#anyways the fic is a banger you should totally go read it

[rustyelias]

I am stressing so much about my geography exam tomorrow so I started doodling and boom I ended up drawing wilde from poseidon's own country written by @miscreantahead

[bloody-bee-tea]

Beetober 2024 Day 1 - Raise a toast

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Like always, the prompt for the day is the title of the fic and we're starting off with a real banger, because it's 7k long, so if you want to read it on AO3 you can do it here.

Hitoshi is aware of the glances he gets throughout the day. It’s unavoidable with the purple bruise right there on his chin, but it’s not as if he could have hid that. His foster father really fucked up, when he socked him straight in the face, and there’s only so much make-up can do, Hitoshi learned that by now.

At least it’s not his eye, Hitoshi thinks as he prods the bruise, because he knows from experience that trying to read along with his teachers with a swollen eye always gives him headaches and makes him nauseous.

The bruise on the chin he can totally take. It’s not as if he has anything to eat for lunch anyway, so there’s not even a chance of making it worse by chewing.

Predictably, no one asks him about it. It’s not as if he’s on speaking terms with any of his classmates either, so of course no one would bring up the glaring red flag. 

A small part of Hitoshi had hoped that maybe U.A. and all the aspiring heroes going there would be different, but it was of course foolish of him to hope. Not even the established heroes had offered their help and with All Might teaching as well now, it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. Hitoshi had learned his lesson in that regard early.

Especially when he saw how they treated the winner of the Sports Festival. Yeah, Hitoshi is no longer holding out hope that the teachers here are any different than what he is used to.

Still, he can’t deny that it stings when not even Present Mic does more than give him a concerned glance when he comes in for their English lesson. He doesn’t even ask Hitoshi to stay after class. He doesn’t even pretend to want to know, doesn’t even take time to alleviate his consciousness by asking a question he doesn’t really want the answer to.

It’s always the same, in the end, no matter how hard Hitoshi wishes it were different.

But the sting of disappointment from Present Mic’s lack of a reaction shows him that there’s no way he’ll be able to take Aizawa’s indifference either. Hitoshi can admit that he admires the man more than he probably should, given everything and to imagine that he’ll have the same indifferent reaction to Hitoshi’s bruises as everyone else makes him want to throw up and hide away for the rest of his life. At least Mic-sensei has an excuse. He teaches every single class in this school. Aizawa took him on as his personal student.

If even Aizawa thinks it’s not worth investigating then there really is no hope left for Hitoshi and he’s not ready to face that reality. 

Still, cancelling training is out of the question, because Hitoshi knows from experience that Aizawa will still hunt him down should he deem his excuse unacceptable and Hitoshi would really rather get it over with already.

So he’s at the gym at exactly the same time as always, carefully stretching his sore muscles. He prefers it when the soreness comes from a good sparring session rather than a beating, but beggars can’t be choosers, Hitoshi bitterly thinks, and when a sharp pain shoots up his side he wonders how he’s even going to survive today’s training session.

The door to the gym opens again before Hitoshi can find an answer to that and he has to admit that he did not expect Aizawa to be accompanied by Present Mic today. Normally Aizawa warns him before he brings the other teacher with him, but clearly this day is just going to fuck Hitoshi over on all fronts.

The pair is silent as they approach Hitoshi, which makes the fine hair at the back of his neck prickle uncomfortably, and he almost wants to squirm under their gazes, but he forces himself to keep still.

Wouldn’t want to give them any reason to add to the colourful painting on his body, after all.

“What happened there?” Aizawa asks once he and Present Mic come to a stop in front of Hitoshi and he taps his chin as if there could be any misunderstanding in what he means.

Hitoshi shrugs.

“Nothing.”

“Doesn’t look like nothing, little listener,” Present Mic chimes in and oh great, now he cares.

“Yeah, well,” Hitoshi shrugs in a ‘what can you do’ kind of gesture and it only prompts both men to narrow their eyes at him.

Aizawa regards him almost clinically for a moment before Present Mic elbows him in the side. They exchange glances, clearly having an entire silent conversation, before their eyes slide back to Hitoshi.

“Are you safe at home?” Aizawa wants to know, cutting right to the chase and Hitoshi can’t help himself, he lets out a snort.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Present Mic asks, clearly taken aback by Hitoshi’s reaction and fine, this is it then.

At least they cared enough to ask, he reminds himself, even if this is where their interest ends. But he has their attention now, however briefly, and so he’s going to lay himself bare once more, only to have all his hope crushed to dust when nothing happens, again. It’s not the first time he dances this particular dance with teachers, after all.

“It means that between the starvation, the physical and psychological abuse, being locked into my room or a closet or out of the house entirely and the muzzle, there really is not enough time to feel safe at home,” he mockingly says and he takes a sick sense of satisfaction in the surprised gasp Present Mic lets out.

“How long has this been going on?” Aizawa demands to know, his eyes burning with anger and Hitoshi wonders what he could possibly be upset about. They were the ones asking, Hitoshi is only giving an honest answer.

“My parents gave me up when I was four,” Hitoshi gives back because even though he doesn’t quite remember the first few homes he was sent to, he can’t remember ever being without this dread filling him up whole, so it must have started pretty early.

Maybe even with his birth parents, who knows.

“And you never—why didn’t you say something?” Present Mic almost desperately asks him and now that makes Hitoshi laugh.

“Right,” he finally says, still catching his breath and determinedly not noticing the horrified looks on his teacher’s faces. “Because between your treatment of Bakugo at the Sports Festival and All Might teaching here I was real desperate to bring attention to myself,” he spits out and he doesn’t even bother to mention that teachers in general are really not all that trustworthy.

At least not when it comes to him. These two are not the first ones who let him down after all. Far from it, actually.

“Bakugo?” Present Mic looks honestly confused and Hitoshi has to wonder just how good an actor he is to sell that so convincingly.

“What happened with Bakugo at the festival?” Aizawa asks when Hitoshi doesn’t speak again and now this is just some kind of new cruelty he wasn’t quite prepared for.

Hitoshi saw it happen; he knows what his punishment will be if he makes any of the teachers mad at him, but making him say it, too, is just—cruel.

“You were there,” he vaguely says, because even the memory makes it hard to breathe, bringing the phantom imprint of his own muzzle back and he reflexively raises a hand to touch his lips, making sure that nothing’s on his face.

“Humour us,” Aizawa shortly says and Hitoshi glares at him, deciding to latch onto that anger, rather than give in to his fear.

“Fine,” he snappishly says, pretending that the way his breath comes faster now has nothing to do with the impending panic attack and is just due to his anger. “He was chained to the podium when he didn’t want to accept his medal, quirk supressing cuffs on his hands and a fucking muzzle on his face to keep him quiet. I know what happens if I mess up, there’s no need for you to make sure.”

“They did what?” Present Mic yells out, his quirk slipping in and rattling Hitoshi’s teeth.

“Who was there when that happened?” Aizawa demands to know after sending Present Mic a sharp glare and Hitoshi shrugs.

“Midnight, Cementoss and All Might. Because of course All Might would be there,” Hitoshi mumbles at the end, since it’s not as if he expected any different from him but it only makes Aizawa frown.

“What do you mean by that? You mentioned him before, too. Why?”

Hitoshi just opened his mouth when Present Mic cuts him right off, an almost desperate “Why did you never ask for help?” leaving him and Hitoshi huffs out a breath.

“Yeah, right, because that needs to be my fault, too, doesn’t it? Well, I asked. I begged. I told teachers and my social workers and the police and everyone was real sympathetic, right until they learned about my quirk. And let me tell you, you kinda lose courage when the literal symbol of peace tells a desperate and beaten eleven-year-old that maybe, if it puts the people around you at ease, wearing a muzzle is simply what you have to do, you know?” Hitoshi spits out and watches with satisfaction how all the blood drains out of Present Mic’s face.

It’s a hollow victory, seeing him like that, but Hitoshi learned to take what he can get.

It’s all kind of fun, right until Aizawa flares his quirk just as Present Mic is about to speak and sternly tells him “Do not say a word right now.”

Present Mic closes his mouth with an audible click and Hitoshi didn’t know it would feel like this.

Aizawa has never been scared of his quirk, always encouraged Hitoshi to ask questions and answering them without hesitation and to see this now, to have all that trust thrown right into his face, hurts worse than Hitoshi expected it to.

“Go take a walk,” Aizawa orders Present Mic, who turns around on his heels without a look back and leaves the gym as silently as he entered it.

He almost gentle klick of the door makes Hitoshi flinch as if someone raised a fist at him and he feels vaguely like throwing up.

“I wouldn’t,” Hitoshi whispers, because for all that he never truly expects anything else, he still feels the almost desperate need to defend himself. “I never used my quirk without permission before, even though I want to.”

It would make things easier, Hitoshi knows that. He could order his foster parents to let him into the house instead of locking him out in the middle of winter. He could order them to give him food when he’s approaching the third day without so much as a scrap. He could order them to stop hitting him when his foster father’s temper flares and he could stop them from ever putting the muzzle on him ever again, and yet—

He never does. Because it would make him into exactly what they all say he is—a villain. And Hitoshi would rather die than prove them right.

“Are there other kids in your current home?” Aizawa asks and Hitoshi feels as if his stomach plummets straight to his feet when he realises it’s because Aizawa is trying to figure out just how many people Hitoshi puts at risk at the regular.

“I make sure they are safe,” Hitoshi hisses out because how dare Aizawa imply that he’d ever hurt the other kids. Makoto is only nine and she’s the oldest of his three current foster siblings and there is no way in hell they deserve any of this shit. Hitoshi would rather take a beating than let his foster father anywhere near the other kids and he has done so, too.

“I need the names of the people you told about this before,” Aizawa says after a moment of silence and Hitoshi glares at him.

“What, so you can all raise a toast to keeping a villain in the making in check? Hell no,” Hitoshi snaps and takes a step back when Aizawa moves towards him.

He can’t quite decipher the look on his face, but he’s not about to stay and figure it out, not when he still feels so horribly betrayed by Aizawa’s reaction.

“I really hoped you might be different,” Hitoshi mutters under his breath as he gathers up his stuff and then sprints out of the gym without a look back.

Aizawa stays devastatingly quiet.

~*~*~

Skipping training like he did means Hitoshi comes home earlier than he was supposed to and that alone is enough to get himself locked up in his room. At least it’s just the room this time, and not the closet because with how much hurt is still swirling in Hitoshi’s stomach he’s pretty sure that being locked in that small, dark place would have sent him straight into a panic attack.

His room might not be the biggest, his mattress touches the wall on three sides after all, but there’s a small window and he can stretch out completely. It’s way better than the closet, even though Hitoshi can’t go to the bathroom and will be forced to skip dinner, too.

Still, it could have been worse, he tries to remind himself because at least the muzzle hasn’t made an appearance. Yet.

But being locked in his room, with his phone taken away and nothing to do but stare at a wall gives him way too much time to think about the looks on Aizawa’s and Present Mic’s faces.

They had seen more horrified than Hitoshi is really used to, but in the end they still hadn’t done anything. It still makes him tremble to remember Aizawa flaring his quirk and Present Mic walking out like that.

Hitoshi knows himself well enough to know that his nightmares now have more fodder than before and he’s almost glad for his insomnia.

He dozes off with nothing but the dust particles dancing in the air as his entertainment and he startles badly when the doorbell rings. It takes a while for the tension to leave him again but it’s not as if he can leave his room to check who would ever want to visit this godforsaken place, but just as he’s about to completely relax again, steps approach his door.

Hitoshi slowly sits up on his mattress, facing the door and tensing all over, because this can only mean more trouble.

His foster father made it very clear that he would be staying inside of his room until the next morning so if he’s coming back now that must mean a beating is in Hitoshi’s immediate future.

He wonders what could have possibly upset the man enough to make him change his mind.

There’s a brief cursory knock on his door before the key turns in the lock and Hitoshi gets up. He’d rather force his foster father to beat him down first, than giving him the opportunity to start kicking him directly but he was not prepared for the sight that greets him when the door swings open.

There’s a man with a cat head on the other side.

“Shinsou Hitoshi? I’m Tamakawa Sansa, a police officer, and I’m here for you.”

It feels as if all the blood leaves Hitoshi’s upper body, leaving him cold and faint and he does not enjoy the way his fingertips prickle.

He can only blink.

“Are you okay?” Tamakawa asks him and Hitoshi sways on the spot, trying desperately to not let the feeling of betrayal sting as much as it’s currently doing.

He expected Aizawa and Present Mic to do nothing. He did not expect them to call the police on him but then again—he did admit to wanting to use his quirk, so it’s probably just right.

The teachers are just looking out for everyone’s safety, just like they are supposed to. It doesn’t matter that yet again, Hitoshi’s safety is a lesser priority.

“Fine,” he eventually mutters out and Tamakawa nods.

