#basically I daydream a lot and not much of it is very coherent

[thybirbman]

I said Chasing Shadows instead of One Step Forward Three Steps Back, which goes to show my horrible memory, and I will never recover, bury me next to Kakashi's peace of mind and engrave the entirety of Here Before and After Me on my tombstone.

I would say this counts as a ficlet, if only because I want to hold the title of the first person to write a ficlet (not counting plain prompts) for you.

One of my favorite fanfic tropes (other than time/dimensional travel) is "[insert group of people] watch [insert other group of people, or the group of people but at another time] who don't know they're being watched and it reveals stuff (usually how group 2 are actually great or traumatized)". Idk, it just- it makes my brain mmmmm. There is a reason I refresh my search for fics where "Team Minato see Hokage/ANBU Kakashi be cool and BAMF" every month. I could write it myself but. I want someone else to have my exact idea and write it, which is a completely reasonable thing to want and possible to achieve.

ANYWAY, uh, thank you for enjoying. I imagine that in this (crack) universe, Danzou goes on a (funny) rampage, hunting down Tsunade and forcing her to return to the village and unlock the Senju compound, before then search every inch of the place and finding like a bunch of letters and poems sent back and forth between Madara and Tobirama, he then changes his goal in life to include the Uchiha in the village and everything fixes itself. Oh, or when Madara attacks during like the four day war at the end, they summon Tobirama and the war ends immediately bc Madara is evil and all but Tobirama has a really good disappointed-in-you look and he much prefers when Tobirama is proud of him and gives him lil nose and forehead and eyelid kisses, just kisses his entire face, he likes that a lot. Actually, canon now, in this universe, Madara went insane bc of Izuna's death, yes, but his madness was held off until Tobirama went on a week long mission and without him there to keep him in check, Madara could finally lose his shit. Zetsu fucking idk... combusts for unknown reasons, maybe bc of Madara's too pure love for Tobirama.

Okay, imma stop now and actually read the new chapter to One Step Forward Three Steps Back. Byeeeeee!

I have been day dreaming about Chasing Shadows on the regular but I have a bad memory and am bad at day dreaming, so it's just been the exact same idea every time, but I enjoy so much, so here it is:

Uhhhh, because of [insert plot reasons], Ichigo is gonna get mind walked. Maybe she was convinced after realizing how people view Tobi-oji/Dara-oji, and has now made it her life's mission to explain to everyone that no, they were actually great and not at all murderous, unless it was necessary and unless it was with each other beause there was "tension" between them according to Mama and Touka-nee said they should just fuc-.

ANYWAY, cue the entire adult cast watching multiple memories of Ichigo continuously walking in on Madara and Tobirama very clearly having been making out until a second before she walked in.

One memory is Ichigo visiting her Oji-san's house, but no one opens the door when she knocks, so she sneaks in through the window in the kitchen and she starts looking for Tobirama but doesn't find him. Eventually, she ends up at his bedroom door and manages to just barely crack it open, only for a very disheveled and barely dressed Madara to shoot out from the opening and almost slamming the door shut, only to stop at the last second and quietly closing it. All she managed to see was a messy bed with her Oji-san curled up in it, seemingly asleep.

"Your oji-san is, uh, tired, Ichi-chan. He... experimented. Yes, that. Did that very late into the night. So. He needs sleep. Which I'm making sure he gets." Before ushering her out the door with a tired, if slightly stressed, smile on his face. His neck is also covered in bruises that look like teeth marks, probably from her Oji-san beating him up for interrupting his experiments, because the only one allowed to interrupt is her and no one else (lie, she's not allowed to interrupt either, but Oji-san would never beat her up for that, just scold her).

Hmmm, she would usually just break in again after getting kicked out, but her Oji-san really does need whatever sleep he can get... She'll break in again later.

Another memory is her walking into the Hokage office, only to find her Oji-san pushed up against the office desk by Madara. Tobirama pushes him off immediately, going to right some of his clothes that are now out of place, including the opening to his happi, one side of which as nearly been pushed off his shoulder.

"What are you doing?" Ichigo asks as Tobirama snatches her up from the ground and starts walking away with her. Madara is laughing so hard he's sitting on the floor.

"Nothing." Oji-san's voice is rough and his face is bright red.

"Didn't look like nothing!"

"You'll learn when you're older."

"You never say that! You say you can learn anything if you try hard enough."

"Yes, well, this was boring adult stuff that you won't want to understand until you're older."

"Wrong, because I wanna know now."

"I will let you test my new seal if you never ask or speak of this again."

"Deal."

Madara is still laughing, the sound echoing through the corridor until the door shuts itself.

And it just goes on and on like that. Maybe throw in a memory with Touka where Ichigo is complaining about them always fighting and Touka pats her head before saying "They just really gotta fuck." Which is a WILD thing to say to a seven-year-old, but Touka never claimed to be good with kids and, in fact, strives to be a horrible influence.

By the end of the mind walk, Ichigo is squinting into the distance because 11 is old enough to start figuring out what the hell was happening all those times, Hiruzen is staring into the distance looking haunted, Danzou looks like his entire world just stopped making sense only to suddenly start making way more sense at the same time, Kakashi looks like he would like to be anywhere else but also he can't stop checking out Madara's ass, Shikaku looks like he wants to smoke twenty cigs at once before entering a coma, Inoichi has his head in his hands and is just slowly shaking either from laughing or crying or both, and Chōza is torn between going "awwwww" because that was some adorably dorky love and "fuuuuuucking what" because fuuuuuucking what.

So, yeah, probably none of this is going to happen in the fic, but by god has the thought been stuck in my head for days and now it will be stuck in yours too.

I'm in actual fucking tears thanks!!! Lying prone on the floor of an airplane isle losing my mind!!! I've read this like 6 times now and lose it the same way each time, I'll never recover

I'm?? Honored u like my fic enough to day dream about it???? Fucking crying rn oh my god. They need to GET A ROOM!!!! Ok actually got one, but they need to GET A BETTER ROOM!!!!!

This reads like one of those "characters read the original book/watch the anime" fics but the "anime" is just a highlight complelation of times Madara and Tobirama narrowly avoiding getting caught getting a little too up close and personal

You're right and it'll definitley never happen in the fic but I will never stop thinking ab the pure comedy of this now, so thanks

[heretherebedork]

The worst is Dohan wasn't just afraid of coming out, he had a very realistic fear of being outed by his evil sister which is a million times more violent and traumatizing than deciding on his own to come out. And Dohan's fear of being out is 100% justified by the narrative, yet somehow the writers still treated it like a character flaw. He started the show being sent pictures basically threatening to out him, he is from a very homophobic society/country, he has siblings who hate him and Jihan and want to ruin their lives, his Grandfather has been trying to marry him off for years, we find out the Grandfather wanted him to stay in the closet, and he was suddenly forced into the public view without much warning and really without his consent at the beginning of the show because his Grandfather decided Dohan needed to take over the company. Dohan had literally every piece of control stripped away from him throughout the entire show. He was consistently threatened and pressured and he knows he's at risk. OF COURSE he tried desperately to hold on to the marriage plans?? And again Jihan doesn't take a single second to think about how Dohan must feel or what he's going through. No, instead Jihan and the writers try to convince us that having a secret, even if that secret could put you in actual danger, is the most selfish thing you can do.

And on another note, I think you've discussed this before but the people saying Jihan and Ahjeong had no reason to suspect they would be followed on all their public romancing must've been watching another show than I was. It was literally established that both Ahjeong and Jihan knew reporters were looking for Ahjeong, they even found her house!!! If I remember right Jihan knows Dohan was being followed because Dohan mentioned pictures of him in New York. Jihan literally sent a photographer after Dohan in the first episode. Ahjeong got recognized by a famous actress who hates her when her and Jihan were together. They were later chased by a reporter and had to go on a whole car chase! AND Jihan knows his siblings are angry schemers. And yet neither of these people stopped for one second to think that there's some possibility they could be followed or recognized? That the siblings would send someone? That the actress could spread rumors? And somehow people think I should go "well their faces haven't been plastered on the 9 o'clock news yet so obviously they won't think this could happen!" ??? They even kept having public meet ups AFTER knowing they were photographed!!! The writing on this show is genuinely just bad. There's really no other way to put it. I've seen more coherent writing and characterization in BLs that got about $15 and a dream to make them. What a let down.

Yeah.

The fact that the show starts with someone threatening to out Do Han seems to be mostly forgotten by the narrative and completely ignored by the narrative in terms of emotional connections and emotional reasons for narrative choices.

Because the show had no idea what to do.

I really want to be clear that this show was not good.

Yeah, Ah Jeong and Ji Han made like no sense. Ah Jeong was stalked by reporters, Ji Han had hired reporters before and knew his half-siblings were looking for ways to take Do Han out of the inheritance line up so like... it's nonsense to think that they had no reason to believe they might be followed. None! Of course they were followed.

Ugh.

It's over!

Let's start daydreaming about a Thai remake.

This remake will add in a romance for Do Han, make Ah Jeong a better friend and focus on their friendship and her understanding of why Do Han doesn't want to come out, give Ji Han an actual redemption arc including a lot more sympathy for Do Han not wanting to come out and for the fake relationship and just generally be much more friendly to the whole storyline and make us very happy.

Let me dream, okay?!

[dreaming-of-mossballs]

hii so I'm like a super ultra silent reader of your content bc I am deathly afraid of my liked posts showing up on my friends' feeds. but I had to somehow let you know that even though you seem to be having some sort of burnout and unhappiness with your writing, as someone who's very very picky about what writing I even enjoy, your writing style and skill is definitely some of my favorite on the app at all. I totally understand being unhappy with your own work since I'm an artist too (albeit a visual artist so, not quite the same here but the idea applies), and I can relate to being unsatisfied with whatever it is you're putting out there. but basically, I just wanted to let you know from an outside view, your writing is extremely eloquent and well-put-together and organized. you can tell your writing is created with a lot of thought and time put into it, which is why it's so easy to enjoy. and side note, I LITERALLY haven't been able to stop thinking of your last post since I read it yesterday which almost never happens 😭. honestly even though there's like 5 gepard fans on here so he gets practically no content from anyone, I'd still prefer to have your writing carrying the "fanclub" of sorts over a large crop of posts from lots of people that isnt very well-done or thought about. I know you said this recent post may be your last one for a bit, so please, PLEASE take your time with whatever's next!! your stuff is always very much worth the wait ❤️ and please do take care of yourself and don't push yourself too hard.

(by the way, you totally don't need to post this on your profile or respond to it at all, I just wanted to send in some kind of message about it since as I mentioned, my paranoia prevents me from interacting with your posts directly 😞)

CRYINGB UGLY SOBBING OMGOMGOMG

It surprises me when people say I don’t need to respond because I can’t keep such a nice note to myself 😭 but I do the same thing when I’m sending asks so I totally get it (I’d get this tattooed on my forehead if no one stopped me)

i had NO IDEA I had a super ultra silent reader so this was an absolute joy to get. There was a post I saw earlier about how in fandoms, it’s either you talking with a small group of friends or your door is open and people come in and listen to you ramble. I’m definitely the latter. I’m so fortunate to have so many people invested in my story lol, because like most things I write, they start off as daydreams in bed. I’ve never written one out before, but I’m SO GLAD I DID.

And honestly, if I were to release something the quality I wanted it to be, it would take ages of rereading and refining. Unfortunately im not a very gifted writer, but all the practice I’ve gotten due to being obsessed with gepard has helped me a bit. I just have to remember that haha

Some less coherent thoughts

ITS EASY TO UNDERSTAND???? YAY IM SO HAPPY AHHHHHHHH

i actually based my style off the wings of fire series, i don’t know if y’all are familiar with it, but the introspective humor was so fun to me as a child. (Also I love using Chekhov’s gun as a crutch I’m sorry guys) it also stemmed from the worry that readers wouldn’t be able to visualize what I was picturing, so that ended up in a LOT of describing scenes early on. With no metaphors so it was just like. (Y/N) set the cup down, (Y/N) put the laundry in the washer, etc. hahaha it makes me laugh looking back on it

it also makes me absolutely kicking my feet giddy that it’s invaded your brain. I love giving people brain worms and inflicting emotional damage on them. And gepard ALWAYS shares posts with other Hsr men like. The absolute middle child treatment. But I’m glad I’m doing my part to bring something to the table that’s different than the usual 1k words he gets sandwiched in between five other people.

it makes me so so happy you think my writing is organized and well thought out, because I do put a lot of thought into it!

I’ve run out of words to say but i might come back to this to ramble pfft

i hope that fic gives you a good supply of serotonin for days to come 🩵🩵

[bellshazes]

hi bells hazes! fwiw, guy who read hse here. wanted to ask - what's your bearings on distant stations? i really love that fic, as well as any other bdubs self-reflection and 404 content from you ― are you planning to continue it? (un?)related but do you have any more coherent thoughts about repetition as sufficient for character, your ideas are so interesting and i'd love to see more. although i know it hasn't been 7 years yet

i've worked for 9 days straight and i have been having stilted daydreams of returning to distant stations because it is deeply beloved to me. i have a fair bit more written but not, unfortunately, the part that is troubling me (etho's POV in tfcs2 post-bear incident). just this weekend i was marinating in incandescent ruins as a clay-bdubs going to UHCs in bdubsprime's stead song.

to the second point i'm still invested in player-as-character narratives (e.g. my challenge run syllabus) but also i keep turning over the underlying question of how are characters produced, and by whom or what? are characters produced by authorship (even if unintentional) or by audience engagement? high-minded questions for something that, no joke, is me reflecting on how much i love the microphone test stories and 1 grit in dankpods videos. 1 grit is basically a character to me by virtue of recurringly occupying a specific role with just enough suggestion of personality to make it feel familiar.

there's something in this musing regarding the patterns of responses to yt videos, specifically near-universal comment culture/archetypes of guys commenting vs. more idiosyncratic comment cultures. but it's all very murky. i think the repetition of a bit or pattern can become a launching off point for a lot of crazy divergent things potentially inclusive of audiences treating a thing as character even if it meets no traditional requirements for what we might call a character. i'll probably dramatically change my focus in another few months as well but i'm percolating

[engie-ivy]

Yes, he's in the hospital and doesn't remember anything about himself, but it's actually not that bad. His memories are sure to come back in a matter of days, and until then, he can spend time eating, sleeping, reading, daydreaming about that ridiculously attractive Healer...

(The aim is Funny and Fluffy Wolfstar)

It's Like the First Time

“Everything seems to be in order,” the Healer Trainee, Aubrey, says. “As we expected. How’s the dizziness?”

“When I’m laying down, it doesn’t bother me,” he replies.

“That’s good,” Aubrey smiles. “The dizziness and light-headedness should gradually disappear over the upcoming days, and then the memories will come back after.”

He nods. He’d be more worried about all his memories being gone if the Healers at St Mungo’s weren’t so certain they’ll all come back in a matter of days. Dizziness, light-headedness, and amnesia; it’s a familiar picture when being hit with a Confundo-charm from a defective wand, which the Healers have encountered many times before and has apparently happened to him during some friendly duelling.

It’s always the same picture: the dizziness and light-headedness slowly lessening, and the memories all coming back at once after two to at most five days. Like, one moment you know nothing, and the next you remember everything.

Well, he doesn’t exactly know nothing. His semantic memory is intact, meaning he has basic knowledge and remembers facts and skills. He knows he’s a wizard, he knows the hospital is called St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, he knows the people in the lime green robes are the Healers, he knows that since he’s a wizard he probably went to Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, and he knows perfectly well how to perform a wide variety of charms, jinxes, hexes and curses. (So luckily those years at Hogwarts weren’t for nothing)

What he doesn’t know is anything about himself. His episodic memory, memory for any kind of life events, is completely gone. Who he is, what he does, what he has done, who he knows, it’s all gone. His own mum could walk into the room, and he’d think she was the laundry lady. (Luckily, she seemed like a very nice lady, and had thought it rather funny)

The only thing he knows about himself, not because he remembers, but because it’s the only thing they told him, is that he’s someone named Remus Lupin. Apparently, in the past, trying to fill in the gaps has proven to be more frustrated than helpful for the patient and, as the memories will come back on their own anyway, quite unnecessary. Therefore, they don’t tell him much else, and all he can do is wait.

Past experience has also shown that the patient often finds it quite stressful, and even frightening, to be surrounded by lots of people who all know him, and whom he feels like he should recognize, but doesn’t. Therefore, friends and family are only allowed in limited numbers, one new person a day, which started with his mum.

His mum had brought him his favourite novel, saying that he read it so many times, and would always wish he could erase it from his memory just so he could read it again with the same sense of anticipation. Well, she had figured this was his chance. Now, all he can do is lie in bed, read his book, and eat food, which is... Well, pretty great actually.

He doesn’t have anything to worry about. How can he worry about anything if he doesn’t remember anything? It’s like having a little break from life and all its expectations and responsibilities. (Though the fact that he’s so happy about having no worries, makes him think that this Remus Lupin normally worries quite a lot)

When a Healer comes to see him, he suddenly knows something else about himself: he’s very, very gay.

The Healer has a classic, aristocratic beauty to him, with his sharp cheekbones and full lips, and his eyes are of a clear grey, that appears silver, which contrasts quite nicely with the strands of raven black hair that have fallen from the messy bun on top of his head. And no one has the right to look that good in lime green robes, which he fills out pretty well with his lean, muscular body.

The Healer gives him a soft smile, and really, if he smiles at all his patients like that, the whole hospital must be diagnosed with palpitations. “How’re you feeling?” the Healer asks in a warm, deep voice.

He wonders whether his semantic memory has failed him after all, as he suddenly seems to have forgotten how speaking works. “Erm...” he says, very eloquently.

The Healer frowns, and looks at Aubrey. “Isn’t the confusion supposed to be gone by now?”

Aubrey looks from the Healer to him and back to the Healer, while a knowing smile appears on her face. “Don’t worry,” she tells the Healer. “He has been perfectly responsive and coherent all day.”

“Has he had some Anti-Confusion Concoction?”

“He’s had a small dose, as the confusion was already wearing off on his own.”

“Are you going to give him Memory Potion?” the Healer continues his questioning.

Aubrey shakes her head. “We have already given him Mandrake Restorative Draught against the spell’s physical effects. Adding Memory Potion might make the dose of Stewed Mandrake too high. As we can be certain all memories will come back on their own, it isn’t worth the risk.”

