#aside from the. obvious teeth stuff

[ineffableuser]

I’m 100% sure that lots of people have brought this up before, but

I had never thought of how perfectly fitting “Teeth” by 5SOS is with Astarion’s romance

Like wow

[softbabybelle]

corruption 001. 𓍯𓂃 rֶָ֢ cameron

rafe cameron x shy!reader

𝜗𝜚 Summary : rafe finds sarah's best friend sitting in her room after she sneaks out to see her boyfriend, topper, and offers to keep her busy while teaching her something new.

𝜗𝜚 words : 2.5k

𝜗𝜚 c!w : weed, smoking, drvgs, suggestive.

part 2. part 3.

by the time sarah had re-entered her own bedroom, you were laying on your back across her bed, twisting your hair above your face, absentmindedly playing with the strands.

"i have a favour to ask." upon hearing your best friend's voice, you turned so you were laying on your stomach.

you liked having sleepover's with sarah but sometimes, she wasn't all that reliable. "m'kay." though you already had an idea what following words would pass her lips.

"i just got off the phone with topper and he wants me to go meet him." she settled herself against her drawers. "but my dad'll kill me if i stay out past curfew. think you could cover for me?"

you batted your lids at the girl, frowning for various reasons. you'd brought all your stuff so you and sarah could hang out, you were getting a little tired of her using you as an excuse to see her boyfriend and you were downright petrified of ward cameron. there was something awfully frightening about your friends' parents.

but you didn't like to be troublesome. so a small "okay." passed your lips with a thin smile.

it took sarah less than twenty minutes to get ready and before you knew it, you were waving goodbye as she snuck out the window.

she left the tv on so you could watch one of your shows but you were much more inclined to reading the book in your bag. at this point, you'd grown accustomed to sarah leaving you during the middle of your sleepover's, you had to come prepared.

the reason she invited you over and snuck out was because she knew ward wouldn't dare go near her room when she had a friend over. none of her family did.

well, none aside from one.

"sarah!" you heard a familiar voice from behind the door followed by a bang against it that rafe cameron would later excuse as a 'knock'. "listen, i know you took my fuckin' charger, so give it ba―oh."

rafe was sarah's older brother, you'd seen him around plenty of times and he'd surely seen you. at this point, you practically lived in the house. many times you'd sat across from him at the dinner table or sat on the beach chairs with sarah while he was in the pool. though you didn't often speak to him.

perhaps that was your fault more than it was his, though.

"you're here." he stated, glancing around the room for the white charger he was missing.

rafe often initiated conversation with you but it was only in your shy nature to nod after he said something and use less than two words to communicate before scurrying down the hall after sarah.

this time, she wasn't here to be your human shield.

"uhm, yeah." you sort of just squirmed, hoping he didn't ask about why you were in here alone.

but you didn't often get what you hoped for. "where's sarah?" snatching up the charger. upon his question, you blinked at him, a stretch of panic flashed across your face. you didn't even need to say anything, your look gave it all away. "snuck out with topper, huh?"

your top lip snuck your bottom teeth in. "please don't tell." you weren't used to being so confined with rafe. sure, you'd been in a hallway with him before but come to think of it, you weren't sure you'd ever been in a small room like sarah's, alone, with the door shut.

"wasn't going to." he counters. his eyes pass over the room, raking down to you. you were sitting on the bed with a little book in your hands, pink bookmark sticking out from the page you left it on. "you don't need to be sittin' pretty in here all alone, though." he approached the door before turning to face you. "you comin'?"

it was as if he'd expected you to follow. you hastily stood, pink blush across your cheeks. "where are we going?"

he shrugged. "my room." as if it'd been obvious.

a nervous pit swirled in your stomach. you hadn't spent enough alone time with rafe to be invited into his bedroom. sarah was the one out of the two of you who talked to many guys. you kind of just stood idly by, a nervous look on your face as you bit your bottom lip and angled your head to look at the ground. you supposed rafe wasn't so bad, though.

after all, you practically grew up with the boy.

but that didn't make it any easier.

"so, uh, how's school?" he sniffed, inviting you into the room before shutting the door closed.

you'd been around sarah and her friends long enough to know that the smell swirling the room was weed. something you'd never so much as touched. the room also had a smell of some expensive cologne, the same one you often detected from rafe.

"it's okay." you offered, standing idly near his dresser, hands messing with the hem of your shirt. "what about you?"

a soft sort of smirk fell across his face. "i'm not in school anymore." he reminded you before taking a seat on the bed, taking something out from the beside table's drawer.

"i knew that, sorry." you felt your face flush. you hated this, always making yourself look silly when you spoke to rafe. it was why you avoided him in the first place. you wanted nothing more than to run out of the room to where you came from. but sarah was gone, meaning you had nobody to use as an excuse or a getaway.

you'd merely have to endure.

he didn't say anything, only offering a humorous huff from his lips.

"you mind?" your eyes trailed down to what was in his hands, the source of the smell you'd detected earlier. "asked you a question, sweetheart."

"oh, uhm." your eyes snapped up to meet his, head feeling floaty at the name. "i don't mind if you smoke. it's you're room."

again, he offered no response but continued to take out his pieces. he was currently in search of a lighter. "what are you standin' all the way over there for? sit down. i don't bite." but there was a quirk to his lips when he said it that made you think he did bite.

"sorry." you mumbled before shuffling to the bed to sit on the furthest edge you could.

you didn't miss the way rafe rolled his eyes. he looked back at you, studying your features. "split one with me?" he was testing the waters. he knew you enough to gauge assumptions about you. asking him? you didn't drink, didn't smoke, didn't have sex. you were the type of girl who stayed in your friends bedroom reading a book while they snuck out to meet their boyfriend.

he wanted to see if you'd give in.

your eyes were watching his hands, the way he rolled paper between his fingers. "uhm, 've never smoked."

ding ding ding.

he cocked his head. "want to try?" he could see immediate panic flash across your features. in a way, it was exactly what he wanted. he wanted to soothe you into this, not for you to instantly kneel at his every command. he knew you weren't easy. "c'mon, baby, 's just me. promise i won't let anything happen to you."

"i don't know." you shook your head slightly.

you were no stranger to the names he used on you. he often spoke them in a soft yet playful voice, especially around sarah. you just thought he liked seeing his sister get angry, tossing a pillow his way and telling him to stop treating you like one of his 'notches on his belt' but if he was only keen on making sarah angry, then why was he calling you such things while you were alone, sarah nowhere in sight?

"how long have you known me?" since you were very, very young. "one can't hurt. you trust me?" you slowly nodded, eyes still wavering to his hands. "so what'do you say?"

you knew you shouldn't. if your parents ever found out, they'd kill you with their bare hands and rafe would be next in their death note journal.

but there was something about the way he was looking at you that had your stomach folding in two.

besides, you never did like upsetting people.

if you didn't say yes, rafe would think that you didn't like him. he would be upset that you'd be so mean to refuse such a kind offer.

so nonetheless, a small squeak of an "okay." left your lips.

"atta girl. c'mere." he gestured down and you blinked at him confusedly. was he asking you to sit in his lap? you swallowed thickly. "c'mere." he repeated, this time between a soft chuckle. he reached out for you, helping you to sit flush against his lap.

instantly, you swore you had never been so red in your life.

your eyes were all wide and embarrassed, cheeks flaming red hot while you tucked your bottom lip under your top one again. a habit you supposed you'd die with. to say you were shocked to feel his hand against your face was an understatement. his thumb pulled at your lip from between your teeth, securing it away from harm. "don't do that." he mumbled. "you know how to take a pull?"

awkward and embarrassed were two words you swore were forgetting their meaning. this was above and beyond that. "you just... suck, right?" you squirmed in his lap at your own words.

"inhale, sweetheart." he moved the rolled blunt up to your lips. "open." you complied and he stuck it between the two, lifting the lighter to set the top to a low burn. "don't try to keep it in, 'kay?"

you nodded, inhaling the blunt and finding a strange sensation fill your mouth.

you'd never smoked a cigarette before, much less a blunt.

it was a weird feeling but you did what he said, you didn't try to keep it in. you moved the blunt from your lips with your fingers and didn't feel the need to couch heavily. you just blew the smokey air back out.

"good girl." the soft pads of his fingers trailed softly against your bare thighs below your sleep shorts. you felt your stomach do flips at the praise. "did so well. you sure you haven't done this before?"

you nodded with a slight giggle. "'m sure."

you watched as he lifted the blunt to his lips, taking a drag, then another. he didn't seem as phased as he did. "mm, don' know if i believe you on that one, princess."

"i haven't!" your hips gently reached up against his own. "swear." before simmering back down.

he lifted the blunt to your lips. this time, he didn't need to tell you to part your mouth, you just did it. "cross your heart 'n hope to die?"

he was staring at you so intently that you swore you'd never seen anyone's eyes so vividly, never been more interested in the squiggles of blue in someone's iris or the way his pupils slowly began expanding.

all you could offer was a slow nod as he watched you take another inhale of the blunt, eyes suddenly now steady on your lips, watching you stain the end of the paper pink with lipgloss.

a smirk fell on his lips as he leaned back onto the headboard. one minute, you were too shy to leave sarah's room, now you were sitting on his lap, smoking a blunt with him.

rafe merely had a way with women.

"so what, you feel like 'm corrupting you yet?" his steady smirk and sly hand trailing up your thigh.

a giggle passed your lips as you shook your head. "no."

he hummed. "plenty of time for that." you weren't too sure what he'd meant, though you hadn't actually asked him either.

it didn't take long for you to get high. rafe realised this within less than a few minutes. your pupils had turned wide, eyes gone glassy and suddenly you couldn't stop licking your already wet lips. you were staring at him, a little too much, not that he was complaining. he'd spent too long waiting for you to shyly meet his eye. with the weed in your system, you couldn't seem to look away.

"can i ask you something?" his voice was low, hardly a whisper as he spoke now, as if afraid he'd awake something and the room would turn to dust, the moment would fade from his memory and this moment would dissappear.

"uh-huh." you were busy looking at him, downright gawking. your eyes were shamelessly staring right at his lips.

he wasn't as buzzed as you. but to be honest, he'd been doing this a long time before you. "have you ever been kissed?"

it was his turn for his eyes to advert to your lips. all glossy and wet. for the thousandth time, your tongue peaked out, wetting them again before biting your bottom lip.

he couldn't get you to stop biting it, no matter how hard he tried.

he'd merely have to train you, when the time came.

"mm-mm." you shook your head at him. finally, your eyes broke from his lips and looked up at his eyes. he could see now, how truly buzzed you were. your eyes were all red and glassy, it was almost as if he could feel you floating. you tilted your head at him. "are you gonna kiss me?"

his hands ran up and down against your skin. "do you want me to?" a hesitant nod followed his question. "say please." pulling the blunt up to his lips for another drag. it was almost out now.

it was a mindless tease but he felt you squirm in his lap again. "please, rafe." voice but a whiney murmur.

he blew the smoke out from his lips and watched it fall into your own parted mouth.

your eyes fluttered shut and he didn't give you a chance to think, his lips replacing the smoke. his were hungry, your's were soft, inviting. and he took the invite as soon as it'd been handed to him. his hand ran up your back, shoving your body as close to his own as he could. he wanted the heat to envelope him, wanted your skin against his own. wanted so badly to rip off every piece of clothing that tainted you. wanted you to be his for the taking.

but the way you suddenly pulled back, those doey, bloodshot eyes and fearful voice murmuring the words, "you're not gonna tell sarah, are you?" told rafe exactly what he already knew.

he need to be patient with you. take his time unravelling you until there was nothing left.

he shook his head, fingers soft against your face, running across your cheek.

"don't worry, sweetheart, your dirty secret's safe with me."

[oleander-cup]

impossible - where she finds out she isn't impossible to love. // wc: 20k // pairing: kita x fem reader // content: panic attacks, angst, hurt/comfort, angst with a happy ending, fighting, throwing things, atsumu is an asshole ex, healing, executive dysfunction, slow burn, self-worth issues, past toxic relationship, some lines can read as suggestive

She didn’t think she would end up here, on a sunny day holding a box with the words ‘his’ drawn on in a dying marker. Her hand tentatively reaches up and raps against the door with quick but loud knocks. Her teeth pull her lip between them and bite gently as they roll the flesh around. She can feel her heartbeat the closer the footsteps behind the door get to where she is. How did it get like this? When was she scared to visit this house? 

One that used to be her home. The door is the same, same peeling paint around the doorknob and the hinges. Same tilted window with the stickers on it to make it appear like stained glass on the inside. The door opens and a quick breath of air comes into her lungs, “oh, are we doing that today?” is all he says as he leans against the doorframe. 

“Yes,” the words escape her mouth and for some reason her eyes begin to sting. “Yes, we are doing this today, I don’t want to see these things anymore.” She hears the scoff before her eyes register the look on his face. Hurt. He doesn’t get to feel hurt. Not when this was all because of him anyway. 

“Didn’t realize my stuff was clouding up your apartment anyway. It is small though so I guess you needed space.” The jab doesn’t go unmissed. Yes, it’s a small apartment but it’s more than enough for herself and a guest. Not everyone has the salary of a pro-athlete and can afford their own home before the age of 22.  

“I did. I’m moving and didn’t want to take it with me.” She doesn’t miss the way his eyebrows furrow slightly and his body leans back as if jolted by electricity; within a moment all is back to his normal expression. 

“Moving?” He can’t seem to help himself once he starts, he knows he should bite his tongue to make sure he doesn’t regret anything more. “Too expensive to live in the city?” He prods with a laugh knowing it will hurt, but part of him wants it to. Wants it to hurt the way that he is.

“I don’t need reminders of you.” Her voice holds anger as she gets louder than before. The box gets shoved towards him. “Here-” her voice breaks slightly and she wants to hide herself away but tries to keep her brave face.

“What’s so bad about remembering me?” He scoffs and pushes the box back towards her as he takes a step away.

“Everything,” she sighs and sets the box down. “Look I’ll just leave-”

“No. You don’t get to just leave again.” There’s an anger in his voice that sounds more serious than before.

“I’m tired, Atsumu. I want to go home, I want to finish packing and I want to go to my new home.” She remarks as the energy is zapped from her voice.

“Please. Just so I can gather your things if you’re really going to leave.” He steps aside and despite herself and every voice in her head telling her how bad of an idea this is, she steps over the threshold and into the house that once felt like home. She sits on the couch riddled with lint and the throw pillow she remembers gifting him for Christmas their first year together. “Do you want a water or anything?” He sets his box down on the kitchen island. Her eyes lock onto the small divot in the wall from their last fight.

“No, I’m okay.” He walks away and being in the house is too much. Her memories assault her, good and bad. Her hands find solace in playing with the strings on the throw pillow. 

“You got me a pillow?” There’s an obvious hint of confusion in his voice as he looks at the brown pillow.

“I got us a pillow. Since I’m over here a lot more and your couch is…lackluster in the pillow department.” A laugh tumbles from her lips and then her head gets hit softly with a pillow. “Oh it is so on.” She rushes to get up from the couch but arms wrap around her and pull her back to his lap. 

“Where are you going sweetcheeks?” He smiles as his head nuzzles into her neck and he leaves a kiss there. 

“Well, you obviously declared a pillow fight.”

“Did I? I don’t remember doing such a thing.” He hits her on the head again with the pillow and she turns her face to look at him. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?” 

“You just did it again!” 

Not everything about the relationship was awful. It’s just hard to look onto the past without getting sad. A barely there smile is on her face as Atsumu comes back. The box in hand. It’s messy and looks thrown together last minute, it feels like the pinnacle of their relationship. She can see that the clothes in the box were haphazardly thrown into it and the book is getting all bent from its position. The box doesn’t have a label and isn’t big enough to hold everything as the top remains open. “You’re crying.”

Since when did you care when I cry? The words almost slip past her lips but she composes herself. Her hand goes up to where she can feel the tear rolling over the hills of her face. Her eyes sting and her throat begins to close up, she clears it and stands up wiping imaginary dust from her pants. She wants to tell him vile things. Wants to yell at him again. But she knows that won’t do any good, so she takes the box from his arms and thanks him for his time before she makes her way toward the door. 

“Will you tell me why you were crying?” He almost pleads with her. “I don’t want you to leave my house crying again-” she almost complies, can feel words bubbling beneath the surface. “Don’t want the paparazzi to see and get the wrong message.” And there it is. What makes Atsumu, well, Atsumu. He will always push away feelings with poorly timed jokes and attitude. 

“If only– nope. I’m better than that.” She shuts her eyes and her face scrunches up as she takes a deep breath to attempt to calm herself down. “It’s always the same with you isn’t it. Too insecure to let everyone know that you can feel things.”

“Better than spewing my feelings everywhere like a bad sickness.” The walls feel as though they’re closing in on her. She can feel the hate in them and realizes why this house no longer felt like home. It’s too filled with hate, filled with words that never passed his lips in her company. Words only the wallpaper heard and held on to.

“You keep talking to the walls, Atsumu. I hope they keep better company than you.”

“Wait- that’s not what I–” He lifts his hand and for a brief moment she can feel herself flinch. Can feel her bones move and shrink in on themselves to make her smaller, to hide her away. “Gods, I wasn’t going to hit you. I’ve never hit you, why would I start now.”

“Your words have stung sharper than any hits I’ve taken,” her filter has disappeared. She can’t hold back the words anymore now that she doesn’t have the energy to keep them hidden in her mind. “You can’t do this Atsumu, you can’t say things you decide you don’t mean when you realize they hurt people and then apologize and act like everything is perfectly fine. Hell, you don’t even properly apologize Atsumu, you brush the problem off with gifts and hope I forget about it.”

“I tried my best, I tried my best for you. It’s not my fault I wasn’t good enough,” he shakes his head and furrows his brows. 

“It wasn’t that you weren’t good enough. Are you listening to the words I’m saying Atsumu?”

“I hate when you treat me like a child,” he mumbles under his breath but makes sure she can hear it.

“Well then don’t act like one.” She can feel the anger growing as her voice teeters on the edge of a shout.

“Maybe I wouldn’t act like a child if you didn’t treat me like one,” it’s a weak argument and he knows it as soon as it passes his lips but his mind is blinded with rage. He’s focused on proving himself right, everyone else be damned. 

“This is why we didn’t work out. You’re too hot headed and I’m too–”

“Our relationship didn’t work out because you asked too much of me without giving me anything in return Y/N.” 

“That’s not true and you know it.” She points her finger at him and they grow closer to each other. 

“Oh really.” He takes another step forward and crosses his arms as he looks down at her. 

“Tell me when this happened Atsumu,” she challenges and doesn’t back down as she steps closer to him. They are now pressed against each other; the thing keeping them apart is the box of her belongings; the room feels much smaller than it had moments prior.

“You were constantly nagging at me to talk to you but whenever you felt hurt you refused to talk to me. You went to your little friends to tell them what was happening instead of talking to me about it. Always wanting to feel like you’re right even when you’re not and instead of admitting it you gaslight people into thinking you were right.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t have had to go to my friends to tell them what was wrong if you listened when I told you what was wrong.” She spits the words out like venom.

“Maybe I would have listened if you weren’t always going on about random nonsense. No one cares. No one cares about you or your feelings. You’ve always been impossible. I don’t know how I ever fell in love with you.”

“I’m not sure you did, Atsumu.” The statement brings a somberness that the words moments before didn’t hold. 

“No, you…” he sucks in air through his teeth. “You don’t get to tell me how I felt Y/N. You don’t get to come to my home and insult me. I loved you. I loved you so much I felt like I was burning inside, you were burning me. You with your fake promises and words, you were the one who pulled away from me. I could feel it in every sigh you took, in every step we walked when the distance was too far for my hand to brush against yours. I loved you.”

“I can tell you my perceptions of your feelings. I can tell you how it felt to not be loved by you. Burning you? That’s rich. Considering everything you touch seems to turn to cinder and ash. You are the fire Atsumu, you can keep people warm but you destroy them. I left because of you. You–”

“I loved you. I lov–”

“Stop this game. Stop it Atsumu, I can’t do this today.” Her eyes begin to sting again and her throat feels much tighter than before. The moths in her stomach fly around and she feels like she could throw up. 

“You’re the one who came here,” he mentions bitterly.

“I might be the one who came here but you left long before I did.”

“I was here. In what was going to be our home, I was here waiting for you.” She picks her head up as the hot tears roll over her cheeks and she can feel the salty taste in her mouth as she opens it.

“Waiting for me? Waiting for me?” She repeats the words twice before a wet laugh comes out of her and she throws her head back. “Atsumu, you have never waited for anyone in your life.”

“I waited for you. I slept in the same bed as you for months tossing and turning as the space between us grew bigger and before I knew it you were gone.”

“And how did that happen?” 

“Because you pulled away.”

“Because you pushed me away. I only left because I was pushed. I always loved you more than you loved me. You were too keen to hurt people and say it was love.” He’s silent now, can feel his words die on his tongue. The rage is still boiling under the surface, not hidden but not as active as it was before. He feels like he was doused with water, he feels like he should be drowning. Like he is drowning. The anger doesn’t fizzle out merely makes bubbles under the water. 

“I did love you.” It’s the same words he’s repeated over and over again tonight. 

“As I remember, that's not what you said when I left.” He can hardly remember what he said when she had packed up her things and left his home. He remembers that one moment she was here and the next she was gone. 

“I loved you,” he stays with his conviction. “You were the one who left for no good reason.”

“That’s not how I remember it.” 

There wasn’t a good reason for the fight, not a big one at least. An inciting incident, Atsumu had forgotten a date. “Are you almost…” her smile falls and the words fall from her mouth as she witnesses him sit in his chair with a soda in hand and a game on the TV. The answer to her question was no. He was not almost ready. 

He turns his head and looks at her outfit before he hears a whistle on the TV and his attention is promptly brought back to it. “You look nice, going somewhere?”

“Apparently not.” 

“What do you– oh come on ref. That was a terrible call! It was inside the lines and you know it.” He scoffs and takes a sip of his soda before remembering that he was talking to her. “What do you mean ‘not anymore’?” 

“You don’t remember?” She taps her jacket in her hand and draws her lips into a thin line. 

“Remember what?” She moves to stand in front of the TV and asks the question again.

“You don’t remember our plans today?” He rolls his eyes and shuts the TV off as she blocks his view. 

“We didn’t have plans today.”

“Look at your calendar,” she says almost defeated.

“Oh come on, you know I don’t check that stupid thing.”

“You were the one who put it there. Said you didn’t want to forget because you had a busy week.” He reaches over to the table to grab his phone and scrolls to the calendar app. He sighs when he looks at what the appointment was. A date. He had planned a date. And it was already fifteen minutes past the time he was supposed to get ready. He hadn’t heard his reminder go off to tell him to get ready.

He didn’t remember it going off. She had heard it go off though, she had heard it ring from the bedroom as she was doing her makeup. Her hopes were crushed when she heard the TV continue to play and he didn’t come into the room and kiss her, smudging her lipstick on his face in the process. 

“I’ll make it up to you.”

“This isn’t how I want to be loved Atsumu.” That gets him to stand up, he makes his way over to her. Anger evident in every step he takes, he puts his hand on her shoulder in an attempt of a calm motion but she swipes it off. “Please, don’t touch me right now.”

“You’re being overdramatic,” he scoffs and rolls his eyes.

“Am I or do you just not care about me anymore.”

“I care about you, what the hell are you talking about?”

“I don’t feel like you care about me Atsumu, you’re never home,” she crosses her arms.

“I have to travel because of volleyball, you know this.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it. You never listen to me.”

“Then what am I doing right now?”

“Yelling. You’re not listening to me and you never have. You never talk about your feelings, you make me feel so small and unloved.”

“Well it’s not my fault you’re impossible to love.” It’s the final straw, they both know it. His hands are clenched in his hair and there’s a nasty sneer on his face as he spits the words at her. 

“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try,” her voice trembles over the words but it’s clear that she tries to cover it with a cough. Her head finally moves away from him, no longer able to look into his honeyed eyes. The ones she loved so dearly, what drew her to him in the first place. He felt so warm, instead he burned too hot and now all she feels is cold.

“Y/N, that’s not what I–”

“Just stop while you’re ahead, Atsumu.” He feels frozen in place as he watches tears pour from her eyes as she heads towards the bedroom. He’s not sure what he should do, if he should stop her or help her or, or, or, he feels stuck. In a loop of ‘or’ a multiple choice quiz without a correct answer. When he blinks again she has a bag packed and is leaving the room.

“Don’t leave,” he pleads and reaches out for her. She can’t bring herself to look at him. She knows if she takes one look at those eyes that her walls will crumble and she might be convinced to stay. 

“I’m tired of staying for someone who is never here.”

“I’m here, I’m here now. I’ll listen. I’ll give you anything you want, I’ll take you to that restaurant that you’ve been dying to go to.”

“You’re not here Atsumu, and there you go again…if you had listened to me in the first place maybe things wouldn’t have gotten as twisted as they did. You can’t just throw money at all of your problems and hope they go away, you can’t treat me like a scandal that’s going to show up in the news tomorrow.” She opens the door and doesn't give him a second thought when she closes it behind her. 

It’s like a weight is lifted off of her shoulders, a cold chill that is thawing. She can’t look back because it hurts too much. Can’t look back because he’s there and she needs to move forward.

“You still don’t listen, you’re just the same boy you were when I left four months ago.”

“You’re still the same coward that ran away instead of fixing our problems.”

“If I’m a coward I shiver to think what that makes you.” She picks up the box, unsure of when she dropped it in the first place and opens the door. “For the next girl that you decide you need, try listening to her instead of hoping everything is fine because you bought her something.” In an all too familiar way she closes the door and lets her back rest against it for a moment. She has no reason to come back to this house, it feels more empty than it does cold. She’ll think of the throw pillow and the crooked window and of the man inside that she once loved. She’ll remember the good times along with the bad, but she won’t be coming back here again. 

She puts the box in her car along with her other ones and with one last look at the house as she pulls out she leaves. A breath escapes her as the house grows smaller the farther away she gets from it. It’s her last day in the city, she won’t have to think of it ever again. She’ll have her head in the clouds where he won’t be able to reach her anymore, where every uneven window doesn’t remind her of him and where she doesn’t have to see his face in every magazine, billboard, and fruit stand. She can be free of him.

She doesn’t turn the navigation on until she passes the town limit. She knows all of the curves and roads of the city. Remembers the corner street where she kissed him for the first time. 

Standing on the corner of the street she waited for the light to turn to red so she could walk. Only a few blocks and she could get home to him. Over her headphones she couldn’t hear the calls of her name, when arms wrapped around her shoulder and pulled her headphone out she jumped before the voice reached her. “Hi sweetcheeks,” she relaxes into the arms and turns to face him.

“And what are you doing here? Don’t you have practice?” She can’t hide the palpable excitement in her voice.

“Not today, I thought I would spend the day with you.” She doesn’t fully believe the sentence but hums. “Don’t believe me?” 

“No, you’re a serial liar.” 

“You wound me,” he puts his hand on his chest and makes a faux hurt expression. 

“Oh shut up,” the light turns red and allows for pedestrians to cross and she takes a step forward. He holds her hand to stop her from stepping forward more. “Atsumu, wha—“ 

“One second.” He leans down and places a swift kiss on her lips before he pulls her along. “Move your legs, let’s go home.” 

She remembers the magazines the next day had it plastered all over the front cover. Her lips quirk up slightly at the thought as she remembers his reaction. She covers her mouth as a small laugh escapes her lips. He had sounded so worried. So worried about her safety from the girls who took it too far, he had worried himself sick. 

All of the streets are filled with memories. They’re practically the foundation of the roads, paving the sidewalks, the bricks and glass of the buildings. He’s in everything this city has touched. Her shoulders finally fall from the tensed position they had found themselves in when her car passes the sign that says where the town limit is. 

