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the-gayest-tree-you-ever-did-see · 5 months

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all my ttpd notes on each song before public opinion (overall opinion of the album at the end)

i didnt include tracks 1-6 bc ive posted about them already, but ill add them slowly by eod tomorrow most likely

fresh out the slammer

this is the track i was most excited for i think

oh title drop very early

fresh. out. the slammer. uhhh

i love the flow on all of the songs but i especially like this, its very fluid

FOR JUST ONE HOUR OF SUNSHINE!!!

in the shade of how he was feeling

the flow is very midnight rain i think

OOOH THE CHANGE AT 2:25 I LOVE THISSSSS

"im the girl of his american dreams" OMGGGG

i like the second half way better but the song is awesome

i think what im noticing about the album overall (so far) is it feels very empty production wise. its mostly her voice carrying it through but its hollow and i really think we need a more full production on this, or at least some parts of it. it feels uneven yk? or sort of unfinished, like she had the vocals and just slapped something behind it

florida!!!

VERY VERY EXCITED FOR THIS FLORENCE!!!!!!

and my friends all smell like weed or little babies.... ok.

okkkk less than a minute in and this is sooo anti-capitalist for a billionaire

FLORENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i was so scared she'd be swept aside

"all my girls got their lace and their crimes"

so many mentions of a cheating husband on this album

"is that a bad thing to say in a song?" I LOOOOOVE MENTIONS OF THE MEDIA IN THAT MEDIA

FLORIDAAAA!! IS ONE HELL OF A DRuug..........

you can kind of here the thinness (??) of taylor's voice next to florence, the depth is lacking -- not necessarily bad, just something you can hear more with this track

some parts of it ("little did you know...") sound sort of like everybody wants to rule the world, idk if thats just me

guilty as sin

love the production this is so niceee

am i allowed to cry!

"oh what a way to dieeeee"

MESSY TOP LIP KISS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

without ever touching his skin, how can i be guilty as sin............ is this about matty healy please

the quiet distorted "what?" in the bg is very bejeweled

my bedsheets are ablaze

the melody on this is lowkey kind of boring. theres points where i expect her to do something interesting with her voice and flick up or drop low or trill and it just doesnt happen. would be very cool if that was there

"long suffering propriety" that whole bridge is written well but sung so clunky? like it doesnt sound natural it sounds like syllable filler yk? and i know this bc i do it way too much KSJDCHIUHRFIUH

ending with am i allowed to cry, its very much an internal song. idk how to explain it but shes looking in, and when she says am i allowed to cry, shes looking up. <- what???

whos afraid of little old me?

ooooh it starts out so cunty

"my bare hands paved their paths"

you dont get to tell me about sad!

I LOVE THISSS its so mad woman its so rep coded

"i leap from the gallows and i levitate down your street" GREAT LYRIC HILARIOUS VISUAL ITS LIKE THAT HALLWAY MEME BUT WITH TAYLOR. hold on

okay

WHOS AFRAID OF LITTLE OLD ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you should be <- ME TO MY MOM

production goes off cunty as fuck

"the scandal was contained" OMGG TELL ME TELL ME

you dont get to tell me you feel bad variant

BRIDGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i think this is my favorite track i love it

"the circus life made me mean" ooooh very very interesting. i will analyze this song more fully later but not on this post

"tell me everything is not about me, what if it is?" OKAYYYYY

the way she sings "you should be" reminds of something on folklore/evermore but i cant think of what

shes very cool on this song. the emotion actually comes through.

"you wouldnt last an hour in the asylum where they raised me." oh okay! so like. have we considered not saying that.

i think that line turned me off the whole song KJSDCIUERFHIUEFH LIKE???? HELLO???????

i just. hm. very disappointed. you have one billion dollars. your parents put down the deposit for your career. ok.

the way she sings "wretched" and "narcotics" is what i wanted for more of the album. ykwim.

i will admit her screaming the title is veeeery very nice

"i am what i am cause you trained me" okkkk. im sorry taylor my bad!

idk how i feel about this song anymore. should i just ignore the lyrics and listen lmaoo

i can fix him (no i really i can)

okay i was waiting on this song but with the context of the rest of the album. idk. we'll see

okay IMMEDIATE ick.......... "the smoke cloud billows out his mouth like a freight train through a small town" okay taylor i guess rhymezone was in for her. idkkkkk

okay next line came in actually i spoke too soon it serves !!

this is very cowboy like me inverse

ughhh title drop already. see i wanted it cunty!!! why title it that when its so nothing. this is SO NOTHING

is this about matty healy. girl hes a neonazi you cant fix him

BRIDGE?????? i love when she shows off her kinks

okay. yeah this song was very nothing.

loml

the piano is very gentle on this and muted. i like it

is this aaron dessner? hold on lemme check

yes it is!!!

"never before and never since" looooove <3 <3 <3

"still alive, killing time at the cemetery, never quite buried in your suit and tie" LOOOOOOVE <3 <3 <3

this is very her relationship with religion methinks....

"about a million times" ala illicit affairs "a million little times"

"when your impressionist paintings of heaven turned out to be fakes" i think this is my favorite lyricism out of the album, its very natural its very clear its very real. i really really like it

A CONMAN SELLS A FOOL A GET LOVE QUICK SCHEME. GAGGED

some of it is very grieving that she didnt last with her first love, that she still has to work for it. but its also still feeling like a metaphor for religious beliefs and god, that she cant fully believe and she wishes she had unwavering faith

MR STEAL YO GIRL????????????

"talking rings and talking cradles"

i wish i could unrecall how we almost had it all

"SOMETHING COUNTERFEIT'S DEAD" GLITCH I ALWAYS BELIEVED IN YOU (lie)

"ill never leave. never mind"

the way this extends is very phoebe bridgers and the way she enunciates "loss of my life" is very her as well

okay donesies. i liked this one a lot.

i can do it with a broken heart

i like the glimmery production

lyrics again are flopping a little :/

"im a real tough kid, i can handle my shit" 😸 okay

GOTTA FAKE IT TIL I MAKE IT TIL I DID !!!

the lyrics are so over and so back so much its killing me. i cringe so hard i cry and then i gag just as hard

lights camera bitch smile even when i wanna die......................

"ALL THE PIECES OF ME SHATTERED WHILE THE CROWD WAS SCREAMING MORE" im so. im sooo sos so so feeling aout this.

whos counting in the background idk how i feel about it

"im so depressed i act like its my birthday everyday" ughhhhh!!! cunty but she didnt sing it right yk. idk.

production slays

"im so obsessed with him but he avoids me like the plague" we're back again. i told yall its over and back and over and back SOOOOOO MUCH

okay i think i like it

I CRY A LOT BUT I AM SO PRODUCTIVE! SOOOOOOOOOOOO ME

i wanted the whole album to be like that verse

im a real tough kid again :/ shhhh

"in stilettos for miles" eras im so so sorry girl

IM SO DEPRESSED I ACT LIKE ITS MY BIRTHDAY EVERY DAY IM SO OBSESSED WITH HIM BUT HE AVOIDS ME LIKE THE PLAGUE I CRY A LOT BUT I AM SO PRODUCTIVE ITS AN ART YOU KNOW YOURE GOOD WHEN YOU CAN EVEN DO IT WITH A BROKEN HEART! ! !

when she does "you know youre good!" and the laughing and everything ohhhh my god. IM SO MISERABLE! AND NO ONE KNOWS! dont try and come for my job OKAYYYYYYY SHE SERVED ON THIS

okay i think i really like this song. i just need a couple days lol

the smallest man who ever lived

veryyyyy excited for this. i think. a little.

"who the fuck was that guy" OKAYY!!!!!!!!

theres no lyric i was to write here but its all very good btw

she sounds like my english teacher vocally and its killing me KSJDCIUERHFIUERH

"in public showed me off then sank in stoned oblivion"

i cant figure out what shes saying "once your queen had come, you treat her like an ulcer and"??? alseran?? i cant understand it skdjfhieurhiuerg

you didnt measure up in any measure of a man !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! taylor date girls <3

the production is building here i like it is she gonna belt/scream

YEAHHHH BELTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"were you a sleeper cell spy in 50 years will all this be declassified and youll confess why you did it and ill say good riddance cause it wasnt sex [something something] and it wasnt forbidden" I REAAAAALLY LIKE THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i like when she makes up situations and puts herself in them

YOU CRASHED MY PARTY AND YOUR RENTAL CAR

you kicked out the stage lights but youre still performing.

"you are what you did" versus innocent's "who you are is not where you've been"

i like this track

the alchemy

I WAS SUPER EXCITED FOR THIS BUT NOW IDK HOW TO FEEL!!! idk im just jumping in

oh r&b production?? interesting....

ooh whats the rumbling thing i like that

shes returning to something but what...

TOUCHDOWN IS THIS KILLATRAV !!!!!!!!!!!!!! KILLATRAV KILLATRAV !!!!!!!!!!!

oh title drop but i wasnt listening KJSHCIUHEGFH

reference to maathp

is this returning to american boys KJIUFHEORUFHOERF???

oh this is sooooo referencing maathp

okay but it sounds like this person and her were already together and now theyre back "his heart....is still reserved for me" or maybe thats just trav holding on the friendship bracelet

i hate to say this but "wheres the trophy? he just comes running over to me" is very call it what you want + sweet nothing and another song i cant remember right now but yall know...... im sorry

im stupid as hell i cant hear what the line is where she says the alchemy

"he jokes that its heroine but this time with an e" THIS TIME??????

very much like this song. def not what i was expecting and im disappointed in that regard but its still a fun song

clara bow

nervous for this song. i like when she references people and places but theres a way to do it so i get scared every time

oooh ear ringing noise is very fun. i hope its not the whole time though

immediate title drop

oh so its not her? shes talking to someone else i think

oh this is in her past i think

lyrics are flopping.

"breath of fresh air through the smoke rings" like i can fix him (no really i can"

ohhh tambourine WAS stevie nicks reference

SORRY i dont like how she says eclipse lmaoo

i kind of dont vibe with all the small town references its as if she needs to remind us where she came from to be considered good like look how much i did when i came from nothing (even though she didnt)

YOU LOOK LIKE TAYLOR SWIFT IN THIS LIGHT !!!!

youve got edge, she never did girlllllllllll

so does she consider herself the "replacement" for clara bow?

song is okay i think it might grow on me. i think the biggest disappointment on this album is how predictable it all feels sonically.

the black dog

bonus track!! this is the only one i have so i might add the others later but tbh i might wait bc i dont know how much i. care.

muted pianooooo i love muted piano<333

YOU SHARED YOUR LOCATION AND FORGOT TO TURN IT OFF

oh the black dog is a bar. im kind of. okay. okay

"shes too young to know this song" is a nice line but its clunky how its sung

old habits die screaming!

girl your longing does NAWT stay unspoken

folklore when she used "big" words it felt natural (for the most part). here it feels performative? like it doesnt FIT naturally

"was it hazing for a cruel fraternity i pledged" idk how to feel about this!

lots and lots of smoke references!

"six weeks of breathing clean air" -> CLEAN!!!!!!!!!!

two times she says she wants to burn her clothes on this album

i like the production im literally kind of ignoring the lyrics

omg never mind "tail between your legs youre leaving"

personal ick but i hate when songs cut off in a word. she goes "old habits die screeeeeam-" and nothing. JUST SAY THE -ING

okay cool. mid song but i hope the swifties who thought it was about depression and got the variant are feeling okay<33

overall: idk about this album. i went in really excited and so maybe thats why i feel so let down... but i feel so let down. this isnt what was marketed, this isnt anything even real for a lot of it. she's all over the place and i dont think its a tight and solid album -- although monetarily it will obviously look like one. there are moments where we get something very her and very real and i think those moments save the album. the production is also a little all over the place, and so very nothing. im not asking her to do anything fresh or new but why would you market it as if it was and not deliver?

i liked florida!!!, loml, and i can do it with a broken heart -- i think clara bow, the alchemy, and some others (you can tell with my notes LOL) will grow on me. and the tortured poets department and my boy only breaks his favorite toys were good songs, but i think i need a few days to actually acknowledge them as such.

also i think lyrically shes done a few very interesting things. it almost feels like debut with how specific it is and the name dropping and everything -- however it is new/rusty for her so that also kind of hurts her overall. i think maybe this is like good practice for a more evolved narrative lyricism in the future, bc her past mo of hazy visuals and thinly connected moments to string into a narrative just doesnt work anymore.

i will say. she did make me experience all 5 stages of grief plus some fun extras. maybe not in the way she wanted, but i did anyway ! its a fun album and i def think ill like it more as time goes on, but this is my opinion without outside influence and within the first day of listening -- i want to see how that changes! im also holding off on album rankings until a week or two passes

#ALRIGHT WHO WANT ME !#a lot of times my initial reaction to a song is very different from how i feel about it as i keep listening so trust NOTHING i say kdsjfhie #(regarding rankings and favorites not the notes)#and with taylor you have to let the songs grow on you #taylor swift #the tortured poets department #ttpd #the tree speaks

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simmetrycal · 2 months

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stepdad!raymond ༉‧₊˚.

couldn’t stop thinking of stepdad!raymond taking eli on a 3 day trip to a rainy coastal town for labor day weekend

˚ · .

raymond of course wants vanessa to be there— he’s never really spent more than a day or two with eli without her but she’s super busy for the weekend

the two make it a boys trip except raymond doesn’t love the outdoors when it’s rainy, but he does enjoy fishing

the drive to the port city is abysmally long. like hours and hours and hours of nonstop driving. the only stops being quick potty breaks or stops at the gas station

raymond simply cannot say no to eli when he runs in and finds snacks and drinks he wants. even if they’re super unhealthy

eli’s so excited about a bottle of bug juice that he downs the whole thing in minutes— meaning they have to keep stopping for bathroom breaks, even when there are no outhouses

eli is definitely in the back in a booster kicking raymond’s seat

“quit it or i’m turning off the music” (the music being disney sing-a-long songs per vanessa’s suggestion)

raymond is a hotel man. 5 stars if at all possible but he’ll settle for 4 or maybe 3 if necessary

when they get there it’s cold and rainy and dark and raymond shakes out his wet hair when he enters the lobby of a nice hotel

he comes to the counter fully expecting them to have a room but they’re completely booked.

no worries- he’ll just go to the next hotel..

booked also.

surely the 3 star hotels aren’t full, so raymond drives the two of them to those.

all of the hotels. all of them. are fully booked. every single one in this whole town.

raymond has to take deep breaths as they sit in the silent car. he calls vanessa and she answers immediately, happy to see them. she isn’t so happy though when she sees raymond’s stressed out demeanor.

“you didn’t call ahead or make reservations?!”

“i thought they’d have plenty of rooms.” raymond steps out of the car so he can curse. he doesn’t know eli can still hear him. “there’s like a billion hotels in this goddamn town and none of them have a fucking room? like what?”

when he gets back in from talking with his wife, he puts on a happy attitude for eli.

“it’s okay, buddy. we’ll figure something out, yeah?” he turns around in his seat to see eli in the back and gives him a fist bump.

there’s an rei close by that sells everything raymond and eli need to camp tonight and more. it’s not as extensive and big as the one close to where they live but it works just the same.

he buys a tent which was probably too much money, sleeping bags, a tarp, pillows, lanterns, pretty much everything they didn’t pack.

he uses ash’s phone number for the membership and they get a discount. (ash loves hiking and rock climbing, so naturally he has an rei membership)

setting up was even more difficult for raymond. it might have been fine if it wasn’t so dark out but what’s worse was it’s raining.

his nose and ears became pretty red but nothing compared to his hands. they were so cold and he got so frustrated setting up this tent.

“are you okay raymin?” eli pipes up when raymond enters the warm, running car. he knows he’s wasting gas and draining the battery but he’d rather have eli cozy and dry in the car than out there in the cold rain with him.

he smiles when eli says “raymin”. he doesn’t try to correct him anymore because eli just continues to pronounce it like that.

“i’m fine kiddo i just need to warm up in here for a minute.”

once raymond finally finishes setting up, he wakes up eli who had fallen asleep in his booster seat.

eli, groggy and holding his blankies, makes his way to the inside of the tent. raymond quickly picks up the tail ends of the blankets that eli was dragging on the muddy ground.

inside the tent was small, but just spacey enough for the two of them. well, for a large 6’3 man it was not preferable but eli thought it was huge.

a frigid chill arrived in the morning but the rain had stopped. raymond found little eli between his buff arms, hugging him for heat.

the day was much more enjoyable now that it was actually. daytime.

and the two did all the things raymond planned.

eli looked cute in his little green raincoat and froggy rain boots. holding raymond’s hand and jumping through puddles.

they made their way to the pier where raymond taught eli how to fish. eli got bored of it extremely quickly so he just sat in the folding chair next to raymond’s tacklebox, playing on his phone.

it was too big in his hands but that didn’t stop him.

“raymin! uncle ash is calling!”

“uncle? ash is not your uncle, who told you that?”

“he did!”

that night raymond was able to get a room for them in a nice hotel for once. he was relived to finally be able to shower after all that; a day long drive, a muddy camping night, and an all day fishing session. but now it was finally time to get clean and relax.

“raymin!” eli’s voice called from behind the close bathroom door. “can you help me turn on da shower?”

raymond got up and opened the door to see little eli trying to cover himself with a large towel. raymond chuckled at how he literally was not covering himself at all in the back— tiny buns just fully exposed.

he turned on the shower for him and asked eli about the temperature. he said it was fine but the water was “too fast” and “felt like needles.”

raymond noticed the water pressure too. it was definitely too high for a kid. a bath it is then.

raymond wasn’t used to taking care of eli like this. he knows vanessa would be doing this better but he was determined to be a good father.

he let eli play in the tub for a little, sitting on the closed toilet on his phone, texting vanessa pictures from their fishing excursion, before he noticed how disgusting eli’s little dinosaur toys were making the water.

dirt and sand and mud came off the second eli put them in the tub and raymond was quick to take them out, wash them in the sink, and toss them back in.

at some point they all sank and eli couldn’t find them under all the suds and bubbles.

raymond scrubbed him clean and it reminded him of washing his dog, bruce. both somehow more muddy than he realized and neither of them could ever sit still.

raymond snapped a picture of eli with his hair soaped up to a point on the top of his head like a cone. raymond’s warm laughter disappeared the second his phone slipped out of his hand and dropped into the tub.

“shit!” he muttered and tried fishing it out but it kept slipping and sliding around at the bottom. eli was having an absolute giggle fit at this.

later the two watched cartoons on the tv. the channels were weird, like they always were on hotel tvs, but they enjoyed it.

toy story 2 was playing but it was nearly over so they channel surfed.

“i wish dey had disney plus!” eli says, falling asleep into the big covers next to raymond.

bonus ·˚ ༘

thinking about them coming back to this town like 10 years later.

it’s become a tradition now to go every year together.

teenage eli casting his fishing pole on the pier next to raymond.

they talk about nothing and everything. just enjoying their labor day weekend together there in the rainy, beautiful town.

the first night they camp in a tent, the second night they stay in a hotel.

“hey dad can i ask you something?”

