#brevity escapes me yet again

[thequeensjester]

Rings of Power ➤ Cinematography: Sauron's Rise

In the s2 prologue, the torches form leading lines that converge in middle where Sauron is standing. This establishes him as the focal point of the scene but not the one in power.

Sauron demands the orcs to accept him as their savior but they don't respect him. He stands on a platform above the orcs but the camera angle makes it so that he doesn't look that much taller than Adar and the orcs. Instead, it looks like orcs are overwhelming him.

I find it interesting how Sauron occupies this frame. It likely a coincidence but the Forodwaith composition reminds me of this scene from ep6 that I wrote about:

(Both episodes were directed separately between Charlotte Brandstrom (ep1) and Sanaa Hamri (ep6). JD & P confirmed that Sanaa didn't speak with Charlotte when it came to the Dutch angles in the Galadriel and Adar dinner scene. I'm inclined to believe it might be the same in this case.)

In Eregion, we have the turn tables. Using different tactics, Sauron is standing over the elves because he is finally getting closer to his plans.

This takes me to Sauron's final shot of the season. The camera movement is key to the storytelling. We start with his close-up, which zooms out into a wide shot, revealing his possession of Feanor's Hammer and more of his environment. Then the camera continues by dropping into a low-angle shot—as if the world is being brought to its knees while Sauron stands over it.

We, the audience, are now looking up at him. Compared to previous shots, as he becomes more powerful, he is now more dominant in the wide shot.

— credit: cap-that.com

[starqueensthings]

Ficlets inspired by Song Lyrics:

Crazy Girl, Don’t You Know That I Love You?

Song: “Crazy Girl” by Eli Young Band (country)

Rating/Warnings: 16+ for mildly suggestive themes | CW: anxiety, somewhat irrational fears of death.

POV/WC: 2nd | 1500ish.

A/N: something weird has come over me!! I’ve somehow managed to keep this to a one shot and not develop 300 pages of unnecessary lore!! Brevity?! Is that you?! I don’t think we’ve ever met before! Hi I’m Holly!

“Crazy girl, don’t you know that I love you? I wouldn’t dream of going nowhere. Silly woman, come here and let me hold you. Have I told you lately, I love you like crazy, girl?”

Other Written Works Here

“Ugh, I should get up.”

Sentiments leaving those lips in little more than a contemptuous growl, he’d uttered that necessity nearly a dozen times now while the chrono continued to tick the future ever closer. Though, as if waiting for some unseen, divine force to grasp his shoulders and simply heave him upward from the ineffable warmth and comfort of that squashy, blanket-laden bed, the only muscle spared that lassitude were the few required to drape his arm across your hips and tug you backward until your curves matched those of his chiseled form.

But his repeated probes for motivation acted as only merciless reminders of yet another imminent absence, and further intensified the plaguing sense of foreboding that had you either unwilling or unable to turn and face him; the near-painful constriction in your chest brought on by his incipient departure ensuring your thoughts remained only that, as voicing a response to that sleepy room – that dawdling soldier – threatened instead to escape your lips as little more than a sob.

“Kriff, I really need to get moving…”

The resolve to maintain any semblance of composed pride vanished as, instead of lifting his body from that white cotton sanctuary, he leant forward slightly and gifted the slope of your neck a series of chaste kisses; hearty sniffle instantly exposing your hidden turmoil as his unexpected display of adoration sent you careening into the harrowing pit of anxiety you’d desperately attempted to shirk.

It took even less than a breath for that newly-stubbled chin to cease its ministrations atop your skin. “Are you upset?” he asked you, the heat of his breath departing your neck as he tipped back to survey your seemingly unexpected demeanor. “What’s wrong?”

“M’fine,” you choked back at him, hurrying to dispel that wetness from your cheeks with a gruff swipe from the back of your hand.

“Nice try,” he argued, chin sinking only slightly as he glared through those dark lashes in your direction. “Roll over. Tell me what’s going on.”

For a moment you considered simply ignoring that polite command, as watching those mismatched eyes absorb the fear neath your features only promised to swaddle you with an embarrassment equi-paralyzing as your present anguish… but more powerful was the realization that those same eyes would be entirely absent for the foreseeable future, and neglecting the opportunity further memorize every inch of that slender, olive skinned face would present as nothing more than your deepest regret should you never see it again.

With a laden sigh, you shifted your weight and rolled over, perching your head atop a bent arm while your free hand traced thoughtless lines atop the small section of uninhabited sheet between your bare bodies.

“I’m just… Well I feel kinda… I dunno,” you started, nearly cringing at how juvenile those words sounded whilst spilling so meekly from your lips. “I just get scared sometimes… Ever since what happened on the Triumphant… Ever since all those men…”

“Mesh’la—”

“What if that happens again?”

”I’m an infantry Commander now, Mes—”

”Okay then what if it’s a bomb that drops out of nowhere? A bunch of droids you didn’t see? Bad intel from stale recon?”

“M—”

“Or what if you do something brash on your next mission because someone’s gone and pissed you off, and it ends up being your demise because you were too busy scowling to watch for an ambush? What happens then? Am I just supposed to go on living without you like that’s even possible?”

Cursing the way your chin quivered atop the divulgence of your fears, you paused for a breath, gaze refusing to depart the mindless squiggles your fingertip still insisted on embossing into the soft sheet between you. But that astute Commander, your loving boyfriend, refused to entertain any degree of distraction in that moment, hurrying to place a calloused hand atop your own to cease the relentless attempts at placating the exposed anxieties of its owner.

Finally meeting his gaze, you spluttered, “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you. Every time you leave, it just feels like you’re not coming home.”

That soft hitch between dark brows released the tension they’d adopted whilst attempting to follow your desultory reasoning, eyes softening in earnest as they danced to and fro from the contours of your still-trembling chin to the small cataract of tears now escaping the corner of your eye and landing with muted thuds atop the bed next your elbow. But no sooner had that softness emerged was it replaced by an unprecedented levity… the corners of his mouth perking upward as he fought to repress the smirk vying to erupt across those lips.

“Why are you smiling?!” you demanded upon watching his eyes narrow neath crinkled lids, suddenly aghast at the gallish mirth doming his cheeks. “What the kriff is so funny?”

“Nothing,” he defended, only barely repressing the chortle nestled in his throat. “Nothing is funny. I’d tell you not to worry, but you’re not going to bel—”

“Ugh! Just forget it!”

Turmoil suddenly banished by a burgeoning indignation, you sat bolt upright atop that now unwelcoming bed, tossing the sheet from your form and burying your toes into the soft carpet. Ignoring his objection, you snatched your robe from its discarded perch on the floor and stuffed your arms impetuously into each sleeve, nose tipping ever higher into the air as your frustration grew amid every snickering objection still spilling from his lips.

“Ey!” he eventually called as your hand reached for the door of your bedroom, the sudden banishment of all humour neath his tone capturing your attention only enough to still your movements. “Come over here.”

Again, the urge to ignore him presented itself strongly, defiance flaring in your chest in the echoing wake of his amusement, narrowed eyes glaring fiercely at the otherwise austere wood door still barring your exit.

“Cyare,” he warned as your failure to accede his demand continued.

You peeked over your shoulder, that ire quickly dissipating upon first sight of his miraculous figure suddenly exposed and near-glowing amid the budding light of a quickly materializing dawn; that perfectly contoured chest heaving gently amid the deep breaths that had fuelled his shift in posture, the rolling hills of muscle neath his shoulders put on display by their perch atop equally as muscular thighs, one elbow sitting near impatiently on his knee.

Upon the return of your gaze, he clicked his tongue, free hand jabbing a pointed finger toward the floor directly in front of his seat atop the side of that bed, and, infuriatingly so, there wasn’t a force anywhere in the galaxy strong enough to keep your feet still once he’d resorted to non-verbal commands.

Gaze dropping to your hands, you returned to that bedside, standing between his knees and permitting a poignant sigh to blast past your scowling lips.

“I’m sorry I laughed,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you as close as the edge of the mattress would permit, and watching him gently perch his chin just above your navel and gaze lovingly up into your eyes had your stomach lurching, as if the floor below your feet had utterly vanished the moment his eyes locked upon yours. “And you know it kills me that you feel like that… but I need you to trust me.”

Swallowing the reemergence of the lump in your throat, you placed your hands atop his shoulders and nodded faintly.

“Trust that I’m good at what I do…” he continued, tightening the wreath of his arms around your body, seemingly preparing for the chance his words may see you hurtling from the room again. “Damn good. And you need to trust that everything I do, every decision I make while I'm out there, is to make sure I get back to you. I’m not going anywhere anytime soon, not permanently anyways. This… you… mean too much to me. Okay?”

Though you offered him another gentle nod, speech having been utterly stripped from your cognizance by his own heart-felt admission, he clicked his tongue again. “Say it,” he requested in little more than a whisper. “Say you understand and that you trust me.”

Desperate to commit that softened pleading look upon his face to memory, you stole a selfish moment just to gaze down into those asymmetric eyes, lips pursing as they threatened to release another unwanted sob.

“I trust you,” you breathed, guiding your hands to cup either side of that angular jaw, thumbs brushing softly across those supple cheeks. “And I love you.”

“Good,” he answered immediately, hands shifting to firmly clutch your ribs while he planted a kiss where his chin had just lain. “Now put those tears away and let’s get a nice hot shower before I have to go.”

“Ouuuu,” you cooed instantly, letting your eyelids flutter flirtatiously as he released you from his arms. “I’d love that. And if you hadn’t just laughed me out of the bed, I'd consider letting you join me.”

“Your inner brat doesn’t scare me, you know that,” Wolffe cautioned, darkened gaze now dancing hungrily across your semi-clothed form. “Now, get going before I put that mouth to another use.”

Other Written Works Here

Tag list: @anxiouspineapple99 @sinfulsalutations @starrylothcat @nobody-expects-the-inquisitorius @secondaryrealm @dystopicjumpsuit @freesia-writes @sev-on-kamino @littlemissmanga @523rdrebel @wings-and-beskar @wolffegirlsunite @drafthorsemath @jediknightjana @starstofillmydream @mooncommlink @wizardofrozz @trixie2023 @clonethirstingisreal @lune-de-miel-au-paradis @mythical-illustrator @arctrooper69 @somewhere-on-kamino

[moreespressoformydepresso]

New ask gameeee thanks for the tag @ylvisruinedmylife and @majorsoapfan

send me an emoji and i'll write a couple sentences for the corresponding WIP, both ongoing works, things I haven’t started yet but want to, and the travesties in the making that reside in my drafts✨

Don’t question the emojis they make sense to me and me alone I fear. I tried to summarize as best as possible but while brevity is the soul of wit, I fear I am terminally stupid:

❤️‍🔥The Losing Battle(We Won’t Stop Fighting) Treech and Lamina stay together during the Hunger Games

⛲️ I Didn’t Think I’d Care (But I’m Not Letting Go) the zoo gets blown up and the kids stay with their mentors, somehow this causes the end of the games and the downfall of Gaul’s career and plans

⚜️ Ragtag Group Of Kids Separately Escape Death Through Various Increasingly Stupid Means And Wreak Havoc, More At 11 crack fic where all sorts of fix-it ideas are mashed together to create the end of Gaul’s career, the President’s dignity, and the Capitol’s ego. It’s funny to me but I am not funny so…

🐍 Vipsania’s Version: Realizations Vipsania Sickle’s POV of the events of When The Clock Stops Ticking (We’ll Be Painted Red) where Treech and Reaper meet, fall in love, and lose each other as Treech becomes the victor of the 10th Hunger Games

🕰️ Treaper: The Extended Universe Time Travel AU of When The Clock Stops Ticking (We’ll Be Painted Red) @tumblingghosts graced me with where Treech and Reaper travel back in time following the events of the 10th Hunger Games to the first time they saw each other in the train, decide that they’re not gonna suffer through this all over again and change the world through the power of teamwork and emotional manipulation

🪷 Flowers Bloom In The Ash Of Our Past Where Treech is a Jehova’s Witness and Tanner is a leather wearing social outcast in High School. One learns to open themself up to the world beyond their rigid upbringing, the other learns to not judge the person based on their beliefs, but on their actions instead. And perhaps they can both find each other in the middle

🪸 Mythical Creatures All the tributes are some kind of mythical creature and the first part of the mentorship assignment is for the mentors to earn their tribute’s trust. This forces them to learn more about the districts as a whole and makes the Capitol realize the districts all have cultures just as rich, if not more so, than the Capitol itself. The tributes get to blow up Gaul’s lab and thus the Hunger Games with it.

🦊 They Don’t Bite (Yeah They Do) The districts are all animal shapeshifters and their cuteness ends the Hunger Games. No that’s it that’s the fic it’s just cute animals ruining Gaul’s life

🧞 A Girl On A Mission And Her Anxious Genie Lamina hates life until she finds a lamp, cleans it, and gets herself a genie named Treech in return. A very cute genie who gives her three wishes a day and is curious about the human world. On her quest to get back at bullies and solve the problems that pop up in her life, she drags her new genie friend around on adventures and may just score herself a boyfriend in the process.

🖋️ Written In Ink, Printed In Gold Lamina’s a famous author who meets Treech on a boulevard where he’s trying to sell his own books because no agent will take him for totally not racist reasons. They fall in love at first nerd-session and Lamina loves his book so much she vows to get him and authors like him the attention they deserve.

🔏 The Author And The Actor Lamina’s a world-famous author working on the adaptation of her most recent work when she overrules a casting decision made by the director because she thinks Treech, who was originally rejected, perfectly captures her vision of the male lead. Her originally white male lead. The people object, Lamina rejects their objection, bing bang romance.

⚔️ Of Medics And Mercy Non-romantic WW2 AU: Treech is a young Japanese war medic sent to aid the Germans in France in the summer of 1944. Tanner (USA), Reaper (Canada), Marcus (UK), and Facet (French resistance member) are a group of allied soldiers trying to take back France. They meet in a small French town when Treech ignores his orders to retreat to help an injured Tanner.

🔮 Growing Pains Harry Potter AU where TreeMina are childhood friends. Treech is a muggleborn sorted into Slytherin and Lamina is a pureblood sorted into Hufflepuff. They grow apart, especially when Lamina’s new friend start to bully Treech for being in the “bad house” and her attempts to remain ‘neutral’ push him away further and further. Years later, she realizes just how far apart they’ve grown and just how deep her love for him runs, but is it too late to fix things?

❄️ Charmed To Meet You Lamina, a Gryffindor whose friend group is known at Hogwarts for fighting a new evil each year, is trying to find a solution for an obstacle on their latest adventure when she stumbles across Treech. A Ravenclaw (in)famous for playing around with magic of all kinds purely out of curiosity for what might happen and occasionally inventing new spells/potions in the process. When he offers to help her in hopes of learning something new, he not only becomes a valuable part of the team by creating a new spell for them, but also possibly Lamina’s date to the Winter Ball…

♈️ Heavens Know What Earth Must Learn

The Districts all have Zodiac-related magic, but they can only use it when summoned by someone who has their Rune, an object that acts as the key to temporarily activating one’s magic. Whoever holds the Rune can force the person tied to it to do as the holder pleases. When the Districts lost the war, they were forced to give their magic item to a Capitol citizen once they’re old enough to use that magic. The mentors come in possession of the Runes of their canon tributes (no games in this universe though) they learn how cruel Capitol citizens can be and begin to realize the flaws in the system, slowly rallying the people behind them and overthrowing the government.

I’m going to tag @persephoneprice, @tumblingghosts and @cleverqueencommander (I’m gonna post about Descendants again soon I promise I’m just still trying to recover from The Rise Of Red) I am very sorry if you’ve been tagged already

[achillyscomedown]

dead poets as song lyrics pt.3-

todd: blue skies turn to grey now // my eyes turn to rain clouds // and i’m tired // it’s been three weeks since you’ve left me // so tonight i’m feeling empty // i don’t know why // we were nine clouds high, then we fell down // nowhere to hide, caught in the fallout // and i can’t lie, wish you’d call now // for one more time // one more time //

charlie: i’m not sad but i’m not exactly happy yet either // unless i live forever, i have to keep writing this sh!t // my biggest fear is that i will be forgotten // the grass will grow over my gravestone and nobody will bother // you know the beautiful thoughts you always think? // nobody will hear them again // 

neil: i’m just a tenant paying rent inside this body and i // got two windows and those windows, well i call them my eyes // i’m just going where the wind blows, i don’t get to decide // sometimes i think too much // yeah, i get so caught up // i’m always stuck in my head // i wish i could escape // i tried to yesterday // took all the sheets of my bed // then i tied up my linen with five strips of ribbon i found // scaled the side of a building, i ran to the hills til’ they found me // and they put me back in my cell, all by myself //

knox: oh, i fell for your charm // i was so infatuated // but you left me in the dark, and my heart completely vacant // and now i don’t know // is your heart just preconditioned for brevity? // i don’t mean to accuse you of refusing longevity // but i can not excuse you for abusing my empathy // my empathy // i can take rejection // but you gave the impression that this was the inception of something real //

cameron: i know i’m not as cool as i’d like me to be // but why do you feel so down again? // i know i’m not a very good friend // why do you feel so down? // sure, that’s not something i’d stick around for // why do you feel so down? // 

pitts: a couple whiskey and cigarettes // i got a few things to get up off my chest // i’ve been knee-deep in my regrets // i’m missing home // and if i go back, i might not like // where my heads at every night // i feel a semblance of where i’d like to go // 

meeks: thought if we were free for a night // we’d make it right // live in peace // not bleed // heaven cries // and buries my hope for all the people // who are here to live and die // yeah tell all the people // there’s no need to dim the lights to hide // just live and die //

edit:

todd’s song: ‘it’s raining, it’s pouring’ by anson seabra

charlie’s song: ‘fentanyl’ by mccafferty

neil’s song: ‘mind is a prison’ by alec benjamin

knox’s song: ‘the way you felt’ by alex benjamin

cameron’s song: ‘why do you feel so down’ by declan mckenna

meeks song: ‘live and die’ by gina dirawi

pitts song: ‘whiskey & cigarettes’ by chance peña

[notasapleasure]

WIP ask meme

@stripedroseandsketchpads tagged me in this. And oh my god. If you think there are Too Many Words in the fic I publish, you should see my poor notes app. Here is a sneak peek of its contents. I haven't edited for brevity/those I'm actively working on, these are just all the unfinished files I could find. Some I don't intend to do any more with, others I'd really like to pick up again. The only ones being actively worked on right now are the Andor Saga AU and the first one on the list for Andor.

