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aslitheryprinx · 3 years

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What if in nom therapy au, as a prank, Tommy took a shrinking potion (and set up the ender pearl stasis) and snuck onto Wilburs plate? Would Wilbur even notice Tommy, or just swallow him before he realized there was something wrong?

We can say Tommy made sure Wilbur was eating something soft that didnt need much chewing if we dont want to bother considering Wilbur accidentally chewing on Tommy without being gentle.

Ooooh I love this idea! Honestly, I could see both Tommy and Wilbur trying to pull this on someone when they're tiny. I'll focus on Tommy, though.

It would definitely be a bit complicated to pull something like this off. It wouldn't work at Nom Therapy, of course, since you always expect a tiny in your food. At some point when they're hanging out, however, that might work.

Of course, Tommy will probably need some outside help to really get this prank to work.

______

Surprise!

______

Tommy felt giddy as he crept through Phil's backyard. He and Tubbo had been planning this prank for weeks. Phil was in on it too, of course, since it was his house they'd be sneaking around in.

The cover story was that he was at home being force to work on an assignment he'd put off. It was believable enough... he just didn't tell Phil that he actually was postponing working on homework for this.

According to Phil's mission report- also known as a text- Wilbur had laughed at his plight, not suspicious at all. Bitch. That was just one more reason to pull this prank perfectly. That, and he still needed revenge for the sauce incident.

First, he had to get inside.

Just like they planned, Tubbo was waiting by a window near the back of Phil's house, under the guise of using the restroom. He slid it open, and Tommy climbed through as quietly as he could. Tubbo had a maniacal grin on his face that Tommy matched, barely holding back his laugh.

He could hear the muffled sounds of Wilbur and Phil chatting a few rooms away. He dug the tiny pearl stasis chamber out of his pocket and handed it to Tubbo. His friend had brought the shrinking potion- apparently Eret made really good quality ones. Tommy took the small vial, and dumped it in his mouth.

The citrus flavor was a little more bitter than the kind they had at Nom Therapy, and Tommy grimaced a little. When the pins and needles started, however, it was much less intense. Huh. Guess whoever made NT's sacrificed a little bit of the smoothness for taste.

He hadn't even shrunk all the way down yet when Tubbo crouched down and scooped him up with a gentle motion. Even when rushed, he never moved quickly enough to disorient Tommy. Tubbo always handled shrunken people so expertly; it was easy to tell how used to it he was.

Once the potion had stopped and Tommy recovered from the effects, Tubbo held out the stasis chamber. He chucked the pearl inside, and Tubbo slid into a spare room, setting it on a dresser. Then he carefully slid Tommy into his pocket and walked back to the kitchen.

Tommy couldn't see where everyone was, so he had to use his other senses to guess. He could hear Wilbur a little clearer than Phil, who's voice was drowned out a little by the sounds in the kitchen. He assumed Phil was making dinner now. He mourned the loss of a chance to eat Phil's cooking, but he'd eaten before he came. Ah least he hadn't missed out on a Niki meal.

It felt like Tubbo was climbing up to sit, so he'd probably taken a seat at the bar. Wilbur's voice had gotten a lot louder; he was likely on the seat next to Tubbo.

Tommy played with the remote in his pocket while he waited. The stasis chamber he'd bought didn't have the automatic timer like the ones at Nom Therapy. A feature that fancy was a little out of his price range. It could still be activated by remote, or even just manually. It was probably better this way anyways, now Tommy could stay in Wilbur's stomach as long as he wanted.

This plan had been made very carefully. It wasn't like he could sneak around Wilbur's house while he was tic tac sized, so Tubbo was a necessary part in his plan. And Tubbo and Wilbur didn't hang out by themselves very often, so Phil got roped into the prank as well.

That turned out to be a good thing; with Phil's help, they could plan what food Tommy would actually be sneaking into. There was a reason noms were usually done in controlled environments. There was always the chance that since Wilbur might not notice him in the bite of food, he would just crunch down on the food... and Tommy.

Of course, Tommy would respawn, but that wasn't a fun process. An accident like that would probably traumatize both of them for a while.

But Tommy had been eaten by Wilbur dozens of times. It was a strange knowledge, but he knew how the man ate. He knew exactly the food that was unlikely to get him chomped. Wilbur had a strange habit of barely chewing spaghetti. Very often, he would simply slurp the noodles down whole. Tommy, who was often on those noodles or wrapped up in them, teased him about it. It was one of the few dishes where Wilbur didn't nibble on him for a while before swallowing. It was the perfect meal to hide in.

He wondered what was taking so long. It was hard to follow a conversation from inside a pocket, and he was getting bored. There wasn't much to do besides play with the remote. He'd started tossing it up, catching it with one hand.

Suddenly, his world shifted as Tubbo stood up. He fell against the lip of the pocket, fumbling the remote. It slipped out of his hands, and fell what seemed like hundreds of feet down to the floor.

Well fuck. Tommy sat back, embarrassed. Tubbo kept walking, so he probably hadn't noticed the remote. That meant he'd have to wait for one of his friends to manually activate the stasis chamber. He just knew he was going to be teased relentlessly for this.

He hadn't really been paying attention to what was going on; he'd heard something about Tubbo helping with the plates maybe? So it came as a surprise when Tubbo's hand suddenly came in the pocket. His fingers wrapped around Tommy, gently plucking him out.

He was deposited on the edge of a plate that was piled high with steaming spaghetti. He grinned at his friend before wiggling into the mass of noodles. He felt slight movement as his plate was carried over to Wilbur.

Now came the fun part. His goal was to go unnoticed as long as possible, preferably until he was actually in Wilbur's mouth.

It was hard to move around with the spaghetti curled all around him, but he managed to keep ducking back into cover whenever Wilbur scooped up a bite. During one twirl of his fork, Tommy took the opportunity. He grabbed onto the noodles, getting a couple more wrapped around him. He was on the bottom of the fork, so Wilbur didn't see him as he was raised to his friend's mouth.

Wilbur's mouth closed around him, and he pulled the noodles off the fork, Tommy with them. Like he expected, Wilbur didn't even chew, simply slurping the noodles down in one go.

Wilbur made a choked sound as he swallowed, and Tommy burst into laughter as he slipped into Wilbur's stomach. Their prank had gone perfectly, and he could hear Wilbur's confusion from outside.

_____

Wilbur liked spaghetti. Wilbur also liked surprises.

He wasn't expecting a surprise to be in his spaghetti. Of course, surprises were never expected but they were usually in the realm of possibility.

As Wilbur swallowed another bite of Phil's spaghetti, he felt something warm and squirming go down his throat. He nearly choked on the bite, shocked at the unexpected tiny. He managed to get the bite down, and he saw Tubbo and Phil looking at him with barely concealed amusement.

"I think I just swallowed someone," he said bemused.

Tubbo burst into laughter. He just stared at the teen for a moment, before he heard a faint laughter from his stomach. A very familiar laugh.

"Tommy?" He asked incredulously. This time even Phil laughed.

"You were all in on this?" He accused. Then his attention turned to the teen that was settling comfortably in his stomach.

"Aren't you supposed to be studying?"

"Get pranked bitch!" Tommy shouted, Wilbur listening carefully to hear the muffled sound. "This is payback for that time with the sauce!"

Wilbur heaved an exasperated sigh. He a glare to Tubbo and Phil who were still giggling.

"Your face was so fucking funny!" Tubbo laughed.

"Wilbur! Ask if he got a picture!" Tommy yelled.

Wilbur repeated the question with a roll of his eyes. Tubbo grinned wickedly and held up his phone.

"Better, I got a video."

They continued to tease him through the rest of dinner. Tommy was a little quieter than normal, but Wilbur assumed it was because it would be hard to hear him with multiple people talking.

Once things calmed down, Tommy spoke up. He sounded a little nervous, and Wilbur frowned in concern.

"Um, hey big man. I uh... sort of dropped the remote for the stasis chamber before you ate me."

"You dropped the remote?" Wilbur repeated, worry in his voice. "Wh- do- do you need me to get you out?"

"Nonono!" Tommy protested. "I'm fine right now. I just... need one of you to get me out eventually."

Wilbur realized his friend was more embarrassed than anything. He laughed, poking gently at his stomach. He felt Tommy give a small kick back.

"Aww, and what if I want to keep you here for a while Tommy?" He teased. "It sounds to me like you're stuck with me for a while."

"Willll," his trapped friend whined. Wilbur imagined his face was bright red by now. He continued teasing Tommy, making sure the teen never sounded like he actually didn't want to be there anymore. Tommy remained comfortably nestled against his stomach, and Wilbur could hear the humor in his voice. A while later, once the teasing had died down, Tommy spoke up again, voice almost too quiet to hear.

"Hey, Wil, you won't actually make me stay here the whole time, right?" He sounded just a little vulnerable, and Wilbur put a hand on the outside of his stomach. He gently rubbed and felt the miniscule weight of Tommy leaning into the contact.

"Of course not, Toms," he reassured his friend. "If you really want to be let out, I'll let you out. Promise."

He couldn't hear a response from Tommy, but the small weight in his stomach curled even further into him. Wilbur smiled.

It was supposed to be a prank, but he'd enjoyed his surprise.

Nom Therapy Part 1

#mcyt g/t #mcyt giant/tiny #nom therapy au #vore tw #tw vore #aslitheryanswers #dsmp g/t #giant/tiny #tiny!tommy #giant!wilbur

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superfluffysupernatural · 3 years

Text

Heal Your Inner Child

AO3 Link

Author: Max

Rating: General Audiences

Word Count: 4.7k

Warnings: None

Relationships: Sam & Dean Winchester

Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester (mentioned)

Additional Tags: Mentions of Trauma

Summary:

Sam, I know we haven’t talked in forever but I need to tell you something. I don’t think I have ever written a letter to you before and I think this will be the last time that I will. I don’t want to drag you into this mess anymore. I don’t want you to be a part of this. You don’t deserve to be a part of this and for that, I am sorry.

I never wanted to drag you into this. I don’t think it was ever fair for me to drag you into this. I know I was a bad brother for doing that and I hope that one day you can forgive me for that. But for now, I have to work on forgiving myself and that means that I have to leave.

So, I’m going on a hunting trip and I won’t come home.

Dean Winchester

Author's Note: Guess who is back from the dead!

“Heal your inner child, Mr. Winchester.” His therapist sat across from him with her legs crossed and a notepad in her lap. “You never had a normal one, to begin with, so why not do everything that you couldn’t do as a child now?”

“Because I can’t go rollerblading without breaking a hip.”

“Well no, you might not be able to do everything that you wished you could as a child anymore but you can do a few things that might help you heal a little bit. It’s proven itself effective and as a part of your court-appointed therapy, I highly suggest that you try it.”

That highly was full of threats. Threats to send him to prison if he didn’t comply with her every command. A threat that she would tell his parole officer and send him back to a place where he would never get out. A threat to send him to a place worse than hell. It sounded like an exaggeration but with the number of charges he had against him and the amount of time he had spent on the run from those charges, he could have landed himself in federal prison if he wasn’t careful.

“So what do I do, doc? Color?”

“You can color if you want to. But I think you should make a list of things that you always wanted to do as a kid and do them. Bring back your list next week and we can make a plan for what you can do in the next few weeks and you can talk about what you felt the week after that. How does that sound?”

“Sounds good,” Dean checked the clock behind her head. Their hour had been up thirty minutes ago and yet she hadn’t said a word about it. Almost like she loved making money off of the state. “I’ll get right on that.”

“Hey, what did we say about sarcasm, Mr. Winchester?”

“That it’s not a useful coping mechanism for the aggravation I feel towards people and situations that I might not be able to control or have a say in.”

“See you next week, Mr. Winchester, and be ready with that list.”

His therapist ushered him out into the lobby where he walked past the receptionist who waved at him on his way out. His heartbeat in his chest was faster than he could have ever thought possible. Dean had taught himself to ignore that feeling long ago. The adrenaline pumping through his veins. Even just walking into a crowded supermarket set him off. They had been trying to work on it but nothing seemed to help. No amount of exposure therapy or medication would help. The only time he even left his apartment was to go to his parole officer or to see his therapist. Everything else seemed so hard to do. This was the only place he could calm himself down enough to get to. Maybe because he was forced to go there. He couldn’t risk going back to prison and his fear of prison outweighed his fear of going outside.

Luckily there was no one on his way out to the parking lot. He didn’t know what he would do if he were to find someone else coming out of therapy. It’s not like he was ashamed of going. Sam had told him that more and more men were admitting to having mental problems and going to get help for it. Though, it didn’t feel like that. He saw more women coming out of his therapist's office than men. But maybe men were better at hiding the fact that they were going in the first place.

Dean crossed the parking lot towards his car. A truck he had to get when Baby finally broke down and he could no longer afford to repair her. She sat in the front yard of Sam’s house and was being taken care of as best as Sam could with what he could get from others. Though if Dean were to get her back, it would just end up in Sam’s front yard once more. He couldn’t get a job until he finished his parole and therapy course which ended in a few years. Then his record would hopefully be cleared. At least, that was another part of the deal he took to avoid upsetting Sam even further.

The truck rattled to life and Dean pulled out into the emptied streets of the nice neighborhood that his therapist resided in. No way he could afford to live anywhere near here even without a record. It would take three lifetimes to be able to afford one of the houses he saw on his eBay to the outskirts of town. Fifteen minutes out from the city center and about thirty away from his own house. It was a lot of driving and the gas wasn’t cheap.

He received a small stipend from the government each week for groceries and the same for gas. His apartment was paid for by the government as well and was technically a halfway house but it hadn’t been well maintained for what looked like ten years so the landlord who oversaw the house paid him under the table to fix it instead of the contractors that his landlord was supposed to get. It was good money and allowed him to pay for some amenities of his own. That and the house was coming together nicely while he tried looking for an actual job that might sustain him once those stipends ran out in a month or two when he was supposed to have an actual job. Though, no one wanted a felon.

Heal your inner child. What a stupid concept. But he would at least have to attempt to get his assignment done. The consequences would be far-reaching if he didn’t do it. What did I even want to do as a child? The answer was quite easy. Please, dad. That wouldn’t make the list nor make his therapist happy. It would look like he was being snarky with her. That kind of list wouldn’t go over and mean jail for him again and he wouldn’t even think about going back there.

Maybe going online would help him with this. Things to do to heal your inner child. The steps seemed just as vague as his therapist. Eight steps it seemed.

Acknowledgment. He had already done that in therapy. Their father was a bad dad. He had abused them. At best it was neglect but at worst, he was dead and there was no way that he could go to his dad and get an apology from him. He had made sure that the bastard was in the ground. None of his aliases were alive and no one had seen him since he died. He had no one to apologize to and that was one of those things that his therapist had groaned about when Dean had first told her that he had died. There was no way he could acknowledge the pain his dad had caused if there was no one there to hear his words.

Listen. He couldn’t listen to someone with who he had nothing to do with. This was the one thing that he had never had. An older brother sitting under the pressure of his father. The ghost of his mother held onto him. The one part of him that he could never let go of. His mother. This was useless either. His mother was gone and he couldn’t even get to her if he tried.

Write a letter. A letter to Sam could work. He could apologize to him or someone else. That would be an interesting one. He would keep that in mind.

Mediate. He couldn’t silence his mind long enough to do that. It wouldn’t even make sense for him to do that. Even with the anxiety and insomnia medications, it wouldn’t work. It wouldn’t make sense for a lot of things to happen inside of his head and the silence is one of those. It wouldn’t take him long enough before the voices get inside his head again and he wouldn’t be able to take it.

Journal. And what? Look like a madman in front of his therapist? It would be a one-way ticket to the looney bin if you asked him and he wasn’t about to take a chance like that on anything other than attempting to get close to someone inside of a psych ward. So a no to that.

Revisit joy. What joy? The moments before he learned that everything he had been scared of up until that point was real and was out to get him?

Be open. He was already open enough with his therapist as it was and there was nothing that he could have done to be any more open with his trauma. No one else would want to hear about how everything that they feared was real and would make them feel like shit for not noticing long before he came around.

Reach out. He kind of already did that so that was good. Well, he didn’t do that himself. At least not in part. Took some slit wrists in open court to get him to where he was and it wasn’t something that he had mentioned before. Maybe that was his way of reaching out. By being the most dramatic person he could be and hoping for the best.

Write a letter. That one seemed to stick out at him more than the others. The one thing that seemed to poke out as something that would even help.

Dean stood up from the couch and walked down the lit hallway towards his home office. The light in the hallway was on all the time. So much so that the hallway was at least a degree warmer than the rest of the apartment and the light bulb blew out at least once a month but that was the price to pay for being safe. Or at least feeling safer than what he would feel when he had it off.

At the end of the empty hall, there was a doorway. A doorway to his office. One he hadn’t touched in ages. His hand hovered over the cool metal of the doorway had installed. It was the first room that he had fixed up and that was the last time he had ever been in it. At least from what he could remember. If he even rook one step into the room could mean going back to a time when he wasn’t as strong as he used to. But he was much stronger now. So much stronger. At least, that’s what his therapist had said.

The door swung open in front of him as if he hadn’t opened it himself but instead, someone else did. Some other force that wasn’t even his but his hand was on the door and it was him alone that had opened it. No one else had done it. It definitely wasn’t a ghost that had done it. Ghosts aren’t real. He reminded himself. It wasn’t true but he had to tell himself that so he wouldn’t go out and start hunting again.

The walls were covered in old newspaper reports. Too many people were out there who didn’t know what happened in the shadows. Too many people still don’t know what happened to those who did know what happened on these walls. Every case they had ever worked they were plastered on the walls like wallpaper. He vowed to take it down at some point. No one even cared about what he was doing back here. Well, one person cared and she wasn’t there to see it. She wouldn’t just walk into his house unannounced and she sure would have hell to pay if she did just do that.

Dean sat down in the chair in the middle of the room a desk right in front of him. Pages upon pages of newspapers littered the floor like a carpet. Dean kicked away a few, risking the paper cuts in hopes of getting a bit more comfortable. There were a few blank pages already sitting on the desk, waiting to be used once more. None of them had the usual scribbles on it. The scribblings of a madman once consumed by his work. A line of work he was forbidden to go back to.

Dear Dean Winchester,

Dean Winchester,

You Son of a Bitch,

Well, you know who it is, right?

Dear God, It’s Me, Dean Winchester

Are you there God? It’s me, Dean Winchester.

It’s been a long time since we talked. A really long time since we last spoke. I don’t know what happened that would have stopped me. I saw so many of your creatures here on earth. It only should have served as a promise of more to come. I said that I would never go back into the life that dad spent his whole life trying to get me into. I swear I wanted to be a part of it so bad…it was the only thing that I could have ever thought of doing for a job. This is the one thing I wished I could have never thought of for myself.

I…I don’t know why I’m working on this letter other than the fact that my therapist is gonna look at it. There isn’t much that I can tell you that you don’t already know. You’re god. You wrote my story. Hell, you probably know I’m writing this right now so you already know what I’m going to say so it might be pretty useless. It feels pretty useless to talk to you about it. It just hurts knowing that you were only ever there to be a douche. But I guess now is my time to be a douche back.

Why? Why am I here? Why did you write my story this way? Why did I have to get caught? Why was it me and not Sam? Was it always because Sam was always your golden child? Was he always meant to be the one you favored? Why does everyone favor him over me? I am just as good as him. I worked just like anyone. I don’t know why people think that I was the bad child. Why was I the bad child? Why do you hate me so much?

Sam…I know I mentioning him would bring all of it back up again. My therapist says that Sam was everything that I ever wanted to be. The favored child. Instead, I was the soldier child. Maybe she put it in different words. Golden child. I think that’s how she put it. The one that could do no wrong. The one I wanted to be instead of the one I was. The one who got in trouble for everything even when I didn’t do anything wrong in the first place. I mean…I deserved it. I think…she says I didn’t but I think some of it was deserved. Some of it had to have been desired.

I…I think I was a bad child.

I mean…I turned tricks outside of rest stops just to fed Sam. But that was survival and those men were pedophiles.

I killed people. Like actual living people...and those people were good people. People who wanted to live. Those…those things inside of them were using them as vessels but I killed them. I killed so many people I think I would be in jail for longer than someone’s natural lifespan. But that happens with most serial killers. Once you get past a certain point….

Dean balled up the paper and tossed it over to one of the darkened corners of the room. His eyes lingered on the cases for far longer than he wished.

Dear Roxanne Chambers,

I know you said I needed to heal myself. To heal my inner child. You threatened me with jail more than once and we both know that’s a little manipulative. If you really wanted me to open up, you would have known that I would have never done that no matter what you did. Everything I told you was under the threat of going back to jail but I never was scared of jail. Not really. Was I scared of going there because of the people who knew me and what I did? All of the people that I had wronged because of what happened to their family or friends. I assure you that the innocents that were killed because of what I did were collateral damage. Damage caused by me looking too deep into another one of my father’s hunting trips.

I ask myself pretty often why I decided to drag Sam into this. He was off at college. He never wanted any part of this. One hunting trip and that was it. That was all he promised. That was all I ever wanted to bring him on. One trip to see if we could try and find dad. But one thing leads to another and now I am writing this letter to you. I don’t know why it’s you, my therapist of all people but you’re the next best person besides God and I know God. God is the reason for everything in my life. He was the one puppet mastering everything from the beginning but it’s not like I can blame the guy.

I…I don’t know why you asked me to do this. I think there is some psychobabble nonsense that you would spew if you were listening to this right now but…I think we both know there will be no next meeting. I think that this is much of a goodbye letter to you as it is saying goodbye to this life…

I think I was meant to be on the road forever. I resided myself to that fact long ago. That there was nothing else I was born to do. Even if I was turning tricks at truck stops to feed my brother. Even if I killed people. I think our job is just as important as any other. I mean, we do have to do some illegal shit to get by but I think the ends justify the means. The end is that everyone else…people like you…don’t know that there are things out there that do these things.

My purpose…my inner child screams for healing and we both know that but I think there is nothing I can really do to save him. I think he would have actually liked this for me. I mean, there’s this part of me who still wishes that I had a white picket fence and a golden retriever and 2.5 kids and a wife (or husband). I think that vanished the minute my mom burned on that veiling. That there is nothing I could have done to stop it. I mean…I think my mom was the only thing that was stopping my dad from doing it. Now that she’s gone then…I can’t stop hunting and I don’t think I want to stop hunting.

I think there are some things out there that I don’t want to know is out there. There are still monsters to hunt all over America. They never stop. They’re like a hydra. Cut off one head and two more grow in their place. I know bringing someone like me as a kid wouldn’t even be an option. Either I kill as many as I can or I die trying. I think that is the best option. There is no healing my inner child. I think if you had asked me to do that years ago when I was young and angry then I think you could have done it. But I think I am too far gone. This surely would have helped but…I think we both know that it is a futile attempt to make me look normal.

None of this is right. None of this is going to make me okay. Did you know how some psychopaths will go to therapy just to learn tricks to appear normal? It’s almost as if they thought that it wouldn’t happen to me either. Who thought it was a good idea to drag me to therapy instead of jail. Granted, I had to agree to that but we both know that therapy is better than jail in most situations. Other than doctors like you who break HIPPA in order to rat out on their patients. It’s a little morally gray, don’t you think? You claim to do no harm yet in the same breath do some harm when you go about telling my business to everyone else. But maybe I’m just dumb and there’s something I’m missing.

Roxanne, here’s the thing, I don’t think I will ever get better. I don’t think a normal life was supposed to be for me. If I went to prison and was somehow paroled, I think I would have gone out and kept hunting. This is something I was born to do. I think this is meant to be more than just this. But I am going hunting again. I won’t be back…I won’t be back ever.

I don’t care if you send out a manhunt for me. I can go to any country I want and there is nothing you can do about it. I’ve been doing this longer than you’ve been alive. I know how to disappear and I’ve become damn good at it.

Dean Winchester

Dean folded up the letter and placed it into an envelope. No need to address it. He would drop it off himself. He didn’t need anyone to be opening this up and looking at the ramblings of a mad man. That and he wanted to make damn well sure that this was going to the right person. Not someone who was in the same building but her or someone who could very easily get it to her. Only then would he know it was safe. Only then would he be able to be free from this. But he still had one more person to tell. One last person…

Sam,

I know we haven’t talked in forever but I need to tell you something. I don’t think I have ever written a letter to you before and I think this will be the last time that I will. I don’t want to drag you into this mess anymore. I don’t want you to be a part of this. You don’t deserve to be a part of this and for that, I am sorry.

So, I’m going on a hunting trip and I won’t come home.

Don’t come looking for me. Don’t get yourself in any more trouble than you’ve already gotten yourself into. Just…live the life I dragged you away from. Go back to school. Get your degree. Practice law. Maybe someday I’ll see you in court.

Love you, Sammy.

Dean folded the letter up and put it into an envelope just like he had done with Roxanne’s. There the two of them sat on his desk as he stood up and inspected the room. His hands dug into the layers of paper on the wall and ripped them down. The thin, soft paper didn’t pose a risk of papercuts. What he didn’t rip was placed into a folder where he stuffed them inside in hopes of salvaging any research he had before he left.

The folder was stuffed by the time the room was done and a thin layer of sweat covered his hot cheeks. He moved through the rest of the apartment to get the rest of what he needed. He packed what he needed and left what he didn’t. A small duffle bag sat at the bottom of his closet in his pristine room. Already mostly packed with clothing and personal hygiene items. There was another duffle bag hidden underneath the loose floorboards near the front door filled with the rest of his hunting items. The two letters were in his hands as Dean grabbed the final bag on his way out towards his car.

He tossed the bags in the back before coming back to the front. The car door slammed behind him as he started the car. He made his way blindly towards Sam’s house. A deep pit in his stomach finally opened up. Was he guilty? Was this a bad decision? Should he have just stayed put?

A car horn beeped behind him. His eyes flicked up to the green light in front of him but he couldn’t bring himself to pill forward. Left and he can pretend none of this ever happened. Right and he could never turn back. The car horn beeped again. This time Dean actually followed through on the directions given to him by the car behind him. He pulled the car forward and turned right down the road towards Sam's house.

The radio blared music but the words were lost on Dean as he made his way to drop off the letter at Sam’s house. Sam’s house. Technically he wasn’t even supposed to go near Sam’s house but he had already decided to break this pact. It was a conscious decision on his end and if he was already going to run then he was going to do it the right way, by telling his brother where he was going and what he was doing.

Sam’s house was only a few minutes away from where he lived but they had never seen each other over the course of the years in which Dean was on probation. Part of the no-contact order. The two of them were too much trouble as it was together. The two of them had caused this whole situation in the first place.

Sam’s car wasn’t in the driveway but his wife’s was. Surely she would see him drop off the letter but that didn’t matter anymore. This wasn’t about him and if she told him that he was here then he probably would have at least gotten the note by then so it didn’t matter.

Dean stepped out of the car, leaving the engine idling in the driveway as Dean made his way up to the door. Kids. He could hear the kids playing inside. His niece and nephew whom he had never seen were playing inside and from the sounds of it, it seemed to be cops and robbers. Tears pricked at Deans's eyes as he dropped down to his knees in front of the perfectly painted door. The door he was supposed to have.