“absolutely bud,” raymond responds, looking through his glasses as he replaces the hook at the end of his fishing line.

eli grabs the line so it’s still, making it easier for raymond. “so.. there’s this girl i like..”

“uhuh..”

“and i was thinking about asking her on a date when school starts again.”

raymond looks at eli and nods. “yeah no, that’s great! i think you should. sometimes you need to just bite the bullet.”

“like you did with my mom?”

“exactly like i did with your mom.” raymond says, knowing full well vanessa is the bold one out of the two of them.

“what are your plans?”

“well uncle ash said i could borrow his car..”

“how many times do i need to tell you he’s not your uncle.” raymond chuckles and casts the line.

#simmy writes #oc

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chorusfm · 2 months

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Glass Animals – I Love You So F***ing Much

Most bands would give their left arm for the type of viral success that Glass Animals experienced on their last LP, Dreamland, that spawned the massive single called “Heat Waves.” In an interview with Clash Music, frontman, songwriter and producer Dave Bayley shared about this experience: “Life can change dramatically, but sometimes you aren’t able to change as quickly on a personal level. You end up feeling like a spectator. And then you are asked and expected to be a certain type of person, a different person. But…I wasn’t sure how. It confused me to the point of not knowing who I was or if anything was real.” What came off of this success is the logical follow-up album that sounds like a band leaning into that rewarding experience with a bit of a swagger, and possibly a chip on their shoulders, to prove that they aren’t a one-trick pony. I Love You So F***ing Much is Glass Animals’ fourth studio album and it vividly explores what it means to be a small part in an enormous universe that is ever-changing. What we’re left with is a smooth collection of ten songs that play off of each other majestically and is the most complete artistic statement that Glass Animals have created to date. ”Show Pony” starts things off on the right foot and sounds like a band understanding their successful formula that they crafted on their previous record, as Bayley smoothly croons over the mix. The chorus of, “Show pony, make it burn / Smile as the knife is turned / Show pony making a return / As we make our way through the universe / Show pony making it burn / That’s how revenge is served / Make it so cold that it hurts / I guess he’s right that you live and learn,” provides a bit of context to Bayley and his bandmates’ collective headspace as they begin to contemplate their place in life. ”Whatthehellishappening” follows the silky smooth opener with a more up-tempo beat, spacey production, and a cool contrast from the verse to the chorus. The second verse of, “True love, what a fucking beautiful shit-storm / But it makes me wonder who’s been driving us / One bump at speed and the trunk pops open / Just as I was getting comfortable / Man, are you serious? / My luck, my luck / Locked eyes with the kid in the car behind us / Put a finger to my lips and I smiled / And I pull it shut,” finds Bayley as an observer and he remarks on how quickly life can throw us a curve ball. It’s a relatable concept that most of us will experience at least one point in our lives, and the band puts this on full display here. The lead single, “Creatures in Heaven” has just about everything you’d want in an introductory statement for a new record: great production, a solid hook, and a memorable lasting impact. The keyboards from Edmund Irwin-Singer and Andrew MacFarlane combined with Bayley’s vocal performance is top notch, and they do a brilliant job of setting the tone for the track. The bass-heavy “Wonderful Nothing” follows in the sequencing and offers up some variety in the set that is filled with so many breathtaking moments. The song’s lyrics are a scathing response to the people who aren’t worth our time as the final verse laments, “You got big ideas, they’re as shit as you / Tryna self-combust, just for an excuse / Say I might throw up just to leave the room / I’d say, ‘Burn in hell,’ but they’d hate you too.” The second single to be released from the LP, “A Tear In Space (Airlock)” features a cool opening beat set forth on the keyboards while Bayley commands the song from the get-go. The elemental chorus of, “Water, running down my face / Water, running different ways / Water, like a billion waves / Water, just a tear in space,” sets the tone for the rest of the material that follows, and you have a feeling that the music is just flowing naturally out of the band at this point. The back half opens with “I Can’t Make You Fall In Love Again,” a bombastic track that opens with a casually strummed guitar before exploding into the chorus with atmospheric sounds and a backing… https://chorus.fm/reviews/glass-animals-i-love-you-so-fing-much/

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consistent-self-destruction · 6 months

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new year same fears

it's so funny how nothing changes. not a thing.

oddly enough it's only the 3rd month in the new year, but it's my second semester of my 2nd college year. it's 5:49 am. i'm as tired as i've always been. as lost as i've always been. as sad. as anxious. as depressed. as uncertain, deeply uncertain, as i've always been.

nothing changes.

i want it to change and be better so bad. sometimes i'm happy, but it'll only be for a moment or a weekend. i'll be happy because i'll be distracted from how bad things are, and how bad i've let things become. i think i am naturally self-destructive, and i don't know how to change that. i hardly know how it happens? one day i just happen to miss a deadline because it snuck up on me, so I don't go to class that day until the missing work is done. and then i end up not going to class for weeks, and weeks, and weeks, because the missing work never gets done. and it's not like i do it on purpose! i just don't understand.

this is so messy stream of conscious because i'm just writing to write. i am feeling a billion things and i haven't been on this account in forever, and sometimes typing on my little computer just does something for my spirit.

i have things i want to do and accomplish so that i can really be happy. sometimes i am motivated to work towards those goals, and other times they feel impossible to reach. i want to learn to drive by this summer. i want to pass my classes and declare in arts management. i want to have the teenage summer i never got to have with concerts and festivals and fireworks and fairs and parties and sleepovers and the beach. i want to make more art - write songs again, poetry, stories, and make a scrapbook of all my experiences. i want to journal more and have more time to myself free of responsibility or obligation. i want to make money. i want a very specific job this summer that i know will make me happy. i want to be able to spend time with my closest favorite friend for his birthday. i would do anything for that. anything.

but now i'm going to cry - well not really, but i feel emotional and want to cry. because that friend means so much to me. genuinely the world. no words are enough to explain how much he means to me and i need to endure this semester and just get through it so i can be there for him. if i just get through this semester, everything will fall into place and life will be the best reward but it is so hard and it feels like climbing a mountain. my motivation gets lost so quickly. i want to save this semester but i've fallen so far behind and this keeps happening! it's BEEN happening since the 7th grade. I used to be so good at school, but now everything moves too fast and i get too invested in singular assignments that i fail to properly budget my time and energy for all my responsibilities. i am angry and frustrated with myself, and i know everyone tells me to be kind and gentle but i just piss myself off so bad. i can't help but be annoyed with the fact that i can't handle what i expect of myself. i cant do what i expect of myself. and it's not even an issue of skill, because i CAN do these things - it's just an issue of executive dysfunction, perfectionism, time blindness, and my inability to focus that all gang up on me and make everything hard. and i've tried so many methods but nothing sticks! my biggest struggle is consistency and routines. even if to-do lists and planners and routines worked for me, i just can't stick to the habit of them. i don't know why. i don't know what's wrong. but as much as i love school - as much as i love learning, and i genuinely like the content of my classes and the assignments, and the space that school gives me to be myself and connect with others and make experiences ; i can't escape the fact that school makes me hopelessly depressed. it kills me self worth. it puts me face to face directly with all of my worst habits and mental health issues. it pushes them and tests them to see how i'll fare, and i buckle under pressure every time. i am buckling right now. and i'm trying not to! i'm trying not to because i cant afford to. i can't waste my parents money like this and i can't throw away this opportunity. this opportunity to learn and acquire and connect and network and experience. college is so sadly inaccessible to so many people, and it's awful because even outside of the education, college as an experience has SO much to offer and i don't want to give it up. but it kills me. it's hurting me. and i can't even blame it because there's nothing wrong with my course load or the work or anything with the school itself, it's just me. something in my brain cannot handle this environment anymore. i'm burnt out and my other mental health issues do not respond well to the pressures and expectations of deadlines and budgeting time and energy between multiple assignments and responsibilities and having to multitask and plan or any of that. and it's so frustrating because i NEED to have those skills. i NEED to be able to handle these things and i just CANT. emotionally and intellectually, i feel older than my age. but when it comes to executive functioning and the logistics of being a student and an adult, i feel like an overwhelmed toddler that can't stop falling on its butt. it's so triggering and damaging to my sense of worth. falling behind in school and struggling to keep up makes me suicidal. it makes me feel like i can't do anything. it makes me feel helpless and worthless and afraid that i won't amount to anything in my future. it makes me insecure and feel unstable. it leads me to fall into escapist habits and patterns that eventually turn manic and crazed until i'm silent screaming and crying at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. zoning out staring at lights in the dark. until i feel like i'm in the shittiest coming of age movie except i keep coming down and going up and coming down and going up.

the other day was wednesday. i haven't been feeling well or doing okay at all. but wednesday is my free day and my friend i mentioned earlier with the birthday i want to attend in May - he planned the day for us and it was very sweet and thoughtful of him. he wanted to get breakfast with me, then spend some time doing parallel play so we could both get some responsibilities done. then we were going to go to the local town to run some errands and buy wine for a wine and charcuterie night later. after town we'd go to this photoshoot organized by a fashion club at our school, and then we'd end the day with wine and charcuterie.

well, the night before i'd been spiraling, so i hardly got any sleep. and then when i finally did fall asleep, i didn't wake up til 2 in the afternoon. i felt really bad, especially because i really loved the day he planned and wanted to do everything with him but he was really understanding. we missed breakfast and parallel play, but we could still do the photoshoot which i was most excited for anyway. it was an indie sleaze themed shoot, and what's funny is we barely knew what that was the night before LMFAO. but once we looked it up and gathered some pinterest intel, i really fell in love with the concept and got excited to create a fit and a character inspired by it. so i got ready later that day and i enjoy fashion and playing dress up and exploring my creativity through that lens. so even though i wasn't really happy, i was okay and at peace doing something i liked. then i went to his dorm just down the hall when i was ready, and he is my everything because he's just the life of the party. his fit devoured and i was obsessed with it. we spent like 5 minutes just saying "indie sleaze" in the silliest weirdest voices, and then we smoked, took a shot (as it's literally 6 pm on a Wednesday), put on "TikTok" by Ke$ha, and we were out the door LMFAO. Sexy and singing and just in our own silly world. We went to get food first cause I hadn't eaten all day. And I love eating while high because I just already love food, so I appreciate it even more when I'm high. It's seriously the most magical experience. Then we finally made our way to the shoot and it was a lot of fun and I was really happy to be there. I got the cutest polaroid ever with my friend who's like a sister to me, and she also was one of the main organizers and creative directors of the shoot! The whole thing felt like a cute little party. Another one of my friends performed a set and it was so good - it had me jumping up and down, dancing all around, literally to the point where I was dizzy and sweating and had to sit by an open window and take my hair out of its updo cause it was falling apart from all the jumping anyway. That's when a photographer came up and got some shots of me by the window, and then my friend who was creative director came and took a few with me, including a shot where she lit a fake cigarette for me - that was the polaroid and it came out SO cute and I'm going to steal it from her mwahahaha. I need to invest in a polaroid.. but yeah, and then another band performed and the whole shoot was basically like a little party / hangout but if there were photographers taking pics of you being cool and sexy and having fun hehe. This girl even brought washable markers for us to draw on each other! I still have the little smiley face she left on my arm :)

Overall it was just a very fun cute shoot and something I would definitely do again, but I will also admit that it was really spontaneous too. Getting crossed on a random Wednesday evening, rocking out to my friend performing plus another band, with complete strangers who were kind and fashionable, in a little room with graffiti and warm colored blue and purple lights. It was spontaneous and magical in a way that made me feel a little unreal in both a bad and good way. At one point I laid back on one of the couches in the room and just stared at the ceiling. And often in party settings, I'll sit down somewhere and stare directly into really pretty colored lights and it makes me feel so unreal in a way that is both comforting but also damaging. It's comforting because it feels like I can relinquish control to a larger fictional story that is just moving me through a plot. I feel safe and free in the adventure of the moment, knowing that I'm just here for the experience, and taking it in. But to feel unreal in that way is also damaging because it disconnects me from my larger reality. My focuses, my priorities. I allow myself to get lost in the fantasy of my life because it feels so much less demanding.

Either way, it had been a good day, but only because it wasn't a real day. It was a very unreal, escapist kind of day. Later that night I cried and cried and cried and just broke down into another spiral. I felt like a failure. A lost loser covered in glitter and mascara and the little arts and crafts stars I pressed on my cheeks with lash glue to fit the theme. I'm behind in classes, I'm unmotivated, I'm lost, I'm tired, I'm without energy, and this is the life and the reality I have to return to? I don't want to do it. I don't want to live. I do, but not like this. But I can't bring myself to live any other way because to give up school would be to give up everything. My freedom, my safe space, my friends, my opportunities, my access to resources and connections and the future life I want for myself, my already fickle sense of certainty. School has always given me so much since I was little. To leave would be to lose it all. But I can't do it. I'm not built for it. I cried that night hating myself deeply, angry at myself, wanting to hurt myself more than I ever have because now I only have myself and my own brain to blame - there is no reason why I shouldn't be able to handle these things and do what I need to do but I'm just a little girl in a big girl body trying to do big girl things with little girl hands that are asked to carry so much more than they can hold but it was never supposed to be alot, just enough for my age. I'm angry because I don't feel my age and I don't know why. I'm angry because I want and need to be my age, I want and need to do well in school, otherwise I am disappointing everyone. Wasting my dad's money, letting my parents down when they invested so much faith and hope into me. Letting both them and my younger self down, who believed in me so much, just for me to fail over and over and over again no matter how much I try to find a solution. Maybe I just wasn't supposed to get this far. Maybe I was never supposed to be more than a little girl. I felt frustrated, sad, hopeless, and suicidal. I still feel this way. I worry that I will aways feel this way and that the hatred for myself will never go away. I worry that these issues will never go away. That I'll always be unfocused and time blind and oversensitive and terrible with routines and executive function and just being the adult I'm supposed to be. I don't want to be like this but I can't help it.

So at the end of all this.. I am tired and conflicted as always. It's a new year with the same fears. It's 6:46 AM, and I have one more class at 10:30, and then Spring Break. I am not prepared for this class. I cannot miss another day of this class or I am guaranteed to fail. But going to this class feeling unprepared makes me want to kill myself. It makes me hate myself. It makes me feel less than as a person. It is genuinely that serious. I'm not being dramatic, this is genuinely how I feel when I am not doing well in school. I feel like a failure, a loser, a disappointment, a let down. "What happened?" is the question that haunts me.

I wish I had an answer.

0 notes

thegardenoftes · 9 months

Text

2024 is hereeee!

With 2024 not being an impossible date that is light-years away and being something that it out of the comprehension of my ludicrously capacious brain, comes the common sentiments of a new year for me. Self reflection, yes, but also something else. Something stronger. Stronger than any addictive substance. Hate. Burning. Searing. Ugly hate. Now, most would think that my hate is one that is unproductive, one of jealousy, one that is unwarranted and doesn't have any sound basis in reality. Good news to my imaginary haters though: my hate is actually very productive and gets things done. Try to clock that. Anyways, my hate is for things that happened in 2023 that made no sense at all. Some (if not most) of these things have even persisted over the years and 2024 is where I say enough. I've had it, and you know, my measly opinion matters most out of the nearly 8 billion people on this planet and I expect the universe to see this post and put a cease to every action or object or person that I consider an 'out' and place everything that is an 'in' on my doorstep. Or... dorm-step... considering I have to go back... to my college... ;-;. Yes, you read the subtext of that last long sentence right, this is post is my in and outs list for 2024 and I'm showing off my mood-board for the new year and yes, this unserious and fun subject did require a long introduction of course, I'm a writer! Let me be unnecessary and unsettling in peace!

tes's in and outs list for 2024!

ins

- herbalism

- spells

- rituals

- burgundy

- reading theory and concepts (bell hooks specifically)

- moon water

- poppets

- indoor gardens 🌱

- posting on ig

- eccentric, esoteric and colorful makeup

- looking like a fantastical being

- internships

- jobs

- accepted letters

- exploration of nature

- researching random topics in depth

- gold-plated jewelry

- copper

- guitar

- folk music

- jazz

- learning songs

- writing

- gothic subculture

- hoodoo

- Yoruba religion and folktales

- enjoying movies with my friends 🎬

- being around people

- therapy

- more piercings

- tattoos

- getting even more into astrology

outs

- self isolation

- rotting

- disordered eating

- being 'normal'

- spending money on people who do not care about me

- comparison

- fixed mindset

- anti-intellectualism

- self-deprecating humor

- paying more than $10 for party tickets

- going to parties that i don't want to go to

- colleen hoover. stephanie j mass. ali hazelwood.

- learning monologues less than a week before performing them

- thinking that i'm not good enough

- not submitting applications

- spending most of my money on food

- limited dreaming

- forgetting to take iron pills

- sitting in silence

- suffering in silence

- uber eats

- morning sniffles

- empty rooms

- unclear intentions

- ignoring signs from the universe

- the evil eye

- dry flaky skin

- losing my splits

- student teacher romance

- adopted siblings romance

Now... enjoy some jazz!

