#but by that point it was all water so at least it wasn't the worst mess :'( i had some food when i got home and i feel better

[106alibi]

yuzu. tokuno yushi.

pairing: ?!yushi x fem!reader

genre: fluff/comfort(?)

disclaimers: brief mentions of alcohol!

synopsis: "sometimes, I feel like yuzu."

w.c: 2.2k + a long ass a/n at the bottom

you first met yushi under the warmth of the summer sun, the relentless UV rays beating down on you on a cloudless day at the beach.

your university friends insisted on having a bikini beach date before the new semester started. it must've been the thrill of having a bunch of girls squeezed onto a tiny picnic mat, letting the dizzying heat get to their heads as they threw around frivolous remarks about the people who walked past. Or the ice cold bottle of beer cooling your skin as you took a swig, ironically heating your cheeks to a rosy red. it must've been the alcohol in that gulp of beer you took, but you found yourself drowning the caution in your system with the bitterness of the drink as your friend pointed to a person a few metres away, his unclothed back facing you and your friends.

“I dare you to ask him for his number.”

you would've protested, shaken your head profusely knowing you weren't usually so bold. but everything about today was already unusual. you in a bikini. you drinking beer. it wouldn't hurt to add one more unusual activity to the list.

you jumped up onto your feet before your doubt could kick in, feeling your heart pound against your chest at each step that drew you closer towards your target.

you hadn't seen his face then. all you saw were broad shoulders and lean muscles moving under his skin as he shifted his weight to prop himself up on one arm, jet black hair clumped with sea water.

before your mind could convince you that this was a bad, and very embarrassing idea, you bent down and poked his shoulder.

“can I have your number?” or what if I just pass him my phone? do I tell him this is a dare?

you prepared yourself to blurt something out, hopefully exuding some confidence while you were at it, but you felt your lips part with your words dissolving at the tip of your tongue because why, just why—

you watched his wet, tousled hair fall past his eyebrows as a bead of sweat rolled down from his temple. he paused mid-drink of a can of yuzu soda, looking like he was filming a commercial in slow-mo, and you were the camera lens.

—did this random man actually have to be cute?

you stared into a pair of perfectly round boba eyes, looking somewhere between stupid and creepy as your lips formed silent shapes in the air.

“n-number?”

you mentally cursed yourself for stuttering. so much for confidence. you stuck your phone out towards the man as his eyes glanced at the device, then back to your face.

you had already prepared yourself to be rejected, and you would've been fine if you ended up looking silly in front of some average looking man. but this wasn't an average looking man, and that changed everything. you pulled the towel draped around your shoulders closer to your body, suddenly conscious of how little you were wearing, feeling a sudden surge of heat shoot to your cheeks. it must be the alcohol.

the man sat with his ears growing redder as he blinked a couple times, body unmoving as seconds passed.

“yushi!”

that seemed to snap the man out of his thoughts. his eyes darted to the shore, where a bunch of shirtless boys seemed to be making their way back to the picnic mat, before quickly snatching the phone from you and typing in his number.

“okay, here. please leave, before my friends see you.”

and though you got the cute beach boy’s number, and successfully completed the dare, you couldn't help but wonder if he had just turned you down.

——— ♡

you didn't do anything with his number. frankly, you didn't dare to. the cute beach boy slowly slipped to the back of your mind, buried under your impending deadlines and assignments.

but that was the thing about yushi, he always popped up when you least expected.

add bars to the list of worst places for a first date. you tightened your lips into what hopefully resembled a smile as your date belted a hearty laugh, even doubling over and almost into your lap as you sat side by side along the bar counter.

you didn't want to be here, but you were somehow thrown under the bus when your senior, ning yizhuo, thought it was a great idea to sell you out to her cousin in return for a favour from him.

“please, y/n! I mean- you know zhong chenle, right?”

you gritted your teeth behind an ingenuine smile, your eyes darting to the clock hanging on the wall behind your date. you didn't hate chenle. he had a cute smile, a cheerful laugh, but you had the impression that he’d much rather be on a date with stephen curry than you right now.

“It was insane- do you want to see the clip?”

no, not really. but before you could come up with a polite rejection, he was already leaning uncomfortably closer as he scrolled through his gallery to find the video.

the sharp clinking of a glass caught both yours and chenle’s attention. you both stared at the martini glass that was slid across the counter. the pale yellow liquid rippled in the glass with a lemon twist resting prettily against the rim, and an acidic aroma that caught your nose, making you wince. chenle looked up to the bartender at the same time you did, and you felt your heart catch in your throat.

because why in the world was the cute beach boy standing behind the bar counter, with the sleeves of his black button-up rolled at his elbows and his hair now softly curled over his eyes, a sly smirk playing on his lips as his delicate hands wiped the inside of a glass cup.

”yuzu martini. it's on the house.”

ah, so it was yuzu. you wondered why there was a tinge of bitter despite the garnish. chenle leaned in to take a whiff of the drink, wincing and retracting as the sharpness of the alcohol stung his nose.

the cute beach boy, who was now the cute bartender, set the mug he was wiping down and leaned closer, forearms tensing under his weight.

”why? too strong for you?”

chenle blinked at the remark. he straightened himself and quirked an eyebrow as the pads of his fingers pinched the stem. swiftly, he downed the martini in one shot, his eyebrows furrowing as the liquid burned down his throat.

you caught the bartender’s name tag as your date was busy proving himself.

“yushi…”

you only realised you had whispered his name out loud when your eyes suddenly met his, and you were sure the thumping in your ears wasn’t the bass of the background music.

“piece-” chenle paused to suppress a burp, “of cake!” he slid the glass back to yushi, who caught it mid movement.

you eyed chenle, who was already slightly tipsy from the drinks you had prior, trying to assess what he was doing as he suddenly sealed his lips, eyes stoned at the marble surface, growing eerily quiet compared to the rambling you had become used to.

chenle hopped off the barstool. “I’m just- I’m just gonna take a piss!“ he stumbled over his own feet as he held his stool for support, before swaying his way to the washroom, bumping into a few thankfully empty tables along the way.

“he’ll probably be there for awhile.” yushi chuckled, catching your attention.

“what did you put in that?” you questioned, watching as yushi’s lips curved into a mischievous grin. “oh, you know, just yuzu syrup, vodka, vermouth. your usual martini mix. just, a little more vodka than usual. you looked like you needed a break.”

“oh, playing hero?” you found yourself unable to suppress a smile, propping your chin on your palm, feeling yourself grow giddy with the scent of yuzu lingering in the air and the allure of the cute bartender.

he chuckled. “tokuno yushi,” he stuck his hand out, “i would give you my number, but you already have it.” your face flushed as you took his hand. “l/n y/n. why, are you interested in me?” you teased.

“perhaps.”

you didn't expect him to admit it. but then again, everything about yushi was unexpected. “I thought you weren't. you told me to leave.”

“oh, that.” the tips of his ears reddened as a hand scratched the back of his neck, “i just didn’t want my friends to tease me. i don’t usually give my number out, and I don't know how to act around pretty people”

and just like that, he was back to the cute, shy boy you met at the beach, as if just moments ago he wasn’t the mischievous bartender who sabotaged (or rather, saved) your date.

chenle stumbled back to the counter, mumbling something about calling him when you get home as he clumsily fumbled with his wallet, slamming his credit card on the table. he dragged himself out of the bar, leaving both you and his credit card behind.

“i might’ve added a shot too many.” yushi winced at the way chenle swayed outside the glass doors, watching as he almost dropped his phone, barely saving it to make a muffled phone call, before finding a spot by a lamp post and plopping himself down.

you giggled as you gathered your own things into your purse, including chenle’s forgotten credit card. “I better return his card before he tries to meet me again.” you hopped off the bar stool and straightened your skirt, “i’ll-” you took a deep breath, “i’ll text you!”

yushi watched you scurry out of the bar and stuff the card into chenle’s shirt pocket, giggling to himself when you tripped over chenle’s foot.

he felt someone nudge his shoulder, “looks like someone’s got a little crush.”

yushi rolled his eyes, “shut up, riku.”

——— ♡

“sometimes,” you fiddled with the tab of the soda can, quickly taking a gulp to wash down the pressure building in your throat. your throat squeezed at the fizziness. “I feel like… yuzu.”

you had become friends with yushi. more than friends, to be exact. you remembered flinging your phone across your bed as your thumb clicked “send” after getting home from the bar, burying your head in your pillows in an attempt to silence the beating of your heart.

you: hi

yushi (cute beach boy + bartender): l/n y/n?

you read your name over and over again, your eyes starting to sting from the blue light radiating off the screen. you wondered how your name would sound from his lips.

you: can you send me a voice message

yushi (cute beach boy + bartender): what?

you: I want to hear you say my name

yushi (cute beach boy + bartender): you're so silly

yushi (cute beach boy + bartender): *one voice message attached*

a first date at the ice cream parlour opposite the bar, bickering over superior ice cream flavours, led to aimless strolls at the park at ungodly hours, trying to ignore your knuckles brushing as you walked side by side, until yushi’s pinky wrapped around yours, and suddenly the night didn't seem as cold as it did.

one of your aimless strolls had landed you both back to where you started: the beach. except this time, you weren't being toasted by the afternoon sun.

your fingers tapped against the aluminium can. you watched the moon ripple in the ocean, the sound of the waves washing over each other filling the gap between you and yushi as the two of you dangled your legs off the edge of a wooden boardwalk meant for fishing.

“yuzu?” yushi tilted his head in response, echoing you with a slight grin. you chuckled at your own absurdity, nodding.

“it's neither a lemon, nor an orange. sweet, but also bitter. always in between, always at odds with itself.” you looked down at your hands, your thumbs tracing the tiny scars that wrapped around each other like poison ivy.

his silence made you feel dumb, like you had just babbled into the air like a curious toddler.

“actually- nevermind-”

“hmm,” yushi hummed, cutting you off. his lips pursed in thought, “must it be a lemon?” he tapped a finger against his pout, “if it's not a lemon, must it be an orange? why can't yuzu just be yuzu?”

yushi took a sip of his drink, letting out a satisfied “ah” as the liquid slid down his throat.

