#depending on what this message is i might just throw rocks at him

[manilovecapybaras]

making blueberry jam because i have to leave this man on delivered is INSANE

[stevieschrodinger]

Part One of Rock Star Eddie and Baker Steve wrong number AU

Link to Part Two

Eddie's got dubious history with picture messages. Only a very small group of people have his number, considering he's the front man of a multimillion best selling metal band, he doesn't ever want his number to be public knowledge.

So yeah, picture message from and unknown number? Dubious.

Eddie's had enough dick and...vag...pics in his time that he, honestly, doesn't really want another. But when the picture is followed by a message, "were you thinking something like this?"

Well, Eddie's a curious guy. So, committing himself to the idea that this might be new number time, again, he opens the message.

To be confronted with a cake. A really fucking cool cake actually, it's got a car dashing around a muddy track on top with a big '5' in the middle. All of it looks edible, made out of...cake stuff. Eddie has no idea what it is, but it looks delicious.

"One layer chocolate, one layer red velvet? I can do any combination of flavours you want."

Well. Eddie isn't anything but impulsive and he was trying to figure out what the fuck to do for the 'quiet' celebration they were planning for going platinum. Again.

"I think you have the wrong number'" Eddie types, "but I definitely want to order a cake from you."

"Oh my god I'm so sorry, unsolicited cake pics are the worst 😉"

And Eddie can't help it, he laughs, and types back, "if I told you I wanted three tiers of the darkest, spookiest, cherry chocolate what would you come up with?"

It takes a couple of minutes, but Eddie's phone pings twice in quick succession, the first picture is of a spooky orange cake clearly Halloween themed, covered in ghosts and skeletons and stuff. The second is jet black and has a coffin on top that looks like it's leaking green corrosive stuff and Eddie nearly throws his phone in excitement. "That! The second one!"

"🤣 that's an old pic, I was just starting out then, but everything is edible, the green slime is made out of jello"

"Where are you based and can you make it for the 15th? I'll get a courier to collect."

"Sure thing, how many portions? And I need a deposit up front. I'll do chocolate ganache and cherry filling."

"Errr...like, 150? Maybe?"

Eddie sits and watches as the dots appear and disappear, appear and disappear, and then there's a pic.

It's a selfie of the most beautiful man he's ever seen. And he's standing in a kitchen, holding a cake pan. Suddenly Eddie's phone is ringing in his hand and he is panicking because beautiful man is calling him. "Hello?"

"Hey, man, it's Steve, the cake guy?". Eddie assumes he makes an affirmative noise because Steve keeps talking, "anyway, that cake pan I'm holding is literally the largest one I own, even if I did three tiers, no way will it cater that many, I'm a small business, you know, it's just me. I can recommend you some companies I know would do a great job."

But then, Eddie will never get to talk to beautiful man ever again, "what if you made like, three cakes?". He asks desperately.

There's a long beat of silence on the phone, "I mean, in theory, I mean, it might cost you more than-"

"I'll pay it. I'll pay double, for, inconvenience, or whatever-"

And oh no, beautiful man has the most beautiful laugh too. Eddie's fucked. He's so fucked.

"I'll raise you, two cakes and fifty muffins?" Steve laughs again, and Eddie laughs right along with him.

Steve grabs his phone when it pings, hoping for Eddie. It is Eddie. It's a selfie from the neck down, like always, Steve still doesn't know what the guy looks like, but Eddie's wearing a deep red shirt that he's clearly just dumped a whole cup of coffee down, "hope your days going better than mine, sweetheart,"

Steve sends back a selfie with a lump of uncooperative modelling fondant in the background, "that depends, can you tell what this is supposed to be?"

Steve's pretty sure it's wierd to talk to a customer every day, but he's started to find he's looking forward to Eddie's messages. Even when they turn flirty. Especially when they turn flirty, maybe.

And maybe it's not exactly professional that Steve's found a lot of reasons to call Eddie. He just, needs to get this right, and if Eddie wants chocolate covered cherries on the cupcakes, well, Steve needs to call him and check, right? Right.

Steve heads out into the lounge with flour on his nose and a mixing bowl under his arm, Dustin, Lucas and Max are sprawled on the couch, El lying on the floor. He can hear Mike and Will fucking around outside. He spoons up some cherry mixture, "hey will you try-"

"Shhhhhhhh!"

Well. Rude. Steve looks to the interview they're watching on the TV. It's some metal band Steve vaguely recognises, and when the lead guy speaks...Steve has to sit down. Because that sounds a lot like-

"So, Eddie," the show host guy starts, and Steve's knees would go weak of he wasn't already sitting down. He's certain his stomach has left the building. "Seeing anyone?"

Eddie laughs, says no, but the band mate next to him makes a show of nudging Eddie and sharing a look.

The host picks up on it immediately, "so there is someone," Eddie's still shaking his head, but he's got a shy smile on his face that makes Steve feel like he's melting. "Come on Eddie, give us something."

"It's not a thing," Eddie flaps his hands, "don't make it a thing."

"Oh it's a thing alright," the audience laugh, "come on, give us something!"

Eddie looks uncomfortable for a second before shrugging, "they, uhm, they make the most amazing cakes you've ever seen."

[syrena-del-mar]

Embracing the Waters of Uncertainty

We've hit the beach episode this week and I can't help but love how they were able to intertwine this trope with a message that is so significant to who Kawi is as a character. Coming from Pisaeng no less. The one that always challenges Kawi to be better, to be truer to himself, to strive for more out of the relationships he's forged with people.

So much of Kawi's life he been held back by his own fear. His fear of not having enough, of not being enough. He's spent ten years yearning for the idea of Pear because she was nice to him during his Freshman year, but he never took the plunge of actually getting to know her in the first timeline. It isn't until he believes that he has an infinite amount of chances (initially) of going back in time that he readily and willingly makes a move to pursue her.

Desires and fears go hand in hand, Kawi needs to take the step back to reassess whether the fears that he has held onto tightly are actual concerns or he's merely constructing barriers because of his own apprehension of getting accustomed to having people in his life. It isn't until Pisaeng throws himself on him to topple him over that he really allows himself to have fun in the water, similarly Pisaeng is the one that has been making Kawi confront his own fears about his insecurities.

Kawi struggles with the apprehension of facing his perceived failure, of returning to the life of being a translator, where he spent close to ten years alone with no human attachments. He knows what it means to be completely isolated after the death of his father, so he doesn't want to risk stepping into the realm of uncertainty that comes with pursuing what he actually truly wants. He's doing everything that he perceives will make him satisfied in the future, so he refuses to rock the boat. This time around he learned, that no matter how much he tries to fulfill the status quo of wooing Pear, of getting his father the emergency surgery, of keeping Pisaeng as a friend, of making amends with Max, he still ends up alone and distant from those he cares about in the future. His battle of fully playing in the water and getting in the water highlights Kawi's internal battle of desire of having people in his life and the fear of making a false move that would make them leave him.

It's paradoxical, Kawi wants to be happy, and honestly we see him to be at his most happy with Pisaeng, but he's the one that creates the most obstacles for himself in achieving that happiness. One might think it's irrational that he wants that happiness, he just might have that happiness and he's unwilling to accept the inevitable consequences of accepting it, but this man is only starting to grow from the shame that he has clung onto. Like @lurkingshan said, in this episode we see Kawi interrupting his own growth arc, he still has to put in the work. In episode 6 we saw Kawi finally starting to self-reflect, hanging his head just like the Wisteria flowers, and realize that his unchecked emotions of shame and anger cause him to push others away when they're only attempting to help him. He was starting to learn that allowing people to help you and depend on them doesn't drive people away, but how you react to that help might. Yet, by moving to the future, he put a pause to the much needed self-awareness and growth. He made his own obstacles that caused him to be alone in the future, again.

Getting wet for Kawi is an illustration of his perception of risks that he runs in attempting to fix his future. Just as getting wet can be inconvenient, he's still facing drawbacks. He gets everything done on his checklist, but he goes back to a future where he's an alcoholic. This Kawi has driven everyone away from him. I don't think that we'll ever fully receive an explanation for that Kawi, but I wouldn't surprised if his drinking stemmed from the loss of his dad, like he said about in the first timeline, his world stopped with the loss of his dad. But as @chickenstrangers said, it's important for Kawi to see the imperfect future, because it's motivation for him to see that sometimes no matter if you complete the checklist, it might not give him the future that he wants, because life isn't that predictable.

Kawi has to take the first step to confront and overcome his fears. Like @stuffnonsenseandotherthings said, there's going to be a moment where Kawi has to realize that he might not ever be able to completely fix the past so he gets the present that he wished for. Growth and progress isn't linear, but one still has to be willing to confront and overcome their fears to achieve the path of fulfilling their desires. This means willing to face potential setbacks, or in Kawi's case, learning to be okay with the fact that he won't ever able to completely fix the past. When you live so much in the past, you forget to appreciate the present, and with Kawi living in between timelines, it's so easy for him to develop a fear of failure, but if he examines and self-reflects on what he truly desires, then he might just learn that the future is nothing to fear and accept that change can still happen in his present with the choices he makes.

[faroreswinds]

is GW's direction really that crazy when you think about it? feels more like people are just salty that Claude didn't team up with their faves on his route because people look at Claude as a third party that validates their side. But what I saw in Hopes fit what I thought about Claude from Houses Claude does whatever he feels most benefits his goals at the moment regardless of morals. He teams up with Faerghus when he feels it benefits him most, he teams up with the Church when he feels it benefits him most, he teams up with the Empire when he feels it benefits him most and he throws his allies to the dogs when he feels it benefits him most. Like in Houses, Claude tells Dimi before leaving in Azure Moon that this is how he operates and that he only makes moves that he thinks benefit him. That's the story trying to communicate how Claude and Dimi are different. Do fans think he's just trying to be cute or that his words mean nothing? Claude's not a man of rigid principles, he's an opportunist. He, the other characters and supplementary material repeat that same message about him over and over again too. like Claude's not supposed to be a uniformly kind person, he's friendly and pleasant to talk to but someone that can be amoral or moral depending on the circumstances. And in GW, an alliance with Edelgard was more personally beneficial to him than trying to team up with Faerghus. They have the bigger force, they're paying Leicester significant reparations, they're getting stability at his southern border and they want to eliminate the same threat.

I mean.... It kinda is a crazy direction.

The issue isn't just the differences between Hopes!Claude and Houses!Claude. That could be a whole other explanation on its own, but since you have framed it as in-character, let's go over the other reason why it is a poor direction on its own.

The biggest issue, anon, is that Hopes!Claude... is an idiot.

Nothing he does or says makes much sense when you add up all the worldbuilding elements together into one big pile.

For example, he decides to side with Edelgard and wipe out the Church. He believes this will end the war quicker, and remove Edelgard's justification for war. And if that justification is gone, then Edelgard will have no choice but to cease her aggressions, or else the war is no longer justified.

However, this logic ignores sooooo many things. The first is that Edelgard publicly declares that the Kingdom and Alliance are false nations that only exist due to meddling forces. That should be a red flag right there and then. Not only that, but Edelgard invaded his nation and beelined for the capital. That should have been another red flag. If Edelgard didn't wish to take over the Alliance, she would have had no need to go for the throat.

Claude even admits that Edelgard might not stop her war. He should know that someone may not stop a war just because it is no longer "justified". And yet, he continues to side with her.

Here is another one. Claude puts a lot of blame on the Church for... basically everything wrong with Foldan. Forced marriages. Fierce border protections. The existence of nobility. The lack of freedom for nobles. I mean, just everything and anything you can think of, in his eyes it is the fault of Rhea and her Church.

But how can he come to that conclusion? Does he live under a rock? Is he not the leader of the Alliance? Does he not know that Edmund, within his own Alliance territory, makes trades with other nations outside of Foldan? When he went to school, did he not see how people of Duscur, Brigid, and Almyra got places in the classroom? How a woman from overseas got to be a Knight of Seiros? Even if he only spent two weeks there, surely he saw something, no?

He is also a prince of another nation. A nation with no Church, and no Crests. And they still have a King and nobility of their own. So why is he blaming the Church for such things? He literally is from another nation.

Hopes!Claude feels like he was written by a young author who is just starting out. There is no logic to his thinking. He just hates the Church because the writers needed him to.

And what makes it worse is that Claude is supposed to be the smart one. He is lauded as the brilliant tactician. The guy who thinks 5 steps ahead in every chess match. But he comes across as the most ignorant of the three lords, who cannot see past his own nose.

So yes, this is why is it a crazy direction. It's not just because of any misalignment of his character from Houses. It's because within Hopes itself, Claude is just a moron that it is hard to take him and his thought processes seriously.

[the-kr8tor]

Oh wow oh look another damn idea

*slams my fist on the table*

Deep sea witch Hobie! X Mermaid reader!

Hobie who would look a bit like Ursula, dark limbs floating and grabbing onto multiple bottles while he makes his potions and spells all with a concentrated frown. A renowned and fear witch of the depths, one which your family highly disapproves of. You're used to hearing things like; "he's a bad omen", "he'll steal your soul and eat your heart", "he is nothing but a crook and a mischievous devil of the seas".

Of course...you don't believe it's true. It can't be? At least that's probably what you're thinking and yet when you stand in front of his underwater cave you shake and tremble.

What do you even want from him again? You can't fully remember as he slithers out the cave and stares at you with a toothy grin. Menacingly gorgeous really.

You're not the only one staring. He believes he's never seen a more beautiful thing in the ocean, and he's travelled the seas. But he knows all the beauty he sees in you might just be ruined depending on what you ask of him. He never refuses a guest and a client.

Yet you surprise him. You only ask him about himself, sitting yourself down on a rock as you stare back at him, fully genuine in your intentions. He's unsure what to make of it. So he decides to scare you. Maybe that'll throw you off. Make you fear him like the others.

You probably flee every time he does manage to make you scared, or hide behind your rock wide eyed. But you keep coming back. And with every new day where you see him, he unwillingly lets himself get accustomed to you. He's surprisingly kind and gentle when he wants to be. Rubbing your scales with ointment, knowing that soon you'll lose a few and get itchy. Or he'll carefully drag his fingertips over your skin and tail, draping you in softer clothes, decorating you in the black pearls you ought to wear. Black pearls that represent him, his small mark on you. Dedicating you as someone people shouldn't fool or hurt, someone the deep unforgiving sea witch loves. Yet you don't get the message though do you, he'll try harder next time. But for now he enjoys seeing you clueless.

-🪦 (I don't know what I was on but enjoy FR this is kinda based off just multiple things but on your writing of Hobie too <3 XX)

WOAHHH THAT WAS AN AMAZING READ!! I LOVE THIS AU!

Like R has wiggled their way into his dark heart without even trying and they haven't even noticed how he looks at them with softness that no one in the deep sea has seen him sport. Also mermaid! R coming to him for a deal so they could exchange their tail for a pair of legs bc of this one sailor they saw and instantly fell for but the moment they saw Hobie they're like "sailor who?" And just stayed in his cave for a bit with an excuse that they've forgotten what they wanted lol

Hobie's evil facade just cracks for the sweet mermaid that managed to lighten his home and melt his icy heart 🥺🥺🥺

[midnight---express]

Man, the age of the Hero has finally come to it's end.

So tones of thoughts about MHA at the moment and I want to break down my thoughts, on some stuff.

So spoilers.

Izuku becoming a teacher just feels right in a way, he spent all that time studying and learning from all the other heroes and has this massive bank of knowledge concerning quirks as a whole, he learned what seven eight quirks, and fought some absolutely mind boggling enemies, but also has the emotional intelligence to help people, not sure how well he's going to be at discipline, but he could body if he wants.

This is the thing people do tend to forget since he was using One For All practically at all times he's still ripped as fuck, he got first in the sports festival race, quirkless, by the end of the manga he has to be superhuman, and just because he doesn't have OFA doesn't mean he lost all of his gains, he would still hurt man, and he still has that 'I will fight a building, and Win' mentality and yeah he's insane, he just doesn't have an ICBM at his disposal anymore, but he will still rock shit like a 50. Cal. I would maybe put him on at least Nightwing levels of physical, he is going to have to be weighted like Aizawa to stop him from boding his students in the practical exams. Yeah it's noted that having a quirk makes it easier to be a hero, but keep in mind I still think he would throw absolute hands in a quirkless fight, and you think he stopped training himself physically, nah, he's a Gym Gremlin he's been putting in work, so when he gets that new suit, that is MHA's Batman, not Iron Man, that is Batman, specifically Batman Beyond.

"A hero isn't a hero because they have powers a hero makes themselves worthy of the power"

I saw quite a few people stating that whole it's nice to have rich friends angle concerning the new suit but this quote works fantastical, at every turn, Izuku earned that power and respect, he earned the right to be called a hero, simply in his world being were he was at wasn't enough, so his friends gave him the edge he needed to stay in the game.

Also would just like to note symbolically he still might be the greatest hero, he is MHA's Booster Gold, he's on the side making sure things are running well like he genuinely inspired his classmates in such a special way he created a whole new ideal of how heroes must act, even if they don't all get the time to interact and chat you know for a fact that most of them are thinking about what he would do, you have reached legend status if you've still got your ideals being replayed in other peoples heads.

