#and its so stupid bc a few years ago i could have handled this better than screaming at people in a panic

[southernvampire]

.

[peanutworm]

Just your standard emotional ramble in the tags, move along

[dameronology]

the one with all the yelling {obi-wan x reader}

summary: after making a stupid decision in battle and having an argument with your best friend, a confession slips out that surprises both of you (or maybe it doesn’t)

this is a reupload bc i took it down for editing. as usual, this has lots of swearing in, just a pre-warning. enjoy!!

- jazz

They say that time slows down when you’re about to die - that your life flashes before your very eyes. You’re supposed to see the thing you love most, the people you value most. It was meant to be a final moment filled with a lifetime of emotions, of memories; regrets and mistakes; unfulfilled wishes and incomplete to do lists. The way it was described was hauntingly poetic, the sort of thing almost made you want to to experience it just so that you could understand what it felt like.

And, having witnessed a near-death experience in recent hours, you could safely conclude that everything in the aforementioned paragraph was a steaming pile of horse shit.

There was nothing graceful or cinematic about the way you had yeeted yourself across the battle-field, mud unceremoniously flying up around your ass as you kicked Obi-Wan Kenobi out of the line of fire. The blaster fire was inches away from your face - mere inches - and that, of all things, was when you figured the final moments might have come.

Instead, all you got was a hit to the shoulder and a mouth full of dirt. You were very much alive - but after coughing up an unflattering amount of earth and clambering back to your feet with all the grace of a beached whale, the same could not be said for your dignity.

At the forefront of things, you’d been trying to save your best friend’s life. That was all you could think about when you’d launched yourself discourteously towards Obi-Wan; he couldn’t die. Too many people - yourself included - needed him. And, you were certain that if you hadn’t been killed saving his ass, the sudden lack of reason from his presence in your life would have killed you anyways. The man stopped you from walking into traffic on the daily.

You weren’t entirely sure what to say to Obi-Wan. You were sitting on the end of his bed, fresh out of the shower and bundled up in an oversized tunic that belonged to the man pacing in front of you. For a man of many words, he was disturbingly quiet as he stitched you up and even more so when he helped you undress and get into the shower.

What sort of thing were you supposed to say in this situation? Sorry that I booted you up the arse and sent you flying six foot through the air? I had your best interests at heart, I promise.

‘Personally, I am rather pleased with the fact I am still alive.’ You broke the icy silence that had befallen you. Obi-Wan immediately stopped in his pacing tracks, head turning to face you with a bewildered look. Maybe that wasn’t the best conversation opener.

‘How could you…’ Obi-Wan went to say something but his words were lost. He’d witnessed you do a lot of stupid things but this one took the cake. This was stupid thing to end all stupid things. ‘Why would you - actually, I don’t even know what to say.’

‘I mean a thank you would probably suffice.’ You muttered. ‘I did just take a bullet for you.’

‘How could you have been so stupid?!’ He snapped. ‘You could have died!’

‘I was trying to save you!’ You reminded him.

Right. There was that - the alarmingly obvious thing that he’d been trying not to think about.

Obi-Wan couldn’t deny his feelings for you; you’d always been his slightly kooky best friend but maker, he adored you. Life as a Jedi could be dark but you were his nightlight - a soft glow to guide him to brighter things, to remind him that not all was lost.

He’d spent hours convincing himself that you didn’t feel the same. You were too busy running around with what Obi-Wan was certain was a singular brain cell, getting yourself into trouble and making questionable decisions. But, now that you’d quite literally thrown yourself into the line of fire for him? It was certainly a compelling piece of evidence to the contrary.

(Of course, you loved him too. You’d been in love with him since the day you’d met. That was a minor detail you’d chosen not to mention to him - avoiding the truth wasn’t the same as lying, right?)

‘I don’t need saving.’ Obi-Wan said.

‘Oh, please.’ You snorted. ‘You might be Jedi Master Kenobi of the High Jedi Council, Best Jedi To Ever Jedi and Regular Shagger of the Jedi Code-’

‘- you used the word Jedi a few too many times there-’

‘- but you are not bulletproof!’

‘Neither are you!’

‘But I’m alive, aren’t I?’ Your tone was suddenly soft. ‘I’m in one piece.’

‘Barely.’ He murmured. ‘You can’t do things like that.’

‘Well, I did.’ You would have raised your voice louder had your shoulder not been screaming in pain. ‘And stomping around like a pissy toddler isn’t going to change it.’

The most terrifying part - for both of you, truthfully speaking - was how quickly you had done it. You hadn’t even thought about it; you saw red and you launched yourself into the blaster’s path without even considering the consequences. The most important thing to you in that moment had been that Obi-Wan’s life was at risk and it had led to a sudden disregard for your own.

‘I’ll get better.’ You continued. ‘I’m only signed off for a few weeks and as soon as I’m on the mend I will be back in the field. It’ll be like nothing ever happened-’

‘- but it did happen.’ Obi-Wan cut you off. ‘I’m always going to remember that you risked your life for me without even having to think about it.’

Grabbing onto the poster of his bed, you pulled yourself up and slowly approached him. Obi-Wan almost backed away when his robe inched off your shoulders, revealing the nasty red gash just by your collarbone. The idea quickly slipped away, however, when you rested your hands on his forearms, hands slipping under his sleeves and intertwining your fingers.

‘What else would I do?’ You softly laughed. ‘It’s you, Obi.’

‘Would you have done the same for someone else?’ He asked. ‘For Anakin? Or for Ahsoka?’

You faltered slightly, grip on him loosening a tiny bit. ‘Of course.’

‘Y/N.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t lie.’ He suddenly jerked his hands away from you, spinning around on his heel so that you were suddenly facing his back.

‘Fine.’ You grumbled. ‘I would only do it for you. I would only blindly throw myself in front of a bullet for you. Not anyone else. Not a single soul. Does that make you happy? Does that inflate your ego enough, Kenobi-’

‘- that’s not what this is about.’

‘Then tell me!’ You let out a small groan of pain as you grabbed him by the material of his shirt, using every last ounce of energy to make him look at you again. ‘Tell me what it’s about because you are not making sense and I am the world’s leading expert in that field.’

‘It’s not about anything.’

‘Oh, bullshit!’ You whacked his arm, adrenaline worming its way into your tired body and finally allowing you to raise your voice. ‘I just saved your fucking life and you’re acting like a moody son of a bitch and accusing me of lying!’

‘It’s because I love you!’

‘Well, I love you too!’

‘Great!’

‘Fine!’

‘Wonderful!’

‘Brilliant!’

‘Well I’m glad we cleared that up!’

‘Me too!’

‘We should probably stop shouting!’

‘Good idea!’

You unballed your fists just in time to catch the material of Obi-Wan’s shirt as he stepped towards you, taking you by the waist and pulling you towards him. He crashed his lips into yours, knocking the air from your lungs as he did. You’d thought about kissing him many times - more than you were willing to admit, actually - but now that you were actually here, with a handle tangled in his soft hair and his warm lips moving against yours?

Nothing could have prepared you for this moment - for the declaration of love or the kiss or the way he was holding onto you, hands desperately gripping to your waist as though you were about to slip away into the darkness of the galaxy and leave him alone forever. Just a few hours ago, that had been a very real possibility.

You’d admitted to yourself earlier that you probably couldn’t have survived in a world without Obi-Wan Kenobi. Little did you know that he’d admitted to himself years before that he couldn’t have survived without you.

‘I love you.’ His words were softer now, barely a whisper against your lips as pressed his forehead to yours.

‘If I’d known that almost dying was all it took to make you tell me, I would have done it years-’

‘-Y/N.’ He groaned.

‘Sorry.’ You smiled softly. ‘I love you too.’

[marinetteplztakeabreak]

I need to share soft sign language buddies ninogami headcanon because they’re taking over my brain always:

(This got so long, so youre welcome if youre also starved for ninogami content)

Nino’s mom is Deaf , so he grew up signing as much as speaking. When he was younger he always signed as he talked.

It turned out he’s also Hard of Hearing, so sign language is way easier for him to understand most of the time.

However, though he’s great at making friends, he’s very awkward when it comes to talking about himself. So never comes up in conversation.

It’s not a self-deprication issue. It’s just a “thinking of things to say is hard and I’d rather have someone else do the talking” thing. He’d rather talk about anyone except himself.

Additionally! He’s great at helping other people, but he’s terrible at asking for help. He does not EVER want to be like “hey i cant understand what you’re saying, my ears dont work great,” its his worst nightmare

And it doesnt help that there have been a few cases of people being rude about it when he doesnt hear them after they repeat themselves. And possibly worse, there have been even more cases of people giving over-the-top apologies instead of just,, telling him what they said. So it’s not worth the trouble in his mind

with his few close friends who still dont know, it feels like its too late and it’d be awkward to bring it up, so he just… doesnt. He’s procrastinating on telling them he cant hear them

He stopped signing as much as he talked in middle school because strangers would always be like “woah thats so cool, how do you know sign language” and he’d just panic because he was an awkward tween, and he didnt know if he was comfortable telling them he was HoH, but ALSO just saying his mom was Deaf and not mentioning himself felt like directly lying by hiding information, so he just took the “lazy” way out and signed less in public.

Sometimes fighting the anxiety was not worth it so he just let it win in that case.

Nino is so nice and energetic and loves people, but he is way more introverted and anxious than his friends think.

But when they start to get closer, Kagami who is ever-observant, notices him signing a little bit, (not ever to her, not ever on purpose, but he’d sometimes sign a word he needed to remember while speaking or sign along to emphasize something)

and she luckily for his anxiety, she doesnt know how to have a normal conversation either.

Her (platonic as well as romantic) love language is studying and research, and Nino seems very cool and she likes him, even if she is awful at holding a conversation with him or doing anything to show it.

She thinks he’s so cool and such an amazing talented kind friend. She has so much love for him that she doesnt know what to do with it. So she channels that energy into learning to sign through the internet and whatever tools she can find

And then after a while of this, she’s like “oh no, he’s gonna think that’s so creepy, I cant tell him I know sign language or he’ll be so uncomfortable”

So, like a whole idiot, she hides that she’s learning sign language from anyone. Because OBVIOUSLY if word got back to Nino, he’d assume it was because of him and that she was a weirdo he shouldn’t be friends with

But also Kagami accidentally falls in love with sign language because she has undiagnosed autism. She always assumed that communicating was just going to be impossible no matter what, but as she gets proficient in sign language she’s like,,, oh,,, OH,, this is very nice

Even just signing while she talks makes it so much easier to keep words and sentances straight, but she only does it when she’s alone with her mother, who is literally blind and would never know.

They become closer friends in late high school, and by that time a lot of Nino’s anxiety has worn off and he’s become completely comfortable letting teachers know when he needs to hear somthing, and middle school feels like a distant dream

At some point, Nino invites Kagami to his house a few times, and he signs with his mom. Nino is like “I can interpret for you,” and Kagami is like “wow thanks, I’m so lucky, because I obviously do not know any sign language, why would I have learned it, and also for the record it is brand new information to me that you can sign,” and Nino is like “cool? Its not a secret but im glad i told you if you somehow didnt already know,” and Kagami is like, “yep :)”

But then eventually as they become really close, they are texting one night, (Kagami can still barely get out of her house, so they need to communicate remotely. And both of then HATE phone calls bc its so hard to understand whats happening, but neither of them have admitted this to anyone)

Nino admits that he likes using sign language better than talking, and he wishes he could use it with his friends, but he’d feel so guilty asking them to learn an entire language just to make him slightly more comfortable. He can talk and hear OKAY so he shouldnt put the pressure on them.

and Kagami is like “you could always ask, worst case scenerio they say no, and i dont think thats an unreasonable demand” and nino is like “it is though,” and kagami’s like “ok so haha funny story, please dont hate me” and nino is like, “…what.” And kagami confesses everything and nino is like “why… why would i hate you for that?” And Kagami is like “oh wait youre right im stupid,”

And then Nino’s also like “hey if YOURE more comfortable signing too, then why dont YOU ask your friends to sign for you. Do you see what i mean? It’s hard to ask-” and kagami is like, “as your friend i will prove it is not.”

So then Kagami ends up confronting Adrien and Marinette the next day and is like “Hi. This is a sign language dictionary. Learn from it.” And they’re both like “what?” And she’s like “oh wait sorry. Backing up. I’m autistic. I decided like three years ago. Forgot to tell you. And I need you to learn to sign a little bit so you can understand if i sign something at you. If you want, of course. Please :D.” And theyre like “ok sure yeah i can do that.”

(Theyve already learned and accepted that shes extremely direct in asking for things)

So then she texts nino and is like “i did it. Youre welcome.”

But anyway both of them are uncomfortable in crowds and parties: Nino cant hear anyone and Kagami tends to get sensory overload, so they start signing mostly in those situations, and then it starts to sink in that they’re allowed to sign whenever and that the other really IS also comfortable with it.

(Both of them are much more willing to make sacrifices for others than to try something new and intimidating for themself, so this is the perfect situation to trick them into getting out of their comfort zone, ironically by trying to be more comfortable in the long run)

so they will just sit together and hang out and have long conversations while just chilling somewhere in a park or at cafes or whatever. Both of them become chattier than they’ve ever been because talking and understanding is so much easier, and its addicting

And their close friends all become proficient enough in sign language to have simple conversations.

But also Nino and Kagami start sitting together automatically even in group hangouts, and they start hanging out more with just the two of them, and soon neither of them feel bad about asking to hang out in quieter places, because they can justify it knowing that it will also help the other one, and together that makes both of them also more comfortable asking for little accomodations from other friends, if only to prove to the other that they can do it too.

And Kagami has the lesser-known autism side effect where she makes WAY TOO MUCH eye contact. She’s aware of it but that doesnt make it go away. Normally she feels so awkward about it, and overthinks her gaze because she doesnt want to scare people away. But when signing, you literally HAVE to be watching the other person constantly, so she has an excuse to just be herself, and its so relieving

(and also its kind of fun to look at Nino anyway because he can get so animated and his smile is really nice and oh no she is in love a little bit)

And Nino always struggles because he emotionally ALWAYS needs to be the nice polite one. His anxiety sometimes gets the better of him and he’s constantly worried about sending the wrong signals to his friends and coming off as rude somehow. But with Kagami, he can literally just ask?? And she will tell him her honest opinion without making it weird. And its so comfy and so good and he really loves hearing her unfiltered opinions on so many things because she sees the world in such a unique way and she gets so passionate about such little things and then oh no, he is fallen for her before he can realize it

And they also learn that they’re both artists, they both love to just observe the world because even if they;re awkward, people are actually pretty great most of the time, and its fun to observe them and try to capture the world, and they just sit together and sketch, or they watch each other sketch, and the thing is, both of them draw ONLY FOR THEMSELVES, its not a ‘skill,’ and they don;t want it to be, its just private art for relaxation. Somehow, though, its okay if they share their art with each other. They can just sit in comfortable silence for hours while one of them sketches something and the other watches patiently

And they start to get more comfortable with one of their heads resting on the other’s shoulder as they watch them doodle, and sitting so close their legs press together, and soon enough their hands start brushing against each other’s as they walk next to each other and then all of a sudden they’re casually holding hands whenever they’re not signing because it’s nice

They try to share headphones so Nino can share some of his favorite songs and his compositions with Kagami. But try as she might, Kagami can not handle the sensory of only having one earbud in. Nino knows her tells by that point, and he’s not about to let her suffer for a stupid reason, but she REALLY does want to hear his music. They somehow end up with Kagami putting a pair of headphones around her neck and turning up the volume a little bit so she can hear, while Nino rests his head on her shoulder so he can hear just enough to know where she is in the song

And then he has to sit up and scootch away just enough to see her hands so they can talk about it, and they both pretend not to notice how nice it was to snuggle as they sign. Its fine, though, because now they get the excuse to just look at each other again and sign overdramatically with exaggerated facial expressions, and no one else around can overhear their conversation, and Nino likes to go a little over the top when signing onomatopoeia and acting out particular parts of the song rhythm that he likes, and Kagami laughs, and they both mentally save the image of each other in this moment the same way that they look at reference images for artwork, memorizing the lines of each movement and the things that make each smile unique,

and Nino also shows up at every single one of her fencing tournaments, and he sits as close as he can and signs encouraging messages to her from the crowd whenever she’s not actively competing, (that her blind mom can never catch, which is somewhat of a bonus to Kagami, because every element of their friendship that her mother cant interact with makes this more personal and special and HERS). Every little sign she sends back at him, even a simple thank you, always feels so good and rebellious and free because shes supposed to be focusing on fencing but shes deciding to care more about friendship. And even if she’s expected to leave immediately afterword, she’ll find every excuse possible to find him and give him a hug, which he’ll always accept even though she jokingly warns him shes sweaty and gross

And eventually they are special best friends and it brings them instant joy to see each other and theyre able to interact for no reason other than that they want to and like each other

(And then they kiss)

[noritoshiikamo]

game over

pairing: noritoshi kamo + fem!oc genre: angst tags//warning: established relationship, wild gojo appeared // blood, character death, emotion distress, mention of shibuya  note: the obligatory trio of mine: not well edited, lowercase intended, english isnt my first language im sorry if i murder it. note that i put descriptions of the characters i write so it would be easier for me, you’re free to imagine the character the way you seem fits! okay listen imma be honest i dont like this part that much dhhdbdjksncjddiem and im sorry if it sucks bcs istg i cant compete to part 1 and 2 of it so IM SORRY tagging @unabashednightmarepizza @sassyeahhhh @dok-ja @sukirichi [bold means i cant tag u idky :( lemme know if wanna be tagged in the next part] read the first part | second part | third part | bonus

few years ago;

“you’re fucking ridiculous!”

“you’re injured, how the fuck is it me that’s being unreasonable?”

she contemplated stabbing him straight to his chest. “i’m fine, leave me alone,” she hissed, holding on to her arm as she tried to limp away. second year jujutsu student noritoshi kamo wondered how the hell one could be this stubborn. with blood caked up on the side of her face, lips busted and bruising in the corner, not to mention the broken arm and probably twisted ankle, he could not understand how one could be this reckless and stupid, it’s almost ridiculous.

but here she is standing in front of him.

“you could’ve let me handle it,” he said, coldly.

she never turned that fast in her life; her limping leg suddenly worked fine as she hauled her ass, throwing both fists to his chest. the force put was enough to threw him back a few steps, he caught her wrists holding her from falling down. “stop acting like i’m so fragile. i can exorcist the curse just fine. you make me hate you so much,” she spitted, pure rage etched on her face, “just because i’m a girl, because i’m your girl, i’m weak. please, i am as good as you are, kamo.”

their faces were so close, he could count the freckles spread on her nose and cheeks. he loves her eyes the very first time he caught glimpse of it; one is a dull brown while the other looks like it carries the secret of the bright blue sea. this time, the eyes he loves looked hopeless, lack of the burning spirit she carried with tears threatening to spill. letting go of a wrist, his trembling hand brushed the hair coated with the blood back, carefully not to hurt her. “i never said you are bad,” he clarified, fingers busy brushing the hair back. his sudden reaction surprised her, and her body betrayed her thoughts as she eased in his arms.

he tilted her chin, his head was panicking as he realised that his brain was no longer controlling his movement as he leaned down and kissed her.

she tasted like blood.

she winced, pain aching on the swollen part and he apologized so quietly as he deepened the kiss. “nori-” her voice croaked as she swallowed his moans. he hummed, satisfied by the kiss. their foreheads rest against each other, the tip of their noses touched as they struggled to catch breath.

“stop being stupid. let me help you okay?”

“okay.”

slipping his arm under hers, he helped her walk, leading them out of the abandoned building they managed to exorcist. nothing major, a couple of pestering level three and four curses that them both handled well but their supervisor missed to tell them about the hiding level two curse that took them by surprise. she had become the curse’s main target.

if she would’ve just listened to him and stay close. he sighed.

“ouch, ouch,” she cried, clutching on her left leg, forcing him to stop. impatient, he slipped his hand under her knees, lifting her up in his arms. she apologized profusely, embarrassed to be such a burden to him. he brushed it off immediately.

“did you call them? told them that we are done?”

she gasped, “wait, i thought they’ll wait for us.”

he huffed, “you’re not that important, y/n. give them a call, please. i want to go home.”

kicking the door open, the moonlight shone on them as he carried her down to the bottom stairs. settling her down on the steps, he sat beside her, letting a long sigh. he watched as she took the call, letting them know that she was slightly injured, and they need to go back asap. she was visibly tired, and he was the same too.

he couldn’t help but to sigh at the way the moonlight enveloped her. he had loved her from the very first moment he caught his eyes on her; she caught him staring, called him out publicly and ignored all his advances. it took him a lot to court her. she’s a gojo, she can have anything and everything with the sky is the limit.

but one thing money could never buy is affection.

it started with little stuffs; noritoshi waiting for her with her lunch readied every day. it annoyed her but momo (who was secretly rooting for him) forced her to just do it. “it’s just a lunch,” momo said sheepishly. noritoshi would have them paired all the time for the missions. she’d accepted it with open heart. noritoshi would also teach her how to weld a bow and shoot arrows. she promised that she would go out on date with him if he taught her.

by the end of their first year, they became inseparable.

the idea of being apart from her hurts him physically and mentally. she took a sharp breath when he laced his fingers between her own, quickly telling the other person on the phone that she was okay. “it was just noritoshi,” she replied with a small laugh. their hands fit each other; his skin contrasted her slightly tanned skin. while his hands were rough from welding the bow and he kept his nail short and clean, hers were slightly softer with her nails painted prettily. this month she had her nails painted in pastel. all the girls’ day out with momo and mai had proven its importance. he was happy to provide her with his black card despite her discontent.

“analysing my hands now?”

he smiled slightly, “it looks very pretty. i guess i got my money worth. are they coming?”

she leaned on his shoulder, his own wrapped around her as she closed her eyes, “they are around the corner. i would definitely need another round this week,” she teased. kissing her forehead gently, he didn’t mind that his uniform was stained with her blood; he was glad that she’s safe.

“i’ll happily take you there.”

few years later;

noritoshi kamo almost lost his mind. the stadium was half destroyed, huge craters on the pitch with the sight of his wife nowhere to be found. he looked up to the black pitch curtain encasing the stadium area from the sky, a curse escaped his lips.

