#and also when he uses ellipses

[tilia-cacophonous]

homestuck beyond canon upd8. My god. I don't care about these characters

[pathologicalreid]

for the fear of falling apart | part four

you missed the paperwork that said joining the BAU meant having an unstable personal life, and Cat Adams is dedicated to making sure you know nothing is ever private

part one | part two | part three | part four | part five

series masterlist

who? spencer reid x jareau!reader category: angst content warnings: fear of drowning, couples counseling, spencer's mommy issues, takes place during 15x6 "date night", pregnancy and miscarriage, stillbirth, sexual assault, way too many ellipses, suicide, attempted murder, reader's daddy issues, details from the dirty dozen plotline, mishandled apologies, a lot of yapping, near drowning, disassociation, self harm word count: 9.75k a/n: i hate cat adams so much but god she is so funny in this episode. also cat and spencer shippers are not welcome. why does he look so good in this gif. this is the extent of my coherent thoughts.

“I just made the bed,” you complained halfheartedly, still allowing yourself to be tugged over to the bed despite your protests.

Climbing up on the bed, you tucked yourself into Spencer’s side, so cold after getting out of bed that you wished you could absorb his body heat. “C’mere,” he muttered, placing his hands on either side of your waist and pulling you over him, the two of you meeting face to face. “Hi pretty,” he greeted, craning his head up to place a gentle kiss on your lips.

You smiled slightly against his lips, ducking your head so that your mouths never separated. Mornings away from the bureau were few and far between, so you weren’t interested in wasting a single moment. “Good morning,” you whispered before bringing your lips back to his.

When the phone started to ring, Spencer’s hands fell from your waist in disappointment. He leaned his head back while you rolled off the bed and handed him his phone which he begrudgingly answered, “Hey, what’s up?”

With the phone on speaker, you heard Emily’s voice ring through the phone, “We have a case, it’s urgent,” concern oozed through her tone as you pulled your blazer on over your blouse.

“Alright, we’ll be right in,” he responded for the both of you. Most of the time, they only needed to call one of you.

Emily cleared her throat, “Spencer, there’s something you need to know.”

The thirty-minute drive from the district to Quantico was silent. You decided to drive, not wanting to worry about the metro when there was so much on the line. Barely having put the car in park, Spencer was already flying out of the car and to the elevator.

Several questions rested like a weight on the tip of your tongue and part of you hoped that this was all part of a morbid prank, but you knew when it came to Cat, it was never a joke. Purposefully being the first two people there, you followed Spencer to where Prentiss and Rossi were waiting in the roundtable room, “Catch us up,” he said, walking through the doorway and beginning to study the information on the screen.

“Early this morning Garcia got an email from an anonymous server,” Emily began, looking between the both of you with concern in her eyes.

Dave nodded next to her, “She’s not obscuring her face, telling us she’s got nothing to hide.”

Next to you, Spencer nodded, slipping both of his hands into his pockets, “Any ideas on the victims or UnSub?”

Chewing nervously on the inside of your lip, you looked at the screen carefully. The photo displayed two girls, one of them a teenager, maybe eighteen, and the other couldn’t be much older than ten. You didn’t speak, waiting for the words that you have heard over the phone to be spoken in person.

“No, only the UnSub’s demand that we release Catherine Adams within twenty-four hours. I’m having her transferred here for questioning,” she informed Spencer, “But we have no illusions. This is just a game to her, we know that. The question is, do we want to play it or not?”

In your periphery, you watched the remaining members of the team funnel into the bullpen, each of them placing their belongings on their respective desks before setting up for the day. Glancing back at Spencer, you shrugged almost indeterminably, “Do we have a choice?”

Spencer met your stare before looking back at Emily and Rossi, “Could you guys give us a minute?”

The both of them nodded, switching off the screen before heading out, presumably to begin briefing the remainder of the unit. You listened to the click of the door, waiting for Spencer to say anything.

“I don’t want you in there,” he told you.

You weren’t shocked by his request. When he was released from prison he had wanted to keep you near, going so far as to have you fly with him and your sister to Mount Pleasant because after three months he couldn’t bear to be separated. However, he didn’t want you in the observation room, so you stayed on the sidelines while he spoke with Cat, only hearing bits and pieces after the fact.

Once you nodded, Spencer took a deep breath, “I don’t want her to be able to use you against me. If she even gets the slightest idea that you’re behind the glass… I don’t know what she’ll do.”

Most members of the BAU had their One. The one UnSub that would likely haunt them for the rest of their lives, for Emily it was Ian Doyle, for Rossi it was Tommy Yates, and for Spencer it was Cat. “I’ll stay in the bullpen,” you reassured him, “I won’t leave the building, but I don’t need to listen in.”

“Thank you,” he murmured, pressing a timid kiss to your hairline before looking over to where Emily was waving him over.

Grimly, you followed Spencer out of the roundtable room, armed guards pouring through the elevator, signifying that the eagle had landed. You stopped at the glass doors, nestling yourself behind a wall – you didn’t need to see her, and she didn’t deserve to see you.

“She’s a contract killer?” Matt questioned as Spencer, Emily, and Rossi headed to the interrogation room. The only member of the team who hadn’t been around while Spencer was in Millburn, and the only member of the team with no experience with Cat Adams. In your gut, you felt a tug of envy.

Penelope nodded nervously, “She’s much, much more than that.” Her voice wavered slightly. Garcia had her own issues with Cat Adams, months of living in the BAU had left her worse for wear, but it was the best option while being hunted by a group of hit men.

You watched the members of the team as their eyes followed Cat around the hallway. “She’s a black widow,” JJ clarified for Simmons, “She preys on men she can seduce. She thrives on psychological seduction.” Her words made your stomach flip as you remembered everything she had put Spencer through in Mexico and subsequently prison – it was psychological warfare, and he was being sent into the lion’s den.

Luke nodded along to the narrative, “She has a body count that she’s never confirmed, but it’s believed to be in the hundreds.” Last time you had given tallying them up a chance you had almost reached two hundred, but she was only being criminally charged with seventy-three counts.

“She’s one of the most dangerous criminals we’ve ever arrested,” Tara admitted, “and she is obsessed with Reid.”

The group took a collective breath when Cat was fully in the interrogation room, “He’s the only man to ever outsmart her,” you continued. As much as he hated to admit it, everything she had ever said to Spencer had hit its mark, and you felt like your insides were being shredded at the knowledge that he was in there with her.

You flipped through Cat’s prison records once you were sat at your desk, looking up at any slight moment at the hope that someone might tell you what was going on. The prison records were relatively tame outside of what you already knew about her and Wilkins and her involvement with Lindsay Vaughn, but something you hadn’t thought about was her baby.

Spencer had broken the hard truth to Cat that day in Mount Pleasant, she couldn’t be a good mother. Her psychopathy would make it so that she would grow bored with a baby the same way a child would bore of a doll. You wondered how she viewed her miscarriage. Some psychopaths had the capacity to mourn, but you weren’t sure Cat fell within that demographic.

Her medical record painted a horrifying picture. She had been so far along that the baby had been delivered stillborn. Your stomach flipped at the charts, closing them before moving to the kitchenette to refill your coffee.

On your way, you saw Spencer through the glass doors, changing course so you could catch him before he went back. You veered around the corner, not wanting to call out his name before he turned into an interview room. Lagging behind, you kept yourself hidden, feeling like you were intruding and starting to walk backward, away from him.

Until you heard a crash and a shout, at which point you pivoted and returned to the interview room. A few agents started rubbernecking at the door, trying to see what was going on, “Keep walking,” you ordered them, pointing away from the room.

Inside the room, Spencer had haphazardly discarded his tie on the floor before proceeding to swipe everything off of the bookshelf. He didn’t acknowledge you as you stepped into the room, he just paced, placing his hand on his chest as he tried to self-regulate.

You tried to go around him, wanting to pick up the fallen books before anyone noticed what had happened, but before you could, Spencer grabbed your hand and pulled you into him. Getting over the initial startle, you reached out your arms and wrapped them around him, “I’m right here.”

“I’m struggling,” he admitted to you, holding you tightly against him. His time in prison felt like lifetimes ago at this point, but the way he hugged you reminded you of the day he got out – the last time you had to deal with Cat Adams.

His openness about his feelings helped to ease your own anxiety, and you were able to look up at him and offer a comforting smile, “That’s alright. This isn’t easy.” You kept your eyes on him, readjusting his rumpled collar and messy hair, “Why don’t you go get some water? I’ll take care of this,” you offered, holding your hand up when he tried to protest.

Spencer left without a fight, and you tried to reassemble the books and trinkets in the way they had previously been before wiping your palms on your jeans and walking back into the bullpen.

The team was gathering in the roundtable room, exchanging information and proposing ideas, “The victimology’s off,” Spencer said, gesturing to the screen where the two girls were being displayed.

“How so?” Tara asked, raising an eyebrow and glancing between your fiancé and the screen.

He crossed his arms in front of his chest, “Two young girls. She’s never done anything like this before.”

Agreeing, Tara looked around the table, “She usually targets men that remind her of her father. Children, even adult children are off limits.” She turned to Penelope, “Do we have an ID yet?”

Waving a fuzzy pen in the air, Penelope sighed, “You would think a parent or someone would notice, but there’s nothing coming up in any of my searches.”

“What do we know about the partner who’s been helping her?” Rossi asked no one in particular, looking to anyone who might have an answer.

Matt leaned his elbows over the table, “It’s gotta be someone from her prison. She wasn’t in contact with anyone else. We can start with known associates who were recently released,” he looked to Garcia, who nodded astutely before typing furiously on her laptop.

You spoke up from the doorway, slipping Spencer’s discarded tie into your back pocket, “I have a list going of associates at Mount Pleasant, we can do some comparing and contrasting,” you offered.

“Oh, I do love a good Venn diagram,” Penelope concurred, smiling before scooping up her laptop and making her way back to the lair.

Taking her seat, you uncomfortably sat next to JJ, leaning your knees toward Rossi so that you didn’t accidentally touch her legs. “Okay, can I tell you what’s been bugging me?” Your sister asked rhetorically, “Every time we’ve gone up against Cat, there’s the presenting agenda and the hidden one. If she sticks to pattern, this isn’t just about going on a date with Spencer.”

You considered the idea of her not having a secondary agenda but she had already veered so far off from her usual M.O. that everything else needed to follow the arbitrary rules in her mind.

“Right now, she’s a fixed variable,” Emily counseled, “We need to focus on identifying the UnSub and her victims.”

At that, everyone parted ways except for you and Spencer, you stayed flipping through folders of research you had on Cat Adams, ranging from her time as Miss .45 to her years in Mount Pleasant Women’s Correctional Facility. Spencer stood, hands on the back of your chair as he looked at the pictures being projected on the screen.

Every time Cat Adams came up, each topic you even slightly associated with her resurfaced – Diana’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, Mexico, Millburn, and now the two of you were just barely recovering from the fallout of your sister’s truth. You were overwhelmed, and if you were overwhelmed, Spencer had to be on the verge of some kind of breakdown.

“I don’t know what to do,” he whispered despite the empty room, “Tell me what to do.”

You took a deep breath before turning your head and looking up at him, “I can’t tell you what to do. This is your decision.”

He sighed, lowering himself down in the chair next to you and resting his chin in his hand, “Then don’t tell me what to do, but I would like your input. Your thoughts, feelings,” he amended.

Smiling despite yourself, you looked over at him, “Someone’s paying attention in couple’s therapy,” you said lightly, setting your hand gently on his knee.

“I just need to know if we’re on the same page or if I’m going to mess everything up,” he said, bringing his free hand to where yours rested and threading your fingers together.

You leaned back in the office chair, shrugging slightly before you answered, “I think you should go.”

Spencer frowned, “What?”

“I think you should go on the date with Cat,” you iterated.

Clearly, that wasn’t what he had expected from you, “I don’t- You want me to go on a date with someone else?”

You flipped your file shut before looking back at him, “If I had the liberty to look at this situation as just your fiancé I would, but I’m not just your fiancé. I’m an FBI agent and I’m looking at these girls,” you gestured to the screen, “and I know that our best chance of finding them might just be sending you on a date with Cat.” You took a deep breath, “She always trips up and she always does it with you. It’s your call, at the end of the day, you don’t need to go if it’s not something you want to have to experience, but you asked for my thoughts, so there they are.”

Spencer looked conflicted as he considered his options, “I’ve- We’ve come so far recently. I’d hate to ruin all of that.”

Shaking your head, you smiled at his concern, “Solving the case has to come first this time, love.”

He nodded in agreement, standing up and keeping your hands intertwined, “Come with me,” he encouraged, nearly dragging you over to the interrogation room where Cat was. He opened the door to the observation room and brought you in with him.

You averted your eyes so that you didn’t have to look at her – possibly the only woman you would throttle given the chance – and just waited for Emily, who was getting more details.

Waiting for the door to close behind her, Spencer listened for the click before speaking up, “Well, what are her demands?”

Emily looked exasperated, sharing a look with you before responding, “She wants to go ice skating so she can skate circles around you. She’s wasting our time.”

And her own, you thought, Cat didn’t have much time to make an arrangement with Spencer, eventually, she’d just be sent back to prison. Ice skating would never get approved anyway. No matter how you try to spin it, no one would give her a blade.

The door opened, taking attention away from Cat and onto Penelope, who looked confused and mildly disturbed, “Okay,” she started, “Something weird happened, but it could be a lead. I just got a bazillion voicemail messages, all from the same address on Fourth Street.”

While Tara and Luke checked out the potential lead on Fourth, you stayed sat at your desk, listening carefully to the bustling office around you. Up in Emily’s office, you heard your sister and Simmons updating your unit chief, “We found the UnSub, her name is Juliette Weaver – it took the prison all of five minutes to identify her.”

You filtered through your file in front of you, looking for the information you had on Weaver while Matt continued speaking, “She was Cat’s old cellmate. Released from prison six months ago, off the grid a week ago.”

“What was she in for?” Rossi asked and you wondered if they knew how well voices carried into the bullpen.

Matt cleared his throat before responding, “Low-level possession, she took the rap for her boyfriend, but according to the warden, she’d follow Cat around like a puppy dog.”

Your unit chief hummed thoughtfully, “Easily manipulated. So, Cat groomed her, got her to take orders.” Much like she had done with Lindsey Vaughn, convincing her to destroy Spencer’s life – you wondered if Juliette considered Cat her lover too.

“It goes deeper than that,” JJ interjected, “Cat and Juliette have something in common.”

“Juliette’s dad killed her mom in a domestic dispute. Then he fled and was never caught,” Matt resumed, surprising you.

As you imagined the surprise on Emily’s face, she responded, “That’s exactly what happened with Cat’s parents.”

You watched them in the office as Matt set something down on Emily’s desk, “Yeah, so we did a little digging into Susan. We thought that she might’ve been Juliette’s mom, but she’s not.”

“She’s Cat’s,” Rossi realized.

Matt hummed in confirmation, “Susan Adams, unidentified cold case from 1987. She was found floating in the water on the Potomac. Thanks to that picture, the case isn’t cold anymore.”

Turning your attention back to the information you had on Cat’s former cellmates, you looked over Juliette’s personal information. There wasn’t much on her, but there were some details about her family – including two younger sisters. You would likely need Garcia to confirm it for you, but you had a good feeling that the two girls being held captive were Juliette’s sisters. If that was Juliette’s stake in this, you were no closer to figuring out what Cat’s endgame was.

Looking up at your computer, you thought about the first time Spencer and Cat had gone head-to-head. It had been almost four years to the date. You frowned at your monitor, “It’s an anniversary,” you whispered to no one in particular.

“What was that?” Luke asked from his desk, adjusting his Kevlar vest as he prepared to be the chaperone for the date.

Double-checking the dates, you turned to face him as you clarified, “Four years, almost to the date of the day Spencer arrested Cat.”

Luke nodded in understanding, “That’s why she chose now to act. It wasn’t just that she was running out of time, this was the perfect time for her to get into Reid’s mind.”

Scoffing, you gathered up your papers and walked up to Emily’s office, if Cat wanted to meddle, fine, but you could play her game too.

Four years, you thought to yourself. Spencer had been on family leave for months, and taking down Cat was his first case back. You wish you had known back then how much that case would affect the next four years of his life.

The team gathered when it was time, the remaining eight standing outside of the glass doors to the unit and watching and Spencer and Cat strolled through the hallway. She had been cleaned up, some poor agent sent out to find a date-appropriate outfit for her, and she was holding onto Spencer like he was a prize she had won at a fair.

Spencer’s face was blank. No, worse than that, he was completely absent. Separating himself from what was going on with Cat. It horrified you, every time you saw Spencer retreat into himself it made you sick to your stomach. You were grateful Luke was going with them, he was someone Spencer trusted to make the right calls.

For the first time that day, you and Cat locked eyes, glaring at each other in a battle of wills, “Don’t wait up,” she called out to you, winking before the heavy elevator doors slid shut.

Slowly, your group dispersed, going back to trying to figure out Cat and Juliette’s endgame. You looked at your files, but you couldn’t focus, you could barely breathe. Spencer would be safe. He was smart enough to evade anything Cat threw at him, but she seemed to chip at him every time they saw each other.

You swung in your office chair, trying to form an even semi-helpful thought as your sister came up to your desk, “Hey.”

Peeling your eyes away from the folders, you looked up at her, “Hi,” you responded, slightly confused.

JJ sat on the edge of your desk, crossing her ankles so her legs didn’t dangle, and she looked at you, blonde hair curtained around her face.

There wasn’t much for you to do until the date started and Spencer could fish for answers with Cat, but even so, you weren’t interested in holding a staring contest with your sister. “Did you need anything?” You felt like it was a gentle enough question, there was no reason for you to bring your hostile family relationship to work with you. Everyone knew there was something happening between the two of you, but no one knew precisely what it was.

Her eyebrows creased briefly, “I thought we could talk, just for a minute.”

You unceremoniously dropped your pen on your desk, leaning back and looking at your sister incredulously, “Kind of shit timing, don’t you think?”

“I invited you for dinner last night and you didn’t show up. Every time I come up to you at work you start a conversation with someone else,” she tried to explain herself.

It was exactly as she thought – you were avoiding her. You had no interest in repairing your familial tie, your thread of gold had frayed beyond repair. “I was busy last night, I told you I wouldn’t be able to make it. You’re the one who didn’t believe me.”

She sighed defeatedly, “Thursdays used to be your best night. You’d always come for dinner on Thursday nights like clockwork, are you telling me that changed overnight?”

You bit your tongue, but it wasn’t that you were trying to stop yourself from sniping at her, you were trying to stop yourself from telling her where you were last night. Thursday evening was your weekly couples counseling appointment and your sister didn’t need to be privy to the inner workings of your relationship. Besides that, none of this had been overnight – you hadn’t been over for dinner in months now.

For every single milestone that you reached with Spencer, JJ was the first person you told, but when you got engaged, she found out the news secondhand through Penelope. You knew you had hurt her. Maybe it wasn’t the same as her love confession, but you hurt her, and you couldn’t bring yourself to apologize. You weren’t entirely sure if you should apologize.

