#but humanity and trauma are never a clean line forward

[thelastofustvficrecs]

WEEKLY FIC REC ROUND-UP 5/26/23

Summary: Riley and Sarah become regular subjects in their conversations, and then they become something more than that.

Or, how love endures and survives past the pain.

—TW: none

Favorite line(s): "Riley would've jumped." He goads her on, watching as she hesitates at the small cliff above the lake. 

"You fucker. Riley was insane and had no self preservation. I like my neck not broken." Ellie answers, gripping the rope with scared hands. 

Joel yells back up at her from the lake, "Didn't know I was raising a big ol’ chicken" And he bak bak baks at her which flares up her pride and has her taking a few steps back and running forward.

Why I love it: Cute and lighthearted, this story tackles Joel and Ellie overcoming their grief to remember and talk about the people they lost. Truly a great read if you’re looking for something short and sweet and touching. 

Summary: Ellie plays with his fingers. Joel’s got long fingers, scarred and strong. His hands are clean, his nails clean and trimmed too, which is nice. The skin is rough and calloused and a little dry, but they’re warm and they’re steady and they’ve cleaned blood from Ellie’s skin, they’ve braided her hair, they’ve killed men who were going to hurt her, they’ve cradled Ellie’s face in attempts to calm her down, and most importantly they hold Ellie whenever she so requests it.

---

Ellie and Joel bond over some of the little things that make us human - our touch, our hands, our languages, our love.

—TW: none

Favorite line(s): “Scooch,” she demands, shoving at Joel’s shoulder until he moves over enough for her to sit next to him. He sits up and tosses the blankets over their legs, one of his arms going around her shoulders to rest behind her on the pillows. Ellie leans into his chest and presents him with the book. 

“We’re gonna learn the Spanish names for some motherfucking animals,” she announces. 

Joel shrugs. “Alright.”

Why I love it: Beautifully thematic, this is a wonderful look at Joel and Ellie settled in Jackson with plenty of heartwarming moments. Truly a great read if you’re looking for some medium length reading that centers the softer aspects of Joel and Ellie’s relationship. 

As for the lost (we grapple) - No_Illusions

AU David attacks Joel instead of Ellie

Summary: There were footprints she didn’t recognize leading up to the house.

For a moment, Ellie couldn’t breathe, choking on the frigid morning air, and she had a horrible vision of her dying here, outside, mere yards from where Joel – where Joel –

He’s not dead, she told herself firmly. And he won’t be if I have anything to say about it.

---

What if David and his men beat Ellie back to Joel in episode 8, and she never got a chance to warn him they were coming?

—TW: Sexual Assault, mention of past suicide attempt (canon), Joel whump

Favorite line(s): "Ellie’s voice, prying its way into his mind. “Joel, where are you hurt?” And what the hell was he supposed to say to that? Everywhere? Or, I don’t know because my brain doesn’t feel attached to my body? Or maybe, It doesn’t matter where I’m hurt, I don’t think there’s any coming back from this moment?

Why I love it: Excellently written, this story examines what would happen if David had attacked Joel instead of Ellie. The consequences are heartbreaking, and the subject matter is treated with the utmost respect and attention to healing. Truly a great read if you’re looking for a longer fic with chapters (4) that respects the ensuing trauma and gets Joel and Ellie to a point where they can both heal from it.

Summary: The aftermath of Kansas City and the trek to Nebraska. Joel's a little under the weather, in more ways than one. He doesn't know how he's gonna make it. In more ways than one.

—TW: Joel whump (sickfic) 

Favorite line(s): She tugs him down beside her onto a wide stump, the faint light washing her features as soft as the snowy curves of the land, tracing her forehead. She's captivated, her expression caught somewhere between hushed awe and wild joy. He looks at her, and something stirs in his chest that aches and twinges. He looks back at the stars instead.

Why I love it: Wonderfully poetic, this story really digs at Joel’s desperate attempt to keep his distance from Ellie, all the while knowing that it’s futile, that he already loves her. Truly a great read if you’re looking for a medium length fic that centers Joel growing to realize he cares about Ellie.

Summary: There’s a lull in the conversation, so Tommy takes advantage of the pause. “Hey, Ellie,” he starts, and she shuffles against Joel, sitting up a little bit to make expectant eye contact.

“One of the broodmares at the barn looks like she’s going to give birth soon. Do you want me to come get you when she goes into labor so you can see and help if she needs it?”

Ellie’s eyes widen, suddenly awake.

---

Tommy and Ellie find they can bond over horses, family, and new life.

(title from the song Horses Are Faster by Ian Munsick)

—TW: none

Favorite line(s): Ellie’s eyes widen, suddenly awake. She looks up at Joel, which is something she does now, Tommy notices, she looks to Joel for permission, for agreement, for solidarity. Joel smiles down at her with a fondness that Tommy hasn’t seen in 20 years. Joel strokes a big hand over the back of her head, so gentle and loving that it makes Tommy’s heart ache. It’s a motion that was once so familiar but has been long, long lost. To see it again seems like something fragile, something sacred.

Why I love it: Beautifully written, this story centers Tommy finding a way to reach Ellie and bond on her terms. Truly a great read if you’re looking for a longer read that is grounded in Tommy and Ellie building a relationship.

[trellanyx]

Hiya! So i started watching Broadchurch bc of you (and sad scruffy david tennant tbh) and i jUST FINISHED SEASON 1 OMG ELLIE DID NOT DESERVE THE BS SHE WENT THROUGH I FUCKING KNEW SHE WAS TOO CLOSE TOO THE CASE IM AKSSJSJASKW anyways, i read that s2 didnt really live up to expectations from s1?? I was wondering what are your thoughts on it??? Can i watch s3 without watching s2??

Aaaay, my first conversion! I’m thrilled! And yes, Ellie deserves all the hugs after s1. As for s2 not living up to expectations, well, it depends on what your expectations are.

S2 is all about fallout, not only with Danny’s case, but Sandbrook too. It’s about the different and sometimes messy ways people cope with trauma, it’s about facing your demons (sometimes literally), it’s about intent vs perception, truth vs justice. It’s about the different ways people find closure (or don’t). It is, to me, an incredibly human season.

I loved it.

My sister hated it.

I’m going to put the rest of my thoughts under a cut for season 1 spoilers, BUT NO SPOILERS FOR SEASON 2. The tldr version is that I think s2 is worth watching, and it provides important context for s3, but you don’t have to watch it to follow along with the storyline.

Season 2 focuses on two things: Joe’s trial, and Alec trying to reopen the Sandbrook case. While Sandbrook is a delightful mystery a la season 1, this season focuses more on the characters and their interpersonal relationships. I’ll break down the reasons people like and dislike it, and you can decide for yourself. Again, I promise there are NO SPOILERS.

Dislike

So it’s no secret that the relationship between the Millers and Latimers took a HUGE blow when Joe confessed. If you didn’t like Ellie going through shit in season 1, then you might not like season 2 because this gets ratcheted up to 11. How could you not know, Ellie asked Susan, and now it’s her that has to answer the question. If you’re hoping for a lot of people to start off in Ellie’s corner at the beginning of the season, you’ll be disappointed.

 Joe’s trial is as brutal and hard to watch as you’d expect. The prosecution and the defense are damn good at their jobs, and it’s a no-holds-barred fight all the way down to the verdict. If you don’t like the idea of anyone defending Joe and putting a spotlight on everyone else’s dirty laundry, you may not like s2.

Sandbrook is a messy case. We already know this from Alec’s confession in s1, and seeing the effects of what it did to his mental and physical health. We cannonball down a rabbit hole as Alec tries to breathe life back into a case that is deemed DOA by everyone else. Sandbrook is a toxic and bitter case for everyone involved, and no one is anything less than 50 shades of gray (sorry, I had to). You may find the new characters intriguing, or you may find them too unlikable to bother with.

Everyone is going through grief and shock thanks to the trauma of Danny’s case and Joe’s reveal. They all process these feelings in different ways. Not all of them are sympathetic.

Like

No one acts like they do without reason. You may not like the actions, but the motivations are understandable and painfully, beautifully human.

Alec’s backstory is fleshed out and it’s heartbreaking in a way only the sweetest angst can be. You know the kind. Watching how much he cares, how hard he’s trying, what he went through and is willing to go through to get justice for Pippa and Lisa will make you love him even more than you do. He also goes through some great character development.

Ellie’s strength through this entire nightmare is a goddamn treasure. Even when she’s in pain, even when she’s screaming and crying, even when it feels like she’s utterly alone, she never stops fighting and she never sacrifices who she is, never turns into something twisted by bitterness and pain like Alec did. You’ll be so proud of her by the time it’s over.

Alec and Ellie’s relationship also gets development, and the power dynamic becomes more balanced. Alec softens, Ellie hardens. Even when every other character has turned their backs, Ellie and Alec are there for each other 100% of the way. He’s a support system for her, she’s a fighter for him. Alec is clearer about his respect and trust for Ellie, and Ellie gives as good as she gets when he starts on with his shit, in a way she didn’t (and couldn’t) in season 1. They’re a well-oiled machine by season 3, but it’s season 2 that assembles the parts.

Sandbrook is a good mystery. Whether you like it as much as Danny’s case is a matter of personal preference, but imo it’s a good story with good twists.

LGBT content. ;) Though for the sake of keeping expectations realistic, it stays subtext up until the finale. But what a finale.

I strongly recommend giving season 2 a try. It all comes down to preference. Like I mentioned above, the things I loved about it were the things my sister hated about it. You’ll also start of season 3 with a much stronger foundation than you would if you skipped 2. Definitely gonna be some moments of, “oh shit, when and how did that happen?”

If you want, message me off anon and I can tell you the s2 spoilers you need to know going into s3. But I 100% recommend watching s2 in its entirety. I wasn’t disappointed, and hopefully you won’t be either.

[stuckinapatriarchalbullshitland]

Lauren for Paper Magazine

Lauren Jauregui Heals From Her Breakup With 'Always Love'

by Justine Fisher

20m

Three years later, Lauren Jauregui is addressing her 2019 split with Ty Dolla $ign. The singer releases her vulnerable and honest breakup ballad, “Always Love,” out everywhere.

After the pair’s two-year relationship ended, the former Fifth Harmony member put her emotions into words on “Always Love.” Following her debut solo album, PRELUDE, Jauregui said the soulful new track is one of her most special songs because of how it is able to heal others when they hear it.

Related | Lauren Jauregui and Chika Are the Role Models They Never Had

For the artist whose range includes hip-hop, R&B and pop, Jauregui’s sultry vocals on “Always Love” express her sense of nostalgic love. Though she sang the demo back in 2019 when feelings were raw, Jauregui shares it with the world now for fans to know they can experience heartache without the bitterness.

To unpack the emotive track, Jauregui spoke with PAPER about the cathartic recording process, the love she’ll always have for anyone that has touched her heart and everything she hopes fans feel when they listen.

“Always Love” is about your high profile breakup. Lyrically, what inspired you to write it?

I wrote the song back in 2019, so, it was inspired by the high profile breakup that you allude to. At the time, I was processing and grieving something that was really special to me. I wrote the song with Trey Campbell, and he was so beautifully able to receive my vulnerability. Between the two of us, we were able to convey what I was feeling, which was this kind of nostalgic love, where I knew that I had to move forward, but I still had a lot of love in my heart. I wrote the song from that perspective, which is why it’s called “Always Love.”

Because your relationship was so in the public eye, do you feel like that contributed to the song?

Even beyond a story of heartbreak and breakup, it was just two humans who were in love and who did that. We were together for two years, so it was one of those things that impacted us as humans. I grew up a lot while I was with them, just in general, as a person. I feel like the song transcends that specific relationship, and is applicable to all my relationships — any kind of connections I've had with lovers or friends, that have come to pass because we weren’t in the same place anymore. We didn't want the same things. Beyond having a public relationship, it was a human one.

To that end, what do you feel like is the message or theme of the song?

The message is in the title, so, “Always Love.” The whole premise of what I'm speaking about is, the fact that no matter what transpired between us, and even though there was pain that was exchanged, it was always from a place of love and trying to love and understand each other. A lot of times, that's not as clean cut as we want it to be because a lot of us come from trauma. We're out here trying to love each other through the lens of someone who's been hurt. So we're projecting onto each other and we get to a point where it doesn't work anymore. The song’s theme and energy is exactly in the title, which is that there's always going to be love for anyone that has touched my heart.

Did writing the song feel cathartic to you?

It was cathartic. The song you guys are hearing is the demo. I sang that in the room on a mic in the room itself. I didn't even go into the booth to do any of it. It was so raw and organic. Every time we would finish writing a line or a part, I would put it down immediately. I remember the last chorus I was recording, I actually recorded myself doing it. It was one take and exactly the one we used. I cried because I felt like you said, it was cathartic to be able to put how I actually felt into words because I feel like a lot of breakup songs are usually very bitter and focused on either how terrible I feel about myself or how fucked up of a person someone else was to me. Rightfully so, for a lot of people that is their truth, but for me, I didn't feel all of that. Like I say in the song, “Even though we’ve hurt each other more than once, it was love, always love.” I'm able to have this capacity to understand who people are beyond who they need to be for me. In that, I'm able to love somebody beyond whether or not they were able to show up the way I needed at that time in my life.

With that raw, organic way of writing and recording the song, is that always how you do it? Or was that specific to the subject matter of this song?

It's not always how it goes for me. My process is different every time. Sometimes I really have something I want to say, and sometimes I don't and I'm more drawing from experiences that have already happened. This one in particular was very raw. I was very vulnerable that day. I was feeling genuine feelings. I was actually feeling sad. I didn't even really want to write that day. But Trey made it real safe for me to be honest about how I was feeling, and then helped me formulate that into words and put the right melodies to it. Malay’s production is just so melancholic and also bright at the same time, which is what the tone of the song is. Yes, there's this nostalgia and yes, it's kind of sad, but at the same time it's hopeful and happy because the respect and love is still intact. There's no hard feelings.

How does it feel to put something so personal out to the public for millions to listen to?

It's one of those beautiful things about what I get to do, to be honest. The song has done for me what it needed to do the second that I wrote it. After I wrote that song, I was able to let go of those feelings, and I was able to process how I was feeling and make sense of it. It really helped my personal grieving process. Putting it out to the world is just with the hope that it finds somebody who needs it, and they can hear these words and feel seen or feel reflected and heal a part of them too.

How do you think fans are going to react to the song?

The core fans have already been hearing it for years. I wrote it three years ago, so I'm genuinely beyond the space that I was in when I wrote it. I just think it's such a beautiful song and it deserved to see the light of day. At the time, I was still involved with a lot of label politics. I'm now independent and I can release things of my own volition with my own vision in mind, and that's why it's taken so long to be properly released to the world because I didn't want to just throw it on a project. To me, it's one of the most special songs that I've written. I've been playing it, singing it to people for three years now, so I've seen different reactions. Different people of all kinds of gender, race, religion, they're able to relate to it because it's just such a real feeling. I just wanted it to be real special when it finally hit the world.

"I'm able to love somebody beyond whether or not they were able to show up the way I needed at that time in my life."

What makes this song different from your previous releases?

I wouldn't say it's necessarily different. I feel like I'm always quite vulnerable and honest in my lyrics. That's my craft, being able to express myself through words and melodies and be able to sing it, so I wouldn't say it's different. It is special to me because it just hits. I don't know how to explain it. Some songs are vibes, some songs are hits and this one, to me, hits. When I say hits, I don't necessarily mean everybody's hearing it all over the world because it gets them moving. This one hits, like it hits you in the soul. It hits you in the spirit. It makes you stop and think about somebody. Everybody's gonna think about somebody when they hear it. I hope that, when they think about that somebody, they're able to heal that piece of themselves that was unable to understand that they didn’t have to be bitter about it. They can let it go and let it just be, always love.

With the song being written in 2019, does it hit the same way for you?

I do feel the same feelings. It transcends the situation for me. It's applicable to all the lovers that I've had. It's applicable to friendships or family relations that didn't exactly go as planned. It's a testament to good songwriting when you can have a song written three, four years ago, and put it out three, four years later and people still will feel it. Instead of it being a time capsule of a sound, it is beyond that. It's not a trend of any kind of sort. It's just an honest, raw song.

Is that something that you aspire to for all of your songwriting?

Yeah, I definitely want to make timeless music. I want to make music that people can listen to in any era, in any time of their life and for it to mean something different to them, maybe, but still have the same resonance because of what I'm saying. Because I'm telling my story, I'm reflecting humanity in the moment through my experience.

With the time difference from 2019 to now, do you feel like "Always Love" aligns with what you're doing now?

It definitely aligns. Musically, I don't really feel like I fit in anywhere specifically. I really experiment with sound to mean something to me. When I think of the sounds that I like to use when I'm creating a song or the concepts that I like to play with, I just care about being real. I care about being myself. Maybe that's a selfish process, but that's kind of what art is for me. It's just an expression and I'm grateful to share it with people because art is one of the most healing powers on this planet. Especially with music, the frequencies that we share with people are powerful.

My intention is to always be raw and honest in my music, whether that's on a pop record or a singer-songwriter record or an R&B track or a dance track. When I go into the studio, I love to get into the beat and just allow the music to tell me what I want to say. Sometimes I go in with an idea already of what I want to talk about, so I can create a sonic landscape around that concept. But always the concept and the sounds you're hearing are going to be related somehow, whether it's that I want to create a juxtaposition and I want to write about something really happy and have those sounds feel melancholy, or I'm writing something more melancholy so I'm going to tap into a lost love. I always want a correlation between the sounds and what the sounds evoke in you.

What emotion do you think the sound will evoke from people?

It has that happy nostalgia. That's what it evokes for me, this calm nostalgia of like, “I do really miss this, or dang, I do really feel deeply about this person or this experience, even if it was in the past.” Even if I wasn’t experiencing it, I'm able to relate to the feeling of still loving somebody even though we've been through it together and even though we know that we can't be together anymore. I think that's such a universal experience for people who are romantic in that sense.

Is a lot of your music intended to pull a universal reality?

I like for it to. I don't know if I always will hit that because all I can do is express from my perspective. There's a lot of perspectives that I probably won't be able to tap into, specifically, but generally speaking I feel like the majority of us have a very similar experience on this planet. We all go through love and loss, in different capacities, in different ways. The realities of the life we're all in, which is post-colonial capitalism and super driven by productivity and kind of a furtherance away from togetherness and from vulnerability is what I see around me. I'm just intentional about making sure that I keep that alive for myself, that I allow art to always be a place that I can go to to say something true or something real, whether it's my personal experience or just what I'm seeing, because sometimes I'm just a storyteller too. There's all kinds of ways that your pen will be ignited. Sometimes it's a story my friend told me, sometimes it's reminiscing on something that happened in childhood, sometimes it's the way that the rain looks today. It just depends on the mood.

Is there else you'd like to say to your fans?

I would love, if you're reading this right now, maybe you would actually go take a listen and watch the video and let me know how it makes you feel and if it evokes someone for you. I'm just curious to see how it makes people feel.

__________________________________________________

I have to say that I understand why managements should love written interviews. I believe that Lauren could say everything she said in this interview but I can't stop remembering the interview with Zach Sang where she practically forgets about Ty Dolla when Zach asked her about him.

This is my dear folks what it means to follow a narrative. Lauren has a bisexual narrative to follow so, in a written interview she "talks" about her public PR and tres doritos después we have what we had with those "halloween costumes" because some silly people still can't understand that our moonchild is bisexual 🤦🏽‍♀️

BTW, she mentioned two years and I can't stop thinking about Camila singing did we waste two years... my problem? Dates, folks. I'm completely lost with dates with these two girls.

[babyjakes]

forever and a day | 22. an old-fashioned taste in names.

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summary | a story in which america’s favorite captain gives a new life and family to a five-year-old girl who has suffered well beyond her years at the hands of hydra.

characters | dad!steve rogers, girl/willa rogers (original character)

warnings | AU similar enough to OU to include spoilers to many Marvel movies (Age of Ultron and beyond). action and fight scenes with violence and killing. injuries/mild gore. mature themes related to and semi-graphic depictions of the aftermath of child abuse/neglect (emaciation, wounds, scarring, etc). mentions/descriptions of past CSA and CSM. medical abuse and experimentation. ptsd/trauma symptoms in a child (developmental discrepancies, de-humanized behavior, detachment, extreme fears). medical treatment of CSM and other aftermath of abuse.somewhat evil!Tony Stark (eventually).

[Steve]

Bruce didn’t really have an option when it came to sedating Girl to treat her bullet wound; it was clear from the get-go that she was in too much pain to handle going through the process conscious. Thankfully, she went down easily. Bruce just explained to her gently that he was going to make things better, and that he was going to give her some medicine so that she wouldn’t feel anything. Within what seemed like moments of him placing the drip, she was out like a light.

Now, the bullet has been completely removed, and Bruce has tended to the wound properly. A large bandage covers the child’s side, protecting the many newly-made stitches. I’ve moved from my spot on the edge of her bed to a fold-out chair a few feet away. Peter’s next to me, his leg bouncing anxiously. “She’ll be out for a little while longer, most likely,” Bruce comments as he removes his final pair of gloves and disposes of them. Shifting over to the sink, he pumps his palm full of soap before switching on the faucet and beginning to scrub. “Her line is transitioning from the sedative to purely pain management; I’m hoping it’ll be a smooth switch over, but you never know how someone might end up feeling as they come to.” As the doctor finishes explaining his plan, there’s a knock on the door. “Come in,” Bruce raises his voice.

The door swings open to reveal a panicked looking Tony. His hair is uneven, one or two of the buttons on his shirt messily undone. Clint and Nat stand behind him, both looking concerned as well. “Oh god,” Tony says as his eyes fall upon the sleeping body in the bed. He steps forward, running a hand through his hair, the two behind him filing in and closing the door behind the three of them.

“We got the bullet out. It was lodged pretty deep in there, but the removal was fairly clean. She’ll take a while to heal up, but it could have been a lot worse. She was maybe an inch away from puncturing her stomach,” Bruce says, drying off his hands with a paper towel.

“How did this happen?” Tony asks, not seeming to be questioning anyone in particular. “She left that safe-house and came back here with a bullet in her side? There was no complaining of pain, no blood, no nothing?” I can hear the frustration rising in his voice, and I sigh.

“Tony, we had no idea,” I tell him evenly. “She didn’t show any signs of being hurt. I didn’t catch it. Wanda didn’t. Clint didn’t, none of us did.”

Tony sucks in a breath, turning to me with a sharp look in his eyes. “So you’re trying to tell me that this kid just took a shot to the fucking gut and you didn’t notice?” he spits, this time clearly directing his harsh words at me.

“Tony,” Nat warns.

The man shakes his head, silent for a moment before continuing, though his voice has shifted now, and his gaze has softened. “Look, I- I’m sorry, Cap. I’m sorry. I just- I hate that we’re only like- a week into this, and the kid’s already been shot.”

“Sh-she said she didn’t make a sound because Steve told her to be quiet while she was hiding,” Peter whimpers, his eyes brimmed with tears. “They shot her, and sh-she was too scared to even…” The kid’s voice trails off, Nat instinctively stepping over and placing a hand on his shoulder comfortingly. “I don’t know how she didn’t scream or cry. I-I wish she would’ve told me. I would’ve brought her to Bruce right away, I swear. I’m sorry I didn’t notice - I sh-should’ve noticed. Noticing things is what I do. I-I’m so sorry. I-”

“Hey kid, it’s okay. We all probably should’ve been keeping a closer eye on her. But the important thing now is that she’s safe,” Clint speaks up. There’s a round of nods in agreement, and Tony steps closer to the bed, sitting down on the edge of the mattress. He reaches out and strokes Girl’s cheek; still deep in her slumber, she doesn’t stir. The dark-haired man swallows hard, and I can see tears forming in his eyes. Leaning forward slightly on the front half of my chair, I look over at Peter, Clint, and Nat.

“Thanks for coming to check on her, guys. I think Tony, Bruce, and I can handle things for now,” I say, politely trying to clear the room out a bit. They all nod at me, taking the hint.

“Let us know if anything changes, or if you need anything,” Nat replies. As her gentle eyes meet mine, a familiar feeling of warmth spreads across my face. Natasha has always had a way of saying “I care about you” without ever having to open her mouth.

Peter turns to me, his breaths a little bit shaky. “Mr. Rog- Ste- Cap, I-I-” he stutters, “I’m s-so sorry I didn’t notice. I’m so sorry,” he chokes down a sob.

“Hey- easy, Peter, you’re alright,” I assure the boy, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Nobody blames you. We all missed it. And for good reason; she was doing a damn good job at hiding it. You have no reason to apologize.” The teen nods, but his guilt is still written all over his face.

“Hey, why don’t we go up and get some food, hmm? I think we have a brownie mix in the pantry we could whip up. I’m sure Thor would love to join us, too,” Natasha soothes, her motherly side coming out as it often does with Peter (and more recently, with Girl.)

