#and i count it more as an adaptation than as a fanfic personally

[evedaser]

pleased to announce that i just hit 50 000 words on ao3, but it gets even better because that's MY EXACT WORD COUNT! BY COMPLETE ACCIDENT!!

this is now the third time this has happened to me. my first fanfic reached a precise 10 000 words on accident, and my first whumptober fill reached a crisp 1 500 words, again, on complete accident!!

[simplyraeblue]

hunter and hunted (jjk)

college (summer) break au: a fic in which y/n is pining over Yuji's older brother Sukuna, while unbeknownst to her, Choso is doing the same thing for her. contents: sukuna x reader, choso x reader, modern college AU, yuji and choso are brothers, sukuna and yuji are brothers, smut warning, fem reader

chapter warnings/tags: mild angst, swearing, filthy raunchy smut, oral (reader receiving), squirting, p in v, creampie, i was diabolic writing this, choso's an oral god, use of "angel" A/N: oh my god I can't believe we've come to the end... how? how how how? it feels like just yesterday I started this hot mess of a fanfic and now it's complete. if you hated it; sucks for you. if you loved it; thank you so much. THANK YOU to all who have commented, reblogged, and showed continous support for this mini series! ദ്ദി(ó﹏ò｡) i love you all so much muah muah MUAH! I've got a little treat in store at the end of this for you, so stay tuned!

index part fourteen | the end no more sorry

master list

part fifteen word count : 5,764 (+ 635 in bonus content)

two months later

school was in full swing again, and the weather was shifting; sandals were swapped for boots, and ball caps into beanies. students flooded the campus in heavy coats, clutching their textbooks, but not everyone could adapt to the change.

your breath formed a fog in front of you as you hurried through campus, realizing you were late. oh so fucking late. Yuji was already waiting for you at the library, ready to scold you for neglecting your studies – though really it would be Megumi doing the actual scolding.

your phone buzzed in your pocket, and as you pulled it out to check the message, you let out a frustrated sigh. of course, Nobara was skipping the study session. she always preferred wild Thursday nights to hitting the books. honestly, you kind of wished you had done the same. 

after rushing (silently) through the library, you finally spotted Yuji and Megumi in a study room. you pushed through the door and immediately felt Megumi’s disapproving gaze. “you’re late.” he said with a tut.

Yuji groaned, sliding him a small bill, and your jaw dropped. “you bet on whether I’d be late?” you asked, setting your things down a bit harder than necessary.

“not if you’d be late, but how late.” Yuji clarified as you took a seat. you quickly flipped open your textbook, trying to catch up to where they were while both of them just stared at you. 

you glared at them, eyebrows furrowed. “what? you’re looking at me like I committed a crime by being late.” 

“we were just wondering…” Yuji started.

“…if you wanted to skip studying and join Nobara.” Megumi finished.

you gasped. “Megumi Fushiguro, you want to party instead of study? what has gotten into you?”

Megumi rolled his eyes, but there was a hint of amusement in his expression. “don’t act so surprised. you know how important studying is to me, but even we need a break sometimes.”

you crossed your arms, pretending to be annoyed. “sure, but you’re the last person I expected to suggest ditching our study session. what’s next, are you going to start dancing at parties?” 

Yuji chuckled, nudging Megumi playfully. “hey, maybe we could both use some fun. besides, Nobara always knows how to make things exciting. it could be a nice change of pace.”

you hesitated, glancing back at your textbook, then at their eager faces. “but what about grades?” pfft yeah right.

“they’ll still be there when we get back.” Megumi said, his tone surprisingly persuasive. “just one night won’t hurt.”

you took a deep breath, weighing your options. part of you wanted to dive into your studies, but the thought of a spontaneous night out with friends was tempting. finally, you sighed, a smile creeping onto your face. “alright, but only for a little while! we’ll come back and study after.”

“no we won’t!” Yuji joked as he patted Megumi’s back and stood from his chair. 

so now, here you were, three shots deep into a bar with your friends. “I can’t believe you convinced Megumi to come out!” Nobara shouted over the music, arm slung around your shoulder. 

“actually, it was his idea!” you responded with a grin. everyone was surprised, truly, but you weren’t complaining. 

the last two months had been nothing short of dreary, and you didn’t mean the weather. 

moving out of Yuji’s house had been the right choice. it felt like you could finally breathe again, even though each breath still carried a twinge of pain in your heart. while you were relieved to escape the heavy tension between Sukuna and Choso, you missed the latter with every fiber of your being. 

it wasn’t for lack of effort on his side. for the first month, Choso had begged Yuji for your address, but found that his brother was under strict orders not to share it. he called and texted constantly, yet you couldn’t bring yourself to respond to any of it.

you were determined to stick to the belief that he would find someone better without you. 

Sukuna, on the other hand, had been much more persistent. by the third week of living in your new apartment, he showed up on your doorstep. despite your protests, he somehow ended up on your couch, enduring nearly an hour of your yelling. 

in the end, he accepted defeat. you vividly remember the relief you felt when Sukuna asked, “can we just be friends?” 

friends. yes, you could manage that. any feelings you had for Sukuna had faded away during your relationship with Choso, and while you hadn’t fully realized it at the time, you were sure of it now. 

now here you were, being nagged by both Yuji and Sukuna, urging you to reach out to Choso. how had you gone from hating the eldest brother to listening to him go on about how you’d made the biggest mistake?

“do you realize how this has affected him?” Sukuna asked one night over a pint of beer at a pub. “while I could drown out my heartbreak-“

“oh, sure.” you rolled your eyes.

“-excuse me. get over my bruised ego, then.” Sukuna smirked at your reaction, though he meant what he said. he understood now wasn’t the right moment to delve deeper. “I could go out, pick up a woman at the bar, and bring her home. Choso, though? he hasn’t done any of that. I haven’t seen him talk to a woman once.”

“yeah, right. Choso could walk down the street and charm any girl.” you joked, but the thought made your stomach churn.

Sukuna chuckled. “doesn’t matter. he’s barely left his room.”

“oh.” was all you could manage.

since that day, the calls and texts from Choso had stopped. whether he had given up or found happiness elsewhere, you chose not to think about it.

instead, you decided to spend tonight drowning your feelings with Nobara, Megumi and Yuji. no thinking of Choso, no thinking of Choso, you repeated the mantra over and over just as you’d done over the past two months.

Nobara spent half the night shoving you gently in the direction of other men, trying to get you to flirt and have fun. no matter how many times you tried to dissuade her, she kept telling you that it was time to move on. but even when a guy would be trying to sweet talk you, you kept having to shake away images of those twin black buns and tattoo striped across the nose. how could anyone compare?

Yuji and Megumi tried to lift your spirits as well by forcing you to dance with them. but eventually, their sweet romantics would make you feel even worse, to no fault of their own. you were just remembering the night Choso saved you from that creepy guy in a bar. 

“Yuji…” you whined, leaning heavily against the bar with your head in your hands. the music blared around you as Nobara tried to slide another drink your way, but you waved it off, no longer in the mood. “did I really fuck up? just be honest with me.”

Yuji offered a sympathetic pat on your head, a gesture that only irritated you more. he’d taken to doing it since your breakup; it made you feel like a helpless child, vulnerable and lost. “I think you did what was best for you.” he said softly, but the words felt hollow and you could see past the fake bullshit he was spewing. 

“but… I don’t know anymore.” you really didn’t. the weight of uncertainty settled in your chest. moving out had felt like the right choice, but breaking things off with Choso? that was a different story. “I just really miss him.

“then why haven’t you talked to him?” Megumi interjected, his expression neutral as if he were presenting the most logical solution in the world.

“I can’t. he’s better off without a brother-fucking girlfriend.” 

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.” Yuji grimaced, shaking his head at your remark. the thought of you being… intimate with either of his brothers still made him a little queasy. after a moment, he leaned in closer. “he’s not better off without you. trust me, I know my brother. he might act like he’s fine, but he’s a complete mess without you. his music’s gotten louder – like he’s trying to drown out the silence – and he spends all his time in the dark in his room. I haven’t heard him touch his xbox in weeks. he’s just… an empty shell now. honestly, he’s even more emo than before, if that’s even possible.”

maybe Yuji was right. maybe you hadn’t necessarily made the wrong choice at the time, but the long-term effects felt crushing. you wanted Choso to be happy, that was why you left. if you were happy, great. if Choso was happy, even better. as you often reminded yourself, it was with or without you. but the idea of him suffering made your heart ache. 

“I just keep thinking about the good times.” you admitted, your voice barely above a whisper. “I remember how he used to smile when I’d surprise him with his favorite snacks, or how he’d get lost in his music for hours. it’s like I can still hear him playing those songs in my head.”

Yuji watched you closely, his expression softening. “but it’s not just about you and him any more, it’s about what you both need. sometimes love means taking a step back, even if it hurts.”

“I thought I was doing the right thing.” you said, feeling the sting of tears threatening to spill over. “but now it just feels… empty. I thought I’d feel better, but I don’t.”

Nobara returned with yet another full drink, her eyes flickering between you and Yuji. she placed it in front of you, but you just stared at it, not ready to take another sip but not pushing it away either. “you can’t keep punishing yourself for wanting what’s best for both of you.” she said, her tone more supportive than judgmental. “I don’t see why you can’t just talk to him.”

“but what if he doesn’t want to talk to me? what if I end up just making things worse?” the anxiety twisted in your stomach, each possibility feeling heavier than the last.

Yuji suddenly placed both hands on your face, squeezing slightly to get you to turn and focus on him. “listen, you are my best friend in the world – sorry Nobara – and you deserve to be happy. I won’t sit here and listen to you agonize over whether you made the right choice. obviously, if it still bothers you, then you didn’t. I can say with certainty that Choso would want to talk to you, he’d probably cry if he got the chance for one minute to see you. so, get off your ass and talk to him.”

Nobara and Megumi’s jaws dropped, and you could only nod in shock. “I’ve never seen Yuji be so firm.” Nobara muttered to Megumi.

“I know, it’s hot.” Megumi felt the sharp jab of Nobara’s elbow in his side, causing him to chuckle.

finally, after your little pep talk from Yuji, you were stumbling back to your apartment alone, and all you wanted was to think about Choso. what was he doing right about now? was he blaring music through the speakers in his room? maybe he was playing video games or watching a movie. Yuji had said he wasn’t doing any of that, but you could only hope for the best.

you grew nauseous at the thought of him with anyone else tonight.

as you dug for your keys in your purse, you tripped over something right outside your door. fuck, had someone’s food delivery got sent to the wrong address again? “oi, what the hell?” you grumbled as you looked up from your purse, only to stop breathing.

Choso shot up from the ground, buns tousled and eyes puffy. he opened and closed his mouth, struggling to find even a simple “hello” only to give up and shut his lips tightly.

“what are you doing here?” you asked, your voice trembling as your palms grew clammy at the sight of him. your heart raced in your chest, aching for him.

“I had to… I needed to…” Choso stammered, caught off guard that you were speaking to him. he hadn’t expected to run into you; he thought he’d just swing by and maybe catch of a glimpse of you if luck was on his side. “I don’t know what to say now that you’re right here.”

you couldn’t help but chuckle, unfazed by his awkwardness. “do you want to come in?” you slid your key into the door, and Choso nodded firmly. 

maybe it was the alcohol, or just the shock of seeing him after two months apart, but your resolve was slipping.

he followed you inside, mentally letting out a sigh of relief at just being able to speak with you. Choso had begged Yuji every day for even the smallest hint of your new address. to his surprise, it was Sukuna who finally let it slip.

you moved to the kitchen, trying to give Choso a moment to gather himself. “can I get you something to drink?” you asked, glancing back at him.

he shook his head, still looking a bit shell-shocked. “I just… I didn’t think I’d actually see you.”

you turned to face him full, leaning against the counter. “why did you come, then?”

Choso took a deep breath, his gaze dropping to the floor. “I can’t stop. I can’t stop thinking about you, about everything that happened between us. I can’t move on from you.

“Choso…” you whispered, your heart sinking at his words.

he stepped closer, his hand reaching out but hesitating halfway, as if unsure of how to bridge the gap between you. “I can’t move on from us.” he continued, his voice trembling slightly. “I’ll never be able to move on from you.” his hand slowly moved until it rested just above yours on the counter. “I think…” he took a breath, and the vulnerability in his eyes made your heart race. “I think I’ll love you forever.”

your resolve crumbled, scattered like leaves in the wind, as the warmth of his presence enveloped you. “I think… I’ll love you forever too.” you confessed, the words spilling out before you could hold them back.

Choso’s expression shifted, a longing flickering across his face as he fought the urge to pull you into his arms. he wanted nothing more than to kiss you, to hold onto you tightly and never let go, but he held back, willing to let you lead the way. if you wanted him to leave, he would do it, even if it meant breaking his heart all over again.

but standing so close, you felt that pull to him that was impossible to ignore. you didn’t know if you’d regret it, but your body was responding to his proximity, urging you to bridge the gap. “are you going to kiss me now?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper. 

Choso’s breath caught at your question, his eyes widening with surprise and a flicker of hope. “is that what you want?” he asked, searching your face for any sign of hesitation. 

you nodded, a nervous excitement fluttering in your stomach. “yes.”

that seemed to break whatever restraint he had left. in an instant, he closed the gap, cupping your face gently with his hand as he leaned in. his lips brushed against yours softly at first, as if testing the waters. the kiss was tentative, filled with months of longing, but it quickly deepened, igniting a warmth that spread through you both.

you melted into him, your hands finding their way to his shoulders, pulling him closer. it felt like coming home after a long trip – a familiar warmth that wrapped around your heart.

Choso broke apart from you, breathless, as he rested his forehead against yours. his eyes searched yours, looking for something within them. “this can’t… I can’t handle it if this is just a one-night stand.” he murmured, breath warm on your face. 

you shook your head against him, a small smile forming across your face. “I don’t think I can let you go again.” as you whispered the reassurance, Choso groaned out in relief before pressing his lips to yours again.

where the first kiss had been cautious, patient, his lips now moved against yours with a fervent need to feel every inch of you. Choso’s tongue dipped past your lips to tenderly caress yours as he pulled you closer into him, heaving chests flush together as your hands fisted the back of his shirt. 

“angel…” he moaned lowly, his teeth nipping at your bottom lip as you panted into his mouth. you felt like you were on fire, his hands leaving trails of flame on your body while they roamed and grabbed at whatever he could get his hands on. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too.” you whimpered as his lips found purchase between your neck and jaw. he peppered kisses along your skin before you felt his teeth bite into you before sucking a mark. “missed you s’ much.”

the two of you became a tangle of limbs as he tugged you toward your bed, so conveniently close in your studio, until your legs hit the bed and you both tumbled backward onto the mattress. Choso landed on top of you with a thud, causing you to let out a laugh with the extra weight. 

“somethin’ funny?” Choso asked with a grin as he tucked a strand of your hair behind your ear. “I missed that laugh. thought I’d never hear it again.”

looking up at him, your heart raced, urging you to speak before thinking. he was so beautiful, watching you with a love-filled gaze, that you couldn’t help but melt under him. “I love you, Choso.” the words slipped out softly from your lips but you had no regrets – you did love him, with your whole heart.

Choso’s eyes went wide, shining so bright that you were blinded by the emotion pouring out from his expression. he was shattered when you’d left. you’d taken the sunshine with you, leaving him to hole up in the darkness of his broken heart. but with those three words, you’d started to piece him back together. 

his lips crashed into yours, teeth clattering together with the force of it, as his eyelids fluttered close with furrowed brows. “I….” he started between your lips “… love…” a nip at your tongue “… you.” 

nothing was holding him back anymore from pulling his shirt over his head with one fluid motion, before latching his lips onto your neck and dragging out the sweet little moans he loved from your mouth as he marked you with his teeth. he’d heard them in his dreams, through his blaring music, every day he heard your voice, and now he wanted to make sure he’d hear it until he went deaf.

Choso trailed kisses down to your collarbone before pulling your shirt off and then unclasping the back of your bra. needy lips found your perked nipples, latching on roughly as he sucked one into his mouth. he made sure to leave bruising red marks on the plushest part of your tits as well – just in case the one on your neck hadn’t taken. this skin was softer, easier to brutally bite and suck, dragging the most incredible noises he’d ever heard from you. with every scratch of his teeth against your skin, you moaned out in a mix of pain-pleasure, and your pulse raced under his touch, shivers running through your bones as he continued his path down to the hem of your pants. 

it felt like the first time all over again; the need and desire taking over both of you. he was relentless with his hands dragging over your body, scratching and gripping everywhere they paused. but his hands would only pause for a moment, before moving on to somewhere else, desperately aching to touch you, feel you, taste you. 

“wan’ t’… need t’ taste you, angel.” he murmured against your skin as his fingers worked apart the button, then the zipper, ultimately forcing the pants down your legs and ripping them from your ankles to toss them somewhere on the floor. he had a one-track mind right now – tasting your sweet cunt on his tongue. “miss the taste of you, been goin’ through withdrawals.”

your face flushed at the filthy words babbling from his lips as he kissed your inner things, making sure to leave bite marks there too. “Choso, that’s so gross baby.” you whined in embarrassment and tried to shut your thighs, only to have them forced open by his hands pushing your knees apart.  “it’s not that great, I’m sure.”

Choso looked up from where his chin was nestled between you, eyes half-lidded as if he was drunk off you already. “it is that great, it’s perfect. could do this all day if you’d let me.” and with that, he licked a stripe up your already slick folds and let out an animalistic groan at the taste. “s’ good, tastes s’ good angel. can’t get enough.”

as he began to eat you like a man starved, spit and arousal coating his mouth and chin, glistening over his face tattoo you loved so much, you fisted his dark hair in your hand at the overwhelming pleasure he was giving you. it had been so long – too long – and you were overly sensitive to every nudge of his nose against your clit as he pressed his face deep into your core.

“Cho, s’ too much.” you whimpered when he plunged a single-digit knuckle deep into your warm walls and curled it into your g-spot. your hips instinctively bucked against his mouth, and he let out a pleased hum at your reaction. 

he pulled his mouth away from your clit with a plop! and smirked up at you through his lashes. “feelin’ good, angel?” he asked, but he could feel the answer on his fingers as he stuffed another one deep into you. your gushy walls were as tight as his pants were around his constrained throbbing cock, no doubt already leaking with pre-cum at the sight of you coming undone from his tongue. “wan’ you t’ cum on me, need t’ taste it before I get inside you.”

“please – hah – please wanna cum s’ bad!” your moans were pornographic at this point as the hot knot in your abdomen tightened into a coil ready to be snapped. as you practically rode his tongue to chase your release, Choso’s eyes rolled to the back of his head at the addictive taste of your cunt, deciding that if he died with his head between your legs and your cum on his tongue, it would be the perfect end to his life. 

“that’s it, cum f’ me ‘kay?” Choso urged before his tongue caressed your clit in circular motions while his fingers curled against your g-spot just right. your orgasm came crashing through you, two months’ worth of pent-up need for him and only him coursing through your bones as you came on his face with wild thrashes of your hips. 

he had to wrap his arm over your hips, forcing them to be still as he didn’t give up his pursuit of the most spectacular orgasm he could give you. even though your body felt like it was on fire, he was unyielding in his torment on your sensitive clit. you were still coming, screaming his name as you tried to scramble away from him in a desperate attempt to escape the overstimulation, but he kept you pinned in place with his bicep, growling into your dripping heat every time you tried to move.

“s-stop, ‘s too much!” you yelped as he continued scissoring his fingers inside of you, forcing open the tightness of your walls as he slurped your clit into his mouth and sucked repetitively. you were going to explode, maybe even die with every wave of release that just kept crashing, the warmth tingling through your body traveling down down down until you felt like a dam had burst, and you heard the squelches of your cunt squirting all over him.

Choso was ecstatic, and absolutely feral to feel your pussy juices spray onto his face and coating his tongue. you tasted heavenly, his cock twitching at the sight of you writhing at his touch – he wanted to lap up every bit of you, but even then, he knew his need wouldn’t be fulfilled.

just as you were coming down, body still twitching with overstimulation, Choso stood up and shoved his pants down to reveal his leaking dick, red and irritated from the confines of his pants, ready to feel you wrap around him. “please, need you to fuck me, Choso.” you begged as you reached for him, wanting him inside of you this instant or else you’d implode. 

“don’t worry, gonna make you feel real good again, baby.” Choso pumped his cock with the same hand that was coated in your release before lining up his tip with your cunt. he kissed your lips, and you tasted yourself on his tongue. of course, he’d never wipe his face of your delicious juices. “missed this s’ much, been dreaming ‘bout it every day.”

with one deep, steady thrust, Choso bullied his dick through your wet walls and bottomed out, balls deep within you and letting out the loudest groan you’d ever heard come from his lips. you gasped at the fullness, somehow forgetting just how large he was when he was pressed against your cervix and filling you so deliciously. he took no time in rolling his hips into yours without pause, ready to feel every inch of you coating his cock. 

