whisking away your attention.

His antsiness grows from the waiting. By the time he can have your attention again, he doesn’t have anything meaningful to say. In a moment of desperation, he makes a comment about the orecchiette—tiny and wobbly bowls pooling meaty sauce. He blinks in surprise when you answer defensively.

He finds himself grinning stupidly as he probes further. “What about fettuccine?” 

“With this sauce?” you ask aghast. His grin grows. He can tell it’s a crooked one, tugging to the side with delight. “I don’t even know much about Italian food, but that would be a six out of ten at best.”

It’s stupid, this conversation, but he can’t help beaming from your responses—at the way your presence alone fills him with a special feeling of intensity. He's seven years old again, talking to Shouto for the first time and knowing instantly that he should keep him close. He wants to reach for you, hold your hand or even just your sleeve.

A question rests in the back of the throat, something like is this you? You: the one at the parade, in Quito.

“Are… Do you—”

It makes him a stumbling, clumsy version of himself when he tries to ask. He can only say the beginning of the question, rephrased over and over again. Are you the one I'm thinking of? Do you remember me?

Can I be special to you even if you don't?—If you aren't who I think you are?

In his periphery he can see Shouto approaching. It’s either right now, in these mere seconds of privacy, that Hanta can ask. Can he stand to wait another moment, another day?

“Hey ‘Roki,” he says instead. In his imagination, another Hanta appears to grab him by the throat and shake him—for being a coward.

“I wanted to tell you that we’re about halfway through the book. We just finished the chapter where Santi is pulled into Marco’s world.”

Hanta’s heart drops.

You… you know about the book? His book. One he’s clutched to his heart since he was just a boy, taken everywhere and practically memorized. How does Shouto know you know? How does everyone seem to capture these stray details about you—everyone except for him? That ugliness in his chest returns, this time a harsh squeeze of spite. One that runs down his arms with the need to act.

It’s a squeeze that immediately releases when you grin, teeth on full display. Suddenly he’s light again, your excitement a source of peace. The change is like whiplash; he’s not used to his feelings being this volatile—rapidly changing, without warning, pitting him against his closest friends. All the while you’re standing and smiling as you say that you read his favorite book every night as a child. That you made a dress based on one of his favorite scenes.

“You know the book he’s reading?” He has to ask, to confirm this is real.

Suddenly you’re giving in easily, sharing tidbits of information while probing ones from him. You tell him you’re from the western shores of Costa Rica and he delights in this information, knowing that even on different continents you two shared an ocean, a connection through water and salt and currents and wind. Maybe there were times you were in the water at the same time. Did the water that held him hold you too? The thought sends a buzz through his body and the warmth of summer saltwater.

Even when Shouto interjects, Hanta happily soaks in the details. Despite your attention no longer focused on him alone, there’s a specialness in this moment—the sight of you and his best friend, trading thoughts about his most treasured book.

The idea comes to him during his second performance, nearly lasered directly into his brain. While he’s weaving through the lengths of silk from the ceiling, he suddenly imagines pulling them from the water himself, stardust strings that bridge his world to yours—a bridge you know—where he can hopefully translate that special feeling in his heart and stomach and entire being.

When his act finishes he rushes to scribble every detail that surfaces. He sits in one of the trailers, not risking you looking over his shoulder despite his yearning for your attention. The ideas pour out of him and through graphite, trailing along a stack of papers. It leaves lines of black and grey dust, glittering under the lamplight—like stars, or specks of dark sand.

Kendou grabs him when the show ends, pulling him aside to say, “We got your tent set up in the last row. Verde won’t be around long tonight, but Momo thinks they’ll find it in time. They’ll be here tomorrow during the first show, to talk about work.”

Hanta nods, thanking her. He’s not worried; he trusts that things will work out as they need, because he trusts himself and his friends to make something that will reel you in. And he trusts you, to gravitate towards his offering and to find it.

You do.

The next morning he has everything pictured perfectly in his mind. Momo can’t meet until close to showtime, leaving Hanta antsily waiting. It manifests as a weight in his stomach and a distracted mind. In the meantime, he and Shouto work through another chapter while eating breakfast. Or rather, Hanta continuously loses himself in thought while Shouto reads, receiving a nudge when they’re supposed to switch.

“You’re distracted today,” Shouto says bluntly.

Hanta sighs. “Sorry, we should probably call it after this chapter.”

He tilts the book to read the last couple pages, but Shouto interjects. “Does it have to do with why you cried yesterday?”

“‘Roki,” he huffs. “It’s really—” he stops. He was going to say nothing, that it’s really nothing. But it’s not nothing.

“It’s…?”

It’s you.

“It’s complicated,” Hanta decides.

Shouto’s eyes narrow, intense swathes of a storming sky that don’t budge when Hanta tries to dismiss himself. He caves.

“I think… I know them—” you. The admission is scary, to turn thoughts into words and tell them to someone else.

But Shouto is nothing if not serious. He takes everything Hanta has ever said with full consideration, even if he doesn’t understand. Because they’re friends, and they trust one another. “Verde?”

Hanta nods. “Well, not know them, or even of them. But I think we’ve… met before. Not formally—but I think we saw each other at a parade when I was little.”

“A parade?”

“Yeah.” He smiles while recounting the memory. “They were dressed as a bird, at the Fiestas de Quito. A toucan, I think.”

“Oh.” Shouto watches his friend carefully. Hanta recognizes that he’s thinking, gears shifting and spinning behind an intense stare. “Do you want to tell them?”

Hanta pauses. Does he want to tell you? When he thinks about it, he doesn’t think that part matters so much. “Not necessarily. I think it’s more that they make me feel a certain way… and I want to get to know them better because of it.”

“I see. I understand.”

Sero’s eyebrows lift in surprise. A smile tugs at his lips. “You do?”

His friend nods curtly. “Yes. You perplexed me when I first saw you. It always made me very irritated at practice, because I wanted to ask you questions.”

Hanta laughs, a bright sound. “Because I wasn’t very good? And I was wasting my time?”

“Yes.”

Another laugh rings, this one releasing the weight in his stomach. He smiles for himself, at Shouto’s presence grounding him in this moment.

“I think you should tell them you feel that way,” his friend continues.

“I have some ideas.”

“For what to say?”

Hanta shakes his head. “No. I want to show them my feelings, since they’re hard to explain.”

Shouto’s eyes linger on his friend’s face, searching dark irises. He glances at the book between them, lips twitching in a suppressed smile as he says, “I understand.”

After finishing his act, Hanta grabs the papers from his bag before rushing to the trailers. He’s eager to share with Momo, to finalize his plans for you. As soon as the door opens he’s announcing, “Momo, I have the rest of my ideas for the—”

tents, he almost finishes before he spots you.

His mouth shuts in an instant, with enough force to hear his teeth clack. You’re surprised to see him, eyes blown open. He swallows, not expecting to see you either—you with your curious gaze and unbroken attention. He could blush from the eye contact alone, if there wasn’t a thick fog of tension in the room; if you didn’t look so uncomfortable. Suddenly he wants to ask what’s going on. He wants to know about this conversation and everything you’re thinking.

“Next one over,” Kendou grits through her teeth.

It snaps him out of his thoughts, nodding on instinct as he fumbles backwards through the door. “Shit,” did he fuck something up by coming in? “Sorry. I—sorry, thanks.”

He chews on his lip while walking to the next trailer. Suddenly he’s nervous. He timidly knocks, waiting for Momo’s invitation before opening the door. He lacks his earlier confidence when he sets the papers down to start explaining his concepts for the remaining tents.

“Sero?” Momo interrupts. “Are you okay?”

His shoulders feel heavy, hunched over the desk. He’s not sure. “I accidently went in Kendou’s trailer.” 

Momo’s face morphs into one of understanding. “Don’t worry about that,” she reassures. “As long as you didn’t give anything away, we’re fine.”

He shakes his head. “No, I just… it was kind of tense in there.”

“Oh,” her face blanks. “You mean the conversation they’re having.”

He nods.

“It’ll be fine,” she repeats, then nearly scoffs. “Designers.”

He doesn’t know much about designers and their habits. Does the air around them normally feel like a storm approaching? But he nods, trusting her judgment.

Hanta is part of the working crew for the festival that evening. He keeps himself towards the back where he can spot the red-coated tent. You’re absent, he assumes inside already and sifting through the many memories of the circus. He’s curious about whose you open, what you see. He wants to peek inside for himself—to see how Momo executed his thoughts. He wonders if you’ll come to know the others better than he does.

It feels a little like being on patrol, wandering through the same paths and having the same conversations, occasionally smiling for a photo. His steps slow every time he passes the tent, waiting on edge throughout the night.

When he rounds the corner to the last row, walking towards the red stall once again, he catches a flutter of the entrance flaps. His heart races as your hand parts through them, slicing your way out and into the chilly air. He paces forwards, hoping to catch you, but then freezes when you stumble out in full.

There is no pause between your exit from the tent and your dash to leave the festival. Hanta watches with guilty curiosity as you sprint away. Your face is twisted, grimacing and tear-stained, while your hand is clenched by your heart. You dart the opposite way from him, not even spotting him, before suddenly you are gone. Vanished. Like a ghost, or the wind.

His stomach drops like he’s going to be sick. It aches—a painful guilt he’s never felt before. Did he try too much too fast? Did he ruin something that hasn’t even had the proper chance to start?

He’s not sure how long he stands there, when a clattering of jingles stomps up behind him.

“Oi! The hell r’ya standin’ around for? Yer in everyone’s fuckin’ way!”

Hanta doesn’t respond or react, still frozen and staring. A rough hand grabs his bicep. It yanks him from the center of the path and forces him to turn to Bakugou.

“Sero! Y’fuckin’ deaf?” Red eyes glare at him, but they’re focused—concentrated. Thoughtful, even. They stare at the bottom of Hanta’s eyes, the waterline where tears have unknowingly clumped in his lower lashes.

“I—” he can hardly get out. His voice is shaky, wavering.

Bakugou grunts, tugging Hanta’s arm down the row of markets, past the red tent. Sero swallows as the crimson blurs away. His feet follow obediently, stepping in time with his friend’s as the bells on his hat jingle in matching rhythm. He would laugh, if he had the mind for it.

The blond doesn’t speak when they’re finally out of the congested path. Instead he looks at Hanta expectantly. Impatiently, but still waiting nonetheless.

“Fuck,” is the first word he releases. It’s a breathy, broken sound. His face crumples, that guilt in stomach rolling upwards to his chest and his shoulders and pooling heat in his face.

“Fuck, I—did I mess things up?” What was he thinking? Projecting all those hopes onto you, as if you were some fated soulmate of his. Did he subject you to something awful? How could he think to use memories like that—as some sort of game to play with between you two. How could he leave something so delicate in the hands of something so unpredictable?

“The hell r’ya goin’ on about?” Bakugou’s quip pulls him from his spiraling. 

Hanta shakes his head. It’s too much to explain, something Bakugou wouldn’t understand. He should go find you, or Momo, to get a sense what you might’ve seen and to start on a way to repair—

“What’s this? Are we hiding from our responsibilities?” the bubbly voice of Kaminari chirps behind him. Hanta grimaces, not wanting to deal with more obstacles.

But Bakugou is already making it everyone’s problem, demanding, “Icyhot, the hell is wrong with yer extra?”

“Hanta?”

Shouto’s deep voice grabs his attention, turning to see him and Denki. They must have passed while doing rounds near the music together. To help Shouto socialize, Kaminari had explained before splitting up.

The firebreather steps forward quickly, breaking from Kaminari to assess his friend. The blond puffs his cheeks in a pout.

The conversation is a mess—Sero attempting to explain what happened and why he’s upset—but Shouto takes it in stride, nodding in understanding. The blonds stand to the side, watching with confusion and annoyance, respectively. 