Don’t I deserve this life? Dean thought to himself. He cared for Sam all his life and he got this life while Dean was going back on the road. Dean slipped the letter on the door and made his way back down the stairs towards his car. Sam deserves this life. As is the life of an older brother. Sacrificing everything to help out his younger brother.

The next stop was the therapist’s office and that was all the way downtown. He would have to cut through there to get to the highway anyways so it would be nice anyways to make one last stop.

Dean slapped the letter onto the receptionist’s desk, “Tell Roxanne that I’m not coming back. I’m not ever coming back. I’ve got work to do.”

The door slammed shut behind him as Dean stormed out of the building and into the parking lot. He jumped into his car. The engine turned over. The open road stared back at him.

All healed if Dean said so himself.

#dean fanfiction #dean winchester fanfiction #dean winchester fanfic #sam winchester fanfiction #sam winchester #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural #superfluffysupernatural #supernatural imagine

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stuckinapatriarchalbullshitland · 4 years

Text

🌹 - ɟ

Hiii babies and dear Anons 👋🏼🤗 You know how it works by now. These are the answers to the asks Mari/Stuck sent me. And happy Valentine’s Day to you all!! 🌹🌹 Enjoy 🙃

A lot of people have been interested in them, dear Anon. From managers, to publicists, to sponsors, partnerships, producers, etc., etc. and no, it was never a problem between them. That’s part of their job.

No, dear Anon. Camila and Ashlee are best friends. Ash ships/ped Camren. She has helped them a lot of times. I know why you thought this. Just as I know it may seem that Ash takes advantage of Camila because she created a lot of videos with her, made two songs about her, and brings her up at every opportunity, but it’s not what it seems. Do you have any idea how hard it is to try to emerge as an artist in that world? Do you have any idea how many artists there are out there that you’ll never hear about because they’ll never make it to the top? Why do you know Ashlee? Thanks to 5H. Without having been their guitarist, you wouldn’t even know she existed. The fans that Juno has, are Harmonizers/Camilizers and some that she managed to make herself afterwards.

Ash is a real friend to our Mila. She has helped her more times than we could ever know, even by leaving the tour to help her friend. And Camila’s the same for her. Did you know that on June 13, 2020, in the face of the Black Lives Matter Movement she helped Ashlee sponsor a free scholarship for 20 black students to participate in the JUNO’s Guitar Bootcamp to help them create more opportunities in that field in their future? [Diana Foster, who I believe is her girlfriend or a great friend of hers anyway, also helped] Why on earth would Camila willingly help someone who ‘presumably’ would be taking advantage of her friendship? May I suggest you go watch one of the last videos they have together in Camila’s backstage? It dates back to 2019. Go watch it, dear Anon, and tell me if you don’t get an automatic smile on your lips.

Forgive me, Anon, with all due respect speaking, but what are you saying? “Camila has made mistakes (she has not been the best girlfriend possible)?” Are you for real? What are you talking about? Camila made her mistakes, but so did Lauren. So why are you only pointing the finger at Camila? Did you pay attention to their story? Did you hear/see what Lauren said on the podcast? Have you ever listened to their songs WELL? Because apparently, you didn’t. A couple is made up of two people and mistakes are made by two, not just by one.

No, dear Anon. Closer was never a song of hers in the first place, let alone one she could sell. The Chainsmokers wanted her in the song. She recorded a rough demo for them and then turned it down. I know that when she turned it down and they passed it on to Halsey, she wrote and contributed to some of the lyrics (she appears as a songwriter in the credits), so I believe she wrote those in the place of the ones Mila wrote in her version, but I’m not sure. I don’t know if Camila had the time to write her part like Ashley (Halsey) did, or if she directly recorded the demo as she did with The Middle. Until it’s leaked, we won’t have an answer.

The fact is that Closer was simply a project that was proposed to her when she was still in 5H and that she turned down because 7/27 was about to come out. Just as she declined to participate in Taylor Swift’s Bad Blood music video for them (5H). And I still wonder how the haters still consider her a bitch 🙄🙄

Ligas, or hair bands, or también se dice colitas, verdad? Or hair ties as I like to call them, were originally Lauren’s. Lauren had two on her wrist at X-Factor and then, magically, one ended up on Camila’s wrist. I personally think that was their first symbol, but of friendship. And no, dear Anon, they didn’t replace the rings. The rings didn’t yet exist at that time. If the rings were one of their symbols of love, the hair ties were symbols of friendship, at least in the beginning.

P.S. dear Anon, I would like that as soon as you finish reading this post, you’d type ‘garters’ on Google and click directly on images 🤣 I really, REALLY, love you for this, believe me 😉❤️

I watched all the interviews held in Spain in 2015 and you can see the differences, dear Anon. The two interviews with Revista Bravo and the one with Vodafone Yu are more or less normal. There’s tension between all of them because the big mess had recently happened. But in Alyson’s one with NSP PROJECTS and the one with LOS40 in which Alyson is in as well… Gosh… Your second question is my answer, dear Anon. Yes, they broke up, but that was even before they went to Europe.

As for your last question, on the one hand, I think she was single, attracted to the interviewer, and that she didn’t have to be accountable to anyone because being single, she could do whatever she wanted. But on the other hand, I think it may have been done on purpose for revenge since they’ve always played these jealousy games. I don’t think she managed to control herself though. It shows in both of those interviews, although it’s much more evident in the one with NSP PROJECTS. I don’t think she really realized the gravity of what she was doing because she was too wrapped up in Alyson and too busy in impressed her than everything else. I don’t think she noticed, at least not during the interviews, how hurt Lauren was.

I don’t want to tell you yes or no if her behavior was correct or not, simply because I don’t know if she did it because as I said she was single and didn’t have to answer to anyone, or if she did it out of revenge because she wanted Laur to be jealous. My instinctive response would be that it wasn’t corrected because of the effect it had on Laur who was also going through the dark diary period, but I don’t really know why Mila did what she did. She may have had her reasons, and maybe knowing them, my answer would be different, or the same. I don’t know because I don’t know the reasons behind this. Lauren has done a lot of things in the past that have hurt Camila, and Camila has done a lot of things in the past that have hurt Lauren. They’ve hurt each other many times. Sometimes on purpose and sometimes not. So I prefer to abstain because, at least in this case, I don’t feel like judging something I don’t know. Much less point the finger.

Hi @ camilalauren0327 😄👋🏼 yeah, writing is therapeutic for them, as it is for many other people, myself included. Dancing was for me as well. Many people find it therapeutic to play sports, others find it in various forms of art, etc., etc.

I don’t know if Camren did couples therapy 🤷🏻‍♀‍ I think if they really did it, they did it after 5H.

Doctors of all kinds, and therefore also psychologists, consultants, therapists, psychiatrists, etc. are bound by the federal law HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). Many therapists themselves indeed, prefer to establish confidentiality limits even before starting therapy. For example, the fact that they’re required to maintain therapy content is established regardless, but with you, they can determine who they can contact with your written permission, or if they can’t contact anyone. If YOU client prefer it, you can also establish that outside those four walls, you’re not really in therapy and that therefore if you meet your therapist in a supermarket, for example, they’ll pretend not to know you and will not acknowledge you at all in order to protect your client-therapist confidentiality. So, at the end of the day, it really depends on you and what you establish with your therapist.

This, however, is sometimes not enough for celebrities. Those who really, but really care about privacy and don’t want to take risks, require their therapist to also sign an NDA as a backup and reinforcement plan, so that it covers everything, including sections that HIPAA doesn’t administer.

Both, dear @camilalauren0327, and hi again 👋🏼😊 In the Consequences video and on the day of Say You Won’t Let Go she was paying tribute to Lauren and to the old Camila. For Consequences, that was one of the many symbols we find in the video that served as a clue. For Say You Won’t Let Go it was yes a tribute to Lauren and to old Camila, but it was more of a message for her. The song was for her, the bow was for her, and the rose on her pants was for her. It was like: “Hey, I’m still here. I’m still me. See the bow? See the rose? The song? It’s all for you. The title of the song already speaks for itself. Let’s try again”. That was indeed still the period of rapprochement between them. As for the other times she wore it, and I remember that she even wore it around her neck on more than one occasion, it was for style.

Sure thing, dear Anon 🙃 Curious is a song discarded from the album Camila, and I don’t know if you’ll like my interpretation, dear Anon, because this song is not about Lauren (for me).

Verse 1

“I lose myself when you start talkin’

There’s something riveting about you, it’s got me confused”

Camila finds this girl so fascinating, that not only does she gets lost when she talks, but it also makes her confused. Confused because she didn’t think another girl could have this effect on her while her mind was always on Lauren. And yes, girl. It’s not the first time that Camila has had to mask this in her songs.

“If we went back to your apartment

Would you be a gentleman and a bad boy too?��

She’s provocative here. She’s literally provoking and teasing the girl: “Could you be sweet and at the same time rough enough to slamming me against the wall?” If you know what I mean…

Pre-Chorus

“I know you think, I’m innocent

Little do you know where my mind has been?”

When you see Camila in videos and interviews, you’re hit by her energy 80% of the time. She’s this cute and goofy and clumsy and dorky ball of bubbly energy that cracks a smile from you all the time. She’s funny with her lame jokes that however always make you laugh, and most of the time, you see her in this innocent light. And it’s true. She looks like this innocent little bean that must be protected at all costs. But we also know that she’s far from innocent. And here, that’s what she’s telling the girl: “If you knew what I’ve been thinking about you, about us, about what I want to happen, you’d understand that I’m not that innocent after all.”

“I don’t have much experience

Could you relieve me of my ignorance?”

The only sexual experience Camila had had up to that point, had been with Lauren. So unlike this girl, Camila had only had one partner, and she’s telling her just that: “I don’t have much experience as you do. Could you help me out?”

“It’s true (It’s true, it’s true)

Been wondering about you”

Here she’s basically questioning whether the expectation equals the reality.

Chorus

“I’m just cu—, I’m just curious

What you do, just got the two of us

Hit me down, take me up

Can you teach me how to love?

I’m just curious”

She’s telling her that what they do in private between them, will stay between the two of them. And then… Ahem-Ahem! *Throat clearing* I’m really trying to hold back as much as possible here guys… If I hadn’t received complaints in the past about some of the answers I gave in other posts, I wouldn’t have had any kind of problem explaining exactly what she says sentence by sentence, but I’ll just limit myself by saying that she’s asking her to teach her to be more expert on the subject matter.

Post-Chorus

“Dum, dum-dum-dum

You got me feeling

Dum, dum-dum-dum

You got me feeling”

This girl makes her feel in a certain type of way that Camila herself refrains from saying what she really wants to say. Still if you know what I mean…

Verse 2

“I’m kinda nervous but I like it (Yeah)”

Because it’s a good kind of nervous. An exciting kind of nervous.

“Will you live up to the image that I got of you?”

Again. As I said before, she’s basically asking if the expectation equals the reality.

“You’re not usually my type, yeah

I think that that might be the reason that I’m here with you (Oh, oh)”

And this, speaks for itself. Who’s Camila’s type? With whom is she making the comparison? Who does she have in mind to justify her actions? She’s there with this girl because her type is who?

Before I wrap up, I want to explain to you why this song has nothing of Lauren for me. So I’m going to rewrite some pieces of the song to debunk it’s about Lauren.

“If we went back to your apartment”

Lauren didn’t have an apartment yet. She wasn’t living alone yet. 5H had two apartments that they shared together in the months of recording, and for the rest, they lived constantly in hotels. This girl (older than her) had an apartment.

“I know you think, I’m innocent”

Lauren and Camila had already had sex. Hello? Since the Like Friends Do situation. So she’s not talking about Lauren because she already knew Camila wasn’t innocent.

“I don’t have much experience”

Again. Experience she’d precisely had with Laur.

“Been wondering about you”

She had to wonder about Lauren if she had already been with her sexually? What would have been the sense?

“What you do, just got the two of us”

If she was really talking about Lauren, this would’ve been a big bullshit because there were people who knew about them. The ones closest to them for sure. Like DNA. DNA knew about them right from the start and lived their story basically along with them. Not to mention that they heard them on more than one occasion. Hell, even we heard them thanks to that takeover.

“You’re not usually my type”

Definitely not Lauren! Isn’t Lauren Camila’s type? In which universe?

“I think that that might be the reason that I’m here with you”

Exactly! This girl, whether it was physically or of character, wasn’t like Lauren.

Aaand these are the reasons why I’m 100% sure this song is not about Lauren, dear Anon.

Of course I can, dear Anon 😄

Cleopatra is a song discarded from the album Camila, and created during The Hurting. The Healing. The Loving. era. C ended Something’s Gotta Give in mid-March 2017 and we know it was the last song of The Hurting. The Healing. The Loving. era before the album name changed to Camila, so Cleopatra was finished before that.

Verse

“Ridin’ ‘round town in the backseat

Looking like the real deal

Looking real, real, real

Spent so long cuttin’ my teeth

Thought you were the real deal

But it wasn’t real, real, real, uh”

Camila is in the back of a car and, you know how sometimes you find yourself spacing out and thinking about something in those moments? Maybe by looking out the window but not really looking because you’re thinking about that something? It can be something trivial or something important, and in Camila’s case, in this case specifically, she’s overthinking about her relationship with Lauren. They had clearly broken up, and Camila is thinking about how she believed L was the real deal.

With ‘cuttin’ my teeth’ she used a slang to indicate that she learned something early in her life. The slang of cut my/your/her/his/their teeth was born in reference to the exit of the teeth from a baby’s gums and consequently indicates a first experience. So, here she means that she spent too much time learning the ropes believing for real that Lauren was for her, and then realize that she wasn’t.

[Don’t be discouraged and keep in mind that in this case, they were passing thoughts because she was definitely angry, bitter, and sad. We all are after a fight or a breakup with a partner. Besides, we all know that L is the love of her life. Think of songs like Never Be the Same (It’s you, babe), All These Years ('Cause after all these years, I still feel everything when you are near), Taxy (The greatest love story that’s never been told), and many others up to one of the ‘most recent’ ones: Anyone (You are the only one I’ll ever love) 😉]

Pre-Chorus

“Every night it was a different fight

It was a different girl

It was a different lie, ooh-ooh

Every night it was a different fight

It was a different girl

It was a different lie, ooh”

Aaaand back at it again with their communication problems. Even if she has generalized a lot here, she still makes us understand the essence of the problem.

Chorus

“I think I kinda wanna cut my hair like I’m

I’m Cleopatra”

When people move on or try to move on after a breakup, what do they usually do? They look for a change. They want to separate themselves from their past selves, of the ones they were when they were in a relationship with the person they broke up with, and they seek a change, aka self-improvement. Most of the time visual, and therefore physical. This change is seen as a new beginning, a new chapter in their life where they want to feel good again. They want to feel attractive. And this is how self-innovation begins. Some go on a diet, others change their style and wardrobe, and then there’s what many see as a rite of passage: a new haircut.

Camila in this case used Cleopatra’s cut as a metaphor for the change she wanted to make about herself. Cleopatra is one of the most famous known queens in the world. Strong, intelligent, powerful, and that radiates charm in everyone since ever. But Camila isn’t talking about Cleopatra the person. She’s talking about her haircut. Cleopatra’s cut in this case is a symbol of power and freedom for Camila. Remember how I said earlier that Camila finished Something’s Gotta Give in mid-March and that she finished this song before that? Well, although this song talks about 2015, it was made in 2017. And guess what happened in that same period? Camila cut her hair by getting bangs. To be precise, it happened on March 31, 2017 (picture + caption: “joined the bang club now”). Coincidence? Yeah, sure, I don’t think so. Plus, although she used it as a metaphor, Camila has actually always wanted a Cleopatra cut, thing that, if you think about it, she now has for real. [Oh, oh and, rumor has it that Cleopatra was bisexual as was 100% Julius Caesar🤫🤭]

“Wanna dance on cars

And forget it all after

Skip these sad love songs cause I

Need something faster and now baby

Kinda think I’m ready”

The freedom I was saying before? (Cleopatra’s cut in this case is a symbol of power and freedom for Camila) She talks about it here. She used the wanting to dance on cars and the skipping sad love songs as figurative expressions of the freedom she wanted to feel, and that she wanted to feel fast because there was gonna be no crying in the club this time. 🤣🤣🤣 Sorry, dear Anon, I had to 😝 No but, seriously though. She just wanted to shed the past and move on right away because she was ready. And she was also ready for the power part I referred to earlier that she explains here:

Post-Chorus

“Needed to be all eyes on me

Baby all eyes on me, ooh

That’s what I want

Needed to be all eyes on me

Baby all eyes on me, ooh

That’s what I want, yeah”

Now. Now, now, now, now, now, now, now. We have a double interpretation here. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: Camila is a fucking genius. And being the fucking genius lyricist that she is, she used a double meaning here to let everyone interpret this part as they please. The double interpretation is so well hidden, that people who listen to this song without knowing the details, such as for example knowing something about Camila’s life or the year the song was made, would never know because they wouldn’t even notice.

The first interpretation ties into what she says about wanting to dance on cars in the chorus. That’s also a way of saying she just wants to dance thoughtlessly and have fun, but on cars? It’s a metaphor to say that she wants to do it by drawing everyone’s attention. I want you to picture something now, okay? Picture a party with a bunch of people dancing and drinking, and in the midst of the fun, someone climbs on the hood of a car or a counter or any other high surface to keep dancing. Can you picture what would happen at that moment? Can you picture how all the people there would turn to look at that person and shout, clap, and cheer them on? Now picture the same scenario with a person still climbing on something high, but to announce something. It’s the same thing. It’s the same purpose. Getting on top, getting on top of something, is to automatically draw attention. So the connection that leads us to the first interpretation is: Wanna dance on cars - Needed to be all eyes on me.

The second interpretation, on the other hand, is basically the same as regards wanting attention on her, but with another direction and another chorus sentence. Camila is a singer. She’s a performer. She LOVES to perform. She LOVES the excitement, the adrenaline rush, the anxiety, the nerves, the pressure, and the feeling of shitting herself before entering a stage. She LOVES the almost blinding stage lights, the screams, the cheers, the applause, and all the love from the fans. She LOVES mastering the stage, interacting with the audience, and delivering a show. She sings her heart out and LOVES it when the audience sings back to her. She has so much passion and she’s so fucking good at what she does. Why am I saying all this? Because with this hidden interpretation, Mila refers to her solo debut. Like I said, this song was made in 2017, remember? So the connection that leads us to the second interpretation is: Now baby, kinda think I’m ready - Needed to be all eyes on me. Ready for her debut.

Both indicate the attention and power (feeling of power) that I mentioned earlier that comes with it.

Bridge

“See, see

You right to be that

You bein’, you needin’

See, see

You right to be that

You bein’, you needin'”

This part is cryptic. Since they broke up here, I think she’s just saying that it’s okay. That it’s okay for Lauren to be the way she is and that it’s okay if they’re letting each other go (Yeah, sure, Jan 🤣). No hard feelings. Or at least, that’s my interpretation.

—

Before concluding this post, I’d like to make amends. My friend, the same one I ‘roasted’ in my last post (📄 - ɟ), hey, hi girl 😝 literally shoved her phone in my face a few days ago to show me an ask sent to @emisonme (hi to you too if you’re reading 👋🏼😄) in which I was mentioned. I’d like to apologize to all of you because I made a mistake, although not intentionally. I didn’t know Simon was no longer one of the directors of Simco Limited. I went to check it out and immediately understood why I didn’t know. Because it happened more or less recently (on September 17, 2020) and I hadn’t done a thorough research on the piece of shit since last summer (July) when Syco integrated into Sony.

I got really mad at myself for doing one of the things I hate: giving out wrong information. Camila and Lauren are ‘free’ from Simon, and I put that in quotes because one of the clauses that are in every Simmenthal Cow contract includes not being able to speak ill of him. I’m not kidding. This is a piece of an article from many years ago that is still on the internet today that talks about X Factor contracts: “The contract, which runs for 80 pages, also reportedly states that the rules are enforceable anywhere ‘in the world and solar system’ and that artists may not be critical of the company, ‘including its personnel and, in particular, Simon Cowell’. The contract makes clear no-one can speak badly of X Factor supremo Simon.”

Supremo… Supremo? Like what, the Supreme from American Horror Story (some fans of the series like me here)? Should I start calling him Cordelia? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I could never. I’m sorry Sarah (Paulson) for even giving it the slightest thought, love. I’m deeply ashamed. Sooo, like what? A supremo Super Saiyan (Dragon Ball)? If he clenches his hands into fists and screams, does his hair turn blonde? No, huh? So like what exactly? The supremo asshole? You know what? It doesn’t matter. He’s ridiculous enough per se.

Anyway. Camren are free I hope completely from Simon, but we don’t know yet if the contract ended along with Simon’s exit or if it’s still standing. We’ll see as soon as one of them releases a new song.

Please accept my sincere apologies, guys 🙏🏼 And thank you @emisonme for giving me a great news, albeit indirectly. You’re a real one 😊

🤸🏻‍♀‍🤸🏻‍♀‍🤸🏻‍♀‍

Aaand I’m done 🙈 I hope I was helpful in this case too. As usual, I’m always available for those who have questions, so feel free to ask 🙃 And as always, I thank Mari for giving me space in her blog and for making this exchange possible, and thanks to you Anons for your asks 🥰

Be kind, to others and to yourselves. Be a good example. Be patient. Be safe and take care of yourselves. Sending you virtual love and hugs 🤗🤗🤗 I love you, babies. Always with love, F ❤️

P.S. who wants to be my virtual Valentine? 🌹 🌹 🌹

____

I have to say sorry to F again because this submission should be posted last night and I couldn’t. Thanks for the long ass post F.

Another advice, I closed the inbox for anons as you know and I will open it again in a few days when I don’t be too busy. Save your asks for F anyway, anons!

#submission #f anon #long ass post #valentine answers #sorry for the late post #anon #ask #f answers

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wheredidhiseyebrowsgo · 4 years

Note

hi! hope you guys are doing well! i'm not sure if you guys already made a post about it and i missed it or tumblr ate my ask, but i was looking for some emotionally mature sterek where they went through therapy or emotional healing first before they get together? or just some really healthy established relationship with good communication and stuff. thankyou in advance! :D

AND

Anonymous said:

Hey I was looking for any sterek fics with healthy communication? Like instead of long arguments about nothing or spirals of self pity and hate and jealousy that some slow burns have, they actually talk to each other? Or like where once they realize that they like the other they tell them honestly? Thanks!

Yeah!

Lost Time, Lost Control by clottedcreamfudge

(1/1 I 2,892 I Mature)

“I don’t even know where to fucking start with that sentence, Stiles.”

“Any normal, good-mannered werewolf would start by renouncing their homophobia so they can support their friend in the pursuit of pastures peen, Derek,” Stiles says primly, standing up and shaking his head forlornly. Derek rubs his hands over his face, which doesn’t help.

Pastures peen, Jesus Christ.

***

Sometimes it’s not so bad to give someone else control.

prince charming is a lie by stilinski

(1/1 I 2,916 I Teen)

"I think it was a mistake to kiss me, that first time."

It takes Stiles half a second to realise Derek's said anything; he's been quiet for a little while, tucked between Stiles and the arm of the couch with Stiles' hand in his lap while Stiles answered emails with the other. Stiles abandons his phone to turn his attention to Derek, who isn't looking at him, continues to play with his Stiles' fingers. A lead weight settles in the pit of Stiles' stomach but he pushes past it.

Complicated but Ridiculously Simple by Ionaonie

(1/1 I 9,882 I General)

Despite what Scott thought, Derek was into him. Stiles knew that. But Derek needed to be comfortable with himself, had to have dealt with all his issues before he’d let anything happen between them. Knowing what he did, Stiles respected that. But if one day Derek decided he only wanted them to be friends, well, Stiles would deal with that if it happened.

Syrup Sweet by thatfizzyfeeling

(2/2 I 13,174 I Explicit)

Just a soft little story about two boys who are really into each other. But not in the way you might assume - cough. Really, it's all very gentle. Right up until you get to the hardcore porn. Then it's...well, then it's just satisfying.

Hot Single Dad Derek Hale by WhoNatural

(1/1 I 13,315 I Explicit)

Wherein Derek is a Hot Single Dad, possibly with a little case of martyrdom, and Stiles is the newest client at his publishing house who really just wants to make him happy. Preferably while they're both naked.

He doesn’t get to talk to Stiles a whole lot - and it’s fine, it’s professional and polite, but there is a little something that lights up in him when he thinks about him, sees him. Derek’s life has been mostly about preschool and Big Hero 6 and extra-curricular activities for so long now that it’s a shock to the system when he finds himself pre-occupied with something so... adult. And there are many, many adult things on his mind where Stiles is concerned.

Intended effects by Fox_Pause

(11/11 I 14,848 I Teen)

Derek's been hiding away for months now. Not just days, or even weeks. Months. He's moved way past healing whatever wounds he thinks validates deserting the pack, and is now heading straight into hermit territory.

Stiles won't let that happen. Not while he's still alive and kicking.

Don’t Take Your Work Home With You by step_lightly_little_wren

(12/12 I 56,083 I Explicit)

Stiles was suddenly reminded of those Choose Your Own Adventure books. He wished he could have looked ahead to see if choosing, “I want to climb you like a tree,” would land him in the sexy sex-beast’s sexy sex-lair or the unemployment line in the mystical Land of Fired-For-Sexually-Harassing-His-Boss.

#teen wolf #sterek #stiles stilinski #derek hale #established relationship #fluff

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phoenixyfriend · 4 years

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Madara and Obito... In SPACE

So the preface to this mess: I don’t know jackshit about Star Wars, so a lot of this went through friends who do know Star Wars (the primary of which does not have a tumblr).

(I have watched Episodes 7&8, and Rogue One. Of the first six movies, I remember watching maybe an hour total. I have not seen more than snatches of Clone Wars. Beyond that, nothing but fic.)

Anyway! Let’s go:

As y’all probably know by now, my favorite form of crossover is what I call “intrusive,” so... I'm enjoying the mental concept of "dump Madara on Coruscant and watch him go." (Prequels, probably.)

Does Madara know what's going on? No. Can he understand a word that's being said? No! Is he going to fight the first person to aim a weapon at him, and every person after that? Yes.

Is Madara fighting fit?

Nnnnnnnnnnnnnno, not really, he’s old as balls. This is "I was on cave life support but I'm getting back up to kick ass out of pure spite" Madara.

[Image description: A screenshot of a panel of the Naruto Manga. Uchiha Madara is old and visibly ‘decrepit,’ with spiky white hair and an amorphous black robe. He is sitting on a pale throne, and there is a scythe visible to the side. He has a speech bubble saying “I am... a ghost of the Uchiha.” End Description]

Two wrinkly old guys, staring each other down: There ain't enough room in this universe for the two of us. [Palpatine and Madara start fighting to the death]

Congrats, Palpatine! Your ass is getting kicked by a geriatric malcontent who doesn't speak any language you've ever heard or feel like literally anything in the Force. You may have Sith lightning, but do you have decades of frontline experiences and over half a century of cave-dwelling bitterness?