“fuck, Choso it’s been too long.” you gasped as his tip continuously kissed your cervix, loud and wet squelches coming from your cunt with every thrust he drove into you. your hips bucked to meet him, need, desperate for him to keep going keep going keep going. without a doubt, you’d be sore and achy tomorrow, but you couldn’t give two shits as long as he was fucking you this good. 

your name was a panted-out prayer on his lips as his hands cupped your face to look at you while he fucked into you, primal instinct taking over and urging him to fill you with his cum over and over. every ignored ache of his cock from the past two months had built up to this, and he wasn’t going to let it go to waste. no, he’d pull more orgasms from your pretty cunt, and fill you up over and over until you could never forget the feeling of him.

 “shit – hmph – missed feeling your cunt wrapped around me. look at you, so pretty underneath me, like my own personal angel.” Choso murmured through his pants as his thrust became sloppier. to compensate for his lack of control and quickly oncoming orgasm, he slid his hand down, fingers pressing against your clit in slow, deliberate circles to get you to cum on his cock. 

as the knot began to tighten in your stomach again, your eyes snapped open to look at Choso above you – black hair already sticking to his forehead, twin buns coming loose, pupils blown out from pleasure, and mouth agape as he watched you move underneath him. “I love you.” you whined, turning your head and softly kissing his hand that was against your cheek. “holy shit, I love you!”

at your confession, Choso’s pace on your clit picked up and brought you over the edge, your second release racking your body as you trembled beneath him through it. he could not only feel it, but he could hear it too. your warm walls clenched around him like a vice, lewd wet squelches echoing with every thrust of his cock, and your slutty moans of his name had him crumbling. god, you were perfect to him, so soft and pretty and you felt. so. fucking. good. 

he felt like an animal, rutting into you with all of his strength to get himself off, desperate to release himself inside of you. his orgasm found him as you were halfway through yours, and he groaned out, “I love you!” before smashing his lips into yours as his hips stilled to be as deep as he could inside of you, spirts of his hot cum coating your walls as he shuddered on top of you. “I love you I love you I love you!”

he fucked you through both of your orgasms before crashing down on top of you, head buried in the crook of your neck as you both struggled to catch your breath and come down from the high. “I love you, Choso.” you whispered now, brushing his bangs from his sweaty forehead and kissing him. 

“I love you, angel. forever.” Choso murmured back in response, a soft smile taking over his wet lips as he nuzzled closer to you, breathing in deeply through his nose against your skin. “never gonna stop loving you.”

“that’s okay with me.” 

-

it was Christmas time now, fresh white snow coating the ground as you hurried down the sidewalk. you were late, oh so late, again. you could already picture Megumi’s disapproving glare, and you almost lost your footing on a particularly slick patch of ice at the thought.

when you finally burst through Yuji’s front door, panting and flushed from the cold, Megumi gave you the expected side-eye. but then Yuji bounded over, a huge grin on his face. “you made it! thank goodness. if I had to deal with mr. grinch for one more minute, I might’ve pulled my hair out. and I like my hair – everyone likes my hair!” he rambled on, tugging you in the living room and practically forcing you to sit on the couch beside Megumi.

“who’s the grinch this year? Megumi?” you asked playfully, a teasing grin spreading across your face as you glanced at the raven-haired boy. you then turned your attention to the other side of the room. “or is it Sukuna?”

Sukuna, lounging comfortably in an accent chair with a mug that you guessed was filled with heavily spiked eggnog, shook his head and let out a low chuckle. “take another wild guess.”

you raised an eyebrow, confused, until Choso rounded the corner wearing the most hideous Christmas sweater you’d ever laid eyes on. the sight nearly made you gasp. “oh my god.” you breathed, struggling to stifle your laughter.

“don’t. say. a fucking. word.” Choso grumbled, shooting a pointed glare at Yuji who was wearing a matching outrageous sweater.

“you look so cute!” you exclaimed, unable to contain yourself. you jumped off the couch and rushed over to him, planting a fat kiss on his lips. “I’ve never seen you wear so many colors!”

Choso’s face turned pink as his gaze dropped to the enormous, puffy reindeer on the front of the sweater. “you like it?” he asked quietly, a hint of shyness creeping into his voice as he rubbed the back of his neck. 

“I love it.” you replied sincerely, and when he looked back up at you, a radiant smile broke across his face. “and I love the man wearing it even more.”

“of course, when his girlfriend shows up, he’s no longer a grouch.” Yuji huffed, arms crossed and feigning annoyance as he watched the exchange between his brother and you.

“you know you love it.” Megumi teased, wrapping his arms around Yuji’s shoulders and planting a soft kiss on his temple, a playful smirk on his face.

“I think I’m going to be sick.” Sukuna declared, pinching the bridge of his nose in exaggerated annoyance before taking a long gulp from his mug.

you settled back onto the couch, still riding the high of Choso’s blush, when he reached into the pile of gifts stacked beneath the tree. his eyes sparkled with excitement as he pulled out a small, wrapped box with a red bow on top.

“for you.” he said, a shy smile spreading across his face as he handed it to you. “Nobara helped me pick it out, so I can’t take all the credit. she also threatened me to make sure I told you that.”

you snorted out a laugh and took the box from him. you carefully peeled off the wrapping to see a small velvety box hidden underneath, and your breath caught in your throat as you opened it. inside lay a delicate, silver necklace featuring a mountain with two stars atop it. 

“Choso, it’s beautiful!” you gasped, tears pricking your eyes as your fingers brushed over it.

he smiled and gently took the necklace from the box. “while it’s not wall climbing, I thought it would remind you of our first date… and, well, us being the two stars. since… y’know, we went climbing, even though we didn’t do it on a mountain and -”

you looked up, meeting his gaze and causing him to pause his rambles at your expression, and felt hot tears freely sliding down your cheeks at the sweetness of it all. “it’s perfect. I love it.” Choso softly smiled before leaning closer and carefully helping you clasp the necklace around your neck. the pendant settled just above where your heart raced beneath your skin.

Yuji and Megumi exchanged knowing glances, and Yuji elbowed Megumi playfully. “look at you two, all sweet and mushy… makes me sick.” Megumi teased with a tiny smirk.

“I’m sick of all of you.” Sukuna grumbled from his spot, but beneath the mug pressed to his lips, you could see his mouth curving up into a small smile.

Choso’s cheeks flushed again, but he didn’t take his eyes off you. “I just wanted to give you something special.” he said quietly, the sincerity in his voice making you melt. “I love you so much, angel.”

you sniffled slightly, reaching up to touch the necklace that you knew would never be taken off. “I love you too, Choso.” you replied before placing a soft kiss to his lips. 

in that moment, everything felt perfect. you were in love, surrounded by some of the people that you cared about the most on the holidays. and for now, you knew that everything would be okay – more than okay.

-

-

-

-

Sukuna’s POV

months later

he’d never say it to anyone else, but Sukuna’s therapist knows damn well to take the secret to their grave. sure, he’d been in love with you, or some semblance of love at least. so forgive him for being a tad heartbroken that he wasn’t the one chosen after everything.

his therapist had told him not to ruminate over it, that he had sought forgiveness and worked towards being a better person. but had he truly? he’d spent the better part of the cold season getting over it, and while he ultimately had, he was still nagged by the dread of never finding someone to look at him that way again. 

he was happy that everyone else was happy. he’d royally fucked up, he knew that, and he deserved to not be the one chosen in the end. all he could do now was move forward and continue trying. 

try try try. 

it was the mantra he’d carried into the new year, seared in his brain every second of every day. it’s all he ever did nowadays.

well, that and drink himself into a drunken stupor whenever he got the chance. and tonight was no exception – having ditched Yuji’s little party at the house to escape the suffocating romance between everyone but him, he found himself at a quiet bar two pints in, desperately hoping for a mild buzz at least.

he felt like a pitiful fool, drinking away his feelings. this wasn’t like him, or it used to not be. he wasn’t so sure anymore. he still felt the same – angry at the world, annoyed by those lesser than him, but in a way, he was more mature. mindful of the people around him and how he affected their lives. he guessed that was what growth did to a person.

but he couldn’t let his old attitude consume him. he’d try and try and try to be better for everyone else around him.

that was until he met her.

“oi, get your fucking hands off me!” he’d heard a voice shout from just outside the bar. it sounded distressed yet confident at the same time. he wasn’t sure what was going on until he heard two other deep voices, chuckling and hurling derogatory insults in the air as if it didn’t matter.

today, it would matter to him.

Sukuna abruptly stood from his stool, causing it to fall to the ground with a loud crash as he stormed out the door of the bar. underneath the streetlights, he saw her – small and fragile, surrounded by two drunken men reaching their hands out for her. and yet, despite her predicament, Sukuna couldn’t help but smirk at her, rearing back a fist, ready to knock someone out. 

she hadn’t even heard the crash from the bar, focused solely on the annoying assholes bothering her. all she'd been doing was walking home, alone, like an idiot of course. but a little recklessness never stopped her. she doubted her punch would do much damage, but it was worth a shot anyway. 

“I said leave me the hell alone, twatbags!” she shouted, fist shaking but staying firm in a pulled-back position. if they made one more move, she'd muster up the courage and hit one of them. she hated guys like these, her office was filled with them and now she couldn’t even get a reprieve walking down the street.

suddenly, both men went wide-eyed in front of her. hah, so her scare tactics worked, she thought. she'd have to pat yourself on the back later for this achievement. “aw, little ole me got you boys scared? looks like you’re about to wet your pants.” she smirked, crossing her arms in triumph. 

until their eyes traveled from hers, to over her head. 

“these guys bothering you?” 

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ .. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ .. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ .. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ .. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ .

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . taglist: @nighttwingg @sweetsformysoul @casualpoetrytaco @lvingd3adg0rl @haikomaiko @csolya @deathlypink @sad-darksoul @elisedylandy @jinxiewritings @aldebrana @ravester @futuristiccurlyhair @san-it-is-i-guess @marie-is-in-the-dark @llovergirlll @iseeyouuu @makingtimemine @spicykimchii @shxhari @ratcoone @mollyrocks420 @willybillyletsgetsilly @distinguishedpenguinbread @ren-ni @sugar504 @runfrme @sukuna-for-life @theclassbookworm @avidreadee123 @tibibibi123 bro. just... BRO. we're at the end ｡°(°.◜ᯅ◝°)°｡ i can't believe it!!!! I really really hope I did the end of the story justice, and that everyone is happy with the ending! if not, at least I'm happy about it. THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO'S FOLLOWED, LIKED, REBLOGGED, AND COMMENTED through this whole short story!!!!! and to everyone who's requested to be tagged you have my WHOLE heart. ugh, I'm getting emotional again... but it doesn't make me too sad considering... Sukuna spin off coming soon! (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧ obviously her will turn into you in the next writing, was that obvious enough? no? damn. anyways, hope to see you all later! ദ്ദി(｡•̀ ,<)~✩‧₊ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ .

[duhnova]

a witches apothecary: for all your desires and needs

pairing: witch!seungcheol x fem!reader

word count: ~4.8k

synopsis: when your boyfriend told you to read the labels on the bottles carefully you should’ve listened, because what was supposed to be a relaxing night of you messaging all the tension away turned to him being in even more pain that only you could fix.

warning(s): smut under the cut (mdni!!), established relationship, supernatural / witch au, light fluff, hint of angst? mentions of food, mentions of blood, petnames (love, babe, baby, ect.) are used for both reader and cheol, whore is used / slight degradation, marking, praise, aphrodisiac oil is used, unprotected sex, creampie, slight breeding kink, dick riding, multiple orgasms (m), squirting, oral (m receiving), throat / face fucking, deep throating, cum eating, let me know if i forgot anything! - don’t mind grammatical errors/typos (i tried) // thank you @onlyhuis & @multi-kpop-fanfics for proofreading!

the story of pink eros collab masterlist

“here you go cheol,” you plop the last basket full of herbs down on the counter top. ���i finished harvesting all your herbs.” you give him a bright smile despite all the dirt on your face and hands. 

“thank you baby.” he smiles back, laughing quietly at the state of your being. “when you get cleaned up, could you put these away for me please? i need to start prepping the herbs to dry so they’ll be ready for next week.” he moves the herbs to set baskets full of premade potions and potion ingredients on the counter for you. 

“okay!” you chirp out before rushing to the bathroom to clean up. after scrubbing all the dirt from your fingernails you make your way back to the kitchen to start putting stuff away. 

you mumbles the ingredients to yourself as you read the labels carefully, making sure you put them in the right spot. seungcheol was in one of the back rooms hanging up all the herbs to dry, giving you the whole kitchen to yourself. the longer you did things like this the more he trusted you to figure things out on your own - not being born into the same life as him. it was new adapting to all the magic he used in everyday life, but he made sure to take his time introducing you to everything. 

while in the middle of rearranging some of the potions so you could add the new ones you heard quite scratches coming from the back door followed by whimpers. sighing quietly you set the small glass bottles down on the counter to go open the door, a shaggy black dog comes waltzing in with a backpack on its back. 

“hi mingyu,” you smile as you watch the dog shift into a person who stands taller than your boyfriend. “i see jihoon let you out of your cage.”

“he did, and he sent me with offerings.” mingyu takes the backpack off and sets it gently on the table so he could pull out bundles of belladonna and a couple glass bottles full of a red liquid. 

“is that blood?”

“from a vampire! so it stinks, be careful.” his nose crinkles in a cute way. 

“do i even wanna know how he got it?” mingyu shrugs before it looks like a lightbulb went off in his head. 

“oh!” he reaches back in the bag to pull out something covered in cloth. “this is very special so be extremely careful with it… ji might kill me if it breaks.”

“what is it?”  you take it gently and unwrap the bottle, the handwriting was hard to read so the only thing you could read was ‘oil’. 

“he wouldn't tell me but he said cheol would know what it was.” mingyu closes the backpack and throws it back over his shoulders. “speaking of, where is he?” 

“the herb room, be careful going back there, the house is swamped with orders so there's boxes and ingredients everywhere.” mingyu nods his head and bids you a farewell, going to seek out his friend while being cautious of everything that's haphazardly stacked up in piles that reach the ceiling. 

carefully you put the belladonna in a basket for seungcheol to deal with later, making sure to wash your hands extremely well you go back to putting everything where it belongs.

the vampire blood was almost powdery, but it moved like a liquid so it mesmerized you for a little bit, mingyu leaving out the back door snapping you out of your trance as you went back to your task. 

“hey love,” you poke your head into the herb room, smiling as you watch seungcheol use his magic to levitate the herbs all around the room while also expanding the walls to make more room for everything. “where does this go?” you show him the bottle that had the mystery oil in it. 

“is it from jihoon?” you hum in acknowledgment. “um, just put it with the other oils for now. i’ll deal with it later.” he tilts his head back to offer you a tired smile, his eyes flinching a little when his neck cracks. 

“okay.” your voice is soft with worry but you still manage to smile back at him. “i’ll start dinner soon… how does soup sound?” 

“sounds amazing.” he hums while he looks down at his herb book that’s floating off to his left before he sighs, rearranging some of the herbs after he read that they shouldn’t be mixed. quietly you back out of the doorway and close the door, leaving cheol to work in peace. 

“put it with the oils?” you frown a little. “which oils though?” you sigh quietly  figuring you wouldn't bother seungcheol anymore as you go to the bathroom where all the nonedible oils are kept. after mingyu consumed the oil from a non edible plant a while back seungcheol made the decision to put all nonedible oils in the bathroom where no one could eat them accidentally. 

once you were back in the kitchen you hurriedly got back to putting everything away, wanting to get started on dinner early so you could get seungcheol to sit and relax for a little bit before he had to go out and set up all the water that needed to sit during the crescent moon. 

there were some bottles you weren't able to put away because of the lack of space but that's something seungcheol could fix later with his magic. washing your hands again you got to work on lighting the stove, which still used fire but seungcheol needed it to be that way for him to properly cook some of his ingredients and potions. mumbling the ingredients of the soup to yourself you get everything ready and prepared while the fire gets roaring. 

“we’re almost out of garlic.. i need to ask ji for some more later.” you make a mental note to text the garden witch later, even if he rarely touches his phone you hope he’ll send mingyu with some next time he makes a delivery. 

“hey baby, do you know where the string is? i ran out and i have a couple more bundles to wrap and hang.” seungcheol comes up behind you while you stir the pot to hug you. he takes a big sniff of the air and groans quietly. “it smells good and i’m starving, when did you start?”

“it’ll be done by the time you are.” you giggled quietly as he kissed gently at your exposed neck. “i think we should have some more in the first drawer in the storage room.” he mumbles a quiet ‘thank you’ as he kisses your cheek before pulling himself away from your body. he also grabs the basket full of belladonna so he can dry it as well. 

just like you predicted you finished dinner a couple minutes after seungcheol finished hanging everything and getting cleaned up. while you took your time to wash up, getting all the food and grime off from the day, seungcheol was setting the table - the bowls and cups floating in the air as he poured soup and drinks into them before setting them at their respective chairs. 

“i was thinking,” you started talking when you entered the room. “after we finish eating I can give you a little message.” you smile at your boyfriend who looks at you with wide and curious eyes. 

“oh?” his eyes follow you to your seat, his food untouched because he wanted to wait for you before he started eating. 

“yeah, i noticed that you were flinching earlier when you were moving your head.” you pick up your spoon so you could take a sip of the broth that was still hot. “maybe i could help loosen up some of the muscles so its more comfortable for you to move.” seungcheol smiles wide, his dimples on full display as he watches the way you frown after burning your mouth on the broth. 

“i’d love that.” he hums quietly before he eats a spoon full of the soup, the heat not really bothering him as much as he starts to scarf down his food. 

“oh!” you jump out of your chair and rush back into the kitchen, the smell of the soup overpowered the bread you had baking in the oven and you almost forgot about it. “there's bread.” you bring the freshly baked bread out into the dining room, your boyfriend is quick to use his magic to levitate it out of your mitten clad hands. 

“thank you baby.” he uses his magic to cut a couple slices for the both of you, levitating the knife to spread butter on them before setting them on your plates. while you both ate your dinner you talked about your days, most of which was spent preparing things for orders people had been putting in for potions and spells.

“i’ll clean up while you go get comfortable on the bed.” you give seungcheol a smile when you both finish eating. 

“let me help you.” he stands up and uses his magic to pick up all the dishes, sending them to the sink where they land a little harshly - his excitement getting the best of him as he grabs your hand to drag you towards the bedroom. his magic was still doing work in the kitchen as he put all the food in the fridge. 

“you're excited.” you giggle quietly as you watch him crawl onto the bed to lay on his stomach. 

“of course i am, you're going to put your pretty little hands on my back.” he hums quietly. you couldn’t help the way your face heated up as you shake your head. 

“take your shirt off for me, i'm gonna go get one of the message oils.” you’ve never seen your boyfriend move so quickly before as you watch his back muscles flex as he lays back down on his stomach, the tattoos on his back prominent under the dull light of the bedroom. you didn’t waste too much time going into the bathroom and grabbing one of the oil bottles, holding it under your shirt to help warm it up a little using your body heat. 

“i know you want me to relax baby but i do have to be outside in the next two hours to make sure the water is in the moonlight for the longest time possible.” seungcheols voice is soft as you crawl onto the bed, sitting on top of your boyfriends ass as you hum quietly. 

“i know love,” you smile gently, even though he couldn’t see it. you pull the bottle out from under your shirt and open it, a sweet but tangy scent hits your nose - it was pleasant but new, you don’t remember the scent but you shrug it off as it has been awhile since you’ve done this. “now relax.” you pour some of the red liquid onto your hands and rub them together, the color looked familiar but you couldn’t put your finger on it as you began to rub the shimmery oil into seungcheols skin. groaning quietly, seungcheol relaxed into the bed, his muscles screaming a little as you knead at his skin. 

“feels good baby.” he mumbles as his eyes flutter closed, the tension beginning to leave his body the higher up his back you got. your hands would linger a little longer on the areas where his tattoos were, loving the way the specs of gold in the oil looked against the black ink. 

“i’m glad it feels good.” you purr quietly as you put some more oil on your hands so you could rub at his shoulders. your hands began to tingle a little but you paid no attention to it as you messaged his shoulders, drawing louder groans from your boyfriend as you felt the knots in his muscles melt away under your fingers. 

“what oil is this?” he mumbles after a couple minutes of silence. “the scent is new.. but familiar.” you shrug your shoulders before realizing he couldn’t see you. 

“i don't know, but i think it's floral?” you bring one of your hands up to your nose to sniff at the oil, your head becoming a little light all of a sudden. “woah..” you whisper.

“where did the oil come from?” seungcheol groans quietly, this time in pain as he shifts under you. 

“the cabinet?” you question quietly as you rub at his back again. “are you still in pain?” 

“this is a different kind of pain.” he shifts under you again, his skin starting to heat up under your hands. “where did the oil come from before the cabinet baby?” you could tell his jaw was clenched as he held back another pained groan. 

“um…” you fumble picking the bottle back up as you go to check the label, which is something you forgot to do before using it. you freeze as you stare at the label, jihoons horrible scribbling stared back as you as it finally dawned on you that you potentially just used something dangerous on your boyfriend. “jihoon..” you whisper. 

“what?” your boyfriend's head tilts to the side as he tries to look at you behind him. 