“Do you want to talk to Momo?” Shouto asks. “We can go look for her.” Bakugou makes a face at the implied inclusion in ‘we’. Kaminari looks greedy for more drama.

Hanta shakes his head. “No, it’s—I’ll try to talk to her in the morning instead. I just assumed it would be harmless, I didn’t think about the potential stress this could cause.”

“It sounds like you were trying to show them something beautiful,” Shouto replies. His voice is strong, stern. “It will be okay.”

In the morning, Momo explains that the setup was a collection of tables with marbles scattered over their surfaces, strung to look like bottles in the contained space of the tent. They were labelled based on shape and color—for the type of memory, and whose. “Anything intense would be more of an abstract feeling or experience, and not a fully cohesive scene.”

Hanta purses his lips as he thinks. Is an abstract experience of something painful any better than the entire experience in full? Could it even be worse—to only know the fragments of trauma, lacking proper understanding to process the bits you’re given?

Momo watches carefully as his expression shifts in thought. She adds, “It’s comparable to reading a book—it allows you to experience something in a safe and controlled environment when you can end it at any time. If they experienced something unpleasant, it wouldn’t be traumatizing, just unpleasant.”

Hanta understands what she’s trying to say, but the words don’t properly infiltrate. Momo didn’t see the way you left, how sad and troubled your face was. But he thanks her for the information.

“Should we not go through with the rest?” he asks.

Momo hums in surprise. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t. They’re very well thought out, and none of them run the same risk as last night’s.”

He stays quiet, looking at her skeptically.

“I think the one you planned for tonight is good,” she asserts. “I think they would appreciate seeing it.”

Hanta’s gut is still uncertain, and his ability to differentiate his nerves from his gut is out of touch. But he trusts his friend.

He’s still troubled by the time the show starts, especially when you haven’t made an appearance, since Kendou assumed you would visit every day. Hanta hopes he didn’t push you away.

You still don’t appear when he dresses and begins his warm up. Bakugou is standing by the high bars when Hanta ambles over to stretch. The blond eyes him while he hangs, letting his shoulders loosen before he gently rocks them.

“Ya done tweakin’?”

Hanta laughs, already more relaxed with his body in the air. He stretches each shoulder individually, pulling one arm off the bar at a time to sink into the feeling. It feels familiar—good.

“Probably not,” he admits. “But I’m better than last night.”

He doesn’t get a response, just sharp red eyes that watch him closely. Bakugou doesn’t leave.

“Hanta!” He hears a voice call behind him. “I got your drink! And a special someone.”

He turns with a frown, confused by the cheeky edge of Denki’s words. Then he blinks in surprise. You’re there with him, eyes trained on ahead. You look fine—good, and he nearly flushes when the words register, the implication that Denki brought you for him. 

He paces over quickly, drawn to you even while nervous.

Should he ask about last night? To be upfront and apologize, even if it ruins the surprise? It might be overwhelming for you—

“Hanta,” you whisper. It’s quiet and breathy, like a prayer—or a plea. You say it like you meant it for yourself. A secret.

His body flares with tingles at the sound of you calling his name. They fester in his chest and through his shoulders and arms, prickles that migrate down to his stomach and his legs. His hands feel weak. His knees almost give out.

“Huh?” His voice is small, nearly choking on his breath. He presses his knuckles to his lips, knowing his face must be beet red.

You make a face, a cute face of confusion and then embarrassment. You’re quick to apologize, trying to explain your realization about the pronunciation. He nearly laughs, but bites his tongue. If he makes a sound right now, it’ll be a whine or something infinitely more embarrassing. He swallows and inhales before he answers: 

“I prefer it anyways.” From you. He wants to add. Always from you.

You’re still embarrassed even after he assures you of it. Meanwhile he’s still tingling—recovering from your initial ambush.

“Stop flirting in front of us,” Denki pouts in Japanese as he slides Hanta’s drink across the table.

Dark eyes point at his blond friend. A warning, or a plea, to stop. Even if you can’t understand what they’re saying, it makes him nervous. He lifts his drink, hand still tingling and weak, to uncap his order and breathe it in. The scent is dark and rich, a less volatile sort of warmth that soothes him from the inside out.

When the others join to collect their drinks, Hanta takes the opportunity to step away from you. He’s overwhelmed by your presence, trying to will away the buzz and heat radiating along his skin—but he still steals glances when you aren’t looking his way. You look happy and excited, but also tense. Is he imagining it? He frowns, frustrated at his inability to assess clearly.

Your eyes suddenly meet his. They’re piercing, and they make his heart jump. He looks away immediately, hand splaying across his face to hide his overwhelming fluster.

By the time you’re standing with Momo to send her on stage, he’s decided that he’ll talk to you. He’s Hanta: always honest and upfront, and he thinks it’s worth spoiling the surprises in exchange for knowing that you’re okay, that he didn’t hurt you somehow. After Momo disappears through the curtain he waits for you, even when it takes a moment for you to turn around, fiddling with something in your pocket. 

He feels a wave of guilt when you start backstage and he scares you, your body nearly flinching from his presence. There’s a sharp clink of something hitting the ground, barely audible over your noise of surprise.

He apologizes immediately, crouching for the little object you dropped. When his eyes land on it, he pauses. Something in his stomach tightens painfully, before releasing completely.

A marble.

It’s a small clump of glass, with a crescent of a glare against the dark floor. Hanta’s memory drifts back to Momo’s words this morning. Marbles, she said, scattered across the tables in the tent—elongated into bottles in the small space she can control.

“I found it yesterday,” you explain when he hands it back to you. Your palm is cool against his fingertips. “In the festival.”

“It’s pretty,” he manages, breathless. 

You took the marble from the tent—a bottle, a green one: one of your own. He recalls the fist you held to your chest as you rushed outside. Were you holding it there, against your heart? Was that something you wanted? 

He watches you tuck the marble back into your pocket, shoulders dropping in relief. That knot in his stomach, the guilt and the worry, unravels in an instant. You smile. It’s small and soft, but he can’t help beaming in response, grin widening across his face. It prompts yours to grow, brightening further.

He should’ve trusted himself, he thinks. Trusted himself, his friends, and you.

Sero is off duty with Shouto that evening. They wander through the nightlife of Milan, stepping into a bar Kaminari demands they must see where a robot arm prepares their drinks. After one cocktail, Hanta’s had enough. He slips away, leaving his friends to enjoy themselves.

The streets are busy as he strolls through chilly winter air. The sky is dark, but the ground is bright, illuminated by the orange glow of street lamps. He watches a flock of pigeons chirp and peck at the ground, where a to-go container was dropped. He sidesteps the congregation, toeing along the curb of the sidewalk before recentering. His phone buzzes after a couple more steps.

It’s a text from Momo that reads: Success! I don’t think you have anything to worry about :-)

He pauses, standing in the middle of the sidewalk as he tries to calm his heart now racing again. A man grumbles as he brushes by, pushing his shoulder into Sero’s. He falters, stumbling towards the edge and out of the way. He wants to ask questions, to probe for details. But he trusts Momo, so he sends an Okay, thanks in return.

When he lays in bed and drifts to sleep, his dreams take him to the sky as a green-feathered bird. His wings slice through the air like a malleable knife, giving him the mobility to spin and dip and glide. Beneath him is the vibrant blue of the sea, rapidly transitioning into lush green canopies. There’s another bird up ahead, below him. He chirps before swooping down to meet it.

When he wakes the next day he feels light. Soaring.

You don’t come backstage.

It puts him on edge, breeds nerves in his body. Not from the fear that he’s done something wrong, but with worry that you’ll miss the tent Momo has for you tonight. This one is special—they’re all special. He hopes that you’ll see it. He reminds himself to trust you.

He’s soaking in the music when you bump into him. He’s delighted by your appearance, simultaneously wrecked with nerves. 

“Hi Sero,” you say. It’s a quiet, private greeting. He warms immediately, then flushes when you correct yourself. “Hanta.”

His body threatens to shiver from the tingles in his shoulders and chest. He’s breathless when he responds. “Hi.”

You look calm next to him, peaceful. You’re enjoying your night, you say; it’s been really good. The affirmation puts Hanta at ease.

A reminder to trust you.

He stands with you in the quiet, your proximity enough. But with the lull of the musicians—acoustic guitar and violin and stand up bass—he also wants to move. After a moment of hesitation he asks you to dance. You tell him only if he has the courage to handle your shoes. The response has him beaming, heart warm as he takes your hand—a cool and callused thing—to guide you through an improvised waltz. You don’t know the steps, your clunky shoes stomping on his toes through the sweeping gestures. They’re hardly noticeable when he gets to hold you close, when he has your hand in his. Your face is nearly pressed into his chest, right at his rapidly beating heart. A tingling and yearning heart.

He cherishes this night and the ease you seem to have with him. He wishes it could be like this, always. 

Forever.

“They’ll be watching the last show,” Momo tells him.

He finds you immediately, partially because you’re conveniently seated in the same spot but also because you’re you. He’ll always find you. 

He is not prepared to see you in your dress.

In the crowd it’s not noticeable, covered by the people sitting in front of you. But when you step backstage wrapped in loose dark fabric, silken and sheer swathes draping elegantly across your arms and waist and legs, it’s all he can see. You, with stars smeared over your skirt, trailing light strings as you move, like meteors over a still pond in the night.

It takes time to compose himself before he speaks to you, taking a moment to face the wall with shaky breaths. It isn’t until you’re left alone by even your friend—Chia, you call her—that he has the composure to speak to you. You start complimenting him again, and he’s weak in the knees, unraveling under your attention. He presses his fist to his face again, hoping it can help transfer away the heat in his cheeks. You must know what you’re doing to him—you in your beautiful self-made gown, singing him praise.

“Smash. But without the shoes.”

Hanta’s swooning is halted at Touya’s sneering Japanese, immediately replaced by heated irritation. He knows Touya’s games, that the words are meant to rile him up in front of you. He luckily tampers his anger quickly, but not before shooting the elder Todoroki a glare. He only receives a wide smirk in response. 

Shouto intercepts, pulling a musical laugh from you. Before you can ask for a translation, Hanta’s asking questions about your dress again, redirecting your attention. 

You eventually introduce him to your friend, someone direct and sharp but who you scold easily and make faces of displeasure at. He hasn’t seen this side of you.

“Tucano?” she calls, and his stomach drops.

You hum in response, like it’s a name you’re called often. Hanta knows he’s making the most absurd face—eyes wide, jaw agape, cheeks probably flaming. He doesn’t catch your response, only able to hear the thumping of his heart and too focused on not throwing up right there.

It is you, after all. Right? 

He leaves. He can’t handle standing near you for another moment, no matter how much his heart yearns for it. He’ll know tonight. You’ll see for yourself and then he’ll know everything he needs.

“Dude, you aren’t working tonight,” Kirishima’s voice sounds from behind him.

Hanta turns around, jester’s hat in hand while his clothes are switched to his festival costume. He realizes he didn’t have to put the costume on. “Oh…” he doesn’t know what to say. “I guess muscle memory took over. I’m going to the festival tonight anyway.”

He doesn’t change.

When he steps into the tent, minutes after you, the first thing he thinks is that he owes Momo everything. The illusion is so real, a tangible, living story that brings to life everything he could have imagined. It’s immersive, it’s beautiful, it’s perfect. When he stares into the pond and sees your form on the other end, pulling you into his arms to fall through the galaxy and land on a beach made of stars, you on top of him in a gown that matches, he knows that he will forever be indebted to his friend.

Pulling you across the water is like a dream. Leading you through his childhood home is like a secret. Seeing you in the parade again, reliving his memory—this time entangled with yours—is something he can’t put words to, something too precious for metaphor.

This time, with your imagination working with his, he sees more details—new details—like the way you look to the woman beside you as a guide, how you reach for her. She’s a macaw, a mix of blue and gold, with a silhouette akin to the one you wore the night before the first show.

