#but I think his resentment over what was done to him ties directly into how he would resist undergoing any procedures or physical changes

[youngpettyqueen]

thinking about trans Julian again specifically thinking about the idea of Julian being trans but electing to not undergo any gender-affirming surgeries

like I was thinking about this the other day in the context of his line about him and Kira being the only other options for a womb when he had to transplant the baby from Keiko, because the implication that Julian has a womb also implies he's elected out of having a hysterectomy for gender-affirming purposes. I say that because we know gender-affirming surgeries- at least the more cosmetic ones- are very easy to undergo (see Profit and Lace, where they very quickly and easily turn Quark into a woman (yes I know it wasn't gender-affirming for him but its the easiest episode to use for my point)) so I feel like it wouldnt be a reach to say that a hysterectomy would be a fairly easy procedure to ask for and undergo

which as ive been thinking about it more I think this like. perfectly tracks with Julian as a character, that he would opt out of undergoing gender-affirming procedures. because I think, considering what his parents did to him and how strongly he resents it, that he would steer clear of anything he would view as "changing" himself. honestly so far in the future I think its safe to assume views of transitioning are very different, and I'd like to think that there wouldnt be nearly as much social pressure to physically transition at all, but even if there was I think Julian would be very resistant to the idea that he would "have" to change anything about himself. Julian is very unapologetically himself in every regard, so im pretty confident in saying that that would translate over to his gender identity and asserting that he is a man, and he doesnt need to change anything about himself or his body to be one

[tojiwrd]

2: fate is fickle ; gojo satoru

summary when satoru breaks off your engagement, you understand and accept it. but when he marries someone else, you don't understand because he didn't want to be tied down.

warnings swearing, gojo emotional constipation, lots of crying, mourning, death

word count 2k

a/n part 2 so we can feel smt

send requests ↞ prev next ↠ to be added to taglist

You took a breath—a long and deep one that filled nearly every corner of your shaking body—as you raised your foot to lightly push against Satoru’s shin and send him stumbling back. If you were to keep this tapestry of being healed up for him to see, him being a hair’s breadth away from you would make it extremely difficult.

“I don’t wanna talk about anything, Gojo.” You paused, teeth fiddling with your lip before you looked up to meet his gaze that was steadfast and focused directly on you. “We broke up and you got married, remember?”

His jaw clenched like a person who was in a play and the character in the scene messed up their dialogue and now he had to improvise. In fact, that was surely what happened. 

“I know—fuck, I know. I was there.”

“Good, then that means we’re on the same page.”

This was the part where you grabbed your phone from the glass table beside you and walked past him to go to your room. And your body was itching in every part, waiting for you to do so, but your feet remained stationary on the ground. You were strong and you could walk away from Satoru, walk away from him like he did you. But a part of you was curious in a way you couldn’t explain. In your mind, there truly was nothing to explain on Satoru’s end except he was being a major asshole and messed up real bad. Still, the questions you’d thrown away out of nothing but embarrassment when you called him and Hana picked up lingered on your tongue once again. 

Nothing was said, though, and the pale moonlight coating both your figures remained the only source to prove you and him were there. Together. Alone. After so long. You reached down to grab your phone in an attempt to do exactly what you should’ve done minutes ago.

Satoru, sensing that his time was running out, reached out to you, almost encasing your arms with his fingers before he pulled back. “Listen, Y/N. I just don’t want you to hate me.” Your lips parted in shock at his words, rendering you completely and utterly speechless once again. “You were the first person who—” He paused, closing his eyes as he threw his head back in frustration. “You were the first person who loved me and I can’t go on knowing that you hate me.” There was a gleaming twinkle in his eyes as he reminded you of what you both once were, of what could’ve done.

The words flew out of your mouth quickly. “Satoru, what’s done is done. It’s selfish to hold onto how I was the first person who loved you because people change.” You sure did. Quickly. You kept those words to yourself, not wanting to show resentment over his actions and laying your heart completely on your sleeve, ripe for the picking. “And I think you need to be okay with people not liking you because that’s the way life is.”

The twinkle died. Not in burning, scorching flames, but in the gentlest way one’s shine could completely disappear from their visage. Like a wilted petal that slowly falls off its stem, the wind carrying it away. He was now looking at you with not hope, not pleading, but with complete and utter sadness—it was the same sadness you carried on your face for months while images of the two of you ran rampant through your mind. And there wasn’t a shred of you that could find itself to feel any form of sympathy for him because he never felt it for you.

“Y/N…” Your name was like a prayer that came out of his mouth, and you could see his eyes blinking furiously like they did when he was scrambling for any idea, any words to stop you from walking away. “I’m…”

You waited. Truly, you did, but the apology never came. It reminded you of all the times you’d argued with Satoru, and ended up taking him back in your arms once you cooled down and he diverted your mind from the matter. He never apologized, though, and you always realized that much after you took him back, once the wound was healed enough that a doctor would turn you away if you came asking for a checkup.

Nothing had changed, and when you walked away from the balcony, the empty glass of wine heavy in one hand and phone in another, you felt at ease. Because nothing had changed and Satoru wasn’t your problem anymore.

“That’s—he’s so, ugh!” Reina said, exasperated, once you recounted the events to her. You had to physically guide her to your bed and make her sit down with her hands on your lap while you thought about handcuffing her so she wouldn’t run to Satoru and Hana’s house and physically strangle him. But you glossed over it, severely underestimating your friend.

You rolled your eyes, perfectly showing her you agree, but she still asked, “You promise me that was it? That you walked away and didn’t like, I don’t know, run to him and kiss him like he’d just gotten back from war?”

You narrowed your eyes, moderately offended she could even suggest that after everything that went down between the two of you. “Fuck you,” you replied, chuckling as you swatted her on the arm. 

She turned her body to face you more, and you gathered all your courage to hear what she was preparing herself to say. “No matter what. No matter what, babe, you aren’t going to hear him out because he deserves none of your time and, in fact, doesn’t even deserve to do so much as breathe in your direction.” Her arms flailed around, an action that always occurred when she was giving you her honesty (and to smack the sense and direction you knew you needed into you). “And.” She took in a breath, as if it was taking everything in her to say the words. “He has a girl at home—he had a girl at home waiting for him the night of the dinner, too. And you don’t want to fall into the trap of a taken man, Y/N, trust me.”

When your mother walked into your room, eyes filled with steel determination, you braced yourself for a lecture about something you’d done recently.

“I’m not giving Takayashi the company,” she said, words laced with venom as your eyes narrowed. You knew she was hardballing, trying to get the Gojo’s to cough up every penny they could, but you thought that she’d sign it over—at least half of it—because it was built on your dad and Takayashi’s foundation. 

“Ma—”

“I don’t want to hear any debate about this, sweetheart. I’m doing exactly as your father would’ve wanted me to do, even if it means going throat to throat with a man as deadset as him. I just wanted to tell you so you wouldn’t hear it from word of mouth.”

You swallowed, confusion tangling into the web of emotions in your mind. “Papa was good friends with Mr. Gojo, wasn’t he? He only took the company because Mr. Gojo was dealing with legal problems?” Your words didn’t sound too sure, and it was because you remembered how your father spent the last few months of his life badmouthing the eldest of the Gojo family. “Or am I missing something?”

“He…” She began, feet padding across the floor as she reached your bed and took a seat on the edge. Her fingers traced the minimal pattern of the baby’s breath flowers on the blanket before she continued, “Takayashi, he tried to frame your father, in some way.” You gasped, a hand reaching over and cupping your mouth. “I know, I thought the same. But it’s truly a miracle what a man behind bars would do, the straws he would cling onto. Though he was soon proven to be lying, of course, and served his time.” 

“Mama.”

“I know he was probably trying to save his own skin and didn’t mean to betray your father, sweetheart, but this… this company is the last I have left of him. I can’t give it away for a wad of cash.”

Your lips trembled, and in that moment you realized you were looking into not just the eyes of your mother who’d sung lullabies to you and pretended as if the green vegetables were actually fancy chocolate to get you to eat them, but a woman who had been holding her husband as he paused in the middle of talking as his eyes grew as wide as saucers. She was the woman that willed to keep him breathing, breathing all he could as she hoped there was more—more time, more breath, you weren’t sure because you weren’t there—until he whispered his last words to her. She was the woman that cradled her own husband as he died because his last words were let me as he weakly cupped her jaw. She didn’t jump to call an ambulance because the small part—the realistic part—in her told her that this was it, and she’d heard too many stories of people losing their loved ones while they were stammering their words to a complete stranger over the phone, willing them to come at light speed. 

You knew how difficult grief was, and only had your mother to truly depend on after your father died. But your pain wasn’t the same as hers, and you understood. She’d lost the man she vowed to spend the rest of her life with, the man that she had been bound to for so long she couldn’t even look at another man as anything but a nuisance in her life.

“Mama, it’s okay,” you soothed. Your voice cracked as you realized how difficult it must’ve been for her to sit across the same man that betrayed her dead husband. 

She shook her head, as if she was physically trying to will away her thoughts, before she asked, “Are you? Okay, I mean.”

You nodded, a little too quickly. “Of course. Aside from, you know, papa…”

“I’m sorry you had to be around Satoru for so long.”

“Mama, please. I told you it’s nothing.” You giggled, a horrid attempt at not physically recoiling at how easily she’d caught onto everything. You had told her it was nothing, too, a few days after the wedding invitations arrived and she spotted the pink rhinestone underneath your desk, right next to your books, and asked you if you were okay. 

“I know you told me it’s nothing but could you tell me what happened? Only if you want to, of course. I may have heard you and Reina talking about Satoru the other day when I walked past your room; I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, of course, I only heard a bit of what Reina said.”

You grimaced, and decided to hell with it. “We were—” you hiccuped before you could even let out the next word. Your mother moved closer to you, eyes wary and attentive. You thought about it, thought about how your mother would’ve put her entire soul into making sure you and Satoru had the perfect wedding. “Mama, I can’t.”

A sob wracked through your entire body, and for a moment, you felt like you were seven once again and had just seen your crush spend recess with another girl as your body doubled over and your head was guided to her lap. Her fingers brushed through the strands of your hair, a touch that could only ever be a mother’s, as she used her soft, gentle voice to calm you down.

“Mama, we were engaged.”

Her fingers stopped midway through your hair, and underneath your skin, you felt her body go rigid. She was floored, and rightfully so. It wasn’t something she could’ve guessed, especially not after she’d seen the two of you at dinner the other day, so silent and indifferent it would be hard to imagine you were once ready to spend the entirety of your lives with each other. 

“Oh, baby.” You didn’t dare look up to see her expression, knowing it was marred with sorrow and pity. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

The air was thick, and you were sure it would be hard for you to breathe because the air had been sucked out of the room the moment you told your mother about the engagement.

[lokisprettygirl]

Close Ties (Daemon Targaryen x Female Reader) (Modern AU) (Non canon) (18+)

Read Chapter 13 // Series Masterlist

Chapter 14

Summary : Your life takes a drastic turn as family secrets are revealed.

Warning: 18+ dad's best friend trope, canon (we don't know her..don't like don't read), feeling of hopelessness, uncle Daemon kink (you don't have to squint), familial uncle niece sort of relationship but he's not really her uncle, there will be more smut later, masturbation, significant age gap but reader is in her mid twenties, mention of infidelity, miscarriage , divorce, smoking and alcohol drinking, physical violence implied

Time carried the ability to change in the brink of a moment and you had never understood the importance of it until now. At the hospital you paced back and forth as your mother was admitted after she had fainted, she had been stressed for a while and finding out about your relationship with Daemon as well as your father's affair with Stella was too much at once for her.

However she was okay and that was a relief, as you watched you mum and dad having a conversation all you felt for your father was anger and you knew you didn't want to be there any more. You couldn't even look at him the same way without feeling disgusted.

“Can you take me home?” you asked Daemon but he didn't even look at you as he answered you.

“Don't think your father would appreciate that”

“I'm an adult Daemon, I can go home with whoever I want and he can't do anything about it”

He nodded as you said that and obliged, you were hurting and he didn't want to add to it..

On the drive back home none of you said a word, he could sense your anger towards your father. When the truth of your relationship with Daemon came out you were worried about disappointing him but now you were disappointed in him. You had looked up to your father as a perfect man who despite all the temptations he received because of his status stayed loyal to your mother but it was all lies.

He was a good father to you, always had been but he wasn't a good husband to your mother, sure he treated her well all her life and loved her but like Daemon had said before he didn't respect her enough to not cheat on her, atleast not that night when he chose to fuck his best friend's wife.

You looked at Daemon and you felt a sense of resentment towards him as well, he made you break things off with Cassandra which you were grateful for but then he forgave your dad after what he had done to him?

About an hour later as you stormed inside his room he was on the bed icing those bruises your father had given him and for a moment your anger towards the situation melted. He was alone, he got hurt by the people he trusted and loved the most and still carried the strength to open his heart for forgiveness, not just that but he also protected your father's shameful truth from your mother and you all these years when he could have spilled the truth for revenge..

“Sit down pixie, I need you to calm down”

You walked towards the bed and sat down as he said that and then you chuckled,

“Were you calm when you found out that your wife chose to fuck your best friend and your best friend didn't resist her either?” his jaw clenched as you said that as if he was reminded of the moment he had figured that out.

“No i wasn't calm and I'm not asking you to not be upset but I need you to trust me when I say this that you'd need to forgive your father, it's all in the past anyways” the way he just wanted you to get over it made you even more upset.

“Yeahhh. Past? Who's to say Stella was the only one?”

“She was ..trust me she was the only one”

You got up from the bed as he said that and turned towards him so he was facing you directly, you wanted to look into his eyes while he spewed such bullshit to you.

“I need to know the truth, the whole truth, he was your best man, he was your best friend then how could he do this to you?” You asked him but words came out all choked from your own tears, this is why he never wanted to tell you the truth, he wanted to protect your feelings, you looked up to your father, he was your hero but that would change now.

“Remember that last trip we took?” He asked you so you nodded in response,

“I took your mum for a tour of the city, she slipped and hurt herself so I took her to the hospital since your dad was at the hotel busy with some calls he had to take. Stella was there too...she didn't want to come with us .. I don't know what happened but your dad told me that they both went to the bar together for a drink and got to talking, then she made a move on him”

His voice was devoid of any emotion as he said those words as if the event didn't even affect him anymore. You did remember the day, you didn't want to go anywhere that day so you had just stayed in your room all day long.

“Ofcourse she did but did he not remember that he was fucking married and had a child with his highschool sweetheart?” you asked him, your voice was full of contempt.

“I'm sure he did but not in those moments, they were drunk, she started to flirt incessantly with him, that's what she does apparently, telling him things like how handsome and rich he was becoming with every passing day” your expressions turned to one of disgust as you thought about the situation

“Your father was a good looking man but somehow he always felt insecure, especially when he wasn't who he is today, your mum was the only woman to have loved him like that and when a tall beautiful woman like Stella started to flirt with him, in his drunken state he couldn't resist her. That's what he told me, he was not proud of what he had done, he was a fucking mess when I confronted him, he tried everything he could to make me stay but i didn't. I couldn't, so he begged me to keep you and your mum away from this, told me that he couldn't lose you two as well” you scoffed as he finished his words.

“But he was okay with losing you and he kept us in the dark and for years he allowed us to make our own perceptions regarding you and you're here trying to protect him for all his wrongdoings” you turned around to storm out so he grabbed your arm and stood up to pull you closer to him,

“I'm not turning blind eye to his mistakes y/n” there was a look of anger in his eyes, he wanted to get through to you and for you to lean into him for support and not run away from him when you felt hurt and betrayed.

“But you want me to forgive him?” You asked him so he kissed your forehead which made you chuckle again “Well took you ten years to do the same and you won't even give me time to be upset and angry?”

You took yourself out of his hold and turned around to leave for your room, you couldn't be around him if he was going to behave like this.

“I took ten years because I had the luxury of time, you don't y/n..your father won't be around for long”

You halted in your steps as he said that. You wanted him to take his words back but there was a sinking feeling in your gut, as you turned around to look at him, there were tears in his eyes and fear in yours.

“What did you say?”

He walked towards you and grabbed you by the shoulders to pull you closer to him, your eyes looked up at him shocked and confused so he cupped your cheeks before he spoke again,

“I didn't just come back to repair my relationship with your father or settle back in London, I came back because he begged me to do so and you don't ever deny a dying man's wish, you never ever do that”

You looked at him with a look of shock splattered all over your face, mouth stayed open in surprise as you processed the information.. this can't be real right because it indeed felt like a nightmare. How could your life take such a drastic turn so suddenly?

“He made a mistake and ruined my life, I forgave him but i didn't forget and I don't think I'd ever forget what he had done to me that night but I am choosing to forgive him for all those times our friendship wasn't tarnished and ruined by his lack of self control, for all the good times we had with each other, i forgave him and came back and I'm so glad that I did because it led me to you and you have become the most important person in my life now”

You burst into a fit of cry as he finished his words so he wrapped his arms around you and hugged you tightly to console you, he didn't want you to spend the night alone with no one to comfort you.

“Take your time pixie, I'm not asking you to forget everything but when you fall asleep tonight think of all those cherished moments your father gave you and how happy he had made you all these years”

After a while when tears refused to come out you looked up at him and pressed soft little kisses on his bruises. He was a gem of a person, he was the true friend perhaps your dad didn't even deserve in his life, he threw it all away for a few moments of fun but Daemon was right, your father had given you the best life and had supported all your life decisions, no matter how ridiculous they were. He had loved you and your mum, there was no denying that.

“I'll forgive him if mum does, i won't forgive him if she won't”

“She would.. sweetheart”

“What's wrong with him?” Your eyes welled up again as you questioned him about your dad's illness. Suddenly it all clicked, the random trips and Daemon insisting you to join the family business and to learn from your father while he was here, everything connected.

“Carcinoid tumor, your father is being treated by his trusted doctor in the states, he didn't want to get treated here because he was trying to protect you from the truth for as long as he could”

All those trips they were taking together suddenly made complete sense and the reason why he went all out on your birthday this year. You still didn't want to believe that your father was severely ill, he had all the money in the world, he'd be okay right?

“Mum knows about this?”

“She does “

“He'll be okay though right?”

He hugged you again as you questioned him with such innocence and didn't say a word in response. Maybe he didn't want to lie to you and tell you that your father would recover when there was 50 percent chance that he wouldn't..

“Sleep with me please..i don't want to be alone”

“Shhhh sweetheart I'm right here” he picked you up in his arms and snuggled with you until your sobs had quieted down and you had fallen asleep.

He knew your father wasn't pleased about this development between you two but there's nothing he could have done now.

The next morning as you woke up Daemon urged you to go see your parents and talk to them. So that's what you did, you thought your mum would still be angry but when you entered their room they were talking normally with each other, maybe she had made peace with it because he was sick but your heart still broke for her.

She sent your father out of the room because she wanted to talk to you in private and as soon as he was gone you put your head down on her lap and clutched onto her, your life had turned for the worse in the past twenty four hours and you didn't know how to handle that. There was your relationship with Daemon, then the truth about Stella and your father and now you had to deal with his illness as well. It felt too much at once so you just cried and cried some more.

“Your father told me about you and Daemon” you sat up as she said that “He's not happy” you chuckled as she said that, no you wouldn't allow her to turn this around. Your relationship with Daemon wasn't wrong.

“Ohh you think I'm happy about the secret he kept from us and the secret you two had been keeping from. Me?” you asked her so she shook her head.

“It's in the past, I don't care anymore, he told me that she was the only one he ever fucked up with and i believe him” you looked at her shocked at the calm demeanor she had right now because she had collapsed last night after learning about it “Our marriage was going through a tough phase at the time, you know i miscarried plenty of times and it drove us apart for a moment..your father wasn't the only one who was unfaithful during the time” she looked down as she was ashamed of herself in that moment and you got off the bed to get away from her. Liars, everyone was a liar in your family.

“Please don't tell me that you and Daemon –”

“Jesus Christ no y/n..he had always been like my little brother”

She interrupted you before you could finish that sentence and you breathed a momentarily sigh of relief but then reality of the situation hit you like a rock, your parents' seemingly perfect marriage wasn't so perfect after all it seems.

In all of this commotion the only person who came out looking innocent was your Daemon, that sweet gentle man was like a blessing and nobody appreciated him. He got hurt and he had no one to lean on to at the time. How did he deal with such a betrayal? How did he have the courage to forgive Stella and move on with her?

“I don't want you to be cross with your father because of me..I'm sure Daemon told you about his–”

“Yeah that he's dying ..yeah” your tone was casual, not because you didn't care but because you felt extremely numb at the moment after everything you had learned since last night.

After your mother you had a chat with your father as well, the reason why he urged you to join the family business suddenly and why he brought Daemon back to guide you was because he was dying slowly. He wanted to feel at peace when it would be his time to leave so he really needed Daemon to forgive him and he didn't trust anyone except Daemon to teach you right from wrong when it comes to business but of course he didn't anticipate that things would take a romantic turn between you two.

“I made the move, he wasn't at fault here, sure he felt something for me but I was the one to take a step towards him, he just didn't want to keep hurting me, he's not a pervert, he's not sick and he didn't come back to take revenge from you so the next time you see him I need you to apologize to him because after everything he had done for you he don't deserve to be treated this way”

Your father cried along with you and as soon as he broke down and hugged you suddenly you felt the wave of grief coursing through you, you didn't know how much time you had with him but you knew it would never be enough. He was young still and he had a full life ahead of him that you knew he wouldn't get to experience.

“Y/n I have never asked you for anything in my life, but I want something from you”

As your father pleaded with you, you felt the similar sinking feeling in your gut that told you that whatever would come out of his mouth next would only bring you pain but then you don't deny a dying man's wish right?

As you took heartbroken steps towards Daemon that night you knew he'd probably resent you for hurting him this way but you felt helpless.

One look at you and Daemon understood what you wanted to tell him, you didn't even have to use your words, he had a similar conversation with you father, last night he thought he'd have to leave again. But this morning your father begged him to stay with him but then he also begged him to spare his only daughter, she was young and she was the sole heir of his legacy, he wanted her to find a man that would be there for her forever and not someone so much older that she'd have to spend her older years all alone with a broken heart.

He still needed Daemon to be here and guide you but as a mentor only and probably as an uncle that he was supposed to be.

As you clutched onto him and cried he just held onto you and didn't say a word, he waited for you to speak to him because he'd have done whatever you wanted, in that moment all that mattered to him were your wishes. If you wanted to fight for him then he'd have done the same but he'd also support you if you wanted to grant your dying father's wish.

“I can't lose you Daemon, not again, not after the way you have made me feel..I can't lose you.. i love you” you sobbed into his arms as your fingers clutched around the fabric of his silk shirt.

“You won't lose me, I'd be here I promise, no matter what happens I'd be here with you ..i promised that I'd never leave again so I'm going to fulfill that promise”

Your cries only worsened as he said that, he was ready to do whatever you needed even if it brought him pain and misery in return.

“You don't deny a dying man's wish you said”

“Mmmhmm”

“He wants me to end this romantic relationship with you”

“I know”

The look in his eyes was enough to indicate that he understood what you wanted to say to him.

“So that's it then..i should lose you because he wants me to? Isn't it enough for him that I'm losing him that i have to lose you too?” you asked him between your tears so he kissed you softly and longingly because he knew it would be the last time he'd get to touch you like that.

“You won't lose me Pixie, you'd never lose me again”

And he wasn't wrong about that but he wasn't right either, you broke both of your hearts that night and things sped up at the work front.

You were suddenly dropped from the intern position and were made the CEO of your father's empire, a position you weren't prepared for at all, but as promised Daemon was there with you, he was working for you now, under you if put precisely, and though you were higher on the chain he was the one guiding you, he was sticking up for you in every board meeting, he was pushing you to do your best. The nine to ten hours you spent at work somehow didn't feel so grueling when you had Daemon and his comforting presence around you but as soon as you came back home you were hit by the wave of overwhelming sadness and grief.

Sadness regarding your father's deteriorating condition and grief for losing the love of your life.

Daemon wasn't any better, sure he spent most of his time with you but having you so close yet so far was detrimental to him, he couldn't talk to you like he used to before, your relationship became strictly professional with him, sure you two lived in the same mansion but you both avoided bumping into each other to not bring each other even more pain because every time you looked at him you wanted to kiss him and tell him that you missed him more than anything and everytime he looked at you he just wanted to take away all your pain, hold you in his arms and kiss you all night long.

Life had changed so drastically in the past month that you didn't even recognise yourself anymore, it felt as if you had grown ten years in a few weeks and had to bear the responsibilities of your father on your shoulders.

You felt overwhelmed and anxious all the time, Daemon noticed that too so one morning as he knocked on your cabin to get your signature on some papers he noticed how lost you looked, you didn't even read the papers so he put his hand on yours to stop you from signing.

“Rule number one, always read the documents before you sign them” you looked up at him as he said that and as you saw that small soft smile on his face you couldn't hold back your emotions anymore, you broke down in tears immediately.

His smile faltered as well at the sight of you, you were too young and it was too soon for you to handle these responsibilities, sure he was there to help you and your father was doing his best as well but a burden was just that, a burden.

He walked around the desk and placed his palm on your upper back as you sobbed into your hands,

“Get up darling” he mumbled softly so you immediately stood up and hugged him as tightly as you could. This is all you have been doing these days, crying about everything but you felt awful, perhaps you'd have been more driven if your dad had not put that condition on you regarding Daemon because you really needed him especially now that you knew sooner or later you'd lose one of you parents and there was nothing you could have done about it.

“Shhhhh it's all good darling ..you're doing your best, just take deep breaths for me now can you?” He cooed gently and you didn't even need to do that because you felt so much better just by being in his arms

“It's too much ..I don't think I can do this” you looked up at him with your tear filled eyes so he cupped your cheeks and kissed your forehead. He didn't know if you were talking about your professional situation or whether you were hinting towards your broken unfinished relationship with him but he knew he had to uplift you.

“You can do this..I believe in you”

“What if I can't…what if I can't do this” his brows furrowed as you sniffled like a child, his own eyes welled up.

“Then I'll take you far away from here ..all you have to do is ask..that's it” you stopped crying as he said that. You knew that wasn't a choice you could have made, you won't hurt your parents like that, he knew that too, but having an option to opt out of everything and elope with him was nice. Having him put you over anyone was comforting even though you hadn't done the same for him.

“Okayyy..okayyy thank you” you mumbled softly so he smiled and made you sit back down.

Perhaps a good cry in his arms was what you needed to move forward and it worked for a while, sure he wasn't completely yours anymore but you still had his love and you gave him your love in your own ways but then one night as you came back home from work you found the woman you despised so much lounging in your parent's house.

You never wanted to see her again but there she was, hugging the love of your life as if he belonged to her.

💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔

Taglist

@serving-targaryen-realness @annoyingsweetsstranger @anukulee @mcufan72 @insertsomethingsillyhereple-blog @silentf @ajthefujoshi @stupidthoughtsinwriting @ammo23 @shuichiakainx @daddylokisqueen @ipostwhtifeel @anehkael @madlyinlovewmattmurd0ck @dixie-elocin @urmomsgirlfriend1

[hyperpsychomaniac]

Do head cannons for Erik and Gerda

Okay here’s a couple,

Gerda and Erik both saw inefficiencies in the way safety patrol has been run. They’d both been in safety patrol for a bit so they’ve probably worked around each other… though probably not directly with each other to the level they do as deputy and captain. And then they both got promoted… and boom instant chemistry.

Erik’s would’ve ranted about not doing enough (admittedly from the stand point that he wouldn’t be seen to be doing enough and being praised for it) and Gerda would’ve seen someone who actually wanted to fix things. And offered practical solutions at a level of detail Erik wouldn’t be able to work out himself (like actually doing an audit on bell towers to see what needs improving first) and Erik would’ve loved that she helped him get things done.

And they both have high energy levels that seem to feed off each other. These two clearly enjoy working together, at least at first. And then Erik found Hilda’s essay and got a certain idea in his head… and it was all downhill from there.

Also part of the reason I think Gerda struggles so much with how to confront him. She saw him as doing something good to start with (an opinion that may or may not be true) and now she realises she’s just watching him go off the rails and she doesn’t know what to do about it.

Also another one for Erik which I guess ties in a bit with the above. He wasn’t really doing anything wrong up until he became captain. Rat king couldn’t dig up any dirt on him. Which isn’t to say that Erik doesn’t have underlying character traits that made this inevitable - but the power being head of safety patrol coupled with the knowledge he got from Hilda’s essay (and likely resentment over years of shit pay)… and he misused it. In the worst way possible. Like he’s lucky no one died.

[hwaksimpokemon]

give us your honest opinions on all of rainbow rocket, then. if you have time

Ooh, boy. Okay. Someone's going to show up at my house-

I do want to preface this by saying I don't agree with any of their actions relating to legendary pokémon. I'm talking about the person I interact with out of necessity at the meetings.

Maxie: Maxie's a bit... sharp around the edges. But he's not bad at all, really, once he trusts you a little bit. We've had our disagreements, sure. He really did not like me when we first met. We can talk, now. And it's nice.

Archie: Archie and I get along well! We have a similar outlook on a lot of things, especially on Giovanni's trapping methods. And he realizes now that his plans with Kyogre were a little... well, his intentions were good. Same as Maxie. The methods weren't. Archie is one of the few people at those meetings that does look out for me where he can, and I appreciate that.

Giovanni: Oh, Giovanni... I punched his lights out pretty recently. And it felt amazing. And I hated it. I hate being angry, I hate being violent when I don't need to be, but he just would not. Stop. Talking. And I needed him to shut up. I am so sick of the way he makes me feel, the way he makes me look to people around us- I hate that he makes me look stupid, makes me look weak. I despise the hold he has over me, and I hate that he won't tell me what he keeps me around more. ... I hate him.

Chairman Rose: Rose and I don't speak often. I barely even know what he does- he's not been at the meetings since I started attending, dealing with some 'personal issues' back in Galar. I really don't have a strong opinion either way on him.

Piers: I admire how he looks after N. I also admire his honesty. We don't talk much, but I think he's a good kid.