The Healer nods thoughtfully. “So only a daily dose of Restoration Potion until all effects have subsided, I assume?”

“Yes,” Aubrey agrees. “Based on past experience, that’ll in all likeliness be sufficient.”

The Healer turns his head back to him, and that soft smile is back in place. He opens his mouth to speak, but right at that moment, a bright flash can be seen, and a gazelle made out of shining white light is standing in front of them.

“I’m so sorry to disturb on a moment like this,” a stressed-sounding voice of a young woman comes from the Patronus, that is directing itself to the Healer. “But you’re needed back at the HADA department immediately! We’re having an emergency.”

The Healer curses under his breath. He takes a step towards the door, but then stops to look back at him with a pained expression.

“He’s in good hands,” Aubrey says.

The Healer nods. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he tells him, before hurrying out the door.

Though his mum was right, and the novel is really good, he has trouble focusing on it from that moment on. He’s constantly interrupted by thoughts of bright, silver-grey eyes. Merlin, he’s seen the guy once, and he’s acting like a twelve-year-old with a crush!

Telling himself off for it doesn’t stop him from looking up hopefully the moment he catches a glimpse of lime-green robes. It’s quite a disappointment when the Healer that walks in to check his vitals is a greying, grumpy man with a face that seems to be twisted in a permanent scowl. Asking him where the good-looking Healer went to seems kind of impolite though, so he just sits and nods whenever the Healer grumbles something unintelligible.

“So, why have I gotten a different Healer?” he asks Aubrey later, trying to sound casual.

“Different Healer?” she asks, not understanding.

“Yeah,” he says, feeling to his great annoyance that his cheeks begin to flush. “There was this older man checking up on me, while before, there was the young man with the broad shoulder, shining dark hair, sweet smile, pretty eyes...” He trails off.

“Oh!” Understanding, and a not insignificant amount of amusement, appear on Aubrey’s face. “Oh, he wasn’t not your Healer, sweetie! He was visiting.”

“Ah,” he sighs disappointedly. So the Healer had only been here for some sort of second opinion, and he probably won’t be back. It was too good to be true, to have a Healer like that around as a nice distraction.

“Healer Black works for the Healing Against the Dark Arts Department,” Aubrey continues.

“You know him?” he asks.

“I know of him. But honestly,” she adds with a wink. “Everyone working at St Mungo’s knows of Healer Black!”

He chuckles. “I suppose he cannot not catch your eye.”

“It’s not just his appearance,” Aubrey says. “Healer Black is the leading expert on healing Dark Arts-related injuries and combating curses from the Dark Arts. He has invented novel Healing Spells and revolutionized the protocol for treating curses. Healers from all over the world consult him on their cases, and patients come to see him from all over the world.”

“Wow...” he sighs again, but this time it’s a more wistful sigh. He doesn’t even care anymore that he sounds like a love-struck teenager. Maybe Aubrey will write it off as a side-effect of the Confundo-charm. He briefly wonders about that himself, but as those bright, silver-grey eyes come to mind again, he knows he’s under a whole different kind of spell.

“Yeah,” Aubrey smiles. “He’s quite a remarkable man.”

“So I guess I won’t be seeing him again then,” he says dejectedly, letting his head hang. He wonders why they’d sent that Healer to come see him in the first place, as he surely must’ve had better things to do.

He hears a choked noise besides him, and he looks up at Aubrey, who seems to be stifling a laugh, with her hand pressed against her mouth. “Don’t worry, love,” she says with obvious amusement in her voice. “I’m sure you’ll be seeing more of him.”

The young man sitting next to his bed has been talking about his wife and their baby for an hour straight. Though it really isn’t so bad. His stories are quite amusing, and the man is very charismatic. He has sparkling eyes, and hair so messy, he had immediately checked whether it wasn’t storming outside when the man had entered. He has a disarming smile and a contagious laugh, and is surprisingly easy to talk to. He says his name is James Potter, and he’s Remus Lupin’s best friend.

He has to give Remus Lupin a pat on the back for having made such a nice friend. Honestly, the idea of socializing with new people, trying to make friends, does not appeal to him, and he’s glad to know Remus already has them.

“And I just went to see Sirius,” James says. “Well, more like I was speed walking next to him in the two minutes he had to get from one room to another. He still managed to apologize twenty times though. Normally, I’d say he should be sorry, but the poor guy seems to hardly have any time to eat or sleep.” James shakes his head. “Did you hear what happened? Three children were playing in the woods, and they must’ve accidentally touched an unknown cursed object. They were brought in barely conscious and with a mother completely beside herself. So of course, ‘the widely renowned and highly acclaimed, capable-of-the-impossible Healer Black’ was the only one who might save them. And he has, as they seem to be recovering,” James adds, relieved. “But really, there aren’t many excuses that would justify him not being here, but having to save children’s lives is definitely one of them.”

“Thank Merlin those children are alright. That sounds- Wait,” he says, before sitting up. “Healer Black? You know Healer Black?”

James blinks at him. “Ehm... Yeah?”

“Merlin, that man is so handsome!” he exclaims. “He was here for like two minutes, before he got called away to other patients, but I just can’t stop thinking about him! He already looks perfect, and now you’re telling me that he’s some kind of miracle Healer saving children’s lives?” He sighs. “It’s just not fair.”

At first, James still looks confused. Then his eyes widen in understanding, and his mouth starts twitching like he’s trying to hold back laughter.

He doesn’t blame him. He’d laugh at himself too, with how ridiculous he’s been acting over this random Healer. He just hopes he won’t have embarrassed Remus Lupin too much once his memories have returned.

“Don’t worry,” James says, in an amused voice. “Healer Black will come back as soon as he has the time.”

Now, his own eyes widen. “You really think he’d come to see me again?”

James lets out a strangled noise and starts coughing, which he strongly suspects being a laugh quickly covered up by a cough. “Yes,” James replies, suppressed laughter still sounding through in his voice. “I really think so.”

He knows it’s rather pathetic, but as he’s got nothing better to do, he did it anyway. He practiced what he’s going to say to Healer Black when, or if, he comes back.

He’ll tilt his head slightly downwards, so he’ll look up at the man through his lashes, and then he’ll give him a coy smile, while softly saying ‘Healer Black. It’s so good to see you again. I’ve heard many great things about you, and what you did for those children is truly admirable.’ Luckily, flirting seems to fall under semantic memory.

However, when the moment comes that Healer Black enters the room again, his carefully constructed plan falls apart.

At first, he’s stunned that yes, Healer Black really looks like that, and he hasn’t made it better in his head. Alright, the man has bags under his eyes, his robes are rumpled, and his hair is slightly greasy and so much strands are peaking out of his bun, making it look more messy than what would qualify as a normal messy bun, but he still looks like the most beautiful person in the world. He doesn’t even notice Aubrey and James walk in after Healer Black.

He opens his mouth to deliver his carefully practiced lines, but the words die in his throat as Healer Black... Well, flings himself at him. He literally splays out on top of him, hugging him close and pressing his face in the crook of his neck. “I missed you so much,” Healer Black murmurs against his skin.

He freezes. Yes, he has forgotten quite a lot, but he’s still pretty sure this is not the standard operating procedure for Healers to greet their patients. “Erm...” He says, once again ever so eloquently.

Healer Black lifts his head and looks up at him in confusion, but he can’t possibly be more confused than he’s feeling.

James scrapes his throat. “Remus, may I introduce you to Healer Sirius Black-Lupin, your husband?”

“So neither one of you decided to tell him?” Healer Black has crossed his arms over his chest and is glaring at Audrey and James.

“I’m sorry, Healer Black!” Aubrey squeaks. “I know I should’ve told him, but it was just too cute, watch him be all smitten with his own husband.”

He isn’t really listening. He’s openly staring at Healer Black. Apparently, he bloody married the guy, so it’s allowed, right?

“I don’t know how you pulled this off, Remus Lupin,” he whispers under his breath. “But thank you, and kudos to you, mate, kudos to you.”

As he looks at Healer Black up and down (at some point he’ll really have to stop referring to his husband as Healer Black, probably), he suddenly really wishes for his memories to come back fast, as there are some things he’d really like to remember.

Though on the other hand, he thinks, biting his lip, maybe ‘Healer Black’ won’t mind freshening up his memory in the meantime?

“Ugh,” Remus groans, hiding his face against Sirius’ chest. “I can’t believe I was practically drooling over you!”

Sirius chuckles while he’s rubbing soft circles on Remus’ back. “You were cute.”

As a reply, Remus just groans again.

“I’m sorry, though,” Sirius says, suddenly quietly. “It wouldn’t have happened if I had been by your side as I was supposed to be.”

Remus lifts up his head to look at Sirius. “Hey, none of that! You were saving lives.” He presses a quick kiss to his husband’s lips. “You wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else, and I wouldn’t have wanted you to be anywhere else.”

Sirius smiles softly at him, and Remus lays his head back on his chest. “Besides, it was a good reminder that I should be more proud of my accomplishment to get Healer Black to marry me.”

Sirius barks a laugh, that Remus can feel vibrating in his chest. “And how exactly was me down on one knee practically begging you to become my husband ‘you getting me to marry you’?”

Remus smiles fondly, happy that that memory is safely back in his head. “And it was nice to feel like having a new crush again,” he continues. “ All exhilarated, enraptured, and in awe.”

“Oh, Moony,” Sirius sighs, pressing a kiss to the top of Remus’ head. “I feel like that every time I look at you.”

[blueflyingturtleontheway]

13, 21, 29, 40 for the Writer Ask Meme, please?

13. Describe your writing process

First it starts with daydreaming. LOTS of daydreaming. I basically play a scene in my head a thousand of times, listening to the dialogues, seeing the actions play out, remembering parts of narrations and descriptions, feeling the emotions and only then I go to writing itself. Then there's not much of a process, I usually just open a doc and write, maybe jump from scene to scene if I get stuck and rewrite everything in one sitting in one part at the end (you can see I only write short oneshots). After that it's only send it to my beta, or run through grammarly in some rare cases I don't want her to see it, check again for some late ideas and post.

21. What aspect of your writing are you most proud of?

The way I write emotions I think, or to be more specific, the way I convey emotions to create an atmosphere. Descriptions of little gestures, the way something is done, referring to the surrounding, using metaphors. Generally I love writing this stuff and I think I'm even not so bad at it, but the final verdict is in hands of my readers as always.

Oh! I also think I'm quite good at characterizing characters by the way they speak... if I remember to do that XD.

29. Is writing more of a hobby or do you write with the intention of getting published?

Definitely a hobby. I love writing, definitely, and that's partially why I don't write with the intention of being published. First of all, I write mostly fanfiction because that's what I have ideas for and what gives me joy to write, second I love love the freedom writing gives me. I can write for myself, I can write stories that contradict each other, I can make AUs to AUs, I can be as shallow or deep with my interpretations as I want, I can ship one character with a ton of different characters depending on the story and no one can do anything because those are MY stories. I write for myself and I share to share that joy with others, to paraphrase a poet. And last but not least, getting published kinda scares me, to be fair. Same as getting very famous in the internet/fandom. It's not the same as writing for a small community or specific people, if I want to get published I need to think about my audience, I have to think about not hurting anyone by going out of my way to foresee various interpretations, and finally I'd be too afraid my works would get interpreted and/ used in a way I wouldn't like to or straight up contrary to my beliefs. So yes, writing is a hobby for me and a hobby I want it to stay.

40. Do you look up to any of your writer buddies?

ABSOLUTELY. You, for example, with your deep backstories and coherent, interesting, thought out plot. My one irl friend I'll only call Cuco here, with her dedication to her story, ambition and serious approach to writing. @a-lilacsong with her deep characterizations and fantastic ability to make the stories of just the right length.

Thank you very much for this ask Amuel <3

Asks

[venom-inside-you]

ommmgggg just read that ask ! give us more symbiotic powers during sex Head Canons !

Okay! Y’all asked for it! I am sorry but also not sorry if this is not coherent to anyone else but me but I have a lot of thoughts so this is long, again Nonnie you asked for this. I’m also on mobile and it would be a pain in the ass to put a read-more so sorry about that as well!

(Please note mun has only seen the movie and read a few snippets of the comics regarding Venom so these are completely made up out of mun’s mind and not part of any universe except my own lololol. I also refer to Venom as he/him.)

Symbiote Powers During Sex - Head Canons!

-Before we talk about anything else!!!!! Venom’s species reproduce asexually, so he does not inherently understand copulation between humans nor does he understand the pleasurable aspects of sex. He has Eddie’s memories but that is not the same (will explain later) and understands that is how Earth is populated, but regularly scolds Eddie for being weak to others’ sexuality and needing the human connection in order to survive, constantly criticizes humans for being overly-emotional life forms. Eddie has also not had sex or has had daydreams or wet dreams about having sex with Venom.

-Let’s talk about long distance. This symbiote can stretch out pretty far from Eddie’s body so if his partner/SO/lover/whatever is in another room entirely, small tendrils or even larger tentacles can be used to do whatever.

-Speaking of what the tendrils, tentacles can do, here’s a few suggestions: licking, sucking (with little suction cups like an octopus), biting, tugging, vibrating!!! You name it, Venom can probably do it and with more than one tendril/tentacle at a time.

-Don’t even get me started on texture!! But let’s— Venom’s mass is cool and slick to the touch, but not sticky or too goopy. He does produce a substance so that in his constant shape-shifting, he doesn’t create too much heat from the friction so this could be used as a sexual lubrication. He also produces saliva that is similar to the lube but thicker and a little more sticky. ANYWAY, these tendrils/tentacles can be ribbed, bumpy, ultra smooth, and textured after a real penis (most likely Eddie’s but he’s been in other humans before Eddie so it might sorta be an amalgamation of multiple) among other textures I haven’t even mentioned!

-Foreplay (long distance or not) - tendrils and tentacles EVERYWHERE. Humans (usually) have two hands and two arms— Eddie can only do so much!! But Venom can do anything, literally anything with whatever amount of mass he’d like to use. Multiple tendrils can come together to make one tentacle or one tentacle can be split into multiple tendrils depending on the partner(s) pleasure— yes I said multiple, we’ve got a poly-alien on our hands. The more the merrier but Eddie gets tired so keep that in mind. This also means that he can fashion himself (or even Eddie’s member 👀) after all of those sick-looking Bad Dragon-esque dildos (more on that later).

-Sex can be as spontaneous or as regular as Eddie and the partner(s) and Venom want it to be, but Venom can read Eddie’s mind (and vice versa, sorta) so if Eddie thinks of something Venom may not even hesitate to go ahead and do it. Consent is always key of course!!!

-First time with a partner(s), Venom will most likely stay in the background of Eddie’s mind to experience it happen in real time. He has access to all of Eddie’s memories but it’s something else entirely to be feeling the actual act rather than watching it. Symbiotes are really observant, which gives them the ability to make quick decisions to get the upper hand, so this translates over to sexual acts.

-For Eddie’s sake, Venom prefers if the partner asks or allows Venom to participate. Venom may get more touchy-feely with the partner(s) as time goes on if the physical aspect hasn’t been introduced yet.

-Eddie is up to try anything once. Venom will do anything without hesitation, which could lead to some negative sexual experiences for either side or both if it isn’t handled right.

-To piggy-back off that, Venom does not understand aftercare. In the beginning, if Venom is too rough, Eddie is the one that has to do the aftercare. It may cause some tension between him and Eddie and the partner(s), but more conversations about what’s expected is always a healthy way to approach boundaries and future sexual endeavors! Soon he’ll start to get it, but it will be rough going at first.

-Once a boundary/sexual relationship has been established, Venom will become possessive of said partner(s). He will also touch the partner(s) in public where he knows he won’t get caught and if the partner(s) get into a position where others want to possess the partner(s), Venom will then mark the partner(s) in a place so that others know that they belong to him. And Eddie.

-Venom has observed Earth animals and their mating behaviors (either through personal experience or watching the Discovery channel while Eddie’s sleeping), so he knows that humans do not have a mating season. He does not experience heats or ruts but can pick up on human’s fluctuation hormones and pheromones enough to know when someone is aroused.

-Does Venom orgasm? Yes, I think he does. Just like a xenomorph, I HC that Venom inherits traits from the beings he has been in before. Being in Eddie for so long, he would then adapt the ability to orgasm. When he does, his mass shifts like it does when he hears higher frequencies (see the scene with the airplane and the MRI machine) and he gets a bit feral.

-Does Venom ejaculate? As a symbiote, no. But when he decides that he wants to, he uses Eddie’s cum (whether or not he has to manipulate Eddie’s body to produce more), but this also means that if he has sex with a fertile partner, that baby(ies) will not have symbiotes in them in utero. In order for baby to have a symbiote, he would have to make one but that’s a long story.

-Am I getting a little too lost in the woods here? Maybe I should rapid-fire a few to get my brain straight

-Venom can pin the partner down by any body part and basically anywhere. Weight and size don’t even matter in this context, and Y’ALL HE DOESN’T CARE ABOUT YOUR CHUBBY PARTS OR ANYTHING YOU HAVE INSECURITIES ABOUT. GENDER ALSO DOESN’T MATTER AT ALL. Whatever he can tease to pull another moan out of you is exactly what he wants.

-He can also LIFT YOU IN THE AIR. I REPEAT— LIFT YOU UP IN THE AIR AND USE YOU AS A FLESHLIGHT. For multiple holes as well.

-Biting— lots of biting. Can draw blood (again, see boundaries) from the body and clean you up afterwards.

-Breath play, choking, blood play, knife play (like he can draw blood from you himself), whipping (think about all those textures!), etc

-If he has too much energy and he can’t use it all on you because he knows he can snap you like a twig, his tendrils can crack like whips around him so don’t be scared! He’s just really excited.

-THE TONGUE. I guess I have to explain this one a little bit but just imagine his tongue as whatever you want it to do, just like the tendrils and the tentacles. Wrapped around a clit, vibrating, corkscrewed around a cock and balls, etc

-Saliva literally everywhere. He doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut.

-He may not talk to the partner much but when he does, it’s usually very like proper and straight-forward. As in “You may orgasm now” or “We can feel that you are close to your peak” etc

-PET NAMES. He likes calling you Little One

-Pet names for him? He prefers being called Venom because like duh that’s his name and he doesn’t understand the pet name at first. Whatever the partner(s) is/are comfortable with calling him, he will respond to it after a while. Maybe even get an ego boost from it.

