#and that’s not a bad thing !!!!!! it’s actually quite normal to have growing pains !!!

[hotchipsauce]

ryan warsofsky you will start coughing in 3 days.

[larryjohnsoncosplayonthursday]

last

for realsies

[apollos-boyfriend]

Hey I've been observing from afar through your reaction blogging, I haven't been in mcyt as much since the dsmp ended but I still care about a lot of the people in the mcyt circle and I'm interested in what goes on - care to give a rundown of what happened at this twitch rivals thing everyone keeps talking about? (no pressure only if you want to) Aside from the fact I'm sure it was terribly run like most twitch rival events are, but it sounds like there was more to it than that

okay so. i am going to be missing quite a few details because i missed a day myself + my streamer could not care less, so i heavily encourage others to add on stuff i missed

this was a multi-day competition, running for 5 days with prize rewards from 1k to 100k. it started with i think 150 players, with select numbers of people getting eliminated each round. day 1-2 are fairly normal, at least for twitch rivals. of all the games that got played through the whole event, i'd say like 1 was actually good, and maybe 2 were decent, at best. most are bad, poorly-executed, poorly thought out, or just boring in terms of both player enjoy-ability and content creation.

DAY 3 EDIT:

now, sapnap's been sapnap for this entire event already. obnoxious, a bad sport, but most notably, playing DMCA'd songs. the event ran on proximity chat, so while he was unmuted, everyone around him would also be subject to said songs, which could mute vods at worst and terminate accounts at best. most people are fed up with him at this point. while everyone's trying to come up with solutions for the glitch, sapnap spams the discord with useless shit. couriway calls him out in the discord, calling him annoying and obnoxious, then later calling him a cunt in twitch chat. sapnap uses couriway and feinberg's name in his stream title for clickbait and talks shit about them + their friends (hbg/house builder gang). he also makes some weird comment asking if couri is homophobic because sap was talking about having skeppy's dick in his mouth?? or something?? i'm unsure exactly how day 3's issue of the glitch resolved.

day 4 is also your average experience with your usual range of average to horribly painful games. sapnap continues to be a bitch and not take responsibility for his stans attacking anyone in sight, but what else is new

day 5 is. bad. the game set for deciding the final competitors can be cheesed (if you let someone else do all the work, you can punch them in the last second and steal their win) and eliminates like 20 people at once. on top of that, a glitch happens that leaves the server on standby for at least 30 minutes while admins decide what to do. firebreathman sends a picture of a bare naked ass in the discord. someone else sends a photo of their debit card. streamers entertain themselves in various ways, including growing a cactus (fulham), playing osu (purpled), collecting other people's streams for their overlay (fruitberries), playing slime rancher (badboyhalo), and building real-life furniture (couriway). tubbo (who was already eliminated at this point) starts jumping between streams and asking in chat for the tea. the game is eventually replayed, deciding the final 4 players, but it's just as broken and at that point, no one wants to be there anymore. it's revealed through multiple streamers (purpled, i believe also feinberg) that twitch rivals games are not tested before being ran. the only testing done was a stress test to see if the server could handle all original 150-some players. this explains why the games are so bad and poorly organized (some games take over an hour, others barely 30 minutes).

the final four are sapnap, shadoune, sneegsnag, and i think feinberg. it's the most anticlimatic game of connect 4 you can imagine. sneeg eliminates sapnap, and shadoune eliminates fein. notably, fein's game glitches during a throw, which despite being obviously a glitch, the coordinators brush off as being "part of the game". fein and multiple other streamers spend time analyzing every pov frame by frame and all agree that yeah, that was a glitch. shadoune and sneeg are left for the finals. they come to an agreement that this is stupid and a horrible event. tired of this bullshit, they purposefully stall the games and run a podcast for approximately 2 hours, forcing the coordinators to bend to their commands hunger games-style. essentially since the first glitch of the day people were begging twitch to just split the money, something that wouldn't be easy according to tubbo, because everything is pre-signed and delegated before the event. sneeg and shadoune give no fucks, and force the coordinators to split the money anyway, winning the day through the power of friendship. i cannot stress enough how no one wanted to fucking be there by the end of all this.

[megwritesriddles]

Christmas as friends with Tom Riddle ༊*·˚

Word count: 1.3k

Masterlist

Authors note: Another one of these odd structure mini fics. Riddle is DEFINITELY out of character in this sorry, but Christmas is fluff time, I don't make the rules. This was originally going to be a series of scenarios with Riddle at various relationship stages, but of course the next one I wrote turned into a beast (friends with benefits), so here's this while I finish the other. Whatever this is, I hope you like it anyway mwah ( ◕◡◕)っ ♡

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

You are patrol partners

Because of this, you’ve formed an unlikely friendship

You mainly discuss impersonal topics while you walk; homework, new research in potions publications, the latest news in the Daily Prophet (Riddle particularly likes to discuss crime reports), policies passed by the Minister of Magic, or the occasional morsel of student gossip that Riddle doesn’t feel ‘above’ discussing

He’s thrilled that you can keep up with him intellectually (for the most part) even if you often find yourselves disagreeing on things

He likes to get your perspective and opinions more and more these days

It often feels like the two of you are very close, until you try to recall any detail about him beyond extremely surface level information

He keeps himself entirely hidden from you

Whenever you try to get to know him more personally, he shuts down

Even things that seem innocuous

“Yes! I promise that really is a saying!” you chuckle as he teases you for using a seemingly silly idiom.

“I don’t give a Doxy’s nip? Really?” he imitates, pinching your arm playfully to emphasise the words, briefly glancing into the small alcove you pass to check for any rulebreakers.

“Yes! Have you seriously never heard that before? Where did you grow up?” you giggle. Suddenly he tenses up, his small smile falling off of his face. He’s silent, ignoring your very normal question in favour of intently staring down the corridor, hoping to find a student sneaking around just to change the focus. You frown in confusion. You were used to him shutting down if asked about family, or anything else potentially highly emotional, but just where he was from. It was a completely harmless question, in fact, you couldn’t really think of any answer that would have you react badly. You only wanted a town or a county, but now Riddle is walking faster, a sign that he wants to get your patrol over and done with, as opposed to his measured pace from just before. “I merely wanted a county, Tom,” you whisper as you trot to keep up with him, trying to ensure he knew you weren’t trying to pry. He’s silent for another long moment.

“London,” he puffs out. You wonder what on earth was so bad about that. “Don’t ask more,” he adds, still not looking at you or slowing down. Ah, so there was something painful or embarrassing in the details. You really couldn’t imagine what. You don’t ask any more, not wanting to upset him. Eventually, he slows back down to walk by your side, but very few words are spoken the rest of the patrol.

You like Riddle a lot, he’s witty and intelligent and has a wicked sense of humour

Not to mention HANDSOME

However, he’s quite odd in this way, he has many secrets

He seems more touchy when you ask questions since he knows you actually want to know him, not just be polite and small talk with him

His normal evasive answers would never cut it for you, so he shuts down

He knows plenty about you, you’re happy to speak about yourself and he absorbs what you say completely

Knowledge is power after all

Using this knowledge, he sends you a lovely personal Christmas card over the break, the time alone and away from you strengthening his fondness for the connection the two of you have built, making him more willing to make a gesture he never normally would make

It’s full of jokes and references he knows you’ll like, as well as a few rare expressions of gratitude for knowing you

You’re unable to write back, not knowing where to send your owl as he’s never told you where he’s from, the owl he sent having disappeared as soon as it was free of its card

You tell your owl to find Tom Riddle, but it returns the next day, looking very unhappy, your card still attached to its leg

“There you are!” you huff in exasperation when you finally locate him on the train on the way back to Hogwarts, alone in a compartment gazing out of the window. His handsome face turns to you, he looks tired, but otherwise as flawless as ever. 

“Why were you looking for me? I always sit alone on the train,” you can’t read his tone, annoyed or vulnerable? You press on, digging his card out from the front pocket of your bag and handing it to him.

“My owl couldn’t find you no matter what I told her, and I had no address, so late card it is,” you smile awkwardly. Riddle takes the card and opens it up as you sit beside him. It’s a classic wizarding world card, a moving image of some cats covered in tinsel. It’s a bit cheesy for Riddle’s liking and he makes a face, but you nudge him and he rolls his eyes, opening the card. He reads your sweet words silently, you expressing how much you’d like to know him better, and promises that you would not judge him no matter what his story was. He’s a little embarrassed as your writing reminds him how vulnerable he had been in his own card. He sighs and closes the card as you look at him expectantly.

“It’s hard for me to talk about,” he whispers.

“I figured that, you can take your time, so long as you let me in eventually,” you answer. “I just… I like you, I enjoy your company, I want to know something about you, something real,” you sigh, leaning your head on his shoulder. Though this move surprises him, he accepts it quietly, realising all too suddenly why it is you want so badly to know him inside and out. His arm sits loosely around your waist, feeling the knit pattern of your jumper under his fingertips. He doesn’t know how or why he’s fallen into this position with you so naturally, but instead of complaining, he just tightens his hold on you slightly.

“I spent Christmas at a muggle orphanage, that’s why your owl couldn’t find me,” he admits after a while. He interrupts before you can ask questions. “I grew up there, I’ve already aged out, but they let me stay there over Christmas due to Professor Dippett’s pressuring since no one could stay at Hogwarts this Christmas,” he takes a shaky breath. “I won’t be allowed back, not that I want to go, I’m on my own after graduation, no family, no other support, nowhere to stay,” you frown deeply at this and he stares out of the window as the grey countryside rushes by. “Perhaps you can see why I was embarrassed,”

“I can, but I don’t judge you for it,” you murmur sincerely, watching his side profile.

“I should have known, you’ve always been such a bleeding heart,” he scoffs with mock disdain, turning to look down at you where you rest on his shoulder. You roll your eyes and smile, he smiles back slightly. Leaning forward, he hesitantly presses his lips to your forehead. It’s a foreign gesture, but one that feels completely lovely to do. He holds you slightly closer and places another, slightly more sure kiss on your forehead. “Thank you for the card, for caring, I’m not used to any care beyond shallow fawning, and even that is completely misplaced,” he admits, the floodgates of his emotions now seemingly open. But you don’t run or even seem to judge, just as promised. “I’m not who anyone thinks I am, no one else knows about the orphanage, only a few professors, no one else knows anything”

“Let me meet the real you,” you mutter. He looks unsure. “Someone has to eventually or you won’t be able to keep up the act,”

“Maybe so,” he kisses your forehead gently once more. “But let me enjoy this first,”

“You think it will be over if I meet the real you?” you chuckle affectionately, enjoying as he kisses down your temple to your cheek. “Come on,” There’s a moments hesitation as he contemplates the real him.

He says nothing.

︶⊹︶︶୨୧︶︶⊹︶

xoxoxo Merry Christmas xoxoxo

[thequietkid-moonie]

okay, i have no idea why it took me so long to request this BUT... kokichi, nagito, kazuichi, 9S, 2B and A2 with an autistic s/o (or just neurodivergent in general <3)

i hope you're having a lovely morning, day, evening or night moonie! you're great and i'm looking forward to reading this hehe <3

Autistic S/O

[ HEADCANONS ] [ Kokichi, Nagito, Kazuichi, 9S, 2B, A2 ]

[ Killing Harmony ] [ Goodbye Despair ] [ NieR Automata ]

Thank you for requesting this V-chaaaan!!! Is been so loooong since last time i wrote for autistic reader and this was totally amazing to write!!

I was a little nervous since I didn't knew if I was writing it right but at the end I think i made a good job! Besides, i been trying to left behind all the masking and try to just be autistic so this is comforting!

Kokichi Ouma

Once someone catch Kokichi's attention the he will become clingy and incredibly curious about that person, his main reason was to get to know with what he could mess with you, that is how he find out you are autistic even before you get to tell him, and even if at first he just tries to find ways to mess with you by it as he grows to care more for you he becomes more respectful

Kokichi doesn't see anything bad on you being autistic, is the way you have born and is who you are and there is nothing wrong with it, he would call you silly if you ever feel bad about being or doing what you need to feel comfortable (besides, he doesn't want show you how much it hurt him seeing you upset by you just being you when he completely loves it). He is more than ready to step in to defend you if someone dares to say something bad about you for being you, and if someone is bold enough to call you a burden for being autistic then that person will be his new and only target for a while (he will even ask Gonta's help since Gonta is willing to protect his friends too)

Kokichi does want to know more about your autism since for everyone affects and is expressed their own ways, besides he loves learning more about you, so he will just follow you around wherever you go and ask you a lot of things (he is too curious to don't do it, but if you feel overwhelmed or like he is inviding your personal space he will stop, brushing it off with a joke of course, but will apologize when you two are alone, specially if he had upset you) he may joke about your behavior or about the way you do things but he doesn't mean to hurt you, is just his normal self and he tries to don't come up with harmful jokes

One of the biggest desire of Kokichi is to be seen as funny for others, he doesn't want to be seen as boring, and adding that he likes playing pranks is safe to say that he will pull pranks on you and joke a lot with you, however he does take in consideration your autism when thinking on the pranks or the jokes, making sure is something won't trigger you nor overwhelme you, as well that is something you can easily understand (in case you have troubles understanding certain things), he actually has a lot of fun while thinking on what jokes and pranks he can do to you but will deny it and feel incredibly embarrassed if someone ever find out, even if someone point it out as a posibility he immediatly gets on the defensive due the embarrassment (even if is you)

Kokichi grows to be quite protective over you, specially when you are more sensitive, he just hate seeing you in pain or bothered by something (and if you tent to stim in harmful ways that trigger something inside of him), still he tries to go around the topic and help you indirectly, be by distracting you or making you to only focus on him, or going against others if they had triggered you

He like hearing you talk about your special interests, he may don't remember everything you had told him because he sometimes gets easily distracted but he does remember the most important parts (or the ones that are definetly your favorites), and you can see it reflected on some of the jokes he says where he mention something you had told him about your special interest

He would think is a little silly having comfort item or even stim toys actually he is just jealous but at the same time he assure you that is completely fine, if you want them then why don't having them? He doesn't let anyone touch them or even glance at them unless he knows they have your permission (and ask like a million of times if you are sure), and he normally doesn't touch them unless he has your permision or just can't resist (over time he will learn how important they are for you and learn to don't hide them as a prank)

Nagito Komaeda

Is painfully obvious when Nagito is in love, he wants to be with you at all times (even when he sees himself as nothing more than trash and a burden), and he will pay a lot of attention to you, wanting to learn about you or just appreciate you, so even if you don't tell him about it, even before start dating, he would notice that there is something off about you (not that he find it as being bad, he just noticed)

If you decide to tell him that you are autistic he will accept it right away, telling you that nothing could make him think less of you nor love you less, he will want to know more (and even ask your permission before asking for more details), this is obviously something important for you, it affects the way you percive the world after all. Even so, if you prefer to keep it as a secret Nagito will notice the little hints of thing you like, dislike or even do, he won't confront you about it but will take mental notes about it (even when he feels like invading your privacy by doing it)

Honestly, Nagito doesn't see anything bad on your disability (not that he would ever see anything bad on you), he just thinks is something that makes you way more special and hopeful, you don't see the worlds like other and had to live in a world that isn't made with your needs in mind (sadly, he actually hates it) and that makes you even more hopeful in his eyes

Even when Nagito is really clingy and needy you will be his top priority, so he will pay close attention and hesitantly ask if you have special need that he should have in consideration, he is willing to change his whole life just to fit on what is best for you, is the least he can do and only hopes that trash like him can help you with whatever you need (that is what he insist on), besides he hates seeing you upset and if he can do something to help you out he won't even doubt on doing whatever he can for you

Nagito is touch starved and will be lying if he says that he won't like to be close to you, however he doesn't seem himself as worthy and thinks that he may just bother you, so he just let you touch him whenever you want, and however you want, if you want a hug or hold his hand is okay, as well he is always up for you to stim with him, play with his hands or hair all you want he doesn't mind (actually he feels completely flustered and honored, it brings him so much joy, although he insisted on apologizing for you having to touch or be around trash like him at first)

If you sometimes don't do simple things like eating or drinking water, wearing warm clothes when its cold or even getting hurt without noticing just because you just didn't felt it or just forgot is something that will worry him way too much, he wants you to be healthy and happy (and he is scare of losing you), so in this case he will make his personal goal to take care of you, however it would be really dificult for him to get used to do it because trash like him shouldn't tell you what to do, but he tries to remind himself that is for your own good

With time he will learn to identify how you express yourself, whenever you are happy (if you happy stim he will start doing it with you at some point, but will apologize profusely for doing it the first time) or whenever you are feeling sad or annoyed, he tries his hardest to help you avoid things you hate or hurt, still there is the posibility of you feeling overwhelmed, he would panic the first time but quickly tries to help you (remembering all he knows so far about you), he will get better at helping over time, and even if the first times he made a good job he will apologize for not being of help

As well, Nagito is completely respectful of you and your things, if you have comforting things, stiming toys or anything that can help you he treats those things with the say gentleness he treats you (however, he wont dare to touch those things unless you give him your explicit permission, and still he will feel hesitant of holding them at first, fearing that his luck will act and make him broke them or something)

Kazuichi Soda

Kazuichi tent to be blinded by his love, once he falls in love he start to seeing the person he likes as perfect and won't hear anyone saying that there is something wrong with that person, that is why even if he ever start noticing the hints of your autism he probably just won't think much of it

You have to tell him directly and with sincerity that you are autistic and that there are certain things you don't tolerate, otherwise it would take him a long time to notice (even when he notice whenever you feel upsed, he would just not fully understand), and even if you ask him to be a little less intense or there are things about him that overwhelmed you he will be grateful that you tell him now rather than just suffering in silence, it take him a moment to fully process the information but at the end he knows this is for your comfort and healthy so he has no problem on having to adapt himself to you

Kazuichi will actually have a hard time understanding that you have autism and actually remembering that there are certain things he should change or just do, he is quite clingy, touchy and loud so he probably bring you some troubles, still he does apologize everytime he sees that he had made you uncomfortable (for what he hates himself) and always promise to don't do it again, wich he always tries, in the other hand if you don't mind that part of him or even liked it that will make him feel so much joy and will even be proud of himself (but will lead him to be a little more intense for a while)

It has never been a secret how much Kazuichi loves you, and loves everything about you, so your autism will only increase the little quirks of you that he loves, your good hearing or the way you always notice little details, how diferent things bring you diferent sensations or even that there are things you prefer to avoid, everything makes you even more beautiful and special in his eyes! He has no problem on helping you avoid what it hurts and surround yourself with comforting and good things!

As well, he is quite protective over you, so he doesn't want to protect you only of your surroundings but also of people, he doesn't let anyone say anything bad about your autism, he won't be the type to jump into the fight but if someone dares to ofend you that person won't heard the end of it. As well, Kazuichi won't really be the best when it comes to comforting but he is fully focused on helping you feel well again whenever you feel the slighest upsed, he goes from reminding you how beautiful and special you are to bringing you anything that can comfort you (items, food, something related to your special interest, anything he can think on), it may be a little exaggerated but intention is what counts

Kazuichi is mesmerized by your voice, so he will be more than happy to heard you talk about your special interest, he may get confused sometimes with so much infomation and ask a few times if you can repeat yourself but he is trying his best to actually learn what are you talking about (although, there are some times where he gets completely quiet because he is lost and don't understand what are you talking about at all, but he always apologize for it). As well, he won't dare to ask you for it but he it will bring him way too much joy if you are willing to heard him rant about what he likes or what he is working on too

His workshop can be either an interesting place or a complete nightmare, with all the stimuli that are there, from visual to auditory and even olfactory, he loves your company and if you were willing to stay with him while he works then he will be more than happy, but if his workshop is something that makes you uncomfortable he will profusely apologize before taking you away from there, he even promise to make it up for you (he gets into the habit of cleaning himself before seeing you after working, although he is a little messy while cleaning himself because he wants to rush and see you right away)

9S

9S can't just hold back himself, even when feelings are forbidden for a YoRHa Unit he just can't not feel (and express himself, he has no problem with speaking his heart out), and even if at first it was more curiosity and his duty it didn't take him long to fall in love with you

9S is a really curious android, he likes learning all he can about the world and the humans, so even before finding you he already knew quite a lot about humans, thanks to that (and for being really observant) it wont take him long to realice that, in fact you aren't as how the common humans are, what, honestly, just lead him to be more curious

At first your autism was something that make him feel really curious, but the more got to learn about it and how it affects you the more he start to love it, he sometimes feels bad about loving your disability the way he does (mainly when you feel upset or even overwhelmed) but he just can't help it, for him is like something that just makes you a million times more special, what sometimes lead him to feel a little flustered since you love him too

9S will be so curious about your autism that is more probably that he will try to ask you about it since the start, he will be a little messy and overexcited with his questions but will apologize when he realice what he is doing, reasuring you that you don't have to answer all his questions. After the initial excitement 9S will choose to be more calm and learn by watching you rather than asking (unless you don't mind), honestly he will never be tired of watching you, every time he get to learn something new about you he feels so much joy and amusment, even if is something small

Something that will make him quite sad is when he gets to learn about the stimuli that brings you discomfort, he thinks the world is quite fascinating and interesting but if there are some things that you can't just tolerate or even hurts it makes him immediatly worry, he can't be at ease when he knows you are upsed (although, he doesn't blame you or get mad in the slighest, he is just genuinely worried about you and won't dare to leave you alone when you are feeling bad, unless you really need to be alone)

9S will always try to create a comfortable and safe space around you, surrounding you with things you aprove as being comforting and not overstimulanting, always make sure to bring you new things that he find on his missions that he thinks you will like or make sure to carry around a comfort item of your safe space whenever you two go out for a walk (or in a little adventure)

If you ever have problems to express yourself or even go non-verbal he won't make a big deal out of it, he may be weird out and worried the first time but over time he just get used to, and every time it happen he is always there to try to help you find the right words or just guess what are you trying to express, you can even invent your own way to express yourself and he will just adapt to it (he actually has a lot of fun trying to help you, he finds it interesting and amusing)