(That’s where he knows that shape from—what struck familiarity in him when he saw the costume for the first time.)

This time he can also see that you’re nervous. It’s an aching feeling, an apprehension clearly displayed across your face. The old woman calms you, encouraging and assuring that everything will be alright.

It feels like a gift, to have this moment one more time. And it is a gift, for it to be saturated with new colors, inks bleeding through a page and running together, swirling perspectives and memories. It’s beautiful, in its own messy, inexplicable—inseparable—way.

You meet his eyes and wave like the first time, watching as he grins with new recognition. Then in a flash the two of you are in the piazza, standing on opposite ends of a crowd. He watches you nervously. Was he able to reach you?

You run to him.

Everything will be okay.

He steps forward to meet you, revels in the way you cling to his shirt. Your eyes are teary and your voice is hoarse. He wants to kiss you, your eyes and your lips. He wants to tell you everything will be alright, that he's here for you.

It's more to reassure himself—that you're here. For him.

You're asking him broken questions and he's trying his best to answer, waiting with bated breath to hear what you think—if it all came together like he hoped. You say they were everything, everything you were missing, and he nearly floats from the relief, melting and then evaporating from the heat that flares inside him. All he can do is grip your waist and tell himself you’re here. All he can do is whisk you away, so he can finally have you to himself. 

“Gracias, Hanta. Para mostrarme,” you whisper under the canopies.

“It's you,” he tells you. It’s you. It’s always been you.

Even before it was you giving him that special feeling, it was the precious book that would lead him to you anyways. It was always you, only ever you, your essence infused in everything he ever reached for. It was you who guided him to Hoshi no Sākasu and it was you he was bound to cross again.

Here in the dark, in the quiet of the garden away from the noise of the festival, Hanta finally feels like he has you. He has your attention and your acknowledgment. You know who he is and what you mean to him. He feels unhurried, simply happy to hold your face in gentle hands and murmur sweet things back and forth. He wants to take his time with you. 

But then you call him beautiful, and he needs you now.

Kissing you shoots a buzz through his body, nearly vibrating from the intimacy. You’re close, so close, pressed into him at the hip where he can feel a heat stirring from within. You try to pull him closer and all he can think is that he wants that—whatever you want. He wants to be as close as you’ll let him. He takes everything you offer, and croons when you give into his every initiation.

You want him too.

The thought alone has him burning, aching, but then you start saying his name—chanting it with need—“Hanta, Hanta, Hanta—” and he whines into your skin: secrets that can’t find proper words. But he trusts that you receive them, that you can understand.

When you’re finally in his room he’s thrumming with want, fully guided by the tightness of his pants, the carnal desire to have you. He wants to feel everything—your warmth and your skin and the reassurance that you’re here. With him. You make choked sounds while he presses you against the wall, gasps and whines that ring as chiming bells. He wants more, so much more. He wants everything from you until you have nothing to give.

“Lo siento,” he tells you, because he truly is sorry to move at this pace. Only his heart means it.

But you groan, like you need him now too. It’s enough to shrink any hesitation into a sliver in his chest. He lifts you towards the bed, fingers working your dress to fall down your chest. It pools at your waist, sliding down your arms like liquid coals, a woven night sky. He nearly chokes, overwhelmed by the sight of you. His heart is stuttering, rapidly thumping against his sternum while he repeats this is real in his mind like a mantra.

When he leans to press his lips to your chest, kissing and biting and sucking at the skin your heart is buried beneath, he finally feels an inkling of relief. He feels close to you, pulling you closer with a hand on your ass as your hips stutter into him. His own hardness grinds against the mattress, shooting a buzz up his torso, burning his body from the inside. He groans into your neck as he encourages you to continue. He wants you to feel good, for him to make you feel good.

(To make you feel so good that the decision for whether to stay or go becomes obvious.)

Your hands bury in his hair when he brings you over the edge. It sends shivers through him, pulling him through another type of euphoria, one that originates in his chest and dissolves his body through the air. Maybe he can seep into you, into every part of your being—so you can hold him close forever. 

When your grip finally relents, releasing him back to earth and letting him prop above you, he watches attentively. Your eyes open slowly, blinking at him in disbelief. He can’t help grinning, even while cautious at your delicate state. His next touches are gentle, traces along your thigh to ask for permission, skimming further along when you don’t protest.

There’s an ache in his stomach and between his legs, his desire for you, for another level of closeness. But the thought of going further—to fulfill that—brings a hollowness in his chest.

He halts. It’s a this moment of clarity, realizing that he’s not dictating his own actions consciously. What is he being propelled by? What does he actually want? His firm cock pulses with an obvious desire, but his chest is heavy—with a conflict he’s never felt before.

This possession and this urgency—is this how he wants to be with you? Acting out of fear and panic, to have you now, as if there is no future to look forward to. This isn’t him; this isn’t the way he acts.

You’re watching curiously, expecting him to continue. He swallows the lump in his throat. 

“Hanta?”

Will it disappoint you, if he ended things here? If all he really wanted was to lay against your chest again. He felt closest to you there, where he could feel the drumming of your warm heart. There’s a knot in his stomach, an uncertainty. That apprehension earlier reduced to a sliver in his chest is now surrounding him.

He should trust you.

He’s honest when you ask if he’s okay, through both his shaking voice and his words as he confesses what he’s thinking. How he doesn’t want to rush.

You tell him it’s okay. He’s okay.

Estás bien.

At the sound of your assurance, your insistent, “Hanta, it’s okay,” he exhales a long breath and drops his forehead against your shoulder. You hold him, your hand threading through his hair in a delicate cradle. His eyes sting with fresh tears, though he’s not sure why: whether it’s guilt or fear or some third thing. You trace your fingers over him, down his neck and along his spine—a balm against his bruising.

“Lo siento,” he says, though he still doesn’t know why—if he’s sorry for rushing things, or for not following through. Maybe he’s sorry for not trusting you to begin with. Maybe he’s sorry for something to come later.

You don’t seem bothered, or even surprised. You simply whisper, “Yo también,” as you continue to hold him carefully.

Hanta can’t imagine what you would need to be sorry for.

Waking next to you is something like a dream. He returns to reality pressed against your chest, face buried in sleep-warmed skin. His own chest feels light while flush to your stomach. He exhales carefully against you, taking in the buzz that coats his skin.

It gets too overwhelming, so much that he has to untangle himself. He rolls carefully onto his back, welcoming the coolness of the morning air as it rushes against the dampness of his—and maybe your—sweat. He tears off the blankets and bunches them against you as a replacement for his form. A sliver of light runs down the length of his body from the curtains, bending as his chest raises from a deep inhale. He lays like that, collecting himself as the minutes pass. Eventually the buzzing in his heart becomes steady and familiar, enough that he feels normal again.

Reading distracts him from watching you sleep, worried he’ll fall apart if he looks at you for too long. He props himself on his elbows while his eyes glide through the chapter he lived last night. They pause when Santi begins pulling stars from the surface of the pond. He reminds himself that he needs to thank Momo, again. Forever.

He glances at you every few paragraphs, normally at the bottom of each page. After a few pages he finds that you’re awake. He tenses, as if he was caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to, until you grin sleepily, encouraging him to smile back.

You’re quiet in the morning, all whispers and low voices. Touchy too, the featherlight brush of fingertips and lips. You’re also more open, he thinks, a little easier to read when you’ve just woken in his bed. Or at least your face is: an honest display of curiosity that you won’t verbalize. Instead of asking for anything you say your thanks again. 

There’s a pang in Hanta’s chest. He tries to explain himself and how the tents worked, what he wanted from them. You look uncertain, like you can’t stomach real answers—or at least ask the questions to find them—so he speaks vaguely. You don’t respond and he finds himself apologizing, for last night, and for any of the previous ones that may have gone awry. You hold his face and tell him it’s okay.

You let him read to you, starting over from the beginning of the page in front of him. Reading to you is different from reading to Shouto. There’s something deep and familiar here, not the excitement of showing a friend his precious treasure for the first time. You know these words and this story by heart, rooted in your soul and in your life, its essence carried through your actions. He wonders if your copy has the same empty promise of a sequel buried in the back.

It doesn’t.

There’s a particular sort of excitement that overtakes him at your surprised face—something about having the privilege to be the one to tell you new information about a shared love. He watches carefully as you read the description, wonders what you’re thinking when you lay on your back. He’s curious if you see yourself as Santi, too. He wants to know if he’s worth wanting to be together, forever.

Things don’t change the way Hanta hoped they would, after his confession and your realization of how intertwined your lives have been. You let him come with you, to spend the day by your side while you work, but there’s a distance wedge in the gap between you. He marvels at your studio and all your old costumes, some known to him but most unseen. Watching you piece together fabric, running hands under a whirring needle, is sort of thrilling. Your fingers move quickly, expertly, as they transform big sheets of fabric into a beautifully layered skirt.

But he feels a little like he’s in grade school again, wanting to ask too many questions that others won’t answer—questions that will make the room tense, because he wasn’t supposed to ask. He wants to know about your sister you make dresses for, if she’s the one in your contact with a matching last name, whose calls you fervently dismissed. He wants to ask about the woman next to you in the parade, the blue and gold macaw that you looked to whenever you seemed uncertain. He wants to probe about the empanadas in the freezer, why they’re a month old, who made them. He wants to know why you respond to him in English, why you cried leaving the memory tent, what you saw in that little green marble.

He wants to learn about you, he wants to know the answers to these questions. He wants more.

He wants to reach for you and hold you like he did last night. He wants to wrap his arms around your waist, press his head into your neck, kiss your forehead. He wants to hold your hand or brush his leg against yours beneath the table.

But there’s a delicate dance the two of you are doing, skirting the edges of the conversations and touches he wants most. It’s still fun and fulfilling to be with you like this, and he wonders if maybe he should take his time getting to know you too. Maybe this is how these relationships develop, at their own pace.

You tell him that you’ll meet at the station after dinner, but he’s nearly pacing with anticipation. He doesn’t want to ask Momo or Kendou where they’re eating, disrupting their time with you, so he tries Bakugou—likely the one who gave them the recommendation if they didn’t ask you.

His phone pings only moments later, twice. The first response says Fuck should I know? and the second is a link to a map pin.

Knowing Momo and Kendou, he waits outside the restaurant an hour after your reservation. The host appears after a few minutes, asking if he has a table for tonight. 

Sero smiles with embarrassment, only understanding a few words. “I’m waiting for someone,” he tries in English. The host nods and goes back inside.

A quarter hour passes of him huddling by the door until Momo appears. He’s uncharacteristically nervous. Something about meeting you in the night, stripped of costumes to hide behind, frightens him. In an instant the two of you are alone and awkwardly trailing through responses to one another. You nod after his, “Yeah,” and he almost feels the urge to run away. But he stands persistently, even as your eyes trail him sharply, like you’re assessing him.

You laugh, and he’s reminded that everything will be okay.

He just has to be honest, and trust that you will be too.

The gelato gives him something to busy his hands so they don't yearn for yours. He picks the orange flavor, though its color is closer to red. It has a sour and floral taste—blood orange, he realizes after taking the first bite.

You eat yours much faster, and then rest your hands by your sides. He wants to scoot closer to you, so your arms might brush.

“I was trying to put off our serious conversation until tomorrow… But I get the sense that it’s making you nervous. So, sorry. For being selfish.”

He doesn’t know how to answer, spoon still in his mouth and sweet tang on his tongue. You tell him that you haven’t made a decision about joining the circus yet. You haven’t made a decision about him. You want it, you say, but it’s not the right time.

Your words are pangs in his chest, an ache from disappointment and raw hurt. Hanta would choose you in an instant; he’s been choosing you his whole life. For you to have any uncertainties or reservations… Does he not mean to you what you mean to him?