Ghetsis: I despise him. The way he treats both people and pokémon makes me sick. I healed his Hydreigon once after a battle, and it showed up at my house that night, that's how shit he is to it. He's a vile human being, and I don't know how Colress deals with him. He was almost nice to me once, when he made me a cup of tea, before promptly criticizing my husband for marrying a man. He also tried to kill my brother, and nearly killed me. Giovanni had to stop him.

N: Honestly, I don't really know what N is doing in our meetings. He's uncomfortable around Ghetsis, which is completely fair, and I don't think he even really wants to be there. I sit next to him. We have nice conversations. I gave him a fidget cube once when he was anxious, and he returned the favor at the next meeting. He's a good kid.

Colress: Colress is lovely. Redirecting his efforts to something beneficial now that he's not fully tied to Ghetsis is amazing, and he's genuinely just a lovely person. We've battled on occasion, and I've normally lost, but it's always a fun time. We play Scrabble together, and have a rule where you can spell words however you want. We are both dyslexic.

Lysandre: I have... mixed feelings on Lysandre. For reasons I can't really delve into. It would be unprofessional of me. I do want to say, though, that he never did anything to me directly. Of Rainbow Rocket, he is nowhere near the worst.

Lusamine: She was awful to her children, and I resent her for that. I'm also from Alola, and was visiting when she opened up the wormholes. She put my family in danger, and I resent that too. I know of nothing good she's ever done.

Cyrus: Cyrus is... complicated. One the one hand, he's friends with Kamiya (who I will get to, don't you fucking worry), but on the other, he's... decently pleasant when he visits. He comes over to my house every now and then, and we talk. I worry about him wandering the island so often. I hope he's alright.

Kamiya Sakoda: Where to fucking start with you, Kamiya? He helped me through my second divorce. Namely, he helped me realize the way my husband was treating me and my son. Let me stay at his house while I was figuring things out, and was generally helpful to me. Even set me up with my new husband. Then he got upset that my attention wasn't fully on him anymore. And he started being a dick. I had been hiding from my father, at the time- meeting with him and my brother occasionally, but not letting them know where I was staying. For my own safety. But they found out eventually, and dragged me out of my home to beat me. Twelve hours in, they called our family doctor (who just so happens to be Kamiya's fucking wife) so of course, he showed up. Carried me back to his house, insisted I stay for my own safety. Generally 'caring', when he wasn't hitting my injuries. Turns out, he was the one that told my father where I was. I was furious when I found out. Angry at him for doing such a thing, angry at myself for not seeing it coming- it was horrible. I'll never forgive him. For any of it.

Haruka: My ex-husband. The one Kamiya helped me get away from. I don't want to think about him.

Zero: Zero freaks me the fuck out. I'm sure that's probably his whole thing, but it works, and I don't like it. He's horrifying to look at, boring to talk to, and overall just not my cup of tea.

Lucio: Lucio is just plain unpleasant. He thinks he's better than he is, and it shows pathetically. His business is shady at best, and at worst, plain predatory. He also has an annoying habit of hurting people that work for me.

[iambutmortal]

I actually want to refute a couple of the points you’ve made in this post. 

I think it’s unfair to say that Eris hasn’t contributed to the brutalization of Mor, when we see repeatedly that Mor is deeply negatively impacted and traumatized from the whole experience in a way Eris plays a direct role in.

You say that “It might just be me but it feels like his hands were tied in that situation... like he had no good choices, only harmful ones, and he chose the one that gave Mor what she wanted,” which I think is a miss-characterization of Eris’ actions. From Rhys we see that “Eris left her for dead in the middle of their woods. Azriel found her a day later,” (ACOMAF Chapter 41), which means Eris waited a day before telling anyone that there was a bleeding woman with a note nailed to her body left in the woods. And sure, it might have taken Azriel a little bit to find her, the fae have enhanced tracking abilities and I have to believe Mor’s blood left a pretty solid scent, so at the very least he waited for several hours.

Not to mention, we see other characters repeatedly affirming Mor’s trauma stemming directly from Eris. Feyre describes how “The smile instantly vanished from Mor’s mouth, her eyes,” when “An attendant whispered to Thesan that Beron and all of his sons had arrived,” (ACOWAR 43). Feyre also points out that “Even Viviane was biting her lip. So she knew of what had been done to Mor—what Eris’s presence would trigger,” (ACOMAF 43), which is especially notable when we remember that Viviane isn’t from the Night court, she’s coming at this from an outside perspective and still is aware that Mor has sepecific negative feelings steming from Eris.

And I think the most salient point is that Eris knows this and repeatedly chooses to taunt Mor about it. At the High Lord’s meeting “Eris’s attention shifted to Mor, sweeping over her with a disdain that made me see red,” (ACOMAF 43). From my perspective, this disdain can only come from one thing: Eris’ inherent anger over Mor sleeping with Cassian. And he doesn’t do much to refute this, in the same chapter he points out that “after five hundred years, you still dress like a slut,” when the only reason he would consider her a slut is her sleeping with Cassian before marriage.

I think the fact that Eris repeatedly refers to Cassian as a “brute” in text, when that term is very loaded considering the way Illyrians are portrayed in culture, makes it clear that Eris views himself as above them, and probably holds some resentment for the fact that his future wife would rather sleep with someone he views as beneath him, quote “she chose to sully herself,” (ACOSF 6) and is contributing to this antagonistic dynamic. 

Finally, I think it’s interesting that this fandom as a whole has a tendency to blame Mor for not revealing some hidden truth when queer people not coming out is often viewed as a secret and something they need to reveal.

And this isn’t to say you can’t like Eris, I do and I’ve written him in fics, but I think we as a fandom need to be more careful about the way we talk about him in relation specifically with Mor.

On Eris Vanserra

Let me say that I would much rather put my time and energy into writing my fic (you know--the thing that brings me joy and is the reason I'm here in the first place), but the selective comprehension in this fandom has seriously been grating on me.

Now, before anyone gets butthurt, I'm not here to tell you that you have to like Eris or think he's a good person. Whether you do or don't is totally your choice. What you believe, what you want to believe--that is your decision. I'm not here to invalidate anyone's opinion or the choices they make based on their personal experiences and feelings. I'm here to articulate the facts as Ms. Maas has written them, because I think there's some unecessary confusion going around.

Let's just get another thing out of the way now: I like Eris, I acknowledge that this makes me predisposed to bias. I will also tell you that I didn't like him at all when I first read the series, but several deep rereads since have enhanced my comprehension and altered my opinion--that is why I'm here.

Today I will be discussing the misconception that Eris had any direct involvement in the brutalization inflicted upon Mor by her family.

This is the point where I remind you that you have the choice to ignore this post and peacefully keep scrolling should you not want to hear what I'm about to say.

Cool? Great. Let's move on.

I'm going to lay out the textual evidence in the order it appears in the series, and then we can talk about it. All italics appear as they do in the text, except for Mor's flashback. I will be making some parts bold for clarity. All page numbers are referring to the kindle versions of the books.

ACOMAF

Chapter 41, page 397 Rhys is explaining Mor and Eris's former betrothal to Feyre.

"Her family... they... " I'd never seen him at such a loss for words. Rhys cleared his throat. "When they were done, they dumped her on the Autumn Border, with a note nailed to her body that said she was Eris's problem."

Chapter 44, page 431 at the starfall party, Morrigan is talking to Feyre about the time she slept with Cassian.

"He [Rhys] and Cassian... I've never seen them fight like that. Hopefully I never will again. I know that Rhys wasn't pissed about my virginity, but rather the danger that losing it had put me in. Azriel was even angrier about it--though he let Rhys do the walloping. They knew what my family would do for debasing myself with a bastard-born lesser faerie." She brushed a hand over her abdomen, as if she could feel that nail they'd spiked through it. "They were right."

ACOWAR

Chapter Twenty-Six, pages 275-276 Azriel, Rhys, Mor, and Feyre are meeting with Eris in the Hewn City.

Eris looked between them [Azriel and Mor], smiling faintly. Secretly. As if he knew something Azriel didn't. "I wouldn't have touched you," he said to Mor, who blanched again. "But when you fucked that other bastard--" A snarl ripped from Rhys's throat at that. And my own. "I knew why you did it." Again that secret smile that had Mor shrinking. Shrinking. "So I gave you your freedom, ending the betrothal in no uncertain terms."

"And what happened next," Azriel growled [referring to Eris leaving Mor where he found her].

A shadow crossed Eris's face. "There are few things I regret. That it one of them. But... perhaps one day, now that we are allies, I shall tell you why. What it cost me."

ACOFAS

Chapter Six, pages 59-60 Mor's pov, a flashback to the day her family dumped her on the border.

"No one touches her," he said. Eris. "The moment we do, she's our responsbility."

Cold, unfeeling words.

"But--but they nailed a--"

"No one touches her."

Nailed.

They had spiked nails into her.

Had pinned her down as she screamed, pinned her down as she roared at them, then begged them. And then they had taken out those long, brutal iron nails. And the hammer.

Three of them.

Three strikes of the hammer, drowned out by her screaming, but the pain.

She began shaking, hating it as much as she'd hated the begging. Her body bellowed in agony, those nails in her abdomen relentless.

A pale, beautiful face apeared above her, blocking out the jewel-like leaves above. Unmoved. Impassive. "I take it you do not wish to live here, Morrigan."

She would rather die here, bleed out here. She would would rather die and return--return as something wicked and cruel, and shred them all apart.

He must have read it in her eyes. A small smile curved his lips. "I thought so."

ACOSF

Chapter Seven, page 83 Cassian's thoughts about the alliance with Eris.

No, Eris was their ally. Rhys had bargained with him, worked with him. Rhys trusted him. Mor, despite all that had happened, trusted him. Sort of. So Cassian supposed he should do so as well.

Chapter Fourteen, page 164 Cassian, Rhys and Eris meeting in Spring.

"You left her there to suffer and die," Cassian spat. His Siphons flickered, and all he could see was the male's pretty face, all he could feel was his own fist, aching to make contact.

Eris sneered. "Did I? Perhaps you should ask Morrigan whether that is true. I think she finally knows the answer."

Chapter Fifty-Seven, pages 588-589 Eris is dancing with Nesta in the Hewn City. (Not as direct of a relation, but this is one of the few times we actually get some insight from Eris' perspective.)

Eris spun her, and when she returned to him, he murmured in her ear, "Don't believe the lies they tell you about me."

She pulled back just enough to meet his gaze. "Oh?"

Eris nodded to where Mor watched them from beside Feyre and Rhys, her face neutral and aloof. "She knows the truth but has never revealed it."

"Why?"

"Because she is afraid of it."

"You don't win yourself any favors with your behavior."

"Don't I? Do I not ally myself with this court under constant threat of being discovered and killed by my father? Do I not offer aid whenever Rhysand wishes?" He spun her again. "They believe a version of events that is easier to swallow. I always thought Rhysand wiser than that, but he tends to be blind where those he loves are concerned."

Alright class. What have we learned? That it was Morrigan's family who brutalized her before they dumped her on the Autumn border. Look back at that first ACOSF quote. Do you really think that if Eris was party to the brutalization of Mor she would ever trust him in the least? Hell no. That is point number one.

Secondly, we know that Eris was aware of the fact that Mor did not wish to marry him. When he found out that she'd slept with Cassian he "ended the betrothal in no uncertain terms." The note her family nailed to her called her Eris's problem. Eris (surrounded by 5 other soldiers whom, I want to point out, may or may not have been loyal to him as opposed to his father--the father that's tortured him and he fears will murder him if he steps out of line publicly) knew that they couldn't touch her or she would become their responsibility. He already knows Mor doesn't want to be in Autumn and yet he asks her again before he leaves. It might just be me but it feels like his hands were tied in that situation... like he had no good choices, only harmful ones, and he chose the one that gave Mor what she wanted. He also openly admits that he regrets this.

From the canon text, it is quite clear that SJM is hinting at another reason for the way everything went down. Multiple times she brings up this "truth," this reason which Morrigan is aware of yet keeps to herself. We don't know what it is yet, but we do know that it's significant.

I hope you don't take my saying any of this to mean that I think Eris leaving Mor at the border was okay. As Nesta so aptly put it, Eris doesn't win himself any favors with his behavior in canon. I'm not arguing against that. I personally like Eris for his moral grayness, his asshole-itude, the mystery of him, but everyone has different taste. I am arguing that we shouldn't ignore what's written in canon.

I'm also arguing that the vast majority of what we canonically know about Eris Vanserra is coming from the point of view of Rhys, Feyre, Mor, Cassian, Nesta, and Azriel meaning that information is inherently biased against him. The series is written in first person/ close third-person meaning that the character whose POV is being written carries their prejudices into their narrative. I'm suggesting that we acknowledge this and maybe try interpreting things with a grain of salt if you're open to it.

Finally, I suggest taking a quick look at Chapter 79 of ACOSF, it's only five pages and Cassian makes some fascinating points.

If you want to discuss this further, my asks are always open and please feel free to reblog/reply as well. If you disagree with something that I've said, let's talk about it. As long as things remain respectful, I'm more than happy to have conversations and hear other perspectives :)

[vrishchikawrites]

Its a prompt! (And dont worry about it, absolutely love reading your writing XD) Okay so dimension travel, so we all agree in a world where WWX was raised in another sect (like Lan/Nie) That he would be absolutely adored by them and everyone, healthy relationships( even Jin Zixuan and Wei Wuxian wouldn't be on a bad term much because no WWX JYL interaction) so! Canon!WWX from post ssc timeline gets transmigrated/summoned to one of these worlds where hes raised by either Lan or Nie so 1/2

They're a bit confused seeing WWX in black clothes, and seeing his gaunt/tired appearance and him being so on guard around them (since he's usually open and loved) that they ask him why is it so? Does he not know Lan Xichen/Nie Mingjue back from whicher place he came from, and Wei Wuxian goes 'Ive met them/we're not close' they ask 'sorry if its a bit personal but who were you raised by?' and WWX replies the Jiangs and cue everyone horrified cuz Jiangs areopen in their heavy dislike of WWX2/2

'It's my fault.' Nie Huaisang thinks as he frantically collects all the materials needed, 'It is my fault, I need to fix this.'

His er-ge was gone. His brother, Da-ge's pride and joy, the shining star of the Nie Clan.

Gone. Just like that.

One minute they're on an easy nighthunt and the next, Wei Wuxian is pushing him away to take an attack straight to his chest.

He knows his brother is gone. His body may be alive, but just barely. He's drowning in his own blood and there's nothing Nie Huaisang can do. There's no cognition in his eyes, that bright silver gaze is dull and blank.

He has to do something.

The ritual may not work. It came with so many warnings that Nie Huaisang lost the patience to read them all the way through. If something goes wrong, it goes wrong.

"Huaisang! What are you doing?!" Da-ge's voice is loud but Nie Huaisang doesn't pay any attention to it. The room is sealed and it would take da-ge some time to break through it.

"Nie Huaisang!"

Good, Lan Xichen is here. He'll take care of da-ge if something goes wrong.

"Huaisang!" There's a loud crash but he doesn't pay any attention to it, "Stop! Don't do something stupid."

"I need to save him. It is my fault, I need to save him!"

"Huaisang!"

There's a bright red flash and it drowns out everything.

---

Miraculously, he survives.

His fledgling Golden Core has shattered and melted into nothing, but he has survived.

And he has done it.

"Does your stupidity known no bounds?" Da-ge demands as Lan Wangji kneels by er-ge's bed and feeds him potent spiritual energy.

Wei Wuxian is alive. His cognition is intact and his Golden Core is stable but he's soaked in Resentful Energy.

"You destroyed your Golden Core, Huaisang! There's no recovering from it!"

"Wouldn't you do the same?" He demands, turning around to look at his oldest brother. He ignores Lan Xichen's alarmed voice and focuses on Nie Mingjue, "Is his life worth less than my Golden Core?"

Da-ge locks his jaw but doesn't reply. Of course, Wei Wuxian's life is worth more than a Golden Core.

"Huaisang," Lan Xichen sighs, "a-Xian wouldn't have wanted this."

"Look at Wangji-xiong and tell me that again." He says bluntly. He is tired and drained but no one can convince him that reviving er-ge wasn't the right choice.

Xichen-ge doesn't reply because no one can look at the devastated expression on Lan Wangji's face and say it wasn't worth it.

Huaisang doesn't feel the absence of the core as keenly as someone else might. He had only developed it during the Sunshot Campaign, after all.

He isn't like er-ge or Wangji-xiong, with their powerful cores and potent spiritual energy. The loss would've been devastating to them but is only an afterthought to him.

---

They realize something is off when Wei Wuxian opens his eyes and looks at them with distant wariness instead of familiar affection. He looks around and is instantly on guard, "Where... Why am I here?"

He looks directly at Wangji-xiong, "Lan Zhan? What are you... Have you brought me here?" He demanded, his expression shifting to something hostile, "Are we in Gusu?"

"Wei-gongzi," Xichen-ge calls for his attention, "I know you're very confused but please don't be alarmed. We're in your home at the Unclean Realm, not in Gusu."

Er-ge narrows his eyes and Huaisang recognizes that expression, even though it has never been directed towards them. A look of cool calculation as er-ge tries to decipher their motives. "My home?" He asks.

Wangji-xiong knows er-ge almost as well as they do. He reaches forward, "Wei Ying, let us explain, please."

It appears that this Wei Wuxian is just as vulnerable to Wangji-xiong as his brother had been because he softens immediately. His body is still tense but he seems to be willing to listen.

"You died in this world, saving Huaisang's life." Da-ge begins gruffly. Huaisang winces at the bluntness but er-ge seems to appreciate it, his sharp gaze focusing on their elder brother, "Yes, this world," Da-ge confirms, "Our didi decided he wouldn't tolerate it and decided to use one of our forbidden rituals to revive you. He didn't read things clearly. The ritual dragged your soul from another world and placed you in his body."

Er-ge's expression is skeptical, "Our didi..."

Wangji-xiong sucks in a sharp breath, "Wei Ying," His brother's gaze moves to his 'best friend', "You are Wei Wuxian, 23 years old, the Head Disciple of QingheNie Sect, the adopted younger brother of Nie Mingjue and older brother to Nie Huaisang. You were adopted by the former Nie-zongzhu when you were six years old."

Er-ge stares at Wangji-xiong in stunned disbelief but there's no denial in his expression.

No wonder, Wangji-xiong never lies. That must be true in his world as well.

"a-Xian," Er-ge winces and looks at Xichen-ge, "You need to rest and recover. Your Golden Core is stab-"

Er-ge gasps and immediately sits up, placing his hand on his chest. He closes his eyes and almost violently summons his spiritual energy.

"Wei Ying!" Wangji-xiong calls out in alarm but his brother doesn't pay any attention, his focus entirely inward.

"I have my Golden Core back..." Er-ge breathes, astonished but his skin goes white and he loses consciousness.

They exchange stunned glances before scrambling forward to check on him.

---

No one can deny Wei Wuxian has changed. It takes a month for his body to recover but his heart is still unsteady. He puts on every appearance of being alright, but Huaisang has grown up with this man. He knows something is off.

It is only when er-ge decides he needs to start training again that things start to become clear. Er-ge has trained all of his life to fight with a Dao. His movements are powerful and aggressive, designed to overwhelm the enemy.

Er-ge's mind, however, is accustomed to the traditional Jian. He seems to expect his movements to be lighter, faster. More agile and less powerful.

The dissonance makes him clumsy and he loses his first fight against Lan Wangji in a long time.

"Wei Ying?" Wangji-xiong frowns, "Your movements."

Da-ge has his concerned scowl on and he grabs Baxia, stepping into the training field, "With me, Wuxian."

This fight is faster and more brutal. Huaisang almost wants to protest but he can see er-ge adjust and adapt quickly.

His eyes gain a razor-sharp focus and his battle instincts come to the fore. "Good," Xichen-ge observes, "He's accepting his body."

Indeed, he is. Against da-ge's overwhelming force, there's nothing er-ge can do but react instinctively. They engage in several bouts and keep at it for over a shichen.

By the end of it, er-ge is exhausted but faintly triumphant.

"Lan Zhan, again!"

"Wei Ying, you need rest." Wangji-xiong says with a shake of his head, "Don't strain yourself."

"Why were you fighting like you wanted to wield a Jian, didi?" Da-ge asks sternly, "You were hesitant and weak in some strikes."

Er-ge grimaces and Xichen-ge steps forward. It has been over a month and though er-ge has seen how much they all care for him, he remains wary.

"a-Xian," Xichen-ge begins gently, "You weren't a part of the Nie Clan in the past, were you?"

Da-ge's scowl deepens at the thought of er-ge belonging to anyone else but them. They had suspected something like this, of course. But they had hoped that er-ge would've still been a part of the Nie Sect if not the Clan.

Er-ge remains wary but sighs, "No."

"Not the Lans," Xichen-ge observes astutely, "Not the Jins either. Were you a rogue cultivator? Or from a smaller sect?"

Er-ge studies him before shaking his head, "I was the Head Disciple of the Jiangs."

"What?" Wangji-xiong asks, his voice uncharacteristically sharp, "Jiangs?"

Da-ge looks furious and Xichen-ge seems pained. No wonder, given how... problematic the Jiang situation is. That family is entirely unsuitable for someone as loving and giving as his er-ge!

Jiang Wanyin is a complex mix of pride and insecurity. He lags behind all sect heirs, though Huaisang is fairly certain their batch of cultivators is particularly skilled. Er-ge and Wangji-xiong are exceptional in every way and Jin Zixuan is barely a few steps behind.

In the face of such competition, skilled but ordinary cultivators can't help but be overshadowed.

Jiang Fengmian, according to da-ge, is a meek little imitation of his former self. The man that pursued er-ge's mother had been strong and wise. He had the skill, political acumen, and grace to be an admirable Sect Leader.

His marriage to Yu Ziyuan ruined him.

And Yu Ziyuan is a nightmare. The one time she met Wei Wuxian, she had left such an impression that da-ge had cut all ties with the Jiang Sect until its Madam apologized to the Nie Sect Head Disciple.

That hadn't gone down well and the relationship between them is still sour.

"Do you want to return to them?" He blurts out, unable to help himself. If Jiangs are this Wei Wuxian's family then maybe-

"No."

They still because that's a very firm no. It is a complete and utter rejection of the very thought of it.

"No."

---

Getting the whole story out of er-ge is like pulling teeth but between Wangji-xiong's pleas, Xichen-ge's gentle questions, da-ge impassioned demands, and his own begging, they manage.

This Wei Wuxian doesn't love them yet but he sees their love for him clearly. That softens his heart and they get to hear every painful, excruciating aspect of his past life.

Wangji-xiong looks furious, da-ge paces, Xichen-ge is pale, but all of that doesn't matter.

He recognizes the look on er-ge's face. He has never seen it on him before, but he recognizes it.

Er-ge expects them to reject him. To abandon him for his 'sins'.

"Well, I don't have a Golden Core. Can you teach me Demonic Cultivation?"

"Huaisang!" Is yelled from almost every direction but he only has eyes for his older brother.

He sees those tired silver eyes study him for a moment before they soften completely, turning into the color of liquid moonlight. "You brat," Er-ge murmurs affectionately, "The thought of you wielding that power is nothing short of terrifying."

"But er-ge! Can you leave me defenseless, just like that? Don't you feel sorry for me-"

"Huaisang!" Da-ge snaps, "Stop trying to manipulate your brother!"

"Really, a-Sang, it isn't right for you to-"

Er-ge laughs. It's familiar, loud, and openly joyous. Silver eyes sparkle as he looks at them, "Don't worry, da-ge, he's a hundred years too early to manipulate me."

Wangji-xiong huffs, "Wei Ying."

"Lan Zhan," Er-ge teases, "How is that you manage to reprimand me by only saying my name? Shall I try it too? Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan!"

"And they're flirting again." He murmurs under his breath, drawing an amused look from Xichen-ge.

"Perhaps we really need to start betrothal negotiations," Xichen-ge says and da-ge scoffs.

"Not going to happen unless you're willing to part with your brother. Mine is my heir. He's not marrying into the Lans."

"Da-ge, be reasonable-"

Huaisang tunes them out and waves his fan in front of his face, his mind whirling.

He doesn't care about er-ge's marriage negotiations. He has bigger fish to fry.

Really, those Jins and Jiangs are getting too bold.

[spencers-renaissance]

a touch that never hurts

Summary: a rewrite of the Tobias Hankel aftermath, in which Spencer gets plenty of cuddles and physical affection from his father figure

Tags: aftermath of torture, hurt/comfort, platonic cuddling, whump, protective hotch, dad hotch, fluff, angst TW: brief mention of the non-con drug use that occurs in the Hankel arc, as well as the physical torture Spencer underwent

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner & Spencer Reid; Platonic

Word Count: 1.7k

Masterlist // Read on AO3

Happy bonus fic Thursday :) I wrote this because I noticed how gentle and kind Hotch always is to the victims he rescues, and I was in the mood for some good, mushy Dad Hotch fluff. Title from Charles Dickens' Hard Times: "Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts."

When Spencer Reid falls into Aaron Hotchner’s arms — his feet whipped and bleeding, his veins throbbing with dilaudid, his body bruised and aching — he decides that he never wants to let go.

He’s spent countless hours at the mercy of three different personalities, only one of them even close to resembling something kind, and all he could think while he was tied up in that chair was how much he ached to be held and comforted by the man he trusts most in this world.

So when Hotch saves him — and he does; he sent that message directly to him and it was heard loud and clear — he can’t help that he breaks down, that he cries into his shoulder in front of the entire rescue party, that he falls apart in the most painful way possible, until he’s not sure he can ever be put back together again. But when Hotch speaks soothingly into his ear, caressing his hair with the gentle touch of a father, he thinks that maybe he can be. Maybe he’ll somehow make it out of this in one piece.

He’s driven promptly to the hospital, of course. He’d anticipated an ambulance, but apparently it’s harder than you’d think to get an ambulance to a crime scene at 3am with absolutely no notice in deep, rural Georgia.

Derek drives, eyeing him anxiously in the rearview mirror, and Spencer sits glued to Hotch, refusing to be separated from him for even a second. He considers vaguely that he should probably be embarrassed of that fact, but he can’t find the energy. Not when Hotch is sitting just as closely; seemingly matching his need to be comforted with his own need to protect.

“It’s gonna be okay, Spencer,” Hotch murmurs, a little too quiet for Derek to hear over the noise of the car engine. “I promise.”

Spencer doesn’t say anything. He’s not entirely sure he believes him. Instead, he just burrows closer into Hotch and hides his face from the soft illumination of passing car lights and the sporadic street lights of rural Georgian roads.

He accepts the wheelchair Derek runs in to grab from the hospital because his feet are suddenly screaming in agony. When he’d had to stumble through the graveyard behind Tobias Hankel’s cabin, the adrenaline had prevented him from feeling the true extent of his injuries, but now, with the adrenaline seeping out of him like a river through a broken dam, he can feel every single fractured bone, bruised patch of skin, abused and broken tendon.

Panic immediately arises when he sits down in the chair, though. All of a sudden, he doesn’t have that connection he’s had to Hotch since he was rescued, and he’s almost instantly on the verge of hyperventilation until Hotch crouches down in front of him.

“Hey, Spence,” he says gently, patient and soothing in a way the team doesn’t often get to see. “I’m right here, okay? I’m not going anywhere. How about I hold your hand?”

Spencer nods, and Hotch smiles at him encouragingly before giving the nod for Derek to push the chair towards the Emergency entrance. Hotch’s hand clutches tightly at Spencer’s, and he squeezes his eyes closed against the panic, against the memories, against the fear of what’s to come, and focuses all his energy on the firm, unwavering connection he has to Hotch.

It makes the minutes that it takes them to cross the parking lot bearable, and he’s grateful for that much.

As soon as Hotch explains the situation to the ER doctor that greets them at the door, Spencer is rushed into an examination room.

“I’ll wait outside, Spence,” Derek promises. “I’ll be right here.”

Hotch doesn’t let go of his hand.

They examine his feet first, using a portable x-ray machine to find three broken bones overall. Spencer cries when he hears that. Knowing they’re broken doesn’t change how much they hurt or how scary the situation feels, but it is a tangible acknowledgement of the torture he’s just been put through, and he thinks that that’s probably enough to make most people cry.

“It’s alright, Spencer,” Hotch soothes him, laying his palm on his forehead and smoothing it over his hair gently, slowly. “I’m right here. The doctors are going to help you out.”

“The good news is that most of the fractures are fairly minor,” the doctor explains. “You’ll need a cast for your right foot since the damage to the metatarsal bones is much more significant, but most of the damage overall appears to be torn tendons and bruised muscles, which means plenty of rest and a simple brace or boot on the left foot should do the trick.”

She smiles encouragingly at him, but he barely reacts. He’s so tired. It feels like he’s not even in the room; the only tether to reality being the soothing hand in his hair and the occasional whispers of support.

They treat his feet before sending him off to a CT scanner to check that the rest of his injuries are minor enough to heal on their own, and rule out internal bleeding. Spencer cries the whole twenty two minutes, because this time Hotch can’t hold his hand. He’s stuck watching through the observation window, trying not to cry himself as he listens to Spencer’s sobs over the intercom.

Thankfully, he manages to stay still enough to ensure clear enough images of his body to confirm that rest and pain medication should take care of the rest of his injuries.

A specialist comes round to talk to him about withdrawal. He’s been moved to a room on the assessment ward, which is at least a little more comfortable than the bay in the Emergency Room, but it still feels foreign and frightening, and he’s had quite enough of that in the last few days, thank you very much. At least Derek’s been allowed to join them now. He feels safer with both of them as close to him as humanly possible.

“The good news,” the doctor starts — and God, Spencer wishes they would stop associating any of this with the word ‘good’ — “is that you haven’t taken enough doses to become truly dependent on the drug, which should make your withdrawal easier. I’m prescribing buprenorphine, clonidine, acetaminophen, and ondansetron, which when combined, should make your symptoms significantly more bearable. We do advise that you stay with somebody—”

“He’ll be staying with me,” Hotch interrupts firmly, both of his hands clasped warmly around Spencer’s as he eyes the doctor with an unwavering gaze.

“Well, that’s perfect, then,” the doctor says cheerily. It feels grossly misplaced. “You’ll need to prepare for the coming symptoms and ensure that he has no way to get his hands on more dilaudid.”