“you’re in your own category, y/n. you don't have to try to be anyone else.”

his eyes met yours, sparkling with the fizz of a freshly opened can of soda. “besides, ” a light blush settled on the apples of his cheeks, faint pink glowing under the moonlight, “I think you're lovely no matter who you think you are.”

yushi leaned in, nuzzling the side of his head against yours knowing it would elicit a smile from you. you let out a small laugh, your unoccupied hand coming up to stroke yushi’s hair as he made a nest for himself in the crook of your neck.

yushi’s words replayed in your head as you dwelled in the comfortable silence that engulfed you. and you realised yushi too, was like yuzu.

he was unexpectedly sweet despite his cold first impression, a cocktail of calm and mischievous; sometimes throwing a flirtatious joke your way, other times looking at you with a gaze that made you feel naked. both times, making your heart flutter and swell.

because no matter which side he showed, you loved him. yushi was everything all at once and you loved him. and if you could love him who was sweet and bitter like yuzu, neither lemon nor orange, perhaps one day, you could learn to love yourself too.

——— ♡

“did I ever tell you I'm a big fan of yuzu?”

you quirked an eyebrow at the sudden question, fingers intertwined with yushi's. he brought the back of your hands up to his lips, placing a soft kiss against your skin, his lips curving into a smile you knew too well, one that made you want to roll your eyes and kiss him all at once.

“that must be why I love you.”

a/n: things to confess: 1) I don't like yuzu. 2) I've never had a martini and I don't know anything about mixology. 3) I wrote 2k words about yushi and yuzu because I liked that they both started with 'yu'... that's literally how this whole thing started. but as I wrote I've developed a meaning for yuzu which will be explained below!

on a more serious note: y/n's story is meant to be interpretive. I didn't want to muddy this with a concrete back story for her because it felt unnecessary. feeling like "yuzu" is about feeling like you're at odds with yourself, feeling like you're everything but nothing at once, feeling like you're skilled at a lot of things but you excel at none, feeling like you're a good person yet bad at the same time, etc etc.

I tried to write something comforting here, but it's hard when it's an issue I myself still struggle with sometimes. so I just hope that anyone who has had the same thoughts or issues feel comforted knowing there's someone out there who understands you and loves you no matter what!!

[ashton-ryder]

... morning. april 13th.

Double his length of starvation was the last he heard regarding any form of food. He had been preparing himself to go as long as he could without any food at all, and at this point he didn't trust the tap to be potable and isn't desperate enough to try it. Still he had to be thankful for the few visitors that made their way to him, people that still cared enough and had to power to even step into this room. Ashton would've been in a much worst state without the three additional visitors in the past four days in between Sada fun time visits, showing some form of kindness in food, in meds, in love. Perhaps without them coming, he might’ve been dead. He had hoped to see at least one more face that would've made things better simply by his presence, but it had been no signs of him, Ash didn't know what he felt about that. He wasn't even sure what he felt in general period, mind was starting to numb when he woke up on the fifth morning, fogging from the lack of anything to eat.

Today though, today was different. He had just enough strength to etch in a strike across the four lines to indicate another day as dawn broke. The doors opened at a new timing that morning, compared to the previous days - ration time. He had been so glad to see Ruth again, this time with a tray in hand, knowing it's not her bringing her own considering she'd probably get more than this. Still, at this point bread and egg and water was everything he could dream of, the moments doors closed, he scarfed down the food and water, feeling safe in Ruth's presence for him to feel vulnerable, to actually let the mask slip on just how fucking hungry he was. They had been cut off when the food and water finally began to sit and the gears in his mind were beginning to turn again, a bang on the door for Ruth's time being up, letting him finished everything before the tray was taken away again except the almost empty bottle of water.

...was it almost empty? Did he drink it? He just ate.. right? So why was his body that finally gain some sustenance begin to numb and falter? It was only when the doors open again after five, or ten, or hundred, he couldn't keep track, when he realized that Sada would never let him have an easy meal. His vision began to blur and fade in and out, noticing something in her hands then by the window but he didn't know what. All he knows that she had to have spiked his meal.

He was sat on the floor, feeling extremely heavy, all five chains still locked in place, still in nothing but his underwear, body abused like a canvas she had been toying with. He didn't bother answering her question that started to sound distant, only with that realization of some kind of drug running through his veins did he utter singularly, head drooping down with a tensed mutter, "..fuck you."

It had been nearly four and a half days since Ashton had been allowed to eat before Sada had finally called @ruthellry to her office, instructing the good doctor that, finally, he could be brought some rations. A bottle of water with no cap, toasted fresh bread, and even a single scrambled egg. A merciful and generous offering to her caged bird. Unbeknownst to her, the water was spiked rather nicely with a heavy handed hit of ketamine.

Standing in the hallway outside of Ashton's cell when the woman made her way out, Sada asked how he was before dismissing her before the answer could be fully given. Giving him enough time to let his dehydration ensure he emptied the bottle, Sada had Hector let her into the room, the door this time remaining open behind her. There was little point in locking them in when not only was he heavily chained to the wall, but soon enough he wouldn't even be able to lift his own limbs.

"Hello, Ashton." Nails tapping on a small, hard shelled black case she carried in her hands, Sada's affect was pleasant, friendly even as she moved to set it down on the windowsill. "I hope you're enjoying your breakfast, a little bit of sustenance will help." With the drugs, at least, wouldn't do to have him choking on his own vomit or anything.

Turning she lowered to sit in a fold out chair that Hector had appeared with and set down just outside of the reach of Ashton's chains. "How are you feeling?"

[brainscrewz]

maybe i got kicked out but the bouncer said i was cool and nice 👍🏻😎

[yandere-daydreams]

tw - non/con, kidnapping, LOTS of non-consensual touching, threats of violence, implied public sex, and unbalanced power dynamics.

Geto Suguru is a surprisingly tactile man.

You wouldn't expect it from a man so cold, so withdrawn, so prone to keeping his hands tucked in his sleeves away from any filthy, undeserving lesser beings like yourself, but it's not hard to spot once you know what you're looking for. When his girls were young enough to put up with it, he always had at least one, if not both of them in his arms, and his preferred form of greeting towards those in his select, but not exclusive inner circle has always been a hug, kiss, or some combination of both. Even when he claims he can't stand to look at you, when he orders you to bathe in scalding-hot water before admitting you so much as might be worth of his affections, he never lasts more than a few minutes before slipping in beside you with excuses of 'you're not thorough enough' or 'I can't even trust you to do this correctly' ready on his tongue. It might be sweet, if it wasn't so controlling. You're not really in a place to complain, though.

He likes keeping you close. For someone he claims is nothing more than a pest, he treats you akin to a lapdog; constantly calling your name, constantly petting through your hair, constantly keeping you pressed against his side or slotted against his chest or perched on his lap, an arm as thick as your leg wrapped around your waist to better snuff out your attempts to squirm. Any attempts to withdraw before he allows you to are met with punishments of the most severe order. You don't like being at his beck and call, having to sit through his depraved sermons for the sole reason that he doesn't trust you to leave his sight, but it's better than being shackled to his bedpost for another four weeks. You can be a lapdog, so long as you aren't a collared one.

Even the politest touch he offers you is unspeakable invasive. You're not sure how he manages to turn something as simple and as shallow as grazing you're lower back into yet another show of his authority over you. Part of it just might be the whole 'genocidal cult leader' shtick (it's hard not to find someone a little creepy after they've abducted, tortured, and traumatized you), but you'd like to think that even if you had entered into his company more willingly, you'd still find his intimacy more than a little off-putting. The worst of it comes at night, when he assumes you're asleep. The way he holds you to his chest, clings to you like a child does a stuffed animal might be cute in another context, but it rarely serves to endear him to you. If anything, it only proves that even unconscious, his greatest pleasure in life is smothering you.

Worst of all, he's handsy. That, in itself, shouldn't be all that surprisingly, but the lecherousness of it, the shameless of it still manages to leave you as disgusted as you are unnerved. It's rare for a full hour to pass in his company without his hand slipping under the collar of the silken kimono's he dresses you in and groping at your best until he's left indents in the shape of his blunt nails. Other times, his fingers will find their way underneath your skirts or into the waistband of your shorts while he's preoccupied with another matter, splitting you open on his fingers with all the attention one might pay to tying their shoes or brushing their hair. If you're lucky, he'll choose a private moments, one where you'll be forced to fall apart for his entertainment alone, tucked safely away from the prying eyes of his co-conspirators and congregation.

You don't get lucky very often.

Sometimes, you think he does it just to be cruel. He does most things to be cruel, and this would be far from the only way he's cruel to you, in particular. But, when drapes himself over you at night, when he drags you so suffocatingly close to his side, when he grinds his palm into your most sensitive point of vulnerability and whispers so possessively that you ought to be thankful for each second long he lets you live, it's not cruelty you see in Suguru's dark eyes, but rather something much, much more dangerous.

Desperation.

[dcxdpdabbles]

#Holiday requests If you're not too busy I would love another part to cinnamon rolls son. Love your writing, it really is a great inspiration, you got me out of my own writing slump.

The Justice League was at their wits ends with Dan. Disaster struck no matter what they attempted to ensure he developed some softer traits.

First, Barry had the bright idea to show him the wonders of volunteer work to help the community. If he could value the life of humans, surely he wouldn't destroy it in the far future. As a teenager, Barry had punched hours of volunteering in the local hospital to play and read to the sick children in bed.

He had done it because he enjoyed making children smile and built up his resume for college. Barry was many things, but being wealthy enough to afford college wasn't one of them. He wanted to apply for as many scholarships as possible, so he started his community service campaign from an early age.

On the first day of their community service, Barry had taken him to clean up the local beach. An hour into the work, a shark had been spotted near the swimmers, and Dan had dived in to rescue a little girl from its jaws.

Dan had been hailed a hero until he picked up the girl's father and threw him into the water towards said shark. The father had ignored his seven-year-old daughter for his mistress. Apparently, once Dan overheard the man panicking more about his wife finding out the beach father-daughter beach day was just an excuse to cheat on her than his crying daughter in the ambulance, Dan had figured he needed to be taught a lesson.

Dan stood over him while the man screamed and splashed, pointing and laughing. Were it not for the Flash's sudden appearance, well....Dan may have actually fed that cheating cum bag to the sharks.

Bruce added it to the shared drive, asking Barry to include a complete detailed report, by the hour, of what happened. They figured they could analyze Dan and find what could make him snap.

