#and that's gonna take up all my free time today

[sleepymirko]

Reaction to s/o liking winter but being very chilly (part 2)

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Featuring Bachira Meguru, Reo Mikage, Nagi Seishiro

Fluff

Let me know if there's errors! Enjoy!

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“Y/N, I finished showering. The bathroom’s all yours if you need it,” Bachira said, entering your shared bedroom. When he’d left to shower, you had been engrossed in a book, and you barely nodded at him when he left.

You raised your head and what you saw was enough to make you freeze under covers.

Your boyfriend was standing with only a towel around his hips, droplets falling from his bicoloured locks and the most bizarre thing was that he wasn't shivering in the slightest.

"I was already freezing under the covers but seeing you like this... Feels like torture" you said shivering slightly.

The boy simply chuckled and walked towards the bed, sitting comfortably on the edge, right next to you.

"Are we sure you're not sick? Today is less cold than last week"

"It's probably your fault"

"How is that even possible?"

"You're half naked Meguru???" You said looking at him slightly wide eyed, a smile creeping up your face.

"Oh."

"You're gonna catch a cold at this rate"

"I swear I'm not feeling cold maybe because the house is warm.. wait a minute .."

You looked at him confused as he looked like he had an idea.

"Why don't you go take a shower? You'll feel even better, no?" He said smiling proudly.

"A hot shower is what you need, trust me!"

You looked up, considering his suggestion. It wasn't a bad idea, maybe it was what you needed.

"Okay, why not.." you nodded and Bachira smiled and quickly got up.

"Let's go then" he said offering his hand to you.

You looked at him, noticing that glimmer in his eyes that only meant one thing. He was going to shower again, but this time with you.

"...you realize that you already showered, don’t you?"

"Eheh, let's just say that I forgot to put the shampoo on my hair" he said smiling, faking innocence. What a menace.

..•°•..•°•..•°•..•°•..•°•..•°•..•°•..•°•..•°•..•°•..

You and Reo had been thinking about what to do for the holiday season in his studio. Saying that Reo was a great planner was an understatement, the guy already thought about 7 holiday location ideas for impressing his girl.

"You already have seven ideas for our holidays?" You asked shocked, struggling to hold your smile at how determined your boyfriend looked.

"Absolutely, and let me tell you which location I thought of.." he said bringing his laptop closer to her.

"First of all, we have Finland. Apparently there's a Santa Village in a certain city called 'Rovaniemi'. If Finland is not speaking to your soul there's Banff in Canada, the place has a lot of mountains and offsprings. Skiing must be fantastic there" he said smiling while checking with her the photos.

"When can even plan on going to the Alps, if you want something more quiet we can pass the holidays in Kyoto, between tea houses and snowy landscapes.."

While Reo kept talking, you couldn't help but smile. And shiver slightly.

But Reo surely hadn't missed that.

"Oh? Is my princess freezing? Should we move the planning in front of the fireplace?" He offered as he looked at her with a soft smile, finding her wrapped in a warm blanket cute. Once he picked up the laptop, he offered his hand, and they both moved toward the fireplace in their living room.

Sitting there, he placed her on his lap and handled her his laptop. "While I keep you warm, feel free to choose the location of our holiday." He said and continued, this time speaking into her ear. "I'll handle the rest".

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"You're always cold" Nagi mumbled, thumbs moving around his controller as his focus was mostly on the boss he was fighting.

You guys agreed on a simple cozy weekend, with videogames keeping you company as you guys were doing co-op together.

"How are you not feeling cold Nagi?" You asked as despite you were helping him with the boss your controller was under the warm comforter.

"I'm completely fine." When he finished the boss, he laid the controller down the bed and handed her his hand. When she reached for it she looked at him surprised, his hand was really warm and she wondered if his body was like the rest.

"To be one that claims to love winter you have poor luck by suffering the cold like this" he said bluntly while picking up his controller, resuming playing as you rolled your eyes.