“I’m telling you that I didn’t snub you on dinner, JJ. I was busy, I couldn’t come,” you told her, keeping your tone level as you looked up at her.

Her expression soured, “How long are you going to be mad at me?”

Forever, if you could help it, but you couldn’t tell her that. Despite your anger, despite the sadness that thinking too hard about all of this brought you, you knew that you weren’t capable of holding your sister at arm’s length for the rest of your life. “JJ, I’m not-“ you cut yourself off. “When I found out that you were in love with Spencer, I promised myself that I wouldn’t hold it against you,” you lowered your voice, conscious of the bustling bullpen around you. “I’ve kept that promise. I can’t blame you for loving him when I know everything he has ever done that makes him loveable. I love him too. So, in whatever convoluted way you want to look at it, I understand where you’re coming from.”

She nodded in what seemed like agreement, “Ducky, I’ve known him for fifteen years, I couldn’t-“

“You see,” you interrupted her, “That’s where my understanding runs out. Just because you’ve known him longer doesn’t give you the right to come into our relationship and fuck everything up. Yes, Jennifer, you’ve known him for fifteen years, but you rejected him. You rejected him and ended up with someone else. Thirteen years after meeting Will, you told Spencer you were in love with him. Do you know how wrong that is?”

JJ’s shoulders slumped forward, “Yes, but-“

You held up your hand, stopping her from speaking, “No, JJ. There’s no ‘but’. What you did was wrong. You can try to justify it to me in whatever way you want, but what you did will always be wrong. It will always affect our relationship. Your love for Spencer is the ghost haunting our house and there are no Ouija boards in the world that can translate for me,” You cringed at your figure of speech, but you went along with it anyway.

“You’re engaged, so there’s obviously a way through this for the two of you,” she tried to argue, but you could tell her heart wasn’t in it.

Pausing, you picked at the dry skin around your nails, “Spencer and I had a really long and exhaustive talk a few weeks ago.”

She raised her eyebrows, “I know, I read the police blotter.”

You rolled your eyes, that hadn’t been a fun talk with Emily, but at least she prevented your dispute from reaching HR. “Yeah, we had a loud talk. We figured things out. We’re still figuring things out, but we decided that we’d rather do that together than apart.”

“I helped him pick the ring,” she confessed. “About a year ago and I thought… I thought he’d tell me before asking.”

Instinctively, your eyes flicked down to your left hand, “For what it’s worth, it was all very spur of the moment.”

JJ shook her head, “Why are you trying to comfort me right now?”

“God, JJ. I might be pissed at you, but you’re still my sister,” you snapped at her. “While I might want to, I can’t just cut you out of my life and I can’t stop myself from caring about you. If you want to work on our relationship, owning up to your mistakes is a good start. Spencer came clean to me and now we’re engaged, but that doesn’t negate the fact that this was broken in the first place. You don’t get to brush this under the rug.”

“You wouldn’t let me brush it under the rug anyway,” she retorted.

Your head snapped up to her, “Is that what you want? To forget any of this ever happened?”

She was quiet for a while before responding, “Yes.”

You pressed your lips together and studied her briefly, “Well, I can’t give you that.”

JJ opened her mouth like she wanted to say something else, but Emily beat her to it, calling out to you from the doorway of her office, “Do you have a second?”

The ceiling of your apartment was only interesting for a limited amount of time. You’d spent years in the apartment, tracing the patterns with your eyes just felt redundant now.

Emily had benched you. She disguised it as giving you the rest of the night off, but you were effectively taken off the case. She couldn’t claim it was a conflict of interest, everyone on the team had a conflict of interest with Cat Adams, but that’s what she thought it was.

You sat down on the couch, drumming your fingers on your denim-clad thigh while you waited for a phone call – you’d even take a text message.

Wallowing in your own boredom, you listened to the sounds of the city. Where the two of you lived, it was hectic during the day and became more manageable at night, but it was still the city. Cars drove by, sirens wailed, people chatted along the sidewalk, and people spoke in the hallway.

No, actually, people talking in your hallway was abnormal. Sitting up, you looked at the front door, considering going to snoop in on your neighbor’s conversation.

You didn’t even have the time to decide before the door opened, revealing Spencer and Cat in the middle of what seemed like a rather intense kiss.

He pulled away, looking into the apartment and seeming surprised to see you.

Standing up, your arms dangled limply at your sides, “Oh, Spence.”

Holding up a finger, he silently begged you to wait. You couldn’t hear anything that came out of his mouth, everything was muffled as you fought back the tears that were burning your eyes.

You didn’t talk again until Cat spoke to you. “What?”

She laughed slightly and you could hear your heart pounding, “Did it make you mad when I kissed your fiancé?”

You hated her. Your mother would tell you that hate is a strong word, and you still didn’t care, you hated her. “No,” you lied through your teeth.

Innocently, her eyebrows raised, “Why not?”

Four years. Four years of her haunting Spencer. You thought back to that first meeting at the restaurant and responded, “No offense, but you’re not really worth getting mad at.”

Her eyes lit up and even though you knew better, you were proud of yourself for striking a nerve. With a psychopath, that was a dangerous game. Before long, she meandered around the furniture in your home and sat in the reading chair, she looked at you, “Oh, sweetheart, we have so much to talk about. I’m so glad Spencie finally decided to introduce us.”

Anxiously, your eyes flicked over to Spencer’s. Worse than your own anxiety, he looked angry, an uncommon expression for him to wear. “It’s nice to have a real conversation with you,” you gratified her.

“Normally, Spencie and I, we spend our time together playing games, but tonight I want you both here to make a point,” she watched Spencer as the two of you waited for the ball to drop. “You could do so much better, because girl,” she turned to look at you, “You need to know the truth about him.”

Pinching your brows together, you looked at Cat, “What are you talking about?”

She smiled to herself, flipping her brown hair over her shoulder, “He told me that no matter what, he can’t get me out of his mind.”

“Everything I said to her tonight was a lie,” Spencer interjected, doing damage control on your relationship while Cat tried to take it apart.

Cat scoffed, “Did our kiss look like a lie?”

There was a time when Spencer was under the impression that he had been sexually assaulted by Cat in Mexico, and during that time, you were afraid of him hurting himself. You were in the lion’s den with him now and you had to rely on your gut. He wouldn’t kiss her unless it was his last resort. He wouldn’t do that to himself. He wouldn’t do that to you. Still, you forced yourself to look at him and answer her question, “No.”

“Thank you, now we’re getting to the heart of the matter,” she resumed smugly, obviously pleased with your response and she stood up, putting her hands on everything around the apartment. “You see, everyone thinks that Dr. Spencer Reid is- is just this nice, bookish, uh, genius who uh, always saves the day and has all the answers and has… zero mommy issues, right?” She pointedly tipped over a photo of Diana before she continued flouncing around the apartment, “But um, I know the real him.”

Spencer looked at her incredulously and you wished you could hear what he was thinking at that moment, “Yeah? Who’s the real me, Cat?”

She cocked her head at you, the faux pity in her eyes made you nauseous, “The real Spencer Reid throws women against walls and hisses that he’s going to kill them.”

He faltered and you knew she had hit her mark, “That was a very different situation.”

“Was it?” She challenged, looking at him for a rebuttal, but the vacant look was coming back to his eyes.

Chewing on the inside of your lip, you met his eyes, “What is she talking about?”

You had been in Mount Pleasant that day. For all of the things she knew about, she didn’t know that you had been there, and you could use that against her, but you’d likely hurt Spencer in the process.

“You tell her,” Cat insisted, “She’s not gonna believe it coming from me.” With a flourish, she sat back down in the chair, crossing her legs as she watched her entertainment for the night.

Spencer pursed his lips, leaning forward as his eyes flicked between the two of you, “Just like tonight, she got under my skin and-“

“You threw her against a wall,” you finished, displaying your comprehension of the story to Cat and reminding Spencer that you already knew.

Cat stood back up, dragging a hand along your shoulders, sending goosebumps sprawling across your skin. “Don’t skimp on the details, Spencie,” she goaded him. “She deserves to know everything.”

The terrible feeling you’d had all day worsened as you realized where she was going with this. It was the natural continuation of the story for her even if it wasn’t the truth.

“She was pregnant at the time, and I knew that when I hurt her,” Spencer admitted, the shame he felt emanating from him in waves.

You’re not like that, baby. You’re not a violent person, you remembered telling him. You wanted to tell him that now, but she’d never let you.

Cat looked at you, a devilish glint in her eye as she rounded out her fabrication, “And the next day I miscarried. The end.”

Your breathing hitched as you saw Spencer retreat completely into himself, “What? That’s not true.”

Her head snapped over to him, “It most certainly is true, check my medical records.”

“That doesn’t- I would-“ He stuttered, but it was too late.

“Stop,” she interjected, nodding her head in your direction, “Look.”

You were choking on the truth. You wanted to scream at her and simultaneously tell Spencer that she was lying to him. The words weren’t coming out, the only thing you had were tears. They were streaming down your face as you looked at nobody and nothing, sitting on your hands.

No one said anything for a while before Spencer sat down, keeping his distance from you, “I’m sorry.”

“Notice how your fiancé is apologizing to you and not me,” Cat instructed you, you peered up at her through wet eyelashes. “Men are all the same, aren’t they Ducky?”

Spencer jumped to your defense as you blanched at the nickname, “Don’t call her that,” he snapped.

Cat inclined her head toward him, “What, are you going to throw me up against the wall and choke me or do you only do that to pregnant women?”

Of all of the things for Cat to know about you, your childhood nickname wasn’t what you expected. You looked at her and met her eyes through your bleary ones, “Why are you doing this?”

You regretted the question as soon as you asked it, but you couldn’t take it back now, “Because I want you to see it,” she explained. “I want you to see that he is no better than all the men you chase. All the men who have hurt you before.”

“Stop,” you pleaded, staring at the floor in front of you.

Cat crouched next to you, forcing you to look her in the eyes, “I can see it in your face. Why did you flinch when I used your nickname?”

Your nostrils flared, “It’s none of your business,” you insisted.

She laughed at your attempted assertion, “Oh, but it is. In fact, it’s my specialty. Is he nearby? I could send Juliette over to say hi,” she offered.

“Say yes,” Spencer interjected, “Give her what she wants.”

Glaring at him, Cat waved him off, “He wants you to get me to make a phone call so they can trace it. You’re so good, the BAU.”

You shook your head helplessly, “I never wanted to be involved in this sick, twisted game between the two of you.” Even still, you had never been given the choice. Emily sent you home under the guise of waiting out the date only for it to be a trap.

Cat mock-pouted, “Tell me your story, Ducky, and I promise I will give Juliette a call and those two girls will be safe and sound.”

And that was the end of it. You couldn’t let your cowardice cost those girls their lives – or whatever Cat had planned for them.

“Come on, little duck,” she prodded at you, “It’s story time.”

Spencer shook his head, “Y/N, it’s a trap.”

Scoffing, Cat sat next to you, “It is so tricky, isn’t it? I mean, who are you gonna trust? The lying, cheating, violent psychopath… or me?”

Desperately, you looked up at Spencer and his face fell as he realized what you were doing. “My sister gave it to me,” you told her.

Impishly, she smiled, “Jennifer?”

“No,” you answered, “Roslyn, and don’t interrupt.” You frowned, piling your hands in your lap as you searched for the story. “I don’t remember it, but when I was learning how to walk I… waddled. So, when I would walk around Roz would follow me and make duck sounds, and I would mimic her. She started calling me Ducky after that and it just stuck.”

She smiled at you knowingly, “That is so sweet. How could you hate such a heartfelt nickname from your dearly departed sister?”

You shook your head, “I don’t hate it,” you insisted.

Cat cocked her head at you, “Tell me,” she goaded. “Tell me or I ruin her life.”

Quickly, you looked up at Spencer and made sure he caught the slip up too. The two of you shared a suspicious look before you continued, “My parents put me in school early, I started kindergarten when I was four and I learned early that kids were cruel. They would follow me around and quack,” you laughed despite yourself, what had seemed heinous as a child would barely make you spare a glance as an adult. “One day, we were doing a class craft, and they put glue and feathers on my seat so they stuck to my skirt when I stood up,” you told her, recalling the way your poor mother had to leave work to help you pick feathers from your skirt.

Next to you, Cat lifted a hand to her mouth, fake yawning as she waited for you to get to the man of it all.

“When she got home, I yelled at Roslyn,” You’d spiraled about this so many times in adulthood that you were surprised it had any effect on you anymore. “I told her I hated her. I told her she was a bad sister, and I wanted her to go away,” you admitted, fighting off tears again. “She skipped dinner that night and the next morning she… JJ found her. In the bathroom. She had slit her wrists with our father’s razor blade.”

Spencer’s brown eyes bore into you, reflecting the same sadness that you were sure was on your own face, “You were only four, it wasn’t your fault.”

“Well, you certainly didn’t help,” Cat snarked.

“Cat,” Spencer snapped.

Frustrated, you wiped under your eyes, “My dad blamed me. He told me he would give me up if it meant she would come back, and he’s maintained that sentiment ever since.” You knew now that there were other things Roslyn had been struggling with at the time, but part of you would always have the nagging feeling that you had a role in your sister’s suicide.

“So, you understand me,” she said matter-of-factly.

Confused, you lifted your head to look at her, “What?”

She scooted closer to you, “You understand why I’ve killed all of them. Those men,” she clarified.”

You looked at her, “No, Cat, I don’t understand you. I hate my dad, but I don’t want to kill him. I don’t prey on the deaths of the people that I hate, and that’s the difference between me and you. I want my dad to have to live with the fact that he’s a horrible person. I want him to live with what he did to me, to my family.”

Cat narrowed her eyes at you, “And he didn’t even visit you after you got shot.”

Out of guilt, you had assumed. His guilty conscience was the only thing that kept him away. After all, almost thirty years of telling you that it should’ve been you, the universe almost came through for him. “Give me the location,” you said, holding her to her end of the bargain.

Groaning, she held out her hand for your phone so she could put the location into your map. Once you had what you needed, you started making your way out, hearing her call after you, “Keep your head above water, Ducky!”

You kept moving, your feet moving beneath you even though your heart wanted to drop to the floor, you charged out the door, ignoring Emily as she tried to comfort you. Luke followed you out of the apartment building, neither of you speaking until you handed your phone to Luke, showing him the location. “Stay here, I’ll call the team and get them to meet here,” he told you, lifting your phone to let you know he was taking it with him.

Trailing behind him anyway, you got into the passenger seat of the SUV, “I have to go, Luke. It’s… I’ll be fine.”

He wasn’t entirely convinced, but Luke generally wasn’t one to argue with you. “Okay, but I’m still calling for backup.”

It wasn’t a far drive, in fact, months ago this bridge had been a regular stopping point when you went on walks, but as soon as you stepped out of the car and heard the water running below you, you froze.

There were flashing lights all around you, and the only thing you could do was watch as Juliette held onto the older of her two sisters at the edge of the bridge. The younger girl was calling out for her sister. Vaguely, you heard Matt trying to talk Juliette into letting them go.

The little girl screamed as Juliette shoved her sister off of the bridge, putting her hands up once the crime had been committed. Luke called for search and rescue through his comm, and you watched the little girl, just as old as JJ when Roslyn passed away.

Keep your head above water.

You didn’t remember much about Roslyn’s funeral, it was mostly JJ straightening your dress and fiddling with her necklace, but that singular event had changed the entire course of your life.

The screaming continued even as you ran to the edge of the bridge, not garnering anyone’s attention until it was too late, and Luke shouted your name as you dove off of the platform.

Afterward, the first thing you would remember was the pain. You absorbed the shock of hitting the water through your arms, causing strain on both of them. The darkness of the water was just as you imagined it would be. That is, until you rose to the surface, met with dozens of flashlights shining down on you.

People called your name, but you just looked around the water, listening for splashing as you hoped to find Juliette’s sister.

There was a gasp behind you, the both of you treading as best you could, but the water was cold, and she slipped under. Impulsivity was never your strong suit, so you hadn’t really considered the way your hands would go numb until you put an arm around her waist, trying to keep her head above the water.

“Y/N!” Matt called from the riverbed, shining his flashlight over at you while you tried to support the girl. It wasn’t easy, you ducked your head under the water and pushed her up, the darkness of the water threatening to swallow you whole.

Hoisting her up, you felt your teammates pull her from the water and sighed, forgetting where you were.

You gagged on the water before reaching up your arms, letting yourself be pulled out. The shock of the air on your lungs was nearly as bad as that of the water, but as you coughed up water on the dirt, you heard the girl start coughing as well.

Her body would have been dumped right where Cat’s mother had been found, and that little girl would have lost her big sister, just like you did. It was the only thing you could think of as you were brought back to the BAU because Emily was insistent on debriefing.

“You dove into the water?” Emily asked before ordering one of the desk agents to go find something for you to change into.

Your wet clothes clung pathetically to your skin as you nodded, “Yeah, I did.”

Luke smiled next to you, “It was pretty impressive, actually.”

“It’s reckless is what it is,” Emily said, studying your damp state, “Go up to my office and turn the space heater, we need to thaw you.”

Rolling your eyes, you walked up to Emily’s office and opened the door, turning the knob on the space heater before sitting on the little couch in her office. Placing your ring on the coffee table to dry, you wrapped your arms around yourself. You waited for the desk agent to return with clothes and instead were surprised when your sister came through the doorway with a pile of clothes in hand. “Hey,” she said, lifting the clothes, “Fresh from the Academy laundry.”

She closed the blinds as you stripped down to your tank top, pulling the sweatshirt over your head before swapping out your pants as well.

“How do you feel?” She asked gently, standing across from you hesitantly.

You looked down at your new clothes, “I feel like FBI Academy propaganda,” you responded, sitting back down on the couch.

Raising her eyebrows, she looked at you intently, “I meant after… everything tonight.”

Pulling your knees up to your chest, you looked up at your sister, “It never had anything to do with Spencer,” you whispered.

She pursed her lips before sitting next to you, “Well, it’s always Cat’s goal to get under Spencer’s skin. She just chose to use you to do it this time.”

You would probably never know how Cat managed to know so much about you. Honestly, you probably didn’t want to know. This time next week, Cat Adams would be dead, and that would just have to be enough for you.

“I can’t believe you jumped into the river,” JJ said in disbelief, rubbing a hand up and down your back.

Shyly, you shrugged at her, “I saw a little girl about to lose her big sister and I couldn’t let her go through that kind of pain.”

Your sister nodded in understanding, “She was eleven?”

You nodded slowly, “And her sister was seventeen,” you whispered.

Part of you felt like you had been staring at an alternate universe all evening. “So,” JJ said, moving the conversation, “Spencer’s on his way back. He’ll probably want to talk to you, clear some things up.”

“Will you sit with me until he does?” You asked softly, afraid of her sniping back about forgiveness, but she didn’t. That wasn’t the way JJ worked, she just nodded, leaning back against the cushions and letting you rest your head on her shoulder.

She didn’t get up and leave until Spencer arrived, she went to meet him in the bullpen, and you waited for the moment someone told him where you were. There was a sensation you had never experienced before, but you felt so separate from your own actions. Despite your still wet hair, you barely remembered diving into the water.