-Is there anything he doesn’t like to do? YES. Vore— sorry y’all. Even if the partner can regenerate, that’s not something I as a writer am comfortable with writing. In other universes, maybe.

Okay so I’m going to stop there or I’ll be here all day. I’m sure I’ll think of some more but if there are any specific scenarios, please ask!! Anon is on so feel free to submit whatever your heart desires!

[minachuuu]

Something About the Sunshine

❣Something About the Sunshine❣

❤ Pairing: Ryujin x Reader

❤ Genre: Fluff

❤ Word Count: 4.2k

❤ Song Suggestions: Surf & Nobody Like You by Itzy and Something About the Sunshine from Starstruck

Literally everyone but Ryujin found suspicious the amount of times she had been repeating the words 'It's just a friend's trip!' when asked about your upcoming vacation together to California. Her bandmates laughed the first time, but by the twenty-seventh time they were around to hear it they just mockingly imitated Ryujin. They were a hundred percent sure every single employee on JYP knew she was going on a ‘just friends’ trip’.

But it’s not like they didn’t notice how Ryujin’s eyes glow when she’s talking about you, how she messes her hair when somebody asks her about you, or how she goes from the fiercest and bravest person when you are being attacked by a nasty spider minding its business on wall, to the softest and clingiest girl when she cuddles with you on movie nights.

Maybe the ‘it’s just a friend’s trip!’ wasn’t trying to convince anyone, but herself.

The day arrived, and you were sitting in Itzy's living room, waiting for the car to arrive to take you both to the airport.

Yuna sat down by your side eating a tuna wrap, still wearing her night suit and the messiest mane you had ever seen. You were very used to seeing them all like that, since you are really close to Itzy, others have even mistaken you for their manager since you are basically always around them.

“Want some?” The younger girl extended her snack to you courteously, her voice still raspy from being awake so early.

“I’m okay Yuna, thanks!” You tried to hold back a giggle at the sight of Yuna clumsily existing at five o’clock in the morning. “Why are you up so early?”

“Schedules, practices, couldn’t stop thinking about this wrap…” She got lost in her own subconscious as she stared at the piece of food embraced by her hands. “It’s not even mine, but why would someone leave it abandoned in the fridge like that?”

“The car is here!” Ryujin rushed out of her room with her suitcase in hand. She fashioned a huge smile and a weirdly big enthusiasm for this time of the day. “Time to go Y/n!”

You stood from the couch, scrambling the younger girl’s hair to which she just looked at you drowsingly dumbfounded. You both headed towards the door carrying all your luggage.

“Have a nice trip! Bring me a gift, and don’t come back unless you’re dating” She whispered the last part, urgently took another bite of her tuna wrap and a smirk teasingly appeared on her mouth.

The last thing you saw was Ryujin throwing a beanie straight to the younger member’s face before closing the door behind her. 

Even though the flight was long, the 12 hours passed swiftly in between naps, movies and little scattered conversations with Ryujin. You could talk about anything all the time and never get tired, but couldn't fail to see something bothering her, deep inside her conscious the entire journey. 

After picking up your luggage and grabbing a taxi to your hotel, the effects of hour difference and the hustle of the trip started to dawn on you. And you were both so tired that you failed to realize the room they gave you had only one queen-sized bed. It still wouldn't have bothered you, you both had shared even smaller beds before. 

Ryunjin jumped into the bed as one should, patting the side for you to join her. You laid beside her, as she wrapped her arms around you. Both not hesitant to fall in a deep slumber. 

The clock marked 7 O'clock, and a little ray of sunshine peeked through the disheveled curtains and rested over your eyes, waking you up with its warmth. You stretched your body grasping your reality, this was not your house and you were not in Korea anymore. Carefully stretching your body, you recognized the presence of the girl beside you. Turning around, you saw her calm and resting expression, the image plastering a smile on your face. 

You silently rose from the bed, tip-toeing towards the sunrays. You warily slided open the door to the balcony, being welcomed by the sights of a waking city, illuminated by the dawn of a new day. That's when suddenly you felt a pair of arms surrounding your neck. The familiar embrace made the moment even more special, as you took in your hands those that rested in your chest. You stayed there in a comfortable silence, feeling Ryujin's breath and smile forming against the back of your neck. 

"Hey…" Ryujin broke the silence first. "Sorry about what Yuna said back home, she was just-" 

You released a light chuckle, finally having the answer to her worries. "I know Yuna, she's not the serious type." 

"Yeah…" Even with a weight lifted from her shoulders, Ryujin couldn't help but dwell on the matter. "I guess she was just joking." 

"But hey, we didn't come here to be locked down in the hotel room, did we?" You turned around, jokingly punching the other girl's arm. "Let's go!" 

"Twelve hours of flying are pretty heavy," She watched your enthusiasm fly as you scattered throughout the room, grabbing some things from your suitcase and heading to the bathroom to take a shower. "Are you sure you don't want to stay a little more and-" 

"Oh, c'mon!" You grabbed her by the hand, shaking her mind up. "We'll just go for a walk, grab something to eat. It's not like we're going to Disneyland right now."

"Sounds good to me!" Ryujin didn't hesitate to match your enthusiasm and rushed to get her stuff ready. "Where do we go?" 

"Actually…" You fidgeted your hands playfully. "It's a surprise."

-❣️❣️❣️❣️❣️-

“Venice beach?” Ryujin’s eyes grew as big as the moon. “This is where I-”

“-filmed the Nobody Like You music video!” You both said at the same time.

“Yes!” An eager smile was painted across your face at the sight of the shimmer in the other girl’s eyes. "I thought you might like coming back…”

"And I prefer the company a whole lot more this time!" Her fingers interlaced with yours as she chuckled at her joke. "Please don't tell the girls I said that."

"I'm texting Yeji right away-" 

"What, no!" Ryujin threw herself for your phone but you reacted quickly, prompting a whole game of tag for your phone. 

"Hi Yejiii-unnieeeee!" You started a voice note at the same time that you tried out-running Ryunjin in the still calm paths of the boardwalk. "The flight was fine and we landed perfectly! The hotel is very cosy and the sight's amazing. But Ryujin just said that she prefers me over yo- AH!" 

You felt your body be wanked from the floor, your back landing against the sand. Your phone flew from your hand, and Ryujin dove to reach it, landing beside you. An endless stream of laughter followed, one of those that make your eyes tear and your belly ache. Ryujin made sure the voice note didn't send, but to her bad fortune, Yeji had already listened to it and typed her response: 

Glad the trip went alright! And don't worry, we already knew Ryujin prefers you. Not only over us, she prefers you over anything or anyone really. 

Ryujin's cheeks flared up as she read the message, the laughter in her disappearing abruptly. She sheepishly handed your phone back, playing nervously with her hair as you read it too. 

"Awwww!" You mockingly teased her, wrapping your arms around her head. "Do you really love me that much??" 

"I… Well, maybe, yeah- I don't know-" She couldn't even finish a coherent sentence, trapped in between her nerves and your teasing. 

You stood up, still giggling at everything that just happened, glaring at the fine line separating the sky from the sea as it shined a light blue with little hints of orange and yellow as the last minutes of sunrise bathed you in their light.

This gave Ryujin a perfect view of you, as your silhouette was perfectly enframed on the sun rays hitting your body. She smiled at the way the sun rested on your soft cheeks, your smile competing against it for the brightest thing in her life. 

It started dawning on her, that maybe it was true. Maybe she did prefer you over anything and anyone. 

"Care to give me a tour Mrs. Shin Ryujin?" You proposed with a fruity and jestering voice while extending your hand, breaking her daydreaming. 

She took your hand as she stood and shook away some sand in her clothes. That Ryujin from the hotel room who wanted to rest and who was a little too much inside her head banished in a matter of seconds, pulling you around the stores and streets she visited with her group mates. You weren't complaining at all, aside from being Ryujin's best friend you were also a huge fan of Itzy. Always present, front row on their performances, shows and even sometimes rehearsals. And there was nothing better than listening to an excited Ryujin showing you around and retelling her memories with the glow in her eyes reflecting all the light of the vibrant place. 

You walked among the shops and food stands, halting in front of a familiar stand, with displays full of sunglasses of different shades and shapes. You both tried a thousand different styles after finally deciding on a matching pair. A round dark frame with the crystals tinted to each of your favorite colors. You kept walking along that ally, hands intertwined as you pointed to all of the little details you found along the way.

“And here…” Ryujin smirked teasingly at you, stopping in front of the skate rental where Itzy got theirs when they filmed the Nobody like you MV. “It’s where the fun starts.”

“Oh no.” You pushed her away from you, a nervous but playful giggle escaping your mouth. “There’s no way you’re going to get me on one of those.”

“You asked for the full Itzy Experience Tour didn’t you?” She lowered her new sunglasses to glare at you teasingly. 

“I- Yes but…”

“Then it’s time for you to learn how to skate.” She turned around, quickly renting a pair of skateboards from the man tending the local. She came back, holding the skateboards on each hand, handling you one of them with a triumphant smile. “Here Y/n, I even rented the helmet, knee pads and elbow pads in your favorite color, they will match with your glasses!”

“It’s not like I don’t like how they look Ryujin.” You sneered, taking the board on your hands. You examined its weight, hesitating to put it on the ground. “I don’t know how to ride one.”

“Oh I know, I’m going to teach you!” She confidently rejoiced in her talents, as she fastened the safety equipment around her body. “If I was able to make you dance Wannabe, do you think I can’t do this?”

“How many times have you rode one of these?” Ryujin stopped her movement at the question, clearing her throat pretending not to listen to you. “Ryujin-ah…”

“Maybe like…” She stood up, her face trying hard to convey a sense of security but only managing to sound arrogantly sweet. “...Once?”

“That’s it, we’re dying today.” You laughed as you put your safety equipment on, shaking your head in disapproval at yourself, since you still were willing to do anything for the girl in front of you, especially when a hit of her puppy eyes started peeking out of her.

“Okay first, one foot. Straight.” After you were both equipped and ready, she started demonstrating on her own board, stepping with her left foot on the board, turning around to make sure you were following the instructions. You imitated her movements with so much less confidence. "Now, you'll push with your right foot and…" 

You only watched baffled, your body refusing to move as she glided through the plaza with no problem. Pleasantly surprised and relieved that she still had the muscle memory to remember how to stay on top of it. A smile emerged in your face at the sight of your bestfriend making an effort to keep herself going, giggles filling the air as she circled you with ease. You took your phone out to capture the moment, and the instant Ryujin noticed the camera, her idol-self came out, acting with charisma at it, flustering you with the winks and smirks she gave to the lenses. 

“C’mon, now it’s your turn.” She approached you defiant, confident. Her presence and attitude helped you grab a bit of courage, but not enough to start without a little bit of help. 

You innately searched for Ryujin’s hand, not surprised when you realized she was already offering to take yours. You firmly put your left feet on the skateboard, and pushed gently with the right, helping you glide, as the girl beside you jogged at your speed. You tried again, now gaining more speed, and then tried once more. The sea breeze hit your face, rampaging your hair, a big and refreshing change from the city air you were so used to breath all the time back home. Your body flinched at the velocity you were traveling to, but Ryujin didn’t let you fall, her support helping you stay on.

“You have absolutely no permission to let go of my hand Shin Ryujin.” You babbled, holding on for dear life to her hand which was probably the only thing keeping you from falling down.

“You know I never would.” For a moment, all those worries in Ryujin’s head dissipated. You blushed at her words and she smiled at your sun-kissed image. 

It had a certain charm for her, you needed her protection and guidance, as she only focused on you staying alive and having fun. You stopped for a while, ecstatic at the thought of still being alive after that. 

“You are a very quick learner. Or maybe I’m just an excellent teacher.” Ryujin joked, earning a slap on her arm as she helped you stabilize yourself to get off the board. “I think you're ready to go on your own.”

“I only could do that because you were grabbing on to me!” You whined.

“I’ll be close to catch you if you fall.” Her smile was kind, protective, the kind that made you melt into everything she said. A big part of your friendship was teasing each other non-stop, but when it came to serious matters, there was no one out there you trusted more than Ryujin.

“Promise?” You trembled.

“I promise.” 

You, a little bit more confident now, repeated the steps to get over your skateboard and you pushed, gently. When you stabilized your body over the moving board, you repeated but with a stronger push. With a bit more confidence now taking up, you started steering with the weight of your body, your nerves releasing themselves in the form of giggles. 

You noticed Ryujin skating close to you, now skillful enough to be focusing you with her phone while gliding around to get some pretty takes and pictures of you. She cheered, a wide grin adorning her face as little wrinkles appeared on the edges of her eyes, the way they did when something made her stupidly happy.

You were so focused on Ryujin’s antics and she was so into you too, that you failed to see a slightly raised sidewalk straight in your path. Ryujin caught a glimpse of it just in time to jump towards you, surrounding your entire body with hers. With her feet landing first in a patch of grass, the scenario of you both flying through the air and landing into concrete was avoided. But thanks to the speed your bodies carried and you not being able to stop them, you still tripped down, Ryujin falling on her back and you right on top of her. You were quick to raise your heads, realizing they were only a few inches away, blood rising, coating your faces in red.

“Maybe I should-” You were quick to get up, no scratches or bruises in sight. Ryujin seemed free of injury too, so you extended your hand to help her up. “I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t worry. I’m totally okay.” She took your hand and stood up, fixing her clothes. Her hands instinctively wished to check you, and help you fix yourself too, but a certain tension that filled the air stopped her from doing so. “Are... are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine too.” You responded, fixing your hair yourself and avoiding her glance.

Ryujin went to pick up the skateboards, leaving the silence between you lingering for longer than it should. While walking back, you both caught a glimpse of each other’s eyes, making you release an stressed giggle, easing the ambience around just a bit.

“Let’s take this back and grab something to eat.” Ryujin proposed as you walked side to side back to the skates rental, an strange and awkward quietness encircling your steps.

-❣️❣️❣️❣️❣️-

You sat cuddled between Ryujin’s arms, the sights of the sea in front of you as you both enjoyed the beach, snacking on some american-flavored chips that you found on a K-mart along the way.

“Close your eyes.” You playfully demanded Ryujin.

“Why, what are you going to do to me?” She asked.

“I’m going to give you one of these flavors randomly and you have to guess which one it is!” 

She obeyed, closing her eyes and releasing you from her embrace as you reached for your target. You grabbed one chip from the five bags sitting in front of you and gently placed it on Ryujin’s tongue. She opened her eyes at the instant flavor that filled her mouth, confused and maybe even a bit disgusted.

“Is it really that bad?” Your laugh bursted at her expressions.

“No, it’s just that-'' She kept chewing the chip, her face contorting even more with each second passing. “It’s interesting?”

“That’s what people say when something tastes bad but they don’t want to be rude about it” You kept laughing, looking at her amusingly. “Well, what flavor do you think that was?”

“I’m gonna say…” Her eyes and brows exaggerated her thought process as they playfully moved up and down. “...salt and vinegar?” 

“No, Pickle-flavored!” You raised the bad of chips, triumphantly. “I told you these were a bad idea!”

“No! I had some hope for these!” She grabbed the bag from your hands, disappointment in her eyes as she examined the chips closer as if that could magically enhance their flavor for better. Ryujin extended the bag to you. “Here, try one and tell me what you think.”

“After seeing your face? I’ll pass, thanks” You pushed away her hand with the bag and her eyebrows furrowed.

“You can’t make me suffer alone! The chips thing was YOUR idea!” She started throwing one of her usual tantrums, shaking the bag in front of your face now. You kept throwing your head backwards and she answered by leaning in even closer, mumbling her complaints in a cute tone. Neither of you noticed when, but suddenly you found yourself laying under Ryujin. The instant she realized your position, she stopped her fit and the blush in her cheeks flared up.

“You have some-” In your attempt of diffusing the situation, you reached your thumb towards her lips, paralysing even further the girl on top of you. She couldn’t take the flood of ideas invading her mind that the sight of you staring straight at her lips, caressing them gently created. 

She quickly sat up, distress all over her face avoiding looking at you as much as possible. You were both just friends, nothing more. Why do those ideas start appearing now? No. Why was Ryujin not able to suppress those ideas now as well as before? 

You followed her, looking straight at her conflicted face now being illuminated by the sunset in the horizon. Your hand reached for her chin, gently pulling it to meet your eyes with hers. You felt her breathing halting at the action, to what you offered a delicate smile.

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” You skipped the ‘something’s bothering you’ talk, you knew your best friend enough to know she would deny everything, try and cover anything. 

“Yes, I know…” Now Ryujin’s eyes were the ones who could decide to rest on your eyes or in your lips, with even more ideas invading her mind. “I just don’t know where to start.”

“Would it help if I start this time?” You smiled even wider, hiding the amount of courage you were trying to gather inside your mind. 

Ryujin looked at you perplexed, as she expected you to keep pushing for her to talk but got this instead. She shook her head remembering your question, to which she nodded as an answer.

“It’s not new, I’ve been dealing with all of this for a long time but I couldn’t bring myself to tell you. And maybe it’s not even the best time to tell you, giving that there’s an entire vacation together at risk…” You started mumbling, your eyes diverting all around you as your train of thoughts backed up from the enthusiasm. 

“Hey…”  She used your techniques against you, grabbing your chin and raising it to meet her eyes. Your nervous rambling woke up Ryujin’s protective side, as she now offered you an uneasy smile. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

You deadlocked your eyes on her, serious. You jokingly slapped her arm for using your own weapons against you, but like a magnet, the silence between you only called for your eyes to be lost on hers. You couldn’t tell thanks to your nerves, but you were getting your faces closer with each second passing. A deep sigh from Ryujin’s side broke the tension, aided you to gain back your courage, you were going to blurt it out now or nev-

“I like you. Maybe I could even dare say that I love you Y/n.” Ryujin sputtered first, avoiding your eyes. Your breath halted, earning a gasp at the sudden confession, bringing your hands to your open mouth. Your mind was way too shocked to remember how to properly function, paralysed in the moment. At the awkward silence created, Ryujin gathered all her body strength to look back at you, her mind racing a thousand miles per hour to find a way to save the moment. “It’s okay if you don’t return-”

“Shin Ryujin, I was going to tell you that!” You moaned playfully, the entirety of your body relaxing now as you could help painting a huge smile across your face.

“You- what?” It was now her turn to be astonished. Your unusual response made it even more confusing to her, as the scenarios that her head created were of totally different colors from the one presented in front of her. It wasn’t until you stopped nervously giggling and locked eyes with her again that you realized that you had to explain yourself.