Spencer resents the doctor for saying that. He has no desire to inject more of that poison into his veins: it might have been a pleasant distraction when he was being whipped and beaten and forced to choose someone to die, but now that he’s back with his family, now that he’s safe, the last thing he wants is to keep reminding himself of that god-awful man in that god-awful cabin.

He doesn’t say anything, though. He just closes his eyes to try and smother the turbulent emotions threatening to show on his face.

“That won’t be a problem,” Hotch confirms.

They wait for an hour in relative silence, Spencer enjoying the solace of a safe, quiet room with the people he considers protectors both holding his hands and soothing him when panic threatens to overwhelm him, before the discharge doctor comes round. She checks him over one last time, before helping him into a wheelchair, handing him his medication, and wheeling him towards the entrance.

Derek goes ahead once they reach the airstrip where everybody’s been waiting to go home and herds them onto the jet first to give Spencer some privacy going up the stairs.

“Are you okay for me to carry you?” Hotch asks as he climbs out of the car first, speaking gently as he has done since he rescued him.

Spencer nods. Of course he is. It means he’s even closer to Hotch.

Hotch carries him the short distance between the parked jeep and the jet before ascending the stairs as carefully as possible, making sure Spencer’s feet don’t so much as brush the railing. He sets him down on the sofa, but Spencer clings to his hand, looking at him desperately as he tries to get him to understand what he needs. Thankfully, he’s obvious enough that Hotch simply smiles and sits down on the sofa with him.

They get settled in a horizontal position, Spencer resting his head on Hotch’s chest as he revels in the feeling of safety that having both of his arms wrapped around him provides. A gentle hand finds its way to Spencer’s hair again, and he closes his eyes against the relaxing feeling, exhaustion finally catching up to him.

He vaguely hears some quiet laughter in the background, and he’s been with the team long enough to predict the raised eyebrows and teasing expressions on their faces.

“You’ve gone soft,” Derek accuses warmly, making sure to keep his voice down, and the others chuckle in agreement.

“Wait until Penelope hears about this,” JJ teases quietly.

Hotch laughs, and Spencer feels the pleasant vibrations against his cheek. It makes him feel even warmer inside than he did before. “You wouldn’t dare.” Spencer imagines the smile on his face and burrows closer to him.

“It’s a good thing, Hotch,” Emily chimes in, her voice bright and easy. Spencer really likes her. “It’s nice to see this side of you.”

“Well, you’d better savour the moment because it won’t happen again.”

He must feel Spencer’s panicked tensing, the way his muscles go rigid and his breath hitches, because he rushes to add, “unless Spencer needs it of course.” His hands resume their gentle caresses of his back.

“I’d do anything if Spencer needed it,” he murmurs, and the team might hear, but the words aren’t for them.

Spencer hears them loud and clear, and somehow — when he thought only hours ago that he might never be put back together — he falls asleep feeling calm and safe, with a small, hopeful little smile on his face.

taglist: @criminalmindsvibez @suburban--gothic @strippersenseii @takeyourleap-of-faith @negativefouriq @makaylajadewrites @iamrenstark @hotchseyebrows @temily @enbyspencer @reidology @spencerspecifics @bau-gremlin @tobias-hankel @hotchscotchh @oliverbrnch @physics-magic @sbeno22 @im-autistic @anxious-enby @kuolonsyoja @reidreids @cmily @notevanbuckley (add yourself to my taglist here!)

[onesunofagun]

I have done so much fanfic and rp and feral mouth foaming over exactly this because like yes I think it's only natural that he does experience certain resentments at points in his life, especially as a man who also ultimately ends up having regrets about how the rest of his legacy panned out.

A lot of my Hero of Time reads-- especially writing him-- always played with the feelings of development being interrupted a lot, or of being discarded and then looking for purpose, or having a duty and identity that becomes obsolete to a large degree and how he goes on with that and learns to reconcile his definition of self with what and who he has been. I think he's great fodder for exploring drafted veteran metaphors, especially that sense where it's very difficult to return to civilian life and support dries up, and there's great difficulty in moving forward with life afterwards.

I think the particular situation of being far more connected to the ethereal-- fairies and forest and otherworlds and time-- are unique with him, in the fact that he was incredibly tied to culture and an identity that was very much not Hylian (though still Hyrule aligned) and quite alien from the Kingdom itself and the things that people were generally exposed to. But critically, he was also very aware of being different within that sphere, and of being set apart somehow.

And in that I think he's very interesting when compared Ganondorf, because they have a very same-but-different kinda thing on.

Being outsiders to Hyrule, occupying very non-normative roles within their groups, one displayed and venerated as a boy king (and all the pressure that entails but especially during a time marked by intertribal wars) and one hidden away and somewhat bullied for lacking a fairy (and so a sense of legitimacy) who has an incredibly limited idea that there even really is anything beyond the forest. Both are growing up under the watch of beings deeply familiar with magic and mysticism, and guided by them in a parental way, and both Link and Ganondorf go on to be incredibly potent magic wielders in their own manifestations of it. Like most of Link's personal power outside of quests or Sages is granted to him specifically by Great Fairies, who at least in OoT bolster his magical ability and teach him spells, which ties pretty directly to where he's personally come from and his connection to the land. And quite as you would expect that Twinrova (and maybe other spirits unseen as well, whether connected to the Demon tribe or not) have done with Ganondorf, where arguably I would say a lot of his magic of the era seems to resonate with necromancy (not in a negative way necessarily either but death associated magic) and summoning, and importantly the Lightning magic (and topaz he wears being now significant to that) which is very desert tied.

Point being is they're very mirrored.

And regardless of alignments and whatever else, I've always kind of seen the Great Flood as something of Ganondorf's personal Majora's Mask. Both he and Link, being unsatisfied with a result of OoT, have a period of personal upheaval that is very personal and transformative, where they are forced to reflect on themselves and who they're choosing to be and why. What they really value, why they represent what they do-- I think it's safe to say they go through a very similar process of re-evaluating everything and how no matter who or what they've been, nothing lasts and things will change.

Very much kinda following into Wind Waker where you have this overarching, if grim, acceptance of the impermanence of things and how time stops for nobody (and the irony of that for Link too)-- something something the flow of time is always cruel. Like, ultimately, through Ganondorf's struggle and eventual acceptance of this himself in Wind Waker and all the myriad of emotional and philosophical soul searching (and raging against) that he does, I like to again think that this probably provides a good springboard for what the Hero of Time also might go through, being thematically mirrored as they seem to be.

I have a lot of feelings (and AUs and general headcanons and versions and thoughts) about the Hero of Time in particular and how he and Ganondorf generally stack out in the grand scheme of things.

Actually this is a weird comparison but like it's just popped into my head and I'm just gonna roll with it like

You know Toy Story 4 Woody?

His whole arc of like, coming to terms with having a very important job to do in terms of what's best for Bonnie? And he's been through the ringer, he's been the Favourite toy. He knows his shit. He knows what he can do, he knows what to do in a crisis, he's got insights that the others may not have from being that role in Andy's room.

Well, let's say Andy's room is Hyrule.

And he was very important to Andy, and very loyal to Andy-- read: Adult timeline Zelda-- at first he's also quite a novelty to Bonnie-- read: Child Timeline Zelda-- and especially helpful in the transition of things from A to B. But he loses importance and influence pretty quickly and he finds it difficult to integrate into the new room, and ultimately he's very alienated and left behind even though he arguably still offers very crucial (if maverick) support. Like jumping into Bonnie's backpack and the whole forky thing.

Bonnie doesn't really need Woody directly, but Woody is still there behind the scenes keeping shit together.

Kinda like how Link informed the King of Ganondorf's plot and took the Ocarina off into the forest for safe keeping, and... Whatever else he goes on to do after Majora's Mask.

Anyway yeah no I think he's got big and sometimes very complex feelings and I think he winds up just as conflicted and left behind as Ganondorf himself, tbh.

The OoT > WW throughline is perfection to me and they both combine to be one of my favourite things of all time, a perfect mix of sorrow and delight and wacky bullshit. Top tier Zelda. Peak of the franchise.

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 24, first part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Banquet Proposal

Manspreading Champion Jin Guangshan is trying to pressure Jiang Cheng into marrying Jiang Yanli into the Jin clan.  Because this is the cultivation world, where everyone reflexively agrees with the most powerful man in the room like he's Frank Sinatra and they're the Rat Pack, the whole room starts pressuring Jiang Cheng to agree.  

Then Wei Wuxian comes striding in and suggests the radical idea of asking a woman's opinion about her own marriage. He tries to pressure Jiang Cheng into agreeing with him. Today is Pressure Jiang Cheng Day. Every day for the next several months is going to be Pressure Jiang Cheng Day.

Jiang Cheng stands up and agrees that it should be left up to his sister, citing his late father's beliefs so that everyone will know that this unconventional behavior isn't his fault. This is a pickle for him; he knows his sister wants to marry Jin Zixuan, but it's not a good political alliance for the Jiangs right now, which is the opposite of the situation when his parents first made the match. While saying all this he takes the opportunity to get in a dig at Wei Wuxian for meddling.

Jiang Yanli sadly says, thanks for the offer, but the Jiang Clan is just coming back from being massacred, and I have, like, SO much laundry, I can't even. It's not that I don't want to be with you, Jixuan honey; I would just rather scrub blood off of the courtyard.

Jin Zixuan suddenly realizes that being dumped in front of a bunch of your peers is not as fun when you’re catching instead of pitching.

Clan Leader Yao is completely flummoxed by this whole "let young people decide things" concept and hopes it goes out of fashion soon.

The only really happy person in the room is Jin Guangyao, who is looking for a scapegoat for his upcoming villainy. Wei Wuxian will be a perfect fit.

(more behind the cut!)

Chillin Like a Villain

Jin Guangyao and Jin Guangshan have a villany-plotting conversation that's mostly as boring as every other villainy-plotting conversation.  

Jin Guangyao starts the ground work for blaming stuff on Wei Wuxian, saying that Wei Wuxian was alone with Xue Yang back when the 4th chunk of Yin Iron went missing. This kind of harks back to that moment when Wei Wuxian searched Xue Yang (not, incidentally, alone) and XY asked if he wasn't worried about what people would say if they heard about it.

Jin Guangshan is pretty ready to think badly of WWX, who just crapped on his marriage plans, so he quickly decides that Wei Wuxian’s Yin Tiger amulet is made out of Xue Yang’s Yin Iron, not that it actually, like, matters where it came from? It’s all the same dang metal.

Back to Lotus Pier

Then we get an establishing shot of the dock in Yunmeng and the subtitle unhelpfully says QISHAN. Not because the scene is in Qishan, but because there are red Wen banners flying that say 岐山 on them, so the subtitle is for the banner, not for the location. Not only are there Wen banners still flying despite their defeat, there are at least six Wen guards standing guard at the dock. Perhaps there is a teensy continuity error here.

The Yunmeng trio return to Lotus Pier with a group of disciples in tow. Leaving aside the boys' (apparent) stealth trip to the ancestral hall in Episode 20, this is their official return to their home and the seat of their clan, having survived the Wen clan's attempt to exterminate them.

They are battered, bloodied, but not broken and one of them is also broken. But still persevering. I get choked up at this scene every time. Yu Ziyuan and Jiang Fengmian would be pleased with all three of them. Jiang Yanli has supported both of them through all the turmoil, giving them an emotional home even while they were homeless. Jiang Cheng has done the impossible, even more than he himself realizes. And Wei Wuxian has acted as a faithful servant, sacrificing a precious part of himself to save his clan leader.

The place is a mess, with the evidence of a final battle against the Wens all over the place. As they look around Wei Wuxian thinks back on one of the many times that Jiang Fengmian paid attention to him instead of to Jiang Cheng, and smiles affectionately.   Wei Wuxian is consistently able to remember the good things and smile about them, even when those memories are overlaid by endless trauma.

The three of them look at the Wen symbol on the roof line and the boys get identically angry...

...starting with the teeth of anger...

...followed by the fist of anger.

It's a powerful moment; they still do have an awful lot in common, despite everything. Jiang Cheng uses his mother’s weapon to smash the Wen symbol and reclaim his home.

Jiang Yanli:  The fuck!? Are you trying to slice my face off?

Back to Gusu

Next we get a nice fly-through of the Jingshi, where Lan Wangji is sitting in the side room playing guqin.  In later years he will move the guqin to the living room, while this room gains a wine-drinking table.  

The Lan clan do love their knick-knacks, and this room features several. There's a teapot suspended from a chain over a brazier, with a tied-up fish sculpture for a counterweight, which is definitely not an indication of any future kinks. The brazier is surrounded by Zen sand with some surprisingly untranquil lines raked into it.  

Lan Xichen has dropped by to tell Lan Wangji that the disciples are gossiping about him, saying he’s been checking out books from the library and practicing music. Seriously? The Lans are a sect that focuses on musical cultivation. Practicing music, verrry suspicious. Also, gossip is forbidden, but sure, check up on him.

In response, Lan Wangji jumps right to "I want to enter the forbidden chamber of the Library"  Lan Xichen asks him why, and he says he wants more music scores.  Lan Xichen, who knows about the secret murder music book, isn't delighted with that answer.  Just then, Lan Qiren summons them, so they table the conversation to go see him.

Lan Qiren talks about the battle they just went through, and says "I've heard about Wei Ying."  Everybody makes significant faces without clarifying what LQR actually heard about Wei Ying. Lan Qiren then philosophizes about how war is hell, particularly for idioms about eggs and nests. They need to go clean up the leftover resentful energy, but he's sending Lan Xichen on his own, while Lan Wangji gets to stay home and repair/rewrite all of the Lan rules.

Lan Qiren says a bunch of stuff to Lan Wangji about rules, being super hinty without actually coming to the point. He refuses to let Lan Wangji speak or ask questions, while he’s doling out punishment for, basically, thought crime. He wants LWJ to reject Wei Wuxian but he wants him to do it without being directly told.

To make sure Lan Wangji is extra frustrated, he snarkily refuses to give him permission to read the forbidden books, asking him if he’s already read all of the books in the regular library. Surprisingly, he hasn’t yet; I guess he was busy winning a war while you were in a coma, jerkface.

Lan Xichen is super on edge during this conversation--scared, even. He's trying to keep the peace, trying to keep Lan Wangji out of trouble, and avoid a confrontation. Lan Wangji is increasingly uninterested in peace, but he follows his brother's unspoken commands, and shuts up.

Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen both really fail as teachers here. Lan Wangji believes that resentful energy is bad. He believes this VERY STRONGLY.  He broke up with his boyfriend for a while because of it. They are punishing him for having doubts, and they’re not giving him any opportunity to talk through those doubts with them. I say “they” because Lan Qiren is the one giving the punishment, but Lan Xichen is silently assenting, and making sure Lan Wangji doesn’t argue.

As they leave, Lan Qiren stops them to ask Lan Wangji if he understands why he's grounded, and Lan Wangji just looks at him without answering, which would be counted as sass when I was growing up.

He face says he’s appropriately chagrined, but he’s not. Before the end of this episode, he's going to directly disobey Lan Qiren, and he’s going to go on disobeying him in the future, over and over again.

Later, when Lan Wangji is alone with the pristine, definitely not in need of repair, rule book, he seems genuinely chagrined. He loves these rules, and has depended on them; that’s why he’s been a model disciple for so long, not because he fears his uncle’s punishments.

But now he also loves Wei Wuxian. So some of these rules will have to be broken.

Clan Leader Jiang

The Jiang Clan are having the ceremony to install Jiang Cheng as leader.

Wei Wuxian is sitting alone, away from all of the other disciples, watching the proceedings rather than participating. His placement in the ceremony is very strange for a head disciple.

But it’s perfect for a ghost.

Later, Jiang Cheng is practicing his "yelly boss" leadership style, and being extra grumpy because Wei Wuxian is slacking off all the time. Jiang Yanli is having trouble deciding if she should be more worried about the brother with the drinking problem or the brother with the anger problem.  

Jiang Cheng is miserable and feels completely unsure of himself but he's plowing the fuck ahead.

You might put your love and trust on the line It's risky, people love to tear that down Let 'em try Do it anyway Risk it anyway And if you're paralyzed by a voice in your head It's the standing still that should be scaring you instead Go on and Do it anyway Do it anyway

Help Me to Help You

Wei Wuxian is hanging out in a tavern window, being a thirst trap and hitting on passing Lans.  

Lan Xichen joins him for a drink and a lecture. Things start off fairly well, with Wei Wuxian being impressed with his ability to drink wine, and attempting his usual flirt-tease-charm routine, bragging about smuggling wine into Cloud Recesses.

Where Lan Wangji would be adorably flustered and hostile/sexy in responding to that, Lan Xichen just shuts him down with a look, and Wei Wuxian suddenly realizes that he's talking to an adult clan leader who isn't here for his shit, and is a lot more worldy than Lan Wangji is.

Wei Wuxian knocks it off and apologizes. Then he talks fondly about Lan Wangji, saying he wants to come visit him, and daydreams cutely about dominating him  supervising his rule-copying work.

LXC says that he should come listen to new music that LWJ has composed, and the tone of the conversation changes completely. Wei Wuxian is on his guard, and he's getting ready to throw down.  He asks if LXC came to Yunmeng specifically to hassle him, and LXC...kinda says no?

Wei Wuxian smiles sweetly while he asks if everyone in the Lan Clan is a meddler.

Lan Xichen has never encountered the nasty version of Wei Wuxian before, but he's a grown up, and he's very, very hard to provoke, unlike his brother. He cuts to the chase and says he's got something to say, whether WWX listens or not.

He says Wei Wuxian shouldn't be self-centered because the people he cares about are affected by his choices. This gets through to him, for a second. But then LXC offers to help him go back to sword cultivation, and Wei Wuxian is done listening.  

He tells Lan Xichen he doesn't want to go back to sword work, and LXC is stunned into silence for a moment as Wei Wuxian takes his wine and starts to walk away.  Lan Xichen makes a last ditch attempt to warn him about the dangers of the yin tiger amulet, and WWX says he knows, but he wants to try to master it anyway. Then he leaves with a rude little wave, and no bow.

This whole conversation seems like a disaster but Wei Wuxian does, in fact, remember Lan Xichen’s words, the next time he meets up with Lan Wangji.

Soundtrack: Do It Anyway by Ben Folds Five

[envythepalmtree]

Xingese Roy supremacy Do you have any in-depth headcanons abt it :o

XINGESE ROY SUPREMACY!!

omg. thank you for asking about headcanons. yes I have SO MANY. many of which I cannot say yet (just wait to get spammed with xingese roy things later this year). I'm Chinese American myself so I project SO much onto him (we love our Ownvoices narratives here)!

On this post I mainly talk about what it's like to have Xingese heritage in Amestris. How it affected Roy growing up, and how that reflects Amestrian society as a whole. A little bit about how he starts to reconnect with his culture. If you want lighter, more fun headcanons about Roy being connected to Xingese culture:

insulting ed

roy likes rice crackers

chinese new year modern au

SO!!

My main thing about Xingese Roy: while it's technically canon compliant because it doesn't directly contradict anything in canon, it couldn't be canon because being of a different race in Amestrian society would have vast impacts on Roy's character and on the way he interacts with others, especially as a military officer. If Arakawa intended for Roy to be Xingese, there's no way she wouldn't have mentioned it. That being said, it's the best headcanon ever when done right.

Like the general fanon goes, Roy's father is Amestrian and the brother to Chris Mustang; Roy's mother came to Amestris from Xing. She didn't exactly immigrate by choice, but nonetheless she resents Xing and convinces herself that Amestris is the best country and she needs to be a good citizen. (She also happens to be one of my favorite OCs ever but I will stop myself from infodumping about her backstory.)

If you can't tell by me crying over I Can Only Write My Name by Will Jay, a theme I like to use a lot is assimilation. Erasing one's own culture, erasing parts of their identity to fit in. When Roy's mom showed up in Amestris as a teenager having lost everything, she learned to assimilate. Even if she visibly looked like a foreigner, she could beat away her accent, learn the customs and culture of the new country, and erase her life from before.

And that's how she raised Roy before she died. Assimilate. Be good. Our heritage is not important. Show loyalty to Amestris. Show patriotism. You look Xingese, but you are not Xingese, you are Amestrian. You have to prove it to the world so that they accept you.

You can say Amestris is diverse in cultures, not because people chose to move there, but because they're an imperialist power. The Amestrians conquered other countries and melded them into their own. They love it when they take over a smaller country and its people blend into Amestrian society. (Ishval didn't. The Amestrians didn't like that.)

"Foreign" is synonymous with "enemy." Amestris has enemies on all sides - Drachma, Creta, Aerugo. Xing isn't a military threat because it's separated by a desert, but it's still foreign and unknown. And that's why young Roy Mustang can't say he's Xingese - he isn't a foreigner. He's a good Amestrian boy and will grow up to help his country.

To Roy's friends and classmates, Roy is a perfect token. He looks visibly Xingese (visibly foreign), but he's smart, great at alchemy, and patriotic. He loves being Amestrian and wants to help his country when he grows up. Roy Mustang is a great prop when someone needs to say, "I have a friend who's a foreigner so I can't be racist." (Roy isn't a foreigner and hates being called one, but he likes being useful.)

Dehumanization is something else I think about a lot. Especially with FMA. State alchemists are called "human weapons." These people, or anyone really, are only as valuable as they are useful. The state doesn't see its military (and certainly not its civilians) as people - they are weapons to further their goals of expansion and conquest.

Civilians might see each other as people. But why would they see foreigners that way? But when their nation conquers a new territory, or someone flees to their country, the outsider might have use. (Ishval did not.) The outsider might have something to contribute to society. The outsider might reject their own heritage to prove that Amestris is superior. The outsider could be a golden boy, a prop to show that despite one's blood, a boy like Roy Mustang can be the perfect Amestrian citizen.

So, just as his dead mother wanted him to, Roy Mustang rejects the blood she gave him. She washed herself away. And it will be many years, after Roy becomes a good Amestrian soldier and creates a river of Ishvalan blood, after years of unlearning everything the state taught him, that he meets some Xingese children tied to his mother's past. Only then does he start to recover what his mother washed away.

[elganac]

          cw: sexual assault, abuse, and trauma mention

          summary: this headcanon is inspired by this post, which touches on the concept of the “good victim” and how individuals who do not fall in line with the image of a “good victim” are often criticized for how they react to their trauma. as a survivor herself, alison has undergone a lot of reflection regarding her past trauma as she’s grown older, and this post discusses her true feelings and what she’s allowed herself to learn and believe in as a result of self-reflection. this post also includes a discussion on how alison goes about moving forward from her past and what kind of future i ideally project for her. 

         to get to the point: alison does not forgive nate, cedric, or grant for what they’ve done to her ( there’s actually kind of a grey area with cedric, but i think that’s really only in one very specific verse i have with a close mutual of mine, so it’s more accurate to really include him rather than not ). realistically speaking, alison will most likely never truly forgive them, even if for whatever reason the boys apologize to her and genuinely change for the better. it doesn’t matter – there is no room for forgiveness in her heart towards them. there’s anger, there’s confusion, there’s resentment, but it’s all very quiet. she keeps these emotions so tightly under lock and key since they’re tied directly to her trauma, and on top of that, she just isn’t really an angry person in canon. but these emotions exist, and it might be like “well yeah duh of course they do” but i think the point that i really want to bring home surrounds this idea of a good victim vs. a bad victim, and alison, in a way, would be considered a bad victim. she doesn’t wish the boys the best at all; she really doesn’t deep down inside.

          the post linked above mentions the idea of the “good victim” who is ready to forgive and make up with those who harmed them. for reference, here’s the post in its entirety: 

“shoutout to the survivors who are not forgiving, who do not believe that what happened to them was 'for a reason', who know they did not deserve it, who are angry at what happened to them, and who do not show the typical 'good victim' trope. You all get so much shit from people about how you should act from your trauma because only 'good victims' are deserving of empathy and support. You deserve so much more than that.”

          while alison is typically very forgiving as a person, she’s like that with literally everyone else except grant, nate, and cedric because after contemplating over what’s happened to her, she’s come to the conclusion that she didn’t deserve to be sexually assaulted, that it wasn’t her fault, that it doesn’t matter that nate came from a broken home and had his own problems to deal with, that grant and cedric said they loved her and probably did at one point, that cedric was so nice to her and was actually her friend at one point – it doesn’t matter. none of it matters. they had no right to do what they did to her. she lost so much to them, and she genuinely hates them. emile does too, actually, but that’s another matter.

       it becomes an incredibly complex matter when we talk about how alison deals with important people in her life interacting with cedric or nate. point blank, it’s an act of betrayal for her friends to be friends with either of these two, and when romantic relationships form between alison’s friends and cedric or nate, it really brings out a bitterness inside alison that is so, so rare and very uncharacteristic. but it’s not unwarranted to unjustified. she won’t ever tell people the reason though, not unless asked directly, so she might come off very cold and distant as well as two-faced and passive-aggressive, acting as though everything is fine to your face but really being negative elsewhere.

         while alison harnesses a lot of ill will towards cedric, nate, and grant, she doesn’t actually purposely wish harm on them. she doesn’t wish them the best, like i said before, but she doesn’t actively make their lives living hells either.  i mentioned before how alison somehow manages to befriends/dates dangerous people who, more often than not, murder as part of their jobs, and while it’d be easy for her to have her partner take out all three, that’s not really something alison would ever ask or advocate. ironically, despite hating all three, she’s also oddly protective of them, and that might stem from the fact that she literally wants nothing to do with any of them anymore. she doesn’t want to dig up her past in any way, even if it’s to “correct” the wrongdoing the three men have done to her.

         now – i said alison never would actively seek out ways to make the boys’ lives living hell but ,,,, but if others decided to and never got alison involved or let her know, she can’t technically say anything, and i don’t think she’d really be upset if she found out something bad happened to any of the boys, though she probably would be pretty distressed upon finding out the news. but upset? hmm ,,, i think it might be more accurate to say an odd sensation of relief might overcome her after the shock has disappeared. but i honestly don’t know – i’ve never written or plotted something like that out fully.

         i also just want to add that alison never reported her sexual assault, and this is a personal choice she stands by and doesn’t necessarily regret. it’s a decision she made to protect herself, and while there may never be any legal justice for alison, having a strong support system and moving beyond her past has given alison a special strength that i headcanon will propel her into advocacy and philanthropy to help young women who might be experiencing what she went through earlier in her life. but it’ll take alison many years before she’s willing to retell her story over and over again.

[honeymoonjin]

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DAY SIXTEEN

The realisation of the decision you have to make hits you like a truck the moment you wake up.

You hadn’t lied to Yoongi last night. Chatting with him about it was helpful, and you’re insanely grateful for his attentiveness and the fact that you can be honest with him about things like that. But it doesn’t mean you’re any closer to knowing who you want to be eliminated.

You’ve barely been awake and coherent for a minute before your phone buzzes noisily on your nightstand. Blinking blearily at the screen, a message from Taehyung lights it up. Bunkroom, please.

He’d sent it two minutes ago, your phone giving you that 2min reminder. It must have been what woke you. Your sleepy fingers manage to type out a quick coming now before you force yourself out from the cosiness of the covers and heading down.

Jimin is already there when you arrive, arms crossed to preserve the warmth of his body and perched on the foot of Taehyung’s bed. The masseuse had picked the two-set of bunks, directly across from the door, and he sits wrapped up in blankets, cross-legged and leaning against the far wall. He pats the mattress with a covered hand and you sit between the two, Jimin naturally scooting up to sandwich you between the two.

“Is this an intervention?” you joke weakly, voice still croaky from sleep.

“Not really.” You feel the pressure of Taehyung’s head on your shoulder. “Do you know who you’re voting out yet?”

You let out a self-deprecating scoff. “I do not.”

Taehyung goes silent for a moment. “Well… I have an idea.”

Jimin turns to face him, clearly just as in the dark as you are. “About who to vote out?”

“Kinda,” Taehyung murmurs. The only light in the room is what sneaks in through the crack of the doorway. You let your eyes slip shut as Taehyung winds his fingers into yours. “I want you to vote out me.”

Both you and Jimin go stiff, protesting at the same time. “Tae…”

“No,” the older man to your left says harshly. “Why would you want that?”

Taehyung seems to similarly shrink away and lean in closer, making himself small. “It would be easier on Y/n,” he states in an equally small voice.

Your eyes snap open even though you can only see grey-scale versions of the boys. “Tae, that’s not how this is meant to be. I’m a big girl; I’ll live.”

“You don’t get it,” Taehyung insists, sitting up and untangling himself from you so he can face you full-on. “I know the decision is hard on you. But it’s really hard on us too, and I realised last night that it’s not because I’m worried about getting voted out, it’s because I hate seeing you so upset. We’ve already made a promise to each other. I’ve seen more of you and shared more with you than most of the other guys, and I just think… You know, fuck the competition. You and Jimin both mean more to me than the game, and so I think I’d be happy to take that hit to make things easier on all of us.” His gaze drops, fingers picking at the thread of the blanket. “And, you know, maybe we’d be able to keep us a secret longer if the others saw you vote me out.”

While you sit stunned into silence, Jimin burst into action, gripping your thigh gently but emphatically. “It should be me, then. You’ve been nothing less than a sweetheart this entire time, Tae, you don’t deserve last place. Let Y/n vote me.”

Taehyung chuckles, no sadness or resentment in his voice. “Nobody would believe that Y/n would vote you out, Minnie,” he quips, his teeth gleaming in the dim room. “You’re too good at what you do.”

“I’ve been an asshole. I got in a fight the other day. I don’t think it’s hard to believe at all.” Taehyung makes a noise of protest in his throat, so Jimin cuts back in before he can voice it. “At least let’s flip a coin for it. Leave it up to chance.”

Your body goes lax against the wall with a silent sob of miserable irony. Just yesterday Taehyung had jauntily suggested you could choose who to vote off with a coin toss, and now he was rifling through his bag for one, to see if he or Jimin would be the one to leave. “I haven’t even said yes,” you point out lowly, “I haven’t said I want this. That I’m happy for one of you to leave.”

Jimin lets out a quiet sigh, his face cast in the warm hallway light as Taehyung opens the door wider to see more. “But would you be happier if you made one of them seventh place? Had them think they’re the worst in the house?”