Both of them, simultaneously, in completely different languages: Get off my lawn, whipper-snapper.

Palpatine: Behold my mastery of the Dark Side, Foolish old man! Palpatine: [shoots lightning] Madara: Oh hey, you're like the seventeenth most dangerous person who can shoot lightning I've fought. Telekinesis? Fought that. Combat precognition? Fought that, have that, and let me tell you hwat, it doesn't help if you're opponent is just that much faster than you.

Now, I’ll take a step back and acknowledge that several people advised me that Palpatine would stand a chance against Madara, likely even win, if Madara just got hacked off of his life support and is down to one eye.

But. I want a shitpost, and also to clown on Palpatine, so Madara wins easily.

Madara also deserves to be clowned on, but the entire situation is clowning on him because he’s not in his cave anymore, and he really wants to go back to his Gedou Mazou statue.

Maybe Madara and Palpatine go Old Man Fight and then Obito just pulls a Ninja Move and kills Palpatine that way. Madara was ranting and Obito just. Ninjas behind Palpatine and slits his throat like “okay, you’re obviously evil so like... bye.”

(I just love causing "Wait what" reactions in characters that are used to having total control. Like. Have you read "Unexpected Guests"? The Bleach fic? Everything that happens in Hueco Mundo and after. That energy. I want that energy.)

Madara waves his scythe around like a cane. Obito just trails after like “Gramps, no” because it’s still pre-Sanbi, so he’s Mostly Innocent (you know, on the scale of how fucked up Obito is as a person), and just wants Madara to like. Stop.

Palpatine dies but nobody's sure what to charge Madara with since he did kind of expose a Sith? And Palpatine attacked first for [handwave] reasons?

Jedi: Well sir, in lieu of charging you with assassination of the emperor, we have decided to ask you politely to return to the elderly person's retirement home from whence you came. Please leave immediately. You are frightening the senate. Madara: [incomprehensible raving] Jedi: Yes yes, very interesting. Jedi, whispering: Does anyone know his caretaker???

Obito looks increasingly put-upon as events progress. You need Obito there to... well, not translate. Nobody can translate. But to at least poke Madara into being Slightly Less Homicidal.

Anakin seems sad about his friend dying and being evil so Obito challenges him to a spar. Madara and Obito get pulled into the Jedi Temple to help train Padawans? My first thought was "they wouldn't trust someone so obviously Weird, Crazy, and Incomprehensible around the younglings" and my second thought was "well they let Yoda do it and he's all those things so I mean? YEAH."

What if they put Madara in the bacta tank and he just freshened up like a daisy because of hand-wave Hashirama cell reasons (Blame Sir Tiddyface).

From “Decrepit and Reliant on Cave Tube Life Support” to “Will Call Down Meteors With Ease”

How many eyes does he have? Whatever’s funniest. Let’s say one Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan and one Rinnegan, for maximum chaos.

Would "half my body is missing" Obito freak out if Bacta regrew his eye? Can bacta regrow something like that? When characters lose limbs they usually just get cybernetic replacements, but the person I spoke with said that apparently they saw somewhere that that kind of thing can grow back it just takes a really long time.

I want to imagine bacta would help Obito with the Zetsu integration.

Anyway! Yes. Have Madara help train people despite being... Madara about it. You know... kind of a dick.

(I’d put example gifs but I don’t feel up to it. Y’all know what Madara’s “weakness disgusts me” ass is like.)

Obito had to get his "these fools could never make me sweat" sass from somewhere, after all.

Do you think Obito could fight the baby Jedi that are around his age while recovering? I have no idea what their skill level is at fourteen, but I want to imagine Obito sparring the Padawans.

Obito + Zetsu + Bacta = he still needs physical therapy but he can spar again!

Madara is delighted to have a baby ninja to bully. He's too old to not bully baby ninjas, and Obito is the only baby ninja. TBH Madara just makes Obito his assistant teacher.

Obito: What are we even doing here and how do we get home? Madara: I'm still working on that. Obito: But I want to go home and see Rin and Kakashi! Madara, who was like two days away from triggering the Sanbi plan: I'm working on it.

Something sticking in my mind rn is Ahsoka&Obito, since Obito is still Baby.

I think Obito would be excited to have someone his age that thought he was Cool and Talented for being able to do Chakra Things instead of writing him off as "the dead-last." Like, Rin is friends with him, but she doesn't look up to him as someone more/differently talented. He'd be excited to get to be "The Mysterious Cool Big Bro" for once.

I feel I also just like the idea of Anakin not knowing what to do with someone Several Years Younger that is also. Ninja Skill.

Miscellaneous thoughts:

Madara is a grouchy old man even AFTER he gets effectively de-aged via bacta dunk, for the record. He's back in his prime and the Jedi have no idea how. They're all concerned about tiddyface*. (When are people not concerned about Sir Tiddyface, really.) The mokuton is a problem.

*Sir Tiddyface is that random Hashirama face that Madara had growing out of his pecs for like... convoluted bullshit reasons.

(Madara doesn't have mokuton, but he has enough Hashirama cells that it interacted very, VERY weirdly with the bacta.)

Obito spends the intervening weeks trying to learn the local language. He's very eager. Not particularly fast. Still doing it though!

I want Obito juggling kunai as physical therapy while he's waiting for Mads to get out of the bacta tank and just gains himself the adoration of a gaggle of small baby Jedi children.

Madara comes out of the bacta tank looking like he did in his prime (which I mentioned earlier but whatever), and it absolutely incites a yelling match of an argument that draws way too much attention.

Someone tries to teach Obito how to access the Force, just to see what happens. He almost turns into a statue because the philosophy behind Force meditation is only a few steps away from Sage Mode Meditation.

Anyway, Madara smacks him with a stick like Fukasaku to make sure Obito doesn't turn into stone.

Madara grumps about the lack of paper and brushes and ink. Bitches about it until someone hits up an antique store or something to get them for him. The day before he and Obito are dispatched on a mission with someone, probably Anakin for plot reasons, Madara very publicly seals things into a scroll and then tells them that no, they can't learn it, because the Force isn't chakra so fuuinjutsu won't work for them, so There.

Obito practices some Teen Rebellion (tm) and like, tries to teach the Padawan friends he's made how to do Chakra Things... but he's so bad at explaining things that nobody can get it to work even if it were possible.

In Obito's defense, language barriers. Not in Obito's defense, he's just really bad at words sometimes.

#Star Wars #Star Wars Prequels #Naruto #Uchiha Madara #Uchiha Obito #crossovers #Phoenix Posts #body horror mention

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starryeyedrogue · 3 years

Text

mental health & vent

again, a long one. please stick with me here.

tw: depression, anxiety, ptsd, epilepsy diagnosis, suicidal thoughts mention

hey everyone, like I said in my last post, I won’t be as active on here. this doesn’t mean I’m quitting by any means, I’m here for the long haul! I just need a break for a little bit.

side note: I am not in any way suicidal or practicing self harm. this is just to vent and act as a PSA for my mutuals/followers.

now onto my main message.

I’ve seen lots of posts about mental health lately, and I’m so incredibly proud of those who have spoken up. They’ve inspired me to make my own post, actually. normally I’d keep it to myself, but this time has been rough and I want to get it off my chest. I’ll probably delete this later, but still.

I’ve been depressed.

long story short, I had a very traumatic experience a couple years ago with an ex boyfriend (not going into it on this post, for details just dm me. not something I’d want to post publicly, this is just an explanation) and I was deeply depressed. I was never diagnosed “officially” because I was afraid to speak up, as this would expose what I was going through. I had really bad anxiety at that time too, and I still do. I also have PTSD flashbacks from it now and again. none of this was diagnosed, and I still don’t want to bring it up to my doctors/family. my irl friends don’t even know, at least not most of it.

I have monoclonic epilepsy, which means my seizures are fairly small. my arms, legs, feet, hands, and fingers twitch, and I lose control for a few seconds. it doesn’t hurt, and sometimes I don’t even notice or remember it happening, but my family does. epilepsy in general runs in my family, and it can be triggered by a great deal of stress, lack of sleep, and of course flashing lights. in my case, I never “had” epilepsy or seizures until the “experience” I mentioned before, as it caused massive amounts of stress for about 2 years straight. it’s gotten better, as I now have medicine and am out of that situation, and I haven’t had a seizure since September, which is amazing and a huge blessing.

writing has helped with my depression and anxiety a lot, as I can write out what effects me the most. honestly, some of the characters are based off of myself (before vs after) and the person from the “experience.” this is just for therapeutic reasons, as I don’t really want to go to real therapy (I’d be too embarrassed to ask for it or talk to someone anyway, though I probably need to go eventually and plan to when I’m on my own).

however, when I stopped posting it, I started feeling bad again. I didn’t think I needed to post my stories to feel better or to make a childhood dream into reality, but not posting it made me feel somehow worse. I’ve stopped writing as much, and I’ve lost motivation to do just about anything. I’m working on a couple things to help myself get out of this “funk,” but any tips would be greatly appreciated!

this may seems stupid, but I’ve been depressed and very anxious about my schooling. I started in cyber security and got about halfway through, but I became depressed and had other issues so I didn’t finish the degree. now I’m starting in psychology, after praying for months and months for help with figuring out what to do for school. I finally got an answer, and that answer was to be a Christian counselor! I want to help as many people as I can, especially since I know how it feels to be anxious, depressed, and have PTSD.

I’m dealing with a lot of changes right now, as I’m selling my first car, might have to move out of my first house/childhood home, and just a bunch of other stuff. this sounds trivial, but I hate change. it seriously stresses me out. my neurologist told me that if I have any more seizures, I won’t be able to drive for 6 months to a year to be safe (as I could have an “episode” as I call it while driving and hurt myself/others in a potential car accident). trust me, trying not to be stressed while being stressed, anxious, and depressed is not easy.

on top of all that, my irl friends have all but abandoned me. I never hear from them (all but one, she’s the best!), and when I do they ignore me or pretend to listen when they obviously aren’t. I try to make plans with them, but they ignore me or just say “definitely!” but never try to set up times to hang out. It’s been almost two years since I’ve seen them all together. I was able to hang out with the friend I mentioned earlier to go to another friend’s recital, but that was it, and that was months ago. I totally get being busy, but I miss them and I don’t think they miss me, which really hurts. one friend ditched us on graduation day and we haven’t talked to her outside of “happy birthday,” or “@___ look at this thing I know you like,” which she never responded to. graduation was 4 years ago. I miss them all, even if they aren’t really my friends. I miss familiarity and their chaotic personalities. I’ve known them my entire life. honestly, I haven’t made any other friends irl, even though I’ve tried (I’m very introverted and a lot of people don’t get my humor/personality. I’m very much a mischievous old lady that uses weird wording (li.e. using uncommon words for my generation mixed with modern stuff, basically I sound like a vampire that’s been around since the 50s and mixes the eras together in some unholy mixture) at heart and I have very niche interests that I cling to like they’re my last hope). basically, making friends and meeting new people is hard for me for various reasons.

tumblr is different though, which I’m seriously grateful for! the people I’ve talked to are all so nice and really fun to talk to, and they’re part of why I’m posting this. @elvish-sky gave me the courage to post this and @hey-its-nonny and @padawansofthejediorder have been amazing and super nice to me, and I couldn’t be more grateful. the reason I’m posting this is to let them know what’s going on if I don’t respond to messages for a while, and to let them know what wonderful people they are and how much it means to me that they care about me, even if we’re just tumblr mutuals. I love you guys, thanks for being here! it means more than you know.

my mom and dad both had health scares recently, which made me spiral even more. I honestly don’t know what I would do if one of them died. they’re literally my world and my best friends, as ridiculous as that sounds. my mental health was so low I honestly thought I’d die too. they’re both fine now, which is truly a blessing and a massive relief. when I say I thought I’d die too, I don’t mean I wanted to commit suicide, but I honestly can’t imagine a world without my parents, especially my mom (hers was the main health scare, it was a case of reaction to a new medication for her migraines). we’re insanely close and she’s my best friend, as cheesy as that sounds. I don’t know what I would do without her. it’s making me teary just thinking about it.

long story short, please be patient with me. I’m dealing with a lot right now, and I need some time to take a deep breath and focus on my mental health. if you have any suggestions/tips for dealing with depression, anxiety, and PTSD flashbacks, please let me know!

for those I’ve tagged, you don’t have to reply or even read this whole thing if you want, I tagged you because I thought you’d like to know about this and/or I wanted to show my appreciation for your kindness!

I love you all, thanks for sticking around and listening to my rants. <3

#roguespeaks #sorry that was super long #vent #mental health #roguesrambles

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happylittledrabbles · 3 years

Text

Four Years

Rating: T

Fandom: Haikyuu!!

Pairing: Tsukishima/Kuroo, Tsukishima/Yamaguchi, Kuroo/Kenma

On the day of Kuroo's graduation, Tsukishima kisses him and runs away without another word, leaving both of them confused. Neither speaks to one another after that, and Tsukishima has to figure out his own emotions now that the person he loves has left, bouncing around from one person to another in order to fill the hole Kuroo created. Angst, hurt, self-discovery, and acceptance ensue, all ending in a high school reunion that ends in tears.

AO3

—

It happened so quickly, Kuroo barely knew what happened.

One second, he was congratulating Tsukishima on his good work outside the nationals tournament gym, joking around with the skinny beanpole he had grown close to for nearly a year. Pushing him playfully, ruffling his hair, patting him on the shoulder. All the standard forms of affection Tsukishima had learned to tolerate over the months. Keyword: tolerate . The last thing Kuroo expected was to have that affection returned by the same Tsukishima who slapped him the first time he placed his hand on his back.

Especially in the form of a kiss.

A chaste kiss, one that lasted barely a second, but a kiss nonetheless. On the lips.

Before Kuroo could even form a thought, nevermind actually react to it, he was faced with the back of Tsukishima’s head as he sprinted away and down the sidewalk to the hotel. If he hadn’t just been kissed, he would have found it comical that Tsukishima was finally putting effort into exercise—running no less—but all that he could summon was a shaky exhale as his trembling fingers came up to his lips, where he could have sworn he still felt Tsukishima’s chapped lips on his.

If Kuroo knew that the last thing he’d see of Tsukishima for months to follow would be the back of his head, he would have sprinted right after him and captured his wrist, spun him back, and made fun of his escape plan before kissing him squarely on the lips.

But he didn’t know that. So as he switched his gaze from the diploma in his hands up to the audience at his graduation and didn’t see the skinny blond he’d had his eye on since he first practiced with him, to blond who stole a kiss from him, he couldn’t help but feel his face fall and his heart go gray. His grip on his diploma tightened until his mother slapped the back of his head for damaging his diploma, but he couldn’t help it. He apologized to his mother and thanked his family for coming out in support of him and walked home with his family, desperately using the celebratory alcohol to escape the images of glasses paired with a shit-eating grin that assaulted his mind. What he would do to have that shit-eating grin in front of him and wipe it off the holder’s face with a deep kiss.

He couldn’t even escape it in his dreams. Tsukishima dominated them in every form: his determined face as he practiced, his bored face as he watched his teammate’s foolish antics, his sleeping face that showed off an unguarded version of him for only a short time. But that short time was more than enough to win over Kuroo’s obsession. But that obsession had to come to an end. He had to focus on his new job while Tsukishima had to focus on school. They were at two different points in their lives. At least he would always have that kiss.

The problem was, Tsukishima wasn’t focusing on school when it started up again. Or practice. He wasn’t focusing on anything other than the kiss. Summer was torture since he didn’t have homework to at least pretend to lose himself in. All he had was his thoughts, and those were lethal. At random times, he’d find himself running his fingertips over his own lips, letting his eyes flutter closed and imagine Kuroo’s face in front of his, except instead of that surprised expression Kuroo held that day, it would be something full of want, of desire. When school started again, he was a lot more excited than usual, especially for volleyball practice. Except he still couldn’t escape the kiss.

“Tsukishima!” Daichi yelled, snapping Tsukishima out of his thoughts.

He hadn’t even noticed the volleyball that had whizzed past his head and nearly knocked Hinata down behind him, all thanks to the amazing ace who was currently apologizing profusely to the both of them, but Tsukishima couldn’t have cared less.

“Sorry,” he said monotonously, trying to hold back a roll of his eyes. He got back into his blocker stance, holding his arms at chest-level in anticipation for Kageyama’s serve.

“Great, now get your head out of your ass and actually play, moron,” Kageyama demanded before doing one of his powerful serves.

Tsukishima scowled at the other, but the scowl lessened when he noticed how the light streaming in from the barred windows fell so perfectly against his black hair, casting an almost halo around him as he jumped nearly two feet in the air, seeming to float before finally landing on Earth. Kageyama at that moment reminded him so much of Kuroo, from the black hair to the offhanded remarks about his performance. Although Kageyama was a tad more offensive in his remarks, Tsukishima couldn’t tell the difference, especially when he was just reeling from the powerful effects of his first kiss.

He swallowed thickly and swiftly blocked one of Asahi’s spikes, resulting in a very red palm from the aftermath. He cleared his throat and glanced directly at Kageyama, who was staring him down through the net.

“That good enough for you?” he asked calmly, resulting in Kageyama needing to be held back by Daichi and promptly hit in the back of the head by Suga. He walked off the court and leaned down to pick up his water bottle, drinking slowly as he watched with pleased amusement as Kageyama tried to wrestle his way out of Daichi’s arms.

“You do that on purpose, don’t you?” Hinata asked, causing Tsukishima to jump from surprise.

“Geez, you pop out of nowhere, don’t you?” Tsukishima grumbled behind his straw, glancing down at Hinata before looking up at the ceiling. “But yeah, it’s fun to see him freak out.”

Hinata went quiet for a moment, which usually would have been a blessing for the blond, but it made him uneasy at the same time.

“He has feelings, too, you know,” Hinata mumbled, looking down shyly at his fingers clasped in front of him. “He just can’t control them.”

Tsukishima scoffed. “What are you, his handler? Now I know that he officially needs to go to therapy for anger issues.”

“No!” Hinata exclaimed, attracting the attention of the nearby teammates. He blushed from embarrassment before grasping Tsukishima’s wrist and pulling him over to the equipment closet, staring up at the blond as much as the dimly lit room would let him. “He’s just misunderstood! And you need to stop throwing gas on the flame. He’s a nice person when you get to know him.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I would say you have a wittle crush on him,” Tsukishima teased, making grabby hands to further cement the idea of Hinata being a lovesick puppy. However, with the combination of Hinata’s deepening blush, the turn of his face to hide it, and his lengthening silence, Tsukishima’s eyes widened in realization. So...his suspicions ever since the first day of meeting them were right? Oh, this was delightful.

“No way,” Tsukishima breathed, a grin of disbelief spreading on his face. “You actually have a crush on that volcano?”

“Don’t tell anybody!” Hinata pleaded, clinging to the front of Tsukishima’s shirt and not letting go as much as the blond tried to shake him off. “Please! I...I want to deal with it on my own time. Please…”

Tsukishima, had he truly been heartless, would have picked up Hinata by the back of the shirt like the scruff on a kitten and burst out the equipment room to proudly announce Hinata’s crush to everybody. However, he had a crush of his own, and due to his calm and collected nature, was successful in keeping it hidden. Nonetheless, if anybody had found out…

Safe to say, he had sympathy for the little orange.

“...Fine,” Tsukishima relented, pushing him away and walking over to the ajar doors. “Just don’t rub your weird couple fights in my face when you get together.”

He rolled his eyes at Hinata’s loud declarations of gratitude, shutting the doors on the redhead’s face before walking back over to his water bottle. Since then, Kageyama had calmed down (the lack of Tsukishima’s presence possibly contributing to this). He was practicing his serves in the short break Daichi afforded them, probably because he was too busy flirting with Suga to notice the rest of the team. Was everybody on the team just interbreeding? It was kind of disgusting to Tsukishima. Who the hell would fall in love with a teammate?

“Hey, Tanaka, throw me one,” Kageyama said, motioning to the sack full of volleyballs. Tanaka nodded and tossed him a ball, which Kageyama responded to by backing up behind the line and tossing the ball into the air, jumping up, and practically spiking it onto the other side as a serve.

Just that move, paired with the nearly slow-motion view Tsukishima’s brain tortured him with of the wind moving so swiftly to push back Kageyama’s hair to reveal his determined expression, was enough to get him to swallow his previous criticisms.

Oh, no, he thought. Oh no no no no. No, not a crush. It’s not a crush. Just...appreciation of beauty, is all. Not that he’s attractive! He’s an ugly bastard. Yeah, that’s it.

But as much as Tsukishima tried to convince himself that his eyes cementing on his day-one rival and sliding down his figure glowing with sweat was purely platonic, he was intelligent enough to recognize a crush when he saw one.

So he did what he usually did with crushes (the only exception being Kuroo): avoided Kageyama at all costs. It did help that Hinata eventually confessed to Kageyama, who reluctantly confessed back and ended with them as a couple. It was literally no different to their relationship from before: they constantly fought, with Kageyama continuing to throw insults that would make any regular person cry, but Hinata only laughed and took it as an encouragement to play harder. The only difference was when they would walk back home together at night after practice, they would be holding hands. Their hands must’ve been so warm together in the snowy night. As opposed to Tsukishima, who had perpetually cold hands. And nobody to warm them.

It also helped that a few weeks later—Tsukishima’s crush on Kageyama completely gone—his lifelong friend Yamaguchi confessed to him that he’d had a crush on him since he first learned about romantic feelings.

“So...all these years?” Tsukishima asked, breathless.

It was a cloudless night, the moon on full display to light up the pair of friends like a stage show. It was cold enough to have their opaque breaths overlap with each other with how close Yamaguchi was to the blond, his eyes shining with wetness from his overwhelmed tears.

“Yes,” Yamaguchi whispered, his eyes never leaving Tsukishima’s. “I...I don’t remember a time when I didn’t love you, Kei.”

A crush was one thing. But love? Yamaguchi... loved him? And not in a platonic way? As much as Tsukishima hated to admit it and never would out loud, he loved Yamaguchi as a friend. He loved their friendship and cherished it as close to his heart as his headphones. But in a romantic way...he couldn’t lie and say he never considered it. He found himself closing the gap, both physically and metaphorically, between him and Yamaguchi over the years, with the inches between them when sitting in class turning into centimeters and then millimeters. And when they had sleepovers, Tsukishima couldn’t help but turn over in his bed and watch Yamaguchi sleep. Sometimes, he’d wake up on the floor right next to Yamaguchi, who just assumed Tsukishima had sleep-walked or fallen out of bed. And he tried to convince himself of that fact so much that he thought it was true. Until now. Now he knew…

“Can you give me some time to...process all this?” he asked haltingly. His heart broke when a few tears escaped Yamaguchi’s eyes at that response. He knew very well it wasn’t the one Yamaguchi wanted. It was better to be turned down than to be kept waiting. But he physically couldn’t think at the moment from all the thoughts and flashbacks swirling in his head.

“S-sure, Kei…” Yamaguchi mumbled, wringing his hands. “Bye, then.”

He turned away and ran as fast as he could home. Tsukishima knew they both lived in the same neighborhood, so he’d give Yamaguchi a running start before he began to walk home to prevent any more awkwardness. Besides, he couldn’t imagine walking with the way his legs were shaking.

—

The next night after practice, their sweat drying down in the frigid night, they found themselves in the exact same position as yesterday: facing each other with tears in Yamaguchi’s eyes.

“Really?” Yamaguchi breathed in disbelief, clutching his hands into excited fists.

“Yeah, Tadashi,” Tsukishima replied, cracking a rare shy smile. “I really like you. I...I want to try this out.”

That was all Yamaguchi needed before he threw his arms around Tsukishima’s neck and pulled him in close, joining their lips that were so chapped, but it didn’t matter to him. All he knew was that he was kissing the best friend he’d loved since they were old enough to have abstract thought. And he wasn’t about to let go anytime soon.

All Tsukishima knew was that this kiss was...different. Different than the only kiss he’d ever had before. This kiss wasn’t bad—in fact, he found himself wrapping his arms around Yamaguchi’s waist and pulling him closer until their chests pressed together, cocking his head to the side to deepen the kiss. But a flash of Kuroo’s face made him gasp and pull away, lifting the back of his hand to his lips.

“Did...did I do something wrong?” Yamaguchi asked in such a small voice, Tsukishima immediately went to reassure him.

“No, no, it was just...overwhelming,” he replied quickly, adding in a small awkward chuckle which made Yamaguchi’s face brighten.

“I’m glad,” Yamaguchi whispered, nervously picking at his hangnails. “N-not at you being overwhelmed, but that I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

“You weren’t,” Tsukishima whispered back, his face reddening to match the rose bush across from them. “At all.”

In fact, it was all his fault for imagining the black-haired upperclassman who refused to leave his mind, even after all these months. He was probably succeeding heavily in his new job, had a girlfriend—or a wife, who knew? Maybe he had some mini Kuroos running around. The thought made him nauseous. But why? He had his own boyfriend now. So why was he still thinking about that stupid kiss with that stupid Kuroo?

“Let’s go home,” Tsukishima offered, to which Yamaguchi furiously nodded.

“Yeah,” he replied, slipping his hand into Tsukishima’s, their fingers lacing together. He ran his thumb over his knuckles, which gave Tsukishima the impression that Yamaguchi had been imagining every single second of how this confession would go.

“Let’s go,” Yamaguchi murmured, pressing a kiss to Tsukishima’s cheek while standing on his toes.

They dated for the rest of high school, sharing all their firsts together. Minus Tsukishima’s first kiss. That was still reserved for the devil named Kuroo who still haunted his dreams instead of his boyfriend. They are right, though: time really does heal all wounds. It didn’t take long for Kuroo to disappear from Tsukishima’s mind. From homework to tests to volleyball to Yamaguchi, he simply didn’t have enough brainpower to focus on the man who was probably already married. That logic ended with his dreams. And he’d rather die than admit he still dreamed about anybody other than his boyfriend.

They went to the movies, had picnics, ice skated, laughed, and kissed. When they weren’t on formal dates, they hung out just like they did as before when they were just friends: at school or in each other’s bedrooms, playing on their phones absentmindedly or helping each other with their DS games. The only exception being their bedroom doors had to be left open, per their parents’ instructions. But that didn’t stop them from doing exactly what their parents were trying to prevent in their third and last year in school.

“Are you sure about this?” Yamaguchi asked breathlessly, his breath having been sucked out by the near ten-minute makeout session they were having before he pushed Tsukishima onto the bed and wavered over him.

Tsukishima only nodded, not having any courage to confirm out loud. His face was beet-red, and it only got redder when he felt Yamaguchi’s lips on his neck, chest, stomach, and beyond. The entire time, he hid his face with his arms and silenced himself, only letting out occasional whimpers and pants. It ended with both of them satisfied and with Tsukishima wordlessly clinging to Yamaguchi’s side. That was something new he learned about himself: he could be very clingy. And Yamaguchi was more than pleased to learn this.