“it came from jihoon..” you gulp quietly, your hands starting to shake. “i’m so sorry cheol! i didn’t think about checking the label, the colors looked similar and i thought i grabbed the right one and now i just rubbed something into your back that could potentially ki-”

“hey,” he groans as he tries to roll over without knocking you off of him. “It's ok, it's not deadly.” he watches you through his hooded eyes as you shift around to sit on top of his lap where his cock was growing hard. 

“what is it then?” your face heats up at the feeling of his bulge under your ass. you try to read the label again but give up as you lean over to set the glass bottle on the bedside table. seungcheol was quick in grabbing your hips to sit you back down on his lap after you set the bottle down. groaning quietly at the contact he closes his eyes, his jaw clenching again as he tries to focus on anything other than the pain in his body. 

“it’s…” he takes in a deep breath, “its pure concentrated aphrodisiac oil.” he lets out the breath. 

“what..” your eyes widen a little, you remember reading about aphrodisiacs in the book jihoon let you borrow. 

“it’s for sex potions and spells..” his fingers dig into your hips. “and it's super strong.. even just the smell of it can make you horny when it's in this form.” he mumbles quietly. 

“oh..” you gently set your hands on his bare chest, your fingers ghosting over his nipples that are rock hard causing him to groan loudly, his head falling back into the pillow deeper. 

“please.. y/n..” he whimpers a little, his hips bucking up into yours causing you to jump forward a little, a quiet moan leaving you as you bite your lip. 

“are you in pain right now because you're horny?” you mumble as you push your hips down into his as you grind against him, his own hips grinding with yours as he groans lowly. 

“yes..” he was becoming breathless, his body already worked up enough to cum in his pants right then and there. there was enough aphrodisiac in seungcheols system to give him the sex drive of a bunny. 

“do.. do you need something to help with it?” you try to keep a straight mind while you both helplessly grind against each other. “like an antidote or something..” you breathe out quietly.

“i don’t have any remedies made right now..” he groans as he bucks his hips up into yours hard. “i need to get off.” he almost whispers as his eyebrows furrowed together. 

“can i help you get off?” you lean down to kiss gently at his jaw, nosing his cheek as he whines. 

“only if you want to..” he stops his movements, his legs shaking as he tries so hard to open his eyes to look at you. 

“i do want to help you,” you smile softly, moving your hands from his chest so you can fully lay on top of him, allowing you to grab his face. “besides, it would be a lot quicker with me here right?” he nods before he's rolling you two over so he's laying on top. he groans quietly in pleasure and pain, his hips instinctively rutting into yours. 

“tell me when to stop.” he whispers against your lips before he kisses you deeply, his body rocking as he deeply rolls his hips into yours, his pants getting tighter than before. you both were desperately moaning into the others mouth as you sloppily made out with one another, the sexual tension becoming thicker the longer you two took to get naked. 

‘cheol..” you manage to breathe out in between kisses, a needy whine escaping your lips when he nips at your tongue. 

“what's wrong?” he mumbles as he trails his lips down your cheek and neck, sucking dark marks into his favorite places. 

“it’s getting really hot..” you whisper while wiggling under his flaming hot body. one major side effect of the aphrodisiac is it makes the consumer really hot, almost like it mimics the body temperature that wolves and other animals experience during their heats. 

“can i take your clothes off?” 

“god yes.” you sit up along with him so he can pull your shirt off while using his magic to unclip and pull your bra off while he shimmies out of his own pants. you don't even get the drawstring of your pants undone before he’s pulling them off of you along with your panties. the cold air hitting your soaking hot cunt makes a shiver run down your spine and goosebumps rise up on your skin that seungcheol soothes away with his hands. 

“i am going to devour you.” he groans as his warm hands trail down your legs, pushing them wide open so he can comfortably sit between them. he takes one of his hands to jerk his cock a couple times, his precum coating every inch of him. when you whimper quietly seungcheol doesn’t waste a second before he's lining up at your glistening hole. “are you sure you want this?”

“yes, please.” you were starting to sound like the desperate one here despite your boyfriend's pupils being blown with lust and his cock throbbing from all the aphrodisiac in his system. “give it all to me.” with that seungcheol pushes into your tight cunt inch by inch, his hands resting on the back of your thighs to keep them pushed wide open. 

“fuck..” he groans lowly, your pussy clenching at the sound caused his hips to buck forward - his cock fully bottoming out. his fingers dig into your flesh and his jaw clenches while he waits for you to finish adjusting. when you give him the green light to start moving he doesn’t waste a breath before he's thrusting his hips. 

he wanted to start slow, his muscles tense with restraint as he watches the way your head tilts back and your bottom lip disappears between your teeth. letting go of your thighs seungcheol leans his whole body over yours so he can rest his forearms on the bed on either side of your head, caging you against the bed. instinctively, your legs wrap tightly around his waist while your arms snake around his neck, your nails digging into his back as he starts to thrust harder and faster - his slow pace long forgotten as his only thought was to make you moan as loudly as possible while also getting you to cum before him. 

“you feel so fucking good,” he grunts quietly as his hands grip onto the sheets tightly, his hips jackhammering into yours creating a loud squelching sound to echo throughout the room. “doing so fucking good for me, taking my cock like a good little whore.” your pussy clenches at his words causing him to fuck into you faster, the amount of slick you were creating made him slide in and out with ease. 

your nails drag down his shoulders, dark red lines forming in their wake as seungcheol fucks you like theres no tomorrow. a shiver runs up your boyfriend's spine when you rake your nails over his tattoos, the skin puffing up a little but no blood spills out as you continue to mark him up. 

‘keep doing that baby and i’ll cum.” he groans into your neck as he tries to will his fast approaching orgasm away. 

“cum for me my love,” you purr quietly before whining when he hits your g-spot. seungcheol didn’t think twice before he was spilling his thick load into your cunt. despite being sensitive he continues to thrust into you. his cock is still painfully hard, all the aphrodisiac hadn’t been fucked out of his system yet. “let.. let me ride you.” you pant quietly, yelping when he rolls you two over so he was laying on his back again. 

“ride me.” his voice dripped with dominance despite him letting you take over. once you were comfortable, your hands find purchase on seungcheols abdomen before you start to slowly bounce your hips. he groans lowly, his hips bucking up to jostle you around a little bit - the pace becoming too slow for him. biting your lip and digging your nails into his abs that flexed under your hands you pick up your pace, your hips slapping down against his harder as his cum leaked out onto his balls. 

“so big,” you coo quietly, your moans turning into whines as your eyes roll and flutter a little. his cock twitched inside you as you clenched harder than before - your orgasm approaching quickly. “so full.”

“gonna fuck you even more full,” seungcheol groans as his hands find their way to your hips so he can help you bounce on his cock harder, the need to be as deep inside of you as possible becoming bigger by the second. “fill you with my cum till you're dripping with it for days.”  

“please!” you moan loudly, your body jumping forward everytime his hips come up to meet yours. 

“please what baby? fuck.” he almost growls when you clench around him, his cock twitching and his balls tightening as his orgasm threatens to wash over him. 

“cum.. cum please, please!” you babble as you let your body collapse on top of his while he takes over in fucking into you again, his arms wrapping around your waist as he groans into your hair. 

“you can cum baby,” he mumbles as he plants his feet on the bed to get a better and more stable angle. “cum all over my cock.” and just like that the coil in your stomach snaps and your orgasm washes over you as you squirt a little all over his cock. 

“cheol!” you gasp and whine as he helped you ride out your orgasm, his second one washing over him as he unloaded his cum deep inside you. 

the two of you lay there for a couple minutes, panting while you both come down from your highs. your lower half began to ache a little as you slowly sat up, whimpering at how sensitive you were as you gently pulled yourself from seungcheols semi hard cock. 

“how do you feel?” you mumble as your hands rub at his chest, his quiet hums vibrating through your fingertips. 

“less horny that's for sure.” he laughs quietly, his dimples popping out as he lazily looks at you through his lashes. “how do you feel? i wasn’t too rough with you, was i?” you shake your head.

“not at all, besides i love it when you get rough.” you shrug your shoulders as your hands gently message their way down his stomach, his muscles flexing before relaxing - a content sigh leaving him. “is all the aphrodisiac out of your system?” the lower your hands got on his body the harder his cock got again. 

“i would say it is…” he watches you with dark eyes. “but it's hard to tell with your hands on me like that still.” he smirks at the sweet smile you give him.

“well you were still a little hard when i got up.” you crawl backwards slowly till your head is positioned right above his cock. “so maybe you still need my help.”

“i’ll never turn down your help baby.” he breathes out, gasping when your fingers wrap around the base, your fingertips almost touching. you jerk him off a couple times before you stick your tongue out to kitten lick at the head, the tip of your tongue swirling around his slit causing him to hiss and buck his hips up. giggling quietly you decide that teasing him could wait another night as you slowly lower your head, taking inch by inch until you couldn’t take anymore. 

“fuck,” your chest swells with pride at being able to make him sound so fucked out. slowly you start to bob your head, your hand wrapped around the part you didn’t get shoved down your throat yet. “mouth feels so good.” his groans were like music to your ears as you picked up the pace. 

considering he was already sensitive and overstimulated from the oil and his first two orgasms, his third climax wasn't far off. his legs began to tense up a little the closer it got causing you to use both your hands to soothe at his legs while you worked on deep throating him. after a little bit of effort you were able to nestle him nicely down your throat as he began to buck his hips up, fucking your throat as he chased after his next orgasm. 

“y/n!” he moans, his orgasm washing over him like a tidal wave as he cums down your throat and all over your mouth. swallowing every last bit of cum you make sure to kiss your way back up his body, giggling when he laughs quietly. “you’re amazing, you know that?” he whispers right before you kiss him on the lips, his tongue instantly exploring every inch of your mouth as he tastes himself on your tongue. 

“you’re amazing too.” you whisper before kissing him again, this time softer. after pulling away from one another, seungcheol slowly sits up carefully so he doesn’t head butt you. 

“lets go get cleaned up.” he stands up and stretches, groaning as the bones in his back pop. you can't help but drool a little at the muscles in his back, they flex so deliciously as he stretches his arms out and the black ink mixed with the deep red scratch marks was making your head dizzy. when he was done seungcheol picked you up gently to carry you to the bathroom where he ran you two a hot bath - making sure to put the correct soap and oils into the water so you can get the maximum relaxation effect. 

“not to alarm you or anything but its almost ten thirty.” you hum quietly as you relax deeper into the water while using seungcheols chest as your backrest. 

“seven hours minimum is needed for the crescent moon water.” he mumbles against your neck as he relaxes with you. “as long as i'm out and setting up the water by eleven it’ll be fine.” 

“you better not be out there all night.” you mumble already knowing he won't be joining you in bed later until sunrise. 

“i'll try baby.” he laughs quietly when you grumble out a quiet ‘bullshit’ before sitting up to grab your shampoo wanting to hurry up and get out so that seungcheol can attend to his water and you can go to bed (where you’ll one hundred percent pout until your boyfriend comes to join you). “i love you.” he coos, smiling when he notices how hard you're trying not to smile as you lather shampoo into yours then his hair. 

“i love you too..” you mumble, finally giving in and offering him a smile as you helped rinse his hair out. “but you better come to bed tonight, or i’ll strap you to it tomorrow.” he laughs quietly as he grabs your hips so he can pull you close enough for him to kiss the tip of your nose. 

“i’ll come to bed tonight baby, i promise.” and he did keep his promise, after spending two hours setting everything up and making sure it was all protected properly he crawled into your guys bed where he proceeded to lay on top of you like a cat (and even if he was up a couple hours later putting the water away before the sun came out you couldn’t complain too much about his lack of sleep since he did keep his promise, and he took a nap later that day per your request while you took care of some of the potion making that didn’t require magic).

feedback and reblogs are greatly appreciated!

[bunnliix]

The Invisible Strings that Bind Us - Chapter One

Hiii! I hope this is an enjoyable start to the story.

And to anyone that's reading this and wondering if it feels familiar, I was given permission to adapt another fanfic that was discontinued, to give it a new life! I didn't change much here in the first chapter, but the story from here on out is much different than the original first chapter. So basically, I'm not stealing anything!

word count: 3.2k

masterlist

warnings: panic attack, anxiety, I think that's it?

Italicized - Korean

Y/n's POV

I sighed and laid back in bed after my class finished for the day, waiting to see how long this strike would go on. It felt weird to not have school other than the one online class, but for now it's a nice break from the long days at school. I sat up and grabbed my headphones from the foot of my bed, hoping that listening to my music for a bit will help speed the day along. While listening to said music, I started reading some fanfiction, having felt an abnormal want to read k-pop fanfics. This wasn't totally out of place, however it was odd for me to be unable to read one genre of fanfic for this long, as I had been focused on this for a couple weeks already. This week's fixation was Stray Kids, and particularly OT8 fanfic. I had read fanfic for the group before, however it was primarily members by themselves and not as one large group. Which is why this fixation is classified as odd in my mind. 

I passed the day by while reading fanfiction, and it was late at night by this time. I may have fixated on reading a bit too much as I had forgotten to eat food, though it could have been caused by the increasingly odd and realistic visions I had been daydreaming throughout the day. These daydreams had been occuring more often lately, and while some seemed to be of the same people sometimes, it was not always the case. These daydreams also seemed to carry into my dreams, which as I remembered them, seemed to catch my attention as it was very unusual. I had been having odder sensations, in addition to the strange dreams and daydreams. When I searched on the internet, everything pointed to the soulmate bond trying to pull me to my soulmate, however very little of what was happening to me, was really any help to point me in the direction of my soulmate or soulmates? All I could tell was that there were a lot of men in these visions, and that they may speak Korean, or at least most of them do.

Shrugging off that train of thought, I moved to get out of my regular clothes and into my sleep/comfy clothes, and hopped into bed afterwards, quickly forgetting about the daydreams and focusing on a new fanfiction I had found. A while after settling into bed, I found myself getting dizzy out of the blue, and decided that it was better to stay in bed and close my eyes, hoping that it would pass soon. Unfortunately, the universe did not agree with my hopes and soon I felt the bed disappear from under me, and the feeling of falling replaced it. Panicking, as one would in this situation, I open my eyes to try and find a way out of this situation, only to find myself falling into the lap of someone. I look up and recognize the face of the person whose lap I'm in. Of course, being the panicky person I am, my brain decided the best course of action is not to say "hi" or anything else, but to scramble off of his lap and run away from my soulmate. I somehow managed to open the door and run out of it, running around until I found a bathroom, running inside and hiding inside one of the stalls. I patted myself down, trying to find my phone and freaking out when it's nowhere to be found. 'Fuck!' I thought as I sit here in a stall in a strange place and I have nothing to help me get out of here and I'm not even wearing suitable clothes either. I started hyperventilating and found myself spiraling into a panic attack, unable to stop myself. Eventually, due to my panic attack and the lack of food I ate, I passed out in the bathroom stall.

Chan's POV

Today so far has been normal, nothing terribly unusual has occurred yet. Nothing is that unusual when it comes to my members, the chaos is eternal, but very amusing. I'm working on very little sleep, however I was able to finish up writing a couple songs for our next album, so that was a plus. Currently, the group and I are waiting on our choreographers to show up so that we can practice the dance for the title tracks of our upcoming comeback.

"Man, the dreams I've had lately have been kinda weird. There's been one girl I've seen more than a couple times, and I've seen her work on what look like essays as well. I wonder if this is due to the soulmate bond, but maybe it's just my overactive imagination." I hear Han say, and look up at him. That is fairly strange, and he isn't the first to have voiced about strange dreams or other occurrences they've had. However, I have no time to think about this as out of thin air, someone lands in my lap who is clearly none of my members. I look down to see a girl land in my lap, who quickly makes eye contact with me. I see her panic clear on her face, and I have no time to react before she scrambles away from me and runs out of the room. 

Han quickly leaps up as does everyone else who wasn't already standing. He shouts out, "That's the girl I saw in my dreams! How is she here?!" and before anyone can stop him, runs off after her. I'm in shock and look up to see Han run off, standing up quickly and calling after him. I look to the rest of the boys to try and figure out what to do now, as there was no way for that girl to have gotten in, with the exception of her being our soulmate, which I suspect to be true based on how I felt looking down at her. I look down at my lap only to find a phone that I know belongs to none of us, and figure out that it's her phone. I hold onto it and turn it over to find a Nayeon photocard inside the case on the back. "So it seems our soulmate likes k-pop." I remark and show the others the back of her phone case. "Now we just have to find her and Han, where they both went." We all leave the practice room and head off to try and find the two of them.

Han's POV

I watch the girl from my dreams run out the door and my body reacts, jumping up, yelling out that I knew her, before I run out the door behind her. I see her round the corner, but lose her once I turn the corner. I look around to see if I could find her, but the only rooms around here are a couple closets and the bathrooms. I open the closet door to find nothing but cleaning materials, and then search the men's bathroom in case she has run in here. The only option left is the women's bathroom, however it would not be good if I’m caught in there by someone. I lean back against the wall and try to think of what I was going to do next. 'I could call out to her and see if she hears me. But I don't know her name so what would I even call out.' 

I took a chance and looked around to see if there was anyone around. Seeing no one, I headed into the bathroom quickly, checking that there was no one in there. I saw that all but one of the stalls were open, so I went to check that stall. I knocked on it and get no answer. I took a risk and looked under it to find the girl, and wondered if she's so freaked out that she's not answering me. I found a way to unlock the stall and open it to find that she's passed out. I started panicking slightly because I don't know what to do in this situation. Do I call Chan? Do I try to carry her back to the practice room or our studio? Well the first thing I should do is make sure she's okay and alive. I knelt down in the stall and checked her pulse, finding that it's strong and well, if a little fast still. 'She must have had a panic attack or something to have a heart rate this fast after passing out who knows how long ago.' I figure that the best thing to do is to bring her to the studio so that when she wakes up, she won't be too shocked at least. I carefully reach under her knees and back and lift her up slowly, aware about the lack of space around us. Somehow, I managed to get the both of us to the studio without running into anyone. I lay her down on the couch, and sit down on the floor next to the couch, waiting till she wakes up. I texted the boys that I had found her and that both of us were safe. I also informed them that maybe it was better if all of us weren't here when she woke up, in order not to frighten her. If I was in her shoes, I would have reacted similarly, I'm sure.

Chan's POV

I felt my phone vibrate and saw that Han had messaged our group chat. I sighed in relief that he had found our soulmate, but frowned as I read that she had passed out in the bathroom, and that Han wants only a few of us to come see her once she's awake, fearing that she may freak out once again. I understood his idea, as it was logical, and quickly thought of who was best for her to meet first. Probably Minho, Felix and myself, as Felix and myself can speak English, and Minho will want to make sure that she's okay. I sent these thoughts to the group chat, and while the others protested, they ultimately understood where I am coming from. I started heading towards our studio and met up with the others outside, and we all entered the studio quietly and waited for her to wake up. 

Y/n's POV

I slowly started to wake up, feeling a soft surface underneath my body. I opened my eyes to find an unfamiliar ceiling above me, and my memories from before came back to me and I shot up into a sitting position. I heard noise from around me and looked around to find that my memories had in fact, not been a dream. There were half of the members of Stray Kids sitting or standing in various places around the room. "Umm, hi." I said quietly, still not sure what the hell I'm supposed to do in this situation. I looked down at my lap, feeling as if looking away would make it easier on myself. I saw and heard movement next to me and before I could look to see who it was, I heard someone speak to me.

"Hey, are you alright? There's no need to be shy, honestly." I looked up to see that it was Chan who had moved next to me, kneeling on the floor so that he was able to look at me. 'Should I say I'm fine when I'm really not? I don't want to worry them, that wouldn't be fair to them, and I'm sure they're busy enough already without me popping into their lives randomly.' I keep going down that rabbit hole until I feel a hand on my leg, bringing me back to the present. What I hadn't seen while spiraling was the four members trading concerned looks between them. I then looked to see that it's Chan's hand and that he looks more worried. I quickly opened my mouth to respond to his original question. "I'm fine, I'm totally fine. No need to worry about me." I try and laugh his concern off, I don't need to be a bother to them. 

I hadn't realized that I had said that last thought out loud until I felt someone sit behind me and wrap their arms around me as they talked. "You could never be a bother to us, you're our soulmate and we want to be there for you, even though we may have just met. We want you to lean on us for help when you need it, just as we will lean on you from time to time, okay?" I teared up unknowingly as he said that, looking up to see that it's Lee Know who was embracing me. He reaches a hand up to wipe the tears from my eyes, which I only noticed had fallen at that moment. I nodded silently, not really knowing what to say at that moment. I tensed up slightly in his arms, feeling conflicted as I was both comfortable and uncomfortable in his hold. 

One of the boys grabbed my hands again, before I looked up I knew it was Chan. He smiled at me, though he still looked slightly concerned. "Are we making you uncomfortable? Please tell us if we are and we'll back off a bit." I rushed to reply, in doing so also jumbling my words a bit, "No, no, you're all fine, um it's fine you're not makin' me unfomfy, fuck, I mean uncomfy. I just don't know what to do in this sorta situation and so I don't know how to act and you're all cute and y'know, idols and just I- aaaaaaaaaaaaaa" I ended up cutting myself off to spare myself the embarrassment and look back down at my hands that Chan is still holding. While I'm looking down, I heard laughter coming from Felix and Han and I'm not sure if they're laughing at me or not, and I scrunch my shoulders up to my ears, as if it would somehow protect me from them. 