You sensed another psychological evaluation in your future.

The rotating heater warmed you in waves as you listened to your team. They filled Spencer in on everything that had happened tonight, from Juliette’s sisters to Cat’s real plan. “She…” Spencer stammered, “She told me Y/N had a big decision to make tonight. Where is she?”

Blankly, you stared ahead at the heater, wondering what they’d tell him and what they’d save for you. “Well, she may have jumped into the Potomac,” Matt told him tentatively, his voice was gentle as he dropped the bomb.

“She dove actually,” Luke corrected, and you imagined him being proud of his redress.

Emily cleared her throat, ever the mediator, and finally answered Spencer’s question, “She’s up in my office getting warm.”

There were no more questions after that, but you recognized the footsteps as Spencer approached the office. His knock was timid, but he didn’t wait for you to respond before opening the door.

His hair was awry, you supposed yours didn’t look much better, and his breathing was uneven. A symptom, you assumed, of finding out you had jumped into the fourth largest river on the Atlantic coast. “Hi,” you waved nervously.

At the same time, he spoke, “I’m so sorry.”

There was no use in pussyfooting around, “Did you want to talk now, then?”

“Yes,” he answered instantly, “I can’t… I’m so tired of things looming over our heads.”

You sighed, folding your hands in your lap, “That cumulonimbus has been there for quite some time, hasn’t it?”

“I just cheated on you and you’re making cloud jokes?” Spencer asked in disbelief. At some point in the night, he had lost his jacket, leaving him in a rumpled dress shirt.

Turning to stone, you paused. Maybe it was the Potomac water that you had ingested, maybe it was the other events of the evening, but you had brushed off the kiss between him and Cat nearly immediately. “I guess I didn’t really think of it that way,” you admitted.

He leaned back on Emily’s desk, “All of these problems we’ve been having, and we were just beginning to make headway. I went and ruined it.”

Raising your eyebrows, you looked at Spencer quizzically, “Okay, well, now you’re catastrophizing.”

“I made a choice years ago that resulted in you facing one of your biggest fears tonight, you’re shaking, and your clothes are in a sopping pile on the ground,” he explained as if you weren’t well aware. “I don’t think you’re taking this seriously.”

“I think you just had a shitty night spent with a woman who has a knack for convincing you you’re evil, so you’re telling me how evil you are right now,” you responded, leaning back on the couch cushions. “You’re not evil and you’re barely a cheater,” you told him, “I’d love to lay out all of the evidence for you, but I’m exhausted and I’d rather we just go home.”

One look at Spencer told you that you weren’t going to be getting what you wanted tonight, the histrionics of your evening weren’t over. “I made you cry,” he said meekly. He said it like it was the worst thing he could ever do to you.

“I’m the one who told you to go! I might not be a genius, but I’m smart enough to have considered the fact that Cat would try to make a move.” Groaning, you covered your face with your arms, “Spencer, Cat made me cry. I had to sit back and watch her manipulate you into believing you caused her miscarriage.”

“You knew?” He breathed.

You nodded, dropping your arms and looking at him miserably, “Yes, I knew the truth, and it killed me to not be able to tell you.”

Waiting for him to respond was agonizing. You desperately wanted to apologize for not telling him as soon as you found out about Cat’s baby, but you didn’t think it was important information at the time.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Spencer finally spoke. “I thought… I couldn’t handle it if you thought that I’d-“

Quickly, you shook your head and waved your hands, “No, Spence. I knew the truth from the get-go.”

He was quiet, shuffling his feet on the carpet before he looked up at you. He opened his mouth to speak but second-guessed himself before sealing his lips and crossing his arms in front of his chest. Watching you for a moment, he spoke, “Do you remember when you asked me what my truth would’ve been? If Pinkner had asked me instead of JJ?”

“We should go to bed.”

“Wait, what’s your truth?”

“My truth is that I’m tired, we should go to sleep.”

Part of you wanted to ask if he wanted to do this now, after the day the two of you had, you’d be perfectly content with going home and leaving this conversation for tomorrow. Instead, you nodded, “Yes, you ignored it.”

Spencer chuckled nervously, “You had been spending weeks looking for a reason to pick a fight with me. I didn’t think you would accept my answer for what it was.”

“The truth,” you drew your own conclusion, shifting uncomfortably on the couch.

Slowly, he knelt on the ground in front of you, “You were looking for me to tell you that I shared JJ’s feelings. You wanted me to say that you were my second choice, but that has never, ever been my truth. It never has been.”

Swallowing thickly, you reached your hands out and took his in yours, gently skimming the pads of your thumbs over the back of his hands, “Spencer, truth or dare?”

“Truth,” he whispered.

“What’s your truth?” You asked him softly, approaching the topic like a deer in the woods.

He looked down at your intertwined hands, noting the fact that you had taken your ring off before he responded, “I’ve spent my entire life trying to live up to the expectations of others. I went to Caltech, then MIT, and then I was recruited to the BAU. Through all that, I was under the impression that I was letting people down.”

This was a familiar conversation to you. You once spent hours talking him off of a metaphorical ledge because he hadn’t cured schizophrenia.

“I’m not the perfect son, who sent his mother away a week after turning eighteen,” an action that had almost gotten him killed. “I’m not a perfect agent and I’m not a perfect friend because the expectations set for me are too high, but I’m not a perfect boyfriend or fiancé either. It’s not because you hold me to a certain standard, it’s because I failed you.”

Your eyes widened at his admission, “Spencer, no, you didn’t.” Your chest ached at the thought of this living in his head. He had been living while paralyzed by the weight of the expectations of others when he just wanted one thing - to feel normal.

He waved you off, “Do you remember what you asked me? On that date in the shooting range?”

Seven years ago, shortly after Emily left for Interpol, you and Spencer had an impromptu date at the shooting range. “I asked you not to break my heart.”

“And I have, haven’t I? Time and time again,” he asked rhetorically, not looking for an answer even when you wanted to prove him wrong. “You’ve watched me get shot, you’ve seen me in handcuffs, beaten, kidnapped, fired – and you’ve never wavered. You have loved me through it all, and I haven’t reciprocated fairly. I had never known unconditional love, and I think you’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to it. I get put on this pedestal by everyone I meet and you’re the only person who has ever made me feel average. I know average is usually used with a negative connotation, but in this case, I mean it positively. You don’t have outlandish requests from me, all you’ve ever asked for is love, and I… I’m never going to be able to verbalize how much that means to me. How much you mean to me.”

“Spencer,” you tried to interject.

His eyes met yours, his brown irises slightly bleary as he looked at you intently, “I am so sorry. I’m sorry about your sister and I’m sorry about kissing Cat and I’m sorry about all of the ways I have broken your heart and if you… if this is where you need to call it, then I completely understand.”

“Spencer,” you echoed.

He tilted his head to the side, “What?”

You raised your eyebrows, “My ring is over there, on the coffee table, will you put it back on for me?”

“Do you mean it?” He asked, reaching behind him for the ring without waiting for your answer.

Holding out your left hand, you nodded, “There have been a lot of wrongs – from the both of us, but I don’t… I can’t hold the JJ thing against you anymore. You’re verifiably a genius. So, if you tell me that the only thing that would’ve pleased Cat is kissing her, then I’ll believe you. I trust you, and if I lose that, then I lose myself.”

He seemingly thought about it for a moment before responding, “It was the only thing I could think of, and I promise I will make this up to you.”

Smiling softly, you flexed your fingers once he slid the ring back on, relishing the feel of the metal on your finger. “Then it’s a good thing you’re only getting married once, it gives you a lot of time to make it up to me.”

“Did you have any ideas?” He asked a little too eagerly.

You beamed, “Oh, I have a few.”  

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[donutz]

sebastian with a reader who gives him a ton of resources and asks if they can buy a kiss from him O-O

Buying a kiss from Sebastian

You aren't that delusional right?

— A big ol smooch. Mwah. Delicious fishy skin oh so yummy.

Warning: Shy reader, but not the stereotypical 'Y/N'; Stutters, I'm sorry I'll try to make it realistic; THIS IS NOT A BIG DADDY AND SHY Y/N TROPE.; Sorry I just wanted to warn you; I don't use Y/N anyways, I use Reader as if there's a difference😎; There's no kiss on the lips☹️; Buttt there's a teasing Sebastian; 'Bad' words; Non-human reader, they just have the ear fins; They have green-like skin with four yellow eyes! Two fakes ones underneath their original ones; They also can disguise as a human

After dying over and over again, you became acquainted with Sebastian. You saw him in the shop and even saw him when you were dead. You’re not sure on how the dying thing works but…

It doesn’t really matter as long as you get to see Sebastian.

You’ve gained feelings for him, even though he isn’t very.. Human. His little insults can be annoying but I guess it’s um. Reasonable? Yeah that’s something you don’t enjoy all that much.

But his voice and his tone is something that you like. You may have a strange taste but who doesn’t like a 10 ft tall man that has aquatic features?

… Probably every other normal person…

But some mermen can be attractive! You feel like a little kid crushing on cartoons.

Sebastian seems very closed off and distant from humans. Maybe because humans are the reason he’s this way?

That’s understandable.

I don’t think I would like humans at all if I looked like that either. It’s not like he’s ugly it’s just… It seems like he was human before being that way.

Anyways

Maybe since he doesn’t seem okay with other forms of affection— You could get him a gift! It’s unexpected, can be taken as platonic, and a way to get closer to somebody! Perfect!

Though what should you get him?

Hmm…

You don’t know any of his likes, favorites, nothing really.

Oh!

But he has a shop!

You could uhh. Give him some items for his shop!

And then…

Ask for a kiss!

… Is that too forward? Well he might like you back!

He might… Like you back..

He doesn’t really give many hints on his feelings towards love. Especially towards you, minus the lessened amounts of insults he throws at you.

Oh that could be a hint! He stutters sometimes too! But he did that before he truly knew you… 

Ugh, too many ellipses.

Oh sorry I didn’t mean to break the 4th wall.

Agh hem.

As the loop starts again, you decided that the gift could be items. Items to give so he can hold it for his shop. Then a smooch!

A smooch?

Yeah a kiss. Totally. He’ll definitely give you a kiss with those… Rubber… Lips…

Okay maybe a kiss on the hand can suffice.

Exiting the submarine you prepare to give Sebastian a ton of items in return for a kiss!

Are you really that delusional?

.

.

.

Yes!

You end up finding flash beacons, flashlights, medkits— Actually maybe you should keep that one.

Y’know, just incase a good pers—

… Mmm…

People?

Just in case good people pops up.

Hate that thing.

Oh wow a lantern.

When it comes to the monsters and just being in this place in general, it’s like your whole personality switches. 

When it comes to Sebastian you’ll be all shy. But when it comes to just Urbanshade, its creatures, and Hadal Blacksite… You’re more mad and irritated.

Sometimes you even say bad words at the creatures.

Oooo.

Saying bad words even though you’re a grown adult.

How, “NO YOU CAN’T SAY THAT”!!

Y’know? 

When people infantilize shy characters?

Y’know?

☹️

You get pretty close to door fifty, having many helpful sources to give to that— man…

You hear an expected voice..(Oh how spooky)

“Hey. Come here”.

You look at an invisible camera pulling off that— Roblox man face or something- I don’t– I don’t know.

Speed walking over there in excitement, you hold a smile on your face. Your beautiful smile lines showing.

Damn, you really like him huh?

You crawl through the vents waiting with anticipation. Possible praise? Or even a smile?

You can’t wait.

Reaching the end of the vent, you immediately look up, bumping your head. It’s a good thing you have that head gear. You might’ve gotten a traumatic brain injury and five dollars.

… What.

A- Anways, you rub your head looking down.

“Oh damn. Well based on that head bump I already know who it is. Hello my favorite prisoner”.

“Hey Sebastian, yeah you’re so funny. Making fun of my h- head bump. Die”.

“Hey buddy I was justt messing arounddd”.

“M-hm- Mhm.” You let out pained noises. Getting out from the vent, you stretch out your limbs. Hearing a few pops

“Eww… Yuck, I hate those sounds.” Sebastian commented.

“Yeah they’re kinda weird about humans”.

“They suree areee”…

After a few seconds of silence, Sebastian speaks up.

“Soo, you gonna buy anything”?

“W- Well maybe, I– shiver, I actually have some gi- gifts for you.” Clearing your throat you physically cringe at the stuttering. It makes you seem.. I don’t know.. Fanfic material or something.

“Gifts”?

“Yea! Gifts.. T- To show you my um… G- Gratitude for- sigh, for giving me those items”.

He chuckled, “It’s not like I give you them for free or anything”.

“Yeah but sometimes you give me discounts”.

“Oh yeah huh”?

“So I— I wanted to give these to you, S- Sebastian”..

“You’re very stuttery today aren’t you”?

You look up at him while getting the things out of your bag.

You let out a shivery laugh, “Y- Yeah, I’ve never really um.. Given someone gifts before a- and it’s.. Spooky– down here”.

Sebastian could tell that was an excuse.

I know that was an excuse, it’s obvious you’re this way because of your little crush or something.

You hand Sebastian the items, his two claws engulfing yours. You wish these stupidly thick gloves were off your hands so you could actually feel his claws.

“And shaky”.

“Oh! Um”..

“You sure you’re okay?” He asks with concern. Putting away the items, he’s not sure why he even asked.

“Yeah I’m okay! It’s just um. Th- Those aren’t f- free.” Even with the small amount of built confidence, you were still very nervous.

“Oh of course they’re not. What is it? Do I have to give you some data or something? If you’re asking for cash then–”

“N- No”!

He’s surprised by the sudden and yippy-like voice.

“I uh, I don’t want data or cash”.

“... So, what do you want”?

“A. A uhm. Uh”.

“C’mon spit it out already”!

“A kiss!! Yeah a small kiss or something”..

.

.

.

Oh yes I love awkward moments, what about you?

“A kiss?” Sebastian repeats.

You nod, not even being able to speak right now. You’re looking at the ground with hands together and thumbs rubbing against the hard leather. If you weren’t sweating you definitely would be now.

“Y’know it would’ve made more sense if you said that before giving me the items”?

“Sebastian I’m serious”!

“Okay okay, yes you can have your kiss”.

You look up quickly, a quiet crack in your neck from turning it so fast.

You may think that you’re blushy and flustered one right now. Well that’s correct, if you can even blush.

Buttt you’re not the only one with a rapidly beating heart.

Sebastian’s trying to hide it, to not seem all vulnerable in front of somebody. Not just a human. Showing that you’re vulnerable is a sign of, I guess.. Weakness.

“But how can you even kiss me with that diving helmet”?

Oh yeah you forgot about that.

“O- Oh, yeah uhm- let me take care of that”.

That sentence peaks his interest, if you were to take that off then he’s sure your head would pop.

“W- Wait I was just joking—!” He reaches out to you to stop you, putting his right claw over your head gear.

Even though you’d be just fine with the pressure, you were shocked he even stopped you.

“Oh uhm. Sebastian. I’m not fully human, I can handle the pressure with or without the gear”.

Whattt??

His face scrunches with confusion and shock, stunned. 

You take off the head gear, but don’t worry, you’ve managed to disable that explosion thing. Just temporarily, they haven’t noticed yet.

You hold your gear in your hand, looking up at Sebastian.

You smile, showing off your yellowish, blueish teeth. Your ear fins sway slightly, up and down.

“Yeah I’m not really uhh, human. Fully anyways.” You set your gear on the ground—

“A- And I’ve taken care of that blowing up device. S- So don’t worry”.

God he reallyyy hopes that nobody walks in right now.

“Th- They can’t hear me either so, I’ll be fine temporarily. I’ll soon have to turn it all back on so they don’t suspect anything”.

Wow.

He thought you were kinda dumb to add onto your shy personality.

Damn.

That’s um.

Surprising.

You can feel his stare on you. It’s not very uhh, it’s not a good feeling.

You look back up at him, putting a hand over your forehead as if it were a visor.

“Do I not look good or-”

“N- No! That’s not why I’m staring. It’s just.. Surprising. I couldn’t really get any hints on how you weren’t a human”.

“Ah, well that was on purpose actually. I- I’m not sure if you really do scents but– I gave myself a more human scent and covered up the dark green skin with a more human one”.

Woww, yes you’re sooo smart.

He keeps on staring at you.

“Anyways, what about that uhm.. That kiss..?” You mentally cheer at the least amount of stutters in the much bolder question.

“O- Oh yes”!

Oo! A stutter!

“Well I doubt you would kiss me on the lips”.

“O- Oh I don’t m- mind— Ughh, I don’t mind kissing you anywhere really. Just a kiss itself is fine”!

“Oh really?” He teased.

“Y- Yes.” You whisper.

“Well, how about a kiss to the palm, yeah? Not too forward and nearly just the right amount of romance”.

“Yeah that’s fine”!!

Your somewhat wobbly legs move over to Sebastian. He slightly moves his right claw to your face, casting a shadow over your head because of how big it is.

You grab both sides of his hand and lean over to his palm, giving it a quick—

Smooch!

To the palm. Even after the kiss you still stay there for a few seconds, before backing away with your hands behind your back.

You hurriedly put your head gear back on before quickly stuttering out—

“T- Thank you f- for the k- kiss! I enjoy- gulp, enjoyed it”!

Rushing out of the shop, you let out a huge breath.

As if this was some show, the camera would pan to Sebastian’s scrunched up face, his lip(?) quivering. He’s happy that he’s cold blooded, or else he’d be blushing very, very hard right now.

He holds up that same palm, and puts it to his lips(??).

Letting out a shaky breath.

Guys guess how much words..

1773!!! I'm so good at um. Long fanfics yeah😛😛

[picaroroboto]

one of my favorite WoL Moments is still this dialogue choice in Heavensward:

Context is that during the HW roadtrip, the party gets caught in this Catch-22 where the dragons won't let us pass through unless we get the Gnath to stop bugging (lol) them, but the Gnath have summoned Ravana. It seems obvious that the WoL needs to kill Ravana in order for anything to progress, but Alphinaud asks to make sure they're willing first.

There's a lot you can dig up in this seemingly simple interaction - first, Alphinaud's side of things: during late-ARR and it's post-patches, there's a lot of evidence to be found that shows he treats the WoL like a bodyguard, like a weapon, taking their strength for granted for his political ends while giving little, if any, thought to their own thoughts and feelings. It's not outright malicious manipulation, just a sort of blindness. Since the betrayal at the banquet he's been humbled, and grown closer to the WoL thanks to their continued support of him despite the fact that his vanity caused the disaster. Him asking the WoL is they're okay with fighting Ravana, even though it's a given that they have to, can be seen as him not wanting to repeat the same pattern of using them.

For the WoL, the "choice" seems obvious - kill the Primal. Their first Primal battle, Ifrit, was a fight for survival brought on by a twist of fate. Every one since then has been an active pursuit by choice - if you can even call it a choice when they're the only one who can do it and many people would die if they didn't. By HW they're already firmly locked in to their role of being the guy who kills Primals, and whether they like it or not they continue to choose to fight. By choosing the upper line here they confirm that, while also giving some cool and heroic bravado to reassure Alphinaud. But notably it's just to say that they don't fear their duty. They may hate it, regret the choices that lead them here, all manner of things, but they are not afraid of fighting Primals.