Speaking of ideals, I think the final fun thing that MHA has been building up to as it's final big message is one of my favorite observation.

'You cannot do it all alone'

Which yeah it sounds completely reasonable that you wouldn't be able to do everything by yourself but it's really been how that fact has been built up, All Might was Japan's Atlas, holding the sky up never faltering he could never break, bend or buckle and when he did, when the weight became to much he fell, he broke and when he did so many heroes had to come and shoulder the weight that All Might was holding, and it was massive and that is the genuine flaw with the ideology behind One For All is how funneled power and responsibility is onto the holder, all that stress would make you go grey, much like what holding the sky would do to you in PJO, so when Midoriya stepped up to become the Ninth, he had so much power thrust upon him, and he really didn't know how to use that, and he fell into the deeply unhealthy ideals of All Might is ridiculous self sacrifice that idea that there has to be a person standing at the precipice, a great burning flame is such a bad way of looking at it, depending on one man.

And through MHA this ideology is gradually unlearned, with society putting more value on becoming the greatest or waiting for someone stronger to solve your problems for you, 1-A has learned to trust in each other and grow and learn, there doesn't need to be a number one.

Lifting the sky alone is a struggle, all that weight on your shoulders, no matter how strong you are, you are going to buckle and eventually break under its ever pressing force. But when many hands, many legs, many people standing shouldering the sky, when you buckle. Someone will always be there to give you time and security to stand back up.

That is how the world has to be treated going forward not as one person shouldering it all but everyone holding it and getting a little grey, and that is what everything seems to have been working towards and we see bits and pieces of this in 430, but then it's undercut almost immediately by the Hero Ranking.

Now I hate that this is kept in universe as that genuinely hubristic, yes it's nice to strive for the goal of No.1 it's a nice thing to say "I'm the No.1 Hero in the country!"

But genuinely that causes more trouble than it's worth, that stupid board, and it's weird that they haven't gotten rid of it or have people oppose it, if anything I think Shoto should be vehemently against it, that stupid ranking board is what created the absolute cluster fuck that is the Todoroki family, it gave birth to quite frankly the most dysfunctional and destructive family in Japan with an list of issues longer than the likely price tag of their house. It caused Touya to go absolutely bonkers simply begging for love and attention, and he became Dabi and caused a Heat Wave felt across the fucking planet, like genuinely get rod of that stupid thing, all it does is fuel egos and create Icarus', yeah you got Endeavor out of it who as a hero did incredible work, but that constant strive for No.1 broke him as a person, he became like Batman, absolutely devoted to the mission and forgot everything else.

This is why I am so in favor of something like Young Justice's Disordered Episode, let me see that moment where Shoto realises that he cannot under any circumstances become his father, that devoted to the mission that he becomes the worse sort of man.

Like please just get rid of the Hero Rankings, nothing good will come of it, all it does is fuel egos, and it's been noted you really don't need a No.1 because that gives you a target of what you need to focus on, and that leaves you blind to everything else.

In my final bit, I think the symbolism of as the embers die out having Izuku be the one to light new torches with those die embers, and cultivate them to bright burning flame is a fantastic way to end.

He is that brazier that cultivates new flame, a fitting thing for him to do.

[spinningbuster98]

Mega Man X6 Ending

The final stage is little more than the boss rush + the final boss thankfully. It’s got some pretty creepy and atmospheric music though.

And yeah obligatory mention to how X6 has a seriously awesome soundtrack, probably the most diverse in the franchise. Most Mega Man games tend to stick to a single genre, usually either rock or techno. X6 is mostly rock but also throws in jazzy pieces, relaxing tracks like Rainy Turtloid, Shield Sheldon’s sounds pretty magical, Metal Shark Player is oppressively atmospheric and Gate 3′s creepy.

Honestly Zombie Sigma might just be the most interesting thing that has ever been done with the character, which is prety damn sad on its own (Insert obvious joke about how he’s a nice metaphor for the state of the X series at this point)

People always say that he’s easy but honestly his second phase is a mess with all the shit he just flings at you, it feels like the best way to win is to just tank hits and keep hitting him back while also destroying as many of his minions as you can in order to make them drop health to keep you going.

Like before the ending differs depending on the character who beats Sigma

I hate X’s ending.

I know it may seem strange, but it really does piss me off.

I don’t like any of the endings of the X games because they usually just amount to the characters angsting over how “the cycle of violence keeps going ì, when will this war ever end blah blah blah” and it’s just another example of the X series using useless angst that won’t really go anywhere for “deep” storytelling.

On paper I should prefer what X6 gives us here, as it’s a more upbeat, hopeful ending about how the characters won’t give up and will try their best to rebuild the world and stop whatever threat will come their way. These tend to be some of my favorite kinds of endings: the light at the end of a dark tunnel

However in this case it doesn’t work for 2 reasons:

1) It’s too cheery given the situation: Gate was Alia’s friend turned mad, she’s seeing his corpse right there and yet she’s all smiles like she doesn’t give a shit

The same applies to X, y’know the pacifist who’s all about not wanting to use violence and wishing he could solve things peacefully? Why is he all smiles as he drags the corpse of his friend’s former colleague around?

2) This isn’t ACTUALLY a happy ending if you ask me. It’s actually a pretty cynical one. This wasn’t supposed to exist. This whole game wasn’t supposed to exist and only does in order to keep milking the series down to the last drop, so when the characters act all cheery and hopeful about how they will “fight for the future” and stuff it doesn’t feel like a message of hope to me, it feels like Capcom quite literally telling us “yeah there are more games on the way and we’ll keep making more ‘till this cow’s a dried up husk of its former self. have fun!”

Oh but then we get to the REAL juicy one! Let’s take a moment to talk about Zero’s ending!

So on its own merits there aren’t any real issues with this ending: Zero decides to go into stasis for a 100 years in order to have the Maverick Virus inside his body analysed so that scientists can find a cure. It’s basically a tie-in to the then upcoming Zero series.

However many issues arise as soon as you remember that X7 and X8 later became a thing.

And Zero is in both of them.

This makes no sense

The most common (and likely) interpretation is that this ending takes place many years into the future at the very end of the X series. However there are issues even here.

It just makes sense logically for this ending to take place not long after X6 because...Zero now KNOWS he’s a carrier. He know that he’s a danger and doesn’t want to create problems for the world.

If we go by the interpretation that this ending takes place way later we have to assume that it took Zero YEARS to figure out that “Yeah maybe I should let scientists study me instead of running around the world with this Virus inside of me”, which not only makes no sense for the other characters, who seem to have no issues with this and never bring this up again (sans some small mentions in X8), but it’s also nonsensical for Zero himself, since he’s always shown himself to be perfectly ok to sacrifice himself for the greater good, ever since X1!

Some people take this to mean that, evidently, X7 and X8 cannot be canon, compounded by the fact that they’re not rererenced in the Zero series.

Guys.

No.

Them not being referenced means very little, characters like Alia, Signas, Dynamo and Gate are also never mentioned across the Zero games, so the likes of Axl and Lumine never being mentioned doesn’t immediately make them non-canon

Besides everyone knows that some last minute changes had to be made to the story of the Zero series in order to accomodate for the retcons introduced by X6, such as Zero being resurrected and Sigma still being around, so why should X7 and X8 be so impossibly non-canon or whatever, given that they’re far less convoluted plot-wise? If there’s a game that they could’ve easily written off as non-canon that’s X6, given its retcon-riddled plot and the fact that it was the first game to have absolutely zero input from Inafune, and yet X6 is 100% canon to the Zero series.

I’d much rather keep X7 and X8 as canon rather than imagine a split timeline like some fans do. ‘Cause that’s what the series needs right? A Zelda timeline.

So how do we explain all of this mess?

Well here’s my theory:

How does the Maverick Virus spread?

Yeah it can spread via airborne means like we see in X5, but how does it jump from robot to robot?

Because we never really see this happen do we?

I mean Zero has been a carrier ever since before X1 and yet, depsite the Zero Official Complete Works claiming that he’s been unwillingly spreading the Virus while working as a Hunter, we never see anyone being infected by him, and he’s constantly in contact with a lot of people! Alia, Signas, fuck, Colonel and Iris! And yet none of them has ever been infected!

The only time Zero has ever infected someone was with Gate, who came into contact with one of Zero’s remains, seemingly some of his internal components, and maybe Sigma when the latter fractured his head gem.

My theory is that the only way for the Virus to pass between Reploids is if one comes into contact with an infected Reploid’s interior mechanisms. It’s kind of like how real life viruses spread to other hosts through contact with infected liquids like blood or saliva. This would explain why Zero is still able to work as a Hunter with no issue, since there would technically be no issue being in his presence, and the Virus would only get a chance to infect another if he were to bet injured.

This is still problematic though since his work literally requires him to fight and get injured pretty much every day, so he’s still a danger and there should be a plethora of safety measures: what happens when he returns to base all damaged? Does he get put in quarantine? Does he have to wear a robotic face mask? Since the Virus can even infect simple machinery like we see in X5′s intro how the fuck do the Hunters even repair him without someone or something, even simple equipment, getting infected? Does he NOW get to repair himself?

Sighhhhhhhhhh.......

[the-silent-hashira]

SPIDER WEB, for the ask game?

SPIDER WEB - How intertwined would you say you and your partners lives are?

that depends! i know some of them are far more attached than others.

Cross? Cross could go weeks without talking to me and then send me a 10 page letter about everything hes been doing and seeing, maybe a few little pictures here and there. he probably wouldnt talk about me much, and i dont care about what he does out there because i know that he loves me. we do work for the same organization, but our relationship isnt something many know about.

Clef probably could go a few days, he would talk about me occasionally but if you pointed out how much he did it he would make an effort to not talk about me as much. he likes being private, unless hes actually with me. again, work together, but some people very much notice his attachment to me.

GHB... he talks about me a lot, he likes getting my advice on things, and often will make the excuse of 'lemme ask my matesprit- he says no.' without messaging me at all. he values my opinions and wants me involved in the things hes doing. cant really go without working for the Highblood when youre a purple, and he is obvious, so everyone knows. (i like fucking with people though by making it a jumpscare)

Lucifer couldn't go a few hours without feeling sad that im not there. he will probably skip or cut meetings short if he misses me too much, he'll ask me for advice on many things and will often beg me to join him for things. if you didnt know i was married to him, you are either under a rock, new here, or just an idiot.

I feel like nobody would know Ozma even has a partner, full separation from his public life and i respect that as long as he still cares about me.

Bob is like Lucifer, hes a lost puppy and since i share him with my girlfriend if one of us wasnt around he could deal, but he starts getting sad after a while. plus, without me hes basically stuck in the house or he might genuinely get arrested and/or kill someone and get caught. nobody would really know about us and Bob, but thats because we do that on purpose. he is a wanted murderer after all.

Wally would love to involve me in anything, but i honestly like it when he pays more attention to my girlfriend since we share him too. everyone knows, its very clear.

Ozzie and Fizz are up. my. ass. if they get the chance it is puppy dog eyes. please pay me attentions. would talk about me if given the chance and will sometimes make situations where they can. kinda funny that most of my Hazbin/Helluva f/os are just straight up dependent on me most of the time lmao.

recently started shipping with Valentino, who would probably never involve me with work but likes being seen with me. its good for publicity, and he kinda values my opinions because i dont take his shit and can throw back just as much as he gives me. could be mistaken for coworkers or just fwb.

Diavolo and Satan... Diavolo would talk about me pretty frequently im sure, he gets excited when people ask him about any relationships he might have, and likes asking me what i think and being seen with me.

Satan and i like doing things together, and admittedly i really like doing silly things like going to plays and pretending to be in a mystery novel sometimes.

with Diavolo they would probably know because he would just say 'did you know my girlfriend, Uriel, says-' and Satan doesnt really talk about me but thats because he wants me to himself(and begrudgingly shares with Diavolo)

and recently i decided id say something about it, but i also ship with Eda, Lilith, and Belos/Philip from The Owl House. of which im not sure yet, but i know that none of them would necessarily talk about me much since my s/i with them is a fucking recluse that also hates being talked about in general so thats more a boundary on my side. my Belos/Philip is also way different from canon so 😅

wow this became long but this question interested me and i hadnt really thought about my impact on some of their lives honestly.

[beskar-cowboy]

The Following

Summary: The Mandalorian takes an interest in you. He likes to linger in doorways. (2.1k words) link to read on ao3 

Pairing: The Mandalorian x gn!reader

Warnings: mentions of canon typical violence, potential violence against reader, stalking, protective Mando, yearning, mutual pining, sexual tension, this takes place before Episode 1 so no baby and Mando doesn’t know how to process his feelings lol

The Mandalorian doesn't speak to you.

He never has.

He watches you work without ever once coming up to the bar. He conducts his work with Karga, leaves shortly after with every single pair of eyes in the cantina on him. You can’t tell if he doesn’t notice behind all that armour and beskar, or if he doesn’t care.

Then he’s gone for days again. Sometimes weeks, months. Sometimes it's a long time before you see him again and you think you’ve forgotten how shiny that helmet is. But then you’ll see something glimmer in the corner of your eye and in comes the most feared bounty hunter.

The Mandalorian watches you.

So much so that Karga and the people who conglomerate at his preferred table tease the Mandalorian for it. Just go up there, order a drink, say something!

It’s not that easy, Mando thinks. But he doesn’t entertain them. They’ll never let it go if he engages in this conversation so he bottles it up, swallows it whole and one day he’ll die with it deep inside his chest and no one will ever know.

But it’s never that easy either.

The people in Nevaro are anything but sweet, and eventually the Mandalorian notices how the patrons of the cantina bother you. He watches how the entitled ones saunter up to you, bother you with too many questions, too many touches which you recoil from, all of them unwanted. He watches how they don’t get the message and it angers him. Which it really shouldn’t; he’s never fucking spoken to you and you can clearly handle yourself.

He’s taken note of the dagger which you holster in your belt, as well as the one lodged against your ankle, tucked away inside your boot. They’re well hidden, but not from Mando.

Point is, you don’t need his help. You never indicated that you needed or sought protection from anyone other than yourself. He’s seen you throw a punch, he’s seen you threaten, promising a good fight they won’t win. He’s seen you handle yourself.

Which is why this is all the more confusing for him.

He’s started…. Escorting you home….. From a distance. He thinks you don’t notice him, how he’s always a few steps behind you, lost in the crowd with his visor tracked on you.

He’s convinced himself he’s doing it for you, for your protection, for your safety, because he ultimately feels something for you that he can't even fully admit to himself yet but actually.  

He’s just as selfish as all those other scumbag patrons that you have to deal with at the cantina.

He’s selfish when he stays till the end of your shift, when he makes sure you see him placing those extra credits for you on the table he was sitting at, when he lets you walk out before him and stays close while you lock up the cantina and then pretends to walk in the opposite direction.

He thinks you don’t notice him, the most feared and prestigious bounty hunter. But you do. That glimmer.

You round the corner, close to home but you press yourself tight up against the wall. Waiting.

And he sees it - obviously - your sudden movements, the sway of your hips as you send yourself around a corner you don’t usually turn on. He plays it cool and keeps walking straight ahead except you’re grabbing his cowl and sending him crashing against the wall you had been pressed against - dagger to his neck.

“You’re too shiny for your own good.” You seethe at him and Mando has to stop himself from laughing.

It’s strange to see such a furious, almost dangerous expression on a face with such kind eyes, soft - pretty features.

“Why are you following me?” You ask, pressing further into his cowl with your dagger, cutting through the thick material. He raises his hands slowly in surrender, friendly.

And you know he is. You know he is because you’ve watched him the way he watches you.

He leaves you extra credits when Karga doesn’t, he stacks the cups everyone’s used to reduce the mess you need to clean up at the end of the day. He’s polite, quiet. He’s never done anything to prove himself a threat. But you can’t help it, not in some place like this, like Nevaro.

“Why have you been following me?” You ask gentler this time, lowering the dagger and slowly putting it back on your belt.

You’re a bit embarrassed, you’re not sure why you nearly attacked him like that, you knew it was him, you know he wouldn’t hurt you like that but that little voice in the back of your head didn’t let you grow up like that, didn’t let you grow up trusting, naive, dumb. You grew up defending, attacking, protecting. Nevaro might breed cowards but it also breeds fighters.

The Mandalorian still doesn’t respond and you huff, frustrated that he still won’t engage with you. He’s nothing but an armoured wall to you, you couldn’t possibly know of the fucking tsunami going on inside his head right now.

How you shine underneath the moonlight, how it lights up your skin all these new colours with the neon lights off in the distance, your eyes, your nose, your lips. He’s never seen you this up close, not in the cantina, not outside in the real world. The feared Mandalorian is rendered speechless.

You back away from him, deciding to let the fight in you die and go on your way home. If he follows, he follows. But you know the Mandalorian won’t hurt you.

//

He doesn’t walk ten feet behind you anymore.

The Mandalorian has started walking beside you now, keeping up with your pace, however leisurely or rushed - depending on the day.

