#an after where those left can live and learn and grow

[gunnersling]

Red hills west of Valentine

Arthur Morgan x F!reader

Wc - 1.8k | cws - mild BH | sfw | synopsis - after being orphaned at a young age you’re forced to grow up quickly. Many years later as a gun for hire you come across an old acquaintance, things don’t pick up where they left off | part 1 of ?

Standing in the underbelly of a blazing fire is a feeling unmatched.

Your mother told you when you were very young that Hell is a place where sinners go. It’s an eternity of hellfire and flame. Of burning pain and never ending suffering in a blazing inferno. When you would take God’s name in vain or bicker with the other children out in the school yard- your mother would warn you of what could await you if you weren’t more careful and kind.

She’d ask you to behave and tell you to show kindness to those around you. You’d been too young to understand, to fully weigh up the heaviness of her words and the meaning behind them. When she’d tuck you into bed at night she’d tell you to pray with her- and you would. She’d pray for good health and a long happy life for the two of you together.

And now- now you’re watching as her eyes melt out of her skull. You’re frozen in fear. Paralysed by the horror that is unfolding right in front of you. Her charred body lies at the bottom of the stairs. You would have to step over her oozing body to get out of the front door. To get to safety. You see where her skin is melting down into the floorboards and you can smell the way her hair is singed off along with the very flesh from her bones.

It makes you sick- physically. You retch and vomit down the stairs. It stains the front of your nightdress and dribbles down your chin. You scream. You cry out. It’s a hoarse smoke-infiltrated sound that rips through you like a crack of thunder. Everything burns around you. Memories captured in photo frames. Heirlooms passed from one generation to the next. The family dog, Scout. Your mother. Everything is gone.

You were only twelve years old.

17 years later

The deers wide eyes stare up at you, round and dark like fat copper pennies, and yet, the rest of his body lays across the other side of the dirt road.

It’s hardly an odd sight, not in these parts. Wilder than most places, not yet gentrified by the ways of the modern folk that have flocked here from the big cities out East to get a taste of the country.

These parts still uphold those values of tradition. Small wooden houses and candlelit windowsills. Crops grown in the soil behind those houses, living off of their own little claims of land - self sufficient and cut off from any need of civilisation. A tiny wired chicken coop and a pig or two, what more could anyone need?

They’d raise families and pass on these traditional values. Little babes homeschooled with what little their mothers know of reading and writing, if it’s anything at all. They won’t need that, not really, much more important to learn to milk the cows and bake bread that doesn’t cement itself to everything it comes into contact with instead.

It’s an idealistic idea. Not at all on par with the ill stricken reality of droughts and locust plagues, balanced with a violent crime streak that only brings about death and blood and bullets.

It’s any surprise it isn’t a persons severed head you’re staring at - it wouldn’t be the first time. Maimed corpses lying strewn near roads, unclear whether or not it’s man or beast who had left them there. As unclear as to which is worse, the man or the beast, you know for a fact which you would prefer to maul you to death.

Alas, you press your spurs into your horses side, ushering him forward. He tosses his head, unsettled by the scent of death that lingers just under his nose. Big and brave as your horse is, it’s been a long journey and he’s as ready for rest as you are.

Real rest, a few days to recover and recuperate after the harsh sandstorms and dwindling supplies that’s cursed the pair of you for the last few days of your journey.

It’s late into the evening when you reach the edge of town. Dusk is encroaching into darkness, a balmy dusting of orange is barely visible as it tries its best to peak through the clouds. You smell rain, the way it’s stirring in the breeze. That earthy scent that spikes the air, warm and damp and humid.

As you ride further into town you pass a huge wooden sign that’s staked into the ground. Welcome to Valentine it reads. You cast your eyes over it, over the worn paint that’s chipping away and the weeds that try desperately to climb their way up from where the sign is pierced into the dirt.

It sets a precedent of your expectations for this town. Sitting in the cavity of a wide valley, framed by vast unmoving mountains- it looks like something plucked out of a fantasy tale. A sanctuary of sorts, from the outside looking in, it comes across quaint and simple.

Yet, from the chipped sign to the distant hum of shouts from the nearby saloon, you can tell Valentine will be just as any town you’ve passed through before has been. Carnal. Unforgiving. Uncaring in the way that some folk will attempt to rob you at knife point for the coins and crackers in your saddle bag and others will beg for dollars that won’t buy them food but beer and smokes instead.

All these towns are the same. Left behind, compared to the simple settler life that those who had fled to the West had once known - these towns are just as wild and dangerous as the open plains and deep forests. Beyond wolves and bears there are instead bandits and outlaws, monsters that are much more frightening than the ones with inches of fangs and claws.

You supposed you’d have to be the judge, with only a few days rest here in Valentine before you move on again - what’s the worst that could happen?

Valentine yields no surprises. Gutless locals who sneer when you pass by and little more to do than drink yourself into an early night at the saloon or stand staring at the empty bounty post-board for longer than is necessary. Again - it’s much the same as most of the towns around these parts.

You’d hoped that there would at least be a bounty or two to line your pocket while this way on. It’s another weeks journey to Saint Denis and there’s only one more rest stop between here and there where you can actually resupply and sleep in a real bed. It would have been ideal to gather some coin, then you could at least trade with other travellers if you needed more provisions before reaching the next town.

With lack of much else more to do, you find yourself at the saloon. There’s too much noise.

The shrill noise of the piano fills your ears and it’s grating, only worsened by the fact that every drunken idiot inside feels the need to sing and dance along to its upbeat tune. The men spin the women in circles and then they turn and go the other way. It feels like it lasts forever. Ladies shriek when they’re dipped low by their dance partners, laughing so loud it feels like it pierces right through your skull.

While one end of the bar delivers the commotion of music and laughter, the other brings the ruckus of a fight that’s brewing. Two men shouting at one another over by the poker table. Their exchange isn’t coherent enough for you to understand or hear from where you’re sat sloped at the bar, but whatever it is apparently warrants getting physical. They launch themselves at each other.

The bigger man out of the two of them, to no one’s surprise, quickly gets the upper hand, pinning the other man to the floor by the front of his waistcoat. Soon they’re merely rolling around brawling on the floor like schoolboys fighting over a wooden toy, it’s clear there is no real malice to this argument. Simply too much booze and testosterone in too close of a closed space.

You groan and press your glass to your forehead in hopes it might provide some relief to the headache you can feel starting to form. It swells behind your eyes. The pressure building until it feels like your head will explode.

The fight spills outside, voices whoop and cheer and shout at all of the commotion, but you stay readily rooted to your stool at the bar. You aren’t interested in watching grown men wrestle half-heartedly with each other, a bullet would have solved everything by now but it’s clear neither of them have the sand for that.

Suddenly, a gunshot does in fact ring out.

You pull your glass from your forehead and crane your neck toward the echoing sound. Silence has fallen outside. It’s dead - even the shrill piano has stopped.

It’s with caution that a number of you step out into the night, the short swinging doors creaking as they sway back and forth. As you make your way down the steps everything becomes clearer, one of the men who had been fighting inside is now dead. Shot between the eyes and laid out in the dirt street. Blood pools around him and those that are close can only stare in silence. Violence and murder isn’t foreign to these parts but so blatantly and for reasons unknown is what’s shocking.

The perpetrator is long gone, even in the few seconds it had taken for witnesses of the shooting to make their way from inside.

You scan your surroundings, trying to make head or tail of this. Looking for any clue as to what could have provoked such a thing. There had been no audible argument or interaction, no drunken misunderstanding of stumbling into someone’s path or looking at them the wrong way - none of that.

There’s a long span of silence. Someone had run to get the sheriff, but still, they hadn’t uttered a word and instead made off in the direction of his office on foot.

The earth is wet beneath your boots. Sloppy mud stuck beneath the heels, it feels like you’re being pulled deeper. Something shifts in the air and your intuition pulls your gaze toward a woman standing on the other side of the dirt road. Tears well in her eyes and her breaths come in quick succession. She looks frightened, pale in the face and mouth gaped as she senses your stare. Something goes unsaid between you, an understanding maybe.

She doesn’t shake your gaze. Instead you watch as her wobbly eyes look from you and then toward the sheriff as he jogs toward the scene. She tightens her lips before she finally speaks.

“It was the man from the poster sheriff” her voice is stiff and you watch as the sheriff digests her words.

“Which damn one?” He barks, brows folding into a harsh glare.

She swallows. You watch her throat bobble. “The one them Pinkertons came lookin’ for”

Realisation hits you like a train and those two words slip from your lips far too quickly.

“Arthur Morgan”

[hoarding-stories]

Going wild about how each chapter shows a different facet of horror

The circle of Vassal and Veil: horror in the environment.

A classical look at things, there are forces in this world beyond your understanding, they will chew you up and spit you out. See them, know them, survive them, adapt to them.

The circle of Needle and Thread: horror in humanity

Really powerfully done, a showing in how people can be horrifying, do horrible things to each other with the most human of reasons. Nothing beyond our ken is necessary for true horror to take place.

The circle of Tide and Bone: horror in the self

Rather complex and with a sprinkling of cosmic flavoring there but, where did you start? Where will you end? It is always a rough road and how will you change, be changed? What will you lose, what will you give up? What parts of yourself are worth the losing if it means you get a step closer to what you want, what you need. Who are you, if not for the people and things you care about, what happens to you when they're gone, how far will you go in their absence? Will you look back and see the person you were as someone entirely different, something in you twisted, lost? Will it have been worth it? The horror in change and the fact that you cannot go backwards to the way things once were.

Cannot wait to see what the Circle of the Crimson Mirror has to offer

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

I promised you some lions! Let's talk about manes, males, and management.

This is Tandie, the current male lion at the Woodland Park Zoo.

Notice anything odd about him? He's got one of those hilarious awkward teenager manes. Except... this cat is nine years old.

I was, of course, immediately curious.

Manes serve a lot of purposes for male lions, including being an indicator of health and fitness - it's actually a sexually selected trait and a social signal. Mane texture / hair quality / length is dependent on nutrition and the body having energy to grow (and carry around!) that much hair! The color is also a signal: males with darker manes have been found to have higher testosterone levels.

In one research report, wild males were much more likely to avoid a lion decoy when it had a longer or darker mane - but the girls really loved a dark mane. It's thought this is because a long, dark mane is an indicator of mate quality. Males with longer, darker manes have higher testosterone and were pretty healthy: meaning they had more energy for fighting, had a better chance of recovering if they got injured, and generally had a higher rate of offspring survival. Manes matter!

So, back to Tandie. He was actually born at the Woodland Park Zoo in 2014 alongside two brothers, to dad Xerxes and mother Adia.

This was Xerxes (rip).

Obviously, a very large, dark, lush mane on Xerxes here. So where did these blond muttonchops come from on his son?

I asked the zoo docents and got an answer that didn't make a lot of sense. They told me that after the three cubs grew into adolescents, they were moved to the Oakland Zoo together. But living together suppressed his testosterone, and he never grew a mane.

Hmmmm.

Here's a photo from 2016, when the brothers debuted at Oakland. They're a year and a half old in this photo.

(Photo Credit: Oakland Zoo)

And here's from an announcement for their third birthday.

(Photo credit: Oakland Zoo)

Okay, so these dudes obviously all were growing manes as of 2017. I think Tandie is the one on the left in the first photo, and laying down in the middle on the second. What happened?

I was just in the Bay Area for a zoo road trip, of course I went to Oakland and tracked down a docent to ask some questions.

It turns out that shortly after the brothers turned three, they started acting like adult male lions: they started scuffling regularly. It's a normal social thing for male lions to live in groups, called coalitions, but according to my lion experts there's generally a baseline level of some social jostling within them. It wasn't quite clear from what the docent said if they couldn't manage the boys together, or if they just wanted to avoid the scratches and small wounds that result from normal lion behavior. Regardless, they put all three of the boys on testosterone blockers in order to be able to keep them together as a social group.

Now, I don't know a lot about the use of hormone alteration as a form of captive animal management, except in the case of birth control. I don't think it's something that's unethical - there was just a webinar on it that I saw go by - but I don't think it's commonly done with big cats. Lions have kind of complicated reproductive cycles, and for instance, we've been learning that female lions can take much longer to come into estrus again than expected after coming off hormonal birth control.

In males, testosterone blockers (or being neutered) means they lose their manes. This is why a lot of rescues will do a vasectomy on their males instead of a neuter - it allows them to keep their mane and the social signals that accompany it.

Tandie returned home to Woodland Park Zoo after Xerxes passed in early 2022, and the docent told me all of the lions had been off their blockers "for while." I'd guess those things happened around the same time, since bringing the trio down to a duo at Oakland would reduce some of the social tensions.

Hormones are such interesting things, though. One of Tandie's brothers has a full mane again, and the other is still totally mane-less.

As for Tandie, his mane is growing back in, and it looks like he might rival his dad for length and coloration.

He started here, in February:

Yesterday:

What a difference four months (and maybe proximity to a girl) makes!

[fozmeadows]

the older I get, the more the technological changes I've lived through as a millennial feel bizarre to me. we had computers in my primary school classroom; I first learned to type on a typewriter. I had a cellphone as a teenager, but still needed a physical train timetable. my parents listened to LP records when I was growing up; meanwhile, my childhood cassette tape collection became a CD collection, until I started downloading mp3s on kazaa over our 56k modem internet connection to play in winamp on my desktop computer, and now my laptop doesn't even have a disc tray. I used to save my word documents on floppy discs. I grew up using the rotary phone at my grandparents' house and our wall-connected landline; my mother's first cellphone was so big, we called it The Brick. I once took my desktop computer - monitor, tower and all - on the train to attend a LAN party at a friend's house where we had to connect to the internet with physical cables to play together, and where one friend's massive CRT monitor wouldn't fit on any available table. as kids, we used to make concertina caterpillars in class with the punctured and perforated paper strips that were left over whenever anything was printed on the room's dot matrix printer, which was outdated by the time I was in high school. VHS tapes became DVDs, and you could still rent both at the local video store when I was first married, but those shops all died out within the next six years. my facebook account predates the iphone camera - I used to carry around a separate digital camera and manually upload photos to the computer in order to post them; there are rolls of undeveloped film from my childhood still in envelopes from the chemist's in my childhood photo albums. I have a photo album from my wedding, but no physical albums of my child; by then, we were all posting online, and now that's a decade's worth of pictures I'd have to sort through manually in order to create one. there are video games I tell my son about but can't ever show him because the consoles they used to run on are all obsolete and the games were never remastered for the new ones that don't have the requisite backwards compatibility. I used to have a walkman for car trips as a kid; then I had a discman and a plastic hardshell case of CDs to carry around as a teenager; later, a friend gave my husband and I engraved matching ipods as a wedding present, and we used them both until they stopped working; now they're obsolete. today I texted my mother, who was born in 1950, a tiktok upload of an instructional video for girls from 1956 on how to look after their hair and nails and fold their clothes. my father was born four years after the invention of colour televison; he worked in radio and print journalism, and in the years before his health declined, even though he logically understood that newspapers existed online, he would clip out articles from the physical paper, put them in an envelope and mail them to me overseas if he wanted me to read them. and now I hold the world in a glass-faced rectangle, and I have access to everything and ownership of nothing, and everything I write online can potentially be wiped out at the drop of a hat by the ego of an idiot manchild billionaire. as a child, I wore a watch, but like most of my generation, I stopped when cellphones started telling us the time and they became redundant. now, my son wears a smartwatch so we can call him home from playing in the neighbourhood park, and there's a tanline on his wrist ike the one I haven't had since the age of fifteen. and I wonder: what will 2030 look like?

[pseudowho]

It was in the corridors of Jujutsu High, that Nanami Kento first learned that one of the First Years had gone missing.

Whispers of varying voice rose and fell along the wood-panelled walls as Kento walked with a growing unease. Rumours rose on both sides around him, as if in some uncanny valley.

"...off the rails..."

"...not answering calls apparently..."

"...unauthorised? Gojo's not here..."

"...gone rogue. Sukuna's vessel?"

Kento paused, outwardly unreadable as his blood ran cold, with his hand upon the doorknob. Balanced on a knife edge, he moved again, slow and considered, stepping out before closing the door behind him. His feet paddled madly beneath still water, and Kento pulled out his phone, typing fast.

His phone to his ear. A pause.

"Hi, Fushiguro-kun? Do you know where Itadori-kun is?" A pause. A single flat command. "Tell me, immediately."

Another pause; a nod, a pen and paper not required.

Kento waited until he was completely out of the line of sight, to begin running beneath Jujutsu High's tree-lined torii gates.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Scum.

Yuuji's red boots skid, bloodslick, and he stumbled around a corridor with his breath loud in his ears.

--execute him already--

He wasn't experienced enough for this; but he knew that when he came, hoping to earn his own goodness as proof, to those who determined his worth based on the monster he contained.

--better off dead--

And maybe I am, Yuuji thought, slammed by flailing bestial limbs into concrete, that crumpled like wet paper beneath his body. Slumping down against the wall, Yuuji accepted that the only dignity he could afford himself, would be to choose a good death for himself, as the boy he was, fighting to save lives, instead of the beast within, fighting to take them.

"Itadori-kun. Move behind me. I'll take it from here."

Yuuji looked up from the floor, slow and stunned. Kento stood before him, stony-faced as he bound his spotted tie around his fist, alight with swathes of blue fire.

"...Nanamin...I--"

"I'll scold you after. Behind me."

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Yuuji's eyes were downcast, and chunks of rubble shook from his hair to his thighs, when Kento slammed his car door. As Kento stepped into his own seat, Yuuji caught the tail end of a conversation.

