#and i was a baby it's not something i remember personally

[endearng]

Stranger danger

Pairing: Spencer Reid x single mom!reader Summary: The power goes out. You and your daughter leave your apartment to find some light. Luckily, a stranger floods your being with it. WC: 2.1k Warnings: reader is scared of the dark; light mentions to stranger danger; it's a meet cute (guilty). Let me know if I missed anything. A/N: HI!!! I couldn't sleep so I decided to finish and post this one. I hope you guys enjoy it. Totally planning on a sequel for these three. Feedbacks are highly welcomed and appreciated. <3 Masterlist | Part 2

Spencer Reid was the most unnoticed and absent tenant of his building. His apartment was almost eerily quiet during most of the time, because of two main reasons. One, he was out of town often because of his job, of course, and, two, he didn't do much when he was there. He was a man who kept to himself whose idea of fun consisted of reading classic Literature. And don't take it the wrong way; not being around much didn't mean that he disliked his place, it was quite the opposite. He thoroughly enjoyed having a space to call his own, to organize, to cramp up the areas just the way he liked it. It gave him a sense of comfort, even though it felt lonely more often than not.

One of his neighbors had a child, he could tell that much because of the noises he would hear when he was around — while playing or the whining when she wanted something, after all, that's how kids usually behave. Spencer didn't mind them, of course, he was away for most of the time, so it wouldn't be rational to be bothered by a child acting like one. It was like being annoyed by an adult acting out, which did happen, but adults were supposed to be more self-aware than kids.

Although fairly acquainted with the routine of the family by putting pieces together from time to time (something his brain couldn't help but do, almost automatically), he had never seen their faces. He knew their voices and could even tell their footsteps apart. Sometimes, he would think about them. How did their day go, if everything was alright, if they ever addressed uncomfortable topics, if they ever had problems like his own frequently faced after they discovered about his mother's condition. He was acutely aware of the fact that those thoughts were the results of some sort of projection, almost like those neighbors were his personal novel to read and he longed to relate to its characters, because so much of his childhood had been ripped from him in ways he worried he could never recover from and terribly soon — he didn't remember ever knowing the sense of a loving, ordinary family like they apparently did and lived.

Today was a day off. He sat on his balcony, the summer breeze kissing his skin and messing up his hair, writing a letter to his mother. He tried his best to remain true to the commitment of making her a part of his life as a way to ease the guilt and sadness that gnawed at him for not being capable of caring for her properly by himself. He dearly missed Diana, he was his mother, after all. The only one who stood by him, even if not at her best, the only family he had left.

Satisfied with his writing, he finished the letter with a promise that he'd visit her soon. As he was folding the paper to put it inside the envelope, everything went black. The light left completely and, for a moment, he thought he had fainted because of the suddenness of it. That's when he heard the shrieking coming from the apartment next door and with a small chuckle, he deduced it was a power outage.

"Oookay, we don't need to panic, Oli, right? The light will be back in a few moments," he heard from the balcony next to his. It was the mother's voice, surely.

"Mommy, 'm scared," the little girl, Olivia, cried.

"I know, baby, but mommy is right here," was the answer provided, followed by the sound of a loud and exaggerated kiss. He heard the little girl giggle. "That's better, sweetie. Come on, let's talk. How are you feeling?"

"'m scared, but happy that you're here, mommy," she said.

"I'm happy to be with you, too, my girl," the woman cooed.

Spencer all but listened to the sweet interaction close to him. Unbeknownst to the woman, he held it even closer to his heart. It was one of the purest forms of love he had ever witnessed and he was grateful for them both during that time.

You, on the other hand, felt panic rising in your chest as the minutes passed and the dark still engulfed you, your little girl's voice the only comfort soothing you from time to time. Olivia was really scared of the dark, so as time went by, you tried to assure her that there was nothing to be scared of, and even if she was, she shouldn't feel embarrassed, that it was okay to express those feelings and that you were there for her. You were glad that she trusted you enough to believe those empty words, because you were terrified of the dark.

It all started as a kid. Not knowing what could be lurking in the shadows absolutely freaked you out and admiting it out loud was mortifying, so you did your best to hide it. If your daughter's reaction was anything to go by, you were doing a good job, so you relished on that.

Right now, it was becoming more and more difficult to play the part of the brave, fearless mother. So you started singing, soon enough followed by your daughter.

Super trouper lights are gonna blind me

But I won't feel blue like I always do

'Cause somewhere in the crowd there's you

Olivia giggled. It was one of her favorite songs, you had introduced it to her when she was too shy before one of her recitals. She had only memorized the chorus, of course. You were forever thankful for having that song engraved in your memory, because now the footage you had from said recital had Olivia showing all her moves looking right at you, basically all of the time.

"Oli, what do you think of going to the lobby? Maybe we could find some friends there." You suggested, which made Spencer's interest rise. Could it be a chance for him to finally address faces to the family he almost felt a part of?

For someone so bright, he truly didn't know if he was overstepping or being obsessive, it just made sense to him. Like aforementioned, he felt like it was a novel.

He heard little hands clapping excitedly and heard the next door opening and then closing right after. He used the time to think if he was behaving like the creeps he profiled for a living, but decided to give himself some credit by realizing he didn't mean to do no harm, he was just curious.

As time went by, the lobby soon became crowded with people and basically everyone had a flashlight on. It made Spencer laugh internally. He searched the area for a woman and a little kid, but no success. The room was so packed it almost felt suffocating and for a moment he felt ridiculous for considering searching a room for someone whose face he wasn't familiar with. What was he thinking? His mother always said that his job should stay out of his personal life and he had yet to learn that. So, he decided to go outside for a breath of fresh air.

What he didn't expect was to find a woman and a little girl sitting on the benches just outside the apartment complex. Their voices sounded exactly like the ones he had been noticing for some time now. He froze, unable to look away from them.

The girl had her mother's features. They were so scarily alike that it felt like he was watching the same person during different periods of her life, but simultaneously, as if he was on some sort of time travel.

He was ripped out of his daydreams when the little girl came running towards him, "Look, mommy! He has a letter! You send them to grandpa!"

Although very embarrassed by your daughter's sudden run, you jumped on your feet to catch up with her. You didn't know that man, so it only made sense to be very alert and to keep your child away from him. As you neared the two of them, you placed your hands on Oli's shoulders, who was standing in front of him, you took in his appearance. He was tall, a little lanky and had long-ish hair, cut just around his shoulders. He had dress pants and a shirt loosely buttoned up as well. His eyes were searching your face, as if he was scanning you as well. The poor lighting didn’t help either of you, but you two were almost touching with your eyes, if such a thing were possible, from how much you were looking, almost admiring each other.

Amid his thoughts from earlier, he didn't even realize he was still holding the letter he had written that afternoon.

"Hi," you greeted, a little awkwardly, "I'm sorry. She’s still learning about stranger danger. Or bothering people." You chuckled, nervously.

What the hell have you just said?

"Actually, stranger danger did the most harm to this country in terms of crimes like that. I remember them coming to my classroom. It was Officer Friendly with stranger danger coloring books. Taught a whole generation about a scary man in a trench coat, hiding behind a tree. Then we learned that strangers are only a fraction of the offenders out there." He rambled.

What the hell has he just said?

You knitted your eyebrows together, perceiving his comment as peculiar, to say the least. "Well, yeah."

"Sorry about that. I tend to ramble about some topics. I'm not a creep, I swear. I work with the FBI, I know it can be odd to start a conversation like that. Well, your daughter did," he chuckled, albeit tensely, "My name's Spencer. Spencer Reid. I live in this building. Third floor."

You laughed a little over his rambling, relief flooding your body once you realized that he was just a regular guy. A regular guy that worked for the FBI. You told him your name and Olivia's as he offered you a friendly handshake, "Me and Olivia live there, too."

"MOMMY!" Olivia shouted, sounding exasperated and thrilled at the same time. "He is the ghost neighbor!"

"Ghost neighbor?" He asked, shocked and a little humored.

You laughed at your daughter and the confusion adorning his beautiful features. "Oli, don't scream. We already talked about it," you addressed your daughter, firmly but gently. Spencer was in awe. "It's just an inside joke between the kids. You're almost never home and every once in a while they hear some sounds coming from your apartment. They say a ghost lives there. They even put up some decorations on your front door on Halloween, but I decided to remove it in case it bothered you."

Olivia laughed like someone had spilled a funny secret and Spencer quickly joined her. You chuckled, even though you were more puzzled than anything by the fact that your daughter had approached, so confidently, a stranger. It made you both terrified and happy. Terrified because he could be a weirdo. Happy because she was able to come out of her shell. Even happier to see her coming out of her shell with a nice stranger.

"It’s alright. I wouldn’t have minded. I love Halloween.” He said, addressing you. You could tell then that, at least, he wasn’t someone bitter. “Sorry to disappoint, Miss Olivia. It's just me moving some chairs every now and then. But I won't tell if you won't."

"I won't!" She squealed, and Spencer smiled. You couldn't draw your eyes away from their exchange. Olivia balled her small fists on your skirt, pulling you out of your reverie, so you crouched down at her height. She whispered something in your ear. Spencer watched, curiously, as you nodded at her.

"She said you need a pinky promise." You told him once you were standing again. Spencer gladly crouched and stuck out his pinky towards Olivia, who intertwined her own with his.

"Now we can't tell anybody." He said, with a genuine smile on her face.

"Mommy, you hafta promise it too." Olivia said, grabbing your hand and pulling your pinky toward Spencer's hand, linking them together. You felt the heat rising to your face.

The power came back. Suddenly, your pinky was linked to a very handsome man who you had just met because of your one-of-a-kind daughter. It made you nervous, because the light highlighting his beautiful features in all the right places made you feel like a deer caught in the headlights. By looking at him alone, you thought of words related to the light four times. As he looked back at you with a gorgeous smile on his face, you finally understood why people associate light with feelings.

[mellotunekitty]

hey so how do you think the bat boys would deal with them messaging s/o or coming into their apartment late at night to come to bed and the boys are like “I can’t sleep. Can we talk?” and s/o messages back or says after sort of wake up “I can sleep” and they fall back asleep 😂. When s/o does properly wake up hours later, s/o pulls their man in for morning cuddle, but then their mind starts working and they ask seriously, “… did you want to talk about something last night or was I dreaming it?” Or for messaging, s/o remembers and gives their boyfriend a call and is happy to be talking to them and they ask the same question over the phone “I thought I dreamt it, but I just noticed you message me and I sent that back… I was exhausted and in a deep sleep. Did you still want to talk?”? Basically s/o isn’t very good to interact with or function when they’re tired 😂? (It’s all good people staying up all night for their love of their life, but what about a s/o who’s never able too?. They fall asleep in bed and then are woken up by their boyfriend sneaking in. They frequently pass out after their boyfriend sneaks into their bed. S/o Hair a mess. “What?… oh… zzzz” would be how the boys identity probably stayed a secret for the longest time. Wouldn’t even notice the blurry mask and spandex suits in their tired state).

omg yes, as a sleepy person, i LOVE this idea!!!

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Batboys x Sleepy gn!reader

Bruce Wayne

Being home late meant low chances of having an actual conversation with you. He needed help setting up the gala for tomorrow and you guys were supposed to plan it tonight

“My love, wake up for a minute. We have to set the plans, remember.” 

You sat up for a moment, sitting next to him in bed to help him. Unfortunately, that didn’t last long seeing as you almost immediately fell asleep on his shoulder. 

He just sighed and put his laptop away, figuring you guys could plan it later or just use what you had. 

It was a bit funny though, seeing you so out of it trying to stay awake and focus on the plans. 

“And I think we should serve lemonade with the… darling? Are you listening?” “Hm? Yeah…” 

Dick Grayson 

He usually came home to you sleeping after patrol, so he figured he’d have to wake you up if he wanted to discuss tomorrow's date plans.

“Babe? Hey, wake up, I gotta talk to you…” 

It works…for a few seconds. You woke up, but mumbled something incoherent before falling back asleep. 

Dick just chuckled and shrugged it off, figuring he could just talk to you in the morning. The date wasn’t until later anyway, and sleeping beside you seemed more appealing at the moment.

“It’s okay… I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Sweet dreams, sweetheart.” 

Jason Todd

Poor Jason couldn’t sleep at all. He tried everything from warm drinks to meditation, but nothing seemed to work. So, he called you. 

“Hey, y/n? Yeah, uhm… can I come over?” 

He got a half mumbled ‘yeah’ before heading over. Of course when he did, you were tucked in, all cute and sleepy. 

Jay slipped in next to you, snuggling against you and had the easiest time falling asleep. However, in the morning, you looked shocked, not remembering him coming in. 

“...when did you even get here?!” 

Tim Drake

It was always a 50/50 with Tim. Either he slept anytime, anywhere, or he couldn’t sleep at all. Tonight, he couldn’t sleep. So, he called you. 

“Hey, baby, I can’t sleep. Can we just uhh… talk for a while?” 

He got all warm and gushy when he heard your muffled little ‘yes’ from under your blankets. 

But he quickly realized you weren’t the best person to talk to when you were tired. You couldn’t hold a conversation at all and eventually, he found out that you sleep talk. It was a pleasant surprise to him.

“What are you saying now, hm?” “The banana… lost my hat.” “Oh, yeah, I bet.” 

Damian Wayne

The second you opened your eyes when he walked into the room as Robin, he thought he had completely blown his cover. Apparently, he didn’t. 

“Go back to bed… you don’t see anything.” 

He was shocked it actually worked, but he shouldn’t have been too surprised. He knew you’d take any and every opportunity to sleep. 

Damian hastily got out of his Robin suit and got into pajamas, sliding into bed next to you. It was a bit of a funny thought to him, the fact that you didn’t even question Robin being in your room… right? 

“I had a weird dream last night.” “About?” “I dreamt that Robin was in my room.”  

[dark-night-hero]

Imagine being in a secret relationship with the one and only Gojo Satoru.

Imagine sitting in a bar, colored light pointed everywhere as you silently stare at your surroundings. Casually taking a sip of your drink as you lean back on your seat, head bobbing up and down along the music. How boring.

"He's been staring at you ever since we came here." "Who?" You raise a brow but did not spare your friend a glance and proceeds to take another sip of your drink. It was sweet, alcoholic but sweet. "Gojo Satoru from business department, you know. That guy with white hair, blue eyes-" "And the one who always wears tinted glasses, right. Who wears that indoors and not to mention at midnight." You chuckle, setting your empty cup down before standing up. "Gotta go to the bathroom."

Imagine looking at the mirror, your own reflect staring at you as you turn your face to the side to take a good look at your features. Unlike the other day there your hood and glasses would hide away your face, it was one of those days where you feel like stepping out of your shell and have fun. Well, more like to pissed off your boyfriend that was surely waiting for you out of the door. Making sure you're presentable as you arrived, you take one last glance in the mirror before walking your way out in the bathroom.

"Hey there." There was your boyfriend in his fitted white shirt that was hugging his body so well his well toned body could be seen. "Why hello to you too, Gojo." You smile at him before walking past him, if only he didn't block you on your way back into your friend's table. "No baby, you ain't going anywhere." He said as he grab a hold of your wrist pulling you at the back as you just stare at him in amusement, looking around for a moment only to find his best friend, Suguru shaking his head at the scene of you two before looking away like it was none of his business.

"So?" You cross your arms, looking directly at his eyes underneath those tinded glasses he was wearing. Something you will never understand at the same time you do kind of appreciate it. Because you know as soon as he remove that, people would be all over him, going crazy at his baby blue eyes. "What please do I owe you?" "You told me you're going out for some fun, what are you doing here?" "Pfffff" "Why are you laughing?" "I think it's funny how much a lo- heh, how someone like you could meddle in my life like this."

Imagine the way he flinch under your watch, his jaw tense as his hand curl into a fist. "What?" You laugh, one hand reaching out to touch and trace his jaw. "Are you mad, Satoru?" You chuckle before your hand travel on the back of his head and tugging him down harshly so he was on the same level as you. At the same time, his other hand lean on the wall for support, his glasses on the tip of his nose on the verge of fallling. This time, he was glaring at you like crazy. "Remember this is your arrangement not mine and just like how you don't want me to meddle with yours, I advice you not to meddle with mine to or who knows what could possibly happen." You push him away, about to walk of but he just won't move.

Imagine it's not like you wanted this to happened. He was the one who wanted to keep your relationship a secret, the one who said you cannot meddle with each out in public. And to be honest it's not that you didn't see where he was coming from, you were just this normal person, one among the crowd in the campus. Living differently from him who lived so well off along side his buddies. He was the heir into the Gojo industries. And you, you're just you, someone who have nothing to lose, nothing to offer.

"Move." You repeat when he doesn't move, trapping you between him and the wall. "Satoru move, others are starting to look." You whispered, gripping on his close before taking a deep breathe and relax. You tap him twice in the chest, refusing an eye contact as you gently push him away. Going in this bar was definitely a bad idea. You shouldn't have come out of pettiness. "Satoru, your fiancée is about to get over here, move." As soon as he said that, you felt him when stiff before immediately pulling away from you. "Well talk later." "You're coming home with her, we have nothing to talk about." "(First name)-" "Come to think about it. It's about time." "What do you-" "I'm done being your secret, goodbye Satoru." "... wait-" "Satoru!"

Imagine without thinking too much about it, you walk back in your booth like nothing happened and immediately drown yourself with more drinks. It's not like you don't understand where he was coming from. You knew that he loves you. You knew that damn well that he was hurting too. But while he got the whole world around his palm, you only have him. You only have him yet you cannot even call him mine. You're tired. You love him but you're tired.

Imagine if you knew that loving him would hurt like this. You would have turn the other way around the first time you saw him. Loving him was a losing game. "Hey, thats enough."

[ⓒdark-night-hero] 2024°

[pookalicious-hq]

pt.1 - bestest friends ... sukuna ryomen x reader

| next | masterlist |

˚₊‎‧♡‧₊˚part of the all japan youth summer games crossover event! synopsis: they've always been best friends since anyone could remember, what's changed now? tags/tws: crossover au, childhood friends to lovers, swearing word count: 2.5k

If you were to ask Sukuna Ryomen how he stumbled into the world of MMA, he’d roll his eyes and insist that he’d always been a fighter. Some people are simply born with the instinct to throw a punch, and he was no exception. The sport came naturally to him, a second skin that fit him better than any uniform ever could.

Each strike was a release, channelling the frustration of his parents’ absence into raw, explosive power. The thrill of the fight surged through him, electrifying his veins, and for those precious moments, he felt alive. Here, his talent wasn’t just acknowledged; it was celebrated, roars of encouragement enveloping him like a warm embrace. And for that opportunity, he had one person to thank—the only one he truly respected: you.

bestest friend ever! - 2 new messages - omg ryo - let’s check out the big gym! i heard they have free snacks :)

He huffed a small laugh at the text, rolling his eyes at the contact name you’d assigned yourself all those years ago. The message finally registered in his head, the set from before still taking a toll on his energy. He reached for his water bottle with his other hand, the water a stark relief to the heat radiating off of his skin.

After a moment of rest, he typed back.