#blog post #writing #happy new year #ramblings #moodboard #long reads #tw: ed #Spotify

0 notes

nityarawal · 1 year

Text

8/13/23

Morning Songs

"Rocket"

AKA

#HoldTheRockets

Elon-X

I Know You Want Us

To Call You

Elon - "X"

The Civil Activist

King

Elon- X

#HoldYourRockets

Tho

Elon-X

We Watched You

Everyday On

Rewind TV

For 6 Months

Last Year

Elon X

Like A King on @Youtube

Elon X

With All Your Muses

A Harem

Of Wannabe Cyber Truck Owners

With Tmobile

Fractured

Reception

Praying For You

And Starlink

Access

Safety

Honesty

Connection

Hanging On Every

Honeyed South African Word

Physicists Logic Soothing Us

Into An Alpha State

Awaiting Starlink

Still

Elon - X

What's Become Of YOU

Elon - X

Malcolm - X

We Gave You "X"

When We Gonna Get "O"

A Natural Born Baby

"X" Is The Missing Link

The Natural Hormone

Elon2 Squared =

"Grimez" 2

The Natural Hormone

In You And Me

Her

70's Kids

80's Kids

90's Kids

Au LA Natural

X Is The Missing Link

Do Your Equations

Mathematicians

Physicists

And Find The Hormones

Chromosomes

In You And Me

Missing Gene's

X Is The Missing Link

For Our Attys

That Had No Time

To F***

Or Love

Only Gays

Could Have Raped Us

Into Sodomy Attempts

Like This

Trans Defense Team

Schmitz Bush Eunuchs

Nitya X

Britney X

Malcolm X

Mom X

Ghandi X

Buddha X

X Is The Missing Link

Don't Want To Cry

For Our Babies

Only 10% Memory

Of Childhood Left

Alienation Disease

Spread With Gays Gags

Of Courts

From England

To Hawaii

X Is The Missing Link

Iran Needs Her

X Back

Mithraism

Not 7 Billion Please

A US Insult

To Arab Slave Owners

Tehrangeles

Sufis

Needs Her Royals

Back

Reza Shah

Kvon Moezzi June

Everything

Best Mammas

In The World

Robbed Of Ancestry

For Museums

Not The Dump

World Wide Web Of AI

Stolen

Not Just Princesses

Nobles Who Love

Even More

Mitra And Varuna

Vedic Mythology

"Friend"

Maui Shook

The Ama

Toxins

From Her Frontal

Coretex

Third Eye

No More Jealousy

To Attack Goddesses

She's As Sick Of The Drugs

As #FreeBritney

And Me

Did Mamma Maui Lose Her Fertility

When Fire

Bore Her Heart

Did Mamma Maui Lose

Her Breasts

When Firemen

Finally

Had Access

To Oprah's Road

Did Mother Maui

Iao Valley Mahune

Leprechauns

Put Out The Flames

Waterfalls

When Hawaii Military

Failed

Only Found 17 Bodies

In The Ocean

300 Still Missing

1000

Lost

Too Lazy To Disclose Facts

And Obituaries

Rainforest Walls

Saved Us

While Troops Called It A Day

How Many Baby Boomers

Died In Maui Fires

How Many Homeless

Cried

Drowned

Will Journalists Break Codes

Gags

Pleas

And Tell Us The Truth

Who What Where When Why

5 W's

Or Do We Need To Hire

Guardian

Expose To Reveal

For Updated Google

Fire Maps

Is Down

From University Of Hawaiʻi

How Many Gays

Too Polite To Say

Go Away

In The Winds

Stop Stealing

Our Native

Indigenous Babies

In Hawaii

California

Mexico

And Iran

Maui Moms

Was Mother Maui Too Polite

Too Nice

Aids

And Cancer

Covid 2 Wasn't Enough

In San Francisco

Moles Push

Government Suicides

Off Bridge

Robin William's Pleas

For Men That Don't Grow Up

Nano - Nano

Confirmed Bachelors

Mind Those Bugs

In Your Ass

Morgellons

Mind Those Bugs

Hairballs

Of Courts Spreading

British

Alienation Disease

#PrinceOfPegging

Crimes

Teach Your Invitro

Gay Attys

Trans Officers

How To Be A Maid

Before They Break

The Law

Airbrushed "Pretty Pretty Girls,"

At Height Of Ignorance

Drugged Stupid

To Half A Life

For Prostitution

Kali Yuga

Teach Your Judges

(Or Recall Them)

How To Clean Their

Courts

Before They Take

Bribes

With Domestic Terrorists

For 600k A Year

As Criminals

In Organised Crimes

Killing Wives

At Large

For Glutinous Fetishes

Humanoid Moms

Won't Sustain

This

Nor Mother Maui

Laws

Teach Your Officers

How To Clean

Disinfect

The Courts

Before They Steal

Another AI Barbie

For Practicing

Medicine Bribed Covid2

Germ Warfare

With "X"

Peace

Mahalo,

Nitya Nella Davigo Azam Moezzi Huntley Rawal

0 notes

monkey-d-addy9000 · 3 years

Text

Hey~ some young EraserMic fanfics.

First of all, sorry for my english, it's not my native language

Since I don't find many young Erasermic fanfics, I decided to share with you some of the ones I liked the most and, who knows, with this encouragement, some writers feel inspired and decide to write some more? I don't know, I think it's just an appeal from a disaster girl.

Anyway~

Summary: As far as camping goes, it’s probably within Yamada’s Top Three Least Favorite Things To Do list.

But maybe this camping trip wouldn’t turn out so bad, so long as he has Aizawa by his side.

Second part:

Hizashi apologizing to Aizawa for making him insecure. Read Murphy's law first to understand.

Written by @tiniest-hands-in-all-the-land

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Summary: “I thought you might wanna hang around someone who didn’t hate your guts!” Yamada yells. “But I guess you just get off on everyone hating you!”

“I don’t care what people think about me,” Aizawa hisses back, just as coldly.

Yamada's relationship with Aizawa is on thin ice, to say the least. Too bad class trips, technical mishaps, and simulated natural disasters don't consider personal vendettas when putting a damper on your day.

I highly recommend this story as it is a twist of feelings and emotions. I could feel on my skin every sensation I read. All the effort the author puts into their stories is almost magical.

Written by @tiniest-hands-in-all-the-land

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5 times Hizashi drops everything to take Shōta somewhere where he can rest comfortably, and 1 time Shōta picks everything up to allow Hizashi some repose

Hizashi being cute and careful with his "friend".

Written by @tiniest-hands-in-all-the-land

----------------------------------------------------------

I smiled on every line of this story. Just two cute boys being cute.

Written by @ill-go-with-that-then

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Just a warning: it's hot.

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Summary: 8-year-old Hitoshi Shinsou is Quirkless—at least, that’s what his foster dads have been told by the orphanage. Hitoshi never speaks, he signs, although there were no mentioned disabilities or medical conditions on his file to explain this. He’s seemingly capable of speaking, but it’s a mystery as to why he doesn’t. One day, however, a ruthless gang member breaks into the Aizawa-Yamada residence, intent on revenge for Shouta's capture of their brother, and upon seeing his foster dads in trouble, Hitoshi is left with no choice but to reveal his ‘villainous’ Quirk to save them.

I was so moved by this story that I had to reread it 4 times in less than a month to relive every good feeling that was transmitted to me.

----------------------------------------------------------

“What are you, scared, Aizawa?” Kayama leered, leaning in too close and poking at his side.

Shouta swatted her hand away. “Why would I be scared?” he scoffed. “They’re just mirrors.”

Hizashi fidgeted, leaning closer in a way that would be imperceptible if Shouta weren’t ridiculously over-aware of him. “The place looked deserted when we came in… maybe we should leave? We could still make it to the party!”

“We can’t leave without solving the maze,” Shouta said, irritably.

Don't trust your eyes...

Ma babys are scared and in love

Written by @ill-go-with-that-then

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He tries to put all the enthusiasm he feels into it, to reassure Shouta that this step in their friendship is wanted and welcome.

It seems to work. Shouta’s shoulders relax, and he grins up at Hizashi, wiping his hair out of his eyes. He misses a piece, and Hizashi has to shove his hands into his pockets to keep from giving in to the strange impulse to tuck it behind Shouta’s ear.

It’s different, after that.

Another point of view.

Ah, young love. These boys are so soft. I can't handle that anymore. If you want to scream because you can't handle the amount of cuteness, you must read this.

Written by @ill-go-with-that-then

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One In A Billion summary: Mic as a weapon is too much to handle. Aizawa as a meister is difficult to get along with. What will happen when these two odd souls are forced into taking on one of the names at the top of

Death's hit list?

It's Soul Eater AU time!!

Clarity summary: Mic had his secrets, this Shouta knew. Even after all this time, when their souls resonated, there were places Shouta felt he couldn’t go, places Mic blocked from him. Shouta had these places within his own soul, too, but whenever something was truly important, Mic always seemed to know how to gently tug the truth out of him. Shouta, unfortunately, had no such similar tact, and usually he didn’t need to; Mic was open about so much.

How bad could Mic's secrets really be?

I was fine, until Yami quotes the song Clarity, and Yamada enjoying the song claiming to remember Shota when he hears it? I almost screamed. I love this fanfic from the bottom of my soul.

Written by @yamiheart and @nartothelar

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Those were the cutest young Erasermic stories I've read. I just wanted to share with you a little bit of my daily dose of love.

And yes, I reread them every day because they are the ones I liked the most. It's so well written that it really makes me feel every emotion as I read this.

Oh! And I will be updating as I find new good fanfics

#erasermic #bnha #present mic #eraserhead #yamada hizashi #aizawa shōta #Erasermic fanfic #young erasermic #maizawa #bnha fanfic #shinsou headcanons #shinsou hitoshi #dadzawa #parent erasermic #Soul eater au

144 notes · View notes

xpeachesncream · 4 years

Text

bands | twelve

[ series masterlist ]

summary: jeon jungkook has it all: the looks, the fame, the money, the women. being considered the sexiest man in the industry, he finds no complaints about the way his life is going nor does he find any reason to apologize for the way he approaches it. he is a force to be reckoned with - until he meets you.

pairing: stripper!reader x idol!jjk

genre: (18+) strip club/nightlife au, post grad au | fluff, angst, smut

words: 4.2k

warnings: cussing, mature language/implied sexual content, insecurities, some overthinking, introducing you to fluffy koo?! and i think we’re all familiar with the song at the end too 🥺

tags: @brightcolorsoffendme @min-nicoleee @eggbutnotyolk @ra-mun-e @miinoongi @jimidol @ppeachyttae @thebeebi @bluesharksandfish @kooafraid @liriaus @thisartemisnevermisses @ggukkieland @preciouschimine @sunniejinnie @cypheruby @cyb3rbab3 @masterlists101 @awhnamjoon @redhedhoseok @wooya1224 @taeismydeath @jikookiekosmos (please message me if you would like to be added to the taglist!)

"Am I doing too much for shopping for a dress? He told me to dress nice and I honestly don't have an ounce of nice in my closet." You told Kai as you looked through the hangers on the rack.

"No, you're not doing too much. And I think you dress nice, but it's always good to have a few dresses in general, right?"

"Okay, okay. How about this?" You hold up a black knitted, off the shoulder dress that fell right above the knee. "It's too simple isn't it?"

"Simple is the best." He shrugs. "That's probably the best one I've seen so far and it'll look nice on you. Plus, you can just curl your hair or whatever girls do."

"Hm, okay." You chuckle, heading over to the register to pay for the dress. You had picked up Kai from school and quickly dragged him to the mall before dropping him off at Eric's. You might have tried on and looked at a few billion dresses since you've been here, but out of all those, this dress probably spoke to you the most. You didn't wanna be too flashy, or do too much, but you did want to put effort into tonight's date with Jungkook. You had butterflies in your stomach all day, and quite frankly, you were nervous for how tonight would turn out. You just wanted to look good for him, and you definitely wanted him to look at you like you were the only girl in the world. It might have been a big ask on your part, but if he was serious about this, it shouldn't be a big deal, right?

"Let's get you some food before I drop you off."

"Can't I just stay at your place?"

"And watch me do my walk of shame in the morning? No thanks." He gives you a look before shaking his head.

"You're right, that's kind of weird." He does a fake shiver. "Kind of gross too."

"You started it." You snort. You make your way over to the food court, ordering Panda Express for a quick to-go meal. You could never go wrong with fried rice and their orange chicken. As you had ordered your food and waited for them to fill up your bowls, the two workers began to chat and you only overheard because—

"Did you hear? Jungkook is supposedly dating a stripper from that nightclub." You purse your lips into a fine line as you wait patiently for the food to be put into your bowls.

"I heard, but is it actually true? Why would he date a stripper?"

"I know, right? He could do so much better, why would he stoop that low?"

"My question is— how did a nobody like her get his attention?" The cashier turns to you and gives you a fake smile. "Anything else for you, love?"

"No." You shake your head, pay and take the food before walking away. You don't know why the words pain you so much, but you simply shake it off as you approach Kai who is waiting at a nearby table.

"Ready?" He looks up at you and tilts his head.

"You okay?"

"Mmm, yeah let's go."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm fine Kai. Really." You give him a nod, along with a fake, tight-lipped smile. He knows something's wrong, but he doesn't press you, especially after the way you responded. You quickly drop him off to avoid any unnecessary confrontation with your stepfather and make your way home. As soon as you touch base, you sit on your couch and.. you just quietly sit there. Suddenly, everything people had been saying was getting to you. Why did Jungkook want you? Why did he go for you and not anyone else?

Maybe they were right? You were just a nobody. Even if Jungkook did have feelings for you, you questioned if this was even going to last.

"God, Y/N." You groan at yourself, shaking the thoughts out of your head to start getting ready. Just because you brushed it off though, doesn't mean you had gotten over it. They were starting to pile up one by one, and one day, you felt like you were going to break and really let it get to you.

That day wasn't today, though. It couldn't be.

You looked at the dress after you slipped it on, staring at yourself in the mirror as you slipped on your heels. You fixed up your hair and added a dab of lipgloss before letting out a content sigh. You wondered if this would be enough for him. You always wondered if you were enough for him. Your stomach was in knots and this was the first time you felt sick to your stomach nervous.

"Hello?" Your phone suddenly rang, you grabbing it with a quickness.

"Hey, I'm outside." You furrowed your brows because his voice sounded a lot closer than it should be. You kept the phone to your ear as you opened the door, seeing Jungkook smiling with the phone pressed against his ear as well.

"Silly." You scrunched your nose as you hung up and put your phone down. You watched as he looked at you up and down, his eyes widening in admiration and awe.

"You look beautiful, Y/N." You blushed.

"Thank you. You don't look too bad yourself, Jeon Jungkook." He smiles. He was wearing a black and white striped button up, black slacks, boots and a fitted black blazer. His black hair hung loosely over the sides of his face, natural waves coming in and giving it a little volume.

"Ready?" He holds out his hand for you to intertwine your fingers with his.

"You know, you didn't have to come upstairs." You smiled up at him.

"Mm, but that takes away from the complete experience, sweetheart." He grabs your purse and your small duffle bag [since he politely requested for you to bring a change of clothes] to carry it for you as you head down the steps and to his car. You loved the smell of his car, as oddly as that sounds. He always had a fresh strip of that Black Ice car freshener hanging from his rear view mirror that reminded you of his scent so much. "Seatbelt on?" You nod as he starts the car and locks his free hand with yours once again.

"Where are you taking me?" You playfully ask.

"Don't worry about it." He chuckles. "However, I want you to know we won't be out in public. Not because I don't wanna show you off, it's only because I don't want anyone to bother us." You nod.

"Okay." You appreciate his honesty, your what if's and insecurities slowly drifting away the more Jungkook talks to you, touches you. You always thought it was cute how careful he was with you, treating you like you were the most delicate thing in the world and that he had to take care of you in every way possible.

You realize that you're making your way to his luxury apartment building [his own, not the dorms] and you're a little confused as to why you had gotten all dressed up and fancy if you were just going back to his place. However, you didn't say anything to allow the plans to do the talking for you. You trusted him with this, and you feel like Jungkook really hasn't given you a solid reason to not trust him at this point in your 'relationship.'

You didn't know what to call it yet.

He parks his car in his usual spot, and immediately runs over to open your door and help you out. He gathers your bags from the back and hangs onto them as his other hand is resting against the small of your back. He brings you to the very top floor, where there aren't necessarily apartments but moreso conference and party rooms and you can tell strictly by the way each room has double doors.

"Uh, this exists?" Jungkook chuckles.

"Other idols live here too, gives them a way to do shit without having to step outside and have people in their business." You nod.

"Does this mean your dorm is like this too?" He nods.

"Yup, just another luxury apartment building. Few things differ but for the most part, they're the same." You shrug.

"Must be nice."

"It's alright." He stops in front of double doors towards the end of the hallway. "Close your eyes for me, please? Just for a quick minute." You smirk before doing what you're told and closing your eyes. You hear the doors open, and Jungkook's hand is retreating down onto the small of your back. He's guiding you as you walk in, but stops after a couple of steps. "Open?" You open your eyes and softly gasp at the sight in front of you. The entire half of the wall was strictly windows, so you had a good view of the city in front of you. What caught your eye the most though was all the pink and red shades of rose petals along the floor, lining your way to the dining table in the center of the room. Along with it were little tealight candles and balloons along the way, with speakers softly playing music in the background. The room looked so big having one table in the center, just for the two of you. The center table was drenched in white table cloth, with tall white candles in the middle and a single rose as its centerpiece.

"Jungkook?!" You slightly shriek. "Oh my god, what is this?"

"Date night, sweetheart. Had to make it worthwhile since we're not out in public." He smiles and takes your hand. "Come on, let's go eat. I know you're hungry." He pulls out your chair and has you sit before he situates himself in front of you and tucks your bags underneath the table.

"Thank you." You give him a soft, cute smile. You're not sure how else you can show your appreciation for all the effort he put in, but you were happy. "I-I really don't know what I did to deserve all this effort from you." He shakes his head.

"What do you mean? You didn't have to do anything. I wholeheartedly just wanted to do this for you." He smiles, his dimple poking out from the bottom corner of mouth.

"Well, thank you again. I really do appreciate everything you do for me." He scrunches his nose before looking up at the waiter, who was ready to serve you two either a bottle of Jungkook's favorite red wine or white wine.

"You like sweet or bitter?"

"Sweet." You shyly said as he signaled for the waiter to pour the white wine before thanking him as he left you two to your piece.

"So, dinner is a 3 course meal made by a friend of mine."

"A friend, ey?" He nods, knowing full well he hired one of the most popular chefs around to prepare dinner for you two.

"I hope you like it. I asked him to make it special." You chuckled.

"I'm sure I will." You sipped on your wine. Over time, the salad appetizer came out, followed by the main course meal. You both had dug in pretty quietly, Jungkook chiming in about random things with you reacting appropriately to the topics he brought up.

"So, did you figure out what you were gonna do for Kai?" You shrug.

"He's gonna go to the arcade and I'll buy him Loco Moco." You snort. "That sounds terrible, doesn't it? For an 18th birthday?" You frown.

"No, not if that's what he wants. Why don't you come over my place and I can make it for him? He can take over my gaming consoles if he wants, too."

"That's asking for too much."

"But you're not asking, I'm asking."

"Would you mind? He really does want to meet you."

"No I don't mind. It's on Saturday, yeah?"

"Yup." He nods.

"Schedule isn't as packed for a bit."

"Hm, okay. If you say so."

"Just let me know when to start making it and I'll make sure I make the time."

"Okay." You nod. "Hey, you have an older brother, don't you?"

"Yeah, but we aren't as close. Which is why it's nice to see you and Kai together. It's pretty comforting."

"May I ask why?"

"He just always thinks I'm a troublemaker, or that I rebel too much. We just have different mindsets, that's all."

"Did you guys fight a lot when you were younger?" He nods.

"Sure did." He points to the scar on his cheek and laughs. You lean over to run your finger over it before sitting back into your chair.

"That looks like a deep cut."

"That's because it was. He beat my ass over his turn on the computer." You chuckle.

"Sorry, that must have hurt."

"Eh, nothing I couldn't get over. But yeah, that's pretty much my relationship with my brother."

"How about your parents?" He shrugs.

"They think the same way. I try to be on their good side but they like to remind me about what I used to do or how I live my life." He forks into his food. "Like my tattoos. They hated that shit. Probably still do."

"I'm sorry, Jungkook."

"No, don't be. It is what it is. I really do try, but sometimes it gets tiring. I don't go home often because of it."

"Hmm." You hum. "You know, I always thought you were such a social butterfly."

"Me?" He laughs. "No."

"But you look so confident on stage. So happy."

"I am happy on stage, but it's kind of just that. I do what I need to do, especially for the fans and all. Don't get me wrong though, I love it. But behind the scenes, I'm not much of a talker, or someone who shares a lot. I like to keep it that way. I don't like getting too close to people and letting people into my bubble and vice versa. Gets complicated."

"So, what about me?" You look at him, curiosity filling the look in your eyes.

"I like you, and I want you in my bubble. You aren't complicated."

"How do you know that for sure? I can kick and scream and throw tantrums. And-and have attitude." You say, making him laugh and shake his head. "I can be complicated."