9S grow to have the habit of constantly asking your opinion or put attention to your reaction to diferent things because he loves getting to know how you see the world, he loves hearing you rant about things that catch your attention or just stim to express yourself, he always watch you with a lot of love and care, those moments of peace feels like if in the world only exist you two

Also, 9S grows to love watch you stim so much that he just get used to imitate you, and end up doing it himself, specially when he has to be away for a mision and can't be with you, he just end up doing what you do to stim without even noticing

2B

As much as 2B repeat herself that something like feelings is forbidden for a YoRHa Unit that have never stoped her from actually feeling, and falling in love wouldn't be an exception, even when it take her a while to accept her feelings at the end she started a relationship with you with the silent promise to protect you from anything and everything

2B doesn't know everything about humans, only the data that YoRHa has (and the part that she is allowed to get to know), still she will probably know (or at least suspect) that you aren't exactly like the common humans, she notice the little hints of your autism since the start but decide to don't say anything (and is quickly to shut up pod if they say something about it)

2B is more like a spectator most of the time with you, specially for your condition, she prefers to watch you go around and learn by doing so (besides, she finds quite fascinating just watching you and learning from it, is something so new and yet so beautiful in her eyes), she will learn over time to identify whenever you enjoy or hate something, she learns to identify your reactions and signals and quickly to help you whenever you are feeling upset. YoRHa units have been made to protect humanity, however is her love what lead her to see you as the most precious person in her life and the one she must protect at all cost, you are the bright of her days and her hope, she wouldn't mind perishing in battle if is to protect you

Once knowing that you are autistic she will try to learn more about it, and will even ask 9S if he knows about it, she wants to know as much as she can because is something important in your life (she will ask you too, but it would take her a while since she feels a little bit shy about asking you about it, considering it as something really personal), and, at the end she will make sure to don't forget anything she had learn and always take it in consideration when being with you (or when something is related to you)

2B goes at your rythm and following your lead most of the time, if you want physical affection she will do her best to provide it to you, if you don't want to be touched she will take some distance, if you want to go around she will be by your side, making sure your little trip is safe, if you want to infodump she is all ears, if you just feel like doing nothing she can make you company while doing nothing (honestly, most of the time she just look like some kind of bodyguard but she does it from the bottom of her heart, and will learn to feel more at ease over time, finally actually participate and will start to want more)

2B grows to be a little overprotective over you, she just want to keep you safe and by being human already make her think of you as weak or delicate (mainly for the diference of her being an android and you a human, not because she underestimate you), and your condition only makes her that idea go further, whenever you are feeling specially sensitive she gets anxious, not knowing if it would be alright for her to approach since she doesn't want to cause you any pain

Also, 2B tries her best to provide you with comforting things, she even ask 9S and the androids of the resistance camp for help, she ask that if they find anything that could make you feel more comfortable or at home please let her know

2B will just grow to have the habit of constantly look at you to make sure you are feeling alright and trying to read your body language for any sight of whatever you feel, she is always trying to make you feel comfortable, she doesn't know how it is to be human, let alone how it feels the world the way you feel it, so, at some point she will ask you to please don't doubt on expressing how you feel or if you need something, she will be there to help you at the best of her habilities

Despite everything, one of 2B's favorites things to do is just watch or heard you, the way you express, the way you stim or even just the way your carry yourself around is fascinating to her, is one of the beauties of being alive and is a reminder for her that if you love her then that means she isn't a bad person

A2

Finding a human alive was really surprising and yet that wasn't the only reason why she decided to keep you close to her, she feel worry and care for you since the start so decided to keep you close and help you, the care only grew over time and she realiced that what she felt was love the moment she noticed how you have changed her life, making it brighter and bringing more things to her life aside form the loneliness and sadness

A2 probably won't know about humans as much as the new YoRHa Units, but since she cares for you she pays a lot of attention to you so she will just learn how you are by watching you, and she actually start to grow quite curious over time; once she feel more comfortable with having you around (and finds a way to keep you safe while still killing the machines) then she will try to learn more and maybe even get the courage to ask (what won't be too difficult when you two start dating)

A2 takes her time to get to meet you slowly, asking you little by little about your autism and your curious behavior, she takes time to fully understand what are you telling her about what and how you feel, and everything she get to know makes her feel more curious but also protective over you

A2 is really protective over you, she does regret what happened on her past and have already lost a lot, so she fears losing you too (specially after creating a special bound with you), that is why she feels frustrated about your autism because, as much as she wants there are things that she can't protect you from, stimuli and sensations that makes you feel bad or that even hurt and a full new concept for her, and even when she undestand it she just feels like she can't do anything for you, at the end is that feeling what lead her to actually ask you if there is something she can do for you when you feel overwhelmed or bothered by those things, she will try to do all she can to bring you at least a little bit of comfort

A2 tend to worry a lot when it comes to you, now that you are here with her you are all what she has, and since she let you get close to her now you mean way to much for her, that is way she gets scare whenever you feel hipersensitive or overwhelmed, just by seeing you in distress makes her feel anxious, fearing that someone have tried to attack you, it would take her a long time to get used to this kind of situation, still no matter how much times it pass she always worries a lot. It will also worry her when she saw you stim or go semi-verbal or non-verbal for the first time, she feared that something have happened to you (although, even when she feels scare she keeps the composture, so it may not be obvious)

You end up changing A2's life because she has more to do rather than just go around and kill the machines, now she has to take care of you, and yet he isn't bothered by the slighest, you could fully rely in her and she won't have troubles with be there for you because now you are her new purpose on life (however, she prefers if you don't fully relay on her for everything because it could put you at risk since you two live in a dangerous world). Is more likely A2 just end up bulding some kind of house where you can be comfortable and safe, is not A2's style but now that she has you one of her main purposes is to keep you safe (besides, if changes put you in distress it would be better to avoid them as much as posible)

A2 is really interested on learning about how you see the world and life, you two just probably have diferent ways to see the present (specially since you are human), so A2 tries to motivate you to express yourself all you want, even if she doesn't do it most of the time that shouldn't stop you, even if you do it by meaningless sounds or movements just to stim A2 will just learn that is the way you express yourself and will end up finding it quite mesmerizing

[muffinsin]

How do you think the sisters would react if their girlfriend denied them blood because she was angry about something the sisters did? as if the sisters had annoyed her in some way, and she denied her blood as punishment

This is intriguing!👀 Let’s get into it! :)

Masterlists

Bela

She’s actually quite hurt

Bela can be very confident at times, and comes across as such. She’s authoritative, and strict

With you, however, another side of herself presents

A softer one

One that is hurt easily due to how sensitive she truly is

One that overthinks and never quite feels like she is good enough

When she goes in to feed from your neck like she always does, and you deny her, it makes her frown in confusion

She tries again, and is hurt and shocked when the same result is presented to her

But- you always let her have a taste!

Always, every week, on Wednesday at 11:40am!

Yet, you’re covering your neck with your hand now and pushing her face away

Her nose pokes out between your fingers when you have her move her head backwards, and when you remove your hand, bright golden eyes stare at you

She looks so hurt, so confused

A little like a kicked puppy, and her expression makes you feel an ache in your heart

Immediately, she tries to understand why she can’t drink from you

Has she done something horribly wrong?

She hasn’t yet taken notice of what that can be, but searches her mind for all things that could’ve annoyed you

Upon noticing this, you can’t help but let go of your annoyance at her

You know, Bela overthinks a little too much

A minor annoyance has her self worth shrink entirely too much and has her overthink it all

The poor thing is far too quick to think she isn’t good enough for you

However, all your remaining annoyance at her sinks away when she eagerly swarms into your lap upon being asked to do so

Perhaps, her cuteness makes up for her mistake in the morning

You breathe calmly as you wrap your arms around her petite hips and bring her closer to you

And Bela all too happily stays close to you

She doesn’t attempt to drink from you, not ever without your permission, and only rests her head on your neck to inhale your scent

You know, the only reason she isn’t beating herself up yet is because she hasn’t yet realised what annoyed you earlier today, when she walked about without a towel after her bath and accidentally left water droplets over one of your drafts for a new page of your attempt at a book

You realise, as you look at her, it’s not all that bad

She is your muse, after all, and is sure to inspire a new page, and many more in the future

Purrs come from her immediately and only increase in frequency and volume when you tilt your head and let her drink from you eventually

She sighs happily, her cheeks burning and loud purrs confirming her content

With your fingers in her hair, Bela begins drinking carefully as usual

Cassandra

A full-on brat, this one

She’s incredibly caught off guard when she plops down on your lap like usual, uncaring that she’s interrupting your work

Normally, this wouldn’t bother you

But today all you seem to feel is the lingering annoyance at your girlfriend for killing yet another maid that was merely trying to get to know you

You know, it will pass. And you know of how possessive and protective Cassandra is

Still, you decide she doesn’t quite deserve her fill of your blood today

Cassandra huffs, first of all when you don’t bare your neck for her as usual

When she attempts to lean in with her teeth bared; you catch her by her long, auburn hair and give it a tug

A moan and a whimper are your response

As you tell her “no”, she huffs

Immediately, she tries to lean in again

And again, you yank her hair and pull moans and groans from her

You grow frustrated when she leans in again, and you simply repeat your actions

At the next time, you realise she is waiting for the yank of her hair and the pain that comes with it

You almost scoff. You should’ve known your masochist would only get off to it

Alas, you give it a hard tug, then tighten your grip to prevent her from leaning forwards again

Cassandra whines

Her fingertip reaches out to touch your neck, and she throws you a look requesting your blood

It’s rare for her to ask, and you hear the growl come from her when you deny her again

She points out, she can just get blood from any other one anyway!

And of course, this point is proven when a maid either terrible timing and self preservation enters the room

Cassandra’s eyes flash, and even as you tighten your grip on her, she simply swarms off your lap

It’s your turn to grit your teeth when you watch her hands ghost over the woman’s body and settle on her hips

Unlike you, the servant tilts her head willingly

The sight alone enrages you

You’re gripping the edges of your chair as your girlfriend drags her sharp teeth across the sensitive skin of the servant’s neck

What a brat!

Cassandra’s eyes meet yours, and for a split moment she shoots you a dirty grin

You know, she’s expecting you to give in and allow her to drink from you

You know, she wants to get a reaction out of you

And you know, she secretly wants to be punished for this behaviour

She moans dramatically as she drinks, her eyes opening more often than usual to check for your reaction

You cross your arms, a scowl on your face

She really does know just how to rile you up

Daniela

She’s very pouty

Daniela is a very eager and hectic person

She’s nearly always full of excitement and energy

As such, Daniela is also rather prone to making, or getting into messes

When she flew around the castle earlier today, excitedly chasing her sister down, she didn’t even pay mind to all the things broken or knocked down

Such as when she took chase to your room, and it resulted in her running into your shelf and knocking all figurines over

Figurines you just dusted off and rearranged yesterday

Now, Daniela is less energetic

She’s bouncing excitedly, almost, yet is already cuddling up against you

You know what she wants all too well

A kiss, foremost. You don’t deny her of this, and can’t help your smile when she beams at you and purrs happily

Then, she expects cuddling

You’re quite annoyed, but are not about to deny her this

She’s your snugglebug, and even as you feel this annoyance and anger, having her in your arms calms you

Then, there is the regard of drinking your blood

She’s on top of your lap already, her back arched as she lays comfortably

Purrs come from her and light, gloveless fingertips run across your shoulder

When her head lifts and she moves her face to your neck, however, you deny her

“No, Daniela”

Your words as well as your firm tone of voice have her draw back immediately

Big, golden eyes look up at you

Well trained puppy eyes, you realise

You know, they always work on her family members. Or most of the time, at least

Alcina melts at the sight of them, so that even if she acts as though she denies whatever her youngest wishes for, Daniela always wins out in the end

Or Bela, who pretends not to look, only to wrap up her work in favour of giving her sister her undivided attention, just as Daniela demands it

And even Cassandra, who is willing to put a pause to her work or game to entertain her younger sister

You’re determined not to fall a victim to these beautiful, adorable, big golden eyes as well

“Do you know I’ve had to reorder my shelf today?”, you ask, humming when she stops whining and, it seems, takes in your words

Her pouty expression turns to a confused one, and she shakes her head. She’s completely oblivious to the mess she’s caused, and you’re hardly surprised

She attempts to lean in again, with a quiet whine serving as asking for permission

You don’t grant it, and instead pull her back to look at you again

“You flew into it today while playing with your sister. I had to put up nearly all my figurines again”, you explain, annoyance lightly evident in your voice

She turns her head, as though checking for this

As golden eyes dart to your shelf, you see her glance over the figurines

A single still isn’t put up, and you gasp in surprise when she suddenly swarms from your lap

Gently, so gentle she even has her tongue tip poking out of her mouth in concentration, she puts the little figurine back up between two others

You can’t help but smile and roll your eyes

Damn your girlfriend for being too adorable for her own good

[olympeline]

Feel a little introspective so have some of my thoughts on the dynamics of various England ships. Aside from FrUK because I post so much about them already:

EngPan: Lonely, isolated introvert meets lonely, isolated introvert. Together they are…still introverted and isolated but less lonely, hehe. Feels like Kiku would fall for Arthur first and Arthur would be clueless for a while then very flustered and in denial when he found out. Then a loooong courtship with a lot of pussyfooting around and “After you.” “No, no, after you.” “No, I insist.” “No, I insist.” dancing around. But they make it in the end. Quite a sweet love story all in all.

GerEng: Kuudere/Tsundere courtship farce! How does Arthur cope with meeting someone even more emotionally constipated than he is? Oh my god these two would be excruciating. Lol, I kinda love it. By the time they actually got together, the world might have ended already. But I think they’d rub along pretty well once they were actually established as a couple, you know? It would take so long that they would already have learnt how to deal with the other’s worst points

PortEng: Childhood sweethearts face down the world and make it together. The ship with the least amount of drama. A simple two puzzle pieces click together and everything is good. Not that they never argue or have spats, but it’s just normal couples stuff. Healthy disagreements and healthy making up from a healthy couple. “And they lived happily ever after.” Maybe they had an arranged marriage but it turned out to be perfectly arranged, luckily enough.

PrUK: I don’t know who you think you are but I know this much is true, I wanna do bad things with you ~ 🎵 Punk pair with a shared bloody history and plenty of fight, sex, and steel left in them. They egg each other on and bring out the other’s savage side. Very unstable until they both grow up and mature (if they ever do) but damn, so much fun along the way. They’d each enjoy facing someone who could match them.

RusEng: The eternal outsiders of Europe find each other. The biggest stumbling block would be how fricking terrified Arthur is of Ivan. Like it would take a long time before Ivan could convince Arthur he’s actually romantically interested in him and not there to make a cloak of his skin lmao. Feels like Arthur would be attracted to this sexy, feral Russian, built-like-a-fridge beast man and hate it. Then Ivan would cotton on, decide “oh, okay. Turns out I like him back. Let’s become one be together.” and that would be that. Ivan takes the lead and “no” isn’t really in his lexicon. But Arthur likes him back, so yay? Lol, live your best life with that sub kink you’ve just discovered you have, Arthur. They can work on the emotional stuff later

SpUK: Pure and simple rum-swilling, sword fighting, enemies-to-lovers with plenty of hate fucking along the way. Arthur looks up to Antonio as an inspiration before the Age of Sail. Gets himself a little crush on this sexy, sexy Spaniard who he’s meant to hate. Antonio doesn’t pay attention to Arthur at first. Until this upstart island nation starts shamelessly stepping (sailing?) all over his territory. Then he’s intrigued, then pissed, then amused when he notices Arthur’s crush, then simultaneously pissed and horrified when he realises he might actually be okay with a roll in the hay with the Protestant dog. It grows from there.

USUK: Do I even need to say anything? Sunny extrovert loves moody introvert pure goodness. Happy and clueless(?) meet gloomy and overthinks everything. Opposites attract. A painful past becomes a bright future. So much potential and good stuff with Alfred and Arthur it almost feels too obvious to post about it lol. This ship sails itself.

[melikedraw]

Hey, can you do Hc for a relationship with Mitsuyo?? I don't see that much content about the freak, and I'm DESPERATE.

If you don't want is ok, no pressure<3

Kureishi Mitsuyo relationship headcanons

Kureshi x gn! Reader

Fluff, perhaps some ooc (I'm not familiar with his character at ALL but like fuck it we ball)

~~~~~

- before you start dating him, he would probably act normal, maybe even kind and gentle, towards you

- he just wants to make a good impression y'know?

- he is really good at it too, so you're pretty easily fooled into thinking he was simply a gorgeous sweetheart

- while you were indeed right about the gorgeous, sweetheart is far from what he should he described as

- that man is a MENACE

- after he knows that you won't leave him, he would start to show his true self

- not that it's bad or anything, in fact you find it quite attractive, but he can be such a PAIN

- he loves to tease you, especially if you give him a reaction to being messed with, be it a twitch of your eyebrow, to a full on grimace or snappy retorts

- finds it amusing and WILL laugh at your expense

- he would hate to accidentally make you cry, though

- unless you're a stuck up spoilt brat/princess type

- if so, watch your step because he WILL have you in tears by the end of the day

- NEVER talks shit about you to others though, makes you look real good to people around him, always talking about how lucky he is to have you

-you're his angel, people around him are probably sick of hearing him yap on about how much he wants you

- he gives amazing massages, and is just really good with his hands in general (wink wink) (get my drift)

- gives you free massages which he uses as an excuse to have his hands on your body

- he's pretty sadistic, so he'd probably press kinda hard on you (slight bruising at most, would not break anything/hurt you)

- loves the sounds you make, he finds them arousing especially if you're shy and try to muffle them with your hand or something, he shows no mercy, will push his luck just to make you scream

- really likes how you squirm under his touch

- he lets you braid his hair

- it's really easy since his hair is so straight and smooth

- won't take the braids out, keeps them until they unbraid themselves naturally

- he probably shows you off a lot, like bringing you along when he has training sessions with Cosmo (he's flexing his gf on a kid, yes) or when he meets up with his friends

- Cosmo has probably accidentally called you mom before, just saying

- you and kureishi love treating him like your kid, saying things like

"our son grows up so fast doesn't he, Mitsuyo?"

"Ms/Mr y/n, you've known me for a week at most-"

"hush child, I'm your parent now."

- (il)legally adopt him

- I don't think kureishi would actually want kids though

- I just don't get that vibe from him

~~~~~

I'll be completely honest I skipped a lot of chapters of kengan ashura/omega which he appeared in because I was just trying to find all the chapters with gaolang in em

I did reread it in the end but the point is I never really looked into him and don't know if this is in character or whatever (it better not be ooc or I will tweak tf out

[datrb]

"I really let my hair grow out this year, didn't i?"

I don't usually post about my life, but this one was on my mind for quite some time now, so i hope you guys don't mind me getting a little personal.

Call this my new year's resolutions or whatever.

(No trigger warnings, i just realized that this post is very long...)

Now, that this year is reaching to a close and i was left alone with my thoughts after the college semester ended... I think i actually really enjoyed this year.

As weird as it is to accept, or realize even, it's been a very long time since the last time i actually felt like myself. There was always something standing between me and having... a normal life.

Whether it was lack of time for myself, pain, or people around me, there was always an obstacle.

But, although this year started with the most pain i've ever been in throughout my life, and a ton of stress, after the winter passed and i started my rehabilitation journey, i felt... The best i ever did.

It felt as though i suddenly gained the power to do and be anything i wanted to be. I was finally at peace with my life and myself.

I spent summer doing things i liked and even managed to spent two amazing weeks on a trip with a very dear friend of mine.

And then the semester started and, despite what i was expecting, i fit right in with the new group and managed to not just stay ahead of my studies, but to top all of my grades. I gained the respect of my teachers, found new friends and started to actually explore my specialty and theatre culture as a whole more than i could ever before.

Hell, i already have places where i want to go next year, when the holiday rush at theatres ends!

And trust me when i say this, it's been a very long time since i planned ahead. It been a very long time since i enjoyed studying and talking with people i study with. It's been a very long time since i wanted to actively give presents to people, or even had people to give presents to. It's been a very long time since i could smile at my teachers and even get a little cocky with them in class. Since i wasn't afraid to ask questions regardless of how stupid they might've sounded. Or since i could decide on doing something completely randomly and then end up coming home at midnight with a friend by my side.

A lot of things happened this year. And a lot more will happen in the years. I had, do and will experience so much more in my life. Be it bad, or good. It doesn't really matter, because i'm no longer alone to fend for myself.

But, more than anything, right now i just feel... happy.

And i wish to thank everyone i know and everyone who is in my life right now. Even if i know that this message will probably never reach them. I still want to thank them for just existing in this world. And same goes for whoever ends up coming across this post. I may not know you, but i'm glad that you've made it this far. I'm glad that you're here.

And i hope that someday everyone will be able to be at peace the same way this year allowed me to be.

[damn-stark]

Chapter 6 Where you are

Chapter 6 of Sugar

A/N- I hope you guys are enjoying the series so far!!

Warning- Swearing, FLUFF!!, talks of blood and self inflicting wounds, long chapter.

Pairing- Suguru Geto x Gojo!fem-reader

Episode- Half of 2x01- 2x03

(Let me know if you want to be tagged)

————

The most dangerous thing about the good times is that you may grow too comfortable with them.

Ever since the incident with the mundane non-sorcerer capturing you, life wasn’t easy, you couldn’t be as naive. Yet when you began to date Suguru, he basked you in a beaming light, he’s helped you heal from that pain, that trauma. It’s true you’ll always have to live with those memories, but being with him has brought this good comfort to your life that was lost. You aren’t naive again, but you’ve never felt more alive.

So now that you are comfortable with life again all you want is this, you want to keep your friends, Suguru, and Satoru by your side. You want to continue living where you are now, in this happiness.

“Hey guys, I’m back—” You quickly cut yourself off after you open the gym door and walk into Suguru glaring at your brother, and your brother blabbing about something you can see is annoying Suguru.

“Quit making yourself feel better by sprouting bullshit.” Satoru raises his hand and pretends to act disgusted. “Blegh.”

What a pain in the ass. Why do they have to be like this?

Shoko spots you and quickly chooses to take her chance to run to you still by the door.

“Actually,” you announce loudly as you let the doors go and back up. “Forget I’m here.”