"...coming home to ours. Gojo knows. He's got it handled with the school. Yes. Alright. We won't be long."

The car rumbled to life. Yuuji's fists clenched in his lap, his face twisted with pain, guilt, the crushing weight of failure and embarrassment. Kento allowed him this, for a few minutes, driving seamlessly through the Tokyo evening traffic.

"Are you going to explain what you were doing, Itadori-kun?"

Yuuji was silent, gagged by the sheer volumes he could speak, all fighting for precedence. He heard the faintest sigh from Kento.

"Yuuji?"

Still, nothing. Kento's hands gripped the wheel a little tighter.

"I see. We shall talk after dinner."

"...you can just drop me back to the school--"

"We shall talk after dinner."

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Your hands worried the baggy sleeves of your cardigan before you heard the front door unlock. You stopped, plastering on a smile, and walking over to greet Yuuji as the door clicked open, Kento guiding Yuuji in and shutting the door behind him.

Yuuji's eyes never left the floor to accept your smile. He was thoroughly reduced, hidden behind cloud. Your eyes flicked to Kento, sensing his fixed cool anger, and you redoubled your efforts for Yuuji.

"Busy day, huh? You hungry? I've made lots...come on."

You sat together, tense in silence. Kento ate, robotic and clipped. Yuuji pushed the food around his plate, utterly silent. Kento pressed a napkin to his mouth, lowering it and clearing his throat. He repeated himself.

'Yuuji. Are you going to explain what you were doing?"

Silence. You placed your knife and fork down, your throat thickening with impending confrontation. Yuuji squirmed in his seat as frost formed beneath Kento.

"...I just...just wanted to be useful."

"Useful?"

"...just...wanted to be better than they say I am."

"They?"

You felt Yuuji's stress climbing, racking exponentially with Kento's insistent dig for clarity. You opened your mouth to try to soften Kento's blows before Yuuji blurted.

"Anyone who matters at Jujutsu High thinks I'm scum. Thinks I'm--I'm-- no better than--than him." Yuuji snapped, gesturing to the slits of Sukuna's other eyes on his face, and shoving his plate away with a clatter. Kento bristled, the frost thickening.

"Control your temper, Yuuji--"

"Oh yeah? And why should I? I could have died a good death there-- trying to help people, if you hadn't--"

Kento slapped his napkin down on the table, moving to stand, and you felt yourself shut down beneath the gravity of his rage, knowing it was all concern, but terrifying nonetheless, and you felt the escalation as Yuuji stood, too, facing Kento with combatant teenage fury--

"And who, exactly, were you helping, Yuuji? Were you helping the sorcerers who would have come to rescue you, if I hadn't? You call that a good death, giving the higher ups exactly what they want--"

"--well they can fucking have what they want, then, can't they, nobody gives a shit about me anyway--"

"--language, Yuuji--"

"--nobody fucking cares--"

"I care."

Yuuji's face crumpled, his anger burning out hot and fast. Transitioning from man to boy again, his sleeves rubbed the rage tumbling out as tears.

Kento's chest heaved with the fever-pitch of battle. He turned on the spot, one hand on his hip and the other running through his hair, as he stared up at the ceiling, calming himself. He turned to Yuuji again.

"I care. And I need you safe. And while I cannot fathom the stress you are under, I am so disappointed with you, that you view yourself with the same ill-regard as those with such pithy, ignorant understanding."

Yuuji's hands hung limp at his sides, now, the tears falling freely. Kento rubbed one hand down over his own face, appraising Yuuji with ruffled impassivity.

"...finish your dinner."

"I'm not hungry."

A sigh, weary. "Then go and get cleaned up, and go to your room."

"I...dont have a room, here."

"You do. Third door on the left."

A heavy pause. Slow footsteps carried Yuuji away. Your head rested on steepled fingertips, your dinner churning in your stomach as you bit back nausea.

You thought of all of the words you could say to Kento, but dismissed them as soon as they came into your head; all too visceral, none of them helpful, and maturity held your tongue.

"...you get cleaned up, too. I'll tidy away dinner."

"No, no. You cooked. I'll tidy--"

"Nanami Kento. Do as you are told."

Kento was silent, stewing. Eventually, he stood, walking away down the corridor. You heard two showers, running. You left spare pyjamas in Yuuji's bedroom.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

A gentle three knock-knock-knocks sounded at Yuuji's bedroom door, and he sat up fast in his borrowed pyjamas, wide eyes tired in a tearstained face. He sniffled.

"Y-yeah, uh...come in."

You peeked your head around the door, smiling. Yuuji offered a watery smile in return.

"Alright, kiddo?"

Yuuji swallowed thickly, nodding, resting his chin on drawn-up knees. You sat at the end of his bed, pressing a mug of hot chocolate into his hands, and he felt it balm his soul before he had even drunk it; the act of receiving it, so much more significant than its imbibement. You let him warm in the gesture for a moment.

"...he cares about you, Yuuji. A lot. You know that, right?"

Yuuji's mouth puckered, and he shrugged his rejection, churlish. You raised one eyebrow at him, a gentle, chastising challenge, and Yuuji blushed.

"...yeah, I guess. I mean...I...I know."

"You know?"

"Yeah, yeah, I do."

You smirked, eyes twinkling. "What gave it away? Was it the running to save you in battle? Or the bringing you home for dinner?"

Yuuji's mouth was obscured, buried in his knees. He paused. You didn't manage to hear the words muffled by his legs, and you tilted your head to one side.

"...sorry?"

"It was--...was when he said he was...disappointed with me."

[god-syndicate-if]

DEMO - Latest release on 11/15/2024 - Current wordcount 90k.

COG forum You've always been angry.

Rage comes naturally to you. With how much life has messed with you it's only fair that you use your anger. That's why you became a boxer. The thrill of breaking an opponent. And hoping they might break you in turn. They never do though. Every fight is a disappointment, almost as much of a disappointment as they pay for each fight.

Enter Jackie Roth, club owner, mob boss, and former god. When she offers you a job you can't say no. Not that you would, not when she and everyone in her gang feel so familiar to you. At least with this job you'll be able to use that rage inside you more.

As you learn the ways of the criminal underground you reconnect with people you never met. Reforge bonds that you've never made. And recall memories you've never had. You were a god once upon a time, can you become one again?

God Syndicate is an interactive novel where you play the newest incarnation of Ares, The God of War. It's 18+ for violence, explicit sexual themes, drug use, morally questionable behavior, and more.

Customize your MC, play male, female, or nonbinary. With transgender options and pronoun selection. Customize your appearance and develop your personality.

Romance or befriend a cast of characters, including gods with more issues than you can count or even a mortal! Asexual and Aromantic options available.

Show the gods why you were feared all those years ago or prove that you're better than your past lives.

Uncover the mystery of disappearing gods as well as the mystery of your past.

Help out Elysium, the club where you'll practically live from now on. It seems to attract gods and that isn't always good.

Take out your anger on people who might even deserve it.

Zeus: Jackie Roth - She/Her. [Not an RO]

Jackie is The King of The Gods and she makes sure everyone knows it. Her word is law in Elysium and beyond. Fail her and you'll have a storm waiting for you. In the years since your disappearance Jackie's love for her family has seem to only grow. But she has a criminal empire to run and you're just the weapon she needs.

Hermes: Riley Liao Zhi - Gender Selectable. [RO]

The Messenger of The Gods. Or in Riley's case, the ever bored personal assistant to Jackie. Riley's an adrenaline junkie with a heart of gold. As the one who found you they feel almost responsible for you. But why do they also seem so afraid of you?

Apollo: Franco Valerio - He/Him. [RO]

As expected of The God of Music, Franco's your classic rich and famous rock star. Well he would be, if only he could get out of Elysium. His love of singing and love of his family are two chains he can't break that tie him here. Will your arrival help break those chains or tighten them?

Aphrodite: Damiana "Dame" Rivette - Gender Selectable. [RO]

Quiet and Serious, Dame is no longer The God of Love they once were. The passion of their life faded and now bitterness grows where love should. The only friend they have in Elysium seems to be their fiance, Johnny. To make their life even worse, you arrive.

The Mortal: Sigourney Hawthorn - She/Her. [RO]

Newly divorced from a god, Sigrouney struggles with juggling her (demigod) child, relentless job, and love life. As her daughter, Claudia, grows she wonders if she can keep up or if she'll be left behind. And now with your arrival Claudia's godly family gets bigger and her presence gets smaller.

Artemis: Rebel Reyes - Gender Selectable [RO]

How can The God of the Hunt thrive in the city? The prey here are either too weak or too annoying to hunt. The only thing Rebel craves is to feel that thrill again. With your arrival they have a perfect chance, who better to hunt than the God of War? They can't wait to meet you.

The Old Flame: Harper Ward - Gender Selectable [RO]

A friend from a better time. Harper and you were once inseparable. They saw you at your darkest and kept you calm. Years after an explosive break up they've reemerged into your life far different than you knew them. Can you find the dying embers of your old friend? Is it even worth the pain?

[madwomansapologist]

ᡣ𐭩.ᐟ a hound left without a leash

★彡 synopsis: your love is constant, ever-present and ever-growing. toji finds it endearing. how you're not afraid of being soft around him. but he can’t be like that. his love isn't gentle and quiet like yours: it's remorseless, made of sharp fangs soaked in blood—five times toji felt loved by you, five times he loved you back.

content warnings: established relationship, fluff & angst & smut, domesticity, movie night, toji is soooo in love it's embarrassing, touch starved meet clingy, he's bad at feelings don't give him space, devotion, beach date, hurt/comfort, his love language is acts of service it's not his fault he only knows how to kill, violence (not towards reader), gaslight if you squint, voyeurism, sex toy, manhandling, lots of spit and bites and scratches, creampie, cockwarming.

bella's note: inspired by the song valentine by laufey. y'all say thank you, @gothsuguru for making like three posts about toji that reminded me of my love for this deadbeat killer.

word count: [4.3K]

(It took Toji by surprise the first time he noticed it.)

Toji tried to focus on the action movie—clearly made with no aspiration beyond gathering as much money as possible. He really did. Before learning the bland protagonist’s name, heavy eyelids and comfy blankets came together with a sickening plan to betray his determination.

There was no movie to pretend to watch by the time Toji woke up. The television was turned off, the living room silent if not by his untamed heartbeat. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, blurs turning into discernible shapes, Toji breathed no more.

Only after seeing it on the television that Toji was able to feel it on his body. Fingertips running through his still-damp hair, thumb pressing softly against his temple. A constant movement, warm and calm. It made him think about waves in an empty shore.

A contained laughter guided his eyes away from the screen. Leaning on your shoulder, Toji saw you. Eyes narrowing at your phone, undoubtedly fighting to stay open, the tip of your tongue between your parted lips. Caressing his hair, you nibbled on your tongue.

For you, it was an old habit you couldn’t get rid of. For Toji, it was a telltale of your concentration.

Once he learned there was a way to read you, Toji aimed to collect all your telltales. He has all those little signals memorized to translate your behaviors into something he can fully understand. Into something he can transforming into actions.

Distant gaze means hesitation, which in turn means say something, anything, goddamnit. Trembling lips and fervent rage, scrunched nose and jealousy, discreet smiles and nauseating happiness. Toji could fill libraries with everything there is to know about you.

Staring at the soft muscle, Toji knew what your concentration required from him: silence, just for a while. Toji gave you what you needed, hoping somehow you knew what he meant by it—I love you, I love you, I love you.

Wondering about what you needed him to do for you Toji didn’t even notice your nails scratching behind his ears, where you knew he’s sensitive enough to melt into your palm. If he had, maybe Toji would’ve fallen asleep on your shoulder again and rest properly for once.

Toji can’t remember the name of the movie that lulled him to sleep. If he was at your home, if it was late at night, if it was during an unexpected blizzard. Toji can only remember that your eyes weren’t on him, and your touch was gentle.

Scrolling endlessly as you kept him awake, Toji thought once more about how soft your skin is when compared to his. It lacked scars. You lack roughness, precision, disgust. All those things Toji once believed being an adult meant: you don’t have any of them.

(The first time he noticed your love was gentle and quiet, Toji didn’t knew how to react.)

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

(Obviously, Toji never lets you win.)

“Just throw me, Toji”, you practically meowed his name. When he completely ignored your presence, you pinched his cheek. Toji took a deep breath. “Please. Pretty please.”

Your cold hands cupped his cheeks, trying to get Toji to look at you. Pouting, plush bottom lip on display, you stared at him through your lashes. You knew it would take one look at you for him to fold and give in.

He slipped away from your hold, so fast you only noticed he was gone when Toji was already laying down on your beach sarong. That made you giggle. He does that all the time. Moves faster than your eyes can comprehend.

It’s so alluring you couldn’t even force yourself to get mad over Toji mistaking your new sarong for a sheet.

“Brat, I’ve told ya”, he tilted his head back. Toji rest his arm over his head, in a not-so-subtle way of ensuring he wouldn’t accidentally sneak a glance at you. Toji could feel on his bones that you were pouting. “I’m not doing that.”

Maybe because you both went on a whim to a beach on a random tuesday, maybe because this one isn’t as popular as you feared, it was truly a peaceful day. No kids running around, no loud music blasting through someone else’s phone, no drunks yelling just because.

It’s so close from being a perfect day, now all you need is to hear Toji saying yes, darling, anything for you. Not that you ever heard that before. At least, not worded like that.

With a melodramatic sigh, you walked to where your stuff was. Searching among all the bags tossed around, you found just what would change his mind. As your malignant plan developed inside of your mind, a grin spread across your face.

Sitting on his lap, your soaked thighs clamped around Toji’s thick waist. Sighing once more, you rolled your hips with the poor excuse of searching for a more comfortable position. Warm fingers pressed down on his hips; nails close enough to ghost over his happy trail.

“Behave”, Toji groaned, free hand closing around your hip. He easily held you in place. You smelled like salt and malice. “I won’t change my mind.”

You bent over Toji, soaked bikini pressing down against his toned chest. Scratching his forearm, you brushed your nose against his cheek. “Can I try to convince you?”, you whispered sultry against his ear.

Softening his hold on you, Toji smirked. “You’re a fucking menace.”

Splash.

Pouring cold water on his face, you took advantage of his surprised state to run away while you’re still able to. Laughing more than you could breathe, you tilted your head back to look at Toji. “Now tell me something I don’t know.”

Just like you expected, Toji looked at you.

Just like you always forget, Toji was fast. Really, really fast.

Colliding with his chest, you frowned as your mind processed that Toji was right in front of you. As a pair of arms wrapped around your waist, you knew there was nothing you could do to escape his grip. You tried to anyway.

“That’s cheating”, you yelled. It made him laugh like hell, chest vibrating against your stomach. Lifted up far above the ground, you moved your feet uselessly. “It’s so unfair, you need to let me win sometimes too!”

A slap against your ass shut you up. “Annoying brat”, Toji threw you over his shoulders. You tried to squirm away, but decided to settle for just complaining once he bit your thigh. “As if. You can earn your victory or stop acting like a bored cat for once.”

Giggling, you pressed your elbows down on his shoulder. “Toji. My love”, your voice imbued in honey and sugar made him face you. Smiling angelically, you pointed at the cliff providing the shade you two enjoyed all day. “Throw me in the water. From up there, please.”

Another sigh. I’m almost breaking him, you thought. “Why? Just… why?”

“Because I want to jump so badly but I’m a coward”, you pouted. His eyes fell towards your bottom lip. “So just throw me. Pleeeeeeeaase. Pretty please.”

“If you drown, I’m not saving your ass.”

“Deal”, you kissed his jaw.

Another slap. “Spoiled, annoying brat.”

(Except, obviously, Toji always lets you win.)

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

(If you had asked, Toji would’ve confessed in a heartbeat.)

Toji took of his shoes and frowned at your heels fallen out of place. Murmuring to himself about how when he does it with his sneakers it’s a crime deserving of death sentence, Toji closed the buckles of your heels and put them inside the shoe rack.

He knew something was off once the silence lingered. Never one to doubt himself, Toji didn’t hesitate. He analyzed the floor, searched for different scents, checked the front door’s handler. Passing through every room with a hand near his hidden gun, Toji didn’t breathe until seeing you on your bed.

Although, what Toji saw didn’t make him any more relieved.

It’s late at night and you’re still wearing your responsible-adult clothes—that’s how you call those you buy solely so your coworkers won’t judge you. Earrings intertwined with your sweaty hair, necklace pressed against your collarbone, belt too tight to be comfortable.

Moonlight showed him your puffy eyelids smeared with mascara. Half-open as you stared at the ceiling, you didn’t seem to acknowledge Toji’s presence. You didn’t seem to acknowledge anything at all.

“Hi, love.” Toji kneeled down, whispering in order to not startle you. He pressed his chin on your pillow, hands moving your hair away from your face. “Are you here with me?”

Another tear rolled down your face once you blinked. Toji pressed his thumb against your skin, stopping it from falling into your ear. You tried to turn your face away from him, but hesitated once the warmth of his hands made to your heavy mind.

“Need to sleep”, you murmured, voice so thin Toji felt his throat shut.

Soaked in sweat, Toji ran his fingers through your hair without bothering you. He scratched your head, draw figures on your scalp, avoided any knots. Your name, his own, any other word he could think of: his fingertips wrote on your head. For what felt like hours, that’s all he did.

You tilted your head, staring at him. Toji can’t remember ever seeing your eyes like that. Dim. He wondered where you lost your light, and made a quiet promise to return it to you. “Sorry.”

“Don’t.” Toji simply continued to caress your head. “Tell me what to do.”