People stare at him, at the both of you now, when you walk through the night time streets of Nevaro. What’s the bounty hunter doing walking so casually with someone like you? Were you just as dangerous as him? You liked the edge it gave you, that’s what you told yourself.

When he sees your building complex in sight, sometimes he’ll tap your arm and head off, knowing you’re good to make it the last few steps and not wanting to hover like an overbearing parent.

Is that what this is? The need to protect something other than himself?

In his line of work, violence and danger are guaranteed. He can’t control his situation but maybe he can yours. If he can make sure you stay out of danger, that’s good enough for him. But why?

You know why, he’s quick to suppress those thoughts, those bubbling warm and hot feelings he gets when you’re around. It’s easier when you’re not there, when he’s back on the Crest, alone. It’s easier to not think about you. But when you’re right there… he can’t help himself. Can’t help but let those thoughts bubble to the surface like lava.

Whether Mando stays at the cantina until closing, or if he swings back around - after stopping at the shop for parts or the covert - he’s always there. He has been everyday for the last week now. And he’s here tonight.

He watches you work from where he stands, leaned cooly against the entrance with his feet crossed and his hands resting over his stomach.

He watches the way your eyebrows knit together in concentration, trying to scrub the counter clean of whatever substance is clearly caked on. He watches you shine the glasses, put everything away neatly. He notices how tired you look, the way your shoulders sag and bags underneath your eyes - they still shine so bright, even in the low light of the cantina.

“Here.” You toss him something he’s not expecting yet he catches it with ease.

A meiloorun fruit.

You give him such an easy smile  - like it really is that easy - as you lock up the cantina and begin on your way home.

He stares at the fruit as you walk side by side, the colours remind him of a sunset.

You both know he can’t take off the helmet and enjoy it now, in the dark of the night. You both know he’ll savour it slowly when he’s back on the Crest, alone and tired. He’ll let it drip down his fingers, down his hands and forearms and think of you.

If he could eat it now he’d share some with you, he’d watch you bite around the skin he just bit into as well and watch the juices drip into your mouth, like they do into his. Maybe he’d kiss you and you’d share the juice together. He wonders if you’d let him kiss you -

“I know you can’t eat it now but, I just noticed that you didn’t eat anything at the cantina today so I thought you might be hungry.” You shrug, kicking some rocks with your boot and watching them roll further away. Anything to distract yourself from looking at him.

Mando is easily flustered, but no one would guess it from just looking at him. His cheeks burn underneath the beskar helmet, eyes wide.

You had seen the fruit lying around the back of the cantina, stole it all for him. Because you thought he might be hungry. His heart palpitates hard, like he’s sprinting after a quarry, it nearly knocks him off his feet.

“Thank you.” His voice comes out rough, harsh. Like he’s not used to saying those two words. He’s not.

You look at him and smile back. At least, you think he’s smiling under there. You wonder what his smile looks like. You hope he can’t tell how flustered you are. That modulator in his helmet must automatically lower his voice or something, it rumbles through your belly and lights something on fire.

You two continue to walk in silence, so close your arms nearly graze. You notice how softly he grips the fruit, how small it looks in his leather gloved hands. You’d be lying if you said you never thought of those hands, those gloves, that old and worn leather - touching you.

You shiver and you blame it on the cool desert night.

“You know I can handle myself, right?” You ask, fidgeting with your hands and avoiding the intimidating T-shaped visor.

That question had been burning a hole in your tongue for the past week, you’d been dying to know why he started doing this, why he took it upon himself to walk you home every single night.

The Mandalorian stays silent. You take his silence as doubt.

“I was perfectly fine before you came along.” You spit, rolling your eyes and crossing your arms over your chest. He likes how easy you are to light up, little spitfire.

“I know.” He answers cooly, breathy, like he’s chuckling - at least you think it’s chuckling, you’ve never heard him make that sort of sound before.

You huff, unamused. Mando looks at you then, watches you walk with your head held high and looking straight ahead, watching as your small complex comes into view.

The moonlight lights you up like that first night you had confronted him. The Mandalorian remembers how truly dangerous you had seemed - even to him. If you were anyone else he would have raised his blaster and fought back.

The blue light of the moon cools you, makes you seem… chill. Relaxed even. He wants to touch your face.

“You’re very capable.” He adds, as he thinks of you - you with fire in your eyes.

His words nearly startled you, you weren’t expecting anything else, much less a… compliment from the Mandalorian. You suppose that means a lot coming from him. He watches your eyes widen, how they turn to meet his, already looking.

That startles him, knocks the breath out of his lungs and he nearly keels over from the blow. Somehow you got him, dead center, straight on. Your eyes pierce his and he feels like he’s been shot. He feels like you can see him and he’s scared for the first time in a long time.

The Mandalorian is scared.

And you smile, teeth sparkling like a predator and you say, “I am.”

You are.

When you reach your door, you fidget with the keys. He thinks you’ll drop them but you don’t.

The door creaks open into your small hut, smaller than he had imagined for some reason. This is the closest he’s ever gotten, the most he’s ever seen of this other side of you; where you are when you aren’t at work, when you’re not around him.

He watches the light disappear from your face as you step inside the dark cavern. You don’t close the door behind you. You stand on the other side of the precipice, watching him in the dark like an animal waiting to pounce. His heart races.

He lingers in the doorway, waiting for something - admission, confirmation, permission. Anything.

You take his hand in yours and tug him through the doorway. He lets you.

[pwarkluv]

❝ bubbly ❞ - pjs

park jisung x reader | fluff | 3.3k words

WARNINGS | lowercase is intended, idol au, established relationship au, ngl this is really really fluffy, slight angst if you squint hard enough, idol!jisung x normal!reader, jisung and reader just miss each other :(, annoying dreamies who always tease poor jisung

SUMMARY | when you wait for him to come home from tour but accidentally falls asleep on the couch.

AUTHOR’S NOTE | this is my first fanfic on my blog oh my! mark isn’t here just cause he isn’t with the dreamies rn! i still love him though :) this is inspired by the song “bubbly” by colbie caillat! also this is not really your usual shy!jisung. he’s still shy but still kinda bold if that makes sense? idk idk this might really suck-

one month. 

one month of lonely nights, calls at random times depending on the difference in time zones, kisses through the phone, and just overall missing jisung.

park jisung. your boyfriend.

even saying that in your head brings millions and millions of butterflies to your tummy. the maknae of nct and the main dancer of the dreamies was yours. and you were just as much his. 

but being away from him is one of the scariest things for you. jisung was like your rock and not having him there meant more frequently bad days for you. it’s as if you can’t function properly knowing he won’t be waiting for you once you come home. 

however, after a long four weeks he was finally coming home. the moment you heard his voice on the phone reassuring you that he’d be home tonight, you secretly bursted out crying, not wanting to make the older boy worry. 

the night he came home, you did some light eyeliner and wore simple clothing, not wanting to go all out since it would probably be late at night until he got home and to be honest all you wanted was to just be in his loving embrace. after putting on the gray hoodie jisung left for you and black leggings, you put your up in a messy bun. your stray baby hairs were peaking out.

you then drove to the dreamies dorm where you agreed to meet up, being able to see not only your boyfriend but your best friends as well. the managers let you in with a smile. they have always had a soft spot for you and lowkey loved you more than the boys.

sitting on the couch you waited. hours passed and still nothing. no notifications on your phone. no text. no call. the last form of communication you had with jisung was his phone call letting you know he was on the plane, about to take off. 

you were a little worried, wondering if he’s still on his flight or if he’s okay. but you didn’t really know the distance between where he was flying from and korea, so the flight could just be really really long.

you tried staying up, you really did. the movie you played to keep you entertained was slowly lulling you to sleep. it was already one am and from the long day you had, you just couldn’t fight off the heaviness of your eyes.

a few hours passed and you were knocked out on the couch, your soft snores filled the silence of the room as the movie was long over.

too deep in your sleep to notice you didn’t wake up to hear your phone ringing and buzzing, blowing up with texts and calls from your very own boyfriend. 

jisung was worried. you weren’t answering and the last form of contact he had with you was when he called you right before they took off. your excited voice made his heart swell and he couldn’t wish for anything more than the plane to hurry up so he can scoop his baby in his arms and shower you with kisses. 

it was a little weird to have those thoughts though. jisung? the shy baby of nct wanting to give kisses? if you told him that a year ago he would’ve laughed and asked if you were mentally sane. being an idol at thirteen meant knowing at such a young age the things accepted and shamed in the kpop industry. having a girlfriend or any intimate relationship like that meant hate and shame for both parties. but his reasoning to not have a significant other yet all washed away the moment he laid his eyes on you.

one year later and you’re the light of his life. sure his hyungs loved teasing him about you but to be honest, he’ll take any sort of teasing if it meant being with you. you were and still are his everything. although he is still really shy showing affection in front of them, he’d still pull you in for a kiss if he really wanted to. however once you two were alone, this man was the biggest bully ever. since you were younger than him by a year, he loves babying you and teasing you about your height. 

he’s still growing his confidence being like that with his members so there’s an occasional time where he’ll speak to you cutely, cause the other members to gape in shock, mouths opening and closing like goldfish in a tank. 

during the ride back to their dorm, jisung couldn’t help but voice out his worries to his hyungs, wondering if you were okay. 

“do you think y/n is okay?” jisung would ask every ten seconds, lowkey annoying the others. his leg was bouncing nervously as he stared at his phone screen, seeing all the unread messages.

“jisung don’t be dumb.” renjun sighed as he laid down, reclining the seat as far as it could go. “it’s three am for god's sake! she probably just fell asleep.” he reasoned with the younger, just wanting him to shut up. 

donghyuck laughed a bit with his eyes closed, feeling the fatigue get to him too. 

jisung pouted a bit before sighing back. “i mean i guess you’re right.” 

the pink haired boy reclined his chair back too before quickly sitting up in terror.

“jisung what’s—”

“what if she’s being kidnapped and—“

chenle threw a pillow at him to shut up.

-

jisung flew out of the car, not caring if his luggage was still in the trunk of the car or if the others were still behind. the only thing he cared about was you. 

fumbling with the keys to the dorm he managed to open the lock in record time before face planting on the floor, tripping on the random shoe on the floor. the boy was ready to throw hands with the footwear until he realized who it belonged to. 

y/n, he thought. 

quietly walking through the dark dorm he sees a light coming from the living room and hears the snores he’s been wishing to hear in person for a whole month. 

❝ it starts in my toes, makes me crinkle my nose ❞

his feet suddenly felt like jelly looking at your peaceful form. you were gorgeous.

his nose scrunched up in happiness after noticing you were wearing his hoodie, the one he specifically wore for a week straight after knowing he’d be away for you for a month. 

with shaky hands, jisung slowly swats the stray hairs from your hair, a smile on his lips. as carefully as he could, he removed the blanket covering you sleeping form to slip in beside you on the couch.

❝ wherever it goes, i always know❞

the feeling of your warmth snuggled up against him still makes his heart hammer and at some point jisung was afraid you’d wake up to the sound of his thumping heart. instead however, you just nuzle your head into his neck instinctively making his face heat up. you really had an effect on this boy.

❝ you make me smile, please stay for a while now ❞

in moments like these, jisung really takes the time to appreciate how beautiful you are. don’t get him wrong, you’re gorgeous all the time. but when you’re unconscious, eyeliner slightly smudged, hair up in a messy bun and in his clothes, these are the most beautiful moments for him.

the smile on his lips evident as he thinks how nice it would be to come home to you like this for the rest of his life.

❝ just take your time whoever you go❞

rubbing soft circles into your back, jisung was ready to fight donghyuck when he came into the dorms like a mad man. the moment hyuck opened his mouth, your boyfriend was already shushing him with a glare, being careful to not lose the rhythm his hands had on your back. 

hyuck’s eyes widened a bit before smiling softly at the two. 

“jisungie is in loveee~” he teased the younger as the rest of the members came walking through the door, their eyes landing at the soft sight in front of them. 

jaemin looked at you two so happily. he knew how much you made their maknae happy and how much their maknae made you happy. you guys were a match made from heaven and he loved you for always bringing a smile to jisung’s face.

jeno’s eye smile was out, snickering a bit at how disgustingly fluffy jisung looked. the shy boy he grew up with was so confident (or well, more confident than usual) when it came to you. you brought out the best in the boy and jeno couldn’t thank you enough for that. 

chenle just rolled his eyes with a small smile, walking towards his room. he loves you two, don’t get him wrong. but sleep is calling him. lowkey though chenle loves to see you two together just cause the room gets brighter. your happiness and content being in each other’s arms makes everyone in the room happy too.

renjun bit back a smile, wanting to tease the younger. 

“i told youuu~!” he poked at jisung’s cheeks, bending down to look at your sleeping form fondly. looking at jisung’s red cheeks he laughed, causing the boy to glare again.

“shush you’re gonna wake her up.” he whispered.

renjun narrowed his eyes a bit before scoffing. “you’re lucky i like her and want her to sleep, unlike you.” he rolled his eyes but his smile showed he wasn’t really mad. 

after everyone left, jisung turned his attention back to you immediately cooing at the drool falling down your mouth. it was a little disgusting, he wasn’t gonna lie, but you’re cute so he let it slide. jisung was about to go for a kiss until he heard an annoying voice whisper in the back :

“jisungie is in loveee~”

the pillow that jisung threw at hyuck is what woke you up.

[lovestruckay]

Request: "Hi there! Loveeee your writing for Fire Force and was wondering if you could do headcanons (SFW and NSFW if that's ok!) for Akitaru and a fem s/o for celebrating birthdays or holidays?"

Pairing: Akitaru Obi x Fem!Reader

A/N: Happy birthday, Obi! I’m a little late but I made up for it by making this 2.5k words, haha. NSFW content is below the cut, it’s mixed in throughout instead of separate! I used these HC as a way to talk about some of the days I celebrate personally from the Wheel of the Year - eight holidays that celebrate the spring equinox, the summer solstice, the autumnal equinox, the winter solstice, and the four cross-quarter days between them.

Akitaru loves the holidays. He’s the kind of person who plans celebrations a month in advance, sometimes even longer depending on what the special occasion is. He’ll put out decorations, bake pastries, cook whole meals, and even throw parties where he’ll give mushy speeches.

You think he leans into celebrating even more for the sake of the rest of Company 8. Nearly all of his companions had come from troubled backgrounds or had lost their loved ones and he was always clear that the Eighth was their family too. Akitaru is the father figure of their ragtag company and he takes that role seriously. Not just in protecting them and guiding them but in doing the little things that family did - like celebrating holidays.

So, when these special occasions roll around, you better get ready because this man is not just celebrating for the fun of it but because it’s a way to bond with you and the rest of Company 8. 

The Holy Sol Temple has generic, catch-all versions of all the seasonal holidays. With the Temple worshiping a Sun God, their holidays are centered around solar events like the solstices, the equinoxes, and the cross-quarter days between. December celebrations are all bundled up into the Winter Solstice, Ostara and Easter became the Spring Equinox, Samhain and Halloween became the Autumnal Cross-Quarter Day, and so on.

Even though these combined holidays are the most frequently celebrated, the pre-Cataclysm holidays still exist and are still celebrated. It is on a much smaller scale though so this makes celebrating these holidays a much more meaningful affair. If you celebrate a particular day, whether it’s because of tradition or your heritage or something else entirely, Akitaru is excited to learn and be a part of something so important to you.

Valentine’s Day is one of his favorite holidays because it’s a celebration he gets to spend with the woman he had fallen madly in love with - you. He likes that there’s a holiday dedicated to your love for each other and he tends to go overboard with making sure you know how much he cherishes you.

Akitaru is really cheesy about showing you how much he loves you. He always starts the day by waking up before you and sneaking into the kitchen so he can make you breakfast in bed. He’ll cook your pancakes in the shape of wobbly hearts and there will be a protein shake there with your orange juice. He has covered your entire bathroom with sticky notes, each note containing sweet messages he had written throughout the year about how much he loves you. You have a hand bound book on your shelf filled with pressed flowers and love notes that he had made for you one year.

He once hired a skywriter plane to write your initials in a heart in the sky. He loves you so much that it turns him into the corniest, sappiest man on the face of the planet.

He takes the Firefighter Calendar very seriously and he’s absolutely playful and confident enough to wear something sexy for you as a surprise. If you surprise him by wearing some revealing lingerie, he will spend the rest of the night absolutely worshiping you and showing you how beautiful you were.

Akitaru is such a big man but he can be so delicate that the tenderness he touches you with makes your breath catch. But sometimes he forgets his own strength, especially when you’re wrapped up like a present, and he tears the wrapping paper. You know better now than to expect whatever pretty lingerie you buy to survive the night.

He makes sure that you can’t get out of bed when he’s done with you and that works out great for him because, guess what - dinner in bed is on the way.

The Spring Equinox mornings are always spent outside basking in the nice weather and the warm sun as you plant new flowers in the cathedral garden. You spend the afternoon spring cleaning your home, sweeping behind all the furniture and packing up winter clothes. The afternoons are spent painting eggs and hiding little gifts of candy and sweets around the cathedral for the rest of the company to find.

