#and he isn’t always like spot on in terms of Impersonation but he is very very good with capturing the Vibes | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

wwilloww · 4 years ago

Text

sh. | ot7 | chapter five

PAIRING ot7 x reader

RATING Explicit.

GENRE smut. fluff. angst. nonidol au. wildnerness au. roommates au. friends to lovers.

SUMMARY Six months of quarantine have kept you apart. Somehow the distance sparks something new in each of you: questions, unfinished conversations, threads once chased now left cold. So when your roommate invites you to come with him to a mysterious house in the mountains with your friends, how could you even think of saying no?

WC 8k

WARNINGS AND TAGS protected sex. friends with benefits relationship. dirty talk. power play dynamics. angst. semi-public nudity. mentions of open relationship. sexting. reckoning with feelings. talk of alcohol use.

AN: One million bazillion thanks to the best beta and geologist out there, @hesperantha. Everyday I think to myself, how the fuck would this series exist without this magical lady? And every day I am thankful for her beautiful existence.

Also, if you haven’t seen /the trailer, you might wanna check it out. Just because I had a lot of fun making it and it was super fun to visualize the characters and their tiny little world.

Going forward, you can read with they/them pronouns by navigating to the series m.list and reading from there.

That said, LETS JUMP IN!

← || series m.list || →

©️ wwilloww do not repost, translate, or use my stories without my permission.

chapter five

January 2020

What is left when you’re not sure where to turn?

You know there’s Yoongi. Dependable, familiar, predictable Yoongi. Predictable in the sense that you know, unabashedly, that no matter what, you can always count on him to draw a short term — but important — curtain over whatever notion, anxiety, or complication that happens to be singing in your mind that day. Erase it, temporarily, with those long fingers, gliding over your skin in expert patterns, drawing you and your pleasure exactly where he wants it to be.

And predictable in the sense that you know you will be perfectly and endlessly satisfied at the end of the night, no matter what.

See, Yoongi doesn’t mess around. He doesn’t tease you. Doesn’t draw you out and dangle you over your own pleasure. He gives it to you. Over and over and over and over again. Extends his palm and pulls as many orgasms from you as you can physically muster and then lets you collapse in his arms. Dependable, see? Dependable, always.

Once you’re settled in his lap, Yoongi lets you grind on him for a bit as he undresses you expertly, long fingers slipping under the fabric of your clothes before tugging them off gracefully and tossing them across the room. This, this he did love to do. Loved to scatter your clothes around and then watch you from the bed as you tried to piece some semblance of an outfit back together after he fucked you senseless.

“Don’t throw my bra behind the furniture again,” you murmur as you kiss down his neck. “I know you thought it was a great tactic to get me to rearrange your room the last time — but I’m not moving a hundred pound dresser to get my very expensive bra back again.”

He chuckles. Murmurs, “As you wish.” And then throws your bra someplace you can’t see.

Now that you’re topless, he lets his long fingers skate up the skin of your back, tracing the flesh of your hips and with such delicacy it almost tickles. That is, delicate until his hand weaves itself up your neck. His grip tightens at the root of your hair, tugging your head back in a swift motion and exposing your neck to him.

“How do you want me to fuck you tonight?” His voice is deep and it raises goosebumps on your skin. He lets his teeth trace a line up the sensitive skin of your neck until he reaches your ear and bites down hard.

“Fuck,” you breathe as a shiver runs through your body. Yoongi always took particular care to curate a library of knowledge about your ticks, turn ons, and vices. And then he played them out for you in an expertly coordinated hand.

“Yes, that’s in the cards. But tell me specifically how you want it.”

Behind him, the large bedroom is equipped with enough musical equipment to run a fully functioning studio. Instruments hang on the walls and a large black bed rests in the center of the room. The dark tones of the wood and sheets make the otherwise sparse room feel warm and dark. Compared to the shabby little apartment that you share with Namjoon, this is luxury. Your gaze rests on the large wall of glass that looks out over the city.

“The window,” you say.

He grins.

The glass is cold against your bare skin when he presses you to it. The difference in temperature between the fired heat of your skin and the iced window slices right through you, makes you gasp as his hands run over your body, taking you in as you are: bare and ready for him.

You watch as he strips off his clothes, gracefully and swiftly. First the shirt, then his pants. It’s no surprise to you that he’s not wearing any undergarments at all. Delight lights in his eye when he notices how greedily you watch him.

“Do you want me to—” He begins to lean down, but you stop him and pull him up.

“Just fuck me.”

He turns you around in one movement, your hands flying up to stop the impact, your chest — and your nipples — pressing to the glass. The sensation overwhelms you as he slides two fingers between your folds, collecting the slickness that has gathered there.

“You’re already so wet for me.”

A smile spreads across your face as you hear the condom packet rip and he slots his cock against your cunt, coating himself in your arousal.

“Don’t tease me,” you say, a hint of a whine slipping into your voice.

“Don’t worry. I have no patience for that tonight.” And he pushes in. “How’s that?” he says, the lilting tease in his tone cutting sharp against your ear as his dick sinks into you, inch by delightful inch.

It feels like you have to catch your breath to speak. “Is it always this good?”

“Baby, if it isn’t, you should ask for a refund.” He punctuates the last word of his sentence with a harsh thrust that rams your chest up against the glass.

“Fuck—” you hiss.

Memory whitens like it’s been covered in a blanket of snow as he begins a punishing pace, hips rutting up into you before drawing almost all the way back, tip barely inside of you before thrusting back into you, all the way to the hilt. Sensation overtakes thought. The slicing coldness of the glass against your nipples paints a stark contrast to the softness of lips pressed to yours, softness of a hand cupping your cheek—

You should be thinking of anything but that.

And it’s easy to do, in this moment. To focus on Yoongi, his commanding presence, the way he plays your body like one of the carefully polished instruments that hangs on his wall.

You cry out when he hits a particularly soft spot within you, and he pauses his movements, drinking in the sound of you.

“God, you sound so fucking good.”

He pulls out of you, turns you around, and pushes your back against the glass.

“Hop up,” he says, and you frown in confusion before realizing what he’s referring to. You wrap your arms around his neck and with a jump, wrap your legs around his waist.

“Fuck—” With a grunt of effort, he holds you up while slotting himself against your folds and pushing inside again.

The most you can do in this position is tilt your pelvis and grind down on him — while holding onto dear life — and you do, rotating it against his waist, drawing the most delicious sounds from his lips. Your hips begin to move in tandem, each pushing closer to the pleasure that you both so desperately desire.

This is better. This is worse.

See, the two of you have fallen into patterns in your hookups. Rules, even, although no one but you thought of them as such. But the habit — and therefore the lines — were clear to you:

You didn’t kiss. You didn’t confess your love. Hookups only, and breakfast together the morning after. Usually he takes you from behind, because, as he once commented to you, “the ass cheeks are the eyes of the heart.” Which to you, made no sense at all, but you still obliged him. Plus, at the end of the day it was all a little more impersonal that way, anyways. Easier to separate from the rest of your relationship.

But looking into his face, pressed so close — there’s something there. A warmth. An understanding. Too much.

Your head falls to his shoulder and his grip tightens on your thighs as he fucks up into you. Several heavy breaths before you bite gently at the sensitive skin of his neck and he hisses.

“You’re too sensitive,” you chide, although the teasing lilt of your tone is broken up by him fucking into your body — and you both know you love the way he lets you know he likes things done.

“And you’re too shy,” he cuts back. “Why don’t you look at me when I fuck you?” It’s posed as a question but you know it’s a command.

Slowly, you draw your head back and look at him. His eyes are deep and dark, his hair tousled and face lined with pleasure.

“That’s a good little pet,” he whispers. It falls too softly.

It makes you want to kiss him. All you want to do is —

You press your lips to his. Just a peck — the smallest, lightest of pecks.

But the plush of his lips, the way they part so slightly when your lips meet... it leaves you wanting more. So you kiss him again, pressing yourself to him, chasing the feeling of his softness.

He responds, opening his mouth to yours, his tongue darting out to meet yours. His pace doesn’t falter as he continues to fuck up into you. His lips move against yours, fierce, needy, demanding. And it’s then that your stomach drops. It’s as if the winter chill that lays just beyond the door at your back slices through your veins.

You pull back.

“No,” he says, and pulls you back to him. “Stop running.” He brings your face close enough to yours but doesn’t kiss you, just waits.

And you meet him in the middle, kissing him again, afraid of losing the warmth you sparked between you. He groans against you as your hips swivel around his cock, and bites down on your lip.

“Fuck,” you hiss.

With one arm wrapped around his shoulders, you let your other hand press against the nape of his neck, nails digging in just the way you know he likes it. You both have always been in rhythm, in tune with one another, but now with him kissing you — something new sparks between you. Something new, something terrifyingly warm.

When you pull back he smiles.

“Shit,” you whisper, your eyes widening. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Yoongi says, an edge in his voice, his hips still circling against yours as he presses your back to the window. “You have nothing to apologize for.

“I shouldn’t have—”

“Shh... stop. It’s okay. It was good.” He punctuates his meaning with a thrust, a small groan slipping from his throat. You want to swallow the sound of his pleasure whole, but still. You let the guilt in your chest rise to your throat.

“No, no, it’s not,” you say, though the coil that’s winding tighter and tighter in your belly makes it difficult to speak. You take a shuddering breath in as he hits your g-spot, your eyes fluttering closed.

“Yes. It is,” he grunts, and you can tell he’s close too. “You fuck better when you kiss. You feel it. You get into it.” Your brow purses at his words. “Now be good for me, forget it, and cum on this cock.”

You nod.

“Tell me what you’re going to do.”

“I’ll forget it, be good for you, and cum on your cock.”

“Good,” he smiles.

Each thrust brings you a step closer. He kisses you, again waiting for you to meet his lips, and together you move like dancing partners closer and closer to the edge.

You cum, clenching around his cock and crying his name into his mouth.

The two of you breathe heavily, foreheads resting together for a moment that stretches long enough for you to call it a distance.

“Fuck—” Yoongi says, pulling out of you and smiling gently as he lets you down. “I’ve never heard you come like that before.”

Heat rises to your cheeks.

“Hold on, let me get you a towel or something,” Yoongi says, pressing his thumb to your forehead and wiping away a bead of sweat. You watch as he shuffles about his room, looking for anything to give you. “One second, I think there’s clean ones in the dryer.”

He wanders out of the room wearing absolutely nothing at all.

When you turn back to the outside world, the glass is fogged and the world feels a million miles away. The tension that rises up in your chest feels like a wrought iron ball and you need out, out, now.

There’s a fuzzy blanket on the dresser next to you and you snatch it, wrap yourself up tightly and push open the glass door to the tiny balcony. With a held breath, you step out. The cold concrete sends a chill through your body as you step out. Blue washes through you, shocking the pleasure-numbed nerves in your body back to life.

When you suck in a deep breath of snow-cold air, it feels as if clarity settles into you. You take a second, but shuddering, breath as you realize with a lucid sharp pain the reality of your situation.

Yoongi didn’t erase tonight from your mind. Sex didn’t remove Hobi’s kiss from your lips. An orgasm didn’t ease the unnamable want in your chest. If anything, it all just burns a little brighter.

This thing with Yoongi — it’s not supposed to be a distraction for you, or a means to make you feel something else. It’s supposed to be its own thing, a compartmentalized friends with benefits situation that has always been clear and defined between the two of you. But as soon as you showed up on his door with an ulterior motive other than sex, it became something else. As soon as you kissed him, you made it something else.

Fuck.

Around you, fat flurries drift down from the dark sky. They melt as they land on your bare skin. There’s no escaping this thing inside you. But the intensity of the cold seems like it keeps you here, grounded, in Yoongi’s home and facing actuality. As if any form of warmth would leave you wandering into the sickly sweet honeytrap of the what if’s that already threaten on the edge of your mind.

“Come to bed,” Yoongi calls from inside. When you don’t, he comes out onto the tiny balcony and wraps himself around you from behind, his head notching on your shoulder. “Christ, you’re freezing.”

“It feels good,” you say, nuzzing your body back against his.

“I know I didn’t work you up that much that you need to stand in the snow to cool down. Come to bed.”

Still wrapped around you, he waddles you inside, earning a giggle from you as you tumble into bed and he slams the door closed with a bit of a shiver.

“Here,” he says softly, wrapping you in a blanket before settling beside you.

He’s close. Wildly close. His breath brushes softly against your face as you look at each other. You take in the flushed pink of his face, the way his hair is tousled into a gorgeous mess from the effort of your intimacy.

You could kiss him again, you think and a shock runs through your body at the thought. Christ, his cock’s been inside you a million times and yet you balk at the thought of kissing him, of pulling him right where you want him, where he fits so perfectly, where he feels so warm —

“What are you thinking?” Yoongi says softly.

“What are you thinking?” you cut back, just a little too quickly.

Yoongi chuckles. “I’m thinking that you keep yourself so tightly together.”

You smile tightly. “I don’t know what that means.”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

You bite down on your lip.

“You’re thinking so loud I can almost hear it,” Yoongi says. “Just tell me. You know there’s nothing you could say that would upset me.” When you don’t say anything, he continues. “For god’s sake, I’ve seen your asshole. It doesn’t get much more personal than that.”

“Fine,” you say.

“Fine,” he grins.

“Maybe we should…” You trail off and bite the inside of your cheek.

Yoongi rolls onto his side, propping his head up with one hand.

“Maybe we should…?” He prompts. “Join a sex dungeon?”

You laugh, the thought of going to one with Yoongi is one that sends a thrill through you. “That sounds like a wonderful idea, but that’s not what I was going to say.”

“What were you going to say?”

You take a deep breath. “That maybe we should… stop. This.”

He doesn’t ask what you mean. He knows. “That, my dear, sounds like quite the antithesis to going to a sex dungeon with me.”

You laugh. “I can’t believe you’re making jokes when I am friends with benefits breaking up with you.”

“What? Were you expecting me to be angry?”

“I mean I expected a little bit of a fight. Or at least… I don’t know. Questions.”

“Do you want questions?”

You look at him.

“I don’t know.”

“Okay. Well. Why are you ending things.”

You flop onto your back. Look at the ceiling. The way the lights of the city reflect paley onto the white surface. They look like ghosts.

“I don’t really know.”

He pulls you to him, rolling you onto your side and tangling your hands together. “Okay.”

And then the two of you just lie there, staring at the ceiling in silence, the weight of your decision, of this ending, settling over you with a concrete taste. There’s something uncomfortable in this kind of silence. But it’s not him, it’s not an awkwardness, or the building of tension or resentment. None of that lies between you. It’s the fact that within the silence the answers rise up in you, and you find the words spilling from your mouth.

“I don’t want it to be complicated, Yoongi.”

He waits a moment before responding. “Is it complicated?”

“Well.” You sigh. “No. Not with us. Us is easy. I feel like I can tell you what I need or what I want and I trust you to be able to either give me that or set a boundary.”

Yoongi hums. “I feel the same. So then if it’s not us...?”

“I made a mistake tonight. Crossed a line I shouldn’t have crossed.”

His brow furrows. “Not with me you didn’t. I don’t underst—”

“Not you. It’s me. It’s — it’s always me. I don’t want things to spin out of control. And I feel like they’re about to.”

Yoongi is silent for a long moment.

“I don’t want you to feel that way.” He pulls you closer to him, his grip tightening on your hip. “Really.” You stare down at your intertwined hands. “Look at me.” He waits until you do, summoning an inner strength you didn’t know you needed to look at your friend. “There’s a part of me that wonders how much of this is you punishing yourself for something that you don’t have any reason to be punishing yourself for.”

You can’t help the nervous laugh that shoots from your chest.

“What!? Are you laughing at me!?”

“No, no,” you shake your head. “Just… I don’t know what it is, but if anyone were to look right through me and see everything that’s going on, it’s you.”

He smiles softly.

“Do you want to stay tonight?”

Do you want your friend to wrap himself around you? Pull you in tight to his warm chest? Remind you of the summer that lies on the other side of this long, long winter?

“No,” you say slowly. “I think I need some space. To… process.”

He nods. “Well, as my newest friends with benefits ex, I agree, you should probably leave. You know. So it doesn’t get awkward.” He grins.

“Yeesh, you’re so quick to kick me out.”

“I know. I guess I just need some space. You know. To process, too. Grieve.” He paints a fake frown on his face and does a dramatic rendition of a very gross sniffle.

You giggle.

“Yeah, yeah, sure.”

Together you get out of bed, Yoongi — for once — rifling through his room in search of your clothes. With every piece of clothing you put on, you feel like you take another step backwards. Away from Yoongi, away from the vulnerability in you that feels like it tears open everytime he looks at you. His comfort. Each new piece of fabric is another wall resurrected. But when you go to hook your bra behind your back, he steps behind you, taking the straps from your hands and gently hooking the clips together.

“Here.”

When he’s done, his fingers linger on your skin just a moment too long.

“Thanks,” you say softly, turning back to him.

His eyes are still blown wide, his hair perfectly disastrous. There’s something so deadly soft about him. He looks just as he did when you marched into his bedroom earlier in the night. And yet, on the other side of this night, you feel like a totally different person. As if the stranger inside of you has finally stepped forward and introduced herself.

You turn away hastily, heading to the living room. He follows and pulls your jacket from the couch and helps you into it.

Shoes on, jacket on, you’re all ready to walk out the door. And still you linger. Yoongi glances at his watch.

“Well, I’d say six hours is a proper mourning period. Breakfast tomorrow?”

“How about brunch? I’m not getting up at 9am for eggs.”

“Oh and I’m the one who needs space huh?” He smiles softly. “11am. You’ll get up at 11am and I’ll buy you a breakup brunch.”

“Yeah,” you smile up at him. Even as you taste the edge of fear — of anxiety — on your tongue, there is still a kind of undeniable warmth that blossoms in your chest every single time you look at him.

You broaden your smile. Push it down.

There’s one last thing.

“And—”

But he already knows what you’re asking. He steps forward, taking your head between his hands and pressing a kiss to your forehead. The shock that runs through you is quick and cold.

“I know,” he says. “This’ll still be our little secret.”

When he steps back, there’s something soft in his gaze — too soft, you can’t help but think. Tenderness, surrounded by acceptance and strength. All the things that make Yoongi, well, Yoongi. And yet it feels like too much to handle. Too much to be looked at, to be seen, to be understood when you can barely wrap your mind around what’s going on.

“Sleep well, buttercup.”

Different taxi, different driver, different route.

“Home,” you tell the woman at the wheel when you give her your address, her over-bleached and curly hair forming a kind of halo around her in the seat.

“You got it,” she says smacking her gum and throwing you a wayward smile.

As the car pulls away from the curb and picks up speed, you feel a kind of numbness wash over you.

It was the right decision to end things with Yoongi, you remind yourself, even as you feel a kind of twinge in your chest. You haven’t lost a friend. In fact, you’ve probably preserved your friendship. Saved it from wandering into the brambly bushes of complication and ultimate destruction. Even if it means the loss of killer sex.

You phone dings, and you instinctively brush a hand over your body to make sure you left with all the clothes you arrived in.

When you look at your phone, it’s not who you imagine. It’s not what you imagine.

tae: I forgot how loud you are when you orgasm.

You choke, hand snapping up quickly to cover your mouth.

“You alright, hun?” the driver asks.

“Yeah, yeah, just fine,” you say, but your voice is strained. You immediately type out your response.

you: fuck. i’m so sorry. you: it won’t happen again.

Your heart is pounding in your chest, embarrassment and confusion tightening around your throat. How much more can you really take tonight? Hobi, then Yoongi — now this? You tap your foot as you wait for the response, which takes just a minute to pop up on your phone.

tae: oh… well that’s too bad. I actually didn’t mind it all that much.

Oh.

Before you know what you’re doing, you’re typing out your response — and turning down the brightness as if it will hide the loudness of your message from the world.

you: is that right?

tae: i said it didn’t i? ive always been a man of my word. brings me back to the old days, in a way.

you: oh?

tae: you know…

you: do i?

tae: you do.

you: it’s been a while. why don’t you remind me?

tae: you’re playing coy tonight. two very loud orgasms and you’re still not done playing?

you: i’d send that shrugging emoji but i can’t find it you: what can i say? I can be needy

tae: should i remind you tae: when we used to park behind the grocery store tae: there was never anyone around but you’d still get so shy and embarrassed tae: and try to cum without a sound tae: but i didn’t hear a single note of shame or restraint tonight tae: shamelessness looks good on you tae: **sounds good on you

you: you were always quite shameless yourself

tae: it gets me far in life

You blink down at your phone, not really sure what to say. Taehyung’s hearty banter is something you’re used to. Even after all these years, your quick back and forth was still twinged with the smallest teasing edge of sexual interest. But you had always kept it within strict boundaries, never returning to your previous relationship, never suggesting—

tae: but my question is how far will it get me with you?