“I love you too dummy.” You cupped her hands in yours, happy tears blurring your sight from excitement. 

“Oh. OH!” Ryujin’s whole face illuminated as the facts dawned on her, her worries floating away with the sounds of the sea in the background. She released a chuckle as she confidently put her hands around your waist, pulling you closer. “Does that mean I get to-”

“Yes! A thousand times yes!” You giggled, not even bothering to listen to the rest of her sentence, knowing exactly that what followed was something you’ve waited for a long time.

Ryujin excitedly cupped your cheeks, pulling you towards her. Your lips clashed with urgency, dancing at the rhythm of the tropical music in the background of Venice Beach, earning a smile from both that could only be eased as you joined your lips each time after breathing for air. The warmth of the sun setting in the horizon, filled your bodies from head to toe, as your beating heart took care of the inside. 

Time is never the first thing that counts when you’re sure you just found the love of your life, but when you parted your lips again and looked around, the lamp posts started turning on, some neon signs from the stores behind you started coloring the streets. You sighed, resting your head on your girlfriend’s shoulder. A comfortable silence surrounding you both, with everything but your heartbeats synchronized resonating in the air.

“The girls are going to lose their mind when we tell them.” You broke the silence first, sighing at the idea popping in your head.

“We’ll worry about them later.” She laughed as her mind painted the picture too. “Let’s keep this between us for now, we’ll plan a prank in the plane back home. Deal?”

“Deal.” You chuckled at the suggestion, glad that your best friend was back. And even better than before, cause now you get to kiss her whenever you want.

The last rays of sun lighted you both like a spotlight in the end of a show, but what it really felt like was the beginning of the best adventure, by the side of the most amazing person in your life.

[stephantom]

I'm not really into reader inserts myself, but I reckon they have to do with people having special interests/hyperfixations on certain stuff and latching onto specific characters in a very intense way, often in combination with these people maybe not having a lot of actual human connections irl (not a burn against such individuals, just a common phenomenon). Even if they may seem silly, these imagined scenarios can really bring people a lot of comfort. Like, I don't usually daydream about actually being in a relationship with a fictional character, but if I'm having a bad day I might imagine a character I like giving me a pep talk or something, know what I mean?

(Also sometimes people are just horny and there's nothing wrong with that!)

Oh, I definitely don’t mean to judge anyone for having “silly” fantasies. Sorry if I came across that way.

As a lifelong haver-of-silly-fantasies, all of what you said makes sense to me. I’ve always fixated on characters in a really intense way that brings me comfort, etc. Whether that leads someone to want self-insert fic or anything like that is probably just a matter of style and preference and what someone happens to be used to, not so much an actual difference of any significance.

Personally, I just don’t tend to like me as me being involved in imaginary scenarios, and that’s partly because I want to be there in some sense as one (or more) of the characters. I like to inhabit my favorite characters’ headspace. That’s just how I happen to prefer it. I’d rather be my beloved character receiving a pep talk (from another character, or be some other character receiving a pep talk from them, or whathaveyou) than be me receiving the pep talk from anyone.

(I’ve never been big into “kinning” either, but in some ways, I guess I’m probably closer to that style of fantasizing than self-inserts. (Tbh, I think the only frustrating thing about fans who take “being kin” super seriously is that so many seem to get possessive of the characters in a kind of entitled way that makes any interaction or engagement difficult (e.g. tagging character content as “[character name], me, don’t tag as [insert any possible ship or association with that character, or implication that anyone else could ever also be kin with them]))).

What that post said about narrative coherence is a big part of it. But the, uh, sublimation-of-self is pretty key and it’s hard to say if the lack of me is more essential to maintaining narrative/thematic coherence or whether it’s that maintaining narrative/thematic coherence feels essential for true self-loss/immersion/sublimation. (If any of that makes any kind of sense…?)

Anyway, thank you for making these points and being thoughtful. I didn’t mean to suggest that people who like self-insert stuff are sillier than anyone else. I just meant to lightly poke fun because I happen to prefer a different flavor of what’s basically the same activity. (And I have had trouble filtering out x reader and imagines in some fandoms lately (mostly Squid Game and Vikings?) but that’s just annoyance about a personal inconvenience, not an actual judgment about the right of those things to exist.)

[that-crazy-five-foot-two-chick]

Rating: G

Word Count: 1.6k

Fake dating, love at first sight, and all that. The basic fluff palate.

A/N: I had no idea what the lyrics to "Hello Stranger" by Stray Kids were until after I wrote the fic, but the title and vibe made me daydream this whole idea up in the car. You're welcome. (Totally would recommend the official MV too, it just doesn't have English subs)

Another day, another heckling. And this time it had to be on a public subway, apparently.

"All I'm saying is, if you're so rich, why do you have to conveniently forget your credit card every single time we all go out for lunch?" Edward narrowed his eyes at Ling.

"Why bring it when I don't expect to be going out to eat?" Ling said airily. "And you're always so generous when it happens unexpectedly."

Edward grunted. "That's an absolute load of bull and you know it. You can't say that you 'just forgot' to bring money because you 'didn't expect it' when I text the group chat 'Who wants to go out for lunch tomorrow?' and you say 'Ooh! Ooh! Me!'" he squealed in a poor imitation of his friend.

"Your girlfriend would love you for it, you know—paying for dates," Ling continued, ignoring Ed's accusations. He gasped. "Oh, that's right! You don't have a girlfriend! Perhaps if you weren't so quarrelsome, you could manage to win the heart of a lady."

"Who are you calling so puny that he's gonna die alone and have weeds all over his grave that no one will bother to pull?" Ed screeched.

Russell finally spoke up from his seat at the end of the row. "Ed, he didn't say anything about your height. He may be a cheapskate, but he didn't make a dig at your height. For once."

"Yeah, that's right! No fair changing the subject, Ling. This discussion was about how you're a little rich boy who always makes his friends pay for his own food," Ed huffed.

"Why quibble over such a minor expense? How expensive could a burger be? Twenty dollars?" The other two boys gaped at Ling, but he only kept going. "Besides, I'm far more interested in the current topic. Edward, you know I care for you deeply—"

"Fat chance."

"—but with your disposition, I doubt you could get a girlfriend if you tried!"

"Now, you wait just a second! You don't know squat about my love life! In fact, I could—"

Out of nowhere, a blonde girl knelt on the seat next to Ed's and slipped an arm around his shoulders.

"Hello, stranger." She winked. "Why didn't you tell me you were coming this way today? I know you're shy about our relationship, but you could have just told them, you know. You don't have to give into their teasing just for me, Eddie-boo."

All three boys gawked at her—Russell and Ling because of the fact that Ed actually had a girlfriend and Ed because of the fact that he didn't. Except now he had to pretend that this strange, hot blonde girl was his girlfriend.

So he choked. Then he recovered just enough to say, "Babe, no. I was just about to tell them. These pea-brains," he glared at them, "barely let me get a word in edgewise. Please believe me, babe."

"Of course I believe you, pretty boy." Her gaze made all coherent thoughts fly from his head. "But even if they are pea-brains, I should probably introduce myself." She tapped his nose. The buzzing feeling lingered long after the tip of her finger left it. "I'm Winry." She beamed at the other two boys. Ed's stomach twisted. He wasn't jealous, was he? He probably just ate something bad at lunch. Maybe Ling slipped something in his burger…

Ling grinned wickedly. "Lovely to meet you, Winry. How did you two meet? It must have been quite a job getting this one to agree to go out with you, what with his charming personality and all."

"Hm, how did we meet, babe? It all happened very gradually—knowing each other's faces, then knowing each other's names, then small talk here and there. Then before you know it, we were having deeper conversations as close friends, and then suddenly, we were dating! He's a real softie once you get him to open up," she said, ruffling his bangs.

"Winry!" He cleared his throat. "Babe, you don't have to tell them everything."

"Oh, man!" Russell guffawed, wiping away a tear. "This girl must have you whipped, Ed."

"Something like that," Ed muttered.

Suddenly, the train lurched and threw Winry forward, her arm around Ed's shoulders directing her course straight for his lap. They stared at each other in panic for a few moments. Then Winry laughed nervously. "Looks like I fell for you, huh, babe?"

Edward slapped his forehead. "Really? Fell for me? That's so terrible, I might break up with you just for that."

"Nah, you like me too much," Winry said, planting a kiss on his forehead.

Edward's face turned a violent shade of red. Pretty girl. Flirting. At him. Dream. It was a dream. Dreams don't have lips with that much detail. Can't look at friends. They'll laugh. Different topic. Periodic table. Periodic tables are simple. Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium…

"Like I said," Russell smirked. "Whipped."

The subway car lurched again as the intercom announced their arrival at the stop, and Ed's arms flew to keep Winry from being thrown again. Just as quickly as he had held her close, he loosened his grip. For a moment, her eyes widened and a faint blush rose on her cheeks. She shifted on his lap.

"This is my stop. Nice meeting you guys!" Winry leaned in to whisper into Ed's ear. "I probably caused you more trouble than I solved. I'm so sorry." She offered him a half smile and slid off his lap.

His legs somehow felt bare without her weight, his arms cold without her warmth. How could he just let her walk away? But how could he just stalk a stranger? Fortunately, all intelligent thought had left him long ago.

"See you guys later! Better priorities have come up than messing around with you losers!"

Edward heard silence, then laughter behind him, but he kept his eyes forward as he followed Winry out into the station. Crap, what had he gotten himself into? He was such an idiot. His idiot mouth and his idiot legs had been faster than his idiot brain and he was about to be in big, big trouble with this really beautiful, really nice stranger. The doors closed behind them.

"Look, I'm really, really sorry. I don't know what got into me. I don't know why I went along with it. I don't just do this sort of thing, it just happened. If there's—" Winry cut Ed off.

"You went along with it because I started it. What were you supposed to do? If anything, it's my fault for putting you in an awkward position. It was gutsy and presumptuous and I should have just let your conversation happen. I don't exactly go around pretending to be random people's girlfriends either. Some weird gut reaction in me just...did it. I...I don't even know what to say for myself. I made you lie to your friends and now you're going to have to tell them that and...I'm. I'm so sorry." She raked her hand into her ponytail and avoided his gaze.

"Can we consider ourselves forgiven, then?"

She met his eyes with a slight laugh. "Yeah, I guess so."

"Good, so...um…are you actually single?" He sighed and mumbled, "man, I don't normally do this," and continued, "Because I'd love to take you out for real if you are." His pulse thundered through every blood vessel in his body while she opened and closed her mouth and blushed. It would be cute if his entire being wasn't vibrating waiting for her response.

"Y–yeah," she breathed.

"Gah," Ed rubbed the back of his neck. "Of course you're not single, why would you be? I mean, look at you—"

"No! No. I'm. I'm not single. I mean! I'm not in a—I don't have a boyfriend."

"Oh."

"I'd...I'd love to go out with you, Edward."

"Wow," he finally managed.

"What?" Winry smiled at him in confusion.

"I really scored big today and I don't even know how." He grinned crookedly. "Was something about my complete lack of competent speech attractive or something? Nobody just agrees to going on a date with a complete stranger. Your name is actually Winry, right?"

She laughed. "Yes, my name is actually Winry. I didn't really have a lot of time to come up with a fake name or anything. As for going out with a complete stranger… I don't know. I just know I can trust you. I figure, why not go for it? And, um. I wasn't entirely joking when I called you 'pretty boy.'" She bit her lip and smiled at her shoes.

Ed's mind blanked for what seemed the billionth time that day. "You're the—you're the pretty one!" he squawked.

"Well, then...if I'm the pretty one, can I be the one to ask you for your number?"

"What?" He wasn't sure whether he'd been shaken out of his mental fog or pushed further into it. "I mean, yes! Um, here it is." He fumbled with his phone and showed her his contact information.

"Thanks." She smiled with all the light the universe could give her. "I'll...see you soon then?"

"Are you busy right now?" Ed blurted out. "Or is taking you out to dinner too soon?"

"Oh! No, not at all. I'm kind of craving Chinese takeout, actually, if that's okay."

"Yeah. Yeah, it's totally okay. Just. One thing." Winry raised her eyebrows in accession. "Never call me 'Eddie-boo' again."

[ao3qhq]

love your work! i’ve been subscribed to all the updates from you and read all as soon as its out. thank you! where do you get the inspiration and ideas for your works? how is your writing process looks like?

Hi!

First off, thank you very much!! I’m so glad you like my works enough to subscribe to them.

A lot of the ideas for my works come from things i play around with in my head while I’m trying to fall asleep or daydreaming on the bus, although sometimes I’ll read or watch something that gives me an idea for an AU, like how In Another Life came from a clip in a Meryl Streep movie and the near-drowning in A Hair’s Breadth came from a scene in a book called Winterkeep.

As far as process goes, I have two main ones. The first is more organic. When I feel inspired, or when I’m particularly bored, I’ll mash together ideas or lines in the notes app on my phone, scribble them down in my notebook, or even repeat them out loud over and over again until I’ve memorized them - and then the next time I’m at my computer I try to turn them into something cohesive and coherent. The other is when I’m sitting down and intentionally trying to write a specific thing. I have this 5 and a half hour playlist on my phone that has basically every type of song in it. From country songs about women murdering their husbands (two black cadillacs by carrie underwood) to musical theater (el tango de roxanne from moulin rouge) to classical (winter from the four seasons suite by antonio vivaldi) to straight up vibes (lone digger by caravan palace). I’ll put it on shuffle, and whatever comes up has a lot to do with the final tone of the piece I’m working on. My focus isn’t that great, which is why most of the chapters in my works clock in at 1,000-1,500 words. I start to lose steam if i go too much over that.

Sometimes I’ll get really sucked into a certain idea or a certain project and I’m not really able to put it down or work on anything else until it‘s done (this happened with Bulletproof Plastic and the first installment of the Sandra ‘verse), which means I have to set other projects aside while I get those ideas written. Other times, a single line will get caught in my head and an entire fic will be born out of that. The most recent example of this is with Woolen, the third installment of the Sandra ‘verse. The line “the first thing Inej felt upon holding her newborn daughter for the first time was an overwhelming surge of relief.” had been bouncing around my brain for a couple of weeks, and i decided it was high time to do something with it. (There’s actually a funny story about where that came from, if anyone’s interested in hearing it).

Sorry if this was waaaaay more information than you were looking for, hope you have a great night!

[yellowocaballero]

I read the daemon fic last night and I loved it! That man sure does try to punch that bird! My question is: if you wrote the fic on the fly, how did you come up with such a coherent explanation for daemons and Dust in the tma universe?? (Also I'm curious if you're willing to explain your reasoning behind some of the characters' daemons bc I love hearing why authors choose the animals they do)

sweats

I don’t remember? I got kind of interrupted in the middle of writing it for Snowpocalypse and Life reasons, and I tend to figure out my writing through just daydreaming because I’m bored. It’s also possible that I was chatting it over with a friend, and it came up? Most of my story ideas and plotting are through me chatting about writing...it’s also possible that in the middle of writing the story, I was like, ‘THIS is a good idea!’. That’s also true. 

I find stories as I’m writing them. I knew the story was about grief going in, but like halfway through I was like “okay so this is about hope and new possibilities” isn’t it. I actually intended for Strix to be entirely the Beholding, and none of Jon. He would just say mean (yet true) shit that hurts his feelings in a weird negging maneuver. I always intended the story to end with Jon embracing Strix in a moment of desolation, embracing his ‘monster’ and ending the story on a creepy note. I realized while writing that Strix was serving a specific role, and that I needed to play into that - and maybe accepting him wasn’t a bad thing.

Statistically, I was probably in the middle writing and made something up...I could be wrong. But, like, come on, the Entities as Dust thing just makes so much fucking sense. I think basically I decided first off “Avatar’s daemons ‘die’ and are replaced with Evil Daemons that are the Entities.” and then I had to retroactively justify that. gromitputtingdowntraintracksasthetrainmoves.gif

Re: daemon thing...okay, I also refuse to think too hard about a story BEFORE I write it, because then I get bored and don’t write it. And figuring out daemons is something you figure out before the story happens, so...not a lot of thought there...which is something I know is kind of against the way almost everyone else thinks up daemon aus but in my defense I was too busy trying to figure out how the fuck the Avatar thing worked...but I’ll give you what I have. I did take a weird amount of time to figure out naming conventions because I think daemons are VERY tied into culture and spirituality. I also tried to go with animals that were at least vaguely from the habitat of the ethnicity of the character. I didn’t always land there exactly (I wanted a Jamacian bird but an African bird worked best, etc) but it was the attempt.

Jon’s Oxpecker: Vampiric, small, fragile. Bird...why did I decide Jon had to be a bird...uh...the Vibes.

Martin’s Large Blue Butterfly: Parasitic, imitates ant pheromones in ant hills to feed on them. Martin has insect vibes I feel because he’s kind of inscrutable and hard to read.

Daisy: Wolf, because Avatar Daemon Is ALWAYS Metaphorical. Doberman because I think there’s a police dog stereotype, so she was like. aw fuck yeah this is a great excuse to murder people. Wanted a very big and potentially dangerous dog because she’s a small woman who relies on her daemon to overpower others. 

Basira: Bee. Insect, inscrutable. Social animal. Hive animal hyuk hyuk ACAB

Georgie: Cat vibes. also just had to be admiral. come on.

Melanie: Tasmanian devil, see the most tenaciously viscous animal I could think of. Beaver because...vibes...I think I read something where she had a beaver. 

There are others but those are the main ones. (Gerry sandcat - desert for survival in difficult decisions and also fucking adorable; Gertrude blue ringed octopus for a very dumb and silly looking animal that will just fucking kill you; Tim’s ox for a protective, herd animal that can also get blindingly, thoughtlessly angry; Sasha praying mantis cause haha she gets eaten) Not much thought :(

Thanks for the ask! I wish I had better answers. 

[lopithecusfanfiction]

Your Love is Deadly, It’s Like Fire

Author: Lopithecus Pairing: Hatake Kakashi/Maito Gai | Might Guy Rating: Teen+ Word Count: 8634 Alternate: AO3 Summary: Gai gets wounded badly when out on an important mission. Instead of continuing with the mission, Kakashi decides everyone needs to head back to Konoha to get Gai treated. Kakashi worries, Gai tries to lighten the mood, Tsunade just wishes people would listen to her. Warnings: 

Hurt/Comfort

Canon-Typical Violence

Getting Together

Protective Hatake Kakashi

Author's Note: I seriously needed more Gai whump in the KakaGai fandom. There isn’t nearly enough of it (though the ones I have read have been fantastic!) This is partly inspired by zuotian’s fic, Somewhere Between Retribution and Recovery. If you’ve read that, then you’ll know what part I’m talking about (hint: it's the tent scene.)