She eagerly looks around at the scenery as she drives further into the countryside. Nothing reminds her of him. Everything is fresh and new. The air feels different. Feels lighter, freer. No more billboards with his face on them, or tilted windows, or felt ridden couches. She rolls down the window and lets the air hit her face. The wind stings as it hits her face, much colder out than it should be for her to roll down the window. But she feels as though she can breathe for the first time in four months. Hell, maybe the first time in the past year. The stinging reminds her that she’s still alive.

It takes her an hour to get to the location. It’s nothing too crazy, a simple townhouse. None of the windows are tilted or hold glass stickers to make it look like stained glass. The door is freshly painted, the paint holding firm against the hinges and doorknob. She turns the key into the lock and a bright smile creeps onto her face at the click it makes. She can’t help the sound of delight that escapes her mouth as she pushes the door open, it opens easily and doesn’t catch on the floor. 

“Home sweet home. My home.” She spins in a circle with a laugh coming from her mouth. After a few rotations she feels her head pound and stops before going to the car to gather the boxes. Anything that reminded her of him too much was thrown out. The only box that stays in the car is the only non-labeled box. 

The cupboards are new. Everything is new. The walls don’t hold anger or fear. Her pillows don’t hold tears of many nights of crying herself to sleep, the kitchen island doesn’t have a divot from a thrown plate. Her couch isn’t covered in lint, her throw pillows have designs and her posters are hanging around everywhere. She feels like a kid again. She doesn’t feel the weight of anxiety over the other shoe dropping. Doesn’t think about what could go wrong. For the first time in a long time, her brain is quiet. She focuses on unpacking and breaking down boxes and she does so with a wide smile on her face. 

— —- —- — —- —

The beeping of her alarm stirs her from her peaceful slumber, she turns over and picks the device up with a groan. Her eyes open and she remembers that she’s in her house and not her little apartment. She stops the alarm and rolls over onto her back. “It wasn’t a dream. This is really mine.” There’s a content smile on her face as she stares at the ceiling, her feet kick and she sits up. 

There’s an ache in her back and she recoils a little bit and puts her hands where it hurts to stretch. “Same back pain though.” She shakes her head and moves from the bed over to her closet before realizing that most of her interview clothes are still packed up. She doesn’t need to dress too fancy, it’s a position as a farm hand. They must really need help if she was considered for an interview. 

“It will be good for you, maybe it will help with your anger issues.” She tucks her button up into her slacks and after packing her lunch walks out the door. It’s not a long car ride only five minutes down the road. There’s a quaint house sitting at the top of the hill, it's painted blue with a white roof and shutters. The path is gravel and she’s a little worried about a rock flying up and hitting her windshield. 

As she gets closer she can see a man standing outside. He has a set of overalls on, they have splotches of dirt and mud caked around the hems of the legs. The sleeves of his shirt are rolled up past his elbows and his arms are crossed over his chest. His face holds a calm, neutral expression. She steps out of the car and he gives her a small nod, she gives him a smile in return as she draws closer to him. 

“Are you Kita?” He nods and holds out his hand after taking his dirty work glove off. She reaches her own hand out, she notices that there are many calluses on his hands and that they’re rough from work.

“You must be L/N Y/N.” She nods with a smile and clasps her hands in front of her. “Will you tell me what position you’re here for, just so we’re both on the same page.”

“The ad said farm hand, I’m not entirely sure what that all entails but I’m eager to help.” 

“Okay, why don’t we find some gloves and overalls for you.”

“Did I get the job…?” She furrows her brows and tilts her head a little to the side.

“This is your interview.” She doesn’t know whether she enjoys how blunt and point blank he is or if it will be a nuisance. She supposes for this it was a good thing. He turns and starts walking a little past the blue house where a rickety looking shed lies. The wood on the sides are chipped and the door is ragged at the bottom. He opens the shed and hands her a pair of gloves. “These should fit,” he says as he hands over a pair of overalls. She nods and quickly puts them on over her other clothes. 

“So, what are—“

“We’ll st— sorry. Please, ask questions.” Kita quickly apologizes for cutting her off and motions for her to go on.

“Oh, thank you.” She clears her throat and takes a moment to think. “What exactly are the responsibilities of this position?” 

“It depends on the day. Nothing I wouldn’t do myself, so don’t be worried about having to do a job just because I don’t want to do it.” 

“Okay, well, where are we starting today?” 

“We need to check if the strawberries are done, then we wash and package them after we pick them. Some of the batches will be turned into jam. Have you ever made jam before?” He leads her towards the strawberry patch. “The only real way to tell is the taste.”

Just as she’s beginning to look around for what looks like a ripe strawberry he’s pointing one out and plucking it. “This one looks ready, see if it tastes ready.” He holds the berry out and when she turns her head her brows furrow and she gives him a look of confusion. “For you to taste.” Oh. It feels like her body shuts down, Kita pushes the berry against her lips, it tinges the skin a light shade of red and makes the surface shiny. Hesitantly she opens her mouth and takes a small bite. He tosses the rest of the berry into his own mouth with a hum. “Does it seem ripe to you?” 

Her skin feels too warm and her brain feels like it should have some sort of thought in it but the words get caught on the way out. She opens her mouth and closes it a few times, when he looks at her with confusion she just nods her head. “Yeah, yeah–” she clears her throat– “seems ripe to me.” 

“This row should be good to start picking then, sorry it’s a bit of a walk back to the house.” 

“It’s fine, it’s…nice out here.”

“Better than the hustle and bustle of the city?” The two of them fall into quiet conversation as they fill their baskets. She’s surprised as to how…comfortable it is– talking with him. The silence doesn’t cause her skin to crawl, doesn’t make her want words to tumble out of her mouth to fill the gaps. The silence is peaceful, a gentle breeze pushing pinwheels to spin. The walk back to the house isn’t as bad as he had said it would be, they don’t rush or take too long. It’s a comfortable stride, two baskets in their hands and content smiles on their faces.

The sorting takes them an hour as she has to stop and check with Kita when she’s not entirely sure whether to put a berry in the jam pile or the boxed pile. “I’m assuming we’re washing them first?” He nods and hands her the bowl they designated for ‘jam berries’ and starts to leave the kitchen.

“I’m getting the canning jars, just wash them off and I’ll be back with the ingredients.” He points down a hall and once he gets an approving nod from her that she doesn’t need help leaves the kitchen. When he returns the strawberries are on the island counter and he has a bag of sugar and a bowl of lemons in one arm and four canning jars in the other. “What we’re gonna do is mash those strawberries up, you can use a wooden spoon just fine.” He motions his head behind her and places the ingredients and jars on the counter.

She opens a few drawers before she finds the spoon and hands it to Kita but he shakes his head and pushes it back towards her. “Wash our hands and then we can mash them, why don’t you mash them and I’ll find a saucepan that’s big enough.” He walks behind her to open the oven, after deliberating for a few moments he finally decides on one he deems fit and sets it on top of the stove. She washes her hands and then starts mashing the berries with a spoon. “I sell these every two weeks during strawberry season at the local farmer’s market we have.”

“There’s a farmer’s market?”

“Yeah, it’s really nice, it’s happening this Friday if you want to go. It’s Friday, Saturday, Sunday so I’ll be gathering strawberries and making jam a majority of the week. Sorry it isn’t too exciting.”

“I’ll take it, I got the job,” she jokes and bumps him with her hip. He rolls his eyes and begins measuring out the sugar. “I would love to go, do you have your booth open the whole weekend?”

“Only Saturdays,” he answers and pulls a knife off of the holder on the wall to cut the lemons. “I like to look at the other stalls on Friday and then Sunday is making up for the work I missed Friday and Saturday. Shouldn’t be that bad now that I have some help.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she stirs the mixture around in the bowl. “Are these mashed enough?”

“Yeah, good timing. I just finished measuring everything. All we do now is put all of these into the pot and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Then, we wait for it to boil and put it in jars after a quick test. You just take a small spoonful and put it on a frozen plate, if it starts to gel after a few minutes then it’s ready.”

“This isn’t so bad, I thought this would be a lot worse.”

“Harvesting isn’t the best, it’s definitely tedious but I have good company.”

 “It seems I have good company too.”

When they finish canning the row of strawberries and bagging the rest the sun is setting past the horizon. Kita walks her to her car, a hand hovering over the small of her back as he walks beside her. For a brief moment the hand touches her back when she stops walking. He turns his own head to see what she’s looking at, “the sun,” she says. “I’m not used to being able to see it set, don’t usually get off work early enough to see it.” 

“Do you live around here?” She nods and points down the road.

“Just about five minutes that way.”

“Go to your backyard tonight. Put out a blanket and have a snack, I’ll take it you’ve never seen the stars without light pollution.” She shakes her head, still lost in thought as the sun disappears and the sky slowly turns to a gradient of blue. “It’s surreal to see for the first time. I think you’ll enjoy it.”

“I’ll let you know, see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, more canning and making products for the farmers market. We should be good on jam, well for the market, we can make more afterwards. So I just need to make some pies, put rice in bags, and then check to see if the peach trees are doing well.”

“That seems like a packed day.”

“It’s just routine, see you around six?”

“I thought farm work started earlier…”

“It does, I don’t need you here until six though. I should be gathering the rice or close to finished by the time you get here.”

“I can get here earlier you know.”

“It’s your first real day, sleep in a little bit. We’ll start regular hours next week.” She hums but gets in her car, he holds the door open for her and leans down. His hands resting on top for support as he bends down. “You moved from the city, it’ll take you a bit to get used to all this.”

“Okay, see you tomorrow?”

“See you tomorrow.” He stands up and closes her car door, she doesn’t see him start back inside until she gets out of the driveway and back down the hill. In the short ride back to her own home she can’t get the white haired farmer out of her mind. How warm his hand has felt on her back— a level of comfort she has not felt in years. 

 She’s hit with the fact that she left everything behind when she clicks open the lock of her home. This is real, she forgot all about her friends, all of the people she loved. Her hands hesitate as she touches the cold doorknob. Should she care more…? Those people were once her whole life, the happiness she felt in the world. An argument could be had for him as well if that was the case, he was once her happiness. He had taken it and tied it around her like a noose, making her choke on the love she once cherished. 

All thoughts disappear when her foot goes over the threshold, like fanning away at bits of dust and watching them dissipate. She shouldn’t think like that, Atsumu was no longer a part of her life. Hadn’t been for almost a year, they may have only been broken up for four months ago but he had left the relationship far earlier. 

She needs to unpack her boxes, she can feel them collecting dust even as they haven’t sat for very long. Her heart beats faster as her feet won’t move from the doorway, like they’re glued to the wooden panels, she slides down the door and sits on the ground. Her lungs feel like they’re closing in and her throat grows scratchy as her eyes sting. There must be something wrong with her, she went from happy to thinking about her boxes. She can’t seriously be crying over boxes can she? “That’s pathetic, even for you.”

There’s a buzz from her phone at that moment that stirs her from her thoughts. She can see the preview, see that it’s from Kita but she can’t find the energy to respond. She focuses on the words he says, anything to make her forget about the boxes that sit in the hall. Anything to stop her train of thought from continuing down the path it was starting to. 

– You did well today, thank you for being such a big help with the jam and harvesting. For Friday – If you are still wanting to go with me – I will need your address so I can pick you up. I like to arrive around 12, I would like to pick you up around 11 as it takes a little longer to get to the market and find parking. See you tomorrow at 6, thank you again for helping. - Kita

The words soothe her in a way she can’t explain. She wipes the tears away from her eyes and takes a deep breath. The boxes can wait, it’s not a life or death situation that needs to be resolved right away. It’s a task that she can wait to do. She’s probably just hungry, she tries to reason with herself. That’s the only reason for her outburst, just hunger and anxiety about being so far from what was once her home. One of the first things her eyes go to when she opens her fridge is a pink-y red fruit. A pomegranate.

She reaches for the fruit, not one she usually eats, and sets out a towel on a cutting board as she pulls a knife from the rack and sets the fruit down on the towel. With a decisive cut she splits the fruit in half and watches as it leaks red, sticky juice onto the fabric of her towel. With another cut she hears the small cracks of protest from the fruit before it’s split into fourths on her cutting board. In some sick twisted way this is helping her feel better but causing new trains of thought to fester in her mind. People think pomegranates are beautiful and love them despite the mess they make. How their nails get stained with red after getting to the seeds inside, how the juice sticks to them and stains their lips a deeper hue. Despite the mess, pomegranates are loved. 

“You’re impossible to love,” she thinks of that moment again. It feels like it should be tattooed on her. She’s impossible to love. She asks for too much and gives too little. Is her mess one people can’t clean up?  She wants to stain somebody's lips with her love, wants it to be in their skin like it’s in hers. And maybe that’s the problem. Her love is messy, impossible, people don’t want love that stains them. That lingers on their lips and hands. She wants someone to love her despite the mess she makes and still think of her as beautiful. 

As she takes the fruit out of the shell she wonders if anyone will treat her this carefully, if they’ll peel back the layers of her defenses to see what’s inside. Get to the root of her, if they would peel away the seeds of doubt. Gently let their fingers trace her skin and stain her as much as she stains them. Pick out the parts of her that hurt, see the bruises of her character and kiss over them with love and understanding. Take care in taking apart the things that cause others to give up, to love her despite the bruises or imperfections of her outer shell. 

As she eats the fruit she welcomes how it stains her skin, how it colors her lips and mouth. She welcomes the mess it creates and enjoys it still with her being. Someone will love her and the mess she makes, will take care in cleaning up the cuts and wounds that have appeared on her heart. Will wash away the stains of pain that have colored her skin. She washes the cutting board, and is careful to get as much of the stain out of the wood as possible. The knife is much easier to clean, as it usually is. The tool to break things is much easier to clean than the stains of the act, the tool is a simple swipe clean and is back to normal. She knows the rag and cutting board will never be the same, no matter how much she scrubs and washes them. They will be forever stained with the juice of her snack. The peel winds up in her compost bin, and the bowl housing the rest of the seeds is covered and placed back in the fridge.

Her nails will be stained for the next few days, a rose color, and she’ll feel the remnants on her teeth for weeks. Her body will remember what her words will not. What her eyes and mind will forget as new information washes over them. As she slips into bed for the night she thinks of a blonde who broke her heart and of a farmer who despite not knowing her was as gentle with her as a piece of glass. He didn’t treat her as breakable but in the little acts he did for her in the one day they had, he showed more care than she had grown accustomed to. Had dodged past her thorns and held the stem to guide and prune. He had been kind, in a world where so very few people were anymore.

She followed his instructions and took a blanket outside, a time when she really should not have been awake, and laid down on the grass of her backyard and gazed at the stars. She had heard some people didn’t like how insignificant they felt looking at stars but they comforted her in ways she’s not sure she will ever be able to explain with words. The thought that there are other people out there going through what she is going through made her feel less…less angry. The anger had continued to fester under the surface from the days prior, she’s not sure how the stars managed to soothe her, get rid of the boiling deep in her soul and replace it with gentle waves. She should thank Kita, she has the thought as she drinks water from her cup and she lays back down to look at the stars. Maybe she was a star in someone else’s universe, or maybe she could become the star of her own universe. That didn’t sound half bad. Live for herself, not others.

The remainder of the week was peaceful, no more nonsensical meltdowns, or thoughts that spun like a top out of control. She arrived half an hour earlier than Kita told her to each day; every day they ate breakfast together. She would see him about to walk out the door before hearing her car roll over the gravel of the driveway and watch as he stood in the doorway. Despite the shake of his head there was a barely concealed smile on his lips, and she would feel a matching one grow on her own face. “I told you to come at six,” was his reply every morning.

“If I came at six we wouldn’t be able to have breakfast like we are now.” She would say as she sat down in the wooden chairs of his dining room. She was beginning to grow accustomed to the way the home felt. It felt warm, comfortable. There wasn’t hate in the walls that made the house grow small, there was love and you could tell in everything inside the home. Pictures lined the muted brown walls of the living room when you entered the home. There was a brick fireplace right in the middle; spot free of leftover ash from cold winter nights. They would talk about everything and nothing while Kita made breakfast for them, insistent as he was that he did all the work. Somehow she would always help with the sides of the day like biscuits or hashbrowns. 

When Friday morning finally comes she sleeps in later than she has all week. She shoots up from her bed with a gasp when she realizes what time it is. As she is about to get out of the warm quilted comfort of her bed she remembers that they’re only going to the farmer’s market today. The day off every two weeks they both take. She sleeps for another two hours and stares at the ceiling for fifteen minutes before she tumbles out of her bed. Her leg gets stuck in the blankets and she falls to her knees on the hardwood flooring of her home. She rubs her knees as she rests her back against the frame of her bed before standing up with a pop as she stretches and picks out an outfit for the day. 

The hot heat of June causes her to choose a pair of shorts and a patterned t-shirt. The fabric is lightweight and comfortable. She opts to skip on makeup, she won’t be inside for the makeup to stop from melting off her face. She does however put on sunscreen, a protection from the harsh UV rays she’ll be in for at least a few hours. She’s grabbing her purse as Kita rings the doorbell. A smile appears on her face as she opens the door. Her eyes scan over him and her mouth drops open a bit at how nice he looks. Although the shirt is supposed to be loose it clings to his arms and chest before growing looser the further down it goes. His jeans look new and are cuffed so you can see the freshly cleaned boots he wears. The threading has faded with age, and dirt has found a permanent residence in the crevices of the footwear but it’s clear an effort was made to clean up if his brushed to the side hair has anything to say about it. 

She can’t help it as her hand reaches up and messes up the parting, roughing it up so it looks more closely to how it typically does. “You look nice today,” there’s a gentle lilt to her voice. It raises towards the end of the sentence and a gentle smile makes a home on her face. 

“You look nice too,” his cheeks are slightly reddened as he hovers his hand over the small of her back on the way to the car. A hand reaches around and opens her door for her and he feels his chest flutter at the smile that takes hold of her face. “It’s a little dusty, sorry I didn’t warn you earlier but considering what we do for work I didn’t think you would mind too much.” His hand rubs at the back of his neck.

“That’s fine, I kind of assumed it might be.” She gives him a thumbs up and he closes the door before walking around to the otherside of his truck. “What kind of CDs do you have in here?” She pops open the glove box and is greeted with various Garth Brooks, Johnny Cash, Dylan Gosset, Noah Kahan CDs, an extra pair of work gloves, and a singular copy of a Cigarettes After Sex album. “Hmm, not what I expected but I’m not disappointed at least,” she says as she lifts up the CD. 

“Well, I’m glad you’re not disappointed,” he chuckles and pulls out of her driveway and down the road towards the market. The ride to the market is filled with small talk. Mostly from Kita’s part, he feels like he wants to know everything about her. It’s a craving, to know her on a deeper level; one not so professional. When they get out of the car a layer of dust covers his boots and he curses mentally at the action. 

“Where to first?” He hates how cute he’s already finding her mannerisms, how she sways side to side when she asks the question. How her hold on her bag tightens slightly and she leans closer to him. His hand finds its normal spot hovering over the small of her back and the next words out of her mouth make him feel like he short circuits. “You can put your hand on my back, you know, I don’t mind.” Her own hand reaches back and moves his hand so it’s pressing against her. 

Her back grows warmer from the weight of his hand that’s now pressed against it, Kita takes an exhale and relaxes.  There wasn’t a need to be worried if she was okay, he was thinking too much into things. It was a simple friendly gesture, there to make sure she didn’t fall. “If we go in here,” he points towards the right of the outlet, “then we’ll be closer to the sweets.” He leans closer as he explains it to her, their faces almost touching. 

Her breath hitches lightly at the proximity before she clears her throat and shifts slightly. “Then we should start at the other end, that way if we get sweets that melt they’ll be in a better state when we get back.” She begins to turn her head but when her cheek brushes against his she jerks away slightly.

“I like the way you think,” she feels as the pressure from his firm hand on her back eases. As it presses just barely against her shirt instead of pressed flat against her back where she can feel the warmth of his hand. The warmth is barely a whisper now. A phantom warmth takes its place as goosebumps rise in a trail on her skin. “Let’s get to it while we still have daylight,” his hand touches her back for a second to urge her forward. Not in a demanding way, it rests against the fabric of her shirt and she almost wishes it was against her skin instead. 

She clears her throat again and steps forward, her teeth worry her lip as she tries not to think about his hand again. They walk side by side into the small marketplace, not one has said a word since they began moving. She’s not sure yet if it’s comfortable silence or the stuffy kind that contorts around you and forces its way into spaces between noise. That plugs your ears and makes you clear your throat more often than necessary, words getting caught before they can make their way out. 

“Do you want a drink?” The bubble pops. The small smile Kita offers her a light making its way through the fog of silence. 

“So forward,” she jokes and looks around at the stalls to see what he could be talking about. He shakes his head and no matter how faint the touch she feels his hand move down her back and his fingertips brush against her arm before linking gently with hers. She can’t help the shiver that races down her spine or the heat that fills her face. 

“Non-alcoholic beverages, they have good iced cider. We can go out on a different weekend for drinks.” He says it so calmly, like a usual occurrence for him. Maybe it is, all she can think about is the weight of his hand in hers and how nice it feels. How warm it is. She’s not sure how she’s able to stand it in the June heat, it crawls up her neck and makes her feel like her blood is boiling just beneath the surface. 

“Iced cider sounds so good right now,” she’s aware of her mess. How it spills around the edges, Kita seems to step around the areas that puddle and sink into the ground. As he gently moves with her to the shop she’s aware of words ringing in her ears but it feels like too much. They don’t quite reach her mind, don’t form sentences. Would he lift under her surface and dissect her mess? Would he place down a towel and not mind scrubbing the red from the fibers. 

Would the secrets leave her as easily as the seeds do when he takes care in unfolding her. In laying her down and making precise decisions on where to hold. Would he hold her gently? Cradle her against his chest, hold her like she’s precious, hold her like she’s lovable. Would he love— “—are you okay?” She feels a squeeze on her arm and feels the cool and rough texture of brick on her back. 

“What?” It’s only now does she realize her breathing is strained and her heart feels like it’s hammering in her chest. 

“Can I put my hand here?” He asks as he hovers a hand over her chest. When she nods she feels the steady pressure and he places one hand on his own chest. “Breathe with me.” She watches his chest rise and fall deeply a few times before following along with him. Slowly they slide to the ground and her head falls towards his shoulder. 

Neither say anything as people pass by, hoping they aren’t seen. Kita adjusts his body, covering her from the view of pedestrians taking a quick glance. She puts her hand over his own on her chest and her head slowly raises from his shoulder. There’s a frown tugging at his lips and despite his efforts to keep his face neutral she can see the concern swirling in his eyes. 

“I’m—“

“Please don’t say you’re sorry. It’s okay to feel things, we can sit here as long as you need to. It’s a nice shade from the sun,” he tries to move his hand away but she holds it tighter against her as her eyes squeeze shut. Read between the lines. Don’t make me say it. “I used to have pretty bad panic attacks when I was in high school.” Him? He seems so collected. 

He turns his hand over and holds hers again. The concrete of the market makes cracks as his shoes scrape against it and their sides lean against the brick. “Routine is what keeps me from falling off, from cracking. It’s not everything though, anxiety still happens. I have days where I feel off: days where no matter how hard I try I just can’t do anything, and the little voice in my brain tells me how dumb it is that I can’t do something I do all the time. You’re allowed to feel things, and don’t feel the need to explain yourself to me. I understand that we can’t always know why we feel a certain way.” 

“It’s my ex.” He nods but doesn’t push or ask for more information, just gently squeezes her hand. “He…he said some things that messed me up.” She watches as his brows furrow slightly before trying to return to a normal position. “Made…made me feel like a mess.” 

He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something before licking his lips and closing his mouth again. Her head tilts as she tries to analyze his face, the hills and crevices, the smile lines by his mouth, the way his nose curves slightly to the left. “You’re not a mess, things can feel like one though. I know my words won’t solve your problems but…if you’d like I can help you with them.” 

“You don’t make me feel like a mess.” Her words feel worth it when she sees the dimple on his right cheek appear as a smile crosses his face. “You don’t have to help me, I can work through this on my own.” 

“But you don’t have to. I won’t push you, but it’s okay to ask for help.” He sees her twitch and start to slowly rise from the ground. He follows suit and when her hands loosen from his he lets go and allows his hands to drop to his sides. The pebbles scatter to the ground as they wipe off their pants. “We can leave if you would rather I drive you home.” It’s a way out, she doesn’t have to be here. Doesn’t have to dress fancy and pose pretty for cameras or important people. She can leave, they will leave when she wants to. 

“Let’s go get some of that cider you were talking about. I think I could use some of it.” She smiles at him and while the weight on her shoulders still forces her to bend down it’s a little lighter than it was moments ago. He accepted her mess and cleaned the red stains from the towel. He didn’t step around the mess or cause her to bleed more, he gently held her and allowed her to peel her own layers away. To open on her own.

 Her hand reaches over, he jolts slightly before offering his palm to her. Their hands link together, little care for the heat of the sun blazing down on them before the relief of cool air hits them inside one of the shops. There are very few words said for the rest of their time spent at the market, only small comments about the products up for sale; neither mention her panic attack from earlier and for that she is grateful. 

“This was nice, thank you Kita.” He nods as he helps her back into the truck and closes the door behind her. He hops in on his own side and starts the car. She opens the glovebox again and puts in a CD, she puts in the first one she grabs as she didn’t bother to look. It closes with a click and she turns back to face Kita.

“You can call me Shinsuke,” the last part is muffled as his hand covers his mouth. She can tell that he is clearly avoiding eye contact. “It’s only fair since I call you Y/N.” Her hand reaches over the console and taps his arm lightly, he glances at her for a moment before dropping his hand, she laces their fingers together again. 

“Okay, Shinsuke.” The name feels foreign on her lips but there’s an ever growing smile creeping onto her face at the sound of it. Shinsuke, she likes it. From the corner of her eye she can see his dimple appear on his cheek. Her chest grows warm and she turns her head to watch the rolling hills as they drive back to the farm. At some point her eyes must have closed because the next time that she opens them her head is rested against Kita’s chest and his arm is under her legs as he carries her to her door. “Hmmm?”

“Is your house key in your pocket?” She takes a few moments to process the words before nodding as she tries to get closer to him. He unlocks the door and carries her through with ease, she can hear him take a breath like he’s about to ask something but the words never come. She hears the small creaks of the floorboards as he passes over them, the clank of her keys falling into the ceramic bowl by the door. She hears the click of a door and the way the hinges squeak as it’s pushed open. Feels the comfort of her blankets and pillows as she’s tucked in. 

“Shinsuke,” she hears how his breath hitches at the sleepy call of his name. 

“Y/N,” the bed dips from the weight of him sitting on the very edge of it, his hand rests next to him and her eyes open slowly. She almost brings her hand out to hold his again but drowsiness takes hold of her and she struggles to keep her eyes open. She’s aware of the breathy chuckle that leaves Kita’s mouth and how he shifts closer to her. She could bask in this warmth the whole night. 

“Thank you for today,” her eyes flutter closed again and a soft breath escapes her lips as she feels a soft warmness on her forehead. She feels the warmth of Kita’s breath on her skin before a small chill takes its place as he sits back up. “I had a lot of fun.” She pulls the blankets closer to her to make up for the chill.

“Thank you for coming with me, I’ll take you anytime.” He rises from the bed and his boots clank lightly against the wooden panels of her bedroom floor. They pause briefly as he takes in a sharp inhale of breath. “And for the record…I don’t think you’re a mess. Good night Y/N,” the words don’t register until she hears the hum of a car and the rocks crunching under the tires as it pulls away and she’s left with the white noise of her room. 