“where the fuck are you?” he grunted, scanning the area.

she is gone, his stubborn little wife. she could’ve just wait but annoyed that their dinner date was interrupted and eager because this was their first mission together as a married couple; she escaped his supervision. as they were dealing with minor curses outside, she decided to head on forward, leaving him to deal with whatever is left. he beat himself inside for letting her come, he could easily do this himself and send her home safely, but she blinked her eyes and he was weak. she always has her way with him.

his step stopped when he realised there was a shadow ahead.

“she’s pretty,” the thing said.

his blood ran cold, “what did you do to my wife?”

the curse let out a laugh. it was sinister enough to send chills down his spine. especially when he realised the head it was stepping on was his wife. her eyes were fluttering back and forth, struggling to stay awake. a howl shocked him, shivers down his spine at the painful whimpers her shikigami making. cursed spirits were devouring it alive, overwhelming it and chewing every part of its body. his wife was too weak to dispel the shikigami; it’s dangerous as the devoured wolf shikigami will drain her cursed energy by a second.

all shikigami linked directly to the owner; everything inflected to the wolf, she could feel it too.

he needed a plan.

hidden in his wedding ring was a retractable knife. he rarely carries blood bags anymore as his power solidified itself. the older he got, the better he was at using and controlling a small steady flow of his own blood straight from the tap. with a clap of his hands, the knife cut his hand enough to send blood shooting like bullets. the blood hit the curses straight to its cores, died out instantly on impact, but the shikigami was beyond salvageable. it let out one last howl, one last goodbye before dropping to the ground, half of his snout gone. she will be devastated, it’s her only shikigami she managed to tame at such a young age, but at least it has stopped the shikigami from stripping his wife’s cursed energy to its core.

the fire burning in his eyes only made the curse laughed. he kicked her body away, spurting blood out of her mouth. she was halfway close to death’s doorstep.

“i will fucking murder you,” he hissed.

“my blood is my power. it’s supposed to rot human, stripping its meat from the bone like acid. however,” the curse nudged her body, “your wife didn’t. humour me, did your blood tainted hers? tell me, i’m curious how.”

“are you going to chit chat because i don’t have whole day.” his blood dripped on the pitch.

the curse grinned, shrugging his shoulder. he kneeled, running his bloody fingers on her cheeks leaving trails of flowers pattern that dissipated immediately, “i’m not here to fight. i’m here to serve a warning,” he looked up to the tensed sorcerer, “for gojo satoru. tell him, we’ll be waiting for him in shibuya.” noritoshi’s face scrunched in confusion.

“we have no business with the gojos.”

“but she is. she could change her name, married you, but it doesn’t erase the fact that she carried gojo’s blood in her vein. she’s the bridge to your two clans. i’m just killing two birds with one stone. ruin the kamo clan’s relationship with gojos and hurt gojo satoru. all thanks to her,” the curse turned his back on him, his laugh echoed as he walked away. the dark curtain disappeared slowly as the ground rumbled. a perfect chance for noritoshi to strike if it wasn’t because of the cursed spirit’s words gluing him to his spot, “oh, kamo, i believe a congratulation is overdue. let me know when’s the baby is due, i would love to drop by personally.”

the pillar holding on to the roof collapsed sending wave of dust all over the place. noritoshi covered his face, coughing as he sucked some in, removing his coat as a shield. the cursed spirit was no where to be found.

“the place is going to collapse! i’ll get the curse, you go get her!”

a voice echoed and he caught a glimpse of blond hair running past him and noritoshi didn’t think twice as he sprinted around the cracks and holes. who was that voice or who was the curse, he couldn’t give a single fuck, he just wants his wife back. he was shaking when he got to her, arms immediately scooped her up in his arms. her chest was raising slowly, blood dripping on the side of her lips as she struggled to exhale.

“you’re going to be okay,”

he told her, but he wasn’t sure if he will ever be.

-

“can you turn down the stupid light, it’s hurting my eyes.”

the voice laughed melodiously, the light moved to the other eye repeating the same thing.

“as you can see, she’s awake, slightly weak, but she should be okay.”

another voice interrupted, “are you sure?” she gasped, excited to hear a familiar voice. “nori?” she called out, unable to open her eyes, relying strictly to her hearing as she reached her shaky hands out for him. “her senses might be slightly off, just let her do it herself,” the woman’s voice noted, and she felt annoyed. how dare you underestimate me, her mind scoffed.

“my senses are fine. see?” she claimed as she held noritoshi’s hand up. he smiled, gently rubbing her hand with encouragement. “thanks, shoko, we are fine.”

“i’ll leave you be then. call me if you need anything.”

she listened to the clacking of shoko’s heels, followed by the door opening and slamming shut. she jumped, but he held her hand tighter, reassuring her that it’s alright. “so why can’t i see?” she asked, confident that they are alone now. she felt the bed sunk a little on the left side, “you were high on anesthesia, i’m surprise you could even move your jaw to speak.” she felt a finger brushed her hair aside, breath loomed on her face and she could feel her own face reddening up.

“are you going to kiss me or are you just going to tease me?” his heart swell up, despite her shaky voice almost made him laugh.

“do you trust me?” his hand cupped her cheek gently.

she nodded eagerly, “always.”

“good.”

his kiss hit her like a waft of fresh air. every kiss felt like a first kiss to her that she couldn’t help to react so eagerly to it. his tongue slipped through her defense, overwhelming her taste buds with such strong taste of iron. it didn’t stop her. she knew what he was doing from start. he peeked a little, didn’t stop a second from kissing her as he watched his blood marking appeared on her face. her hands went up around her neck pulling him closer and he obeyed, deepening the kiss.

heal; his mind commanded.

after a while, she pulled back, being the one to break apart from the kiss first, her chest raising up and down as she struggled to catch her breath. her eyes were wide open now, fluttering lazily as she leaned back on the propped-up pillow. he wiped the corner of his lips, eyes on her as he watched the open wound on her face and arms slowly closed leaving the fresh healed red marks behind. he relaxed when he heard a thank you coming from her, as she checked her healed arms.

“i’m disappointed with you,” he finally broke the silence.

“really?” she frowned. he always does this thing where he will immediately go into lecture mood every time she does something that pisses him off. it’s almost like a game to her as she waited for him to explode, “right now? not even going to wait until i’m discharged. this is a new record, toshi. like shoko said, i’m fine.” he shook his head, “it doesn’t make it right. you always disobeyed me. ignored my orders, going about with your goddamn big head, you could’ve been killed.”

she rolled her eyes, noritoshi is being noritoshi, what a drama queen, she mentally rolled her eyes, “but i’m not,” she pushed her hair back, twisting it easily into a simple loose knot, “i told you, i am not weak.”

“your shikigami was destroyed, your blood was poisoned, 70 percent was already circulating to every part of your vein, i had to beg for the higher up to help purify your blood,” her smile died down. this game no longer feels fun for her. noritoshi was really mad this time. “you think it’s fun and all game but game over, y/n. you need to stop doing this. if you can’t do it for me, do it for yourself.”

“leave me alone, nori, if you just going to nag, please i don’t want to hear it. i’m tired.”

it made him angry that she was taking his word lightly. running his hand in his messy hair, he felt like hauling his head to the wall.

“you don’t understand-”

she slammed her hand on the bed, interrupting his words, “no YOU don’t understand me, i’m tired of you babying me. i’m an adult, i am your wife, stop treating me like a fucking child! we have been married for months, but god you’re suffocating me.”

“i will when you stop endangering yourself. i will stop treating your like a child when you stop acting like one. you’re pregnant, for the love of god!” he threw his hand on the wall. the wall cracked from the force. “i’m what?” she felt the world stopped spinning. she was hundred percent sure that her ears and head were deceiving her. he removed his hand from the hole he made on the wall, his body shaking from the amount of anger building up.

“noritoshi, answer me! what do you mean- i’m not pregnant, i had my period this month.”

“you are,” he shrugged. he felt something hit him in the back; looking down he saw the fluffy white pillow sitting by his feet.

he pointed to the bedside table where a sonogram perched up against a tissue box. she was about to lose her mind. “this is not funny, if this is your mean way of fucking me up because i won’t listen to you then this is just fucking cruel.”

he marched towards him, his hand went down on his chin, forcing her eyes on him, “until you stop playing your stupid games, until you stop treating your life like it’s nothing, until you consider my feelings and my worries, as your husband is valid, i do not exist in your life,” tears fell down her cheeks, “like you, i’m tired too.

“nori i-“

he left her before she could say a word. she broke into sob; her chest was pounding so hard that the blood pressure monitor was beeping. the door burst opened but it was not the face she wanted to see. she was immediately hysterical. satoru managed to hold her wrist down before she ripped the tubes and needles off her arms. “no, no, i want nori. where is he!” she screamed as satoru held her down. “you need to calm down, it’s not good for the baby,” satoru cooed, but she was not having it. he turned to shoko, “her cursed energy is skyrocketing, she’s going hysterical, do something!”

“let me go!”

shoko held out a syringe, “hold her down.”

she screamed, thrashing so rough that she almost slipped out of the strongest sorcerer’s hands. she managed to get a needle out before she felt another sharp pain on her back. shoko pulled the empty needle out and they retreated away as she fell on her butt backward. she was reduced to a babbling mess, her eyes drooped as she struggled to fight the waves of sleepiness hitting her one after another.

“tell him i’m sorry,” she croaked out, before everything turned completely dark.

the blood pressure monitor returned back to normal.

three days later;

“are you still going to ignore her? it’s been 3 days.”

“she needs to learn her place.”

gojo satoru disagreed. he eyed the head of the clan, shaking his head before standing up. he thought he could convince noritoshi kamo to visit his wife, but the man was as stubborn as- huh, her.

“i think she have learned enough, she’s miserable. you’re miserable.”

the man glared at the blonde man child, raising the cup of tea up for a sip. the tea doesn’t taste as good as the way she made it. he left her for 3 days and he found himself struggling to do everything alone. 

he, noritoshi kamo, 23 years old and the head of the kamo family, could not make a cup of fucking tea.

she always said that the best way to make tea depends on how long you let it steep. “too early and you won’t get the right amount of flavour,” she explained, her back facing him as he watched from the counter as she loomed over the stove, “but if you steep it way too long you going to burn the tea leaves and it will make everything taste bitter.” she turned around, a huge smile on her face that made his heart skipped a beat.

he frowned; the tea tasted bitter.

“she’s pregnant, she’s supposed to be crazy. you are supposed to be the wise one. she is going to carry your child for 9 long months, i can’t explain to you how long that’s going to be but she is allowed to be crazy.”

he dropped the cup on the floor when gojo’s hand grabbed him by his collar, pulling him up from his chair.

“now please, see your goddamn wife before i deck you in the mouth.”

“i will.”

satisfied with his answer, gojo’s demeanor changed and he was again the man child they all know of him. noritoshi could no longer focus on the report in front of him; not when his mind is full of her and only her.

would she forgive him? he wasn’t sure.

but he would spend his lifetime making up to her and the baby if that’s necessary.

[unironicduncanstan]

@alenoah and @icedancerhell did this and ik im definitely going to be cancelled for my taste but explanations below

prince of egypt: oh my gfucking god . bro the music. the ANIMATION. the story too like obviously its based on a religious tale but i mean the way its portrayed and interpreted and how it all comes across was so on point. and did i mention THE FUCKGIN MUSIC dude i would try to sing every song when i was a kid and i think attempting that literally improved my range growing up

shrek: ok when ur a kid literally all u want is to feel mature and cool. shrek was that in an hour and 30 minutes. all the adult humor. and even the shit that would fly over your head somehow still always registered as so funny. every line is burned into my brain bc i watched it so much it was so fuckgin funny and entertaining and the storyline was so depthful and important. shrek for president

sinbad: oh yeah he makes me wanna sin. Bad

rise of the guardians: oooohhg the plot was so cool and intriguing,,, the designs were so unique,,,, also i actually used to. cosplay jack frost when i was a teen osfkjskjfhksdjf i might have like One picture around here somewhere,

over the hedge: every character is perfectly designed and perfectly voiced and the humor was so good. me at like 8 years old watching hammy the squirrel drink coffee and frolic around in a slowed down world was the peak of comedy

madagascar: its just such a classic. another movie where every line is burned into my cerebellum bc i had it on dvd. id say out of this whole list this close to number one. idk where to even begin with how stupidly hilarious it was to me

httyd: lbr who didnt just do a full [lisa simpson face] when you got to the end and hiccup had lost part of a leg. the whole movie had this aura that it was like not tethered down somehow while still being great family friendly media. also im ace sexual and UHH big dragon

--

antz: unironically i think it deserves so much more than it gets. the anti war messages are great the designs are cool and it goes back into the shrek maturity territory where they get to say CUSS WORDS. p much my only qualm is that woody allen had to be there 😔😔😔  

shark tale: ok dont cancel me but i really love the plot actually. i mostly love the mafia shark boy that dresses as a dolphin but even the will smith fish crash-and-burn fame hubris thing while annoying at times was rly intriguing. and the designs are the kind of thing that as a kid i loved but as an adult i do. struggle , w ith, a bit, but overall funny and entertaining story

el dorado: the music slaps so fuckgin hard thats another example of me tryna sing cartoon music to an embarrassing degree. also the Colorse . the designs . and the humor osjfsjdf the only downside is just a personal vibe bc the best friend conflict storylines make me anxious sometimes lol

flushed away: oh my god dont at me. some of the characters are so fuckgin annoying and some of the humor is just so much but i rly did like the worldbuilding and storyline. stupid posh ass rat was rly cool actually. also yet another mafia/gang violence plot in childrens media why is that so funny when ur a kid god

spirit: GREAT MUSIC GREAT STORY! i think the way the story goes like, its Better to be told with regular horses and narration rather than talking horses,,,, but my dumb whimsical child ass just didnt latch onto that style as much as the talking animal movies

shrek 2: rly good tbh all the new characters introduced are interesting and entertaining to watch, but i mostly remember it for i need a hero and human shrek. didnt rly hit the same mark as the first :/

httyd 2: another great movie with another great twist but it almost felt like too much at once for my little brain to handle. overloaded me with gay emotion 

--

megamind: i love everything it stands for i just never saw it until like a year ago so its not that dear to my heart

kung fu panda: not my style of humor, i saw it once and can hardly remember it but i feel like the plot was wholesome and cute

the croods: so funny and good, ive seen it many times actually. but some of the humor just isnt my thing (its, well, crude, which also took me like 5 yrs to get that joke,)

bee movie: was pleasantly surprised the first time i watched it??? it was pretty good and it did kinda make fun of itself so idk why its so cringe to ppl. barry b benson entertained me unironically

chicken run: i saw it once when i was very young and it just didnt resonate with me also claymation most of my childhood terrified me

wallace and gromit: same as chicken run

--

entire never saw it tier: dotn hate me i just dont have a lot of time on my hands. i know i will be oppressed into watching peabody and sherman within the week and i accept the charges

--

monsters vs. aliens: someone got it for me on dvd and i hated it so much. its not even that bad its just a me thing like for some reason the part where the lady becomes a giant during her wedding or w/e was just like. the worst nightmare i could imagine i hated it and it made me scared to get married bc i thought that could happen to me. also none of the main cast is charming to me one of thems a bug and i have a bug phobia so i could never rly get thru it im sorry but i coudltn do it

madagascar 2: alex backstory was kinda good but the rest was forgettable for me

madagascar 3: visually kinda cool but. :/// felt really off compared to the previous movies, like an obvious cash grab. i mean who could forget the constant polka dot afro circus song advertisements

shrek 3: again mostly just remember it for the frog dad dying ,,,

shrek 4: i only saw it like 5 months ago for the first time. fiona being a warrior in an alternate timeline or w/e (if that was real and not a fever dream) was the only semi tolerable part for me

penguins of madagascar: the first few minutes with them as babies was cute the rest i physically could not keep my attention on. i dont remember anything else im sorry

[hollyhomburg]

the Viking!au about the day namjoon & tae fell in love with reader was so cute and showed how tae had got to see the reader when she saved him and just an overall softer side of her but it got me thinking how did the others know that they loved her? I’m especially interested in how hobi knew just bc their relationship was so tense in the beginning

i think that their love story is a little bit enemies to lovers at the beginning like obviously, Hoseok trusts her about as far as he can throw her. he becomes sort of like her guard, “i just want to make sure you don’t do anything stupid” “scared of me little alpha boy?” “oh i assure you, nothing about me is little” and meanwhile she’s like venting to jimin later, “I don’t understand how you live with the lot of them- especially Hoseok- he’s an alpha pig if ever I’ve seen one” and jimin trying to assure her- “he’s not all that bad i promise, he has a soft side i promise” and you grumble, thinking the only alpha in his pack who’s sweet at all is jungkook. 

it’s not until a hunting trip- or a scouting trip- when Jungkook and Hoseok come back banged up Jungkook bleeding from a wide rent in his side that you really see the panicked loving side, despite Hoseok’s injuries, he stays up by Jungkook’s bedside all through the night- even though yoongi does too. you coming by the next day to give yoongi a chance to sleep. you trying to Tugg Hoseoks sleeping form into a bed, though he wakes with a growl. you catch him trying to tug Jungkook’s hand into his own even a bed away, needing the other alphas hands in his to fall asleep.  

you’ve never known alphas to be so tender with each other- but the way Hoseok looks at Jungkook- it’s something different, something special and soft that you feel like you shouldn’t be intruding on. maybe jimin is right, maybe Hoseok does have a soft side that you just haven’t seen. 

one thing that makes you indisposable to the pack is the amount you care, it dosent matter who walks through the door of the infirmary you help. even that little bitch of an alpha Hoseok gets his cuts sown up by you. you have more than a few people to take care of, who need you here, yoongi and the dozen or so other healers in the pack take care of more than 500 pack members.

 you bring many things to the pack, including your knowledge. in the first few months, yoongi learns a lot from you, several tinctures and salves that make some of the regularly occurring injuries here non-existent when they’d been threatening, a herb that brings down fever, another that cures the infection, as well as a burn cream made from the leaf of this flower that cuts healing time in half and reduces scarring.

 it’s an accident really when a clumsy beta spills a pot of oil in the kitchens and it hits a young omega girl, spareing her face but not her shoulder and chest. you and yoongi do what you can, but you’re out of the cream that could save her from scarring and likely- the life of a pariah. yoongi and you do the best you can cooling down the burns with snow and setting over the usual salve that helps you heal, “do you have any more of this?” yoongi holds the empty container out for you and you shake your head, “shit then- what are we going to do?” 

yoongi is one of your biggest supporters to make the trip back to your home, even though it’s deep in the forbidden woods, there are other things there that you need, to gather. other antidotes to poisons and indisposable herbs that you could use here. You’re the only one who knows how to identify them and use them, but the thing is- namjoon is loathed to give you his blessing before you go- it’s dangerous in the north woods, where animals far larger than normal sizes grow and the very ground trembles with an older, wild sort of magic. many people that have gone into it haven’t survived. 

“I lived there for years namjoon don’t talk to me like I don’t know the dangers, and I can help her” namjoon can’t help but look at you, so soft and small, but firey and determined, and feel like it’s too dangerous for even you. the heads of families also listening in, grumbling in agreement, the parents of the child looking at you like you’re their only hope. Hoseok steps forward from where you’re gathered, “I’ll be her guide, and make sure she comes home safe.” you want to scrunch up your nose at him, to hiss almost- because everyone knows you don’t like Hoseok at all. 

needless to say, you see a different side of him during your trip, every time you slip his hand is there on your back, “stop doing that- I’m not some delicate omega i can handle myself, if I fall let gravity do its job and punish me I don’t need to touch you” him holding up his hands, looking stung, “yeah alright, that’s the last time I try to do anything nice for you.”

 in the forest, winter has fallen early, and you’d be loathed to admit you need any sort of warmth but the fire isn’t cutting it, and you know it will only be worse the further north you get, you’ve lived through these winters you know how dangerous they can be. you’re only half surprised when Hoseok scoots over spooning you from behind halfway through the night, “what are you doing?”

“Trying not to freeze to death” and you have to admit, waking up in the morning with his warmth pressed up against your back isn’t the worst thing, even if you do pretend it is. but it’s almost like Hoseok can tell that you didn’t really help it, your snuggly omega scent the same kind of sweet as Seokjin lets out when he’s nesting. 

“admit it- you’re comfortable around me- you like me more than you want me to think you do” you’re just about to reply when your footing falls out from underneath you. almost sending you plummeting down a steep ravine. Hoseok catches you at the last minute, hand on your forearm, he pulls you up and to safety.  “what was it you said yesterday? let gravity punish you?” “yeah fuck everything I’ve ever said to you” Hoseok can’t help but laugh at that, chest heaving as he lays back against the rocks.

It only takes you a few days to get to where your old camp was, it’s desolate and unkempt in the months its been since you’ve been there, most of your things where trash anyway compared to the quality of things available at namjoon’s compound. you don’t stop to take anything with you, but Hoseok does give it an appreciative glance. “you used to live here? all year round?” “yeah the winters sucked.” i like my cabin back home better you catch yourself thinking, but it’s true, your cabin back at the compound is home to you. you shake off what that means and hed onwards, gesturing for Hoseok to follow you, “come on its not far.”

The oasis and hot springs are warm and hazy, the red lily growing in great swathes around it, you drop your pack, it’s only halfway through the day, “we’ll camp here for the night,” Hoseok is basically in awe, but you’re ready to get to work, picking each flower and some of their roots- you’re going to try to grow these closer to the compound but you’ll need to find a hot spring as you’re pretty sure they can’t grow anywhere but there. you pick as many as you can fit in the bag you brought, but you quickly fill it.