There’s one thing you’ve grown to really, truly hate since being here at school, and that is Suguru and Satoru arguing. They don’t get into physical fights, or stop talking to one another for periods of days—actually the day after you told Satoru you were dating Suguru, Suguru said he acted normal. So their arguments don’t escalate to nothing bad, but they are super fucking annoying!

Satoru and Suguru both have different ideals. Suguru always tries to have your brother see things his way. Suguru tries to humble your brother, but Satoru is hard headed so he doesn’t listen, he argues back and just makes things a petty mess. Which is why when they get like that you just stay out of it and or leave them alone until things cool off again.

And like now for example, and like many times before, Shoko leaves with you.

“How was today?” You ask her as you walk away from the gym.

Shoko shrugs nonchalantly. “Easy, but that’s why I got sent. It did feel nice going out with them though.”

You shoot her a small smile and interject. “You kill any curses?”

Shoko shakes her head. “Nah, Satoru and Suguru did most of the work. I was the support, and I was there for the experience.

You laugh softly. “I’d love to have you as my support,” you tease her. “I know I’d get my work done quicker.”

Shoko pushes your shoulder slightly. “Don’t tease me like that or I’ll gladly take you away from Geto.”

You both laugh and proceed to hook your arms around each others. Once you both calm down you cut in. “Are you free while Suguru finishes arguing with my brother? I want to practice my reverse cursed technique.”

Shoko looks at you with her eyebrows knitted together. “And you need me for what?” She asks. “To explain how it works?” She sighs and tilts her head away. “Because I really suck at that.”

You shake your head. “No, I know how it works, but I’m still learning though, so I need you to be my lookout, and to guide me,” you explain.

Shoko’s gaze drifts to you and she offers you a small smile. “Okay, I can do that.”

Like with Suguru, you take Shoko to your favorite spot up the hill and by the pond.

“So you know the basics, right?” Shoko inquires as she lets your hand go to sit on the bench whilst you sit on a large flat rock in front of the pond.

“Yes,” you agree. “Negative cursed energy times negative cursed energy equals positive cursed energy. It’s easy to grasp!”

Shoko folds her arms over her chests and shrugs. “You’d think, but only a selected few actually grasp the concept.”

You hum softly in agreement, and proceed to put your hand out and point your palm to the sky to quickly get into it before Suguru can find you.

“I learned it when I was a little girl,” you let Shoko know as you pick up a sharp enough looking stone from the ground around you. “I’ve just never actually developed it since I focused on bettering my cursed technique instead. But now that I’m here and actually have time. And now that you’re my friend and have such a special skill,” you flatter her. “I can finally focus on actually mastering RCT.”

You push the sharp stone towards your palm, but hesitate to actually cut it.

Albeit you know there’s no other way to actually practice without having to heal something. But, fuck! You are scared of the fucking pain.

You’re been through worse, but this is voluntary—But there’s no other way to get better. At least for you anyway.

Fuck! Fuck…okay here goes nothing.

You press the sharp end of the stone deep in your flesh and slice your palm, causing blood to quickly rush out and drop onto the rock you sit on.

It hurts like hell, but you try your best to drift your focus on healing your wound. After all, when it comes down to it, on a mission you’ll need to use RCT to heal your body, or worse, pull you from the nasty grasps of death. Which is why you inhale deeply and try to drift that positive cursed energy from your chest to your wounded palm. However, it’s as your chest rises that Shoko quickly leaves her spot on the bench and crouches down in front of you.

“No,” she cuts in and grabs your wrist, not caring if she could get stained by blood. “Unlike our cursed energy which flows from our stomach,” she says as she swiftly moves her hand over to touch your stomach. “RCT is directed from the brain,” she says and now moves her hand to point at your head.

RCT is something you barely grasped, but never dived too deep into. So what she says is really surprising and informative.

“Alright,” you mutter and let your breath go to now drive your focus to your head, to focus on the negative cursed energy you produce to positive.

And it’s funny, or great in a sense. You can actually feel your mind producing that positive cursed energy, it feels…tingly but soothing. As you focus on driving it to your bleeding wound you can actually feel that positive cursed energy flowing to your hand. It’s amazing.

Yet nothing beats how awe-striking it is to watch RCT stitch your flesh back together. If it weren’t for the blood staining your hand, it’d be like nothing ever happened. There’s not even a scar.

Then again, the cut was small and done without cursed energy hurting you. Scars can still form on severe cases.

“I need you to promise me something, Y/N Gojo,” Shoko interjects, causing your attention to snap to her standing up—“with RCT directed from your brain it means that if you face an opponent and they figure out you can heal yourself, they’ll go for your head so you can’t heal. So,” she says softly. “Always protect your head. You are more skilled in long range combat after all.”

You blink in surprise to her expression of affection. She’s not someone who actually acts cool and distant like Nanami, she shows her affection in her own ways, but it’s rare hearing her express it verbally and with such vulnerability.

“Well,” you sigh. “That’s true,” you agree. “But Satoru and Suguru are both helping me train in close combat, so down the line I’ll be comfortable using both.”

Shoko averts her gaze and hums softly as she nods. “Okay,” she says before sliding her eyes back to you. “Well that doesn’t change anything. Promise me you’ll protect your head…life around here would be pretty boring without you.”

You push yourself up and approach her with an assuring smile. “Well if that’s the case,” you say. “Then I promise I’ll always try to be careful, Ieiri. I swear.”

Said girls lips pull to a soft smile before she chuckles and nods. “Good,” she mumbles. “Now,” she sighs and sits on the bench again. “Heal a cut made by the stone I’ll imbue with my cursed energy because—”

“They’re harder to heal,” you finish for her as you step back and sit back down on your spot.

Shoko scoffs. “No—well sometimes, but actually, they’re slower to heal.”

You hum in comprehension and pick up a different stone to throw over to her waiting hand. And just like she mentioned, when you cut your palm with the stone imbued by cursed energy, you feel the RCT heal your wound slower than before. This time rather than it feeling soothing, when your hand begins to heal, it feels…irritating for the first few seconds until you don’t feel anything.

Is it going to feel like this all the time then? That’s annoying.

“See, now you’ve mastered it,” Shoko deadpans. “Easy. Just remember that it comes from your brain, not your stomach, so please don’t fry your brain either.”

You lean back on the rock by putting your arms back, and then counter her. “It might be easy, but I need to perfect it.”

Shoko shrugs sluggishly. “I guess.”

Now that you’ve got that over with, you wonder where Suguru is. It’s been a while now and you did agree to train together today.

Did they really get in a fight?

You to Sugar: Did you and my brother kill each other or? Where are you?

“Can you help me later?” Shoko interjects. “My lab rats only get me so far, I need to test out on a person.”

Your face twists in horror. She wants you to be her labrat?

The last time that happened you ended up with a broken nail and a twisted wrist. It hurt! Seeing your nail break hurt your soul.

“Well…” You roll out hesitantly and avert your gaze.

However, before you can answer your phone goes off as a message arrives. When you check you instantly smile.

Sugar: Here

Your smile fades and you feel confused now. Nevertheless just as you were typing your probing question, multiple footsteps can be heard approaching the area. When you look over to the path you catch sight of Suguru coming up the hill first. You shoot each other a smile before suddenly Satoru runs past him and runs over to you to push you down before he runs past you.

“Hey!” You shout before you get up and chase after him.

Satoru doesn’t run away fast, so you catch up to him quickly and push him back.

Satoru laughs and lets himself fall beside Shoko on the bench. You don’t get carried away and leave him be, instead you just glare at him whilst Suguru falls beside you.

“What were you guys fighting about earlier?” You express your curiosity since you walked in while it was already tense.

“Nothing,” Satoru answers bluntly, whilst Suguru proceeds to answer at the same time with an actual response.

“Difference in morals, Yaga cut us off before anything could develop though.”

You roll your eyes in annoyance. You should’ve known, it was almost always the same thing.

“Anyway, onto actually interesting news,” Shoko cuts in and pushes your knee with her shoe. “Y/N here mastered RCT.”

You shake your head and quickly rebuttal her. “Not mastered. I still need to get better, but yes I've understood the concept a lot better now. Which will help me better.” You tried not to but you can’t help it. You get excited to show it off, especially to your brother. “Watch!”

You proceed to pick up the stones you had been using, and while Shoko imbues one stone with her cursed energy you use the other normal stone to cut your palm again.

“That doesn’t seem sanitary whatsoever,” Satoru mutters as he watches you lean over to let Shoko cut your other palm with the imbued stone.

“It doesn’t matter,” you brush Satoru off and lift your hands to show off your palms to the three spectators. “Now watch!”

Suguru leans to the side to take a better look at your palms, while you focus on your brain and multiply the negative cursed energy to create positive cursed energy. Once again that weird sensation hits you, but that quickly gets drowned out by your excitement as your wounds begin to heal.

“You seeing it?!” You ask your brother with a grin.

Satoru nods softly. “Yeah I’m watching. Good job, sis,” he says genuinely.

You can’t contain your excitement and let it out by embracing Suguru’s arm.

“I’m glad you finally got around to finish learning that,” Suguru says as he tilts his head down to rest his chin on your head. He would’ve kissed your head, he likes doing that all the time, it’s his favorite thing to do when you aren’t kissing each others lips, but of course he doesn’t now because he says he doesn’t want to make Satoru uncomfortable by actually kissing you, even if it is just your head. So instead he likes to remedy that by small acts when you’re around your brother; like wrapping his arm around your shoulders, hooking his pinky with yours, sitting behind you and wrapping his legs around you, or like now, holding your hand and giving it a gentle squeeze.

“I’ve pushed it off for far too long,” you say and hold onto him tighter.

“Now she’s better at something else than you,” Shoko directs at Satoru.

It’s not like you tried to do it for that reason, actually you learned RCT to try and impress your parents when you were young. Let’s just say they didn’t really care though.

“What’s the other thing may I ask?” Your brother asks as he you see him look at your friend with an unamused look.

Shoko smirks. “Looks,” she doesn’t hold back from saying.

You beam at her and hear Suguru laugh, whilst Suguru rolls his eyes and shakes his head in disagreement.

“Now let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves,” he says, making you groan. “Let’s instead focus on the reason why we stopped here.”

You raise a questioning brow and press him. “What do you mean?”

Satoru shoots you a smirk. “Suguru and I are going on a three-day mission starting today. We should be on our way, but,” he pauses and groans. “Suguru wanted to stop by to talk to y/n.”

Your eyes widen slightly before you let Suguru’s arm go to step back and look between him and your brother with curiosity. “Mission?” You probe. “Since when?”

Suguru passes Satoru an annoyed look before he meets your gaze and answers. “Since today, that’s why Yaga interrupted us. We’re being sent to protect Tengen’s Star Plasma vessel from two groups that are trying to stop her from joining Tengen and merging.”

Her?

“One is the Curse User Group Q,” Satoru continues for Suguru. “Which is looking to upend Jujutsu society with Tengens rampage.”

“Okay,” Shoko says in comprehension, whilst your mind dwindles between the information and the fact that it’s a girl they’re protecting.

You shouldn’t be jealous, it’s a job, and from what you’ve learned on Tengen, he needs a vessel to stop himself from evolving to some higher being. So the girl is going to die and what is it…become one with Tengen? Or become him? It? They? Well whatever, the girl is going to die—but you are still feeling inklings of jealousy.

“And the other group,” Satoru continues. “Is the Star Religious group, also known as the Time Vessel Association, which worships Tengen as a god or something.”

Why do they want to stop Tengen from assimilating then if he’s their god?

Yet before you can ask that something else spills out of your mouth. “How old is this girl?”

Shoko chuckles, and Satoru scoffs before Suguru answers, “middle school age.”

Oh, what a relief.

“So you’ll be away from school why? Isn’t it safer bringing her here?” You ask. “Have her spend the rest of her time here where it’s protected?”

Satoru shrugs. “You’d think, but we’re supposed to stay away until the last day. I’ll see if I can change that though,” he comments with obvious annoyance. “I’m not entertaining no brat.”

Suguru sighs in disagreement but doesn’t comment, instead he grabs your arm and begins to pull you to him. “Satoru why don’t you meet me down the hill? We need to go now, we’ve wasted enough time as it is. I just want to talk to y/n first.”

Your brother narrows his gaze and slouches with the intention not to move.

“Satoru,” you call out so he can listen.

Shoko gets the memo and when she gets up she grabs Satoru’s arm to drag him with her. Luckily he doesn’t make this harder than it needs to be and follows her.

“Two minutes,” Satoru warns Suguru nevertheless. “Or I will come and drag you out.”

You roll your eyes, but Suguru just nods without bothering to counter back with something sassy or filled with annoyance. You then proceed to watch your brother walk away until he’s no longer visible.

“Three days?” You question as Suguru turns to face you now.

Suguru nods softly. “Yeah, but we might end up coming back here after we pick her up. I don’t know, I'll let you know.”

You scoff and shoot him a smile as you lean over and press your hands on the sides of his neck. “No, don’t distract yourself, you don’t have to text me. Focus on the mission and keeping yourself safe. Please.”

A small smile tugs on his lips and he carefully begins to caress your hand that you have on his neck. “I will, but I do have your brother so I’ll be okay.”

You nod in agreement. “Yeah I know. But still,” you say. “I don’t want to distract you. If you’re not here by tonight I’ll send you something. And if you miss me throughout the day, watch your homescreen or look through your camera roll full of pictures of me.” You laugh softly. “Or look at your messages…I might surprise you and send you a picture.”

Suguru grins and raises his hands to cup your cheeks and pull you in for a deep kiss. You cherish it and revel in it as if you won’t see each other again, as if you’re afraid to forget the taste of each other's lips. You proceed to tease him to keep him with you longer, but just as you swipe your tongue on his bottom lip he pulls back and presses a kiss on the top of your head instead.

“You know I can’t stay long,” he mutters against you. “Be wary of your phone, okay? You’re strong—”

You scoff in protest, but he pulls his head back to meet your gaze and reassure you. “You are, and we might need you, so just be wary. Regardless I’ll call you later.”

He didn’t listen to you whatsoever.

“Fine,” you say and don’t bother arguing. “Be careful…” you pause as you want to say those three meaningful words again, but you stop short before you can even utter them. You’re still too scared to do it.

You don’t want him to reject you, nor do you want to force him to repeat it if he doesn’t mean it yet.

“Look out for each other,” you add instead. “I do want to see you again, you know?”

Suguru laughs softly before pressing one last kiss on your lips. “I’ll be careful, Firefly.”

You groan in protest and push him back, causing him to snicker before he takes your hand and walks with you down the hill.

And just like he was told, Satoru is waiting for Suguru down the hill. Except he’s being annoying about it and tapping his foot on the floor while he has his arms crossed.

Since you’ve said your goodbyes with your boyfriend though you walk to your brother. “Be careful, Satoru, okay?”

“I don't need to be careful,” he responds all smugly, making you roll your eyes but continue to try and be sweet and caring.

“Just don’t die, look out for each other and…come back.”

Satoru tilts his head down to look at you with his eyes before he responds in the same smugness. “Don’t worry, sis.” He shoots you a half grin. “I’ll be fine.” He turns on his heels and grabs Suguru’s arm to pull him along, most likely because he thought Suguru would want to take one more minute with you.

You still follow them though, all the way to the exit. They both wave at you when they’re walking out, and you wave back with a small smile on your face. When they give you their backs as they keep retreating, you just stand there and watch their figures turn smaller until you can no longer see them.

You have nothing to worry about, you tell yourself so as to not worry about the two most important people in your life. Theye the strongest after all.

——

*LATER*

“What about after graduation?” You ask your group of friends. “Do you guys have any specific plans or are you planning on staying here?”

It had been only a couple hours since Satoru and Suguru left, and you’ve kept yourself busy at home since then since you didn’t get sent out on a mission after the one you went to in the morning; you’ve trained with your cursed technique, mediatated, and read. Now you’re helping Shoko just like promised, except Haibara and Nanami are with you too.

Well Nanami ended up helping Shoko, you are…supporting her from across the small table, and talking to her and your friends with your legs on Nanami’s lap, and your body leaned against Haibara as you give yourself a nice manicure.

“Well I already have a cozy job offer here,” Shoko shares nonchalantly. “So unless I get offered something better, then I’m staying here.”

You hum in comprehension and tilt your head back to peek at Haibara as he answers your question next. “Well I actually would like to be a teacher, so if they gave me a job here I would totally stay.” He says with enthusiasm before looking at you from the corner of his eyes. “What about you?”

You roll your head down and watch as you file the nail on your left pointer finger. “I’m leaving after school. I’ll accept jobs, but I won’t stay here.” You sigh. “I have goals I want to accomplish that don't involve staying here. Maybe I’ll be like Miss Yuki Tsukumo.” You smile proudly. “She’s so cool! I want to be like her when I grow up.”

Nanami scoffs before retorting. “She’s a slack off, she doesn’t pick up missions so that leaves us to do more work. She’s an adult but acts like a rebellious teen. You have the potential to be a lot better.”

You shrug him off and defend a woman you’ve never met before but have only heard about. “Well I think she’s cool. And the higher ups dislike her so she’s even cooler in my book.”

You move onto your last nail and only remember that you’re helping Shoko when he asks her a question from her notes.

“How many pairs of chromosomes does a human being typically have?”

You’ve always wondered why it is that Shoko wants to actually study to be an actual doctor when she has her special RCT ability that does all the work. And she put it simply, she wants the title and it’ll help her understand medical situations better. If it were you, you wouldn't do all that, but now that she’s doing it, good for her. You support her, and are proud of her.

“23 pairs,” she answers nonchalantly.

Nanami nods in agreement and pulls out the next notecard.

“So what about a family?” Shoko asks a different question to drift away from her study. “Would you guys want a family of your own? I don’t know if I would, I’ll go with the flow. All I do know is that I’m going to become a doctor.”

You smile at her with pride whilst you also give her your hand so she can help you paint your nails.

“Well,” you sigh and answer what comes to mind. “I don’t know, I’ve never given it any thought. It’d be nice I think, but…” you pause for a second and look up at the ceiling. “I really don’t know.”

The world isn’t perfect, it never will be, but you know all the ugly that it contains. It’s why you’ve never actually let yourself actually think too deeply about that. It’s why you’re okay if you don’t have a family of your own, plus you’re happy with the family you already have; your brother, Shoko, Nanami, Haibara and Suguru. As long as you have them in your life you’ll always be satisfied.

“Now you, Haibara,” you direct back at your friend. “What are your thoughts?”

“Hm, well,” he hums quietly before he shares what he knows. “I think it would be nice when I meet the right person.”

You smile softly and nod. “That’s good.” You look at the blond guy across you and give him the option to answer since he was mostly quiet while you all talked. “And you Nanamin?”

“No,” he answers bluntly. “I don’t think so, at least not while I continue doing this.”

“Fair.”

“Now, next question,” he drifts the attention away. “What part of the body produces insulin?”

Shoko props her elbows on the table and rests her chin on her hands as she thinks.

“Liver?” She answers hesitantly.

Nanami shakes his head and presses the notecard on the table so she can see the real answer; the pancreas.

“Oh,” she laughs it off. “I was going to answer with that. It’s a good thing I still have some time to go before I begin to study for my doctor's license.”

Nanami shakes his head in disapproval, and Haibara and you laugh. Shoko smirks before she lets your hand go so the paint can dry. You’re about to give her your other hand but then your phone rings, so you quickly slide your legs off Nanami’s lap and sit up. When you pick your phone you see that it’s Suguru calling you.

You told him not to, but you’re happy that he is, so you answer right away. “Hello!” You smile wider. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” he relieves you of that worry. “I’m fine. We’re all fine. We just uh, fought some curse users here…”

That doesn’t sound fine.

Your smile falls and you press him with worry and annoyance that was he brushing off the real danger of it all just to assure you. “That doesn’t sound fine. Where are you guys?”

“We’re fine,” he repeats himself. “We are now, that's why I’m calling you.” He laughs softly, but you find no amusement or reassurance in that laugh.

“You also said you’d call if you were in danger—are you being held captive? Cough if you need help.”

“Is everything okay?” Haibara interjects as they all listen in.

“Y/N,” Suguru calls out firmly. “I’m okay, Satoru is okay. We are okay. I just…wanted to hear from you.”

Regardless of how annoyed you currently feel, your face burns and a smile twitches on your face. “Well in that case,” you play along. “I am glad you’re calling. I know it must be hard work, so thank you for taking time out of your day to call. But are you sure it’s okay? I’ve been holding back from texting you out of fear that I’ll distract you.”

Suguru shares a breathless laugh. “It’s fine, darling.”

He’s never called you that before. Your mother used to call you that, but she never actually meant it affectionately, and it was always while she was being manipulative about something.

But Suguru, his voice is soft when he says it, it’s not dry or emotionless. You like the way he says it.

“Well, okay then,” you whisper. “What do you want to hear? How proud I am of you? I’m not there but I know you’re doing a good job.” You smirk.

“Please,” Nanami cuts in. “Take that call somewhere else.”

You wave him off and once again swing your legs over to rest them on his lap.

“No,” Suguru mumbles. “You don’t need to do that, especially because I’m not done yet. Just tell me about your day, what are you doing now?”

“Now?” You repeat and look around at your group of friends. “I’m helping Shoko by being her laprat.”

Suguru scoffs. “Labrat? Again? Well please tell her to keep you whole, I do look forward to seeing you again.”

You grin and can’t help but giggle like a lovestruck dork.

“I will relay the message, but don’t worry I’m helping her study.”

“You are?” Nanami mutters.

You laugh. “I am!” You counter. “I'm her emotional and mental support. So is Haibara.”

“I like the sound of that,” said guy agrees.

You throw your hand out and give him a thumbs up before you focus back on Suguru.

“Are you coming back here?” You ask him full of hope.

Suguru sighs and stays quiet for a moment, making you begin to worry. Before you can ask he answers. “No, not yet. We’re actually on our way to Naha.”

“You’re going to Okinawa?” You cut in with disbelief, making your friends pay closer attention. “What for?”

There’s another second of silence before he answers. “Uh, the vessel, Riko Amanai, her caregiver got captured by the Time Vessel association, so we’re going to go rescue her.”