"I doubt it. Can't see an ounce of it. You can try, but I'm sure it won't be like the way you explain it to be." He looks at you. "All I'm saying is that I really like you, Y/N. I want you around me. You keep things so simple and sweet, and I've already started to appreciate the small things from being around you. It's something I used to overlook before we met. All the small things, the little joys in life. You make me look at things in a different perspective, I guess is what I'm trying to say." He cutely shakes his head at how he just rambled on, making you blush.

"It really makes me happy to hear that." You finished up the food on your plate, blushing as you wiped the corners of your mouth and fiddled with your fingers.

"So, did you ever think you'd be here after all the times you played so hard to get at the club?"

"No, definitely not. I mean, even in general." You tilted your head while looking at him.

"Are you happy to be here?" He asks shyly, his doe eyes wide and puppy-like.

"Of course I am."

"That's all that matters to me." He says, beaming from ear to ear. The waiter brings over the dessert, which is a sampler plate of 5 different cakes/cheesecakes. Your eyes light up because who fucking doesn't love dessert? You immediately go to town, yelling out your 'yum's' and 'ooh's' every bite you take. Jungkook laughs watching you happily eating away, giving him leverage to feed you a spoonful of the dessert on the plate closest to his end.

"I'm so full. That was so, so good." You finish your wine after one last bite of the dessert and sink back into your seat.

"Yeah? I'm glad you enjoyed it." He puts his napkin down on the table after wiping his mouth, then gets up, holding out his hand for you to take. You look at him, a little confused as to what he was trying to do, but you take it anyway. "May I have this dance with you, pretty lady?" You smile and nod, swinging your arms around his neck as he holds you closely against him by the hips.

"Jungkook?"

"Yeah?"

"I really appreciate you. Thank you for taking such good care of me."

"You're absolutely welcome, baby." The pet name sends goosebumps raging throughout your body, your forehead pressing against his. "You're special to me, you know? I can't really explain it just yet, but just know that every single thing that I've done for you has been worth it." You give him a small smile as you quietly dance to the music, your bodies pressed warmly together as you hold each other close. He softly sings along with the music, causing you to giggle every now and then when he showed off his cute facial expressions. After a song has passed, he presses his lips against your forehead, making you shut your eyes at the sensation of his soft lips against your skin.

You just wanted him as much as he wanted you. You were so undeniably attracted to him, just as much as he with you.

"I have one more thing to show you." He says as he grabs your bags underneath the table.

"One more thing, huh?" He suddenly gets shy, shaking his head and chuckling to himself as he grabs your hand and leads you out of the room. You start climbing up the stairs instead of taking the elevator, going up about 3 more flights before Jungkook is climbing over the gate that blocks off the last flight the leads to another door. "Jungkook, is this illegal?!" He snorts as he waits for you to meet him at the door.

"Why would it be here if it was illegal?"

"But it was--" He opens the door, bringing you out to the rooftop to look at the entire view of the city ahead as the sun was getting ready to fully rest below the horizon. "Ohhhh shit, it's a beauty." You say in awe, walking over to the railing to take everything in. You expected Jungkook's body to press against yours from behind, however it doesn't. You find yourself looking for him, turning over your shoulder to see him quietly blowing up a balloon before smiling cutely at you and bringing it over. "A balloon?" You cocked your head to the side in confusion.

"This is gonna sound dumb and cheesy, but it was really the one thing I could think of to help put things into perspective. I want you to write everything you're worried about, everything you've been thinking about, all that negative shit." He hands you the balloon with a sharpie, causing you to laugh.

"Where did you even hide this stuff?"

"In my pocket." He scrunched his nose, his teeth piercing his bottom lip as he let out a soft, tiny laugh. You do as he says though, writing out all the negative shit that had been clouding your mind lately - Eric, worrying about Kai and him going off to college soon, your image, just to name a few. You wrote it all out as Jungkook stood behind you, resting his chin on your head as his arms wrapped around your neck.

"Okay, I think that's it."

"Mmkay, let it go." He nods towards the view in front of him. You let the balloon go, watching it dance around with the light breeze, flying farther and farther away as it does so. "I don't want you to worry about any of that when I'm around. I know the world hasn't exactly been the nicest to you, but I want you to know that I'm gonna do my best to keep you safe. You and Kai." You smile to yourself as your body sinks into his, the both of you just enjoying the view and the moment, which ultimately turns into a fun, playful competition as to who can spot more landmarks than the other.

After you both had spent a good amount of time watching the sun fully sink below the horizon, he took you back downstairs to his apartment, placing your bags off to the side of his room. You slipped out of your heels, sighing contently at the feeling of your feet being out of the heels after so long. You had no idea how you lasted at the club like this, it felt like it was such a long time ago.

"Baby." Jungkook says, coming in from the living room.

"Huh?" You look up at him as you set your heels aside neatly. The nickname was something you knew would take awhile for you to get used to, especially if it was used outside of the bed. It was moreso of a 'i can't believe he's actually calling me baby' kind of thing. He's actually calling me baby instead of my first name. I'm baby.

"Look, I bought this projector but I wanted to wait until you were here so we could try it." He begins fiddling with this little mini projector he bought, connecting it to the tv and doing all these technical handyman things that you weren't really sure of.

"What movie are you going to put on?"

"That's a good question."

"I'll let you figure it out." You say, rubbing your arm, eyeing his closet. "You're the one who knows all the good stuff."

"No I—"He turns to look at you, catching you eyeing his closet. "Babe."

"Hm?" You return your attention towards him, watching as he laughs at you.

"Do you want a shirt or something?" You nod shyly. "Then go get it. You don't have to ask or act all shy about it."

"But it's your shirt."

"Whatever is mine is yours too." He turns back to the tv, scrolling through his apps to find the best movie to put on. You slowly walk into his closet, eyeing all the clothes he has, taking in the scent of his shirts as you them by. You lock eyes on a random Carhartt longsleeve folded nicely on one of his shelves and start slipping the sleeves down your arms so you can easily step out of your dress. "I think—" Jungkook stops in his tracks as he sees you starting to slip out of your dress. You turn your head to look at him over your shoulder, watching as he approaches you with his hands in his pockets. You feel his hands against your arms, his lips gently pressing a kiss against your shoulders.

"You think what?" You smile softly at him as he presses another kiss against your jawline before gently turning you to face him.

"I think I found a movie you'll enjoy." He lifts your chin to kiss you on the lips. You smile into the kiss before pulling away and nodding.

"Okay, that sounds good."

"Find a shirt you like?" You point at his longsleeve and he nods.

"Nice. That's one of my favorites."

"Oh, then I'll just pick something else if—"

"Why? I don't mind. Go for it." You silently nod before turning around to slip out of your dress and slip the shirt on. Jungkook changes into his pajamas behind you, following you into his bed shortly after.

"Oh my god." You laugh seeing Always Be My Maybe projected against the wall. "You asked Kai if I've watched this yet, haven't you?"

"Nooo." He lies, silently giggling to himself.

"You liar! You knew I've had this on my list and that I haven't gotten around to watching it."

"Don't know what you're talking about, sweetheart. Just pure coincidence." He says, leaving the room to grab water and shut off his living room lights. He shuts the door to his room, immediately putting the water down onto the nightstand before slipping under the sheets with you.

"Mhm." You eye him suspiciously as he wraps his arm around your shoulder, pulling you close to lay on his chest.

"Mhm." He mocks you, laughing before kissing you on the head. "Ready?"

"Have been. Surprised you didn't know that."

"Mmm, baby catches on quick I see." You smack his chest, cuddling up tighter against him as the movie starts. Tonight was the night that really solidified where you were at with him, because after dinner, you highkey expected him to take you home and fuck you senseless [which you weren't opposed to], but he kept it sweet. Delicate. Cute. A serious, date night to show you what you really meant to him. This wasn't just some plan to woo you and get you in your pants and keep you as the exclusive fuckbuddy - no, this was Jungkook really confessing where he stood with you, and vice versa. As you cuddled against him, you saw a lot of his cute, nerdy sides poking out whenever he would comment on certain things that came up on the movie. For the first time, you heard his really loud, obnoxiously cute laugh that you instantly fell in love with. You were with Jungkook, and you were seeing a whole side of him that many people didn't really see.

And for that, you were grateful.

youtube

can i call you baby? can you be my friend? can you be my lover up until the very end? let me show you love, oh, no pretend, stick by my side even when the world is caving in

track eleven: at my worst (remix) - pink sweat$ & kehlani

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green-socks · 3 years

Text

What More Could I Ever Need prologue

Pairing: Benny Miller x F!reader (Tangled AU)

Summary: Tangled AU where Benny is in the role of Rapunzel (without the hair thing) and reader is basically a female Flynn Rider. A criminal running from the law and a boy who has lived locked up in a tower go on an adventure together. And yes, there is an animal sidekick.

Words: 1,012

Warnings: kidnap of a child

Notes: Why yes it is another Benny AU based on a movie where I have reversed the roles (I definitely have a problem). Presenting Disney prince Benny! And I sort of blame @madrefiero for making me obsessed with this idea because she keeps (unknowingly) feeding me with inspo pics but I truly love it. A billion thanks to @writeforfandoms who has listened me ramble about this way too much and read it through to soothe my nerves <33. Oh and the title is from a song that was supposed to be on the movie soundtrack but wasn't. I couldn't resist opening with "once upon a time" and I won't apologize. But after that I will get normal I promise.

The pic is pretty much what prince Ben looks like to me.

MASTERLIST

Once upon a time there was a prosperous kingdom, ruled by a beloved king and queen. They had everything they could want, but there was a piece missing from their lives. Their dearest wish was to have a child, not just to have an heir, but a child to love.

After several years of hoping, the queen finally gave birth to a beautiful baby boy with golden hair, sparkling blue eyes, and the brightest smile. The day of the baby’s birth the sun shone so brightly that everyone present swore the new prince had been baptized with little drops of sunlight.

They weren’t wrong.

The little prince’s cheerful nature and sunshine energy seemed to only grow as he himself grew.

The queen simply doted on her son and refused to give him over to a nurse for more than what was absolutely necessary. She even put him to sleep every night by herself, holding her precious son close to her chest, singing him to sleep.

The queen sang to her child all the time, in fact, and at just a few months old he started humming tunes after his mother, mimicking the melodies. The first time that happened the queen felt like she had just drunk a cup of very strong coffee. Such was the joy of motherhood, she thought as she beamed at her son.

Month by month little Benjamin’s singing got stronger and stronger. And then one time the queen’s flu just disappeared when she was holding Ben and he hummed a melody to her. That was when she started believing there was something truly special about the boy. And it kept on happening until the nurse noticed it, the maids noticed it - even the palace cat seemed much more energetic after being petted by the humming baby.

And the word spread - as it so often does in big palaces like that. The staff talked amongst themselves, and then someone went home and told their family, who told their friend at the pub, and so on and so on.

Word of the rumored magical golden boy who possessed some kind of healing powers reached even the farthest corners of the kingdom. It so happened that they reached a woman who was struggling with the health issues getting older had brought along, and she wanted to see for herself if it really was true.

So she searched work as a cleaning maid at the castle. That way she was free to roam the palace unnoticed and gather information on the young prince.

One night she sneaked into the prince’s room through the balcony and tried to get him to sing to her. She held the baby in her arms and croaked a lullaby she knew.

And the baby started humming with her.

Instantly, she felt her pains going away. She felt younger even.

In that moment the woman made a decision - she would take the baby with her and raise him far away from the palace. Train his singing even more so that he could keep her young for years and years. The king and queen didn’t need this child’s magical powers, she reasoned, they were healthy and easily rich enough to afford any and all remedies if they happened to get sick.

And so she grabbed the baby from his crib and ran.

A palace guard saw her running away from the palace, only her cloak billowing behind her. He heard the baby’s cries getting farther from him with every step the woman took and realized what must have happened.

He alerted the other guards instantly, and they chased after the woman, but she had vanished. They searched for days through all the kingdom, but they could not find the young prince anywhere.

Eventually the king and queen had to tell the people to give up the search and admit that their son was probably in a land far away by now.

But they never gave up hope.

Every year on the prince’s birthday, the king and queen along with all the people in the kingdom released lanterns into the sky at night, partly as a prayer that their son would someday find his way back home, and partly to thank the sun for blessing their son with that drop of sunlight when he was born, the biggest gift they could have asked for.

--------

Meanwhile, little Benjamin grew up away from his parents, locked up in a tall tower hidden deep in a forest. The woman, Dagmar, who had kidnapped him raised him as her own, and fed him a new life story. By the time Benny was a little older, he had no memory of his true parents or true home and believed everything Dagmar had told him.

He was told that he could not go outside, because terrible things would happen to him; mean people would try to harm him. For Benny knew he was special, that his song could heal, and he knew that his mother only wanted to protect him. She explained to him that people had tried to do bad things to him when he was only a baby, and the thought scared him.

But that didn’t mean he didn’t sometimes long to go outside. Oh yes, he was curious; he wondered what it would be like if he ever went outside - would he be brave enough to face it?

Every year on his birthday Benny snuck out of his bedroom at night to go to the window and watch these odd lights flying across the sky.

For some reason he was drawn to them. Maybe it was because they showed up only on his birthdays, or maybe because they proved to him that there truly were other people somewhere out there. He didn’t really know what the lights were, or what they meant, but sometimes he thought they looked like drops of sunlight floating back towards the sleeping sun.

Those mysterious lights, more than anything else, made him dream about someday venturing outside to the real world.

--------------------------------------------------

Chapter 1

tagsies @writeforfandoms @starlightmornings

#benny miller fanfiction #benny miller x reader #benny miller x f!reader #benjamin miller #triple frontier fanfiction #garrett hedlund fanfiction #garrett hedlund #i still don't know what i'm doing #i accidentally wrote something

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yvesdot · 3 years

Text

yves.’S 2021 YEAR IN REVIEW

(2018) (2019) (2020)

(view the image in highest quality here!)

A look at something I wrote every month in 2021. All of the above excerpts can be read in order at this link, and I've included a few notes below on the pieces and months in question. It feels as though I spent so much of my time writing for Patreon and editing Forest Castles and so on, but there was still a lot of fresh content every single month!

JANUARY - In Her Arms (unpublished)

COVID's been pretty bad, hasn't it? I think it's been pretty bad. Wrote this piece almost a year ago now to deal with it, and have workshopped it several times since. Eventually I'll get a version I'm happy with, and then you'll see it published!

FEBRUARY - KAY Valentine's Drabble 2 (read online)

I made sure to come up with something to post for Valentine's Day 2021-- a cute little moment between Kay/Atlas, and then Constantine/Julia. Still warms my heart to read over this... that transphobic dad of Kay's isn't always completely useless!

MARCH - mortālēs (unpublished)

I've had a lot of ideas for erotica this year (all excerpts here are SFW!) but haven't managed to post them yet-- I'd probably put them on a separate NSFW writing blog, as I've mentioned before. Well, here's one, inspired by my sudden apparent interest in historical m/f.

APRIL - Silvia (unpublished)

While in the car on the way to a more wintry setting, I listened through the entire Miike Snow self-titled album, and was struck by a sudden intrigue caused by this song. Here was something out of the box, intense, explosive in its unrequited emotion. I could see it all playing out in my head, so clearly I knew I was coming up with a 'true' narrative totally disconnected from the original... but, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't set it to paper. I'm going to let it percolate.

MAY - Forest Castles (first two chapters)

Again, I did edit FC year-round, so I only displayed it here in months where I honestly couldn't find any other new writing (probably hiding in the depths of my Drive.) This was a fun scene to write, though who knows if it'll survive later cuts.

JUNE - THE LOVER RISES FROM THE ABYSS・恋人が黄泉から生えてくる (read online)

I wrote this flash piece in either early June or late May, and then I was stuck revising it for quite a while. You can read about the process of that on Patreon! I worried over it until I felt it couldn't be worried over one second more... and then I edited it as I posted it on Tumblr ^__^

JULY - Something Weird I Heard About Rebecca (available in BLOOD&BREATH zine)

I wrote this so long ago! And, honestly, I expected to spend even longer editing and submitting it, but when the Blood & Breath submission form came around, I knew it was perfect. Preorder the LGBT vampire zine before January 5th to read the story in beautiful, physical form!

AUGUST - Forest Castles (first two chapters)

Day One Hundred And Seventeen Billion: Eliza Is Still Stuck In White Castle. To be fair, though, I remember when I thought I'd never reach White Castle! I hit quite a block around here, which I am still unsnarling, and I like that I've chosen to lean much harder into Eliza's princess nature.

SEPTEMBER - WTWBingo drabbles (read online)

Oh, God, what a timesuck! In addition to The Death of The Author (more shortly), in joining the WTWBingo event, I found myself tormented by hundreds of ideas for drabbles! Thanks so much to the WTW folks for inspiring me to write 10,000 words of these stories.

OCTOBER - The Death of the Author (read online)

I love Halloween. I love Halloween writing, and I love Halloween Episodes. More than all of that, though, I love murder mysteries, and so I am thrilled to present to you, with no further context whatsoever, The Death of the Author.

NOVEMBER - The Proposal (unpublished)

More erotica, with an eerie amount of people waiting on it. Very, very simple romcom MILF nonsense, which apparently is not only a thing I can write but something other people might want to read. I absolutely loved this piece, and it was responsible for my incredible 8K start on Day One of NaNo.

DECEMBER - Exhaustively (read online)

Exhaustively's had a big edit, and I'm now formatting it to release in limited edition paperbacks, in honor of beloved Archivist Max @goose-books! I highly recommend taking a look at it in this graphic (instead of just in the transcribed version) for full formatting joy. Also, I wrote 10,000 words in a day... but that didn't make it in here.

Man, was I prolific this year! I really enjoyed my writing, and I explored all sorts of artistic nooks and crannies (as Patrons especially will appreciate, what with all the experiments and behind-the-scenes things posted to Patreon this year. Fun Patreon surprise coming for free shortly...)

I also spent a lot of time on non-writing writing things, such Exhaustively's formatting, and, well, this Year in Review! I tried to show myself how much of my work wasn't just sitting and writing but reading and thinking and promoting and posting, and I think it worked... though I do miss just-plain-writing this week, as I wrap up all these New Yearly loose ends.

This upcoming year, I want to work more steadily on Forest Castles. It's hard to fit in with all my other priorities, especially when I don't have too much time to write a day. Do I need to set aside an amount of time daily to get it done, or is it better to dedicate full days? That's something I am still exploring.

Finally, this year I began using 4thewords, and I quite like it! Makes writing addictive and much more naturally fun. If you'd like to join up, feel free to DM me any questions, and my referral code is LOMDY47116.

And please, if you feel inspired by this post, make your own! That links to my template, which shouldn't be too painful to use. Just hop in there and change my name to yours, and tag me when you're done so that I can see it!

As always, you can read all of my posted writing here, and if you’d like to support me, I have both a ko-fi for one-time donations and a Patreon for exclusive monthly content. Thanks for being here this year! It's been a big one for so many reasons, and I'm so grateful to have had you along. Have a wonderful 2022, and I'll see you then.