Your breath freezes in your throat. Never suggesting that you return to anything of the past.

tae: jk tae: unless…?

Taehyung’s sexually laced messages have your head spinning round and round on its pedestal. It’s not as if you had never thought about it, never considered it. But there was a line there, was there not? A line you shouldn’t cross, shouldn’t even think of crossing, no matter how you wanted to. With a deep breath, you respond.

you: i don’t know if we should be having this conversation right now?

tae: why? because you’re my ex? or because of Jin?

Before you can even manage to type out the long list of reasons why you shouldn’t be dipping your toes into the perilous waters of sexting your very happily taken ex, the screen is lighting up again.

tae: if it’s the latter, don’t worry. he’s here too. tae: he says to tell u you’re hot tae: which is news to me tae: not that you’re not hot, but that he thinks that tae: and he says hes “sorry he missed the show earlier”

you: tbh that was NOT the response i was expecting to get.

tae: we’re very open about these things. he’s quite… encouraging actually

As if this is the opening, you walk through it.

you: in what way?

tae: he likes visibility in a specific way. he likes to watch. likes to be watched and… the attention, especially when its directed at me, especially when he knows that at the end of the day i’m crawling back into his bed

Your heart races in your chest.

tae: sorry, maybe that’s tmi.

you: don’t apologize. i don’t mind tmi

tae: then i won’t apologize.

you: good.

tae: good 😂 tae: you know, i liked it.

you: sorry, liked what?

tae: hearing it tae: hearing you cum

you: did you?

tae: more than i expected

you: more than you should?

tae: that’s not what i said

you: well, like i mentioned, it won’t happen again

tae: why not? You finally get me to admit i didn’t mind it and now you’re telling me i won’t get more? :(

You chew on your bottom lip before responding.

you: it’s complicated.

tae: an orgasm is never complicated.

you: …

tae: but you know what is complicated? tae: feelings. tae: you’re having feelings. tae: oh my god you’re in love with yoongi

you: i am nOT in love with yoongi you: surprisingly it has very little to do with yoongi

Even as you send the text, you know that’s not entirely true.

tae: okay, then what’s going on??? pls don’t play cryptic with me, it’s too late for that shit

you: i don’t even know what’s going on.

tae: oh. tae: so we’re talking big boy emotions

you: i don’t have *emotions*

tae: you’re a fucking liar

you: hey you: language

tae: alright then let me rephrase it tae: what are you so afraid of will happen if you let yourself feel?

Your heart catches in your throat. Oh.

“We’re here,” the taxi driver says, and your head snaps up from the light of your phone to see your apartment complex towering high and familiar above you.

“Oh!” You blink yourself from your reverie and hand the woman the cash for the ride. “Keep the change.”

“Thanks,” she says, twisting around to look at you as you skootch across the backseat. “Hey—” You pause, looking at her. The orange glow of the streetlights rings like a halo around her head. “You take care of yourself, alright?”

“Alright,” you smile and nod.

A haze settles around your body as you climb out of the taxi. The hard edge of soberness and the sharpness of the winter air mixes and shocks life back into you as his question rings around your head. What are you so afraid of will happen if you let yourself feel?

Your breath feels strained as you climb the echoing stairs to your home. The sound of the key fitting into the lock rings with a harsh click, but it brings you back into your body, to the little marks where Yoongi’s hands dug into you, to the confusion that rattles around your mind, and finally, and most devastatingly, the warmth that has sunk deep and inextricably into your heart.

The apartment is dark when you enter.

“Namjoon?” you call out.

No one answers. You don’t bother to flick on the lights as you feel your way blindly through the darkness, hand brushing against the soft fabric of your sofa, the bumpy texture of the wall, and finally the cold knob of your door. Instead of pushing the door open though, you lean against it, taking what feels like the first full breath of the night.

You look at the screen of your phone, Tae’s question, his voice, spiraling around your head. With a shaky breath you respond, fingers flying across the blue light of the screen.

you: something feels off. I don’t… i don’t want to mess anything up. I feel like the only way to keep things in order is to keep myself out of it all.

tae: can i call you?

you: yeah. Joon’s not home.

You finally press into your room. All that silver light from the city reflects off of the white flakes that flutter softly down from the sky. It spills onto your bed like a pool of molten silver, waiting, chilled and cold for you. You flop down onto it, your breath coming out in a long huff.

When your phone rings, there’s a second of hesitation before you hit the answer button.

“Hello?” your voice is shakier than you expected.

“One second.”

You hear the rustling sound of Tae getting out of bed and the door shutting.

“If I can hear you orgasming, Yoongi sure as hell can hear a phone call,” Tae whispers, a slight chuckle to his voice. “Unless you’re just always unreasonably loud.” You can imagine the sly smile that plays across his lips right now. Another door opened and shut and he sighs. “There. Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay,” you say. “I…”

You trail off. You don’t know what to say. Don’t know what there is to say.

He says your name softly into the phone, the syllables forming such a familiar shape on his tongue. “Are you okay?”

“I...I don’t think so. I don’t feel great.”

“You’re home? Safe?”

“Yeah. I’m home.” You look around your room. Art on the walls, your little desk the messiest place in the room, stacked high with papers and photos and plants.

“Good.” Taehyung takes a long breath. “So. Tell me what’s going on.”

You want to. But your voice freezes in your throat and you can feel the way your silence falls around him.

After breaking up at nineteen, you and Taehyung had always remained friends. The truth was that even though you loved each other, you were so caught up in the physicality of it all that the rest of your relationship — and your relationships outside of that — began to deteriorate. No more sex, you both had decided. And at the time, that meant no more romance. There weren’t lingering feelings of resentment, but you did know — because you both talked about it — that you were both plagued with the lingering question of what if. What if…. But the answer was simple. You both needed more than what the other could offer.

Best friend turned lover turned best friend. If the lingering sexual tension was the only consequence of that, you could handle that. And if you were honest with yourself, you enjoyed it, in a safe, flattering kind of way.

But the reality was that the consequence of your relationship wasn’t limited to just a couple of sex dreams here and there or comments about your former sex life thrown about as jokes. The truth was that there was a permafrost of cautiousness that sat like a layer of ice beneath all of your interactions; one that only thawed away after midnight or a second drink.

Right now, the clock on the wall reads: 3:12am.

“You don’t have to tell me—”

“No — I want to.” You shake your head. “I should… I should talk to someone about this.” You take a deep breath as the sharp images of tonight’s events spiral around your mind. When you speak, it comes out a whisper. “I kissed Hobi tonight.”

“Oh. Shit.”

“Or he kissed me. I don’t really — don’t really understand what happened, we were just standing there and had both had some drinks and suddenly it was happening and I should have kept everything within the normal boundaries, I shouldn’t have done it, shouldn’t have overstepped our friendship, but we kissed and I…” Your voice trails off.

“And you liked it,” Taehyung finishes for you.

“Yeah,” you say softly. “I did.”

“And it scared you.”

“Yeah.”

“And then you both ran away from it.”

“Yeah.”

“And your way of running away from it was to go fuck Yoongi again, huh.”

“Goddamnit, Tae,” you huff, annoyed by how right he is.

Taehyung chuckles. “Babe, I’ve known you way too long for me to not pick up on these kinds of things. These kinds of patterns.”

“Patterns?”

Taehyung sighs through the phone. “I love you, dude, but… yeah. Yeah. It’s a pattern.”

As you let his words sink into you, you realize. It is a pattern.

“Can I be honest with you?” he asks. “Do you really want to know what’s going on here?”

You laugh softly, even as fear nibbles at your heart. There’s a part of you that wants to turn into blindness. That wants to shield your heart from the reality of the situation. From the reality of yourself.

But there’s also something about facing into the truth — clear and cold like the night waiting just beyond your window. You want the shock of truth through your body, glaring and sharpened like ice. Because at the end of the day, you’ve had enough of this numbed ignorance.

“Yeah. Go for it.”

“This might be out of the blue. And you might not want to hear it. I could be totally off—”

“Tae, it’s okay. I want to hear it.”

He takes a deep breath. “But maybe… just maybe, it’s time to think about the way you push people away.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” you whisper, although the reality of what he’s saying is already dawning on you, even if it’s at a glacial pace.

“How you let people in just long enough, just far enough, to let them see something authentic of you. But you don’t really let them take any real stake in your life.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“And that’s okay!” He adds quickly. “At least, it has been okay. We do what we need to do to keep ourselves safe, but… I think you’re past that all now.” You take a shuddering breath and he pauses. “That place in your life where you need to keep the walls and the rules so strict for fear of falling. You’re not there anymore, babe. Maybe it’s time to start looking at the wall that you’ve built and considering letting yourself tear it apart.” And then, so softly you think his voice might be made of something as delicate as a flower petal: “You know, maybe it’s time to think about how you want to start letting love in again. Because you deserve it.”

It’s not until you brush your hand against your cheeks that you realize they’re wet. You look down at your fingertips, glistening with fallen tears, shining silver in the snowlight.

“Fuck, Tae.”

Taehyung lets loose a light, but pained, chuckle.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You sniffle. “Goddamn it.”

Silence settles between the two of you. Tears slip silently down your face as you hold the phone to your ear. You can hear him breathing softly on the other end, but Taehyung doesn’t say anything. It’s as if he knows you need a minute to process.

His words slide right under your skin. Directed straight at the thing that has felt so heavy in your chest all night now, it’s as if the whole thing has been broken open within you. Suddenly, you can see it all.

The past years, this game of cat and mouse with your own vulnerability. This façade of carefully curated openness and faux vulnerability. All of the things that you kept as reminders of your freeness, your unlocked heart — the hookups, the fast and furious romances that ended in nothing but silence, the friendships you kept so carefully defined — were actually all just markers of the opposite:

A deep and abiding fear that if you let someone love you, a fear that if you let them close enough to really, truly see you, they might see something they won’t like.

Better to keep things clearly organized. Clearly marked and known and understood. That way you’d know exactly when things were spinning out of control and when someone was just about to get too close.

“You know, there are so many ways to love,” Taehyung says. “It doesn’t just have to be in that one way of fucking and falling in love and then a big white marriage, tada! the end. And, uh, it’s okay to want love. It’s really, really okay, actually. In whatever weird way love shows up for you, even if it’s not the traditional way. It’s even more okay to let yourself have that love, even if you don’t know what it is — don’t know what to call it.”

When your breath comes out shaky and ridden with tears, you can hear a soft oh echo through the phone.

“Hey,” Taehyung says with all the love in the world laced so delicately through his voice. “It’s okay. It might not feel like that right now. But opening up again — if, you know, if that’s what you want — that’s something you can do. It can be done.”

“I-I do, Tae. I don’t want this anymore. I don’t want to keep fighting this.”

It’s as if you can hear his smile through the receiver.

“That makes me really happy to hear,” he says.

“Where do I even begin?” It comes out a whisper, your voice cracked from the tears that have begun to slow. You’re half afraid to even hear the answer. Half afraid to walk down the path riddled with your greatest fear.

“I think you begin by going to sleep. And in the morning I’ll call you. And I’ll keep calling you. And we’ll work through this together. You know, this isn’t something that you have to do alone.”

You’re silent.

“You’re in bed?” crackles through the phone.

“Yeah?”

“Go put on some pjs and go to sleep. You don’t have to do this all in one night.”

You nod, wiping the rest of the tears from your face and sniffling. “Yeah.”

“Alright. I love you to the moon and back, no matter what. You know that. Right?”

You close your eyes. For a second you imagine accepting that it’s true. It fills your chest with a new kind of warmth. One you want to sink into.

“Yes,” you say. “I love you too, Tae.”

“Get some rest then. Goodnight.”

“G’night.”

The dial tone clicks and the room falls into complete silence. Only the sound of your breath breaks through, too loud and uncomfortable amidst the darkness. But still, you climb out of bed, dump some water on a towel and wipe at your face, and change into the largest t-shirt you can find in your drawer.

Tonight, you dream the first dream of many in a line that will haunt you — and spark you back to life. It’s Yoongi, his body pushing you up against the ice cold glass, his hands in your hair, his lips whispering, over and over and over again: Is it complicated?

In the morning, you lay awake, just feeling the way your breath falls heavily in your chest. You text Yoongi to tell him you can’t meet up. You look outside.

The world is covered in a blanket of snow. Unrecognizable. Beautiful. Washed clean.

Something hopeful flutters in your chest.

When you look down, your hands are clutching the collar of your sleep shirt. With a deep breath, you wrap your arms around your torso in a hug.

“I don’t really know how to do anything else other than this,” you admit to Tae one day over the phone, flourishing a hand you know he can’t see to emphasize the point you know he already understands.

“Well. I don’t know how much of it is really choosing to be different. Instead, maybe you ought to try looking at it like an undoing. Whenever you match up against that impulse to run, think about sitting with it. Feeling it. And then choosing to move in another direction. Yeah,” he says, and you can tell he’s nodding on the other end of the phone. “An undoing.”

What does this kind of undoing look like? you wonder.

When the world comes to a screeching halt around you, you don’t expect to find your answer. The reality of the pandemic and quarantine — the emptiness of it, the long, drawn out days that feel long and drawn out when you’re in them but that then seem to blend together into one long, monotonous, anxiety riddled day and leave you wondering and wishing for the end — it’s hard. It’s hard in that quiet way that’s easy to ignore and push off, and hard in the way that there’s a big ache in your chest every time you go to sleep, one that crawls straight into your throat and sits there until the morning. It’s hard, and you learn to live with it. It’s hard, but somehow it brings you what you need. When distance seems to be the defining feature of your life, you don’t expect to find clarity. But you do. As you sink into the new routine of quarantine and pandemic life, and as life begins in a new rhythm with new rules and new realities — slowly and wildly new and sometimes horrific — it becomes clear to you.

What does this kind of undoing look like?

It looks a lot like feeling the emptiness in your home when Namjoon is away. Silence louder, space smaller. You find yourself reflected back to yourself, as if you are staring in a mirror.

It looks a lot like distraction. Emotional exhaustion turning into physical. You do distract — and it’s good — with a new drama or a new hobby. Exercising in your room until your cheeks are flushed. Cooking something new and delicious every night. Or sometimes just letting the small rectangle of light in your hand absorb you until the lingering discomfort is numbed, until you’re ready to fall asleep.

It looks like listening to your thoughts, really, truly listening, for the first time. Hearing the stories that you’ve built up in your head over the ears and how deeply they’ve sunk into your reality. It looks like noticing them, and wanting them to change. It looks like standing in the empty hallway of your apartment, feeling it all, and deciding to do something about it.

It looks like weird-ass sex dreams. Once dreamless nights are repopulated with strange and specific sexual fantasies featuring none other than your seven gorgeous friends in various states of undress and revelry.

It looks like letting people in again. Laughing on the phone until tears well up in your eyes. Building up the courage to tell Jimin about your vivid, even pornographic dreams. Writing letters when facetime just doesn’t do it anymore. Telling your friends just how much they mean to you, even when that voice warns you that you ought to keep your feelings held tight to your chest.

It looks like falling asleep one night, the traffic of the city now quieted by reduced travel, and the silence offering you a new kind of truth:

Love can be without limitation.

Love can be without limitation. It is allowed to flow from you without doubt or embarrassment. It is allowed to exist in the world — and in you — without needing to be reciprocated or validated. And you are allowed to ask for it. To demand it from life, even if, at times, it feels like the only place it pours forth from is from that great gaping space in your chest.

The phone rings a couple of times before it’s cut off in the middle of a digital brrng. You’re ready to hear the familiar buzz of a robotic voice reading: the caller you are trying to reach is not available—

But instead, the deep, heady voice you’re so familiar with comes over the speaker.

“Hello?”

“Hoseok?” His name feels foreign on your tongue. After all this time, pushing it away, pushing him away, welcoming his name back into your body feels almost like a fresh rain, washing away the dust on your skin.

“The one and only,” he chuckles. “What’s up?”

A ball of emotion wells up in your throat and the phone line hangs in silence as you try to glue together what you want to say, what you had practiced to say, what you should say. But it feels as if it’s all disappeared.

“I thought—”

“Did I mess up?” he blurts.

You blink in confusion. “What? No, I—”

“That night, I had so much to drink, I’m worried that… I messed up, that— ”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Hoseok.”

You can hear the breath release from his lungs and shudder through the phone. “Oh.” It’s silent for a moment. “Oh. Okay.”

“I just…” You close your eyes. Take a deep breath. “I just miss you.”

“I miss you like there’s an ocean between us,” he says, laughter mixed with sincerity threading through his voice.

“It feels like there’s ocean between us,” you sigh.

“I know,” he says, too quickly for him to realize the meaning behind your words. “But I promise this will all be over soon, babe. How long can something like this really last? In no time it’ll all be done with and I’ll be right back beside you. Right?”

You smile. “Right.”

← || series m.list || →

THANK YOU FOR READING!

→ if you enjoyed this, please consider telling me what you think by leaving a comment, sending an ask, or reblogging! → want to read more?

900 notes · View notes

hotkoyo · 3 years ago

Text

SFW Howie Alphabet Headcanons

Author's Note: When will my husband come home from war?

Disclaimer: These headcanons are based on how I imagine Howie to be based on the game. You don't have to agree with what I say here as everyone is free to have their own ideas.

𝄥 𝄞 ── 𝄇

A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

VERY affectionate. I honestly feel like he grew up surrounded with so much love and now he’s just overflowing with it. Howie is all about showing his love through warm hugs, having his arm around you, swinging your hands as you walk, head pats, you name it. Another one, in my opinion, is words of affirmation. He'd tell you how much you matter to him through words, like quoting lines from his favorite movies and saying "I love you" before you both go to sleep.

B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

Affectionate. Lots of play fighting and cuddling during movie sessions. Singing to Disney songs at the top of your lungs. You guys make friendship bracelets for each other (and he never takes off his). Definitely one of those dudes who drive their best friend everywhere.

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

If it’s not apparent already, this dude is a giant golden retriever and he lives for the cuddles. He is born to cuddle, baby. Due to his size, it’s natural that he ends up as a big spoon more often than not but he definitely loves the moments he gets to be the small spoon.

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

So domestic, even when you guys just started dating. It’s easy to imagine yourself settling down with someone as warm and comforting as Howie. He would love to settle down and build a home with you and you guys love having conversations about your dream house and how your life would be like in five, ten years. He’s alright at cooking in general but can cook some amazing Chinese dishes that his mom taught him.

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

It would be hard for him to get out of a relationship, to be completely honest. He’s one of those people who easily gets attachment issues and finds it hard to move on from a relationship. If he really has to be the one to end the relationship, he would want to talk it out with you and try to end your relationship on a good note. I feel like he’s one of those people who really values respect, even when things aren’t working out anymore between you two.

F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

Howie is a hopeless romantic and while he does have his insecurities, I feel like he would really love to commit to someone. In terms of marriage, it really depends on you. I don’t think his career would hinder him much when it comes to popping the question, to be honest. If he feels like he’s comfortable enough with the relationship and sees that you are, too, I think he’d propose to you when he feels like the time is right.

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

Howie is a textbook example of a gentle giant. He knows he’s strong so physically, he knows when to hold back a bit. Emotionally, it’s canon that he’s a soft and caring boy through and through and he would never hurt you on purpose.

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

Ugh, he LOVES hugs. It’s canon that the Yan fam is really good with hugs so if you need a pick-me-up, he’s your man. Whenever you guys are alone, he acts like an overgrown koala because he can’t get enough of hugging you. If hot chocolate is a hug, it’s what Howie’s would feel like. Warm, familiar, and comforting.

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

He knows he loves you when he does but holds back a lot in fear of coming off too strong. If he feels that you feel the same, then he would say it pretty quickly into the relationship or during a spur of a moment. If it seems that you need more time, he would hold back just so that you wouldn't feel uncomfortable.