The mundane non-sorcerer cult took the caregiver?

Here you thought they’d be weak.

“So you lied?” You remark.

“No,” Suguru quickly rebuttals. “No, we’re fine, we’ll get her back with no trouble I’m sure of it.”

“Uh-huh.”

“How long do you think you’ll stay there then?” You ask quieter.

“We’re flying over tonight and getting the caregiver back in the morning, so just a day…that’s actually another reason why I’m calling you too.”

You sigh. “Here I thought you actually wanted to talk to me. Pft.”

“I did want to hear your voice, that's why I delayed on telling you this now,” he argues back. “Yaga is probably going to tell you soon, but we need you, Nanami and Haibara to fly in tomorrow morning. The guys will be guarding the airport and you’ll meet up with us.”

At least you’ll see him again, that’s the good thing. But he did avoid telling you about the trouble they’re facing though, so that’s irritating.

“We’ll be at an Island,” he continues to add. “So you’ll have an advantage with your cursed technique just in case something does happen while we’re here.”

You hum in agreement, and that’s when he notices that you aren’t excited as you should be.

“I didn’t hide the truth on purpose, you know?” He argues.

This time you listen to what Nanami complained about and sit up. “Just hold on,” you tell Suguru, and then get up and step out of the room to talk to him now that your conversation has drifted to something more private and serious.

“Okay, I’m back now, and I’ll just say,” you interject right away. “I could have handled it. You don’t need to protect me. One it’s not you or my brother in danger so it would be easier to understand. Two, if this is going to continue working we need to communicate. You can’t decide for me what you think is okay or not, I decide that. And I know I can be a little sensitive, but you can’t shield me from the ugly you know?”

A deep breath comes from the other end and silence follows. You can’t see his face but you wish you could so you can read his expression. You don’t regret what you just said, you don’t even feel bad, it’s your truth, and a truth he needs to know if you're going to continue dating. But you don’t like the silence. It makes you nervous.

It’s not until a few seconds later that Suguru interjects softly. “I understand, I’m sorry. I should have not avoided the subject from the beginning, you’re right you can handle it. I just did want to hear from you first, it’s been a…long day.”

You smile bashfully down at the floor beneath your feet. “I guess the news would’ve spoiled the mood,” you admit.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “But you are also right. I shouldn’t have shielded you from the truth. Not at a time like this.”

You nod. “Exactly.” You smile softly and just before either of you could say anything, the voice of your brother is heard in the background.

“Hey, you’re still talking to y/n?”

“Yes?” Suguru answers.

You narrow your gaze slightly in confusion, but you then understand why he bothered to ask.

“Okay, just pass her to me, I need to talk to her,” Satoru mutters quickly before you hear commotion and then his voice through the phone. “Sis before you leave, while you pack, go to my room and bring me some casual clothes. Something comfortable. Understand?”

You sigh and don’t even think of your answer. “All right. I understand.”

“Good! Thank you—oh and bring yourself something comfortable too! Beachwear. So bring me something for that too actually.”

You look down at the floor confused before you probe. “Why? What are you planning?”

You can practically hear your brother grin before he answers evasively. “Just do what I ask.”

You roll your eyes. “Fine,” you breathe out, but drop your annoyance quickly as you fill with worry again. “Are you okay, Satoru? Have you eaten? Slept?”

“Hey,” he blurts. “Don’t you worry about me. I’m strong, and I’m the oldest sibling here. Just worry about getting here, and…Suguru. I’m fine.”

Yeah you won’t do that but you don’t want to argue so you just mumble back. “I understand.”

Footsteps begin to echo nearby so you look off the ground and see Yaga approaching. Most likely with the news Suguru just shared with you.

“I have to go,” you let Satoru know. “But! You’re on your way to the airport right?”

“Uh-huh.”

You smile excitedly. “Okay, do me a huge favor, go to that shop we like to go to, the one next to—”

“Mochi?” He finishes saying for you. “I’m so ahead of you, sis. I got us some!”

You grin. “Yay. Okay, okay I really have to go now. Bye.”

“I’ll pass you back to Suguru.” Satoru says, and you hear rustling as he does just that.

Yet just before your boyfriend can actually give you a proper goodbye, Satoru hangs up for him. “Goodbye—“

He’s still hesitant about Suguru and you. It’s not as bad as before, but he still hasn’t fully come to terms with the fact.

Then again can you blame him? You’re his little sister, someone he’s protected and looked after all his life. And Suguru is his best friend. The only one you’ve ever seen him have, so you’re both important to him. He has every right to be protective over the both of you. However he does need to trust the both of you too.

“Gojo,” Yaga greets as he approaches the porch.

You put your phone away and offer him a tiny smile as you return his greeting. “Yaga.”

Said man sighs and points his chin to your phone. “Was that your brother?”

You nod. “It was, Suguru called me and Satoru butt in.”

Yaga hums before he continues. “Then I assume you know about what you’re going to do?” He says. “Geto said he’d call you to catch you up.”

You nod and turn around to open the door to the room you were just in. “Yeah, I know everything.”

“I normally wouldn't have chosen to send you or the others yet,” Yaga explains as he trails after you “But Geto and your brother asked for the three of you. So I’m going to trust you, all of you, to do your jobs and make it back.”

You look back and shoot him a prideful smirk. “Don’t worry,” you assure the man. “We can handle what may come our way. We’re strong together.”

——

*THE NEXT DAY*

Ever since coming to school, getting out of your school uniform is growing to be pretty uncommon, sure you find the smallest excuses to wear all the clothes you have and buy, but it’s hardly enough.

Coming to actual fun places for missions is rare. Sure nothing about hiding out from bounty hunters is fun, but every mission you’ve gone to has dark corners, sketchy streets, dark to dim lighting, it’s all truly ugly.

It’s why you don’t even think twice about going all out right now at the beach! You wear a bathing suit under your bright colored tight corset and black mini skirt. You wear cute and expensive shades, you can even carry a cute bag that matches the color of your platform sandals. Plus it helps you not stand out, you blend right in with the rest of the beachgoers!

Albeit you do wonder why you’re at the beach exactly. The guys said to meet them at the beach right as you got off the plane instead of letting you help like you were sent here to do. Howbeit! You’re not complaining, you love the beach, you love the sun kissing your skin, the sound of the crashing waves, the salty air, the calmness of the environment—

Actually! There is one thing you are complaining about, they’re late. They were supposed to meet up with you thirty minutes ago. So it’s a good thing you’re at the beach and not anywhere haunted, you would’ve flipped if it was the latter.

And now you would message them, but you’d rather not bother and leave them worrying instead.

And it’s a good thing you do because they leave you waiting for another fifteen minutes before Satoru and Suguru get off a cab with a young black haired girl, and an older woman dressed like a maid.

“Sorry—”

“I could’ve been dead already,” you cut Suguru off and cross your arms over your chest as you glare at the both of them.

Satoru skips over to close the gap between him and you. “You’re too annoying to kill,” he blurts teasingly. “Did you bring my things?”

You sigh and drop your arms to your side to pick up a totebag off the ground and hand it to your brother. “Don’t mess it up, I have stuff in there too.”

Satoru flashes you a grin. “Thanks, and…” he trails off and gives you a gift bag from the sweet shop with the good mochi.

You can’t stay upset anymore so you smile at him before he walks off to change out of his uniform.

“You land all right?” You hear Suguru ask as you’re focused on taking out the mochi your brother gave you.

“Yeah,” you answer with your attention wavered. “You okay?” You finally look up at him as you pull out the package, and smile when you see that he’s not hurt. “You look good, are you?”

Suguru’s smile deepens as he nods. “Yeah. The work was simple. The interrogation did take longer than expected though. Sorry about that.”

You open the box and shake your head. “Don’t worry about it, I like being here,” you assure him. “Albeit why are we here? At the beach I mean? Won’t it be easier protecting…” you trail off and glance at the young girl past his shoulder, and catch her eyes already on you. “…the girl at school?”

Suguru sighs and nods. “It would, but Tengen ordered us to let her enjoy her time before the merge. So we’re here.”

You hum in comprehension and take a bite from your snack. “Well, I can’t say I'm complaining,” you say with your mouth full. “This is the best mission location I’ve been to so far.”

Suguru smiles softly before he checks that Satoru isn’t coming.

When the ghost is clear he leans over and presses a kiss on your cheek. “You look good by the way.”

You gulp and feel your heart flutter, and your smile turn bashful. “You should wait and see me in my bathing suit,” you manage to tease him.

Suguru swallows thickly. “I can’t wait,” he counters softly.

You laugh softly before you offer him your bitten mochi. “Want some? I can’t guarantee there will be some left when you come back from changing—You are changing out of your uniform right?”

Suguru laughs and nods. “Yes. I’ll do that now,” he says as he takes the bitten mochi from your hand and walks off, leaving you with the other two that you have yet to introduce yourself to.

“Forgive me,” you tell them after you wipe your mouth. “I got carried away,” you tell them as you step towards them. “I am Y/N Gojo.” You smile sweetly and bow your head. “First year at Jujutsu High.”

The young girl swallows thickly before she bows her head. “I’m…Riko Amanai,” she introduces herself. “Nice to meet you.” She then looks at your shades and continues. “I really like your clothes. You’re dressed really nice.”

Your smile grows to a grin and feel your heart skip a beat. That’s the best commitment you could ever recieve. It means you did well on picking your outfit. You love it.

“Thank you, Amanai. Really.” You then proceed to look at the woman beside her. “Hello, you must be her caregiver?”

The lady nods and offers you a tiny smile. “Yes, I’m Misato Kuroi.”

“Are you okay? I heard what happened,” you interject with concern.

Miss Kuroi nods quickly. “Yes, I’m fine. I didn’t get hurt, and Geto and Gojo saved me in time as well.”

You offer her a kind smile and nod. “That’s very good.”

“Thank you,” she cuts in and grabs Amanai’s shoulder. “You had to fly all the way here for us even if it isn’t your mission.”

You shake your head. “Well,” you sigh. “It kind of is now that I am involved, but don’t worry. We’re sorcerers, we have to look out for one another. We’re few as it is.” You smile and catch your brother coming out so you focus on him while the girls go and change now too.

“Do you have more?” He asks as rushes over to you with the tote bag in hand.

You nod and extend the box to him after you take another one. Once your brother reaches you he takes a mochi, and you take a bite of yours before you ask what’s been on your mind. “So what’s the plan for today?”

Satoru takes big bite and then holds the snack in between his teeth to dig in his back pocket, and pull out a folded paper he gives to you.

You take another bite and then finish it before you open the paper to read the schedule for today and tomorrow.

‘Day 2…13:00 meet with Gojo 2 at the beach and then swim…”

You groan and blink to look at your brother with annoyance. “Gojo 2?” You quote back at him.

Satoru snickers. “Yeah it’d be confusing otherwise.”

You roll your eyes and look back at the sheet.

‘15:00...Day 3, 11:00 Amanai’s Bounty Taken Down. Assimilate with Tengen after sunset!’

“Well,” you comment and fold the paper back. “That’s quite a day. It’s too bad we’re leaving here so soon. We should come back,” you suggest and give him back the schedule. “With all the others too. It'd be so fun.”

Satoru nods as he takes one more mochi from your box. “Yeah, that would be fun. Perhaps in the summer.”

You smile giddly and nod in agreement. Silence then follows and you take the time to study him for any visible wounds. He can’t do RCT yet, nor is Shoko here so if he got hurt it’d be visible since he has a lot of body exposed.

Yet it doesn’t look like he did. Good.

“When we go back home,” Satoru adds quieter and in a more serious tone. “You’ll go back to school to grab what you need, and then go on a mission with the other first years.”

You blink in surprise and pull your shades up before you shake your head. “No, but I should stay in school,” you argue. “The bounty won’t be down until tomorrow morning. What if something happens? We could help, I could.”

Satoru shakes his head and finally meets your eyes and narrows his gaze. “I said you’re going,” he deadpans. “Listen for once in your life.”

You part your lips to argue, but nothing comes out. You can’t form a word sentence to argue back with. There’s no point either, there’s no winning him, when he’s dead set on something and serious like he is now, there’s no changing his mind. There’s no point in having Suguru talk with him either, he probably already knows about the plan and agrees to it. Plus…you don’t want to argue now. The sun is bright, the sky is so beautifully blue, the waves look calm, and the air is soft.

Instead when you catch Suguru walking away from the changing station you shoot him a bright smile, and feel butterflies flutter in your stomach as you see that he’s not wearing anything under his blue short-sleeve button up. You’ve seen him shirtless before, but his body, his tight muscles hiding under his shirts never fail to amaze you.

Oh! And when he has his hair down and he doesn’t have a shirt on! Now that is truly the best sight to see.

If only you could kiss him. But Satoru is here. Tsk.

The best thing you can do is run over to meet him halfway with a soft awe-struck grin. “You look great,” you compliment him without shame, not notcing he keeps a hand hidden behind his back.

Suguru smiles. “You too.” He redirects.

“You surely took forever,” you point out. “I get the girls, but you?”

Suguru drops his gaze and smiles wider before he pulls his hand out from behind him and shows off a red hibiscus flower.

“Wow,” you mouth joyfully. “Cute,” you mumble.

Suguru lifts his hand to tuck the flower over your ear. “I saw a bush of them when I went to change so I thought I’d steal one for you,” he says.

You sigh softly and whisper your gratitude without letting go of each other's gaze, you’re all each other saw. It’s why you miss the way your brother is watching your interaction. He’d usually feel weird about seeing you and Suguru gushing over each other, but right now he saw your smile and he saw Suguru’s, he notices the way you two look at each other like nothing exists around you and all he can think about is how nice it is that you can make each other happy. Yet he still doesn’t understand how you two came to be, he doesn’t understand why either. No matter how many explanations you give him he won’t understand why Suguru and you love each other.

He probably will one day, or he probably won’t. Who knows, all he knows is this for now; his mission, and this moment in time.

It’s why when Amanai and Kuroi come out of the changing room he turns off his infinity for a moment to let you jump on his back. He then runs alongside Amanai, and with you on his back towards the water. He wants to throw you in the water for the fun of it, but he doesn’t want to make you mad so he lets your feet hit the ground.

However, it’s once you take off your clothes and remain in your bikini that Satoru grabs you and throws you in the water. You resurface with a sneer, and use your technique to manipulate the water surrounding you, and splash him, but he has his infinity on now so the water doesn’t hit him whatsoever.

“Ass,” you spat and pick up your flower off the water to tuck back over your ear.

“Hey! That’s so cool!” Amanai exclaims. “What’s your cursed technique?!”

You look to her and lose your annoyance before responding. “I have an Elemental Manipulation Cursed Technique. I can bend the elementals to my will, and fire is the only one I can manipulate and make.”

Amanai’s eyes widen slightly with awe. “That’s so cool!”

You shoot her a smirk. “Thanks,” you utter before you turn to walk over to Suguru sitting on a blanket in the distance with Kuroi.

However, before you do walk away, you stop and just peer back. Amanai is distracted picking up some shell from the sand, Suguru did say that Tengen wants her to at least enjoy what she has left of life, so you’ll show her just that, a good time.

Thus before she can look you use your technique and push the water in front of Amanai forward, creating an empty space. Amanai sees the water moving and looks up. When she notices the empty space her lips twitch to a smile, she then lifts her gaze further up and sees the water standing up around it and her smile widens.

She wants to look back at you since she knows you’re the one doing it, but the way you begin to make a path in front of her steals her attention. She is hesitant to follow the path, but you turn around to fall beside her.

“It’s okay,” you assure her. “Nothings going to happen.”

Amanai peers back at you and keeps her eyes on you for a moment as she debates between trusting you or not. But she then catches sight of a school of little orange fish swimming around the path you created and doesn’t hesitate to slowly follow them. You slowly trail after her and stop until the water walls tower over the both of you.

Unlike before, now you can see everything that lives inside the water, the different colored coral, the rocks; tall and small. You can see the little creatures burrowing themselves inside the sand. You see different fishes swimming in the distance, you see it all through the clear water. Albeit nothing is better than seeing Amanai smile with awe.

You don’t know the girl, she’s just a mission that your brother and Suguru need to accomplish for the sake of your world, but if you think deeply about it, this girl is going to lose her life to become one with this being that stays trapped in some void forever. And that makes you feel bad for her, it makes you sad that she’ll basically lose her life before she can even live it, before she can even decide if merging is what she actually wants.

It’s why while you’re here, you want to make it your mission to show her some ounce of happiness.

“Tell me Amanai,” you interject softly as you watch a cute silver fish swimming past you. “What’s your favorite animal?”

Amanai’s eyes snap to you and she parts her lips to answer, but she then closes her mouth and looks at the water again.

She remains quiet for a moment before she gives you her answer. “A whale shark.”

You hum in comprehension and draw in a deep breath of the salty air, you tap further into your cursed energy and let your mind overcome with the weight and strength of the water. You feel its gentleness, and its power running through your limbs as you control it.

You proceed to exhale and slowly begin to lift your hands as you raise the water that surrounds you. You proceed to gently slide your leg back like if you’re about to start a dance, and sway your arms to the side as you move the water over your heads. You then twist your wrists as you make the water circle around you.

Amanai spins around to watch as you move the water to completely surround you both, leaving you trapped in a bubble. “This is beautiful,” she whispers.

You smile softly, and then use the water past your walls to create a whale shark. Amanai runs to the edge to watch as you make the water create the big creature. Once it’s complete you don’t pull back from having it swim ever so gently like a real whale does. And it may not be real, but it looks like it; down to the white belly and up to the spots. It’s also very heavy to keep formed while lifting and pushing the water.

But you keep it up and let Amanai reach in the water to touch it. When she touches the water-made creature with her fingertips she laughs quietly, making you smile. After she pulls her hand out of the water you begin to let the water over you fall back to the sides. The water that you had blocking your back falls and you move it to the side to recreate the path back to shore.

Amanai watches the water-made whale shark for a few more minutes before you have it disappear. After that she follows you back to shore whilst she watches as you let the water fall back to place, like small waterfalls joining its body of water below. When you do reach shore and before you can walk away she interjects in a soft voice.

“Thank you for that….I really enjoyed it. It was very beautiful.”

You peer back and flash her a smile. “You welcome.” You hold her gaze for a second longer until it hits you.

How can this happen? Her life after merging will cease to exist, she hasn’t even lived it, she doesn’t even have a choice between doing it or not. Even if she wants to do it, she only says that because it was drilled in her; that desire and responsibility, but is it really her choice?

No.

But…It’s for the greater good of the Jujutsu world. Of your world, and everyone else’s. So she has to do it. She does…

This world is so fucked.

You continue to walk towards Suguru, and as you pass your brother he pats your shoulder. “That was cool,” he says.

You smirk and nod. “I know.”

Now when you’re closer to your boyfriend you run over and lay back on the space between his legs.

“We’re supposed to be discreet,” he reminds you.

You shrug him off. “It was cool.”

“I know, but we can’t be showing off,” he remarks.

You pull your shades down and close your eyes before you answer honestly. “She needs to enjoy what remains of her life. I was just showing her a good time.”

He sighs in defeat. He knows you’re right so let’s it be, instead he tilts his head down to look at you as you bask in the stillness of the moment, as you let the sun kiss your skin. He watches your chest move up and down, and the way you rest your hands on your chest. He finds himself smiling at you and the little things you do.

“May I ask?” Kuroi interjects, catching Suguru and you off guard. “Miss Gojo. How did you get that scar across your torso?”

You nervously swallow thickly, but keep your eyes closed. Instinctively you move one of your hands to trace the long scarred gash across your torso with your fingers.

It’s not hard anymore to recall that specific moment that took place so long ago in your life, but it still is hard to put into words. It’s why only one person besides Satoru knows what happened, and that’s Suguru.

“It happened when I was young,” you answer stiffly and clench your other fist over your chest. Suguru notices the way your breath changes to deep and hard breaths, he sees the way you stiffen, the way your lips are twitching to form a frown, so he does what he can right now and reaches down to cup your hand.

At the feeling of his soft and warm touch you open your eyes and tilt your head back. You catch his gaze and he offers you an assuring smile.

It doesn’t take away the bad that comes with the memory, but it helps ease you, it helps your breath, your racing heart, and brings light to the shadows that already threatened to take over at the mere thought of that day.

“It was a…mistake,” you share. “No amount of RCT has been able to heal it…” you trail off and simply leave it at that. Even if that’s not a clear answer, just a lead to more questions. Questions Kuroi luckily doesn’t ask.

“Hey,” Suguru interjects quieter. “Did you put on sunscreen?”

You look up at him and think for a moment before you remember you didn’t because Satoru threw you in the water. “No…could you help put some on?”

Suguru smiles as he pulls out your sunscreen from your bag. “Way ahead of you.”

You grin and sit up to let him put some on his fingers before he passes it to you, so you can put some on your fingertips and apply some on your arms while he gets your back.

“I have a question,” you finally remember to ask. “If the Star Religious group worships Tengen why do they want Amanai dead? Wouldn’t they want her to assimilate?”

Suguru sighs softly before he responds. “Well their object of worship is the pure form of Tengen. So allowing the Star Plasma vessel to assimilate is unforgivable because in their mind they think the vessel is impure.”

You scoff. “Ah,” you mumble. “I get it now.” You huff. “Non-sorcerers are so weird.”

“They just have different beliefs,” Suguru tries to correct you.

You huff, “yeah I suppose.” You proceed to grab more sunscreen to move onto your other arm. “Anway, I kind of feel bad. Haibara and Nanami are at the airport while I’m here at the beach, getting a tan.” You smile softly. “I’ll buy them souvenirs. As well as Shoko.”

“That’d be nice,” Suguru agrees as he slides his hands to your shoulders to rub in sunscreen.

Your breath shudders at the feeling, and your heart skips a beat, whislt your lips form to a mischievous smile. If only you were here alone, you’d totally be all over him. For now you’ll just have to imagine kissing him and taking off his shirt he didn’t bother to button.

“What?” Suguru interjects as if he knows you’re lost in thought about him.

You shrug. “Nothing,” you say in a sweet tone. “Just you.”

“What about me?”