"Hey, knock it off guys! You're making them uncomfortable, can't you see that? " I heard Lee Know speak up from behind me in Korean, talking to the two younger ones. I'm not sure what he said, but it stopped the boy's laughter and soon enough they came over, apologizing for laughing and Han explaining why they laughed in the first place. "I'm sorry, we weren't laughing at you, well not exactly. You sound like me when I get anxious and flustered so Lixie and I were laughing about the fact that I wouldn't be the only one who rambles and gets clumsy with their words. We're sorry that we hurt you with our actions, and hope that you are able to forgive us."

I looked up at Han and Felix, who clearly looked apologetic, and nodded. "Now that you've explained why you both laughed, I understand that you were not laughing at my inability to talk, but that I am not the only one that gets like that. So you both are forgiven, it's okay." I smiled at them, hoping that my forgiveness was clearly translated. They both smiled back at me, and I can see Chan smiling from the corner of my eye, seemingly happy that the situation was resolved. He then spoke up, "So maybe we should do introductions, though it seems you already know who we are."  I blush, nodding my head. "I do know who you all are, and who's missing from this group right now as well. Though shouldn't they be here so that I don't have to introduce myself twice? It would be easier to only do it once." 

Chan's POV

I laughed quickly and nodded, "Yes, that would be much easier. Han, would you text them to come here quickly? " I looked over to see that Han was already doing that. " No worries hyung, already done. They're all on their way ." Not even a minute or so later, the other half of SKZ barged through the door, just as I had hoped they wouldn't. " Guys, really? There's no need to barge in like that. " They all bowed apologetically to both myself and our last soulmate. She giggled at their actions and smiled and waved at them. I looked over at her to see if she was ready to introduce herself and after she looked at me and nodded, I smiled.

Y/N's POV

After the chaos that was the other half of Stray Kids barging into the room, I was ready to introduce myself to my soulmates for the first and only time. I turned to face everyone, "안녕하세요" I smiled and bowed to them as much as I am able to, as I introduced myself. I heard various reactions to my words, including a couple that I can make out as them calling me cute. 

I heard Chan say, "Well, our last soulmate, it's a pleasure to meet you." I looked up and smiled at him brightly as I responded, "I'm very glad to have met all of you as well, my eight soulmates. Though I already technically know all of you by being a Stay, would it be a bother to ask you to introduce yourselves as if I had never met any of you before?" 

3rd Person POV

Felix smiled as their soulmate asked them to introduce themselves to her, as if they were strangers. 'She's adorable, and I can already see how she fits in with us, though I know I'll have to wait and see the full extent of how well we'll get along,' he thought.

 He then decided to introduce himself first, "Hello, I'm Felix, it's nice to meet you!" the younger Aussie waved and smiled at her.

 "It's Seungmin in the building, it's amazing to meet our final soulmate." She giggled at Seungmin's introduction, which in turn makes the man happy that he got a laugh out of her. 

"Hi noona, I'm Jeongin." and eventually the introductions ended with Chan, "Hello, I'm Chris or Chan." 

The young girl smiled at the eight of them, happy to meet them all finally. The boys, as they were bound to do, started getting distracted and eventually Chan came to sit beside her. She looked over at him, still smiling as she almost always is, and asked him if he wanted anything. The Aussie shook his head, just wanting to be near her, telling her as much. They were both happy to watch the rest of the men fool around and have fun with each other. Soon enough, she was feeling tired again, and started to lean into Chris's side, laying her head on his shoulder. Chris smiled at her actions and moved to pull her closer into his side, enjoying the close contact. 

He felt her fall asleep, hearing her breaths even out. In order to make her feel a bit comfier while asleep, he moved her body to lay down across the couch again, with Minho's help. Her head rested in his lap, and he quietly talked with the boys as they let her sleep more.

Next

[bimgtt]

SP never destroyed anything

so what they wanna proof that blushing sasuke loved sakura but in real sasuke blushing at that time means it's embarrassment nothing romantic, sp didn't do shit

what has changed it is till the same bloody

They did good by showing sakura isn't insensitive jerk to a injured person and giving him space but in manga she is a insensitive prick

when is sasuke blushing, it was shadow of his hair sasuke was actually smiling in anime, plus anime was in 2000s, that's why quality down, so they focus on important things, blushing was like something impossible to add at that for some reason

instead they add a hug so it's not even that important cz sakura forcefully squeezing sasuke's hand

funny angry expression cz he had a vision of his massacre self and angry and now wanna throw at someone bc of curse mark, it's same

what's their agenda with this, it proves nothing negative for sasuke

what's difference, both same expression of gratefulness for a comrade mixture with sad and frustration along with pain of curse mark

again what they wanna proof sasuke even not looking at sakura but drawn from different angle than manga that's why it's misunderstood sasuke is looking to none but towards empty point,

what it proves that sasuke love her, delusion looool

same expression in one sasuke looks more exhausted and nihilist and indifferent robotic face other one more angry,

doesn't proof anything positive for sakra stan to cherry picks

again when opening your mouth is surprised expression with no reaction dialogue, both have same expression with manga had open mouth, sakra stan cheery picks well

sugarcoating like sakra stan, sasuke's face is surprised in the anime too but you have to see very closely to understand that not from far away cz it was drawn in a very small way

studio can't cz the way draw sasuke was different then manga that's why they can't add blushing, it would be inconsistent,

also blushing doesn't mean she likes her but he was flustered for some reason, we know what is the reason but you can't sugarcoat panel without indicating concretely why sasuke felt flustered for sakura or something else or being centre of attention when he said about his goal

lol in manga sasuke even not laughing just looking at her with guilt face not love but in anime he is laughing like he is part of team 7 now,

funny this where guilt tripping of sasuke by team 7 started

at least anime tried to make it like consistent memory while manga proved it imagination of sarada with sasuke having both hand and fat

what does it even proof when it was stated sasuke had no contract with her for decade in your fanfic novel mentioned it so why does it matter if it was present or not cz people will read gaiden not only watch anime

this one is bad

instead they add sakura's badass fight not damsel in distress

in manga sasuke looked like depressed as hell but in anime they made him jolly, should be happy for your stan, sasuke didn't , he did cz sarada did

when novel became canon,

they are same as anime canon fillers,

so be grateful, they even adapted these fanfic which only for shippers

lol at least anime showed the canon sasuke not fanfic sasuke,

sasuke who didn't even care when his wife transported now jealous and didn't even hug her when she wanted lol??

anime did better to maintain consistency of sasuke, sasuke never gets jealous, didn't even care when she stabbed by madara never sent a letter in a decade now suddenly jealous

it was filler they can't add everything

like it' even a problem!!

lol sasuke's jealousy wasn't there when he was contract less with her for decade

they removed the creepy part of sakura

if he can count on her then why didn't he let her beat shin uchiha and sending letter to her, i mean he can count on her so sending letter wouldn't hurt his mission after all he can count on her

they want anime fillers to be treated as arc when SP had tight schedule at that time for boruto

he is having smiling face

the man who doesn't even care to send a letter once for a decade or mentioning his wife name before leaving with boruto

[donnalawliet]

Coffee or Tea? (Five x Derek oneshot)

I really didn't like the way they handled Five's "love story" in Season 4. And even though he would have been fine without a romance too, here's my version of a Five experiencing love with a human. Not with Lila, but with Derek, Five's CIA colleague. This is set post S3 and pre S4. This is my personal addition to the Season 4 fix it movement. And even though it's set prior to that last season, I still think it counts.

I mentioned under a post that I would rather ship Five x Derek than Five x Lila. So...Here I am, doing exactly that.

Thank you @tuttle-did-it , @ashes-and-starlight and @xx-blood-lemons-xx for the initial inspiration! I hope you like it, especially you, @ashes-and-starlight . (I‘ll enjoy your Five diner fanfic when it comes out 😊)

I also wanted to thank @lookingforhappy for the post explaining why Five being a member of the CIA didn‘t make much sense. I attempted to explain some plotholes that you mentioned 😅

One last thanks goes to @i-am-tardis-locked for listening to me rambling all day, like always.

Anyway, let‘s get going!

—————————————

Summary: After being stuck in a reset universe without powers or siblings, Five joins the CIA to keep an eye on his family. There, he meets Derek and is suddenly confronted with all kinds of things he hadn't faced in years. Some of them seem uncomfortable at first, but he learns to warm up.

——————————————

Stranded in a new timeline, without his siblings or powers, Five was forced to adapt. Luckily, he was used to doing that. His father had once complimented his ability to adapt and Sir Reginald Hargreeves wasn’t exactly known for dolling out compliments for everyone and everything. In the four decades he had spent in the apocalypse, adapting to his enviroment was equal to survival. That included no longer feeling guilty for raiding corpses or no longer being picky when it came to food. The apocalypse was by no means a five star restaurant. When he transferred to the Commission, he had to adapt once more. New manners, new job, new people.

But through all of this adapting, one goal had stayed consistent. To save his family from the impending apocalypse, to go back for them. Once he left the courtyard without his siblings though, still coming to terms with the fact that he had his arm back…his goal had to adapt as well. This was no longer about actively saving his family. It was about keeping them safe. They came above everything else, not him.

Reginald had taught them a few things that back then, none of the Umbrella Academy members thought would be useful.That included obtaining legal documents, without the legal part. In the Commission, Five had sometimes watched the legal department, how they fabricated fake IDs, court orders or other documents with ease.

And even though he was nowhere near that level, he was good enough. It took him about a week to create an ID, a birth certificate and a high school diploma. All of it was a lot of work. He sometimes had to break into buildings to add himself to their records, but he didn’t care. It would be worth it in the long run.

————————————

Attending college was relatively easy in comparison, bordering on boring. Five’s father had prepared them quite well for that level of learning and in the apocalypse, he had become an expert on math and quantum physics. So a lot of the lectures ended up just being a formality.

Instead of writing things down, Five occupied himself with looking up his family. Allison was in LA with her husband, daughter and Klaus. Luther had found a new place of employment, along with Diego, who had welcomed his first daughter with Lila. Five quickly wiped at his eyes as soon as he read the announcement in the online newspaper. As much as he wished to be an uncle, he couldn’t. Not just yet.

Five finished college in record time. He didn’t attend the ceremony, even though a part of him wanted to. Only the weak need praise to carry on, he remembered his father’s words. And he didn’t have time to be weak. He had a job to do.

————————————

Protecting his siblings required sacrifices and overcoming personal challenges. That was something Five had realised a long time ago. But when he sent his application to the CIA, that realisation hit him like a ton of bricks once more. he roughly knew what a job like that was like. It required absolute loyalty, going undercover, a physical and psychological examination. All of it reminded him of the Commission. He would have an employer again, be stuck in an office instead of enjoying retirement.

Upon receiving his acceptance letter and the request to move to Washington DC for his training, Five slowly walked into his bathroom to look in the mirror. His fake birth certificate stated that he was 18, but in truth his body had just turned 16. Upon looking at his reflection though, he didn’t see himself. He saw an old man, traumatised by years of isolation and lack of things like food or personal hygiene.

“It’s going to be okay“, he whispered to himself, though it didn’t sound very convincing, “As long as they’re alright…it will be worth it.“

————————————

Throughout his training, Five felt an odd sense of numbness. He expected to feel disgusted by how much it reminded him of his training at the Academy or Commission. But there was nothing of the sort. No sense of anger towards the profiler during his psych eval, which he passed with flying colours. He knew what answers he had to give in order to be left alone. Five remembered how much the Commission profiler had bothered him, how he had hated getting his deepest insides get revealed in astonishing detail, until he had learned how to adapt.

But he felt nothing. Neither the obstacle course, examinations by a doctor or profiler really bothered him. He just went through the daily routine, like a zombie with just one goal. There was no anxiety when his test results arrived nor joy when the other cadets celebrated upon passing them. In what felt like a blink of an eye, his training was over and he was assigned jobs. And that was when he met Derek.

————————————

When Director Ribbons had announced that he wouldn’t be working alone, Five had been hesitant at first. Even back in the Commission, he had always insisted on working alone. No partner to bother him or distract him from his plans. But while the Handler had accepted this violation of protocoll, the Director didn’t.

“You’re a new and promising agent“, Ribbons had told him, without offering Five a seat to sit down in, “And despite your maturity, a partner will do you good, I’m sure of it. On undercover missions, you may go on your own, but I don’t see a reason for it in the office.“

Five bit his lip and shifted slightly. He liked being able to wear a suit again instead of the uniform that showed his knees to everyone. In a suit, people were forced to take him more seriously in some way.

“Sir, while I understand what you mean“, he hated having to take on a polite tone like that, “I really do work better alone. I’ll produce good results.“

Five wasn’t a fan of the whole respect game. But in order to stay employed, he unfortunately had to treat his boss with some level of respect, despite being much older.

Ribbons looked him over for a moment. Sometimes, Five had the feeling that his boss saw more than just an agent, but he couldn’t quite place it. Despite his request, he shook his head.

“You’ll be working with a partner. Go to your desk, he’s already waiting for you.“

Five had no other choice but to obey that order. If he protested more, it could result in another psych eval or unnecessary questions. So he simply nodded and made his way towards his desk, pushing the intrusive thoughts on how to quickly kill his boss out of his head. Ever since he had started to work at the Commission a few years ago, these thoughts refused to go away.

————————————

As soon as he entered his room, a young man stood up from his chair. If Five had to guess, he was only a few years older than himself, dressed in a dark green blazer, with a tie and light blue shirt underneath it. More casual than Five’s three piece suit, but still professional. His blonde hairstyle reminded Five a bit of the 1950s, but the glasses and soft facial features broke that illusion. Only a few seconds after entering did Five notice that he had been staring. His mind was really all over the place.

“I’m Derek Young“, his visitor eventually said after no introduction from Five came, “I’m your new partner, pleasure to meet you.“

He held out his hand to shake, a soft smile illuminating his features. Only then did Five regain his senses and shook his hand, making eye contact for the first time. He still wasn’t completely comfortable with touch, the sensation sometimes proved too much.

“Five, Hargreeves“, he replied, keeping it short and with no explanation on why he shared his last name with one of the most well known people in the world. Derek didn’t seem bothered by that cold introduction though, still smiling.

“Our boss told me quite a lot about you, Mr.Hargreeves“, Derek remarked while sorting through one of the files on the desk.

Five froze for a few moments. Not because of the first part of the sentence, he had heard that one many times. But never in his whole life had he been called Mr.Hargreeves by anyone. His siblings had called him Five, his father Number Five, the Handler and everyone at the Commission either those or Mr.Five on the rare occasion. But never Mr.Hargreeves. It didn’t feel like him, even though he was surely old enough to be called that. Still…it didn’t feel right.

“Please don’t call me that, Mr.Derek“, he told him, trying to keep his voice firm, but only being half successful. Five scolded himself for how weak he sounded. Why did a simple name break his mind?

Derek frowned for a moment, then shrugged like it was nothing.

“Very well. Is Mr.Five alright with you?“, he asked, almost carefully that time, as if testing out the waters, “Since you call me Mr.Derek.“

He had expected to not like that way of adressing him either. The Handler had called him that after all. And every time he thought of her, his stomach flipped upside down in not a good way. But surprisingly, Five felt oddly fine with it. Derek’s voice and body language was nothing like his former employer, there was no need to be alarmed in any way. He didn’t have to look up at him like he had always had to do with her and everyone else, they were roughly the same height. Five pulled himself out of his thoughts and shrugged.

“Sure, why the hell not. Do you know where in the building I can find a decent cup of coffee?“

The rush of caffeine always helped Five with distracting himself. No falling asleep, no nightmares, just work.

————————————

At first, Five had assumed that Derek would annoy him. He was much younger after all, there were still things like hope and life left in his eyes. His partner went to work with the genuine intention of helping others. He got Five coffee every morning, while he himself stuck with tea. And even though Five could never understand how one could prefer hot leaf juice over some roasted black coffee, he had to admit that Derek brought him some good coffee.

“Which machine do you go to?“, he asked one morning after taking his first sip, “No matter which part of the building I go to, all coffee tastes like absolute crap.“

Five wasn’t one for making small talk, so Derek was a bit caught off guard by the genuine curiosity. A light blush began to settle down on his cheeks and he cleared his throat a bit.

“I…I bring the coffee blend with me. I can give you the adress of the shop I go to, if that’s what you want, Mr.Five. It’s no big deal, I just thought you might enjoy it more. I can’t stand the tea they give out here either“, he replied and hid part of his face with his teacup.

For the first time in what felt like years, Five’s lip tugged upwards. It took him a moment to realise that he was smiling in  a genuine way, like an idiot. But he couldn’t bring himself to stop, a comforting warmth building up in his chest. He could barely remember the last time someone had genuinely cared about him in such a small way. Derek didn’t even like coffee, yet he brought a good blend of it to work, just so Five would feel a bit happier. The warmth in his chest moved upwards, settling in his cheeks in a similar way to Derek. He was blushing like a hormonal teenager, which he both was and wasn’t.

“Oh, I…Thank you“, he eventually managed to mumble, “That’s very kind of you. I’ll just…Go talk to our boss, he wanted something.“

Five quickly made his way out of the room, taking a few deep breaths as he leaned against the nearest wall. Ribbons didn’t even want anything, but he had needed an excuse to gather his bearings.

“Shit…get yourself together“, he whispered to himself, the taste of coffee still present on his tongue. And like every time he felt upset or overwhelmed, the last words of his former wife, Dolores, echoed through his mind: I want you to enjoy your life, Five. We had good years together, but it’s time that you learn to live without me. You fought so hard for your family, it’s time that you enjoy the results.

Five reached up as a single tear traced down his cheek, quickly wiping it away. He was a grown man, why was he so overwhelmed by this? He decided to avoid Derek for the rest of the day, he needed time to think.

————————————

A few weeks later, Five learned that if he wanted to, Derek could be just as sarcastic as he was. Ever since he had started working there, Susan had been a figurative pain in everyone‘s ass. But because she was a senior agent with a long history, almost no one dared say anything about it. One day, while waiting for their turn on the copier, she began to rant about all kinds of problems plaguing her. Five had to seriously focus on not snapping her neck, so he kept his mouth shut.

“Anyway, my son just introduced me to his boyfriend. Boyfriend?! He’s a man, how can he be attracted to another man? That’s not how it works!“, Susan exclaimed and looked at them, expecting nods or general confirming words.

Derek crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked her up and down. Five knew that look. He had given it to several idiots before.

“So you’re saying one should rather fall in love with a body than with a soul? That’s really shallow and sad“, he said and gave her a fake look of pity before grabbing the files from the desk next to the copier. While Susan still scrambled for words, Five turned towards Derek with surprise.

“Did you…Did you just…?“, he asked, lost for words for once. In response, Derek simply shrugged, a confident smile on his face.

“Somebody had to tell her, she was annoying me. Why, do you have a problem with that, Mr.Five?“

That last sentence had a certain edge to it, as if Derek was either scared or prepared that Five would say yes. However, Five shook his head almost immediately. He had been more surprised than anything else.

“No, not at all. Maybe she’ll keep her damn mouth shut for a few hours“, Five quickly deflected, still processing what had just happened. After that short conversation, they just continued with their day as if nothing had happened.

————————————

Later that evening, while reviewing his family’s files, Five’s thoughts began to wander once more. During the apocalypse, he had never really thought about his sexuality. He had Dolores, but she barely counted as a woman. He had never really felt the desire to have sex, he had more desired to just see a familiar face. Any human face, if he was being honest with himself. And the tough survival conditions didn’t leave much room to think about what he was attracted to. When he closed his eyes, he realised that he could see himself with a woman by his side just as easily as with a man.

And even though he knew how sex worked, the thought of himself having sex with anyone whatsoever left him disgusted. He vaguely remembered telling Klaus in 2019: What a disturbing glance into this thing you call a brain, when he had mentioned the topic.

Before his thoughts could go off the rails even more, Five pulled himself back to the present. He had to make sure his siblings were safe, that was why he had taken the job in the first place.

————————————

After a rather frustrating case that had taken weeks and almost made him bang his head against a wall, Five was exhausted, so was Derek.

“Would you like to catch some drinks later?“, Derek asked him as they both gathered their coats. It sounded so casual, in a way that Five could never do himself. In the last few years, Five had attempted to lower his alcohol intake, but he hadn’t completely succeeded in stopping completely.

“Oh, sure, but…I’m not a big fan of bars“, Five responded, sounding almost ashamed. He had gone to bars before, but had never been completely comfortable there. It had almost always been for work. He half expected Derek to decline as a result, mentally cursing himself for being so uptight. But surprisingly, that didn’t happen.

“That’s fine. We can go to my place, if you’d like. I don’t mind it, Mr.Five“, he said with a wink. That name had almost become a form of teasing that they used with each other. Five smirked a bit and put on his coat, a way of protecting himself from the cold November air.

“Lead the way, Mr.Derek.“

People had different types of reactions when they got drunk. Some got more angry and violent, others sad and melancholic, others happy and joyful. Five got more honest after a few drinks, dropping his walls a bit more. And after a few homemade martinis, he found himself relaxing a bit more.