“Alright. I’m here to escort you out, so if you would please follow me,” Tamakawa says and Hitoshi sways on the spot.

“Why?” he asks and immediately cringes back because he’s in enough trouble as he is, he doesn’t need to set this officer on edge on top of that.

“To make sure that nothing happens, of course,” Tamakawa answers him without hesitation and of course.

They can’t trust him to come quietly.

“Do I—” Hitoshi trails off, unwilling to test the patience of this officer any more and instead rephrases his question. “I need my stuff.”

It’s not much he has, anyway, but he’d feel a little more comfortable if he could bring it.

“Someone else will come back to get your things, but I’d rather have you out of the house as soon as possible,” Tamakawa says, sounding almost sorry and Hitoshi nods numbly.

Of course they want him out as soon as possible. Every second longer they allow him to spend here is another second he could put them all under his quirk. Of course no one wants to risk that.

Hitoshi has had nightmares about being arrested, being sent to Tartarus for his quirk, but none of the dreams could have prepared him for how bad it feels to be arrested like this.

The officer leads him out of the house and Hitoshi notes that he doesn’t see even a hair of any other inhabitants of the house and with how dangerous they clearly think he is he wonders why they haven’t brought quirk suppressing cuffs. Well, a quirk suppressing muzzle, more like, because he knows those are out there, but he’s not about to ask of course.

No reason to upset anyone further.

Hitoshi keeps his mouth shut as Tamakawa leads him to the police car and he keeps it shut when they drive and he keeps it shut, shut, shut, right until they stop in front of a building.

It doesn’t look like a police station and cold fear slides down Hitoshi’s back.

He never asked for a badge, never asked for the charges and now he’s possibly about to be murdered or sold off to who knows where and he won’t even get to know why.

“This is not the police station,” he says when Tamakawa comes around the car to open the door for him and he tilts his head, just like a confused cat would do and it’s almost enough to make Hitoshi relax.

Almost.

“Eraserhead and Present Mic are waiting for you, seeing as you’ll be staying with them,” Tamakawa informs him, and now that just makes Hitoshi want to burst out into tears.

Great. He thought he wouldn’t have to see them again but of course his life loves to spit right in his face. Now they are going to be his jailors and isn’t that just fantastic.

Hitoshi wonders what kind of security the place he’s about to walk in to has, but it’s probably nothing he can escape from. Not if those two are there to make sure he doesn’t run.

He wonders how long it’ll be until his trial and if he’ll ever get to make a statement or not.

Tamakawa is silent as he leads Hitoshi up the stairs and he’s silent as he knocks on a door.

It’s being yanked open not even a second later and Hitoshi drops his eyes as soon as he sees Aizawa.

He doesn’t think he can look at him without starting to cry right now and so the floor seems like the safer option.

“One Shinsou Hitoshi, delivered safely and unharmed, just like promised,” Tamakawa says with a note of amusement and Hitoshi hears the harsh breath Aizawa lets out at that.

“Thank you,” he says with more feeling than Hitoshi has ever heard him and it just makes his eyes burn even more.

He didn’t know Aizawa thought of him as so dangerous that he would attack a police officer.

“No problem at all. I’ll let you get settled then, someone will be by with his things later. Tsukauchi will drop by in a few days as well.”

Hitoshi wonders who this Tsukauchi is and if it means he’s in any danger but Aizawa only answers with a soft “Okay” before he pulls Hitoshi into the apartment.

Hitoshi dares to take a quick look around and what he sees surprises him. The place is more home-y than he would have guessed and there are no security measures he can spot at first glance. The windows are certainly not barred, though he doesn’t doubt that this could change in a second should he try anything.

“So this is where I’ll be detained,” he mutters, not quite making it a question as he trains his eyes back on the floor and so he’s startled when a new voice suddenly speaks up.

“Detained? I mean we expect we’ll have to ground you eventually, because you’re a teenager and all, but like, not right off the bat, right, Shou?”

Present Mic doesn’t sound quite as energetic as he does at school but it’s unmistakably him and Hitoshi lets out a shuddering breath.

He can’t believe that these two will have to guard him. He would rather have it be any other hero or police officer and he wonders if he can make a request like that. He doesn’t want the people he once looked up to be his prison guardians.

“Shinsou, are you okay?” Aizawa asks and he sounds just concerned enough to make it believable but Hitoshi knows better than to trust it.

He’ll stay here until he is being sent to prison and even with Erasure at the ready, he’ll probably be required to wear quirk suppressing cuffs because Aizawa can hardly keep his own quirk up all the time. Either that, or the muzzle and Hitoshi knows which he’d rather take.

“I’m not wearing quirk suppressing cuffs,” he informs them, because Tamakawa didn’t put any on him and they at least deserve to know that.

“Why would you be doing that, kiddo?” Present Mic wants to know, shuffling closer until his socked feet make it into Hitoshi’s field of vision, seeing as he still has his gaze locked onto the floor.

“Because I’m a danger like this and I’ll have to wear them in prison eventually anyway,” he explains because he doesn’t understand why they haven’t put them on him as soon as he stepped into the room.

“In prison?” Present Mic yells out and makes the glass vibrate.

Hitoshi jerks back, expecting him to turn his quirk on him for real, but he doesn’t get very far when he collides with a solid chest. It makes him freeze like a startled rabbit because for a moment he forgot that Aizawa was behind him.

“Breathe,” Aizawa instructs him and Hitoshi sucks in a desperate breath even as he scrambles away from Aizawa.

“I’m sorry,” Hitoshi miserably gets out as he wonders what the punishment for this will be.

Because there will be a punishment. He’s in detention, just waiting to be shipped off to prison, and touching the guy who is supposed to guard him is most likely a no-go.

“Shin—Hitoshi, what do you think is happening right now?” Aizawa asks after a long moment of silence and Hitoshi curls in on himself.

“You informed the police about what I said. About wanting to use my quirk. I’m marked as dangerous in my file, so they had to pull me out of the family. I’m being put into detention here until there will be a sentence and I’ll be shipped off to prison.”

Present Mic sucks in a surprised breath and Hitoshi feels as if the temperature in the room just dropped by several degrees. He braces himself, just in case.

“I understand why you did it,” he dejectedly says and he wonders where his spunk from a few hours ago went, but in all honesty, he knows.

He still had some kind of hope when he snapped at Aizawa and Present Mic in the gym, but now—there’s nothing left. No reason for him to fight anymore, to pretend no matter what because his future is clear now.

He will never be a hero. He won’t even be a citizen any longer. Hitoshi will rot in prison until he dies and maybe that’s for the best.

No one has ever done anything—not to protect him and not to bring him to justice.

He always wished for either or to happen, just so that it could all be over, but in all honesty, he wasn’t prepared for this. For the hurt and the desperation to almost swallow him whole and he’s pretty sure he’ll never be able to face his teachers—former teachers, there’s no school in prison—ever again.

“Hitoshi, will you look at us?” Aizawa asks, his voice more gentle than Hitoshi has ever heard it and he presses his eyes closed, wanting to stave off the tears.

“No,” he gets out and startles when a finger under his chin raises his head anyway.

It’s more careful than he expected it to be and he can’t help but to open his eyes again.

The first thing he notices is that Present Mic is not in his hero costume. His hair is down, there are plain glasses on his face and he’s dressed in sweatpants and a shirt. Clearly he’s not taking his duty seriously enough, Hitoshi can’t help but to think.

“Hitoshi,” Aizawa says, effortlessly capturing his attention away from Present Mic and Hitoshi is almost more startled by his look.

He has his hair up in a messy bun and he seems almost small without is capture weapon and the black suit bulking him up.

“I’m sorry,” he reflexively says again because what else is there to say in face of the teacher who wasted so much time on him.

“There is nothing you have to be sorry for. We’re sorry for not explaining. You’re not in detention and this is not a punishment. We enacted the Emergency Foster Protocol to get you out of your current situation,” Aizawa explains to him and Hitoshi blinks because he knows those words, individually, but put together like that, they don’t quite make sense.

“Why don’t you sit down, kiddo?” Present Mic gently suggests and it’s so ridiculous and so stupid but all Hitoshi can think is that he doesn’t even know his name.

And clearly his brain-to-mouth filter has left him at one point because instead of moving and doing what he said he blurts out “I don’t know your name”.

It makes everyone freeze for a second and Hitoshi watches how Present Mic’s face falls so he scrambles to explain.

“I mean, you’re Present Mic, I know that, but—I don’t know your name. And you’re not—” he gestures at his entire get-up, “that. At the moment. But I don’t know your name.”

“Ah,” Present Mic breathes out, understanding washing over his face and he gives Hitoshi a soft smile. “Yamada Hizashi. I really would prefer it if you didn’t call me Present Mic in our home,” he admits and it makes Hitoshi balk.

Our home. As if he belongs there as well.

“I really have no idea what’s going on anymore,” Hitoshi admits as he allows Aizawa to sit him down on the couch and Aizawa clicks his tongue.

“That’s more than obvious and it’s entirely our fault,” Yamada gives back as he sits right down next to Hitoshi. “We’re sorry for that.”

“So you said,” Hitoshi gives back because it’s still no explanation at all and he turns pleading eyes on Aizawa, who sits down at the edge of the coffee table right in front of Hitoshi.

“After you told us what happens to you in your family, we informed a detective we trust about the abuse taking place. We enacted the Emergency Foster Protocol to get you out as soon as possible before filing for permanent custody. If that is something you want, of course. But until then, you’re staying here, with us. You’re safe now.”

Hitoshi blinks. He hears what Aizawa says, he does, it’s just—

“That doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“How so?” Yamada asks, a concerned look on his face and Hitoshi scoots away from him.

“There is no way this is real. Just a few hours ago you were afraid of me using my quirk on him,” he nods towards Yamada. “There’s no way you’d let me stay here.”

“I was about to level the entire school to the ground,” Yamada blurts out even before Aizawa can open his mouth to say something and Hitoshi frowns at him. “What you told us about your treatment and the Festival and All Might,” he hisses the name more than he says it, “made me so goddamn angry that I nearly destroyed every building in the vicinity. It would have killed you two, too, so Shou erased my quirk. It wasn’t about you at all, kiddo.”

The familiar way Yamada says Shou really throws Hitoshi off and with a hint of hysteria he wonders if he’s stepped into some kind of alternate universe where everything is just not quite right.

It certainly would make more sense than whatever is happening right now.

“Hitoshi, of course we acted based on what you told us,” Aizawa says after a lengthy pause that doesn’t help Hitoshi to organise his thoughts at all. “Of course it affected us to hear how much you have been hurt.”

And now this, this is something Hitoshi knows how to do again, so he scoffs right in Aizawa’s face because—

“Sure. You acted based on what I told you. So what? You went to confront the Principal? You went to confront All Might? Don’t lie to me. I’m no safer at school than I was yesterday.”

“We did, actually,” Yamada says, without missing a beat and Hitoshi would really appreciate it if they stopped doing this.

This is not what’s supposed to happen, this is not at all what Hitoshi expected, what he learned to expect, and it leaves him speechless yet again.

“I’m sorry you learned not to expect anything to happen when you tell people what was and is still currently going on, but we did confront both the Principal and All Might. Well. Hizashi confronted All Might and I suspect he’s still with Recovery Girl because of it,” Aizawa drily says and Hitoshi whips his head around to Yamada.

“What?” he breathes out and he can’t spare even a single thought to the fact that he’s asking so many questions right now because nothing at all makes any sense anymore and a small part of him thinks that if they get angry at him for asking a question it would at least be a familiar comfort.

“I yelled right in his face, quirk activated and all,” Yamada proudly says and he doesn’t even wilt under Aizawa’s glare.

“You could have killed him,” Aizawa points out and Yamada shrugs.

“Could have. Didn’t. Please, Shou, give me more credit than that, you know I normally have great control. I even asked him to change his form before I did it, so really, what’s the damage, huh?”

“The damage is enough to keep him in Recovery Girl’s company for at least another three days,” Aizawa gives back, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“It’s the least he deserves,” Yamada argues back. “Be glad I didn’t jelly-fy his insides,” he huffs out and Aizawa huffs out a laugh.

Hitoshi just looks back and forth between them, trying to make any sense of what they are saying.

He kind of feels like a broken record but—

“I really don’t understand. Like. At all.”

“Oh, kiddo,” Yamada breathes out and reaches out to take Hitoshi’s hand in his.

Hitoshi fights the instinct to pull it away, even as he braces for pain, but Yamada’s hand is gentle around his and Hitoshi dares to relax a bit.

“When I left you two, I went straight to find All Might, to ask him about what you said,” Yamada starts to explain and now that makes Hitoshi huff out a breath.

“As if he even remembered me,” he mutters because All Might certainly has other things to do than remember every crushed kid he leaves behind but Yamada shakes his head.

“He did actually. He knew exactly what I was talking about. And he still—” Yamada cuts himself off here, but Hitoshi can guess where this is going.