The shaky kid turns to her and nods, rising to his feet. Without another word, the pair, along with Clint, exit, closing the door behind them. Bruce finishes tidying up his workspace and comes over to sit next to me in Peter’s place. Letting out a deep sigh, Tony turns so that he’s more directly facing us. For a good while, no one says a word.

“Sam brought up the idea of giving her a name,” I say softly, finally breaking the silence. Tony nods, a thoughtful look crossing his face. “He said he thought calling her ‘Girl’ permanently was a bad idea. I guess I don’t disagree.”

“It would probably help her to have a better concept of identity. I don’t know if you guys have noticed this, but she exclusively talks in the third-person. It’s most likely some sort of trauma complex. The way Hydra talked about her in front of her had to’ve influenced her speech and thought patterns. Giving her a name could help her develop a sense of self,” Bruce explains.

“Yeah, I’ve noticed that. It’s always 'Please don’t hurt Girl,’ not 'me,’” I agree. “I wasn’t sure if it was just an age thing or what. But a 'trauma complex’ makes sense.”

“When kids learn to talk, around one or two, they generally shift to first-person pronouns pretty quickly. I’m almost certain Hydra’s practices just caused a disconnect,” the doctor replies.

“A name, huh? That seems like a big decision,” Tony worries aloud. “I have enough trouble naming the AI’s. Tried naming one after one of those pop idols the other day. Pete put me through the wringer for that one.”

“Well, do you have any ideas?” Bruce asks, looking at both of us. “If she were a little older, and maybe not so sheltered, it might make sense to ask if she had a name she liked. But I think for now, that might be a difficult question for her to answer.”

“Yeah, my guess is she would pick a name from that TV show Peter showed her… what’s it called? The one with the dogs, and they’re like- policemen or something… I don’t know,” Tony shakes his head. “I can’t remember the title. Anyway, if we let her pick something like that, I doubt in ten years she’d be happy with us.” My mouth curves up in a small smile towards the man as Bruce chuckles in agreement. Something about his words sticks with me, though, for a reason completely unrelated to names. In ten years. She’ll be fifteen. It’s hard to look so far into the future, to conceptualize the fact that someday she’ll be a teenager. And we’ll be her… dads? “Have you put any thought into it, Cap? I think I’m a little out of my element on this one,” Tony admits, interrupting my train of thought.

Shifting in my seat slightly, I nod. “I guess I have a few ideas,” I say modestly. “I don’t know if they’d be your style, though, Tony. My taste tends to be a little bit… old-fashioned.”

“You know what, normally, you’d be right, but I actually don’t think I mind that when it comes to names,” Tony shrugs. “I’m not saying I wanna name her 'Myrtle’ or anything. But something with a classy feel could be nice. What did you have in mind?”

Thinking for a moment, I ponder on the few names I had collected while watching Bruce stitch Girl up as they return to me in a jumbled mess of a list. “Charlotte’s alright,” I start. “We could call her Lottie for short. I like Elizabeth. Madeline, too.”

“Those are nice… all a little long, though,” Tony points out, not seeming too sold on any of the suggestions so far as his brow furrows in thought. “I get she could have a nickname, but I was kinda thinking something simpler than that.” I nod. Fair enough. “It’ll make learning to write out her name a breeze, which has gotta be something she’s already late on. Got any shorter ones? Four is the perfect amount of letters,” he adds with a wink, causing me to smirk faintly.

“Shorter ones, huh? I guess there are a few of those. Nora is nice. So is Rose. I don’t know, though. What do you-… what do you think about Willa?”

“Willa,” Tony repeats back, the name seeming to sit nicely on his tongue. “I’ve never met a Willa. It’s pretty, though. Unusual. Why, is that your favorite?” I nod, my gaze falling somewhere beyond where Tony’s sitting.

“I used to know a girl named Willa, back long before I went under the ice,” I tell him. Flashes of the young girl play in my mind, her brown hair glowing almost golden in the sunlight, the way her long white skirts would always balloon around her legs when she twirled. The heavy freckles dotting her cheeks and nose like a whole heaven full of stars, the tenderness in her eyes so warm and wild.

“Seems like it’s got some pretty special meaning,” Tony smiles gently, sensing the importance of this memory. I nod, a small smile forming on my face in return.

“Buck and I knew her from the neighborhood. We were little, grade-school, I think. She reminded me so much of a baby animal, just like Girl. The name makes me think of home. Makes me feel like… home.”

“Willa,” Tony tries out the name again. “I like it. Would’ve never thought of it myself, but that’s exactly why I left the brainstorming to you. What d'you think, big green?” he asks, turning to Bruce as the doctor groans at the nickname.

“I like it. There’s something special about it; I can’t put my finger on it. I don’t know, though. I don’t feel like I have any say in this. You guys are the- the 'parents’, after all,” Bruce reminds us.

“Well, if it’s just up to us, then would it be safe to say we’ve come to a decision?” Tony asks me. I nod, my heart swelling with warmth at the choice.

“The transition into using it should probably be a gradual process,” Bruce advises. “You might want to wait for her to heal up a bit before you even present the idea to her.”

“Yeah, I figured. She’s got an awful lot going on right now as it is,” Tony agrees.

Suddenly, there’s a slight movement on the bed, immediately catching all of our attention. Our eyes all shift to the little body lying beside Tony as one of her legs begins to twitch. Then, her head turns from one side to the other. Her eyebrows furrow, a small whimper escaping her lips. “Is she alright?” Tony asks, concern crossing his sharp features.

“She’s probably just waking up,” Bruce reassures him, and as if on cue, Girl’s big green eyes blink open at his words. The first thing she sees is Tony. Her bottom lip begins to quiver, and her eyes trail over to Bruce. Then, her gaze lands on me, and as soon as I’m identified, tears well up in her eyes, a terrible sob erupting from her throat. A heavy feeling of guilt twists in my chest as I soften my gaze at her, opening my mouth to try to offer her some comforting words. But as soon as I do, the girl flinches violently, weakly raising up her arms to cover over her ears. As memories of the safe-house flash in my mind, I’m reminded of how I raised my voice so intensely, how much that must’ve scared her. The good news is, it seems that her bullet wound is no longer bothering her. Unfortunately, this means she has no distractions, now entirely wrapped up in how fearful she is of me.

“Hey kiddo,” Tony murmurs, reaching out a hand to the trembling child. Girl cowers away, her cheeks turning red as they’re soaked by tears. “It’s okay, you’re alright. How are you feeling?” the dark-haired man asks gently. “Does anything hurt?” The child looks at Tony, then at me, whimpering as her eyes once again meet mine. Suddenly, a loud beeping noise rises from one of the machines Girl is hooked up to. Bruce is on his feet immediately, rushing to check what’s gone wrong.

“It’s her heart rate. She needs to calm down. Girl, hey, I need you to take some deep breaths for me, okay? Do you think you can try for me?” But Girl doesn’t respond. Instead, she just stares at me, her teeth beginning to gnaw on the inside of her cheek as she cries.

Bruce turns to me, heartbreak written all over his face. “Hey, Steve, maybe it would be a good idea if you stepped out for a bit, just until we can get her calmed down,” he suggests. I can feel tears building in my own eyes at his words, but I nod, knowing he’s right. I slowly rise to my feet, causing Girl to press herself back against the hospital bed, her hands moving to cover her face as her knees raise up to her chest, her whole body crumpling in on itself.

“Alright, I’ll just be out in the lobby. Please come get me when you think it’s safe,” I reply. Tony gives me a sympathetic look, and Bruce nods. Taking one last glance at the panicking girl on the bed as I leave the room, the look of trepidation in her eyes burns deep down into my stomach.

The walk back down the long hallway is silent, the only noise being my shoes’ slight squeak against the linoleum floor. When I reach the lobby, I take a seat on one of the benches, hunching down, my elbows resting on my knees as my face finds its way into my hands. Of course, I’m completely alone. While this floor acts as a miniature hospital when needed, there’s almost never anyone here. Its only purpose is for when someone on the team is injured; I can’t remember the last time I was down here. I take a deep breath, puffing it out, trying as best I can to shake the sight of Girl’s tear-filled eyes from my mind. But it’s no use. The image haunts me. “God,” I mumble quietly to myself. “What am I going to do?”

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[catxsnow]

FIVE TIMES DICK GRAYSON HUGS

Request: How about ideas about hugs and cuddles from Dick? Fluff is an important part of a balanced fandom after all

Warning: fluff, mentions of sex but pg, mentions of blood

A/N: A little bit of a different layout but soft nonetheless 

Word Count: 2.2k

i) Dick Grayson in the mornings

Dick always has trouble getting up in the morning. He doesn't like the bright sunlight breaking through his blinds or the loud crashes of his neighbors from getting ready in the mornings. Sleep always calls for him the moment his alarm goes off and he despises the idea of actually having to get out of bed.

He finds himself grabbing at any excuse just to stay a few moments longer. Maybe a 'I showered last night I don't need to this morning' or 'I'll make coffee at home today so I don't have to wait in line'. Any little thing to be able to sleep in for just five more minutes.

It's even more impossible when you're staying with him. He finds himself turning off his alarm only to roll over and snuggle into you. Big arms wrapped around you, legs tangled. He's got the most ridiculous bedhead in the world but god is it adorable on him. Dick's still half asleep and he can't even bring himself to leave a kiss on your cheek.

More times than not he falls back asleep again. It's hard not to when the love of his life is asleep in his arms. However, he often gets in trouble too. Showing up late for work or getting an angry phone call from Bruce or the team that he's not there.

It's impossible to get him off of you too when he's sleepy. Dick becomes completely dead weight and half his body is always on top of yours. Waking him is just as hard. Once he's asleep somewhere he feels safe, he's not getting back up. Mumbles in his mornings voice, squeezing you tighter, he's completely adorable when he's trying to sleep.

“Just a couple more minutes baby.”

Dick likes to blame the reason he gets stuck in bed so often on you - but truth is that's all on him. He's always struggled to get up in the morning and after long nights of being a hero, it doesn't help.

ii) Dick Grayson coming home from a long day

It doesn't matter where you are or what you're doing, if he's had a terrible day at work, he's swooping you up and carrying you to bed. He doesn't do that very often, only when he's on the verge of a breakdown. So, when he does pull a little stunt like that, you know that he's upset.

“I missed you today, my love.”

He pours his heart out during those times. Venting to you about his issues, his feelings, how frustrated he is that he can't change what's happened. It's heartbreaking to see him like this because he's trying so hard to keep himself together when he's clearly breaking at the seams.

Dick doesn't want you to see him when he's vulnerable and weak like this. He's always supposed to be the strong one. He's supposed to be the one who always knows what to do, who's always going to have a plan. Truth was, he couldn't be that person - at least not all the time. On the days that he couldn't, he looked to you for answers.

He'd find himself wanting you to encase him completely. Dick's safe in your arms, no matter the situation. He knows that this is the time that he can truly break down and you'll always accept him. There's nothing that he ever needs to worry about when he's with you.

Blankets mountain over you both. Dick's got his head on your chest, sometimes your stomach when he's curled up even more than usual. When he's in his bad moods, it's like he needs to hear your heart to remind him that he too is human. He can only handle so much before he snaps. His arms are tight around you, keep you so close that sometimes it's hard to breathe.

In those moments it feels like his hold on you is the only thing keeping him sane, the only thing that's keeping him grounded to earth. Dick has his times where no words can fix his issues, but your actions can. A simple hug, kiss, hand rubbing his back that reminds him that not everything in this world is out to get him.

It's those times that you know to be extra loving with him. Tell him how much you love him, how you adore what he does for this world, how important he is in your life.

iii) Dick Grayson after a night of patrol

Every night, the only thing he has to look forward to is coming back home to you. No matter how many times he gets beaten down, he knows he has to get back up to get home to you. Dick knows you're waiting for him, worried out of your mind as whether or not he'll make it back alive.

So, when he gets back, stripped of his suit and a shower that washes away his dirt and grime of the night, he finally makes his way into bed with you. His body aches from the hits he got, even when he's in the warmth of your bed. He's exhausted by the time he gets home to you, and it's a struggle to even clean himself up.

No matter how tired he is, how sore he is, he always pulls you into his chest to give you a kiss. It's his way of telling you that he's made it home safe, even if he's barely hanging on some days. It's a silent 'I love you' when he can't get the energy to say it out loud.

When he holds you close at night, it's his only way of being able to fall asleep. He doesn't think about the horrors he's seen at night when he's with you, he doesn't think about how much trauma he's been through. All Dick can think about is you, everything that there is about you.

“I’m glad you’re safe and back with me, Dick.” 

“I’ll always come home to you.”

His nightmares don't plague him. He doesn't wake up randomly throughout the night. Being with you lets him be in peace.

When he cuddles you at that point in his day, he envelopes you completely. His arms are tightly wrapped around you so you're flush against his body. Dick nuzzles himself into the crook of your neck and his legs are perfectly lined up behind yours. He's found himself reliant on you to be able to fall asleep.

In the winter, when it gets cold out, Dick just absorbs your body heat. He craves it when he's out as Nightwing. The cold winds bite at his skin and he's consumed with the memory of your body warmth. He hates feeling cold when he knows that he could easily quit early and come back to you.

On some lucky nights - or maybe unlucky if you look at it - when his body is really sore, you'll offer up a massage. Dick can never say no. You'll find yourself sitting on his butt as he lays on his stomach. Scars and wounds lacing the skin on his back and his tense muscle aching for your touch.

Dick falls asleep like that all the time, no matter what. You could be telling him about your day or even he'll be telling you about his and he'll fall asleep mid-sentence. He wakes up refreshed every time you offer to do it for him, and more times than not he'll always find a way to repay you back.

iv) Dick Grayson on rainy days.

He loves having rainy days with you. Not necessarily rainy days - but the kind of days that he gets to be free of worry from the outside world and just focus on you. Hours upon hours that he gets to relax, often for the first time in months. Those days always seem like a blessing to him, especially when he gets to spend them with you.

Watching movies where he gets to cuddle you on the couch. The both of you laying on your sides. Dick's pressed against the back of the couch with his arms tightly around you so that you don't fall off the edge. He leaves annoying (adorable) little kisses at the back of your neck and a lot of the time tickles your sides.

Or you'll be in the kitchen, baking cookies or brownies, or whatever Dick wanted that day. He's always standing behind you, arms around you and chin resting on your shoulder. His eyes are glued to your movements, adoring how you can make something so mundane so beautiful at the same time.

On days that the rain is pouring outside, Dick will drag you outside - whether it be a balcony, a rooftop, to just the streets. He's got you out in the freezing cold where the rain is soaking your clothes and your clinging onto him for any remnants of body heat.

Dick wants to give you that cheesy, cliche, kiss in the rain. He wants to hold you, to kiss you, to tell the whole world how grand his love is for you. Hands cupping your cheeks, lips molding perfectly to yours. He can feel the drops of rain slipping between you, but it's never enough to get him to pull away. The cold ignites through his body but the warmth of your kiss, your touch, everything there is to you is enough to pull you back in for more.

“You’re an idiot.” 

“I’m your idiot.” 

Dick spends the rest of the day clinging to you - or more so the other way around. It's his fault that you're frozen to the core and he's going to be the one to fix it. He doesn't mind, not when it gives him the opportunity to just be closer with you.

v) Dick Grayson after sex

He can't get enough of you. Dick Grayson can never find a way to express his love completely. No words, no action, nothing in this world would ever be enough to show how vast his love is. Out of breath, sweat covering his skin, he'd still pull you in for more kisses, more time to show you that he loved you.

Sometimes Dick would have an arm tucked behind his head, the other stroking back and forth along your back. He loves post-sex cuddles with you. He's still on a high with you, absorbing your activities with a smile on his face.

His entire focus is on you. Kissing you, loving you. He's checking to make sure that he didn't hurt you in any way. Dick Grayson becomes the most caring person towards you - more than his usual self. His sole priority is making sure that you feel loved, safe, and happy.

Laying on your sides, facing each other and just talking about anything and everything are his favourite moments. He can't keep his hands off you - in a non-sexual way. Cupping your cheek, drawing into your arm, watching the goosebumps roll against his skin as the cold starts to fill you both.

A smile never leaves his cheeks. Not for a second. How could he when his entire view is focused on you? He's sneaking in for a kiss at every chance he gets - and when he's not his hands are on you. They're playing with your fingers as you talk or brush against your body.

“How did I get so lucky with you?” 

Cuddles with him after sex always seem more intimate than the moment itself. He gets the opportunity to talk about his heart's desires or his fears. He feels like it's his prime moment to be able to express anything that he's been feeling because it's when you're most willing to open up too.

It's a time of reflection. For some reason, these conversations always come up after your most intimate moments. It's the concept of growing together, not separately or apart. His future is you, it's always been you, and he's making sure that you both want it to stay that way.

Bonus: Surprise Hug

Getting home early from a mission or managing to sneak away to see you even just for couple minutes, he loves to surprise you with a hug from behind. You’ve learned by now how his body molds to yours, the calming scent of his cologne as he gets close to you - it’s never a worry who’s hugging you because you know his touch by heart. 

He loves to hear the joy in your voice when he shows up. The excitement that you get just for making the effort to show up for even a few minutes in the middle of the day or a couple hours early getting home. There’s nothing better than the warmth that spreads in his heart because of you. 

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[keilemlucent]

pretty eyes & starshine: ii

(NSFW)

hawks | takami keigo x reader

ao3

part i   ||   part ii   ||   part iii (epilogue)

beta’ed: @shadowworks & @firein-thesky​​

word count: ~15.2k

Healing takes time, but it’s easier with someone else around who’s on the mend with you. 

(You and Keigo learn to start living again.)

warnings: codependency but make it sexc, injured reader, post-trauma symptoms, reader has abandonment issues, angst, ouchies <3

a/n: part 2 :’^) we made it!! soft hurt and very horny codependency that involves keigo’s immaculate d*ck. all that is left after this is part 3 which will be more of an epilogue :’^) 

enjoy loves <3

✧   ✧   ✧   ✧   ✧   ✧

The doors to exit the hospital scare you.

How can they not?

They’re... automatic.

The glass panes are wide, sliding and slapping as folks come and go, the quiet ring of metal on metal and the slap of the plastic padding makes your heart race.

Get over it, get over it, get over it—

It’s just some doors, they’re normal.

You’ve walked through automatic doors so many times. Never before had you even taken conscious note of them. 

(But that was before you heard them let in that man who—)

Without thinking, you take a little, tentative step back from them. 

Consider you are leaving your own slice of healing hell; you are shakier and sweatier than you would’ve liked. Your clothes are like the ones... he used to wear, cheap garments obviously pulled from some industrial multipack that stank like plastic and rubbing alcohol.

You hate it.

But you didn’t have another choice. Your old articles were bloodied and disposed of long ago, and the hospital gowns you wore during your stay were far more uncomfortable than your scratchy, wide pants and crewneck long sleeve the same pale, lifeless blue as your old bed sheets. 

It would be enough.

You shift the crutch under your right arm and shuffle the backpack on your shoulders. It contains just enough to get you to the shelter, where they’d supposedly have a bed— a cot, more than likely. You had a toothbrush, some extra socks, and a prepaid card for a single, one-way train trip across the country and into the unknown.

Tears stung your eyes as you lingered by the doors.

It all feels so uncomfortably real. The world kept moving, and you’re reentering it far-more battered and perpetually bruised. 

And completely alone.

(The thought horrifies you to your core, but you try to ignore it.)

Despite the time you spent at the hospital, you were leaving without a hint of reverie. Everyone, nurses and doctors and anyone who has fucking eyes is too busy dealing with the casualties that had lasted months. 

It didn’t matter how long you stayed. You were just a body. A fucked up one too. 

You count yourself lucky to even have the backpack, as cheap and sterile as it smells.

It all unnerves you, but you didn’t have a choice. Numbness settles over you as you accept your future. 

There... is a little glimmer that he will show up.

(He won’t. Empty promises.)

(Everyone leaves.)

(Why’d you call him, anyway?)

(Because no one had spoken to you like a human in a month.)

Solitude makes people desperate and crazy.

You are a little crazy, you know. Maybe not in a bad way, but certainly in a way that is eating you up and out in ways you don’t understand. You don’t have the energy sort through it all. You just have to finally start moving forward. Or try to. 

Tentatively, you walk toward the doors, stepping out and onto the pavement. You lurch and you would’ve tripped if not for the crutch shoved under your arm. 

For the first time in a long time, you suck in fresh air and the trickling sunlight. It feels fresh, cleansing you with each little inhale as you face your cheeks to sky. You have your moment, basking before your journey.

Then someone whistles. You ignore it at first.

The person whistles again, calling out— 

“Your ride’s here, starshine!”

Your breath punches from your lungs. You whip your head to the sound. 

Though it’s overcast, you do see your morning sun.

Your steps stutter as you nearly trip over your feet.

He is standing, not far at all, leaning against a shiny black car, sleek and expensive and out of place. He’s all overgrown hair and lazy-expressions, one which stretches into a grin as he sees you.

And you see him.

(He really came?)

(Of course he did.)

Your crutch nearly clatters to the ground as you stumble toward him. The moment you waver, he’s running to catch you.

You meet each other halfway.

And without a goddamn lick of shame, the moment you near him, your arms lock around him. Your face buries into the hollow of his throw and you inhale. The scent of him, a bit spiced but mostly skin and sweat fills you. Not a hint of antiseptic. 

 And you shudder at how good it feels. 

He stabilizes the two of you, greedily wrapping his arms around your waist and squeezing as if to give a much-needed greeting. 

There’s a moment of heat between you, familiar and blessed and so damned missed that you both share shuddering breaths. 

“It’s good to see you, starshine,” He soaks up any part of you he could get to. So casually, he touches like he wants to consume you.

You squeeze him just as hard.

“You came?” Your words muffled into his skin.

He simply nods, and the only confirmation you need to sink into him. Perhaps, there’s onlookers, but neither of you have the mind to care. All you care about is the shift of his muscles beneath your fingertips, the heat of him, his golden, pretty visage—

Like he had so many times, he tucks hair behind your ears and tension drains from him. 

So tenderly does he squeeze around your middle where he holds you up, “Let’s go home, starshine.”

You want nothing more.

...

The drive to your new home is long, but you don’t mind.

The world has changed in the months you’d been tucked away in the forest-hidden hospital. As disconnected as you were, you still heard of the unrest and upheaval across the country. The political clashes are marked by the... contrarian billboards lining the highway, new slogans battling each other every mile or so. 

The scenery slowly goes from flatlands, to wetlands, to rolling hills that are a lush green. From the safety of the car, you could see that the air even looked wet, and you could imagine the way it would stick in your throat and tacky the tips of your fingers. 

“Where do you live?” You finally ask, voice soft in the melancholy softness of the light mist that sprayed the car.

“In the mountains, high-up,” He squeezes your hand (the one he’s been holding the whole ride). Quietly, he adds. “I still couldn’t bear to be too close to the ground.”

He laughs, though it fades into the suddenly heavy air.

This is the world, isn’t it?

You blink, gulping at the face of your reality, and let your eyes go half-lidded as you trace the shapes of growing evergreen as your drive takes you higher and higher. 

...

Keigo had made up the guest room for you.

He doesn’t have much for extra sheets and softness, let alone decor, but he does what he can. The bed is made and pressed with clean lines, freshly washed. The curtains on the windows hang heavy, but warm up the room with their clement, tan fibers. It’s a start, with lots of space for you to add your own touches as well.

He’d spent the night prior on it, laboring, like he was preparing a nest as opposed to a simple bedroom.

(It is a nest, but he doesn’t need to accept that just yet.)

There wasn’t anything else to do for a while when he first escaped that fucking hell. He’d really given up. Keigo was uncomfortably content to rot away as he had dreamed of since he’d been burnt. The little, dusty corners of the cabin would’ve made perfect places to waste away in peace and alone. 

Except, he didn’t.

Keigo started to make the home better.

He isn’t sure if it was out of some need to just do something, and the outdated, worn cabin was his most available canvas. Part of him is convinced it’s some buried avian instinct, and without the Commission’s constant hovering, he has no reason to suppress those more animalistic urges. The need to nest somewhere cozy and safe took him over, and he had gotten to work.

The cabin is cleaned up incredibly well. New appliances, floors patched and polished. The furniture is mostly old, but it’s obviously been shined and tended to. The living area isn’t horribly large, but it’s more than enough space for the two of you. It has wide windows that looked down upon the slopes and peaks that your home is nestled in. The colors are warm oranges and tans that are easy on the eye. Nothing too red and nothing too blue.

Nothing too imposing.

(Nothing too reminiscent.)

He leads you from the car, gingerly helping you up the rickety stairs to the front door. 

The wound on your leg may be ‘healed’, but you don’t appear comfortable in the slightest. Your expression pinches with half of your steps, the bending of your scarred flesh undoubtedly painful. It makes something in his chest squeeze as he navigates you into his house, from the snow into somewhere warm. A place that he crafted all on his own. Shaped with his own hands. A real possession, all his own. 

When you enter, you don’t say anything, only tightening your grip on his hand.

“I like it,” You smile, soft and dreamy, worrying the strap of your backpack. “... Are you sure it’s okay for me to stay?”