Next, Clark took Dan to his family farm. He claimed nothing brought up good children like his mother and father's gentle but firm parenting,g plus the wonders of the hard farmer life. Clark was sure Dan would enjoy all the open space, the animals, and working in the fields.

Within the hour of the pair arriving at the farm, Dan happily weeded around the field. Clark was somewhat surprised by how quick he took to the job. He went inside to help Ma ready some pie and Clark's legendary lemonade as a reward.

It only took a few minutes since Ma had already put the pie to cook before they arrived. The two were gone long enough that Clark could make a nice pitcher and take a few seconds to smell the mouthwatering pie.

He went back into the field carrying a tray of a plated two-slice pie and a cold glass cup, only to stop dead in his tracks. Dan was kneeling, laughing manically towards the sky, within the circle of burning weeds.

The flames were a green and black color. Its dark smoke shifted into what appeared to be screaming humans. The worst part, however, was the lines of what appeared to be renamed scarecrows wearing shackles as they harvest Pa's cornfield.

Clark was horrified.

Batman had added to the drive, "Gave life to inanimate things just to enslave them."

Hal was the next one to try, but no one knew what happened on their Become A Better Person trip. Hal refused to place a report, only stating that he could never look at Hawaiian pizza again. He threw up when Barry brought one in for a long meeting.

At least Phantom seemed happy they were still attempting to save his son. His daughter was also more well-behaved, spending most of her days traveling. It was strange to associate her with Phantom because if there was one thing Dani liked to do, it was pick fights.

She had fought through Darkside's defenses to challenge him to a pie-eating contest. She freed half of his planet on her way out, but not before beating them up to get them to listen.

Her father would have spent time trying to do things peacefully. Not Dani. She did stuff through her fists.

Batman had added classifications to the three ghosts in the file. Phantom was Lawfully good, Dani Chaotic good, and Dan was marked as Chaotic neutral. The rest of the league suspects that his children added those, but no one was brave enough to point it out.

[inkskinned]

you were raised in comparison.

it wasn't always obvious (well. except for the times that it was), but you internalized it young. you had to eat what you didn't like, other people are going hungry, and you should be grateful. you had to suck it up and walk on the twisted ankle, it wasn't broken, you were just being a baby. you were never actually suffering, people obviously had it worse than you did.

you had a roof over your head - imagine! with the way you behaved, with how you talked back to your parents? you're lucky they didn't kick you out on your ass. they had friends who had to deal with that. hell, you have friends who had to deal with that. and how dare you imply your father isn't there for you - just because he doesn't ever actually talk to you and just because he's completely emotionally checked out of your life doesn't mean you're not fucking lucky. think about your cousins, who don't even get to speak to their dad. so what if yours has a mean streak; is aggressive and rude. at least you have a father to be rude to you.

you really think you're hurting? you were raised in a home! you had access to clean water! you never so much as came close to experiencing a real problem. sure, okay. you have this "mental illness" thing, but teenagers are always depressed, right. it's a phase, you'll move on with your life.

what do you mean you feel burnt out at work. what do you mean you mean you never "formed healthy coping mechanisms?" we raised you better than that. you were supposed to just shoulder through things. to hold yourself to high expectations. "burning out" is for people with real jobs and real stress. burnout is for people who have sick kids and people who have high-paying jobs and people who are actually experiencing something difficult. recently you almost cried because you couldn't find your fucking car keys. you just have lost your sense of gratitude, and honestly, we're kind of hurt. we tell you we love you, isn't that enough? if you want us to stick around, you need to be better about proving it. you need to shut up about how your mental health is ruined.

it could be worse! what if you were actually experiencing executive dysfunction. if you were really actually sick, would you even be able to look at things on the internet about it? you just spend too much time on webMD. you just like to freak yourself out and feel like you belong to something. you just like playing the victim. this is always how you have been - you've always been so fucking dramatic. you have no idea how good you have it - you're too fucking sensitive.

you were like, maybe too good of a kid. unwilling to make a real fuss. and the whole time - the little points, the little validations - they went unnoticed. it isn't that you were looking for love, specifically - more like you'd just wanted any one person to actually listen. that was all you'd really need. you just needed to be witnessed. it wasn't that you couldn't withstand the burden, but you did want to know that anyone was watching. these days, you are so accustomed to the idea of comparison - you don't even think you belong in your own communities. someone always fits better than you do. you're always the outlier. they made these places safe, and then you go in, and you are just not... quite the same way that would actually-fit.

you watch the little white ocean of your numbness lap at your ankles. the tide has been coming in for a while, you need to do something about it. what you want to do is take a nap. what you want to do is develop some kind of time machine - it's not like you want your life to stop, not completely, but it would really nice if you could just get everything to freeze, just for a little while, just until you're finished resting. but at least you're not the worst you've been. at least you have anything. you're so fucking lucky. do you have any concept of the amount of global suffering?

a little ant dies at the side of your kitchen sink. you look at its strange chitinous body and think - if you could just somehow convince yourself it is enough, it will finally be enough and you can be happy. no changes will have to be made. you just need to remember what you could lose. what is still precious to you.

you can't stop staring at the ant. you could be an ant instead of a person, that is how lucky you are. it's just - you didn't know the name of the ant, did you. it's just - ants spend their whole life working, and never complain. never pull the car over to weep.

it's just - when it died, it curled up into a tight little ball.

something kind of uncomfortable: you do that when you sleep.

[stsgluver]

𝐒𝐍𝐀𝐏𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐓 𝐏𝐓.𝟑 — gojo satoru

synopsis. nobara is ill and what better way to spend your day off than trying to figure out who your teacher's high school girlfriend is?

wc. 3.5k

tags. gojo x reader, fluff, one suggestive joke, reader is in gojo's class, implied utahime x shoko, only half proofread

a/n. it's nearly midnight and im so tired and I have to be up at 6 tomorrow but I needed to get this done. I hope there's not too many mistakes <3 the ending is kind of shit but idc :) jk i do pls like it

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“are you sure you’ll be okay alone?”

nobara lazily lifted her head from beneath her duvet, orange bangs clinging to her sweaty forehead as she let out a series of harsh coughs. megumi winced from the doorway, inching back ever so slightly - he'd already brought in a couple bottles of water and a box of tissues, he wasn't looking to contract whatever flu-like disease she had caught.

she rolled her eyes at his not-so-subtle antics and raised a weak thumbs up. “go on fushiguro, i know how much you're dying to spend the afternoon with itadori and sensei."

“haha,” megumi uttered with the most sarcastic tone he could muster. on second thoughts, maybe being sick for a week wouldn't be so bad. with nobara gone, there was no buffer for his teacher and classmate to pester. “call me if you get worse, you know the second years are useless.” 

nobara gave the younger boy a quick salute and small smile, “yes boss.”

she dropped her head back into her pillow and waited till she heard the door click shut till she slipped a little less than elegantly out of bed. whilst yes, there was no denying that she was definitely sick, she also had a mission she couldn’t give up on.

in the three weeks, four days and an unknown number of hours since she had found the dvd of her teacher in his youth, she had been putting all of her free time into trying to find you. megumi had been a dead end when she’d tried asking him about you again and, although nobara knew he had a soft spot for yuuji, she didn’t trust the pink haired boy to treat this situation sensitively.

initially, she’d even considered asking gojo about it but she decided against that pretty quickly. that could get awkward very quickly and she still had at least two years at the school. 

then, she’d moved onto searching through the school for traces of the alumni. all she’d managed to find was a single photo; one that included both kyoto and tokyo students. you were tucked into gojo’s side with your arm around shoko. geto was there too: him and gojo side by side as they always were in their teenage years. all of you were grinning and genuinely happy. where had it all gone so drastically wrong?

nobara wondered if it was geto’s fault that gojo’s class had been all but erased – an effort to forget that the worst curse user to live had in fact once been an aspiring sorcerer.

her next plan (and one she hadn’t full considered the logistics of completely just yet) was to watch every single video on the dvd because surely at some point, there would be some clue of who you were or where you’d gone. 

and even if there wasn’t, what else could she possibly do to amuse herself whilst she was on bed rest?

with a huff, she grabbed her laptop and dropped back onto her bed, tucking herself under the covers. opening up her laptop (her password being ‘12345’), she clicked unpause on a video she’d started the evening prior.

“–and that’s it basically.”

shoko waved her hands around, sat on yaga’s chair at the front of the classroom with a blackboard filled with scribbles behind her. it wasn’t anything legible, more like swirls and stars and nobara thinks that, if she looked hard enough, in the corner were two little stick men: gojo and geto. an unlit cigarette sat between her lips as she kicked her legs up onto her teacher’s desk. yaga clearly wasn’t in the room. 

“that made no sense whatsoever but woo! shoko!” you clapped, out of frame of the camera but enthusiastically nonetheless. the aforementioned girl narrowed her eyes at you across the classroom.

“that’s why i made a video, for you to look back on duh,” she tsked, nodding her head towards the camera. “plus it is easy. i expected dumb and dumber not to understand but you?” shoko patted away a few non-existent tears, taking on the role of disappointed parent and their once star student.

except you’d never really excelled in a class with two prodigies and shoko actually loved having the upperhand in at least one area of sorcery.

shoko picked up the camera, holding it upwards to give a full view of her outfit and hair – like it was any different to any other day she attended school. she swivelled the spinny chair over to an occupied desk, slotting next to it and moving the camera so that it captured all of you in the frame. gojo was sat down in the seat, glasses propped up onto his forehead as you sat sideways on his lap, unsuccessfully trying to decipher shoko’s teachings on the board.

“understanding reversed cursed techniques is way harder than understanding cursed techniques,” you tried to justify, pointing to the board that showed the squiggles that ‘symbolised’ performing a reversed curse technique. stealing gojo’s glasses and popping them on your own face, you popped a quick kiss to the side of his head, “plus, why waste my energy? you’ll figure it out so i never have to.”

“the things i do for you,” gojo sighed happily, dropping his head down onto your shoulder as his arms looped around your waist. the orange-haired sorcerer could practically hear yuuji’s gasps at the simple displays of affection and she almost felt bad for watching some of the clips without him.

almost.

nobara was never one for romance – drama, such as the fight between gojo and naoya, that was her scene. but even she couldn’t help herself from smiling at the teenage love between the two of you. maybe she should give her teacher more credit – there was more to the six foot two man than just his over the top personality and questionable teaching methods.

