#but they’re still in my feed. I should just. mute them.

[remma-demma]

Yes!! I was going to mention that bit but I forgot lol. Star Wars was 100% the example I was thinking of too.

Wrt homestuck the argument that happens way too often and bothers me is

-someone says they like something in post canon

-someone else says that’s not canon and therefore bad and you should feel bad for liking it.

Which is just. Absolutely ridiculous. Feel free to be a hater in your own mind / with your friends. Disengage from strangers. Don’t come into my house and tell me I shouldn’t be appreciating this art.

This also just seems like a natural extension of the attitude from before homestuck even ended where fans who were embarrassed about being fans would couch their enjoyment in “lol homestuck is trash am I right guys”. That always bothered me as an autistic person who is very sincere about the things I like. Like uh. No actually. I like homestuck because I think it rocks. You can make criticisms of it but don’t frame it and everyone who likes it as… garbage.

Now that same attitude is way more prevalent because there’s content that they can point to and say, look, they ruined it! Homestuck (2009-2016) is good and Homestuck (2016-present) is irredeemable in comparison. Because it’s… not… real? And as I said above. It’s a story, what does real even mean. If I find meaning in it, let me enjoy it!!!

I think some people don’t realize homestuck is a story about storytelling.

I was thinking about people insisting the Epilogues, hs^2, or Beyond Canon aren’t canon. And like. Yeah, that’s the point.

What does it mean to be canon anyway? Stories that get tied up in neat little bows are hard to expand upon. What happens after the happily ever after?

You can take it the direction of mundane day to day fluff (candy) or send them on another world shattering adventure (meat) but neither one is really real because… it’s a story. Homestuck was never really real. They’re both real. None of them are real.

This is all so clearly spelled out in the post canon material that I’m forced to assume they just. Have not engaged in it and / or ignore it on principle.

[chirpsythismorning]

YALL it’s okay to not like a birthdaygate or to be disappointed when it ends up playing out bc you didn’t want it to happen in the first place or bc you’ve been insisting for the last year it wouldn’t happen.

But seriously, don’t waste your energy telling other people to not get their hopes up bc they’ll just be disappointed. We’re all responsible for our own emotions. That’s not something you should be concerned about.

Everyone should worry about themselves instead of projecting that doubt onto other people bc it makes them feel better.

If someone has a theory you don’t like, and it’s talked about enough in the tag that it bothers you, to the point of wanting to mute certain words or block people, then that’s a boundary you’re making for yourself and I applaud you for being self aware enough to make your feed look the way you want.

But I seriously cannot count how many times bylers have been bitter talking down on other byler’s theories, that they’re only talking down on in the first place because they don’t like them, while putting up the guise they’re just warning ppl that are setting themselves up for disappointed.

Like no shit. That’s a possibility for everyone.

I personally will be okay if my theories don’t play out. I’ll get over it. It’s a tv show. And I’m just one fan out of millions. I’m not naive enough to think it’s going to cater to my every thought and analysis.

If I was super dissapointed with s5 as a result of my theories being completely wrong, at the worst I would wait a few days to process it and then move on. I wouldn’t be on here posting my resentments.

Y’all know post-Vol 2 I was one of the few fans still posting about hope and also pre vol-2 I talked about how a lot of the stuff bylers theorized for the end of s4 was likely not to happen until s5 bc they’re saving it for the end.

I’m a realist. But I’m also an optimist. And I don’t see a problem with having fun during hiatus, knowing there’s a good chance I’m wrong about things. Bc that’s inevitable.

If you find yourself having to condescendingly talk down on other people, telling them they’ll be disappointed, insisting that you’re just looking out for them... The call is coming from inside the house! You’re already disappointed and you’re making it other peoples’ problem, when it’s currently yours to get over at the moment.

Let ppl have fun and if they’re wrong that’s their problem. Not yours!!

[hashtagloveloses]

hi hashtagloveloses,

I'm a new user and saw your post about reblogs. Is there anything else I should pay attention to? Could you tell me if there is a post or guide or something I can consult on how tumblr works? I'm still getting really lost here and have trouble finding anything.

there’s actually an official staff blog with a bunch of good tips called @tips everybody should know about! but off the top of my head also:

1) make sure you have a profile photo. you don’t need a cover photo you can even just turn that off in your blog settings. this is to make sure people don’t think you’re a bot

2) have a different username here than you have other places and don’t share personal information of any kind here (huge mistake i made….). despite what some people say you do not need to share anything about ur sexuality, pronouns, diagnoses, opinions, etc. frankly if i could advise my younger self, i’d say just don’t make original posts or comments at all (if u wanna make commentary in reblog tags maybe?). use a diary or a journal instead of original posts about yourself or your opinions or comments on others’ posts. even if you delete your blog or change your username, the reblogs of things you say live on here forever.

4) reblog instead of like, and tag posts with what they’re about when you post and reblog (this is something i don’t do as much as i should bc im often on mobile and don’t feel like it and only do it for original posts). at least make sure you’re tagging for common content warnings and spoilers. don’t censor words in posts or tags if you’re trying to tag, bc that breaks people’s mute/blocklists. DO censor words/tags if you’re talking about something you don’t want to clog the tag for or attract attention to or something.

5) if you personally want to keep track of original posts, asks, and queued posts, create tags you use for each of those and on mobile manually tag with them every time you do one of those posts, and on desktop you can have an extension do it. in your blog settings you can make like your original post tag one of your “featured tags” if you want easy access, or other people to be able to see, which just means when they hit the search bar on your blog it’s suggested.

6) make sure you go to your dashboard settings and turn OFF “best things first”. i keep on the other algorithmic stuff like showing stuff based on likes as well, and i flip between the various feeds, but most of what you should be doing is following blogs that post or reblog what you like, following the TAGS of things you like, and those will appear chronologically in your regular dash “following” feed.

7) freely block, unfollow, and filter/mute people and topics. do not feel like you have any obligation to anyone. curate your experience on here.

8) turn off submissions on your blog, and turn off anon asks or even asks all together if you don’t want them. you are not obligated to answer every ask or even have an open ask box. you should also take a look at your settings for private messages and replies to set them to what you’re comfortable with.

9) how i use notifications is different than a lot of ppl bc i get a LOT of them but explore how the Activity and notifications page works to your favor, but turn off push notifs and as much as you can. followers, likes, etc, do not matter that much here if you’re not trying to build a following for art or something and you shouldn’t pay attention to it other than just for fun.

10) learn what T*RF, SW*RF, and white supremacist dogwhistles are and how to spot them bc they can still be prevalent on here and you may not realize. a lot of seemingly normal posts about feminism on here can be crypto t*rf shit so you need to learn how to spot it. (those kinds of posts spread to a lot of platforms and people don’t realize….)

11) do not get into discourse on here. of any kind. even if you’re right. some idiot will drain the life out of you arguing with you and people get weird. you’re not gonna convince people online of anything in a discourse fight most of the time and you will only come out of it drained or harassed yourself (frankly this is good advice for anywhere and sometimes even i slip up). in general even on here where engagement is not encouraged as much, every platform has engagement bait and discourse either purposely seeded to piss you off, or if it’s not on purpose it’s still pushed by algorithms.

12) for things like news, etc, this is general online advice but make sure you’re practicing basic media literacy to check how real a headline or a video or something is. what’s the source? how old is it? did they provide sources? etc

13) DO NOT REPOST ART. EITHER FROM HERE OR FROM OTHER WEBSITES. unless the artist says you can repost it (and you need to do so with credit, and look and see if they need to give permission). do not REBLOG reposted art either. you may find it in tags sometimes. do not encourage that behavior.

14) to that same end, do not post AI bullshit here. chatGPT, character AI, voiceover deepfakes, AI videos, etc. don’t do or support those in general but don’t post that shit here

15) in general, and this is something i try to tell people on EVERY platform, remember that what you see people discussing online is often a small minority of what most people think or feel. it may FEEL like everyone is talking about a certain thing, or fighting about a certain thing, but it does not represent the whole. there’s so many discourses where people are like “why do x always say y” and i’m like well they don’t. the very online segment of x often say y bc it gets engagement or bc they are very loud. (this isn’t the case for everything but it happens often for very stupid topics). this isn’t to dismiss important conversations had online by a minority of people that aren’t being discussed wider enough either - bc that also does happen. but that is often for things that are more important than like, the same movie sex scene discourse i see on twitter every 2 weeks.

16) don’t feel any obligation to your “followers”. you are not an influencer you are just here having fun, and your followers follow for the things you reblog, not for you. be FREE.

17) on desktop browser, get the XKit Rewritten extension and go wild with the settings. its a really nice tool and has a lot of good features, like the quick reblog and queue features that give you those auto tags and stuff. (also if you aren’t already using Ublock Origin extension as your adblocker on desktop, get that too).

18) if you have an iphone, apple store limits what they can show you within the app, so if you want to look at more NSFW, the mobile browser version of tumblr is quite decent. but also go to your blog settings on desktop and make sure your settings of what it is showing you on your dash include sensitive content (even if you set it to have a filter over it at first), bc it sometimes autoflags random shit as “sensitive”. also play with your dashboard filters with tags for nsfw content to your comfort - it wont remove it it’ll just put a thing over it so it doesn’t pop up in public accidentally before you click to look at it.

[stellanslashgeode]

Here’s another sample of my writing that I like:

“Are you scared.”

“Come one, you know perfectly well that the Jedi train us to avoid fear.”

“But you still feel it.”

“Of course, I’m a sentient just like you.”

“Hardly like me…”

“More alike than you would think. I try not to feed my fear as much as possible and steer my attention towards enlightened self-interest, survival, and harmony. I guess.”

“Maybe you could teach me how.”

“I’ll do my best. It helps not being alone. But I miss my tribe.”

“Do you miss the Jedi?”

“I did for a few years.”

“I wouldn’t have left them.”

“It wasn’t up to me.”

“What color was your lightsaber?”

“You asked me that years ago.”

“Humor me.”

“It was icy blue. Like a glacier.” In her youth Hazal tried not to take its muted color as a sign of her low connection to the Force, but it was difficult.

“Why’d they take it away?”

“There wasn’t any reason for me to have it. A layperson might mistake me for a padawan or knight. I wasn’t a padawan or knight.”

“It just seems sad.”

“Wielding a lightsaber was not where my strengths were. I was glad to be moved somewhere I could be of real use to people.” That wasn’t entirely the truth, but Meita doesn’t press.

“What do you think happened to it?”

“They either turned it into a training saber, or replacement saber. Or took out the crystal to add to the Kyber Arch.”

“I would have loved to see that. I wonder if it’s still there.”

“I don’t think we’ll ever find out what happened to such monuments. I don’t want to know.”

“I can’t believe they’re all dead. I helped you escape. Maybe other people out there helped out other Jedi?”

“Maybe we’ll meet one sometime. Once we get off Pantora.”

“The Empire is gone from here, maybe we don’t have to leave? Maybe Corporate Sector Authority will be lax about tracking you down?”

“They will want to remain in good standing with the Empire. So that they retain power. Besides, I’m worried things will start getting ugly around here. I want to move on for your sake as well as mine.”

“Traveling the galaxy with a Jedi. Who would have thought?”

“A washout you mean.”

“You’re still a Jedi, Hazal. Don’t turn away from what you are.”

“I wish I could borrow a little of your faith.”

“I’ll give you some. Use your Force powers or something.”

Meita dangles her hand over the side of her bed. Lying on her bedroll Hazal reaches up to grasp it.

“Thank you for having faith in me. And faith in the Force. It seems remote sometimes.”

“You should realize how amazing you are. Ugh, that sounded so sappy. Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. Try to get some sleep.” She squeezes her hand.

“You too.”

[miyamiwu]

An Honest Guide to Tumblr for Twitter Refugees (Part 1)

I know there are already tons of guides out there, but my WiFi was down the whole day and I got nothing else to do. Spent the entire morning making gifs, but still no WiFi, and I’m like, fck this let’s make a Tumblr guide.

Now, assuming you’ve already signed up and was able to snatch a fancy url*, here’s what you should do next: Log into Tumblr on desktop. You probably made your account through the app, and that’s cool and all, but for this guide, I’ll be showing some features that are currently only available on desktop Tumblr, so go ahead and get your laptop or PC out. Following this guide will also be easier on desktop.

*url = basically your username/handle on this site. We call them url’s because it what makes your domain name on your blog. More on this later.

Covered in Part 1:

Configuring your Tumblr Settings (filters, community labels, algorithms, etc.)

Customizing your Tumblr (how to avoid being mistaken as a bot**, enabling your Tumblr website, finding a Tumblr theme)

**this wasn’t included when I first made this post but decided to add it coz it’s really important.

Configuring your Tumblr Settings

Filters and Community Labels

Go to tumblr.com/settings/account. Here, you’ll find one of Tumblr’s most important features: filters and community labels. Filters are similar to Twitter’s “mute words” feature, and they come in two types: Tag and Content filters

Unlike Twitter, where tags are part of the post itself, Tumblr has a dedicated section at the bottom of the post to add tags.

Tag filters block out posts that are specifically tagged with #tag, while Content filters block posts containing a certain word within the body of the post itself. Once you have these set, you will never see such posts when using the search feature on Tumblr. It will still show up on your dashboard though, but it will look this and comes with the option to view the post for whenever you’re curious:

As for Community Labels, this should be self-explanatory. Mature content is now allowed on Tumblr, but if you don’t want to see such content, you can always opt-out.

Go wild in using these two features. Tumblr is the only major social media left that still allows you to liberally curate your feed. The peeps here on Tumblr mainly still abide by the “don’t like, don’t interact” rule from the old days. Calling out or cancelling a user for what they’re posting will get you nowhere. That’s just not how it works here. If you don’t like something, just block it.

Turning Off Algorithms

Contrary to popular narrative, Tumblr actually has algorithms. But unlike social media sites, they are contained in a tab of its own (i.e. the “For You” tab in Dashboard) and can be even turned off from showing up from within the feed you manually curated (the “Following” tab under Dashboard).

To turn off the algorithms, go to tumblr.com/settings/dashboard and scroll down to the Preferences section. And if you’re a privacy stickler like me, you can go further by going to tumblr.com/settings/privacy to turn off Improved Search.

Tumblr Labs

Tumblr Labs are experimental features. They’re not required, but if you want to make the most out of Tumblr, you might want to turn on some of them. I like to turn on the different Dashboard tabs so I can keep up with what’s going on in Tumblr.

Customizing your Tumblr

Now here comes the fun stuff and what really sets Tumblr apart from all other major social media sites: Personalization. In Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc, all user pages look the same. But in Tumblr, you can customize it as much as you want.

Before I start though, I’d like to throw in some stuff that you have to understand first:

Tumblr’s Two “Profile Pages”

Each Tumblr user technically has two “profile pages.” The first one is found at tumblr.com/username, and is basically not that much different from the profile pages of Twitter/Instagram/Facebook. You can customize its colors, icon, and header, but that’s pretty much it.

Edit: I forgot to include this very important bit when I first posted— How to avoid being mistaken as a bot Do not settle for Tumblr’s default icon and header. Tumblr has a long-standing bot problem. An uncustomized profile will make people think you’re a bot and will block you immediately. And when choosing an icon, you might have to think twice when using a selfie that does not include your face (i.e. an upper body picture starting from the neck/chest). Porn bots often use such pictures to make people think they’re real users. Numbers at the end of a url (like username123) are often indications of a bot account, so you might want to avoid that too.

Moving on… The second profile page is where the magic happens, and its found at username.tumblr.com. However, it’s not turned on by default.

Remember what I said earlier about Tumblr usernames being generally called as url’s? That’s because of our “second profile page” here (I hate calling it second though because it’s what came first, but since it’s not a default option now, “second” it is). Tumblr is a blogging platform. Like WordPress and Blogger, but a fun version of it. Your username.tumblr.com page is basically your own custom website.

Enabling your Tumblr Website

From hereon, I’m gonna refer to the “second profile page” as just site because, well, that’s what it really is.

To enable your custom site, go to tumblr.com/settings/blog/username. Toggle on the custom theme option. [If you’re a professional, you can even use a custom domain if you want your site url to look like your-site.com instead of your-site.tumblr.com.]

In the past, the step above would’ve been enough to enable your site, but since Tumblr started implementing changes that sites using the default theme would just redirect to the first profile page (tumblr.com/username), we now have to do some extra steps to make sure that folks visiting at your-site.tumblr.com will really see your website instead of Tumblr’s default profile.

For that, we need to edit our site’s theme.

What are Tumblr themes?

It's basically the design and layout of your site. It can be as crazy or as professional as you want. Here's Taylor Swift's Midnights theme, for example.

Where to Find a Tumblr Theme

Tumblr’s Official Theme Garden (free and paid)

Tumblr’s Official Theme Garden, but filtered to show only the free themes

@theme-hunter

@codingcabin

It’s so hard to filter for the right theme in the Theme Garden though, so I suggest looking for themes in theme-hunter instead.

Tip in Choosing a Theme: Find one that supports NPF (Neue Post Format). Although Tumblr is still advocating its different posts types (text, image, audio, video, etc.), they’ve actually been rolling out changes to their editor where only a single post type is used (text) and you just add media to it. This is what NPF is about. On desktop, you can turn off the beta editor and thereby turn off NPF. However, on mobile web and on the app, posts can only be made in NPF. So if you intend to post on mobile, you have to find a theme that supports it. Otherwise, your content may look weird on your site.

I absolutely recommend themes by @seyche and @fukuo. The one I’m currently using on my site is the Lilac theme by Seyche.

For a more comprehensive guide on customizing your Tumblr, check out Tumblr’s official guide for it.

And that ends part 1 of this Tumblr guide… Though I called this part 1, I actually don’t know if there’ll be a part 2 lol. I’m lazy, and writing this took some time. If my wifi continues to be down though and I still have some data left, I might just write a part 2, covering posting and tumblr culture.

Okay, I'm working on Part 2 now, and will soon edit this post to link to it. But for now, you might want to check out Part 0: What the heck is Tumblr and is it right for me?

Edit: Part 2 is done, and it covers stuff you need to know about posting! You can read it here.

Update: Part 3 (sort of) is up:

A Guide to Tagging on Tumblr: Types of Tags

[kaminocasey]

Do You Hear the People Sing Part 5

Summary: Fox tries to come to your rescue. Nell isn't who you think she is. Pairing: Commander Fox/F!Reader Warnings: Violence, explosions, angst WC: 2.2K A/N: BACK TO OUR REGULAR PROGRAMMING! Thanks for bearing with me as I finished up all those requests. I'm excited for you guys to read what happens in this fic next! <3

Last | Next

“Hello, cyare.” Fox attempts a smile.

“Fox… What are you doing here?” You ask him, trying not to glance at Nell who’s standing on the other side of the door toward your hall closet, with her blaster trained on you.

Gripping your elbows tightly when you cross them, you try to keep your shaking hidden so Fox doesn’t notice and try to come in. Your heart clenches at the sight of him, though. It feels as if the universe is playing some sick game on you.

“I needed to see you… to explain.” He looks like he wants to reach out toward you.

“This… this isn’t a good time, Fox. I’m sorry.” You start to push the button to close the door but he reaches out toward you and you push his hand away as Nell starts to step toward you. “Go away.”

“What? After you come into my office today, you suddenly don’t want to speak to me?” He looks desperate to understand.

You shrug your shoulders. “I heard a woman’s voice and panicked… but I realize now how dumb I was and I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”

“You won’t even let me explain?” He searches your eyes.

“There’s nothing to explain. I understand you’ve moved on. I- I have too.” You lie.

“You have?” He murmurs.

You nod your head, just praying to the maker that he doesn’t see through your lie. He looks away for a second and you take that time to glance at Nell. She motions for you to get rid of him.

“I’ve got to go.” You slam the close button before he can say anything else, and the door slides shut.

Staring at the door a moment before acknowledging Nell, you attempt to gather your thoughts and then turn toward her.

“What’s the plan here, Nell? You gonna shoot me?” You ask her.

She raises the blaster toward your face. “This obviously wasn’t planned at all. I don’t want to shoot you.”

Think… Think… Fox used to tell you that if you ever found yourself in trouble, you should try to buy yourself more time. You look at Nell’s cup of tea on the counter.

“Listen… There's no reason that this needs to end badly, Nell. I understand why you did what you did. I do.” You start to subtly search with your eyes for your comm.

Where did you put it?

“We needed the Senate’s attention. You figured out how to get it. Do I agree with you? No. I’m sorry. I wish I did. If we use violence like that, we’re no better than the Republic using the clones as weapons.”

There it is. You see it across the room on the end table by the couch. Trying to keep Nell calm, you hand her the cup of tea and she reluctantly takes it as you lead her to the couch to sit.

You keep talking as you walk behind her, around the couch, stepping in front of the comm so that she doesn’t see it, and silently comm Fox, muting it so you can’t hear him, but he can hear you.

“Listen… Nell… You’re one of the best friends that I have… that bomb that you set off at the protest that day got everyone’s attention.” Fox listens to your voice, confused. “It got the Senate’s attention, it got the Jedi’s attention… It even got Palpatine’s attention. You should be proud of yourself.”

Nell… Your partner with the Clones Rights group… That explains why you were acting strange.

“Kriff… Kriff kriff kriff…” Fox rushes, hanging up to comm his brothers and General Skywalker.

He just hopes they’re not too late.

Nell listens to you as you continue to lie and feed her ego, just trying to keep her calm, buying yourself time until you can come up with a better plan or Fox shows up with backup. She seems to be calming down. She’s still holding the blaster as she sips the tea out of that silly fox mug that you got for Fox. You’re sort of glad that you didn’t throw it out or give it to Fox when he came for his stuff all those months ago. It’ll be a nice last reminder of him in case Nell does decide to shoot you.

Fox is standing outside of your apartment building when Thorn, Thire, Hound, and Stone show up with Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano.

“What’s the situation, Commander?” Anakin asks, looking up at the building.

Fox explains what he heard through the comm, about Nell and the bomb. He tries to keep the panic out of his voice so that the general doesn’t have anything to use against him if he suspects Fox’s involvement with you.

“And just how does this girl have your comm channel, Commander?” Anakin asks Fox with a quirked eyebrow, clearly amused.

“Uh. Well, you see, sir… She kept getting arrested and I was tired of… doing paperwork so I told her if she needed help…” Fox starts rambling, clearly terrible at trying to lie.

He doesn’t even have to look at his brothers to know they’re definitely going to give him shit at some point after this is all over. They all look pretty serious currently, staring up at the building and then waiting for General Skywalker’s command. He forgot how much they cared for you. Thorn is your best friend. He should thank Thorn later for taking care of you while he was being stupid the last six months…

All this time… wasted… time he could have spent protecting you from this sort of thing happening. He owes you the biggest apology of a lifetime. He just hopes he gets the chance to apologize.

“Ahsoka and I will rush the bomber. Commander Fox- you and your men just make sure that your riduur gets out safe.” Skywalker winks at Fox. “I assume you know which apartment is hers?”

Fox doesn’t have time to play stupid, because he nods and follows General Skywalker’s lead up the stairs to your apartment, leading him to your door.

“You’re lucky you fell out of love with Fox when you did.” Nell tells you.

“I never stopped loving him.” You correct her.

She stares at you for a moment, a little shocked that you corrected a person holding a blaster toward you. You shrug. There’s no point in denying it. You love Fox more than anything in the entire galaxy. Broken up or not broken up, nothing would change that.

“I don’t think it’s possible for me to stop loving him.” You tell her, tears suddenly springing to your eyes.

All these months, wasted, when you could have been together. And now… death is staring you in the face and you didn’t even get to tell him you loved him one last time. Maker, how stupid you’ve been. If perhaps you’d just listened to Fox when he begged you to stop all of this… you wouldn’t be in this situation.

“What Fox and I had… was beautiful… Maybe we’ll be lucky to find each other again in another life.” You look at Nell, fully, in the face. “One where maybe he’s free from the Republic and I’m not stupid and I listen to him the first time.”

Nell puts the tea cup down on your caf table and then stares at you for a long moment. She seems like she wants to reach out toward you, but you just stare right back. She’s going to do what she wants to do.

She stands up. “I’m going to leave Coruscant… start over… your speech about another life has me thinking… maybe there’s more to life out there in the galaxy.” She tucks the blaster back in her pants and you let out a breath you didn’t even realize you’d been holding. “If you don’t come looking for me… maybe we can let this all go?”

You nod and then she nods, heading for the door, which all of a sudden opens forcefully that only a Jedi could have done. You and Nell both glance at the door in time to see Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano rush in, pushing Nell to the ground.

She stares at you, wide eyed and shocked. “You tricked me.”

“I’m sorry.” You murmur.

Fox rushes in immediately, toward you and you let out a soft whimper as he pulls you into his arms, not even caring that a Jedi general of the clone army is in the same room.

“I’m so sorry-” You both rush out.

“No, cyare… I’m so sorry… I should have been here to protect you.” He cups your face so that he can look you in the eyes.

“You’re going to regret this.” Nell glares at you.

“That’s enough.” General Skywalker warns her, his voice going dark.