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alienaiver · 3 years

Text

Half the Battle, pt. 1

Kuroo Tetsurou x gn!reader

find part two here!

warnings: slight angst about childhood/parents fighting/divorce, one (1) bottle of wine is opened, someone is betrayed in Mario Party, NOT beta-read! apologize for any mistakes! (lmk if there’s any warnings i missed!)

wordcount: 5.5k

content: soulmate AU, mild angst, fluff, post-timeskip but slight canon divergence (i haven’t read the manga yet so this is loosely based off of their canon timeskip lives), gender neutral reader, reader is a video editor, reader is bad at eye contact but the details as to why are vague/up for interpretation!

notes: this was made for @gg9183 ‘s wonderful birthday event, a soulmate collab! (go read the other wonderful works!) happy birthday once again, gray!! this was meant to be a 2k one shot but.... plans and inspiration changes sometimes, right? 🥺 so this ended up as a 5k part ONE lmfao i hope thats alright w u!!! part2 will be up asap, i promise!! i hope you enjoy this!!!!

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Not meeting his soulmate was fine, Kuroo often found himself thinking. The odds of finding your soulmate’s way too low to be realistic anyways, he supported the thought. It’s illogical to spend so much time fretting about it, he finally added for good measure.

Soulmates were a natural part of life, always had been. But with the big wide world filled with over seven billion people, meeting yours wasn’t completely unheard of. But given the powers of soulmates even existing, it wasn’t unrealistic to also believe that some kind of fate would pull you towards each other throughout your lives so that you would meet each other. Kuroo however, prided himself in not caring about soulmates. His life was rich enough. People explaining their feelings about “something being missing until they finally meet them” was incomprehensible to him.

Kuroo had lived for 29 years without being able to see color. And you know what? His life was damn well fulfilling enough. He had a beautiful apartment, an economy that flourished, an adorable cat named Cucumber and good people around him. What would he really need a soulmate for? He could ignore his friends comments on how wonderful the world was in color, if only he would just start looking for his soulmate, how much meaning it gave life. Just because the people in his closest circle had all magically met theirs – not to mention how many of them had already met in Goddamn high school, Kuroo scoffed and was always able to move on.

Even though a lot of people actively made eye contact with everyone they met, even people on the street, to make sure they would meet their soulmate, Kuroo kept his eyes down. He wasn’t insecure, come on, he was perfectly happy! He just didn’t need to be late for a meeting because he got eye contact with some stranger, you know?

His life was in perfect balance as is.. Until yesterday, of course. It had turned out there was mold in his apartment complex so they had to evict it for a month while a crew would go through everything to remove it. He didn’t want to go to his mother’s place, that was too far from his work, but he wasn’t in the mood for a hotel, that was way too expensive, so he turned to his best friend of many years with the biggest set of puppy eyes he could muster and the prospect of making every dinner while he lived there.

“Fine… but don’t get in the way,” was all Kenma had to say.

And so Kuroo spent his last weekend in his own apartment packing things down to make it accessible to the cleaning crew. Cucumber hated other cats with a passion so he couldn’t bring him to Kenma’s, where three cats already happily lived, so his mother would pick him up tomorrow afternoon.

He sat on his couch, scrolling his phone mindlessly with Cucumber on his lap who had been stressed with all the packing down, sensing something was up. He was being extra cuddly towards Kuroo who, honestly? Didn’t mind at all. He loved when Cucumber was in mood for cuddles, though it wasn’t very often. He had been told his cat was orange and while he didn’t have a measure for what that color actually looked like, he was happy with his gray cat.

His mother was supposed to arrive any minute now, so he should have gotten up and put the cat in his carrier but it was easier to get him in it if you had two pair of hands. He scrolled through Instagram, reaching a photo put up by Tsukishima of his soulmate, the light-haired manager of their high school volleyball club, with a tooth-eating grin on her face and proudly showing off a ring on her finger, the caption said, This smile makes me wanna brag. Kuroo could physically hear the provocative tone of his voice, knowing he was one of the first in his circle of friends to actually plan a wedding. Kuroo clicked his tongue with a smile on his face and double-tapped to like the picture.

He didn’t know if it was the combination of that post and the fact that his mother was on her way but memories of his parent’s wedding flooded his mind. For a lot of people, weddings felt obsolete in the face of the whole “you already got your soulmate and you know this” thing, so a lot of couples were happy not getting married but just being together. But there was also the benefits of marriage in the practical sense, so some people did anyways, some hosting parties, some not. His parents weren’t married when he came to, but after he turned five they decided to do it so he would be protected by both of them, in case of any emergency.

It had been a small wedding, only the closest family and friends but Kuroo was vivid, so excited about being part of that whole romantic ordeal, even helping his mom find a dress and everything. He had been a huge and important part of the wedding – if he did say so himself. Everyone had been glowing at the day, the food was delicious, there was laughter, song and cheers and everyone had brought so many presents – even some for little Tetsurou, who had been very excited about his new train tracks.

But when Kuroo was seven years old, it wasn’t as romantic anymore. His parents were fighting a lot, he wasn’t entirely sure why or about what because they would never tell him about it, no matter how much he asked. When he tried to listen in, the words he heard didn’t explain anything to him because even though they were yelling at each other, the important words were always whispered, as if they knew Kuroo was listening in.

When he was eight his mom had come into his room, hugged him and with tears in her eyes and said that they were going to move away.

“Where are we going?” he asked simply, no emotion to be read on his little face. He was exhausted from his parents being this way – they were soulmates, right? Why did they fight like that?

“To Tokyo, just you and me, my love.”

That’s when he met Kenma. He had been very closed-off and shy back when they met, he reminisced. He had been a regular kid when he was younger but the way his parents split up – his soulmate parents – had closed him off pretty bad, so it was a miracle he met Kenma and started opening up again.

Kuroo smiled to himself bitterly before scratching Cucumber’s ear. He supposed this was also why he wasn’t interested in his soulmate. So many people had romanticized the whole soulmate ideal so a lot of people forgot that relationships still took work, took effort and just because they were made for each other, didn’t necessarily guarantee that they would stay together. His mom and dad didn’t officially talk anymore, but when he asked his mom as a child whether or not she still saw color, she said that she did. He also found long letters in her bedroom when he was nine, letters from his dad, so he supposed they still talked together, though Kuroo wasn’t let in on it – nor was he particularly interested. And he definitely we wasn’t interested in ending up in a relationship with someone who would end up not wanting to put in the effort for the relationship to flourish.

After Cucumber had been picked up by his mom it was time to leave for Kenma’s place. He carried the last boxes of valuables down to his basement and locked them in before trekking down to the subway with his suitcase and sports bag.

_____

You were late for work, so you scrambled to pack your things. It was Wednesday afternoon and you were supposed to meet in at 3PM, because that was around the time that Kodzuken had planned to finish his recording, he told you yesterday. You were a video editor and had met Kenma through your old part-time job in his favorite convenience store quite a few years back, back when he had first bought his house when he was 24. You remembered talking to him about video games in the store since you also played some, and after a good while of polite customer service and talk about new games, you had started hanging out outside of work as well. When you had then told him you were actually a freelance video editor but just didn’t get many jobs, he had almost instantly hired you to do his YouTube videos for him and general editing and set-ups of his streams. I know video games, not recording equipment, he had told you so many years ago.

Your original thought had been wary, because working for a friend might get messy but Kenma cared a lot about keeping it professional when you were on the clock, which you appreciated very much. In his house, down by his game room, there was a room next door with screens and all the best editing software just for you to play with. Your pay was higher than average for such a “simple” but regular gig but when prompted about it, he simply shrugged and told you it wasn’t up for negotiation and no one was being treated unfair – and who were you to go against such a good pay for a job that you loved doing and wanted to do full-time? With Kenma being a famous streamer and gamer, he often made lots of different videos for various sites so your job hours resembled a nine to five job, easy, even if the hours were off from the more conventional jobs and you usually came in later in the day and sometimes finished off late in the evening – some of his videos had a time limit for a release date of a game, so there was also days where you were extremely busy and scrambling to get the video done right for a release of a game.

As you closed your bag and ran out the door towards the subway, you checked your phone for any updates. If he’d finished early, he would’ve texted you about it, so you put your phone in your pocket and hurried towards his house.

When you arrived you immediately rang the doorbell before catching your breath, you were used to Kenma spending a few minutes before reaching the door and opening it, so when the door opened almost instantly you took a step back before looking up. The one opening the door was taller than Kenma and in a loose dress shirt that was unbuttoned at the top - that’s all you saw before your eyes darted down to your feet.

“...Hi! I’m uh… Where’s Kenma?” was all you got out while fidgeting with your purse strap, it certainly wasn’t his boyfriend Hinata opening the door today.

“Oh, hey! You must be his video editor, right? He told me about you!” The man said, pointing to himself with his thumb,

“I’m Kuroo Tetsurou! Kenma’s childhood friend! Sorry to intrude, I’ll be living here for the next month, I promise not to get in your way!” As he finished his introduction, he moved aside so that you could enter. As you took off your shoes you heard Kenma’s feet shuffling towards you, “oh hey, welcome, you’re early,” Kenma said with his usual deadpan expression but you could clearly hear the teasing in his voice.

“At least I’m here now, right?” You smiled back, instantly relaxing at the sight of your boss and friend. You turned to Kuroo again, bowed and introduced yourself before taking off your coat and putting it on a hanger, while Kenma and the guy named Kuroo seemed to bicker a bit about whether or not Kuroo should answer the door while he lived there.

“I’ll go set it up, have you transferred the video files to the hard disk?” you asked Kenma as you moved towards ‘your’ office, sending Kuroo a polite smile while keeping your eyes on his neck.

Eye contact was hard for you, it always made you extremely uncomfortable and you didn’t really have any before you felt comfortable with the person. Your mother had often scolded you, saying you’d never find your soulmate at this rate, which you always acknowledged with a hum or a simple yes without starting a discussion.

You honestly weren’t sure whether or not you cared for a soulmate. Your biggest argument to wanting to find one was so that you could see colors, because it’d help your career. Kenma already had his soulmate, so he was the one deciding the color scheme for his videos and helped with the color-related editing, which worked fine as of now, but you would probably appreciate to be able to do it yourself. You had also spent some years coming to terms with your struggles with eye contact and accept that this was just how you functioned. If you missed your soulmate in a random supermarket thanks to it one day, well, you’d be none the wiser, so you felt sure you’d survive without one, but you also couldn’t deny that the sound of a soulmate sounded really nice and comforting. That someone out there existed to fit you, that you were born to love someone who was also meant to love you. You were sure that finding your soulmate wasn’t a dance on roses, it was sure to still be hard, frustrating and maybe even painful sometimes, but you also couldn’t just have all the good, there was a balance that was sure to exist within soulmates as well.

After hours of going through the raw footage from his video game play and slowly editing while watching it, you popped your shoulders and stretched your arms for a moment, yawning as you did so. Your hours were always a bit intense, but that couldn’t be helped when you had six hours of raw footage to work with. Looking at the clock you saw that it was 5.30PM which meant that soon Kenma would wake up from his pseudo-sleep (which was more like a nap in your opinion) to look at your process and ask what you wanted for dinner.

Soon after a soft knock was heard followed by the door opening slowly, Kenma standing in sweats and a hoodie with bags under his eyes, “do you like hotpot?” he asked, and you smiled at him, “sure, are you cooking tonight?” he yawned while he shook his head, “Kuroo is. He insists on a ‘fulfilling meal’, whatever that means.”

You giggled before beckoning Kenma in to see some of what you’ve done so far and making minor adjustments along the way. “Now, something smells delicious and I’m thirsty,” you stated after the two of you had talked a bit about the rest of the video’s plans. As you went towards the kitchen you could hear the sound of of a nameless tune being hummed, pans sizzling from something being cooked and kitchen utensils being used.

Inside, the table was already set with plates and prepared ingredients lying ready for the pot that Kuroo was just about to put on the table. It seemed he had made an endless supply of different side dishes and really put in a lot of work for it, so you looked really forward to eating it and it smelled delicious. You grabbed a glass from the set table and went to the sink to get some water and just as your hand reached it, Kuroo had extended his hand as well to the sink and you accidentally touched.

You both recoiled as if you had been burned and you couldn’t stop the gasp that accidentally left your lips. A feeling was rushing through your body you hadn’t experienced before and you immediately apologized to Kuroo and went back to the table, foregoing the water. You didn’t notice how Kuroo was frozen in place from when he touched you before Kenma called out to him and he immediately started moving again.

You ended up eating shortly after, Kuroo serving the food and talking animatedly about him and Kenma’s childhood, making you laugh quite a bit at their (or more, Kuroo’s) antics and their volleyball days. Kuroo was the type of person to make you relax in his presence and have fun which you didn’t even notice until you got home later that evening and really thought about what a great time you had had. You found yourself surprised by how easily you clicked with Kuroo, a total stranger. It must be his charm, you thought to yourself before going through your night routine. You had to come back tomorrow and finish work, after all. You estimated the video would take you a few more days to finish but that would end up fitting well with the weekend coming, so as you went to bed you felt yourself more relaxed than you had in a while.

_____

“What are they like?”

It was Friday and it seemed you had finished Kenma’s video and therefor you weren’t here for dinner – for the first time in a few days, which did let down Kuroo just a tiny bit. He had talked a lot with you during dinner preparations when you came out from the office and during dinner as well and while you did answer all his questions (which, he admitted, there were quite a few of them) and follow up with your own for him, it still felt… off… talking to you – and Kuroo didn’t like not knowing why. “What do you mean?” Kenma asked, taking another bite into his mouth.

Kenma swallowed a piece of meat before looking up at Kuroo who was stabbing his plate with his fork in what seemed like a useless purpose. He knew he was being a little weird but meeting you was weird, even though he had no reason to explain why.

“I mean, is this how they usually act?” He didn’t even know what that question meant or why he was even asking it, nothing made sense! But he had a desperate feeling that he needed to get to know you – he was afraid of what that implied and what suspicions he needed to hold onto, but he was sure it was his gut telling him you were dangerous for Kenma to be around – that had to be it! Kenma was his best friend, his childhood friend, it had to be a gut feeling meant to protect him!

“Who knows, they’re being more polite than usual, I think. But that makes sense,” Kenma replied calmly before adding, “I mean you are a stranger who’s really intent on being social with them over our dinners, they were a bit shy as well when I met them,”

Kuroo nodded and finally took a bite of his own food. He didn’t notice Kenma’s raised eyebrows or the questioning look that was sent his way, so Kenma decided to let the subject rest.

Not seeing you today felt weird to him too and he couldn’t help the irritation building up inside him – you had just met a few days ago and only in the evenings when he was done with work and ready to make dinner – and yet, the thought of you kept invading his mind. He had gotten through work today thinking you were going to be there for dinner so when he came home and found out you wouldn’t be there, the first seed of irritation had been planted – why was he suddenly looking so much forward to seeing you? Had it been like this yesterday too? Why was it suddenly important that you weren’t there? He ended up sitting in front of the laptop in the guest room for the rest of the evening, the document left open and completely untouched.

Kuroo, however, didn’t let the subject rest in his head for the rest of that evening. Hinata was in town, having time off after a big game yesterday so Kuroo was left to his own devices – which really wasn’t a problem considering he had to make the paperwork for a promotional deal for a meeting Monday morning that he had procrastinated making – which wasn’t like him at all, he usually never pushed assignments to last minute and he then realized the reason he wasn’t done yet was because he had spent so much time over the dinner table with Kenma and you, talking even after dinner had been done for a while. You always offered to help him with the clean-up so you also spent some time talking there, drifting off to various subjects far passing the cleaning duties and sitting down again with a glass of water.

He enjoyed your company, it felt... easy, somehow, the sensation that something was off was there but it didn’t really settle in his stomach until every time after you left, as if it was left to grow a bit from a small sensation to a problem, which worried him – Kuroo prided himself as an impeccable people-reader, he was captain for both the volleyball team in high school and college, he knew how to act around business relations so well because he could read them so flawlessly – so the feelings he got from you was unsettling and unreadable and it took some control away from him – and Kuroo always felt uneasy when he wasn’t in control.

____

Kuroo heard your name and almost got whiplash from how fast his head moved towards Kenma, “what?”

“I asked if we should invite them? To game night? Being three is a little annoying in Mario Party.”

“Oooh, that’s a good idea! I’d love to see them again!” Hinata happily exclaimed before taking another bite of the lasagna Kuroo had prepared tonight. It was Saturday and Kuroo had been in a daze the entire day, first at the office for a quick meeting with his boss about a potential partner he might be able to reel in soon and then doing his laundry at Kenma’s and continuing to try and make the stupid paperwork but ultimately failing before he had to make dinner.

“Isn’t it a bit late to invite someone? I mean, they could have plans already...” Kuroo tried, knowing what a pain it could be to be asked to something an hour before it happened and he didn’t want to let you go through that – that’s what he tried to tell himself, at least. In truth? He was a bit afraid of seeing you again, afraid of his potential reactions, since he had spent his entire Friday in a stupor just thinking about you. His thoughts didn’t mean much for Kenma and Hinata though, who was already texting you to ask. “Oi, no phones at the table, have you parents taught you no manners?” Kuroo chided and Hinata immediately shrank back and apologized – Kuroo smirked, yea the Chibi-chan still had respect for his seniors. But he was quickly pulled back to thoughts about you by Kenma’s phone lighting up again, “they’ll be here in an hour. They’re asking if they should bring anything?” Kenma looked up to gauge Kuroo’s reaction, having noticed something about his friend had been off the past few days. He immediately made a funny grimace before turning it into a smile. “Yea, they can bring a bottle of white wine, if I have to beat you all at Mario Party, I would very much like to be a tiny bit buzzed,” Kuroo said, and Hinata looked at him with wide eyes, “you drink wine!? So grown up!” Hinata exclaimed, to which Kenma just muttered, “or just an old man…” Kuroo didn’t hear that though, too busy to fidget with his hands under the table, suddenly feeling nervous that you were showing up.

Hinata plopped down between Kuroo and you with a controller in hand, “I’m gonna beat you all in this Mario Kart!” to which you laughed loudly, “good luck since we’re playing Mario Party.”

“Huh? Is there a difference?” Hinata asked, making Kuroo belt out a loud laugh as well, holding his stomach, “you just told us you’d beat us but you don’t even know what we’re playing!” Kuroo couldn’t contain his laughter for a bit until he noticed how you were looking at him and instantly retracted his laugh, sitting up straight with a cough, and apologizing for being loud, which confused him to no end. He had never been self-conscious of his own laugh! He knew it could be obnoxious and loud, but he also liked it himself, and-

“That’s a really cute laugh.”

The comment earned you the stares of the century from the three other people in the room, with Kenma in genuine shock – he wouldn’t say he disliked Kuroo’s laugh, just that it was… special.

“Uhm… Uh. Thank you?” Kuroo could feel that his blush went all the way to his ears but he hoped that the light in the living room wasn’t bright enough to catch it. “Yeah uh! Sure! Mhm,” you awkwardly coughed a bit as well before reaching for your glass of wine.

You had brought a bottle of white wine for Kuroo on the promise that you’d get a glass too, saying he was your first friend who also liked wine. The word ‘friend’ had dumb-founded him and he’d just answered “you can have it all,” to which you had laughed and said it’s fine with half, you weirdo.