All Might still maintains his position that it would be better for him to be wearing his muzzle.

“He’s lucky he isn’t dead,” Aizawa says with a nod. “And that I wasn’t there. It was nice of you to ask him to change into his muscle form but I would have erased his quirk right then and there if I had been present.”

“So it’s a good thing you weren’t,” Yamada gives back and Hitoshi watches their interactions with new interest.

It’s only now that it hits him that if he’s not here to be detained then that means this must be the home of one of them. But—Yamada had said ‘our home’, so maybe they are roommates? Hitoshi watches them have another entirely silent conversation just with their eyes and he realises that they have been doing that a whole lot.

Not roommates then but partners?

“What’s going on in that brain of yours?” Yamada asks because of course he would notice Hitoshi staring and Hitoshi can feel himself go red in the face.

“Are you two—sorry if it’s inappropriate to ask but I was just wondering about your relationship.”

“It’s not inappropriate for you to ask, but you’re not even doing that. You wanna try that again?” Aizawa gives back and Hitoshi huffs out an annoyed breath.

“Are you two together?” he asks, trying to stare Aizawa down and realising thirty seconds in just what a horrendously stupid idea it is, since staring people down is literally in Aizawa’s job description.

“Married, actually,” Aizawa says once Hitoshi admitted defeat and blinked first and it’s so surprising that Hitoshi doesn’t know what to say to that so he simply nods.

“Anyway.” Yamada claps his hands together and dispels the weird silence hanging in the room. “Once All Might was dealt with I went straight to the principal. That is where Shou caught up to me and we went in together. Turns out, Nezu hadn’t known what happened to Bakugo at the Festival either, because he was busy dealing with the third years, but he did learn about it afterwards.”

“Let me guess. He congratulated them on a job well done,” Hitoshi bitterly mutters because he knows how these things go. He knows not to expect anything from authority figures.

“The opposite, actually, though it wasn’t well communicated to the students at large,” Aizawa cuts in. “You know about the strike system?”

“Yes,” Hitoshi confirms. “But that’s just for students.”

“It’s not actually. A strike for every serious offense, and you’re out after two, that’s the rule. It doesn’t just apply to the students, though, but to the entire school body, staff included. Nezu marked down a strike for Midnight, Cementoss and All Might, had them write a formal apology to Bakugo as well as have them apologise in person and he offered every support Bakugo thinks he might need. Additionally to that he wiped every recording of the ceremony off the internet, because he’s scary like that. He just didn’t communicate any of that publicly.”

“That’s—” A whole lot, actually, and Hitoshi doesn’t know how to react to it at all and so he decides to concentrate on that bitter feeling rising up in him.

“That means All Might is still around.”

“He’s not, Hitoshi, of course he’s not,” Yamada tells him with a comforting smile. “There are camera’s everywhere in the halls, so Nezu has it right there on tape that All Might still thinks that—well. Nezu wasn’t too pleased and it marks All Might’s second strike. He’s no longer allowed to come to U.A., let alone teach. Nezu would love to have his hero licence revoked as well, but given the current political state, that just seems like a disaster in the waiting, sadly.”

“If he has that on tape, then what about you? Did you get a strike, too?” Hitoshi feels sick thinking about it, because if Yamada loses his job because of him, he doesn’t know what he’s going to do.

“I didn’t, no need to worry, little listener,” Yamada reassures him. “Nezu might be a scary psychopath most of the time, but he has his moments. He understands emotionally charged situations and he let me off with a slap to the wrist, so to speak. I’m on thin ice for the foreseeable future, though.” Yamada shrugs as if it doesn’t mean anything to him and Hitoshi feels a bit faint.

“We’re sorry Sansa didn’t actually explain anything to you when he pulled you out of the house, but I guess he was under the impression you knew what’s going on and he just wanted to get you to safety as quickly as possible. It wasn’t done out of malice.”

“He was concerned for my safety,” Hitoshi mutters out, completely taken aback by that because that never happened before. No one has ever been so clearly concerned for his safety, rather than the people around him and it leaves him flabbergasted. “I was his priority.”

“Of course you were. We told him how important it is to get you out as soon as possible.”

“Why weren’t you there?” Hitoshi demands to know because if they had been there from the start maybe things wouldn’t have been so confusing for a while.

“Because us being there would have hindered the proceedings. We applied to be your foster parents. Us being pro heroes gives us more leeway than most, but interfering with an ongoing investigation into your current foster family could actually be damaging to our application, so we thought it best to stay back and simply welcome you home. We realise now that one of us should have went anyway, though, if only to explain things to you immediately.”

“You—really did that? Apply to foster me properly?” Hitoshi can’t help but to ask, since it doesn’t make much sense.

Nothing about today makes any sense at all, but this is just—Hitoshi can’t wrap his head around this.

“We did. If that is something you want, of course,” Aizawa says again. “As long as the request is being processed the Emergency Protocol will stay in place, so there’s no danger of you being shuffled around or temporarily placed into a group home. If you don’t want to stay here, we’re going to make sure you get a good foster family, one we personally approved of. And we would still do weekly home visits, just to make sure everything is fine. It’s your decision, really.”

And that right there is not okay at all. It can’t be his decision. Hitoshi doesn’t get to make decisions about his life, not like that.

“I don’t know—” Hitoshi starts but trails off because he doesn’t think he can admit to not knowing how to make this decision.

“It’s okay if you don’t yet, kiddo,” Yamada gently tells him. “There’s no rush.”

“No, I—” Hitoshi takes a deep breath and pretends he doesn’t realise that his hand tightens on Yamada’s as if he’s clutching a lifeline. “I just—I don’t get to make decisions.”

“Oh,” Yamada breathes out, barely audible in the space between them and Hitoshi can’t quite meet his gaze.

He knows that it’s a fucked up thing to admit to.

“That’s okay, Hitoshi, there’s no rush. You’re safe here with us, for however long you want or need, and when you figure out what you want, you can just let us know. There’s no time limit to this. If there’s no other application then you’ll stay with us until you feel comfortable making a decision,” Aizawa softly says and it’s too much, it’s all too much for Hitoshi.

“I think I want to sleep now,” he mutters, because maybe things will make more sense in the morning, once he’s rested and no longer as confused as he is now.

“That’s okay, too. You don’t have to go to school tomorrow, so don’t worry about setting an alarm. Sansa said someone will be by with your things later, so for now you can just borrow some of our clothes to sleep in. Are you hungry? Do you want to eat something before you go crash?” Yamada asks as if going to sleep in the middle of the day is an entirely rational thing to do.

Hitoshi shakes his head though, because his stomach is still kind of filled to the brim with anxiety and other fun emotions, so he doubts he could keep any food down.

“Alright, let me show you your room then,” Aizawa nods and gets up, clearly expecting Hitoshi to follow after him, which he does.

The room he’s being led to is spacious and even though it’s clearly just a guest bedroom it looks more home-y than anything Hitoshi has ever known and he is so perplexed that Aizawa’s voice turns to static in his ears.

It’s not long before he’s left alone, spare clothes shoved gently in his hands but all Hitoshi can do is fall face first onto the mattress.

He still doesn’t quite dare to trust this—anything Aizawa and Yamada have said, really—but he thinks that if things stay the same tomorrow, he knows what his first ever decision regarding his living arrangements is going to be.

Hitoshi is going to stay here. Aizawa and Yamada made the offer first, and seeing as they actually did something when Hitoshi told them about what’s going on, it makes him hopeful.

Hopeful enough to make him fall asleep with a small smile on his face.

Read the sequel "A man of justice" here

[athenamikaelson]

I come here to read YOUR story, if I want to dictate how the events in this story go I’d just make up a story in my head and hyperfocus on it for the next week while listening to a banging playlist

Or idk I’d just write a story myself?

Please don’t listen to anyone who tries to tell you how to write your own story or I mean do if you like their suggestions but yknow what I mean sorry I’m wording this really badly but what I’m trying to say is don’t listen to anyone who’s trying to force you to do something that you don’t want to do like ik u know this but reading those texts has got me to have to say it

Your story is a banger, make any decision about it that you want regardless of what other people say and also ignore everyone who’s telling you to make chapters faster.

Every other creator I know takes weeks (not hating like rightfully so I be taking 6 hours to write one paragraph) and the fact you do it way quicker isn’t an expected standard or a right, it’s a privilege, it’s like a blessing you bestow upon us that should never be taken for granted and everyone who is doing that, is factually insane and they need to go out into the real world and try writing something or follow literally anyone else who will also be writing fics in the same time, probably longer.

I know they’re probably trolls because it’s so obviously a wild thing to ask but like either way, it’s not funny??

Anyway I’m so sorry for going on a long tangent but TL;DR

I love your series and will continue to love it whichever way you want to take it, I love how quick you post content but if you want to take longer that’s totally okay I’m just grateful I can even read it and don’t listen to any of those trolls they have no life

Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to write this ❤️. I totally understand what you mean you worded it perfectly!! I l love you guys and would never want to disappoint you all so hearing this makes me so happy

[be-the-glenn-to-my-maggie]

Longass Crop Circles Notes (for Lately, I've Been Thinking and I Don't Think I've Changed Chapter One

Finally delivered to @spicymiilk our king. My apologies that these longass notes are not as detailed as last time. I shall endeavor to get more detailed as I read more of the fic. I will post my rage thoughts on chapter eight of for the nights and days of life by @mochalottie tomorrow though, and that shit will be novel length. Anyways:

Lately, I've Been Thinking:

-Me when Andrei says Spider will have a bad time: but does he ever have a good time for you??

-NORM CONTENT. *airhorn blares*

-I gotta love the tragic Shameless vibes you bring into my Spider fics, man. 

-Retweet, Spider, we all hate men. We are all scared of men. 

-Rip Paz, the fandom tries to tell me you weren’t a bitch but I don’t buy it. You totally were. Justice for Trudy, who was way cooler.

-Wait, did Spider do drugs too? The needles are around his bed? Or did he steal his moms bed?

-Lol, Paz is in and out, there is SO MUCH Shameless in this story. You can't hide from me, bastard.

-YESS, THE FAST FOOD AU. 

-Also, Andrei, what is it about beating the natural joy and zest for life out of Spider that gets u off?

-Neteyam will lOVE fixing this guy tho. Spider is his wet dream at this point. 

-I actually know a kid in my grade who was placed with one of my family friends when he was seventeen, he is fantastic. He’s the oldest of like, seven kids and the littlest ones go to the elementary school I work at now. My mom works there too and she always says you can tell when this kid is home because the little ones are showered and on time, and he takes them to get haircuts and stuff. He used to walk 45 minutes to work every day. He’s a great guy but he doesn’t stay. He doesn’t let them drag him down. :/

-Spider, on the brink of death, unloved and abused and neglected, dirty and with one single tangle of hair: hi

Neteyam: that is my soulmate. 

I Don't Think I've Changed Chapter One:

-WHATS YOUR DAMAGE THE FIC? That’s the one line I quote more from any other type of media. Every day I go “WHAT IS YOUR CHILDHOOD TRAUMA??” 

-N E T E Y A M VS SELF ESTEEM. MAN MANAGES TO HATE HIMSELF EVEN IN THE FACE OF SPIDER. 

-Also the fear I felt when I saw Miles and Norm are best friends actually, I’m comforting myself like “no no, he meant Spider it’s okay.”

-The hilarity of getting rid of Lo’ak and Kiri who are the canonically closest to Spider and leaving us with Tuk and Neteyam and Jeytiri. That excited me lITERALLY SO MUCH. The fast food au did start with only Tuk and Neteyam, and that’s juicy. We are forced to develop and explore relationships that are underdeveloped in canon and are harder to justify as instant sparks. You took away his natural in canon support systems so he has to learn to develop even faster with the other Sully's and that is a banger idea.

-W H E E L C H A I R J A K E. God I love wheelchair Jake aus, I love making them positive because I don’t like the way the first movie just fixed his disability. Give me Jake Sully being a positive disabled male father figure in his kids lives, just as present and happy and in love with his wife while paralyzed then he would be with mobility. What creative stuff has changed in their lives to accomidate? I need to know.

-Delighted by this Neytiri pov, my god. I feel like less people than I need in my life just let Neytiri have no bad blood at all with Spider in modern aus. She would be all over a neglected child.

-GET THE STICKY TOYS, thats so cute. And useful, I need him to get the magnets some kids got stuck to the ceiling in the gym at my work.

-Tuk is already bullying Neteyam about liking Spider and he isn’t even there yet. I’m lOVING the little bits of the fast food au I spot. She is going to be a menace. And clearly Neteyam is a lovesick clown.

-He is indeed about to get the shit loved out of him, and that is what every Spider Sully writer says before writing their fic. 

-WHAT DID THE MCCOSKERS DO SPIDER, NORM SHOULD KNOW, THEN HE WON’T PLACE OTHER KIDS WITH THEM BUDDY.