Or they could simply say nothing. Giving silence also recognizes that their choice doesn't really matter and they're going to have to fight anyways. When it comes to silent protagonist-type characters who have few dialogue options, every option they're given has all the more weight. There are cases where choosing to say three ellipses "..." says a thousand things more than not being given a dialogue choice at all, and this is one of them. It's as if the two choices here are actually "Be the Hero" or "Be the Hero (not happy about it)".

[pahtoosh]

mind reader

[image ID: a distraught Sebastian Stan looking at a sheet of paper. the paper has three sections. the first has three boxes labeled "yes", "no", and the last one with ellipses. the second one has three boxes labeled "please", "hugs", and "kisses". the last section has scribbles. the first section is in black and white and uses a mature font, while the second section is colorful and uses a playful font. /.end ID]

masterlist

18+

wc: ~1000 words

warnings: crowded mall. reader goes nonverbal. fluff

a/n: this was requested by @valetim09 ! thank you so much for your patience <3 I also want to add that everyone has a different experience with going nonverbal. this story is a reflection of my own. if anyone has a different experience and would like to share, I'd love to listen so I can write something different next time!

pairing: mafia!daddy!bucky x gn!little!reader

summary: Bucky takes you to the mall and you go nonverbal.

⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆ ⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆ ⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾

“Just one more store okay? You’re doing so good for me, bubba.” Bucky praised. 

You took a deep breath, a difficult feat while your Daddy had you speed walking across the mall. He led you to a store full of bath and shower products. The storefront was brightly decorated for the holiday season, twinkle lights dangled behind animal statues posing with bottles of soap. This display would normally have you tugging on Bucky’s sleeve, begging to take a look, but today it was just another addition to your overstimulation. 

“Okay we just need to grab washcloths, lotion, and the bubble bath set for your little friend.” He squinted at the list.

“Sweetheart, which scent did you want to get for them? We’ve got bubblegum and blueberry written down but they’re also crossed out.”

He looked to you for a response but figured you might be distracted by the display shelf in front of you. 

“It’s okay, we’ll just get both. Let’s keep moving.” He darted back and forth between aisles, trying to gather everything as quickly as possible. Your daddy was so distracted, he didn’t notice how overwhelmed you were getting. All the different, potent scents in the store were no help. For the moment, the only thing you could do was hold onto Bucky’s sleeve with one hand and use your other to cover your nose. 

It took Bucky a while to find the items. By the time you finished checking out and walked back into the mall, it had gotten significantly more crowded. Ever the strategist, your daddy held all the shopping bags in his vibranium arm so he could wrap his other arm around you and move both of your bodies as one to a faster exit. 

He let out a relieved exhale once entering the parking lot. “Oh man, that crowd was crazy, wasn’t it?” Bucky loosened his grip so he could look at you. You were clearly listening, but didn’t respond. 

He looked at you curiously. “What happened to my little chatterbug?”

You simply tugged his shirt and pointed to the car. 

“Okay, we’ll go home, baby. I know that’s what you’ve been wanting.” Bucky looked both ways before stepping off the sidewalk and walking to the car with you. 

He helped you buckle into your seat and placed the shopping bags in the trunk before sitting in the driver’s seat. Some days Bucky would have a chauffeur so that he could sit in the backseat with you, but today was not one of those days. 

After making sure it was safe to go, he wasted no time before pulling out of the lot and driving home. Bucky wanted to ask you if something was wrong, but he knew you’d be more comfortable discussing it at home. He settled for softly playing your favorite music and glancing at you in the rear view mirror once in a while. 

When you reached the house, one of Bucky’s employees put away the shopping bags as he led you upstairs. 

“You doin’ okay, baby?” He asked, holding your hand as you two walked towards your room. 

You shook your head. 

“Can you use your big kid words and tell Daddy what’s going on?”

You shook your head again. He helped you sit on your bed while he stood in front of you. 

“Okay then,” Bucky said, placing a hand on his chin. He looked at you carefully, as if he could tell what you were thinking if he just looked hard enough.

“Are you feeling extra tiny today?”

You shrugged, still looking up at Bucky unblinkingly. 

“Did something happen at the mall?”

You shrugged again. 

“Let’s try something new, sweetheart.” He went to your desk and picked up a crayon and a sheet of paper. “Can Daddy use these?”

You nodded. 

Bucky crouched down at your desk while he wrote on the paper. As with everything he did, he looked completely focused. His concentration face was a familiar sight when paired with the large oak desk in his office, but it looked a little silly and out of place with your bright, plastic table. The only seats available were a few floor cushions. He settled for sitting on the floor as to not mess up your cushions with his “outside pants”. You craned your neck trying to see what your daddy was up to. You could just barely make out a few letters before he was finished. He drew a few more lines, then handed you the sheet of paper with a hard book underneath and a new crayon. 

“Daddy made some ‘buttons’ for you, okay. You press this one to say yes, this one for no, and this one for I’m not sure. This spot is for you to make your own buttons. And this spot is if you want to write more. Does this help?”

You pointed at the “yes” button. 

His eyes lit up, then he complimented you for being such a fast learner. 

“Can you tell Daddy why you aren’t speaking right now?”

“Mall. Too much,” you wrote. 

“You got overwhelmed at the mall, bubba? And now talking is too much?”

“Yes.”

He let the crease in his brow deepen before taking a breath and relaxing his features. “I know we were supposed to have dinner with Natty and your little friends today, but how about we push those plans to another day? We’ll have a quiet night with just us. See if we can calm this baby down.”

You gave him a small smile. “Yes.” Then you created a new button. “Please.”

Bucky chuckled. “Even when you’re not speaking you’re still the smartest, most polite baby in the entire world. Can I give you some kisses?”

“Yes.”

He peppered your face with kisses until you were giggling and smiling so hard it hurt. You took things easy for the rest of the night, just watching tv, eating the dinner Bucky made, and listening to him read a book. You kept the button sheet that Bucky made in a special folder in case something like this happened again. After you added two new buttons labeled “cuddles” and “kisses” of course.

[kira-fluff]

reaction to finding out you have a chronic disease | fem!reader x haikyuu!!

this idea popped into my head in the shower. shower thoughts are the best. as a chronically ill person such as myself (mentally and physically, LOL!) i felt maybe I was a little qualified to write this. these are all diseases i experience! i can def write some that i am not diagnosed with :) i'm a biology nerd, so i love learning new things, especially about diseases! some of these are more serious than others. i tried to keep the disease symptoms/descriptions general so it can appeal to more diagnoses (for example, nosebleeds are indicative of several different diseases) that way more people can feel represented by what i write!

‼️warnings: mentions of blood, nekoma team being dorks, seizures, WAY too many ellipses (sorry I just love them), pointless bantering (oikawa), dramatic af, osamu described as "caked-up" (sorry not sorry), railing on atsumu for shits and giggles, deep hatred of the word moist

want to see a different haikyuu character's reaction? request here! also, if you want to read a specific disease represented, i can see if i can put it in there too :)

✿ kuroo tetsuro "hey when do you want to- OH MY GOD ARE YOU OKAY?!" blood dripped from your nose onto the gymnasium floor. "oh. another nosebleed. my bad, I'll clean that up..." you said apathetically. "hey, this is sort of a big deal, ya know? shit... yaku, I need a towel or something!" he shouted. they really weren't anything serious. ever since you were little, you had frequent nosebleeds. your mom wrote it all off as the cold weather (even in summer), so it wasn't really that big of a deal to you either (until a few doctor visits later). still, the apathy you felt toward your predicament remained. yamamoto had already rushed over at his captain's call. "does she need an ice pack, too? fuck, I don't know what to do...." "aren't you supposed to tilt your head up?" one member asked. "no, no i think you're supposed to tilt your head down...." another muttered. "GUYS, GUYS I GOT IT. GOOGLE SAYS TO 'sit down and tilt your head forward, pinching the top part of your nose above the nostrils for like, 10 to 15 minutes.'" lev sat back proudly, phone in hand. "can't believe you were smart enough to look that up..." kenma whispered under his breath. "hey, hey, look at me. you still with us?" kuroo said, a hand on either side of your face. despite the towel against your nose, you couldn't help but laugh. "oh my god, guys! it's not like I'm dying! this happens all the time." "but that's not...normal. did you ever get it checked out?" kuroo stared at you inquisitively, his brow raised. his fellow teammates nodded. you sighed. "look, unless there's a lot of excessive gushing or anything like that, they said i should be okay. yes there's a whole disease behind it all with a long-ass name that no one can pronounce and yes there are sometimes other symptoms that could result in death, but I'm totally fine, okay? I'm perfectly healthy!" "you poor, fragile angel..." lev said, a hand on his chest, distraught. "that... does NOT make me feel more relieved. at all. in fact, I'm more worried. should we go to the hospital? that one looked a little... gush-y...." kuroo said, pacing back and forth before setting his eyes back on you. removing the towel from your nose, you shook your head. "no. look, bleeding nose already gone, see? I'm not going to the hospital. I'm completely fine. relax, kuroo." kuroo stared at you for another moment, taking in your expression, searching for any signs of discomfort. at last, he sighed. "ok. fine. I concede. but if you ever feel the littlest bit unwell, tell me or one of us, okay?" after your agreement, and several more minutes of doting from both your boyfriend and all the other team members, you at last parted ways. as you got out of the shower that night, your phone lit up with a notification. tetsu 💕 [11:23pm]: I'm serious about what I said back there. please talk to me when you aren't feeling good. you mean so much to me that I can't imagine what life would be like without you. sleep well, babe. love you.

✿ osamu miya "damn are you o-- OKAY, YEAH, NO. SHE'S NOT OKAY." it was your average day as a supportive, amazing, fantastic girlfriend watching your iconic, sexy, hot, caked-up boyfriend play volleyball with his piss-haired twin and the rest of the team of inarizaki. unfortunately for you (and the entire volleyball team), inarizaki had a recent issue with their air conditioning units. even more unfortunate was the fact that the fans in the gymnasium were practically there for decoration, that's how useless they were. despite it being late march (still quite cool outside), the players and spectators were drenched in sweat. still, you weren't about to let a little (lot) bit of sweat deter you from cheering for your mans! so, you remained in the stands, cheering as loudly as you could (except for the times when you couldn't because atsumu was once again on his I'm About To Serve Power Trip). it was finally nearing the end of the game, and thank GOD it was because you were starting to feel reaaalllly light-headed. at the final score of the match, you stood up, but oh, was that a mistake. suddenly, you legs started shaking. the lights suddenly seemed to dim down and black spots were popping up in your vision. maaaaybe you should sit back down. wait. where is "back down"? it suddenly occurred to you that at this point, you couldn't see anything. beginning to panic, you started reaching out to find something to hold onto, thankfully finding the stair railing of the bleachers in your grasp. slowly, you blindly fumbled your way down the steps of what you hoped were the bleachers steps. you heard someone shout something along the lines of, "you good?" you were far too panicked and far too focused to give a reply. don't fall down. don't fall down. don't faint. don't pass out. you chanted in your head like a mantra. you heard the squeak of shoes against the ground and voices talking back and forth around you when suddenly a steady hand grabbed ahold of you just above your elbow. guess that was all you needed before your consciousness flickered, then extinguished.

-

"....cold like ice...." "...pale as hell...." you could only hear snippets of sentences, and your eyelids felt heavy. "....have something....with sugar, preferably...." when you finally opened your eyes, you were no longer in the gym, but in inarizaki's nurse's office. "hey..." you turned, now noticing the other occupant of the otherwise empty room. "'samu... did I faint again?" his eyebrows rose. "again? like, you've done this before?" "yeah. happens a lot. 's fine though. was a little scary back there for a minute, though." "damn, I'll say. I've never seen someone so pale. and sweaty. and that's saying something, cuz post-practice 'tsumu is disgustingly moist." "'samu, I love you, but never say that fucking word again." "what, moist?" you cringed, grabbing at your ears, "ugh, yes! I'm already dying here and now you're nailing the final mark in the coffin." osamu gave his signature half-smile. "I thought you said you were fine?" you scoffed, "that was just to make you feel better. I'm gonna need lots of cuddles tonight to wave off my near-death experience." he let out a light-hearted laugh. "okay. plenty of that for you regardless of whether you're on death's door or not." he said, giving you a small peck. you pursed your lips. "I need you right now, though." his face split in a full grin as he slid next to you on the small bed. "anything for you darlin'."

✿ oikawa toru "please... please be okay..." you had been enjoying your regular weekday study session. it always went as follows: meet up after class, head off to aoba johsai's library, study (and perhaps get slightly off-topic over some vending machine snacks and drinks), and at last, go to volleyball practice (perks of being a manager!). "ok, ok, we should probably finally look at what we're supposed to know for our next english exam," oikawa said, still in between chuckles. "but toru... i can't go on without a drink..." you clutched your throat dramatically. "must... have.... beverage.... dying of.... thirst!" oikawa laughed again, "geez, fine!" he said, attempting to sound annoyed by your request (and failing miserably). "I'll go grab us something to drink. on me." he winked. "wow. what a gentleman. you really spare no expense, spoiling me with luxurious drinks from the beverage box of wonders! oh how lucky I am to have such a supportive boyfriend..." you leaned back on your chair, drying a fake tear of gratitude, while simultaneously stifling a giggle. "damn, ok. fork out the yen, then, babe." "nooooo~~~ I was kidding! I'm sorry you're the best ever in the whole wide world~~~ my little piglet oinkawa~" "ok now you're paying for my drink too." "I'm sorry!!!! I won't call you oinkawa ever again." "thank you-" "to your face." after at least 15 minutes of more bickering (and no studying) oikawa was off to the so-called beverage box of wonders, also known as a shitty-ass vending machine that was probably last refurbished in the '90s. oikawa was still laughing to himself as he rounded the corner to the library, drinks in his arms. "hey babe, are you finally studying?" he smirked, finally nearing your small alcoved study area.

- thud, thud. the long-forgotten drinks fell to the floor as oikawa rushed over to you. there you convulsed on the ground, your eyes white and pupil-less, and your mouth foaming, turning a slight twinge of pink. you let out small grunts, completely unresponsive. "oh my god, oh my god, hey, hey listen to me." oikawa was already in full-fledged panic mode, tapping your face with his hand. "oh my god, SOME PLEASE HELP HER!" the few left in the library looked over at oikawa, then at you, before beginning to run about. one was on their phone speaking to a 911 operator, another rushed out of the room. one kneeled alongside oikawa, checking helplessly for a pulse. "protect her head." a girl read out from her phone. oikawa immediately shed his jacket, placing it under your head which was hitting the ground rapidly to the incongruent rhythm of your convulsions. "check her bag, does she have any meds?" "SHE'S MY FUCKING GIRLFRIEND I THINK I'D KNOW IF SHE HAD MEDS!" oikawa shouted. he didn't mean to snap, but he felt so useless. were you hiding this from him? how did he not know you had seizures? were they always this bad? despite what he'd told the unnamed student, oikawa, jumped up, grabbing your bag and nearly ripping the zipper with the force he'd opened it with. no medication. "no meds." he said, quieter this time. a hand rested on his shoulder. "it's gonna be okay, man. look, she stopped." oikawa whipped his head over to you, chastising himself for removing his eyes from you for even a second. you were still breathing, but it was like you were in a deep slumber. by the time the EMTs arrived, however, you'd begun blinking your eyes lazily at your surroundings.

- "hey oikawa." you said, smiling. oikawa said nothing in return, his head in his hands. you sat there for a moment, taking in your surroundings. "wait a minute, where am i?" you felt a tickling inside your nose. at the touch of your hand, you realized you had a breathing tube hooked up you. another glance around the sterile hospital room showed your heart rate monitor and other cords wrapped up around the hospital bed. you laughed, "...and what's all this stuff on me?" "you had a seizure." oikawa said sharply, though not unkind. you stared at him once more in disbelief. "...really?" "yeah. I came back from getting our drinks when...when I found you lying on the ground, shaking. the doctor says you bit your tongue, which explains why the foam that was coming out of your mouth was pink. they want to do an MRI on you." "oh." you gazed down, then met his eyes again. "you... had to deal with that all by yourself?" "other people in the library helped me... though I don't think I was the nicest guy to be around. its sort of all of a blur." you smiled, "for me, too. I can barely remember what we were talking about before I woke up." oikawa's eyes widened, "really?" "yeah... but I think I'll be okay, as long as you're here." "this hasn't happened before, has it?" "no, not really. I mean, I've always gotten light-headed easily, which is sort of how I felt before I, ya know... went down... but never like that. I don't think. then again, if I wasn't here in a hospital bed, I think I would've just thought I fell asleep or something. it just feels like I took a long nap. still kind of tired, honestly." oikawa shook his head. "I'm never letting you out of my sight ever again." "oikawa, seriously. it's gonna be okay. I'm fine. nothing bad happened, right? I didn't die." "BUT YOU COULD'VE!" he shouted. "...you could've.." he said again in a whisper. suddenly, he got up. leaning over the hospital bed, he pressed his lips to your temple, leaving a soft kiss in its wake. "I just... I don't want to see you suffering. I don't want you to get hurt." "but you were there." "but what if I wasn't?" "but you were." you slid your hand over his own. "oikawa, it's gonna be okay, I promise. I'm a little scared, too, but... I know we'll figure something out, okay?" he let out a mix between a sigh and a laugh, "why does it feel like I was the one who had the seizure? some boyfriend I am, making you feel worse." "oikawa shush." you placed you index finger over his lips. "you're not allowed to talk about yourself in that way in my presence." he rolled his eyes, but his dimples popped out in a wary smile. "you're amazing, you know that?" you imitated deep-thought, your finger on your chin. "hmm... no, doesn't ring a bell." a full grin bloomed across his face now. "then I'll spend the rest of my life reminding you."

a/n: romanticize the source of your medical bills girlies 💕 it works wonders

[grandmother-goblin]

Dialogue Punctuation Cheat Sheet

This is just a friendly little guide on how to use punctuation in dialogue since (at least for me) this isn’t something that I was taught in school and had to learn on my own. That being said, I am not an expert! I don’t have an English degree or anything like that! I’m just an avid reader and writer and wanted to share what I have learned in a concise format.

A lot of this information is from “How to Write Dazzling Dialogue: The Fastest Way to Improve Any Manuscript” by James Scott Bell, “The Best Punctuation Book, Period” by June Casagrande, and “The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation” by Jane Straus, Lester Kaufman, and Tom Stern. If you’re able to get these books, I highly recommend them!

(Also, yes I used Disney quotes for most of my examples lol)

---

Rule 1: Dialogue punctuation includes the following:

Period

Comma

Question mark

Exclamation point

Em-dash

Ellipsis

All dialogue will include some sort of punctuation before the closing quotation. 

---

Rule 2: Punctuation goes inside the quotes.

Correct

“Do you want to build a snowman?” Anna asked.

Correct

“You can’t marry a man you just met,” Elsa said.