I put ALL the Lymond I could find in mainly for @oughtaagh who has been leaving the most lovely comments on my Lymond fics that I have totally failed to respond to. I'm sorry! I will cycle back round to Lymond one day, it's inevitable <3

Tagging uh.... @distressednoise, @r0b0tb0y, @faceofpoe, @donnaimmaculata, @batri-jopa, @elwenyere, @notabuddhist and anyone else who wants to say I tagged them! Also sorry if you'd already been tagged, I'm not keeping up with the dash very well at the moment!

Anyway please send me asks/comments/cease and desist orders about these. xxx

ANDOR

C: We decided we were thirsty, and you wanted to go to Cavo's. As yet untitled Brassian alternative scene - what if instead of a great collaborative cover story this was a great collaborative fuck? Almost(?) finished?

Saga AU pt 2. This actually does have a working title of 'The Bear and the Berserk' but this doc is just a short bullet point list of plot things for a specific part of the fic.

Cassian pov. It's a Cassian pov chapter! For...drumroll...the first chapter of the Saga AU pt 2! The rest is going to be back to Brasso FPN. The file actually includes a rough first draft of chapter 2, as well.

"You're up early this morning," Bix says lightly. A follow-up chapter to Only Ever Just One Night started back when I had epic plans for continuing this, bringing in Cinta and Vel and Luthen, whumping the hell out of Brasso, and having Cassian rescue him. This is just one scene of awkward conversation with tea though.

Oh god it developed Plot. Related to the previous chapter - a bullet-pointed list of things that might have happened in this fic I Wil Not Write (not least as I'd rather just see what happens in S2 first anyway).

AND THEN WE DANCED

It was a sunny day in Batumi... Patchy few paragraphs of the next chapter of Inchoate.

Plannnnns (again). Plans for how Inchoate would/will continue.

THE LYMOND CHRONICLES

Canon-verse/other AUs

Multiple pieces of follow-up to The next man with a ladder, Danny/Jerott post-canon: It was dark when they rode into the port town... [Chapter 3, basically done, plus most of Chapter 4 but it devolves into broken paragraphs at the end]. "I'm going to the other bed," Danny said in a voice like someone was standing on his throat... [??? there's loads of this written! This is the file where they Get Down To It] Stitch the scenes together [a few paragraphs in which I hoped to make a logical leap from Chapter 4 to fucking, but seemingly never quite got there].

Lymondar saga draft. Actually two files of the abortive first effort at writing a saga AU. I was trying much harder to write in saga style and playing with lacunae in a way that was fun for me but exceedingly nerdy. I think I found the idea more fun than the execution, too.

St Seb. Remember ages ago when I was writing a post-canon 'Jerott gets shot full of arrows and has to admit his feelings because he thinks he's gonna die' fic? This is the file! Some bullet points and some text, some of which I even posted as Sunday sixes way back when iirc.

Fait prosperer qui n'est à croire vain. Fuck me, there's LOADS of this. Pawn in Frankincense/Ringed Castle AU where Marthe steals Lymond's ride with Kiaya Khatun and persuades her they should take over Russia together. Meanwhile Francis is left with Jerott. Hahaha. It kept getting longer because Francis kept trying to escape and I kept finding ways to drag him back, but the 'and now kiss!!' with the two of them behaving in character was just not coming easily.

Francis Crawford's Holistic Inquisition Agency. I wrote this??? One chapter of a Lymond/Dirk Gently AU, where Francis is obviously Dirk and Jerott is a furious/bemused Todd.

She tried every instrument, she redrew every chart. A few short chapters, never finished, of Marthe wrestling with her role in canon and her fate as assigned by La Dame. A couple more paragraphs of a similar sort of thing in Volos.

Malta. Half-arsed few paragraphs of wondering how Jerott would cope with meeting a fellow Knight being imprisoned for sodomy.

Band AU (my 1980s rock band AU for the series, see also @theartistknownaslymond)

Au of an Au. What if, after the Battle of the Bands at Solway, Jerott went to stay at the Edinburgh townhouse for a while and he and Francis got to collaborating in the shed? There's quite a lot of this and it's quite fluffy.

Out out out! The band celebrate Thatcher's downfall. Happy epilogues for everyone! However it's an epic task trying to do all the characters justice, so I was trying to write it as vignettes to match each song on the playlist. Six-ish are written. And earlier draft with plan for characters intercting is in Ding dong the witch is dead.

Jerott/Marthe - four times it just about worked, one time it really didn't. What it says on the tin? aka you just know Jerott has said 'Francis' instead of Marthe at least once when he comes. Only the beginning of the first time exists in this chapter, but I think I explored the idea elsewhere, whenever I dig up that file...

DWTH missing scene. Jerott/OC missing scene from Don't wake the house. Not finished, probably not going to be finished. I think I have enough Jerott smut on the go.

Workshop. Patchy draft of pre-canon Jerott and GRM 'therapy' session in which GRM learns about Francis Crawford and what a hold he has on the boy he thought of as his own plaything. GRM doesn't like sharing.

F/P. Draft of a fluffy kiss prompt someone (@erinaceina? @notfromcold?) sent for Francis/Philippa. Post-canon pregnant Philippa and worried Francis written when it was too hot in summer. It's probably complete enough to post tbh! hmu if you want it posting.

Jerott behaving badly (again). Somehow this ended up in the 'comfortember' section of the notepad, which...no? Maybe it was intended to be originally, but it grew a life of its own. Post-canon, post split-up with the OC, pre-getting together with Danny. Joining the mile high club and regretting it, then ending up crashing at Joleta's (who he meets coincidentally at the airport, NOT who he's screwing in the airplane loo!!). It's meant to end up cathartic, but didn't get finished :') I'm actually really pleased with what I have - post-canon Joleta is so much fun to write!

Somewhere (Google Drive?? an actual Word doc??) there is also loads and loads and LOADS of Pawn in Frankincense band AU around Baron Morgan's place (the Aga Morat), featuring fucked-up Francis/Morgan, fucked up Marthe/Kiaya, fucked up Francis/Kiaya, and bewildered cold turkey Jerott. There's also some Jerott/Marthe from later on.

Other

Crossover. A sequel to my ATWD fic I will shake mountains, where Merab and Irakli encounter celebrity diners in the restaurant they work in: respected musician Francis Crawford and friends take the boys for a drink and share queer/artistic inspiration/history with them. There's quite a lot written but I couldn't quite manage to finish it off.

St Mary's. Another ATWD/Lymond crossover, placing Merab and Irakli among the mercenaries of St Mary's. Mostly bullet points.

3m. Furious that there was no fic for the film Three Months I decided to jot down a scene I wanted to see afterwards. I wrote four lines and cannot remember what my plan was at all.

[miitgaanar]

The Howling

It's me! Again! When will someone nail my hands to the floor so I can't write self-indulgent garbage ever again!

Anyway, this idea was born of the hypothetical plot point I rambled on about many months ago in this post. It's haunted me ever since. Don't ask me if this is something that really happens in my little continuity. I genuinely haven't decided if this is a What If or concrete fact.

I don't suggest reading this. But, then again, I never suggest reading anything I write <3

***

The training grounds.  One hour.

The summons had been concise, almost curt in its brevity.  The chosen parchment had yellowed with age, the edges wrinkled and torn as if it had been thoughtlessly ripped from an old tome.  It had been left on her cot and folded over twice, likely to hide the simple message from prying eyes.  No name accompanied the words scratched onto the page, nor a wax seal to identify its sender—but it was hardly needed.  It never was.

He was already there when Addilyn Theron stepped onto the stone path leading to the training grounds, his long golden hair shimmering dully in the pale light of the moon.  Night had long since fallen over the city of Durlyne, the sky dark and clear of clouds.  A brilliant display of stars shone unimpeded from the heavens, countless in their number, rendering the lamplights lining the temple grounds superfluous in their placement.

It was little surprise that Lemuel Adelier’s gaze remained skyward as she approached.

“Sir?” Addilyn ventured, watching him.  He was hunched forward, leaning against the waist-high stone wall that separated the training grounds from the surrounding pathways, his forearms braced atop the rough-hewn surface.  He was still in uniform, though his plate armor had been removed.  Odd, considering the late hour.  “You asked to see me?”

Lemuel hummed in response, seemingly unsurprised by her appearance.  “How was the patrol this evening?”

Straight to business, then.  She resisted the urge to sigh.  “Fine, sir,” she said, coming to stand alongside him.  “Just the usual rabble.”

“Is that so?” he said flatly.  His eyes remained fixed on the moon, his features schooled into a mask of cool indifference.  “Bloodied your blade on your own bowels then, did you?”

Addilyn cringed, cursing softly under her breath.  She’d hoped that more important matters had garnered his attention, but little escaped his notice lately, especially where she was concerned.  It made what solace she still found in his presence seem thin and brittle.

“It was nothing, sir,” she insisted, averting her gaze to the ground.  “Just an unruly band of Geffie.  We put them down easy enough.”

Her skin prickled as Lemuel’s attention finally turned to her, his scrutiny nigh unbearable. She remained silent, unmoving in the face of his unspoken accusation.  A Semon’s blood had indeed stained her sword that evening, the man part of a gang of Gefendur intent on burning down a Ssaelit owned market stall.  They’d been dealt with swiftly and ruthlessly, but such was the daily life of a Lion these days.  Blood flowed easier than water within Durlyne.

And yet a cold dread pooled within the depths of her belly.  No one had seen her cut down the Semon, only the crimson gore that drenched her blade in the aftermath.  No one had noticed the flash of recognition in the man’s dark eyes as he met her gaze, the realization of who he’d stumbled upon dawning just a moment too late.

Lemuel couldn’t know that the Lioness had slaughtered yet another huntsman intent on her hide.  She’d made sure of it, killing the warning shout that sat upon his tongue before it could be given life.

“Addie,” Lemuel said quietly, wearily.  “You can’t keep on like this.”

“Keep on like what?”  Addilyn rolled her shoulders, all professional pretense forgotten.  “It was a routine patrol.  You’d have done no differently.”

“This isn’t about the patrol.”  He sighed heavily, the shadow of annoyance beginning to creep into his words.  He pinched at the bridge of his nose, breathing deeply before he continued, his voice soft and near inaudible.  “The wolves are closing in.  By God, I can feel them nipping at our heels even now.”

“What are you talking about?”  She glanced his way, the familiar claws of trepidation digging into her chest.  “Lem, what’s all this about?”

Lemuel sighed again, turning to face her fully.  There was a strange look about him; his jaw set, his gaze unflinching.  As if he had steeled himself for some long awaited battle.  “Have you ever thought of taking the Third Option, Addie?”

“Taking th—?”  An incredulous laugh escaped her then, the sound sharp and grating in the tranquil silence.  She looked up at him in utter disbelief, waiting for the derisive smirk to take shape, to hear the rumbling chuckle that always accompanied his playful jibes.  ‘You’re so serious of late, Theron,’ he would say, his golden eyes alight with mirth.  ‘We truly must do something about that.’

But the laughter never came.  His lips remained a thin line, the corners dipped downward in the beginnings of a frown, his aureate eyes harder than the stone beneath their feet.

“Y—You can’t be serious,” Addilyn said, her laughter petering out into a pathetic wince.  “Why would I ever consider that?”

“The Gefendur still hunt you,” Lemuel said gravely.  “They still call for your head.  Each time you step outside the temple gates, you take your life into your own hands.  And it’s only a matter of time before their demands reach the Lions, then even this precarious haven will have been lost to you.”  His eyes softened but a fraction.  “It could mean security for you.  Safety.  Protection under the law from both your own faith and theirs.”

“They’d never allow it.” Desperation clawed its way up her throat, undercutting the otherwise insouciant declaration.  He couldn’t truly think this was the right path for her.  The only path.  “I’m no wright.  They know I’ve no talent for spellery.  They’d have no use for me.”

“You’re a good soldier,” Lemuel reasoned.  He said it with such conviction, such genuine affection.  It was enough to cleave her heart in two.  “You have fought and bled and killed in the name of Ssael.  You know how desperate we are for seasoned Ssaelit soldiers, men willing to hold the line against our impending slaughter.  It’s reason enough to push the request through.”

“And what about me?” she snapped.  “What would happen to me?  You know what the oath calls for, what it would mean for me.  For—”  She choked on the word.  “For us.”

He looked away from her then, his features shuttered once more.  “You’ve no protectors left, Addie.  That you’ve lived as you have for this long is a miracle in itself.”

“And so I must kill Addilyn Theron?”  The words were sharp, venomous, each one a viper’s bite plunged into flesh.  “After everything she has accomplished?  After everything she has overcome?”  She scoffed, forcing the indignation to crush the despair blooming within her.  “You’ve always preached how we can’t give in to them, that to do so is to die a slow death under their heel.  And now you propose I do exactly that.”

“I propose you live.”  Lemuel rounded on her, his frustration boiling over at last.  Addilyn did not so much as flinch.  “And if Addilyn Theron must cease to exist to ensure your survival, that should be a small price to pay.”  He loomed over her, the moon’s faint glow casting his face in deep, menacing shadow.  “The Geffies will not grant you a swift death.  I’ve heard the whispers, the plans they have for you.  You’d be tortured, defiled, paraded about for all to see.  An example made of you, a promise of what is to come for us all should they achieve their loftiest goals.”

A trickle of fear began to seep into her veins, her blood running cold at the imagery put forth—though she continued to hold his gaze, her chin held high.

“Were you to bleed out in the street with a poisoned blade buried in your chest,” he rumbled, “it would be a mercy compared to what awaits you at their hands.”

“You ask me to die a slow death either way,” she said firmly, undaunted.  “That one is seemingly bloodless does not make it any less agonizing.”

“You are a liability as you are, Addilyn,” he spat, pounding his fist atop the stone wall with a dull thud.  At that, she flinched.  “To both Ssaelism and to Alderode.  The Lions have been keenly aware of this from the start.  Your only true protection laid in the word of a fucking Copper, and he has remained silent despite the encroaching scourge.  The Lions had not dared anger him, fearing bloody retribution, but without his looming shadow there is nothing to keep them from ousting you.”

A beat passed, one in which Addiyn felt an acute sadness settle upon her shoulders.  After all this time, after everything they'd endured, she never thought he would be the one to come to her with this.

“You can’t ask this of me,” she whispered, her hands clenching into tight fists at her sides.  It was the only way she could hide how they trembled.  “You can’t ask me to throw my entire life away.  To kill the woman that I am in the name of survival.  I can't live that lie.”

“Think beyond yourself, Addie,” he pleaded, a sudden softness overtaking him.  “Civil war looms, and we cannot afford even the smallest crack in our armor when they come for us.  We need you, I need you—but not as you are now.”

Addilyn recoiled as if slapped.  Lemuel’s brow furrowed in—apology? Sympathy?  She couldn’t tell.  She didn’t much care either.

“Sacrifices must be made if we are to survive,” he continued.  “Ssael asks much of us at His altar in this crusade.”

“And I am to be the sacrificial lamb.”  A small, derisive laugh burst forth unbidden, and Addilyn shifted to hunch forward over the stone wall, her palms flat against the rough surface.  The stone was cool to the touch, a balm against her feverish skin.  Out of the corner of her eye, she would swear she saw Lemuel flinch.  “How poetic.”

“Addilyn—”

“If Ssael cannot accept me as I am,” she cut him off, a steely resolve taking root within her, “if His followers cannot see the injustice in this, then what use would there be in such a compromise?  If the Gefendur truly want me dead, a pitiful oath will not stop them.  And I'll have flayed myself alive for nothing.”

“Don’t be foolish, Addilyn,” Lemuel warned.

“I won’t take the Third Option, Lem.” There was a note of finality to her voice. She could abide this torment no longer. “I won’t bind my chest and tie another unhappy woman into an unhappy marriage.  I am well aware of the expectations tied to that oath, as well as the scrutiny that comes in the aftermath.  I would drive myself mad with despair, with grief at what I had discarded.”  She glanced sidelong at him, desperate for him to understand.  “Why add to the weight of Alderode’s boot upon my back when the end result will be the same?  It’s heavy enough as it is.”

Silence descended, thicker than even the densest fog. It felt impenetrable, a chasm opening between them. A sharp pang of sorrow twisted at her heart, leaving her vision blurry with unshed tears. She didn’t know what pained her the most: that he had asked this of her, knowing what it entailed, what it meant for her—for them; or that it seemed, even now, she was simply not enough.

Lemuel’s shoulders sagged, an air of resignation about him.  He ran a hand through his golden hair, the strands near silver beneath the night sky.  His face was unreadable, an emotion she could not quite place crossing his features.  It made something within her squirm, an unfamiliar disquiet clenching at her gut.