If you didn’t know any better, you’d think Skywalker had a little dark side to him. You don’t have time to dwell on it because Fox pulls your face toward his so you don’t have to watch them take Nell away.

Fox’s fingers caress your cheeks and you can’t stop staring up into those familiar brown eyes that you missed more than anything.

“We’ll just go then…” Thire starts to push the other guards out.

Thorn takes off his helmet and pats you on the back. “I’m so glad you’re alright.”

“Me too.” You breathe. “Thanks for being there for me.”

“Anytime.” He smiles.

Thorn then pats Fox on the back with a nod. “See you later, vod.”

Fox nods back before Thorn leaves your apartment. When the door shuts, you look up at Fox again, just glad that you get to be near him again.

“I love you, you know. I never stopped.” You tell him.

“Neither did I.” He promises you, pulling you into his arms.

“But, that senator…” You murmur, running your hands up the cool plastoid.

“Just a friend who hates Palpatine as much as we do.” He smiles, softly.

You nod, trusting him. He rests his forehead against yours, closing his eyes, breathing you in.

“I missed you so much.” Your voice breaks and he crushes his lips to yours.

Finally.

You run your hands up the plastoid armor until you reach his curls, curling your fingers through them. He sighs into the kiss, his lips slightly trembling like he may cry. Pulling away only slightly, to make sure he’s alright, he’s looking down at you sadly, tears in his eyes.

“What is it?” You whisper.

“I’m just so angry with myself…” He whispers back. “I should have been here… I could have stopped it…”

“Fox… let’s not do this right now.” You murmur. “Let’s just be here. We’re both okay. We’ve been apart long enough… I promise you, this wasn’t your fault. Let’s just be together and then we can figure out the rest, alright?”

“You’re right…” He nods, smiling down at you, starting to lean in to kiss you again.

A knock on the door tears you apart again. With a groan, you pull away.

“Don’t go anywhere.” You smile at Fox.

“Never again.” He promises you.

Dragging yourself away from Fox, you answer the door, finding a panting Thorn and Stone, trying to catch their breath. Stomach in knots, you quickly glance over to Fox.

“What is it?” Fox is instantly at your side.

Thorn and Stone glance at each other, clearly not wanting to be the one to deliver what is obviously not good news.

“I’d rather not ask again.” Fox steps in front of you, protectively.

“Nell escaped…” Thorn’s eyes shoot to you.

“How is that possible? General Skywalker and Commander Tano had her.” Fox asks them.

“She was with a Sith.” Stone tells Fox.

“A Sith?” You ask, confused and Stone and Thorn nod.

It’s becoming more and more clear that you truly did not know Nell at all. Your friend turned out to be a terrorist and now, a Sith sympathizer? You think back to her threat before Skywalker took her away.

You’re going to regret this…

Her words ring loudly in your head and as if you and Fox never spent all that time apart, Fox reads your face and tucks you into his side.

“You two are to stand outside her door. I want a constant watch right here. No one comes in and no one goes out unless it’s run by me. Is that clear?” Fox switches into his authoritative voice and under normal circumstances, you’d be turned on by it.

Right now, you’re actually a little afraid. You’d heard how awful the Sith were if you stood in their way. With no hesitance, Thorn and Stone nod and Fox gives you a reassuring squeeze before stepping away to speak into his comm.

“Don’t you worry. We deal with this shit all the time.” Stone nods to you, trying to reassure you.

“You know, when we’re not arresting you.” Thorn teases you, trying to lighten the mood, which you appreciate.

You give him a small smile and lean against the armrest of your couch. Fox looks up, startled, all of sudden. Before you can ask him what’s wrong, there’s a loud ‘BOOM’, and you’re thrown against the wall unexpectedly. As you start to lose consciousness, you think you see someone in a speeder outside where your balcony used to be, wielding a red lightsaber.

Then, everything goes dark.

TAGS: @grievouus @brynhildrmimi @madameminor @dumfanting @rain-on-kamino @misogirl828 @rexandechosandwich @corona-one @tecker @ladykatakuri @the-sith-in-the-sky-with-diamond @twistedstitcher27 @zoeykallus @maulslittlemeowmeow @littlemousedroid @arctrooper69 @rexxdjarin @ttzamara @brieblade @grizzersmamma @urfavwifeyy @tazmbc1 @stardust9905 @justanothersadperson93 @sleepingsun501

[robininthelabyrinth]

Prompt: WWX is one of JGS's bastard sons, raised by his mother and her husband - until they die when he's young. Then he gets taken into the Jin sect instead of the Jiang.

Right Hand Man - ao3

It was a bad day.

All the days were a little bad, but this one was especially bad.

“He’s Cangse Sanren’s child,” Jin Zixuan’s father said, tapping his fan against his palm so that he would look more like a scholar. Secretly, shamefully, Jin Zixuan thought that it didn’t really work – he just looked like one of those scoundrels that tried to pay for their meals with calligraphy instead of pennies. “Taking him in will show our strength.”

“You dare bring one of your bastard children here,” Jin Zixuan’s mother said, “and I will drown A-Xuan myself rather than let him suffer through the shame of it.”

Jin Zixuan shivered. No matter how many times he heard his mother say that in her cold and vicious voice, he never got used to it. She’d explained to him that it was the only thing that might work on his father – the fear of losing face like that, of shaming his ancestors, of cutting off his legitimate line – and she was his mother so of course Jin Zixuan believed her, but sometimes when she said it like that he thought she might really go ahead and do it.

“It’s the immortal mountain,” his father argued, ignoring the threat. “The perceived connection is only to our benefit…and anyway, he wouldn’t be legitimized or anything. Legally, his father is that Wei Changze – I could even bring the boy in as a servant if that pleased you more!”

“Nothing you say or do will ever please me,” she said, and that’s when she started throwing things and he started shouting and Jin Zixuan waited until they weren’t paying any attention to him before slipping out.

They’d make a decision one way or another.

It didn’t have anything to do with him.

-

Wei Wuxian was nominally brought in as a guest disciple, but everyone knew he was really a servant.

Jin Zixuan’s mother made sure everyone knew.

Despite this, Wei Wuxian smiled at everyone, seeming as carefree as a butterfly. It didn’t seem to bother him when he wasn’t allowed to wear sparks amidst snow, or even the usual gold of the guest disciples – Jin Zixuan’s mother said that it was better that he wear plain colors, like white or black, to represent his father and mother and show the world that he hadn’t forgotten his filial piety. It didn’t seem to bother him that he had to room with the other servants, or that he wasn’t invited to dinner at the same time as the rest of them, or that he got less training time –

Whatever it was, it didn’t bother him.

It bothered Jin Zixuan, though.

He started having the old nightmares again – the ones where his mother belatedly found out that he’d been swapped in the cradle for another bastard child of Jin Guangshan, and started treating him just the way she treated all the rest of them while praising some other boy up to the heavens – and his temperament, never considered especially good, got worse due to lack of sleep.

“Go talk to him,” Mianmian suggested. “Maybe if you see he’s reallynot bothered by it…”

“It doesn’t matter if he’s not bothered,” Jin Zixuan muttered. “It’s that I would be bothered if I were him.”

She didn’t understand, of course. Most people didn’t.

They couldn’t understand why Jin Zixuan was so bothered by the knowledge that his parents’ love was conditional on his bloodline and legitimacy – after all, he was the beneficiary of that bias, wasn’t he? What did it matter to him if they were cold to others?

Jin Zixuan didn’t know how to explain that the problem was in knowing that their love was conditional.

It didn’t help that Wei Wuxian was excelling despite all his disadvantages – all their teachers praised him in private, or else when they thought that no one surnamed Jin was listening. All of his mother’s dark speculations about what his father would do if ever there was a bastard child brought back that turned out to be even more talented than he was rang in Jin Zixuan’s ears, and he couldn’t help but look at Wei Wuxian, and wonder if this was it, this was the moment, if he was finally going to be replaced…but no, that would never happen. He was the one with the right blood.

It didn’t matter if he wasn’t actually the best.

Nothing he did in life mattered, really. Nothing had ever mattered since the day he’d been born from the right womb.

“He’s actually really nice,” Mianmian said, and Jin Zixuan looked up, wondering what she was talking about, only to blanch when he realized that she was talking to Wei Wuxian. “Just shy, that’s all –”

“Mianmian!” Jin Zixuan hissed, rushing over, horrified. “He can’t be here! If my mother finds out –”

“Is that what you’re afraid of?” Wei Wuxian asked, his face brightening. “I thought you just didn’t like me!”

“I don’t know you,” Jin Zixuan said. “How could I dislike you? But really, my mother –”

“We can be friends!” Wei Wuxian declared, and Jin Zixuan was rendered immediately mute. What exactly could he say to that?

He wanted to be friends, too.

-

His mother found out, because she always found out, and when she did, she threatened to feed Wei Wuxian to the dogs.

It turned out that Wei Wuxian was scared of dogs, something Jin Zixuan’s mother had figured out pretty quickly. That wasn’t a surprise – she knew best how to find people’s weaknesses, and also how to use them. Looking at Wei Wuxian’s sickly pale face, it was clear to Jin Zixuan that this wasn’t the first time dogs had appeared in one of his mother’s punishment, although this was clearly more severe than in the past.

“It was my idea,” he lied, acting on impulse. “Mother, I want him to be my personal servant.”

“Ridiculous,” she scoffed.

“Why is it ridiculous?” he asked. “Wouldn’t the contrast between us only be magnified that way?”

She pursed her lips, but that wasn’t a ‘no’.

Seeing a possible waver, Jin Zixuan decided to trade away one of the very few point on which he and his mother had long disagree.

“He’s charming,” he said. “He can help me woo the Jiang sect girl.”

His mother knew him well enough to know that he was trying to manipulate her, but he also knew that she liked it when he did that. Men were supposed to be upright, straightforward, and virtuous, and yet she liked to see him being subtle and sly – it reminded her of herself. It made her feel like he was more her blood than his father’s, even though in actuality those traits could very well be his father’s, too.

Unfortunately, sneakiness wasn’t really in Jin Zixuan’s nature. Comparing his straightforward and even a little stupid self to his clever and cunning parents, he didn’t know who he took after – it was part of the reason he had so many nightmares about being some cuckoo’s child left in the Jin sect’s nest.

“Fine,” his mother said at last. “He gets one shot.”

Later, when she’d swept off, an empress with her retinue, Mianmian looked at Jin Zixuan with wide eyes. “But Jin-gongzi,” she said. “You don’t wantto marry the Jiang sect girl.”

“I’ve never met her,” Jin Zixuan hedged, which was also true but a little vaguer. He didn’t want to marry a girl he’d never met, one who was several years his elder and who had been described to him only as ‘nice’ and ‘average at best’, just because her mother was his mother’s old friend. He didn’t want his marriage to be yet another thing he had to do because he was someone’s child, rather than his own man.

He wasn’t going to get a choice, though, no matter what he did, just as always. Might as well use it for something good.

Wei Wuxian crashed into him a moment later, clutching him so tightly that it hurt.

“I’ll pay you back,” he promised, his voice tight. “I’ll make it up to you. I’ll be your best friend ever!”

“That’s good enough,” Jin Zixuan said, his face suddenly hot. “There doesn’t need to be anything more.”

-

Wei Wuxian really was very charming when they went to visit the Lotus Pier, far more charming than Jin Zixuan ever was or would be, and his future bride seemed positively enchanted by him, which was probably a bad thing.

Jin Zixuan felt he should probably do something about it, but he didn’t know what, so he just snuck off and went to go dip his feet into the river, something he almost never got the chance to go while at home.

“I’m sorry,” the Jiang sect heir, Jiang Cheng, said, sitting gingerly next to him.

Jin Zixuan looked at him sidelong, a little surprised. He’d thought that Jiang Cheng hated him. “What for?”

“My sister. Your half-brother.” Jiang Cheng looked uncomfortable. “I can’t even imagine growing up with someone who’d flirt with the person I was engaged to.”

Jin Zixuan thought it over, then shook his head. “I don’t think he likes her like that. Or her him, either,” he said, since it seemed like Jiang Cheng had misunderstood both Wei Wuxian and his own sister. “Wei Wuxian’s just – like that,” he added. “Always. Everyone loves him unless they’re specifically told not to.”

“That’s worse.” Jiang Cheng wrinkled his nose. “He’s the ‘other person’s child’ here, you know. My father really liked his parents – he’s always talking about him. My mother says he wishes he were his son, instead of your father’s.”

“Now that sounds awful.” Probably better for Wei Wuxian, though. Jiang Fengmian would probably treat him like a real son, not the way Jin Guangshan did, like a pawn or a liability or a bastard brought in just for his possible connections – but it would probably be much worse for Jiang Cheng, who’d have to live with that happening right in front of him. It seemed mean to wish for such a thing. “He’s actually pretty nice? We’re friends. I asked him to help me make friends with your sister…I’m not really good at making friends, when it’s just me.”

He hadn’t expected them to hit it off that well, though. At least to Jin Zixuan’s eyes, they’d clearly all but adopted each other as brother and sister the moment they laid eyes on each other…which in his opinion was actually a little bit worse, since he felt like he himself was still painfully trying to figure out what being a sibling was like, and maybe failing at it.

And in all honesty, he felt a little resentful at Wei Wuxian for being picked, too – or was it a little bereft? No one ever picked him just because they wanted to; it was all because of who he was.

Who his parents were.

“I can be your friend, too, if you like,” Jiang Cheng said. He was scowling into the distance. “A better one.”

“Uh,” Jin Zixuan said, startled. “Don’t you – not like me?”

“We’re friends now,” Jiang Cheng scowled at him. “Deal with it!”

-

Jin Zixuan liked Wei Wuxian a lot, and he liked Jiang Cheng, too, and Nie Huaisang, who he’d just met, fit in with the two of them as if they were three peas in a pod, so he guessed he must like him, too – but if those three endlessly chattering idiots didn’t shut up and let him study he was going to throw himself off some cliff in Gusu and be done with it.

“You really don’t mind me sitting here?” he asked Lan Wangji, who nodded.

Nodded and did not respond verbally – blissful silence!

Still, Jin Zixuan lingered a bit by the door to the peaceful little pavilion he’d found and thought to claim for himself as a secret study place – necessary on account of the fact that Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng, and Nie Huaisang spent all their free time together making trouble instead of studying, because Wei Wuxian just did that to people, winning them over despite themselves and then leading them into mischief – only to learn that it belonged to Lan Wangji. It was filled with gentians, which were more Jiang Cheng’s color than Jin Zixuan’s, but Jin Zixuan had seen enough peonies for a lifetime and needed the concealment besides.

It was very kind of Lan Wangji to let him stay, but he still felt he ought to apologize.

And not just for the intrusion.

Wei Wuxian’s ignominious departure from Lan Qiren’s classroom had made it much more peaceful, but that had come at a cost to Lan Wangji’s own education and opportunity to make friends with others – and while Jin Zixuan liked Wei Wuxian a great deal, he wasn’t sure how Lan Wangji felt about being stuck having to monitor him all day.

And now Lan Wangji was being nice to Jin Zixuan, letting him disturb his privacy like this without complaint, and even agreeing to let him stay so that he’d have somewhere quiet to study…he really ought to say something. Maybe apologize for Wei Wuxian, if that was appropriate. It probably was: he was responsible for him, in his own way. The only problem was that he wasn’t sure how to start the conversation –

“Do you like Wei Wuxian?” he blurted out, then felt his face go bright red. He hadn’t meant to ask it that way! After all, who didn’t know how much Lan Wangji disliked Wei Wuxian? He was always glaring at him and saying he was speaking nonsense and telling him to get lost and –

Lan Wangji nodded.

Jin Zixuan blinked. He did? But then why –

“Oh,” he said, suddenly realizing. “You’re socially awkward, too!”

Lan Wangji frowned at him, and Jin Zixuan waved his hands.

“No, no, I don’t mean that as an insult,” he said hastily, trying to cover for his blunder. “It’s like me! I always say the wrong thing, so most of the time I try not to say anything – of course people always get the wrong idea anyway, thinking I’m being quiet because I’m looking down at them…Wei Wuxian’s getting better at understanding people, but he’s still not very good at it, either. I bet he has no idea! If you like him, you should say as much.”

Lan Wangji shook his head.

“…I could say it for you, if you want?”

Even more urgent head-shaking.

Honestly, if Lan Wangji were a woman, Jin Zixuan would’ve thought that he had a crush.

As it was, he was probably just like Jin Zixuan: naturally awkward, and shy about it, too.

“It’s all right,” he said encouragingly. “Next time they throw a party, you can come and sit with me; we can have tea and pretend not to know them. It’s what I always do.”

Lan Wangji stared at him for a long moment, and then finally nodded very slowly.

“I appreciate the offer,” he said, voice neutral. “Thank you.”

-

When the time came and the Wen sect pushed things too far, naturally Jin Zixuan stood up for Mianmian.

Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng, and Lan Wangji all did, too.

Naturally, this made Jin Zixuan feel like complete crap on their account – Mianmian was his friend, his sect, and naturally he had a responsibility towards her; the rest of them were just helping because they were good people, and good friends. But at this point they’d done it, and Wen Chao was angry at them all over it, and there was nothing to be done about it.

And then there was the Xuanwu of Slaughter, and they were all trapped inside with it.

Sometimes, he really hated the Wen sect. Often, even.

“Jiang Cheng, you and Jin Zixuan lead the way out,” Wei Wuxian instructed. “No, don’t protest! You’re heirs of Great Sects; everyone will follow you and listen to you, and that’s critical – you’ll need to evade the Wen sect’s efforts to recapture you. That means cohesion, and cohesion means hierarchy. I’ll stay behind to distract the Xuanwu…”

“That’s a terrible idea,” Jiang Cheng exclaimed.

Jin Zixuan nudged him. “Wei Wuxian’s usually right about this sort of thing,” he reminded him. It was a good thing they’d gotten over that period in their lives when Jiang Cheng thought Wei Wuxian was an evil thief who wanted to take away his older sister and Jin Zixuan’s rightful spouse, when they’d fought all the time while Jin Zixuan desperately tried to get between them. He still had no idea what magic alchemy had happened that had suddenly made them best friends – he suspected Mianmian, or maybe Jiang Yanli – but he was deeply grateful for it. “And we can’t risk the majority. Preserve human life above all else, remember? Teacher Lan’s lessons were very clear.”

“I will remain with Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji said, to no one’s surprise. They’d been more or less inseparable after Jin Zixuan had recruited Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang to help them get along better after Wei Wuxian’s temporary exile to the Library Pavilion had ended. It helped that Lan Qiren had pulled Wei Wuxian aside for personal lessons to help him catch up with the rest of them, and that those had somehow metamorphosed into afternoon sessions about inventing new types of musical cultivation techniques in which Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian were the most enthusiastic, and only, students.

Best of all, it had given the rest of them a chance to finally actually do their work.

Well, not Nie Huaisang, but that was only to be expected.

“But your leg –” Wei Wuxian started, and Jin Zixuan nudged him.

“He’ll only be more worried if you don’t let him stay back and join you,” he said reasonably. “Anyway, it’s good for you to have an incentive not to detour into some big flashy heroic bullshit.”

“Awww, but Jin Zixuan, I like big flashy heroic bullshit!”

Jin Zixuan was, by this point, almost entirely convinced that Wei Wuxian actually was the biological child of Wei Changze, and that his father had lied, both about the man’s supposed infertility and possibly about having slept with Cangse Sanren at all. From Jiang Cheng’s stories, inherited from his father, it seemed that Wei Changze was also the sort of person who went in for big flashy heroic bullshit and reckless humor, the sort that would win him a disciple of an immortal mountain as a bride; it certainly seemed more likely than him sharing blood with Jin Zixuan or his father or even Jin Zixun, all of whom tended towards arrogance, but whose flash was all in their clothing.

Not that it mattered at this late date, of course. They were brothers now – as Nie Huaisang would put it, there were no takebacks allowed.

“No bullshit, you hear me?” Jin Zixuan repeated, looking pointedly at Wei Wuxian. “Not allowed. Take care of yourself, okay? Don’t make me have to tell Mistress Jiang that I lost her favorite idiot friend.”

“You tell her?” Jiang Cheng grumbled. “I’ll have to tell her. All right, let’s go.”

-

Jiang Yanli was not impressed with the fact that they’d left Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji alone in a cave with a giant murderous turtle.

She still made them soup and gave them bandages to wrap up their bloody feet, though.

(Jin Zixuan was never going to make a good impression on her, no matter what Jiang Cheng said.)

-

“Wen Chao has demanded recompense for the mess at the Nightless City,” Jin Zixuan’s mother said, reading a letter. Her lips curled up in a strange little smile. “He said Wei Wuxian’s right hand would do.”

“Mother,” Jin Zixuan exclaimed, leaping to his feet with his eyes wide. He’d only been home a week from the indoctrination camp, and Wei Wuxian was still lying in bed most of the time, pretending he wasn’t exhausted; Wen Chao must have sent the letter almost immediately after he’d realized they’d escaped. “You can’t be serious!”

“Why not?” she asked. “It’s just what the little bastard deserves, always trying to outshine you.”

Jin Zixuan shook his head, frantically trying to think of a way out of this, because he knew his mother wouldn’t so much as hesitate to order such an atrocity. She’d never forgiven Wei Wuxian for the possibility of being a threat to Jin Zixuan’s position, however remote the chance, and she’d tried very hard to convince Jin Zixuan of it, too – it was the only thing they didn’t agree on, the only thing Jin Zixuan didn’t yield to her on, and he hated every moment of it.

But not as much as his mother hated it.

It was the only thing she couldn’t control in his life, and she hatedit, and hated Wei Wuxian for it, too.

(She couldn’t hate Jin Zixuan. She couldn’t, because he had the right blood, because he was her son, because he was the heir of Lanling Jin and the source of all her power. But sometimes, when the light was dim and she glanced over too quickly and thought she saw his father when she looked at him, he thought that she wanted to.)

“You can’t be serious,” Jin Zixuan said a second time, keeping calm by sheer willpower. No one but him would dare to object if his mother made a move, especially in his father’s absence…and even if his father was there, Jin Zixuan wasn’t sure his father cared enough about Wei Wuxian to endure another fight with his fearsome wife. “Mother, he’s my servant – my responsibility. Whatever he does is my responsibility, whether to my credit or to my deficit. That’s how that works. They may be asking for Wei Wuxian’s hand, but who’s to say, when they come to claim it, that they won’t seek mine instead?”

“They wouldn’t dare.”

“It’s the Wen sect,” Jin Zixuan reminded her. “What don’t they dare?”

She pursed her lips, thinking it over, and for a moment he thought he’d won. “Perhaps,” she allowed, and before he could even breath a sight of relief continued, “But no matter. They’ve set the price, and we can pay it, so why not? We can cut off his hand and send it to them as a peace offering in advance. After all, they’re important allies of ours, and he’s just a bastard.”

“But –”

“No, A-Xuan. No more arguing; I’ve decided.” Her smile broadened. “We’ll do it now.”

Jin Zixuan couldn’t fight with his mother. He’d never had the courage – he was as spineless as his father.

Almost as spineless.

“Yes, Mother,” he said, and drew his sword.

“A-Xuan..?”

“My servant, my responsibility,” he reminded her, and he knew that she’d misunderstood, that she thought that he was going to go take care of the grim task himself. He knew, because for a brief moment in time she looked happy – not true joy, but the only way she ever looked happy for as long as he could remember, like she’d won one over on someone and gotten her way despite everyone’s efforts. He hated to disappoint her. “I have my honor to think of, too.”

-

Jin Zixuan sent Wei Wuxian to the Lotus Pier, bearing words of warning. His father’s spies had reported that the Wen sect would probably target them first, using Jiang Cheng’s interference in the Xuanwu cave as an excuse – there wasn’t any point going after the Lan sect a second time, and the Jin sect were longstanding allies of Wen Ruohan, with Jin Guangshan being a coward at heart; if Wen Ruohan could keep him out of the inevitable war for a little longer by playing nice, he would.

Word came back not long after that they’d been right: the Lotus Pier had been destroyed.

It also said that Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli were missing – missing, but not dead. It didn’t say anything about their parents, and that was suspicious, too.

Maybe sending Wei Wuxian had helped after all.

“We should reach out to the Nie sect,” Jin Zixuan told his father. “With our money and their strength, we can resist the Wen sect long enough for the smaller sects to catch up.”

“The Wen sect is all-powerful,” his father objected. “What’s even the point of resisting? We’d be better off reaching out to them to see if we can reach a peaceful agreement.”

“We’ve already seen what agreement they want to reach,” Jin Zixuan said, and his father’s gaze dropped guiltily to his waist. Jin Zixuan didn’t bother looking down himself. He didn’t do that much, these days. “Am I your heir or am I not? You promised me that I’d inherit a sect, not slavery. Reach out to the Nie sect.”

Jin Zixuan should not talk that way to his father. He had always been a filial son, and a spineless one; his father’s son, and nothing else. The only thing he had going for him was the right blood – and even that wasn't that sure a bet, these days. He knew his father was already thinking about Jin Zixun in a way that suggested that all those rumors about his ‘cousin’ having a different father than the one everyone said he had might have some merit.