However, he wasn’t afforded the same luxury of hiding away evidence of his pleasure the next time, with Yamaguchi physically ripping away Tsukishima’s arms from his face in order to look at his boyfriend in all his glory. After that time, Tsukishima boycotted cuddling with Yamaguchi...for the first ten minutes. Then his need for physical closeness overruled any grudge he had.

He was happy.

—

They wasted no time making up for all the sex they could’ve had the last two years where they only had clandestine makeout sessions and subtle clothed grinding. But it wasn’t just because they were horny, but because it was their last year. Their last year until they eventually split because they had drastically different life plans.

Kageyama and Hinata had already split up a month ago. Asahi and Noya had a very saccharine one year of dating until they split because of the long-distance after Asahi graduated. Suga and Daichi dated only for a month before splitting and graduating, if you could call going on one date and making out and grinding against a wall dating. It was only a matter of time before he and Yamaguchi did the same. All eyes were on them. Well, that was an exaggeration, but that’s what it felt like for Tsukishima.

Which made it all even worse when he found out his feelings weren’t mutual.

“What? You want to...break up?” Yamaguchi asked in such a broken voice that Tsukishima wanted to act like it was a prank. But he couldn’t.

“I’m just thinking about the future, Tadashi,” he replied, trying to keep his voice level, but just that felt cruel juxtaposed against Yamaguchi’s crumbling exterior.

“The future?” Yamaguchi asked, his voice breaking yet again. His confused face fell into despair, his under eyes seeming to sink inches into his face. His eyes fell down to his wringing hands in front of him. “Right...the future.”

“Yeah, I mean, it just—”

“Have you thought—” Yamaguchi interrupted, his eyes still fixated on his hands. “—that maybe I thought you were my future? That we are the future? You’re the love of my life, Kei. I could never just leave you.”

That hit Tsukishima like a train. No, a bullet. No, a bullet train. He physically recoiled, his hand gripping his sweatshirt.

“I-I—” How the hell was he supposed to respond to that? “We’re going to be across the country. You’ll be in Sapporo, and I’ll be in Fukuoka. It’s just too far.”

“Oh, well,” Yamaguchi said, trying to sound casual, but the big gobs of tears running down his cheeks were a dead giveaway that he was, in fact, not casual. “We h-had a good run.”

Tsukishima raised his hand slowly to see if Yamaguchi would object, and when he didn’t, he brushed his hot tears away with his thumb. They were so salty, they burned the cuts volleyball gave him on his fingers and palm.

“The best,” he murmured before leaning down and kissing away Yamaguchi’s tears, ignoring the burning as they slipped into the cracks in his lips. He moved them away from his cheeks to his boyfriend—now ex’s—lips, giving him one last tender kiss before standing back up and beginning his long, tearful trek home. He never cried. Keyword: never . And yet he was bawling like a baby the entire way home, only stopped when he had to walk past his parents before collapsing on the floor of his bedroom and crying until his voice was raw and he ran out of tears.

Graduation didn’t occur too long after that. He and Yamaguchi had stayed tentative friends, especially since Tsukishima wouldn’t have literally anybody to talk to if they hadn’t. He was going to a university close to Fukuoka, focusing on archaeology. He signed up for the intramural volleyball team, the sport being the only love in his life other than Yamaguchi. Despite them being broken up, he still deeply loved and would always love Yamaguchi. Perhaps in another life, or even a few years...who knew? His motto was always “you never know what will happen.” So after saying goodbye to Yamaguchi and Hinata and tipping his chin up in a mutual agreement to never talk to each other again to Kageyama, he thought those were all the friends he had left at the school. The rest had already graduated, and he didn’t really think of them as friends. Not that he thought Hinata and Kageyama were friends.

Bokuto still tried to get in touch with him, but all his face reminded him of was Kuroo. And he seriously thought he was over that pain in the ass after four years. Plus, Bokuto had his own career and tax-evasion to deal with. Almost every time he tried to call Tsukishima, the call was interrupted by the tax service calling him. So when Bokuto called him up a week after graduation, he just counted the minutes until he had to hang up. However, it seemed as if Bokuto knew about his limited phone time, so he got the information out as quickly as possible.

“Hey, so we’re thinking of rounding up all the members of the dream team—Karasuno, Nekoma, Fukurodani, the works—up for a reunion!” he spat out, barely giving Tsukishima enough time to react before launching into the details of the meetup.

“Anyway, see you there!” Click.

Tsukishima blinked. He blinked again. The third time he blinked, it all registered in his mind.

Kuroo might be there.

He shamelessly RSVP’d to Bokuto’s email immediately afterward.

—

He wasn’t exactly given the dress code for the event, so he played it safe with a simple deep violet button-down and black slacks. He wore his father’s expensive Rolex watch and a thick black belt as if trying to convey to the others that he was already so successful after just graduating. “To the others,” i.e. Kuroo. He stared at himself in the mirror, fixing his glasses for the umpteenth time, only looking away once he thought his ear was melting off his face from staring too long at himself. Finally, once his brother yelled at him to get out of the bathroom, he grabbed his car keys and drove to the homey bar downtown where they sometimes visited after practice games to stock up on carbs and protein. It gave him both PTSD and déjà vu.

He took off his shoes at the entrance and slipped into the slippers they provided, but he nearly fell from tripping at the loud, familiar laughter that echoed throughout the bar. That could only be—

“Beanpole!” Tanaka yelled for the entire bar to turn and witness the drunkard ambling like a toddler up to the blond, slinging his arm around his shoulders as he nursed a bottle of beer. “What’s up, man? I didn’t think you’d have the cojones to show up here!”

“I will never miss you saying that word,” Tsukishima muttered, only earning him another loud bark of laughter. He groaned and pushed Tanaka off him, being caught by Kiyoko.

Hm, they seem to be going strong.

Perhaps not every high school relationship fell apart after high school or long-distance. He ignored the thought for now since he knew it would cause him to fall into a deep depression over his need to break up with Yamaguchi for that very reason. He didn’t need that in the middle of a bar, especially since he was sober.

All his former teammates and rivals were sat around three tables joined together, all laughing and clinking drinks and screaming ‘Banzai!’ until their voices went hoarse. Tsukishima’s eyes scanned the rowdy bar-goers: no sign of who he was waiting for. Yamaguchi noticed him immediately. That wasn’t a huge change from their high school years; he had grown a sort of sixth sense to sense when Tsukishima was around and then to provide him company, even though he looked as if he despised it. He never did.

“Hi, Kei,” Yamaguchi greeted timidly, as if he was scared of his lifelong best friend. They were best friends above all, from when they were boyfriends to now that they’re exes. So that hurt Tsukishima even more than he was already in pain. He was lucky if he didn’t walk away with a shriveled heart by the end of this.

He sat down next to Yamaguchi and crossed his legs, smiling at him politely. He had learned to smile more with Yamaguchi—not because Yamaguchi told him to, but because it had happened so gradually and naturally he had barely noticed it until his mother pointed it out.

“What’ve you been doing this week after graduation?” he asked, trying to make polite conversation, but it was obvious that he was a little tipsy.

“Ooh, nothing,” he slurred.

Okay, more than a little tipsy.

“Just, hehe—” He made a jerking up-and-down motion with his hand, which caused a red blush to overtake Tsukishima’s face at the connotations and the fact that Yamaguchi was being so brazen with his insinuations. “—and looking at internships. Trade school, maybe. I never figured it out in school. I was too busy with...you know.”

His eyes dropped to Tsukishima’s butt before flicking back up to those horrified brown eyes.

“I love baking,” he continued as if he didn’t just say something to get the teammates around them snickering. “Maybe I’ll work at a bakery.”

“It...fits you,” Tsukishima replied, still reeling from the neverending suggestive comments his friend just made.

“Hey, Yams, if those scones you brought us that one practice are any indication, I’m gonna spend all my money on your bakery,” Nishinoya butted in before taking a long swig of beer, being goaded on by Tanaka and Bokuto.

“Heh, thanks,” Yamaguchi mumbled, a blush spreading on his cheeks.

Oh, so that’s what gets you blushing?

Tsukishima got lost in the conversation, especially when more and more alcohol was placed in front of him. He got so lost, in fact, he would have completely missed the doors to the pub opening to reveal the main reason he came to the reunion in the first place. The only thing that pulled him out of his mental fog was Bokuto’s dramatic gasp and sprint to the door to envelop the dark-haired figure in a bear hug.

“Enough, enough—get off me, Bokuto!” Kuroo yelled, bonking Bokuto on the head as a last resort.

“Is that any way to say hello to the love of your life?” Bokuto asked tearfully, batting his eyelashes as Kuroo rolled his eyes.

“Sorry, lovey,” Kuroo grumbled, hooking Bokuto by the back of the neck and pulling him in to kiss him on the cheek. “Better now?”

Bokuto giggled and nodded. “Yeeahh.”

Kuroo turned to his side, and oh, Tsukishima barely recognized him without the awful dye job.

“Get jealous there, Kenma?” Kuroo asked with a wink, to which Kenma rolled his eyes and went back to typing on his phone. Kuroo immediately reached forward and yanked the phone out of Kenma’s hands, pocketing it quickly. “I said no phone tonight.”

“You say that every night,” Kenma mumbled as they walked over to the table.

Tsukishima physically could not tear his eyes away from Tetsurou Kuroo. He looked so...handsome. So beautiful. Genuinely. He looked almost the same, and yet there was a certain aura around him that screamed ‘successful’ and ‘confident’ and ‘good-natured soul.’ He thought Kuroo was attractive in high school…

Oh, he was drooling.

As he wiped his mouth with a napkin, he secretly prayed that Kuroo wouldn’t go anywhere close to him. But that was too much to ask for, apparently, since Kuroo sat right across from him. It was as if he made a beeline just for Tsukishima. Could he maybe still…? No, it was just a coincidence.

“Hey, Kei,” Kuroo said before dissolving into laughter. “Ha, the rhyme never gets old.”

Tsukishima forced on a pained smile, but it wasn’t because the joke wasn’t funny. Well, it wasn’t, but he’d gotten used to the cringiness of it long ago. No, just having Kuroo in the same vicinity was enough to get him sweating profusely, nevermind right across from him, talking to him.

“How are you doing?” Kuroo continued, pouring two glasses of sake.

Get ahold of yourself.

“I should be asking you that,” Tsukishima replied with a nervous laugh, about to reach forward for one of the glasses until Kenma reached for it first. He only processed how awkward it was that his hand was just wavering above the table, so he quickly wrapped it around an empty beer bottle and acted as if it was full.

“Ah, I’m boring,” Kuroo said with a dismissive wave. “Same old, same old.”

“And what is that ‘same old, same old’?” Tsukishima asked, swirling the last drops of beer around the bottle. His entire body was warm. He set down the beer bottle to take off his coat, and he could’ve sworn he saw Kuroo’s eyes give him a once-over before returning to his face. Just the thought caused him to heat up even more. At this rate, he’d be stripped naked by the end of the night. Well, if it meant Kuroo’s eyes would be on him—

Wow, he was drunk.

“Well, office work, mostly,” Kuroo explained with a shrug. “Being a software developer is a lot more boring than it sounds.”

“Are you still playing volleyball?” Tsukishima asked hesitantly, his eyes focused on the table because otherwise, he’d be staring very creepily at the man in front of him.

“Every once in a while when I can get out of the office,” Kuroo replied. “At the local gym. I’ve found a couple of guys.”

“Oh, cool,” Tsukishima said with a bob of his head.

What a lame response.

“Any cuties at work?” he blurted out, and woah, he would take a lame response over the abomination that just left his mouth. He looked down at the beer bottle he was just drinking from to see if it was accidentally pure vodka.

Kuroo seemed more taken aback than Tsukishima himself, which made him want to wallow in self-pity even more.

“Oh, uh—” Kuroo laughed, although it didn’t seem nervous. “No, I’ve actually had my eye on somebody for a while.”

“For a while?” Tsukishima repeated, his eyes brimming with hope. His chest felt as if it would burst. He didn’t imagine their mutual love confession being in the middle of a bar with everybody nearly blackout drunk and falling over themselves, but as long as it happened, he’d be over the moon. He very conspicuously leaned forward and over the table, his eyes dropping to Kuroo’s lips.

“Yeah,” Kuroo replied slowly, his eyes also dropping to Tsukishima’s lips.

This is it, this is it, this is—

“Your eye on somebody? Really? You’re so romantic,” Kenma interrupted sarcastically, so rudely interrupting the moment Tsukishima and Kuroo were having. “It almost makes me forget our anniversary is next week.”

Anniversary…?

“What, you can’t catch my eye?” Oh, God, Kuroo was resorting to baby talk. He lifted a hand and cupped the side of Kenma’s face, and only then was it glaringly obvious that Tsukishima was horribly, horribly wrong. To add insult to injury, the golden band that suddenly appeared on Kuroo’s ring finger glinted atrociously in the light, as if bragging to Tsukishima that it wasn’t his.

“Mmmm,” Kenma hummed absentmindedly, burying his face back in his phone, which he magically got back from Kuroo’s pocket.

“This is why I married you,” Kuroo replied, earning a bout of whooping and happy shouting from amongst the other guests in celebration of the announcement. But Tsukishima was silent. And stone cold.

Without a word, he stood up and tossed his jacket over his shoulder before promptly walking out of the bar into the cool air, but it did nothing to calm the rage and shame mixing pitifully in his chest. He had seriously thought that...with Kuroo...and he would…

I’m such a fucking idiot.

He kicked a rock into the street, which instantly got run over by a car. That’s exactly what Tsukishima’s heart felt like. Crushed ruthlessly.

The opening of the bar door caused him to turn, revealing Yamaguchi stumbling out with near sobriety. His body hadn’t quite caught up, though.

“Hey, where’d you go?” Yamaguchi asked, walking straight up to Tsukishima until he could smell the alcohol on his breath.

“I just needed some air,” he explained, looking up at the sky and how his condensed breath clouded it temporarily until it dissipated.

“You know I know when you lie, Kei,” Yamaguchi replied, raising a brow before his face dawned with realization. “Was it Kuroo? Did he say something?”

“I—no, it’s nothing. It was just really hot,” Tsukishima said, waving Yamaguchi away. “Now go back, you’re missing the fun.”

“What, missing Tanaka throw up on Bokuto and try to clean it up himself and make it worse?” Yamaguchi joked. “Yeah, no thanks.”

They stayed silent for a moment more before Yamaguchi’s soft voice broke the silence.

“It was him, wasn’t it?” Yamaguchi asked, which immediately caught Tsukishima’s attention. Yamaguchi shoved his hands deep into his pockets and sighed. “It was always him.”

“I...don’t know what—”

“Don’t lie to me, Kei!” Yamaguchi shouted, not caring about the passerby giving them strange looks. “I’ve always seen the way you look at him. Ever since that damn training camp...I thought that maybe, maybe I was just making it up because I was insecure, especially when you said you liked me back. But…”

Why did it always end up this way? With Yamaguchi crying his eyes out and spilling out his heart and Tsukishima dying of guilt?

“But you never looked at me the way you looked at Kuroo just now. N-never.” Yamaguchi sniffled and wiped his eyes, but more tears just replaced the others. “Was I just...a replacement? Somebody to have fun with before moving on to somebody else? Was that it?”

“Tadashi, no—”

“Nevermind,” Yamaguchi interrupted, shaking his head emphatically. “I don’t want to know. I’ve already beat myself up enough after you broke up with me. I just...I hope you are happy, Kei. Or at least, I hope you get happy. I hope you find somebody who makes you as happy as Kuroo made you.”

He smiled, but it was so pained that it felt like thousands of little needles were sticking straight in Tsukishima’s chest.

“It’s okay, Kei. It’s okay.” Yamaguchi got on his toes one last time and pressed a long, tender, and tragic kiss onto Tsukishima’s cheek, wet with tears. Only then did he realize he was crying.

“I’ll see you at the next reunion, okay?” Yamaguchi said softly, smoothing out Tsukishima’s shirt. “We’ll both be happy, Tsukishima.”

“I was always happy with you, Tadashi,” Tsukishima croaked, basically pleading for Yamaguchi to listen to him.

Yamaguchi said nothing. Instead, he nodded curtly, pat Tsukishima’s chest, and walked back into the bar. Not long after, he walked back out with his coat, sparing Tsukishima another glance before getting in a taxi and leaving far away from the site of so many happy moments and one horrible, awful, disastrous moment.

Tsukishima was getting ready to leave before the creaking of the bar door caused him to pause, but he didn’t turn his head. It was probably just a stranger, so he continued to search his pockets for his car keys, coming up empty.

“Searching for these?”

A metallic jingle accompanied the voice, belonging to none other than his car keys and Kuroo himself.

Tsukishima made sure the last of his tears were wiped away, but he still felt that his cheeks were burning and his eyes were bloodshot.

“Uh, yeah. Thanks.” Tsukishima held out his hand and looked down at the sidewalk, awaiting the weight of the car keys in his hand, but it never came, forcing him to look back up and be met with Kuroo’s incredibly close figure who was currently smirking.

“Why are you leaving so early? You just got here,” he asked, raising a brow in suspicion.

“I just got tired,” he explained quickly, motioning to the car keys. “Please.”

“Ah-ah-ah,” Kuroo sang, shaking his head. “Aren’t you drunk?”

“Please.” Before long, Kuroo’s teasing got very old, and Tsukishima couldn’t hold himself back from blowing up. “Please give me my keys!”

Kuroo, for the second time that night, was taken aback. It reminded him of the good old days when he would be taken aback with every word Tsukishima said because he expected him to never talk, and when he did, it was always a jab at somebody. He found it amusing, but in this moment, he found it terrifying.

“Tsukki, no way,” Kuroo objected sternly, stuffing the keys in his pocket. “You’re drunk. I’ll drive you home after this; just come back inside.”

“No!” Without thinking, Tsukishima grabbed Kuroo and drove him deeper into an alleyway, throwing him against the wall and shooting his arm out to try and dig his keys out, but Kuroo blocked him in every way possible. “Just let me get my keys!”

“If you want to leave so bad, let me call a—”

“Don’t you understand? Are you that fucking stupid, or are you just blind?” Tsukishima was crying again by now, his face glistening with new tears thanks to the moon shining straight above them. “Let me leave, and I’ll leave you alone.”

“What’s your issue, man?” Kuroo asked, but it was less of a question and more of demand. He continued to hold Tsukishima’s keys hostage, which made him even more desperate to get them. He clawed at Kuroo’s chest, practically falling on top of him with how his legs were failing him.

“Do you seriously not remember? Or notice anything? I don’t remember you being this idiotic,” Tsukishima yelled, and he watched as Kuroo’s face morphed from confusion to calm realization.

“...That was nearly four years ago, Kei,” Kuroo said. This time his voice was low, rumbling deep in his chest, and Tsukishima could feel it through his hands.

“And I never stopped thinking about it! I never stopped thinking about you. You did this to me. You made me fall—” He hesitated, but he had already gone too far. Time to come clean about everything. “You made me fall in love with you! It’s all your fault, and now I have to deal with the consequences. You won’t leave my head no matter what I try. And now you’re fucking married? Did I mean nothing to you? You never...you never talked to me again after that. I…” He raised a trembling hand to his face, hiding it as best he could. “I’ve loved you for so long, it’s ruined my entire life.”

Kuroo was dead silent. The alleyway was silent other than the ambient noise filtering in from the entrance of the alley, of traffic and passerby and animals. The only sound between them was Tsukishima’s panicked panting, trying to get ahold of his own breath, and his strained weeping.

“You’ve always loved me,” Kuroo repeated, and Tsukishima let out a pitiful cry just at the sound of Kuroo saying those words. Kuroo pushed Tsukishima away but only to look him square in the face. “You never contacted me, Tsukki. I was just giving you space to figure things out.”

“I-I-I—” He didn’t have any excuses for that. All he wanted to do was blame everybody around him for his out-of-control feelings other than himself.

How’s that working out for you, Kei?

“Tsukki,” Kuroo started, and just hearing him use that nickname after so long in that low voice made Tsukishima nearly melt. “Tsukki, you were always like a little brother to me. I—”

A pathetic yelp erupted from Tsukishima’s throat at hearing that. Just that sentence alone was enough to kill him entirely.

“But—”

There weren’t any buts. He was now just a walking husk of a man, rejected by the man he’d been yearning after for years, had devoted his dreams and daydreams to just to get by in high school.

“But I’ve never stopped thinking about it,” Kuroo finished. “I never stopped thinking about you. I never forgot about you, Kei. Or what could’ve happened.”

“What could’ve happened…” Tsukishima gasped and clutched Kuroo’s hand, another burst of excitement swelling in him. “Y-you mean—”

“No, Kei, I’m happily married,” Kuroo clarified, showing off that dastardly ring that mocked him in all its beauty. “If we did get together, I know it wouldn’t have lasted very long. But I do know we would’ve been happy during that time. Until we found true happiness in somebody else.”

“Which…” Tsukishima winced, “is what you did.”

Kuroo nodded sagely. “And you will, too. You don’t have to forget me, Kei. You just have to find somebody who doesn’t make you look back on me with regret but with thankfulness that you got to a point where you found somebody you love more than me.” He reached up and caressed the side of Tsukishima’s wet cheek, stroking the red skin with his thumb. “You’ll always be my beanpole middle blocker.”

And you’ll always be my pain-in-the-ass captain.

“I’m gonna go call you a cab,” Kuroo said, motioning to the end of the alleyway they came from. “I’ll see you later, Tsukki. Take care.”

With that, he leaned forward and pressed a soft, short kiss onto Tsukishima’s forehead, leaving him in the alley to wallow in his own tears and self-pity until the cab he called showed up. The entire cab ride, he never let go of his forehead, wanting to preserve the warmth on his skin for as long as possible.

And when he got home, he realized Kuroo had kept his car keys.

Did he do this on purpose?

—

The next day, after taking pain meds for the killer headache assaulting his mind and cringing sufficiently over his actions last night, he finally mustered up the courage to call Kuroo.

The line rang two times before Kuroo picked up.

“Hey.” His voice was like molasses in the morning. “Calling for your car keys?”

“Yes,” Tsukishima replied, coolly as he always did.

“I’ll see you after work,” was all Kuroo said before hanging up.

When Kuroo showed up later that night, he brought somebody familiar with him.

“Sorry about not telling you, but I needed somebody to drive me back,” Kuroo said, motioning to the tall man beside him.

“Is that…” Tsukishima’s eyes raked over the man’s figure before settling on his eyebrows—or rather, lack of them.

“Aone,” he finished for Tsukishima, bowing in greeting. “It’s very nice to see you again, Tsukishima.”

“Enough with the formalities, Aone, geez,” Kuroo joked, punching him playfully in the shoulder. “Well, anyway, here are your keys. I gotta go drop Aone off at a single’s night at a nightclub. Because, you know, he’s single.”

Aone blushed. Tsukishima never thought he’d see the day this concrete block of a man blush. It was...endearing in a way.

“No need to advertise it,” Aone whispered under his breath, which made Tsukishima chuckle sympathetically. Kuroo’s eyes shone.

“Well, anyway, gotta go,” Kuroo said, motioning to the car and tossing Tsukishima the keys, which he barely caught in time since his eyes were stuck on a certain man.

“W-wait,” Tsukishima said, reaching out to get them to stop. “Single’s club? Um...is it any fun?”

Kuroo laughed his usual devil laugh that sounded more annoying than cute now.

“Of course it is, it’s a club,” Kuroo said matter-of-factly. “But I’m sure it’s not your speed.”

Tsukishima paused and looked down at his feet before admitting, “I, uh, can try it out.”

“Oh,” Kuroo said as if he had just been given a critical piece of evidence. “Aone, did you hear that?”

“I’m not deaf.”

“Alright, Tsukki, go get dressed because those pajamas are tacky,” Kuroo demanded, waving Tsukishima away.

He sneered and turned his nose up as he turned his back on the former captain. “Bokuto is rubbing off on you.”

“Never say that to me again.”

Tsukishima held back laughter as he ran back inside, an uncontrollable grin forming on his face. And for the first time after an interaction with Kuroo, he wasn’t the person that stayed in his mind as he left. Tsukishima himself was the man he was thinking about, about how excited he was getting at the possibility of meeting new people. That never happened before because, well...his heart had always been reserved for Kuroo.

Now it was open, open to everybody. Including himself.

#haikyuu!!#haikyū!!#fanfic #kuroo tetsurō #kuroo x tsukki #kuroo x tsukishima #tsukishima kei #kenma #tsukishima fanfiction #angst #fanfiction #one shot #oneshot #fluff #hurt comfort

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ihatecoconut · 3 years

Text

Working it Out

Cross Posted to AO3

Phillip was staring out the window when she stepped into their room. He hadn’t even remembered to loosen his tie, which was odd because he hated wearing them and always removed them as soon as possible.

“Hey.”

He turned, smiling slightly when he saw her, “Hi.”

Martha stepped up behind him, hooked her chin over his shoulder and looked out to what he was staring at. Henry and Alex were in the courtyard, holding hands, Bea with them and they were all laughing.

“They look happy.”

Phillip nodded.

She pulled him away from the window gently, sitting them both down on the ornamental sofa which he had once told her was probably more decorative than functional, and took his hands in her own.

“What are you thinking?”

“They released their photos today.”

“Alex and Henry’s?”

He nodded, staring down at their joined hands.

“Hey,” she said, nudging his chin up so he was looking her in the eye, “I thought we were supporting them.”

“We are,” he replied almost instantly, “of course we are, I want Henry to be happy.”

Martha nodded, carefully, “So what’s the problem?”

“Have you seen them? The photos?”

She shook her head, “Why?”

Phillip glanced back towards the window. “They looked happy. Real. Like they were actually in love.”

“They are.”

“I know!” He cried, pulling away from her. “And so are we!”

“Pip, love,” she rose to stand in front of him, “I don’t understand.”

He sighed, dropping his head onto her shoulder and making a small noise when she ran her fingers through his hair. “Ours looked fake.”

“Our photos?”

She felt him nod.

“And you’re… jealous?”

He stiffened slightly, raising his head. “Yes. I suppose I am.”

“Is there something else?” she pushed gently, seeing his eyes stray back to the window again.

“He- Henry- he said he wanted to live his truth.”

“By being gay.” she prompted.

He nodded, absently, as if that wasn’t what he was trying to convey. “And Bea, too, she can be open now about her addictions.”

Something clicked in Martha’s head then, “Both of them are able to be themselves after being supressed.”

“I did that.” He said miserably. “I didn’t mean to, but I did that. And I don’t know how to fix it.”

“Do you want to be someone else?”

He paused, drawing away from her and walking over to the mantlepiece, “Will you always love me?” He asked, suddenly the quiet, shy boy she had first met who was mostly overshadowed by the prince.

“Always.” She replied. “Even if you tell me that you’re also gay, I’d be very heartbroken, but I’ll always support you and love you.”

He laughed slightly at that, “No, no, I’m not…” he frowned, turning serious again, “I don’t like children.”

“Alright.”

“And I don’t want to be a father.”

“We don’t have to have children.”

“But the monarchy-“

She stepped forward again, cupping his face in her hands, “You have two siblings and plenty of cousins. It doesn’t just fall on us.”