I will admit, I haven’t finished Naruto Shippuden and I haven’t seen a single episode of Boruto (except for some of the KakaGai moments during their honeymoon vacation.) I’ve just recently started a rewatch and I’m still on just Naruto. So I might get some info wrong but I’m just going to claim artistic liberty. ;)

I really wanted this to be in Gai’s pov but then, as I was daydreaming about it, I realized that it wouldn’t work in his pov. So, Kakashi’s it is. Also, Kakashi and Gai are not in a relationship at the beginning of this. Their getting together is more subtle. By that, I mean they never actually state that they are starting a romantic relationship. It’s never made into a big deal basically.

I’m sorry for any ooc-ness in advance. It’s been a very, very long time since I’ve written these two.

Please enjoy!

It’s not like Kakashi didn’t think it could happen. He is very much aware of his and his team’s mortality. He knows it will happen eventually. He just doesn’t want it to happen. The thought scares him. Not that he will ever admit that out loud, of course.

This was supposed to be an easy B-rank mission that very quickly and dramatically turned into an A-rank mission. It was him, Gai, Naruto, Sakura, and Shikamaru. A weird combination but they were all that were available. Sai is on a different mission and so is Choji and Ino. Gai tagged along because Kakashi requested him. It had sounded like from their briefing that they would need a taijutsu specialist. Now, Kakashi is regretting that decision.

“Damn it,�� Kakashi rips off a bandage and presses into the wound at Gai’s side, watching as blood oozes out. Gai groans but he looks okay and coherent so far, despite all the blood loss. “I need to find Sakura. It won’t stop bleeding.”

Gai’s hands are shaking when he reaches for the already blood-soaked bandage. “I’ll hold it,” he breathes out.

Kakashi shakes his head, raindrops splashing into his eyes. “I can’t leave you alone. We’re still in enemy territory.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“Tt.” Kakashi bites his bottom lip. He looks around, trying to find something to conceal Gai’s prone body but finds nothing. With an agitated sigh, he turns his attention back to Gai. “I’ll be right back.” He rushes off, not waiting for an answer.

This mission.

This mission was supposed to be easy.

Their mission was to find a low-rank rogue ninja who was proficient in taijutsu and apprehend him, bringing him back to Konoha. They didn’t know nor did they take into consideration that he would have formed his own small militia made up of various strong ninja, with one of them having a kekkei genkai, according to one of the other men.

Once they had reached their destination and had realized what was happening, Kakashi put out the orders, telling Gai to focus on the one they came for since he would be best matched with him. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was when their target split off from the rest, Gai in pursuit. He had then gotten severely injured when their target met up with another person, the one with the kekkei genkai it seemed, from the militia.

Gai had gotten stabbed.

He had gotten stabbed because Kakashi got careless and didn’t stop him from following. Kakashi should have known better than to let Gai follow, especially out of sight. He knew there were accomplices, so why… why did he let Gai go?

Because Gai is strong, that’s why. Because Gai can handle himself.  Because Gai wouldn’t let something like this happen to himself.

Not unless he had been taken by surprise.

Gai never really has been that good with sensing others around him.

Kakashi bites into his bottom lip harder, drawing blood. He shouldn’t have allowed this to happen but the self-blame will have to wait until after Sakura heals him. Right now, he needs to focus. Quickly, Kakashi extends his senses, looking for Sakura’s chakra. He finds her on the ground, healing a wound on Naruto’s ankle.

He drops down beside her. “Sakura.”

“Kakashi-Sensei!” She stands. Perfect timing.

“Follow me.”

She stops him. “Shikamaru needs us.”

“Don’t worry, Sakura-Chan.” Naruto places a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll go help him.”

Sakura nods. “Be careful.” She turns back to him. “Alright.”

Kakashi nods and then leads her back to where Gai is, hyper-aware of the fact that the rain is slowing their progress. The limbs on the trees are slippery and though it’s no problem for him who is a seasoned Jonin, for someone like Sakura it would be much more difficult for her to change her chakra accordingly to stick to the branches. She’s always been a fast learner, though, and soon they are making faster progress until Kakashi spots Gai lying on the ground.

There’s a pool of watery blood surrounding his body and Kakashi’s heart immediately jumps into his throat to make its new home there. He drops down hastily, mud and water splashing up onto his shins. “Gai!”

He approaches quickly, noticing how limp Gai’s hold is on the bandage. It’s weird to see how pale Gai’s tanned face is but there’s a grimace there so Kakashi knows he’s at least alive. He kneels down at Gai’s feet, watching as Sakura wastes no time in her healing.

She peels away Gai’s limp hand and the bandage to look at the wound. Her face draws taut in worry and Kakashi’s stomach clenches. As Sakura’s hands glow green over the wound, Kakashi watches Gai’s face. It looks pained, something Kakashi isn’t used to seeing on the man. It worries him.

It scares him.

“Kakashi-Sensei,” Sakura’s calm and controlled voice snaps him out of his thoughts. She’s not looking at him, all concentration on the wound. “Naruto and Shikamaru are going to need help. We’ve already got Gai-Sensei out of commission. We can’t have you out either.”

He looks at her. Stares really. Does she know he can’t just leave Gai that easily?

Kakashi’s hands are shaking.

He swallows.

He knows she’s right.

His hands won’t stop shaking.

He gives Gai a glance, feels the bile threaten to rise up, and then stands, balling his hands up into fists. He hopes she doesn’t notice their quivering.

“Right,” he says. “I’ll leave him to you.” And then he’s off.

He helps Naruto and Shikamaru take down the last two of the accomplices but they’ve lost the target and the one with the kekkei genkai. He doesn’t sense them anywhere either. He could call up his ninken to hopefully find a trace of their scent but Kakashi wants to regroup first. He tells the two boys to follow him and they meet back up with Sakura.

“Sensei,” Sakura says in greeting, her face grim.

“Gai?” he asks right away, peering around her body. He doesn’t look any better but at least the blood has stopped.

“I’ve healed the wound but…” She trails off, not meeting his eyes. “He lost a lot of blood and there’s something else. I think he might have been poisoned. I’m going to need to analyze his blood but I can’t do that here.” She shrugs. “I’ve given him an antidote just in case but I have a feeling this might be a poison we’ve never seen before.”

Kakashi’s eyebrows furrow. “The kekkei genkai.”

“What?” All three of them say at once.

“There was a rumor when Gai and I were teenagers that there was a ninja that could make special poison inside his body. All he had to do was scratch you and you would be infected.”

“Gai-Sensei wasn’t just scratched,” Sakura exhales loudly. “He was stabbed.”

“Yes, but if the user had coated his blade in his blood…” he trails off, letting the others fill in the blanks.

“What should we do, Kakashi-Sensei?” Naruto asks.

Shikamaru speaks before Kakashi can. “One of us can go back to Konoha with Gai-Sensei while the rest of us go after our target.”

He knows Shikamaru is right but… Kakashi watches Gai, shaking in pain. “How much longer do you think he has?”

Sakura’s lips draw into a straight line as she peers behind herself. “It’s hard to say. A couple days, maybe two… maybe three.”

It’s going to take them at least a day to get back to the village. He looks at Gai again, feeling his stomach churn with unease. Tsunade is going to be mad at him. “No. We all will go back now. Report to the Hokage and see what she wants us to do.”

“Sensei,” Sakura starts, looking back towards him. “He needs to rest a little. Get out of this rain.”

Kakashi nods in agreement. “Let’s move away from here, set up camp and rest for a few hours. Then we’ll move out.”

They do as instructed, Naruto helping Kakashi carry Gai, one arm slung over their shoulders on each side. They move away from that spot and travel several meters before landing. They set Gai down by a tree, propping him up. His shaking has stopped and his skin color is turning back to normal which makes Kakashi’s nerves ease a little.

Kakashi helps Shikamaru set up the two tents. They’re lucky they even have them. Shikamaru had said that it might rain during their mission and so had packed them with his stuff. It’s not very often they carry them, even if it is going to rain, opting to instead take cover in a cave or alcove. Shikamaru’s excuse was that it’s too troublesome to find a place like that. When Kakashi asked him if it wasn’t “troublesome” to put up tents, Shikamaru just sighed and mumbled to himself tiredly. Now, he puts them up without complaint.

Sakura volunteers to bring Gai into one of the tents. He’s awake now, barely, and is able to lean on Sakura as she guides him into the structure. She claims she wants to check him over again. Kakashi’s nerves spike once more but relax when she steps out of it, not looking too concerned.

She goes up to him. “I’ve told him to sleep. He’s going to need as much energy and strength he can gather for the journey home.” There’s a crease where her eyebrows knit together. “He lost a lot of blood and is in definite pain even though he’s pretending not to be. I tried to get him to take a blood replenishing pill and something for the pain but he refused.”

Kakashi glances towards the tent. Of course, Gai refused. “Give them to me. I’ll get him to take them.”

Sakura scowls. “I’m technically not supposed to force these things onto anyone.”

“Then it’s a good thing you wouldn’t be.” Kakashi holds out his hand and with a reluctant sigh, Sakura drops the pills in it. “Get some rest, Sakura. Have Naruto take the first watch. We’ll leave in a few hours” She nods and walks away, peering back at Kakashi and the tent before reaching Naruto and Shikamaru to tell them the plan.

Taking a deep breath, Kakashi enters the tent. He finds Gai lying on the ground, covered in a blanket. Despite poison pumping through his veins, he looks considerably okay. He’s no longer pale and his shaking has stopped. Kakashi wonders how much pain he’s actually in. Gai has always been fantastic at hiding that sort of thing.

Gai is staring at him as Kakashi crawls over. “I hear you’re being stubborn.”

“You know I don’t rely on that stuff,” Gai says, sounding tired. That’s the first giveaway that something is wrong, Kakashi assumes.

“Well,” Kakashi drawls. “I can either add these to your food unknowingly and you will have to be suspicious of which one it’s in for the rest of the night or,” he smirks under his mask, “you can just take them.”

Gai stares at him, probably trying to figure out just how serious Kakashi is, and then finally sighs, sitting up some and holding a hand out. “Fine,” he mumbles.

Kakashi smiles in triumph and hands the pills over. “They’re just to replenish your blood loss and help with pain anyway. It’s not a big deal.”

“Kakashi,” Gai says in warning but it doesn’t carry any weight to it.

Kakashi ignores him. “What happened?”

Gai finishes chewing the pills and lies back down on his back with a hard thump. “I was following the target when another shinobi came out of hiding. She took me by surprise. It was weird, Kakashi. I couldn’t sense her at all.”

“Well, it’s never been your strongest suit.”

“No,” Gai says seriously. “This was different. I should have been able to dodge her but…” Gai’s face scrunches contemplatively. “Did you get them?”

Kakashi shakes his head, shifting to get more comfortable. “No. We’re going back to the village to find out what the Hokage wants us to do.”

“That’s not like you.”

“You’ve been poisoned, Gai, Sakura needs-”

“No, Sakura can bring me back herself.” He tries to sit up and it worries Kakashi with how much effort it looks like it takes. “Then you, Naruto, and Shikamaru can get the target.”

Kakashi shakes his head again. “I’m not abandoning you.”

“You’re not, you’re-”

“Gai, we’re all going back. I’m the leader, remember?” This shuts Gai up who stares at him again. “You need to sleep,” Kakashi finally says after a long pause of silence. “We’ll be leaving again in a few hours.”

Gai lies back down, pulling the blanket up to his chin. They stare at each other until Kakashi is sighing and shucking off his flak jacket. It’s soaked and heavy anyway, and he rolls his shoulders once it’s on the ground. Next, he takes off his Hitai-ate, throwing it beside his flak jacket. Gai is still staring at him and Kakashi can feel his whole body heating up.

He stands up as best he can inside the tent, pokes his head out to where Naruto is sitting, keeping watch. “Naruto.” He waits until he’s got Naruto’s attention. “I’m going to keep watch over Gai. He needs to sleep. No one is allowed in here for the time being.”

“Got it, Kakashi-Sensei!” Naruto solutes him and then turns back around to continue his vigil.

Kakashi slips back into the tent and zips the entrance up. He goes and sits back down next to Gai who is still watching him. Hesitating, Kakashi slips his mask off, ringing it out from the water and then setting it beside his flak jacket as well to dry. He can still hear the rain pouring outside when he lies down on his side, facing Gai.

“Stop staring and go to sleep,” he tells Gai.

A smile breaks out on Gai’s face before he, too, salutes him and closes his eyes. Kakashi shakes his head at his friend and watches him. He doesn’t know how much time passes, but at some point he falls asleep, despite wanting to keep an eye on Gai to make sure he was going to be okay. Apparently he had been more tired than he had thought. 

Kakashi startles awake by the sound of chirping birds. When he opens his eyes, the first thing he sees is Gai staring at him. He yawns and stretches. It doesn’t sound like it’s raining anymore. “How long have you been awake?”

There’s a faint sheen of sweat coating Gai’s skin. The second clue that something isn’t right. “Not long.” A small smile appears on Gai’s face, warm and soft. “Kakashi?”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you.”

Kakashi looks at him, confused. “For what?”

“For trusting me.” Gai reaches over and traces a finger down Kakashi’s cheek.

Kakashi looks away, his whole face heating up. “It’s not the first time, Gai.”

“Not like this,” Gai says. “This is different.” Kakashi meets Gai’s eyes, swallowing thickly. “You’re beautiful, Kakashi.”

Kakashi sits up, batting Gai’s hand away gently. “Haven’t I told you not to say that to me?”

“But it’s true.”

“This really isn’t the time.” Kakashi reaches over and pulls his mask back on. It’s still damp but nothing Kakashi can’t deal with. Next comes his Hitai-ate and then his flak jacket. “I’m going to go see if the others are ready.”

Kakashi can feel Gai’s wide smile as he leaves the tent. He shouldn’t allow Gai’s teasing to get to him so much but even so, his cheeks feel hot as he exits. He’s greeted by the sight of Shikamaru’s back when he finally gets back outside. The sun is bright and there’s a slight breeze. Should make the travel back home easier, even with an injured Gai. Kakashi walks up to Shikamaru, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Get Naruto and Sakura. We’re heading out now.” Shikamaru nods at him and heads towards the other tent while Kakashi goes back to the one with Gai. He kneels down beside Gai, hooking one of Gai’s arms around his shoulders. “You ready?”

“Hmm,” Gai hums and Kakashi heaves him up. They stumble a little awkwardly out of the tent but Gai can move mostly on his own for now, at least.

They have to wait for the others to pack up the tent but it doesn’t take them long. Soon, they are making their way down the main path back to Konoha. Sakura, Naruto, and Shikamaru walk ahead of Gai and Kakashi but the pace is still slow going. Gai leans heavily onto Kakashi and Kakashi supports him with an arm around his waist, gripping his hip tightly in order to keep Gai’s balance. It’s worrisome to see Gai in such a state.

Just a few hours into their journey and Gai is panting heavily, shaking with every step, and sweating profusely. He’s got a hand on his left side where he had gotten stabbed. Their pace has slowed significantly.

“Gai,” Kakashi starts, worried. He can feel his own heart beating in his chest rapidly with no sign of slowing down. “How much are you hurting right now?”

“I’m fine, Kakashi,” he answers stubbornly, gritting his teeth.

“Don’t lie to me, Gai,” Kakashi reprimands, tightening his grip. “How much?”

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

Kakashi stops walking, shifting so he can look at Gai but still keep him balanced. “Let me see.” Gai tsks but lifts the hem of his jumpsuit anyway. His entire side is black and blue, no doubt from the poison. Kakashi’s eye widens, heart now jumping into his throat to pound incessantly there instead. “Sakura!”

The group ahead of them stop and turn around to face them. Sakura is by their side in an instant, looking at Gai. Her lips are pursed and she touches the area lightly. Gai just barely hides a flinch. “How much does this hurt, Gai-Sensei?” She gives him a pointed look. “And I need the truth for an accurate reading.”

Gai rolls his eyes. “It’s really not that bad.”

“You have too much of a high pain tolerance,” Kakashi mumbles.

“Can you keep going?” Sakura asks, ignoring Kakashi’s comment and Gai nods, giving her a wide smile and thumbs up with the hand that isn’t wrapped around Kakashi’s shoulders.

“Of course I can!” he announces.

It irritates Kakashi when Gai pushes himself so much like this but when Sakura gives him a questioning look, all he can do is nod his head in defeat. Sakura straightens from where she was leaning over to look at Gai’s side, allowing Gai to lower his shirt. “Okay, but if you need to stop, tell us.”

“Nonsense,” Gai says, forcing a smile.

They continue on their way, Gai continuing to pant heavily. By their next hour, they’re practically going at a snail’s pace. Gai’s head hangs low, almost his entire body weight leaning on Kakashi. Kakashi adjusts his hold and Gai stiffens with a pain filled groan, causing Kakashi to stop his movements. Gai sways in his arms.

“Kakashi…” Gai says quietly, suddenly leaning his forehead onto Kakashi’s shoulder. He can feel the heat radiating off of Gai and the sweat through his jumpsuit. No doubt he has formed a fever.

“It’s alright, Gai, I’ve got you.” Once more he calls to the others. “Let’s take a break,” he says when they come back over to him. They all nod in agreement and Kakashi leads Gai over to a tree to lean against, with Sakura following. They’ll be out of the sun this way as well. “Here.” He helps Gai sit down on the ground and then sits beside him. Gai immediately leans into him, head flopping back onto his shoulder.

Sakura takes off one of her gloves and holds it up against Gai’s forehead. “He’s burning up,” she says to Kakashi, tone low.

“I thought as much.”

She digs around in her pouch, procuring a small pill. She hands it to Kakashi. “This will help with the fever… hopefully. Since it’s from the poison…” She doesn’t finish her sentence and Kakashi doesn’t need her too. “We at least need to try and get it down. Fevers can be dangerous.”

Kakashi nods, looking at Gai. “I’ll take care of him,” he says and means it. He won’t let anything happen to Gai. Not on his watch. Sakura watches him carefully and must find what she is looking for because she smiles at him and then gets up to join the others.

Kakashi nudges Gai. “Gai, I need you to take this.”