Incorrect

“Do you want to build a snowman”? Anna asked.

---

Rule 3: Don’t capitalize a pronoun used for dialogue attribution.

Correct

“I was hiding under your porch because I love you,” he said.

Incorrect

“I was hiding under your porch because I love you,” He said.

---

Rule 4: Capitalize for action beats.

Correct

“A llama? He’s supposed to be dead!” She slammed her fist on the table.

Incorrect 

“A llama? He’s supposed to be dead!” she slammed her fist on the table.

---

Rule 5: Use a comma when introducing a quotation, such as when dialogue attribution comes at the beginning. The first word of the dialogue is capitalized.

Correct

Scar leaned forward and said, “Run away, Simba.”

Incorrect

Scar leaned forward and said. “Run away, Simba.”

Incorrect

Scar leaned forward and said, “run away, Simba.”

---

Rule 6: Use single quotation marks for quotations within quotations. Punctuation goes inside both quotations (I’ve heard this can vary depending on country).

Correct

“My father said, ‘Everything the light touches is our kingdom.’”

Incorrect 

“My father said, ‘Everything the light touches is our kingdom’.”

---

Rule 7: If there are two or more sentences, the speaker attribution should be put before or after the first complete phrase.

Correct

Grandmother said, “Great. She brings home a sword. If you ask me, she should’ve brought home a man.”

Correct

“Great,” Grandmother said. “She brings home a sword. If you ask me, she should’ve brought home a man.”

Incorrect

“Great. She brings home a sword. If you ask me, she should’ve brought home a man,” Grandmother said.

(Note: This is a rule I break all the time, but I thought I would include it in this list anyway! Usually when the first sentence or two are very, very, short and go together, but they still need that “breath” of a dialogue tag in between. But it’s a good thing to be aware of!) 

---

Rule 8: Use commas to interrupt a complete sentence with a dialogue attribution. Don’t capitalize the next word after the comma. 

Correct

“Aren’t you,” Hercules said, “a damsel in distress?”

Incorrect

“Aren’t you,” Hercules said, “A damsel in distress?”

---

Rule 9: Use ellipses to illustrate a character trailing off, showing hesitation, or a pause.

“Aren’t you… a damsel in distress?”

---

Rule 10: Em-dashes can be used for interruptions, indicating simultaneous actions that do not cause an interruption, or a change in thought/tone. Don’t use dialogue attribution after an em-dash.

Another Person Interrupts

Correct

“He would never do anything to hurt me. He—”

Hades threw up his hands. “He’s a guy!”

Correct

Meg said, “He would never do anything to hurt me. He—”

Hades threw up his hands. “He’s a guy!”

Incorrect

“He would never do anything to hurt me. He—” Meg said.

Hades threw up his hands. “He’s a guy!”

Self Interruption

“I—” Hercules reached into his pocket and pulled out a small doll. “I’m an action figure!"

Simultaneous Action

“I am surrounded” — Scar dragged his paw over his face — “by idiots.” 

Change In Thought/Tone

“It’s not that you’re awkward. I’m awkward. You’re gorgeous — wait, what?”

---

Other Notes (these might just be my personal preferences, feel free to ignore)

Don’t use semi-colons in dialogue. Use a period instead.

Use exclamation points sparingly. Extremely sparingly. Maybe once per 10k words or even less.

After using an ellipsis, saying “he/she trailed off” is redundant. Just skip to the next action. The ellipsis already implies someone trailed off.

New speaker (or character action that serves as a response) = New paragraph.

“Said” should be your most commonly used dialogue tag. Any dialogue tag other than “said” or “asked” will stick out to the reader, and should be used sparingly.

If there is anything I missed, got wrong, or should add, PLEASE KINDLY LET ME KNOW! Again, I don’t have an English degree, I’m not a professional, and I’m actually a bit of a pea-brain, but these are the general rules that I know of and follow in my writing.

[bruh-changbin]

patience is a virtue

part 3 to invasion of privacy series

pairing: roommate!heeseung x afab reader

genre: smut, angst, minimal fluff (minors dni)

warnings: unprotected sex (be safe), use of the pull out method (do not do this), piv, tit sucking, nipple play, mutual masturbation, some indecent public acts, mentions of vomit, alcolohol consumption, heeseung is so bad at communicating it is actually physically painful, jake is still annoying and hoon is a film bro oh god

word count: 8.6k

a/n: pls don't gut me ik this took forever but i hope its worth it at least lawl enjoy yourselves (but not too much......) also someone needs to take ellipses away from me. also not proofread

read part 1 and part 2 first or else this won't make a ton of sense

[shithead]: you guys wanna come to the cave to play smash? i got some more of that indica and jay finally cleaned his bong 🙄

[grandfather]: come on dude it wasn’t even that dirty

[cullen tease]:..... no comment

[cullen tease]: but yea i’m down

[grandfather]: what about heeseung?

[shithead]: idk… it’s just been radio silence from him for like 3 days

[cullen tease]: yea what happened to him?

[grandfather]: well the last time we talked to him was right before he hung out with y/n sooo

[shithead]: no way

[shithead]: do you think she fucked him so hard he passed out for three whole days?

[cullen tease]: shut the fuck up jaeyun

[shithead]: i’m just saying!!! if i had a hot roommate like that i would gladly let her destroy me

[cullen tease]: that’s because you’re a man whore

[grandfather]: come on guys cut it out, you know how heeseung tends to get

[grandfather]: emotional

[cullen tease]: that’s the understatement of the year

[shithead]: wait what if…….

[shithead]: she killed him

[grandfather]: you’re an idiot

[shithead]: it’s a possibility! what if it’s like a jennifer’s body type situation

[cullen tease]: hold up, you’ve seen jennifer’s body?

[shithead]: duh… it has megan fox in it

[grandfather]: okay let's not stray from the situation at hand

[shithead]: wait hoon why is it so surprising that i’ve seen jennifer’s body?

[cullen tease]: i just didn’t peg you as the type of guy to enjoy films like that

[shithead]: what the fuck does that mean

[grandfather]: guys

[cullen tease]: dude come on, your favourite movie is grown ups 2

[shithead]: what’s wrong with grown ups 2? 

[cullen tease]: what’s wrong with it is that it’s trash

[shithead]: are you fr? it is a cinematic masterpiece and i don’t appreciate you acting all high and mighty because you’re a fucking film major who likes boring and sad movies like the godfather or whatever

[grandfather]: can you two shut the fuck up? we need to figure out what’s going on with hee

[adult virgin]: i’m not dead

[cullen tease]: heeseung!

[grandfather]: heeseung!

[shithead]: heeseung! you’re alive!!!

[grandfather]: how you doin’ buddy?

[shithead]: yea what went down with you and sexy roomie at the drive-in? i just know the two of you got up to some freaky shit

[grandfather]: jaeyun i swear to god

[adult virgin]: i don’t wanna talk about it

[cullen tease]: uh oh

[shithead]: oh shit

[grandfather]: oh jeez

[shithead]: jay you question why we call you grandfather when you say shit like ‘oh jeez’

[grandfather]: now’s not the time jake

[cullen tease]: come on heeseung, i’m sure it wasn’t that bad

[adult virgin]: i’m never going on a date again

[shithead]: wait i thought you said it wasn’t a date???

[grandfather]: jake you are one text away from getting kicked out of this group chat

[cullen tease]: i say we kick him out now

[adult virgin]: can you guys please stop blowing up my phone? 

[shithead]: no can do my friend

[shithead]: it’s time for an intervention

[adult virgin]: i’m good

[adult virgin]: the last thing i need right now is you guys screaming at me while i’m trying to cope

[shithead]: too late, jay’s already got the car running. i’m bringing weed!

[cullen tease]: i’ll bring the funyuns

[shithead]: see you soon hee!

[adult virgin]: guys fr i just wanna be alone

[adult virgin]: guys?

bang bang bang!!!

heeseung recoils when he hears his friends banging on his front door a mere 11 minutes after they said they were coming; a mere 11 minutes after he explicitly told them not to. he recoils even more when he hears you open the door for them. 

“oh, hey y/n…” jay does nothing to try to hide his discontent when he sees you open the door and not his heartbroken friend. 

jake, who’s lowkey wanted to bang you since heeseung first moved in with you, pays no mind to his friend's wariness and envelops you in a rib-crushing hug whilst shouting “i haven’t seen you in forever!!!!!”

“hey guys!” you say with a soft smile before patting jake on the shoulder in an attempt to let him know that he’s stealing all of your oxygen, “come in, can i get you anything?”

jay just scoffs, “no thanks y/n, we don’t need anything from you.”

a somewhat puzzled look makes its way onto your face, “ok… well heeseungs in his room if that’s what you’re here for.” you nonchalantly motion down the hall before returning to the kitchen, leaving the three boys alone in the foyer. 

“damn jay, you could’ve been a little nicer. we still don’t know what even went down between them, remember?” sunghoon murmurs while leading the way to heeseungs bedroom. 

“i guess we’re about to find out,” jay holds his breath before tentatively knocking on heeseungs door before opening it and stepping inside.

when heeseung sees his friends open his door and step into his room, he rolls over so his back is facing them. he thought he was very clear that he is not in the mood to talk. nevertheless, the three of them stride into his room like a boy band and close the door behind them. heeseung hopes they pay no mind to the piles and piles of bunched up kleenex littering his room that are all shrivelled up from his tears.  

“heeeyyy buddy!” jay croons to his dishevelled friend as if he’s talking to a puppy or small child. 

“damnnnn hee, that must’ve been some good pussy if it’s got you acting like this!!!” jake exclaims, which earns him an elbow in the ribs. 

“didn’t i tell you guys not to come? i’m trying to latibulate in peace,” heeseung groans, his voice so monotonous and strained it sounds almost robotic.  

“come on, you didn’t seriously think we were gonna listen to you, right?” sunghoon says matter-of-factly, his ebony bangs covering his eyes and making him look eerily mysterious. 

heeseung just sighs. he feels his mattress shift underneath him and looks over to see that jay has taken a seat on the edge of his bed, his eyes full of what appears to be mostly concern, some disgust as he swipes a couple of dirty tissues onto the floor (he tries to cover this up with a crooked smile).

“sooo what happened?” jake breaks the silence and asks the question that’s sitting on the tip of everyone’s tongue. heeseung, now in a seated position, places his head between his knees and does his best to swallow his shame before retelling the event that took place a few days prior. 

“well, we went to the drive-in…” he starts, voice muffled due to his head hanging low, “and at first it was fine, but then… an… intimate scene came on.” 

sunghoon hangs his head at this, seemingly knowing where the story is going. 

heeseung can’t bare to look at his friends faces as he proceeds, his cheeks ablaze with embarrassment as he recounts his unintentional virginity reveal, the two of you freaking it whilst surrounded by other movie goers, and the painful, painful silence that enveloped him for the rest of the night. 

“and then she just… didn’t say anything. why the fuck didn’t she say anything???!!!!” he whines, his tone a complete 180 from what it was when he first spoke to his friends a short 3 minutes ago.

seemingly at a loss for words, jay just rests his hand on his friends shoulder, offering a gentle pat while sunghoon mumbles a quiet but heart-felt ‘beats me’ from where he’s leaning against heeseungs wall. 

“females are so difficult to understand.”

“don’t say females jake, it makes you sound like an incel,” sunghoon suspires, the frayed ends of his hair fluttering in the process, “maybe she just thought you wanted to get it over with? or that you wanted something casual?”

“i don’t do casual.”

“okay, and how the fuck is she supposed to know that?” sunghoon retorts, defending you since you’re unable to defend yourself - jake subtly nods in agreeance. 

“i don’t know! she’s way more emotionally intelligent than all of us combined so i thought that maybe she’d… pick up on it or something.” heeseung feels his energy depleting and he longs to simply curl up under his duvet and sleep the rest of the day away - or maybe the whole week actually. 

“heeseung,” jay sympathizes, “we know you like y/n… but maybe it's just not gonna work out.”

jake interjects, “yea, and if she can’t see what an absolute package you are right now then maybe she never will! it’s her loss really,” he nods enthusiastically while looking at jay and sunghoon, prompting them to do the same - they do.

heeseung, with swollen cheeks and a bruised heart, can only offer a quiet “thanks guys” while wishing for the tears threatening to spill from the corners of his eyes to go away. he knows that moving on from you, whilst being extremely difficult, is the best thing to do.

after heeseungs feeble thanks, the room falls silent. so silent only that the hum of the a/c is the only detectable sound - that, and the steady inhales and exhales of the 4 boys trapped in heeseungs stuffy bedroom. someone exhales before the shuffling of feet and the creaking of floorboards can be heard. heeseung hardly has any time to react before something (or someone?) is flying through the air and is on track to land directly on top of him.

“DOG PILE ON HEESEUNG!!!” jake shouts while full-on launching himself onto heeseungs body, effectively squashing him into his mattress. the weight of his friend knocks the wind out of him and heeseung barely manages to croak “jaeyun what the fuc-” before the weight is doubled, then tripled as sunghoon and jay follow suit.

it’s hard to tell whose limbs belong to who as heeseungs friends tussle his hair and squeeze his cheeks (and crush his rib cage, but that’s besides the point) in an attempt to get their glum, heartbroken friend to cheer up. and, for the first time in days, a smile appears on heeseungs face.

order confirmed. you will be updated when your food is en route for delivery.

as if on cue, heeseung’s stomach lets out a cavernous growl. he pats it comfortingly as if to say ‘it’s ok, soon you’ll be filled to the brim with an ice cold baja blast and 2 crunch wrap supremes. just hold on a little longer.’

nothing quite like eating away all of your sorrows.

it’s easy to forget how pivotal a kitchen is in one’s everyday life until it’s stripped away from you like a baby from its mother. ok, maybe not stripped away. more like consciously avoiding it to make sure that you don’t have an awkward run in with your roommate who performed oral sex on you several days ago and is now sending you mixed signals. the thought of having to hold an actual conversation with you makes heeseungs skin crawl. 

he’s been successfully avoiding you for 4 days now, ensuring that he only leaves his room when absolutely necessary - and only doing so when he’s positive that you’re in your room or out of the house. before exiting his bedroom he spends minutes with his ear pressed up to his flimsy bedroom door, making sure the coast is clear before making a break for it.

one may think he’s being extra. just talk to her for crying out loud! but heeseung has managed to convince himself that you think he’s bottom of the barrel scum; the last piece of bread that always gets tossed; the mosquito on your wall that you whack with a rolled up newspaper as soon as you see it.

trash! 

and so, he spends his days rotting away in his bedroom, his mattress now donning a permanent indent of the shape of his body; his trash can overflowing with wrappers from taco bell and mcdonalds; his laptop struggling to keep up with all of the mind-numbing streaming of shitty television he’s been doing. 

one time he gave into his hopeless romantic side and watched the notebook but it made him cry so hard he woke up with a migraine. another time he got an ad for top gun: maverick and he wanted to die. stupid top gun. stupid tom cruise. stupid miles teller with his stupid moustache. now, he sticks to scrolling through tik tok and watching reruns of below deck sailing yacht and survivor. 

he can feel his eyes starting to get heavy when a vibration from his phone jolts him back to reality, scrambling to find the device that he so mindlessly tossed underneath his comforter. his fingers finally come in contact with it, and he peers at the lit-up screen.

your food has been delivered. receipt/tip available.

yes! it feels as if his stomach has been quite literally eating itself for the past half hour, so heeseung leaps up at the prospect of soon having food in his belly. in fact he’s so excited at the idea of his taco bell order waiting for him that the thought of doing his ritualistic check to make sure he won’t have a run-in with you completely slips his mind.

so, when he swings open his door and bolts down the hallway, head filled with nothing but thoughts of chowing down on a tortilla filled with meat, lettuce and cheese, his heart practically falls to his stomach when instead he almost literally runs into you. you, holding a glass of water with your eyes wide like a fawn, taking in heeseungs dishevelled appearance after not seeing him for over half a week. 

shit. 

shitshitshitshitshitshit.

this was not supposed to happen. 

“heeseung!” you say with enthusiasm (and a bit of concern).

it is in this very moment that heeseung fully understands what a deer must feel like when falling in front of the headlights of an oncoming vehicle - frozen.

“uh…. heeey y/n.” his throat feels like it’s about to close. is he having an allergic reaction to you? 

seeing as plan a (get his food and go back to his room while avoiding you all together) has fallen through, he attempts to resort to plan b: grab taco bell bag and run like hell back to the safety of his bedroom. 

unfortunately plan b also falls through, for once he worms himself to the front door and grabs the slightly warm paper bag and drink left on his porch he whips around only to see you standing in front of him, blocking his path to the safe haven that is his musty bedroom, (he’s reminded of admiral ackbar in episode vi of star wars - ‘it’s a trap!!!’).

“wait, can we talk?” your face is one of disquietude, “i feel like you’ve been… avoiding me.”

upon hearing your concerns, heeseung does what he’s best at - playing dumb. 

“i don’t know what you’re talking about.”

your face quickly changes, brows furrowed and eyes slightly squinted as if to say ‘are you shitting me?’. in a split second it seems as if you’re able to read heeseung like an open book, much to his dismay, before you open your mouth to speak again. 

“did… did what i do at the drive-in make you uncomfortable?”

“no…” more like what you didn’t do - profess your undying love and devotion to him with tears in your eyes while he reassures you that he feels the same way and the two of you ride off into the sunset on a horse and start a new life in venice or kyoto or somewhere romantic and secluded.  

“okay, so then why are you acting so weird?”

“i’m… stressed. sooo stressed. classes are killing me and i have a huge paper due soon.” liar. he’s excelling in all of his classes and doesn’t have anything due for another 5 days.

“oh, well what’s it about? maybe i can help you!” you offer while taking a step towards him. usually his heart would be leaping at the prospect of the two of you having some one on one time even if it is for a class, but right now that’s the last thing he needs. 

“it’s about….. shakespeare.”

“shakespeare? i thought you were an engineering major-”

“it’s an elective. i’m very interested in classical literature.” no he’s not. 

“oh, nice. hey why are you talking so weirdly? you sound like siri when i ask her a question.”

that’s it. he needs to get out of this conversation before he raises any more suspicion. 

“i’m way deep into the academic headspace. speaking of,” he motions towards his bedroom door with his index finger, “i need to get back to work.” more like he needs to wallow in his own self-pity. 

“wait, can we talk more? i still feel like you’re not telling me something,” you say while looking like a kicked puppy, and heeseung tries to not fall into your glassy, pleading gaze.

“it’s fine y/n, i get it.” he thinks you’re the light of his life and you think of him as your loser roommate who was all whiny about being a virgin so you did what you needed to do to shut him up. case closed. 

“get… what?”

heeseung doesn’t respond, doesn’t give you the time of day. he simply exits the kitchen and closes his bedroom door behind him. he spares no final glance behind him because he knows the sight of you standing there with a hurt and perplexed look on your face will have him crawling back to you on his hands and knees. 

instead, he shuffles into bed and tries to focus on whatever he was watching on his laptop prior to the most painful conversation he’s ever had in his entire life, his now tepid crunch wrap sitting in his limp grasp. 

salty crocodile tears start rolling down his cheeks for the nth time this week. 