Lemuel looked toward the training grounds, and there was the slightest crack in that unreadable facade.  “This was where we first met,” he said, a sad smile pulling at his lips, a faraway look in his eyes.

Addilyn’s gaze followed his own, falling upon the practice staves and shields littered about the ground.  A terrible melancholy fell over her.

“To think,” she began, her voice little more than a whisper, “that you’d still be fighting to be rid of me all these years later.”

Lemuel simply hummed, moving to stand behind her.  The air was still and crisp, the bite of a quickly fading winter evident.  There was a familiar comfort in this, in having him at her back.  Solid, warm, safe.

A hand came to rest at her hip.  She could feel each breath, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm.  She allowed herself to lean back against him, to indulge in this moment.  To forget the wolves that sat ready to tear her asunder, if only for this instance.

His lips brushed the top of her head, an uncharacteristically tender gesture. The sensation sent a pleasant shiver skittering down her spine.

And then he spoke, the words soft and entreating—and filled with a grief she’d never once heard pass his lips. “Dan paesabi, da lledeol.”

It happened so quickly.  An immense pressure at her neck.  The stone wall digging into her pelvis.  Lemuel’s weight at her back, pushing her forward.  Trapping her.  Restraining her.

Addilyn clawed at the arm around her neck, only to be met with the thick leather of his riding gloves, her nails cracking and splintering against the well-tended armor.  She could find no purchase on the ground, no leverage to break his hold.  Her legs were pinned against the waist-high wall, held in place by Lemuel’s considerable strength.

And it was only then, as her vision began to fade, the dark abyss of unconsciousness rushing forward to claim her, that she realized Lemuel Adelier had betrayed her.

[trashlie]

hey! 😼 please don't worry about responding late. please take all the time you need to rest. answering asks can wait!! 💗 and thank you for your elaborate response, you brought up great details that really made me rethink how everything will influence the general plot of the story. i don't even have much to add, and for the sake of brevity i will only address some things. hope you don't mind!

as for our dear kousuke, i've been thinking for a bit… and i feel like even if the media doesn't get involved and everything is kind of glossed over, he's already obviously headed towards a major identity crisis. this incident, the entire night actually, is something he simply cannot align with his version of reality. no wonder kousuke.exe stopped working lmao. how can he NOT have a crisis when he just lost control and acted in a way that, according to his self-perception, is completely out of character for him? because YES, this violence and aggression is something he typically ascribes to nol, never himself. in 213, hansuke asks him "do you know who you are?" (great question my dude) and kou doesn't answer. after what just went down, after facing such a dark side of himself, after beginning to question the past incident, which metaphorically made the ground crack under his feet, can he answer that question?

and i do believe that him questioning himself and his perception of reality (including past and present) is a major step towards defying yui. the crux is, as long as he seeks refuge in this warped reality yui constructed for him, it'll be easy for her to manipulate him, and he can continue excusing her atrocities. so he needs to actually commit to seeking the truth. and this is the hardest and scariest part - how do you even begin to deal with the fact that most of what you believe isn't true? that your MOTHER did this to you? where do you seek safety when you no longer have her? where do you seek safety /from/ her? it's not easy to escape yui's claws. who knows what she's capable of once she's realizes she's about to lose her most valuable pawn. but for kousuke to break free he NEEDS to oppose yui eventually. AGH.

same, i'm nervous about yujing's article too. what the article will reveal exactly… no idea. you brought up some great theories, and i think we have some puzzle pieces (like nol's bad eyesight, yui&kou's physical resemblance, yui's burned/scratched hands, tea?, yujing's friend that got sa'd?, rand's involvement in all this?), but we'll just have to wait and see how they all fit together. nessa's part is what i'm particularly curious about. that's when she disappeared, right? or is that unrelated?

on a more light-hearted side note, thank you for sharing your thoughts on 219 ^___^ i appreciate so much that you highlight little details that usually escape me. because WOW i now totally see that shinae didn't want to sleep because she fears that nol will disappear. he's slipped through her fingers so many times (and even almost died), the possibility to lose him again must terrify her. like, she could very well take a (well-deserved) nap on another empty bed… but no, there she is, holding onto his bed, fighting off sleep, keeping watch. not sure if she's even aware of it, but there is so much tenderness and… yearning or devotion, almost? in her actions. in both their actions, actually, in their attempts to slow down time. and it's ARGGHHH listen i don't even care about romance that much (though i genuinely enjoy their overall dynamic) but these two are killing me with the unspoken yet obvious feelings and the cautious flirting and the butterflies. and i love it.

-lil anon

LMAOOOOO I truly lost it at this line

no wonder kousuke.exe stopped working lmao

This is how I'm going to refer to what happened following what Kousuke read in the Bible lmao kousuke.exe has stopped working

But anyway, yeah, yeah, I think as we get deeper into this, more people are going to come to that realization, that Kousuke has been dealing with something that is SO difficult for him to come out of. Domestic abuse is a living nightmare - especially when there are people who don't see it, but even also when you are afraid to see it. And it's all been orchestrated so well TO make it difficult for him to see it, even if catches a glimpse. Isn't it easy to say "Well we aren't like other families" because that's what she told him and isn't it true? Isn't it easy to fall back on that loyalty, because she's his mother and she couldn't possibly want anything but the best for him? Isn't it terrifying to leave her refuge and feel like there is nowhere else you can go, because you can't trust anyone else, because you've come to believe that everyone must be out to get you that you can never let down your guard, never show any weakness, never let them find a weak spot?

Something really sad about Kousuke is that while I know he knows what kind of woman he is and he knows she's endangered people and plays games with them, that she's like a sadistic cat and all the world are the mice she torments, she's still his mother. And on some level he needs to believe that he isn't one of those mice. Family is complicated, he's been told, their family doesn't act like others. Don't question us just because we aren't what like the other families are like. In a way, he's been lead to doubt even what he observes. Just because they aren't like others doesn't mean it's not wrong... right?

He lacks that coddling and nurturing but in some sad, cold way, Yui still represents safety to him - because she's all he really has. Ugh.

I'm also DYING to know about Nessa. It FEELS like they're related, but I'm not sure. I feel like we need to revisit a timeline of events again. I'm guessing when they were formally introduced, that is when whatever happened to Nessa had happened? So about six years ago. Although, because, according to Kousuke, Nol was emotionally unstable, could it have happened before, and something happened that just pushed him to the brink?

(Also, Kousuke says that Nol meant no harm but was troubled and I REALLY want to know what he means by THAT - especially because Kousuke so intensely believes Nol is violent, and when he was taken away, Nol was asking what he did, saying he didn't even touch him. So?????? So many questions!)

But yeah, at any rate, by the time he got out of there, he didn't have anywhere else to go, so my guess is somewhere in that range - perhaps before he was sent away, but it just really feels like they are closely related, or part of a domino effect - one thing leading to another. It was probably a lot easier to have Nol institutionalized if his legal guardian wasn't around (although I get the feeling with Yui's hands in everything, it wouldn't be too difficult to swing a ruling that Nol was deemed too dangerous and needed to be sent away).

Also, interestingly enough, when Kousuke visits Nol WAY earlier in the series to tell him Shinae (Maya lol) invited them out, he asks "How long has it been since you got out? Four years? Maybe five?" Which doesn't quite align with what he told Shinae. I'm guessing at the time he went over it had been five years, and that Nol had gotten out somewhere in that September to December span, so by the time Shinae asked him, it had officially been 6 years? But. Still. I wonder if that was an oversight early in the story or if yeah, 6 years now as of December?

But back to the main point, I wonder just how much Yujing's article will tell us. I go back and forth on whether or not I think we'll get any insight into Nessa, but I tend to lean into the feeling that whenever we get insight, maybe it will come from Nol? Maybe. But only in the narrative sense of Nol learning to forgive himself/reaching a point where he allows himself to think of her memory and becomes more comfortable talking about her?

It's easy to assume Yui had something to do with what happened to her - and I do not throw out that theory, because Yui sure knows how to get rid of things. But it's just the way that Kousuke admits he has no idea what happened to her and then later says she left Nol that just give me pause. WHAT happened to her?! Of course, especially if it involves Yui, there's a good likelihood that a. he has lied to himself because it's something he can't face or b. he really has no idea because of her skills in manipulation? (And in that case, saying she left him was just a low blow that he threw at Nol?)

Also waaaahhhh thank you for saying that! That's how I feel about every week when the episodes drop actually lol. I am a very emotionally responsive person and it always takes me a couple reads before I start catching certain details (especially if it's a reference to something omg) or just little things I missed (like Shinae's birthdate on the morphine bag!) and the community aspect of discussions pulls through to help me see what I've missed! But because I'm such an emotionally responsive reader, I LATCH ON to little details like choosing to stay awake out of this fear that he'll slip through her finger again, that this moment will pass and the nightmare will resume. Also I'm just a sucker for that kind of tenderness lmao

Your word choice about yearning and devotion really got to me, too, because it just suits that sort of... this sounds cheesy by that almost religious imagery of devotionals because that's kind of what it is? Without them realizing it. Not that I think it's anywhere near this deep but just - something about mutual romance that's compared to this mutual worship, you know? It's something I'm a SUCKER for. And not that Nol is dying, but it has that feeling of keeping vigil, watching over him (and I guess in a way they all HAVE been keeping vigil, since he was unconscious until recently). But also, it just harkens back to all that death and rebirth imagery. Nol off to jail has that feeling of death and rebirth - who will he be when he returns?

But yes I agree with you! I think if ILY got to the end without things ever having gone a romantic route I'd feel just as fulfilled, but I am a SUCKER for tenderness and yearning and they may not be pining right now but if that comes to us I will never stop barking at the moon because THAT IS MY JAM! But yeah! I think it's just a testament to how well done their development has been, that even if you're not romantically inclined it's like... you can't help but be drawn to these little moments, right? ESPECIALLY because we've been watching these two characters in particular go through hell. ESPECIALLY because we've watched Shinae learn to rely on others because of him, and we're getting to see a glimpse of him doing the same. ESPECIALLY because we want them to have little moments of softness.

That's why I can't help but find myself drawn to them as a romantic ship lol. It's not that I need it to happen - it's that they get to me in all the ways that make me feel feral and I can't help but pay attention to them lmaoooooo. Maybe that's how it is for a lot of other readers who ship them? That a lot of just got drawn in because they have such an interesting dynamic and there's something about seeing that tenderness happening between them that just pulls on your heartstrings.

I WANT TO SEE THEM HAPPY AND WARM. I WANT TO SEE THEM AT PEACE. And if warmth and peace comes from each other, then even better lmao

[these-written-reveries]

About Me!

*I figured I would make a little post to tell y’all a bit about myself. If you’re interested, keep reading!

» Hi, I’m Kalista! I also go by Kal, or whatever other sweet name you wanna call me 🥰

» I’m 25

» My pronouns are she/her

» I identify as demisexual and lesbian/queer 🌈

I know it may be silly/confusing to hear this, considering I mostly write/post/fawn over fictional men. To sum it up: I like men in theory, not in practice.

» I have autism and adhd (audhd). This discovery about myself has opened many doors to self-acceptance that were previously locked by shame and confusion. I’m very proud of my neurodivergence!

» I am also physically disabled. I have a nice lil’ handful of chronic conditions lol. I like to laugh about it because it’s the best way to cope through the misery.

» I’m a “maladaptive daydreamer”. Have been since I was a child. Reading/writing was always a primary outlet for me to cope with and escape my reality and delve into dream worlds. Fanfiction was a huge part of that, so I’m very grateful for it.

» Music is a big inspiration for me when it comes to…just about everything. But especially my writing. I also have a very eclectic taste in music. I like at least a little bit of almost everything.

Favorite artists/bands: Lake Street Dive, Chappell Roan, Taylor Swift, Fleetwood Mac/Stevie Nicks, Shania Twain, Anna Calvi, Ashnikko, Superknova, Sammy Rae & The Friends, Ella Fitzgerald, Laufey, Hozier, BTS, Sabrina Carpenter, Nine Inch Nails (I’m trying not to list a lot, it’s very hard 🙈)

» Some of my fav shows: Supernatural, New Girl, My Hero Academia, Stranger Things, Pose, Grace and Frankie, Ouran High School Host Club, Sherlock, Haunting of Bly Manor, Orange is the New Black, Why Women Kill

» Some of my fav movies: Howl's Moving Castle, Joker, Batman: The Dark Knight, Pride and Prejudice (2005), Pirates of the Caribbean (1-3), Ratatouille, Legally Blonde (2001), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Peter Pan (2003), Princess Diaries (1 & 2)

» Brevity is not my expertise. Can you tell?

» I love rats! Had 8 of them as pets, but decided to stop caring for more due to my disabilities and busyness of life that made it hard to keep going with it. I do not intend on having kids, so I hope in the future I can get back to being a rattie mom again. I also want cats…yeah, idk how I’m gonna make that work 🤭

» I live in America…It’s not fun here, guys…😭

» I'm working on writing a novel that will likely become a series! Not sure whether I'll decide to go with a publisher or self-published yet. I am still in the early-ish stages of worldbuilding and whatnot, so I have plenty of time to figure that out! This is my dream and I’m working hard to make it happen!

» One of the reasons I am committing myself to getting back to writing and posting fics again is because I want to keep my writing skills sharp while I work on my novel. I want to learn and grow and challenge myself more to become a better and more confident writer. The other reason is because I have held myself back for so long from doing this out of fear of not being good enough. I’m quite frankly tired of holding myself back from the things I want and I’m working on healing these parts of myself. This is part of that process! So, for those who have read my fics, thank you for supporting me! I very much appreciate you! ❤️

» I’m always open to making new friends, so please don’t hesitate to reach out to me -I promise I don’t bite!

I can’t really think of much else right now. Thanks for reading if you’ve made it all the way through! If you have any questions about me or wanna talk about something I wrote here, you can certainly send me an ask/message -just please be respectful, of course!

Hope you have a wonderful day/night wherever you are! 💖

[yeyinde]

When I saw the notification for this, I jabbed my finger so hard against the screen, I nearly broke it. And, sure, it made me tear up a little bit, but it was nothing compared to what I felt when I started reading this, and UGLY SOBBED.

AHHHHH!!!!

I don't know where to begin?? I went through a rollercoaster of emotions with this, but I loved every single moment of it!

Genuinely, I adore it. I adore you. I so adore Javi, and MC 🖤

You have this way with imagery and words that is so breathtaking to read. Every time I settle into read something you write, I'm immediately sucked in. Before I even know it, I'm already at the end, and just left floundering because there's no way it's over. I JUST started?? It's mesmerising, truly.

My favourite bits of this, the haunting imagery you use, are:

The sweat had begun building at the nape of his neck when Javi had heard her voice. A reaction flooding through him almost instantly—far too quickly.

Something he’d have to unpack later when he wasn’t under the watchful eye of Murphy or holding her voice in his hand.

And

His fingers gripped her truck door. His eyes taking in the phone discarded on the passenger side floor. A bullet firmly in the place keys once were. It lay in a pattern of shattered glass—all of the pieces twinkling under the bright sunlight. Appearing like stars which had fallen from the sky.

I kept reading these over and over again because they say so much with such brevity.

And the way you write Javi is so perfect. It's this balance of the suave man we see perfectly balanced with the inner struggle as he grapples with everything. You make him so human.

Javi is too busy trying to banish the thoughts which threaten to boil him over. The ones where his mind conjures her in positions he’ll never be able to forget; holes in her he’ll never be able to fix. 

The prose in this alone is worthy of more kudos, and praise than my simple little brain could ever dream of conjuring up.

The cracks in his walls widen as he begins to unravel. All of the well-kept emotions suddenly not remaining in their cage, escaping in bursts from him until they’re all out, hammering away at his bones. 

My favourite line was this:

His mind sinks into itself. It pulled open drawers he’d rather keep closed, yanking out past reports and horrid tales, seeing it like a horrid mirage playing out across the dust and debris. A part of him having already carved out space for her, and yet—

She may not be around to fill it. 

It's four sentences long, and yet encapsulates his growing panic, his desperation, and fear, and that harrowing sense of loss for something he, up until this point, had been taking for granted. I'm so in awe over this. I took a screenshot of this right here just so I'd have it saved so I could come back and look at it over and over again.

Truly, this is absolutely beautiful! I'm in such awe by your talent, and how you're able to weave these massive moments of gravity into these little threads.

It's amazing!!! Genuinely - I'm speechless!!!

And THEM!!!!!!!!

Complicated. That’s what she had said about them. When she’d been busy reapplying her lipstick in the bar’s bathroom. His fingers having zipped up his jeans, meeting her eyes in the dirty mirror. We’re complicated. You and me. 

I am so obsessed over their dynamic. I love the banter between them, I love her, I love how open Javi is around her.

My favourite moments that flesh out their relationship are:

“You should see the other guy.” 

“I did. All three of them. You did good.” 

She swallows and it looks like it was harder to do than he cares to think about. “I-I did?” 

LOVE the flash of insecurity here, too, and how quick Javi is to reassure her. UGH, I DIE!!

As soon as she was taken from him, he hated how far away she was. His hands lighting a cigarette, and then another. Able to speak clearly to those who asked him things.

And:

Her tongue sweeps out over her lips. “What? You don’t want to keep an eye on me, Javi?” 

More than fucking anything. 

Never wants to let her out of his sight again, if he could. Wants to press her body against his until no space remains, letting her breath fan out over his face and her heartbeat pelt against his ribs. 

It's just pure romance.