You put more sunscreen on your hands and lean forward to begin rubbing some on your legs, causing him to slide his hands down to your lower back.

“You just look good in your beach outfit,” you let him know.

Suguru scoffs softly and stays quiet, letting you know you just made him all flustered. Which is easy to do.

“Anway,” you continue. “Have you guys eaten?”

“Not yet,” Suguru says, making you sigh with discontent.

“What about slept?” You ask. “Has Satoru slept? Have you?”

“I slept a bit on the plane, and at night,” he says. “But I don’t think Satoru has.”

You lift your eyes to watch your brother goof off with Amanai, and sigh. There’s no way to tell if he has eyebags with those dark shades on his face, but knowing him he hasn’t slept. And he won’t until his mission is over.

That’s why it would be better if you could help after you leave here, you could keep watch while he sleeps for at least a couple hours. But no, he’s protecting you and keeping you far away from the school.

You appreciate it, but he needs to understand you aren’t a little girl anymore. He doesn’t have to protect you all the time.

“Well,” you interject sternly and move onto your other leg. “We’ll go eat after this. You can’t be strong if you don’t eat.”

Suguru laughs softly, causing you to straighten up and look at him over your shoulder. “What?” You snap.

Suguru smiles at you and shakes his head. “Just you,” he mocks you playfully.

You roll your eyes and finish applying sunscreen on your leg to then rub some on the rest of your body that’s exposed to the sun. After that’s done Suguru pulls his phone out and takes a picture of the both of you; one with his chin on your shoulder and a smile on his face, and you happily grinning at the camera.

When that’s done you lay on your stomach, and just rest your eyes some more. There is a gnawing worry in the back of your head, but Suguru and your brother are here so you don’t let the worry consume you.

“I really can’t believe I got captured by the Star Religious Group,” Kuroi interjects, piquing your attention, but not enough to make you open your eyes. “And by a non-sorcerer at that. I’m ashamed of myself.”

“You couldn’t help it if they caught you off-guard,” Suguru quickly tries to assure the lady. “Part of the blames lies with me, too.”

“Was I really caught off guard?” Kuroi questions quietly. “I thought I was on high alert after the incident with Q. I still don’t have much recollection of being attacked…And you came here by plane?” She then asks. “Were you okay? You weren’t attacked?”

“Satoru has good eyes,” Suguru says. “Before we took off, he checked over all the passengers and staff, as well as the inside and outside of the plane. And while we were in the air, I had my cursed spirit keep watch outside. It was safer than using a land route.” He then proceeds to take a paper out he had in his pocket, and comments on it.

“I’m more curious as to why they designated Okinawa for the exchange,” Suguru shares his curiosity.

You thought of that too, but haven’t come up with any convincing explanation.

“Probably to buy time, right?” Kuroi shares. “Even if they fail to kill Riko, they could keep her from making tomorrow's full moon deadline.”

“If that were the goal,” you interject with your thought. “They would have chosen a rural area with poor transit infrastructure. Instead we’re here, on an island that’s often busy.”

“You two don’t think they’re planning to take over the airport, do you?” Kuroi worries.

“Maybe so,” Suguru doesn’t lie. “But we’ll be fine,” he assures her and puts the paper down. “We’re not the only ones who came here.”

Yes, you and your other two first year companions came too! Haibara and you were excited, but Nanami, well he’s reluctant. And he has every right to be, they usually don’t assign you first years to missions like these—but it’s just like you told him, there’s no need to worry with Suguru and Satoru here with you too.

“Should we really be sightseeing like this?” Kuroi adds.

“Satoru’s the one who suggested it,” Suguru says. “He’s probably showing consideration for Riko, in his own way. Though it is getting close…” he trials off and you then hear him stand up. “Satoru! It’s time.”

Tsk.

“Oh, it's that time already?” You hear Satoru query.

You sigh with discontent and push yourself to your knees before you stand up too.

“Suguru, let’s head back tomorrow morning instead,” Satoru suggests, making you spin around to face all of them with a hidden smile.

You can’t get excited yet, not until Suguru agrees. So while he walks to your brother you follow him. However when they do reach each other you stand a bit behind to listen in.

“But,” Suguru tries to argue, but Satoru cuts in with an argument.

“The weathers holding steady, yeah? Besides, there are fewer curse users in Okinawa than there are in Tokyo.”

That’s true, but does it really matter at the end of the day? They can still come here too, it would be safer back home. Even if you do enjoy being here.

“Let’s keep it a little more serious, Satoru,” Suguru rebuttals.

“It’s better if the time limit on the bounty runs out while we’re mid-flight right?” Satoru asks, making Suguru walk closer to your brother to talk quieter so the others won’t worry, or just listen in. Luckily you can still hear from where you stand.

“Satoru,” Suguru says. “You haven't released your technique since yesterday, have you? You haven’t slept either. And you don’t plan to sleep tonight, do you?”

You look at your brother with worry and step closer.

“Are you sure we don’t need to go back to Jujutsu High?” Suguru presses.

Satoru raises his head and meets your gaze behind his shades. You can feel his stare on you for a moment before he raises his fist and gently taps Suguru’s chest.

“It’s not a problem,” Satoru assures him as he begins to walk away. “Playing through 99 years of MomoTetsu was far more draining. Besides…you’re here too.”

You smile softly at his compliment to Suguru, and let him throw his arm around you as he reaches you.

“Why don’t we get some snacks, yeah?” Satoru suggests as he turns you around to walk with you.

“We could eat,” you correct him sternly. “Proper food.”

Satoru huffs out. “I ate food on the plane, and then when we were going to the exchange location.”

You scoff and counter. “Yeah, that was hours ago. You need to eat.”

“You’re beginning to sound like Belinda.” He teases you and lets you go as you reach where your blanket is splayed on the ground.

“Yeah and I have every right to,” you argue to the stubborn man. “There’s still a day left, Satoru.”

Satoru stops walking and keeps his back turned to you. “I’ll be alright, sis. Don’t you worry about me, I’ll be fine.”

You watch him with worry, you want to keep arguing for his own sake, but just as you open your mouth, you choose to trust him and let it go.

“Could you text one of the guys though? Let them know of the change in plans,” he says as he continues to walk off towards a man in the distance hauling a white cart.

You sigh in defeat and nod. He doesn’t see it, but you do before you take your phone from your bag and text Haibara. You would text Nanami, but he didn’t want to come as it is, so his reaction scares you.

You: Plans changed. We’re extending our stay to another day.

Suguru reaches you and puts his hand on your lower back and slides it up slowly to hook his arm over your shoulders.

“Worried?” You ask him.

“About Satoru? No, but, if we’re staying here we can’t let our guard down.”

You hum softly. “Well at night, we can patrol wherever we stay at,” you suggest. “If someone were to attack it’d be then, when our guard is supposed to be down more.”

“Yeah,” Suguru agrees and nods. “That’s true. We can patrol while Satoru stays with Amanai.”

Your lips tug to a teasing smile, yet before you can answer you can text message from Haibara.

Haibara: Understood! Thanks for letting us know. Is everything all right?

You: Yes, Satoru just changed his mind so don’t worry. Is everything okay over there?

You close your phone and finally tease Suguru. “I think you just want to get me alone, Sugar.” You snicker.

Suguru laughs. “It was your plan.”

You smirk and turn your head to look at him. “Yeah, it was so I wont deny my intentions. But,” you feign a pout. “We are meant to be on patrol, so.”

“I know that. Why? What did you have in mind?” He teases you back.

You shrug innocently and leave him wondering as you open your phone to read your new message.

Haibara: Clear waters over here, haha…

You snort at the message

Haibara: Nanami is just annoyed.

You: Love that haha, tell him not to lose his head, we’ll leave early in the morning and then head to a mission after!

“I have ice cream!” Satoru cuts in loudly and excitedly.

You turn back and see his grin as he runs over. You beam and leave your spot to meet him halfway along with Amanai, who’s just as happy.

“Sis, here’s your strawberry,” he says and hands you a cone with strawberry ice cream. “Amanai, you and Kuroi have vanilla. Suguru, you’ll get chocolate, and I’ll keep the last vanilla.”

“Thank you,” Amanai says before she takes her cones and walks back to her caretaker.

“So,” you blurt excitedly and step back to face both guys. “I was thinking—”

“Were you?” Satoru cuts you off with a playful smirk. “You don’t look like much of a thinker.”

Your face falls and a glower replaces the joy.

“Satoru,” Suguru warns him quietly.

Without asking you hand Suguru your phone and ice cream cone. Satoru does the same and begins to step back as he begins to snicker.

“Take it back,” you sneer at him and step forward. You then swing at him but he slides back, triggering you and causing you to lunge at him.

Satoru swerves you though, and begins to run away, making you run after him back towards the water, not catching Amanai’s concern.

“Are they okay?”

Suguru sighs and begins to slowly follow after the both of you. “Yes, it’s normal for them.”

When you make it into the water you manage to push your brother back, making him chuckle as he tries to capture your wrists.

You step back and since he seems to have his infinity off for this moment, you use your technique to grow a tall wave behind him. You then pretend to try and punch him so he gets distracted. And when he swerves you, you hurl the wave at his back, causing him to fall in the water face down.

You laugh at him evilly, and hear Amanai laugh along too from shore. Albeit just then unexpectedly hands wrap around your ankles and you get yanked down in the water, making you yelp out.

Satoru resurfaces and redirects his laugh back at you when you go quiet and look at him annoyed. However, that look only lasts for a few seconds because you can’t hold back and begin to laugh too.

The rest of the day is spent just like that moment, lighthearted and fun. Even if there was this shadow casted over everyone that didn’t bring anyone down, especially not Riko.

You went Kayaking to a river nearby, per your suggestion, since it is something you’d do with Satoru and your own caretaker when you were children. And Riko loved it, she especially loved watching the flying fish that you made out of water using your technique, and made to follow your boats. After that Kurio suggested an arcade and Amanai and you beat Satoru and Suguru multiple times. You followed by going on a walk where Amanai enjoyed the soft salty air, the colorful flower gardens, and that sense of freedom without having to worry about her responsibility.

You’ve known her for such a small amount of time but you were happy for her, you were happy to see her smile and not worry at that moment.

Now it might not be your day, you were here with everyone for a mission after all, but you can’t hide what you feel. You can’t push back your joy that you found in that moment too; with your brother, with your boyfriend, with the strangers that quickly became friends. Where you are.

“So,” you interject as you push your plate away and pull out the schedule. “We have room for something else before it’s someone’s bedtime…” you trail off and look at Riko across the table to point your eyes at her. She notices your implication and her jaw drops.

“I don’t have a bedtime,” she retorts, making Satoru and you snicker.

“Anyway,” you brush her off and let the paper go to rub the back of your neck as you feel this odd sensation you can’t put into words. All you know is that you feel it and it doesn’t last. It goes away just as fast as it came.

Thus you don’t pay mind to the feeling, instead you proceed to lean towards Suguru and lazily lay your head on his shoulder. “You should pick where you want to go next.” You lift your hand and gently begin to caress the back of Suguru’s neck.

“Well,” Riko mumbles before she averts her gaze and thinks hard.

After all your day activities, finally you were able to come and sit down to eat. It was such a relief after all the walking and sightseeing you did. Plus, seeing Satoru eat makes you feel reassured too, he’s been working hard and keeping up his cursed technique which takes a lot more from him than Suguru’s does.

“Can we go to the Aquarium?” Riko finally suggests, making your smile falter.

Yes Aquariums are impressive things, but Aquariums are something you hate. Its just, seeing all those innocent creatures stuck inside four walls for the rest of their lives is inhumane. Sure, when you pass by a small tank with fish you stop to admire them, but Aquariums? You hate them.

Yet you don’t say anything outloud or protest, you simply smile and nod to assure her. “Of course. That sounds like fun.” You pull your head off Suguru’s shoulder, and feel it again, that weird feeling on the back of your neck. This time though you don’t shrug it off, you feel the need to peer back, and that’s when you see a middle aged man at the other side of the patio sitting alone and with a newspaper in hand.

You manage to catch his green eyes already on you, but as soon as you do look at him he looks down at his newspaper.

Weird. Could he be after Riko?

Doubtful, he would’ve done something by now. He’s sitting calmly, and he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at you. Plus as you focus on him you can tell that his cursed energy is low, he’s probably a mere non-sorcerer, so he shouldn’t be a problem, he’s probably just a curious man.

However, you get a…icky feeling in your gut at the mere sight of him. And it is the non-sorcerer cult that are after Riko, so maybe you should tell Satoru, have him use his six eyes to examine him from where you are.

Thus you look ahead again and lean over towards your brother, but when you do, from the corner of your eyes you catch that same mystery man getting off his chair and walking away. You try to watch him leave the restaurant, but a server walking out of the kitchen gets in your way.

Hm, perhaps it’s just your paranoia. You’re just finding enemies in strangers out of worry. So you let it go and instead watch the server walk to your table with a plate of larb. When he reaches your table he directs his smile at Satoru.

“Larb, on the house,” he shares and sets the plate down before he walks away with no other kind of information.

“Free food, how come?” Riko asks with disbelief.

You peer back and catch the young lady that had been your actual server, giggling with the cashier, letting you know what this was about.

“I think,” you interject teasingly as you look ahead and reach for the plate. “Those girls back there Larb you, Satoru.” You snicker and watch him with a grin.

Kurio giggles at your joke, but she's the only one. Riko looks at you annoyed, and Satoru looks back at the girls first before he looks at you with a disapproving frown that only makes you burst out laughing.

You feel Suguru’s stare so you face him and laugh harder. You’d explain the joke, but it wouldn't be funny that way so you leave it be and pick up your silverware to take in a small amount.

“You’re a dork,” Suguru tells you.

You shoot him a sweet smile as you chew your food. He shakes his head and playfully turns your head away with his hand. You snicker and when you swallow you grab more food and push the silverware towards him. “Want some?” You ask. “It’s very good.”

Suguru doesn’t say anything, he just leans forward and takes a bite. You giggle with glee and miss Satoru’s disgust upon seeing your interaction.

“What’s wrong with your face?” You hear Riko ask, making you look over with curiosity and put the silverware down.

“Nothing,” Satoru deadpans. “I’m. Fine.”

You look at your brother and notice his glare behind his shades, letting you know exactly what was wrong with him. He’s annoyed by your affection with Suguru. Like always.

You don’t let that bother you though. Instead, you scoop up more food and make sure he’s watching as you feed Suguru more.

Before you could even think of grabbing more Satoru takes the plate from in front of you and begins to eat it himself, making Suguru and you laugh softly to yourselves.

Sure Suguru and you have your boundaries when you’re with your brother, but there’s times where it’s fun to mess with him, he’s so quick to annoy.

“Are you okay?” You tease Satoru as you slowly pull your phone out.

Satoru slowly turns his head and looks at you with a feigned nonchalant expression you see right through—“fine,” he deadpans.

You open your phone and quickly snap a picture of him and you with his face all scrunched in annoyance.

“Erase that!” He exclaims and tries to take your phone, but you lean away and quickly press send.

“Ah yeah no,” you laugh. “I'm saving it, plus I already sent it to Shoko.” You shut your phone and beam at him.

Satoru glares at you and grumbles back, “you annoy me.”

You laugh at him and happily leave it at that.

——

*LATER*

Since you don’t like aquariums, there’s nothing you can say about your trip there. Riko enjoyed it and that’s all that matters about that.

What happened outside of that though is not something you can comment on a lot either. Since the day had been filled with so much to do, after dinner everyone was calmer and more worn out. Conversations once filled with laughter grew quieter and shorter. That’s especially the case after you left the aquarium.

Everyone was tired, ready to have the day end, but only Riko and Kurio could rest in the hotel room you rented. Satoru, Suguru and you fought your sleep and exhaustion to keep working. You were more fortunate to have joined in late so your exhaustion wasn’t as heavy’s as your brothers or Suguru’s.

Which is why you argued with Satoru especially.

“Look, I can stay here and watch over her, you should rest at least for a few hours. She needs you to be strong.”

Satoru sighs and carefully tucks his hands in his pockets. “I'm feeling fine,” he dares to rebuttal with his eyebags under his eyes. “Go out, patrol with Suguru. I will stay here. You have any trouble or find anything suspious call me.”

You step towards him and narrow your gaze on him so he can know you’re not playing around. “Satoru, listen to me. You haven’t slept, just sleep for three hours at most. Please,” you beg softly.

Rather than taking your advice, your brother offers you a charming smile. It’s one you know well and see often when he’s trying to assure you. “What have I told you?” He says. “I’m the older brother, you don’t need to worry about me. I worry about you.”

“Then keep me here,” you snap back, hoping he’ll listen so you can help him here. Maybe force him to sleep.

However, Satoru grabs your shoulder and turns you towards the hall door. “I trust you,” he says and takes Suguru’s shoulder too when he reaches him by the door. “And I trust Suguru to keep you safe,” he adds and lets Suguru go to open the room door and push you both out. “Now go, do your jobs. I’m sure you’re both dying to have some alone time.”

You part your lips to argue but your brother just shuts the door on you instead.

“Fucker,” you grumble and just shift around to just give up and walk down the hall to go to the stairs. “I swear I’m just going to…” you trial off and sigh in defeat. “He never listens to me.”

“Yeah,” Suguru agrees softly. “He’s stubborn, but you don’t need to worry about him. He’ll be fine.”

You rub your eyes and groan.

“He’ll be fine,” Suguru insists. “He’s strong.”

You nod and drop your hand to your side. “Yeah,” you sigh. “He’s strong, I know. He’s powerful, I know that too. But that doesn’t mean I should stop worrying about him. Strip that all away and he’s still my brother...” You trial off and exhale deeply. “I just…I know he doesn’t need me looking out for him, but…” you pause and sniffle as tears form in your eyes. “…if something happens to him I don’t know what I would do.”

If he were to be gone from your life you know from the depths of your heart that it would be like everything good of this world would cease to exist at that exact moment. That’s why you worry.

“Nothing is going to happen to him, I won’t let it,” Suguru says in a soft tone he uses when it's just the two of you. When you’re wrapped in his arms after a long day for the both of you. It’s the most assuring thing in the world. Nothing else beats it, nothing else has the power to actually calm you down the way he does.

Whereas Satoru is the good of this world, Suguru is the world itself, without either of them there’d be nothing. An empty, meaningless and cold void.

“I’m sorry,” you cut in unexpectedly. “I must sound childish.”

Suguru stops walking just as you reach the top of the stairs, making you stop and face him with slight confusion.

“No,” he says. “It’s not childish at all. You’re just a sister worried about her brother. It’s normal, no matter how old you are.” He offers you a kind smile that eases your worried heart. “I even admire it. So no, it’s not childish.”

You sigh with relief and let him cup your cheeks to lean in and steal a gentle kiss from your lips. You deepen the sweet gesture, but don’t rush it, you’re slow and gentle. You let yourself taste the minty taste of his mouth, you drown in the smell of his soft smelling cologne that clung onto him.

You take in this moment, like all the other times you’ve kissed as if afraid one of them would be your last. You linger in the moment without pulling back to breathe. But you don’t last in it or develop it any further because you know where that would lead to, so you pull back and just stay close to the point his breaths unfurl over the tip of your nose.

“I've been waiting to do that all day,” he whispers against your lips.

You flash him a soft grin and press one last kiss on his lips before you meet his gaze with pity. “I hate to do this,” you whisper. “I really do, but we should get back to work.”

Suguru laughs softly. “What? Are you sure that’s my girlfriend there?”

You playfully roll your eyes and turn swiftly to walk down the flight of stairs. “Oh, I want to, I really do,” you say over your shouder. “But you’ve been on my mind all day, so I have to stop myself before it leads to something else.”

Suguru snickers as he tows after you down the stairs. Once you reach the first floor you walk out of the closest door to get outside and begin your patrol.

“Anyway,” you change the subject. “I actually do want to give you something.”

Suguru falls beside you and presses curiously. “Do you?”

You smile wider and then dig in your sweater pocket to take out a wooden beaded bracelet that all connects with a single red thread.

“This is for you,” you tell him and stop walking when you’re past the hotel building and under the glimmering stars that are somewhat visible here. You proceed to grab his hand and bring it towards you.

“You gave me my red string bracelet,” you say and show it off as it sits on your wrist. “So now I will give you your own.”

Suguru’s lips pull to a sweet smile, and he stays quiet as he watches you instead of watching you put the bracelet on his wrist.

It’s only once you've secured the bracelet on his wrist that you notice his dark eyes on you; soft and glimmering with awe. You don’t ask him what’s wrong, you know that look, you see it all the time when he’s with you. Sometimes you wonder why he even looks at you like that, you wonder what you did to deserve being looked at the way he looks at you.

Yet even through your wonder you know you never want that look to disappear from his pretty face. You want to feel safe, loved and appreciated all the time. You never want another pair of eyes to look at you the same way he does. You just want him until there’s nothing making your heart beat, until you’re breathing your last breath.

And he should know that. He should know what you feel, he should know you ache for him in the best way possible. He should know that your heart always skips a beat when you see him, that when he looks at you the way he’s doing now all you feel is joy, hope and desire. He should know now as you stand under the starry sky, as you smell the salty air of the ocean, as you hear the distant waves crashing on the shore, as you feel each other's warmth since you stand so close. You may be on an important life threatening mission, but you need him to know.

It’s just three words.

“Suguru…”

.

.

.

.

.

A/N- Yall not ready for what’s to come 🥹

[topazadine]

Writing Compelling Trauma in Fiction: Dos and Don'ts

Trauma is, quite frankly, a load-bearing weight in the fiction space. We've all done it: thrown in the saddest, most miserable little factoid about our meow-meows so that they feel not just real, but compelling and sympathetic. It helps readers empathize with them and spices up a story.

Very well-done trauma can also be cathartic for readers, especially if the character prevails despite what has happened to them.

The problem is that poorly written trauma can feel exploitative, cheap, and melodramatic. It turns people off, especially those who have been through a similar experience. Now it feels as if someone is using our pain to sell things or get attention, and it is often obvious when someone has not been through that experience, which can make readers feel uncomfortable.

So, here is my opinion on how to write more compelling trauma.