“i am gonna get sooo many bitches tonight.”

“you shouldn’t call women bitches jake, that’s rude.”

pre-gaming in the cave before going out is a must. the four guys play a couple rounds of pong and flip cup while jay and jake chug putrid pilsner’s and pabst blue ribbons while sunghoon and heeseung opt for a much more tame rum and coke. 

tonight he’s being dragged to a place he seldom ventures: a club.

heeseung doesn’t really like clubs.

he prefers bars where he can sit and drink and talk to his friends instead of clubs where he has to (attempt to) dance and drink and shout over the blasting music to communicate with anyone. alas, jake was adamant on going to this one particular place downtown where apparently he got with 3 different girls in one night (everyone knows that’s definitely not true, but they continue to humour him). 

furthermore, his friends have decided that the financial blow of cover fees and shots at a club is worth getting heeseung up and out of his frowsty bedroom that has somewhat turned into something you would see on an episode of hoarders, so tonight’s outing will be free (for him at least). 

“okay hee,” jake grabs his friend by the shoulders and shakes him aggressively, as if they’re two football players about to head onto the field, “gimme the game plan for tonight broski.”

“i’m gonna forget about y/n, and i’m gonna find a pretty girl,” heeseung says in the most sportsmanlike manner he can conjure up, “and i’m gonna fu…… i’m gonna make love to her.”

jake simply shakes his head in dismay, “no heeseung, you’re gonna fuck her. got it? go ahead, say it.”

“i’m gonna…” his neck feels like it’s flaring up, “i can’t say it, it feels rude and misogynistic.” 

“dude, girls like to get fucked. they think it’s hot!!! now say ‘fuck’,” jake attests before staring at heeseung expectantly. 

“okay………………. fuck.”

“hell yea bro! fuck!” jay joins in while clapping heeseung on the back in support. 

“yea, fuck!!!”

“FUCK!!!!!!” sunghoon joins as well. 

“FUUUUUUCK!!!” heeseung screams. the liquor in his bloodstream, while not copious, is making him feel fuzzy.

and finally, jake closes it out with, “LETS GO FUCK SHIT UP BROS!!!!!!” before storming out of the door with sunghoon following suit.

jay swings a beefy arm around heeseungs blocky shoulders and drags him along, the two of them soon catching up to hoon and jake who are whooping and hollering about god knows what. in the back of heeseungs mind he wonders what he’s gotten himself into.

immediately upon arrival heeseung is reminded once again of his detestment for clubs. they’re too loud and ho, and impersonal.

the floors and walls are shaking with some throwback early 2000’s pop song and after about 10 seconds the soles of his shoes are already covered in sticky syrup from spilled drinks. he follows his friends into the sea of people trying to get drunk or trying to get laid or both.

in the midst of the crowd he brushes shoulders with a guy he swears he’s seen before, a tall brute guy with blonde hair tied into a man bun and a red flannel hugging his shoulders (who wears a flannel to a club?), but he can’t quite remember when and where they’ve crossed paths before. 

as sunghoon shoulders his way to the bar to order a round of tequila shots, heeseung stays planted to his spot on the floor, his eyes scanning his surroundings and taking everything in to the best of his abilities considering that purple and blue LED lights are painting everyone and everything within the establishment. 

his eyes make their way from the bar to the dance floor to a section of stand-up tables, where he finds a pretty girl in leather pants and a cheetah print corset top staring right back at him. when their gaze’s connect she flashes him a small smile, which he returns.

“jake,” heeseung smacks his friend’s shoulder, “that girl won’t stop staring at me.”

“see hee! we told you you’d pull someone.”

he smirks, then panics, “what should i do?”

“what’s going on?” sunghoon turns around with four shooters balanced between his spindly ple fingers, each one filled with a menacing clear liquor that will ultimately decide his fate this evening. you’re not you when you’re sober but you’re you when you’re drunk!

jake grabs a shot greedily, like a leprechaun stumbling upon a pot of gold, “some chick is ogling at hee.”

sunghoon’s lip curls upwards, “lets go dawg!” he cheers while passing heeseung a shot as if it's a reward for receiving attention from a woman. 

heeseung stares at the tequila in the glass he’s holding with his thumb and index finger; it stares back at him. in one swift move he downs it, then does the same with jake’s, jay’s, and finally sunghoon’s, who all stare at him in disbelief. he tries his best to not make a sour face, but he can’t hold back the deep cough that leaps out of him as the tequila burns his throat on its way down his esophagus and into his stomach.

“wow, okay.” jay says in astonishment, which prompts him to start laughing; everyone else begins to laugh as well, including heeseung. 

“go talk to her shithead!” jake exclaims while shoving heeseung towards the mystery girl and her friends with much more force than necessary, making him stumble over his own feet much like bambi attempting to walk for the first time. 

when he’s close enough he flashes her a toothy grin, his eyes trained on hers; her pupils look like deep pools of ink in the scarcity of good lighting. she just looks at him, a pretty smile painted on her face that pushes the apples of her cheeks to the sky. 

“hey.”

“hi~”

“i’m heeseung.”

“okay heeseung, wanna dance?”

“uh sure!” he exclaims, albeit maybe a little too much excitement in his inflection. 

the cheetah girl doesn’t say anything, just grabs his hand by the wrist (and thank god his wrist because his palms are embarrassingly sweaty) and drags him in the general direction of the dance floor. before he becomes completely swallowed by the mass of swaying bodies, he catches sunghoon and jay giving him a thumbs up from across the room - jake is too busy making out with someone to do the same. 

heeseung feels the fabric of his shirt sticking to his chest and lower back as he gets mixed up with the plethora of other sweaty bodies, trying to move in a sensual yet confident way that hopefully impresses the pretty girl he’s praying he’ll go home with. with his nose tucked into the crook of her neck he rocks his body against hers to the beat of the music, his pelvis bumping against her ass methodically.

“you’re so cute!” she squeals at his awkward attempt to grind up on her.

dear god. when oh when will he ever the patronizing, dehumanizing, emasculating label of ‘cute’? cute is what you say when you see a nest of baby bunnies, or an elderly couple on a date. heeseung is a grown man, he should be called handsome, statuesque, sexy even!!!

nevertheless, heeseung attempts to not let cheetah girl’s comment sour his mood. she’ll see how manly he really is, he’ll show her. in fact he’ll show her right now!

in this very moment he discovers why alcohol has been gifted the name of liquid courage since before he can even process what he’s doing he’s pulling cheetah girl out of the stuffy crowd of inebriated club goers, dragging her to an empty bathroom stall, and placing his tequila coated lips on hers. 

she immediately reciprocates, because why else would she be giving him bedroom eyes across a crowded club if she didn’t want something along this vein to occur? despite being a virgin (? does getting your dick suck count as a loss of virginity?), he has made out with multiple girls on multiple different occasions prior to this one, so he lets his mouth and tongue and hands act on their own accord. 

it feels as if his brain is swimming inside of his skull, making all of his senses blurred and fuzzy like tv static. he feels a pair of teeth sinking into his bottom teeth and he groans, his eyes squeezing shut impossibly tighter and his fingers digging into cheetah girl’s hips. she emits and airy moan in response, allowing heeseung to slot his tongue against hers - he tastes the vodka mixed with cranberry juice she was drinking when he approached her on the inside of her mouth.

the tip of his nose continuously bumps against hers as he sloppy sucks on her tongue and her teeth, his lips soon detaching to make their way across her jaw and down her neck. there he sinks his canines into her skin, causing her to hiss in both pleasure and pain before exhaling blissfully, her hot breath fanning across heeseung face as he reverts to kissing her on the mouth once again. 

from the dj booth he hears the intro of a song that has his eyes shooting open - baby one more time by britney spears. the song that you alway play when you’re getting ready to go out, the song he chose to play during the car ride to the drive-in. he feels a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he thinks about the way you touched him that night, the way you wrapped your hand and lips around his cock without a second thought. his jaw slacks and his hands fall to his sides as his brain starts to move at a million miles per hour.

a mouth that’s not yours is pressed against his while a tongue that’s not yours slips inside and traces his teeth. heeseung can hear his pulse in his ears beating faster than the bass that vibrates the floors and the walls and the ceiling of the club that he now so desperately wishes he wasn’t in. a hand that isn’t yours pops the button of his jeans and slips past the waistband of his underwear. all he can think is how this feels so not… right. none of this is right!

without properly thinking he somewhat shoves the pretty but unknown girl off of him, prompting her to shout “what the fuck asshole??!!?” before storming out of the stall and off to find her friends to undoubtedly complain about what a selfish prick he is. but honestly, he doesn’t care. all he can think about is you and your touch and everything you encompass. 

with a considerable amount of shoving heeseung makes his way outside, paying no mind to the select people that shoot him dirty looks after getting elbowed in the side. too inebriated to consider ordering an uber or calling a cab, he begins the 20 minute trek back to his apartment where he’s praying that you’re still residing, likely settled in your bed reading a book or watching season 2 of the bear. the cool night air stings his lungs as he trips and stumbles on the concrete with every other step he takes on his way back home, his way back to you. 

being outside does absolutely nothing to sober heeseung up (especially considering that he downed 4 tequila shots not so long ago), and when the familiar front door of your shared rental house comes into view he practically runs to it, swinging it open and letting it bang against the wall before calling your name and jogging down the hallway. his shoes clomp against the hardwood floors as he approaches your door, the soft yellow glow emanating from underneath it the only source of light in the dark hallway.  

“y/n?” heeseung barges into your bedroom, almost ripping your door off of its hinges in the process. once inside he sees you perched on your bed, your sheets pulled over your bent knees and a book with a splotchy blue cover in your grasp. 

“what are you doing?” he questions you breathlessly. 

your glance shifts from heeseung to the open book in your hands then back to heeseung, “reading?”

“oh, duh,” he pretends to facepalm while chuckling, your eyes still trained on his with a glint of scepticism. the gravity of his situation starts to dawn on him and he braces himself against your doorframe in an attempt to get the floor to stop spinning.

you furrow your brows and stare at heeseung pointedly, “are you drunk?”

“a little,” he hiccups, “actually a lot, but that’s besides the point.” finally he feels the courage he had 20 minutes ago at the club surge through him once more and he stumbles into your room, stopping at the corner of your bed and gazing down on you like you’re an ant.

“i have to tell you something.”

“okay.”

silence. 

“...what do you wanna tell me?”

“oh, right.” come on heeseung, it’s now or never. he decides to take a seat on the edge of your bed so he’s looking directly at you, and he picks at the holes in his jeans as he ponders how to start. 

“uhh… i really like the way you fold the dish towels in the kitchen.”

a look of shock makes its way onto your face - you definitely weren’t expecting him to say that of all things. before you can utter a word, a sound even, heeseung starts to ramble.

“and you smell really nice. like, really nice. and i think you’re really pretty, e-even when you’re angry, like when i wake you up to ask for a ride to campus when i’ve missed the bus. and i like how you chew on the inside of your cheek when you’re focused, and how you ruffle my hair when i say something stupid… which is a lot.”

he pauses briefly to catch his breath, then continues on, “and i don’t let anyone eat my lucky charms except for you, n-not even my friends when they spend the night, because i know they remind you of being a kid and that you like to pick out the clover shaped marshmallows. and i like the way you draw smiley faces in the condensation on the mirror in the bathroom after you shower, and the way you exclusively listen to stevie nicks when you’re cleaning, an-”

“heeseung,” you interject, causing him to draw in a shaky inhale, “what are you trying to say?”

“what i’m trying to say is that i lo-” nope!!!!!! waaay too soon. luckily even drunk heeseung can recognize the damage an actual profession of love would cause. thank god he caught himself. 

“i really really like you, ok? and i feel like you just see me as a-” here come the waterworks, “as a looooserrrrrrrr,” try as he might, heeseung can’t stop the pathetic, drunken sobs that escape his trembling lips. 

“oh god, heeseung-” your feeble voice does little to drown out the wails emanating from the drunken boy perched on the corner of your bed, his hair a mess and his cheeks flushed pink; you’re unsure if it’s from the alcohol or the crying. 

half a week of pent up confusion and sadness and heartbreak escapes him in the form of reverberating howls, his shoulders shaking even after you place a comforting hand on his back in an attempt to calm him down. 

“and when you did… that at the drive-in, i thought that maybe meant that you liked me too.” he sniffles before wiping his nose with his sleeve; you reach over to your night stand and hand him a tissue. 

“oh jesus, i’m so sorry hee i didn’t mean to confuse you i just-” you take a second to collect your thoughts, your thumb still caressing heeseungs backs through his shirt, “the way you were talking just made it seem like you just wanted to get it over with,” your hand doesn’t leave his back, “like, no strings attached, you know?”

“no… not no strings attached. i want strings attached. i want exclusivity. i want you.” his tears roll down to his mouth and he can taste the salt on his tongue. 

“heeseung…” you all but whisper, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. 

he wants to say more, only when he tries to formulate his thoughts into words, he finds himself yaking all over your floor before passing out.

pain. 

the first thing heeseung feels when he wakes up is pain.

not mental pain, which is what he’s felt for the past 5 days, but physical pain. an aching headache that shoots up from the base of his skull and wraps around to his forehead and flares at the back of his eyeballs. it’s settled, he is never touching alcohol ever again.

an acidic burn tickles his throat, and soon the memories from last night come flooding back to him. the cheetah girl at the club, the solemn and unsobering walk home, the drunken confession, and lastly, the puking. 

he cracks his eyes open and immediately recoils, for the golden glow of the morning sun increases the aching in his head and behind his eyes tenfold. jesus, what time is it? a couple of blinks help his eyes adjust to the light, and he becomes aware of the figure sitting to the right of him. in a split second he soon realizes that he’s in your room, tucked under your sheets, inhaling the scent of your shampoo that’s become permanently woven into your pillows. 

oh? oh. oh god. did you two….?

heeseungs restlessness draws your attention, and soon you're gazing down at him with a soft expression that makes heeseung feel all soft like honey. 

“hey sleeping beauty.” you tease, your eyes still puffy with traces of sleep and the book you were reading before he oh so rudely interrupted you last night is in your hands again - a well-loved copy of murakami’s kafka on the shore, which you place on your nightstand for the sake of passing heeseung a tall glass of water and an advil. he downs both immediately. 

“please tell me that the image i have of myself puking on your floor is something my brain conjured up while i was sleeping and not something that actually happened,” he rasps, throat stinging and nose stuffy.

“hate to break it to ya buddy,” you tsk while nodding sympathetically, “but that actually happened.”

heeseung shoves his head into your pillow, his thumbs pressing against his closed eyelids both in an attempt to relieve the ache and as an act of shame. he groans aloud, “oh god y/n i am so sorry, i-”

“heeseung it’s o-kay,” you punctuate, “shit happens.” 

still unable to look at you, heeseung just nods, the friction from your silk pillowcase making a couple strands of his hair stand on end. 

“besides, it was mostly clear,” you look off into the distance, “mostly.”

a second of quiet, and then you ask him, “how much of last night do you remember?”

he rolls onto his back, index and middle fingers of his right hand pinching the bridge of his nose, “most of it, it guess. i remember going out with my friends, stumbling back here and… telling you that i like you…”

“actually i believe you said that you really, really like me.” your sleep swollen lips curve into a teasing smirk. 

“fuck off,” he jeers while playfully pushing your shoulder. 

“woah!!! lee heeseung drops f-bombs now eh?”

he just chuckles, his hands moving to pass through his frazzled hair. as he shifts under your poofy comforter he realizes he’s still donning the clothes he wore last night - spare for his shoes, which he’s assuming you took off of him and likely put them on the shoe rack by the front door. 

a silence settles over the two of you, but this time it’s comfortable. it’s not estranged or pointed, but hospitable. 

“i didn’t know you felt that way about me.” you state. it’s not a positive or negative statement, simply neutral; an admission. 

heeseung doesn’t say anything, just gazes at your side profile and admires the way your eyelashes grace the tops of your cheeks, the way your top lip converges at your cupids bow, the way your cheekbones are dotted with blemishes. 

“can i kiss you?” he asks, “please?” 

a plea.

and, in your secluded bedroom on this bright saturday morning, you answer him by pressing your lips to his. 

it’s strange, since heeseung can’t seem to discern any actual sensations, he just feels incredibly warm. warm and soft, like taffy that’s been left out and has melted in the glow of the sun. his heart is flipping inside of the cage that is his ribs as he pushes his pursed lips against yours in reciprocation.

you detach your lips from his for a second only to reattach them moments later in a deeper, more passionate kiss that heeseung exhales into, the tip of his nose gracing yours as he tilts his head to sink impossibly deeper into you. his curious hands make their way up to the back of your neck where he grabs ahold and pulls you against him so your torso is on top of his own, your heart beating against his. 

underneath the confines of your comforter heeseung feels your leg glide against his own, the sheets crinkling and tangling in the process. his mouth continues to dance against yours with his tongue experimentally poking out every so often before he pushes it past your lips and into your hot mouth. a whimper makes its way out of you and heeseung swears that if he were standing his knees surely would’ve given out from underneath him. 

“heeseung…” you whine before nipping at his cushiony bottom lip, sucking at it to soothe the sting - and to make heeseung swoon even more. ugh! he just can’t get enough of you and your sickeningly sweet demeanour.

as you continue to kiss and suck at heeseung pouty lips and perfect teeth you become more and more restless, your hands moving to smooth over the expanse of his chest and the tops of his shoulders where they come to rest. the palms of your hands are soft and delicate and they send a shiver down heeseung’s spine as he feels them grace his cloth covered skin that’s slightly damp with sweat. 

with (what seems like) some reluctance, you remove your mouth from heeseung’s with a wet smack. when he cracks open his eyes he finds you beholding him wistfully, your pupils dilated and lips swollen and glossy with lip gloss of his own making. 

“can you show me how you get yourself off?”

your voice is deep and slow; sultry, like a glass of oxblood coloured cabernet sauvignon. his breath hitches in his throat once he fully registers the request you just made. show you? on his own??? he does his best to swallow his nerves. 

“sure,” heeseung agrees bashfully, “if you can do the same.”

“okay.” you smile before tossing the blankets off of both of your hot bodies. a much welcomed gust of cool air causes heeseung to erupt in a fit of goosebumps (although he’s not quite sure if that’s from the change in temperature or his current predicament). 

unsure of what to do next, he waits to follow your lead. with hungry eyes he watches you pull of your pyjama bottoms before tossing them in a heap on the floor, leaving you in a pair of plain light blue panties and an oversized band tee. in somewhat of a rush heeseung fumbles with the hardware of his jeans, struggling to pop the button and tug down the copper zipper at the fault of his nerves. eventually he does so successfully, discarding his bottoms before becoming stuck in limbo.

with deft fingers you begin to drag the hem of your shirt upwards, exposing more and more of your torso before stopping once you reach your sternum. the soft underside of your breasts are just barely peeking out from underneath the fabric. 

heeseung watches with wide eyes and a painfully hard cock as you slip your hand underneath the waistband of your panties in one swift motion, a motion that he’s sure you’ve done hundreds of times before this. his brain swims as he thinks about all of the times you’ve touched yourself in this very room, in this very bed. 

your knuckles strain and push at the fabric of your underwear as you play with yourself, your chest rising and falling steadily but with slightly more erraticism than before. heeseung follows in your footsteps and reaches to the thick elastic waistband of his boxers, hesitating for only a second before pushing the garment down to his hips, allowing his hard cock to slap against his tense stomach. he spits in his palm before wrapping his hand around the base of his shaft, giving it a few tentative strokes and watching the way his stomach spasms. 