- already here. - better hurry your ass up

With that, he resumed his workout, feeling the strain in his arms as the weight tested his endurance. He, along with a few other fighters, had already settled into the AJYSG campus, spending the past few days getting accustomed to all the high-end facility had to offer. This was only his second time in the weight room, though he wouldn’t dare tell you that. He hadn’t invited you the first time—or this time—and he knew you’d have something to say about it. Not that he was feeling guilty or that he didn’t want to bother you… Not at all. Whatever.

In all truth, whenever the two of you trained together, Ryomen found himself… distracted. But make of that what you would. Maybe it was the way you filled his ears with soft ramblings, stories of the birds outside your window that you saw the other day. Or maybe it was how even the hint of your smile could make him falter, sending his sets into a nosedive. Not that he minded all that much. You’d be there to spot him anyway, your face scrunching in concentration as the muscles beneath the athletic fabric of your shirt shifted, helping him lift the weights back onto the rack.

Even now, the thought of you scolding him for not inviting you made the slightest smile come to surface, knowing you’d be just as persistent in teasing him as you were at keeping him in line.

All these thoughts from two simple texts. By now, Satoru would be shaking his head, telling him he was “down bad” and, hell, maybe he was. But before he could dwell on it, his phone buzzed again in his hand.

- where are you???

He huffed.

- use your eyes idiot

With a roll of his eyes—but not without a small smile—Ryomen pocketed his phone just as a figure came up to the bench he was using. A girl he vaguely recognized from earlier workouts, dressed in AJYSG gear, flashed him a friendly grin.

“Hey, you were here a few days ago, right?” she asked, shifting her weight as if eager to chat. He gave a short nod, answering with a flat, “Yeah,” before looking back toward the entrance, hoping to spot you.

Undeterred by his response, she continued, “I was hoping to run into you again. It’s such a huge place; I still get lost sometimes.”

“Mm,” he muttered, noncommittal, eyes still flicking to the doorway. Then, as if answering his silent wish he found the vibrant shade of pink he had been hoping to see. 

He spotted you almost immediately—a flash of baby-pink biker shorts and a matching sports bra. You stood near the entrance with your headphones on, oblivious to everything around you as you scanned the gym. Ryomen felt the faintest tug of a smile as he got up from the bench, already moving toward you before he realized it.

The girl, apparently still hopeful, followed close behind him. “So, what do you think of the place so far?” she asked, trying to keep pace.

“It’s fine,” he replied, barely glancing her way. His focus was fully on you now, watching as you turned left, then right, squinting through the crowd with that familiar crease in your brow. You looked a little lost, the corners of your mouth downturned in that soft, concentrated frown he’d seen a thousand times. It was kind of endearing if he let himself admit it.

As he neared, he raised his hand and, without hesitation, gave you a light tap on the head.

You jolted at the tap on your head, your headphones slipping slightly askew, and for a split second, your eyes were wide with surprise. But then, as recognition set in, your gaze softened with pure joy, warmth radiating from you as if he were the best sight you'd seen all day.

Damn. What he’d give to see that look every second of his life.

“This place is too big, couldn’t find you,” you huffed, feigning exasperation, though a grin was already tugging at your lips. He smirked, satisfied with your reaction, and as you tugged one ear of your headphones off, the soft hint of that familiar citrus scent he’d come to associate with you drifted in the air between you. It wrapped around him, grounding him in the shared moment like the quiet center of a storm.

With a raised brow, he stepped closer, flicking the middle of your forehead with a grin. “Nah, you’re just blind.”

You rolled your eyes, batting his hand away. “You know I’m near-sighted, dumbass. I just don’t wanna wear my glasses right now.”

He chuckled, crossing his arms as he towered over you, eyes gleaming with a challenge. "Yeah, I understand. They make you look like a little nerd anyway."

You scoffed, in turn flicking him in the stomach, “Shut up. At least they help me see.”

The two of you were wrapped in that familiar rhythm, the playful back-and-forth that filled the air between you with a quiet warmth. His eyes narrowed, honing in on you, his focus sharpening as you laughed, the sound like a tether that kept him grounded. For a moment, everything else faded—just you, the ease of this orbit you both shared. He leaned in, ready to land his next comeback, when an unwelcome voice broke in from beside him.

“So, what program are you in?”

The girl had reappeared, planting herself with a confidence that bordered on arrogance, her gaze unwavering on him, almost as if you were a mere background detail. His jaw tightened, a flicker of irritation cracking through his calm. He barely nodded in acknowledgment, his eyes drifting back to you as he tried to sidestep her—only for her to step directly in his way again, as if by sheer willpower alone.

You sighed, nudging his arm, an exasperated smile tugging at your lips. “Ryo, don’t be rude.”

He scoffed lightly, shooting you a look that all but said, You can’t be serious. He turned back to the girl, giving her a curt, flat response, “MMA program,” before he moved to stand by you again. Ignoring her, he let his shoulder brush against yours, a subtle but firm return to where he wanted to be—beside you, with no interruptions.

The everlasting smile on your face hadn’t faded one bit. Your eyes sparkled as you took in the facility, a spark of excitement there that he might’ve imagined had deepened as you looked at him. But before he could fully soak it in, the girl’s voice rang out beside him again, her words barely registering as they drifted past his ear.

“—I was really hoping that—”

“Actually,” he cut her off smoothly, his voice carrying just enough edge, “we’re in the middle of a conversation.”

She blinked, as if just now noticing you, glancing you up and down with feigned surprise. “Oh! I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you there!”

The three of you were all fully aware she’d seen you from the start.

“Oh!” she continued, her expectant gaze turning back to Ryomen. “Are you two, like… siblings?”

You let out an awkward laugh, scratching the back of your neck. “Uh, don’t think we look that alike… but no, not siblings!”

Ryomen snorted, amused by your uneasiness, but it wasn’t enough to deter her.

“Huh, not even cousins or—”

“We’re dating.” His voice cut through the air, smooth and unflinching, his words laced with just enough finality to end the girl’s line of questioning. “Not so nice meeting you. Hopefully, we won’t see you around.”

Without waiting for her reaction, he wrapped his fingers lightly around your wrist and pulled you away, his grip firm but oddly gentle. The warmth of his hand was grounding, and though his focus seemed set on getting away, he missed the deepening blush on your cheeks as you hurried to keep up with his long strides.

“Hurry up and get your stupid yoga stretches in,” he called over his shoulder, still holding your wrist until you matched his pace. “I was in the middle of my set—why are you walking so goddamn slowly?”

He finally glanced back at you, only to find you wide-eyed and flushed. You looked as if you’d been caught completely off guard, and he slowed, arching a brow as he took in your unusual hesitance.

“You good?” he asked, his voice rougher than intended but with a flicker of concern. He’d never seen you look this rattled, not with him.

Your cheeks warmed even more as you averted your gaze, trying to gather your words. “Yeah! I’m fine. Just… um, why’d you say that?”

He blinked, his confusion slowly shifting to a look of mild annoyance, but the blush on your face caught him off guard, keeping his curiosity rooted in place. “Say what?”

“That we’re dating,” you mumbled, voice barely above a whisper as if you were speaking it aloud for the first time yourself. The words hung between you both, almost fragile. And just like that, something unspoken settled in, taking him by surprise.

He stilled, his mind processing. It finally clicked. Oh. He hadn’t thought twice about the comment—it had been an instinctual way to brush off the girl’s annoyingly persistent questions. After all, he was used to you ignoring his constant flirtations. The idea of you reacting, of actually caring… it hadn’t crossed his mind in ages. An uncomfortable twist formed in his chest, bringing with it a cascade of old feelings he’d long buried, and he found himself momentarily speechless.

With a smirk that barely masked his sudden nerves, he leaned down, meeting your eyes in a way he rarely did, that spark of mischief just barely hiding his hesitation. “What’s goin’ on with your face, dumbass?” His tone held its usual teasing lilt, but there was a slight catch in his voice that betrayed him.

You glared up at him, clearly flustered, and quickly brushed off your embarrassment. “Nothing, I just…” You hesitated, glancing away before mumbling, “Were you just… you know, messing around?”

The question hit him harder than he’d expected, and he could feel his heart lurch in response, though he was quick to mask it with a nonchalant shrug. As his gaze met yours, he caught something in your eyes—a nervous hope, a glimmer of something vulnerable—and the realization stirred up emotions he’d shoved down long ago. This wasn’t how he’d pictured today going. Honestly, he hadn’t planned on bringing up the feelings he’d locked away for what felt like a lifetime.

But he wasn’t ready to deal with those feelings now, not with you looking at him like that. So he did what he did best: played it off.

“Of course I was, idiot.” He gave a casual shrug, though his tone held an edge, rougher than usual. “You can’t actually think I’d be serious about something like that.”

The casual remark barely left his lips before he saw your expression change. It was subtle—just the slightest drop in your shoulders and a flicker of something that looked a lot like disappointment in your eyes. You quickly covered it with a small, practiced smile, but it wasn’t enough to hide the moment of vulnerability he’d managed to bring out.

“No, yeah. Obviously,” you said, your tone light but a little too cheerful, as if trying to smooth over what he’d just tossed away. “I’ll, uh, go warm up. Be right back.” Without another word, you turned, leaving him standing there, watching as you walked off.

The second you left, it felt like he’d been sucker-punched. His stomach dropped, and a knot tightened in his chest, twisting uncomfortably as he replayed the moment in his head. That tiny hint of hurt in your eyes haunted him, gnawing at his thoughts, each replay worse than the last. Why hadn’t he just gone with it? Why did he have to brush you off like that? He could’ve at least made a joke or said something that didn’t leave you reduced to a person he couldn’t recognize.

“Fuckin’ Idiot,” he muttered to himself, running a hand through his hair. The self-directed insult echoed in his mind as he paced, now too agitated to focus. He clenched his fists, resisting the urge to punch the nearest wall. It was so obvious that he had feelings for you, had always had them. And when the chance came to admit it, he did the exact opposite.

As he looked over, he caught a glimpse of you stretching across the room, still smiling, but he could tell now it was forced. That fake cheer only made the ache in his chest worse, filling him with a wave of regret and frustration he could barely contain. His fingers itched to go over, to fix it somehow, to tell you that maybe he hadn’t been kidding, that he was just too dumb to admit it. But what would that accomplish now? He’d already crushed whatever moment the two of you had shared, all because he hadn’t been able to let his guard down for two seconds.

With a low groan, he forced himself to look away, glaring at the floor as he tried to steady his breath. It felt like a battle between his pride and his need to fix things, both sides pushing him to take a step but too stubborn to act. As much as he wanted to storm over there and set things straight, all he could do was stand there, caught between the things he wanted to say and the wall he’d built around his feelings for so long.

a/n: omg yay! first fic in my crossover au! i hope you like it pookies, lmk if you have any requests for other characters or any comments, I love seeing what ppl have to say. lmk if you wanna be added to the taglist mwahhh <33

taglist: currently no one :(

[mr-ys-phantasma]

🌙 Moon Phases 🌙

Agatha Harkness X Fem!Reader

Word Count: 1269

Chapter 30:

You took a deep breath, not wishing to go further down that particular memory. It was still not a happy thing, and you would be lying if you said it didn't affect you from time to time.

Wishing to forget, you chose to stand just as you felt Rio even closer to you. She did love invading your personal space, often choosing to do that when you had your back turned; making your heart beat faster.

For you could sense her and the danger coming with her. Your body reacted with adrenaline and excitement, and a part of your subconscious yearned for her hard touch when you least expected it.

Controlling your emotions and not letting them push you towards a quick way to forget, you turned to face her.

Once again, you stood merely a breath away. Invisible waves of power radiating from both of you, clashing and mixing. The red full moon casted its light on your faces, one side brighter than the other; the perfect duality.

Rio initiated the first move, her fingers gently tucking a strand behind your ear. Her long nails carefully caressed your skin at the same time, drawing invisible lines that made you shiver and part your lips faintly.

She eyed them carefully but did not move for the claim, not yet. "You shouldn't be here, baby girl," she repeated like she had done back then in the woods. "It's not too late to leave,"

Her words managed to bypass the mixing emotions that she was causing you with her touch, and you focused on what she was saying. "We both know I can't leave the Road," you reminded her. "Not unless I am dead... and I doubt you are looking forward to that."

Rio smirked at your words.

She had taken an interest in you, a liking. You were not like Agatha.... no, your case was different yet equally compelling. You were unique, one of a kind, and she would be a fool to just let you go like that; to let you slip through her fingers.

"See, you know me too well." she finally commented after staring at you with a darker, more lustful look. Her hand never stopped caressing your skin. Her face then shifted to a more serious one. "You can get out of here, I can help you,"

You were surprised by her determination to get you out, her stubbornness not to let you continue down the path. Partially, you thought she was just being the weird, possessive, caring woman you had come to know her... but not entirely.

A little voice in the back of your mind kept suspecting that Rio had other plans... other plans for Agatha, considering their not so good terms of their former relationship. And if that was the case, she wanted you out because you would be a bigger obstacle than she wanted.

"What about Agatha?" You asked innocently, hiding your suspicions and thoughts from her sharp gaze.

"This is her fight, not yours. She has no choice."

"But I do," you countered and took a deep breath. "And I choose to stand with her until the very end of my life."

Something flashed into her eyes, and the hand that was so gently caressing your skin chose to attack it all the same. One moment, you were fighting goosebumps from showing up, and the next, you found her hand wrapped around her neck; threatening to block your air intake.

Rio pulled you closer that way, and you stared at her with wide eyes at the manhandling, one hand grabbing her wrist in a futile attempt to free your neck.

The Green Witch seemed to take inner joy and pleasure in that wide eye doe look you were giving her, the feeling of your beating pulse beneath her fingers making her high; temptations filling her mind and was so close in squeezing just a tad more.

"And Agatha thinks you are not such a witch," she commented, remembering how certain Agatha was for you.

How certain she was you would not be able to help them form the three witch coven. Yet if she could hear you know, if she could see what Rio saw... she would change her mind.

"What... what are you talking about?" You managed to ask, trying to ignore any feelings pooling in your body from the manhandling but also not let panic arise within you by the fact that you were chocked.

Rio offered a toothy grin. "Nothing," she replied as enigmatic as ever. She then pulled you closer and stole a quick, needy kiss.

Your eyes were wide at the gesture, but soon, your emotions got the best of you. The tide was high, the waves crashing wildly against the shore, and it was impossible to try and escape them as they took you with them.

And so, you closed your eyes and returned the kiss; feeling how addictive her lips felt and how oddly nice and Earthly they felt against yours.

Rio seemed to approve your willingness to follow as she pressed you more against her and attacked your lips. Her teeth bit and pulled your lower lip with hunger, satisfied only when you both felt the familiar metallic sensation of blood in your mouths.

She didn't let you pull back until she was satisfied, and only when she wished it did she let you get for some air. She released your neck and watched with satisfaction at your bleeding lip and the faint red marking of fingers against your pale skin.

You panted, staring at her with wide eyes, and you subconsciously brought a finger to your lips; only to see the bright red colour of your blood staining it.

"You should go now" she said, acting as if she had not just devoured you a second go; or the fact that she felt tempted to take you on those floor pillows with the body of Alice as a spectator.

"Why?" You found the courage to ask, your brain still trying to recover from what had just happened.

"I fear your duty as Agatha's White Knight is calling you," she replied enigmatically once again. "Oh, one more thing,"

Before you could ask her or even take a step towards the exit, you saw her licking her index finger and then drug it above your lips; specifically above her teeth wound on you.

Her magic worked fast, healing the wound as the finger passed above it, and only then did she pull back. She smirked and motioned with her hand in a 'shoo' motion, a sign it was time for you to go.

You had so many questions, so many things you wanted to say or ask, but you didn't. Rembering Agatha, you turned and hurriedly towards the exit; glancing at Rio one last time above your shoulder before you climbed the wooden ladder.

The missing coven members...

Once out, you took a moment to breathe deeply the fresh air, and you moved further down the path; expecting to find the others waiting, hopefully.

However, you came to a halt when you didn't find them. Instead, you only found Teen standing alone, a faint blue glow still visible in his hands.

He sensed you, and as he turned, you took notice of a crown that had formed on his head and that look in his eyes.

The mising Agatha...

Teen with magic...

Immediately, you connected the dots, and before he could try anything, whether to attack or talk to you, you moved in first; white magic coming alive as your temper flared.

Rio's words....

Chapter 31

[becausebuckley]

michelle's buddie fic recs: week 44!

a day later than planned, but with another bunch of brilliant fics! and oh, the state of my marked for later list... so many good things coming...

this is a mix of fics with all ratings, so some include NSFW content. please take a look at both the ratings and the fic tags (also for seaosn 8 spoiler purposes!) before reading!

if you come across something you like in this list, remember to show some love to the author by leaving kudos and a comment!

50 cheeky texts | songbvrd/@songbvrd | 21k | M

Buck gets drunk-dared to send Eddie one cheeky text every day for 50 days. Eddie loses his mind. i love a fic that incorporates texting (and screen names!) so so much and this is no exception to that. a delightfully fun, fluffy read!

a little change of scenery | grangers_apprentice | 2.1k | GA

That still doesn’t mean that Buck doesn’t get nightmares. Fortunately for Buck, he doesn’t have to deal with them alone. Not when he has such a good best friend like Eddie. okay by now yall have to know that bed sharing/mutual pining etc etc are my absolute favourite things, and so it's no surprise that i loved this one <3

a madman and a minstrel | Maira/@mairaiscarrierofthepaperclips | 2.8k | T

the one where Eddie is drugged and confesses his feelings for Buck. To Buck. this was the absolute funniest loveliest read, exactly what i needed on a not-so-great day <3

cause i will be your safety | rogerzsteven/@rogerzsteven | 2.2k | GA

Buck has a leg cramp. Eddie helps him as he can. poor buck <3 this is brilliantly written, i loved eddie's inner dialogue!

clean laundry (and the love of all things mundane) | fearofgod | 26.2k | not rated

buck offers his apartment to bobby and athena, and living with eddie is easy. buck moving in with eddie before they get together is my favourite!! this is such a good read, i loved the domesticness of it all <3

i got all my sisters with me | ipretendtobesane | 6.8k | T

eddie's sister has a baby, buck meets the diaz girls, and they're sickeningly in love for nearly seven thousand words. the diaz siblings!! i love the diaz siblings!! so good so lovely such brilliant brilliant characterisation all around!!

i'd shout it from the rooftops | SymphonySoldier97/@sonofatoasterwaffle | 5.9k | E

Buck and Eddie dive head first into their honeymoon phase, take a page out of Buck 1.0's book, and remember their shiny new body cams- in that order. i clicked on this one SO FAST and it was absolutely everything i expected <3 best way to incorporate body cams in anything ever i think

insomnia baking | glorious_spoon/@glorious-spoon | 1.5k | T

Any normal person would say no. It's well past midnight, and while they don't exactly keep regular hours, he knows he woke Buck up just now. But it's not at all a surprise when Buck says, "Yeah, of course, be there in, like…" his voice fades and dips for a moment, like he's holding the phone away from his face. "Uh, half an hour?" late night baking my beloved <3 the emotional hurt/comfort hits so good!!

it only takes a taste (when it's something special) | weewooforever | 7k | E

Eddie shifts slightly and clears his throat again. “But can you answer my original question? What’s it like kissing a guy?” beautifully descriptive, feels so true to character!! i do love a little best friends exploring sex with each other hehe

they'd base movies off our lives but somehow they wouldn't suffice | creatures_that_dont_die/@creatures-that-dont-die | 3.1k | T

When he convinces Eddie to watch Hotshots with him, Buck starts to notice some similarities between the two of them and Jones and Sanchez, characters from the show. the hotshots-related fic i've been waiting for!! honestly having a show within the show is so much fun and i love how this fic treats it - special shoutout to this bobby as well <3

you could poison poison | oceanofchaos/@islandoforder | 4.1k | GA

There is a constant tension headache behind his eyes that’s been there for as long as he can remember, and it gets worse every single time someone who isn’t Maddie calls him ‘Evan’. this fic managed to take everything i was thinking about this episode and blend it all together in 4.1k of pure goodness. delightful episode coda!!