He nodded, not meeting her eyes, “I just feel like something will go wrong if we don’t.”

“Things could go wrong anyway.”

“I suppose. I wish I could talk to them.”

They had somehow managed to drift back to the window and were looking out again on Henry, Alex, and Bea. Catherine had joined them, and she hugged both her children and Alex fiercely.

Martha paused, “I might have a solution for that.”

“Family therapy?” Bea repeated, a little incredulously.

“Yes.” Phillip was standing opposite the three of them, Alex having been sent back to America, and desperately wishing he had brought Martha with him.

“Oh, so after all those years of…”

“I think it’s a great idea.” Catherine interrupted loudly, cutting off whatever angry rant Bea was building up to.

Phillip glanced over to his brother who had remained silent for the whole discussion, “Henry?”

Henry startled at the sound of his name, as if he hadn’t been expecting to be called on. “Uh, I agree with mum.”

“You do?” Bea asked.

He nodded, “I think we need this.”

“Need what?” Bea demanded, “some stranger digging around in our issues?”

“It’s more some stranger helping to solve our issues.” Phillip offered, shutting up when she sent him a glare.

“Well,” Catherine said, attempting to stave off an argument, “that’s three votes for yes. So, we’ll try it.”

“Were you going to invite gran?” Henry asked, glancing at Phillip and then away again. He still seemed incredibly awkward around Phillip, but then Phillip had a lot to answer for.

“No. I don’t think she would…”

There were general mumbles of agreement from the other three.

“Alright.” Catherine clapped her hands together, as if sealing the deal. “Pip, did you have any in mind, or would you like to look together?”

“Martha recommended a few, I thought you might like to look at.”

“Then we’ll look.” She smiled at him, proud of his planning and it hit him in the chest like a bullet.

“You think that was the first time she had smiled at you in a while?” the Doctor asked once they had finished recapping how they arrived at family therapy.

Phillip nodded, not meeting anyone’s eyes.

“Alright.” She made a few notes in the notebook she had brought.

Phillip used that moment to look around the room. They had managed to choose a therapist who was willing to come to them, so they didn’t have the security risk of them all leaving the palace together, and Catherine had volunteered one of her rooms to be used. She had called it a ‘neutral area’, but it just seemed like a reminder of what they had lost.

He hadn’t been in her rooms in years.

“Beatrice,” the Doctor continued, looking up,

“Just Bea, please.”

She tilted her head in acceptance, “Bea. Why did you have such a strong objection to this?”

Bea wriggled slightly. “I had to see therapists when I was in rehab.”

“Bad experience?”

“They just dug around in my head and kept asking questions about Dad that I didn’t want to answer, but they forced me to.”

The Doctor’s brow creased slightly. “That won’t be what this is like, you only have to share what you’re comfortable sharing,” she paused to glance around at them, “all of you.”

“Thank you.” Bea mumbled. “But I do think we should start with the death of your father.”

Phillip looked around at their reactions- Bea was steadfastly looking at a spot on the wall over the Doctor’s shoulder, Catherine was attempting to be open and make eye contact, but the effect was mitigated by the tension in her shoulders, and Henry was the only one of them who looked ready to sit through the session. Apparently having individual therapy helped as a preparation for family therapy.

He thought the Doctor might have drawn the same conclusions because she turned to Henry first, “How did you see everyone else’s reactions?”

“Mum pulled away,” he began, quiet but strong, “Phillip was on the other side of the world anyway, but he seemed to think he needed to take over, and Bea became addicted to cocaine.”

She nodded, “It was cancer, yes? So you knew it was coming?”

“That didn’t make it easier,” Catherine objected.

“No, not at all.” She paused, setting her pen down. “In some ways that actually makes it harder, the feeling that you could have saved him in some way or the feelings you get from watching him wither away are ones that you don’t get if people die in sudden and unexpected ways.”

Catherine relaxed back in her seat, frowning down at her hands, as if considering the Doctor’s words.

“So, Henry, you didn’t tell us how you reacted to your father’s death.”

Henry froze, obviously not expecting that question, “I saw everyone else’s reactions.”

“And you lived your own.”

“I guess I just pushed myself to be perfect.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “I’m seeing some similarities here in your reactions: both Catherine and Bea pulled away from reality while Phillip and Henry tried to control what they could.”

“I didn’t pull away!” Bea objected, “I was always there for Henry.”

“Except for the time that you forced him to track you down and talk you into going to rehab.” Phillip found himself firing back.

Bea paused, eyes wide, and then turned to Henry as if she had just had an enormous realisation. “I’m sorry.” She whispered, “I never thought…”

“That’s why we’re here.” The Doctor pointed out gently. “To think about each other.”

Bea nodded, but she was still watching Henry, unsure of his reaction. The Doctor let her for a few moments before moving on.

“You also said that Phillip seemed to think he needed to take over, Phillip do you think that’s an accurate perception?”

“Yes.”

They were obviously all waiting for him to say more, but the words were half forming inside his head and leaving again.

“Alright, why did you take over?”

He paused, remembering the days after his father had died, when their mother had pulled away and refused to leave her rooms and the Queen had dragged him into her position, filling his head with finances and rules.

“Gran said that Mum broke a rule.” He began hesitantly. “She married someone the crown did not approve of.”

He heard his mother’s slightly horrified gasp before she spoke.

“Are you saying she said his death was a punishment for breaking a rule?”

Phillip looked down at the carpet, willing the Doctor to ask another question or change the subject. She didn’t.

“Yes,” he heard himself reply, as if from a distance, “that’s what she implied, she said if I ever broke a rule, things like that would happen to me, and cancer can be genetic so I thought…” he trailed off, the words getting stuck in his throat, but Bea filled in the rest for him.

“You thought me or Henry would die if you stepped out.”

He risked looking up, expecting to be mocked for his stupid ideas, but all he saw was Henry, looking at him like he finally saw him through the façade he always put up.

“And you thought if we stepped out of line, something bad would happen too?” Bea asked, Phillip looked at her and saw the same understanding that had been in Henry’s eyes.

“And something did go wrong.” Henry said, quiet, hushed. “The emails.”

“I just wanted to protect you.” He found himself whispering back. “I’m sorry.”

#red white and royal blue #alex claremont diaz #henry fox mountchristen windsor #writing #writer #writers #my writing #writblr #writeblr #writers of tumblr #fanfiction #red white and royal blue fanfiction #rwrb #fiction #flash fiction #short fiction

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seancekitsch · 4 years

Text

Drew: Klaus Hargreeves x Reader Smut

Warning: canon talks of drugs/addiction, alcohol consumption, 80s movies, unprotected sex, two flawed people smangin

Little continuation of Prize Buck

————————

“But no— no! You never told me what you were like.” He almost laughs, or maybe he does. But it sounds more like a cough or a sob. That’s what drinking everclear will do to you. The liquor so strong it could tear the nail polish off both of your nails right now if you spilled it; the very bottle you were passing back and forth tonight. It was high time you bought one of these bottles of the strong shit. Klaus had been screaming in his sleep lately. You knew he had a good grasp on his abilities, even enough to conjure Ben long enough for you to see him half a minute. But sometimes in his sleep is when they got to him. Both of you had come to the conclusion if he got good and plastered he could probably sleep through the night without you waking up or having to soothe him and remind him to ground himself. Wine made him too handsy and he never actually got to sleep when he got his hands on you, beer made him feel full and sleepy before he was drunk enough to block them out. Liquor depended on the night, and if one of his siblings tried to stop by. Sometimes when they came by he could be tipsy and sleep without screaming; other times they seemed to exacerbate it without meaning to. So everclear was tonight’s test. It was like taking a razor to your esophagus, but he needed to find some way to control his abilities while he slept in his own way, in his own time.

You hadn’t really spoken about what life was like for you before meeting Klaus in the clinic. Sure, he knew the gist— disgraced anthropologist has a mental breakdown on amphetamines and ruins literal years of research for herself and six of her colleagues— but he didn’t know what your life was like. What you were like. For the past hour, you’ve been reminiscing on the circumstances in which your friendship formed. All the group therapy sessions you hadn’t taken seriously. The week where you were too sick and lethargic he spoon fed you soup and spilled most of it down your shirt. The good times.

“I guess I was cool. I- I don’t know. I really liked. Still like music. Got to touch a lot of old things. I only ended up in one magazine cover story.” Your fingers wrap around the bottle, grimacing at the smell before finishing, “Unlike you, Mr. Celebrity.”

You can hear the scoff come from beside you as glass comes to lips, warm liquor to tongue.

“Hey! Unfair. I was no Drew Barrymore. Plus, she never had to wear that mask in public.” He waits to continue until after you’ve swallowed and put it back down to continue talking, and runs his hand up your calf. You still had yet to buy any kitchen furniture, and Klaus kept swearing he would take some from the academy, so instead of the couch or mattress you sat on the counter, bare legs dangling against the lower cabinets while he leaned up next to you. The building had no air conditioning, and on a hot evening like this, the two of you had to clamber into the small kitchen to take in any of the breeze that the old and rusting window unit could provide. Hence, your bare legs. Shorts season struck early this year because even his family using time travel could not stop global warming.

“I bet you were one of the best. You’re smart, you’re always so modest” He says with an off handed flick of his wrist that ended with his fingertips catching on the neck of the bottle where yours also rested, “You know, you would have made a great Drew Barrymore.”

The shift in his tone tells you exactly what he’s thinking without even having to look in his eyes. Instead, your eyes had shifted to the neck of the bottle on the counter between you. It was amazing how even though you’d been carnal with your roommate, that he still sent shockwaves up your spine like you’d stuck a fork in a socket. It was hard not to focus and watch his hands as they traced patterns only he could see in the expanses of skin pulled taught around bone and muscle.

“You’re just saying that,” you chuckle.

“No, really,” his fingers travel up your own, reaching each knuckle and paying special attention to wiggle each ring on the way up, “ or at least we could have made a great Two Coreys. ‘Do all kinds of stuff, like fight vampire bikers to INXS, learn to drive a car, switch bodies with an elderly professor to impress the popular girl at school, go on a tropical vacation... doesn’t that all sound fun for us?”

“You forgot the one where they play brothers that swap partners at the organized crime ski lodge and there’s an alarming amount of horseback riding accidents,” you provide, challenging him and his pop culture knowledge. His eyes are sharp on you, gaze making you feel naked in his presence.

“Mmmmm, no. Just testing you,” Klaus hums, and the conversation dies in a way that’s comfortable. More the Notebook than Shakespeare, you note. But your roommate’s body doesn’t mimic the nonchalance of the words flowing away from you. He squeezes your knuckles before slipping the bottle from your loose grasp, taking it to the head as he shifts to turn himself more so that now his torso is pressed between your legs to face you. He is sweaty and shirtless, and you know your knees will peel off of him when you try to spread your legs further. Which, by the way he’s looking at you, they will be spreading further.

Everything about Klaus’ movements has this theatrical weight to it. Klaus is a big person, not in mass or size like his brother, but in the energy his movements cast. It’s like watching a production. His heart is no muscle, but the core of a planet drawing others into his orbit, compiling the cast of characters. His touch is magnetic and burning all at once, directing the action. As submissive as he can be, you’d be a marionette in his grasp if he asked of you. That being said, there’s beautiful choreography in the way he tilts the bottle back and gulps once, twice despite the burn. Commanding stage presence in the heavy fall of his arm followed by percussion when the glass bottle clangs on the counter just behind the curve of your ass. An unspoken monologue in his eyes as he leans down into you, snagging plump lips on your own.

He tastes fucking disgusting is your first thought, but that fades to more, more, more. You grab onto his shoulders, the sheen of sweat familiar and matching your own, and pull him in as close as you can. There’s a point when you get so close to a person you can pretend you’re one, but for now you’ll settle with scooting to the edge of the counter to press yourself up flush against him despite the heat. There’s a brief moment where he stops, but it’s only to help you out of your shirt. The damp thin material peels off of you and reveals your chest, then your skin reunites with his. His warm dog tags press into your chest, now their own form of a kiss, as your mouths meet again hungrier this time. His hands find purchase at your ass, glide all the way to the top of your denim shorts. It’s quick and easy the way his fingers slide to the front and up to cup your chest. The way he squeezes is rough, but not hard. He grasps at your skin like it was meant for him, and maybe it was. That wasn’t too far fetched to think with the way you responded to him. You moan in earnest into his mouth with each of his squeezes and the ministrations of his fingers.

Your hands travel from his biceps to his hair to his shoulder blades and repeat, tracing a route that makes his skin tingle despite the staleness of the room. He mumbles something against your teeth, something that sounds like ‘need you’ but you don’t need to understand what he said to know you and he both want your hands to travel south. Your fingertips kiss his chest, his nipples, his ribs, and then fall to the hem of his pants (your pants, some flimsy tie dyed things you bought at one of those woowoo stores that sold a lot of incense and wind chimes) before you pull your hands from him all together. His strangled whine all but dies in response when your hands fumble with his and move them down to the button on your shorts, effectively telling him to do away with them. You break the kiss again to lean your head back on the cupboard behind you, and lift your hips as best you can without sliding off the counter. He’s slow to remove them, both because of how they stick to you and because he’s vexing. Once they hit your calfs, you wiggle them off yourself before settling your bare ass back on the edge of the counter and sitting up straight again.

“Commando? You slut!” He exclaims with a devilish smile, and you have half a mind to hit him. But instead, you settle for returning the favor, much easier for you to give a strong yank and his (your) pants are also around his ankles.

“Commando? You slut too!” You echo, and you both laugh and you crane your neck smash your lips back onto his.

You’re both dizzy and laughing, and it makes it all that much easier for him to ease into you. Sliding slowly, Klaus is met with little resistance. You yourself are aroused and soaking, the norm for your body when Klaus is close to you like this. Your body easily reacts to him, and you like to think his body is equally as receptive to you. He stays like that for a beat, making sure you’re comfortable with the angle and everything, before ramming back into you as one of his hands hits the cupboard behind your head to stabilize himself. Your legs wrap around his waist and meet cross ankled at the small of his back, angling to help push him all that much deeper into you.

This is different, you think, than all the other times. Sure, Klaus is setting the pace for once instead of you, but that’s not it. Maybe it’s because of your talking even minimally about your past. Letting him peek over the wall you held near and dear. You viewed yourself before the clinic as someone who no longer exists. A dead relative that sits on your shoulders. Or maybe it just was the rocking motion and your ass catching the corner over and over sure to welt and melting pain into the pleasure. It’s like you’re lost at sea, and Klaus is both the life raft and the storm. He’s all hands and hips and whimpers against your neck.

He fucks the thoughts out of your head, and thus the words out of your mouth. You’re not used to him being in charge like this. This is easily the quietest you’ve ever been with him, but it’s not for lack of enjoyment. No, this is heavenly. Every whimper, every moan... because of what you— what your body does to him. Absolutely musical. A cacaphony only heightened by the tempo of your heaving chest, the tightness of your core already threatening to burst.

Your legs tighten around his back, pulling him so close that his thrusts hit deep, deep as they can go and he never fully pulls out of you. It’s more of a deep grind into your cunt, and each roll of his hips earns a high pitched whine from you and a low grunt from him. This feels good.

He slows down considerably, taking the time to savor feeling you squeeze him as he slowly works you both to and over the edge. He’s in no rush when it feels like this.

You, though, you’re teetering. On both the physical counter and the precipice of ecstasy. Any thrust now and you’ll be shaking and sobbing and drenching him, but you foolishly try to hang on because it’s unclear if Klaus is as close as you are or if he has any tricks up his sleeve.

A shuddering breathy moan against your jawline alerts you; no, he is as close as you are. You bear down, changing the angle just so, but in a way that hits the perfect spot, and you scream. You scream so unexpectedly you surprise yourself as you feel your body overcome and surrender to a shaking, intense orgasm.

The way you tighten and shiver against him triggers his own, and he stills inside you as deep as he can go, and shakes as well. A moan escapes past his lips in a strangled cry, and then he goes quiet. savoring this feeling.

Instead of pulling out, he stands there holding you. He reaches one of his hands down though, the same one that was against the cupboard near your head, to grasp your calf. He half assedly begins to knead his thumb and middle finger on each side of the muscle, easing any tension or stiffness that might have occurred while you were holding him so tightly against you. This is so tender. This is closeness. You lean forward towards him with your hands draped onto his shoulders, letting him catch you as post sex exhaustion begins to creep it’s way behind your eyes. But for Klaus it seems to come so naturally. It’s almost an absent afterthought of an action while he kisses your cheek, your jawline, your earlobe.

“You, dear Fraulien, have earned yourself a bed frame,” Klaus announces in a whisper against the shell of your ear. If you weren’t on the brink of slumber, you could have sworn he had a twinge of a German accent.

“What?”

“I’m going to buy you a bed frame,” he punctuates it with a kiss this time. You have to laugh. Shutting your eyes feels so good while laying in his arms.

“You’re going to buy it?”

“Well, there’s probably a good one somewhere at the Academy. One with a nice headboard. Only the best for my partner to handcuff me to.”

Partner.

You’re wide awake again.

Klaus sleeps peacefully tonight.

#my work #klaus hargreeves smut #klaus hargreeves imagine #klaus hargreeves x reader #klaus x reader #prize buck series

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haven-in-writing · 4 years

Text

Bitter Bickering

@thatgirlsar #2

“Remember that time when I asked for your option?” “No”

“Yeah neither do I”

With Sam and bucky

Enhanced!Hijab wearing reader

This went from a Drabble request to a full blown chapter but I’m not sorry! It may have taken a while but it’s worth it (I hope lmao) 1,436 words 💕

————————————————————-

Inhale, exhale. Deep breath in, now let it out.

Evenings spent in relaxation in the compound were rare, considering your job. As an avenger, you were always on call or in the midst of a job. It wasn’t always easy or fun but you tended to be the positive force that the others needed. So to say that you were looking forward to a day of stress free freedom would be an understatement.

What you were not looking forward to was the loud bickering coming from the kitchen.

Inhale.

“Come on man! That was the last steak, you know those are mine! They have my name on them!” Sam’s outraged face came into view as you rounded the corner.

“Not my fault you left them in the communal fridge. You know that’s fair game,” you could practically hear the smirk in Bucky’s voice as you stepped into the room. Sam looked absolutely devastated yet ready to tear Bucky a new one.

“Dude. If it has a name on it, YOU DON'T TOUCH IT!” Sam goes to tackle him but stops upon noticing you standing in the doorway watching the whole scene play out with an un-amused look on your face.

“Hey (y/n/n), what’s up?” Sam asks, looking embarrassed by the fact that you had seen him like that.

“Nothing, I was trying to relax by going swimming but your bickering has managed to ruin that so if you could please keep it down that’d be much appreciated,” your annoyance had gotten the best of you and even the boys could hear your sarcasm as they winced at your reply. You turn to leave but a question stops you in your tracks.

Exhale. You’ve got it under control.

“How do you swim with that thing on your head?” Bucky asks before realizing what he said. He immediately shuts his mouth in a thin line as he manages an awkward smile. Things had been piling up on your shoulders for a while now. You stopped going to therapy unless it was for the mandatory after mission session and now you were finally at the edge of everything. And Buckey just had to push you.

Turning towards the two men, they know they screwed up. Losing any composure you had, you began to lay into both men.

“It’s a hijab, not a life threatening disease! I can do anything you can do and more. I can swim, I can fight, I can be a normal human so stop assuming I can’t do normal activities just because I wear a hijab because I can! I can be normal too,” You whisper, finally breaking the strong facade you had held up for months. Opening a portal, you quickly run through it and close it before the boys can even object.

“Look what you did, asshat,” Sam shakes his head.

“Hey man, remember that time I asked for your opinion?” Bucky asks, clearly annoyed at the man next to him.

“Uh, no.”

“Yeah, neither do I,” Bucky says sharply, nervous with the feeling that he had messed up so bad, you’d never want to speak to him again.

Inhale. Deep breath in.

Back in your room, you grabbed a duffel bag and packed some clothes. You’re almost done when Nat barges into your room without knocking.

“Hey y/n, can you help me—, what’s going on here?” She asked with a perfectly sculpted brow.

“I have a family emergency that needs to be tended to right away,” your short explanation needs no elaboration, your family had always been a no talk zone so she wouldn’t question it.

“Oh, I’ll let Steve and Tony know, that way they aren’t worried and you can leave a little quicker,” she says with a nod and a small smile. She either knew you were lying or was trying to be comforting and both options were unnerving to say the least.

“Thank you Natasha,” you nod your head in thanks to your mentor.

“No problem,” she leaves just as quickly as she came and just as quietly.

Grabbing your bag you summon another portal, this one to your family home, and take another breath. Your family could drive you crazy but they were the best way to ground yourself when things were piling up against you.

As you made your way through the portal you heard Bucky shout your name just as the portal snapped closed, effectively closing Bucky out too.

——————————————————

It had been refreshing being with your family, they accepted the gifts you had and were so much more accepting than you had thought. But being with them wasn’t going to fix the way you had left things with Buck. You know he didn’t mean anything by his question, so innocent and somewhat ignorant to other religions and cultures in the world. He quite literally came from a different time so it was natural curiosity. You knew you had to mend things between the two of you.

Your room at the tower was exactly how you’d left it, no surprise there. The only difference was a bouquet of flowers and a note on your nightstand. You had almost missed them, the freshly picked wildflowers varying in color weren’t even on your radar. You were expecting Bucky to be there waiting to bombard you with questions that you weren’t really wanting to have to explain. Picking up the note and dropping your bag, you sit on the edge of your bed and begin to read the card.

“Doll,

I have made a complete fool of myself but I can’t help but want to learn more about you. I’m sorry that I made you feel less than, I never meant for that to happen.

Please accept my apology, darlin’, I promise I’ll work on being less ignorant. I hope you won’t mind accepting my invitation to dinner tonight, think of it as an olive branch.”

Signed,

James

You sigh, this was probably the cutest invitation to dinner you had ever been given. How could you say no? Besides, this would be the perfect way to apologize to him for snapping the way you did.

Not bothering to change since what you were wearing was already pretty cute. Fixing your hijab and adding a couple extra pins to keep it in place, you make your way to the kitchen, following the burning smell coming from there. Unsurprisingly, you find Bucky is the culprit. You watch as he rushes the pan on fire to the sink and douses it with water.

It was a funny sight to see, Buckey with an apron on, his hair pulled back in a bun with tuffs of brown hair hanging down past his eyes. He huffed, sounding stressed about his current situation. Letting out a laugh, he turns to see you amused by his predicament.

“You know, you could have just ordered something in. Would be safer for everyone I think,” laughing a little more at the man.

“I think that may be what I have to do, doll,” he laughed too, glad that you weren’t too upset with him. He continued, “You know I know this diner down the block from here, we could walk if you’d like too?”

“I’d be honored to accompany you, James.”

He sighed in relief, silently hoping he doesn’t screw up this date. The others watch from the common room, quietly examining the two of you interacting.

“At least he didn’t serve her that pork, that would have been tragic,” Tony didn’t bother whispering as he mocked Bucky.

“Shut up Stark,” everyone hissed as the two of you walked to the elevator together laughing and talking again. As soon as the elevator closed and started descending, Tony spoke up again.

“$50 that Barnes screws up again tonight!”

“I’ll take that action, $20 on him messing up within 30 minutes,” Sam says, rounding the corner to get food from the kitchen.

“Nah, I think he’ll pull it off without messing up too bad,” Steve tries to hold in his laughter, sticking up for his friend.

“You willing to put money on that, Rogers?”

“Tony, you’re rich I’ll bet $20 against Sam,” he laughs, done with their antics.

It didn’t matter what they bet on, cause they never would have guessed that Rogers would win.

#marvel #avengers #avengers fanfiction #reader insert #avengers x reader #the avengers #fanfic #fanfiction #fan fiction #avengers fanfic #hijab!reader #Bucky x reader #bucky fanfic #james bucky barnes #bucky x y/n #bucky x reader #drabble #request #fic request

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andoqin · 4 years

Text

Sisyphus: The Myth Ep 1- A Dissection

Okay, so I’ve had some time to process what I subjected myself to today, so I’ve decided to list everything in episode 1 that is just completely insane and an example of how Not To Do it.

I’m not an expert on Film Theory, but i’ve watched a shitton of media, plus I watch a lot of Youtube Video essays, so clearly I’m half

The episode starts off okay enough even if we get a weird exposition dump and “tense” parting scene between a father and daughter.

We start in what presumably is the time travel terminal where people stand around in pyjamas waiting to get through.

Okay, fairly interesting if unspectacular but I’m guessing that’s the point, this is now an industry. We zoom in and get this line that made me laugh, because well...

a) humans are living creatures and b) the amount of microbial organisms on human skin is estimated to be at hundreds of billions, or more. And this kind of time travel/teleportation is always hinky because well if you think about it, how does that even work without getting into The Fly territory. I’m willing to cut this drama some slack here and maybe it’s an awkward translation besides.

This gets... exceedingly long, but if you want a (too) in-depth summary of what happens in ep 1 and why it doesn’t work (for me) read on :D.

But then the real trouble starts, because PSH’s dad (I’m not bothering to learn the character names) says he’s not going with her and this is apparently very sudden. He then makes her repeat some lines that are supposed to create tension? Be exposition? Idk.

“Don’t trust anyone.”

“Don’t get involved with [CSW]’s character.”

PSH get’s teary eyed, because her dad is not coming with her, but the problem with scenes like these is: I don’t know either of them and do not have an emotional connection to their parting. Sure, it tells us something about PSH (she likes her dad and is worried about him) but I also don’t know how important her dad is going to be down the line. So when PSH asks about her mom and what if her mom dies and her dad just replies everyone dies at some point I’m a bit weirded out, but not to the point where I necessarily want to know more.

We then smashcut to PSH waking up in a world that’s more similar to ours and she does what her dad told her to do. She grabs her (very inconvenient) suitcase and runs along the tracks she woke up next to. We see that she is somewhat surprised by the running trains and also hardy enough to track on despite bleeding feet.

Alas, creepy people in gas-masks with guns and drones are waiting for her, so she runs even harder and after some near misses (they are able to track her by some sort of radiation meter) makes it to safety.

On top of a train car that the TWO DOZEN PEOPLE WITH GUNS AND DRONES are too stupid to check apparently. Clearly if she’s not under the train car, the detecting devices must be mistaken. So she just chills on top of the train car, sitting on her suitcase and those goons trundle off after 5 minutes presumably like they’re Assassin’s Creed Enemy NPCs.

Now we get introduced to CSW in the most insane scene i’ve ever witnessed. Honestly.

He is just ~chilling in 1st class in an airplane, filming a douche who is rude to the plane staff and epically owning him because he’s So Smart.

First of all, I don’t know what that has to do with soggy noodles(which the other asshole complained about), since by that measure the noodles should be *undercooked* (lower boiling point means longer cooking time after all) and secondly good lord I already hate this guy. He then proceeds to Epically Own (tm) with a convenient Forbes (sorry “Eorbes”) Magazine that he is on the cover of and flirts with the plane hostess.