“I can’t believe this place.” you eye Hoseok freezing when he starts to disrobe. “what are you doing?!” “are you kidding me? I’ve always wanted to see a hot spring, and I’m not risking getting my clothes wet in this weather.” you’re barely able to cover your eyes before he’s completely nude, turning away hoping he dosent see the flush on your face.

 you collect flowers until every single inch of the bag is stuffed full. but even then you still have more time, it’s not worth trying to find another spot to make camp you’re just setting out your bedroll on one of the few flat rocks when Hoseok calls from the water, “come on! you can’t honestly tell me you’re not freezing your ass off out there, come warm up” he badgers you, and eventually you agree, because honestly- you really really want to be warm right now. you make Hoseok turn around so you can disrobe in peace. 

you’re a few feet from each other when you finally let him turn around to see you, all of your sensitive parts below the edge of the water, so so warm. and yet, when you turn around Hoseok can still see the scars on your back. “you said that the cream you make from the flowers helped heal burns and scar tissue, so why didn’t you use it on yourself?” 

you turn back, careful to tie up your hair and keep it out of the water. “others needed it more than me- my scars are just that- scars- nothing compared to open wounds” he sees your fingers reaching low, hovering over one he can’t see by your side, his heart-tugging painfully as he sees you “and besides, most of them are too old, this salve is the most effective on new wounds, which is why we need to get home as quickly as possible” 

you don’t do anything more, even if what you can see of hoseok’s body has a flush coming to your cheeks. he steps closer to you, close enough for you to see down into the water if you looked, instinctively you cross your arms in front of your chest, but the way hoseok looks at you isn’t predatory, it’s sweet, the same soft look that he gave jungkook weeks ago when he was hurt.

 “but still- I know yoongi and you could put something together- something to help you” he leans in close, and your breath is so heavy as he presses a slight kiss against the edge of your hairline, where you know a tiny scar lingers at your temple, “you deserve to heal too” with any other alpha you’d be scared of them, with any other alpha you would have already buried a knife in his ribs. but Hoseok has saved your life twice now, and you can’t help but trust him. especially when he pulls away after that- giving you your space and relaxing in the water, asking you about other magical things in the forest. 

you end up pressed close to each other on the bedrolls that night regardless, and you pretend it dosent feel good to have his cheek pressed to the nape of your neck. you make the trip back carefully but quickly, getting back in time to heal the girls scars to the point where her skin is barely discolored.

 the rest of Packtan seem to notice something changed between you and Hoseok, easily the two of you where the ones who got along the least- save for you and namjoon who have the tensest relationship. they bug Hoseok but no matter what they say he said nothing happened even though it’s clear to them something has. 

though a few weeks later he does talk to yoongi about some healing supplies- what things are best for healing scars and the such, and the elder beta thinks he might know what hoseok’s asking after. you treat each other with the same banter but it’s kinder now. you’ll shout at him and hit him on the arm good-naturedly when he comes to the infirmary with a new scape, “how do you even walk? or are you so clumsy even the pups are more careful than you- i swear- how namjoon lets you near knives I have no idea-” and hoseok’s happy grin, “if i didn’t get hurt then you’d never get to see my beautiful face and we all know how you-” Hoseok gets a dirty cloth thrown in his face for that, making yoongi and the other healers laugh, “you totally deserved that”

 the others leave you be, let you have your banter. they can see it in your eyes, in the way you’re never anything more than Endeered by Hoseok, even when he throws your words back in your face, watching you slip and fall of the stone pathway when he walks you home after dinner, “There gravity goes, punishing you again” they just shake their heads when they watch. 

 love is only a matter of time and gravity. 

[wooorm]

tell us abt the benzen :)c go wild go crazy

Ah, 

well it all started when one day, when Benry was a wittle baby child (age 16) walking home and he spots some cute boy about his age, beyblade in hand and lighter in the other. With Benry watching in amazement as the young arsonist lights that bitch on fire and launches that bitch into a trash can lid. truly a sight to behold, and in that moment benry knew he had to meet this guy, like seriously dudes chaotic energy? off the fucking charts,,  so they get to talking and eventually become best friends :) 

They do normal friend stuff, hanging out, doing dumb shit, holding hands and smooching.. oh.. And they hang out alot, like alot theyre inseparable. Mostly bc Forzen’s home life is absolute dog shit but he has benny to help him through all that,,  all while Benry is indirectly helping Forzen figure himself out- he soon figures out why he feels the discomfort he feels about himself and then it hits forzen- hes transgender (he already figured he was bisexual at this point) Benry even offers to cut Forzen’s hair in a way that he sees fit, and then its a double combo for forzen as he figures out that he most definitely has feelings for his very best friend- 

Now, forzen fucking around and finding out he trans? good- bad part about that is Forzen’s fam isnt really into the trans idea,, so Forzen starts to hang around benry’s house even more than usual even tho benry’s house is p cramp with family-- 

pretty soon, the boy’s are 18 and forzen’s dysphoria only grows and his home life gets worse, and the pressure is on- he doesnt have any good career skills that could make a liveable wage (i mean he did barely pass highschool) and the only viable option he thinks he could make it on is going into the military, ofc benry opposes this... alot,, to where they argue about it furiously,, eventually causing a falling out with the two, to where they dont speak to each for a day. This kills the both of them inside but they both have different ways of dealing with the situation,,

  benry musters up the courage to actually talk to forzen and work things out before forzen heads off, he quickly makes a break for it to forzens house. knocking on the door only to be greeted by one of forzen’s siblings. Benrys heart drops as the words escape that relatives lips, “he already left bud- sorry” benry can hardly hold back the tears as he leaves his former friends house, sweet voice escaping his mouth. Yellow to black. 

Benry never really was the same after that, he seemed less enthusiastic about things he previously enjoyed, even taking that stupid security guard job at that dollar store area 51 knock off,,, 

cut to the res cas

Forzen is assigned to go to black mesa,, realizing that this is the same facillity that his old friend had mentioned before from overhearing his fellow comrades. As soon as he can he guns into black mesa with only one thing on the brain- 

switching over to benry,, the little snoop, no clipping through walls, joining and leaving the science team ever now and again. He eventually finds out that the military is here and what if ya know? what if his friend from the past is here? So he makes it his own personal mission to find Forzen. Just so scared of every dead bootboy body, not knowing if its the one hes looking for.. sometimes mistakenly sweet voicing bodies that very much could be Forzen. With both looking for each other the search is on... 

and then, like a spot light on either one of them they find what theyre looking for, across one of the many sprawling rooms in back mesa of all places, theyre eyes meet-  in an instant their body’s cling to one another as if neither one had felt touch before. There’s only a few ‘i missed you’s before theyre kissing. Forzen holding up benry in his arms tightly, not wanting to let go... After that theyre practically inseparable again, walking around black mesa as if nothings goinging on, catching up and talking. They agree to meet up again later,, but forzen’s got other plans to make that happen sooner,,, he’s even got the plan and dog to do do so-- 

// so i basically hc that forzen only held sunkist hostage so he could trade her for benry and he could look like a hero and possibly start to make up for leaving like he did, but all that is foiled when everyone but benry shows up, and now he has to improvise, thus the “dispel the rumor” bullshit--

after the res cas, benry and forzen make their mutual loving official and move in together like they always wanted to do,, and everything great! 

... 

...

“wait a minute- no you hurt me-” 

and a big argument starts and its bad. Benry is a crying, sweet voicing mess and forzen just wants to run away again. Both gordon and tommy have to intervene and talk both of them down from ‘this isnt going to work out’ 

ofc forzen feels bad for leaving the way he did, at the time it seemed like the best way to leave so he wouldnt feel bad about leaving benry and hoping benry wouldnt be hurt as bad in the long run. Forzen was trapped and needed an escape. He does realize that things could have been handled better and he often beats himself up for hurting benry the way he did and he would do anything for benry to make it up to him. After forzen apologized n shit benry doesnt even think much of it now, hes just glad hes finally with the one he loved all those years ago, and they can actually stay together this time <3

thank you for sitting here and listening to me ramble insanely about to funny men from halflife parody :0)

[guardianofjunmyeon]

Finding Atlantis (part 6)

Pairing: Baekhyun x Reader

Genre: Action/Adventure, Enemies to Lovers, PirateAU

Description:   20 years ago the seas became angry. Unruly and unkind to any sailor,  to  any ship that dared venture too far out in her waters. Many a man  has  heard the tales of Atlantis, the lost city, the key the ocean. But  fewer  men know the tale of it’s missing child. The key to the ocean,  the key  to Atlantis but a lost little one. The power one would hold  should they  find this child would be nearly that of Poseidon himself.  Thus, the hunt  began.    

A/N: I meant to update last week but my VPN wasn’t working! I couldn’t access tumblr bc it’s blocked here in china but i finally got it fixed lol. This one is long! WARNING(s): Smut + Character Death (??)

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18

After hours of discussion and blindly heading southeast, you all were finally able to somewhat crack the code of the rhyme and the map.

“Follow the sound of your soul, she’ll call out to you to bring you back to your shoal. That’s clearly about the Atlantis return song. It’s the most important part of all of this. If we don’t get a better handle of when it appears and when it doesn’t we won’t get through the rest of the trails.”

“Trials?”

“Yes, there are three different trials masked in the lyrics of the song. The way back isn’t easy. If you leave Atlantis, you have to prove that you truly want to return,” Yeri replies.

You squint at the map now covered in writing.

“She’ll fight you to prove that your heart is true, to crush you and build you back stronger in her darkest shade of blue,” Sehun reads. “It’s about a storm. A very big one by the sound of it.” He points to an area of the map with nothing but water. “You see this area? It’s known for its unruly currents and unnatural weather patterns. It ranges from snow to thunderstorms large enough to wipe out entire islands.”

Junmyeon grazes his fingers over the map, passing the spot Sehun mentioned and further southeast. “Beautiful songs will call out to confuse the path, to distract you, but remembering your heart will get you through…if we continue beyond the location of the storm we’ll be set to approach Isla de Sirena within a week.”

“Shit,” Baekhyun murmurs.

Yeri looks on in confusion. “Why shit?”

“Isla de Sirena is an island known for luring ships underwater. They crash ships among the rocks with song. They appear as the most beautiful creature that you can imagine; whatever you subconsciously find the most alluring. I don’t know how they do it. Different people can look at the same one and see different things; they trick you that way. Mermaids…sirens, whatever you want to call them. Freaky little bitches.”

“Baekhyun,” Junmyeon admonishes.

“What? They are!”

“So we’ve got to face…beautiful singing women? Oh no the horror,” you gasp jokingly.

Baekhyun pinches the bridge of his nose. “You are so horny, and so stupid all the fucking time.”

“You’re one to fucking talk-”

“Children!” Junmyeon scolds. “Can we please hold off on the flirting until this is over?”

“We aren’t flirting-”

“Anyway!” You and Baekhyun close your mouths in embarrassment. “We’ve gone near Isla de Sirena, once,” Sehun adds grimly, eyebrows pitching angrily. “If you’re able to ignore their voices then you can see them for they are. They’re the ugliest creatures I’ve ever seen in my life.” He shivers.

“So what’s the final trial?” Baekhyun asks, back to contributing to the conversation and not being a pain in your ass.

“She’ll finally take you in her arms again, cradled and safe where all life began…” Yeri reads. A sigh. “We aren’t completely sure. It’s something about a rebirth?”

You scratch your chin.

“Maybe it’s about being drowned.”

Everyone turns their eyes to you.

“What?” you ask; your wide eyes look back at everyone staring at you as if you said something crazy. You point to the map in the general area where you think you all may end up. “There’s no land anywhere near here, and the city is underwater. Born from water, taken away from water, and then reclaimed by the water. If you leave, you must be drowned and reborn into an Atlantian again right? Why else would you forget your memories and connection to the sea the longer you’re away?”

“You are reborn in the place where life began…” Baekhyun mumbles. “You might be right. The final trial is a drowning of some kind. There’s a reason only Atlantian’s are the only people who can reach the city.” Baekhyun smacks you on the shoulder. “You’re not completely useless!”

You frown and hold your shoulder.

Bastard.

~~~

Candles cover the deck of the ship as the sun sets on the horizon. You watch somberly as each member of your crew places an object that reminds them of Taemin, of Amber, of Kun, and of Jaehyun in each of the four caskets meant to sail them to the other side.

Their bodies are wrapped in cloth to save everyone the trauma of facing their decomposing faces. Flowers, candies, articles of clothes surround each body with the things that made them who they were in life.

And will hopefully comfort them in the land of death.

Your most artistically inclined deckhand, Ten, places a portrait of each of them in their respective boat. An image to match the body.

“Jaehyun was always smiling; he worked hard as a gunner. He’d hoped one day to be master gunner of the ship.” Mark stands over the casket. “He uh, he never said much but he had the most imaginative mind of any person I ever met,” he says with a sad smile. “When the cannon backfired and killed him, it was quick, so at least he didn’t suffer for long. Farewell friend. I’ll see you on the other side.”

Luna takes over where Mark left off, standing in front of Amber’s casket. “I’ve known Amber since we were kids. She was a strange one,” she laughs. “She was very head strong and opinionated even when she was wrong. We both knew that working in the artillery was going to be rough, that it would be dangerous, but I know that she loved this job more than anything. She had a family with us, and she died where she would have wanted, I think.” Tears fill her eyes as she sits back down in the circle of crewmen.

“Kun…was like an older brother to me. He would tell me that I was getting on his nerves, but he would always take care of me…uh…take care of all of us in the best way he could. Every meal he served, every wound he healed, was done with care. Unfortunately, sickness isn’t as kind. He tended to Taemin with his last breath, tried to heal with all he had until he had nothing else to give. I’m going to miss him and his cheesy magic tricks.” Ten takes in a deep breath to keep his voice from wavering. “I hope he’s taken care of with as much love as he gave us.”

You can hear people holding back their tears. Sniffles and soft sobs escaping into the air every few seconds.

This time you stand as the representative to send off Taemin. You avoid everyone’s eyes and focus your gaze on his wrapped body and the trinkets around him. “Taemin was one of my earliest crewmen. I may have owned the ship, but Taemin was the one who knew best how she moved. He piloted with a grace and confidence I have still yet to achieve. I don’t have a single doubt that he’ll be able to guide himself to the other side without issue. He had a natural skill for movement.” You focus on an object nestled snuggly at his side. “I just hope he doesn't lose any of the things we’re sending with him the way he always loses his money pouches.” You manage a smile.

A couple of people chuckle softly, sadly.

“As Captain of the Storm Chaser, I release the four of you from duty.” You raise your gun in the air. “I couldn’t have asked for braver, hardworking, and loyal men.” You fire a single shot into the air.

It rings through the night.

Everyone stands, begins to close the wooden coffins, and Junmyeon soaks them in gunpowder and oil.

You watch the coffins get lowered into the water one by one. As they begin to float away, you, Mark, Luna, and Ten line up along the edge of the ship.

“Ready,” you all cock your guns. “Aim.”

“Fire.”

The coffins alight with flames. Yixing lights a single firework and it shoots into the air and covers the sky in bright yellow sparks.

May these lights guide them on their future paths.

No one moves until the coffins are far out of sight, their flames no longer visible. Until nothing but darkness rests in the distance. With heavy eyes, and heavier hearts, you all pull away from the railing.

Those who were close to the ones sent away cry openly and you allow everyone the rest of the night to rest and mourn as they see fit. Crying, shaking, screaming.

People cope in different ways.

As everyone disperses below deck you see Yixing rubbing Jongin’s back as the two of them cry clinging tightly to the other.

You know that Yixing grew up with Taemin. Yixing had been the one to recommend him for the crew because of their shared history. Knowing now that Yixing knew Jongin at the same time, you realize that Jongin must have known Taemin closely as well.

Leaving them to console one another, you walk away.

The stories of their deaths, of their lives, makes your heart a bit less heavy. Knowing that they died doing what they wanted, and not because life was stolen from them in situations counter to their personality eases a bit of the pain.

Minutely.

It still hurts, but the anger is no longer there. Just sadness.

This is the life of pirates after all.

Junmyeon has hidden himself away somewhere on the ship, as he always does when he wants to cry without being found, so you make your way towards the food storage for a drink. You need it after today.

People cope in different ways.

The stairs creak as you descend. One of the lanterns is already on, bright near the liquor storage. It shouldn’t surprise you. You wouldn’t be the only person who wants to drink to numb a bit of the pain.

What does surprise you is who you find hunched over with his face in his hands.

“Baekhyun?”

His head lifts and you immediately take notice of the red in his visible eye and face in the dim lighting. He seems alarmed to have been caught. He looks away in shame.

You sit down in front of him.

The bottle of whiskey at his side is half empty; you reach for it and take a sip.

For your men.

Silence shrouds you both.

You feel the need to speak. To clear the air. Whether you are doing it for him or for yourself you aren’t sure. “No one blames you, you know,” you say so softly that it almost blends into the silence. You hope he doesn’t hear.

But of course he does.

He looks over with anger. “I never said it was my fault.”

“You didn’t have to. You’re down here drinking alone after a funeral. This screams ‘this is all my fault’ you emo fucker.”

He snatches the bottle from your hands.

“Look, okay. No one thinks it’s your fault. You heard the stories. Yeah, you guys shot my ship, but their deaths weren’t directly a result of that. Things went wrong; I will accept that it was just a shot to immobilize us. If any of us thought you a murderer, in this case, we would have hung you by your neck long ago.” You forcefully grab the bottle back with a frown. “There’s plenty of other shit for you to feel guilty over. Like the time you shot me…or stabbed me…or left me on that island for dead.”

“I swear to the Gods-”

“The point is…this one isn’t on you. You don’t need to carry this guilt. Not this time.” You take a quick drink. “If however,” you point your finger at him menacingly, “this was on purpose, then I take all that back and I will kill you right fucking here I swear to the Gods.”

The bottle is taken back. “It wasn’t,” he admits, softly, angry. A swig. “It wasn’t on purpose,” he says again tiredly.

His honesty takes you by surprise. Baekhyun has killed just as many people as you have in your life. If he had tried to kill them, well that would be expected. But for him to be this affected by the accidental deaths? That’s surprising.

“What are you doing down here anyway?” he asks.

“Do you really think you’re the only person on this ship who hides down here drinking? You’re talking to the master!” you boast. “And it’s my ship you ungrateful wrench.” You finish off what’s left of the whiskey and reach for a bottle of golden rum tucked securely on a shelf. Uncorking it with your teeth, you hold it in the air between you. “To Taemin, Kun, Amber, and Jaehyun!”

It burns like hell itself going down.

You hold it out for Baekhyun with an expectant eyebrow raise. You wait.

He grabs it gently. “To Taemin, Kun, Amber, and Jaehyun,” he repeats in a murmur. He makes a noise of pain as the alcohol burns its way down his throat. “What the fuck is this?”

You shiver as the alcohol settles uncomfortably in your stomach. “It's the bad rum I think.” You cough violently. “Oh fuck I think I’m going to die,” you say clutching your stomach.

His wild laugh echoes in the dark space. A bit of the gloom lifts.

You let your hands fall from your stomach while you take in the relaxed happiness on his candlelit face. His eye crinkled in a crescent, shining with mirth. You don’t think you’ve seen him laugh like that since the first time you met him.

He’s pretty. You’d have to be stupid not to admit it. From his soft and shiny hair, to his cheeks that bunch up when he smiles. From his big dumb ears to all of the little moles that dot his body.

The bottle goes back up to his ridiculously pink lips and he laughs as it hurts his throat just as bad as the first sip.

All it takes is a second of thoughtless, drunken courage for you to lean forward and quickly press your lips against his, cutting off his giggles.

When you pull pack, the happiness on his face has made way for shock and then once more to nothing.

“Don’t kiss me,” he says tonelessly. His voice is serious, but you see the spark of challenge in his eye.

Ignoring the part of you that always tells you that jumping headfirst into him is a bad idea, you lean in again, slower. You brace your hands on his thighs and feel them tense beneath your palms. He stares at your lips and you watch enrapt as his tongue pokes out to wet his bottom lip.

You can feel your skin vibrating from the proximity to him, and you freeze; a breath away from meeting skin with skin. Your eyes glance up to meet his and you can see the want, the restlessness, and something else you can’t quite place in the dark.

As if waiting any longer would be torturous, he leans forward impatiently to press his lips against yours. The bottle of rum falls to the ground and spills onto the floorboards of the storage room.

You don’t care.

You push harder; open your mouth to let his tongue slide against yours in a way that sends tingles through every nerve in your body. Maybe it’s the alcohol, maybe it’s the touch of sadness, but something feels different about this time.

You crawl onto his lap, driven purely by instinct and press every inch of your body against his. Heat seeps through your clothes and you pant longingly as he pulls you closer by your neck, his other hand grabbing you roughly by your ass. A wanton moan escapes your mouth and he pulls you closer, rougher. Breaths puff into each other’s mouths as you messily connect your lips over and over again. It’s uncoordinated. It’s wet. It’s exactly what you need.

You thread your fingers in his hair and yank his head back; diving to lick and suck along the column of his neck, to the sensitive spot behind his ear that you know drives him crazy. His grip on your body tightens as he releases a shaky groan and rolls his hips up against yours. Anticipation thrums through your body. To every noise, to every touch your body responds in earnest.

This is nothing but a distraction. For you. For the both of you, you don’t care. Neither of you have to think as clothes are removed. The sadness can be ignored as you claw against his skin and coax his tongue into your mouth. It’s all movement. All feeling. All lust.

People cope in different ways.

It always happens like this. You argue. You fight. You threaten each other. You fuck until you’re both exhausted and too tired to care about the years of hatred between you. For these few moments all you are, are bodies. Bodies moving in tandem, kissing the right places, touching the right spots, connecting at the right angle. Like this things are easy, wordless.

You each just understand how the other works.

Every movement is matched in urgency, in desperation. Touch for touch. Kiss for kiss. Sound for sound. Push for pull. Gasps, moans, whimpers are muted as best you can in the quiet of the storage. You don’t realize that you’re subconsciously avoiding aggravating the stitches that lie there, still fresh, in his side as your hands leave burning paths along his skin.

Just for now, you can allow yourselves to feel that maybe you don’t hate each other as much as you let on.

~~~

“Get your own fucking telescope!”

“Where am I going to get one? We’re in the middle of the god forsaken ocean; do you expect me to pull it out of my ass?”

“You should have brought yours with you if you wanted to use one so bad! That doesn’t give you permission to just take my shit whenever you feel like it. You aren’t Captain here.”

“Oh, bite me.”