“Of course,” Keigo assures you. Of course, it was okay for you to stay. “I’m happy to have you here, especially when the other option is one of the shelters.”

You wouldn’t have lasted a day with your bum leg and natural softness.

The thought has him gulping, the heat flaring in his chest as he tugs you closer, ghosting his lips over your temple.

With only a bit of stumbling, he shows you the rest of the home.

...

You’re quiet the rest of the day, curled up on the couch in the same clothes you left the hospital in. There’s clear exhaustion in your face, from the dark circles ringing your eyes and the tremble in your hand and leg. Keigo is content to cover you in a nice knit blanket he purchased down in the nearby town, and let you rest.

His own back burns when he catches glimpses of your scar. It ran down all the way to your ankle, even bleeding onto the top of your foot. The gnarled flesh brings back memories of screaming and metallic exam rooms.

And he, like you, stares at a wall for a while before making dinner.

 You can’t manage much.

The TV glows with some show you might’ve watched and been engrossed in it.  But the hollow feeling in your chest keeps you submerged in the static of your skull. It’s more comfortable than acknowledging how quickly the picture moves in front of you.

Your only motion is a ‘light’ scratching over the thin fabric of your pants.

‘Light’.

He enters sometime later, bearing food and an easy smile that falls all-too quickly. 

“Hey, starshine— oh fuck,” His voice clips as he enters, setting down steaming plates on the coffee table and pulling your hand from your thigh. The tips of your fingers are stained with enough blood to make your eyebrows shoot up. 

Your eyes shoot to your leg, where you’d apparently tore through the thin fabric of your pants and torn your skin up without even thinking. So close to the scar—

Heat flares between, light bouncing in your eyes as you cover the hole, “S-sorry, fuck, I didn’t even realize.”

“It’s okay, it happens,” Keigo assures you, softer than you’ve ever heard him. “Let’s clean you up quick and then eat, okay?”

You nod, exhaling a weight from your chest as the light skitters out of your eyes. 

And the heat fades from the room. The absence of it chills Keigo, and the abruptness makes his nose scrunch. 

He patches you up quickly and with a precision that screams ‘yes, I have done this far too many times.’ The wound isn’t too severe, just a nasty-looking scratch. The dried blood on your finger is wiped away. 

You both settle onto the couch, eating in silence.

Something hangs in the air, thick and unsaid. Questions and paragraphs that have been ignored up until now. Not out of will, perhaps just tired negligence. 

But, Keigo has always been the blunt type, so he finally asks one of the many facets that needs to be broached. 

“What’s your quirk?”

A little surprised sound lodges in your throat with a bite of baked fish, “My quirk? I thought you figured it out already.”

Keigo raises a feathery eyebrow, “I’m a bit slow these days, starshine.”

The nickname makes something settle pleasantly under your ribs, and the light, little orbs of yellow and orange return to your eyes. 

And heat fills the room, like it had so many times before. Like those first nights in the common room, stargazing in the lamp and starlight. It’s warmth that bleeds between his bones and tendons, through and through.

Keigo puts it all together, jaw going slack and eyes going wide.

Had he never realized it?

It does make sense, in retrospect and without a sinfully heavy dose of painkillers swimming in his veins. The heat that permeated all of the nights you sat, eyeing the stars and each other.

The odd heat of it all. 

You’d been warming the two of you. Souls cold from the sterility of it all. 

“That’s your quirk?” Keigo leans in closer, inspecting the little specks of light in your irises. The tell. “This whole time?”

“U-um, yeah,” You worry a hangnail. “I don’t mean for it to be activating all over the place, but it has been since everything happened.”

“Why’s that?”

You chew the plump of your bottom lip, brows pinched.

Without thinking, Keigo bows to the will of the ever-present, needy feeling in his chest and presses a little kiss to your forehead, willing it to smooth away some of your worry. 

I’m not upset, the action says, but the cabin is quiet.

“... You know how cats purr?”

Keigo quirks an eyebrow, “I do.”

“Well, I think it’s kind of like that,” You met his eyes, the light returning and the fire-like warmth tickling the hair on your arms. “Cats purr when they feel good, but sometimes, they purr when they’re not doing well.”

“... ‘Not doing well’?”

“If they’re in pain, or if they’re really scared,” You go quiet, tracing a seam on Keigo’s jeans. “They’ll purr to comfort themselves. It’s like that.”

Comfort themselves.

No wonder all those nights you spent together, you felt so warm. It was your quirk— 

And you must’ve felt awful. 

Part of him feels betrayed, just for a moment, before it dissolves with the watery look you wear as your injured finger traces over his knuckles. 

And the heat of you flares. 

Your quirk is a part of you.

“I didn’t think to tell you.” Your voice wobbles, yet remains vacant. “‘M sorry.”

You don’t need to apologize.

If anything, the knowledge only strengthens Keigo’s resolve. 

...

The first weeks at the house are odd as you both settle into rhythms of living. There’s an orbit to how you choose to live, though it’s not predictable or reliable. It can’t be, there’s no way for it to be. You float around each other like little planets to a fickle sun, unstable and wavering, but elliptical, nonetheless. 

You’re both learning to be human again with your own rhythms.

Keigo’s biggest challenge is dragging himself from bed each morning. The lazy bones he thought the Commission had broken and beaten out of him still remain somehow. Now that he has no obligations to tend to at the break of dawn, he thoroughly enjoys lazing about in the sheets, even if he’s just staring at his wood-paneled ceiling wishing that Dabi had finished the job and burned him dead.

He’s doing great.

Despite his sluggishness, you move about on your own. 

You make coffee each morning, and curl up on the couch under the same knit blanket. A few patches of the multi-colored throw have been pulled apart by your restless hands. 

Neither of you comment on it.

Though Keigo takes longer to rise, you move far less during the day during those first weeks. You’re tethered to the cushion until the sun goes down.

It’s like the nylon straps at the hospital never left your wrists.

Your vacant nature scares him, if he’s honest. There’s an unspoken, massive wound you carry with you, both physically and mentally, and its manifestation is a little haunting. 

Keigo knows about trauma, knows about how the mind worked and how to, you know, deal with it. He is— was, a hero, for fuck’s sake. Trauma is in the job description and he’d had his fair share of bruises before he went undercover, before he killed Jin (REALLY don’t think about it—), and lost his wings. He’s stitched himself up by filling up his schedule with anything he could. Distractions. Things to occupy him, help him forget for a while. If that didn’t work, he always had a bottle or two of imported soju that he could nurse.

Again, coping.

The state you’re in is the opposite of coping, it’s being. Existing. The strain you carry from everything shows in you, and the way that it’s manifested terrifies him.

Keigo is smart enough to know to keep a few boundaries. He can’t fix you and he can’t get it in his head that he can. He’ll smother you; he knows he will. The solace he finds comes from being there when you need him, and always being close by. 

It’s all he can do to soothe what’s obviously an open wound. He has his own, that you tend to in your own way as well when you can. It’s all give-and-take, naturally and easily. 

You’ll find yourselves on the couch together, leaning and touching so naturally, but with no intent. Your little fingers trace shapes over his clothes, hearts and lettering he can’t catch. The heat of you will cling to him, whether your quirk activates or not.

He holds you, simply and truly. Tries to be a new, kinder being. 

...

You don’t have much that is solely yours. 

You’d been living in an odd combination of Keigo’s clothes and the single outfit you arrived with. It works, enough. Most garments are worn until they’re filthy, but it takes you a little too long to notice. 

Keigo notices.

One day, he sits down with you and his heavy, black credit card and helps you pick out... whatever you wanted. The guy is loaded and will be until he dies, and he’s smitten to help you pick out whatever you need. 

You’re more challenged by the task.

“I’m fine, you don’t need to do this,” you murmur into his collarbones, narrowing your eyes at the laptop screen. “I have enough.”

Keigo clicks his tongue, rubbing the fraying fabric of your shirt, the same, cheap scratchy fabric from the hospital. Your pants are soft cotton, old ones of Keigo’s that he should probably throw away. You adore them, and spend most of your time in them, too.

“You deserve some nice things that are yours, don’t you think?” He coaxes with some extra soft touches as you glare at the screen.

Perhaps, you think to yourself. Your jaw locks.

You deliberately avoided thinking about your lack of... things. The absence of all the bits of you that you had once carried tugs at something deep in your chest. Grief, probably. Loss at the very least. Your home has been torn apart and you have nothing. Not a single remnant of then except you. And you’re hardly a good cast of the existence you once lead. 

The world feels dimmer with the thought. 

...

The house gets cold at night.

It’s inevitable, with the chill of the snowy valleys and peaks slipping through drafty windows and cracks in the woodwork. It slunk into the house once the stars rose, sinking bone deep. It’s easier to ward off during the day. The little stray touches and the ambiance of shared presence helps. 

But, you slept separately. 

It’s cold— so fucking cold in your beds. Keigo hates it. Despises the way how it makes his eyes droop and his body heavier than it should be. Despite not having wings any longer, his other avian traits lingered, and torpor was definitely not in his top three faves. He can only be thankful that he thought to invest in an electric blanket for himself, for his nest.

Though it would be a lot better with you in it, the last thing he wants to do is push you. You’re fragile. Everything is fragile. Keigo has laid awake on more than one night, trying to make sense of all of it, everything and coming to the conclusion that sleeping in his too-big, too-cold bed would have to do.

Sometimes, there’s no way to swallow the state of things.

...

“Your packages are here.”

You look up, eyes wide and sweet.

Oh, yeah. Material goods.

Clothes.

Objects.

It takes a while, but the result of your shopping spree is a small horde of packages down at the town post office, all with your name attached. The idea of so much newness is daunting, but your few remaining garments are threadbare and practically falling apart. It’s necessary, you acknowledge, even if you’re terrified of not living in Keigo’s worn crewneck. 

(Change can be good, you remind yourself. The thought is quiet.) 

Keigo stands by the door, buttoning up his coat and lacing up his boots as you watch from your soft perch on the couch. The blanket has a new, wide hole picked in it, but you don’t notice. 

“Would you like to come with me and pick them up?” Keigo flicks his gaze to you with a careful, easy smile.

You hadn’t left the house since you’d arrived. 

The thought sends your stomach knotting and sweat gathering in your palms. You jerk your head side to side, sinking back down into the cushions.

Keigo doesn’t hold it against you. You can tell by the way his expression softens around his eyes. 

He leaves after kissing you on the forehead a few times, telling you he’ll be quick to return. It’s not often that he leaves, though he’s always timely on coming back. His excursions are never more than a trip to the town market, thankfully. An hour or two feels like a lot, but the too-still air and quiet of the floorboards without Keigo’s pacing unsettles you.

Not having him near unsettles you. The thought of having him gone for too long shoots something hot and needy in your chest.

(Don’t leave, don’t leave, don’t leave—)

Thankfully, just like always, Keigo isn’t gone for long. And he returns bearing a few armloads of packages and some takeout curry. You take it all, and him, greedily. 

(Thank you, thank you, thank you.)

...

It’s a few days later when Keigo wakes to you knocking on his door in the early hours of the morning. 

It had been a... rougher day. You had been a bit livelier early on, joining him on the snowy patio for morning coffee and even taking a quick walk around the neighboring forest. With the snow so deep, you could only go so far though. The motion of it aggravated your injury, left your gasping and clawing at Keigo’s arm as the scar tissue pulled.

The scar is still dead, thank god, but the impact is just as present physically as it is mentally for you.

The rest of the day you spent curled up on the couch, taking little sips of water between short naps. That night, you hardly touched your dinner. Keigo was smart enough to cut up some fruit and lay it with a handful of crackers and offer it to you throughout the rest of the night. You nibbled at the bits, but hardly consumed much at all.

You went to bed early, giving him a hard hug before retiring to your lonely room.

Those days are the worse, the bad ones. They’re the ones where Keigo wants to break all the boundaries he still has. The little touches and kisses he gives you are one thing, but there’s much more he wants to do. Craves doing. But, pushing you too far or too hard would break you. He’s smart. He knows that. So, Keigo doesn’t wait. He satiates all those protective needs. 

He accepts circumstance, just as he always has. 

(He doesn’t understand how much you crave him, but that’ll come later.)

             That night, things begin to shift. 

His voice cracks with sleep as he calls for you to enter. You linger in the door frame, clutching a pillow to your chest, like a scared child who’s had a— 

“Nightmare?” He asks, sitting up and tugging a blanket with him to cover his bare chest. 

The cold air of the cabin hits his scars. He hisses under his breath, shoulders drawing tense. You must notice, eyes going a little wider as you recede from his room. The darkness of the hallway nearly dissolves you. His chest aches, hands tightening around the fabric in his fists. 

“Come back here, starshine, come on,” Keigo calls, praying you’ll heed him. “It’s alright. What’s wrong?” 

Keigo half-recognizes that that’s a very loaded question, but you’re both a bit sleep addled. Maybe it will slide. 

Your eyes alight in the pitch of the room, sputtering with little orbs of amber. Your atrophying arms squeeze the pillow, and you take a few more tentative steps closer. 

“... We’re safe, right?” 

The question surprises Keigo, enough to make his old wounds ache.

One loaded question answered for another.  

It’s reasonable to ask. It’s very reasonable to ponder. Keigo has wondered about it too. The townsfolk don’t know who he really was, and he was quite secretive about the initial move. The world hadn’t caught onto the fact that ‘Hawks’ had moved him and his new love to an isolated little cabin in the woods, and hopefully they never would. Society had a lot bigger problems, according to the over-processed news channel he tuned into on occasion. 

Keigo was old news at this point.

So many heroes had been called out for poor behavior. Scandal after scandal, coverup after coverup. Corruption, everywhere. It was an industry secret, all of the bullshit behind closed doors.  Keigo’s little double-agent schtick and you know, murder of a good man (for the love of god, do not fucking think about Jin) was still bad, but the public had a whole new slew of bullshit to torch people at the stake for.

Still. 

He’s glad no one knows about your little hideaway or you.

“We’re safe, starshine. Very safe.”’

It makes his answer easier to say, more honest. 

You inch closer from the doorway. There’s a tremble in your shoulders that runs to your hands. You’re only wearing a t-shirt and thin shorts, maybe just panties, he can’t tell. Your scar runs down your thigh and calf, gnarling and twisting the flesh it dared to mar. The seam of it is a shining black that Keigo had failed to notice before. 

It reminds him of why you’re so scared and the types of nightmares you must have. 

“... Promise?” You stop at the foot of the bed, throat bobbing with a thick gulp.

Keigo gives a sympathetic smile, patting the sheets next to him, “I promise. You’re safe. We’re safe.”

You look skeptical, but climb into bed with him all the same. 

Something stirs in Keigo’s chest as you do. As he watches you clamor over the sheets and blankets he... nests in, the heat of it fills him. A combination of yours and his own, spills through his ribs and down to his toes.

He shudders with it, something needy wriggling down from

You sit up on your knees, sinking into the mattress and holding the pillow tight to your chest. Watching, eyes still alight and wide.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Keigo asks.

You don’t, you both know that, but breaking the silence is a start.

You push the pillow against the headboard, trading it to link your fingers with his, over his chest and pressed to the linens. 

You squeeze and let out a breath you’ve been holding. There’s a weight to it, like there’s something you’re actually carrying. There has been something you have been carrying, but only you are able to see it— feel it in its actuality.

But, that doesn’t mean you have to shoulder the burden alone, especially on darkened, lonely nights. 

He tugs you closer, mindful of your tenderness and the scars you both bear. The night is only lit by starlight, and the room is dark with the new moon. It makes it easier to be closer as you settled into the bedding next to him.

It’s uncomfortable for a few moments.

Despite how much contact you share, this feels different. The little touches, kisses and caresses you trade throughout the day are second nature. Comforting someone else who so obviously needs it. His person who needs it. 

(He wonders if you think of him as your ‘person’ too.)

You lay on your side, facing away from him as you fall into his nest, still tense, still on edge and unsure. It reminds him of those first days at the hospital, when you both had lost your tongues and yourselves and just enjoyed the stars together in oddly comforting silence and broken conversation. 

It’s a process, he reminds himself. 

Keigo slides closer, throwing an arm over waist and adjusting the blankets with his other. There’s plenty, piled on top of each other without much reason. Careful hands properly tuck you into it all, next to him, with him. He brings them up to your chin, pressing stray hairs back into place and laying a trailing kiss or two over the back of your neck. 

“... Is it okay if I stay?” Your voice sounds far-off, like the question is more for yourself than for him. 

He can feel the unease and fear still bound up in your shoulders. It’s always there, whether it’s a moonless night or a snow-glitteringly, sunny day. The tension he presses his thumbs into is held in all of the muscle of your back, in your hips, your hands— everywhere.

It makes part of him ache.

A few little coos, soft little rumbles, roll from the back of his throat. 

Normally, he’d be a bit embarrassed. But at the birdish chirps, you’re falling deeper in the sheets, the nest, and against his chest. 

“Please stay,” He assures you with a squeeze. A small comfort, one he’d keep giving. 

 The odd quiet returns, sans the little sounds in his chest. 

Slowly, tentatively, you turn in his arms. Your own lock over his waist, splayed low on his spine. The pads of your fingertips brush scars, the old ones and the new. It makes him writhe a bit in his own skin. It’s unfamiliar, compared to all of the cold prodding and meaningless pleasure he was used to.

It is the closest anyone of familiarity has been to the scars in a long time, and you, preciously, grace him with the softest touch. No expectation in it, just some much-needed, shared bits of love. Once again, precious. 

And you both relax into it all. The ambient thrum of the other's body, the shared breath and smells that mingle between you. There’s little pains and stings that never really go away, but with the other so close, neither of you mind. 

It’s hard to tell when your quirk settles, and the organic heat you create together fills the rooms and your lungs. 

All Keigo knows is that he falls asleep with your lips brushing the hollow of his throat, still and warm against his chest. The feeling of the living rhythm of your body with your breath lulls him off, content and hazy. 

...

You never sleep alone after that night.

Keigo pulls you into his room, or you pad in after brushing your teeth and pulling on your soft, soft sleep clothes. The bed feels a lot less big and lonely with the two of you wrapped up in each other, fully giving in.

It puts Keigo at a remarkable amount of ease. 

The urge in his chest to ‘keep you safe’ feels the most sated at night, when he can keep as close as you both can bear. Your hands always make their home at the base of his spine, or the fat and flesh between his lower back and his rear. The pads of your fingers rub away years of stored tension and weight, quietly and kindly before you fall asleep each night. 

During the day, you’re equally as needy, though you’re slowly becoming a bit more independent. You’re more lucid in general. Though the couch and worn blanket are your greatest comforts (other than him), you’re beginning to stray and poke around the house a bit more. 

The shelves have a few more familiar comforts, things Keigo had slowly accumulated to pass the time. There’s a video game console or two he’d never used, a few stacks of books he’d heard were good, and some tucked away art supplies if inspiration struck. 

As much as he urges you to take and use whatever you’d like, you’re still tentative. The first few times you pluck a crisp book from the shelf, Keigo’s back aches with how the old muscles that once controlled his wings tried to puff-up non-existent feathers. Despite how it tugs at all the wrong parts of him, he still glows at the progress.

You start to help him with dinner too. That’s some of your favorite time. 

There’s a rhythm to it, when you both start preparing meals together. Keigo can’t season food for shit, (though, he’s made leaps and strides with cooking that pats himself on the back for) but he’s quite skilled with a knife. Remnants of his training that have domestic applications. 

He doesn’t tell you that that’s why he’s so good at dicing vegetables and paring meat, he just chatters to fill the air. You tend more to the process of cooking, seasoning and watching and nodding along to his words. 

The more meals you share in creating, the more you start to speak up.  

It’s progress, even in something so small. 

...

But progress isn’t linear. 

It’s not even a goddamn line and it’s fucking infuriating. 

...

The depth of winter bears down on the hills, the house, and the two of you. You’re coping, both of you. But the momentum of it is fragile.

It scares you, secretly and privately. 

You feel fragile, and you have for a long time. Your scar remains tender, gnarled and ugly on your leg. You avoid looking at it at all cost, though Keigo has free reign to graze tender touch nearby it. 

That’s how you find yourselves, leaning on each other on the cushion of the couch and idly watching the glow of the television. Your cheek tucks over his shoulder and you watch with half-lidded eyes. You’re only half-there as Keigo changes the channel.

He hums after a few moments. 

“There’s a storm coming tonight,” Keigo tells you, lips just a touch dry against the shell of your ear. “I’m going to go to town and—”

 Oh wow.

You interrupt, fisting the front of his shirt, “Can I come?”

The question stuns both of you.

Your eyes are honest as you peer up, genuinely unsure if you can.

“Of course, starshine,” Keigo assures. You notice the way his eyes, his pretty eyes, look wide and bright. All for you. Wow. “Let’s get you out of the house, hm?”

Getting out.

Time has stretched out and you can’t remember the last time you left for anything more than a little stroll on the backroads, Keigo on your arm. Going to town and seeing people strikes something odd that has your stomach churning. 

You’re nervous when you finally pile into the car, both bundled up with hats, mittens and scarfs (Keigo wears a mask to better hide his identity, but he’s sure some of the townies have figured him out.) The tasks are simple. Stock up for the coming storm and make sure he pays to plow their little backroad out once the storm passes. Easy, things that wouldn’t take too long, but it still makes your palms sweat. 

Keigo massages your thigh as you drive into town. The comfort of the snowy hills and evergreens disappears, and it has you in goddamn knots. 

You squeeze his hand, locking your jaw. 

“I’m scared.” You break the silence as the small structures of the town come into view. “I don’t know if this was a good idea.”

You haven’t decided again. 

He kneads his thumb into the tension in your thighs with a little smile, “Let’s give it a try.”

“It’s scary, though.”

“I know.”

You pull at a hangnail with your teeth but say nothing else as you roll in and park at the small market.

The first thing you notice is the goddamn doors. Automatic doors.

When you see them, you want to climb back into the car, maybe the trunk for fuck’s sake, and hide like you’ve never hidden before. Go home and bury yourself in a snow pile with how your heart hammers in your chest and your breath catches.

Deep breaths.

You catch yourself, just a little. 

You keep walking, Keigo’s hand in yours and you enter the market like nothing feels as wrong as it is.  

The store is small, but there’s a decent selection, all things given. Keigo places a basket in your hands, tells you to ‘go nuts’ and ‘literally get whatever you want, especially if it’s salty or sweet’ and you heed him the best you can. He busies himself talking to the clerk, organizing with that honey-voice you crave. 

You take a few deep breaths and walk around the market like a normal person. 

(Even though, the last time you were in a situation close to this, you got that nasty, cute scar on your leg.)

(You suppress the thought for as long as you can.)

The basket gets filled quickly, but you stuff it to the brim. Keigo picked out plenty of good food, and had learned how to cook decently, but having some... agency felt nice, if not fucking terrifying.

You’ve got your back turned to the entrance of the store when the (automatic) doors suddenly swish open. 

A chill so cold and hard shoots down your spine and you freeze, hovering over a box of breadcrumbs.

One...

 How long was it between that sound and when he touched you?

 Two...

 This was a terrible idea.

 Three—

 It was four—

 Four—

Four seconds, you propose, as your heart beats out of your chest and you sweat under your arms. Four seconds from the door opening to pain. 

You wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Nothing.

Just more voices from the front of the store, a figure entering your aisle and then leaving.

You hate the way you're so rigid, tense enough in your shoulders for it to hurt. The ghost of the wound on your leg makes you want to fall to the ground and writhe, but you grab the box of breadcrumbs and try not to think. 

It works, and you land next to Keigo, presenting your filled basket to be rung up. 

You bury your face into his shoulder and take a deep inhale. Keigo keeps you close, tucked in your side with an arm around your waist. Your anxiety must’ve been quite visible, as he takes to quietly rubbing your shoulders over your sweater.

Things get hazy as you feel safer. Keigo laughs and sways the two of you as he speaks to the clerk. 

(Her sons are going to blow your little house out when the storm passes. The family cat recently got out and came back pregnant. Her husband has been reading some odd literature he found on the internet. Something about ‘the strong triumphant over the weak’. Her daughter might be able to return from her foreign university now that the travel restrictions had been lifted.)

Everything moves forward, even if it’s unpleasant.

It’s an awful reminder at an inopportune time. 

You watch your feet as you crunch your way back to the shotgun side of the car, only relaxing when you hear the doors lock and the engine thrum.

...

The storm comes, just as the faces on TV said it would.

You’re in the country, in the hills and mountains where the weather is already turbulent and changeable. All the same, the overcast skies dump snow over the land and blanket the world in quiet and cold.

Snow silence sucks the sounds from the air, sans the howl of angry wind. 

You’re tucked away and safe. It’s Keigo’s only solace.

After going into town, you keep more to yourself as the storm takes it sweet time rolling in. He recognizes the far off look in your eyes; it’s the one you wore stargazing, but there’s no kind smile on your face. Just a thoughtless frown as you go through the motions of your day.

It makes his chest ache.

(Part of him regrets bringing you with him to the market. It rots part of him, and he can only hope it sprouts again.) 