It seemed, though, that when pushed to it, he was also his mother’s son.

He hoped she choked on the knowledge.

“Reach out to the Nie sect,” he said again. “With all the cultivation world uniting, the Wen sect’s fall is inevitable. If we don’t act now, we’ll be seen as cowards, hanging back and waiting to see how things fall out to eke out the best advantage – if we act, we’ll be seen as heroes.”

“But what if you’re wrong, and the Wen sect does win?”

“Then we’ll tell Sect Leader Wen that we’re perfectly positioned to negotiate the other sects’ terms of surrender, and use that to win anyway,” Jin Zixuan said, less because he thought that was an acceptable course of action and more because he knew it would be what his father would do anyway. “Call the Nie sect.”

-

“I’m going to kill you,” Jiang Cheng hissed, wild-eyed, and Jin Zixuan blinked at him, taken aback.

“Is it because I wasn’t able to do more to help with the Lotus Pier?” he asked, feeling helpless. “I really did try to convince my father to send more people, but I barely even got him not to block my sending Wei Wuxian –”

“Not because of that!”

Jin Zixuan took a step back. “Uh, then –”

“You cut off your own hand you maniac!”

“The situation –” Jin Zixuan started backing up. “It was necessary – Wei Wuxian, help!”

“No, he’s right,” Wei Wuxian said, arms crossed. His eyes were teary, but they’d been that way since he’d left Jinlin Tower – ever since the Wen sect’s letter. “You’re a maniac, and Jiang Cheng’s going to kill you, and you’re going to deserve it.”

Lan Wangji, standing beside him, nodded.

“It’s not that bad, really.” Jin Zixuan tried to explain. “My mother and father would never have accepted anything else – threats to me are the only thing that work on them, and even that’s stopped working after all these years. Only a real injury would have an impact. If they hadn’t been so shocked, they would’ve just continued to ignore what the Wen sect was doing, or offered them an olive branch, and then then the Wen sect would’ve used that as an opportunity to come and divide up everyone else. We’d lose precious time to regroup, and the Wen sect would only get stronger and stronger –”

“You. Cut. Off. Your. Hand!”

“The Wen sect demanded the hand of the person who started the rebellion in the Xuanwu cave,” Jin Zixuan said quietly. “That was me, not Wei Wuxian. Why should he pay my debts?”

Everyone still seemed very upset, but maybe a little less murderous. Definitely a lot more teary-eyed.

“Couldn’t you have at least picked your other hand?” Wei Wuxian mumbled. “Your right hand – that’s your sword arm.”

Jin Zixuan shrugged. “They demanded the right hand,” he said. “Anyway, it’s fine, I’ve been using my left, and it’s been going smoothly enough…you know, I think I might actually be left-handed? I never knew; everyone always made me use my right.”

“Does it hurt?” Lan Wangji asked suddenly, and Jin Zixuan hesitated, not sure how to respond to that.

Unfortunately, everyone else took that in the worst way possible, and insisted on taking care of him, no matter how much he tried to explain that it didn’t hurt, not really, not anymore; it was just the strangest feeling of absence. Like something that had always been there wasn’t there anymore.

A bit like his mother. She wasn’t talking to him anymore.

He was a terrible son, and would probably end up spending eternity in some afterlife hell being tortured for failing to properly honor his parents.

He’d already resigned himself.

“How are your parts of the war going?” he asked, trying to change the subject. “Chifeng-zun says it’s going well, but you know how he is; it’s all business with him, you never hear any stories. Did Wei Wuxian really knock out old Sect Leader Jiang when he refused to leave the Lotus Pier? Tell me he didn’t.”

“He did,” Jiang Cheng said, and he looked amused about it – maybe he’d be in the next boiling pot over in the afterlife of unfilial descendants. “He was a little frantic, you see, on account of not wanting to fail you by letting them die. After all, you had just cut off your own hand for him…”

“Are you ever going to let that drop?”

“Sure. As soon as you have two hands again.”

“…so, never.”

“Yes,” Jiang Cheng said patiently. “Never. Never ever, if that makes it clearer for you.”

-

Jin Zixuan’s new hand was made of steel and wire, under the gilding, and functioned using some of the innovative new talismans that Wei Wuxian had invented. He couldn’t help but hope that they weren’t part of the subset that constituted demonic cultivation because people were being really weird about that.

“It’s like people wanted for me to just die in the Burial Mounds,” Wei Wuxian complained. He was dressed in black and grey and red, which he’d apparently adopted as his new sect colors – Jin Zixuan had only managed to send him out of Lanling the first time by officially ejecting him from the Jin sect, a decision his father had initially endorsed but now, he suspected, was regretting.

It was a lot easier to throw out a servant than it was to invite back the founder of demonic cultivation, especially now that he was a war hero and a sect leader.

“You didn’t have to be in the Burial Mounds to begin with,” Jin Zixuan reminded him, to no avail. “I know I said I needed an army because my father wasn’t supplying us properly, but I didn’t mean ‘invent an entirely new cultivation technique and raise an army of the dead’. You know that, right?”

Wei Wuxian shrugged it off, because of course he did.

“You know, they’re calling me the Yiling Patriarch?” he said, and grinned. “It’s because the Burial Mounds are in Yiling, and because I’m founding my own sect. Or whatever. Like I wouldn’t be supporting you, anyway.”

“It has to be your own sect because otherwise you might be forced to share your secret techniques,” Jin Zixuan explained, not for the first time. “Rogue cultivators don’t have the same protections that sects do, even small sects. It doesn’t matter if you’re the only person in it. Or, well, you and Lan Wangji, I guess.”

“I still can’t believe he’s willing to leave the Lan sect to join me,” Wei Wuxian sighed happily. “He’s such a good friend.”

Jin Zixuan wasn’t sure about the strength of his new hand, which was the only reason he didn’t try to pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration. “You’re a bad influence, you know,” he said instead of trying to explain to Wei Wuxian that people didn’t generally leave their natal sects for the sake of a ‘good friend’. “I nearly hit a girl the other day.”

“You did? You? What’d she do?”

“She gave me soup and implied that she’d made it,” Jin Zixuan said. “Except it tasted exactly the same as the soup Mistress Jiang is always making for you – I’ve had it recently enough to know. Sure enough, I push the issue a bit and it turns out it was Mistress Jiang’s. The girl was just trying to claim credit as an excuse to get close to me.”

He sighed. He’d been so angry about it. They were at war! People were dying, losing their homes, losing everything, and this stupid girl could only think about how to plot and scheme to try to get to a prized position as the future Madame Jin. Had his mother done the same, when it’d been his father…?

“You’ve had shijie’s soup recently?” Wei Wuxian asked. His expression looked slightly odd. “Shijie made you soup?”

“Yeah, I think she’s been dropping off whatever’s left over at my tent when she’s done,” Jin Zixuan said, shaking his head. Jiang Yanli was so nice, really truly genuinely nice. He’d never met anyone like her. “Could you thank her for me? I appreciate the thoughtfulness – it’s filling enough that I don’t need to go to the mess, which means there’s more left over for everyone else.”

“…sure,” Wei Wuxian said. “I’ll tell her. Or, and here’s a thought – why don’t you tell her yourself?”

“Why would I? You’re the one she likes,” Jin Zixuan said, puzzled. “I mean, you’re her adopted little brother, aren’t you? She’s practically your second soulmate, after Lan Wangji.”

“I’m really busy,” Wei Wuxian announced, despite having been lazing around complaining that they didn’t have any encounters with the Wen sect lined up for a whole week only a few moments before. “I couldn’t possibly take the time out of my schedule to go talk to her – you see, I’ve had an idea, which is going to keep me very busy…in fact, I’m not even going to be here at all! I need to go to the Lan sect encampment to consult with Teacher Lan.”

Discovering that Lan Qiren had a mad scientist streak when it came to musical cultivation had been extremely disquieting, Jin Zixuan reflected. The world might’ve been better off if Lan Qiren had never had a chance to actually get friendly with Wei Wuxian – Wei Wuxian provided the terrible ideas, Lan Qiren scolded him about them and then helped him smooth the kinks out of them anyway.

Teacher for a day, father for a lifetime…

“All right,” Jin Zixuan said, though he still didn’t exactly understand what had just happened. “I’ll go talk to her, I guess.”

-

“I just wanted to make sure you know you’re not obligated to make me soup or anything,” Jin Zixuan said, not sure where this conversation had gone off the rails.

Probably around the time that Jiang Yanli had started smiling at him, because he always turned into an idiot whenever that happened. She was so very nice, not just average at all no matter what anyone said, and blissfully down-to-earth – she wouldn’t be wasting her time and everyone else’s thinking about how to politically advance herself despite there being a war on. She spent all her time learning field medicine and helping cook meals for the mess and –

And he’d better stop thinking because he was turning red again.

“I enjoy making soup for you,” Jiang Yanli said peaceably. “Especially since I know you enjoy it, too.”

“I do! It’s just, I don’t know, you already do so much, with the medics and organizing and everything…It’s – uh – I – listen, I know our parents – you don’t have to pay attention to that. I only have one hand, I’m not – don’t feel obligated, not because of that. And don’t let Wei Wuxian make you think making soup is the only thing you’re good for, no matter how much he likes it, okay? You do so much more than just that!”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, covering her smile with her hand. “You’re very sweet, you know.”

Jin Zixuan made an incoherent sound.

He would need to do something in return, he thought, a little frantic; he really didn’t know how to deal with a sincere compliment from someone he actually liked. Maybe poetry? Girls were said to like poetry. He couldn’t write poetry worth a damn, but he could pay someone –

She kissed him on the cheek.

All thought abruptly departed.

“Don’t worry, it’s not inappropriate – after all, we’re already engaged,” Jiang Yanli said cheerfully. “Which I’m very good with, so don’t worry about that. Good luck in your next battle, Jin-gongzi.”

At some point she must have left, because she wasn’t there anymore, and Jin Zixuan was still opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water.

Mianmian peeked in, then snickered. “Oh no,” she said. “She broke him. Everyone! Come look! She totally broke him!”

-

“Did you actually cut off your hand to save a servant?” Jin Guangyao asked.

“It was a bit more complicated than that,” Jin Zixuan said, uncomfortable, then added, “Welcome to the family.”

Jin Guangyao smiled.

For some reason, Jin Zixuan felt a shiver run up his spine. He didn’t think he liked this new brother of his, and he felt bad about it – he’d welcomed Wei Wuxian whole-heartedly, hadn’t he? Was it really that different when it actually was someone of his own blood?

He didn’t like that thought.

“I hope we can be friends,” he said, willing it to be true, and Jin Guangyao murmured something agreeable in return.

Jin Zixuan wished he liked him.

“My mother is going to hate you,” he said, because he knew that she would. “If she does, let me know, and I’ll try to stop her…not just her. If anyone treats you wrong, just tell me. I’ll stand up for you.”

Jin Guangyao smiled again.

“You’re so kind,” he said, and for some reason Jin Zixuan had the feeling that he didn’t mean it at all.

-

Jin Zixuan had been engaged since before he was born, and it still somehow came as a surprise to find himself married. Not just the event, either – these days he woke up with his wife in his arms and was forced to just stare at her lying there in the soft morning light and wonder how he got so lucky.

He was married.

To a very nice girl, who actually seemed to like him a great deal – she’d made that clear enough when she’d had a chance. Very clear, in fact, which was why there was also a very slight curve in her belly that meant that soon enough he wouldn’t just be married, but a father.

“You’d tell me if I was dreaming, right?” he asked Wei Wuxian, who was visiting again. He did that a lot, but in fairness he didn’t really have a settled place to live – everyone knew the supposed ‘sect’ he’d founded was little more than a sham. He’d been technically kicked out of the Jin sect and refused all offers to rejoin, and it seemed he wasn’t quite ready to scandalize the entire cultivation world by marrying into the Lan sect no matter what Lan Xichen had been hinting. Sometimes he and Lan Wangji spent time at the Lotus Pier with Jiang Cheng, or the Unclean Realm with Nie Huaisang under Nie Mingjue’s long-suffering gaze…everyone called Wei Wuxian the Yiling Patriarch, on account of him ‘founding’ his sect there – or rather, summoning up extra resentful energy from the Burial Mounds for the purposes of obtaining an army while minimizing the number of disturbed graves – but he wasn’t, not really. He didn’t live there or anything.

Who would want to live there?

“I would,” Wei Wuxian agreed, but he didn’t follow it up with teasing or anything the way he usually did.

He just looked very uncharacteristically perturbed.

“What is it?” Jin Zixuan asked. “Can I help?”

“No heroic bullshit,” Wei Wuxian said at once, which meant that there was a possibility of heroic bullshit. Given Wei Wuxian’s personality, that also meant that it was heroic bullshit that would be bad for the Jin sect, which he still felt bad about on account of them raising him and all…in all honesty, it might be a good thing in the long run that Jin Zixuan’s father and mother had been so awful to Wei Wuxian as a kid, and that he’d known it. If they’d been good to him, he never would have been willing to leave. “But, uh, remember Wen Ning?”

Jin Zixuan blinked. Wei Wuxian had told him some stories: a junior disciple of the Wen sect, from a branch family – Dafan Wen – who’d helped Wei Wuxian out a few times when he’d been smuggling the Jiang clan to freedom.

More than a few times: he’d been Wei Wuxian’s first disciple in matters of resentful energy, which Wei Wuxian had apparently been thinking of since forever and started playing around with more or less the moment he was no longer officially tied to a sect, and had been a valuable contact during the early period of the war before events had changed and he’d been lost.

“Yes,” he said. “What about him?”

He hadn’t thought of Wen Ning in ages, beyond abstractly hoping he was doing well. It might be hard, with a surname as he had, but surely there was somewhere in the cultivation world for those surnamed Wen – Wei Wuxian had argued fiercely in favor of leniency for the remaining Wen cultivators, and the Lan sect had backed him, thanks to Lan Wangji. The rest of them had been exhausted, Nie Mingjue, Lan Xichen, Jiang Cheng and his parents, even Jin Zixuan…his father had ended up volunteering their sect to help with resettlement of the refugees, which had been a pleasant surprise.

Sure, Jin Zixuan knew his father well enough to know that he was only doing it for the clout and possible advantage it would give him, but he was pretty sure the Wen civilians didn’t especially care why they were going to get a reprieve from death and a new place to live, only that they did.

“I’ll get there,” Wei Wuxian said. “It’s a bit complicated…you know how Jin Zixun’s in charge of resettlement?”

Jin Zixuan nodded, puzzled. “What about it?”

-

“You can’t do that!” one of the guards shouted at Wei Wuxian. “We’re disciples of the Jin sect –”

“Is that so,” Jin Zixuan said, and they all turned to look at him, each one of them blanching in utter horror. “And why didn’t I know that my Jin sect had such people as you?”

“Where’s Wen Ning?” Wen Qing asked Wei Wuxian, looking desperate. “I don’t see him…Where is he?!”

“That monster?” one of the guards blurted out.

“My brother is not a monster!”

“He’s been hiding in the woods,” one of the Wen civilians volunteered. “He’s been raiding the camp, rescuing people who are being abused –”

“Our response was reasonable in light of his aggression,” the guard argued. “He used demonic cultivation – he’s a monster! We had no choice –”

“We’re going to need to question them,” Jin Zixuan said to Lan Wangji, who was looking faintly murderous in his usual righteous sort of way. “To find out who’s their backing – Jin Zixun wouldn’t have dared something like this, not on his own. Can you bind them for me?”

-

It was his father.

Of course.

-

“A-Yao, what do you want?” Jin Zixuan asked, and Jin Guangyao stopped in his tracks, staring at him in confusion – as well he should, since he’d only come into Jin Zixuan’s study in order to say good morning on his way to breakfast. “No, sorry, that’s not what I meant. I meant, you know, in life.”

Jin Guangayo blinked at him.

Probably not the best question to spring on someone before breakfast, Jin Zixuan reflected.

“It’s about the trouble that my – that our father got into,” Jin Zixuan explained. “The other cultivation sects are furious to no end that he took advantage of their trust in order to do such a disgraceful thing…I’ve ordered Zixun to be confined for now, and I suspect he’ll have to be banished to some country house for a few years. And as you know, my father will be retiring soon and handing over the position of sect leader to me…”

Neither of them especially wanted that to happen, his father as loathe to give up power as Jin Zixuan was to take it. But what other solution was there after such a scandal?

The Lan sect, ever concerned with morality, had been horrified when they’d found out what had happened; the Jiang sect, despite their close relationship to the Jin sect, had immediately denounced it, and Jiang Yanli, who was Wei Wuxian’s friend, was the very first to speak. The Nie sect, never a firm ally for the Jin sect, was growling about righteousness, and if Nie Mingjue was sincere about that being his only concern – and having worked with the man, Jin Zixuan believed he was – then there were plenty of others in the Nie sect that had their eyes on the greater influence and power that would accrue to their sect if Jin Zixuan’s father were allowed to bring his sect down with him.

Handing over power was the only way to make sure their Jin sect remained strong.

“He won’t be alone, at least,” Jin Zixuan sighed. “I won him that much.”

Jiang Fengmian had agreed to step down from his position as sect leader as well, making it seem as though Jin Guangshan’s retirement were voluntary, part of a joint agreement of the older generation handing over power to the newer. Everyone would know in their hearts that that wasn’t the case, but it would be far less shameful than the alternative – saving a little bit of his father’s face.

“You did well,” Jin Guangyao said, listening with a neutral expression. “In uncovering everything, and revealing it.”

“I would’ve brought you in to help, but I couldn’t,” Jin Zixuan explained. “I know he asked you to help in finding demonic cultivators to join the Jin sect, and…”

He hesitated.

“He implicated me?” Jin Guangyao asked.

He had. Their father was shameless: he’d even sought to move all blame to Jin Guangyao’s back, whether as the actual mastermind or, when that was rejected, as the inciter of the scheme. Nonsense, of course.

Anyway, it didn’t matter. Even if Jin Guangyao had suggested it, it would have been his father’s responsibility to refuse.

“No one believes it,” Jin Zixuan said, which was only partially a lie. “Even Chifeng-zun laughed in his face and said you wouldn’t be nearly that stupid.”

Jin Guangyao looked – oddly pleased by that, if Jin Zixuan had to guess.

“Still, it’s awkward,” he said, rubbing his head. “People talk, and our subsidiary sects have never been as quiet as some others…you don’t have to tell me right now what you’re planning, or what you want in the long term. But maybe – uh – you have two sworn brothers. Is there any chance…”

“I could go visit them for a while?”

Jin Zixuan smiled helplessly. “I wish it weren’t necessary. And if you did know what you wanted, I could take it into account when planning the future…”

“No, no,” Jin Guangyao said. “Visiting my sworn brothers will be – fine.” He looked thoughtful. “You said Chifeng-zun didn’t think I was involved?”

“Zewu-jun was also vociferous in your defense,” Jin Zixuan said, trying to elide the fact that it wasn’t so much that Nie Mingjue didn’t think Jin Guangyao was capable of such atrocities, but rather that he declared, and loudly, that if Jin Guangyao had intended to do something horrific like that, he’d have handled it better. Judging by Jin Guangyao’s amused expression, he might have guessed anyway. “I appreciate your understanding.”

Jin Guangyao smiled.

Jin Zixuan thought he might even mean it, this time.

-

“I’m an uncle!” Wei Wuxian crowed, holding Jin Ling in his arms. “I’m an uncle, I’m an uncle!”

“Big deal,” Jiang Cheng grumbled, which would be more convincing if he wasn’t beaming foolishly. “So am I. Hand him over...hey, A-Ling! It's me, your jiujiu!”

“Can I be an honorary uncle?” Nie Huaisang asked – Jin Zixuan had no idea when he’d even arrived, or why he was here, or anything, really, but that was probably because he hadn’t really slept on account of over-excitement. “I mean, my brother’s sworn brothers with Jin-xiong’s brother, so it works, right?”

“That’s ridiculous –” Jiang Cheng started.

“No, I love it!” Wei Wuxian immediately declared. “That means Lan Zhan’s his uncle, too!”

“Wei Wuxian…!”

“Don’t worry,” Jin Zixuan said, hugging Jiang Cheng out of sheer excitement. “You’re his only jiujiu, right? Everyone else is related through me, so they have to share.”

Jiang Cheng seemed pleased by that, and Wei Wuxian laughed.

Nie Huaisang was calculating on his fingers. “You know,” he said thoughtfully. “This might be the most well-connected baby in the entire cultivation world? The only thing we’re missing is the Wen sect…Jiang-xiong, how about you marry Wen Qing? Then we’d have them all!”

“That is not how I’m determining my marriage!” Jiang Cheng yelped, but notably didn’t reject the idea.

Jin Zixuan looked at Jiang Yanli, who looked back at him, and they both started laughing.

There was more noise after that, and eventually Jin Ling woke up and started crying, making everyone start fussing like a bunch of old hens surrounding a long-suffering Jiang Yanli who’d already grown accustomed to it in a way the rest of them hadn’t.

It suddenly occurred to Jin Zixuan that everyone who was here was here because they wanted to be. Not because of his name or his wealth, not because he was Sect Leader Jin, not because of the circumstances of his birth, but just because they liked him – because they wanted to celebrate with him, and to cherish his child, to share his joy.

It was a good day.

All the days were a little good, but this one was especially good.

[skyeet-the-writer]

The Love Among Us

Chapter 1-- I’d Never Snitch On Daddy

so i haven’t seen many corpse husband x reader stories on here, so i decided to upload one myself. i’ve been watching jacksepticeye’s among us videos and when i heard corpse talk for the first time, i was like, “hol up” and now i’ve been obsessed with him. also, go stream his music on spotify, it’s amazing. enjoy! x. 

 corpse husband x female!reader

summary: while playing among us, y/n watches corpse kill felix in o2. when his body is reported, however, she doesn’t tell who killed him. 

 word count: ~3.6k

warnings: swearing, mentions of death (not real death), mentions of murder (not real murder)

EDIT: before i wrote this and after i published it, i did not know that corpse did not like to be referred to as “daddy”. had i known this, i would have not even thought of posting this. and since i know now, i won’t refer to him as such in the future. thank you. (10/19/2020)

EDIT 2: this is the first part to my corpse x reader series. i will be adding chapters as we go!

next>

4 rounds before the incident

“I was in coms with PJ!” Sean exclaims. 

“He is doing the liar voice!” Felix shouts with a laugh. 

“I’m not,” Sean tries to say, but everyone talks over him and the voting time ends. Everyone left alive, though it was only four people, had all voted for him and he yells at them as he gets ejected. 

stinky was not the imposter

2 imposters remain

The round ends and everyone unmutes themselves. 

“Lizzie, you saw Felix kill me and you did nothing!” Roomie yells as soon as the round ends and the imposters are revealed. 

“Yeah, because I was the other imposter.”

“Oh. Okay, well that makes sense.”

Everyone laughs and Ken starts the round again. 

“Wait, can I invite y/n to play? She’s doing her twenty-four-hour stream and she just finished playing Monopoly with Mark, Bob, and Wade,” says Lizzie, looking down at her phone as they all appear back in the waiting room. 

“Yes,” Corpse blurts out and there are a few laughs and chuckles. 

“You were quick to answer, Corpse,” Sean teases. 

“Shut up,” Corpse mumbles and there are even more laughs. 

Lizzie smiles and taps into her phone. “I’m gonna invite her.”

~

“I can’t believe that you actually made that deal, y/n,” Wade is telling you after ending the second round of Monopoly that you’ve played with them. 

You smile and cross your legs on your chair. “Look, I was going bankrupt and it seemed good at the time. Besides, Mark was going to win anyway, he owned half of the board.” Your phone buzzes beside you on your desk and you pick it up. “Lizzie texted me.” There’s a sound effect that plays in your headset and you look up at your screen and smile. “Thanks to _lorieplays _for donating a hundred dollars, that means a lot. Thank you so much.”

“Do you want to play another round?” Marks asks. 

You shake your head, reading the text from your friend in England. “No, I don’t want to lose to you again.” You laugh. “Nah, Lizzie wants me to play Among Us with her and a few others. It was fun playing with you guys.”

“It was even though you took all of my money,” Bob snaps. 

You laugh. “Yeah, yeah. See you guys later.”

“Bye,” says Mark.

“See y--” Wade begins but you cut him off when you disconnect from the call. 

“Oops.” You put a hand over your mouth and laugh. “Sorry, Wade. Okay.” You straighten up and glance over everything, making sure it’s all working properly. “I have to pee and I think my roommate ordered pizza, so we’ll be back after this short break. Enjoy this live feed of my pet rats.” You giggle and switch the stream over to a view of your two rats in their cage where you have a camera set up. You take your headset off and head out of your recording room. 

Every two months, you have a twenty-four-hour livestream where you play games with your friends from all around the world. Despite being only twenty-five, your Youtube channel had grown exponentially in the past three years and you’ve had the chance to meet lots of other Youtubers like Markiplier, PewDiePie, and your close friend, LDShadowLady. 