“I’ll do worse than that. Seulgi, get me my pistol.”

“Captain I don’t think-”

“You think you’re going to shoot me? Chanyeol where’s my gun?!”

“I’m gonna shoot you right in your last fucking working eye you dirty fucking son of a-”

A hand covers your mouth before you can finish your curse. “Baekhyun, you’re needed in the kitchen. Kyungsoo is asking for you.” You and Baekhyun share one last deadly glare before he stalks off and you’re released.

“What the hell Minseok?” You turn on your gunner, anger from your argument with Baekhyun being projected instead onto him. It has to go somewhere.

He crosses his arms over his chest, unbothered.

“So you’re in love with him right? That's why you’re acting like this?”

Your eyes bulge out of your skull. “I’m sorry, what did you just ask me?”

He sighs, grabs you by your arm and drags you all the way to the infirmary. You’re forced to sit down stupefied as Minseok stares at you expectantly. “The two of you are exhausting to watch. If you weren’t two of our most capable men we would have tied you both up and put you in the brig until we found Atlantis days ago,” he says evenly.

You scoff, mouth agape.

“I would tell you to fuck and move on, but seeing as that seems to be what triggers a fresh round of arguments, I’m going to ask that you two refrain from ever having sex on the ship again in the future.”

You splutter embarrassed. Your skin heats at having been called out so boldly. “W-what?! How- Wh- How’d you find out?”

“Any time the two of you have sex, you spend the next month or so telling all of us how much you hate him, how you’re going to kill him, blah blah blah. After a while you stop being as vocal about it, but then we make port, usually at Arae, and he happens to be there, then BAM we're back where we started. You’re obsessed with each other.”

You flush. “We are not,” you try to deny. His face is unimpressed. “I don't know where you got the idea that either of us feel anything but pure hatred for the other. Okay yeah, we’ve had sex a couple of times. So what? It doesn’t mean anything. I’ve had sex with half of Arae.” You cross your arms defiantly.

“As soon as this is all over, we’ll part ways...in 6 months we’ll go to Arae for a bit, as we always do, you’ll have ‘angry hate sex’ yet again and then spend the next month being pissy over his existence. No one who genuinely hates someone spends so much time a) around them willingly and b) obsessing over them when they aren’t around,” Minseok says matter-of-factly. “I think you should both admit you’re in love with each other so we can all move on.”

“Minseok!”

“I agree,” Jongin’s head pops up from behind the singular bed in the room.

“What are you doing here?” you ask, heat again filling your cheeks at the extra witness to this interrogation.

“I work here?”

“I mean hiding behind the bed!”

“Oh…I uh tripped and then the door opened and you guys started talking and I was too afraid to get up and interrupt,” he says quickly.

You squint in judgment.

“This whole…” Minseok waves his hand around as he searches for the word, “…archenemies thing is getting old, Captain. If you really wanted to kill him, you would have done it already. And I’m sure the same goes for Byun. Right Jongin?” he turns to face the younger.

“Yeah,” Jongin agrees with a shrug.

You can’t believe your ears. “He just…hasn’t done anything worth actually killing him over yet. He’s useful sometimes…for information…” you murmur lamely. The excuse is weak even to you.

“You are both dumb and annoying…and also super transparent. Whenever you injure the other, it’s always in a place that won’t kill or do permanent damage. Don’t act like it’s just been luck that you’ve both managed to miss any kind of serious blow from the other. You’re both deadly fighters, you know how to kill someone if you want them dead.”

“He ditched me in cuffs on that island-”

“You had the key to the cuffs,” Jongin chimes in unhelpfully.

Minseok rolls his eyes at your words. “Yes, and again, in a survivable situation. Was there not food and shit on that island?”

You open and close your mouth pathetically.

“Exactly. It’s not like you’re an incompetent dumbass. You would be able to find your way off even if you hadn’t been found. He didn’t blow the ship to bits like he could have a month ago, you haven’t slit his throat like you could have many months ago. You both dance around injuring each other, making the other’s life difficult, and fucking. You’re in love, please just accept it. I don’t care if you’re into BDSM and blood play or whatever freaky shit gets you guys off, but I would at least appreciate it if you kept it in your bedroom.”

Jongin nods from the back. “I just think it’s obvious,” he adds simply.

“Pff…Psh…Tch…I’m-I am appalled that you would talk to your Captain like this.”

“I know, I know. You could have us hanged, shot, thrown in the ocean, whatever…but the fact of the matter is that you aren’t going to do any of that, and you know that we’re right. Now, I’m going to go make sure Chanyeol hasn’t shot any of my men with any of my valuable pistols, and I’ll leave you to your duties, Captain.” Minseok nods his head with finality and exits the room.

Mutineer…

You glare at Jongin for ganging up on you. He flushes timidly. “I’m uh…gonna go see if Kyungsoo needs any help…Captain.” With a nervous smile he dashes from the room.

This is mutiny…

~~~

The ship sails southeast for days before anything alerts you all of the impeding first trial. The weather is normal, the water is normal, and then all of a sudden, the winds become violent.

“Captain, I think we’re getting close to whatever the first test is…” Yixing says tremulously.

The wind whips around you and the sails of the ship flap violently. There’s no way to tell which way the wind is blowing from as it whips from what feels like every side simultaneously. The ship tilts dangerously to one side.

“Junmyeon…that song telling you anything right about now?” You ask anxiously.

Your first mate looks out on the horizon with worried eyes. “We’re going the right way…” is all he says.

“Helpful,” Yixing murmurs sarcastically.

There is no visible sign of a storm; nothing seems out of the ordinary outside of the unnatural winds. The crew is already reefing your regular sails and raising the storm jib and trysail. If the winds get any stronger, which they will, they’ll catch your regular sails and capsize your ship before the waves even begin to hit.

“Who can man the helm? Who’s the best pilot on board right now?” you ask Yixing.

Yixing looks around a bit panicked. “I don’t know… I don’t know Captain.” The ship lurches to the side.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck…” you scan the ship. Most of the men are working on preparing the proper sails, securing any moving parts, and making sure the wind alone won’t turn the ship on her side. You see Baekhyun working with Wendy on securing lose lines. You haven’t talked to him since your lecture from Minseok all those days ago. “Junmyeon, go check to make sure we have enough ballast in the hold. We’re going to be rocking and we need to pray that we have enough weight to keep us as stable as possible.”

He rushes away; you try to think of what else you can do to prepare. There’s no way to tell how long this storm is going to last, how bad it’s going to be, and you would rather prepare for the worst.

A sea anchor.

“Johnny!” The boatswain is immediately at your side. “Take whoever you need and deploy the sea anchor. We should have one somewhere in the hold. I need you to work fast, but be thorough.”

The ship is going to have to sail against the wind and against the waves. The wind will push the ship off course, but to survive a storm like this the ship needs to keep its bow to the waves. If a wave catches the ship on her side or back, there’s no chance for survival. You’ll have to use your sea anchor and just pray that the Gods are feeling merciful.

“Baekhyun!” you shout. He turns immediately at the sound of your voice. “How good are you at the wheel?”

“I’m decent.”

“How’s your tracking? Your jibbing? Can you keep the ship from capsizing in this storm?”

He looks up in the sky when the sound of thunder shakes the floorboards. “My jibbing isn't the best, but I think I can keep her afloat,” he promises.

The feeling of static fills the air. The hair on your body rises to attention. Another rumble of thunder rolls across the ocean, louder than before. The sky is darker than it was 5 minutes ago.

There isn’t much longer until the storm hits.

“I need you at the wheel. I’m trusting my ship to you. Don’t let me down.” With a determined nod, Baekhyun is off. You see your first strike of lighting. Bright blue and not far off.

Chanyeol runs up to you to assure you that all of the cannons, ammunition, and artillery are properly secured. “Tell Minseok to get all his men below deck in the storm rooms. Secure any hatch and pray to the Gods that we make it through this,” you instruct. He nods and runs off.

When a storm hits, it hurts more than it helps to have people above deck. Three people would do the job just as well as all 20. Half of weathering a storm is the training and skill of the crew; and the other half is just pure luck.

The beginning patters of rain begin to pelt the ship. You run back up to the helm where Baekhyun has stationed himself.

The ocean gets choppy, picks up ferocity. The ship leans starboard. Baekhyun has never steered your ship, and truthfully, you have no idea whether or not he can actually steer through a storm. You’ve never seen him at the wheel of any ship in all the years you’ve known him.

“Do you think we’ll make it through this?” you ask.

“Honestly…I don’t know,” he admits. “We have enough sea room; we won’t crash into anything this far out. I just hope we can pick up enough speed before the waves start to grow.”

Junmyeon reappears, with Kyungsoo at his side, both out of breath. “We’ve prepared all that we can. The sea anchor is deployed, we’ve got a decent amount of ballast, the jib is ready to be backwinded, and the crew is all prepared for the rocking. What’s the plan?”

“Heaving to,” Baekhyun says simply. He swipes at his bangs, heavy with water and clinging to this forehead. “We keep the bow to the waves, keep close to the wind, and then lock the helm in place.”

“Won’t we broadside?!”

“No, if we were to lie ahull, we would broadside,” Kyungsoo supplies, blocking his eyes from the rain picking up in ferocity. “By heaving to, we can keep the ship from going parallel to the waves and capsizing. We’ll have to stay above deck to correct it if the wind or waves suddenly change. Since you’ve got a sea anchor we’ve got more chance of keeping the ship sailing straight into the waves rather than along them.”

“If heaving to doesn’t work, we try to run off downwind. As the wind increases we’ll have to slow down the ship as much as we can so that we don’t dive straight into the wave in front of us.” A bolt of lightning hits the waves. The rain gets harder.

“We would die…” You say unhelpfully. Lighting blasts in front of you and the waves crash angrily against the ship’s sides.

“Exactly. So if we run off, we’re going to need more than the four of us to throw whatever heavy lines you have off the stern,” Baekhyun’s voice rises to be heard over the increasingly loud winds and waves.

“As a last result, we’ll lie ahull and just fucking pray that when we capsize the ship holds for long enough to keep all of us alive,” Kyungsoo shouts.

You exhale shakily as another three bolts of lightning flash across the sky.

Poseidon be kind to us all.

You leave Baekhyun with the job of steering the ship against the waves that grow in size and power by the second.

At Kyungsoo’s instruction, Junmyeon is in charge of keeping the jib backwinded, and you reef the trysail as soon as it becomes clear that it’s going to be a hindrance in the grand scheme of things. Kyungsoo stands at Baekhyun’s side correcting course when he gets thrown off balance. Baekhyun does the same as Kyungsoo is knocked to the side in turn.

The waves become brutal, rocking the ship so hard that it’s nearly impossible to keep on your feet for more than 10 seconds at a time.

The wind finally sets in a single direction, fiercer than anything you’ve faced, and the general direction of the waves becomes apparent. The ship rocks violently from side to side and then immediately forward and back. You’re thrown into the foremast by the unexpected direction change with enough force to knock the wind out of your body. You gasp in pain. You get up on wobbling legs and try to breathe even as the water falls so fast and heavy around you that it feels equivalent to drowning.

You can’t see more than two feet ahead of yourself.

Think. Think.

There is rope at your feet, secured to the mainmast of the ship. You untie it with cold, wet fingers and hold it tight as you walk to the helm. The ship crashes into another large wave and you fall to your knees as water washes over the bow of the hull, covers the deck in freezing water and pitches the ship forwards. You stand up, shivering but determined. You tie the rope around your own waist to help you keep note of where you’ve come from.

Getting to the helm is a challenge, but you make it. Junmyeon is helping Baekhyun and Kyungsoo lock it in place.

“We should head below deck!” You shout as loud as you can. Thunder and lightning work in tandem to drown out your voice. To remind you of who is louder. Who has more power. You’re soaked to the bone.

Each man above deck is in a similar state. “We’re going below deck!” Junmyeon shouts. “We think heaving to may work.” The ship lurches dangerously to the right.

“Quick! Let’s go,” Kyungsoo screams, hair clinging to his forehead in inky black tendrils.

You use the rope to guide you. It feels as though you’re swimming through the air with the amount of resistance the winds and rain are putting up. Kyungsoo makes it to the hatch that leads below first. You follow behind, climbing down the ladder with shaking limbs. Water leaks through the boards, but it’s a welcome change from the brutality of facing Mother Nature directly.

You gasp for breath, finally able to breathe without also inhaling water, and look around the space for the ship’s emergency supplies. The ship dips, your stomach lurches.

Freezing water streams into the room from the open hatch above. You realize belatedly that there are only two of you in the compartment. Baekhyun and Junmyeon haven’t made it down.

You’re thrown to the ground when the ship dips without warning.

Clattering catches your attention as Junmyeon is swept into the room with a fresh rush of water. “Baekhyun fell overboard!” Junmyeon screams. He crashes against the ground. The sky screams.

What?

Kyungsoo turns away from opening the hatch down to a lower level of the ship to gape at Junmyeon’s words in horror.

Gasping, soaked, Junmyeon looks around the compartment frantically.

You’re moving before you have a chance to think.

You vaguely hear your name being called out from behind, but you don’t turn around. Rope still secured around your waist, you run, slip, stumble, over to the closest life boat. As fast as your shaking hands can work, you cut yourself free of the mainmast and tie the end of the rope not tied to your body to the dinghy.

You slice through the thick ropes holding the dinghy to the side of the ship with an urgency you’ve never felt. Water hits you head on, chilling you to the bone.

The final rope snaps and you and the dighy fall into the water with the force of landing on cement. Something is broken, but your adrenaline is pumping so violently that you can’t feel the pain. It doesn’t register.

Doesn’t matter.

You look around frenzied. The water is pitch black and moving too fast. The rain pelts your skin. It stings, burns, blurs your vision.

The waves are too big for him to survive out here on his own.

They’re too big for you to survive in your search for him.

The sky roars.

The waves crash, flip your boat once, twice.

You settle upright for the second time when, by the grace of the Gods, you see his white shirt illuminated against the dark water by a strike of lightning. You row frantically as a wave begins to swell. You nearly scream in relief when you reach him, but the sound dies as your heart sinks.

He’s not moving.

And he’s face down.

With all the energy you can muster, you pull him into your little boat. You take a few seconds you catch your breath, then you realize the height at which the wave has lifted you. It begins to cascade down; instinctively, you wrap your arms around Baekhyun’s unmoving form and brace yourself for the crash.

It’s dizzying.

It hurts.

It’s terrifying.

You hold your breath, close your eyes, hold onto the man in your arms with all you have, and wait for the water to stop jostling you around so violently. The water seems to calm slightly, so you open your eyes.

The water is dark, and then bright. Black, and then illuminated by lighting.

Your chest tightens as your need for oxygen reaches desperation. You maneuver yourself beneath the water enough to hold Baekhyun with one arm and swim to the top with the other.

You break the surface and gasp for air desperately.

You pull your rope and the boat appears at your side, thankfully upright. You lift Baekhyun aboard first, and then with heavy limbs, you topple on top of him. You don’t give yourself a chance to catch your breath before you’re leaning over him checking for signs of life.

You lower your ear to his chest. You can’t tell if he’s breathing. If his heart is beating.

“Come on Byun. Don’t die on me like this,” you beg. You repeatedly push against his chest, the way you were taught to restart a heart. After a few beats you press your ear to his chest again to listen for a change.

Nothing.

“Fuck. Come on…come on,” you pant.

You pinch his nose and lean down to cover his mouth with yours, filling his lungs with the air that he’s unable to take in on his own. His chest rises each time you exhale into his mouth. You go back to pumping your locked hands against his chest. A wave knocks you on your side. The boat stays upright.

You exhale into his mouth again, once, twice. You beg the rain to let up. You beg the waves to grow smaller.

You beg his heart to start beating.

He jerks and water spurts from his mouth. Relief hits you so hard that all the energy left in your body is expelled and you sag forward and land directly onto his chest.

You can finally hear the dull thumping of his heart. You can feel the shallow rise and fall of his chest.

At last, you can take a second to just breathe.

The small boat continues to jerk around, but it’s clear that the worst of the storm has passed. The waves now are shallow and choppy. The rain has lessened to nothing but a drizzle. The thunder rumbles farther and farther in the distance.

And Baekhyun’s heartbeat gets stronger.

You close your eyes, and let exhaustion overcome you, lulled into sleep by the beat of his heart and the rocking of the boat.

[onceuponastory]

Coming Back Home Chapter Four: Open Heart (Nick x Y/N)

“Now you're sitting there so broken-hearted Face buried in a screen, watching other people's dreams But just remember all the fires you started Cuz when you love again, I know you'll turn it up to 10” - open heart: adrian chalifour 

Plot: Six years ago, Y/N left her hometown and all its bad memories behind, and never looked back. But now, she’s come back to be the maid of honour in her sister’s wedding. Returning ‘home’ means she has to confront her past, the last thing she wants to do. When she meets the handsome best man Nick, she feels more comfortable…until her sister asks her to show Nick around town…a town that Y/N fell out of love with a long time ago.

Can Y/N fall back in love with the town she left behind, and maybe find love of her own along the way? (based on prompt by @orphicodysseywrites​)

Tag List: @shinydixon​, @baker151910​ and @thesundrop​. Let me know if you want to be added!

Warnings: Some mentions of anxiety, abandonment and death

Note: I originally wanted this chapter to just be a filler before the next few chapters get more exciting with maybe some drama, but then this ended up being about 3k words. So...enjoy!

Read the other parts / Read this story on Wattpad!

Disclaimer: I do NOT own Nick or his character! I just used Nick bc he’s the only character of Dacre’s that fits this prompt. Aside from Nick being in this, this fic has NOTHING to do with The Broken Hearts Gallery. But you should all go see the movie if you can, because it’s adorable!

That Night

“Goodnight Y/N.” Katie smiles, giving me another hug. “Love you.” 

“Love you too.” I smile. She leaves the room, and I let out the shaky breath I was holding. Even though Katie said she had forgiven me, I knew I had messed up. Nick would never want to speak to me again, and part of me still didn’t believe Katie had forgiven me. I mean, she had to, she’s my sister, and I’m the maid of honour....but what if she actually wanted me to leave? What if she never wanted to speak to me again after this? What if Nick felt the same? I wouldn’t blame him, after the way I spoke to him earlier today. Katie said he was worried about me, but when she brought me back, he was nowhere to be seen. My eyes sting again. I like Nick...a lot, and I want him to know I didn’t mean to unleash on him like I did. And I want to talk to him about it and clear it up...But I can’t, because if I did, there was a possibility that my anxieties would come true, and that I’d be abandoned and alone again, just like when my Dad left us. Maybe he was right. Maybe nobody wanted me. It wasn’t Katie’s fault, she was only a child when my Dad abandoned us. She just got stuck with me. It must’ve been something I did that caused this. It’s always my fault. Shivering, I climb into my bed. My bed is cold, causing me to shiver even more. 

Feeling even more alone, I silently cry myself to sleep.

A Few Days Later - Nine Days Until the Wedding

Walking out of my bedroom, I look up to see Nick leaving his room. I gasp slightly. “Uh...Hi Y/N.” He gives me a smile. 

“Hey.” I reply, giving a small wave. Things still felt awkward between us both, and we hadn’t really had the chance to talk to each other properly after my little....outburst. It wasn’t like we were avoiding each other...even if I was. I still wanted to make things right, but I was still unwilling to confront what would happen if Nick never wanted to see me again. And besides, we just didn’t have the time to speak to each other for more than a few minutes, because we were so busy with our separate maid of honour and best man duties. It also didn’t help that Katie was slowly becoming a bridezilla. I didn’t blame her, because the wedding was fast approaching. She just wanted everything to be okay, especially after what I did...but god, if I had to have one more talk about the correct way to position the centrepieces by millimetre, I would lose my mind. But, I wanted Katie to know that I’d stand by her and help her, regardless of the circumstances. Partly because that was my literally my job as the maid of honour, but also because I’m still terrified she’d stop talking to me after the wedding.

“Can I talk to you? I-” Nick begins, before he is cut off by: 

“For FUCK’S SAKE!” Katie yells from downstairs. See what I mean? Nick and I quickly head downstairs to see what was wrong.

“Um...sis? Are you okay?” I ask, seeing her pacing across the kitchen and biting the skin around her thumbnail. She snaps her head over to me. Anger is written across her face. 

“No Y/N. No, I am not okay. That was the person handling the napkins. They’ve just called to cancel. It’s almost a WEEK before my wedding, and we’re gonna have no fucking napkins! I mean, what are we supposed to give our guests? They can’t eat our meals without napkins! And how the hell are we going to get another vendor in time?! Stupid fucking vendors.” She hisses and almost launches her phone across the room, but I quickly take her hands in mine before she can.

“Hey, hey, hey. It’s alright.” I soothe her, running my fingers over her knuckles. “We’ll get it sorted.”

“And it’s not that big a deal in the long run.” Nick tells her. The two of us look back over at him. With my eyes wide, I quickly shake my head, warning him not to poke the bear even further. “I mean-”

“Yes, Nick. I know what you meant. I’m sorry that you don’t understand how important these kinds of things are to the smooth running of a wedding. That’s so.......man of you.” Katie rolls her eyes.

“Nick’s just trying to calm you down...right, Nick?” I ask, giving him a look. Nick nods, looking slightly confused. “Tell you what.” I offer. “How about I go to the store and see if I can pick up some napkins? It’ll give you some time to cool off?” I suggest. Katie’s head snaps back to me. 

“Did you just suggest buying our napkins from TARGET?!” She exclaims angrily, squeezing my hands tightly. I have to stop myself from letting out a yelp of pain. “Everyone’s going to notice! We’ll...be a laughing stock!” 

“Katie, I really don’t think anyone’s going to notice, and besides...you don’t really have a choice. Now...can you let go of my hands? Please?” I say slowly, trying not to incur her wrath even more.

“Y/N’s just trying to help, right?” Nick says, coming to stand closer to me. “I’ll even go with her to make sure she picks the best ones.” Katie is silent for a few moments and she also lessens her grip on my hands. I quickly shoot Nick a grateful look.

“....You’re right.” She nods. “I knew I could trust you, Nick. And besides. It’s a perfect bonding opportunity for you two.” She turns away. My stomach twists. Bringing Nick means he’s going to bring up what happened between us, and my worst fears might be proven right. Katie takes out a piece of fabric from her bag and shoves it at me. “This is the colour of the bridesmaid dresses. I expect you to remember this colour Y/N, given that you helped me pick them out. The napkins must match this colour.” She insists. “But be quick. I need you two back here soon. I’m going upstairs, and if any more vendors cause trouble, I’m going to stab them with a fucking fork.” She threatens, walking out of the room. 

“Jesus Christ, her grip is like a fucking vice.” I hiss when I’m sure Katie is out of earshot, holding my hands.

“Does she need us back to help her with more wedding stuff or to stop her stabbing the vendors? I’m not sure which it is.” Nick jokes, making me laugh. Maybe things were better between us both about what happened a few days ago. 

“Well, guess we better go before we have to find out.” I sigh, picking up the car keys. Nick follows me outside to the car, and we both get in. 

“Oh, by the way, can we...uh, talk later on?” He asks. My heart sinks. And there it is.