“You’re quite nice“, he mumbled and took another sip from his glass, “Nicer than my family by a long shot. Why? What do you have to gain?“

Derek frowned and sat down on the couch next to him. His drinks had far less alcohol, so he was just feeling a bit tipsy.

“I’m not nice to you because I have something to gain, Five. Why would you think something like that?“ His voice got a bit softer, as if he felt that there was more behind that drunk question.

Five laughed in response, but it held no humor whatsoever. He was overwhelmed by all kinds of different feelings and thoughts.

“Because I’m a rude old man? Because I’ve never done anything to warrant friendliness from someone like you? You’re young, you could just ask for a transfer with someone who is…more like you.“ Five couldn’t care less that he had just hinted at his true age. If Derek left, it would just confirm his world view.

Derek blinked slowly as he listened to Five ramble. He couldn’t completely make sense of what he was saying, but asking would feel quite rude. So after a few seconds of silence, he set his glass down.

“You may come off as rude, yeah, but…That’s not who you are. Remember how you almost ripped Stacy’s head off because she called me a twink? You didn’t even know what it meant at the time“, Derek chuckled a bit and managed to get Five to smile as well, “I don’t care how old you are or how grumpy you can get without coffee. You deserve to be treated well.“

Five stared at him for what felt like hours, but was probably just a few seconds. He wasn’t even sure what his expression his face was making, he could be crying for all he knew. The last time he had felt close to that safe had been with Dolores in an underground bunker they had found.

He didn’t remember what came after, the alcohol sending his memory to nirvana. The next thing that Five knew, he woke up on a dark green couch underneath a knitted blanket. His head was pounding as if he was Zeus giving birth to Athena and the thirst was overwhelming. At the same time, the thought of moving was enough to make him groan.

“Shit…“, Five mumbled and lazily covered his eyes to avoid the sunlight. With it being November, that meant it must be quite late.

“Here you go“, he suddenly heard Derek’s soft voice right next to him. Slowly, Five moved his arm off his face and blinked up at him. The room was a bit darker now, thanks to the curtains. Derek was standing behind the couch so Five didn’t have to move his head too much, wearing his blue shirt without the tie or blazer. His hair wasn’t styled as neatly, it just looked fluffy and soft. But before Five could think about his hair further, his attention was drawn to what Derek was holding. A glass of water and a pill bottle, most likely aspirin.

“You’re my salvation“, Five mumbled and took both. The act of sitting up alone made him groan, but the feeling of cold water sliding down his throat made up for it. “What happened last night? After that…conversation we had.“

Derek cleared his throat a bit and sat down next to him on the couch, his expression unreadable.

“You had two more drinks, talked about your age, your ex wife, your siblings…then you threw up in my potted plant and passed out on my couch“, he explained and brushed his hair a bit more into place, “That’s it, I think.“

Five groaned and leaned back into the pillow that Derek had provided him with. He felt like he had ruined everything. The first casual relationship he had ever managed to build up with a human being that wasn’t his family or someone he had been tasked with assassinating…and he had destroyed it with alcohol.

“Shit…I really ranted a lot, didn’t I?“, he whispered, but Derek could still hear it, “I…I should go, I understand. I overstayed my welcome.“

He attempted to push himself up, his muscles aching from the hangover and hard couch he had been laying on. Though something inside of his chest ached as well. Before Five could stand up, Derek stopped him. The feeling of a hand on his shoulder was enough to make him freeze.

“Mr.Five, that’s not what I meant. You obviously needed to talk about it“, Derek took a deep breath as he looked him over, “And even though I didn’t understand half of it…You don’t need to feel ashamed.“

His words washed over Five like a wave, most of his focus still spent on the simple touch. He wanted to both pull away, overwhelmed by this simple act of comfort, but also lean into it like a starving man in the desert. So he ended up doing neither, just standing there until Derek pulled away again. Five wanted to say so much, but no words made it up his throat and through his lips. After a long and pregnant pause, he simply nodded and made his way out of the appartment. Derek didn’t stop him that time.

————————————

They didn’t talk about that incident for quite some time. For a few months, they went about their daily routine, making small jokes in between, drinking coffee and tea together in the morning. Until eventually, Five mentioned it again.

“What I said about my age, Dolores and my family…did it bother you?“

They were in the middle of sorting through reports, arguably the most boring part of their job, where it sometimes became necessary to fill the silence. Derek only glanced up for a moment before he grabbed his stapler off the desk.

“Why should it? You always seemed…more mature than others. And I’ve known about your family for months. I go through your files just as much as you go through mine.“

Five blushed a bit at the last remark. It was true, he had searched through Derek’s files on a regular basis. Maybe out of paranoia that he was working for the Commission somehow, even though that wouldn’t make much sense. And to know that Derek was doing the same…it strangely grounded him a bit.

As they continued to work in silence, Five’s mind went back to that morning when Derek had touched his shoulder. It hadn’t been an accidental or manipulative touch, it had just been a simple expression of human emotions. He recalled one time when he had been four years old, still thinking that parents were the heroes children made them out to be. They had watched a movie in which a son had hugged his father and his toddler mind had decided to recreate it. But instead of hugging him back, Reginald had pushed him away and sent him to bed without dessert.

Never trust a hug, he had sternly told his adoptive son, For it’s just another way to hide your face.

Ever since then, he hadn’t attempted to hug another human being. But that had been over five decades ago, surely it couldn’t hurt to…

“Could I try something?“, Five broke the silence once more. He hated how uncertain and young he sounded, like a teenager or child, but he couldn’t stop himself.

Derek noticed his different tone too, but decided not to comment on it. During the entire time that they had worked with each other, he had noticed that some things took more out of Five than the average person. So he simply nodded and stood up as Five approached, his arms hanging loosely at his sides until he realised what the other man was planning. Once the realisation dawned on him, he couldn’t hold back a smirk and lift his arms slightly.

It took Five a few seconds to bring himself to lean into the hug. The second that he did, fireworks went off in his brain. Sparks of colour and noise, all blending together into one picture. It was overwhelming, but he needed more. It was beautiful and hurt his eyes at the same time.

For just a few moments, everything melted away and time stood still. This wouldn’t heal all of his wounds by any means. He was still damaged, maybe beyond complete repair. But it was a start at least, a bandage on his cuts so they wouldn’t get infected. Even though he knew it wouldn’t last, Five allowed himself to feel happy, just for a few seconds.

————————————

During one of his days off, while watching a movie that Allison had recommended to him, Five’s phone buzzed. Strange, his siblings never texted him. They always called, ever since the attemp at a group chat had gone south. So he unlocked his phone and glanced at the text.

Derek: Hey, 5.  The pipes in my appartment burst and it will take a few days until it’s fixed. Would you mind if I maybe crashed on your couch?

For a few seconds, Five contemplated his choices. He could just say no, spare himself the trouble. But on the other hand…he wouldn’t mind not being alone for a few days.

Five: Sure, just stop by. You know the address, right?

Instead of getting a written response, he simply received an emoji of a hand holding its thumb up. Five still hadn’t completely understood the appeal of those modern hieroglyphics. He really was an old man.

Derek arrived not even half an hour later, carrying a bag that held the bare essentials. A few changes of clothes, toiletries and a book or two for entertainment. Five was sitting on the couch, on which he had placed a spare blanket and pillow for him. One cup of coffe rested in his hands and on the small table in front of him…

“You made me tea?“, Derek asked as he set his bag down and went to join him on the couch. The TV was on, playing a movie that he recognised as Brokeback Mountain. Normally he had always been the one to prepare their drinks and he hadn’t minded it either.

Five nodded, fiddling with his own fingers as he watched him pick up the cup. He had been a bit nervous about getting it right. Tea wasn’t his department after all. But the way Derek exhaled after taking his first sip, he knew that he must have done something right.

“Thank you, I appreciate it“, Derek smiled and kept his hands around the warm mug as he inhaled the familiar scent of green tea. It was quite comforting, just like Five’s presence next to him.

As the movie progressed, they both ended up shifting a bit more towards the middle of the couch. Sometimes Derek moved, sometimes Five did, almost like a dance, until they eventually touched shoulders. Five found himself relaxing sooner than the previous timest hey had touched.

When Derek’s hand moved to cover his own, he didn’t stop him, looking forward at the screen. It was slightly overwhelming, but nothing he couldn’t handle. During the climax of the movie however, Five gulped heavily and slowly turned towards Derek, who did the same.

“I’m way too old for you“, he attempted to lighten the mood, but it came out much weaker and desperate. At this point he could see every little detail of Derek’s eyes, the way the colours mixed together, every little imperfection and vein.

Derek cleared his throat slightly, for once not as light hearted. He seemed not as clueless as Five, but hesitant nonetheless. The coffee and tea on the table had been forgotten long ago.

“Your age is the least of my concerns right now“, he whispered back and readjusted his glasses before he repeated the same words that Five had said to him a few months ago, “Could I try something?“

At that point, Five felt like he was drowning. He felt lost, a sensation he had become rather familiar with. He could end this all with one simple word or one shake of his head, for he knew that Derek would respect his consent. But at the same time, he didn’t want to let this opportunity go. So despite not having taken in a breath for almost a minute, he found himself nodding.

Their lips didn’t touch. It wasn’t a desperate kiss like in romance movies meant for teenagers. Instead, it was a soft kiss on his cheek that he felt…warm and without the pressure to do more, not that Five would want that. Like a ray of sunshine warming his skin in the morning, right before the worries of life fully registered in his mind. Derek smiled as Five practically melted into the touch, pulling away after a few seconds.

“Good?“, he asked carefully, just to make sure he hadn’t gone too far. Five smiled a bit and brushed his chaotic hair back behind his ears.

“Yeah, good“, Five simply replied and pulled his legs up against his chest. He wasn’t sure whether he would ever be ready for a proper kiss or saying the three words that seemed to fall from people’s lips so easily. But that maybe wasn’t necessary. They communicated that through other means. Like how Derek prepared Five’s coffee in the morning or how Five’s expression lit up when his desk partner entered the room.

————————————

On the first of October in 2025, they decided to move in with each other. Five teased that it was merely to reduce costs, since they spent most of the time in Derek’s appartment anyway. It had much more life than Five’s place, with small things that made it feel like home. And getting his coffee before work certainly had its advantages. Derek simply smiled at that explanation, not bothering to engage in a meaningless discussion. Instead, he grabbed his coat and handed Five his cup.

“Happy Birthday, Mr.Five“, he said with a wink before heading off to work, leaving a frozen Five behind.

————————————

A few days after his birthday, Five started his investigation into the Keepers support group. Going undercover meant that he had to put on a disguise, so he went for a mix of Top Gun enthusiast and school janitor. The mustache had been his idea, mainly because he missed the facial hair he used to have. It at least made him look a bit older.

Derek chuckled the first time he saw him in disguise. It wasn’t clear whether he was simply amused or making fun of Five.

“What?“

Five couldn’t help but sound a bit defensive. He hadn’t gone completely over the top, right? No, this was simply a cover, for security purposes.

Derek stepped forward, carefully tracing the mustache and making sure it was secure. Five sometimes got figuratively sick at how soft he looked with such simple gestures.

“Nothing. I think it works, Mr.Five“, he responded and looked him over from top to bottom, “You should get going now or you’ll be late.“

Of course, Five couldn’t have that. He still had work to do. By going on undercover missions, he could rise through the ranks and gain more information on how to keep his siblings safe. But despite all of that…At the end of the day, enjoying coffee or tea wouldn’t hurt.

————————————

I hoped you enjoyed this oneshot! I certainly enjoyed writing it, distracting myself from the mess we got in Season 4.

If you liked it, leave a like or a comment. It really makes my day and encourages me to keep going. Also, I would have an idea for a smaller additional chapter, set during Season 4. It would also have some angst. Would you be interested in that? If you are, let me know!

Until next time,

-Donna Lawliet

[schmergo]

For many many years of my life, some would say the prime of my youth, I wrote a lot of fanfiction. And that's how I met many of my dearest friends and that's how I met many of you. For a variety of reasons, I haven't written fanfiction for over a decade (unless you count adapting classic literature for the stage) and haven't been active in that fandom for several years, and the website where I published all my fanfic was taken down for several years.

But recently, when googling myself while looking for something else-- not my real name but Schmergo-- I found that that website is back up and some parts of it are a bizarre and semi-touching time capsule of who I was back then. My profile still says I'm 18 years old (I'm 31) and references the Llama Song.

I also saw that from whenever that website was reinstated, they've counted how many reads the various stories have had and at least one of mine has over 100,000. None of those reads would have been during the years I was actually active on the website. It's so strange to think about that many people meeting a version of me from over a decade ago, seeing all of my weird little author's notes like "Wish me luck at my auditions for Guys and Dolls this weekend!" or "Sorry this chapter is late, my grandma's in the hospital."

The strange thing about growing up on the internet is that that version of me is still around, and perhaps more new people meet her than meet me in real life. I do experience a lesser version of that when I see my old tumblr posts circulating around years later, but that stuff doesn't feel as personal.

When I wrote those fanfictions, I'd never kissed a boy or been on a real date, despite the romantic subplots I sprinkled in there. Now I'm happily married. I uploaded my last fanfiction from my freshman dorm at college. Now I have a full-time job in marketing and have for the past 7 years. I wrote two of my favorite short fanfictions while visiting relatives' homes. Both of those relatives have since passed away. During the years I wrote fanfic, I struggled on and off with bullying and body issues. I'm much more secure in myself as an adult. It's easy to see that those stories were written by someone with much less life experience, knowledge, and awareness than I have now.

What hasn't changed? I mean, I still have a weird fixation on Josh Groban. That's aged well.

Anyway, thank you to everyone who's been with me for all of these different stages of my life! It's been weird!

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

The most challenging part for me is the dialogue between characters. I just, for some reason, struggle with it

So dialogue is just another tool to construct a scene. It needs to serve a purpose, and personally I think having functional dialogue is more important than anything particularly fancy or artful.

Dialogue is going to depend entirely on what the point of your scene is, and where it’s supposed to go. Conversations, just like scenes, and just like stories, need to have an arc, or any sense of movement so that they don’t feel stagnant. You want a beginning, middle, and end. You want clear motivations for each speaker.

How characters express themselves is meanwhile going to depend on their: goals, fears, how they want to be perceived by their interlocutors, their perception of events(!!!), and also their general emotional and mental state.

Bad dialogue tends to be too direct. Characters will rarely say exactly what they think, or be exactly on the same page. Each character will be viewing any given situation through the lens of their own life experiences and values; each character is going to be more concerned with their own problems over the protagonist’s!

Anyway general rules of thumb. Try to avoid stating exposition outright. Characters will not explain to each other things that they both already know. They also will not spill their guts out without reason. Someone monologuing about their tragic backstory unprompted is going to read awkwardly– unless oversharing is a particular character trait you’re going for lol.

If you’re unsure about whether your dialogue reads naturally, trying reading it out loud or have a screen reader recite it back to you.

Also you can learn a lot about dialogue by reading screenplays! I personally think it’s more informative than studying novels because dialogue counts that much more in film and theatre. (Reading the Lion in Winter script rewired my brain tbh.)

I’d also suggest checking out (good) book to film adaptations and studying how they translated the dialogue. Often times you will find that it’s severely streamlined and all to a purpose.

A side by side example I personally learned a lot from is in Silence of the Lambs.

This is the original novel’s take on a portion of dialogue during Clarice and Hannibal Lecter’s first conversation. I’d copy over the entire scene, frankly, but it would be far too long.

Compare it to how the screenplay paired it down:

It’s essentially the same conversation but the pacing is so much tighter, and the word choice is more precise. You do lose something in translation without the first into them discussing the nature of evil vs destruction, but it’s really interesting how the script instead decides to bring things around to the main plot, the serial killer, but also Lecter’s famous cannibalism, which offers imo a better set up for his last (iconic!) bit about eating a census taker.

Also compare this to how NBC Hannibal tries to pass off its batshit nonsense dialogue as intelligent by using melodrama and highbrow seeming imagery.

But this is just an example! In general, there’s just a lot to be gleaned from breaking down good dialogue and trying to figure out why it works, and what each word says about the speakers.

Also! You are presumably asking me about writing because you like my fanfiction but shfhff please don’t try to learn how to write from fanfic. Fanfic is a terrible foundation for building the skills to write original work imo. It just operates on very different standards, and has different goals. Read some classics! Study craft books! Eat your vegetables!

[momokatzetzgo]

See another thing is the way each reacts to Dracula's violent obsession.

They are all dogged into hunting him down and killing him but there are a few differences.

Van Helsing speaks with fascination and to his admittance admiration about the man Dracula was. He's impressed how he was an alchemist, a sorcerer, and a successful warlord. It makes sense, as Van Helsing has like 5 doctorates. He calls him a manchild too but still.

Jonathan feels for him the silent rage of a thousand white-hot diamond suns. His hate for Dracula can only be matched by his love for Mina.

Mina, after getting attacked and calming down feels pity for him. Corrupted Frodo's pity for Smeagol levels. 'Feel pity for him, for one day I may become like him, and I hope you will not hate me when that happens (please don't hate me.)'

I don't know about you but the reactions of the former two create much more potential chemistry towards Dracula's obsession than pity does.

I AGREE ANON!!! I personally don't engage with media adapting the book that always centers it on Mina or Lucy getting "enraptured" by the Count when that doesn't really happen in the books? At least, not in a romantic sense! That's a huge tangent for another day, but I actually think that Mina's strength as a character comes in her relationships with her human buddies rather than the count :o) But if she was the reincarnation of a Belmont (hoo hoo hee hee a certain blonde catholic perhaps?) the parallels with Dracula would be sooo good.

But that also adds to your point about Van Helsing and Jonathan's relationships being way more interesting with Dracula!!! If we are talking in regards to the AU, I think that if Jonathan was the reincarnation of Dracula's lover and ALSO hated his guts right now... l that is so juicy and objectively such an interesting dynamic??? I also once read a really good fanfic that explored if Dracula knew Lisa was Elisabetha's reincarnation and there is so much understated horror that it actually drives me insane how it isn't explored more in media (it's ok guys I'm Buddhist i got this the dukkha and whatever). Maybe it's because I'm on the ace spectrum but soulmates, reincarnated lovers, and the ilk kinda freak me out, but are also so interesting as a storytelling and character device when used effectively.

Van Helsing always felt like a guy who had a very long and mysterious past, so my brain automatically put him as Alucard, but reading your analysis I also kinda agree... maybe others can suggest whether Van Helsing should just be some dutch guy or not lol? also please if someone could get a catchier name for this au i would be appreciative 😭😭😭

[anti-katsuki-lounge]

So I’m writing a fanfic, and due to the fact that it's a very important set piece I have to adapt, I watched Two Heroes a few weeks ago

And after reading fanfic for a good four years straight (and reading manga chapter summaries and reviews) I was fucking whiplashed by the fact that the moment Bakugo opened his mouth I was reminded why fucking hated him again

Like yeah I'm intimately aware of the fact that his personality is steamed sewage (thanks Kaminari) but good fucking Lord, Izuku didn't even beat him in the villain target practice shit (and that's another thing, I forgot how Horikoshi will literally never let Izuku have a dub over Bakugo-*** even though this is Post-Full Cowel and Stain and realistically should have won)* but he immediately fulfills his role as barky pomeranian and curses his general existence.

Thank God he's barely a factor since Melissa takes up most of his possible screentime (should have been a more important character tbh- they should have imported her to the main storyline)**

There's a reason I turn him into a minor antagonist (emphasis on minor, like a recurring mid-boss) in most fics I outline

*If you didn't know, Izuku got 16 sec on what was basically Break the Targets from Super Smash Bros Melee/Brawl, and Bakugo got 15. Todoroki beating them both is more understandable since he nuked the course and cut the knot to say.

**QUIRKLESS INVENTOR COME THE FUCK ON!!!!!! I like Mei-Mei as much as the next guy but dude, missed opportunity- hell they could have been foils.

***Bakugo has literally won all of their fights (except the first which was technically losing the entire game rather than that specific fight so it barely counts) AND All for One has generational beef with him in the newest chapter (he [in]conveniently looks like the Second User who humiliated him with all the stuff he did to oppose him), over Izuku AND All Might the holders of ONE FOR FUCKING ALL THAT ARE DUELING HIM AND TOMURA NOW

Thank fuck I don't have to watch Heroes Rising or World Hero Mission cause he actually IS important in those movies and I would legit follow his Ch 1 advice if I had to watch them

(If you want to know what happens to Bakugo in said fanfic that is currently being written [DAMN YOU EXECUTIVE DYSFUNCTION] basically he gets his finger bitten off when he's five by Maria (the fic’s version of Izuku) who ain't takin his shit and gets expelled from UA after he tries and fails to attack her [AS HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN] and later gets humiliated in several different fights from both heroes and his own villainous allies before getting annihilated and thrown in jail during a way more pressing matter [the training camp going way worse than in canon] as an afterthought)

All of this. It’s odd that Izuku’s not allowed to surpass him in anything. Not grades, not likability, not in combat. Even when Izuku finally gets something Katsuki’s either there to shit on him or surpass him.