Currently, you’re on hour twenty of twenty-four and you’re beginning to feel the effects of not sleeping for a whole day. You had been drinking coffee and energy drinks for the past four hours and that seemed to perk you up for two hours max. But your roommate had ordered pizza and that would hopefully wake you up. 

After going to the bathroom and grabbing an entire box of pizza, you return to your recording room and sit down. You put your headset back on and eat a slice of pizza before switching the views back to you. “And we’re back. I hope you guys enjoyed my rats because I don’t. They keep me up at night.”

You read a comment while loading up Among Us and laugh. “No, they’re not dead. They’re sleeping. They do that a lot when they’re not fighting.” 

When you finally get into the game and entire the code, you spawn in. You also quickly join the Discord chat and wince when nearly ten voices hit you at once. 

“y/n!” exclaims Lizzie and the other voices die down for a moment before rising to greet you. 

You wince again but laugh. “Jesus, you guys are loud. Hey, Lizzie.” You move your character to the customize tab and go to try and switch your color. But then you frown and realize that you’re stuck with being dark blue. “Damn, I wanted to be white.”

“Do you want to switch?” Corpse asks. 

Your eyes widen you your stomach flips. You hadn’t noticed Corpse was in this game. Immediately, your chat became flooded with keyboard smashing and lots of “omg my shipp” and “y/n rlly said ‘anna oop-’” 

“Uh, yeah, if you don’t mind,” you manage to stutter out and take a bite of pizza as Corpse’s player comes over and the white option becomes available. You select it and also select the goggles in the hats menu. 

“How’s your stream going?” asks Sean. 

You shrug. “Pretty good. I’m super tired, though. I literally almost fell asleep while playing Monopoly with Mark, Wade, and Bob.”

“You went to college, right?” You’re pretty sure that’s Roomie. 

“Yep,” you affirm with a nod even though they can’t see you. “You’d think that those all-nighters writing papers and studying for finals would make me able to do this.”

There’s a laugh in the group and the round starts.

3 rounds before the incident

You scratch your eyebrow and sigh in relief when you’re the crewmate. You mute yourself and slide up in your chair. 

“I like being the crewmate,” you say, heading towards admin as a habit. “It’s a lot less stressful than being imposter.”

After doing your tasks in admin and fueling the engines, you stumble across a dead body in the lower engine and a vent closing. 

“Oh,” you say, and press the report button. You unmute yourself and begin with, “So I saw a vent close but I didn’t see who went in.”

“Who died?” asks Lizzie. 

“Felix,” says Sean. 

You smirk. “It’s always yellow that dies first.”

“Where was the body?” Ken asks. 

“Lower engine,” you reply. 

“I was in medbay with Corpse doing the scan so it wasn’t him,” PJ says and Corpse makes a noise of confirmation. 

This makes your cheeks heat up and you smack a hand over your mouth. Your chat explodes again but you decide to ignore it. 

“And I was doing wires in cafeteria,” Lizzie says. 

“Sean, where were you?” 

“I was in reactor doing the simon says thing,” he answers. 

You sigh. “I hate that one. What about you, Ken?”

“I was with Roomie in electrical doing the power thing. You know, the one where you have to divert it somewhere else.”

“So do we skip then?” asks Lizzie. 

“No one is super sus, so I’m going to skip,” you answer. 

When no one is ejected, you mute yourself again. “I dunno why, but Sean seems pretty sus. Because I didn’t see him on the way down from upper engine. But I guess he could have gotten there in time.” You shrug and run over to the trash chute in the cafeteria. “RIP to Felix, though.”

After doing the trash there, you head down to storage, running into Corpse doing the wires in there. You wait there to clear him and once you do, you run a few circles around him to get his attention and he follows you over to the trash in storage and watches you do that. After that, the two of you head over to electric together and do wires there. 

Suddenly, there’s a body reported and you unmute yourself. 

“Sean just killed Lizzie in front of me!” exclaims PJ. 

“PJ killed Lizzie,” Sean retorts, flipping the blame. “I watched it, he didn’t realize I was there and murdered her.”

“I watched PJ do the scan in medbay, he’s cleared,” Corpse says and you find yourself smiling for no reason. “Sean, you killed Lizzie.”

“I knew he was sus,” you say, grabbing another piece of pizza. You look at the box and your eyes widen. Had you really already eaten half of it?

“Wait wait, how am I sus?” Sean asks. 

You take a moment to swallow. “Because when I was doing fuel earlier, I was running down from upper engine and didn’t see you in reactor. Sure, maybe you could have gotten there earlier, but it was super weird.” 

The discussion time ends and PJ immediately goes to vote for Sean as well as you, Corpse, and everyone else still alive. Sean ends up getting ejected. 

stinky was an imposter 

1 imposter remains

“You’re such a detective, y/n,” Sean says when he gets ejected. 

You laugh. “I just play this game too much.” You then mute yourself and smile. “I am a genius.” 

You end up finishing your tasks quickly after that and then stand in the cafeteria and eat another piece of pizza and read some of the chat. 

“’ What am I going to do after this?’ I don’t know. I might play some Minecraft. Should I have a poll on Twitter? I’m stuck between public Among Us games, Minecraft, and taking random quizzes on Buzzfeed.” You smile and hear another sound effect and something pops up on the screen. “Thank you to coochie man for donating a hundred dollars, that means a lot.” You laugh at their name. “I love your name, by the way.” 

There’s some rattling in the cage behind you and you turn around to see one of your rats drinking water. You turn back to the chat and read another comment. “’ Do you have a crush on Corpse?’” You blush and smile, biting your lip. “I mean, his voice is hot. I’ve never met him since he lives in San Diego and I live in h/t, but yeah, I guess I do. I’ve been listening to his music for the past few days and it’s really good, you guys should go check it out.”

You look up and unmute yourself when a body is reported. “Who died?” you ask. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Are you already done with your tasks, y/n?” Corpse asks. 

God, even the way he says your name is making you blush. “Yeah, I get them done quick.”

“She does that,” says Lizzie, “She always gets her tasks done quick.”

“Ken is dead by the way,” says Roomie and your snort, smacking a hand over your mouth. “I found him in the hallway by navigation. Where was everyone else?”

“I was in cafeteria doing nothing,” you say, leaning back in your chair and spinning around just a little. “I think I saw PJ downloading while I was in there, but I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Yeah, I was downloading,” says Ken. 

After more discussion, Corpse points out that Jaiden had been following him and it looked like she had been faking tasks. 

“No I haven’t,” she says. 

“That sounds like something the imposter would say,” you hum with a smirk. “That’s pretty sus, Jaiden.”

Everyone else agrees and you all end up voting Jaiden out. 

jaiden was the imposter

0 imposters remain

You cheer as the round ends and a blue victory screen pops up for the crewmates. “Good game, guys,” you say and play again, waiting for the host. 

~

1 round before the incident 

“Oh my god, I’m imposter again?” you groan and sigh when you spawn back in. “I was just imposter, I don’t want to be it again. I’m so bad at it,”

After another short round of you and Felix losing to the crewmates, you all agreed to play two more rounds before Sean had to leave. So you move your character to admin where PJ is and fake the card swipe before moving over to the admin security thing where you could see who was around where. Luckily, no one appeared to be near admin, so you quickly kill PJ and escape through the vent and come out through medbay. 

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” you whisper over and over, running down to storage. “That was clean.” You fake getting fuel and go back up to the upper engine. 

When PJ’s body is reported, you see that your fellow imposter, Sean, had reported it. You stay silent for most of the round and only say that you were in the fuel area when it was reported. 

“Yeah, I saw her run past electrical earlier,” Corpse says. You blush and glance at your exploding chat and shake your head. 

After everyone skips the round, you mute yourself once more and head towards navigation. “I hate this.” You drag the last syllable and watch Lizzie enter the room. You wait a moment before walking towards her and killing her, jumping into one of the vents. You let out a sigh and flex your fingers. “I’m so stressed.” You exit out of the vent into shields and your heart stops when you see someone else in there but you realize that it’s the other imposter, Sean, and you relax. 

You run past him and go to the trash compartments and pretend to unload those. And that’s how the rest of the round goes. You kill someone, someone reports it and you vote someone off. Eventually, you and Sean do a double kill and end up winning the round.

You unmute yourself. 

“Let’s go!” Sean exclaims and you smile. 

“I can’t believe you killed me, y/n!” shouts Lizzie. “I thought we were friends.”

You laugh. “There are no friends in this game. I’m not loyal to anyone in this game. You could be my best friend and I would fucking murder you.”

“That’s cold,” says Roomie as everyone else spawns back in. 

“Yeah,” you nod. 

“Wait, PJ disconnected,” says Sean, and you all end up waiting for him to rejoin. 

In that time, you look at your chat and say, “Hey, do you guys have any questions for who I’m playing with. I’m asking you, chat.”

“I swear if someone asks about my hands, I’m leaving,” Corpse says and everyone laughs. 

You laugh louder when you read a comment and read it aloud, “_Ironlady _says that you should be a hand model, Corpse.”

“Okay, I’m leaving,” you hear Corpse say over everyone laughing. 

“No, stay!” you exclaim, trying not to laugh. “C’mon, don’t leave.”

He sighs deeply and your brain goes fuzzy. “Fine. I’ll stay for you.”

You beam and your tummy turns. You ignore the whistles and remarks from everyone else and stand beside Corpse. You suddenly wish that the little bean characters could hold hands. 

When PJ joins the server again, Ken starts the round and you cross your fingers, hoping to get crewmate. 

0 rounds before the incident

You mute yourself and sigh when you’re a crewmate. “Thank god.” You let out a breath and go over to admin with everyone else. You swipe your card and go to the cafeteria to do some wires there. 

The game turns out to be rather uneventful. A few people die and two people are voted off before the game gets truly interesting. And that happens when you walk in on Corpse and Felix. 

“I’ve had this song stuck in my head for days,” you’re saying, walking from electrical over to O2. “And I can’t get it out of my head. Maybe singing it will help.” You hum the first part. “Don't go in there, you'll become one. Freaky creatures, monster party. Eyes of yellow, scales and feathers, tails in tethers. Turn the lights off. Bend the nightmare, you control it. Artful dodger, easy does it. Shut the closet, get under the covers. Snakes and lovers. Turn the lights off.” You do a little dance for a moment and continue hum the song, glancing at the chat as you go towards O2 after doing wires in storage. 

“Like, I know the song, it’s just been stuck in my head,” you explain. “And it kind of annoys me--”

But you stop as you enter O2 and watch Corpse murder Felix. Neither one of you move and you don’t know what to do. “Uhhh.” 

Then, without thinking, you turn straight around and make your way away from the scene of the murder. “I didn’t see anything!” you shout to no one. “I suddenly can’t see who murdered Felix.” You smack a hand over your mouth and stand in the middle of a hallway. “Oh my god, what do I do? I don’t want to snitch on Corpse, he’s hot.” You scratch the back of your neck and shrug, continuing on to reactor. “I didn’t see anything.”

You’re in the middle of doing the simon says in reactor when Felix’s body is reported. You unmute yourself and fidget with the sleeve of your hoodie. You know exactly who killed Felix. 

“--was in O2,” says Jaiden and you focus back into the conversation. “And I didn’t see anyone around.”

“I saw you heading that way, y/n, but I know it wasn’t you because I saw you do the trash in storage.”

You look at the screen when Sean talks to you and you chew your lip. “I know who killed Felix.”

“Who?” asks almost everyone at the same time. 

You close your eyes and swallow. It’s just a game, why are you taking this so seriously? Suddenly, a song lyric pops into your head and your stomach flips. You imagine yourself saying it and no one knows who you mean except for him. 

You open your eyes. “I’d never snitch on daddy.”

There’s a laugh in the chat and you blush fiercely, your livestream chat blowing up once again.

“I think we know who it is, then,” says Sean, laughing. 

“Yeah,” agrees Lizzie and your eyes widen. 

“Wait, what?” you ask, watching everyone vote almost as soon as the discussion time ends. “Wait, hang on, who--”

“We know who you’re talking about, y/n,” PJ tells you. 

You vote for yourself and your brain goes blank as you see that everyone voted for Corpse. He even voted for himself. They knew. They all _knew _about your feelings for Corpse. 

The round ends with Corpse being voted out and the crewmates win. There’s some talking, but you stay on the victory screen. You’re trying to decide if your mad or embarrassed or both. 

“I didn’t know you’d say that, y/n,” Corpse says, effectively breaking you out of your trance. “I thought you were gonna snitch on me.”

“You heard her,” teases Lizzie and you can tell she’s grinning. “She’d never snitch on you, Corpse.”

He laughs and you feel something in a certain place. “Oh my god, I’m gonna die of embarrassment.” You put your face in your hands, listening to your friends tease you in the chat. You suddenly want to jump out your window and run into traffic. 

“Don’t die,” comes Corpse’s voice through the onslaught of teasing. “I’ll be sad.”

“Fuck!” you shout and slam your hand on your desk, shaking your equipment and scaring your rats. “I’m so sorry, Corpse, that was really weird, I--”

“Stop.” He interrupts you and the chat goes silent and you look up at the screen even though you can’t see him. “It’s okay. It was funny.”

Your eyes widen and then narrow. Funny? He thought what you said was funny? How could he think it was funny?

But then he speaks again and he sounds oddly flustered. “Uh, I gotta go. Um, it was fun playing with you guys. Bye, y/n.”

“Bye Cor--” but then he disconnects and you’re left talking to no one. “--pse.”

There’s a long moment of silence until Felix breaks it. “I can’t believe you just watched me die and didn’t do anything about it.”

There are some laughs and you smile faintly, rejoining the game. “Yeah, uh, sorry about that.”

“Are you okay, y/n?” asks Lizzie. 

You blush and swallow. “I don’t know. God, I’m so weird.” You run a hand through your hair and adjust your headphones

“No, you’re not,” Roomie assures you. “He has a crush on you, too.”

Your eyes widen and you scoot up in your chair. “He does?”

“I mean, he called you pretty once during a game and said that he watches your videos a lot, so maybe.”

You groan and sink in your chair. “I’m gonna go, I need to run into traffic now.”

A few people laugh or chuckle and Lizzie asks you if you’re actually going to leave. 

“Yeah,” you tell her. “But not to run into traffic. I’m going to go play Minecraft to soothe myself.”

“Aw.” You can practically hear her frown. “Okay. Bye, y/n.”

“Good luck with your stream,” Ken tells you. 

You grin. “Okay, thanks, bye.”

When you exit the game and leave the chat, you scream. You actually scream and it’s loud. Your roommate even knocks on your door, asking if you’re okay. 

You look at them and nod. “Yeah, totally fine. Probably about to have a mental breakdown, but I’m fine.”

“Okay,” they say and lean on the doorframe. “But I’m not cutting bangs for you again.”

You laugh and nod. “Yeah, okay, fine.” They leave and you turn back to your stream, feeling like you’re about to cry. Corpse knows you have a crush on him. And it seems like he has one on you as well, but now you’re embarrassed because you called him ‘daddy’ on stream.

You rub your eyes. “Well, now I know what’ll be streaming on Twitter tonight,” you tell the chat. 

[whythinktoomuch]

i. apocalypse now & then

Kara touched down, her boots meeting the earth with a metallic clunk that was promptly swallowed up in the dust and utter grayness of her surroundings. The warnings came immediately—insistent beeps, bright red numbers and figures flashing before her eyes.

“How’s it looking?” asked the tinny voice in her helmet, and Kara sighed.

“Yeah, you were right. Place is infested,” she said, studying the mess of debris and desolation that seemed to feed directly into the faint horizon in every direction. “Kryptonite readings are off the charts. There’s either a tower nearby, or mines just planted all over. Maybe even both, if i’m Iucky.”

Alex let out a harsh breath. “Look, I know you’re not going to leave until you find those people, but you better watch your fucking back out there, okay?”

“Hm… don’t I always though?”

“You ask that every single time, and every single goddamn time, I have to re-mind you of all—”

“All right, all right…” Kara said, rolling her eyes. “Just stop worrying so loudly already, jeez. I’ll keep you posted the entire time.”

“Like that was ever an option.”

“Love you too,” Kara said breezily, and she began her search.

She explored the area in proportioned sections, slipping periodically into x-ray vision, keeping her feet drifting an inch off the ground at all times. You just never knew these days. By now, Kara had stepped on enough lead-wrapped kryptonite mines for one lifetime, which coincidentally had been the same number of times it took to gray almost the entirety of Alex’s head. Or so Alex claimed anyway.

Apparently, over two decades of this sort of living could do that to a person: make them older, but also, steal away every last bit of their sense of humor. 

--

Whenever Kara happened upon a particularly extensive blind spot—jagged slabs of lead piled on top of each other—she took her time. Carefully sifted her way through all that rubble, with a spare bit of rebar or her heat vision from a safe distance. Calling out to any potential survivors that could have been trapped underneath. But as she steadily neared hour two of her search, it was starting to look like a lost cause. That whoever had sent that distress signal must have since succumbed to the environment, like so many others already had done before them.

Then Kara heard it.

Whipping her head around, Kara strained her ears to their very limit, all the while silently cursing how muffled everything sounded in this godforsaken suit of hers. It took a minute or so to hone in on it, but she finally made out the distant voice.

Help us. Save us. We’re down here.

Kara snapped into action, already hurtling full-speed toward the source of the cry. “Alex, I found them.”

“About fuckin’ time,” Alex said, but the note of relief carried through the speakers loud and clear. It always did, of course, given the scarcity of such a feeling as of late. “All right, get them out of there, and hurry your ass up. You’ve already been out there for too long.”

The voice grew louder and more distinct as Kara approached it, and eventually, she could even distinguish other people in the mix—their whispers, the muted beats of their heart seemingly punctuating every word, and all the shallow breaths of air in between. She counted at least five separate individuals, five more lives that she could potentially save from this impossible landscape.

But by the time Kara reached the point where the voice was sounding from below rather than from the distance, her excitement had all but waned, receded back into the ever present anxiety hanging in the air.

“… Fuck,” she huffed out, staring at the large swathe of broken rock and dirt and twisted metal beneath her, the letter K spray-painted all over the surface in a faded green. “Alex. They’re in a mine-rigged shelter.”

“Forget it then. Just get out of there,” Alex said, all rather predictably. “We can send an extraction team with defusers in the morning.”

“But that’ll take too long,” Kara protested. “It would take days, just for a task force to cover all that distance, and these people need help now.”

“No. I want you to put down a marker and come right the fuck back home,” Alex said. “That’s your last kryptonite filtration suit! If anything happens, if you sustain even the slightest bit of damage out there, you could—”

Kara cut the feed and swiftly locked her comms from all available channels, employing one of the few tips Winn had passed onto her before he died. Because Alex didn’t understand. How could she, when she wasn’t the one who had to listen to these desperate cries for help from people just barely out of reach.

She floated outside the presumed blast radius, planted her feet firmly to the ground, and went to work. Uncovering the buried shelter bit by bit, one sizable mass of charred rubble dug up after the other. It wasn’t easy. The kryptonite in the area, though not exposed, was much too close for comfort even through her suit. And it made the sun hotter, everything heavier, and Kara’s progress as slow as it could possibly be.

But all that—the sweat gathering on her brow, the soreness burning up her lower back—was a very small price to pay when weighed against the lives of at least five people in need. So, Kara kept going. She kept burrowing deeper into the earth with her bare hands, until the sun was but a small twinkle above her head and her fingertips were brushing against a patch of warmed metal.

And she could hear them better now. They were so close.

Kara pressed her palm against what had to be the outer wall of their shelter. “Hey, can you hear me in there?”

“Please help us!” came the frantic response, only somewhat muffled now. “Please get us out! We can’t breathe in here!”

“Okay! Okay… I’m gonna get you out, okay?” Kara shouted back, heart thumping hard in her ears. “Just… hang on.”

A quick once-over was all it took to determine that the wall before her—like most other surfaces nowadays—was naught but a few inches of commercial steel, coated in a thin layer of lead. And as such, all it would to take, of course, to break into such a structure was—THUNK!—a single punch from the Girl of Steel herself.

Kara ripped a hole in the wall, using her heat vision to melt down the edges as she tugged the entire thing apart. Eventually satisfied with her efforts, she was just about to crawl through her rather crude but functional doorway when the speakers in her helmet abruptly flipped back on.

“—him back to life, and just… throttle him for showing you that trick!” Alex was practically hollering in her ear. “Why would you ever need to do that anyway? The whole frickin’ point of the—”

“Whoa, Alex, Alex, it’s fine! I’m fine! Just shh!” Kara hastily cut her off. “I’ve pretty much got my foot in the door already, okay? So, I’m helping these people whether you like it or not.”

“Yeah, you fucking better,” Alex said with a scoff. “I want to look these people in the eye while you explain to me what was so goddamn special about them that you had to…”  

And Kara barked out a laugh, shaking her head in wonder as Alex continued to chew her out in a way that only sisters could, apparently. “Hey, you can do whatever you want, okay? Just let me bring them home first.”

“Fine. Just don’t kill the comms this time.”

“Oh, I would never.”

“Kara, I fucking swear to—”

But the rest of all that swearing quickly faded into the backdrop, as Kara finally poked her head into what should have been just another underground refuge from everything their world now had to offer. Because ten feet below from where she had burrowed her way in, was not a handful of dehydrated people waiting to be rescued—only masses upon masses of thick coils and plates of smooth black metal shifting about.

That’s when Kara realized that it’d been quite some time since she’d heard a cry for help. And soon after that was when a muted click! sounded, then somewhere down there in the midst of all that darkness and mechanical movement, came another loop of voices calling out to her.

“Oh shit…” Kara whispered, and at least ten sets of glassy eyes flicked up to stare at her. The pre-recorded voices immediately cut out, and the entire room lit up in a vibrant green as the machines all powered up with a collective hum. “Shit, shit, shit, you were right!”

“Right about what?” Alex demanded, but Kara was too busy heeding her long overdue advice of getting the fuck out there to respond.

Kara burst from the ground in a flurry of dust and clattering scrap metal, already heading for the horizon at full-speed. She needed to put as much distance as possible between her and the decoy shelter. It was nothing short of an honest-to-Rao miracle that her sudden escape hadn’t tripped any of the mines on-site, but now, it was only a matter of time.

Still hurtling away, Kara threw a glance over her shoulder just in time to see the first three drones break through the surface, already mindlessly chasing after her. Then the third and the fourth crashed right on through after them, which abruptly led to a series of rapid beeping, which abruptly led to a violent disturbance in the air that stole away all the sound from the world and knocked Kara right out of the sky.

(next part here)

[suicidalslasher]

𝒖𝒏𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒉 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒕 ➤ 𝑱𝒂𝒔𝒐𝒏 𝑫.

Nothing but porn w/o a plot. There actually is a plot and if anybody is confused on the ending, I can explain but it’s more porn than anything.... so, here you go, you filthy animals. 

WARNINGS: choking, degradation, use of a gun (brief), a lot of dirty talk... of course. Oral, m on f / f on m. Fingering. Squirting. (brief.)

!! Female reader. Readers pronouns are she/her. !!

ps: if you enjoy my content and have a dollar or two to spare, here’s my ko-fi. 

“You don’t know me, but something terrible is going to happen. That boy you call your boyfriend isn't a man at all, in fact, he's a monster and he's only using you to kill you, for your blood to be on his hands, for him to be the cause of your death. He's twisted, that way.  He's not as nice as he portrays himself to be. If  I were you  — and once upon a time ago, I was in your shoes, I was you —  I'd get the hell out of that relationship and quickly."          Jason looked up from the letter his girlfriend,  (Y/N), had received in her locker. His lips are pressed together tightly into a white slash, his jaw clenched and in a sharp tone, he asks, "So.... what? You're going to break up with me over a  letter that a complete stranger put in your locker?" He sneered, grinding his teeth together before he stood up, moving the chair back as he does so. 

The piece of furniture loudly squeaks against the floor, making (Y/N) grimace and flinch at the obnoxious  noise. It's not the only thing in the room being annoying, though.    "No." (Y/N) answers,  giving an eyeroll in return to his question as she folds her arms across her chest.  "I want to see the monster you supposedly are, that's all." She adds.  "This isn't the first or even the second letter that says those words. There's been an endless amount and quite frankly, my beloved J.D, I'm suspicious  on what it exactly means."  "You believe the notes, do you?" He questions,  stepping closer to his girlfriend, eyebrow arched as he waits for her response.  "I do..... or I don't. That's up to you to decide for me. So, enlighten me, Jason, are you a monster in disguise or are you not and someone's simply playing a trick on not only me but the both of us?"  "What is it you're trying to do to me, (Y/N)?"  "Oh my God, fuck me like you hate me, fuck me like the monster that you supposedly are, according to the pieces of paper I receive every day.. I want to see whether or not it's true."  Jason is silent, as if he had gone mute. He was standing inches away from her face, doing - saying - nothing. Only... staring, like he was a starved predator and she was his only prey, his first feast of the day.  