~~~

“How am I supposed to know what colour matches our dresses?!” I exclaim, grabbing a pile of napkins and holding them against the fabric Katie gave me. “Nick.” I sigh. “Which napkin colour best matches this?” I ask, thrusting about five similarly coloured napkins at him. Nick looks startled, and honestly, I don’t blame him. 

“I guess....this one?” He points at one. 

“That’ll do. Thanks.” I toss all of the similarly coloured napkins into the cart. “Well, that’s us. Anything you and the groomsmen need whilst we’re here?” I ask. Nick shakes his head.

“Nope, we’re all good.” Dammit. I was hoping he’d say they still needed to buy everything, so we could postpone our talk. Nick and I pay for the napkins and head out towards the car. “So...” Nick begins, getting in next to me and buckling his seatbelt. I look over at him, bracing myself for what I know is coming next. “Are you hungry? Cause I’m starving, how about we grab some lunch? I think there’s a McDonald’s back there.” He asks quickly. Before I can even reply, or ask him about the talk he wanted us to have, he holds out his wallet. “I’ll pay!”

“Um....” I begin, frowning slightly. “Sure? But if Katie gets mad at us for being late back, I’ll blame you.” Nick agrees, and I drive out of the parking lot. As Nick points me in the direction of McDonald’s, only one thought is in my mind. “Is he avoiding this talk too?”

~~~

“So.” Nick begins, pausing only to take a bite of his burger. Freddie Mercury’s vocals play faintly in the background from the car radio. “I think Queen is infinitely better than The Beatles.” He states.

“Nick, you don’t have to worry about offending me or anything. I absolutely agree. To be honest, I think most people would agree too.” I grin. “Want a french fry?” I offer, holding out my container. He shakes his head. “Good. Was hoping you’d say no.” I tell him, munching on my remaining fries. Nick laughs. “Oh! By the way, Nick....” I begin, licking ketchup off of my fingers. “Thanks for coming to help me with this...and for dealing with our family drama. I promise Katie’s not usually this bad. Wedding nerves must be getting the best of her.” Nick chuckles.

“It’s alright. I don’t mind, honestly. I know part of my best man job is to make sure everything runs smoothly...but I really enjoy spending time with you.” He smiles. Butterflies start fluttering around in my stomach. He...actually likes spending time with me? Maybe I was wrong. Perhaps I haven’t ruined everything.

“You-You do?” I stammer. “Even after what happened?” Nick’s face falls slightly, and the butterflies in my stomach turn into lead, dropping further into the pit of my stomach. Here it comes. 

“Yeah...we were supposed to talk about it, right?” I nod. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be-”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to-” Nick and I speak at the same time. The two of us laugh. “You first.” 

“Well.” I take a breath. “I’m sorry for being rude that day and kind of...unleashing my built-up familial issues onto you without warning. I was acting weird, and you had every right to ask me if you were the reason. I was really horrible to you, and kind of embarrassing, so I totally understand if you hate me and never want to speak to me again. Just tell me, it’s okay. I mean, to be honest, I’d-”

“No.” Nick says, cutting me off. I look at him, confused. Does he...does he want to stop talking to me? I was right, I- “No.” He repeats, as if reading my thoughts. “You’re wrong. I was a dick, and you had every right to call me out on it.” 

“No, you weren’t, I was-” Nick raises a finger, which shushes me. “Sorry.” I mumble.

“Anyway. I was out of line with what I said. I overreacted because I thought you didn’t like me, and so I took my worries out on you. I had no idea you were struggling so much with being back here, and with showing me around, especially after you and Katie’s past...which I also knew nothing about. I’m so sorry if I made those feelings worse. And you don’t have to worry about me not wanting to hang out with you anymore, I told you that I love it.” He leans in closer, staring at me intently. “If you feel upset by anything I do, please don’t be afraid to talk to me, alright?” He asks. I nod. Well, that...went differently than expected. “Can I ask you something, though? That night, when you found me in the kitchen at like 2am, and you fell asleep on the table...did you have a nightmare that night? Is that why you were up so late?” Part of me wants to lie to him, tell him that I just heard a bump in the night and that nothing was wrong...but no. Nick’s been so lovely to me and dealt with all my issues, so he deserves the truth.

“Yes. I did. To be honest, Nick, I’ve had a nightmare every night since I’ve been back here. But it’s nothing new. They’ve been a normal part of my life for a good ten years now, and I don’t see them letting up any time soon. It’s...okay.” I shrug. “I used to see a therapist back in New York, and she told me nightmares are a normal response to what happened to us. Turns out having your Mom die and your Dad abandoning you because he doesn’t love you anymore in the space of a few weeks causes a lot of trauma. Who knew!” I joke. Nick frowns. “Sorry...” I wince. “I like making jokes about it sometimes. It helps me heal in a way.”

“No, I didn’t mean you.” He replies. “Listen. If you have another nightmare and get upset, or need someone to calm you down, just come across the hall and speak to me, okay?”

“Nick, I can’t do that, you-”

“It’s fine. Honestly, I want to make sure you know that you’ll always have someone there for you whilst you’re here. I want to be that person.” I try to say something in response to that, but my mind goes blank. Outside of my family and therapist, nobody was that nice to me...so willing to deal with me and my issues. I lean forward and hug Nick. 

“Thank you.” I whisper, tears filling my eyes. “It means a lot.” Quickly, I pull away from him. “S-Sorry, I don’t know if you’re okay with hugs, or...” I stammer, completely avoiding how we almost kissed a few days ago.

“No...It’s okay.” He says, his voice breathless and husky. It sends shivers up my spine. Nick keeps staring at me, his blue eyes intently focused on me. It’s like it was a few days ago...when we almost kissed. It feels different, though, in some way. It feels...right. Like how this was meant to be. Before I could even do anything, however, my phone rings. Katie’s name flashes on the screen. Typical. Interrupted by my sister again. Guess some things never change. Leaning back into my seat, I answer the call, shooting Nick an apologetic look. “Heyyyy sis....Yes I know, we’ve been gone a while. Sorry, we got napkins then some lunch. Yes, yes, I know you need us back. Still, we got hungry, and-” I hold the phone away from my ear as Katie launches into a tirade about how important it is for us to be on time to help her and Adam with things. 

“Tell her it was my idea.” Nick whispers, shooting me a thumbs up.

“It was Nick’s idea...yes, I’ll tell him. Okay, see you soon. Love you too. Bye.” I hang up. “She told you if that was your idea, then you’re the one dealing with the kids at the wedding.”

~~~

The Next Day

“No, Caroline...it’s not a country estate, there’s not big grounds or anything. It’s just a hotel in the centre of town...Yes, it’s charming. No, there’s no damp, I promise.” I roll my eyes. Caroline was Adam’s older sister, and she was the closest thing to a Karen I have ever seen in my life. She liked everything to be just so, which is fine. Still, with the number of waitresses she had berated and probably caused long term scarring to probably bordering on the hundreds, she was definitely a Karen in my books. Nick walks into the room as I’m on the phone. “Look, I just called to double-check that you’re going to be here on time for the bachelorette party this Friday.” I sigh. “No, I don’t know if they have that bottle of champagne here...The local store is quite limited in its selection, yes. I will check. Maybe bring a bottle just in case....Okay. See you Friday.” Hanging up, I roll my eyes and check her name off on the list. 

“Do you know you bite your tongue when you focus? It’s quite cute.” Nick asks, placing a mug of tea beside me.

“Is there alcohol in this?” I ask. Nick frowns for a second, then realisation dawns on his face. “Was that Caroline on the phone?” I nod. “Oh.”

“God, she’s insufferable. I don’t even know why Katie has her in the bridal party.” I groan, taking a sip of my tea. “I guess since she’s going to be her sister-in-law, she feels like she has to, but fuck me, if I have to hear about this particular bottle of champagne from France in the 1700s one more time, I will lose my mind.” 

“Yeah I’ve met her too, I know exactly what you mean.” Nick responds. “With me, it was talking about how she has to have the most perfect thoroughbred horses for her dearest children Timothy and Petunia to have riding lessons on.” Nick puts on a ridiculous posh accent as he speaks, making us both laugh.

“Oh? Pay my servers a tip so they could actually....live? Oh darling, I absolutely couldn’t! How on earth will I pay for all my darling Timothy’s piano lessons?!” I copy his posh accent, and Nick laughs even more. “God, we’re terrible.” I say through my laughter. “Better not say that during our speeches.” 

“Are you joking about my children and I? Let me talk to your manager immediately. I will sue you into next year!” Nick orders, putting on his posh accent again. I start laughing. “Oh, you’re laughing now? How rude.” He teases, making me laugh even harder.

"God, Nick, you’re going to be the death of me, or my sides, at some point.” I giggle, trying to catch my breath. 

“Anyway, no, we’re not terrible. Caroline is.” Nick corrects me. “Sooo, whatcha up to?”

“Just phoning the bachelorettes to see if they’re still okay for Friday’s party.”

“Oh, we’re all sorted for that on our side. Cannot wait.” Nick grins. 

“Oh, we’re sorted for that on our side. All of us are well put together, and have no issues like bitchy bridesmaids on the bachelor side.” I jokingly mock him. Nick fakes being offended. "Since you guys are sorted on your side, you can sit here while I finish up if you want. I just have these girls left...aaaand my phone’s about to die. Give me five, I’ll go grab my charger.” I tell him, quickly heading upstairs. When I reach the top, Katie is standing there. “Oh! Sorry, didn’t realise you were there. Did you...did you hear us making fun of your new sister in law? I’m sorry, we-” She holds up her hand to stop me.

“Yes, I heard. But don’t worry, it’s fine. You guys are right, she’s a bitch.” She giggles, causing me to laugh too. I walk past her to get my charger, but she stops me. “Actually...what I wanted to say was that I heard you and Nick laughing...and it made me smile.” I frown. “Well, for as long as I can remember, you were always really sad as a kid, and a teen....and an adult.”

“Wow, thanks sis.” 

“As I was saying, given what happened to us both, that’s understandable. But god Y/N, hearing you and Nick laughing...that’s the happiest I’ve ever heard you sound. And the hardest I’ve heard you laugh...in a long time. I know you guys just met a week or so ago, but he really seems to bring out the best in you.” I’m speechless again for a while, and all I can reply with is:

“I guess you’re right.”

“That’s why I’m expecting a credit for introducing you both when it’s your turn to get married.” She winks. I gasp, and quickly shush her.

“Shh! He might hear you! And we’re not getting married!” Katie sighs.

“Look Y/N, I don’t mean to push you, it’s just... after what happened with our Dad, and then Nana dying, I thought we’d never be happy again, but then I met Adam, and he supports and uplifts me everyday. I’m finally happy.” I smile softly.

“I know Katie, and-”

“No, no. Listen, please.” I stop talking, and she continues. “I remember that feeling of happiness, and what it looks like...and god Y/N, I see it whenever Nick looks at you, or when you talk about each other. Your faces just light up. I know it’s not my place to force you to be with him, but just...just keep it in mind okay?” I nod.

“Thanks sis.” I pull her into a tight hug. As I watch her disappear into her and Adam’s bedroom, her words play in my mind. Realising Nick is still waiting for me, I quickly grab my charger and go back downstairs.

“Hey.” Nick looks up as I sit back beside him. “Everything alright?” 

“He really seems to bring out the best in you.” Echoes in my head. Maybe Katie was right. Everytime I was with Nick, I felt...good. Maybe it was because he did make me happy. I smile.

“Yeah Nick, everything’s great.”

[fizzypunks]

Bad Timing

fandom: My Hero Academia/ Boku No Hero Academia word count: 5k rating: T (cannon description of violence) summary: Shouta has to handle the aftermath of the Nomu attack, and Hizashi has very bad (or good) timing

ship: earsermic

AO3

note: best viewed on Archive bc it keeps the formatting like itallics!

___

The day was finally at its end – the sun set in slats across the teachers lounge, and it was 3:55, when most people were leaving or gathering their lives up in a rush to get home. They’d all already left, urgently trying to beat traffic and make their way to whatever Friday plans they had in store.

 Aizawa didn’t have Friday plans – instead of unceremoniously rushing to get home for the weekend, or go drinking to relieve stress, he was instead sitting on the couch. He didn’t have lessons or binders around him, having freed one hand to take out his phone and flip through his lessons that Hizashi kindly spent the time uploading for him.

 The screen was bright and blaring and bled color into color into color – it was hard to look at for too long, but it was the only compromise he could make with his body when it came to improvised lesson plans. He’d type it up, with his one hand, a letter at a time, while his body healed enough for him to do better.

  This is what it is, no use complaining. Just get it done.

 The ache in his eyes he could deal with – he’d be disappointed in himself if he wasn’t used to it at his age, and he’d made peace with the eye strain and pain and dryness and anything else that was unpleasant about his quirk. His body, however, was a new story. It ached in a way he never experienced in his life, deep to the bone and then, maybe, even deeper – not a movement existed that didn’t somehow remind him of his body, his mortality, and it’s still a wonder he even survived.

 He stopped asking questions like  how  a long time ago, though, and he didn’t dare start now. All it did was drive him into crazy circles of  what ifs , dead ending in worse case scenarios that were a half inch away from coming to be…

 This new burn, this new hurt – it conjured with it the same image – or maybe it was muscle memory – of painful blood splatter in his eyesight. With it came a reel of other horrifics images and feelings and sensations that might have been if… 

  It doesn’t matter. It’s irrelevant...

 When he told his class that it didn’t matter that he was teaching, he meant it. It wasn’t what he wanted, but since when did he ever get what he wanted? It’s hero work, and educational duties don’t take a break just because he  broke  ; they never permitted a break because he  wanted  and  wished.  

 He broke. Plain, simple – no explanation necessary. That’s a world he’s unfortunate enough to live in, so he grits his teeth and bears it.

It’s all Shouta can do. Bear it, heal as best he can, move on – think about it less and less until it’s just another frame on the wall of memories that like to bug him at night, those few rare ones that let him rest and dream.

  Bear it. It didn’t kill you, so bear it.

 Still, in the middle of the day, after teaching and improvising and making himself stand upright like he didn’t want to bury himself in sheets, it was a  weird  sensation. Living through something that almost took his life in the most violent, frightening way possible, all for his kids. He didn’t think this time around, with the mending and the processing and the eventual moving on, would feel so…

 Off? Like a buzz on his skin, like time was shifted just a second ahead and he was playing catch up. He didn’t know the right words, couldn’t even explain to himself the things that he was feeling. He finally settled calling it  weird.  Whatever that meant.

 He’d dealt with trauma before, too – but this breed of unease was new, even to him and his seasoned career.

 The room was silent, but it felt louder than ever, and his screen had timed out when he realized he’d been staring dryly into it without doing anything.

 He refreshed the screen with his thumb, lights bright and vivid again like a train at the end of a tunnel.

 He’s stopped regretting his choices, he’s stopped wallowing because after two or three close calls with death, it gets a bit old – but god does he want to wallow  now . Now that his body was broken and every movement felt like shattered glass in a windshield, disturbed with every movement but, at least, mercilessly, held together by…

  What?

 Sheer force of will – he was certain that’s what it was. It wasn’t desire or hope, it wasn’t any positive or cheerful motto – he had time for those later, for now…

 He groaned, the weight of his eyes and body finally coaxing a response from him that wasn’t dead. Responses that were complete opposites from that which he always told his peers when they stopped him in the halls or at the end of lectures.

  “I’m fine.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “It doesn’t matter, now if you wouldn’t mind, I have a class to teach.”

 It’s placating, it’s time-buying – other heroes know the drill, so they don’t argue with him too much – they just insist, and hope, that he listens enough to at least  rest . He always wanted to sleep, right? He had that stupid sleep disorder that always begs for him to rest his head for just a moment, so why not indulge it now?

 He blinked against it – he really did need to sleep, but the screen in his shaking fingers showed that he had plans to finalize, and a fresh round of essay to grade that  needed  to be graded by the next day.

  So  much was behind as is – the last essay, the last score for ethics lecture to be dealt out, a new plan for the upcoming week that adjusts for his kids and the stress they just underwent – no, hero work doesn’t forgive very much, and Aizawa would never tell them that he was giving them a break, but he was going to do exactly that and take off a few quizzes to lighten the load…

 Shouta leaned back against the sofa, and it wasn’t too soft and without structure, that it actually  did  do some good for him. He tilted his head back, too, and felt brief relief in the way his head didn’t feel like lobbing off like a hammer to the side of a statue’s temple.

 He sighed, and leaned into it, the slightest bit of relief he was able to find.

 The one think he was grateful for was that today was better than the beginning of the week. He had a long way to go, but thankfully some of the bandages could be taken off yesterday and today was his first day of being able to fully see – his face was freed, his shoulders lightened and only wrapped with a few white wraps – but it was still a struggle with his arms, his hands – the most damaged parts of his body that were trudging along…

  This is unbearable .

 But he will bear it. 

 But, right now, he will not bear it well. Like he broke under the hand of the Nomu, he was breaking again now and nothing was capable of stopping that.

 He took in a deep breath, and held it just because it felt good to feel so full. He held it and waited.

  This is going to be interesting.

 His breath was waning, it’s time slowly slipping by, expiring.

  This is going to hurt.

 His lungs were wrapped around empty air.

  Bad .

 He still didn’t let go, even when it ached. He didn’t know if he wanted to, but the red-blackness of his eyelids and the sting in him was a comfortable pain he knew he could release, if he wanted.

 Then, finally, he did want, and he let go, shoulders slumping with a harsh exhale.

 He opened his eyes to a slit, and saw the sun spots on the ceiling had grown longer. Golden, mingling, patient – he’d stared at them so many times before, grown bored of them between grading and impatience, but now they were a comfort.

 Familiar monotony and boredom. It seems that being bored was not always a bad thing, after all.

 Early in his career, this might have killed his spirit. His spirit, however, was put back together so many times, and damaged so cruelly and spitefully, that he at least felt some sort of partial happiness knowing it wasn’t possible to batter his spirit any more. It was impossible.

 It’s reached its limit years ago, what’s a new bruise on top of the rest?

 A sound like shuffling, quiet but distinct, came from behind him – clothes rustling, a distinct stiff sound, all quietly entering from behind; and it was intentional movement, Shouta knew.

 His instincts never dulled, even under mountains of bandages. “Hizashi. What are you still doing here?”

 His laugh – the one he would never admit to loving so deeply– was soft behind him, closer this time. “Gee, how’d ya know it was  me ?”

 Shouta wished he could shrug, and instead returned his eyes back to their resting state and closed them lightly. “ Gee  , how’d you learn to be quiet? Or, at least,  try  to be.”

 Soft brushing, padding of feet, the ridiculous squeak of leather – Hizashi walked around the couch and when Shouta felt the dip in the seat beside him, a little too close to him, he chuckled. “It’s hard to be, man – you know I’m stuck with my costume! On the clock, I’m Present Mic!”

 “I was talking about your mouth, but sure – that too.”

 Another laugh came, and it was just as warm and full and bright. Shouta guarded his expression at the sound, because it was too pleasant and he hurt too much to not indulge the pleasant things whenever they  did come. 

 But Mic isn’t Hizashi, and he’s more quiet now, between the two of them. Like he was in hours after sparring through out their friendships and careers, like lazy drawls in the morning when they passed each other, one waking up and one going to bed after a patrol. Quiet and in tune, in a way so few really understood.

 That was the part of Hizashi that no one really gets to see – the way he knew silence and patience that would put his hero and radio personality at odds if the public really got to see it. He was calm and reserved and knew which silences and calms to lean into, which ones to sit with, which ones were the  important  ones...

 He knew it right now, which was why he wasn’t on the limits of his own energy, like a battery fed into itself – a never ending feed that could go forever, Shouta thought time and time again. And his comfort in his quirk made it all too easy to emote and exaggerate and be  too  much for Shouta at times.

 Fragile times, like when his mind was barely glued to the body that was just as fractured and splintering around the edges as his spirit.

 “My, you think so lowly of me, Shouta.”

 “Just being logical. You’re louder more often than not, after all,” he said, and they both knew it was a joking lie. It’s the closest Shouta gets to a joke, anyways.

 The silence returned, and Shouta felt the burning questions in the warm body beside him – too close and yet, not really close enough – within arms length, but not within arms...

 But Hizashi is never one for mincing words or running from questions. “How you doing, Shou?”

 Shouta grunted. “Fine.”

 “No, no, no, no – I’ve heard you say that all week and, well, it’s crazy to think you’d be okay! I want to know  how you’re doing. ”

 “Hizashi, do me a favor. Be polite and just take the answer.”

 “No,” and the response was so fast, and sounded so bratty, Shouta was tempted to open his eyes and tilt his head to the right – to see if he was as close as he thought he was, if his hair was falling, if he’d taken off his orange tints and was looking at him with those stupid pup eyes.

 He didn’t, though.

 “What do you want me to say?” He finally said, quietly – maybe Hizashi wouldn’t hear him if he spoke quietly enough. “Obviously, I’m not fine.”

 “I know that, and –”

 “And it doesn’t matter. So, with that in mind,” and he did open his eyes this time – they stung fresh again, and he blinked, and he turned his head just slightly enough to change his eyes' direction. They stayed fixed in the ceiling, on the honey the sun was spilling, and he said, “I’m fine.”