-Love the descriptions of how Spider feels when Norm’s body relaxes, just noting the way he backs off. So specific and accurate to any abused child. That tension and hypersensitivity to anyone's emotions, even people you implicitly trust, like never goes away.

-Norm thinking someone didn’t let Spider pee in the bathroom is so tragic and funny I feel bad for laughing. 

-Spider: heart palpitations upon seeing Neteyam

Spider: NORM YOU DIDN’T TELL ME YOU WERE WINGMANNING ME?

I am picturing Norm and Tuk in the back of a Burger King setting up an elaborate plan while Neteyam sighs and watches Spider from a booth while writing Neteyam Socorro on all of his notebooks.

-i am cACKLING. You’ve never seen rizz as strong or as intense as “MILES??” and “WHOS THAT? WHAT’S SCHOOL, I DON’T KNWO WHAT THAT IS?” Their dumb clown asses belong together.

-In all seriousness though, I can't imagine how humiliating it would feel to Spider to know some random acquaintance at school was now privy to all your personal problems and business.

-I want to know how often Neteyam frequents the local Burger King. He's probably so embarrassed at how ready he was to big brother this kid. He's gonna be like "looking hot today, uh, I mean, did you need help with your homework champ???"

-This is now like To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, Neteyam can call Kiri and Lo’ak on the phone and gossip about boy problems

-JAKE INTRODUCING HIMSELF AS A MILITARY MAN TO EVERY CHILD THAT GETS BROUGHT INTO THEIR HOUSE, NO ONE VETOED THAT SHIT?? Kiri hasn't been like "sTOP TELLING EVERYONE YOU LOVE THE MILITARY, YOU ARE EMBARASSING US."

-Also wow does Norm not know Spider’s dad was former military and he way not vibe with that at all?

-The way that Neteyam is still stalking Spider at McDonalds Or Burger King we can’t be sure. The mention of both places has sent me to space because it makes it seem like Spider used to work at McDonalds and then switched to Burger King and deeply obsessed stalker Neteyam Sully switched establishments to frequent.

-Spider’s fear of Tuk is hilarious and deeply sad, that is your bestie. 

-I LOVE love the idea of Kiri and Neteyam watching video essays. I love video essays, I wish my brothers did gOD. Also love a late night owl Neteyam head canon.

-Spider really is a wet rat. Have you ever actually seen a wet rat? The saying is so accurate. Kid was fed properly for the first time in years and then it killed him. Love kills Spider at first, as we have learned from all Spider Sully fics. He's like a dog eating chocolate, it's good, but at what cost.

[whateversawesome]

Can I spend a minute GUSHING about The Divorce?

Because while I love "Love is..." and "Last days of Operation Strix" is a BANGER, "The Divorce" is hands down my favorite fic of yours. So much so that I've gone back to read it several times (I've lost track how many but I'm sure AO3 has counted it for me 🤣)

The balance of internal conflict, desperation, and pinning is just perfect, especially for a single chapter fic. Having it all be from Twilight's perspective rather than flipping between the two leads gives this sense of dread until the climax. What's going on in Yor's head? How does she feel about this? It's all mostly unknown because, even though Yor wears most of her emotions on her sleeve, she's not giving Twilight much to work with.

And then she storms up to him and just kisses him! PERFECTION!

Handler and McMahon's argument in the negotiations is honestly so good. Especially since most of it is just justifications for why Anya should be split between the couple or stay with a singular parent. Unfortunately, that's something that would have to be taken into consideration in these conversations and you wrote it very real and uncomfortable.

I'm glad Loid and Yor resolved this without going to those lengths and even got WISE and Garden to back them on it.

Plus the art that inspired this fic is GORGEOUS. bless Tasoiano for that beautiful kiss! 🥹

Anyway. Thank you for your wonderful fics. ♥️

Dear Rachel, thank you so much for all the lovely things you said about this story. It means the world to me 🫂

It makes me so happy you like it so much. I loved getting into Twilight's head and writing it from his perspective 😊 and that kiss is one of my favorite kisses hehe. You're totally right, Tasoiano's art is so beautiful, I had to write something about it.

Thank you so much for the kindness you spread all over the fandom. Please know it doesn't go unnoticed 💖

[literaphobe]

What I'd be really excited for is to find out how this works in-world.

Is this literally the first time ever this has ever happened in that universe? Is it something that's happened before in history? Is there mythology about it in ancient cultures where love stories are solved by one person being teleported, thus proving them to be made for each other despite other restrictions? Has the fandom in that world been making jokes about "careful Dream, if you take another step to the left you might just teleport George there lol" about dnf?

Did the military try and fail to utilize it because it's too at-random? Does the government handle it or is it so rare that they decided "ah screw it here's a half assed law about how they should just try to get back when they can"? Are there non profits in places where cross-cultural or cross-racial marriage isn't allowed that treat these as a special case and fight for the rights of the couples? What does an extremely homophobic state/country do when it's two women or two men, do they go "ah look theyre just SO GOOD friends, you know its oversexualization to assume raptures are always romantic!!!" or do they just get super sus and try to sue you?

I'm probably reading WAY too far into it but I'm a worldbuilding nerd. Even if it's just the first time ever it happens I'll still be happy to read the fic tho! Your writing is super banger. I also want to note that it took me literal weeks to find the askbox because my brain is too hollow to understand how to do that from ur page on the theme and I have to do it by going thru the dash-sight when you click the eye. No pressure to give spoilers (I would totally eat them up though) and I'm sure I'll love it either way!

I feel like after this essay I can say that I'm that one long comment person on ao3 who disappeared for the last few chapters and to avoid my heart being actually shattered into a million pieces I'm waiting for the last chapter to come out to drop comments on everything, bc if I have to see them heartbroken again i will ACTUALLY cry and also if they don't get an actual happy ending I will also cry, and I've been trying to avoid that by trying to see if they are actually happy in the end via osmosis thru my dash before I read. I'm fragile sdkfjsdf.

ok this is a long ask sorry for the wall of text but anyways excited for ur future projects!

HI! also no, there is no pre-existing lore about teleportation in the rapture!dnf universe :) basically, they do some googling online but realize this is some freaky crazy shit that would be very hard to prove, so they don’t end up telling a lot of people, and even though they speculate that its possible they’re not the first people this /tp irl shit has happened to, they think it’s dangerous to try and actively find people who have experienced it on the off chance that it 1) gets them in trouble bc they’re famous 2) it doesn’t work 3) they get like murdered…. but basically, since dream doesn’t have a passport OR any legal records of him leaving the US and going to the UK, they realize how dangerous their situation could be because dream could be accused of trespassing, worst case scenario, which THEY DO NOT WANT so on the surface they’re hoping dream wakes up back in florida and nothing else happens so that they don’t run into any trouble, but UNDER THE SURFACE… what do they ACTUALLY want? y’know

also HOPING U LOVE SADF WHEN U CATCH UP AND LOOKING FORWARD TO UR THOUGHTS!!!

[bao3bei4]

kpop music videos that gave their fans sexual brainworms

OR accidental fetish pop and its fringe fanbase: meditations on gendered desire 

large warning here: i am someone who has been into kpop for the past 10 years. however, i have always been an extremely casual fan. i do write fic, but not rpf. if any of that makes you not want to hear me talk about kpop rpf (or you don’t want to hear about it in general), please keep moving.

anyway, obviously pop is corporate, soulless, and manufactured. but sometimes some truly bizarre shit gets past the committees and destroys a generation. these are their stories.

the video that started this is all is got7’s just right, released july 10th, 2015.

yes that’s all 7 members of got7 (one is out of frame) shrunken down for your viewing pleasure. they live in your room and tell you you’re just right. 

this sheer fetish power of this video is nerfed only by how utterly sexless it is.

they’re styled like and dance like this. it’s a totally unironic sendup of the seminal work that preceded it by four years, “what makes you beautiful” by the white kpop group “one direction.” the chaste energy of the whole thing makes you legitimately wonder if the good people at jyp have just never heard of microphilia. (during a dramatic reading of this piece, here a friend interjected seriously, “i think it’s korean culture not to talk about things like this, fetishes in the workplace.”)

it’s for the best, honestly, though because the actress in the music video is lee ja in, who was 11 when the video was shot. considering that the members themselves ranged in age from 18-23 at the time, i think it’s actually very impressive that we only have to cancel one. 

you receive absolutely no prizes for guessing that it’s jackson wang we’re sending to social justice prison. why’d he do this? no one asked. 

at any rate, got7 fans, or “gans” (they actually call themselves igot7s which is too twee for me), have much to think about here: all 7 very small members of got7 sneaking into their room, possibly weird age play, and jackson wang eating a very large cake.

let’s see what they actually did. 

twitter was actually very tame. the most charged thing i found was (unsurprisingly) from a bts fan (“ban”). i don’t actually know what it means, but i think it means something.

so, of course, i turned to the internet’s last bastion of free speech, where you can say whatever the fuck you want and receive cheers, or as the kids say, “kudos.” that is, i read fanfiction. 

for those of you who don’t know your herstory, i started my journey at Asianfanfics.com, where, at the time of writing, there were 12,067 got7 stories. i want to start this by saying that i think feminism won, because someone was paying real human dollars to advertise their irene/wendy fanfiction on a banner ad, which is quite possibly a win for women for everywhere. 

anyway, Asianfanfics.com’s search engine sucks ass (i kept on finding stories about different combinations of bts members worrying about their weight and being reassured by another member that were entitled “just right”), so i decided to look through all got7 stories written between july 2015 and december 2015. 

but, alas, not a single got7 microphilia fic to be found. 

also, some genre commentary while i’m here: i think the stories i respect the most are the “[y/n] is a ordinary girl who’s assigned to be got7’s manager! can she make them into superstars? as sparks begin to fly, can she keep it professional?” like fuck yeah that sounds like a kickass dating sim. it almost definitely already is one. i salute all the teens around the world for buying into the fantasy of dating a boy band member that they themselves sell you. 

however, i don’t think i respect the “[member a] and [member b] are mafia/jocks and nerds/college students/high schoolers” concepts. in my opinion, the whole fantasy of boy band member is their personas, their hidden real personalities, their celebrity, and the show business setting. find a different intellectual property if you wanna write about school. i even respect the “yugyeom drank girl juice [not estrogen] and turned into a sexy girl” story more, because at least it knows exactly what it wants, and also because they’re all still boy band members. well, band members. shout out to yugyeom. 

so, anyway, i looked elsewhere. at the time of writing, archive of our own only had 11,645 got7 stories, but it does have a better search, so it effectively has more. as an aside, i think it’s so funny, and mildly disorienting at first, that archive of our own separates the “music & bands” section from the “celebrities & real people” section. boy band members aren’t real people. 

the first problem i encountered is that only 20 or so stories were written within a year of just right’s release. absolute cringe gans. don’t you care about your boys? there were zero stories tagged “vore” or “microphilia” either. stories containing the word “tiny” that were rated either “explicit” or “mature” were all normal (“normal”) size fetishization rather than, you know, just right. 

however, i learned my lesson from twitter. i realized that what had happened was that watching this video had created sleeper agents, just waiting for their activation phrase. that activation phrase? bangtan boys. and yeah, lo and behold, there was one! unfortunately (fortunately?) it had nothing to do with got7, let alone just right, so i’m not going to talk about it.  

basically what i learned is that this video may have actually been very normal, and my brain has just been destroyed by being too online at a young age. 

however, there are plenty more videos in this genre. i present to you exo wolf, a banger from may 30th, 2013. i say banger, because in a comedic inversion, it’s actually fucking terrible. 

this video is pretty self-explanatory in terms of why it might induce certain responses. 

let’s get the formalities out of the way. this video, the member who’s getting cancelled is kai. he has braids in this video :/

also skating on thin ice: xiumin and chen. guys what was up with the whole exo-m thing? like, we’re gonna have a cpop subgroup, but it’s going to be part chinese members and part korean members that we’ll give a chinese name? unsurprisingly, the three exo members who have departed from the group are all chinese. they weren’t able to stand the microaggressions probably. but xiumin and chen remain uncancelled as an official chinese apology for five thousand of years of on-and-off invasions of korea. sorry guys that was kinda fucked up. our bad! 

anyway, there are basically three avenues for exo fans to take: 1) humans with wolfish characters (usually wolf pack dynamics, which even wolves themselves don’t fucking use so i think all of you should shut up. the real omega here is your brain), 2) werewolves (duh), and 3) wolves with human characteristics (i.e. standard furry fare). 

exo themselves let all these possibilities exist at the same time, superimposing them over each other, which is very woke and egalitarian of them. let’s see what the people decided. awoo.