“this is meant to be an educational video! be less couple-y!” shoko complained, scowling and shuffling away on her chair again.

“oh, we could make it very educational,” gojo wiggled his eyebrows, the devious smirk on his lips only widening at your flushed expression as you tried to hit his chest. failing, though, as he isolated his cursed technique to uphold a thin barrier between your hand and the material of his uniform.

there was the teacher she knew – keen to annoy even those he loved the most.

shoko must’ve ended the video out of spite after his comment, because nobara found herself staring at a black screen. 

all that she’d learnt so far was that you couldn’t perform a reverse cursed technique as a teenager. maybe that was what killed you? if you were even dead, that is. but given the damage that curses can inflict on sorcerers, whether or not you were able to execute a reversed cursed technique could literally be the difference between walking away from a fight a little tired or in a body bag.

nobara coughed several times, picking up the open bottle of water from her bedside table and taking a sip to try and ease her scratchy throat. scrunching up her nose at the slight sting of swallowing, she clicked the next available video, not putting much thought into her choice.

it was you and nanami in frame in a library by the looks of it but if it was on campus, nobara didn’t know where. christmas decorations decorated the shelving units behind you – tinsels of gold, red and green, and hanging snowflakes. you were both wearing your usual uniform but you also had a santa hat on and tinsel lining your jacket.

“we’re the only two on campus,” you said quietly, “because everyone else’s parents loved them–”

“we couldn’t afford to go back for the holidays,” nanami cut you off, without glancing up from what he was writing. being from two non-sorcerer families was a disadvantage normally in terms of status and inherited techniques, but holidays were somehow worse. 

gojo had offered to help you out with a ticket back to your parents and had even extended an invitation for you to stay with him but you didn’t want to leave nanami alone (and although he didn’t seem grateful, he was glad you were there).

“it’s fine. academic comeback time,” you held up a book to the screen. being in a class with three exceptional sorcerers meant that studies were often sidelined to try and improve and perfect your techniques. holidays were usually your opportunity to catch up on the missed classwork and homework you’d fallen behind on.

nanami less so – if anything he was reading ahead. tokyo had never been renowned for academic scores until he’d come along.

“i don’t get why the camera needs to be here,” nanami complained.

“to record us study! it’s motivational.”

“sure,” nanami hummed quietly, reading over your shoulder at the work you’d already completed prior to setting up the camera. “that’s wrong. this is simple mutipli–” he paused at the sound of rustling and his brows furrowed as he tried to peer round the bookshelves. 

“merry christmas!” 

nobara snickered as nanami jumped at the sudden voice and appearance of three people behind him. gojo and geto were capable of masking their cursed energy (and shoko’s) so that they wouldn’t be noticed slipping into the library. although gojo had nearly screwed that up by pulling out a chair trying to trip up geto.

“ieiri!” you slipped out from your seat, running up and hugging your classmate. in the process, the camera got knocked so it was facing the ceiling. nobara frowned as she turned the brightness up on her laptop as if though that would somehow bring everyone back into grame. in the periphery of the screen she could make out just the heads and foreheads of the student sorcerers.

“hi satoru, missed you too satoru, so glad you came to see me satoru,” the white haired sorcerer pouted at the lack of attention and nobara is sure someone responded to him but the audio is muffled by two voices closer to the camera’s microphone.

“here!” haibara slipped into the seat next to nanami that you had occupied moments prior and held up a small wrapped box with red ribbon tied neatly in a bow. “i picked it up on the way. merry christmas nanamin!”

“thanks yu,” nanami smiled softly at his classmate. well that’s what nobara thought he did anyways, his eyes lifted into half crescents but she wasn’t actually sure what his mouth was doing out of frame. she’d never seen the blond so happy from a simple gesture.

she clicked off the video even though it still had thirty seconds left to go. it wasn’t much fun just watching people’s foreheads and she highly doubted that nanami was about to fix the camera’s position.

so you were from a non-sorcerer family and possibly not able to use reverse cursed technique. it wasn’t much but facts were still facts.

there was a little more deliberation before she chose her next video, settling herself back into her cushions as she waited for it to load.

the screen was suddenly very bright and nobara winced, turning it down as the surroundings came into focus. it was the inside of an arcade and the camera was pointed directly at one of those claw machines. inside were different sized plushies of spiderman and haibara was the one controlling the claw.

nobara could vaguely make out everyone’s reflection in the glass – to the left of haibara was geto (who was also the one holding onto the camera), gojo and you, and to his right was shoko, nanami and maybe also utahime? shoko had her arm around a blue haired girl either way.

“no! so close haibara,” you patted the youngest boy on the shoulder gently as the plushie he’d managed to pick up slipped from the claw’s clutches before it could be dropped down the chute and retrieved.

“can i try?” gojo asked and, from the annoyed groans, nobara assumed it wasn’t the first time he’d interjected.

“no, he’ll get it this time,” geto encouraged and gojo flashed him a look of disbelief. 

“if gojo wants a go he can have it!” haibara tried to step away from the machine but nanami halted him, slotting several more coins in the machine.

“take your go yu.”

“i’ll get you a slushie if you win,” shoko called out, clapping her hands together as he accepted his fate, hesitantly pressing down on the buttons as he peered through the side of the machine to get a better angle.

“haibara, haibara.” all of them were chanting his name now, and that was enough of a boost for him to finally get one of the plushies over the barrier and down the chute. the camera shook unsteadily as geto jumped and six of them crowded the youngest in a joint hug.

nobara could see yuuji in haibara and megumi in nanami and herself in shoko and she had to stop herself from tearing up. nanami and shoko seemed like strangers these days and she couldn’t even imagine waking up and yuuji not being the first one to greet her outside her room. 

we’ve got a mission here, she reminded herself, shaking her head lightly before moving onto the next clip.

“utahime, say hi,” you lowered the camera to the kyoto sorcerer’s height. she was sat cross-legged on the floor with a jacket flung haphazardly over her head to try and block out the sun that beamed down.

“hi!” utahime waved, smiling as you dropped down next to her. in her hands was a partially made daisy chain that she’d started to entertain herself whilst she waited for the tokyo students. despite being in kyoto, she’d always chosen to join yourself and shoko at events over her own classmates.

“who do you think is going to win the exchange event this year?” you asked with a raised brow and utahime grimaced.

“don’t make me compliment him.”

“are you implying that our edge is not because of me?” you looked at the camera with a disgusted expression, like you had the power to outshine the gojo satoru, she rolled her eyes – gojo’s dramatics were rubbing off on you. “for that i’m telling ieiri. you may be her girlfriend–”

utahime hit your arm and her eyes darted around for anyone that could’ve heard (like you were not sat alone in a field together whilst the others warmed up), “shut up! we’re not like that…”

you nodded with a condescending hum. “then kindly could you please stop calling her till three in the morning, some of us need our beauty sleep.”

“you’re only ever up at three am because you’re sneaking back from gojo’s dorm,” she retorted with a pointed look. you opened your mouth to defend yourself 

“true,” you jumped at shoko’s voice, swivelling your neck around to find the third piece of your trio standing behind you. shoko gestured towards your uniform jacket, “and if she pulls down her collar there’s a massive hickey i had to help cover up this morning.”

utahime erupted into a fit of giggles and you eyed the camera like it was some sitcom and you were breaking the fourth wall.

“you’re such an asshole.”

shoko pushed in between the two of you to make herself the middle. “you love me.”

nobara frowned as the video ended. while it wasn’t overly helpful, it reaffirmed the seriousness of your relationship with her teacher… but that was obvious from the lovesick heart eyes he constantly had in every video you were together.

although, she would have to show it to maki – the two had suspicions about the kyoto teacher and tokyo healer and this all but confirmed that they were right. 

nobara scrolled down till she found a thumbnail of you, geto and gojo sat around a table of food.

“zenin naoya,” you started, chopsticks in one hand as you held a bowl of food in the other. gojo pretended to vomit at the mention of his name. “yes toru, appropriate response, but have you heard about him and the kamo girl?”

geto nodded with a mouth full. “the one who studied abroad?”

“yes! her,” you waved your chopsticks in his direction, “anyways, she cheated on him.”

the dark haired sorcerer made a sound of shock, “they were together together?”

you nodded enthusiastically, offering gojo some of your rice. “mhmm, they got together new years eve.”

“that did not last long,” gojo snickered. nobara peered at the date in the corner of the screen in a retro, yellow font; 15 january 2006.

“best part? it’s not even the first time,” you revealed, picking up some salmon sushi off of gojo’s plate and quickly eating it.

“stop,” geto gasped and nobara was shocked. this man was a war criminal now, and yet ten years ago he seemed so far from it, gossiping like he was a teenage girl.

“which like i don’t get,” you frowned. “i dont know why he’s trying to save face over some two week old relationship. especially if she’s already cheated multiple times.”

“he’s just desperate because it’s the first girl to ever want to actually be with him.”

“oh yeah she really wants to be with him,” gojo uttered sarcastically with a sparkle in his eyes. he would have a party at the downfall of the zenin.

“are they staying together?”

“i think so,” you nodded, holding a hand over your mouth as you spoke and finished your mouthful. “it’s what me and shoko told him to do, well shoko. he facetimed shoko.” you clarified following gojo’s less than pleased expression. nobara didn’t doubt that naoya had caused some tension in your relationship (though she refused to believe it was ever because you had been interested in him) and she wished that you’d switch the topic solely onto that. that was the sort of drama she was after.

“youre telling me he facetimed ieiri to tell her he’d been cheated on?” geto could bearly finish the question without laughing and he shot gojo a look. “odds on him trying to make yn jealous.”

you couldn’t stop yourself from snorting. “oh yeah because hearing all that made me want to leave satoru for that thing.” sarcasm or not, your words were taken literally by your boyfriend who draped all one hundred and ninety centimetres of himself across your body. “oh my god you’re so heavy.”

“it’s just my love for you in physical form. don’t be mean,” he whined.

nobara didn’t even have the energy to laugh quietly at the pathetic nature of her teacher as she felt herself drifting off. it was fine, she thought, only a quick power nap. she’d earned it, watching all those clips expended lots of energy.