 “Come on, Shou... “

 “It’s just…”

 Hizashi sighed. “Could you… at least  try  to take time off or stop studies or  something ? I can’t stand – “ and here he goes, he was too emotional –

  So annoying.

 His voice always shook when he was sad, when he was pretending like he wasn’t going to cry.

  So sweet.

 “ – I can’t stand  this. ”

  You and me both.

 It never really did any good to cut off Hizashi, and Shouta hates doing it any way. So he didn’t even attempt it. He knew he needed to say what he was saying, to be heard and unburden himself of the fears living in him. He didn’t really have the chance before, and it wasn’t fair to take it from him now. Shouta didn’t have the energy to deny him any of that, anyway, so his eyes shifted to the crease in the ceiling, the border between it and the wall, and just listened.

 “Shouta, you were almost killed – it’s… it’s so bad, this time – I’ve patched you up so many times and there wasn’t anything I could have ever done about  this , and I want you to stop trying to ignore it. You don’t have to be a hero all the time.”

 Shouta couldn’t help the scoff, and it stopped Hizashi for just a moment.  “Of course I do.”

 He was so bitter, he could taste it like the lingering flavor of cold coffee.

 “You literally don’t –”

 “Hizashi… I don’t have the energy for this.”

 “That’s my  point , Shouta! You can’t –”

 “Can’t do my job? Give me a better argument next time, Hizashi.”

 For whatever reason, that was enough to shut him up. Shouta didn’t want to, but his headache was too strong and his friend’s concern was too soft and he was just a broken vase – hairline cracks that got too big too fast and now shattered at the foundation – unable to hold onto any of it let any of it fill him, so why even try to touch it?

 Hizashi does a lot of things loudly, even when he tries not to – it’s a side effect of being the Voice Hero, a natural course of events that would, rationally, lead him to be a vocal and expressive person. He’s sniffling and trying to stop it, trying to reel himself in, and Shouta sighs again, because the Voice Hero shouldn’t be trying to reel himself in at all.

 This isn’t what he wanted.

 He truthfully didn’t want to be in this position at all, but he’d remembered that he never wanted to spend his time  wishing  , so he didn’t wish – he couldn’t  fix  that, or the way Hizashi was hurting for him. But, he could fix…

 Whatever this was.

 “Hizashi.”

 The sniffling stopped for a second, enough for it to be masked in a, “... what, Shouta?”

 “Thank you.”

 “Hmmph.”

  Pouting?

 “Don’t  do that.”

 “Hmmph!”

 Pure annoyance drove him to open his eyes, and tilt his head, and level his eyes against his best friend because pouting was so fucking stupid. His eyes widened, though, when he finally met Hizashi’s gaze for the first time that day.

 The first thing was that he wasn’t fully in his costume. His speakers were missing, and his hair was fallen to his shoulders in gell-stiff half-mast, finally succumbing to gravity in a way Shouta was certain was due to a hair brush and messily tucked into a hair tie. His tinted glasses were gone, leaving nothing between their eyes as they locked.

  He’d hung up his hero costume for the day, and maybe it made sense that he wasn’t talking like Present Mic any more – not as loud, not as joking, just intentions and and heart.

 He was half way between the two – between persona and  him,  and he looked so soft…

 But his eyes, his eyes that stare so deeply and knew Shouta so intimately over the years their lives had been intertwined – they were wet and silently overflowing, and Shouta was certain the embarrassment of crying was what was so freely tinting his cheeks. It was a brush of pink over pale, high cheekbones, under crescent eyes that leaked streaks down to his jaw, his chin.

 He, however, still had the mind to pout – not that Shouta had anything to say, not with the sudden, brand new pain of his heart aching at seeing his friend like this.

 Shouta’s eyes softened, his annoyance gone like dye down a river.

 Hizashi, however, wasn’t a coward, and held his gaze because he wanted Shouta to know what he was doing to him. 

 And all in the glowing sunlight…

  Stop...

 “Hizashi…”

 “Don’t you dare! Don’t try to stop me or tell me I’m wrong or that I’m crying too much or  whatever .”

 “I wouldn’t dare,” he said, because he had the mind to say something and that was the brilliant thing he thought of. His shame was hot and fast and his eyes shifted to the side, just off from Hizashi in the best possible way he could manage to face the other. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”

 “Well, congrats, because I feel bad.”

 Shouta knitted his brow in anger. “You’re an idiot.”

  Don’t make me feel worse.

 “What th–”

  You always make me feel worse.

 “If you’re spending all your tears on me, then yeah. You are.”

  Because you’re so good.

 Hizashi was crying and clearly upset – anyone could see that – and yet he still decided to furrow his eyebrows and look confused and stupefied all at once. “ Wind it back a few seconds for me, Shou.”

 Shouta raised an eyebrow.

 “Say that again,” he prompted, shifting to face Shouta even more completely. He leaned forward on his knees, on his elbows as he wiped away the tears.

 “I said you’re an idiot.”

 “You’re my best friend.”

  Friend .

 “And?”

 “Not even  you  believe yourself, do you? I’ve seen you cry for me, too.”

 Shouta turned his eyes down. That’s  different  . That’s more than he can ever really explain, and what’s even more, it’s more than he wants to explain. Those words turn into sentences that turn into feelings that  can’t  be taken back, and he’ll never make the mistake of falling down that slope. So he looked away, anything to feel less guilty and like shit, and shook his head.

 Maybe some honesty wouldn’t hurt. “What would you have me do, then? I don’t have options.”

 Hizashi saw him dodge the question, the scenario he’d painted – he scooted closer and Shouta felt too alive with envy, wishing there were no barriers, be them white casts and mental blocks, that kept him from bridging the last of that tiny gap. 

 “I’d have you sleep. I’d have you stay home. I’d have you trust that the faculty, your peers, your  friends , could handle you being out for a bit.”

  The logic is there…

 Still… “No, I need to stay here. My students are back, and I owe them –”

 “It would be a week. You’d have your casts off in a  week –”

 “Who told you that? If Recovery Girl –”

 “It’s common knowledge, Shou, I just  guessed  . But that’s not the point – the point is that I’m  right .”

 Where does this conversation end? He doesn’t want to say it, he doesn’t want to open himself up again, and he doesn’t want Hizashi to be crying like this. Crying, because of him.

 He sighs again. “It’s…”

 He clears his throat again. “It’s easier this way. For me.”

 Hizashi had already been close, but now he was right beside him, the knee he was folded over now just against his leg. Personal space had never really been a thing for him, and now proved to be no different. His big watery eyes stayed trained on his calculated, intentionally flat ones.

 He’s also always been good at picking apart his words to find the realities beneath them. “Distractions, right?”

 Shouta didn’t want to admit to it, but he nodded anyway, eyes falling until they settled on Hizashi’s clavicle. His exposed, open clavicle, and he yearns even more to be able to be closer than this. Take comfort in closeness that was 16 years in the making, but never really actualized. Never, really, fully  realized , either...

 “Yeah… distractions.”

 “Say, if I wanted to come over and make dinner and show you baby animal photos, would you let me?”

 Shouta blinked, and Hizashi smiled – he looked too pretty, glowing from his tears, and Shouta hates thinking that.

 “Don–”

 “They’re baby  foxes .”

 Shouta looked down, and grew pink – it’s pathetic how easily he could be bought, and he wasn’t ever really going to say no to time with his best friend. Even now, he’s always finding himself saying  yes  to the colorful, often too-loud man.

 Hizashi seemed to realize that he’d won, the way his eyebrows stopped dipping, stopped taking such a sad shape. “At least let me do this, Shou – if you’re gonna bring your mummy self into school and yell at kids and threaten expulsion, then let me make stir fry and udon for you.”

 Shouta smiled, small, hesitant, but not quite of his own intention; finally breaking – in a different way than he’s used to. “Fine. Just to be clear, it’s only because I want food.”

 “ Suuure , that’s the reason.”

 And before he could say anything back, Hizashi did that thing that makes his heart weak – the thing he always does when he’s leaning in like this, and it’s too emotional for his own comfort zone, and things are charged with a restless, aching energy. He reached out his left hand and rested it over Shouta’s open one. His phone was already falling from his bruised fingers, so he pushed it down to his lap and held onto the half of his hand that was exposed.

 He wants to ask why he does it sometimes, but doesn’t think that now is the time to ask it. Time, place, his broken body, everything was wrong – so he just let himself enjoy the affection, while he can bask in it with legitimate cause.

 Then Hizashi had to ruin it. He grinned, a little too proud. “Nervous?”

 Shouta tensed, and his body yelled at the pressure in his arms, in his torso. “Excuse me?”

 Hizashi laughed a bit, and he was a little flush – from the crying. “You’re a  biiiiiit pink. Like, blushing. Like, actually, you’re very –”

 “Shut up.”

 “You act like any teensy-tiny bit of affection is like poison, Shou – it’s  okay  if you–”

 “I take it back, actually, you can’t come over.”

 “Awwww, come on, I just –”

 “I mean it, I’ll order from the corner market.”

 “Now that you told me how you’ve been feeding yourself, I’m  definitely  coming over. God, I swear, you should know how to take care of yourself by now, it’s like you hate trying to –”

 “Hizashi –”

 He stood, really fast, smiling dumb and bright as he stood infront of Shouta. “Now come on! Up! Let’s go to your apartment!”

 He offered a hand, but Shouta shook his head. “I can get up fine –”

 Hizashi leaned forward, and it was an awkward placement, the way he was balanced, but he took the phone from his lap and tucked it into his pocket before his hand rested just on the side of Shouta’s shoulder. He urged with his eyes as much as with the slight tug at his waist. “Come on!”

 Shouta looked down and nodded, a feeling of warmth overcoming him yet again. He heard moreso than saw Hizashi smile, felt him beaming at him at letting him help him up, and then the hand on his shoulder shifted, to the spot of his ribs just above the bandaging.

 “Can I pull here?”

 “Yeah…”

 And he did and it really fucking hurt, little splinters under his skin all over again. He pulled air sharply between his teeth, and let Hizashi hook his elbow around him to stop the recoil.

 “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

 “It’s –” Deep breath, relax eyes –  bear it . “It’s fine.”

 It’s not fine, but it’s bearable, so he releases some of the tension he know is sewn into his arms. He opens his eyes, and Hizashi is so close it’s almost startling. His arm still was around him, under his arm, like a brace. Warm, pleasant pressure, pleasant heat...

 “I’m fine,” he breathes again, because for once, Hizashi doesn’t have anything to say. He just stares.

 “Hey… um…”

 “Hizashi…?”

 When Hizashi spoke it was quiet, in a way that betrayed his confident words. “Shou… this is not good timing, but…”

 This time it was Shouta’s turn for his voice to stop working, and he didn’t have anything to say – all too aware of the soft sound of breathing between them, the way his eyes were overwhelming like never before. 

 He had nothing to counter him or force him back or make him leave. He just waited, eyes at half mast because that was the only way he could handle Hizashi looking at him like  that . Like he always did, with care and adoration, and it just made him sick.

 “I almost lost you, and I don’t want to regret not kissing you any more… for years, Shouta,  years .”

 Shouta deserved a medal for surviving the whiplash of their conversation, from the joking to the serious to the trivial to the  important…  he couldn’t move much, but he wasn’t sure if that was his body or his anxious nerves speaking, so he just looked down at his lips.

 “Tell me it’s okay,” Hizashi said, close but far enough for comfort. Far enough for  respect  , for hurting and aching Shouta to say yes or no and only then either bridge the gap or depart. His hand was delicate on his side and his finger tips were light, brushing,  too much. “Tell me if you want…”

 The timing was so awful – Shouta just wanted to move, to take him in right there, to stop him from talking and pull him into himself so harshly and violently that they might become one. Close was never close enough…

 “I…”

 Hizashi’s free hand came up to his cheek, holding him there gently. His thumb brushed under his scar, over the hot skin that he was certain was an embarrassing shade of pink…

  Don’t fuck with me.

 “Tell me, Shou…”

 He was wiping away a tear, and Shou crumbled at the touch. “Y– yes.”

 A sharp breath, then again, louder, stronger, “ Yes. Yes, Hizashi–”

 Hizashi wasted no time, and pressed himself closer, and Shouta wasn’t surprised to taste salt on his lips because he’d spent too much time crying, too. 

 “I’m – not going to change –” Shouta said between breath and kiss, shaking from the anger of just wanting to  hold Hizashi and being un able to. “I’m – still a hero – I’m still –”

 – Kiss –

 “ –  still going to work, and – get hurt – and –”

 Hizashi retreated, lips hovering for just a moment. “I know, I know –”

 Shouta’s breath is heavy, laden with desires and 15 year old feelings and guilt, and doesn’t know where this is supposed to go. He’ll hurt Hizashi like this, he just knows he will – is it wise to let him do this, knowing what, inevitably, is going to happen. He huffs out his nose, trying to find a way to be delicate.

 He’s  never  known how to be delicate, and he just wishes that right now, he could somehow discover the secrets to not breaking his friend’s hearts. “I’m – is this a good idea?”

 “Of course –”

 “No, I mean it – is it  rational , when I’m just – just –”

 Hizashi’s hands are at work again, one holding him up, one wiping away tears from a scar. 

 “I’ll hurt you – I’ll hurt you and it’s inevitable and I can’t –”

 “ Shouta ,” and his voice was loud, and commanding, and energized – his quirk at its lowest state. 

 It worked though – Shouta had no idea how worked up he’d become, how his weaknesses were seeping through like never before; he was broken in so many ways right now and they were all on display, so humiliatingly on display, that he couldn’t even keep himself calm.

 Hizashi kissed him again, slower this time because he, shockingly, knew how to slow down. How to be rational when others weren’t. 

 His lips moved to the side of his mouth, then to his cheek, to his ear – “How long, Shouta?”

 “What – do you mean?”

 “It’s been fifteen years for me… fifteen years. I was in school looking at you. I was at graduation, looking at you. I shared our first apartment, and was looking at you. I’ve been teaching – and I’ve been looking at you…”

  How romantic…

 “How long has it been?” He said.

 It was too good to be true. It was too sad to be true. They’d put this off for so long, and it took a violent, bloody incident to bring Hizashi to him like this. He’d had his chances too, but he’d always shied away from them because it wasn’t fair.

 He’d die a hero one day, and Hizashi didn’t deserve  that .

 Shouta leaned into the feeling of Hizashi’s lips against his cheek, his ear, and told him what he’d never spoken out loud before. “I… fifteen years. Fifteen years, Hizashi…”

 “ God,”  and he’s crying now. 

 Shouta doesn’t want to admit to the few stray tears decorating his eyelashes like spiders on webs, so he doesn’t – he just leans into the soft, awkward embrace from his best friend, and lets him cry because they’ve both been idiots.

 The sunlight was long against the walls, and the halls of U.A were quiet, and Shouta, for all the breaking he’s done, has finally found a way to put some of the pieces back together.

[yikeswtfmate]

I’ll hold you to that

Summary: There’s a new message from a stranger in her DMs, but what does he want from her and why exactly is he so freaking cute?

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader (College AU)

Warnings: swearing; that should be it, I think?

A/N: This is the second fic in two days, who even am I? What am I even doing? What is happening?! My only excuse is that I’ve started this like 2 months ago and only now got round to finishing it so...enjoy?

This might need a second part though, I feel like I need some college dorkiness in my life rn

Also, do some text and ig messages count as making this a social media au? Probably not, since I was too lazy to do that format with the apps and all that?

masterlist // Watermelon Sugar - another part

Natasha is lying on her friend’s bed, furiously typing away at her phone. The chime of incoming messages is constant and it is starting to drive Y/N up the wall.

“You could do this in your room as well, you know.” Turning in her desk chair, ready to start going off on the redhead, Y/N is cut short by a long suffering sigh. “What’s wrong now?” She knows that if she ignores Nat now, she would only get more annoying, which in turn would leave her no chance of finishing studying for the night.

“I’m talking with the people in my group, trying to prepare for the mock trial next month and there’s this guy who is completely infuriating!” Nat spats and lets out another groan, as her fingers fly across the screen. “He says that we should stop defending the CFO and try and get a settlement because it’s obvious he actually did indeed commit fraud. How are we supposed to make a case and win when he’s completely disregarding everything we’ve studied this semester? Of course the prick committed fraud, but we still have to make the case for him, this is the fucking assignment, you pompous asshole.”

“Yeah, babe, I have no idea what you’re saying there, but go you! Down with Wall Street or whatever, but I still need to study for this management exam, so it would be great if you could kindly fuck off to your room?” Y/N smiles at Nat, who finally looks up at her and sighs.

“Fine. I’ll let you study for your stupid exam, but you still need to reply to that cute guy like you promised.”

“Remind me again, why am I supposed to do that?”

“Because you promised, you ass! And your sex life is shit so Wands and I reckon if you get laid, you’ll stop being so stuck up about school.” It’s Nat’s turn to smile sweetly at Y/N, who throws a pen at her retreating form.

“Why are you guys like this?!”

“We both have unresolved daddy issues, now get on with it or I’ll send Wanda in here.”

Y/N sighs heavily and slumps in her chair. She glances at her charging phone on the desk and tentatively picks it up. She unlocks it, a picture of her and her roommates popping up on the screen and the notification is still there. Still taunting her, still adding fuel to her friends’ pestering.

They have looked through his page, of course. They have looked at all the pictures with his friends, some of them recognisable from the halls of college, all the pictures of him in various cafes, restaurants, bars, gyms, but the picture she still comes back to is the one with him at the beach. Wayfarers perched on the bridge of his nose, ruffled hair in the wind, and that tan that stretches from the set shoulders to the prominent six pack (although the bottle of beer in his hand makes those abs so unfair to believe exist) to the firm thighs. She has looked through all of his pictures, analysing every detail and description, still wondering how in the hell she managed to catch his attention enough to grant her a message from him. And then she would go on her profile, filled with pictures from the dance studio, her coffee filled all-nighters in the library, and fair enough, there is that picture of her at the pool where her bum looks just right and she could get why in a sense, but what the hell, look at that guy!

Her fingers still hover over the notification indecisively, when the group chat pops up on her screen.

Wands: do it, bitch

Y/N: I was just getting myself ready!!!!

Wands: u’re a clown

Wands: JUST DO IT

Y/N: why must you attack me like this

Nat: I’m interrupting my fight with that idiot to send you this very important message

Nat: do it, bitch

Y/N: I hate you both

Y/N finally taps on the notification and there - in all its glory there is one simple message that has been giving her a headache since the previous night. Granted, she was a bit drunk on wine, and the shriek she let out when she saw the blinking notification made her toss her phone to the other side of the couch. Wanda picked it up and looked at it confused, while Natasha slumped on the couch in order to see over her shoulder. They both whistled at the same time, which was disturbing in and of itself, thinking how alike all of their mannerisms have become since they became roommates two years prior.

She takes a big breath that does nothing to relieve her nerves, and biting her lip, she finally opens the app to her messages.

JamesBBarnes: Hey

Huh. Funny how such a little greeting makes her tap her leg unconsciously to the point that their downstairs neighbours will be complaining at their door soon. She closes her eyes for a second, shakes her head and mutters a 'what the hell.'

Y/Nwhatthehell: Hi

Now that this obstacle is over, Y/N idly wonders what made her so flustered. He's just a guy who happened to send her a message after following her on Instagram. There's nothing weird about it, is it? They're both attending the same university, she's fairly sure one of his friends is actually the guy Natasha is currently fighting with on that project of theirs. Maybe he just wants to be friendly, maybe he needs some management information for one of his mock trials. Who even knows, so what is she so stressed about? With a huff, she throws her phone away, determined to finish the chapter opened in front of her and relax for the rest of the evening.

She's in the middle of writing the last note on employee engagement, when a ping from her bed startles her into dropping her pen. She turns cautiously, as if sudden movements would force Aragog crawling out of the device, but decides she's being stupid again so she stands up and nearly lunges on the sheets.

As confusion is written all over her face after reading the first line in the notifications bar, she opens the app and stares at the screen.

JamesBBarnes: Listen, I know this might sound weird, but could you ask your friend to stop fighting with Steve? I'm trying to study over here and he's been throwing stuff around since yesterday saying something about a redhead girl who's hijacking his trial just bc she wants to prove a point

She doesn't know what she was expecting, but it's definitely not this. Is that disappointment she feels for hyping herself up just so he can ask this type of nonsense of her? Maybe, but maybe she just feels a little silly for having thought this guy would hit on her on Instagram. She sighs and replies to him, now annoyed with herself more than anything.

Y/Nwhatthehell: why didn't you just send her a message?

JamesBBarnes: From what I've heard about this Natasha, you seemed like the more reasonable one

The reply is swift, and makes her smile. Nat can be a bit too much if not handled with care, especially when it comes to group work. However, Y/N now has what seems like a million questions, and she’s even more confused than a few minutes ago.

Y/Nwhatthehell: how did you even find my IG anyway?

JamesBBarnes: oh Steve has a huge crush on Natasha and we were all forced to go through her every single photo and hear about how amazing she is every single day since the beginning of the year

JamesBBarnes: but maybe don't tell her that 

JamesBBarnes: you know what, screw that. You can even show her that msg, the punk will never be man enough to tell her himself, might as well get my revenge for all the days I've been forced to listen to him go on and on abt her

She takes a second to read the messages again, when a howl of laughter bursts out of her chest. She had an inkling this was the case, from the way Steve has suspiciously been assigned to every single group project Nat had since September. And Y/N could bet his feelings weren't unrequited, for all the hissy fits Natasha has been throwing about him lately.

Y/Nwhatthehell: what if i tell you he might get what he wants if i tell her that?

Y/Nwhathehell: would you be able to put up with him when he's in a relationship with her? He's probs gonna be 10x worse

JamesBBarnes: oh shit u're right 

JamesBBarnes: fuck it, might as well get it over with. At least he'll stop moping every time she calls him an idiot 

Y/Nwhatthehell: you make a very compelling case, James. Studying law must have its benefits...you know, like having strong well rounded arguments

JamesBBarnes: my arguments would make more sense if i would be allowed to study ya know 

JamesBBarnes: and it's Bucky 

Y/Nwhatthehell: ?