Though, she knows the air conditioner isn't on, and neither are the windows open, (Y/N) shivers as if it were cold. But it was his eyes  that were frosty. His eyes were two lifeless pools of abyss-black, an ice-cold stare he was giving. Finally, he speaks for what feels like ages since he last talked, although it had only been a minute or two since he did, "I hate you. Despise you, actually.  Don't even know why we continue to have this fucking conversation. You're seriously so fucking annoying," He spat.  (Y/N) wasn't sure if he meant the words or not, either way, it did feel like a stab in the chest.  She purses her lips together and she goes to say something but before she could, his hand is wrapped around her throat and her back is pushed up against the wall.  "I should strangle you."  "Is that a promise?" She gasped out.  "Once I start, I might not be able to stop." He informs, clicking his tongue against the root of his mouth.  His grip, however, gets tighter and as fucked up as it may sound, (Y/N) grows wetter, she squeezes  her thighs tighter together and has to bite back a moan at the feeling of his hand around her throat. "I don't care what you do," (Y/N) replied truthfully, voice low and groggy, as if she had just woken up. "Just fuck me."  "My pleasure."  To her disappointment, Jason  drops his hand down at his side before gesturing to the floor with a motion of his finger.  "Get on your knees, this cock isn't going to suck itself."  (Y/N) is more than happy to oblige as she crashed to her knees,  quickly, undoing  his belt buckle and unbuttoning  his jeans.  In only a matter of seconds, he's got his pants and boxer briefs off, hanging down his ankles and his dick is being swallowed by his favorite cock-slut.  

Her eyes are fluttered shut as she tries to concentrate  on pleasing him. And as always, she's doing a great job at doing so. Then he remembers — this was a punishment and she deserved to be punished.  She wanted for him to unleash the beast, after all, right? So, he would be doing that.  Jason growls and grabs the back of her neck, fingers finding their way up to her hair as he then forces  her further down onto her cock, making her sputter and choke, a few drops of spit soaking his shaft as he face-fucks (Y/N)'s throat.   "Take it, slut. You wanted this, remember? Wanted to see the man behind the mask, well, here I am, baby, standing proudly right in front of you. Take my cock, choke on it like the filthy, little bitch you are. That's all you are, isn't it, sweetheart? You aren't important enough for me to keep around, according to the letters you get. Only keep you around so I can fuck you like the desperate whore you are. Is that what you want to hear? Huh?"  (Y/N)'s eyes are full of tears and she knows, without even looking in the mirror, her cheeks are stained with mascara and her lipstick is smudged, as her throat is getting pounded by the man above her, his grip on her hair is too tight, it's too much and yet not enough. 

She wants more — no, scratch that —  needs more.   "Desperate cock-hungry bitch, aren't you, baby? Starving for me to feed you my cock, to feed you my cum. You'll just open your legs to anyone, everyone, too, huh?  Especially me, even when you know exactly what I've done.... letters or no letters, you know the kind of person I am.. and yet, I'm the monster? You're no saint, either, miss (L/N).You're as crazy and as fucked up as I am."  (Y/N) nearly  (key-word there) makes a mess in her panties. And she hasn't touched herself at all yet, neither has Jason placed a finger yet on her.   

 Jason, on the other end, notices how her fingernails are digging themselves into his bare, naked thighs rougher than they had been previously. There's also more sweat pooling at the top of her forehead, too. He was making a complete mess out of her and was loving every single second of it.  "What is it, baby girl? You want to cum for me? Going to cum for me, untouched? Oh, so naughty, filthy little thing," He cooed, slowing down his movements as he continues to push his dick further down her throat, feeling more saliva spill out of her mouth and wetting his cock as he does so. 

 "Go on then, baby. Make a mess all in your panties. I know you can do it." And, well, yeah, just like that (Y/N) is coming, untouched, all while Jason does the same, feeding her his cum with a grunt of her name escaping his lips.   (Y/N) hums happily as she pulls back, wiping what remains on her cheeks onto her fingers, coating her digits with his  ejeculation and slips the juices into her mouth, making sure to poke her tongue out and give Jason a show — she wanted to prove how much of a slut she really was, and how desperate she was to have him bury his cock in her pussy. She needed the pain, wanted to feel it. She wanted it rough.   "So... what else do you have in plan?"  (Y/N) wonders, looking up at him with a smirk.   That little grin placed on her lips is quick to fall down into a worried frown when Jason pulls a gun out at her, pressing it against her skull.   "I could kill you since I got what  I needed." His voice was as devoid of life as an ossuary and his eyes were still soul-penetrating.  Not even a hint of a smile, not even a sign of amusement in the tone of voice. Surely, he wasn't being serious.... was he?  He presses the end of the gun to her mouth, making her lips part open as he presses  the gun inside.  "Could blow your brains out, right here, right now.... since that's all I'm going to do to you, anyways, right? I'll kill you eventually, why not now?"  Jason pulls the trigger.   

It's a blank.  Of fucking course it is.  "I'm only kidding," He said, chuckling lowly as he places the gun back into the pocket of his trench coat.    "You're a fucking dick." (Y/N) hisses, getting up on her feet and raising her hand up, slapping him on the cheek. "Don't scare me like that,"   "You're the one who was sucking my dick, first of all.... and you are also the one who wanted me to show you just how awful I could be... so, it's your fault." Jason said.   "Oh, shut up and kiss me already. 'm tired of this roleplay. Just want you inside me. Now."  "As you wish, your majesty." Jason laughs, bending forward as he picks his girlfriend up, throwing her over his shoulder and carries  her to his bedroom, kicking the door open with his foot. 

He then falls down onto the bed, letting his girlfriend fall on the mattress as well, (Y/N) squealing loudly as she tries to get comfortable and find a cozy spot along the mountain of pillows that rest against the headboard of the bed.  "Can I at least see if you're as sweet as you look?"  Jason asks,  licking his lips.   For obvious reasons, (Y/N) doesn't argue.  All she does is nod her head and lets a breathless pant out, answering with a, 'yes, please'.  She shimmies out of her pants, pulling her panties down as she strips out of both. Once they're off, she throws them elsewhere, not worried where they end up nor does she have time to worry about such things because the moment she's naked, Jason is pulling her legs apart and is quick to bury his face in her thighs.

 "Oh, God, fuck. Should've given me a warning, baby." She whines, fingers brushing through his hair as she tugs his black locks, pulling him closer, dragging his face closer to her cunt. "Need you so badly...." She murmurs, feeling the smile of her boyfriend's face against her heat. His tongue dances against her clit, flicking this way and that. He was always phenomenal with his mouth, more so his tongue than anything else. (Other than his dick, of course.)  (Okay, everything about J.D, other than his temper, was amazing.)  There were no words to describe it other than perfection and magical.  "Jason, baby..."  Hearing her pleas and knowing he's doing an excellent job, he continues, this time adding a finger and pushing it deep inside, earning a loud gasp to spill from (Y/N)'s lips. "Jason, fuck!"   She's wet, this much is obvious, but she's leaving a puddle not only on his face but beneath her. She'll have to wash the comforter later, she hopes she isn't leaving any stains behind either and can wash it out in time before it does leave an imprint.  

 These thoughts are replaced when Jason adds another finger, and she isn't so sure if he has two inside or three, all (Y/N) knows is it feels so fucking good and if he doesn't stop, she's going to cum soon. "S-Stop, Jason, please.... want to cum by your cock, wanna cum with you."   Jason doesn't stop, despite her cries. He's pushing her thighs down, holding her still as he continues to pump his fingers in and out, his tongue is everywhere and she feels so hot, feels as if every part of her body is on fire.  "Jason, Jason,"  (Y/N)'s moans come out like a broken record; only able to play the bit of his name on repeat, only able to speak his name and nothing else. "Jason, baby, oh.... I'm.... I'm going to cum!" And within a matter of seconds, that familiar sensation she had been feeling for the last few minutes in the pit of her stomach finally explodes and she's shooting her orgasm all over his fingers and on his face and... wait, did she- "You squirted, holy shit..." Jason pulls back, laughing as he wipes his face off of with his shirt. "That's a first. Just by my fingers too, fuck, baby girl.... can't even begin to imagine what you can do when I stuff my cock deep inside your cunt."  "Well, don't imagine then and just do it. Fuck me." Jason chuckles as he takes off the rest of his clothes.  Which wasn't much other than his coat and the shirt. (Y/N) giggles, not realizing that was all he had on. Nothing but his trenchcoat and a shirt underneath, his lower half being completely bare.  "What?" He asks, dropping the jacket and his shirt at the end of the bed before he's crawling up and over on (Y/N), wrapping her legs around him as he presses the tip of his cock at her entrance, teasing her for  a second or two.  "Nothing. Just waiting for you."  "Anything for my darling." With this, he presses his cock steadily at her entrance before he's leaning forward, pressing his chest on top of hers, Jason slides his cock deep within her walls at a slow pace before he's fully inside her, his own mouth parting open at the tightness that clenches around him. "Always so tight, (Y/N), fuck." "I'm not going to last long," She answers honestly.   Jason agreed, nodding his head rapidly as he moves, little by little, bit by bit. "Me, either, baby. You feel so good, always fucking so good."   "Jason...." (Y/N) mewls, feeling that sensation clouding over her once more, every thrust he gave sent a wave of electricity to shock her. Her orgasm would be stronger than the one she had a few seconds ago, this much she knew. 

 "Jason, baby, fuck.... you feel so good. Love feeling you inside me," She gasps, her feet were pointed like a dancer's, her toes curling and uncurling. Her pelvis rose from the bed as if seeking something in the air, Jason had to hold her down against the mattress, placing her hands above her head so she could remain still.  "Jason, please, I'm so close, I'm-" He cuts her off by pressing his lips onto hers. "Tell me you love me." He whispers, slowing the movements of his hips.  She laughs, pulling back and presses her face in the crook of his neck, playfully giving him a bite. "You're the one who lit the match and burned me earlier, telling me you hate me.... why should I say it first?" "Cause you and I  damn well know I don't hate you, I could never hate you, darling, so tell me you love me, please."  "I love you, Jason Dean, now cum inside me and fill me up like the desperate, cum slut I am. I wanna feel you."  Jason groans as he presses (Y/N) back against the pillows, leaving one hand off of her arm as he now cups her face, crashing his lips back against hers hungrily. "Cum with me, baby girl, cum with me."  (Y/N) musters a few curse words, letting them fall into Jason's open mouth as they kiss wildly and crazily, the type of kiss you'd only see in pornagraphic movies.   (What they were doing too, obviously, could be in a film as well.)  "I love you, I love you, I love you."  Jason groans and spills his seed, filling  (Y/N) up as he shoots his load deep inside her walls, moaning the same words she just said into the kiss. "Fuckin, goddamn..." He groans, pulling back as he falls next to her. "Never realized you were so naughty."  "Yes you do. That's why you started dating me, why you fell in love with me... shall I continue?"  "Correction: Didn't realize death was such a turn on for you."  "That's fair." (Y/N) answered with a giggle, grabbing Jason and cuddling up into his side, pressing a kiss to his chest.   "I've still got to thank Veronica for being part of this, giving me the roleplay idea and everything."  "Still don't understand why you're best friends with my ex," "She introduced us. If it weren't for her, I wouldn't be here; We wouldn't be together." "That's fair." He mocks her words, chuckling as he kisses the top of her head.  "Still, I'd never hurt you. You know this, right?" (Y/N) nods and hums, drawing tiny figures on Jason's chest with the tip of her finger.  "I know. Unless I ask for it." She jokes but she and Jason knew there were truth in her words.  "Filthy thing, you are (Y/N) (L/N)." "Yes.... but you love me, though, Jason Dean." "That I do." "And I love you."  "I love you too... although you fit the label; 'geek in the streets, freak in the sheets'  perfectly." He jokes. 

"Can't believe you squirted still and love being degraded as much as you do,  love being talked like your feelings aren't valuable... never expected this from you, missy."  "Says the one who killed others... you crazed bastard.  I knew what I was getting myself into when I got together with you, J.D. I'm not stupid."   "And see, that's why I love you. You love me and the monsters in my closet."  "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shut up and kiss me, killer."  "Keep that attitude up and I'm gonna have to kill that pussy of yours." "Do it. I'm ready for a round two." (Y/N) replied with a smirk.  "Just can't get enough of this  cock, can you?" "Nope." "Truly are a cock slut." Jason replied with a 'tsk'  before he grabs (Y/N), placing her on top of him. "Ride me, baby girl. You already know what Daddy likes." "Don't have to tell me twice."

[hotshotsxyz]

like it means something

buddie (2.8k) (read it on ao3)

Evan. His own name won’t stop rattling around in his head. Evan.

He brings Eddie home from the hospital and everything’s - not okay, Eddie still got hurt and Buck still had to watch it and Bobby’s still hurt too, but - they’re getting there. No one died, and that’s a hell of a lot better than it could’ve been. No one died.

Evan.

Eddie kisses Chris’s forehead and Buck grins wide, because yeah, of course he would take care of him if the worst happened, but this is what Christopher deserves. His family, alive and whole and well.

Taylor’s there. Of course she is, Buck’s mind supplies, you asked her to be. She’s your friend. More than a friend? Buck doesn’t know. There’s a lot to unpack there, and with everything else that’s happened, they haven’t had the time. It’s a conversation for another day.

Abuela, Pepa and Carla each take their turn fussing over Eddie and then, to Buck’s surprise, him too. He doesn’t understand why. Eddie got shot, not him. Eddie’s the one who hasn’t been home in a week, not him. Eddie -

Evan.

Buck’s at a loss. It’s a party of sorts, but Eddie’s exhausted and so is he. Buck feels completely wrung out, and he can see the tension in Eddie’s expression that says he does too. He wants to tell everyone else to leave, but it isn’t his place. Still, though, Taylor seems to get the hint first. She pulls him aside with a gentle hand to his shoulder.

“I’m going to head out. Is there anything you need?” she asks.

Buck shakes his head mutely.

“Just... get some rest, okay? I know you want to take care of him, but you’re not the only one who can.” She presses a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth, then heads over to where Eddie and Ana are seated at the dining room table to make her excuses.

Taylor is half right and half wrong. There are other people that can take care of Eddie, but Buck won’t be able to rest unless he’s nearby.

Evan.

Abuela and Pepa leave next, citing the sinking sun and the growing weariness in Eddie’s movements. They each kiss him on the cheek and go with the promise to return in the morning. Abuela’s left behind enough food to feed an army for a week, stacked in the fridge in carefully labeled Tupperware.

Then Carla goes and it’s just Eddie, Ana, Buck and Chris.

Evan.

Buck should probably go, he knows, but he can’t quite bring himself to. He knows Eddie’s okay, has the living proof sitting right in front of him, but the second he looks away all the tension of the week returns, the fear and anxiety mixing sickeningly in his stomach.

Christopher has fallen asleep in Eddie’s lap, head tucked into his good shoulder. Eddie himself is fighting yawns. It’s been a long day.

Finally, it’s Ana who breaks the silence, standing and pressing a kiss to Eddie’s forehead. “Get some rest,” she says. “And text me if you need anything.”

It’s virtually the same thing Taylor said to him, and it strikes Buck as odd. They’ve been together, what, six months now? She should be saying more. Maybe she’s not because he’s here. Buck still can’t bring himself to leave.

Evan.

Neither of them has moved in the minutes since Ana left, but Eddie’s eyes are starting to drift and Buck knows he needs to sleep.

“Let me take Chris,” he says softly.

The grateful nod Eddie gives him is a testament to just how tired he really is.

Buck picks him up carefully and carries him to bed. He tucks him in and presses a kiss into his forehead. Once upon a time, he might’ve wondered if that was his place. Not now, though, not after everything Eddie said. He loves this kid like his own; he’s not going to pretend it’s anything less.

Evan.

He flicks the light out and makes sure Chris’s night light is on before gently shutting the door. Wordlessly, he returns to Eddie’s side.

There’s a grimace of pain on Eddie’s face that hadn’t been there before, and a quick glance at the clock tells Buck that he’s way past due for another round of medication. He grabs the pills and a bottle of water from the kitchen.

“The doctor said I can give you ibuprofen, too, if this isn’t enough.”

Eddie shakes his head minutely. “No, this is okay.” He swallows the pills Buck offers him dry, then washes them down with a swig of water.

“You need to sleep,” Buck says. “I should-“

“Stay, please?” Eddie interrupts him.

And how could Buck say no to that?

Evan.

Buck’s barely asleep when he hears Eddie cry out. He’s on his feet in a second and by Eddie’s side in less.

Eddie’s asleep still, but his face is scrunched and he’s curled in on himself like he’s trying to make himself smaller. Buck places a hand on his leg and shakes him gently.

Eddie shoots up, hissing in pain and clutching his shoulder. His eyes dart wildly around the room, unseeing.

“Hey, hey, just a dream, you’re okay,” Buck says.

Eddie’s eyes are wide with fear as they meet Buck’s. He sucks in a ragged, shuddering breath, then sags.

“I- you. You were- fuck,” Eddie stutters, scrubbing a hand across his face.

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” Buck repeats. He pulls Eddie to his chest. “You’re okay.”

Buck rocks them back and forth gently as his shirt slowly grows wet with Eddie’s tears.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Eddie gasps against him. Buck just holds him tighter.

“Don’t be,” he murmurs, “I’ve got you.”

Eventually, Eddie pulls back, wiping his eyes with his good hand.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Buck asks after a moment.

Eddie shakes his head but begins to speak anyway. “It was- I saw you, covered in blood and I couldn’t... couldn’t move, or, or help you. And- and then you were coughing up blood, just like at the party, and I tried, Buck I tried but it was like I was stuck in quicksand and I couldn’t-“ Eddie’s breathing has gone ragged again, so Buck grabs his hand.

“Me?” he can’t help but ask.

“Evan,” Eddie says, so tenderly it hurts.

Evan.

They fall asleep curled together, Eddie’s hand resting over Buck’s heart. It’s the first decent sleep Buck’s had since the shooting.

They don’t talk about it the next day, mostly because Buck doesn’t know what to say. He suspects Eddie doesn’t either.

Instead, much to Christopher’s delight, Buck makes pancakes. The three of them eat together on the couch, watching some cartoon that Chris seems interested in and Buck’s never seen before. It’s so painfully normal. Buck was terrified he’d never get to have this again, and now that he does he can’t shake the feeling that the other shoe is going to drop.

Evan.

That night, Eddie wordlessly pulls Buck into his bedroom. They lay facing each other in the dark. Buck wants nothing more than to bridge the gap between them, but it might as well be the Grand Canyon.

There’s not much light in the room, just the ambient glow of the city filtering in through the cracks in the blinds. It’s enough to see Eddie’s face by, but it doesn’t help Buck read his inscrutable expression. He eventually gives up trying and closes his eyes.

He’s stiff, and sleep evades him. If Eddie’s shifting is any indication, he’s still awake too. Finally, Eddie heaves a sigh and, to Buck’s surprise, wraps a hand around Buck’s wrist and pulls. Buck opens his eyes and sees the silent question in Eddie’s.

Is this okay?

Buck presses himself into Eddie’s space without hesitation.

Evan.

Eddie has a doctor’s appointment the next day, and Buck’s agreed to meet Taylor for coffee after dropping him off. Carla’s with Chris for the day, to help him with school, leaving Buck with a free hour on his hands for the first time in over a week.

His stomach has been in knots all morning. He’s not sure if it’s the prospect of letting Eddie out of his sight for the first time since he’s been home, or the conversation he knows he’s about to have with Taylor.

Because he’s thought about it, and the idea of being with Taylor… he’s kidding himself. Before, maybe. But now, after, with the mess of feelings he has twisting in his chest - he’s not in a place to start something new. He’s not even sure he wants it - her - anymore. Taylor’s great, but she could never fill the hole that was punched in his chest by the same bullet that tore through Eddie’s shoulder.

He’s starting to wonder if he’ll spend the rest of his life dividing things into before and after.

Taylor’s already seated when he arrives, fingers wrapped around a cardboard coffee cup that’s still steaming. Buck almost expected to change his mind when he saw her, to suddenly remember why he was interested in the first place, but mostly he’s just anxious to get back to Eddie. He doesn’t even really feel the old curl of attraction he’s used to. He sits in front of her, suppressing a sigh.

Taylor looks up at him, wearing an expression he can’t quite decipher. “Buck,” she says.

Evan.

“Hey, Taylor.”

“You don’t want coffee?” She asks, inclining her cup towards him.

Buck shakes his head. “Had some this morning,” he shrugs. “Don’t want to get jittery.”

Taylor frowns slightly, but doesn’t say anything.

They sit in awkward silence for what feels like an eternity before Buck finally breaks it.

“Look, Taylor,” he sighs. “There’s a lot going on right now, and I just… whatever this thing is between us, I’m not sure I have the space to figure it out. You deserve someone who’s all in, and I just can’t be right now.”

Taylor blows out a breath. “Oh thank god,” she says.

And that’s… unexpected. Buck raises a brow.

“You’re my friend, and I care so much about you, but I- I was scared, and I didn’t know what to do with it, so I told myself it was something else.” Taylor doesn’t look him in the eye. “All this earnestness is making me nauseous,” she jokes weakly.

Buck huffs out a short laugh. The tightly wound anxiety in his gut loosens, just a bit. “Friends, then?”

Taylor finally looks at him and smiles. “Friends,” she agrees.

“How was coffee?” Eddie asks. He’s looked vaguely constipated since Buck picked him up, but insists that his appointment went fine.

“Good,” Buck replies honestly. “We’re on the same page.” He’s driving, but out of the corner of his eye, he sees Eddie’s face do something complicated.

“Good,” he says. “That’s good.” There’s a beat of silence. “So you’re… together, then?”

Buck glances at Eddie, whose eyes are fixed on the road ahead of them. His expression is carefully neutral, but tight around the edges. Buck huffs a soft breath. “Nah,” he says. “End of the day it wasn’t what either of us wanted.”

Some of the tension bleeds out of Eddie’s posture. “Oh. I, uh- are you okay with that?”

Buck chuckles lightly at that. “Yeah, Eds. Pretty sure I’ve got everything I need right now.”

Evan.

Sleeping in the same bed at night becomes something of a habit, just like not talking about it does. It’s not that Buck doesn’t want to. He’s just… not sure how. What do you say when you’ve got so many feelings that you can’t even begin to decipher them, and the only thing you know for sure is that the thought of letting your best friend out of sight for more than a few minutes sends you careening towards a panic attack? There’s not exactly a greeting card for that.

This song and dance, though, it’s familiar. Comforting, in its own way. They’ve always flirted with the line between friendship and more, daring to put a toe over it, but never to take an actual step. Buck can’t help but wonder if this is a step, and they’re both just too chickenshit to admit it.

Evan.

“Where’s Ana?” Buck asks one morning, apropos of nothing. “I would’ve expected to see her around more often.”

Eddie stiffens. “We, uh, we broke up.”

Buck whirls around, nearly flinging egg against the backsplash. “When?”

“After the party.” Eddie shrugs uncomfortably.

Buck’s eyebrows raise. “I’ve been with you 24/7 since then,” he says. The question is obvious.

Eddie rubs a hand through his hair and frowns sheepishly. “I… texted her?”

Buck’s jaw drops. “You ended a 6-month relationship, a week after you got shot, over text?”

“In my defense, I was on a lot of painkillers. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Buck can’t help but laugh, throwing his head back. After a moment, Eddie joins in.

“That,” Buck says between giggles, “was not cool, man!”

“Nope,” Eddie agrees.

It’s the best either of them has felt in weeks.

The night after Buck’s first shift back at the station, Eddie has the worst nightmare he’s had since that first night. It takes Buck three tries to wake him, and the glassy look in his eyes remains far longer than he’d like.

“Please be careful,” Eddie says finally. “You have to- I can’t-“

“I promise,” Buck says, holding him tight to his chest.

Evan.

It’s Buck’s own nightmare that brings things to a head.

He’s been sleeping surprisingly peacefully since Eddie’s return home, but when the nightmares do return, they’re the worst he’s had.

He dreams he’s stuck beneath the firetruck, white-hot pain radiating up his leg, watching helplessly as Eddie bleeds out in front of him. Eddie tries to drag himself to Buck, but each pull makes the wound gush even more blood. Buck tries to yell for him to stop, but he can’t make his jaw work.

He finally wrenches it open, only to find himself sitting bolt upright in bed. His throat feels raw, like he’s been screaming, and Eddie’s hand is clutching his forearm. He knows where he is, but the panic from his dream isn’t receding. It grows louder and louder, until finally, Eddie’s voice cuts through.

“Evan!” He says sharply. “You’re okay, you’re fine. You’re in my room, with me. We’re both okay.”

Buck sags and falls back against the pillow, willing his breathing to slow. “You keep saying that,” he whispers in the dark.

“What?”

“My name. Like it means something.”

“It does,” Eddie says. “Every single piece of you matters.”

And Buck… Buck almost believes him.

Evan.