[porrabett]

Rio, Nicholas and Agatha through time

There’s something that I noticed about Rio and Nicholas, that I really can’t understand why, maybe someone can see some foreshadowing or meaning on it, I don’t know.

They gave Rio a birthmark, and I noticed this birthmark just shows up in the scene before Nicholas birth. Aubrey Plaza don’t have it, so they really put it on her for the scene and for this scene only.

After it, when she comes to get Nicky’s soul and in the present moment, she doesn’t have it anymore. I thought that they would put some birthmark on Nicholas in a way to show he is Rio’s son too, but that’s none birthmark in the baby. And even with Nicholas as a 6 years old, he has three birthmarks on his face, but in different spots, it seems more is just because the actor already had it, not about Rio. It really made me curious why they would put this birthmark in her, and just in that moment.

Second, and just to keep moving the “Rio is Nichola’s mom too” train. I think she really would meet him at night, or maybe in some moments he was alone, like when Agatha was killing the witches with The road scam.

I think in the moment of the two goodbye kisses, not just was something Rio already talked to him, so he knew what he needed to do, but the kisses were giving by his soul.

They way that Rio was there and he just goes in her direction, like is something he already did others nights.

Rio interrupts him going to her and points back to Agatha, and she does it in a affectionate way, like a mother remembering her son something she has already told before.

He looks at Agatha and then stops, like he was think in something, like Rio has already prepared him for this moment, and he knew exactly what he needed to do. As if Rio has told him that in one specifically day, when she would visit him, he would say goodbye to his mama before he would go with his mother. And we can see that there is no hesitation, fear or doubt, he just stops, like he is remebering something he was told, and then goes to do what he already knew he would had to.

And then the two kisses scene, it really looks like he is giving two goodbye kisses, one for him and the other for Rio. And it seems like Nicky’s mouth is barely touching Agatha’s cheeks, I think in this moment we maybe are seeing his soul, ready to go.

Just a curious thing, even with Rio and Agatha not being together, Rio still is more in her Green Witch energy, like she knows that even giving Agatha more time, in the end, Nicky will come with her, because his time there was a borrowed time. I think she thought Agatha would understand that, with some time, what she made, and she said it in 1x08.

But we know that didn’t happened, a mother will always want to be with her son, and is a cruel irony that Agatha lost him for Rio, the person who took him away, and because of Rio, as he is most likely Death’s son too, almost like he was born to die.

I believe everytime they would meet again, when Agatha was killing other witches after Nicky’s death, they would fight, Agatha would throw all her sorrow and pain in Rio, Rio would fight for her, and they would make out, or at least reconnect for a moment, like in 1x04.

But then Agatha would leave, almost like she was torturing Rio, denying to Rio the person she loves, the same way Rio denied to Agatha, to be with their son.

I feel this happened again an again through decades, giving an even more dark and complex energy to their relationship, and for them as individuals. The Rio we met in present time is way darker than the one we see in the flashbacks. Then Agatha got the darkhold and hid from her, until Weastview.

That would explain Agatha’s reaction to Rio acepting the deal with her, in 1x08, she wasn’t expecting Rio would say ok, she probably was used to throw all her tantrums to Rio and Rio trying to make amends with it. But not this time, Rio had enough, so Agatha has her surprise face, and the pain, like she feels, for the first time, Rio is giving up on her.

But at the same time she masks it quickly, and we can see she is almost loosing the control over her emotions. Later, with Billy and Jen, she is on full villain mode because Rio let her there, and she still can get out of the road. Rio is the constant in her life, since Salem, no matter what happens, how much they fight, love or hate eachother. They always find themselves in each other’s path.

And we know how this ends.

[weaselandfriends]

The Making Of: When I Win the World Ends

(For my previous Making Of post, see The Making Of: Cleveland Quixotic.)

I. 1999

It was the year of the cubicle movie. It was the year of Fight Club, of Office Space, of Being John Malkovich, of Three Kings, of The Matrix, and of American Beauty. It was the year of suburban malaise, of eternal sunshine, of ceaseless normality. A year of United States hegemony; a year whose chief terror was that THIS WAS IT.

Before the millennium turned and the towers fell, there was an initial challenge to this order, a completely inconsequential one made consequential by a newly minted 24/7 news media machine running out of noise to fill dead air now that people were sick to bursting of the Clinton impeachment. This challenge came not through war, revolution, or violence, but through entertainment. Children's entertainment.

And I was a child. Unaware of any cultural context, I knew only one thing: I loved Pokémon. I really, really loved Pokémon.

I owned Red Version, Blue Version, Yellow Version, Pokémon Pinball, Pokémon Stadium, Pokémon Snap, Hey You Pikachu, a Pokémon Tetris sort of puzzle game, even the Pokémon TCG game for Gameboy. I had ten to fifteen strategy guides for the games, an encyclopedia of the 151 Pokémon, a choose your own adventure book, an I Spy-style book. I had Pokémon figurines, Pokémon plushies, toy Poké Balls, toy Pokédexes. I had Pokémon stamps and Pokémon stickers and a deck of Pokémon cards. Not trading cards, just a standard 52-card deck with Pokémon pictures on it. Of course I also had the trading cards. A complete set of the first three runs, plus a special Mew card you could get from I dunno Toys R Us or something as part of some promotion. I had a guide for the card game that explained which cards were good or bad even though I didn't even play the card game. I had a Pokémon Tamagotchi and Pokémon pencils and Pokémon erasers and Ash Ketchum's hat and I dressed up as Ash Ketchum for Halloween. Of course I watched every episode of the anime, and in notebooks I drew doodles of existing Pokémon and came up with names for new Pokémon. My father had died that year.

My father was a sports fanatic. Traditional sports. He, too, collected. Sports memorabilia, baseball cards, figures of famous stars. When I was an infant, he drove me on a cross country road trip to Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where I became a part owner of the Green Bay Packers. He had always wanted me to grow up and pursue professional sports. When I was born, the doctor apparently said to start looking for football colleges, a quote he saved in a scrapbook of baby photos. He had played sports himself, in college; he was a baseball catcher, until a hitter accidentally struck him in the head with a full force swing.

Almost everything I personally remember about him involves him dying. He was sick for a long time, and I remember hospitals and hospital beds and strange smells and gauze. And then one day my mother told me he died.

He was a charismatic man, very social and very popular. He had many friends and a lot of family, all of whom had constantly been around our house. Once he was gone, they stopped coming around. Then it was just me and my mother, who was not a fanatic for anything, except maybe her job as an elementary school teacher, which consumed her time as she assiduously prepared lesson plans and graded tests until late at night. When my father died, she got into some argument with his side of the family, the details of which I still don't fully understand, and afterward they no longer spoke. Her own family lived far away, out-of-state, seen only at Christmas. The house became quiet.

And I… played… Pokémon.

II. The Electric Tale of Pikachu

Toshihiro Ono was a mangaka primarily known for shotacon and futanari hentai. His credits such as Innyou Megami and Anal Justice made him a no-brainer pick for the officially licensed Pokémon manga, Electric Tale of Pikachu, as it too would feature a 10-year-old boy as the protagonist.

This manga would be the foundation for my conception of what Pokémon was, narratively. Though I also had the Pokémon Adventures manga that ran concurrently and which has by now long outlasted it, Electric Tale left a significantly deeper imprint on my memory.

In summary, Electric Tale is a retelling of the first two seasons of the anime. Ash Ketchum is the main character, he's accompanied by Misty and later Brock, his rival is Gary, and Team Rocket harangues him.

What sets Electric Tale apart is its tone, which is far more adult than Adventures and the anime. Obviously, part of this comes from the author's primary area of expertise being hentai. Even in the censored English version, there is a sense of sexual playfulness in how every single female character is an older woman who likes to tease Ash about his romantic interests.

But there are other elements that creep in unrelated to sex, due to the perspective of someone only used to speaking to adults who suddenly has to speak to children. Ono doesn't really get the childish fantasy of leaving at 10 being normal in society, so he introduces an element where Ash can only get a one year deferment from school and will have to return unless he hits it big. Team Rocket are former competitive hopefuls who flamed out and then, with no education or work experience to speak of, had no choice but to turn to crime. The Pokémon are depicted more realistically, often eschewing the toyetic mascot elements of their designs.

And the landscapes are often wistful, even apocalyptic in their presentation:

This more sedate, mature, realistic depiction of Pokémon became what I wanted Pokémon to be, what I projected onto an original Red and Blue version that left everything open to interpretation, and what would increasingly frustrate me with the series as it deviated more toward bombastic villain groups with goofy destroy-the-world plots. (Which was what put me off Pokémon Adventures.)

Amid all this, one panel stuck with me in particular. One panel I would think about ever since I first saw it as a child, that would turn around in my head and keep coming back. That panel would eventually—over two decades later—become the basis for When I Win the World Ends, the seed from which an entire story grew:

III. The Unkillable Demon King

But in the interim, the seed remained dormant. 1999 fell away. I grew up. I played later Pokémon games and increasingly lost interest by around Gen 4 and 5. Then I went to college.

That's when I started playing League of Legends.

I was something of a psychopath in college. I operated on a strict schedule and did not deviate. Wake up, read 50 pages of classic literature, write 2,000 words, go to classes, study, and then by about four in the afternoon all my obligations were done and it was League of Legends until midnight.

I wasn't actually interested in the League of Legends esports scene in its infancy. In 2012, I was actually invited to attend its World Championship in Los Angeles and refused. (When I received this invitation, I had just finished reading Homestuck for the first time, and was caught in a month-long haze in which I could do little but bask within what I considered the greatest artistic achievement I'd seen in my life. It was this month that inspired Modern Cannibals.) I only liked playing the game and watching Dunkey videos.

It wasn't until the next year, when a girl I was interested in recommended I watch, that I tuned in to my first professional League of Legends game, at the 2013 World Championship. It was there that I got to watch this new, hyped, upcoming Korean player who had apparently taken the pro scene by storm that season. That player was Faker.

It has seemingly become essential to the narrative of any sport that there is "the man who always wins." American football has Tom Brady, and the moment Brady retired, he was replaced by Patrick Mahomes. Basketball has LeBron James, picking up the mantle from Michael Jordan. It's as if someone being "the best" validates the skill-based promise of the sport, the fundamental top-down fairness of its premise, the idea that the person who wins is the best and deserved it. Faker would become the backbone of League of Legends esports and his ascendance correlated to that of the sport itself, from its humble roots at small-scale tournaments in places like Jönköping, Sweden, to max capacity arenas in the biggest cities in the world.

It's surprising, though, how the legend of Faker had already begun even before he won his first World Championship. League of Legends was designed as a clone of Defense of the Ancients (DotA), a popular mod for Warcraft III that emphasized competitive play. In its infancy, the competitive scene was mostly dominated by players who had migrated from DotA to League. They were older, winning thanks to a fundamental conceptual understanding of the game that was superior to everyone else, and frankly not very good in the aggregate. As League of Legends esports exploded in popularity from 2013 to 2015, these old pros would get filtered out swiftly, with even the biggest and most popular names retiring after only a couple of years in the scene.

Even once the new generation of League-grown talent ascended, though, careers were nasty, brutish, and short. The best players only remained on top for a season, as game patches dramatically changed viable strategies. Internationally the sport was dominated by Koreans, with the Korean regional league sometimes being seen as more difficult to win than the World Championship, where Koreans often breezed through uncompetitive Chinese, European, and North American squads.

This possibly affected the demographics of the professional scene. South Korea has mandatory military service, and leaving the pro scene to join the military was basically the end of a Korean player's career. This meant that it was rare to see a Korean player older than 25. Retiring in your early 20s was and remains common. Korean organizations, which had an infrastructural leg up on other regions due to the popularity of StarCraft 2 esports in the country, became adept at scouting promising players at 15 or 16, building them into top level competitive pros, wringing them dry for a few seasons with brutal training regimens, and spitting them out.

Faker was the exception. Though he had been discovered young by SK Telecom, a major Korean telecommunications company that did esports on the side, and gone through the training regimen, he refused to be spit out. He simply didn't stop. He won in 2013, then with a completely new four-man squad around him won again in 2015 and 2016 before narrowly losing the 2017 finals in a nail biter. Given League of Legends esports had only existed since 2011, he basically accounted for half of the championships up until that point. Nobody else, except for his teammates, had won more than once. And it was like it was known he would be this juggernaut the instant he manifested ex nihilo. Like it was known, even in 2013, that he would always win.

Then, Faker stopped winning.

By 2017, League of Legends esports was a titan. Venture capital firms, seeing the millions of eyeballs, thought that this was the next NBA in its infancy, and decided to get in on the ground floor. Multiple millions of dollars were pumped into the scene as even mediocre players in weak regions like North America pulled seven-digit salaries. In China, where League of Legends had become the national pastime, the nation's richest oligarchs ran teams for fun and vanity, outbidding Korean organizations for top Korean players in pursuit of a trophy that had gone to Korea every year since 2013. Riot, the studio developing the game, pumped tons of money into creating a professional sports product, with skilled announcers, dedicated arenas for regional leagues, live performances by musicians like Imagine Dragons and Lil Nas X, and all the other bells and whistles one might expect from a program watched on ESPN.

In this milieu, it seemed like Faker had finally reached his limit. He was still good, but not the best. Even as an individual, while everyone still considered him the "greatest of all time," he was considered outmatched by newer pros like Chovy and ShowMaker. 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 passed with no championships. In 2022, on a team of mostly rookies, he reached the world finals, but was ultimately beaten. Korea's stranglehold over the sport had been shaken by China, which had finally strung together some championships. People wondered if Faker would retire, although he had managed to avoid mandatory military service by representing Korea in the Olympics-esque Asian Games. He'd dealt with wrist injuries and his level of play dropped year over year. He just didn't seem to be that good anymore, potentially holding back his team of talented young players rather than leading them to victory.

Then, in 2023—

And in 2024—

In the end, never count out Touchdown Tom. 11 years of professional play, 5 world championships.

From this longwinded explanation, you might have realized that after watching that game in 2013, I became a League of Legends esports fanatic, fulfilling the prophecy set before me by my father though perhaps in not the way he would have expected.

And the things I become a fanatic about, I want to write a story about.

IV. Modern Cannibals

There's a deleted scene in Modern Cannibals, as Maximillion is driving Z. and her friends through the Utah desert. He starts to talk about Pokémon.

"I bring it up because my university thesis was about Pokemon in particular how Pokemon has basically trained an entire generation of children to think in a completely different way than preceding generations my generation for instance our fad was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles now I don't know how much you know about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles but from an educational standpoint we're talking absolute bankrupt complete and utter goose egg but Pokemon now Pokemon you see it's more like there's some substance to it you know that refrain Gotta Catch Em All right?" "..." "Well to most parents it looks like a marketing gimmick you make one hundred fifty-one characters and structure a game around collecting them the merchandising potential is astronomical kids buy one hundred fifty-one trading cards stickers coloring books figurines uh collectable lunchable toys I'm sure you've got some yourself."

He continues:

"But really you look at the game itself before the big toy explosion the game itself the focus is placed less on the collection and more on the catalogue you're given a blank encyclopedia to fill and you fill it by capturing one hundred fifty-one Pokemon but the goal is to create a complete database of each and every one and this is what I argue is the educational core of the Pokemon series." His hands left the wheel to conceive of his idea in the cool air of the car, which remained steady on its ever-forward path. "Our modern era is no longer one of singular isolated knowledge it is one of the catalogue the database which is most clearly personified in the advent of the internet because now all knowledge can be at the fingertips of any one human being all that is needed is someone to go and put the catalogue together and presto whiz bang it's there think about it Z. when you catch a bunch of Pokemon where do you store them?" Z. didn't need to think long to remember the game's mechanics. "In the PC." "Exactly now isn't that odd consider it in real life terms you have real life creatures made assumedly of flesh and bone and yet you store them in a computer how does that make sense you'd expect a farm or a holding pen but no it's the computer and that too prepares the budding portion of the millennial generation to become cognizant of the linkage between the computer the encyclopedia and the database structure of knowledge in a new era." "So," said Z. "So you're saying Pokemon taught kids how to think in the digital age?"

There's also a deleted character in Modern Cannibals. Well, mostly deleted—he still shows up, unnamed, in a couple of pages. He is Cole Coulter, Z.'s older brother, a popular League of Legends streamer. Before I deleted him, his role was to accompany Mrs. Roddlevan and Frederick in an attempt to bring Z. back home. He had POV scenes that gave insight into the weirdness of his cotravelers, but ultimately, I decided he didn't add anything to the story and removed him almost entirely.

Even then, though, I was already considering the future of Cole Coulter as the protagonist of a story about League of Legends esports. Playing under the ID MadKing, he would be a North American professional top laner, once known for his aggressive duelist style but recently forced into playing boring tanks as the esports metagame became more sophisticated and tactics-based.

The story would be simple, something I envisioned as a "sports story" only about esports instead of regular sports. It would start with Cole's team being relegated from the league, only for Cole to get a last chance signing to a new team with two promising Korean imports. One import, the mid laner, would be a charismatic and eccentric player in the mold of Doinb/Ganked By Mom/Huhi, while the other, an AD carry, would be introverted and pissy and elitist, in the mold of Piglet. The team would initially struggle, cultures would clash, then a mid-season replacement to sign a psychopathic Tyler1/Tarzaned style streamer as jungler would revitalize the team, put them on a major run, and get them to the World Championship. Though they would eventually fall after a miracle run, Cole would get a moment to truly shine on the biggest stage when he won a pivotal game by aggressive split pushing rather than tank play.

Thematically, the story would be about two things. First, a counterpoint to the idea of American exceptionalism, featuring a league where Americans are particularly bad compared to Korean or Chinese players. Second, an exploration of what it means to be exceptional at all. Cole would be an all-around mediocre person. Middling at school, at (real) sports, at the various popularity contests of being a teenager. League of Legends, this niche sub-sport, is the one thing he truly excelled at, the one place where he was good, better than 99.9 percent of all players, and yet even within that statistical greatness he wound up, ultimately, in a professional scene where he was once again mediocre, relegated to "tank duty," to facilitating other players to carry.

What does it mean to be the best? How can someone be so, so good, only to reach a level where they were still nothing special? Is there any way to win if you're not "the man who always wins"?