Asianfanfics dot com had many stories in this vein. i feel very validated that this time i was able to correctly predict a fetish. that said, briefly returning to my earlier comment regarding alternate universes: it’s intense psychic whiplash reading about these vampires and werewolves, and going okay okay luhan is a vampire this that whatever, and then seeing the actual real performance photos the author attaches at the bottom of each chapter. bro i forgot these were actual people.... it breaks immersion so bad... i’m sorry, i just can’t believe that any of these dancing boys are having weird vampire sex with wings or whatever. 

archive of our own also had many stories in this vein. and i think there are some important difference between the two sites worth talking about. 

first of all, i think the higher engagement rate of archive of our own really enables some of the authors to get super bold. it makes Asianfanfics.com seem a little quaint, actually. like the wordcounts are waaay longer, for one. it’s uncommon for a story hosted on Asianfanfics.com to be more than a few thousand words long (most of them could easily be published in the new yorker), whereas some of these archive of our own people have written full length novels about if the members of exo were werewolves. i guess it’s just intensely demoralizing for the aff.com crew to get, like, three comments per story. 

the second big difference is that i’m noticing more common themes between the ao3 crew’s writing. like stan intertextuality, or plagiarism, or whatever, but they seem to be implicitly engaging with each other’s characterizations, storylines, and tropes. i think it is because they probably all follow each other on twitter. (i have been active on twitter for three weeks now so i am an expert on fanfiction twitter.) 

anyway, like not that i am a particularly big gan (cannot even list all the members), but these people seem to have reached a very specific consensus on how jackson wang, for instance, would react in a variety of situations that really surprises me? if i were to sit down and write a got7 story, i think the fuckboitude, the douchebaggery is a big part of his charm. not to be nationalist or anything, but for god’s sake, he’s from hong kong. but these people have him as very sensitive, lots of protective instincts. not that i understood what anyone on aff.com was doing with his character either, but they did all seem to be doing different things. “kudos” to that, i guess.

but: exo. wolf. i searched the “wolves” tag. this filtered the list down from 33459 stories to 52 stories. and the “wolves” tag was very different from the aff.com “wolf” tag. for the most part, aff.com liked stories where a member was a wolf (usually shapeshifting), feral boy, lots of y/n, lots of y/n dating a feral boy who is secretly a wolf. 

ao3 really, really, really likes alpha/beta/omega stories. sorting by the most popular stories, only five on the first page weren’t a/b/o. and one of them was a cis f!baekhyun story, so i think the intended effect was communicated. anyway, let’s talk about some of the themes. 

first of all, i’m disappointed. today’s bonus cancellation is of ao3 “wolves” writers. why the fuck are you drawing so heavily from european wolves?? there are wolves in asia!! you don’t need to keep giving their packs and ranks weird latin names. i will kill you. i hate italy. korea literally has a native wolf. i hate all of you!!! if you want to write caucasian wolves go watch that dumbass cw show!!!! my god. 

the second theme (the first one was white supremacy) is that no one wants to be a wolf who fucks. i think that we need a sex positivity movement, or something, for omega rights. like, are all of you doing okay? you’re queering misogyny by inventing new genders to oppress. another level to “no one wants to be a wolf...” is the “who fucks” part. there are so many consent issues. and not even in like, a sexy intentional way? in a “i genuinely do not think this author understands how their writing comes off” way. unfortunately i am sensitive to untagged sexual coercion, and there was a lot of that.

at any rate, the aff.com wolves were at peace with being wolves, very self-actualized. the ao3 wolves know that every minute they spend alive on this bitch of an earth is suffering, and also sex.

the third theme is the evolution of y/n. y/n, who, in a startlingly woke move for aff.com, is almost always korean, is a girl main character stumbling into love, boy bands, and wolves (i think it’s because aff.com is oldschool kpop fandom, so therefore heavily asian itself in userbase). but y/n is not the main character in ao3 stories. she is the straight best friend. in what i think is a hilarious move, ao3 authors invert the gay best friend paradigm to give the gay main character a straight girl as best friend. she usually calls him “a gay,” she has lots of thoughts on boys, and she knows his sexuality better than he does and before he does. (sidebar: if all the men are gay, and all the women are straight...)

there’s a really fun twist to this, though, because the main character is always a self-insert in fanfiction. but where older fanfiction like aff.com was at peace with this and literalize it via y/n shenanigans, modern fic writers who haven’t finished distangling their complicated relationship with wanting to be a man who loves other men instead simply imbue their main character with their essence. a little voodoo doll sehun, with a lock of y/n hair. 

this creates a deeply ambivalent relationship with gender in these stories. the main character is usually an omega, but one who resents being an omega. their body and its parts is usually described, if at all, as ostensibly intersex (except more offensively), but in practice, these discourses inscribe a trans body. (nb: i think cis writers approach this in a really fucked up fetishizing way, but i hope by this point we know that that goes without saying) it’s incredibly straightforward to read this, and see the underlying desires and fears in a heady cocktail of unfiltered writing that’s deeply confessional. you know when freud had people say whatever the fuck they wanted and figured they’d eventually free associate into releasing their subconscious into reality? yeah. 

okay, and while we’re on the topic, let’s talk f(x) nu abo, released on may 4th, 2010. 

this is a blitzy, maximalist, amped up dance hit that even has its own applause and cheers built in. it’s so fucking annoying, and i love it. 

this song is on here because the second most popular kpop a/b/o story on ao3 is called “nu abo” except it’s about bts. that’s offensive enough in its own right. write something about f(x) (702 works). when will women win the right to have their own self-lubricating holes.

anyway, even though f(x) is probably innocent in all of this, i’m still cancelling amber liu. 

for queerbaiting. who told her to look like ruby rose but hot? and for what? i’m also cancelling her for racism, but that wasn’t in this video. 

moving on to a double feature: vixx voodoo doll and vixx chained up, released november 19, 2013 and november 9, 2015 respectively. this is because while voodoo doll is more formative, i think the fans who write fanfiction today got into kpop more recently, so we are casting a wide net.

anyway, voodoo doll is jam packed with weird pseudo-medical imagery, blood, vivisection, bondage, puppet shit, femdom, sharps, piercings, asphyxiation, dollification, stabbing/penetration metaphors, and a really sick and catchy dance. god that looks like the list of tags on the a/b/o wolf stories. 

for this song, we’re cancelling you, for being way too into this song when you were 13.

vixx voodoo doll made me goth i guess! insert that pic of the your music saved me sign, except it saved me from getting into emo or pop punk probably. 

chained up, comparatively, is much more tame. the only thing of note about it is that there are around 10 completely different chokers and choker looks the members wear in this music video. also they’re singing about being chained up, but that seemed a bit obvious. 

we could argue that voodoo doll is gay while chained up is gay (derogatory); that voodoo doll is queer while chained up is gay; that chained up is a sensitive masterpiece of omega4omega sexuality. but we’re not going to. 

we’re going to talk about what voodoo doll fanfiction was and was not. first, Aff.com had plenty of it. however, i was extremely disappointed to see that much of it did not hew to the spirit of vixx voodoo doll. my god, the voodoo doll becoming the one preying upon you disgusts me. the fantasy of the voodoo doll is that of absolute power. the idea that the doll itself has agency? instantly breaks the fantasy. i’m even not into voodoo dolls and i’m offended. 

i also don’t think it’s part of the voodoo doll fantasy to release the doll. the only story on there that involved Y/N kidnapping vixx members like in the music video was unavailable because the author deactivated their account. come back qxeen what did you see. 

i think this got off track, actually, in that i was mostly wondering why these people imprinted differently onto vixx voodoo doll than i did. like i don’t think you’re supposed to actually like straightforwardly absorb the morals and aesthetics of music videos like it’s propaganda. however, it’s more entertaining if you do. i hope ao3 doesn’t let me down. 

out of the then 5932 works in the vixx fandom (the least out of every group so far, excluding f(x) because they’re women), 59 of them included the word “voodoo” somewhere. that’s 1%. i legitimately can’t tell if that’s high or not. 

after some more cursory reading through the first page of popular results, my big takeaway is that people watched that video and wanted to be tortured and enslaved? but not, like, in a sexy way where the torturing is the point, the way where the point is to suffer bravely and beautifully, to endure the world’s harms like jesus on the cross, and then to fall into the arms of a beautiful boy who may or may not be the one hurting you in the first place. 

there’s a certain predictability to these fantasies. like it’s not even masochism, which would be fun at least, it’s literally just like the desire to be beautiful, even as you suffer. and i do find that a little boring. (but, i mean, you can’t help being a woman!)

sidebar: on chained up. what’s interesting about chained up, is that most of the then 38 “chained up” works (likely because the video has no storyline) are about the members fucking during chained up promotions. no one’s ever actually chained up, but whatever. it’s fine. it’s fine! 

anyway, here, more than ever, the nature of desire is stripped bare. i’ve written before [elsewhere in the unreleased tshirt cinematic universe] on how kpop boys are, through fandom, re-formed as white, or more strongly, i guess, blank slates. it’s really interesting to me how so much of this dynamic of projection is enabled by the fact that they’re asian men. they’re infantilized, feminized vessels; they’re seductive, but childlike, oblivious to their own charms, so nonthreatening; they have uncontrollable desires for sex, they’re scared of sex. and above all else, white women submit themselves to them, insert themselves into them. basically kpop fans tend to rework old school yellow peril and emasculation fantasies to reenact their own desires, often white, often cishet on them. 

what i am saying is that there’s another thesis about forced feminization and its racialized subtext in here. obviously gender is a racialized construct to begin with, but like it’s fascinating to argue that when white women remake asian men according to their own desires, that is, into themselves, they (hopefully) unintentionally echo these old fears about the sexual order.

it illuminates, it seems, the underlying dynamic in the denigration of asian men, which is of course the fear of miscegenation. now, my breathtaking ability to make everything about me aside, miscegenation is interesting because it presents a racial synthesis, beginning to collapse and trouble the artificial designations of purity. so we make asian men into white women, and end up with an unsettling hybrid. i’m sure this has deep implications for me personally.

but i think we already knew that quite a few of these people had yellow fever, so let’s talk about the gender dialectic at play. basically, the above dynamic, of making men into women (whether literally, in body; or subjectively, in mind; or even relationally, as they are objectified into passive vessels for your desire) coexists with the ostensibly converse dynamic, in which the straight women desires to be a gay man. these aren’t necessarily in conflict: it could easily be that these are different writers writing different stories, that both are ways of expressing discontent with existing in a raced, gendered body, or even that the end product of both is the same.

it’s been a while without a picture. all of you now have the legal right to hunt and kill me for making a d&g joke.

anyway, what i want to talk about is how these two fantasies can coexist. that by making a man into yourself, you can speak on your own desire in a passive way. my normal interest is analyzing forced masc fantasies (albeit in chinese opera lol), and they bear little to no resemblance to this kind of fantasy. this kind offers plausible deniability, of course, because wanting things is embarrassing. but also the fantasy isn’t about wanting to be a man, it’s about having no choice but to be a failed one. the gender pessimism running through these stories is palpable. basically andrea long chu wants what wolf fanfiction writers know: everyone is an omega, and everyone hates it.

at any rate, this racialized dynamic is one that i wasn’t sure how to bring up throughout this piece, mainly because there is no definitive way for me to tell the race of any individual writer, beyond just like the clear and present vibes that i receive. but i think it structures a lot of the fantasies contained in this essay. (i felt more comfortable bringing up the gendered dynamic, because it was fairly trivial to find out the current gender of the person writing each story i was reading.) 

obviously we should return to the specter haunting this conversation: the very much alive david eng. i think this sort of argument is familiar to readers of racial castration, especially his chapter on m. butterfly. btw sorry for mentioning that play 2 out of 3 posts on this blog. i have problems.

let’s talk about the parallel imagery between the depiction of gallimard’s final speech and the fanfiction i’ve described above. in it, gallimard makes himself into his own dream woman, dressing in yellowface and robes, the costume of puccini’s original madame butterfly. and he laments his lost love:

there is a vision of the orient that i have. of slender women in chong sams and kimonos who die for the love of unworthy foreign devils. who are born and raised to be the perfect women. who take whatever punishment we give them, and bounce back, strengthened by love, unconditionally.

in that, i see the self insert, and i see the sufferer of vixx voodoo fic. the fantasy that gallimard has about asian women is repeated, this time about asian men and a helpless identification with them. and on some level, gallimard’s women do have something very compelling to identify with: they suggest that there’s a way to endure white male violence without sacrifice, and even more potently, to enjoy it on some level.

but onward to the titular racial castration. eng argues that gallimard’s wilful ignorance of song’s true gender is a psychic castration -- song’s masculinity is diminished so that his own can be enhanced within their relationship. this, eng believes, acts out “richard fung’s contention that in western imaginary ‘asian and anus are conflated.’” this process stabilizes the relationship between the asian man and the white woman: they occupy the same place within the sexual dyad. 

this is, i think, why some people are addicted to writing from the bottom’s perspective. again -- not implying that irl bottoms don’t exist or that bottoms are psychically castrated lol -- but rather that you can fantasize about this ideal asian man that you can come to embody. in kpop rpf, rather than it being between a white man and an asian man (unless someone’s started writing chad future fic), it’s between two asian men. so this transformation is performed. whiteness is always intruding and so i think eng is helpful here to making it visible again. 

this essay isn’t a callout or actual cancellation or anything like that, i do wanna be clear. i guess i just like talking about fantasies, even the embarrassing ones, and where they come from. i think oftentimes in fandom spaces, we write a lot of stories off as idfic, and i think virtually every single one of the stories i referenced to write this fairly uncontroversially fall into that category. but i think calling something an “id” something or the other naturalizes the satisfaction it gives as purely instinctual and unconscious, when i do think there are deeper narratives at play. while i didn’t ever actually reference the base here (sorry), i do think it’s worth talking about how real world power shapes & maintains the superstructure, and thereby our fantasies. 

anyway in conclusion, maybe i was the one with sexual brainworms the whole time.