The words are all she can think about for the rest of the week. All she can think about when they’re sticking jams and jellies onto shelves of their stall, when his hand brushes hers when getting cash from the drawer. I don’t think you’re a mess. That one sentence whispered like a prayer when she wasn’t even awake enough to respond. The words feel like they still hang in her room, dangling from her door like lights and casting a glow on her every time she enters. 

A light touch on her back brings her to the present, her head whipping to face Kita whose expression is laced with concern, his brows are furrowed and his teeth are worrying a spot on his lip. “Are you okay?” The words are whispered as he leans closer and she swears she can feel his breath dancing on her ear. She nods but refuses to open her mouth, the words will surely jumble the minute they are released from their confinement. She sticks to her practiced script, one she’s gotten used to over the weeks Kita has taken her to the farmer’s market and allowed her to work the counter on days he opens the shop. 

She’s not sure when the touches stopped hesitating and their gazes started lingering on each other. When whole sentences were paused in favor of tracing the structure of the other’s face. They never speak of it, how they grow closer to each other before snapping back to reality and acting like nothing ever happened. When the older women who visit to buy jams and breads ask if they’re a couple, wonder how long they’ve been together. She always shrugs it off with a laugh and tells them their total, how she’s not ready for a relationship. She sees Kita’s expression falter in these moments but can’t bring herself to think of why. She can’t imagine a world where someone like Kita loves her, where anyone loves her. 

When the September chill hits the air she’s grown used to Kita leaving her to attend the shop once a month, the responsibility reminds her of how far she’s come. Twice a month, he’ll haul bags of rice into the bed of his truck and she’ll watch him clamber inside of the vehicle and hear the crunching of the rocks as he drives away down the hill. Part of her thinks Kita doesn’t take her on these trips into the city because of words spilled over in states of panic. The only other day Kita makes deliveries he gives her the day off. An “appreciation for her hard work” as he called it.  A weird sense of protection to stop her from spilling over again. In a way she appreciates it, it’s been 8 months since her relationship with Atsumu ended, maybe it’s time to try and brave the city. See his face on billboards and magazines, maybe she can do it as long as Kita is there. 

She enjoys her time in her home all the same. It’s come a long way since she first moved in, there’s a new coat of paint on the walls of her home, and new light switch covers. Pictures hanging up from her time in high school, it’s weird to think about. How she never tried to get in contact with those people again, the ones that were so important to her once. Her favorite part however had been her crafts room. Where paintings littered the walls and paper was scattered on the floor, where bins of ribbon sat neatly stacked but messily put away. It was something she never had energy for before she moved, the quiet simplicities of having time on her hands. She almost wants to thank Atsumu for being such an asshole, if he had been perfect she never would have gotten the chance to live how she does now. She shakes her head as the thought passes, there’s no point in thinking of ‘what ifs’ it only hurts more.

When he returns she’s counting the drawer, she pauses when she hears the creak of the door as it opens. She looks up for a moment to give him a smile, he gives her a nod in return. He makes his way around the counter, flipping the wooden flap up and placing it gently on the table as he slides an envelope towards her. She finishes counting the cash from the drawer and places it into the envelope, she adds the total from the drawer below the total already written on the paper. “Hey Shinsuke?” he hums in response and turns to face her. He leans against the back counter and crosses his arms. “Can I go with you next time you go out for deliveries?” There’s silence for a few moments, like he’s carefully calculating his next words. 

“I don’t have a problem with it. Missing the city?” He smiles slightly, a teasing glint in his eyes.

“No,” she shakes her head. “Just the thing with my ex, I think I’m finally ready to go back to where it ended. The next step in healing,” the words feel freeing as she says them. She hasn’t talked about it with anyone except for the few brief moments where Kita had to calm her down.

“Did he mess you up that bad?” He pushes off the counter and rests a hand on her shoulder. 

“Compared to some horror stories I’ve seen it’s nothing, I’m probably just being dramatic.” She sighs and looks away, her shoulders slump and his hand falls off her shoulder. There’s a small frown on his face as he moves his hand to cradle her cheek, his thumb rubs gently against her cheek and he rests his forehead against hers.

“It’s not nothing if it hurts you. Sometimes what we perceive as the smallest things actually affect us the most. The smallest breeze sometimes knocks over the biggest tree.” That gets a small laugh out of her although her hand reaches up quickly to cover her mouth. “There’s that smile,” she makes a point of forcing a frown on her face. Whenever Kita is with her it feels like she’s safe, she grows warm and the walls she carefully built start to crumble. “How about we finally go get that drink?” His voice lilts up towards the end of his question, it’s amazing how a few short months away will completely change a person. He lifts his head from hers, hand still gently holding her face. 

“I think I would like that.” They silently help each other clean up the rest of the shop and Kita closes the door behind them. With a click the door locks and they make their way to his truck. “Should either of us be driving?”

“I said a drink, not drunk.” He lets out a small laugh and turns on the car. She’s grown familiar with the hills and valleys that make up the country side, finds comfort in their gentle rolls. She rolls her eyes and places her chin in the palm of her hand as her elbow rests on the window. She watches as the hills roll, the birds fly, and the sun begins to lower itself over the hills. The day is ending, it’s ending and she finds herself starting to feel okay about it because tomorrow the sun will rise again and the day will start anew. She will still be okay tomorrow. Soon she won’t have to say she’ll be okay, she’ll just be okay. It won’t be much of a challenge with Kita around, the comfort he brings her is already unmatched.

When they make it to the bar it’s not overly packed, there are a few patrons lining the counter and a few sitting at tables spread out across the room. The music is playing a little louder than it maybe should be but it’s not overly annoying. Kita’s hand rests against her back as he leads her to a table, the warmth of his hand is a comfort she’s grown used to over the months that she’s known him. If it weren’t for him she wouldn’t be as happy as she is now, a smile unknowingly creeps onto her face. Kita’s hand holds hers as she sits down in the booth and slides to sit in the middle of the cushioned seat. He chooses to sit across from her, arms folded on the table and fingers lightly tap tap tapping the smooth vinyl surface of the table. 

She reaches for a menu at the end of the table, near the condiments, and starts flipping open the pages. She lays it flat on the table as her eyes scan the words and prices. “Come here often?” It’s meant as a genuine question but sounds more like a bad pick-up line. She cringes lightly at herself when his eyes flicker over to her and a teasing smile appears on his face. 

“Why do you want to know? Hoping to see me more?” He lifts one arm from the table and rests his head in the palm of his hand as he turns his head to look away from her. Before she gets a chance to respond the waiter comes over to their table and takes his book from his apron. He clears his throat before asking about drinks. “I’ll have a whiskey sour.” Both of them turn their heads to Y/N as she lifts her head from looking at the menu. 

“Morgan and sprite please.” He nods his head and goes over to the bar to put their orders in. She turns her head back to Kita. “Whiskey huh?” 

“My drink of choice, this is gonna sound so funny.” He covers his face with his hands as a laugh escapes his lips. “My grandma was a big whiskey drinker so now I guess it rubbed off on me.” He peeks through his fingers at her and she can see the smile sneaking out from where his hands don’t quite meet in the middle. 

“That is funny, but sweet in a way?” Their waiter sets their drinks down and questions them about food. They order skewers, there’s a breath of silence as he walks away. Kita plucks the chery from his drink and she doesn’t think much of it, her gaze traveling down to his lips before jolting back up to his eyes. Not what she should be thinking about, this is just a friendly drink. A drink after work with friends, don’t think about how soft his lips look or how– “So, how was delivering today?” She can only hope he didn’t notice where she was looking, or at least not mention where she was looking out of politeness. 

He chews on the steam lightly as he comes up with an answer, “same old, same old. Nothing too exciting but it is nice to catch up with a few people.” She’s about to respond when she notices the stem disappears into his mouth and she’s thinking about it again. His lips look so soft, what would it be like to kiss them? She blinks herself out of her trance when she notices Kita looking at her. He sticks his tongue out a little bit and she sees the tied cherry stem sitting in the center. She blinks a few more times and turns her head to look out the window of their booth.

“What?” He asks calmly and plucks the stem from his mouth to set it gently on a napkin and take a sip of his drink. “Your drink will get warm if you don’t drink it anytime soon,” he teases as he sets his back down. She tentatively picks up her glass and takes a sip before also setting hers back on the napkin. There’s movement from one of his hands as his fingers run along the edges of the glass. She notices his own eyes shifting down, is he looking at her lips? She can’t do this, it’s too much. No, she’s worked hard for this. She takes a deep breath and tries not to think too hard about how he’s looking at her, like he wants to kiss her. She doesn’t have to think about it for too long as their food gets delivered. The plate is placed in the middle of the table and the two of them share the skewers. His tongue flicks out to lick over the expanse of his lips and she passes it off as being for the food. Their waiter sets the check down on the table and walks away with a nod. 

Quiet conversation passes between them as they eat their food and nurse their drinks. Slow drinks and even slower bites taken to draw their time out together even more. “So..wait,” she manages to squeeze between laughs. “He tried to play even though he was sick, and he hit his head with the ball trying to serve because he sneezed?” She covers her mouth with her hand as she laughs at the story Kita was telling her. 

“Yes, he was very irresponsible, still is if his brother has anything to say about it.” He splits the last skewer with her, it’s not as warm as it was a few moments ago. “I had to force him to go home, oh my. Atsumu was so upset about it. Whined the whole way to the locker room to change.” She can feel her stomach drop at the mention of his name. She really should be more over it than she is. Eight months over and she still recoils at the slightest mention of his name. He has managed to infiltrate even the place she thought of herself as the safest from his influence. Kita…knew him, knows him. What would he say if he knew that Atsumu was her ex, would she lose her newfound home? “Are you okay?” His voice is quiet as he reaches his hand across the table, a silent invitation. She can see his face fall when she shakes her head and refuses his hand. He leaves it there even after her refusal, just in case. 

“I..” She starts but hesitates. The words get stuck in her throat, they cling to the walls and hold on stubbornly. Her mouth opens and closes as she tries to force them to come out. She looks back down at his hand and she closes her eyes as she sets her hand in his. She feels a light squeeze on her hand and she wants to open her eyes to look at him. To memorize his face in case this all goes tumbling down, but she can’t bring herself to muster the strength of opening her eyes. With another squeeze of her hand she manages to open her eyes and lift her head to face Kita. “I don’t know how to explain it without pushing you away.”

“Pushing me away? What do you mean?” He sounds concerned but doesn’t look away from her, eyes scanning her face trying to uncover the secrets. For once, she doesn’t think she wants him to carefully peel back her walls and see what’s happening beyond the surface. She wants to stay blissfully ignorant of what he believes, of what he’ll think of her. 

“This sounds much more dramatic than I wanted it to be,” she sighs and brings hand up to her forehead as she shakes her head. “Are you still friends with…him?”

“Who?”

“Atsumu.” It’s the first time she’s said his name in months but it still burns like acid against her lips. Her mouth curls around the familiar name with disgust as her nose crinkles slightly. She hopes she never has to say Kita’s name in the same regard she says Atsumu’s, never has to have it laced with sadness and doubt. Unsure of herself and the world around her. 

“Yes, is that what this is about? Do you know him?” She can feel her throat tighten a little and she looks down at their hands, he’s not accusing her. His thumb is rubbing gentle circles on the back of her hand, this shouldn’t be as big a deal as she’s making it. So what if he’s friends with her ex? Her ex she broke up with 8 months ago, she should be over it. It shouldn’t– “Hey, Y/N? I don’t care one way or another if you know him or not, I care more about if you’re okay.” His voice is soft but genuine as he speaks, she feels another gentle squeeze of her hand as he continues to hold it. Hold her. Kita does what he has done for the past four months, keep her steady and not let her run away. 

“I do know him.” The start of an admission. She feels guilty, she shouldn’t feel guilty but the thought of him still makes her uneasy. “He was my ex,” she takes a deep breath. She can feel the pause from Kita but doesn’t feel him pull away, instead his hand grips hers tighter and she can hear the sharp intake of breath like he’s about to say something. “You don’t have to say anything, I know he’s your friend. It’s really not that big of a deal, I should really be over it by now. It’s been what, I don’t know eight months, I really should be over it. I mean, I am over it. I am.” 

“It’s okay to not be over it you know? You don’t have to convince anyone, most of all yourself, that you need to be over him. Just take things slowly.”

“But I should be over it. I don’t know why I’m still so caught up over it, I’m the one who left him.” She reaches for her now empty glass in the hopes that maybe it refilled itself between when she first got it and now. It hasn’t. 

“Just because you’re the one who left doesn’t mean it didn’t affect you as much as if he was the one who left.” His thumb is rubbing circles on her hand again. A poor attempt at soothing her because it just makes her think about how he knows Atsumu, he knows him and is friends with him. She might’ve just ruined their friendship. She’s ruining everything again. “You’re allowed to grieve things, even if you never had them. From what you’ve told me you haven’t had time to actually feel the end of the relationship. You immediately tried to fix everything and get as far away from it as you felt you could. Excuse me for being…brash, but we’ve been friends for a little bit and I want to see you finally feel good about yourself again.” 

“How do we do that?” 

“First, let’s get you home. We can go to my house if you want. I can make you a snack and you don’t have to worry about going anywhere.” 

“That actually…sounds kinda nice.” He lets go of her hand and she shivers from how cold her hand feels now. She gets up from the table and relaxes when she feels his hand on her back again. Kita is a relaxing presence she hadn’t expected herself to get used to as quickly as she has. There’s times when she’s in the comfort of her home but it feels slightly off when she walks around and doesn’t feel the pressure of a hand on her back or see tufts of white hair peeking around a corner. She likes the constant that is Kita, he does the same thing day in and day out. He has a set schedule, he doesn’t falter from the image of him that she has in her mind. He’s expected. He helps her into his truck again, the beverage he had having long worn off. 

The drive back to his home feels shorter than the drive to the bar, maybe it’s his hand holding hers or the gentle hum of the truck but she feels more relaxed than she did earlier. She’s grown familiar with the scenery when they get closer to the farm, the gentle hills and the roads becoming a bit harsher the further out they get from the city. “Wait here,” his voice rolls out above the hum of the engine before it’s turned off. Her hands play with the rough material of the seatbelt before she hears the click of the car door opening. His hands reach over and unbuckle her seatbelt and he holds out a hand to her, tentatively she takes it and accepts the help as she gets out of the truck. His arms wrap around her when her feet reach the ground, her arms hesitate for a moment before wrapping around him. “Thank you.”

“Why are you thanking me?”

“For sharing even though you were scared,” she’s not sure why the statement makes tears well in her eyes but he must see them because he hugs her tighter. “I’m so sorry he made you feel like that, I’m glad you still feel comfortable with me.”

“I’m not sure you could make me feel uncomfortable, Shinsuke.” She can feel his shoulders relax and when she starts to pull away so does he. His hand finds her again as they walk inside. She looks around before sitting on his couch, his grey throw pillows fitting nicely with the warm grey of the couch. Her eyes follow him as he makes his way towards the kitchen, there’s a small island that separates the living room and the kitchen, she sees him open the fridge and the red fruit is familiar to her. She watches him grab a knife from the holder. Is he making her pomegranate?

She moves from the couch to sit at the island. Get a closer look at what’s going on, how his hands carefully hold the fruit, cradle it, and how his knife gently cuts the top off and peels it back carefully from the seeds inside. His hands don’t get covered in the juices, how each move is precise as he cuts down the sides and opens it up like a flower. Without a mess the seeds fall out of their casing and into a bowl, with a small smile he looks up at her before washing the seeds off in the sink and pushing the bowl over to her as he throws away the peel and washes his hands. 

“You didn’t make a mess.”

“The pomegranate was ripe. You only get a mess when you force it to open before it's ripe.” He says it so simply as he leans against the counter on the opposite side of her. “Do you like to paint?”

“I’ve only done it a few times.” He nods and she pushes the bowl back over to him, he packages them up and puts it back in the fridge. “Do you paint?”

“Not a lot, if I need to take my mind off something and I’ve already completed the farm work for the day then I will.”

“You can talk to me, I talk to you about my problems enough.”

“I’ll talk to you next time.” He walks around the island and over to her, he gently grabs her hand and they head back over to the couch.  His arm is wrapped around her shoulder and she moves so her head is on his chest. She’s not aware of falling asleep, unsure of if Kita also fell asleep until she feels the gentle breaths underneath her head. She knows it’s early in the morning, can feel the sun just grazing her arm. The prickle of the day hitting her eyes, there’s a blanket over them that wasn’t there before. Her arm reaches up and lightly grazes over Kita’s face, her fingertips barely tapping his skin. There’s a coldness to his face that she wasn’t prepared for as she brings her hand away, she wonders if her face is just as cold. Her hand touches her nose and she shakes her head when she feels the chill from being exposed to the air.

She’s not surprised to see his eyelashes flutter against his cheek a few minutes after she wakes up. She knows it’s later than he usually gets up, knows it’s partly her fault that he’s getting a late start to his day. “Good morning,” his voice is deep and it’s soft as it’s whispered out delicately from his lips. He closes his eyes again for a moment before they open halfway, his arm resting on the top half of the couch and his head is using his hand as a rest. “Did you sleep okay?” His other hand rubs up and down her arm gently, she can’t help but lean closer to him and the warmth he provides. 

“Better than I have in a while,” she says mid yawn and stretches. Her shirt lifts up slightly at the bottom and she notices his eyes flicker for just a moment before returning to lock with hers. She moves her head to rest against the couch, it strains her eyes a little to look at him in the light and figures he can’t be doing much better. “We should get up.”

“We should,” he agrees but doesn’t make a motion to move from the couch. He lifts his head and drops his hand to move a stray piece of hair from her face. “I never get up this late, I must have been out.” He gives her a small smile and she can see his eyes flicker down to her mouth for a moment before returning, she blames it on the movement of her smile drawing his eyes. 

“Must have,” her smile grows into a grin when he cups her cheek and his thumb makes small circles on the surface. The static whir of the ceiling fan fills the quiet moments, doesn’t let the silence really feel silent. She can hear his breath hitching when she leans close to him and swears she can feel his heart beat faster when she turns her head and presses a paper light kiss against his palm. The motions stop and but the world doesn’t feel like it’s come crashing down, she can feel the motions of his chest moving before she hears the laughter fly from his mouth. “What? What’s funny?” Despite herself, the feeling of doubt doesn’t come. She can only feel the warmth of the sun and the warmth of him.

“That tickled.” 

“You’re ticklish?” She smiles and sits up, he can see where it’s going and tries to block her attacks to no avail. He breaks out in a fit of giggles, his back ends up against the cushions of the couch and she straddles his hips and enjoys the laughter that ensues from her onslaught. 

“Please, mercy…” he says breathlessly and she smiles and stops her attack. His chest heaves up and down quickly as he tries to catch his breath, he puts his weight on his elbows to sit up and it’s only then that she realizes how close their faces are.  She can feel his breath on her skin as their smiles slowly drop from their faces. Their noses bump each other but she finds she doesn’t mind the sensation of his skin on hers. His hands rest lightly on her hips and she can almost feel his lips brushing against hers. “…sorry,” he says breathlessly as he pulls away from her and oh how she wishes he would have closed the distance instead of lengthening it. 

Would his lips taste like strawberries, like the chapstick he uses that she got for him as a birthday gift. Would they taste of honey; of a nectar so sweet she couldn’t even comprehend the taste. She moves to tuck a piece of hair that fell from behind her ear but Kita’s hand is already gently brushing the hair away from her face. She can feel goosebumps rise on her body and she wants to grab him by the neck and close the distance herself. She needs to know what his lips taste like, if they’re as soft as they look. If they’ll lock with hers like a puzzle piece. 

She shifts to move off of him but a soft grip of her waist stops her before she can get too far. “We should really work, we’ve spent a lot of time dilly dallying.” 

“Can we stay like this…just a little longer?” And she finds herself agreeing. He looks at her in a way that makes her believe she hung the stars in the sky just for him. Maybe, if she had more power the stars in the sky would be hung for him. 

“Okay.”

The honey slides its way slowly to the bottom of the jar. Only a few more. “So what do you typically do in the winter?”

“I take care of the garden in my greenhouse, sell some of the goods from it,” he smiles at her and puts his hand on her back to move past her; he reaches into the cabinet to grab a few more lids.

“No off season for you?”

“I like my routine.”

“It seems like you’ve been straying further and further from it since you met me,” she smiles at him and he can’t help but let out a small laugh and agree with her first. 

“Get back to pouring the honey, try not to spill anymore on your hand,” he teases and his eyes flicker to her hand before he moves past her again and she looks down. She sets down the container of honey and goes to the sink to wash it off, his soap smells of chamomile and lily, after a quick rinse she grabs a towel and cleans the outside of the jar. 

“It’s not my fault, you distracted me.” She rolls her eyes and kicks his foot lightly with her own. He turns his head to look at her and shakes his head. “What? Don’t you have honey to be pouring?” 

She finishes screwing on the last lid and places the neatly labeled jar with the others in a wooden crate. “It’s a little crazy to me that it’s almost the end of the year,” she quickly glances over at him as he lifts the crate. She can see his arms fighting against the long sleeves of his sweater, he turns to her as he picks it off the table. “I would never have seen myself here in a year. If you asked me last year well, she would’ve thought…” there’s a  moment of pause and they both know who she was going to bring up. “Thank you Kita,” she wipes her hands nervously on her apron; he had gotten her one of her own to have around the house. It’s a light grey and has a small embroidered flower pattern along the bottom, it hangs up next to his apron and she notices how domestic it all seems. 

“Shinsuke.”

“What?”

“You can call me Shinsuke.” 

“Oh, right,” she places a palm on her forehead and takes a deep breath. “Thank you Shinsuke.”

“You can talk about him,” she can hear the sink running as he speaks. “It might help you…I won’t push you of course though,” she hears the faucet squeak as she finally turns around. Her back hits the wall with a sigh and she shakes her head as she looks towards the ground.

“It wasn’t all bad, sometimes it was nice. I just…I didn’t feel loved after a while.” She sees his shoes come into her vision and she lifts her head. “I can’t speak for him, I know I wasn’t perfect either. I broke my fair share of plates,” she laughs quietly. “Our first kiss was nice.” He tilts his head and there’s a somber expression residing in his features. “He had gotten out of practice early, or skipped, something you know. He stopped me at a crosswalk and told me he wanted to kiss me…it was really sweet no matter how annoyed I acted. I wish the next day hadn’t ruined it.”

“What happened?”

“Oh you know how it is, the paparazzi got a photo of us kissing and it was all over the front cover. We didn’t go on many dates after that, to protect me from the really crazy fangirls is what he said at least.”

“The…so. The paparazzi just happened upon you two kissing on a random street corner,” he doesn’t say it like a question. 

“It is weird huh,” she doesn’t want to know where he’s going. “Please don’t tell me the truth. I don’t want the happy memories I do have to be…lost.” Kita nods and closes his lips in a tight laced smile. “It’s getting late,” she clears her throat and pushes herself off of the wall and towards the living room. He follows her to the door and watches as she steps over the threshold, she rubs her arms and he turns to the closet near the door. 

“I don’t want you to get cold,” he says simply as he hands her one of his corduroy jackets; the jacket's fur lining is soft to the touch and despite some darker patches on the elbows it looks in good condition. 

“Thank you Shinsuke.”

“It’s no problem.”

She returns to the familiar house she’s started calling her own home. When she opens the door she’s met with the sight of the curtains pulled back to let light in and easels with blank canvases rested on them. “What’s all this?” She smiles as she points towards the easels. 

“I thought we would take the day off. I didn’t like how things yesterday ended. So, I remembered telling you I like to paint when I’m upset about something…I thought maybe it would help you feel better too.” He finishes wiping off the brushes and puts them on a towel and places the towel on the coffee table in the living room.

“That’s…kinda cute actually.” She follows after him and sits down at one of the easels. “I don’t know where to start.” She picks up one of the brushes before twirling it between her fingers. She rolls it back and forth. She feels his warmth against her back and feels his hand wrapping around hers. He guides her hand to one of the colors spread out on the palette. 

“Just, paint whatever,” he says gently as he guides her hand to make smooth strokes over the canvas. When she starts to get more confident in her movements he gently starts removing his hand from hers. She turns her head to look at him and after a moment of eye contact decides she’ll finally talk.

“Will you keep helping?”

“Whatever you need.” His hand holds hers again but instead of guiding her strokes it’s like she’s guiding him. His other hand is resting gently on her shoulder and if she listens closely she wonders if she could hear his heartbeat…or is that her heartbeat thumping in her ears. When her hand stops moving she’s surprised at what she was able to create. It’s not something that outdoes the Mona Lisa by any means but it’s clear to see what it is. An ocean landscape with bits of coral, some of it bleached and some healthy. It makes her think of herself…maybe this was more healing than she had originally given Kita credit for. He smiles when he takes in the whole picture. “It’s beautiful.”

“It’s rudimentary at best, and I had you to help me.”

“It’s not bad, you’re too harsh on yourself. I really like how you did the water, very…flowy? Is that a word?” They both let out a small laugh at that. They start to clean up the mess they (she) made. There’s a small stain of blue paint on the coffee table as it wouldn’t come off. Kita told her he didn’t mind and that it could do with some color. 

“I feel bad, you didn’t get to paint.”

“This wasn’t about me, this was about you. I told you I would try and help you feel better about yourself and the grieving process. I’m sorry it took me this long to get to it.” He puts the supplies back in his room down the hall. When he returns he motions for them to both sit on the sofa so she follows suit.

“In a weird way, it did make me feel better. I can’t explain it but it feels like I’m thinking clearer now?”

“I’m glad I was able to help, or I suppose. I’m happy the pain was able to help.”

“No, I think it was more you than the paint. I think you're helping me.”

“You need to be able to rely on yourself too.”

“I do, but it’s like you told me. Asking for help isn’t a bad thing. So, I asked for help and I actually feel better.” There’s silence for a second as both sit and think of the words they said.

“You listened to me?”

“Yeah? You were helping me, why would I not listen to you Shinsuke?”

“I don’t know…I’m just really glad I was able to help you.”

By the end of the day she’s pulling the corduroy jacket she took last time back over herself and heading for the door. She looks over her shoulder at him as she leaves and calls out to him.

“Shinsuke?”

“Yes?”

“I think I’m over him. It’s the love I’m mourning, not the person.” Before he can answer she turns on her heel and towards her car. 

On his next delivery run she tags along, she’s gotten used to the soft leather of the seats of his truck. Of the middle seat being where the console would otherwise be. Little bits of hair fall from their spot behind her ear from the vents of the truck. Kita notices and looks over at her for a moment. “Is your hair bothering you?”

“A little?”

“Glove box.” She looks at him confused for a moment before popping open the compartment and finding a new pack of hair ties and bobby pins sitting neatly. “I…I noticed your hair falls from behind your ears a lot so I figured I should keep some in our car for convenience.”

“Thank you Shinsuke.” 

They pull up past familiar billboards, ads she hadn’t seen since her move. She finds they don’t sting quite like they used to when she was looking out the window of her apartment. She doesn’t miss the apartment; as hard as moving had been. The hand that’s held in her hand confirms that for her. The car rolls to a stop outside of a familiar establishment. Onigiri Miya, she thinks she’s okay with going in there now. She carries a sack of rice over her shoulder and Kita grabs the other two, the clipboard clamped between his hand and the sack of rice. He gives her a look and with a reassuring smile from her the two walk inside the building. It hadn’t changed much since the last time she had seen it, the floor still wooden and the booths still padded. There were a few pictures hanging around and a new award set up on one of the shelves. 

“Y/N,” the voice is familiar and the remembrance of the friendship she lost comes back to her. “What are you doing here?” She turns and Osamu takes the bag of rice from her despite her complaint. 