For the first time in hours, you thought about what you needed. With a single phrase, Toji reminded you that you had a body. “Can you get me my towel?”

Toji would’ve done anything, everything, you asked him to.

With your towel on the mattress, Toji assisted you to sit down. One hand on the small of your back, another cupping your cheek. You melted into his touch, but closed your eyes once he kneeled in front of you. Running away from his careful gaze, you grabbed your towel and forced yourself to walk into the bathroom.

It didn’t surprise you that Toji followed you. Or that he took the towel from your hands, unclasped your jewelry, slid your clothes off of you. Neither as the water hitting your body was on the temperature you prefer, as he hugged you tightly under the shower, as he didn’t make questions you couldn’t quite answer.

Not even your worst day would make you forget how soft your Toji is.

Toji relies on your body to tell him what you need, but once or twice you will say it yourself. Can you get me my towel? You want to be clean again. And knowing what you want, Toji knows what to do.

In no rush, he put your shampoo on his hand and massaged your head. Once your back found a support on his chest, he rinsed your hair while protecting your eyes. After moisturizing, he brushed your hair until he could feel no more knots. Washing the remains of conditioner away from his hands, he moved to the rest of your body.

It didn’t feel weird, and that did surprise you. To feel his hands on your naked body without feeling desire or desired. It wasn’t uncomfortable. Far from it. As Toji washed you, you just felt less lonely.

“Toji?”

He kissed your scalp, massaging your shoulders. He drawn little hearts on your skin. “I am here”, Toji hummed.

“It’s nothing”, you closed your eyes. That was a lie. You meant to say thank you, and I’m sorry but knew he would get mad if you did so. “Just wanted to hear you.”

“I am right here.”

(He would’ve confessed to mimic you, because Toji’s love is anything but gentle and quiet.)

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

(You wouldn’t ask him to. You would never.)

Ignoring the sorcerer’s terrified eyes, his movements were harsh and cold. It felt just right. To have a combat knife between his fingers again. How natural. As if his hands came from a mold, one made to wield blades and nothing more. That would make sense. For his body to be assembled instead of born.

Gun left aside; chair dragged across the concrete floor. Toji sat in front of the muzzled sorcerer, spreading his legs as he sharpened the blade. Moonlight made it clear. Cold sweat, stunned eyes, shaken limbs. He was a scared, coward animal.

“Don’t cry now”, Toji cocked an eyebrow. Spreading his legs, he admired the thin edge. Perfect. Dragging out the silence for one more instant, Toji stared at the walking corpse. “Not when you begged for this.”

A clan left behind; hellish decades erased within an insurgent decision. Toji doesn’t need to be a Zenin to have enemies. Blood-stained hands collect them just as easily. But after slaughtering enemies enough times, those smart enough to be considered dangerous by others knew better than facing him.

But rumors travel fast and, in his absence, fools gained confidence.

This late on his life, Toji couldn’t tell if it was instinct or muscle memory. He simply knew the sorcerer was about to do something stupid. The knife’s handle hit the man in the temple. As he fought to continue conscious, Toji observed his skin turning purple.

He felt proud. This night left no wound or bruise on his skin. There will be no perplexed gaze, uncertain touch, questions that can’t be answered honestly. Once he comes back to his home, you will have no reason to worry.

“You hurt her.” Toji wondered how long it would take. To get back to you. To return your caring gaze, feel your caring touch, hear your caring questions. “Now I’ll hurt you.”

It begged. It tried to negotiate, numbers rising as Toji continued in silence. If rumors travel fast, so does the truth. Toji turned soft, a rumor that thing discovered to be a lie the moment it decided to bother you. Toji can be bought, a fact that never once included you.

“What do you want?!” And the tears came back. They usually do, with loud and unstoppable sobs. Don’t matter who they are, in the end they beg just the same. “I can give it to you. Tell me your price.”

“Your right hand”, Toji tilted his head, sliding the edge of the knife against the armchair. “You touched her with your right hand.”

Toji was merely taunting the sorcerer. He would never use a combat knife to torture someone. That doesn’t sound like him at all. Toji will saw both hands with a dull knife.

(But you didn’t need to ask him to. Toji would always.)

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

(Toji didn’t need to say it.)

It took him long enough to unlock the door to your apartment. The voice of a senator on a news channel welcomed Toji. Heels inside the shoe rack, handbag and headphone forgotten on the couch. Hearing you hum in the shower, Toji turned the TV off.

He could picture it so clearly. You stretching your neck and walking barefoot into the living room, rubbing your eyes just to immediately remember about the mascara. Calling for him. Hearing nothing in response. Choosing something loud on the TV and deciding to take a long shower because it’s friday, I deserve this.

Toji sighed, relief washing over him in waves. You’re back to being you.

He put the takeout on the table and organized the groceries on the kitchen cabinet—his excuses for staying out longer than usual. Toji was careful with them. Food from your favorite restaurant, cleaning products you mentioned before. Lies build on solid truths.

He doesn’t have an excuse for the scent of antiseptic soap, but once your products made to his nostrils Toji realized he wouldn’t need one. Scents way too sweet, enough to confuse slightly his keen senses. There is no way you’re able to smell anything but yourself.

As the bathroom door opened, Toji grabbed a towel on the laundry and locked himself inside it before you could get a hold of him. He doesn’t think you would notice, and if you did you wouldn’t waste your breath on it, but Toji won’t risk it.

Washing himself once more, Toji tried not to wonder about what would make you despise him more: what he did, or that he doesn’t feel any remorse. Would it make it better for you if Toji cried in the shower? If he stared at his clean hands and saw blood on them? Toji could pretend for you. He really would.

You’re safe and sound, mere steps away from him. Toji showers hearing your loud music. Toji can picture that too. You waiting for him as your sleepy eyes challenge your determination—you always fall asleep before he gets to you. You being you. No shaky breathes, no unstoppable tears. He could never feel remorse.

Toji went after you with a towel around his hips. Following the music most likely coming from your phone, he gently opened the bedroom door to not wake you up. Leaning on the door frame, Toji chuckled.

With your eyes closed, you were far from sleeping. Wrinkled sheets falling out of bed, toes curling against the mattress. Damp towel forgotten on the floor. A hand squeezing his pillow, the other hidden between your thighs. Forearms moving in the rhythm you created to yourself; small gasps concealed by a song.

Spit gathered in the corner of your mouth, mesmerizing Toji. How he wished to sink his teeth into your glossy lips. A broken moan and your back arched, his eyebrows furrowing in synchrony with yours. You did it as the waves of pleasure became too much, and Toji as he finally saw what you had between your legs.

From the blunt and bulbous head to its thick length, it was truly no wonder why you were so quiet. All way out, then all way in. Your concentration was on fucking yourself with the dark purple dildo, the rest simply too much for you little brain.

He never saw that one before.

Wrist burning from your incessant movements, your free hand abandoned his pillow to press down on your clit. A simple and precise touch that made you whimper. Feeling shivers down his spine, Toji smirked.

Your eyes fluttered open.

A beat later, they meet his and widened. All way out. Mouth hanging open, you chuckled. It sounded like you were about to lose your sanity. Then all way in. “There you are.”

Toji crossed his arms, leaving his place at the door to a new one at the end of the bed. “Putting on a show for me?”

“Not on purpose”, you laughed it off. It felt so dirty. For you to talk normally while doing something so lewd. As if you weren’t fully exposed—as if he wasn’t too. “I could say the same about you.”

Skin reddish because of the hot water, black hair dripping wet. You followed every drop, burning him with your ravenous gaze. Veins evident on his thick neck. Long fingers pressing down on his forearms, a reminder of how bad you miss his touch. Huge thighs, even when relaxed.

He dropped the towel. “Not on purpose”, Toji lied.

A knee sunk on the bed, his hands caressing your heels. Toji forced your legs up, tilting his head to kiss the side of your foot. He put one on each shoulder, another knee sinking down on the bed. Grabbing at the fat of your thighs, Toji pulled you closer.

Toji has a way of making you feel weightless.

He bit his tongue, a hand massaging your thigh. Always the cocky asshole, Toji rubbed your overwhelmed clit with his thumb. Staring into his hungry eyes, you grinned.

Holding the firm base of the dildo, Toji pulled it out of you. The sounds your cunt let out, soaked and soft, made him squeeze your thighs. With a pop, there it was, covered in lubricant and your excitement. Your core clamped around nothing.

Toji spat on you, fingers rough against your sore lips as his other hand pumped his cock. You swallowed watching Toji compare with your dildo. You both could see the truth. How your toy was much bigger and ticker.

Salivating, Toji was so proud of you.

Bending over you, forcing your thighs against your chest, Toji admired your sweaty face. He kissed your temple, pressing the dildo’s tip against your lips. “Your collection only grows”, Toji groaned. “That’s a new one.”

“Not new”, you lapped at the protruding head. “Is for when I miss you.”

Toji sank his teeth into your shoulder, hiding his burning cheeks against your skin. Fingers ran through his hair; nails scratched his forearm. “You saw me this morning.”

His tongue was everywhere, moving too fast for you to keep up. Kissing your shoulder, licking your neck, biting your collarbone. Toji is always too much. How perfect of him. “Are you that needy you can’t go hours without me?”

“Miss you all the time”, you struggled to breath. Pulling him by the hair, you made Toji face you. Lost on his dark eyes, time seemed to stop. “Say you miss me too.”

“Miss you all the time”, Toji obeyed. It wouldn’t matter if he didn’t. Not when you can see his flushed cheeks. As a reward, you kissed the scar on his mouth—you would’ve kissed it anyway. “Think about you all the time.”

You bit his earlobe, nose sliding against his neck as you searched for that sweet spot able to make Toji stutter. Once you did, mouth sucking it without mercy, Toji gave your hips a strong squeeze. His calloused hands would mark you tonight.

Toji humped on your thigh. You could feel precum leaking against your skin. He settled for leaning his forehead against yours. “You smell way too sweet.”

“I can get new lotions”, you offered. “Something you like better.”

“Don’t.” Toji cupped your face, ignoring your clit to rub the length of his cock against your slit. Pushing your head against the pillow, he kissed your forehead. “I like you sweet.”

Toji didn’t meant to slip inside you. He wanted to taunt you some more. To fuck you with your dildo and make you scream right into his open lips. Toji wanted you drooling. And once you begged him enough, showing what a polite woman you are, Toji would make you cry with his tongue deep into your walls.

But you were so wet.

“T-Toji!” You gasped, eyes wide as you felt all of him. Pulling his hair, you bit his bottom lip. “Can feel you so deep…”

“I know”, Toji grabbed the headboard, thighs shaking. So fucking welcoming. Thumbs stroking your hips, his mind was a mess because of you. “I know.”

Your eyes meet his. A part of Toji wanted to look away. To hide how fragile you make him. How your gaze burns him deeply. The other wanted to never shy away from you. To never know what it feels like to not be watched by you.

No one ever sees him, the one who left it all behind. No one but you.

His body collapsed against yours. His hands pulled your hair, making you tilt your head so he could continue to torture your neck. Thighs forcing yours open, chest pressing down against yours. You could feel the rhythm of his heartbeat. This gigantic man crushing you against the mattress, so heavy it was difficult to breath.

Drunk on his overwhelming intensity, you admired Toji. His hips rolling up, so slow you could feel the trace of every vein on his cock. His length inside you, never giving you a break. His hair dripping on you, a blend of water and sweat.

“Remind me… to thank my new friend”, Toji tilted his head, pointing at the dildo besides your pillow. His raspy voice was more addictive than cocaine. “Got you ready to take me all in.”

Fighting his grasp on your hair, you hugged his shoulders and forced your head up. Sharing an open mouth kiss, your drool fell on your chest. It felt so cold. Or perhaps your skin was too feverish. Toji devoured your every moan, hands tightening around your hips.

“Missed you so much”, you whimpered. His forehead leaned on yours, eyes closing as Toji tried to not lose himself. You continued to admire him. “Missed being yours.”

“You’re always mine. All the time”, Toji groaned. His tip hit your most sensitive spot; your eyes closing on their own. Toji rubbed your neglected clit, a hand grabbing the roots of your head. His grip firm yet gentle. “Look at me.”

You obeyed, staring into his dark eyes again. You could swear you saw stars on them. Toji leaned his forehead on yours, your touch enough to make him forget everything but your name.

“There you go”, he whispered. “Focus on me, pretty. Don’t look away.”

Searching for those stars again, the waves of pleasure strong enough to shatter your mind. There was nothing but that spot you and Toji turned into one. Blinded by a fog, crushed by him, you came looking into his eyes.

Toji filled you with all he had. His head fell on your chest, it all too much for him to bear. It all too good for him to fully believe it was real. Gasping, he couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t do anything but breath on you. Sweet you.

Running your trembling fingers through his hair, you collapsed against the pillow. Toji was heavy enough to make you breathless, but you didn’t want him to move. You wanted him as close as he could get.

“Welcome back”, Toji murmured. Mimicking you, Toji ran his fingers through your hair. You felt him smiling against your skin. “I missed you.”

You knew exactly what he meant by that. “I love you too”, you whispered.

all rights reserved to © madwomansapologist

[yandereunsolved]

Yandere Five w/ apocalypse reader— 'the end of the world is the most unfortunate circumstance to develop an obsessive trauma bond.'

Yandere Five had been but a barely pubescent teen when he so wisely chose to manipulate time to win an argument with his dismissive parental figure. It was jarring in the beginning. Everything he had ever known had been stripped from him. There was nothing left but debris and blood.

He always had his powers to aid him, yet for the first time they failed. He realized that his reliance on them is what caused this problem in the first place.

How could he be so idiotic?

Fastrack, six years or so, he tended to lose track due to the harsh winter blocking what was left of the sun and the overarching smog always present. Where was he going with this? Oh, yes. It made it difficult to calendar because of the extenuating circumstances.

It had to be about February when he met you. The snow had settled over more monotonous ruins of what was probably a rural town. Most of the sun rays were blocked by smog and strange cloud formations manipulated by the effects of it all. Still, he could see you, leaning against what still stood of a brick building, devoring a stale-looking twinkie.

"This one's interesting, huh, Dolores?" Think we're gonna have to shoot em'?"

Yandere Five ends up sticking by your side to culminate resources and find your true reasoning for being here. That's totally the justification, yeah. It isn't as if he is incredibly touch starved and on the edge of losing what little sanity he had. He just needs to figure you out. That he does, a little too well.

Yandere Five becomes overbearing. You can't tell if you are being questioned by your future murderer or stalker. He demands you answer all his questions promptly and with the utmost truth. He doesn't fluff them and act nicely or reply with basic human empathy. He simply loses his edge after he learns one more thing about you.

Are you allowed to do the same to him in return?

Absolutely not.

You learning about him is on a need to know basis. So if he feels that you need to know it, you will.

Take him by his word. You have to.

Yandere Five isn't the largest fan of physical affection, or physical anything in fact. It takes years in the apocalypse for him to willingly be touched by you. That's at least how he tries to appear. His expressions are always so blank and dismissive. A sarcastic quip is always on the tip of his sharp tongue.

Yet after only a few months of traveling together, he is more than eager to feel your skin under his.

He doesn't want to be near you, no, but you injured yourself by being foolish. He warned you against it, and still you continued. So now he is using some of the minimal medical supplies you both have so he can patch you up. If both of you were back pre-apocalypse, then he would definitely install a tracker inside your arm. For protection, obviously.

He doesn't want to be touched, no, but you're shivering. Losing the only other seemingly living human being, besides Delores, in the apocalypse would leave him at a great disadvantage.

He doesn't want intimacy with you, no. He has just to cuddle you to protect you and keep the nightmares away. He has to kiss your irresistible lips to keep your morale up. He has to let his thoughts about you to linger about in private, unexplored places so he may relieve himself to release relaxing and happy hormones. It's simple as that.

Deep down, he knows the true reason is that he has become utterly smitten with you. He has just chosen to do his best to gaslight himself, even though statistics state it only makes those feelings worse. Perhaps he wants that. Maybe he just wants one person in this fucked-up world that is his and his wholly and unequivocally.

Yandere Five even gets rid of his beloved Delores for you. He was growing paranoid about her. She kept teasing him about how lovesick he was. She was talking about starting to fall in love with you too. The final straw is when she said she wanted a threesome with you. In the dead of night, he disposed of her, a bullet in her head.

Strangely enough you dropped the subject after asking once. It puzzled him. Did you truly dislike Delores that much to be so nonchalant about her disappearance? Did you know what he did? Of course you didn't. You obviously hated Delores and are glad she is gone.

Good.

He likes it this way.

No more distractions, just you two.

Yandere Five doesn't want to figure out the equation to get back to his pre-apoctalyptic life. He writes down a bunch of meaningful numbers in chalk. They aren't coordinations for returning to the academy. They're calculations about your possible romantic relationship, sexual aspects, how submissive you are, and more.

He has detailed a four letter plan in his private journal.

S ubmissivness — how complacent are you? are you gullible to his tactic? how strong is your moral code? would you go along with him knowing how truly infatuated he is with your very existence?

I nterest — how are you feeling? what are your reactions? he needs to know every single thing about you. he needs to know all of your likes just as importantly as your dislikes.

N eutrality — how will his actions affect you and everything else around you? what is the path that will keep you closest to him while also making him seem like the one in charge? this is how we will know if he has gone too far.

S way — how close are others getting to you? are they looking to befriend you? are their true intentions more sinister? he has to analyze every expression and every movement of those who make any contact with you.

You call it his diary. It is not a diary! Diaries are for feelings; journals are filled with statistics. Besides, you won't ever find the location of his actual diary. He writes it in southern Sumerian anyway. You don't have a chance at deciphering it.