The game was about to begin but Kuroo was still sitting stuck on the fact that his laugh was cute – cute? Had anyone else found it cute before besides Bokuto and his mom? He wasn’t sure – he sure couldn’t pinpoint them right now anyways. He tried to shake it off and focus on the game, though quite a bit of time was spent explaining the rules to Hinata who apparently had thought they were just playing Mario Kart.

When you were 12 laps into it, it seemed that you were set to win with your four stars and 121 coins. Kenma was right behind you with three stars and Hinata and Kuroo had been left in the dust with zero stars. You had stolen Kuroo’s first (and only) star early in the game, so he was plotting his vengeance in quiet but was getting afraid that the game would end before he could do anything to you – but just as his hopes were at the smallest during the last round of the game, you were put in the same team as him in the last mini game.

Kuroo had a wide smirk when you cheered and said, “this’ll be easy then!” because no, it would not be easy for you. If he had to go down in order to take you down a notch, then so be it. He’d rather Kenma win than you did with stolen goods!

The last mini game was “Tow the Line” where two players were put in a sewing box shaped with nine dots as a grid and two players tied together with a string and the objective was to make the shape with the string as shown in the middle of screen. As soon as the whistle sounded, Kuroo lowered his hands and stopped using his controllers, all with a big grin on his lips.

“Kuroo, what the fuck! Get moving, we’ve started!” you yelled at him as Kenma and Hinata won the first round, signaling the next round began, Kuroo started whistling and looking away from the screen, to which you got up from your seat, “fine, I’ll just take your controller and do it myself!”

Kuroo put his arm with the controller behind him, “nah-ah-ah! You’re not winning this, fiend! That’s what you get for stealing my star!” He grinned up at you with his eyes closed as you stood with your hands on your hips, “come on man! I stole that star in the fourth round! Kenma stole a star from me as well!” you tried, “maybe he stole the one that was yours, who knows! Get over it so we can win!”

But as soon as you’d said that, the third round had just been won and you sighed and flopped down on your seat again, “not cool Kuroo, not cool. I’ll remember this!”

You both laughed as the game made ready to announce the winner, Kenma and Hinata entertained by your antics.

“You can’t avenge something that I avenged in the first place! I only did it because you did me wrong, you know!”

“You can’t use logic on me, it doesn’t apply!”

To no surprise, you won the entire game, even winning one of the two bonus stars given at the end of the game.

After the last sequence and a bow from you there was a quick break before you decided to play some Mario Kart for Hinata’s sake, since his argument was that he lost due it being Party instead. You played quite a few hours and after another toilet break you had switched places with Hinata so Kenma could cuddle up against him. You yawned, drinking the last of the wine in your glass and said, “I should head home, I have a friend coming over for lunch tomorrow.”

Hinata and Kenma both started to get up to say goodnight but you waved at them with a smile, “I can walk out myself, it’s fine!” But Kuroo had already gotten up from the couch as well, so you walked with him towards the hallway where you put on your shoes. There was a comfortable silence between the two of you, which Kuroo noted and scowled a bit - he might have only known you for less than a week but for some reason he felt like it had been a lot longer, like you were old friends – it felt strange, to be so close with a stranger. He didn’t know anything about you, really. He knew your name, your job and how you liked some of your vegetables and which meat was your favorite, he knew you also loved cats but didn’t have one (he couldn’t remember if he knew why) and he felt pretty sure he would recognize you in a crowded area – why it was so intense, he was unsure of, he hadn’t tried meeting someone this way before. It had also seemed like having this game night had made you considerably more relaxed in his presence, even joking around with him instead of being polite, which made Kuroo somewhat giddy, though it didn’t really make sense to him as to why.

“I hope you had fun,” Kuroo said awkwardly, as if he had been the host and scratched the back of his head.

“Yeah, I did! I’m sorry I stole your star, though,” you laughed, buttoning your jacket.

“Nah, no worries, as they say, all’s fair in love and war, right?”

You giggled and picked up your bag from the dresser while Kuroo opened up the door for you. As you exited, you turned around with a bright smile, “well, thanks for toni-”

Everything ended up a blur, too bright, too much, too noisy, too… colorful? Kuroo was still looking into your eyes as all that went through him, completely blindsided. As he took a proper look, he could see that you looked just as surprised as him, your eyes wide but still never leaving his either.

“Is… Is this? Are you? Is…” You asked after what felt like both days and milliseconds, I could stare at them so much longer, he thought to himself, the colors only making your face more clear to him. Had you really not had eye contact at all? Had you seen each other for several hours – more than a few times, without looking each other in the eyes at all? Kuroo was more baffled by this happening so late than the fact that it was happening.

He was about to say something, anything, when you promptly turned around, nervously yelling, “I-I uh, I gotta go! Goodbye!” as you hurried out of the driveway and down towards the subway.

“W-wait!” Kuroo belatedly and unhelpfully yelled out as you turned a corner, too late. You were gone. A hand was dragged down his face as a sigh left him, what the fuck had just happened? He obviously needed to talk to you about this, but he also needed to gather his thoughts about all of this, so he slowly closed the door and went back towards the living room, greeted by Hinata and Kenma who looked up at him curiously, “why did you yell?” Hinata asked with his head tilted.

“I think I just found my soulmate.”

#haikyuu!!#kuroo tetsurou x you #kuroo tetsurou x reader #hq x reader #waaaaah im so nervous about this!!!! i basically cranked it out in less than 24hrs ngl.... i had 1.5k of beautiful words before i came u #P WITH A WHOLE OTHER PLOT!!!! :-)#if any of u get the ref of the title i love u and we need to play mp together lmao <33333 #also kenhina and tsukiyachi is mentioned!#both reader and kuroo r A MESS #stay tuned for part 2!!!!!!#nohr.writing #half the battle series #im gonna dig a hole real quick to hide in hehehe #honestly im not sure this is entirely coherent i had so much.... i wanted to force into it im afraid some of it feels out of place but!!!#here we go!! face the fear lmao!!!!

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avis-writeshq · 4 years

Text

Pretty Setters and things they remind me of

characters: oikawa, sugawara, akaashi, kenma, kageyama, atsumu

warnings: fluff [fem!reader]

other: repost (again) because tags didn’t work (again)

oikawa: staying up until four to finish assignments, star gazing, snow angels, face masks at twelve in the morning

although oikawa might look like a flawless piece of art on the outside, on the inside he’s insecure and doing more than one hundred percent just to show that he is good enough. no, not just good enough. he wants to show that he’s better than all the people who stood over him. staying up late to watch volleyball videos and tactics is just one of his unhealthy habits. however, he does make time for himself, even thought that makes him look like a narcissistic person on the outside.

he’s perfectly imperfect, just like snow angels. for some reason, they never turn out the way you want them to be. star gazing to oikawa is peaceful – he can finally forget the world and get lost in the billions of stars that light up the night sky. but he knows, that no matter what happens, you’ll always be his brightest star.

sugawara: forgotten algebra homework, coffee at nine in the evening, summer breezes, melted ice-cream

despite looking well put together, sugawara is a chaotic mess who has no idea what he’s doing. he put so much time in volleyball and other activities he sometimes forgets about his academics, hence the forgotten algebra homework at the bottom of his bag. he spends the rest of the evening trying to finish three chapters of overdue class work, drinking coffee late at night in a desperate attempt to get everything done.

summer breezes are gentle, just like him. he’s caring and loving to the people he cares about, and he sacrifices so much for the sake of other people. summer breezes are cool in contrast to the glaring sun. they give comfort when needed and it’s always appreciated. melted ice-cream is for his messy but beautiful personality. despite all that, you just so happen to be his calm when he brings his own storm.

akaashi: rustic libraries, nature cafés, yelling your problems over a canyon, chicken noodle soup

he’s naturally studious and hardworking, always doing his best to succeed despite the amount of pressure that is placed on his shoulders. he always remembers important dates and the little things in life – your favourite book, your favourite cake flavour, your favourite song. small insignificant little details that seem to be unnecessary but turn out to be the most important. nature cafés have a certain aspect to them that calms people down. it allows people to have a clear mind and a calm outlook towards their situations.

no matter how calm and stoic he looks, akaashi tends to overthink with an anxious heart. he blames himself when things go wrong – a people pleaser who doesn’t even know it. however, he knows that keeping things to himself is unhealthy. so instead he yells it over a canyon, wide and vast as his problems get lost in the echoes. chicken noodle soup is a classic pick-me-up. it brings warmth and love into your body, healing you of illnesses. that’s what you are to akaashi. you are his warmth and his love.

kenma: late night video calls, cat beanies, two am road trips, chai lattes in the snow

he calls you all the time to check on you after graduating high school. university is hard, so it’s not easy to see each other in person, so video calls are the next best thing. you rant to each other about the loud dorm mates and the bad cafeteria food. you gifted kenma a cat beanie before graduation and he’s worn it ever since. it was like a way to have you with him when he was two hours away from you.

of course he would go on road trips. the only reason he would ever go was for a stream, but nevertheless, it was a fun experience. chai lattes were one of kenma’s favourite drinks. You accidentally got the wrong order and gave him a chai, and he’s loved it ever since. he drinks it whenever it’s cold outside, mainly because it gives him a sense of warmth. it was a similar feeling to when he was with you. but you could give him that warmth with just a small smile.

kageyama: walks in the park, dark chocolate mochas, promise rings, ballroom dancing

no matter the weather, kageyama loved walking in the park with you, hand in hand. in the middle of winter, he would tuck your hand into his jumper pocket to keep it warm. dark chocolate mochas just so happen to be one of his favourite drinks – it isn’t too sweet and it can keep people warm in the best way.

kageyama gave you a promise ring in your last year of high school after noticing how your gaze would shift to the jewellery store ever so often. sugawara gave him the idea for the promise ring after hearing his first idea to ‘propose’. clueless as he was, tobio knew what a promise ring was, he just never really thought about it. ballroom dancing has a certain elegance to it, so when he first tried it out with you, he kept stepping on your toes. you always laughed it off with him, giving him a small sense of peace and he always admired you for it. peace… something that he needed and something you always gave to him.

atsumu: sunflowers in the spring, throwing small rocks at your window, oversized t-shirts, matching outfits

your first date with atsumu just so happened to be in a sunflower field, the bright flowers bringing smiles to your faces. throwing small rocks at your window was what he did when he found out you were having nightmares. he caught you as soon as you climbed down your window and he took you to the nearest convenience store to get ice-cream while you ranted about what happened in your nightmares.

the oversized t-shirts brought comfort to you whenever atsumu was away for a long training session. he would give you one of his jerseys or shirts, so of course with his six feet form they would all be hanging over you like a dress. however, despite that, atsumu loves it when you wear his clothes because he finds it adorable. that included cute couple outfits he would find on tiktok and pinterest. it gives him the idea that, yes, that’s my girlfriend and i love her.

#oikawa x reader #akaashi x reader #haikyuu!!#sugawara x reader #kenma x reader #kageyama x reader #atsumu x reader #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu drabble #oikawa tooru x reader #akaashi keiji x reader #sugawara koshi x reader #kenma kozume xreader #kageyama tobio x reader #atsumu miya x reader #haikyuu smut #oikawa smut #akaashi smut

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beskarberry · 3 years

Text

Star-crossed

Bargaining with Beskar, Chapter 11

(The Mandalorian x f!reader) (+18)

"His heartbeat picked up to a wicked cantor, echoing in his helmet like a storm of leathery wings. Whispering demons crawled up his brainstem and dragged beloved memories down from his skull and into the light of judgement. Memories of you."

<-Previous Next->

Rating: Explicit

Word count: 9.k oh no

Content warnings: Major angst, nightmares, premonitions, auditory hallucinations, unsavory parental figures, paranoia, domestic disputes, child endangerment, violence. No smut in this one, the only thing getting fucked in this chapter are our feelings.

A/N: This one hurt to write, there were definitely some tears shed while putting this together this so fair warning do not expect this one to end well. :(

High above the metal decking of the engine room, you were elbow deep in an exhaust port, clearing away the slag to replace one of the durasteel plates that had started to warp from the excess heat. You were singing, as you always did when you worked; a vulgar, brassy shanty that was almost louder than the reciprocating scraper in your hands. You spat and wiped a wayward chunk of grease from your mouth, the taste of it oily and burnt. No matter how many times you’d been taught the lesson of ‘keep your mouth closed’ you couldn’t help it. Whenever you worked, you sang.

Raucous as a mudhorn in heat and louder than a full grown krayt, your songs were a favorite of your unit, and the chief of engineering would often come stand a while and listen; though the moment he was caught eavesdropping he would scold you for not working harder. Tough love is what he called it. He was yelling at you now from far below at the base of the hyperdrive engine, and you pushed your goggles up your grime-smeared face to see him.

Bilgerat! Get’cher ass down ‘ere, posthaste!

Yessir!

Now you were standing in front of the chief, though there was another man standing there too. Tall, thin and pale with eyes like a dead fish and a tight, steelset jaw. You didn’t recognize him, but he looked important, his lapel shining with the badge of a high-ranking officer.

You there, girl, sing.

Sir?

Don’t argue with me, child, I heard you from three decks over. Sing.

Being watched made you nervous, but you did as you were ordered. You sang something, maybe everything, either way the stranger watched you, no, judged you, his eyes never leaving your face. The dead-eyed man furrowed his brow and stroked his chin thoughtfully, but you had already stopped watching him, caught in your song, powerless against the siren song that was your own voice.

It always felt so good to let loose, your voice could set your soul free, and yet it also felt like it was pulling something in. Something greater than yourself, flowing through you, connecting you to every living thing that ever was or ever will be. Your boots were firmly stuck aboard the starship called the Wyvern’s Tongue, but your songs carried your heart to the farthest reaches of the galaxy, to worlds beyond your durasteel home.

The humming is what woke Din up, though he hadn’t slept much through the night anyway, too suspicious of the artifact he had found aboard his ship. Fully armored, sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall of the borrowed quarters he had stood guard over his tiny clan, dozing in and out of restless sleep.

He lifted his helmeted head to zero in on the noise you were making. It was one he was familiar with, you often hummed in your sleep, it was something he loved about you. The warm, wavering sound coming from the floor where you had made a nest of quilts for yourself was comforting, but tonight something about it seemed off.

He watched you sleep, noticing the way that your fingers twitched and your legs kicked behind you slightly. It wasn’t like you to be so energetic, so distressed. Clutched to your chest the foundling purred softly, but you didn’t seem to hear him. Your hums turned to whimpers, making the Mandalorian’s blood run cold.

She’s having a nightmare.

She’s perfect. I’ll take her.

But sir, she’s m’best bilgie. How’ll I-

Is that insubordination I hear, Chief Wellers?

N-no Cap’n Forescythe. She’s all yours.

Good. Come along, little sparrow, your talents are being wasted here.

You remember being so scared, looking to your chief for reassurance, but he wouldn’t meet your eyes. Though you’d lived aboard the Wyvern’s Tongue since she had left Corellia’s port you’d never actually met the captain. The starcruiser was well over a thousand meters long and home to hundreds of crewmates, putting bilgerats far below the captain’s sphere of influence. What did he want from you?

Each step you took in your dream you got taller, your strides lengthening as you grew from a gangly teenager to a young woman. You were at the bridge now, being sat in a stiff but comfortable chair. You were taught to relay orders, delegate operations, interpret incoming transmissions and their origins. It was a station high above your birthright, but you were never one to turn down a challenge, and you bullied your way to excellence; much to your captain’s pride.

Captain Forescythe was usually described as a cold, unforgiving man, but he treated you remarkably well for a boat-brat dug up from the scuppers, much to the disdain of his fellow officers. He told you that you were a natural talent, gifted by the Maker with a voice so strong, so beautiful, almost like he revered you for it. Much like the ship's namesake, the Wyvern’s captain lorded over you like treasure, jealousy guarding you like a priceless jewel.

The captain’s precious little pet.

Sing, my little Sparrow.

Unable to spectate any longer, Din crawled over to you, brushing an armored hand over your sweat-streaked face. “Mesh’la? Are you alright? Wake up cyare, you’re having a nightmare.”

Wake up.

You couldn’t tear your eyes away. Once where a beautiful, peaceful world had once been there was now only dust. The Death Star your ship was escorting had succeeded in her mission, and you had been graciously allowed to watch as the mechanical moon obliterated a billion lives as one would exterminate a nest of roaches. Around you your crew cheered, hooray for the Empire! Death to the Resistance! But you couldn’t hear them.

You heard screaming.

Clawing at your ears and squeezing your eyes closed did nothing to make it stop. As if millions of voices were funneling directly into your skull.

You ran. Ran through the labyrinthian hallways, ran as fast as you could to your quarters. Even your blankets would not protect you, the wailing only growing louder.

Murderers! Monsters! You killed us! Why? Why why why!

You ran from your tiny room, backpack slung over your shoulder, filled with what few things you owned. Ran all the way to the hangar. You’d worked on interceptors a thousand times before when your hands were still small, when you could weasel your way into the narrowest of spaces and prove yourself worthy of not getting jettisoned. Knife in hand you unlocked the security protocols easier than picking your teeth, and the hangar fell away beneath you.

Turning back one last time to glance at the artificial home you had known for so long you saw a figure standing there. Was it the captain? Had he come to stop you? Stop his precious Sparrow from flying away?

No. They were blue, flickering in and out of corporeality. Their face took up your entire mindscape now, their features ever changing, like you were looking at more than one face at a time. The eldritch being’s eyes bored through yours, shifting rapidly from those of a man to those of a child to those of an elder, a hundred lives all demanding to be seen at once. Their mouth did not move when it spoke.

“i̴͊̎t̴'s̸̉͋ ̵͋c̸͑ȏ̸̕m̸͐͛i̸̽͘n̷̾͂ǵ̵”

You sucked air like your lungs had never known oxygen, nearly launching the foundling into orbit as you bolted upright. Beskar burdened arms coiled around you the next second, and you stung your knuckles on his armor trying to fight him off in your panic.

“Ger’off’a me! It wasn’t my fault! I’m sorry! Please!”

“Cyare! Stop! You’re having a nightmare, it’s ok I’ve got you!” Battleborne muscles held you tight against a cold plate of steel while you thrashed until you were coherent. Husband. You let your body relax against your oathsworn and wept, deep, heaving sobs that tore your throat apart and crackled your ribs. Soft shushing noises came through Din’s modulator next to your ear, but the cold metal of his armor brought you little comfort.

“I-I’m s-s-sor-ry.” You stuttered into the fabric of his cowl, the roughhewn cloth soaked with tears. Strong fingers carded through your dampish hair, still not dried all the way from your shower only a few hours ago. Din pressed his palm against the back of your head, burying you in the crook of his shoulder where he could protect you from whatever had scared you. The yellowed tips of his gloves bumped against your unburdened ear cuffs with each pass of his hand, but the leather scraping the metal couldn’t drown out the whispers that still oozed from your thoughts.

Why why why why why why...

“It’s alright, cyar’ika, I’m here. Grogu’s here.” Without tearing your eyes away from the safe haven of his cloak you groped blindly for the baby, finding the disheveled youngling and pulling him in tight. “Can you tell me what happened?” Din asked, his modulated voice soft with worry. You shook your head against your partner. “Alright, that’s ok.”