I remembered that panel from Electric Tale of Pikachu. The last people filtered before the final champion. It's certainly no walk in the zoo!

This idea was pretty detailed for a story I never wound up writing, something I mostly blame on the years 2018 and 2019, when a lot of bad things happened to me and in retrospect I consider it a minor miracle I managed to finish Chicago at all. As a human being, I would be decimated for the next three years, and so a lot of stories I might have written in that time never came to fruition.

Meanwhile, League of Legends esports reached a peak, then the venture capital bubble burst as investors realized there was no monetization scheme in place for any interested party except Riot Games. Money hemorrhaged out, Riot shifted resources to Valorant, and a sport that had been overinflated based on projected exponential growth in perpetuity fell back down to earth.

Also, Players came out.

Players was a 2022 mockumentary about a fictional League of Legends team competing in the North American league. Conceptually, it was doing a lot of what I had planned for my story: following a single team on a rags-to-riches run, focusing on the interpersonal drama of the team members, asking questions about greatness and its pursuit. It's a pretty good show if you're familiar with League of Legends esports at all, with a lot of on-the-ground fidelity that gives it an authentic feel, which is exactly what I had been hoping to use my esports fanaticism to accomplish. It completely took the wind out of my sails; it was like my idea had already been done.

So by 2022, the idea of a League of Legends esports story was dead. But there was still a drive to create something with that spirit, that would delve into those themes.

What remained after all these years of sifting the sieve, letting sand slip through, was that one panel from the manga. The number of people pursuing greatness slowly filtering until only one remained. And if I wasn't going to pursue that idea through League of Legends, maybe I could pursue it through another vehicle. Maybe the vehicle through which the idea had originally been exposed to me. Pokémon. It all came back to Pokémon.

V. Everything Evolving Into Crabs

I knew immediately that if I were to write a Pokémon fic, it would be a tournament arc. This was the natural evolution of my esports story idea. Also, if I were to write Pokémon, I wanted it to be a story about utopia, immersed within Pokémon's near-future ideal world, where everything is clean and healthy, where society is neat and ordered.

This idea caused me to remember the novel Eyeless in Gaza by Aldous Huxley, which I had read a few years back. A mostly autobiographical bildungsroman written on the precipice of World War II, the novel ends with the young protagonist on a journey to Central America, where he meets an idealistic doctor who believes sport to be a proper substitution for war. He tells the story of two tribes locked in internecine conflict through generations, able to replace that violence with soccer matches.

And wasn't that what the world of Pokémon was, a utopia revolving around neutralizing weapons of war by using them for competitive sport?

This tournament, I envisioned, would not simply be about deciding who was best, but an ideological battle for the future of the Pokémon world. To that end, I imagined a war between an entrenched trainer class, who competed as philosopher-warriors, intense individuals with deep connections to their Pokémon, and an upstart commercialization that sought to replace the ideological underpinnings that made their society so safe and prosperous with economic accumulation. It was from this kernel that the character who would become Aracely Sosa arose: charismatic, appealing, human-empathic, and propped up by a support staff who did all the hard work of teambuilding for her.

I imagined the story having an ensemble cast, focusing on nearly every competitor equally, with the Aracely character not having any especial focus until her improbable rise to the top. I imagined a final round where she faced off against "the man who always wins," and though she would lose to him, she would seem to have won the ideological battle, altering the course of society as major corporations scrambled to employ her formula for success at a much grander scale. The story would end with this realization of the earth-shattering importance behind her run, only for Aracely to sink in disappointment. Because in the end, all she really wanted was to win.

The more I thought about it, though, the less I liked the idea of an ensemble cast. The ensemble cast element of Chicago hadn't gone over very well (though I like it), and I figured it would wind up inflating the length of the story considerably. I was coming to the end of Cleveland Quixotic, after all, and once more wanted to write something smaller, tighter, and denser.

So I oriented my thinking to instead have the story revolve around Aracely and one major rival, to give an interpersonal mirror to the ideological war being waged. Thus, Toril came about as an antithesis to everything I had imagined Aracely to be: gruff, antisocial, independent. Their rivalry would culminate in a semifinals battle, before Aracely went on to fight "the man who always wins" in the finals.

I forget exactly when the gender theme came into the equation, but it evolved as an outgrowth of (once again) my competitive League of Legends expertise, where women are essentially nonexistent despite there seemingly being no biological blocks against them. This dovetailed nicely with Pokémon, a world where women seemingly could be powerful competitors, but where—in the anime at least—none ever are. For instance, look at this chart of every major tournament in the anime:

Every known winner is male. Every known finalist and semifinalist is male. Only a handful of female characters have reached the quarterfinals. What possible in-universe justification could there be for that?

This question was actually far more prominent in early planning and drafting than it wound up being in the final work. Initially, I had Aracely's personal motivation revolve around a drive to be the first female trainer to win; this would increase the ideological conflict between her and Toril, who attempted to ignore that she was female altogether. Over time, this theme would see diminished importance in face of the last piece of the thematic puzzle: cults.

It came from reading Underground by Haruki Murakami, a nonfiction journalistic account of the 1995 Tokyo sarin gas attacks carried out by the cult Aum Shinrikyo under the direction of its leader Shoko Asahara. Japan in the 90s was experiencing its own End of History, one taken literally by those disaffected with modern society's grand narrative. The prophecies of Nostradamus became fashionable among the young, who believed that 1999 would be the final year before the world was destroyed. Murakami interviewed both survivors of the gas attack and members of Aum Shinrikyo, collecting worldviews of people who simply thought they were "different" and who were willing to give everything in their lives to the one place that seemed to accept that difference.

The 1995 attacks were a watershed moment in Japanese culture. In their wake would come pivotal works of Japanese pop media, like the titan of otaku culture, Neon Genesis Evangelion:

(What's scary about Nostradamus' prophecy is that it might not come true. A year whose chief terror was that THIS WAS IT.)

Pokémon, whose first games released in Japan in 1996, also emerged within this post-Aum world where fixation on the minutiae of pop media was becoming a primary pillar of meaning for the youth, and it's hard not to see echoes of cultism in the evil teams that dot the series' landscape. Even Team Rocket, originally more modeled on organized crime than occultism, veers that direction in Gold and Silver, and afterward the organizations and their world-ending plots become increasingly absurd, to the point where it starts to become unclear why anyone would ever follow, say, Lysandre.

As I mentioned earlier, my personal interest in Pokémon was at odds with these clownish, Saturday morning cartoon villain organizations, but Murakami's account of the Aum attacks recontextualized them for me, made them make sense even within the framework of a "realistic" utopian world. The last elements snapped into place, and I knew my main character would be the member of one of these cults. A cult dedicated to, what else? Evolution. A core element of the Pokémon series, a perfect metaphor for the frustrating lack of movement of the End of History 90s. I imagined a cult leader as a surrogate mother figure for Aracely, who would have a strained relationship with both of her own parents, and deciding on that, the idea of making Pokémon's canon evil mother Lusamine the villain was a no-brainer. I imagined a post-SuMo Lusamine, unable to move on from her experience merged with Nihilego, languishing in Kanto after being sent there to consult with Bill, who had his own experience being merged with a Pokémon... It didn't take long to figure out how all these pieces connected.

The full form of the story had taken shape.

VI. Showdown

I knew immediately I would be following Showdown rules for the battles. No alternative even crossed my mind. I had dabbled in Showdown a few times over the years, first in Gen 3 OUs, then later in Gen 7 OUs, and I knew from experience that Pokémon is a monumentally more interesting competitive game when operating at a high level compared to either its depiction in the anime (shounen logic, mid-fight evolutions) or the general playing experience (spam your best move on your overleveled starter). I knew I would use competitive rulesets before I even considered the thematic or worldbuilding aspect I would eventually take in the story itself (i.e., that the specific rulesets prevent battles from becoming bloodsport and enforce order on the world). I simply thought doing battles this way would be far more entertaining.

To prepare, I started playing Gen 9 OUs under the guidance of a few friends who were into the competitive scene. I grinded the ladder for months, eventually getting a good enough grasp on the metagame to reach 1500 Elo on the Showdown ladder, which is not very good but generally higher than someone can reach with dumb luck.

Crafting the tournament format and rulesets used in the story wasn't difficult. I modeled the tournament format on the League of Legends World Championship, with region-based seeds (having been selected due to performance in regional tournaments) competing in four groups before the highest performers advanced to a single elimination bracket. Initially, I envisioned a 32-competitor bracket instead of the 16-competitor bracket that would appear in the final draft, but otherwise the format came quickly and easily.

In terms of the rulesets and available Pokémon, my considerations were made primarily in terms of what would be most entertaining to read. I decided to include Mega Evolutions and not include Z Moves, Dynamax, or Terastallization, because Mega Evolutions are cool and those other gimmicks are not. The bring-9-pick-6 format, while unusual in Showdown rulesets, is similar to the rules in Pokémon Stadium and VGC tournaments, and also adds a level of intrigue to which Pokémon each competitor uses. (It also enabled Red's Zapdos at the climax of the story, which was something I knew I would bring out from very early on.)

With the help of one of my friends who knew competitive Pokémon, I scripted out each battle assiduously before I wrote them. Every battle was tested using Showdown itself, with only a few turns mocked up to account for luck. For instance, in Aracely versus Jinjiao, Slowking is meant to stay asleep for three turns. Rather than rely on luck to ensure Slowking actually slept that long during the test, I could give Slowking a useless move and have him use that instead to simulate being asleep.

The only thing that couldn't be tested in Showdown was the 7 PP Kingambit trick Red uses at the end of the story, because it's impossible to set a Pokémon to have fewer than max PP in Showdown. This led to one of the bigger mistakes of the story, as it turns out that Encore would simply wear off if Kingambit ran out of PP, rather than forcing him to use Struggle like I assumed. Luckily, even if this were the case, it wouldn't change the outcome of the battle, so it's not an error I lose too much sleep over.

Character teams were chosen to thread the needle between a few considerations. The team needed to be competitively viable, reflect the character's personality in some way, and be distinct from other teams for the sake of variety. (Variety is somewhat unrealistic in real top-level competitive Pokémon, where you'll often see many almost identical teams in the top ranks. But that would be boring.) Some lack of optimization was allowed under the conceit that actually training these Pokémon to peak form would take a lot of time in the real world, compared to Showdown were optimization can be determined quickly due to the ability to immediately adjust stats and builds.

I also tried to give some preference for Pokémon that would be more familiar to layman fans, though this was difficult because Gen 8 and 9 have outrageous power creep and many popular early generation Pokémon have been completely phased out. (Using Megas helped with this issue.) It was this consideration that led to Azumarill being Aracely's ace. There was also an innate challenge to imagining what the competitive scene would look like without legendary Pokémon. Zapdos and Landorus-Therian have been inexorable staples of the competitive scene for generations. What happens in a world where they aren't used at all?

In the original 32-person bracket, I imagined Aracely competing against Jinjiao in the first round, then minor characters Adrian da Cunha and Jacq Ray Johnson in the next two rounds, before facing Toril in semifinals. I imagined Adrian da Cunha as a "hometown hero" whose team wasn't great but he was plucky with a lot of grit, and Jacq Ray Johnson as a self-aware heel who liked to use cheesy strategies and gimmicky Pokémon like Smeargle and Ditto. Condensing from 32 to 16 occurred around the same time I had settled on Lusamine as my villain/cult leader, which led to replacing those two with Gladion. I developed full brackets for both the 32-man and 16-man iterations, with character names and regions, just in case I ever needed to mention them.

All that was left to do was write the story.

VII. Unbroken Line of History

I began writing in September 2023 under the tentative title Unbroken Line of History, which I would later change to simply Lines. In the original drafts, I opened the story with a modified version of the panel from Electric Tale of Pikachu detailing how people are filtered over time in their pursuit of being the best, this time starting with all 8 billion people in the world until only one remains. The story then cut to Aracely's perspective in the restroom as she mentally prepared for her final group stage match.

At this point I was more set on Aracely being the clear protagonist of the story, so she had a few facets of her personality designed around that. First, as I mentioned before, there was a feminist angle where she was motivated specifically to be the first female trainer to win the championship. Secondly, I threw in some more generic nervousness/fear of failure. The other major difference is that I did not lead with the cult prophecy of the world ending. I originally envisioned the cult reveal to be a mid-story twist, and only obliquely hinted at it.

The scene still played out with Toril appearing and the two getting off to a bad start. Then, Cely's father tried to talk strategy with her while she ignored him, before the battle transpired in much the same form as it does in the final draft.

I showed this early draft to my friends and most disliked it. My girlfriend at the time told me Cely sounded like an edgy 13-year-old boy, while my neuroscientist friend whose aspirational idol is Bondrewd from Made in Abyss wanted to know more about the oblique hints of a cult, finding everything else boring. Another friend said it was stupid that there were 30 seconds between turns during the battle and that the Pokémon should just go at each other; nobody would actually want to watch a battle that was paced so slowly. (I vehemently disagreed with that take. Basically every popular sport balances between slow-paced moments of strategy and fast-paced moments of action and execution.) Some people I showed it to did enjoy it, though. Gazemaize, the author of Chili and the Chocolate Factory, was especially enamored by the Brittany/Gardevoir reveal and the Bud Light Analyst Desk, and implored me to keep both of those elements at all costs. 7th, one of my friends who helped me with the Showdown stuff, was so into it she drew fan art of all the characters (which I've posted before) and also wrote eight pornographic short stories about them.

I rewrote the same opening scene several times across October and November, though these were minor iterations without significant adjustments. Frustrated with the lack of progress, I decided to take a break from writing to simply think about the story for a few months.

During this time, to fix Aracely's edgy 13-year-old voice, I decided to lean into her being from Pokémon Los Angeles (with her native region, Visia, being a play on "visual" as a reference to Hollywood) and gave her a Valley Girl accent. To prepare for this, I listened to hours and hours of ASMR videos of people speaking like Valley Girls and took notes on their inflection and syntax. It was here where I decided on Aracely's underlining quirk, as a way of capturing the unique style of emphasis Valley Girls used.

This also made me realize I needed to adjust Aracely's personality. Despite the tone of her voice, she was still acting antisocially. She didn't want to talk to her father, she didn't want to talk to Lachlan Nguyen, she didn't even really want to talk to Toril. Toril herself was a lump of coal. My own misanthropy kept leaking into the characters, even when I conceptually didn't want them to have it. I thought back to Cleveland Quixotic, and how what made the Jay and Viviendre romance work was that they actually both liked each other, and figured—even though I didn't have explicitly romantic plans for Aracely and Toril—that I needed to do something similar to make their rivalry truly pop. Rather than avoid people, Aracely would lean into talking to them, even if they were annoying. Although Toril remained frigid, there would be a part of her yearning for emotional contact, a way to coax her out of her shell.

I also thought deeply about the structure of my stories in general, and my inability to come up with good hooks. It was around this time that someone I knew was reading Chicago. They pointed out that the plot of Chicago doesn't really start until Chapter 26; that I was "burying the lede." I considered this. My logic, when writing Chicago, was that the Empire moving to take over Washington would be a twist, something that would shock and excite people and change their perception of the entire story.

But did that make sense, when really the story was "about" that twist? Didn't that just make everything before the twist harder to get into for a reader? Chicago might look radically different if I revealed the Empire's goals immediately, but it would also probably be a more immediately engaging work. I'm a big fan of delayed gratification in storytelling, but had I taken it too far?

This was a major revelation for me, and immediately I understood what I needed to do for my Pokémon story: move up the cult plotline. Place it front and center. Name the whole story after it even. I decided on framing the opening scene from Toril's perspective, depicting Aracely initially more as an alien other, emphasizing the fact that she was in a cult rather than hide it behind foreshadowing. This could also lead to Aracely and Toril having more of a dual protagonist setup, which would make my planned two-half finale (one half where Aracely battled "the man who always wins," one half where Toril got involved in stopping the cult's doomsday plot) work even better.

Confidence resurged. At the end of January 2024, my girlfriend of seven years  and I broke up. A few days later, I started writing the sixth—and ultimately final—draft of When I Win the World Ends.

VIII. When I Win the World Ends

Now it's the part of the Making Of where I actually make the thing I'm supposed to be making, but there's a lot less to say about it. Once I have a plan, the actual writing of the story is the easy part, and most of what I wrote—with a few exceptions—looks similar to the story as it exists now.

There were some oddities. I wrote the first seven chapters (everything up to the end of the Jinjiao battle) and then had to take a two week break to write a short piece for a writing contest I had entered in December as part of an effort to stop overthinking WIW. After this interruption, I returned to WIW writing perhaps a bit more perfunctorily than I usually would, leading to an original version of Chapter 8 (the chapter where MOTHER makes her first real appearance) that was short and abbreviated. Later, in editing, I would rewrite most of this chapter.

A few ideas emerged while writing, like the motif of serendipity/Logos, which I felt tied nicely to the ideas of evolution and history. It was also in this draft that I introduced Cely's friends Haydn and Charlie, as a nod to an earlier work of mine also featuring a fashion-obsessed girl from Los Angeles. (Speaking of nods to earlier works, in the original 32-man bracket, Cole Coulter featured as one of the competitors, but he didn't make the 16-man cut.)

The process went smoothly. I finished the draft at the end of May, a little under four months after I started it. I had envisioned the full story as being about 70,000 words, but the draft ended up closer to 115,000. Underestimating story length is just an essential element of the trade, though.

A few days after finishing the draft I went on a four-day Oklahoma Darkness Retreat where I had access to zero electronics. The goal was to think about my story deeply and how it could be improved in the editing process.

In this time chamber, where I did nothing except complete crossword puzzles and read The Recognitions by William Gaddis, I came to a realization. There was one element the story needed that wasn't already there.

That element was Sabrina. In the original draft, Sabrina was not present during the scene where Aracely meets the Old Man. She was mentioned obliquely a couple of times in conjunction with Aracely's "psychic powers," but it never really built to anything. There was still a scene where Aracely was interrogated due to her relationship with MOTHER, but only by nameless goons, and the scene lacked tension as it was clear Aracely could talk circles around them.

When I returned from Oklahoma, I prepared for my conception of Sabrina as a character by writing an 8,000 word short story from her perspective, which hashed out an entire backstory for her. Then, I started editing the draft.

For me, a lot of editing is just polish. Usually, cutting out needless sentences and fixing clunky ones, as well as emphasizing a few of the more understated themes and motifs. For instance, during editing, I made slight additions to emphasize the thematic connection between Aracely's suicide attempt and the global war that almost destroyed the world, as well as the connection between the moon and cyclical insanity (lunacy, etymologically, being related to the moon). I made the Old Man more of a Walt Disney-esque figure (from my notes: "a dying Disney"), rewriting much of his dialogue to either be direct quotes or to evoke his ideals. I also expanded on several of the scenes where Toril and Aracely interact to make their relationship more complex and nuanced. I gave MOTHER some new dialogue, including her speech in Chapter 18 about loving a child for the potential it promises, while also paradoxically wanting it to remain a child forever.