So right off the bat, our impressions of CSW are supposed to be: He’s Cool (look at his hoodie and general bearing), he’s Smart (debatable), he’s nice to The Help (I guess???) stands up to bullies, and most importantly he’s fucking rich. I guess we’re also supposed to get the impression that he’s arrogant, maybe a bit of an asshole, but still cool and everything.

If this had been where the scene had stopped I would have rolled my eyes and then just continued on watching. But no, the writers thought: “Schooling some sexist rich asshole isn’t enough to show off how Cool and Smart and Cocky our main character is. Also he likes the ladies.” Look at him, he’s Tony Stark only from South Korea!!!

So shortly after he sits down, and we have the first moment with CSW where he connected with me emotionally (he sees the ghost of his dead brother and the way he says “because ... you’re dead.” and I thought OOOH this I can work with), the cockpit windshield is hit by what looks to be a suitcase (DUN DUN DUUUN) and something crashes into one of the engines, causing it to explode and catch fire.

The pilot is knocked out and unconscious and even the co-pilot loses consciousness (after conveniently unlocking the cockpit lock). CSW is the only one who goes to check on the pilots, having grabbed a fanny pack from his onboard luggage and quickly assessing the situation he revives the copilot and welds the hole in the windshield shut with some ducttape out of his fannypack and a plastic notepad. IT’S VERY EFFECTIVE! They did it in WW2, or so CSW tells us so you know it’s true.

I’m not sure that ‘s how plane windshields and duct tape and plastic notepad thingies work, but well the plane is still in freefall we have more important things to worry about :).

The electrics are all on the fritz, the copilot cannot get control of the plane and so CSW takes a seat in the captains chair (having foisted the captain out of it, not even he is so crass to sit on some unconscious dude’s lap i guess) and quickly calculates that they have 3 min and 30 secs for CSW to restart the electronics before the plane crashes. So he hands the co-pilot HIS PHONE with a timer on it for 3.5 minutes so the co-pilot can tell him when 30 seconds have passed. Instead of idk, contacting Air Traffic Control or ANYONE he just sits there and lets his big boy brain work.

After 30 seconds he has an idea, because he’s Tony Stark-ing it up like crazy now and can just figure out the electronics of a plane cockpit in 30 seconds, but guess what. HIS PHONE RINGS. AND HE ANSWERS IT, because he’s devil-may-care and “haha look at this, friend, i’m in the cockpit of a crashing plane we have 2 minutes before i’m dead.”

Said friend is calling him from the board meeting of CSWs company, bc of course the board is ~unhappy with CSWs antics (I gotta say I can’t blame them) and the friend doesn’t believe it at first, when he says he’s in a crashing plane, but checks on the news to see it’s true.

I ... I don’t think news work like that, we’ve gone 5 minutes from the initial troubles till now, there won’t be news reports all over the media yet. THEY’RE NOT EVEN TALKING TO AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL YET. Hell he even tells his friend to call 119 or the airport for help. I just... I’m very forgiving of a lot of things in a drama when it comes to writing. I’m willing to ignore obvious blindspots in a narrative, if I think the narrative is strong enough to support whatever it’s trying to say. At this point what could calling the police or the airport do, they have like 90 seconds left...

I don’t know what the writers are trying to tell me with this scene though? It’s so stupid, so unrealistic and CSW is so unpleasant and weird in it, because he tells his friend that he has to confess to taking out the friend’s college girlfriend on a date while they were still together.

Well since the drama is longer than one ep, they do make it out alive, but the fact that the co-pilot managed to safely LAND the plane (which is insane to me) gets skipped over and we just get news snippets that herald CSW as a hero who singlehandedly saved the planes passengers.

We then get to see him in his natural habitat “convalescing” in his giant apartment where he is being showered with gifts by worshippers basically. He continues to be an asshole, but his friend tells him, one more stunt and the board will kick him.

The board will kick the guy who just saved a plane full of lives????? Yeah right, I’m sorry but that’s just fucking stupid from the writers. Why would anyone do that, even if the board hates him, kicking him now, when he’s literally a national hero would be the worst thing they could do for the stock prices. It’s only here so the writers can shoehorn in that CSW is close to OD-ing on pharmaceuticals and that the board wants to monitor his therapy and they have a way of “forcing” him to comply.

Also he has what looks to be a dental x-ray machine next to his bed. Someone correct me if I’m wrong but lol what’s up with these set design choices.

His friend tells him to go to fucking therapy or else and the next scene he is actually at a therapist.

Who’s his ex-girlfriend (they have a whole tangent about that).

Who writes a report about his therapy to the board.

But hey at least the therapy gets us a flashback of the last time he saw his brother. Big surprise he was an asshole to him as well, so no wonder he’s traumatised by that.

After therapy he *conveniently* runs into the co-pilot who’s incoherent and beaten up and hands CSW a usb-drive. It contains video of the cockpit on the day of the crash and it’s obvious what struck the plane was a suitcase and what crashed into the engine was a human being (DUN DUN DUUUUUUN maybe someone forgot to convert feet to meters when setting up the time travel thingamabob).

As he looks at the (very pixelated) figure of the person about to crash into the engine, he suddenly sees his brother’s face and honestly this scene just made me laugh? I know it’s supposed to be haunting and more evidence of CSW’s deep trauma, but I guess at this point my brain was just completely checked out.

And that’s what we end our introductory phase of CSW. What the fuck was that plane thing even for. To show us he’s callous in the face of danger? He’s an asshole even when he’s about to die, so he’s got a long way to go? He’s haunted by the spectre of his dead brother and the guilt he feels for not being there when he died? I got a lot of that before we had the insane Plane Adventure!!! There are literally millions of ways they could have gotten this information to the viewers and not made an absurd spectacle of the plot that means that everything afterwards just feels lame, because you already had the insanity that was this plane ride, so it can only go down tension wise.

Now we’re back to PSH, but honestly her parts are kinda boring and bog-standard “UwU I’m unfamiliar with this way of life, I don’t even know how to eat a banana (that looks *nothing* like a banana btw), so I just eat it peel and root and all. Also I’m from the Future, that means I obviously know todays LOTTERY NUMBERS.”

I know kdramas like clichés and tropes, I like them too, that’s why I watch kdramas, but you gotta give me a bit more if you want me to at least invest in PSH, because I’m sure as hell not invested in CSW.

She gets taken in by some guy, because we can’t have her homeless all the time, and she needs someone to explain this world to her and also how to eat bananas properly and she opens her suitcase. It’s got both future-tech-y looking stuff and a pink notepad that seems to hold specific information on what needs to happen on certain days.

She also makes this expression and I don’t know if we’re supposed to laugh because she’s not threatening or if we’re supposed to laugh because she’s not threatening, but we know she’s gonna kick ass later, haha you just thought she was harmless. I gotta say it’s the former for me.

Rarrr fierce Elite Warrior PSH coming to get you.

She tries to get in touch with CSW, already breaking one of her dad’s three commandments. Oh, I guess staying with this guy breaks the other two. Welp, so much for that then. What even was the point of that first scene...

Anyway she tries to get in touch with CSW but ofc you cant just call the richest person ever (Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos would get very angry voicemails from me if that were the case), but she manages to get his voicemail. Or a voicemail he spoke for. But oh no, she is just Not Familiar with this world and keeps having a conversation with the voicemail as if it’s CSW himself.

CSW who has scienced his way to finding the suitcase that crashed the plane and as she begs his voicemail not to open the suitcase, of course he opens it and gasp the combination for the suitcase lock is his birthday!!! Something his brother used to do!!!

MAYBE THAT MAN WAS HIS BROTHER AFTER ALL!!!! OH NO!!

But thank fuck the episode is over now.

VERDICT:

Just no. Don’t do this. The latter half of the show is more standard fare, but the first 25 minutes destroy any capability of this show making sense. I can see what the writers are trying to do, but it’s so hamfisted and badly written I’m just not willing to go along.

If you want a show that also has a fantasy action aspect (and this show is all fantasy no matter how much it tries to science it up), watch LUCA instead. That show at least knows how to set a tone, how to get us invested in the characters and does exposition in a way that doesn’t feel obtrusive.

#sisyphus: the myth #sisyphus #I RANT #FOR WAY TOO LONG #kdrama

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yandere-society · 5 years

Text

First, Do No Harm

Sypnosis: Dr. Kim is well known as the most skilled heart surgeon in the hospital, but when you notice his mortality statistics seem skewered, you discover all is not what it seems. Now, Dr. Kim is offering you a choice: will you join him? Or become yet another broken heart beneath his scalpel?

Pairing: Namjoon x Female Reader

Word Count: 7.2k

Admin: @psycho-slytherin

Valentine’s Day Event Masterlist

Trigger warnings: yandere-themes, mentions/descriptions of death and dying, blood, murder?

You stand back, holding your breath as Dr. Kim Namjoon removes the camera from his young patient’s chest and smiles. “Another day, another Tetralogy of Fallot.”

The nurses and residents clap politely, and you join in. Dr. Kim is a legend within the hospital and across the country. You have nothing but admiration for the greatest pediatric cardiologist of your generation. And you, as a senior anesthesiologist, have gotten to witness some of his greatest achievements.

“Great work, everyone. He’s going to be just fine,” Dr Kim says, catching your eye and grinning. You can’t see his smile through his mask, but his trademark dimples appear below his eyes.

Those dimples have done nothing but enthrall just about every hospital employee since day one, and sometimes even you have to wonder if you’re truly immune to his mesmerizing gaze.

As you replace the equipment on the anesthesia cart and switch off the many machines that kept your patient asleep for the duration of his surgery, your attention turns to tomorrow’s patient– a fifty-two year old liver transplant recipient named Mr. Lim. You’ve already prepared his plan, and it should be pretty straightforward.

You’ve always loved the art of anesthesiology– it turned surgery from a lowly last resort to a tolerable option, from screaming and bloody struggles to a quiet and hyper-focused operating room. Anesthesia set the stage for the advancement of medicine, and you’ve never thought twice about your choice of specialty.

Plus, it means you get to see Dr. Kim, the handsome cardiologist, whenever you’re working on a surgery with him. You smile at the thought. That’s great, too.

As you scrub out, your thoughts drift to your plans. Valentine’s Day is next week and you promised your newly-engaged coworker you would be on call. Dr. Jung asked you days ago to take over for him so that he could spend the evening with his fiancé. With your reputation for being perpetually single, you were happy to help. Besides, you like helping people.

“Dr. L/n.” You see Dr. Kim slide in beside you as he, too, scrubs his hands and arms up to the elbow. It seems you two were the last to file out of the OR.

“Dr. Kim,” you reply. “Great work on the Tetralogy of Fallot today.” It’s a relatively common, but sometimes deadly, combination of birth defects. The patient today was a five-year-old boy, and when you explained to him that you would insert a breathing tube to help him during the surgery, he looked at you with such trust in his eyes that for a second, it was you who couldn’t breathe.

“It was a collaborative effort,” the cardiologist says smoothly. “Definitely wouldn’t be possible without you.”

You feel a blush warm your cheeks when he turns to you. Dr. Kim has one of those faces whose every line reveals a particular grace– each worried wrinkle seems to have a meaning, and every controlled movement tries to say or hide something which you can never decipher. Despite working together for years, you’ve never had a real conversation with him. Maybe now’s a good time to start?

“Doing anything fun for Valentine’s Day?” You ask casually. Dr. Kim coughs and you realize your mistake, your blood running cold: “Oh, god, no, I’m not hitting on you!”

Dr. Kim chuckles as he dries his hands. “Don’t worry about it, Dr. L/n. No, I don’t have plans– I believe I have a surgery scheduled.”

“Yeah? Anything interesting?”

“Some teenagers got drunk and messed with fireworks during New Year’s Eve. One of the explosions caught a kid in the chest, she got some shrapnel embedded in her interventricular septum. She’s got a leak between ventricles, small enough that I guess they didn’t notice until now. Any bigger…” he pauses. “It wouldn’t be pretty.”

“Oh, geez.” You wince. You can’t imagine the young girl’s terror and pain. You hate suffering, despise violence. It’s one of the reasons you chose your specialty.

Dr. Kim shrugs. “It’s a tough job. Kids are so healthy and able to bounce back, we can’t always tell when something’s wrong– their bodies just try to adapt to it. And the heart has a direct line to our psychological state; when they get scared, when they feel trauma or pain…” Dr. Kim meets your eyes. “It damages them even more.”

You stare at him, a rush of sympathy enveloping you. You’re used to turning off your emotions; numbing yourself to suffering is another part of the job. But where your responsibility is to keep patients safe and calm, relaxed and unfeeling, Dr. Kim’s hands hold within them the lifeblood of each person on the operating table. He, too, is only human, and every life lost must surely weigh on him.

“Right, well…” Dr. Kim chuckles quietly. “I’ll see you around, Dr. L/n.”

“Hey, Dr. Kim.” You hurry after him while shaking your hands dry. Dr. Kim stops, eyeing you curiously. “If you ever need to talk to someone, my therapist is pretty good.”

“Your… therapist?” Dr. Kim adjusts his glasses, his tone questioning.

You take a breath. You’re always the first to promote therapy to people in your profession. “Our jobs can get tough. I started seeing someone years ago, and I probably wouldn’t still have my job if I hadn’t. And you, with your responsibilities–” you fidget. “I can get you some recommendations if that might help you.” You hope you’re not overstepping your bounds.

Dr. Kim smiles cooly, his dimples remaining hidden. “Thank you for the offer, Dr. L/n. I appreciate it.”

“Ah, call me Y/n,” you reply automatically. All your friends in the hospital refer to you by your first name anyways. Hopefully an esteemed professional like Dr. Kim won’t find such a suggestion inappropriate.

The cardiology surgeon raises a brow. “Then I’m Namjoon.”

“I- oh.” You smile briefly. “Alright. Well, I have to get to my rounds– I’ll see you later.”

With that, you turn, reaching for your pager. You don’t notice the surgeon’s eyes follow you down the hall. You don’t see him smile widely, his dimples at last appearing in earnest beneath his glasses.

»»————-　♔　————-««

After you return from your lunch break later that day, Dr. Min, your favorite diagnostician, waves you down. “Y/n!”

You smile, approaching. “Hey– what’s with all the stuff?” Dr. Min’s arms are full of stacks of files, so high his face is obstructed.

“Some bug in the system deleted a bunch of the digital archives from the last couple months,” Dr. Min grumbles. “Luckily we have physical copies of the hospital records, but now we have to reinput the data. I made the mistake of offering to help the hapless interns assigned to fix it.”

You laugh, grabbing a stack of paper out of Dr. Min’s arms. “I’m finished with my rounds today– I’ll help.”

“Ah, Y/n, you’re an angel,” Dr. Min sighs with relief. “It shouldn’t take more than a few hours and if you get paged, I’ll just add another intern to the roster.”

You shift the papers in your grip. “I’ve got a conference call in a couple hours, but I should be fine until then.” After Dr. Kim’s– Namjoon’s– cold cordiality, a friendly face like Yoongi’s is a welcome relief.

Still, Dr. Kim has certainly earned the right to whatever behavior he wants to express; it was his groundbreaking paper that led to the testing of a new surgical procedure to more effectively repair a patent ductus arteriosus and a number of other birth defects. He was the keynote speaker for the recent cardiologists’ convention in the city, and his surgeries are always well-attended; you’ve heard of interns competing for the chance to scrub in and witness him in action. Dr. Kim’s name alone is enough to add a layer of intellect to any conversation. Patients have traveled across the country for his advice.

You follow Dr. Min to the records room, where five interns are already typing away, recording and inputting patient data and medical records.

“How big an operation is this?” You wonder aloud, setting down your files.

Dr. Min sighs. “Big. It’s a disaster, and the hospital board wants to keep it quiet. Everything’s online these days; this fuckup will make it look like we’re behind the times.”

You laugh. “God forbid. Okay, I’ll input the surgery data and you can take diagnostics.”

Dr. Min nods, and you get to work, grabbing files off the pile and settling down in front of a computer.

Patient name: Jeon, Jeongguk.

Diagnosis: Heart arrhythmias. You wince. Heart arrhythmias are a tell of potential cardiac arrest, and the patient would probably benefit from a defib implant.

Procedure: ICD. ICD stands for implantable cardioverter defibrillator– you were right!

Attending: Dr. Kim Namjoon.

“Oh?” you murmur aloud, staring at the familiar name. Today’s full of Namjoon, isn’t it?

When you type in the report, the computer dings, automatically redirecting you to the patient’s file. A big red word greets you next to his name: DECEASED.

You wince. The patient was a young man, and it’s a shame that people die when they should be at the pinnacle of health. You glance briefly at the remainder of the patient’s file, looking for the autopsy report– but you find none.

Still, you quickly shake yourself out of a fog. You want to finish as many as possible before your conference call. Patient name. Diagnosis. Procedure. Attending. Medical history. Additional notes. You try not to pay attention to how many of the patients have the red DECEASED mark on their charts. No surgery, no matter how small, is without risks. If they’re on the operating table, something is already wrong. But why do people have to suffer? Why do they have to die?

Dr. Kim’s– Namjoon’s– name pops up several more times, often following some impressive procedure.

“Kim’s been busy,” you say after an hour of inputting data.

“Hm?” Dr. Min’s eyes are trained on his screen.

“There’s like… hundreds of surgical procedures in these files. Dr. Kim’s responsible for a lot of them.”

“Psh, that’s just ‘cause Dr. Park has been slacking,” Dr. Min snorts, stretching. “I caught him napping in the call room the other day.”

“We’ve all been there.”

Dr. Min laughs. “Sure, but I’ve never been there while my pager was going crazy!”

“No. Was it?” You gasp, scandalized. You sense the interns leaning in, desperate for the attendings’ scraps of gossip.

“Heh, yeah. Anyways, Y/n, why don’t you head out? I can handle the rest–” Dr. Min’s voice turns loud and deep. “And anyone who cares more about Dr. Park’s naps than the work right in front of them can stay here until we’re finished.”

You grin at seeing the interns scramble back to their stations. You remember your years as a medical intern and later, resident– spending so long at the bottom of the food chain humbles a person permanently.

You check your watch– you have just enough time to check on tomorrow’s patient before your conference call. You want to make sure none of his vitals have changed enough to warrant adjustments to his anesthesia plan.

You stroll through the corridors, eventually coming up to the liver transplant recipient’s room. It was a hastily scheduled surgery; the donor liver is being flown overnight to reach him in the morning.

“Good afternoon, Mr- oh.” Standing at the patient’s bedside, examining his chart, is… “Dr. Kim?”

Dr. Kim slides his hands into his pockets and straightens up. You’re reminded of how much taller than you he is. “Ah, Y/n, hello.”

“Hi. I wasn’t aware you were involved with this patient,” you say carefully. What would a childrens’ cardiologist be doing for an adult transplant patient? Still, Dr. Kim must have his reasons. He’s too brilliant a surgeon not to.

“Oh, I was just looking,” Namjoon replies. “I’ll be on my way now, if you don’t mind.”

“Just loo- uh, okay, I guess?” You step aside, allowing him to brush past you. That’s weird, but he’s Dr. Kim Namjoon. He can do whatever he wants.

“So, Mr. Lim…” You look down at your chart before double checking his heart monitor. “How are you feeling?”

“Sleepy,” the patient mumbles. “And grateful. My stomach hurts a bit.”

You smile. Donor organs are hard to come across, and so many patients need them. “Tomorrow’s the start of the rest of your life, huh?”

Mr. Lim smiles, his eyes fluttering closed. “The start of the rest of my life…”

Looks like he’s fallen asleep. You close the door behind you– the surgery is scheduled for 4 in the morning, so you’ll see him soon. Still, you wonder what Namjoon was doing in the room.

After your conference call and hours of reviewing charts from your apartment, you fall into a deep sleep, your pager at your fingertips.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“Ah!” Your eyes fly open and you automatically grab for your pager, checking the time. 1:30AM? Your alarm isn’t set to ring for another hour. It’s a message from Dr. Kim Taehyung, Mr. Lim’s transplant surgeon: Call me.

Now fully awake, you’re quick to obey. The phone barely has time to ring before–

“Y/n?”

“Yeah. Taehyung, what’s up? Did the surgery get rescheduled?”

“No. Uh, sleep in today, okay, Y/n?”

“What?” You straighten up, already stepping into your shoes. “Of course not. What’s going on?”

Taehyung’s voice is hardened, but you can hear an exhausted kind of grief leak through. “We were too late. This morning’s liver recipient just passed.”

Your heart stutters. “Huh? That’s ridiculous– I checked on him yesterday!”

“Acute liver failure, most likely. The nurses must have given him too many pain meds, which probably accelerated the damage. Time of death was an hour ago.”

“Ah, shit. Shit.” You run your hand through your hair. The start of the rest of your life, you’d said to him… You were too late. “Okay, thanks for letting me know.”

“Hey, Y/n, it’s no one’s fault, understand?” Taehyung says sharply. He knows you too well.

“Yeah.” Your therapist loves to say the same thing. “I’ll see you later. Send me the autopsy report?”

“Yep. See ya.”

Unable to sleep, you fall back onto your bed. Mr. Lim was so close to lifesaving surgery– how could it have been too late? My stomach hurts, he’d said. You should have taken him more seriously. Where were the nurses? One should have been present. And you, as the damn anesthesiologist, should at least have noticed he had too many analgesics in his system. Shit.

After several more restless hours, you throw on your white coat and drive to the hospital. Even if the surgery was called off, there’s still plenty to do. Dr. Min is probably still reinputting records into the hospital database– surely he could use some help.

Besides, if you don’t help anyone today, you think your heart might explode.

Luckily, Dr. Min is more than happy to have an extra pair of hands typing away.

“Did you hear about the patient that got his left arm amputated?” Dr. Min says while you scan another report.

“If you say they’re all right now, I’m going to amputate your arm,” you reply dryly, checking out the next file. Oh, another operation by Namjoon. Some sort of emergency reparative surgery? The patient is listed as a nine-year-old girl.

“Yes, ma’am,” Dr. Min says jovially.

DECEASED. A dark monster wells up inside you at the word.

“Fuck!” You yell, slamming your hands on the table and probably traumatizing two interns. For once, you don’t care. You’re so sick of pain, of suffering, and… “Why do people keep dying?”

“Woah! Hey, Y/n, c’mon…” Dr. Min takes the paper from you. “Deep breaths. This has always been part of the job– you know that.”

“It’s not fair,” you whisper, that monster in your chest weighing you down. “She was nine. Nine, Yoongi.”

Yoongi inhales sharply, glancing at the report in his hand. “Son of a bitch. Yeah, that’s… well, it’s part of the– what?”

“What?”

“It says the surgery was successful. Why’d she die?”

You purse your lips, forcing yourself to calm. “The cause of death should be listed. Or there should be an autopsy report attached.”

Yoongi’s eyes narrow. “I’m not seeing anything. Huh. And the attending surgeon…?”

“Namjoon.”

Yoongi hands you back the report. “Hold up. You’re on a first-name basis with Dr. Kim Namjoon?”

You stare at the surgeon’s printed name on the sheet, and all the power and reputation attached to it. “I guess.” Something’s bothering you– and you can’t quite put your finger on it.

“Hey, Yoongi, I’m going to run down to the morgue, okay?”

Dr. Min shrugs. “Go ahead, I hate that place. See you later.”

Yeah, you hate it too. You definitely hate it too. But some irksome curiosity won’t let this go– Mr. Lim’s body would be in the morgue right now, if he passed away last night. What you’re hoping to find, you don’t know. But you know one thing– Mr. Lim shouldn’t have died, and neither should have that nine-year-old girl.

And their only connection is Dr. Kim Namjoon.

As you take the elevator down to the morgue attached to the hospital, you try to make sense of your thoughts. Why was Namjoon in Mr. Lim’s room before his death?

Before long, you’re greeting Dr. Kim Seokjin, your favorite medical examiner.

“Ey, Y/n, how’s it going?” Seokjin asks happily, removing his face mask as he steps out of the autopsy suite. “You never come for a visit down here.”

“Yeah, I had enough of brain cutting in medical school,” you offer with a dry smile. “Listen, Seokjin, I need a favor– can I check out the body of the liver failure patient from last night?”

“For you, babe? Anything. He’s right up front.” Seokjin walks back to the many refrigerated doors, each housing or awaiting a body.

You’re quick to grab some gloves, and Seokjin rolls out Mr. Lim’s body. Your breath catches– there he is, the same man you spoke to only yesterday. When you first entered the medical field, you had thought dead bodies simply looked asleep. Now, with years of experience under your belt, you’ve learned to recognize that extra layer of weight, the particular stiffness in one’s limbs, the complete lack of motion in one who’s passed.

“I just want to check him for liver failure symptoms,” you say. If Mr. Lim really did die from acute liver failure, his eyes would be yellow from jaundice and his belly would be comically swollen and…

And it’s not. What?

“Seokjin,” you murmur, eyeing the man’s body. He’s no more bloated than he was last night. “In… In your professional opinion, did this man die of acute liver failure?”

“I can’t really say this early, but…” Seokjin shines a flashlight into Mr. Lim’s open, unseeing eyes. You notice only a slight yellow tinge, hardly at the extreme of acute liver failure. “He’s certainly missing the external symptoms typical of liver failure. Unless I see a lot of internal evidence pointing to the contrary during autopsy, I’d have to wager on another manner of death. Judging from the position of the hands and state of his muscles, he was in a lot of pain. Why do you ask?”

Your heart sinks. “No reason. Hey, can you pull the autopsy report for the girl who died last month? I didn’t find it on her file.”

“I know exactly who you’re talking about.” Seokjin frowns, grief temporarily clouding his gaze. “In all my experience, I’ve only had five children on the table– and she was the youngest. But the report should have been attached to her file.”

You shrug. “A lot of the digital archives were lost recently.”

“Let me find the physical copy.” Seokjin returns Mr. Lim to the fridge and strides into the morgue office, sifting through files. “Ah, here. Cause of death is listed as unknown.”

“Unknown?” You wrinkle your brow. How, in a hospital full of doctors, medical examiners, and expert diagnosticians, how can they not be certain of how this child died? “What’s the manner of death?”

“Dunno. There was evidence of myocardial contusions, but simple bruises on her heart like the ones she had shouldn’t have killed her. It’s probably a combination of the stress from the original injury as well as the operation itself– but it’s not enough evidence to call it natural.”

You take the autopsy report, feeling oddly numb. Two inexplicable deaths, and both with a connection to the famed surgeon.

You know there’s probably nothing wrong. Sometimes people die when they shouldn’t, it’s a fact of medicine. And Dr. Kim is brilliant, popular, well-known. It’s not possible for a man like him to… what, deliberately harm a patient? No, no way. He took the same oath you did, made the same promises: To help a patient to the best of your ability; to share knowledge; to admit, if necessary, ignorance, and… first, do no harm.

You take a deep breath. You’re going to look over some more files in between surgeries. And… you’re going to keep an eye on Dr. Kim Namjoon.

With a quick thanks to Seokjin, you once more join the land of the living. You barely turn the corner before bumping into–

“Dr. Kim!”

The surgeon chuckles, his eyes dark behind his glasses. “I thought we were doing first names now?”