"Then why don't you keep me warm?" You asked half jokingly as you resumed playing with him as well.

He paused, giving her a sidelong glance. “Isn’t that, like, extra work?” he asked, sounding as unbothered as ever.

However, he stopped playing and wrapped an arm around you, letting you warm up close to him.

"Didn't you just say that was extra work?" you teased, as he sighed, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly, a shadow of a smile creeping into his usual unbothered expression.

With that, he leaned back, letting you curl up against him while he held the controller lazily in one hand, his other arm wrapped around your shoulders.

"You better worry about not turning into an Icycle" he paused looking at the game, his tone uneven yet with a hint of teasing. "that would be a real hassle."

Let me know if there's errors! Thank you for reading!

[moeblob]

Amazing, take some of the side character demons from Evil Bound.

Vincie is a menace to Chuck and Chuck alone so in Hell, Chuck hexes his hand behind his back so that he isn't grabbed as much (and it's harder to pet him). Chuck is like the most irresponsible older sibling ever to demons though so Kelvin recruits him (as an older sibling vibe) to go help him get his ACTUAL older sibling from Earth. Chuck agrees. And then drags Vincie from Hell with them because no one else wants to babysit him and he refuses to unbind the hex just to re-hex when he returns to Hell.

In Hell, Kelvin actually doesn't appear much different than his human form! Like Kronos, the lines under his eyes are red in Hell but black on earth. Chuck however? In Hell he has wolf-ish ears and has a fur lining his neck (note the neck scars in human form). In addition to that he has four eyes in Hell (note the scars under his eyes in human form). Vincie just has horns in Hell. And! In Hell the hex doesn't have a silly looking "tied up" look, it's invisible unless Vincie strains it with movement and then its red text. But it shifts on earth to be visible.

Vincie's biggest agony for the entirety on earth is "dude it's colder here than in Hell I want a jacket to slip my arms into BUT I CANT BECAUSE IM BOUND".

[seventh-district]

Could've left me just the way you found me, but you came and put your wings around me. You went out of your way, to fix what you didn't break.

This song is so incredibly Sam & Darlin' coded and no one can tell me otherwise.

[lots of lyrical analysis below the cut] [there's also a short little fanfic blurb of them stargazing down there too (this post got really out of hand lmao)]

For those not fully caught up, note that the following commentary contains various spoilers for Sam and Darlin's stories.

Note: Unfortunately this song is gendered, using the word 'girl' several times. Which sucks a little bit for immersion purposes, not only for keeping Darlin' gender-neutral, but also because I see this song as a duet between them, and Darlin' obviously wouldn't be addressing Sam with the word 'girl' either. So! As with most songs on their playlist, we're just gonna mentally omit any gendered terms we come across.

Side note: Frustratingly, this is one of those songs that didn't really even need to gender the subject in the first place. No part of the story or message is lost without it. But alas, many songs are like that, and so the playlist-makers of the world shall continue to suffer. [/lh]

Anyways, preamble's over. It's lyric time now yay!

Sam's Part

I was a ten-year train wreck

Technically for Sam I suppose it was 13 years, but ten is close enough (and 'ten' admittedly flows a lot better in the rhythm of the song than 'thirteen' would.) Anyways, we're not here to split hairs, (I have to remind myself), we're just here to point out similarities.

In Sam's Dec. '22 HBW, he says "For the last 13 years or so I haven't had to care too much about how I look. Seemed a little redundant after turnin', considerin' I didn't wanna be around much'a anybody anyway."

I think he's mentioned or alluded to that roughly 13 year period of time more than once, but that's the one I remember best so it's the example I'm using. There's still about 4 Sam audios I've yet to listen to as of making this post, so if I'm missing some Key Lore I'll edit this later. But for now, I don't think Sam has given many specifics on exactly how bad things got during that time. Luckily, 'train wreck' is a pretty broad and subjective term, so it easily covers any degree to which he may have fallen apart during those years.