JamesBBarnes: my friends call me Bucky 

Y/Nwhathehell: so we're friends now, are we?

Y/N can't stop the feeling of giddiness that starts to inflate through her chest. She might not have gotten the flirtatious messages she was expecting, but this seems somehow better. More real.

JamesBBarnes: if we're playing matchmakers for our friends, might as well be, don't you think?

Y/Nwhatthehell: i think i'll need a stronger argument than that in order to help you

JamesBBarnes: tell you what. I'll buy you a coffee and a pizza if you help me with those two 

Y/Nwhatthehell: coffee and pizza? A man after my own heart

She wonders for a second if that comment will freak him out, but hangs her head with a grin that splits her face when she sees his reply.

JamesBBarnes: only for you babe 

Bucky stares at the screen, unable to process what he just sent. He likes this girl, likes how his first impression after seeing her profile hasn't changed after starting to talk to her. He knows how easy it is to lie away your life on social media, and he can admit he's more than excited that she seems as wholesome and funny through text, and not only through pictures. Following her and sending her that message yesterday was his genuine desperation at trying to do something, anything really to make Steve stop, but he didn't expect to actually want to keep talking to her. He really hopes he hasn't messed up anything, when 'Typing...' keeps appearing and disappearing.

Y/Nwhatthehell: i'll hold you to that, babe

[tempestuous-cosplay]

just cuz

Ask me these probing NSFW questions ‘cuz I’m bored

SEXYTIMES EXPERIENCES

1. How many people have you had sex with?

13? somewhere around there.

2. Can you remember the names of everyone you’ve slept with?

if I try hard enough, yeah, but off the cuff, no

3. With whom did you first do the sexytimes? Was it good?

My first Bf, and hahahaha no. Not at all.

4. What’s the best sex you’ve ever had?

a close friend and i took MDMA and fucked for, like, 4 hours and it was lovely.

5. What’s the worst sex you’ve ever had?

this guy i banged in collage who was just bony, small, boring, and ignored me after.

6. Where’s the most unusual place you’ve had sex?

In a tent? Or the time in a church.

7. Where’s the most unusual place you’ve masturbated?

I don't have any fun or interesting stories about that.

8. Have you ever been caught doing the sexytimes?

NOPE

9. If you masturbate, when did you start, and how?

around middle school or early highschool but it was very rare bc i didn't get much from it. But the first time I actually orgasmed was when I hit 22 and got on T. then jacking it became a regular thing.

10. Have you ever been caught masturbating?

My dad walked in right before I was about to get started. that was the worst.

QUEER SHIT

11. How would you describe your sexuality using only adjectives (describing words–busy, fluffy, squishy, etc.)?

weird and complicated but friendly

12. Have you ever been in a queer relationship?

a solid 95% of my relationships have been queer. Only 1 wasn't.

13. Have you ever been in a straight relationship?

Just one. Gross

14. How and when did you realise you weren’t straight?

the moment i knew it was something that was possible. so very early.

15. Are you out to everyone you know?

p much

16. Where do you meet queer folks to date? Do you find it difficult?

I don't really date. But I made my friends through cosplay and then by meeting their friends and it just keeps going.

17. If your parents know about your sexuality, how did they react?

They always knew. I never really "Came out". I have p chill parents

18. Does your best friend know about your sexuality? How did they react?

Duh. I've slept with a number of them.

19. Describe your first queer kiss.

Much better than my first straight kiss.

20. What’s the queerest shit you’ve ever done?

My queer platonic partner :3

LET’S GET PHYSICAL

21. Are you happy with your body?

happier than i was and on my way to making it exactly how I want. Tho i do wish I was taller.

22. What’s the raddest part of your bod, and why?

my eyes are very pretty

23. What do you do with your body hair (pubes, underarms, legs, etc.)?

I don't do jack shit. Im lazy

24. Do you have stretch marks? Where?

Some where my tits used to be, inner thighs, and my love handles.

25. Describe your nipples in too much detail.

theyre kinda lopsided bc of how they were reattached during top surgery. the right one is super sensitive to touch and its kinda painful bc NERVE DAMAGE and the left one is totally numb

26. (Vagina-owners) Do you have an “innie” (small, tucked-in inner labia), or an “outie” (more visible/larger inner labia)?

supper innie. I, like, don't have an inner labia at all. Its WEIRD

27. (Vagina-owners) Is it very obvious when you’re turned on (swelling, wetness etc.)?

Yeah bc my clit is HUGE now thanks to T. It gets HARD

28. (Penis-owners) Describe the size and shape of your penis. Are you happy with it?

its, like, an inch an a half long and really small :3. I like it

29. (Penis-owners) Have you tasted your own cum? Did you like it?

Yeah, its kinda tart

30. (Breast-owners) How does the size of your breasts compare? Is one bigger than the other?

Back when I had them, the left one was a lil bigger than the right one, but i had huge badonkers. Just MASSIVE. They were nearly perfect, but they were on me, so it was horrible.

SEXUAL FANTASY LAND

31. Describe your most unusual/taboo fantasy.

consensual non-consent in fiction. I don;t think i could do it IRL.

32. Do you fantasise more about real situations, or imaginary/impossible ones?

It fluxuates, but mostly its very fantasy.

33. Who’s the oddest person you’ve fantasised about?

The Devil from The Arcana

34. Do you ever find yourself fantasising absent-mindedly, or is it something you do on purpose?

it fluxtuates, but horny daydreams are common

35. Do you always fantasise while you masturbate?

sometimes, yeah

36. When you fantasise, does it usually lead to masturbation?

it actually doesn't more than it does.

37. Have you ever had sex with someone while fantasising about someone else?

nah

38. Do you have any celebrity crushes that you fantasise about?

Hozier has had more than one sex dream in my head.

39. Have you ever fantasised about something by accident, and felt weird about it after?

oh sure. thats p normal.

40. Describe your most sexy fantasy.

hah, no. THats too much to type.

KINKTOWN USA

41. How do you feel about BDSM?

im fine with it

42. What’s your most unusual kink?

probably being a living sex doll

43. In an SM context, do you prefer giving pain, or receiving it?

Im not the biggest fan of either but I would rather receiving bc im too scared of accidentally really hurting someone

44. Do you consider yourself to be dominant, submissive, both, or neither?

Im a sub leaning switch.

45. Describe your most recent bondage experience.

got tied up in cosplay for a photoshoot.

46. In a BDSM context, have you ever referred to anyone as “daddy,” “mommy,” or any similar term?

nope but i've been called daddy

47. Do you have a kink for any bodily fluids (pee, saliva, blood, tears, cum, etc.)?

cum, blood, and spit to a small degree.

48. Have you ever revealed a kink to someone and had them react negatively?

not yet tbh.

49. Do you have any kinks that you’re ashamed of?

nah, not really

50. How much money have you spent on equipment for your kinks (toys, whips, chains, etc.)?

OOF!!! A good several hundred dollars. Like...... its a fairly high number.

COME FOR THE QUESTIONS, STAY FOR THE SUBHEADINGS

51. (Vagina-owners) Do you ever squirt when you come?

I have a few times!!

52. Have you ever come solely from penetration (anal or vaginal)?

no, that I haven't managed.

53. Can you have an orgasm without your genitals being touched?

HAH I WISH but no

54. Describe how you like your genitals to be touched.

Nice slow strokes on my clit like a dick with some gentle rubbing on the lips.

55. How sensitive are your nipples? Does nipple play turn you on?

One is numb and one is very painful. So no.

56. Do you find it easier to orgasm with another person, or through masturbation?

Jacking it. I almost never cum with a partner. Sex is more for bonding than personal pleasure tbh.

57. Have you ever had an orgasm that you weren’t expecting?

A few times, yeah!!

58. Do you get off easier from rough contact, or gentle?

rough ish??

59. What’s the best orgasm you’ve ever had?

the few times ive squirted.

60. Did it take you a while to have your first orgasm, or were you an early starter?

took until i was 22

ORAL FIXATION

61. Do you enjoy giving oral sex? Why?

YES!! Its a good mouth feel.

62. What’s your favourite position in which to receive oral?

not sure yet.

63. Describe your oral sex technique.

suck and wiggle. suck and wiggle

64. Do you find it easier to give oral to someone with the same genital configuration as you (eg., you both own vaginas/both own penises), or different?

theyre about the same amount of effort for me.

65. Describe the worst oral sex you’ve ever received.

too much teeth.

66. Describe the best oral sex you’ve ever received.

I was..... on some drug or another, can't remember what, and bro, i mELTED

67. Do you ever simulate oral sex while masturbating (sucking on dildos etc.)?

rarely but sometimes

68. How sensitive is your mouth? Is it an erogenous zone, for you?

not much? but its fine

69. Do you like 69ing?

never tried, not super interested

70. Can you deep-throat?

anything smaller than 6" yeah.

EVERYTHING BUTT

71. Do you like it in the butt?

yeah but it takes a lot for me to be willing to do it.

72. What’s the strangest object you’ve had in your butt?

a phallic shaped kite handle (I was young and stupid)

73. Do you enjoy being rimmed?

sure

74. Can you take a lot in your butt, or just a little?

just a lil

75. Describe your most recent experience with buttsex.

I was, again, on drugs a little under a year ago and let my best friend pop that particular cherry.

76. Do you like doing stuff to other people’s butts?

im indifferent leaning on rather not.

77. (Prostate-owners) Have you ever received a prostate massage?

nope

78. Do you own any buttplugs?

nope

79. Have you ever had an embarrassing buttsex experience?

not yet, hopefully never

80. Have you ever pegged someone (ie., worn a strapon and fucked them in the butt)?

not yet

SHARING IS CARING

All questions assume you’ve done group sex of some kind

81. Describe your most recent group sex experience.

got one coming up in about a week? but an orgy at a furry convention.

82. Have you ever had sex with more than two people at once (eg., foursome, moresome)?

sure have

83. Have you ever had an orgy? Would you?

yup, and YUP!!!

84. Do you enjoy watching your partner(s) having sex with others?

ehehehe yeh

85. Do you prefer to arrange group sex beforehand, or allow it to happen organically?

both are fine!

86. Have you ever felt left out during group sex?

nah, im too sexy for that

87. Have you ever done a gangbang (ie., lots of people have sex with one person, but not each other)?

not yet but i WANNA

88. Have you ever teamed up with someone and given a double blowjob/double cunnilingus?

not yet :O,,,, WAIT!!! YEAH I HAVE!!!!

89. Have you ever been penetrated by more than one person at the same time?

not yet but god I wanna

90. Have you ever been ejaculated on by more than one person at the same time?

not yet

**BONUS DARES**

100. Send me $500.

[bxdybcg]

Young & Nadia

sarcastrophicv — Yesterday at 21:13 Odette just took the head so she shows him the box and fridge and is like... i figured why vampires need fridges

sineater — Yesterday at 21:14 He's glad the head is gone. He doesn't want to see that man ever again [21:14] probably teases her about her and Si becoming besties

sarcastrophicv — Yesterday at 21:15 "I said the same thing but in a weird way? The focus on it helped me process it. Could you feel that?" [21:15] "The gremlin is.... something else. But you were friends at one time too. What does that say about both of us? I start to see why people think we are similar"

sineater — Yesterday at 21:16 "How you process grief is individual to you. Even if it is keeping that asshole's head in a freezer. There are worse ways to deal with it. Does it talk to you or is it just staring back at you?"

sarcastrophicv — Yesterday at 21:17 "It just... I don't know its not that it's his face, it was just a focus I needed. Could have been the empty fridge at this point. How are you coping? How is Hector?"

sineater — Yesterday at 21:22 "We were. He's a good devil on the shoulder but as long as you are aware of yourself he can't do much. We are you are a lot like what I used to be like. Before Maladh anyway. That's not a bad thing why I sired you." "Ah something to put the actual feeling on. I'm getting there. Had my moment with Selin. Hector is being assessed. Kisuke has asked a specialist to come see. Apparently she did the eyes on... Sai. Yeah Sai. He's quite keen to have her so she can hopefully help. As for Hector himself until he gets his memories I'm just going to keep my distance for the both of us. But I keep asking. At least have a vague presence"

sarcastrophicv — Yesterday at 21:27 "I am aware of what I do... most of the time. But I did morbid things too... I don't judge him for that. We are very different but similar at the same time and I can't believe it took me almost two hundred years to figure it out. I'm glad I did because... it helped me."

"Yes. It was just... a thing. Mhmmm... that's good, I trust Sai, I trust his judgement. Selin and you are... better (assuming she knows bc duh she gotta know it all)? See, I feel the same way about him. And Mark. I don't know I was not ready to see or hear from anyone. Not even you. Sorry I pulled away but I needed this. The head helped me numb all the confusing feelings. You, Raisa, Shin. She was the first person I saw because she just showed up. Kind of glad she did because otherwise the head might would have started talking to me. hehe."

sineater — Yesterday at 21:38 "I have in the past too, started wars. Not something to be proud of. Si's a controlled evil I guess is the best way to put it. Yue knows how he ticks and so uses that to his advantage. Our anger is similar. I just have not had much cause to be that angry and hopefully it will be a while until I will get that angry again"

"There is no judgement here. If you feel better for it then that's all that matters. I didn't realise they were twins. I met Kai a month ago maybe a bit longer? Not that part matters. I know Yue works with them. If he trusts them then they are doing something right. We are... getting there. Something I have to work with but I rather that than her out of my life. You don't need to apologise for how you deal with grief as long as you are not a harm to yourself or to others that's the important thing. Could have started singing 'another one bites the dust' or 'burn baby burn' would be apt with the chemical burns."

sarcastrophicv — Yesterday at 21:59 "I know, and our bodycount is not much different from each other. I just did it in the name of duty at the time and didn't start them. I know I will be less prejudgemental about Si, his progeny -- vampires in general. But hey, as long as he can channel this sadism into something productive? because this now? no idea what went down but Odette is... doing medical stuff on it. Yes, I hope so too. If it wasn't for Sai just grounding me.... I would have burned the building down with all of us in it. I am glad I didn't. Speaking of... how is Jae? I think she is the next person I need to see -- if she wants to."

"They are both my bosses and I adore them. You really should get to know them. Each of them somehow a genius in their own way? Like Sai, he's got the whole tech thing going on so... Well, you did mess up but you both love each other and have found just the perfect fit. I think she also knows its worth holding on and working it out. That's the thing, I knew if I didn't pull back I would have eventually harmed others but instead I was just... processing. Hmm... Interesting. But I think I will ask him about it because he might just... wants to get excited about it and I am ready to hear it -- shh, no spoilers. I already sent Si thank you flowers."

sineater — Yesterday at 22:21 "They are similar yes... I did it out of anger. A lot of anger and a devil on my shoulder. You can be cautious about him there is never harm in that. He's just different and very much likes to use those around him for his own gain. Yue always has to be at least one step ahead of him and that was why he pretty much exploded when he found out about Si running for mayor. Because for once Si was ahead of him. Which can be dangerous. Yue channels it not him he is very much on a leash with Yue you just don't see it because though Si would never say it. He is very loyal to him. Medical stuff... I guess I'll avoid my labs for a bit then. Ah so that was what he was doing. I am glad he was there then. Jae, well I think she has retreated somewhat. I think she will be with Marcus. He'll ground her. I think something like this being played like that it has caused her a lot of humiliation. I just hope she doesn't completely retreat from us. I am not happy at the situation but I know she was played like the rest of us. I think Yue will try and get her out."

"I will especially since you speak so fondly of them. They also seem to care a lot for those that work with them. Don't see that a lot. I did and I will never say I didn't. I own up to my mistakes not hide them. We'll see but I am cautiously optimistic about it. It takes a lot to know yourself I'm glad you did take the time. . You sent him flowers. I think he'll appreciate it. "

"So what else did you want to talk about because i know you are excited about something and the things I have come up with is found someone else to sire or something big has happened?"

sarcastrophicv — Yesterday at 22:37 "I don't let others use me, that's not going to be a problem. Well, the mayor thing had me really angry too but then... Well, he definitely is something else. Don't worry, she will return me the skull. I don't think she will leave any of it in recognisable shape too. Which might... not be a bad thing. Maybe if I had gotten just the skull from the beginning the whole head situation would be less weird."

"I don't know who Marcus is either -- I am so behind on family things. I will... reach out to Yue. Yes. I need to get to know him better. As for Jae... whenever she is ready... or maybe I should just try? What do you think? Maybe she needs to hear it from me? Or do you think better not. Well, first of all I wanted to apologise for disrespecting her property, but I don't regret it. At least we got Hector our alive."

"They care. They do. They are wonderful. And their brother is the mayor. I am very... weirded out by the whole situation, yes. And I am not a fan of tech -- you know i barely handle my smartphone. But I trust Sai. I didn't know what else so I thought... yes. But I had to send him a thank you."

"Well, a few things. Also Mark but I think that's something I need to figure out on my own. Don't get me wrong but I don't want any kind of influence on it, whether it be good or bad -- I am only angry at him. Nothing else. But, moving on... I know this girl and she has asked me a million questions about vampires last night. And basically... what if someone dies with two kinds of vampire blood in them? I thought if anyone you know about it."

sineater — Yesterday at 23:12 "I didn't think so. I was a lot younger and very stupid.  He's a gremlin, looks cute but if conditons are right... absolute monster. Good, I think that face will make me see red for a very long time. Thank goodness I don't see any way of me seeing it anytime soon. It is what it is and I really wouldn't think too deep on it"

"I have met him through times of being a Liaison. He's a nice guy. I think he has his hands full with Jae's latest progeny from what I hear. You should meet Yue. He may act cold but he does care for his line. I think he does want to get to know you more too. He's not one to push though. I think she would appreciate it coming from you. I'll approach her soon as well. It's something for us all to face. I don't think what you did was wrong and I will stand behind you on that. Yes alive but traumatised for sure."

"Ah the Virgin mayor. I know Yue was keen on having him in. He doesn't like power imbalance and he was keen to have someone neutral. No ties means no favouritism or subconscious bias. Tech I can live with but I am good with being as I am. Don't think I can pull off the heart eyes like Sai can. He does actually like flowers believe it or not. Though not like roses more like spider lilies. I think."

"Mark... I'm not going to give my opinion on that as he is your progeny. It's not my place to say anything so unless you ask I won't offer. Ah, been curious about this myself actually in theory it could create a double bond. Our blood has magical properties to it. I think bound to the curses Shiva weaved to create us. It's not been knowingly done because it would be a lot on the newborn. They would be linked to the emotional states of two sires. They would have to be sound of mind and stable emotionally and so would the sires. It's a cool concept thhough always wanted to try just would have to get a lot of others involved if I ever were to do so"

sarcastrophicv — Yesterday at 23:22 "If anything, it helped me find... closure."

"My aim is to meet everyone. Tell me about cold. I have been avoiding everyone. You let me find my own way but I was wrong. And thank you, that helps me. In all of the things. You know what? All those years, we are distant, together. But no matter what I do... you are the most important person I have ever met. Not only because you gifted me an eternal life. You made me, shaped me into who I am. Even if I get angry at you... That's it."

"Oh yeah. Do you think that's true? The virgin thing? I mean it's a running joke ever since but it didn't really harm him either. He won. Well, we all were on the same page then. My ex ran but... I voted against her."

"Good to know because I sent him just those I think? They looked weird enough to be like his thing. Roses I wouldn't have considered for him. Even if real black one's were to exist."

"I think I will talk to you after I saw him first. I mean I do need someone to process it and you are the first person I usually tell my stuff too. Even if I did not do it in a long time."

"Well. I like her. So... I guess what I am trying to ask you is... should we ask Shiva about it before we do it?"

sineater — Yesterday at 23:43 "That's the important thing"

"Good you should. I let you be you everyone takes their own time to get to where they want to be doesn't make you worse or better. It makes you, you and I wouldn't change that. I was also worried if I tried to pull you to us you would pull away completely. Which is the last thing I want you to do. You are also important to me, don't forget that. I have lost enough progeny in my life. You and Hector are important to me. I would start a district war with no regrets should any of you come to harm. I have a habit of that."

"It's a total rumour. He was nervous and he wasn't really policing his words. How they may be interpreted. I'm good at reading people he is no virgin just may not have a lot of time for a lot of partners. Which is a shame he's really good looking. Considering the ordeal we just went through I am glad you did."

"Spider lilies signify death or final goodbyes. Though they are hauntingly beautiful as well which is also right up his street. Spider lilies are safer much safer"

"I am happy to listen as always. He is your first progeny after all."

"We? I mean yeah of course I would love to no ownder you got so exicted about this. I would really like to look into this"

sarcastrophicv — Yesterday at 23:51 "A war won't be needed for me. But I know where you are coming from. I would do the same for Raisa and Shin. And this is why I don't cling to either, Raisa came back to me and Shin loves to travel. See, you taught me that. You as a sire made me into a good one."

"I figured that. And I agree but.... hmmmm... boss brother, you know? Maybe you should... you know, score with the mayor. You and Selin together."

"He is but he fucked up majorly. i decided to not blame myself after he said he wanted to be better than us. US? no, he disgraced us."

"Who else would I be asking? I considered Raisa or Shin might be ready for their first sire but i think, seeing as this is a special case let me just praise myself and she will get the best option available. How do we contact Shiva?" 18 March 2021

sineater — Today at 00:20 "Would still start one and I don't think I would be the only one either. How are Raisa and Shin? I never had any doubts of you being a good sire"

"Yeah I can see that would be awkward. I can see if she is up for it. If not then I wouldn't mind it being more intimate"

"He said that? that would not have sat well with me if he said that to me. Sure we are not exactly unique but we are special in what we are. The bond, our ability to live forever. See the world change and learn with it. Wouldn't give it up for anything"

"True, still privileged nonetheless. Shiva could be found at her work she works with Kisuke at the hospital I believe. Best bet to try there first."

sarcastrophicv — Today at 00:27 "Good. Raisa was a little bit worried about me but I assured her I'm fine. I can't pull away like this again. Next time I will let all of you know."

"Have fun and don't spare me on the details."

"See? If it was not for that then I would have felt guilty. Excused cutting the bond because of pain  or some shit -- We are fucking perfect and it's sad it took for this to happen for me to realise."