Gai lifts his head, peering at the pill with unfocussed eyes. “What is it?”

“You have a fever. This will help.” He places it in Gai’s weak, unsteady hand. He hates seeing how it shakes. “Don’t try arguing with me.”

“Wasn’t,” Gai mumbles and pops the pill in his mouth, chewing slowly. He then rests his head back on Kakashi’s shoulder. They’re silent for a few seconds before Gai starts talking quietly. “Hey, Kakashi?”

“You should try and get some sleep. We can’t stay here long.”

“Do you remember when I told you I could open all eight gates?” Gai continues, ignoring Kakashi’s suggestion.

Kakashi sighs heavily. Gai always ignored his suggestions. “Of course, I do.”

“You were really mad at me,” Gai complains. “Do you remember that?”

Kakashi nods. “Yeah. I didn’t want you to use them.”

“Because you thought I would use all eight and die,” Gai points out the obvious, not that Kakashi will admit to it. Gai chuckles. “You’re not as hard to read as you like to believe you are, my friend.”

“Maybe to you.” He sighs, shifting to get more comfortable. Gai is looking more and more tired. “We’ve known each other for a long time.”

“Hmm,” Gai hums in agreement, closing his eyes. “You’re not going to lose me, Rival.”

“Don’t say things you can’t promise,” Kakashi says, frowning.

“You won’t,” Gai says again, conviction lacing his tone.

Kakashi shakes his head in disbelief. “How can you say that?”

Gai takes a deep, shuddering breath, glancing up at Kakashi. “Our rivalry is eternal.”

“Gai…”

“It is,” Gai says pointedly. “It’s eternal so you’ll never lose me and I’ll never lose you. Because I said it, it’s true.”

Kakashi peeks down at him, amused by Gai’s reasoning. “I hate you.”

Gai’s mouth pulls into a large grin, all teeth and sparkle despite the sickly look to him. It makes Kakashi want to kiss him. Instead, he leans his head down and touches his forehead to Gai’s, closing his eyes against the sting in his eye. He just hopes Gai is right. That they will never lose each other.

Kakashi pulls away. “Get some sleep, Gai.”

“Right,” Gai sighs out, closing his eyes again. It doesn’t take long for the man to fall asleep.

Kakashi watches him. He seems peaceful in sleep, which Kakashi is thankful for. He reaches up, cards his fingers once, twice in Gai’s hair. It’s soft. He doesn’t know what he would do if he lost him. If Gai, the one who has always been there for him, by his side, died. The thought instantly makes Kakashi feel sick.

Gai is his everything.

They rest there for about two hours, Kakashi never leaving Gai’s side and Sakura coming to check on Gai’s temperature every half hour. The pill hasn’t lowered it at all but, according to Sakura, it hasn’t risen either. Kakashi is glad but he knows now that Gai has a fever, the trek home is going to be even more difficult.

Kakashi is just starting to doze off himself when Sakura comes back over. She places her hand on Gai’s forehead, who hasn’t woken since he fell asleep. “Still no change but we should probably start thinking about moving again. The sooner we get back to the village, the better.”

Kakashi nods in agreement and waits for Sakura to walk away before he attempts to wake Gai up. “Gai.” He shakes Gai’s shoulder a little. Gai groans, face scrunching in pain. “Gai, it’s time to move.”

“Okay,” Gai sighs, sounding even more tired despite his rest. They stand, with Kakashi mostly having to actually pick Gai up to get him off the ground. He’s still sweating badly and he’s out of breath along with being unsteady on his feet. Gai takes a deep breath, lifts his head, and smiles. “Ready.”

Kakashi briefly thumps his forehead against Gai’s temple before starting to walk, going even slower than they were going before. It doesn’t seem to strain Gai all that much, at least not at first, but Kakashi knows him. He knows how much effort Gai is putting in to make it seem like he is okay, that he can do this. With every exhale, Gai’s whole body shakes. Kakashi pulls him closer to him.

Gai watches Sakura, Naruto, and Shikamaru who are ahead of them.

Kakashi watches Gai.

“Kakashi,” Gai pants.

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry.”

Kakashi’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. “For what?”

“I should be able to go faster,” Gai says, his own eyebrows furrowing in frustration.

Kakashi peers in front of them at the backs of the rest of the group. “You don’t need to apologize for that, Gai.”

“I can do better,” Gai complains. “I should be able to do better.”

“Your worth isn’t based on what you can and can’t do, Gai.”

“Isn’t it?” Gai looks at him, blinks slowly. “Wasn’t it?”

“When we were kids?” Kakashi asks, clarifying. Gai opens his mouth to answer but trips over his own feet before he can. Kakashi reaches out with the hand that isn’t already wrapped around Gai to catch him. “Careful.” Kakashi looks at him. “If you’re that desperate to go faster, I could always carry you.”

Gai laughs. “I wouldn’t let you embarrass yourself in front of your students like that.”

“You did when you carried me back from Suna,” Kakashi points out, continuing to walk. They’ve fallen farther behind now but he doesn’t mind. It just means the kids won’t be able to hear them talking.

“That was me embarrassing myself,” Gai comments. “I embrace it.”

Kakashi studies him, watching Gai’s expression as it turns sad. It’s not a look he often sees on Gai’s face and when he does, he knows it’s bad. “You’re not an embarrassment to me, Gai.”

Gai huffs. “Don’t lie.”

“You’re not.” Kakashi smiles at him, making sure Gai sees it. “I love you.”

Gai stares at him, not surprised but not knowingly either. He turns away, face turning red though Kakashi isn’t sure if it’s from being flustered or if it’s from the fever. “You’re an idiot.”

“Isn’t that my line?” Kakashi asks playfully.

Gai sighs again. “You and I, Kakashi, we had to prove ourselves when we were kids. In different ways but it was still always there. Trying to gain people’s approval. You were the genius who had to live up to the name. I was the loser who had to show I wasn’t.” Gai looks at him once more. “Our worth is based on what we can do.”

“You’re wrong,” Kakashi says plainly. “Everyone is worth something. Everyone means something, no matter what they can do.” He smiles at Gai again. “You taught me that.”

Gai watches him and Kakashi keeps smiling until Gai smiles back. “Thank you, Kakashi.”

“I told you, I’ve got you.” Kakashi lets his eye turn soft in order to convey the feelings towards Gai that he is feeling. “I always will.” Kakashi stops and helps maneuver Gai to behind him. “Now, let me carry you.”

Gai wraps his arms around Kakashi’s neck and Kakashi hoists him up onto his back, holding Gai under his thighs. “I’m not as light as I used to be.”

Kakashi adjusts his hold until it feels alright. “This is fine.” Gai presses his forehead into the back of Kakashi’s neck before shifting and letting his chin rest on Kakashi’s shoulder. Kakashi continues to follow the others once they are situated. “The last time I carried you like this, was when you opened the seventh gate for the first time.”

“You were really mad at me then, too.”

“Because you could have died.”

Gai laughs. “I knew it.”

Kakashi shakes his head. “Gai.” Gai hums to let Kakashi know he’s listening. “You’ve always been there for me. You’ve always been by my side and had my back. So, no matter your skill level or what you can and cannot do, I don’t care. You mean a lot to me, Gai.”

Gai is quiet for a long time, which is unusual and Kakashi almost wonders if he had fallen asleep, but then Gai finally says, “You mean a lot to me too, Kakashi.” He buries his face into the crook of Kakashi’s neck. Kakashi swears he feels a kiss being pressed there. “More than anything.”

A ghost of a smile threatens to appear on Kakashi’s face but he resists the urge, instead opting to say, “Get some sleep, Gai. I’ll carry you the rest of the way home.”

“Just like before,” Gai says softly, nodding off.

Kakashi’s face grows soft. “Just like before.”

It’s not hard to carry Gai back and their pace improves with doing so. They stop only a couple of times to allow Sakura to check his temperature which hasn’t changed and by the time they get back to Konoha, it’s already night. Kakashi brings Gai straight to the hospital, Sakura with them, and she gets right to work on finding out what type of poison was used and making an antidote. As much as Kakashi doesn’t want to leave Gai’s side, he knows he has no choice. He leaves Sakura to it, heading for the Hokage office where Naruto and Shikamaru should be waiting.

The two shinobi are already in Tsunade’s office when he arrives. She lets him enter, telling him that they were waiting for him. He apologizes but stands his ground firmly. The Hokage doesn’t look happy with him, as Kakashi had expected to happen.

“What happened?” Tsunade asks, looking to all three of them but giving Kakashi a pointed look. She wants him to explain and him alone.

He does as he’s told, not giving any hint to regretting his decision for all of them to come back to Konoha. Tsunade still doesn’t look happy and she asks him why he thought it would be a good idea to just let the enemy escape. When he opens his mouth to defend himself, Shikamaru beats him to it, obviously having been thinking of this for a while.

“The consensus is that  the kekkei genkai user can produce poison inside his body. If more of us got infected, then it would stem bad for the mission either way,” Shikamaru explains, looking bored. “All of us coming back means we can go after the target again once an antidote is made. That way, if one of us gets infected with the poison, then we can just take the antidote right there and then.” He shrugs. “It’s less troublesome.”

Tsunade is biting her bottom lip, looking at Shikamaru contemplatively. Finally, she tsks, sits back, and crosses her arms. “Very well. We’ll wait for an antidote to be made by Sakura.” She pauses, looking the team over. “I’m going to send different shinobi. You three, get some rest.”

“Eh!” Naruto immediately complains. “But baachan, we should be the ones to go back!”

Tsunade scowls and Shikamaru sighs. “Naruto, I’m not in the mood to have this argument with you. It’s better if you stay here and rest. It won’t do if I send you out there with only half your energy.”

“But I’m already rested!” Naruto yells, holding a fist up in a way to show he’s ready and pumped to keep going. “I have a lot of energy left!”

“Then go take it out on some training!” Tsunade yells back, standing up and placing her hands down firmly on her desk. “Now get out of my office.”

Naruto, shoving his hands into his pockets, turns and leaves as he grumbles under his breath. Shikamaru follows with a tired sigh, muttering, “How troublesome.”

Kakashi stays put and waits for the office door to be shut behind the two. He hears Tsunade sit back down. “What is it Kakashi?”

Kakashi turns back to the Hokage. “In the event of possibly angering you again, I have a request.” Tsunade’s eyebrow lifts in question. “I would like to be part of the team that goes after the kekkei genkai user.”

It’s Tsunade’s turn to sigh heavily, leaning forward to place her elbow on her desk and rest her chin in the palm of her hand. “You too, huh?” She tsks. “This is about Gai?” Kakashi stays quiet. If he admits to such a thing, she won’t let him. “Kakashi, you of all people should know that revenge isn’t the answer.”

“It’s not about revenge,” he says, partially true. “This was my mission that I failed.”

“So you want to make up for it,” Tsunade states. “And it absolutely has nothing to do with Gai.”

“Right,” he says and they both know it’s a lie but Tsunade just sighs once more, looking at him with piercing eyes.

“Fine.” She sits up. “Once Sakura has an antidote made and we find the location of the two targets, I’ll gather up a team with you as the leader. For now, go get some rest.”

“Thank you, Hokage-sama.” Kakashi bows and then turns to leave.

“I mean it, Kakashi,” Tsunade says, stopping him. He glances over his shoulder at her. “Rest. I need you at top form for this mission. Don’t go to the hospital and work yourself up waiting for results on Gai.”

She knows him too well and not well enough. He waves goodbye to her with a smile and leaves, heading straight to the hospital despite Tsunade’s warning. He asks the nurse at the desk if he can see Gai and she tells him he’s not allowed any visitors at the moment. So, he goes and sits down in one of the chairs in the waiting room. He sits there for hours as he waits for any news about his best friend. He’s so nervous and worried about the results that he can’t even focus on the Icha Icha book that he is carrying in his pouch.

He doesn’t know how many hours have passed but eventually Sakura appears in front of him with her hands on her hips. “I have a message from Hokage-sama.”

Kakashi guesses Tsunade knows him better than he had initially thought. “Oh?”

“She told you to go rest.”

“I am resting.”

“Not here.”

Kakashi shrugs, standing up and stretching his arms over his head. “How’s Gai?”

“I’ve come up with an antidote that will hopefully work.” She looks tired. “Only time will tell but I’m pretty confident in it. Anyway, Tsunade-sama wants you in her office. Apparently they’ve found the two men that got away on our mission.”

Kakashi nods. “So no time to see Gai, then, eh?”

Sakura shakes her head, face scrunching in disapproval. She gets more and more like Tsunade every day. “Even if there was, I wouldn’t let you. He needs to rest, Kakashi-sensei,” she reprimands. “Let the antidote do its work. Stop worrying.”

“I guess that’s it then.” He salutes her, feigning disinterest even though he knows Sakura sees right through it. “Bye bye.” He leaves in a puff of smoke, Sakura’s huff not going unheard.

When he enters the Hokage’s office for the second time, Tsunade glares at him. “I told you to rest.”

“I did.”

She tsks, knowing full well that he isn’t telling the truth but ignores it anyway. She turns her attention to the rest of the people in the room as Kakashi takes his place next to them. Neji, Ino, and Shino stand there, waiting for instructions. “This the team?” Kakashi asks.

Tsunade nods. “Ino is going with you for her medical ninjutsu. Since you said Gai couldn’t sense the kekkei genkai user, I thought Neji’s Byakugan would come in handy plus he is another jonin. Shino is going in case you need him to drain any chakras from either of the two.” Kakashi nods in approval. It is a good selection. “Here,” Tsunade places a small needle on her desk. “This is the antidote to the poison that the kekkei genkai user creates. Sakura unfortunately only had enough time to make two, one for Gai and one for this mission.” Kakashi picks up the needle and places it in his pouch. “We don’t have much time so you need to move out right away.”

Tsunade gives them the location of their targets. “We’ll get them this time, Hokage-sama,” Kakashi promises.

Tsunade’s mouth purses. “Don’t be reckless, Kakashi.”

Kakashi smiles at her. “I never am.” He then leaves with the rest of the group.

It would seem the enemy is headed towards the village, possibly to get revenge or wage a war on them for what Kakashi’s group had done to them earlier. Due to this, it doesn’t take them long to find the enemy, especially when using Neji’s Byakugan. They land out of sight and view the area that the two are resting at currently.

“Shino, Ino, you go for the original target. Neji, I want you to back me up with the kekkei genkai user,” Kakashi orders.

“Which is that?” Ino asks.

Kakashi gestures with his chin. “The man is your target.”

“Got it,” she says.

“So then that leaves-” Neji starts but Kakashi doesn’t wait for him to finish.

“Let’s go!”

They jump out of their hiding place, attacking immediately so not to give the enemy time to prepare. Despite this, the kekkei genkai user jumps up and produces a kunai to block Kakashi’s. They grapple with the kunai for a few seconds before jumping apart, the clang of the two knives loud.

Kakashi glances over to Ino and Shino who are in the midst of their own fight. When he confidently sees the two are holding their own, Kakashi turns back to his target, revealing his Sharingan. The woman in front of him laughs.

“Oh? Pitting me up against two eye users?” She crosses her arms. “How unfair.” She glances over to her companion. “Are you sure those two will be okay on their own? Kenji-san is pretty powerful.” As if to punctuate her point, Ino screams and is flung back quite a ways.

Kakashi doesn’t even flinch. “They’ll be fine,” he says, hoping he’s right.

The woman smiles at him. “If you’re sure.” She then does a couple hand signs and disappears.

Kakashi tries to find where she is using the Sharingan but can’t sense her anywhere. This must be what Gai was talking about. “Neji.”

“Byakugan!” Neji is quiet for a few seconds, the only sound being heard is the fight that is happening between Ino, Shino, and Kenji. Finally, he announces, “She’s over there!” He points into the woods. Kakashi still doesn’t see her but trusts Neji’s eyes.

He’s about to follow when he hears Shino grunt in pain and Ino screams again. He stops and looks over at them. They are both on the ground, wounded but nothing life threatening. Still, they look like they may need some help after all. “Neji, you stay here and assist them.”

Neji seems alarmed by this. “But-”

“I’ll be fine. Help them.” And then he’s off in the direction Neji had pointed in. It doesn’t take him long to get to a small clearing. He’s not sure why this woman wanted to be separated from her companion unless she didn’t want to risk having to fight all of them at once.

He looks around the clearing, suspicious as to why she hasn’t attacked him yet. He can’t sense her at all and-

Kakashi grunts as he just barely dodges an attack from the ground, a kunai slicing through his side. If he hadn't moved in time, he’d have been in the same predicament that Gai had found himself. He backflips out of the way, holding a hand to his side once he’s on the ground.

The woman laughs in front of him. “I can conceal myself perfectly. For you to dodge that attack… you’re good. A lot better than that loser in the green.”

Kakashi grits his teeth, resisting the urge to say anything back to her in irritation. He eyes the kunai. There’s blood that is dripping from her wrist down onto the kunai, covering it. The color of her blood is off, darker and more purple. So, that’s how she gets the poison onto the knife, as Kakashi had suspected. Which means, he’s already been poisoned himself.

She’s laughing again. “Do you know who I am?”

Kakashi meets her eyes. “I don’t really care.”

“Well, aren’t you rude.” She scowls. “I am Tadame and I possess the kekkei genkai that allows me to change my blood into poison.”

Kakashi sighs, feigning boredom. “Why do you people always feel the need to explain yourselves?”

Tadame huffs, annoyed. “Fine, let’s get this over with then. Shall we?” She disappears once more, the only sound around Kakashi being the wind.

He lifts his hand from his wound. It’s bleeding profusely with no sign of it clotting anytime soon. Kakashi thinks back to how much blood Gai had lost. The poison must prevent the blood from clotting, keeping it thinned out to speed up the process of the person bleeding out and for the poison to travel through the body easier. It’s an interesting way of doing things, considering bloodletting is a common practice of extracting poison from the body. Either way, Kakashi doesn’t have time to dwell on it. By the way Gai, someone who has a high tolerance for many things, reacted to the poison, Kakashi’s only got a few minutes before the poison starts to take effect. He doesn’t want to use the antidote quite yet, just in case he gets cut again.

“You know,” Tadame’s voice carries to him in the wind. “It’s not just my blood that will poison you. I can just scratch you and get the job done. Though less effective, I must confess.”