It also feels like a very 'him' way of quickly brushing over the details of his past/his hurt, as he seems to tend to do with Darlin', (not all the time ofc but it's still something I've noticed) putting his own hurt on the backburner to prioritize and attend to theirs. Even outside of his dynamic with them, I think as a healer, it's something he learned to do. And now he does it with everyone. Put on a brave face, compartmentalize things and unpack them later, etc. I could go on and on but there'll be time for that in other posts I'm sure. For now, lets get back to the song at hand.

With a last-call longneck

Due to personal reasons, I've yet to decide if I want to HC him as having used alcohol as a coping mechanism during that time. I don't recall him having mentioned alcohol much, if at all, (maybe one mention of whiskey that I don't have time to find right now) so I don't think it's necessarily canon that he did, but it's certainly possible. My personal preferences aside, I'll admit it makes for some good additional angst. (And- self-indulgently- it makes some other songs on my playlist for them more fitting.) So, for the sake of this song, let's imagine that he did.

I was searchin', I'd been hurt real bad

This one feels pretty self-explanatory given what Alexis did, (and, if you wanna get even angstier with it, whatever his family did earlier on in his life) so there isn't much commentary to add on my end.

I HC that in spite of 'not wanting to be around anybody', he- like Darlin- still had a tiny part of himself buried deep down that was, in a way, 'searching' for someone to find solace in. (No this isn't me projecting onto them both haha what are you talking about-)

Movin' on, gettin' sidetracked One step forward and five back

This is generally applicable enough that I don't feel the need to give too much of a specific example. Anyone who's recovered or is recovering from trauma knows this non-linear, back-and-forth struggle well already, and I'm sure he was no stranger to it.

If I were to give some examples though, I could point to Darlin's (and subsequently, Sam's) encounter with Alexis at the summit, or the shit that Quinn dredged up about Fredrick and threw at Sam in the interrogation room. Those are both more recent examples and I imagine these lines of the song to be coming from a place of him prior to meeting Darlin', but still, they're some instances where I'm sure he felt like the past was pulling him back in. I'm sure that there's been many throughout those 13 years that we were never witness to.

Not your fault, I was scared to fall

This line reminds me of their 'Cuddles and Confessions' audio. I don't think he ever explicitly said he was 'scared' per se, so afaik there's no specific line I can quote, but in that and every audio prior, he was obviously hesitant to admit, perhaps even to himself, that he was gradually falling for them. Even after the initial confession, there's certain limits of his (e.g. biting) that he carries for far longer, and some that I (and others) HC that he'll carry forever. So this line feels to me like him reassuring Darlin' that his reluctance isn't the fault of them, but his past.

Darlin's Part

You were the star in the pitch black Shine the way on the way back

We don't have any canon instances of them comparing Sam to a star, but I can see it being something they'd say (perhaps less poetically, but the sentiment would be there) one night while laying up on their roof watching the stars with him. Maybe they're dead-tired, talking nonsense with lidded eyes at the end of a long day, fighting sleep in favor of more time spent with him.

"What- what're you pointin' at Darlin'?"

Their hazy focus is trained on the brightest star visible in their line of sight, arm stretched out to the sky above them. "That really bright one, to the... to the left."

Sam does his best to follow their less-than-specific directions of 'to the left', their pointed finger doing little to help given the difference in perspective. Luckily, after all these years, he knows this stretch of night sky like the back of his hand, so it isn't hard to locate the brightest one. Ghosting his fingers up along their arm, he takes their hand in his and brings it back down to earth. "Okay, yeah, I see it now. What about it though?"

"That's you." They say, matter-of-factly.

"That's me?" He questions, humor in his tone.

"Mhm." They nod with finality, blinking slow.

Sam considers the odd statement for a moment before gently correcting them. "I'm uh, I'm pretty sure that's Sirius, actually."