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

He’s the type who’s less jealous and more insecure. His jealousy isn’t going to make him act rashly and put you on the spot. It’s slow and creeping and you might not notice at first because of how well he conceals it but it becomes apparent by the way he starts to act distant.

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

Warm and gentle. His kisses make you feel so safe and loved and he likes to take the time to show you how he feels through the gesture. He loves to kiss you everywhere but his favorite places to kiss you are your nose and temples.

Also, kiss him on the forehead and he’d melt into a puddle. Another one of his hotspots is at the back of his neck. Kiss him there and watch him sputter as he tries to gain back his bearings.

L = Little ones (How are they around children?)

He loves kids, kids love him. He humors the kids a lot and is a great impersonator so prepare yourself for some improvised skits in front of the kiddos. Can’t say no to the kids, though, so you might have to step in from time to time. Kids treat him like a human jungle gym. Which he actually is.

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

I definitely see him as a morning person. Also, he’s so fit that you can’t tell me he doesn’t workout every single morning. Probably goes on an early jog and is one of those people who seems so chipper even if it's only seven in the morning.

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)

Have you seen actors with their stage makeup on? There’s no way Howie’s skin stays so smooth and supple without some form of skincare routine. Has his own skincare routine and loves doing it with you together in front of the mirror (while making faces at you). After a good skincare session, he'll sit on the couch or in bed with you cuddled up to him as he reads scripts from his new upcoming projects.

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

Depending on how much he trusts you, it could be sooner or later. The thing with him is that he keeps things bottled up to himself. It’s hard and it’s tiring and the moment he feels safe with you, the dam breaks and he starts to reveal things about himself.

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)

It’s definitely hard to annoy Howie and even harder to provoke him. He has the patience of a saint and unless something is very wrong, you can always find him just chillin lol.

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

He’s quite sentimental so he definitely remembers your relationship milestones. He remembers a lot of small things about you; like how you like your cereal and your best friend’s name from high school. Some of the details can be fuzzy at times but he tries!

R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

Canonically: The moment you said yes when he asked to be your boyfriend at Luca’s "sister's wedding".

Headcanon: The time you both visited his family in Chicago for the holidays. You were walking home from dinner when the snowfall turned into a snowstorm. It was terribly cold and windy but you both kept on laughing at the situation and you looked so gorgeous with snow stuck to your hair under the waning streetlight that he didn’t even care that he's freezing his butt off.

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

Isn’t too protective in the traditional sense because he knows you can take care of yourself. More protective of how you feel because of his words and actions so he’s careful in what he says and how he says them because he doesn’t want to hurt your feelings. Highkey loves to be protected tho. Thinks it's kinda hot.

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

Puts a lot of effort in his career, obviously. Howie is always so passionate and ambitious when it comes to being a top actor. Relationship-wise, he’s a simp. Dates are mostly casual with him but he puts extra time and effort in choosing or making gifts. All the extra and expensive bits goes into your anniversary dates.

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

A lot of times, he leaves his wet, sweaty workout shirts at the corner of the room and somehow always forgets no matter how many times you’ve scolded him. Sometimes doesn’t close or tie snack packages properly so when it's your turn to eat them, they’re often stale. A terrible snorer when he’s had a long day on set.

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

Quite concerned. He likes to highlight the nice parts of his body through the clothes he choose to wear and tries to follow a healthy diet in general. He worked hard for his body and as much as embarrassing as it is to admit, he loves to show off and be admired for it (especially by you).

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

A strong believer that every person is complete and whole on their own. He believes that every person is their own and just because you love someone, it doesn't mean that your life must revolve around that person. Even so, he is a romantic. So even if he knows that he's complete without you, he does prefer to have you by his side.

X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)

He can play the piano really well. Aside from dance lessons, his parents put aside a lot of money to sign him up for piano classes when he was younger. Now, he plays them whenever he’s deep in thought and it’s always relaxing to hear him play.

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

In general, Howie doesn’t like broccoli. Keep those away from him. Please. When it comes to partners, Howie stays away from people who make him feel less. Basically people who put him down for being who he is and liking the things he likes. Narcissists, if you will.

Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habits of theirs?)

He’s a snuggler and he nuzzles into your side a lot when he sleeps. Whether you get too warm is your problem because this dude is Strong™ and won’t let you push him aside that easily. And, God, I hate to say this but he’s definitely a snorer. Not all the time but when he’s really tired.... let’s just say you won’t be getting a decent sleep.

#howie yan #roadkill howie #fictif howie #fictif roadkill #roadkill #fictif #fictif nix hydra #nix hydra #howie yan headcanons #fictif howie headcanons

104 notes · View notes

lea-andres · 3 years ago

Text

So, I love changing brains plots, they fascinate me. Especially when two (or more!) Established and beloved characters are doing the swapping, because then it becomes a study into what makes those characters those characters.

In an ideal world, I'd love to swap Sonic and Knuckles. Force Sonic into a situation where he has roots and a responsibility that requires him to stay in one spot (guarding the Master Emerald), and snip away Knuckles's roots, giving him the freedom to do whatever he wanted, and the power to actually go do it (Sonic's superspeed). I think those two could learn a lot of lessons from the experience, and ultimately their friendship would be strengthened by the ordeal. Walk a mile in each other's shoes, so to speak.

If I couldn't do them, know what my second choice would be?

Team Chaotix swaps bodies with each other.

(TW for some body dysphoric/dysmorphic language moving forward, I feel like Vector and Espio in particular would suffer from a bit of that over the course of this plot.)

I don't totally care how they got into this scenario, to be honest. Latest case has them going up against some Not-Eggman mad scientist who build a brain swapping machine, and they successfully trap the detectives in the thing and turn it on, or something. I don't care how they got there, the fun is them being IN that situation. And I think I've figured out the worst (for them) case scenario of who ends up where.

Vector needs to end up in Charmy's body. He's the leader, the muscle, and (to someone unfamiliar with the trio) the most intimidating looking one of the lot. He loses all of that if we stick him in the little kid, bottom of the totem pole (in terms of Team Chaotix's power structure) honey bee. No one's gonna take a 6 year old bug talking mad shit seriously, he no longer has the raw strength he originally had to wreck stuff, and if the Chaotix try to hide that this happened (and they would, because Vector and Espio are both way too arrogant to be okay with anyone finding out about this.), He would have to completely let go of the leadership position. If he were in Espio's body, he'd at least be able to point out flaws in a plan or offer up suggestions without anyone batting an eye. But Charmy rarely, if ever, does that, so to keep up appearances, Vector would have to totally stay out of it.

And personally, I don't think he'd be able to do the stuff Charmy can do, like fly. I think the idea of him being able to fly would just be way too foreign to him, and he wouldn't be able to do it. (I know that sounds a little silly, considering we've seen Charmy lift and fly around with Vector AND Espio in Heroes, but in Vector's eyes, that's something *Charmy* can do. Not something *Vector* can do.)

Espio needs to go into Vector's body, which is probably the worst (for them) match up of the three. Espio's a ninja spy detective. He's used to being stealthy, quiet, acrobatic. He's small (in comparison to Vector), slim, and fast. He can turn invisible, and climb up walls and ceilings. And remember, Espio can be an arrogant little shit, he takes great pride in almost all of that.

Vector's body can do absolutely none of this. That crocodile is built like a tank, and probably absolute garbage at stealth. And suddenly being at least twice his normal size (if not bigger, it's been a while since I've looked at the canon heights and weights of everyone), way stronger, and infinitely louder is going to completely throw Espio off his game. And it's going to be extremely embarrassing and confidence shattering for the poor guy. He tries to do ANYTHING that came so naturally to him before, and it ends in noisy, destructive failure. And Espio would take it SO HARD everytime.

And remember what I was saying about keeping up appearances and the power structure of Team Chaotix? If Espio's in Vector's body, that means he's not only in charge whenever they're in public, but he's going to have to be in charge the way Vector is in charge to keep from arousing suspicion. And that's going to stress him the fuck out. Espio isn't afraid to question Vector, or call him out on his nonsense, but at the end of the day Vector's his superior, and he gives him the proper respect. Espio gives EVERYONE the respect they deserve, that's kind of a big deal with him. I'm not saying Vector *doesn't* do this, but he's definitely a lot more casual and laid-back with that sort of stuff than Espio is. So Espio's not only going to have to talk to Vector in a manner he feels is inappropriate, he's going to have to talk to everyone like that, and it's gonna really stress him out.

And finally, Charmy needs to go into Espio's body. Because Charmy is Charmy (and we need some comic relief somewhere in this emotionally traumatizing ordeal), he'd be pretty unfazed by the situation. Sure, he might be a little bummed he can't fly anymore, but I think Charmy would be way too distracted by the fun of being in Espio's body, and all the perks that come with it.

Just imagine him striking ridiculous ninja poses, climbing all around on the walls and ceilings, and turning invisible and terrorizing people, all while attempting to impersonate Espio's voice as he says all the over the top stuff he says.

(Charmy: *in deepest voice he can manage* Ninja power! Spirits Unite! Blah blah, ninja blah!

Espio: I do not sound like that. 😠

Vector and Charmy: You do too!)

Bonus points: I personally headcanon that Espio's ninja weapons work the same way Amy's hammer does. He doesn't carry them on him, he just summons them out of the void as needed. For plot convenience, let's say that ability stayed with his body, and didn't go with him into Vector's body. Vector and Espio have no way to disarm Charmy, and because Charmy's a little kid and they always get into the stuff you don't want them in, Charmy figures out how to call forth the weapons almost immediately. There's no way he'd be careful or responsible with that stuff, he's 6! So he'd chuck them around willy nilly for fun, almost killing himself, his teammates, and anyone else within a five mile radius of them everytime.

And Charmy wouldn't care at all about acting like Espio publicly to keep anyone from finding out this happened. So everyone would be so confused (and a little uncomfortable) as to why Espio's so goofy and... Happy... (Not to mention being extremely reckless, because someone said something he thought was cool, so 'Espio' went "KA-BLAM!" and tossed like 8 throwing stars, almost killing everyone in the process)

That's all I've got for now. Not sure how this would begin or end, but I know what the middle would look like! I'm very tired, I'll revisit this in the morning if I think of more.

#team chaotix #espio the chameleon #vector the crocodile #charmy bee #tw: body dysmorphia #tw: body dysphoria #tagging just in case

34 notes · View notes

ask-the-clergy-bc · 4 years ago

Note

i loved the fluffy hc about singing to the ghouls and cuddling and that made me think, what about the papas? how would they react to that?

First HC of 2021 <33 Let’s start the year off with some fluff! <3

For some context, this is playing off of another post you can read here! --> [Link]

Papas with their S/O Cuddling and Singing Them to Sleep

Papa Nihil: Number one way to have the Grandpapa fall asleep on you in under five seconds. Nihil is Big Tired (TM) most days, and finds so much relief in the tender affection you give him. Nihil finds your voice cute and comforting- something he needs after a long day of dealing with Ministry chaos and bullshit. At the end of the day all he wants to do is sleep and stretch out on his grand bed, you at his side. Nihil chuckled the first time you sung to him. Not making fun of your attempts or your voice, just pleasantly surprised! He compliments your voice but can barely keep his eye lids open. A part of you knew you should have expected as much, but you were still confused when he started snoring.

Papa I: Admittedly, Papa is very taken aback that you would want to do this for him. To most he is, rightfully, viewed as a frightening specter of the clergy. Someone to be feared and respected, not snuggled and lulled to sleep like a babe! This isn’t a bad thing, mind you, just a situation he finds completely ironic. Papa was never much of a cuddler, simply from a lack of experience and proper gentle partners. Most of his harem and past affairs were looking for something rougher and impersonal. But Papa finds himself enjoying the close contact very much. Especially relaxed if you gently stroke around his ears and shoulders. As for singing, he would make a request or two of you. Papa will often ask for songs that helped him sleep as a boy. He has trained himself to need less sleep but there is something enjoyable indulging in sloth once in a while. His words exactly.

Papa II: Is more confused by the singing than the cuddling, as he normally is expected to sing softly to some of his more long term partners. But the roles being switched are a welcome break. If you were anyone else, Papa might be uncomfortable with you taking care of him like this. It’s not often he allows his guard down to be pampered in any soft way. But because it is you he happily makes an exception, as you are one of the few people he trusts. Papa will insist on still being the bigger spoon and have you close to his chest, tucked under his chin. He finds your voice pleasant and your gentle caresses on his arms and back soothing. Chances are you’ll probably fall asleep way before him, as you always do. But the gentle bonding is a nice switch from the harder physical intimacy of your normal days.

Papa III: Cuddle and serenade Papa at your own risk. Because once you start you will never be allowed to stop! It will suddenly become one of your regular couple routines, as the man is SPOILED and snuggly beyond belief. Sure, carnal desires are very fun and his preference- but nothing gets Papa to purr faster than a nice cuddle session! His favorite is to be curled on your lap or chest, eyes closed as you play with his hair and sing softly to him. Your voice is very soothing and comforting. Papa can sometimes have difficulty getting calm and relaxed enough to sleep, so this always helps! If you try to stop petting his hair he will either nudge you to keep going or pick your hand up and place it back on his head. Absolutely spoiled beyond belief. Papa sometimes gets cheeky with you and asks if you take requests! Offers to teach you a lullaby in Italian.

Papa IV/Cardinal Copia: Tries to act dignified and pleasantly surprised at the offer but, let’s be real, on the inside this is what he loves the most. Despite his ambitions to be a scary and all powerful Papa he is still a man who craves gentle affection. The fact you want to soothe HIM makes him melt at the very idea. Once you start expect it to become a regular request from your achy and tired Copia. Most nights all you have to do is pet the spot on the bed next to you and Copia comes flying onto the mattress! When you start singing to him he ends up joining you. Copia just can’t help himself, he loves to sing with you! Both of you end up getting each other to nod off by duetting a favorite lullaby you share. Your words eventually slurring until your a tangle of arms and blankets and fast asleep!

#the band ghost #ghost bc #Ghost headcanon #papa nihil #papa emeritus i #Papa Emeritus II #papa emeritus iii #papa emeritus iv #cardinal copia #reader insert #fluff

162 notes · View notes

adsosfraser · 3 years ago

Text

The Stone’s Toll - Chapter Four

Read on AO3

cw: medical trauma/abuse

They stripped her to the bone and prodded her towards the corner with the spigot about a metre above her head. Their eyes were focused intently on her every move, calculating each misstep. One of her guards called out into the hall and the water surged down in high pressured spurts. She had been naked with strangers before. Had been dressed by them. Bare and vulnerable. Mrs. Fitz came to mind. But this was not anything like that, it felt demeaning, dehumanising. It was intended to humble her.

The other guard threw a bar of soap which Claire fumbled with and fell to the floor. The grime on the floor had built up for years and mould dotted the edges of the shower. She scrunched her nose at the thought of picking the soap up from such an environment, but the stares of the guards burrowed deep into her skin.

“Two minutes.”

Claire carefully traced the spot above her heart. It stung less than before when she was weaned off of the pain medication. Claire was heavily sedated for those six days in hospital. She felt like she had when she returned through the stones, a crushing weight bearing down on her body. And she was all alone. Her injury was monitored until she could be properly transferred to Danvers State Hospital, or rather the Danvers Lunatic Asylum, where they placed her unceremoniously in her cage-like room. The pounding force of the shower left a dull pain, almost opening the wound on her breast again. She scrubbed the dirt, the pain off of her skin until she felt she had no skin left.

Claire was soon in the plain cotton uniform they provided everyone. Her hair flew wildly above her head because she was unable to comb through her curls. They at least deemed her safe enough to not need restraints on top of the guards that flanked her. How kind. Those were reserved for the more violent afflictions.

She watched as her tangled curls floated down to the tiled floor around her feet. Her hair was shorn to about her chin to conform with the other patients.

The institute had yet decided what to do about her condition, which they concluded was melancholia and the hysteria which accompanied it. All unnecessary consequences of her female persuasion.

“I assure you, sir, I am perfectly fine. Now if I could just speak to my husband.” She forced herself to put out the last word.

“He is still considering the terms of your release and treatment. You gave Mr. Randall quite a shock.” Doctor Lionel Brown quirked his eyebrows at his patient, placing the pairs of his pointer and middle finger against his lips in thought.

“I know. Now if you’d just-“

A knock sounded at the door.

“Mr. Anderson you may come in.”

“Mrs. Randall, this is Mr. Anderson, our specialist in mood disorders. He’s shed some insight with me earlier about what may be best in order for you to be released. If you don’t mind, Mr. Anderson.”

“I think our electroshock therapies would be very conducive for her recovery. When repeated twice a week, these treatments help ease pain and reduce memories that are hard to pass on their own.” Anderson glanced at Doctor Brown and continued. “Another option if the treatments are unable to hold and improve your condition is the transorbital lobotomy which is guaranteed to permanently improve it. I can assure you ma’am this avenue has been thoroughly researched and our patients report a calm demeanour within weeks of the operation.

“I highly doubt that’s necessary sir.” Claire scoffed.

Claire slumped in her chair and considered for a second. She could be free of the pain, of the man who haunted her every waking moment. She could stop mourning her husband, her family at Lallybroch, and her children. Maybe she would forget and finally be able to return to Frank as Jamie had intended. But she could never forget Jamie, no matter what happened to her. Her mind may forget but her soul would always keep him within her.

It was four doors later that she reluctantly followed one of the nurse’s in the ward down the dreary halls. No matter her reluctance to it, her treatments would begin according to the doctor’s schedule.

Claire was instructed to take off her shoes as she entered the room. She glanced around the room only to be met with unfamiliar faces. She had comforted the woman who went before her who was convulsing and writhing on the treatment table. Claire tried to soothe her and soon her breathing evened out and a dazed look took over her face. There was no fighting this. If Claire refused to comply, it would be much worse. The woman slouched to the floor and began her walk away from the machine.

The orderly wiped off the metal table from the woman’s sweat and perhaps even a small amount of urine: the reactions to the terror. He sighed and wrote on the chart, detailing exactly how the patient’s body handled the treatment. He pointed to the table, not even sparing a glance at Claire. One. Two. Three. She thought as she forced each step. Her back and limbs arched away from the shocking cold of the metal and her muscles tensed reflexively.

The nurse placed a flat wooden stick in her mouth and instructed her to bite down. Her arms and legs were strapped down before she could change her mind and start thrashing against her jailer. Two firm ovals suctioned to her temples and a strap ran around her head securing the device to her head.

Perhaps it was her indifference that led them to choose this method of torture. She would be sure to smile and have all the warmth of a womanly countenance when she next met with Doctor Brown. Her fate depended on her first husband, and the doctor that held her hostage within the suffocating walls of the institution. She had made her feelings quite clear to Frank, and perhaps he was enacting his vengeance this way.

As the first wave of electricity passed through her body straight to her heart and mind, her body convulsed under its strain. After the base time of thirty seconds for her treatment, her body slumped back down onto the cold surface that sent chills down her spine. She was left disoriented and stupid, waiting to gain back her senses.

“Who’s this, Smiley?” Claire’s mind could barely discern the shape of the figure hanging on the doorframe before her. The glum nurse who was addressed was the farthest thing from smiley.

“Mrs. Randall, your newest neighbour.”

“Oh, how exciting!” The girl who couldn’t be more than fourteen slipped something into the nurse’s pocket. “I think I’ll call you Miss Curly Wig.” She grinned and eyed the mess of curls fanned out around on the silver surface enviously.

The orderly nonchalantly slipped a lollipop into the girl’s waiting hands and a piece of gum, payment for whatever she had smuggled in for him.

“You’ll be just fine Miss Curly Wig.” The girl who was barely a teenager patted her shoulder in comfort. Claire couldn’t do more than stare blankly at the girl, no words appearing on her tongue. “Sure the first one is a bit of a shock. But you get over it. Your brain is like cotton the first few days, and you look as dumb as ever, but if you comply, they shorten it to every three weeks instead. I haven’t gotten the shock in four weeks now because I’ve been on my best behaviour. Haven’t had the urge to steal in months. Isn’t that right Smiley?”

Smiley grunted affirmatively in a way that reminded her of Murtagh while he put away the equipment from the day’s treatments. Her heart ached along with her head and tears pricked at the corner of her eyes.

“Can I escort her back to her room Smiley? You are done here for the day, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Miss Emily.” The nurse clearly was uncomfortable straying from protocol.