[chaptersonetoinfinity]

For the ask game, how about 2, 6, 12, 15, 23, 27, 31, 33 and 47? Sorry that it's a lot of numbers^^'

Fanfic Couples*/Relationships Ask Game

HELLO VIL! :D

NEVER BE SORRY about asking a lot of numbers because I will go on (and on and on) and I’ll be very pleased about it all. And well, since Scarlet Cross is my first Black Clover series, I might be pulling some answers from my past fics for Sense8 and The Magicians. 

But don’t worry, you don’t need to know those to enjoy the sheer chaos of my answers. And I’ll put most of this post under a cut line for those who prefers to scroll through the Sas ramble!

(Sas from the future is coming back here to say: thanks for the ask! This was so fun!)

2 Of the ones you've written, what's your slowest slowburn? How slow is it?

My slowest of slowburns will have to be my very first fic, Veracity, for the Sense8 fandom. It was a 330k behemoth of a fic, during which one couple met in chapter 1, and had a kiss in chapter 38 (a one-sided one, where the Dani gave Felix a kiss at the airport and then winked and said “byeeeee” and left him questioning his life), and finally had a fully-reciprocated, legit kiss—in chapter 40, while fireworks were going off because this was New Year’s Eve! Needless to say, it was a long wait. And so many of their friends stepped in to nudge them together.

To quote one of my favorite comments of all time (a very unique format of commenting where @kinoglowworm and my tumblr mom @gear65 chatted with each other while they read my last chapter at the same time, then copy pasted the chat log as a comment so I got their “live reaction”): 

gear65: UGHHHH The slow burn Kino: The teamwork this has required as much patience and coordination as breaking into bpo did

(For context, “breaking into BPO” was literally the main conflict/major climax of the whole fic. I resolved THAT like, 3 chapters before I resolved this ship, and I’m not sorry.

6 Have you ever started to write a relationship and had it develop differently than you expected? How so?

My brain doesn’t really plan in a chronological manner, so I don’t often find this happening, because I can “envision” the end goal pretty early on before my mind takes me back to “how it begins” and I’ll just build the path that gets them to said end goal.

That said, for Black Clover, I did once plan a canon divergence AU from the Spade Arc onward, but I ended up with a lot of worldbuilding and not a lot of plot. So while I technically didn’t start writing them, I certainly had different plans for how Astelle will unfold in that fic. But while I was stuck, I got the idea for a genderbend universe, and I rolled with the punches.

Now my “Astelle” is a sweet little F/F ship (same energy as Regular Astelle except gay!). I suppose this counts in some ways, because I’m adapting a vast majority of my worldbuilding from the fic-that-never was into this Scarlet Cross AU. But even if Noelle and Talia have the same core personalities as they do in canon, their dynamic does change as a result of girl!Asta being a different gender, because the gender changes also trigger some butterfly effects in this AU with long-lasting consequences!

12 [Couple] has just found an interdimensional portal, and one of them just walked in! Does the other go after them?

Hmm. To see their counterparts in other AU-verses (like, the OCs in my world visiting your world and their counterparts in there?) Or to explore other worlds? Anyway, the answer is definitely yes, for all the pairings that I ship in all my fandoms (including the OCs), just to make sure they actually get their person BACK at the end of the day, ha! 

But the ones with more brain cells like Yuno will tie a rope to his waist and nail the rope to his own world first, or something, if the portal doesn’t shut itself and will stay open. That way Yuno can find his way back (and drag back his Cyrus, who had definitely wandered in because he smelled some plants that their world didn’t have, so he MUST get a sample).

15 Are there any relationship dynamics/tropes you would never write?

I’m open to nearly everything! Dynamic-wise I’ve done it all, M/F, F/F, M/M, even trios (Penny/Kady/Julia from The Magicians). And same for non-romantic dynamics: love a good friendship/found family/mentor and mentee type of bond. But I’m also down for family drama and the less wholesome side of those & tags on AO3. (Silva Family Drama = yesssss, bring it on.) Trope-wise, I tend to prefer serendipitous tropes, like chance encounters that unfold into unexpected relationships (Zora & Cyrus’ friendship or Mereo & Talia+Yuno in Scarlet Cross, for example). 

Which means I’m not likely to write a Soulmate AU. Ha, I finally answered the question! I’d have a hard time describing an “inexplicable pull” towards someone, because the ships in my setups tend to come across as very accidental (both romantic and platonic ones). So! I’m leaving Soulmate AUs to the authors out there who can pull them off (@f-oighear comes to mind because her AU is such a fandom classic at this point, but I know you and @kalolasfantasyworld got some soulmate AUs too, right?) while I lurk in my own little corner of chaos and “happy accidents” (as Bob Ross would say). 

23 Do you think you idealize relationships in fiction, or are your depictions grounded in reality? How often do your characters make mistakes?

My characters make nearly as many mistakes as I do! …But in different ways than I do. Some put their foot in their mouth and some will dig their little hole of denial and bury themselves there until their loved ones bring out a proverbial shovel to help dig them out. And some will be so clueless until the truth hits them in the face like a rake that they step on during a comedy skit. Some do all of the above. Heh. 

I’m also a big fan of multiple third-person POVs where I get inside the character’s head and show all the biases in their thinking, so my style makes the characters sound even less perfect. Because my poor characters can’t keep their thoughts private when this annoying author is around, exposing exactly how much they don’t understand (or how secretly or openly mean they are)! I’m spilling all the tea, like how Noelle has zero tact both her head and out loud, and Talia ditches her train of thought halfway when it becomes “too much thinking” and she’s confused. So on and so forth. 

27 Do you have any characters who are hopeless romantics? How do they interact with the story?

Surprisingly, Talia is the most “hopeless romantic” one to me in my current WIP! She’s romantically dense and oblivious like canon Asta, but she’s very loud and clear about wanting to marry Sister Lily. And she fantasizes about riding back to Hage on a white horse and a billowing cloak and all that romantic jazz. Except, unlike canon!Asta, Talia stops proposing out loud after a while (and hell, we’re all thankful for that). 

Since I’m pairing Talia up with Noelle, that means Talia will come to realize that how she feels about Sister Lily is different from how she feels about Noelle. And how she feels about Noelle is different from how she feels about other friends she’ll make, like Leopold or Cyrus. So eventually Talia will become less hopeless and more straight-up romantic (but never STRAIGHT! ha, sapphic pun). 

But Noelia will off as friends. Here, Talia will be Noelle’s first “girl her age who’s a friend” instead of Kahono. So Talia has a more “organic” attraction to Noelle that grows over time the more they bond, and that helps her get clarity on what real romance feels like, and how “hopeless romanticism” differs from real feelings she’s come to have for someone she’s truly compatible with. Eventually. Maybe. We can only hope. (They will, but they’ll take a WHILE, and that’s why we need wholesome Yuno and Cyrus being wholesome in the meantime in comparison, right?!)

31 Are there any songs that remind you of [couple]? Are there any songs that remind them of each other?

I admittedly don’t listen to a lot of music (GASP! I KNOW!) because I’m the type of writer who gets 100% distracted if I try to listen to anything with lyrics while I write. That said, occasionally I’ll check out a song and the lyrics will give me the right vibes.

So I can’t think of any songs that remind a couple of each other, for the second half of the question. But! For the first half! When I was writing for The Magicians fandom, the song Bad Liar by Imagine Dragons reminded me of the storyline I had for Margo x Fen in my AU titled Come See About Me. 

Context from that fic: Margo had a really rough few years, romantically and otherwise, before she traveled to a different world and met Fen in a small village in the middle of the woods. At the start, Margo had a really low opinion of herself (due to her past) and believes she ruins the lives of anyone who is kind to her. But as her relationship develops with Fen, Margo finds the courage to try and be better (and not make the mistakes she once made with her ex-girlfriend Alice). And she also learns to forgive herself. So the lyrics from Bad Liar give me that vibe.

If you’re curious about the specifics, the last few paragraphs of chapter 23 exemplify this song the most for me! Just start with the line that says “I don’t know.” Fen sighs. “But I never want this to end.”

33 Are there any canon romantic couples, in any media, that you just can't stand?

I do see a lot of “forced” romantic couples in popular media, especially M/F ships! I can’t think of specific ships that I actively dislike (I’m sure I’ve had some in the past, but the names have slipped my mind). So I don’t have any big NoTPs for now, but a lot of ships I see aren’t convincing to me so they’re just “meh”, because it feels too obvious that the writers are *trying* to make them “a thing”. Maybe being a writer myself plays into that in some way, like “oh I see what they’re going for, but meh, I’d have set it up differently”. 

47 What's the most self-indulgent relationship you've written? Are there any particular moments/scenes that you wrote just for you?

I would say the most self-indulgent ship I have in the works is Icarus (Yuno/Cyrus) from Scarlet Cross. I can’t even “see” regular Yunosa in canon given how little screentime they’ve spent together (and Mimosa’s crush on Asta to boot!). But Yunosa fanart? Absolutely adorable. And I love a height difference and a “stoic one falls for the soft one” dynamic. 

They’re also a great contrast to the sheer chaos of Noelia (Noelle/Talia). So I could’ve shipped Yuno and Cyrus/Mimosa with anyone—they’re some of the most shippable characters in BC, imo (with xCanon and xOC!)—but nope, gonna put them together to complete that cute little aesthetic with two and two, an F/F and an M/M, perfectly balanced because I can :P. All for the vibes.

For moments/scenes that I wrote just for me, I once wrote another Magicians AU titled When the World’s Unkind (also with Margo x Fen as the main ship) where Fen gets turned into a bunny due to aa magical mishap, and Margo has to hold Fen in her hands while they travel. Eventually she gets indoors to a safe place and puts Fen on her lap, and after some awkward silence (and bunny snuggles), Margo blurts out her feelings. Animals have that therapeutic effect, huh! That scene was purely self-indulgent and I had a blast—especially because I wrote it from Fen’s perspective while she’s stuck as a bunny.

[margridarnauds]

The most funny thing about people complaining about DracMina is that there are not actually hoards of DracMina shippers running around, creating ship content or highjacking discourse about Dracula, Mina, novel and such. Yet those complainers are acting as if they are personally oppressed by those shippers while it’s not the case, and it wouldn’t be the problem at all if they were not so obsessed with the shippers or the ship itself tbh.

That's always been what's most bizarre about it because ???? Where are all these Dracmina shippers? Do they have a secret discord server where they talk about Victorian gothic villainfucking? And they didn't invite ME? Can I join?

But like. The truth is that even pre-DD, there wasn't a TON of Dracmina fanfiction/general content, whether it was romanticized and fluffy or not. I've been circling around the Dracula fandom since 2011, scoured for fanfic, and...there was maybe ONE really good series that was dark. ADAPTATIONS are overwhelmingly pro-Dracmina, fine, BUT. A lot of the problems that people complain about. Are only really a major Thing. After Bram Stoker's Dracula. Which imo indicates a broader problem of people getting their first taste of Dracula from that film + its subsequent adaptations and then expanding it to cover ALL Dracula adaptations/interpretations of Dracula. I've ALWAYS seen this kind of endless complaining about Dracmina as if that's a way to prove that you're one of the Real Fans who understands that the Vampires are Bad. Like, congratulations, you read the book! You know that Dracmina is not canon in it! Now go and make content for something you actually DO like! Have some useful conversations about the novel and the themes in it! ANYTHING.

And so many posts are framed as like "instead of Dracmina/the reincarnated wife thing, here is what they SHOULD DO" instead of framing it as "I think it would be really cool if...!" Because even when they're talking about THEIR ships, it's almost inevitably about Dracmina. J0nmina shippers are more obsessed with Dracmina than *I* am. (I wouldn't say I aggressively ship it so much as I hold a little bit of fondness for it thanks to that teen girl who loved the sweeping, gothic romance of the idea of it, especially the musical tbh.)

I see posts about one of my favorite musicals and it's inevitably "Dracula the Musical was kind of good...except for the DRACMINA!" Like, literally no one is forcing you to watch a musical that flopped on Broadway in 2004. (I have my OWN complaints about the musical and how it fails and Wildhorn's general problems with writing plots/women, but like.)

And...I do think that there are valid reasons for supporting Dracmina. Just. As a general thing.

For some people, they might genuinely like darker, fucked up ships. Even the reincarnation thing could be interesting IF it was played up for being as horrific as it should be. Having someone else's memories, someone who Is or Isn't you, being the target of that kind of obsession.

For some people, they might like the idea of "let us be monsters." I see that idea being applied MORE to J0ncula, re: queerness, and, for what it's worth, there is some Victorian literature on the vampire that ALREADY leaned into this. Like, you have (subtextually) queer vampires like Carmilla and Ruthven, who are the highest profile non-Dracula 19th century vampires, but you also have (confirmed) queer authors who were clearly using vampires as a way of discussing queerness like, for example, Eric Stenbock's Count Vardalek, which is an example of a tragic, tortured vampire who is doomed to kill what he loves. (There is also a LOT going on in THAT short story, a lot of which makes it highly uncomfortable for a modern audience, but that's another story.) I've written queer Dracula fic with the idea of the vampirism representing that kind of "I am determined to prove a villain, And hate the idle pleasures of these days" acceptance of the Other and of the Otherness that is present in the Self.

BUT. At the same time, it isn't as if there's ever been a golden age in which women have been allowed to just. Love monsters. It has always been radical. Even today. Women cannot read romance novels or lust after villains openly without handwringing over whether it is Moral or Proper or Whether We'll Get Dangerous Ideas from it. It was the case in the early days of the Gothic genre, when there were concerns over them being amoral (and, I mean, in partial defense of the pearl clutchers...a lot of the early Gothic novels make the later novels look tame in their gleeful use of murder, satanism, incest, and decay, thank you to The Monk.) And I can see the appeal of Dracmina on that level.

And all this is complicated by the racism implicit in the novel, of Dracula as the Evil Foreigner, with his ties to the past and his ancient lineage, who is acting as a threat to the Modern Anglo-American world. How do you grapple with that? It isn't easy. For some people, I know they choose to just. Ignore it. Or try to reframe it as Stoker somehow being progressive. And while I can get the appeal of, say, a black or Catholic Irish Mina, or a black or Mexican Quincey...for ME, that approach isn't satisfactory. I'm not saying it isn't satisfactory for ANYONE, or that it's Problematic or Wrong, but that it doesn't vibe for ME. *I* don't like it because I feel like it de-problematizes the novel, makes it about a multiracial queer polyamorous group trying to take down the Evil White Man. (And also still, unknowingly or not, plays into prejudices around people from the region usually defined in the west as "Eastern Europe" that are still present to this day and which are often invisible.) And, again, some people might like that! I'm not going to police how people recontextualize the novel so long as they understand why other people might *not* like that approach.

For me, I personally choose to aggressively love the Other. And I'm fully aware my approach isn't SUPERIOR, especially when you're dealing with the coded SA in the novel, both against Mina and Jonathan. I understand that some adaptations have slid into rape apologism/denial category. But I also think that some things I've seen come about re: for example, DD is people not really thinking when they say "we want to see Mina be sexually traumatized by an Eastern European monster so that she and her English husband can destroy the Foreigner." Foreigners or people who are not white or not considered to be white, in the Victorian Era and now, are a convenient scapegoat for sexual violence -- at the time that this is being published, lynchings are already happening in the States against black men who are accused of raping white women. Nine years before, while the figure dubbed Jack the Ripper instigated his reign of terror, graffiti appeared that said "The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing" -- while Ripperologists have debated the meaning of the graffiti, I have the very mundane explanation that an antisemitic Victorian decided to blame the Jews (TM) for the killings. One of the chief suspects of the crime was Aaron Kosminski a Polish Jew whose major sin, with Assistant Commissioner Robert Anderson claiming the main reason that he was never caught was that Jews would not testify against one another. People WANTED the Ripper to be an Eastern European Jewish man murdering and killing English Women (even in the case of the thoroughly Irish Catholic Mary Jane Kelley, her Welsh connections were emphasized over her Irish.) (Also in partial defense of white British men at the time, there were several people were like "hold up, this is kind of antisemitic.")

And I know this is dark stuff, but it's IMPORTANT to ground the depiction of Dracula as a sexual predator in the context that he was being written in, as a character, and why I personally...don't like an uncomplicated SA story. I don't want Mina to lie about it, either (I've seen this with Miranda/Caliban, which is another example of a classic of a classic with Problems with race, and I hate that as well). It's a delicate, delicate line, and I don't think a lot of adaptations have done it WELL, but I also don't think it's SIMPLE to just say "Dracula is a rapist, if you ship Dracmina, you're shipping a rape victim and her rapist." I'm not saying people have to like it or be comfortable with, but I'm asking people to understand like. Why people might go the OTHER way into it. Because the imperialist overtones of Dracula really are the elephant in the room.

One alternative would be to dig into Makt Myrkanna (aka Icelandic Dracula, which also has an earlier Swedish version), where Dracula is an active Eugenicist. It would still be uncomfortable, especially if someone kept the vaguely Lovecraftian ape cult under his castle. (...yes. Really.) BUT it would establish that Dracula isn't inherently a monster because he's a foreigner, he's a monster because he sees Vampires as a master race (which could also be interesting if the protagonists have the Victorian-typical attitude that White Westerners are the pinnacle of civilization, seeing those attitudes turned around on THEM.) I'm not opposed to that. But for me, I prefer vampirefucking.

The thing with classics is that...if they truly deserve the term 'classic'...they will touch people in different ways. Particularly the Gothic genre which relies on extremes of emotion and inner torment and family curses and decay. With the novel Rebecca, people often get into fights on whether Maxim or Rebecca was abusive, whether either or both of them were terrible people, whether Maxim was a misogynist or just an abuse victim lashing out, etc. etc. and the thing I quickly realized is that almost everyone who got really invested in it had a deep personal reason for interpreting it the way they did, and I could see the reasons for WHY they interpreted it that way even when I disagreed. (I still think Rebecca was abusive as a fyi.)

For some people, I know that Jonathan as a victim, as a potentially queer man, who is able to fight against his oppressor in whatever ways he can is really powerful. For some people, Renfield is really important as a mentally ill (again, potentially queer) man who is abused by the medical establishment. For some people, Seward is really important. For some people, the Harkers are important as an adorable, stable couple. For me, as a general enemy of the adorable, I'm neutral. I've read one analysis of vampires as a class thing, and I don't LIKE it because I still feel like it falls into the mistake that bad Leftist analysis generally makes of reducing everything wrong in the world to capitalism (in the same way that bad feminist analysis makes everything about misogyny). Etc. etc. etc. I'm invested in the women. In the women being happy, in having agency however they see fit. This can include with Dracula, with Jonathan, with Van Helsing, with each other, with any other number of options. (But I also want vampirefucking.) If something turns Mina into JUST Jonathan's girlfriend/Supportive Wife or JUST Dracula's bloodbag or even JUST makes them into Wholesome GFs, I'm not invested. I'm not invested in J0nmina, as a ship. I like it best when Jonathan says he'd become a vampire for her, when he's getting a little bit fucky with Victorian norms (though then there's the question of what "Victorian norms" are since, even though I don't think "I would give up Christianity for you" would be considered to be SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE for real people at this time, it's also definitely not out of place in general gothic lit at this time, and clearly those had an audience so...) I don't particularly find "Middle Class English Couple Has Children" is really that enthralling of an ending, when the ending is middle class domesticity. I understand it from a trauma viewpoint, but it isn't really my vibe.

ANYWAY, my point is, at the end of this essay: I agree with you, people should leave Dracmina alone, it's never been the norm in the fandom, I get tired of it being treated as the Root of All Ills in adaptations when there are usually worse things afoot, there are reasons for people to ship it, be careful with how you talk about Drac because it quickly can slide into bigoted territory with baggage that you might not even be aware of. Also most of the adaptations still suck because they don't let the women be people with agency. And if you reduce Mina to Jonathan's GF I hate you because you don't really care about misogyny in the adaptations, you just care that your blorbo has his supportive wife who cries and acts as a madonna figure for the men to huddle around.

[the-stage-manager]

here have this ramshackle of a fanfic 🫴

might have been inspired by Genius Next Door by Regina Spektor, idk

others said it must have been the weather

Summary: Crosshair struggles to adapt to the complexities of civilian life, while grieving the loss of commander Mayday.

Characters: Crosshair, Hunter, Rex

Word Count: 6k+

Warning: This story contains graphic descriptions of depression and an attempted suicide, if you are sensitive to those topics fuck off no story is worth the cost of your mental health, love yourself by steering clear, unclenching your jaw, staying hydrated, and the sensation of suddenly becoming aware of your tongue in your mouth. It's a big muscle you know. The body of it goes away down your throat. Now is also probably the time to mention that Im high. But. Enjoy the story.

ps. I wrote this immediately after The Outpost so everything that happened in the season finale is ignored because fuck that noise

Crosshair shouldn't have been surprised when his brothers turned up to rescue him. He shouldn't have been, but he was. They were brothers after all, right? Wrecker had said it himself in the wreckage of Kamino: "We would have taken you back..."

It hurt anyways, of course, a confusing mixture of anger and guilt. He had warned them to stay away. Rescuing him was foolish, they had put themselves and Omega in harm's way for nothing, completely ignoring the warning he had sent, and he was infuriated by their foolhardiness, incensed by their rejection of his sacrifice. 