He’s forgotten, or maybe never acknowledged, that you didn’t know who he was until a week ago.

“The timing?” he encourages. 

You mention your abuela, the need to return home before you can go anywhere else. An image of the blue and gold macaw flashes through his mind, dancing next to you in the parade. He sees the dress on your costume rack that looks like the ocean. He sees your phone screen from over your shoulder, with missed calls from someone with your last name. Another pang strikes through him, this time his stomach, and with guilt. You have your own life you’ve been living, a life outside of him, without him. He should have considered that—not assumed you would leave everything behind for him.

But it still hurts. And he still wants you.

Your eyes are teary, tugging at his heart. His hand moves before he can stop himself, for the smallest touch. His heart jumps at the contact. He thinks he understands this talk about timing when he realizes he can’t stay for you either. He’s bound to Hoshi no Sākasu for the next two years. You call him insane, but he wants you to listen, to understand everything you mean to him—that he would choose you over and over again, because that’s all he’s ever done. You are the reason he’s here now. You are enough of a reason to stay.

You look at him like you’re going to bolt. Fuck, he’s not guilting you, right? He just wants to be understood, even if it hurts him that your decision will take time, that you might stay after all. It’s okay if it doesn’t work out the way he imagined, with you and him and endless time to get to know one another. The thought makes his eyes and heart sting, leaving the pains of flame on his skin. 

Is this his fault, always somehow getting what he wanted? Never learning how to accept when things don’t go his way, when it comes to this special unnamable feeling in his body?

“I’m sorry,” you say, and he feels defeated.

His chest hurts. It hurts so much, like a weight crushing through it. You shouldn’t be sorry for him and his disappointment. The fault is with him, for having expectations in the first place. It’s enough, in the end, if you two simply find space for each other in distant lives. You start blinking tearily and it’s like another stab to his chest.

Hugging you is a relief. He holds you tightly, body on edge as you cry into him. It makes him feel powerless, builds a sadness inside him that requires your closeness even after you finish crying. You don’t make him let go.

The conversation is painful, and there’s still a dull ache afterwards, but Hanta feels better after it happens. You let him come home with you, your hand wound in his as you guide him forwards this time. Your touch is chilly, like the night air. He rubs his thumb over the back of your hand, feeling as the skin slowly warms. 

You let him into your bed. You let him hold you close. You let him ask questions he was scared to ask earlier in the day.

“Mi abuela,” you answer, when he asks what you saw in the little green marble, who made the empanadas from lunch.

He gets explanations that, while short, broaden his understanding.

“I ghosted my family, after she died.” It’s a whisper of a confession. “Her ashes are in my living room.”

His heart drops as he sits up, nearly snapping his neck at the force. The movement pulls him over the edge of the bed but he flails his arms and legs in time to barely catch himself. “Que!?” he yells, hands lowering from the air to grasp the roots of his hair. He tugs harshly, an attempt to focus on something other than his heart about to explode. “You—you what? Ay Dios mío, asaste a tu abuela.” Is that… legal? No wonder you need to go home first, what else were you planning to do—take her to Japan with you? Hanta squeezes his eyes shut while he inhales. His face is burning. This can’t be real.

When he takes a nervous glance your way you’re still laying in the bed, watching him with a mixture of amusement and embarrassment. Too calm.

“Cremation is common in Costa Rica,” you tell him. He pulls his lips tight, grimacing while wanting to believe you. “We’ve done it for other relatives and were planning it for her. But, you know, back home. She died here after getting surgery, and… I couldn’t bring myself to face everyone.”

Hanta thinks of his own abuela, the giant flowers spread over her coffin when they lowered her. She has a cross over her grave where he and his relatives stuff bouquets before spreading dinner out on the grass.

“Do they know?”

You nod, a small shake of your head. “I called my sister when she passed, but haven’t talked to her since.”

“Do your parents?”

You don’t nod. “My sister told mamá, I’m sure. But I haven’t spoken to her myself.”

His heart races with fear—for you. Just imagining being in your position floods his veins with ice. He nearly shivers, body tense and curled.

He's afraid to ask, “How… How long has it been?”

“A few months.”

He blows out a breath, not sure if that’s better or worse than what he assumed. He doesn’t know what to say, so he says nothing. You’re still watching him with a complicated expression, but too calm for his liking. He thinks you look sad.

Your lips purse before asking, “Did I ruin your fantasy?”

He frowns. “Huh?” The noise brings a twitch of a smile to your face.

“I guess… I wonder what kind of person you thought you were chasing,” you muse. “I wonder how good I was in your head.”

Oh… Hanta hadn’t thought about that before: neither the kind of person he would ultimately find, nor how knowing he was looking for you would make you feel. He never imagined beyond what he saw, had no assumptions of the kind of person you were, because it didn't matter to him. All that mattered was how he felt. All that mattered was that he wanted to meet you.

He leans forward carefully to lay beside you again. His hand reaches for your face, thumb gently running under your eye.

“I didn't imagine,” he says softly. “I just remembered.”

You hum and lean into his touch. He’s soft; his heart clenches and buzzes, a tingle that runs from his shoulder down his arm and to his palm against your cheek. He presses kisses over your eyes and you grab his wrist to press your own over his hand.

Even with his earlier resolve and understanding, he still wishes it could be like this. Forever.

Leaving in the morning is a painful process. After a final kiss to your forehead he’s out in the cool air and aching to run back into bed with you, but he returns to the hotel to get his things and friends for the parade. The piazza is crowded early, filled with costumes and floats scattered everywhere. Hanta is surprised to find himself overwhelmed, heart racing like he’s a child overstimulated from the sounds and the sun.

Hoshi no Sākasu’s preparations run smoothly—minus Kaminari’s disappearance after Hatsume checks the mechanics of his puppet, along with Bakugou who was supposed to keep an eye on him.

“Where are the blond goons?” Shinsou asks after a headcount. His lips are pursed tight.

Kirishima bites his lip, checking his phone with the shake of his head.

“How do you lose a giant mechanical bird?” Shigaraki asks plainly.

“My baby is missing!?” Hatsume yelps, looking up from the mass of wiring in Tetsutetsu’s costume.

“Not missing,” Shouto assures her. “Just distracted, probably.”

“Or lost,” Shinsou huffs. “It’s hard to get through the crowd. Ugh—this is why I needed everyone here. And to stay here.”

“That’s what Bakugou was for!” Kirishima whines.

Hanta’s eyes glaze between everyone speaking, not fully absorbing the conversation. He wonders where you are and when you’re supposed to arrive. He wishes he asked before he left this morning.

Luckily he soon hears the sigh of a relieved Kirishima.

“Oh thank god!”

Hanta turns to the sound, spotting the bright yellow bird above the sea of people. Bakugou appears a moment later with a twist of annoyance on his face.

“I got’im headin’ over,” he says gruffly. “That bird freak is with ‘im.”

Bird freak? Hanta’s eyes widen. You?

“You left them to get here on their own?” Hanta asks. There’s an edge of accusation he doesn’t mean. His face softens in surprise at his own tone.

Bakugou catches it, grunting. “No. ‘M gonna go back.”

Hanta swallows with a nod, eyes apologizing. Bakugou gives him a curt nod back before disappearing through the crowd again. The yellow bird lets him track your progress, a buoy on the sea. Kirishima is the first to greet Kaminari, immediately pointing him to check with Shinsou.

The blond grins cheekily, eyeing Hanta while saying, “Just had to pick up a delivery, is all!”

His breath catches.

His heart might explode at the sight of you wrapped in black and yellow, a matching beak in your hand. You don’t notice him until he calls your name, but you immediately smile, only indicated by the crescent slivers of your eyes uncovered by the fabric concealing your nose and mouth. He swallows at the sight.

A toucan, you confirm. Like the first time. All he can think is that it’s you, it’s you, it’s you. He knew this already, but now you’re here in front of him, for real. He’s no longer in the crowd, unknown to you except for that split second. This time he’ll be in the parade, with you. He wants to hold you at the waist and lift you above him to spin in circles.

“Please go make heart eyes somewhere else, I’m begging you.”

Hanta rolls his eyes at Denki’s whine, but abides his plea. He whisks to the edge of the piazza where the crowd thins. This time when his friends briefly stop you, momentarily stealing your attention, he’s unrushed—filled with ease. This time he is secure, sure of himself and the unique relationship you have together. 

Standing next to you, hand in yours, he feels like everything will work out—even if it costs more time, and it’s not the future he expected.

The parade is perfect.

The weather is cold, but the costumes are warm enough, especially under the shining sun in the blue of the sky. Hanta is giddy and warm from the excitement, from getting to stand next to you as everyone floats down Milan in costume. He can’t tear his eyes from you for more than a couple minutes, always glancing your way in hopes that you’re looking at him too. After a couple blocks you start to wave frantically, blowing kisses from your beak overdramatically towards the crowd.

He turns and squints, eyes landing on a pair your age waving back dramatically. One is the match to your green macaw, only red. He thinks it’s your friend Chia, noticing how she blows kisses back by waving both her arms at you. The other is a woman in a costume of its own theme—a giant Renaissance dress with shimmering pink fabric and swirls of white. There’s lace and layered sleeves and a dramatic mass of curls done up on her head, matching pink to the fabric and glitter along her eyes. She catches your kiss and pulls it to her heart, pretending to swoon. Hanta hears you laugh, a melody ringing beside him.

“Chia’s in the red macaw,” you say to him loudly, fighting the sound of the music and the crowd. “My friend next to her is Davide—the one in Renaissance drag.”

Hanta offers them a wave. Chiara smirks at him while raising her hands to make a heart while the man responds with a thumbs down. You yell in response—a string of enunciated Italian that he doesn’t understand, but based on your tone and the few recognizable words, he can infer it’s a scolding.

Everything goes smoothly—minus Denki accidentally brushing a powerline with his puppet at the end, almost collapsing from the shock. Touya grabs his arm to help him stand, only to scowl when the electricity buzzes through him too. He immediately runs to Keigo, slapping him on the back between his costume wings and pulling a yelp from the blond.

You offer to help them tear down, hovering around the puppets and float to lend your hands. Hanta smiles as he watches, eventually stalking over. He gently holds you by the waist, turning you to look at him. A necessary kiss is placed against your forehead before he grins and insists they’ll take care of things. You try to protest.

“Employees only,” he says while shaking his head. “How else will we keep the magic a secret?”

He wishes he could see the entirety of your face. Your eyebrows are furrowed, as if angry, but are you pouting? He brings one hand to your cheek, brushing his thumb over your lips. They are pouting, but soften from his touch. He feels tender holding you this way, an overwhelming rush of warmth through his chest. He can’t stop himself from leaning to kiss you through the cloth. It’s soft, his lips barely brushing over yours. He leaves his forehead pressed to yours when he pulls away, eyes trained on you as they slowly open.

“I’ll come see you when we’re done,” he promises. He doesn’t even know if you’re available.

Your eyes crinkle while you nod. “I’ll be home.”

An elbow juts into his side before he responds. He frowns from being torn from you, turning to glare at Monoma smirking beside him.

“Please—if you’re going to be unhelpful, at least get out of the way.”

Hanta huffs and rolls his eyes, reaching for you to step further away from the others. Your goodbye is a soft promise to see him again.

Hanta knocks on your door. There’s no click of a lock before the knob turns, revealing you in long, loose clothing. The room is dimmed by the approaching evening, none of the lights illuminating the space. He steps inside slowly, shrugging off his shoes while he lets the warmth run over him. It smells good, familiar, and his eyes dart to a paper bag on the counter. It’s printed with the name of the empanada place you mentioned the day before.

The scenario feels like coming home.