Claire walked back in silence to the plain white room, filled with only a white metal bed and mattress. Emily patted her hand on the sheets and Claire plopped down on them. The rambunctious child flitted out of the room, excited to find a new face in the dreary and tedious schedule of the ward.

Claire laid back against the stiff pillow of her twin bed. It was impossible to get comfortable here. Her brain was buzzing and her fingers felt tingly, like the static from the radio. In the night, when the other patient's cries filled her mind, she traced the fading scar on her palm where he cut her. The rings, sgian dubh, pearls and her old clothes were the only physical proof it had been real. Now she had none of them. No tangible proof in her grasp. The only reminder was the memory of the slight pain when he marked out the flesh into a J.

“Milady!” Fergus screamed into the empty air of the great room. His body curled up into one of the velvet chaises by the fire and his whimpers woke Jamie, who rested his eyes on the floor beside the inconsolable child. Jamie had almost drifted off to sleep himself, but his mind buzzed with thoughts of his wife. He rose and gathered Fergus in his arms, hushing the boy.

“Milady.” The tears renewed themselves and tumbled without end down his cheeks. Jamie stroked the hair from his son’s face and cursed when his hand felt the hot and sweaty skin.

Claire woke up shaking on the sweat-soaked sheets. “Fergus.” Her guilt of leaving him, her family was insurmountable. But she felt deep in her bones something terribly awful. A dread that squeezed at her heart. Just like any other person could feel the earth shift under their feet, before possessing the actual knowledge of what happened to their loved one. A fellow war nurse once told her of her premonitions, and the next day she was sent an impersonal letter declaring his death in battle.

She pressed the pillow against her ears, trying to block out the vivid visions of the young French boy.

Emily became an ally to Claire in the short amount of time she had been in the B ward. She followed her constantly like a lost puppy and accompanied her to the electroshock therapies every week. Claire supposed the girl had deemed her the sanest out of their fellow patients, so she must have felt more at ease in her presence. The girl had even taught Claire a neat trick, how to pretend to swallow her medicine and then spit it out later.

At night, the faces in the flecks of the popcorn ceiling above taunted her. Every move of the shadows was a demon reimagined in her mind. Of her family and those who wished her harm. They all played an equal role in the play stretched out before her. Two straight lines and a curve mixed together into one evil, Black Jack Randall and her husband. Her mind drifted to the sight of her son, curled up and shivering in his sickbed. She was stuck between the tormenting images in the ceiling or the all too real feel of Fergus’ small body pressed against her in a tight hug.

“Miss Curly Wig!” It took her a moment to recognise her young companion, the thoughts seeped slowly through her mind like molasses.

“Where on earth did you get these?”

“I filched them from Doc B when I was snooping through your files. I was going to trade them to Smiley, but I thought better. Hide them in your bra, they never look there.” The child winked at her.

“Thanks for the advice.” She slipped the silver down her shirt and was about to scatter the gold across the wooden boards of the floor when she thought better; it was a valuable chunk of money. “What do you want in return?”

“Nothing yet. But those locks of yours sure are pretty.”

“You want a lock of my hair?”

She stared at the child dumbfounded. Hers easily rivalled Claire’s, the fiery red waving around her ears and growing slowly towards her shoulders. What harm was there in giving a child a piece of a muddied brown curl? She gripped a strand of her hair from the base of her head and held it taut. Claire ripped the piece just below the hold her hand had on it so it wouldn’t be plucked directly from her scalp. Her palms opened, gifting the rare thing to the adolescent. Her face visibly brightened and she snatched it immediately. She tucked in safely within her shirt like Claire had done with her rings and skipped down the hall towards the dark wood staircase.

Claire plastered a sickly sweet smile as she sat on the plastic chair. Dr. Brown shuffled some papers on his desk and ignored her. He licked his finger to card through the pages and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He cleared his throat before finally acknowledging her.

“Ah, Mrs. Randall. And what, might I ask, lead me to the pleasure of seeing you in my office today?”

“As you can see, Dr. Brown, the treatments have worked splendidly and I would very much like to return home now. I see no need to be kept here further.”

“I’m sorry ma’am it’s just not how- oh looky here! Your husband signed for your release when he visited me yesterday.”

“Great, so now this has all been sorted.”

“Just hold on Mrs. Randall.” He emphasised her proper name. “Yes, he’s clearly signed your release here, but we’ll need to keep you here for an observation period of at least three more days. Make sure you’ll do no more harm to yourself or others. But, you’ll be glad to know we have seen an improvement from your treatments, and your last one will be this Friday, a day before your release.”

She bit her tongue to hold back the avalanche of defiant words and insults she wanted to fling at the man who held her fate in his hands. Finally, she settled for a simple, “thank you,” and left back to the empty halls.

The bastards in the hospital had made zero progress in truly helping her. If she was asked, Claire knew she wouldn’t be able to recall any detail at all about the last few months of her life. If she could call it that, she was dead living. The therapies only added to her already failing memory. Emily was the only bright part of her day, and now she was leaving the poor girl in the hands of these people alone.

Her final night, when her brain sludged forward through its thoughts, a consequence of her treatments, she finally allowed herself to relax back into her bed fully. But that was a mistake. Fergus sat before the fire at Lallybroch, playing soldier with some chess pieces. The sight of the son of her heart pierced through her chest. He turned around and smiled at her softly.

“Come back, Milady, please. Milord needs you. I miss you maman.” He had never called her maman before, only Milady.

On closer inspection, his eyes were wide with fear at the apparition before him. He knew Milady would never harm him, but there was something otherworldly about her appearance now, much different than her usual strange demeanour. Sensing his trepidation, she kissed his forehead gently, taking the pain and fear into herself from that small point where her lips met his curl that dangled there. A tear dripped down the edge of her nose to his cheek. A flash of red and blue entered the dream, but by then she was already awake.

#outlander fanfiction #adsofraser writing #claire beauchamp #claire fraser #jamie x claire #frank randall #insane asylum #fergus fraser #canon divergence #jamie fraser #medical trauma #I am inflicting pain onto my characters because I can #outlander fanfic

28 notes · View notes

welcometogrouchland · 3 years ago

Note

Archivist!Sasha AU?

1. Not!Jon is that guy who is gratingly friendly but in a way that feels overwhelmingly fake. He's interested in your life in a way that feels overwhelmingly impersonal. If Jon is someone who struggles navigating personal interaction but overwhelmingly cares about the people he's talking too, not!Jon is the exact opposite. He's also a HUGE oversharer. Can't go more than a few minutes without dropping an excruciatingly personal fact into the conversation. He's like an energy vampire from wwdits. I've also decided that I think he looks like my original vision of buff Jon.

2. The person to take Sasha in while on the run in season 3 is Annabelle pretending to be a "friend from school".

But seriously: Annabelle being Sasha's roommate in season 3 lives in my head, mainly because yeah Annabelle is scheming as she's won't to do but also, narratively it'd be a great chance to humanise her? We'd get to see her in (an approximation of) the comfort of her own home. Maybe see her quirks and likes and dislikes. And it'd leave Sasha conflicted in later seasons, both because she can't be sure how much of Annabelle's help was a whim of the Web, and how much was her own action, but also...Annabelle kept her safe. I think that up until the end of season 5 Sasha would be holding out hope that maybe there's still something worth saving in Annabelle cane (and who knows? Maybe she's right...)

3. Tim partially blinds himself. I don't quite know the details of how, but I think he manages to get at least one eye removed, but for reasons, can't go through with the other. Mainly because a partially blind person in the eyepocalypse isn't something I've seen speculated about? And I'm honestly not sure how it would work entirely. I think Sasha can still See him, unlike Melanie who she has a blind spot with, but I'm not sure what kind of power he'd have in the apocalypse. In terms of other entities he's aligned with, I've seen the End thrown around as a possible option for Tim, and I think it works. Tim wants the possibility of finality in a world seemingly determined to keep you tortured beyond death. I'm not quite sure that he'd have the same will to live as Martin? I think he might be more accepting of the fate of him having to kill Sasha to release the fears in the end

4. Speaking of season 4, it's still Basira and Melanie (now with Tim for company) in the archives pre Sasha waking up. Melanie is obviously still ruining her life under the influence of the slaughter and her own trauma- but I think it hits slightly different in this au? Melanie doesn't actively dislike Sasha the way she does Jon. I think they might actually be somewhat close? Obviously not close enough for Sasha to say, hide out at her place during season 3, but close enough for Melanie to maybe talk about Georgie to Sasha and offer her condolences over the loss of Jon, even if she never liked him. So, when Sasha goes into the coma, Melanie takes it hard! And she takes it even harder when Sasha has to perform surgery on her to remove the bullet. I think in this au there's at least an attempt to ask Melanie for permission, but she was always going to say know. It hurts- Melanie likes Sasha. She cares about Sasha, she knows she was just doing it to help, but she still sees her face in her nightmares before she wakes up screaming (consequently, I don't think Georgie likes Sasha very much when they finally meet. Ironic considering Georgie and Tim get along swimmingly).

5. And a lightning round: I think Mike crew actually likes Sasha in this au. When they met and he tried to throw her into the vast I think she panicked and punched him and was like "oh you're fucked! Nice, I respect that". the desolation is one of the later marks sasha gets (from Agnes Montague in this au). It's not as actively malevolent a gesture as Jude's handshake, but I think the whole encounter is definitely unsettling for Sasha. Lastly, I think that while Peter doesn't have as active an agent (or rather, as clear a victim) in season 4 in this au, but I think he does work with Basira (not unlike Elias in that season). After all, when you think you've lost your trusted partner and are starting to shut everyone out in the name of preserving your sense of control and morality, well, you can start to feel oh so very...lonely

#ask games #ramblings of a lunatic #archivist!sasha #OOF this post is long i did NOT think i had as many thoughts as i did #anyway most of these were made up on the fly? i had the annabelle one brewing in my head for some time but beyond that #the not!jon was just me trying to make a sort of. bizarro jon? so i went with personality traits that i see as opposing Jon's #its the same thought process i had with not!daisy in the spiral sasha au #also carefully avoided describing the exact nature of tim and Sasha's relationship in this au because i don't actually know how I'd do it s

44 notes · View notes

problematicfavesareproblematic · 4 years ago

Text

Band of Brothers-

Cute/charming things they say when they walk into a room and see you/you walk into a room and they see you:

Babe:

“oh SHIIIIIT! There’s my BABY! Do you see her, fellas? GodDAMN, I’m a lucky sonofabitch!”

(you blush so hard and are just like Babe, we’re at work stahp it but he dgaf).

It’s embarrassing and always makes Martin glare so imploringly at you that you’ll go over to Babe just to make him be quiet. Because, you know, YOU’RE AT WORK.

This bitch is shameless when it comes to loving on you, having once come to stand next to you when Sink was giving an important announcement and straight-up PINCHED. YOUR. ASS.

how you didn’t yelp is a miracle, and how no one else seemed to notice was equally astounding

(oh, the boys noticed. They kinda shipped it tho, so it was more a matter of hiding their joy).

Needless to say, it only happened the once, something you made Babe swear after you pulled him aside and punched him in the arm.

Don’t worry, you kissed it better.

Roe:

bb boy doesn’t say anything at first,

the smile he saves just for you is playing at his lips as you walk up to meet him, tho.

The moment you’re close enough that he can smell the sweet mint of your gum, he’ll whisper something sweet like “hey you” or “mon amor”, or maybe just your name

(bc let’s be honest, his accent is 10 out of 10 and he could read me the dictionary and I’d still rock an ugly giggle/snort combo).

If it’s a more serious situation, like if you’re hurt oh lordy

he will literally shout your name until either you shout back or someone tells him where you are.

I could see him being a face holder, in the sense that he does it to reassure himself that you’re okay and make sure he has your undivided attention.

Since getting injured in Carentan, you hadn’t been as close to the frontlines as you had been, so when you were needed you are REALLY NEEDED,

and even if he didn’t like it Gene knew you were the best at what you did.

Gene also feels better if he knows where you are.

Even when you eventually return to Easy, he will feel better knowing which Foxhole you’re in, and knowing he’s seen to it your first aid kit was fully stocked.

Liebgott:

THAT FUCKER’S SMIRKING AT YOU SO OPENLY that whoever he had been talking to instantly goes

*sigh* y/n’s just came in, didn’t she?

And he won’t even ANSWER because he’s already shoving past them to walk up and eye you with obvious satisfaction.

“Bout time you showed up,” he’d say casually, hands finding your hips giving them a quick squeeze.

“Sooner we get briefed, sooner we can get outta here.”

(You’re not fully sure what ‘getting outta here’ entails, but if the way he looked at you was any indication, you had a feeling it didn’t involve anything less than PG-13 sexy times.)

Bull:

“Hey, little lady.”

He’ll say it no matter how tall or short you are, how wide or how narrow.

He will always say it to you that when you first see each other in the morning

(sometimes, you wake up to Hey, little lady being kissed into the soft skin behind your ear.)

(Once while on a 48 hour pass, he’d woken you up that way in a REAL bed and the two of you had nearly gotten him sent up Curahee for being late coming back because you’d ended up spending more time in that bed than either of you anticipated Whoops)

(Even if he had been late, he definitely wouldnt have minded, tbh. He fully considered going AWOL if it mean neither of you had to leave the bed)

but throughout the day he’s more concerned about getting his hands on some part of you whenever the two of you had been apart-

even if it was for like five minutes.

Nothing over the top- holding his arm up and out so you can step into his side, a press of his lips to your temple.

Idk guys i just feel like he’d just love you so much that everyone would be able to see, which they do and they all think it’s fucking cute

Buck:

He doesn’t always call out when he sees you, mostly because your eyes always seem to find his.

The two of you could be across a field from one another with a thousand angry Germans between you, guns blazing, and the two of you would always spot each other like two honing beacons.

If its downtime and you guys don’t have to be on your guard he’ll ABSOLUTELY wolf whistle in at you,

You’ll see a stupid grin lighting up his face as he nods in your direction.

“Take a look, boys. I think we’ve got ourselves a…”

and he always waits until you’re close enough that he can wrap a quick arm around your waist and pat your hip.

“Certified babe-asaurus!”

(in a foxhole somewhere, a wild Babe’s head pokes up in confusion).

You groan and boo him, and whoever he was with inevitably ends up booing him too.

But he doesn’t care because seeing you smile makes him so happy you guys.

Lipton:

If you’re in public, he will quietly step up beside you and place his hand gently between your shoulder blades.

He’s not super into PDA, which you didn’t mind because what he didn’t show in physical touch he more than made up for in open admiration.

He is in awe of you

sometimes he worries you forget how highly he thinks of you, how highly everybody thinks of you

(you don’t forget, but he’s just one of those people who will get intrusive thoughts like that and sometimes has a hard time shaking them so plz just let him say it ok?)

so he always whispers some praise with his greeting

(Hey, beautiful...Doin’ okay, love?...What’re you thinking, brilliant girl?).

It’d probably seem like overkill if anyone else did it but Carwood is just so goddamn sincere that you can’t help but duck a quick kiss to his shoulder.

HOWEVER!

If you two kids are alone….

OH BOI.

He is handsy, coming up and caging you with his arms,

probably pulling you close quickly so you lose your balance and he can hold you a lil bit.

(He likes to sweep you off your feet im so sorry)

That’s when his praises are hushed and sighed between long slow kisses.

Nixon:

Like Liebgott, he’s a snarky motherfucker who will get the most self-satisfied grin on his face the moment he sees you, instantly turning on the famous Lewis Nixon charm ( something he’d long since decided belonged to you and you alone.)

“Uh oh,” he’d say, looking you up and down before raising an eyebrow.

(bc your hot but also he doesn’t want to get all flirty if you’re hurt or sick or something’s up bc ur not just something to flirt with- YOU ARE A BADASS WITH BADASS RESPONSIBILITIES AND THAT WAS SOMETHING HE very often and sometimes FOUND SO HOT THAT IT MADE HIM THINK HE MAY HAVE AN AUTHORITY FETISH this has been a PSA)

“Here comes trouble.”

you roll your eyes, the behavior you once found cocky and arrogant having becoming endearing somewhere between Toccoa and England.

He has absolutely no qualms about PDA (verbal or physical), so it’s up to you to reign him in

(especially if he’s a lil tipsy, poor Luz didn’t need to hear Lewis’s sloppy and shameless plea for you to let him eat you out on top of piano he’d found in the attic of the billet he’d been assigned. You weren’t able to look at George for a week without wanting to die of embarrassment and Lewis Nixon didn’t get any for two weeks. He was sure to never make such a mistake ever again)

And Dick had probably grown blind to how Lewis liked to pull you his lap and run his hands up and down your thighs while you played with his hair.

Also, like Lipton, he probably saves the more explicit acts of PDA for when the company has scheduled downtime

(but only bc you told him he needed to keep it in his pants any other time he tried to get cute with you)

but you can bet your ass his hand will always try to tap it (your ass, that is.)at least once

a day when he isn’t supposed to.

That’s when you get to punish him whoopsies

Dick:

since the day you were introduced to Dick in Georgia, the boy always made sure to stand when you entered a room and will call you “ma’am”,

(you know, LIKE HE DOES ONLY BECAUSE HE HAS TO FOR SOBEL BC RANKS. I feel like he has a “we salute the woman, not the rank” speech queued up for anyone who tried to give him shit for it BUT THAT’s JUST ME)

but he has a knowing look in his eye that makes the term ‘ma’am’ feel anything but impersonal.

It confused the shit out of replacements, who would automatically stand because their superior officer (that would be Big Dick Winters) did- only to see you standing there in your fatigues with a coffee in each hand with a look of mutual confusion on your face.

(bc while they like you, but they’re confused still bc while you’re a boss ass bitch, you didn’t outrank him...or at least they theink you dont?)

Babe had been the one to ask you about the longing looks and lingering glances, and when you didn’t know how to answer him you’d gone to Nixon,

He’d burst into tearful laughter and was unable to get it together enough to explain anything.

Dick had been the one to bring it up the next time they were alone, weirdly enough, as she proofread his report for errors that didn’t exist.

Because you warrant it, he’d said when pressed for a reason why he greeted her like a ranking officer, looking down at his boots as they both blushed like teenagers at a school dance.

After that, he still stood wherever you walked in

but now he made a point to brush his fingers against yours at some point during the time you were together.

He’s the definition of a slow burn friends-to-lovers story, and boi can get spicy LEMME TELL YOU.

(this is my first writing thing ever plz let a sister know if there are any glaring typos. Also i’m roughly 97 years late to fandom but I brought y’all some starbucks so plz let me in thank you)

#band of brothers imagine #band of brothers x reader #babe heffron x reader #eugene roe x reader #joe liebgott x reader #bull randleman x reader #carwood lipton x reader #lewis nixon x reader #dick winters x reader #hbo war x reader #it's vv bad but I'll just add it to the pile of already burning garbage pile that is my bibliography #buck compton x reader

378 notes · View notes

beautifulterriblequeen · 4 years ago

Text

Trust No One: Aaravos as Plague

This is a messy and convoluted and branching set of headcanons and theories so I’m going to keep it to bullet points as much as possible. But if you ever want to know more about something on here, just ask! My thanks to @kotikala for brainstorming with me for a few hours one night last week (and for making the gif below). It was a whole ride, and we had crazy amounts of fun.

It all started when I got to looking, yet again, at these two pix:

1000 years ago, the Sunfire and Moonshadow rulers held their own staffs

but 300 years ago, they had diversified into warrior and wizard

in the first pic, Aaravos’s eyes are glowing

in the second, the two staffbearer elves’ eyes are glowing

glowing eyes means using big magic

Aaravos’s eyes glowed when he was controlling Viren

so what’s he up to in the pic? Controlling someone else?

is that even Aaravos or do we just see his spooky astral form while he’s actually possessing some other poor elf there, like he did with the Sunfire mage at the Sunforge?

Theory: Aaravos hacks people with his magic. He’s is a hacker, and he can spread his influence from person to person this way, like a plague.

It’s what he did with the elves after Xadia was split.

It’s what he’s doing with Viren.

He’s going to keep using the same tricks.

It’s what Viren was trying to copy with a dark magic workaround.

And it’s what Aaravos is doing to others in the show already.

It’s what he did with the elves after Xadia was split

The most terrifying thing about Aaravos isn’t his powers. It’s that you never know who Aaravos is, so you don’t even know when his powers are being used. Who can you trust, when more than one person around you might be Aaravos, or Aaravos-manipulated?