They were stiff and guarded—Hunter especially—watching him carefully from the corners of his eyes, as if he was a deactivated roller who might spring to life at any second. Hadn't they grown up together? Had his choice to remain with the Empire really damaged their relationship so severely that he was little more than a stranger to them? It has been a rational decision; a decision millions of other clones had made. They were soldiers, bred to die, purposeless without violence of war. The galaxy wanted nothing to do with them—even when they were war heroes the Republic had seen them as nothing more than droids with skin and bone. With the Empire, there had been a promise of food and shelter and purpose. Tactically, it made the most sense. 

Until it hadn't, and the Empire, as Lt. Nolan had made so perfectly clear, had no use for them. 

But perhaps, what he saw etched in the expressions of his brothers, was nothing more than a projection of what he felt he deserved to see. Perhaps the distance between them was artificial, built up like a wall to shield Crosshair from the burning agony of forgiveness. Perhaps he was afraid that, if they peered at him to closely, they would see everything he had suffered, everything he had lost and, being empathetic to a fault, they would fail to see the responsibility he'd had as the maker of his own suffering. Somebody much wiser than him had told him once, "We make our own decisions. And we have to live with them, too." 

Crosshair had never been a 'plan for the future's sort of person. War rarely ever offered that sort of long-sided perspective on things. He had never truly considered the possibility of having to live with the consequences of his actions. He had never truly considered the possibility of having to live at all, after the war. After all, the notion of a 'glorious death for the sake of the Republic' had been drilled into him as a thing to be celebrated for as long as he could remember. 

So, while Crosshair had been prepared to die on Tantiss, perhaps living was a more suitable punishment.

And Crosshair was more than prepared to wear his decisions, to let them line his pockets like pebbles. 

They brought him to some tropical planet. They had told him the name of the planet, the name of the town, over and over, but he couldn't ever seem to recall it. The information never stuck. It wasn't as if somebody was going to ask him where he lived. It wasn't as if that place was his home. Clones—regs and Clone Force 99 alike—had barracks and ships, places they rested as they waited for deployment. They weren't meant to have homes, to be domesticated. They were soldiers, that was their purpose. 

Was their purpose.

What was their purpose now? Who were they supposed to be? Where did they belong, obedient dogs, bred for battle? They were too vicious for civilian life, they didn't have the skills for it. They didn't know how to live without the structure of an army. Where would they live? How would they make money? What would they eat? Where would they sleep and for how long? Who would be willing to teach them how to function outside of war, how to manage the panic and the sudden fits of rage and the flashbacks and the immense sting of survivor's guilt because if anyone should have survived that avalanche—

What did it matter? Logistically, the clones were abandoned.

Crosshair's recovery had gone smoothly and he had expected, once he felt well enough to feel again, that he would, in fact, feel something—sorrow or regret or relief or even joy. But those feelings never came. Crosshair felt nothing except, perhaps, for the unceasing, insatiable anger that grew without incentive, and a distant ache that came with the realization that his life was, essentially, over.

When he had avenged Commander Mayday's death, under the shadow of the relentless scavenger, he had been prepared to die. He had anticipated his distress call to be his final words. He had been bred to be a soldier, after all. He had been taught, since birth, to prepare to die. 

Living was a much more difficult concept. A fitting punishment.  

Crosshair had only ever been good at one thing. And that one thing had been useful on the rare occasions that the Batch left the planet to assist Echo and Rex and their network of rescued clones, but those sorts of missions were becoming scarcer and scarcer as the rest of the Batch began assimilating into more domestic roles. They made money fishing or repairing machinery or hauling heavy equipment. There was no need to engage in mercenary activities when they had everything they needed at home. Besides, it was what was best for Omega's development to stay away from conflict.

Assimilation came easily for the others. For Crosshair, not so much. He came across as standoffish and rude and his skills as a sniper were worthless to the civilians. He was hostile and short tempered and the civilians, for the most part, gave him a wide berth. As they should.

Crosshair had always been an ass—rude and sarcastic. He said things, cruel things, because he liked to keep an aire of indifference, of superiority, around him. He had never been an angry man, merely cold and condescending. But now? Now, Crosshair felt completely out of control. The civilians and his brothers would do things that made him so angry he felt like his head was going to pop off—loud noises and bright lights were enough to make the sniper furious. He would get angry when the weather outside was too cold, and he couldn't seem to stop himself from making snide remarks about how much Wrecker ate, driven by a bizarre insecurity that there wouldn't be enough food left.

He snapped with people looked at him the wrong way; he snapped when he smelled ozone or heard sparks crackling; he snapped when he felt the texture of rough wool; he snapped when he heard Omega laugh; he snapped whenever a particularly cruel thought whispered, in a voice that was entirely vagal, that his brothers should have shot him on Kamino when they had the chance. 

He felt like he was losing his mind, like the all-too-familiar smell of the ocean had crept beneath his skin and settled into his bloated veins like a fat, indulgent parasite. The long days became plagued with migraines, and the bitter nights became plagued with restless dreams. 

He missed Mayday, wasn't that strange?

He missed having somebody who understood what he had gone through, what he had sacrificed and why. 

"So what made you want to leave?" Echo had asked once. 

Crosshair never answered and Echo never asked again. 

Crosshair never spoke of Mayday, never described the avalanche, or the armor that so many clones had lost their lives to protect. He didn't talk about the thirty-two rotations he had suffered on Kamino, that his body had metabolized all of his muscular tissue by the time that they had found him, that it had taken weeks to eat solid food again, and months before he could return to active duty. He never talked about Cody, or Dr. Hemlock, or Tantiss, or the torture, or Mayday—because wasn't it always fucking Mayday?—because he couldn't  the conversation would end with anything other than an, "I told you so." 

He didn't talk about any of it. Except, just once, to Rex. 

"Have you heard from Commander Cody?" Crosshair had asked, and Rex had responded tersely:

"I have." 

Crosshair had waited in silence for the captain to continue, but Rex said nothing. So Crosshair mentioned that the last time he had spoken to commander Cody was the day before he defected and—

And then he asked, interrupting himself, "Have you ever lost a friend before?" 

Rex had made a face as Crosshair had told the story. The sniper couldn't identify the expression—he assumed it was pity, or contempt. Which was understandable, he supposed. Rex had fought the chip tooth and claw, had made it his life's mission to help clones escape the Empire; Crosshair had fought tooth and claw to stay with the Empire. Expecting any sort of sympathy or brotherhood from Rex was astoundingly stupid, and Crosshair was quick to recognize the mistake and harden once more. 

"Have you told the others?" Rex asked. 

Crosshair pressed his lips into a thin line and responded, coldly, "They wouldn't understand," 

"You might be surprised," Rex had said. 

Crosshair had felt something burn within him, unidentifiable. "I think I know my squad better than you do, captain," he hissed, his voice dripping with venom. 

"They haven't been 'your squad's for a long time," Rex had pointed out, and Crosshair couldn't breathe. 

Still, Rex had been generous enough to offer him advice—sometimes, writing letters to the deceased helped with the process of parsing through one's grief.  

It was stupid, but Crosshair was desperate for relief, so he wrote. It helped, for a little while. It made him feel less alone, less numb. Never once in his letters, did he apologize. He had tried, many times, but the words were always wrong and every attempt ended in unceasing anger, as a little voice in his head whispered, "Remind me not to die on your watch." 

Crosshair was a quick learned, so it wasn't long before he found himself avoiding the subject entirely. Instead, he spoke of useless things in his letters to the dead man. He described the weather, made remarks about the humidity and the tropical storms. He spoke of the locals, the food, his appreciation that somebody was finally able to cook a dish that was spicy enough for him. He talked about the Batch, described them in detail and wrote of their antics—after all, Mayday had pressed, once, about who his squad had been. Surely he'd want to know? 

Crosshair found himself writing about his feelings—as distant and muted as they were. He spoke of the unfair resentment he felt towards Omega, of his unfounded inability to trust his brothers, of his immense shame. He about the gaping chasm of anger that sat in his chest. It was oddly comforting, talking to a dead man he had only known for three rotations. 

Just once, after a particularly frustrating day—the rain and the cold had made him inexplicably furious—he wrote himself a letter, as if he was Mayday—as if Mayday was still alive. He wanted to indulge in the fantasy that his shame was unfounded, that he hadn't failed his friend. 

The letter read only one sentence: 'Great to hear you're doing well out there.'

There, Crosshair froze. 

He deleted the letter almost instantly, as if, with a sharp inhale, reality dawned on him: What was he doing? What was the point? Mayday was dead. He was nothing more than an strewn pile of bones, picked clean by the vultures. What did he even care? They hadn't even been friends. They'd held two stiff conversations in half a rotation before the avalanche, and that was it. If he was alive, he wouldn't care about the weather or Crosshair's love of spicy food. 

They weren't friends. 

They weren't anything. 

Crosshair had nothing. 

There was nothing. Everything was empty.

He never wrote again, after that. The action was pointless. Mayday was dead. Writing letters wouldn't undo the avalanche, they couldn't turn back time. The dead were dead were dead. Crosshair, in a fit of frustration, cast the datapad across the room, hurling it against the wall with all his might. It clattered to the floor, abandoned, and was never touched again. 

It was funny, really; perhaps Mayday liked the letters because as soon as Crosshair stopped writing them, the commander started showing up in his dreams more and more frequently. Or perhaps the letters—the rumination—had appeased the commander in some way, had served as penance of some sort, as the commander's visage in the dreams became more and more cruel, more and more decomposed. 

Unfortunately, it wasn't as if the things Mayday said in his dreams weren't true. 

Everything was empty: even the yawning void where Crosshair's anger use live, festering. But there was nothing anymore, no unceasing rage, no flinching at the wrong smells and sounds and touches, even the nightmares, after some time, eventually faded until he stopped dreaming all together, and he begun to wake up just as exhausted as when he had gone to bed. 

The more time passed, the less real Crosshair felt. The numbness stretched across his skin and sunk deep into his belly. He no longer felt hungry or thirsty or tired. Even physical pain felt far away. He stopped speaking because his voice stopped sounding familiar, and he stopped spending time with his brothers and Omega because he discovered that, if he stared at them for long enough, their faces were no longer recognizable—like how a word repeated too many times becomes a noise without meaning.

Perhaps, he was no longer human. Had he ever been truly human? Or had the entirety of his manufactured life been artificial?

Food lost its appeal, spice no longer enticed him. Eating became a chore, but he never stopped—when hunger tugged at his stomach, his heart would race, gripped with something that might have been panic, if it wasn't so far away. 

Hunger was an interesting thing, Crosshair learned. When the pangs struck, he wasn't on the tropical planet, he was back on Kamino, with it's cold oceans and maelstroms—and the one rogue wave that had slapped the platform and nearly washed him away. The pangs of hunger transported him to a tiny platform in the middle of the sea, curled on his side as the wind howled and the rains fell in relentless sheets. 

Alcohol quieted the racing thoughts. He had never been a heavy drinker (although he certainly had his other vices) because he disliked the way it made him unsteady (and he was also driven away by the taste) but these days, it was the only thing that kept his head afloat. Otherwise, he might just drown in the vast ocean of nothingness that hung beneath him. The pointlessness, like a sea monster, might just consume him if he dared to let go of the bottle. 

On Kamino, there had been whispers of monsters in the water; creatures who could lure their victims out to sea with their voices, before drowning them. It was a stupid scary story that Crosshair had never believed, but perhaps there has been some truth to it: perhaps singing monsters truly did live in the seas. Perhaps it was their songs that had enticed Crosshair, that had called him to the ocean. 

Or, perhaps, he was simply a desperate, cowardly man who was too timid to admit that he didn't actually have the strength to live with his choices. 

Whatever it the reason, the outcome was the same: Crosshair began to stay up late, waiting, locked in his room, for the rest of the world, for his brothers, to sleep. Then, in the cool of the night, he would creep out and make his way to the beach. Despite the horrors of the Kaminoans platform, the ocean didn't frighten him. In fact, they enticed him, welcomed him, and he would wade out into the water, fully dressed, just to see how far he was willing to go. Each night, he got a little braver and swam a little farther. It was a game he played with the ocean—how far out could he swim before the relentless tides swept him away? 

He told himself he didn't want to die, it wasn't about that. He argued with himself that if he really wanted to die, he'd just shoot himself, plain and simple. 

But sometimes, he would fill his pockets with sand and swim out until the ocean floor seemed to drop away and he would let himself sink, just how far he could lose himself. 

It made him feel alive, in a way. 

It ended the same way every night: at some point, he'd lose the urge and return to shore, his chest aching with an emotion he refused to acknowledge. As the sun rose, he'd return home, dawning with a hangover, strip naked, and crawl into bed. 

The days became a blurry mess of salt and sand and alcohol. Any residual anger melted away, numbed by the drink and the sharp, cool tang of the ocean, and the distant awareness that, with the increasing stakes of his game, any day could be his last. It was that thought, truthfully, that brought the numbness, disguised as relief. 

"Crosshair?" 

Crosshair ground his teeth when Hunter's voice cut through the haze. He sounded tentative. "Rex and Echo have been looking for you. We've got intel from Howzer about a dozen clones in prison for deserting. We've got a rescue mission planned but, well, we could use a sniper," He sounded almost hopeful, or like he was pleading. 

"Howzer?" Crosshair asked, licking his cracked lips. He was thirsty. For the first time in weeks, he was aware enough of his body to recognize the heaviness of his tongue, the way it stuck to the roof of his mouth. 

Water wasn't a problem. Luckily, for as hellish as the ocean planet was, the rain was a constant, which meant that fresh water wasn't a big concern. What was concerning, however, was the lack of food. He had nothing. Perhaps he could attempt to fish, but the ocean was cold and the current was strong. He could easily be swept away by the- 

Where was he?

"He was a captain who served on Rhyloth under you and Admiral Rampart,"

"What?" he croaked. 

"He was a captain. He served under you and Rampart on Rhyloth," Hunter said again, more slowly. He looked concerned. His hands was halfway outstretched towards the sniper. 

"And Rex wants me there?" Crosshair  asked, blinking in disbelief. 

Hunter looked expectant or disappointed, Crosshair wasn't sure.

"He and Echo asked for you specifically. He, uh, he says he needs you sober, though," Hunter said with a frown. He sounded uncomfortable. Why did that make Crosshair angry?

"I'll be there," The sniper said simply.

"Crosshair, look. I think we should talk-" Hunter sound urgent, maybe desperate. 

Unfortunately Crosshair wasn't interested in finding out which it was so, instead, he turned his back on the sergeant, signalling the end of the conversation. 

Howzer. He remembered Howzer. He had allowed Clone Force 99 to escape, had defected against the Empire. Crosshair had thought it was such a repulsive thing to do—he had never liked the captain, and cuffing the captain had brought him a sick sense of pleasure. He had been pleased to punish dissidence. 

Would Howzer recognize him? What a stupid question. Crosshair was no reg. His face was- 

Unrecognizable. 

Crosshair was staring into a mirror. How had he gotten there? He didn't remember-

He could see the burn scar carved deep into his scalp. His heart hammered as he dug his fingers into the pits. 

Rex and Echo wanted him on that mission? With Howzer? Why? 

I'll be there. 

He would not.

He was no coward.

He spent the evening strolling the streets, gathering pebbles. When night fell, he swam farther that he ever had before. He fell deeper than ever, his pockets lines with pebbles. When his lungs cried out for oxygen, he surfaced, furious, cowardly. He was angry at Rex, angry at Echo, angry at Hunter, angry at Howzer, angry at Mayday, angry at himself. So he took it out on the ocean, cursing at it, as if he could enrage it enough to incense it to violence, as if it would crush him beneath a furious, rogue wave.  But the tides remained gentle, and the night was calm. 

Crosshair in his anger, dived. 

Usually, when he sank, he simply exhaled and let the water drag his body down. There has never been any intention behind it, no motion of energy. But now? Now there was fury. Still-powerful limbs propelled the sniper into the darkness, too upset to really think about what he was so determined to accomplish. 

The first time his lungs cried out for oxygen, Crosshair, out of spite, pushed himself even deeper. 

The second time his lungs cried out, reality set in and, suddenly, all of the burning grief and desperation and rage, rage had been smothered, leaving only the smouldering ashes of regret, and the charcoal taste of terror. 

What had he done?

He was down so deep that the pressure hurt his ears. He twisted in the total darkness, suddenly away, for the first time, of the possibilities that big, hulking, singing monsters swam in the depths. He felt like prey. As he tried to right himself, he lost his sense of direction. Which was was up? He exhaled sharply, up went the bubbles. Crosshair, scowling, followed them up. He wouldn't die. He wouldn't let himself die. Just like on Bracca and Kamino and Barton-4. He would not die. 

He had no right to die. Commander Cody had said-

He clawed upwards. His eyes stang and his lungs felt like they were going to collapse in on themselves, but still Crosshair persisted. Up and up and up and up- 

The urge to inhale was immense. He refused. It would not happen. Even as black spots began to appear in his blurry vision, as his brain tingled and his limbs ached, the determination persisted. 

His body exhaled and inhaled in spite of himself, hijacked by instinct. Everything burned. He thrashed, attempting to cough and sucking down more water. 

The surface was close. The bubbles lead the way up. At the sight of them, Crosshair's brain produced an image and a voice. 

"Vicious creatures, but you've got to admire them. They find a way to survive."

He was the ice vulture. It was him. He had sacrificed everything to survive, he chose cast his brothers aside like carrion and now he had to live with those choices.

Vaguely, he recalled breeching the surface. He remembered thrashing and and choking. He recalled the itchy feeling creeping up the back of his throat, the way his stomach heaved, and the taste of bile. He recalled gasping, his body convulsing autonomously towards the shore, practically dragging himself against the current, which had grown strong. He recalled he recalled seeing lights beyond the shore and crying out for help, only for his salt-damaged voice to fail.

He continued to gasp and spew water until his toes touched the sandy shore, he heaved himself forwards and collapsed, at last, on the beach. It took all of his energy to roll up onto his knees. He pressed a fist against his stomach and pressed down on it as hard as he could, forcibly expelling the excess water from his lungs. 

It was funny—he remembered gasping for air. He remembered his eyes falling shut. There had been sand beneath him. When he woke, there was grass beneath him. He opened his eyes, blurred with seawater. Despite that, the figure who stood before him, arms crossed and back straight, was unmistakable. 

"Rex," Crosshair sneered, his voice rough. 

"Have a good swim?" Rex asked, his voice was cold. Before the sniper could answer, the former captain cut in sharply, "There better be a damn-fucking good reason why I found you half dead on the beach," he snapped. He almost sounded worried. 

"I don't answer to you," Crosshair growled, forcing himself to his feet. He staggered forward, stumbled and- 

Rex caught him, steadied him. It was a kind gesture. 

"You should have let me fall," Crosshair hissed, petulantly swatting at Rex's hands. He sounded almost... Mournful. It would have felt good to fall. To sink. It would have made him feel alive. 

"Crosshair..." Captain Rex didn't sound so cold anymore. 

Unfortunately, Crosshair was stubborn. Severe and unyielding. He wrenched himself from the reg's arms and staggered forward. "Fuck off," he spat, unable to think of anything more eloquently to say. 

"Don't think I don't understand what you just tried to do! This isn't something you can just walk away from!" Rex argued, reaching out to put a hand on Crosshair's shoulder. "You need help, Crosshair. What happened on Barton-4 wasn't your fault-" 

Crosshair reacted violently, balling up a fist and slamming it right into Rex's face, who reeled backwards. Adrenaline was a hell of a drug and, even in such a physically exhausted state, Crosshair still had a nasty right hook. 

He imagined Rex hitting him, returning the punch, blow for blow. He imagined it might feel good, in a self-vindictive sort of way. Crosshair imagined, just for a moment, that Rex's fist was clad in clone armor and rags, that his hair was dark and long, and his beard was-

It was deserved. 

But Rex never struck Crosshair. The sniper, anticipating the blow, stumbled backwards and landed flat on his ass. His heart was beating so fast, he thought it might just stop. He rolled onto his hands and knees, and vomited saltwater.

"Hey, hey, hey! What the fucking kark is going on!" Hunter shouted, emerging from the darkness. "What the hell are you doing?!" 

"The captain and I were just having a discussion about tomorrow's mission," the sniper said, panting, as if it was an acceptable answer. 

"Rex, what's going on?" Hunter demanded again, and Crosshair grit his teeth. 

"Did you hear what I said?" he spat. His whole body was trembling from the exertion and the cold, as the seawater evaporation from his skin. He shut his eyes tight and breathed harshly against the rising nausea. Hadn't this happened before? The cold and the exhaustion, the position on his knees, even the words were-

"Help him!" Crosshair cried out, gesturing to a body that wasn't there. 

Whatever Hunter or Rex might have said was completely lost on the sniper, who was trapped in a snowy wasteland, watching, barely conscious, as the worthless lieutenant circled around him like a vulture.

'Certainly not. That would be a waste of the Empire's resources.'

Crosshair's expression fell. The shaking worsened. "He'll... He'll die," he croaked. 

And that was the crux of it, really. He'll die. He had never felt so helpless before, pleading for the life of somebody else, at the mercy of somebody else's whims. He had never been so powerless before. 

Clone Force 99 had a 100% mission success rate. Crosshair had never failed his brothers before, he wouldn't fail Mayday now. He wouldn't.  