“Uh…” You gulp. Does he know what’s on your mind? “Right, forgot.”

“How are you, Y/n?” Namjoon doesn’t seem to be in any hurry, instead choosing to lean against the wall as you stand, frozen, before him.

“Good. Yeah.” You clear your throat. For some reason, his eyes suddenly remind you of Mr. Lim’s– cold, unseeing, dead. “I was helping Dr. Min with the data loss, since my surgery this morning was canceled.”

“I heard about that. Liver failure, right? It happens.” Namjoon sighs and frowns with the same kind of expression as you saw before you recommended therapy to him– a kind of sympathy that you can now only see as fake. Was it all a lie, or are you just being paranoid?

“Actually, I just checked on his body in the morgue,” you say carefully. Is it your imagination, or did Namjoon stiffen slightly? “And his symptoms weren’t characteristic of liver failure. It was strange.”

“Really?” Namjoon’s eyes don’t quite meet yours, as though they’re looking through you– it’s unnerving, but some instinct tells you to continue.

“Yes. A-and I was wondering… what were you doing in his room yesterday?” It really doesn’t make sense– nothing short of a personal connection to the man would explain Namjoon’s presence in his room.

“What was I doing to your patient?” Namjoon repeats, a smile appearing on his face– dimples and all. You nod, and he leans closer, closer. “That’s easy. I was killing him.”

»»————-　♔　————-««

You take a deep breath, smoothing down your slacks before looking over your shoulder. You still haven’t decided whether he’s following you or not, but you don’t want to take any chances.

For the past four days, you’ve called in every favor you can to keep from coming in to the hospital, instead reviewing charts, designing plans and taking calls from home. But now it’s the morning of February 14– Valentine’s Day– and you got what you wanted: a meeting with the hospital’s board of directors. You’re back in the hospital for the first time since Namjoon spoke those dreadful words, and you’re scared; what if he hurts you for what you’re about to say?

Be brave, Y/n.

You walk in at 9:00 precisely, your stacks of files landing heavily on the table. “Hello.”

“Ah, Doctor.” The president of the hospital, Dr. Haden, says calmly. “You called this meeting to address some concerns?”

“Yes.” You grit your teeth. “My name is Dr. Y/n L/n, and I believe Dr. Kim Namjoon is deliberately harming patients.”

»»————-　♔　————-««

Two hours later, you leave the conference room, walk across the hall to the restroom, check to make sure the restroom is empty, lock yourself in a stall, and…

“AAAAAAAAAAAH!”

»»————-　♔　————-««

The board of executives was dead silent while you spoke: you had gone back through three years of patient records to find that while Dr. Kim’s success rate in surgery was high, a higher-than-average portion of his patients were dying within weeks of finding themselves on his table. You can’t prove that he’s hurting patients who aren’t his, like Mr. Lim, but you have to assume it’s true.

“These are children and teenagers,” you’d said, voice breaking. After all, he’s a pediatric surgeon. “I’ve done the math, and you may check these figures: Dr. Kim’s post-op mortality statistics are unethically high.”

“Perhaps, but–”

You weren’t done. In your digging over the last several days, you discovered something else. “Additionally, during the data breach last week, it appears that the autopsy reports of Dr. Kim’s deceased patients were almost entirely deleted. All that remain would be the physical reports, a number of which I have here.” After you explained your suspicions to Seokjin, he… well, he didn’t quite believe you, but he was happy to provide you with the reports. “Every single one of the deleted autopsy reports has the cause of death listed as unknown, as in, there wasn’t enough evidence to declare it a completely natural death!”

“Dr. L/n!” Dr. Haden says, raising his voice. “You’re talking about an esteemed fellow–”

“I am well aware of Dr. Kim’s stellar reputation. I wouldn’t be making such a weighty accusation without absolute certainty in my statistics. Additionally, a patient of mine died prematurely after I saw Dr. Kim visiting their room– you can check the camera footage to see. When I asked Dr. Kim what he was doing in the room, he said, quote, ‘I was killing him.’”

When you heard Namjoon say those words, you felt your blood run cold. Was he lying? Was it a joke? If it wasn’t a joke, why would he just admit his crime to you? He had followed it up with something somehow scarier–

“And guess what?” Namjoon had said, the smile never leaving his face. “I’ll never get caught.”

You swallow through your nerves. “It is my opinion that Dr. Kim should immediately be suspended from his duties pending investigation.”

There, you’d done all you could. And yet…

“We appreciate your efforts, Dr. L/n.” Dr. Haden had said after the board deliberated for not-long-enough. “But what you have presented is circumstantial. We have not found sufficient evidence to open such a serious investigation into a respected medical professional such as Dr. Kim.”

»»————-　♔　————-««

Which is why you’re screaming in the bathroom. Dr. Kim is harming, maybe killing, his patients. He admitted it! The board was so enamored with his name and reputation that they weren’t able to see through to what you’ve come to realize must be a twisted interior. How can you feel safe ever again if Kim Namjoon walks these same halls? Your well of favors has dried up, and you promised Dr. Jung you’d be on call in the hospital tonight for Valentine’s Day.

Namjoon will be here too. A night for lovers…

And I’m spending it with a killer, you think with a shudder. Seokjin had told you that Mr. Lim had died in great pain; even though you don’t have evidence, you’re certain Namjoon must have had a hand in his suffering. Why would he want anyone to suffer?

And for goodness’ sake, why would he admit it to you?

“Seokjin, you believe me, right?” You ask the medical examiner later as you return the files to the morgue. Since you’re back to work, you’ve changed from your suit into the more appropriate hospital scrubs and white coat.

“You really cannot tell me Dr. Kim Namjoon is a serial killer and expect me to believe you, babes,” Seokjin replies. “That’s like saying Mother Theresa stole from the poor.”

“Which she like… maybe did?”

“It’s Kim Namjoon, Y/n! He’s a genius– everyone idolizes the guy! Serial killers aren’t that hot and smart!”

“Seokjin, I don’t. Feel. Safe.” You hiss. “Not around him!”

“Around who?”

You swivel around to see… ah, beans. “Dr. Kim.”

He smiles. “Y/n. I’m starting to think you don’t want to call me Namjoon.” He nods at Seokjin. “Dr. Kim.”

Seokjin smiles. “Back atcha. What can I do for you?”

“I was wondering if you had the toxicology report for that nineteen-year-old with the blunt trauma?”

“You’ll have to be more specific.”

“The one from the car accident, with the naked Jennifer Lopez tattoo?”

“Ohh, yeah, Lopez Guy. Let me grab that for you.” Seokjin strides into his office, shutting the door behind him.

“No, wait-” Shit. You and Namjoon are left alone, surrounded by dead bodies. Fantastic.

“Haven’t seen you around lately, Y/n,” Namjoon says, an icy smile painting his handsome face.

“Y-Yeah, I was sick,” you reply. “Came down with something I must’ve picked up in the infectious diseases ward.” I was avoiding you, your untouchable reputation, your killing hands.

“That’s a shame. I’m glad to see you’re back and feeling better, just in time for Valentine’s Day.”

“You–” you’re evil.

“Here ya go, Dr. Kim.” Seokjin returns, handing Namjoon a file. “I also emailed it to you.”

“Thanks. Hey, mind if I borrow Y/n for a second?” Namjoon says, a strong hand gripping your shoulder. Shitshitshitshit.

“Uh…” Seokjin must see the panic in your eyes. “Y’know, I think I needed her down here…”

Yes, thank you.

“Oh, it’ll only be a second. Call it an urgent matter.” Namjoon turns the full force of his dimpled smile onto Seokjin. “You know how it is.”

“Ah, alright, sure.” Seokjin says faintly, his voice enchanted. Namjoon steers you into the elevator, and your only solace is that the entire hospital is monitored. But those eyes…

He’s going to kill me.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Y/n.” Namjoon says eventually, breaking the elevator’s silence.

Your heart pounding in your chest, you turn to him. “Why not? You hurt Mr. Lim. He died in pain– how could you?”

Namjoon shrugs casually as the elevator door opens. “We all have our vices. C’mon, this way.”

He admitted it. He just admitted it– how can he not have been caught?

Namjoon stops so suddenly you almost run into him. “We’re here.”

“Where?”

The surgeon taps the door beside him. “Your new friend’s room.” With an iron grip, he pulls you into the room and shuts the door behind him.

It’s a regular hospital room– complete with a patient, a sleeping young woman attached to an IV drip, bandages decorating her limbs.

“What happened to her?” you whisper.

“Got hit by a drunk driver. Broken ribs, internal bleeding, and a severe concussion.”

You examine her, overtaken by habit built over the years. “All survivable.”

Namjoon shrugs. “Sure. But that’s what I like– people who could survive.”

You take a step back. “W-what?”

Namjoon reaches down, caressing the patient’s cheek. “People in the prime of their lives. People who have years and years ahead of them. Cutting those years short– stealing their lives away–” Namjoon groans, a low, almost erotic, rumble from deep in his throat. “I love it.”

“I–” you stare wildly around the room, looking for the security camera.

“Don’t bother,” Namjoon says without turning. “The camera’s been broken for months. So was the one in Mr. Lim’s room.”

“You… you just admitted it.” Your throat is bone-dry, and although every cell in your body is screaming for you to reach for the door, you’re rooted to the floor. “You killed Mr. Lim, you’re killing your patients!”

“Yes.”

On hearing that one word, that confirmation of the fears that have been growing within you for the past week, it takes everything you have simply to remain standing upright. “Why am I here? Are you going to kill me too?”

The surgeon chuckles. “Of course not. I told you, I’ll never hurt you. The hospital needs you.”

“Then why…?”

Namjoon shrugs. “My… methods are painful. The patients can be loud– they’re suffering, after all.”

You wince. It’s like he knows exactly what to say to push your buttons. “W-why don’t you knock them out first?” Oh god, are you actually making suggestions to a serial killer? You need to leave, need to call the police. Would they even believe you without concrete evidence? And why does Namjoon have to cause them pain?

“It’s not my expertise. Now,” Namjoon says, turning to you with a smirk. “If only I knew someone who was a specialist in anesthesia, who could keep a patient asleep and unfeeling, and who could completely eliminate their suffering?”

You stare at him, realization dawning. “You’re insane.”

“That’s the first I’ve heard of it.”

“You think I’ll help you? We swore an oath, Namjoon!”

“You swore to help a patient to the best of your ability.” Namjoon advances until he’s only inches away. “She is going to die. That is a fact. You can report me to whoever you want, but like I told you– I’ll never get caught, and I always get what I want.”

“I–”

“She is going to die in great pain. I will make certain of that. And when she’s looking up at me, asking me why, begging me to let her live…” he leans down, his voice an emotionless whisper in your ear. “I will tell her exactly who is forcing her to suffer. And she will die with your name on her lips.”

You feel your knees go weak, and before you know it you’ve collapsed, catching yourself hard on the cold floor. “I-I–”

Namjoon crouches down next to you. “Think it over. You’re here on call all night, and besides, it’s Valentine’s Day.” He chuckles humorlessly. “We can make this our first date. Romantic, right?”

You still can’t bring yourself to speak, your head swimming with the cries and screams of all the suffering this man has caused. You would never help a psycho, never allow a murderer to continue. But… What can you do, if no one will believe you?

Namjoon cocks his head, clearly waiting for you to speak. When you can offer him only silence, he sighs. “Well, I have that kid’s reparative surgery coming up soon. I should be done in six or so hours, and after that, I’ll be back here. I hope you’ll be joining me.”

“How do you kill post-op?” You ask abruptly. You have to know, have to figure out how so many of his surgeries which were deemed successful were leading to DECEASED stamps days or weeks after the fact. If only they would die on the operating table, directly under his hand, maybe your statistics would be more compelling.

Namjoon pauses. “It’s pretty simple, actually.” He mimics holding a scalpel, and you shudder. How many lives had those hands cut short? “Depends on my mood, but usually during surgery, I make a hole in between ventricles– small enough that no one notices until the patient is discharged, but big enough to…” he winks. “You know. Achieve my goals.”

“Were you the one that caused that data breach?”

“Of course,” Namjoon says matter-of-factly. “Most people aren’t willing to look further than computers; if a piece of information isn’t online, it’s easy to forget about it, and assume it doesn’t exist.”

You bite your lip. “Why me?” He’s in between you and the door. Maybe if you keep him talking, some other doctor will come in and save you. Or will they only see the great Dr. Kim Namjoon and leave you alone?

“Why you? Well, Y/n, you found me out. You’re a brilliant anesthesiologist. And you hate to see people in pain.” He stands, stretching. “I’ll see you after the surgery, Y/n. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

And with that he leaves you shivering on the floor, accompanied only by the steady beeps from the EKG, indicating a strong heartbeat– a heartbeat soon to cease. You stand on shaky legs, staring at the woman; she can’t be older than twenty-five, and despite dark bruises coloring her face, you can see she’s beautiful.

She will die with your name on her lips, his voice echoes in your head. The police won’t arrest him without more evidence; the hospital board is too busy singing Namjoon praises to see his bloodthirst.

As you walk out of the room, carefully closing the door behind you, you think about your oath to help patients to the best of your ability. If your ability won’t save her life… What could you do to help?

You could take her pain away, a very small voice inside you whispers. You quickly shake your head, guilty that you would even consider such an awful choice. You grab your laptop and bring it with you to the on-call room. You try to spend the time designing anesthesia plans for upcoming patients. It used to always calm you down to imagine your patients asleep, calm, unfeeling. During surgery, you manage a ventilator in order to breathe for your patients, making constant adjustments to their dosage, and generally allowing the surgeons a calm OR. You’re supposed to help, to ease suffering, to save their lives by allowing for complex, invasive surgeries.

Could you live with yourself if you used your knowledge to go against your oath? To help kill a patient?

You wouldn’t be killing them, that same voice argues, louder now. She’s going to die anyways. You’re saving her from suffering and feeling the pain of whatever he’s going to do to her.

And then what? How could you continue to call yourself a doctor, knowing what you had contributed to?

Forget about it. Forget about him. There were no cameras– as far as any jury knows, you were never aware of that girl in the first place. There are hundreds of patients passing through the hospital– you have no reason to know her. If the board opens an investigation– and you’re amazed they haven’t yet opened one into Namjoon’s crimes– you’re certainly not guilty. Right?

But you’ll know. You’ll know she died and that you did nothing to stop him.

Still, you don’t know what Namjoon is capable of. Sure, he said he wouldn’t hurt you, but what about your friends? Your family? Are they safe?

After several hours, you check the clock. It’s 8:00 at night, just around the time Dr. Jung must be sitting down to a Valentine’s Day dinner with his fiancé. When you agreed to cover his shift last week, you didn’t exactly expect this to be where you would end up.

You stare down at your glowing screen, your charts and lists doing nothing to ease the inescapable knowledge that in only a few hours’ time, Dr. Kim Namjoon will kill a patient. What can you do?

Stop him.

Help her sleep.

Risk your loved ones.

Save yourself.

“Gah!” You shove your chair out, unable to sit still for a moment longer. Already you feel like a fraud in your white coat– do you even deserve to wear it, for how much you’ve been considering Namjoon’s offer? He could hurt you in retaliation if you refused, hurt your friends, cause you to lose your job– after all, his influence is wide and his reputation spotless. He could easily blacklist you from working at another hospital. But would he?

If he’s willing to kill… You’re certain he’d do anything to get his way.

But, and you can’t stop yourself from returning to this point– he’s also willing to harm. You’ve witnessed patients die, both with and without anesthetic. The former is peaceful, simply a breath of air and then no more. The latter can be full of tears and pain, with muscles seized up even after death, a homage to the suffering that could always be avoided.

What the hell. How could you be considering this?

Silently, you stand up and navigate once more to the patient’s room, just catching a nurse as he exits. He brightens when he sees you, and you vaguely recognize him.

“Hey, Dr. L/n! How are you doing?”

“Ah- fine,” you reply distractedly.

The nurse seems to notice, eyeing you carefully. “Well, that’s good.. Are you here to check on Eve?”

Eve. Of course, she has a name– Eve.

“Yes.”

“Unfortunately, she’s just fallen back asleep, but all her vitals are looking good.”

“Thanks for letting me know,” you manage before entering. You’re greeted by the sleeping young woman, breathing calmly, the monitors and machines surrounding her reassuring you that she’s as healthy as her body will let her be. Your anesthesia cart is right down the hall. It wouldn’t be difficult, or even strange, to bring it in here. Dr. Kim will be out of the OR soon. Should you do it?

“Mm… Doctor?”

You jump and turn. “O-Oh, you’re awake.”

Eve blinks sleepily. “Who are you?”

You swallow. “My name is Dr. L/n. I’m going to make you feel better, okay?”

The girl nods, then grimaces. “Thanks– my chest really hurts.”

You feel your heart breaking. How can you stand by, knowing how badly she’ll suffer under Namjoon’s hand? “You know what, let me get my cart over here, we can take care of that pain for you.”

“Thanks, Dr. L/n.” She said your name.

You pad down the hall to retrieve your cart. Even though nighttimes can be busy for the hospital, to you it feels deserted, as though the nurses and interns passing by are nothing more than ghosts. Or perhaps you’re the ghost?

You’re soon to return, wheeling cart which bears the mask, gas containers, breathing tubes, and other supplies to ensure a seamless operation. Eve has already fallen asleep again, her meds surely contributing to her exhaustion. It isn’t long before, as promised, Dr. Kim shows up.

“You came,” he says cooly, his voice void of surprise. Did he know?

You swallow. “I don’t want anyone to have to suffer,” you say simply.

Namjoon smiles, his dimples making an appearance. “I know.”

You can’t look at him as you expertly attach the mask to Eve’s face. Usually you would measure the dosage of nitrous oxide and Isoflurane to ensure she wakes up healthily and on time, but in this case… it’s not necessary. The woman barely stirs, and soon enough the EKG indicates she’s down for the count. Next, you insert a breathing tube into her trachea and attach it to a ventilator, letting the machine take over for Eve’s now-incapacitated lungs. She can’t feel, won’t cry out, and…

She won’t wake up. You step back, blinking tears out of your eyes. Your heart is pounding loudly in your ears, drowning out all common sense. “She’s all yours.” She’s innocent. You’re helping her, right? Easing her pain, holding off the terror, the suffering. If she’s going to die anyways, this is the best way that you, as a doctor, can help her.

Namjoon’s breathing hitches audibly, and you see his dark eyes trained on Eve’s face. “Usually they can see me…” he murmurs. “They look at me, and they’re so scared. Some people need to feel that fear, but I don’t.” He raises a clear syringe. “I just need to feel them go.”

It’s as though you don’t exist. “What’s in the syringe?”

He turns to you, his eyes as blown out and wild as you’ve ever seen them. “Oh, nothing.”

“N-nothing?”

Namjoon smiles, rubbing Eve’s arm fondly. “A little bit of air into a pulmonary vein–” he taps the empty syringe– “or as close to one as I can get, and her pretty little heart won’t know what to do. It’ll just look like the trauma caused her to go into cardiac arrest.”

“And she won’t feel a thing?” You whisper, watching as Namjoon inserts the needle into Eve’s arm, barely a milliliter of air entering her vein.

“That’s right. Thanks to you, she’s safe from harm.” Namjoon sets aside the syringe and presses a hand to Eve’s chest, over her heart. You spot his dimples make a cameo once more. “Isn’t that beautiful?”

You watch in silence for several moments before the EKG fibrillates wildly, beeping in alarm before flatlining– Eve is dead, without moving a muscle, without a single shout of pain.

She’s safe from harm. “Yeah,” you reply, staring down at your hands. Did you kill her, or save her? And what is this smile growing on your face? “Yeah. Beautiful.”

#bts #namjoon #kim namjoon #surgeon!namjoon #doctor!namjoon #namjoon x reader #yandere #yandere namjoon #yandere namjoon x reader #yandere!namjoon #bts event #bts fanfiction #yandere bts

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clean-bands-dirty-stories · 4 years

Text

The Best Things ~ J.V. (part 11)

A/n: Don’t mind me, updating a series no one cares about lol. I’ve been toeing the line of what he’s like in other fanficiton and fans’ minds, but with this one I may just cover a side of Jerome y’all might really believe is out of character. I don’t care though. I’m having fun exploring a character and I’m having fun.

Word Count: 5400+

MASTERLIST

There was something different about waking up in the morning to Jerome still being asleep next to you. Or at least that's how Harley felt. Especially because this never happened, and considering what had happened last night. Maybe that was it. The night before was the main thing on Harley's mind as he slowly woke up, his head immediately filling with the memory as if denying him even a second dog bliss from it.

If he was being honest, it made him both terrified and exhilarated. They'd never had sex like that before. Slow and tender and soft. Words of praise had poured from Jerome's mouth nonstop, and it had sent Harley's body in a different way. Rather than fireworks, it was more like lava under rocks. Searing heat that crept through Harley's veins like it was trying to sneak. It made Harley feel infinitely close to Jerome. Made him feel tethered to Jerome. He'd never felt anything like that before, and from Jerome's reactions neither had he. It also gave both men a new fear. Or, a deeper rooted hold on a fear that already existed at the very least.

What if this ended?

What if neither man felt this ever again?

What if they'd unveiling something in themselves last night... and now, in the day time, the other didn't like it?

It was then that Jerome turned, facing Harley, where he'd had his back turned before. "I'm sorry about your friend." His voice was quiet, and Jerome wouldn't look at him.

Harley was surprised by that. He scooted closer, resting his forehead on Jerome's chest. The red head pulled the other man's body closer, tucking Harley against Jerome's own frame. He held onto him, protecting him from the world for a second. It was empowering when Harley leaned into it immediately, reaching his hands so he fisted Jerome's shirt so hard his knuckles turn white.

Jerome had never been comforting before. Safe. He'd never had someone take refuge in him before. It was intoxicating. It made him feel strong and unbreakable. It was more of a high than he'd ever felt before. Maybe just as good as when he put his little shows on and watched people panic and squirm. Harley finding safety in this moment was on par with all the moments other people had found danger in Jerome.

I guess when all you get is the same thing all your life, even if it's good, something new can have a strong effect on a man. Jerome had always been fear personified. He'd been a walking weapon of death and destruction, and somehow in that chaos Harley found himself making a home. It made Jerome feel incredible. Maybe he wasn't as bad as everyone thought.

"Can I see those drawings you did last night?" Harley leaned back so they were looking at each other. Jerome had an odd expression on his face. Not the one Bruce and Jeremiah wore when they looked at each other, but a very close approximation. It made Harley's heart pick up.

"Sure." He slid out of bed to pad to the living room, snagging his drawing pad and returning with it. He sat in bed this time, extending the drawing pad so Jerome could grab it.

The red head say up as well, taking the pad from Harley and beginning to slowly look through it. He took longer than Harley though he had the attention span for, drinking in the different angles and shadows of his own face. He seemed to be scanning it. At one point he reached up and touched his face, his eyebrows coming together. "What are you thinking, J?"

Jerome looked up, a look of concern and confusion on his face. "Is this really how you see me?"

It was Harley's turn to be confused. "What are you talking about?"

He seemed to struggle to explain a few seconds before weakly offering, "I'm beautiful." He immediately scowled. "You make me look... good looking." A deeper scowl. "I mean, I know I'm sexy don't get me wrong, but the way you draw me looks... looks..."

"Pretty?" Harley offered.

"Yes," Jerome groaned, like it hurt him.

Harley bit his lip for a second, thinking. "To me, you were always a work of art. Even before I drew you." He looked at the bed, fingers fiddling with the blanket. "You used to come to my mind all the time when you were dead. I thought of you constantly. Went to therapy over it because they thought it was a side effect of trauma." He snorted, shaking his head. "Turns out I was just infatuated with you." He looked back at Jerome then. "You came to me in dreams when I finally learned how to control my thoughts when awake. Even before we met that day, in person, I was obsessed with you. I used to draw you all the time. I told myself that it was to deal with the trauma of my parents dying, my fixation on death and murderers. People that were considered psychotic and dangerous. And maybe it was, in part. Maybe it began that way. But ever since the first second I saw you, you became this beacon of hope. Hope that in some world, with someone, I could be free from expectation and restrictions. That I could be wild and have fun and be GAY and not have to worry about what other people thought. You stood for the happiness I've been denied since the first day time I ever found anyone attractive." He paused. "Helped that you were incredibly attractive." Jerome giggled at that and Harley's smile widened. "You're so silly." Jerome scooted closer, kissing Harley so deeply he lost all of his breath. He leaned away after too short a time though, tilting his head. "Let's do something fun today."

"Like what?" Harley asked. He was getting good at keeping track with Jerome's zipping thought train.

Considering, Jerome grew quiet. "I want to take you on a date. Something nice." Harley deflated. "It's not smart to go out right now. We're trying to convince Bruce and the police that you're dead. If you're seen it'll all be over."

Jerome pouted. "Let me take you somewhere."

A long sigh came from Harley. "Do you want to die?" Jerome shook his head no. "Do you want to get caught and sent to Arkham?" Another silent no. "Then what the hell do you suppose we do that won't require any people, when we're in the middle of a huge city?"

Quiet groans and Jerome was flopping back on the bed, making Harley smile fondly. "I can't stay here forever, Harley! It's BORING. You get to go out all the time and check in on our dear brothers. Why don't I get to?"

"Because you'd be found out," Harley reminded patiently. "And entrapped. Or killed. Or entrapped and then killed."

There was a pause where Jerome was quiet. "You must go to Jeremiah's again and get me new information." Harley nodded, moving to get off the bed so he could get ready to head out. Jerome was suddenly moving though, pinning him before he could leave all the way. "But before you do that, I would like you to leave me with something to think about. Something to make this day a little more worth it." He licked his lips. "Entertain me, Harley." His eyes darkened and Harley shivered.

"Yes sir." - "Hey Harley!" Jeremiah greeted brightly. Harley chuckled at the boy. How was he twins with Jerome? That lightness and energy came so easily to this man, where Jerome struggled to even accept the idea of adorableness, let alone embody it constantly. But this wasn't the time to think about Jerome. "How did your date with the boy wonder go?" Jeremiah was bouncing on his toes. It was genuinely adorable. "He kissed me."

Harley launched to his feet. "What?" He was grinning, hands outstretched as if deciding on whether to grab him or pump into the air victoriously.

"Yeah!" Jeremiah squeaked.

"That's awesome!" Harley gushed. "Tell me everything! Wait- where's Ecco?"

"I already told her," Jeremiah dismissed, waving his hand through the air. "She picked me up afterward and I filled her ears with it all the way home.

Harley giggled, his nose scrunching in amusement. "I bet she loved that." Jeremiah blushed and Harley winked, nudging his friend playfully. "Okay well now it's my turn. Every detail Jeremiah, I'm serious."

And the red head eagerly delivered. The two boys talked for hours, going from the date and all that happened right into Harley waltzing around the room dramatically planning the wedding and the house and family that would follow. "You'll definitely need at least one dog. You both seem like cat people, but I bet your ass that you two raise a kid willing to rough house with a dog. It's got to be huge then. Like so big toddlers can ride on its back, and whenever it wants to go anywhere it'll just drag you along even if you want to go somewhere else."