Basically: TRUST NO ONE (ghhhh I love shows like this so much)

Aaravos sent a caterpillar to Viren because a worm is a type of virus

Dark Callum was an attempt to hack Callum’s mind while he was sick, and he was only saved because of Harrow’s influence on him

the plan to split Xadia interfered with Aaravos’s own plans, so he set about foiling the elves by hacking them and puppeting and/or impersonating them, and then making important decisions of state in disguise, by manipulation, and by creating an environment of isolation and mistrust

at some point, the elves finally realized what Aaravos was doing and had to band together to stop him

enter the Sunfires and the Moonshadows, defenders of the border and the peace, such as it was

the book pages involving Aaravos all show Sun, Moon, and Stars on them, but no other identifiable primal symbols

so what did they discover? Aaravos can turn into other people, using their primal magic, in perfect copies of them. The elves had no way to tell which among them were the OG elves and which were Aaravos

It’s what he’s doing with Viren

the pod that’s growing at the end of S3/in TTM has a black-eyed Viren inside it--eyes black like Aaravos. Yet the Viren we saw Claudia resurrect has normal skin. Maybe Aaravos stole Viren’s magic--and his gray skin with it--and plans to impersonate him, while Claudia resurrected Viren’s corpse using enough vitality to restore him to his original appearance after Aaravos pulled his magic out. Each of them only intended for there to be one Viren, but now there are two, because Claudia took a shortcut

the pod is the final step in copying a person, but it starts with the blood ritual, and the caterpillar needs primal magic to grow (see: Viren getting irradiated by the Sun staff and spitting out a much larger caterpillar than he swallowed)

that means it would be a lot easier to grow elves than humans, because they already have primal magic in them, and they’re in Xadia which is also full of primal magic. Aaravos had to lure Viren to Xadia to get the caterpillar to grow

not knowing who to trust among the ruling elven leaders changed things up

the elves split their rule, from having a single ruler who also wielded the primal stone staff to having two. 700 years after Xadia was divided, the Moonshadows are led by a mage and an assassin, and the Sunfires have a queen and a mage. That way, if one of them gets podded or possessed by Aaravos, they can’t make unilateral decisions and use their power or magic to create chaos

but not everyone Aaravos manipulates has to be a ruler. If he can whisper in a baker’s ear, or a servant’s, or a certain soldier at just the right time, that person can do the influencing on rulership for him. There are always myriad targets for Aaravos to choose from. How can the elves possibly protect their people?

cue the Sunfires and Moonshadows again, as basically the Order of the Phoenix--oh hey, Phoe-Phoe!

we saw what Queen Khessa did with the Sunforge, using it to attempt Viren’s murder. She’s probably killed other humans this way over the years. We see the device as cruel and the practice as racist.

but once upon a time (and this is what gives this theory some actual weight for me) the Sunforge could have been a tool of detection in a world of lies and deceit

the Sun arcanum is about revealing truth, just like Viren’s true face was revealed

300+ years ago, Queen Aditi used the Sunforge to test her fellow elves for truth or Aaravos-level deception. Any false pod elven pretenders who were placed in its scorching beam would be destroyed, while true elves who had not touched dark magic would not be harmed

the Sunforge was one of the only ways the elves could truly trust each other: they all had to submit to the bodyscan, just like in Among Us.

maybe the Moonshadow elves had to turn a bit KGB in this part of the story, using their stealth to sneak in and drag people out of bed in the night to take them to the Sunforge by dawn so they could be tested by Aditi

possibly Moonshadows were sent on pod hunts back in the day, to take out creepy pod people who weren’t finished growing--or who had become nothing but batteries for Aaravos’s schemes--a dark mercy either way, but very Moonshadow

but if the Sunforge was a detection device, the Wonderwall was a prevention device. A firewall, run on Moon power

Nyx said that the Wonderwall keeps out soulfangs and husks. Each of those is an unnatural creation: either too much soul or too little. Either way, the Wonderwall seems to let living things pass only if they have one soul and one body (that match, if it can detect that)

Aaravos couldn’t step in there inside another elf without getting burnt out of them

the oasis isn’t just a safe haven from the desert, it’s a safe haven from uncertainty and mistrust, the one place Moonshadows know they can trust someone to be who they seem, possibly used as a meeting spot to plan Aaravos’s capture, and maybe even execute it

Aaravos had to take Aditi out somehow - she ran the Sunforge and it was ruining his plans. The way he destroyed Khessa looked like he was burning her Sun magic out of her, and that’s super karmic not only because she was trying to kill Viren that way, but if that’s how Aditi ran the Sunforge the last time he knew her

He’s going to keep using the same tricks

the first place that Aaravos took Viren in Xadia was back to the Sunforge, to disable it. Now the Viren body he’s growing in his pod cannot be detected in the usual way, and he can go about doing whatever he wants. Except that Claudia totally resurrected OG Viren, so... Claudia actually becoming a problem for Aaravos? Hmm.

The next step should be the oasis then, since it’s specifically meant to keep out Aaravos’s puppets (a term used in the art book, and possibly meant literally as well as figuratively). He should be looking for a way to bring it down, which means more Moonshadows and Nyx

since we haven’t seen pod Viren hatch yet, I’m not sure whether Aaravos needs the original alive as a tether for his copy, or if he discards them like he did the Sun mage. Maybe he did want Claudia to resurrect Viren after all because he needs his life force to power pod VIren. Or maybe he was genuinely done with Viren because he had all the power he needed (ahaha Viren quote) to grow his own Viren, and it can live on its own now

It’s what Viren was trying to copy with a dark magic workaround

remember when the creators said in an interview about Harrow that yes, he’s dead, but that we would see him again?

maybe Viren was trying his darnedest to make that happen in S1

yes I’m back on my Dadbird bullshit okay, it’s a really fun theory, bless whoever came up with that one

here’s the new hot take: Viren did swap Pip and Harrow’s souls via the soulfang, and once he had Runaan imprisoned, he did indeed plan for the elf to “walk out of here” once he cooperated...as Harrow

in the novelization of S1, Viren used a black candle to aid in transferring Runaan into the coin, whereas the red candles are used for making smoky creatures come to life

in the show, there was a black candle in the dungeon cell on the table

That bowl of ash could be Harrow’s ashes, his DNA basically, Viren never throws anything away, too pragmatic

the second that Runaan gave up the goods on the mirror’s secrets, Viren would’ve “repaid his wise counsel” in a different way than he did for Lain and Tiadrin: by using Harrow’s ashes and the black soul-transfer candle to scoop Runaan’s soul out of his body, morph it into Harrow’s form using his DNA imprint from the ash, and then fetch Pip from the cage to put Harrow’s soul back in a body that looked exactly like his old one. Runaan’s body would’ve walked out of that cell, but it wouldn’t have looked like him anymore, and he wouldn’t have been inside it

looking at that mirror and knowing he was being watched by an elf who’d crawled inside other people and ridden them around Xadia must’ve been so freaking creepy, especially to a Moonshadow, no wonder Runaan got skeeved and called it worse than death--and he barely avoided the same fate himself, even if neither he nor Viren knew the connection

And this whole plan of hopping bodies and souls? It’s the dark magic version of what Aaravos does with his pod people, just like the coining spell is a dark magic version of how Aaravos is trapped

It’s what Aaravos is doing to others in the show already

once you realize that a character has the ability to flawlessly imitate other characters, all bets are off on who’s who

that goes for anyone else Aaravos might already be talking to in caterpillar form or possessing astrally, since he probably can’t make pods of people in Katolis due to a lack of primal magic

I started wondering if there was another poor person Aaravos was already puppeting in the background, and I found one: Saleer

in S2E1, Councilman Saleer advocates against retaliation in a council meeting and Viren isn’t pleased

what do you do with those who defy you to your face? You persuade them to join your side

in S3E1, Ezran’s banther just up and growls at Saleer, as if it can sense that something’s off about him, hmmm animal instincts

Saleer is the last to bend the knee to King Ezran

later in the same episode, Saleer reacts differently than everyone else to some surprising news, seeming to murmur about it toward his own right ear

at some point I think Wormavos bit Saleer, and he’s been puppeted by Aaravos ever since, just like the Sun mage was--except that Aaravos is keeping Saleer alive because he’s not done with him yet. This is extra scary because it means Aaravos could be controlling Viren, Saleer, and the Sun mage all at the same time, or be able to switch at will amongst them, a la Horde Prime or Ultron

Saleer orchestrates Viren’s release from the moment he hears that Rayla and Callum are taking the egg back to the Dragon Queen, but our eyes are usually on Viren so we don’t really notice that he initiates everything including working the crowd

basically every time other people are shocked, Saleer isn’t

when Viren does the Hearts of Cinder spell, Saleer moves to stand on his right to avoid getting bespelled

then back to back shots show that Aaravos replaces Saleer on Viren’s right. Even though Aaravos has 4 inches on Viren in height, he’s shown shorter than Viren

since the HoC spell takes place after the Sun mage’s possession and death, it seems Aaravos’s sudden appearance is a direct hint that Aaravos is currently possessing Saleer’s body like he did the Sun mage, and by inference has been for some time, what with all the calm collectedness and the smirking he’s been doing most of the season

Saleer survives the final battle unscathed and is arrested without anyone knowing of his connection to Aaravos or his extra connection to Viren. This raises the question: what will Saleer’s fate be in S4 and onward? Will he die mysteriously, abandoned now that he’s of no use? Will Aaravos keep using him to cause chaos in Katolis? Will anyone figure out that he is/was a puppet?

I sure hope Jonathan Holmes is having fun voicing his complicated messy evil guy with Jason Simpson! The boys deserve to have fun at work.

the fandom is contractually owed one (1) conversation between Barius and Runaan as balance now, I don’t make the rules

So, to sum up

Wormavos functions just like a worm virus, establishing itself in a host and then seeking out additional systems to infect via bite, and everyone that gets bitten becomes an at-will vessel for Aaravos to use, expanding his system exponentially

it’s impossible to tell who is under his control without extraordinarily powerful primal magic tests, which he’s disabling

he’s already spreading and no one knows he’s even there yet. Saleer might not be the only character Aaravos is operating, and we might not know who he gets a hold of in the future until it’s too late

in short, trust no one, and fix the Sunforge asap.

#tdp meta #tdp theory #aaravos is ultron #or maybe horde prime #aaravos #viren #saleer #tdp #tdp headcanons #through the moon spoilers #through the moon #book one: moon #runaan #harrow #primal magic #dark magic #hackervos #worm virus is literal #xadia

137 notes · View notes

permian-tropos · 4 years ago

Note

Daniil - Liberosis

Didn’t think this prompt word would become so poignant so soon. The subject matter wound up kind of surreal and taking whatever path I thought might be interesting but sometimes it’s nicer to let other people search for meaning in something.

IDK yeah I just wanted to publish this. Contains canon-typical misery.

Liberosis: The desire to care less about things.

It rains again, always with that damn rain, and inside of each puddle in the street is the reflection of a man with cold eyes. They’re a little bit sardonic, as if the protective cloth tied over his mouth obscures a world-weary smirk. They track movement deliberately, and never dart or flash.

When did this happen? When did his features freeze in place like this? It’s interesting. The last time Dankovsky saw his own reflection, he was burned out like a candle stub.

This is better. You’d rather see a second wind from the Capital doctor on his rounds, a man who cares less and does more, even if what he does isn’t much use to anyone. It’ll give people less reason to panic.

The plague is spreading on the wings of panic. That’s why the patrolmen show no mercy to the sick, those shambling mummies, when they stray into the streets.

Dankovsky never gave such an order. The man in the puddle wears his intentions well: But I wouldn’t countermand it.

When you think about it, the only way to fight the plague is to resist your natural human desire to seek help, or even the comforting touch of another; instead you must succumb in solitude, to save others.

The nature of epidemics really is to target the most precious aspects of our being…

“What do I do? What do I do? I’m lost…”

Dankovsky first expects that wheedling voice to come from a child, but it’s too knowing, like it’s playing a game.

Sometimes they’re called mimes, but they talk too much. They’re more amused by the circumstances than the name Tragedian suggests. Subconsciously, Dankovsky has gotten into the habit of treating them as if there is not a human under that patchwork black cloth, but paper stuffing, or an animated wire frame. They’re an oddly useless counterpart to the orderlies, and they certainly don’t answer to the Bachelor.

“One of you?” he sighs, backing up a few steps. “What do you want from me this time…? Get it over with.”

The masked man dawdling under the streetlamp tips its head slowly one way, then the other. “His Excellency thinks I spoke to him?”

“I’m the only one on the street. Unless you’re raving, in which case I have no time for lunatics.”

“How cruel. In any case… I’ve lost my mask.” The Tragedian shields its eye-holes from the rain with a hand, and looked far and wide.

“It’s right on your head,” Dankovsky grouses. “Now what’s my reward for finding it, a bag of marbles? Or wait, you’ve lost those too.”

“Oh, no, not this. This is my face. You see how blank and plain it is? It wants a character, a role to play. A mask, a mask.”

Dankovsky folds his arms. “What about playing a man who doesn’t leave his house… wherever he comes from, his burrow, his den, and doesn’t get himself into trouble?”

The Tragedian offers an apologetic shrug and spread palms. “I tried it but alas, it weren’t for me. I didn’t know my lines, and came too late…”

The Bachelor mutters, “You’ll be a dog soon – playing dead.”

“I’ve lost a mask of careless cruelty… I think it would be fun to wear a while. It grins at simple victories and doesn’t shed a tear for those less fortunate. I’d like to be the one who laughs in Hell…”

“Fine, I’ll look for something like that… I suppose.” It wasn’t the first bizarre request he’d taken, and been able to fulfill despite not understanding it at first. Whatever the Tragedian was looking for, it would turn up eventually.

Now the Tragedian was clasping its hands together, pleading. It was remarkably expressive for having, as it said, such a blank face. “But if perhaps you’d let me borrow yours…”

“That’s completely unsanitary.” What kind of idiot request was that?

“I mean the one behind the cloth, the visage that regards the world so icily…”

The Tragedian pokes an impudent, spidery finger right between the Bachelor’s eyebrows, which pinch together in great chagrin.

“I don’t know what you’re getting at… but I get the impression you’re not asking for a real object.” He slaps the finger away. “If you want to wear my face, playact all you like. Just don’t impersonate me to anyone important, or use my name for any stupid ventures. Or you’ll regret it.”

Dankovsky leaves the actor to mime out his gratitude, head fervently bowing, clasped hands pumping up and down. He’d expected to get something out of this exchange, but perhaps it’s a longer-term investment. Or it’ll be quite the farce when the thespian starts wandering around the town pretending to be him. He’s not sure what he’s given away.

Signal fires mark the start of an infected district. He tightens the cloth around his mouth and nose and rushes in. There’s one house in particular he has to visit, so he very much intends to keep his head down all the way there.

His ears are assaulted by wails of the dying, carried far even by stagnant windless air.

At first he doesn’t understand why his skin is prickling. Senseless paranoia.

I gave away my mask…

It doesn’t mean anything!

But something’s changed in him for sure.

Even though it’s illogical, he’s shivering like ice has been poured down his shirt.

His eyes catch movement and he jolts away at first, because he’s learned to flee whenever a human shape stumbles across his path in districts like these. One filthy touch from any of these walking corpses could pass on the infection.

“Don’t,” he whispers. “Don’t come near me…”

“Help us…” the mummy gabbles. It’s sobbing under the linen wraps, but those cries might be of relief as well as pain. “Please, please, you’ve got to help us… I’ve been looking all over for a doctor… You’ve got pills, haven’t you? Kind sir… spare us something… even just a sleeping draught…”

Dankovsky should be fleeing, and he’s frozen instead. He should do the compassionate thing and put a bullet through this faceless cloth-wrapped head, and he cannot. He has the unsettling thought he would rather turn the gun on himself.

The supplicant takes his inaction as permission. Its hand has seized him and is crawling up his forearm, creeping as surely as a mold on a wall.

“There must be something…” the infected one pleads. “If only to… I just wanted to… oh, but it’s so… my head’s spinning… I can hardly hear myself, can you hear me? Am I speaking? Are you there?”

More dying souls are shambling out of the alleys and either they can smell healthy skin like sharks smell blood or they’re spotting him through the gauze over their eyes and immediately recognizing him. Two have emerged from behind one building… a third and fourth from a park…

The dead come to drag him down into the earth. Rain pours down his cheeks.

“Hey!”

There’s someone behind him, shouting, but he doesn’t realize it’s directed at him until—

“What do you think you’re doing, dummy? Dummy Dankovsky!”

“Hah?” He’s unstuck when that strident childish voice pierces his ears through the white noise.

In comes charging none other than the wandering saint girl, shoes pattering and splashing through the sodden pavement. She spreads her palms out like she’s pushing out a great wave of force from them, some kind of heavenly wind, and even though no immediate magic goes off with a theatrical bang and puff of smoke, the sickened townsperson withdraws.

Clara catches Dankovsky’s arm. Her grip is mighty steel.

“You didn’t think you could heal them with your touch, did you?” Her tone is either mocking or heartachingly sincere. She’s too peculiar to ever be one thing or another, so maybe it’s both. “Don’t… don’t get those funny ideas into your head, okay? You’ll make people worry about you…”

Of course he finds her words ironic, but not surprising. It’s the usual way that young people parrot the things they’ve been told by others, as a way of expressing concern.

Especially ironic now that she’s extending her free hand towards the bandaged wretch, with a strained but beatific smile, flashing white teeth. Her fingers unfurl, flexing, preparing for an incredible sleight-of-hand.

“Don’t be scared,” coaxes the Changeling. “I’ll take care of you!”

“Careful—!” the Bachelor croaks, voice stolen by panic. But he still waits with bated breath, wondering if he’s about to witness a miracle.

But as soon as Clara’s palm brushes the gauze-wrapped fingertips, the infected person’s hands turn to claws. They gasp and clutch their chest, rocking on their heels, head bobbing.

It’s almost as if they’re trying to express a profound devotion and love that cannot fit inside them. Then they exhale without a word, collapsing in a heap, like a thread over their head has been snipped.

Clara’s smile shrinks by millimeters. Water droplets slide off it, dropping from the corners of her lips.

“Why…?” Her query is a quiet chime, a small tolling bell.

“Leave it, leave it. It was a myocardial infarction,” Dankovsky mutters. “Plainly, a heart attack. It’s usual for them to die like this in the end… Perhaps they were startled by us… Overwhelmed by a moment of hope.”

“I thought I was the one who healed…” the girl says, eyes fogged with confusion. “I mixed it up… Even we can’t tell us apart anymore…?”

Damn this… The girl’s delusions are only going to worsen now. Whoever’s been letting her roam about without supervision needs to rethink their priorities. She used to irritate Dankovsky with her proud preaching, and he was afraid she’d be able to stir the town’s population into a fervor. They come out of their homes in search of her sometimes.

Still, it’s possible she’s been witnessing frightening things for days — or longer? who knows where she came from or what she’s suffered to be without a family now — and has convinced herself she must have a purpose. Whose mind doesn’t falter like that in the face of an insane world?

The Bachelor doesn’t think he’s nearly as paternal as his rough-and-tumble counterpart, the favorite of the orphan underclass, Burakh. But Burakh’s not here right now.

Dankovsky slings a strict enclosing arm around Clara’s shoulders.

“You didn’t do it, Clara…” he commands her to believe, as his heart keeps minutely panging in that new way that he’s not accustomed to. “Don’t think about it. Pull that ratty scarf over your mouth and nose and keep moving.”

She’s stumbling after him, reluctantly keeping apace. “But can’t you see I’m not her…?”

“Whoever you are, I don’t care,” Dankovsky mutters. He stares only ahead, at the distant waterlogged signal pyre marking the invisible border between poison and safety.

#my fics #pathologic #daniil dankovsky #clara saburova #tragedian (pathologic)

27 notes · View notes

1rintooru · 4 years ago

Text

Haikyuu!! as their Zodiac Signs

Starring Oikawa Tooru as cancer

Soo there are a couple of fundamental traits associated with cancer’s: They are loyal, protective, intuitive and caring. On the flipside they can be overly sensitive, moody and prone to be vindictive. I’ll start with the good and see where and how they apply best to him.