Finally, when the storm truly comes and the hills get heavy and crisp white, a bit more of you returns. Keigo wants to take the fragments you’re willing to give him and tuck them close, horde them and squeeze. The way he’s gotten abashedly greedy for you has him handsier and needier. 

He’ll take what he can get, and give what he can too.

It’s easiest to bear at night, probably out of habit. Maybe the time in the hospital fucked both of you up (yes, for sure, it did), but nighttime was the time where you were open and easy with each other.

The storm gives the perfect opportunity to all of your time shamelessly twisted together, only leaving for brief coffee breaks and light meals. Otherwise, you’re both nested. 

Pillows and blankets piled on the oversized mattress, all soft against your scars and old scratches. Keigo’s still fond of the color red, he can’t let that go, but he trades in the scarlet that was once his ‘brand’ for a deeper burgundy. All the sensations are rich and velvety, whether it’s the bedclothes you’re wrapped in or the touches you share.

It feels safe.

The feeling is something almost foreign to Keigo. He’s been getting used to it, even as the isolation weighs down on him. No one around means no reason to be so alert. The house isn’t bugged, there’s no villains or Suits watching his every move. He’s just a flightless bird, with no cage, but no captors either.

It feels amazing.

It feels even better that you’re always the heat against his side. That you and your perfect, sweet hands always know how and where to touch. Your words flow easier when you’re so close, so surrounded and so deliciously suffocated.

Keigo fills you up in all the best ways, and you’re finally able to breathe easier.

You tell him your secrets, little stargazing facts and facets of you that you’d held away and far from him before.

“Do you know what cosmic microwave background radiation is?” You ask, sweet as your lips nip at his jaw.

“No, not a clue,” He laughs, the giggle only you get to hear. 

You hum, shifting your thighs so it lies over his. Your hips grind, slow and unhurried as wind rattles the windows.

“It’s this ambient radiation that’s just everywhere, all the time, forever,” You tell him, voice going a little huskier despite the fact you’re talking about theoretical astrophysics. “It’s left over from the Big Bang. A little bit of the beginning that never stops.”

“And how do you know all this?” 

“A documentary, love.”

The questions fade as your lips slide together, lazy hands sliding into each other's hairs. You pull, only lightly, just to bring him closer. Keigo gets greedy, (again, always), licking into your mouth and tasting you. It’s all cheap coffee and the stale mint of toothpaste, and he drinks you down like the finest nectar. He sucks on your tongue, moaning at the way you keen and shift next to him.

It’s not enough. It never is, so he rolls to sit himself over your hips and grab your jaw in a tight grip. He can’t be too forceful, he can’t— his little birdbrain won’t let him do anything too rough to you, even if neither of you would mind it. He tilts your head just right.

You roll your hips up, breath mingling with his as it hitches and shudders from you. It’s so much, so much good, but it still doesn’t feel like enough. 

Keigo pulls away, eyes half-lidded to take in your own blown pupils. It makes something purr in his chest, to see your eyes already glassy and wide for him. Your neck is thoroughly covered in darkened splotches, already sucked and bitten while the storm sang. 

Little marks of him.

“You’re all mine, you know?” Keigo nearly moans at the way your expression goes gooey and sweetened. He tightens his grip on your jaw just a fraction, enough to make you gasp before he licks and nips below your ear. Just to make sure you hear him. “‘Everywhere, all the time, forever’, I’ve got you.”

“Y-you do,” you gasp as Keigo shifts your sleep shorts off, pushed away forgotten in the nest. The thin tank top you’re wearing is hardly covering anything, not that either of you care. The nearly-sheer fabric of it stretches over your collars and curves beautifully. It does nothing to hide the way your breaths heave or the sweat and heat gathering on your neck.

You’re bared to him.

And if Keigo’s being honest?

You own each other, in the most pleasantly fucked up way.

“Y-You’re so good,” The word holds weight, so much heaviness. Keigo groans, palming one of your breasts and rolling one of your nipples. It’s ambient, something to occupy himself as he resists your words. Just a little—

Your hand slips into the front of his sweats, bare beneath, and wraps around the velvet of him. Thick and hot, firm in your hand but not close enough.

You squeeze, almost in warning.

“You are good.” You gasp as Keigo pulls off you, leveling gazes with you, all pretty eyes reflecting the starshine and snow. He is good. There’s so much more to it than that, but your poor, fucked up little mind can’t synthesis it yet. Only that Keigo is good, warm, safe, and wholly yours. And you’re his. You stretch to ghost a kiss over his lips. “My good boy, always keeping me safe. You keep me so well.”

He stills, even as you slowly pump in his cock. It twitches in your hand, your thighs squeezing between his hips. 

Keigo’s mind races, in the best way.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” He murmurs, head tilting and body sagging to drink down your kiss-bruised lips. More, more, more— “You just need to be taken care of.”

“I don’t need to,” You lie, huffing. 

Keigo raises an eyebrow, biting his lips as your grip floats down to his balls, massaging them in your soft grip. It’s tender, weirdly vulnerable, as the whole of you two are.

“Maybe you don’t need to, you’re very capable,” Maybe not right now, but he knows it’s in there. “But you want it.”

“I-I like it,” You scramble the wording, shoving down his sweats, huffing again and urging Keigo to kick them away. Your palm goes to his cheek and drags him closer. “I like you a lot, love you, you know. You make me feel... safe. It’s a good feeling.”

It’s the most honest you’ve been in a long time, and it sits in the air. Keigo remains silent for a moment, silent and trying to control the way his birdbrain wants to take you. Wants to fuck you up and ruin you for anyone else.

You’re his, aren’t you?

“Good girl,” Keigo breaks the tension, squeezing your hips to the point of bruises. His, his, his. “I keep you so good, don’t I?”

You nod, spitting out little affirmatives between kisses. They dot his cheeks and forehead, slipping to his nose and downward. You pull his bottom lip into his mouth, letting out a little half-sob as Keigo’s touch drifts to your cunt, to your clit that’s swollen and untouched. 

More, more, more—

“You keep me so good,” You gulp, whining and grinding into the heel of his hand. Slick coats your sex, sticky and hot. “So, so good—”

Keigo drops down the bed, ignoring the flare of his scar tissue, to seat himself between your thighs. They get thrown over his shoulders with a squeeze. His hands cup your ass, slipping a pillow beneath your hips before eating your cunt like he’d die if he didn’t.

It’s one of his favorite things. Stuffing you full of him until your belly swells is another, or seeing the way his cock opens and stretches you until you’re gasping for breath and begging for more, more, more—

Keigo slips a finger into you without resistance. He curls it, unyielding as he massages the little knot of nerves in you that makes you arch and beg for more, for him.

You choke on a sob when he adds another finger, and he hushes you so sweet, tears prick your eyes. 

“Starshine,” He coaxes, withdrawing only to give your clit, a few kitten licks and slow kisses. His gaze flickers towards yours, holding your wet eyes. “Doesn’t it feel good?”

You nod, the meat of your thighs squeezing around him. Keigo would be happy to die like this, you soft and opened for him, crying for him. Broken and cracking for him, by his tongue, by his touch, Him. His.

“Who takes care of you?” He curls his fingers, and you throw your head back into the nest of pillows. 

“Y-You,” Your voice breaks and you rub at your cheeks. 

“Who knows just how to keep you so well? How to make you feel so good?”

He presses a third finger in, tending to your clit as you cry above him. You’re molten around him, and he laps you up until the smell and taste of you is all he comprehends. 

This is what you both need, isn’t it?

Each other. All of each other.

Your cries turn sour quickly, and it has Keigo jolting up, fingers withdrawn and leaving you to feel empty. The little sobs turned into hiccupping cries, one's stifled with the back of your hand. 

Keigo rises over you, tugging you hand away to get at your cheeks, kissing them soft and sweet. 

It isn’t often that you cry, surprisingly. You probably should more often. 

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Keigo urges. Please, please, just tell him what the fuck is wrong. He knows, you know, the meat of it all. But please tell him something he can tend to. Something he can stitch up because god, he needs to be useful— “What’s making your cry sweetheart? Tell me.”

You paw at your forehead, “It’s silly.” 

You sniffle and look at him with the most unguarded expression he’s seen you worn. The vacancy is gone, the hollowness and pain has been pulled away in the safety of that perfect nest and all that’s left is—

“‘M scared,” You mumble. Your arms curl over your chest, covering what’s primitively most precious to you. “I’m scared.”

Your eyes grow bright and heat, hotter than anything he’s felt from you, explodes over the room.

He’s half-choking and he fucking loves it. 

Something in his chest snaps and he worries your hair, bringing his nose to yours, nuzzling and nudging your hands away. He nips you. His poor little birdbrain.

“I’m afraid you’re going to leave.”

Keigo stills.

He sits with your fear for a few beats.

“I’d never leave,” He says easily, truthfully and fully. He couldn’t.

Those long nights in the hospital and the warmth passed between you had so easily gotten you wormed his chest, right next to his second and third rib. He can feel it, always; you’re ever present. He grabs your arms and holds them to yours sides. You’re exposed, soft flesh and squirming a bit beneath him. He wants to mark you purple and near-bloody, so that no one would think of you as anything other than his.

His, his, his.

He shows you.

Worn hands, a bit chapped with the dry air, pull your high to rest on his shoulders. He massages your calves, kissing your ankles.

“I mean this real lovingly, starshine,” He breaths deep, fisting his cock with a few slow strokes. “I’m not going anywhere.”

You don’t get a chance to protest as he slides into you in one stroke. The stretch of him has you burning; he can tell by the way your hands fly to his shoulders, nails digging into his shoulders as your little cries only get harder.

“Bear it, I know you can,” You had before, and you would many times more. The stretch feels amazing, even if it burns something in your core. You like it, how the pain pricks something that shoots into your toes. Only Keigo gets to fuck you up, gets to own you. “You’re always good f-for me— f-fuck, so fucking good—”

His, his, his.

There is, of course, the inverse.

You grab his jaw, your grip tight like his was earlier, and you meet his gaze. You blink away tears, sniffling, but expression set with determination.

“You’re mine too,” You squeeze around him, grinding down to the root of his cock. “‘M only good for you because you’re mine too, Keigo. All of you.”

Without thought, your hands ghost over his scars.

You have avoided them for so long. It was an untouched spot, something tender and from a time where Keigo was being that was entirely and wholly different from who he is now. It’s a piece of him that’s always been off-limits.

But you’re both so cracked open, you do it without thought.

And something in Keigo snaps.

He pushes you down by the backs of your thighs, folding your legs to your torso. And he fucks you.

His hips slam against yours, opening you up with pants and groans. You feel full, full of him in every and all ways, everywhere, always, and forever. 

You’re greedy with your touches, tugging him closer and uncaring of the way your nails scrap over his shoulders and arms. His body is yours and you’re his. It’s disgusting, it’s fucked up and perfect the way you slot together. It’s like little, scared pieces of existence slide together, and everything feels whole, yet open and uncracked.

Keigo fills you up with a sob, tears dripping down his cheeks as you pressed down on the burns and scars that rack down his back.

“Fill me up,” You demand, the heat of you swelling as his hand dips to your clit, circling and rolling with the little pleas falling from both your lips.

The world drips as his thrusts go harder, sloppier as you tip your head back and scream. Your voice breaks, hoarse from all your pleading and possession. 

Keigo stuffs you, tip of his cock pressed to the deepest parts of you. His cum, all him, leaks from around his cock as he gives a few more weakened grinds. He makes sure you’re full, content and sated and his.

He falls over you, coating your cheeks in kisses and praise. You sputter little sobs for him, begging for him to be closer, despite the way he still fills you even as he softens.

It never feels like enough, the closeness. But you’ll settle for all of him that you can get. 

...

The storm passes, and you spend your time much the same way. Fucking, feeling, and for a little, blessed while, forgetting.

Eventually, the snow stops falling. The wind that has been whipping the power into tree trucks and your windows falls still. It’s peaceful, then. Not that it wasn’t before, but without the weather bearing down on you, you’re both less hungry. Still greedy, just not starved.

You share the first morning after the storm outside, on the porch. Keigo had shoveled a little clear patch and you’d brushed off the two, brittle lawn chairs that had seen better days. You fixate on the task a bit too much, the steaming coffee you’re to share is forgotten. The straining plastic of the chairs is a yellowed-white and bright red. It felt strong enough under your fingers, cold fingers, as you cleared away the snow. 

It feels like a remnant

Whatever fixation you have on the object passes as Keigo runs a hand up your spine. His hand is wide and warm, still a bit warm from the toasty mugs.

You rearrange your chairs and yourselves to be close as can be, in your little patch of snowless porch, and sip at your coffee as the world begins to wake up. 

...

Oddly enough, the storm helps you make forward progress, at least a little. You take up making breakfasts on your own, occasionally carrying plates into the bedroom with a big, previously unseen grin

Keigo returns the smile so big, his cheeks burn for hours. 

You take to a few of the little crafts and things Keigo has been hoarding. Paper folding and little canvases with acrylic painting are your favorites. Sometimes, you paint your little strokes and press creases from the comfort of the couch. Other times, you make you place for the day at the kitchen island while Keigo makes his day-long meals. 

There’s a rhythm to it that’s so good.

It’s progress, and seeing it visibly start to the fill the walls feels good for both of you. Your little canvases get hung around the cabin, little portraits of the stars and their mother, all for you and Keigo to admire. ;;

 ...

             He gets the call exactly three weeks after the storm passes. 

Keigo awakes before you to the shrill ring of his cell. It vibrates against the bedside table, loud enough to wake the both of you. You both startle out of sleep, squeezing each other. 

He takes the call in the other room, after he sees the contact name.

[Suits] Calling...

 He paces as he listens to her drone on.

There’s no greeting, no “hey, how does it feel to be a flightless fucking failure?”. It’s business. Just business. It’s always been like that with her, and the lot of suits that treated him like a fixture until he got particularly cracked and unsightly.

“So, you come into Tokyo, we’ll do a small event—”

“The event you’re describing really doesn’t sound small,” Keigo tilts his head and gives an angry smile to his own reflection in the mirror. “It sounds like a circus that I really have no interest in being a part of.”

“It’s for the people, Hawks—”

It makes him snap.

“Stop fucking calling me that.” He growls into the receiver, grip tight enough to hurt. “Stop calling me, stop asking me, I am not coming back.”

The woman is silent on the line for a beat, before spitting, “What if I didn’t give you a choice?”

His blood runs cold before burning in his veins. And he laughs.

“You think you could?” He only feels a little hysterical. “You don’t have any power, not over me, not over anyone else as far as I’ve seen, Madam President!” 

“Hawks—”

Shut up, shut up, shut UP.

“The Commission is dead, the world is in chaos, and putting the corpse of a hero on the big screen isn’t going to convince anyone that this is all fixable,” Keigo chest gets tight, and he can’t tell if it’s from the uncomfortable laughter he’s spitting or the sobs that are locked in his chest. 

“So, you’d rather turn your back on the people you swore to protect?” Suits speaks with no emotion, not an ounce of feeling. “Selfish.”

Selfish, selfish, selfish. The word echoes in his mind, worms its way down his throat and suffocates him. 

“You’re really going to say that to me? Of all fucking people?” He feels his nails break skin where he’d been clenching his fist. “Me, selfish?”

“You left, didn’t you? Ran away?” The woman has the stones to fucking laugh. “Everyone’s lost something. You’re not special, and it doesn’t justify—”

“What the fuck are you getting out of this?” Keigo interrupts, burning, burning— “Did you call me to go to this little gala or did you call to dig into your perfect little hero? You told me I could be done. Should’ve known you were lying, you always lie—”

“You’re being childish.”

“Oh my GOD!” Keigo nearly screams and doesn’t notice how you’ve tip-toed from the bedroom. “Do you hear yourself?”

“I hear you screaming at me, the woman who practically raised you, like some petulant brat. Get a grip, Hawks.” 

He snaps.

“STOP FUCKING CALLING ME THAT!” He screams into the phone, vision going white and scarlet. “I am not Hawks! Hawks is DEAD! Why can’t you understand that? There’s no fucking hero to attend your little ‘healing’ gala, there’s just me. ‘Childish’, ‘selfish’, and wingless, babe. That’s what I’ve got, and this is what I am.”

Suits takes an audible sigh, and Keigo can almost see how she’s shaking her head at him, “You’re being ridiculous, Hawks. Take at least a goddamn ounce of responsibility for your actions that helped cause all... this.”

Ah, there it is. The thing Hawks has so properly compartmentalized, tucked so far back in his psyche that it’s almost impossible to reach.

How much of the dissolution of... everything is on him?

Something in him snaps, and it slips through his own fingers. 

  “I’m not going and this, Madam President? This is for me.”

Selfish, selfish, selfish.

He hears her unspoken words echoing in his skull as he hangs up, slamming the phone on the countertop.

Something hotter than rage and more poisonous than pain fills his blood, and it makes him want to both wretch and break his fingers in the same breath. He slams a fist onto the phone, cracking it against the countertop. He can buy a new one— 

“S-Sweetpea?”

Keigo freezes.

You’re at the mouth of the hallway, hardly out of the shadows, eyes wide and fearful. His chest somehow gets even tighter. 

Normally, he would’ve rushed to comfort you, calmed himself down to console you for seeing his little outburst.

But he doesn’t that day.

He breaths ragged with his lips slowly curling, panic’s ugly cousin turning his spit acrid behind his teeth.

“Here, let’s go back to bed, okay? We can—” You take a few steps closer, hand outstretched and eyes beginning to light.

Oh, and Keigo’s hit by fucking envy, and it’s over. 

“Don’t.” 

You freeze, “Pretty eyes—”

“Don’t, just don’t.”

You don’t move as Keigo trudges to the door, throws on his thick parka and snow boots, pocketing his keys and grumbles to you that there’s leftovers in the fridge.

It’s shitty and selfish.

And he just doesn’t care.

He can’t make himself care as the door slams shut behind him, the sound echoing off the trees and so quickly dampened by the snow. 

...

Keigo drives, white noise in his ear that echoes the wind in the treetops of the mountains he’s descending. He’s only half there as he leaves town. 

It’s still too much. 

...

You, on the other hand? 

You’re frozen, stuck-still, as you watch Keigo climb into the car and drive off. Maybe your mouth has gone a bit agape, you aren’t aware of your body. 

You panic. 

There’s no other word for it, not that you were able to think of as you were untrenched in it. 

There’s something thick and knotted that is rolling unraveling in your chest. The... thing is worse than a feeling and runs deeper and hotter than you can manage.

You tried to manage it.

While Keigo is god fucking knows where, you paced the house, always within eyeshot of a window. Hoping for a glimpse of his dark parka, or the tufts of his blonde sticking out in the snow, a return—

Fucking nothing.

He just left.

No return time, no destination, just a departure with no explanation. He’d obviously left the cabin before, you’d handled those times quite well, but he’d never stormed out. Never raised his voice and screamed and then just left. 

Is he okay? 

(You heard most of the call, at least his side of it. Is that awful Hero Commission he told you about calling him back? Or even worse, dragging him away.)

(He’d tell you, wouldn’t he?)

(Guess you’ll never know! Because he’s fucking gone.)

It made something seize in your chest, hot and awful as you walked your circuit, praying. Worry is damning. 

How could he just... leave?

You need him back.

You alone without him.

Your thoughts rot you, despite the winter’s cold outside. The chill of the cabin seeps into your bones, coats them and leaves you sticky and downright paranoid. The lack of... presence (his presence) was driving you up a wall. The air is too still, the floors quiet and without the telltale old creaks of movement that you’ve become accustomed to, and the cabin is silent other than your breathing and rabbit’s heart.

Beneath the anger was a thick layer of fear. 

You are alone.

The feeling rolled its way into you as the sun began to dip lower in the sky.

What if he never comes back?

Of course he is, you remind yourself, hurriedly, worrying the scary on your leg and picking at the core of it. He wouldn’t leave.

Why wouldn’t he?

The thought gets your poor little heart racing faster, air choking in your lungs. Your head whips to the window to see the empty, snowy driveway.

“I-I’m alone,” You break the silence of the house, the walls answering with their pensive quiet and the wind shaking the fresh snow from thin branches just outside.

All alone.

All fucked up and broken and fucking alone.

“He wouldn’t leave,” You start talking to yourself, threading a hand in your hair, gripping. “He cares, he wouldn’t just leave.”

He cared about being a hero too and he left everyone else.

What if things changed? 

Insecurities, new ones and old ones, cloud your mind and vision and stuffed your lungs. The grip on your hair goes tighter. 

All alone in the mountains.

All.

Alone.

It scares you more than anything, how much you need him.

Tears prick the corners of your eyes as you tug at the roots of your hair. It hurts, but everything is starting to hurt very quickly, and a bit of hair pulling is child’s play to how it feels like your chest is being hollowed out.

You really have so little. It stuns you in the moment as you choke back a sob. The little house in the mountains, Keigo, and the starlight you still both enjoy— that’s fucking it. You’d never returned to your ‘apartment’, or rather the remnants of it. Any possessions you had were lost to destruction and unsalvageable. Your meager relationships and friendships had fallen away when you were bound to hospital for months.

He’s all you have.

“No, no, no,” You nearly trip in your pacing, dragging your feet as you accept your reality. “He can’t l-leave.”

The world responds with silence. The mountains are cold and lonely, just like you are. It’s cruel, it all hurts and after being in a daze so often, the reality of your situation hurts like a hot brand.

He’ll come back.

He cares.

You desperately try to convince yourself as you tug your parka on, throwing on your boots. You don’t bother to fasten or tie anything, you just stumble onto the deck blindly and scan the hill of the drive.

Not a single soul.

Something rotten curls up behind your teeth. Bile climbs the back of your throat and you have to swallow to keep from vomiting. Your chest is too tight, the world is too bright, and you’re terrified.

You’re not sure what to call the type of panic response you have; it doesn’t make any logical sense. Your heart runs in your chest, your breath is hot and tight, and you simply slip to the ground in the fresh snow.

And you wait.

...

Keigo drives until he’s nearly out of town, into some flatlands near the river that gurgles and churns nearby. The surrounding forest is the perfect place for a pensive walk. 

It’s the best place for him to just get it out.

It had been a long time since Keigo had just talked to himself. Audibly sorts himself as he walks along the bank of the almost-frozen river. He doesn’t keep his voice quiet, no, its full volume complaining. It’s anger that’s bundled up in his chest that’s finally being lit and the smoke of it nearly chokes him out. 

It’s not fair.

He does feel a bit childish, thinking about it like that. But hadn’t he done enough? Hadn’t they told him that he’d done enough? He lost it all and was just starting to the plant the seeds for a new life to sprout. Couldn’t he just have that? He’s not the shiny thing he used to be he’s fucking worthless. And that’s fine. He’s made peace with it and can find worth outside of saving people.

He’s capable. Adaptable. And he’s doing it all at his trademark speed.

But the thing that makes his gut twist is facing everything he (ran away from) left behind. The only short statement he’d given after Dabi’s video was nearly as viral as the actual video of him killing Jin (don’t think about it, don’t think about it—) 

He’s not sure what possesses him to pull out his phone and pull up the video. It’s not hard to find. 

It hurts to watch, but he does it anyway. Fucking masochist. 

He’s standing beside Enji and Tsunagu, all of them in hastily tailored suits. They all had their visible injuries. Scars and brands that had just been carved and burned into skin. They look haggard, they look beaten. 

Because they were.

Keigo watches as he adjusts his microphone in the video and gives his statement. Stupidly simple and vague, all at the same time.

“The villain Dabi did not lie. I am the son of Takami, and I killed Twice of the League of Villains. It was all necessary. Please accept my apology for the upset I have caused.”

His voice doesn’t even sound like him. It’s manufactured and broken. He remembers how the smoke had charred his throat and lungs for the first few days, before he was transferred from Central to the big facility in the tall-tree-ed forest. 

He bows on the video and Enji begins his statement. Something solemn about the suffering he’s caused his family, how he wants to atone and how he is atoning. The public was too angry to listen and is too angry to listen. And the world Keigo ran from is the result. 

He lets himself cry.

Finally.

His shoulders shake as he hunches over himself. The tears slip down his chilled cheeks and make little divots where they fall into the snow beneath him. His little gasps turn into sobs, the kind that hurt your chest and give you a headache that lasts for days.

He repeats a little mantra between scratchy breaths—

“I’m still good.”

“I’m still good.”

“I’m still good.”

He falls against the thick bark of a tree and slides down to the ground. 

He let’s go.

It’s good for him, cleansing. Maybe it’s the rushing of the nearby river or the snow he's buried his hands in, but with each ragged breath he can feel some of that filth that’s clinging to him fall away. Not all of it, not by a long shot. 

But feeling the worst is the first step to feeling your best. 

So, when Keigo’s ready, he stands and moves forward. Trudges onward, albeit a bit slower. 

...

Keigo returns home just as the sky begins to change from red to indigo with the night. It paints the pines and evergreens an eerie, dark color, shadows long and deep against the fluffy snow.

His gut twists in knots as he gets closer to home. 