They scoff. "I am being serious."

Sam stifles a laugh into their hair. "No- no I mean- like... what's another name for it... Oh! It's also called the Dog Star."

"C'mon Sam, at least call it the Wolf Star if you're trying to turn this around on me..."

He shakes his head and readies himself to explain further, but they cut him off before he can start. "But no- no, this one isn't about me. That's you."

He decides to play along, finding something endearing in their overtired nonsense. "Okay... then would'ja be so kind as to explain to this confused old man just how, or why that star is me?"

Their frown is audible in their voice as they latch onto the wrong part of his sentence. "You're not old, Sam. ...Do I need to tell Asher to kick the jokes down a notch?"

He smiles at their over-protectivity. "There'll be no need for that, now. Was just a joke, darlin', I promise."

They huff, but thankfully shift focus back to the prior topic. "It's... I dunno. It's just you, Sam. It's... bright. Light. Something warm, out there in the cold dark. Standing out amongst all the rest. Calling to me, stealing my attention. I... I didn't come out here looking for it, but there it is. ...There you were. In the dark. The only bright thing I'd seen in... fuck, in years. Years of chasing fleeting warmth, tripping over myself in the pitch black, falling into... places 'n people I shouldn't have. You were the light in that darkness. Even there, surrounded by the ghost of him. You outshone it. Your warmth didn't hurt. I didn't have to squint when I looked at you. You weren't the blinding sun. You were the brightest star I'd ever seen. You guided me back home."

In the back of their mind, they recall something they once heard, something about light, and time, and distance. Space. Something about... how you can see a star that's already burnt out, because it's light hasn't reached earth yet. The ghost of a star that's already died. Only still perceptible thanks to time, and distance.

They remember Sam's words, once whispered to them on this very roof.

"Whatever your choice is... I'm not gonna live forever. I made that decision a long time ago."

They think about dead stars.

They think about time.

"...-lin'? Darlin'?" Sam's calloused hand slides up their forearm, pulling them out of their thoughts. "There you are. Think I lost ya' for a minute there... you good?"

They look up at Sam, concern creasing his features, shadows cast across his face from the light of the dying stars above him.

They reach out, pulling him down into them. Burying their face into his collar, Sam's concern grows when he feels it saturate with tears. A human might struggle to hear their words, muffled against the thick fabric, but his hearing catches it just fine.

"Don't burn out too quick. Please. I still need you here. I don't- I don't wanna be left in the dark again. Please, please Sam. Don't leave me here. I'm not selfish enough to ask you for forever, but please. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet."

.......Whoopsies! Really, genuinely didn't mean to improv an entire scene there, good god. Also didn't mean to swerve hard into angst at the end but uh. that's what came out! so I'm rolling with it lmao. Aaanyways let's move on, it's getting late and this is a song analysis post, not a fic.

Out of nowhere, answered all my prayers

'Out of nowhere' reminds me of Sam's words from the same HBW video I referenced earlier. "You came into my life like a damn wreckin' ball. There was no preparing for that, clothing or otherwise." While those were Sam's words, not Darlin's, I still feel like they feel similarly to how suddenly Sam came into their life as well. (Not in a bad way, mind you!)

[the significance of 'answered all my prayers' edges into my own personal more headcanon-y/personal/OC-ified Darlin' territory, so we can just gloss over this one for the sake of at least attempting to keep this more universally applicable]

Picked up the towel that I threw in Took in a heart that was ruined

Again, largely self-explanatory I feel. (*proceeds to explain anyways*) I imagine that Darlin' was at the point of throwing in the towel, hellbent on a solo-mission to find Quinn regardless of the danger it posed to them. I doubt they were looking toward the future anymore, (to reference Sam,) fully willing to throw themself at their problems until they really did break.

The specific use of 'ruined' hits hard here, because after everything they went through with Quinn, and especially after he recounted it all to Sam in that interrogation room, I imagine that they really, truly did feel ruined.