Positive Traits:

Loyal:

I can totes see Oikawa as being a loyal person and this reflects itself in a couple of areas in his life. Firstly, his long-term friendship with his childhood best friend Iwaizumi. The two seem to have very different approaches to life, people and how they confront problems. Despite their differences, they balance each other out and take their friendship seriously. Iwaizumi is probably one of the very few people he’s authentic with since Iwaizumi can clearly tell when he’s being genuine or not. He’s also incredibly loyal to volleyball who would have thought and even though he may have had his doubts when he felt burnt out, he’d always end up returning back to the sport. He is so loyal and one-track minded when it comes to volleyball that it apparently got in the way of his previous relationship, so it’s clear that it’s a priority. Cancers are known for being extremely loyal partners and even may stay in relationships that are unhealthy because of this. I have a hard time imagining Oikawa as this playboy because he’s very much an all-or-nothing kinda guy.

Protective:

Hmmm I didn’t really see Oikawa as protective at first. But I do think he’s quite family-orientated since he coaches his nephew (along with other children) and is seen to spend time with him. But this dude is so protective of his pride like get a grip. Even though shiratorizawa was the better option, he refused to go because of his “worthless pride”. This guy holds onto certain beliefs and ideologies that really do more harm to him than good and they can show themselves in really toxic ways- like him overworking himself or almost beating kageyama up like chill tf out

Intuitive:

All waters signs are innately intuitive and cancers are no exception and I think Oikawa exemplifies that well. Oikawa is excellent at reading his teammates as well as his opponents. He can manipulate opposing teams by spotting their weaknesses but also has the ability of bringing his team together and bringing out the best of his teammates. His intuition gives him a lot of social grace as well (even if he acts like a child a lot of the time). He really does have the gift of gab and can probs sweet talk his way out of anything- he knows what social mask to wear for which occasion. Even Iwaizumi has said that he’s only seen Oikawa smile genuinely once. That’s not to say that this bish is fake, but he is highly adaptable und will tailor his actions based around those around him- he’s a social chameleon and there’s only few exceptions where he’s truly himself.

Caring:

He cares a lot about a lot of things. It probably seems like all he thinks about 24/7 is volleyball which is partly true, but he does care about others a lot as well. Again, his friendship with Iwaizumi showcases this really well, but also his connection to his family and his nephew in particular. He can be savage classy, bougie, ratchet on the volleyball court, but outside of it he actually seems really polite?? Like he takes time out of his day to interact with his fangirls even though they probably can be overbearing at times or even get in the way of getting to and from practice- yet he still takes photos for them and is appreciative when they offer him bentos?? And unlike Kageyama, Oikawa truly is a teamplayer and brings out the 100% of his team- even when they lose, he is never resentful or regretful. I’ve also felt that his teammates are not just his teammates because he seems pretty close with all of them and they all have banter back and forth. Oikawa is truly great at making sure these bonds and interactions are harmonious. To bring out their strengths but also bc I think Oikawa would be sensitive to conflict.

Negative traits:

Overly-sensitive:

Yeah, for sure. He tends to take things personally, even impersonal criticism or objective advice. He’s the type of guy who probably remembers something innocuous you said only to bring it up again months later. He was also really bent out of shape when kiyoko ignored him it’s not that deep dude. Cancers are not really the aggressive type, so I doubt you’ll get into an explosive fight (it can happen ofc, but they’ll probably think abt hurting you than actually doing anything) but they are so effing petty! They will resort to childish antics, petty remarks and are prone to being passive aggressive. These are all qualities that we have seen Oikawa exhibit, so I’m not even going to elaborate more.

Moody:

I think this fits him well. He does manage to put on a good social mask and depending on the situation, he can maneuver his way through life with his charm and social skills. However, he isn’t like ushijima, akaashi or suna who tend to not let outward factors affect their emotions. He’s a very reactive person and feels deeply to what is happening around him. A lot of cancers (esp in my experience) have the tendency to go MIA and retreat into their shells. I haven’t seen Oikawa do this as frequently, I think. For him, home is where the heart is and his heart is with volleyball. He doesn’t really brood or fall into a cycle of self-pity- he’s just too ambitious for that. Instead, he’ll throw himself into the sport to improve and he does this obsessively to the point of injuring himself. He doesn’t want to see himself as a victim and he certainly doesn’t want others to view him that way either. He’ll only open up to those he truly trusts and even then, it’s usually through passive aggressive insults, bitter remarks and barely hidden insecurity.

Vindictive:

Cancers are not vengeful in the way that scorpios are, but they can hold onto a grudge for years and become extremely resentful. This is esp the case if a cancers insecurity is “attacked”. (I use that term loosely btw). Oikawa hated kageyama from the beginning bc he “hated geniuses” and refused to teach or help him- this is oikawa’s inferiority shining through. He didn’t want to give kageyama, who is already gifted with raw talent any more advantage over him. Yeah, oikawa is extremely talented and skilled but he probably thinks that those with the natural gift for volleyball will always be a step ahead since they’ll learn new techniques and get better as they improve. Rationally speaking, oikawa and kageyama would learn a lot from each other, but oikawa is vindictive and won’t help someone he sees as an enemy. At least not without throwing some petty jabs. It also would have made more sense for him to go to shiratorizawa if he was concerned with being the best of the best, however it was personal for him. He has a longstanding rivalry with ushijima and it wouldn’t have made much sense for oikawa to join because it’s personal for him. He wouldn’t just throw away his personal beliefs and ignore his vendetta just because logically it would make more sense for him to do so. He’s very much a heart over head kind of guy so a lot of how he acts and responds are going to align with his own value system.

#this took way longer than i thought #i feel like i could talk abt him forever and just his personality like #theres so much to this pettyboy #haikyuu!!#oikawa tooru #oikawa x reader #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu headcanons #hq!! x zodiac #selfmade

29 notes · View notes

appalachianwiine · 4 years ago

Text

Swim - Chapter 7 - You’re Not Alone

I wanna roll up,

I'm gonna roll up my sleeves.

I'm gonna fight for you,

I'm gonna fight till I bleed.

So, listen to me now.

“You’re Not Alone” by Marie Miller

True to Dr. Rhee’s word, Lydia’s nausea starts that evening and even with zofran she’s up most of the night throwing up and dry heaving. The short clusters she does sleep are spent pressed against Daryl, his shirt tightly fisted in her hand almost in a panic that he might disappear. Daryl doesn’t manage any sleep himself aside from the occasional dose.

By the time daylight seeps back into the room, dripping through the blinds and over the bed clothes, Daryl is exhausted. His back is killing him from holding Lydia propped up all night long, and the idea of coffee is very much appealing. However this morning Lydia is resistant to the idea of breakfast. Her stomach still feels bad, she complains and she wants him to stay with her. Finally after firmly telling her he hadn’t slept last night and needed to get some coffee, but that he’d be back in ten minutes, she relents. She climbs off his lap into the other half of the bed and nestles up with the pillows, falling asleep again in minutes.

At the elevator, he finds Ezekiel stepping in, this time pushing a wheelchair. The boy inside it is a ghostly shell of the one who two days ago had been giggling with his daughter. Henry’s almost translucent now, and his eyes look dully ahead. Ezekiel doesn’t look much better, his ashen face betraying the exhaustion of the last couple of days. Evidently he hadn't been sleeping either.

“Cafeteria?” Daryl asks, pressing the button for the floor.

“Radiology.” Ezekiel mutters, reaching past him and pressing the button for the floor before the cafeteria.

“Everything okay?” Daryl asks, the answer is a heavy ‘no’ that hangs in the air between them but what is he supposed to do? Pretend they’re not there.

“I can’t poop.” Henry’s tiny voice speaks up from the wheelchair.

“Yes, some, tummy trouble.” Ezekiel mutters. “They’re doing a dye with contrast to make sure there’s no blockage.”

“Oh.” Daryl frowns. “Sorry kiddo.”

“Yeah.” Henry mutters.

“How’d Lydia handle her first chemo?” Ezekiel asks.

“She uh - she was up most of the night bein’ sick.” Daryl sighs. “Don’ wanna eat this mornin’ but I think I’m gonna pick somethin’ up fer her anyway.”

“Try the waffles.” Henry mumbles. “No butter or syrup.”

“Really?” Daryl frowns.

“Henry has an easier time keeping them down then other things.” Ezekiel nods.

“Thanks kid.” Daryl offers a smile.

“Yeah.” Henry nods. The elevator doors open to the radiology floor and Ezekiel pushes the wheelchair out. “Tell Lydia i say hi.”

“I will kid. Good luck.” Daryl nods, watching the doors slide closed again and cut off his view of Henry and Ezekiel.

Lydia does manage to keep a few bites of waffle down, but whether that’s some magical waffle power or the medication finally kicking in he isn’t sure. Either way she spends most of the day napping and watching TV. Part of him is thankful for that, it lets him have some much needed sleep too, but another part is acutely aware of how out of character this is. In 24 hours from her first dose of chemo she’s gone from a rough and tumble kid to one who wants to sleep all the time.

After a few hours awake in the afternoon, Lydia falls asleep after dinner - which was another few bites of waffle from the cafeteria - Daryl’s considering sleeping himself when there’s a light knock on the door. He jumps up to answer it, not wanting Lydia woken.

Carol.

Shit, the support group.

“Oh shit.” He mutters.

“I figured you either weren’t planning on coming or you forgot.” Carol says, holding out a coffee cup. “I’m not taking either for an answer.”

“I - Lydia just fell asleep.” Daryl says, taking the coffee. “She’s had a rough night I can’t - I can’t just leave her.”

“It’s an hour.” Carol says. “Trust me Daryl I know how hard this is, I went through it too, but you need this, for Lydia as much as for you.”

“Who’s going to sit with Lyd?” He asks.

“The nurses can keep an eye on her.” Carol says. “I’ve already talked to Sasha about it, she’ll check in every ten minutes.”

“I don’t -“

“And I left her your cell number she’ll call if Lydia wakes up and then you can leave.” Carol insists. “Just try one meeting, we’re not all bad.”

“Right.” Daryl sighs, looking back at his sleeping daughter. She was out pretty good, and if her last few naps were any indication she’d remain asleep for a couple of hours. “Alrigh’, but she wakes up an’ I’m comin’ back.”

“Good.” Carol smiles. “Come on, the chapel’s this way.”

“Chapel?” Daryl frowns. “‘S this a religious thing?”

“Not really.” Carol says. “But the chapel is the best place for it, it’s a little more homey then the conference rooms and not as impersonal as some of the lecture halls.”

“What about that room?” Daryl points to the one he’d signed the forms in. “It’s pretty homey.”

Carol’s blue eyes dart to the door and then quickly away, she swallows hard. “Some of us… have bad memories with rooms like that.”

“Wh-what d’ ya mean?” Daryl asks, suddenly uneasy, as they pass the door to the small suddenly ominous room, and stand in front of the elevators.

Carol doesn't’ answer until the elevator doors slide open and she steps inside, pressing the button for the third floor. “That room… that room is usually used to deliver bad news. It’s - it’s the room where some of us learned our kids weren’t going to make it.” Evidently the horror is clear on his face because she offers a weak smile. “Sorry. I know they - they use it for other stuff too but that memory is… it prevails.”

“Sorry.” Daryl says finally.

“It’s fine.” Carol assures. “You didn’t know. But yes, the chapel is easiest, it fits us all pretty nicely too.”

“‘s Ezekiel gonna be there?” Daryl asks.

“No.” Carol shakes her head. “Henry isn’t… he’s had a rough day.”

“Blockage?” Daryl asks.

“Well No.” Carol frowns. “Just constipation I think, but they’re having trouble figuring out why. He’s on some medication to resolve it but it’s hard on him.”

“Oh.” Daryl says. “I uh - I saw him this morning, with Ezekiel. In the elevator.”

“Yea he Zeke mentioned it.” Carol nods. “Henry wants an update on Lydia later.”

“Yeah he asked about her.” Daryl nods.

“He’s a good kid.” Carol smiles a little. “He thinks of everyone else first, even in a place like this.”

“He’ll be alright?” Daryl asks, stepping out of the elevator after her.

“Maybe.” Carol sighs. He’s doing okay now, but there’s really no telling. There never is.”

“Oh.” Daryl sighs.

“Just in here.” Carol pulls open a door and Daryl steps inside.

There’s a circle of about a dozen chairs, occupied by a variety of different people, a girl who can’t be older than 20, a man in his 70s, a man in a priest's collar, a couple holding hands, and one rather ragged looking woman, with short choppy hair.

“Not a bad turn out.” Carol smiles, taking a seat and motioning Daryl into the one next to her. Daryl sits down, looking around at the others. “So we have a new parent joining us today. Daryl why don’t you uh introduce yourself.”

The last thing he wanted was to be put on the spot right now, but now everyone was staring at him, he shifted uncomfortably, taking a swig of the coffee before answering.

“I uh - well ‘m Daryl.” He mutters. “My uh - my daughter was diagnosed with Leukemia 3 days ago. We uh - we don’t know what kind yet but uh, it’s just the two of us. Her mom - well she’s adopted. Her mom’s not in the picture, never will be and uh - it’s hard to believe that four days ago the word leukemia wasn’t even one i thought about.”

“It’s always like that.” One of the men says, his long hair tied up in a bun and a short beard covering his chin. He holds the hand of the man next to him, his husband Daryl thinks, a man with sorter hair and a thicker bearded. “The day before our Gracie was diagnosed… well there’s a saying here. “The day before my child was diagnosed i wasn’t a cancer parent either”. I’m Paul, this is my husband Aaron.”

“Yeah.” Daryl nods. “That’s - that’s what it feels like. Almost like -“

“Like having a newborn.” The man next to him, Aaron, says. “You’re handed all this responsibility and someone who relies on you for absolutely everything and - and you have no idea what you’re doing.”

“I guess.” Daryl shrugs. “But uh- Lydia was four when I adopted her. So I guess I don’t know about that. But she’s been through some stuff before, and this just feels… unfair.”

“It is.” The old man says. “And that’s something that hasn’t changed in 50 years. I’m Dale, my wife and I - we lost our daughter to leukemia in 1970. The survival prospects were a lot worse then but - but it’s never been fair.”

“Never will be.” Carol says, Daryl feels her reach over and take his hand, she gives it a squeeze, a gesture he’s not accustomed to but finds comforting.

“So you’re all - all cancer parents?” Daryl swallows, looking around.

“With the exception of Father Gabriel, and Enid.” Carol motions to the priest and the twenty something girl. “Enid is a cancer survivor.”

“Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma.” Enid says. “I was 10 when I was diagnosed. I’ve been cancer free for 9 years and considered cured for 4. But the long term side effects are still there.”

“But - but you’re doin’ alright?” Daryl asks, trying not to let hope seep in. “You’re okay?”

“As okay as I can be.” Enid shrugs. “I’m in my junior year of college, premed.”

“So your daughter, has she started the chemo yet?” Dale asks.

“Yeah um yesterday, she’s having a day off today but we’ll get more tomorrow.” Daryl pushes his hair out of his eyes. “We should get her biopsy results back then too, so we’ll uh - we’ll have some answers.”

“Good.” Aaron nods. “A treatment plan helps a little - at least it did with us, made us feel like we had some control. It opens up options for clinical trials too - if that’s something you want to do.”

“Clinical trials, like - test medicine yeah?” Daryl asks.

“Yeah,” Aaron says. “Ezekiel and Henry are here for one. I think Leah’s son is in one and Lucille your son was yeah?”

“Yeah.” The woman with short choppy hair nods. “He was but - well the outcome wasn’t good.”

“Is he uh…” Daryl isn’t sure how to finish the sentence and looks to Carol for help, but her blue eyes are focused on the woman.

“Dead?” The woman says. “Yeah. Six months tomorrow. He uh - he had brain cancer. Was terminal from diagnosis. Good kid. Only seven.”

“I’m -”

“Don’t say you’re sorry.” she snaps. “Just hope like hell your kid doesn’t have to go through the same thing.” She crosses her thin arms and leans back in her chair. Daryl looks around the room, no one is saying anything, instead a few people glance at Carol.

“Lucille,” Carol says gently. “Anniversaries can be hard. Is there anything you want to talk about?”

“No.” Lucielle mutters. “Sorry I just - the last few days have been really hard. I uh - I’m trying to sell the house - I just can’t live there anymore and everyone who comes in asks.”

“Ah.” Carol says, reaching across the row and giving Lucille’s hand a squeeze. “That’s not easy. It isn’t going to get easier either, I still have a hard time talking about Sophia.”

“It’s never going to get easier.” Lucille nods. “But uh - I hope taking the dogs and getting out of the city will help. I’ve got a property up north, I’m using the divorce settlement for that and since he gave me the house I’m planning on using the money from that to build.” She reaches up to dab at her eyes with her sleeves. “I uh I’m sorry Daryl I- I”

“‘S fine.” Daryl says quickly. ‘I uh - I can’t imagine what it's like losing’ a kid an’ havin’ a divorce.”

“I hope you never have to know.” Lucille picks at her nails. “It’s not something i’d wish on anyone.”

“You uh - you mentioned a clinical trial?” Daryl says carefully. “What uh - what was that like? The process.”

“We pretty much had to go to a clinical trial.” Lucille wipes her eyes and takes a tissue from Carol. “His brain cancer was aggressive from the start and uh - it has a 0% survival rate over five years. At diagnosis we were told he was terminal, and we ended up going to Germany for a clinical trial. Instead of the 9 months survival we got about 18 months, but um, one thing we found was that our insurance would not cover the clinical trial because it was out of the country. We were lucky though um, we had a really good church and they fundraised for the trial.”

Daryl’s stomach twists further. He hadn’t thought about the costs of clinical trials - or being declared terminal at diagnosis. Lydia couldn’t be that, he refused to believe that was even an option for her. He also hadn’t ever considered a clinical trial, would she need one? She couldn’t be one of those kids could she? The ones so sick that their only hope for survival was an experimental treatment?

“Not all clinical trial is like that.” Carol says quickly. “Henry’s clinical trial is covered by insurance, and I think Matthew’s is.”

“Matthew?” He says.

“Leah’s nephew.” Carol says. “She’s not here today, spiritual commitment. But he’s in the same trial as Henry. A little further along though. He just finished his second stem cell transplant.”

“Oh.” Daryl says. “Is uh he one of Henry’s friends too?”

“Um kind of.” Carol says.

“He’s not really anyone's friend.” Paul says. “Leah keeps him… pretty isolated. They’re a little… weird to be honest.”

“Paul,” Aaron says harshly. “Who are we to judge with how she’s handling her kid’s cancer.”

“I wouldn’t judge if that sister of hers wasn’t being drug out of here high or drunk half the time he’s admitted. It’s disruptive and dangerous.” Paul snaps back.

“They let that happen?” Daryl frowns.

“Technically it’s her supervised visitation.” Paul says. “But it happens so often it’s a wonder she’s still allowed any.”

“Parental rights aren’t that easy to terminate.” Daryl says. “Especially fer moms. Jus’ cut ‘er some slack. ‘S a hard enough situation t’ be in with a healthy kid.”

“Grace requires nothing.” The man in the priest's collar says.

“That isn’t always true father.” Paul says. “Sometimes grace requires a hell of a lot.”

“Leah is doing her best.” Carol insists. “We all are, it’s all we can do, and we need to support each other. You know as well as I do that no one outside this room can possibly understand that.”

“She’s right babe.” Aaron says, reaching for his husband’s hand. “No one else knows what this is like. Hell or highwater remember?”

“Hell or highwater.” Paul mutters.

“Well.” Carol says, glancing at her watch. “I think that’s about all we have time for today. Unless anyone has anything they would like addressed?” When no one spoke up Carol stood. “Thank you father for allowing us to use your chapel. Is the same time next week still okay?”

“Of course.” the pastor nods.

“It was nice meeting you Daryl.” Aaron extends a hand as Daryl stands up. Daryl glances at it a moment before taking it.

“Uh yeah…” He mutters.

“We know how this can be.” Aaron says. “Our daughter is eight and a half. How old is your Lydia?”

“She uh, just turned eight last month.” Daryl swallows.

“We’ll have to get them together sometime.” Aaron smiles.

“Yeah.” He nods. “Lydia’d like that.”

“We should go.” Paul says, touching Aaron's arm gently.

“Alright,” Aaron nods. “It was nice to meet you Daryl, I wish the circumstances were better.”