"Oh perfect. Do you want  me to reach out to her or do you want to?"

sineater — Today at 00:32 "I think we would all appreciate that"

"I won't"

"I know Yue would have not liked to have heard that. I would not beat yourself up for it. You have all the time in the world it doesn't matter how long it takes to fully accept being a vampire"

"I think you should meet her. Would be a good opportunity for you"

sarcastrophicv — Today at 00:36 "I'm sorry. I just wanted out of there and home and not deal with the world. But I know for the future."

"He... heard it. But I didn't see his reaction. He just... handled it wonderfully professional and although I can't feel him, I just know he was angry. Is he okay? I really should meet him again."

"Alright, I will schedule my appointment with a therapist."

sineater — Today at 00:44 "Enough apologies what is done is done and you didn't hurt anyone so stop it."

"He wasn't a fan of the situation as a whole. Yue has had a lot recently but then considering the life we have been through he is not a stranger to a lot going wrong at once. Most of his progeny learn quickly though he may appear calm internally he's a storm sometimes. He doesn't like to open up though."

"We all need one. Highly recommend it"

sarcastrophicv — Today at 00:46 "Wow, okay. I am trying to make up for the lack over the years. But okay. Thank you for making me feel better. I would be... not me if it wasn't for you."

"I have seen his newest there too. I missed out on so much, I didn't even know there was one until I saw her."

"of course you would."

sineater — Today at 00:52 "You are you, I accept you as you and you do not need to apologise for being you. Hmm I just helped you along the way. You took the steps"

"Lavinia, I like her. She will be a lot of good for Yue. She just has to survive his temper spikes. "

"Damn right I would."

[semiconducting]

just reflecting on some personal growth stuff from last year !

im actually. genuinely okay. like i think im starting this year feeling okay! which is atypical. 

i think i can attribute it to the enormous amount of work id put into myself over the past year...i remember one year ago being extraordinarily depressed and really just. high strung? incredibly anxious but exhausted. and i fell down a descent slowly from not eating, to getting really irritable and not handling conflicts with friends well, to actively self harming again, to the point where i remembered sitting in a coffee shop with one of my friends and saying out loud that i need to go to therapy. and that i was going to talk to a mutual friend of ours about how the therapy services on campus are. which was a huge step for me! ive always had trust issues with therapy services since i was 12 for reasons i wont go into, but im sure you can gather the point of.

and then, literally the next day after saying that, got news about campus shutting down because of the virus.

and i made all of the effort possible to reach out to my friends and get things figured out to weather the storm because i KNEW shit was going to get bad if i didnt. but only one of my friends was really keeping up, and thats because he and i do homework together so we were already in a rhythm of talking every single week no matter what. and thats not to say that im ungrateful for him or the fact that even still he was there for me while i was going through hell, i have this thing about Not Putting All My Problems On And Confiding In One Person And One Person Only. so i withdrew, i stopped talking to everyone, i stopped logging into my classes, i didnt do any homework, i didnt lead my workshops, didnt hold office hours...i was just wallowing in my own misery

and i made plans to kill myself. and thats like, i mean i could say that several dozen times over the course of a year since i was like 12, but i mean a legitimate walkthrough plan. had my hiking bag packed with everything i was going to use, decided where i was going to, and was going to prep myself for it. wrote drafts and drafts of suicide notes until i decided just leaving the contact info of people who needed to know asap was all i was going to leave. in addition to sticky notes on some stuff in my room for what needed to be returned to who, or if something should go to someone in particular...

and i acted as normally as i could around my housemates. attributed my not leaving my room much to being busy with classes. i have a rule to myself to always sleep at least one night before killing myself because if im really serious about going through with it it can always wait one day. this time i decided i was going to clean my room and leave it as pristine as possible. the last thing i had to do was a load of laundry, and then i was going to do it.

and then someone from campus showed up at my door. because one of my professors filed a report and i hadnt responded to any of the emails id received checking in on me.

so i readjusted. caught up on my schoolwork, just barely finished the semester and definitely didnt do it strong or well (god bless the pass/fail option bc of covid LOL), but i did it nonetheless. went home, started my internship, had a miserably mundane summer.

i grew bitter and apathetic. i was angry at my friends for not being responsive when i reached out to them to talk or hang out or do anything. i got tired of dealing with it. i was tired of feeling alone and like no one gave a shit about me except for when it was convenient for them. i decided that i wasnt going to deal with people who werent willing to put any effort into me, so i stopped talking to everyone and kept up with people who were willing to reach out after the fact.

it’s definitely not the best approach. it’s really unforgiving and it doesn’t give people a lot of benefit of the doubt, but i think it was necessary in some respect. i didn’t have any criteria for how people needed to reach out, or how long after, or whatever, just that they did. really needed people in my life who are willing to communicate with me. i was honest with how i was feeling and why i did things if they did, apologized for the shitty approach, thanked them for still being willing to talk to me, and worked out the best way for both of us to keep things going.

over the months i dont think i really regret the decision, because it’s been a weight off my shoulders. i feel a lot better. i’m far more okay with where i stand in all of my friends’ lives, even if that’s not as a priority and even if that’s as just someone to talk to and catch up with like a couple times a year. it took a bit for it to pay off but it’s nice to take a look at people i was putting far too much work into and upon reflection realizing that they only interacted with me when they needed something from me, and not for me as a person. i think there are still people where there are loose ends and i think i may try reaching out myself to tie those up at some point, whenever i have the energy and clarity of mind for it. but i guess at the end of the day i just decided that people who weren’t willing to communicate weren’t worth the time. i’m okay if that communication means i need to be the one to initiate conversations even! i just need to know that.

but yeah. i came back to ny and started the semester totally apathetic and angry. i was so fucking depressed and bored with everything even if i was keeping myself incredibly busy. the only thing that i found rewarding (and what was just barely keeping me going) was leading my workshop for the intro optics class. 

and then a friend -- the same friend i was at the coffee shop with -- reached out to catch up. and i was honestly really bitter and angry with him and was prepping myself to start listing out issues that i hadnt been able to address with him beforehand (side note, while telling friends the issues you have with them is important, listing shit out all at once is hardly ever a good approach especially without warning LOL) but ended up...just having a calming and comfortable conversation about what was going on in our lives since we last saw each other. 

n later that day i ended up reaching out to an old friend that i had been meaning to catch up with because we fell out of contact, but had just barely been trying to start talking again in the months before this but had kept missing opportunities to properly converse. but we talked again, and we set up a day to hike and catch up.

and he comes to my house and picks me up. and i get in his car. and its like, holy shit, its been almost a year since ive seen you. and we hugged. and just started to catch each other up on the mess that had been our lives since we’d actively been in contact. we hiked, he told me about the books he wanted to write, we talked about people we knew, we talked about politics, we talked about school, we talked about life, and it was just as comfortable as if not a day had passed...even though it was obvious that he and i were both changed people over the past year. nothing about our friendship was any different though.

we resolved to hanging out with each other every week. decided we both needed the interaction, appreciated having each other around, and had a nice overlap of free time in the week that worked well. friday nights unless otherwise specified.

it was totally unexpected. he’d always been a great friend to me, but i never expected us to get as close as we did. neither did he. he’s probably the first person in my life (or at least in a very long time, and certainly the only person at the time) that i’d been so comfortable with that i practically had no boundaries around. none that needed to be addressed, anyway, because the only possible ones to throw up wouldn’t even come up (but of course, i constantly reassured that as soon as anything came up i would let him know because early on he kept asking sjhdkjfh). 

he became something for me to look forward to in the week. towards the beginning he was a shoulder to lean on when i needed it and was willing to listen to things i hadn’t been able to tell anyone out loud. and he confided in me as well. it was comfortable. it was safe. it was a level of trust with vulnerability that i’d never shown anyone else. 

but it wasnt even just that! it was fun! hes so fun. we could talk about everything and nothing, and hes one of the only people where i feel like i have to keep up with him in conversation instead of the other way around. we’d jump from topic to topic so much faster than either of us could think and it was all always so interesting. littered with humour that was just dumb and simple. i felt comfortable just being an idiot with him. i felt like i had nothing to prove. 

for the past few years ive held to the sentiment that i like to hang around with people that make me a better person. but somehow, with him, its not that i felt like he made me a better person, but that he made me more myself. he saw who i was without any kind of fronts. and i always was afraid to show anyone that me because i always assumed that they would be depressing, loathsome, bitter, angry, and vicious.

but....i’m not. i learned that i’m incredibly loving. that i’d do fuckin anything to for my friends, but always in a way that was healthy and rewarding for both of us. i’m very light-hearted and my sense of humour is so stupid, but also very analytical and thoughtful. just a bit judgmental and pretentious, but always for things that people dont expect. totally open minded in discussions. an avid explorer, and a bit of a thrillseeker. and so, so, so affectionate.

i realized im. not as horrible as ive always made myself out to be. i accepted that i didnt need to punish myself for things beyond my control. i realized that i could believe people when they tell me that they enjoy my company, or appreciate things i do for them, or that they think i’m a worthwhile person to keep around. 

its not that i dont have my flaws, its not that there arent things that i have to work on still. but maybe, at my core, i’m not actually motivated by spite, i’m not actually a hopeless pessimist, and that i’m not...broken. i’m not some secretly irredeemable monster.

and for a period of time i’ve been in a place where i could say i was genuinely...happy! and i don’t think i’ve ever been able to say that. i’ve certainly been made happy by doing things with friends in the past, i’ve been through periods where i’ve been okay with where i am at in life, but ever since i was like 12 (but probably even before that) i’d never been able to say that i was happy. it’s not that i wasn’t stressed, it’s not that things in my life were all going perfectly....but they didn’t define my mood. they didn’t define my view of myself. school, despite being the primary focus of my life, wasn’t dictating how i was feeling. even when things were agonizing and depressing because of school, i was still okay. i was incredibly stable.

and i owe that all to him being there for me. and hardly any of these things were anything that he was really directly responsible for, like its not that he sat there and just constantly showered me in reassurance and praise or anything that changed how i view myself...it was just having his company. it was just being able to sit there and listen to him go on about some totally random thing that he was exceptionally knowledgeable about. it was exploring caves and climbing hills. it was cooking together. it was talking about science. it was talking about love. it was talking about music. it was just having a consistent presence in my life, someone that treated me like a priority but never at the expense of himself, and someone i didn’t have to walk on any kind of eggshells around. it was someone who trusted me and respected me not by anything id done to warrant it, but just because of who i was. 

it was a reminder that i can take care of my own problems, that i just need to be a good presence in someone’s life and for them to be a good presence in mine.

but also that i can accept help from people who genuinely want to offer it! and that that help doesnt always have to be direct. that sometimes helping me means i get to do something nice for someone else LOL

it was everything i ever needed and i wasnt even looking for it. he meant the world to me and i was so, so thankful for the circumstances that led us here because i was so happy to have him in my life again. i was happy that we were able to get closer because we’d only been able to interact in professional environments before.

and then i realized i was in love. and i had a sexuality crisis. but i didn’t recognize it until i fell hard because it was a different kind of love than i’ve felt for anyone before. it was intense but entirely too comfortable. but i knew that i cared about him, and that he cared about me, and that i really didn’t need anything about our friendship to change but that it had potential to be something even greater than it was.

and i resolved to tell him about it...until he told me first. and that moment was, as cheesey as it sounds, nothing less than magical. we were both so happy and giggly and it was so sweet and warm and i dont know if im ever going to be able to recreate that feeling because it was just so particular, so specific to being something between me and him. its not that i cant love anyone else as strongly or be as happy as i was necessarily, but it’ll never be that same kind of feeling.

but things happened. things got complicated. i think he panicked. and then things that happened just felt so dirty and hollow and dark. he hurt me really, really, really badly, and it managed to happen in the span of four days.

and i’ve spent the last <2 weeks dealing with it. i think he’s dealing with it in his own ways, but realistically i don’t know how because i havent seen him since christmas eve, and we were both definitely not being completely genuine that day. was at his house for a small family party and he and i were the only ones who knew what happened. it was too soon to have healed from it any, but we couldnt exactly be honest about it then either.

and im doing better. im genuinely okay now. and, interestingly, i think i owe it to the past few months of hanging out with him and how ive been able to come to terms with a lot of things about myself. ive been able to show myself compassion. its really ironic.

its a situation where i was desperately trying to throw blame onto myself for, because if i could then i could punish myself for it and use it to fuel that deep rooted self hatred and then i could fix it, because i’d be the one responsible for fixing it. but, and i’ve talked to quite a few friends about it trying to figure out who to confide in about it, everyone who knows about it insists that i cant blame myself for it. theres not a thing about the situation that i can blame myself for. and its so fucking weird, because i cant bring myself to fully blame him for it either, just because it was so ABSURDLY out of character that it doesnt feel like it was anything he could have done to me. it was a boundary that i wasnt ever supposed to worry about him crossing, because he’s just not that kind of person.

and it’s the type of situation that you’re supposed to totally be willing to cut someone off for but...i can’t. he’s genuinely remorseful and i think he doesn’t really know how to deal with it either. and despite it being a massive fuck up its still like...the first fuck up in our friendship from either of us. and i’m willing to see this through. i think it’s salvageable, even if it’ll never be the same as it was. i have faith in our friendship. i think we can make it work.

but no matter what happens. i owe him more than i’ll ever be able to repay him for. and i’ll never, ever be able to hate him because of that. i’m in a much, much better place because of him and for that i’ll always be thankful.

[yaboylevi]

What about this chapter did you not like? love your art btw ❤️

Thanks!

Sorry for the wait, I wanted to read the official chapter and wait for a bit to see if my feelings changed (spoiler: they didn't).

It would be way faster to list the few things I enjoyed but alas.

VERY negative opinions under the cut. Seriously, if you liked the chapter, don't read this, I don't want to spoil your fun or upset you. I didn't bother to write this in a respectful tone, it's not an analysis, it's just me venting. That being said, if you guys read this ignoring my warning and get upset, it'll be your fault and responsibility, yeah.

The Annie's father stuff was okay, though I hope it's gonna be explained why he was the only one in Liberio running against the flow of the screaming crowd.

Then we get Reiner being pathetic once again, I am so tired of this. What's his purpose in the story aside from killing people, being a nuisance and or dead weight to others and feeling sorry for himself? I would've appreciated if he had had some introspection on how his rushed plan was partially the cause for Porco's death and Falco's transformation (and all the other deaths bc Zeke would've never screamed in Shiganshina if Reiner hadn't pushed for another attack there). But anyway if he'd had introspection, it would've been about self-pity and NEVER growth because he seems unable to have that, so I would've disliked it anyway. 

If I wasn't already rolling my eyes this hard at Reiner, then I would've started at Gabi. She's all over the place and I guess it's understandable since she is a kid and also deeply shocked and in pain. I understand it. But I don't like how Isayama made her go from despair, to murder instinct, to calm and collected in 2 pages. It's just ???? Then we have the Eren parallel and I groaned out loud. Whatever its meaning is. It's just forced.

One of the things I hated this chapter for and that I'm becoming so annoyed at in general lately, is that EVERYTHING parallels something that has already happened, and I don't understand if Isayama thinks he's being smart or if it has some deeper meaning like "oh see, history repeats itself!! wow!! a concept that is not being repeated ad nauseam in the series, not at all!! /s". I don't need it to be shoved into my face.

Idk. Also Reiner, of course, being safe in a house amongst titan territory...of...course...

Then the 104th scene. Ugh. Jean's delusion is so annoying. One moment he's rational, the other is like "muuuuu ereh is doing this for us!!! we couldn't do anything!!!", then he's rational again. Maybe if they had paid attention to Eren, and didn't only take into consideration stupid ideas that would've never worked for 4 years, maaaybe yeah, this wouldn't be happening. Who knows. I'm just tired of the 104th whining about their situation. I understand where they're coming from, their feelings, etc, I understand it's a crazy and emotional situation and all, but we already have SO MANY CHAPTERS about it, it's time to move on at least with the plot. It's just so pathetic and annoying. It makes me angry how he's basically trying to avoid responsibility or rationalize genocide like all the Eren goat stans in the fandom. I hate this mentality so much. "if they disappear, so will all the hatred! Do we really have to stop him?" JESUS CHRIST JEAN..............yikes

And then of course they (and Isayama) had to ruin chapter 108.

Then Jean also had the guts to say they should kill a kid so they can revive a commander, just bc he's too scared to take the reins of the situation. Again, I understand the struggle, it's the same as Hange afterall, it's just very, very ugly how he didn't even waver. Connie's been acting irrational, and he's been swept up by his anger for a while now, so I understand his development. Plus I find it more relatable to wanting to make a big sacrifice for someone you love, rather than someone you (think you) need. But Jean???? wtf. He doesn't even think back on the sin he was willing to commit, he isn't ashamed.

Armin as well doesn't even care that it's a kid they're talking about, he's only strategizing. And here's another annoying point: he's able to make these calculations now but when it comes to Eren his brain freezes and he becomes a delusional kid. Where were his brains when he had to think up of ways to negotiate with the world? Anyway, I get it, it's because Eren's his childhood friend and family. I am just so tired of seeing this again and again, and again. We've been stuck on this for over a year... Nothing has changed, they're just dejectedly going back and forth on their opinions and feelings. Really goes to show that Eren was the real heart of their group...

Connie flying away from the battlefield, effectively splitting again the povs we need to follow is...big yikes.

Parallel to Trost, parallel to Serumbowl. Yeah wow so interesting.

Nile dying so quick like that was also underwhelming. And it was unnecessarily cruel, imo, that as a titan he tried to kill children when as a person he was so sweet with kids (except with Eren, of course...).

The Gabi-Sasha parallel left me a bit confused. On the one hand, I don't like the killer being paralleled to the murdered. But on the other hand, I understand why that is [/inserts meta that i don't care about writing]. The Kaya-Gabi moments were also cute + Nicolo's little speech was nice, though a bit awkward, imo. I bitterly laughed at Gabi finally admitting that she mindlessly killed people just to be praised. At least she can better herself from now on! If only her cousin could take his self-pity and do something to change himself with it, but no, he just wants to change others or run away (and this is why i don't like reiner anymore).

Shadis saving these ungrateful kids was pretty cool.

I felt bad for Yelena, I want to see more of her (and maybe Mikasa+Louise), but instead, we have Jean vs Floch angst and I'm already sleeping, because I care so little about both of them.

Isayama painting Jean as a cool leader is just embarrassing when moments before he was pathetically whining and trying to kill a child (to which there was no setup, especially comparing it to the setup for Connie's plot thread. The last we saw of Jean with a kid was him wondering if he hesitated in killing the Cart because of Falco 15 chapters ago...and that was a compelling doubt but I guess he hadn't hesitated at the time, after all lol). The pages dedicated to the killing of the titans were boring, occupying space for nothing imo. Glossing over them would've sufficed, there could've just been the Pixis stuff, and it would've been fine. Which, btw, made me laugh a little in retrospect, because Armin is once again involved in the death of a Commander. Oh well.

I also didn't like that mini-flashback with Eren&Pixis. I guess Isayama wants to ruin every single nice moment Eren had with other people, because Eren is soooo so so bad now uwu, for no good reason, and it's only his fault right? people were nice to him and look at how he repaid them uwu. Big yikes for me.

I expected more from that Louise panel because it made me go [EYES EMOJI], but I guess I'll have to wait.

It's also unbelievable that NO ONE IN THE WHOLE STORY has thought of stopping Floch, when last time they arrested him, so technically why would they even leave him running around NOW? It's beyond me. Do they have a brain?

As for the basement conversation with Gabi, I hope that "I won't give up on Falco" panel + Armin looking at Gabi thoughtfully will start a "We can't give up on Eren" mindset for the 104th, but I doubt it's gonna be handled in a non-pathetic way, considering how's been done as of late.

Gabi screaming to talk to Eren was also very embarrassing from a reader pov (well, my pov). Because she was RIGHT THERE when EMA talked last time, and she should know that would most likely not work (I guess she's talking out of desperation but still...ppl be like "yeah!! they should talk to ErEn!1 why didn't they think of it!?!?!" and I mean it's probably gonna come down to that if the final audio is of any indication...I just find the presentation of this concept awkward and forced). 

I really disliked most of Gabi's part, even though she's a character I have learned to enjoy. I guess what shined through in this chapter is exactly what I don't like about how Isayama uses Gabi's character: it seems like she's just there as a fast-paced mini representation of the story themes, so she's just an instrument to the story. Sometimes I feel like she's a real character, sometimes I feel she's just a tool for the story and the themes.

Armin's reaction to hearing about Annie is...I don't know. aruani has been one of my first ships and I used to be obsessed, but this is just awkward and forced, just like the previous aruani scene that made me angry at Armin. I don't even understand if Armin's shocked, scared or happy. All of these don't make sense to me, because I have no clue what he even expects from her.

Annie's release from the crystal happened in an unexpected way which i appreciated, though I would've liked it more if she had decided to get out on her own. But it depends on if she was stuck in there or if she was still willingly escaping from reality. If she was stuck, I will love this a lot more, because basically Eren set her free.

Also, Eren's radio podcast was longer I guess ("Eren said he would undo all the hardening"), and I wonder why we couldn't hear it all. Sigh.

In general, the "theme thread" of the chapter (adults & kids) felt really pushed in our face. I appreciate when things are a bit more subtle, this just came off as...boring, because every scene made me go "well, of fucking course this scene would end like this...". The only tense moment was the Connie part, let's be real.

And yeah, my perception may be also partially because I am so tired of no Eren pov and "eren is the evil, evil villain" rhetoric, so maybe I will appreciate this chapter more once we get his pov at the end of the story (bc i have no illusions left that this won't happen anytime before the finishing line). For now, I'm just frustrated because I didn't care about ANY of the things that went down in this chapter. Like, okay, let's move on, ffs.

Everything felt forced and contrived, like, Isayama must know that nobody cares about this stuff that much and everyone would prefer to see literally anything else amongst Eren, Historia, Levi&Hange, the Colossals. Hell, imagine if this chapter didn't have Annie at the end. That was the only thing that made this chapter barely worth the read for me. I hope the next one will at least follow Connie and Annie, if I can't get any of the other things that interest me.