“At least this way we won’t be offended or mad at you,” Taehyung assures as he returns, running his thumb over the engravings on a 50 won coin. “Doesn’t that count for something?”

They’re waiting for you. You bite down on your tongue and force yourself to think. To picture the faces of the others, of how they might react. Hoseok if he was on the chopping block for the second time in a row. Namjoon if he felt like his inexperience was his downfall. Jungkook thinking the fight yesterday was the nail in his coffin, or Jin seeing your elimination as a rejection of him and his feelings. Yoongi after letting you confide in him only to send him figuratively packing.

You’d have to eliminate them eventually. All but one of the guys on this show would face that goodbye at some point. Was it selfish of you to push it off for one more week?

“You can flip it,” you decide after a moment, your stomach sinking immediately. “Fuck, this sucks. I’m so sorry.”

Jimin’s grip on your thigh squeezes once comfortingly, and Taehyung rubs your shoulder, before he turns to his elder. “Min, heads or tails?”

“Heads,” Jimin picks without hesitation.

Taehyung, however, does hesitate. “Doesn’t heads come up more often?” he questions warily.

Jimin grits his teeth and nods. “It should be me.”

The masseuse frowns, his black curls like a dark halo as he steadies the coin on his thumb. “Whoever’s comes up gets eliminated?”

Jimin nods again. “Flip it, Tae.”

The second he flicks his thumb and the coin rises, you squeeze your eyes shut, not even breathing. Hoping that the moment where both of them are going to stay in could last a little longer.

The two boys go silent. You feel their eyes on you, then their hands, both slipping into yours just seconds apart from each other. Feeling your eyes prickle, you clear your throat. “Who is it?”

Without a word, your right side becomes heavy as Taehyung buries his face into your shoulder, free arm wrapping tightly around your waist.

You begin to cry before you can even think to stop it, leaning back into him as much as you can with both your hands occupied. Opening your eyes, they remain too blurry to really see out of, but you feel the two of them shift, fingers wiping under your cheeks and cupping your jaw.

“Hey, shh, don’t cry, petal,” Taehyung voice croons, smooth like velvet. “It’s okay, we’re okay.”

You sniff shudderingly, detaching your hands from theirs so you can press over your eyes, composing yourself. “Sorry,” you mumble in a thick voice, “I’ll just miss you.”

You blink away the last of your tears so that his face comes into focus, lips curving slightly, eyes swimming with emotion and with tears of his own. “Hey,” he soothes again, “I’m not going anywhere. All this means is that I can’t have sex with you. It’s not like sex is the only valuable thing about you, the only thing I like about you, you know? I can still hold your hand, I can still be beside you, I can still make you smile. I wanna see that pretty smile again, petal.”

Even though you probably look like a mess, and your heart is fizzy with mangled emotion, you can’t fight the smile that stretches across your lips. Taehyung brightens at the sight, praising you softly as you reach out and shove him playfully. “You sap,” you whine petulantly, heart settling nonetheless.

Having let the two of you share that moment together, Jimin finally pitches in, his voice bright and soothing like yuja tea. “Worst case scenario,” he jibes lightly, “you’ll just have to fuck pup with his hands tied and take the punishment.”

Your laugh is watery but it’s genuine. “Ah, Tae, are you gonna put me in some crazy lingerie or something?”

“I don’t have to when you look gorgeous in everything you wear already,” he admits with a fond smile, before it stretches wider, a cheeky glint in his eyes. “Lingerie sounds nice though. Good thinking.”

Jimin clears his throat lightly and stands up off the bed, slipping his phone out of his pocket to consult the time. “It’s just gone eight, so you have about an hour. I’ll give you two some privacy, yeah?”

Jimin shuts the door behind him, inadvertently pitching the room back into darkness. Taehyung lets out a breathy giggle, getting up to stumble around for the curtains.

You wince and shield your eyes when the white walls gleam with the brightness of the morning sun.

Taehyung looks more gorgeous in the well-lit room than he did in a dim one, so you will your eyes to quickly adjust, drinking him in. Deep chocolate curls resting on his brow, he shakes them back as he gestures up with a single hand. “We should probably go on the top bunk.”

You blink. “Huh?”

“I don’t wanna get my hair caught on the metal springs on the bottom there,” he explains, leaning forward to wrap his fingers around the network of wire that holds up the mattress of the top bunk just above your head. “I swear I’ve done that so many times in just this one night. It hurts.”

Slipping out dutifully, you climb the few rungs of the ladder to sit atop the bunk, reminded of the last time you stayed here with Namjoon and Hoseok. The mood is so different now, only emphasised by the way Taehyung gently tips you back against the pillow the second he joins you.

“Tae, what are you- Tae,” you gasp, feeling the slight tickle of his hair on your neck as he leans in and pulls the neckline of your sleep shirt over your shoulder, baring the flesh. His lips leave light butterfly kisses over the sensitive skin, making you sigh out at the feeling. “What are you doing, Tae?”

He sits up, braced by his forearms on either side of your head. Like this, his hair casts a shadow over his face, but you can see the insistent fire in his eyes. “I want to touch you, petal,” he confesses, “one last time.”

Your heart is seized with emotion, a lump thickening in your throat. “It won’t be the last last time, Tae.”

“True,” he acquiesces, “but for the rest of our time here I’ll have to see the others with you, our Minnie will be able to still be with you, but you and I won’t be able to do any more than hold hands. Won’t you let me treat you like your deserve before then?”

You nod quickly, breath hitching. “Touch me, Tae.”

This time he doesn’t waste time shifting the fabric to the side. Instead, his large palms slip under the small of your back, guiding you to arch it so he can slip your shirt off entirely, tossing it down all the way to the floor.

You sit up and peer over the edge with a wince, glancing back up at Taehyung. “Please don’t fall over,” you plead in a small voice.

The masseuse grins fondly, taking a peek before moving the other way, towards the wall. “It’s not that high,” he protests softly, even as he props himself up on one elbow, his leg thrown low over your thighs, keeping you locked in close too. His hand lowers to run lightly down your side, making you shiver. “Better?”

You bite your lip and nod. “Better.”

With a slightly bemused hum, Taehyung dips his head and his lips find your skin again, making use of the lack of shirt to trail kisses lower, unhurried even with the very real threat of the deadline hanging over you.

You let out an airy sigh at the intimate way he moves down your shoulder, over your collarbones, to the swell of your chest. Instead of a straight line, every kiss is plotted out in mindless curls and loops, like he wants to cover as much ground as possible.

As his hair tickles your skin, it sends tingles running down your nerves, your nipples peaking as they anticipate his attention. “Tae…” you breathe, giggling when his chaste touches make you shiver.

His voice vibrates slightly against your skin. “You’re so beautiful,” he praises, his free arm slipping over to gently grasp your arm, thumb running over the crook of your inner elbow. “So gorgeous, petal.”

His palms are like hot coals against your skin as it breaks out in goosebumps, hair standing on end. It feels like a quiet eternity before his mouth reaches one of your nipples, closing around it with the sudden wet heat of his tongue. You cry out at the unexpected stimulation and jerk, but the weight of his head, leg and arm carefully pinning you against the sheets keep you steady.

Taehyung takes his time worshipping your breasts, sucking your nipple with a wet pop as his hand shifts once more to play with the other. Pausing to lick the pads of his thumb and forefinger, he returns to roll the bud between them, making heat pool in your core.

Part of you feels like pushing his head between your legs, or wrapping your legs around his waist and demanding he fills you, but you don’t want this moment to be over any sooner than it has to be. Instead, your fingers wind into his hair, cradling his head to you as you arch your chest up into that delicious stimulation.

Even as you feel his cock plump up between the layers of clothing that separate you, he doesn’t so much as grind his hips, focussing fully on your pleasure. After what could be mere moments or entire minutes, he swaps over, leaning to the opposite breast to lave his tongue over it, baring the slightest nip of teeth to make you gasp.

It feels like a lazy eternity before his hand moves again, this time running a flat palm between your breasts, down your stomach and slipping under the worn elastic waistband. Wanting to give yourself a little room to breathe under the baggy pants you’d worn to bed, you’d foregone panties, and Taehyung hisses in sharply when his fingers run over your mound and immediately dip into your folds.

Recovering quickly, he begins to massage your hooded clit, using your own wetness to lubricate it for a smoother slide. You let out a throaty moan, legs parting to make more room for his sizeable hand. “Tae,” you pant out again, whimpering when he begins pressing kisses to your stomach.

“Yes, petal?” Taehyung questions sweetly, his movement on your clit so slow that you find yourself rocking your hips against him just for more stimulation.

“Want you to kiss me.”

“I am kissing you,” he counters, lips dragging over your hipbone as he speaks.

You whine. “On the lips, Tae.”

His fingers delve lower, parting your folds. “Which ones?”

Though the thought makes you clench around nothing, you push weakly at his shoulder in protest. “Up here, Tae, wanna kiss you properly.”

He gives in, shifting up to join his swollen lips to yours for the first time since you’d gotten up here. Just as you hook your hand on the nape of his neck and kiss him, he breaches your walls with two slick fingers, making you cry out into his mouth.

Taehyung chuckles, massaging you from the inside, fingers scissoring and curling rather than thrusting. “That feel good, petal?”

You nod shakily, eyes fluttering shut as you put your mind into kissing him properly, tongue running down the seam of his lips so that he parts them for you. He continues to work you open with languid grace, his fingers so long and deft that even the most minimal movements take your breath away.

He may be focused on your pleasure, but he doesn’t seem to be pushing you to orgasm, instead letting you bask in the warmth of your arousal and his steady stimulation. Even as he slips a third finger inside you and uses the base of his palm to rub against your clit, you’re reminded of a massage. The way he draws out the moment so that you can enjoy the experience of it, not just the final result. Your muscles go lax and one of your legs hitch up to spread yourself wider for him, but still his ministrations are so slow that you can’t even hear how obscenely wet you must be.

Still fully clothed, you can feel Taehyung’s hardness against your hip, his leg splayed over one of your thighs to keep you still for him. As your pleasure steadily rises, but that familiar curl in your stomach never tightens, you begin to grow needy. First attempting to rut against his fingers, then nipping at his lip in the hopes of riling him up, you eventually resort to pulling away from him and giving him your best puppy eyes. “Please, Tae, I want you to fuck me.”

His eyes are still blissfully shut from the kiss, and his brows furrow just slightly, hand stilling inside you. “I wanna make this last.”

You bite your lip, pressing a hand to his cheek fondly. “I don’t want to run out of time. We’ll end up being late to the meeting.”

Taehyung sighs, tilting his head to press a kiss to your palm. “Who cares if we’re late?”

Your lip twitches. “Sejin, probably. Do you want him coming up here at one minute past nine, interrupting us?”

The masseuse winces, his fingers slipping out of your wet heat. “You think he’d do that?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t wanna risk it either,” you offer up.

“Fuck.” Taehyung sits up and quickly tugs down your waistband, making you squeal and giggle at his sudden change of pace. “You’re right, shit.”

He strips himself even quicker than he did you, jimmying out of his boxer shorts and tugging his shirt over his head like it’s scalding him. Immediately you feel his erection against your thigh, heavy and wet with precum. Instead of getting back up on top of you, you feel Taehyung’s hand - still sticky from your arousal - pulling your hip up to guide you to lie on your side.

With legs intertwined, he hitches your outer leg over his waist and lines himself up at your entrance. Almost shaking with excitement, you cling to him and hold your breath as he pushes forward, his head entering you slowly but surely.

It’s quiet in the bunkroom, the only sound being your shared breathing, but there’s something so vulnerable and tender in that silence, and you tremble as he bottoms out inside you. The angle you’re both at, lying side by side, makes it feel like he’s deeper than you’ve ever felt before, filling you completely. You picture his cock so far inside you that it presses against your stomach, and the thought makes you tremble.

“Okay?” Taehyung checks in, giving you a moment to adjust.

You nod and lean forward to capture his lips, savouring that familiar embrace. “Ready, Tae,” you confirm, clenching around his girth. “Fuck me like you mean it.”

Taehyung lets out an unbidden groan, and just like that his patience is dissolved, rutting up into you with short, staccato thrusts that punch the air right out of you. Your fingers curl, clutching onto him for dear life as your nerves are set alight.

Every rock of his hips grinds his cock into the base of your clit, and you find yourself grinding against him, helplessly seeking out the best angle. “T-Tae, fuck, so good,” you manage to force out, voice wobbling even more than your legs.

His hands are all over you; running over your thighs, stroking your back, gripping your ass to meet every thrust. As you look over to him blearily, that same desperate hunger is evident in his face. You take a few moments to appreciate him. This will be the last time in a while that he’s writhing in carnal bliss because of you, and you fight to memorise every last inch of his face.

His hair is messy from sleep and the roughness of your current predicament, some curling at his temples even as the rest sticks up at odd angles, but on him it looks like some kind of wild halo that just makes him all the more gorgeous. His eyes are clenched shut even as his mouth goes slack. The tiniest gloss of drool gathers in the corner of his lips, which are a swollen pink, contrasting so beautifully with his olive skin. Light moans and exertions fall past those lips like a steady river, rushing louder every time you clench around him.

Unable to hold yourself back any more, you lurch forward, teeth pinching your lip with how eagerly you rejoin yourself to his. His responding whimper is muffled, but the way his thrusts stutter as his hands fly up to cup your face close to him speaks volumes.

The movement of his cock deep inside you isn’t measured, or ruthless, or graceful. It’s seeking pleasure and giving pleasure mindlessly, wishing to be as close as you possibly can for as long as you can, barely even speaking to each other.

His lips are equally uncoordinated as they slant against you, his tongue dipping out thoughtlessly, teeth nipping needily. You lose your mind to this primal moment between the two of you, sense of time fading away as minute details like a drop of sweat rolling down your back take centre stage. All you can focus on are his fingernails lightly pressing into your cheek; the roughness of his leg hair against your calf; the squeaking of the springs beneath you.

You can’t even tell if you’re making any noise yourself, so lost in those divine notes that slip off his tongue. At one point your mouths slide apart and he tucks his face into the crook of your neck, focuses on thrusting harder. You dig your fingers into his shoulders, trying to meet those thrusts but every moment your pleasure mounts it just gets harder to make your body obey.

When Taehyung speaks, it’s impossible to tell how much time has passed, if Sejin is waiting outside or if you still have most of the hour. Once he buried himself inside you, you slowly stopped caring about the outside world. Those doors felt like an impenetrable wall that would keep you and him secure for as long as you needed it. His voice comes to you muffled, a tickle on your collarbone. “Wanna feel you cum, petal,” he confesses, voice hoarse. “Are you close?”

You gasp, writhing against him. “Need more, Tae.” You barely manage to finish your sentence before fingers are grinding against your clit, pressing it between the pad of his thumb and his cock. Immediately, heat rushes through you, making your eyes roll back. “Fu-fuck, right there,” you cry, core pulsing with every thrust.

With an added source of pleasure, your orgasm begins to quickly approach, your entire body alight with it. At some point your eyes have fallen shut, and you’ve failed to meet his thrusts, almost entirely unable to think, your mind just overwhelmed with the feeling of his cock moving so deeply inside you.

Taehyung, although similarly delirious with pleasure, seems slightly more put together than you. His hips begin to snap faster, fucking into you without abandon even as the angle prevents him from getting too much momentum. His thumb speeds up, rolling your most sensitive bud over his shaft as it drives into you, and his free hand is trapped between you and the sheets, fingers tangled in your hair.

“Close, so close, gon’cum soon, Tae,” you warn him in a garbled stream when the stimulation begins to surmount what your body can handle. Toes curling, you pant and wait before your orgasm to hit any second, whining every time his length pulls out.

When Taehyung speaks, it’s breathy like a prayer. “Kiss me.”

You have just enough time to seek out his lips before the dam breaks and you’re cumming around him. Still seeking his own end, Taehyung ruts into you and makes out with you messily, groaning into your mouth when you tighten, nerves singing with raw pleasure, an orgasm that never seems to end.

You continue to kiss him as he finally begins to spill inside you, going tense and grinding his hips rather than thrusting. It feels so right, being joined like this with limbs entangled and every breath shared.

It takes you a few moments of coming down from your high to notice the wetness on your cheeks. At first you think you’re crying, overwhelmed from a powerful orgasm, but as you crack your eyes open you see Taehyung pull back, shoulders jerking and a hand clapped over his mouth and nose.

He cries silently, tears soaking the pillow and dripping off his nose, but there’s nothing you can say. It’s just a game, you still have me, we only have to wait a little while, these things wouldn’t bring him any comfort, not when he already knew them. His wasn’t a sadness you had to explain away or solve, it was one he just needed to feel in its entirety.

So, just as quietly as sobs wrack his body, you wrap your arms around him, burying your face in the crook of his neck, and hold him close.

He calms down eventually, pressing his cheek against the crown of your head, but the two of you stay like that for every last minute that you have left.

When your phone vibrates, followed quickly by his, you know that your time is up, and you dress in silence.

--

The meeting starts at 9:12 a.m. You know this, because by the time Taehyung descends the stairs - joining you several minutes later to prevent suspicion - Sejin is wearing a hole in the carpet, informing the group there is a schedule for a reason.

“Can we get started now?” Sejin asks in a snappish tone, before taking in a measured breath, calming himself. “Sorry. Long day.”

“But it’s only nine… thirteen a.m.,” Taehyung supplies helpfully. Sejin doesn’t seem to find it very helpful. “Sorry. Yes, we can start.”

As the masseuse settles himself on a couch beside Jimin, you do your best not to look their way. Sat beside Sejin on the edge of the coffee table, you’re facing the whole group, but there is a strange sense of calm that comes over you when you look at the others. Knowing they’re safe for at least another week.

“Once again,” Sejin announces, knee bumping yours, “the gentlemen have a chance to defend themselves before Y/n makes her decision. Clockwise around the room; Namjoon, we’ll start with you.”

It’s been a pretty rainy morning, a cold front frosting up the windows and making the heatpump slow to act. The academic has himself bundled up in a thick brown sweater and chunky pants, hands slipped between his own thighs for an extra bit of warmth. Somehow, the stocky clothes just make him look smaller. “Y/n,” he begins, “I know I’m never going to be as experienced as the others beside me, but I do really want to keep learning with you, and exploring different things. You make me feel really comfortable and at ease, which is unusual since usually I panic even thinking about kissing someone, and so I’d be really sad if I lost that learning curve that I’m going up with you. I hope you enjoy our time together enough that you’ll let me stay a little longer.”

As he is most days, Hoseok sits beside Namjoon, half-leaning on the taller man. He’s wearing sleek black today; skinny jeans, fitted turtleneck and a cinched waist. Reminiscent of the first two scenes you’d done together, you wonder if he’s wearing those clothes strategically. “My turn? Y/n, if you’re thinking of voting Namjoon out, vote me instead, and if you’re thinking of voting out any of the other guys, good luck to them.” His cheeks lift in a warm smile as you laugh, the humour skimming off some of the tension that weighs the room down. “But on a serious note, I think you and I are extremely sexually compatible, and I take great pleasure in watching you fall apart for me. I want for you to see me as somebody that you can trust to take care of you, but also push you and challenge you. For that, I do hope you choose not to eliminate me.”

You suck in a slow breath. It’s strange hearing them out with no intention of voting them out anyway. Rather than making you feel more indecisive, it reaffirms all the good that you have in this house, that you’re lucky to still retain after the meeting today. You owed Taehyung a massive thank you.

Wedged on the other side of Hoseok is the youngest gentleman. Jungkook has his legs tucked under him, fluffy grey bedsocks peeking out. When Sejin looks at hiim expectantly, he clears his throat. “I actually, um, have a presentation.”

As the rest of the room watches in bewilderment, he hops off the couch and flicks on the television. On the screen, two mirrored selfies of him pouting and winking bracket a message, VOTE FOR JUNGKOOK.

He sucks in a breath suddenly, whirling around to face you. “That should say don’t,” he explains in a rush, “don’t vote for Jungkook.”

Turning back, he crouches beside the cabinet to where a laptop is hooked up to the back of the TV. Changing slides, he straightens up again. A crossfade gives way to a slide which begins with the title, Who Is Jungkook?

“Fucking hell,” Yoongi grumbles, shifting to get himself comfortable on the middle couch he shares with Jin. “Wake me up when it’s my turn.”

Clearing his throat, Jungkook begins to read off the screen. “Who is Jungkook? Successful camboy, avid gamer, budding chef - that’s a picture of me helping hyung cook - and most importantly… Objectively the most attractive guy in the house.”

Even as he hurries to change slides, the other men - namely Jin and Taehyung - protest with cries of outrage and disbelief. Jungkook ignores them, just raising his voice enough to carry over their complaints, waiting for the new slide to bounce in above the previous one. “Why should you save Jungkook?” This time, Jungkook stays crouched, each bullet point having its own slide with a related picture of him. “I will stream with you. I will help cook for you. I will let you play as Widowmaker. I will work out every day so that I stay capable of lifting you easily. I will show you the unflattering pictures I take of the hyungs.” Somehow, Jungkook’s managed to capture a shot of Hoseok mid-yawn, nose scrunched and jaw wide open at the dining table. The man himself lets out an indignant huff, only relaxing once Jungkook switches slides again, a dissolve transition leaving you with a final selfie with Jungkook biting his lip and flicking the camera a peace sign. Jungkook straightens up. “I will give you all these things and more if I’m still in the competition, so please, don’t vote Jungkook.”

Taehyung’s hesitant smattering of applause fills the room as Jungkook switches off the television, sitting himself back down beside Hoseok. Even as he smiles and acts casual about it, you can see his nerves in the way he wrings his hands in his lap. Even if you hadn’t already decided to vote out Tae, there was no way you could’ve voted Jungkook out this week.

Jin is next up, on the couch directly in front of you. His ment is simple. “Vote me out if you think I deserve it. If you genuinely think I’m the worst in the house. I don’t think you do.” The rest of the room falls silent, waiting for him to continue, but he sits back and shuffles Yoongi’s shoulder to indicate his turn.

Sitting up, honey blonde hair disheveled from the back of the couch, Yoongi clears his throat and looks over at you. “You and I spoke last night about the others, about reasons for them to stay in, reasons for them to be voted out. But you didn’t cover me, so here’s mine. Pros: I know my way around the female body in general and, I believe, your body specifically. I’m very willing to give most things a go, I learn fast, and you know that I can keep my head above the water in moments of crisis. I’m a safe person to have in the game.”

You grin. “And your cons?”

Yoongi harrumphs, pouting petulantly. “Well, I’m not going to say them now, am I? I’m trying to promote myself.”

Your bemusement is quick to evaporate when you realise it’s Jimin and Taehyung that are last to defend themselves. Running clockwise, Taehyung is the one who has to speak up now. His eyes dance around the room rather than settling, fingers fiddling with the zipper on his jacket pocket. “Y/n,” he announces, voice so soft and tentative, “I think you and I have a lot of, um, potential together in the bedroom, and, you know, if you keep me in the game, you’ll be able to enjoy the best hands in the business. And I really enjoyed my time with you so much, especially this week. It’s like we have an understanding when we...” Taehyung’s mouth opens, closes. “Uh, so… Don’t vote me out, because you’ll miss out on those things.”

You try not to let the blue cloud in your chest show on your face, staying neutral. You and him both knew you would miss out on those things. That you would miss those things too. Giving a little nod, hyperaware of your reactions, you turn to Jimin.

He’s looking you dead-on, barely moving. “You should vote me out,” he says plainly. “Not...any of the others.” Not Taehyung. “I was a dick the other day, I’ve been an asshole mostly this whole time, and I’m sure the other guys would love it if you did, because they all know I’m the biggest competition. If you ever miss me, I have countless videos online you could watch, or you could watch me fuck one of the guys here. And I’m sure you already have a name in mind, but change it to mine. It should be me.”

Your mouth goes dry, heart racing sickly in your chest. Taehyung’s staring at Jimin with puppy eyes, a silent protest. On the other side of the room, Jungkook lets out a surprised chuckle. “Reverse psychology!” he chirps. “Nice, hyung.”

“So, Y/n,” Sejin asks, voice warm with sympathy, “who’ll it be?”

With eyes stinging, you duck your head, the name on your tongue bitter like battery acid. What you wouldn’t give to throw yourself away instead. “Taehyung.”

The room goes dead quiet. No sighs of relief, expressions of condolence. No announcement from Sejin.

In the two weeks you’d been here, you’d been in this position once before. But that time, exactly one week ago, you’d been subject to a sudden change in events that saved everyone. Now, with Taehyung’s name still hanging in the air like a melancholy ghost, the weight of this decision and its finality sit heavy around the room.

The first cut is the deepest, and as Sejin begins to instruct Taehyung on how to proceed as an eliminated member, you feel like your heart has been sliced in two. The half of you that wants to rush up to him and kiss him silly and take back what you said, and the half that’s filled with an overwhelming relief that you’ve kept the others safe for now.

Taehyung doesn’t look at you much as he leaves. There’s a moment, a single glance, where he gives you a teary smile of approval and comfort. A million words that you can’t say in front of everyone. But then he turns, and he walks out the front door.

Jungkook, who was too shocked into silence to even be listening, straightens up with the wooden thunk of the door closing. “He’s not leaving for good, is he?”

Sejin shakes his head stiffly, before clearing his throat and slipping back into his producer mode. Even as he does so, you can see the elimination upsets him too, his eyes sad. “Taehyung is going around back to the confessional booth for his exit interview. He doesn’t need to be around for prompt distribution, so he’s going to just do it now. Which brings me to this week’s theme.” Sejin pauses for dramatic effect, but it only serves to highlight the sullen mood in the room. “Work hard, play hard.”

You frown in confusion. The first two weeks were easy. Locations, roleplay. You knew what type of thing would be occurring even if you didn’t have the specifics for each member. But this time, you felt totally lost.

Sejin continues. “This week, prompt distribution is also different. Usually, we have you randomly pick a prompt from the bunch. But this time, we have a Bangasm Bomb coming into play. Week 3’s Bangasm Bomb is that whoever won fan favourite in Week 2 will distribute the prompts for Week 3. Yoongi, that’s you.”

Though all of you are a bit reserved, you can’t help but perk up, the interest around the room growing. Yoongi, sat beside Jin but taking up most of the couch, sits up suddenly. “So I give them out randomly, or…?”

“You read all of the prompts and assign them however you choose. Without revealing the prompt to the rest of the group, I ask that you give a reason for each choice.”

Yoongi grins, jumping up in an usual show of liveliness to get the slips of folded paper off Sejin. “I guess I picked the right week to absolutely kill it in the audience vote.” He makes you wait an eternity as he painstakingly opens them all and considers them, eyes dark as they search the room, making little noises of consideration and indecision. Finally, he stands up straight and immediately pockets one.

“A reason, Yoongi,” Sejin reminds.

The doctor blinks. “Because I want it?” Moving to the next one in his pile, he approaches Hoseok first. “Okay, this one is because I think it’s best done by a professional.”

Hoseok takes the slip and holds it close to his chest as he reads, brows lifting. “That’s probably a good idea,” he affirms. “Thanks, hyung.”

Yoongi, clearly gleeful with his position of temporary power, glances at the next slip. “Ooh! Okay, this one is for Jin-hyung because it fits perfectly.”

Jin accepts the slip warily, letting out an exasperated laugh when he reads it. “You little shit.”

Yoongi’s grin is wide enough that you can see his gums. “I love this,” he informs Sejin, “whoever came up with this needs a raise. Anyways; next one.” Opening a fourth piece of paper, he immediately seeks out Namjoon. “I’m giving this to you because I think you’ll get a kick out of it, and I heard through the pipeline that you like to be called daddy.”

Namjoon goes red faster than a changing traffic light, spluttering violently on a lungful of air when he reads the prompt.

Before he has the chance to put it away, Hoseok puts a strong hand on his shoulder and holds him in place so he can quickly sneak a peek of it, collapsing into a peal of laughter when he sees it. “You’re probably right,” he quips to Yoongi, who preens in satisfaction.

“Okay, moving on,” Yoongi continues, “Jungkook, this one’s for you. I figure you’re such a switch that you could play this either way, and I’m curious.”

You furrow your brows, as does Jungkook, but the moment the youngest man reads his prompt, the lines in his face smooth out in realisation. “Thanks, hyung,” he offers up sweetly. “I like this one.”

“I’m sure you do, kid,” the doctor says with a pat of his shoulder, before handing Jimin the final prompt. “And I’m giving you this one because it’s the last one left.”

Jimin scoffs at the weak reasoning, but his eyes dart up to you immediately once he looks at what it says. With a lip curling in bemusement and interest, Jimin thanks Yoongi. “This suits me just fine.”

Done assigning prompts, Yoongi turns to Sejin. “If this show gets greenlit for a second season and you don’t offer me a job, I’ll be personally offended.”

Sejin rolls his eyes with a begrudging smile. “Good job, Yoongi. And meeting adjourned, ev- Wait, no! There’s more; almost forgot.”

You lift your brows, waiting for some other groundbreaking twist or dramatic flair that seemed to keep cropping up during these meetings.

The producer stands himself up, patting his back pocket where his phone rests. “I just had a meeting with the showrunners, and they’re not happy with the punishment for breaking elimination rules. I’ll go tell Taehyung this after, since it mostly concerns him and Y/n, but as an FYI, the protocol around eliminated members has changed a bit.” He takes a breath, hands up and ready to gesture his explanation. “Basically, our old system was that if an eliminated member touched Y/n sexually, he’d be out of the house for good, and if Y/n touched the eliminated member sexually, she had to wear an outfit of that person’s choice. Uh, it seems that second system isn’t really that drastic, and could easily be manipulated, so we’re changing it up upon the showrunners’ request. Now, if the eliminated member touches Y/n sexually, he’ll have to leave as usual, but if Y/n touches him sexually, her punishment has changed to being taken out of the house for 24 hours.”

You tip your head to the side. “That doesn’t sound like a punishment.”

Sejin gives a strained smile. “You’ll be taken out of the house for 24 hours, handcuffed to me.”

“Huh?” Jin asks incredulously. “Bit wish fulfilment isn’t it, big guy?”

The producer has the good grace to blush. “It’s not like that, and it wasn’t my decision. Apparently, the viewers these days are taking more interest in the workings of staff. Additionally, as with the clothing rule, handcuffing Y/n to another member of the house is once again too easy to work around. Anyways, that’s the new rule. Got it?”