He kisses you by the entrance, hand against your neck and body slotted into yours. It’s long and slow and sweet. He takes in the press of your chests, the warmth that flows between you two. Your arms reach for his sides, igniting tingles down his spine. His hands slithers around your waist to hold you closer, longer. 

Your face buries into his neck when you part, his hand sliding to cradle your head. His eyes lift, taking in the room—your living room—and he remembers what you whispered to him last night.

Her ashes are in my living room.

“Can I meet your abuela?”

The words fall from his lips before he can think them through. His eyes widen when they register. It’s too soon, right? Of course it’s too soon. Your own family hasn’t seen her in this state. 

It’s quiet. A tension sits in the air. But he doesn’t retract the question.

You break from his arms slowly, nodding when you’re a full step back. He feels his breath catch.

It takes a while. You move slowly to the table and take your time opening the drawer to reveal the box where she rests. It takes even longer for you to open it.

When you do, you tell him it’s the first time you’ve looked inside for yourself.

Hanta gets two blissful days of Carnival with you. Two days of you in costume, leading him down the streets of Milan to watch performers and buy rounds of chiacchiere and tortelli di Milano—sugar-dusted and puffy treats. You pull him to your favorite attractions, to the squares where your favorite performers usually gather. He catched live storytelling and other circus acts from the Clown Festival. Your friend Chiara joins one morning, not so subtly asking Hanta of Shigaraki’s whereabouts. At some point you meet with Denki and Shouto and Midoriya, all graciously enjoying your expertise on what food trucks to stop by. Momo and Kendou and Aoyama follow along your favorite streets of market stalls.

The festivals and costumes remind him of Ecuador while the climate feels more akin to Japan. It’s weird, like being both connected and out of place—both home and homesick. But he’s beside you: a personified piece of home that keeps the discomfort at ease.

And you look happy to be that for him. You pull his arm the way he pulled mamá through the streets of Fiestas de Quito. You pull his arm the way he pulled you along the Pacific, from black sand beaches to the back porch of tío’s house.

Hanta gets two blissful days with you, where everything feels as it should be. They’re so blissful, so perfect, he nearly forgets that there are only two. That he has to leave.

He invites you to dinner with the cast on the last day. It’s routine, a group goodbye to the city. He wants you there, to see you for as long as he can. It’s a reality he’s ignored until the last minute, stomach tight on this final day when he realizes he won’t be waking up next to you tomorrow morning.

“How fancy is the dress code?” you mumble sleepily in the morning.

“Does that matter to you?”

You hum. “Just wanna know the energy.”

Hanta smooths his palm over your forehead, brushing away baby hairs. “There’s no dress code.”

You laugh sharply. He grins.

“What?”

You shake your head. “Where’s the dinner?”

He rolls over to grab his phone, scrolling through his messages with Shinsou to find the name and read it to you.

“Mmm… so classic Milanese…”

You look concentrated, like you’re thinking hard. But you won’t budge when he asks, curious to know what’s running through your mind. You just giggle to yourself when he pulls you close and buries his head into your neck. He watches you stand in front of your closet with an intense expression, demeanor much more serious than he’s used to seeing from you. He wants to know what you’re thinking as you skim through garments and costumes. You try to kick him out so you can piece a final outfit in peace, but he pouts.

“I haven’t seen you get ready before,” he nearly whines.

You pause, considering his point. It takes more coaxing, but you fold and let him sit on the bed and watch while you rummage through the options. He doesn’t bother containing his grin, happily staring at the focus on your face—the manifestation of your churning mind as you silently set aside a variety of pieces. Hanta thinks it’s fascinating, the same intensity you have while working. It’s a different side of you, one he wishes he had more chances to get to know.

The thought tightens his stomach. His grin falters.

He convinces you to let him stay while you assemble your outfit. You raise your eyebrows skeptically when he insists he doesn’t need to go back to his hotel, that he can wear his clothes from yesterday. You mutter something about letting him borrow something of yours. He just grins.

He leaves your home and enters the metro with a hand in yours. You’re dressed in several layers, a transparent dress over a suit and covered with a coat and scarf and hat and gloves and—

and Hanta walks happily beside you in his simple linens, swinging your hands while you step into the station. Nobody looks your way, heads down and absorbed in their own worlds.

When you two arrive, Aoyama is the first to greet you. “You look fabulous.”

“Thanks,” Hanta immediately responds with a grin. 

You huff a laugh while he tugs you inside, immediately pull off your hat and loosen your scarf. He guides through the crowded room, neck craning to assess the tables. Only half or so people are present, but he sees Kendou sitting with Ibara and steers you over.

Dinner with his team is energized as always, loud chatting flitting through the room and crossing tables. People switch seats on impulse, and once dessert makes its way around, clusters of standing conversations form. Hanta freely grabs your hand at random, right on top of the tablecloth. You blink at him questioningly the first time, blooming a warmth and an ache in his chest that makes him squeeze it tighter. He stays by your side when others come to talk to him, and he follows you when you point towards Momo.

Bakugou is standing nearby, swirling his drink. His eyes are narrow when he looks over your clothes as you speak animatedly with the singer.

“They know their brands,” he mumbles to Hanta, trailing the length of your dress.

Hanta lips twitch at the comment, responding to the strike of pride that goes through his heart. It happens again when Shouto strides over, talking easily with the two of you. Momo squeezes your hand with a promise to talk again before stepping aside to greet someone else.

You look comfortable, like you belong here. And the cast has already adopted you, ready to take you in—whenever you’re ready too.

His grin falters, again.

Watching you say goodbye is sweet. It’s all tender touches and sorry eyes between you and Momo and Kendou, whispers of wishes and maybe’s and apologies that you won’t accept from one another. You say a special thanks to Midoriya, for discovering you—this one a conversation of red cheeks and mumbling. You have awkward, incomplete farewells with Shouto and Uraraka and Kaminari. Bakugou hardly spares you a glance. Touya gives you a sneer that makes Hanta roll his eyes and Shigaraki couldn’t be less subtle in trying to ignore you.

Saying goodbye is painful.

It happens outside, away from the entrance in a quiet side street. He has to go with the others. Hoshi no Sākasu leaves tonight. Hanta gathers you knew this early on when Momo relayed the schedule. The look in your eyes—intense and faraway—tells him enough. 

Tonight is the coldest he’s experienced in Milan, a nipping chill that flushes your cheeks while you’re buried back in your scarf and hat. His heart stings at the sight, an ache that bites like ice against skin. He wants more time with you, more running through streets with hands full of desserts. He wishes things were different and you knew what you wanted, too. Will it end here? When will you know what you’ve chosen?

Maybe these questions are splayed on his face, one that can’t hide his feelings. You’re the first to break the silence, with a quiet, “I’m sorry.”

His heart tightens at that, already feeling the sting behind his eyes and nose—tears, pooling along his waterline. He breathes slowly, trying to calm himself while he shakes his head. It’s not your fault, he’s trying to say.

“Kendou’s giving me until June to decide.”

He exhales. June? June as in over three months from now? The deadline is a comfort, to know that things will be decided eventually. But he grimaces at the thought of waiting in that grey space for months. Usually he knows these things for himself. Easily, instantaneously. He’s not used to waiting for others.

“Okay,” he breathes.

“Okay.”

His hand reaches for yours, fingers sliding down the fabric of your glove. He wishes they were uncovered, so he could touch your skin instead. The other hand comes to your cheek, taking in the coolness of your face. You lean into it, eyes fluttering closed. Hanta wants to cry.

There are too many things he wants to say, wants to acknowledge. But how can he speak on everything that’s happened in the past couple weeks? The days were earth shattering. His time with you was everything. Should he talk about the costume? The show and the tents? Everything you shared with him, about home and your family?

“Thank you,” is all he manages to say in the end. “For letting me reach you.”

You swallow, lips pursing as your own eyes water. “Thank you,” you whisper back. “For reaching for me.”

Your lips are salty, covered in both of your tears as he kisses you in the quiet darkness of the alleyway. They’re cold against his, mumbling soft words of sweetness and gratitude and farewell. He chokes at the sounds, poetry spilling into the space between your bodies. Will it expand with the distance—making your separation more and more beautiful as you drift apart?

He can hear the faint sounds of his friends as they exit the restaurant and turn down another street, ignoring when he hears the murmur of Has anyone seen Hanta? He just wants one more minute with you—one more kiss and one more touch and one more promise.

Before he has to go with the others. Before he has to escape into the night to be carried over the mountains and across the border.

Before he’s gone, waking up in Switzerland in a bed without you.

oh my god pasting fics into this website it such a chore

[ptn-imagines]

the cute plushies from eve's event live in my head rent free so... sinner's reactions to their s/o getting a plushie of them? with zoya and and langley (although i might come into your inbox asking for more later, it's difficult to choose just a few😭)

Eve's event in general lives rent-free in my head all the time because it had such a profound effect on me (I cried and I know I'm not the only one). Also, hey, congratulations on being the first person to request multiple characters at once! (I filled another request first, but trust me, your ask came in first.)

Reacting to their S/O getting a plushie of them

Zoya

At first, she’s taken aback, because never once in her life did she imagine her image being turned into a marketable plushie.

Once the shock wears off, though, she grins.

“A plushie of me? Kinda cute. More like you than me, though.”

You figure out she’s calling you cute, seeing as the plushie is her spitting image, albeit chibi and adorable.

You kinda figured she’d tease you about it, and she lives up to your expectations. She calls the plushie “Lil’ Zoya” and it’s a near-constant companion for the two of you.

Over time though, Zoya genuinely becomes really attached to the plushie. Your plushie? Sorry, it’s hers now. That’s her child and don’t you dare suggest that it’s any lesser just because it’s felt and cotton. If she had any less dignity she’d probably be buying little outfits for it.

Still, it’s the perfect chance to tease her back. She’ll huff about it jokingly, but take it in good stride. Fair is fair, after all, and as her beloved significant other, you can get away with a lot.

And if you try to tease that she likes Lil’ Zoya more than you, Zoya is more than willing to show you just how beloved you are to her.

Langley

It’s pretty hard to read her reaction at first, so you worry she’s upset with you at first.

Those worries vanish when she finally lets out an amused chuckle and pats you on the shoulder.

“Looks well-made, dear. Where did you get it from?”

You shyly explain that it’s one of Eve’s toys, and Langley nods. “Well, I’m glad this one is just a replica, and not the genuine article, hm?”

You rush to agree with her, a blush forming on your face, and she chuckles again. Of course, she’s just teasing you, you knew that. But you can’t help it. You adore your girlfriend, but she just has this aura…

“You’d best take care of the toy, hm? It would be a shame if something happened to it.”

It sounds like a threat, but you know Langley well enough to know that it isn’t. She wouldn’t threaten a toy. It’d be a very pointless endeavor and you can’t imagine what the plush would have done to earn her ire in the first place. It is, quite literally, just existing.

So yeah, Langley isn’t bothered by the plushie, nor is she as enamored with it as Zoya is. She does think it makes you even cuter, though. Her cute little pet.

[galway-girlatwork]

You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch

Fandom: The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent-Completely AU

Rating: General-There is fluff and fluff and did I mention fluff?

Central Characters: Javi G. and Mia

Central Relationship: Javi G. and Mia

Word Count: 821

AO3

Please do not copy my work. If you liked it, please re-blog and tag me. Please do not steal my mood board. Stealing is just WRONG. I do not give permission to copy, translate, or post my work to any other platform.

Music inspiration: Rockin Around The Christmas Tree-Brenda Lee

This was a writing challenge for @beefrobeefcal's "What Could Go Wrong?" December Prompt Challenge. This is one of the shortest fictions I've ever written and it's nothing but fluff. Hopefully you enjoy it and Happy Holidays.