“kugisaki?” gojo gently knocked at the young girl’s door. he’d left yuuji and megumi to do laps to check nobara was still alive and well. the illness had made its way through half the school already and while it obviously wasn’t something fatal, he knew better than to take any risks.

he knocked again and waited thirty seconds before he opened the door enough just to peek in and–

“satoru.”

gojo felt his heart drop at the sound of your voice. one he hadn’t heard in almost two years and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so unsteady and thrown off guard. the mere sound of your voice had startled him and gotten more of an upper hand than any curse he’d ever had to exorcise.

although his world had stilled, reality continued on and he was forced to hear himself hum in response. he didn’t have to see the video to vividly remember the day, to remember the smell of the grass and your perfume that were coaxing him into a nap that would make you both late to yaga’s lecture.

“do you think we’ll still be together once high school is over?”

“hope so,” he murmured, half asleep, and gojo wished his younger self was more aware, telling you how much he wanted to be with you, savouring every second he had in your presence rather than sleeping it away. 

like that could’ve changed the outcome.

slipping into her room, gojo lifted the laptop off of her sleeping figure (definitely still alive and breathing). with a press of a button, the disk popped out and he set the device onto the ground as he contemplated what to do.

he could break it in half, make it seem like an accident that nobara hadn’t noticed in her ill state. or he could use his cursed technique and completely eviscerate it from existence.

or maybe he could keep it.

gojo gave nobara one last glance as he silently closed her door once more, grateful for the blindfold he wore as he headed back outside to his students.

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this tag list is insane ty all for the support

[agoodflyting]

Good Omens Historical Trivia That's Haunting Me Today...

So we all know A.Z. Fell & Co is located on the fictitious Whickber Street in Soho and was established in 1800.

Aziraphale has run the shop ever since then and was in contact with Crowley at least until the 1820's when they took their little jaunt to Edinburgh and Crowley got sucked down the tube slide to Hell. They meet up again no later than the 1860's, when Crowley asks for Holy Water.

Stands to reason that between the 1820's and 1860's Aziraphale was in Soho doing Aziraphale things. Running his bookshop. Eating tiny cakes

Yeah... you know what else was going on in Soho during that time?

The worst cholera epidemic in London history.

If you don't know, cholera is a deadly bacterial infection caused by drinking contaminated water. Prior to the 1850's humans weren't really sure what caused cholera, but they knew it was terrifying and also that it was absolutely epidemic in big cities.

TW: this is gross - The main symptoms of cholera are agonizing stomach pain and non-stop watery diarrhea, eventually leading to the skin turning blue due to the thickening of blood from severe dehydration. Patients can lose more than 20% of their body weight in hours as they quite literally evacuate every drop of water in their bodies until they die of heart failure. - OK gross part over

Cholera symptoms show up as short as 5 hours after infection and could kill within as little as 12 hours. Cholera was especially terrifying because of how quickly and painfully it killed you, and because the patient maintained mental clarity up until the point of death. More than half of the people who contracted cholera died within a few days after consuming the bacteria-contaminated water.

And guess what water had cholera bacteria in it?

The public water pump on Broad Street in Soho in August of 1854

And this wasn't one of those epidemics that starts slowly and drags on. It hit like a bomb. It killed 600 Soho residents in ten days.

That's roughly 60 people a day in a 3-4 block area. Most of them died at home because the disease struck too quickly for them to to make it to a hospital. Survivors described hearses stacked with coffins 4-5 high going down the street nonstop all day long during the outbreak. Entire families were wiped out overnight.

What does that have to do with Good Omens?

Aziraphale's book shop was right in the epicenter of this outbreak.

Neil Gaiman has been pretty free about the fact that Whickber Street is a thinly veiled expy of the real Berwick Street in Soho.

This is a famous map showing the 1854 Soho Cholera epidemic. I highlighted Berwick Street and the public water pump that was the center of the contagion. The black bars (I circled a few in blue) on the map designate deaths. The thicker the black bar, the more people died in that particular house.

51 people died the week of the cholera outbreak on Aziraphale's Street alone.

Cholera was one of those diseases that provoked a lot of panic, not just because of how fast and painful it was, but because of the way it didn't follow common conventions about class or age. Children died while the elderly survived (often because the elderly had no one to gather water for them). Lower class houses were spared while their middle class landlords died. Churches were packed that week, because people in Soho had no idea who would get sick next. The epidemic pretty much burned itself out in a week and a half, since by that point everyone who drank the water had already died. I have to wonder what our resident Angel was up to during that time. Obviously cholera can't hurt him, but that's his neighborhood. There's no way hundreds of people, including entire families with children, are dying painfully in his neighborhood and Aziraphale doesn't notice. That means that in between this scene:

And this one:

Aziraphale would have watched one of the worst disease outbreaks in London history play out right outside his front door. I feel like there's great potential for a good story there if anyone better than me wants to write it.

[zico-if]

This story is not one, where at the end, you find yourself surrounded by your loved ones. No, this is a one of how you die.

[ DEMO - tba ]

Ever since the death of your parents by those who'd been sworn to protect you, there has been something inexplicably wrong with you.

At first, they were just headaches—small manageable aches, even at their worst. But then came the voice. A voice that wasn't yours, whispering things you couldn't possibly know, helping you do things no one should be able to do.

Everything about you was just...wrong.

But then you were saved, taken in by people who gave you shelter and taught you control. And over time, that voice became nothing more than a whisper, offering you insights when you least expect it.

You became a scalpel in their organization, an invaluable asset who cut away whatever rot they pointed you to, and you did so without question.

That is, until one day a job lands you in hot water and the next thing you know, you're told to cut the rot that lies a little too close to the heart. Suddenly, the truth becomes lies, friends turn to foes, and the fine line between loyalty and betrayal begins to blur.

That begs the question: just how far are you willing to go to cut out that rot before it spreads?

Become a vessel for an Eldritch that grants you abilities like no other, yet endure the consequences that follows it.

Customise your vessel, including their pronouns, identity and physical appearance.

Romance 1 of 4 options: the rot, the grace, the protector or the stranger.

Confront old friends, create new foes, run some errands and try not to die while doing any of it.

Pluck at the fraying strands of your mind. Teeter to the edge of Insanity.

Trust that no one is who they say they are.

And most importantly: Abandon All Hope.

The Rot: Ilya Roson [m/f/nb] - romanceable by all MCs.

A person who you've long since thought was gone. They've betrayed you once and they've come to do it again. Then again, betrayal requires trust in the first place and you've since learned your lesson from the first time.

The Grace: Vira Duval [f] - romanceable by nb!MCs and f!MCs only.

She is beauty, she is grace, yet monstrous all the same. There is something about her that strikes you: the scars that creep from beneath her neck line, the cold calculation in her eyes. She is more than the Blueblood you think she is.

The Protector: Aurius Duval [m] - romanceable by all MCs.

A scion of everything you've come to hate, he dares to call himself a protector—a shield to the people above all else. While he is kind and polite, you can't help but see the blood that he carries on his hands...even though you carry more on yours.

The Stranger: Rhian Scott [m/f/nb] - romanceable by all MCs.

They are the trouble that follows you, the herald of misfortune. Why is it that every time they're near, something always goes wrong? Is it the charm, leeching all the luck you have to fuel it? Or is it maybe that they are just not the friend they claim to be?

The Night Abridged is rated 18+ for violence, strong language, blood & gore, sexual content and more.

Hello, my lovelies. Here is a new intro post for the remake of The Night Abridged, reblogs are much appreciated :)

[beanarie]

i never wanted water once part 3

tommy is also breakup baking, prompted by my dear @sanguinarysanguinity

tw: mention of parent death, mention of child abuse

part 1

part 2

~

Gutierrez eyes him on his way out of the locker room. "Feel like no one ever sees you anymore. You coming back to the pickup game or what?"

"Oh." Tommy gives his damp hair one last rub from the towel. "I wasn't planning on it, to be honest. Too awkward."

Gutierrez frowns. "Why?"

"You know," Tommy says, wishing he didn't have to, "Eddie Diaz. I broke up with his best friend."

"Diaz hasn't shown in weeks. Probably got injured. You know how that crew is."

And that. Well. He and Eddie were friends. They became tight very quickly in a way Tommy hasn't experienced with many people. He shouldn't have thrown a connection like that away without at least trying to salvage it.

He sends a text, a polite, generic one asking about his welfare. Worst thing that can happen is Eddie tells him to fuck off and he's back where he started. He fully expects to be left on read.

He does not expect Eddie to tell him he's moving back to Texas because he's given up on his son deciding to come home. Eddie invites him to a pre-going away dinner at a bar and grill before he goes down South for a few days to scout out homes. And, no, absolutely not. But Tommy proposes getting a drink, just the two of them. Eddie very validly explains that he can't spare the time, since he's already started packing up his life and he's working overtime to save up for a down payment. Tommy gets it. He does.

The day after the dinner, Eddie calls him. "Hey, man. I know we're like two ships passing in the night, but I didn't want to leave without a proper goodbye. I still got some more shifts before I move for good, but the time will go by quick. We'll just stay on the line, okay? Keep me company while I go through my kitchen cabinets."

"It's good to hear from you," Tommy says honestly.

"So yeah." Eddie hums. "Why'd you do it?"

"Text you?" Tommy says. "I heard that-"

"Kinard," Eddie says, unamused.

"Yeah. Sorry."

"You just didn't seem the type to flee."

None of you know me as well as you thought you did, Tommy doesn't say. That's not fair to any of them. "I wasn't, in the past. Well, I tried not being that. A couple times. It didn't work out."

"Oh," Eddie says. "There it is."

"There what is?"

"You've got shit."

"Haven't we all?"

"Hey, I am not denying that." Eddie chuckles. "Do you plan on dealing with it, or letting it blow up every good thing you find until you die?"

"Jesus, Eddie."

"What's the point in mincing words? You did something dumb and destructive. What kinda friend would I be if I let that go without saying anything?"

"So what's the weather even like in El Paso? Does it ever get below 100?"

After a groan, Eddie lets Tommy talk about his shit, about Texas, parenthood, and chess clubs, for the rest of the call. Tommy can't say that he'll miss him. He missed him already and now he gets to continue doing so. All of this sucks.

Tommy tries his hand at gnocchi made with ricotta, lemon, and pepper that subsequently almost causes a fistfight during B shift.

Demetra favors him with a warm smile, taking in the large box in his hands. "Tom, right? Welcome! What's all this?"