As always, I am not the ultimate authority on writing, I am not telling you exactly what to do with your writing, my opinions are just opinions, I am not perfect, I might be wrong, this might not resonate with you. Take what you like and leave the rest.

There's also not going to explicit descriptions of abuse or trauma in this post.

These are the highlights, and then we'll get more into it under the cut.

Trauma must be transformative

Flashbacks are not little movies

Triggers are not always obvious

Don't give characters every trauma ever

It's not always necessary to show the event

The earlier the trauma happens, the more it changes a character

Characters do not always tell every single person about the trauma

Characters themselves may not be explicit about discussing the trauma

And then we will go through some quick action points about trauma.

Trauma must be transformative

Trauma, by definition, changes someone; otherwise, whatever happened would just be another normal Tuesday and no one would care.

This problem is where we get the concept of "fridging." Something horrible happens to a character and they just kind of shrug it off, or it impels them to do something but doesn't actually change them as a person.

For example, a superhero finds their (typically female) lover dead and it spurs them to fight the villain, but then it just doesn't do anything else. They forget about the dead lover and said lover is never mentioned again. That's shitty writing and also kind of misogynistic.

It doesn't need to change them in bad ways, per se: Batman becomes a crime fighter because his parents died in front of him. We know that and always feel that in his story. But, there must be a change or the trauma doesn't mean anything.

Options for you (not an exhaustive list):

Developing anxiety. This may be a more globalized anxiety, such as agoraphobia, or it may be more specific. Shying away from "unsafe" situations that seem perfectly safe to other people. This is another form of anxiety. Becoming withdrawn and refusing to trust anyone. Clinging to "safe" people; becoming dependent and helpless. They may become codependent and childlike. This is common with childhood abuse, particularly childhood sexual abuse. Their emotional coping skills were stunted after the event and they never developed a healthy sense of self. Growing cold and unemotional; isolating themselves from other people. They may refuse to talk about the event and insist that they are fine. Advocating for others dealing with the same thing. Acting like an emotional "open wound:" intense, trauma vomiting all over other people, failing to self-regulate. Having extreme bursts of rage. This is more common in men, but it can also happen in women. For sexual trauma, becoming hypersexual or having no interest in sex whatsoever. They may become incredibly touch-averse, even getting antsy when someone touches their hand. Making risky decisions that lead to further traumatization. Especially true regarding child abuse; those who were molested as children are far more likely to be revictimized later in life. BTW, this is not victim-blaming: it is still the abuser's fault for hurting them. No one should take advantage of someone's vulnerability like that. Keeping everything surface level and refusing to open up to anyone about anything. They may seem "bland" and uninteresting to the outside observer because everything about them has been stuffed down. As I have mentioned elsewhere, trauma often blunts a person's personality and makes them less interesting.

Again, this isn't an exhaustive list, but it's an idea of what you might be able to work with.

Flashbacks are not little movies

Nothing irks me more than writers who decide that the best possible way to explain someone's trauma is to just go back in time and show it in exhaustive detail because that is not how trauma generally works. You don't just see the whole thing in vivid technicolor most of the time.

Why? Because trauma is ... traumatic. Your brain wants to protect you from that experience and isn't going to force you to relive it over and over again exactly as it happened.

More commonly, flashbacks are small snippets of the event. For example, you might see the person's eyes as they are staring at you, or a very brief image of the worst part of it. You'll see what your eyes were focusing on in the moment, but you're not going to see the whole thing all at once. Sometimes, a flashback is like a still image, or like a GIF. But it's not a little movie.

In other cases, a flashback is just a body sensation with no actual visual images shown. You might feel pain in the place where you were hurt, and you may not even realize it's a flashback.

This can actually make for very compelling writing when done correctly, because you can show small snapshots of the event sprinkled throughout the story so that the reader slowly develops a full understanding of what happened.

So what could you show?

The eyes of the perpetrator

Expressions on a perpetrator's face

A "diorama" of the room/location where it took place

Repeating images of a small section of the event

Physical pain: pelvic pain for assault, tender ribs, old wounds starting to hurt again

Darkness or swirls of motion

Sounds or phrases that were said during the event

The aftermath: what happened right after they were safe or rescued

Sensations: pressure, heat, cold, weightlessness, heaviness, exhaustion, pain

Triggers are not always obvious

A trigger can be anything that reminds you of trauma. Scents, sounds, words, certain brands, the tone of someone's voice, specific locations that just remind you of where it happened, anything. I am sure there are people out there who are triggered by Dolce & Gabbana handbags or certain ice cream flavors.

Sometimes, a trigger is not even obvious to the person who suffered. They may not realize why they shy away from certain experiences, like swinging on a playset or walking through an airport, because they can't remember why that's relevant to what happened.

Don't give a character every trauma ever

Going overboard with trauma is one of the best ways to get people to hate your book. It feels as if you are using trauma as a stand-in for actually developing characters people can resonate with and just using pity points to get people to care.

In fact, I would argue that you need to give characters less trauma than would be feasible for the average person. Of course, many people go through multiple types of trauma over their lifetime, to the point where if someone read a book about them, it would seem unrealistic.

But characters are not people. They are meant to populate a fictional plot. As such, less is more. Using less trauma forces you to dig deeper into those certain events and identify how your character changed.

It's not always necessary to show the event

This is especially true if you are writing about characters who have childhood trauma. Full-on cinematic flashbacks are a cheap way to get out of showing us how the trauma changed them. This is especially true if this is the only flashback in the story, or you are only flashing back to show us increasingly more disturbing examples of their trauma.

The most compelling stories I have read do not show the trauma; they show us the aftermath. We see how the character is haunted by what happened and how they can never go back to who they were before. It makes for deeper and more interesting characterization than just "oh look at this bad thing that happened."

There's also the fact that it's more intriguing to give us hints and subtle references to something. The fear of the unknown is worse than the true, explicit details, because then the reader is filling in the blanks in their own mind and imagining how bad it must have been by seeing what is before them: the traumatized character.

The earlier the trauma happens, the more it changes a character

There is a reason that any therapist will ask you about Adverse Childhood Events (ACEs): because it completely shifts who you are and affects you forever. I won't bore you with the research, but those who went through childhood trauma are more likely to have substance abuse issues, heart disease, mental health problems, social challenges, and much more. The list of things that correlate to child abuse is honestly very depressing and shocking.

This isn't to say that adult abuse isn't going to cause problems, but it won't be quite as deeply rooted and horrifying as childhood trauma. Your character will likely not go through a 180 degree shift because their personality is already well rooted. Children are still having their personality molded by their environment and are going to be more deeply scarred.

Characters do not always tell every single person about the trauma

My greatest annoyance. Characters putting it all out into the open for every single person to know about is just ... unrealistic. Even if it just happened yesterday, not everyone is going to know. Certainly if it was childhood trauma, only a few select people are going to know about it, especially in explicit detail.

For example, the vast majority of people sexually abused as children never disclose the abuse to anyone. Anyone! This makes it incredibly challenging to identify how many people were molested because so many people don't want to share.

There's a lot of shame and vulnerability that comes from disclosing abuse, and everyone, no matter who they are, wants to avoid pain. It's in our nature. There's also the fact that if it was a childhood event, the child was likely threatened with punishment if they disclosed, and that will carry on into adulthood. They will be afraid of repercussions if they share it, even if their abuser is dead or absent.

As such, you need to decide on the circle of trust. Who would your character rely on when wanting to discuss their problems? Maybe a lover, a close friend, or a parent.

One quick note here: it's actually pretty common for people who went through trauma together to not discuss it with one another. Neither wants to trigger their friend/relative/partner/etc by bringing it up, so there may just be an unspoken agreement not to mention it. If they do discuss it, it might be in more vague and referential terms instead of explicit exposition.

Characters themselves may not be explicit when discussing the trauma

It's just not realistic for your character to go through every exhaustive detail of any traumatic event when sharing it with someone. They may say "my dad hit me a lot," or "I saw a car crash," or "I was assaulted," etc. There will be brief sum-up statements, not a gory and intense description of it, for example:

"Something bad happened."

"He hit me."

"I was trapped."

"I was assaulted/raped."

"I fell."

"There was a car crash."

"Someone died in front of me."

"I was there when [x] happened."

"There was a robbery/break-in."

"I was kidnapped."

Or the classic:

"I don't want to talk about that."

Our minds don't want to make us relive it, so we will keep it vague to avoid triggering ourselves. For some people, they dissociated during the event and don't even have those details to share because they weren't consciously encoded.

Think of a bad thing that happened to you. If someone asks you, it's very unlikely that you're going to walk through it step by step for them. More likely, you'll summarize it. Your characters will do the same.

Action points for writing trauma:

Consider when the trauma happened to decide on the impact.

Pick one or two types of trauma (death of a parent, sexual assault, being mugged, getting into a car accident, watching someone die, etc) and then stick with that only.

Identify what a character would have been had they not been traumatized, and then shift that personality based on the kind of trauma.

Decide whether it's necessary to show the abuse.

Focus on sensory details rather than explicit narration when doing. any form of flashback: sights, sounds, smells, textures, how hot or cold it was, pressure, etc.

Sprinkle flashbacks throughout in snippets as they become relevant based on a trigger.

Don't trauma dump the entire experience of past trauma on the reader in one go because the character wouldn't do that themselves.

Remember that people may dissociate during a traumatic event and their own descriptions might be vague and dreamlike.

Look at the scene yourself and consider what might become a trigger. A certain perfume? Cigarette smoke? A birdsong?

Decide who would be told based on relationships with the character. Again, the checkout clerk isn't going to get the details. Maybe a therapist, a partner, a close friend.

People who were traumatized together may avoid any discussion of it.

Characters will typically summarize the experience when talking about it to others unless they have a very, very close relationship.

[doodling-doodle]

Dear Doodle

I believe it is time for more ABO

Well, as you wish!

---

Kyle was now six months along. Six months... It felt like not much time had passed.

But he knew it had. When his belly was so heavy and his baby girl was kicking all the time, how could he not?

He found himself lying in bed one morning, tired but unable to sleep. Alex was holding him, his arm acting as his pillow while his hand was on his belly, rubbing a line into the swell.

Were they still on the middle name debate? Yeah, but they hadn't talked about it in a while. But he was thinking of names that they could maybe compromise on...

He just felt tired. He was sore, he was tired, he was swollen, and he was honestly ready to have this be over so he could meet his baby.

"You okay?" Alex asked, voice raspy from sleep.

"I wanna sleep but I can't..." He replied, tearing up slightly. Stupid.

"I'm sorry, baby..." Alex said, sighing, "I know it's only three... I can go make breakfast? We have to get on base in a few hours- you know what, I'm going to call Price and tell him you won't be on base today, I think you need a break."

Normally he would fight it... but he couldn't disagree, he needed rest and a break.

"I'm not too hungry right now..." He said, "Maybe if I just get up and do something, I'll exhaust myself and force myself to sleep."

"Ah, ah, ah, that's not good." Alex said, sitting up, "Don't do that. Right now, you need rest, for both you and Rosa."

He sat up slowly, rubbing his belly as he did, groaning, "I don't know what else to do..."

"Why don't I... make you something warm? That might do something." Alex said, rubbing his shoulder as he held his hand on his belly.

He nodded, and Alex kissed him and his belly before turning on the bedside lamp and yawning, walking out of the room and downstairs, passing the now fully decorated nursery as he did.

He found himself looking in the living room as he waited for water to boil so he could make Kyle some ramen. He smiled softly, thinking about holding his baby girl on the couch, playing with her, feeding her, rocking her to sleep... Oh, he was so excited. He was going to cherish his little girl. Just had to help Kyle through these next few months. He knew it was getting harder on him, but he always said it was worth it. He fought a little when Price decided to take him out of training recruits and running drills and purely put him on desk duty, but ultimately took it when he realized just how hard it was for him to actually run drills. It was hard for Alex to see him in pain, whether it was from Rosalie kicking or from Braxton Hicks, he always felt so bad seeing him either curling up in pain or crying, and all he could do was hold him.

But he would always do it. That was his husband and father of his future child. He was more than happy to help them. He would always help them, he truly loved doing it.

He would love his child more than anything. He already did.

...

Kyle hummed softly as he stood from his desk, walking out of his office and to the mess hall. He did get quite a bit of paperwork that morning, mission reports, deliveries, and things he needed to write up. But he was starving, so he would take the break. Even if he didn't really like whatever was in the mess-

"Hey, mi sobrino!"

He turned to the common room, seeing Ale and Rudy in the kitchenette.

"Come here, we got our own lunch." Ale said, smiling, "You deserve better than the slop of the mess hall."

He smiled softly, walking in as Ale patted his shoulder, marching him to the couch, "But don't think for a second you're doing more work."

"Tío, I'm fine, I'm just doing paperwork."

"Doesn't matter. You are growing a whole human inside of you and that's hard work." Ale sat him down, making sure he was comfortable, "Stay there." He said as he walked back to the kitchenette.

He pouted, but stayed there and leaned back slightly, mindlessly rubbing his belly as he closed his eyes, listening to Ale and Rudy as they cooked.

He perked up when he heard his phone go off, seeing a text from Alex.

"Almost back now. How are you?"

He smiled softly, "I'm fine. Ale and Rudy are cooking and telling me to sit down, like I haven't been all day."

"You're not used to being told to relax, huh?"

"I still miss working with recruits!"

"I know, but you might be back at it after she's born."

"What if I don't wanna wait?"

"You have to :) Be back soon!"

He rolled his eyes, chuckling softly.

"Alex?" Rudy asked.

"Alex..." He sighed happily, "He's on his way back from Farah's... Something came up, she needed something."

"Field related?"

"No, something else... He should be here soon." He smiled softly, hearing Rudy chuckle.

"Shocked he took it up, considering how attentive he is to you." He said, bringing over a plate.

He chuckled, taking it from him, "I kinda volunteered him for it."

"You're not used to being so taken care of, huh?"

"Not really... Feel more bad for him than anything, he always needs to be around me. Trying to give him a break."

"So you sent him off?" Ale asked, chuckling a little.

"Yeah..."

"You don't know how to be pregnant, Kyle. You're supposed to be taken care of!"

He glared at Rudy, chuckling softly, "Maybe so... I will say, it is nice to be taken care of like that..."

"Of course it is."

He smiled softly, putting his now empty plate down as he sighed, "Fuck, I scarfed that down, Rudy... Love your cooking."

He chuckled, "Maybe I'll start cooking more when you have to stay on base... though that's increasingly rare."

He giggled softly, "Even so-" He winced slightly, feeling Rosalie kick him hard and a sharp pain in his belly, "Rosa... Please..."

"You okay?" Ale asked, sitting closer to him.

"Just kicking me..." He said, holding his belly softly as he breathed, "... And Braxton Hicks."

Ale nodded softly, holding his hands as he winced again, whimpering slightly.

"You're okay, you're okay." He whispered, holding Kyle close to him, "It'll be over soon, just breathe."

"I'll get you some water." Rudy said, standing and going back to the kitchenette.

"Al-Alex will be back soon, right?" Kyle asked, leaning against Ale softly.

"Yeah. He's almost here, don't worry, okay?"

Kyle nodded, trying to breathe through the pain and letting Ale rub his back and his belly while he rocked him softly. It helped a lot, but it, thankfully, stopped quickly, and he didn't even notice when it all stopped.

"Sometimes I hate being pregnant..." He said, huffing out a chuckle.

"I think I can see why." Rudy said, sitting beside him and handing him a glass of water, "But... it will be worth it in the end, right?"

"Of course..." He smiled softly, "But damn it, sometimes it's so annoying!"

Ale chuckled, letting go of him softly, "You're doing hard work. You're gonna do just fine as a father, I know it."

He truly hoped so... He wanted to be so bad.

...

For days, almost two weeks after Alex returned, Kyle would curl up next to him, or in his arms. As much as he wanted to give Alex a break, he really missed him. And Alex missed him too. He was happy to hold him for hours, kiss all over his stomach, and cook whatever he wanted that day.

He just finished up with the training for the recruits, telling them to go enjoy the next few hours before they would go to the shooting range.

He went to go find Kyle in his office, seeing him sitting at his desk and writing up papers on his laptop.

"You alright, baby?" He asked, making Kyle look up, smiling.

"I'm fine. Just about done with these." Kyle replied, clearly rubbing his belly as if Rosa had just kicked him, "We still going out for dinner tonight?"

"If you're up for it." He walked up to him, sitting next to him and pulling two containers out of his bag, "I got some lunch."

"Aw, love..." Kyle smiled, leaning over to kiss his cheek softly, "You're the best."

"Don't I know it."

They both chuckled, and Kyle leaned back, opening the container and eyes rolling back when the smell hit him, "God, you're so good at cooking these."

Alex smirked, closing Kyle's laptop for him and turning to him as Kyle started eating. He just watched him for a minute, almost forgetting he had his own lunch as he was enamored with his husband.

He found himself staring at Kyle all the time, when he was just doing anything. Eating, sleeping, sitting down- anything. He always thought he was the most beautiful man in the world, but now, he saw their baby with him, and it was like his beauty just enhanced by one thousand.

It had been almost seven months. Seven. There were only two and a half months left before they could meet their baby girl.

"What are you looking at?" Kyle asked.

"The most beautiful people in the world."

"Oh, she's sharing that place with me now?"

He chuckled, "I have a feeling she's going to look like you. So yes."

Kyle blushed softly, rocking his chair side to side as he kept eating, "Sh-Shut up..."

"Aw, come on, you don't want her to look like you?"

"I think she'll look like you!"

"Wanna bet?"

Kyle rolled his eyes playfully, "You hope she looks like me, don't you?"

"Yes!"

"I hope she gets your smile, how about that?"

Alex laughed, shaking his head slightly.

They both knew they would love her no matter what. They already adored her.

But Alex did have hopes that she would look like Kyle. Because he was the one doing all the work. He deserved to have her look like him.

...

At seven and a half months, Kyle got his final ultrasound. Alex struggled watching Kyle decline slightly, how he needed help to walk, was a lot more tired, and was sad about Price officially putting them both on leave. But the joy was above the struggles for both of them.

Kyle thought that they would be used to it, so Alex wouldn't be hovering over him in the doctor's office, but no. He was still right there next to him, holding his hand and his other hand on his shoulder. This was common for all appointments, but, Alex would always step back when he needed to, just watch over him with such care and attention, it always made him tear up a little.

"How's she looking?" Alex asked, snapping Kyle from his thoughts.

"Looking good and healthy." The nurse replied, "Heartbeat sounds normal, looks like she's fully developed- oh, that was a kick, wasn't it?"

"Yep, it was." Kyle said, chuckling, feeling the lingering soreness. Then, he watched- and felt- her hand run against his womb softly. He swore Alex nearly broke down in tears.

"She looks great. Even a little bigger than a normal seven-month..." The nurse said, then her face shifted ever so slightly. He wasn't going to say anything, but Alex did.

"Everything okay?" It was soft, with concern barely hidden.

"Normally, babies would have at least started to turn on their heads." The nurse said, "She isn't moving. Which is not all that concerning, maybe she'll flip soon, it's not uncommon."

He squeezed Alex's hand.

"Is... there a higher chance of her being a breach birth?" Alex asked.

"Maybe slightly- not enough to truly worry about."

They both nodded.

The rest of the appointment went fine, but both of them were quiet. Alex kept holding his hand, even while driving back to the house. He didn't know what to really say.

"Are you okay?" Alex asked when they got closer to the house.

"I... Don't know." He replied quietly.

"Me neither..."

"Why hasn't she even started turning?"

"Aren't there ways to... try and help her turn?" Alex asked as he parked, "Do you want to try it?"

He nodded, smiling softly, "How do you stay so calm? Wish I had that."

Alex chuckled slightly, "I'm really not calm, but, one of us has to try to be."

He laughed, almost forgetting all about the reason he was worried in the first place as Alex opened his door, and he followed after him, holding his arm as they went inside, Iris laying over his legs as he laid on the couch, head laying on Alex's lap, feeling him play with his hair, which he, admittedly, had stopped taking as good care of. It was more frizz than curl now, and had even grown about an inch.

"You hungry?" Alex asked after a while.

"Oh, yeah I am." Kyle replied, slowly rolling over to look up at Alex, "I'll take anything you make, I'm starving."

Alex chuckled, slowly moving him to get up, "I'll make some pizza."

Oh yeah. He has the best husband ever... He loved his Alpha...

He knew that he would be a fantastic father. He already loved his daughter, he knew he would do anything for her... Alex had spent hours just sitting in the nursery, smiling and thinking.

On all the rough days, when he just wanted to curl up and try to get her to stop moving so much, there Alex was, giving him a massage, or holding him for hours, getting him anything he needed. Alex would kiss his stomach, talking softly, as if talking to Rosalie. Sometimes he would sing to her. And the best part was, he could feel Rosalie calming down and stilling once Alex started talking to her.

Alex was the best husband an Omega could ask for...

"You alright over there?" Alex asked, smiling softly.

"Yeah... Just thinking..." He replied, looking over and realizing Alex was gazing at him, damn near sparkles in his eyes.

Alex could never get tired of looking at him. He'd admit, he was going to miss seeing the baby bump once she was born.

But he was going to love seeing her grow up...

He helped Kyle up the stairs to their room after dinner, and Kyle went to sleep quickly. Which he was thankful for...

He cried. He left the room, went to the nursery, and cried. He was scared. He was scared that his child could be in danger if she didn't turn. He was scared that his husband could also be in danger. He just wanted them to be safe. He couldn't help Kyle much, if at all, with this. He just had to hope to God that she would flip over soon.

He finally calmed down. He quietly went back to their room, carefully crawling back into bed to hold onto Kyle, his scent making him feel much more relaxed.

"I love you, Kyle... I love you, Rosa..."

...

Kyle was finally eight and a half months along. They decided to get one more ultrasound, and found that Rosa had finally, slightly, started to turn, which made them both relax a lot. They were both officially put on leave when he hit eight months, as per Kyle's request, and everyone had started to visit them as much as possible. Graves had gifts from the Shadows, which kept pouring in. Alex's parents had been sending things in, and Ale and Rudy were dropping off anything and everything. Ale's sister had made matching baby and full-sized blankets for them, too, which they loved.