Showed me the past ain't a tattoo Loved me even when you didn't have to

These lines in particular make me sick with emotion every time I hear this song, because I feel like they hit the nail on the head for how Darlin' feels.

I'll be here citing various quotes all night that I feel showcase that sentiment, but we don't have time for that! So instead I'm just pointing to the entirety of 'Quinn's Aftermath' video, and leaving you with this single quote from it.

"Everything that he said reflects nothin' on you, and everything on him."

Equally Applicable Lines

And I don't know why Why you saw something in me, baby But you saw right through All the pain, and you came and saved me Yeah, I know you didn't leave me lonely Weren't the one that put the heartbreak on me Picked up the pieces It wasn't the mess that you made Could've left me just the way you found me But you came and put your wings around me You went out of your way To fix what you didn't break

Again, I think these lines are all pretty self-explanatory, and are just as accurate coming from either one of them. To me, at least, their entire dynamic is that they saved each other, in their own ways.

(But I will admit, the final verses about 'going out of your way to fix what you didn't break' are definitely conjuring up memories of Sam in the early days, literally going out of his way to visit and heal Darlin' after their fight with the two vamps. In general, his continued/repeated healing of them after they once again hurt themselves is the very literal definition of fixing what he didn't break.

But! While we may have more blatant examples of Sam being 'the fixer' so to speak, I think he'd argue that Darlin' has done plenty fixing of their own. Physical wounds aren't the only things that need healing, after all.)

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[shameless self-promo of my Sam & Darlin' playlist for those few of u interested enough to make it to the very end of this wall of text. if u liked this then u might like some of the other songs on there soooo maybe go check it out and maybe perhaps give it a follow so i can get a little serotonin boost or dopamine or whatever the chemical is that's released when Number Go Up. ...okay that's it i hope u enjoyed my fixation-induced ramblings! thank u and goodnight]

[josecariohca]

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[wildevenusian]

i just don’t understand. why say ur ready to talk if you aren’t?

can u believe this post is what got me to reach tag limit

[b4kuch1n]

my art is not in the game yet but u should still go check out the browser version of The Zone do it

[exopelagic]

okay I severely misjudged spaghetti guy he’s actually just really cool

[averysmolkirbo]

Me finding tiny meaningless character details in something that's not even canon to make more shit up about the fictional character i dont like for literally no reason (i want to ruin their life)

like im at making a headcanon off of an assumption off of a headcanon. im multiple layers deep

[prestonmonterey]

ughhhh someone kill me i think i might like stay on the third floor today i actually cant deal with her today

[apocalypticdemon]

actually i think if my head hurts, i shouldn't have to do anything that day

[irawhiti]

man there is really no way out of poverty huh. like for real.

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[schisms]

i feel like a huge worthless failure for calling out of work today which is so dumb and stupid like. i’m gonna die someday. and i’m sitting here freaking out about the fact that i’m not working at my minimum wage job. for one day. like what the HELL is that. i’m already suffering which is why i called out but the suffering doesn’t end, it’s just complicated by guilt. and part of me knows i shouldn’t feel guilty, but i can’t stop. it feels like everyone’s judging me because i can’t even do the bare minimum right now. i feel so ashamed, but i’m so angry that i feel ashamed. i know i shouldn’t have to. but i do. it’s like. obligatory. it’s such a disgusting feeling.

[melissa-titanium]

GOD therseomuch shit to do i thought id have time today to DO stuff. its the fucking weekend why do ihave to do 2 classes and go outside and literally do something for school . the weekDAYS are always busy i havent had a free moment since i fucking joined

[imabiscuitinthousandworlds]

hello hello hello i just remembered that my english teacher told me a week ago that she's interested in my writing and sent her my two (currently) best short stories with a very polite unnecessarily elaborate message i just Did that i did do that are you proud of me

[bumpscosity]

Got my next covid booster 💪