"Tommy," he says easily, impressed she remembered his name at all. He hasn't been to this slightly dusty community center in five or six years. "Uh, this is garlic knots and mini calzones."

"Well, hey. You're even more welcome than before. Come take a seat."

December is a stupid time to rejoin group, many of the participants close to the edge from a cocktail of seasonal depression, missing dead loved ones, and generalized loneliness. Tommy knew it would be like this going in. He counted on it. Everyone will have so much to say that there likely won't be any time for him to open his mouth. He's not ready to spill. It will help to just soak in the atmosphere of unashamed honesty for a while.

At his third meeting, Cal, a slender guy in his mid twenties with a curly mohawk, keeps bringing up his mother. "She never wanted me to enlist," he says, "and now that I'm back home and struggling, she can't stop being all 'I told you so' morning, noon, and night. She never says it, but she is thinking it."

"Is she?" Tommy finds himself asking. "Or are you putting something on her that isn't there?"

"Maybe so." Cal pops one of Tommy's fried ravioli in his mouth and chews thoughtfully. "I don't know, I should probably give her a chance, think first about what she's actually saying before I react. But it's hard in the moment, you know?"

"Tommy?" Demetra says a minute later, making him feel like a kid being called on by the teacher. "How's your relationship with your mom?"

"Nonexistent. She died when I was fifteen." He crosses his ankles. "Fell asleep in the car on our way back from an away game and we couldn't wake her up. Heart attack."

Demetra frowns sympathetically. "That must've been hard for a kid to witness."

"I've seen so much worse since then. People shot in the head by machine guns, people covered in burns over most of their bodies..."

Demetra shakes her head slightly. "They weren't your mom."

He ducks his head, pressing his lips together. "True. It's just- That's not- It's not trauma. I don't fear falling asleep and not waking up."

"What do you fear?" Cal asks.

Being left, being hurt, being validated in his belief that no one will ever see him for all he is and choose to stick around. "Standard stuff, really. Clowns, taxes, drivers on the freeway."

He gets a pity laugh, a groan or two, and one outright glare. "Okay, okay." He exhales loudly. "Ending up alone by someone else's choice rather than mine."

"So you're cool with being on your own, as long as you're the one keeping everyone away," Cal says.

God, that sounds idiotic. "Yes?"

"You prefer it like this?" asks a woman about his own age wearing a green bomber jacket.

He shrugs. "It's not ideal, but as far as worst case scenarios go, it's okay. It's fine."

"It's spineless," says a gray-haired man with a Desert Storm hat.

Tommy doesn't flinch. "Yeah, that's kind of an inherent character trait. I keep thinking I got it licked, then it shows up wearing another face. Scared of my dad, so I joined the army and became someone he couldn't hurt anymore. Scared of people knowing I was gay, so I waited to come out until I was surrounded by brand new people. Scared of my boyfriend leaving, so." He pushes at the skin above his knees, kneading it. "So I left him first."

"You fall back," says Bomber Jacket. Her name is Annie or Angie. She has conflicted feelings about dating a man with kids. "It's easy to stop being scared when the thing that scared you is far away."

He hears Eddie. You just didn't seem the type to flee.

Demetra holds up a hand. Tommy's face must be doing something concerning. "No one here faults you for what you did to survive. Is it still serving you, is the question, or is that just what you're used to?"

He doesn't bake when he gets home. He drinks half the beers in his fridge and does a shockingly efficient job of cleaning his house, while drafting and deleting twenty-seven different texts. He then wakes up the next day, and goes to the pickup game.

Gutierrez scores four rebounds on him and doesn't shut up about it for the rest of their next shift. Tommy grumbles, and talks shit, and promises he won't have much to brag about next time.

[romancefranaticstay]

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･Ship on sea ⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

Captain!Hyunjin x Siren!fem!reader

Category: angst, fluff, smut

'Hoist the sails, loose the nets.'

"Root everyone."

"Let go of the nets."

"Ah, we've got one, Captain!"

That's all you can remember. You got captured by pirates, the worst kind of people. You were unconscious in the net, you had human legs again, you were naked. Your long wet hair covered your body, luckily too.

You woke up in one room. How can you describe the room? It was average, wooden walls, there were some candles on a desk. You saw a few cards and some goods. Lots of papers, two doors that lead to other rooms apparently.

You were sitting in a bathtub, with cold water that felt good. You looked around in a bit of surprise. You could still hear the sailors' words in your ears.

You saw a man come in. His eyes were dark, it scared you. You panicked and tried to crawl out of the bathtub, but unfortunately you couldn't.

"Ahh, you're finally awake again, hmm."

he came to you and he lifted you chin with his index finger.

"Looks healthy enough to sell."

'Excuse me? To sell?! I am not an object.'

'In my opinion, yes. A strange kind of quick-witted person.'

"I have legs too."

“I've seen that before, little girl. I have eyes here.'

he pointed his finger at his eyes.

"Can I get out of the bathtub?"

"So you can run away, back into the water?"

"I'm not going to do that."

"As if I trust a being like you."

'I'm a person too.'

"Not in my eyes." so he left.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ You were still in the bathtub, quietly playing with the water. Suddenly the door opened again. He had a plate in his hands with some delicious food. He went to his desk and started eating.

'That looks delicious.'

you said.

'Could I have a piece too?'

'No.'

"You can't let me starve, who would want to buy me."

'You think I didn't think of that? You won't get food until tomorrow.'

"Why not today?"

"Because I said so, little girl."

"Stop calling me a little girl."

He paused and continued eating. You couldn't look at it, so you dived under the water. You observed your tail. It was beautiful, to be honest.

'What is your name?'

he didn't answer.

"Can I at least know your name?"

'Why.'

"Because it's strange to be in the same room with someone, without any information."

“Hyunjin.

“Hyunjin…nice name.”

he nodded. He stood up from his chair. You leaned against the bathtub.

"Where are you going?"

'I'm going to sleep.' '

'Goodnight then.'

So he left again without saying a word.

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

You pretended to be sleeping, but actually you couldn't close your eyes for 2 hours. You heard a door creak and some footsteps. You felt eyes on you. You used your senses to maybe know who it was. You smelled a certain scent and felt a certain atmosphere... it felt like... Hyunjin.

You opened your eyes and looked straight into his eyes. He stood there leaning against the door frame. Just staring you up and down. He didn't say anything, nothing came out of his mouth. His pyjama was a long fleece blouse with a long fleece pants. After three minutes he just went back into his bedroom.

You thought he was scary, even though he looked very attractive. His look gave you chills. You wanted to flee, to leave.

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

The next morning, you woke up on a bed. You were laying under a blanket. You don't know how you came here, but it was at least better now when you had legs. You looked under the blanket and saw you had a dark blue dress on. It was beautifull. You stood up from the bed and looked around in the bedroom.

The bed you were in was not too small, but not too big either. It was in the corner of the room. This definitely wasn't the captain's room, or at least you hoped so... You started walking around the room. You had to get used to your legs. You hopped around a bit so your muscles could move a bit. It had been a long time since you used your legs. You were surprised that you still knew how to stand up.

The door opened again and the captain named Hyunjin entered. There was a table in the room where you sat. He had a plate of food in his hands.

'Here.'

you cautiously approached. It was hardtack and salt beef. It looked quite tasty.

'Thank you.'

you muttered. You sat at the table and began to eat quietly, not daring to look up at the captain. He just stood leaning against the door. He watched you eat everything. He also looked at your legs, it was strange that you first had a tail and now two beautiful shiny legs. It was fantastically impressive.

You looked to your right where he was standing. You looked him up and down. You had never really looked at him properly. He didn't look too unfriendly, he had long black hair, thick lips, he was also tall and muscular, but that's probably normal.

"What's your name, little girl."

You looked at your plate and didn't answer. He came closer and grabbed your chin.

"Answer the captain."

“Y/N…”

you said softly.

“Y/N, okay.”

He sat across from you at the table. His hands were together and he looked at you. His eyes seemed darker than ever. You kept looking at your plate.

"You're a strange creature."

'You too.'

He clicked with his tongue his inner jaw. The silence was a bit awkward.

He got up again and left again. You thought he was finally leaving for a while, but he came back in with his plate of food. He sat across from you again and started to eat. You watched his actions. It was quiet, you could hear the sounds of the sea. The ship moved a little, but the sea was quiet this time of year.

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

The two of you grew a little closer together, you always ate lunch together. You two talked sometimes. It was very quiet. You'll be sold in just 1 day. The captain had forgotten that, and he still didn't know. The captain became close to you. He came and sat with you, you talked about the ocean. He asked many things, all of which you had seen. It was nice to finally have someone with the same passion. He couldn't stay away from you, until today...

The ship sailed on the shore. The captain was still asleep. You were sleeping in the room next door, suddenly some sailors came to get you out of bed. They put a cloth over your mouth.

'Healthy enough to sell.'

You tried to stop them, you moved and tried to escape from their grasp. You pushed things over but they finally got you out of the ship. They grabbed your arms and dragged you away. Your anger swirled, you had sharp teeth, you bit the cloth from your mouth. They didn't notice yet because you were pretty quiet.

Before they know it you bit their hands, blood pouring from their bodies. You were still wearing the dark blue dress. The captain heard shouting and immediately went to your room, you weren't there. He ran outside to the deck and looked where the shouting was coming from. He saw the bloody hands of his crew members.

He saw you running to the beach, clutching the dress tightly to you. You ran deep into the water and finally dived into the water itself. No no no no, you couldn't leave, you couldn't leave him. Hyunjin took off some of his clothes and jumped into the water.

You no longer swim that fast because you were already used to your legs. You heard some water splashing. You turned around and saw Hyunjin swimming towards you. It was too dangerous here in the Ocean for a human like him. You swam far out into the sea, but you still saw the ship.

“Y/N.”

he tried to shout.

“Y/N, wait, please.”

you stopped and turned around. He tried to keep his head above water, but he was so tired. You saw him sink a little underwater. You immediately swam over to him and grabbed him in an embrace. You kept his head above water as you swam to a nearby shore. This one was a little further than the normal one, it was not really accessible.

You laid him down and started knocking water out of his body. You started mouth to mouth breathing. You made sure you scooped up enough air. His eyes opened again and he gasped. You were still giving him life support. He straightened his back and started coughing. You looked at his chest, which was heaving.