Every year, the Autumnal Cross-Quarter Day (or Halloween as most call it outside the church) is a day-long affair. Mornings are spent carving Jack-o’-lanterns and baking cookies decorated with icing in the shapes of skulls, bats, and spiderwebs. During the afternoon, you’re putting out last minute decorations and filling bowls with king-sized candy bars for the trick-or-treating children that stop by the Fire Force cathedral.

Somehow, Akitaru is always able to convince everyone at the Eighth to dress up in costumes. He especially loves doing coordinated outfits with you, like Frakenstein and the Bride of Frankenstein or a werewolf and a vampire. One year, he was able to convince the entire company to dress up as zombies and you all spent the day making zombie noises at each other and giggling.

If you like getting a little scared for Halloween, he'll take you to a haunted house or a haunted trail where he will inevitably be clinging to you by the end of the experience. If you get chased by the workers wielding fake chainsaws at a trail, he will get so scared that he will literally scoop you up into his arms and run away.

If you’re more interested in staying home and spending time together, you’ll nestle up on the couch together with a bowl of candy and some of the pastries you had baked earlier and binge watch horror movies. He has absolutely no talent whatsoever for video games - you swear the man can’t even figure out how to hold the controller half the time - but he will happily cuddle you and cheer you on if you wanted to play some scary video games instead.

Once you two are alone, Akitaru can’t seem to get his hands off of you. He thinks you are so beautiful every single day but there is something so alluring to him about you dressed up. If you’re wearing one of those revealing costumes, his eyes are glued to you the entire day and, once he can finally get you away from everyone, he’s tearing it off to get to the sweets underneath.

He is very sensitive to the fact that winter holidays can be very personal to a person depending on their background. Most people in Tokyo celebrate the Winter Solstice but there are people who still celebrate the pre-Cataclysm holidays. Whichever holiday you want to observe, Akitaru wants to support you and celebrate with you.

You want to build an altar for Yuletide? He’s bringing home pretty rocks and little trinkets he found that he thought you might like to give as offerings.

You want to light a menorah for Hanukkah? He’s cleaned off a special spot in the kitchen window for the candelabrum.

You want to decorate a tree for Christmas? He’s driving around looking for a pine tree he can cut down for you.

You want to decorate the house for Kwanzaa? He’s singing with you as you both hang brightly colored kente and he’s memorized all seven core principles to talk to you about during the week.

You want to host a dinner for Las Posadas? He’s in the kitchen helping you make tamales and he even stuffed and hung two piñatas - one for the new recruits and the other for you both and the rest of the company.

When it comes to gifts, Akitaru is really good at picking out presents for you. He always listens when you talk and he makes sure to remember when you talk about things that you like. He’s the kind of guy who will buy small presents throughout the year and stow them away in the back of his closet until the winter holidays roll around.

He’s extremely easy to buy gifts for, he loves the traditional “dad” gifts. Get this man some brand new winter socks, a new jacket to replace the coat he got too muscular for, and some new underwear and he is happy. If you give him something a little more exciting in addition to his gifts, like taking off your robe to reveal you’re wrapped up in a bow, he will gladly unwrap you and give you a present of his own.

For New Years, he likes to host a little get together with Company 8 to celebrate. You all make a big dinner and maybe even get a little tipsy before going up to the roof to watch the fireworks. You sit in chairs you had set out earlier, Akitaru settling you into his warm lap instead, and watch in amazement as Company 1 puts on their yearly fireworks show in the sky over Tokyo.

When the show reaches its climax and the clock rolls over to midnight, he kisses you.

Whether you’re drunk on a little alcohol or just the excitement of the night, sex on New Years Eve is always fun. It’s so easy to be yourself and to feel beautiful with him - he is such a light hearted and openly loving man - but tipsy sex is always full of smiles and laughter interspersed with little gasps and moans. There’s no shame and it just feels good to be complete with the man you love.

On Lunar New Year, he is taking you out to shop for new clothes and he’s helping you give out cards and gifts. He makes sure to buy a bag of sweets to leave as an offering once you clean the altar at home later that day. In the evening, he’s once again in the kitchen, helping cook eight different dishes for the reunion dinner with a communal hot pot always being the centerpiece of the meal.

Akitaru loves the holidays but his favorite celebrations are the ones for you two specifically: your birthdays and your anniversary.

For his birthday, he just wants a small get together with the rest of the company and maybe a couple friends. He is still as ridiculously easy as ever to shop for, just buy him new exercise equipment and he’ll love it. He works out so much that he wears down and breaks his equipment and he’s always excited to try a new machine.

He especially loves it when you surprise him in the bedroom with something new. If you teach yourself how to deep throat his impressive size, he’ll be wrapped around your little finger for a week straight. If you give him the remote to your vibrating panties while you’re out getting dinner, he’ll break down halfway through your meal and pull you into the bathroom to make you see stars. You never need an excuse to experiment in bed but it’s always fun surprising him with something every year.

For your birthday, Akitaru will always ask you what you want instead of trying to surprise you. He doesn’t want to overwhelm you with a party if you don’t want it and he doesn’t want you to be craving more if he plans for a day at home.

If you want to go out, he'll take you to the amusement park for games and roller coasters (one of which he couldn’t even ride because the safety harness didn’t fit over his muscular body). If you like the outdoors, he’ll take you on a hike through one of the nature preserves and lead you to a picnic he prepared for you. If you like to dance, he’s taking you out and trying his best not to step on your toes.

If you want to stay in, Akitaru will buy you a copy of the newest video game you had your eye on and will order pizza so he can watch you try to beat it in one sitting. He’ll spend the morning baking and decorating a cake from scratch and it comes out incredible. He’ll give you a massage and his almost too strong grip feels so good it sends shivers up your spine.

On your birthday, he is in the palm of your hand. Whatever you want to do, anything you want to try, he is so eager to please. He’s an open-minded man and there really aren’t many things that are hard passes for him in bed. He isn’t particularly well versed in the kinky stuff so he’ll need a bit of an explanation sometimes but, once he understands what you want, he will gladly give it to you.

Without a doubt, your anniversary is Akitaru’s favorite holiday of the year. He loves that your anniversary is a celebration of your bond and a reaffirming of your love for each other. He’s honestly just as dramatic on this day as he is on Valentine’s Day - if not more so - and he will come up with the most cheesy, romantic ways of telling you he loves you.

Sticking to tradition, he took you out to a fancy dinner one year to a restaurant with a dress code and no prices on the menu. Even with the overly formal atmosphere, he was still his usual boisterous self throughout the dinner and his sunshine smile puts you at ease. The dinner was spectacular and, even if you normally hated stuffy environments like that, his happiness is contagious and you feel comfortable.

On your anniversary, he makes it his Sol given duty to fuck you until you scream when you cum. He makes it a point to give you the best orgasm of the year, making you finish over and over until your pleasure climbs to a high that has moans shamelessly spilling from your lips. You absolutely cannot walk the day after your anniversary so, every year, you take not only your anniversary off but the day following as well.

Akitaru pays such close attention to your moods and your likes and dislikes when it comes to the holidays throughout the year and tries his best to make you happy. At the end of the day, he just wants to be with you and for you to have a good time.

After all, he loves you so much he wants to spend the rest of his life making happy memories like these together.

[downwiththemutantnjnjaturtles]

We Met Within This Screen [chapt. 6]

[Donnie x reader]

sfw, chapter 5 here

Come on, save it, save it, Donnie chanted to himself later that night, at home and tucked away in his room trying to figure out how to neutralize the situation. He paced along his bed back and forth, phone in hand as he wracked his brain thinking about how he'd get her to let it go. He could tell her that she was...overtired? Go the stereotypical route and say it was just her eyes playing tricks on her? Try to play it off as human teenagers messing around on the roof?

She'd gone to bed already. He hated that he couldn't pursue the subject until morning, her morning, but by then, he'd be tired. When she woke, he slept. But he needed to get it resolved as quickly as possible, so he reckoned it was time to pull an all nighter. Luckily, that wasn't anything he wasn't used to.

He figured he'd get the preliminaries out of the way so he could get right to it when she eventually texted back.

"Good morning

I know you're not awake yet but I figured I'd get an early start today.

I want to know, what exactly did you see last night?"

He shut his phone off and set it down on the bed, fingers rubbing his temples. Depending on her answer, this would either be difficult, or near impossible.

The rest of his time was spent just waiting around for her to finally wake up, dodging all his brothers and trying to occupy himself with something. He was fiddling with the radio he kept on the floor next to his bed when his phone notified him of a message. Turning the volume up, some old-school rock played softly. He didn't always keep music on when he worked, which was what he was doing felt like, but something needed to fill the silence. It also made it feel more casual to have the radio on, for both himself and for whoever might stop by his room.

"Good morning to you too

That was...sudden??"

How nice it was to read those words coming from someone who wasn't his family. Not that they said it like that often anyway, but the small gesture hit differently.

"I'm just really curious about what you said you saw."

Curious? Not quite. More like dying to know, and not because he fancied himself some cryptid hunting.

"That's fair I guess

But don't laugh, ok?"

"I'd never, [y/n]"

"Well

Okay

They were big

But no like not the overweight kinf, not even just 'tall guy' kind of big

kind*

You know?"

Yeah, I aware. I'm 6'8" and have a giant shell on my back.

"They?"

He was hoping she'd only seen one of them. Maybe it would have been easier, but, of course, that wasn't the case.

"I think there were two

Idk it just looked really weird, it was dark but the silhouette from the light made them look bulky, I don't know what it was"

Lips pursed tight, he looked up from his phone, and all of a sudden that music in the background was suffocating. He quickly reached over and shut it off. He needed to be able to divert all of his attention to one thing. Except, even though he should have been spazzing over her spotting them (even if just for a split second), a concern crept up in the back of his mind that made him scoff at himself. The need to know was too great.

His eyes fell on his scaled, three-fingered hand as he typed.

"Did it scare you?"

Perhaps it wasn't what he should have been focusing on. But he was. He knew she hadn't seen much, but what if she quipped that it was frightening, or gross, or…?

"I don't know, Bo

I guess it was kind of freaky

Uh, do you actually believe me? That I saw something?"

"'Freaky?'" he repeated to himself in a whisper, brow ridge furrowed. What was I expecting?

He had to shake himself of whatever was going on in his head at the moment, because there were more pressing matters at hand. Like what he was going to answer her question with. Theoretically, he could go two routes; one, invalidate the experience and try to walk on the line of telling her that it was not real without making her feel crazy. And then probably get mad at him. Or two, go along with it, if he didn't have the heart to do that to her. The answer was already here; he let out a deep sigh. Two, it is.

Nothing could make him want to make her feel that way, even if it meant he'd have to put in a little extra effort in fixing his mistake.

"I wouldn't doubt your judgement, [y/n]."

"Thanks

That makes me feel a lot better

You're a really good guy, Bo :)"

Freezing, he sat and stared at the screen before slowly taking the phone away from his face, lips moving, but no sound coming out. He had no idea what to say; all he could focus on was the fact that the girl he undeniably liked thought he was a good guy. And that, presumably, it meant she might have liked him as well. Big on the "might", he realized as the logical part of his mind took over once again. Regardless, he licked his lips and got to preparing a worthy response. He didn't want to come off as flustered as he felt. Donnie was aware he was not particularly suave—he took solace in the fact that she couldn't see his face or hear his voice. He contemplated on acting a bit more "cool guy" than he actually was, but wanted her to like him for him, not a facade. Which was a major contradiction to all that he had done up to that point, but the least he could do was be the person he was on the inside!

"You there?"

"Sorry, I got distracted…

You really think so?"

"That I think you're a great guy?"

"Well...yes."

"Totally. 100%"

His heart was going, he was stammering to himself, and a new feeling enveloped him. He was no stranger to the different emotions; he'd gotten familiar with many of them. Because though he didn't always show it, he had a lot of feelings. These, he felt most viscerally. But he had to get back on track. If he could push last night's incident under the rug, all would be well. More well than it already was, considering.

"Thank you, [y/n]

To be honest, I've never had a friend like you

So, do you want to talk more about what you saw? I know I'm switching tracks quickly, it's just very….interesting."

It was a jarring and awkward subject change, he knew that, but he desperately wanted to get it out of the way. The sooner, the better.

"I suppose

You seem pretty interested in it"

Maybe she wasn't hanging onto the experience like he'd thought she would. There were so many tales of people seeing inexplicable things and becoming enraptured by the experience that he guessed he should only expect the worst, but it appeared that she was not so obsessed. Crisis averted?

"Not too much, I was just wondering

We can forget about it."

"Oh, I'm not going to forget about it, Bo"

There it is, he thought, not surprised.

After thirty minutes of attempting to throw her off without coming off as suspicious himself, he had to take a breather, reorganize his mind. Only to come back and find that she had to go take care of things, and that she'd talk to him later. He'd done as much fixing as he could; at that point, it was as good as it was going to get. The thought of being looked for by his unknowing friend loomed about in the coming weeks as they did their patrols, when they would pass by her residence, and the times that he snuck off to stop by himself. Sometimes accompanied by Mikey, but he tried to keep it as solitary as possible. Soon, watching her on her balcony from that roof became part of his routine. He vaguely thought sometimes that watching her like that could be considered creepy, but that ship had already sailed.

For the third time in the last month he was there yet again, on the same roof, watching the same balcony, watching the same girl. Sometimes they texted, sometimes they didn't. The times he wasn't talking to her as he sat there were the times he daringly crossed the threshold onto the fire escape. There were only a few instances of that. But did he still feel out of his mind doing so? Yes. The window only looked into part of the living room and kitchen, but he felt scandalous to do it. Most of his time there was spent only with his shell against the wall next to the window, just out of sight. He could always hear her faint but noticeable footsteps coming and could easily vault the railing and climb up or drop down. She couldn't get past his keen hearing unless she knew to tread lightly.

Mikey was with him once again, this time out to look for scrap rather than patrol. He'd been buddied up with his younger brother more often ever since their talk that night in Donnie's room. They only stopped by because they were already out and had a viable excuse.

"Does she know about us? Like, me, Leo, Raph..." rambled Mikey, curious, as he practiced one of his new moves with his skateboard. He kicked up onto the ledge of the roof and skidded before hopping off, tucking the board under his arm. "You guys have been together like, what, two months? And she doesn't even know your name."

Fiddling with the strap reaching around his shoulder, Donnie replied matter-of-factly to hide the embarrassment that was ailing him at the thought, "Okay, for starters, we're not 'together'. And secondly, she hasn't mentioned voice chatting in a while."

"And?" He got back on his board, zooming by Donnie.

"My name? It just hasn't come up," Donnie shrugged.

"Call her, then!" Mikey smiled, still preoccupied with his board and trying out his new tricks. Donnie gave a light scoff and shook his head. His brother passed behind him where he sat leaned against the water tower.

"I don't want to just call her out of nowhere, Mikey, she might be asleep."

He also didn't want his brother there when he did.

"You gotta not be so shy!...oh, look, in the window. Right there. See? She's up," he quipped with a small smirk. The curtain was drawn, but the light had turned on at some point, and they could see her silhouette moving past. Donnie looked over his shoulder to say something but felt a hand slip into his pocket on the other side, stealing his phone right off of him. He was fast, but Mikey was faster in jumping into his board and gliding all the way to the other side of the roof with the fussy turtle hot on his trail.

"Mikey, quit it!" Donnie barked, lunging toward him for the phone.

"You'll thank me later!"

The two wrestled for the phone, Mikey holding it just out of reach as he tried to navigate the screen without dropping it.

"Come on," grunted Donnie as the tussle led them near the edge, where Mikey held it precariously over the alley below. His glasses were jostled off his face when a stray hand bumped them, causing them to fall amongst their feet. Squinting, he partially knelt down and searched for the pair while still looking at his brother and his phone, trying to stretch his arm long enough to snatch it. "Really?" he groaned, "just give me the phone!"

Donnie slung out his staff and used the other end to whack his wrist from underneath just as he pulled away from the edge, losing his grip on the phone. Mikey tried to catch it but it bounced off his hand, going right over the side of the roof and plummeting down into the alley.

Mikey froze. Donnie finally found his glasses.

Laughing nervously, Mikey turned back to him, "Whoops…"

When he didn't immediately find the phone on the ground, Donnie knew what happened. He looked over the edge, and there it was, sitting on the pavement in the alleyway. The building wasn't incredibly tall, but enough to do some major damage. He'd have to switch for one of his spares if he didn't want to deal with a busted-up screen.

"I don't need your 'help', Mikey, so leave it alone next time," Donnie said and gave him a narrow-eyed look, huffing as he leaped down to retrieve it.

Mikey may have been insistent, but he knew then it was time to stop. All he wanted to do was help. For his shy, flakey brother to come out of his shell (no pun intended). Donnie, at that time, had the biggest shot out of all of them for something unique and good. He hadn't yet worked out the logistics of how to bridge the gap between the two, but it was a calling of his to help him along.

Donnie watched for people from behind a corner before creeping out to get the phone, which was face down on the concrete. No doubt cracked to all hell if not completely shattered, though it did have a case.

But as he got closer, he heard a voice. From the phone.