“I’m working,” she gives him a smile. He’s not sure the last time he saw a smile quite as bright on her face. “I moved out to the countryside, fate has it I found an old friend of yours.” 

“Osamu,” Kita nods and steps a little closer to Y/N. “How’s it going?”

“Good, you two can stay for a quick lunch or dinner if you want. The rush just got over so there are plenty of tables open.” 

“Thank you,” She holds her hands open but Osamu shakes his head and starts heading towards the back. Once the bags are put away and the papers are signed the three of them lean against the counters. Osamu on the expo counter and Y/N and Kita on the counter across from him. “Long time.”

“I thought for sure I would never see you again after my brother…well you know what he did better than I do obviously…” there’s a pause and Osamu looks around awkwardly before scratching the back of his neck. “You look nice. Happy.”

“I am.” And she finds that she’s not lying. She is happy, happy that her life seems to be normal again, happy she found Kita or did he find her? She finds that she’s happy that she found this job to begin with…she feels alive. Kita’s pinkie finger lightly taps hers and she can’t help the smile that appears on her face as she tries to bite it away. Osamu smiles a little as he notices their hands as their pinkies interlock with each other.

“I’m happy for you…stay for a snack at least.”

“If she’s okay with it.” Kita looks towards Y/N and she nods her head. Osamu leads them to an empty table and takes their order himself. 

“I’ll be back soon,” he says and slips away back to the kitchen. He shakes his head with a smile when he notices how in love the two look. It’s not a hard thing to see. They practically yell it out to everyone with the little touches and glances. He hears the squeak of the back door open and his head whips around to see a familiar mop of blonde hair. 

“Hey ‘Sa-” and he’s seen it. Atsumu should’ve gotten out later than this, that’s why he didn’t feel bad about asking them to stay. “Practice got out early.” he hates how small his brother’s voice sounds, despite the falling out and things he’s heard Atsumu is still his brother at the end of the day.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” His eyes are locked on Y/N as she talks excitedly to Kita about something. She radiates pure…joy. His line of sight is broken when Osamu notices and shifts to the side slightly. He swallows and tries to get it to leave his mind. “She never looked at me like that.” He clears his throat and turns around so his back is facing Osamu now. His hands rest on the cool metal of the table and there’s quiet chatter of the few patrons inside the shop talking with each other. 

Osamu sighs and shakes his hand through his hair. He puts the towel from over his shoulder into his apron and leads Atsumu further away from the expo counter. He slips the apron off and closes the door to his office. “She did ‘Tsumu.”

“Did what?”

“She did look at you like that…it was you who wasn’t looking.” Part of him knows Osamu is right but it doesn’t make the pain subside as his chest stings. Osamu opens his arms and he doesn’t hesitate to throw himself at his brother. Tears don’t fall from his eyes in a quick manner, the soothing circles on his back helping to keep him grounded. “I’m sorry ‘Tsumu.”

“It’s okay…” for the first time since she left. It hurts; hurts in a way he didn’t anticipate. More than words the two of them ever shared. “I’m okay.”

“You’re allowed to be upset.”

“I was the reason it ended in the first place ‘Samu.” Osamu finds he doesn’t have a reply, not one that will provide any real comfort at least. “Is it bad that I still might love her? In my own fucked up way.”

“You’re not fucked up,” Osamu pulls away to look his brother in the face. “Quit feeling sorry for yourself dumbass, you’re going to help me finish the orders for the day.” It’s a distraction and they both know it. Who would have thought that his heart would break this much after so long apart. He gives Atsumu an apron and they silently return to the counter to finish off the orders for the day. “You can still love her, just don’t…’Tsumu she’s not yours anymore.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?” He shapes the rice slower than usual and can see Atsumu pause his chopping. “I know you mean well…it’s okay to still love someone even after they leave you. She’s happy now, sitting out there with Kita. ‘Tsumu, she’s happier than I've seen her in a long time.”

“She’s not mine,” he mumbles under his breath and closes his eyes again as he sets the knife down. The tears start to slowly fall from his eyes, they’re hot and wet as they roll down his cheeks. “I let her go,” his voice teeters on the edge of breaking. “Man, these onions are really getting to me.”

“It’s okay to move on.” Atsumu sniffles and steps away from the counter to get a paper towel. He dries his eyes and nose and returns with freshly washed hands and a new set of gloves. They prep in silence for the rest of the night; even long after Y/N and Kita leave.

Kita and Y/N take a detour and wind up at a park. She questions the decision until Kita puts both of their hands in his pocket. He helps her balance as she walks along the plastic railing of the playground. “It’s been a while since I’ve been here.” She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. When she opens them she sees the swings; they’re rusted and could do with new mats under them but they’re the same as she remembers. With a small laugh she pulls them over to the swingset.

“Slow down,” he chuckles quietly as she pulls them to the swings, they trip slightly over the mulch in their pursuit.

“Maybe, you should hurry up.” She turns her head to look at him over her shoulder and he swears his heart skips a beat. He’s slightly out of breath when they make it over and sit down. They swing softly so as to not go too high and not hear each other anymore. “I’m glad I came back here with you. I’m glad I met you. I don’t think I could have done all this without you.” 

“Don’t sell yourself short,” he bumps her shoulder lightly. “I was just here to give you a job.”

It’s her turn to bump him. “Now who's selling themselves short? You did so much more than that.” She stops and turns to face him better and he mirrors her. “You make me feel safe.”

“You make me feel safe too,” they find themselves leaning closer to each other. “Your eyes are beautiful when they shine like this..” it’s a whisper almost lost to the wind and she can feel her breath hitch.

“Shine like what?” She tries to keep her composure but fails as her eyes flicker to his lips.

“Like the stars,” his hand moves from holding the cold chain to cupping her cheek. Despite the initial chill she doesn’t mind his cold hand holding her cheek. He closes the distance and she doesn’t have time to process it before he’s pulling away. “Oh my goodness, I’m so-”

“Kita Shinsuke. If you don’t shut up and let me finally kiss you we’re going to have problems,” she says breathlessly and puts a hand on the back of his neck and pulls his lips back to hers. When they connect again it’s more than she thought it would be. His lips are soft, and they do taste of strawberry and honey. They taste of comfort and warmth, and something so inexplicable to him that she couldn’t picture a better taste in the world. She feels the wind chill and follows after Kita as he pulls away. “Why did you pull away?”

“It’s snowing,” he whispers against her lips. 

“Is it?”

“Yes, there’s bits stuck in your hair.” His hand goes up and smooths over her hair, taking the snow with it. She smiles and tilts her head back as the powdery snow falls from the clouds and she hopes the superstition is true.

 “Do you think the superstition is true?” She asks, she could picture a lifetime with him. It’s one of the easiest things she thinks she’s ever had to imagine. He’s so wonderful that loving him feels easy and she hopes that feeling doesn’t go away. She doesn’t want there to ever be a day that she stops loving Kita Shinsuke. She wants to still love him when his face grows smile lines and crow's feet, when there are sunspots coating his cheeks and shoulders. She wants him for as long as he will have her and she can only hope it’s for as long as she wants to have him.

“I sure hope so. I would love to spend a lifetime with you.” Her grin grows and she pushes herself back towards him and presses their lips against each other again. She can feel him smile into the kiss and she tangles her hands in his hair before having to pull away to sneeze. “Bless you,” he smiles and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. 

“Thank you.”

“Let’s get you home before you catch a cold.” He helps her up and wraps his arm around her shoulder as they make their way back to his truck. When they arrive at his home he gives her a change of clothes and they sit on the couch watching movies before eventually going to his room and sleeping. His home was beginning to feel a bit more like it was their home, she had a spare key (a courtesy he had given her a few months after she started working for him). His closet space was overtaken by her clothes as her own closet began to dwindle, she knew he kept hair ties in the nightstand on the left side because that’s the side she always chose to sleep on. The layout of the house is as familiar to her as the back of her hand. She’s sure she could navigate it in the dark having been over so often. 

She’s happy there wasn’t a big moment of realization that she had fallen in love with Kita, it was less of a fall and more a gentle downhill stroll. One they took hand in hand every step of the way. The night she had first moved in it had rained and she remembers the day so clearly. It was one of those summer rain storms but on a cool night. She made Kita turn the porch lights on and grabbed his hand as she dragged him outside. He protested but there wasn’t anything to do to hide the pure joy on both of their faces. She taught him a simple box step and laughed whenever he would accidentally step on the toes of her shoes. His favorite part was spinning her, he got to see her laugh and smile as she spun around under the stream of water. Their clothes were well beyond soaked at this point and it was hard to convince her to go back inside. He almost didn’t want to.

She also remembers when they both got sick and had to take care of each other while doing their farmwork. That hadn’t been fun but waking up every morning seeing his face and ending every night safely held in his arms is fun. She doesn’t believe she will ever tire of the sight if she’s honest. Of how his eyelashes flutter against his cheeks before his eyes open. Or the dimple that appears when he smiles after she kisses his cheek. The quiet breaths have almost lulled her back to sleep a few times, Kita was so safe that it was hard to ever find a reason to leave his arms. Luckily for her he was never too far away. 

When the leaves change color they visit a shelter, she had noticed there were a few rodents on the farm (since she had moved into his home. Her little home no longer felt the same if he wasn’t with her). It had come up one day as they were looking over the finances. “We should get a farm cat.”

Kita takes a sip of his coffee before replying, “why?”

“I think we could use one.” 

“Whatever you want darling,” there’s a hint of a smile barely visible behind the rim of his mug as he takes another drink. It had taken them two more weeks to finally make the move, after one too many texts from Y/N with ads for adoptable cats near them he finally gave in. They make the drive out to a shelter and Kita pretends to be unfazed until Y/N puts a Siberian cat in his arms and she immediately starts purring. 

“Look! She likes you!” The cat twists and turns in his arms and makes biscuits in the air and he can’t help but fall in love. “Her name is Emi,” beautiful blessing. While he’s holding the purring cat in his arms he can’ help but think how fitting the name is, her coat is soft and a mixture of lighter and darker tones of brown. Her eyes are a shade of green that reminds him of emeralds. “Please Shin?”

“Alright.” It doesn’t take much convincing and if he’s being honest it was a yes as soon as the cat was put in his arms. She does well in the home and does even better at keeping the farm pest free. Kita can’t help himself when he goes to the pet store and sees a silk collar with a bow on it, he leaves the store with a bag of food (needed) and the brand new collar for Emi (...also needed). 

As the leaves turn into shades of oranges, yellows, and reds as they fall off the trees they find that Emi loves jumping into the leaves and then running back to you for you to rake them again. Although it could get a bit much if it had been a long day it does brighten their mood and they rake the leaves for her to jump in again. As the wind whistles quietly by them Kita and Y/N lay in their newly bought hammock. It sits in the place opposite their bench swing on the back porch. Kita likes laying in the hammock as he reads because he knows it means that a sleepy girlfriend– fiance comes wandering out and joins him by laying her head on his chest. A few minutes later the flap on the door hits against the wood and Emi jumps up to join them, finding her place in a spot between them and purrs loudly. 

“Shin, I love you…thank you.”

“I love you too darling, why are you thanking me?”

“Before you…before you I thought I was impossible to love,” she whispers and hears the soft thump as he closes his book and the shuffle of fabric as he turns to look at her. He leans his head down and presses a gentle kiss to her forehead and without moving too far responds.

“I don’t think anyone has ever actually tried. Loving you is easier than breathing.” She can’t help the flutter in her chest or the smile that always seems to grow on her face around him. “You’re perfect, and I love you. It’s impossible not to love you.”

“I think it’s pretty impossible not to love you too,” She tilts her head up and they share a gentle kiss. He opens his book again and moves it down so she’s able to read along with him.

“Let me know when you’re ready for me to turn the page,” he says gently as he lays his cheek against the top of her head. She realized that someone had finally seen through her mess. He had seen her fall apart and break more than once and he had stayed. He helped her as she opened up to him when she was ready, everything was on her time and if she hadn’t been ready to share anything nothing more was said on the topic until she brought it up. She found herself eating more pomegranate knowing him, there was never a mess and he would kiss her lips after she ate the seeds. She hoped it would stain his lips too, that there would be a reminder that they are stained together. That his nails would turn a pink hue from peeling back the skin to get to what’s inside. 

When the old ladies came into the shop she no longer dodged questions about their relationship and Kita was more than happy to step in and answer. She hit him on the shoulder when he got too sappy but the second he wraps his arms around her and kisses her cheek to apologize she realizes she’s not actually mad. Someone let her open up and reveal the mess inside, he hadn’t said anything, had only grabbed a towel and helped her clean up whatever mess she felt like that day. He was forever stained with the color of her and she hoped he always would be. She finally understood why people thought pomegranates were beautiful. After all Kita Shinsuke was beautiful and she is worth the mess.

a/n: this is a repost from my old account but i hope you guys enjoyed it anyway <3 want to be added to my taglist? you can find the form here

masterlist

[tigressaofkanjis]

My biggest pet peeve in Transformers media and fanfiction sometimes is that Transformers aren't treated as aliens. They are referred to as aliens, they obviously are aliens, but they never feel like they are aliens because they are always written or seen as having all human mannerisms or features usually. Human posture, human noses, human mannerisms, humanoids...

What about TFA's cat noses or TFP's helm noses? One of the reasons I think those two shows have peak designs is because they have this lack of uncanniness to humans design wise. I'm not looking at a human being as a robot, I'm looking at an alien robot, ones that have claws, ones that have different body types that blend with their vehicle modes, ones with horrific mutilations and designs impossible by human standards. I love seeing that type of stuff in Transformers because to me, it makes them feel alien without completely changing the premises of similarities to where we can't compare their culture or likeness to humans. The films (mostly 1 and 2) showed off this as well.

Another thing I really would like to see in Transformers media is non-human interactive qualities. What do I mean by that? One thing I've noticed is aside from techno-organic species, regular Cybertronians do have a few qualities found in animals. Engine humming I believe was once used as a form of purring in the films and in some of the cartoons. Humans can't purr; cats can, and that small detail is always interesting to come across because it's like "wow, they have this feature that shows off a trait found in Cybertronians. That is so cool." You have them with multiple voice boxes for mechanical, natural, and human-like tones which is also an animal trait. Bumblebee is self-explanatory in most universes being able to still make sounds yet not talk. They have sensors across their body that don't act like the basic human receptors. Most animals can do more than just feel through certain points of their bodies. They can taste, smell, or even hear a hundred times better than a human being throughout various body parts, and Transformers have been hinted to have this ability too, especially through their servos. It's stuff like this that expands upon their existence as aliens.

They have extreme durability, their body morphs to extremes and can also double as a moving weapon (most obvious of course), some of them can make ungodly roars and creature-like noises to warn or show their threatening demeanor (Megatron's dinosaur-like growling), some can have two rows of teeth (a flat base in front and fangs hidden behind), and some of them have mimicking animal-like features (Starscream's bird-shaped feet with visible expansion the same as organic foot padding with similar distributive weight physics in a few universes) despite having no beast mode. There's probably more I can't think of on the top of my head in canon, but all those things are not heavily used as they should be to make them feel alien. They can still hold some relation to the humans they interact with, but I think a lot of Transformers are more than just metal "humans", you know?

Depending on the universe in fanfiction and who you encounter who writes it or not, you have several things that are always cool to see. They have to sparkbond (merging of hearts) above everything else to create a sparkling's life force with interface as just the extra for physical coding features. I've seen people use the non-canon heat cycles which are, of course, our fandom way of making a type of breeding euphemism akin to an animal's cycle. You have the common phrasing of nuzzling, heightened senses, armor and certain parts of the helm acting like fur or ears where it raises and flattens per their mood, and some Transformers have limb dissonance where if necessary, they can convert between bipedal and quadrupedal stances (best example is Bulkhead and Lugnut from TFA who have long arms but short legs and they have the bulky structure where they could possibly run like an animal briefly and the physics of it would work).

So, you have all these different things a common Cybertron most likely would be able to do or have but a human couldn't, and it's never utilized to their full potential. I would like to see people address the nature of Cybertronians as alien and not be afraid to make them alien. I think that's the biggest flaw in our franchise is that everyone is scared of making the Transformers not the humanoid "norm" and getting ridiculed for it. Like, they're aliens, you can make them act however animal-like or completely batshit insane as you want them. You can give them powers, animal-based senses, and behaviors hidden among a human thought process. And technically, you wouldn't be wrong to what they could be as a living creature in the universe by doing so. They aren't humans; they look humanoid, but they aren't us. Why should they have to be in every regard?

Thank you for reading my TED Talk.

[g1rlken]

Inherently his

Rupert Campbell Black x gem!reader

Summary: domestic fluff #10 prompt list request

Word count: 4.2k+

Warnings: slight implications

Well polished burgundy car roof made a tapping sound against Rupert’s hands as he paced and sighed in the parking lot. Not frantically, not out of nerves, he never had those. Anticipation however was rather irritating. He didn’t realise when he caught that on from his wife, polar opposites. Ever anxious y/n’s unbothered lover. Most stuff rarely phased Rupert.

But when it regarded her, he couldn’t help it. Her wearies became his just the same way her joy lay in his. It was difficult to not adapt to her ways, especially on her big days. She was after a new job position, switching places in workspace and it was a big interview. He drove her to the place all calm and collected, full well confident in her capabilities. But as he awaited her return from the interview he couldn’t help but feel tense for her. She had wanted this for so long, despite the need of its financial aspect she didn’t have to work a day in our out of the house to sustain them in any way. But it wasn’t about that, he was a lover to an extremely passionate and determined woman. She would be crushed for days if it didn’t go her away after the time and energy she spent into this project. Regardless he quickly pushed that thought aside as his belief in her resurfaced more.

The sight of her walking out the building with her blazer and files in her hand and a bit far to make out her facial expression, he stiffened and paced closer himself. Reaching up to him she shrugged, with a heavy sigh as he searched for her eyes to meet his. “Apparently” she took a deep breath and paused for exaggerated effect, “I got it!” She exclaimed pivoting almost instantly and jumped right into his arms which he had opened for consolation either ways.

“Dear god” Rupert let out a deep chuckle as he could feel his heart beating in his ears, the false dread she built up replaced with immense happiness. “I knew it!” Kissing the top of her head he exclaimed, sweeping her off of her feet to spin her around. Deepening the embrace he held her impossibly close before putting her feet back to the ground with her giggles and squeals but didn’t exactly pull away. “My wonder girl didn’t I tell you!”

“Yes!” She giggled, heart warmed by his embrace and enthusiasm, mirroring his ear to ear smile. “I can’t believe it—I made it in the first round!”

“Well I for one most definitely can!” He brought her face closer to his, cupping her cheeks as he placed a passionate kiss on her lips. A hurried, teeth pressed, full of excitement movement of their lips crashing.

The surge of happiness within her was as it is skyrocketing, the kiss only highlighted it. “I couldn’t be more happier” she said breaking the kiss, “and thank you, for all that you put up with in the process I couldn’t have done it without-“

“I am about to kiss you to shut you up” he said placing soft peck on her lips again. “And I won’t hesitate to go further should you say, ‘thank you’ to me again. Ridiculous behaviour!” Rupert scolded her teasingly but he meant it.

It’s not as if Rupert needed a reason to celebrate his wife or celebrate with her. Everyday he got to wake up enlaced in her arms was a celebration, the warmth of her, the joy she radiates, everything pumped life into him. Most days he couldn’t comprehended she was real, someone who steered the storm of him directly out to the shore. He did not think it was possible, he couldn’t imagine being so anchored, so grounded but there she was and all it took her was a smile and his world seemed just fine. He knew he didn’t deserve her but he was so damn glad she was his. As were her dreams and her joys like her wearies.

Amongst obvious other things within their celebration, they ended up at the fancy fine dining. Generally the cooks of Rutshire sufficed for good food more than enough and Rupert’s expertise to romanticise the setting didn’t make their home dining table look any different than a fancy place yet she insisted on not skipping town this town. It wasn’t rare for them but his dates were rather activity oriented and y/n was already spent that day and wanted a slower night.

Time flew by at the dinner like it always did because conversation came so natural with her, at times he felt like he could spend hours just staring at her face, her perfect face with star for eyes and hearts on her lips and the sweetest tongue and the most precious laughter, he could swear her hair had intoxicating wildflowers in them as if he couldn’t waste a blink of a moment he got to stare at her. As the waiter presented the couple with a bill, she reached out for it and at first he assumed she were to slide to him since it was closer to her reach but she didn’t which alarmed him for a moment. “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” He said with an unaccounted scoff and stopped her by placing his hand above here.

“Getting the check.” Y/n wanted to be nonchalant about this, not make a fuss of it yet somewhere with herself she knew that he would definitely not let her be sly about this.

“Yes my darling girl, get it here please.” He spoke trying to get the brown bill holders towards himself. Surprised that she gripped it harder he frowned in a confused manner. This was first of its name, extremely uncharacteristic it was an unsaid relationship law between them that he always paid. “What’s wrong with you?”

“What?” Brows furrowed back in reciprocation, a bit taken aback as to how seriously he took this prospect of paying for a restaurant check. When clearly neither of them had any financial bounds, even independently. “I’m paying.”

Rupert just laughed in her face as though she cracked a joke, “very funny” this time he grabbed the check towards himself at once.

“I’m serious!” Exclaiming with a whine as she tried to reach out for it again and he leant backwards shaking his head at her determination to get to it, “I’ve got a promotion today, come on!”

“And? You’re still my wife.” Rupert said with a quick glance at the bill and instantly shutting the book so she couldn’t even catch a glimpse of the figure.

“Yes exactly! I’m your wife I should be allowed to treat you.” She reasoned further prying him to let her see the bill but it was of no use, he’d already hid it behind him and sat tall in her way to reach to it.

“I am treated more than enough. More than you could imagine.” He shrugged as he reached for his wallet, a mere moment away from guarding the bill from her and she was back at it. Yet with another feeble attempt to reach to it.

“You know I can afford it!” It was like a dead end getting the ever headstrong, hellbent on spoiling her, husband of hers to be convinced to let her do something for once.

“It’s not about affording my love, I myself can’t morally and romantically afford you paying.” He exaggerated getting his wallet out and distracted her with a kiss as he placed the money inside the bill, so she truly couldn’t see the amount, no pestering would get him to change his ground.

“You are relentless” she breathed breaking away from the kiss yet remained close to his face.

“And you are mine.” He continued kissing the side of her face then let go off the bill putting it on the fattest side of the table, away from her reach. “Mine to spoil, to love, to irk, to fuck the life out of—“

“I think that’s enough” widening her eyes with the prospect he was reaching towards at the end of his sentence, not that she minded it. He knew that, besides the blush on her face said otherwise too. It was a rather civil and a public setting to be romantically lewd.

“Is it?” A deep chuckle escaped him at her awkward unbidden expression, he loved that.

“Let’s go?”

“—As my sweet girl wishes.”

-

It like any other day of their married bubble, only the first week of y/n’s promotional job and she had come home later in the evening. Obviously Rupert had to pick her up, he noticed this change within her of not being drained and mundanely exhausted from her long work day. She would talk his ear off unlike falling asleep on the way back home out of exhaustion how it occurred in her previous job. Rupert himself could tire out from her enthusiasm at the end of day, he loved this for her. Seeing her prosper and spend her time doing what she loved and coming home to who she loved, it warmed his heart. The hearty soul of her did not need energy for love, it was inherently imbedded within her.

However much he loved for the her to work on her deepest passions timelessly, his own deepest passion was loving her. It would have annoyed him if she had been working late over a job that drained her: that would be twice the disgrace of time he shared with her and he hated having it lessened. As of now, knowing she was off doing what she loved it simply eased his heart he’d never want her to cut down a bit even for him. He could simply find more time. Just how he picked her up from her workspace, it was a forty minute drive from their home, so almost an hour and half round trip for him but that gained forty more minutes with her.

Now, once home as she was having a bath, he came inside with his chair and a book in his hand as casually as strolling into any other room in the house. For a moment she was surprised and alarmed, shifting within the water and the foam surrounding. She had already offered him to join her but he’d refused her since he had already bathed. Was he planning to bath twice in the same evening? She thought to herself awaiting him to remove his clothes and get in but he just settled the chair close to the bathtub and sat on it. He even opened the book and was about to go on with his reading as though he just took a comfortable seat in the living room. “Rupert?” She questioned extremely amused by this antic.

“Yes my love?” He responded without looking at her, crossing one leg above the other, flipping through pages to reach the page he’d last left the book on.

“What are you doing?” A small giggle escaped her tilting her head, he was about to do something thematically romantic at any point she considered but this wasn’t as steamy as he usually was for foreplay.

“I’m reading.” He shrugged, as he raised the book fully to display her the cover. The

two often had silent reading sessions and the book he was currently into was something she had recommended so he would not read it if she wasn’t around. Not that she asked, but he’d rather have her around when he was reading a book she recommended, or some other book, or the newspaper, figuratively just about whatever. He’d always prefer to be around her.

“Whilst I’m trying to have a bath?” Bemused y/n tried piecing if he was actually nonchalant or going somewhere with this, she could generally tell. Currently it was weighting heavy on him being nonchalant yet, this setting was too much for him to not go somewhere.

“And have I blown out the candles? Have I turned the shower on? Have I splashed you with cold water?” Rupert went on with alternatives that would require her confusion “I’m not stoping you from bathing, love.”

“But you said you didn’t want to get in? You already bathed.” Who seriously reads in the goddamn bathroom whilst someone is having a bath. Rupert, apparently. This was a new discovery, at times he would walk in on her showering or bathing and most definitely join in, even if they were talking and she had to pee he’d just carry the conversation through the door, right outside. Not that he didn’t pester to be let inside, it’s just where she deemed 2 minutes of privacy to be necessary.

“I am not bathing. I am reading.” Rupert emphasised again, “I have got my chair see?”

“You can read in the living room, or our bedroom, or the guest room or wait—the library!” She joked leaning against the bathtub wall, finding this situation rather comical but it was a genuine chosen setting for him.

“No I want to read here with you so we get more time together.” He mentioned ever so casually whilst reading and indulging the conversation with her at the same time.

“I’m not going away on war tomorrow, Rupert.” Y/n was surprised to say at least, at times it seemed like Rupert was an amalgamation of all possible love languages: physical touch, words of affirmation, gift giving and quality time too.

“But we will go to bed in a few years so we would be away for six to eight hours—depending on where the night leads us.” He told her with a smirk on his face, implying what they got up to at night and regards with how much time the activity takes up to be up the next day.

“We sleep in the same bed what do you mean away?” This time she laughed, which made his lips curl down to a small smile from the smirk.

“I don’t get to see you until I wake up.” He reasoned and given how sure he was of himself Rupert considered that most definitely valid. By then, since the door was open like it always was, one of his dogs made its way inside as well. Peacefully lounging next to Rupert’s chair as he scratched their fur child’s back. “See, you’re his favourite too!” Time to time, not even one moment went by where Rupert didn’t think out loud about his book or even the most mundane of conversations which peaked their minds.

As he fell silent, focused on a passage y/n finally found the moment to reflect on this scenario “I really can’t believe you actually went on with this.”

“Darling I read all the time.” Rupert told her, breaking his reading link without hesitation.

“No I meant in here, I’m literally naked here.” She mentioned even though the foam covered all of it leaving her out just from the neck and face. It wasn’t left to interpretation that she was naked obviously.

“I have seen you naked more than you have seen yourself naked, come on” shrugging he returned to his finger on the word of his book to continue. The exaggerated implication didn’t seem so exaggerating when he said it like that and she knew better than to challenge him.

“Wow” was all she could mutter with a small laugh, “you know most people don’t bath with an audience.”

“One, you’re not most people and two, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.” Their black mutt walked inside as well, buzzed with enthusiasm when it saw the full bath tub. Pacing up to jump right in with y/n, Rupert brew this habit of bathing with his dogs and as much as she loved them, she couldn’t bath in a lavender soap foam pool and tangerine candle hue with their dogs.