He’s tired. Exhausted. His eyes are still puffy from his tears, sore and aching. His body still feels tight, tense in his shoulders and arms as he grips the steering wheel. He needs rest. A good cup of tea and maybe a beer later. 

And you.

As weak as Keigo feels, he knows he fucked up... just a bit. 

It wasn’t fair to storm out. He isn’t dumb. All the same, if he stayed with you in the cabin, he probably would’ve said something he regretted. Or locked himself in the bedroom all day. It wouldn’t have been good or fair for you or him. 

(Coward.)

Probably, but he was also burned alive fairly recently, so he had to give himself a bit of credit. 

As he nears, his stomach drops. 

You’re on the porch. You sit on the steps, parka pooling around your waist as your head rests on your knees.

Something’s not right.

Some of his old, honed senses trill to life, seeing you. Something in his gut twists, the muscles in his back tense, the old ones that controlled his wings. 

You must be cold. 

Keigo leaves the car and slaps on a smile, “Waiting for me, starshine?” 

You twitch, curling over your body harder. 

Something is very wrong— 

He calls your name, your actual name, and you hardly stir. You all but twitch from where you sit, head tilting up just the slightest bit.  It’s not enough to ease any of the worry pulling his old muscles, if anything, it makes it worse.

He falls to his knees in front of you, ignoring the crack his bones make.

“How long have you been out here?” Too long, he knows the answer, but he still has to ask.

“... A while,” You murmur, barely audible. “You’re back.”

“I am,“ Keigo pushes you up by your shoulders, scanning your face as more fear curls in his gut. 

Your eyes are glassy and unfocused.

“We need to get you inside, now,” He isn’t sure if he sounds scared or angry (probably both), and he can’t make himself care. 

You’re freezing.

Too cold, way too cold.

Keigo had to take plenty of survival courses during his training with the Commission and he had learned plenty about hypothermia. His avian anatomy made him more susceptible to the cold and knowing the symptoms for himself kept him from turning into a bird-adjacent popsicle more than once. He’d rescued his handful of civilians—

(Don’t think about being a hero right now or you’re gonna start crying again.)

You’re not some civilian, you’re you and you’re in front of him with darkened lips and dull eyes and full panic breaks his ribs.

...

You remember how pretty red the sky was.

You like sunsets. 

You should see if Keigo wants to watch the sunset sometime.

Keigo’s gone.

You could drive—

Keigo drove away. You’re alone.

You aren’t sure how long you sat in the chill, but it was comforting despite how your fingers and toes began to ache. Outside, there were plenty of sounds and sights to keep you company. The wind whistled through trees, and the sky echoed a few, far-off sounds from distant civilization. 

It was nice. Peaceful, at the very least.

...

“Inside, you need to be inside,” Keigo sputters, pulling you up under your arms. Your feet drag for a moment before going flat, and you sway in his arms. 

Getting you inside makes his body ache in new ways, your weight mostly on his side. Old pains crawled to the surface as he dragged you to the couch, setting you down on the cushion and assessing you better.

His hands run over your body, over curves and divots he knew and loved and the chill of you filled him with dread.

“Your pants are wet from the snow,” Keigo swallows, rising. “I’m going to grab you dry clothes.”

As soon as he tries to move away, you catch his wrist in a weak grip.

And finally, half-lucidly, you regard him with terror in your eyes.

“You l-left,” You spit, lips curling over your teeth. “You left, Keigo.”

You use his real name and he really wants to die a little. 

Sure, Suits used it on the phone with him and it made him see blood fucking red, but it’s you, and you saying the name he never really had, for the first time, so fucking angrily makes part of his secretly fragile heart break.

He freezes, breathing hard through his nose as he looks down at you.

“I’m sorry,” He says softly. “Let me get you warm, then we can talk, okay?”

You don’t look convinced, tightening your grip on his wrist and pulling him closer.

Keigo gives in, so, so easily, dropping to his knees and pulling your icy hands into his. He rubs warmth into them, bringing them to his lips and breathing hot over your knuckles.

“Please, starshine. Let me get you warm.”

“I’m already warm,” Your voice slurs, entirely unconvincing.

“I say this very lovingly,” He says, somehow cracking a smile, “but you’re genuinely hypothermic. You can be as mad at me as you want, but you need to get warmed up.”

You chew your lip, cupping his cheeks with your freezing palms, “... You’re not leaving?”

Your voice drawls and Keigo makes a note to turn up the thermostat.

“No, god, no, I’m not,” He tries to assure you, shaking his head, but your grip only gets harsher. He placates you with a squeeze to your knee. “Please let me help.”

He can’t tell you how much he needs to. How hyper aware he is of your chill and of his own thumping heart. That protective urge in his chest wants to just pull you to his chest and wrap you up in him, in his heat, but that’s for later.

Your eyes' gaze goes softer, little specks of light bouncing between your irises. The room fills with blessed, familiar heat and Keigo can feel his shoulders slacken and some of the worry in his chest dissipate.

...

He returns with some of his own soft joggers, fleece-lined and well-loved. He grabbed a few layers, and an armful of blankets and pillows. Anything he could carry gets brought as his little, avian mind craves something he suppressed for years so well.

Nest, nest, nest.

Heat them first, then nest. 

He helps you slip into your new, dry clothes as your teeth begin to chatter. Thank fucking god. Keigo is smart enough to check your toes as he slips onto fuzzy, thermal socks, and they all look to be healthy and functioning. 

You’re quiet during the whole ordeal, save for soft breathing and snapping teeth. You occasionally grab his hand and hold it to whatever part of your skin was bared, mumbling something about how warm he is. 

Keigo eventually gets you settled and surrounded by blankets and pillows which you sink into, eyes hardly open. Only then does he feel like he can pull away enough to start the nearby fire.

It feels somewhat unnecessary, given you’re still heating the room. It’s probably somewhat for the atmosphere, considering the sky is nearly fully black. A bit of crackling flame and light would do you both good. 

(He rarely lights fire, but considering the flame is a kind red and not a fucking disgusting blue, he can bear it. Especially now.) 

When the fire is stoked, he turns back to you and deflates. 

“I’m sorry,” You say, all soft and half-lidded from the blankets. “That was... dumb.”

“It was.” 

Keigo can’t fight you on the obvious. 

There’s a goddamn list of questions he wants to ask you. ‘Why’s and ‘what’s, but he has a pretty good idea of why you were sitting outside and what you were thinking. 

He’s not sure you’d want to talk about it anyway. 

The couch creaks when he sits down a few feet from your little nest, running a tired hand over his face.

“... You know, this couch folds out,” You shift a little, slow and lethargic. Still cold. “We should sleep out here tonight.”

He turns to regards you, and it takes everything in him not to fucking break.

“Why?” His voice shakes and he knows you can tell.

You hum, leaning toward him, “Change of scenery. I think we could both use it.”

“Later.” Keigo agrees. The urge to wrap you up in his (wings) arms feels unbearable, the little avian tickings in his skull loud and needy. “Warm first. Futon later.”

You huff weakly, but lift the blankets to let Keigo slip behind you. His body curls around yours, finding the coldest parts of you and tending to them first. His hands clasp over yours and your feet get tucked between his calves. 

“Thanks,” You murmur, neutral and vacant.

Keigo doesn’t push you.

Instead, you stay tucked in his arms, still shivering, but significantly less cold. Your lips and cheeks look a far healthier color and they’re warm to the touch. He traces his fingertips over the curves of your face and neck, preening in the only way he can muster up.

You eventually break the silence, when the fire is all but embers.

“I heard some of that call…” Your voice trails off. “It sounded bad.”

“It was,” Keigo agrees with a little nod. He really doesn’t want to think about Suits and, you know, the rest of the world, but it feels necessary. “Very bad.”

“Who was it?”

“Old boss.”

“… And?”

Keigo sighs, squeezing you probably a little too tightly, “Why don’t we focus on warming you up from your hypothermic excursion and not my shitty life as a shitty hero—”

“You weren’t a shitty hero, Keigo,” He can hear the mourning in your voice and it makes him want to die, just a little. You cup his cheeks, eyes sad and soft around the edges. “You were a really good one.”

“Was I? News to me.” He laughs, the bitter sound tasting like bile. He hates it, the feel of it mixed with the heat and softness of you. It feels wrong. “I don’t want to talk about all that, starshine. Please just drop it.”

Your face hardens.

“No.”

“… No?”

“No, I’m not done,” You sigh, big and hard. “I think we’re more fucked up than we talk about, Keigo.”

He winces, but you keep going, and he doesn’t move to stop you.

“Probably.”

Your jaw sets like stone on stone. It makes him internally wince as your hands go to cup his cheeks.

“I’m fucked up, you’re fucked up, everything is fucked up. We can ignore it up here, quietly, but it’s true, isn’t it?”

Yes.

“Yeah.” He feels his gut roll, but he doesn’t stop you. His grip goes tighter on your hips. “You’re not wrong.”

“Can we just… Acknowledge it? Please.” You ask, beg, softly as you rub his cheeks with your thumbs. “Please, Keigo.”

He doesn’t know what to do at first. He really wants to lock up. Shut down. Lock all the nasty feelings in chest, behind his heart, so they can burrow into his spine and keep him moving forward.

He wraps his hands around your wrists.

Your eyes look glassy, tears sticking in your bottom eyelashes, but not daring to fall. Not yet.

“Keigo, I’m fucked up, I know that, and that’s okay,” You deflate a little. “I’m getting better. We’re getting better. I know we are.”

“We a-are.”

Keigo’s voice cracks, hoarse in his throat and tight as the uniform belt he used to wear. His lungs feel hot, too stuffed even as he tries to swallow the heat that’s welling up on the very back of his tongue.

“You are good, Keigo, I promise,” You lean in to give his forehead the lightest kiss and Keigo feels part of himself die in the best way. “Please, let’s just talk.”

And so, he does.

…

He tells you about Jin first.

You’d heard about him, the villain Hawks killed during the War. Published for the world to see, over and over, forever. The video was one you’d only seen once, during your early days at the hospital, but you could recall the footage on your grainy hospital television.

Your pretty eyes, pretty Keigo, cut him down. One of his old feathers, hardened into a stiff blade, struck Jin across the chest, arcing up to his neck and slicing a few important arteries  and veins. It was an imperfect job, one that probably made his death more painful and prolonged than it needed to be.

You don’t let go of Keigo’s cheeks as he tells you the story. You can’t, you’re too busy thumbing away the little tears that roll down his cheeks.

He speaks between sobs that break from his chest. Underused and much-needed.

“He was good, starshine,” Keigo curls in a little on himself, but you keep him mostly upright. “I had to, y-you know? I didn’t have a choice, if I didn’t—"

How many more people would be dead?

His body convulsed, the little tears turning fat as he collapsed into your chest and buried himself in you. Like he was hiding, and god, did you let him.

You hushed him, soothed him with little kisses, and listened.

“And then Dabi—”

You hate him, obviously. You only know his name and visage, and you hate him so much it hurts. Part of you wants to rub at his scars like he lets you, but you decide against it in Keigo’s fragility.

He tells you of the blue flames, how the boot felt against his back, how his throat burned for weeks from the heat and smoke. His grip on you goes so tight, you’re afraid he’s going to tear your shirt to shreds.

“He took them, starshine,” Keigo’s voice muffled into your shoulder, the sound of it rattling you. “He t-took them!”

And he slumps against you, well and truly, and can’t muster up another word. All you could do is hold him, rocking him from your little, shared spot on the couch and whisper to him little comforts. You’re crying a little too, breath tight and hazy as you let Keigo shatter in your arms.

He’s not ready to talk about his wings and that’s okay. More than okay.

So, you soothe him. He soothes you right back, rubbing at your sides, hips, thighs— whatever he can reach and touch and claim. You’re good, you’re the closest he’s going to get to permeance and he’ll be damned to let you go when you feel so good and he feels so fucking awful.

You fall back onto the chest, pulling Keigo with you so he can lay atop you. His ear presses to your chest, heart thumping in his ear while you lock your arms around him. Caged in and held, with the lightest pressure on the thick skin of his scars.

“I’ll never truly get it, I can’t,” You admit, quietly as you smooth back some of his tear-matted hair. “But I want to be here. I want to listen when you’re want to talk. Need to talk. You can dash off on your own, Keigo, that’s okay. Just know that I’ve got you to, okay?”

Keigo sniffled, peering up at you with wide eyes, “Are you sure you can handle it?”

“I am now, aren’t I? Just a few hours out from nearly being a popsicle,” You hum and joke, glowing from the inside out when Keigo graces you with a little smile.

It takes a few more moments for him to cover, haul himself up to the crook of your neck and breathing hard and deep for a while. Like he’s trying to absorb you through scent alone.

“… Are you okay?” Keigo asks, squeezing you so tight it hurts. (And you want more of it.) “You’re not as cold anymore.”

“I’m feeling okay,” You paw at your face a bit, rubbing your cheeks like they’re still numb and not flushed with blood and sticky with drying tears. “I just freaked out a little.”

“… Because I left?”

You nod, chewing your lips.

“I don’t want to be alone, Keigo,” You whisper it, though he already knows your admission. “I’m terrified of you leaving.”

“When I left,” Keigo rises to meet your gaze, gooey and cobbled. “Did you think I wouldn’t come back?”

“… Maybe,” You shake your head, refusing to look at him. “You didn’t say anything about coming back, just about… leftovers.”

You both frown.

“I panicked.” You shake your heard.

“… That’s what happens when you panic?”

“I guess?” Your mouth feels too dry. “I don’t know. I got scared. I panicked. What else was I supposed to do?”

There’s an obvious answer or two, but it’s unspoken.

“I’m not leaving,” Keigo rubs at your cheeks. “You’re gonna have to try pretty hard to get me gone, starshine. I love you too much to go easily.”

It’s a declaration, a strong one, and god does it feel fucking good to hear.

“… Promise?” You ask him as his palms cup your cheeks and jaw.

“Promise.”

“I heard on the call—”

Keigo interrupts you with a kiss, hard and long that steals your breath and makes your head spin.

“Promise.” Keigo breaths, pretty eyes meeting your heat-filled ones. “Everywhere, all the time, forever. I promise, I’m not going anywhere.”

It’s a start, even if that insecurity is so deeply rooted. The adoration in his eyes, and the sweetness of his touch tempers it all. It’s there still, just like how there’s so much unspoken that needs to be sorted, chewed on, and digested.

But now?

The embers in the hearth need another log or two. The futon needs to be folded out and I’d be best if you shared a cup or two of tea. Preferably something with lavender that’ll scent the cabin with the smells of spring and herbs.

Now, you’re both more than enough.

…

thank you for reading!!💞keep an eye out for part 3! 👀

ko-fi

[wistfulrat]

a 4-part rec list of my fave drarry fics - the thrillers, dramas, soft bois, and wankbanks getting me through 2020′s shitstorm

[the soft boi list is here and truly i’m not surprised this rec is going to be the longest bc if there’s one thing a bitch is going to do, it’s yearn.

as always! if you love a fic, follow the authors, leave kudos & comments, send them nice msgs bc free art is still labor xoxo]

part 3: soft bois

mood: for when I need respite, a balm to the all-consuming shittiness of life

includes: fluff, comfort, low-stakes, slow-burn fics. a wistful look, a rainy morning, an unexpected grace, a stupidly disarming joke. i could live inside these fics. the smallness of human lives removed from the site of that which hurts & irreparably changes. the story-equivalent of a deep breath after a long day. pregnant silences & pensive mundanity & shy smiles. banter with bite but without the cruelty. the color lavender. weirdly whimsical. soft fics are not necessarily conflict-averse (no drarry fic rly can be, considering the context) but, they offer the reader a generous distance from the initial harm. they’re the quiet cleaning up after a storm. sometimes healing is an exacting surgical knife and other times it’s a slow scabbing. you read these fics to be reassured that the way forward is not always ruthless. and honestly?? they deserve a semblance of peace godDAMmit.

The Way Down by @letteredlettered - 65k - T “and I thought that if someone talked to you as though you were a human being you might—maybe you could act like one” --the way i think about this line daily. the characterization of draco in this fic is one my favorites bc he’s earnest and neurotic and tired of harry’s shit. which is to say, he cares so so much. and harry doesn’t know what to do with that bc he’s got a monster in his chest and lives as a recluse. but they both humanize each other in ways no one else can. “you’re just a person” has to be some kind of drarry ethics of belonging and it makes me CRY. -

Little Deaths and How to Avoid Them by @greaseonmymouth and dustmouth - 96k - T “Maybe it’s not about deserving it? Maybe you just get to have it anyway. . .I’m allowing myself to want something and to let myself have it and to fight for it.” --harry runs a daycare and also works at a library. draco spends a lot of time in said library. they bond over sci-fi books and therapy anecdotes and quiet philosophical conversations held over cafeteria soup. and harry’s struggling to understand his asexuality. draco’s learning how to live with anxiety and depression. they both want to be deserving of love. incredible fic with beautiful art by dustmouth. - 

Open for Repairs by @drarrytrash - 35k - T “A few leaves rustle in the gutter and the muggle world pays no mind to them, to two lost boys holding on for dear life.” --all of their fics feel exactly like this. like you’ve been allowed to look at something private, tender, unexpected. draco, known abba fan, is a repairman in the muggle world & harry can’t stop breaking thrifted things in order to see him? say less, i'm thERE. also “I think I have a crush on you” goddddd  - other faves by them: Counting Down By Ten - 2k - T: draco’s stepped outside of the party for a smoke. harry follows him bc of course he does. i could read this 100 times and not get tired of it. - Clouds That Veil the Midnight Moon - 36k - E: FUCKING HILARIOUS I CACKLED THROUGH THE WHOLE THING. draco’s wolfy problem and harry helping him and harry being flustered by how much he likes draco and draco’s hot heroic moment. shutup it’s perfect. “He almost asks if Draco ever gets tired of being a miserable complaining shit all the time, but he knows that he, personally, never ever gets tired of being a miserable complaining shit.” and “It’s the traumas,” Harry says gravely” --lines that live rent free in my head -

Harry Potter and the Future He Doesn't Really Want, Thanks by seefin - 70k - E “That was the only logical thing to do here, wasn’t it? It was the next step, it was the end of hurting each other and the beginning of the exact opposite.” --harry lives with luna and neville and also he dreams about the future sometimes? and he keeps running into draco. draco thinks this is sus as hell, until he doesn’t. feat. taxi rides, museums, cinemas, rooftop conversations beneath a lunar eclipse, mid-sex innocuous banter, draco and harry discussing nicki minaj. this fic charmed my ass off. seefin writes the most effortlessly hilarious dialogues. i smiled at my phone like an idiot at least 7 times. -  other faves by them: Wild - 93k - E: “he liked feeling needed, for the things that he was needed for back at the house in Ireland. For cooking and gardening and driving. Easy things.” --this shit makes me cry it’s so good. harry lives in Ireland with these three brilliant, hilarious, wandless witches and draco’s a potions student who's come to study under one of the housemates and the boys have so much shit to work through but their love becomes so tender and honest. draco yells at harry a lot and harry lets him and they both keep each other grounded in something real and fuCK.  - Divination for Dickheads - 7k - G: “I’m terrible at having crushes. I’ve never played anything cool a day in my life.” -- oh harry, we knOW. a bus ride, a fortune teller, an aquarium birthday party. god i love this fic. -

Modern Love by @tackytigerfic​ - 61k - E “But we’ve worked so hard at this, haven’t we? Yeah, I know it’s a horror to have to talk about it, but fuck it. We’re friends now, but it took so long to get here. Have you ever had to work so hard at something before?" --the steady blossoming of their friendship in this fic is so goddamn beautiful i want to yell. it’s draco and harry learning to trust each other and the whole thing unfolds so slowly, in this whimsical mix of london streets, wizarding politics, church halls feat. a Hot vicar, and a magical antique shop owner who’s married to literal poseidon?? goD the environment of this fic. immaculate. [also there’s a tender shower scene that makes me cry every single fucking time so if you read this fic pls dm me so we can be embarrassing about it together tbh] -

Nice Things by aideomai - 22k - M “He kept waiting for the weird shock of touch to not knock him clean out of his head, leave him quiet and warm and happy.” --8th year. harry forms an unlikely friendship with draco that begins with smoking weed on a windowsill. harry is touch-starved and draco touches him like he touches all his close friends - like it’s easy. the quiet affection in this fic, the way harry burrows himself into touch bc he’s been without it for his entire life. reading this is like being held. -

Running On Air by @tinyhistory​ - 74k - T “do you remember when we were eleven?” --alexa play coldplay’s the scientist it’s sad girl hours and we’re about to fucking yearn. you’ve seen this fic rec on every drarry list under the sun and i'm here to be redundant. the hype is so goddamn real. this story is a lyrical masterpiece held together by lines that act as refrains that will rattle around your brain until you die, probably. draco’s been missing for 3yrs. harry goes to find him. it’s their odyssey of homecoming. -

Title of Their Sex Tape by @cibeewastaken - 12k - T “But Draco, Draco was everything but boring. Draco made sitting in the rain watching an empty house fun.” --auror partners pining and draco being eccentric and harry being very earnestly gay about draco’s eccentricities!! god this fic is so genuinely fun skskd feat. undercover missions, murderous faeries, a book heist, a stunning navy dress, harry’s eyelashes. -

How We Throw Our Shadows Down by @thistle-verse - 14k - T “Draco is about to say something else— to thank Potter for what he’d done, however poorly— but Harry is smiling at him again, and it’s so soft and perfect that Draco holds in any inadequate words, lest he spoil it.” --draco collects tea cozies and of course harry has the one he wants. the sad and tender gays are at it again feat. conversations in the rain at a train station, melancholy Blaise, muggle photos, wizarding e-bay, the Dursleys.  -

Helix by Saras_Girl - 92k - E “Draco sighs in his sleep and Harry clings on to consciousness, needing to hold on, to give this tiny, insignificant moment the attention it deserves” --I think maybe you can describe every soft Saras_Girl story as giving tiny, insignificant moments the attention they deserve. like, this is an 8th year fic about snails and it’s full of whimsy, grief, compassion, and easy humor. an absolute must-read author in this genre if you want languorous, episodic fics full of distinct OCs and affectionate creatures. - other faves by them: Light up the Night Sky - 98k - M “Draco, sometimes you make my head feel like soup” --the one where harry is a fireworks artist and has a pet chameleon named ken. draco is on the wizarding arts council. they both pine like hell. - Headlights in the Snow - 71k - M “they stare at each other in silence, Harry’s heart beating so loud in his chest that he thinks the biddies must be able to hear it over the sound of their card game.” --the one where draco drives the knight bus and carts around the biddy club, a group of rambunctious old ladies who knit and drink tea and gossip. harry can’t help but fall in love with the everything about this. -

Follow the Water by @xanthippe74 - 38k - T “Harry’s heavy thoughts lift at the sight, like dark clouds blown away from the sun by the wind. The tent doesn’t feel so cramped and stifling now. It feels cozy. And safe. It’s the same feeling that Harry gets when he’s at the Burrow for Sunday roasts, when a group of people who care for each other deeply are crammed into too-small a space.” --harry wanders to the lovegood house on a sunday afternoon. he’s baffled to see that luna’s taken pansy, greg, and draco under her wing. what follows is a summer of forest walks, scavenger hunts, gardening, water fights, odd cakes, faerie rings, and picnics. so many picnics. i love the pace of this fic, the innocent return to childhood things, the way luna brings out the best in all her friends. reluctantly soft slytherins are just *chefs kiss*!! -

Going Postal (A 125pg comic) by dustmouth - T what. a. beautiful. ass. comic. the wizarding fashion, the textures, the character design!! harry travels a lot for his job as a resourcer. draco works in the regulations dept. they pine like a bunch of lovesick idiots via field report notes. god i love dustmouth’s art. -

All the Earnest Young Men by @tepre​ - 29k - E “Draco is twenty-seven layers of personality wrapped up in drama and humour, and a wit so sharp it still stings when he doesn’t see it coming. But there is something below that, too. Something that makes Harry ache just looking at him.” --the way i would lay down my little life for tepre’s characterization of draco, whom invented the word earnest. he’s a magical art theory expert and portraits are disappearing all over London and harry’s the auror assigned to this case. and well. they’re both so very avoidant about how gay they are for each other and it’s like!! shutup and kiss!! which they do in fact, shutup and kiss.  -

Trenches by sara_holmes - 3k - M “Somewhere in the distant part of his mind that hasn't frozen solid, he thinks that maybe he and Draco are about to become more than auror partners, smoking buddies, wine-mates and co-inhabitants of a snow filled trench somewhere in western Scotland.” --the plot line here is literally “it’s cold and i need a fucking cigarette” but let me tell you how I never tire of the shared loaded-silences of two emotionally repressed gays. -

The Years Before Love by lomonaaeren - 13k - M “That’s one of the meanings of peace, he thinks, as Hermione hugs him...That he can do things slowly, softly, without worrying that they won’t be there tomorrow.” --andromeda taking harry under her wing and harry finding solace in teddy. narcissa and draco showing up and the tentative relationships that slowly develop in the quiet calm of andromeda’s house. found families and kisses in the snow and special xmas gifts ugh what’s not to love -

The Moon Looks Lovely Tonight by Omi_Ohmy - 35k - M “I want this to be a house where people are welcome, where they don’t have to be any one way or another” --in which harry collects lost things--owls, best friends, inept bakers, potions experimenters--and turns the mausoleum that is grimmauld place into a home. feat. your fave drarry tropes like shared-beds and reluctant waltzing partners. -

[part 1: thrillers | part 2: dramas | part 3: soft bois | part 4: wankbanks]

[chinateacup]

mann I adore the way you picture a possible development for mondo it’s just… so great,,,,like the ask about mondos hair and nsx bathing/hair washing between ishimondo I jstt…this is my villand ornging story……./pos

i wanna ask for a specific topic to go off of so it’s not just a general question but I cannot think of one at all so like… if you can expand on mondo (or taka) development then!!!!! I would very like to hear

I will happily oblige because mAN I think about them so much :,,)

In my mind, a big part of Mondo’s development would be letting go of Daiya.