He picked up the phone timidly and shot a glance up at the roof, where Mikey was peeking over the edge in apprehension. Without a word, Donnie activated the taser in his staff, pointing it at his brother and zapping it briefly. He flinched and retreated out of sight.

"Hello?"

"Hello? Bo?" she asked again, tone riddled with confusion. "What was that?"

"Uh, yes—hol—hold on, please," stammered out donnie, flying around the corner and pressing flat against the wall as a group of laughing people passed by the alley. "Just one second," he said nervously. Above him, Mikey was rapidly motioning for him to get up there, eyes wide and body trying to stay low. Baffled, Donnie gestured back at him, mouthing at him to keep his pants on for one more minute while he made his way up.

"Hey, what's going on there?" she inquired, concerned.

A street cat abruptly skittered out from between his legs from the dumpster he stood next to, and he had to stifle a startled yelp. He hopped up onto the nearest fire escape, trying to control his breathing. "Hey, hello…[y/n]," he half-chuckled, distracted by working up the building one-armed as he kept as quiet as possible.

"What was all that? And who's 'Mikey'?"

There was suddenly a shout—Mikey's shout—and his stomach did a jump. He sputtered as fast as he could, "I'm sorry [y/n] but this really isn't a good time, and I mean it really isn't," he pulled himself up onto the roof, and there was Mikey, fending off men clad in black, "so I have to go, but—"

"Don, dude! I need help over here!" cried his brother, sliding out of the way as a sword was jabbed towards him. He countered with a harsh uppercut to the man's chin, sending him stumbling backwards. The blade fell to the concrete with a clank.

"'Don'? Bo, what the hell?! Who is with you? And—"

Donnie jumped into the battle, a mix of nine or ten armed men with swords other weapons, and Mikey trying to stave them off, swinging his chucks with nothing short of reckless abandon. But he still didn't hit himself with them.

Ending the call, he secured the phone in his pocket. He wailed the guy closest to him in the side of the head with the heavy staff, then kicked him in the chest. The man fell to the blow, and Mikey ducked underneath the length of Donnie's weapon just in time as the two came together. Stray bullets flew past them, some colliding with their shells as they spun around for protection.

"How was it?!" Mikey yelled over the clamor, breathless. Donnie sidestepped from the rapid hit he sent towards the human to his left.

"What are you talking about?!" Donnie loudly questioned, flummoxed of what could have been going on in his brain during a fight. "We're kind of in the middle of something here!"

"Your phone call!"

"Yeah, the hell's the talkin' about, Don?" a gruff voice cut through the jumble.

Both of the boys whirled around to see their older brothers there, weapons drawn.

"Oh, right. As soon as I saw those bad guys coming, I let them know," said Mikey casually to Donnie, throwing his fist into the face of the man coming up behind him. "You know, standard biz."

With the rest of the team there, the fight was over twice as fast. Some groaning in pain and some unconscious bodies littering the area, along with their weapons. Leo finished the last one and sheathed his swords, eyes on their tallest brother while Raph kept watch around them. Donnie swallowed as Leo approached him.

"Don, you said you were going out for scrap metal," Leo stated.

In the background, Mikey grabbed his skateboard and was going to try to kickflip over one of the knocked out guys, but Raph yanked the board from him, growling. He checked all of the men to make sure they were down and would stay down.

"We were...just on our way back?" Donnie answered. Nearby, there was a small pile of scrap he'd collected, though definitely not enough to justify being out that long.

"So you stopped at your friend's place?" Leo deadpanned, crossing his arms. "Didn't you think that this could get her in trouble, too? Her apartment's right there, dude!"

Mikey budded in and corrected him, "Ah, we stopped by [y/n]'s. And nah! It's all good."

Donnie's face twitched. "Of course I thought about it! That's why I've only come here three times since, and only thirty minute intervals!" he bit back, throwing his hands up. The rest of his brothers all looked at him and his specificity. "I'm not naive, Leo."

The leader pushed past the both of them, signalling that it was time to leave, and they followed. Not before Donnie got what little metal he had collected and put away his staff, tucking the stuff under his arm. Raph joined alongside Donnie as they ran. "What's with all the secret' stuff, Don? First, ya hide it to begin with, then, ya make out like you were done, and now you get jumped by Foot guys by her place when you shoulda been gettin' scrap!" he said. "How were we supposed to cover for ya if you're lyin' even after we let you off?"

"Technically, I did get some!" Donnie remarked. He held up a piece of the scrap for him to see, and Raph snorted. "But..."

Well, his question would be a little harder to answer.

Next block was the nearest manhole, where each turtle swiftly jumped in, knowing by heart (and years of wandering) most of the sewers and the way back home. In some tunnels was Mikey's telltale graffiti, but it was scattered throughout the place enough to not be a giant arrow to their hideout. In the last portion of the run was the tunnel they always slid down, and once they were actually home, Donnie knew what was coming. Master Splinter was already waiting for them by the time they arrived.

"Uh-oh," Mikey said upon seeing him, sinking behind his brothers. Raph pushed him back up front.

Dropping the scrap in his arms, Donnie squeaked, "That's not good." He quietly cursed how high pitched his voice became when he was nervous.

"Yeah…" Leo cleared his throat, looking down at his hands clasped in front of him. The situation had an awkward tension for everyone in it, save for Raph, who was immune to it by then and Splinter himself. "We took care of the soldiers," he added more seriously. "Got out of there before too much attention was drawn.

"The police may be able to handle them from here, but it will not make a dent in the Shredder's forces," explained Splinter, grave as he paced along the line of brothers. "He owns the city. Until I say so, there will be no venturing to the surface. You are all lucky to be unharmed."

"That ain't it," Raph piped up. "But they'll be bringin' the big guns, next time."

"Oh, I am well aware."

"Um...of which thing?" the nervous turtle questioned, exchanging glances to Raph and then Mikey.

Splinter raised his brows knowingly, and that was all it took for Donnie. The floodgates of his signature anxious chatter opened. He grabbed the edge of Mikey's shell and pulled him over into the spotlight with him, "I met someone over an online game and we started texting after a few weeks, and—and Leo found out and I said I would stop, but we never told you," he gestured toward their brother in blue, who refused to make eye contact, "so I told her that it was through and then Mikey somehow convinced me to go back on it," he sucked in a breath, and Mikey grinned uncomfortably, "and then we started talking again and I don't know why, but I went back there to her apartment building and it was just…stupid."

There was a cumbrous pause. Donnie was stiff as a board, Mikey couldn't look at any one thing too long, Leo stood in his polite but awkward stance, and Raph started to whistle.

As poised as ever, Splinter spoke. "I know."

All four pairs of eyes shot to their father.

"What?"

"Uh..."

"Huh?"

"Wait."

They expressed their collective confusion at the same time, and Splinter chuckled. Donnie wanted nothing more than to be able to retreat into his shell, but that was physically impossible. "Nothing gets past me, especially not you and your nervous habits, Donatello. You are scratching that spot on your neck again, son."

Flinching, Donnie pulled his hand away. He'd be damned; Splinter was right.

But unbeknownst to them, there had been spectator of their fight on the roof that night.

————————————————————————————————

shh do not think too deeply about this my children

a/n: haha plot device go brrrr

i need to finish this cursed fanfiction

[feliix]

Mine ✦ JHS (18+)

✦  Pairing: Werewolf!Hoseok x Reader ✦ Word count: 3.6k ✦  Rating: M  

✦  Genre: smut, fluff, established relationship!au, werewolf!au

✦  Summary: It’s your boyfriend Hoseok’s first time in heat, and as much as you’ve prepared yourself for this moment you’d never expect it to go like this.

✦  Warnings: explicit smut, heat sex, unprotected sex, fingering, dom!hoseok, oral: female receiving, dirty talk, rough sex, impregnation kink, breeding kink, hobi is possessive af, knotting, creampie, marking, blood play, praise kink, aftercare,

✦ Requested by this anon ‘Hoseok x reader werewolf alpha heat with human mate? First time experiencing his heat and his knot?’ this anon: ‘May I request for the drinks and Drabbles, Hobi + cocktail. (Lmfao this is gonna be a lot, you don’t need to do all, whatever you feel inspired by {love you}; dom Hobi, spanking, creampie, fingering, toys, pet names)’ and sweet beanie @jintobean​‘ahem. pls might i order some hot coco hoseok it can have some nsfw idc i just need my heart to burst pls and thank’

✦  A/N: another episode of i try to write a drabble but it turns into a oneshot :)))) tagging my bby @hobiance​ for the much needed encouragement and werewolf hobi love♡ also this is my first actual werewolf smut please be nice and beta read by the wonderful, amazing and life saving @ally-127​

✦ Written for the BHQ Drinks and Drabbles game hosted by @bangtan-dreamland​ 

read part two here 

You had no idea what you were anticipating as you got home from work today. Before you had left Hobi was acting stranger than normal. His temper was short, his motions were labored, and he wasn't himself. It didn’t take long for you to realize something was wrong, and before you had even gone on lunch you received a text from your boyfriend.

Hobi: I don’t want you to be alarmed, but I think I’m in heat

There was no time to think about the next course of action, it was clear what you had to do. The next thing you knew you were in your bosses office, telling her that you were beginning to feel ill and that you’d be taking the rest of the day off.

He could smell that you were home before you had even walked through your front door. Hobi’s senses were mad, higher than he had ever experienced before. 

To put it lightly, you were worried. You had never experienced a werewolf in heat before, only heard about it from the older boys and their girlfriends in passing. But now there was no time to ask questions. Hobi was in heat and you’d have to figure it out together.

Muffled moans traveled throughout the apartment as Hobi ached in pain in your bedroom. Concern immediately flooded your system, not knowing if you should rush over to check on him or take things slow. The groaning only gets louder as you approach the bedroom door, pressing your ear up to the door to try and make out the slur of words coming from his mouth.

“Y/N?” He nearly cries as he senses your presence, the smell of you awakening senses he didn’t even know he had. 

Slowly, you turn the handle of the door to reveal yourself to him.

He’s in pain, lying in a pool of his own sweat as a dewy sheen glistens over his body. The only thing covering him is a pair of cotton underwear. They were the only thing soft and breathable enough that he could stand to have on his body, unlike the other clothes torn into shreds that he ripped off earlier. Hopefully he can hold back from treating yours in the same way – you really like the blouse you have on today.

As you see him curled up on the bed you can’t help but become worried for his current state. His face is scrunched in agony, soft groans leaving his lips between each labored breath. Slowly, you make your way over to him, careful not to move too quickly and startle his instincts.

You can only imagine the pain he's gone through over the past few hours. Knowing he's broken every bone in his body to turn, over and over again. Finally that part was over for now, but the everlasting ache of his muscles is still no match for his oncoming heat.

“It hurts,” he moans as his arms cup his sides roughly, rocking back and forth in attempts to relieve some of the pain. You can feel the heat radiating off his body from a foot away.

Instinctively, your hand reaches out to stroke his arm, the hairs standing up as his body shivers in a cold sweat. And then you notice it. The way his nostrils flare and exhale thickly as his eyes begin to glow an amber and gold hue. Your touch comforted him yet riled him up all at once, his wolf wholly and completely awake now that your skin was on his.

His eyes lock on you intently, a deep message hidden behind in his stare – almost like he was going to swallow you whole. You know what he needed. By the bulge in his pants to the look in his eyes you can tell it's you he wants – the only thing he needs at this moment, and you are ready for it.

You already know what you were getting yourself into when you began dating a wolf. It was only a matter of time before your sex life did a 180, and no, you weren’t entirely sure what to expect but today was the day that you’d finally understand what this was all about.

Like a second wind had taken over him, Hobi sits up in the bed, his posture firm and his muscles straining as he holds himself from grabbing you by the waist and mounting you at that moment. He’s waiting for reassurance from you, holding onto every ounce of strength he has before moving an inch.

And so you reach out to him again, bending at the waist as you place your arms on his shoulders, placing a gentle kiss on his lips. “I’m ready,” is all you have to say for him to know, and then he’s scooping you up with his supernatural strength to lay you on the bed.

Without missing a beat, Hobi’s fingers are looping through the sides of your underwear and ripping them down your legs. Surprisingly, you are a lot less nervous than you had expected to be. Maybe because you know how much pain he is in from holding himself back, and all you want is to finally satisfy his wolf that has been eating away at him for so long.

Your sweet scent fills his nostrils as he moves closer to your cunt. Closing his eyes, he basks in your scent – your scent overtaking him stronger than ever before. With deep inhale, he nestles his nose against your core, admiring the way you smelled before extending his tongue to lap at your slit. Immediately, your body jerks in reaction to his touch, the sensitivity of your clit being tested by his quick and frivolous motions.

“Tastes so good,” he mumbles against your inner thigh, making your body jerk at the vibration of his lips. His ministrations are much more impactful than before; this time he's hungry for it, dying to satisfy an itch that was nearly impossible to scratch.

Soon his hands are prying your legs as far apart as they could go, shoving his face into your center and devouring any juices that slipped past your entrance. Even though you had done this a hundred times, it felt different. He was driven by hunger, his actions quick and frivolous to ready you for his length. It was different but it was intentional; his sole purpose backing each and every flick of his tongue.

Moans pass his lips as they wrap around your clit, sucking harshly. Involuntarily your hips buck towards him, unable to control your own actions from the pleasure his mouth is bringing you. You can tell that he likes it by the way his arms wrap around your thighs, holding you down as his tongue flicks past your entrance and into your velvety walls.

A string of curses leave your lips as your body is rendered immobile, unable to move from the way he’s holding your legs to the bed. He’s ravenous – his nose pressing roughly into your clit as his tongue explores your sex. As much as he wants to be gentle he can’t; his wolf sending each of his senses into overdrive with each drip of arousal that lands on his tongue.

He’s moving so quickly that you can’t subdue your quickly approaching high. Any tug at his hair only makes him move faster, bringing you closer and closer to ecstasy at an alarming rate.

“Hobi,” you cry out, “I’m gonna cum if you keep at it like that.”

He doesn’t respond to you with words, only squeezes your thighs to acknowledge you. He’s too busy devouring your pussy to come up for air. Your words only make him move faster and more desperately, your high coming to a peak as he flattens his tongue across your slit. You take a quick glimpse of his amber eyes before he squeezes them shut, feverishly indulging in your release, licking it up as if his life depended on it.

By now a layer of perspiration has coated your body, the silky fabric of your blouse sticking to your skin. But Hobi isn’t done – things are just getting started.

Retreating from his spot between your legs, he sits back on his heels, wiping any left over arousal coating his chin with the back of his hand. He’s still hungry – the squint of his eyes and the determined look on his face told you so. Heat coursed through your veins as you waited for him to make his next move. He was trying to be patient, trying to let you recover for a moment before he got back to business, but you knew what he wanted.

In the interest of time you remove your own shirt, sitting up on the bed to throw the garment to the side and unclip your bra. His hungry eyes take in your nude figure as he moves forward to push you back onto the mattress. Your body relaxes as his lips connect to a sweet spot on your neck, sucking on it harshly, sure to leave a mark for tomorrow.

You arch your back in response as his lips begin to trail down your chest. A line of wet kisses is left behind as he makes his way down to one of your breasts, taking it in his mouth and circling the sensitive bud with his tongue. His teeth brush gently across your nipple, the sensation of his growing canines scraping against it breaking goosebumps against your skin.

Every day since he first turned has been leading up to this moment. Waiting out each passing moment for a sign of carnal instincts to over take him. Over the past few days you’d just brushed off his overly clingy demeanor, assuming it was just him growing into himself as a wolf. His suspicious and on-edge behavior went completely overlooked. You didn’t expect Hobi’s first heat to come on so soon after turning, but alas, here you were.

Hobi’s hands grab a hold of your hips, flipping you over so that you're laying with your chest pushed flush against the mattress, legs bent and the knees with your ass on full display. Your smell consumes him; all that he can think about is the taste of your arousal on his lips and how badly he needs to be inside you now.

His long digits trace your slit as arousal floods from your entrance, coating your slick on his fingertips. Anticipation pangs at your chest as you wait for his next move. You can only imagine the restraint he is holding onto at this moment. Everything in him wants to drive his hardened member into you, but he knows that your human body is not meant to handle what is coming for you.

Hobi’s eye’s screw shut as he brings a finger up to his mouth, basking in the taste of you. A wanton moan erupts from his lips at the taste – so perfectly sweet he would never be able to get enough.

Dire thoughts rush through your mind as you rest on your elbows, face turned to the side to try and see Hobi out of your peripheral vision. His pupils are completely blown, eyes focused only on your center as his chest heaves in anticipation. He’s sizing you up, wondering if you’d be able to accommodate his new size. It worries him deeply, he doesn’t want to hurt you, but he knew once he started he wouldn’t be able to control himself like he normally could. You needed to do something, say something to help settle the internal warfare consuming his mind.

“I’m ready, Hoseok.”

His hand is quick to line himself up with your entrance, grasping onto your hips with such pressure that it is sure to leave bruises tomorrow. Sharp fingernails dig into your skin as his tip meets your entrance. It’s fiery and red, inflamed from how hard he is. The precum that leaks from his tip coats your slit, combining with the wetness dripping down your thighs to create a delicious mixture.