You blink. “So… let’s say I run outside right now and touch Tae’s dick. I’d then have to be handcuffed to you for a whole day and like, do producer shit? Meetings and editing and stuff?”

“That is correct.”

“What happens when one of us needs to pee?”

Sejin lets out a weak laugh. “You’d be allowed out of the cuffs to use the bathroom.”

“What happens when it’s nighttime?” you question, heart sinking as you realise your loophole to Tae is quickly closing up.

“Well, I usually go home around 11 each night, and my girlfriend is happy to take the couch should that happen.”

“What- What if-” Your mind whirls as the other guys chuckle at your predicament. “What if I wake up in the middle of the night to get a drink but you’re still sleeping? What if the guys in your meetings ask why you have a young girl handcuffed to you and I have to explain it’s technically a sex thing? What if-”

“All the things that make this a punishment, Y/n. I suggest you practice restraint and avoid breaking the rule.”

Your glare is softened by a petulant pout. “You’re a sadist.”

“This wasn’t my idea, Y/n. It’ll be a punishment for me too.” Sejin clears his throat. “Anyways; meeting adjourned. I’m off to catch Taehyung up.”

The stunned silence lasts no more than ten seconds once Sejin leaves. Jungkook, a toothy grin and cheeky eyes, starts bouncing in his seat. “Y/n and Sejin sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-”

“Shut up,” you shout with a whine. “This sucks.”

“Such a relief you have six other dicks still to choose from,” Yoongi drawls. “I’m sure you’ll live without one.”

Without thinking, you stick your tongue out at him, making him laugh at your antics, before pushing on Jin’s thigh to stand up. “Well,” the doctor announces, “I, for one, could do with a celebratory brunch.”

Jimin frowns. “What are we celebrating?”

Yoongi beams. “Me making you all my little bitch,” he declares, letting out a startled hoot when Jin jumps up to tackle him, manhandling him towards the kitchen.

As the two chefs of the house begin to lug out ingredients from the pantry, Jungkook turns to the rest of the group with a worried frown. “D’you think Tae is gonna be really sad?” he asks in a small voice.

Finally getting up off the hard surface of the coffee table, you make your way over to him, perching yourself on the arm of the couch. “Maybe,” you admit honestly, “but I think if he needs space, he’ll go upstairs, and if he wants comfort, he’ll come back to us. We should let him choose.”

As it turns out, Taehyung chooses both. The kitchen is steaming with a delightfully savoury aroma by the time he comes back in through the front door. He hovers in the entrance to the kitchen and dining area for a moment or two, waiting for the chatter to die down once everyone catches sight of him.

Announcing that he was taking a long shower but that he’d be back down and not to wait up, he’d rushed to his bedroom and left you all to confusedly finish preparing the food. He doesn’t return until you’ve all almost finished eating.

When he does, though, he appears like an entirely different person.

Wearing a raggedy shirt and pants, face red from a hot shower but hair dry, he dumps a white plastic bag on an empty space on the table with a dramatic flair.

Jimin watches him warily. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Taehyung chirps easily, “we’re dying our hair today.”

The words out of his mouth are totally unexpected, and everyone freezes into a bewildered silence.

Hoseok, with a spoonful of soup and green onion halfway to his face, falters. “Sorry, what?”

“I’ve been thinking,” Taehyung explains, like this is the most important thing he’s ever said. “I don’t want to be excluded and I want to have some fun with you guys instead of moping, so we’re going to dye our hair together.” Pushing aside empty bowls and half-eaten side dishes, the masseuse begins emptying the plastic bag onto the table. Bleach, developer, blood red dye, an emerald green and a deep royal blue.

“Where did you even get those from?” Jin asks, abandoning his plate to eye the products with interest.

“Ordered them online,” Taehyung answers with a shrug. “Well - technically I ordered them ages ago, Jungkookie wanted the e-girl TikTok hair, but I reckon we should just go for it. Some of us are in urgent need of a dye job. Namjoon; that’s you.”

The academic recoils, tugging at his grown-out faded purple ends. “Okay, that’s fair.”

Hoseok winces. “We don’t all have to dye our hair, do we?”

“‘Course not, hyung, you can supervise.”

It takes Yoongi insisting that everyone help clean up the table first that springs everyone into action, and in no time at all Taehyung has scoffed up whatever leftovers remained, and Jin has gathered additional supplies like bowls, towels and tin foil, hustling your ragtag group of eight down to the first-floor bathroom.

It doesnt take long before a temporary salon has been set up in there. With chairs taken from the kitchen, product being mixed in little black bowls on the sink benchtop, and three willing victims clutching towels over their shoulders.

In the first chair, Namjoon is watching in mild alarm as Jimin mixes bleach and developer in a bowl, eyeballing the measurements. With gleaming blue hair of his own, Jimin seems more experienced than some of you, but his job is more difficult than the other stylists of the day, since he had to get rid of Namjoon’s purple before bleaching and dying the lot.

You’d chosen the easiest of the three, Jungkook, and painstakingly consult with some of his favourite TikToks for the right amount of hair to section out as Taehyung takes charge of mixing his own concoction of bleach.

Finally, it’s Jin who has also volunteered to dye hair, although it’s not his own that he wishes to dye. Yoongi sits with a bitter scowl on his face as Jin pours in different coloured dyes into one bowl like a mad scientist. With already blonde hair, Yoongi at least has the luxury of skipping out the extra step, but it just gives Jin more time to conceive a crazy colour.

Hoseok, happy to take on the supervisor role, flutters around and hypes everyone up; massaging Namjoon’s shoulders, letting Jungkook show him countless videos and grimacing at what Jin has in his bowl.

“Hey, Tae,” Yoongi calls out in a forced casual tone, “why is it that when you were the one who bought the dye, you aren’t the one getting chemicals all over his hair?”

The masseuse shrugs easily, a tea towel thrown over his shoulder as he stirs away. “What can I say? I’m an artist, not a canvas.”

Jungkook blinks up at him past your shoulder. “I’d like to see you dye your hair, Tae. You’d look pretty with any colour.”

Taehyung reaches out to pinch the maknae’s cheek fondly, but accidentally leaves a smear of white behind. Jumping into action, you hold Jungkook’s chin steady as you wipe it off with your thumb, feeling his eyes on you and his breath hitch.

“Oh, you’re not- Y- You’re going straight in there,” Namjoon stutters shakily. Letting go of Jungkook’s face and stepping away, you glance over to Namjoon and Jimin.

The younger man has Namjoon’s hair sectioned with clips, painting thick globs of bleach onto the purple in his lower layers. “Don’t worry,” Jimin assures, “you’ll look fantastic after this.”

“Worst case scenario, you can lop it all off,” Jin points out cheerily.

Yoongi’s arm reaches out between folds of the towel on his shoulders, keeping Jin at bay. “You better not lay a fucking hand on me with that mindset.”

“Don’t be silly, Yoonie,” Jin teases, adding in some more green. “You’re my Mona Lisa.”

Yoongi humphs and collapses back against his chair, pink smattering his cheekbones.

Taehyung’s hand wraps lightly around your wrist, handing you the bleach he’d mixed up. “We’re good to go,” he declares to you and Jungkook, “I wanna go see what colour Yoongi-hyung’s getting. You guys start.”

Left in charge of the bleach, you turn back to Jungkook. Standing over him, it’s impossible to ignore the way his doe-eyes observe your every move. “Are you still good with these two chunks?” you check.

He nods quickly, lips pressing into an eager but shy smile. “Do you think it’ll look good?” he asks hopefully.

“You’ll look gorgeous.” Getting him to hold the bowl of bleach up for you, you dip the brush included in the box and begin to brush the white, thick liquid over the strands of black hair. He doesn’t flinch as the brush moves higher, sitting so still and patient. “What colour are you going to get it?”

His cheeks puff as he blows air into them. “Hm, I don’t know. Tae said maybe pink? I could mix in only a little bit of red so it’s not so strong. But then pink fades fast.”

You hum, switching to the other side. “You could dye it red and then when it fades it would fade to pink.”

He lets out a little gasp. “That’s smart! I like it.”

From down the room, Taehyung’s voice echoes. “Hyung, you’re fucked!”

“Hey!” Jin cries. “It’s going to look good, just trust me on this!”

Taehyung leans his back against the sink and clasps his palms together like he’s praying. “Yoongi-hyung, picture this. You’re Bob Ross. You’re painting a beautiful lake on a sunny day. Blue sky, clear water, lush riverbanks. Can you see it?”

Yoongi frowns. “Sure.”

“The little cup of dirty water you used to clean your brushes with? That’ll be your hair.”

“Oh, god,” Yoongi moans miserably, slumping so low he almost falls off the seat.

“Disrespectful little brat,” Jin enunciates as Taehyung moves back across the room. “This was your idea!”

It takes the entire rest of the day, but by the time you all sit down on the couches for dinner - courtesy of a food delivery app, Yoongi and Jin both too tired to cook - three of the eight of you have shiny new looks.

Jungkook looks undeniably striking with his stripes of firetruck red framing his face. Contrasting sharply with the black of the rest of his hair, you could easily mistake him for a Twitch streamer or something, pulling off the look with a natural coolness.

Done with purple, Namjoon had taken advantage of Jimin’s decent level of expertise and let the blue-haired man work his magic, bleaching his hair a couple of times and dying it to the unusual choice of silvery grey, the roots slightly darker so that - in Jimin’s words - he could get away with regrowth for longer.

But perhaps the biggest surprise of all is Yoongi, who smugly peacocks around the room with a unique shade somewhere between mint and teal in his hair. Jin had quietly confessed to you and Jungkook when he was cleaning his bowl that it wasn’t in fact, the colour he intended it to be, but that what Yoongi didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

The blue-green tones are somewhat reminiscent of the clear lake Taehyung was describing, and it brings out the soft pink of Yoongi’s lips and his dark lashes so beautifully. How Jin’s luck never seemed to run out, you didn’t know, but part of you wished you had volunteered yourself for a dye job too. Now you, Jin, Hoseok and Taehyung were the leftovers with natural hair.

Like some sort of unspoken agreement, the seven of you keep a close eye on Taehyung throughout the evening. You let him pick a movie for all of you to watch, pile extra food into his bowl, Jungkook even brings a secret stash of chocolate down from his room to share with him. All of you sensitive of how he must be feeling, it’s only natural that you take extra good care of the masseuse.

And, when it finally comes to head up to bed, Taehyung is flooded by offers to keep him company in the bunkroom. It’s Jungkook he picks, the two thick as thieves, and shortly after midnight your phone goes off from a text that Jungkook has sent to everyone except Taehyung. Just two words that are enough to allow your mind and body to rest. He’s okay.

[scripts4dreamers]

I literally JUST sat down, pt. 1

Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven

AN: Nuh uh, nope. Not this again. You did not sign up for this.  Characters: Spencer Reid, Penelope Garcia, Derek Morgan, Aaron Hotchner, Jennifer Jareau, David Rossi. Pairings: Spencer Reid x reader Spoilers: None Warnings: Mentions of crime and violence, alcohol, eventual NSFW content

Prompt: After watching 7x07 “This episode is so scary man... Imagine just doing your job which is pretty morbid at times but oh well and then suddenly you have to go to this place where there's a lot of tornadoes and you're like well at least I'm inside and safe and then your boss is like "we gotta go right to these tornado places lol" and then you think "well that's scary but at least we have this handy dandy live map showing us exactly in real time where the tornadoes are so we'll be fine and then the internet is like "haha nope have fun dying in a tornado" 

- @pirateismywayofspeaking​ who is a literal genius.

This will be a multichapter piece! So lemme know if you want to be tagged in subsequent chapters. 

—————————-

Usually, when terrible things happen, people say the same few things: “I never thought it would happen to me! You never think something like this will happen to you until it does!”. You’d never really been that type of person. You were naturally cautious, and an ex FBI agent, you saw danger pretty much everywhere. You’d seen some of the worst things human beings could ever do to one another and, if you’d learned anything at all, it was that bad things happened everywhere and to pretty much everyone. There was nowhere that you could definitively say was safe from violent crime, but this was just ridiculous.

You looked around the ruined bookshop you’d poured the last year of your life into with a kind of detached sadness. Even before you opened the door, you could see the carnage. The shelves were upended, tables flipped, every vase in the building was smashed...except one. You sighed, stepping into the store, your eyes scanning the wreck with a practiced efficiency. No broken windows, the door was still locked when you’d arrived and your security cameras were blacked out, there were no signs of forced entry. If anything that made you more uneasy and, not for the first time since you’d left the bureau, you missed the weight of your gun against your hip. You crinkled your nose against the smell, the copper-iron of fresh blood that you were all too familiar with as you crept through your store.

“Son of a-fuck!” You swore loudly, cursing your luck as you took in the scene.

There was a body laid out in the middle of the Fiction aisle: face covered with a burlap sack, wrists and ankles bound with rope and blood seeping into the carpets you’d just had cleaned. Your training kicked in and you noticed, without meaning to, that the rest of the aisle was untouched. The shelves were upright, books in order, even the vase of white roses you’d put there the night before were all completely the way you’d left them. It was like he’d just completely bypassed the entire section.

Huh.

You looked up at the sky, “Really? Right now? You throw this at me, now? Unbelievable.”

There was a sinking feeling in the pit of your chest, along with a nervousness that you were telling yourself was irritation as you pulled out your phone. It had been a long while since you’d done this, but you still knew the number by heart.

“This is agent Jareau with the Behavioural Analysis Unit.”

“JJ, it’s me,” you said, “you’re not gonna believe this.”

——————————

You sat in the ruins of your store until the cops arrived, wondering who exactly you had murdered in a past life to end up with this kind of luck. You gave your statement without much incident, directing CSU to the body and alerting the detective to the abnormalities you’d spotted.

JJ had promised to get the team on the case as quickly as she could, and you knew JJ tended to get exactly what she wanted in that regard, you just didn’t know how you felt about that. It had been over a year since you’d left the BAU, since you’d done one case too many and just got fed all the way up. It really wasn’t any deeper than that. One day you’d come home and found that you couldn’t sleep. It had all just become too much, so you packed up your stuff, tendered your resignation, and started over.

It had been hard at first, but now you owned a fairly successful bookstore with a little coffee shop where you sold good coffee, and homemade biscuits. And it was nice. You felt good, kinda. You definitely slept better at night. Your life was finally starting to feel normal and now this? A dead body just happens to appear in the center of your bookstore in just weird enough a way to warrant a call to the BAU? No, you’d seen too much to consider this a coincidence. Whether you liked it or not, you were about to get thrown back into your old life head first, the life you’d worked so hard to get some distance from. So why weren’t you more...upset?

“Y/L/N?” A familiar voice called.

“In here,” you answered, your voice raspy from disuse. You cleared your throat and pushed yourself up onto your feet, “I’m in here.” You tried again.

The figures who stepped in were painfully familiar and you couldn’t help the tired smile that slid onto your face, your eyes going directly to the blonde woman walking at the very front.

“Y/N!” She greeted, her voice dripping with relief as she pulled you into a hug, “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, JJ,” you assured her as you broke apart, the rest of your old team filing in behind her.

She eyed you like she wasn’t sure, pressing her lips into a thin line as she looked around the trashed store. Derek Morgan swooped in behind her, giving you a second hug.

“Long time, Y/L/N,” he smiled.

You sighed, “Wish it was under better circumstances, Morgs, but I’m glad you guys are here.”

“Y/L/N,” Aaron Hotchner greeted, giving you a firm handshake.

“Thanks for coming, Hotch, I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do.” You admitted.

“No, you made the right call. The BAU has officially taken on the case. Reid, Prentiss and Rossi are coordinating with the local PD from our headquarters, the rest of us are here to help,” he said, pausing and meeting your eye, silently asking the question you’d been waiting all morning for.

“No sign of forced entry,” you started, “the front door was still locked from the outside when I arrived.” You walked him through the crime scene, glass crunching beneath your feet as you went, “It looks like someone sprayed black paint over the security cameras I had installed, everything’s been smashed but there’s no cash missing from the register. In fact, they barely touched the front desk at all.” You explained, “And this,” you gestured at the Fiction aisle, “is where I found the body.”

Morgan stepped forward and, just like that, the team moved like a well oiled machine.

“White male, looks like he’s between the ages of 19 and 27.” Morgan started.

“His wrists and ankles are bound, but it doesn’t look like he struggled against his restraints at all,” you cut in, without meaning to, crouching down beside the body, “it could mean he was tied up postmortem.”

“We’ll have to wait on the M.E’s report to know for sure,” Hotch agreed, “Y/L/N, can I talk to you?” You nodded and let him pull you aside. He glanced over your shoulder and lowered his voice, “I know you’re out and we can do this investigation without you-“

“But?” You probed.

The corners of Hotch’s mouth twitched, like he wanted to smile, “But, I would also welcome your help if you’re willing to give it. The team is still a man down and, something about this scene has me thinking-“

“That whoever did this isn’t finished,” you agreed, sighing as you ran your fingers through your hair.

Everything was so messed up in your head. You just wanted to go back to bed and start this day all over again. Hotch looked at you and you recognized his brand of quiet concern. It was familiar and comforting, and it helped you process your thoughts.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” you frowned, “yeah. Yeah, sure, I’ll come back.” Hotch smiled and you wagged a finger at him, “But just for this one case! After that I’m straight back to my boring normal person life, alright?”

“Of course,” he agreed, something almost mocking in his tone.

“I’m serious, Hotch, just one more case.”

“I’m agreeing with you!” He insisted, already walking back to the rest of the group.

But he wasn’t and, much to your chagrin, you felt the familiar rush of adrenaline as you turned back to the scene of the crime.

“Hotch, Y/L/N,” Morgan called, holding something in his gloved hand, “you’re gonna want to see this.”

“Here we go again,” you sighed.

————————-

Walking back into the BAU had felt like stepping back in time. After you’d gotten everything you could from the crime scene there was nothing to do but brainstorm, but walking through those doors again...well, let’s say you hadn’t been prepared for how it would feel being back. For the most part, everyone had been glad to see you, especially Garcia, but you could tell that there were still some resentments bubbling under the surface. It made sense, the BAU survived by relying on one another, by acting like a family, and you’d left that family.

Still, there was a rhythm to this kind of work, a flow that was almost painfully easy to fall back into. You’d worked together for years after all, bouncing ideas off of one another like it was nothing and that kind of bond didn’t just go away.

“Admit it,” Derek teased, bumping your shoulder with his as you studied the evidence board, “you missed this.”

“I most certainly did not.”

“Oh you so did,” Spencer agreed, leaning against the table next to you and giving you a fond smile, “I’m sorry about the bookstore though, it was the only store in town with a proper selection of classics in their original languages.”

You shrugged, “I’ll get it up and running again soon enough, just as soon as we catch whoever did this.”

“Speaking of our UnSub, what do you think the relevance of him leaving the body in the fiction section is?” Spencer asked.

“Maybe he’s trying to say that this is some kind of fairytale?” Prentiss suggested, “Like he’s trying to draw us into his story?”

“Maybe, but this has gotta be more personal than that, right?” Morgan said, “I mean, this isn’t some body in an alley, it was dumped in an FBI agent’s coffee shop.”

“Ex agent,” you corrected.

“Sure thing, Princess,” Morgan teased.

“Why does everyone keep talking like that?” You asked.

“Because you leaving is ridiculous. You love this job,” He replied simply, “you’ve always loved this job.”

You opened your mouth to respond but, before you could, you heard the clacking of heels against the marble floor.

“Um, guys?” Garcia said, coming into the bullpen with a stormy look on her face, “we just got word from the officer who went to Y/N’s apartment.”

“And?” You asked nervously.

“They found something,”

“Another body?” Prentiss asked.

“No, weirder, a letter and what looks like a smiley face drawn on the wall in blood.” She said, pressing a button to display the new crime scene photos on the big screen.

Your heart froze in your chest.

There it was; a crude smiley face drawn right above your headboard and a crisp white envelope resting against your pillow. He’d made your bed too, some small part of your mind noted. How polite. Instinctively, you crossed your arms over your chest as you were hit with a mixture of panic and disgust.

“Of course,” you sighed, “of course there is. Why wouldn’t there be? It’s been that kind of day.”

“Do we know what the letter says?” Morgan asked.

Garcia nodded, “And it’s a doozy. The letter contains a poem written with letters cut out from magazines and newspapers. It reads:

Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part.

Nay, I have done, you get no more of me;

And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart,

That thus so cleanly I myself can free.

Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,

And when we meet at any time again,

Be it not seen in either of our brows

That we one jot of former love retain …”

You could feel your friends staring and you tried to keep your face as neutral as possible. Your skin felt like it was on fire, and you could hear the blood pounding in your ears as you thought of a murderer setting foot in your space; him touching your bed, running his hands over the photos on your nightstand, defiling your possessions with his presence. You’d never felt so vulnerable and exposed, and bile rose up in your stomach like your body was physically rejecting the whole thing. Distantly you heard Prentiss and Morgan discussing theories, and you felt one pair of warm brown eyes staring into the side of your head.

Suddenly, you didn’t feel like joking around anymore.

“Sorry,” you muttered, standing up and striding out of the room without looking back, “I need some air.”

You were so angry by the time you made it out into the courtyard that you’d balled your hands into fists and your breath was coming out in short little bursts. Hot tears pricked at the corners of your eyes and your chest felt painfully tight.

“Y/N?” You heard Spencer ask.

You sniffed, wiping your face quickly, “Reid, hi. Sorry, I just-“ you let out a slow breath, “I needed a break.”

He nodded like he understood, tucking his hands into his pockets as he stepped towards you. You wanted to tell him to go away, to head back inside and leave you the hell alone, but the words wouldn’t come.

It had always been like this with Spencer. No matter how hard you tried to be tough and brave and put together, he saw right through you and broke down your defenses. At one point, he’d been the closest thing to family you’d ever had, in fact you thought you might…..

Well, it didn’t matter now. Over the last year things had changed, you’d grown apart. It happened, but the fondness was still there, and the trust, and those damn eyes.

“I get it, Y/N, I can't even imagine what this whole thing must be like for you,” he said, “having your home be violated like that….and the store?” He shook his head, “I know how hard you worked setting that place up.”

Your bottom lip trembled and, for the first time that day, you let yourself feel afraid as tears slipped down your cheeks.

You shook your head, “You know, when I saw the glass all over the floor, and all the books….I just felt tired, like bone tired. I wasn’t scared of that, but now?” You paused, glancing up at Spencer, as a tear slid down your cheek, “He was in my home, Spencer. He made my bed before he left, he wrote me a letter.”

Spencer worked his jaw and hesitantly reached out, touching your shoulder gently.

“We’ll catch him, Y/N/N, we always do.” He promised.

“And until then?” You asked, “Do I just pretend it never happened? Go home and act like it’s all okay?”

“No,” another voice cut in from behind you, “you rely on us. We’ll take care of you,” Morgan explained.

“Yeah,” Garcia agreed, her big blue eyes clinging to yours, “We’ve talked about it already. You’ll take turns staying with each of us a few nights a week and then, on the weekends, we’ll all stay with Rossi to go over the case. And we’ll spend every free moment tracking this son of a bitch down for you.”

Emily nodded and, for the first time since you had opened your store that morning, you felt your chest swell with something a little like hope. You knew the BAU was special, you knew that the bonds you’d formed over the years were damn near unbreakable, but this? This was too much. Seeing your friends rally around you when you needed them most just reminded you how much you loved them, and how much they still loved you. Even now. Spencer gave your shoulder a squeeze and you smiled back at him.

“I really missed you guys,” you said with a watery laugh.

Penelope crooned and threw her arms around your neck, pulling you into a familiarly bone-crushing hug.

“We missed you too, Sugar Plum,” she promised.

“Really?”

“Hell yeah!” Morgan smiled, joining Penelope’s hug.

“You know we did,” Emily agreed, ruffling your hair and pulling herself in close.

Your eyes found Spencer where he was standing just outside of the group hug, both hands in his pockets and a sad smile on his face. You pressed your lips together and, in response, he nodded.

“We missed you,” he said softly and then, as the hug broke up and you allude your way back inside, even softer, “we still do.”

---------------- 

Taglist: @ourfavoritesergeantbarnes​

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Breaking Down Griffith’s Coping Mechanisms: Repression v. Self Harm

CW: extended discussion of self harm and suicidal ideation, images of torture, mentions of CSA

For anyone interested, here is my very long breakdown of how I read Griffith’s state of mind and coping mechanisms (1. repression and 2. self harm) working throughout the Golden Age of Berserk. I think this reading provides an explanation as to why Griffith acts the way he does in some of his more obtuse and “irrational” scenes (the river, Charlotte), and how these actions eventually lead him to becoming Femto at the end of this arc.

Miura may not have planned all this out explicitly, but I think he has a good understanding of the psychological reality of why people repress and why they self harm, and the story proceeds accordingly.

This essay is basically a psychological deep-dive and a reworked version of a very long conversation I had with @bthump​ last year, it’s taken me a while to get back to this because life n stuff.

The content of this analysis is basically going through the GA scenes where Griffith acts in a self-destructive way and explaining how and why this happens and how it informs his actions in the story more generally.

If you don’t like or understand Griffith, I would invite you to give this analysis a shot anyway, because a lot of Griffith’s story takes place in the subtext of the Golden Age, and it takes a liberal helping of interpretation to figure out what’s going on. This of course is just one reading of Griffith’s character, but as I hope to show, there remains a consistent logic behind his actions that governs his impulses to act in the way he does throughout the story.

Okay, enough preamble, let’s jump in.

On Griffith’s Guilt

So first off, we have to ask why Griffith acts in these self-destructive ways in the first place. Basically, what are his coping mechanisms are responding to – why are they necessary at all?

I think it’s pretty clear that the heart of Griffith’s pain, coping mechanisms, and self-destructiveness is his guilt. More specifically, this guilt comes from the belief that he is cruel and evil because he’s willing to continue to pile up bodies and walk that corpse-laden path to the dream, to put others in harm’s way for his own sake, to devour others’ dreams for the sake of his own.

We see this in the flashback with the doll-knight boy, when his guard slips in front of Casca:

Casca specifically flags for us that this is a significant and unusually revealing moment for Griffith, where he shows a sliver of what’s underlying his implacable façade as a mercenary leader.

Another moment where we see Griffith’s guilt directly expressed is in “Tombstone of Flame: Chapter 2.” This scene shows us more explicitly that his guilt is bound up in his pursuit of the dream and the cruelty it takes to make that dream a reality:

From this scene, we can understand that to Griffith, his “cruelty” is specifically associated with walking the path to the dream, and alongside this, his willingness to put others in danger while he himself remains out of reach of harm’s way. These are both shown to us as things he hates himself for, given that he self harms directly after these scenes (with Gennon and with the second set of scratches – and if you need evidence that the latter happens, bthump has broken this down here).

This “cruelty” that lies at the heart of his guilt is why the guilt trip the Godhand take him on during the Eclipse cuts so deep, because throughout that sequence, the Godhand emphasize exactly that aspect, his cruelty, and no other part of him (such as his remorse, his intentions to create a more equal world, etc.).

On Griffith’s Repression and Resentment of his Dream

Alright, so we know why Griffith feels guilty. The next question is how Griffith responds to this – I’m suggesting here that it’s through a dual combination of repression and self harm. So, why does Griffith repress and why does he self harm?

Generally speaking, he represses to make himself feel better. This is basically the act of redirecting his feelings – telling himself that the guilt/pain he experiences over pursuing the dream doesn’t matter because all of these acts of cruelty are in fact justifiable, because they agreed to it, because he thought about this logically, because fate said it was OK, because he feels nothing, because, because… It’s basically every time he puts aside his feelings in pursuit of the dream.

Griffith’s repression involves rationalizing away his feelings in order to retreat to a space of emotional safety as an escape from his self hatred and the guilt he feels over his willingness to pursue the dream. The repression exists to smother the negativity he feels about the dream (and what it takes to get there) however it possibly can. And it is in this way that Griffith’s ability to attain his dream becomes closely tied to his ability to repress his guilt over wanting to and trying to obtain it. The repression and the dream basically go hand and hand.

However, it’s important to acknowledge that Griffith’s repression also walks a delicate line, because it attempts to excuse the corpses for the sake of the shining end goal as the ultimate justification for all the bodies, effectively justifying death with more death in a vicious circle, where the guilt continues to grow larger and larger into a mountain of bodies that is eventually visualized for Griffith directly in the guilt trip.

To make a bit of a subtle distinction here, it's not exactly that Griffith’s ability to repress his guilt over all of this becomes necessarily weaker the more the bodies pile up around him, because the increased body toll simply demands the need for greater and greater justification. In other words, it asks that he make a huge sacrifice for a huge gain – the eclipse for a utopia, basically.

However, we see that how this plays out in practice is that Griffith’s repression works against itself if not in the short run, in the long run because it ends up feeding this vicious circle. His repression feeds and intensifies his self loathing because it effectively enables more death, which in turn necessitates the greater need for his coping mechanisms and with it a stronger and stronger ability to repress those negative feelings. So if his ability to repress ever falters, what’s waiting in the wings is an increasingly difficult-to-justify mountain of death, guilt, and self hatred.

And not only that, if we dig a bit deeper, his ability to repress also feeds his self loathing directly, even as its entire goal exists to suppress it – because if he hates himself for his “cruel” willingness to walk the corpse-laden path to the dream, and the primary way he’s able to do this is because of his repression, then his ability to repress, to put on the mask for the sake of continuing the dream, would also be something he (unconsciously) hates about himself.

And in fact I think we see some of this resentment over his ability to repress his guilt finally acknowledged in the Godhand’s guilt trip:

Read: “That’s right, I knew what this was doing, what I was excusing, what I was encouraging, and I found a way to do it anyway.”

If Griffith’s repression is what enables his cruelty, when his ability to repress falters and he’s left only with his self loathing (as we see in in the guilt trip sequence, or even to a lesser degree with Casca in the river sequence), he is thus also hit with the resentment and self hatred not just over his willingness to repress his guilt but over the dream also, because this is what all this evil has been done in the name of: this is the ultimate cause. “It’s a blood-smeared dream after all.”