“i don’t think i said this before,” you purr, “but you have a really nice cock heeseung.”

your admittance has heeseung overheating, his cheeks and chest flushing a pretty shade of pink. his stomach twists and churns and he slowly starts to jerk himself knowing that you’re watching his every move, like a vulture stalking its pretty. to distract himself from his own ministrations heeseung looks at you, his gaze travelling from your hand in your panties to your chest to your face where he finds you staring back at him, causing him to quickly look away out of sheer embarrassment of being caught. 

“what do you think about when you touch yourself?”

you. obviously. 

but he doesn’t say that. 

he just remains quiet, his eyes darting from place to place  but of course, no answer does not satiate your appetite for knowledge, so you push further. 

“do you think about me?”

yes. obviously.

he nods steadily in response before realizing that that simply isn’t a satisfactory response. 

“always.” his voice is small yet unwavering. 

you smile at his admittance, eyes hazy with desire and your cheek squished against your pillow due to your head being turned towards him. breathy moans and pleas tumble past your lips as you finger yourself, your hips rolling into the heel of your palm. slick wet sounds can be heard both from you and from heeseung, whose precum is aiding in his ability to pump his dick at an increasing speed. the burning pit in his stomach slowly grows and grows and he moans aloud, jolting slightly when the outside of your thigh brushes against his own.

as he feels himself approaching the cusp of an orgasm, the familiar sensation looming closer and closer like a moth drawn to a flame, your hand grabs his arm prompting him to stop, your middle and ring fingers wet against where they’re wrapped around his forearm. 

in the next second you’re sitting up, hands grasping the hem of your shirt once again only to fully remove it this time, exposing your back back and tits to him rendering him speechless. you discard your panties as well, leaving you completely bare as you move to straddle heeseung’s tense thighs. all he does is look at you in astonishment, mouth slightly agape. 

without thinking heeseung reaches forward and envelops both of your breasts with his big hands, his palms rubbing against your hardened nipples while his fingers gently dig into the soft flesh. 

“your tits are perfect,” he rasps, hand moving in circular motions to massage your chest.

“really?” your eyes light up at the compliment.

he nods, his adams apple bobbing in his throat as he remains enamoured with your figure. your fingers tickle his sides before grasping at his shirt, tugging at it in a way that tells him you want it off; he sits up and removes the garment before you place a palm on his chest and push him back onto your mattress, the springs making a slight squeak at the force. your eyes rake over heeseung’s bare chest as he lays before you, a shaky exhale leaving him every few seconds or so.

“you’re so handsome lee heeseung.” you compliment. 

“even when i’m hungover?” 

“even when you’re hungover.”

you crawl over his body, just a little bit, so your hips are unbearably close to his aching cock, the tip an enraged red spilling pearly white beads of precum. heeseung tries his best to not shudder when you wrap your hands around his shaft, moving yourself to be perched directly above his dick. you drag his tip through your folds to be a tease, only when the boy beneath you begins to squirm do you line his cock up wit your dripping hole before sinking down on it ever so slowly, gauging heeseungs reaction with scrutiny. he looks quite pretty, with his eyes screwed shut and bottom lip tucked between his teeth, his forehead dotted with beads of sweat. once he’s fully inside of you you remain stagnant, hips flush against his own. 

heeseung feels like he’s gone limp, his limbs turned to mush and inoperable. he keeps his eyes tightly shut as he becomes accustomed to the feeling of being inside of you, for he knows if he sees you sitting on top of him he’s going to have heart palpitations. 

only once heeseungs face slowly starts to relax, his eyelids slowly fluttering open, do you begin to move, gyrating your pelvis against his at a leisurely pace. heeseung can’t help but whimper when he feels you grinding on top of him, his cock throbbing and sensitive inside the warmth of your pussy. 

your hands rest on heeseungs chest to help you stabilize yourself, your nails digging into the soft skin covering his pecs and leaving behind deep red marks. heeseungs hands move to grab at your hips and you arch your back in response, teasingly shoving your tits in his face - he takes this as an invitation and pulls you closer to him so he can wrap hips lips around your left nipple, sucking on it while palming the other. 

“oh my-, heeseung,” you moan as heeseung continues to play with your breasts eagerly. in response you increase the pace at which your hips are moving at, grinding against him in a fluid, persistent manner that makes heeseungs vision grow warped fuzzy. once again he feels the slow burn of an orgasm take flight in his stomach, slowly ebbing outwards as you work him towards his climax. 

the moans and groans leaving him come out muffled due to his mouth still being wrapped around your breast, only detaching once the need for oxygen becomes stronger and stronger and his heart beats faster and faster. your fingers feel hot against his skin as you fuck him raw, the sensation of your cunt constricting around his cock feeling so other worldly that heeseung believes that you and your pussy and your body the only things tethering to him reality. 

his name tumbles past your lips in the form of needy whines as your movements slowly become more and more erratic, your eyes rolled back into your skull as you chase your high. all heeseung can do is lie underneath you, his fingers back on your hips while the tantalizing promise of a mind blowing orgasm renders him almost immobile. sweat rolls off of his brows as he pants and groans, hips feebly bucking upwards in an attempt to make him cum faster.

“i’m so close y/n i-” is all he can manage to whimper to let you know that he’s about to finish, about to erupt into a thousand hot white stars. you moan an ‘i know’ in response before reaching down to play with your clit, your cunt tightening around heeseungs cock with each and every flick of your fingers. 

you orgasm with a desperate whine, brows furrowed and eyes shut as you keel over heeseung. your pussy flutters around his cock and you manage to pull yourself off of him right before he cums with a cry of your name, spilling his hot sticky seed all over the expanse of his stomach, which twitches and spasms every so often. 

the two of you lay side by side as you wait for your heart rates to lower, for your breathing to steady, for the aching in your lower abdomen to cease. there’s a slight ringing in heeseungs ears which slowly subsides overtime, allowing him to listen to the way your pants morph into heavy breathing. in his peripherals he can see your chest, see the way your eyes are heavy with pleasure. you move your hand just enough so that your knuckles trace across the back of heeseungs hand. 

the room comes to a standstill, with the sun peeking through the slats in your shades falling across his tainted stomach that rises and falls with each erratic inhale and exhale he takes. you shift to lie on your side so you’re facing heeseung, allowing your fingertips to dance over his clavicle, his neck, his jawline. 

bliss. 

euphoria.

a happy ending.

a/n: and to think some of y'all didn't believe that i was gonna give you a happy ending.......... what do you have to say for yourselves now huh? HUH??????? here's you're happy ending i'm gonna go cry now bc i'm weirdly emotionally attached to this series.

patience is a virtue taglist: @hello-stranger24 @jainandan @yohanabanana @iamliacamila @nyanggk @chansmaze @beomgyusonlywife

[dirigibleplumbing]

If you're like me, sometimes you need the full text of Civil-War-era Tony's letter to Steve in the event of his death from "What If? Fallen Son" (2009). So here it is in its entirety!

If you notice any typos on my part, please let me know.

I put line breaks wherever the text was broken up, either by being in different sections of a panel or different panels/pages. I preserved the ellipses, though I didn't double them (in many cases a section of text would end in "..." and then the next section would also begin with "..."). I also didn't double up line breaks and ellipses.

Steve, I hope you never have to read this, old friend, because if you do, it means something terrible has happened. It means I'm dead. I suppose it shouldn't come as much of a surprise, really. During my years as Iron Man, I've racked up hundreds of enemies who wanted to do me in… and after recent events, probably a few old friends who feel the same. It's funny, though. I always prided myself on being a futurist--constantly thinking a leap ahead of everyone else. Apparently, that leap wasn't nearly far enough. But this letter is about looking forward--not back. It doesn't matter what killed me. All that matters is what happens next… and the legacy I've left behind. I'm not talking about Iron Man, either. The suit is nothing without the right man inside… and there aren't many I'd trust to pilot. Rhodey. Pepper. Happy. Maybe Jarvis… though he was never really the hero-type. And you, Steve. Whether you believe it or not, I always trusted you. Even during the darkest days--during the war--I never stopped believing in you. No one did. But like I said, this isn't about choosing a new Iron Man. There was a world before him, and there will be one after. This is about my ideas--the plans and inventions that I hoped would make the world a better place. This is about making sure those things don't fall into the wrong hands. I don't even want to imagine the suffering that could cause… That's where you come in it. I need your help, Steve. I need you to keep an eye on things now that I can't anymore--which is a lot to ask, I know, after what I've put you through. Still you're the only one I trust to make certain everything I was working for doesn't fall apart without me… and to ensure that the threats that I wasn't around to predict… don't end up blindsiding us in my absence. Our war may be over, Steve, but we both know that it won't be the last one. When the time comes, the world will still need heroes. And when the fighting is over and history is written… I can only hope that we will be remembered as more than just heroes. I hope that we will be remembered as I will always remember us… As friends.

And the typeface used in the comic is--or is very close to--Lucida Handwriting Light, which used to come free with a lot of Microsoft products.

I also have a rough mock-up of the entire letter.

[yuurei20]

I've noticed Epel keeps adding 'kana' to the end of his sentences. What does it mean?

Hello hello! Thank you so, so much for this question, I have always wanted to mention this.

“Kana” can be a multitude of things in English, such as “probably,” “I guess,” “I think,” “I wonder,” etc. A basic explanation would be, “a word used to express uncertainty,” but like most things when it comes to language, that is not the only thing it does.

A quick review of Epel: from his first day at NRC he has been under order from Vil to “speak more politely,” as he tends to use informal speech with his senpai.

As you point out, Epel often adds “kana” to what he is saying, and that is because one of the things that it can do is ‘soften’ something that you’re saying in order to make it sound less direct, and thus more polite.

Examples: Epel telling Kalim that his assumption is wrong, telling Vil that he disagrees with him, saying that his Phantom Bride look is weird, etc., these are all sentences that he is awkwardly gentling via “kana,” often after several ellipses or a comma, as though it is not a part of his normal speech pattern.

This gets into cultural differences: When Ace assumes that Epel is dedicated to a certain brand of apple juice, for example, an English-speaking Epel could probably respond, “That’s not actually the case!,” without sounding rude. But that could be interpreted as a little brusque in Japanese.

In order to soften the expression Epel adds “kana” at the end, which sounds more like, “That might not be the case,” “I’m not sure that is exactly what is going on,” etc., in English.

Even though he knows for 100% certainty that he is not actually dedicated to a certain brand of juice, he is still using “kana” in order to not sound too straightforward.

(screenshot from maggiesensei.com)

(This can and does cause issues when moving in between languages: a Japanese learner who only knows that “kana” means “I think” might not add it onto sentences where they are certain about something, and thus risk annoying their Japanese-speaking colleagues, for example. In contrast, an English learner may say “I think” too often, leading their English-speaking colleagues to wonder why they don’t seem to actually know anything. It’s all part of the joy of language and culture!)

While there are several words in Japanese that can be used to soften your phrasing, Epel seems to have latched onto “kana” in particular, possibly because it is an easy word to add on to the last part of what might otherwise be a rude sentence in an attempt to avoid a reprimand from Vil. 

Other times Epel will belatedly add “desu” onto his sentences, also in a bid to sound more polite than he is used to speaking. 

If you are a language learner I would not recommend using Epel as an example of when to use “kana,” as he will sometimes shoehorn it into places in an unnatural way (as a part of his character).

EN is doing its best to recreate Epel’s “kana” by including things like “kind of,” “not sure” and “maybe” in his dialogue, but as sounding uncertain doesn’t necessarily mean you sound polite in English, this may not be having the same effect. And I have no idea how they would go about recreating this habit of Epel’s in a way that can properly portray what is happening in English—it might just be one of those things that gets lost in translation :<

Bonus: The Japanese language has four different alphabets (kanji, katakana, hiragana, romaji), and katakana is the alphabet used for foreign loanwords. 

Whereas other characters who use honorifics have “-kun” and “-san” written in hiragana in their dialogue, Epel’s dialogue uses katakana. This is possibly meant to symbolize how using honorifics in these situations is foreign to him, and he is not used to it.

(When he does shift into using honorifics in hiragana, it is only when he is talking to people from his own village: people he is used to!)

[iridescentmirrorsgenshin]

in paralleling cyrus and naphis's rapport in cyno's story quest 2 with alhaitham and kaveh's relationship in a parade of providence, i have a speculation i thought was interesting in terms of the implicit, and now explicit, ways concern is shown, although of course i'm aware that these two relationships are entirely separate, but it's interesting to note the similarities between them

in a parade of providence, alhaitham's concern over kaveh's actions in the second round of the interdarshan championship is demonstrated in the close-up of him with the ellipses '...' as he is shown to visibly search kaveh's disposition after faruzan comments on kaveh's 'tribulations' in the desert. this close-up shot is contextualised as concern in the following scene where kaveh recounts what alhaitham said to him after he informed alhaitham of his fainting in the desert in the second round

due to kaveh's misconception of alhaitham, he interprets alhaitham's words as critique of his abilities as a scholar and a senior, although paimon in the same scene makes the same observations as alhaitham which is interpreted by kaveh as concern

as alhaitham isn't present here, having left to question sachin's son in order to provide kaveh closure regarding his father's disappearance into the desert (which is discussed here), this concern is not made explicit in surface text, and has to be interpreted through other characters' dialogue and visual cues, such as the close-up of alhaitham after faruzan comments on kaveh's tribulations

with the subsequent improvement of alhaitham and kaveh's relationship in cyno's story quest 2, i noted that cyrus and naphis' rapport steps up to replace this bickering, which is most prominently seen in cyrus's return from the desert after his near death at the hands of the temple of silence

naphis can be seen to make similar observations to cyrus as alhaitham does to kaveh in regards to the age, supposed held knowledge and inner wisdom being incongruous with their respective actions and problem-solving abilities, with both cyrus and kaveh in turn questioning naphis' and alhaitham's lack of regard to titles and established relationships of 'colleague' 'classmate' and 'upperclassman'

given these similarities in naphis' and alhaitham's remonstrance of cyrus and kaveh respectively, it's interesting that when using nahida's mind reading skill on naphis, he explicitly states his concern of cyrus's wellbeing, and considers an alternative scenario in which the danger could have been avoided - which is where parallels can be drawn between alhaitham immediately leaving kaveh to investigate sachin's son in order to continue researching into sachin's potential influence over kaveh's father, which ultimately led to his demise, potentially alleviating kaveh's guilt and allowing him to better prioritise himself

in this sense, naphis' behaviour in reference to cyrus can be seen to parallel that of alhaitham and kaveh's relationship in previous events and story quests. as opposed to the perceived toxicity of alhaitham and kaveh's relationship when comparing the execution of these two respective rapports, with naphis's critical attitude towards cyrus being founded on an unspoken concern, it also parallels, and confirms, that alhaitham's past actions and words towards kaveh similarly stem from concern of kaveh's self-detriment - which also extends to kaveh's treatment of alhaitham in retaliation, as he was unable to see these supposed critiques as concern prior to the ending of a parade of providence

[smrtnik07]

librarians redesigned!!! by me!!! :)

the designs are free to use, i used this as a character design exercise for myself while recovering from carpal tunnel issues! read more for all the individual designs + me ranting :*

first off roland!! i included an angelica in here, i designed her before him, shes very triangular to me.. maybe a bit more messed up than roland tells us about, he is a biased narrator afterall. anyways i wanted his design to match hers nicely, so hes like a rounded square type of guy... i think projmoon designed him to be Just A Guy intentionally, so i played into it. overall the least interesting design of the bunch imo. its on purpose :)

angela !!! my baby :) an important thing here is her bangs. i dont want her hair to be able to recover from however many years she spent with the hard middle part in lobcorp, i think its cute to incorporate it still. swoopy, fluffy hair for her! and the clothes are just a bit more casual idk the librarian uniforms were kinda boring and stiff to me, as much as it does go with her character.. if u wanna be human u gotta experience the joy of sweatpants or whatever. also i didnt add color but i dont want her to be fully white<3 or fully clear skinned.. give her sunspots on her face. she finally gets to experience sun. :)

guess ill go in order of appearance lol. malkuth! whats the headband for if it doesnt keep anything out of her face!! since shes a bit more active than some of her colleagues, i also gave her a ponytail(its also for the silhouette...) also gave her some chubbier thighs.. also maybe a butler-esque coat, at least to me; i just made it a bit more form fitting than the original. playing into her personality or whatever. shes cute.. remember to take deep breaths!!

yesod!! i want to play into the skin issues a bit more, i still removed his gloves but i gave him a poncho, not just for the square silhouette im trying to build but for more coverage. also emo hair over eyes was funny. also wide flare pants for you, boy. just very square and put together in general

hod! this ones my favorite (i even cared enough to give her a pattern on that skirt!!) it was kinda bugging me how in the artbook i couldnt tell who was writing because hod's, malkuth's, and tiphereth's colors are so similar. so hod is pink now, and malkuth a bit more orange. i kinda went for a romantic poet thing here, dunno how much that worked out, but i think out of everyone you can tell shes the literature girl. gave her pigtails !! theyre cute :> also since i removed the coat decoration off of angela, i gave part of it to hod in the bottom of her coat :). cute and round!

netzach is a very strange man to me.. ellipse shape and loose fitting clothes for u. if i saw him irl i wouldnt approach him. not to say i dont like him as a character, i love him, but i want him to look like a depressed guy who would pick up art as a hobby to distract himself and it works. bro is just surviving out there. also gave him comfy clothes to make the surviving easier, down to the shoes and wide, id assume non-denim pants - maybe cotton? maybe sweatpants that dont fit around the ankle? who knows.

tiphereth!! since she's like the teen girl of the group i gave her a skater dress, converse, and a tied coat around her waist.. like how i used to wear as a teen when i was being a hater and recovering from a death in the family that changed my entire life (im still a teen ... 9 more days till im 20 as of posting this). also gave her fishnets i think she would like that. i imagine she would get headaches bc of those dumb braids on her head<3 or maybe bc her coworkers are kinda dumb<3

gebura :) round face, reverse triangle shaped body.. like a true butch lesbian stereotype.. i decided a leather jacket, docs and pants i see metalheads wear would fit her! red leather jacket, of course. also gave her spiky hair just like projmoon did<3 my favorite detail here are the eyebrows, i think their shape is rlly neat! nvm i think its just that gebura is rlly neat. anyways the eyebrows fit her

chesed my boy.. idk i just saw him and hit him with the transmasc beam and gave him , as the kids say, wh0re eyes. i wanted him to have rounder hips and just be round in general. turtleneck and cardigan combo also, i think he would like wearing that. also somewhat curlier hair, or at least wavy would do him well! and a tote bag, i dont doubt that he would go out to read in coffee shops if he could - so he gets a tote bag to carry his sociology books. i want him to look like he would give the warmest, comfiest hugs and be friend shaped

binah!! this one was the most challenging, trying to find the right place for the colors - to not use too little or too much yellow. i still dont think i got it right but this is as close as im getting. long face, long nose, siren-ish eyes.. messed up in the head bird lady that speaks like hannibal! i also dont think a dress really suits her so i opted for wide pants and a fancy black button up .. maybe angela styled her, who knows. also black fingertips which is a trait i like to give the arbiters (including an oc).. just my own little consistency thing i like to do :)

hi grandpa! ok for hokma i dont think the changes are that big? i gave him O shaped legs and his sword thing i turned into a walking cane, gave him a vest (didnt want to opt for a corset but i think he would enjoy the back support for proper posture) . also gave him a mild gradient from darker gray to lighter gray, since he IS the gray part of the ABC trio. gave him salt and pepper hair and an older face. forgot to draw it, but i wanted to give him a silicone tip for the sword so it doesnt dull out, which he can take off when recieving guests

honorary mention to go along with the angelica i mentioned with roland, i mildly changed up her twin(k) brother. i gave argalia and angie the same hair but mirrored, his a bit more curly and hers a bit more spikey, his face a bit more edgy, hers a bit rounder and kinder. not much else to say here, i liked his design as is, but wanted to add him here :)

[maximumqueer]

One Piece Reread - Ch.220

One of my favorite things about doing this reread is picking up on small stuff that I didn't notice the first time around. And these four pages

are one of them.