They are complicated and messy, and brilliant. He knows it—feels it even. How complex it is that she even managed to get under his layers, weave herself into his life to the point he’s not sure if he could breathe as easily without her. 

Genuinely so in love with this!!!!!! It's amazing, and AHHHHHHHH, I'm SO HONOURED TO HAVE THIS!!! DEDICATED TO ME?? Are you kidding??? This is amazing, and I'm so undeserving!! 😭

heyyyy! could I request Javier Peña for the #mmvalentinesevent with “I… thought I lost you” {14} and “Never do that again. Please” {15} from the injury prompts?? you do angst so well!

take me to yours

javier pena x f!reader (dea!agent)

warnings: reader gets injured, mention (brief) panic attack, post-injury panic. || wc: 3.8k || also, i’m dedicating this to @yeyinde who i know didn’t request this, but listens to me rant and rave about this man <3

A bead of sweat ran down his spine as time slowed to nothing.

It was the sound of her voice that made it. Birthed it. It doing a number of other things to him. His spine tensing as something twists. Sticking painfully into his abdomen—similar to the blade of a knife.

Hey, Javi. I’m real sorry to bother you, but something doesn’t feel right here. What? I don’t… I don’t know, it just doesn’t.

She never calls—not in the day. Not even when night kisses the city and he expects her.

Their conversations had started as fleeting. More said around breaths as hands explore fabric to unveil skin. Then they had grown into stolen moments, huddled in file rooms and down the side of buildings.

Now she had called him.

Not anyone else: him.

Anyone with you? No. I’m… I’m alone. Shit—my car. It won’t start. 

The sweat had begun building at the nape of his neck when Javi had heard her voice. A reaction flooding through him almost instantly—far too quickly.

Something he’d have to unpack later when he wasn’t under the watchful eye of Murphy or holding her voice in his hand. 

The bead had hung on for dear life, growing under the tension as he tapped Murphy, and stormed back to the car.  

I didn’t know who to call—and it’s you and me, right? Look— Fuck, Javi. I think they’ve seen me. Bonita—

Something strummed inside of him. It shifted, changed. All violent and unpredictable.

It played on his nerves and organs. It made his hand shake as he rammed the key into the hole, the engine roaring to life—ignoring the questionable stares from Murphy. 

All he focused on was the nervousness in her tone. 

The worry. 

The one he expects from others, but never from her. Not the woman who’d burned her lips against his, mixing tequila and whiskey as he pressed her back against brick; not the woman who raised her chin when someone talked down to her. 

The tone and the fact she’d called him.

I’m coming, Bonita. Alright?  What do I do, Javi? What do I do— Do not go into that house, Cariño. We’re coming, okay? We’re—

That same bead of sweat slid under his shirt collar when he saw the holes in her vehicle. The same ones he had heard being fired at her when the call went dead. How it had been accompanied by a gasp, the last noise he’d heard from her. 

The one which unlocked a fear he hadn’t known he even had for her.

His fingers gripped her truck door. His eyes taking in the phone discarded on the passenger side floor. A bullet firmly in the place keys once were. It lay in a pattern of shattered glass—all of the pieces twinkling under the bright sunlight. Appearing like stars which had fallen from the sky.

It was everywhere, shards that were dragged to the other door—the one half-open that Murphy stood at.

He can’t meet his eyes. Not yet.

Instead, he sweeps his gaze over the backseat does he spot her denim jacket. His stomach lurching.

He knows without thought it’s the same one she’d had on earlier. The one which had spent weeks hanging on the hook near his front door from a time when she’d “forgotten” it.

I’ll get it soon. Don’t worry, I’m not sneak moving in.

Now, it’s covered in the softest spray of drying red.

Complicated. That’s what she had said about them. When she’d been busy reapplying her lipstick in the bar’s bathroom. His fingers having zipped up his jeans, meeting her eyes in the dirty mirror. We’re complicated. You and me. 

He hadn’t argued then, and he didn’t now. 

The sweat had finally dripped. Followed by so much more. It all burning a path down under his shirt. 

His hand swipes across his jaw as he meets Murphy’s gaze—trying not to crack under it. Even as one thought loops continuously, almost making him fearful of even speaking:

Where is she, Murphy?

Images conjured, appearing one after the other. Her bent in odd places, her eyes devoid of life—her soul, her sparkle. 

The bead began its path down his shoulder blade until it finds a home at the base of his spine. Collecting with the others, his fingers brushing his hair back, following his partner's eyes to the house. The one with its door wide open, banging against the inside wall as the warm breezes swipes against it. 

The one he told her not to go in. He takes a breath. 

The two of them fall into a line—one practised and drilled into them from training. One the two of them do countless times as Murphy gestures and he follows.

Javi is too busy trying to banish the thoughts which threaten to boil him over. The ones where his mind conjures her in positions he’ll never be able to forget; holes in her he’ll never be able to fix. 

It takes more than one breath, but two, until he feels a semblance of calmness washing over him. 

It’s quiet, eerily so. Each time their sole hits a loose floorboard, they expect a sea of bullets. Ones which never come.

Not as they clear the hallway, moving into a room with matted chairs and dead bodies. Alcohol, copper and cigarettes staining the air, all sliding past the hair in his nose into his throat. 

He should be thankful she’s not amongst them. But, he’s not. Not as he sees scarlet red spreading across the rickety wooden floor, some even with handprints, some of it even on the walls.

That same pain twists in his stomach. The silence between the two agents remaining, thick and uncomfortable. A mist falling, something churning in him that he fears Murphy can feel too. 

I’m coming, Bonita. 

He meets Murphy’s eyes. The two swap the same hopeful sentiment: the blood won’t be hers.

The tip of his boot kicks at one of the men, and his heel slides the gun from the second—content they’re both bathing in their own blood. All very much disposed of, taken care of.

He’s set to move, to follow Murphy when Javi sees a third gun, one that’s like theirs. A dread ballooning, growing so large it almost consumes him.

“She could still—“

“Let’s clear the rooms.”

He doesn’t mean to snap—didn’t mean to spit the words at him like poison.

It’s just… his breath is all mattered and clinging to his throat. A thing inside of him unfurling. It spreads itself through him. It tries to drag him into darkness, tries to make the corners of his eyes see speckles of red. 

The cracks in his walls widen as he begins to unravel. All of the well-kept emotions suddenly not remaining in their cage, escaping in bursts from him until they’re all out, hammering away at his bones. 

It’s Murphy who suggests they split, taking the next few rooms. Be quicker to find her, won’t it?

He doesn’t argue—can’t, argue. Swallowing the thickness which is doubling with each passing moment. 

The shell of the house whistles in its emptiness as Javi scans for beautiful eyes and a kind smile.

He tries not to feel anything when he doesn’t. Tries not to linger on the fact that as every second pass, the likeness of him hearing her voice grows thinner. It burns into him, twisting something in his stomach as the first room he clears is spared of death. 

Gratitude—glee—almost escaping with a sigh as he moves to the second. 

The second is the sight of disaster, but he’s not sure of what kind or magnitude. 

The stench hits him first. The smell of torture, cigarettes and sex. The matted mattress in the corner is stained with things he only casts his eyes over, the body in the centre of the room demanding his attention. 

He spots several body-shaped holes in the plaster, ones he hates the realisation that they match her height and frame. He sees the smallest amount of drying blood on what hasn’t crumbled to the ground from the force, the contrast of the once-magnolia plaster stark against the dark floorboards. 

The man in the centre is more than dead. The hole in his neck had stopped leaking at some point, having begun to congeal against the floor and the man’s shoulder. More holes in his chest, stomach and thigh follow a similar pattern. 

Javi spots the knife—the culprit of what had done the damage. It’s lodged in the decaying skirting board on the opposite wall, likely kicked there through fury and fear. 

His mind sinks into itself. It pulled open drawers he’d rather keep closed, yanking out past reports and horrid tales, seeing it like a horrid mirage playing out across the dust and debris. A part of him having already carved out space for her, and yet—

She may not be around to fill it. 

We’re complicated. You and me.

Protocol recounts in the back of his head.

His fingers twitch at his side, needing to be busy.

He should go to the car, and call ahead. He should check out the wallets of the deceased, and see if they’ve done damage against Escobar—she’s done damage.

Javi does none of that.

Instead, he puts the safety on and sheathes his gun in the back of his jeans, fingertips sliding against his thumb as he stares at the dead man in the centre of the floor. 

He waits. His teeth return to peeling the skin from his lip. Suddenly busy recalling the ways he could have kept her safe. The main one being he shouldn’t have allowed her to leave his bed. His hand should have slid over her hip, slid his thigh between hers and married his lips to hers until they both forgot about alarm clocks and responsibilities.

The sight of her this morning is what he wants back. The way her eyes had smiled more than her lips. That her palm had pressed against his cheek, laughing at something he’d said. 

It’s why he doesn’t leave the room now. Not wanting to stumble across her bent in a broken way and devoid of any life behind her eyes.

Needing, almost praying, for Murphy’s voice to carry through the house. 

That tone—that particular voice which said she was breathing, that she hadn’t been taken from him too. 

“Javi?!”

His boots sound on the floorboards before his name has stopped echoing around the emptiness. Eyes taking in Murphy, him leaning against a doorframe, gun in his bulletproof, hands over his arms. He shoots a look, one that earns him a jut of his head.

“I’ll call ahead. Give you both a minute.”

“Yeah, sure. T-Thanks, Murphy.”

He pats him as he passes—his partner. The one who likely knows too much, but Javi suddenly cares that much about.

His focus on the room. The one with no scent. The room where the plaster is peeling and the floorboards groan under his soles.

Occasionally, speckled shimmers of sunlight dance over the room from the hole-bitten curtains. The cracked window blowing a warm breeze, sliding over the cobwebs and the creatures that likely hide inside the walls.

He sidesteps around the slanted wardrobe, eyes finding her in the corner—spine pressed against two walls. She looks so small, so unlike the person he’d bid goodbye to this morning.

Her knees to her chest, arms around her calves, chin resting. But, it’s her eyes he focuses on. How they’re blurred, lost—that she’s fractured and withered at the edges.

Her clothes splattered in red, splotches on her skin. None of it bothering her, she’s being haunted by a moment they’ve not let go of.

“Bonita?”

She blinks. It’s quick, the way she banishes her thoughts as she drinks him in.

Realisation dawning, covering her face and body language as though he’s the sun at the start of a new day.

Javi is slow as he coming down in front of her, knees protesting as he does so. Her shaky smile growing, wearily placed joy spreading across her features.  

“H-Hey, Peña—you came? I know. I know you said you would-d, but… I’m glad you did. Really glad. Didn’t know if you’d find me. Anyone would find-d me. You know? You do, know. I know—”

He cups her chin, swiping his thumb under it as she swallows. “Hey, look at me. There she is… Bonita, you’re in shock, ok—”

“I am?” 

It’s forced nature not meeting her eyes, choosing to nod instead. His eyes assess the cut above her head, noticing how it’s become tacky—somewhat healing in various shades of red and black. He turns her face, surprised she allows him to, watching her eyes slide from him to the space behind him. 

The minutes before their arrival trying to steal her from him, almost doing so until her palm plastered around his wrist, surprising him. 

“Had to sit down… just for a minute. So tired, and then I couldn’t… I couldn’t get up—“

“Cariño…” His thumb strokes her cheek, the one blooming in the bluest shades of a rainbow. “Hey, keep those eyes on me.” 

His hand tilts her face, spotting the slight swelling around her eye, her gaze blurring, altering. 

“You should see the other guy.” 

“I did. All three of them. You did good.” 

She swallows and it looks like it was harder to do than he cares to think about. “I-I did?” 

“You did, Bonita.”

Her eyes close, a second longer than they have been as her chest tries to rise and fall. “I channelled m-my inner P-Peña. What would P-Peña do? And h-he’d make sure they never g-got up-p… especially when…”

He should let go of her chin, and drop his hand back to his lap. He doesn’t. Just stares instead, taking in the flecks of her one good eye and the way her breath seems to be coming back to her. 

She places her hand on his arm. “I’m okay.” 

“You are.”

Biting the inside of her lip. “They’d spotted me.”

His heart slows, and almost stops. Just for a moment—so brief he could have ignored it, but he doesn’t. “I heard, Cariño.”

Not sure if he’ll ever be able to drink away the sound.  

“Thought… not him—not Escobar. But, someone… y’know? Important. That we could tick off. Red cross over their face. You know? You know, of course you do. But, I don’t think they was. Important, I mean?” Her lip trembles, the size of it sprouting the same as her eye. Tears welling up, sitting in her eyes as she furiously doesn’t let them fall. “Even for the way they… they really wanted to hur—kill me.” 

It drops, his stomach. Practically almost falls out of his ass into the floorboards.

We’re complicated. You and me. 

The fear he’d managed to stifle, darts through him again like wildfire. Scorching all the parts of him, fanning its vine-like fingers through him, tangling around organs as it flexes and tightens, making it hard to breathe. 

He acknowledges what it means—what she means to him.

He does.

Javi knows she isn’t just someone who has kept his bed warm or been there when he’s needed to fuck his frustration out; she’s not someone who he just looks for around the building. She’s—

“Where’s Murphy?” 

Her breathing suddenly difficult—challenging. Her hand slides under her blouse, eyes dilating, blurring before his eyes all over again.

All he can think is she shouldn’t have been here alone. Shouldn’t have been asked to come here without someone like him, like Murphy. 

“He’s outside. You good to walk?” 

She nods, just about. 

His brain latching, furiously clutching to the fact she’s alive—breathing.

He hadn’t lost her—she hadn’t been taken from him. Not yet. Something he hadn’t allowed himself to believe could be true when he’d seen her truck. When they’d walked in and heard nothing—not even the wheezes of someone’s last breath. 

You like her. He thinks. You like her, you like her, you like her. 

She’s taken to the ambulance the moment they exit the building.

It allowed him a horrid moment to take in the tips in her jeans, the way her once white blouse was stained to ruin. How she limped, ever so slightly—something he hadn’t noticed from near carrying her against him out of the building.

As soon as she was taken from him, he hated how far away she was. His hands lighting a cigarette, and then another. Able to speak clearly to those who asked him things.

But, it didn’t quiet his thoughts or calm his frayed edges. 

“Carillo says he can handle the rest, you coming?”

There’s a look in Murphy’s eyes as he asks—all-knowing and cocky. He hates it—despises it. It feeling like a test.

Javi wants to roll it up and shove it down his partner’s neck. 

“Um, no. Think I’ll stick around here.”

Nodding, Murphy casts his cigarette down. “I called it.”

“No, you fucking didn’t.”

“Did. Look after her, yeah?”

He jostles under the slap of Murphy’s hand on his back, half-rolling his eyes as he tries to ignore the frustration building. The fact all of it, his feelings, are rising to the surface in thick bubbles. And he’s not able to keep a lid on it. Not the way he feels or how much he’s showing it. 

Me and you.

He lets his eyes find her again. 

Having tried not to let her out of his sight the moment the medic had taken her from him. She’d searched for him too, having been examined by the shut doors—desperately looking for him, calming when she seated at the edge of the ambulance having found him. She soothed him too, stopped the storm from taking over and rendering him more useless than he feels. 

It’s why he waits, and spends far too long avoiding going over until her head turns and shifts. The sight of it making him worry, panic.

Then he follows her line of sight, seeing the sheet-covered bodies, and his legs cut through the people and trucks until he’s standing before her. 

It pulls her back to him. Her eyes landing on him. An easier smile able to spread over her lips as she leans her head against the inside of the vehicle. 

“You causing trouble?” 

“Me? No. I leave that to you, Peña.” 

He placed his hand on his hip, foot up on the ambulance's step as she watches him. Takes him in as he does her.

The bruising has developed, spreading in thick shades which shouldn’t have ever touched her skin, never mind had the chance to blossom out over it. 

“You gotta go to the hospital?” 

Slowly, she leans her head against the side of the vehicle. “No. But, I can’t be alone, so I suggested this guy called Javier could keep an eye on me. Just has to make sure I don’t faint or pass out, vomit and something else, I kinda stopped listening.”

“Cariño.”

Her tongue sweeps out over her lips. “What? You don’t want to keep an eye on me, Javi?” 

More than fucking anything. 

Never wants to let her out of his sight again, if he could. Wants to press her body against his until no space remains, letting her breath fan out over his face and her heartbeat pelt against his ribs. 

“Javi…?”

Lifting his head, he meets her eyes. A more detailed conversation happens in the stare, one with words that fall with ease. Each is perfectly articulated, chosen and spoken which makes all of this easy. Not that she’s easy—not that the two of them are either. 

We’re complicated. You and me. 

They are complicated and messy, and brilliant. He knows it—feels it even. How complex it is that she even managed to get under his layers, weave herself into his life to the point he’s not sure if he could breathe as easily without her. 

He knows, on some distant level, he felt it more before today. That it had begun festering months ago, blooming into something sweeter and nicer than he’d ever allowed himself to have only once—if ever. 

“I… thought I lost you…”  

Slowly, her grin drops. Her lips spreading out into a line—either in surprise at his confession, or at the truth of it. His words remaining hanging, settling between them—not dancing up into the sky. 

Even as he heard them, he didn’t regret them. Even if it widened the gap in his carefully curated walls.

It takes a lot to render her silent, he’s learnt that. He’s found ways, but never with words. So, watching her mouth open and close is a sight to behold—somewhat waiting for a trophy he’s never sure will come. 

“Who’d annoy you if I went and died, Peña?”

“Knowing you, Bonita? You’d find some way to fuckin’ haunt me.”