Music Inspiration: Rockin Around the Christmas Tree-Brenda Lee

Javi sat on the plush couch in his girlfriend’s cozy New York apartment, his usually vibrant energy noticeably dimmed. The flickering glow of the Christmas tree lights reflected in his forlorn eyes, a stark contrast to the cheery holiday decorations that filled the space, Mia perched beside him, holding a plate of fruitcake, watching as he absently picked at it, his mind clearly elsewhere.

“Javi,” she said, nudging him gently with her shoulder. “What’s going on? It’s the day before Christmas Eve and you’re acting like the Grinch.”

Sighing dramatically, setting the plate down on the coffee table, he pulled her into his lap. “I don’t know, mi amor. It’s like the holiday spirit left me this year. The lights, the music—it’s all… meh.” He shrugged, his hands flopping into her lap almost as a sign of defeat.

Narrowing her eyes, a playful expression softening into determination. She adored Javi’s larger-than-life personality, the way he could recite lines from Paddington 2 with perfect inflection, and his infectious laugh that filled any room. Seeing him so downcast tugged at her heart.

“Well,” she said, standing up and smoothing her sweater, “we can’t have that. I refuse to let you spend Christmas moping around. Come with me.”

Looking up at her skeptically. “Where are we going? Do not tell me it’s to some cheesy holiday market.”

“Cheesy? Javi, those markets are not cheesy, they’re magical, and I know you secretly love them. But no, we’re going out for a little bit before we come home. I have something I want to show you so get up and get your coat on.” Listening to him grumble, she went into the hall closet and grabbed her jacket, watching as he did the same. Hand in hers, she led him to the elevator. “The city awaits. I am going to show you the magic of Christmas.” First on her list was Rockefeller Center where they attempted to ice skate, spending more time on their asses than the ice. Then she bought them hot chocolate while they watched others enjoy the Christmas tree that was prominently on display. Taking his hand in hers, she nudged him. “Got the spirit yet?”

“Maybe a little.”

“Good but we’re not done yet. I want to take you just one more place before we go home.” The walked along 5th avenue, adjacent to Central Park. She had always loved how the department stores decorated the windows. Of course, it was busy but they took their time, as they wandered along the sidewalk, a sigh of relief given when he ohhh’ed over one. But the complaint of it getting too cold for him had her hailing a cab back to the apartment.

Once they were home, he reluctantly, followed her into the kitchen, seeing a stack of backing supplies and on the small breakfast table, everything needed to make ornaments. “Isn’t this kind of passe?”

“No, it isn’t passe, it’s our new tradition. We’re gonna make gingerbread cookies, then we’re going to make ornaments for the tree,” tying an apron around his neck, “ And after that, we’ll watch your favorite Christmas movie.”

Raising an eyebrow. “My favorite Christmas movie? You mean Paddington 2?”

“Yes, because it’s basically a Christmas movie,” She said with a grin. “Paddington makes everyone feel warm and fuzzy. Trust me. Then we’re going to watch Home Alone. It’s a classic.”

Despite his initial reluctance, Javi found himself laughing as flour dusted his hair and Mia smeared icing on his nose. They hung their homemade ornaments on the tree, each one slightly misshapen but it didn’t matter since they’d made them together. By the time they settled on the couch with steaming mugs of hot chocolate, Javi felt a flicker of holiday warmth returning.

As the credits rolled on Paddington 2, Mia leaned her head on his shoulder. “Feeling any better?”

Javi wrapped an arm around her, a soft smile playing on his lips. “A little. But you know what would make me feel completely festive?”

“What’s that?” she asked, tilting her face up to look at him.

“This.” He leaned in and kissed her, slow and tender, the glow of the Christmas lights casting a multi-colored hue over them.

When they finally pulled apart, her cheeks were flushed, and she laughed softly. “Well, look at that. Tis the holiday season indeed. Truly a Christmas mircle.”

Grinning, he pulled her in closer, tucking a blanket around them both before scrolling to find one of her favorite movies. “With you, every season feels special. But I’ll admit… this holiday might not be so bad after all.” Sitting together on the sofa, her head on his chest, his heart swelled with gratitude. The season wasn’t just about presents, it was about the decorations, traditions, and being with someone who wanted to share the magic with you. It’s what Mia had done, shown him the magic and love.

@beefrobeefcal @604to647

[fancyfeathers]

Can I request a yandere genshin impact character/s of your choice with a reader that's like millie from helluva boss?

I FUCKING LOVE HELLUVA BOSS! THANK YOU ANON, I COULD KISS YOU FOR THIS REQUEST!!!

For those who don’t know what Helluva Boss is or Millie, Helluva Boss is an indie animation series for adults (strong language, sexual references, and so on)

Blitz, a classic demon Imp, sets out to run his own small assassin business with his weapons specialist Moxxie, his bruiser Millie, and his receptionist hellhound Loona. Together, they attempt to survive each other while running a start-up in Hell.

Millie is the powerhouse character who has a sweet and lively personality, she does her job, killing people, and then outside of it she cares deeply for her loved ones.

sorry I hyper fixated for a second, I just love Helliva Boss…

anyway on we go…

Immediately I thought of Wriothesley, a prison warden, a former criminal.

Putting this in the world of Genshin I could see this being a black market business, assassinating people who their clients want dead. This business gives Fontaine officials a headache, not only are the kill sights nightmares to clean up but the perpetrators always seem to slip right out. The reader, in the role of Millie here probably lives a normal life outside of her work, just a normal unsuspecting citizen of Fontaine, perhaps originally from somewhere else like Natlan.

Wriothesley will be out one day, either before and on his way to a meeting with the Iudex of Fontaine or right after when he meets her. His darling will be perhaps walking the street, chatting next to someone, a friend perhaps, next to her happily. At first he is taken with her outgoing personality, even going out of his way to make a fool of himself, acting like he doesn’t know where Neuvillette’s office is and needing directions.

He can’t get her off his mind even during his meeting with Neuvillette on a group of assassins that have been silently lurking on the streets on Fontaine.

When he meets her again, it’s under very different circumstances. He was on his away to take a criminal into custody when he hears a scream followed by a gunshot. He rushes to where he heard it, only to see his darling standing over a body, talking to someone nonchalantly, as if this was just another day.

He doesn’t confront her right away, no he follows her back to where this organization’s headquarters are. He then goes to report it to Neuvillette, then the next thing you know Fontaine law enforcement has you and your colleagues under arrest.

Of course you are all guilty, and you find yourself being transferred into the Fortress of Meropide where Wriothesley has you places under pretty much isolation. Being treated different than the other prisoners where you can only see him and maybe a few other guards. He says it is to keep you and your colleagues apart, but in reality they’re walking around the fortress just fine. It’s just to you, special treatment…

[enchantingkryptoniteheart-blog]

Best of Intentions - snippet - thorin/dis character sibling relationship

*******************

The words seemed to blur and melt into one another as he stared at the page. He groaned as he rubbed his eyes irritably. He couldn’t seem to make himself focus, and as a result he had been glaring at this paper numbingly for the past 30 minutes. He was tempted to just sign it without reading it further. He leaned his elbows against the table and rested his head in his palms and sighed. His eyes were drawn towards the end of the table, where the bouquet of peonies rested in a crystal vase. Their fragrance was potently sweet, and it permeated his office with their overpowering presence. Much like how she had commandeered his dreams on a nightly basis. He glowered at the pink blossoms.

“Ooohh someone have an admirer? Pink peonies are an interesting choice to be sure.” Dis swept into his office swiftly. She placed a mug of steaming tea in front of him. “You have been working late the past couple weeks.” She mused as she studied his face.

“Raila gifted them to me when the boys and I went to check on her and her sister.” He sighed, not quite meeting Dis’s keen eyes.

Dis smirked. “Raila gifted you peonies? Pink peonies.” She snickered as she walked up the blooms and traced one of the blooms with her finger. “That’s interesting. Fili and Kili were tight lipped on the matter, although they hinted that you may or may not have seen Mistlynn in the markets.”

Thorin raised an eyebrow at her prodding. He sat back in his chair as he returned her challenging stare. “I came across a lot of our acquaintances today in the markets.”

“Apparently words were exchanged, and you admonished her for being so careless regarding her stunts when she attempted to escape.” Dis mused further, still playing with the delicate petals.

Thorin grumbled. “I don’t see why I even bother to talk to you when you already know what happened. You’ve just come to prod me into another argument.”

Dis rolled her eyes before fixing her brother with an exasperated stare. “Thor, must you be such a stubborn grump about this? Fili and Kili both said they could literally feel the Pull between the two of you. She may not be as insensitive to it as you think. Fili said she appeared flustered in your presence.”

“Did you forget our rather heated argument when she first got here, after her said stunts that would have broken any other dam’s neck?” His eyes flashed at the reminder. “She’s proud and doesn’t like being called out on her foolishness.”

Dis couldn't help her laughing. “Aule preserve me! Now who does that remind me of?” She rubbed her chin with a dramatic flourish. “Oh, that’s right. I’m looking right at him.”

“Why are you here Dis? I have work to do.” Thorin sighed wearily.

“I was checking to see if you pulled that stubborn head of yours out of your royal pain of an ass.” She teased as she walked back up to him. She grabbed his face in her hands and made him look up at her. “I worry about you Thor. I want you to have happiness. And this … “she gestured with her chin to towards the pile of paperwork, “It isn’t it.” She leaned down and placed a kiss to his forehead. “Now take those flowers to Mistlynn and apologize for being such a cave troll. Flash that gorgeous smile of yours and woo her. Make her want to stay.”

Thorin scoffed. “Do you even know me? I am incapable of wooing.”

“Yes, brother dearest. I have faith in you. You weren’t blessed with that handsome face for nothing.  Take her the bleeding flowers.” Dis gave his cheek a firm pat before gathering her skirts and walking back towards the door.

He sat as still as a statue as he listened to his sisters steps grow faint as she walked down the hall. His eyes slid back to the bouquet before they narrowed. “It can’t be that bloody simple.” He growled as he jumped up from his seat and walked towards them. He took a deep breath as he fought with himself for a moment before he snatched them out of the vase.

**********************

Taglist : @fizzyxcustard @dustie-faerie @exhasuted-humxn-being @mrsdurin @lathalea

[stitched-mouth]

Madame Web Production BS

Just to be clear, I love this movie. But I love talking about what a dumpster fire it was behind the scenes so let me point everything wrong with my favourite of the year so far. SPOILERS!

• Cass’s personality is not fleshed out… that’s a major problem. I feel like they just told Dakota Johnson to do what she wants the whole movie BUT then right at they end they decide to give Cass a personality completely ripped from the comics. And it doesn’t work with the way Dakota was playing her the whole movie and these no character development over the course of the movie, so it’s actually a little scary seeing her switch at the end.

• None of the characters have a personality actually. The villain was the worst to be fair because I still don’t really understand his motives. Like… you tricked and murdered a pregnant woman and a few others because your family was poor? And you think Spidey strength will fix that? Um, ok. So is mine but I don’t know.. wouldn’t kill anybody over it though.

• I hate Sydney Sweeney’s image. And it’s not her or her marketing teams fault. It’s her fans’ and her directors. She’s constantly purposely dressed sexy in movies (even when dressed down like a nerd, she’s still sexualised) but then is playing a child. Like wtf. They did it to her in Euphoria and they’ve done it to her again in Madame Web. And how Sydney dresses for press also is clearly influenced by directors and fans’, like the look isn’t just what they want for her characters but also how she’s expected to be irl too. It’s kind of sick and related to how paedophilic things are still normalised in our society today, I’ll have to say that rant for another day though.

• Why does it feel like nobody cared about this movie? The script feels like the first draft that was supposed to have rewrites but nobody was bothered. Same with the editing, everything but especially the dialogue and music feels so placeholder, why was it in the finished project? Like even the Google cast page is not finished, only the leads have their character names on there. Zosia Mament (the villain’s assistant) is credited as fucking ‘Actress’.