She appears in front of him suddenly, swiping her kunai down to cut Kakashi in the face. He brings his own kunai up just in time, blocking her blow. He understands now why Gai couldn’t dodge her. He can barely keep up while using the Sharingan. Without that, he’d be hopeless. She goes to swipe him in the face once again, but this time with her long nails. He jumps back before she can, his back hitting a tree. At the same time, he throws three kunai, each with an explosive tag on them.

They blow up on impact and Kakashi waits for the smoke and dirt to dissipate in order to see if he got her. He has a feeling it won’t be so easy. His side is on fire and he’s now panting, starting to feel the effects of the poison and blood loss. There is no body when everything settles.

Tadame giggles and Kakashi searches for her. “You really are hopeless. I’ve heard good things about the Copy Ninja. Is this all you can do?” She strikes at him from behind, causing him to duck. The blood soaked kunai cuts some strands of his hair. Gai isn’t going to like that. “I’m disappointed!”

She keeps striking at him, causing Kakashi to continuously dodge. His vision goes blurry for a second, making Kakashi stagger and Tadame gets a hit on him, slicing through his arm. Kakashi groans in pain, reaching up to the wound. His blood immediately covers his hand. He needs to find a way to end this quickly or else he’s not going to last.

Tadame laughs, twirling the kunai. “Pathetic.” She charges and Kakashi jumps away, throwing more kunai with explosive tags. As they fly through the air towards her, he does the signs for his Chidori. He staggers as he lands on his feet but keeps his footing, immediately going into a charge of his own as the tags explode around them.

“Chidori!” he yells as he approaches. Tadame is already in the process of escaping the explosion and, Kakashi having anticipated that, lunges at her, catching her off guard. His chidori clips her in the right shoulder as she tries to dodge, splattering her blood over Kakashi’s arm and rendering her arm useless. Doing so, however, gets Kakashi close enough for her to grab a hold of his arm with her good hand and dig her fingernails into him, holding him in place.

“You bastard!” she screams, leaning in to bite him. Kakashi kicks at her stomach, making her go flying and dragging her fingernails across his arm as he is ripped free of her grasp.

Tadame staggers to her feet, blood pouring out of her shoulder. Kakashi pants where he stands, stomach lurching with nausea and eyesight going blurry again. He was close. If he can just get close to her again then maybe…

“I’m going to kill you!” she howls menacingly and charges.

Kakashi leaps into the air, feels the world spin around him, and reaches into his pouch. He doesn’t have much time left. At this rate he’ll… he digs out the antidote just as Tadame changes course and jumps after him, an angry scream leaving her mouth as she aims her kunai. He doesn’t have the strength or the reaction time to dodge her attack this time. He has to rely on this.

He plunges the needle into his thigh just as her kunai stabs into him. She grins as they fall to the ground but Kakashi wraps an arm around her and pulls her closer to him. It digs the kunai into him more, causing him to flinch, but he needs to keep her still long enough to do his last move. They land and she tries to pull away but Kakashi can already feel the antidote working, restoring some of his strength. He holds her there, refusing to let go.

“What?” she asks in surprise, still struggling to pull away. “How are you-”

Kakashi’s eyebrows furrow in anger, his nose scrunching, and mouth turning into a scowl under his mask. “You hurt the one person I am the closest to.” Kakashi lifts up the hand that isn’t holding her in place, lightning crackling all around his palm. “The person I care about more than anything else.”

“What?” Tadame’s eyes widen, realizing what is about to happen.

“And you’re going to die for that.” He drives his hand forward.

“No!” Tadame screams, eyes staring at him in pure fury.

Kakashi ignores her and thrusts his hand through her chest. Her blood splashes up onto his face but he pays it no mind as he watches her take her last breath and the light goes out in her eyes. When he knows for certain she is dead, he drops her body and pulls out the kunai from his side, groaning in pain. He looks down at his wounds. The antidote must be doing its job. His cuts and scratches are starting to clot now.

Pressing a hand to his side, over the stab wound, he sits down and waits for Neji, Ino, and Shino to join him, hoping that they won’t need his assistance. He wouldn’t be any good to them in this state. He looks up at the sky. The sun is starting to set.

He wants to go see Gai.

The sound of rustling in the bushes catches his attention and he’s on high alert again until Ino comes rushing out and to his side. “Kakashi-sensei!” She kneels down beside him and starts to heal his stab wound.

Shino and Neji look around the small clearing. “It’s done then?” Neji asks.

Kakashi nods. “Kenji?”

“Dead,” Shino answers and holds up a bag that Kakashi presumes has his head in it.

Kakashi looks towards Tadame’s body. “Let’s take her too. We’ll want to study her body.”

Neji and Shino nod in understanding. It takes a few more minutes before Ino stands, having finished healing his wounds. “Are you alright, Kakashi-sensei?”

“Hmm,” he hums, standing up. He stumbles a little, getting a bit dizzy, but Ino steadies him with a hand on his arm. “I took the antidote. I’ll be perfectly fine soon.” He looks back to the sky. It’s almost dark. “Let’s get home.”

Kakashi wraps Tadame up and then lifts her body onto his back. They walk home, all four of them feeling exhausted. When they do get back, they head straight to the Hokage’s office, Kakashi dropping Tadame’s body on the floor next to her desk and Neji dropping Kenji’s head onto her desk.

She scowls at Kakashi’s appearance. “You’re getting blood on my floor.”

Kakashi shrugs nonchalantly. “Eh, it was a bit tougher than expected.” He turns more serious. “Some of this is Tadame’s, the kekkei genkai user, blood. I thought some could be collected and analyzed. I’m not sure if the blood in her body turns to normal after she dies.”

Tsunade stands and approaches Kakashi, looking contemplative. “So the kekkei genkai user was a female?” Kakashi nods in confirmation.

“Only Gai saw her so it makes sense only he knew,” Kakashi comments.

Tsunade hums, staring at the purple blood on Kakashi’s mask. She waves her hand and an ANBU member appears. “Take a sample of this blood and send it to a lab to be tested and analyzed. Take the body and Kenji’s head with you.”

“Understood!” The ANBU member does as told, disappearing shortly after with Tadame’s body and Kenji’s head.

The four of them then go into a debriefing, Tsunade looking displeased at learning that Kakashi fought the kekkei genkai user by himself, but pleased with the results nonetheless. She sighs when they are done. “Alright, the four of you get some rest. You’ll have a couple days off.” Ino, Shino, and Neji all nod and turn to leave the room. Kakashi turns to follow but is called back by Tsunade. “Kakashi.”

“Yes?”

“Before you go to the hospital, go home and at least clean yourself up.” Her eyes soften and she leans her chin in her palm, not unlike earlier in the day. “I’m sure Gai would appreciate you not having blood all over you when you see him.”

Kakashi’s heart starts beating fast in his chest and he can feel his ears heating up. He supposes he underestimated Tsunade if he thought he could hide his feelings from her. “Understood.” He leaves the office then, heading back to his apartment to take a quick shower.

Once done, he heads straight to the hospital. Visiting hours are over already but it’s not too hard to figure out what room Gai is in. He jumps up to the window and opens it silently, slipping into the room.

Gai is asleep, resting on his back with his limbs flared out. Kakashi smiles warmly down at him, reaching out to brush some hair out of Gai’s face. It causes Gai to stir, his breath hitching and he slowly opens his eyes. “K… Kakashi?”

Kakashi sits down on the edge of the bed, pressing into Gai’s side. “Hey, Gai.”

Gai smiles up at him. “I didn’t die.”

Kakashi runs a hand through Gai’s hair and down the side of his face. “No, you didn’t.”

Gai’s grin is growing larger, blinding in the dark. “We’ll be eternal rivals yet!”

Kakashi nods, leaning closer. “Yes, we will.”

“Plenty of competitions to still do.”

“Hmm.”

“Kakashi, I lov-”

Kakashi pulls down his mask and kisses him.

—————————————————————————————————

A/N: This ended up being super long… oops…

I wasn’t actually planning on it turning out that they would have to go back and defeat those two enemies but the story kind of drove its own plot forward, taking control of my writing.

I hope I made it clear enough in the story that Gai using she/her pronouns while everyone else used he/his pronouns for the kekkei genkai user was on purpose. It’s another thing I wasn’t actually going to explicitly say in the story, but I didn’t want people to think it was a writing mistake so I added in an explanation anyway.

I hope you all enjoyed this story! Thank you all for reading!!

[girldraki]

Would you be interested in introducing yourselves? I feel like I'm losing track of who's who!

the unfortunate fact of the matter is that there’s around fifty of us at this point so we can’t really do coherent introductions for everyone (most of whom aren’t even around very much). we put a little cheat sheet for the really frequent fronters under the cut? it’s LONG even with only abt ten people :(

generally 70% of everyone who’s around a lot is a scp fictive (with the notable exceptions of the daydream sibs). what comorbid adhd and autism does to a set of mfers. in no real order aside from association:

the overmind is not a proper fronter. it watches the rest of us basically constantly (yes, this is sometimes unpleasant) and gives us some instincts, as well as having a few very distinct emotions of their own (all of which are why we mention it pretty often) but it can’t really properly come out and control the body. definitely one of the stranger Things Our Head Did. they/it

lavender is probably the most prominent daydream sibling. fucked up on trauma and BPD Headmate tm. genuinely a very caring person but they get mad when we say so. tends to have some concerning shit with their headspace body. musician primarily. they/them

four is uh. kind of concerning but we don’t know what to do about it. loves philosophy and ethics in particular. very detached emotionally. relates to the teeyemay eye avatars a little too much. no pronouns, it/its auxiliary

mink forms half of the identity twin subsystem. special interest in identity as a concept. non sam ace. kinda made out of eyes and light internally. that headmate we mention who has the same trauma response as gears. visual artist. they/them

omega/alter is the other identity twin. has some issues with personal identity? semi-voluntary shapeshifter. corporate twitter, but, like, a person. one time they turned themself into bdgs pokerap. they/them

thrice is a combination of three different scp fictives into one entity who has some pretty strong feelings about their experience of consciousness. sometimes splits up into twice-plus-one because two of their components were married and they’re gay about it. mekhanite and certified vaseline eater. they/them

cog gears is just. a gears. very protective of our iceberg. currently better at expressing emotion thanks to distance from trauma. dating our iceberg, qpps with our kpc, and Something with our kondraki. sie/hir

iceberg is... happy. loved and allowed to grow and all that. was a very frequent fronter for a while, so wave was around for a lot of stuff. just embarrassingly gay for gears (ours and conceptually). certified chronic illness experiencer. waveself, roseself, and co/coa/cocoaself; they/he aux.

mikell is That Guy We Made A Slaughter/Hunt Avatar About or more specifically a fictive of said guy. genuinely pretty happy too now. victim of the rest of us thinking brennedy is the funniest shit on the planet. sillygender :-) siblings are claire, jack and tj and girlfriend is daniil. she/they/he

tj is so silly! age is kinda fucked for complicated reasons. came in box with a lot of advanced emotions about being disabled. 408 hangs around faer a lot (they are silly friends). siblings are jack claire and mikell. fae/faer

daniil “fun steppe vacation” dankovsky aka danko is. a fictive of daniil dankovsky from pathologic funny. a girl but in a very evil way. kind of a mekhanite too? gives mikell a kiss kiss and we are all the worse for it. sort of adopted clara. she/her

SO if you read this far we’re so sorry for the novel but (1) that’s most of the prominent fronters and (2) this is why we can’t really introduce everyone 😅 we might write something clarifying some others of us at some point but eesh

[lakesandquarries]

Jump the Fence Part Two: Ghost Out Of His Grave

chapter two: ghost in your arms

summary: Benrey and Gordon adapt to living together. Some days are better than others.

notes: series title from “jump the fence” by mother mother. this part and the chapters within it are named after “ghosting” by mother mother.

AO3 Link

Benrey manages half an hour of lying on the couch before he finds himself in Gordon’s room. He’s still reeling from everything that just happened, rolling Gordon’s apology around in his mind over and over again, like a looping video he can’t pause. He hadn’t prepared for that as a possibility. He’d been expecting to end the night tied to the couch, or hiding in a dumpster, or dead.

Gordon had hugged him. That had seemed like such an unrealistic outcome that he hadn’t even let himself daydream about it.

He looks peaceful when he’s asleep. Does Benrey look like that? Or is it just another thing that’s special about Gordon? His curly hair is spread around his head, like a messy brown halo. The angel one, not the game. He’d looked more like the other kind of halo when they were in Black Mesa, but Benrey hasn’t seen his armor at all since they ended up in his house. Here, Gordon just wears t-shirts and jeans and stuff. He seems kinda...softer, somehow.

Or maybe Benrey’s just tired and imagining things.

He tiptoes across the room quietly, sliding onto the bed as carefully as he can. It shifts under his weight, but Gordon doesn’t wake up, so Benrey climbs on. It’s a lot comfier than his couch is. Gordon’s got some kinda thick fluffy blanket on top, with the really soft kind of texture Benrey likes.

Gordon won’t mind if he curls up, right? He’s not gonna sleep or anything. Just. Hang out, for a little. Be gone before Feetman even wakes up.

Benrey makes himself comfortable, and before he knows it, he’s asleep.

---

He wakes up to movement, something nudging him. Blinking his eyes open, he sees a grumpy looking Gordon staring at him.

Aw fuck.

“G’morning,” he mumbles, attempting to stretch and nearly rolling off.

Gordon snorts. “Why’re you on my bed?”

Benrey rolls back so his face is buried in the blanket. “Mmm. Comfy.”

“Yeah, fair point,” Gordon says. Something soft hits Benrey. He lifts his face to see Gordon’s thrown the covers back. “Any other reason?”

“Mmmb,” Benrey says again. Gordon sighs.

“Right.” He grabs a hair tie off his nightstand, pulling his hair into a ponytail. Benrey can see the streaks of gray hiding under the brown. Sexy. “Dude. Is there a reason you’re staring at me?”

“Can we go somewhere?” Benrey blurts out.

“Wha?”

“Uh.” They hadn’t actually planned to ask that. Shit. Benrey looks away, staring at Gordon’s half open dresser, clothes hanging off awkwardly. “Weren’t we gonna like...get me stuff?”

“Oh, yeah,” Gordon says. “Shit, I forgot about that. You wanna go to Target?”

Benrey has never heard of Target before in his life. “Tarjet,” he says.

“Okay well, let me get dressed first,” Gordon says, standing up. “Benrey. That means leave. ”

“Right,” he mutters, slinking off into the living room, where he waits perched on the couch, picking at a loose thread on his shirt. The prospect of going outside suddenly seems very, very scary. He hasn’t left Gordon’s apartment since he showed up. The closest he’s gotten to going outside has been standing in front of an open window. And in Black Mesa…

He’s not thinking about that.

Gordon steps out of the bedroom. He shoots Benrey a smile as they scoot off the couch, grabbing his keys out of the bowl he keeps next to the door.

Outside of the apartment are more hallways. It’s a little reminiscent of the Black Mesa dorms, but less ugly. Gordon leads Benrey down the hall, to a door with a bright red EMERGENCY sign over it. “Shortcut,” he says by way of explanation, and then he pushes the door open and -

And -

Holy shit.

He’s been outside Black Mesa before. Sorta. Technically. He has stepped out of the building and seen the desert that surrounds it, the brown dust and brown rocks and brown sky.

The sky is blue here. The grass is green, and so are the trees, and there’s cars going down the street in a million different colours and Benrey can’t do anything besides stare.

“Woah,” he mumbles, kneeling down to touch the grass. It’s damp, and when he pulls on it the dirt underneath is a rich brown, nothing like the dull dust of Black Mesa.

“Hey man, c’mon, leave the grass alone. What are you doing?”

Right. Right, Gordon’s here, Gordon’s watching him - he glances over and Gordon is squinting at him, like Benrey’s doing something weird. He stands up quickly, dusting himself off.

“Uhhhhh. Making sure the grass passes inspection,” Benrey says.

“Right,” Gordon says. “Can I ask you something?”

Benrey blinks. “You just did.”

Gordon rolls his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“Uhhh. Sure?”

“Have - have you ever been out of Black Mesa before?”

His tone is - not angry. The rare soft tone he gets sometimes but never really talks to Benrey with. Genuine curiosity.

It wouldn’t be a lie, to say yes. Technically. He’s stepped outside!

But...that was still Black Mesa property. Even Xen - it was basically part of Black Mesa, at that point. And Benrey knows what Gordon’s trying to get at. He stares up at the sky, the bright blue sky and the fluffy white clouds and the sun that hurts his eyes.

“No,” he says.

“Oh,” Gordon says, and then he goes quiet for a moment. “I could…show you around, if you want. After we go to Target.”

Gordon’s eyes are nice in the sun. Benrey never really got a good look in Black Mesa, between the helmet and the bad lighting and the getting killed. Up here, his eyes are green, with a ring of brown in the center, like the bright green grass with the dirt underneath.

“Uhhh. Yeah, sure. If you wanna.” Benrey shoves their hands in the pockets of their sweatpants, and Gordon smiles at him, and it hurts his eyes like the sun did.

“Cool,” Gordon says, and then he reaches forward and grabs Benrey’s hand.

Gordon’s hand is warm. His skin doesn’t have the chill Benrey’s does, or the gray-ish tint. Everything about Gordon is warm and brown, from his hair to his skin to his eyes, and his hand is soft and his nails are painted orange to match his prosthetic and he’s still smiling even as Benrey stands there staring.

It’s only when Gordon pulls his hand away that Benrey realizes they’ve moved. They’re in front of a car now - Gordon’s, presumably - and Gordon seems to be expecting Benrey to do something.

“Dude. Get in. I know you know how to get into a car.”

Wordlessly, Benrey pulls the door open, scrambling in. Gordon gets in on the other side, giving a glance to Benrey - and then suddenly he’s leaning across them to buckle them in, arm brushing against Benrey’s chest.

“C’mon, seatbelts are one of the laws I agree with,” Gordon huffs.

404, Benrey not found. Benrey.exe has crashed. Would you like to reboot?

“You - you, you agreeing with laws? Laws are - laws’re for losers.” The words catch on his teeth, barely coherent even to himself. Gordon clicks the seat belt in and gives him a sidelong glance.

“You okay?”

“Uh-huh,” Benrey says, pulling their beanie down over their face.

“...Right,” Gordon says. The car engine makes a growling noise, and Benrey pushes his beanie back, leaning against the window. Gordon’s a better driver than Bubby. Probably? He hasn’t spent a lot of time in cars. But Gordon seems to know what he’s doing, turning on the radio and humming along mindlessly as they drive. Benrey can’t help but glance over at him every few minutes, even as most of his attention is focused on the world outside. It’s bright and colourful and there’s so many people . And he’d thought Black Mesa was crowded.