Yandere Five meets the Handler while you are snoozing away after a particularly hard day of labor. He can't believe the promise this strange woman puts before him. He works for this Commission for five years, and after that, he's good as done. He gets you in whatever place he wishes for the rest of your lives.

It's a bunch of bullshit as far as he's concerned. Miracles usually don't come with strings attached. Then again, does he really have a choice? He doesn't want to see you suffer anymore than you already have.

So he takes this once in a lifetime 'golden' opportunity.

Let's just hope this one doesn't bite him in the ass.

Yandere Five tells you that he has a way to get you out of here. The both of you just have to spend a little time away from each other. His body psychically aches while way from you, and it isn't just because he's a crotchety old man. The both of you weren't going to be young forever.

He doesn't necessarily hate the job until he learns that killing you is part of keeping the time continuum in check. He doesn't wait a day after learning that information. He takes your hand and escapes somewhere in the past.

Of course his calculations were rushed and were off in the worst possible way. Of course he ends up in the middle of his father's funeral, both of you stuck in your thirteen-year-old bodies. Of course Kalus has to make a sex joke about it.

Damn it! He wants to scream at the top of his lungs.

He needs you! He had you all to himself, and then other people just had to fuck it up.

It's okay. It's okay.

He'll figure out a way to stop all of this and keep you forever.

Forever. What a pleasant thought.

[citricacidprince]

doodle request on relativity falls - id love 2 see ur vers of fiddleford and where he stands in the story!! :DD

Of course!!!

Oh Fiddleford, my dearly beloved Fiddleford, he’s just a little guy who makes machines that hurt people and I love him for that <3

In my Relativity Falls AU Fidds is a kid from Tennessee who moved to Gravity Falls pretty recently, like in the past year.

He’s still really handy with mechanics, like a genuine prodigy, but he’s so riddled with anxiety that it’s a battle to get him to share any of his projects outside of his robots he makes to get revenge on those who wrong him!

He really does like hanging out with the twins, he thinks their both fun and is very happy they actually wanna be his friend, however their constant ‘Getting into weird and magical trouble’ is so stress inducing to him he’s going to get gray hairs by the time he’s 20 (Dipper can relate-)

I don’t have a lot of things solidified for him yet, other than I want him to be EXTREMELY tempted to use the Memory Gun on himself, to forget a lot of the horrifying things he’s seen over the summer, but is stopped by Candy (The inventor of the gun) at the last second. You see, Candy didn’t spiral like Fiddleford did in the show, she only ever used the memory gun on herself once. However, she used it to erase every bit of knowledge she ever learned about the weirdness of Gravity Falls, and Candy had spent YEARS of her life dedicated to it, she was arguably more curious about the weirdness of Gravity Falls than Dipper was. He was only curious out of morbid curiosity, she saw the whimsy and wonder in it all. So when Candy used the Memory Gun on herself and erased such a huge chunk of her memory it cracked her psyche, not leaving her a rambling and insane kook like Fiddleford, but more oblivious and unaware to everything around her while also being a liiiiittle ‘not all there’.

Between the two of them Candy definitely got the better end of the stick. Fiddleford was deemed insane and used the memory gun over and over again until he couldn’t even remember who he was anyone, his life falling apart. Candy used it once to make sure no one could ever use her research to hurt anyone after she learned her lab partner was literally working with an otherworldly being who could go into peoples heads and it cracked her mind because her research WAS her entire life, leaving her oblivious and dazed. However, Candy managed to find people who cared about her and were willing to care for her despite this. Sure she lives in the dump, but whenever a storm comes through or she gets hungry she can always go up to her friends Grenda, Mabel Mason, or even Pacifica at some point to help her out. Fiddleford had no one.

I want Candy to give Fidds a little pep talk, convincing him that despite those memories being scary and uncomfortable he’s going to need all of them because they’re what will help him grow as a person. He can’t just pick and choose which ones he wants because one day he’ll realize he doesn’t have any memories left to burn.

Maybe there could even be a moment where Fidds tries to use the memory gun on Candy because he convinces himself he NEEDS it and doesn’t want to deal with the consequences of hating choice, but freezes up when he realizes it does work on her anymore. The realizes what he just did because of how badly he wanted that memory gun seconds after he did it and starts to tremble, dropping the memory gun as he begins uncontrollably crying that he ‘didn’t mean it’ and he’s sorry. Candy wouldn’t hold it against him, just seeing a scared kid who was so desperate to make the mind numbing anxiety that he would do anything, and she’d hug him and tell him it’s okay before leading him back to the rest of the group.

Fiddleford makes me soooo ill I love him <3

[aurumalatus]

𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞 [𝟐]

pairing. kinich x fem!reader

word count. 3.6k

genre/warnings. childhood friends to lovers, slow burn, fluff and angst, drabble collection, mentions of abuse/alcoholism

summary.

in which kinich learns the value of all things: lives, friendship, and, of course, you. or, in which kinich realizes that you are the only priceless thing in this world.

↢ 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 | 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 | 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 ↣

𝗪𝗛𝗘𝗡 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗦𝗘𝗔𝗦𝗢𝗡𝗦 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗡𝗚𝗘

Summer brings longer days and sunrises that spill like molten gold over the horizon.

Kinich sits by the river to watch, washing clothes in the bubbling water and listening to his mother hum nearby. Her voice is lovely like this, carried lightly along the wind, part of her he wishes he would’ve inherited. She has these rare moments of peace sometimes, when she’s among her crops and the weather is gentle, where she’s temporarily able to forget about the house-shaking fights from the night before. Kinich tries not to disturb her in those times; mostly, he learns just by watching her.

His father, on the other hand, stays out later every day—longer days mean more time to gamble, and Kinich is often left yawning by the time the front door slams open. Their Mora pouches grow tighter and tighter, and his mother stops bringing him to the market with her.

One day, she stops going at all.

Then, she stops humming.

Kinich gets used to having the same meals every day—he eats Grainfruit so much that he gets sick of it, and vows that once he has the option, he’ll never eat it again. He stops thinking about making friends and starts thinking about his own survival. When he has some time, he finds ways to make his own fun anyway; he harvests plants to weave into rope, then makes his own swings on the trees nearby. He finds that he likes the feeling of flying through the air, though he hasn’t quite gotten advanced enough to do any true climbing yet.

Every so often, Kinich thinks about the tribe. He can hear them occasionally, on nights of celebration—the firelight and vivacious laughter pierce the night, even all the way out here. He hasn’t gotten the chance to visit the main village in a while, and courier visits are infrequent, not that his parents receive much mail anyway. Perhaps a mountain of bills, if nothing else.

In even rarer moments, he thinks of you. 

It comes on days when his mother locks herself in her room and his father disappears for hours, the quiet desire for companionship. He feels truly stupid even pondering it, but he wonders how you’re doing sometimes. He wonders if you ever learned how to make flower crowns, and if the other kids in the tribe are being nice to you again. 

He wonders if you’re alone, and sometimes, he wonders if he could be too.

“Yanta passed away,” his mother murmurs one day, cutting up a Grainfruit. Kinich’s stomach lurches at the thought of taking another bite of the crop, but he says nothing; he never complains to his mother. Instead, he stands beside her at the kitchen counter on a short stool, carefully grinding grain into flour. “The courier came by today and told me.”

For a moment, Kinich says nothing. Observant as he is for his age, he gauges his mother’s expression—she’d known Yanta a long time, after all. But she doesn’t look sad, at least not truly. Instead, she just looks…resigned.

“I’m sure she’s in a better place now,” he manages to reply.

His mother smiles bitterly. The knife cuts through the soft fruit with too much force, blade hitting the cutting board with a loud thud—Kinich nearly flinches at the sound.

“I’m sure she is.”

They lapse back into silence, and his mother stares out the kitchen window, wistful. He tries not to think about that too much, because he’s unsure how to feel about the implications.

(He knows she’s thinking about somewhere far away, but he wonders if he’s in that vision, too.)

Kinich learns that the price of his mother’s smile is his own usefulness—she smiles when he brings home larger harvests. When he can contribute, she ruffles at his hair and tenderly takes the basket from his hands. He finds that he likes that feeling—being useful, being needed. It’s the reason why he works so hard, the reason why his small hands form calluses, skin turning rough from labor.

A commotion sounds from outside—his father is home. His mother places the knife down immediately, moving on pure instinct. She takes up the cloth by the sink and wipes down her hands. It’s a pitiful thing, full of holes and threadbare from years of use. Kinich thinks he should weave a new one the next time he has a chance; the thought that it might please his mother makes his chest warm.

“Go to your bedroom,” his mother orders, hurried. The flour sits on the counter, forgotten, only half-finished. He looks at it longingly, even as his mother pushes him out of the kitchen.

He just manages to slip into his bedroom by the time the front door slams open, nearly flying off the hinges. Kinich’s eyes flutter shut, lips pressed into a thin line—the losses today must’ve been worse than usual.

“Don’t slam the door! Kinich is sleeping,” his mother argues. There’s a series of groans and squeaks—his father is stumbling into the furniture again, probably making a mess. “What’s got you so upset already?”

“It was the damn orphan kid,” his father slurs, spitting on the floor. Kinich silently seethes in disgust. “She’s always running around our fucking property, guess since she’s got nowhere else to go.”

Kinich isn’t sure who his father is referring to, but it doesn’t really matter anyway. The screams outside the door grow louder, until it feels like the walls of the house will fall from the noise. If he were any younger, he might’ve folded his pillow over his ears in an attempt to block out the noise. He’d stopped doing that years ago, though, having grown used to the chaos.

His mother screams and cries until the daylight disappears completely, and his father yells and inflicts as much damage as he can—both to the house and to his wife. Kinich pretends to be asleep the whole time, grip tight on his blankets. It’s not until the moon rises in the sky, watchful, that his parents tire themselves out, retiring to bed with fresh bruises. 

It’s quiet, at least for a bit.

The next day, Kinich rises with the sun. 

His mother is already outside, and his father is…somewhere. It doesn’t really matter where the man is, only that he isn’t here, and Kinich can enjoy the fleeting peace. The routine comes easily to him in the mornings—he sets about rearranging the scattered dining chairs and dragging the table back into place. It’s a useless endeavor, he knows, considering they’ll probably end up downed again by tomorrow. But there’s something about these small victories, in which he can pretend his house is normal for the day—where he can pretend it’s just him and his mom.

He cleans quietly, humming to himself, then decides against it—it doesn’t sound like when his mother does it.

She comes back inside a few minutes later, not sparing him a word. It makes something sting in his chest, the lack of recognition—he’d hoped she would praise him for tidying up, or maybe ask him to help her harvest. Still, he continues cleaning, grabbing a broom to sweep up the remnants of things his parents had broken in anger. He sweeps up smashed bottles, careful to avoid the glass, before stopping at the mess under the counter. He pauses.

For reasons he can’t explain, the sight makes him inexplicably sad:

The bowl of half-ground flour, shattered into a thousand pieces and flung across the floor.

/

When the air cools and leaves begin to fall from the trees, a ghost appears in the forest.

Kinich first notices it one morning after he goes outside to water his crops and check on their growth. The forest leaves are still full-bodied by this time, but they’re turning; as he walks, the emerald ceiling turns to deep reds, burnt oranges, and pale yellows. Yesterday, the breeze was gentle, but today it nips at his skin—he pulls his thin jacket tighter around himself. 

He’s not a superstitious or fearful person by any means. He’s grown used to being alone over the years, and the creaks of the house and the whispers in the forest don’t scare him like they used to. 

Still, he’s inclined to admit the chill that runs through his blood when he finds the small bag of berries awaiting him. 

It’s placed in such a specific location that he can’t help but feel it’s meant for him—a stone that marks the perimeter of his garden plot. There’s no note, though he checks thoroughly for one, nor any indication of who it might be from. The thought makes him a bit uncomfortable—no one from the village usually comes through here. He tries to pretend it doesn’t bother him, but he finds himself rushing home after the fact.

The gifts don’t stop coming. 

It’s always inconsequential, little things like cheap candies and leaf whistles left on stones. They’re placed in very particular spots—areas around his crops, around his traps, or the trees where he usually sits to be alone. Kinich starts to feel like someone is watching him, and the shadows in the forest seem to loom a bit longer than usual. A collection of tiny trinkets and treats grows in the corner of his bedroom.

It takes three more weeks before he discovers that ghosts are, in fact, not real.

With the temperatures dropping, he decides to visit his crops a bit later than usual that day, when the sun is fully up and provides some semblance of warmth. The thought of the ghost still lays dormant in the back of his mind, but it’s less of a concern—after all, it doesn’t seem to pose a threat.

(And really, he can’t complain about having extra candy every now and then.)

He just about reaches the clearing when he spots a shadowed figure knelt over his crops. Initially, Kinich mistakes it for a wild animal—there’s no shortage of them around here, and they’re always interested in chewing at his plants. He readies himself to scream in an attempt to scare it away, but it suddenly moves in a way that is distinctly human—he freezes where he stands. Slowly, cautiously, he leans forward in the foliage to get a better look.

The figure rises just as his eyes narrow on the small object now laying on the stone.

It’s a crown, woven with jade and gold flowers.

“It’s you,” he breathes, mostly out of shock. You jolt like a deer in the headlights at the sound, eyes wide, and there’s a beat of silence before you turn and sprint away. Truthfully, Kinich considers himself a smart kid, but even he feels dumbfounded by the whole situation. It takes him about another second to start chasing after you, an impromptu game of tag with no clear objective.

“Stop!”

You’re quite swift for a child, but Kinich is faster, knows these woods better; he catches up to you with ease, and his fingers wrap around your wrist in a fashion that reminds him of when you first met. This time, you try to break out of his grip, but it only makes him hold tighter. In a panic, your ankle catches on a tree root, and that’s all it takes for both of you to go tumbling down.

Kinich hits the ground hard, tangled in your limbs, and he groans when his shoulder skids in the dirt—instantly, his mind is assessing the value lost in the event of an injury. If he gets hurt, how will he pay for it? How will he hunt? How will he harvest?

The thought just makes him angrier as he straightens to his feet, unsteady and brushing grime off his clothes. You’re a bit slower to rise, still on your hands and knees—Kinich pulls you up by your collar instead, lips curled into a snarl.

“Why are you running from me? Why are you leaving these things?” The words come out in a hiss, frustration boiling over. “Why are you doing this?”

You tear out of his grip, looking just as indignant.

“Because Chief Wayna said you’re lonely!”

Nearby, birds flock away from the noise, a rush of darkness flying overhead.

Kinich flinches at your words—he’s not even sure if it’s true, but the notion of it sends a pulse of lightning through his heart. Lonely? He turns away, fists clenched.

“Well, he’s wrong. So you can go back to the village.”

“I don’t think he’s wrong,” you say, arms crossed. “You’re the only kid out here, right? That would make anyone lonely.”

He thinks of his parents; on an average day, it’s true that they don’t talk very much. But that doesn’t make him lonely—in fact, he thinks he’s doing just fine by himself. Thinking of friends and other things makes him less useful to his mother, and he despises that thought.

“You don’t even know me,” he argues, eyes narrowed, and you huff. 

“I don’t. But that’s why I’m here,” you say. Kinich watches as you squat to the ground, thumbing over the thin petals of the flower crown. “Because I want to know you. I want to be friends. Is that so bad?”

He rolls his eyes. “There’s plenty of other kids in the village. Go play with them.”

You’re more stubborn than you let on, he realizes. Because even as he explains every reason why you shouldn’t be here, your feet remain firmly rooted in place, a pout written over your lips.

“I don’t want to play with them. I want to play with you.”

He’s not sure why the words hit him as hard as they do—you’re just a child who wants to play. Maybe you’re bored with the other kids, or maybe they still don’t like you, but it’s not like you’re coming to him out of genuine necessity. 

(Distantly, he reminds himself that he’s a child too. He forgets that sometimes.)

“...Why me?” he probes, tentative. “Why does it even matter to you?”

You seem to sense that a crack has formed in his resolve, and your expression softens. The wind rushes by as you outstretch one hand, holding the flower crown out to him—an olive branch.

“Because you’re the one who offered to help me back then,” you say, nearly a whisper, “and that matters to me.”

For the second time since he’s met you, Kinich finds himself genuinely speechless. He’s not a talkative person to begin with, but it’s not out of a lack of things to say—it’s out of a lack of necessity. There’s no need to speak in the life he lives, only to move. To survive. But here you are, latching onto him simply because you want his company.

I don’t need friends, he thinks desperately.

Before he can stop himself, he gently plucks the crown from your hands.

You smile.

In the next few weeks after that, Kinich lets you come around, if only for a few hours.

The forest clearing becomes your meeting place—he learns a lot about you among the crunching leaves and bare trees. He learns that you’re an orphan, that your favorite season is spring, that you think his eyes are pretty. You don’t tend to think before you speak, only saying things as they come to mind. In a lot of ways, you’re his opposite. 

He’s not sure what the feeling is that takes root in his chest.

Next, he teaches you what he knows. You had suggested it offhandedly one day, that he might teach you how to weave—that maybe you might be able to do something more complex than flower crowns. He had been a bit hesitant—he doesn’t consider himself an expert, after all—but relented after you asked over and over.

(He always seems to relent when it comes to you.)

He finds that he likes the way your eyes sparkle when he teaches you something new, or when you successfully try something for the first time. You’re overjoyed when you weave your first rope, when your traps come back full, when your first plant finally blooms. Kinich merely watches, a warmth permeating his chest. He starts to crave your company, the way you cling to him, the way you need him. Soon, he starts to think that a small part of him might have needed you too.