The elephant in the room grows larger every day, but still, they don’t talk about it. For all intents and purposes, Buck lives at Eddie’s. It’s been months. Eddie doesn’t physically need his help anymore, but neither is willing to let the other go. With Eddie’s return date drawing nearer, though, it’s getting harder to ignore.

Buck doesn’t want to ask, but he has to. He’s been waiting for the other shoe to drop since practically the first night, and he can’t take it anymore. He decides to soften the blow with pancakes.

“I should probably go back to my apartment,” he says, as casually as he can manage, as if the words don’t feel like ripping his still-beating heart out of his chest. Buck tries not to examine that feeling too closely.

“You need something?” Eddie asks, like it hasn’t even occurred to him that Buck might not come back.

“No, I-“

“Oh,” Eddie says. His expression goes carefully blank.

“I just-“ Buck tries to explain.

Eddie holds up a hand forestalling him. “I get it,” he says. “It’s fine.”

Buck swallows, ignoring the voice in his head that says definitively that it’s not.

Evan.

Buck’s out the door, duffle in hand, when Eddie stops him.

“Buck, wait,” he says, “Evan!”

Buck drops his bag in surprise and turns, only to find Eddie much closer than he expected.

“Don’t go,” Eddie says in a rush. “Stay, please. I need you here. With me.”

Buck gapes at him, as slowly the knot of emotions in his chest begins to unravel. The string that encircles the edges, that one he knows well: fear. The one beneath it: anger, at the sniper and the universe for hurting Eddie all over again. Hope and devastation intermingle, while grief lay coiled off to the side.

And the string that runs through the middle, holding it all together… that’s love.

Oh.

Buck gets it now.

He takes a step forward, closing the minuscule gap between him and Eddie. “I don’t want to go,” he whispers.

“Then don’t.”

Buck kisses him, soft and sweet. A promise, one which Eddie returns in kind.

There’re still a million things to talk about, but for once in his life, Evan Buckley is pretty sure he has all the words he needs.

[kireimarkeu]

No Contact

+another repost! i did not make any changes to this work.

summary; mark as your secret boyfriend.. but the both of you aren’t very discreet..

i was inspired by this drabble… so cute

5.1k words..

i swear i tried not to make it too long but it was so hard… also the ending is kinda funny lmfao!!!! im so funny

anw i hope you guys enjoyed this…? bc this was so so so fun to make although it’s lowkey kinda empty bc i didn’t want to make it too long!!! but yes hopefully you like it!! okkk bye!! njoy hehehehehe <3

+Day 18 3:32PM

You were holding Mark’s hands tightly, talking happily about anything and everything. 

That was why you loved Mark; he made you feel so comfortable, you could talk to him for hours and never get tired. He’s someone who you would need in a friend group to make everything less awkward. 

“And so, Yeri fell and we all laughed!” you told him, laughing at the old memory. 

You used to work as a choreographer for Red Velvet, but after a while, you decided to stop since it was affecting your studies a lot. While working with SM, you met the boys, and that was how you met the rest of NCT. 

When you didn’t get a response from Mark, you turned to look at Mark, only to find him frozen, staring ahead. 

“Mark?” you call, turning to see what he was staring at. Your eyes widened when you saw Jaehyun and Doyoung crossing the traffic light. “Oh, fuck.”

“Shit,” your boyfriend cursed, “we need to go,” he tells you, tightening his grip on your hand. 

The both of you speed walk to the opposite direction, hoping his members wouldn’t walk the same path as the both of you. Mark let out another string of curses when he saw his members walking behind them. 

Mark suddenly pulled you into a random store, trying to lose his friends. He pulled you deeper in the store, hiding the both of you from the main entrance. 

Your boyfriend was standing so close to you, the proximity making you nervous. You could feel your heart beating quickly as your cheeks flush red. Your hands going up to press them against Mark’s chest, pushing him back slightly. 

Mark didn’t notice, too distracted on finding his friends. When he noticed that he has lost his friends, he pulled away from a breathless you. His hands smoothly pull yours away from his chest. 

“I think they’re gone— wait, why are you so red?”

+Day 24 11:22PM

You were laying on the couch, playing with your phone while your boyfriend worked on some music that he has been writing for the past few days. 

“Mark~” you whine, your eyes were still stuck on your phone. You just wanted to disturb him for fun. 

Suddenly the door of the studio opened, Taeyong stumbling in as he stared at you and Mark in shock. 

“What are you doing here?” Taeyong asks you. 

“Uh…” you drag out, turning to look at your boyfriend for help. He looked at you then he quickly looked back at Taeyong. 

“I was making a new song for our Japan stage and had y/n help me with the choreography and all,” Mark explained, letting out an embarrassed chuckle. 

That was a lie. Well, not really. Mark did need help with the choreography, but at the same time he wanted you to be there to accompany him. Your presence calms him.

Taeyong remained silent as his eyes went back and forth between you and Mark.

“Should I leave?” you ask awkwardly, looking at your boyfriend then back at Taeyong. When you didn’t get a response, you stood up ready to grab your things.

The older man shook his head, “no, no, stay,” he tells you, walking further in, “I just didn’t know the both of you were so close,” he says while taking a seat next to your boyfriend. 

You let out a chuckle, “we’re close, you guys just didn’t know,”

+Day 33 9:02PM

After Taeyong found out how close Mark was with you, he wouldn’t stop inviting you to the dorm to hang out with the rest of the boys. 

“So, what movie are we watching today?” asks Taeyong as he took a seat next to Doyoung. 

You and Mark were seating next to each other. Mark was sitting at the very end while Jaehyun was sitting on the other side of you. Mark and you was sharing a blanket, your hands placed on your lap. 

“Parasite?” suggests Taeil. 

Loud whines filled the room, “we’ve all watched it, Taeil-ah,” whined Johnny. 

“Y/n, have you watched it?” asks Taeyong, turning to look at you. 

You shook your head. You were told it was pretty graphic and scary and you hated anything that has got to do with blood. 

And Mark knew that, so he would always avoid watching scary movies with you. 

“Should we watch it again? Since y/n hasn’t watched it?” suggests Taeyong, looking at the members for confirmation. The rest of the boys nod their head in agreement.

“Hyung,” your boyfriend voices out, “I don’t think—”

“No,” you quickly deny with a smile, “let’s watch it,”

Taeyong shrugs and plays the movie. 

Mark bit his lip.

A few minutes later, you felt your phone vibrate, you noticed it was Mark who has texted you. You turn to look at Jaehyun, making sure he wasn’t looking. You lowered the brightness of your phone before opening Mark’s text message. 

Markie Pooh: will you be okay?

You turn to look at Mark, but he was staring at the TV screen with a straight face. 

You bit back a smile as you typed a reply. 

You: yes, don’t worry abt me :) 

Mark quickly looked down at his phone to see your reply before keeping his phone away again. Your boyfriend let out a cough before shifting nearer to you until your shoulders were touching. 

You tried to hide your smile by looking down before looking back up, trying to keep a straight face. 

Mark had already watched the movie with the boys when it first came out. He knew when there was going to be a bloody scene. 

So, before the scene started, he had secretly reached for your hand under the blanket. 

You felt his fingers slowly reaching for yours, letting his fingers lace with yours. You tightly grip his hands, not wanting to let go. When you saw the bloody scene, your grip on your boyfriend’s hands tightened as he soothingly strokes the back of your hand with his thumb, hoping it would calm you. 

His fingers on yours distracted you from the graphic show that was playing. You were smiling like a crazy woman as Mark continued to stroke your hand with his thumb. 

“Are you… smiling?” asks Jaehyun as he turned to look at you weirdly. His question made everyone in the room to stare at you. 

Your eyes widen, shaking your head profusely. “No, I wasn’t,”

Johnny nodded, “you did, I saw you,”

At this point, Mark had already pulled his hand away from yours as he stares at you with amusement.

“I wasn’t smiling! It was a scary scene, why would I be smiling?” you ask them, crossing your arms defensively. 

Donghyuck lets out a sigh, “I think we all know y/n just loves horror,”

Taeil nodded, “yeah, she feeds of dead people,”

“Excuse me?!” you screech, throwing a pillow at Taeil, “what does that— no I don’t!”

The boys let out a roar of laughter, amused at how defensive you were acting.

Markie Pooh: you like that, huh? ;)

You looked down at your phone, letting out a soft scowl before reaching under the blanket to pinch Mark’s thigh. 

Mark let out a quiet squeal as he pushed your hand away. 

+Day 49 10:01PM

You were listening to Mark talk about his day. You couldn’t help but smile at how adorable he was; his pouty lips and chubby cheeks which you so desperately want to pinch. 

“Babe, are you listening?” Mark asks with a frown, noticing how you haven’t moved for the past few minutes. 

You nodded, “yes I am, baby,” you replied. 

Mark grins, “okay,” and he went back to talking about his best friend, Donghyuck. 

After hanging out with the boys for a couple of time, you and Donghyuck became close as well. Maybe because he was your boyfriend’s best friend, but you and him just got along so well that the both of you even started texting almost every day.

“So, what did you do today, babe?” asks Mark, snapping you out of your thoughts. 

“Huh? Oh, well I didn’t do anything today,” you tell him, “I cleaned my house a little bit then I took a nap,”

He puffs his cheeks out, “it’s a good thing you didn’t go out today, the air quality is really bad.”

He was always taking care of you; it always made your heart flutter. Mark was always looking out for you despite him being busy himself. Sometimes he would forget to take care of himself which always resulted in you lecturing him. 

Mark was in the middle of saying something when someone barged in his room, screaming. 

“MARK LEE!” you recognised it was Taeil’s voice. 

Mark quickly hid his phone, resting it on his chest. 

“Ah, Hyung, what are you doing here? What do you want?” you heard him ask.

You decided to mute your mic, just to be safe. 

“Why? Can’t I come in and talk to you?” asks Taeil. 

You suddenly heard a loud huff from Mark, as his phone fell off his chest and onto his white sheets. You assumed Taeil was laying on him. 

“Ah~ get out,” whined Mark, pushing the elder off him. 

You heard Taeil click his tongue. “who are you talking to? Your girlfriend?” he asks, “MARK HAS A GIRLFRIEND!” yell Taeil as you laugh out loud. 

Luckily your mic was on mute.

“I don’t have a girlfriend!” groans Mark as he stood up to push his member out of his room. He quickly locked the door before jumping back to bed, grabbing his phone. 

You unmute your mic. 

“Hi,” you giggle. 

He let out a huff, but letting out a shy smile, “Hi, so, where were we?”

+Day 57 7:57PM

Mark entered your house after taking off his shoes. He quietly took a seat at the very end couch. 

It was hard for the both of you to visit each other especially with the boys around, so you decided to have dates at your place instead. It was a good idea since no one could come over and interrupt the both of you. 

“Are you okay?” you ask Mark, noticing how he was so stiff. 

He nodded hesitantly, “it’s just…”

You waited for him to finish his sentence. 

“-awkward,” he finishes, looking up at you. 

You laugh at his words, “why?”

He shrugs, “I don’t know! I’ve never been to your place.”

Amused, you scoot closer to your boyfriend, wrapping your arms around his, leaning up to whisper in his ear. 

“There’s no one else here, Mark.”

You liked teasing him. You enjoyed how he would freeze up at your words. Or when his cheeks would turn a bright red colour. Or how his palms would turn a little sweaty. 

Pulling away from you, he quickly stood up, shaking his head. “No, no, that’s not what we’re going to do.” He tells you, stepping further away from you as you looked up at him in enjoyment. 

“We’re here to watch a movie,” he says, “that’s all.”

He was convincing himself. 

+Day 69 4:13PM

Marker: babe ):

You: what

Marker: I miss you ):

Marker: )))))):

You chuckled at his texts. 

Marker: what are you doingggggg

You: I’m watching a drama

You: what are you doing?

Marker: practice ):

Marker: so bored wo u here

Marker: miss your pretty face ):

You: stop it with the sad emojis!! >:(

Marker: ):

Marker: ):

Marker: ):

Marker: ))):

You: bye

You: I’m going to put my phone on dnd

Marker: nooo don’t leave me baby

Marker: okokokokok I’ll behave

You: good

Annoying boy: hehe

Annoying boy: wht are u up to babyyyy

Annoying boy: wait I already asked that

You: yes u did, u loser

Annoying boy: can I come over later?

You: y 

Annoying boy: causeee I miss u 

You: fine but not too long

You: I don’t want the boys to be all suspicious

Annoying boy: ok bb!!! I won’t hehehe ok

Annoying boy: I have to go now!!

Annoying boy: ily!! Bye bye 

You: see you later

+Day 74 2:36AM

You had one of your leg bent on Mark’s thigh, your hand resting on his chest. He has one arm around your neck for comfort. 

“Mark,” you sigh. 

Mark’s eyes were glued on his phone but let out a hum at the mention of his name. His fingers stroke your shoulder as a sign to assure you that he was listening. 

“We haven’t gone on a date in so long,” you say sadly, drawing hearts on his chest with your finger.

Mark put his phone down, “you wanna go on a date?”

You look up at him and nodded. 

When he made eye contact with you, he couldn’t help but press his lips on your forehead, “okay, but we can’t get caught,”

You nodded, wrapping your arms around your boyfriend’s neck, pulling yourself up so you could press kisses all over his face. Mark’s face scrunch at the ticklish feeling of your lips.

“tickles,” he giggles, pulling his face away from you. 

You pout when he pulls away from you. Your eyes slowly trail off his face to his hair; your fingers automatically going up to play with the black strands. 

Fuck, Mark literally just fell in love with you. 

He enjoyed the position that the both of you were in. You- laying on top of him while he had both hands resting on your waist, staring up at you lovingly. 

“I love your black hair, Mark,” you mumble, eyes stuck on the boy’s hair. 

“Yeah?”

“Mhm,” you nod, “never dye it any other colour,” you look down at him, “or I’ll get mad,” you joke. 

He laughs, “Anything for my girl,”

Your boyfriend’s hands that was resting on your waist, went up to stroke your back softly. He put a little pressure on your back, pushing you down to capture your lips in his. 

+Day 80 11:22PM

It was another movie night with the boys.

This time it was Donghyuck who had invited you over since promotions are over. 

You walked over to sit next to Mark, but you heard Donghyuck whine your name. 

“Sit with me~”

You let out a smile, sitting next to Haechan. The boy immediately grabs your arm, wrapping it around his shoulders before cuddling against you. 

Your met Mark’s gaze from across the room. You could tell he was pissed from the way he was nibbling on his lip and clenching his fist. He looked away, typing into his phone. 

You felt your phone vibrate, knowing it was from Mark. You didn’t bother checking the message because it was too risky, especially with Haechan cuddled to your side. 

✯¸.•´*¨`*•✿ ✿•*`¨*`•.¸✯

A few hours and lots of movies of later, the boys finally grew tired and decided to call it a night.

Since it was too late for you to head back home, the boys offered you to sleep over. You told them you would take the couch. They were a little hesitant to let a girl sleep on the couch, but you managed to convince them. 

It wasn’t like you would be sleeping on the couch anyway. 

Once you were sure that everyone was in their respective rooms, you quietly sneaked into your boyfriend’s bedroom. 

“Mark?” you whisper, opening the door quietly. 

When you saw the mop of black hair laying on the pillow, you smile, closing the door quietly, your feet padding towards the bed. 

You pull the blanket down so you could lay next to your lover. You rest your arm on his waist as you snuggle closer to him. 

“Hi handsome,” you whisper, letting out a giggle as you stare at his pretty face. A frown replaced your smile when he didn’t reply to you. “Are you okay, baby?”

Mark could only pout. You pout along with him, the hand resting on his waist going up to push away the stray hair from his face. 

“Why are you pouting?” you ask quietly, pressing a kiss to his pouty lips. 

He pouts even more, “why did you sit with Haechan just now? Why didn’t you sit with me?”

You bit back a grin that was forming, “why? Were you jealous?”

He frowns and shook his head, “no! why would I be jealous of Haechan?”

“Really?” you ask, “if you’re not jealous then I’ll sit with Haechan from now on,” you tease, your fingers now caressing his exposed chest. 

He shrugs, “fine by me,”

You suddenly stood up, letting his arm fall on your lap, “actually, I’ll even go sleep with him,” you continued to pester Mark, enjoying the way it was bothering him. 

“Hey!” he whisper-shout, his hands wrapped on your wrist, stopping you from getting out of bed, “You can’t do that!”

You chuckle, laying back down with your boyfriend, “I won’t, dummy,” you flick his forehead.

He lets out a satisfied sigh, pulling you closer until his cheeks were resting on the top of your head. 

“You’re mine. Mine only.”

+Day 89 12:35AM

The both of you were on facetime again. 

Despite being only 30 minutes apart, the both of you couldn’t meet; not wanting anyone to catch the both of you. Furthermore, you felt bad, since Mark had just finished practice, it would be tiring for him to come over your place. 

There was a sudden knock on Mark’s door. Your boyfriend hastily hid his phone and you naturally mute your mic. 

“You busy?” you heard someone ask, from the voice, you assumed it was Taeyong. 

“No,” Mark reply. 

“Were you talking to someone? Is it y/n?” asks Taeyong. 

Mark pretend to grimace at your name, “why would I be calling y/n?”

Taeyong shrugs, “we all kinda assumed you had a crush on y/n,”

“Ew,” Mark shook his head, “I’ll never like y/n,” he says, “she’s not even my type.”

You knew he was just saying that to stop the suspicions of the both of you dating but what he said actually hurts. 

“Really?” Taeyong questions, “we were so sure you would like y/n,”

“I swear, Hyung. Y/N isn’t even my type, her personality isn’t even my type,” Mark tries to persuade the older boy. 

Now that actually really hurts. 

You weren’t sure if he was just lying or saying the truth. 

You couldn’t bare to listen another second of their conversation, so you immediately hung up. 

Markie: baby

Markie: whyd u end the call haha

Markie: Taeyong’s gone call me back hehe

2 missed calls

Markie: why are you not picking up??

1 missed call

Markie: call me baaackkkk babe

Markie: did u fall asleep?? Haha

Markie: but it’s so early tho :(

Markie: I guess you’re asleep~

Markie: ok goodnight baby sleep tight dream of me :3

Markie: I love youuuuuuuu

+Day 90 12:46PM

Markie: good morning my love

Markie: can we call??

Markie: I kinda miss you haha 

1 missed call

Markie: heeyyyyy

Markie: are you ignoring me?

Markie: I didn’t want to think you were ignoring me, but I feel like you r

Markie: did I do something wrong? :/

Markie: can you tell me what it is at least?

Markie: at least we can talk it out or at least I can apologize?

Markie: babe

You: why did you say that

Markie: say what?

You: yesterday

You: what you said about me

You: tht I wasn’t your type nd all 

Markie: call me

Few seconds later, you received a call from your boyfriend. You answered the call, placing your phone on your ear. 

“I didn’t mean what I said,” he quickly says, “I just wanted to convince him that we weren’t dating,”

You were quiet for a while; you could hear Mark’s heavy breathing. You knew he was stressed with work and all, and you being sulky definitely wasn’t helping him. 

You let out a sigh, “I know.”

“Was it too much?” he asks you. 

“No,” you answer, “I just, I was just overthinking it and—”

“I get it,” he cuts you off, “don’t worry about it,”

“I’m sorry,” you blurted out, “I know you’re really busy and stressed over work and I’m just making you feel worse by overthinking and all—”

“Hey,” he cuts you off again, “Don’t worry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

You couldn’t help but feel sorry.

“Sorry,” you apologised again. 

“Apologize one more time and I’ll end the call,” he jokes. 

+Day 100 8:35PM

Mark hid his hands behind his back, holding the small box in his hand tightly as he faced you with a cheeky smile. 

“What do you have behind your back, Mark Lee?” you ask, squinting your eyes at him suspiciously. 

It was your 100th day together, and since the both of you couldn’t go out to celebrate, the both of you agreed to celebrate at your place instead. 

Since Mark couldn’t make it special for you, he decided to get you a present, just to make-up for all the secret dates. 

“It’s a present,” he answers cheekily. “I got you something to make up for all the secret dates,”

You pout at his words, “I’m okay with all the sneaking around, Mark,”

Your hands going up to his jaw, your thumb caressing his cheek softly. Mark loves your touches; he couldn’t help but lean into your touch. 

Tilting his head a little, he pressed a small kiss against your palm, one of his hands reaching to grab your hands in his. 

“I bought it because I think you’ll look good in it,” he tells you, pulling out the box from behind. 

You gasp when you saw the Tiffany & Co. box. 

“Mark,” you exclaim, looking up at him, “that’s expensive!”

“You haven’t even seen it yet!” he laughs. 

He slowly opens the box, showing off the elegant 18k diamond necklace. 

Your hands went up to your mouth, gasping. 

“Mark Lee,” you shook your head, “you’re fucking crazy,”

He smiles, satisfied with your reaction, “do you like it?”

“Are you crazy? It’s beautiful!” you tell him. “But all I bought for you were $15 chocolates but here you are— gifting me an 18k diamond necklace!”

Mark giggles, pulling out the necklace from it’s box. 

“Turn around,” he murmurs. You automatically turn around, pulling your hair to one side so he could easily put the necklace on you. 

He swiftly place the pretty necklace around your neck, pinning it. You turn around to face him. 

“Pretty?” you ask him, tilting your head a little. 

“Gorgeous,” he responds, a smirk playing on his lips.

Just as you were about to reply, you heard a knock on your door. Your eyebrows scrunch in confusion, who would come over at this timing?

Mark frowns, “did you invite someone?”

You shook your head, “No, stay here, I’ll go see who it is.”

You stood up, walking to your door, checking the peephole, finding out who is on the other side of the door. You let out a soft gasp when you saw Donghyuck standing behind the door. 

You quickly kick Mark’s shoes under the cabinet at the front door then running over to your boyfriend. 

“Who—”

You grabbed Mark’s arms, pulling him up. “Fuck, it’s Haechan,”

He let you pull him into your bedroom with furrowed eyebrows, “why is he here?”

You shake your head, pushing Mark into your walk-in wardrobe, “I have no idea. Stay here, I’ll try to distract him, okay?”

You didn’t even let him answer, already rushing out, making sure to close your bedroom door. 

When you opened the door, Haechan immediately walked in, whining on how you were taking forever to answer the door. 

It has been 15 minutes and Haechan still hasn’t left and Mark was growing tired and sweaty in your wardrobe.

Baby Mark: is he still there

You: yeah

Baby Mark: fuuuck

Baby Mark: tell him to leave

Baby Mark: it’s so hot in here :(

You: I’m trying!! He just won’t leave

You: are you okay in there

Baby Mark: no

You: fine just get out of the wardrobe and stay in my room

You: sorry

You: make sure u lock the door and don’t make too much noise

Baby Mark: okay

+Day 101 2:34AM

You let out a heavy sigh when Donghyuck finally left. Closing your eyes tightly, you let out another heavy breath. You could finally sit down and rest. 

Oh shit— Mark!

You ambled towards your bedroom, twisting it open, realising it wasn’t locked. 

This little shit. 

When you walked in your bedroom, you were met with your boyfriend laying on your bed, hugging one of your pillows, asleep. Your heart warmed at the sight, you felt bad making him wait for hours when it was your 100th day as a couple. 

Walking closer, you climbed in next to him. Your hands caressed his hair and his pretty face. 

“I’m sorry for making you wait for so long,” you whisper. 

You didn’t know what made you so emotional, but you couldn’t help but tear up. 

You really didn’t know why. Maybe because he had gone out of his way just to see you. And maybe because he had to wait for hours just for you and in the end both of you couldn’t celebrate the special day. 

“You’re the best boyfriend I could ever ask for—” you choked a sob, a hand going up to cover your mouth. 

Taking a deep breath, you continue, “You do so much for me and I’m always messing up.”

For once, you were thankful that your boyfriend was a heavy sleeper. 

“I love you, Mark,” you mumble, your eyes scanning his face, appreciating everything about him. “Remember that.”

After wiping your dried tears, you slide next to him, removing the pillow that was between you two. Snuggling right into his arms, your head resting on his chest while his cheek was pressed on the crown of your head. 

“I love you,” you whisper one last time before falling into a deep slumber. 

+Day 124 7:28PM

The dome was filled with loud voices, everyone was holding their green NCT lightsticks. You felt out of place, especially when you didn’t have any kind of lightstick or poster on you. 

You nervously took a seat on your assigned seat, waiting for your boyfriend to come out. 

NCT was holding a concert after a while and Taeyong had given you free tickets to support them. 

Mark had actually gotten hold of an extra ticket for you and was about to surprise you but found out that his members had already invited you. He was a little bummed out about it but shrugged it off. 

The light dimmed and the crowd started cheering. The girls around you started squealing in excitement. 

Soon, the boys started performing. When your boyfriend’s face was on the screen, you couldn’t help but grin at his cute face. 

The fans next to you would squeal and gush at how adorable your boyfriend is. You were proud that he was your boyfriend, sadly you couldn’t show him off. 

At the end of the concert, the boys lined up in the middle of the huge stage. They started thanking the fans for coming and supporting them. 