It’s low, but it’s there—her laugh. It brushes through the air to his ears, both of them tuning in for it, needing it. It settles a part of him—one which hadn’t believed she was out of the woods. Somewhat expecting at any moment for her eyes to roll back into her head and her soul be whisked from him, without him having much say in it. 

“Javi… I should thank you. For coming for me.” 

It takes all of his self-control to not let the words he feels slide out. Seeing something in her eyes too. Something hidden, stuffed down. Something likely akin to how he’s feeling. 

“You called me, Cariño. I’ll always come.”

Her lips slide into a smile, one softer, more genuine, and his heart skips a beat at the sight of it. “Because it’s you and me, right?”

His chest tightens. A thought growing, mouldering—that he doesn’t deserve her, isn’t good enough. It rises like a tide, filling his throat as he watches her lean forward, easing herself down from the vehicle. He tries to force how he feels back down, swallowing back everything and anything—

And then her palm brushes his cheek, soft and innocent. 

“You’re coming to mine.” 

She bites the inside of her mouth, lips pulling tight, nodding firmly. “Okay.”

He rolls his head on his neck, dragging his tongue over his bottom lip as he shifts his weight. “Never… never do that again,” he whispers, just for her. “Please?”

“What?”

He finds her smirking. Knowingly. “Scare me. I—I can’t… I don’t think I can lose you.”

She moves closer, letting him see the pale strips against her wound—the one that the medic likely fought to stick on. He notices the flecks in her eyes again, almost sees the reflection of himself in how wide and beautiful they are. 

“Take me to yours, Javi.”

Nodding, he swipes his thumb across his bottom lip. 

"If you want… that is?

She shifts, unease across her features. Something he never sees in her, something she never shows him. And he sighs in relief at it, knowing it as he does his own.

"More than fuckin' anything, Bonita."

She slides her hand down his forearm, fingers lightly brushing over his palm. "Come on then."

an: hope this was okay, anon.

[crossbowking]

More Than Anything (Part 2)

(Click HERE to read More Than Anything Part 1)

Summary: (Set mid-season 6) The reader’s feelings towards the archer evolve, but a supply run that goes south threatens to destroy it all.

Request: “I’d love to see something w protective Daryl and some angst, maybe set at the start of their time in Alexandria w an established relationship?” - @pulplorrd

A/N: See, you'd think I would've learned after making you guys wait a year and a half for No Way Out Part 2, that I should probably FINISH my stories before actually posting the first part...yet, here we are, one month later lol I'm sorry for the wait but hopefully it's worth it!

Happy reading and let me know what you think :)

xx Jess

Masterlist

Tip Jar

Previously...

But as its grasp slipped away from around Tara’s arm, the walker’s deadweight, in turn, collapsed against you.

You lost your footing and fell backward.

Except the solidity of concrete never rushed up to meet you.

Instead, you were embraced by water, the tarp that’d laid across the motel pool coiling around your body as you sunk deeper and deeper into nothingness.

Now...

When the world ended, you’d accepted the idea of death — your death, specifically.

You knew that one day, your life would undoubtedly end — most likely at the hands of the dead, ripped to pieces, torn to shreds, the way so many others before you had been taken. But you’d always hoped your death would at least mean something — maybe laying your life on the line, sacrificing yourself so the people you loved could survive.

Something noble, something brave.

Not like this.

Before the fall, you’d managed to inhale a sharp breath — though once you’d submerged into the grimy pool water, the coldness, the darkness, the shock of it all, had zapped the air right out of your body. You were becoming increasingly aware of the tightness in your chest, the burning in your lungs as you struggled against the walker pressed against you, its weight sinking you further into the depths of the pool.

Then, the panic set in — your heart pounded against your ribcage, right alongside the immense pressure crushing your lungs. Glimpses of sunlight hung just above you, peeking through parts of the drifting tarp you frantically attempted to push aside. You were completely disoriented, your vision obscured by the murkiness surrounding you, floating specks only visible beneath the shattered light above.

When your back connected against the bottom of the deep end, you managed to wriggle out from under the dead’s listless body — though the tarp remained twisted around your limbs. No matter how hard you fought, how hard you struggled, you couldn’t free yourself from the suffocating material. You could’ve sworn you were caught in a dream, your movements lagging and sluggish as you thrashed beneath the surface.

It felt as though someone had reached their hand directly through the center of your chest, squeezing your insides in a vice-like grip. A tingling sensation crawled down your spine, settling atop your churning stomach as the throbbing behind your ears began to slow.

You were listening to your last heartbeats.

It became unbearable, the water threatening to force its way past your clamped lips, the simple need to breathe. A sharp stab of pain shot through you as the blackness in your vision intensified, pulsing reddish-white around the edges as the fire in your chest consumed you at last.

Then, with nothing else left to do, you inhaled.

You weren’t sure what happened next — everything felt faint and fuzzy and quiet. The darkness that lingered no longer struck fear in you — instead, it was warm, enveloping you in its arms like a long-lost lover. The silence was soothing as you drifted in the emptiness, like careless whispers and forgotten melodies. You were weightless, you were freed, you were everything and nothing all at once.

You were dying.

That you were sure of.

Yet much to your surprise, you weren’t afraid — no, instead…you felt at peace.

But the brevity of calm didn’t last as you were suddenly aware of a vague pressure, though it wasn’t all-consuming nor constant. It was distant at first, a feeling you could’ve easily brushed aside had it not begun to gradually grow in force, in vigor — a steady pounding, coming from the center of your chest, over and over again.

The warmth around you began to splinter, shattering like shards of glass, the fallout piercing your skin as it collapsed around you. The pain was deep and burning and you longed for just a moment ago when all you felt was the sweetness of oblivion. The pressure pounding against your chest increased, becoming the sole thing you could feel, the only thing you could focus on, the unwavering thuds drawing you back from whatever place you’d drifted off to.

In the next moment, you were awake.

Your body flailed, jolting upright, but you’d only managed to get an inch or two off the ground before water began to suddenly spurt from your mouth. Your eyes squeezed shut as you choked on the liquid, every nerve ending in your body red-hot. You were vaguely aware of hands, rough and calloused and familiar, gripping onto your arms and forcing you onto your side, the motion allowing the water leaving your lungs to flow easier.

You gasped a constricted breath, coughing harshly on the exhale, completely and entirely disoriented as to what in the fuck just happened. Your chest tightened as you spit up more water, your throat closing around the sensation as you fought for control of your breathing, the feeling of concrete against the side of your body grounding you.

When your coughs finally died down, the same hands from before grabbed onto your arms, pulling your deadweight upright, maneuvering your limp body as if you were a rag doll. You blinked your bleary eyes open, wincing from the sunlight directly above as you drew in shaky breaths.

And then you saw him.

Daryl knelt in front of you, his ragged breathing mirroring your own, soaking wet from head to toe. Strands of hair stuck against his forehead, droplets of water still dripping from the ends as he stared at you, wide-eyed, his expression a mixture of horror and shock — something you rarely witnessed when it came to the archer.

He was mouthing something — no, he was shouting something — but you couldn’t hear him. You couldn’t hear a damn word he was saying as you sat there, dazed and confused, wondering if what just happened actually happened.

His hold around your arms slipped away, his hands cradling either side of your face instead, tilting your head up and brushing your drenched hair back. He leaned forward a fraction, frantically studying your features, his haunted eyes bouncing back and forth between your own as though making sure you were there — really there.

The silence was becoming a little less resounding, the world around you gradually seeping back, though muffled and dull — but the way Daryl was looking at you, the apprehension in his gaze, shook something loose inside you. Your mouth opened, but no sound came out. You wanted to tell him it was okay — that you were okay — but damn it, why couldn’t you speak?

So instead, you slowly lifted your hands, weakly grasping onto Daryl’s wrists, the small motion all you could muster — you had to let him know you were here. He glanced down at your hands, a small huff of relief escaping him.

But when he looked back up, you noticed the moisture that’d built in the corners of his eyes.

Daryl’s hands slipped behind your head, holding you still as he leaned forward and pressed his forehead gently against yours.

You, on the other hand, silently thanked whatever God or higher power was out there for giving you one more moment like this.

When the archer pulled back, you spotted a red streak smeared across his forehead that hadn’t been there before. Your brow knitted together as he sat back on his haunches. You tried clearing your throat, the sensation burning the rawness that’d spread. “You’re —” you croaked, your voice sounding foreign. “— you’re bleeding, D.”

Daryl’s expression darkened, his jaw clenching as he lowered his gaze and unsheathed his hunting knife. “It ain’t mine,” he rasped, suddenly slicing a long strip of fabric off from the bottom of his dampened shirt and balling it in his fist, ringing out some of the water.

Before you knew what was happening, he was reaching forward, pressing the material gingerly against your forehead and wrapping it behind your head, tying the strip into a knot to keep it in place. You were surprised at the sting of pain you felt, unsure when you managed to cut your head open in the midst of what had happened — everything was still sort of…fuzzy.

The sound of a car door slamming drew your attention. You peeked out of the corner of your eye, spotting Tara jogging towards you, the car you’d driven to the motel running idle in the parking lot.

“They’re coming!” she called out, motioning towards something just behind Daryl.

You craned your neck, attempting to get a look, but before you could, the archer was looping his arms beneath your armpits and hefting you up to your feet. The world tilted unsteadily around you, and had it not been for Daryl’s hold, the ground would’ve surely rushed up to meet you.

“I got ya,” he rasped, slinging one of your arms across his shoulders, his grip snaking around your waist.

Tara appeared at your opposite side, slightly out of breath. “Welcome back, chicka,” she shot you a slightly strained smile before following Daryl’s lead and winding your other arm across her shoulders, keeping you propped upright between them.

You wanted to tell them you were fine, that you were more than capable of walking on your own — but your strength had depleted, your legs shook beneath you, and the shock was beginning to wear off, making all the little aches and pains in your body alarmingly obvious.

Then, you were moving.

They half-dragged, half-carried you across the stretch of concrete, hurrying towards the parking lot where Tara had left the car. You peeked over your shoulder, managing to get a glimpse of what you were leaving behind — the small herd from earlier had been taken down, their bodies splayed out sporadically on the other side of the pool. Some sporting knife wounds, others bullet holes. The pool itself was rippling, the water sloshing back and forth, air bubbles visible at the surface.

Some of the dead had followed you into the water.

Just beyond the pool, you spotted exactly what you were running from — another herd, three times the size of the first one, ambling in from the woods behind the motel, most likely drawn in by gunfire.

When you reached the car, Tara slipped away and jumped into the driver’s seat. Daryl flung open the back door and maneuvered you carefully inside. You grimaced as you inched further into the car, only stopping once your back was pressed up against the opposite door. The archer quickly slid in after you and slammed the door shut, grabbing onto the back of the driver’s seat as Tara peeled out of the parking lot.

The silence that followed rang heavy.

Your heart hammered against your chest, your breaths coming out slightly wheezy, almost like there was still some water left in your lungs. You met Tara’s eyes in the rearview mirror before she focused back on the road — you noticed then that the sleeves of her shirt, up to her elbows, were wet.

She’d helped drag your body out of the pool.

You glanced over at Daryl, the archer’s grip on the driver’s seat white-knuckled as he stared at the back of the headrest. Waves of tension rolled off him, the feeling nearly palpable. But his eyes flickered towards you a moment later, as though he felt you watching him, and some of the rigidity faded.

He wordlessly shuffled closer, grabbing your arm and pulling you away from the door you leaned against. You were too tired and too sore to object, your body slumping against his side as he wrapped his arm around your shoulders — you thought for a brief moment that he was hugging you.

But instead, he wound your seatbelt around your body and locked it in place.

Daryl fell back against the seat beside you with a huff, keeping his gaze focused ahead, staring straight through the windshield. He didn’t look at you again — he remained still, like he was carved from stone. You weren’t even sure he was breathing. His arm just barely grazed the side of yours, but despite whatever hidden turmoil was surely happening inside of him, he made no effort to move away.

He needed time to process what happened — what almost happened.

But so did you.

You shifted, closing the small gap between you and resting your head against his shoulder, ignoring the way he stiffened. The material of his shirt was still damp and smelt like a mixture of chlorine and mildew from the murky pool water, but you couldn’t find it in you to pull away either.

You hadn't realized you’d dozed off until the archer gently shook you awake, the car now parked outside Alexandria’s makeshift infirmary.

You still felt weak and lethargic, but you managed to make your way inside without any help — although Daryl, silent and stoic as ever, remained at your side, his hand hovering over the small of your back.

The infirmary was quiet as Denise checked you over — Tara had gone to update Rick and the others on what happened, as well as distribute the supplies you’d managed to bring home. Daryl, on the other hand, paced — back and forth, like a caged animal, on the opposite side of the room. Almost like part of him desperately wanted to run, but a bigger part of himself needed to be there.

“Are you feeling any nausea? Confusion? Loss of basic motor skills?” Denise suddenly asked, breaking the silence that’d stretched on, looking up from the textbook she was reading from. She’d never dealt with an ‘almost drowning’, but had been able to scrounge up some old medical textbooks for help.

“Uh,” you cleared your throat, shaking your head once. “No. No, nothing like that.”

“Okay, good. Yeah, that’s good…” she murmured, mostly to herself, before flipping to the next page and skimming the stretch of words. “Besides your forehead, any other lacerations?” she looked up at you once more, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

“I don’t —” you shot Daryl a look, but he was too busy pacing to notice. “I don’t think so,” you shook your head again, your fingertips ghosting over the bandage Denise had patched your head up with.

“Good, good. We’ll want to keep an eye on that in case of infection,” she informed before flipping to the next page, mouthing the text to herself. “Okay, and any soreness?”

You grimaced as you sat up a little straighter. “Just — just right here mostly,” you admitted, motioning towards your center, below your chest.

Denise shut the textbook and placed it on the metal table you sat on top of. “Can you show me?”

Your brow knitted together but you obliged, sliding off the table and grabbing the hem of your shirt. You fought back a wince as you rolled the material up, stopping just below your chest, exposing your skin.

The first thing you noticed was the way the room suddenly stilled — you glanced up, spotting Daryl standing frozen across the way, pacing no longer. But he wasn’t staring at you — he was staring at your midsection, a look in his eyes you’d never seen before.

When you lowered your head, getting a good look at yourself for the first time, you realized exactly what he was seeing.

Bruises. Dark and discolored. Scattered down your sternum and along the center of your ribcage.

Your head snapped up at the sound of the front door slamming shut.

And Daryl was gone.

You tried to ignore the pinprick of tears that grew, the hurt that settled across your chest as you lowered your shirt back in place — but when Denise suddenly reached out and placed her hand on top of yours, patting it softly, your features crumpled.

Everything that happened seemed to catch up to you in that moment — the fear, the shock, what Daryl must’ve felt pulling your unmoving body out of the water. You’d nearly died. What would’ve happened if he hadn’t been able to bring you back? Would he have been the one to put you down when you undoubtedly turned? Or would Tara have done it — the act far too painful for the man you loved to follow through with.

The man you loved.

Denise wrapped her hand around yours, squeezing gently and drawing you back. “Hey, it’s okay,” she soothed.

You quickly swiped at the tears that slipped down your cheeks, huffing a hitched breath. “I know, I’m just —” you glanced up at the front door, hanging onto the foolish hope that it’d swing open once more. “I don’t know,” you finally mumbled, albeit defeatedly.

Denise followed your gaze, scoffing slightly. “Men suck,” she finally shrugged.

You sniffled softly before shaking your head. “Not that one,” you murmured fondly.

Denise squeezed your hand once more, shooting you a sympathetic smile before she pulled away. “It could’ve been worse — most people who have CPR done on them end up with broken ribs or punctured lungs. You, my friend, are one of the lucky ones.”

You inhaled a deep breath, fighting back a wince, the motion stretching your bruised body. “Thank you. For everything.”

Denise nodded before taking off her glasses, using the hem of her shirt to clean the lenses. “Y/N, I don’t mean to overstep my boundaries, but,” she paused, sliding her glasses back on as she regarded you seriously. “You smell like a sewer rat.”

You faltered, completely caught off guard by her statement before remembering that you were still wearing damp, swampy, pool water clothes. Then, despite everything, a laugh slipped past your lips, breaking the tension. You let out a hiss as the movement sent a wave of pain through you. “Ow, fuck, don’t make me laugh,” you bit back another chuckle, lightly swatting her arm.

Denise smiled before motioning towards the door. “Go home, shower, get some rest — Doctor’s orders,” she grinned, turning away and beginning to clean up her workstation.

You thanked her again before hobbling out of the infirmary.

As night drew near, most residents of Alexandria were already in their respective homes — you were grateful for that. You didn’t want to see anyone right now, their worry and endless questions something you were more than happy to put off until tomorrow.

When you made it back to the apartment you and Daryl shared, you were, yet again, fighting back feelings of disappointment — he wasn’t home. You felt a pinprick of worry, but knew he needed time and space to process whatever it was he was feeling.

And when he was ready, you would be too.

You walked through the kitchen, the morning you’d shared earlier feeling like a lifetime ago — the pan he’d used to make eggs, now dry, remained sitting on the counter. The bedroom was untouched, looking exactly how it had this morning, just the way you’d left it. You grabbed a fresh set of clothes before making your way into the master bathroom attached, ignoring the bone-deep tiredness settling over you.

Showering was a good call — the warm water rained down as you scrubbed your body of the muck that clung to you, being extra careful not to get the bandage on your head wet or make any sudden movements. When you were finished cleaning up, you stood beneath the shower head for a few minutes, eyes closed, inhaling the steam around you with deep, calming breaths.

You were okay. You were alive. You were here.