And no, I’m not saying get over his death, or get over his trauma that stemmed from his death, but Mondo has to learn that he is not Daiya, that he never will be Daiya, and he shouldn’t even try to. He’s a whole person outside of him. They exist independently of each other, and now Daiya is gone, Mondo needs to become aware of that more than ever. When Daiya died, Mondo felt as if he had lost a part of himself. They were The Diamond Brothers, two halves of a whole. Without him holding it all together, Mondo had no direction. He had nothing.

That is some bullshit he has to unlearn.

It starts with him quitting the gang. Which he was already thinking about anyway, since Daiya obviously retired pretty young and Mondo was planning to as well, but it’s still a huge step forward. He’s not leaving the Diamonds behind, he’s just moving forward, finally. And once he’s out of the echo bubble that is his gang, he can start to grow.

Without everyone around him constantly reminiscing about what was, Mondo is free to grieve and remember his brother how he wants to. He stops putting Daiya on such a high pedestal. He was not the perfect, charismatic, incredible man that Mondo saw as a starry-eyed kid. He was human. He had his flaws and his strengths, just like anybody else.

It’s even harder for him to accept that while he can’t be Daiya, he also doesn’t have to be. Mondo might never “love himself” or whatever, but he does slowly improve in terms of his self-esteem. He tries to forgive himself for starting that stupid race that led to Daiya’s death, tries to understand that his brother made his choice to save his life, and he wouldn’t want him to spend his life wishing that he had let him die instead. If he just sat around getting all depressed, then Daiya’s sacrifice would be in vain. He’d probably be pissed as shit about it too.

So yeah in short Mondo Best Boy and he deserved so so so much.

I’ve talked a little about Taka’s development here, in that I think that he wouldn’t end up going into politics despite claiming it to be his dream, but I think a large part of his growth would also be allowing himself to make mistakes. In canon, we often see him becoming extremely upset over forgetting things that are completely unimportant, even to the point where he begs someone to “punish” him for it. And as funny as that line can be out of context (haha punish me get it?), it really does show the impossible standards Taka likes to hold himself to.

Taka has to realise that to err is human, and he is not the exception to that rule as much as he would like to be. It’s okay to be messy and disorganised and it’s okay to,, fuck up. No one is going to be angry with him, and he cannot be perfect all the time. He probably feels as though he must be perfect, in order to fix his family’s reputation and clean up after his grandfather. Imagine the amount of stress he must be under, to feel from such a young age that his behaviour is under a microscope, that in everything he either succeeds, or he fails, and failure is not an option.

Taka learns to graciously accept defeat, to recognise when something is “good enough”, and to stop feeling the need to punish himself for things that are utterly out of his control. He learns that before he is an Ishimaru, he is Kiyotaka. He is more than his family name and he is deserving of happiness on his own terms.

I think him and Mondo have that in common actually - everything they’re doing isn’t for themselves, it’s for their late family. And that really ain’t healthy. The lads have a long way to go.

SORRY IF THIS IS RAMBLY OR DOESNT MAKE SENSE, I have had three lectures today and I swear I am about to pass out, but I love these boys so so much :,,,)

[jadelynlace]

ink drinker / modern vikings au, Ivar x F!Reader

author’s note: long story short, I wrote this series but used an OFC that I use for most of my longer series. many thanks to @victoria-styles for her suggestion of making it a reader / Y/N story. major plot tweaks as well.

synopsis: Ivar was only meant to be a friend with benefits, but he caught feelings for his older brother’s best friend: you.

pairing: Ivar x Reader

✎

“Not into the million dollar bullshit?” You heard a voice beckon from behind you, stepping forwards with a light to start the cigarette that hung between your Oxford red stained lips.

“Crawling through the depths of hell sounds more pleasant than being here,” You grumbled back through the cloud of grey smoke slipping past your lips. You watched the figure next to you light up his own cigarette, taking note at how his fingers curled around the stick as he laughed with your words. “I’m only here to calm Hvitserk,”

“And he’s not even here,” He said back with a laugh, blue eyes peeking to grab at yours.

“Structure fire across town,” You tell him. “Told him that if he’s so inclined he can bring the truck over here and spray the party with the water,” Ivar laughed at that.

“Fuck, you clean up nice. And I love a woman in uniform,” He teases, smirking as you do too. It went silent for a second between you two, sticks of chemicals on your lips as his eyes did not miss the way your dress hugged at your body, how your stilettos were secured around your ankles. He couldn’t pull his mind back quickly enough before he was imagining them over his shoulders, your lips that curled around the filter and how they might look around his cock. How you were the first person who gave him complete reign over the ink he was going to forever mark your body with.

“Let’s just say I’d rather slice my own tongue off and choke on it than admit to that, actually wearing something other than the blues, and enjoying it,” You groan as the man next to you laughs, a sick snicker coming from his lips and you find yourself smiling too. “But you don’t clean up half bad yourself, Ivar,” You tease back as your eyes catch sight of the roll of his sleeves, how he maneuvers the buttons and pulls the white fabric back to show the first indications of sleeved out arms.

“Where do you want to go?” Ivar asks, taking the cigarette from his mouth to stub.

“Excuse me?”

“I didn’t think I fucking stuttered,” He started in challenge. “You said you didn’t want to be here, so where would you like to go?” He asks a quick swipe of his tongue over his lips as he cocks his head to the side awaiting your answer.

“Alright, Ragnarsson, you’re fucking on,” You laugh back, crushing your own stick with the spike of your heel as you follow him.

*

Hvitserk was a man who took most things with a grain of salt, others came with a few shots of whiskey. He had seen the darker side of humanity, and you were right there with him when he did. Your interest in becoming certified for emergency medicine had followed you since your high school graduation, and you were right on the top of the sign up sheet when class enrolled. And you stayed on top when your graduated. Company firings and how it lead to short staffing, moving of some onto better things lead to an opening you leapt on and found yourself paired with a paramedic with blonde hair and a smile that could cause most of the human population to smile back. It did not take long for a friendship to strike up, even outside of the station and the blazing sirens. His humor, his companionship kept you sane, kept the darkness of the horrid calls at bay, you two grew close, quickly.

Even if company policy allowed the romantic attachments between co-workers, you still couldn’t find yourself catching some sort of feeling to Hvitserk. He was a friend, your best, and it was left at that. You trusted him with your life, you’d gladly lay on the stretcher and head into the emergency room as long as he was the paramedic who was treating you.

Sigurd came next in the line of his brothers, an obsession with music, and nothing but the best that world could offer. He had an artistic hand, Hvitserk drove you towards his place of employment for permanent artwork to your liking and that was how you met Ivar. He watched you tip toe through his portfolio, but if Sigurd had talent, then Ivar was a God. You had never seen such movement on skin where he would trace his ink. You didn’t want to pull a design off of the internet and ask Ivar to put in on you, it seemed almost rude, instead you told him where you wanted it, and told him to go crazy. He looked at you in such a way, thinking you were joking. Perhaps too un-educated in the world of tattoos, but you held your ground and he was proud of such a feat.

Work was all too consuming, trying to leave space for time other than the blood pressure cuffs and patient history. You’d spend time out on town with Hvitserk, his brothers soon in tow, a party of their own that they could become. You were shocked Hvitserk hadn’t caught on, that none of them had, how long you had been spreading your legs for Ivar in secret. Petty bantering between the two of you, the others making bets to see whom would kill whom first, but that chatter went towards the foreplay that would follow you two into the bedroom. The most shock you came to realize was how Ivar was always there in the morning—it took a lot of you to convince him to leave, but he always mumbled something about five more minutes just for holding you.

Perhaps it was how your days were spent doused in testosterone, one of the three women of the entire station, entire company, leaving you to be able to handle yourself around men with egos far bigger than the dicks they would carry. That was how you were so seamlessly integrated into the Ragnarsson brother’s, struck up like the sister they never got. That was how Ivar found himself thinking about you far more than a friend with or without benefits would, how tightly you snug around his cock, how you look and sounded when you came for him, how you had pulled more from him than any other woman he had slept with. How you made him feel appreciated and not like a man who needed to navigate himself with his dick to get what women he wanted. How you didn’t toss him to the side after the first fuck. You drove him crazy and he didn’t have the words to admit to it.

“If I hear a grumble from you one more time Ivar, I am going to kick you out of the shop,” Sigurd spoke from his spot at the front desk, thumbing through a magazine of industry products as Ivar hissed a curse at him in reply. “What the fuck is you problem?”

“Y/N,” Ivar answered all too quickly.

“What? She hurt your ego too bad last time we were out? Didn’t stroke it enough to your liking?” Sigurd teased.

“No,” Ivar said. “She didn’t stroke me enough to my liking,” But Ivar said the words far too quickly before he could catch them.

“Are you fucking her?” Sigurd said, sitting up in his chair. “You two are fucking?” He laughed.

“Shut up,” Ivar grumbled, a toss of his pencil flying to grace the space Sigurd was at.

“She cut your dick off? That the issue?” He teased. “Hvitserk’s going to go ape-shit, dude,”

“That’s why we’re not telling him yet, right Sigurd?” Ivar said “Right, Sigurd?” He repeated with an extended finger at his brother.

“How long have you two been fucking—I need to know that, for science, and because I am still in shock. How did you—her? She’s too good for you Ivar, you have to be careful there,”

“Two years,” Ivar remarked and Sigurd nearly fell out of his chair.

“Fuck! You ask her out yet?”

“We’re not talking about this—or telling anyone else, right?” Ivar said again.

“Yes, sir,” Sigurd nodded, a fake salute from his hand as his mind was still scrambled.

“Don’t call me sir,” Ivar snapped.

“Yes ma’am,”

*

You’d never forget the call that came through dispatch a month after you and Ivar had started to screw around more often than fuck buddies would. The address sounded familiar, but Hvitserk was the one who made the connection it was the shop. Ink Drinker was a parlor bathed in black; walls and dark floors that made the rooms look like they never ended. The art displayed belonged to that of Ivar, of Sigurd, of the few others who came and went for their tattoo work. The owner had wooden sculptures of his own to line the spaces, but you had only ever seen the man through his social media.

You feared suddenly something happening to Ivar, or Sigurd, readying yourself for the sight that may hold them there, but it wasn’t them. A patron had passed out to the sight of the needles, sending Ivar to sour his entire mood at the weakness for something he found so simple. His flash of anger changed suddenly when you and his brother showed up, jumping from the rig in full expectance to see either sibling in a bloody mess after fighting to their death.

“I called and specifically asked for Hvitserk Ragnarsson and his partner,” Sigurd teased as the teenager came too, apologizing and still paying Ivar for the appointment he was too scared to cancel.

“I was hoping it would be a trauma call, you finally snapping and kicking Ivar’s ass,” You answered back, smirking at Ivar as he rolled his eyes in distaste. Ivar’s eyes climbed your whole body as you worked, the uniform marking your hierarchy and importance as you took the patient to the hospital. His text message not ten minutes later almost made you head back just to smack him.

“You’re keeping the uniform on next time we fuck.”

Tags:

@smileysam13579 @dreamtherapy @heisentwerk  @angelofthenightposts @ill-skillsgard @youaremyfamiliar @unbetaedimagines @kathryn-jane @readsalot73 @skrsgardspam @lihikainanea @victoria-styles @queen-sarang   @anastasiaskarsgard @andmyannabellee @youbloodymadgenius @apenas-mais-uma-pessoa @walkxthexmoon  @flowers-in-your-hayr @peachyboneless @heavenly1927 @theanxietyqueen17 @trip2themoon

[astro-rain]

delicate; b.barnes

chapter eleven - “there’s a reason behind everything”

delicate masterlist

word count: 2k

synopsis: bucky and y/n endure an event of stressful affliction, followed by something... entrancing.

pairings: bucky barnes x fem!reader

It had been a few days. There hadn't been any more headaches or vomiting. He was glad that Y/N faced no more impediments after that. However, he can't say the same for himself.

The thrashing was violent, his limbs wrenching, muscles tensing. The sheet beneath him was damp from cold sweat. He hadn't had a nightmare this bad in a while.

Ghastly memories assaulted him, ripping him from reality and forcing him back into agony, torture, and trauma. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears, but he wasn't sure if that was in the nightmare or real life. The lines of reality and dreamscape faded. He couldn't tell if he was awake, and panic metastasized throughout his body.

His arms were strapped down - yes, two of them. He couldn't tell if the other was metal or not; the only thing he could register was that he had zero control. He was exposed and helpless and right back where he was before. He had never gotten out. Hydra still had their chains around his neck, choking the humanity out of him, and violating his autonomy to make a monster out of a man.

He felt like a caged animal. All there existed was terror; he needed to get out and he didn't care if he had to cut off a body part to do it. He jerked his body and pulled his arms as hard as he could. He thrashed and thrashed, desperately trying to somehow find a way out of this hell. He tried to scream but his lungs were frozen, cracked and collapsed from the ice that they defiled him with.

Every nerve in his body was ignited, screeching to try to escape. The only coherent thought in his head was "get out." Get out. Get out. Get out. Get out. Get out. Get out. Get—

The top of his head suddenly burned, pain radiating out in beats, like a heart rate. It was then when he realized he was awake. It was then when he realized he had flung himself up, causing his head to collide with the wooden slats of the top bunk. It was also at this point when he heard her voice.

"Bucky!" her voice shook intensely, worry bubbling from the back of her throat. "Oh my god."

Faintly, the fear in her voice registered somewhere in the back of Bucky's brain, but this had no effect on his entirely overstimulated nervous system. His reaction was visceral; he flinched hard, jolting away from Y/N and falling off the side of the bed. The floor was cold; he could feel it in his hand and knees as he knelt on all fours (all threes?) trying to catch his breath.

Y/N hurried around the bed and immediately dropped to the floor in front of him. Her hands were quivering in front of her, completely unsure of how he would react to being touched.

His eyes were glued to the floor beneath him, but in his peripheral he could see Y/N's legs. Suddenly, she knelt on her hands, trying to be as non-threatening as she could.

"Buck," she whispered. "It was a nightmare. It was just a nightmare. You're here, and you're just fine."

"Fuck," he whispered. His body was on fire; he wished it'd just calm down.

"Your hand's on the floor. What does the floor feel like?" she asked, in an attempt to detour his attention.

"Cold," he strained.

"Cold, yeah," she said. "Do you know why?"

He shook his head.

"It's because it's made of stone. Stone has a high thermal conductivity, which means it allows heat to flow through it quickly. The heat from your skin goes right into it and flows through really fast."

He pivoted his wrist slightly, smoothing the skin on his hand over the stone, feeling the cold, and thinking about what Y/N said.

She smiled slightly. "There's a reason behind everything, you know. An explanation."

"Even for this?" he asked, referencing the panic.

"Especially for this. What are you feeling right now?"

"Can't breathe."

"Yep. Okay, that's normal, too. That's your nervous system. It's really riled up right now because you're stressed. See, your body has a natural response to stress called the fight or flight response. It's supposed to be used in the wild to run from a predator or something, and you can imagine how engaging and intense that would be on your body," her voice was calm and steady. "The only thing is, your body is going through those same functions and feelings when you're not out running from a lion or something, trying to fight for your life. Instead, you're here. You're sitting on the floor and you're here with me. You're not in any immediate danger. We're fine."

He nodded, still looking down, still trying to compose himself. He couldn't look her in the eyes once he realized his face was wet from tears. He was acutely embarrassed. Be that as it may, she was helping. What she said made sense. It helped to understand just what his body was doing rather than simply trying to survive through it.

Suddenly, directly where his eyes were cast, a drop of crimson appeared on the floor; it dripped down from him. It was then when he registered the sharp ache in his nose and the warm, wet feeling around it. Blood.

"Bucky, there's- blood, are you okay?" The calm in her voice was muffled by worry.

"Y-Yeah, I'm... I'm fine. It's just my nose..."

"What can I do?"

"Can you just... keep talking?"

"Yes," she breathed, the calm returning with infinite softness. "So, there are a few divisions of the nervous system. First, you have the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system. Then, from the peripheral, you have the somatic and autonomic systems. And then from autonomic, you have the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. Those are what you're feelin' right now. Your sympathetic is what gets you ramped up - you know, increases in heart rate, breathing, sweating. And then your parasympathetic is what calms you down, so slowing your heart rate and breathing and so on. Your sympathetic activated the fight or flight response, and your parasympathetic is trying to rein you back in... I hope that makes sense."

"It does."

"You know the hormone that gets released during all this?"

"Adrenaline's the only one I can think of."

"There you go!" she smiled. "It comes from the adrenal glands."

"Can I get those removed, then?"

"Unfortunately not. Do you still have your tonsils?"

"Nah, got those taken out forever ago."

"Appendix?"

"I think I still have that one?"

She laughed. "Well that's good. The appendix is sorta kinda part of the lymphatic system."

"The what?"

"Er- immune system I mean."

"Never knew that," he commented.

"There's a reason behind everything, you know," she quoted herself endearingly.

"An explanation," he said, completing the sentiment and finally looking up.

Upon seeing his face, Y/N  tried to hide her shock and concern, but he noticed. The apprehension was clear. He didn't want to be pitied; he wished he would've just suffered through this alone in a hole or something.

"There you are," she whispered.

Her voice was so gentle that his chest almost cramped, and then his entire body softened. Never mind. He'd much rather stay.

"Here I am."

She reached forward, ever so delicately, and smoothed the pads of her thumbs along his cheeks, effectively wiping away the tears. Effectively removing the physical aftermath of his pain.

She gave a strained smile. Why did he feel bad?

"Stay here," she instructed before getting up.

He'd do nothing but comply.

She came back with a damp white cloth, returning to her kneeling position in front of him.

"Here," she breathed, putting the cloth up to his nose.

He reached up to grab it, but her hand pulled away.

"I got it," she reassured.

He wasn't about to allow her to clean up his mess. This was pathetic enough as it was; he was pathetic enough as he was. She didn't need to tend to him out of obligation.

He insisted. "No, it's okay. I can do it."

"Bucky, let me help. Please."

"You don't have to. Seriously, it's fine."

"I know I don't have to - I want to. I want to help. Please just let me help."

He found he wasn't very good at saying no to her. He nodded silently, closed his eyes, and leaned his head forward. She got to work, gently dabbing the cloth to his blood stained skin, blotting the red, erasing the damage.

"You know," she said, a slight inflection in her voice as a result of her concentration. "I think you accidentally hit yourself in your sleep. I think that's why you're bleeding. 'Cause your head hit the top bunk, not your face."

"I'm really that talented, huh?"

She snickered. "Very. I don't know if I could manage such a feat."

"No, if you had nightmares, you'd probably just know exactly what each one meant and adjust your subconscious so you weren't afraid anymore."

She leaned back, an amused but shocked expression on her face, eyebrows raised, head tilted. Then she laughed.

"Look at you. Came for my neck with that one."

"I was just joking-"

"I know," she chuckled, leaning back in to continue her diligent work, "don't worry. I thought it was funny... even though it was wrong."

"Wrong?"

"Bucky, I wish I had that much control. I know the brain, but I can't work with mine that well. I'm only good at working with other people's."

He smirked. "Nah, I still think you could."

"Well, you have too much faith in me."

He couldn't think of a response to that. He had become decently distracted by the warmth radiating from her. She was so close. He thought back to what she said about heat conductivity, and briefly wondered how fast her warmth might transfer to him. What would happen if he just... opened his eyes-

Big mistake. He nearly drowned in the color, the depth all consuming. He hadn't noticed her movements stopped. She held the cloth at her chest, waiting. There were mere inches between them.

"Hi," she whispered, the ends of her mouth turning up ever so slightly.

He didn't think his body had ever been so still. He returned the smile all the same.

"Hi."

"What are you thinkin'?"

He could see every detail on her face. It made him equal amounts nervous and giddy. He never really thought about the number of eyelashes an average person had, but he became suddenly interested in counting each one of hers.

"I don't... I don't know..."

"You don't know? Well, it looks like there's at least a couple of hefty thoughts swirlin' around in there."

He did have a thought. Well, more of a question. What would happen if he glanced at her lips? What would happen if he just leaned in?

"Yeah... yeah, there may be a few."

When she didn't respond, her eyes bore into him, and dear lord, he felt bare. Eye contact is a dangerous, dangerous thing. But lovely. Oh, so lovely. And then that thing started to happen again: when time got lazy and the world felt slow. The room was without a sound. The only thing he could hear was his own heartbeat and maybe some of hers, too. It's as if they were in a trance.

Then, that thought returned. What would happen if he just leaned in?  Rationally, he knew he shouldn't try to find the answer to that question. Nonetheless, curiosity beckoned him. Had the space between them become smaller? He couldn't tell. Not even an inch of their skin was touching the other, but every sensation and perception was so overwhelming, he thought his brain might fizzle out.

She was just so, so close. He was frozen, and never wanted to move again. She was so close, until suddenly she wasn't. Until suddenly, the trance stopped, time caught up, and the world began to move once more. Until suddenly, Y/N's serene smile disappeared, and she leaned back, awkwardly clearing her throat.

"Does your nose hurt? I can see if I can come up with a makeshift icepack or something."

"Uh, no. No, it's fine. I don't even feel it..."

He wondered which feeling he was denying.

delicate taglist: @bakugouswh0r3 @thefridgeismybestie

[lysmune]

Hoarfrost Heart

Human still

Pairing: KaeLumi CW: Kaeya has an anxious breakdown near the end, and a lot of this fic deals with his trauma of not opening up to people.

  Blood is a loyal follower to Kaeya’s truths, a faint whisper that reminds him of everything that could—has—happened if he slivered an inch of his thoughts. It is the scent of iron he could never wash out, not from the thin line of death across the necks of so many people, not from his hands, nor from the soles of his feet, split open as he walks across the evergreen growth of thorns, fed fat from his deceit.

   These are only skin deep, is how he convinces himself as he tucks the unease behind a veiled smile that pinches his cheeks. Flesh wounds will heal but honesty, baring an unguarded heart out upon his sleeve, is a dangerous game and Kaeya has no desire to tempt mortality again.

   One narrow escape is enough.

   Sweet words, sweeter lies, he offers those instead. They always repay him in trust, a valuable currency he never quite could give away, so he sacrifices what spare human feeling he has for the pristine beauty of a white winter when he responds. Clean, untainted, pure.

   It is easier to deal with the disease that is loneliness than a knife to the back.

   A laid-back, duty-shirking cavalry captain, whose dull seaward lineage is made riveting through ten rounds of Death After Noon. That is who Kaeya is.

   That is how he introduces himself to Mondstadt.

   That is the image he’ll set in the starlit traveller’s mind.

   That is who she, with unabashed vocality, politely refuses to believe.

   Lumine chalks it up to the vagueness of a hunch, and he can’t help but roll his eyes, click his tongue. Sure, he might enjoy throwing the same reason around, but it feels like complete nonsense to have it flung back at him. He pouts, intentionally puppy-like and innocent, and pleads with a tone of feigned hurt.

   Lumine laughs.

   Laughs and looks at him with topaz-cut eyes, eyes like honeyed spring water. Kaeya can’t decide whether he should feel offended at her subtle dig, or honoured that he’s made her smile. He settles on brushing it off with a shrug and a, “Well, you’ve got me there.”

   “I know,” is Lumine’s response, a simple phrase that holds much more depth than it lets on, and he wonders if she’s seen just what it is he’s truly hiding.

   The prospect sends chills down his spine. Does she know me, more than I do?

   Kaeya drowns those fears in the tavern, his local safe haven, a place away from his worries and her all-seeing gaze. It is short-lived some nights, languorous on the others, but at least, here, the chatter is comfortable. Leaning forward, he listens to the slurred words, the odd secrets, to keep his thoughts at bay.

   And yet

   And yet, Kaeya finds himself following the wide expanse of her back, her small frame belying her insurmountable strength as she carries every single burden in silence. “Trust me,” she would assure with her sunlit smile. Kaeya would never admit it, but he does—he wants to.

   But what has trust ever given me?

   Rain and ichor, and festering wounds.

   Everything is unflinchingly loud. How laughable, how maddeningly soft of him, to be so weak in his resolve. Against the hushed humdrum dawn, he watches her leave the gates.