He'll die. He recalled prying the commander's helmet off, recalled watching his chest sink and his expression relax as the spirit rose up to march alongside Veetch and Hexx. It was horrific. Mayday could have lived. He would have lived if Nolan had just felt like helping. 

Was Crosshair so powerless that his life was at the mercy of—

"It isn't real, Crosshair. Whatever you're seeing isn't real," As Hunter's voice washed over him, Crosshair lifted his eyes. He felt like he was waking up from a dream. 

"Take a deep breath, Crosshair," That was Rex's voice, nasally from the damage the sniper had done to his nose. It was bleeding something fierce. Crosshair felt almost proud. "There you go. One more," 

He was still on his hands and knees, still dripping wet, gripping the grass so tight that his knuckles had gone stiff.

"Good hit," Rex grumbled. "Consider us even," 

Before the Empire, Crosshair would have smirked—he vividly recalled incensing the captain to violence by bitching about his previous ARC trooper. Before the Empire, he used to tease Echo about it: "It's cute how much your captain loves you. Let me guess, you were the Batch Baby?" 

"You should have let me drown," Crosshair blurted out because he wasn't the same person he had been before the Empire; because he couldn't seem to stop the words from tumbling out; because he so badly wanted the help but was so scared to accept it. 

Rex and Hunter were both kneeling beside him, Hunter had a hand resting on the back of his shoulder, while Rex had a firmer hold, as if preparing to catch him. 

"You crawled out of that ocean yourself," Rex pointed out. 

"Then you should have thrown me back in," Crosshair sneered, in a tone that Hunter had come to realize was joking—but the words felt wrong, and a little too intentional. 

"We're all worried about you, Crosshair. What were you doing out there?" Hunter asked, and the younger clone squeezed his eyes shut. 

"Swimming," he said venomously. 

"Cool off, spitfire," Rex chided firmly. "You're not fooling anyone," 

Rex was talking about his tone—Crosshair's thorns were only defensive—but the words hit deeper. A pained groan pulled from Crosshair's chest as he attempted to shift his weight. He realized quickly that if he moved, he'd collapse, and he didn't wait either clone to see him in such a state. He gripped the grass even harder as he drawled, "You know why," 

Crosshair anticipated stunned, humiliating silence, but Hunter offered none. Without missing a beat he asked, "Why?" When Crosshair didn't response, Hunter asked again, more urgently, "Crosshair, why?" 

"You should tell him. Your squad doesn't want to see you at the bottom of the ocean," Rex's voice was kinder than Crosshair deserved. He clamped his jaw shut and said nothing. 

"We're a patient bunch, you know. We can do this all night," Hunter said, irritated and insistent, panicked. "Rex is right. Nobody wants to see you dead,"

Slowly, Crosshair cracked his eyes open. "You wouldn't understand," he croaked. He sounded defeated. 

"I think you'd be surprised," Rex insisted. 

"He wouldn't understand. Neither of you will ever understand," he snarled like a feral animal. 

"Well, just try!" Hunter snapped, all of his self-proclaimed patience dissolving in an instant. "If you kill yourself because you can't be bothered to let anybody help you, none of us would forgive you! Can you imagine how upset Wrecker-"

"Hunter," Rex said sharply. 

The sergeant sucked in a slow breath and then said, "Crosshair, I meant what I said. None of us want to see you dead. I don't want to see you dead,"

"That's a lovely sentiment; where was all that sweet-talk on Kamino?" Crosshair growled, still adamantly refusing to look up. 

"You're right. But we're not on Kamino. I made a lot of shitty mistakes. My biggest regret is not trying harder to go after you immediately after Rex took the chips out. And I'm sorry. You needed up and we weren't there,"

Crosshair didn't answer. There was nothing to say and the silence was stifling—like being buried under snow. 

"Cross..." Hunter said suddenly, and there was a certain desperation in his voice, despite using such a gentle tone. "I really did mean what I said. You're my brother, I don't want to lose you. All of this shit—whatever it is you're carrying—you can't go on like this, and we can't lose you. Not again," He slipped his arm under Crosshair's shoulder. "Let us help you carry this," 

Crosshair expression tightened, his breathing hitched, and he instantly felt enraged. He grit his teeth, fingers digging tight into the dirt, and in his fury he began, silently, to cry. 

Beneath the numbness, beneath the rage, was sorrow and grief and guilt and so much regret. 

"I'm sorry..." he croaked, barely able to push the words past his ruined vocal chords and shuddering breaths. 

Hunter scooted closer, pushing his arm more firmly under Crosshair's shoulder, ready to catch him when he fell. "It's okay. We forgive you. It's okay, Cross," 

The resolute sniper never made a sound, and he turned his scrunched face away, too proud to let Hunter see him cry. His whole body shuddered and his arms, at last, gave out. 

Hunter caught him. 

He tugged Crosshair close. He flicked his head—a signal to give them some space—and Crosshair heard Rex's footsteps as he stepped away. He felt foolish for his inability to stop the steady flow of tears, but Hunter just held him tighter. He didn't deserve it, he tried to hold his breath to force the feelings away, but his battered lungs wouldn't obey. All he could do was slowly drag his arms up to cling to the sergeant. 

"I'm... I'm sorry," he rasped. 

"Crosshair, I forgive you. And I'm sorry too. I'm sorry it got to this point. We all knew you were struggling but we- we didn't know how bad it was. Rex and Echo and I figured you were struggling to adjust to civilian life. We figured a mission would be a good change of environment. I had no idea—" Hunter shook his head and tightened his grip once more. "It's not an excuse. I'm sorry. It's not an excuse,"

Crosshair managed, at last, to steady his breathing. If he wasn't so exhausted, he'd pull away and stalk off. It he wasn't so exhausted, he'd run away and hide behind all of his walls and thorns, and Hunter never would have caught him. He wasn't sure whether it was a blessing or a curse, to be caught before he could sink further. After all, living was so very difficult. 

"I'm kriffing pissed at you, you know," Hunter said softly, voice hardly above a whisper. "You can't do this again. If we lost you..." 

Crosshair scowled. "You already lost me once before, and you seemed fine," 

That must've hit a nerve because Hunter inhaled sharply and his grip stiffened. "You don't know shit, Crosshair. Is that really what you think of us? That we cared for you so little that we celebrated in your absence? When you said you had your chip taken out, you have no idea how hurt and betrayed-" Crosshair tugged away, and Hunter loosened his hold, immediately cutting himself off. 

There was that shame again, burning in the pit of the sniper's stomach. His arms fell. 

"You have every right to be angry," Hunter said with a sigh, as if he, too, struggled to let his feelings go. "I'm sorry. I'm saying all of the wrong things. I don't want to lose you and knowing that you-" he shook his head. "I'm having a hard time controlling my emotions. That's not your fault, it's mine. And I'm sorry. I don't blame you for staying with the Empire. I understand why you did what you did. We didn't get to you before Kamino. We weren't fast enough. But we did try," he insisted. "I don't- I don't want you to think that we never tried," 

Hunter's arms loosened again, and Crosshair steadied his breath, prepared to straighten, to stand up, to be let go. But Hunter didn't let go. After a moment of hesitation his arms tightened once more. 

"I'm not going to leave you again, Crosshair. I'm not going to lose you," Hunter said firmly. "Rex is off to wake the doc. We've got to give you a physical eval, make sure all that seawater didn't fuck you up. And you need to talk to her. Crosshair, listen to me, you need to tell her that when you went out into the water, you intended to end your life. If you don't, I will. You don't have to tell her why, but you have to tell her. I won't lose you, and you need help. None of the others have to know, you can tell them when you're ready, but you have to tell the doc," he said. 

"So... I'm on suicide watch?" Crosshair sneered, simultaneously sagging into Hunter and rolling his eyes. 

"You're on suicide watch," Hunter said firmly. 

'Tell me about your squad,' Mayday had asked, breath wet and raspingv painfully. 

'Hunter is a pain in the ass. Shitty leader, pain in the ass, but he's kind. So.' Crosshair had writen in one of his useless, fucking letters.

"I lost a friend," the sniper said so softly his voice was barely audible. 

"I'm sorry," Hunter said, and it sounded almost genuine. But it was just enough to prompt Crosshair to keep talking. 

By the time Rex had returned with the doc, Crosshair was barely awake, succumbing to the exhaustion. He remained firmly in Hunter's arms and, while nothing was truly fixed, not yet, it was a beginning. For the first time since before the Empire, Crosshair felt safe.

[squish--squash]

hello squish mon beloved for the character ask game how about..... william moriarty :]

TEEEEM THANK YOU HUGS YOU

ask game here

My first impression: okay so I'll come clean- I originally watched mtp back in 2022 and my memory of my initial reactions aren't the clearest, so I'm going off the messages I sent a friend while watching it and piecing it together from there. anyway my first impression was a little confused but with a little "alright, I can get behind this!"; this was my first actual interaction with a sherlock holmes work/adaptation since I read part of The Hounds of Baskerville in like. middle school. so I really didn't have anything I was going in with other than the very vague notion that it was "based of sherlock holmes". I took a very quick liking to him and his brothers tho :)

My impression now: SWEET FUCKING SUMMER CHILD. DEAR FUCKING GOD! I'm sobbing crying throwing up- I love him so much he has so much depth to him he forces himself to be the necessary evil and plays the part so well you think he loves it but it's literally killing him inside ACK ACK ACK he's the type of guy who'd go "I couldn't care less" but actually cares so much he wants to throw up; I started a bit confused but now I understand him so much, he's a brilliant character!

Favorite thing about that character: I think it might be his determination. Like from the very beginning he's so determined to make the world a better place no matter the dark paths he takes to get there and it's like. fucking unbreakable. dude had a plan and he stuck with it and saw an end to it (even though the end was very different from what he imagined). Even when he's trying to get back on his feet towards the current end of the manga, the moment his hands fall upon a new purpose he grips it like a vice and he's off to chase it (quite literally actually. on a horse). It's either his determination or his kindness, bc the moments where he lets his little villain persona slip and reveals a soft and beating heart makes me feel violently ill in a good way

Least favorite thing: the way he saw his own life with such little respect up until the nyc arc makes my heart shatter. his plan always resulted in the very least his own end, and if a certain someone hadn't been so desperate on saving him he risked his own life I know for a FACT William would have died and AUGH it HURTS but IT MAKES SENSE YOU COMPLEX, COMPLEX MAN

Favorite line/scene: There are so many and I have to choose JUST ONE? VETOING THIS (it counts I'm american <- joking); I'll give a list actually: the bridge scene for obvious reasons; the entire nyc arc (THE NYC ARC [I'm banging my fist on the fucking TABLE and SOBBING] AAAAA) but specifically the scenes where he arrives for backup for Sherlock and Billy and the "wedding vows" scene make me especially emotional; the Baskerville arc where he takes it personally and utterly destroys the guys behind the scheme- I could continue but this is long enough

Favorite interaction that character has with another: every single panel in the manga and every single frame William shares with Sherlock Holmes is priceless I want to gnaw on steel when they interact—detective vs. lord of crime, companions beneath their masks—it doesn't matter how they're interacting I am going insane. THE CHEMISTRY is like watching a beautiful reaction between two chemicals except it's infinite; if the next arc of the manga was just the two of them interacting in a day-to-day progress I would eat it up and leave no fucking crumbs

A character that I wish that character would interact with more: Honestly, I wish we had more interactions between Billy and William! iirc Billy looks up to William and I would have loved to see the two of them bond, especially after he starts working with him and Sherlock (oh well, I'll just read and write fanfics ig)

Another character from another fandom that reminds me of that character: uhhhhhhhh. I don't really.. I got nothing. I'm so sorry but my brain cannot generate another character from a different fandom that reminds me of William LSKDHG

A headcanon about that character: here's a silly one- he gets acid reflux easily (rip); and here's a serious one- he has nightmares about his lord of crime days long after the fall, about all the blood he's spilled and all the lives he's taken. he handles it better and better with time, but it's never a good time when he has them

A song that reminds of that character: I'm not sure WHY, but "Errasuriz" by Kiltro makes me think of William; also "Before We Drift Away" by Nothing But Thieves (squish stop assigning NBT songs to your favorite characters challenge impossible)

An unpopular opinion about that character: I don't think I know the mtp fandom well enough to know what's considered popular/unpopular, and I think it's a bit too small rn for there to be a common consensus? but uhm. I don't fucking know LMAO uhm. I think he'd look better with a purple motif rather than red??????

Favorite picture: okay okay this is gonna be a two-parter but they're from the same chapter and only like. two-three panels apart but these

I AM GOING. TO HAVE A BREAKDOWN OVER THESE. THE LIIIIIIGHT THE SMILE THE EVERYTHING I'M GOING TO FROW UP AND EXPLODE ACTUALLY

anyways ty tem :D I bet you were not prepared for my unintentional essays after each question LDSGKH

[ladyvader23]

20 questions for fic writers

I was tagged by the lovely @fanfictasia and @the-real-azalea-scroggs and this seems fun, so here we go!

1. How many works do you have on A03?

24, though I have some on ff.net that aren't posted on AO3 from the very early days

2. What's your total A03 word count?

850,878 words

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mainly Star Wars, though I've dabbled in FFXIV recently.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Missing and Presumed Dead

Darth Vader Goes to Therapy

Just One Wish

Darth Vader Goes to School

Unexpected Truths (just like the title, I did not expect this one to be in the top 5 and I have questions)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I used to. I read and love every single comment I get, please don't get me wrong, comments absolutely FUEL me, but responding?? I have so much anxiety, it used to take me HOURS to respond to them all. Eventually it got to be so much on my emotional health that I decided it would be better to channel that into writing more for people to enjoy, so...that's what I do now. Again, comments fuel me, and I love you all, and I read every single comment and even have a lil' scrapbook of comments that I go back to whenever I'm feeling down about my writing, so I hope this doesn't give off the wrong impression...

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Easily Fracture. If you've read it, there's no explanation needed here. If you haven't...let's just say someone gets turned into a rug, among many other horrible things...

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Uh...most of my fics have a happy ending of some sort. Some you just have to wade through more angst and whump to get to the happy ending than others. I think Missing and Presumed Dead had an ending I thought was perfect for it, as did Darth Vader Goes to Therapy. Both were happy endings AND endings that I thought were perfect for the story that was told.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I write for Star Wars. Yeah, I've gotten hate XD. Thankfully, it's rare. Usually people get upset with my interpretations because "iTs NoT cAnOn!" I really just don't care, so I just laugh and move on. Like if you wanted canon, why are you reading fanfic?? Probably the craziest though was when someone went on one of the biggest Tumblr blogs in the SW fandom and used my Darth Vader Goes to Therapy fic to support their argument that the Jedi were evil or whatever (idk, I wasn't part of the argument) and beyond the fact that it's wild to go into a fandom canon-based argument with super out of context quotes from a fanfiction to support your argument, but to do it with a fic that I 100% wrote as a COMEDY is just. Wow. I was suddenly flooded with so much hate from a bunch of people who had never read my fic, thought it was a seriously written piece of literature, and assumed I agreed with everything the person said and I didn't even know until I went to the post and had to defend myself...every once in a while someone will not see that defense and will message me more hate. Like it's a crack fic. Granted, I DID do research on real therapy practices because I didn't want to make a joke out of therapy, but everything else was 100% a joke. I'm really glad people love it (so do I!) and resonate with it, but it's not canon. I don't think the person intended for me to get so much hate, so I definitely don't blame them, but it was a lot.

9. Do you write smut?

Um. Ahem. I may or may not have a private stash from like. Deleted scenes in fics that had romance in them back when I wrote those. That I will. Definitely. Never publish. Don't worry about it. >>

10. Do you write crossovers?

Yes! Though I've only done a few. I think the only one on AO3 was the crossover with The Last of Us, done before the TV adaption.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Sort of. There was that scare a few years ago when everyone thought a random website had stolen everyone's fics, but it turned out it wasn't that exactly. AO3 isn't available everywhere, so there are sites that are just set up to mirror whatever is on AO3 so that people can read fics on that site, and it happened to be one of those sites. Oh boy, though, did they get a lot of hate mail before it got clarified. Then there was that time I had someone write a fanfic that they said they wrote with a similar concept to my ff.net story Second Chances, but then one of their friends was like "this is a rip off" so they asked me to read it before they posted it to make sure they hadn't ripped it off. Except...it was almost 90% word for word....so uh. I didn't give my blessing and I don't think it ever got posted lol.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! I've had fics translated into Russian, Chinese, Korean and French. My most common requests for translation are Russian and Chinese. I've never actively tried to get something translated, it's just whoever asks me for permission.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes! (I'm keeping Aza's answer for this part since it's true) There's the memorable Great April Flood, which was basically a dozen of Star Wars writers gathering together to do a massive round robin with tumblr asks prompt fills (those three sentence fics, if anyone remembers) in order to flood our side of tumblr on April Fools in 2020.

I also did an Inuyasha fanfic with my cousin when I was a teenager, and I didn't technically co-write it, but I did heavily work with a specific character for my Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden series with my best friend in high school as well.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

I mean, I'm pretty open to whatever. I think I've written Luke with like....5 or 6 different people depending on the story?? But if I had to choose, I guess I'm pretty consistently Percybeth, so I guess them???

15. What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

The Assassins Blade. Like it was a great story....but omg. I got so much harassment about the most random things, sometimes on every. single. chapter. it just wore me down and I just don't write romance-centric fics anymore, which is sad because I DO like writing romance.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Finding the comedy in even the darkest moment. Taking a horrific situation and really just letting the characters feel the emotions of the moment, letting them bask in the consequences of either their actions or the actions of others.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Well, anyone who has ever edited my stuff will probably say "too many redundant sentences" and you know what? They're right. Fluff-centric scenes are difficult, as well. I also will disappear for months on end when I'm just. In a weird funk. Which I still kind of am in at the moment, but I'm actively trying to break through it.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I don't really have an opinion on this one.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

First one I wrote for: Final Fantasy X, but my mom wouldn't let me publish because it was the days of the internet when all parents thought their child was going to be kidnapped if they did anything other than look at the internet. It was bad though, so I'm not sad I didn't publish.

First one I published: Inuyasha. I published behind my mom's back, and got in trouble when she found out, but then she looked at everyone's comments and figured out that I was not, in fact, overly in danger of being kidnapped, so she let it go.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Darth Vader Goes to Therapy. I will never be that funny ever again. I achieved my peak comedy with that fic. But a very close second is Missing and Presumed Dead, and sometimes, depending on the day, that one is my favorite and DVGTT is a close second.

This was fun! Tagging @sunshinechildskywalker @25centsoda and @zoryany but definitely don't feel like you have to!

[lemeduartes]

2023 Ao3 Wrapped

It's almost 2024, so it's finally time to show you guys my Ao3 Wrapped (A recap of my personal ao3 read fanfics, their fandoms and the ones i liked the most).

This year I read 218 complete fanfics from many different fandoms:

106 - Thiam (Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken - Teen Wolf)

63 - Buddie (Evan “buck” buckley/Eddie Diaz - 911)

18 - Superbat (Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne - DC)

16 - Dinluke (Din Djarin/Luke Skywalker - Star Wars)

15 - other fandoms (Ghost, QSMP, Marvel etc)

All of them together add to a total of 4.172.008 words (Almost double of last year's count). This calculates to 418 hours of reading time, cus i have no social life <3

AND NOW FOR THE BEST PART: My favorites of the year!!

#1 - AIRPLANES BY @captainmintyfresh Thiam  Words: 236,875     Chapters: 43

This is most definitely my favorite fanfic of all time, it's SO WELL WRITTEN and so funny and sad and cute and romantic I JUST CAN'T GET OVER IT! Honestly one of the best works i ever encounter and its my top #1 of 2023 without a doubt!!

#2 - Dangerous Dreams BY @shirozora-draws Dinluke   Words: 196,702            Works: 4

With FOUR different works, this series GOT ME WRAPPED AROUND IT'S FINGER with the story, character studies and illustration that literally made me love it so much i wanna cry. My personal favorite was The Storm, but every single one it's a masterpiece on its own and I really hope they finish The Stars soon so i can scream and cry a bit more.

#3 The Right To remain Silent by fallingforboys @theoceanismyinkwell Thiam   Words: 28,992  Chapters: 3/3

This Teen Wolf adaptation of brooklyn nine-nine made my year 200% better, its definitely something i will read over and over again without ever getting tired, since its two of my favorite shows together! I love every aspect of it and i will recomend to everyone that I know in every situation possible.

#4 oh you're a crewmate? name every task by @remycchi Superbat Words: 11,348   Works: 2

This short and cute series is such a cool and chill read, it's very funny and makes you giggle and kick your feet, and also made me laugh very hard. I genuinely love how light it is and I have to admit that I read it more than a few times during the year.

#5 Bad Luck Buck 'verse by whileyouresleeping Buddie   Words: 50,216       Works:4

ANOTHER PERFECT SERIES THAT I ABSOLUTE LOVE! This one is funny, even if a bit exaggerated. I love how their relationship grows and you definitely should put it in your list for next year.

And that's it for this year! Thank you for reading and I hope all of you have a great 2024!!!

See you in the next Ao3 Wrapped.