You shut off the water, stepped out of the shower, and dried yourself off, gingerly patting down your chest and around your ribs, before slipping into clean clothes. You wiped away some of the steam that’d collected on the bathroom mirror before hanging up your towel, combing out your knotted hair, and brushing your teeth — the same routine you did every night.

The normalcy was soothing — you were already beginning to feel better, more like yourself. You were ready to put what happened behind you and move forward, sure to never take another day for granted.

But when you opened the bathroom door, ready to curl up in bed and doze off, all of your feelings from earlier came rushing back at the sight of Daryl.

Once again, he’d been pacing the length of the bedroom, only stopping after you’d entered the room, his gaze snapping towards you. He shifted his weight back and forth, opening his mouth before clamping it shut. You could feel his energy, rolling off his body in waves — tense, rigid, wild. He was struggling to say whatever was on his mind, only furthering his evident frustration. He flicked his hair away from his eyes, turning to face you head-on, clearly gathering up the gall to speak.

You took a small step forward. “Daryl —”

“Ya were blue,” he suddenly rasped, a fire in his gaze that wasn’t there before. “Tara was shoutin’ for ya an’ I — when I went in an’ pulled ya out, there wasn’t — I didn’t —” he huffed a breath in frustration, his face tinged red. “God, damn it, Y/N, ya were fuckin’ blue,” he finally growled, chest heaving, hands balled into fists at his side.

His anger wasn’t directed at you, but the situation itself, you knew that. But still, his words — or more so the emotion, the truth hidden behind them — had you recoiling from him, your heart breaking at the thought of what he’d seen, of what had run through his mind when he realized you weren’t breathing.

You couldn’t imagine how scared he must have been.

And that was what was beneath his outburst — not rage, but fear.

But he wasn’t finished with what he needed to say — if anything, he was just getting more and more worked up as he began to frantically pace once more. “This is why — I fuckin’ told ya — I didn’t need ya comin’ out there. I didn’t need ya on that run but ya — ya didn’t listen ta’ me an’ then —”

“I love you.”

Daryl stilled, mid-stride, his gaze widening as if all of the air had been sucked from his lungs.

You felt your face flush, the air between you so thick it could be cut with a knife. You hadn’t meant to say that aloud, but the words just sort of…tumbled out? And now, there they were, hanging between you. Part of you wondered if the archer could hear your heart pounding from where he stood — or maybe it was his heartbeat, synched up to yours.

You sputtered a soft breath, shaking your head in disbelief, trying not to panic because the last thing you wanted was for Daryl to look at you the way he was looking at you after telling him you loved him. “I’m —“ you took a breath, regarding him earnestly. “I’m sorry if that makes you uncomfortable. And I promise — I promise — you do not have to say it back. Hell, you don’t even have to feel the same way,” you huffed an awkward laugh, but the noise hitched somewhere in your throat, betraying your words. You grew serious once more. “I just — I couldn’t have another night going by without you knowing. Not after what happened today,” you swallowed the lump in your throat, shrugging a shoulder up meekly. “So, I love you — I love you more than anything.”

You weren’t sure what sort of reaction you were expecting from him. But you absolutely refused to acknowledge the tiny part of you that secretly wished he’d swoop you into his arms, pull you close, tell you he loved you too — because that wasn’t Daryl. That wasn’t the type of man he was — and you were okay with that.

Because you hadn’t fallen in love with that type of man.

You’d fallen in love with the man standing shell-shocked in front of you.

You cleared your throat and stepped forward, moving away from the bathroom doorway. “The shower’s all yours,” you murmured, needing to break the uncomfortable silence that carried on.

You sidestepped around his frozen form, ignoring the way your legs shook like jelly beneath you as you made your way towards the bed. You took a seat on the edge of the mattress, keeping your back towards him, staring ahead at the blank wall in front of you instead.

After what felt like forever, the floorboard squeaked beneath the shifting of his weight, his footsteps growing faint as he slowly walked away and entered the bathroom, closing the door shut after him.

You strained your ears, listening for any movement beyond the door he’d disappeared behind — but you heard nothing. It was like you could feel him through the panel of wood between you — you could almost picture him, just standing there, trying to process whatever the hell was going on inside that mind of his.

A moment later, the shower turned on.

And you released the breath you’d been holding.

Exhaustion swept through you, the day’s events wearing you down. You carefully maneuvered yourself into bed, pulling a thin sheet over your body and settling onto your side. Your eyelids grew heavy, the sound of the shower lulling you to sleep despite the strange, sort of freedom your admittance had brought you, the feeling buzzing through your veins.

You didn’t regret your vulnerability — he needed to know he was loved, damn it.

When you heard the shower turn off, you snapped your eyes shut. You listened to the archer move about the bathroom until the door finally creaked open. He seemed to be just standing there, and you could’ve sworn you felt him staring at the back of your head as if he was gauging whether or not you were actually asleep. But a moment later, you heard his footsteps padding across the bedroom before the mattress dipped beneath him.

You held your breath, covers drawn to your chin as Daryl shifted in bed, eventually lying down beside you. Another beat of quiet passed, neither of you moving, nor breathing it seemed.

But then suddenly, you heard him speak, so softly you almost missed it. “I know ya ain’t sleepin’,” he rumbled.

The corner of your mouth quirked up — because of course he knew.

You sighed, shifting gingerly onto your back, the sheet pooling at your waist as you looked over at him. He laid on his side, facing you, propped up on his elbow. He was dressed in clean clothes, his hair still wet from the shower, pushed back out of his face.

He really was rather beautiful.

“Busted,” you smiled, though the archer’s expression remained solemn.

Ever so gently, he reached towards you, his fingertip grazing the material of your shirt, over your ribcage, below your chest, hovering the bruises that lingered. “Does it hurt?” he rasped, the mouth turned downward into a small frown.

You shook your head. “Not really.”

Daryl’s eyes met yours, his expression skeptical and knowing.

You never were a good liar.

“At least you didn’t break a rib?” you offered sheepishly, your lame attempt at a joke falling flat given the current audience.

But when Daryl’s features fell, a flash of what looked like guilt settling over his face, you placed your hand on top of his, resting them against your stomach. “Don’t do that,” you murmured, reading him like a damn book as you rubbed circles with your thumb over the back of his hand.

The archer grumbled something indistinct, staring down at your intertwined hands.

Your grip tightened around his. “I mean it,” you spoke, an edge to your voice, only softening when he looked at you instead. “You saved my life, D — that’s it. You can let go of anything else you’re holding onto.”

Daryl’s lip twitched as he chewed on the inside of his cheek, seemingly mulling over your words.

You were sure he’d hang onto whatever unnecessary guilt he carried — because that was just who he was — but eventually, he nodded once and settled down on his back, staring up at the ceiling. You were too tired to press the subject further so you curled into his side and rested your head against his chest, winding your arm across his midsection. His arm automatically wrapped around you, his fingertips trailing absently up and down your spine, sending shivers through your body.

You weren’t sure how long you laid like that, melting into the warmth he exuded, the steady pounding of his heartbeat easing you to sleep.

You’d nearly faded away when Daryl suddenly spoke.

“Did ya mean it?” he rumbled, the noise vibrating from deep within his chest. “What ya said before?” he grunted, his hand pausing at the small of your back.

You could’ve imagined it, but you almost felt the slight tremble of his fingertips against your skin.

You slowly pushed up onto your elbow, your faces mere inches apart. You searched his uncertain gaze, a small smile tugging at your lips. “Of course I meant it,” you whispered. “Every damn word.”

Daryl’s eyes narrowed, as though not entirely believing what you said could be true.

So you leaned forward, closing the remainder of space between you, and pressed your lips gently against his. He returned the kiss, a quiet desperation growing as one hand came up to cradle the side of your face, his thumb sweeping back and forth across your cheek. You broke away from the kiss, brushing his hair back before meeting his lips once more, settling your hand on his chest, feeling his heart racing beneath your touch.

When you pulled back, you noticed his skin flush, surely mirroring your own. He looked up at you, slightly breathless, a fondness in his gaze that sent your stomach somersaulting. He cleared his throat, the ghost of a smile flickering across his face. “Well, alright,” he finally resigned, accepting your answer to his question.

You snorted a breathy laugh, leaning forward and kissing his cheek before burrowing against him. A soft sigh slipped past your lips as Daryl’s hold tightened around you, as though afraid you’d disappear if he didn’t.

You closed your eyes, reveling in the feeling of contentment, unsure how many more moments like this you, or anyone else for that matter, had left in this kind of cruel and harrowing world.

But for at least tonight, you could be at peace.

“I love you,” you murmured groggily, beginning to sink deeper into unconsciousness.

Right before sleep came, long after Daryl thought you’d drifted away, you heard him whisper three, simple words.

“More than anythin’.”

Then he pulled you closer and the world dimmed.

A/N: Aw...a happy ending! (I figured I owed ya after putting y'all through Honey & Whiskey lol)

P.S. Feedback is incredibly important. I write for my own happiness, but I also write for YOU. So don’t be afraid to shoot me an ask or leave a comment with your thoughts! It truly motivates me and helps move along the writing process. Also, please consider donating to my Tip Jar. Every little bit helps!

P.S.S. I can no longer tag people on this account, so my tag list has been transferred to my side blog @crossbowking2. If you’d like to be added/removed, please let me know!

[furikakyo]

a return to roots | 3

pairing: kita shinsuke x f!reader

summary: y/n is a rising star in the music industry, having almost everything you could have ever hoped for as a small-town country girl. now after releasing two triple platinum albums in consecutive years, you face the dreaded artist’s burnout… in order to recover, your manager suggests, you should return to your hometown in hyōgo for a long-deserved break. 

genre: socmed/smau, slice of life 

warnings/tags: timeskip!, mutual pining, slow burn? more like rekindling, slight canon divergence

masterpost 

You finished sending your texts to Osamu and sat back in your bed, tossing your phone aside and then pulling the covers over your head. As you tugged and curled into your blankets, your phone fell to the wooden floor of your bedroom with a heavy thunk. Cursing, you drew back the covers and reached over the edge of the bed, trying to find balance. All of the blood rushed to your face as you huffed, still attempting to rescue your phone without actually laying foot on the ground.

Once you finally recovered it, you sat back onto your bed with a heave, any sleepiness you had now gone. You stared at the ceiling, wondering what you should do that day. A hand fisted itself into the thick blankets as you tossed and turned, trying to find some comfort in your plush bed. You hadn't been able to sleep well the past couple of days, for whatever reason. Your neck hurt, your back was sore, hell, your entire body ached for some reason, restless and yet so tense at the same time.

You sat up suddenly. What was it Kuroo had said to you? You weren't sure.

"Ugh..." You buried your face into your hands, memories of last night's conversation rushing back to you; remembering how you'd started talking about Kita when you were nodding off. It had been over two years since everything between you went down. Why couldn't you stop thinking about it? You could feel the burn of embarrassment and shame behind your eyes, your throat beginning to close up. Sniffling, you opened your phone and scrolled through your contacts. Who wouldn't be busy? Your hand stilled, and your face brightened, if only for a moment. Kenma. He had a calm and comforting presence, which never failed to mellow you out. Plus, he didn’t really talk about emotions or feelings so he wouldn’t ask you about anything related to Kita, nor would you be tempted to talk about him.

You texted your bodyguard and driver, Ichiro, who agreed to pick you up from your apartment and then drive you to Kenma’s. Thanking him for coming on such a short notice and then reminding him to not text and drive, you got dressed for the day, choosing to wear your comfiest hoodie.

A few minutes later, your phone lit up again with Ichiro’s standard “here” text, and you were out the door, not forgetting to bring a hat and sunglasses with you, though. After locking the door and slipping your accessories on, you rushed into the elevator and then made your way down to the car.

The car ride itself was silent, as Ichiro seemed to have picked up on the mood you were in and decided not to comment. Although he was usually stoic, he always maintained a conversation if you initiated it, his responses albeit short. By now you knew that the brevity in which he spoke was not because of anything against you, however, but because he was naturally a quiet person. You wouldn’t have had anyone else for the job, though.

The car softly jolted you as it pulled to a stop, and you unbuckled quickly after realizing you were already at Kenma’s apartment. “Thanks!” you called out, opening the door yourself and then shutting it. You smiled and waved before Ichiro merged back into traffic, watching the car eventually disappear in the long stream of vehicles.

Feeling somewhat better, you entered the complex after buzzing in. and then made your way to Kenma’s apartment, knocking on the door and patiently waiting. There was a long pause and some shuffling behind the door before it opened a crack. Two large yellow eyes peered out into the hall, and then landed on you. The door shut and then opened without the door chain to stop it this time, and you stepped in.

“I brought my Switch,” you proudly announced, looking to the side of the corridor where Kenma was standing, a little hunched over and slouching. You held up your video game console, which was covered in skins and cute accessories you'd purchased. Some of them you'd gotten for free from Kenma though, who got sent free stuff all the time.

“Hi, Y/N,” he said, a soft smile on his face. He pulled half of his hair back with a hair tie and followed you back to where he streamed his games, settling into the chair that all of his fans could recognize by now. “We can play Minecraft, if you want. I haven't gone on our world for a while, so we could both go on.” Kenma swiveled to look at you inquisitively, waiting for an answer.

You lazily waved a hand at him. “No! Today you’re supposed to stream, right? I just crashed your place so I don’t really have a say. You should record and then if you have time after we can play,” you insisted, sitting on the bean bag behind his gamer chair. “I’ll watch or maybe work on my own world.”

Kenma thought about it for a few seconds, then nodded, setting up his microphone and monitors. “Last chance,” he mumbled, then put his headset over his ears, blocking out everything else. You watched in the background with mild interest as he went through his usual monotonous introduction, one that his fans seemed to adore despite its lack of flair. Perhaps it was exactly that what made him so endearing to the internet. Smiling, you glanced back down to your Switch, and opened up Minecraft.

Setting your phone down for a second after replying to Atsumu, you called out lazily: "Oiiii, Kenma.” After a beat of silence and no response, you called again, "Kenmaaaa."

He had been just finished streaming, and pulled off his headphones. "Hm?"

You sat up excitedly, startling Kenma. "When I move, you should visit! Once I get settled in, at least."

He blinked, looking up at the ceiling as if calculating the pros and cons. "Too many bugs," he finally responded with a small grimace. "And it's gross and hot outside."

At that, you broke out into a laugh, the heartiest and most meaningful you’d had in a while. His particular comment wasn't even that funny, it was just- it was just so him. Was your sense of humor breaking? “Maybe I'll be able to change your mind," you mused. "We can even stream a video collab with the both of us- we should try Animal Crossing!" You clapped excitedly, beaming. "Kenma, let's do Animal Crossing once it comes out!”

He squinted his eyes, scooting away from you and your blinding enthusiasm. "Fine," he muttered, hunched over his phone now. He scrolled for a few minutes before speaking again. "Did you see that we're trending? On Twitter and YouTube." Kenma handed you his phone, stifling a small laugh into the collar of his sweatshirt as he sat back.

"I did," you snickered, laying his phone on the table and lying back on his bean bag chair. "My favorite response is the one about the Kodzuken simps," you said, wiggling your eyebrows suggestively at Kenma and then cackling when he turned completely the other way from you. "Kenma, they're devastated!" You gasped dramatically and then draped an arm over your forehead, fainting.

He rolled his eyes at you, shaking his head. "Shut up, Y/N."

After your giggles died out, you saw him offering a controller to you. "Game night!" you cheered, accepting it and sitting up straighter. "We should get takeout!"

Kenma lifted a brow, as if to say why are you even telling me this? "Already on its way.”

The two of you chatted as you played Minecraft, Kenma being a little more open when his mind was preoccupied with gaming. He was, of course, much better than you, eyes glued to the TV screen which had been hooked up to the game console. "Has Kuroo told you who's going to the Olympics?"

You shook your head, then remembered that Kenma wasn't looking your way. "No," you replied slowly, focused on getting out of the water so you could escape the mobs that were chasing you. "But a few of the boys from Inarizaki are. As for Kuroo, I think he was going to say something, but I fell asleep last night. He said something about you and an advertisement, though?"

Kenma smiled, finally breaking his gaze with the screen and looking at you. "Hinata Shōyō from MSBY is collabing with me, to promote the 2020 Olympic games."

Your eyes lit up in recognition. "That's right! Atsumu is teammates with him. I haven't talked to him one-on-one, though. He seems sweet!"

Kenma turned his attention back to the TV, where he was almost done building a house. "He played volleyball in high school too. They beat Inarizaki his first year at Nationals."

You stopped to think, your hands stilling on the controller. Your breathing slowed. In your third year, Inarizaki hadn't progressed further into Nationals, like everyone predicted. Despite being assistant manager, you hadn't thought it would be a big deal to miss their first match in the competition; assistant managers weren’t even allowed on the actual court anyways. You had all thought you were going to get further. You had thought you would get to see your boys play one last time. You had thought you would get to see Kita lead his team to Nationals, as team captain.

You had missed out on that opportunity for signing a record deal.

Beside you, Kenma noticed how quiet you'd gotten but didn't comment, instead going to the door when the buzzer notified him of their takeout delivery. You picked at a loose string on your hoodie, remembering why you didn't often go to Kenma when in distress. While you knew he cared about you and your wellbeing, you also knew that heart-to-heart conversations weren't his strong suit. When he returned a few moments later with your favorite foods, you pushed down the eruption of guilt and self-loathing with a bright smile. "Sorry, what were we saying? Something about Kuroo..." You strained to keep your eyes crinkled and happy.