The car stops. “We’re here,” Gordon announces, cutting the music off. When Benrey glances over, Gordon’s eyebrows are scrunched up, squinting a little. “Are you sure you’re good?”

“Whu?”

“I mean is this gonna be like…” He runs a hand through his ponytail. “You just said you’ve never been outside Black Mesa. This has to be like, a lot for you.”

Benrey shrugs. “‘s fine. I’m - I’m a great cool, bro. I’ll be chill.”

Gordon stares a moment longer. “Okay. But, uh, tell me if it gets too much? And don’t -” he pauses, rubbing his face. “Don’t start shit or anything. Don’t try to, I don’t know, don’t start shapeshifting in the middle of Target. And no Sweet Voice! No - no weird magic shit or whatever.”

“‘s not magic ,” Benrey grumbles.

“Whatever it is! None of that, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He folds his arms, huffing. “Never let me have any fun.”

“I’m just trying to not get us kicked out, man.” Gordon opens the door, stepping out - and a second later, opens Benrey’s door.

“I can get out myself,” Benrey whines, as Gordon leans over him again. He freezes.

“You seemed like you were having a hard time getting in, so…” Gordon steps back. “Benrey?”

“Hh,” Benrey says. He forces himself out of the car and to his feet. “You gotta - you gotta warn me, bro.”

“Warn you of what?”

“When you’re gonna - “ he reaches out, flicking Gordon’s shirtsleeve.

“Oh. Uh, yeah, I can do that. Look, let’s - lets go inside?”

[saladejin]

Solace (M) | 03

4-part Jimin x Reader | fantasy au, school au, magic user!Jimin | Fluff, angst (basically unresolved), smut with some plot

Summary: Why not spice up your high school life with a teleporting boy of your very own? You find yourself not having a choice in the matter. While he figures out how to fix his mistakes, strap yourself in for an adventure to remember…

Warnings: Sexual implications, sexual tension

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 3.7k 

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  Your day turned out to be difficult, to say the least.

You were living a constant battle. Nobody understood just how hard it was to refrain from mentally stripping the boy of his clothes. Not when he looked like that, with a perfectly porcelain complexion and shadowy tresses complimenting it way too well. These were the very tresses you were considering ripping out if he combed them back with his fingers again in the next five minutes.

Class was difficult when he sat next to you. Why couldn’t any of the guys in your year level wear the uniform the same way? Why had every person you’d considered attractive for the past few years suddenly vanished from the confines of your standards?

Fuck you, Jimin. Honestly.

You couldn’t find it in your heart to be angry at him for long, because every time he caught your eye he would beam that stupid smile of his and turn your insides into jelly. You were just glad you were quite capable of narrowing down your focus most of the time.

“Do you have a cafeteria here?” He asked in his familiar honeyed tone once the bell had rung. You made it to your locker and threw your stuff inside a bit rougher than usual. Jimin didn’t notice your strange swing of irritation to your relief, but your friends were beginning to grow suspicious as the day crawled along. You weren’t usually this short-fused.

“Yeah, there’s a canteen,” You caved after being faced with his joyful expression yet again.

“Let’s go together, I need food.”

Jimin smirked and fell into step beside you. You knew people in your year level were giving you looks and sharing whispers every now and again, likely speculating about a hidden relationship between the two of you or something. You couldn’t blame them, for Jimin tended to be touchy when he felt the need to express something.

“Don’t worry, I don’t mean to be arrogant but they’re only talking about me,” Jimin spoke suddenly.

You furrowed your brows and whipped your head around to narrow your gaze at him cautiously. His eyes curved upwards with glee as he took in your confusion, a shit-eating grin beginning to appear the longer you glowered.

“I hope you’re not about to reveal that you can read minds,” You growled, hands curling into fists around your lunch money.

“Not that precisely, I just get a general mood feeling and maybe sometimes a stray word or image. It’s only if I’m concentrating hard enough.”

“So…what led you to believe those people were talking about you?” You scoffed and tried to push down your feelings of anxiety. You were scared he had been a little too focused on your particular thoughts throughout the day. Knowing him, he definitely would have tapped into it at some point to try and get a rise out of you, but you just hoped he hadn’t done it during one of your more heated daydreams.

“Touches of curiosity, admiration, and surges upon surges of jealousy,” He smirked knowingly. You wanted to slap the smugness off his face as he turned to look at you while making his way towards the staircase.

“For the ladies, arousal.”

“Watch out, don’t trip on your gigantic ego,” You snorted.

“Ah, well it’s nothing compared to what I’ve been feeling from you all day,” He continued nonchalantly, shoving his hands into his pockets and adding a small swagger to his step as he strode with poise. Now, more than ever, you wanted to let the ground swallow you entirely whole.

“You’ll only be feeling fury from now on, idiot,” You gritted your teeth. Jimin’s eyes widened in realisation suddenly. You really had to try to stop yourself from softening at the familiar look of innocence he wore. You weren’t actually that upset, but it was fun to turn the tables on him when he thought he had the upper hand.

“You’re right, okay I’ll stop trying to read people’s emotions.”

“God, I can’t believe you!” You light-heartedly slapped his arm, trying to create an outlet for the embarrassment flooding your whole being.

“Why would you keep something like that from me?”  

“I haven’t been doing it since I want to save power, but you’re sexual frustration was too strong and it reached out to me anyway,” He murmured quietly for your ears only.

“So, you didn’t use your power to look for it?”

“Well, originally I wanted to know why you looked so annoyed. Once I found out it wasn’t directed at me in an angry way, I just tried to ignore it but it was a little difficult.”

“Why’s that?” You mumbled through the embarrassment, pushing open the door to the canteen area quickly. Jimin cleared his throat and you looked behind to see his cheeks flushing slightly. You instantly seemed to tune out the bustling noise of canteen chatter when he hesitated.

“You were thinking of…particular images that I maybe wanted to see more than once…”

Even though you should’ve been feeling appalled and disturbed by his confession, you didn’t feel anything but more heat licking at your lower abdomen. You imagined his reaction when he saw your inner thoughts, the picturesque memory of your bodies interlocking, the feeling of his lips brushing against the exposed column of your throat, and even the way his cock had hit so nice and deep inside you that you could barely form a coherent thought.

“Fuck,” He whispered quickly.

Your vision came back into focus as you watched his jaw clench suddenly in effort. His eyes sharpened and you stood frozen as he began trailing his gaze hungrily to your lips.

“If you can’t control yourself then don’t read my emotions,” You sneered, feeling the lingering tension double but choosing to steel yourself so you could do what you came to do. And that was buying lunch.

“That’s an idea I should’ve had a while back,” He sighed, now obviously just as frustrated as you.

You waited in line and finally purchased a sandwich, gradually managing to ignore your desirable thoughts to focus on your meal. Jimin certainly needed a distraction too, because as it looked you were both struggling to leave the school with an inkling of purity intact.

“So how are you planning to find out a way to get home?” You questioned after finishing off the sandwich. He tore his gaze away from the floor to look at you with surprised interest.

“I’ve been searching around a bit. Can we find a place that’s a bit quieter so I can tell you everything you need to know?”

“Oh right, yeah the library should be fine.”

You disregarded even more straying glances as you led the way to the library. Honestly, it would probably be fine to come out and say you were in a relationship with Jimin, but who knew what the overall reaction would be to that? Family friends - more like family friends with big ass benefits. Rumours would probably spread and you really didn’t need that on your plate at the moment.

“Okay, so I’ll keep it as short as I can to save your ears,” Jimin spoke as soon as you found a small table far away from the rest of the nearby school community.

“I’m listening, just say what you want,” You flicked a hand to dismiss his niceties while he only smiled fondly at the response.

He shifted in his seat and you licked your lips in interest. You still honestly didn’t know all that much about the strange magical boy, but now that you had given yourself to him in more ways than one, you really thought you ought to know a lot more.

“Since I’ve replenished a fair bit of energy, a certain extent of my abilities have come back to me. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but each member of my group has a different specialty when it comes to powers. In my instance, it’s purely emotional and mind based. This is why I’m able to work around language barriers easily.”

“So none of your friends can change thoughts the way you do?”

“Yes and no,” His face contorted as he tried to figure out how to explain without giving away absolutely everything.

“Jimin, if you want me to help you out you’re going to have to face the facts here. I’ll need to know pretty much everything,” You sighed and reached out to rest your hands on his as they sat on the tabletop.

“Why are you always right?” He grunted, finally giving in and eyeing your interlocked hands with a soft smile.

“The oldest members have experience in most fields. They teach us everything we know, and we respect them so much. Seokjin-hyung and Yoongi-hyung. God, I miss them all.”

Your face fell as you heard his voice tighten with emotion. You were so used to his caring and confident side that you’d forgotten how distressed he actually was through this dilemma. Memories of how lost and scared he had seemed when he’d first appeared came rushing back, and you couldn’t contain the hurt stabbing at your own heart at the recollection.

“You’ll figure it out, I know you can.”

You have his fingers a gentle squeeze of reassurance, and he exhaled unevenly to calm himself down. He had been fairly close to tears from what you could tell.

“Thanks (Y/n). Jesus, I don’t know what I’d do without you,” He breathed, removing his hands to smooth back his hair and finally regain his composure.

“Nothing, that’s what,” You chuckled, raising an eyebrow to prompt him to continue. He trailed his rich coffee-coloured gaze over your features for a few silent moments and that made you blink nervously. Did you weird him out somehow? You were only confused further when the corner of his plush lips quirked up into a small smile.

“Sorry, I got lost in thought. My elders would be able to do the things I do, probably do it even better honestly. If I knew how to contact them then I would have. I’m worried because they haven’t even tried to contact me, and that probably means they don’t know what to do either.”

“They can’t…teleport to where you are, or something?” You nibbled at your lip in concentration, but he only snorted lightly at your words.

“It’s not that simple to just do things. It requires a lot, whether it be time or power, so largely scaled events are really taxing on the mind, body and soul.”

You hummed and nodded slowly, knowing you would never probably fully understand his world but still showing that you could follow nonetheless.

“For some reason, I still had enough power after making it here to alter the minds of so many people around us. You see, I don’t know about all that teleporting stuff. It’s an ancient practice that only the most experienced ones can manage to use safely. When I went and messed with it, I must have done it seriously wrong. In the end, all I wanted to do was prove that I was capable.”

You felt saddened once again at his crestfallen demeanour. He really did want to make these friends of his proud of him, but now that he had failed somewhat, he had taken the blow pretty hard. You were starting to see just how sensitive the boy could get.

“Well if you ask me, you’re definitely capable in your own naive way. If you hadn’t thought so quickly in the moment then who knows where you’d be right now? So many things could have gone wrong, and even though you took risks to give yourself time to think, it was that initiative that saved you in the end,” You spoke softly, meeting his eyes to show how serious you were.

“I guess I don’t know how it works in your world, but the fact that you could do all that with a limited power source is pretty fucking amazing in my eyes.”

Jimin covered his bashful smile with one hand, raising his brows at the unprecedented praise. You only sat back in your seat and clicked your tongue in indifference, as if daring him to argue against your thoughts.  

“They’ll think the opposite, but thanks for that,” He sighed.

You were just glad his sense of negativity was starting to trickle away the more he opened up to you. Classes would have to start again soon, but you were at least happy with the progress you’d made for now.

“I’ll look into some old books I’ve heard my hyungs mention once or twice, but I’ll have to start paying attention to my surroundings too. The more power I have the better I’ll be able to sense when people are trying to get through to me,” He continued on a graver note, eyeing you darkly underneath his folded hands. You got to your feet slowly.

“Keep talking the way you do and you’ll have yourself a supplier,” You smacked your lips suggestively before letting your eyes fly upwards at the sound of the bell. You took a breath to say something about it, but the air was snatched from your lungs when he suddenly towered over you.

“You might wanna start being careful about what you’re thinking, or I’m just going to take you whenever, wherever.”

You positively shuddered and let out a tiny whine when he used one sly finger to tilt your chin upwards. There was no denying the fire burning in his gaze; it was consuming you whole the longer you looked into it.

“Let’s go,” He smirked and playfully left a lingering slap on your ass before backing away. It was almost like you could feel your body slouch once separated from his intoxicating body heat, and you began to wonder if it was actually you providing the sustenance.  

“Oi, don’t let anyone see you do that. Do you want to ruin what little social life you have?”

“(Y/n), I’ve been here two days and I have more friends than you.”

“Ass.”

~

Two days turned into two weeks eventually. Jimin started to hang out with some guys much to your bemusement, because he wouldn’t have changed it up if you hadn’t been forced to encourage him. You had already decided you were too attached to the boy, yet nowadays you were hoping that he might actually see something in you too. His unwillingness to part from your side indicated that at least.

Don’t be stupid, he’s literally with you for one purpose. He’s too nice to admit it, but that’s all it is.

You couldn’t even stifle the rapid pounding of your heart every time he would smile at you. It was so dumb, so reckless and pointless, yet you couldn’t help yourself indulging the feeling. He hadn’t said a word, but you had no idea if he had gotten curious and sensed your amounting affection at some point.

Every time you replenished his powers you would think about it, and now that he was actively using said powers to broadcast signals, he needed the booster quite often. Every time you reached orgasm it would be better than the last, and you didn’t know if he was somehow magically making that happen or if you were both just getting attuned to each other’s bodies and sexual preferences.  

Every time, he would gain this look. This look of overwhelming emotion and admiration that threw you off guard every damn time. He would sigh deeply and plant slow wet kisses everywhere he could while you tried to hold yourself together from the pure ecstasy of the drainage.

Did he ever read into your feelings during those moments?

“God, that would be just fan-fucking-tastic wouldn’t it?” You growled while flushing with humiliation.

“What would be?”

You squeaked with surprise when Jimin popped into view. His burning gaze implored you in such a way that your heart rate went ballistic. You shuffled your feet nervously and busied your hands with your locker before things got strange.

“Nothing!”

“You’re just as bad of a liar as I am, but anyway we need to go to the library, now.”

You cocked an eyebrow, but grasped onto his outstretched hand hurriedly. He was an insanely fast runner and you were honestly tired of being left in the dust every time he wanted to be somewhere.

Since your first discussion about his efforts to contact the others, not much had really happened in your favour. You could see how much energy he was using in the small changes that happened over the time period of a few days. For example, how often his attention seemed to float away during class, or even the slight bags forming under his wearied eyes. Eventually, he was even too exhausted to try and restore himself completely. No matter how many times you tried to scold him into resting, his stubborn nature annoyingly fought back a tenfold.

“Why now, did something happen?” You spluttered while trying to keep up with his sprinting. It was obviously urgent if he was drawing so much attention to himself all of a sudden, the curious eyes out in the yard had much to say.

“Yes, kind of. I think I’m getting somewhere,” He turned around to face you, smile suddenly brightening with triumph. You felt your own heart stutter with excitement, because if he was getting somewhere that meant he was finally contacting his peers somehow.

“Okay, spill!” You gasped for air while sliding into the usual seat in the library. You snorted in amusement when Jimin almost tumbled clean off his own, but the graceful boy fixed his balance in milliseconds.

“So, I was beginning to think that there was no way it was just going to happen out of the blue, because I wasn’t getting anything for ages. Then I found one of the books I mentioned.”

You widened your eyes when he brought out a dusty looking book from the shelf behind him, carefully hidden so nobody else would decide to question its presence. Not that they would take interest anyway, the thing looked as old as a fossil with its worn leather cover and yellowish pages.

“So, you found that here in the school library?” You questioned in sarcastic disbelief.

“No, that would be too good to be true. Remember when I took that random day off and said that I’d explain it later? Yeah, well this is later,” He hummed cheekily.

“I wanted to visit a few places where old books could be found, so I used some power to put the public transport in my favour, yada yada you get the idea. It was only by chance that I came across this in a special section of the state library, and I didn’t even have a membership so it was super difficult to squeeze through their system and get away with it.”

He looked down at the thick object and smirked proudly. You loved that he was so happy with himself over accomplishing something this important, and you were reminded of how his own sense of incompetency had landed him here in the first place. He really needed to know just how incredible he was sometimes.

You laughed at his revelation. “Oh, now I see. You came home that day and fucked my brains out, I should’ve seen something fishy going on.”

Jimin’s gaze darkened a little at the memory, as did yours, but he shook it away to continue with a clear mindset.

“Not even fishy, this is great news. I read through and I was really surprised to see that my hyungs hadn’t lied about the hidden messages. Like this, I can establish an actual connection and speak with them using the codes here.”

“Wow, so the book is kind of like a telephone of sorts?” You breathed in awe.

“Simply put, yeah,” He giggled, obviously amused at your innocent reactions. You smiled as well when he pushed the book to the side and cupped your face with both palms softly. Your lips met not even a second later, and you couldn’t help feeling the butterflies when he moved to deepen the kiss almost instantly. Both of you pouring emotions and unspoken words into each other.

“(Y/n), I’m so happy and relieved I could die,” Jimin sighed after sitting back against the plastic chair. His black hair was slightly tousled and his expression screamed giddiness.

“Well don’t, or I’ll have to hunt you down in Hell,” You smirked in response.

Jimin chuckled at your returning humour, but his face gradually fell as he lost focus again. This time it seemed different. It wasn’t like he was searching for something as per usual, but instead his brows had furrowed and his lips had pulled into a frown. He was upset, but you didn’t have time to question him because he was already leaping to his feet and smiling immediately.

“I’m bringing the book home with us, so hopefully I’ll have figured out how to activate it by then. Maybe we’ll be speaking to them tonight.”

You still felt excited, but now apprehension was building up inside you too. Were you possibly going to meet his other powerful friends, the ones he spoke so highly about? What if they were disappointed with his decision to seek help and shelter in you? You highly doubted it, but if Jimin had made such a massive mistake then they could disown him from their group pretty easily.

If I’m feeling anxious over this, imagine how he’s feeling.

You let your eyes wander to Jimin’s concentrating expression as he walked in step beside you. It wasn’t obvious, but the slight clenching of his jaw and twitching of his brow proved your suspicions.

He was scared he wouldn’t have anyone to go back to.

Feeling the inner torment as if it were your own, you gently curled your fingers around his to show that you would be there for him no matter what.

           Copyright © 2020 by salade. All rights reserved.