“And that’s my cue” she sighed, reaching up for the towel and quickly wrapping herself in it as she got out. The dog moved frantically in the bathtub with more room available now, causing Rupert to laugh and he stood up following her outside. Resettling on the arm chair in the bedroom as she got dressed, “it really concerns me to think what would happen to you if I had to go away for work or a girlfriends retreat for a week or two.”

“Your ladies trip generally runs short for upto 2 days and 4, maximum. As of work I’d just come with you” he proposed a solution at the top of his head.

“What if you couldn’t?” Amusing, y/n put on her bottoms. Now he’d completely set his book aside given he couldn’t miss a chance to see her getting dressed which made her laugh a bit to herself.

“What could I possibly have to do?” Rupert shrugged, lounging back on the chair. He had his work too but he didn’t even consider to consider it on the same level of importance.

“You’re a minister!” Exclaiming she reminded him, he spoked it a casually as if a real world did not exist outside of her. If he were to answer to that he’d let her know he was aware of a world outside of her but the real world lied within her so it didn’t matter anyways. “House of commons were in a crumbling mess whilst I would be away for work, what then?”

“Everything is a crumbling mess when you’re away darling.” Shifting in his chair he let out a sigh, “Besides if Tony Baddingham can use three different choppers in the same day to commute from the same office, I can most definitely fly out in one to see my wife.”

“What if I end up in an instant tragic situation and pass away?” She was layering herself, pulling a sweater over her head blocked her view of his face, which was an an immediately colour drained and changed one as she pulled it down. They were being light hearted, funny, what set him off all of a sudden?

“If you didn’t want me to read whilst you were bathing you could have simply asked me and I would have left granting you your privacy.” His playful demeanour shifted to a rather stoic one in an accusatory tone.

“What-?” It left her confused since she didn’t even comment on that subject nor did she drop any passive taunts that it bothered her, “what are you saying of course I wasn’t uncomfortable—it was just funny, sweet even I didn’t say it bothered me not at all.”

“Then why say such morbid things?” He scoffed, the unsettling feeling in him could not be contained whilst being seated so he stood up.

“It was just a silly question but it’s not inevitable-“ trying to reconstruct the meaning of her question he interrupted her.

“This is ghastly behaviour y/n, why would you say such things” letting out a heavy breath he paced small steps back and forth as he spoke.

“Such things? Are you serious? Life is just unpredictable it’s not like I said something wrong about you!” The exaggerated adjectives he used really ticked her off for some reason.

“It is plenty wrong talking about exiting our life like that!” He retaliated with words but kept his volume level headed like a normal conversation because despite his anger she deserved a decent tone from him at all times. valid anger and ill behaviour were mutually exclusive, one didn’t account for other obviously.

It left her taken aback and somewhat finding this conversation ridiculous, “it’s just logical thinking. Why do you think people have life insurances—both of us have one.”

“It’s a practicality. It’s a requirement.” He emphasised growing agitated that he wasn’t getting his extremely simple point across.

“Exactly it’s practical-! Neither of us will live forever.” She pointed out to the space between them, unsure of what exactly was making him have such a dramatised point of view.

“You don’t have to talk like that when I asked you once not to, I don’t enjoy that.” He sighed, tone dejected as sulk overpowered.

“You want me to apologise for saying I may die one day?” She asked sarcastically it wasn’t as serious nor difficult to her as it was to him.

Her repeated if again truly punctured his resolve for proper-ness. “Yes.” He paused, he generally never demanded apologies especially not from her.

“I am not saying sorry for a joke” she scoffed shaking her head, he was absurd to think that wasn’t a rhetorical question.

“—I think you should.”

“Well I won’t.” Remaining firm to her point y/m didn’t waver. But with a tensed jaw he did. Grabbing the pillow set from his side of the bed was enough for her to piece his move “you have got to be kidding me.” Generally when the fought, she would be the one sending him off to sleep in the guest room, he eventually would make his way back or vice versa because they did not believe in letting the other one go to sleep upset, yet this was a first. He couldn’t possibly outmatch her pettiness.

Rupert didn’t say anything as he made his way past her, the pillow tucked under his arm as he reached for his book. “You can keep your apology.” He huffed and left with his last word.

Leaving her to their bedroom, she pondered confused for a while that she truly did not say anything offensive and of the apologising, which clearly wouldn’t make her a smaller person but it was about principles. Was he even that upset? Why was he even that upset?

Rupert could be upset but he most definitely could not be upset and far from her for longer bounds of time, he softly knocked on their open bedroom door and leaned against the doorframe. Averting her attention to the door, she was doing her routinely journaling and today was rather eventful. “Back in 45 minutes?” She couldn’t help but smirk slightly at that, “you broke your last record I’m truly proud of you!”

With a deep exhale he leant off the doorframe and walked over to her stopping the stopwatch she’d set on their alarm clock. It was this stupid inside joke, he would always come back from the guest room or the other way around and she would time how much minutes to break their resolve. It was bittersweet in a way that despite the fight and faults he never made her upset to the extent of not awaiting him. “Last was 40 minutes was it?”

“41.” She corrected wanting to see him lighten up, the inescapable small smile on his face really helped. “Sit” she pulled him down to sit close to her, cross legged on the bed. His hands in hers as she spoke “what’s really got you so upset huh? It can’t be what I said, is it because I was working late?”

“No no it’s not you working late. On the contrary I am very happy about that, you’re pursuing your dream, I couldn’t be happier. But it is what you said…” he trailed off with a sigh tightening his grip back on her hands. “I have lived most of my life with my heart on my sleeve, until you I’ve never come across a love I was affected deeply by if I were to lose. I have lost, people have left and quite frankly I wasn’t affected to the one tenth fraction of them leaving than how the thought of losing you in any way affects me. I feel every minute of every hour you are not here, the mere thought is extremely disheartening and unpleasant. Is it possessive? Obsessive? Absolutely fucking mental? I couldn’t care less. I love my wife and I want her around forever. Y/n I put my heart off my sleeve into your hands and that’s the only place I want it to be.”

It left her speechless that he was in such turmoil, she felt so bad for being so insensitive towards him earlier she even refused to apologise, “Rupert” she said meekly, unable to hold his gaze she kissed him and shut her eyes. Deepened and passion filled kiss, with his arms enlacing her waist he brought her to his lap. “I am so so sorry, I feel like a jerk. I had no idea you had such overwhelming dread of losing me I am truly very sorry I joked like that-“

“You couldn’t have known unless I tell you, it’s not your fault.” Rupert reassured her instantly holding her closer to himself.

“I should have known. I can’t be this careless when I am holding your heart in my hands.” She spoke cupping his face to bring it closer to place a soft peck on. “Now that I know better I wouldn’t be so difficult with jokes, you are not losing me in any sense, in any way, ever. Life may be unpredictable but we will be inherently together to witness it I promise you.”

“My darling girl” he intertwined his fingers through her hair as he kissed her again and the bliss of beautifully heavy feelings and a perfect promise rounded them.

—

Brothers and kings, it is 5:48 am I just wrote this…staying up…I can hear the milk man and our neighbours waking up…I have no g1rl left in me you can call me dude

Also please I’ve made this with a lot of will and CRAZY efforts please please please leave a comment I would love to wake up to pls pls pls if you hate this piece I will kms

[cute-n-curious]

Monster Dating App [3]: Shark Man

[Author's note: *puts on nerdy glasses* did you know that sharks have 2 dicks called "claspers"? Now you do! This is a follow-on from the "first date" in part 1 and part 2. If you don't want to read them, that's ok! You just need to know you've downloaded an amazing app that sends you monsters to fuck and after a super hot first date, you're moving onto your second...]

The "surprise me" option in the app had delivered for you in a big way, but now that you have a better sense of what you like, maybe you could increase your chances of encountering your first date (or something like him) again if you got a little more specific. You find an "advance options" page in the app settings menu and after scrolling through the seemingly endless drop-down list of bizarre and explicit options, you settled on the ones that got closest to what had done it for you last time.

✓ Limbs - Elongated ✓ Phallus - Multiple

Whoever the mysterious and intrusive spies behind the app were, they work fast. Or perhaps there are just a lot more horny monsters out there than any of us might guess, queuing up around the block for willing humans to request them. That very afternoon, the ping came in for a suitable date being lined up. He would come to your apartment tomorrow night at 8pm. Your habitual politeness had you thinking about what food to serve and what options to have ready on your TV, but the cynic in you was already starting to feel transactional, and knew that if you liked the look of what walked through your door, you'd want to get to the good stuff a lot quicker than you did the first time…

Your heart jump to your throat when the buzz comes over the intercom, and you tingle with anticipation while waiting for the knock on your apartment door. You had dressed yourself with a little more… purpose, this time. Despite the broadly cool weather outside, you've elected to wear a cute, summery short-cut dress, that affords easy access to the provocative skimpy underwear beneath. You're developing a bit of a one-track mind for these non-human dates, but as your friends many and varied experiences attest, the beastly boys aren't likely to complain about not being wined and dined enough before being invited into an eager human pussy.

You take a deep breath and open the door, surprised at once by the height of your visitor. Looming in the doorway with a stature befitting an amateur basketball league star, stands a blank-faced, light-brown skinned man. You stifle a reflexive laugh at his outfit, a full-length overcoat with an ill-fitting wide-brimmed hat. The only way he could scream "obvious disguise" more loudly would be with a pair of black sunglasses and a Groucho Marx mustache. You half expect him to reveal himself as a Ninja Turtle under there, but he seems far too lean to be hiding a shell.

"Nice to meet you," he rasps, with a voice clearly ill-accustomed to convincing human speech. He sounds half like he's drowning, or is just recovering from an asthma attack.

"Please, come in" you invite him, gesturing towards your couch and closing and locking the door behind him. Feeling emboldened, like a seasoned pro, after the prodigious one monster date you have under your belt, you follow up with, "feel free to take anything off if it makes you more comfortable. You look a bit stifled under all of that."

His blank face doesn't smile, but you see a release of tension in his broad shoulders as he reaches up to remove his hat. To your surprise, the face, ears and neck move with the hat as he peels the mask down and forward, revealing his true face beneath. Smooth dark-grey skin with flecks of shining blue, fin-like ridges over the top of his scalp, large doll-like eyes that reflect the surrounding room like black mirrors, and teeth. Row after row of triangular teeth.

With a broad gesture, he pulls the trench coat open and aside, the appearance of pant-legs and shoes pulling loose like the tear-away pants worn by strippers. To say he has a swimmer's body wouldn't do it justice, because he was clearly primarily aquatic, and now completely unclothed. Standing in your living room is the sleek, glistening nude body of what you could only describe as a shark-man. Your thoughts flood with the unsettlingly erotic scenes of the Oscar-winning film The Shape of Water, but your guest is far smoother than the frilly, scaly lover from that movie. And far less PG-13.

Your eyes are immediately drown down towards his crotch, where for a moment, you think your musing of the Groucho Marx mustache has come true. Handing down from the front of his pelvis are two pinkish-tinged prongs, angling out like an upside-down "V", perfectly symmetrical and at least 7 inches long each. You bite your lips with mixed feelings, drinking in the sight of him. He met the requirements, his arms and legs were abnormally long and powerful-looking, by human standards, and if those long things were his version of dicks, well, there was certainly more than one. But you can't help but compare him in your mind with your first date, the shifting unsettling presence whose limbs spindled out and filled the whole room, whose bristling cocks looked like a miniature army taking formation to conquer your pussy… Compared to him, this date just looked like, well, a guy. A guy who is also a shark, you suppose, powerful and exotic, but still very clearly made of solid flesh with discrete possibilities. And of course, your first date didn't smell powerfully of salty fish…

There is an endearing vulnerability to this massive, clearly dangerous male, standing unsure and completely exposed in front of you, while you remain fully clothed and casual. Habituating a bit to the smell, and shifting your expectations slightly, his predatory angles inspire a predatory approach in you, as you step forward swaying your hips, testing the waters on a very direct solicitation.

"I didn't realise you'd be completely naked under your disguise. Not that I'm complaining, you're clearly quite the specimen, all exposed like that… but I don't want you to feel like you're at a disadvantage, would you like me to take off my outer layers to match you?"

His true face is more expressive than the mask, but still hard to read. It seems to take him a moment to compute your offer, before his toothy mouth widens in a knowing smile and he nods his head eagerly. Deciding to be a little playful, you reach behind your back and unclip your strapless bra, causing it to fall unceremoniously out of the open bottom of your dress to the floor. You then hike your thumbs into the waistband of your panties, and slide them to the ground in a single smooth motion. Then, stepping a bit closer to him for the grand reveal, you then peel down the shoulder straps of your dress and shimmy your body, letting it fall to the ground in a circle at your feet.

His black, glossy eyes drink in the shape of your breasts and hips. He has no obvious pupils, but you can tell he's paying close attention to the inner lines of your thighs and fuzzy little mound of your crotch. His eyes are so reflective, you see your own nude form distorted like a funhouse mirror as he glances around, stepping closer, the fish-eye bulging making your tits look huge and round when he peers back and forth between them.

You feel an electric jolt of excitement in your clit as the two phallic prongs on the front of his pelvic immediately begin to react in that characteristically male way. Blood surges into them, causing them to plump and flush, and much to your relief, they twitch and begin to arc upwards, starting to resemble to large oddly coloured vibrators pointing straight out at you. Fuck they're big, each one of them at least an inch longer than the biggest cock you have ever taken inside you, though they tapered to thin points at the ends, and were overall not so thick as to be frightening.

The heat has risen up inside you now. Your doubts over the questionable smell evaporating as you imagine fucking those magnificent dicks. Thinking back to your first monster date, shit, maybe they're thin enough that you could stretch yourself to the absolute limit taking both of them in your pussy at once…

Emboldened, you step forward. You reach out to wrap each of your hands around the two impressive penises jutting towards you, while he extends out his long slick arms to grasp your shoulder and cup your ass cheeks. This feels so fucking hot, right up to the jolting moment when you make contact…

Suddenly, its not so hot. In fact, it's cold. Jarring against your lusty expectations, both of his bulging dicks are surprisingly cool to the touch, like the top of a glass countertop in a temperate room. You jolt as his big hand wraps around the flesh of your ass, because its even colder, like stepping into a shower before giving the hot water enough time to clear the pipes.

You tremble in his arms, cringing, and he pulls you closer to him, his long cool dick tips grazing up your abdomen and poking sharply at the undersides of your breasts. The gill slits on his neck flare as his lust is clearly mounting, grinding himself against you and absorbing some of your heat. This doesn't feel great, its borderline uncomfortable, but as his long fingers slide along your ass crack and graze your wet labia with their cool tips, you bite your lip and find your resolve. You've put up with worse from men before, in exchange for frankly less impressing bodies and manhoods. He can't help being a walking fish, and it would be downright rude to not at least let him try to warm up those lengthy motherfuckers inside your hot pussy. Then again, maybe hot pussy feels weird to him? Only one way to find out…

He seems to pick up on your decision, and with a grunt that sounds like a baritone echo of the sea, he hoists you up in his arms. It's surprisingly easy for him, his grip firm and his arms as strong as steel cables. He's not a creature of romance, it seems, but rather one of utility and urgency. You wrap your legs around his waist and guide his right cock to your pussy, the tip of it nudging against your clit. You feel a moment's hesitation as the coldness of it meets your heat, but then he thrusts inside you, filling you up with his alien presence. You gasp, not from the cold anymore, but from the sheer size of it.

The first few strokes are slow and careful, as if he's afraid of breaking you, but you're already slick from thinking about it all day. He quickly picks up the pace, his long cock sliding in and out of you, hitting places you didn't know existed. You moan, the sound coming out of you like a siren's call to the deep sea. He responds in kind, his strokes becoming more confident as he watches your face contort with pleasure.

You're getting close to cumming, the sheer gratifying force of him dropping you onto his big cock slightly offset by the twinges of discomfort you feel in the back-wall of your pussy at full penetration. His cock is pointier than you would prefer, but those little flashes of pain are not so bad as to undermine your building orgasm.

But just as you're about to reach the edge, he surprises you by lifting you high off his dick, high enough that your crotch hovers in front of his face, and you worry for a moment that he is going to put that woodchipper of a mouth straight onto your sensitive womanhood. But as he lowers you back down again, you feel a cool penis tip probe against your labia, and realise that he is switching dicks to his left member. Perhaps he was getting too close to cumming himself, perhaps his leftie was just aching with neglect, but he begins the process with renewed vigour, and it takes some time for your insides to re-warm the new cock to the level of comfort you had reached with the first. You can't help but think, the dick-switches on your first date were a lot hotter than this…

For minutes more, he bounces you effortlessly up and down in his powerful arms, using your body like a fleshlight to stimulate his lengthy cock. It's strangely arousing, being used like this, to be taken aggressively, but you yearn to reach down far enough to his second cock and align it vertically to graze over your clit while he fucks you. That's how your first date did it. God he was good.

You feel him starting to slow his thrusts and lift you a bit higher, clearly preparing to buy himself more time by switching penises again. This must be his signature move with humans. But once again, you were nearing a fairly compromised but intense orgasm, and you would be damned if you're going to be denied and reset two times in a row!

As he angles to shift back to his right penis, you reach down and grab the second cock, guiding it into your pussy alongside the first. He seems surprised, almost alarmed in his fish-like face, but doesn't resist, letting you take charge. You're feeling desperately horny, but perhaps your pussy has bitten off more than it can chew this time.

You've never felt anything so… much, before. It stretches you wide, and you feel like you're being split in two, but it's also incredible, like nothing you've ever experienced. The mass of the two oversized dicks, sandwiched against each other, produce a more uniform thickness that relieves the prodding feeling at the back of your pussy. This was it, all bets were off, you are stretched out around everything this powerful beast has to offer, and you're not going to stop riding until you burst. You moan loudly, beg him to go harder, faster, and he does, his hips bucking against yours, his hunching grey thighs making loud wet smacks as they collide with your ass, plunging up and down again and again, as he fucks you to the limit with both of his immense cocks.

You can feel your orgasm building again, crackling and intense this time, the pressure inside you reaching unbearable levels. You dig your nails into his back, scratching at the tough skin, and he responds by squeezing your ass even harder, pushing deeper into you. The sheer pressure hammering into your back walls sends you over the edge, and you cum with a scream that echoes through your apartment. You can feel his cocks pulsing inside you, and he joins you in your release, shuddering and stumbling slightly as he's filling you up with his cum.

As you come down from your high, you realize that he's done. His impressive cocks shrink away, retreating from your body and resuming their original positions, flopping down against his thighs like a drooping pelvic mustache. He carefully sets you down, and you realize he's been watching you the entire time, his eyes unblinking and curious. You can't help but feel a little disappointed. It was intense, sure, but it wasn't… perfect. Not like that first time. God, this poor shark-man just finished fucking you more aggressively with a bigger (collective) dick than you'd ever experienced, yet here you are looking at him like he doesn't quite measure up. Not to the walking mass of shifting pleasures the app had sent you the first time.

Remembering how the app had registered that fateful first encounter, your mind starts racing in disastrous directions as you feel his copious cum running down the insides of your shaky thighs.

"Shit, fuck, um, my profile says 'no breeding', uh… Are you going to get in trouble for cumming inside me?" You ask him, while he bends down casually to scoop up his comical human disguise.

He shakes his head, the human-like gesture oddly endearing on his shark-like face. "I can't make babies with humans," he says, his voice still that same strained rasp. "This is fun, only." He offers that goofy, knife-filled smile.

He starts to get dressed, having to align his floppy cocks so that one is distributed into each pant leg. You can't help but grin to yourself at the awkwardness of it as you sit naked on your cough, still coming down from your hard-earned orgasm.

You watch him, honestly feeling a little sad that it's already over. It was a decent fuck, hell, in the same ballpark as the best human lovers you'd ever had. But it wasn't earth-shattering like the first time. You can't help but compare your two monstrous app hookups, and this statuesque shark-man just comes up short, big dicks and all. Your first date had been a force of nature, a whirlwind of pleasure and sensation. This guy, well, however exotic his frame and powerful his thrusts… he's just a guy. A guy with a couple of really big, really cold dicks, but a guy nonetheless.

As he leaves, you find yourself reclining back on your couch, naked and moist, your thoughts drifting back to that first date for the hundredth time. You remember those hands all over you, more than you could count by feel. You remember those hot cocks, hammering through you and pumping you full of cum again and again like a phallic machine gun. You remember his handsome face and the taste of his lips, so kissable in the absence of rows of triangular teeth… You find your hands sliding down your flanks and over your thighs, and before you know it you're fingering your well-fucked pussy. Your head swims with memories of that first date, again, and you cum even harder than you did impaled on the aquatic member that just stretched you to your limit as you finger yourself to orgasm. Fuck, what is wrong with you, you are obsessed with someone you can't even find anymore. You want the monster who made you feel alive, who made you feel like you were drowning in an ocean of pleasure. You want the one who didn't just take you to the edge, but threw you over it and watched you fall into the abyss. This can't be healthy…

Your lust fading into lazy pensiveness, you lift your juiced up fingers to your lips and taste them, and immediately seize up. Right, you're full of shark cum, and God does it taste like it… Pungent, fishy, overwhelmingly salty… With renewed energy, you leap to your feet and jog to your bathroom, twisting the knobs of the shower so hard you're worried you'll break them. You scrub yourself clean, trying to erase the lingering odour of your deep-sea deep-dicking. The memory, you are sure you will cherish, but if your apartment still smells like this tomorrow, you're going to have to black-list aquatic monsters on the app doing forward.

How did your friend throw herself so fully into these bizarre varieties of paramours? Sure, it was big and weird and new, but it wasn't what you wanted. It wasn't what you needed. You fill your mouth with mouthwash and spit into the shower drain, trying to get rid of the taste, and pick up your toothbrush to apply a ferocious scrubbing that would make your dentist proud.

"That's why Shape of Water won the Oscar" you muse aloud to yourself. "You can't smell through a movie screen."

[Next part released.]

[hunkadorusrex]

Curly Shepard knew a lot about Ponyboy Curtis.

He knew what kind of cigarettes he liked, how he took his coffee, how he always curled his hands up near his chest when he slept. He knew Ponyboy didn’t mind touching, but not in front of people. He knew he didn’t like feeling trapped. He knew when he was about to pick a fight and when he wasn’t going to fight back.

What he didn’t know—what threw him off his game completely—was this.

Ponyboy had let him follow him into the bathroom, let him lean against the sink while he turned the water on. Hadn’t shoved him back out into the hallway with an irritated 'Jesus, Curly, go sit down somewhere.' Hadn’t even looked at him like he was considering it.

That was new.

Curly didn't push his luck at first, just stood there messing with the stuff on the counter while the shower started running. Ponyboy’s toothbrush, still damp from earlier. Some aftershave from his old house that he didn't even use. A crushed cigarette pack that still had one left, somehow.

He wasn't looking at Ponyboy when he asked, “So you gonna tell me what the hell happened, or do I gotta guess?”

The water shifted, a quiet sound of movement behind the curtain. Then, a sigh.

"I… got into it with Sodapop."

That made Curly stop messing with the counter.

Ponyboy didn’t fight with his brothers. Sure, they bickered sometimes—every family did—but not for real. Not like Curly and Tim. Not the kind of fight that left something broken in its wake.

Curly reached out, brushed the curtain aside a little. Not enough to be obvious, just enough to see. Ponyboy didn’t so much as twitch. Just looked at him, water and suds running down his skin, hair slicked back, eyes tired.

Curly’s stomach did something complicated and stupid. If only he could enjoy the view.

"About what?"

"I told him about the roofie. Couple days ago. He came home today actin' weird. I asked what happened, he said he'd run into you."

Ponyboy stopped, wiped water off his face. His voice was quieter when he said, "I got it outta him. What he said to you."

Something raw seeped into his expression, something too earnest, too soft. "I'm real sorry, Curly. I wouldn't have told him if I knew he was gonna take it out on you. That wasn’t fair, what he said. And I'm sorry."

Curly had to look away. Had to grit his teeth.

"Figured you’d tell him."

"It's not true. You know that, right?"

Curly shrugged. "It’s whatever, man."

Ponyboy let it go. Curly was almost surprised. Usually, he would push, would get all pissed off and determined until he made Curly talk about it. But Ponyboy was so fucking tired right now, and seeing that made something hot and guilty twist up in Curly’s chest.

"I don't think we gotta worry about them tellin'." Ponyboy’s voice broke through the quiet. "Uh… he kinda told Darry. I mean, I sorta made him, 'cause this was his fault, but... yeah. But I know they ain’t gonna tell no one. About Tim, I mean. We ain't narks."

Curly snorted but didn't say anything.

That wasn't the problem. The problem was that Ponyboy's brothers thought he was some kind of shithead who couldn't take care of him.

As if he hadn’t been taking care of Ponyboy for a while now. As if one mistake, one fucking slip, was all it took to undo that.

Ponyboy shut the water off and stepped out, steam curling around him. He looked smaller than usual like this, skin warm and damp, exhaustion weighing heavy on his frame.

Curly wished—again—that he could get lost in just looking. Maybe even touching. Ponyboy wasn’t telling him no. Wasn’t even pulling away when Curly let a hand glide down his back out of habit.

He leaned in, actually.

Not in a vacant way, not in a fuck it, do whatever kind of way. Just… into Curly’s touch, like it helped. Like it meant something.

Curly swallowed.

"You uh… you got anything? I wanna smoke."

Curly blinked. “Huh?”

Ponyboy looked at him like he was stupid. “You got any weed?”

That made Curly’s eyebrows shoot up. Ponyboy? Asking for it? He usually only took it when Curly offered, and even then, it was hit or miss. This, though? This was a whole different thing.

"You sure that's a good idea?"

Ponyboy gave him a look of pure surprise, like that was the dumbest thing he'd heard all day. "Yeah. I'm sure. I promise not to freak out on you." A pause. Then, with a little half-smile, "Again."

Curly watched him for a second longer, then nodded.

"Okay, baby."

[twistedwonderlandshenanigans]

TWST Cast Mid-Effort Snacks They Make

Listen I'm no wizard in the kitchen but I think I can make some half decent snacks. That being said, this post is long, does not have accurate measurements for half of it, bc why the hell would I actually write stuff down I Totally Don't Forget Things All The Time.

Also like. mid-effort snacks. You know, you're not just Opening a bag of chips but you are going to need. At least a microwave. (also, using minimal dishes possible nobody wants to clean up). This is all stuff I've made or at least eaten, myself, lmk if you try it or if I missed a vital detail LMAO

ANYWAYS if this post is popular enough I'll share some like. Actual recipes as well, the Culinary Crucible thingy finally came in and I feel INSPIRED, some of these have little uhh like 'justification' or story behind them some don't bc I feel like it's obvious. GTAT refers to the section at the end, I got tired of writing it out over and over again sldkjhklsjdf ---------------------------------------------------

Heartslaybul

Riddle - (Dark) Chocolate Strawberry Bark

Materials and Ingredients: - Parchment paper - Cutting board/cookie tray - Microwave-safe bowl - Knife - Strawberries (it's okay if they're overripe, as long as you can still cut them safely) - (Dark) Chocolate chips or Nutella, your choice - Peanut butter - Sweetened condensed milk (scm) - Plastic container - Freezer

Instructions:

Cut your parchment paper to about the size of a cookie sheet, but really it depends on how many strawberries you're using (I do not remember how many I used, I think it was like 8, you do not need many, especially if you cut them really thin) and put on top of cutting board/cookie sheet. A flexible cutting board is best, but it's whatever fits in your freezer.