Despite his willingness to spend time with you, he’s quite strict with your time—once the sun dips, he’s quick to send you off. 

“Go home,” he says, looking pointedly toward his house. He’s always waiting for something. “And don’t let anyone see you.”

You never disobey, mostly because you have no reason to—ascending the mountain in the dark is difficult anyway, and you don’t want to overstay your welcome.

And though his house still shakes and rocks with screaming every night when he returns, Kinich finds it a bit easier to sleep when he thinks of meeting you the next day.

/

Kinich’s mother disappears on a winter night.

Something startles him awake, and his eyes slide open to see the moon hanging over the inky sky. It’s uncharacteristically quiet, save for the subdued snoring of his father passed out on the couch. At times like these, Kinich misses the warmer months; the river outside has long since frozen over, and he sometimes relied on its steady bubbling rush to put him to sleep.

These days, it’s too cold for you to make the trip down the mountain. The ice makes it far more dangerous to make the descent, and even someone as stubborn as you wouldn’t risk it. Kinich thinks he finally understands what loneliness means.

Winter also means more time spent inside, and forced quarters with his father. The weather seems to take a toll on the man—he skips work more and more these days, citing an ache in his bones. Kinich’s mother works longer days now, desperate to feed them all. He helps as he can, setting traps in the forest to catch wild game, but it’s not enough sometimes. Some days, he sleeps with his stomach empty. 

He sits up in bed, slow.

He’s still short enough that his feet barely dangle above the ground when he swings his legs over the edge, wincing when he first makes contact with the cold floor. It had been snowing when he had first fallen asleep, cheek stinging from the force of his father’s hand. Outside, a blanket of white is settling, still undisturbed by human interference. His footsteps are light, trained from years of practice.

The door creaks open, millimeters at a time, lest he accidentally wake his father. He peeks a single eye out of the crack, observing how the man lays draped over the couch. Several bottles of alcohol lie vacant on the table, emptied down his father’s throat in one of his fits of rage. He’d lost more Mora than usual today—Kinich’s mother had been the unfortunate scapegoat for his anger, and Kinich as well when he came to her defense. 

He slips through the opening in the door, agile, creeping past his father’s sleeping form and into the kitchen. It’s still a mess, as a result of earlier. One of the cabinet doors sits unlatched at an awkward angle, evidence of the fight. Kinich’s fingers twitch to fix it, but decide against it; it would make too much noise, and the cabinet is bare anyway. 

He moves on.

His mother’s bedroom—technically his parents’ bedroom, but the two haven’t slept together in years—is half-visible through a crack in the door, but it doesn’t look the same as he remembers. The bedsheets are smoothed down, his mother nowhere to be seen. He glances out the window again—there are times when she awakens in the middle of the night to take walks, craving temporary silence, but the notion seems unlikely with the current weather.

Kinich eases the door open quietly, exposing the disaster to his eyes.

His mother’s things are strewn about the room in various states of disarray—someone had left in a hurry. The bed frame also sits crooked, revealing a loose floorboard beneath that had been pulled aside. The perfect place to hide something, whether it had been jewelry, Mora, or something else.

A seed of panic plants itself in his stomach. 

He rushes over to the front door, tripping as he goes—he slams to the floor with a cry. A hand slaps over his mouth in fear, eyes flickering over to his father. The man turns over, but doesn’t awaken, so he scrambles to his feet, finally seizing the doorknob and throwing it open. 

Nothing but a starless night awaits him outside—a burst of freezing air surges into the house, but Kinich doesn’t feel it at all. Instead, he stares out into the snowy landscape, gaze following the trail his mother had left behind.

Shallow footfalls leading away from the house—leading away from him.

Kinich is not ignorant; even young as he is, he understands the situation instantly.

His mother had weighed the value of her son and the value of her freedom, and he had not been the final choice.

That night, Kinich doesn’t cry.

Instead, he creeps back into bed, deathly quiet in his footsteps and wincing when the door creaks. A shiver runs down his body; teeth chattering, he slides beneath his thin blanket. His father doesn’t stir, and for once, Kinich doesn’t care. He doesn’t feel anything at all.

For a few minutes, he tosses and turns. It doesn’t help—the dread settles in all the same. There are too many questions and not enough answers to placate him. He thinks of his mother and her smile.

Distantly, he wonders if he can blame her, or even hate her. If he weighed his options, would he have made the same choice? If he had been more useful, would she have stayed?

What more could he have done?

As he falls back to sleep, Kinich wonders how long it will be until spring comes again.

[ajortga]

love at first glance

pairing: tara carpenter x bass guitarist!fem reader

word count: 5.5k+

summary: in which tara admires your bass skills, then admires you even more.

author's note: please bear with me, i don't know what i'm doing but i'm just hoping these scrambled words just go well. tv girl mentioned!

-

based off request!

tara carpenter x masc! fem reader and reader is in a band, maybe like lead guitarist or bass? but like tara goes to a concert with all of the core 4 (+anika cuz i miss her) and like is mesmerized by reader. maybe they make eye contact during a song or sum? they leave the concert and tara is still thinking about reader and reader is still thinking about tara. cut to like later maybe at a party or a bar and they bump into each other and chop it up, but reader is like awkward-ish?

-

You’ve always had a love for anything that was related to music. Your parents made you take singing lessons ever since you were little. 

At first, you hated it. Singing Mary Had a Little Lamb in different keys was not entertaining. But as you grew older and probably didn’t need to sing that song every practice, you began to use your house’s grand piano that was left untouched for years. And then, being able to sing and knowing your keys inside and out wasn’t so bad after all. 

You spent countless times in the living room, the echo of your voice lingering against your house as you learned your favorite songs.

You wrote songs and composed as you experimented with your voice and the keys. It was almost never surprising when your parents caught you up late at night under your pillow, pencil scratching notes across lined pieces of paper. In every single talent show, audition, or musical, your name would be signed. Everyone in your family knew that one day, you’d grow to be a musician. 

People would even begin to see you whenever they were at warehouses and you’d be playing a piano. At every gathering, your relatives would ask, “Where is that little Y/N?” And your parents would look at each other with a knowing glance, both saying confidently, “Probably in the living room with that damn piano.”

You loved listening to music, making music, playing music, feeling your emotions in music, god, every time you’d go out, your earphones would be in your pockets.

So when you were gifted an acoustic guitar for your 12th birthday, to say the least, you were fucking thrilled. Instead of playing the piano 7 days a week, you’d play guitar for half those days. Gosh, was it hard learning a string instrument after playing piano for half your life? Maybe. But you loved it. 

You’d practice and practice, gradually getting better, then you’d play the electric and bass. And was the bass guitar a hell of a sound, you loved it. 

Then, the best thing ever happened to you. You had grouped up with your friends and quickly became a band with all your talents combined. Slowly but surely, did you begin to realize how far you had gone. Because in a blink of an eye, you were at concerts, fingers pressing down on your strings as it electrified through stadiums and arenas while people cheered. 

Cheered for you. That’s something you’ll never regret in your entire life.

-

You turn your bass’s machine head, plucking each string as you tune them before your concert. Nights like this never get old, you’d always be left with the adrenaline from every concert, like your body was refreshed when you slept under your hotel room’s covers.

As your hair and makeup stylist’s makeup brush dabs across your cheeks, you trace the outline of your bass guitar and look at yourself in the mirror. Layered hair, a black tank top over your toned arms, hidden beneath a red leather jacket. Your favorite part would probably be your nails painted red to compliment your hands. You had to keep them short though.

What would this night bring you? Everytime you close your eyes and listen, you can hear the faint echo of your bass vibrating through, lights swaying into the crowd, a smile forming on your face.

Every night had something different, there were different people, a different crowd, it makes you feel different every time. Yet you still feel the thrill and pride swell against your chest.

Junia, one of your closest friends that plays the drums, pops her head in. “You look hot,” she grins, “Jess said she’d come to pick us up at 40. You’re going to kill it, Bass.”

Bass. What an original nickname, you lean your chin into your palm as you raise your eyebrows, “You know it, June.” 

7:45.

-

Tara looks at herself in the mirror, Mindy and Chad screaming at each other while playing Jenga in the background. She pushes a stubborn strand of hair away from her eyelashes while she curls them. 

“CHEATER!-” Mindy yells, making the brunette flinch and breathe in frustration. She was not going to get her eyelashes pulled out.

After Tara was done with a cropped graphic tee, a jean skirt, and a cute little white bow in her hair, she walked through the hallway and into the living room, still adjusting her gold hoops.

There, Anika and her sister seemed the sanest out of them all. On the other hand, the twins were fighting over the remote. 

“Babies,” Sam mutters, pushing her dark brown hair back.

Anika pulls the remote out of both of their hands easily while Chad mutters ‘what the fuck’ under his breath. 

It was like being in a daycare. Tara ate a cookie while watching Anika throw the remote onto the sofa, wearing a lace tank top with jeans, “Mindss, why don’t we just leave the remote and find something else. Your hair is getting all poofy.” 

“And a little dingussy,” Chad adds.

Mindy smacks him, “Don’t ever use ‘dingussy’ to describe something. It sounds sexual.”

Before they could say furthermore, Tara jumps in, mentally begging them to shut up for a moment, “You have the keys, Sam?”

Sam pulls them out of the pocket in her jeans. 

Tara gives a small nod, looking a little over Sam, “Anika, tickets?”

“Yep, 5 of them,” she says, pulling out each ticket one by one with one hand and smoothing out Mindy’s hair with the other. When it was 5:30PM, they were all off, crawling into Sam’s car. Tara immediately sat in the passenger seat. 

I’m not sacrificing my hair by sitting in the middle seat, she thinks as she looks back at Anika, who was basically separating the two twins that were probably yelling in her ear at this point.

“You guys will love them. Jess has always been one of the most talented people I know in music. I have no doubt her band will be the best on stage.”

When Anika had first mentioned when she won a giveaway for a concert. It was for a barricade, but it was stated that they were allowed to be in the front row, the tickets she won had granted her that. Tara wasn’t very interested. Music just wasn’t something she always listened to on a daily basis. But there were 5, and no way would she miss out. 

So she listened to a song, played it on Spotify while walking to class. 

The scene shifts to a local coffee shop in Woodsboro.

“Let me tell you, the bass was fucking amazing! Brilliant!” Tara yaps excitedly to the four people in front of her. She loved how well the drums, electric, lyrics, and bass sounded. The bass blessed her ears. She had immediately added it to her favorites. 

“Bass, huh?” Anika smiles while drinking her coffee. “I think that’s one of the leads, Y/N. Jess always talks about how good she sounds, she usually comes up with all the riffs and lines.”

Y/N. It was unique, Tara made a note to remember it. Yet, she forgot about that conversation no less than 2 days after.

-

They all stepped out once they could see people lining up and buying the light up sticks that were controlled throughout the concert. Tara found it cool that the sticks had stars on them, in fact, the lights were one of the parts that made a concert a concert. 

Mindy was yelling happily and doing a little dance once their tickets got scanned and they all ran to the front row. 

Anika gave a cocky grin, “Maybe they’ll notice us because we’re in the front!”

It was thirty minutes until the background music came to a stop and the lights slowly started to dim. People were screaming, Tara’s heart was pounding against her chest. It was dead silent, whispers and occasional excited screams echoed.

“Oh my god, it’s happening,” Mindy whispers loudly, holding onto Anika as they look at the curtains.

They wait a moment, then two, and by the third one, drums begin to echo. ‘Tsst’ being echoed, before it follows with a loud 16th beat of drums. Then, the curtains open as Tara’s eyes widen.

Are you sick of me?

Would you like to be?

I'm trying to tell you something,

Something that I already said

The drums softly fill Tara’s ears, as she watches them play, she finally notices you. Perfect layered hair, messy in all the right ways. The bass girl. Something about the way the warmth of the light danced across your face in all the right ways captivated her. The way your deep red leather jacket hung over your shoulder, exposing your defined collar bones and toned arms while you pressed on strings.

Oh god, it felt as if a new story line with different love interests began to change for Tara. She could see the veins against your slim hands as they traveled across your guitar with ease. You mouthed the lyrics, enjoying yourself as you close your eyes and sway softly to the beat. 

You like a pretty boy,

With a pretty voice

Who is trying to sell you something,

Something that you already have

The drums left Tara’s thoughts, now hearing you and the way that your bass adds on to the magic of it all. You’re just standing there, your bangs swiping across your features as you tuck it to your sides, smiling to yourself as you scan the crowd for a moment then look back down to your strings.

Maybe it was the way you looked like you were the right person for this part–to be on stage like you were meant for it. Or maybe it was the way your gaze flickered to the front row and landed on Tara’s wide ones. She could see the way you tilted your head and gave her a curious, wondering look, before giving her a small smile. 

Oh my god, your smile was so cute. If she could describe it, it’s like the kind of smile that made her all giggly and was so contagious that she felt herself slowly smile.

The lights shine over your face, making everything about you glow. You pluck at the strings as you mouth the chorus to Tara. Her eyes searched all over your face. You don’t break eye contact with her.

But if you're too drunk to drive,

And the music is right

She might let you stay,

But just for the night

“And if she grabs for your hand, and drags you along,” Tara mouths back in time with the song.

One of your eyebrows raise as the light shines onto you once again, god, she can almost hear your soft, breathy voice teasingly singing, “She might want a kiss before the end of this song..”

Anika screams, jumping up and down and hyping everyone up, waving her heart stick in beat with the song. 

Because love can burn like a cigarette…

-

By the end of the concert, Tara was love struck. Very very love struck. It was late when her and the four of her friends walked out, the stars shining just a little brighter. She couldn’t get you out of her head. She might have grown gray hairs. How could you be more than any other celebrity crush?

She prayed to the universe that it would align you both together. Just like each star was in the night sky.

It’s bad, Loving Machine is playing and she can only think about you strumming your guitar.

Here she comes walking down the street,

Maddie Klein and her fabulous loving machine-

“Earth to Tara, hello?” Anika pauses the music, waving her hand into the girl’s face. It was almost like a record scratch moment as Tara blinked and looked around. “Oh, sorry, what?”

“Did you like the concert?” She asks, holding onto her star light up as the red light makes the glitter under her eyes sparkle. Anika was now in the middle, the car a little quieter since Chad was now in the passenger seat.

“Oh yeah, I loved it.” Tara answers, half of her attention slipping away. She starts to see you from a camera, lighting cast against your tan skin, a TV effect on you, making your movements jerky. 

The rest of the people are fading away, their voices, so loud and eager. Blah blah blah blah… Y/N.. Bassist. Love of her life.

Dreamy sigh.

Blah.. Blah.. “Yeah the bassist was hot.” Mindy’s voice suddenly being processed.

“What?” Tara immediately turns away from the window and looks at Mindy on the opposite side. Oh god, now she was going to have to fight for you? "No! Go find someone else to admire!” She grumbles, before immediately looking away.

The whole car shakes as they all laugh, playfully hitting Tara. “See? She was literally summoned, baby!” Anika giggles, talking to Mindy. “She wasn’t giving any shits when we were talking, and as soon as we talked about Senorita Y/N, she was like poof!”

Sam looks from the rearview mirror, an eyebrow raised, “Already? One concert that lasted two hours and she’s already wrapped you around her little finger?”

Little fingers, those veiny hands that played so smoothly across the-

Chad turns around excitedly, like a child peeking at surprise presents, “She was literally captivated the whole damn concert! You should’ve seen her, a love sick puppy!”

Her sister cackles, the car moving as she keeps snorting, “Gotta admit though, she’s fine wine.”

“Sam!” Tara rubs her cheeks, she seriously hoped she wasn’t going to have to battle till death for you.

“Chill!” Sam coaxes, putting one hand up in the air, “I would totally go for her if you weren’t interested. Didn’t think you had a thing for ‘Sam accepted’ girls.”

The freckled cheek girl couldn’t help but sigh, the thought of you still lingering in her mind. Like a twinkling little Melody who’s lyrics couldn’t get out of her mind, even when she slept.

-

It had been a week. Tara says that she doesn’t think of you too often, but every single time she hears your band’s song, you end up in her mind for the whole day. Every time she steps into a coffee shop, she wonders if you’d be the person to give a free concert. 

She wonders if you’re as sweet as your name sounds. She wonders if you’d hold doors for others or walk old ladies down the street. She wonders if your hand would fit hers. She wonders if you had even thought of her after the curtains closed.

She wonders if you smell good, if you’d smell like a musky, sweet, fruity vanilla-y scent with leather undertones. She sure hoped so.

To say the least, you’ve thought about the brunette just as much. You were having fun, strumming your guitar and feeling the beat radiate off your skin. Until you lay eyes on her. She had wide, brown doe eyes that made your knees buckle. 

She was heaven-sent. You could even make out her tan freckled cheeks. And you were almost in denial when she was looking at you. It was always who was singing that people looked at, heck, you did too. But you were looking at her. And she was looking at you.

Plenty of people might have looked at you, but she was different. Like she was mesmerized by how you played. Like she was a moth to your flame. 

In fact, you don’t know if anyone has ever looked at you with that much admiration.

The girl was so beautifully written, you wished you knew who she was. Instead, she was one out of 8 billion people out there, in a blink of an eye, a close of a curtain, she was off.

-

Tara looked at herself in the mirror, standing there like.. She didn’t even know, her serious eyes trailing down to what she was wearing, before turning to Anika slowly.

“Anika, I look like a hot dog.” She cries, looking at the way the costume swallowed her whole in the fitting room.

“That’s because you’re wearing a hot dog costume, Tar. But you look like a steaming hot hot dog!” Anika shakes her head, her head only visible since she was basically a whole mustard bottle. 