-ỉ̶t'̸͑̋́̂s̸ ̵̝͕̏̀͠͝c̷̬͙̃̽͌̑̊o̷̅͑̓̈́m̴̧͓͈̭̃͂́̽͌͑ǐ̶̓̕n̷̓̋̚g̵͕͙͎͊̀͊̽!̶̑̀-

You gasped and pulled away from your husband’s comfort, eyes wider than moons, pupils shrunken to pinpoints. Gloved hands found your face, cupping your cheeks and trying to get you to look into his hidden honeywells that were searching your eyes. Unblinking, you looked right through him.

“Can you hear that?” You whispered, your voice far, far away.

“Hear what?”

-I̴̭̊̚͘͘T̷́̽̕S̴̔̅̈́ ̸̋C̸̀͋Ỏ̸̉̄͝M̸̐͂I̶N̷̽͗̈̌G̵͓̎̈̊̀͛͘͠!̶!̷̤̏-

“That!” you shrieked, making both your boys jump. You clawed at your ears, though you knew that wouldn’t help, the voices were coming from inside. “I-I have.. I have to go! I have to go now!” You tried to spring up off the floor, but your arm was caught in the iron grip you knew and trusted, keeping you at your knees. “I have to warn Alewyn!”

“Cyar’ika what are you talking about? Warn her about what?”

The phantom voice wailed again, and you doubled over from the force of it, sending a fresh wave of tears down your face. Din was getting scared now, his eyes wide with worry behind the visor, his throat bobbing around dry swallows. You’d never woken up like this before, so distraught and inconsolable, and it was making him feel helpless. He couldn’t put binders on your emotions, grapple with your fears, slay your inner demons.

“Let go!” You roared and flew from his grasp, tripping over your faceplate and the pile of quilts as you blasted out the door, sprinting down the Sunskate’s curving corridors towards the bridge with your foundling stuffed under your arm. Haunting voices chased you through the halls, making you deaf to the armored thunder that was following dutifully behind.

You charged through the bulkhead to the bridge, nearly busting the durasteel door off its hinges when you flew through it, skittering to a halt in front of the viewport. With wild eyes you searched the void, ignoring the concerned questions that were being asked of you. Where is it where is it where is it?! From corner to corner you scanned, locking your red-rimmed eyes on every flicker, every spark.

Nothing.

Nothing for miles.

Slowly you became aware of those around you, the soft leather gloves of your mate pulling on your face and the warm but worried voice of the Sunskate’s captain.

“Cyare?”

“Tra’laar?”

“Patu?”

Your legs gave out under you and you let yourself be caught in the steelbound arms of your husband, the two of you sinking to the floor with the foundling still locked to your chest. Terror replaced itself with scalding embarrassment, making you bury your unblinking eyes in the foundling’s forgiving tummy. Your eyelids wouldn’t close no matter how hard you willed them to, because they knew that somewhere, out there,

Was a dragon.

“What’s wrong with her? Did you do something to upset her?!” Alewyn hissed, becoming defensive of her ill-begotten rescue.

“No! She had a nightmare, I think. Cyar’ika whatever it is, it’s not real. There’s nothing out there, come back to me, please.” Mando’s loving pleas and careful touches went unrecognized, no matter how diligent they were.

What finally drew you back to reality was the gentle pat pat pat of fat baby paws on your face. You turned your wilted gaze to the foundling, the embarrassment of being seen so vulnerable only growing stronger and more painful. “I-I’m s-sorry, Goober, you s-sh-sh-shouldn’t have to see me like-”

Pap.

Baby beans smacked you softly on your forehead and closed his eyes, making you furrow your brow. “What are you- oh.” Your eyes slid closed, and a warm peacefulness breezed through you, exorcising the whispering voices between your ears. You took a deep, somewhat stuttered breath and let go, feeling whatever weird baby magic the foundling possessed flow through you. The night terror faded to the back of your mind, dissipating like mist until it evaporated entirely from your thoughts.

“Thank you…” You whispered, nuzzling the baby’s chubby belly. Heart rate steady and breath even, you leaned back against the man who was still holding you up. Din rested the edge of his helmet on the top of your head and hummed, a low, brassy tone, sounding relieved. Where his hands were wrapped around your sides you felt the slow roll of his palms, warm and protective. “I’m sorry, Mando, Alewyn, I don’t know what came over me...”

“S’all right, missy, t’ain’t the first time I’ve seen someone go wailin’ through the halls. We all have our burdens to bear.” Alewyn combed a dainty hand through your hair, brushing it out of your face. “Good thing them boys’ve gotcha though.” She glanced between the visor of the Mandalorian that was coiled so defensively around you and the little green baby you held so dearly. “I can tell they love ya.”

You nodded sheepishly and let Din help you to your feet, his hands never leaving you lest you waver. Angrily you wiped at the corners of your eyes, trying to cover your shame as the three of you walked back to your room. When the bedroom door closed behind you, you went straight for the porthole window, cautiously searching the stars again.

“What are you looking for?” Din asked hesitantly, “What… what were you dreaming about?”

“Um. I had a dream we were… under attack.” You lied, your eyes still locked to the void. If you could help it, the secrets of your past would someday die with you, though by the sounds of the whispers you had heard not even death could keep its mouth closed.

“Must have been one hell of a nightmare, I’ve never seen you like this. Is there anything I can do for you?” Din the ever-thoughtful asked, draping a quilt over your shoulders. The fabric was still warm from where you had been sleeping on it, the weight of it reassuring on your back. You shook your head. He glanced at the back of one vambrace, “We’re still another hour from the station, why don’t we get our things packed and back on the Crest? Would that be ok?”

It was better than going back to sleep, you didn’t trust your own thoughts not to terrorize you again, and you nodded enthusiastically. Din didn’t allow you to lift a finger while he zoomed around the little room, collecting your armor and laundry and then you, scooping you and the foundling up in his arms.

“Put me down, tinman, I’m not helpless!” you chided with a weak little laugh.

“There’s my girl. Nope, I’m carrying you. Deal with it.”

You sighed in a heavy, mocking tone, covering your face with your mask like a shy child while he proudly tromped back to the hangar to where your immobile home lay. Once you were all lifted up the half-hanging ramp you dropped graclessly onto a crate with a huff. You were beat, but it felt nice to be back in your ship, the familiarity adding to whatever calming effect the foundling had used. The little green terror was drowsy in your arms, spent from using his wild baby powers to vanquish your demons. You kissed his wrinkly little head and swaddled him in the quilt Din had accidentally stolen for you.

Tinman was digging through the larder, looking for something for breakfast and found a pack of biscuits to give you. Though the suspicious item he still carried in his pocket had kept him sleepless, the need to care for his loved ones overrode every other instinct, making him forget it for the time being. You weren’t hungry, if anything you were nauseous from your night terror, but Din was insistent; and you nibbled on a bright blue macaroon, splitting bites with the sleepy baby.

Eventually a soft beeping chimed from the Mandalorian’s vambrace, stationfall in fifteen minutes. Outside the ship you heard a holler, and you strode to the ramp to find Alewyn and Lilah, ready to bid thee farewell.

”Alright, so!” Alewyn exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “Here’s the dealy-o. The Sunskate can’t actually… dock with the station. M’good ole dad’s still got hunters on the loose, never know when they’ll turn up, eh?” She laughed. “Your ship’s gonna have’ta dock on’er own, but Lilah’s patchwork should hold ya together long ‘nough for the service droids’ta pick ya up.”

You ignored the loud, audible groan from behind you. “I think we can manage that.” You started to hop down off the ramp, but the spry Togruta was already climbing up into the Crest, barreling you over. Alewyn the Affectionate squeezed your ribs so hard you felt the air leave your lungs, making you grunt ugly. One of her nimble hands disappeared from you into her many secret pockets, then snuck into one of yours, leaving a sizable weight of credits behind. “Wynnie!” you hissed against her montral, “Not again!”

“S’least I can do, since we nearly ripped that old bucket’a shit in half and you spared another spacer from the slab.” She held you out at arms length, bobbling her montrals at you with an arrogant grin. “Take care’a yerself, missy. And you too, Mando! Be good to this woman’n’er son or so help me!” The princess raised a fist at him that turned into an outstretched hand. He shook it hesitantly, but the lavender lady reeled him in, and you giggled at his hover-hands while she squeezed the life out of him.

Lilah helped her wife down from the ramp, and the two of them waved before hefting the ramp closed, sealing you inside with your crew. You dashed up the ladder to the cockpit, looking for a horn to honk but there wasn’t one, giving you another item to add to your mental grocery list. Din followed you up with Grogu in tow, taking his seat in the captain’s chair.

The Sunskate’s hangar jaws slid open slowly, pulling a blue force field over the stretch of stars. Far ahead you could just barely make out the shiny little dot where the station was, glittering just a little brighter than the stars themselves. With the cockpit door tightly sealed, Din carefully started up the old gunship, and on instinct you covered Grogu’s ears to protect him from the inevitable backfire.

The Razor Crest sputtered to life and slowly floated out of the hangar door, relying more on inertia than propulsion to get her towards the station. Out the window you saw the enormous rayship that had carried you here bank away from you, the starlight glittering briefly on her copper-colored belly before her propulsion engines flared back to life, and soon enough she was nothing more than a comet streaking through the void.

Din fussed with the radio transponder, opening up a hailing frequency that would alert the attention of the station droids, and it wasn’t long before a large transport unit was making its way to you. The automatic taxi magnetized itself to the roof of the Crest, easing the strain off of your damaged engines.

A robotic voice beeped through the comms: “THANK YOU FOR CHOS-ING EL-GON AU-TO-MA-TED SER-VI-CES. SMILE-Y FACE. CO-MEN-CING TRANS-PORT TO HAN-GAR SEV-EN-TEEN FOR EV-AL-U-A-TION AND RE-PAIR. HAVE A NICE DAY. SMILE-Y FACE”

Din groaned, his fists creaking on the steering wheel. “Why’s it gotta be droids…”

You shrugged in your chair. “Elgon’s old as dirt, prob’ly older than the Crest. I’d be surprised if there wasn’t anything on it that wasn’t animatronic.”

“Great.”

Ahead of you, the station dominated your viewport, humming with a myriad of activity. A neutral starport, Elgon boasted service to any and all as long as they had coin in their pockets, regardless of their commendations or crimes. You’d been to the old outpost many a time, both on your own and while you still wore a uniform, and excitedly you remembered a particular sweets shop that used to operate in the center.

Your service droid was nearly at the station now, approaching a large closed hangar with the number seventeen painted on it in orange Basic. You playfully kicked at the side of the pilots’ seat where Din’s butt was unguarded by the arm rests. “You excited to get fixed up, bucket boy?”

He nodded, he was ready to get back on the trail towards the last bounty. The thought of hunting again reminded him of the Imp device in his pocket that still mystified him, reigniting buried suspicions. I should ask her about it, maybe she knows what it is. He hadn’t wanted to disturb you while you were showering, or when you were getting ready to sleep, so being the polite riddur he decided he would bring it up with you in the morning.

Din reached into his pocket, closing his fingers around the mechanical spider, ready to pull it into the light when the hangar doors opened.

Revealing a blizzard of white duraplast.

“Oh fuck.” Your collective hearts went through the decking at the sight before you. There, swarming the station proper were dozens of Imperial stormtroopers, their eggheads covering the hangar like dirty snow. “Get down!” you hissed at Din who was already two steps ahead of you, sliding out of the pilots seat and under the dashboard. You tore the faceplate off of your crown and stuffed it into his hands along with Grogu and caged your two boys in with your knees, determined to keep anything mando-factured out of sight.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Din spat, slamming his fist on the floor. “This station is supposed to be neutral territory! We need to turn around, we can not stay here!”

Under you the Crest swayed gently in the droid’s grasp before being lowered onto a maintenance skiff, the hoversled bouncing slightly from the weight of your ship. Desperately you threw levers and pushed switches, trying to get the Crest to restart, but her engines were long gone, the turbines spinning almost mockingly slow. You weren’t going anywhere.

The comms light lit up on the dashboard with a soft chime, and on reflex you went to answer it when Din grabbed your leg. “Don’t even think about it.”

You made ‘what-choice-do-we-have’ hands at him, “Dude we are fucked unless I answer them, I-I speak their language, I can get us through.”

“Yeah? So do I.” He hissed from the floor, smacking the side of his thigh where his firearm hung.

“-Ksst!- hush! I’m handling this.” You straightened your shoulders and set your jaw straight before flipping on the receiver.

The holoprojector lit up in front of you with a tiny stormtrooper. “Identify yourself.”

“TK number SPW dash seven-zero-four-two, engaged in dogfight planetside and in need of repairs.”

“Why isn’t your ship running a beacon, soldier?”

“It's pre-empire surplus, it doesn’t have one.”

“What are you doing flying around in such a relic?” The stationmaster said with a bite of suspicion.

“...Budget cuts.”

They chuckled. ”No kidding. Alright then, what’s your designation?”

Shit, uh... “Prisoner transport unit.”

“Roger. Stand-by for transportation to engineering bay and prepare for inspection.”

The trooper winked out of existence, and you started to sigh with relief when the hand on your boot yanked you down to the ground.

“Prisoner transport unit?!” He rasped once you were at visor level with him on the floor. “Could you have come up with something else?!”

Unwillingly, your lips curled back and bared your teeth at his hateful tone. “There’s a shitload of guns and a goddamn carbonite freezer down in the hold, we’re not exactly delivering cookies. We need to get you two hidden before we get to the mechanics, come on!”

Din watched you drop through the ladder hatch with his heart in his throat, the fluttering organ violently trying to break out of his ribs. The Maker must think this is hilarious. After everything I’ve done to keep this kid away from the Imps we’re just going to go knocking on their fucking door. Everything was stacked against him. He was tired from lack of sleep, he was scared for the safety of his clan, and to top it all off he was becoming more distrustful of the microchip by the second; the mounting tension he emanated filling the cockpit like carbonite fog.

Maybe it’s a tracking device?

That… might make sense. Elgon station was out in the middle of buttfuck nowhere, why else would a shitload of Imps be here if not to capture him and his crew? To take his son? Through the night he had grown suspicious of the item he had found, and a nagging thought had seeded itself in his frontal lobe, one that he refused to give audience.

What if it came from her?

No, that’s stupid. That’s your riddur, she’s obviously not an Imp. He reasoned, slowly soldier-crawling his way to the hatch with his son and your armor in tow. It must have been in the coral already, or come from one of the pirates, maybe they planted it here. But if that’s the case then we’ve been handed right over into a trap. He lept down the ladder with Grogu squashed under his arm, watching you fly around the cabin looking for an acceptable hiding spot for your foundling and a full grown Mandalorian.

Time started to move in slow motion as it usually did for him when he was sizing up quarry. What did her puck say, before I decided not to turn her in? He ran through his mental rolodex, digging for your file. Ex hunter. Guild dissenter. Bribed out of high-profile bounty. Now that he had met the high-profiler for himself he really couldn’t blame you, though it was suspicious that you had returned from the bridge one bounty short after speaking with Alewyn in private.

Alewyn. Princess-turned-pirate, a renegade royal that had made a name for herself literally ripping ships down from the sky. Hunter ships in particular. Awful convenient for her to be right in our line of travel to a station full of Imps out in the middle of fuckall nowhere. He froze, his visor locked to your frantic form. As if…

As if she was waiting for us.

The corners of his lips bared his teeth to no-one behind his visor as the distrust he had sown in his own heart dug its claws in deep. This has been a trap from the beginning! She’s been playing the long con since Tatooine. In his other hand he held your betrothal gift, the beskar faceplate that he had presented to you when you swore your vows. It reflected his own visor back to him, the hazy lighting of the cabin shimmering on the mudhorn embossed on the brow. No… that’s not it… that’s not true, she loves you…

Right…?

Or… so she says. His heartbeat picked up to a wicked cantor, echoing in his helmet like a storm of leathery wings. Whispering demons crawled up his brainstem and dragged beloved memories down from his skull and into the light of judgement. Memories of you.

He’d caught you so easily on that dirtball of a planet, too easily for a hunter of your stature. You’d practically tossed yourself into the arms of a complete stranger, assumed the role of the child’s caregiver without question. Agreed to marry him after barely a month.

Grogu made a sniffling noise under Din’s arm, gaining both of his buir’s attentions. His nebulous eyes were beginning to moisten, threatening to spill over with tears at any moment. Instantly you ran to your baby’s defense. “Hey buddy boy, what’s wrong?” You carefully took the baby from Din, hugging him to your chest and making the tiniest sob bubble out of his nose. “No no no it’s ok, please don’t cry sweetheart!”

“He’s scared.” Din growled in a manner not at all comforting. You glared at the indomitable mountain of metal, offended that he would use such a tone in front of his own son. “He knows when there’s a threat nearby.” Under you the Crest wobbled slightly, signaling the start of her trek to the engineering bay. Tick tock.

“Fuck! Can you get in a storage crate?” you asked frantically, bouncing Grogu on your hip to get him to quiet down. The baby could sense the mounting anxiety radiating off of his buir, and was getting himself spun up into a fresh panic. His cries devolved into sobs, making the hull echo with despair. “Shh.. it’s ok! Baby boy please, we can’t do this right now!”

“Too obvious.”

“Ok, the sleeping cubby? The lockers? C’mon Mando work with me!”

“They’ll tear this ship apart the second it hits the bay. There’s no hiding. That’s it, we’re done for.” Din tossed up his hands and made some kind of noise in the back of his throat, some kind of strained laugh, the husk of it making the hair on the back of your neck stand on end. You knew that sound, it was the sound of acceptance, of defeat.

Like fuck you were giving up. You made to retaliate when something past his shoulder caught your eyes. Expecting you to fight with him he stopped his pacing and glared at you, then followed your eyes to the carbonite freezer. He whipped back around, gawking at you like you’d grown a second head. “Oh fuck no.”

“We are out of options!” you nearly screamed, “I can’t just cuff you, there’s no guarantee that they won't take you and Beans hostage, freezing you would be safer. I-it would only be for an hour or two, tops, just to pass inspection! That thing can unfreeze, right?”

“That is not the point!” Din bellowed, “You are suggesting not only to freeze me but to freeze him as well?” Din jabbed a finger at the baby, a rush of emotions threatening to boil his bucket right off his head. He widened his shoulders, broadening himself so large that he seemed to encompass the entire ship, glossy black eye turning dark and hateful on you. He couldn’t keep his suspicions to himself any longer. “You… has this been your plan all along?”

You balked, “Plan? Plan for what? The hell are you-”

He threw your beskar on the floor and grabbed your shoulders, pinning you against the wall opposite the freezer and making Grogu scream out in terror. Mando’s visor took up your entire field of view, reflecting with your own wild eyes. “Your plan to capture us!” He barked, the malice overflowing like an erupting volcano. “You told that Imp that this was a prisoner transport unit. We don’t have any prisoners on this ship unless you’ve had them since the beginning.”

“Are you out of your fucking bucket?!” You spat back at him, “You think I want to put you in carbonite?! Put my son in carbonite?! There’s nowhere else on this ship to hide you!”

“How convenient.” The joints in your shoulders popped from the force he was applying to them, his weight nearly fusing you with the wall.