Of course we can see that Griffith is still able to functionally rely on the dream as a coping mechanism all the while implicitly resenting it throughout the Golden Age, but only insofar as he’s successfully able to repress the negatives that threaten to undermine its ability to function. After all, that’s why he needs to repress his guilt over the dream in the first place, because he cannot justify pursuing the dream if he confronts that guilt directly – it’s basically always threatening to overwhelm him.

And so, as soon as the mask of repression begins to slip, this underlying resentment makes it progressively harder to put on the mask and convince himself that the dream is worth all this death and cruelty. As we see in the river scene, once overcome by negative feelings about the dream – that the dream may in fact be able to excuse nothing, it may be ultimately nothing other than a monument to his own cruelty – the repression slips and he reverts to self harm, and he can only snap the mask back in place when he realizes that other people still need him to keep up that façade.

Griffith’s repression is essentially, at its heart, a precarious coping mechanism – it is intrinsically set up to undermine itself. The repression feeds and strengthens Griffith’s feelings of self loathing and his need to turn to self harm as a backup coping mechanism, which is effectively threatening to burst through the surface at any moment.

As we’ll see in the next section, his self harm in turn functions to invalidate his belief in the positive aspects of the dream (basically that it can still redeem him or his actions), and with it his ability to repress his own negative feelings.

This is essentially why I read the climax of Griffith’s Golden Age arc being the collapse of his coping mechanisms and his belief in the dream – because it hangs on his ability to successfully repress the negative feelings he has about the dream, and it hangs on two coping mechanisms that work at cross purposes from one another.

 On Griffith’s Self Harm

Okay, so we’ve been over why Griffith feels guilt and how his repression works, but how does his self harm function in the story? First, let’s look at what it does for him emotionally.

There are a couple reasons people generally self harm – one of the main ones is that it can serve as a distraction from our problems and emotions, allowing people to focus on the pain in the moment to the exclusion of everything else. This kind of self harm would function like repression in Griffith’s case, because it would bury the guilt with a sort of distraction, by smothering it with a different kind of pain.

Now I don’t think that’s how Griffith’s self harm works, for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, it’s because none of the instances of self harm we see textually in Berserk actually function to help him forget or diminish his guilt or self loathing over pursuing the dream, and instead are oriented around the opposite, leading him to focus on it instead.

In the river when he’s scratching himself, he’s almost doing it subconsciously, like he’s not even paying attention to what he’s doing, and he’s instead thinking about what he’s talking about: the dream, specifically the negative aspects of the dream:

Throughout this scene, he’s not focused on his own self-inflicted suffering as a distraction, he’s focused on his own guilt from pursuing the dream. His suffering is positioned here as a direct consequence of his guilt.

Similarly, when he’s fucking Charlotte he’s thinking about Guts leaving and rejecting him, not getting lost in what he’s doing with her.

Neither of these two instances of Griffith’s self harm are functioning as distractions from his pain, they’re about intensifying it. So, why would he want to intensify his pain?

It’s because the self harm is Griffith’s backup coping response – it’s what seeps out when the repression isn’t strong enough to bury the guilt. It’s what happens when he’s hit with the full intensity of the self loathing, guilt, resentment, etc. that his repression usually protects him from. Given that he’s essentially being overwhelmed by his self hatred, it makes sense that he would want to feel worse as a result, because this is him accepting and becoming all-consumed with the idea that he is evil and cruel, and he thus “deserves” to suffer.

It is in this way that the self harm serves as a punishment in Griffith’s eyes: “dirtying” himself is essentially meting out justice, effectively giving him what he “deserves” for his own cruelty. In his eyes, this is him reaping what he’s sown.

Basically, the second reason why I think the self harm doesn’t function as a distraction is that it seems to be more centred around penance through his own suffering. The strongest evidence for this again comes from the river scene:

“[F]or hundreds, thousands of lives to hang in the balance and myself alone to not be unclean…”

This part of his monologue clearly sets up his own suffering (“dirtying” himself) as both punishment and atonement for his guilt over putting other people’s lives in danger.

Digging into this a bit deeper, Griffith is still essentially trying to prop up the dream here through his self harm, by trying to position his own suffering as constructive to his end goal. If the guilt threatens to tell him that none of this is worth it, the self harm in this instance is Griffith telling himself that it can be if he is just punished enough for it. (“What I want…won’t enter my grasp so easily as that.”)

This monologue shows us that in Griffith’s mind, his own suffering may be directly given up in response to the suffering of others. It’s what’s being offered in “exchange” – basically, if he becomes unclean enough (read: suffers enough) it’ll make all those hundreds and thousands of lives that hang in the balance “okay” (and you can see how this is some shaky and desperate logic).

In construing his self harm as a sort of atonement for the lives he’s put on the line for his dream, he is trying to absolve himself through his own suffering. This moment in the river essentially shows us Griffith’s thought process as he is in the process of self harming: “If I suffer and atone for this, then it will all be okay in the end, I can still attain my dream because I will have paid my dues.”

However, while Griffith tries to make this impulse to self harm constructive, as we’ll get into in the following section, we can see that this is still always fundamentally destructive to his goals because it always makes him feel worse about himself and his own actions, and that impulse to feel worse can easily spiral out of control when faced with a growing mountain of bodies and a shrinking sense that he can offer up anything in penance or justification for it.

This choice of the word “unclean” here basically serves as a signpost to explain why Griffith takes every single later action he associates with “dirtying” himself throughout the story. This idea of “dirtying” himself is obviously extremely loaded – these acts which make sure he’s not “unclean” are communicated as acts of self-imposed suffering that take place as a sort of punishment after he acts “cruelly” (this is not him putting himself in harm’s way during battle, he does that anyway), and they’re acts that he himself explicitly views as loathsome and disgusting.

It’s clear that he views having sex with a child predator in similar terms to scratching himself – to Griffith, “dirtying” himself is essentially his self-imposed punishment, and he’s basically trying to construe that punishment as productive by positioning his suffering as in some way equivalent to the suffering of others (basically, “if I suffer too then that’ll make their suffering okay”).

This is also why, as we’ll get into in a minute, if he doesn’t view his suffering as “worth” anything, it becomes impossible to view his suffering as equivalent to the suffering of others. And that’s also why the more the suffering and the bodies pile up around him, the more difficult it is to rationalize his suffering as equivalent to all of this pain and horror.

This is basically the process of how Griffith rationalizes his self harm, this is how he construes it as a productive enterprise instead of a self-destructive one – this is the logic that links his self harm with achieving his goal.

And clearly it’s logic that’s resting on some supremely precarious ground.

 Repression v. Self Harm

In order to see how my readings of Griffith’s self harm v. his repression play out, let’s revisit a few key scenes in greater detail before we get into discussing the wider implications of this in terms of Griffith’s story and the sacrifice as the culmination of all of this.

Let’s start with Griffith’s interchange with Guts in Tombstone of Flame:

This conversation basically proceeds as follows: do you think I’m cruel? -> yeah, but you believe the cruelty is necessary, don’t you? -> yes, you’re right, all of this is cruel, and I am too, so I deserve to be punished for it -> self harm with the second set of scratches.

That smile – that same smile as with the doll-knight boy, and indeed the same as the sacrifice – is Griffith being overwhelmed by self loathing. This is not repression. This is not “You’re wrong, I’m not cruel/it doesn’t matter because [denial/rationalization/repression/justification],” it’s “You’re right.” This is me. I’m cruel, a monster, and therefore I deserve to suffer.

And indeed, all three examples of that same smile (the river, Tombstone of Flame, and the sacrifice) lead to acts of self harm. In this case, this isn’t an example of him trying to justify or bury the guilt and pain and horror or build up his defences like the repression would, it’s him justifying an act of self-destruction to tear himself down, because he thinks he deserves it.

To really dig into this distinction, let’s turn to another example of how Griffith’s self harm works in contrast to the repression, and return to the scene where Griffith scratches himself in the river.

First of all, he’s scratching himself here because he feels guilty over putting people in harm’s way for the sake of his dream (a feeling which is specifically kicked off by doll-knight boy but I think it’s made pretty obvious that this is just over people in general), while denying this guilt out loud and spewing his BS rationalizations to Casca.

Both the self harm and the repression are working in response to the same guilt here. But why doesn’t he stop with the rationalization? Why is it narratively or psychologically necessary that he also self harms at all here?

It’s because the denial (i.e., repression) isn’t strong enough to smother the guilt – and yeah, it’s because his rationalization is flimsy as fuck – basically it boils down to “I don’t feel responsible because I am a being of pure logic.” Which: lol

Again, the rationalization exists here to suppress Griffith’s negative feelings, the guilt, self-loathing, and monstrousness – this is him telling himself the guilt doesn’t matter, basically trying to push it away so he doesn’t have to emotionally confront it, because “I thought about it logically […] I don’t feel at all responsible…”

But we see that the rationalization isn’t strong enough, and the self harm is what seeps out when the rationalization can’t bury his self loathing. When the self harm takes over directly after this, the tone of this exchange changes and specifically swings toward the negative aspects of the dream: as he gets deeper into scratching himself, he becomes more and more dream-negative, i.e., focused on how his dream is built on corpses:

We’re being visually told that his answer to this, his way to make sure he’s not unclean, is to not only have sex with a child predator, but also pay that debt through his blood and suffering. The self harm is justifying his self loathing and guilt in a different way than the rationalization is, not telling himself that “the death is okay because [repression],” but instead “the death not OK – I hate myself and I need to atone for this, which will hopefully make it OK in the end.”

And importantly, as mentioned earlier, as soon as Griffith gets a stronger angle in this exchange – protecting Casca instead of protecting himself – his repression snaps back in full force and he reins in the self harm immediately.

I see this moment as especially significant to understanding how Griffith’s self harm works, because it shows us that the self harm cannot uphold itself as a coping mechanism, it’s basically destined to collapse on itself.

This is because in order to believe you can atone for something through your actions, you have to believe that your actions, your own suffering, has worth. And since the self harm is premised on tearing himself down, as he gets deeper in the hole of self harm, it becomes more and more difficult to believe that his penance is worth a damn. It’s just as much of a balancing act as the repression is, except that it specifically hinges on Griffith’s sense of self worth… so it’s pretty much destined to spiral out of control.

To reiterate, why is the self harm still a defence mechanism if it’s designed to make Griffith feel worse and emphasize the negative aspects of the dream over the shining end goal?

The river scene shows us how Griffith’s repression works in relation to his self harm – when the repression falters, the self loathing that has him focusing on the road of corpses gets him dangerously close to thinking that the dream isn’t worth it, and obviously he can’t live with that because then he’s left with nothing. The self harm (at least in the case of the scratching and Gennon) functions as the last line of defense against that sneaking suspicion that the castle cannot in fact redeem all of this death – because it asserts that maybe the dream can still be worth it if he suffers and atones for his actions. Again, the evidence for this is in the river scene:

“But… for hundreds, thousands of lives to hang in the balance and myself alone to not be unclean… What I want…won’t enter my grasp so easily as that.”

That last part indicates that he essentially still wants to want the dream here, and the self harm is basically what’s allowing him to do so, to continue on the path to his dream through his suffering as penance.

Yet even as this recuperative logic works to some degree in the river scene, this belief is still founded on the (shaky) assumption that his own suffering is worth anything in exchange for the suffering of others. That’s why, to me, it seems apparent that Griffith’s self worth plays such an important part in the breakdown of his coping mechanisms, and why it makes sense that at a certain point he reaches such a low that the self harm no longer becomes penitent, it becomes only punishment. This is the point where self harm becomes self destruction, and this is exactly what happens with Charlotte.

 On Griffith’s Self Harm as Self Destruction

We know that Griffith having sex with Charlotte and his subsequent taunting of her father work differently than with the scratching and Gennon, because unlike these two cases, these instances of self harm involve him throwing away the dream too (or at the very least in the former case, putting the dream directly into jeopardy) – casting it into the fire along with all the other “frightening and sad things.” Like with his later suicide attempt and the sacrifice, this isn’t an example of Griffith still wanting to walk the path of the dream, this is him reaching the point where the dream no longer seems worth it, and we know this because he takes steps to actively throw it away (though I do think this understanding is still operating largely instinctually/unconsciously until the soup-behelit, as I outlined in my previous meta).

Throughout the torture sequence, as he goads the King into viciously beating him, we see that Griffith verbally associates his own failure (by implication – he is clearly referring to himself as well as the King throughout this sequence) with his worthlessness.

At this point, Griffith is masochistically relishing in the fact that he basically cannot offer anything to anyone anymore – his penance is no longer worth anything to anyone, and all that remains is the suffering he thinks he deserves.

This is the first time we see Griffith’s self harm not being mobilized in a remotely constructive way. Getting beaten doesn’t have anything to do with attaining the dream, this is a naked display of the belief that Griffith thinks he deserves to suffer for his actions without the veneer of his suffering functioning as penance. This is now simply his punishment, for daring to try to pursue the dream in the first place.

This exchange effectively reveals the naked truth to us – that Griffith’s self harm reflects his desire to suffer for what he’s done to others. Even though he may have pretended in the past that this desire to suffer for his sins can still in some way still be constructive to his goals, this moment shows us that ultimately it’s not. Here we’re seeing directly that when Griffith’s self worth is low (i.e., when he feels like shit), all he wants to do is suffer more, and that’s basically the rub.

And yeah, of course that’s how it works, because this is exactly how we see his self harm working throughout the story. Whenever he feels guilty/cruel/dirty, we watch him self harm to feel worse: the doll-knight boy and Gennon, Gennon and the scratching, “am I cruel” and the scratching, being rejected by Guts and self destructing, all culminating in the low point of the torture and “This is worthless.”

This scene shows us that Griffith’s self worth is intrinsically tied to his belief that he deserves to suffer, and this is set up as a vicious circle – the worse he feels, the worse he wants to make himself feel, and so on.

To back up a bit to the preceding scene with Charlotte, this is basically the gateway scene between Griffith as a functional human and Griffith as a self-destructing catastrophe.

Why he comes to Charlotte in this moment is open for debate – perhaps he’s simply trying to repress his pain over Guts’ leaving by attempting to seize the dream by seducing the princess. Or perhaps he secretly wants to get caught doing something risky that will fundamentally jeopardize the dream in order to punish himself for being unworthy of Guts’ love. Or perhaps it’s both at the same time.

Let’s quickly break down how this scene works in terms of Griffith’s state of mind. First we see him still trying to play the gentlemen, still repressing and putting on a show of the perfect prince for Charlotte. Soon after though, the mask drops and he basically reveals a hardened statue beneath. He’s ultimately too hurt in this moment to keep the cheeky and/or charming mask up – he looks like he feels cold and empty, and he’s still trying not to think about what’s just happened with Guts.

This is basically an exact midpoint between his repression and his self harm – he’s trying to smother the pain by not thinking about it (repression at its simplest), but at the same time what he’s choosing to do with Charlotte actually intensifies his pain, because it leads him to think about Guts anyway (self harm).

Again, Griffith’s repression exists to make himself feel better, to reassert the importance and value of the dream, and his actions don’t actually accomplish this in the slightest. It doesn’t make him feel better, because it’s functionally designed to make himself feel worse.

And yeah, we see that afterwards he clearly feels 1000% worse, not better.

Griffith’s self harm moves into the territory of self destruction here because he isn’t actually able to atone for anything by having sex with Charlotte – regardless of what he might have intended when he went to Charlotte’s room, the scene plays out to tear himself down, and the dream is no closer after he’s done so.

His isolation in that final panel is basically a visual representation of his own self-imposed punishment for his daring to think all of this was worth the price he, and more importantly everyone else, has paid for it.

In this way, this sequence and the one that follows in the torture chamber show us that Griffith’s change in attitude toward his acts of self harm v. self destruction comes down directly to the amount of self loathing he is experiencing, and in an intrinsically related way, how much value he places in himself, his own desire to feel better, and his ability to atone for his actions.

And I think it’s clear that things change for Griffith because of Guts. Whether he likes/recognizes it or not, by the time Guts leaves he’s also staked his self worth on what Guts thinks of him, because he loves him and craves his respect and admiration. Guts’ answer to “Do you think I’m cruel?” cuts deep, but not as deeply as being told that he essentially never had any of Guts’ love or respect in the first place, which is what he believes as Guts leaves (“Is this how badly you want to leave my grasp?” – see bthump’s excellent meta breaking this moment down in more detail).

It makes sense that this moment would deliver such a devastating blow to Griffith’s sense of worth that it makes his self loathing spiral out of control and leads to him tearing his life apart.

And indeed, I read something very similar going down in the guilt trip, when the Godhand essentially tell Griffith that not only did he never have Guts’ love, he was in fact never worthy of love in the first place, because he is evil, a monster, too cruel, dirty, and loathsome to deserve a way out of this hellish cycle he’s stuck in.

Redux: The Sacrifice as Self Destruction

As I broke down in my previous meta, my analysis of the Eclipse leads me to believe that during this sequence Griffith is choosing the sacrifice (self harm) and not the dream (repression).

Originally, I argued that repression played no part in the sacrifice. However, upon further reflection and lengthy discussion, I have come around to the idea that in fact it is still at play during the first half of the guilt trip. This is clearly the case, because Griffith actually does manage to make an “ends justify the means” argument with respect to his sacrifice of the BoTH, even confronted with an image of all those bodies laid at his feet.

With the Godhand’s encouragement, he is temporarily able to push past the guilt to keep proceeding toward that end goal, covered in blood, in the attempt to convince himself that all this death and suffering couldn’t be for nothing (“If I repent...”). As I noted in my previous analysis, I believe this logic would have been enough for Griffith if all he had to do is sacrifice his Hawks – but as we know, in order to become a monster, you have to sacrifice what you love most, and imo no positive or constructive logic about finally attaining his dream could lead Griffith to the conclusion that the dream is worth anything close to Guts’ life.

It seems that what actually makes the difference at the bitter end is the intervention of fate and the word of God during the Eclipse. The Godhand essentially don’t let Griffith go through with this line of utilitarian thinking, because right after emerging from “the reality within his conscious realm,” they bring him right back into the pile of corpses, only this time it’s portrayed in less abstract terms by evoking the battlefield directly.

The Godhand are effectively telling him right after he’s successfully made his rationalizations that there’s no washing that blood off – that he’s already evil (“That is you”) and there is no absolution waiting for him, only his destiny, which is to reap the evil he has sown. It’s like they specifically get him to make the justification one more time in order to condemn him for it.

They prevent him from shifting the focus back onto that end goal and instead re-emphasize what he’s done to get there (“Over those corpses…you have trampled”), to tell him that he must embrace the cause and effect of his actions (“Bear [your] evil and confront destiny”).

In this way, it’s ultimately a pronouncement of guilt from the veritable mouth of god that finally puts the nail in the coffin of Griffith’s dance between the ends and the means, repression and self harm. They definitively come out and say that there’s no more repressing this, there’s no world in which this will ever be okay. You’re just evil and all you have to look forward to is more evil. This is you.

Directly after this, at the moment of the sacrifice, Griffith has basically been brought to his absolute lowest point, where self destruction seems like the only option (keep in mind that he’s already tried and failed to kill himself). After the guilt trip he thinks he’s less than worthless – he’s been convinced that he’s evil, and deserves nothing but more evil and his own eternal suffering, to “bear his evil and confront destiny.” This is where the last moments of his (human) life swing toward self destruction once and for all.

From what we’ve seen already about how Griffith acts when he feels worthless and wants to self harm, at this point Griffith cannot possibly think that he deserves to benefit or gain anything – not a castle, not absolution, love, or care or human connection. All he deserves is eternal pain and suffering. And by making the sacrifice, Griffith is guaranteeing that belief in his own mind, by obliterating all the remaining goodness within himself by committing an evil act.

Choosing those “raven-black wings” over the lives of Guts and the Hawks is so contrary to what values we already know he believes in, this moment it’s basically just more fuel for the fire.

Contrast the sentiment behind this:

With this:

We’ve been shown that Griffith’s sense of ego is premised almost entirely on what he can do for others – he has left very little sense that he deserves anything for himself. That’s why the selfishness of the sacrifice is, imo, so personally destructive to him – because for someone who has such little sense of independent self or self worth, to make an entirely selfish choice is so contemptible, terrible, unforgivable in his mind that it completely destroys him.

We know that this same perceived selfishness is already his deepest source of guilt and trauma (the belief that he has put others in harm’s way for the sake of his own goals) – so agreeing to the sacrifice is a manifestation of that exact same guilt, just magnified a hundred times over. This act is him basically deciding to give up the pretense that any of his actions have ever been anything other than pure selfishness, cruelty, and evil, by fully embracing that evil and making an exchange for personal benefit, because in his mind there’s essentially no coming back from such a contemptible decision.

Griffith thus chooses the sacrifice as an act of self destruction, and it represents the choice to become exactly everything he always feared he was, to let go of his responsibility to do the right thing by proving that the Godhand (and Guts, or so he thinks) were right all along, by finally making a truly evil choice and thereby validating his belief that he has always been evil and therefore deserves to suffer for eternity.

This is what I mean by the sacrifice being an act of self harm and “spiritual” suicide, not just because he’s basically killing himself, but because the whole impetus is based around actively destroying all the things that he valued about himself – his own soul – everything that made him good and human in his own eyes (and like, this is exactly what Femto, the result of this choice, is). This decision is based around tearing his entire sense of humanity to shreds, by doing the worst thing to himself that he could possibly imagine (making an exchange for personal benefit and sacrificing his most dearly beloved) and becoming the embodiment of that cruel and violent world order he always hated.

The way I think of this as suicide isn’t at all about making him feel better, because it’s not ultimately giving him absolution/justification for or abdication from his actions, it’s giving him the exact opposite – proof of his cruelty in the form of raven-black wings, which are basically just the evidence he’s been looking for all along that he deserves to suffer. It’s also not a depiction of true suicide, which would be an actual escape from his pain. Though this is still an escape in a way – not from his pain but into it.

 Conclusions

While all the acts of self harm/destruction we see Griffith undertake throughout the Golden Age (the scratching, Gennon, Charlotte, the torture chamber, and the sacrifice) have varying elements of repression within them, because that’s still Griffith’s default response to his guilt, each are still ultimately acts of self harm/destruction because they result in tearing himself down and they actively function to make him feel worse – this is succumbing to the pain rather than trying to shield himself from it. None of these moments succeed at helping him along the path to the dream or making him feel better about himself, because none are functionally designed to.

And in saying this, I’m not also implying Griffith didn’t want his own suffering to end at different points in his life. I think after being tortured he wanted to die and end his suffering, after the soup-behelit/nightmare sequence he wanted to die and end his suffering, obviously, he attempts suicide after all. But the guilt trip is the ultimate difference in the end – the guilt trip is what convinces Griffith that he doesn’t deserve to end his suffering. That even his own “death” should be in the name of greater suffering.

Ultimately, what we can understand from this is that, despite the fact that he tries to pretend otherwise, when Griffith scratches himself it has nothing to do with attaining the dream, it’s not ultimately justifying anything other than his own belief that he deserves to suffer – he’s basically always just doing it to feel worse about himself.

When he has sex with Gennon, the specific act he chooses to take is one that is designed to hurt himself – there would have been many different ways to throw himself back into the dream in order to earn money without putting people at risk: for example he could have taken on some mercenary jobs personally, or sought out some non-combative work for interested Hawks – specifically why he chooses to have sex with a child predator is because he wants to punish himself for getting others killed, to atone through his own suffering. Choosing to have sex with a child predator as an act in isolation doesn’t advance the dream, only the end result (money) does. And that money could have been obtained in objectively less harmful and potentially more fruitful routes to that same goal.

Similarly, with Charlotte, his having sex with her, his leaving in broad daylight, his taunting the King, etc. – I read Griffith making those choices because some part of him wanted to destroy himself, to actively torpedo the dream because in some sense he has been brought to believe that he’s worthless and so is everything he’s staked his life on.

What he did in the river, with Charlotte, with the King, even the sacrifice – none of these events had to go down the way they did. The way they went down was basically arranged to destroy every one of those “sad and frightening things,” including the dream and his own life.

~~

In conclusion, I hope that this meta shows how centrally important the logic of Griffith’s self harm is to his actions throughout the narrative of the Golden Age. His beliefs about himself and his own suffering are shown to us to consistently shape his choices, and I think it’s also clear that this logic persists through Femto’s actions after the Golden Age.

I have some more metas planned where I’m thinking of fleshing some more stuff out that spawned out of my original meta and subsequent discussions around it, so keep out an eye for those if you’re interested.

As always, if you have any thoughts about any of this I would be very interested to hear from you.

Thank you so much for reading!

[pinencurls]

“I could just hold you and listen to your voice all night long.”

Hiii so this is my entry to @stellarboystyles‘s three year anniversary fic challenge! I’ve been busy with getting ready for classes starting and balancing other stuff so I wrote it on and off for a week and a bit but I hope you all enjoy! Feedback is so so encouraged and appreciated <3 

Here’s my masterlist of some other stuff I’ve written x 

Enemies (more like friends but oops) to lovers, prompt 9 “I could just hold you and listen to your voice all night long.”

14k+ :) Not read through sorry! pls let me know of any mistakes and I’ll correct them <3 (also i k n o w the title's bad but i couldn’t think of anything, pls feel free to leave any recs.)

- - - - 

It isn’t that I hate Harry. He just makes me feel...insecure. He’s never said or done anything directly but it’s hard to feel good about yourself when all your closest confidants seem to compare you to somebody else, somebody they so clearly hold higher above you. There wasn’t a single day I could meet a mutual friend of mine and Harry’s and not have them sing his praises, and apparently everyone was a mutual friend. I’ve known Julia and Theo for years, we all met in uni when they first started going out but it wasn’t until a year ago that I somehow ended up finding myself a regular within the friendship group they’d formed when they both went into the music and fashion industries. They had ties everywhere and after a pure coincidence of running into them and their circle at a pub, almost all my weekends were spent in various art galleries or new restaurants owned by somebody’s cousin or the guy they met last night at a Fleetwood Mac concert. 

I’d met Harry about five months into hanging out with the group. He’d known them a lot longer than I had, weaving his way into the little pockets of interesting people for years since the x factor. I was busy with work the first few times he was in town but after a while, Nick, the persistent party planner of the group who always managed to wrangle us together, insisted that I just had to meet him.                  . . . . . 

Eleanor’s house is huge and buzzing with hundreds of strangers. I cling to Julia and Theo’s side, Nick and Eleanor are nowhere in sight - most likely playing host or drinking too much chardonnay in another corner of the house. These four are the only people I can say I really know here, sure there are a few familiar faces on the dance floor, either from having met them at any of Eleanor's past elaborate parties or just because of they’re not so subtle fame. That’s another thing, all the people sipping wine and dancing around me are fairly...well known. Either just within the industry or to the general public too, they’d all gain fairly high status. It was a fluke really that I got on so well with Julia when we first met on a fashion course in uni. 

Julia had big goals, all of which she was on track to fulfil, that conflicted slightly with mine. Her goals consisted of runway show models clad in designer brands she might one day contribute to whereas mine were more...anti, that whole world. It took a few years to find a steady footing but eventually, I was proud of where I’d ended up: a comfortable little cubby in the fashion and sustainability columns of a handful of independent magazines. After a few nights out with Julia, I was pleasantly surprised to find her shared interests and solidarity in my work and ambitions of her own within the same ideology. But whilst that’s all well and good, I’m still very much the small indie journalist that slips through the cracks when it comes to small talk at these kinds of events. It became apparent pretty quickly that my latest articles on how fast fashion had begun its destruction of a liveable environment in developing countries weren’t as relevant or interesting to the people promoting Prada and Calvin Klein as the next met gala theme. 

“Do you want another drink?” Theo asks from beside me, pulling my focus from my scan of the room. 

“No thanks..I’m good.” I murmur, debating how long I have to stay before I can slip out and feel a little less awkward around all the people I have no clue how to talk to. “Think I’m gonna head off actually..”

“Look I know you hate networking, but this is just a chill get-together yeah?” Theo chuckles, squeezing my shoulder before taking another sip from his gin and tonic. “We’re in the same boat about these snooty things but tonight’s not like that, relax a bit will ya.” 

Theo works mostly with small-time music artists, producing debut albums and such so we share the same deep discomfort for the many events we often find ourselves at. It’s how we got close really, week after week we’d trail behind Julia as she strikes up conversations with Hollywood elite...and he always makes getting piss drunk in someone’s pool house exceptionally fun. 

Before I can further any excuses about getting home to start on the legitimate and ever-growing pile of work deadlines on my desk, a tall man in far too much Gucci to belong anywhere but in a room full of models and artists makes a beeline straight from the bar to our awkward party. 

“Harry!” Theo shouts, embracing the slightly tipsy man in a hug he reciprocates. 

“It’s been too long mate, how ‘ave you been?” Harry cheers, leaning back from the hug and grinning down at his friend. 

“I’ve been good - busy, enjoying the free bar as always.” Theo jokes, motioning between his and my matching G and T’s. Harry’s eyes wander up from the drink, realisation dawning on his face as he smiles again.

“Ah and you must be the famous Olivia,” He reaches his hand out to mine and shakes it lightly. “Sorry I didn’t introduce myself, ‘m Harry, it’s good to finally meet you, love.”  

“Likewise.” I smile, trying to suppress the blush his words of endearment tease. I can’t deny the natural charm and charisma everyone always talks about now that it’s hitting me straight on. There’s something about the way he doesn’t hesitate to hold eye contact just that little bit longer that makes the room go still for just a second. He’d got it down to a T.

“Aww I see you two have finally met!” Nick interrupts. My hand falls from Harry’s grip as he’s welcomed into another hug. “About fucking time as well, been trying get this one to take a night off for weeks!”

“I literally came out with you last Thursday!” I counter, not missing the smirk setting on Harry’s face as he watches Nick and I’s back and forth. “And the Saturday before, come to think of it I’m always out with you Nicky.” 

“Not when Harry’s in town though n’ that’s a different kinda night.” Nick laughs, his beer sloshing slightly in his free hand as his other remains draped over Harry’s shoulders. 