Mindy waddles through the living room, a red ketchup bottle, a red dangling earring complimenting her poofy hair. “Has anyone seen my earring? I can’t find it! It was in my purse and I thought if it looked good, I’d totally buy this.”

Chad walks in the girl’s fitting room, slightly peeking as Sam walks out of her dressing room, a serious expression on their face, a cookie and milk costume. 

Tara wants to laugh, but no way in hell was she going to wear this at a costume party, at least not at a serious one.

-

After actually taking it seriously, Tara decides on a pirate outfit, tying up her bandana. 

She can almost hear the music blasting from her apartment, which is filled with laughter and chatting from her ‘family.’

Her eyes skim over her board, looking for her calendar that was usually meant for school, roaming around the small photos of you and a heart drawn over your face. She traces over it, before getting ready to leave, not even looking at the calendar. 

Maybe the calendar was just an excuse.

After 5 songs and a half of your band’s music, the core five, including sweet Anika, open the door. A heavy scent of booze fills their senses, sweat, and a mix of perfumes all lingered. Not to mention, it was stuffy.

“Ugh, do they ever think about AC?” Sam grumbles, clearly not a party person as she gets whacked across the face from a toilet plumber that belonged to a person who was wearing a damn toilet costume. Mindy cackled, before tripping and almost crashing into them, luckily her girlfriend tugged her back.

They pushed against cowboy hats and random inflatable dinosaurs, across the dance floor, and to the drinks station.

Tara did not leave empty handed, her mouth gulping down the bubbly bitterness of alcohol. 

She was buzzed, a few drinks here and she was flushed and giggling, so she made sure to think about her intake. As she parted from the other four to find a trash can, scanning the groups of people. Sometimes she found people she knew at school, cute boys, just people she’s seen.

Tara took a different route back to her friends, the music growing louder in her ears when she got near the dance floor, slivering through bodies. It was almost inevitable that her nose would scrunch, too strong of a perfume, or just sweat.. It made her nauseous. 

Where was she going? She didn’t know, she stood on her tippy toes, her ruffled blouse crinkling as she searched for her friends.

Her face smacked right into someone, her hand automatically being placed on their chest. She opened her mouth, about to apologize and prepare for a scolding until her nose twitched. A fruity and sweet vanilla-y smell, and a light leathery contrast.. No?..

“Shoot,” you look down, your drink almost spilling on yourself as you look at the shorter person as you smooth out their hair. Did you ruin it? “I’m sorry, are you okay?”

Tara looks at her outfit, perfectly fine, no stains. Hearing your soft, breathy voice, it was unrecognizable to her at first.

“No, it’s totally fine, I wasn’t looking where I was going.” Tara says, immediately looking up and seeing your big curious eyes.

Oh my god.

Your eyes search hers, like you’re scanning her. Like you feel you’ve seen her before. No, you know you have. But where? The trace of her nose, doe eyes, oh! Tara almost puts a hand over her mouth because she can almost see the swirling sense of recognition in your eyes.

You opened your mouth to say something, maybe to ask about the concert, but you closed it. You don’t even know if she noticed you, maybe she was spacing out and was not acknowledging you during your concert a few weeks ago.

When it came to people, especially ones you crushed on, you were all stuttering words and pink cheeks.

The shorter girl sees the way you tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, and she registers what you’re wearing as her eyes trail down. And fuck, you looked angellic. Seriously.

A halo over your head and wings enveloping your sides. A black corset and ruffled skirt that showed a little of your legs, which were covered with tights. God, she thinks she can see the muscles as you cross one leg over the other.

It immediately makes you think she’s judging you. This costume was not your cup of tea, but your friends invited you to match with them, all angels in different colors.

The little pirate instead gives you a genuine look, “I like your costume,” she says, focusing a little too much on your toned arms and slightly flushed cheeks.

“I um.. Thank you..?” You bite your tongue, not knowing her name. In what chance do you get to meet the girl that made you think soulmates were real once again? At least a 1 in 300 chance. 

“Tara,” she answers for you, pretending she didn’t already have your name embedded in the back of her head. 

“I’m Y/N,” you bite a smile, she probably didn’t recognize you. You take a small sip from your drink, nose scrunching at the taste.

“You’re good at the bass,” she says nonchalantly, and you almost choke on your drink. 

You didn’t think she’d recognize you, but now knowing that, you tilt your head. “Thank you. It comes from years of practice. What did you think?” You were genuinely curious.

“I think you’re just so good at the bass..” She mumbles, again, trailing off, before clearing her throat. “I mean, the bass always makes the songs so much better! You know? It’s like realizing how amazing something really is when you notice it-”

“I appreciate it,” you say, now aware of your surroundings because instead of where you two just bumped into each other, you were sitting at a table. You turn your head, looking at where you were, probably near the back. 

Tara took the opportunity to notice your damn jawline, so perfect and sleek and defined-

“I like your freckles,” you admit, voice breathy. You turn back to look at her while batting your eyelashes, Tara’s eyes trained on how your hands.. Veiny hands lifted the cup to your lips.

The compliment almost catches her off guard, because with all the compliments she might get, freckles were usually not on the list. It used to make her insecure, but the way you said it and looked said otherwise. The alcohol was definitely taking a toll on you, because you were staring at her with no shame whatsoever.

Wide, searching eyes, it looked as if you were trying to memorize every detail. 

The flutters in Tara’s stomach would’ve lasted longer. Except her eyes teared away from yours as she could see a very familiar ketchup and mustard costume and two other people behind them.

“Oh my god!” She groans quietly, covering her face as she scoots deeper into the booth.

She completely forgot that she slithered away from them, getting side tracked.

The brunette could die from embarrassment. You on the other hand.. Just prettily sitting there with a curious look on your face, the small warmth of the lamp casting a glow onto your face.

You bite your lip, trying to fight back a small giggle as you peek at the costumes that you can almost kind of guess who they are to Tara.

-

“SHE’S LOOKING THIS WAY!” Mindy hollers, tugging the mustard bottle next to her as Chad scribbles something on a piece of paper.

“Tara’s literally hiding from us.”

“Hold it up!”

-

They’re screaming at each other. You can’t hear it from all the music and party chatter, but you can definitely figure it out from their expressions. For a moment, they turn away from you, so you can’t see them.

You slip on a leather jacket that was in your bag.

A hiding Tara is in the corner of the booth, you raise your eyebrows at her.

It doesn’t take long before the four people across the room slowly turn to you in synchronization. 

“Um, I don’t-” You start, feeling a little awkward.

They hold up a paper, and you can’t even see what the words are saying. It’s at least the size of a penny. And from here, you can’t even make out the words.

-

“Dingus,” Mindy shouts to her twin, noticing the confused expression on your face as you try to understand what the paper is saying. She finally turns the paper around after holding it up. “It’s too small, that’s why!”

-

One of the four holds up a finger, signaling you to give them a moment as they adjust, before turning around.

‘Give her your numbar’ The sign says, you still don’t get it. Oh, number. You grab a tissue from the booth, and take out a sharpie from your pocket. Sharpies were always needed whenever you went out. To write down something on your hand, to sign autographs..

You slip the paper to Tara, giving her a small smile. She was definitely embarrassed. She didn’t even notice you slipping it to her, because after 5 seconds of you sliding it to her again, she still was clueless! The girl, instead, turned around to look out, immediately still seeing her stupid friends.

You sigh, putting the paper into your pocket. You feel a little bad for her.

Party lights fill the empty crevices of the room while you scoot out of the booth and stand up, pretending you didn’t notice the four people who were staring into the back of your skull.

“I think my friends are playing some Uno, you wanna come?” You offer, guiding her out of the booth as you look down at her.

“Sure.”

-

As the game went on, the last two players in the center still battling it out, Tara could see you were all fuzzy and flushed. 

You were definitely drunk. Too drunk to drive.

Your knees were nudged against hers, a little closer than expected, cuddled into her, but she didn’t mind. God no she definitely didn’t.

She was talking a lot, and you were always open ears and one of the best listeners. And then you would ramble and Tara would listen. It made you both feel heard and understood.

After a moment, you remember something. 

“Can I borrow your phone real quick? Uh, my phone is dead right now and I have to text a friend where I’m at.” You lie, your words slightly mushed together.

“Sure,” Tara says, unlocking her phone and handing it to you, a little drunk. You try to ignore the fact that the wallpaper is you from the concert she attended weeks ago.

You slip into the contacts, adding your contact and changing the name to; y/n, the bass guitarist ♡.

She didn’t even notice for the rest of the night.

As the sun slept at night, Tara stared at the ceiling, her vinyl spinning while a crackled “Say Yes to Heaven” reverberated around her bedroom.

She wished she could’ve stayed so much longer, but her friends had to leave, and there was no way she was taking an Uber or driving when tipsy.

Tara wanted to ask for your number, but because you never asked, maybe you didn’t because this didn’t mean as much as it did to her.

Curiosity was getting the best of her as she checked the messages on her phone, wondering how you typed like to your friends. But to her surprise, there were no messages to a number she didn’t recognize. The last number was just to Sam.

Her nose wrinkled, swiping to check the apps recently opened as she clicked the recent one. 

Dimples creased against her cheeks as she saw your name with a little heart. She immediately clicked to message you. But to her surprise, you had already done so.

 y/n, the bass guitarist ♡: whatcha doing? i hope ur not asleep yet>:(

tara ☆🧭: thankfully not yet, i’m in bed. u know, i was going to be a little sad than i’d like to admit if i didn’t get your number. 

 y/n, the bass guitarist ♡: i did hand you a paper, but you were hiding in the corner of the booth and i thought it would be easier this way

It took her a moment to think of what to say, before she thought of something she never thought she’d do late at night.

tara ☆🧭: do u wanna call? maybe just talk to each other till one of us falls asleep.

You usually weren't the person to connect over facetimes and calls, sometimes you didn't know what to say in the moment. You don't know..

She doesn’t get a response for a minute, before her phone vibrates in her hand and she swipes to answer.

Your hair was let down loose, in an oversized tee that even then she could still see your collarbones. You give a sleepy smile.

“Tara,” you say softly, and something in Tara thumps because you look so happy to see her. She grins back, shifting so she could see you better.

“I’ve never really done one of these,” your quiet voice says, a warmer tone casting over your face. “Do you want to say hi to Cinnamon? He’s my puppy.” You say, pushing your hair back.

The brunette nods, “Puppies are so cute, my sister isn’t very fond though. They sometimes make her sneeze.”

“Oh, allergies you could get a poodle breed or something, Cinnamon doesn’t shed much,” you agree, your camera slightly shaking as she can slightly hear you call your dog's name in a cute voice. “Come here, boy!”

Seconds later, you bring out your puppy, which lolls outs his tongue as you press a kiss to his head. Tara can see your red nails as you mess up his hair.

“Tell me about yourself,” Tara says, looking at you through the screen with pure curiosity.

“I-” You pause, thinking for a moment before shaking your head. “I think you should tell me about yourself first. It’s late and I want to listen to you. As much as I’d try to stay up, I’d fall asleep if you went second.” You murmur, cuddling with Cinnamon.

What you said made Tara feel something she doesn’t feel often. Appreciated? Well, she always wants to listen to others when calling, then she might go second, but when you brought up her going first? That made her feel fireworks.

“Okay, what do you want to know first?”

“What’s your favorite memory and why?”

-

As an hour, then two passes, you begin to tell Tara about yourself. She’s never felt so heard before. Both your lamps are off, now the only light from each others screens.

She can tell you’re beginning to doze off. The way you’re pausing and blinking sleepily before murmuring a little too softly. 

“What is something that you hate?”

You don’t say anything for a moment, your light breaths heard on the other end as you shift slightly and prop up your phone.

“Peppercorns..” You yawn, keeping your eyes half open. “They’re fine for seasoning, but when I bite into them, god.. It tastes so bad..”

You pause again, eyes heavy as you blink. “When you feel like you have to change for other people to like you. When you have to be someone you’re not because of people that don’t make you feel like you can be yourself.”

Tara nods, rubbing her eyes as she admires your defined features, even from the darkness. She could see the softness too. If she looked enough.

“I think those people make me feel the worst. Not wanting to be the one laughed at so you change to the one that’s laughing. Or when people talk down on the things you love. It hurts. And that’s something that I hope no one goes through.”

Wow, something about that makes her get to know the kind of person you are by a landslide.

“That’s a good response. What about your favorite fruit?”

“Mmm.. Watermelon. The sweet ones.. It’s so refreshing and…” You trail off, your eyes closing as your breathing evens out. Your lips were slightly parted, your puppy making a small whimper as he snuggles into you.

It’s silent, except for the faint white noise from Tara’s ceiling fan. You looked like a dream. Everything you talked about made Tara see nothing but good. And knowing that makes her feel like she should start seeing things the way you do.

A car passes by, the softest lyrics playing, it lulls Tara to bed.

We were listening to lovers rock

In her bedroom

You both fall asleep on call, maybe people were meant for each other.

[haveyouseenthisskeleton]

Exhausted, Papyrus fell on his knees in the dust. It was covering everything in the room, from the floor to the ceiling. The main door was gone, like most of the windows. Thankfully, no monster tried to enter the balcony, too high. Papyrus crawled to pick up the door, still in one piece by some miracle, and put it in its place. The hinges were gone with a part of the wall, but he forced it to hold by nailing it with some planks that held the windows closed and was now on the floor.

He picked up his phone, hidden deep in his armor. His hands were still shaking with the adrenaline. Sans left about twenty messages, asking if he was fine, then warning him Frisk was gone, then asking him again if he was alright, more and more distressed as the hours went by.

Papyrus simply sent: "Alive. Frisk here." before walking to the kitchen to make sure the child was fine. Several bullets ricocheted against the closet door, but it faced the brunt efficiently. He cleared the chairs out of the way and opened the door, maybe too brutally.

Frisk screamed out of terror and threw themselves in the back of the cabinet. They curled up on themselves, hands on the head, sobbing uncontrollably. They were shaking as well.

Papyrus flinched. He saw himself at five years old, in the same position, as Sans was screaming and fighting for their lives in the living room. This was not a world to grow up. No child should ever be born in this hellish place. Bitter, he felt his soul squeezed painfully. It was his fault. He should have brought the child back to the Ruins. Frisk shouldn't have assisted to any of this.

The skeleton kneeled at their level. He never had been really talented to comfort people.

"Frisk? It's over, they're gone. You can come out."

He leaned a hand towards the human. Frisk kicked it away and tried to get as far as they could from him in the closet. Papyrus tried to stay neutral, but his face betrayed for a few seconds how much it hurt him. He didn't want Frisk to be scared of him. Not after everything they went through to protect them.

The skeleton looked around for a second and noticed a hole in the closet door. Small, but enough for a child to witness everything that happened outside. Frisk saw him slaughter attackers and end monsters on the floor without mercy. Papyrus felt guilty. He gave the child some space and sat in front of the closet, unsure what to do.

No Weakness, Chapter 3.

_______________________________________

Hello, hello!

I commissioned this masterpiece to @seirindono, a French (yeah, team French!) illustrator who works on a multi AU universe called The Missing Scarf, which is a banger. Really cool comic with lots of great characters that you really want to read. Go read it!

I wasn't sure on which fic I wanted a drawing at first, but since we already got one for Horrortale: Rotten Apple (thanks again Zeragii, love you), why not No Weakness?

It's a post-pacific Underfell fic where instead of breaking the Barrier, Sans refused Frisk to fight Asgore and brought them back in safety to Toriel. Now Papyrus, Undyne, Alphys, Mettaton, Toriel and Sans are hiding the child away, trying not to get killed.

The story however is about Undyne and Papyrus' friendship. After Papyrus surprises Undyne kissing Asgore, he is promoted to general of the Royal Guard. Except Papyrus knows something is really wrong here, since that role was obviously supposed to Undyne's. But the more he tries to understand, the more people try to dissuade him from learning more. All the hints lead to Asgore, but how to reach the monarch without getting himself killed, and by extension, those he cares the most about? Between his duty and his friendship, Papyrus will have to make a choice.

I asked for one of my favorite parts ever, which is the moment Frisk realizes how things really work in Underfell, after witnessing Papyrus committing carnage right after he got promoted to General. It's tradition :D

Anyway, if you want to read the story, it's right here. I'm on summer break right now, but new chapters are coming soon!

Thanks again to Seirindono for their amazing work, I love it so much <3 Really great artist, don't hesitate to commission them! They're really nice and pays great attention to details. It was really cool collaborating with you <3

Go send them some love!

[coriphallus]

DA: The Veilguard Spoiler review pt2 - The Grime

this is a hard one to tackle without strawmaning anyone because itll be a direct response to alot of defense ive seen for the games morality system so ill just start by saying, iykyk

never a genre has been better equipped to discuss ethics than the interactive medium of games and yes, bioware games have been doing it since baldurs gate and no, theyve not always been 'centrist' and 'conservative'. im not even gonna entertain that idea. do you remember the cultural landscape DA:O released to? the landscape it was developed in? dont give me that just because zevran doesnt write in his little notes -that you can conveniently read- 'gay good. not me but me bisexual'

Thedas is a flawed world and its a world thats just as desperate to hang on to its status quo as our own. every time you play an elf thats thriving, or a human thats queer, or a mage thats not institutionalised you exist in a world that doesnt want you, it is an act of defiance that you do.

im sure we can all see why these games were so popular with the audience they can only weakly try to pander to today.

derailing time again; so one of my favourite paintings of all time is saturn devouring his son. it makes me feel so uncomfortable that it gave me nightmares as a child, and i still cant look at it without feeling this knot in my throat. i hate it. i hate how it makes me feel, how that man looks at me in terror like its begging me for help while cannibalising another. weird story but i was bewitched by that painting as a little kid.

it is not a well drawn painting, the proportions are all over the place, brush strokes crude and inelegant. it doesnt even have a deeper story nor was it intended for an audience. i will never know what goya thought of when drawing it.

i thought alot about that painting later in my life when i was struggling with mental health problems, i thought about goya alot too as an adult and after learning about his life. i stared at his paintings and remembered when i told my dad that i hated [saturns] big eyes and hed jokingly said "it would be scarier if he didnt have eyes"

i know what the drawing looks like now, nearly everyone with a little access to the internet does. if somebody removed saturn from it, we'd still be left with a brutalised headless carcass of a man in a canvas too big for itself. if we removed that too all we'd be left with would be void.

i dont want to live in a world where all i know of goya is his rococo work, i dont want to stare at the painting of a void knowing what filled it before. i hated every second of germinale but i never wanted it to be anything other than itself, the story it tells could never hold credence otherwise.