The largest changes were in the three chapters I almost fully rewrote. The first was Chapter 8, which as I mentioned earlier was overly terse. In the original draft, it depicted MOTHER as more pathetic, more dependent on Aracely. I decided to make her a more threatening figure, and incorporated a few references to the Moloch sacrifice scene from Valle Verde to make her seem more like a false idol. Similarly, I rewrote Chapter 12, which was originally a very short chapter that focused solely on a conversation between MOTHER and Nilufer that ended with the order to kidnap Aracely. In rewriting the chapter to include Fiorella, I gave myself more opportunity to flesh out the respective philosophies of her and MOTHER (including some of the story's most salient discussions about why cults exist), as well as give more of an insight into the inner workings of RISE as an organization. And lastly, I fully rewrote Chapter 19 to include Sabrina.

The last changes I made in editing were to the final chapter. When I finished the final draft of the story, I sent it to several readers, many of whom had looked at the original drafts of the first chapter, as well as julirites, the author of a Fargo fan fiction called London. There was an immediate and minor backlash to the final chapter, which was originally much more pessimistic, from most people who read it. In the original version, Aracely and Toril were not still in communication. (Fiorella was also dying of cancer instead of jockeying to replace the Old Man.) The finale had a much more somber, sedate, tragic note. Juli and 7th disliked this sad ending, while Gazemaize wanted me to cut the final chapter altogether. I felt confident that the final chapter was necessary, though, and revised it to its current version, which was much better liked.

And then... the story was finished, near the end of July. I crunched the numbers and realized that if I posted two chapters to start and then did a twice-weekly posting schedule, I could end the story serendipitously on October 12. So I did.

IX. Names and Special Thanks

In my Making Of post for Cleveland Quixotic, I had a fairly extensive list of where I got all the character and place names from. The list is a lot less extensive here; most names I constructed for the purpose of sounding evocative, rather than taking them from someplace specific. For instance, I chose the name Aracely Sosa because it sounds like whistling with its repeated S sounds, compared to Toril Lund which is a lot harsher with its consonants. You can see a similar rationale behind names like Fiorella Fiorina, Yui Matsui, and even some of the background characters, like Jacq Ray Johnson, Jr., where there is a lot of emphasis on alliteration and rhyme.

There are a couple of exceptions. Jinjiao is the in-game ID of a longtime Chinese League of Legends pro of middling notability. He picked the name (which means "Golden Horn") as a reference to the Golden Horned King, a villain from Journey to the West.

Lutz, Fiorella's cameraman, was named after an extremely minor character from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, who is not playable and only appears in a singular cutscene before being killed. They are so irrelevant that despite naming a character after them, I actually forgot their name, which is Lotz, not Lutz.

Haydn is named after the famous classical composer.

Special thanks to 7th and Elick320 for helping me with the teams and battles. Thanks to Gazemaize and julirites, among others unnamed, for reading and providing feedback. And thank you all for enjoying the story.

[goodboyyyy]

Another hot summer day working out with your neighbor Tommy. You guys had been friends when you were kids, and stayed that way in highschool, both sticking together as two skinny nerds like you would. You went to different colleges, though, and when he came back the next summer he was like a different person. You'd changed too- you'd finally gotten the courage to come out at college- but nowhere near as much as him. You'd guessed he must've been a late bloomer, or that puberty had really done a number on him- his pale, skinny frame was now full, thick, and covered in hair and muscle, and where he had just had some stubble and peach fuzz before was now covered in an equally full, thick beard right above his beefy neck. He had a couple tattoos too, on his broad lats and bulging biceps. Most strangely, he'd had a cross necklace on- both of you had never been that religious.

Still, he was pretty cool with you, even after you came out to him- almost more after that- and started inviting you to workout with him. You didn't have much else to do over summer break, and figured it would be good to start getting active. Your new boyfriend at college would probably appreciate the results.

"Damn, I stink!" he said with a dumb grin, lifting his pit and giving it a long sniff.

You stared at him, confused.

"What? You don't do this?" he asked.

"I really don't," you said, raising an eyebrow. "Gross," you thought.

He shrugged. "I guess I used to think it was weird too when I'd see guys do it at the gym. But once I started lifting and got that testosterone pumping, damn! My pits started to leak all the time. I'd just be sitting there watching TV, get a whiff of something, look down and see these bigass pit stains under my arms," he said, laughing dumbly. "I'd have to change my shirts 3 times a day, even if I was just chilling."

That got you kind of hard, to be honest. He gave his pit another whiff until the smell started to make his eyes water. "Ah, fuck yeah," he said shaking his head. You stared at it, the sweaty, dark hair under it binding together from how wet it all was. You looked down at your own. They were sweaty, but only because you'd been working out. Otherwise you never sweated much.

"C'mon man. Give it a try. There's nothing like inhaling your own hard earned sweat after a workout," he said in his deep voice.

You did, but it didn't really smell like anything, which you told him.

"Haha, that's cuz you just started working out bro. I remember those one-shirt days. Enjoy em while they last," he said with a dumb laugh. Then he smiled goofily. "Nah, you need to see what I mean. Wanna lil preview of what you'll smell like soon?" he said, quickly swiping his finger through his pit and towards your face.

"Fuck off ma-" you yelled, backing away, but a few drops of sweat from his dripping fingers landed on your face. The first hit you right under the nose, filling it with his musky scent. The next two landed right in your mouth. You barely noticed, barely tasted the sweaty drops, but something in you changed as his sweat ran down your throatm soaking through your skin and into your bloodstream. You wanted... more of it suddenly.

"Haha, that's what's up man," you said, your voice now as deep as his. "Yo, can I get another whiff? You fuckin reek, bro." He really did, haha.

"Dig in bro," he said with a laugh, lifting his arm again. His bicep rolled up into a mountain as he showed off his sweaty pit.

"Good shit man," you said, diving into it and giving it a whiff. It didn't make you turned on exactly- moreso enraptured, like something in you was awakening- like a deep instinct.

"Haha, you see what I mean now bro?"

"Fuck yeah," you bellowed.

Your hands roamed over the muscular, hairy peaks and valleys of his chest.

"That's a good boy. You like this body, baby?'

"Yes," you spluttered from under his pit.

"Why?

"Big... strong... hairy."

"That's right boy. I'm a fuckin man now. Fuck that skinnyboy nerd shit. You know how it feels walking around, knowing you can fuck whoever you want? One look, one fuck and these bitches are beat over me, texting me nonstop, begging to have this cock again," he saudm grabbing at his junk through his shorts. "Once I got a taste of this, why would I want anything else? I know we fucked around and did nerd shit in highschool, but its time to be a man now. That's it boy. Lap it up. Drink up all that testosterone. It's just gonna amplify what we've been getting going in your system the last couple weeks."

"Yeah," you said, barely noticing that your voice was deeper every time you spoke. "Yeah, good shit bro."

"Alright, enough for now. Time to finish benching. I'll spot you."

You slid onto the bench, energized. You usually wobbled and had awkward placement, but now you slid back onto it like a pro, arching your back as you gripped the weight. You friend stood over you, dick eye level with your face to spot you. You pumped a rep out, inhaling deep on the way down, then coughed. A blast of his musky ballsweat seeping through of his shorts filled your nose.

It was so pungent that it made your eyes start to burn. You were about to say something when the weights shot up higher than ever before.

u9His ballsweat smelled even better than his pits had. You felt blood rushing into your pecs. Another rep. You felt the pump getting stronger and stronger, like your chest was going to burst. Another rep. Another inhale. Another whiff of his ballsweat. He nodded. Another rep. A bed of sweat dripping off his nose into your open mouth. You swallowed it. Your chest felt like it would explode now- your arms, lats, back and biceps too- all doubling in size with each rep as his extra testosterone coursed through you. You stared up at his big, hairy chest towering above you. You needed to look like that, a primal voice in you said. If you were still cavemen, he'd be an alpha- strong, powerful, virile, spreading his seed. What would you be? Weak. No. You were a man- you couldn't be weak. You had to keep lifting. Get bigger. Stronger. Your eyes glazed over as your arms moved automatically now, up, down, up, down. A thin layer of hair started to grow over your suddenly huge chest, getting darker and bushier with every rep.

He smiled down at you, feeling your now hairy chest, nodding and smirking as you continued to work. It made you want to push harder. He lifted his arm behind his head again, flexing his big bicep. You stared in awe. Ten minutes ago you'd've wanted them cuz they were hot; now you wanted them because you wanted to be big like him. Powerful. Masculine. Built.

He reached into his pit with his free hand, coating it in sweat and moving it towards your mouth, which opened automatically for it. You were still pumping out reps, just starting to feel tired, but when that sweaty hand hit your mouth and your tongue instinctually swirled around it, licking up every drop, it was like you'd just begun. You grunted as the hair on your own pits there got thicker and darker everytime you lifted the weight. His hand went back to his pit, coating it in sweat, in all his excess testosterone, and back in your mouth. Your shoes ripped as your feet went from a size 8 to a size 15. A thick beard appeared on your face where your patchy facial hair had been. Musky sweat was leaking out of your own pits now; you inhaled the scent deeply, grinning. You smelled like a man now- fuck yeah. It made you push even harder as you felt your cock and balls got thicker, heavier, making room for all the extra seed you'd spread now. Your friend smiled down at you, nodding in approval as your bulge expanded.

"I think you're good man," he finally said. "The last few bits will finish up even if you stop now with everything we've got pumping through you. I'm really glad we still have so much in common after all the years, man. Same time tomorrow?"

"For sure. I'm glad too, brah," you said, racking the weight and sitting up. Something hit you in the face. A gold cross chain had appeared around your neck. You stared at, confused for a minute till you remembered you'd always been pretty old school, traditional and religious. All you wanted was a nice wife, one who'd be traditional like you, cook your meals, wash your clothes, rub your feet after a long day, serve you like a wife should and fulfill her role.

You'd cheat on her, of course. Your cock was too virile to be satisfied by one pussy. But that would just make her love you more, try harder. You'd just have to pick the right one and slowly chip away at her till she'd put up with anything for you, till she was addicted and begging for your approval. You'd put babies in her, raising them into more nice strong, religious men- and bring them up to be just like you. You'd accept nothing less.

And that's just how it happened. You spent the rest of the summer pumping iron and sweating it out with your bro by day, comparing how bad you smelled and laughing like idiots. Working out outside bronzed the thick, muscular skin under all your body hair, giving you a hot glow that was great for when you spent the night hitting the clubs and bagging chicks by night.

Every now and then you'd feel yourself question things, wonder if this was what you really wanted from life. For some reason, it felt like there was something more you'd imagined, once, or something different. But it was like whenever that happened, you'd feel your dick suddenly start getting hard, distracting you, pulling your focus. The more you tried to remember, the hornier you'd get, till the thoughts drifted away and you were practically feral, consumed with thoughts of fucking or lifting. You slowly had the thoughts less and less till you stopped having them at all. Your life was pretty great now.

[mochegato]

Even the Losers

Chapter 39

Chapter 1 Chapter 38

um… if bad parenting and borderline stalking are triggers, this might not be the chapter for you.  Also TW for dissociation

The feeling was freeing, or rather free.  Marinette felt like she was floating, completely free from any tethers; to the ground, to a person, to her emotions, to reality.  She was free from responsibility, free from expectations, free from worry, free from anxiety, free from pain.  It was warm and embracing and above all, comforting.  The temperature was perfect, just the right side of warm.  There was a low-lying white noise that was just loud enough to let her know something was there without intruding on her peace.

She could float away forever and be completely content.  There wasn’t a single reason she could think of not to just let it happen.  She could just…

Her euphoria was brutally interrupted by a weight dropping around her body bringing her consciousness crashing down to reality.  She blinked once, twice, and a few more times until the scene in front of her came into focus, or, more accurately, the person in front of her.

She narrowed her eyes as her brow furrowed trying to make sense of what she was seeing.  The utopic scenery had been replaced by something decidedly more mundane and darker, and a man crouching in front of her.  “Jason?”

“Hey there Pixie Pop,” he said quietly, or maybe it wasn’t so quiet.  Her ears were still adjusting, the white noise from before now sounding like a constant buzzing, like live wires surrounding her, sometimes humming quietly in the distance, sometimes sizzling so loudly she had the instinct to cover her ears.  His eyes darted to the side in a harsh, judgmental glare in time with one of the louder bursts, but returned to her with a soft look.  “I thought we lost you for a second there,” he continued so gently, it was like he was speaking to a sleeping baby.  “Thought you might have gone somewhere we couldn’t track you.”

His lips curled up in a soft smile, but her eyes were locked on his eyes.  They were filled with concern, but searching, waiting, a bit of relief easing into them the longer she looked, the more clearheaded she became.  He raised his hand, fingers seemingly reaching toward her, but it froze almost instantly, his fingers clenching instead before he lowered his hand resentfully.  “How you doing?”

“Fine.  Thank you,” she answered instantly.  The response wasn’t even a conscious decision, more like reflex.  Instead, she focused on trying to orient herself absent of the buoyant feeling she had just been torn away from and allow her body to properly register her current environmental input, which was significantly harder than it should have been.

At a loud sound from him, her eyes snapped back to him from wherever they had wandered while her mind was doing the same.  If anything, the scoff he had let out helped ground her into reality, gave her a familiar warm feeling.  It was the normal response she got to that answer.  Whether it was Alya or Nino or Adrien…  She froze, the reality hitting her like an akuma's blast.

Adrien.

She looked around wildly, the heavy blanket she hadn’t noticed before falling from her shoulders, not noticing the panic start to set in to Jason's eyes as he watched her sudden, frantic movements nor the way his entire body tensed and he bobbed in place, like his body wanted to lurch toward her but his mind was keeping him in place.

She searched for a few seconds before letting out an indignant growl at remembering her phone was still where she had left it the night before; in her purse at Max’s apartment.  Now, she had no way to know how Adrien was doing or check on him.  She almost hissed at the incessant white noise that refused to go away and prevented her from being able to focus, but it stopped when her eyes caught on Roy’s phone, and she lunged for it.  She wouldn’t be able to open it, but she’d at least been able to see if there were any messages.

There was only one message, Chloe warning them Bruce found out she wasn’t there and had left the hospital.  Nothing important and hardly helpful at this point.  Nothing about Adrien.  She checked the time it had come in.  Forty-five minutes ago.  She pressed her lips into a thin line.  Surely, if there had been anything to worry about, she would have sent that as well…  But that was forty-five minutes ago, and anything could have happened in that time and she had no way to find out.  She couldn’t even open his phone to actually respond and demand… request an update.

She huffed and tossed it back on the coffee table glaring at it like it was the root of her misfortunes.  She yanked at her shirt, her fingers instantly finding the burl in her hem and aggressively rubbing her finger and thumb over it.

“Hey,” Jason interrupted softly but firmly, easing into her personal space to make sure she was hearing him.  “It’s okay.  There’s no update on Adrien.  He’s still doing okay… strong.  His vitals are strong,” he assured her with the confidence of a man who had a direct link to his monitors, which he definitely did not have.  However, if there had been any change Bruce, Dick, and Damian would have known about it before they left, and they would have notified everyone.  Since they didn’t say anything about that, just that Marinette wasn’t there, he was positive Adrien was fine.

There was no way they wouldn’t have said something.

Almost no way…

It was unlikely they would allow themselves to be distra…

He sighed heavily and hung his head.  “Tell you what, Pixie Pop, I’ll have Duke check now and let us know just to verify.”

She watched him intently for a few seconds, studying him like she was trying to determine if she trusted him.  “He’s still there?”   Her voice broke slightly midway through the sentence.  Her fingers let go of her hem and eyes dropped for just a moment when he nodded.  When they returned to him, they had transitioned from suspicious to wary.  “Markov will have better knowledge,” she finally advised quietly.

“Ahh, but I don’t know Markov’s phone number,” Jason shrugged, purposefully injecting levity into his tone.

Instead of lightening her mood as he’d hoped, she shrunk away from him again.  It was a slight thing, but with him watching her as carefully as he was, he noted it, internally cursing himself for misplaying his hand.  “Tell Duke to have Markov call you,” she suggested curtly.

“Yeah,” he agreed quickly.  “I’ll have him give Markov my number as well.”

“You don’t have to,” she shrugged.  To his relief, she seemed to have relaxed at least back to the level she had been at before his earlier joke.

Jason raised an eyebrow at her.  “My number is unlisted.”

She scoffed.  “That really isn’t relevant.  He’s gotten the CIA director’s number before… allegedly!” she added quickly.

He blinked at her again.  There were so many questions he wanted to ask her, but it really didn’t seem like the right time.  He opened his mouth regardless but before he could ask… he wasn’t even sure what he wanted to ask, a roaring voice put an end to their conversation, both of their heads whipping toward the sound.

“…didn’t even realize she wasn’t in the hospital for what?  Hours?” Roy screamed.  “And now you’re declaring some divine right to her?”

“We didn’t realize she wasn’t there because we were told she was sleeping and she shouldn't be disturbed,” Bruce yelled back.  “So, we waited outside her room all night.  When we discovered it was Adrien’s room not hers, I came to see her for myself after being LIED to all night after MY DAUGHTER ALMOST DIED.”

“Jesus, Bruce.  Last night wasn’t about YOU!”  Roy took a step toward Bruce, but Dick stepped between them, holding his hands out toward both of their chests.  “When will you get that through your fucking titanium skull?  Everything isn’t about you.  This is about Marinette and Adrien, and what they need.”

“And what they need is to be safe!” Bruce thundered.  “And I needed to make sure she was, after a night where she wasn’t.  But I couldn’t because you were hiding her.  I didn’t know where she was and if she was safe.  As her father, I needed to make sure she was and act to make sure she was.”

Roy narrowed his eyes, studying him assiduously, taking his time before responding.  When he finally did, his voice had been lowered, but the tone was just as acidic.  “So, you had to break into my apartment to do that?  Into my room?  Come at Marinette?”

“We meant to just see if she was okay then leave,” Dick interjected calmly.  “We didn’t come at her.”

Roy looked at them critically, disgust curling his lips as he spoke.  “And it took four of you to do that?  And all invade her space?  While we were sleeping?  While she was sleeping?”

“Hey, I was trying to stop them,” Jason interjected.  “Don’t group me in with this shitshow.”

Bruce glared at him and took a breath before responding to Roy’s accusation, but it clearly did little to abate his anger, while his expression eased slightly after the action, his eyes stayed dark.  “We were worried,” he gritted out.

Roy narrowed his eyes at him.  “You’re smarter than that.  You all are.  You could have checked with anyone else.  You didn’t care to, because how she felt didn’t matter to you.  Only how you felt.”

Jason scoffed and turned back to Marinette, examining her expression and body language closely as everyone spoke around her.  “They could have tried.  I wouldn’t have answered.  They could have tracked me.”

“Yeah, don’t think we’re done talking about that,” Dick growled.  “You knew.  You knew and didn’t tell us.”

“No, I did not,” he touted proudly.  “And we definitely are done.  You can talk all you want about it.  I’m out.  You chose your side.  I chose mine.  Hers.”

“There are no sides here!” Dick thundered so loudly even Damian winced at the anger lacing the words.  “We are all trying to protect and supp…”

“How did you know where I was?” Marinette cut in.  Her words were quiet, emotionless, yet demanding more attention than all the angry yelling that had had been filling the room.  She realized she probably should have been paying attention and know what the yelling was about, but the niggling feeling in the back of her head was now a full on blaring trumpet in her ear.