[azems-familiar]

hello! are there any songs you associate with any of the kotor characters? (totally not asking bc my brain is hungry for animatic ideas haha,,)

OH BOY DO I HAVE SONGS

first things first, i will direct you to my twelve hour Revan playlist that i use for writing vibes, it's a mixture of vocal and instrumental and it has both a bunch of Revan songs for different eras of Revan, plus revalek songs, plus some revastila songs, plus some songs that just vibe.... it's good and most of the songs i'm about to highlight, if not all of them, are on there already.

NOW. HERE WE GO.

first things first, i need to introduce you to the title song for my mandalorian wars fic, oblivion by the aviators! god, this song doesn't fit all Revans perfectly, but it fits mine so well it was like it'd been written for her specifically, i swear. listening to the song was what inspired me to write the fic to begin with (and now i have a whole series oops). i mean, come on, look at the chorus:

Let the broken heroes rise Let the victors take their prize No one wins when justice dies War has let this age begin It's where we've gone and where they've been What a state that we're in Here in oblivion

can't look at that and tell me that isn't Jedi Knight Revan and the war that broke them.

next up!! liar by the arcadian wild, my beloved. this song is currently my top all time on spotify, closely followed by the song i'm going to rec after it and then achilles come down - and the fact that anything unseated achilles for the top spot should tell you something. (and if you don't know what achilles come down is look it up that one's on my playlist too.) this is a really good one for Revan's slow fall down, the corruption arc - again, all of the songs i'm mentioning really fit my own versions of the characters best, but they're just good in general. some of the lyrics i enjoy from this one:

hnext up, we have it all by pim stones. this particular one feels very revalek to me, early in the Sith years when they still maybe had good intentions, maybe after the war but before becoming Darth. there's this softer, almost desperate tone to the way the singer sings it that just hits me hard - this is the song i'm using as the title for my Sith years interlude fic! a lyric snippet:

All my life I've been heading for hell But never had I thought I'd drag you down as well I just couldn't resist what he was trying to sell

There's glory ahead but our love will be forgotten If my heart was still mine I would go to the bottom And apologise to you until the day it went rotten

next up we have the balancer's eye by lord huron, which is the song i named my series after (have you noticed a trend yet?). it's a very Revan vibe in general, and while i'm not as much of a fan of the style, the lyrics are really excellent!

Nothing's waiting for us in the great sky Life is equal to dust in the balancer's eye Now I know that I can't lift an old curse Tell me, how does a man change the universe?

Will I ever be forgiven for the crime of my life? Will it haunt me 'til I die?

mmm let's see what next. OH! go to war by nothing more. this is just straight up a Sith years song for revalek, whether you ship them or not - they were important to each other either way! ..... i am not going to tangent into yelling about revalek. that is not what this is for. anyway, the song itself is a) a banger and b) talking about love corrupting and falling apart and it just. it hits, man

Do we censor? Do we flow? Are we drunk on the chemicals? Every feeling in my bones Tells me to lash out and tell you to fuck off You've got my heart and I've got your soul But are we better off alone? With every battle we lose a little more Remember everything that we'd die for You are everything that I'd die for

oooh NEXT we have the song i was going to use for my Jaw Scene before i decided to write a full sith years fic. saints by echos is the song, and again, we've got Sith years Revan and Malak here (yes yes i have a type), the vibes of losing faith and anger and it blends really well with how Revan basically played off being a legendary figure to the Republic to fuel their war against it!

You were standing there like an angry god Counting out my sins just to cross them off Saying that my tongue was too loud to trust And that my blood couldn't keep you

My dear, you're not so innocent You're fooling Heaven's gates So you won't have to change You're no saint, you're no savior

mmmm okay the discord has informed me that ten (10) songs is the maximum i should do in one post so. i will only do four more. chrysalis - the last breath by delain is yet another Sith Revan and Malak song and honestly you can read it as a response to the song above, if you think of saints from Malak's pov and chrysalis from Revan's, they mesh really well together.

Hey, are you still mad? About the time We almost went too far I know your regrets In my defense; By now, it's just a scar That distracts you from Your broken heart Like you wanted it to do How do you feel? I don't... How do you know? You won't... To let go of you I will try Until my last breath How do you feel? I don't... How do you know? You won't... To let go I promise I will fight

next! for a complete change of pace, i have a revastila song for you - warrior by beth crowley. it somehow manages to capture exactly the dynamic i think of in my head when i think about Bastila, the uncertainty, the forbiddeness of it, but the way Revan ultimately strengthens her and she strengthens Revan

You fascinated me Cloaked in shadows and secrecy The beauty of a broken angel

I ventured carefully Afraid of what you thought I'd be But pretty soon, I was entangled

You take me by the hand I question who I am

uhhhhhh i am desperately trying to think of songs that aren't just about Revan but instead here i am with another Mandalorian Wars Revan song, what did we know by rachel rose mitchell! this song was introduced to me by the same friend who sent me oblivion, and it really captures the fall of the Mandalorian wars incredibly well imo - the way it started with righteousness but ended in pain (compassion leading to destruction and that's a ramble i'm not going on here either), and there's this line in there that i'm not including in my snippet that's what scares me more than anything / if we could choose the past / we'd probably choose the same and it's like. yes! that's it! i'm going to once again go insane over the scene in the Korriban tomb in kotor 2!!! knowing the price.... would you choose to do it all again........ aaaaaaaa

It's been so long since we began. It seems so long ago That in the name of loyalty We started on our own. Answering the call of a house we once called home, We knew that we were right. What did we know?

We swore that we understood this wasn't a game, But somehow we found ourselves fanning the flames. Those who cautioned and abandoned us, they were the same. I saw them turn away.

the final song i'm doing is the song i used when i wrote the Betrayal scene from Malak's pov, the little things give you away by linkin park. this one just. it vibes, it vibes hard, goes really into the actual grief of betrayal, and also has a super epic instrumental solo so there's that. as usual, lyric snippet:

Don't want to reach for me, do you? I mean nothing to you The little things give you away But now there will be no mistaking The levees are breaking

All you've ever wanted Was someone to truly look up to you And six feet under water, I do

All you've ever wanted Was someone to truly look up to you And six feet underground now I Now I do

god okay now that you're completely overwhelmed and never want to talk to me again....... i should've probably put this under a readmore but eh. thanks for the ask!

[savrenim]

Hey man, I am just wandering if I should go for another reread of ifmlam, but I wanna tell you that your writing blows my mind every single time, that your story telling keeps me captivted, that the relationship and dynamics created make me cry cause I know it won't last and that the skill with which you play with the what ifs and the world you created makes me smile. Thank you for the effort you put into you work, and please let me know if there is anything else you've done that I can read.

<3 <3 <3 <3 oh my gods this is. aaaah. thank you so much??? I am Crying.

so I still definitely am writing ifmlam -- the Hamilton film reminded me of some of the reasons that I originally fell in love with Hamilton, and even though my feelings about the setting remain Complicated, and ooof I have so many other projects that updates might be Slow, that is a thing that has definitely been spurred and is still happening. 

as for other things I’ve written/am writing which oh my gods oh my gods I cannot believe aaaah I’m so??? glad that you like stuff enough to want to read my other stuff?

--- we raise it up is my current fic that is updating most regularly, it is for The Magnus Archives and it also involves future foreknowledge as a super major plot point, bc oops “give characters knowledge of canon and see what they do with it” is apparently my favorite trope. I am usually very not into podcasts because I don’t process purely auditory things very well? (music is fine, which was why Hamilton worked, but also, I could read the lyrics.) but, uh, I read The Magnus Archives bc all of the transcripts exist online and that’s actually a pretty fun collection of interlacing short stories and worldbuilding and plot and gay! and fandom to get into and I think works just as well in a written medium as it does in an auditory one. the fic is major spoilers through season 4 and also kind of.... does assume background knowledge of seasons 1-4 to make sense, but I’m really really pleased with what I’ve written so far and what I’m planning to write I think the world background lore is maybe the hottest take I’ve ever had and I’m very much looking forward to the second half of the fic, that is kind of all about its reveal

-- the wind, the wind, the wind also known as lesbian Hadestown in space fanfic is something that I’ve been working on for oops a year and it’s finally gotten to the point where I’ve been dragged into an obsessive wanting to work on it and only it, which means that it’ll probably??? be ready for posting??? by the end of the week??? maybe two at most??? I’ll defs post a link on tumblr, but it’ll also go up on my ao3 page, which means if you temporarily subscribe to me as an author there you will not miss it. or just, like, check my ao3 page in a week or two.

-- gay murder elf bachelorette is a solo DnD campaign that a friend has been running for me as an experiment to kind of... flesh out I think a period of history in the world that they run a lot of their main campaigns in? anyways it’s been the experience of living in a novel and less like playing DnD, so I, uh, novelized three of the six arcs I’ve been in so far. they are:      -- Book 2: Of Wolves And Ravens: As Told By Three Letters Sent From Cloudfall Fort      -- Book 3: Tests of Faith (includes only one in-universe letter the rest of it is mostly dramatic storytelling, I might fix it one day but oooof so many writing projects so little time)       -- Book 4:To Stare Into Darkness: The Infestation Incident Of Black Lotus Labs, As Told By Four Letters Unsent, Three Letters Sent, And The Official Report Drafted By Acolyte Consecrate Iria Strell there are also canonical in-universe correspondences that can be found here and here that take place in between Books 3 and 4. I...may or may not write Book 5, which if I do will be Book 5: The Knives Behind Their Teeth: As Told By Consecrated Priest Iria Strell's Personal Notes On The Civilized Corpse Investigation that from the title alone you can tell was a banger (it is even MORE of a banger than the title implies. there was necromancy. there was the gay mess of THREE girlfriends all in the same town. there was Everyone Expects the Caedic Inquisition. there was dramatic truth reveals about my sketchy mentor. there was everything) but that is a balance of amount of time it takes to write these things vs Everything Else I Need To Do and I have recordings of the sessions so it’s not like I need them for memory means...??? we’ll see. the books are.... I really like them? I’m proud of my experimentation with the epistolary writing style. I think Book 4 is definitely better than Book 2 because I learned that I didn’t need to include every detail, and it’s definitely understandable to read without Book 2 if you’re willing to accept things in media res, so if you only read one I recommend that one. but they’re all pretty fun.