DAV has done its best to paint over it, but its still on the old canvas and i cant look away from the negative space its left, i know whats under it and it unsettles me, infuriates me. it hands me a palette with baby blues and pinks and tells me to paint over it to make a prettier painting. didnt i hate the eyes? wasnt it gross before?

i am not going to write why we need some grime in art, but its absence is disheartening. and to those who say hanged people in the streets or blighted villagers is dark and mature ill say no. its a kids idea of maturity, its the aesthetic of it with no substance. it means nothing to me if rook can just drench themselves in gallons of blight as they crawl through it. the horror of blight has never been the black goo and slimy tentacles, or the monster woman with way too many tits. it is watching people you love slowly fade away, it is a woman who was forced to cannibalise the contaminated flesh of her friends because the woman she loved betrayed her, it was the sheer scale and inevitability of it.

one area we go to is overrun by it and the game begs me to feel hopeful that flowers are growing again when it never let me lose hope. people have already prevailed, they have roofs over their heads and a steady supply of food on their tables. their spirit is unwavering.

its bad, everybody says. the sky is grey and soil is blackened, as my rook turns some statues to access a haunted house whos inhabitants are long gone and the only story they could ever tell is gone with them.

if the question is do i want to see famine? plague? misery? abuse? assault? the answer is yes. yes. i want to see it all of the filth. i rather face the fucking monster head on with its big bulging eyes and misshapen limbs than stare at the abyss its absence leaves on the canvas.

and if nothing else, this bastardization is disrespectful to the people who gave the IP its fame.

Why choose to be good?

back in the bsn days ive wondered why, even in a fictional universe where your choices have no real-life repercussions what-so-ever, players had more 'good' playthroughts than 'bad'?

what happens when you start killing NPCs, when youre needlessly mean to them? the game actively closes off its own content. you get less out of the game. just as, completely incidentally, you'd get less out of your life if you just started killing everyone around you. The world would be emptier, youd be alone.

in that quote i stole from good place chidi doesnt ask "why be good?" the wording is painfully deliberate. doing good is always a choice, and often not the easy one. what makes the act matter is that you chose to do it, even when given 6 other options not to. did i stop in the middle of an important quest to help a man retrieve an heirloom from a darkspawn infested hut? did i hear what that heirloom meant to him?

i cant stop thinking about that speech ever since playing this game after knowing its predecessors.

So, why do it then? Why choose to be good, every day, if there is no guaranteed reward we can count on, now or in the afterlife? I argue that we choose to be good because of our bonds with other people and our innate desire to treat them with dignity. Simply put, we are not in this alone.

i cant stop looking at this game that spits on its own legacy and think how could they have missed what fundamentally makes us human so bad, what makes us relate and empathise with eachother. what makes us pick the option to interact with an npc who openly hates what hawke is, and allow us to see the traumatised man underneath.

these characters of fiction are written by real people. i have absolutely nothing in common with a guy from canada yet for a brief moment in time i feel a sense of camaraderie as ive felt with goya that i couldnt articulate as a kid.

Nothing too terrible

DAV says it over and over again -as its wont to do with every piece of its flimsy morality- that people can change, people can be redeemed yet it shines as the game with most static characters in its franchise. it simply says things, and since it has nothing to show for it it makes sure to say it repeatedly, in case you missed it.

so when i first played DAO i was in high school, i started with a human noble because fresh out of dark side edgy kotor fame i wanted to be a posh brat. also because, ya kno, we were poor my entire life up until that point and i wanted to have power.

i committed to it, even as the game stripped cousland of everything he had, because i thought a man like him would. i picked the racist options, the sexist options, the options a man in couslands place would. halfway point of the game as i exhausted the initial dialogues something happened; this man who got paid to kill people, who showed no remorse nor care for his victims, begged my cousland to stil his blade.

and i did. i thought maybe he would be as confused as i was, maybe he had a moment of clarity but from thereon bit by bit he was less of an asshole. the characters grew around me, and my character grew around them. i chose to be good because -textually- we were in this together, at the end of all things.

rook is not a character, theyre a mascot. and quite frankly i think they may be a very evangelical mascot because they remind me of evangelical preachings of jesus more than the man from the bible (and i say this as someone whos only exposure to christianity has been through foreign media and the bible ive read that one time). they are the epitome of do no evil and their existence hinges on the frail concept of moral purity. theyre not a person trying to do good, who wants to be good, they are 'good'

-and lemme tell you its a wild choice to have someone like that locked in a prison of 'regret'-

rook can be mean to only one person in the game, and thats someone they dont even have a personal beef with for the most part. but even then they would be shouting at a wall because the game doesnt only undermine them with its narrative, but also every npc in the game suddenly gets possessed by the ghost of wattpad rejects past for a moment to tell them everyone can be redeemed. and i believe it because i played the other games, i believe it because i know zevran and sten and morrigan, isabela and thom and iron bull and dorian. i know it because i can see the vague shapes behind the new coat of paint but i am not rook.

so no, the game fails to get people-can-change points by its own merit, and it cannot gain points from its prequels because it destroyed them. none of those characters i watched grow exist in this universe. zevran cant exist with DAV crows, fenris` story cant exist in an imperium with invisible slaves only glimpsed through empty cages and broken chains left scattered on the ground. i dont know which morrigan this NPC is, is it the woman who grew to learn kindness, who begged to sleep with her friend just to save them despite knowing it would play into the plans of a destiny she so desperately tried to break free from? or is she the clever puppet her mother groomed her to be who wanted to harness the power of a god? i dont know her, i dont know this dorian or this isabela beyond their names ipso facto this is not a sequel.

bellara asks an assassin why he is trying to save the world and his answer is "ive done some things in the past im not too proud of. nothing too terrible, but some of it was bad." and i can hear the games desperation for me to not engage with its material in that 'nothing too terrible'

lucanis never killed anyone innocent, taash never harmed an animal they could shoo of or reason with, emmrich venerates the dead and is friends with every wisp he pulls to use in menial labour, davrin joined the wardens willingly because he wanted to do good...

rook tells harding that her anger is justified when shes not even allowed anger of her own.

nothing too terrible.

aside from creating boring and nonsensical and static characters it creates a dreadful echochamber that we're forced to sustain. No taash is not valid, their gender is but their behaviour is not and for the character to grow and mature it needs to be addressed. lucanis doesnt need to be pampered in shock blankets he needs to see how repressing his problems and jeopardising his health puts people around him in danger etc etc. they are adults and they need to learn more complex ways of healing. and if rooks flaw is that theyre an enabler, then that needs to be acknowledged by the narrative in some way too, and not mindlessly endorsed because they say some buzzwords.

none of these interpersonal relationships feels real because none of these people feel real beyond some draft of themes and tropes. some interactions literally remind me of two bots in facebook comments

i look at this dialogue wheel with familiar symbols and all im reminded of is hawke telling carver he carries every death with him, of him telling his uncle that he wasnt fast enough, of him begging the person he loves to tell him that his mothers death wasnt his fault.

and they dont. they just sit there with him.

[deareverlasting]

BEAR WITH ME.

warning: spoilers for ep 75

i was just scrolling through tiktok and then the thought occurred to me that everyone grew up together (minus ben and aiden) and basically never interacted until the group project. yeah, duh, that's the whole premise of their strange group at first, but it just strikes a cord to think that these kids who have become so inseparable were so close to each other this whole time without even knowing it, without even knowing that they needed each other.

because why now, after all these years, would they? after all, they were just strangers who occasionally saw each other in the hall or during class, strangers that they could never understand, right? they were just too different.

i mean, just think about how taylor says she's always noticed ashlyn since they were kids and how she was always on her own. she didnt understand how ash could be content with that, isn't it lonely?

tyler is most likely, lets face it, pretty popular. when we're introduced to him and taylor they're in this huge group of typical jocks due to tyler being on the baseball team. ashlyn and logan must've known him before due to that, seen them parading through the halls. and seeing as how neither logan nor ash like loud noises or crowds very much they probably wrote him off as a loud jock and went about their day. maybe saw how cold and angry he was with everyone but his sister and thought he must be unpleasant to be around.

as for logan, he, like ash, is pretty obviously very much a background character in everyone else's lives. most likely a loner just like ashlyn, very shy. if the rest of the gang ever noticed him it was probably nothing more than a glance. because logan at the time was nothing more than barrons stereotypical nerd that does his homework because he's scared of what will happen if he doesn't.

it just makes me ILL that these people who would grow to care so much about each other were all so close without knowing it, hell, they probably passed each other in their towns grocery store multiple times before. maybe seen tyler play in one of his games with taylor yelling above everyone else because that's her brother, saw ashlyn perform and dance, saw logan reading in the astronomy section in the library.

and yet they didn't know they'd ever learn to trust these strangers with their lives every night. that they would learn that tyler is more than just a loud, angry jock. he loves and cares about his sister, took up being basically a parent from a very young age, and doesn't truly have any friends because they are just a distraction.

that taylor is every bit as friendly as she let's others believe, but if you mess with her brother or her friends that sun can cloud over so quick.

that ashlyn likes to be alone but given the time and patience, she would love to be alone with you. that she doesn't want to, but if she's needed, she will step up and be the leader you need. sure, she isn't good at "friends" and she'll make mistakes, but she owns up to them because she tries and she cares.

and finally, logan, who at first is so shy and unsure, yet is quick-witted and brave enough to make hard choices and learn where he fits in with a group. to stand up against someone who bullied him and threatened him daily and help someone else from going down the same path he did.

AND PLEASE don't even get me started on ben and aiden.

those two have been practically alone their whole lives until they met each other. all aiden had was the dark room that reeked of molding food and people he hung around just to pass the time because he knew they weren't permanent, nothing ever was with his parents.

and ben's only friend before aiden being the music he could create before it was taken away from him, and all he had left was the broken melodies that he tried to find in every punch he threw.

they were both so, so alone and seeking something that would stay, something that would last because everything else that made them happy seemed to fall just out of reach now.

but just one move away, one final move to a small town in georgia held everything that could hurt and heal them all in one. they were all what everyone needed, even if they didn't know it and it drives me insane that if these kids hadn't been put through hell, they never would have found each other.

and they're more than willing to claw their way out together, not because they have to to survive, but because they want to so that they can live.

red what have you dooone 😭/pos

[currentfandomkick]

Based on this post

Tim tried not to remember.

But when you die the first time from electrocution and get dosed with enough ecto-everything the first time you die, electricity becomes a memory trigger.

Static shocks from a sweater just reminds you of shock wars with someone warm, no specific images.

Somedays when you get hit with Nightwing’s escrima sticks, even low level, you get a flicker of fighting some Discount Dracula and brush it off as a hallucination.

A few rogues hit him with live wires in the rain. Those were always bad. Flickers of people in googles and the worst neon jumpsuits hovering over him, saying words he couldn’t hear. He always felt floaty after, and hid at Drake Manor in his parents’ closet.

His mom’s perfume and Dad’s rank colognes were grounding. those hallucinations were getting worse, sure, but you’re Robin, and as Robin you can’t let Batman down.

Nightwing needs a brother that he can trust to handle Bruce’s depression, suicidal-by-vigilantism, and escalating violence. Nightwing holds everyone else together. Tim can hold just himself and Bruce together and give Alfred a break.

Tim can do it, he swears. He can’t fill growing void Jason’s death left, but he can make supports for Bruce’s crumbling everything. He can be a safety net for Alfred, who is never given grieving space for his lost loved one. He can be the no-drama little brother Nightwing needs after Jason’s death.

But he will not touch being Bruce’s son. Especially after the JJ incident and the memory influx. Bruce is too much like Jack as Brucie, too much like Fruitloop as Batman.

Tim is not Alfred’s grandson or son. He’s a co-parent for Bruce in his time of need (and bullying the man back into someone Jason had loved once). Alfred can be his friend, bug not family.

Tim always honored the dead and mourns them, even when they don’t remember him. Even those that never knew him stretching centuries back. He learned from this life’s parents that bonds are sacred and their loss devastating. They showed him in archeology and actions.

And Tim, he. He’s doing okay.

After the Joker and Freakshow merging into one personas he was shocked over and over.

He heard Freakshow say to kill Sam in the memory.

Vlad strapping him down and zapping him over and over again. His parents vivisecting him despite his screams. Jazz killing them and helping him escape, only to die in Tucker and Sam’s arms in the car. Again.

He killed the Joker then and there. Gun shot.

After the Joker got him and he escaped, he was doing Fine, really! Spectra overlaid on Harley at times, cooing he’s a creepy boy with freaky little powers and his misery is her favorite food.

He has to be useful. Keep Bruce’s head above water. Keep Nightwing from worrying about him. Be the easy kid and he’s loved (conditionally).

His dad only showed up and spoke to him about sports he couldn’t get into, but his new step-mom softened him. He can admit to missing and mourning mom while relaxing so much with Dana.

Dana noticed him flinching at lightning, gave him a noise machine, and offered to get him noise cancelling headphones.

When he admitted his hearing got ‘a lot better lately’ as quietly as he could, she hugged him and told him she’d break the meta abilities to Jack for him.

It wasn’t like Tim hid the ‘tortured by Joker for a few weeks’ thing. Dad knew it was Tim that was nabbed. He also knew Tim was in a Robin costume for a cosplay contest, and found out afterwards how… well, Tim being Robin was.

There are a lot of open secrets in the family. In the extended Drake family, that includes the first Black Canary was Diana Drake, who had too-sticky fingers and was disowned when she kept failing to either improve in hiding it or stop. The meta abilities were low on Tim’s list of priorities as existing… breaking it to Bruce was a hard no-go. So mastering them quickly was key.

Dana asked if he’d tested his vocal range.

Tim had not.

They started with a piano to check. Tim… Tim went far above and below where Dana could hear as they switched to everything from dog whistles to playing with infrasound.

Jack walked in at some-point and they didn’t notice.

Tim was busy working out if hearing echolocation from the Caves’ bats is why he started getting annoyed when he was there that he finally saw Jack sitting there, watching Dana test him.

Tim braced for yelling.

He got a hug. And his Dad holding him too tight while whispering “please don’t leave like Diana”

Tim did break a bit. Not for long, but enough.

Jack finding the Robin suit was not on Tim’s bingo card during the time he was debating coming clean to his fellow Just Us members about his meta-awakening.

Nor was going to Wayne Manor to let Bruce know he was planning to take a break from Robin for personal reasons, only to find his Dad holding Bruce at gun point and demanding Bruce “stay the fuck away from my son”

Jack did hit Bruce with the butt of his gun after Bruce muttered something Tim didn’t hear.

Jack drove them back, the silence tight around his throat. Everything in him demanded he scream to get this growing thing out.

He slammed his hands over his mouth.

Dad pulled over and helped him to a warehouse, feigning needing to vomit.

Tim kept the pitch above human hearing as he screamed, screamed down and was shaking all over.

Jack rubbed his own ears for a moment before helping a collapsing Tim back to the car.

Jack called Tim out sick and the three had a Talk about him being Robin. Especially with his powers emerging.

“Look, B doesn’t know. None of his masks do.” He’d have heard it from Bruce by now if he had. “Nightwing doesn’t either.”

“Batgirl, and the purple one, if they know they’ll tell that prick—”

“Jack,” Dana warned. “Tim, does anyone have any reason to suspect anything?”

Tim took a deep breath and sighed. “No one but us. Diana did a good job severing traceable links back, and I’m not even sure if the current Black Canary knows her mom was from Gotham or believes the cover Diana gave out.”

Jack’s shoulders dropped as the tension drained out of him. “That’s, that’s good.”

“… you have to apologize for the gun at somepoint,” Tim grumbled.

“Not if you’re not Robin.”

“… i may have been debating dropping Robin and toying with making a new alias again.”

“… is this another Mr. Sarcastic thing,” Dana whispered to him.

“Dana!”

“What? I’m not detective but i did do my research young man,” she teased while jabbing a finger at him playfully.

“I—Tim what am I looking at, why is there no armor, and how are you bald?”

“Hahaha, how about we pretend that stint didn’t happen and go over conditions for me solving crimes—we all know i’ll find a way and my team is notorious for international incidents on low stakes, let alone what we’re willing to do for each other.”

Jack and Dana shared a look.

“No Batman.”

“No heroing in Gotham,” Dana added to Tim’s surprise. “Not until we have a better idea on scope, triggers and how you can control and manage your abilities as well as how out you want to be as a meta, in each identity. You can’t unring a bell.”

Tim sighed. “Got it, got it… so i can go on missions with Young Justice still?”

“I’m writing a note that Batman is not allowed near you,” Jack insisted. “He’s not willing to do what it takes to keep you alive.”