“Huh?” Dick asked in the same overly innocent tone Etta and Ella would use when they had said more than they meant to and was hoping Marinette or Alya hadn’t heard it, but it was the way everyone froze at her question that confirmed her instinct more than anything else.

“What, sweetheart?” Bruce asked, his voice soft and tentative.

She stared at the phone like it was an escape room clue and if she stared long enough, it would provide the answer to everything while her mind whirled like the Flash on crack.  The longer her mind ran, the more things fell into place.  This was it, that niggling feeling that wouldn't go away for days before.  She was finally closing in on it.  It felt right.  This was it the final thing.  “Chloe texted Roy forty-five minutes ago.  It’s been forty-five minutes.  That’s not enough time.”

“Not enough time for what, sweetheart?” Bruce encouraged, keeping his voice at the same gentle tone.  He tried to edge closer to Marinette, but Roy’s glare kept him at a distance.

“Assume five to ten minutes to get to the car and out of the parking lot,” she started remotely.  Her eyes finally lifted, but rather than looking at any of the people in the room, it was to examine the completely intact, not broken-down door to Roy’s apartment.  “Five to ten minutes to get from the car and pick the lock to break into Roy’s apartment, at the quickest.  Most people would take ten to fifteen, but you were in a hurry.  You wouldn’t have taken the time to pick the lock if you didn’t think you could do it quickly.”  Her eyes drifted to the wreckage in the hallway.  “Five minutes for the fight, that leaves twenty to thirty minutes for the ride from the hospital and however long I’ve been…” her eyes dropped down, “distracted.”

Her eyes shot up to Bruce, her eyes narrowed in analysis.  “That leaves no time for doubt.  You knew where you were going.  How did you know?”  She quirked her head to the side a moment before her eyes drifted over to Jason then Roy and back to Bruce.  “Jason didn’t tell you.  Roy didn’t tell you.  My friends didn’t tell you… so, how did you know?”

Bruce and Dick glanced at each other from the corner of their eyes, both straightening up at the same time in a perfect example of nurture over nature, further highlighting their history, a history Marinette hadn’t been allowed.  “We traced your phone,” Bruce stated confidently.

Damian frowned at Bruce’s answer, his eyes darted between Dick and Bruce, both standing abnormally stiffly, not enough that it would be noticeable to anyone outside of the family, but after a decade of living in the League and years of living and fighting with his father and his team, their unease was blazingly clear, as though they had done something remorseful.  But they hadn’t.  There was no reason to lie.  His father hadn’t done anything that any other concerned father wouldn’t have done, anything that he hadn’t already done with the rest of his children.  Their reaction made no sense.

Marinette’s brow furrowed at his answer, the answer not fitting into her puzzle.  A red herring threatening to lure her away from the correct conclusion.  Her fingers found the burl in her hem as she absently rubbed it.  “My phone isn’t here,” she corrected slowly in sharp contrast to how quickly her thoughts were moving.  “I left it at Max’s apartment.  Chloe has Roy’s number in case something happened with Adrien.  If you’d traced my phone, it would have led you there.  But you didn’t go there.  You came straight here.  You knew.  There were so many possibilities, so many more likely possibilities, but you didn’t try any of those.  You knew where to go.  Where I was.  Without doubt.”  Her eyes narrowed further.  “And you don’t want me to know how you knew.”

“Marinette…” Bruce started weakly, desperately.

But it was Jason’s words that kept ringing in her ears.  Suddenly she froze, her fingers paused mid-stroke over the burl and her chest not even rising to take breaths.  The force of her realization snapped into place almost hard enough to leave an echo in the room.  Her eyes slowly panned down to her fingers for a moment before she shot up and unceremoniously yanked her shirt over her head, bending slightly to bring the fabric closer to her examination, as though just holding it wouldn’t get it close enough.  She didn’t need better taste in fabric, she needed better taste in who she trusted.

Everyone but Roy spun around as soon as she started lifting her shirt.  Roy, however, stared at her in morbid awe.  His eyes sweeping toward the breasts he’d been imagining since the day he met her, and cursing that the shirt was still in the way, especially with her body angled slightly away, for hardly a second before drifting to the dark bruise at her fully exposed ribs.  It wrapped around her body, darkening as it moved toward her back.  He stumbled forward, moving toward her, terrified of fully seeing her back but needing to do it regardless.

He gasped at the full extent of the damage she’d concealed.  She’d said the doctor cleared her.  She’d said she was fine.  He had known it was at least partially a lie, that she’d withheld some information, but he’d never imagined it was this bad.  The bruises on her face were nothing compared to the deep ones on her back.  They extended almost the entire breadth of her back, some so deep the blackish purple was mottled with maroon.  She had to have at least a few cracked ribs, possibly broken.  She should have never been allowed to leave the hospital.

She shouldn’t be able to stand, let alone have taken on some of the fiercest fighters on the planet.  Granted, they weren’t actually trying to fight her, but even breathing should make her sob in pain.  He didn’t know whether he should be impressed or horrified, but decided a combination of the two was the best option.

“Oh, Marinette,” he uttered in helpless horror.  He reached toward her to run his fingers over the bruises as if they might not be real and touching would make them disappear, but he dropped his hand before they could make contact and make it worse for her.  He dropped his eyes and forced himself to take several breaths before looking back up stopping when he saw his shirt haphazardly strewn over the back of the couch from the night before.  He grabbed it and gently pulled it over Marinette’s head, being extremely careful not to let the collar rub against her face.

He continued to help ease the shirt over her body and her arms through the sleeves even as Marinette’s head shot up, fire in her eyes and hand clenched around her shirt, the burl facing outward accusingly.  “You bugged me,” she screeched.  As soon as Roy got her hand through the sleeve, she launched her pajama shirt at Bruce, nailing him in the head.  She was pulling her pajama pants off before he’d even reacted to the hit.  “You tracked me!  You put a tracker on me like I was some kind of dog.”

She tossed her pants at him too, but the unbalanced weight distribution caused them to shift trajectory slightly, hitting Dick in the back of the head instead.  “Do I have to remove my underwear too?” she demanded.  “How many of my clothes have you violated?”

“No!  It’s not like that!”  Bruce whipped around to face her, eyes wide with panic, but immediately dropped them remembering why he’d turned in the first place.  “No Marinette no that's not...”

She lunged forward like she wanted to get into his face, but changed her mind, throwing her arms out with a tortured groan.  “You want to know who I am, make sure I'm safe, without actually having to talk to me?  Not actually having to interact with me.  Why is that such a horrifying thought to you?  Why is the idea of being near me such a nightmare?  What is it about me?”

“Marinette, you have to… please stop moving around so much,” Roy begged quietly.  “Your back…”  He reached out to encourage her to sit, but faltered again before he could make contact, not confident there was anywhere he could touch her that wouldn’t hurt her.

Finally registering the fact Marinette had been wearing a shirt, Bruce turned back to face her.  “No!  No, Marinette, that is not true.  Not in any way.”

But Marinette was beyond listening to him.  He’d made his feelings more than apparent.  With every interaction, he’d made his dislike clear.  She was fine to exist, but actually interacting with her?  Actually appreciating her as more than an accessory to parade out to the public?  That was too much.  Clearly.

God!  He hadn’t even wanted to acknowledge her.  He only did it because his hand was forced.  Why did she listen to his excuses?  Why was she so stupid?  How pathetic was she to grasp at the smoky whisps of attention he was allowing to waft in her direction and not demanding the entire fucking fire?

She backed away from him until her legs hit the couch, fighting the tears building up behind her eyes held in by nothing more than sheer fucking will power.  “Why is this so one-sided with you?  I have to push and push and try.  I try so fucking hard.  I have to open myself up and expose the rawest parts of me.  And you just keep looking for the easiest way out.  The laziest ways that you can know I'm okay without actually having to try.  Without putting any effort in.  Why is everything about you and nothing about me?  Why am I the only one showing that I care?  Why am I the only one trying?  Why am I the only one exposed?”  Her voice, which had been so strong and aggressive, bolstered by righteous indignation moments before was now broken, filled with frustration but most of all, pain.

“Marinette,” Dick whispered, now realizing it was safe to look at her, his voice intentionally as non-confrontational as possible to ease her ire, “Marinette, I promise it isn’t like that.”

“The fuck it isn’t,” she screamed, her voice back to the steel it had been before.

“I don’t understand,” Damian inserted.  “Trackers are common, especially when there are threats.  We all have them.  Why wouldn’t you?”

“Because I wasn’t consulted,” she screamed, her eyes staying on Bruce the entire time.  “Because I’m an adult, not a child.  Because it’s called autonomy over my own fucking life.  He’s getting more information about my life than I agreed to give.  Illegally I might add.  All so he didn’t have to actually speak to me.  So, he didn’t have to try.  Because it was done as an investment in his image, not a relationship with me.”

“That’s not fair!  I was trying to make sure you were safe,” Bruce assured her through gritted teeth, barely restrained frustration evident in his tone and tensed muscles.  “I do want you in my life.  As much as you will let me.  I love you!  I love you and I want you to be safe, but you’re not.  There had been threats, multiple threats.  Hell Marinette, you’d already been kidnapped once.  I needed to know that we could find you if it happened again.  That I could keep you safe next time.  I just needed to be able to find you.”

Jason straightened up and turned to glare at Bruce, standing as a protective barrier between Bruce and Marinette.  “You should have asked,” Jason said lowly.  “You said you would before you did it.  You told us you’d talk to her about safety before taking any measures.  You lied.  It’s not a surprise.  And that’s on me, on all of us.  We shouldn’t have believed he’d be better to her than he was for any of the rest of us.”

“Jason,” Dick hissed, focusing his anger at Jason.  How could he not understand he was making it all worse.  How could he not understand they needed to stand together or they were going to fall apart and he wasn’t sure if he could duct tape them back together again.  “We need to deescalate here.  You’re not helping.”

“No,” Jason growled back.  “I think we haven’t escalated enough before.  That’s how we got here.”

“I want you all to leave,” Marinette stated with a cold determination.  “Leave the apartment.  Leave my life.  I want you out.”

Dick gasped, but Bruce looked broken.  “Marinette, you don’t mean that.”

“I do,” she nodded resolutely.  “I’ve seen this play out.  I’ve seen this all throughout Adrien’s life.  The way his father controlled him in order to protect him,” she spit the words out like venom.  “All to keep him safe.”  She scoffed loudly and shook her head, the rage in her eyes transitioning slowly to disappointment and disgust.  “I’ve heard all the excuses.  At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if you turned out to be a supervillain too.”

Bruce choked very intentionally avoiding everyone’s eyes in the room.  “It is a parent’s job to protect their child.  I’ve failed you before.  I wasn’t about to let it happen again.  I won’t let it happen again.”

Marinette let out an unimpressed huff.  “No, you just found new and more creative ways to fail me.”  She almost softened when she saw the devastation her words reeked in Bruce, her words hitting their mark with far more accuracy and depth than she had anticipated.  But she refused to take them back.  They weren’t wrong and it was time he understood, felt a fraction of the pain she’d felt because of him, a fraction of the desolation, so he understood why she couldn’t let it continue.  She couldn’t survive in these circumstances the way Adrien had.  She wasn’t resilient the way he was.  “I want you gone.  I don’t want to see you.  I don’t want to talk to you.  I don’t want… you.”

“Marinette, we need to talk about this, talk this through,” Bruce pleaded, panic setting in for the first time.  “We’re a family.  We need to work through this like a family.”

She cocked her head to the side and puckered her lips as if in thought.  “If I understand our history correctly, that means I get to send you away when I’m tired of you, which I’m doing now.”

Bruce paled and Dick gasped, but Jason tilted his head to somewhat contain a bark of laughter.  “Damn.  Holy fuuuu…”

“That is not what happened, and you know it!” Bruce exclaimed, frustration back in his voice as he advanced toward Marinette.

Roy stepped forward, his hand held up to stop him.  “You heard her.  It’s time to get out.”

“Roy,” Bruce hissed threateningly.

“No.  She’s not ready to talk to you.  She needs time.  And you're not talking to her.  You’re not saying the things she needs to hear,” he stated in a frustrated growl, meaning more than Marinette understood.  “You need to give her space and time.  You need to leave.”

“She’s our sister, our family!” Dick bellowed.

Roy turned his glare to Dick.  “I’m not the one that needs to remember that.”

Dick stalked forward, eyes solely for Roy, trying to tower over him despite being slightly smaller than Roy.  “You’re really doing this right now?”

Roy squared up against him, ready to take whatever Dick was going to dish out without backing down.  He wouldn’t let Marinette down when she needed him the most.  His promise to protect her might have been facetious… kind of… mostly, but he had every intention of keeping it.  Even if it was against her family.  Fuck, from his experience, families usually were what people needed the most protection from.  “You once told me you’d choose her over me, and I said I’d do the same.  The difference is, I wasn’t lying.”

Dick’s glare somehow got even colder.  “Are there any…” he paused taking a moment to find a way to phrase his thoughts without revealing their identities, “women associated with us that you haven’t fucked and left?  And now you’re playing the big, bad protector?  You’re hardly a knight in shining armor.”

Roy snorted so hard, he almost doubled over.  “You’re going to try to call me out on that?  You?  You have no room to judge, buddy.”  Roy’s glare turned colder than Dick’s had been, colder than they had seen him give them before. "You've done enough damage for today.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s the only thing you’ve done today.  It’s time for you to leave before you make it worse."

Everyone continued to stare at each other like their glares could intimidate each other into submission, hostility rolling off Bruce, Dick, Jason, and Roy thick enough it seemed to obscure the air itself.  But Damian?  Damian watched Marinette.  The night had clearly not gone the way any of them had expected, but it had definitely hit Marinette harder than anyone else.

She stood tall, projected strength and determination in both her body and eyes, but the longer he looked, the more he could see the cracks in the façade.  Her muscles were shaking from the strain of keeping her body so rigid, it was almost imperceptible, if he hadn’t been watching her so intently, he would have missed it.

But it was her eyes that gave everything away.  The fire was there, but once you looked past the flames, there was devastation.  The scorched remains of any faith or hope she once had for them, maybe for the world as a whole.  He’d seen that look before.  He’d had that look before and he knew how dangerous it was, not for the people around him… although, yeah, in his case it had been dangerous to the people around him, but because of how it had threatened to destroy him.  They needed to leave before they salted the earth and lost any chance of regrowing their razed relationship with Marinette.

Damian laid his hand on Dick’s arm, waiting until he sensed Dick had shifted his attention to him before allowing himself to take his gaze from Marinette to meet Dick’s eyes determinedly and shook his head curtly.

Dick furrowed his brow and opened his mouth to argue, but Damian looked over at her pointedly and Dick followed his gaze, his shoulders slumping at the sight.  He was right.  She seemed like she was positioned aggressively, but from personal experience he knew that position was meant to protect herself more than attack.  It was like an injured kitten puffing out her fur to look more intimidating to scare her opponent out of fighting.  The harder they tried to look scary, the worse the hurt, and she was trying awfully hard to look scary.  She was weak and hurt and viewed them as the enemy.

He took a breath and glanced at Roy who was still standing like a rampart before Marinette, refusing to let any danger touch her.  What Marinette needed was loved ones protecting her, making her feel safe.  Ideally, that would be them, her family, there for her no matter what.  However, regardless of how they felt about her, she still didn’t see them as family.  There was no trust, and maybe that was justified after what Bruce had done.  And trust and comfort were not things they could shove down her throat and make her feel.

“Okay,” Dick announced, clear and loud.  “We’ll go…”

“The Hell we will,” Bruce seethed.

Dick turned toward Bruce, knowing better than to attempt to touch him at that moment, instead standing with purpose in front of him.  “We will go,” he repeated definitively.  “We will go because she asked us to.  We will go because that is what she needs right now.”

He chanced taking a step closer to Bruce and lowered his voice so only he would hear.  “It’s too much, Bruce.  It’s too much all at once.  She’s shutdown.  If we stay it will only drive her further away.”

“She’s…” Bruce roared motioning violently toward Marinette.

“Safe,” Dick finished for him.  “She’s safe.”

“And she sure as fuck doesn’t feel that with you,” Jason added stepping up behind Dick.

“Not helping,” Dick hissed.

Jason shot him an unimpressed look but didn’t say more. 

Damian stepped toward Marinette and faltered on the second step, ultimately deciding to set his foot back down.  “If you need anything, please let me, us, know,” he stated, voice only slightly wavering.  “I’m willing to… I’ll do whatever you need.”

However, when Marinette showed no signs of having heard him, her disappointed glare never leaving Bruce despite all the commotion around her, he nodded and left, trusting Dick and Jason to remove his father, but he couldn’t be there any longer.  He couldn’t watch her pain and know he had a hand in it.  He needed an escape just as much as she needed space.

“Fine,” Bruce growled.  He leveled his gaze on Marinette and there may have been an attempt to soften his glare, but if there was, it didn’t translate to his eyes.  “We’ll go, but this isn’t over.  You are my daughter.  I’m not giving up on us.”  He waited a beat before stomping out of the apartment.  Dick opened his mouth, but closed it slowly and nodded to them instead before following Bruce out.

Jason glared at the door for a few moments then turned to watch Marinette hoping to gage how much damage had been done, and the sight was beyond concerning.  He started toward her but Roy stepped in his way, not even backing off when Jason leveled him with his deadliest glare.  “Sorry man.  I know.  I do.  But…” he took a long breath and looked back at Marinette, “you didn’t see the way she reacted to you last night… or maybe you did.”  He turned back to Jason, eyes pleading.  “She doesn’t know who to trust and I know it sucks and it isn’t fair, but…”

Jason groaned and dropped his head then glared at the door again.  “And I’m linked to them.  Fuck.”  He breathed heavily for a while, pushing deep, rough breaths through his nose before he shook his head.  “He just can’t stop fucking me over.  I’m not even… fuck.”  He took another breath and nodded, fixing Roy with a pointed look, “But you make sure she knows I’m here if she needs me.  Anything, and I mean anything and I will drop anything for her.”

Roy nodded and patted him on the shoulder.  “And let me know when you think she can have me around.”  He waited until Roy nodded again before making his way toward the door pausing and looking back at him just before reaching it.  “And if she needs a hug, I’ll give her the longest, warmest hug she’s ever gotten.  Make sure you tell her that.”  He nodded again and opened the door but paused again before closing it behind him.  “And tell her I love her.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Roy promised quietly before closing the door and turning back to Marinette ready to comfort her again if she needed to break down or offer her things to break if she needed a safe way to vent her anger, whichever way she needed to respond to the messed up situation Bruce had put them in.

But instead of the overwhelming wash of emotions he’d expected, she was like a statue, body frozen and eyes blank as they faced toward the door Jason and the rest of her family had disappeared through.  There wasn’t a trace in her face of the justified hurt or anger that should be there, that would be there if it were him.  Hell, if it had been him, at least a quarter of the room would already be destroyed.  But Marinette?  If he couldn’t see the slight flutter of his shirt as her chest moved with far too shallow breaths, he would have thought she had been replaced by a statue.