One last reassuring squeeze of your side is all he gives before pushing into you ruggedly. A sharp gasp leaves your lips as he makes his way into your core, surprised at this new sensation. His size is bigger than you’d ever taken before, so much thicker and longer than his normal length. It’s a lot to take in at once, and he’s trying his best to let you relax as your body adjusts to his size.

“You can move,” you say, lip caught between your teeth as your walls stretch further around him.

With your fists grasping for the sheets, Hobi begins thrusting his hips slowly  into you– holding out a second each time he bottoms out to let you breathe. His nails only dig into your sides further, the only thing giving him a grip onto reality to hold back his animalistic instincts.

Deep grunts leave his mouth as he tries to hold himself back, but he can feel his humanity slipping further and further away with each clench of your pussy.

“Can’t hold back much longer,” he bares his teeth, canines prominent in his bite, “need to breed you now.”

Your eyes nearly bulge out of your head as his words meet your ears. 

You’d never had serious baby talk before let alone tried for one. It was his primal instincts talking, you were sure of it. But even if it wasn't there was no turning back now. He was losing control and he was losing it quickly.

Quickly, his hips snap into yours, his muscles flexing as he holds your body steady, fucking into you deeply. Breath is sucked out of you as his pace increases; stars forming at the back of your eyelids as you squeeze them shut, mouth salivating at the increasing pleasure bestowing upon you. His length is a lot to get used to, but the everlasting pressure against your g-spot was making the pain melt away.

Hobi thrusts in and out of your effortlessly, your abundance of arousal coating his cock and making it easy for him to slide in and out of your velvety walls. With each thrust he bottoms out, and it becomes difficult for you to remain upright. Limbs shaking from pleasure, your elbows begin to give way, landing you flat against the mattress.

Your mouth opens, but the only thing able to escape is a silent scream, too immersed in the feeling of him battering your walls to make a sound. A loud leaves you lips as he pulls you back up, his arms wrapping around your waist to use all his strength to hold you in position. His chest is pressed flush against your back, the heat radiating off his body soothing you as his mouth meets your ear. A quick nip is placed on your earlobe as he catches it between his canines. It doesn’t hurt like you’d expect it too, or maybe you’re too caught up in his throbbing shaft plunging into you to notice if it does.

“Taking me so well.”

His praise quickly soothes your nerves, helping you relax into him as he holds your body close, closer than you had ever felt to him before. His tip is repeatedly hitting against the sensitive spot deep inside of you, you know he’s not ready to let up just yet, but you’re too on edge to hold on.

“Hobi I-I’m gonna–”

“I can smell it,” he groans, mouth meeting your neck as he sucks harshly on it. You can feel his canines scraping against your soft skin, itching to break the flesh and claim you. It’s what he’d always wanted – having you here like this just makes it all the more enticing.

A string of cuss words fall from your lips as your eyes clamp shut, relishing in your release as your pussy spasms around his cock. His movements don’t slow either – his pace is still erratic, plummeting into you at an ungodly rate.

Feeling your release over him only makes him thrust harder, deeper. It sends him into a full blown frenzy, unable to keep himself from chasing his high. “Smells so sweet, need to make you mine.”

You knew what this means. You knew you already were his, just not in that way yet. He was holding onto every last ounce of strength to stop himself from biting, from sinking his teeth into your precious skin and claiming you as his mate. It was painful for him to keep at it like this, and you didn’t have any second thoughts before saying it.

“Do it, Hoseok,” the words slip between cries, still shaking in the aftermath of your orgasm, “claim me.”

So he does.

His eyes slam shut as his mouth finds the crook of your neck, breaking the flesh as his canines sink into your skin. Screams blow past your lips as blood begins to trickle from the wound on your shoulder. Your chest tightens in pain, praying for the awful sensation to but cut short and pleasure to take over. Relief takes over once his tongue meets the small incisions made on your skin, his saliva filling the holes and alleviating the wounds as he licks up the blood.

“Mine.”

Your heart flutters at his claim, having never felt as close to him than you do right now. Firecrackers lit through your veins, the connection between you and Hoseok binding to eternity and you couldn’t be happier. It felt like you were floating on thin air. Your body is unable to focus on any pain right now, you’re too blissed out from the shock of him claiming you to notice how his cock is beginning to swell inside of you.

Cum shoots out of his member, filling you up to the brim until your abdomen begins to feel heavy and swell. That floating feeling quickly begins to fade as his orgasm keeps coming and coming, no inch of your insides gone untouched by his seed. It seems like it's never going to end, and you can feel the pressure from his release building and building inside of you. Your sensitive walls stretch as his cock expands; knotting to plug you up and make sure none of his cum drips out.

“Hobi,” you whine, tears spilling from your eyes as his cock continues to inflate inside of you, “Hobi it hurts.”

“Its almost over baby,” he comforts you, stroking your hair before guiding you onto your side, laying behind you. After such a rough round, his familiar touch eases your pain. The light kisses he places along your spine lets you sink back into him, focusing on the feeling of his soft lips instead of the balloon sized cock stretching your vagina. Gentle hands trace circles up and down your arms as you listen to the sound of his calming breath. His chest heaves as he tries to come down from the adrenaline rush.

Soft kisses soon turn into small licks running over the length of your back as you lay there, still speared on his cock. Now that his animalistic needs were met, it was all about you.

“What are you doing?”

“Cleaning you up,” he answers calmly, his lupine senses finding nothing strange with this new method of aftercare. You’re too immersed in your thoughts to question him any further; if this is what his wolf was telling him to do then so be it.

As Hobi’s knot begins to subdue he doesn’t let go. His tongue soothes over the spot of his mark, now forming into a dark scar to let everyone know you were his. Its crazy how just one bite felt like it could change the entire dynamic of your relationship. You were his now, and he was yours. Forever.

“Hobi?”

“Mmm,” he mumbles, refraining from letting his mouth leave your skin.

“Did you mean that thing you said,” your lip worries between your teeth before you can finish your question, wondering if he even remembers anything that happened or if his wolf took everything over.

“What thing?”

“The thing about breeding me?” Your eyes slam shut to brace yourself from the answer.

“Yes,” he sighs out nonchalantly, like he isn’t admitting that his intentions were to get you pregnant.

“Yes?”

“You’re my mate, Y/N,” he presses a chaste kiss between your shoulder blades before pulling out. A small whimper leaves your lips at the loss of contact, not sure if you were relieved that he was no longer inside you or not. “Of course I want you to have my pups.”

Butterflies flutter in your tummy as a smile stretches across your face. All you want to do right now is to turn around and kiss him, so you do. His face is just as bright as yours when you meet his eyes. His hair is messy and his skin is shining with perspiration, but he looks beautiful. He welcomes your kiss like he’s been waiting for it all day. Mouth chasing after your lips, capturing them in a quick kiss before pulling away.

It's the first time he’s seen your eyes since you’ve gotten home, and even then he couldn’t appreciate them like he could now. There's a different glow that he didn’t notice before. Maybe it's because he’s bound to you now, willing to do anything and everything for you.

“I love you,” you sigh, pressing your palm to his cheek. He looks so innocent now, the amber in his eyes now faded back to the chocolatey brown color you love so much.

“And I love that you’re mine.”

‘Mine’ is copyright 2020 @parksfilter​, all rights reserved. Please do not repost on any platform or translate without permission.

[thevibraniumveterans]

I'M STARTING WITH THE MAN IN THE MIRROR...

I'm asking him to change his ways And no message could have been any clearer If you want to make the world a better place Take a look at yourself, and then make a change

-

A couple of points to make.

1. Loki and identity

According to head writer Michael Waldron, "in a series that, to me, is ultimately about self-love, self-reflection, and forgiving yourself, it just felt right that that would be Loki's first real love story." 

Loki learning to love himself, reflecting on who he really is as a person, and forgiving his past misdeeds, is the ultimate character growth, something that the TVA was hell-bent on preventing because it did not line up with how they saw Loki to be. Loki seeing himself in his mirror and realizing that he needs to change? Yeah. That's the big thing going on here.

According to Tom Hiddleston, "I don't think Loki's relationship with himself has been very healthy. Trying to accept those aspects of himself, which he's been on the run from, was a way of thinking about that in a really interesting way."

Think about how Loki praised Sylvie for being amazing because she's been running rings around the TVA. Again, it's a metaphor, because Loki has never in his entire life, honestly praised himself and talked about himself in a good and honest way. I will talk about how Sylvie is Loki's mirror and metaphor later, because this is important. It's also the reason why I started this post off with the chorus of Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror". It's relevant, okay?

According to director Kate Herron, "The whole show is about identity. It's about him, and he is on a very different path, and he is on a different journey." And it is! It's kind of how the saying goes, when one reaches rock bottom, there's nowhere to go but up, right?

2. "Love is a dagger."

Terrible metaphor it may be, according to Tom Hiddleston of what Loki says to Sylvie in Ep3, "They were having a talk about love and trusting other people, and not being able to either love or trust for whatever reason." The dagger, then, would represent "Loki's experience of love, I suppose. He certainly feels like it's not been something he's been close to. It has been some sort of illusion that he has trusted and been let down by."

(https://www.marvel.com/articles/tv-shows/loki-love-is-a-dagger-sylvie)

3. "Love is… uh, something I might have to have another drink to think about."

Interestingly enough, I've had several thoughts on the relationship dynamic between Loki and Sylvie.

Yes, Mobius did describe it as "Two Variants of the same being, especially you, forming this kind of sick, twisted, romantic relationship", but even I'm having opinions that would start to contradict each other.

At first I went around saying that the dynamic between Loki and Sylvie are strictly platonic, and I pointed out that to me, the Nexus Event might've been honesty and truth, because according to the "Sacred Timeline", those are two things that nobody associates with Loki, and the fact that in that short amount of time, Loki realizing that he needs to be honest with himself throws the entirety of TVA into disarray. It's a chance for Loki to be honest with himself and really come to terms with who he is as a person.

Now where does Sylvie fit into all of this?

In my opinion, even from Episode 3, I saw Sylvie as a mirror, Loki's perfect metaphor. Why do I say this? Remember in Ep2 when she told Loki, "If anyone's anyone, you're me"?

I had jokingly thought to myself that Loki was just about to tell Sylvie how he feels about her and himself (because Loki talking about his feelings is rare, as he himself said, “this is new to me”), but then I thought a little deeper and went, “hmm, this doesn’t have to be taken in a romantic way at all, Sylvie is not a love interest (because to me that’s just weird, no offense, unless the circumstances were super different, under which I think it might’ve been okay then and depending on the situation, but not here in these circumstances) it’s just Loki admitting what kind of a person he is, and if he can be better, it’s just Loki figuring himself out.” (I'll talk about why I have conflicting thoughts later.)

Even Tom Hiddleston, in a recent interview with ComicBook.com, had specifically stated about his character: "It will be interesting to see what happened when Loki can't talk his way out of a situation, as is his dominant strategy in most encounters. I am most excited for fans to see what happens to Loki when he has nowhere left to run, when he can't delude himself anymore." That last bit with Sylvie? Yeah, Loki coming to terms with himself, being honest, not being able to delude himself anymore. He had nowhere left to run.

I know I did say that at first I did not see Loki and Sylvie as having any romantic tension between them, but please, hear me out first. 

According to Classical Mythology, PSYCHE is "a personification of the soul", which is exactly what Sylvie is to Loki. It would make the "if anyone's anyone, you're me" comment make way more sense. Remember how I said Sylvie is Loki's mirror? Loki getting this close to talking about his (what I see as non-romantic) feelings about himself, how he sees his own person, talking about himself in an emotional way, really admitting to his mirror that reflects the deepest parts of himself who he really was, and then just STOPPED before he could do so was so heartbreaking.

I had said that he was not gonna tell her he loved her because that’s so messed up (I get that narcissism is loving yourself but Sylvie is NOT Loki, nor is Loki Sylvie, they’re two different individuals), but Loki was just about to reveal his true feelings, his real emotions that he’s been trying to hide from himself all along. Loki can no longer run away (remember this comment from one of the interviews?), from himself, his emotions, there’s nowhere for him to run, it was time to be honest with himself.

Somewhere I made a comment that went like this:

Loki finally finding a connection with someone who is so much like him, yet so much unlike him is rare. ("Sylvie's not Loki. Sylvie is Sylvie" and "while they're the same, they're not the same" - Hiddleston / "She is him, but she's not him." - Herron) In that Loki has always been alone, and everything that he did was a cry for help that he never received, while Sylvie had been alone for so many years she's had to rely on herself to survive.

It makes sense then, that both Loki and Sylvie see themselves in each other ("I see a scheme, and in that scheme I see myself" from Ep2) and acknowledge that they are both lonely survivors who made it through so much, that they had each other for even that short amount of time.

That connection they had, that emotional attachment that they came to share, was not romantic in any way. (I'll get to why I’m conflicted about this, and why I may come to be okay with it, in a bit.) I read somewhere that the Nexus Event was not as Mobius described it, but was that Loki finally knowing that he'll never be alone, that he's honest with himself, which is something that goes against the TVA's dictates. THAT's the Nexus Event!

According to the TVA and Ravonna, Loki can't be caring! He can't change from being a homicidal maniac! He can't change! But we know Loki can. Loki himself knows that he can change. This knowledge and acceptance was enough to cause the damn Nexus Event, because the Timekeepers did not decree it! Even in Ep1, Loki declared that he would not let the TVA dictate how his story ends. It's clear that Loki's story is nt over yet.

Two lonely survivors find each other, so it's not surprising that Loki himself was THIS close to finally admitting the truth about himself, admitting and being honest with himself... until Ravonna pruned him.

Ravonna has always been pro-TVA and anti-Loki, so it's not surprising that earlier when she was speaking to Mobius, he's like, "Loki can change" but she's like "no because the TVA said so", so therefore when she hears that Loki is finally being honest with himself (through almost revealing his feelings to Sylvie), Ravonna cannot take it and obliterates him herself. According to her, which says that according to the TVA, Loki having an honest and real change of heart is the real Nexus Event and as such, must be prevented.

Now, about love, I guess, new to Loki as it may be. 

(Talking points from https://www.marvel.com/articles/tv-shows/loki-sylvie-in-love)

Here's where I think I can explain why though I'm not 100% on board with Loki being romantically involved with Sylvie I might warm up to the idea, the possibility of them being kind of a thing. I'm a little divided on it myself, but here goes.

First and foremost, here's something that head writer Michael Waldron says about the possibility of a romance: "That was one of the cruxes of my pitch [for the series], that there was going to be a love story. We went back and forth for a little bit about, like do we really want to have this guy fall in love with another version of himself? Is that too crazy?" Maybe, maybe not.

You see, as you know, Sylvie is a version of Loki, but is not Loki. Mobius describes them as "Two Variants of the same being." Director Kate Herron notes, however, saying of Sylvie about Loki that "she is him, but she's not him. They've had such different life experiences." Tom Hiddleston chimes in with "Sylvie's not Loki. Sylvie is Sylvie. I think he realizes, and she realizes, that while they're the same, they're not the same."

But what about the love story?

Mobius concludes through context clues that Loki is "an incredible seismic narcissist! You fell for yourself!" He taunts Loki, "You like her! Does she like you?"

Here's where it gets interesting. Loki had reassured Sylvie that people like them don't die so easily, they survive. He had praised her for running circles around the TVA, calling her amazing (again, another metaphor, but I think I've covered that), after which she had placed her hand on Loki's arm. Notice his reaction - he looks down at where her hand had made contact with his arm, shifts in a way that suggests his surprise. He's like, 'Is this warmth I'm feeling? I've never felt someone's gentle touch before. I think she cares for me, is that even possible for someone like me?'

He looks up at her, and though his story differs from Sylvie's, he recognizes that though he may have suffered, she had been physically on the run her entire life, whereas Loki had been mentally and metaphorically on the run from himself. We see from the look on his face that though Loki and Sylvie had spent less than 12 hours in each other's presence, he's come to respect her and her courage to do what he could never have. "You're amazing," he says.

Michael Waldron continues, "The look that they share, that moment, [it started as] a blossoming friendship. Then for the first time, they both feel that twinge of, ‘Oh, could this be something more? What is this I'm feeling?’ These are two beings of pure chaos that are the same person falling in love with one another. That's a straight-up and down branch, and exactly the sort of thing that would terrify the TVA."

Sylvie's not sure if she's got any sort of feelings for Loki, but she does ask if he's okay after they reach the golden elevators that would take them to the Timekeepers. Anyway, after the time loop punishment on Asgard, during which Lady Sif tells him, "You deserve to be alone and you always will be", Loki realizes that he's scared of being alone. He hopes that there might be someone out there with whom he can connect on a deeper level.

Director Kate Herron points out, "Who's a better match for Loki than himself?" Or Sylvie, for that matter. But because "but she's not him. They've had such different life experiences," it would make so much sense and would totally be in character for Loki to connect with someone he sees himself in, again, metaphorically speaking.