Destem your strawberries and slice them thinly while they're standing upright. Like the part you destemmed is against the parchment paper. (or cutting board but y'know. Why Dirty It). Place them laying down on the parchment paper as close to each other as possible. I found like. Fitting the triangle shapes together like teeth was the easiest way but something else might work better for you. Dice one or two strawberries and set aside.

In a bowl, measure out about a cup of chocolate. If it seems like too much, you can just. eat it ig or dip leftover strawberries into it like I did. If it's not enough, babe just add more it's okay lmao. If you're using chocolate chips, add some sort of fat before you microwave (any oil, lard/Crisco, butter, margarine, etc.) in fifteen second intervals. (if you don't have a microwave, there are instructions under 'General tips and tricks' to hopefully help!). If you're using Nutella, just pop that bad boy in there for fifteen second intervals. In both cases, mix in between intervals until it's kind of runny.

Pour chocolate evenly over the strawberries, at least enough to cover them completely from the top/fill any gaps that are present. Wash the bowl, and repeat the process with peanut butter.

This is optional I really like chocolate and think it's more aesthetically pleasing than peanut butter, but peanut butter doesn't harden as well as chocolate does to bind the strawberry layer together so I couldn't put it first. I did another layer of chocolate on top, but it was thinner than the original one.

Sprinkle diced strawberries on top, and drizzle SCM to your hearts content. (Any leftover SCM needs to be put into a separate container and can stay in your fridge for up to 3 weeks).

Freeze it. It's just faster this way and helps the peanut butter out. I left mine in there for a day, but I think it's okay after like an hour, idk, you decide.

Snap/cut your bark into smaller pieces, use the parchment paper to help line whatever container you're going to use and store your treat in there. I enjoyed these treats best frozen or on top of vanilla ice cream, but they do need to be kept at least refrigerated. Fair warning, if you're a slow eater, these will get messy if you wait too long slkdjfhlkjsdfsdf recommend you eat with a fork.

THE REST ARE UNDER THE CUT WOOT WOOT (Riddle's is easily one of the higher effort ones, so do not be dismayed! There are some on this list with only 2 ingredients, I just talk a lot LMAO)

Trey - Tanghulu No baking required, still satisfies his sweet tooth.

Materials and Ingredients: - Stove (someone said you can use a microwave, IIIIII don't Like That for this, but I'm sure you can) - Fruit (doesn't really matter what kind. I used kiwis, strawberries, and grapefruit.) - White sugar - Water - Bowl of ice water - Fork (skewers are better but I didn't have any, and toothpicks...don't fw toothpicks for this okay??) - Parchment paper\Plate (you just need to make sure it's hardened BEFORE you put the fruit on it kdfjhsfjkd)

Instructions:

Ensure your fruit is washed/dried, peeled or otherwise "ready to eat" before starting

Use a 2:1 sugar to water ratio and put it in a pot. (So 2 cups of sugar to 1 cup of water, or a more likely amount you'll actually use up is 1 cup of sugar to 1/2 cup of water)

Heat on medium and watch closely, it's not suggested you mix it, I did, just by swirling the pot to make sure all the sugar was in the water, but then I left it alone. You'll see it starting to change colour to yellow-y rather than clear. Use a spoon/fork to dip into the sugar mixture and then immediately into the bowl of ice water. If it appears stringy or is still soft and sticky to touch, it's not ready yet. Keep boiling until your test drop solidifies on contact/within seconds of being in the ice water.

Turn the heat down slightly and use your fork or skewer to poke your fruit, and dip carefully into sugar mixture. Immediately, (but carefully) place your sugar covered fruit into the ice bowl. Once you take it out, it should only take a moment to harden before you place it on a plate/parchment paper.

Intended to be eaten immediately, does not store very well. Check 'general tips and tricks' for how to clean the pot/fork

Cater - Spicy Garlic Cheese Bread

Materials and Ingredients: - French Bread (works the best, but you can use whatever bread you have on hand) or premade garlic bread - Butter/Margarine - Salad herbs (like the premade mix or whatever, other seasonings optional) - (Shredded) Cheese - Jalapenos - Other toppings + hot sauce (optional) - Bowl - Spoon - Microwave - Oven

Instructions:

If using premade garlic bread, skip to step 3. Otherwise, get your bowl and chunk of butter (if using french bread, I would say about a half cup) and pop it in the microwave just long enough to get it soft, but not melted. Measure salad herbs with your heart and mix with a spoon.

Cut your bread in half and slather that son of a bitch in butter, having worked in a bakery I know that premade garlic bread literally gets a Handful of "butter" (it's margarine) that just gets. Slathered onto half of a day-old French bread loaf. (Safeway. Looking at you.) If you want to try putting on some BBQ sauce or tomato sauce now would be your time to add it. If you are adding sauce, a little less butter is recommended otherwise it will get Soggy

Put on as much cheese as you want. Whatever cheese you want. I'm not the boss of you.

Throw on jalapenos and any other toppings you want. (red onions, bell peppers, make it a meal with some chicken or something idk)

Broil on high until It Looks Right, as in the cheese is melted and golden brown in some areas (assuming it's marble cheese), or wrap in aluminum foil (risky with The Cheese) and bake at 350 F for like 10 minutes (I still recommend baking over broiling but it's your choice bestie)

Drizzle with hot sauce if you want/any other condiments.

French bread is pretty big, so cut into smaller pieces and share with friends/family/your neighbour/ whatever or full send it or you can try to store it, I think once it's cooled, a plastic bag would be the best bet for storage, and only for a day or two before your bread gets Sad.

Deuce - Ants on a Log He used to love it when his mom would send him to school with these.

Materials and Ingredients: - Cutting board (unless you would like to be a heathen like me) - Knife - Celery - Peanut butter - Raisins/Chocolate chips/Cereal/whatever you want

Instructions:

Decide if you even want to bother cutting your celery, you can leave it whole if you really want.

If you want to cut your celery, cut it according to taste or break that motherfucker with your bare hands just to hear it snap and get that little bit of Emotion and satisfaction out of it. Not recommended if you want bite sized pieces. Generally only cut in a way that keeps the 'sides' of the celery in tact, like you should have a little 'dip' to put peanut butter in, but its ok if its not comfortable to eat it that way and you need to cut it vertically as well, nbd, BUT DON'T CUT IT THAT WAY YET it's so much harder to get the peanut butter on.

Use a butter knife to add peanut butter to your celery. It should fill the little valley in between the sides of the stalk. **Now would be the time to cut again if you want Planks if you know what I mean

Add your toppings, be it raisins, chocolate chips, etc. along the peanut butter to represent the ants slkdjhflksjdf

Ace - Oreo Mug Cake His brother showed him once and he didn't stop since.

Materials and Ingredients: - Oreos - Milk - Fork - Microwave safe mug - Microwave - Whipped Cream (optional)

Instructions:

Get your mug.

Throw 4-6 Oreos in. (4 for an 8 ounce mug, more for a bigger one) and soak in 1 less tablespoon of milk than the amount of cookies you put in. (so 3 tbs for an 8 ounce mug)

The longer you soak them, the easier it is to crush them and break them up, it should become kind of cakey texture already

Pop that bad boy in the microwave for a minute, and in 20 second intervals after that as necessary. Its not like it matters if it's 'raw' though.

Let it cool until you can handle the mug comfortably, add whipped cream or other toppings and enjoy!

Savanaclaw

Leona - Bacon Wrapped Sausages

Materials and Ingredients: - Baking dish (should have some depth to it) - Parchment paper - Cocktail sausages - Bacon - Scissors/Knife - Toothpicks - Brown sugar (optional) - Oven

Instructions:

Cut your bacon in half

Preheat your oven to 350 F. Roll up cocktail sausage in half a rasher of bacon and secure in place with a toothpick.

Place parchment paper in/on baking dish and place the rolls inside

Once you've prepared as many as you'd like, you can sprinkle brown sugar on top.

Bake for about an hour

Ruggie - Elote Loco (Mexican street corn/ 'crazy corn')

Materials and Ingredients: - Canned corn - Mayo - Lemon/Lime - Salt - Pepper - Cayenne - Bowl

Instructions:

Drain your corn can, then add corn to your bowl

Literally. Add everything else according to taste. Heat if you want to, or put in the fridge to eat cold. (I like it cold).

Jack - Fruit Leather (this is a higher-effort, more time-consuming recipe)

Materials and Ingredients - Cutting board (not optional this time :/) - Knife/Corer (if applicable) - Stove - Large saucepan - Water - Blender/Potato Masher - Lemon/Sugar/Cinnamon/Nutmeg, Etc. (optional, but recommended) - Parchment paper - Baking tray - Oven - Pizza cutter (makes things easier, not necessary)

Instructions:

Prepare your fruit. (Wash, peel, destem, core them, remove pits, etc.)

Chop into chunks, and simmer in 1/2 cup of water for every 4 cups of fruit while covered for 10-20 minutes, or until fruit is cooked. You can mash by hand or just go ahead and transfer everything to a blender, but you will have to transfer back into the pot after.

Taste, and add sugar/lemon/spices according to your preference.

Simmer and stir until everything is mixed in completely and the puree has thickened. (5-10 minutes)

Preheat oven to 140 F (check GTAT at the end for troubleshooting). Puree thoroughly in a blender/food processor.

Line baking tray and pour puree evenly onto it, it should be about 1/4 inch thick. Bake for 8-12 hours.

Use pizza cutter to cut into smaller pieces. You can cut the parchment paper underneath and roll the pieces accordingly to store.

This is a more labour intensive snack, BUT it keeps for sooo long. It can keep at room temp in ziploc bag for a month. In the fridge for 6 months. In the freezer for a year. Also a really good way to use overripe fruit.

Octavinelle

Azul - Funnel Cakes >:D (I had to look up a recipe to base the measurements off of, I did not memorize this, but I changed a few things when I Actually Made them)

Materials and Ingredients: - Stove - Large pan - Oil (Vegetable oil, but I think coconut or sunflower oil should work too if you have certain restrictions) - 1/4 cup Milk - 1 Egg - 1 tbsp Water - Splash of Vanilla extract (splash is generally between a 1/4 tsp and 1 tsp To Me) - White sugar (to taste) - 3/4 tsp Baking powder - Pinch of Salt - 1/2 cup Flour - Powdered sugar (to taste) - Cinnamon (to taste) - Plate - Paper towel - Large measuring cup - Fork or tongs - Other toppings (optional)

Instructions:

Throw all the Wet ingredients into the large measuring cup and whisk

Add sugar, cinnamon, salt, and baking powder, whisk until combined

Add oil to pan and start heating on medium, it should be about an inch deep to deep fry. Add flour to measuring cup and whisk until smooth.

(Refer to GTAT at the end to know when oil is hot enough). Use the measuring cup to drizzle the batter in a line around the pan and overlap as desired. Honestly, the thicker the lines the better imo. Cook for 2 minutes until golden brown, then flip and repeat.

Once cooked, move carefully to plate with paper towel to soak up the oil, and add powdered sugar on top. Add other toppings as desired.

Jade - Roasted Chickpeas Easy protein to bring on a hike

Materials and Ingredients: - Can of chickpeas - Baking tray - Parchment paper - Olive oil - Seasoning as you wish (Personal recommendation: garlic powder, salt, paprika, pepper and a little cayenne) - Oven

Instructions:

Line a baking tray with parchment paper and preheat your oven to 400 F.

Drain your can of chickpeas, rinse, then drain again. Try and dry them out a bit before you season them, either leaving them in a colinder or letting them sit out on paper towels or a cloth...or on the tray if you've got time to kill. **If you don't like the feeling of oil on your hands, you might have an extra dish to wash but thats okay. Add your chickpeas to a glass bowl before the next step.

Transfer chickpeas to the tray (if you're not using the bowl) and coat with a generous amount of oil. Add seasonings as you wish, then mix with your hands (or a spoon if you're using the bowl, then transfer to the tray.)

Bake for 20-30 minutes, shaking the pan gently about every 10 minutes to help rotate the chickpeas. Once they're golden brown and crunchy, they're done.

Best eaten straight away, but you can keep them in container for a few days.

Floyd - Trail Mix (AKA the ADHD snack Ever imo)

Materials and Ingredients - Anything you got in your pantry that already kinda qualifies as a snack food - Something to put it in (bag or bowl/container with a lid is preferable) - My favourite mix to make is granola, cranberries, raisins, and chocolate chips

Instructions

Grab your materials

If you're using something that should probably cut up, (like fruit by the foot or something idk) just rip it and throw it in the Container.

Mix everything in a bowl or bag. Use more of your Favourite Ingredient than everything else, then close your storage thing.

Shake that motherfucker

Put everything back (or do this As You Add it so you're left with nothing to clean up at the end)

Scarabia

Kalim - The Forbidden (I made this when I was like 6 for a week straight after school, I DO NOT recommend) He came up with this as a midnight snack and didn't want to bother Jamil.

Materials and Ingredients - Microwave - Microwave safe bowl - Chocolate chips - Mini marshmallows - Fork - A very high tolerance for Texture and Sweetness

Instructions:

Put chocolate chips and marshmallows in the bowl

Microwave for 15 second intervals, mixing with your fork in between.

When it becomes a sticky amalgamation from hell and looks like a dung beetle would be proud of it, it's done.

Jamil - Fattoush He saves the leftovers of the dishes he makes for Kalim throughout the day in order to make some version of Fattoush

Materials and Ingredients: - Cutting board - Knife + Pizza cutter (not necessary, but fun) - Lettuce - Tomato - Cucumber - Radishes - Pita bread - Pan - Stove - Olive oil - Salt + pepper - Bowl x 2 - Glass measuring cup - Lemon juice - Garlic powder, dried mint, and sumac (you don't have to use these) - (I like adding Granny smith apples and goat or feta cheese, but it's not traditional)

Instructions:

Cut up your veggies like you would for any salad and throw em in a bowl

Use the pizza cutter to slice pita bread into smaller, bite sized pieces.

Fry the pieces with a little bit of olive oil, salt and pepper, then set aside in a different bowl so they stay Crunchy

In the glass measuring cup use about 2 tbsp of lemon juice, add some garlic powder, dried mint, salt, pepper, sumac, and whisk.

Slowly stream in about 3 tbsp of olive oil and whisk continuously until it combines. (this might take a while to emulsify, yes you can use a hand mixer on low if you want)

Drizzle dressing over your salad portion, and add pita chips as you wish

Pomefiore

Vil - Parfait He let the French man into his life, also this is bougie parfait, you don't have to follow this exactly lmao, this is just how I used to make it for my mom

Materials and Ingredients - Cutting board + knife - Grapes, red and green if possible - Granola - Blueberries (they can be frozen) - Cherries, cored/halved except one (can also be frozen) - Yogurt (I prefer vanilla for this stuff, Vil probably uses plain Greek yogurt and some honey for sweetness) - A wine glass, otherwise just a clear glass makes it look best, but it doesnt really matter - Spoon

Instructions:

Dice those grapes as small or large as you like, mine are generally the size of like. The eraser end of a pencil. Set aside.

Get your glass and gently spoon yogurt into the bottom, up by about 2 inches. If you have the patience, gently arrange the blueberries into a 1 berry layer. If not, just grab less than a handful of blueberries and put them on top of the yogurt.

Add another inch of yogurt to completely cover the berry layer, and add a thin layer of granola. Cover completely with yogurt again, using another inch-2 inches to do so

Again, if you have the patience, you can arrange your cherry halves into a nice circle to completely cover the yogurt layer. If not, do the same thing as the blueberries.

Cover with another inch-two inches of yogurt. Add a thicker band of granola this time, and top with yogurt once more, to nearly the top of the glass.

Add your whole cherry to the middle of the parfait, and add the mix of diced grapes around it. ** if you used frozen fruit, let it thaw for a couple minutes so you can see the colour bleed into the yogurt a bit bc it looks cool. I'm the boss of you for this one rule because I'm right about it sdlkjfhsldjkf

Rook - Maakouda A guilty pleasure of his. He remembers them fondly from home. Works best with leftover mashed potatoes.

Materials and Ingredients: - Mashed potatoes (if you don't have left overs, just boil chunked potatoes in lightly salted water. Once they're soft, drain them, use a handmixer to mix, add some butter/whipping cream, season as you wish (garlic powder, salad herbs, salt, pepper), add shredded cheese if you want idc. Once everything is mixed you got yourself. Mashies.) - Egg - Garlic, Parsley, Cumin, Tumeric, Salt, Pepper - Flour in a bowl - Oil - Pan - Stove** - you can use an air-fryer for this if you want - Slotted spoon/tongs/fork - Plate w/ paper towel

Instructions:

For every 2 cups of mashed potatoes, you will add one egg, but don't do it yet. Add seasoning to your mashed potatoes first so you can taste and adjust the flavour as necessary, THEN add your egg(s).

Start heating oil, (about 2 inches) in a pan at medium heat. While you wait for it to get to temperature, (Look at GTAT to know when the oil is hot enough) roll your potato mixture into small balls and roll in flour

Fry until golden. Remove from oil using your utensil of choice and let it drain on the paper towel

Repeat until all the "batter" is used up

Epel - Dulce de Leche + Apple Slices Ruggie showed it to him

Materials and Ingredients - Sweetened Condensed Milk (if you don't just have dulce de leche on hand) - Apples (Granny Smith recommended) - Two glass baking pans, one larger than the other - Water - Oven

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 425 F

Pour SCM into smaller glass pan, cover with foil

Place smaller glass pan into larger glass pan. Fill the larger glass pan with as much water as necessary to cover the level of SCM in the smaller pan

Throw it in the oven for like 2 hours and monitor periodically to refill with water if necessary. Keep cooking until it's the colour golden brown you want

Once it's to colour, remove from oven carefully, remove foil, and remove from larger glass pan carefully.

Once cool enough, store in glass jar if possible, or wait longer and store it in a plastic container.

Cut up apple and whatever is left in the pan, scrape it out with the apple and eat it lmaooo unless you have a silicone spatula ain't no way you getting all that caramel out of the pan. Serve yourself more as necessary lmao

Ignihyde

Idia - Worms and Dirt Baybeeeeeeee The far less healthy version of a parfait

Materials and Ingredients: - Crushed Oreos (Oreos + double bagged ziploc bags and you Gamer Rage sldfhlskdjfhlsj) - Whipped Cream - (If making from scratch, you'll need whipping cream, vanilla, and powdered sugar + hand mixer. Just throw ingredients in to taste and mix) - Chocolate pudding - Gummy worms - Rolling pin (optional) - Mixing bowl (glass or metal preferable) - Spatula - (Clear) Glass

Instructions:

Crush the Oreo's by any means necessary. Obliterate them.

Pack the Oreo remains into the bottom of your cup

Mix your whipped cream with the chocolate pudding using the spatula to fold it into each other until it Tastes Right. That is subjective, so if you Like it and it's Brown you Did It.

Spoon/plap how much of your chocolate mousse you'd like into your cup. Throw in a couple gummy worms, add more oreo corpse if you want then fill to the top with chocolate mousse.

Top with more oreo ashes and more gummy worms

Leftover mousse is pretty versatile if you have it with fruit or make more worms and dirt, but it only keeps for a day or two in the fridge

Ortho - :(

Diasomnia

Malleus - "Snow Cone"

Materials and Ingredients: - Rage - Double or triple ziploc bags - Ice - Hot water - Grenadine, Maple syrup, Lime and salt, something else (Choose ONE per serving or embrace Lilia's energy and regret it) - A bowl + spoon

Instructions:

Double/triple bag ice

Run bags under hot water for a few minutes to help melt the ice a little bit (assuming you don't have already very small pieces of ice)

Crush the ice via brute force (its a good work out) OR I GUESS you could use a BLENDER but where's the fun in that

Get rid of any extra water and serve very finely crushed ice in a bowl

Top with your desired flavouring to taste

Lilia -

REDACTED

Silver - Refried Beans Another Ruggie special lmao I love him so much

Materials and Ingredients: - Canned black beans - Salsa (optional) - Chicken bouillon - Oil - Pan/Stove - Wooden spoon/potato masher - Chips or some sort of bread

Instructions:

Drain a little more than half of the Bean Juice

Over medium heat, add a little bit of oil to the pan, (enough to cover the bottom), and add the Beans

As it heats up and the remaining Bean Juice starts to bubble, add chicken bouillon and salsa to taste.

Mash the beans while they cook to mix in flavouring and to get beans to the right consistency. They'll be done when there's no liquid left sloshing around, but you can decide how Dry you want your beans

Add beans on top of tortilla chips, sprinkle cheese on top and call it done, throw some in a burrito or on top of salad, lightly toast some bread, put some mayo on it and add the beans, do what you want <3

Sebek - Salmon Croquettes

Materials and Ingredients: - Canned salmon - Diced bell peppers (choose your favourite colours)**go to GTAT for other substitutions and notes - Diced red onion - Egg (if you don't have any just add more mayo) - Worcestershire sauce - Mayo - Garlic powder, salt, pepper, paprika, other seasonings (your choice) -Bowl - Flour - Panko (optional, or substitute bread crumbs) - Oil - Stove/Pan - Tongs (you can try to use a fork but it won't always work lol) - Plate w/paper towel

Instructions:

Prepare your veggies, and drain salmon

Mix in with canned salmon, and add mayo, Worcestershire, and seasonings to taste. Add just a tiny bit more than you think you should in regards to spices because when you throw the flour in, it'll 'dilute' the flavour a bit

Lightly beat 1 egg for every 5 ounces of salmon (should be on the can) and add to mixture, using hands or wooden spoon to mix.

Add just enough flour and breadcrumbs to the mixture that it doesn't stick to your hands.

Set up your pan with oil, (just enough to cover the bottom), over medium heat and make little 'patties' out of your mix.

Fry your patties until golden brown (2-3 minutes) on both sides.

Remove from heat and place on plate to drain.

Staff

Crowley - Fuckit Fudge (AKA Rocky Road Fudge)

Materials and Ingredients: - Parchment paper - Cake pan - 2 cups Chocolate chips - SCM (14 oz = 1 3/4 cups, should be on the can) - 1/4 cup Butter - Vanilla - Marshmallows - Almonds - Anything else you want (just be aware you'll have to add more chocolate and you'll likely have to cut down on the other fillings as well) - Glass bowl - Spatula - Microwave/Double boiler (GTAT tells you how to make one) - Patience

Instructions:

Melt chocolate chips, SCM, and butter (about 90 seconds in the microwave)

While it's melting, set up your cake pan with parchment paper

Add a splash of vanilla extract and mix with spatula until smooth

Stir add-ins into mixture, and pour into cake pan carefully

Make sure mixture is spread evenly, and refrigerate until it solidifies (depends on how deep you made the fudge)

Cut into chunks and serve. Stores well in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

Trein - Raspberry Cordial Not a 'snack' but like if the Shaftlands are known for ruby berries I feel like this is close enough. It's from Anne of Green Gables, shhh its soooo good

Materials and Ingredients - Raspberries (GASP can you believe it) - Lemon/lemon juice - White sugar - Water - Sparkling water/Ginger Ale works too. Sprite is a stretch. - Pot/Stove - Fine mesh strainer - Pitcher - Ladle - Glass measuring cup

Instructions:

We're making a raspberry syrup, so you can use fresh, overripe or frozen raspberries. For every cup of raspberries, use just under a half cup of sugar, (3 cups of raspberries = 1 1/4 cups of sugar), and put both into a pot/saucepan.

Cook on medium/high heat and mash with like. the bottom of a ladle or something. It'll take like 20 minutes to have it cooked down to a liquid.

Strain into the measuring cup. If there are still seeds or pulp, strain again. Squeeze lemon into it in small amounts and taste as you go until you get the flavour You Want. This is your syrup. At this point, if you want to save some to use for other recipes or something, set some aside.

Boil the water (Use one cup more of water than you did of raspberries) and add it to the pitcher with your raspberry syrup. Mix, then let it chill in the fridge. ** if you would like to use sparkling water/lemonade or ginger ale instead, you'll just have to mix for longer is all, don't heat those

Serve and garnish with lemon or mint.

Crewel - Carrot Salad idk man I'm running out of steam and ideas lmaoooo

Materials and Ingredients: - Carrots, peeled - Grater - Bowl - Lemon, salt, cayenne - Fork

Instructions:

Grate your carrots into the bowl you're gonna eat out of

Squeeze your shredded carrots to get rid of the extra Juice (look at GTAT)

Add lemon/lime, salt and cayenne according to taste, and mix with fork

Tastes best chilled, eat immediately

Vargas - Deviled Eggs

Materials and Ingredients: - Saucepan/pot + Stove - Water - Eggs - Mayo - Salt, pepper, paprika, cayenne - Bowl + fork - Lime juice (optional) - Knife and cutting board - Bowl with ice water

Instructions:

Choose how many eggs you're gonna want to make, idk, maybe 6? Put them in the pot and gently fill with just enough water to cover them. Add salt and lemon juice (GTAT) to the water and heat on medium

Prepare your bowl with ice water. Let your eggs boil for about 8 minutes before draining the water and running them under cold water until they're cool enough to handle for a few seconds to put in the ice bath

Wait until your eggs are cold enough to handle for you to crack the egg shells off. I love using my hands but if it's easier to put it in a container with a lid and shake it gently, go ahead, just shake it enough to break the shell in a way you can remove it.

Once all your eggs are shelled, cut them in half the long way, (be careful they are Slippery)

Remove the yolks gently without ripping the egg white. Generally, you can just use your fingers or turn the egg upside down orrr very gently push the yolk out from behind into the bowl.

Add mayo and seasonings at your discretion. (if it feels like it's missing something, you can try adding diced pickles/pickle juice, bacon bits, dill, or mustard.) Mash together with the fork until smooth, or if you're using a lot of eggs you can use a hand mixer. Mixture should be creamy.

Gently spoon the mixture back into the egg whites. Any leftover mixture will be great on sandwiches!

Sam - Sausage Bites

Materials and Ingredients: - 1 Pillsbury OG Crescent Roll dough - Sausage of your choice, cut into 1 inch pieces (unless it's cocktail sausages, leave them as is) - 1 Egg + 1tbsp for an egg wash - Baking sheet + parchment paper (oven) - Flour - Pizza cutter (more fun than a knife) - Plate w/ paper towel - Sauce: 1/2 cup Mayo, 1 tbsp mustard, 1 tbsp ketchup + Cajun seasoning to your hearts content or a simple chipotle mayo works too

Instructions:

Make your sauce, throw it in the fridge to cool, set your oven to 350 F.

Lightly flour your counter and spread out the Pillsbury dough. Cut each triangle into 3 smaller triangles. Place sausage on wide end of the triangle and wrap it to make kind of like. A donut around it.

Place on baking sheet and add egg wash. I don't have a basting brush so I kinda wing it with whatever bright idea strikes me first. Usually I just end up using my fingers lol

Bake for 15 minutes, until pastry is golden brown

Once done, place on plate and allow to cool. Add toothpicks if you'd like, and serve with your dip.

Others (BONUS, come on guys I'm pretending like this is something people actually want to read LMAO)

Jack T. - Vanilla Latte Bars

Materials and Ingredients: - Coffee beans - Vanilla - Pitted dates - Rolled oats - Food processor - Cake pan + parchment paper

Instructions:

For every cup of oats, match with pitted dates + 1/2 a cup. (2 cups oats = 2 1/2 cups of dates). For every cup of oats, add a 1/8 cup of coffee beans. (2 cups oats = 1/4 cup coffee beans). Add vanilla with your heart. Everything goes in the food processor and gets blended.

Pinch the 'dough' between your fingers. If it doesn't crumble, it's ready. If it does, add a splash of warm water, blend again, and repeat until the dough holds it's shape.