   They say if you stare too long at the sun, you’ll go blind. In her presence, Kaeya feels robbed of his vision. He looks to her footprints instead, at the trail of fireflies she leaves in her wake. They don’t hurt him as much as her wayward glances do, not as much as the sincerity in her voice when she reminds him that he can always seek her company when he needs someone to talk to.

   “I won’t stay long in Mondstadt, anyway,” Lumine laughs, laced with melancholia. “Whatever your secret is, I’ll bring it with me.”

   Kaeya’s chest tightens, constricts. “How fun would I be without my mysteries?” he hums and she scoffs.

   “Well, either way,” she says, shrugging while she goes to her feet, “I’m here to listen.”

   He knows, he knows, that’s why it’s proving difficult to keep all his bottled thoughts neatly safeguarded. Everything is easier around her, as though he can just be honest and loose-lipped, and bare, and Kaeya despises it.

   He despises how vulnerable he feels, how vulnerable she makes him feel.

   Each passing day only serves to coddle that parasite of an idea, the frail, tempting whisper at the shell of his ear, gnawing at him endlessly. The words coagulate in his throat, begging to be spoken and put to death all at once, barred only by gritted teeth and sheer willpower.

   Lumine never quite pries him, not when he excuses himself of her company through the blatant lie of working through his commissions; nor when he hides at the corner of the bar when they celebrate her victorious homecoming; nor when his nightly patrols loop him back to her in some cyclical torment.

   She gives him his space, lets him breathe. Kaeya isn’t sure if he enjoys the consideration, the lack of judgement, the misplaced respect.

   A clean-cut, clinical distance maintained. Lumine never quite meets him again, and he never bothers. It’s easier, it’s easier, he tells himself, chanting it through like a broken record.

   It’s easier, Kaeya convinces, even when he finds her perplexed at her usual spot at Good Hunter, bathed in the scarlet red of a sunset.

   “My,” he greets, pulling up the chair reserved for him, “I don’t think I’ve seen you quite so bothered, Traveller.”

  Lumine’s eyes never quite meets his, even when she’s turned her body to his direction. A chill creeps up the length of his spine.

   “I’m leaving for Liyue,” she says under her breath, so quiet it’s near indistinguishable from the wind. “Tomorrow morning.”

   “Oh,” is all Kaeya manages to muster. She doesn’t speak after that. He doesn’t either, all the sentences tangled and fumbling on his tongue, and It’s easier this way, he reminds himself still, even when she’s long receded into Mondstadt’s crowd.

   There’s a ringing in his ears, a loud, obnoxious pounding against his skull.

   Lumine’s leaving.

   The creature in his chest twists, writhing as he inhales deeply, like it is wounded and angry. Isn’t this what I wanted?

   Iron fills his mouth as his teeth bite into the inside of his cheek. He’s never once looked at her, not in the longest time, and before he knows it, Kaeya’s letting his feet lead him to the home she’s staying in, blood cold and hands trembling.

   The last time Kaeya’s ever held a person so warm dear to him, he burned to ashes.

   Something old and ancient stirs, an acquaintance he thought bygone. Wrapping around his shoulders like a winter veil, it hovers, large and engulfing.

  What has trust given you? Trauma sneers. Kaeya swallows. Rain and ichor, and festering wounds. Scorched skin black to its bone, pain still as new and fresh as spring. All that hate and fear, and loneliness.

  His hand rests quietly on the door, shaking softly.

  Intimately, anxiety slithers around his neck, a spurned lover begging for a second chance. His back is soaked in the frozen thunderstorm, the terrorised flesh on his arm throbbing painfully, this memoir he’s carried with him since eighteen.

  I should leave. I should go. There isn’t much point in this.

  Flashes of white dancing at the peripheral of his eye, embers sparking like coals. Kaeya balls his hand into a fist, breaths shallow and ragged, the smell of carbonised ozone filling the air.

  This was a terri-

  “Kaeya.”

  His demons fall quiet.

  Her fingers are warm around his wrist, comfortingly so, a hearth on a winter’s eve, and Kaeya’s heart steadies. Everything does.

  I’m scared, he realises when he keeps his gaze to the ground, when he struggles to look back at her, when he’s being honest to himself past all those pretences, a lost child navigating uncharted wasteland.

  I’m scared, he realises, of learning how to trust. It feels like centuries since he has. What has trust given you? Rain and ichor, and festering wounds.

  Her grip on his wrist tightens.

  A home. A friend. A brother. Tiny, stumbling memories that fill with laughter.

  Kaeya swallows and turns around, and this time, he meets the gold of her eyes. In the dying light of day, she seems to glow brighter still, undying and unyielding.

  They say if you stare too long at the sun, you’ll go blind. As long as it’s her, he can learn to live with that, to have faith in her promises and follow her lead.

  “Are you alright?” Lumine questions, and he’s touched by the worry in her voice. Kaeya allows himself to smile, just barely, and nods.

  “I’m here for that offer,” he says. There’s an unusual tremor in his words, a nervousness that he’s not quite felt in ages, and ages past. She blinks, once, twice, and Kaeya wonders if he’s misread.

  Maybe-

Lumine laughs, then, like chimes in the wind, and Kaeya can’t help but chuckle along. With practiced ease, she slips her hand around his, linking their fingers together.

Kaeya lets her.

“Make yourself at home,” she guides him through the door and into her space effortlessly, seamlessly. Within the four walls she calls hers, in the incandescent ardour of her presence, he feels safe. Safe and heard, and at peace.

  It isn’t likely that Kaeya will tell her everything he’s been shouldering within the day, nor the coming week, or month, or possibly a year, but he knows he eventually will. If it’s her, he wants to, and when she offers him a gentle sunburst smile, he’s certain of it.

 For the first time since eighteen, Kaeya offers his heart, bare and beating, and him.

[draconic-ichor]

In the Steel Steeds Heart

Chapter 27: Lessons in House Beneviento

Warnings: strong language, sexual themes, hints of trauma

Summary: Juniper takes a visit to the Beneviento house for sewing lessons.

Feedback appreciated. 18+

“It’s not too late to cancel,” Heisenberg pointed out, almost hopeful, as he watched Juniper get ready.

“It is.” She insisted, combing her fingers through her hair.

“Nah, I have a phone right over here!” He strode over to it, “I can give her a quick call in no time flat.”

“Heis.” Juniper’s voice was a warning.

He seemed to deflate, shoulders sagging. “There’s no way to talk you out of it?” He pressed.

“Nope.” Juniper stuck firm, tying her curls back into a poofy ponytail.

It didn’t stop him from trying. He badgered her the whole way through the village, ever worried he wouldn’t be with her. Juniper kept firm, knowing she needed to learn this. His constant pestering didn’t cease until they were at the dilapidated wood bridges. Juniper gulped as she started across. The closer they got to the far side the more the mists thickened. By the time her boots made contact with solid ground again the air was heavy with it.

The path was narrow with overgrown hedges, small garden statues covered in ivys here and there.

Something drew Juniper’s attention. She paused as Heisenberg kept walking, turning to squint for better visibility.

A human stood in the mist, almost obscured from view. As Juniper came closer she could make out everything but the face.

It was a woman, about Juniper’s height and sporting the same ebony curls, but the other woman's hair was mostly tied back into a messy bun.

Juniper sucked in a breath, even without a face the woman pulled at a deeply familiar string of her heart.

The woman’s featureless face looked down, her light almond hands bunched into her floral skirt. She almost made a weeping sound.

“My dear….my angel.” The woman cried softly, “I've missed you.”

Juniper felt frozen, a tear running down her cheek. She wanted desperately to remember her face, her smell…anything.

“I’m sorry.” Juniper’s voice wavered.

She suddenly felt a strong hand on her shoulder, she turned enough to see Heisenberg chin almost on her shoulder.

“They aren’t real, buttercup.” He soothed, whispering into her ear, “Only hallucinations.”

Juniper tried to nod, blinking away more moisture from threatening her eyes.

She shook to clear her head a bit, the other woman fading.

Heisenberg saw his own share of ghosts among the mists, though he did his best to ignore them.

A sturdy outline of a man stepped forward down a fork in the path.

“Du bist so groß geworden, mein Kleiner.” The man smiled.

Heisenberg grimaced. He looked away, ignoring the shadow. It wasn’t who it pretended to be, it was just a cruel twist of his heart.

He led Juniper ever forward through the mists. Eventually their path opened onto a clearing. A mound of stones and flowers occupied the center, while a door stood on the opposite side’s rock wall.

“It looks like a grave…” Juniper frowned, seeing the dolls stacked up around the large stone.

“It is.” Heisenberg trudged forward, around the delicate stones and blooming yellow flowers.

Juniper read the stone:

Claudia

Juniper gulped, picking up her pace to rejoin Heisenberg. They went through the small door, following a cave path to an elevator. It looked out of place but was still alive with electricity.

Boarding it, Juniper looked around. This elevator was much more lavish and comfortable then the ones in the factory, more suited for recreational use.

Leaving the elevator and darkness of the caverns, Juniper gasped in awe.

“It’s beautiful!” She exclaimed.

Before them the old estate sat on a hill surrounded with blooming yellow flowers. A large waterfall thundered behind it, it’s mist coating the valley.

“Mhm.” Heisenberg agreed almost dismissively. His sour mood worsened with every step towards the estate, knowing every boot length was that much closer to not turning back.

Juniper stepped up onto the wooden porch, closing the distance to the heavy door. Before she reached for the knocker she glanced back to see Heisenberg did not step onto the porch himself, instead grimacing at the edge like an old dog.

Juniper turned back to the door, lifting the heavy knocker, drumming it a few times. Almost instantly Donna answered, pushing open the door, Angie close behind. They looked happy to see her, Juniper worried she had kept them waiting.

“Hello!” Angie exclaimed, “We’re so happy you came!”

“Hello.”Juniper smiled.

The sound of a throat clearing drew their attention. The three turned to look at Heisenberg.

“Return my girl in one piece.” Heisenberg spoke with his lips a thin line.

“We will.” Angie nodded.

“And no turning her into a fucking doll or some shit.” His voice was a steely warning.

“We know that!” Angie snapped.

He gave a cold look at the doll, “I wasn’t talkin’ to you.” His pale eyes shifted upwards, “Donna I’m serious, take care of her…she means an awful lot to me.”

Donna gave a slow nod before raising a single finger to her chest. She made a little ‘x’ motion over her heart.

Heisenberg nodded back in understanding, mimicking the gesture, “Cross my heart.”

Juniper watched them closely, never seeing him act in such a way with another person before. The small interaction was almost childlike.

Whatever weight that gesture held seemed to be enough for Heisenberg. He tipped his hat to the three before turning back and heading into the mists.

They watched him disappear until Angie started hopping. Her tiny feet made a tapping sound as she happily spoke, “Come on, come on!”

Donna pulled open the thick wooden doors, a warm glow cascading over the porch from within.

Juniper walked behind her as Angie trailed closely. The door seemed to close on its own after they all entered.

“We made cookies!” Angie exclaimed.

“Oh, thank you.” Juniper stammered, being led into the main hall. The estate house was very cozy inside, with ornate woodwork and flowery designs on the rugs.

The air held the smell of spices and herbs, a heavy hanging of dust as well but Juniper was used to far worse.

Where Lady Dimitrescu’s home was a lavish palace, a place of showy status-ship; and Heisenberg’s factory was raw and hazardous, a cesspool of secrecy and honed functionality. Donna’s home was neither.

It was smaller but looked to be well lived in and even held remnants of a loving family. Juniper had known this house once belonged to Donna’s parents but was very unprepared for it to still hold the shadows of normality to it. Certain things looked to be completely untouched since the time of the previous owners, left to sit as a time capsule to happier days.

Juniper was led into a parlor of sorts, a heavy table set with linens and dying flowers was in the middle. A smaller sitting room lay off to the side. The whole place was covered in porcelain dolls. Not surprising, considering Donna was called the Doll-maker, but Juniper thought she saw one more out of the corner of her eye. She stifled a shiver, wondering if Angie wasn’t the only sentient one.

“Come sit.” Angie instructed, “We’ll get the tea.”

She did as she was told, sitting and waiting as the pair went out the far door.

The manor was eerily quiet, Juniper hadn’t realized how used she was to the constant hum of machinery. It almost made her anxiety thicken.

Was this what Heisenberg felt like whenever he was away?

She thought. He’d been living in the sounds much, much longer then she had.

The sound of an elevator piqued her interest, a small sliver of something familiar.

They returned rather quickly, Donna holding a tea tray and Angie pushing the door open for her. Donna set the tray down, busing herself with preparing three cups.

“Donna makes her own tea!” Angie told Juniper, hopping up in a chair.

“Oh?”

“Yea! She’s really good at it.” The doll gushed proudly.

Donna set a porcelain teacup in front of Juniper, offering her a bowl of sugar cubes.

“Oh, thank you.” She smiled, putting two into her tea before stirring it.

She brought it to her lips almost tentatively, the liquid dancing over her tongue. It was nothing like the prepackaged stuff Heisenberg kept around, no this was fragrant with floral notes and hints of herbs. Juniper took a deeper gulp, smiling.

Donna offered her a plate of cookies neatly stacked.

The cookies were a type of butter cookie, small and crisp with an aftertaste of vanilla. Juniper took a big bite.

“We made them from scratch!” Angie announced proudly. She happily picked up a cookie and began to dip it profusely into a cup of tea. She cackled as tea splashed out onto the lace tablecloth.

Donna seemed not to notice, lifting her cup up. She carefully moved the veil eough to take a sip.

After they enjoyed their tea and cookies, Angie telling Juniper so many random things during, they started to head towards Donna workspace.

They took another elevator, the one Juniper had heard earlier, down to the basement. They led her down a hallway lined with white painted doors before opening one.

The room had dirt floors and a heavier curtain of dust. The walls were lined with heaving shelving, filled with all assortment of fabrics and sewing supplies.

Angie excitedly showed Juniper the rarer fabrics, things the Duke had brought from far off places, as Donna cleaned off the table in the center of the room

The three sat down with a little pile of supplies before each.

Donna nodded, picking up a needle and threading it easily.

It took a while for the woman to find her voice, and when she did it was breathy and strained. Juniper thought it must’ve been a long while since it was used in any stretch.

Donna frequently forgot the proper words for items or techniques, having to stop for a moment to think how to explain things. Juniper was ever patient, just thankful the woman was taking the time to teach her at all.

When she did get going, Donna’s fingers were nimble and quick, making even intricate stitching look simple. She could put a sewing machine to shame.

Juniper tried to keep up, showing her results. It was lopsided and messy, earning a concerned little “Oh!” From Donna. It sent Angie into a fit of giggles.

“Take your time.” The woman instructed, “Make every stitch the same size.”

Juniper nodded, trying again.

“Not like that silly!” Angie pointed to the cloth, “Tinier! Make them cute and tiny.”

“Ok.” Juniper smiled at the doll’s enthusiasm.

“Practice stitching is im-important.” Donna nodded, “Mother made me sew for hours on spare fab-ric.”

“How do you make the clothing for the dolls?” Juniper asked, thinking clothes that size could easily be augmented to fit a baby.

“Are you making dolls?” Angie asked excitedly.

“W-well…” she thought, almost sweating, “I may, there’s not much to do around the factory you know.” She lied.

“How do you deal with living in that grimy old factory?” Angie asked.

“I've gotten used to it.” Juniper shrugged, “Its home now.”

“But what about Heisenberg?” The doll pressed, “He’s so mean!”

“Oh he’s not all bad.” Juniper looked at her hands, cheeks gaining a rosy blush, “He’s just a bit rough around the edges.”

“And loud!”

“He is rather loud.” Juniper agreed, giggling.

“But Donna is super good at making cute outfits!” Angie got back on topic.

Donna nodded, standing to look on the shelves behind her. She pulled a handmade book free, brushing dust or before setting it on the table.

“These are my patterns for the common clothes I make for them.” She opened the book.

Juniper looked it over, seeing many small measurements around the sketches. It reminded her of the schematics Heisenberg made of his Soldats.

She asked little questions here or there. Mostly about how Donna found the correct sizes and how to properly measure an object to make clothing for it.

She soaked everything the quieter woman said like a dry sponge. Even pulling out a sketchbook to make notes. Donna and Angie loved to have someone care so much after so many years of solitude.

~

Eventually Juniper’s eyes caught the clock overhead. She gasped, “Is it that late already?��

“Time flies when you’re having fun?” Angie laughed.

They cleaned up her workspace before heading back up into the estate.

Donna sent Juniper home with a better stocked sewing kit, easy patterns to practice with, a bag of scrap fabric, and a container of cookies for Heisenberg.

“Thank you for taking the time today.” Juniper’s voice was genuine.

“Oh it was fun!” Angie gushed, “Come back soon, ok!”

Juniper nodded, taking the bag thankfully from Donna. It was very sweet for her to provide so many spare materials.

Heisenberg was already waiting on the end of the porch, looking irritated as he smoked the last bit of a cigar.

He dropped it, tamping it out with the end of his boot before he stepped towards the three.

“You’re late.” Heisenberg growled when he was close to Juniper.

“And you didn’t send the Lycans?” She smiled playfully.

He gave a huff.

Juniper handed him the bag, he took it questionably. “What’s all this?” He asked.

“Sewing supplies for me and something for you.” Juniper answered.

Heisenberg glanced into the bag, making a little sound of surprise when he saw the parcel of cookies. He quickly looked up to Donna and Angie, almost embarrassed.

“Thank you!” He stammered, cheeks a bit rosey.

Donna nodded happily, waving them goodbye.

Juniper smiled, taking Heisenberg’s free hand and started the walk back to the factory.

“Not used to gifts, are you?” She giggled, seeing how flustered he was at the simple gesture.

He made a grumbling sound, not entertaining her with a real answer.

[levithestripper]

Hello My Old Heart

a/n: I felt it was only right to commemorate the final chapter of Attack on Titan with an angst fic about the last chapter. listen to Hello My Old Heart by The Oh Hellos while reading for the full experience!

✩ warnings: chapter 139 spoilers, talk of character death. ✩

✩ taglist: @myglitteringstardust @alicchi @sleepysnk @waywardsongbird3 ✩

✩ If you want to be added to a taglist, fill this out! ✩

Hello, my old heart, how have you been?

Footsteps clacked against the stone ground. The steam cleared, showing off Mikasa gently cradling Eren’s severed head. Mikasa was disturbingly calm. As if the trauma of it all desensitized her to the realities of Eren’s death. That she’s never going to be able to see that cute kid he was again. Or hear the determined sound of his voice, like when he finally mastered his broken ODM Gear. Or hear his laughter after pulling a prank on Jean. It’s like she still thought he was here. Eren did everything in his power to keep her safe, to keep her alive. To keep them all alive.

Eren told her that he wants her to forget about him when he dies. Wanted her to throw away that old red scarf of hers, to truly leave him behind. Leave him behind, dead and cold in his grave. To forget about him and move on with her life. To find someone so much better, someone so much better for her than he could ever be. Eren loved her with all of his heart. Loved her more than himself at some points. He built up walls around her to keep her safe, to keep her safe from anyone that tried to hurt her.

Are you still there inside my chest?

Armin crumbled to the floor in front of her, sobs wracking his body. His brother was dead. His brother was dead. His brother was dead. His decapitated head was sitting right in front of him. His head should still be on his body! Eren should still be here! He has to still be alive, what is he going to do without him? Eren needs to be here, he needs his brother! Eren was always there to pick him up, to push him forwards, gave him confidence when he was bullied and made fun of. What was he going to do without him now? Eren was the whole reason why he pursued that stupid, stupid dream of his. Armin clutched his brother's head against his chest, hunched over as he wailed. Thick tears streamed down his face, dripping down his chin, some even getting in his mouth. His blond hair stuck to his forehead, matted down with sweat and dirt. Why does all of his family leave him alone? Why is he always alone in this world?

I've been so worried, you've been so still

Barely beating at all

Eren used to sit under that tree and talk with Armin for hours, just as long as they were both back home before dinnertime. Armin would bring his book and read to him, talking all about the oceans full of sand, water so salty that no merchant could collect it all. Sometimes, Eren would bring the action figures his father bought for him when he went on trips to the Capitol. They’d run around and laugh till the sunset, dreaming of the day that they both could see the pictures in Armin’s book for real.

When the Survey Corps finally made it to the sea was the last good memory they all collectively had together. Back when everyone was still alive. Back when Sasha and Hange were around before Levi was injured. Before Eren became the monster he ended up as. Armin often found himself looking back at it, remembering when he sat in the shallow water, laughing with Mikasa and freaking out over sea creatures with Eren. He remembered Jean and Connie dunking each other under the waves, gasping when they swallowed some and found out how salty it was. How Levi was still looking after and protecting Hange from injuring herself again. Oh, if he could only go back to those days. He missed those days, seeing Sasha always smiling so brightly, listening to Hange frantically going on and on about a theory they had.

He thinks back to their days in training, how young they all were still. How young and naive they were to the things ahead of them. When Jean was still an asshole when Marco was still alive. Before Reiner, Annie, and Bertolt were all out as traitors. They were so, so ignorant to the world around them, to what was going on. But he wouldn’t have had it any other way. If given the chance, he wouldn’t have done anything differently.

Oh, don't leave me here alone

Don't tell me that we've grown

After Eren’s funeral, Jean had pulled Armin off to the side, wanting to reminisce about the old days.

“Do you remember that one time in our third year of training, right before we graduated, the prank Marco pulled on me?” Jean asked with a chuckle. They were sitting where the Yeager household used to be. It was still in shambles, the roof was still caved in, cobblestone porch crumbling as they walked on it. They sat on the edge of it, feet dangling, soles of their shoes scraping the dirt. “He filled my pillowcase with and bed sheets with itching powder, so when I got up in the morning I’d itch myself raw from how much he used. When we had to line up for roll call that morning, I couldn’t stop moving so Shadis made me run until I passed out.”

Armin nodded, rolling a pebble around in the palm of his hands. “That was a fun day. I’ve never seen someone strip that fast before. You came back and were practically throwing your uniform off as you ran to the pond right outside of camp.” He looked up at him, the smallest of smiles on his face. They were both dressed in suits, white dress shirts, and black ties, with matching shiny back dress shoes. Jean’s hair was pulled back into a short ponytail, a little tuft of fluffy hair on the back of his head. He had shaved his undercut again, looking a little bit like his old fifteen-year-old self again. Jean had shaved Armin’s undercut as well, helping him clean up his look a bit.

“Oh! Or that time when I dared Eren to get Captain Levi to crack a raw egg on his own head?” Armin laughed softly, smiling up at Jean as he spoke. “Eren-Eren he walked up to him and handed him the egg, you know? And said ‘Hey, Captain Levi! I need you to hold out your hand for me! Now close your eyes!’ And Captain actually did it! Then Eren positioned his hand above his head and told him to let go!” Jean had a huge grin spread across his face, one that Armin hadn’t seen in a while. He missed it. It was nice to finally hear Jean laughing again. It was nice seeing the little crinkles that form in the corner of his eyes when he smiles too hard. Little lines were coming in around his mouth now too. He seemed so much older than he used to.

“Remember right before graduation, the night before the Trost attack, when we all snuck into the girls' barracks and had a sleepover? You tried so hard to sleep the closest to Mikasa’s bunk.” Armin laughed this time, his eyes shining again if you looked real hard. “To think that was the last normal night we had before everything changed. The last night we still had everyone around. Before Marco died.” Jean looked down at his lap, playing with his right hand. “I know he was cremated, but did you ever make a memorial of sorts somewhere for him?”

He shook his head solemnly. “I didn’t have the chance. I thought about it, but no place was good enough. Marco deserved so much more than I could give him, I couldn’t find a place that deserved his presence.” He looked up again, turning to face Armin. “His mother made one in her backyard, I might do the same, now that I'm back home."

"I miss him, Jean." Armin wiped at his cheek, trying to stop the tears that were threatening to spill over. "I miss Sasha, I miss Hange, I miss Erwin!" The tears started readily flowing now, dripping off his chin and onto the stone below him. He hiccuped and sniffled, voice wobbly. "I miss my brother, Jean. I want my brother back. Why did they take him from me! I still need him, I-I can-can't do this without him!"

Jean pulled Armin close to his side by his shoulder, rubbing the top of his back, slowly moving up and down to soothe him. "Shhh, shhh. It's okay, it's okay. Let it all out, alright?" Jean rubbed his arm, going back and forth from his arm to his back. "I know, Armin. I miss him too. I miss him too. But it's going to get better. I promise you, it's going to get better. Here, look at me." He placed his index finger under Armin's chin, tilting his head so he's forced to look him in the eyes. "Eren might be gone from this world, but it doesn't mean he left completely. He's still alive here." He pressed his palm to Armin's chest, right over his heart. "He trusted you with saving humanity. He knows he can trust you to keep his memory alive. You'll see them all again when it's your turn to leave. They'll all be there waiting for you. Eren will be right there, holding out his hand for you to take like he did when you were little."