That was maybe the first sign of my slight resentment for Harry. All night I wandered around with Theo hearing little bits of conversations, all surrounding the star of the party. I understood this wasn’t his doing, his humility was clear in every one of his bashful attempts to turn the conversation away from his growing achievements and onto literally anything else. He was, however, a self-proclaimed narcissist. Every time somebody would swoon over him and insist he stay the topic of conversation, a smirk tugged at his lips and stayed there as he consumed the endless and animated praise from almost all the party guests. 

I’d expected some of his qualities to be untrue, learning from the past never to believe blindly of someone’s pure character when you didn’t truly know them. Especially when they frequented the gossip columns. But it wasn’t him so much, he was true to his motto of kindness and courteous even as people fawned over him, it was more the attention that surrounded him. As the night went on it became clear what Nick meant even if he didn’t know it himself. A night out with Harry was different because everyone made sure to capitalize off how different he made them feel.

. . . . .

“Can I get you anything else M’am?” The young waitress asks as she clears up my empty mug and saucer. My eyes falter a little as they adjust from the blue light of my laptop I’ve been staring at for the last twenty minutes. 

“Um- oh please could I just get a refill?” I ask. 

“Sure thing - mint tea right?” She smiles, adjusting the mug in her hands to make a quick note. 

 “Yeah..s’perfect - thank you.” She’s gone before she hears my delayed gratitudes, definitely used to the throngs of bemused writers tapping away at their laptops for hours. 

I turn back to my open google doc. So far it’s written in two parts I have no idea how to connect and my senseless rereading hasn’t resulted in any legitimate progress in almost an hour. I’d accept the rut I’m stuck in and work on something else for the day if I didn’t only have the day. Last night had been filled with plans of settling in early and finishing the last two thousand words on an upcoming sustainable clothing brand. That all went out the window of course as my phone buzzed off the kitchen counter with Nick’s insistence of yet another night out to celebrate ending the work week - his was quite different to mine. It was easy to ignore the persistent beeping of my phone as new texts and call notifications popped up every three minutes, but less so when the rhythmic bursts of noise were replaced by knocks on my front door. 

Within 40 minutes of opening it to Nick in a silk shirt and jeans too skinny for someone pushing thirty, I was two drinks in and dancing to Blue DeTiger with a pair of hands on my waist that I didn’t entirely recognise. It was just the six of us: Me, Nick, Ellie, Theo, Julia and Harry.

He was hard to ignore, not that I was trying particularly hard. On the drive over, the limited backseat space in Nick’s car and close proximity had practically forced me into his lap. Even with thighs pressed tightly against each other, we hardly talked, a few polite hellos here and there and then silence as we listened to Eleanor recall her latest night with whichever blonde bassist was her ‘soulmate’ that week. The whole ride over, Harry kept his hands on the thigh closest to the door and leant his shoulders the same way as to touch me as little as possible - which was still quite a lot considering the packed five seater pushing seven passengers. It was fairly common knowledge we weren’t close and I got the feeling he wasn’t too keen on me, but he could at least not act like touching me would be the worst thing ever. 

As the night went on he clung to Theo, ever the cuddly drunk, and I stayed more to the pleasant stranger I’d found on the dance floor.

No meanest was ever intended between us but I couldn’t help but watch the kindergarten like bitterness grow as everyone just loved him. We couldn’t go anywhere without a crying fan or two approaching the sweet and smiling man who always answered their questions affectionately and hugged them goodbye. The times he was out of town were always filled with comments about his absence, as if none of us were good enough without his added presence. I couldn’t help but wonder why they even bothered to bring me into their little group. The lack of closeness between Harry and I felt almost like a lack of closeness to the group as a whole, despite how much my individual friendships with everyone advanced. 

Just as I thank the waitress - Alice, her name tag read, and take the first sip of my third tea (I had to switch after a particularly strong starter coffee) I notice a familiar man out the corner of my eye looking just as rough as me. Of course he’s wearing it better than I am. 

Harry collects a drink from the counter and bows his head slightly in thanks, turning and catching my eye just as he’s on his way out. He waves with his free hand and shoots me a candid smile before making a quick change in direction towards my small table. 

“Long time no see,” He pulls the chair opposite me out a little as he chuckles at his own joke. He perches lightly, temporarily. “How’ve you been?”

“A little hungover, I won’t lie..” I laugh, surprised by the whole encounter. “You?” 

“Same, I might have had a shot or two too many,” I nod knowingly and shut my laptop softly. He sips what smells like coffee before going on. “Are ya workin? Sorry to interrupt.” 

“Oh no- I mean I am but it doesn’t matter really, ‘ve kinda hit a dead end.” His eyes hover, waiting for me to go on. “I was gonna get it done last night but Nick had other plans..” 

“Yeah Nick’ll do that to you,” He laughs, “What’re you writing ‘bout?” 

He leans slightly forwards, holding eye contact and shuffling comfortably into his chair. 

“Oh just this promotional piece on a new company, they’re hiring young women and training them to make these handmade clothes. They’re paying them above minimum wage and focusing on sustainability so this editor I’ve written for before offered me it.” I’m not really sure how sincere he is in his curiosity, he always seems to have time to listen when Julia has a new design plan or Theo’s found a new artist but that’s different really. I stop before I start to ramble, just in case. 

“That’s so cool, what kinda stuff are they making?” He prompts, resting his chin on his fist, imitating the posture of an eager little kid. 

“They've started stocking stuff by other independent artists but mostly dungarees and these cool cord trousers, they’d suit you actually, even got some 70s style ones.” Now that the two worlds are colliding in my head, I can’t help but imagine Harry in a pair of their forest green cords, the wide legs would almost bury his vans but a part of me is pretty sure he’d love them. 

“Thanks, if they come at your recommendation I might have to get my hands on a pair,” He smiles, his tone’s a lot different to the usual polite cheer, it’s difficult to place where it’s landed before he’s talking again. “Reminds me of that show you took us to with the upcycled clothes, all those dungarees made of old quilts - remember?” 

It’d been a small exhibit just outside of London I’d mentioned offhandedly and somehow ended up showing everyone around. It was nice to have them all in my world for an evening. Marcus, a friend of mine from college, had put it together and created a lot of the pieces. He and the others I’d met through my work were fairly shocked to say the least when Harry Styles came traipsing through the doors behind me. All night he quietly asked Nick questions, to which Nick only responded by motioning towards me and wandering off to the bar. 

“I do - I’m surprised you do to be honest.” It slips before I can decide if it sounds passive aggressive or not. To be fair, it had been a surprise to me, meeting everyone at the train station and watching Harry and Nick scramble out a taxi and run towards us. He’d been dressed in proper gallery attire and seemed genuinely thrilled to be joining in on the rare night I actually played host. 

“Course I do, it was a good night...I’d choose it over Nick’s tequila Tuesdays anyday.” His phone buzzes on the table, a text popping up in green. “Oh I- my manager’s waiting sorry.” 

A sheepish smile is accompanied by a loose arm movement towards the door where, out on the street, I see Jeff. He’s shaking his head and motioning for Harry to hurry up. Had Harry sat down to talk to me whilst his manager had been waiting this whole time? 

“It was good running into you, good luck with it all,” He stands. “See you friday yeah?” 

I’d totally forgotten about his “Whenever I’m in town Friday film night.” until he mentioned it. I’d been twice in the past and stayed quietly to my corner of the sofa, only watching as everyone else laughed at whatever romcom had been chosen that night. 

“I-maybe.” He shakes his head as I smile, not quite ready to commit a whole evening to watching Nick raid Harry’s wine cellar. 

“You better, I’m gonna need to hear more ‘bout those cords.” He points his hand in a kind of joking reprimand/wave before he’s gone back down the aisle of tables to the door where Jeff ruffles a hand through his hair and laughs when his hands fly to fix the now birdnest of brown curls. 

I open my laptop back up, skimming over the last few lines I wrote to get myself back on track. I take a sip and my tea’s gone cold. 

. . . . .

“Are you coming to Harry’s tonight?” Eleanor asks down the phone, her voice chipper as she no doubt raids her closet. 

“Maybe, I don’t know..I’ve got this deadline Monday morning that I’m nowhere near meeting.” 

“Come on Liv, we haven’t seen you all properly together since last month, and last week doesn’t count it was too loud to actually talk!” She chimes in, the sound of clothes being tossed to the floor clear in the distant background. “Have you got a problem with Harry or something?” 

“No Elle, of course I don’t-” 

“Then why do you guys never talk? You hardly come with us when he’s around and when you do you barely even say hello.” Eleanor complains, she’s mentioned it in the past but it’s been easy to blow off with excuses of how busy he usually was making his way around the room to greet everyone or how we just hadn’t known each other that long and weren't particularly close yet. 

“I just...I don’t know, I don’t think he likes me very much.” I pause. I still haven't decided what last Saturday was in the cafe. “We’re not really close and I’d prefer not to spend another night listening to people tell him - and everyone else - how great he is.” 

“You’re saying that like he’s some arrogant twit, if you came out with us more you’d see what he’s really like around his friends. Or you know, you could actually talk to him when we’re together and see that he’s not a dick?” 

It was a fair point. I haven’t made much of an effort over the past year to spend any time with him outside of larger gatherings or to have genuine conversations with him that went past the weather or a new jacket one of us had on. Maybe he really is a good guy away from all the pretentious crowds and watchful eyes he usually called to our group. He’d certainly seemed different in the quiet Saturday surroundings of Blondies Coffee Roasters in between sips of coffee. 

“Okay, okay yeah I’ll see you there.” We hang up a couple of minutes later and I’m left alone in my kitchen again.

. . . . . 

“Hey!” Harry cheers as the door swings open to reveal him in yet another pair of flared pants that hung comfortably around his waist. “Come in, come in.” 

We all pile in through the doorway as he steps aside. Arms weaving through each other as we hang coats and jackets and Julia passes Harry the fruit platter she’d made (and scolded us all for picking at on the drive over.)��

“Oh very appropriate,” Harry laughs as he uncovers the tray to reveal an array of sliced watermelon, strawberries and grapes, He sets the fruit down on the table in the lounge for us all to eat and shakes his head lightly. I look up at Julia for an explanation but she’s too busy claiming the comfiest loveseat for the night. “I’m never telling you anything again, Jules.” 

Julia and Harry tease each other for a moment more until Theo catches my confused stares and laughs to himself. 

“Harry wrote a song ‘bout fruit- another one actually,” Theo starts, tucking himself beside Julia and letting her take over before he can finish. “S’not just about fruit though is it H?” 

Harry blushes slightly and settles his glare on Julia as he carries six wine glasses through to the table. 

“‘S about watermelon, it just has some..” He clears his throat as he fumbles for his next sentence. “Other themes to it too.” 

“As if mate,” Theo’s laughter booms, “ Basically Liv, he wrote this new song the other day all about how much he loves to-” 

“Watermelon!” Harry yells, pointing an accusatory finger at Theo. “S’all about how much I love watermelons...I’m a fruit guy.” 

“Oh are we talking about the pussy song?” 

All heads snap round to see Nick, obviously having let himself in and now chuckling softly to himself as he leans against the archway into the room. 

“Oh sorry H, were you tryna give an interview answer?” 

Harry just slaps his palm over his eyes and lets his shoulders shake for a minute before he bounces back to host mode. 

“Okay!” I can’t help but notice how flushed the tips of his ears are as he claps his hands together, desperately trying to move on from the conversation. “Who wants wine?” 

Fifteen minutes later everyone is settled onto the sofas with an array of throws between us and a layout of fruits, crisps and other mid rom com snacks that make me feel bad I left my flat in too much of a hurry to remember anything but hummus. 

“Okay - Sixteen Candles, When Harry Met Sally or Mamma Mia?” Nick calls out, waving the tv remote above his head to get everyone's attention. An outpour of votes follows - you’d think between only six of us we’d be able to sort out a process by now but still we fall into momentary anarchy as the room divides. 

“Mamma Mia is a classic!” Eleanor protests as Nick’s shaking his head. 

“And Billy Crystal isn’t?” He yells back, eyes wide and genuinely offended. 

“Colin Firth is arguably more iconic, Nick really, come on.” Theo sighs. He accepts the high fives Ellie and I reach out to him and saluts us both. 

“We’ve all seen Mamma Mia before though, we’ve never watched When Harry Met Sally all together,” Julia points out, winning a smirk and nod of approval from Nick. 

There’s a beat of silence while Nick weighs up the votes in his head. He tilts to the side slightly and eyes Harry up, our gazes following. 

“Harry?” 

“Ellie?” 

“Come on, you’ve got the last vote here, and I know how much you like Meryl.” Nick gasps a little, the mention of Meryl Streep as a wager to win Harry over to his opposing team was definitely foul play in his eyes. 

“Yeah but he loves When Harry Met Sally...and he is a narcissist..” Julia offers into the debate, a few snickers follow her comment before we all turn to look at Harry. We’re all already half a glass in but I could swear for just a moment his eyes lingered over me, fluttering down to my smile before turning back to announce his decision to Nick. 

“I’m afraid I am in the mood for a bit of Abba,” Cheers and not so subtle murmurs of frustration fill the lounge as Nick scrolls through the Romance bar on Netflix before clicking on the film of just over half of our choosing. 

Everyone goes quiet as the film starts, breaking out into bursts of song only as the cast does. From the conversation in the car, it’s pretty clear everyone has just been through a pretty tiring week. We all tended to pile our workload a little heavy so it was always nice to escape for a few hours at the weekend and relax together.

Just as Voulez-vous plays through the room, a slightly tipsy Nick leans into Harry to serenade the singer with his own rendition. The duo sway slightly, both narrowly avoiding Nick’s wild limbs before there’s a crash and Harry’s cursing. 

“Oh- H, Sorry!” 

Nick’s wine glass that’d been balanced on the coffee table in front of him moments before now lays on its side. The, luckily white, wine trickles down onto the rug but most noticeably splashes into Harry’s lap. I’m not entirely sure how he managed it, it must have flown forwards when it was knocked but Harry quickly stands to access the damage. 

“I’m so sorry Harry I-” 

“Don’t worry mate, I’m just gonna go change and toss these in the wash..could you wipe that up for me?” Nick nods, looking a little less cheerful and a lot more guilty now as Harry makes it way out the room. He calls behind him: “Keep watching I’ll only be a second!” 

Nick finishes wiping down the table and rug just as Harry jogs back into the room. I don’t mean to and I’m never one to check people out..unless very subtly, but I can’t help but let my eyes linger a little. 

He’s still in his plain tee but instead of his fancy pants he’s found some soft wash denim jeans. The whole look paired with his thick rimmed glasses and how his hair's gotten tousled about by Nick throughout the night just made him look so...ordinary. Not in any bad way, anyone who met Harry knew he could never be ordinary, no matter how casual he dressed, but something about seeing him abandon the more dressed up looks and go for the comfortable option just made him seem different. 

In a second his green eyes are complimenting the look too as he gazes down at me. 

“Hi,” He mouths, nobody’s taken much notice of his return, yet another musical number taking everyone’s attention. It’s my turn to blush a little now. I avert my eyes quickly, anywhere really, before sneaking a quick look up at him to smile back. 

Ellie had helped Nick in the “For fucksake save Harry’s rug it probably costs more than your car” mission and had stolen the seat beside him after they were done. It slipped my mind until Harry set the new bottle of wine on the table and sunk down into the space beside me, He curls one leg underneath him and slips me one more smile before turning back to the screen just as Donna and Sam start singing SOS.

. . . . . 

“Ah shit, I think I left my book!” I curse just as we make it down the road to Julia’s car. Parking was shit so by the time we found a spot we’d ended up a good 15 minutes away from Harry’s house. “You guys go on, I’m only round the corner anyway.” 

Theo and Julia were familiar with my stubbornness so let me go, yelling their goodbyes after a few hugs as they drove away, Ellie and Nick do the same as they clamber into a taxi. I turn quickly in the chilly air and make my way back down the street to Harry’s drive, punching in the familiar code at his gate before running up to the door hastily. 

It was open - as always, so I let myself in. He was probably still cleaning the lounge up after we all got a little too tipsy. 

“Hey it’s me...just left my book sorry!” I call down the hallway. It’s quiet despite the light Paul Simon playing in the distance so I make my way quickly to the sofas I’d spent most of the night on, praying to avoid an awkward run-in with Harry. 

Although we’d actually shared some light conversation throughout the night and a handful of smiles, I’m not sure we’re quite at the stage in our friendship that me more or less breaking into his house wouldn’t be awkward to run into. 

The lounge is empty when I get there. The side tables are still littered with wine glasses and tacky red rings on coasters but no Harry in sight. Or book for that matter. 

I start pulling back the cushions carefully - god knows how much they cost. Despite scouring the one spot I’d pretty much clung to the whole night -  incidentally beside Harry -  I have no luck. Nick tossed the book back to me at some point in the night after reading it by my recommendation but knowing him it could have ended up anyway. I follow the breadcrumbs of our night down another hallway as I vaguely remember Nick talking about a certain plot twist as we searched Harry’s kitchen cupboards for the wine he’d sent us off to restock. 

As I come around the white archway into his kitchen I catch a glimpse of him from around the kitchen island. He has his back turned to me but he’s leant forwards against a counter with ring covered fingers clutching the edge, a glass of amber liquid set slightly away from him. 

“Oh, sorry I was just-” He jumps a little at my voice, turning quickly to face me with his now free hands coming up to hold his chest. When his eyes finally meet mine they’re red and it takes a second for him to register the tears still streaming from them before he replies. 

“Shit, fu- what are you..are you alright?” His hands bat between tangling into his hair and wiping the tears from his cheeks, anything to avoid actually looking up at me again. 

“Yeah, I just..um..left my book,” I mumble, taking a step closer to him when I notice how his hands shake as they move timidly around his face. “Harry, what’s wrong?”

“Uuuh um.” He wanders for a moment before slapping a palm lightly atop the counter and pulling out his infamous grin. “Nothing much, how bout you - find your book?” 

“-Harry..” I take another step close, “I know we’re not, ya know..close. But you can talk to me.” 

There’s a beat of silence when he keeps up the act, I’d almost believe it if it wasn’t for his bloodshot eyes and anxious fingers drumming against the tile. 

“What’s wrong?” 

He pauses for a moment, assessing whether or not to tell me whatever’s weighing so heavy on his shoulders. But the dam bursts. 

“Fuckin’ everything Love” He laughs, rubbing his palms over his face. I try to focus on the matter at hand: Harry weeping in his kitchen. But that name’s only ever left his mouth directed at me a handful of times and it’s never made my stomach flutter quite as it did just now. “Just..Fuck I’m so lonely Olivia.” 

I don’t really know any of the details but between conversation - mostly overheard, and the media frenzy, it was hard not to be aware of Harry’s break up two months ago. I can’t claim we were close enough to discuss it, having hardly ever talked beyond trivial issues, but I knew that despite them only being together two or so months, he’d been incredibly distant for the weeks that followed the break up. 

“I hear about you and Aubre..I’m really sorry it didn’t work out for you guys-” Harry laughs almost, a pained sort of chuckle that told me I was way off with this one. 

“It’s not..that isn’t why I..” He takes a deep breath before lifting his head up slightly to focus on where his fingers still tapped out a nervous beat on the counter. “I was lonely before her...and with her. I just, I can’t seem to get it right ever...feels like nobody wants to be with me for the right reasons.” 

“Hey no..what about tonight? Your house was full of so many people who love you yeah? Maybe your bougie wine collection had something to do with it but still,” He laughs at that, peeking up from behind his fringe for just a moment. “They- we love you ‘k?” 

“I know but, ‘clock hits the am and everyone leaves, it just gets...it gets so fucking lonely to see everyone in perfect pairs ya know?” 

I don’t really know what I’m doing but I’m doing it - my arms wrap over his shoulders and lock with a hand at the nape of his neck. We’ve never hugged before beyond a general greeting but anyone watching wouldn’t know it, his face burrows quickly into my shoulder and his arms cocoon over my waist, holding me tightly and slipping under the thick layers of my jacket. 

“I know exactly what you mean, H.” 

The hug lasts longer than I imagined it might. He smells of vanilla and the coffee he brought back in bulk from Jamaica. He lets out a shaky breath and melts further into me, nuzzling my neck softly with the tip of his nose. His curls are soft between my fingers and I find myself shhing him, lulling us both into a tired kind of calm. 

Another moment passes in the silence of his kitchen before Harry lets out an awkward cough and straightens up, pulling out of our hold and immediately covering his face with his palms again. 

“I..sorry Jules and Theo must be waiting for you..” Harry murmured, wiping the last of his tears away and letting his hands fall and fidget by his sides. 

“Oh no don’t worry they..um they already went I was actually just gonna walk.” I tell him, making his head perk up a bit. 

“Wha-It’s past twelve Liv it’s not safe, how far do you even live?” He clears his throat and his voice is clearer now, it feels like a whole different world to the one we were in just a minute ago. 

“It’s fine honestly, only take like thirty minutes walking - I’ve done it before-” I ramble, eager to put this situation behind me before I embarrass myself anymore. 

“No - let me drive you yeah?” Harry shakes his head, adamant. 

“Harry..we’ve been drinking all night, I think that’s more dangerous than me jus’ walking.” I laugh, holding his gaze for a second longer than I usually would - fuck, how do we usually act around each other?

Before I come to a conclusion, his eyes rest heavy on mine and I can see the cogs turning in his brain as he tries to work his way out of this one. Ever the people pleaser. 

“Then stay.” 

“Harry-”

“You said you know how it feels.” He cuts in, unwavering now as he doesn’t let my eyes fall from his. “So stay …’s safer anyway.” 

. . . . . 

“I can take the sofa, really Harry I don’t mind,” I reassure as he tosses me an old t-shirt and joggers to sleep in. “It’s comfier than my bed anyway. 

His guest bedrooms had just been painted and were still pretty fume filled so the sofa or his bed were the only options. For twenty minutes now he’s tried to convince me to take his bed and leave him on the sofa, despite the fact we both know he’s a little too tall to sleep without his feet hanging off the end. 

“But you’re my guest!” He protests again, coming up from his wardrobe to stand in front of me, hand on hips and an expression of concern on his face. 

“And you’re almost six foot!” 

“Hey, I am six foot.” He takes a deep breathe, exhaling through his nose in defeat before speaking again. “Okay, you can sleep on the sofa but if anyone asks I was the perfect host and you bullied me into this.” 

I laugh softly, this whole new side of Harry had never been directed solely at me before and it was honestly refreshing. Usually Nick or another friend was the target of his jokes and playful demeanor and I only noticed it from afar but now he was right in front of me, hauling pillows off his bed and sticking his tongue out when he caught me staring. 

“Are you sure you’ll be alright?” He asks for the third time since I agreed to stay the night. We’ve just finished setting up the sofa to sleep on and despite the duvet and many quilts far more lush than my own actual bed, he seemed unconvinced it was enough. 

“I’m sure” I sit back into the pile of blankets and pillows, tucking my feet underneath me and looking back up at Harry. “If you’re really not, just come watch a film with me and see how cozy it is.” 

The quick change in dynamic was a lot smoother than I’d imagined. Within an hour of being alone together we’d already talked more than in all our past interactions, not to mention how close we’ve gotten. He only nods his head quickly and he’s settling under a quilt beside me, rummaging around for a controller to pull up netflix again. 

“Mamma Mia two?” He asks. 

I chuckle a bit and nod. At the beginning of the evening I hadn’t quite seen it ending in a Mamma Mia marathon with just me and Harry. 

He presses play and as the opening display begins we both lean back into the sofa and pull the blankets up over us. It’s only in the quiet of the first few scenes that I notice we’re matching. We’re both dressed fully in his clothes, grey joggers and t-shirt - his rolling stones, mine fleetwood mac. And it all smells of him. I pull the blanket a little higher over my chest and the faint, but now familiar, scent of vanilla and coffee fills my lungs and for a second all I can focus on is how desperately I want to be in his arms again. 

. . . . .

“-ow” A groggy voice mumbles from above me and I feel myself being pulled forwards slightly against something hard - and warm. 

I’m a few seconds from falling straight back asleep before I feel the painful ache in the side of my neck. I reach a hand up to gauge my current situation and feel my fingers plunging into soft hair - soft hair that ends too soon to be mine. 

“Hi..” I recoil my hand quickly back to my side and push myself up so I’m sitting slightly. I look down and see Harry, half asleep still and hand still resting on my side. 

“Oh-hey sorry,” What do you say when you wake up beside the guy you barely knew but simultaneously had been incredibly vulnerable with just the night before? 

Harry seems to be waking up now and certainly more aware of our predicament as he pulls his hand away from where it was holding firmly onto the material of my - his - t-shirt and pushes himself up to sit against the arm of the sofa. 

“We must have fallen asleep..sorry I didn’t mean too, ya know…” His eyes flutter between where I sit opposite him and the “Are you still watching?” Netflix screen. 

“It’s fine, accidents happen an’ everything.” I smile, slipping out from the warm cocoon of blankets to stand. “I’m just gonna wash up quickly and I’ll be out of you hair.” 

Before I can rush off to tame my hair and hopefully find some toothpaste to rid me of my morning breath, Harry clasps his hand gently around my wrist and tugs slightly to get my attention. 

“Not in a rush Love, I’ll make us some breakfast.” He says it effortlessly, like it was a regular occurrence for us to fall asleep cuddling on his sofa. He stands, groaning as his knees pop appreciatively and lets my hand go before he’s disappearing into the kitchen.

“Okay…” I murmur to myself. “....okay.” 

. . . . .  

Alice is back at my table with my second refill before 11am. I thank her and take a gulp of the fiery ginger tea before reading over the last three paragraphs I just wrote. The spice licks my tongue as I tip the cup up for a second sip; it’s autumn after all. 

In the last two weeks September had slipped into October and all the trees in London had received the memo. I’d been busy, hoaled up in the quietest corner of Blondies the whole time with coffee filling all my senses. I haven’t seen everyone together since that night at Harry’s. I grabbed lunch with Eleanor the Monday afterwards and told her nothing, preferring to avoid the texts my phone amassed over the fortnight. I've turned down all proposed group activities and focused on work instead. To be fair, I do have a lot to get done. There were always seasonal pieces in my to do list and with the weather getting colder it was time I got to them before it was Christmas already. 

I haven’t talked to Harry either. He made us pancakes with blueberries and maple syrup in the morning and we haven’t even texted since; I’m not sure that we even have a private text between us. Eleanor and Julia have told me how much fun they’ve all had the times I’ve politely but persistently declined, I can only assume Harry’s in the mix with them all. He’s in town for awhile if I’m remembering our breakfast chatter correctly, it makes sense that they’re all hanging out together really when they don’t often get time together. Ellie’s phone calls keep me from sliding into thoughts of how easily I could fall right out of the group and not be missed, at least. I was just taking space for work. The fact that most of my afternoons at the cafe disappeared into me analysing anything I might ever have felt or said to Harry means nothing at all. 

Neither does the heightened pace of my heartbeat when he walks through the stiff wooden  doors of Blondies. 

He orders what I assume is his regular black coffee, scans the room for a second and lands directly on me. He hesitates a little to hold my gaze, turning his head to look outside before looking back at me and smiling. He thanks the server and takes a few quick steps towards me, weaving in between the packed tables to my little spot hidden away in the corner. 

“Hi,” He smiles again, although his toneos overshadowed by a slight anxious hilt. “Can I sit?” 

Nodding, I close my laptop and pull my tea closer to me to make a space for him. 

“Hi.” He repeats, smiling a little sheepishly. 

“Hi,” I wait a second, nervous to start when I’m so unsure of how this conversation has already gone in his head. But he doesn’t say anything so I push through and bite the bullet against my better judgement. “Look, about that Friday I-”

“Can I just-” He cuts me off, leaning forwards and opening his hands out as he mulls over his next few words. “I’m sorry if it was awkward at all, I didn’t mean for anything to happen and I thought we were fine an’ everything but then I haven’t seen you in two weeks and Ellie keeps saying you’re not comin’ out. Did I do something wrong?” 

“Oh god no,” I hurry, “You didn’t do anything it was just - I didn’t expect to wake up..like that...and it was just a really quick change because we’ve never really been close and suddenly it was just, us, like that.” 

He nods, pushing a loose curl back a second later that broke free in the motion. He seems understanding as he looks down before leaning his elbows against the table so only the two of us can hear what he’s about to say. 

“I know, I didn’t expect it either but, can I just tell you I’m glad that it happened?” He leaves a three second pause for me to flounder in confusion before continuing. “What I told you, ‘bout feeling lonely, it messes with my sleep all the time. I just get stuck in my own thoughts but the night you stayed over I slept fine - perfect even.”

Not sure what else to do with this new information, I nod for him to continue.

“I know we’ve never been close, but hanging out with you just really calmed me down.” He smiles, gaining confidence now in his vulnerability tucked away in our little hiding place. “Thank you for staying.” 

“I get what you mean.” I mumble, slightly anxious any of the busy customers with prying eyes could overhear my confession. “I never really know when to stop working and I think I got the best night sleep on your sofa I’ve had in awhile, which really speaks volumes about how crappy my mattress is.”  

He chuckles. Relief seems to settle in as he lets his shoulders relax and face soften. 

“I was thinking - especially now that I know it was good for you as well, maybe it could become more of a regular thing?” He asks, his forefinger and thumb pinch together and twist one of his rings a little - a nervous habit, I’m sure. 

“How do you mean?” 

“Like..when we all go out, maybe we go home together, you know - so we can sleep better.” He moves down to focus on the metal rose he’s still fumbling at. “If..if you don’t want to or you think it’d be weird it’s fi-” 

“I’d like that.” I reach forwards to comfort him, absentmindedly cupping my fingers around his. “I think it’d be nice, to get a good night's sleep I mean.” 

“I’m glad.” He beams.

“..That and you make a mean blueberry pancake.” I tease, earning a light chuckle from Harry. 

Just like our last cafe encounter, the ping of a his phone beats me to my new few words. He checks it quickly, shaking his head and glancing down the large room to the shop front where, once again, Jeff waits. He seems a little more agitated this time, waving vigorously whilst trying not to attract the attention of passersby, all  rather unsuccessfully. 

“Bollocks okay - I’ve gotta go,” Harry swears, collecting his coffee from the table and pushing his chair back quickly. “I’ll just - we can text before we go out next yeah?” 

“Cool, yeah - wait a sec, let me just give you my number.” I reach up for him to hand me his phone but he doesn’t make any effort to move, instead he blushes slightly and stares at the floor. “..What?” 