This is the ultimate journey of "self-love, self-reflection, and forgiving yourself", as Waldron puts it, so for Loki to come to terms that he might possibly love Sylvie is a metaphor for accepting himself as he truly is, not what or who he projects himself to be. It's about being kind to himself, because as he reflects on this new feeling about Sylvie, he's also reflecting upon himself and whether or not he can keep running from his emotions, as Tom Hiddleston says. The answer is no, he cannot run any longer from his acknowledgment that he's got feelings for Sylvie than he can run from his own realizations about himself. He forgives Sylvie as a metaphorical way of forgiving himself for his past misdeeds, like admitting that cutting off Sif's hair was not funny at all. It would make sense then, according to Waldron, that "that would be Loki's first real love story." Not a story about a narcissist, but a story of identity and self-acceptance and honesty.

The fact that Loki and Sylvie are two COMPLETELY different people who are so dissimilar except for the fact that they're two lonely survivors, could possibly result in them having a relationship.

Hear me out on why.

You know how Loki had said to Sylvie at the end, "this is new to me"? He means that he has never before known how to express love and care because he's never received any of either. For all of his life, he had been treated badly by all except perhaps his mother, but as in Ep3, he agrees that though he's had courtships before, none of those relationships, none of it included any type of love that felt tangentially real to him. Loki doesn't know what real love is... until Sylvie comes along. She does not make him know what love is, because he comes to terms to his feelings all on his own.

Tom Hiddleston says, "When Loki meets Sylvie, he's inspired solely by curiosity." Herron adds, about the relationship, "It was just about giving it the space to breathe and digging into it in a way that felt earned." And I think that I might come to accept that it is earned, in some way.

Two lonely survivors who quite literally run into each other, who recognize each other for who they really are, who accept each other and themselves, and who can finally be truthful and honest with themselves and each other. It's not always a game of checkers or chess. Sometimes, it's a maze of metaphors and mirrors.

I understand that this relationship between Sylvie and Loki is controversial for some, cute for others. If I hadn't already made myself clear, I was never really against the pairing, just that I was never 100% sure I'd board that train myself. I was initially of the opinion that their dynamic was strictly platonic, but because I'm open to different interpretations, I decided to have a look at why people saw the relationship between Loki and Sylvie as a beautiful one.

The conclusion I came to, is that there definitely is more than one interpretation of Loki and Sylvie's dynamic, and that I'm okay with both. We've got two episodes left, so I'm curious to see how Sylvie and Loki's dynamic plays itself out.

Ultimately, this story is about Loki.

Loki has to start with the man in the mirror. The person he metaphorically sees himself in is Sylvie, his perfect mirror, and he's asking himself to change his ways. No message, no relationship, no reflection, no realization, no feeling could have been any clearer. So, if Loki wants to be a better person, which we know he can and will be, he will take a look at himself in his mirror and make that change.

[ashdoesfandomarchieved]

Prompt, Angst, The titan gets badly damaged and a lot of the crew are dead or injured, mariner goes AWOL from the cerritos to find out if boimler is okay and there's a scene with boimler unconscious on a biobed and Mariner is like "you have to live so I can feed you to an armus for leaving the cerritos!"

A/N: you sent this prompt ages ago, but the words just wouldn't happen lmao. So six months late and a few thousand words short, here you go:

ao3

Okay, so here’s the thing.

Beckett keeps files on everyone. Not physical files of course--too insecure and hackable (she should know). But a mental file. Still hackable if she runs into a telepath, but still slightly more secure from the rest of her coworkers.

It’s not as if they’re particularly like. Creepy files. She isn’t snooping into anyone’s actual physical file onboard or obtaining any info illegally. She just observes things and passively marks them for later. Tendi likes peanut-butter sandwiches. Janice gets her neck tattoos re-inked every few months. Captain Mom has a stick up her ass. That kind of thing.

It’s a fine tuned compartmentalization that’s useful in a variety of situations, whether it’s knowing what to say in a social situation or who to trust during a red alert (tip: always go with Rutherford, he’s anxious but the least likely to betray you and throw you out of an airlock. Bonus: he’s the most likely crew member on this trashcan to actually have a working idea).

Some mental files are incredibly detailed. For instance, the one on her mom is about as thick as a handbound copy of War & Peace and just as boring. Everything from her favorite flavor of ice cream to her first response to an emergency situation is in there-incredibly accurate and incredibly detailed. She’s sure her mom has a similar mental file on her as well, but resolutely does Not think about it.

Some mental files are almost empty. Ensign Gent’s toothbrush is pink. First Officer Ransom has nice abs I guess. That dude who’s name I can’t remember opened his third eye and ascended into the afterlife or something I wasn’t actually there Tendi told me and I was on my fourth drink.

And then some are medium sized but entirely unremarkable.

Like Bradward Boimler’s, for instance.

Loves classic rock. Dyes his hair purple. Stickler for rules. Needs to loosen up a bit. A lot. Probably needs to get laid. Definitely needs to get laid.

That’s it, that’s the entire file. Beckett doesn’t really concern herself with whatever’s going on with Boimler beyond the occasional ribbing or co-assignment. It’s not because she doesn’t like the dork. She would tentatively (but never to his face) call him her friend if cornered. And she enjoyed riling him up.

She updates the file about a year (almost two) into her acquaintance with him. FUCKING BACKSTABBING TRAITOR. (That’s it now, that's the entire file.) She doesn’t revisit it again, not for almost eight months, despite Tendi’s cheerful updates on how he’s doing--they’re still in constant contact, despite his ghosting Beckett--and Rutherford’s worried comments on his well-being.

“It’s not our job to babysit him,” she snapped one day. “Hell, it wasn’t our job when he was here. Just let it go.”

And that was the end of that.

______

Okay, that was very much not the end of that.

It starts like this:

“Something’s going on, on the Titan,” Tendi hisses, dropping down into Beckett’s bunk at like 2am. Time doesn’t work the same out here as it does on Beckett’s home planet, but it feels like 2am so she’s calling it 2am. Everyone who’d been on the Alpha shift were pretty much dead to the world anyway, so it might as well have been. The point was, Beckett was sleeping, Tendi should have been sleeping, but instead the two of them are having an anxious stare off in the dark.

And Beckett’s currently having cardiac arrest from being startled so soundly. After her heart starts working again like a human heart is supposed to, the words begin to register. Sort of. “What?”

Tendi flips her padd around. Beckett blinks at the bright light from the screen, squinting to see what’s there.

“Is that morse code? Why the fuck is the Titian using morse code.”

Tendi stares at her unblinkingly, face flat.

Then,

“Oh. Oh shit. Shit!” Beckett sits straight up, throwing the covers off. There’s a few protesting noises and shushes that ensue around the room, but Beckett is already making a blind grab for her pants and shoes. “The fuck didn’t you lead with that?”

“Because people are sleeping,” Tendi whispers. Loudly. She rolls off the bunk and onto the floor, shoes already on. “So we’re going, right?”

“Of course we’re fucking going,” Beckett hisses. “Why wouldn’t-”

“Because you’ve been all hung up over him for the past eight months.”

“He ghosted me!”

“Okay yeah-”

“After accepting a promotion that he promised he wouldn’t-”

“Mariner-”

“He’s a backstabbing, little weasel who climbs over his friends-”

“Is this about that or the fact that you miss him?”

Beckett finishes pulling her shoes on and stands up, scowling. “I don’t miss him. Why are you defending him?”

“I’m pissed too. Don’t get me wrong, when we see him I’m gonna kill him. But I think this is more than that.”

“Whatever.” Beckett turns on her heel. “Are we stealing a shuttle or what?”

“Rutherford’s already on it.” Tendi taps rapidly on her data padd, keeping pace with Beckett’s light job easily. “We were hoping you could like. Let your mom know-”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Beckett pulls out her comm, quickly typing out a quick message to her mother. “This is gonna be a shitshow.” The two of them enter the shuttle bay, which is pretty much deserted due to it being beta-shift.

“I have no idea how we’re even going to sneak onto the planet. It’s been on lockdown since the Titian crashed there.” Tendi’s shoulders slump.

“Leave it to me, I know a guy.”

“Of course you do,” Rutherford says, popping head out the shuttle door. “Good to go?”

Tendi gives him a thumbs up.

Beckett straps herself into a chair, stomach churning. “He’s fine though, right? Like, we would have gotten a call. Who’s his emergency contact anyway?”

Tendi worries her lip between her teeth. “His mom? I don’t know, it never came up and I don’t have access to his file.”

“He wasn’t on the list of deceased. Just the missing persons list,” Rutherford offers helpfully, punching in some coordinates.

“Well that’s reassuring,” Beckett mutters under her breath. She stares down at her comm, stomach churning.

_______

“Seriously, what are the odds of this even happening?” Tendi asks, dragging Rutherford by the arm behind them. A severely concussed, disgruntled Rutherford makes a grunt of what Beckett assumes is agreement.

“Do you really want to be arguing about the odds right now?” Boimler shrieks, sliding to an uncoordinated stop as the four of them run directly into the maze wall.

“Fuck,” Beckett says, eloquently.

“I thought you said you knew which way we were going!” Boimler runs a hand through his wet hair, face going through a series of complicated expressions before settling on frustration.

Beckett crosses her arms. “I did know where we were going. When I had the fucking map!”

“Why are you yelling at me about that? I didn’t even have it!”

“I don’t see anyone else here dumb enough to have lost it.”

“Guys-”

“You were the last person with the map, Mariner.”

“Unless some idiot took it out of my pack when I wasn’t looking.”

“Guys.”

“I didn’t touch your stupid map! Why are you so fixated on this!”

“Because if we had the map, maybe we wouldn’t be about to die via giant space spider!”

“Guys!” Rutherford shouts.

Beckett jumps at the unexpected shout from the usually quiet ensign. She turns on her heel, meeting Tendi and Rutherford’s unimpressed stares.

“Lookie, secret passage.” Rutherford waves a hand to a hole in the wall that hadn’t been there like two seconds ago. “You two good? Can we go?”

Beckett pushes past Boimler, lightly shoulder checking him and jumps through the doorway after her two annoyed friends. She doesn’t listen worriedly to see if Boimler follows her (she doesn’t) and she doesn’t resist the urge to turn around and make sure he’s close.

She balls her hands into tight fists and stomps past Tendi and Rutherford, ignoring the exchanged glances. “Please tell me this is a way out.” Her flat voice has the barest hint of a tremble in it.

You’re losing your touch, Mariner, get it together, she tells herself.

Tendi pulls a lighter out of her back pocket. (Because of course D’Vana Tendi has an old timey lighter on hand. There was a reason Beckett liked her after all.) It takes a couple of flicks, but she manages to get it to catch. The small source of light barely lights up their passageway, but it’s enough to see that it leads deeper into the planet.

“Well, here goes nothing,” Tendi sighs. “I’ll take the lead, I guess. You good, Sam?”

Rutherford grimaces, but nods. “Nothing I can’t handle. Let’s just get out of here.”

_______

It would be Beckett’s luck that she and Bomlier get separated from the other two. And it would just be their luck that there’s a cave in just before they reach the end of the catacombs. And of course, of fucking course, the Cerritos’ ETA on getting them out is anywhere from 2-6 hours, depending on how fast they can get the ship up and running again.

If anyone is using buffer time, Beckett is going to put spiders in their pillowcase.

“This is bullshit,” she mutters, dropping into a seated lotus position. She plays with Tendi’s lighter, flickering it on and off again.

Boimler grimaces from across her. “Can you stop that? It’s giving me a headache.”

Beckett makes steady eye contact again and flicks it off again.

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck yourself. Or whatever,” Beckett mutters. She flicks the lighter back on.

Boimler makes a face like he’s swallowing back a retort. Instead of snapping back, he jams his hands into his pockets. “Can we- can we just talk about it? Like actually talk about it, not passive aggressively pretend like-”

“Like passive aggressively avoiding your best friend’s calls is okay?” Lighter flicks off again. “Yeah, that seems like bitch move, for sure. Glad I don’t know anyone who does that.”

“I’m sorry,” Boimler says into the dark, voice cracking.

“Fuck you.” Beckett flicks the lighter back on. Boimler’s eyes follow it, eyes dilating slightly as the light hits them. She flicks it off again, plunging the cave into darkness again. She flicks it back on. Boimler leans heavily against the cave wall, not looking at her or the light. He starting to look very pale. Paler than usual.

Beckett wonders about that headache.

“How long were you out here before we got your distress signal?” she asks, keeping her eyes glued to the lighter. She sees him shrug in her peripheral.

“Dunno. A while.”

Her stomach tightens. “You didn’t like. See anything weird?”

“You mean besides you and Tendi hauling ass? Not really.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Why?”

“What about strange smells-”

“Mariner.”

“You look pale,” she snaps. “And like super clammy. And I’m not talking about your stressed out will Mariner stop talking clammy, I’m talking like I think you inhaled a deadly neurotoxin kind of clammy.”

“I feel fine! Just the headache. Aaand maybe a slight stomach ache,” he adds at her flat expression. “I always have a stomach ache though-”

“-yeah, yeah, it’s the ulcer you’ve had since you were, like, two, you’re a goddamn medical marvel Boims. Budge over.” She shoves the lighter into his hands and grabs his face. “Are you dizzy,” she asks, peering in closely at his pupils.

Boimler tries to shove her away, but she’s stronger and more stubborn. “A little. Look, it’s just the headache and str-”

“Yeah, do you usually get pink eye from stress?” she asks dryly, pulling back to giving him some breathing room.

“I-what.”

“Your white are like. Super inflamed or whatever. Boimler, I think something’s wrong.”

“Shit.” He rubs his temples. “What’s that ETA again?”

“Six hours. Give or take some buffer time.” Mariner stands up. She’s not worried, she’s not. “Maybe you should lie down.”

Boimler glowers at her in the dim light, hands tightly wrapped around her lighter. “I’m fine.”

______

“Good thing you pulled him out when you did,” Dr T’Ana tells Ransom. “Any longer-” she pauses, seeing Beckett’s expression. “Do you want to know what it was?” she asks her.

Beckett, who’s currently white knuckling the back of the plastic chair by the biobed, shakes her head. “Not really,” she replies, stiffly. “Long-term effects?”

“None,” T’Ana replies, scratchy voice almost gentle. Almost. “So feel free to be as hard on him as you want when he wakes up.”

Ransom barks a laugh, clapping Beckett’s shoulder. “Oh, Mariner knows how to be-”

“If you make a single hard joke in my presence, I’m tossing you back onto that planet,” Beckett replies flatly.

Ransom removes his hand. “Right! Right, I’ll just be on my-”

“Out,” T’Ana and Beckett snap.

There’s a pause after the turbolift doors close after Ransom. Dr. T’Ana eyes Beckett warily for a moment. Then, “Call me if he wakes up with any symptoms.”

“You said-”

“Yeah, well. He has a lot of surprises in him, doesn’t he?” She gives Beckett a pointed look before leaving, grumbling down at her clipboard.

Beckett glares down at the unconscious Boimler. “The shit I go through for your dumb ass.” She flops into the uncomfortable chair. “Wake up already. It’s no fun yelling at you like this.”

____

Surprisingly, Beckett does not yell at Boimler when he wakes up. It’s a near thing, though.

“Well, thanks for not letting me die, I guess,” he says, watching her warily after she’s done ranting. Not yelling, ranting.

“I wouldn’t have let you die,” she scoffs. “You’re still my friend, dumbass.”

Boimler perks up in surprise. “What?”

“Look, just because you pulled the ultimate shitty move, doesn’t stop us from being friends. You’re still on notice, though.”

“Right! Right.” He pauses, blinking up at her. “Does it help that I submitted a transfer back to the Cerritos before any of this went down?”

Beckett freezes. “Wait, what?”

“Yeah. I mean, don’t get me wrong that was my actual dream job, buuuut-”

“Riker is crazy?” Beckett dryly supplies.

“I thought you were crazy,” Boimler lets out a whooshing breath. “Like I seriously thought you were the most batshit, insane person I’d ever met, hands down. But Riker is certifiable.”

Beckett grins. She can’t suppress it and she’s too tired to try. “So you’re saying I’m preferable.”

“I will take you any day of the week over that.”

“Sounds like a compliment.”

“It is.”

“Hmm.” She eyes him critically.

“Soooo,” he draws out the word. “Am I forgiven?”

Beckett picks his shirt up off the end of the biobed and throws it at his face. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” He pulls it over his head, causing his hair to stick up in the back. Beckett suppresses the urge to smooth it down.

“I like watching you squirm,” she replies. “It soothes my massively inflated ego.”

Boimler barks out a laugh, easing himself out of the biobed carefully. Beckett turns to go--he still has to talk with Dr. T’Ana and possibly her mom over the transfer, and give his full report to Riker--but stops as he catches her wrist in one hand.

“Hey. Thanks.”

Beckett’s heartbeat rackets up a few notches. Stop that, she thinks at it and then stops because thinking at your own organs is weird. “Don’t worry about it,” she says, voice even. “You would have done the same for me.”

It’s true. Boimler may be a bit of a bastard and sometimes a shitty friend, but she has no doubt he’d have come running if it’d been the Cerritos accosted.

“Yeah,” he replies. “Sometimes I feel like that’s all I do with you.”

“What?”