Kyle was a lot more tired now, a lot more frequently. He felt kicks a lot more often, and had Braxton Hicks a lot more. He even had a full false labor once last week.

Everyone was guessing what her exact birthday would be. It was really heartwarming to see everyone get so excited, getting her clothes and toys, and getting Kyle "Post-partum" clothes.

So now it was a waiting game, and Alex had all the time in the world. Every night, he would sit Kyle up and try to loosen his back. His muscles would get tight and uncomfortable, and Alex was more than happy to help. He would help Kyle bathe, help him get dressed, changed, anything. He helped Kyle calm down after finding out the labor was false, helped him through the false contractions. They were talking about her so much, thinking about her future, what she might be like, who'd she look more like. Even Iris was a lot more cuddly.

But he was so tired of being pregnant. He was looking forward to the following days now, counting them down to his due date.

Fourteen days. Then thirteen. Twelve. Eleven. Then ten. Nine. Eight. Seven...

Seven.

"Feel better?" Alex asked as he softly massaged Kyle's shoulder, sitting behind him. Kyle nodded, humming softly as he leaned back.

"Thanks, love..." Kyle said softly, sighing in relief as Alex moved down his back, feeling one of his hands move to the side of his belly, where Rosa kicked into his hand.

"She's active today, huh?" Alex asked, smiling.

"Won't stop kicking my sides... God, I am excited for next week."

"Might happen before that." He felt Alex kiss his neck, near his mating bite, before moving to be in front of him.

"Want me to get your legs? I know you're sore." Alex asked, and he nodded softly, leaning back and closing his eyes as he felt Alex's warm hands on his thighs.

"This little girl will have you wrapped around her finger." Kyle said, and he heard Alex chuckle.

"Oh yeah. But I'm happy with that. I will spoil her." Alex replied, kissing his belly softly, and he giggled.

"Don't spoil her too much. Still raising her right, Al..."

"I am allowed to spoil my daughter to death, thank you very much!"

Kyle chuckled softly, "Fine, fine... A little spoiling is fine." He yawned, and he felt Alex shifting, helping him lay down and kissing over his face softly, which actually put him to sleep pretty quickly.

Six days... Six days left.

Or... should have been.

Alex woke up at about two in the morning, and he rolled over to find that Kyle's side of the bed was empty.

"Kyle?" He said softly, voice raspy.

He sat up, running a hand down his face and reaching for his water bottle on his nightstand as he swung his legs to the floor, and he realized that the bathroom door was shut and the light was on... He heard, what sounded like, shaky breathing.

He was worried now. He put his water bottle back down, walked to the bathroom door, and knocked softly.

"Kyle? You okay?" He asked. No answer.

"Kyle." It was firmer this time. No answer.

"Are you okay?" He was worried. But there was a somewhat answer.

"The- The doors unlocked..."

He quickly opened it, seeing Kyle curled up, leaning on the ledge of the bathtub, tears running down his face as he sobbed, cradling his belly.

"Kyle..." He walked up to him, kneeling down and slowly pulling Kyle into his arms, "What's going on?"

"I-I'm..." He took in a sharp breath, "I'm in so much pain..."

"Shh..." He rocked Kyle softly, letting him nuzzle into his neck, biting down on his scent gland, which seemed to relax him a little.

"You're okay... you're okay." He pulled back slightly, still holding Kyle's hands, smiling softly. The smile dropped when Kyle's face changed, whining in pain and gripping Alex's hands tighter.

"Breathe..." He whispered, trying to keep a straight face through his worry... and the pain he was in from the vice-like grip on his hands.

After about thirty seconds, Kyle breathed in again, and Alex cradled his face softly, realizing he was drenched in sweat.

"Just keep breathing... How long?"

"U-Uh... almost an hour...?" Kyle replied, "I don't know if it's real, I-I just-" He cut himself off, gripping Alex's arms tighter as he gritted his teeth.

"It's okay... You're okay."

He watched Kyle's eyes suddenly open as he breathed heavily.

"Hey, hey..." He gently rubbed Kyle's cheek, about to reach up and get a wet washcloth, but Kyle held him down.

"Alex." He looked panicked.

"My water just broke."

[tytarax]

Platonic Yan Goku Black from the disguise oneshot, mayhaps?

(Okay but this one is actually short I swear)

TW: mentioned/implied murder, manipulation, stalking (Zamasu), kidnapping (reader is unaware)

……………………………..

“Dad?”

Silence.

You stood by the doorframe, the door itself ajar next to you. One of your hands lingered on the knob, keeping a firm grip on it.

The bedroom was dark, shadows loomed along the walls and ceiling in an eerie manner. Moonlight filtered in through the closed window, casting light on the large king size bed in the center of the room.

A large shadow loomed upon the sheets, the familiar darkened figure of your Father outlined by the moonlight. He was looking down at something you couldn’t see behind the bed. There was a noticeable tension in the air.

The floor creaked as you took a tentative step further, and your Dad’s head snapped towards you.

Something felt wrong, but you couldn’t figure out what it was. There was a weird smell in the air- one similar to copper and iron. It felt horribly familiar, but you couldn’t figure out why.

“…Dad?” You reiterated, a little less confident than before.

“…Yes, my child?”

Your back stiffened a bit. Did Father always talk like that? You briefly wondered. It was very unusual to hear your Dad speak in such a…formal manner. Did Mom and Dad get in a fight? Dad tends to act more mature when he’s emotional.

“Are you okay?” You asked, concern laced your voice as you felt the tension in the room grow. Something felt horribly wrong.

The response was swift. “Yes,” your Dad replied, “I’m feeling okay.”

A smile formed on his face, barely noticeable with the shadows covering his body. It looked off. Everything about this felt off. The horrible smell was throwing you off.

A thought struck your mind as you noticed a ki missing that should’ve been in the room.

“Where’s Mom-”

“I’ve been thinking,” your Dad interrupted, taking a few steps toward you, “we don’t normally get to spend lots of one-on-one time together now, do we?”

The nervous pit in your stomach grew. With every step he took, you noticed something hanging on his ear lobe moving slightly, but you shrugged it off as just the shadows of the room messing with your vision.

“Not normally… but-”

“Then we should do something together, shouldn’t we?” Your Dad exclaims, his voice a bit too cheery. “I found this really cool log cabin up in the mountains, and it looks like a great spot to train up your skills and bond together for a while!”

A cabin? But didn’t your Dad prefer to use tents when it came to camping? Maybe he wanted to try something new? Something felt off.

“But didn’t Mom say she wanted you to stay at the house for a while?” You reasoned, “She seemed like she wanted to spend time with you.”

You didn’t notice the way your Father’s smile grew tighter. He grabbed your hand.

“Well she said that she changed her mind.”

The pit in your stomach grew. Something felt very very wrong.

“She did..?” You asked, your suspicions growing.

“Come now,” your Dad urged, “it will be fun! Just us and the wilderness! I want to spend time with you!” His hand squeezed yours, just shy of being painful.

No, you rationalized, Papa wouldn’t intentionally hurt you. He’s just excited. But why’s he this excited over a camping trip...?

“I… uh…”

Your mind debated with you, pointing out all the suspicious behavior your Father had just shown you. It tried to scream at you, begging you to notice something you couldn’t quite pinpoint. To notice that you were in danger.

But this was your Father, of course you wanted to spend time with him.

How could he ever have bad intentions, after all?

“...Okay.”

“Great!” Your Dad beamed, but there was a faint undertone of something dangerous in his voice. But surely you were just hearing things! Your Father’s a good person! “Now hurry up and pack your stuff, we need to be ready to go before sunrise!” He commanded.

You nodded, quickly giving a small “okay!” before leaving the room to do as told. The smile on Black’s face turned into a wide encompassing grin. Zamasu watched on from afar, his own amusement growing.

You never noticed your Mother’s body behind the bed, nor did you ever find your brothers’ corpses rotting in their rooms.

Once again, the world deserves to read this :D

omg I love this

I feel bad for the reader (In a good way tho), is suffering so much hehehehe

[onyourowndaisymae]

Yoo I have two request which I’ll send the other one separately but I am in an ANGSTY mood rn sooo yah also been binging ur headcanons and stuffs and I just love the way you write ?? It’s so entertaining lol

AnywY the actual request: can you write like a one shot or headcanons if you prefer of mc who is struggling after the belphie incident ?? Like they feel like they’ve mostly forgiven him and can act normally around him and they’re friends and take naps together but sometimes the flash back just HITS THEM and they have nightmares and panic attacks that can be so bad sometimes someone needs to get Simeon to calm them down. Maybe something of how the brothers react/treat mc and belphie? Idk I’m just thirsting for like MEGA ANGST rn bc my dad made me cry little bit lmao 😭

it comes at night

hello anon! i'm terribly sorry you're in such an angsty mood, though i thank you for all the love-- and for sending this request right as these ideas were on the front of my mind. it genuinely makes me so happy to see people enjoying my work, and it makes all the writer's block and such worth it. i cannot express enough how much i love seeing all the comments, reblogs, etc. as people engage with my work.

anyways. i'm not sure how i feel about this piece, especially with how LONG it ended up being, but maybe that's just my mushy brain talking after looking at it too long. regardless-- i hope you enjoy (well, y'know, in like a sad and angsty way).

synopsis: you thought you would be able to move on like all the others. your body was healed, your anxiety tucked neatly behind a mental wall built to keep you safe. yet something in you was stuck. you couldn't just move on. you were trapped in a battle between your friendship with belphegor and the fear gnawing at your brain as you remembered what exactly he did to you. when the dam finally breaks, your whole brain floods with terror, until you're swept away with it. nobody can save you now.

genre: angst, no happy end, just a big ol spoonful of sadness

word count: ~3.1k

content warnings: chapter 16 spoilers, graphic(?) discussions of death, depictions of panic attacks, nightmares, mc progressively getting worse from fear + lack of sleep

it's funny how time works. 

you'd been around your fair share of years. you’d grown, you’d changed, you’d spent your entire life looking toward the future you had planned. then you, a mere human, were yanked into an unfamiliar world. you spent an entire year in the devildom– a year that simultaneously dragged on and flew by– and came out the other side a new person. a single year in the devildom has changed you more than the human realm has your entire life. time was a mischievous thing, always leaving you chasing behind in a fruitless pursuit of something you’ll never quite understand.

but, she also brings blessings with her. they say that time heals all wounds. you've always agreed with that sentiment. scraped knees and adolescent broken hearts are swept away with the passing days, trailing further and further behind you until one day you forget to look back and remember them. the pain scribbled down on diary pages or cried into pillow cases no longer stings like a fresh burn. these things are nothing but scars now. time has a special way of patching you up, of rubbing your back until the tears clear up and you can finally see again. that is how it's always been. 

where is time when you need it? 

she hasn't quite abandoned you, this much is true. cuts and bruises heal over the passing days. your hair and nails still grow. your body still changes, slowly but surely, marching onwards week after week. yet your mind is trapped in stasis. you struggle to break free, but at times the rot consumes you whole, until you’re crying under the covers and begging from respite from the memories. 

on the worst nights, you find yourself in the attic again, watching the door between you and belphegor swing open. you watch yourself march towards death.

you can still feel his hands around your neck, digging his claws into your fragile human skin like you're made of sand. the scent of blood-- your own blood, on the floors, on the walls, leaking from your torso and staining your clothes a permanent maroon-- still clings to the inside of your nose. even your wildest dreams could not erase the sight of his smug grin, the way his eyes lit up looking at your battered body.

no one person should have to carry the weight of realizing they're going to die. that's what you thought about when your body hit the bottom of the stairs, when belphegor tossed you down from the attic with a harsh laugh and punted your limp body into the entrance hall. you thought about how unfair this all was. you were just trying to help. you thought you were doing the right thing.

one of the worst parts of your untimely demise was watching the others react. the voices pool together in your head, like the colors of the rainbow twisting together on the surface of an oil spill. asmo's panicked shriek blends into satan's angry shouts, desperate to understand what's going on. lucifer's yelling almost drowns out the fearful cries coming from levi, held back by a very silent beel. 

but above all of that, you remember mammon. your first man, the first demon who took a chance on the defenseless little human, rushing to your side and gathering you in his arms like you were about to break. his hand on the side of your face, the tears streaming down his face, the shaky, desperate voice assuring you that you'll be okay and begging you to hang on, okay? please don't leave me. you can't remember if he was shaking or if it was your body's last ditch effort to stay conscious-- maybe both. your trembling fingers intertwined with his. words came out of your mouth, and you're not sure what exactly you said, but he only cried harder in response. 

and then, as your eyes shut for the final time, you woke at the bottom of the attic stairs. you had cheated death. 

your price? you had to carry the memories. 

the world kept spinning. days passed in the devildom. you returned to school, kept on top of your homework, spent your days in the house of lamentation alongside the seven demon brothers. you even got to know belphegor as he navigated his return home. he quickly grew fond of you. that, in and of itself, was jarring. but you returned each and every smile with one of your own. his actions were rooted in his own grief for his sister, you knew, and for that you could not fault him. you helped him repair the severed relationships between him and his elder siblings, stitching the family back together like a prized quilt until the seams of betrayal were sufficiently hidden. 

time is a traitorous bitch. why did she choose now to leave your wounds bare and bleeding?

everyone moved on but you. everyone got to wake up in the mornings without a nagging anxiety holding them back. the others could hang out with belphegor day in and day out without a growing feeling of dread popping up when you think you're safe. 

he killed you. he was grieving. your blood drenched the entryway floors as he laughed. he has grown. you watched the light leave mammon's eyes as you slipped away. belphie has been nothing but kind to you since that day. you fucking died. 

you wish your mind could pick a side. did you forgive him, or did you resent him? was he your friend, or your killer? these answers evaded you in the dead of night as you struggled to sleep again. it was becoming more common for you to lose hours of rest to these nagging fears. who are you? are you even you anymore? did the switch in timelines scatter your atoms across countless universes, leaving the you that looks back at you in the mirror nothing more than a hollow shell? 

you thought that you could keep your mind on a tight leash, keep your cards close to your chest as you continued to live with the brothers. you were wrong.

the first meltdown came during a nap with belphie. you had grown to trust him-- you thought you trusted him-- enough to sleep around him. he'd coax you every so often into an afternoon nap. always in the light of day, always your choice. and for many afternoons, you were perfectly content with this arrangement. belphie was warm and cuddly, a perfect companion for a lazy afternoon. he had this way of making you feel safe as you slept-- the nightmares couldn't come when he was snuggled up next to you, when you were sure his actions were ones of affection and not another trick to gain your trust.

one afternoon, while the sun was beginning to set, you stirred under the warmth of the blankets. the body next to yours lingered close, steady breaths lulling you back to dreamland. you could stay like this forever, you thought.

and then you felt it. the gentle graze of a familiar cow tail against your skin.

something inside of you, a dam you didn't even know was there, snapped. a hot flash of panic rose up your throat as your whole body jerked away from the feeling. your eyes shot open and you found yourself in the last place you needed to be right now: the attic. you pulled yourself out of bed before your brain could catch up. colors flashed across your vision as a consequence. you whipped around, disoriented and upset, and spotted a sleeping belphie in the bed where you once were.

a sleeping, demon belphie.

the familiar curve of his horns made your throat spasm as you tried to breathe. the colors flashed in your vision again-- oh god, what a terrible time to be left defenseless-- as your brain tried to drag you back to that day. you could practically see his face shift from relief to malicious, insidious joy as he began to attack you.

"hehe... does it hurt? finding it hard to breathe? i'm sure it must be very unpleasant."

please. please no.

" i have to say, seeing a human face twisted in pain like this... why, it's so much fun that i can barely stand it! i... i can't contain the laughter!"

you weren't quite sure when you hit the ground, but it was loud enough to wake belphegor from his slumber. he peeled his body off the mattress, slow and dazed, as he looked for you.

"mc? what're you... what's going on?"

please don't. this can't be happening.

your lungs collapsed from the weight of your own panic. you gasped-- once, twice, as your vision went in and out. were you bleeding? your hand loosely brushed at the front of your clothes, but couldn't process whether that was blood or your vivid imagination. were you even breathing? your head felt light and heavy at the same time. the wires in your brain were all crossed, sending both resuscitation and shutdown signals to each part of your body. this feeling... this was too familiar.

were you dying?

"mc, what's going on?"

you came face to face with belphegor. your friend, your killer. the demon who had lured you up to this very attic to kill you, now gripping your shoulders as interrogated you inches from your face.

you screamed. you screamed until your brain shut off completely, leaving you in an inky pit of darkness as your consciousness slipped away.

the house was in disarray for several days. apparently, lucifer came in shortly after you passed out, mammon at his heels, to save the day. you woke up later in his bed, the room cold and empty, with a throbbing head and a tear stained pillow. you stumbled out into his office to find him at his desk, lost in some paperwork like always. the solemn look he gave you as your eyes met told you everything you needed to know.

from this day forth, your fear was now your constant companion.

nobody in the house of lamentation knew how to move forward. not you, not the brothers, not the widening gap growing between you all with each passing day spent in emotional limbo. finally, lucifer called everyone to a family meeting where, over the course of an hour or two, everyone came to an agreement to acknowledge what had happened and why, promised to be mindful of this trauma that you're carrying, and move forward like you requested.

silent days slowly but surely filled back up with laughter again. the brothers came back to your side at their own pace-- asmo first, within a matter of hours, then mammon shortly after, then the others in the following days.

belphegor was the last to come around. his silence spoke volumes about his guilt. he had no clue how to comfort you. he'd do anything to repent for his actions. yet that was the way that life worked, didn't it? some actions simply cannot be undone.

but you didn't let that stop you. despite the panic that closed your throat every time you saw him for the next month, you slowly earned his friendship again. you assured him that the attic incident was a one time thing, the remnants of a lost nightmare blending into your consciousness as you awoke.

until it wasn't a one time thing.

the nightmares crept up on you. the first one happened, of course, that same night, as you thrashed and wept into lucifer's pillows. then a week later, another. a week and a half after that, another. the frequency eventually became higher and higher, until you started planning your sleep schedule (or lack thereof) around your new insomniac tendencies. but even you couldn't manage to stay awake forever.

on a bad night, you'd wake up in tears, crying weakly to yourself as you tried to coax yourself back to bed. on worse nights, you'd shoot up out of bed, limbs tingling in fear, opting to spend the rest of the night in the common room until the others woke for the day. on the worst night, you finally broke. you shattered worse than you could have imagined.

you finally collapsed into bed, body shutting down after a three days of minimal sleep. you were starting to get shaky from the lack of rest, and your lack of appetite was upsetting the others. you crawled under the covers and let your brain slip out of your hands and off to dreamland.

what a fool you were to think you'd get by without nightmares.

visions of demonic teeth tearing at your flesh filled your head. you tried to run away, tried desperately to wake yourself up, but their claws sunk into your flesh. the pain was vivid, was real. memories of your death lived underneath your skin, ready to resurface in the dark of night when there was no escape. you fought back as best you could, kicking and screaming and trying to run, but you were no match for the supernatural strength of your demons. you eventually gave in, an act of learned helplessness, and surrendered yourself to your worst nightmares.

you woke up choking on your own tears. heaving, gasping breaths tried to save you, mixing with coughs as your body struggled to hang on. the tears finally gave way to the memories-- hot blood dripping from your torso, screaming faces begging you to stay, your head going fuzzy as your vision followed--and your screams escaped without a fight.

a mixed cacophony of voices came flooding in the room. you'd be touched by the gesture, seeking comfort in the arms of your dearest friends, if your brain hadn't reminded you that they were demons as well. nightmarish beasts with fangs and claws, predators built to rip your soft flesh from your bones and leave you to die like roadkill.

you felt a hand on your shoulder. who's was it? you could not tell. your first and only instinct was to scream for mercy, hot tears streaming down your face as mammon's hurt expression moved back out of your line of sight. your chest heaved with effort. it felt like your whole body was caving in on itself. you didn't even realize you were shaking as you curled your body into a ball. your side hit the mattress with a pathetic thud and you wept, bitter and fearful, as a panic attack kept you trapped in its grip.

you don't know how long you stayed curled up like that, wordless cries echoing from your room and into the hallway, but eventually the sound of approaching footsteps caught enough of your attention to forget the panic, even if just for a moment.

"hey, it's okay," a familiar, comforting voice approached, cutting through the fear like a moonlight on a stormy night. "mc, it's me, it's simeon. it's going to be okay."

you felt the bed shift under the weight of someone sitting down, and you blindly threw your body at the person before checking to see if it was really him. it took you a few moments to raise your head, and when you did, you saw him: simeon, your angel, blue eyes full of worry as he met your gaze.

you cried in his arms until you fell into a fitful, dreamless sleep.

the next morning was miserable, to say the least. breakfast was tense. they all watched you like a hawk, like you were a powder keg about to explode with one wrong move. you couldn't blame them. you were afraid of your own emotions, and on some level, you were afraid of them. your trauma was making you afraid of the very people you cared about the most. these brothers had welcomed you into their home, took care of you as you adjusted to life in the devildom, and yet you couldn't hold eye contact without breaking in to a cold sweat.

the only person who did not watch you was belphegor. he was nowhere to be found during breakfast, nor dinner, nor breakfast the following day. you tried to seek him out, but somehow the avatar of sloth had become a skilled sneak in his silence.

you finally caught him alone on day four of radio silence. you both had stayed home without realizing the other had also skipped school that day-- you, from the lack of sleep eating at your brain, and belphegor, with his usual routine of missing class to nap at the house of lamentation. he was curled up on the couch in the common room, basking in the warmth of the fireplace in his slumber. you decided to wait for him to wake up. you sat down on the couch opposite of the one where he rested and watched him, quietly, like he'd disappear if you dared to blink.

creepy? yes. but your brain was long ruined by sleep deprivation and gnawing anxiety to worry about such trivial things.

when he finally stirred, you gently called belphegor's name. he took a moment to finally look at the source of the voice, but when he did, his body froze as the two of you made eye contact. a few moments passed in silence. finally, he sat up and began to make a move to leave.