“Hey, Fire Flower,” he cooed gently.  He approached her tentatively like she was a skittish animal, but she didn’t react.  His shirt fluttering was the only sign of life even as he moved into her eyesight, just inches from her face.  He stroked her hair gently, hoping to pull her out of herself like he had earlier, and gently prodded her to sit, but unlike before she didn’t react to his touch.

“Baby, I… how are you feeling?”  He waited in front of her for a full three minutes for her to respond before trying again.  “I’m so proud of you, Fire Flower.  You were so badass.  You are so strong.”  He waited again for her to respond, but she was still frozen.  It was so much worse than she had been in the hallway and so much more terrifying for him.

She was gone.  She was gone and he didn’t know what to do.  He was not trained for this.  But he knew with absolute certainty that if he didn’t pull her back now, she would be gone for weeks if not months.  She’d warned him that she did this.  He’d known and thought he was prepared, but seeing it in person was terrifying.  His adrenaline was pumping, his heart thundering.  He felt helpless.

“Lian’s mom is an assassin!” he screamed then immediately sucked in a breath.

Marinette continued staring at the door for a few more seconds then blinked once.  Twice.  Several more times.  She shook her head like it could wipe away her haze.  “What?”

“I…” Roy started, eyes wide, now panicking for an entirely different reason, “okay, that's a lot.  I know that.  That was a mistake.  I shouldn't have said that.  That's a lot to take in and entirely too early.  I'm sorry.”

Marinette stared at him, mouth agape.  “What the hell!”

“I know,” Roy groaned.  “It's way too early and too much.  I'm sorry.”  He looked around desperately for a clue of what to say now, but there was no saving it and he knew it.  He threw his hands up helplessly.  “I'm not good at this.  I was just trying to get you not to block everything out.”

“Did you just say your ex-wife is an assassin?  Like in Creed?”

He puffed out his cheeks and looked down.  “I mean, we were never married.”

“That is not the part to get stuck on,” she snapped.

“Yeah, no, right.  I… I get that,” he nodded.

Marinette snapped her mouth shut.  “I don't even…” Her eyes narrowed.  “Is that even true?”

“No?” he stated with so much uncertainty it sounded more like a question.  Marinette continued to stare at him.  “Okay, yes.  It's a long story.  I can't really explain right now or rather that isn’t important right now, but we should probably get dressed and get to the hospital...”

“Yeah,” she snapped.  “Good idea.”  She walked past him to get her shoes, ready to no longer be in this apartment.

“… and get you checked out,” he finished.

“What!” she spun around.  “No!  I'm fine.”

Roy leveled her with an unimpressed glower, all anxiety drained away in favor of frustration.  “I saw your back.  You're not fine.  If nothing else, we should ask the doctor for some proper pain medicine.  There is no way you aren’t in extreme pain.  And they can see how your ribs are.”

She scoffed and went back to getting her shoes on, unsuccessfully hiding her grimace as she bent down.  “And what are they going to do when they find out my ribs are cracked?  Or even broken?  They're going to tell me to be careful.  Maybe wrap them.  Which, I was being careful until those…” she motioned vaguely toward the door.

“Assholes,” Roy filled in for her.

Her lips pushed together in a thin white line and glared at him then the door.  “Yes, assholes, burst in.”

Roy sighed and pulled his shoes on as well, mind still warring over impressed or horrified at her apparent immunity to pain and stubborn refusal to receive help.  It had to be genetic, right?  He wanted to settle on frustrated anger, but ultimatums and strongarming wouldn’t help with Marinette.  But manipulation?  And using her weaknesses against her?  That he could do.

“At some point we really need to discuss how you know how to triage fractured or broken ribs, but I get the feeling I won’t be able to handle that information at this point in time.  But they are also going to check for internal bleeding,” she started to object but Roy spoke over her, “because Adrien would be heartbroken and possibly homicidal if he woke up and you were in a coma from internal bleeding because nobody convinced you to go to the doctor and then he’ll have to spend the rest of his life in prison because he killed me for not forcing you to and Ollie used his money to get him the max sentence.

“Then Lian would be an orphan and Jason, Dick, and Ollie would get into a ridiculously drawn out and petty legal war over who got to take her in, which would be ridiculous because obviously Dinah would win despite not getting involved in all that.  Then Ollie would either turn against Dinah, or, more likely, wear her down until she married him again, then you’d all have to be, well not you, because you’d be in the coma, or me because I’d be dead, but the rest of the world would have to deal with that clusterfuck of a public and private relationship, which would make Lian vulnerable and leave an opportunity for her mom to sneak in and appear like a more stable option, which to be honest at that point, she might be.”

He held the door open for her with an entirely too self-satisfied smile.  “And you don’t want to be responsible for Lian ending up with an assassin, right?”

Marinette stared at him stunned for a few seconds then shook her head.  “So that’s what that feels like.  I don’t like being Uno Reversed.”  She stomped through the door, or at least tried to, but the waver in her steps and light foot falls so she didn’t rattle her ribs, dulled the effect significantly.  “You missed a few catastrophic options,” she called over her shoulder, “but only because you don’t know Chloe and Felix enough to know how they would have made it all worse.”

Tags:

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[vidavalor]

I think that the two, specific times when Aziraphale feels the flashes of love in S1 tell us a lot about what, exactly, it is that he is picking up... especially when you also factor in how he describes that feeling to Crowley.

Aziraphale is hit with the flashes of love in two, specific moments: in The Bentley on the road at night on the way to Tadfield and in the moment when Crowley looks directly at Tadfield Manor again as the two of them are on their way inside. With these waves of love, Aziraphale isn't picking up Crowley's love in a general sense. If that were the case, he'd be feeling waves like this non-stop in Tadfield the whole time. Instead, he's picking up very intense waves of it-- flashes of it, as he said-- in specific moments.

Why the intense waves and why these moments? I think we actually have enough information to say why and look at exactly what Aziraphale is picking up.

While, in S1's present, Aziraphale has never been to Tadfield before, Crowley has and we were there in the story with him in 2008 in the first episode. When we watch him and Aziraphale arriving in Tadfield, we are watching Aziraphale now go with Crowley to the place where we first watched Crowley deal with alone when they were separated in 1.01 on the night Armageddon started. As a result of us knowing what that night looked like for Crowley, we're able to know what Crowley is remembering when he and Aziraphale go to Tadfield in the present of S1 and we can then see why it is that, in these specific moments, Aziraphale is picking up intense flashes of Crowley's love.

Aziraphale first picks the flashes of love in The Bentley on the way into town. They're driving on a dark road to Tadfield at night. Crowley hasn't been to Tadfield since he had to deliver the baby in 2008. He did that alone, in the dark, driving there after being non-consensually possessed by Satan and almost hitting a person in an on-coming truck as a result. (To emphasize this parallel, it's seconds after Aziraphale starts talking about the flashes of love when, this time, there is a car accident when they collide with Anathema.) Crowley spent time when driving to Tadfield and back desperately trying to call Aziraphale, unable for most of the night to reach him until he found the phone booth on the way home.

As Crowley is driving them to Tadfield in the 2019 present of S1, he's thinking about that night in 2008 when he was separated from Aziraphale and went through all of that Hell-related hell. What Aziraphale is picking up is Crowley's love for him radiating off him, as Aziraphale is beside him while Crowley is undergoing something that would otherwise be re-traumatizing. It is something Crowley can handle better, though, because he has Aziraphale quite literally going on the journey this time with him.

The other moment that Aziraphale feels the flashes of love is when the two of them have arrived at Tadfield Manor. Specifically, it's when Crowley looks up at the entrance as they walk towards it. Why the flashes of love here?

While Crowley knew about Armageddon needing 11 years to fully get going by the time he met up with Aziraphale in St. James' Park the day after delivering Adam, the earlier scene when he arrived at Tadfield Manor told us that Crowley didn't actually already know that information when he was first tasked that night with starting Armageddon. Mistaking Arthur Young for someone affiliated with Hell, Crowley asked him if he knew how much time they had left until the end of the world, indicating that this was the big question on his mind that night and what Crowley was remembering in S1's present that prompted the flash of love that Aziraphale felt.

While this scene with Arthur is really comical because of all the misunderstandings happening here, it's also clear that Crowley is desperate here to find out how much time they have left or if it's all going to end this same night. He is this desperate because he began that evening thinking it was just a quick check-in with Hastur and Ligur before he could meet Aziraphale for their sushi date, only to then wind up separated from Aziraphale, having to start Armageddon, attacked, and having no idea how much time until the world might be over. He spent the whole night we were watching him in 2008 thinking it possible that the world was going to end *that night* and being unable to get through to Aziraphale on the phone.

He was worried he might not see Aziraphale again.

In 2019, all of that comes flooding back to Crowley when he looks at the entrance to Tadfield Manor and remembers asking the guy at the door if he knew how much time they had left. Aziraphale is hit with another wave of Crowley's love for him here because Crowley is feeling one himself as he remembers how desperate he was that night to get to Aziraphale at the same time that he is feeling relief at having him beside him in the present as they go back to this place from his past that Crowley would really rather not have to revisit.

Aziraphale is not feeling love that is tied to Tadfield Manor or the town of Tadfield; he is feeling waves of Crowley's love for him cresting in different moments when Crowley's feelings from 2008 collide with his feelings in the then-present of 2019. It's the past influencing and overlapping with the present. It's a story in the present about flashbacks to the flashback we saw first so we could understand what Crowley is remembering.

When Crowley asks Aziraphale to describe what Aziraphale means by the place feeling "loved", Aziraphale has a fascinating reply:

Aziraphale could have described this feeling of love as the opposite of how he himself feels in a spooky place. Instead, he's describing it as the opposite feeling to Crowley's lack of peace and sense of unease. Aziraphale chooses to describe this in such a way as to say that he knows what Crowley feels when Crowley is ill at ease, as when he is, Aziraphale is affected because he loves him. Aziraphale is defining love as the opposite of that feeling of unease.

Love is the feeling of calm that comes from trusted, caring friends living life together without judgement and, as a result, making the world feel safer and more peaceful for one another.

Loving someone is going together with them on whatever life brings and dispelling their sense of unease by not leaving them on their own.

Love is a balm-- peace through connection.

It is the antidote to loneliness.

What Aziraphale might not realize is that Crowley's flashes of love? They're also caused by Aziraphale's own love for Crowley. By him loving Crowley by going with him to Tadfield and soothing Crowley's anxiety and fear with his presence. Love is making someone feel seen and supporting them in their life without judgement.

While Aziraphale might be being hit with particularly high waves of love in Tadfield in S1, it's not really an unusual event. After all...

[alltheboysandgirlsiloved]

ngl at first I thought that season 3 of jwct was going to be the last one but the more I think about it the more inclined I am to believe that maybe we are going to get more seasons?

*bone cracking sound* let's get into it, shall we?

A couple of things that jwct has to cover before the end:

Biosyn facility in Italy

Raptor Handler and Soyona meeting

Red the Atrociraptor reuniting (?) with the rest of Atrociraptors

Brooklynn (eventually) turning her back on Santos

Brooklynn reuniting with Camp Fam for real

Potentially (very high possibility) Malta

Bumpy's baby hatching (+ eventually, Bumpy and baby Bump reunion)

Tension between Sammy and her family explained

Ben's girlfriend reveal

Resolution of the tension between Kenji-Brooklynn-Darius

So this is how I see this playing out. (Head-ups - this is a result of my research but, let's be honest, also kind of a manifestation of my hopes and very much just a fan-theory. So take it easy)

If Brooklynn and Santos are really to reach Biosyn's center in Italy, I doubt it's going to be "in-and-out" type of visit. In Dominion Santos is entrusted with organizing a "transport" for Maise Lockwood; now let's remember that in the past Brooklynn researched the Lockwood mansion, I wouldn't be surprised if that came up at least briefly (perhaps, to even further ensure Soyona's trust, Brooklynn will offer some advice while simultaneously working on how to save the girl). Then, we have the matter of transported eggs – I'm sure that Brooklynn's gonna be very interested in where they are going etc etc. It's all going to take an appropriate amount of time. At the same time, the campers need time to actually reach Italy too, then potentially get to the facility (I think this is where Ben's conspiracy theory-induced knowledge may resurface – in season 1 it is confirmed that he has heard the theory about the mysterious locust).

We know that the Handler and Soyona absolutely have to meet (because both of them are hot). The Handler has three antrociraptors, Soyona only has Red. In Dominion (which takes place a little after current events of jwct) Soyona has all four antrociraptors at her disposal. Now, knowing about the bond between antrociraptors and the Hanlder, to me it kind of implies that eventually the Handler is completely separated from the raptors, and their bond is severed (does she die? does she lose her whistle and the raptors turn against her? I wouldn't put it past the showrunners to kill her tbh. Since her bond with the antrociraptors seems to be something more than just a whistle thing (as opposed to the clicking effect dr Sarr had on the Baryonyx)). I think that Soyona will call for the Handler when she realizes that the rest of Camp Fam are on their tail. Again - that takes time. The Handler has to get to Italy, find the Camp Fam, some sort of fight has to occur, she "loses" (somehow), Soyona gets pissed... All of that takes time.

Then, eventually, at some point, Brooklynn decides that she has gathered enough material to turn her back on Soyona and run away. I doubt it's going to be easy. I don't know if it's going to be a decision she makes on her own, or if it's going to be motivated by the Camp Fam being in danger. Either way, I doubt it's going to happen prior to the fouth/fifth episode.

So after Brooklynn "parts ways" with Soyona, she has to reunite with Camp Fam, and we know that it won't be easy. I think that some of the campers will warm up to her sooner (probably Ben for obvious reasons, Sammy and Darius), others later (Kenji will probably be the last one). I suspect that it may require some sort of "grand gesture" on Brooklynn's side. At first, I thought that maybe I'd be egg-related but I honestly doubt it? I think that she will meet Bumpy's baby post-hatching but that's a shoot in the dark tbh.

My personal theory is that Sammy's parents got somehow involved with Biosyn and Sammy didn't like that and that's what caused their parting. Since Sammy's family owns a ranch, they know a lot about, well, farming and what is the locust attacking? Ranches. So I assume that Biosyn has some sort of "informants". Maybe Sammy instantly figured out that something about Biosyn is off? Who knows. Either way, we need to learn what exactly is the reason behind the crisis within Gutierrez family and resolve it. And the way Sammy phrased that and kind of tip-toes around the topic, I think it will be somehow related to the plot + resolving it is going to take some time.

Then, I think it's safe to assume that eventually, we will end up in Malta since this is also where the events of JW Dominion take place. Remember how jwcc season 3 ended? We got an extra perspective on the events in JW movie - a perspective of campers. I think that with jwct, the showrunners may do a very similar thing (let's remember that JW is a franchise therefore, at least in theory, everything is somehow connected; such perspective would make a nice bridge between the series and the movies).

Now, this is where my own theory kicks in for real. If we look at jwcc and jwct in general, Soyona shapes to be the only villain that the Camp Fam won't ultimately defeat. Or... will they? Both Tiff and Mitch, Kash and even Daniel end up "losing" because of the Camp Fam (either directly or indirectly). Now, I haven't watched Dominion in a while but if I remember correctly the last scene with Soyona shows her as she's about to be arrested. This got me thinking... what if she somehow manages to escape? As far as we know, Soyona seems like the kind of person who always has a backup plan. Remember that she also has connections within DPW (now disbanded ofc) - she knows a lot of people, and a lot of people work for her. All of this is a theory but I wouldn't be surprised if, before the events of Dominion, she didn't have some sort of backup plan; for example Jensen from DPW who's ready to "react if things go south". So Soyona attempts to escape, and she escapes to the States (remember that eventually, the Camp Fam has to get there somehow lol). Who chases after her? The campers obviously because now it's more than just dinosaurs, now it's personal too – fueled by Brooklynn's hatred for Soyona, fueled by the need to see her "locked up" for good. I wouldn't be surprised if the creators of the show decided that it would be more fitting if Soyona was "captured" and brought to justice by the Camp Fam seeing as, ultimately, she plays "bigger villain" in jwct than in Dominion. So depending if the creators decide to do something like that or not - that could potentially be what season 4 would focus on - the final and ultimate defeat of Soyona Santos.

However. If they decide to end Santos plotline at where it ends in Dominion, there's still plenty to explore in a potential season 4. I wouldn't be surprised if Camp Fam ended up in the Biosyn's center again - for example, to recover the rest of eggs/make sure that they are safe, or (knowing Darius) to ensure that the dinosaurs will be safe there. [Ben's gf enters the chat] I strongly suspect that Ben's girlfriend (if she's real) has some sort of connection with Biosyn (the chance of these two meeting through Dark Jurassic is pretty high after all), depending on who she is, there could be a whole new plotline related to the character - making her "someone more" than just a person whose role boils down to being a mysterious girlfriend. If she works for Biosyn (spies?), I wouldn't be surprised if there was some extra secret hidden by this company. It's like... call me crazy, but I think that a huge company like that has a lot of connections. I wouldn't be surprised if it somehow led us back to (thankfully, now deceased) Daniel Kon - after all we know that he was secretly planning to rebuild his company, and still had a lot of money. So this is where I see a potential for another season of mysteries and events. (I also have a tiny theory on the side that Ben's "girlfriend" is actually, a guy aka Ramsay Cole - a head of communications in Biosyn; it would make sense for him to be on Dark Jurassic, knowing this character's plotline in Dominion; his age is not revealed but my guess is that he is around 25 years old. Also, one of the producers of jwct mentioned in an interview that he'd love to bring more characters from Dominion to jwct so... there you go. Idk just a theory, but it lines up. Especially with Ben being half-firm, half-awkward when talking about his partner yk).

I think there are honestly so many ways this show can be developed and... for good reasons too. Not just good reasons plot-wise but also because, well, let's be real jwcc/jwct is extremely popular. And the creators are aware of it. It's safe to assume that initially the show (jwcc) was supposed to be three seasons long but, due to its popularity, they added 2 more seasons and then decided to make a whole spin-off series. And the spin-off too is very popular and generally praised not only by the target audience (kids) but also but "older" jurassic fans. Seeing as Jurassic is a franchise, therefore, something that is supposed to "keep going" (fuel itself), jwcc and jwct are a perfect way to also introduce younger generations to the entire world of jurassic, literally "raising" them to be fans of the series, and a great way to keep other fans entertained as they wait for the next installments of the movie series (after all, a brand new JW trilogy is in plans).

So yeah. I've been meaning to make a post about it for a while but I wanted to make it as detailed and as "canon-aligned" as possible so it took me a while. Honestly, in the end, this is mostly just the hopes and dreams of a devoted jwcc fan who has been suffering from camp fam-brainrot for the past 4 years!

If you read it that far - it's time to touch some grass. I recently started growing my own in a flowerpot and... well, it doesn't really help but it's the thought that matters! if you have any thoughts about the upcoming installment(s?) of jwct - I'd love to hear them. And remember to be nice, we are all just fans after all :D

[pocket-jack]

Hey, guys! I decided to torture myself before sleep beacause... Why not? So, here's KidKiller's rough sheets with some headcanons I have for the guys (probably with a lot off mistakes cus my browser refuses to fix them for me)

Kid time, baby

I draw him differently now. I know his face looks more... diamond shaped in anime, but I can't get rid of his square coded energy, so... Heart-shaped it is!