Daryl is glad the man follows his husband out of the chapel then and he doesn’t have to answer. Not only was everyone in this room a cancer parents, but this wasn’t even all of them. There was at least one outstanding single parent he hadn’t met yet, and all of them had been where he was.

“What did you think?” Carol asks, tucking her hands in her back pockets as she approaches him.

“I uh - I don’ know.” He says. “‘F its fer me. Kinda… depressin’...”

“Nature of the job,” she offers a weak smile. “Let me get you a coffee before you go back to Lydia?”

“Uh -” he glanced at his phone. No missed calls, no texts. Lydia must still be asleep, and he can practically hear Lori’s voice encouraging him to go. “Yeah sure I guess. Just take out though I want to get back.”

“Of course.” Carol says. “There’s a coffee shop right across the hall.”

“So there’s uh - there’s still someone i haven’t met?” Daryl asks as they cross over to the small coffee shop.

“Uh-huh.” Carol says. “Well a couple of people technically but most of the others don’t come regularly.”

“Other single parents?” Daryl asks.

“No.” Carol shakes her head. “Just Leah.”

“Is she really that weird?” He asks, taking the black coffee Carol holds out to him.

“Um.” Carol says. “She’s trying really hard for that kid, but some of the stuff… is a little odd I guess.”

“What like - like oils and shit?”

“Yeah mostly.” Carol nods. “But I try not to judge anyone for what they do with their kids during treatment. Even if they don’t work the placebo effect is strong. I remember when Sophia was sick she was convinced Vick’s vapo rub was the cure to her nausea so you bet that whole room smelled like Vick’s most of the time.”

Daryl chuckles. “Sounds like my childhood.”

“You were a vicks vapo rub fan?” Carol smiles, a sparkle coming to her eyes.

“Oh Vick’s Vapo rub and Campbell’s Chicken Noodle are redneck healthcare.” Daryl grins. “I survived on that shit when i had the flu.”

Carol laughs, a bright pretty sound, that makes even this place seem a little less dark.

“What?” He teases. “Not all of us had parents who took us to the doctor.”

“No no,” Carol says through the laughter. “It’s just - I was the same way as a kid. Vicks fixed everything.”

“Damn straight.” Daryl grins. “Still does. Keep a jar in the cabinet just in case.”

“Useful stuff.” Carol smiles.

“I should uh - I should get back to Lydia.” Daryl says, glancing at the wall clock. “She’ll be up soon.”

“Yeah.” Carol nods. “You get results tomorrow yeah?”

“Should be tomorrow or the day after.” Daryl nods.

“Give me a call?” She asks. “Please - I can come sit with Lydia if you need me to.”

“I uh - i might take you up on that.” Daryl says. “We’ll have t’ get some more clothes an’ stuff at some point.” HE swallows. “You uh - you mind if I - if I call you with the results?”

“Of course not.” Carol says. “I can answer just about any time.”

“Thanks.”

“Of course.” She reaches out and gives his arm a warm squeeze, the sensation lingering on him as he made his way back up to Lydia’s room.

#twd fanfic #the walking dead fan fiction #carol peletier #daryl dixon #lydia twd #paul 'jesus' rovia #aaron twd #dale twd #enid twd #father gabriel #father gabriel twd #caryl #caryl fanfiction #fic; swim

7 notes · View notes

exhaustedfander · 4 years ago

Note

For one shot requests, could you do some touch starved Moceit fluff with romantic confessions? 🥺👉👈

Some touch starved moceit with a side of love confessions coming right up! (Also ignore the fact that I accidently posted the HTML of this first, oops)

Word Count: 2,782

Summary: Janus is severely touch-starved and yearning for Patton, yet every time they so much as brush against each other he's near a point of panic.

a03 link

'Cause Every Time We Touch, I Get This Feeling

Janus doesn’t have a problem. To say as much would be incredibly dramatic, and he is most certainly never one to give into drama. Janus isn’t struggling with anything, he’s merely… frustrated.

This whole not problem is something he doesn’t entirely know the cause of. It isn’t as though Janus hasn’t had the opportunity to partake in touch before. Having lived with Remus for years, it was not uncommon for him to be touched frequently. But more often than not, slimily tentacles sliding around his neck or Remus’s long, unkempt nails on his arm were not sensations he sought out. Even when Virgil had still been in their ranks, he hadn’t been the most touchy-feely person, so Janus wasn’t too terribly used to it.

And that’s fine! Totally, and completely fine! Janus doesn’t need anyone to touch him, he’s perfectly fine with being alone for the rest of his existence.

Except… there’s been a change of arrangements, lately. Janus hadn’t had the highest hopes going into his attempt at acceptance, and yet, somehow, he’d managed to secure a spot at the table. This hadn’t been without consequence, considering how bruised Roman’s ego had been for some time and Virgil’s continued distaste for him as well as Logan’s unspoken anger for being impersonated twice now. Sure, things were getting better with them, but that didn’t distract from the fact that Thomas is listening to him! After years of being repressed, ages of being pushed to the wayside, and seen as the villain, Janus’s opinions are being taken into account! He should be ecstatic, over the moon, jumping for joy!

He isn’t. Not with this… minimal distraction that’s been taking up the whole of his attention lately. This distraction wears round glasses and a cardigan around his shoulders. This distraction fashions friendship bracelets and has a laugh bright, and clear and a sound Janus never recalled adoring so much. This distraction is very touchy-feely person and that is proving to be quite the difficulty.

To say that Patton and Janus haven’t been on good terms in the past would be quite the understatement. As far as Janus was concerned up until very recently, he and Patton were enemies, both with a common goal of Thomas’s well-being while simultaneously working against one another. Patton’s vendetta against lying was something that, understandably, got in Janus’s way. For years, he’d considered his opposition to Patton obligation, as well as something set in stone. Patton was a nuisance in the way of his goals, and in an extension, Thomas’s goal, therefore a friendly relationship with him was simply an impossibility.

An apology from Thomas was one thing, reluctant acceptance from Virgil, Roman, and Logan was another, but what Patton had offered him – well, that just went against everything Janus thought he knew about Patton.

Janus isn't expecting Patton to apologize for all that he’d put him through, he doesn't think that Patton would feel the need to say how sincerely sorry he is for seeing him as nothing more than a dirty rotten liar. And he certainly isn’t expecting it when Patton begins to shed a tear when their alone and he’s apologizing, choking up and expressing how terrible he feels for how he’s acted.

Patton is morality, a being of goodness, of pure-hearted intentions and softness, but he is not without flaws. That’s what he’s expected himself to be, Janus realizes in that moment of tear-filled confessions and near groveling for forgiveness, all this time Patton has thought that him making a mistake of any kind is an error most foul. And despite everything that he thinks he might say, Janus expresses that it’s okay, that he understands what Patton’s been trying to do, that they’ll be able to find a middle-ground. He tells him that no one else is putting those expectations on him, that it’s far too heavy of a burden to carry.

Janus has never thought he’d be in such an intimate, strange position with Patton, and yet here he is. The issue fully rears its head when Patton throws his arms around him and Janus forgets how to breathe. It’s definitely not a problem, that would be ridiculous, it merely takes Janus aback. Very aback, to a point where he nearly dissolves into a puddle in Patton’s arms before he jerks away, leaving the room without much of an explanation.

This isn’t a problem. Why in the world would something as simple as a hug be a problem? It isn’t, Janus decides, and he strives to cast the interaction out of his mind. Unfortunately, he’s not been doing a very good job of it.

The embrace took Janus by surprise, that’s all. It’s been quite a long time since he’s had a proper hug and he’s just having a little trouble processing, nothing to worry about. At least that’s what he keeps telling himself.

He doesn’t get it; why did Patton’s arms around him feel so good? So insanely, overwhelmingly good? Why did the embrace punch the air out of his lungs? For so long, Janus considered his and Patton’s relationship one of opposition and opposition alone… but now… now he doesn’t know.

Okay… fine, maybe this is a little bit of a problem. Even so, surely, it’s a problem he’ll be able to manage. How much strife could such a kind, seemingly harmless person like Patton cause?

As it turns out, quite a bit. Patton isn’t harmless, not at all. He can do so much damage with the slightest graze of fingers, can topple empires as they brush against each other in the hall, can set a fire in Janus’s soul with even the simplest forms of affection. Janus doesn’t know how he’s doing it, but every time Patton so much as touches him, he loses himself a little bit more.

Maybe it’s been longer than Janus realizes since he’s had a decent hug, maybe it’s the fact that Patton gives affection so freely, so openly. Maybe it’s both of those things, but it’s tearing him up inside like so few things can. Janus looked at Patton with disdain but now he can’t help but be filled with so much warmth every time he’s near, let alone when he’s touching him.

Even after their reconciliation, Janus hadn’t been expecting everything to change between them, but now it is, and he’s lost in an abyss of feelings and sensations he doesn’t know how to make sense of. Every time Patton shoots him a dazzling smile Janus is half-convinced, he’ll be blinded, and when a hand finds its way to his shoulder, he has to excuse himself and leave the room.

Surely, Patton knows something’s the matter. He’d be a fool not to realize the way that Janus has been keeping his distance, wary and afraid. Janus has always taken good care of himself; being an ambassador of self-care, it would be strange if he didn't. But lately, he’s been holding himself up in his room, hiding from the others, fearing what they might think if they realized how undone he becomes every time Patton is near. Perhaps the already see it, the glint of fear in his eyes, the tremor to his movements if Patton edges too close. And even though he hasn’t said anything, he’s noticed Patton keeping his distance, too, in the rare moments that they’re in the same room. He’s hesitating, and Janus doesn’t know how to tell him that isn’t what he wants, either.

But what does he want?

Janus’s jumbled thoughts are interrupted by a knock at his door. Well, shit.

“Janus? Kiddo?” Janus flinches at the sound of the voice. “Are you okay? You didn’t come down for dinner.”

“I’m fine,” Janus lies, exceptionally poorly for the supposed “Lord of the lies”, “I’ll get something to eat later.”

There’s a pause on the other side of the door and for a moment, Janus wonders if he’s left him before Patton speaks up again, concern etched into his tone.

“I brought you a plate,” he says, “Could I come inside and bring it to you?” Janus’s instinct is to respond with a stern “no,” but doing so is liable to make things all the worse. Worrying his bottom lip, Janus lets out a sigh.

“Sure.” The doorknob turns slowly, revealing a rather anxious looking Patton holding a plate of pasta.

“Thank you, Patton,” Janus says as graciously as he can manage as the food is handed to him, “This wasn’t thoughtful of you at all.” Janus knows that such a simple lie might’ve given Patton the wrong impression not long ago, and yet here he is, smiling understandingly and so damn kind.

“Would you mind if I sit with you for a while?” Patton asks, trying and failing to hide the hesitation in his voice. It makes sense; Janus has been so distant lately, and after Patton’s been offering his friendship so carefully, too.

That’s part of the problem, Janus thinks to himself, realization finally sinking in. Patton had never thought friendship with the light side would be possible, but now he wants more than that. More than he ever thought he could desire, especially from the likes of morality. He wants far more than he’ll be given.

Patton’s asked to sit with him, and once again, Janus wants to tell him to leave, but he just can’t bear it. Not with those wide, worried eyes. He can’t wallow in self-pity, not when Patton’s been doing everything he can to be welcoming and warm.

“No,” Janus says, hoping foolishly that he doesn’t sound as much of a mess as he feels, “I suppose not.”

Patton looks relieved at the response and sits beside Janus on the bed. The silence that blankets them hangs thick and uncomfortable. Janus eats his food, knowing Patton’s eyes continue to land on him before settling back on the wall. When he’s finished, he sets the plate aside and thanks Patton again for being so thoughtful.

He thinks, perhaps, that will be the extent of the interaction. Patton was worried that he hadn’t eaten a decent meal and made sure he did so, that’s all. But he lingers, still sitting beside him, eyes darting around, and Janus’s heart is suffering terrible abuse in his presence.

“Jan –,” he begins, reaching a tentative hand out and settling it on Janus’s shoulder. Janus flinches as though Patton’s caress burns, the most violent of his reactions thus far. Patton retracts his hand quickly, wringing his hands as he scoots further away, giving Janus a good deal of distance.

“I’m sorry,” Patton says, softly and apologetically, “I shouldn’t of… I mean, I know you don’t like it when I touch you. I’m sorry… I just wasn’t thinking.” Janus squeezes his eyes shut, warmth blooming where Patton’s fingers grazed his shoulder. It’s too much to handle, too intense, too good.

“I… I do like it,” Janus rasps out, despite his better judgment. His eyes aren’t open to see the look of surprise that spreads across Patton’s face.

“What? But… you’ve been so distant lately. I get it…” Patton laughs, but there’s no humor to the sound, “We haven’t always been on the best of terms. A lot of that’s my fault. But then, it felt like things were changing between us. And I liked it,” Patton says, before correcting himself, “I still like it. You’ve just… been pushing away, lately. And I didn’t know how to ask, I mean – did I do something wrong?”

There’s so much fear behind the question, a query that’s clearly been building up for some time now. Janus dares to peel open his eyes, only to be greeted with the heart-wrenching sight of Patton looking so worried for him, so scared that he’s messed up yet again.

“You haven’t done anything wrong,” Janus manages to get the words out, though not without a fight, “I – I apologize, that I’ve made you feel as though you have any reason to think you’ve upset me.” Janus sucks in a breath, wondering when he ever got to be so damned sentimental, “I admit, I have been distant. It’s just…”

“What is it?” Patton asks, compassion dripping into every word. Janus hadn’t known what he’d been missing all those years without Patton, without so much unabashed kindness and love.

“I’m not used to… being touched, I suppose,” Janus admits, ducking his head against his shoulder in embarrassment. It’s been such a long time since Janus has felt such heightened levels of negative emotions and he’s not a fan at all.

“Oh,” Patton says, hesitantly, “I’m sorry, should I – have I been overwhelming you?”

“I…” Janus falters, still not daring to face Patton, “I’m not used to it. But it’s… pleasant.” Patton pauses before realization dawns.

“Oh. Oh, sweetie, how long has it been since you’ve had a proper hug?”

Patton calling him something as soft as “sweetie” of all things makes his chest ache. In all of their recent embraces, Janus has always pulled away after a second or two, fearing what might happen if he just let’s go. But Patton’s asking, so genuinely, and Janus is too helpless not to give in.

“I… I don’t know,” he says softly.

“Would it be okay if I hugged you now?”

Janus looks down at the comforter, nodding slowly.

“Yes… I think that would be okay.”

As gently as possible, Patton puts his arms around him. Janus stiffens, his breath halting, but Patton’s holding him lose enough that it wouldn’t be hard to pull away. After a few moments, Janus realizes he couldn’t pull back if he wanted to. He throws his arms around the moral side, burying his face in his neck. He can feel himself beginning to tremble.

“Jan? Honey, is this okay?”

“Yesss,” the hiss slips past before he has time to correct it, “Please, hold me a little longer?” Janus despises the desperation that seeps into his tone. He never thought he’d stoop so low.

“Of course,” Patton says softly, “I won’t let you go. I promise."

Janus clings fervently to Patton, any final hesitations leaving him. He didn’t know being held could feel so good, but now he isn’t sure he’ll ever be able to let go. Patton begins to rub circles into Janus’s back, slow and even. Bit by bit, the tension that Janus has been holding inside of himself these past weeks disperses.

“Janus?” Janus hums in lieu of a real response. “Can you look at me for a second?” As much as he despises the idea of leaving the comfort of Patton’s arms for even a moment, he does so, pulling away so that their eyes meet.

“I… I think there’s something I should tell you,” Patton says.

“What is it?” Janus asks, feeling his heart clench in his chest. Patton reaches for his hand, and even through the glove, the touch sends electricity running through him.

“I –,” Patton hesitates before taking a deep breath and biting the bullet, “I like you. I like you a whole heck of a lot, actually. And I’m sorry if that makes you uncomfortable – and I understand completely if you don’t feel the same way. I just thought you should know.” Patton rushes the confession out.

Janus hadn’t been expecting this, not at all. But it’s happening, every time Patton touches him Janus feels like a fire’s been lit in his heart and now Patton’s telling him that he has feelings for him. Janus has been torturing himself, keeping space between them in the fear that Janus might melt into his embrace and it was for nothing. Janus doesn’t know if he should be irritated with himself or relieved, so he settles for both.

“I like you too, Pat,” Janus says, the confession raw and unbearably honest, “M-more than I’ve been willing to admit.”

Janus feels himself beginning to shudder again as Patton lets go of his hand, only to cup his face with both hands, his thumb tracing lightly over Janus’s scales.

“Can I kiss you?” Patton asks, so tenderly Janus is half-convinced he’s going to lose consciousness from how overstimulated he is.

Even so, he nods, smiling as Patton’s lips meet his. Patton keeps a steady hold on his face as Janus's hands settle on Patton’s hips. It’s so much, it’s intense and it’s nothing Janus is used to but that doesn’t distract from the fact that it’s incredible. Patton’s lips against his, his hands cupping his face. Each caress stirs something in him, each kiss sets his heart aflame, a fire he hopes never dies.

Janus rides the wave of intense emotions, growing to accept every touch, longing for it rather than shrinking away.

=+=

#moceit #romantic moceit #Janus Sanders #Patton Sanders #Deceit Sanders #touch starvation #touch starved Janus #touch starved deceit #love confession #fluff/angst #angst #fluff #exhaustedfander writes #exhaustedfander

40 notes · View notes

joonsrack · 5 years ago

Text

+PAIRING: Kim Seokjin x Kim Namjoon

+GENRE: SFW, slow burn, ficlet (do people use that term anymore?) mini series, attempt at crack and comedy.

+The one where Seokjin is a part time cop and a full time Namjoonsitter series: Part I | Part II | Part III

+WORD COUNT: ~1.7k

+SUMMARY:

“Hands where I can see them.” Seokjin says calmly, and the man, albeit the extremely confused expression twisting his face, complies with him. He shoots his hand in the air, knocking over a plant in his hurry. It goes crashing to the ground with an ear-splitting sound, adding soil to the mess, and he winces for all of three second before he fixes his stare back on Seokjin with a frown.”

+WARNINGS: Mention of firearms, also i have no idea how police works.

There’s one important detail that leads them here, Seokjin pointing his service weapon in Namjoon’s direction while said man, surrounded by the broken remains of various objects, raises his hands in the air, an extremely confused expression twisting his face.

When people ask Seokjin about it later, he’ll answer it’s really all Jimin’s fault.

“Have you seen the new neighbour that moved into Jiho-hyung’s old apartment?”

“Hmmm, no. Since when?” Seokjin asks Jimin distractedly, pouring over some paperwork.

“Like two weeks ago? He’s the scariest man I’ve ever seen, but also the cutest, if that makes sense. He’s so small, barely taller than me.”

Seokjin only nods, not even looking at him, but it doesn’t deter his best friend and roommate.

“He thinks he’s slick with his tough tattooed guy attitude, but the other day I saw him feeding a street cat and his gummy smile literally blinded me.”

Seokjin turns to the next page, settling into his routine of nodding every few sentences, making mmhmmhh from time to time to spice it up a little.

“There’s always music coming out of there now, I think he’s some kind of musician?” Jimin says, a dreamy look on his face. “I think they actually know Jiho-hyung so that would make a lot of sense.”

If Seokjin was listening, maybe he would have caught the ‘they’. But he isn’t, so he doesn’t. And Jimin carries right on waxing poetry about their new neighbour’s raven black hair, never hinting again that there’s more than one person that moved in.

Which leads him to a few days later, leaving Hoseok behind in the patrol car to retrieve some documents he forgot home. He’s pushing his key into the lock when he hears a series of crashes coming from the door on the other side of the hallway.

It’s cracked open, but no light is filtering through, and Seokjin catches a glimpse of a shadow moving quickly inside.

It’s by habit that he investigates the noise.

He spots a tall silhouette inside, shoving things into a large black bag in a hurry; things that looks like expensive electronic equipment. There’s a smattering of broken glass scattered on the floor, reflecting the street light coming in from the window, and the man seems to completely ignore it, his heavy black boots cracking it into even smaller pieces with a crunch.

His cop instincts kick in, and in a second his service weapon is unlatched as he pushes the door slowly and takes a careful step inside, ready to stop this apparent breaking and entering.