-- I’m also defs writing some original novels, that are eventually going to be posted for free online and I’ll probably start a tumblr that is just them but they’ll also be announced and linked to here? there’s The Numanok Files which are “bounty hunter punches ghosts in space” and will probably be coming out first, just bc it’s a series of novellas and it’s easier and less complicated to plot, and then trash novel (actually called “Opus” which has some cool in-universe meanings and is not just because this thing is my Magnum Opus, but trash novel in my heart) that is just. entirely self-indulgent written with zero intention of being good and only to be fun for me but in doing so is idk totally trashy but in some sense maybe the best thing I’ve ever written just in terms of it’s unapologetic and it does what it wants, which is what I like most in a story? but that is defs going to be several years because I want it all written before I start posting it and have I written a full conlang grammar structure and now need to write the language for my favorite fictional society in that universe? it’s more likely than you think. Numanok Files I wouldn’t be surprised if the first book is out within a year; it’s been fully outlined and partially drafted and the full drafting and editing process esp for something under 50k doesn’t really take me too long. I’m kind of transitioning from fanfic to original work just because I’m really excited about my ideas, so at this point I think ifmlam, wriu, and twtwtw are going to be the last fanfic I end up writing? but who knows.

this.... got very long but those are all of the things I’ve worked on and am working on in the immediate future, enjoy??? also gods no pressure to look into or enjoy any of them, I’m just so honored that you’ve enjoyed ifmlam to even consider checking anything else I write out

[hypermania]

Writer Asks

tagged by @sothischickshe

tagging @rooonil-waazlib @lisa-in-the-sky @unclesamwilson and of course anyone else who wants to do it.

ao3 name: prettylittlementirosa

fandoms: good girls, marvel, teen wolf

number of fics: 13, if  we’re only counting ao3 

fic I spent the most time on: it took me the longest to write be simple again but that’s just because i wrote about half of it and then abandoned it for a year. in terms of actually writing the thing, it would be the a thrill to pretty my cheek to series, more specifically my autumn touch of gold. i poured my heart into that all day, every day for like a month straight.

fic I spent the least amount of time on: knot again. i wrote it in one afternoon. 

most hits: knot again, of course... spent a few hours, got over 80k hits. isn’t that just always the way?

most kudos: knot again.

most comment threads: my autumn touch of gold. that was such a fun time. there wasn’t a lot of sambucky fic yet and the fandom was full of the most wonderfully supportive people, commenting every step of the way. 

most bookmarks: knot again. 13 more and it’ll be at 1500 if anyone wants to help round it out lol

highest total word count: a thrill to press my cheek to series is at 91k.

favorite fic I wrote: i actually am really, really happy with my autumn touch of gold. it was a labor of love and it was worth it. i wrote so much in such a short amount of time and i think it still holds up fairly well. i’m happy with the pacing and the the characterization and i still get messages from people about the portrayal of sam and nat and it just really means a lot to me. 

i’m also always going to love disappear when you come back, my little underdog fic. i wrote it knowing that most people would not like it or want to read it but it helped me work through a lot of personal stuff. i re-read it a few months ago (over five years after i originally posted it) and i was almost impressed???? like who wrote that?? me? couldn’t have been? anyway it has my most favorite bookmark anyone has ever used for any of my fics which is: 

Do not read this please

followed by a close second:

fuck

and the third:

ouch

asl;kdfjajsfdjk. those bookmarks mean the world to me lol

fic I want to rewrite/expand on: i don’t actually want to re-write it because i don’t have any better ideas but be simple again is the one that i am the least happy with. the last 1/4 of it feels forced and abrupt because, well, it was forced and abrupt. but people seem to like it so i leave it up anyway. 

i wish i had more installments for b-sides. i had so many planned out and a few even mostly written but then i fried my hard drive and just couldn’t bring myself to rewrite them. it’s unfortunate because most of them were nat/nakia  : /

BUT i am planning on expanding it’s good when it’s not right which i shall talk about in the next section!

share a bit of a wip or story idea you’re working on:

so i have a few wips. one is the brio texting au. the other is a sequel to it’s good when it’s not right. it’s more light-heartened. it’s a 5+1 (5 times beth lies about being with rio and 1 time she doesn’t) that happens over the course of the next 1-2 years and it sort of shows snap-shots of beth and rio’s evolving relationship (feat more rio/ben interaction and def some rio/annie interaction). here’s a snippet (of neither of those particular interactions):

"I thought that was you," she says, head cocked to the side, like she thinks she just solved Blue's Clues or some shit, before her gaze shifts to Rio. "I'm Lauren. You must be–"

"Christopher," he supplies, voice neutral. He's not sure how to play this yet—doesn't know if he should break out that grin he knows gets these suburban bitches feeling all types of ways that make 'em resent their ain't-rich-enough-to-be-this-boring husbands.

"Christopher," she repeats, and he can tell she was expecting some shit like José or Hector or Gang Banger #2 and it almost makes him laugh. The Patek on his wrist is worth more than the diamond on her finger.

"How do you know Beth?" she asks and shit, now he is grinning, because yeah, he's got that cease fire with Elizabeth but it don't have nothing to do with upholding her reputation with the Neighborhood Watch standing here.

"You know, it's actually a funny story," he starts to say, at the same time Elizabeth squawks, "he doesn't."

And she's real good at a lot of things—hell, lying her ass off is usually at the top of the list—but they're still standing close enough he can feel his chest press against her arm every time he inhales and fuck if he doesn't wanna watch this play out. He cuts himself off so he can nod along, lips pursed in mock concentration, as he listens to Elizabeth stammer on.

"We don't—," she tries, then, "I mean, obviously we—" Her hands come up to gesture at the empty space in front of her. "It's just—" She takes a breath. "I couldn't reach the—," she says, plucking the fajita kit out of his hand to hold it up like it's evidence her panties ain't all wet right now, "—and he's taller, so."

She throws the kit on top of the rest of the prepackaged food in the cart, like she thinks she's made a point, and he can tell she's straining not to look at him.

...so that’s coming at some point, probably. 

[captainjanegay]

[1D] tell me there are things that you regret

Title: tell me there are things that you regret Ship: Ziall (Zayn Malik x Niall Horan) Genre: angst with happy ending Rating: T Word count: ~4,4k Summary: “I bumped into Niall yesterday.” Zayn was so busy carrying two cartons of milk to the fridge and he almost missed those words. Almost.

Because whenever that name was mentioned, he still felt like a little spark was going over his whole body. A/N: ok, i’ll try not to babble for too long, promise. I’d like to dedicate tht fic for two incredibly special and lovely people. @lepetitcomte aka my lovely mum who gave me the request. I have to say that I hated her at first, because I can’t and I didn’t want to write angst. But then she told me to fixt the whole thing. So I did.

The second person I want to mention is @farfromthstars DID U GUYS KNOW THAT IT’S PIA’S BDAY TODAY?! I thought that today will be a great date to post this fic so I can provide you with some new Ziall content and (hopefully!) make you smile a bit ;’) ‘m sorry I haven’t managed to do anything just for you, promise to do better next year djasdjak Anyway! I love you so much, you deserve the Universe and then some more, I hope you’ll get all the hugs in the world, including an one (or more) from Niall ;’) I wish you the happiest birthday, love <3

Read on AO3

the fic wasn’t beta’d and all mistakes are my own. you’ve been warned, i’m sorry dakjdak

There was a soft knock on the door. Zayn knew who he’d find on the other side before he even went to answer it. There weren’t that many people visiting him and besides, when you lived all your life with someone, you got used to their habits. Even their knocks.

“Hello, love,” Zayn was greeted by a big smile as soon as he opened the door and a pair of warm arms tugged him closer, crushing him in a hug.

For a woman her size, Trisha Malik was pretty strong. At least when it came to hugs.

“Hi, mum,” he answered, pressing a kiss to his mum’s cheek. “What are you doing here?”

Just as Zayn expected, she almost completely ignored his question and walked past him to get to the kitchen. Only then Zayn noticed that she was carrying two bags, probably filled with food. Trisha started explaining that she just was in the neighbourhood and she decided to check on her only son - who she wasn’t seeing often enough, of course. Both of them knew that it was pure nonsense, but nobody said a word. It was always like this.

Before Zayn reached the kitchen, the counter was already halfway filled with groceries and boxes with homemade goodies.

“You’re aware that I can do shopping on my own? And that I also have a cooker?”

“I have doubts if you even use it. You’re forgetting to eat properly again, you think I don’t know you?” Trisha sent him a glare over her shoulder. “You’re getting skinnier and skinnier every time I see you!”

“You’ve seen me three days ago, mum. And you said the exact same thing. I think you’re exaggerating a bit, ya know?”

Despite his words, Zayn couldn’t help the smile that appeared on his face. It was nice to have someone that cared about him. Even if it was just his mum. Besides, his mama’s meals always were the highlight of his days.

For a few moments he only watched his mum shifting around the kitchen. Sometimes Zayn thought that she knew this place better than he did, even though he lived in this apartment for a few years now. And he did cook from time to time, despite his mum’s accusations.

To not feel like an alien in his own house, Zayn moved from where he was leaning against the doorframe and helped Trisha unpack all the food she’d brought. He also tried to keep up with the updates on their family and friends that his mum was giving him. It turned out to be harder than packing groceries away. To be honest, he didn’t really listened that carefully, it was a lot of information and he didn’t even cared about half of it. One thing was for sure - he didn’t inherit wordiness from his mother.

“I bumped into Niall yesterday.”

Zayn was so busy carrying two cartons of milk to the fridge and he almost missed those words. Almost.

Because whenever that name was mentioned, he still felt like a little spark was going over his whole body. It startled him hard enough, that one of the cartons he was holding, fell on the floor with a loud thud.

“Shit,” Zayn mumbled under his breath, picking up the container and clearing his throat awkwardly. “That’s- Um, that’s great. How’s he doing?”

His heart started pounding faster, which was absolutely ridiculous. He really shouldn’t be reacting like that. Not anymore. But… Zayn really didn’t know if he wanted to know the answer for a questions he’s just asked. If he was ready for it.

“Have you talked to him lately?” His mum said instead, as if she could tell that Zayn was having a tiny internal crisis even when he tried to hide behind the fridge’s door.

She probably could.

“I…,” Zayn started, unsure. “Um, we texted? Earlier this month or so, don’t remember.”

Of course he did remember and it wasn’t even close to this two weeks of October that had passed. The last time was about 5 months ago. Zayn texted him about Slow Hands being a great banger and that he loved it. Niall thanked him. That was all. Zayn remembered it painfully well. His mum didn’t have to know that, though.

Trisha glared at Zayn, probably hadn’t believed him at all. “We haven’t really had time to catch up properly, he was in a rush, as you all always are. But that’s understandable, his album is coming out in a few days, right?”

It took a lot of Zayn’s self control to stop a heavy sigh from escaping his mouth. Why did his mother want to talk about Niall so badly? Zayn knew why - just to mess with him. Or maybe because she adored Niall with passion, like everyone else always did. Probably both. Still, it was really unfair she made him go through this. Mothers shouldn't do things like this.

“Yeah, I think it is?” he nodded, trying to sound casual about it. He knew exactly when it’s out. He hadn’t really checked any social media in a while, hadn’t listened to the radio. And yet, he still knew that Flicker is out on October 20th, which happened to be tomorrow. It was hard not to know this, when posters with Niall’s face on them were hunting Zayn for a good two weeks. The Universe really did hate him.

And it was obviously just a coincidence that his mother picked that day to pay him a visit.

“I’ve heard his single the other day, they were playing it on the radio. It’s really beautiful, isn’t it?”

Closing his eyes for a second, Zayn took a deep breath and straightened up. It was starting to become suspicious that he was crouching with his head in the fridge for so long, so he needed to finally close it. That didn’t mean he was ready to face his mother who was watching him carefully.

“Um, I… I haven’t really had time to listen to it yet. Bet it’s wonderful, though. His previous ones had been really aces so why this one wouldn’t?” He said, making his way to the other side of the kitchen, aiming for the cooker. “Do you want some tea? I’ll fix us some, yeah?”

Tea was always a good idea, especially when it created an opportunity to run away from his own mum. Zayn loved her more than anything, but sometimes she was too much. And she wasn’t subtle at all.

Luckily, Trisha seemed to get the hint and she dropped the topic, telling Zayn about how Safaa was doing in school and what was happening at home - that of course he wasn’t visiting enough - in general. Zayn was glad to focus on that and not of his former bandmate that still had this weird effect on him.

It wasn’t until later, when they sat by the table, all the groceries put away, a cup of tea in each hand, something bubbling happily in a pot his mum put on the cooker a while ago. Zayn was content with the relative silence, having his mum on the other side of the table and not having to worry about anything important at the moment. But it would be too good of an afternoon if it had stayed this way.

“You really should talk to him, you know?”

Zayn flinched, turning his head towards his mum.

“Who?” he asked dumbly. Considering the look on Trisha’s face, he knew exactly what she was going to say next. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t pretend.

“Niall,” she said, looking like she was trying very hard not to roll her eyes. Instead, she looked at her son, a hint of worry in her voice. “Don't you miss him?”

“We are talking,” Zayn stated, completely ignoring the second question he was asked. The only reaction he’d gotten was a disapproving glance. Damn, this woman knew him too well. “We really are. Maybe not as often as we used to, but… I mean… I don’t know what you expect me to say.”

“I’m not expecting you to say anything,” she sighed. “Well, not to me, at least. But don’t you think it’s time to stop sulking?”

“I’m not sulking.”

Even Zayn could tell that his voice was saying something completely opposite and he hated himself for that. But the truth was, he wasn’t sulking. Pining, maybe. But not sulking. He wasn’t five to be sulking without any reason to do so.

“It’s just…,” his mum leaned forward, biting her lip, “you two were so… close. And happy. Back then. I miss seeing you like that, you know?”

“Mum…,” it sounded like a whine and Zayn wanted to bang his head against the table. However, he doubted if that would help him convince his mother that he was totally ok and totally not sulking. “Why are we talking about him anyway? You bugging me about it wouldn’t change much, would it?”

Zayn almost winced at how harsh his voice sounded. He didn’t mean to snap at his mother like this. It was just tiring, being reminded how he had fucked up and what he had lost. Whom he had lost. Zayn would prefer some help with forgetting about all this.

Trisha sent him a hard look and for a few second, she hasn’t said a word. When she finally spoke, her voice sounded much softer and kinder than her look might suggest. “You’re right. Me bugging you about him won’t change much. But maybe I’ll finally bug you enough that you'll do something about it.”