“But I think Mark is really happy today,” Jaehyun suddenly blurted out, turning to face Mark. 

The camera started zooming in to your boyfriend’s face. 

Mark’s eyes widen , confused, “what, why? Why?”

“Because his girlfriend is here!” Jaehyun screams into the mic as the boys let out a string of weird noises. 

Mark froze on the spot as everyone went crazy over the statement. 

“Wha—”

“Okay, we will end this concert here! Thank you everyone for coming!”

Before everyone was even ready to leave, you had already run to meet your boyfriend back stage. 

Fuck, did Jaehyun actually say that?

You’re met with the sweaty boys laughing in the dressing room. 

“What the fuck was that?” you ask breathlessly as you scan each of the boys facial expression. 

“Uh oh, his girlfriend is here,” joked Johnny, staring at you with amusement. 

Mark turned to stare at the boys, “you guys knew?!”

“You guys weren’t very discreet.”

You were already standing next to your boyfriend, “how did you guys know?”

“You really think we won’t see the both of you holding hands in a public place?” scoffs Doyoung. 

Taeyong shrugs, “Mark never brings girls to the recording room.”

Your face turned red at Taeyong’s comment as Mark groans at his words. 

“And you think I wouldn’t see you guys holding hands under the blanket? Jesus,” sighs Jaehyun, rolling his eyes. 

“Fuck you,” Mark replies while Jaehyun flashes the middle finger to his friend. 

“Also, you talk way too loud y/n,” Taeil says, Taeyong immediately agreeing with him. 

“Or maybe the walls are too thin?” Taeyong questions. 

“Oh my god,” you whisper, embarrassed. “So, you guys heard everything?”

“Wish we didn’t,” shrugs Johnny. 

Mark had quietly reached for your hand, a habit he had whenever he’s nervous. 

“Also, I knew Mark was at your place, that’s why I came over,” laughs Haechan. 

You had let go of Mark’s hands to stomp over to the boy, hitting his back. “Lee Donhyuck! Did you know how long he had to wait in my wardrobe?!”

Haechan rolls his eyes, “oh please, you let him out because he was sweating.”

You let out a loud gasp, “you knew that too?!”

“Which idiot would put their password as 0000?”

“You went through my phone?!” you raised your voice, hitting the boy on the back once more. 

With furrowed eyebrows you frown and let out a sigh, “now what? Everyone knows Mark has a girlfriend,”

“I checked Twitter,” Jungwoo says, “some weren’t very happy but there are many who are supportive,”

Your frown deepens. You knew this would happen. It would affect Mark’s career badly; that was the main reason the both of you kept your relationship a secret. 

You turn to look at your boyfriend who was looking incredibly stressed right now. 

“Don’t worry y/n,” assures Johnny, you turn to look at him. “Mark is one of the most experienced and hardworking people in SM, I’m sure they’ll let you both off,”

You had your arms crossed defensively, “are you okay with this, Mark?”

You were worried for your boyfriend. 

You knew how much being on stage meant to him. He would do anything to continue performing. 

“I…I think so?” he says after a minute of pure silence. 

You pout slightly at his words. 

“I just wanna rest right now, I’m tired.”

The boys quickly agree with the younger. Everyone started standing up, grabbing their bags, leaving the room. 

You stayed with your boyfriend, accompanying him.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” you ask him again. 

He kept letting out sad sighs and it was concerning you. 

“Honestly,” he started, “I don’t know,” he turns to look at you. 

The palm of your hands automatically going up to stroke his back, attempting to comfort him. 

“I just… I just wanna be with you right now,”

You lean closer to him. “Okay.”

“Whatever it is,” he says, “we will go through it together.”

[creativerogues]

An Amateur DM’s Worldbuilding Thoughts...

I should write my own sea shanties for my nautical campaigns.

There should be a stage in the tavern in case the Bard wants to perform.

I wish I knew more about food so I could write better tavern menus.

A lot of NPCs are probably farmers; potato farmers, fruit farmers, cattle farmers etc.

I should include more diverse NPCs.

Natural disasters can be the basis for an adventure, what’s causing the tsunamis on the coast, what’s making volcanoes erupt and earthquakes happen.

I should use weather and environments to evoke emotions and imagery way more.

Asian hair tends to be thick and straight, whereas European hair tends to be thinner and can be wavy, and African hair tends to be coarse and have very tight curls.

Historical accounts suggest that some women tried to bleach their hair with lemon juice or darken it with indigo or even mud to fit the current trends, so maybe the players meet a lighter haired woman who smells faintly of lemons!

A wizard’s spellbook probably has stains on its parchment from various foods and drinks.

A mute NPC would be a fun way to test myself and see if I can express concepts and ideas to the Party without just saying them.

“Common” often refers to English, but what about different dialects?

I should come up with more fantasy slang and insults.

Some regional fantasy greetings would be a cool way to immerse the Players in the world, such as “Be Pleasured.” meaning “Hello!”.

I should expand on the cosmology of the material plane, what constellations are in the sky, can the Players see other planets if they look up, how many moons does the world have?

The Party, when they're famous enough, probably have random people wanting to speak with them or get their autograph, which would be a great way to break up any monotony caused by shopping montages or downtime activities.

In a busy urban city, there’s probably a lot of street food and street performers.

In a big city, there’s probably a lot of horses and carriages passing through, so the Party probably aren’t walking in the middle of the road unless the road is too small for that sort of thing.

A country is probably broken up into provinces, counties or territories, and cities are probably broken up into districts.

What’s the longest road or trading route in the world? And why is it so popular?

What’s the longest river or mountain range in the world? Where’s the highest mountain located?

Where are the fault lines in the world? Would there be lot’s of mountains or lots of earthquakes there?

Which countries have the best archers or soldiers or cavalry? Which country has the best naval fleet?

If giant animals and dire beasts (like dire wolfs and giant owls) exist, would people try to use them like cavalry, with people flying giant owls carrying power-kegs so they could drop bombs on the bad guys, or people riding armoured dire beasts into battle...

Certain regions probably have certain cuisines, which would be reflected in their tavern menus.

Different cultures have different views on music, as well as different superstitions and different folk tales.

Different cultures have different architecture, from wood or stone buildings to tents to maybe no “Buildings” at all!

Before a person becomes an adventurer, they were most likely a farmer or labourer of some kind.

Wizards and bards would be great translators.

What does the flag or banner of each country look like, or do certain parts of the country have their own heraldry or coat of arms?

People from the Underdark probably eat a lot of fungus, plants and bugs, so most probably don’t even know what “Meat” is!

There’s lot of downtime entertainment that could engage the Party, from underground fight clubs to libraries to arenas and theatres.

Each district or province of an area probably has their own landmarks, from rivers and castles to statues and other more fantastical landmarks like famous magic shops.

Festivals, Fairs and Concerts are always a fun way to introduce players to a new culture or city. Perhaps it's a noble ball that's invite only, or perhaps the festival doesn't even take place on this plane of existence!

Most birds don’t react to super spicy food (like chilli peppers) like humans do, so most bird-like D&D Races (like Kenku and Aarakocra) might absolutely love (or hate) spicy food!

Sunlight entering water can travel about 3,000 feet under the right conditions, but there is rarely any significant light beyond about 600 feet, meaning you could potentially have underwater combat take place in complete and utter darkness!

Does my world have fishing laws? Like do they care about fish population enough to have laws to help prevent over-fishing?

A party member hears footsteps and whispers from outside their room, only to open their door and find another patron of the inn trying to sneak to their room without waking anyone up.

Fantasy street food can be pretty much anything! From chocolate to meat on skewers to noodles or even sausages stuffed and grilled quickly right in front of the Players as they walk through the streets!

It’s definitely a strength check to try and break out of bonds, but it’s a dexterity check to wiggle yourself out of handcuffs or bindings, remember that!

 Hobo Symbols (an actual thing created by wandering adventurers and nomads) could make for a great way to communicate places of interest to a Party of New Adventurers.

I should use Electrum Pieces more often.

Characters with more siblings means more fun and relevant NPCs you could put in interesting positions. For example, imagine the brother or sister of a Party Member working for the opposing side during a war....

The BBEG could have multiple enemies or allies in high and low places, meaning potential new allies and enemies for the Party to make.

If you want your Players to think you’re a galaxy brain DM, drip feed info little by little into parts of the campaign from the very start, both in and out of combat, that way when the big reveal comes along, the Players think you’re a big-brained master of plot and storytelling!

Some taverns could have darkened or tinted windows, since that'll make every drunkard inside think it's still early in the night.

If a band of bards is playing in a tavern, the Party can probably hear the noises from outside.

More taverns should have a dance-floor!

There should be more families in taverns and inns, since most taverns and inns are similar to hotels or restaurants.

The walls and ceilings of a tavern could be filled with all sorts of things: Light fixtures, chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, wooden beams supporting the walls. Or maybe something more artistic: Paintings, mounted animal heads, tapestries, curtains hanging above windows and doors, just to give a few examples...

[the-void-writes]

Jason and Henry Snippet

For @bloodlessheirbyjacques because I need to restore balance. We’re lucky I write a lot of couple snippets anyway 🤣 No mad cats here

Slightly spicy times here, just the preamble for it. They’re more tender than anything.

(I’m like sleep-deprived and recovering from the flu so if I posted this already I’m so sorry)

————————————————————

The door opened, and Jason dreaded another impromptu meeting with Gabe and his idiotic plan to start a space program. Even Will knew it was a terrible idea. Putting that madman into space, when it was hard enough to control him on Earth, was a recipe for disaster. Some days, Jason truly wondered if Gabe’s mind was just gone. His thought process was a mystery, and if Jason wasn’t careful, someone would get hurt because of it.

“Honey?”

Jason looked up, the heaviness in his chest disappearing at the sound of Henry’s voice as he stepped inside the office.

“How’s it going?”

“I’m just finishing up here. These blueprints need to get to the engineers.”

Henry nodded. “I can deliver them for you, if you want.”

Jason clicked the mouse of his computer. “Actually, I just sent them.”

“Oh, cool… So you’re done?”

“Yes, finally. I’m so sorry for missing dinner.”

“Hey, it’s okay. I just got off of work, so I missed it, too.”

“Did the children eat already?”

“Yep, Colin made them something.”

Jason smiled. They were so lucky to have an aspiring chef among their patients.

“How about Will?”

“All taken care of. He’s sleeping in the dorms with the kids.”

“Perfect, thank you.”

Henry walked over and took his hand. “Come on, let’s get you upstairs.”

The trip up was surprisingly peaceful. Usually, the halls were full of night-shift workers or people just coming back from tests, but tonight, the place seemed empty. As soon as they entered their room, the phone rang. Jason let out a groan that Henry struggled not to laugh at as he hit the speaker button.

“Hello?”

“Henry?” Rio sounded out of breath. “Is Jason there, too?”

“Right here.”

“I’m so sorry to do this to you guys. Gabe wants us all to stand by for his broadcast.”

Jason closed his eyes. “What is it for?”

“Orientation for the new hires. He thinks it’ll boost company loyalty if we all watch it.”

“Pompous bastard,” Jason muttered. “Thanks for letting us know.”

“Yeah, of course. Avery and I made it to the dorms so we can look after the kids.”

That got Jason to smile. “Thank you, Rio. I appreciate it.”

“See you in a bit.”

Jason hung up the phone as Henry turned on the TV. The podium was still being set up, with soft music playing in the background. Henry and Jason sat together on the couch.

“We should make popcorn,” Henry said, “and throw it at him whenever he says something stupid.”

“There’d be none left to eat.”

Henry laughed. “Right.”

“Honestly, we should just put him on mute.”

“… Can we?”

Jason looked perplexed. Henry pointed at the screen.

“I mean, it’s just for the new hires, right? We can just tune him out and have some food.”

“Henry… You’re a genius.”

They muted the TV and turned on their own stereo. Henry knew just what to play: Celestial Hearts, Jason’s favorite album. It always made him laugh when Henry sang along, using whatever was in his hand as a microphone. They cooked up some food and danced around in the kitchen. Miscellaneous employees appeared on the camera feed, and the duo had a blast giving them fake voices.

“Is this the meeting place for Old Farts Anonymous?” That was Henry’s voice for a particular soldier who couldn’t decide which side of the stage he should be on.

“Yes, my good sir.” Jason’s voice for a plastic-looking scientist. “Take a seat for our lecture on prune juice.”

Henry laughed. “Thank you, sir. Will there be gin rummy afterwards?”

“Gin rummy? Is this some sick joke? We play canasta, like human beings!”

“Jay—” Henry choked. “You’re killing me.”

Finally, Gabe appeared on screen. Jason immediately began his best impression of him.

“Esteemed members of our humble facility, I have come to tell you that I’m actually a hologram. The real Vesely has been dead for three decades, and if you can find my severed head in the next twenty-four hours, you shall have full ownership of my greatest creation: the plastic bin I drilled into the copy machine—”

They both lost their composure, giggling into each other’s shoulders. For a few wonderful minutes, their work didn’t exist. This was all there was: late night dinner and jokes. If that was what they did for the rest of their lives, they wouldn’t have minded one bit.

While Vesely brought some scared-looking interns onto the stage, Henry cleaned up the dishes. Even in small moments like this, Jason was thrilled to be in love with him. He walked up and kissed Henry’s cheek.

“Thank you, love.”

“Thank you.”

Jason chuckled. “For what?”

“Being here with me. I’m so glad I met you.”

“Henry—”

“I’m serious. You’re my best friend, and the only person I’d ever want to spend the rest of my life with. I couldn’t even bring myself to look at anyone else when I thought you were dead.”

Jason grew somber, and Henry swiftly grabbed his hands.

“Sorry, that wasn’t to insult you. I’m happy that you found comfort in Rio, even if it didn’t last. I know that you still loved me.”

“You do?”

“Absolutely, and I still loved you, too. That’s my point. After everything this company has done to us, it’s only made my feelings for you stronger. You’re the one, I’m sure of it.”

“… Henry.”

He brought Jason in for a kiss, and then another one, and another. Henry grabbed the counter to steady himself. Jason pulled away breathlessly.

“May I show you just how much I love you?”

Henry grinned. “During our boss’ broadcast? How scandalous, Mister Prescott.”

Jason flushed at the name. “That’s how confident you are?”

“In us? Definitely.”

“Good, so am I.” He kissed him again. “Follow me, please.”

“Right,” Henry said, “I can’t focus if that asshole’s face is in the background.”

Jason laughed and pulled him into the bedroom. Henry carefully removed his partner’s prosthesis and suspension sock. He had memorized the whole process with ease, and Jason’s heart melted each time he showed it. They had come so far just to get here, and now it was time to enjoy it. Jason took Henry’s glasses and put them aside so he could properly kiss him. Hands ran through each other’s hair, trailing down to shirt collars and hems.

Henry couldn’t help himself as he fluttered his fingers across Jason’s back. His laughter made his eyes sparkle.

“Henry!”

“Sorry, honey.”

“Are you?”

Henry grinned. “No, not really.”

Jason crossed his arms. “You’re cruel, Prescott.”

“Aww, Jay.”

He kissed Jason’s neck, and a smile fought its way onto his face.

“Okay, I forgive you.”

“Thanks. I’ll make it up to you.”

As he continued to kiss at his neck, Jason hummed in bliss. He undid the buttons on Henry’s shirt, caressing the soft skin underneath.

“Have I told you how beautiful you are?”

Henry chuckled. “Yeah, but I still don’t know why.”

Jason stopped, appalled by what he just said. “You— You—”

He tried to stand, forgetting that his prosthesis was placed aside. Henry caught him and helped him up.

“Jay, what—”

“Look into the mirror, please.”

Henry glanced over at the standing mirror beside their dresser. Jason held him close, lovingly tracing the outline of his body.

“You are gorgeous,” he whispered. “Every dip, every curve, it’s pure art.”

The delicateness of his touch, the sincerity of his voice… He knew how to make someone feel special. Henry leaned his head on Jason’s shoulder.

“You’re sure you don’t want someone strong, like Rio?”

Jason wheezed. “Yes, I’m sure.”

“But—”

“This is you, Henry. These shapes are yours, and I adore them, just as I adore you.”

He wiped the tears from Henry’s cheeks. Slowly, Jason helped him remove his shirt.

“Besides,” he said, “you’re actually stronger than Rio.”

Henry blinked. “What?”

“You know those ion lasers aren’t meant to be carried, right? That’s why Rio puts them on carts.”

He smiled sheepishly. “Oh, I didn’t know.”

Jason chuckled. “It’s okay. I thought it was cool.”

“You did?”

“Well, I don’t want you doing it anymore, but it was amazing.”

Henry winked. “Did I look good?”

“You always look good to me—” He grinned. “But in that moment, you were the hottest soldier there.”

That was all it took for Henry’s face to turn red. Jason peeked outside the room while he recovered.

“He’s still going,” he said, shaking his head.

Henry grabbed his hand. “Good, I don’t want him calling us for a good while.”

He led Jason back onto the bed and helped him take off his sweater. His skin wasn’t as warm as Henry’s, but it still felt nice and smooth. Tenderly, he kissed along Jason’s shoulders and down his chest. Jason cupped his face and brought him back up.

“I love you.”

Henry smiled. “I love you too… my sweet angel.”

[amjustagirl]

Notes: Title stolen from Song Of The Soul XXII by Khalil Gibran.

Companion piece: In the absence of sound (she hears her heart break)

Wrote this indulgent piece angst and fluff to reset after the very angsty The Astrophile (which took a lot of my own heart). As always, comments are gladly appreciated <3

Summary: Yaku bursts into her life like a hurricane, even whilst Akaashi lingers on like the memory of a summer breeze.

Pairings: Yaku x reader, Akaashi x reader

She runs into Yaku at the New Year’s Party the Japanese embassy in Moscow throws for expatriates (a fancy term to describe birds who’ve flown the coop after finding it unbearably small). He’s in the middle of chattering with a bemused waiter in very broken Russian about the spread when he explodes into a delighted laugh, so loud that she startles and spills her drink all over his shoes.

Pandemonium ensues – the restaurant staff scatter to fetch napkins and she’s trying to pick up the pieces of her broken glass, stammering out apologies (because dear god, her boss is going to have her head for upsetting a guest – especially one so prominent as Yaku Morisuke, the only Japanese volleyball player who broke into the Russian professional league), when his laugh cuts through the noise.

‘This was my favourite pair of shoes’ he tells her when he stops laughing, and she’s about to launch into a litany of apologies when he grins at her cheekily – ‘But you can make it up to me by buying me dinner instead’.

‘Now?’ she gapes at him in shock. ‘I can’t, I’m working’.

‘Whenever’, he answers, stealing her phone from her hands. ‘Look – here’s my number. Call me when you can’.

She’s left in shock, watching him in silence as he bounces off to join another conversation.

She texts him that night (because a deal is a deal, and she always pays her debts) and they arrange to meet the next day at a dumpling place he recommends.

She’s there five minutes early, and he bursts into the restaurant five minutes late, apologizing whilst complaining about goddamned Russian traffic. He orders for the both of them in such an excruciatingly terrible Russian accent that she winces, but he must have been here before because the waiter takes their order without batting an eye. The owner, a wizened old lady with apples in her cheeks swings by to smack kisses on his cheeks noisily.

‘It’s a little strange, but it’s the closest thing I can find to home’, he tells her when the waiter presents them with their dumplings with a flourish. It is indeed strange – the dumpling skin is thicker and doughier than she’s used to with Japanese  gyozas, stuffed with varying fillings of beef and pork and cheese, but his eyes are bright when she takes her first bite and gives a hum of appreciation because it is as he says, strange but good.

There is indeed an echo of home in her heart but she clamps it down firmly.

‘It’s good right?’ he asks and she nods mutely, mouth full of dumplings. He talks her ear away, telling her about his time in the Russian league, how he’s just made the first team this week. She learns he can’t remember a time when he doesn’t know the feel of a volleyball in his hands, and how he broke his mother’s heart when he chose to train outside of Japan, six thousand, four hundred and forty-eight miles away from home.  

He asks her why she’s in Moscow. She tells him she’s studied Russian as a child – her father, a math professor, believed it necessary for her and her sister to learn Russian, and while she’s never quite had a head for numbers, she takes to languages like a fish to water – and since she was looking for a new adventure, Moscow seemed like a good fit.

(She does not tell him she’s actually on the run from her broken heart)

‘You can teach me Russian then’, his words presumptuous, but there’s mirth and warmth flickering in his eyes that makes her hesitate to tell him off.

‘Maybe’, she responds with a shrug, standing up to pay the bill. To her surprise he lets her pay without a fight - very unlike Akaashi, who had only agreed grudgingly to allow her to split the bill on their first date.

‘It’s my turn to pay when we go out next time’, he tells her when they stand outside the restaurant about to part.

‘Will there be a next time?’ she asks him archly, and he pouts at her with puppy-dog eyes. He texts her less than five minutes after he takes his leave, inviting her to an ice skating rink.

To neither of their surprise, there is indeed, a next time, and a next time after that.

Yaku has an extremely sweet tooth, unlike Akaashi who prefers the bitterness of black coffee.

She tells him to drop in on her apartment after training (only if he’s up to it of course, she’s learnt that lesson from Akaashi after all). He does so without complaint, and she’s removing the pie from the oven when he lets himself in with the key he sweet-talked out of her.

‘Tadaima’, he calls cheerily, pressing a kiss to her cheek as he drops his gloves on the kitchen table. ‘Is that for me?’ he asks, gaping bug-eyed at the steaming pie in her hands.    

‘I don’t see anyone else it could be for’, she teases, setting the pie down on the table, cutting him a slice. The fruit seller at the corner of her street had a sale on apples, and she remembers Yaku telling her that he used to buy apple pie on the way to school every week, but would always end up giving it up to Kenma as a bribe to train harder during practice and finish running his laps.

He takes a bite and moans loudly even though he burns his tongue – it’s so good, a flaky, buttery crust hiding a jammy filling of caramelized apple and browned butter. It tastes like home in the fall when the leaves turn golden and red, when his mother brings home apples on discount from the store and he and his little brothers fight over the apples pastries his grandmother makes.

‘I love you’, he declares firmly, as he reaches for a second helping, and he pretends not to notice when she shrinks back and does not respond.

Yaku revels in public displays of affection - unlike Akaashi, who used to shy away from it.

‘I like your hair. Have you always kept it short?’ He asks her one day when they’re feeding ducks in the park near his house.

She laughs at him as he quacks exaggeratedly back at a very greedy duck chasing the bread in his hand and answers without thinking - ‘no, I cut it before I left Japan because I hear it’s what break-ups make you do’. Then she freezes, because this is the first time she’s ever alluded to Keiji to him – it’s a part of her life that she’d very much like to bury in a deep, dark vault and throw the key away.

But the expression on his face is very much like a cat eyeing a rat it’d like very much to trap and she’s right, he’s relentless (she should’ve known that, could’ve seen that from just watching one of his matches). As he walks her home, she finds herself telling him about Keiji - how his lack of affection and inability to step away from his job created a silence so still she heard her heart break.

When she finishes what she self-deprecatingly terms her tale of woe, he pulls her to a stop, ignoring the indignant protests of the people walking behind them. ‘What on earth, Mori’, she squawks, but he ignores her too, choosing instead to wind his hands into the ends of her scarf and tug her face to face with him. She does not want to look at him, does not want to see pity in his eyes – but there is none of that, only a quiet tenderness that warms her to her core.

‘I love you’, he tells her softly, and it’s a wonder she can hear every inflection of his voice through the rush of blood to her ears. ‘I will continue saying it as many times as you need, as loudly as I can until your heart is no longer broken and the silence is gone’.

Then, without an ounce of shame, he kisses her right in the middle of the busy street, completely oblivious to the glares of the people who pass them by.

Yaku is quick to anger, whereas Akaashi is the calm before the storm.

She’s told him again and again not to send her flowers – she swears she’s developed an allergy to them, the memory of Keiji sending her flowers every Friday even after they broke up sends bile up her throat (pink camellias for longing, violets for devotion, forget-me-nots for obvious reasons) – but Yaku doesn’t listen and sends her a bouquet of red roses for her birthday (for love).

So she screams at him when he pops by her flat after training –  because why on earth doesn’t he just listen to her, he knows she hates flowers, what on earth would possess him to send her flowers for her birthday, and he screams back that he does, damn it - but he’s not Keiji, he’s spent their entire time together trying to prove that, why can’t she just trust him for once.

Finally, he storms out shouting that he’ll come back when she’s calmed down, when she’s finally ready to forgive him for whatever Keiji has done – even though for the last goddamned time, he’s not bloody Keiji and she sinks to the floor, wondering why she’s allowed the ghost of Keiji to continue haunting her, six thousand, four hundred and forty-eight miles away from home.  

He’s right - it isn’t fair to him for her to keep comparing him to Keiji, to keep watching and waiting for him to slip up, not when he’s poured all his love and affection into her – into them . He’s not Keiji, never has been and never will be, and she wonders if this is the point his patience and kindness and love finally runs out.

But she’s not going to let another man she loves walk out of her life without a fight.