• Why was Cassie able to fly to Peru when she’s a wanted criminal? Why is she flying to Peru when talking about laying low because she’s a WANTED CRIMINAL??!

• The writers constantly forgetting what year it is was hilarious and the editors just throwing one Brittney Spears song in and a few Beyonce billboards in to cover up their mistake is also hilarious.

• ACTUALLY, apparently the whole reason the movie was set in 2003 was because the director really wanted to use Toxic in the movie. Because apparently you can’t play a song in a movie if the movie doesn’t take place in the same year the song was released 🤡

• BUT Toxic was released in 2004 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

• The writers taking the time setting as a opportunity to reference Garfield’s Spider-Man but then also forgetting that that SM was born in 1995 🤡🤡🤡🤡

• Yes I checked, they specifically wanted to reference Garfield’s Spidey, but through editing they realised their mistake and started trying to make it look like they were talking about Tom Holland’s SM instead, which risks breaking some rules with Marvel… AND THAT SPIDEY WAS BORN IN 2001 SO THEY STILL FUCKED UP. The fact that a simple Google and common sense (like they must of know Garfield’s fist SM movie took place in 2012 and if he was born in 2003, he would of been only 9 years old in 2012 😑) would of fixed this problem is again hilarious.

• Obviously the biggest goof was Dakota Johnson not realising she’s not in a Marvel movie and firing her agent the same day the trailer got dropped 🤡

• She also might be in trouble for posting the teaser on her Instagram and tagging Marvel before the trailer dropped (so before she found out), but I don’t think Dakota manages her own socials tbh. That post was removed then put back up without a Marvel tag.

• The press tour is amazingly bad, I love it.

• Not seeing the girls turn or become heroes was probably the worst part about this movie but I knew that going in so didn’t mind too much. But the real issue is with how Sony keeps straight up lying to their audience with their trailers. Obviously some studios add somethings into their trailer to create more interest for the audience but that’s not what Sony is doing, they are straight up LYING. And they do it so often now I want to fight whoever is in charge of that, they are the reason this movie flopped.

• Them and the writers… and whoever decided to hire the Morbius writers again, everyone there deserves to lose their jobs.

• The only reason I want this movie to do well is because I want Madame Web to have more movies with Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Adam Scott, Isabella Mercer, Emma Roberts and Celeste O’Connor all returning. But I really don’t see that happening now, I can’t see Dakota signing another contract with Sony or doing everything to get out of this contract if it’s not over yet.

• The fact that they had to dub the villain’s lines makes me so confused to why he was hired? He didn’t even give a good performance, not saying he’s a bad actor (I’ve heard he’s great on other movies), but he really didn’t do anything in MW.

• And the part with the FBI agent and the villain had me so confused too. Like, did she seduce him to find out information about him? Because it makes sense that the FBI would be suspicious of this guy. But then did he see through her act and decide to at least get laid before killing her and stealing her passcode? But everyone is saying he seduce her for her passcodes and yeah I’m confused.

• The problem is the pacing and how everything that needs explaining isn’t, but everything that doesn’t need an explanation IS explained. And too much.

“He worked with my Mom in this place looking for this spider right before she died”

That’s not the exact quote but it’s pretty close to and that’s less than 5 minutes in. Ok thanks spoiling the whole movie to me. I really didn’t know a movie could spoil the movie to me.

• I’ll add more to this post when I remember more bs this movie endured or forced me to endure, feel free to add to this list in the comments or reposts.

[daydreamingoveracupofcoffee]

You write about Naomasa Tsukauchi?! My favorite detective?! You’re my favorite writer now! Could I ask for a story of tsukauchi working with his vigilante soulmate (that’s like Spider-Man in terms of personality) on solving difficult cases? Maybe she made a deal with him that as long as he doesn’t arrest her she give him crucial info to help his cases?(since she does work underground a lot she obviously knows a lot of information) I find it funny if when they first met she just went “wait! I don’t wanna fight! I’m not a villain! I’m uh- your friendly underground vigilante? You wouldn’t arrest your friendly underground vigilante right detective?” Anyway I find it funny to have tsukauchi working alongside his vigilante soulmate that keeps refusing to become a legal hero due to various reasons (makes her job harder, loses the trust of crucial characters in the underground she worked so hard to earn, is actually not a citizen/stateless and can’t get a legal job, etc) basically kinda like spider-man in personality just happens to be in unfortunate circumstances that makes it much harder for her to be a legal hero. Much thanks!

Naomasa Tsukauchi and his vigilante soulmate

[Anon's name]cherishes the freedom of operating outside the hero system. She distrusts the Hero Commission’s bureaucracy, believing it stifles true heroism with red tape and corporate interests.

She has a history of being let down by “official” heroes who prioritized fame over saving people in her rough neighborhood. Becoming a vigilante was her way of filling that gap.

Her underground network—petty criminals, informants, and reformed villains—would dry up if she went legit. She argues her vigilante status lets her access info no pro hero could.

First meeting:

Naomasa stumbles upon the vigilante, mid-investigation in a shady part of Musutafu. When he confronts her, she panics and blurts out, “Wait! I don’t wanna fight! I’m not a villain! I’m, uh—your friendly underground vigilante? You wouldn’t arrest your friendly underground vigilante, right, Detective?” Her cheeky grin and quick wit catch him off guard, and he hesitates just long enough for her to slip away.

Naomasa later realizes she’s his soulmate due to a subtle quirk resonance (a faint tingling when they’re near each other). She figures it out too but avoids mentioning it, nervous about the implications of being tied to a by-the-book detective.

The deal:

After several run-ins, [anon's name] proposes a deal: she’ll feed Naomasa critical underground info—smuggler routes, villain hideouts, black-market deals—if he promises not to arrest her. Naomasa, torn between duty and the undeniable value of her intel, reluctantly agrees, but only if she follows strict rules (no killing, no excessive property damage).

Their partnership starts rocky. Naomasa’s skeptical of her reliability, while she’s wary he’ll betray her to the Hero Commission. Over time, her consistent tips and his refusal to set traps earn mutual respect.

Working together:

[Anon's name]’s Spider-Man-esque personality—quippy, sarcastic, and prone to cracking jokes during tense stakeouts—clashes with Naomasa’s serious demeanor.

“Hey, Detective Truth, got any donuts for your favorite vigilante?”

He sighs and hands her a case file. Her levity lightens his stress, though he’d never admit it.

Her agility let her infiltrate places Naomasa can’t, like rooftops or ventilation shafts, gathering intel on villains like Stain’s followers or quirk-trafficking rings. Naomasa’s analytical mind and police resources turn her raw info into actionable plans, leading to high-profile busts.

Their bond enhances their teamwork. Naomasa’s lie-detection quirk faintly picks up her emotions through their connection, helping him gauge when she’s hiding something. She, in turn, senses his stress spikes, prompting her to drop by with coffee or a bad pun to cheer him up.

Deep down, she worries that becoming a legal hero would shift their dynamic, forcing Naomasa to treat her as a colleague rather than a partner.

Moments:

During a stakeout, [anon's name] whispers, “If we get caught, I’m blaming your loud tie, Detective.” Naomasa deadpans, “It’s standard issue,” only for her to retort, “Standard issue crime against fashion.” He cracks a rare smile.

When Naomasa’s injured during a raid, [anon's name] swings in to save him, blurting out, “You’re not allowed to get hurt, you’re mine—I mean, my intel source!” He pretends not to notice but files it away with a smirk.

She occasionally swings by his office window at 2 a.m. with takeout, claiming it’s “just to make sure you’re not drowning in paperwork.” These visits become their unspoken way of acknowledging the soulmate bond without addressing it directly.

Challenges:

Naomasa struggles with the legality of their deal, especially when [anon's name] bends rules (like “borrowing” evidence from a crime scene). He lectures her, but she counters that her methods save lives faster than his protocols.

The Commission suspects Naomasa’s info comes from a vigilante and pushes him to bring her in. He deflects but knows their arrangement can’t last forever.

[Anon's name]’s refusal to go legit frustrates Naomasa, who sees it as her rejecting a safer life—and maybe him. She, meanwhile, fears he’ll eventually choose duty over her. Their bond makes these unspoken fears palpable, leading to tense silences.

Long-term outlook:

Neither openly acknowledges the soulmate bond, but their actions—her saving him, him protecting her secret—speak volumes. Eventually, they’ll have to confront it, especially if the Hero Commission forces Naomasa’s hand.

[Anon's name] might consider a covert role as an informant under Naomasa’s protection, blending her underground edge with his legal framework. For now, they’re content solving cases, bickering, and stealing glances when the other isn’t looking.

She’ll swing by his office window and tease, “Detective, you keep looking at me like that, I’ll think you’re smitten.” Naomasa responds with a dry, “Focus on the intel,” but his faint blush gives him away.

Additional materials, deepening romance:

During a quiet stakeout, [anon's name], uncharacteristically serious, asks why Naomasa trusts her despite her vigilante status. He admits, “Because I know who you are, even without a badge. And… I feel you, here.” He touches his chest, referencing the bond. She’s speechless, then rests her head on his shoulder, a rare moment of vulnerability.

The Hero Commission ramps up pressure on Naomasa to catch [anon's name], threatening his career. Torn, he confronts her at their usual rooftop meeting spot, admitting he can’t keep protecting her illegally forever. She snaps, “What do you want from me, Naomasa? To give up everything? To give up us?” The word “us” slips out, stunning them both. In the heat of the moment, he grabs her hand and says, “I want you safe. I want you with me. Soulmate or not, I—” He stops, but she finishes it by kissing him fiercely, before she pulls back, breathless.

Post-kiss, they finally talk about the bond. [Anon's name] admits she’s been scared of losing her freedom and him if she goes legit. Naomasa confesses he’s been fighting his feelings to uphold his duty but can’t imagine a life without her. They agree to find a middle ground, though it’s messy and uncertain.

[Anon's name] agrees to work toward a legal status, but only as an informant under Naomasa’s direct supervision, preserving her underground edge. In return, Naomasa vows to shield her from the Commission’s overreach. They seal it with a quieter, softer kiss.

“So, Detective, am I still your friendly vigilante?”

He smirks, “You’re more than that. You know it.”

[lambsouvlaki]

For the Hell of it 4 - Pillion

Character: Jason Todd x civilian! Fem!oc

Rating and Warnings: G, mention of vomit, mention of past abuse.

Word Count: 1,292

Summary: Jason takes Andy on his bike for the first time.

Masterlist

Jason laughed at her. Andy did not care. 

“It’s not ‘doing movies wrong’,” she replied with her chin lifted up while she held the door out of the movie theatre open for him. “It’s a passive activity, you can’t do it wrong.”

“You’re doing this one wrong, who sees Mission Impossible for the plot?” 

“What were you here for then?”

“The stunts, obviously.” He buried his hands in the pockets of his jacket and strolled beside her out into the warm afternoon. They both blinked at the brightness. “That’s the whole marketing campaign. Most dangerous stunt ever attempted by a human. Don’t know how they’re judging that exactly, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen youtube videos of Nightwing pulling stupider tricks two hundred feet over concrete pavement.”

“How would they know that anyway?” she said. “‘By a human’. What, are they DNA testing the crew?”

He frowned thoughtfully. “We’d know if Tom Cruise was a Metahuman.”

“Yeah, but what if the stunt coordinator was prescient and just never told anyone. Maybe the guy who checks the ropes and harnesses got that job because he’s got the power of tensile strength detection.”

Jason snorted a laugh. “They walk among us, doing safety checks?”

“Metas gotta pay the rent too.” She suddenly wished she’d kept her stupid mouth shut. “I assume.” 

Jason didn’t seem to notice, frowning at the tinted windows of the Italian restaurant they usually went to after catching a movie. They weren’t dates, of course, because they’d agreed they weren’t dating. They were just hanging out.