Armin had managed to keep his composure throughout the funeral. He stood up straight, looked forward, and participated without any hesitation. Although if you looked at his face, you could see the cracks in his mask. Could see the tears looming in the distance, how his straight face wanted to fade into a shaky frown. You could see how hard he wanted to break down and cry. How he wanted to collapse onto his knees and beg for whoever was up above to bring Eren back to him. Mikasa, on the other hand, was a mess. She had her scarf wrapped up around her face, covering her mouth. Her tears made the fabric discolored and soppy.

“Tha-Thank you, Jean. You alwa-always know what to say to make me feel better.” He chuckled sadly. “You’re too good at making me feel better. I shouldn’t be falling apart like this.” His hiccuping started to stop, tears slowing as well. Armin took Jean’s hands in his own, rubbing his thumbs against the meat of his palms. “Thank you for always being here for me.” He smiled up at him the best he could.

Jean enveloped Armin’s hands in his own, completely dwarfing his. “Don’t ever apologize to me about your emotions. Ever. They’re expected to happen in times like this, okay? It’s okay for you to cry even when the seems to be no reason to.” He stroked his thumbs over the backs of Armin’s hands. “I’ll always be here for you, okay? No matter what. Call me and I’ll come running.”

For having loved a little while

Oh, I don't wanna be alone, I wanna find a home

And I wanna share it with you

After a while, Jean and Armin went back to where the funeral had taken place. Mikasa was still there, waiting for them to return. From there, they and the rest of their family walked behind the trio, up to the tree on that hill Eren loved so much. It was sunny out, just like how it was when they were little. Accept this time, there wasn’t a giant wall blocking Eren’s view anymore.

Reiner and Jean dug Eren’s grave. His casket was deep mahogany, the wood polished and shiny. Although, it was smaller than a normal casket should be. Eren’s head was the only thing they could bury so it was more like a small box. Mikasa was the one to lower Eren into the ground, setting him down gently in the almost six-foot hole. When they filled the dirt back in, it seemed like there was too much dirt to fit the hole they had dug. A large mound of it was piled on top of the grave, too large to put the headstone on yet. Everyone went home after that, heading off to their respective homes to leave Mikasa to grieve in peace.

She remembers the cabin in the woods from her dream with Eren. Remembers how happy they seemed to be together. She wishes that they really could just run away still, run away and live together forever, maybe have a couple of kids too. Eren never talked about having children, but she hoped that he would give her some anyways. Eren would’ve been a good father, better than Grisha, at least.

Mikasa pulled the scarf off from around her neck, clutching it in her hands. All she seemed to be able to do was stare at it, hoping something good would come from it. She stroked the fabric with her dirty thumb, pressing it to her face. It’s almost like she could feel Eren wrapping it around her for the first time again. Could feel him taking her hand as he walked her back to his house for the first time. When she first met Armin, she was holding Eren’s hand too. Seems like he always had a thing for protecting her, even if it was just from possibly walking too far out into the street, huh?

Hello, my old heart

Mikasa stared up at the sky. The sun was out and a few clouds were here and there. These were the kinds of days that Eren loved the most, especially when he was little. When his mother called him inside for dinner, he’d beg to eat outside, or at least if he and Mikasa could eat outside. More often than not, he was forced inside to sit at the table with the rest of his family. That kid could never be contained, always wanted to be running somewhere, exploring something, finding something new, it didn’t matter what it was. Just mattered that he had Mikasa with him.

It's been so long

At this point, she barely remembered her parents. Her earliest memory was when Eren came and saved her, sweeping her off her feet in the most ten-year-old boy way possible. She remembers that rush of power standing in that house. Thinking to herself, why is my body moving on my own like this? Why, why does my head hurt so suddenly? Where’s mom and dad? Why’d they have to leave so soon? Then after that, all that's there is Eren. Ten-year-old Eren, twelve-year-old Eren, fifteen-year-old Eren, nineteen-year-old Eren. All with a shining light behind him. A proud look on his face, a determined expression. A face that tells you everything is going to be okay, that he’s going to fix everything for you to keep you safe.

Since I've given you away

There was no more Yeager family anymore. All of them were gone. She doesn’t know if she can even consider herself a Yeager. Carla always said she was her daughter, but she never really embraced it. But if the Yeager’s aren’t here to tell their stories, who will?

After all, he became the devil so she could become an angel. And what kind of angel would she be if she didn’t live? She fought, she won, now she can live. She doesn’t have to be strong anymore. She sniffled softly, hands coming up to her face, covering her eyes. Tears came soon after, pooling in the palms of her hands and pulling out from the sides. Her body shook slightly from her sobs, her back quivered and her shoulders shuddered from the intensity of them. Her knees got pulled up to her chest, her head moving to rest on them. “…I can’t believe you’re gone for real this time, Eren… You said you’d wrap this scarf around me every time I asked, now how will you?”

And every day, I add another stone, to the walls I built around you

To keep you safe

Squawking of birds could be heard from above. A group of Arctic Jaeger’s were circling the tree, crying out their songs for one another. One of them flew down closer to Mikasa, landing on top of Eren’s grave. It looked over at her, chattering softly. The bird hopped up and down the best it could, trying to get her attention. It flapped its wings, moving over to sit on the crest of her knee. Its beak nudged her hand, making Mikasa look at it. The bird tilted its head back and forth at her, seemingly trying to smile. The bird bobbed its head, leaning in to press the side of its head to her cheek. It seemed like it wanted to wipe her tears away, but unable to since it didn’t have hands to cup her face with, or thumbs to stroke the apples of her cheeks. Mikasa held the bird close, carefully stoking its wings and back. “Thank you for wrapping this scarf around me, Eren.”

The bird wiggled around until Mikasa let it go, watching it fly off to meet up with its friends in the sky. It chirped a sweet goodbye to her, waiting until Mikasa waved before leaving completely.

Nothing lasts forever

Some things aren't meant to be

But you'll never find the answers

Until you set your old heart free

“Thank you, Eren, for everything.”

[theunquenchablethirst]

Home Pt1: The Orphanage (Jeremiah X Reader)

First multi-chapter fic I’ve ever written, so critics please be gentle, but feedback is much appreciated. This chapter is just about introducing the reader to the story, but I do have more chapters ready to go out. Lemme know if you want them ☺️

Slow burn and mentions of childhood trauma/abuse

Find Pt.2 here

Reader is an orphan about to turn 18 when a wealthy man visits the orphanage looking for an older girl. She is put up as a possible option and she isn’t happy about it.

Masterlist

Growing up in the orphanage was horrible. They treated us all like workhorses from the moment we arrived. They would demand so much from us from such an early age and when we couldn’t do it, we would get beaten or starved or have to spend the night in the basement with the rats. If not all three. And then they wondered why we didn’t have the strength for all the hard labour they forced upon us.

They didn’t care about us one bit. They used to send us to clean rich people's houses to make money off us. I remember one girl got sent out and came back covered in bruises. She tried to tell them she didn’t want to go back, that the guy was a creep and he touched her. They still sent her and one day she just disappeared. We all knew what happened, but we didn’t dare say anything. We were the weak ones and in Gotham, nobody cares about the weak ones.

I remember praying every night for some nice couple to come and save me. Adopt me. But year after year passed and I learned to abandon those dreams. I’d read in the paper about some guy called Jerome Valeska. He’d murdered his mom. I also saw him when I’d been sent out on maid duty, on a client's TV when they were watching the news. He seemed unhinged, like a rabid dog, talking into the camera about sanity and how we were all just prisoners and cogs. He said was the leader of a gang called the Maniax. We’d all heard of them at the orphanage and what they’d done. I decided if that was what family could do to you, then maybe it wasn’t for me. It wasn’t like anyone was coming for me anyway.

Instead, I focused on counting the days to my 18th birthday. They kicked you out once you turned 18, but it was a time everyone in the orphanage looked forward to. I remember how excited I was when the time crawled ever closer. It was just a few weeks, but time seemed to slow down as they were passing. It was painful.

I had everything I was going to do planned out in my head. First, I was going to punch the head master square in the nose and tell him just how much I hated him. Then I was going to walk my ass straight to the GCPD and let them know everything. It was my chance get that place shut down forever. To help the other kids and get them sent somewhere decent. I would be stood out front watching the day it closed. Watching with the biggest, tooth baring smile on my face.

I still hate that I never got the chance.

My 18th was a few weeks away and I could taste my freedom. Everyone was hyping me up for it and some of the younger ones were telling me how much they were going to miss me and trying to spend as much time with me as they could. There were a few sour apples because they were jealous, but I understood and I would squeeze them all so tightly before I left.  

“Stop daydreaming and get back to the floor!” A harsh voice came and I was brought back to reality with a smack to the back of my head.

It was the head master's assistant, Mr Grimes. A name that suited him well. He was stalking the halls again, looking for the daydreamers like me so he could tear them down. I was supposed to be scrubbing the wooden floorboards, but I let my mind run away with me for a minute. I should’ve known better by then.

He got halfway down the hallway, trapsing dirt over where I’d just cleaned, when he stopped in his tracks and turned back to me.

“You’re up tomorrow, by the way.” He said, in that matter-of-fact tone that made everyone despise him that extra bit more.

“What?” I must’ve heard him wrong.

“You’re up. Some rich guy’s coming in looking for an older girl. That means you.”

“I can’t be. I’m getting out next month.”

“It’s right here in black and white. And you know I don’t make mistakes.” He gestured to the folder under his arm that had the details for tomorrow in it and apparently my name was listed inside.

I stopped to let the wheels in my head turn and try and figure this out. Being up meant that you were going to be presented for possible adoption. I couldn’t be... could I? Not now I was this close? Mr Grimes turned to leave, but turned back once more.

“By the way, says here this guy's 26. So, he’s probably not looking for a daughter. And if he’s coming here instead of some maid agency... Well, I'll let you think about that.”  

Mr Grimes smiled one of the slimiest smiles I’d ever seen before walking away. I knew what he meant and I also knew that nobody here cared. I threw the scrubbing brush into the bucket of soapy water, causing a splash. I was so angry. Angry that my plans could be potentially ruined, that I could be adopted by some rich guy with nefarious intentions, angry that they would let that happen to any of the girls here.

I allowed a few tears to escape my eyes, but quickly told myself off for it. I had promised myself I wouldn’t cry for this place any longer years ago. It felt like giving it power or losing to it and I was not going to give this dump the satisfaction. I didn’t sleep at all that night. Knowing what tomorrow was going to bring sat on my shoulders like two boulders. I was either going to see one of my sisters be taken away to god knows what, or be taken myself. I hadn’t told anybody about it. I didn’t want anybody else feeling this dread.  

Morning came. The wakeup call was 7am sharp. Everyone stirred and groaned, but they knew they’d regret it if they didn’t get up with the bell. Now began the battle for the showers. First come, first serve for the hot water. If you were too slow you had to shower in water like ice. However, I wasn’t in the mood to battle it out for hot water. I would feel terrible if I got some and the girl that got adopted today didn’t, so I let them all have war without me. I was used to the cold water anyway.

Downstairs at breakfast I couldn’t eat. I felt like I had a pit in my stomach and if I ate anything I would just throw it back up. The food was disgusting anyway.  I sat there with a glass of water deep in thought until a bell rang that caught all of our attention. The only time that bell rang was when the head master was going to be joining us for breakfast, which was rare. But in he came and sat at the front in front of all of us, Mr Grimes standing at his side like a loyal dog. I knew why he was here. He was going to break the news.

“Good morning children.” He said in his dull, boring voice, looking over the room as if scanning it.

“Good morning, head master.” Everyone replied in unison. We knew the drill.

“I have an exciting announcement.”

Everyone was gripped. You could’ve heard a pin drop.

“Now, this does only concern the girls. Boys, perhaps next time.”

A few whispers could be heard as everyone looked around at each other.  

“There will be a man coming in later. A wealthy man. He is going to take one of you home.”

Smiles could be seen on my sisters faces and they continued to whisper to each other curiously.

“Unfortunately, not all of you are candidates. Mr Grimes has a list of everyone that is going to be presented. When he calls your name, you are to go back upstairs and change into your display clothes. We must make a good impression if we are to find homes, girls.”

Mr Grimes opened the folder he had with him yesterday and pulled out a piece of paper. All of my sisters were on the edges of their seats, biting their lips, fingers crossed. All of them hoping today could be the day. I was hoping for the exact opposite.

“Shelby... Lisa... Mary... Joanne... Bethany.... And...” Then he called my name. The girls smiles reached ear to ear and they giggled to themselves as they stood up. We were all the oldest girls, 17 or few months away.  

“Congratulations, girls. Today could be the start of a new life... for one of you.” The headmaster also rose from his seat and he left the room leaving Mr Grimes to finish.

“You girls, upstairs and make yourselves look half human. The rest of you, better luck next time.”

Back in our dorm all the girls were laughing and smiling. They were all so happy, getting their presentation clothes ready. They were all the same. The outfit we had to wear if we were up. A black skirt that reached just below the knees with a black, quarter sleeve shirt with a white collar. Our only pair of good, clean white socks and black plimsoles. We were all identical in these outfits, except for different things we would do with our hair. Some would do braids, some pony tails or buns. The lucky ones managed to scrounge up some cute clips and bows. It was all very exciting for everyone. Everyone, but me.

“I can’t believe it! One of us is getting out of this soggy shack!” Laughed Shelby.

“I know! I knew keeping that lucky penny was worth it!”  Mary giggled as she pulled a penny out of her shoe and kissed it.

“Whoever it is that goes, we’ll still always be sisters, right?” Joanne piped up. She had always had a nervous disposition.  

The girls all stopped. They were so giddy with the news that they forgot today was also goodbye for one of us. The sudden sadness in the air was palpable. I could see tears start to gather in their eyes and my heart broke.

“Stop it. Stop it all of you. No matter what happens today, we will all always be sisters. We’ve been through so much together that even if we are scattered to all corners of the globe, we’ll still all be sisters. Nothing can change that. Ever.” I forced, half scolding them. We huddled together and began saying how much we loved each other, going over memories we had. We stayed like that until the bell rang, letting us know we only had a little time left before the line-up.

We stood lined up by the front door. I’d never liked this bit. It felt like we were on display in a shop window. Like we were on sale.

“Is this the best you could do? I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t just walk away.” Mr Grimes scoffed as he looked us up and down. He was the one who was going to be introducing us. The head master stayed in his office, he only dealt with the paperwork of it.

“And don’t say anything, unless he talks to you. Nobody buys a cow for its personality.”  

We heard a car pull up outside and the nerves kicked in.

“Sounds like he’s here. Stand up straight, girls. Somebody’s life’s about to change.”

Then there it was. The sound I’d been dreading since yesterday afternoon.

Knock, knock, knock...

“Let the sale commence.”

[morganas-pendragons]

My Heart (It’s Impenetrable) | Crosshair

this is my first time writing for the bad batch that didn’t involve skip, please be gentle.

this might be kind of OC but i added another prompt i thought of to this after drafting the beginning, but i hope you enjoy anyway!

***

There’s something odd that stirs in his chest when you’re around. Crosshair is renowned for his ability to detach himself from feeling things. He doesn’t care enough to acknowledge his own feelings. Not them, not his trauma, not much of anything at this point. There is his vode and the mission. 

The times he allows himself to feel things is when he’s nestled against the curve of a hill, sniper rifle poised on his shoulder, completely in his element with his weapon and the enemy in his line of sight. He’s renowned in the GAR for being able to take out targets at hundreds of feet that most of the natborn snipers would dream of being able to do. 

Crosshair doesn’t particularly care about them, or the regs, or the opinions of others in general. There’s his vode - The Bad Batch - and that’s it. They are the ones who hold his attention and his concern, when warranted.

The regs think he doesn’t have a heart.

He doesn’t really realize he does until you show up. Well, when you do.. the renowned sniper has a startling realization. That heart of his? It’s not nearly as impenetrable as he believed it to be. 

It doesn’t matter. Clones are bred with the thought of not feeling. He mastered that as a cadet. Prides himself on it.

  “Hello Crosshair.”

He’s pretty sure your tiny, bright self that shines like a beacon wherever you go is going to make him contemplate breaking that pride. 

*** 

The first time it happens, he’s angry. Feigns anger. You’re this little slip of a medic - he takes to calling you Slip which makes his brothers laugh - assigned to be with The Bad Batch by the GAR. They’re not particularly fond of GAR officers in general, but you were assigned to them due to their dire lack of a medic and the fact that they encounter some of the most dangerous missions out of all the clone battalions that serve on the front lines of a war. 

He’s exiting The Havoc Marauder when you sprint past him, hopping up onto the tips of your toes - he sees a flash of black, probably your medical wear you’d donned when tending to Hunter in the med bay - before pressing the ghost of a kiss against his cheek and laughing brightly as you ran away.

Crosshair is too stunned to move. Tech knows his brother, knows how he’s been told that feeling is a weakness, how he used to get harassed by the regs during their cadet years for it. 

He also knows how starved of contact they all are. How badly they crave people. You don’t take crap from anyone - much less them, despite how tiny you are you are also assertive and firm - if you don’t agree, they will know it. If you think they’re being reckless and careless with how much their lives matter to you, they will know it. 

  “Cross?” Tech knows better then to lay a tentative hand on his shoulder, but Crosshair shakes himself out of his reverie to face his younger brother. “C’mon. Our weapons need to be modified and cleaned.” 

The barrels of his sniper rifle are caked in dust. 

He tries not to think of you as he disassembles and reassembles that rifle until his fingers hurt and his eyes are crossing and the pieces are gleaming with how hard he’s scrubbed them, but he’s-kriff. 

Kriff. 

***

The second time, he actually snaps and you’re on the receiving end of it. It’s not intentional, but when you do it in the aftermath of a mission that nearly took his head from a small group of commandos he nearly missed, he’s seething with his failure and you’re just trying to help, he knows that. 

He’s still mad. 

  “Cross-” Your eyes betray your fear as his skin still burns from your kiss, and the Sniper glowers as he pins you against the wall of the Marauder. The brothers have left the premises to resupply in the marketplace over the hill, and the two of you had offered to remain behind to watch the ship and your bounty. “Crosshair, put me down. Now.” 

It’s not often you use that tone of voice with him. Maybe he did step over the line. 

  “Slip.” He snaps. “I need you to-” 

  “What? Need me to what?” 

You’re angry too. He hasn’t been able to read your intentions since you joined their merry band of misfits, but Crosshair has always been the most perceptive - beside Hunter - and so he sees you. Everything you do. The gentle way you approach The Batch as the humans they are, not just the clones, and how you always know what’s wrong before you even tend to them. The way you never talk down to Wrecker. The way you listen to Tech babble on incoherently about something you don’t particularly care about. When Hunter needs a second pair of eyes and it’s 3 AM, you’re so bone tired you could sleep for years, but you drag yourself out of bed just to help him. 

Remarkable. 

  “I need you to stop making me feel things.” He harshly releases you from his grasps and begins pacing the ground in front of where you stand. “This thing you keep doing, have been doing since we met you, I-I need it to end. It’s driving me insane!” 

Your frown makes his head spin. He’s thought long and hard about this, about how you somehow wormed your way into his head and remained there, and the last thing he wants to do is hurt you. 

 “Crosshair.” You reply calmly. “In case you are blind, did you ever consider that I might like you?”

His first question, almost immediately: why? What the kriff is there to like about him? 

  “Well, uh.. no.” 

  “Secondly-” 

  “Where was the firstly?” 

You glare daggers at him to shut him up. His lips quirk upward in the barest hint of a smile. He doesn’t really smile.. not the way you probably want him to. “Cross, you’re remarkable. Really. I talked with Hunter about this when we met because there’s just something about you that’s so alluring..” You move forward and tilt your head upward to meet his gaze. “I can’t figure out what it is. Is it the saltiness? The armor? The way you can just take out people without so much as a breadth of hesitation?” 

  “Slip, did you just call me salty?” 

  “Yes. What are you going to do about it?” 

You are totally caught off guard when he looks back and forth, glances down, and then kisses you on the cheek.

  “That.” 

Hunter asks you upon their return from the market if your cheeks have been burned by the sun because they’re so red. Meanwhile, Cross sits inside of the Havoc Marauder and smirks as he peers down the sight of his sniper rifle and begins to disassemble it. 

If a kiss was all it took to shut you up, he would’ve gotten over his impenetrable heart - the same heart you wormed your way into and made a home there - and done it a long time ago. 

[bazpitchs-violin]

i've decided to post my lil national competition piece cause i filmed it yesterday and im sad im done with it so uhhh

(it's long sorry :/)

i have nothing.

hope is for optimists

dreams are for children

goals are for those with potential

desires are for confident people

wants are human

needs are too

and somehow i ended up with few

and those i do

my best to deny

even when they beg, i lie

tired of being a slave to human needs

wanting to distance myself from the notion

that i am human indeed

i run away

i run on as little sleep

as little water

as little food

as possible

I indulge only when forced

i’m the dandelion growing between slabs of concrete, not the orchid displayed on the table, or the rose with a screen and a glass dome to be kept under at night.

i take what i can get

i don’t seek out the rain

which means i don’t ask

my skin is starved, my senses dull

my music is an escape

but also a hand to hold mine

at night

or early in the morning

when i should be asleep, buried in blankets, blissfully slipping away from reality, i’m awake

i’m awake and floating, gone away, gone awry, dematerialising between lines of melody and harmony, letting the lyrics choke the reality out of me, while forcing the truth down my throat, searing in my lungs

i’m built of lyrics and quotes, they ricochet in my head and rattle in my rib cage, pinging in the empty space where my heart should be

i’m a precarious collection of other people’s words mashed together haphazardly, and glued with tears

glued with trauma and memories, days that are locked behind iron doors and others that are burned into the wooden frame

a hundred times i watch the movie, older than me, older than the idea of me, older than even my parents relationship

a hundred times the same lines stick to me, choking me with emotion, wrapping me in truth. truth like a blanket that always leaves your feet cold. truth that is mumbled by his sweaty toothed madman.

truth that hides in his brown eyes, layered under the pain as he looks at his father, the last string in him pulled taut, about to be cut

those seven words, spilling out of him, run over me like scalding water

i was good. i was really good.

they carve themselves in my mind.

they’re scalded across my chest

etched

in every inch of my skin,

red and burning, bleeding out of me, because while in him it’s his last truth, in me it’s a lie

i was good. i was really good.

it seems more and more like the diems are not mine to carpe

or maybe i never tried

i only ever wanted his seven words to feel just as mine

i try so hard to be good. to be better. to be other. to be what they want, to be him.

i have a hundred different versions of myself that i sift through, change like costumes, because i am not fully palatable to anyone

not even myself

i want to look in the mirror and see him

i put on the green sweater and lose myself in favour of him

we’re so similar if i look hard enough, the same brown eyes, hiding pain, breaking from expectations, and yet, not the same

sure, some of his looks are mine

the pain in him is the same as mine

the way his voice cracks and the look of soft resignation, i echo constantly

in the end, i’m like him in a circus mirror.

warped.

the mirror creases me,

stretchmarks

it’s scratched,

scars

it’s wrinkled like a waterlogged book

widened

angled,

the lighting makes us all the more different

i look at myself, this warped version of him, tears shining in the dim lighting, my face so filled with sorrow it pulls into the fake smile i’ll wear tomorrow,

every i’m fine sticking in my throat because i’m a liar. that’s all i am really.

i’m him, without all of the qualities that made him loved

without the allure that makes him my comfort

without all the good parts.

watered down, diluted, knock off, bootleg

a wrong version of him

and a different version of him, years later, a version i know his father would love, and my mother would adore,

“Living Is Hard.”

and it is.

damn near impossible.

every day i slip further and further away, i’m wilting

the sun is always weak when it gets to me. but i take what i can get

the bowl almost empty. the water no longer running warm and clean, but i take what i can get

the expectation is to be self sufficient and independent

to need her less

to want her less

i am expected to be a grown up

when really i am a child

when really i can’t reach

i have spent my whole life on my tip toes,

reaching

trying

grasping

feeling around desperately for what is hidden on that top shelf

just out of my reach

pushed way to the back

but i’m always falling short

always failing, barely missing the point

never able to pull it forward

never able to hold it in my hands, to get a grip on it, it always slips

and it gets pushed back further

i’m teetering

tumbling

towering

it’s terrifying

maybe i could reach if i jumped a little higher

if i were just a little taller

if i were just a little smarter, if i were just a little better

if i found some way to reduce this weight on me, holding me down

a hundred expectations

laced together like twigs

woven in a crown

resting upon my head

placed precariously, this time by my own two shaking hands

ready to be crushed by the weight of millions of expectations

but i inherited this crown

it was fixed upon my brow, before i could know what its weight meant

and what was expected of me because of it

as i grow, the crown does too

berries and flower buds

heavier and heavier

i had to take it off, i couldn’t handle the weight

and now its back on

a final attempt, reaching again

for better

for good.

my face is illuminated in the moonlight, radiating off of the silver snow

i’m shivering from the cold

i was good, i was really good.

(fun fact: originally, the last line of this was "i was good, i was really good, but not good enough to grow old")