"wait."

he stopped, but his gaze did not meet yours. you rose from your seat and joined him on the couch. the youngest pulled his legs in, twisting his body into a defensive little ball, and countered your next sentence before you could even open your mouth.

"you shouldn't be here with me."

"i think i'm old enough to make decisions for myself."

he shifted uncomfortably in the silence. you spoke again.

"i miss you. and i'm sorry."

he scoffed to himself and stared at the fireplace. "don't know why you think you should be apologizing to me. i'm the one that's the problem."

"you're not a problem, belphie. i never meant to make you feel like one."

every hair on your body stood on end. your hands trembled against your wishes, so you sat on them to stay focused. you had to do this. you had to keep moving forward.

"i hurt you, mc. you're afraid i'm going to do it again."

you sighed-- it came out more shaky than you would have liked-- and looked down. how had it come to this? how had someone you'd grown to hold so dear become a stranger again?

"i don't want to stop being friends. i don't like when you avoid me."

"you still get nightmares, don't you?"

you pause. his icy gaze on the side of your head sent you into a cold sweat.

you smiled-- it felt more like a grimace, personally-- and prayed it didn't come across insincere. your fingers carefully intertwined with his. he met your gaze. you were thankful he couldn't see the way your chest tightened when you made eye contact. 

"i'm okay, belphie," you lied. 

this fear was going to be the death of you. 

[rosy-fox-art]

Ouroboros AU [CCC]: The Masterpost

Well. Since the Cjverse Chatroom is breaching containment I guess it’s finally time to talk about this au!! Because I’ve been forgetting to and it’s part of that chat. But let me at least give the basic premise and stuff first. This is going to be a Really Long Post. CW for body horror?

“In which Heart gets a little too comfortable in the pit to the point that roots start growing into him, and it al goes downhill from there . The psyche is alive, everyone’s missed their cues, and mind can feel his sanity slipping by the minute. Leave it to soul to…. “Fix” it?”

The psyche in this au is only what I can describe as ‘ alive ‘

Everything is mildly based around organs here. The psyche is all in the vessel’s brain, after all. Your body communicates this from the outside to your brain through its nervous system, and just so the vessel attempts to communicate things like pain, illness, etc. silently through the environment of the psyche —- typically using weather or the natural elements — though the thirds aren’t quite aware of that.. it is a large, seemingly endless field dotted with ferns and flowers and other things depending upon the vessel’s wellness and the thirds themselves. So, you can imagine the loop gets off to a real bad start in terms of the psyche with a Haiku split where the vessel is left bleeding…. Which is exactly what happens.

Soul— Whose name is silence in the Cjverse chat and I’ll be calling him that from here on— does not get the chance to choose to forget the last loop. Dazed and having to take care of the vessel, his attention is taken off of Heart and Mind as he grapples with the existential crisis that is remembering the last loop while Heart and Mind don’t. In fact, Heart and mind begin arguing really early over the state of the psyche. Instead of realizing that their psyche being in a state of discord and soul being largely absent is because of the vessel, they begin to blame one another. This results in the shot, which gets souls attention. Soul banishes heart to the pit, a hole deep hole that has formed in the psyche, manifested from Heart’s hatred towards Mind and want for a grave for the other half. This part goes as typically, Mimd scolding heart while he’s in the pit and trying to rouse heart into improvement through but well meant harsh words, heart wallowing and just wanting out, etc…. What’s not typical is mind giving up on reasoning with heart, leaving heart to scream and yell and plead for Mind and Soul to let him out for months and months on end… only for him to inevitably give up.

Heart—whose name in chat is Rain— begins to function as more of an organ than a construct. He is loving— beating— but not doing anything. Not speaking or moving. Existing quietly, just enough to get them by. Just like mimd wanted. As a consequence, roots begin to grow into heart as he slowly starts to sort of become part of the psyche more than himself. As the roots grow into him, he loses the ability to move speak etc all together rather than simply choosing not to, becoming essentially brain dead. Mind — whose name is Aperture— finally notices the silence and slowly becomes worried. As per usual, he did not know what he actually wanted, and begins to plead with heart to get out of the pit. But he is too little too late and gets no response. This slowly begins to drive mind up a wall as he tries and fails to find solutions as guilt creeps up on him.

Silence returns to paying attention to stuff in the psyche, noticing that things aren’t going as normal. He tries to free Rain from the pit and the roots, but finds that when he goes to cut the roots, Rain screams and the vessel begins ailing in Reality again. This stops him from making much progress and distresses Mind, who now spends all his time near Rain. Mind and soul argue, as Soul firmly believes he has to cut the roots out and Mind is against Soul hurting them more, insisting it is doing nothing for them. At some point it ends with a physical altercation in which Aperture gets lightly stabbed. Silence then leaves Aperture and says he will find some other way to fix this.

Aperture is left alone with his thoughts and to tend to Rain. This slowly proves detrimental, as he is still feeling guilt and struggling on solutions. What kind of Mind is he If he can to find a logical way to fix this? What if there is not a way to fix it? Inevitably, Mind begins to give up as well. His thoughts become too much and manifest in his nerves coming out from his ears as his thoughts become too much for him, leaving him in a similarly vegetive state to Rain.

Now the only one left functioning, Silence wanders endlessly until he inevitably finds a part of the psyche he was never meant to have access to — Whole’s room— and while there, acquires the ability to reset the loop. And so he does!! Rain and Aperture are brought back! But soul is paranoid and can’t forget again. He won’t let himself. This way he can ensure what happened last loop doesn’t repeat itself. In the canon of the AU, this results in soul restarting the loop over and over again every time something goes wrong. He essentially becomes paranoid and loses it a little. Through looping so many times, Rain and Aperture begin to become incapable of forgetting and plead for Silence to stop, as he is now doing it too much.. Eventually Silence has to learn to trust Rain and Aperture and also himself again, alongside realizing that neglecting the vessel is what’s been causing the psyche issues. This results in them being able to form whole and not forget. So it has a happy end.

Usually I only focus on the first loop though, and in Cjverse canon the first loop happens but uh..we’ll.. the constant resetting not so much as a bunch of wild shit happened to give Silence a bit of a redemption arc from his absentee parenting in loop 1. And topography is a ‘ bad end ‘ of Ouro’s first loop where Silence never finds whole’s room, and Rain and Aperture only exist as parts of the psyche, forcing Soul to forever trick in search of an impossible solution through controlling the environment.

HOIGH. That was a lot!! If y’all have any questions I would be happy to answer 👁️👁️, esp in regards to the chat… Now!!

DOODLE DUMP!!

Can you tell I have a favorite child ?

[headfullofpresley]

i have a request if you are comfortable with it?

maybe you could write a little something about y/n, elvis and caroline having a family portrait photoshoot taken like the presleys had in 1973 by frank carroll in their hillcrest home in beverly hills!

i just know you could make something really sweet out of it your writing is so beautiful! x

𝐃𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐲 𝐂𝐨𝐨𝐥

Word count: 3,3K

Warnings: Elvis being a soft dad, that's about it.

A/N: rose, i always love your requests sm and even though this took me years to post, i loved writing it! 💕

masterlist

A busy, chaotic household wasn’t strange to you or Elvis. You both liked having a lot of people around the house despite the lack of privacy at times and in some strange way, you had grown fond of grown men running around the premises and playing with your daughter.

Caroline loved it just as much- she especially took a liking to Lamar because he’d play airplane with her whenever you weren’t looking and Jerry who she simply couldn’t stay away from every time he was around. To some people it might be strange to raise a child in these circumstances, but Caroline was happy and you and Elvis gave her the love and care that she needed to grow into the independent woman she was bound to become one day.

Her life was anything but normal, but at five years old she didn’t quite seem to realise that yet. Both you and your husband wanted to keep it that way for a little longer.

 

Elvis was a good father- while he had sometimes wondered what it would be like to have a son, he loved his little girl more than anything in the world and if he could, he would bring her the moon.

But there were certain things he couldn’t do, things that he was simply terrible at. One of those things being making sure his daughter’s hair looked decent and today, it had to look better than decent. Frank Carroll was coming over in less than an hour to take the family portraits you had arranged to be taken and Caroline was currently sitting on the sink in front of him, glaring angrily at him through the mirror she was facing.

Thank God she allowed him to wash her and put on the dress you picked out for her, but doing her hair was always a hurdle. Not only because he was bad at it, but because Caroline was sensitive about her hair. She had been a little fuzzy all morning- up to the point of greatly frustrating you and leaving your daughter in her fathers’ hands, hoping she would go easier on him while you took care of everything in the living area where the photo’s would be taken.

“Ow, Daddy! You’re hurtin’ me!”

He sighed deeply, looking at the blonde through the mirror as he once more lowered the brush and grabbed some detangling spray he knew you always used on her and yourself. Spraying some on the monster knot in her blonde locks-which he certainly was not going to tell her or you about- he looked at her as he spoke.

“You know your mama is way more rough than me- you want me to call her?”

She immediately widened her eyes, shaking her head which he stopped by putting a gentle hand on top of her little head. She knew that whenever you did her hair she’d be in more pain because you did it faster and without thinking, which ended with Caroline screaming and crying most of the time. There were days where the little girl would sit still and oblige, but with the state her hair was in right now, that wasn’t going to happen.

“That’s what I thought,” Elvis chuckled, pressing a firm kiss on her cheek which she giggled at before wiping it off playfully. He laughed as he put the spray down and inhaled deeply, going back to combing the tangles out of her hair. He decided to leave the worst for last and aside from some small whimpers, Caroline had been good the entire time.

Until he was forced to face that birds nest in the middle.

Caroline’s cheeks were flushed, eyes squeezed shut as she cried so loud it made Elvis’ ears ring. If she wasn’t in actual pain right now, he might have laughed at the sight- but his little girl was truly in pain and it made his heart drop and curse you for letting him do this. He put the brush down, wrapping his arms around her tiny frame as her cries were starting to come out soundless, a sign that she was truly over it.

“I’m sorry, baby- Daddy’s sorry. It’s almost done, almost,” he whispered as he rocked her from side to side, kissing her cheek and wiping her tears away. His large hand found its home on her back, rubbing it soothingly as he told her to breathe. She inhaled shaky breaths as she turned around, wrapping her arms around his neck.

He comforted her for a little bit before he gently pushed her out of his embrace so he could look at her, thumbing away the tears that rolled down her cheeks. She was still sniffling and trembling as if the world was coming to an end.

“You wanna give it one more try? If it hurts too much, I’ll stop, okay?”

Caroline looked at her father through her teary lashes, her fingers pulling at her lower lip nervously. It took her a few seconds to nod- her father was like her big hero, he had never told her a lie so in her logic, he would definitely not be lying now either. Elvis smiled at her and gently pulled her hands away from her face, pressing a kiss on her lips before he turned her around again and grabbed the bottled spray, throwing it up in the air before easily catching it again. The blonde giggled through her tears at her fathers’ antics as he made a show out of it, spraying her hair and distracting her by singing a theme song of some cartoon she liked to watch.

It seemed to be working, because rather than crying while he was combing her hair, she was now singing along and talking his ear off about said cartoon. He was barely listening, but he was glad that she wasn’t in pain anymore.

You had told him what to do with her hair, but after failing at the braids he was supposed to give her over and over again, he settled on twirling two locks at the front around his fingers and clipping them back with two small butterfly clips Caroline insisted on wearing. It wasn’t any over the top hairdo or whatsoever, but Caroline seemed to be happy with it and to him, that was all that mattered.

“Good job, Daddy!” she complimented him, laughing as he lifted her off the sink and put her down, peeling some stray hairs off his royal blue jacket.

“Better than your mama?” he tried, raising an eyebrow at his daughter which she mimicked while shaking her head. Ofcourse it wasn’t better, he knew that, and Caroline wasn’t the type of girl to sugar coat anything. He playfully poked her sides before lifting her on his hip again, walking out of the bathroom. “You little rascal,”

 

“Oh, you’re just gorgeous, my little Care bear!” you exclaimed with a gasp as your daughter asked you how she looked, wiggling herself out of her fathers’ arms and into yours. She giggled excitedly as she snaked her arms around your neck, pressing her cheek against yours.

“Look, Daddy gave me butterflies!” pointing at the clips in her hair, you and Elvis laughed. You hummed and nodded, widening your eyes in excitement at her as she looked at you with the same look on her face.

“I see that, they’re adorable, baby. And what happened to the French braids I told Daddy to give you?” you asked, turning to Elvis with a grin on your face. Caroline giggled and cupped her hands over her mouth, whispering in your ear.

She wasn’t very good at whispering, so when she told you he wasn’t good at doing her hair, he heard it. Caroline let out a squeal as Elvis playfully poked her sides again before taking her out of your arms, looking at her with a feigned pout.

She smiled as she grabbed his face in her little hands. “Don’t worry, Daddy. You’re good at other things,”

“Like what, hm?”

“Reading! You always do the voices, but Mommy never does. She’s not very good at that,”

Elvis threw his head back as he let out a hearty laugh while you gasped, taking a step closer to the duo and squeezing Caroline’s feet through her shoe softly. “Go play with Jerry- I’ll call you when it’s time for the photo’s,” you told her, to which she nodded excitedly as she wiggled her way out of Elvis’ arms, who put her down just in time.

“You don’t do the voices?” Elvis smirked as he walked into the kitchen with you, taking off his jacket as you handed him a cup of coffee. You rolled your eyes with a laugh as you poured yourself a cup too, leaning against the counter.

“You can’t make a French braid?” you shot back at him as you blew into your steaming coffee, a small grin raising the corner of your mouth.

“Honey, that’s a woman’s job- ‘course I can’t,”

You raised both eyebrows at your husband, taking a small sip of your coffee as you hummed softly. He chuckled as he watched you nod to yourself before taking a step closer to him.

“You’re right,” you told him with a smile, stealing his cup of coffee out of his hand. “But so is drinking coffee in the kitchen at 11 in the morning,” you shrugged, pouring his coffee down the drain and placing the cup in the sink. Elvis gawked at you, his now empty hand still in the same position.

Oh God- he wished Caroline would just stay tiny. Because even now, she was already a lot like you and he knew the older she'd get, the more back talk he was going to get.

You knew Elvis could never really tell if you were serious in these kind of moments or not- most of the time you weren’t, but you liked to keep him on his toes. And as you were starting to laugh softly to yourself while drinking your coffee, he sighed deeply and shook his head, a chuckle rolling off his tongue.

“You’re a menace, you know that?” he told you as he stepped forward, snaking his arms around your waist to press you against his chest. You put your cup down on the counter and smiled lovingly at him, running your hands up his chest and fixing the collar of his shirt.

“I know,” you said, bringing your hand up to fix a lock of his hair behind his ear. “I learned from the best,”

“Nuh-uh. You were born this way, I know that’s a fact,” he grinned, pecking your lips. “And I also know I ain’t never doing Care’s hair anymore- not when it’s in the state it was in. She was screaming bloody murder!”

You laughed as you slapped his chest playfully. “Oh, you big old softie- she isn’t made of sugar. You should’ve seen me as a little girl, I put my mother through hell every morning and I guess I’m gettin’ my karma now. Now you know what it’s like,”

It wasn’t like every morning with Caroline was terrible, but most mornings… yeah, they were. To Elvis, Caroline was a perfect little angel that could do no wrong but you always saw yourself in her. You knew all her little tricks, because you had once used them on your own mother. Her crying those crocodile tears because she didn’t like to get her hair done wasn’t the end of the world.

“Evil, evil woman,” Elvis grinned as he shook his head, slipping his hands down to your ass to give it a playful squeeze. “I’m glad I’m not the bad cop though,”

“Oh, don’t get it twisted, baby- you just wait until she’s sixteen and starts dating, then we’ll see who’s the ‘bad cop’,”

He was just about to take a sip of your coffee which he stole from the counter as he gasped, making you laugh. You gently pushed him off of you and slipped out of his embrace, smiling at him.

“I oughta spank you for that,”

You managed to step away from him before he could grab you, laughing with him. “Tonight- now, don’t get coffee on your shirt. Frank will be here any minute!”

He rolled his eyes as he watched you sneak out of the kitchen, taking a sip of coffee as he leaned against the counter. The both of you knew there was no ‘good cop, bad cop’ in this household because Caroline loved you both just as much. Even though Elvis allowed her to get away with a little more than you did, didn’t mean he didn’t have his rules. And just because you were perhaps more strict than Elvis, it didn’t mean you didn’t like to spoil and baby her at times too. Still, Elvis did not want to think about his baby girl ever dating but now that you had planted the idea in his head, it was all he could think about.

 

“Carolineee, look here!” Frank chimed from behind the camera, wiggling his fingers at the five year old who was currently dancing around her fathers’ cane that was resting under his palm.

You should’ve known that taking professional pictures with a five year old wouldn’t be easy.

At first, she started crying because she had never seen the photographer before and needed a little time to get used to him. Then she got distracted by the Mafia that was wandering through the house, begging for Lamar to pick her up and twirl her around above his head. Now it was Elvis’ cane that suddenly seemed to be the most interesting thing in the world.

“Care, come sit,” Elvis told her, grabbing her arm and pulling her onto his lap. He didn’t mean to be as rough as he was or sound as impatient as he did, but it was enough for the blonde to glare angrily at him and crawl onto your lap instead.

Frank waited patiently as you softly and gently scolded your daughter, telling her it would all be over if she’d just sit still and do as told. Luckily her mood shifted as quick as the weather and she was giggling when Elvis tickled her sides, making her laugh out loud which made Frank take the opportunity to snap pictures.

The photographer figured the pictures would come out better if you’d just do as you always did rather than posing for the camera and Caroline seemed to prefer this as well. She gasped as you and Elvis kissed each other, hiding her eyes behind her hands before she squeezed herself in the middle and pressed a kiss on Elvis’ cheek and then on yours.

You took a few pictures with Caroline alone, which she seemed to enjoy a lot, but as soon as Elvis came back for his turn, she immediately crawled onto his lap as he sat in the chair again. You got up and stood next to Frank, laughing as you crossed your arms.

“The glasses? Are those necessary?” you questioned. You liked your husband’s fashion choices, you did, but you had hoped that maybe once he would keep the glasses off.

“Keep them on, Daddy! They’re cool!” Caroline giggled excitedly as she swung her legs back and forth while sitting on Elvis’ knee, tapping her small finger against his glasses.

Elvis grinned as he looked at you, shrugging as he rested his cane against the arm of the chair. “You heard the boss,”

Caroline smiled so bright that her little cheeks were aching and you laughed, watching your daughter and husband pose a little for the camera before Caroline once more started talking about cartoons and other random things that interested her at the moment. The moment her little hands reached out to Elvis’ glasses and pulled them off his face to put them on her own, your heart swelled. She managed to make everyone in the room burst out in laughter as she slipped off Elvis’ lap and grabbed his cane, posing with her fathers’ belongings. Elvis couldn’t stop laughing in the background, cheering her on as his eye caught yours, shooting you a wink.

 

A week later, you, Elvis and Caroline sat on the couch as Joe tore the paper off the huge picture frame that was being held upright by Vernon. You had seen all the pictures (and made sure they’d all be put in a photo book), but the one that was currently revealed was your favorite and you wanted it to have a place in your home.

Even if you would move out of Hillcrest, you’d take this picture everywhere with you and hang it up because it was simply adorable.

The three of you all wore big smiles in the picture, Caroline ofcourse sitting in her fathers’ lap. You looked like a perfect, normal family and although you were anything but, you wanted Caroline to have fond memories of her childhood and of her mother and father.

This picture would hopefully hold a special place in her heart when she’d get older- it already had in yours.

“Elvis is so cool!” Caroline squealed as she jumped from the couch and walked over to the picture, admiring it from up close. Everybody laughed, Elvis getting up to throw his daughter in the air before catching her and placing her on his hip.

“What’d you just call me?”

“Elvis!” she grinned playfully at him, already knowing what was coming as he tickled her tummy, her little hands trying to stop his bigger ones. “Elvis, Elvis, Elvis!”

“I’m your Daddy, you little rascal,” he laughed, squeezing her in his embrace before putting her down and kneeling in front of the picture. She immediately took the opportunity to plant herself on his knee, wrapping her arm around his neck. She looked at you as you kneeled down beside Elvis and smiled brightly.

“Can we hang it in my room?” she asked, making you chuckle as you kissed her forehead.

“It’s a little big, Care bear. I’ll get you a smaller one of you and Elvis, okay?” you grinned, calling him by his name on purpose. He glared at you as Caroline laughed and nodded, though was immediately distracted as Lamar came into sight and ran toward him.

You and Elvis stood up straight, you pressed against his side as he slipped his arm around your waist.

“Caroline, what’s your Daddy's name?” Lamar joked as he raised her from the ground and held her above his head. She spread her arms as she laughed, looking at her father.

“Elvis Presley!” she squealed, giggling uncontrollably as she was spun around in the air.

Elvis rolled his eyes, laughing softly as he turned to you, leaning down as he looked into your eyes.

“This is your fault,” he whispered, the corner of his mouth rising into a smirk as he guided you out of the living room and into the hallway. You knew where he was taking you, but you didn’t stop him- couldn’t stop him because you were laughing so hard. “I think now’s a good time for that spanking,”

 

Your husband didn’t spank you when he got you into your bedroom- you wouldn’t let him because your daughter was in the other room. But you did have a quick make out session that felt as if you were teenagers again, having to keep your ears perked for footsteps coming down the hall.

Only this time it weren’t the footsteps of worried parents or nosy friends, but tiny ones that belonged to your daughter. You were off of your husband before she could burst through the door and little Caroline had no idea what was going on or what her parents had been doing, simply grabbing your and Elvis’ hands to pull you out of the room and show the portrait that the boys had hung on the wall.

Every time she saw her father in that picture she would call him by his first name- neither of you had any idea why she did it, but Elvis figured as long as he was the only man on her mind, he had nothing to worry about.

At least, not for a few years.

taglist: @breadsquash @generoustreemystic @woundmetender @returntoelvis @prayerstopresley @ab4eva @marriedtopresley @steph-speaks @wonka-gifs @notstefaniepresley @ellie-24 @dollksj @webbedwebs @re3kin @wivette @eliseinmemphis @18lkpeters @rosepresley @septembersghost