Tim took a deep breath before agreeing to that term, and asking to update Alfred and Dick on the matter.

Jack moved to stop him but Dana gave him the go ahead.

Alfred accepted the situation for what it was. Dick offered to sponsor him in the hero community in Bruce’s stead, and reminded him the Titans are always happy to have him, Robin or not.

Jack rolled his eyes but let it slide.

“So Young Justice Missions…”

“Is there an adult on the team?”

“Red tornado is our supervisor,” Tim answered quickly.

“…fine.”

“And Titan missions?”

“They’re adults, they can keep an eye on you,” Jack conceded easily. “Maybe one of them can help with the new,” Jack gestured to all of Tim.

Tim huffed at him. “Thanks dad, really means a lot.”

Jack waved him off. “Weapons check at the window, supervision on missions, and we keep working with your powers. You can tell who you choose, but if you want to be out as a hero, you will be making a new name and will not be patrolling Gotham under this roof, am i understood?”

Tim paused. “So in college I can or—“

“Tim,” Dana warned.

Tim sighed. “Got it… but i can still do casework that’s not in the field?”

“As long as they can’t trace you.”

“Great! And shit, I’ll have to let my rogues know.”

“ ‘your’ rogues?” Jack echoed in disbelief.

Tim smiled at Jack. “Yeah. Some are just mine, especially Anarchy. And Nygma is going to be so bored without me.”

Jack looked at the ceiling. “You just had to be Robin, didn’t you.”

Tim smiled. “Someone needed to, and its not hard to be light to Batman’s dark after the last one.”

The silence hung again. “No dying on me,” Jack warned Tim. “I’m serious.”

Details were ironed out on the days to come. Dana made him promise to call daily while he stayed with the Titans. To not run from her and Jack, please. He also had daily pitch practice, and was given noise dampening headphones as a disability aide for a general sensory disorder so Tim could better focus in classes.

Jack still didn’t trust Batman/Bruce for shit.

…And Tim can’t fault him. Not when he knows his dad wasnt joking about being willing to kill to give Tim a chance at being safe. And that the man who killed mom and put Dad into physical therapy died in jail a few weeks before they moved from a mansion to an apartment.

Tim isnt stupid. Drakes kill to keep their own safe. Bats don’t.

Tim…. Tim doesnt want to, and Dad respects it. Dana isnt the killing type, but won’t stop Jack or whoever he hires.

Joker’s persistent living status AFTER killing the second Robin didn’t endear Bruce to Jack in the slightest. Tim being tortured for weeks and awakening the family meta-gene only soured whatever mild distaste remained into visceral disgust.

Stephanie became Gotham’s Robin while Tim is now the YJ’s and Titan’s was the only compromise Jack would make.

Jack’s rules made more sense as Tim’s… memories(?) from his last life began to spill out. The mundanities of school and home were easily manageable. Making small memory shrines to his late friends in his last life soothed an ache in his chest. Tucker had a sand timer and random bits and bobs for tech, Sam got a few house plants and his old camera. Jazz had a teddy bear and a few psychology papers he thought she might enjoy. Dani got fudge and a few language books with a world map. He still felt guilty for not stopping her death. Technus got an old handheld he didn’t use anymore, Ember got incense and he played indi rock for her. Dora got a dragon figurine and a Disney princess folder with some dress designs he thought she’d like. Pandora has a few batarangs he scavenged and fixed. Frostbite’s was by the icemaker, and was gifted herbal tea blends in ice cube form.

Dana called it grieving and encouraged him to let it happen and let himself feel. He… tried not to think about Jack and Maddie.

Tim trippled down on cold cases to cope. Jack began to turn off the internet after 3 am, only to work again after 9.

He was managing. And working out pitches and how they relate to his emotional state.

The problem came with training at the Tower as Robin, the boy with no powers and working through joker trauma.

During a spar with Dick, Tim had a flashback to Dani’s End and Perfect Danny melting. His own fucking Death too!

It was vomit inducing.

He came to to Nightwing crowding him and murmuring, “breathe with me baby bird”

They didnt talk about it after.

Tim noticed Dick stopped using electricity during their spars altogether, and carefully stayed a certain distance from him in the field. Static picked up on it and Tim shook his head when he moved to talk about it. He just. Needed a bit more time.

He hated himself for it. For the concern causing and being so… useless.

He grabbed another stack of cold cases in Bludhaven and kept solving them, as Tim, Robin and left ghem for Dick to handle.

Dana and him would practice his range at home. Piano ready.

He forgot that plants snitch to Ivy.

Ivy tapping his window to state the dandelions found his singing ‘annoying’ and he’d be getting lessons in singing for plants “or else” was an experience he did not need, nor was he reporting to anyone until a few days later.

Dad took a deep breath and asked him if this is what he wanted.

Dana offered to move closer to her home town and job hunt there if it made Tim more comfortable.

Ultimately Tim ended up getting lessons in plant language from Ivy, as he could hear them anyways. It could be useful for when he works out a new vigilante identity in the future.

Stephanie catching him at Ivy’s while her big boy “Denny” was arguing with Tim about if Tim can shatter concrete with a scream yet given his voice is cracking every other word lately was not in his plans.

Stephanie was about to ask what was going on when Ivy chimed in with “now Timmy, Benny isn’t wrong about it if we go with a thin layer of concrete and you put some effort into it. You can go very low and it does freak out people when you follow the angry tree hum. Now, if you scream that it should be destructive—didn’t a cousin of yours have the same meta ability?”

Tim denied it as keeping cousin Diana’s secret was a family thing. Ivy finding it out with how hidden it had been was not in the cards. Stephanie overhearing was also far from ideal.

Ivy let it go eventually, and demanded Tim do more community service for the beaches. He had no objections, and just asked if she could not implicate him in her next murder spree.

Ivy agreed to ‘think about it’ before letting Tim go after he finished reorganizing some of her chemicals and cleaning her tools. Their agreed ‘payment’ for his lessons in plant language and her interest in his meta abilities being vocal based but having a major change in his hearing.

He wasn’t the first meta she’d taken an interest in helping, and Tim saw signs of others, bumping into a few before and none of them saying shit.

Stephanie met up with him a block away from Ivy’s lair.

She hit him like Sam used to. And agreed to say nothing until he gave the word.

Her reminding him of Sam ached in a way he wasn’t prepared for. Her agreeing to say nothing relaxed him more than he realized he needed to.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. But Ivy for help?”

“Plants outted me. Apparently my singing is disturbing.”

“It is, the plants have good taste.”

He let himself feel normal for a bit. Ivy doesn’t out metas or use them. She is going to kill though, and probably ask for a few warehouses as payment or bribery for her silence on his skills at a later date… which Tim could give her in a few years time as those were in the trust set up by his mother before her death.

Her offerings were given by everyone at home. Dana left her baked goods. Tim left his grades by her shrine when he wasn’t closing cases—the solved ones were left there for a day or so before he’d change them out. Dad spoke to her sometimes, getting her up-to-date on the gossip in their field and new achievements from colleagues they liked and failures from those she despised.

It was comforting.

Dad even knew Tim was planning to do landback with a chunk of ‘wasteland’ that the company kept dumping on, and was planning to rehab it beforehand. If he had slipped an army of sunflower seeds there a while back and gave Ivy a tip about it well… she was willing to trade info on a few cases that he fed back to Stephanie as Robin. Ivy may also catch him working a few cold cases now and then.

He’s aware she’s a dangerous rogue and will continue to kill. He also knows that when he focused on solving a string of women’s deaths and located the (still living) killer that the man was dead after their lesson, and before he submitted his findings to the GCPD cold cases department.

He’s not stupid. He knows she prefers to kill. But he doesn’t.

It makes working with the Titans on weekends awkward when Nightwing begins to notice Tim responding before the others and frowning into the air when the grass gives him tips on when events take place and for incoming company.

No one presses him on it. Static bumps his shoulder and passed a ‘talk when you’re ready’ note to him.

Then the fact Ivy did not hit him with cuddle pollen but did hit Stephanie as Robin and threw them in a room together was just plain embarrassing.

It also meant Ivy figured Tim or Robin had a crush on the other and just. Why?

He finally understood how Sam felt during Ember’s first appearance and he was made to lovestick… sort of. Stephanie koalaing him until they broke out and he managed to get them to one of the quieter Paramedics two blocks over wasnt the same. But close enough.

Dana did get the alert about him being near the attack, and she looked at him too much like Jazz had when she was concerned for his wellbeing.

He wondered what Tucker would say to all this. Two lives and two sets of parents later, and the one who checks him first is the step mom closer to Babs’ age than his father’s.

There’s a million jokes Tucker could make about that.

Dana and Dad had a talk about it, and Tim knew it was written just so he didnt hear it. He hears so much more lately its maddening some days.

He was given the upcoming three-day weekend to stay with the Titans, and Dana suggested asking Raven for tips on managing reincarnation memories.

Dad said he called for a “Jazz, Sam and Tucker” in his sleep a lot. A “Valerie ” on occasion too.

He wanted to melt into a puddle.

Dad muttering he’d find his first parents’ souls and get back at them his damn self didn’t help in the slightest… nor did seeing Dana hide Constantine’s business card in her tampon drawer.

He gave in a bit. His friends can’t know yet, not while he’s working it out. And Raven is Dick’s friend—it would get back to him too fast for Tim’s liking.

He knocked on the door.

“Tim?”

“Hey Virgil, is now an okay time for that talk?”

—

That’s what i got for now. May do another part if anyone is interested.

Also let me know if i missed any tags

[digiflora]

✦ ⠂⠂୨୧ DO YOU WANT SOMEBODY LIKE I WANT SOMEBODY?

ಇ roommate!jing yuan, roommate!sampo, roommate!gepard x reader ︴wordcount :: 1.7k ︴contains :: nothing crazy, sampo with tattoos, in gepard's part reader drinks wine like a White Woman TM ︴part one ︴requested by @elsy34 @sydneyy-l @fairiesdobesparklin @w9vyy

ఌ︎. | JING YUAN

you've quickly come to realise that your roommate is a workaholic

his punctuality, his strict regime of getting up at 6 and coming back at 6 seems to be the only constant in your life

the little mumbled apologies to inanimate objects as his too-large frame squeezes into your dingy shared bathroom causes you to roll over in your bed, a little smile growing at his sweet antics

then after about the 20 minutes it took him to shower and get ready, as well as fix himself - and you, you've noticed recently- breakfast before he's out the door as quietly as he can manage

then you're out of bed a bit after he leaves, yawning idly as you make your way out of your room, smiling fondly at the intricarely prepared fruit and yoghurt bowl that jing yuan had left you, along with a little smily face drawn on a post-it note

you eat it slowly, savouring the taste of it as you slowly wake up, before naking your way into the bathroom to freshen up

it's warm from the shower jing yuan had taken earlier, and the combination of his products and cologne that he had also sprayed almost envelopes you in a hug as you brush your teeth, your eyes noticing the little doodles left by the steam on the mirror

"out of milk" - :( is what jing yuan had decided to write this time, along with his attempt of a drawing of a milk carton

you giggle at the wonkiness of it, making a mental note to add it to the shopping list later

and you do your own little routine too, leaving a little later than him and coming back a little sooner on account of the fact that your job was a lot closer to your apartment than his was

and this next part- when the work day was over- was your most favourite part of the shared little routine that had been forged over the weeks you've spent living with jing yuan

you hear the key turn in the lock as your roommate lets himself in, a teasing "honey, i'm home" accompanying the slight shuffle of him taking off his coat and shoes

you cast him a wave from what you're doing tonight - this time, it's your turn to cook dinner - and you turn your attention back to the stove as you hear jing yuan pad over to you , peering over your shoulder and humming in approval at the choice of food

that brief closeness in proximity tantalised you with the same warmth and smells of his cologne that had been so comforting in the morning, and you felt some of your own stress melt away as you kept stirring the contents of the pan

and in this pseudo domesticity, you found comfort in your roommate, as he began to set the table for just the two of you

ఌ︎. | SAMPO

where to start with him omg

you don't know what to think when you first move in

he seems so scary with his hair and his tattoos and his cigarettes

but he's sweet, too, and his face lights up a little every time he manages to make you laugh

and hey, maybe he wouldn't be too bad as a roommate

after he figured out that you aren't a smoker yourself, he makes sure to always smoke either before he came back to your shared space, or out on the balcony far away from you

"those things will kill you, y'know"

your protest is lighthearted, and sampo smirks as he brings his lighter to the end of the cig dangling from his lips

"it's not like i'm gonna live forever"

it was the little things, after all

and little by little, your differing lifestyles began to integrate

you come to learn that sampo had a knack for remembering the details

you had been called to cover a coworker's shift at the last minute, one that would end a lot later than you're accustomed to

and since you took the bus to and from work, you were really not looking forward to taking it on the way back, when it would be pitch black outside with mostly drunkards to keep you company on it

and that dreadful thought had been put off for the time being

but with your shift drawing to a close, you stop your work momentarily to check what the buzz from your phone was

hey

i'm outside

come out when you're ready

-sampo

your eyebrows knitted together in confusion

you had told sampo when you would get off work, but you definitely hadn't asked him to pick you up after it had ended

but you were never one to turn down such an offer

you finished closing up, before leaving the building

you spotted a couple cars left parked on the side of the road, though all were empty with the headlights off

you clutched your phone, about to text sampo and ask exactly where he was l, before you heard a shout of your name from somewhere to your left that had you spinning on your heel

and you didn't know what to expect when sampo said he was here to pick you up, but it certainly wasn't this

you approached sampo, eyeing the motorbike that he was leaned against dubiously, mentally cursing yourself for assuming that he would drive a car, because of course sampo just had to do something more dangerous than that

sampo straightened up as you drew close, smiling and handing you a spare helmet, laughing at the uncertainty on your face

"if you hold on to me, you'll be fine, c'mon"

ఌ︎. | GEPARD (PT. 2)

it was hard to tell where you and gepard stood right now, ever since that night

on the one hand, you were still friendly around each other, and nothing had really changed behaviour-wise in either of you

yet on the other, your brain was constantly plaguing you with the memories of how his fingers had felt against your thighs, fingers in his hair and scratching at his scalp as he melted against you

it wasn't technically romantic, but it sure as hell had felt like it

and maybe it was just the wine that you had been drinking that night, but there's certain moments where you catch a certain hungered look in his eyes that makes you think that maybe, just maybe he was feeling the same inner turmoil that you were

but life goes on

work was getting busier for gepard, and much to your chagrin you were seeing less and less of him

maybe that was for the best, to give you the space and time to get over the silly little crush that you had on your roommate

"but you don't want to," that little pesky voice in the back of your head whispered to you

you shook your head a little violently to clear it, deciding that a distraction was in order

you had an unopened bottle of wine and a new series to binge screaming your name right now

and so you settle on your couch, putting on the show, letting yourself sigh into the cushions and welcoming the little headache that would ensue after you finish your first couple glasses

you noticed, with some amusement, that this was basically the position that you were in when gepard had laid on your thighs

these thoughts would be harder to avoid than you realise

you managed to immerse yourself into the show somewhat, too engrossed to hear the front door open, much like how it had happened that night

but your attention is transfixed to the screen, not to the sight of gepard as he walks in, yawning and practically making a beeline to where you sat on the couch

and then you realised he was there, when the cushions dipped underneath his weight, his arms thrown against the back of the sofa, one resting behind you

there's a pang of ... disappointment? that you feel when you realise that he hadn't sat in front of you once again, but you push that aside, scanning your roommate's face ij concern

he looks paler than usual, deep eyebags underneath his dulled eyes, and a glance at the time has you double taking as you see that it's past eleven

"your overtime pay must be through the roof," you try to joke, and you get the feeling that the half smile gepard responds with is the most that he can muster right now

and again, like there is some other being urging you to do so, you find yourself acting without thinking about consequences or what it might imply

"do you want a massage?"

gepard doesn't even have the energy to look surprised, merely nodding

you motion for him to lie flat on the couch, and he does so a little too quickly, not giving your tipsy self enough time to stand up before his head falls onto your thighs

oh, you think

he looks really pretty like this

his feet are dangling a little off the end due to his too-tall stature meeting the too-small couch, but you do your best to make him otherwise comfortable

he's on his front, arms now snaking their way around your hips and legs like he's done this so many tines before, and you could have sworn that the man even nuzzled his cheek against your soft skin before lying still

your hands hover for a second, unsure of how exactly to start and not expecting it to even get this far, butterflies in your stomach be damned

your fingers gingerly meet the junction where his neck joins his shoulder, immediately prodding a knot of tension

you do your best to rub circles into his skin, feeling out the muscle underneath to target

you were no professional, but the way that gepard was sighing contentedly from your touch made you think that you were doing something right

it was a few minutes of this silence, his breaths beginnign to even as you wirked your way down his back, doing the best that you could over the material of his shirt stretched thin across his back

the slight loll of his head alerted you that he was asleep, along with the softest puffs of air from his mouth that blew against your thigh

you continued for a bit more, wanting to do your best to get the knots out, before you felt the tug of sleep at yourself as well

the rhythm of gepard's breathing was constant and soothing, and you dismissed the worries of what to do about you and him and this predicament tomorrow- when you both wake up on the couch

gia's notes :: much anticipated continuation of the roommate hsr series yippeee ^_^ gepard is back 💯💯 also i only realised like... near the end of jing yuan's part that his ass is NOT a workaholic but... whats done is done ig 😔 shoutout to me not having played the 2.0 update yet,, or the game at all recently tbh ,,,

-‘๑’- honkai star rail masterlist