“You’re hurting me!” Over you the lights began to flicker, though neither of you saw it with your eyes locked on each other; yours filled with pain and anger, his visor pinning you down as if you were quarry.

At the sound of your pain the tension on your shoulder bones eased slightly, but not enough to let you free of the wall. Scalding shame burnt its way across his face, bitter and stinging. He was hurting you, the one thing he swore never to do to you again, the very first oath he had promised.

You chewed the side of your cheek, trying to steady your words. “Din. I love you. I love Grogu! I lied to that Imp to protect you. I don’t want those rotten eggs to have you, how could you even think that of me?”

She lies. One thing that Din knew about you was that you were unquestionably good at was putting on a ruse, able to sweet-talk quarry or lure droids to their deaths. But the way you took to the comms was different, how you were able to use the Imps own terminology against them, even how you spoke to the pirates before you were ‘rescued’ was delivered with flawless diction. It was too perfect, too natural...

As if that was your real voice.

“I don’t know if I believe you,” He growled, digging armored claws into the flesh of your shoulders, making you suck air through your teeth. Defensively you coiled your arms around Grogu, burying his wrinkly little head against your chest where he would be safe from the man you thought you trusted. Fire cascaded out from under Din's helmet, trying to burn you at the stake. “You told me once that I don’t know you.” His helmet tilted like a serpent poising to strike, words dripping with venom. “But I should have known an Imp when I saw one.”

“I am not an Imp!! That’s not who I am any MORE!” Bulbs exploded around you at your words, glass and sparks raining down from above. The strength of your thundering roar broke the delicate machinery in Din’s helmet, causing his audio intake to screech with feedback. Immediately his hands left your shoulders and went to his ears, trying to protect himself from the horrible noise.

The let-up was all the invitation you needed, and you dropped yourself low; catapulting into Din’s chest plate like a linebacker and knocking him into the freezer. You kicked your faceplate between his boots, thrust Grogu into his arms and punched the activator on the wall, tears flowing hotly down your face. As the fog billowed outward Mando wrapped himself around the foundling, as though his impenetrable armor could protect the child from the nightmare of being frozen alive.

Horrified, you watched as the two creatures you loved most were consumed by the mist, leaving a dark block in its wake that bore their likeness. The metal was already ice cold to the touch when you ran your hand over the glaring curve of your husband's visor, and down to the terrified, tear-streaked face of your baby.

Choked sobs tore at the back of your throat, trying to drown you with guilt. I’m sorry! I’m so, so sorry my loves, I… I did what I had to do. You weren’t given time to process your grief, nearly jumping out of your skin when plasticast fists rapped on the access door with authoritarian vigor. Composing yourself to the best of your abilities, you stuck your finger down the barrel of your blaster, scraping off the dark residue and smearing it under your eyes to hide your welted cheeks.

Glass crunched under your boots as you made your way through the dismembered cabin to the wall panel, punching the buttons with shaky hands. The ramp chuggered and stopped halfway down, but it was down far enough for you to make visor contact with the platoon of troopers who were demanding your attention. Their armor was clean, freshly moulded and recently polished. These weren’t just the Empire’s soggy leftovers, these were new recruits.

Disgracefully hopping down from the ramp among a scurry of pit droids you puffed up your chest and squared your shoulders as you had seen your partner do whenever he was intimidating quarry. You crossed your arms behind your back in parade rest, watching as a painted trooper strode up to you, his rifle pointed at the floor near your feet.

“Stand aside, we have orders to search this ship.”

“Whose orders?”

“Elgon Station is under the Imperial jurisdiction of Admiral Forescythe, no ships in or out without search.”

You felt all the blood in your body evaporate at the name. Forescythe. Shit balls of hell, that fucking bastard is still alive?!

“Is that really necessary?”

The rifle in his hand rose just slightly. “You got something to hide?”

“No, sir.” you said sweetly, hoping politeness would buy you brownie points.

“Stand aside then.” The trooper barked, gesturing to your ship with the barrel of his rifle. You jumped when the heavy access ramp hit the ground, turning to glare daggers at the droid that had unfastened the damaged hydraulics. The stormtrooper marched past you up the ramp, inspecting the interior of the cabin as he went. As predicted, he nudged the lids of the supply crates open, pointing his gun at any would-be threats. Another pair of eggheads followed inside, rudely stomping through the Crest’s belly like they owned the place.

The painted trooper made loud, gross sniffing noises. “Smells like carbonite in here, your freezer might be leaking, better get that checked out…” He trailed off when he clocked the machine and its contents, taking big strides towards it. “Lookit that, Is that an actual mando? I didn’t even think they were real, I’ve only ever heard stories.” He gestured to you with his gun, “How’d you do it?”

“Do what?” You asked coldly.

“How’d you catch him? And his... weird dog?” The trooper tapped harshly on the solidified metal that covered your foundling's eyeball, making your blood pyroclast through your veins, but you remained composed.

“I’m more dangerous than I look.” You seethed, digging your nails into the skin of your arms behind your back. And you’re about to find out just how fucking dangerous if you don’t back off!

One of the unpainted soldiers piped up. “Do you think this is the one they’ve been looking for? The one the Admiral was talking about?”

“Could be, I’ll radio the Wyvern when it makes stationfall, should be dropping out of hyperspace in a few hours.” Cotton seemed to grow in your mouth at his words, making it impossible to swallow. No, it can't be.

-ī̶̱̩͋t's̴̈̅ ̵̛̂̈̋͋̏͘͝c̷ŏ̷̐̓͑ṁ̸͌̋̾̕in̵̨͎̩̠̼͂͜g̷͑̔.-

Shut up. The commander jabbed his rifle at you. “I heard someone say that mandos never take their helmets off, we should unfreeze it and see what it looks like.”

“No.” You barked, making the soldiers flinch. Haha. “He’s very dangerous, even under the effects of hibernation sickness he can still be quite lethal.”

“There’s three of us and only one of it.” A rifle was pointed your way, “Thaw it out.”

Like hell. “Alright, then I won’t have to be the one to explain to the Admiral why a Mandalorian is loose in the station, or dead. I’ve heard he’s a reasonable man.”

The three troopers looked at each other with questioning glances, suddenly unsure. That seemed enough to deter them, and you waited while the troopers barked orders at the repair droids, ordering them to get your ship fixed up. A battalion of robots swarmed the Razor Crest inside and out, almost making you thankful Mando wasn’t there to blast them full of holes. The greasy robots would make quick work of the damage, and hopefully have you out of the station before the Wyvern arrived.

The Wyvern. You wanted to curl in a ball and die. Of all the bullshit the galaxy had to offer it had decided that you deserved a double helping of unwanted nostalgia. Not only was the Wyvern’s Tongue still operational she would be bringing with her good old Admiral Forscythe, though last time you saw him he was just a captain.

Your captain.

And he was on his way.

To this station.

To your ship.

To you.

Oh fuck.

Immediately you turned to your partner for reassurance, only to meet his frozen stare. You wanted to release him, let him carry you safely away from this place, but you weren’t out of the woods yet; so you were both going to have to wait. You’d never been frozen, thank the Maker, but you’d heard stories. How being frozen is like being trapped alive, trying to breathe but not being able to move your lungs. Still being conscious but feeling your blood stop in your veins. A living death.

A waking nightmare.

Repair droids swarmed your ship’s interior like a hive of bees, but they were making quick work of the damage and would hopefully be gone soon. Shaky legs carried you back over to the carbonite freezer, and you leaned heavily on the block of frozen metal, stretching your arms around it in an attempted hug. I wish you were here, my love, but it will be over soon.

You pressed a kiss to both of your boy’s faces and slumped to the floor, leaning on the bandoliered boots behind you. Between the wide open ramp and the droids working on the stardrive you were too exposed to unfreeze your family, and the thought of having to wait even a minute longer made the edges of your eyes threaten to spill anew.

Stars above you wanted this to be over. The back of your throat tasted like bile, and the plasma residue smeared under your eyes was starting to burn. You needed to get away, to blast off into space with your boys and put your draconian past behind you before the literal beast reared her ugly head.

But… now he knows. You groaned into your knees, digging claws into your own hair. He knows! You fucking asshat now he knows! Your greatest, vilest secret had been spilled, and you were going to have to find a way to live with the consequences. He... he’ll understand. Bilgerats are practically foundlings, I just need to explain myself better. Yeah! That’s it! I didn’t have the chance to explain myself. He’ll forgive me… right?

Time seemed to crawl, languid and slow, forcing you to wallow in your own guilt. You cautiously eyed the platoons of troopers that would often march past, trying to glare daggers through their shiny white buckets, but they paid you no mind. The hours ticked by, making you more and more anxious by the second. You had no way of knowing how soon the Wyvern would arrive, could be hours, could be minutes. Could be seconds.

-į̶̱̩̄͋ͅt'̶̡̳̰̝̇s̴̈̅ ̵̧̛̺̂̈̋͋̏͘͝c̷̄͋͛̚oṁ̸͌̋̾́̈́̕͝i̸̇̏-

I’m aware! You snapped at your thoughts, pissed that they were still present long after Grogu had purged them from your mind. I must be going crazy, it’s the guilt. It has to be the guilt. You rubbed at your temples, trying to dispel the mounting tension in your skull. When you opened your eyes a sweeper droid was clearing away the glass shards from the floor, and you cocked your brows at it as it went by. When did the lights burn out?

Eventually the interior repairs were completed to the fullest, and the moment the ramp hydraulics were functional again you slammed the door shut and booked it back to the freezer controls.You turned a pair of knobs on the side of the carbonite block and took a step back. The metal that covered your beloved crewmates turned red, then bright gold, sloughing off in luminous waves.

You jumped to catch Din and the foundling before they hit the ground, his strength lost from the effects of hibernation sickness, nearly causing him to melt onto the floor along with the aurelius sludge pooling at your feet. In your ear you heard both of your boys taking desperate, broken breaths; and you rubbed at Din’s dorsal plate, encouraging him to fill his lungs.

As a unit you sank down to the floor where the child practically rolled into your lap. His enormous eyes were squinty and blinking, making you think that he may be temporarily blinded. “Hey booger, it’s ok, can you hear me?” Grogu made a sad little noise, but that meant he could at least still hear. “There ya go, that’s it, nice’n slow. Y’ok?” The child looked up at you with a twisted expression, then immediately yarked bright blue all over your shirt. “You know what, I deserved that, thanks.”

Din’s modulated cough grated in your ear. “How… long?”

“Couple hours, but the repairs are finished, we can get the fuck outta here now. Are you alright? You gonna barf?” He started to shake his head no, but the shaking might have been his downfall because you felt him start to heave. “Not in the bucket not in the bucket! Come on, up! Heeere we go…” You gently set Grogu down on the floor and bullied yourself up under Din’s arm, dragging him as fast as you could to the fresher. You barely got the beskar out of the way in time for your partner to empty his stomach. “That’s it, let it all out, I gotcha.”

Din hung on to the sides of the fresher like his life depended on it, shaking violently with every hurl, and there wasn’t much else you could do but hold on. He released one armored claw from the side of the fresher to reach back and find you, but when you tried to hold his hand to comfort him he pulled his fingers from your grasp. Again you tried, but this time he didn’t just let go, he pushed you away, and you heard him mumble something into the fresher bowl.

“-..a...tor-”

“What’d you say?”

“Traitor!!!” Din spat, curling back around at you with viciously bared teeth, eyes wild and bloodshot. You backpedaled away from the fuming warrior that was half crawling half leaping towards you, making weak throws that were slowly gaining in strength. “You fucking traitor! I should have known! I should have known from the very fucking start!” You’d never seen him angry without the helmet, and it terrified you. He terrified you.

You put up your hands defensively, backing away from him. “Please! Let me explain! It wasn’t-”

“I don’t listen to Imps!” He swung at you and missed, but his agility was quickly returning. You wouldn’t be so lucky the second time.

“Damn it Din, fucking listen-” Ignoring you, he groped for the gun on his belt, and you were barely able to grab your armor in time from the freezer to block his reckless shots. You crouched over Grogu, using your body and the face plate as a shield against the assaulting Mandalorian. “Din! Stop! Please! You’re going to hurt our son!”

“Our?!” He hissed, snarling around the word. “That is MY son! Get away from him!” Din grabbed the beskar mask and tried to pull it from you, yanking you up from the floor. “MY son does not belong to you, this does not belong to you! Who do you think you are?!”

“Who am I?! I’m your wife!”

He stopped trying to wrestle the lovingly-chosen armor away from you, meeting your eyes with his own darkened gaze. His earthly irises flickered fast between both of your own pupils, searching your face for something, some kind of reminder. A reminder that he loves you. The muscles on the side of his jaw clenched and rippled, chewing on the words he was looking for.

When he spoke his voice was hoarse, but certain, as if there would never be a greater truth than the one he breathed into being.

“No, you’re not.”

The coldness in his tone stabbed icicles in your veins and froze your mouth closed, rendering you speechless. His hateful gaze looked down to the mask still in your hands, twisting into a pained expression. “Did… did this mean anything to you?”

“Din… please…” you begged, you voice barely above a whisper, “It means everything to me, you mean everything to me!” Behind you Grogu was already starting to cry again, making the situation even worse. “I love you! I did what I did to protect you, to protect Grogu! I didn’t want those Imp bastards to take you. Can’t you see that?”

The Mandalorian laughed, miasmatic and sickly, infected with distrust. “Isn’t that just like an Imp, lying right up til the very end.” He let go of the beskar as if it was unclean, then turned swiftly around on his heel, striding to the fresher to grab his helmet from where it had been discarded on the floor. He picked it up and looked into it’s visor, almost like he was debating whether or not he could put it back on. It sank over his head with a hiss of it’s latches, amplifying his dominating presence tenfold.

You pressed on, balling your fists in determination. “It shouldn’t matter who I used to be, just who I am now. I don’t know anything about your past, all I know is who you are now, I know that you are my… ner rid-oor…”

He was on you in a flash. “Don’t make me cut out your lying tongue as well, Mando’a is sacred, I should have never taught it to you.” In one swift motion he grabbed the offensive beskar from your useless fingers and threw it somewhere behind him, the iron clanging ugly against the durasteel decking. He dug behind his chestplate and found the lucky talismans you had given him as a sign of your affection, a sign that he now decided should have been a big red flag, shoving them into your empty hands.

“You have dishonored me.”

The Mandalorian bent to pick the crying youngling up off the floor, carrying him over to the bed you had all shared. He didn’t turn around to face you when he spoke again. “Get out.”

His frigid words had you frozen in place, frozen in time. He’s leaving you. Your mind was racing, your heart flooding with sadness and grief. Words abandoned you, giving you only a whisper of your silver tongue.

“Din.. I-I didn’t have a choi-”

“GET OUT!!!” He ripped your backpack off the wall and flung it at you, making you reel from the impact. The ramp opened behind you, and you were suddenly being shoved out the door, rolling backwards out of the Crest. You scrambled to your feet, clutching the krayt teeth so hard that the edges cut your palms while you banged on the rising wall of steel.

From behind the closing door you heard a sound, faint but desperate, nearly inaudible over your own pounding heartbeat. It sounded distinctly like a baby’s cry.

“Bubu!”

-SLAM!-

The access ramp sealed shut, and a shiny silver dome appeared in the rounded transparisteel viewport where Mando was taking his seat at the controls. Imps began swarming you while the old gunship’s engines flared to life, burning like a newly risen phoenix. Poorly-aimed blaster fire ricocheted off the ship’s hull while her landing gear tucked itself up, and soon the home you had grown to know and love was blasting towards the hangar exit without you.

The Razor Crest slid through the magcon field, the backs of her engines turning bright blue as her stardrive kicked into gear, rocketing her into warp speed just as an enormous star cruiser dropped out of hyperspace, dwarfing the station with her size. As prideful and arrogant as the Empire she sailed for, she took up the starfield with the domineering presence of a ship that had once served as the Death Star’s loyal guard dog.

It could be no other than the Wyvern’s Tongue.

-ȉ̴͗t̴'̴s̶̛̓͝͠ he̷̍̂r̶̔ë̷́.-

If you had a single coherent thought left to your name you would have made a series of snide remarks to the completely useless voice that whispered in your ears. You would have fought back against the stormtroopers that were roughly grabbing you and forcing you down under the barrels of their guns. You would have ran through the station and commandeered one of the other ships that had come in for repairs and blasted off to somewhere, anywhere else.

If you weren’t so grief-stricken, so heart-broken, so lost, you would have hurled literal dragonfire at the man who was approaching you now.

The troop commander spoke first. “Sir, this one allowed the mando to esca-”

“Get her up. Now.” You were hauled back up to your feet, but your eyes stayed on the forcefield that was draped over the stars, just waiting for the Razor to come back around.

To come back for you.

Your view became blocked by a tall, thin man in an Imperial uniform, his lapel shining with an even bigger emblem of authority than the last time you had seen it. His soulless eyes bored right into yours, and you knew instantly by the look on his face that he hadn’t forgotten his favorite communications officer. “Sparrow? Is that you?”

The long abandoned nickname stung like needles in your ears, reeling you violently into the present. The admiral cupped your chin and brought your eyes up, forcing you to see him and stop pretending that he wasn’t real; that he was an apparition brought to life by your wailing night terrors. “It is. My little Sparrow has flown back to me.”

The stormtrooper braved an interruption, “Sir, the mando-”

Admiral Forescythe silenced him with a wave of his hand, “No matter, the universe has brought me something even better than whatever Moff Gideon had been after.” The glare on the Admirals face turned to a sickly smile “Pray tell, little bird, won’t you sing me a song? I’ve so missed your lovely voice.”

You shook your head from his hand and pointed to the electromagnetic cuffs that still hung from the backs of your ears, the last remainder of the beloved faceplate you had been gifted. “Hull breach, tone deaf.” was all the excuse you could muster. A stiff leather glove rose up to brush over the Mandalorian steel, and you fought every animalistic urge to go batshit ballistic, rip the admiral limb from limb.

“What a pity, but at least you can still speak.” He was standing too close now, and the disgust you felt for the man who practically raised you made your flesh boil under his gaze. His gloved hand slid down from your ear and grabbed at the bottom of your jaw, forcing your head to tilt while he inspected the bitemarks Din had put on your neck when he still loved you. “At least you haven’t been lonely, good thing I had you chipped when I did. Shame on you for letting someone defile you in such a manner, were you still on my ship I would have had them jettisoned.”

The Admiral raked his eyes over your disheveled form, from your marked flesh to your blackened eyes and your blue-stained shirt, his face twisting in disgust. “Whatever life you have been living clearly doesn’t suit you, it’s high time you cease this reckless behavior and come back to where you belong.” He bent down and picked your backpack up off the floor where it had fallen, slinging one ratty strap over his neatly-pressed shoulder; then extended a hand to you. “Are you ready to come home now, my little Sparrow?”

You blinked a few times at the question, your heart becoming as cold as stone. Home? The Wyvern was not your home anymore, and the admiral was not your family. But the home you knew, the family you loved was now lightyears away, far far away from where you were now; and they weren’t coming back.

Din wasn’t coming back.

That left only one place left for you to go.

Back... home.

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