Kenma's brow furrowed. "Kuroo-"

You interrupted him, and he let you. "Oh yeah! Kuroo and I are gonna hang out on Thursday! Wanna come? I'm leaving Saturday morning, so unless I see you before then, this will be the last time you see me before I leave for Hyōgo."

You watched his face run through a couple of emotions before settling on contemplation. Kenma blew a wisp of stray hair from his eyes and then begrudgingly: "Sure..."

This time, you gave him a true smile and clapped excitedly. "Yay! Should we try to get some of the others to join us? Lev? I want to be able to say goodbye to all of you in person, if possible." Then, swiping the plastic bag from Kenma, you opened the bag hurriedly and began pulling out things. "Here are the plates... and the chopsticks..." You set everything out and then let him load his plate with food first. Soon after, the two of you were back to playing Minecraft, squabbling over who got to use what equipment. After Kenma finally relented and let you have first pick, the both of you set out to fight the swarms of mobs gathered near your shared house.

"Hey, Y/N."

You had looked away for only a couple seconds, but you were blown up by a Creeper. "BITCH," you screeched, "I just fucking died?!"

Kenma snickered, running past your character and stealing everything you'd left behind. You gasped even louder. "BITCH-"

a/n: i said there weren’t going to be as many words as the last part but 🤡 also currently the fic is moving slowly and going day by day but it’ll pick up the pace soonish

taglist (pm me to ask to be added!): @papiibuprofen​ (i didn’t know if i should just respond to your ask publicly sksksk but i added you) 

some ~fun facts~

- y/n’s bodyguard/driver is named after ichiro, one of my fav baseball players

- his name in y/n’s contacts is “bonecrusher 👹” lmao 

- he is stoic but actually a softie; he’s about 30 and has a wife and one kid, both of whom he loves very much 

- i had kenma and y/n playing animal crossing instead of minecraft at first, then realized that it wouldn’t have been released yet, since this takes place in 2020... DAMN YOU TIMELINE

- do i have a map of hyōgo so i can write this fic? yes 💀

[clefairymuke]

regrets | chapter eleven

prev. chapter | next chapter

pairing: levi ackerman x reader

themes: enemies to lovers, slowburn, angst, fluff, smut

tw: violence / explicit sexual content

word count: 1913

Ten feet. That's how far you had walked today without stopping to rest. Hange was practically jumping up and down, and Jean hugged you more tightly than he ever had before. For the first time in weeks, you started to feel a little less helpless. On the way back to the infirmary room, you held on to Jean's arm and limped back rather than being carried. It made you feel strong. Today was a happy day, which you had decided for yourself when you woke up, warm and cozy as you could possibly be under the thin white blanket that adorned the soft mattress. You felt refreshed; ready to work on your leg that morning, ready to see Jean, ready to make more progress. In the furthest part of your brain, you were also ready to see Levi that night. He was gone already when you woke up, like every other day, but that had never bothered you. The thought of good-morning small talk with Levi was awkward at best.

Now, you sat across from Jean with a hand of cards. You thumbed through them for what felt like the tenth time as Jean took his sweet time on his turn. He finally laid down a card, only for you to play one of the moves you'd thought out over the last five minutes as soon as he did. As the cycle started again, you found yourself looking out the window. The sun was almost ready to begin sinking, the blue of the sky becoming duller by the minute. You greedily awaited the purples and pinks that meant teatime. Throughout the day, the quietly nagging piece of your mind that wanted to see Levi grew bigger and bigger, until you finally had to admit to yourself that you were excited for it. You decided it was half because the tea was good, partially because he was good company, and a little bit because your hand still tingled when you thought of him.

Jean's turns got painstakingly longer as the game went on, so much so that you thought he was doing it deliberately. Your impatience grew as the sky turned orange, and Jean put the cards away. When he left, the sun touched the horizon.

The brevity of your alone time was unexpected yet welcome; the thoughts that possessed your brain while you sat in that room were hardly ever pleasant. You decided you were grateful that you didn't have your own bedroom -- the presence of company had become necessary in recent weeks. In that brief alone time, however, your mind did not hesitate to race. You recounted the events of the day before: Eren's anger, Levi's affection. For someone confined to a room, the past few weeks had surely been interesting.

You wondered about how it felt when he had touched you; you had many theories, but the leading one was that Levi put some sort of numbing solution on his hand to mess with you. Sure, it was out of character for him, but it was also out of character for you to do anything but dislike him. That was the theory you intended to stick beside.

Every time you heard the tiniest sound, your eyes shot to the door. Each time, you were met with disappointment. You looked around the room absentmindedly, eyes landing on the table that held only a glass of water. You leaned up as far as you could and grabbed it on two sides, sliding it between the chair and your bed. You felt accomplished when you laid back down, resting your hands on your stomach and focusing your eyes on the ceiling. You tried to push the thoughts of yesterday as far out of your mind as you could, but it was difficult. When the orange of the sky finally moved to pink, the door opened. There was Levi, as always, carrying along his tea set.

"Hey, Levi," you greeted him, a welcoming smile finding its way to the corners of your mouth. He nodded his head back to you as he sat down, his dark hair falling slightly forward as he leaned to pour his tea. For the first time, you studied the man sat in front of you. His lips were formed into a slight frown, more often than not. Though he was looking at his teacup, you knew his grey eyes looked focused, his thin eyebrows perpetually drawn down. You followed the slope of his nose with your eyes. His features were graceful yet sharp, all fitting cleanly together. The ends of his hair fell fell haphazardly along his cheekbones and ears, perhaps the one thing about him that wasn't perfectly neat.

"Why are you staring at me?" he asked when he looked up, sending blood rushing to your cheeks.

"I've been looking at this room for three weeks. There's nothing new about it. People look a little bit different every day," you answered him, your face hot. You pulled your eyes away from him in search of literally anything else to look at, finally focusing on your own folded hands.

"You're a pretty good liar, you know."

The two of you sat there chatting for at least an hour before you were interrupted by a knock at the door. Levi looked at you expectantly, and you told them to come in. It was a scout you didn't recognize, relatively tall, with shaggy brown hair that fell across his forehead. He only came in about a foot, then saluted. "Captain, the Commander needs to speak with you. He'd like you to come to his office as soon as possible," he said.

Levi nodded at him in dismissal, and the boy left as quickly as he had arrived. "I shouldn't be long. I'll be back soon," he told you as he stood. He followed the boy out the door and left you to the candlelit room all alone.

---

After two hours, you had long understood that Levi was a good liar, too.

It was now pitch black outside, the candle failing to provide much light. Sleep was fighting you tooth and nail as you shifted around the bed, attempting to find even one comfortable place. Your eyes were begging to shut, but your body wouldn't allow it. You continued like this for another half hour before your mind finally found rest, closer to passing out than comfortably drifting.

When Levi finally returned, the tea was cold. He was quiet as could be, careful not to wake you as he sat in the uncomfortable wooden chair; your position was less than peaceful, he noticed, your body more sprawled out than curled up and your hair in a tangled mess. Your eyebrows were drawn in tightly, your face displaying blatant discomfort. When he looked away, his eyes were pulled right back by a sound escaping your lips. It was soft, yet distressed. He wondered if he should wake you.

You started to toss and turn, your little gasps and groans growing more frequent and closer together. His brow furrowed, and he leaned forward. He tried to make out words, only deciphering the occasional "help" and "mom." Admittedly, it struck his curiosity. He sat and watched you for a moment more before rising from his seat and laying his hand on your shoulder, shaking you gently. "Hey, wake up," he said, trying to sound soft, but really only getting his typical tone across. He called your name, which tasted sweeter than it should have, twice before you finally roused awake.

You sat straight up, practically throwing his hand from your shoulder as you drew in shallow breaths. Your eyes darted around the room, vision a bit blurry, and you jumped when you saw Levi at your side. You were disoriented at best, not taking the time to speak. You noticed the tears brimming in your eyes after a moment, and immediately lifted your hands to wipe them.

"You were having a nightmare, I think. I'm sorry I took so long," Levi finally spoke up, not moving from your immediate bedside.

You cleared your throat, knowing sleep would still be present in your voice, before you replied. You looked over at him, his typical concerned expression more prominent than usual. "It's okay. It isn't your fault," you told him, laying your head in your hands. You felt vulnerable, and you didn't like it. Part of you wished Jean was here to snore loudly while you woke up in tears, not requiring you to interact with anyone.

"Are you okay?" he asked you. You noticed his hand twitch forward and then return to his side -- was he going to reach for you? You found yourself hoping he would.

"I'm . . ." you started, not really knowing how to finish your sentence. You tugged at a tangle in your hair. "Used to it, I guess. Not okay, not terrible. Just indifferent." You figured it summed up your emotions enough. Sleep had started to nag at your eyelids again, likely knowing it would be refreshing rather than restless now that you were no longer alone.

You laid your head back down and looked over at Levi, waiting for him to either reply or sit back down. He did neither; he stood there, studying your face as you had studied his only hours before. He didn't answer until his eyes finally met yours. "Do you need anything? At all?"

The look in his eyes was confusing, one you had never seen before. It was soft, almost endearing. Your voice answered him before your brain permitted it, and you regretted it as soon as it left your lips. "Would you lay with me?" You cursed your mouth and nearly vowed to never open it again. You felt yourself blushing, so much so that you wanted to turn over and bury your face in your pillow to never be seen again.

He wasn't embarrassed, though. His eyes widened a fraction for only a moment before he nodded, then sat on the edge of your bed and unlaced his boots. He pulled them off slowly and set them under the wooden frame, then stood and took off his jacket. He pulled his cravat from his neck swiftly and laid both over the back of the chair. He unbuttoned his shirt quickly, leaving only the gray shirt he wore beneath it. It joined the rest of his clothes on the chair. You moved away from the middle of the bed, allowing him plenty of room.

He didn't use it. He lifted the blanket and climbed in close to you, sliding his arm underneath your shoulders and gently guiding your head to his chest with his hand. Your heart had built up so much pressure you were sure it would explode out of your chest and leave the both of you a bloody mess. You adjusted yourself, shifting to face him and allowing your arm to drape over his stomach. You avoided looking up at him at all costs, but you could feel his eyes burning into the top of your head. This was the strangest, most foreign thing you had ever felt. The most off-center part was that you were entirely comfortable, your body more than relaxed despite your chest's unrelenting tightening.

"I --" you began, unsure of exactly what you were going to say. It didn't matter, because he was quick to interrupt you.

"Hush," he whispered. "Get some sleep."

[shimmershae]

My thoughts on Episode 7--Promises Broken

Placed behind a cut for those of you that would rather escape my babbling, lol.  You’re welcome.  

The episode opens with Maggie, Elijah, Father Gabe, and Negan.  

Right away I can’t help feeling disappointed because the emotional core of last episode (Kelly and Connie’s reunion and the aftermath) seems like it’s being ignored and punted further down the road so we can waste another hour getting piece meal progress on the Reaper front, but I’m going to try to push my misgivings away and enjoy this episode for what it is, so.  

“Daryl just told us to go home.”  

And save your hides and keep the rest of the community safe?  I can’t argue that Negan might have an actual point here, lol.  But Maggie sure can.  

Not gonna lie.  When Negan came back with “I think he was being subtle. He said they were armed with lookouts” I had to LOL.  

“We will never be even.”  I mean.  Maggie been frustrating me with her stubbornness in this suicide mission, true.  But she right.  They will never, ever be even.  

“Ya’ll know Blackbeard, too?”  I admit it.  I laughed.  A little.  

Okay.  I don’t know if this bodes well for this episode or not, but the cold opening in this episode?  Was the most underwhelming cold open of this season.  

At least the opening credits still give me that old familiar rush of the heyday of TWD.  

Fake Stephanie and Eugene are on Walker clean up duty.  Hmm.  I think I’m going to refer to Fake Stephanie as Fifi until she gets a real name for brevity’s sake.  

Fifi handles herself surprisingly well with the Walkers.  Is she one of Mercer’s stormtroopers working undercover maybe?  

Somehow I doubt it’s true that our friends can trust “Lance” but whatever, lol.  

I hate to admit it but I’m already kind of bored with this episode.  We’re barely over 6 minutes in.  

I didn’t recognize Princess without her fluffy pink coat!  

Zeke is definitely struggling.  

I do like that these two  have been paired up.  They have taken to each other quickly and already have a good rapport.  There’s something endearing about their scenes together.  

“Never been afraid of hard work.  Kinda anti-friends who die from stubbornness.”  Have I mentioned lately how much I love Princess?  Because I really, really do.  

So it’s been days.  Has it been days that Maggie and Negan and Co. have been outrunning the Reapers?  I’m talking since they left the safe house.  Does that mean that it’s also been days since Kelly and Connie’s reunion?  This timeline is so slow and yet they keep telling us it’s been days and making me think we’ve been missing time.  Like I can’t even.  

You know Carol’s “Pookie is in danger” senses have to be big-time tingling by now if it’s been DAYS.  

Also?  Alden almost certainly has to be dead.  

But I digress.  They obviously don’t want us getting hung up on the apparent time warp between ASZ, Meridian, and the Commonwealth.  It’s like the Bermuda Triangle of the ZA.  

“A person with your pedigree...”  

Okay then.  Commonwealth is full of uppity assholes.  Good to know.  

Yumiko looks classy!  I say that in my best Princess voice, lol.  

Well.  At least they’ve given Daryl Dog back.  Has Dog come to his senses though?  That is the question.  

Daryl sharing a smoke with the enemy to gain some intel.  Or maybe just the keys to food storage.  

So.  Another redshirt (Elijah’s sister’s friend) we don’t know bites the dust.  Meh.  Including that tidbit in the trailer was purposefully misleading, lol.  Not that I want people to die, but still.  

“But the one?  He’s mine.”  Let’s take bets.  Was it Carver Elijah has a beef with because it just seems like it was.  Could also be that his name is the only one I know, lol.  

Where is Maggie sending our hobbled Father G?  

“I kept my mask for practical and sentimental reasons.”  Negan?  You almost had me.  He really can’t help his inherent asshole-ishness can he?  

But seriously.  Yuck at what they about to do because I assume Alpha and Co. at least cured the nasty skins.  

I wish I could say I give a damn that they’re attempting to give Leah some more likeable layers but it’s a cheap cheat so naw.  

There’s that damn river that symbolizes the great divide between Daryl and his love and his family.  At least it’s pretty.  

I’m with Daryl.  Is Pope just looking to cleanse the earth of those he doesn’t feel belong or what?  Wheedle the truth out of her, Daryl.  

“You never needed anyone to make you strong.”  

Think our guy has ever said this to his real girl?  

It’s kinda funny that the Whisperer flunkie is now the herding Whisperer tutor.  

Is that the Reaper’s version of a priest?  Sorry.  I swear.  I’ve been trying to pay attention during their scenes.  But my mind wanders because it feels like Woodbury and the Sanctuary all over again.  The Whisperers at least were elevated by Samantha Morton, Ryan Hurst, Thora Birch, and yes, Jeffrey Dean Morgan.  Like I love Norman Reedus and the character he’s crafted in Daryl but he’s not enough to have me enthralled with Leah and these dudes.  I don’t care if they were all Calendar pinups before the ZA.  

Truly.  A+ casting with Yumiko’s brother.  

Yeah.  Something’s definitely fishy about Tomi’s reluctance to go back to his old life in the Commonwealth, but the desire for a slower, less stressful existence is definitely relatable so I’m not going to hold that part against him at all.  

What did Maggie say after Elijah asked if Negan had changed?  Because I replayed it a handful of times and still don’t know.  

This Lancy Hornsby dude reeks of slimy politician.  

Too much one on one Daryl and Leah in this episode.  Without any kind of chemistry at least these two drag each other and their parts of the episode down.  Leah’s character is a fail for me and it has nothing to do with shipping reasons.  She’s just not believable or authentic to her role as a mercenary.  

“If I could do it all over again, I’d have killed every single one of you.”  Damn.  Well.  He’s being true to himself, I guess.  Unapologetically Negan.  

Again.  I can’t say Negan’s wrong exactly but shit does he deliver some uncomfortable truths.  

Princess’s childlike delight over treats is <3.  

Look at Eugene running toward danger!  OG Eugene would never.  Abe would be so proud.  

Eugene and Fifi actually work pretty good together but it all feels so staged.  I feel sorry for our guy.  

“This guy was being, well, an asshole.”  LMAO @ Josh’s delivery. The asshole definitely deserved that punch and his date deserved to be eaten.  

Real Stephanie is so pretty.  

Aww.  She’s concerned about Eugene.  

Oh shit.  Eugene punched Pamela Milton’s little entitled prick of a son.  This feels like the ASZ Monroes all over again.  Sorry.  I can’t remember their names.  

Poor Eugene.  Have I said that already?  

Is this Lance Hornsby guy the lesser of two evils or...”  

All the chances you’ve gotten, hmm?  Seems to me they’ve been set up for some failure too, though.  

Maggie and Negan leading a herd where?  Meridian?  

That poor woman.  Just wanting her family safe and spared of seeing her meet her maker.  

f

So Leah’s not completely cold.  Okay.  Doesn’t mean she’s able to be saved though.  

At this point, Kang is just  yanking Daryl’s chain and ours in the process.  

Even hidden behind that skin mask, Elijah made me tear up when he saw his sister.  

No previews?  What a copout.  

Not Kang correlating Maggie and Negan to child and coach, lol.  

The narrative they keep pushing about the villains having families and FEELINGS doesn’t change much for me, Angela.  Gracie was the only innocent in that outpost Team Family attacked.  I’m not saying they should have done it but stop trying to make the bad guys sympathetic.  It isn’t earned.  