When he recieved his eye scar he didn't lose the ability to see, but now it get's dry really fast and if he won't do something about it it'll gonna ache.

He had multiple piercings on his ear, but his powers just kept pulling them and one day almost ripped his ear of, so he (with a manly tears) decided to take them off.

I headcanon him wearing a corset, because he's a little chubby and he can't get rid of this extra fat (not with his appetites). Also everytime when he takes it off, not only he's forced to look at his hanging stomach, but he's also has to fight off Killer. Killer's only dream was for Kid to be well fed and happy.

Nor his, nor Killer's sexuality is defined by them, but actually based out of other's observations. Kid is pansexual because he's kinda gender blind. For him it's confusing that you're weak just because you have tits and extra hole between your legs. He's also demiromantic. Both of those preference he acquired during Kutsukku (where you couldn't trust anyone, even your lover. And where the gender norms were the least of your concerns)

He also have undiagnosed ADHD which mostly give him extra impulsivity and also now the metal can speak (thank ye, neurodivergency!). Sometimes it's stresses him the hell off, especially during Kutsukku. He could not sleep because of all of this buzzing he kept hearing from EVERYWHERE. Now he can control it, but sometimes it returnd and he has to suffer.

Metal also responds to his hidden emotions. It may float when he thinks, reflects or remembering something. It may rumble when he's angry, concerned, scared. Or it may form something if he's happy, in love or something like that.

He's hard rock kinda guy, we all know this, but I headcanon him as a music lover in general (so whatever makes his brain go bzzt, mostly rock). I find Thrown a couple of month ago and it's sounds like something Kid would like (probably even kin, esp Backfire). MSI is a basic thing for him to have (every punk need at least one song in their playlist). I guess not every person will understand it, but Пшлнхй is such a Kid coded song (Every Russian proverb, but one part is just sending you to fuck yourself is something that Kid would do irl. The chorus is just... mmm)

Killer, my beloved!!!!

I love headcanoning him as androgenous. He has a feminine features: oval shaped face, eyes with big eyelashes, even his lips is a little softer than the average male lips. That is the main reason why he hid his face, because everyone would bully him fot it when he was young. Killer was confused with a girl a lot during his time on Kutsukku.

During timeskip he strained a lot of muscles just to get stronger. He was neglecting himself most of the time, because he had a mission: to become stronger so he'll never fail to protect Kid ever again. They also been really distant during their training. Only when Killer hurted his arm they bounded again. Kid was surprisingly a good mentor for his healing. Probably because their trauma was almost the same

When he's wearing a mask he usually get's his hair out of the way so it wouldn't mess with his vision

Pre timeskip he wanted to work on his style, feeling obliged to do so, cus his crew was dressing up in colorful styles. He choose to fit into more West Bluish kinda style (cowboy boots and pants). But then anxiety hitted him and suddenly he felt too vissible and everyone was looking at him and... Let's just say it wasn't a pleasant expirience for him. He just wanted to show that he was a part of the crew too, but now he feels himself too overreacting and dramatic and stuff. It took a lot of time for everyone to convince him that it wasn't about the look, but more about the comfort. With their support Killer started wearing something he likes more, and it felt fantastic. He actually started to like himself in the mirror a bit more after timeskip and then Wano happened

Killer is asexual beacuse of the amount of trauma he suffered during his childhood. I hc him having a low libido too. He's still feels romantic attraction (only for Kid), and if he asks, Killer will have sex with him without hesitation. But it's only for Kid, OR for his sake

It is so logical for him to have OCD. Just him casualy living and then the dread that if he won't do something usefull his crew will see how fucking usless and worthless he actually is and live him behind the same his parents did just suddenly hits him. Oh hey! Anxiety! Abandonment issues! This man will explode, please, give him a hug.

It got worse after Wano. He's doing bad things with his face and no one knows. Even Kid. (I love making them suffer for the sake of Hurt\Comfort)

I am 100% sure Killer is a Queen guy. It just gives me Killer vibes... The same with Elton John. And also... To fit in his pre timeskip cowboy vibes into the oven,,, He's actually like country rock alongside with glam rock. Barns Courtney is his favorate

So... How do you like my silly little headcanons? Maybe I post something about Heat and Wire too. Welp, I'm fainting out of exaustion, bye!

[hyperbali]

Okay hang on my brain is percolating

so the way Morrigan makes her entrance is that you're talking to the main leader Veil Jumpers, she swoops in as a raven, poofs into herself

now, Morrigan is a quick thinker

she has the shortest of seconds to suss out:

these are the people pursuing Solas

they are helping the Veil Jumpers deal with Arlathan Forest suddenly popping off due to the escape of Ancient Elvhen Gods

that is her daughter who went missing several years ago and no one has heard from her since

...so she plays dumb and acts like she has no idea who this person is

Harding introduces her as 'Rook' and Deja gives no indication that she remembers who Morrigan is. she even asks who she is

Morrigan instantly knows something is fucky here but decides to play it cool and proceed as though she were simply speaking with a stranger, despite every fiber in her body wanting to both yell at Deja for worrying her parents and grab her tight

(Also I know I caught her mid blink but the way that looks like a pained grimace... chef's kiss)

(das her baby giiiiirl)

Obviously she can't stick with Dejana, that would be questionable - and it doesn't seem like the rest of her companions know exactly who Deja is either, which may be a good thing

So she decides to have a shapeshifted Kieran tail her instead

(...and still schooling her despite everything)

mother and son basically keep her under surveillance and compare notes to try and figure out what the hell happened

(Again, mid-expression, but that soft wince as Morrigan has to lie to her own baby by omission and watch her walk right into danger... WHEW)

they also do not tell the rest of the family, because

a) Jeanne has become incredibly despondent since Deja went missing and would immediately demand they bring her home the moment she found out about it

b) Nate would go to Deja the moment he found out about it

c) both of these things are made a great deal more difficult given that there are likely another 2-3 kids all under the age of 10 still being cared for!!

[m4rv3l-girl]

Happens to the Best of Us - Part 6

Bucky x Barnes

Bucky kept his promise and he’s got a surprise…

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Requests Open! (Requests are always appreciated, remember they can be sent anonymously ❤️)

Warnings: Tooth rotting fluff

The late afternoon sun was dipping below the buildings as Y/N juggled two grocery bags, gritting her teeth as she maneuvered the door open with her shoulder.

The familiar warmth of her apartment washed over her as she stepped inside, grateful to be out of the bustling streets and back in the calm that Bucky had somehow managed to turn into a perfect little sanctuary. Normally, he was right at the door whenever she returned, his watchful gaze on her instantly, his hand reaching for any bag she carried—even if it was as light as a carton of milk. But today?

Oddly enough, there was no sign of him.

“Bucky?” she called, setting the bags down on the kitchen counter with a relieved sigh. She rested a hand on her belly, feeling the subtle weight of her little one—a constant reminder of the life she and Bucky were building together. Even with the aches and fatigue, it was all worth it, each day bringing her closer to meeting the tiny person who had already claimed every corner of her heart.

For a moment, only the soft hum of the radio in the background answered her, a quiet tune filling the cozy space. But then, the sound of shuffling footsteps reached her. A second later, Bucky appeared around the corner, a soft smile playing on his lips. He looked... hesitant?

That was rare for him.

Normally, Bucky had an easy, steady confidence about him, a calm demeanor that barely flinched in the most chaotic situations. But right now, he was standing there with an air of uncertainty, his hands lingering in his pockets, almost as if he wasn’t sure what to do with himself.

“What’s that look for?” she teased, crossing her arms (as much as she could, given the size of her belly) and quirking an eyebrow at him. “What did you do?”

A laugh slipped past his lips, soft and just a touch nervous, as he rubbed the back of his neck. “You always see right through me, huh, Kitten?”

The hint of nerves in his voice stirred a gentle mix of curiosity and affection in her. Whatever he was up to, he seemed endearingly unsure about it. Bucky, the former Winter Soldier and generally unshakeable force, looking like he’d been caught doing something mischievous. The sight was almost too cute.

“Well?” She leaned against the counter, watching him closely. “What’s going on?”

“There… might be something…” He shifted from one foot to the other, his cheeks warming slightly as he avoided her gaze for a moment, that shy smile still tugging at his lips. He turned and disappeared briefly into the living room, returning a moment later with a plain, white box in his hands.

There was a new, almost childlike glimmer in his eyes as he looked at her, extending the box with a kind of careful excitement. “I know it’s a little early, but…”

Her heart fluttered at his expression, his hopeful smile sparking a mix of anticipation and fondness as she took the box. Whatever was in there, he’d clearly thought a lot about it, and his nervousness was contagious.

With fingers that suddenly felt a little shaky, she lifted the lid, eyes widening at the sight of something soft and blue. At the top of the box lay the tiniest Captain America baby grow, the little shield emblem on the chest perfectly positioned as she held it up in awe.

A laugh bubbled out of her, and she looked up at him, unable to hold back her grin. “Is this…?”

“Yeah,” he murmured, his smile widening, though there was a subtle anxiety in his gaze, like he was waiting for her reaction to settle. “Thought maybe, you know… little one would like it.”

“Oh, I’m sure they will.” She chuckled, fingers grazing the fabric with a gentle touch, savoring the image that flashed in her mind of a little one—a mini-her and Bucky—wearing this adorable outfit. She could already picture the proud, slightly goofy smile Bucky would have, seeing his child dressed up like the friend who’d done so much for him.

Her heart melted a bit more as she glanced back down into the box, noticing a second, larger item folded beneath the baby grow. She pulled it out, and her jaw dropped as she realized what it was—a pair of matching adult pajamas in the same Captain America theme, one set clearly sized for her and the other, a bit larger for Bucky.

“Oh, no, you didn’t…” She laughed, eyes wide with surprise. “Are you serious?”

His hand rubbed the back of his neck again, looking both proud and a little embarrassed. “Heh… I thought we could all match for, you know… family photos or something.”

Her laughter softened as she took in the full scope of his gesture, emotions stirring in her chest. Pregnancy had left her especially sentimental, but this… this was Bucky.

All the hopes and dreams he was usually so hesitant to speak out loud, wrapped up in a playful yet heartwarming gesture.

He glanced at her, his expression shifting slightly as he took in the watery glimmer in her eyes. “Darlin’, you okay?” he asked softly, his voice lowering as he stepped closer, reaching out to cup her cheek with the gentlest touch.

She nodded, letting out a small, shaky laugh as she tried to brush off the tears threatening to spill over. “Blame the hormones. But really, this is… just so sweet, Bucky. You’re the cutest thing ever…”

Relief washed over his face, his smile softening as he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a gentle embrace. He rested his chin on top of her head, the warmth of his body so comforting that she could feel the last bits of tension drain from her, replaced with a feeling that was nothing short of pure love.

“Good,” he murmured, his lips pressing a soft kiss to her hair. “You’ve given me so much, Kitten… couldn’t help wanting to give something back, even if it’s just some silly pajamas.”

She laughed, holding him tighter, her hands pressing against his back as she sank into his familiar, safe embrace. “I’d say these pajamas mean a lot more than that.” She glanced back up at him, feeling a sudden surge of gratitude for the man who had made it possible for her to feel so loved, so fully understood.

“I’m just happy you like ‘em,” he said, his tone filled with that slightly anxious warmth she’d come to love. “A super family, you know?”

“Yeah,” she murmured, laying her head back against his chest with a contented sigh. “A super family sounds just about perfect.”

For a long moment, the two of them stood there in the quiet of their home, hearts beating in a comfortable rhythm as they both let the weight of the moment sink in.

It was in the simplest of things—the shared laughter, the warmth of Bucky’s hand on her back, the gentle press of his lips against her forehead—that she realized how full and beautiful her life had become. She didn’t need extravagant plans or grand gestures. Just him, and the love they’d built together.

With a small chuckle, he pulled back slightly, his gaze meeting hers, the warmth of his eyes crinkling at the edges. “So, how soon do we get to put these matching pajamas to use? Is it 1 month now, Kitten?”

She grinned, glancing down at the pajamas and baby grow in the box with a playful sparkle in her eyes. “Mhm, sure is…Can we go and get Dippin’ Dots?” She randomly blurted out.

He let out a laugh, his fingers tracing gentle patterns along her back. “Anything you want, Doll.” Then, with that familiar spark of playfulness in his voice, he added, “I’m glad these pyjamas touched you so much that you’ve already got Dippin’ Dots on your mind.”

They both dissolved into laughter, the lighthearted, loving banter filling the room as the sun continued to set outside. And as she stood there, wrapped up in Bucky’s arms, the world felt more perfect than ever.

——————————————————————————————————

@drakelover78

⭐️ Was in the mood for some sweet, fluffy Bucky today. Let me know what you thought! ⭐️

[lacesoflove]

hello! can you do a move-in day with hamzah? where he’s lifting and looking yummy moving stuff around and just getting settled into the new house?? Ok. Love u. thx. 🤗🤗🤗

NOW SHOWING: BREAKING THE BED! (request!)

Rating: fluffy + suggestive

Warning: AFAB!Reader, reader is described to have curls, but besides that no ethnic/racial has been provided!

A/N: I find it funny that as I was writing this I stumbled upon an OOC video where Hamzah said that he cannot afford to buy a house because he’s only 22 😭

W/C: 1.1k words

MOVING INTO A HOUSE WITH YOUR DREAM MAN WAS NOT IN YOUR CARDS. Falling in love with your dream person wasn’t on your cards either. Yet here you were, navigating the cluttered chaos of boxes, each one a Pandora's box revealing surprises that felt like the universe’s surreal joke on your life’s trajectory.

If you had told your ten-year-old self about something called a “credit check” just to secure a roof over your head, she would have frowned and asked, “What’s that?” Standing in the skeletal beginnings of your living room felt surreal, like a scene from a half-remembered dream. You and Hamzah had toiled like modern-day Sisyphuses, pushing the boulder uphill in an economy designed to turn homeowners into a relic of the past. And here you were, bearing the fruits of your labour, and it was dizzying to think you could finally eat them.

You took a laid-back approach to moving in, checking occasionally for the arrival of another truck or pacing through the house to affirm that this dream was indeed yours. Red and Blue were tucked away in the guest room, avoiding the chaos of change. Meanwhile, Hamzah was knee-deep in the intricate task of assembling your bed, his body hunched over the instruction manual like a treasure hunter deciphering hieroglyphs. This was the only piece of furniture spared from the convenience of Amazon’s next-day delivery—because sleeping on the floor wasn’t an option, and Hamzah had declared it “just not right.” You had no desire to argue that point; after all, you couldn’t imagine what hardwood floors would do to both your curls in the morning.

You leaned against the doorframe, watching him wrestle with the instruction sheet, his face a canvas of confusion painted with frustration. “Baby, how’s it going?” you called out, bouncing on your toes, feeling a pang of guilt for leaving him to fend for himself. “Not great,” he grumbled, forehead creased as his eyes darted across an endless loop of instructions that might as well have been written in ancient runes. “I think they shorted us on screws.”

“What? No way. Hand it over,” you insisted, stepping forward to snatch the manual from his hands. “No, there are enough screws; you just put them in the wrong part of the bed.” “But it says head of the bed,” he argued, his stubbornness as inflexible as the wood he was trying to piece together. You sighed, knowing that for all the reasons you adored Hamzah, his reading comprehension skills were not among them. “It says base of the bed. The head is a different section underneath. Your eyes must be skipping the important parts.”

“Probably,” he admitted, pulling himself up from the floor, stretching like a cat, muscles flexing under the strain. “Why don’t you just make the bed?”

“Because I’m the girl,” you shot back, a smug smile creeping onto your face as he stepped closer, wrapping his arms around your lower back.

“Really?”

“Mhm.”

“Shit like this brings the movement down; everyone’s a feminist until it’s bed-building time.”

You erupted into laughter, unable to contain yourself. “Did you seriously just quote Bo Burnham?”

“Sure did,” he replied, a grin lighting up his face, the corners of his eyes crinkling with mischief.

“You’re stupid,” you said, your heart swelling with affection.

“You’re hot,” he quipped, leaning in for a kiss that sent a spark through the air between you. It was only then that the creeping shadows caught your eye, the sun dipping behind the trees, casting elongated silhouettes that spread across your new room. “Shit, we’ll get to the kissing later—we should probably focus on making this bed.”

“Why? Got some plans for us on it?” he teased, tilting his head, curls falling in lazy cascades as he lowered his gaze to yours, his eyes glimmering with playful mischief.

“Yes, and those plans consist of my mandatory eight hours of sleep,” you replied, laughter bubbling up as you nudged him away playfully. “Let’s finish this bed.”

What was supposed to be a straightforward task devolved into a chaotic four-hour marathon of flipping through the instruction manual and squabbling over every little detail. You found yourself checking on Red and Blue and, perhaps most challengingly, fighting the urge to kiss your boyfriend senseless, especially when he adopted that commanding tone while explaining the simplest of instructions. The way his muscles flexed as he pieced everything together was a distraction you could hardly shake off, like trying to focus while standing in front of a volcano ready to erupt.

But eventually, you triumphed. “Well, we did it,” you declared, surveying the finished bed with a rush of accomplishment, the chaos of the day melting into a sense of belonging.

“I dunno?” he replied, the rhetorical lilt of his voice betraying the playful smirk that danced on his lips. He knew exactly what was simmering beneath the surface; your fidgety energy gave you away, your eyes glued to him as he had assembled the bed like a magician unveiling his greatest trick. “What’d you have in mind earlier?”

“Continuing our kiss, maybe? Something more… I dunno,” you said, a mischievous grin spreading across your face as you mimicked his nonchalance, your tone dripping with playful defiance.

His body inched closer, an electric tension crackling in the air, and in one fluid motion, he scooped you up and plopped you onto the bed, laughter bubbling up between you like effervescent champagne. He leaned in, kissing the crook of your neck, and you giggled softly, the warmth of the moment enveloping you. It was sweet, a bubble of intimacy growing as you both leaned into the heat of the moment, getting hot and bothered in that perfect little world of your own.

And then it happened—the moment was ruptured by a creak, followed by a crack. Suddenly, all at once the bed collapsed in on itself, its stilts surrendering to the weight of your laughter and unexpected enthusiasm.

“What the hell?!” Hamzah exclaimed before you both burst of laughter mingling with the chaos as you stared at the tumbled remains of what was supposed to be your bed was underneath you both. “I can’t believe we broke the bed.” He grumbled, his voice a mix of irritation as well as amusement. Any traces of horniness had long dissipated due to the absurdity of the situation. “Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve done it.” You smirked. “True. But damn this has got to be a bad omen or some shit. Cock-blocking ass bed.” You couldn’t help but let out another laugh at that. “Look baby, nothing is a bad omen with you.” You whispered as you pulled his head towards you as you gave him a deep kiss. “I know, but I should probably leave a review on it or something you know?” “Or maybe, Hamzah, you should actually try to read instructions properly.”

“Maybe.” “I’m right.”

“You’re right.”