I love how we get no dialogue, and more importantly no internal dialogue throughout it, and yet we are still able to perfectly understand what Luffy, Zoro and Sanji are thinking and feeling (with the occasional aid of punctuation marks and ellipses.)

Luffy is deeply confused by his findings, not understanding what the strange bike-like contraption could even be used for. Zoro is annoyed that the sword he found is rusted through and not usable. And Sanji is deeply melancholic at finding a framed picture of a woman with a harpoon through it, clearly saddened by what could have caused the picture to be ruined. All done without spoken dialogue or thought bubbles.

I LOVE when comic artists/mangakas take full advantage of the media they are working in and have spreads like this. Where just the expressions on the characters faces and their body language tell the story. It also adds wonderfully to the tone of this scene. By not having any internal or external dialogue, it creates a feeling of reverence for the 200 year old wreak, like our characters are going back in time briefly by exploring its ghostly remnants. A tone that don't think would have worked without the silence.

It's also just nice to see pages like this not jam packed with thought bubbles. I have nothing against them and think they can be very useful, but I also think that they are oftentimes overused. Which is one of the reasons I like One piece so much. Oda uses thought bubbles sparingly, and opts out of them during moments where he doesn't find them necessary/doesn't think they would add anything to the scene.

[not-poignant]

Raphael has a very poetic and grandiose way of speaking that is absolutely not the norm for day-to-day life. How do you get in the mindset to come up with his dialogues? They're perfection and I just can't even imagine how long it would take to do one paragraph of the way he talks, but you're writing an entire story with him...

Oh I love this question because I can answer it, lol sadlkjfsda

Okay so, Raphael's character is tough for me.

Normally I do a lot of dialogue research before starting to write a character in fanfiction and original fiction, but Raphael actually gets proportionately very few lines that really show his full emotional range (compared to say, Astarion), and he's got an incredibly specific way of talking that sounds similar to Astarion but at the same time is very different.

They share enough similarities (calling people darling and dear for example) that it's easy to fall into the trap of giving them the same 'voice.'

I find Astarion's voice a lot easier to 'get' and I feel like I can hear him better when I'm writing him. But Raphael I'm taking into emotional spaces we simply never see in the game, and then I have to really guess how he'd sound (like coming up with the idea that the theatricality vanishes when Raphael is genuinely panicking).

I ended up listening to a lot of interviews with Andrew Wincott, the Voice Actor for Raphael who is an incredible actor and extremely articulate. He was very clear in one of his interviews that one of the reasons he was selected to play Raphael was because, in part, he already sounded like him. Obviously there's differences / skill in changing cadence and more, but for the most part, Andrew Wincott uses similar vocabulary and talks in a similar manner to Raphael naturally, so I had an abundance of interviews that I could then listen to in order to get a feel for Raphael's voice. I picked the things that felt more 'Raphael' and added them to my dialogue notes.

I often have to go back and edit Raphael's dialogue. Sometimes it's very simple things, I had him say 'much more' in the chapter I'm editing right now, and I edited it to 'far more' because I think he'd just phrase it like that. Sometimes I expand a sentence into an entire paragraph.

I've also leaned a lot from Korilla's transcripts in the game, which have been super useful. They really cement, more than anything, how much he loves lullabies, nursery rhymes, children's tales and more.

HOW TO DO DIALOGUE RESEARCH:-

If you're new to dialogue research, it mostly involves listening to - and watching a character and then literally taking notes of how they talk. The things you observe are:

The tone of their voice - Fast or slow. Loud or soft. Musical or flat. Theatrical or matter-of-fact. High or low. Questioning or complete statements. Considered or hedging (i.e. very well constructed sentences, or a lot of pauses, ellipses, broken sentences). Rambling or concise.

How often they talk - Some characters actually say a lot with very little. Raphael is actually a lot of observation and facial expressions and eyebrow movements in between his dialogue. Little smirks, hand gestures and more. Do they interrupt or let people finish their sentences? Are they comfortable with silence? I find Raphael oscillates between long theatrical paragraphs, single sentences or words, and then a lot of silence. He's actually not very conversational, in that you can have a conversation with him, but I doubt he'd see the point of two hours of small-talk. (At this point you might be realising that dialogue research is also character research, how a character talks tells you so much about a character.)

The words (and metaphors/subjects) they use - This is a big one and I'm going to break this down a little bit more:

How they pause if they don't know what to say. Is it 'um' 'uh' 'ah' 'hm' 'mm' 'mn' or nothing at all (or something else) because they've mastered self-control over their dialogue? If Raphael says 'ah' he does so on purpose.

Filler words. Things like characters saying 'like' in a sentence. 'He was like, 'I can't believe it'' etc. This is very similar to how they pause, but it's the things people say to get from point A to point B. People who don't do this have often had training or think very hard about what they're going to say before they say it. But people say 'like' or 'and then' or 'well' or 'i realised that' or 'i thought that' etc. to carry them on. Some are more acceptable than others (people do just have realisations for example).

Profanity. How often do they swear, and how intentional is it? Some characters only swear when they get hurt or stub their toe or get angry. Some characters swear all the time for fun. Some characters only use some swear words and not others. Be specific. Be aware that some swear words are cultural! This includes blasphemy. In Faerun they use 'gods' and 'gods damn it' more often than we use 'god' or 'oh my god.'

Vulgarity. This is useful for Raphael (and Astarion) because he's very happy to be vulgar. This is like... how comfortable are they talking about sex, about sexual subjects, being crude, being seductive, flirtatious? And if they use it, do they use vulgarity to shock, seduce, scare, threaten, or for humour?

Salutations and farewells. How do they greet people? Silence? A calm hello? (A lot of greetings are omitted in dialogue but this is still good to know). How do they say hello, goodbye. How does that change between friends and enemies and strangers?

Single word sentences. This might sound weird, but sometimes when a character hears something that shocks them, or needs to acknowledge something, they may say anything from 'huh' to 'yeah' to 'fuck' to 'okay' to 'all right' to 'sure' to 'go on' to 'indeed' to just laughing out loud. The list goes on. Raphael is team 'indeed' lmao.

Sentence structure. Raphael's sentence structure is - when he's most comfortable - gently provoking, teasing, vaguely threatening, and makes liberal use of simile, metaphor, fairy tale, rhyme, sayings, colloquialisms and more. Raphael talks like someone who knows someone could quote him at any moment lmao. But from here, how a character structures their sentences can be helpful to know. Go back to 'the tone of their voice.' Those notes will give you an idea of structure.

Emotionality. How emotional are they? Do they have rage rants? Joyful giggling dialogue? Do they infodump with little emotion? Or with sheer excitement? Does their dialogue feel fake or real? Opaque or transparent? Some people wear their hearts on their sleeves, and others will never be able to say 'I love you' in anything other than actions. Raphael's emotionality in dialogue is more present in his anger and irritation, and also when he feels triumphant and/or turned on.

The symbols, sayings, colloquialisms and metaphors themselves. Not all characters use these. But some people/characters will talk through analogies, colloquialisms. This is actually Raphael's biggest dialogue departure from Astarion, imho, aside from the fact that Astarion is a lot more emotional with his dialogue.

Take into account their culture, ethnicity, conceits, upbringing, education and the people they're close to:

This one is vital. Firstly, some people tend to 'absorb' elements of those around them. A person raised by affluent people will often 'sound affluent' and a person raised in poverty will often have dialogue that reflects this and if they don't there will be reasons for that. It might be a conceit (some people self-teach themselves different accents), it might be education, it might be training, it might be the subculture/s they've entered into, and so on.

~

When doing this research, you'll end up with a kind of master-list of actual words and probably some sentences you've written down, along with a lot of notes. You can also do this for any original characters you're making at all, you're just then making it up based on the character, and this research will also give in many ways the shape of the character.

It's a fun exercise and I highly recommend everyone tries it literally for people who don't exist and also observe your friends and family, and do a dialogue cheat sheet for some of them. It's pretty eye-opening! Even one page will teach you more than nothing at all. You can go deep and write many pages, or you can do what I do and keep it lean at 2 pages. Anyone who struggles with characterisation I suggest at least try this exercise, because anyone can put on a YouTube video and/or streaming service or even a favourite Tiktoker and start doing dialogue research! It's a way of building a character from the top down while also getting information about their foundations.

[so-many-ocs]

a guide to formatting dialogue (it's harder than you'd think!)

a request from instagram that i'm posting here. buckle up, because this is a long one!

if a spoken sentence ends in a period, don’t use a dialogue tag. either replace the period with a comma or replace the dialogue tag with a separate sentence indicating a related action or description.

incorrect: “I need to go.” he said.

even more incorrect: “I need to go.” He said.

correct: “I need to go,” he said. or “I need to go.” He pushed back his chair and stood.

this rule does not apply to other types of punctuation such as question marks or exclamation points.

leave the dialogue tag lowercase, no matter what. (proper nouns remain capitalized)

incorrect: “When are we leaving?” She asked. ("She asked" is not a complete sentence)

correct: “When are we leaving?” she asked. (the line of dialogue is included in the complete sentence)

when formatting dialogue, you can add natural pauses by breaking up a spoken line with a dialogue tag or an action.

correct: “Wait,” they said. “I feel like this is getting overly complicated.” (within the lines of dialogue, ‘wait’ is its own sentence, so you use a period after ‘they said.’ you can remove the dialogue tag and it would be written like this: “Wait. I feel like this is getting overly complicated.”)

also correct: “I’m running out of sentence ideas,” they muttered, shifting in place, “but writing doesn’t sleep and neither do I.” (if you wrote the dialogue without the tag and action, it would look like this: “I’m running out of sentence ideas, but writing doesn’t sleep and neither do I.” adding the dialogue tag lengthens the natural pause created by the comma. also it’s 3am while i’m writing this. “go to sleep,” you say. to which i say, “did you not read my example sentence?”)

still correct i think (probably but english grammar is a total bitch): “I am going to stop now—” Here, she began rummaging through her bag, before producing a slender vial filled with shimmering liquid, “—and show you something of great importance.” (if you removed the interrupting action, the sentence would be written like this: “I am going to stop now and show you something of great importance.” there is no comma, so the pause being added is for effect, rather than for grammatical purposes. use an em dash (two hyphens, formats like: —) or ellipses (...). additionally, the action is its own separate sentence, rather than being attached to the dialogue as a tag, so it is capitalized.)

an additional note on em dashes: if they are used in a sentence, be it for an interjection, an interruption, a pause, or a secret fourth thing, there is no space before or after the dash. here’s an example from my wip: “Now, though—and overnight, it seemed—the two were acting as a unit, leaving her on the outside.”

if, for whatever reason, a character is speaking in paragraphs, the formatting gets a bit wonky.

“This is going to be the shortest example paragraph ever, but here goes. I am going to write three sentences so this qualifies as a paragraph. Two sentences might also qualify, but I am nothing if not committed to the bit. “New paragraph,” she continued, “same speaker. Wow, look, I incorporated an earlier concept to demonstrate it in a different context. How cool is that? You should totally follow whoever is posting such great writing advice.”

there is no end quote after the first paragraph, but there is a start quote at the beginning of the second paragraph. the end quote comes whenever the speaker is finished. why? i have no idea; i didn’t invent the english language, i just work here.

you can use colons and semicolons in dialogue. it gets a bit awkward, but we’ve just covered paragraph formatting, so how hard can it be?

correct: He asked: “What on earth are you talking about?” (colon in place of a comma when a dialogue tag is placed before the dialogue)

also correct: They said, “It’s getting late, isn't it?” (comma when a dialogue tag is placed before the dialogue)

incorrect: “What on earth are you talking about?”: he asked. (the question mark functions as a comma and eliminates the need for a colon. also, as a rule of thumb, the ending punctuation does not get placed outside of the quotation marks)

still incorrect: He asked; “What on earth are you talking about?” (use a comma)

you can also use colons and semicolons within lines of dialogue (as you would in a normal sentence)

stylistic choices

you do not have to use quotation marks in dialogue, but whatever you choose to do, do it consistently.

For example, some writers format their dialogue in italics, they said. But grammatical and punctuation rules still apply.

Others don’t use italics and just hope people can spot the dialogue or action tags, she supplied. This can get a bit confusing, but I think that’s the point.

— Some use dashes to indicate the start of a line of dialogue, and, of course, the standard varies from place to place and language to language.

‘Still more use single quotes,’ he offered, ‘though I’m not sure why. Maybe it looks better.’

that's it for now! really, you could probably write a book on this topic alone, and cover every minute detail of grammar within dialogue (how would one format an interrobang, i wonder?), but here's a kind-of-basic-but-still-dense guide :)

buy me a ko-fi | what's the deal with radio apocalypse?

[an-insignificant-flower]

Namonaki Watashi

名も無き = lit. "without a name," pre-noun adjective that can mean "anonymous," "ordinary," or—as I believe befits this song—"insignificant". Notably, 無き is an older form of ない, but while the latter functions as a complete clause, the former requires a noun follow it.

Verse 1

一雫雨を　一雫ください hitoshizuku ame wo　hitoshizuku kudasai 一雫愛を　一雫ください hitoshizuku ai wo　hitoshizuku kudasai

One drop of rain, please give me one drop One drop of love, please give me one drop

The dictionary puts 一滴 (いってき, alternatively ひとしずく) as more common than 一雫 (ひとしずく). However, the latter seems to be more literary, used for sake labels, restaurants, and a 2002 hit song by the female J-pop group, Zone.

Additionally, 雫 is distinctly a kokuji, or "country character," one of Japan's creations without a Chinese equivalent. It's purely hieroglyphic as such, literally depicting that which falls from a cloud.

Prechorus 1

名も　無い　わたしは　あなたと　出会いました namonai watashi wa　anata to deaimashita 名も　無い　わたしにも　蝶や　風や　夢が‥ namonai watashi ni mo　chou ya kaze ya yume ga...

I, who am insignificant, met you (for the first time) Even I, who am also insignificant, (the) butterflies, (the) wind, (the) dream...

Sakurai uses the older form of Namonaki in the title only, but uses the more modern form in the lyrics themselves. In the Japanese, the difference is extremely subtle, with only one phoneme changing from -ki to -i. The grammatical implication in English is far more clumsy, but worth exploring to see the difference: The title reads "Insignificant Me" while the lyrics read "I, who am insignificant,..."

The line ends with ellipses, leaving the thought unfinished, and the use of ya for "and" implying the list is only a part of all that is in the scene give the verse an impressionistic feel.

Chorus

狂い咲く　花たちよ　今は　咲き乱れよ kuruizaku hana-tachi yo　ima wa sak'mi dare yo 狂い咲く　命共　乱れ　乱れ　乱れ kuruizaku inochi domo　midare, midare, midare

Fellow flowers blooming out of season, bloom profusely now! Fellow flowers blooming out of season, together live wild, wild, wild!

I adore the use of kuruizaku here. Of course, kuruu is a familiar verb in Buck-Tick's lyrics, whether it refers to going mad with love or at the state of the world or simply "going crazy." Here it's used in a set phrase referring to off-season blooming. And as with kemono-tachi (from "Beasts of Night"), the narrator includes himself among those he is speaking to: outcasts and others who "don't fit in."

Sakimidare, another set phrase, lends itself to the imagery of endless fields of blooming flowers so thick that you can't see the green leaves beneath them, or even the peak day of cherry blossom season when the world is awash in pink.

I've used an apostrophe unconventionally here to refer to Sakurai's pronunciation. The word has five full mora (sa-ki-mi-da-re), but Sakurai sings it in four (sa-k'mi-da-re). I actually could not make it out in the album version of the song; only upon listening to the "Taiyo to Ikarosu" B-side at high volume could I hear the separate consonants distinctly fitted into one note.

As a lone verb midareru means "falling into disarray," but as a repeated call lends itself better to "lapsing into chaos," and I was tempted to choose "riot" as a command due to the character's more direct translation. However, following the previous line with the set phrase sakimidare, there is an implication that it attaches itself to inochi domo the same way, meaning a closer translation might be, "together, live exuberantly." Think Carpe diem ("Seize the day") with the raving enthusiasm of Scrooge on Christmas morning.

Verse 2

ありがとう　愛を　陽だまりの　日々を arigatou　ai wo　hidamari no hibi wo 一輪の　花を　髪飾り　君に ichirin no hana wo　kamikazari kimi ni

Thank you, for the love, for day after day in the sun For the single flower adoring your hair

Prechorus 2

名も　無い　わたしに　あなた　と　お別れ　来た namonai watashi ni　anata to o-wakare kita 名も　無い　わたしにも　赤や　黄の　夢が‥ namonai watashi ni mo　aka ya ki no yume ga...

You and I, who am insignificant, bid farewell Even I, who am insignificant, (the) red and yellow dream...

Although the lyrics imply simply that the flower speaking (perhaps the very one in the listener's hair from the previous line) was discarded, it's hard to listen to this line as one of the last lyrics in the last song presented to us on Sakurai's last recorded album.

As before, ya implies there are more colors, though red and yellow are noteworthy for the line. I don't know whether it was intentional, but it calls back the first line of "Gessekai": Aka ki iro himawari, "red, yellow sunflowers".

Instrumental Bridge Chorus Chorus

Sakurai often wrote lyrics from the point of view of a particular character in his mind, performing a role on stage. However, I am tempted to read this one assuming less use of the figurative mask. It seems very in his character to express such humility, to refer to his fans (and/or his family, as I have also suspected of other songs of his) as the source of his sunshine and objects of his gratitude, and to plead us all to live our lives to our fullest.