“Y/N.”

he said softly. His fingers slid over your cheeks.

"Don't leave me alone, please."

"You wanted to sell me."

'They came in without my permission. I would never sell you after the time I had with you.'

'The time?'

“I feel alive with you Y/N.”

You grabbed his face and pressed your lips against his. Your tongue slid through his mouth. Your hands interwined.

"Let's go back, okay?"

he put a piece of hair behind your ears.

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

Hyunjin carried you to his bed and laid you down. He trampled the members who took you. They were given community service for the coming months. They also came to you personally. Of course you forgave them, also because you bit them.

You lay on the bed and waited for Hyunjin to come back. He came in and locked the door. He sat on the bed next to you. He played with your hair. He started kissing your face softly. You took his hand and brought it under your dress. His fingers started rubbing your clit. He watched you react.

He lifted your dress and he attached his mouth to your clit. He devoured it, like a hungry man. Your back arched and you grabbed the sheet. He pinned your thighs on the bed, because they were a bit shaking. You came without a warning and he licked everything up.

You pulled his pants a little down so you could get his member out. You stroked it softly and brought it against your lips. You started licking the tip, your tongue slid over his length. Twirling around. You heard his whimpers above you. You saw some precum coming out.

Hyunjin positioned himself by your entrance. His face was already sweaty. He slid in with ease. He tore the dress loose so he could have access to your boobs. He nibbled on your nipples, with one hand he kneaded one of your breasts. You grabbed his chin and brought him back in for a kiss. You tasted each other.

His rhythm started to speed up. He pushed into you. He wanted you now, he wanted to feel everything about you. He grabbed your ankles with both hands and spread your legs wide. He pumped into you fast. He sucked your neck and licked everything he could reach. You threw your head back on the pillow.

'You are so Beautiful.'

he whispered in your ear. He started biting your earlobe. He let go of your ankles, but your legs remained open. He took one of your hands and placed it on the lower part of your stomach. You felt him pumping into you. You felt him all the way in it.

Hyunjin could already feel his orgasm coming. You felt drops of sweat falling on your body. He started to push into you more.

"Hyunjin, I am about to cum."

you said softly with your eyes closed. Hyunjin grabbed your chin so you looked at him as you came. You came moaning out his name, because of that he also came. You stared at each other for a while, just admiring each other.

Your hands went around his neck and you pulled him to you. Your arms surrounded his stomach. You were so small compared to him. You clung to him. His arms went to your waist. You fell asleep in this position with him.

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

It was night and you opened your eyes. You looked to your right and saw Hyunjin sleeping. You stood up and put your dark blue dress back on. You went outside to the deck. You walked around there a bit. You went to the edge and leaned your arms. You looked at the waves of the sea. You missed that cold water. You missed your hair being wet. You heard some creaking of planks.

“Y/N.”

you heard someone whisper in your ears.

“I miss the water Hyunjin.”

his hands surrounded your waist.

'I know.'

he whispered in your ears.

“But I can’t leave my ship Y/N.”

you looked at each other. Your look changed.

"We'll find a way."

you said

. "Let's go back inside, okay?"

“Okay, babe.”

You kissed his cheek. You were back in bed with him. His warmth felt good, maybe even better than the cold water.

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

Days passed and you felt homesick. You wanted to jump into the water, you couldn't help it. It was your siren instinct. You tried life on board, but it didn't work out. Every day you saw the beautiful waves, you saw fish and sea animals swimming. You wanted to swim with them, you wanted to go back to your family, to your friends,... You were on deck at night again. This looked like you were standing on the edge.

“Y/N, what are you doing?”

“I can't hold on anymore, I want to get in the water, Hyunjin.”

"We have a bathtub?"

"That's not the same."

“What do you want to say,Y/N.”

"I'm a Siren, I live in water, Hyunjin."

There was a silence between you.

'I understand.'

“I'll never forget you Hyunjin. I love you so much, I don't know if I can leave you. I want you to come with me, but you can't.'

He came closer to you and kissed you softly.

“I love you Y/N, I'm never going to find love again. I will never make love to anyone else but you again.'

He had a chain around his neck, he took it off. He brought the chain to your neck and put it on for you.

"So you don't forget me."

"We'll see each other again, I promise."

"I'm not going to let you go if I see you one more time."

You kissed him on the cheeks and turned around. You looked back again and then jumped into the water. Hyunjin watched as your legs turned back into a tail. You disappeared into the water. Tears rolled down his cheeks. His tears dripped into the water.

“I love you Y/N.”

[imshymorph]

It’s soft!Price once more, because i have issues.

So, talking about the possibility of you being the injured one…

John Price is a hypocrite and a liar, so much talking about how his last medical leave wasn’t anything, how he was fine. How much he’d insist he wouldn’t be all over you if you were the one with those injuries, because he knew it wasn't that worrying. All bullshit.

Here you are, a bunch of months later, being the one on medical leave. It had been one of those “it happened so quickly” situations. You and Gaz were entering a building in the lookout for some intel, thought the floor was clear, but a tango saw you from the connecting staircase and threw a grenade to the room you were entering.

- - - - -

You managed to grab one of the many straps on Gaz’s combat vest and pulled him with you to take cover. As you two landed on some ruble you felt a sickening crack on your side, one of your ribs giving in and breaking. You had been lucky enough, no organs punctured or injured. Even then, it meant at least six weeks of deskwork and limited movement, and an incredibly annoying and constant pain.

At least your new routine was easy to follow, alternating pain meds every five hours and avoiding putting extra strain on the hurt side. The worst part though? The damned breathing exercises and the fact that Price would walk in your office every two hours because “love, that’s how often the doctor said you had to do them.”

That was an overstatement really, because he’d walk in every two hours to specifically demand that you do the exercises. Always helping by holding a soft pillow to your side to avoid letting the cracked bone shift too much.

But in reality he was checking on you every ten or so minutes with whatever excuse he could think of. He’d bring you water, tea and biscuits… and the tray from the mess hall at lunch and dinner time, “so you don’t have to walk to the other side of the building, love”. He’d also make up excuses about reports, pointing out the dumbest typos or asking you to explain something (despite perfectly knowing what had happened because he was also there).

It wasn’t even a week in when you let out a sigh, the tenth time this morning he had come in with whatever excuse to check on you. He had made it, his objective accomplished. He knew had finally given in when your eyes moved from your computer screen to him. “John, you know what I was thinking? Why don’t I make space on my desk so you can work here with me. In case I need anything.”

As soon as the words left your mouth, a big smile was pulling at his. He left the room with a murmur of “anything for you, love”. That sneaky bastard, you thought as he walked in less than five minutes later. His laptop and a neat pile of reports on his hands, completely ready to make the move to your space.

[hitomisuzuya]

Hiiii How r u??<333

May I request Scara trying to complete NNN but Fem Reader keeps teasing him pls? Wearing short skirts and tight clothes making it hard for him <3

Scaramouche x fem!reader. Smut. Teasing. Masturbation. Scaramouche trying really hard not to have perverted thoughts.

I'm doing okay❤️ It was really fun to write this.

You would never forget the way Scaramouche boasted that he could do No Nut November easily. Truth is, he didn't put a lot of thought behind the declaration. Pretty much his only weakness was you. But, he was determined not to crack, no matter what you did to him.

It was little things that started getting to him a first. Like Smelling your shampoo while you were taking a shower, the tendrils of hot water reaching places he wish his fingers, his mouth and his cock could go. He thudded his head against the wall of his bedroom trying not to think about making you sucking his cock until the water in the shower turned cold.

The imprints of his fingernails in the palms of his hands would always be fresh and stinging, especially when you walked around in short skirts with thigh or knee high stockings. His cock throbbed when he saw the flash of a garter belt fastened around your thigh. He wanted to snap it on your thigh while he tongue fucked you into oblivion for teasing him like this.

You made it your mission to make it easy for him to hear you masturbating, even leaving the bedroom door cracked open to add to the temptation. It was so hard for him stop himself from palming and rubbing his aching cock when you would look right at him and moaned his name, spreading the lips of your pussy so he could see your fingers pumping in an out of you. His jaw would be sore from how hard he was gritting his teeth, wanting so badly to replace your fingers with his.

The worst day for him was when you straddled his thigh wearing no panties, whispering in his ear how you wanted to use his thigh to get yourself off. He wanted to push you off of him, his cock leaking and straining in his shorts hearing you whimper as you rubbed yourself into a wet, moaning mess on this thigh. At least he got to feast his eyes on your expression whole your cum soaked onto shorts. But that only seemed to make things so much worse all the same.

You would even leave your panties laying around your room, challenging him not to jack himself off into them. You enjoyed watching him struggle with the compulsion. He was hardly sleeping by this point, it was hard for him not to cum you were teasing him so much.

On the last week was when Scaramouche caved. You walking around in absolutely no panties and a short skirt. "Fuck this challenge," He hissed, pulling you to straddle his lap. God, it felt so good to grind up against you again. He knew he wouldn't last long, but he didn't care.

"S-Scara, you got so far," You moaned, making him growl as he grinds turned more urgent. He hissed in pleasured relief when cum spurted in his shorts. He was so pent up. Cumming once wasn't going to be enough.

Scaramouche flipped you over onto your stomach, yanking your skirt up once he'd freed his already hardening cock from what he'd considered the hellish prison of his shorts. "Brace yourself, kitten. We have weeks worth of fucking to catch up on," He groaned as he slammed himself inside of you, bottoming out at once with a quick snap of his hips.

The moan of relief he let out was long and husky feeling your walls tighten and clamp around his cock as he fucked into you from behind for the first time in almost a month. His fingers were feverish on your clit, his skin smacking aggressively against yours as he pressed your face into the pillows.

Scaramouche wasn't going to stop impaling you on his cock in various positions for hours, never stopping until his cock was milked completely dry. You had to be punished severely for putting him through this hell.

[the-dragon-hearted]

It would be really funny if everyone in Liyue knew their god wasn't dead, but they literally could not prove it.

Listen, there's at least one alchemist who spent weeks fuming, because it makes no sense for mora to keep its divine transmutation powers if the divinity powering it is dead - unless of course mora is some sort of independent divine extension which would mean their god was capable of creating an independent medium free of ties to divinity - (that guy spends three weeks holed up in his house trying to rewrite transmutation logic from the ground up before giving up because his theorems aren't working).