At this point Jeremiah had covered his face, laying his hands on the counter and his head in the palms of his hands. "Please stop," he groaned, but both boys knew he had to hide his expression or risk showing off the radiant smile he'd hinted at earlier.

"Fine fine fine," Harley sighed, finally sitting back down. He chuckled, sitting back in the chair. He was lounging, legs spread and arms over the back of his seat. He looked comfortable. It was so different than the Wayne boy that had been seen on TV for years. The one Bruce talked about even. Harley really wasn't Y/n. He was... too much like Jerome to ever be that boy again. "What's with the frown?" Harley asked, raising an eyebrow.

Jeremiah debated on whether he should share his thoughts, but Harley leaned forward, showing that he knew Jeremiah was thinking something and that he wouldn't let it drop. Having gotten to the point where Harley could always pry information out of Jeremiah, the redhead didn't even bother fighting him. "I was thinking about how much you remind me of Jerome." Harley hesitated and Jeremiah rushed to add, "Not in a bad way. But your confidence and ease. Your very presence is so much bigger than it used to be. I didn't know you back then, but Bruce has mentioned how you guys used to be. Mostly because he obsesses over the worry that Jerome is still alive so it comes up often, because I always listen. Once he mentions Jerome, then we talk about how things were in my childhood and then it goes to how his childhood used to be and then you come up." He looked away, obviously self conscious about the way Harley's eyes were drilling into him.

"Do you lie to him?"

That caught Jeremiah off guard. "What?" He looked back with an expression like a deer in the headlights, or a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

"Jerome talked to me a lot." Harley watched his words carefully, being sure not to reveal that Jerome STILL talked to him just as much. "And that day in the tunnels, when Jerome tried to kidnap you. He said you lied about your guys' past."

Jeremiah was quiet for a long time. "I don't lie to him." He paused again and Harley waited for him to continue. When Jeremiah realized Harley wasn't going to let it go, he continued. "I don't tell him what I used to tell our mom. I'm... ashamed. You were right when you said I contributed a lot to how Jerome turned out. But, you have to understand Harley he terrified me. He never threatened me per say, but I was the one who always found the bodies of the animals he mutilated. I was the one he talked about to his fantasies about other people. He... He used to say he was joking, and he never did anything until our mom, from what I know, but he was curious and he didn't have the same empathy as everyone else did. For animals at least."

Harley sighed. "He loved me." Jeremiah looked up sharply. "He told me so. And- and you know what, I believed him." Harley swallowed. "Did I ever tell you how we found out where you were?" Jeremiah hesitated before shaking his head. "Would you like to know?" There was a darkness in Harley's voice. One that made Jeremiah want to shy away. But, he was curious too. It was one of the fatal flaws him and Jerome had in common. So, even though he wanted to run, he nodded instead. "We went to your Uncle Zack's."

Immediately Jeremiah cringed. "Oh god."

"So you know what that man is capable of then," Harley eased, even though his expression had not changed at all. It was the same forced calm that Jerome had perfected. The similarity between Harley and Jeremiah's lost brother in that moment made anxiety twist in the redhead's chest. "You know, if I hadn't been there..." He shook his head. "He heated soup to boiling. He wanted to pour it into Jerome's mouth. Thank god I was there to stop that one. What would it have bee like, being a child against grown adults. No where to run, no one to turn to, and no mercy in sight. No reprieve. If I was Jerome, I probably would have killed that bitch you called your mother too."

Harley expected Jeremiah to snap at him, but he didn't. It made the air get even more thick with dark tension. It set into reality not only what Harley had said, but what Jeremiah wouldn't. That he would have too. "I think I'm going to go work on my prototypes." Harley didn't say anything, so Jeremiah left him alone in the quiet.

There was a part of Harley that felt bad for ruining the mood after they'd both been flying so high earlier, but there was also a part of him that didn't care. So he stood up and left through the maze, standing outside to get some air. To breathe after the stifling pressure inside. He hesitated too long, though. If he had just left right then and headed back to Jerome and forgotten about the conversation for the rest of the day, he would have made it out of there with plenty of time. But he didn't. He hesitated and and he breathed and he closed his eyes and felt the sun on his skin.

That was what gave Bruce the time he needed to pull up to Jeremiah's front door just to see Harley standing there. The boy tripped as he got out of the car, his eyes wide and lips parted. "Y/n?"

Harley jerked at the name, flinching away from it. It eyes slammed open, his gaze hard and angry. After the conversation he'd just had with Jeremiah, he was not in the right place to face his brother. Yet, here they both were. "Mr. Wayne," Harley greeted bitterly.

Bruce looked like Harley had slapped him. "Where have you been?" He shook his head. "Where's Jerome?" He then remembered where they were and looked between Harley and the door that lead to the maze where Bruce's boyfriend was. "Why are you here?"

The chaotic barrage of questions made Harley relax. He had the control in this situation. "I'm here because Jeremiah lets be stay here, when I want to. I check in sometimes and talk to him." Any other answer would get him in trouble, and he didn't feel like setting off his brother so he stayed with the truth, ignoring the other two questions.

The Wayne boy stepped forward, settling on angry between the emotions he'd been battling before. "You're friends with Jeremiah?"

"Sort of," Harley shrugged. "And by the way, it's Harley."

Hands curled into fists and Harley found himself slipping into a sort of distant amusement. His stance solidified, arms relaxing and fingers twitching at his sides. Bruce got hit with the same thought Jeremiah had been before. Harley looked a lot like Jerome in that moment, but more sane. In control. He didn't have that same unhinged factor, which left him far more unpredictable. Harley had the air of someone who would kill everyone in the room and then get away with it. Not for chaos' sake, but because he simply didn't care. Seeing sanity int he face of someone so cold and distant and confident sent a chill down Bruce's spine. What had happened to the brother who radiated sunshine and painted the most odd paintings with even weirder origin stories? The brother that couldn't handle even a little confrontation, let alone stand empty handed and still look dangerous? "I guess it is." Bruce's voice was soft and broken. His anger had fallen away, exchanging for a heart break that made Harley shift away from it like it burned him.

The door behind Harley opened. "Wait wait wait!" The voice belonged to Jeremiah, who was scrambling between the brothers as if trying to stop a fight. Maybe it would have eventually turned into that, but as of now all that was happening was Bruce was staring a Harley, looking for answers, and Harley was looking anywhere except at his brother as he refused to give them.

"You know," Harley mused. "I seem to be ruining the mood a lot today. You two love birds spend time together and I'll keep my distance so that my unhappiness won't affect you. How does that sound?"

Jeremiah launched forward, catching Harley's shoulder. "Please," he begged softly. "Don't go."

"Do you want him to leave instead, because I can promise it won't be pretty if we're both here," Harley spat viciously. Jeremiah recognized a deeper level to the boy though. A hurt that was curling into his face. There was more than just anger driving him to run now. There was fear, and pain. Jeremiah had seen that look on Jerome's face far too many times to let Harley go now.

Jeremiah looked at Bruce. "Listen," he sighed heavily. "You're both important to me. I have three friends, and one of them is more of a body guard who's paid to hang around, and another is... more than a friend, if I'm lucky." Bruce couldn't help how his face softened. Jeremiah cleared his throat. "I need as many people in my life as I can get, because I already basically have no one. You guys are brothers, for goodness sake. Don't let life tear you apart like I let happen for me and Jerome." This he directed at Harley. The words seemed to confuse Bruce, but he stayed quiet despite that.

Harley on the other hand looked ready to go. "He doesn't want me here."

"I didn't say that," Bruce rushed before he could rein his self control.

Jeremiah perked up. "You're the one person that can actually reassure Bruce that Jerome is dead."

Ah, how wrong he was. Harley could not honestly reassure Bruce that Jerome was dead. He could, however, convince Bruce that Jerome was dead- and he was also the only person who could. No matter how much of Harley Bruce saw, every time the Wayne heir looked at the man who used to be his best friend, he would always see Y/n. Y/n, who had never once been capable of hiding his emotions or even considering telling a lie, let alone delivering one convincingly. Y/n, who had always valued honesty - especially when it came to family. Who valued trust over power. Who had been abused and pushed around and broken and destroyed, replaced by someone who used lies to get what he wanted like one uses hammers to drive in nails. Harley would lie without hesitation or regret, and Bruce would believe him because Y/n wouldn't lie, and even if he did, Bruce would be able to tell.

"I killed him myself," Harley reassured, looking Bruce in the eye without hesitation.

Bruce formed an expression that spoke of disbelief and doubt, but Harley could see through that into the desperation in Bruce's eyes. "You killed him?"

Harley sighed. "I do that now."

Obviously Bruce didn't like that, but he seemed to accept it at least. "Why?"

This part was easy. "Because he hurt you." Harley shrugged, kicking the dirt under his foot. "He had no reason to involve you. He just did. He didn't even consult me, and he didn't because he knew that if he had I would have said no. We had a deal- no touching you. He might be my partner, but you're my brother and that's more important. No one hurts you. I made that clear since the beginning." He swallowed. That wasn't totally true. In fact, that day he had encouraged Jerome to mess Bruce up a little. Even kill him. But there had been a hesitance to hurt Bruce since the first day even if it had faded over time. Because the truth was, above even Bruce and Alfred, Jerome was the most important person to Harley now. "He was jealous because I cared more about you. He's kind of an attention whore." That was true. Not that Jerome was jealous, but that he was a slut for attention. The more time Harley spent with him, the more obvious it became. Harley didn't mind in the least though.

Bruce seemed to take a moment to consider this and choose his next words before he spoke again. "He sounds obsessive."

Jeremiah scoffed. "If I had to describe Jerome in one words," he mumbled.

"When I was caught with Jerome at the fair, I only ended up there because the first thing Jerome thought about when he came back from the dead was that the last thing he'd thought about when he was alive was that he'd wanted to kill me." Harley scoffed. "He took his wanting to kill me through death with him. If that doesn't spell obsessed, I don't know what does." That was another truth, but yet again Harley didn't mind. He liked to think of being on Jerome's mind, haunting him as the red head had haunted Harley. He liked the thought that not even death could do them part. Or however that line went, whatever.

There was a sort of melting slouch of Bruce's shoulders. He'd given in. Harley had succeeded. "We're not just going to be brothers again. Neither of us are the same."

"The last time I saw you my boyfriend was trying to kill you, and before that I was convinced you'd been brainwashed by some cult, so yeah we have some catching up to do."

Bruce looked at Jeremiah who perked up. "Wonderful! Dinner, anyone?"

"Actually," Harley edged. "I think we both have a lot to think about. Maybe rushing it all tonight wouldn't be the best idea." For the first time in a long time, Bruce nodded in agreement with Harley. In fact, it had probably been the first time Bruce had agreed with Harley since he had stopped being Y/n Wayne.

"Fine," Jeremiah sighed. "But I expect you two to have a dinner together within the next week. I won't let you just avoid it."

Harley sighed and nodded, turning away from the other two boys and heading toward his car. "Use protection!" Harley called, smirking when he heard the boys behind him groan in unison. Before they could curse him though, he slipped into his car and closed the door, cutting off any attempts of communication. He turned his car on and drove away, letting his smile melt away when he was positive he was out of view. His hands tightened on the wheel so hard that his knuckles turned white. His jaw locked, beginning to hurt after a few seconds it was cemented so. Not wanting to get pulled over when he was in a car that wasn't technically in his name - he'd gotten it a long time ago when he still worked with Penguin - and was, more importantly, a wanted criminal. Focusing on safe driving only got him to the front door though. He slammed it closed, standing in his doorway glaring at the floor.

And then he snapped.

A scream ripped out of him as he reached for the closest things light enough to pick up and began throwing them across the room. Some - a vase, a few dishes that hadn't been taking to the kitchen yet, a table decoration - shattered, while most of it landed safely after crashing into more things - books slamming into chairs, pillows knocking things off the wall, a shoe hitting the edge of a full length mirror hard enough that it tilted, so on. Altogether, he was creating a lot of noise, destruction, and chaos.

Jerome ran into the scene, looking rather startled. Harley wasn't the angry type. He had never been, except the rare times Penguin had been able to unlock long since buried trauma that he wasn't dealing with. Oswald had taught him to both control AND channel his emotions, so that they could be expressed but also make you look more terrifying rather than show as weaknesses and wear you away to nothing. No one had seen this side of Harley except him yet, and Jerome wasn't quite sure how to handle it. In fact, it reminded him a little of... his mom.

When Harley finally stopped, he turned away from Jerome, curling his fingers around his short hair very tightly, tugging as he planted his forehead against the wall furthest from Jerome. The redhead paused before slowly making his way over. "Harley?" His voice was soft. The anger in his boyfriend had unlocked a fear in him that he hadn't felt like this since he was a child. He was scared of Harley losing it again, both because he didn't want to have this feeling get worse, and also because if Harley was upset enough to melt down like this, he might get destructive with himself rather than loose objects.

Or worse, Harley might get destructive with Jerome.

"I'm sorry," Harley croaked. He took a deep breath, finally dropping his hands and leaning away from the wall before turning to Jerome. This was closer to the Harley Jerome knew. A little exhausted from his heavy emotions, but otherwise solid and in control. "I'm sorry J." His voice was stronger now. More fluid and solid. He saw Jerome's expression and slowly approached. Jerome didn't move away. When Harley touched him, Jerome didn't flinch even though his pulse skipped a beat. Not something totally new with Harley, except that this wasn't a good spike. The emotion he felt was new when it came to Harley. "I'm sorry," Harley said again, pulling Jerome to him until their foreheads touched. "Did I upset you?"

Jerome's brain had short circuited a bit. After being free of his mom for years, he'd grown a solid defense against things that reminded him of her. But Harley had waited until he was past all of Jerome's walls and defenses. Until he had become Jerome's home and safety embodied. Seeing such anger now threw Jerome for a loop. How would he leave Harley now if things got bad like it used to be with his mom? I had taken Jerome eighteen years to kill his mother and get away from her, and she had been... terrible. How would he do the same to Harley, who had claimed all of the most important parts of Harley and become essential to Jerome's insanity. Harley was the one who calmed him after nightmares, and defused a situation that set off something that triggered backlash from Jerome's past. Harley was the one who saved him from his uncle and his brother and his past. How would he get rid of someone like that?

"You looked... like her." The words were soft.

Harley froze. "Jerome-"

Jerome turned away and left. He said some joke but didn't hear it, too busy trying to think about how to backtrack and defend himself again from these emotions with Harley's help. "Never mind," he breathily dismissed, waving his hand in the air.

Harley wasn't having it though. He caught the hand, forcing Jerome to stop and face him. His face was serious, but his eyes were soft. "I would never hurt you, do you understand?I might what I said that day I pulled you from that ledge, Jerome Valeska. You lead, I will follow. I love you and I will do anything you ask of me. You don't have to be afraid of me. Even if i get angry and break shit, you are still safe with me."

"You're so dramatic," Jerome sighed, looping his arm over Harley's shoulders. His body had relaxed though. Even if he did a fantastic job of brushing things off and playing like nothing effected him, Harley's words had brought him a sense of peace he would never admit he needed. "I mean, anything? You won't even let me leave or kill our brothers."

Harley blew air out of his nose upon remembering Bruce. "If that's what you really want."

"Really?" Jerome faced him, surprised. Harley had been so adamant about doing neither for the last several weeks. Why change his mind now? Unlike Harley, Jerome was not a good people reader. Not for details, at least. He could tell when someone was scared of him, or when they were intrigued or interested or disgusted. He couldn't read Harley's micro signs though.

Harley rolled his eyes. "Ran into Bruce on my way back today." His lips curled but this time it didn't make Jerome nervous. He couldn't even think why Harley would remind him of his mother. Jerome broke things when he was angry too. Harley hadn't even know Jerome's mom. He was getting side tracked, but Harley spoke again, pulling his thoughts back as Harley's voice always did. "Jeremiah wants us to make amends and catch up. Wants us to spend dinner together. Ugh."

"My brother trying to make the world perfect for him?" Jerome joked. "Never."

Harley chuckled softly. No matter his state, Jerome could always make him laugh. "Yeah. I just- Bruce stills wants me to be that weak little scared boy I used to be. I'm better now. Happier and stronger. Maybe that scares him because I didn't succeed the way he wanted me to, but that doesn't change the fact that I can fight for myself now. I don't just settle and lie down and take shit. If he had it his way, along with everyone in this stupid city, I would sit in a chair in the corner of every room and sit in Bruce's shadow, there to talk to him when he needs company but otherwise be ignored and be okay with that. Alone, by myself, maybe with a girl who I can have kids with." He shuddered and Jerome followed with a scowl. Neither liked the idea of that, "Even worse, I'd be working for my younger brother. Working at Wayne incorporated, or as some sort of side kick as he stop bad guys or whatever." He grunted in disgust. "As if they even know what bad is."

Jerome pulled Harley toward the couch and next to him. When they were both seated, Jerome continued to tug on Harley until the boy curled into the redhead's side. All cuddled up, both seemed to feel a lot better with the words of a future that made both of them sick still ringing in their ears. "You know, if we're going back to being gay and doing crime and all that fun stuff, it might not hurt to be around your brother."

Harley sat up, eyebrows pulled together. "Why him? He's just a cop wannabe."

"He's friends with Gordon though, isn't he? Can you imagine how much power you had at your fingertips when everyone thought you were good and harmless and not even a wisp of a threat? Now you're none of those things, and the only person who knows your true potential is Mr. Penguin." He shrugged, his smile growing. "I've seen you do it before. Heard stories about your escapades with the Little Man, and you've told me before how valuable sneaking is. Never something I did because I never could have pulled it off, but you..." He pointed at Harley, getting excited now. "Why isn't Bruce following you around, or questioning you, or taking you to the police in an attempt to find me?"

Tracing the pattern of the couch, Harley tried not to smirk. "I told him what he wanted to hear."

The smirk that Harley was repressing shone on Jerome's face like light from the sun. Brilliant and bright. He hopped up onto the couch into a crouch, his fingers dancing in the air like he was constructing an orchestra. "What a clever boy. Deserves a reward..."

Now Harley grinned. "What did you have in mind?"

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owlsbride · 4 years

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Icha Icha and Prejudice: The Book Club

Chapter VII: Under the Suna Sun

Kakashi was a man of war, of battlefields, makeshift camps, nights under the stars but surrounded by insects, earth and who knows what else. He was a man who had spent more than a day without bathing with questionable hygiene and eaten the most diverse foods, even some that he would never want to remember ever again. Kakashi had shared missions with both comrades and traitors at the same time. He had forever soiled his hands with blood for Konoha, and after many years of self-pity, regrets, little self-esteem, psychological torture and a considerable amount of therapy he could say that he felt Ok, with everything... Much of the time.

However, what Kakashi was not, and maybe he had his new job to blame, a man of high temperatures. He was perfectly fine with Konoha's weather. It was a nice one: with all four seasons developing naturally throughout the year. A winter that invites you to sit by the fire, but that does not soak the bones. Stable autumns and springs with the necessary rains and a hot but bearable summer, with sweet fragrances, long sunsets, cosy beaches, soft breezes and the eternal smell of the cherry trees. Even in those days when the heat was oppressive, Konoha was still comforting, comfortable and pleasant.

Now Suna, Suna was terrible. Kakashi hated Suna. No, he didn't hate his people, the villagers, the Kazekage nor nothing like that. He just hated the weather. There was a hideous winter or a hideous summer, and he wasn't sure which one was worse. He had been there on many occasions, and he never had been one to complain, but this heat? This heat was killing him now with all the protocol clothes and the village tour under the midday sun to take the dimension of the damage caused by Naruto and if he has to be fair also by the Kazekage. The same Kazekage that could not be found anywhere because he was busy in reunions and meetings with very important people.

"Gaara is going to be busy with very important politicians, Hokage Sama..." Baki began, Kakashi lifted an eyebrow "Not that you are not import..."

"It's ok, Baki, will he be available in the night?" Kakashi interrupted tiredly. He had been travelling the whole night for nothing, he didn't give a damn if he was an important person or not. He just wanted to go to what would be his room and wash off all the sand that he already had on parts of his body that he didn't even know existed.

"What a drag" Kakashi heard Shikamaru snarl and agreed with the boy, nodding only his head "He must be afraid of you, Lord Sixth." The Hokage smiled to himself. Shikamaru could be a bit of a pain in the ass at times and a lazy one, but he would never admit a disrespect to Konoha or his leader. And this time, he didn't correct him.

"Hey, crybaby," Temari spoke to Shikamaru, lifting her chin full of proud and arrogance "My brother is not afraid of no one."

"Troublesome" Shikamaru answered, looking down.

Kakashi's head was about to explode, but Shikamaru was right. Knowing Gaara's social skills, the most probable thing was that the young man would be hidden in his office trying to figure out how to handle the situation. After all, what he had told Sakura the other night, was correct.

The Kazekage had a difficult childhood, like most of them, but somehow he hadn't been able to fully heal the wounds of the past, (has someone actually done it?) and with his too rational mind and his emotional part repressed he was an introverted, quiet and distant being. Gaara was more like a child than an adult. However, the Kazekage had earned his respect. Suna had never been better, and his performance in the fourth war was outstanding, nothing to do with the boy with the deep gaze who was always seeking answers. Gaara was doing well as Suna's leader. Until two weeks ago that Naruto came up with his plan. And so it was now. He really should have brought Sakura, at least now it would be easing his headache. He could hear from behind him the merry couple fighting about something.

"Hey, you two" Kakashi addressed them both "Don't you have something to do? Like catching up, maybe?" He shooed them away with his hands.

"But Hokage Sama..." Temari tried to protest bowing a little.

"It's ok, Princess," Kakashi said mimicking some kind of courtesy he learned over the years "I'm sure Baki, here, is willing and able to show me the place around. I'll see you all of them later tonight after recognising the situation" Kakashi finished with a bow from his own.

Temari and Shikamaru stood still watching Kakashi walk away into the village with Baki. They both had to recognise that as idle or hunched or oblivious he may seem, he was a really regal Hokage.

"Oh, Temari..." Kakashi spoke again without turning to look at her "Make sure that your brother is available for dinner." It was not a suggestion, not a request or a wish, it was an order.

"Jeez, you are so fucked up." Shikamaru whispered.

"Yeah, what a drag" Temari finished realising her breath soundly. Shikamaru smiled at the use of his words.

The situation was absolutely irrational and surrealistic. There were hordes of villagers asking him things about when the improvements that the future Hokage to be promised them were going to arrive. The answers were never, but of course, he couldn't say anything remotely closer to that. What were they thinking? Would Naruto have drugged Gaara to agree or did he just convince him with a few words? If so, he would be a great Hokage if it could mature even a little.

Naruto and Gaara promised that through new jutsus they would stop the sandstorms. That they both would build hot springs bath and aqueducts coming from the outskirts of Konoha to Suna, to create their own spa and recreation centre. They had also promised that they would control the winter temperatures and that soon the houses would not need to have hermetic closures to fight against the sand. How the hell were they going to achieve that? Yes, the times were changing, but a whole new infrastructure to generate the energy necessary to fulfil Naruto's plans was impossible. At least for the moment. In fact, they had to be grateful that they could connect the required antennas to access the telephone lines and the internet.

Fortunately for Kakashi, time was on his side, and all his responses were "I'm sure, my dear sirs, that by the time Uzumaki Naruto takes over as the Seventh Hokage he will have all his plans in motion." With good fortune and favourable wind that would still be within a few years.

"There is one more thing, Hokage Sama" Baki spoke once all the villagers were already returning to their homes not so happy with Kakashi's half-lies, half trues answers.

"What now?" Kakashi felt light, almost floating. The heat was finally having its effect, and the headache was throbbing. Fucking Sakura, she was right, a heatstroke was coming.

"If you prefer we can discuss it later, you look..."

"I'm ok, Baki, what is it? what did those two do?" Now he was starting to get mad.

"Well... Uzumaki Naruto, and Lord Gaara, had promised all the kids in the village that they will form a special camp to train future academy aspirants and genins, and that Naruto would be in charge of assigning missions, all of low rank of course, in order to practice his duties as a Hokage and that Gaara would be his advisor. Kankuro would train the kids. We have all the village children signed up waiting for the special camp to start."

"What you are saying is that they want to form an academy prior to the academy just to simulate the work of the Kages and that not only are Naruto and your Kazekage involved but also Kankuro?"

"Yes, Sir" Baki was so embarrassed.

"Definitely not" Kakashi was about to pass out.

"But Lord Sixth, the kids are so excited, what will we tell them?"

"There is no we, Baki. I'll speak to Gaara tonight, and he will have to take care, now I want to go to my lodging."

The dinner with Gaara wasn't comfortable at all. The Kazekage would bearly looked Kakashi in the eyes. He much more preferred the terrible and strong Gaara from the Desert than this excuse of a boy playing the leader. Yes, he had messed up the things a bit, but nothing beyond repair.

The new infrastructures would arrive sooner or later, and the camp thing could be a summer camp and not a pre-academy. He would give them the possibility to do it in Konoha where Kakashi himself could control them, and Naruto would only be a simple instructor. That way, Gaara would not have to neglect his village. It was the best measure for damage control.

Even so, Kakashi did not put aside his job as Konoha's leader in this meeting. With the tenderness worthy of a good older brother, but the Hokage's firmness, he asked the youngest to please not listen to Naruto's follies anymore. Being a good friend did not mean putting the village's stability at risk just by being complacent. Kakashi also gave Gaara a friendly reminder: to never get over his persona again. He was Konoha's Hokage, not Naruto.

Gaara still had a lot to learn yet, so Kakashi incentivized him to not to hesitate to ask for advice outside his closest circle. Sometimes the objectivity of others was the best advisor. And for that, the councils were hostiles towards him, except of course for the two brothers and Baki. That annoyed him a lot, but somehow everything turned out ok.

Kakashi arrived finally at the luxurious room that Gaara had prepared for him. He didn't see Shikamaru in the whole day after he dismissed him early in the midday and during the dinner they bearly address each other and it was ok. He didn't need the Nara witty mind talking and complaining around in the same room. Besides, Kakashi suspected that Shikamaru was involved in much more satisfactory endeavours than politics, and plans for future summer camps.

After the longest shower of his life, Kakashi finally was ready to go to bed, it was still hot out there and in the room but the cold shower and the conditioner helped a little. He collapsed on the mattress as he had not in a long time. Only on his underwear, he didn't even take the bother to rearrange his mask. This time he was as tired as if he had been fighting all night for the Anbu. It was a very comfortable bed, enough for more than one person, and suddenly he remembered Sakura.

22:40: Are you there? I'm so so so sorry...

22:40: Sakura this have been madness

He waited for the answer, his eyes closing slowly.

22:41: You were right Sakura, I should have brought you with me. The heat is killing me, my head is killing me, everything is killing me

22:41: Ok... Let's talk later.

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Notes:

Well, Kakashi is having a hard time at Suna right?

Next chapter: chatting, texting, reading... and he will come back to Konoha eventually.

I just realise that I'm always asking for likes, and kudos and comments, but I've never thank you before! so here I go: Thank you, everyone!! you make my day when you do something like that, so please keep going and make me happy. See you soon.

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