The layout of the place is similar to his, so he easily locates the light switch. Once in position, he flicks the light on, throwing the room into sharp contrast, exposing the possible intruder who spins around, startled.

Small, black hair, tattoos had been used to describe their new neighbour.

This man is tall, with dark silver hair, and no tattoo in sight.

“Hum, hey, officer. What brings you…here.”

“I could ask you the same question.” he answers, pointing his chin at the bulky bag which definitely contains expensive equipment, overflowing with it.

“Oh, oh. I see,” he says, looking at the bag, then at the remains cluttering the floor, and then at his own person dressed in all… black. He gulps. “This is not what it looks like. I hum, I live here.”

“No, a small man with black hair and tattoo lives here. I saw him around.” Seokjin answers with a no-nonsense look on his face.

“That would be my roommate, Yoongi. Hah. I guess that means you live in this building. Quick hack: Don’t let him hear you say he’s small. Now I’m rambling. Hum, I live here too.” There’s a small patch of sweat forming on the man’s forehead, and he’s getting crossed-eyed staring at the end of the gun’s barrel. Seokjin lowers it slightly, getting the feeling this man has literally zero ounces of evilness in him.

“Why would you be stuffing a bag full of expensive equipment in the dark while breaking things when you live here.” Seokjin asks with a raised eyebrow. “Doesn’t seems very logical. Looks more like burglary to me. Done by the least stealthy thief in history, I must say.”

“It’s very interesting that you say that, because touché, I’m not even remotely stealthy. And I’m definitely not a thief.”

“Feels like something a thief would say.” Seokjin snorts. “ So what where you doing then, in the dark, shoving things in a black bag with the speed of somebody who's ass is on fire?”

“Well, if you must know,” he says, lowering his hands slightly. “I’m late for a gig, I need my equipment, and in my hurry I broke a few things. Hence the lack of light.”

Seokjin spots the remains of the broken lamp on the floor.

“What the hell is taking you so- What the hell. Namjoon.”

Seokjin startles at the new voice, turning towards its source, and then lowering his gun completely. The new neighbour, who clearly knows the man standing in the mess before them, is standing in the doorframe.

With no gun held up to his face, the man —Namjoon— collapses in a chair like all his strings were cut simultaneously.

“What the hell. Why is there a police officer here. Did we get robbed?”

Now, if Jimin had mentioned more clearly the fact that more than one person had moved in, maybe this all wouldn’t have happened. But all he can do now is watch Namjoon explain the last 5 minutes to his friend with an embarrassed flush on his cheek. Or maybe Seokjin is just projecting.

Yoongi, he learned just a second ago, side-steps him to open the wardrobe, where he reaches for one of the countless boxes of lightbulb sorted on the top shelf. Like, so many.

“I’m extremely sorry for the misunderstanding,” he starts, hoping this will not get to the head of the police station. “I really thought someone was-“

Yoongi stops him with a hand, and he can see Namjoon finally getting up from his chair, going to grab a glass from one of the cupboard. From the look of it, their whole glass selection seems to be plastic, going from kids themed stuff to plain ugly coloured cups.

“A lot worse happened. Consider yourself a victim here.” Yoongi says, with no rebuttal coming from Namjoon. All he does is echo ‘A lot worse.’ in the background. He throws his cup of water back, hitting his head on the cupboard door he left open, and doesn’t even react to what must have been pretty painful judging by the sound of it.

“He’s an expensive boy to live with.” Yoongi says, screwing a new light bulb in after taking out the broken one. “I changed this one this morning.” He signs. “I would like to say it’s the first time he's broken something twice in the same day but that would be a lie.”

Seokjin nods, for the first time really looking at the man.

His black tank top show off how he’s covered from head to toe with bandaids and bruises, and Seokjin can deduct it’s all accidentally self inflicted. His black tank top also hints at a nice body, his arms on the good side of defined; his black skinny showing some interesting thighs and cal-

Yeah, no; objectifying someone on duty, someone he almost just arrested, might be a bad idea.

His radio chooses that moment to come to life, Hoseok’s voice bursting through with static.

“Hyung, you’ coming? It’s taking you forever.”

“I’ll be down in a sec,” he answers, holding the radio to his mouth.

The two man have now their attention fixed on him, and Seokjin realizes he’s been standing on the same spot for the whole… clusterfuck.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you two around.” Seokjin says awkwardly, taking a step toward the door, where he feels the air might be easier to breath, less charged with embarrassment.

“Wait.” He hears Namjoon says, and he turns around, hoping he’s not about to be sued.

“Hum, we’re really late to our gig,” He says nervously “Can we, perhaps, get a ride to the subway station?” He asks, eyes getting wide, like he’s trying to look adorable. Maybe it’s guilt, maybe it’s something else, but it’s definitely working on Seokjin.

“I- hm, It’s a little against the rules.” He tries to answer.

Yoongi looks at him with an evil glint in his eyes, and Seokjin just knows he’s about to be guilt tripped to hell.

“I mean, it’s not like you just traumatized my friend by pointing a gun at him and made us incredibly late to our gig. You know, our livelihood that makes it possible to replace all the shit he breaks. Oh, and also pay the rent.” He says with no infliction. Hello satan.

Namjoon has dropped the puss in boots impersonation and looks like he wants to intervene, but his friend throws him a look that could literally cut diamond. Seokjin absolutely understands what Jimin meant by scariest man he’s ever seen, he's just not seeing the cute part of his friend's follow up statement. There's nothing cute about this man, Seokjin thinks.

“Ok, fine. Sure.”

“With the lights.”

Seokjin sputters indignantly. Because that wasn’t Yoongi asking, but Namjoon.

“What?”

“We’re really late.” He shrugs, biting his lips. “We might not even make it if you take us to the subway.”

Seokjin sighs, rubs his eyes.

“Tick tock” Yoongi says irritably.

He can’t believe he’s being manipulated by two strangers into giving them a ride in the police cruiser. Hoseok will have a field day.

“We’ll take you to the wherever you’re performing, but no lights.” He settles on.

Yoongi grins meanly, and Namjoon gives him an apologetic smile, popping a dimple.

And for a second, Seokjin marvels at how deep it looks; has to hold back from poking his finger in it.

But, nope. Still in uniform.

#magicshopnet #bangtanarmynet #armysource #ficswithluv #namjin fanfic #kim seokjin #kim namjoon #m x m #bts fanfic #bangtanscenery

32 notes · View notes

spanishskulduggery · 6 years ago

Note

Hi, is there an easy rule as for when to use el Subjuntivo?

I would say yes and no. There are easy parts of subjunctive, and there are more confusing parts of subjunctive. The subjunctive mood encompasses a lot, it’s like asking if there’s an easy rule for indicative and I’d be like “well maybe present tense is kind of up front about what it wants, but preterite/imperfect aren’t always easy to understand”… it’s like that.

The only mood that’s really easy to understand completely is the imperative [commands] because it’s “do it” or “don’t do it” and it’s a lot of conjugation and practice but it’s not like things change or get weird.

But subjunctive. Anything I try to explain about when it’s used is a big oversimplification so just bear with it because not everything perfectly lines up.

But in general there are maybe 5 or 6 general ways that present subjunctive is used, and I’ll explain them all in more detail:

Expressing desire/opinion/imposition of will/wish fulfillment and opinions based on emotional input

Subjunctive phrases

Subjunctive possibility

Ignorance, doubt, or disbelief

Politeness [and the subject of politeness also includes #6 which is “indirect commands” or “a politer way to ask someone to do something]

There’s also some overlap between them, because like I said it doesn’t all line up perfectly into little boxes or categories all the time. I’m also arranging them in order of things most needed to know before you go on to the next part.

Also please keep in mind this is specifically present subjunctive, but I will go over imperfect subjunctive a bit because there is some overlap but also imperfect subjunctive can be more particular.

When you’re talking subjunctive most people will lay out subjunctive in terms of #1 and that makes sense because it’s a good starting point. When you’re talking about subjunctive in this sense, it’s primarily made up of two causes with the first clause in some kind of indicative and then following it is a subjunctive clause.

The clauses are then normally connected with a que or sometimes there’s a de que or a que depending on the verb. Some verbs use specific prepositions, it’s not like the meaning is suddenly different exactly.

Quiero que pongas la mesa. = I want you to set the table.

The quiero is in present tense [indicative], while pongas is present subjunctive. This would be something like a desire or an imposition of will.

The yo wants tú to do something, and by imposing their will on that person.

It can also be used impersonally [without a person, talking about an inanimate object]:

Ojalá que no llueva. = I hope (to God) that it doesn’t rain.

Espero que nieve. = I hope it snows.

Deseo que haga buen tiempo. = I hope the weather’s nice. [lit. “I hope it makes good weather”]

These sorts of things sometimes cross into subjunctive possibility, but the idea is that you’re wishing or wanting something to happen, and the thing that is “to happen” is then in subjunctive.

In its base form, subjunctive is “someone wants something to happen” and it’s divided between “someone wants [indicative] + that/to [que] + to happen [subjunctive]

And in this form, it’s very important that there be two different subjects in two clauses. You CANNOT have subjunctive in this particular sense without it or it would come up as indicative:

Quiero que te vayas a dormir. = I want you to go to sleep.

Quiero irme a dormir. / Me quiero ir a dormir. = I want to go to sleep.

A yo cannot really “act on itself”… you’re just expressing a desire. It’s not an imposition of will if it isn’t someone else’s will… it’s just an expression of will.

So in other words “I want you to set the table” is a yo working influence over a tú. But quiero poner la mesa “I want to set the table” has no conflict of influence.

The next part is opinion and particularly emotional opinions. I say emotional since they’re usually done with words related to emotion, but what it really means is subjective. Subjective is subjunctive.

In other words someone/someone is “happy/sad/afraid/curious/scared/worried” that “something will happen”. They aren’t always emotions, but they can be done with subjective opinions like “important/interesting/curious” etc… It also includes me gusta(n) or me gustaría(n) though me gustaría normally indicates imperfect subjunctive.

These do sometimes exist with imperfect subjunctive because of things happening in the past but for the purposes of explaining these will all be in present subjunctive.

Me alegra que hayas venido. = I’m glad you could come.Me alegra que vengas. = I’m glad you’re coming.

Es triste que no sea así. = It’s sad it’s not like that.Es triste que diga eso. = It’s sad that he/she would say that.Me entristece que lo haga. = It saddens me that he/she/it would do that.

Es curioso que nadie quiera ir. = It’s curious/strange that no one would want to go.

Es importante que escuchen. = It’s important for them to listen.

Es interesante que lo menciones. = It’s interesting you mention it.

Qué bien que estés aquí. = I’m glad you’re here. [lit. “how nice (it is) that you’re here”]

There are times when people will use indicative instead of subjunctive, but predominantly subjunctive is the most applicable and polite.

#2 Subjunctive phrases is a very overarching kind of thing. It shows up in a lot of the other categories. But basically there are many words or expressions that generally (and sometimes always) indicate subjunctive. Some of these include…

a menos que = unless (something happens)

con tal (de) que = as long as (something happens)

hasta que = until (something happens)

a no ser que = unless (something happens)

antes (de) que = before (something happens)

después (de) que = after (something happens)

hacer que = to make (something do something else)

para que = so that (something could happen)

sin que = without (something happening)

tal vez / quizá = maybe

puede que = it might/could (be that)

ojalá* (que) = I hope to God / hopefully (something happens)

*I mentioned it before but ojalá is a word that literally means “I hope to God” or something like “God willing”. It comes from Arabic most likely something like “inshallah”, where “Allah” comes out as Alá in Spanish.

This list also includes es importante que, es curioso que, es triste que and others. There’s also no pensar/creer que which I’ll cover more in the part on doubt.

There are also verbs that generally imply subjunctive when used with a que

pedir que = to request that (something happen)

desear que = to desire/want that (something happen)

querer que = to want that (something happen)

obligar a que = to force/obligate (someone to do something)

exigir que = to demand that (something happen)

sugerir que = to suggest that (something happen)

mandar que = to order that (something happen)

lamentar que = to regret/lament that (something happened)

preferir que = to prefer that (something happen)

esperar que = to hope that (something happen)esperar a que = to wait until (something happens)

I should say that there are some phrases that ARE NOT ALWAYS subjunctive, depending on use. The big example of this is después que which can be subjunctive or indicative.

They make most sense in subjunctive when the thing hasn’t happened yet but still might. This is also going to use imperfect subjunctive because a lot of the indicative examples of them do happen in past tense. I will say that’s more common with después though.

Me voy a dormir después (de) que me llamen. = I’m going to bed after they call me.

In this case it makes sense to have subjunctive because it implies that the “they” hasn’t called yet. This crosses into possibility. There’s a possibility they won’t, or they might. But the yo doesn’t know when.

For indicative it would have to be after it had already happened:

después (de) que me llamaron = after they called me

While you do see something like después (de) que me llamaran which is imperfect subjunctive “after they had called me” or “after they would call me” it’s harder to translate without proper context.

Let’s just say that generally when it has already happened, it’s indicative for después.

#3 Possibility. This one is the hardest to explain because English’s subjunctive is conjugated like indicative, which makes it harder to spot in English when it is being used.

Possibility is somewhere between doubt and subjunctive phrases, but it means that it gets used with unlikely events. These are usually hypothetical situations or things that haven’t happened yet but might later on but you don’t know when.

Espero a que llegue el tren. = I’m waiting until the train arrives.

In this sense, you don’t know when the train will arrive, but it’s something like a possibility.

The most common one is puede que which is used as “might/could”:

Puede que llueva. = It might rain.

Puede que haga sol. = It might be sunny.

Puede que vayan a la playa. = They might go to the beach.

Puede que se queden en casa. = They might stay home.

Puede que tengas razón. = You might be right.

Puede que tengan hambre. = They might be hungry.

The use of puede que is kind of like a guess or a supposition.

You can also say puede que sí “it might” or puede que no “it might not” as complete sentences.

Possibilities like this can sometimes be translated with words involving -ever like “whenever”, “however”, “whoever/whomever”, “wherever”, “whatever”:

lo que sea = whatever

Sea lo que sea. = Be that as it may/were. / Whatever it is.

A quien corresponda… = To whom it concerns…

Quien lea esto… = Whoever reads this…A quien lea esto… = To whomever reads this…

dondequiera que estés = wherever you areadondequiera que vayas = wherever you go

como quieras = as you wish / whatever you sayHaz lo que quieras. = Do whatever you want.Haz lo que te dé la gana. = Do whatever you want.

en cuanto puedas = as soon as you can

pase lo que pase = come what may

Sometimes whether it’s indicative or subjunctive depends on your style or personal mood:

Cuando tienes tiempo… = When you have the time…

Cuando tengas tiempo… = Whenever you have the time…

Using subjunctive here just means that you’re kind of like “no rush” and you don’t expect them to get back to you very soon.

They can also be used in the sense of contrary to fact or denials of reality. This I find makes the most sense with aunque

When aunque is used with indicative it’s roughly “although”. When it’s subjunctive aunque is often “even if/though”

Aunque sean de piedra… = Even if they’re made of stone… / Though they be made of stone…

Aunque sea verdad… = Even if that is true…Aunque fuera verdad… = Even if that were true…

Aunque digas la verdad… = Even if you tell the truth…Aunque no digas/dijeras la verdad… = Even if you don’t tell the truth…

Aunque tengas razón… = Even if you’re right…

#4 Ignorance is kind of the same as those above, but it’s a little more straightforward. You don’t know what you don’t know, so ignorance or doubt or disbelief are uncertain by nature. It’s that uncertainty that makes things very easy to understand.

Dudo que sea así. = I doubt it’s like that.

Dudo que llueva. = I doubt it will rain.

Que yo sepa. = As far as I know. / To my knowledge…Que tú sepas. = As far as you know.Que ellos/ellas sepan. = As far as they know.Que nosotros/nosotras sepamos. = As far as we know. / To our knowledge…

A very common confusion exists with no creer and no pensar and no estar seguro/a, and their affirmative counterparts. But it’s very simple: firm beliefs and certainty and thoughts are indicative, and being unsure or uncertain or not believing are most often subjunctive:

pensar que = to think that + indicativeno pensar que = to not that thing + subjunctive

creer que = to believe that + indicativeno creer que = to not believe that + subjunctive

estar seguro/a (de) que = to be sure that + indicativeno estar seguro/a (de) que = to be unsure that / to not be certain that + subjunctive

The affirmatives show confidence, and the negatives show uncertainty:

Pienso que es importante. = I think it’s important.No pienso que sea importante. = I don’t think it’s important. / I don’t think it would be important.

Creo que es importante. = I believe it’s important.No creo que sea importante. = I don’t believe it’s important. / I don’t believe it would be important.

Estoy seguro/a (de) que es importante. = I’m sure it’s important.No estoy seguro/a (de) que sea importante. = I’m not sure if it’s important.

Basically the lesson is that your thoughts and beliefs when phrases affirmatively are indicative. English is a little wishy-washy in that we sometimes say “to think” in a more doubtful or uncertain way, but Spanish is very clear that it’s indicative unless you add a negative to it:

Pienso que no es posible. = I think that’s it’s not possible.

No pienso que sea posible. = I don’t think that’s possible.

#5 Politeness

There are times when you use subjunctive for politeness. I would say in general when you’re asking for something or ordering food, it’s normally fine to use present tense, and then if you want to be VERY painfully polite you can use conditional.

Subjunctive however is sometimes used to soften what might be considered too blunt or direct in indicative or imperative. This is how you get something like cuando tienes tiempo vs. cuando tengas tiempo, or something like si es posible vs. si sea posible

The subjunctive can imply a kind of uncertainty or deference in those situations, but that can sort of read as you being insecure or possibly insincere, like it’s possible to see subjunctive and read it as sarcastic… Sort of like “do what you want” can be turned into a more subjunctive “do whatever you want” and that can make a sharp distinction.

But since we kind of covered that already above, I’ll talk about subjunctive politeness in terms of what’s known as indirect commands.

An indirect command is a murky halfway point between subjunctive and imperative mood.

While imperative mood is affirmative or negative commands [“do it” vs. “don’t do it”], the subjunctive kind of takes any rough edges off of that.

There are times, even when it’s polite, that a command might feel too direct. And there are also times when you’re wishing for something to happen on someone’s behalf, OR you’re asking someone to tell someone else to do something.

That last one is really the full definition of “indirect”:

Canten. = Sing. [plural; direct]

Diles que canten. = Tell them to sing. [di being the tú command of decir]Que canten. = Have them sing.

Instead of telling someone directly to “sing”, you can tell someone “hey, you go tell them to sing”… thus making it indirect.

The use of que + subjunctive is very common for indirect commands and it’s not always specifically politeness, but it reads as impersonal or indirect:

Que así sea. = So be it.

Que sean felices y coman perdices. = “And they lived happily ever after”.[lit. “may they be happy and eat partridges”, where partridges were the kind of thing a noble might eat so it’s like “let them be happy and be wealthy”]

Que no llueva. = I hope it doesn’t rain. / Let it not rain. / “Let’s hope it doesn’t rain”.

Que tengas un buen día. = Have a nice day. [tú]Que tenga un buen día. = Have a nice day. [formal]Que tengan un buen día. = Have a nice day. [plural]

Que haya luz. = Let there be light.Que exista luz. = Let there be light.

Indirect commands always use the subjunctive in these cases.

Also please note that present subjunctive can sometimes be read with a future kind of tone. It’s because present (even in indicative; especially in indicative) has a kind of declarative sense, and a kind of short-term future sense.

So there are times when you see present subjunctive used even though the translation uses something closer to how future tense would sound:

No me importa (lo) que digan. = I don’t care what they say. [present declarative]

No me importa (lo) que digan. = I don’t care what they’re going to say. [short-term future]*no me importa lo que digan is also correct

This is also more generally present subjunctive because it comes across as “what they may (or may not) say”.

In general subjunctive isn’t so difficult once you’re able to recognize the different situations and scenarios that require subjunctive. It’s only really confusing when there are times when you can use either indicative or subjunctive and they change the implied meaning... not enough to change the ENTIRE meaning, but enough to add certain nuances.

It can be like walking a tightrope but when you get more experience, subjunctive isn’t as hard and daunting as it is when you first come across it.

[imperfect subjunctive to follow at a later date]

#Spanish #language #languages #learning Spanish #langblr #la gramatica #subjunctive #el subjuntivo #reference #ref

484 notes · View notes