So she throws on her coat and climbs down the stairs, determined to march to Yaku’s apartment just a couple of streets away when she slams into him head-first at the corner of her street. ‘I’m sorry’ they both chorus immediately, and despite themselves, they break into a laugh.

‘I’m sorry for not listening’, he says, but she shakes her head, determined to say her piece. ‘You're right, it's my fault for not letting Keiji go. I should have figured this out earlier, but I know you’re not Keiji, you never have been, and I trust you never will be’.

And to drive the point home, thanking her lucky stars he’s not tall, she pulls him close by his collar and presses her lips to his. ‘I love you’, she whispers, when they finally come up for air. He looks at her like she just hung the stars up in the sky.

The next day, she presents him with a literal bushel of red roses, and he laughs at that - loud and clear and bright.

(The sound makes her heart feel whole again)

‘Why don’t you move with me’, Yaku asks her matter of factly through a mouthful of rice, at the end of her tirade about her awful landlord who just tried to stiff her by doubling her rent in less than a year with a month’s notice.

She stills, hand frozen halfway to her mouth. He does not swallow for fear of choking the mix of uncertainty and hope rising in his throat - because sometimes even though he promises to wait for her as long as she needs, he wonders if she’ll ever forget that he’s not her bloody ex – until he senses her relaxing her tense shoulders, and decides to close in for the kill.

‘Come on’, he wheedles. ‘We could even adopt a kitten so you won’t be lonely when I’m away for work’, and he laughs fondly when her face lights up. There we go.

‘You drive a hard bargain, but alright’, she pretends to grouse, but she laughs along with him when he triumphantly presses his lips to her cheek, dodging her swats when she scolds him for leaving grains of rice on her face.

They adopt a black kitten from the shelter and they name him ‘Kuroo’.

Much like its namesake, their cat is a piece of shit and contrary as hell. He doubles over in laughter when he comes home one day to find her chasing Kuroo (the cat, not the middle blocker) around the house, furniture upended everywhere. He later understands through her huffs that she meant to give him a bath.

He sends endless pictures of Kuroo (again, the cat and not the middle blocker) to the Nekoma groupchat and they all fall head over heels in love. Kai sends him advice on how to grow catnip in an apartment. Fukunaga asks to video call the cat more than he texts him. Shibayama and Inouka ship a box of clothes for the cat because they’re worried it won’t survive the Russian winter. The worst offenders are Kenma who sets up social media accounts for it, and bloody international supermodel Lev who pours oil on flames by tagging the damn cat on his own posts. Yaku is alarmed to wake up one day and find that his cat is more popular than him.

Well, all of them save for its namesake, who threatens to retaliate by naming his dog ‘Yaku’.

He gets drafted onto the National Team, and he’s elated until he realizes that he’ll have to spend months away from her.

‘It’s fine’, she reassures him. ‘Kuroo will keep me company while you’re back home’. The little demon licks its ass and looks intolerably smug when he shoots a glare at it behind her back, because he knows damn well the cat is going to take advantage of his absence to take over his side of the bed.

He extracts a promise from her to call him every day (screw the time difference, seriously) and he in turn promises to send her tickets to watch him play. Then he packs his bags and flies back to Tokyo.

It’s nostalgic being back in his childhood home. The posters from his teenage years are still on his bedroom walls (gods – he was such a horny bastard back then), and his mother smothers him with his favourite foods and far too much attention. But he lays awake at night thinking of their little apartment filled with the smell of her baking and the sound of her singing and realizes he misses  Kuroo - again, the cat, not the middle blocker, who’d miss him - despite its despicable way of stalking him while he takes a shit and most of all - he misses  her.

He figures he has it bad when he starts turning down his grandmother’s apple pastries because they remind him too painfully of the apple pies she makes after either of them have had a hard day at work, and wonders when he started thinking of Moscow and the little apartment he shares with her as  home.

But he soldiers on because playing for Japan is his dream (and has been, ever since he first learnt the thrill of keeping the ball in flight with his hands), and gets by on video calls and texts and pictures of Kuroo and the promise of dumplings and apple pies when he comes home.

He makes the mistake of mentioning that he has a girlfriend in Miya Atsumu’s earshot after practice one day.

‘You have a girlfriend?’ the piss-haired setter asks in disbelief. ‘You? Mr bossy - under five foot five – libero-chan managed to land himself a girl that’s willing to tolerate him?’

‘Just because you have an issue keeping girls from running away from you doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t find girlfriends’, Sakusa interjects flatly, face firmly masked up, trusty bottle of sanitizer pointed in Atsumu’s direction.

Yaku is about to claw Atsumu’s eyes out when Hinata prances by and asks to see a picture of said girlfriend. Growling, he whips out his phone, and is mollified when the rest of the team crowds around and pronounces her to be very pretty. Everyone – except Atsumu, who sulks in a corner, sneering that he could do better (no he can’t - he really can’t get a girl to save his life), and Bokuto, who corners him later when he’s about to leave.

‘She used to date Akaashi, you know?’ Bokuto tells him solemnly, a marked departure from his usual jovial self. ‘They broke up on a pretty bad note’.

Yaku does not in fact know, because she’s never mentioned her ex-boyfriend’s last name, always opting to refer to him as ‘Keiji’, a fairly popular name for guys their age. ‘Oh?’ he replies, and tries his best to sound encouraging and not derisive or threatening or whatever it is that Atsumu has accused him of over the past few weeks of training.

‘Yeah. She’s a nice girl, I met her once or twice, but between you and me, I don’t think Akaashi is really over her’.

Too bad for him, he wants to say but doesn’t, because despite whatever Atsumu might say about him, he’s tactful, thank you very much, and knows it’s probably not the best idea to badmouth his teammate’s best friend to his face, especially a teammate he likes as much as Bokuto. Instead, he stuffs his shoes in his bag, shrugging and grunting noncommittally before heading off.

He doesn’t mention this to her during their nightly video calls. He tells himself it’s because he doesn’t want them to have to talk about him being an old acquaintance with her idiot ex over a call, their time together is too precious to be tainted by any mention of him. But there’s a part of him that wonders if it’s because he’s afraid that she’ll bump into Akaashi when she’s back in Japan and he might convince her to let him sweep her away. Akaashi is tall, dark and handsome, and most definitely smarter and more educated after all - a better match for her than him, an idiot that chases balls for a living.

But then her laughter chimes through his phone’s speakers as he pouts when she carries Kuroo to the screen to ask if he misses his daddy (the traitorous hell spawn refuses to even look at him) and it banishes the shadow of his doubts away. It’s as clear as day that she loves him, ball chasing idiot Yaku Morisuke.

He falls asleep to the sound of her humming his favourite songs.

She flies to Japan with their cat in tow a week before the Olympics and even though he’s moved into the Olympic dorms by then, he sneaks out to meet her for dinner as often as he can. Atsumu catches him once and grumbles something about  ‘hypocritical bossy know-it-alls’  - but shuts up when Yaku turns up for practice the next day and is too busy grinning ear to ear to yell at him for flubbing an easy receive as he usually does.

When he finally steps onto the court for his first match, it’s easy to get carried away, because the light bearing down on the court is brighter than any game he’s played in before, and the roar of the home crowd is so loud he swears the tremors in his feet are from the floor - but he doesn’t. Because there’s a girl in the VIP stands shouting his name, and maybe it’s childish of him, but he has something to prove - he wants to make her proud.

And he does, because they win.

The entire team is in the locker room when he hears the clatter of familiar footsteps, then a shrieked ‘Mori’ before she tackles him into a bone-crushing hug. Atsumu barks at her ‘not to break our dear libero-chan’, but neither of them pay him any mind - she doesn’t even care that he’s literally dripping in sweat and snot and tears - because they won, they won, they won  -

Then he looks up and sees Akaashi staring at them. Ah. The idiot ex-boyfriend has to ruin their moment.

Just as he’s wondering whether his fist should meet Akaashi’s eye or nose first, Bokuto swings by at the moment to distract her. She’s so excited at seeing a familiar face that she disengages herself from their hug and throws her arms around Bokuto instead. Yaku thinks that Bokuto is probably a lot smarter than most people give him credit for as Akaashi approaches him, his hand outstretched.

‘Take care of her’, Akaashi says with a bittersweet smile on his lips. ‘You’re a lucky man’.

He pauses briefly to glance at her - and gods she’s radiant even as she’s chattering away to Bokuto, her eyes sparkling, the light shining softly on her hair -  fuck, Atsumu’s right, he’s whipped - and tries to imagine a world where she slips through his hands. Suddenly, the twisted knot of spite in his chest unravels, and he can only feel the dregs of pity pooling in his belly. He's not blind, he can recognise the look of wistful regret on the taller man’s face, and he's certainly not deaf - he suspects that if he listens hard enough, he can hear Akaashi’s heart break.

I know, I’m lucky to have her - he wants to say but does not because that would mean twisting a knife in an already broken man. Instead, he steps forward to take Akaashi’s hand.

‘Always’, he promises firmly. Akaashi inclines his head in thanks.

Her heart is safe in my hands.

She returns to Russia first, and he follows a few weeks later, after a whirlwind of awards and press interviews.

He breaks into a run when he sees her standing at the arrivals gate with a bouquet of red roses and a cheeky grin on her face. ‘You’re rubbing it in at this point’, he pretends to pout, but rather spoils its effect when he swings her into his arms.

She cooks dumplings for dinner and there’s an apple pie waiting for him in the oven. His jaw drops in surprise when the dumplings taste exactly like his mother’s cooking. ‘I learnt it from your mum while you were at training, in case you already miss home’, she teases.

‘But with you, I am home’, he responds, his voice earnest and low. She flushes pink and blushes bright red when he carries her off to bed.

She is his home now, she and their cat in their little flat in Moscow bursting at its seams with apple pies and dumplings and  love .

‘I want this to be my forever’, he tells her later, laying his head in her lap. His heart skips a beat, waiting for her response.

‘So do I’, she finally replies, running her hands through his hair. Her heart hums quietly, finally in safe hands.

[1engele]

daybreak | sal fisher x fem!reader - 2. math

Previous | Next

[warnings: cursing, mention of smoking, mention of household abuse of a teenager]

"what a plot twist you were."

—

The next day, you'd wakened with dry lungs and an even drier mouth.

It was true that smoking was bad for you—but it hadn't been as horrible as you'd thought. You'd try it again, but you couldn't see yourself becoming addicted.

Your mother wasn't home, again. You were quick to understand that she worked longer shifts now and you wouldn't see her a whole lot.

Not like you cared. Michelle never really liked you all that well. You'd probably have been dumped on the street a long time ago had your father not legally obligated to pay child support.

You'd never known him. You weren't sure if you wanted to.

She doesn't use child support for your well-being. Probably uses it to continuously feed her crippling gambling addiction and buy more pointless flowers for the apartment.

You were nervous about today. You'd never been the new girl before—and you didn't know what to expect about these kids. You doubted they were as cool as people as Larry and Sal.

You showered and put on your boyfriend jeans—which had holes in the knees, but you couldn't bother to concern yourself whether or not that conflicted with the dress code or not— and your light grey hoodie. You added a flannel on top of that which was a little too big for you. Don't forget the white sneakers which you should probably replace.

You pocketed your flip phone and slung your bag over your shoulder. Stopping in front of the mirror, you passed a hand through your hair, decided it was adequate, and walked into the kitchen. You grabbed an apple—you never really found yourself hungry in the mornings. Besides, it wasn't like your mother was around to make sure you were fed—and left the apartment.

You locked the door behind you and shoved the keys into the front pocket of your bag afterward.

You met with Sal and Larry at the foot of the front steps of the apartments, like you'd agreed the day prior. You couldn't help but feel a little nervous as you opened the door and walked down the three stairs.

"Hey!" Larry greets you first.

"Hey, Larry," you smile weakly, as you're not fully awake yet, but it still means as much as a smile you'd give him when you were awake. You turn your eyes to Sal, waving shortly. You were momentarily startled when you realized he'd already been looking at you. "Hi, Sal."

"Hey," he says your name pleasantly. "How are you feeling?"

It was sweet that he was concerned about your well-being. "Alright. My lungs hurt."

He hooked a thumb around the strap of his bag and slid it up and down. His hands were pale and veiny. His nails were painted black and the polish was chipped in a few places. "Yeah. You did a shit-ton of coughing."

You open your mouth to reply, but before you can he meets your eyes. His head is inclined slightly downward, tilted a bit. He peers at you through the shadows of the mask. Lash-fringed, blue angel eyes bore through yours.

His eyes are opalescent. It's almost as if every time you look at them they were a different shade of blue.

You're sure your gazes hadn't connected for more than 3 seconds but the feeling that spawns inside of you from that short contact is slightly jarring. You don't necessarily comprehend what is stirring in your gut and you don't have time to because Larry's speaking breaks through your reverie.

He begins to talk about the chaos the first day of school would be. You quickly forget what had happened before.

But nothing had happened. It was nothing.

When you'd arrived at school after a little bit of walking, you, Larry, and Sal received your schedules together.

"Fuck me," you murmur, mostly to yourself, as you look down at your paper. "Math is first. This always happens to me."

Larry laughs loudly. "Yeah. That does suck. Mrs. Packerton looks like a walking corpse."

Sal jerks his head upward from his schedule. "That's fucked, Larry. She's an old lady."

"I don't care. Pretty sure she's secretly evil anyway."

Sal looks as though he's done reasoning with how harshly true Larry is most of the time. He shakes his head and looks back at you. "Well, if it's any consolation—I've also got math first. So, you know. We could go together," he pauses. "If you want."

You grin. "Yeah. Sure. At least I'll know someone there."

Larry flicks his eyes between the both of you before stopping them on Sal. "Hopefully you won't have Travis again," His eyebrows twitch. "He always has math first."

"Travis?" You echo curiously.

The two boys exchange a glance.

"Just a guy we know who-" Sal starts, hurrying to finish the sentence.

He was rushing so Larry wouldn't cut in and say something but it happened before he even had a chance. "He's a little fucker we know who gives Sal shit. 24/7. He makes my blood boil."

You furrow your eyebrows. "What- why? What's wrong with him?"

"Nothing," Sal replies. "Pretty sure he's really troubled. Not unlike the rest of us."

"Doesn't mean he should take it out on other people." Larry scoffs. "I know it bothers you, dude."

Sal doesn't reply—seems as though he's growing uncomfortable speaking about all of it.

"Hey, guys!"

A voice calls, having grown closer halfway through her sentence. You all turn towards it. A girl, leggy and taller than both you and Sal, with long locks and eyes greener than a spring clover. There was something homey in the way her chocolate brown hair brought warmth to her features.

A boy is beside her, with ginger hair with eyes a deep shade of the richest earth. His skin is pale and freckled. He carries himself with an air of bluntness and just a little bit awkwardly—his facial expression is very blank, you note.

"Hey, Ash. Shocked you aren't late," Larry grins.

"Ash" rolls her eyes at him and mirrors his expression. "You know Todd would never let that happen."

"No, I wouldn't." Todd deadpans.

Ash turns toward you after laughing enough to flash the white gleam of her teeth and a slight dimple in her cheek. "Hey!" She then says your name prettily and juts out her hand. "Nice to meet you. I'm Ashley."

You don't ask her how she knows your name. Instead, you sincerely smile, take her hand and shake it. "Nice to meet you," you return, and then turn toward Todd. "You, too."

Todd is already an interesting character. He doesn't smile but his expression is cordial. "Welcome to Nockfell."

Your smile widens.

"Have you guys gotten your schedules yet?" Sal speaks up after having been quiet for a moment. He must've been reading over his schedule to himself.

"Oh! Yeah," Ashley opened her other hand, the one she hadn't shaken your hand with, and unfolded a now very crumpled piece of paper. She passed summer green over the list. "I've got biology."

Todd didn't even look at his list. "I have history."

Sal looks at you. His gaze easily levels with yours. "Looks like it's just me and you then."

Your face feels hot. "Haha," you suddenly feel nervous. "You're right. Sit beside me, okay?"

His eyebrows jump—that much you can tell by the way his eyes move. Tucking a strand of loose blue hair behind his ear, he replies: "Will do."

His ears are double pierced.

The bell's shrill ringing floods the halls. You wince, and you and Sal's eye contact is broken. Before that happens, though, you see Larry grinning to himself.

Weirdo, you think lightheartedly.

Everyone parts after that. Larry and Ash walk away together. They must both have biology, you thought. Todd leaves by himself to his respective class and you and Sal head towards math.

For a moment, the silence is unbearable. You've never been alone with a boy. Well, you weren't alone, just not in a group with other people. The noiselessness begins to bother you so you fleetingly think of something to say and blurt the first thing that comes to mind.

"The piercings," you say suddenly.

He turns his head toward you. You look up to him before looking straight. "What?"

Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god, you thought. All I do is make a mockery of myself.

"I like them!" you add, hurriedly. "They're pierced twice. That's really cool. Looks good on you."

He laughs shyly. "Thanks. I like your shoes."

"My shoes?" You look down and laugh. They were so worn. "Why?" You continue to giggle. "They're falling apart at the seams, haha."

"That's the best kind of shoe," he retorts. He jerks his chin towards his sneakers, a muted shade of cornflower blue. "Look at mine. They barely fit and they're- like, super constricting. Also super ratty—but I can't seem to get rid of them."

You laugh with him. "They look better than mine, at least."

You're glad the ice was broken so fast. You liked him.

The class was boring and uninteresting as any math class would be. You do work. You glance over at Sal a few times throughout the class—not to cheat, just to see how he was fairing—and he was writing answers down with a quick response time and humble confidence within the drawl of his handwriting.

Alright, so he was smart. Not much of a surprise there. You could tell just how perceptive of a boy he was.

You stared hopelessly at an answer on your sheet you'd yet to fill out and twirled the pencil around in your fingers.

Suddenly, a pale hand with black nails has nimbly reached over and hastily circled what you assume was the correct answer to the question with his pencil. You look up to Sal in surprise and appreciation, who's already back in his seat as if nothing had happened.

You giggle before you can stop yourself when he raises a hand and raises a finger in front of the prosthetic's mouth, to tell you "shh."

Mrs. Packerton slowly pivots away from the chalkboard and passes her eyes over the class. You and Sal quickly break eye contact and look down on your papers. Sal's shoulders shake in your peripheral vision and you press your knuckles to your lips and force a bored expression on your paper.

Before the bell rang, you noticed a blond boy with tan skin and caramel eyes in front of you and Sal, occasionally shooting your friend bitter looks. It left a sour taste in your mouth, but you didn't mention it.

You find Ash and Larry before your next class. You think you've burst a blood vessel from how hard you'd laughed when you left the classroom.

"I thought I'd cracked a rib," Sal states over your laughter. as you walked up to Larry and Ashley.

Larry and Ashley exchange a look. Larry is the first to state the obvious. "What the hell happened to you two?"

You and Sal look toward each other and make eye contact. That's the last straw. You cover your mouth and try and hold it in.

"I-" Sal inhales. "It doesn't matter," he breathes out, an amused lilt in his tone. "How was class?"

"Bad," Larry and Ashley reply, in synchronization.

"Really?" You ask, surprised. "Biology can be fun."

"This biology isn't," Ashley sighs. "Not when you're just staring at cells and organisms for 20 minutes and then being expected to do work on it and understand what's happening."

"Well, math wasn't any better," you reply. "If it's any consolation—I don't think I got any answers right except for the one Sal did for me."

"I thought math was fine," Sal chimes in.

"That's because you're fucking Albert Einstein reincarnate," Larry squints. "Please have mercy on our mortal souls, Math God."

"Oh my god," Sal looks down. "Please don't make this into another nickname."

"I like it!" Ashley grins.

You know they're teasing but you can't find it in you to join in after he helped you out in class. Instead, you resign into silence and watch as countless students filter through the halls, bumping into each other as they pass and chatting with their peers.

Through the crowd, at the far end of the hall, you see him. The blond boy who'd been eying Sal in class. He was looking at him in the same way he had been then, with threat and resent shadowing his polished amber eyes.

It looks as if he's readying himself to approach.

You glance toward Larry, Sal, and Ashley. They seem occupied well enough, so you slip into the crowd and head towards who you've now pieced together to be: "Travis," you state, as you stand in front of him. "That's you, right?"

He regards you with distaste. "Do I know you?"

You suck your teeth. "No," you tell him your name. "I came to ask you something."

Despite himself and his embitterment, his eyes shine with hesitant curiosity. You take that as your answer. In spite of his stance over you and his general advantage of being bigger, you hold his gaze with blunt intent.

"What were you planning on doing when you walked over?"

"Why do you fucking care what I do?"

You shrug. "I don't know, Travis. I just think you need to learn how to pick your battles."

"Pick my fucking battles.. you know what? I think I will go over there-"

As he takes a step forward, you raise your hand and your palm roughly hits his chest, stopping him in his tracks—not because of strength (he's at an advantage, and he could easily walk right through) but because of the views he had, or rather—the views pushed upon him.

You saw the golden cross swinging off of his neck as soon as you approached. You'd also seen the gnarly black eye he wore on his face.

It was safe to assume he was being beaten at home and by a parent. And, most of the time.. when an adult is religious they will use several methods to further push it upon their child. Like sinner's guilt. And abuse.

If Travis' extremely religious guardian were to ever find out he'd harmed a girl, especially under the eyes of many others—it wouldn't turn out very well for him.

Yes, maybe you were being manipulative. But you were being manipulative for the good of both Sal and Travis.

"Step down," you advised. "This won't go very well."

You steadily meet his eyes. The stare between the two of you lasts for an even amount of time. Finally, he breaks that contact, jerks away with you, huffs, and walks his way around you and down the hall.

After that, you returned with the excuse of exchanging books from your locker, after Larry had asked you where you had wandered off to. No one seemed to have noticed Travis standing ominously at the end of the hall or your altercation with him.

At the end of school, you were beat. You said goodbye to both Ashley and Todd. Afterward, you, Larry, and Sal head for Addison's Apartments.

"You know, we don't have to go home yet," you say.

The boys turn to you curiously, as you kick a pebble as you walk along the side of the road. The beginnings of the sunset blossom in the sky—orange and fruity like tangerine jelly and amaranth pink like homemade strawberry frosting. like home. It fills you up inside and makes you feel so sweet.

"You guys wanna see a movie?"

Larry grins. "We don't have money."

"Who says we need money?"

When you'd arrived at the movie theater, all three of you had circled to the side exit. After a few moments of waiting suspiciously, an older couple exited through the doors. Larry caught the handle before it closed, and you brushed past them and quickly entered the theater. Before the doors closed, you heard them mumbling about "pesky children," or something.

Once you'd gotten in, you scanned each screening room and what movie the doors said it was playing.

You and Sal decided on a scary movie. Larry was not amused. Whatsoever. Apparently, horror is not his thing.

Before you entered, you frowned.

"We have no popcorn.."

In moments, Larry was reaching into a nearby trash can and pulling out an empty bucket that improbably had popcorn inside of it at some point in time. He then walked away, holding this empty popcorn bucket. It was so bizarre and you would have laughed had not been extremely confused.

"What.." Sal murmured, looking to you. "You think he'll come back?"

"I don't know where he would even be coming back from," You admitted.

It wasn't very long until he'd returned, with the empty bucket he'd taken from the trash now full of popcorn.

"Mandatory free refills," He said to your baffled face, pointing toward the poster on the wall above the trash can which read exactly what he'd just said. "You can never forget the hustle, kids."

"Oh my god," Sal mumbled and you barely heard him beneath Larry's laughter.

The movie was horribly made, and it still somehow scared the shit out of Larry. It may as well have been a comedy with how hard you'd laughed. Multiple other people in the theater had told you to shut Larry up but that was impossible when he was screaming every time a shadow would come on screen or the scene would change.

You, being between Larry and Sal, originally thought you'd had the best seat. You were wrong. Not only was Larry cowering into you and screaming directly in your ear, but Sal had simultaneously begun to throw popcorn at Larry's face to shut him up. That only resulted in popcorn. All over.

Needless to say, you left before the movie ended because of the fear of being escorted out by the employees.

"I'm never seeing a movie with you again," Sal squinted towards Larry. The three of you were now on the way back to the apartments. The night was thick and pearly moonlight bounced off old the white of his prosthetic face. "I think my eardrums are bleeding."

"It's the horror movies! This isn't my fault. Both of you ganged up on me and chose it."

You giggled to yourself.

Sal, beside you, suddenly stopped. "Wait, Y/N."

You stopped, and Larry halted a few feet away, as he'd been walking a bit ahead. Sal leaned forward and reached toward your face. Your body felt as though it had been zapped and you stood still.

He reached into your hair and pulled out a piece of popcorn.

"Huh." You said, dumbly. "How'd that get there?"

Larry's approaching footsteps were fast and leggy. He reached into Sal's hand, plucked the piece of popcorn between his fingers and fucking ate it.

"Jesus Christ, I can't do this anymore," Sal shook his head.

"What? It looked okay."

Recovering quickly from whatever had happened to you, you laughed.

You also inwardly denied what your body was feeling because you knew it was much too soon.