“I um, I already have it.” He fiddles with the hair at the nape of his neck before talking again. It’s hard not to remember how it felt when it was my fingers carding through his brown curls. “I got it from Theo awhile back when we were going to this thing, felt weird not having it. I hope that..okay and everythin’” 

I nod, smiling up at him. The idea of him having a part of me for this past year without me even knowing is oddly precious. The fact that he felt odd about not having my number and going to the effort of getting it from Theo was unbelievably endearing. 

“That’s fine, helpful actually.” I smile still, “Text me before we meet everyone and we’ll make a plan or somethin’” 

“Okay,” He smirks, his slight cocky nature reemerging. “Will do, Liv. See you soon?” 

“See you soon.” 

Jeff flies a hand up to his hair like before but this time is met with a grinning Harry who doesn’t seem to mind so much. 

. . . . . 

Unknown Number 

‘Hey! Is tonight good? We can slip off after drinks at the gallery. H x’ 

I look down at my phone. Caught off guard by the sudden text, I’d almost forgotten out arrangement. Julia invited us all to a gallery opening of one of her friend's new exhibits. Even as I flicked through my wardrobe for the right jacket, I hadn’t put two and two together and realised I’d be seeing Harry again for the first time since our chat at Blondies four days ago. 

I save his number and I think quickly, not wanting to leave him on read when he knew I’d be leaving to see them all any second and most likely spend the whole tube journey on my phone. 

‘Hi :) That’d work for me yh, just let me know when you want to leave and I’ll make an excuse. Liv x’ 

With another thought rushing through my head, I send a quick follow up. 

Me

‘Can we keep this between us right now? Might be a bit tricky to explain to the others.” 

Harry

‘Read my mind love.’

‘See you in a bit :)’ 

I’m still not the hugest fan of the airy feeling that rushed through my stomach as I read over the pet name. He was just from Manchester, it was normal up there to call everything by casually affectionate little names. It didn’t mean anything at all. 

. . . . . 

“Livia!” Nick calls out when he sees me scanning over the faces at the entrance to the gallery. I smile instantly and make my way over, quickly falling into his arms as he rocks us for a second. “Haven’t seen you in an age!” 

“‘Ve been working, we can’t all piss about Monday to Friday.” I giggle, smiling wide as he murmurs something under his breath and plants a big kiss on my cheek. “Is everyone here?” 

I try not to look suspicious when I peak over around us, trying to pick a certain brunette from the crowd.

“Yeah, they’re just over there with Julia’s friend.” Nick points and I see him immediately. He’s dressed just as I expected - half gucci half grandpa sweaters. “I’m gonna get us drinks, meet you there?” 

“Mhmmm” I hum, breaking out of his hold and slipping through the crowds to our small group of friends. 

“Hi!” Julia smiles brightly. She hugs me quickly before stepping aside to give Eleanor and Theo their turns. They all whisper quiet ‘Missed yous’ in my ear as if I’ve been gone for years. 

“Hey,” Harry appears by my side as everyone else turns their attention to the front of the crowd where it looks like the artist is setting up to introduce the night. “How’ve you been?” 

“In the last four days?” I chuckle, “Good. Not been sleeping great, but I’ve got a lot of work done so that’s been great.” 

He nods approvingly. A smile tugs at his lips at the mention of sleep, almost like some secret inside joke we’ve managed to form between just the two of us. 

“Me neither. Jeff’s been buggin’ me what feels like every hour with deadlines.” I find myself squeezing his hand a little under his long coat sleeves so nobody can see. “Looking forward to just collapsing tonight, if I’m honest.” 

“Me too.” I smile tiredly, tonight had been a big ask come to think of it. I've had work piled up twice my height all week and even having worked day in and day out I’ve still only made a crack in the mountain of final edits and emails to respond to.

Harry squeezes my fingers back and our hands linger in each other's hold until Nick emerges beside us and the artist begins her speech. 

. . . . .

 The comfortable chatter surrounding the booth we’d taken up a few hours ago died down as the clock ticked later and later. We’d left the gallery a while ago now in favour of the after party at a pub down the road but by now the heavy scent of beers and various gin based concoctions were giving us all headaches. 

“I think I’m gonna call it a night guys,” Harry announces, a slew of groans following from the group. “Sorry, sorry! It’s been great but it’s getting late.” 

Julia and Theo move out the way to let him out the booth. He slides across the red cushion to stand, pulling his coat over himself as he sneaks a quick look at me. 

“I think I’m gonna head off too,” I smile, waiting for Eleanour to stand and let me out as another wave of complaints flooded me. “Sorry! I’ve got work and the tube’ll be hell any later.” 

“Well if Harry’s going too couldn’t he take you home?” Julia suggests, looking between the two of us as we now stand slightly away from each other. “You drove right?” 

“Yeah, I did.” Harry turns to smile at me, amused clearly by how our plan was being unknowingly encouraged by our friends. “C’mon, I’ll drive yeh.” 

I nod, biting back a smirk. We say our goodbyes and wave as we slip out the heavy pub doors out onto the road outside. It’s started to drizzle slightly and I resent choosing the jacket without a hood. 

“I’m just over here,” Harry points a little ways off. “Hurry, think it’s about to pour.” 

We walk quickly down the street and through a metal gate into a car park when there’s a loud rumble of thunder and immediately the rain thickens. 

“Fuck!” Harry laughs as he scrambles for his keys, we match each other's paces until we’re practically sprinting to his car in the far corner of the lot. The click of the locks sounds out and his lights flash red a second before we’re both pulling the doors open and throwing ourselves inside onto warm seats. 

We catch our breath, chests rising and falling with uneven pants before our laughter settles and Harry slots the keys into the ignition. 

. . . . . 

“Do you want anything to eat?” Harry asks as he closes his front door behind us and we kick out shoes off in his hall. “I think I have some takeout menus somewhere..” 

“I’m not really hungry, thanks though,” I cut off his search as he walks through to his kitchen and starts opening draws. “Kinda just wanna go to bed now.” 

He nods and rubs a hand under his eye in silent agreement of my exhaustion.

“I’ll make us a tea, meet you up there yeah?” He calls over his shoulder, having turned quickly to retrieve various packets from his cupboards. “Chamomile okay?” 

“Yeah chamomiles good,” I hover for a second in the archway leading into the kitchen, suddenly awkward to be alone in his house again. “Where um..where is it?” 

He looks over his shoulder at me, slightly confused. His eye brows unfurrow when I motion behind me. 

“Oh- just up the stairs and third room down the hall..on the left.” He smiles, turning back to the cupboard to look through his extensive mug collection. 

I nod to myself, spinning on my heel and making my way up his stairs. I’ve never gone beyond the downstairs of his house before and even then I stuck to the kitchen, dining room and lounge. It felt odd to suddenly have access to something as intimate as his bedroom, I try not to overthink things as I push open the third door I see.

The first thing I see is his large bed, there’s probably enough room for three people on it and there’s definitely enough pillows to go around. The room as a whole is tidy, whether it’s always like that or only organised so precisely for my visit, I don’t know, but the thought makes my stomach flutter. 

I walk up to the side of the bed with no charger on it’s table and set my bag down. We hadn’t talked about the logistics of our...arrangement, but I’d brought the basics to last me through the night. I plug my charger into the wall and take out my wash bag and a set of clothes to sleep in before sliding my bag under the table. I look around for a second. Somehow I hadn’t really thought through the fact that by the end of the night, I’d be in Harry’s bed. With Harry. In a completely platonic way with the only function to soothe our mutually crappy sleeping habits. 

I hear Harry walking up the stairs just as I slip into the un suit to wash up and get changed. He’s humming a song under his breath. The clink of mugs being set down is followed by wardrobe doors opening and closing and a light thud of clothes being thrown on the bed. 

I wait a few minutes to make sure I don’t walk in on him changing. Opening the door tentatively, I step out into the room in a large sweater and pajama shorts. Harry turns to look at me, he’s in the same t-shirt he wore last time and a pair of boxer shorts and the whole situation suddenly seems so amusing. After just one night of falling asleep on the sofa together, not having ever talked before, here we are standing at our most vulnerable about to cuddle in his bed together.

“Hi.” 

“Hey,” He nods, looking down at himself. “Hope this is okay...I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or-” 

“It’s fine,” I reassure him, “I didn’t really know what to wear either.” 

His eyes flicker down my body and he smiles back up at me. He motions to the bed and we both nod a little awkwardly before making our way over to our sides. I climb in and instantly let a small groan out as my body sinks into the mattress, the pillows and duvet feel almost like a cloud as I burrow under and pull my tea up to my lips. 

Harry chuckles from beside me, I peak over the mug to seem him grinning down from where he sits slightly taller in the bed.

“Sorry, you look comfy.” He laughs a little, 

“I am, your bed’s insane.” I set my mug down and turn to him, bouncing slightly to emphasise the quality of his mattress that probably cost more than a year of my rent. “I really should start earning millions, feel like it’d suit me.” 

He returns his tea to the bedside table and copies me, turning to face me with his legs crossed. 

“It definitely would.” He smiles, bouncing a little before I let out a yawn. “Tired?” 

“Exhausted.” I mumble, hand still covering half my face. Harry reaches behind him to turn to switch the lights above his headboard off before pulling the duvet back for us to slip under.

“C’mere,” Without hesitating, I shuffle back slightly until I can feel his chest behind me and an arm come up to rest around my hip. “‘This okay?” 

“Mhmmm,” I hum, “What about our teeth?”

“We’ll brush ‘em in the morning,” I nod, groaning again as all the aches in my body subside as I sink into his arms and the foam mattress. “You okay?” 

“Yeah,” I mumble, embarrassed to have let myself go so easily around him. “Your mattress is just unbelievable. Might have to make this a regular thing.” 

I speak before I think, mind clouded with sleep and my eyes already fighting to stay open. 

“That’s the plan, love.” 

. . . . . 

When I wake up, Harry’s arms are tight around my middle and his body’s like a furnace behind me. I vaguely recall pulling my sweater off in the night to cool down as I lay now only in a vest and shorts. I slept better than I have in months though, despite the warm breaths on my neck turning my cheeks flushed. 

The mix of Harry’s company and his safe haven of a mattress made for the perfect night sleep. I push back slightly into his chest and feel his arms tighten around me and a low murmur of his voice in my ear. The clock on my bedside table reads 6:30. It’s a Saturday and I can quite easily imagine spending the rest of my day - weekend even, exactly like this. 

I slip back to sleep for a little awhile before I’m woken up to a low groan behind me. Harry shifts slightly, burying his face in the base of my neck and squeezing around my waist again. He must still be half asleep to be this comfortable with me. 

I’m proven right when it takes another fifteen minutes for him to poke his head up over my shoulder and mumble: 

“Breakfast?” 

. . . . . 

Our routine works smoothly for weeks. After sleeping so well the first few times, it became a given that we’d pile into Harry’s car after every night out with our friends and go back to his. Sometimes we’d get takeout or watch a film, but it wasn’t so rare that we’d just stumble out of his car, or a taxi - depending what the night had entailed, and walk with eyes almost closed straight to bed. 

I stopped bringing things every night about two weeks in when a new toothbrush appeared next to Harrys and an oversized t-shirt of Harrys found its way onto my side of the bed. We also ditched the awkward pleasantries. Spending two or three nights a week in his house, I’d become pretty familiar with it all. I sometimes brought us breakfast if it was a weekend, or left a coffee beside the bed for him if I left for work first, We had very easily slipped into an oddly familiar sense of domesticity. It was strange to never mention any of it to our friends, it made it special though. We helped each other, and it was all just between the two of us. Nobody else knew Harry taught me how to make coffee just the way he likes it, or that we share his lavender shampoo sometimes. 

“Ols?” Harry calls up the stairs to me. We’re running late to Julia and Theos anniversary dinner. 

“Coming!” I yell back, reaching into his wardrobe to snatch a jacket before running down the stares. 

“Oi! Slow down love, you’re gonna fall,” He complains, holding his hands out at the bottom of the stairs to catch me as I skid a little on the wooden floors of his hallway. “Hey! This’s mine!” 

He tugs playfully on the opening of his jacket. I pull the fabric from his grasp and smile up at him. 

“Not anymore…” He scrunches his nose up and pulls me towards him. The sudden movement pushed the air from my lungs suddenly. “-Fine! Just for tonight...nobody’ll notice anyway, you only just got his one.” 

He shakes his head, bringing his fingers up to tickles across my stomach quickly before letting me go and clapping his hands. 

“Shoes now!” He points down at my sock clad feet, “Come on we’re late already.” 

I sling my bag over my shoulder and slip my boots on before trailing after him to the front door. He’s pulled his large green coat off the hangar before he’s looking back down at me, brows pulled together in confusion. 

“What’ve got yeh bag for?” 

“Ah see Harry, I tend not to leave my stuff places I don’t actually live.” I laugh.

“You’re not coming back tonight?” The confusion’s not joined by a hint of sadness as his hands fall from the door knob and he turns to face front on. 

“Oh I..hadn’t thought ‘bout that. I’ve gotta water my plants.” I haven't been home in two days, I spent the whole day at Blondies yesterday then headed to Harry's after a few drinks with him and Nick. We’ve hung out around his house all day, sleeping in and finishing our last few bits of work for the week. “I can let them go a little dry I guess-” 

“Can I come to yours?” Harry cuts me off to ask. “It’s just, I haven’t ever seen it..and that way your plant’ll be fine.” 

I stay quiet for a second. Our world of sleepovers and movie marathons and home made curries for dinner existed within his house. My flat was small in comparisons to the homes of our friends, who were all, delicately put, pretty well off. Not that I wasn’t, I’d just gone into a lower paying area of my industry. I lived alone anyway so there wasn’t much point paying thousands in rent when I didn’t need much space. 

“It’s fine it you want a night to yourself I can just-” 

“It’s not that, H, I just didn't really think about how we only ever come here.” I mumble the last part, “Come back to mine, I don’t feel like going back on my own anyways.” 

I smile a little, unsure of where we stand on the whole admitting we’d grown pretty dependent on each other’s presence, front. He smiles back, twisting the door open and holding it for me as I slip under his arm. 

The car clicks unlocked and I settle into my seat. I reach over to push my seat belt in as Harry pulls his door shut and the car rumbles to a start. 

“Can’t believe Jules and T have been together so long.” He sighs as we pull out onto the main road. 

“Tell me about it,” I gaze out the window as rain dribbles lightly. “Feels like the year just went straight by.”

“They seem so happy still, like they’re still honeymooning,” Harry hums. 

“I remember when they just started going out in Uni, even then it was obvious they’d end up together.” 

“I like those kinds of people. The ones who make each other just completely themselves, ya know?” He glances over at me before turning back to the road. 

“Yeah...they’re proper soulmates aren’t they.” 

. . . . . 

“Okay but seriously, what the fuck is up with you and Harry?” Eleanor bursts out as soon as we reach the bar. We’ve been sent off to get the third round whilst the others stayed at our favourite booth of the pub we frequented. 

“Wait what?” I yell over the loud chatter of the pub, “What do you mean?” 

“You know what I mean!” She’s still waving her hand out for the bartender when she glances down at me again. “You’re tryna say you’re suddenly so close and nothing’s happened between you?” 

“We’re not that close.” I quip, “We’ve just talked a bit more lately, I guess.”

“And nothing’s happened?”  She raised a brow at me suspiciously. “You guys have left together every night for the past few weeks, just admit you have feelings for each other.” 

“No, nothing’s happened.” I sigh, unsure if I sound convincing or not. “We just live close and it’s too cold now to get the tube back so late, he’s just being nice. You know Harry...he’s like that with everyone.” 

Eleanor laughs a little, shaking her head. She places our order with the bartender when he makes his way to our side of the bar before turning back to me with her arms crossed. 

“He’s nice to everyone, but he’s not just being nice to you.” She smirks, “And he usually doesn't give just anybody his clothes.” 

She reaches out and rubs the fabric of my - Harrys - jacket between her thumb and forefinger. She looks up and quirks her brows up a little again. Before I can splutter out an explanation our drinks are being laid out on the counter beside us and Eleanor is pointing to the ones for me to carry and turning back to our booth. 

A surge of anxiety washes over me as I follow Eleanor back to the group. My breaths feel unsteady and I can’t help but dart my eyes to get a quick glance at Harry to see if he’s experiencing the same kind of interrogation. He seems fine though, laughing at something Nicks said. 

Soon we’re at the booth, slipping back into our seats and setting the drinks out in front of everyone. Harry’s eyes hover on me for a few seconds, brows raised a little in question. I smile and shake my head - everything’s fine. 

I don’t miss how Eleanor glances between us throughout the whole night. Especially not when a different two get up for the next round and Harry and I are pushed next to each other when they climb back into the available seats. Harry seems a little suspicious too. He clearly hasn’t noticed Eleanor’s strange behaviour - or doesn’t care - because he’s kept gazing down at me every now and then since we came back with drinks hours ago. When I stop looking up at him, nervous Eleanor might question me about his constant and slightly nervous glances when we’re alone, he reaches his hand under the tables and pulls mine into his lap. He squeezes our hands every now and then. He’s always a touchy, cuddly drunk. Normally it’s a bit more obvious; he’ll wrap his arms around one of us on the dance floor or lap his head on a shoulder, nothing too intimate. Just friendly. But now he’s stroking his thumb over my knuckles and tapping out the beat of the current song playing with his foot, his knee bumping mine. 

Julia and Theo are the first to go. Relief settles in me at the idea of not being the first two to leave for once. There’s no way Eleanor wouldn't’ve have noticed me and Harry sneaking the other a glance like we usually do to signal we’re ready to go, without some kind of distraction. 

“It was so lovely guys, feels like we haven’t just sat down and talked in so long!” Julia smiles, leaning into Theos side tiredly as they say their goodbyes. 

“I think I’m gonna head off too, it’s getting pretty late,” I smile, waiting for Harry to speak when Theo pipes up before him. 

“Livs, you want a lift?” Theo looks down at me. 

“Oh Olivia, that’s a good idea, you were just saying how it’s too cold for the tube.” Eleanor beams, smiling cheekily as she knows I’m the only one who’ll understand her subtle teasing. 

“Oh I-” I stutter before Harry’s squeezing my hand again and looks up at Theo. 

“I was actually gonna take her home, we’re only 10 minutes apart so it’s just easier.” He smiles politely, if I couldn’t feel his foot hooking over mine I’d believe he was just being nice and helping out a friend. 

“Yeah but you’re gonna stay a little while aren’t you?” Julia countered, “We’re pretty close, it’s fine really.” 

I nod, motioning to slide out of the booth. Harry lets me by, dropping my hand before anyone else could see. Julia, Theo and I say goodbye quickly and head out to the car park. As soon as we’re all strapped into their car, I pull out my phone and click Harry’s contact. 

Me 

Meet me at mine x

Harry 

Okay - what was that about? 

Me 

I’ll explain when u get here, just something w Eleanor

U might have been right about the jacket :/ 

Theo pulls up outside my flat and I jump out the car, thanking them quickly and waving them off. I climb the stairs of my building and click the keys in my door, pushing it open and kicking my shoes off the second I get in. After a fifteen minute frantic clean, the place is looking slightly better. There’s no time to perfect it as I hear my phone buzzing on the counter, a dorky photo of Harry in one of his infamous sweaters all sprawled out on the sofa and sticking his tongue out at me flashes the screen. 

“Hello?” 

“Hey, I’m just outside,” He talks softly, “What number are you?” 

“24, wait a sec and I’ll buzz you up.” 

I tread quickly to the button by my front door and let him up, hearing a quiet thanks over the phone and a “See you in a sec”  before the line goes dead. 

A minute later there’s a quiet knock at my door. I open it and see Harry, he looks a little more tired than when I left him forty minutes ago, he rubs his knuckles under his eyes and sighs softly. 

“Hey, come in.” I pull the door a little wider, stepping aside to let him inside. He walks past me, eyes watching the floor whilst I lock the up behind us and turn to face him. There's an awkward tension in the air that I haven’t experienced with Harry before, maybe a little that first night when I walked in on him in his kitchen, but nothing like this since we’ve gotten closer.  

“What happened?” He asks quietly, lifting his head with an uncertain look on his face.”You barely even looked at me. 

“I..” I stumble over what to say, I’ve been thinking I could just explain what Eleanor had said and have it done with but now I know we’re not going to be able to just leave this. If somebody’s going to find out about our arrangement then something would have to change. “Ellie thinks there’s something going on with us and she kept staring all night. I just, I couldn’t give her anything to be suspicious about.” 

“S’that what you mean about the jacket?” I nod, “What did she say?” 

“Just that we seemed closer, talk more I guess.” I sigh, “She didn’t believe anything I said.” 

“What did you say?” He presses. His tone is unclear, he seems less hurt now and more focussed on getting answers from me. 

“I just, I told her nothing’s happened.” I mumble, “She asked about us leaving together and I told her it was just because we lived close and it’s easier than the tube.” 

Harry bobs his head a little, taking in what I’ve just told him before laughing a little. He shakes his head and brings his palms up to his face, cursing under his breath. We stand in the quiet of my hallway before he speaks up again.

“Can we still do this?” That catches me off guard. Of course I knew we’d have to stop sometime when one of us started dating or a friend found out, I just hadn’t thought seriously about it happening anytime soon. “If she does find out, would that be the worst thing in the world?”

I shake my head, taking a step towards him to close the gap between us that’d been building my nerves throughout this whole exchange. 

“I don’t wanna stop hanging out.” I confess. Harry quirks his lips up a little, obviously relieved as he pulls me to his chest. He wraps his arms around my shoulders and rests his chin on my head as we breathe together for a moment. All the while we’ve been spending nights at his, there’s been no serious moments like this. We’ve opened up about vulnerable subjects and confessed more than we probably should have to each other, but never anything like this. There’d never been a  time I thought I could lose him. 

“What if something did happen.” He whispers into my hair. 

“Like what?” I murmur, voice a little muffled by his jacket. 

“Like..” He trails off a little and I’m pretty sure I hear him inhale a little and smell my hair. “Like what if I kissed you..or something.” 

“Or something?” My chest tightens, stomach fluttering suddenly. 

“Mmhhhmm,” He hums, “What would happen then?” 

“Eleanor would have a field day.” 

Harry laughs, shoulders shaking a little as he giggles above me. He loosens his grip on my and pushes away to create a little space to see me again. 

“Oh yeah?” He teases. 

“Uh huh,” I smile, “She’d never let us forget it if she knew she was right.” 

“And what would she be right about?” Harry lifts his hand to cup my face, tilting it slightly to make sure I’m staring right up at him. 

“..Something..happening.” I whisper, “Having feelings for eachother.” 

Harry grins, cheeks a soft rosy between the outside cold and the new blush. He strokes the pad of his thumb against my cheek and beams down at me. 

“Oh yeah?” 

“Uh huh…” 

“Really..she’d be right about that?” 

“I’m pretty sure-” 

Before I can tease anymore, Harry’s leaning down to press his lips against mine. I inhale sharply, closing my eyes and looping my arms around the back of his neck to hold us in place. His hand still holds my face firmly, thumb fluttering over my cheek a couple times before he pulls away and we both breathe in deep. 

“She’s definitely right.” He smiles, tone turning serious for a moment. “I really like you Olivia.” 

Butterflies surge through my stomach for the millionth time since he walked through my door. Blushing and happy, I tighten my arms and push my face back into his shoulder. 

“I like you too H….just a little bit.” 

“We don’t have to tell anyone, just want this to be ours for a little while.” I can hear the smile in his voice as he leans back down to whisper into my ear. 

“I want this to be ours forever.” I hum, words quiet and part of me hoping he doesn't hear my honest confession. 

A comforting quiet settles over us. I remember how tired I really am as I melt further into Harry’s body, breathing in the sweet cinnamon and vanilla scent. His breathing lulls me half to sleep as I let my eyes flutter shut and bury my head further into his neck. I feel him lifting me up as my body relaxes against his and I catch his last few words before I he’s shifting me into his arms and walking us up the stairs. 

“I could hold you ‘n listen to your voice all night long, love.” 

. . . . .    

“Oh my god!” Julia yells out, unravelling a long shawl from pristine white tissue paper. “Okay whoever got me, thank you so much!” 

She continues to squeal a little as he wraps it over her shoulders and presses the end to her nose, inhaling the lavender scent of her favourite designer brand. 

I’d only spent one Christmas with the whole group before but it was clear secret Santa was a bit of a tradition. Between the six of us we all had other friends, family and mostly, relationships. Organising a secret santa within our group just relieved some of the stress of present buying - and it was fun. 

We’re all sitting around Harry’s living room, it felt the homiest  to us after all. The kiddy advent calendar I bought for him hung by the fireplace reading December 21st. We’ve all finished our egg nogs, meaning it was officially present time. Over the next few days we’ll all be driving up and down the country to visit family, meaning today’s the last day most of us will be seeing each other. Harry had whined about me leaving, begging me to stay another day with him or better yet - spend christmas with his family up north. 

It was when I told him my own parents were spending the holidays visiting my sister and her kids in New York that his campaign started. We kissed almost three months ago now and have been on a slew of dates since. Between all the secret dinners out, brunches and farmers market trips, we haven’t found time for the talk. We had no official title. I’ve heard Harry refer to me as “m’girl” a couple times when I’ve wandered into the kitchen and overheard him on the phone to mitch, but nothing he’s told me himself. Despite this, he still insists I have to come and spend christmas with him and his close family. The idea of me hanging out with my young cousins and distant relatives apparently doesn’t satisfy him. 

“Are you serious!” Eleanor gasps as she unwraps her own present. Everyone had picked the perfect gifts for each other this year. In a pure coincidence, I ended up with Harry’s name after Nick made me trade because he’d already bought Julia’s present for her. I’ve been nervous about it all evening, I was sure he’d like it, a little too sure. That was the problem. One night, wrapped up in Harry’s bed, he’d recalled his latest tragedy to me: He’d taken shroom with Mitch on his last trip to LA and subsequently decided to skinny dip in the sea, losing his favourite mustard cords in the process. The only times we’ve seen everyone else has been with the both of us present and , to my knowledge, he hasn’t mentioned this to anyone else. The brown paper package that sat on the coffee table could invite a few more questions that I was prepared to answer. 

“Harry, you’re next!” Ellie grinned, hugging her present to her chest. 

Thanks to our early secrecy, there’s been no opportunity to tell our friends we were dating. Eleanor hasn’t stopped her constant questioning but we’ve kept up a pretty good front of excuses. It was still freezing out so it made sense for us both to climb into his car together at the end of the night. Nobody had to know we would be going home to the same house where we’d climb into the same heavenly bed and scramble eggs together in the morning. 

“I’m going, I’m going!” Harry laughs as Ellie tries to hurry him up, playing perfectly into her role as the youngest in our group. 

He pulls the first fold of paper back with his ringed fingers and immediately looks up at me as the mustard fabric shines up at him. He grins wide, beaming back at me before pulling the rest of the paper back and laying the trousers out in front of him. 

“No babe...where did you find them?” He’s running his fingers down the cord, in awe to have his favorite trousers back - or at least a copy. 

I don’t miss how Eleanor and Nick’s heads turn to share a look of shock as the pet name tumbles out. Before I can put anything together, Harry’s standing and leaning over the coffee table. He wraps his arms around my shoulders, pulling me into a hug and whispering his thanks in my ear. 

“Wait I dont - how did you know it was h-” Julia pipes up, before she can finish she’s cut off by the joint gasps of Nick and Ellie as Harry plants a wet kiss to my cheek - then my lips, and laughs at our friends reaction. 

“I knew it!” Ellie yells, pointing frantically between the two of us, Harry now having stepped over the table and come to sit next to me, pulling me into his side.

“What was-” Julia stammers, “Since when!” 

Harry’s eyes flutter down to my face. He giggles quietly when he catches on to my glare. This wasn’t exactly how I’d imagined the evening going. 

“Have you just been lying to my face for the past three months?” Ellie asks, crossing her arms over her chest and pouting her lips. 

“Five,” Harry mumbles, almost just as an inside joke for the both of us to enjoy. I slap my hand against his shoulder to shut him up but the damage is already done. 

“Five months!” Even Theo’s joining in now. “How didn’t we know?” 

“It didn’t start out like this honestly, we would’ve told you.” I try and explain, eager for this to quiet down so we could get to the roast dinner waiting for us in the oven. 

“How did it start?” Nick pokes, drawing Julia and Ellie’s attention as the same puzzled expressions adorn their faces. 

“Unimportant,” Harry brushes off, standing up to tower over us all and reaching a hand back for my own. “We better get dinner, we wouldn't want burnt potatoes.” 

Harry pulls on my arm gently, leading me out the room before anyone can object. 

In the kitchen, he picks up a tea towel and starts to check on the food, prodding at the parsnips. I roll my eyes as he ties his lavender apron around his waist and tentatively pulls the potato tray from the oven. 

“Harry..” I sigh, trying not to laugh as he turn to face me, spatula in hand. 

“Yes dear?”  

“What was that?” 

“Oh - You’ve gotta shimmy a little spatula under the potatoes or they’ll break apart-” 

“No, obviously not that,” He makes it so hard so stay stern, a giggle leaks out as he lifts a hand to rest on his hip. “Why did you do that?” 

“I want them to know.” drops his utensils, tone sincere as he takes another step towards me. “I want our friends to know how much I love you already, and you remember about my mustard cords so..it felt like the perfect time.” 

“What?” I stutter, looking up at him from where he’s pulled me into his chest. His hands rest on my waist, rings a little hold against my exposed skin. 

“You remembered the trousers I lost last month in LA -”

“You love me?” 

His eyes go a little wide, a smile peaking through as the sides of his mouth quirk upwards. Realising what he just said, he lifts a hand from my waist to rest it against my face and lean down a little. 

“Of course I love you.” He whispers, his voice a little croaky and I can see tiny droplets gathering in his eyes that make my heart flutter. 

“Love you too..” I mumble. I wipe a thumb over his cheek before pulling him down into a kiss. I feel his smile against my own, and everything’s perfect for just a second. 

“So you’ll come to Christmas with me?” 

. . . . .

Hiii I hate the ending :)

Tysm for reading !! pls leave a like or reblog (it rlly helps <3) if you enjoyed it x