Clenching his teeth, Zayn looked down at the mug he was holding, not saying anything more.

***

Zayn wasn’t the easiest person to be around. He had some awful habits, that he knew he should get rid off, but he couldn’t. Tendency to run away from his problems when they were becoming too much to handle, cutting people off - even the ones closest to his heart - or feeling suffocated by a lot of, sometimes very trivial stuff. Some people said that it wasn’t something bad, that it was just his way to deal with the big, bad world. Or at least his mum said so. But the truth was, that sometimes those things was getting in Zayn’s way. Stopping him from doing things he really wanted to do, but was too scared or too stupid to try.

With a heavy sigh, Zayn rolled on his bed. He should add “overthinking” to the long list of his bad habits. As well as “thinking the dead of night is a perfect time to reflect on his miserable life”. It wasn’t causing any good.

He untangled his arm from under the covers and tried to find the phone without opening his eyes. It was harder than expected, but finally his fingers reached the device and brought it up to his face. Peeking one eye open, Zayn cursed under his breath when the bright light hit his tired eyes. It was just a few minutes after 3 in the morning and Zayn hated the whole world as if his insomnia was its fault. But it was easier, blaming something that couldn’t defend itself. This way his guilt trip wasn’t eating him alive.

He was mostly alright, though. Just sometimes, on nights like this, he felt that stupid sinking feeling in his stomach, the urge to punch someone. Himself, preferably. It was all gone the next day, most of this moping at least, so it wasn’t really that bad. The only problem was that nights like that were happening quite often lately.

After a few minutes of mindless staring at his phone, Zayn taped out the code and unlocked it. For god-knows-which time he gave himself a mental smack on the head and almost laughed at his own soppiness. There were so many combinations and yet, he had to pick those four damn digits. And after all this time he couldn’t bring himself to change it.

His fingers hovered over the screen, not sure why he’d even taken the phone.

Except he did.

With a defeated sigh, Zayn clicked the Spotify icon. During her visit, Trisha at least ten times mentioned how beautiful Too Much To Ask was and that he should listen to it. And who Zayn was to say no to his own mother.

It wasn’t like he didn’t want to hear it. Listening to Niall’s voice was always a great experience, no matter whether the Irishman was singing, talking or laughing. And that was exactly the reason why Zayn was so hesitant. The fact that he wasn’t able to hear much of the talking or the laughing lately hurt too much.

Plus, after hearing to the previous single, Zayn wasn’t sure if he could handle to the rest of the album. Listening to Slow Hands made him feel that awful sting of jealousy, because thinking about Niall hooking up with some random chick wasn’t really his favourite way of spending the day. The possibility of hearing more things like this made him anxious. He didn’t want to realise that Niall was over him, while Zayn most certainly wasn’t over Niall. Didn’t matter what he was telling others.

Nevertheless, he was a weak man. Especially with his mum gushing about the song all day and sending him all those weird looks. He typed out the title and clicked play, trying to ignore his pounding heart.

Soft sounds filled Zayn’s bedroom. Just after the first notes, Zayn knew that it wasn’t something he had expected. When Niall started singing, Zayn closed his eyes and clutched the phone more firmly in his hand. After a while without hearing it, Niall’s voice sounded different from what Zayn remembered. It was stronger, somehow a bit foreign. But at the same time so familiar. And even more beautiful.

Zayn was worried that over the furious pounding of his heart he wouldn’t be able to hear the lyrics properly. But every single word was clear as day, resounding loudly in the silence of the room. And it felt like every single one of them was ripping Zayn’s heart from his chest, releasing all the thoughts and feelings he was carefully stashing for all this time. It was all out now, like Zayn could hear it in the song.

Staring down at his phone, Zayn didn’t know whether he wanted to turn it off or to play the song once more and then again, so he wouldn’t miss anything. He did none of this, vision to blurry to see the screen properly. Was he crying? He wasn’t really sure. Zayn held his phone even tighter, feeling the urge to throw it across the room, to make it all stop. Instead, he just lay on his bed, petrified.

He felt like there was not enough space in his lungs for him to breath properly.

Not enough space in this room. Or in this city.

All the thoughts in his head, the sounds of the song, his pulse pounding in his ears, it all seemed to mix and blend until it turned into a static noise in his mind.

Before Zayn even realised, he was standing in the middle of the room, putting on first clothes he could find. It might have been the worst thing to do, but he couldn’t just let it go.

He had already let go once.

The whole ride was just a blur. Zayn had no idea how he managed to get to the other side of the city without crashing his car or running somebody over. He parked the car, barely remembering about locking it up. After a few more minutes, after running in the chill autumn air, Zayn finally reached his destination. He was trembling all over, his hands shaking. It was hard to tell whether it was because of the emotions, the cold or something entirely different.

Zayn stood there, staring at the door in front of him. What was he even doing? He didn't know if Niall was here and the song might not meant what Zayn thought, hoped it did. Was he allowed to do this? Just show up at Niall's doorstep, all of sudden, after months of silence and years of not seeing each other? Why was his heart speeding its beating even more, just at the thought of seeing Niall's face?

Zayn took a step back.

The adrenaline he felt earlier was rushing out of him with every breath he took. Instead, the panic was slowly taking over. Zayn felt the urge to run back to his flat, bury himself under the covers and pretend he'd never heard Niall's song, his mum's words from earlier and the crazy thumping of his heart. In situations like this, Zayn had never been the brave one and the possibility of being rejected or Niall not being here, made it even worse.

Although, Zayn was a coward earlier and instead of protecting him, it left him with a wounded heart. It was hard to live with it. So he knocked.

For a few, incredibly long and painful moments, nothing was happening. Zayn had a feeling that he still could hear the echo of his fist knocking against the wooden door, noise so loud in the quiet night. But maybe Niall didn’t hear it? If he even was there, he was probably asleep and Zayn knew Niall always was a heavy sleeper. Trying to ignore the anxiety and the blood rushing in his ears, Zayn raised his hand to ring the bell.

As soon as he placed his finger on the doorbell, the door swung open. Zayn’s brain needed a few long seconds to gather what was happening and only then realised that he should stop ringing.

Despite everything, Zayn really couldn’t believe that he was lucky enough to catch Niall in here, that he wasn’t on the other side of the globe. He really hoped that it was a reason to be happy.

They stood there, just staring at each other, none of them could really believe who they saw. Zayn’s eyes wandered through Niall's body, just for a second or two. He was in a pair of sweats and a loose shirt, that was still stretching across his broad shoulders. His dark hair was ruffled, short stubble covering his cheeks. And those beautiful blue eyes, now wide opened were staring right at Zayn. Niall looked different, more mature, maybe more tired. Which seemed odd, because not that much time had passed since they've seen each other the last time, so things shouldn't change that much. And yet, they seemed to do.

“Zayn.”

Niall's tone was quiet, but not unsure or questioning. It sounded a bit like a sigh, but Zayn couldn’t tell whether it was a relieved or heavy one. Zayn’s heart - just a second ago pumping like crazy - now almost stopped after hearing his name being said by that low, raspy voice that he loved so much. His breath hitched in his throat, tongue feeling too big for his mouth. What was he doing here? It was difficult to catch at least one coherent thought in the mess that Zayn’s mind was at the moment. Mostly, there was Niall, his eyes closer that they were in years, his smell, his voice. And that damn song, still playing in Zayn’s brain on repeat.

“Was it about me?” Zayn blurted out before he could think twice.

It might not be the best way to start this conversation, but Zayn was surprised and quite proud of himself for being able to produce any words at all.

“I- What?” Niall shook his head, like he tried to focus. “Was what about you?”

“The song,” Zayn took a step closer. His fingers were twitching to touch Niall, to grab at his arm. To resist the urge, he curled his hands into fists. “Too much to ask. Was it about me?”

Every time that question popped up in his head, Zayn felt stupid. Like he was still as vain as people tried to portray him. That he was just imagining things that weren’t there. Because… was he really that relevant? Was he so relevant that Niall had written such song about him?

But now the question was out. Zayn opened his heart for Niall and there was no coming back. He could only wait and hope that Niall’s answer won’t break him completely.

In response, Niall’s eyes widened in shock and he looked down after a second or two. Zayn could hear the deep breath he took. Niall’s hand that was holding the door, gripped the wood a bit tighter, while the fingers of his other hand ran through his hair.

“Nia-”

“What are you doing, Zayn?” when Niall spoke again his voice was harsh. He snapped his head up, but he looked more tired than angry. “What is this all about, why are you here? It’s not like we pay ourselves a lot of visits lately, you know?”

Zayn didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t sure if he should say anything at all. Before he could even open his mouth, Niall spoke again.

“We haven’t talked in months and now you just come here, like nothing had happened, in the middle of a fucking night? And you ask me if- What the fuck, Zayn?”

Niall took a step forward. They were standing almost chest to chest and Zayn was no longer sure of anything. He tried not to think about how did Niall’s body changed, tried not to be intimidated by how big he seemed from this close.

“It was so damn hard and when I thought that I- Fuck, I was doing better. And now you’re fucking here. What do you want me to do?” Niall’s fingers ran through that little piece of hair on his temple, the nervous gesture he’d never got rid off. “You want me to tell you that I was so attached that I couldn’t get over you? That I tried to hate you for how our relation went, but I couldn’t? That I’ve written a fucking song cause I don’t know how to deal with such things differently?”

The more Niall talked, the quicker and more jumbled his words became. Zayn could feel Niall’s hot breath against his face, his own heartbeat almost drowning out what Niall was saying. Scattered words were echoing through his head when Zayn tried to make sense out of them, to make sure that he heard what he thought he did.

It seemed almost impossible, though. In that moment, Zayn could think about only one thing that might help him understand. Only one thing that he wanted to do. So he leaned forward and pressed his lips to Niall’s.

He missed a bit, placing a kiss on the corner of Niall’s mouth. That move surprised Niall, who made a weird noise, his words muffled by Zayn’s lips. He jerked back, staring at Zayn, wide-eyed and silent. Feeling more anxious and stupid with every passing second, Zayn opened his mouth to say something. Apologise or say goodbye and run away. Anything to break this silence.

He never did any of those, because all of sudden Niall’s hand were on him, grasping the front of his hoodie and pulling Zayn closer, right into Niall’s arms, into his warmth. Their lips crushed together, the angle not exactly right to kiss properly. Zayn moved one of his hands up, from where it was resting on Niall’s chest and gripped the back of his broad neck. Trying to tangle his fingers in the short, brown hair at the nape, Zayn turned his head and took another step forward, pressing his chest into Niall’s. He could feel Niall’s heartbeat under his palm, trapped between their bodies.

A sigh escaped Zayn’s mouth, when he felt Niall licking at his lips, trying to get inside. He let him, pressing himself further into Niall’s embrace. He was afraid to let go, afraid that if he did, it would all disappear and he’d be back in his flat. Alone.

“Fuck,” Niall mumbled into Zayn’s mouth, leaving a few more small kisses on his lips. Slowly straightening his fingers, he brought his hands up to cup Zayn’s face. Niall rested his forehead on Zayn’s, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. “Fuck you, Malik. I’d never free myself from you.”

“I don’t want you to,” Zayn whispered quickly. “Please don’t.”

A breathy laugh escaped Niall’s mouth. He moved his face away, just the slightest bit so he could look Zayn in the eyes. Absentmindedly, Niall rubbed Zayn’s cheek with his thumb. Zayn felt like his heart was about to burst in response to that gentle gesture.

“Do I have a choice?” Niall asked, his voice a bit teasing. “I was trying to and you fucked up all the progress I’ve made.”

Zayn grinned, trying to kiss Niall again, but his smile made it quite impossible.

“Sorry it took me so long, though,” he said and then added, getting serious, “Really. I’m sorry I kept you waiting. I was too scared and didn’t know what to do. And the longer I waited, the more I was convincing myself that it’s too late to fix it. I’m an idiot and-”

Just like Zayn did earlier, this time Niall closed his mouth with a kiss. It was very effective, maybe even too effective, since Zayn’s mind went completely blank, Niall’s lips the only thing he could think of.

“You are an idiot. ‘M happy you’d finally understood that so we can move on.”

“Actually it’s my mum. That helped me understand, like. She was dropping subtle hints for some time now,” Zayn felt like his face was going to break in two from how big he was smiling.

Niall hummed in acknowledgement, biting at his lower lip in a rubbish attempt to hide his own smile.

“Always knew Trisha’s the best Malik.” He said, moving his hands from Zayn’s cheeks to wrap his arms around Zayn’s middle. “But how about we talk more in the morning? Don’t want to ruin the mood but it’s gonna be fucking downing soon.”

“Oh. Right. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t-,” Zayn started. “You have a busy day ahead, I should just go…”

Niall only snorted, pulling Zayn inside and closing the front door behind them. “As if I’m going to let you go ever again.”