Press mixture into cake pan evenly and refrigerate

Cut and serve once hardened

Che'nya - Cheez-whiz, pickle and mini-marshmallow sandwich Oh, context? Yeah my dad said this was his childhood snack and I wanted to be like him when I was like 5. Do not recommend. But I also don't like processed cheese.

Materials and Ingredients - White bread, Wonder bread is ideal - Cheez-whiz - Sweet pickles, sliced - Multi coloured mini marshmallows - A psych assessment

Instructions:

You don't get help with this. You know what you're doing.

Falena - Chicharrones (Like. Pork bites.)

Materials and Ingredients: - Cutting board + knife - Pork cutlet (I only need to feed myself, so a huge cut of meat isn't necessary - Salt - Baking tray + parchment paper (oven)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Cut your pork cut into ~1 inch cubes, or smaller. Place on baking sheet and use a generous amount of salt to season. Mix with your hands.

Cook until you can easily pull the pork apart

I like to use a little lemon, a little homemade tortilla and some crema to eat them, but just lemon or using them to top nachos works too

Cheka - Poor Man's Horchata He just likes it more because he can set it up mostly by himself, and he can share it without worrying about nut allergies.

Materials and Ingredients - Pitcher - Water - White sugar - Oats - Vanilla - Cinnamon - Ice - Wooden spoon

Instructions:

For every cup of oats, add half a cup of sugar into pitcher (or cup for a personal serving)

Bring 3/4 full with water and add ice to bring it as high as you are comfortable stirring.

Add remaining ingredients to taste, and add sugar/water/oats as necessary

Najma - Mango with Tajin

Materials and Ingredients - Cutting board and knife - Mango - Tajin - Bowl

Instructions:

Cut your mango however you like. I typically cube my Haden mangoes, but Ataulfo I do the grid thing and pop it up

Add Tajin to your preference. If you don't have Tajin, use lime, salt and cayenne.

Neige (and the dwarves) - Tarte Soleil (higher effort snack) It's easy to share and 'sun tart' feels fitting

Materials and Ingredients: - 2 puff pastries, cut into equal size circles - Egg for wash, like Sam's - Black and white sesame seeds, (Optional) - Garlic butter (softened butter w/ garlic powder, salt, lemon and parsley to taste) - Baking sheet + parchment paper (oven) - Water - Cup/Glass - Knife

Instructions:

Cut your puff pastry so it's just small enough to fit on your baking sheet. Leave one on the sheet and put the other in the fridge for now. Preheat your oven to 350 F.

Spread the garlic butter on the circle, leaving about a half inch untouched all the way around the circle. Place in the fridge for 5 minutes to set.

Dab the edges of the crust with water and set the other puff pastry on top, gently pressing the edges together (not squishing)

Put the glass smack dab in the middle, or at least best you can, and upside down. (Do not Press.) Use your knife to cut away from the glass and make a bunch of 'rays' (easiest way is to quarter the dough, then cut each quarter into sixths.)

Remove the glass and gently press where your 'ray' meets the circle the glass made to prevent it from ripping as you twist it. Repeat for every 'ray'

Egg wash, (just like Sam's), sprinkle sesame seeds and bake until golden brown (30-35 minutes)

Let it cool, transfer to serving plate, and rip off the rays to eat.

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

GENERAL TIPS AND TRICKS

If you need to melt chocolate and don't have a microwave (been there love, I know), you can use a small pot with water in it, I would say about a third of the pot is good, and a glass bowl big enough to sit on top of it. Boil that motherfucker and melt chocolate in the glass bowl, this is basically a poor man's double boiler

To clean melted sugar from the pot, there's a couple ways to go about it. I can't relax when I know there are dishes still waiting for me, so I used my kettle to boil more water, poured it into the pot, mixed it around with the fork I used, and most of it dissolved. I poured it down the sink, then used a sponge, soap and brute force to get the rest of it out. The other option is similar, where you just add fresh water to what's left of the sugar mixture, let it sit overnight, boil it again, and then dump it. (don't use cold water it will harden against the pot and be even more difficult to clean)

Some oven's don't go that low, I think the other common lowest temp is 170 F. That's okay! You can use a pair of metal tongs to keep your oven slightly ajar, just check in on it every once in a while. I use the same trick when I make meringue cookies and it works perfectly. Makes it wonderful during winter, but in summer make sure you don't overheat love <3.

You'll know the oil is hot enough to deep fry if you 1. put the back end of a wooden spoon in the oil and bubbles form around it, or 2. drop a small bit of the batter/flour in and it starts bubbling.

If you don't like bell peppers, you can shred carrots or zucchini, just make sure you squeeze and drain out the water first. You can do this with a cheese cloth or just your hands and pouring the water/juice out of the bowl over the sink. The dryer you can get it the better.

Adding lemon juice to the water helps separate the shell from the egg

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

I did this shit in like 8 hours gooooooooooooooooooooooooood I hope it doesn't flop. But if it does, I hope whoever it does reach, enjoys it, I had fun making it.

[haveihitanerve]

Stephanie Brown hated Galas. Well, that wasn't exactly true. She loved parties of any kind, and technically a Gala was just a big fancy party. More accurately, she hated the people at Galas. The rich, snooty elite who looked down at her with their perfectly straight noses, a polar opposite of her very crooked nose because one can only spend so long as a vigilante and get your nose broken and set so many times before ones nose loses its original shape. Hated them with their fake pitying looks. The whispers about her being just another street rat. Orphan trash. Which wasn't even true, but Steph preferred it to if they knew the truth. All in all, the company at Galas wasn't particularly pleasant. Which is how she found herself huddled in the far corner, nursing a glass of champagne. “You're not old enough to be drinking that.” rumbled a deep voice. Stephanie almost dropped her glass. As it was, it sloshed around enough to spill onto the front of her dress. “Asshole.” Steph hissed, setting the drink aside and reaching for napkins or something. “Cant you just approach like a regular human?” She griped. Bruce Wayne smirked at her, tugging out his own handkerchief to help her. “No bruce, thats your- pocket thingy.” Steph declined, shoving his hand away. “Stephanie.” Bruce let out a sigh of exasperation. “It doesn't matter. Stop- stop, here.” He leaned forward, dabbing at the spill. Steph grumbled, but dropped her hands, letting him work. “What are you even doing in my sulk corner? Shouldn't you be out there- i dunno, bedazzling the guests?” Bruce chuckled lightly, looking up at her from where he was crouched. “Bedazzling? Sulk corner?” He pulled away, satisfied with his work, standing up straight. Steph crossed her arms. “Ah. I see it now.” Steph uncrossed them. Bruce granted her another listen of his laugh. “I wanted to see you.” Steph raised an eyebrow. “You can see me just fine from over there.” Bruce gave her a look. “Come on, you're dancing now.” “what?? No- no Bruce!” she hissed, but it was too late, he had her hand and was dragging her to the dance floor. “Bruce!” Steph hissed through gritted teeth as he swung her around into a dance pose. “Im not supposed to be here!” She whispered as he led her in a circle, one arm securely on her waist the other steadily holding her hand. Bruce raised a perfect brow. (damn him) “Why not?” Steph looked around at the very obvious eyes on the richest man in the room dancing with her. Steph's cheeks flushed. “I don't- im not one of them.” She gestured at the crowd around them before letting it fall back onto his shoulder. Bruce smiled. “I don't care about that Stephanie.” Steph blushed. “No no i know you don't. But they do.” Bruce shrugged. “Who cares what they think? I’m the richest man in this entire room. They're just some elite fuckwads. Fuck them if they cant deal with me dancing with my daughter.” 

Steph gaped at him, eyes wide. “I’m sorry did I just die and am in hell? Does Bruce Wayne say fuck in hell?” Bruce rolled his eyes. “And secondly, when did you adopt me?” Now it was Bruce’s turn for his eyes to go wide. “You mean I haven't already?” He gasped. “You have your own room at the manor and I have a headache that is induced by your presence.” Steph scoffed. “Those are all the requirements?” Bruce shrugged. “I mean theres stuff like, I love you, and I would hate to live in a world without you and all that-” Steph wrinkled her nose. Bruce nodded. “Yeah exactly. So those are the main criteria.” He suddenly looked a little nervous. “Are you saying you don't want to be adopted?” Steph rolled her eyes. “Don't get all sentimental on me now B. I mean, maybe?” She shrugged. “I don't know if I fit the requirement.” Bruce stared at her. “Headache. Induced by your presence.” Steph rolled her eyes. “Not your requirements. I could be a fucking delight or a little gremlin and so long as I looked pathetic enough at certain times you'd be willing to adopt me.” She threw a look over at Damian and Jason. “Actually thats not even a requirement.” Bruce scoffed. “I just meant, their requirements.” Bruce looked confused. “The kids? They all love you. In fact, I think you're the least stabbed out of everyone by Damian.” “No i meant- wait really?” Bruce nodded. “Huh.” Steph glanced back over at him, and indeed, Damian even smiled when she caught his eye.  “Anyways.” Steph sighed. “I meant your friends. Society.” She clarified when it was clear he was about to bring up some bullshit about Clark and Diana. “Ah.” Dawning realization swept over Bruces face. “Yeah.” Steph muttered. “Im afraid your ‘ton’ wont take so kindly to another charity cased street rat.” Bruces hold on her hand tightened and Steph looked up in surprise. “Don't.” Bruces voice was uncharacteristically hard. “Don't ever say that about yourself again Stephanie do you hear me? You are not the insults they call you. If it was acceptable for me to rip out their vocal cords everytime i hear them say that sort of stuff about you, about jason and dick and-” Bruce cut off, breathing hard. “Alfred denies me, although he is no fonder of it.” Steph gave a laugh that sounded suspiciously close to a sob. “Okay.” She whispered. Bruce smiled in relief. But Steph wasn't done. “Okay you can adopt me.” If Steph had any doubts of Bruce’s feelings being untrue, the pure elation on his face just then destroyed any of them. That look of pure joy just couldn't be scripted. And so, under the watching eyes of every elite member in Gotham, she threw herself at his neck, wrapping herself around him in a tight hug. She didn't care anymore. After all, they were just some elite fuckwads.

[hey-heigo]

Chapter 31

first chapter of da year :)

SEE HERE FOR GENERAL WARNINGS AND FIC SUMMARY

Some pre-chapter notes:

not much to say for this one. kind of a transitional chapter into the trial

every now and then i re-reference the game transcripts and realize that ive missed a lot of stuff that's kind of important within the game canon and it becomes a race to see if and where i can introduce those naturally

beta'd by @digitaldollsworld!

Content warning tags: Monokuma-typical dialogue, hangnail fixation, student tardiness

< previous - from start - next >

Makoto jitters as he waits by the elevator entrance with the others, chewing on a hangnail on his thumb. It’s a bad habit he had throughout elementary and middle school, and one his mom would definitely get pissed at him for reviving.

Sorry mom, he thinks distantly, as the tiny sliver of skin gets caught between his teeth just so - and is joined by a bead of blood, hot metal on his tongue, as he tugs open a tiny, stinging wound next to his fingernail. But he felt like there were ants marching under his skin, a steady, anxious march of them as he waits for what feels like ages, glancing repeatedly at the doorway.

A few moments later, there’s the sound of clomping footsteps and indistinct words, and he nearly gets a twinge in his neck twisting around to see who it was. But it’s not Byakuya, or Kyoko, or even Hifumi - but Monokuma, uncharacteristically reserved (and, for some reason, missing a few patches of fur across its head and torso) and dragging Toko along by the edge of her skirt. And Toko…

He blinks, forgetting to be apprehensive for a moment. The characteristic twin braids that usually swung from her head were gone, shorn messily and at uneven lengths, just above the shoulders. The right side still had enough length to hold its shape as a braid, though there were a lot of messy, flyaway strands poking outwards that gave the impression that she’d been electrocuted. The left side was cut shorter, in line with her chin, and was completely undone, frizzing outwards from her face. There’s a band-aid - reddish-pink and patterned with white bunnies - slapped high across her left cheekbone. Her glasses were askew.

For a moment, no one dares to say a word, as her eyes flick between them, wide and wild and blazing with rage. “W-What are you looking at?” She snarls, voice stuttering only slightly, but enough to confirm that, yes, she was Toko, and Makoto relaxes a little.

(Not that he had anything against Syo, really, aside from the…murder. But Syo was a lot, and he wasn’t sure he could handle her right now.)

“...Toko?” Hina tries, tentatively, and she flinches, hard enough for her glasses to slip even further down her nose. “What - what happened…?”

“Isn’t it o-obvious?” She snaps bitterly. She yanks her skirt free from Monokuma’s grasp - who doesn’t even make a sound of protest or indignation, weirdly enough - her fingers white-knuckling the fabric, before shoving her glasses back with the palm of one hand. “She cut them off. Th-thought it’d be funny, or something…n-not that she ever th-thinks about what it matters to me…”

No one really knows what to say to that. “...Well,” Sakura eventually says, a little awkwardly. “It doesn’t look…bad.”

“Y-eah…” Hiro agrees, sounding way too skeptical to be believable. “It just…needs to be evened out?”

Whatever comfort they were trying to offer was lost on her, who only scowls fiercer, as she moves to isolate herself to a corner, her typical habit. Clearly no longer interested in entertaining any further conversation, though Makoto can feel her eyes boring into him when he looks away, returning his thumb to his lips.

The minutes tick by in an agonizing crawl. Monokuma is waiting silently with them now, adding a new layer of anxiety as it cycles between tapping its foot dramatically to staring at its wrist like it’s checking a watch, and yet the last three of their party is nowhere to be seen.

The hangnail Makoto was teething at finally gives up the ghost and snaps off with a sharp, needle-prick of warmth. Instead of pulling his thumb out of his mouth, though, he tongues at the raw, weeping skin, tasting salt and copper and another bloom of hot pain.

The sound of footsteps has him jerking to look again, dragging his hand from his mouth, and a moment later the sound is followed by Byakuya and Hifumi, rushing - kind of - towards them. Neither of them are moving especially fast, and Byakuya was keeping pace with Hifumi, though Makoto’s not sure if that’s on purpose, or, if something else was going on - he did seem to be struggling, his brow pinched, uncharacteristically stumbling somewhat as they reach the group. But the rest of him seems okay, and that in itself is enough of a relief to make Makoto rush over to meet him.

“Hey,” He starts, and then realizes he’s not sure what to say. Not for lack of stuff that he wants to say - ‘are you okay’ being the first one, ‘are your legs okay’ being the second, ‘did you eat anything yet’ being the third - but he also has the feeling Byakuya wouldn’t actually answer any of those at this instant.

So instead he settles for the next most important thing: “Where’s Kyoko?”

Byakuya’s face tightens a little more. “Coming up behind us,” He replies tersely, before grabbing onto his shoulder: “What did you find?”

“A-A lot,” Makoto stammers, a little taken aback by the sudden question. He reaches into his pocket to show him, but no sooner does his fingers brush smooth plastic than does something -firm and plush, Monokuma’s paw - smack his knee with surprising force. “Ow!”

“No spoilers!” The bear barks, once more its over-animated self - though somehow, the few clumps of fur that Syo had snipped off of it makes it look a lot more menacing than usual. “Grr…when I say it’s trial time, I mean it! That means no more schemin’, plottin’, conspirin’, nothin’! You save what you got for the trial so it’s fair!”

“Even lawyers will discuss before and during trial proceedings,” Byakuya points out, and Monokuma glares, red eye flashing bright and dangerous.

“Oh yeah? Well that’s that and this is this! I’m the law here! And the senate and the captain, and I speak for the trees, y’hear?!” It shakes its paws threateningly, and everyone leans away from it, uneasy. “Grrah!! That really pissed me off, on top of me already being pissed off about student tardiness! Don’t you know you gotta respect your authorities? Don’t you know you gotta respect other people’s time!? I swear, this generation is gonna go to the dogs!”

“Ugh,” Hina mutters under her breath. “Boomer.”

“Dude,” Hiro hisses next to her, still sweating with fear. “Shut up.”

“And where’s Kirigiri?!” Monokuma continues its tirade, undeterred by the errant comments. “She’s late!”

“She’s on her way,” Byakuya says stiffly, at the same time as Hifumi stammers: “She-she said she wanted to check something-”

And immediately, he clamps a hand over his own mouth, eyes widening. Everyone looks to Monokuma, breaths held, as a foreboding shadow passes over the toy’s unmoving face.

“Sh-she probably went to the bathroom or something!” Makoto interjects quickly, at the same time shuffling to the side to stand in front of the exit. “She’ll be here any moment, so-”

“Outta the way, Makoto,” Monokuma barks, and really, the rage would be comical if Makoto didn’t know what it was capable of. He could practically see steam blowing out of Monokuma’s ears. “Tardiness is one thing, but breaking the rules is another. Investigating outside of investigation time is like breaking out the volleyball during math class! Super wrong and super not allowed!”

“If it weren’t allowed, it should be written more clearly in the rules.” Says a voice from behind him, as cool and unaffected as ever.

He spins, and can’t help the relieved grin that threatens to break across his face. Hiro shouts, “Kyoko!” and she only nods, acknowledging them briefly before stepping forward to stand in front of Monokuma.

“Sorry if I’m late,” She says tersely. “But I was walking directly here. You can check on the cameras if you want.”

“Don’t get smart with me…” Monokuma shakes its paw at her. “That’s no excuse! When I say ‘trial time’, that means you show up within five minutes! Any later and I put out a warrant! Any later later and you get penalized!”

“If that’s the case, shouldn’t you make that more clear?” Byakuya scoffs. “This is the first time we’re hearing about this.”

Monokuma rounds on him instead. “It’s basic decency! Common sense! D’you also want me to teach you one plus one is three!?”

Makoto watches as Byakuya’s eye literally twitches, lip simultaneously curling in disgust. “It’s not like she was wandering aimlessly. And you’ve never discussed these kinds of regulations before, or emphasized the importance of them thereof. It’s not even written out in the rules - which, as you’ve made clear by this point, is our standard for what we can or can’t do - so how are we supposed to know that this is a punishable offense?”

Monokuma’s eyes flash again, bright, hospital-sign-red, and its whole body seems to be vibrating in place with barely-contained fury, and Makoto makes a blind grab for Byakuya’s hand, with the intention to stop him before something bad really happens; because as much as his words make sense, Monokuma was weird today. The bear’s unexpected silence only to be followed up with something bordering on rage, over Kyoko being just a few minutes late - Makoto can still vividly remember Junko’s eyes, wide and trembling, staring at him as Monokuma nonchalantly tossed a cloth over her skewered body and shooed them away -

Byakuya doesn’t flinch when Makoto squeezes his wrist, but his eyelids drop and flicker slightly, and too late, Makoto registers the crossing pattern of bandages under his fingertips and remembers, loosening his hold quickly and guiltily; Byakuya doesn’t really react to it, doesn’t even look at him, though he does shake his hand out slightly before returning it to hang loose at his side. 

“Smart-aleck, huh?” Monokuma growls, squeaky-toy voice low and dangerous. “Well, fine then. If you’re gonna be like that-”

There’s a chorus of unanimous pings, in the air, and then a collective shuffle as everyone digs out their pockets for their handbooks. Byakuya reaches into the pockets of his pants, finds nothing, and for a moment looks so genuinely disheartened that Makoto almost passes over his own handbook, before remembering that it wouldn't really do anything for him. Looking down at his own screen, he stares at the new line below the bulleted list of rules.

“New addendum: ‘when trial time is announced, all are expected to participate. And anyone late by longer than FIVE MINUTES will be PUNISHED.’” Monokuma recites for them as they read. “There, ya happy now? S’That clear enough for you-” And it takes a deep breath, chest puffing out. “-BRATS?”

And Byakuya frowns, chewing on the inside of his cheek again, but doesn’t seem inclined to argue the point anymore. No one does, for that matter, and Makoto thinks he can finally let out the breath he was holding, when he takes a look at Kyoko and sees her brows furrowed contemplatively.

“Just a second,” Kyoko speaks up, closing her handbook with a snap in the same breath, and Makoto has to internally brace himself. “At this point, there’s only eight of us left, with two, almost three people having died earlier, and at least one more of us expected to die today. If we can expect the ‘punishment’ for breaking any of these rules to be the same as established from day one, wouldn’t this end your game sooner?”

Monokuma tilts its head, anger forgotten in an instant. “Puhuhu…is that what you think?” It giggles. “Well first of all, my goal is a thrilling, chilling, killing game! How long or short it is doesn’t matter, as long as the momentum keeps up to the end! ‘Course, I would prefer it if you all could last as long as you can, and show me your drive as Ultimates! …But, you do have a point about the number of victims, so…”

Another ping, and Makoto fumbles to reopen his handbook. “New rule: ‘the blackened may only kill a maximum of two people.’ Unless we somehow make it to the end of the game with three people left, and maybe I’ll reconsider, but that’s for later.” Monokuma leans over to try and pat Kyoko’s knee, and her leg jerks for a moment, as if to kick the robot across the room - instead, she just takes a step back, out of reach. “Good catch, Miss Kirigiri! I do so appreciate thoughtful students!”

She doesn’t look pleased by the praise at all, face darker than usual as she tucks her chin into her knuckles, thinking. In fact, no one does; he catches sight of Sakura’s face scowling as she flicks her handbook closed with a sharp snap, and Hiro’s anxious fidgeting. Hina is the only one who meets his eye, though she just as quickly looks away; but he gets the unspoken message loud and clear. 

No time to discuss it though. “I almost forgot! The whole dang point of this!” Monokuma explains, with a conductor-like flourish of its paws, the lattice doors of the rickety, industrial elevator scrape their way open with a ding. “Alright, everyone! In you go! I’ll meet you down below!”

No one really wants to get on, but after the whole fiasco Monokuma had just put on, no one really wants to test it either. They shuffle their way in, one by one, and Makoto distantly remembers the first time they rode this thing, the weight of fourteen people had elicited a terrifying groan that had everyone frozen, stock still and hardly daring to breathe as they rattled their way down. This time, it doesn’t even creak.

Toko was one of the first to enter, and stationed herself near the doors. She eyes Byakuya with wide red eyes, a strange, intensely focused look on her face, and Makoto hastily shepherds the other boy towards the opposite end of the tiny space and into a back corner, before positioning himself solidly in Toko’s line of sight. He goes to motion for Kyoko, try and beckon her closer so he can tell her about the evidence he’d found-

But, she’s already here, and standing directly in front of Byakuya. Arms crossed, her left hand flexing slowly and deliberately, her leather glove creaking with every stretch and pull. Eyes perfectly glazed over, as if in thought.

“Kyo-”

“Not now.” She mutters, and her gaze flicks briefly to the camera in the corner, and then back into the middle distance.

“But,” He says, whispering now, following her attention to the camera as he reaches into his pocket. “It’s important-”

“It can wait. Don’t reveal anything here.” She says, sharper this time, and this time her eyes darts to the others around them before focusing on him instead, narrowing slightly, pale irises giving the impression of pinprick pupils, like a wild cat. “Understand?”

And he does, a little, but only a little. Even if this was their third trial, it still made him feel like dirt, having to be suspicious of their friends. And it still didn’t get any easier, being treated by Kyoko as something between a personal assistant and confused child; even if she was the only one putting in the most effort into getting everyone out. He clenches his hand in his pocket, momentarily forgetting the open wound on his finger, and cringing at the raw sting of fabric scraping against it, and the prospect of lint getting where it shouldn’t. He looks away, trying to distract himself from that, Kyoko, the impending trial, and the now-familiar sense of impending doom building in his chest with every meter they descended, until his attention falls on Byakuya again.

Byakuya was mirroring Kyoko, arms crossing over his chest, but he’s anything but still. His eyes shake like they don’t know what to focus on, darting, trembling, never at rest. To him, Kyoko, the camera, the descending walls outside the elevator, the others, Toko, him again, the floor. His right cheek is pinched a little with how he’s chewing on it.

He looks younger without his glasses, a lot less regal and closed-off. Makoto had noticed it the night before, right before he kissed him; and though he has the feeling Byakuya wouldn’t appreciate it if he mentioned it, he thinks he really prefers it this way. More human. Less guarded.

“Stop staring.” Byakuya hisses at him, and he jumps, and jerks forward again, face flushing. Had he been making it that obvious?

“Sorry.” He replies, automatically. But he can’t help peeking, especially when he notices the slight, purpling edge of a bruise peeking over the collar of his jacket, zipped all the way up as it is. And decides not to mention that either, at least not right now.

They rattle the rest of the way down in silence.

__

As expected, Monokuma is already waiting for them. Bouncing excitedly on its velvet throne, fur pristine once more. 

A different spare, Kyoko thinks, quietly checking off one of her suspicions as confirmed. They knew well by now that Monokuma likely had a reserve of excess models, but this established that there were different models stationed in different places, which could explain how the puppet seemed to get around so quickly; a mystery that she had been pondering for some time now, and deduced to either be secret tunnels, or multiple spares that the mastermind could switch control between on an instant.

But now wasn’t the time to dwell too deeply on that now. She takes her stand, sliding one hand carefully over her jacket pocket as she does, checking that the contents were still there. Casting a brief glance at Makoto, standing across from her.

It would have been for the best if they could have reconvened before this. But there simply hadn’t been time - and to discuss it on the elevator would have alerted the culprit. It was frustrating, but all she could do now was trust that Makoto had done his job.

“Gosh, when you’re all spread out like this, it really shows just how few of you are left!” Monokuma laughs, and sure enough, everyone’s standing a lot further from each other than before. There are new portraits where there should have once been occupied space, sitting within heavy metal frames - Celeste’s and Mondo’s faces slashed through with bright, offensive crosses. Strange how much of a difference was made by the absence of just two people.

Kyoko wonders who could have put those there - Monokuma, for all its many sleight-of-hand tricks, was nowhere near dextrous in shape or form to handle that kind of labor on its own - was it the Mastermind, then with their own hands? Were they watching from somewhere nearby?

“The rules are the same as always! Find out the blackened who killed your precious classmates! Vote them out! Get it right, and only the culprit is punished! Otherwise, only the culprit gets away scot-free!” She slides her attention back towards the bear as it continues its spiel. There were a lot of moving pieces in this trial, and to put it all together, she couldn’t afford to sit back as she did before. She’d need to speak up as soon as she was able. “Now, to start off - who would like to go first?”

She opens her mouth, but-

“I can.” Makoto says before she can make a sound, and returns her sharp and skeptical stare with a look that’s nothing short of anxious confidence.

“Can you?” She finds herself asking, unable to keep the incredulity out of her voice, and he gives a sharp nod that could have just as easily been a nervous swallow. “Then-”

“He can,” Sakura confirms, interjecting into their call-and-return game, and Kyoko turns to her instead. “Me, Hiro, and Hina can confirm his deductions as well. We saw the evidence.”

“Witnessing someone else’s logic is hardly enough to confirm a definite conclusion.” Byakuya scoffs, cutting off Kyoko once more, and she closes her mouth and tries not to feel too irritated. “But if you’re so confident, then go ahead and tell us who you think the culprit is.”

Things were already going off-course. She’d lost her opportunity to lay out her reasoning - but that was fine, she told herself. There was the chance that Makoto had reached the same conclusion as her, and if not, then she can debunk the evidence he laid out. He glances at her, and she nods once, tilting her head to give him her ear.

“O-okay, well.” He clears his throat hesitatingly. “When it comes to the deaths of Celeste, and the- the attempted murder of Byakuya, the culprit is Mondo.”

< previous - from start - next >

[mire1li]

Kafka and Blade got too silly!

Kidnappers shouldn't be... hot... right?... right? - Kafka

Alternatively - Blade's version!

You looked at the two people standing in front of you. Though they weren’t exactly paying attention, they were still there and whispering stuff amongst themselves. 

You recognised both to be Kafka and Blade from the Xianzhou wanted posters. Jing Yuan had warned you of possible dangers of the job he offered you. Being his secretary certainly wasn’t easy, and the situation you’d gotten yourself into wasn’t helping.