So the alchemists assume Rex Lapis isn't dead, because mora still works. They have to. Nothing else makes sense. That logic works pretty well with businessmen too.

The historians are losing their goddamn minds because every mythos and legend is in here claiming that Rex Lapis was the undefeated do-not-fuck-with-under-any-circumstances archon so for him to just fall out of the fucking sky cannot be possible unless they have HUGE problems.

50% lean towards a possible upcoming rapture (Because ain't no way the water dragon demon guy and his scorned wife were the killers of Rex Lapis. Nah it had to be something way worse) The other 50% just shrug and say it's impossible for their god to have been killed and Liyue to still be standing. And don't try to tell them he wasn't murdered because if he DID die, then he was 100%, absolutely, totally, without question murdered. He fell out of the sky like a dramatic bastard and everyone saw, that ain't how gods die peacefully, no matter WHAT those folks in the Jade Chamber say.

The conspiracy theorists go craaazy later in the evening when there's too much wine and someone brings it up. It can be impressive how deep their conspiracies though. Qiqi has repeated the strangest of them to Baizhu who's quite sick and tired of this thank you very much -

But you see, the local business owners, a few weeks into their mourning, started to notice something... odd.

It was a new regular. Nice guy. Pretty pleasant, and could be prone to rambling. He's ridiculously knowledgeable on... everything, especially relating to Liyue, and against all better judgment, plenty of business owners have asked him for advice.

There are the legends, of course. Morax would play the part of a passing merchant and peer into the common folk's lives, often visiting smaller businesses and gracing them with his patronage.

It's a crazy thought, and anyone who has it doesn't voice it, but... listen... at some point some things just make sense. And if they take down their memorials to their fallen god - if they snuff out the candles of mourning on their mantel - who could say?

They just smile and keep the best of their merchandise set aside, offering what they can in the quietest way possible.

It's the worst/best-kept secret because no one can outwardly say it. Lady Ningguang avoids it in conversation with a curt cough, the Traveler can be a bad liar (well, Paimon can be a bad liar), and the man himself is so obvious that the only reason he hasn't been outed is because his boss is too busy trying to sell people premium coffins.

I mean little Susy saw him standing on a ROOF with the last of the Yaksha's last Lantern Rite! No, she's not lying -

It's a gut feeling (It's denial, the merchants from Inazuma say). There's proof (there's not, the scholars from Sumeru sigh). He's literally right there! (That 'he' in question is currently short on mora - some god of commerce, c'mon give me a break!).

Liyue Harbor's secret is that their god isn't dead. But they can't prove it. Yes, he fell out of the sky and yes it was this whole thing and yes he's been MIA for a while now and yes the adepti all say he's dead -

BUT LISTEN, TRUST ME, HE'S NOT -

[junipers-archive]

Meeting The Parent

Word Count: 1k

Includes: Fluff, fluff, meeting Spencers mom in person for the first time!! (short sweet and hints toward marriage at the end :)

It had taken a lot of convincing, and maybe some reassurance on both of your parts, but you'd gotten Spencer to allow you on one of his less-than-often visits to his mom. You'd made the arrangements to take the small road trip with him this weekend and were prepared for the very worst or the very best outcome of the visit.

As of current you were awaitng the 'signal' Spencer had told you he'd give once he explained to his mom that you were here with him. You understood of course how very cautious he was to let people meet her and how protective he was about those he loved.

Hell, you were one of those people, and you loved being one.

Once you got tired of shifting your wait from foot to foot akwardly however, and as nurses passed you by, you decided to move closer to at least look like you were trying to find someone. Instead you got a few cut words from their conversation. His mom's voice being the first heard,

"You're dating her?"

"y-yea mom I'm dating her" he sounded dissapointed.

"why didn't you tell me?! You know you can tell me anything Spencer!" panic rose in you then, you'd been dating for quite substantial amount of time now, why hadn't he even mentioned it?

"I did tell you, you just forgot- Will-Will you just speak to her? Shes here with me, y/n?"

That was your cue, and no one had to know how fast you'd scrambled to meet them in the corner of the nursing home where they sat or how you attempted to slow your pace and heart as you got closer.

"Spencer go get me some water" Her voice wasn't completely monotone but it wasn't cheerful either, reminiscent of a protective mother more like.

"A nurse can get you water-"

"You're my son" She looked to him then "please, get me some water."

Spencer looked between the two of you then and you wondered whether or not he was asking permission from you or her about how to handle this situation. Nevertheless he gave an apologetic smile to you and waded off to find a nurse and get some water.

Thats when you started talking to her.

"Do you love him?" okay so no small talk.

"We love each other." you reply as smoothly as possible earning a nod of approval from her.

"He's special, my Spencer, very special. " At this point shes not even looking at you but has taken to staring wistfully out the window nearby instead. A golden shadow is lighting up the room as the sun sets and you take a seat across from her.

"He is." you agree, following her gaze mainly just to distract yourself.

"How long have you been together?" she looks down to figit with her fingers "I-uh- he talks alot about you and he probably has already told me but-"

"Almost a year in a few weeks."you smile to yourself then thinking of how happy you are to be with him at all.

"So you know him...you really know him don't you?"

"I like to think I do"

"Favorite movie." Its more of a command then a question, and you realize she's commanding you to tell her his favorite movie.

But you could play this game. You could play it all day.

"Le cercle Rouge (1970) but, if we're talking more movie night picking Spence i'd say The Godfather Part II (1974)."

She smiles slightly at this. "Book."

"The illustrated Man by Bradbury is one of his favorites but he's never been able to choose between that or The Narrative Of John Smith by Doyle."

She doesn't even flinch. "Play."

You sigh at that one, knowing she won't stop till he's back, or maybe not even then. "Well..."

You swear it takes him ages to get water and by the time he's back you're seated across from her taking most of her questions in stride. But its the last question right before he gets back that catches you slightly off-guard.

"Do you think you could love him more than I do?"

"I already do." your voice is even, and you're being completely honest with both yourself and her but your own reply surprises you and all it does for her is earn a scoff.

"Impossible" she's staring right at you now, smiling.

You smile back, "I beg to differ." And now he's back.

The subject changes drastically as Spencer asks her questions about how she's being treated, like the perfect son he is. But besides that you talk about the BAU and some of the recent cases, she surprises you when she's able to follow his brain's trace of mind better than most, perhaps better than you.

But after about an hour or two the conversation comes to a lull.

When you're both ready to leave you smile politely and say goodbye, leaving Spencer to say his goodbyes in private.

And despite your better judgement you need to hear what she thought, you need to know if you're good enough for him. So you go behind the same wall you'd been hiding behind in the beginning of the visit and listen, pretending to be on your phone.

"I-It was really nice seeing you, i'll come back tomorrow morning before we leave-"

"Y/n."

He clears his throat then, "yea, uh what-what about her?"

"You better marry that girl Spencer, and you better do it before I die-"

His voice goes up an octave,"Mom stop you're healthy-"

"I'm just saying, she's perfect for you and if you don't marry her before I uh...kick the bucket, I will haunt you for eternity!"

They both laugh then and you can hear the smile in his voice as he replies "Don't worry I wouldn't dream of letting her go."

And despite yourself, once more better judgement, you begin to grin as you head to the car and once you see Spencer in sight start to hint towards how fond you are of marriage.

[wraith-caller]

It's sort of funny Godrick is often shit on as the hated and despised and unwanted one, the "shame" of the family who has done the worst wrongs ever, etc but...

Morgott still protects him. Is the only one Morgott tries to protect, not even bothering to help defend Mohg(rather, "using" him as his own attack dog for the proscription under leyndell). During the call-out before Morgott's fight at the elden throne, he calls Godrick by his honorable epithet, "the golden". Yes he's still a traitor in Morgott's eyes, but he still makes the effort to protect him while leaving all the others for dead. This is one of Morgott's two last living links to his father and the last of the golden lineage. Even if his protection of Godrick is less about Godrick himself and more about that connection to Godfrey and the reverence of his lineage, Morgott still chooses to overlook the things Godrick has done wrong and protect that name. The idea that Morgott especially despises Godrick more than the others doesn't hold water for me because of this.

Beyond this, Kenneth says Godrick "fled" the capital while the Mimic's Veil specifies he was "hounded" from Leyndell. There are two very different implications about the circumstances of Godrick's escape here. Taking Kenneth's, it's implying Godrick ran away from the war. Taking the Veil's, Godrick was actively chased away! It's pretty clear Ken Haight has personal beef with Godrick, so of the two, I'm way more inclined to believe his is the one exaggerating the context in order to make Godrick look worse.

But then you've got to ask - from what was Godrick running? Why was he chased away? And I personally think the answer lies in the Golden Lineage Evergaol. Godefroy is said to have been captured by Kristoff during the First Defense of Leyndell. This is the war that a memorial speaks of, saying a "sovereign alliance rots from within", and that there are traces of a bloody conspiracy.

Could it be that Godefroy betrayed the capital in some way, and Godrick was hounded from the city out of fear he'd do the same? Or had he colluded with Godefroy over this? He's already known as the runt and the "diluted" remnants of a once great line, so it's not like the people of Leyndell thought highly of him to begin with. The fact that loads of soldiers fled Leyndell with him indicates there was some schism in the city, with at least some soldiers still seeing his status as the last of Godfrey's line as more important than anything else. The shards of the elden ring are not a factor here - Godrick is *specifically stated* to have inherited his great rune rather than stolen it, so whatever betrayal Morgott believes him to have committed does not have to do with this, and ditto for why he'd be run from the city.

Itd also be firmly into the Shattering by this point - we are at the first siege of the city, so rule of Leyndell from within is not a factor. Morgott is shown in the opening to be defending the capital, so it's fairly likely he's taken the throne by then.

So if Godrick wasn't scrambling for a shard, and the city has a ruler, and Godrick was hounded from it rather than fled from the war out of cowardice as Haight implies, AND we know he was looked down on by the people of Leyndell, and his relative Godefroy betrayed the city during the first siege, it seems most sensible he was chased off not for some crime but guilt by association. This expulsion from his home has clearly stayed with him, as he dies saying that some day they would return to Leyndell.

Left feeling powerless from a lifetime of mockery as well as from being chased from his own home, he turns to the same grafting as Godefroy, and becomes the monster of Stormveil we all know and love today!!