Interesting how she mentions Gabe is trying so very hard to hold onto faith.  

If Leah’s the frog boiling in that pot?  They better be serving frog legs to the starving community she’s hunting.  Just saying.  

Overall impression of this episode?  

It was boring.  No seriously.  

I wish I could say I liked it better but it was just meh.  I can’t even muster up any words because I just feel blah about it and that’s not a good feeling to have going into the first final (mid?  half?  tri?  I don’t know what to call it) episode of the season.  

Withholding the previews further adds to the doldrums because what is there to actually be excited about here after that episode?  At least try to pique our interest, Angela.  

[space-blue]

Ask game:

Fathers and Daughters: 1, 2, 4, 5, 11, 12, 13, 15

Wow, Anon, take me to diner first! (I'm joking, thank you so much, that's such a big ask! I'll try to be concise) From these fic asks.

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

Not sure about what way. The style, the topic? Why Silco adopting Vi? I'll go with that. The show had just ended, and everything was pain. I wanted a better version, where Silco was a little better, and Vi wasn't so…. underdeveloped. I felt like she was the worst character, completely shafted by the narrative to be our POV into act II and III and sped run through a dubious romance. Beyond that I had very few rational thoughts. I was a brain inflamed. Star Wars? Original fiction I was supposed to do Nano about? Out the fucking window. I had to process all these feelings… I was inspired by how fucking INSANE that show made me. I never experienced a brain rewiring like I did with Arcane. I was also turbo stressed at the time, and obsessing over the fic was pure escapism.

2: What scene did you first put down?

Literally chapter 1. I don't pre write, and I don't plot. I literally sat down and wrote : "Vi doesn't really understand who pulled what sort of levers, for her to be walking free again after only two months in a Piltovan holding jail." and ran from there.

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

That is impossible to answer!! 80% of the fic is dialogue! The entire story is character moving from one dialogue to another! Okay… If I have to pick, for brevity's sake I'll go for that early introduction of Syd's character :

'Stop hiring idiots and get some kids off the streets for me. At least I can train kids!! Fuck, I could train a cat to do this job, but not the fuckos in that last batch. ASK IF THEY CAN DO MULTIPLICATIONS!! I'm not running a candy shop!' is adorning the bottom of a wholesaler's receipt.

I felt very smug later on, when I was able to recall that bit when Silco introduces Syd to Vi :

'You said you'd rather train someone than inherit incompetents,' Silco protests, jabbing a finger into Syd's chest. 'As I recall, you said you could train a cat to do the job. I think Vi is probably smarter than that.'Vi snorts. 'Well, thanks.'

5: What part was hardest to write?

I have more hard chapters than I care to admit. I think the second big Silco and Vi conversation (about Vander and Silco's past) was very hard because I was using two different sets of notes. Some written about Silco's backstory, back when Talia (Sevika's sister) had a pretty different role, and I had a pretty poor grasp of Vander as a character. The other notes were written because I was struggling with the early part of the chapter. By the time I'd caught up to that scene, I was juggling all this pre-written content and I haaaate that.

Another rough one was the first Vi chapter after all those Silco PoVs. I never really managed to recover my Vi voice. I think she sounds weaker in newer chapters and gives me more grief. My betas don't see it, so it's probably in my head x'D

11: What do you like best about this fic?

The universe it created, that's home to other little fics. It's just kinder than the canon universe, but not completely different. It's a space that's fun to live in, as a writer, more than my other AUs. I also love how much fun I've been able to have with minor characters like Mek or Syd, and how it gave me such a big audience to pitch my Dark!Vander theory ( •̀ ω •́ )✧

12: What do you like least about this fic?

How hard it's gotten to write. Also, how long it is… Because see, if I lack inspiration or am stuck, I'll usually reread everything I have… I've re-read this fic to death, can't handle it anymore. Still, I love it to death—yet I'm tired of it. I kind of know where I'm going with the ending, and it's making a lot of the writing tedious, like I over-plotted. I end up extending it with surprise chapters like the last one, just to keep myself on my toes. That's how you add 12 chapters without noticing though, so I gotta be careful.

13: What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

I listen to a lot of weird shit. I've listened to the full Arcane OST times and times again, of course, but I also listen to a lot of "viking" music (Danheim, Heilung, Forndom, Wardruna…), all three albums of Carbon Based Lifeforms I own (Hydroponic Gardens, Interloper, Derelicts), the latest Black Keys (Delta Kream), and a ton of mixes of Vapor Wave, tribal/folk electronica, tech noir, and other techno/electronic music, jazz/bossa nova, and lofi. Here are some of the youtube mixes I listen to regularly. And yeah, also a LOT of skyrim/Jeremy Soule music lol

15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

That being a turbo panther doesn't actually get in the way of writing good character development and multi chapter emotional arcs. I kept not wanting to "rush" Vi to the point where she just accepts Silco. I knew it was an end goal, for her to love him… But I didn't have a scene in mind, and I'm glad that painstakingly writing everything blind, in a linear fashion, didn't actually get in the way of making it work! I honestly wasn't sure, this is my best and longest work to date after all!!

[thegrimzuera]

1 + 4 for the ask game? I'm always down to hear more about Autumn! 😁❤️🧡

Ahhh you are the sweetest 💛 thank you!

Spoilers for my Kiribaku (Bakugou centric) fanfic In the Roaring Autumn are below the cut. If you haven’t read it yet, click the link to the story and take a gander! These answers are in response to this fanfic ask meme I reblogged yesterday.

1. If you had to create a soundtrack for your story, what songs would you choose? Why?

This is such a great question, and I’m going to interpret it more as songs that remind me of my story and the characters than as if I were constructing a film with background music.

The Lakes - Taylor Swift

This song is one I heard well into the writing process of In the Roaring Autumn, but it was one of those situations where I felt like my brain had been hacked and the guts of my story were spilled out in this gorgeous, cottagecore-esque song. The idea of running away into nature—away from society and the eyes that are always watching a little too closely—is so true to Katsuki’s desires in the story.

Lines like “I’m not cut out for all these cynical clones/ these hunters with cell phones” and “what should be over burrowed under my skin in heart-stopping waves of hurt/ I’ve come too far to watch some name-dropping sleaze tell me what are my words worth” stand out to me in particular. They really speak to Katsuki’s struggle to let go of his own past and all the devastation and guilt he feels because of it, and also the ways in which other people in his life (primarily Midoriya in this case) have tried to tell Katsuki what he meant with his own actions and what he must do in order to redeem himself.

And of course the fact that the narrator of the song isn’t escaping alone. They’re going to the lakes to look over cliff sides and be with the only person they trust—the only person who can understand the ways which they’ve been cast out. One might even say Kirishima is the “red rose” that “grew up from ice frozen ground.” Katsuki is escaping the bounds of society, but as the song says in its final line, not without his muse—not without Kirishima.

I Was an Island - Allison Weiss

I have no idea whether anyone else in the world knows this song or not (it could be a beloved classic or a complete unknown for all I know), but in my opinion it is THE quintessential Kiribaku song, and therefore it must be included. I have a feeling that it works in most any universe that includes Kiribaku, even (and especially) canon. But, I think of it particularly in regards to the last third or so of the story where Katsuki begins to pull back out of fear, deciding it’s better to avoid Kirishima altogether than to tell the truth about his struggles. The song deals with a lot of the same things Katsuki is going through—this idea that he was a loner and he liked it that way, and then Kirishima came along and changed all of that.

I imagine that Katsuki would particularly resonate with lines like “I was a fighter and I was so brave/ but I lowered my sword when you held me and swore you’d stay stay stay” “I was a wolf dear/ apart from the pack/ but you heard my cry in the dead of the night and told me that you had my back” and “I’m no good on my own anymore/ what did I do to deserve this/ what did you do to me/ baby come back, you know I don’t wanna be free”.

Medicine - Daughter

This song is so heavy and angsty and I love it for Autumn. I imagine that it could be from either/both Katsuki and Eijirou’s perspectives and they try to help each other out of unhealthy coping mechanisms and numbness. It’s all about how they both see each other’s worth and wish to communicate that. It’s about encouraging the best in each other, encouraging accountability, but also saying “hey, if you mess up once in a while, that doesn’t change who you are and what you’re capable of”. The opening line starts it off right for me “Pick it up/ Pick it all up/ And start again./ You’ve got a second chance/ You could go home/ Escape it all, it’s just irrelevant.”

Don’t mistake my brevity for lack of love for this song. I just thing the song really speaks for itself. If somehow you haven’t heard it in the blessed year of 2021, please go listen now! It’s one of my favorites.

That’s enough songs I suppose 😅 considering I rambled so much.

4. What are your main character(s) motivations? What do you consider their main drivers?

This question actually made me pause! I think because it’s been a while since Autumn ended and I want to get it right. At the time of writing I was very connected to Katsuki as a character, so while I didn’t necessarily ever put this into words, I definitely knew his motivation. I’ll start with him and try to put myself back in his shoes for a moment.

Katsuki’s motivation more than anything else, I think, is to feel safe. There may have been a time when he wanted to be the best, but we come into his life at a point where he’s kind of thrown his hands up and said “Fuck that bullshit!” It’s something that Katsuki realizes is out of character for himself—so out of character that he no longer knows how to function. He’s living his life on the run in a way, choosing isolation as a means of protecting himself from things that he sees as threats to his well-being: consequences, human relationships, the wrestling team as a whole, and the concept of processing his trauma. We see him build wall after wall throughout the story, but we also see Kirishima peeling those walls away brick by brick. Soon enough Katsuki stops looking at Kirishima as a threat to his safety, and he begins to see him as a help to his safety. It’s a beautiful change, but through it all Katsuki’s motivation stays the same. I would say even with the lessons that Katsuki learns and the ways he grows, the moral is never that he was wrong for prioritizing his mental health and well-being. That was very important to me.

Kirishima’s motivation is a little more difficult for me to pin down (haha, wrestling puns), especially in hindsight. I think I’m looking for some sort of deep or abstract answer when in reality, the thing driving Kiri is the desire to be good. He’s made some poor choices in the past, and they were choices he knew were poor even when acting them out. It’s something that weighs heavily on him—something that has altered the way that he lives his life in a very permanent sense. Kirishima wants to do the right thing; it’s the reason he’s so willing to examine Midoriya’s actions and motives when (as Katsuki mentions) everyone else sees Midoriya’s gentle demeanor and assumes the best in him. It’s also the reason that Kirishima emphasizes Katsuki’s own goodness to him. Kirishima knows what it’s like to feel less than, or to feel that you’ve fucked up so supremely that you have no honor at all. Not only does he want to prevent Katsuki from feeling those things, he actually views Katsuki as the morally superior between the two of them and looks to Katsuki as an example of authenticity, honesty, heart, and goodness.

Thank you for sending in these lovely questions! It was so fun to recall where my brain was at the time of writing this story and in some ways examining it from a deeper perspective. I really need to dedicate more time to writing my upcoming fic because CLEARLY I have the urge to spill a lot of words into the universe right now.

[nickydestati]

duolingo tog prompts #10

prompt: on which balcony are you? (su quale balcone sei tu?)

***

usually, joe was more of an improviser, a let’s-see-what-the-moment-brings kind of man. he just followed his heart wherever it wanted to go and dove into things head first. nicky was the planner, the one overthinking everything to the point joe had to gently coax him out of his own head. 

this time, though, joe had planned everything meticulously. feverishly almost. so much so that nile asked him if he was alright and andy assured him everything would be fine and he shouldn’t worry so much about it. just be yourself joe, booker had said, that will be more than enough for him. 

still, that wouldn’t be enough for joe this time. it didn’t have to be ‘more than enough’, it had to be perfect. 

so nothing was left to chance. literally everything that happened, was carefully planned in advance. he had planned to convince nicky to return to malta for their yearly vacation, right to the place they had been on their first vacation together and that held more happy memories than joe could count. he had planned to book a small holiday house with a balcony. he had planned to cook nicky’s favorite dinner there, singing and dancing together to a mixtape joe had made for him when they were still two pining teenagers. he had planned for nicky to grow a little drowsy in his arms while watching a documentary on history they both loved. he had planned to slip away under the guise of a late night walk and nicky offering to come with him out of politeness even though he was way too cozy on the couch and him reassuring nicky it was fine and he would be back soon. he had planned for the guitar to be hidden in an alcove by the door to the backyard. 

he had not planned for it to be raining, but that couldn’t be helped, alas.

he tuned his guitar very quietly. his fingers were trembling, and he shook his hand to try and shake it away. he picked up the piece of paper with the scribbled lyrics and chords and went over it one more time. 

his heart was beating like a chased rabbit and tight knot of nerves and exhilaration curled and twisted in his stomach. he took a deep breath, stepped out of the shelter of the balcony into the rain and fished his phone from his pocket. 

come to the balcony, love. <3

he pressed send and put his phone away quickly so he could stand at the ready. his heart was completely losing any semblance of a rhythm as he waited for a silhouette to appear at the window. his fingers stung from where he pressed the strings too hard in his anticipation, but he barely noticed it.

he waited. and waited. and waited some more, getting soaked to the bone in the process. 

eventually, he fished out his phone again. no answer.

he dialed nicky’s number and pressed the phone to his ear. it rang three times before a very groggy nicky sounded on the other end. “joe? are you alright? is somethi-?”

“everything’s fine, my heart. did you get my text?”

“text? no, i’m sorry,” nicky says with a sleepy sigh in his voice. “i fell asleep, i didn’t see it.”

“that’s fine, that’s fine. can you come to the balcony, honey?”

“to the balcony? yes of course, amore mio, but i’m getting a little worried here.” 

the small, still slightly sleepy chuckle in nicky’s voice sent a jolt right through joe’s chest. he could hear him walk around on the other end, shoving something. he strained his neck to see if his head was already peeking over the balcony, but there was no sign of him yet.

“i’m on the balcony, are you there? or what am i looking for?” nicky asked.

“no you’re not,” joe said, stepping back a little to get a better view. “i’m standing below it and i can’t see you.”

“well, i can’t see you either.”

“wait, on which balcony are you?”

“the one at the front."

“at the front? that small thing? it hardly fits the definition of a balcony, babe! no, i meant the one overlooking the garden.”

“oh but i thought you said you were going for a walk?”

joe rubbed his face, mentally scolding himself for not anticipating on the fact the house had two balconies. “yeah, i know. will you just come please, babe?”

nicky answered, but joe noticed the light flicking on inside, so he quickly threw his phone away and put his fingers in the right position again. the rain had made the wood of his guitar slippery, but he would manage. from now on, everything would go according to plan again. it had to.

he started playing as nicky stepped onto the balcony. his heart jumped in his chest as nicky’s confusion melted into that wonderful, brilliant smile he reserved only for joe. 

yes, joe thought smugly, right back on track.

he was just about to start singing when a terrible sting shot right through his hand.

“ouch!” he yelled as he instinctively pulled his hand back from the snapped string. because that was what had happened: the fucking string of his fucking guitar had fucking snapped in the middle of the most important moment in his life.

“joe! are you alright?” nicky asked, his perfect smile replaced by a look of alarm. “hold on, i'm coming down.”

“no no, stay there!” joe said hastily. he tried to play again, but it sounded absolutely awful with only five strings at his disposal. with a sigh he gave up and looked up at nicky, who was observing him with an amused smile on his face. a smile that was also so full of love and adoration that it made joe’s frustrations all melt away.

“this is why i don’t plan things, my heart,” he said and nicky laughed with that adorable snort of his. “believe it or not, but i had everything, and i mean everything, planned out. to the smallest detail. but i guess this is the universe telling me to never plan anything ever again.”

he paused for a moment, looking at his wrecked guitar and his soaked clothes.

“i had a whole speech prepared,” he continued in italian, his eyes finding nicky again. his beacon in the storm. “but i think i’ll take the universe’s hint and do this my way. nicky, my light, my all, you know how much you mean to me. you know i love you more than i ever thought was possible. i love you more than there are grains of dirt in all the world. i love you more than there are stars in the sky. i love you more than guitars with strings that don’t snap.”

nicky laughed again and it was all the music this moment needed.

“i love you more than brevity, more than uncertainty. so, nicky, my heart, will you marry me?”

instead of answering, nicky crawled over the balustrade.

“nicky! what are you doing? that’s dangerous!” joe hastily put his guitar on the ground and ran to nicky to catch him if he should fall. by some miracle, though, nicky managed to reach the ground fairly elegantly and fairly unscathed. 

“i’m supposed to be the impulsive one,” joe said as he took nicky in his arms and pressed a kiss to nicky’s temple.

nicky smiled and cupped joe’s face in his hands with a gentleness that made joe’s knees weak. “i have to see your eyes when i give you my answer,” nicky says softly in arabic, his eyes shimmering and his smile lighting up the whole rainy night, “so i can treasure it and replay it in my heart whenever i need it. yusuf al-kaysani, joe, my life, yes. yes, of course i will marry you.”

joe made a strangled sound and couldn’t do anything but kiss this man, the love of his life, while tears of joy escaped him and a dazzling wave of relief and utter happiness rocked through his entire body.

*

“don’t you have a ring for me, amore mio?” nicky asked when they were both back inside, helping each other out of their soaked clothes to jump in a nice hot shower.

joe stood there paralysed for a full minute. a ring. a ring.  

“you forgot about a ring, didn’t you?” nicky asked, his eyes alight with amusement. he chuckled and kissed joe’s horrified lips. “maybe i’ll do the planning for the wedding, don’t you think?”

joe laughed despite himself, hiding his face behind his hand in embarrassment. “yes, i think that’s an excellent idea, my love.”