Nevertheless, you never expected to actually get kidnapped. Especially by those two. 

“They’re awake.” Blade sighed, making it clear he was irritated and would rather be doing something else. 

Both he and Kafka looked at you, she crossing her arms and lightly smiling. 

Certainly, Blade wasn’t too happy with you after you struggled so much when they came to get you. 

You ended up kicking him in a few places since Kafka refused to use her ‘spirit whisper’ on you as it would be ‘inhumane’ as she claimed. “Since when do you care about that?” He asked her, avoiding one of your kicks. 

Kafka chuckled “Since now.” 

“You’re terrible.” 

“Oh, I know~ now come on, we need to go before the General returns.” 

“Tell us what you know.” Blade walked up to you, looking down at you. 

“I refuse.” 

Kafka stood in the back, watching the situation unfold before her eyes. It was no surprise she found this entertaining. 

“Tell us what you know.” He repeated, narrowing his eyes as he clenched his fists. 

You sighed, shaking your head. 

“No can do.” You leaned on the wall, sighing over-dramatically. Honestly, if they hadn’t kidnapped you, mayhaps you would’ve given them some information, though useless, however, this certainly was quite entertaining so you didn’t mind much. “Tell me what you know or else.” He replied, scowling at you as he grit his teeth.

“So mean! However… I’m not going to be providing you with any information. I don’t feel like betraying the Luofu.” 

He unsheathed his sword, pointing it at you. You slightly jumped, having not expected that, however, before he could actually do anything more, Kafka stepped in. 

“Alright, that’s enough of that.” She walked in between the two of you, moving his sword aside gently. 

“I’ll take it from here, Bladie. Why don’t you go… somewhere over there.” She waved her hand, motioning to the back of the room. 

Blade grumbled something under his breath and begrudgingly sheathed his sword. He walked to the back of the room,  standing in the corner. 

“Now then,” Kafka glanced back at you. 

“What’s stopping you from telling us what we want to know? Your loyalty?” She asked, shifting to stand in a thinking pose. 

“Actually… don’t answer that, I don’t really care.” She lightly narrowed her eyes at you, humming in thought. She looked like she was contemplating something. “I gotta tell you… you look really hot right now.” You chuckled, looking at her in awe. 

“Hm? Well, thank you~” Kafka snickered. 

“Say… can I get your number? Maybe we can go out sometime!” You exclaimed, now standing up properly. The woman in front of you wasn’t much taller, if at all. Seemingly, you were the same height as her. 

“My number?” She asked, as her eyes widened a slight amount, her grin adorning her face. 

“Hm… we can figure something out~” 

“Really?” You looked at her dumbstruck, expecting her to have declined. You glanced at Blade, who was staring intently at the two of you with a hint of confusion on his face.

It was quite amusing to see him look so confused. He made it quite obvious he wasn’t one to show his emotions. 

“Well, yes! I suppose there’s no reason not to~”

Kafka took out her phone and gave you her number, she found it very entertaining how you’d asked her out. Though, she didn’t quite believe you were serious, she still accepted, believing it could be fun. 

You sent her a quick message, double-checking you typed her number in right, to which she sent back a sticker. “Now then~ back to the topic at hand…” Kafka spoke up, bringing back her original goal. 

“Will you willingly give up the information or will I have to use… more drastic measures?” She laughed, speaking in a joking tone, however, you could tell that she wasn’t exactly joking…

[rainwingmarvel7]

Just the Way You Are - Jinx x OC

Part III. Sweet but Psycho

A bright, unfamiliar light shone through Kasper’s swollen eyelids, startling him awake. His eyes fluttered open as a sharp gasp escaped his lips, his breathing quick and ragged. He tried to sit up, only to be overwhelmed with agony as his entire body retaliated with terrible pain.

A pair of slender hands pressed against his chest, gently forcing him to lay back down. Kasper gritted his teeth against the pain that shot through him with every movement as he was lowered to the ground again.

“Woah, woah, woah. Take it easy there, Blondie.”

Jinx leaned her head into his view, dabbing at his clavicle with a bloodstained rag that smelled strongly of alcohol. It stung as it touched his battered skin, but he was in too much pain to flinch away.

“Try not to move too much,” she said. “You took a real beating back there, you know? You got broken ribs, a broken nose, fractures in your face, a shit ton of other bad stuff. And you were stabbed twice. You’re lucky you’re still alive.” She flashed Kasper a cheeky grin. “You can thank me for that later.”

“Who… who are you?” Kasper rasped, his voice hoarse and quiet and scraping against his throat likes claws, seeing as his vocal cords were still swollen from strangulation.

Jinx tilted her head at him. “You really haven’t heard of me?” she asked.

“No,” Kasper responded breathlessly. “Just the name. Jinx.” He inhaled through his teeth. “Your name is Jinx.”

“That’s me,” Jinx hummed. She tapped him on the chest, which was bare and slicked with sweat and blood. “And you’re some Piltover hotshot, Kasper Glas.”

Kasper started to laugh but was cut off by a bought of shallow coughs that rattled his damaged ribs. Jinx’s bluntness with her words amused him. He liked it.

“Mm, yes, that sounds about right,” he mused. He studied her as best he could through his slightly blurred vision. “You work for Silco, don’t you?”

“Well, that’s one way of putting it,” Jinx said lightly, wiping off her hands and throwing aside the rag.

“Why… why did you save me?” Kasper asked.

“Because Silco wanted me to look after you and make sure you got out of here safely,” Jinx responded. She pointed a scolding finger at him. “But then you went and got yourself in some pretty big trouble, Mister. You’re lucky I was there to get your pretty little ass out of it.”

“Don’t I know it,” Kasper remarked. He furrowed his brow, giving Jinx a curious look. “So, Silco wants me alive.”

Jinx nodded as she reached for something out of Kasper’s line of sight. “He does. For some reason. You must be something pretty special,” she said. “He’s not really a fan of Topsiders. Neither am I.”

“Perhaps I could change your mind?” Kasper offered with a weak smile.

“You can sure as hell try,” Jinx said with a lopsided grin in return. She shook the metal device she was holding, which Kasper now realized was a staple gun.

His eyes widened. “What is that for?” he asked, alarmed.

“You, dummy,” Jinx responded as if it were obvious. “Those guys got you pretty good.” She poked at the stab wound on his side, still oozing blood, and he winced. “So, I’m gonna fix you up. Can’t have you bleeding to death. Then there would be no point in me saving you in the first place! Now, hold still. This is gonna hurt like a motherfucker.”

“You really have no bedside manner, do y- AH!” Kasper cried out as Jinx pinched the skin around his side wound closed and administered the first staple. A jolt of pain shot through him like lightning, and the skin around the staple burned angrily. “OH FUCK! That hurts!”

“Told ya,” Jinx hummed, somehow still smiling down at him despite the gravity of the situation.

Without giving him any time to recover, she pulled the trigger again, firing a second staple into the wound. Kasper let out a strangled gasp, tensing his muscles as he fought back against the agony coursing through his body.

The pain was so awful that there were stars in his vision, and he furiously blinked them away as tears spilled down his face.

Jinx kept going, unloading three more staples into his side. Then she shifted around, straddling his hips as she carefully lifted him up into a sitting position. She rested his head on her bony shoulder, which seemed perfectly curved for his chin.

Despite the situation, Kasper felt his heart rate increase at their close proximity. He had never been so close to a woman before, aside from Caitlyn, but that was different.

“Hold on tight, pretty boy,” Jinx said softly, her warm breath stirring through his hair. “It’s almost over.”

“Please, let it be,” Kasper whispered, wrapping his arms around her torso as he braced himself for the pain.

Jinx brushed his hair off his back and grabbed onto his bicep, her nails digging into his bruised skin to hold him there as she delivered the first staple into his back.

Kasper’s whole body shook at the sharp impact, and his grip on Jinx tightened with the pain.

“Okay, that’s the last of ‘em,” she said once she was done, patting him on the back. “You’re good, Blondie.”

Kasper exhaled a shaky sigh of relief, sweat dripping down his forehead and bloody salvia running down his chin. He let his arms drop back to his sides, although he couldn’t muster the strength to lift his head from Jinx’s shoulder.

She grabbed him by his armpits and hoisted him backwards with a grunt of effort, so that his back was against her couch, and he was able to sit up without putting too much strain on himself.

Kasper groaned, leaning his head back on the couch and closing his eyes, taking breaths as deep as he could muster and fighting back the waves of agony pulsing through him. It took everything in him just to stay conscious.

“Hey, stay with me here, okay? I’m not finished with you yet,” Jinx said, nudging his leg with her foot.

He peeked open his eyes to look at her, and she crouched down to his eye level and waved an intricate syringe in front of him, filled with a vibrant purple liquid.

“What is that?” Kasper asked warily.

“Shimmer,” Jinx replied.

“Shimmer?” Kasper echoed. “The drug?”

“Uh-huh. That’s the one,” Jinx responded casually. “But don’t worry, you can’t overdose on this stuff.”

“Where did you get it?” Kasper asked. “Looks nice.”

“It is,” Jinx hummed. “I borrowed it from Silco. He uses it for his bad eye.” As she spoke, she pulled down her lower eyelid, exposing her eyeball for emphasis. “You know the one. Helps him with the pain. Should help with yours too.”

“Then give it to me,” Kasper rasped desperately.

“Sheesh, no need to beg,” Jinx remarked with a grin.

She flicked the syringe with her finger, then rested her free hand on his chest, just above his side wound.

“Here it goes,” she warned.

She pressed down on the syringe, injecting a dose of Shimmer into his side near the wound. It jolted through his system like lightning, and a gasp of shock escaped his lips.

Jinx gave him five more injections on his side and four on his shoulder. They were quick but potent. Already, Kasper could feel it working through his system.

He had never experienced anything like it before, the way it burned through his veins and filled him with renewed strength. His hands were trembling from the potency, but the pain throughout his body was quickly reduced to a dull but persistent throbbing. He moaned with relief, his muscles relaxing.

“Feelin’ better, Blondie?” Jinx asked cheerfully.

“Yes. Yes, I am,” Kasper breathed. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Jinx responded. She tapped his nose with a finger. “Somebody’s gotta look out for you down here.”

“Well, I’m glad it’s you,” Kasper said sincerely. “You saved my life.”

Jinx grabbed his chin in her hand. “Aren’t you a big sap?” she hummed. She scrunched up her nose. “How sweet.”

“I owe you my life,” Kasper said.

“Yeah, I guess you do,” Jinx responded with a cackle.

She let go of him and stood, fidgeting with the syringe in her hands.

“I’m gonna go tell Silco what went down and then find you some bandages to patch you up,” she said. “You should get some rest until I get back. You’re gonna need it.”

“Wait. When can I go home?” Kasper asked.

Jinx shrugged. “Don’t know,” she responded. “Looks like you’re stuck here with me, pretty boy.”

Kasper offered her a small smile. “Could be worse.”

Jinx grinned back at him, this time a bit softer. “Could be.”

[razzledazzledo]

HELL AIN’T A BAD PLACE TO BE - PART ONE

CultLeader!Geto x Non-Sorcerer!Reader

This is my first fic, holy smokes! It's a bit shite, but I wanted to have a crack at some writing again (with added art made by yours truly!) I've got a number of chapters in the making, and I will continue to pump out the arty farty stuff too. There will eventually be sm*t so 18+ ONLY

Word count: 2k

Contents: angst to ? ;), enemies to ? ;)), geto being an ASS, reader taking it like a CHAMP, deffo no lovin' in this one (or the next few chapters most likely), introductions to the story premise, rusty writing and art lol, may be some inconsistencies in story compared to canon timeline

Warnings: depictions of violence, s*icide and d*ath, Geto's choice of words when describing non-sorcerers (monkey)

MDNI

The trickle of blood from the gripping of your palms makes this a reality - this was not a dream, rather a nightmare that you are unfortunate enough to call reality. The flesh of your inner cheek between your teeth keeps you somewhat grounded as you observe your surroundings. Thumping rings in your ears as you stand motionless on the exterior steps of his territory.

It appears that you have arrived at the gates of Hell.

Eyes trail you, as you trail them back, head unmoving as you do so. Keep your cool. They’re watching you - the followers - and intensely at that. You're sure you heard a snicker too. Fantastic. 

You avert your eyes back to what's in front of you as you stiffly take the stairs up, ignoring the glares of others. A cobbled pathway appears that leads to his chambers, or rather, your eventual prison.

Breathe. 

It could be worse - well actually this is pretty terrible -  but reminding yourself of that may have a placebo effect, which you could use to calm yourself down right now.

You were cursed, but not in the literal sense (unfortunately.  At least that would have been a more sane reason to be here than what you’re really here for). It's a sick joke  - the first non-sorcerer to be born in your family of sorcerers, and you’re the one to appease him of all people? Yeah, this is terrible. The placebo effect isn’t working.

You have been assigned to that man for protection, so long as he receives funding from your family. It’s a liability that you are unable to use sorcery, thus to protect the family from potential dangers or threats, you stand in this disastrous position. They call it an agreement for the sake of your safety, you call it a public execution. You almost laugh out loud at the absurdity of the situation, but you hold out on losing your sanity for a while longer - clutching onto whatever shred of dignity you have left.

It's not even the fear of him that has you wavering. It's the uncertainty of what is to come, the unknown. It’s frightening to the point you have to force a cough out to gain control of the trembling. You’re having to prove yourself more than you ever have by walking into this territory and surviving. You’re used to it - being tossed aside, looked down upon. ‘No cursed energy, and you cannot even see them so what use is there for you?’ It's been a consistent reminder etched into your life. Regardless of the obvious restrictions, you continued to fight and train. But it was never enough, and it never will be. To them, and most certainly to him, you are worthless.

Breathe. 

The aroma of bamboo on the sliding door brings you back to reality as you lean on it, palm sweatily resting on the latch. This is it. You squint your eyes shut, pull the door aside, and walk inside, and you can feel it: his aura. It is suffocating, like a thick sludge clogging your airflow and poisoning you in the process. It accelerates your flight response, but you know better: running was never an option. You open your eyes and focus on the floor before tentatively bringing your head up, only to be locked in his sight. Suguru Geto, one of the most feared curse users, is standing in the same room as you.

Passing comments throughout the years provided some insight into the monster in front of you; growing up in a sorcerer household exposed you to the world of curses in a way that few others of your kind had. You knew two things for certain: his cursed technique and his unfathomable hatred for non-sorcerers. It was not unusual to hear about his crimes, which instilled fear throughout Japan. He was cold, calculated, and meticulous with his leadership. Despite this, he was strong, arguably one of the strongest, and having his insurance would ensure your family's protection  - you, however, disagree greatly to that perspective.

His gaze penetrates your soul; it's terrifying how unclear his expression is as you stare back silently. He talks after what seems like a lifetime, with a monotone and direct tone.

“I assume you’re the one that has asked for protection?” You swallow dryly, before responding.

“Not myself personally, but my family, yes.” You try to hide your disdain towards the situation, but he clocks the tension behind your words. The corner of his mouth lifts up slightly in what appears to be a smirk.

“Oh? You don't think you need protecting?” He sounds somewhat amused at your response. Great.

You pause before responding honestly “...I don’t.” The smirk from his lips widens and your stomach drops to the floor.

“How pitiful. Not only are you a mere monkey in comparison to us, but a delusional one too. You should know better coming from a family of sorcerers.” He tuts at you before shifting his stance by placing his thumb and index finger under his chin. “Tell me, why has your family come crawling to me for protection if you are so sure of yourself? Entertain me.”

You clench your fists slightly, not wavering your gaze towards him as you ignore his mocking tone. “I have my ways of fighting despite my limitations. They don’t believe me, which is why I’m here. It shouldn’t be their responsibility to protect me, I don’t want to be a burden-”

 

“And yet here you stand in my territory, abiding by your family's wishes. Delusional and spineless too? What redeeming qualities you have” he interjects sharply, huffing out a laugh before sighing “I suppose it's to be expected from your kind.” Your eye twitches in response to his comment, and he adjusts position again. He takes a seat on the tatami flooring, reclining on his side, holding his head up with one hand while pointing his finger at you with the other,  closing his eyes. He speaks almost as if he were bored:

"If you didn't want to be a burden, you should have offed yourself instead of agreeing to this, no? At the very least, you'd have done something to make the world a little better."

His statement clearly reveals the shock on your face. He's not entirely wrong; you've considered doing that more than you'd want to admit. Regardless, you maintain your composure and answer harshly, standing up to your own beliefs and shrugging off any seeds of doubt.

"I want to survive. I want to show that I am capable of holding my own in this disgusting world.”

He looks at you calmly before smiling and opening one eye, pointing to the sky. "Well, if you're so sure that's what you want to do-" His aura shifts to something more sinister "-then survive."

The clap of force against your face and the spring air rushing into your nostrils makes you aware that you've been attacked, your body thrown outdoors into the courtyard. You fall to a shaky landing, still reeling from the event. The warm trickle of blood from your nostril puts things in perspective: Geto has unleashed a cursed spirit for you to combat. That fucker - you should have known something like this would happen.

You let the blood flow down past your lips and drop off your chin while you concentrate. You quickly reach behind you for your weapon, which is securely connected to your back. A four-part staff releases with a crack, chains clattering and angled blades on the ends gleaming in the sun. You swing them about, producing momentum and, at the same time, a barrier between yourself and the invisible force as you plot your fighting strategy. At this stage, you're relying on your senses and predictions of its strikes. You don’t even know what grade this entity is.

“If you die that’s not a problem, I have my ways of finding alternative funds.” Geto casually states as he walks out of his chambers through the hole formed by the propelled attack, arms placed  in his sleeves. Some followers gather, clearly alerted by the commotion.

Now is not the time to concentrate on him, you reason as you close your eyes and focus on your senses. You sense it approaching from your right side and whip your beams towards the aura, hearing a solid smack - a decent hit. You turn about and aim for another hit with greater strength, now knowing where it is - it lands again, pushing the aura further away from yourself. If you can maintain this dynamic, you may have the advantage in the fight.

The fight continues in a similar manner, with you sensing the location of the curse and smacking it with your staff. It works initially, but after your last strike, it begins to learn your tactics and responds by redirecting your spears to the side, then landing a direct hit to the stomach, pushing you backwards once more. You stumble to the ground and wince at your injury, coughing up blood, before steadily returning to your combat posture. You slap your spears together, and they form a pole, holding it out in front of you in preparation for their next attack. Despite this, you were unprepared for what was to occur.

An abrupt shift in the fight throws you off-guard. A little girl runs into the battle towards you, completely unaware of the danger, while another girl of similar age gleefully chases her. They rapidly discover they've entered a dangerous zone and freeze behind you, but it's too late to back out. You hear the shrill cries of the followers, and you react.

The cursed spirit hits again, but this time you take a defensive stance, forcing the curse against your weapon. You're grunting from the strain of attempting to keep the spirit at away with your brute power. You shout, temporarily increasing the strength in your arms as you push the monster away from yourself and the children behind you. Once you believe there is enough distance between them and the threat, you immediately reach out to detour the girls away from the area, only to be confronted by Geto. He looms over you, standing between the children and you. He firmly grips your outstretched arm, squeezing your wrist tightly, and looks down at you with underlying rage in his cold, purple irises.

"Don't touch them" His voice is tinged with venom as he continues to look you down, feeling like prey caught in the predator's snare. You freeze in place, and then realise that the curse's aura has vanished; he must have released it. He throws your wrist to the side and turns his back on you, resting his hands on the girls' heads. The blonde girl is sniffling, and the other, brunette, is staring at you with an unreadable expression.

He speaks over your shoulder in a harsh tone, "Manami will accompany you to your chambers. Leave, now.” Before you realise, a lady appears beside you and it startles you. She holds a tablet in hand, and carries an intense blue gaze focused in your direction. She takes one look at you, noticing the twitch in her eye, before turning around and walking away. You assume to follow her, so you carefully disengage your weapon and walk (or rather limp) behind her. You look over your shoulder towards Geto as you leave the vicinity.

"Laure, take the girls to their rooms," he says unusually calmly. A male figure appears next to Geto, with blonde hair and an intense physique. He effortlessly picks up the girls and exits the area in another direction, nodding.

"Everyone else, please stay” He smiles. “It appears that some of you need a reminder on what happens when rules are broken.” You turn a bend, losing sight of the courtyard. All you hear in the coming moments is the spine-chilling screams from that direction, alongside the sensation of multiple monstrous auras, which makes your blood run cold. You turn to face Manami's back as you follow her towards your chambers, silently coming to terms with the reality that your life is in the hands of Suguru Geto from this point forth.

Breathe.

Thanks for the read guys <3 I will draw out readers weapon and some other scenes from this part alongside finishing off the second part - stay tuned and much love

[iamthekaijuking]

Here’s the skulls I made for the vid!

For garang I used Gorillas and Macaques for reference, and for luna I used members of Hesperocyoninae for reference because that’s what I think it is, but like with most things in monhun its phylogenetic placement in the tree of life is kinda subjective.

I don’t have much to say about garang other than, aside from a missing pair of premolars on the mandibles, the dental formula matches perfectly with primates.

I do have more to say on luna however. The pronounced snout arch makes me think Lunagaron might deal with a lot of bite stress and have a very powerful bite. There’s also the long teeth and notch in the tooth line on the upper jaw, which are obvious adaptations for fish eating, but the robustness of the teeth and the iron reinforcement makes me think luna might be more like a cursorial phytosaur or otter, able to eat a wide assortment of things but perfectly capable of eating slippery stuff and being able to crack open armored prey like turtles or mollusks.

I know in the past I’ve said I think luna might have had more aquatic ancestors, and while that’s possible, it’s probably more likely that this trend towards aquatic-ness is actually new. I actually brought up the semi-aquatic luna theory to UHC.

I still stand by a few things I’ve said here such as the thick tail partially being due to fat stores and the scales helping with hydrodynamics and the immune system, but I’m not really sure about luna having one set of teeth anymore.

[forbidding-souda]

Hello! @tinieprince here! I just reblogged two of your headcanon posts about korekiyo with a partner who age regresses and I absolutely adore them!! I was wondering if you’d be willing to share some other thoughts on that? He’s just so comforting and I think he’d be the perfect fit for someone who’s in littlespace! He’s the number one person to go to for bedtime stories I can sense it! (I have honestly fallen asleep listening to a compilaton of him talking because wow he has the most soothing voice)

Shinguuji Korekiyo with a S/O in little space

i'm gonna combine a little bit of the stuff I already talked about with new things bc those fics were from like 4 years ago but they're still fire so here you go darling @tinieprince

-Mod Souda

❤ Obvious one first: gifts!

❤ Gifts from all over. His home is filled with artifacts and yours will be, too. You get toys from multiple cultures, especially baby dolls and things along that sort. He absolutely loves getting shit for you, he thinks about you all the time when he's gone. He will never stop spoiling you even if you ask him to stop. He will never stop. EVER!

❤ ^ And you get homemade blankets from many countries.

❤ He probably already knows what little space is / recognized it before you had to tell him.

❤ ^ And he isn't unnerved by it at all. Of course he's not. He knows everything about humanity, so he knows why people go into little space too.

❤ He loves it when he's reading in bed and you'll curl up next to him. Or even better, when you beg for attention. He'll happily put his book down and hold you into his arms.

❤ Oooooo imagine he has deer teeth rattles and things like that. And lullabies in many languages. I love him srry

❤ He will kiss your forehead for all of eternity.

❤ ^ Even if it's just through the zipper.

❤ His voice is soft and comforting, aaaaaa imagine him holding you in his lap and singing to you.

❤ He doesn't get annoyed by kid shows at all. And if you like coloring books be ready for him to lock in and color alongside you.

❤ ^ "Little one" as a pet name. "How marvelous that looks, little one."

❤ He'll always be okay with putting some work aside to be able to spend time with you. He loves working, but he loves you more. And his work won't get sad or disheartened if he's away from it for too long.

❤ If you aren't feeling good physically, as in sneezing or coughing or having a sore throat, he does not gaf he'll still be all up in your space cooing and you and comforting you. He will rock you in his lap if you let him.

❤ Imagine he does the catepillar thing where he wraps an entire blanket around you and folds it under but then he just goes "this is what they do to corpses before they bury them" and you're like damn LMFAO.

❤ Omfg you should a pacifier that matches the color of his mask.

❤ He's good at playing pretend or playing with dolls. Will probably get one of those big doll houses and then say it's for you (he wanted it too). Normal barbies mixed with scary homemade dolls.

❤ Will dress you and bathe you depending on your regression age.

❤ More than happy to feed you too.

❤ If you babble then he's going to respond as if he understands. "Fascinating, my love." / "Oh really? And what shall we do about it?" / "Beautiful, oh how beautiful you are."

❤ Will sing you songs from his childhood. You get to learn so much about his younger years from the stories he will tell.

❤ His bedtime stories are sometimes crazy as fuck tho ngl when he's not reading out of a book he's gonna loredrop about the Song Dynasty.

❤ "Go to sleep, little one. Let me tell you about the london beer flood."

❤ Any woman that makes fun of you is a goner sorrryyy had to add this one.

[fraudulent-cheese]

Giving you Izzy

hehehehehe <- me when i get asked about one of my favorite characters

How i feel about this character:

I LOVE IZZY AAAAA I think this is obvious? I draw her alot, i talk about her alot, she's in my profile picture and has been for most of my blog's existence, i think about her alot... Yeah uh. i like Izzy a little bit

Even if you set aside my brainrot, she's still one of the funniest contestants in canon and has. so much nonsense lore. There's a reason the "Izzy isn't Crazy" theory isn't completely stupid :p

Like. She's a fugitive. She had a prolific acting career. She lies constantly and simultaniously is telling the truth about the crazy shit she gets into. She's beefing with a 50 year old veteran. She actively assisted Owen's win in Island. She never made merge on her own. She managed to sneak into and then out of an international media awards ceremony. She eats pizza like a fucking dog at one point. She has moments of being genuinely upset with people. She's hyper 90% of the time. She's the only person on her team who thought about using tools to open a crate with only her teeth. What's wrong with her i love her

The people i ship romantically with this character:

Yeaah it's just Courtney at this point. courtzzy 4 ever and every other option's more interesting to me if it's something else XD

My Non-Romantic OTP for this character:

WHERE DO I START?? Well i like Team Escope alot, along with Owen. I think them being close friends even into adulthood is really dear to me, and i like her dynamic withe everyone involved in it. Eva's one of the only cast members who can reliably match her level of intensity, her being friends with Noah in general is intriguing to me and while her and Owen romantically doesn't do much for me i'd so be down with them having a Secret Third Thing going on. Izzy's the relationship anarchy bitch

Also i think people are really missing out on not letting her interacting with Alejandro. She could inflict psychic damage on him so easily. It would be like playing chess with a pigeon and i need more people to see the vision

My unpopular opinion about this character:

Im unsure of what an unpopular opinion regarding Izzy would be so i'll just go with the same one i always go with, which is that people should dig into her executive meddling way more. Like she somehow comes back during Island, according to her bio she camped outside a producers house for weeks to get in the show, Chef originally tried offering her an alliance during Action, she fed dubious rumors to Sierra, she was presumably hired by Chris to play the role of a Giant Mutant Spider. Like guys you are missing the fuck out stop focusing on Noah being an assistant for 2 minutes in one special and look at all this canon info

One thing i wish happened with this character in canon:

Honestly i just wish she had more screentime. She gets eliminated super early into Action both times (which incidentally prevented us from getting more courtzzy action. sad.) Despite how this is the same season that establishes her acting talent, and she's a borderline background character during World Tour outside of one Aftermath. I wish they did more stuff like in Haute-Campture where she just does weird shit and messes with Noah.