She followed his eyes to the windows but couldn’t make out anything more than vague movement through the glass.

He stepped ahead of her and pushed open the door, putting himself between her and the interior. She heard glass smashing and a lot of yelling before she saw a large man in a chef’s jacket punch a man in a suit in the stomach. He threw up spaghetti and red sauce all over the floor. 

She made a face and stepped back outside, chased by the acrid stench and a chorus of yells. Jason let the door swing shut again. 

“I’m suddenly not hungry for pasta,” he groused. 

She sighed. How quintessentially Gotham. Or maybe just Crime Alley. “There’s that Greek place on the next block?”

“I had Greek food for lunch.” He looked at her with his eyes slightly narrowed. His scheming face, she called it. “How do you feel about Afghan food? There’s a great place in the Narrows.” 

“I’m not walking to the Narrows.” 

He jerked his head at his bike, parked in front of the theatre. “It’s a quick ride. And I can drop you home afterwards.”

“Oh, okay. Sure, let’s try that then.” She followed him towards the gleaming black motorbike that she was honestly a little surprised nobody had tried to steal. She paused awkwardly a couple of feet away while he got his gloves out of his back pocket. 

“I’ve never ridden pillion before. You have to tell me if I’m doing it wrong.”

Jason sent her a curious look. “You’ve ridden a bike yourself?”

“Curse your attention to detail.”

He laughed. It was a warm and loud sound, and all too rare. She counted anything more than a snort as a win. 

“Never ridden pillion.” He swung a leg over the bike and patted the seat behind him. “Come on, daylight’s burning and I’m hungry.” 

She hopped up behind him, straddling the seat. It was a far more… close seating arrangement than she’d thought about in advance. Jason was tall and broad, she couldn’t see anything except his back from this position. He was so warm too, even without actually touching him. She could feel her cheeks warming a little and hoped he didn’t notice. She didn’t know where to put her hands. 

“Try to keep your leg away from the exhaust, it’ll get hot. Like that, perfect,” he said, pulling her knee slightly forward. “Now hands on my waist and try not to lean too much with the corners.”

She settled into the seat more comfortably and placed her hands on his waist. She could feel his rib cage expanding with each breath. “Like that?”

“Uh-huh.” He pulled his helmet on. “There’s gonna be a test at the end.” 

“Is the test Not Falling Off?” 

“I promise to circle round and scrape you off the road if you do. After a kebab or two.” 

“Asshole,” she said, but it was drowned out by the sudden roar of the bike. She knew he was smiling under the black helmet, she could sense it.

The bike vibrated between her legs much more than she expected, like some kind of angry beast. He wheeled it round, and then took off from the curb with a smooth acceleration. The force of the burst of speed startled her anyway and she leaned into him with a yelp. She cured around his back as they moved faster and faster, giving up on embarrassment. 

The cold air whipped past, a kaleidoscope of sounds and smells rushing by, but she was safe in the lee of his figure. He was so big and stable, it felt like wrapping herself around a column. A warm, breathing column. He smelled like leather conditioner and something smooth and earthy she couldn’t name. She tried not to lean out too much as he took corners, and found herself moving with him. It was such a tactile experience, overwhelming physical in a way she was unused to.

She shocked herself with how much she was into it. She leaned her cheek against his back. The leather of his jacket was soft. Before she met him she would have been shocked to think she’d gotten onto some man’s bike to go wherever he decided they were going. 

After the last time… in her darkest, loneliest moments she didn’t think she was ever going to trust anyone ever again. Certainly not a man, let alone one so intimidating. But she didn’t feel threatened by Jason, not in the least. 

She felt safer around him than she had in a long time. 

“Okay?” he called over his shoulder as they slowed to a stop at some lights.

“Okay!” 

She wondered if her instincts were leading her astray. She wasn’t stupid, she had seen his discoloured and ripped up knuckles, the scars lining his arms. He didn’t habitually find the exit in every room he entered due to a fear of a fire suddenly breaking out. Private security, he said his job was. In Gotham that could mean a number of things, some of them were even legal. The 200 something pounds of man between her legs was very dangerous. 

But he treated her so carefully, so gently. Like a little bird in his large hands, delicate heartbeat fluttering a mile a minute. 

Her pride raged at just how much she liked it. She hadn’t fought so hard to be in control of her life just to gamble with it now. She held on like a limpet as they pulled away from the lights. 

No. Bad Andy. Remember the last time you put your trust in someone you thought you knew? 

But Jason was nothing like Kieran. Kieran, insecure little insect, who needed someone to hold down just to reassure himself he was a man. Jason didn’t need any reassurances. He knew he was dangerous and spent more time making people feel comfortable and safe than trying to throw his weight around. 

When she was looking, that was. Just because he wasn’t the type of snake she’d encountered before didn’t mean he wasn’t going to turn around and bite her anyway. She didn’t know. He could be an all new variety of bad news. She held on a little tighter. 

City streets flashed by, and then they were shooting across the bridge, nothing but water and sky around them, dyed magnificent red in the sunset.

It didn’t matter of course. Because they weren’t dating.

Next >>

[yerbamansa]

Writing Patterns - First & Last Sentences

Tagged by @thetragicallynerdy - thanks for the tag! This was fun! You got me to make a tumblr post for the first time in a thousand years!

Editing to add @petrichorca for tagging me in the first part of the game - consider yourself tagged back for corresponding last lines?

I’m just combining two things because that seems handy.

Rules: list the first line of your last 10 (posted) fics and see if there's a pattern! Then list the last line of the same 10 fics you shared opening lines for and see if there's a pattern!

1. the secret middle-aged sad-sack mostly bad vibes I can sing along to playlist

First: Some things don’t change.

Last (most recent): Why the fuck, then, do they start sobbing?

2. the way things are going

First: Since things started falling apart, Oluwande learned the hard way to be careful about who to trust.

Last (most recent): Once he got it open, he read aloud: “‘Dear community and/or individuals, my name is Stede Bonnet…’”

3. Welcome to Jeff’s Inn by the Sea | Innkeeper Roleplay ASMR | Personal Attention | Realistic | Soft Spoken Male Voice

First: When Stede Bonnet’s boyfriend casually mentioned wanting to try making ASMR videos, he was all in.

Last: “I’ll have to think about that one, dearest,” he decided.

4. Rock On To The Oceanside

First: Ed Teach wasn’t built for sitting idle.

Last (most recent): And Ed felt ready.

5. Plus Ones

First: “So how did you two meet?”

Last: “Probably even better luck if we do it again.”

6. you can move in light divine

First: Oluwande had always loved Jim, probably from the moment they met.

Last: So many more conversations to come.

7. due to a controllable irregularity

First: It had been a good week, but Stede was looking forward to going home.

Last: He’d tell him. Soon.

8. an atypical emotional response to common sounds

First: Stede Bonnet had a complicated relationship with sounds.

Last: Stede couldn’t wait for Saturday.

9. Stede has started shopping for your order

First:  “Your GetMeGroceries shopper Stede has arrived at Jenkins Market!” the app informed Ed.

Last: For the moment, however, he had far more compelling priorities.

10. I Think I See The Light

First: Jackie’s traded her usual vivid reds for somber black, but she still looks every bit the part of the intimidating pirate queen.

Last: And they start humming a now-familiar tune as they scan the docks for a recognizable face: If you want to sing out, sing out…

NB: skipped one that’s a mostly abandoned group collab smau because that doesn’t seem indicative of my style, and there’s one here that needed the preceding sentence because otherwise it’s just one word.

Hmmm, so, self-analysis: I start with some kind of place-setting thesis statement. Sometimes it’s maybe a little in medias res, but not usually, I guess. The POV character is named more often than not. And I end on the edge of some kind of decision or change. That’s by design—I don’t like writing pat endings and happily ever afters (even if they are pretty happy). This is especially true for mid-fic chapters, I suppose, but it’s definitely how I approach endings in general! (There’s one fic I can think of that has a final sentence I fucking hate for reasons related to this but I don’t wanna go rewrite it because I am not sure what to change it to, and I’m really quite pleased with the rest of the fic!)

One thing that strikes me is that I can’t really tell from any of these firsts and lasts whether the fic is more funny or serious. It’s just a lot of interior monologue, really.I’m not sure if there’s anything here I specifically want to work on. Maybe experimenting more with diving right into the action?

ANYHOO. If you see this because you're still actually looking at your tumblr dash regularly (sorry sorry) and you wanna play, please do!! I won't stumble out of the woodwork and tag but I love you all ok byeee

[therealmrrobinson]

NOVOCAINE (2025) Movie Review

Stop me if you’ve experienced this before. Every year, there’s one trailer that plays in front of literally every movie that you see. It looks really good and you’re excited to see it. However once the movie comes out, you end up walking out disappointed because it didn’t deliver on what you expected from that trailer. That happened to me last year with Matthew Vaughn’s Argylle, and I was nervous the same thing would happen with Novocaine. Thankfully, Novocaine not only lived up to the trailer, but ended up being better than I could’ve imagined!

THE GOOD

One thing that truly surprised me about this movie is that it wasn’t a full blown comedy with an outlandish premise. The trailers tell you that the plot is about an average guy who is on a mission to save his girlfriend, but he has a condition where he can’t feel pain. It’s marketed as an action comedy, and the set up is ripe to be nothing beyond that. In a way, it shares some similarities with the Crank movies starring Jason Statham. It has plenty of outrageously hilarious moments, however what separates Novocaine from Crank is that the former has plenty of genuine thrills that aren’t played for laughs at all. A perfect example of this is what happens after the sequence where one of the bank robbers is twisting the arrow in Nate’s leg and he has to pretend to feel pain. That moment is just as funny as it was in the trailer, but then it is followed up by something that is sure to make most audience members squirm. I had to look away a few times during this scene, which I don’t normally do in even the goriest of horror movies. However the movie is clever to not have these two scenes feel out of place from one another; it strikes the perfect balance of being an action comedy and an intense action thriller.

Another element that puts Novocaine above Crank is that it’s sincere. The movie is straight forward and doesn’t come across like a parody in the way Crank can often feel like. The two leads Jack Quaid and Amber Midthunder, help with the film’s earnestness. Their first meeting is an adorable meet cute and both actors have great chemistry with each other. Jack Quaid is incredibly charming and it’s also refreshing to see him in a major role where he isn’t a total creep. His character is very relatable for anyone who is an introvert and doesn’t have a lot of real human connections. This is all despite the fact that he finds himself in many absurd scenarios. Amber Midthunder is great as well. She has just as much charisma as Jack Quaid does and there’s more to her character than what the trailers lead you to believe. It makes her more important to the story than simply the girlfriend that needs to be rescued. It’s because of her role where the movie can be somewhat unpredictable in how it plays out. There’s a twist that I honestly didn’t see coming, but it makes sense and keeps you invested in where the movie is going. 

THE BAD

For the kind of movie that this is, there’s very few issues that I had. The biggest element of the film that I wasn’t a fan of would have to be Jacob Batalon. His character doesn’t appear until the end of the second act. When he does, he ends up being the hero’s best friend who seems to talk nonstop. Thematically his character does serve a purpose and is important to Nate’s character, but the way he’s used in the film left a lot to be desired. The movie also has a few predicable tropes, particularly with the two detectives (Betty Gabriel & Matt Walsh) who assume that Nate is working with the bank robbers.

OVERALL

2025 has already been a great year for genre films, and Novocaine was the most fun I’ve had in a movie theater in months. It’s an original action film that features some great action, two charismatic leads, many hilarious scenarios, and enough sincerity to keep you invested in the story. It feels like a movie that came out in the 90s where it relied on the charisma of its actors. The best advice I can give for this movie is to see it with a group of your friends. It’s the kind of movie that is best viewed in a theater and with a large group of people; I highly recommend it!

RATING

WORTH SEEING IN YOUR LIFETIME