He drops his gentle grip on her wrist. “Nothing. Just.” He shrugs, looking cagey. “I know I’ve been a bit of a-”

“Bitch?”

“--yeah, that lately. But. There’s not much I wouldn’t do for you. And that’s why I’m coming back. Because-because you deserve to know that. That you're my best friend, too.”

Her face heats up. “Yeah, well,” she mumbles. “Whatever.” Jams her hands into her pockets. “Don’t think I’m just gonna forget everything because you-”

“Yeah, I know. It’s fine.” He gives her a lopsided smile. “I just thought you should know.”

____

Beckett can feel the blush on her cheekbones until she reaches her bunk. Fuck, she thinks. Fuuuuuck.

She opens up her mental file on Boimler, crossing out whatever she had in there before. Best friend, she replaces it with. Stares at it for a long moment. Erases it. Puts it back.

Bradward “Brad” Boimler. Best friend. Loves classic rock. Dyes his hair purple. Has made some improvements, but still needs to loosen up a bit. Probably needs to get laid. Definitely needs to get laid.

You could help with that.

Best friend. She underlines in the file. You don’t have feelings like that for your friends.

Beckett throws herself into her bunk. She had the horrible, sneaking suspicion that Brad Boimler’s file was about to get a lot longer.

_______

[ambivalentmarvel]

so the story behind this is that @sreppub​ arrived in my dms saying “sitcom starring two uppity, former rich guys and a regular poor college kid who follow up an online ad and become roommates” and i said something along the lines of “your MIND” and here we are. she does the art, i do the fic, and we both yell a lot along the way. read it on here or ao3 and enjoy!!

The Sitcom Supreme

If Peter or Stephen were around to hear Tony tell the story of how they all ended up rooming together, they would have plenty of objections, to which he would call them both dirty liars, to which they would gang up on him because they’re terrible and like that, to which he would probably throw up his hands in exasperation and/or make the mistake of engaging them in a debate, to which they would grin like wolves because, once again, they’re terrible and like that, but Tony’s the asshole who put up the Craigslist ad, so he gets to start—because he’s terrible and like that.

It’s a common trait amongst the three of them, what can he say?

The beginning of the story does not involve either of the other two, however. It begins with Rhodey, who is only occasionally terrible and like that. Rhodey has been Tony’s best friend since the tender age of fifteen. Considering Tony at age fifteen was a greasy little douche bag with too much money and a whole bunch of daddy issues that were somehow more obvious then than they are in the present, this is an impressive feat. 

Where things start, Rhodey and Tony are roommates at MIT, which is Howard’s school of choice to shove his problem child onto. Tony is supposed to get a single dorm room, but there’s a cockroach problem in that building. Administration has to get creative, which is how Rhodey, fresh out of boot for the fall semester, gets saddled with approximately one hundred and fifty pounds of neglected teenage boy who has only kind of gone through puberty.

The first words out of Tony’s mouth are blunt: “Any chance you have plans to drop out?”

And Rhodey looks at him with a raised brow, efficiently unpacked and totally unimpressed with the enormous stack of Tony’s things wavering in the doorway. “You have any plans to quit being annoying?” he retorts, which set the tone for their entire relationship.

Tony loves him to pieces. 

He’s the older brother he never knew he needed, yanking him by his collar from frat parties on the weekends and to his house for holidays because getting swamped by Rhodey’s six younger siblings is infinitely better than having to wear a suit and tie for Christmas dinner with six CEOs and maybe some senators, depending on the year. In return, Tony sees him through every finals week of his collegiate career, during which Rhodey gets so nervous he usually pukes at least daily and pulls so many all-nighters Tony memorizes the exact shade of red his eyes are at the end.

So, it’s safe to say they get along well. They get along so well, as a matter of fact, that when they stare at each other after their graduation ceremony for their Masters—a two-year process for both of them, and Rhodey receives two degrees to Tony’s four—surrounded by Rhodey’s family and Jarvis, Tony’s lips curl in a smirk Rhodey knows spells the best kind of trouble. “What do you say we keep the roommate streak alive, yeah? Howard’s building an office in New York, and I’m thinking of doing a doctorate at NYU.”

Rhodey’s brows raise, but he’s grinning, so Tony already knows his answer. “Depends. Are you still gonna’ snore?”

“Are you still gonna’ have a stick up your a—”

Mama Rhodes shoots Tony a look from where she’s trying to corral the rest of her kids.

“—butt?” he finishes with a sheepish glance her way.

Rhodey does not even remotely have a stick up his ass, but of the two of them, he features in tabloids far, far less, which Tony somehow uses to his advantage.

“You know it,” Rhodey replies, and so they find a fancy penthouse that Tony mostly pays for, with the excuse of Rhodey satisfying his part of rent via generally covering Tony’s ass to the best of his ability. And he has a lot of ability, honed from years upon years of Tony self-destructing at the drop of a hat, but there’s only so much he can do, especially as his military career just keeps flying higher and Howard just keeps pushing Tony harder.

A few sex tapes, especially wild benders, and crashed cars later, when Howard cuts Tony off and tells him, quote, “I won’t speak to you until you learn to do something other than disappoint me”, Rhodey very gracefully still shacks up with him in their considerably less fancy apartment.

This is all important to know, contrary to what someone whose name may or may not rhyme with Tephen Trange might say about Tony’s “long-winded” and “overly-complicated” storytelling tendencies because it explains exactly why Rhodey is a traitor.

Is Carol a very cool lady who could kick Tony’s ass? Yes. Is she sickeningly cute with Rhodey and not just because a smile from her makes him melt into a pile of fucking goo on the floor? Also yes. Does it probably make more sense for Tony to find roommates who will actually be around to monitor his—allegedly—poor mental health and self-care habits? Okay, fine, yes, but the bottom line is, Rhodey is moving in with Carol and abandoning Tony, and nobody said he had to like it.

(This is not strictly true, what with the approximately ten conversations Rhodey and he have had about his happiness and how, if Tony needs him, all he has to do is say the word and he’ll be back, but Tony has always had a flair for the dramatic.)

The whole idea is that Tony will find someone gone less than Rhodey with all his military business to enjoy having around the apartment. It’s technically a three-bedroom, but he and Rhodey use the extra one for storage. Fortunately or unfortunately, that storage area has become a lot of junk they go through before Rhodey makes his grand exit, and Tony suddenly has the option of having two roommates.

The ad is a low point, he can admit that, but there is a flaw in what Tony loudly calls Rhodey’s master plan to leave him alone to wallow in misery: Tony doesn’t exactly have a lot of friends, nevermind people who he’d want to live with.

“Rhodey. Honeybear. Platypus.”

“The nicknames are old, and you need to stop using them around Carol. She called me Platypus last night during sex, and it ruined the whole mood.”

“You poor thing.”

“She thought it was hilarious.”

If Tony has to lose Rhodey to anybody, by God, Carol is his first choice by a long shot.

“Anyway, as I was saying, Sourpatch—”

“I hate you.”

“—how am I supposed to find someone else to live with?”

Tony is thirty-two and regularly speaks out with all of four people: Pepper, Rhodey, Carol, and Happy. Unfortunately, Happy works in Stark Industries’ California branch and has stated rather firmly that he’s not interested in transferring to the city, Pepper wouldn’t live with another person for love or money, and the other two are spoken for.

It’s a terrible situation to be in, honestly.

“Craigslist,” Rhodey deadpans, fighting with some packing tape.

Tony feels his heart stop beating in real time from his place folding some of Rhodey’s clothes into a plastic tub. His head snaps up, and his jaw drops, absolutely affronted. “You would suggest that I, even disowned and stripped of my former glory—” Tony has several million dollars in the stock market, but that’s neither here nor there and isn’t much compared to the fact that he was supposed to be a billionaire. “—would stoop to looking for live-in friends on Craigslist?”

Rhodey looks up to meet his eyes, unfazed. He’s used to Tony’s antics after nearly two decades of friendship. “Well, I’m not moving out until you have at least one person guaranteed to take my place, so unless you have any better ideas, yeah.” He shrugs—just shrugs, as if he isn’t advising Tony to scrape the bottom of the fucking barrel in terms of reliable people to regularly fall asleep around.

It’s insulting.

“I’m not putting out an ad for a roommate on Craigslist,” he protests, shoving the next horribly colored polo into the tub with disdain.

That night, he tears up thinking about stopping Rhodey from being happy with Carol, and the post is up by the time Rhodey gets up—stupidly early, like normal—for his morning run. Along with his contact information and a few blurry pictures of the place, it includes a blurb about the circumstances.

Best friend moving out. Need a roommate or I will die of Sadness. His girlfriend is cool but hewas mind first. Carol, I am watching you. Two rooms open for business. But not sketchy business. You can just lve there. Current resident (me) is cool and very charming. I am a man. No dumb fuck offers. Thanks.

It could use some work, but Tony’s never been great with words, even less so when he’s crying to rock ballads at two in the morning. He edits it when he wakes up, and by noon that day, it’s looking better.

At seven o’clock that evening, he receives one of two messages that actually work out.

Enter the first offender: Peter Parker.

Peter, Tony will learn, is nineteen, attending NYU—like Tony did, which is a sign, really—for a double major in biochemistry and physics, and has the worst luck of anyone Tony’s ever met.

Rhodey’s moving out in a week—he’s been putting off finding a roommate for a while, alright—and Peter has to legally be out of his dorm in three days. That is quite the predicament, and Tony, by nature, is a curious creature. He is not, however, one for beating around the bush. That results in a text that reads exactly this.

Tony: What the hell did you do?

He could hack through the university files, but explanations are always more fun with a personal touch that’s lacking in, say, an incident report. Tony watches a bubble with three blinking dots for a long, long time, and the reply is surprisingly sparse—sparse enough, in fact, for Tony to have more questions than answers when he receives it.

Unknown Sender: theres been a few things but the kicker was the fire

Tony: The fire?

Unknown Sender: i tried to make popcorn and the microwave blew up

Now that is some problematic behavior Tony can get behind. He amends the kid’s previously non-existent contact information.

Tony: How can they kick you out for that? That’s not your fault.

Roommate (?) Peter: it blacked out the power on the entire first floor

Tony: And?

Roommate (?) Peter: last month i got the blame for contaminating half the campus water supply

Roommate (?) Peter: so i was already on thin ice

Tony: Accidentally?

Roommate (?) Peter: idk sometimes things just happen to me

Tony doesn’t know how to respond to that. If Rhodey knew, he’d never let him live it down. He can hear his annoying laugh in his ears like a premonition—“Hah—Tony, speechless?”—but then there are the dots again and a simple message to follow the last, a touch pathetic.

Roommate (?) Peter: please let me move in

Tony likes him.

Peter shows up on the stairs of the complex thirty-six hours after Tony posted the ad with a backpack and a meager total of six beat-to-shit boxes. The backpack holds nearly all of his school supplies, which makes Tony, in retrospect, genuinely fearful for the integrity of his spine, and the contents of the boxes are sorted, as Tony will learn, into three categories that each have two boxes in them. The categories are fairly simple—clothing, necessities, and whatever other shit he could fit from his dorm—and leave Peter with thrilling possessions such as an entire collection of truly atrocious shirts with science puns on them, a gallon of hand soap, and any food he had in his cupboards.

Thankfully, Rhodey is out furniture shopping with Carol when Tony goes out to meet him, which solves the problem of Rhodey going into overbearing caretaker mode at the sight of a beanpole of a kid failing to manage their life successfully. As someone who has been made many a you-haven’t-eaten-a-meal-in-two-days-and-I’m-secretly-a-panicking-mother-hen casserole, Tony counts his blessings.

Tony waves. “Peter?” he asks, reluctantly changed out of his pajamas for the day.

The kid nods. “That’s me. And you’re Tony?”

“Guilty as charged. Want a hand with those boxes?” he asks, watching Peter lift three at a time.

“No, I got it,” he insists, and then the box on top slides out of his grip and onto the sidewalk.

Peter stares at it for a second before he lets out a long-suffering sigh.

“Maybe I could use some help,” he admits, and with much struggle, the two of them, each with three boxes, waddle inside. There is a moment and only one moment where Tony thinks that it might be nice to have some extra assistance, but with another thought of the things Rhodey would do at the sight of a woefully inept college kid, Tony decides it’s for the best.

Tony leads the operation, considering he has the key and also knows explicitly where they’re going, and he would have to say his biggest complaint about the ordeal is that Sam, who lives in the apartment below Tony and Rhodey with Steve and Bucky, happens to open his door as they walk by.

Being an asshole, he has something to say about it. “Need some help, shellhead?” he crows.

Tony wishes he had a free hand to flip him off.

“Watch your back, Wilson,” he growls in return, a continuation of the beef the five of them have maintained since they met approximately seven years ago, when they all moved in on the same day and kept knocking into each other’s shit in the halls.

When they reach the top of the next flight of stairs and Tony starts to fumble with the key, Peter asks about it. “So—uh—who was that?”

“That was Sam. Part of the deal with moving in is that you harass him and the other two idiots who live with him. He also responds to jackass, douchecanoe, or birdbrain.”

“Birdbrain?”

“It’s an old joke. He had a rather—” Tony grunts, forced to set down his load to unlock the door, “—spectacular run-in with some pigeons a few years ago.”

“Oh.”

“They shat on him. A lot.”

“Oh.”

“It’s a good nickname,” Tony assures him, throwing open the door with his arms flung wide for dramatic flair. “Welcome to Casa Stark. I mean, I guess it’s Casa Stark-Parker now, but if we’re hyphenating, my name goes first because I lived here first.” He holds up a finger as if to stall Peter, who has yet to speak from where his mouth is decidedly blocked by the aforementioned three boxes he is carrying. “And I know what you’re going to say—that Parker-Stark works better because it’s alphabetical—but that is where you are wrong because letters have no place in this house. Numbers are much preferred, and we play by seniority here, anyway.”

He gives Peter a meaningful look that he cannot see because, once again, boxes.

“More on that, by the way—”

“Hey, Tony?” 

He cuts him off which is, objectively, rude, but Tony rarely gets along with people who aren’t a little curt with him from time to time. This is a positive sign, really, so he allows it.

“Yeah?” 

“This can be Casa Stark-Parker, but can we get to somewhere I can set these down? My arms are, like, going to give out on me.”

Not even ten minutes in, and he’s already learned the art of bargaining. Tony’s proud, and he ushers him inside without any more monologues and a grin stretched across his face.

Peter, by virtue of moving in before Rhodey is out, ends up with the room that is no longer being used for storage. Tony has several questions for him, beginning with the fact that, despite the six packets of instant noodles he bothered to bring, he does not appear to have a mattress. Or a desk. Or a dresser. Or anything that’s supposed to go in a room.

His solutions for Tony’s concerns are as follows.

In place of a bed, he has two blankets, one to put on the floor and one to cover himself with. He was planning on sitting on the floor to do schoolwork instead of using a desk. And finally, he was going to leave his clothes in the boxes.

This is all relayed to Tony with an earnest gleam in his eyes and a smile.

Tony blinks in disbelief. Then, very eloquently, he says, “Kid, that is the saddest shit I have ever heard. Aren’t your parents helping you with the move to an apartment?”

The kid shifts from foot to foot, shoving his hands in his pockets and glancing to the side.

Tony’s eyes narrow. As someone who is extremely well-versed in avoidance tactics, he feels very confident in saying that is definitely a fucking avoidance tactic.

“About that,” he begins, “first of all, I’m an orphan.” Jesus Christ. “Second of all, my aunt doesn’t exactly—uh—know I got kicked out of the dorms.”

That is all interesting information, to say the least, but luckily, Tony thrives under pressure.

“Alright. I can respect that.”

It’s not like he never hid anything from his parents. Evading his aunt is Peter’s problem, not Tony’s. None of this is Tony’s problem, really, except then he looks around the room and wonders which of Peter’s boxes are holding his two blankets.

Tony was concerned about Rhodey, but he can’t stop himself.

“But I’m also gonna’ level with you—you’re not sleeping on the ground. You can take the couch.”

The until I get you a proper bed frame and mattress goes unsaid, but sometimes things like that are better as surprises. It’ll be a fun housewarming gift, Tony thinks, and by the time the shipment from IKEA arrives containing both of those things and the aforementioned missing dresser and desk, there will be a third roommate to help put it all together, not that either of them know it yet.

That night, Rhodey and Carol show up with enough ingredients for lasagna to serve four, and Tony delights in showing off Peter as they cook because now he has a “super cool roommate too! Take that, Platypus.”

Rhodey glances to Peter. “If you’re being held hostage, blink twice.”

“Hey!” Tony protests. He is a perfectly lovable roommate, thank you very much, and he’s so offended, he’s not even going to let Rhodey know about his mission to furnish Peter’s room.

God bless her, Carol just laughs.

The four of them get along with surprising ease, considering Peter’s only been around for a few hours. Peter even tries to help with the lasagna, but Tony has a near-photographic memory and has not remotely forgotten the popcorn incident, however vaguely it was described.

“You just sit there and be a nicer person than Rhodey,” he urges him, and Peter nods, hiding his grin behind his hand at the argument that starts.

Once everyone is done, he and Rhodey get suckered into dish duty while Carol spirits Peter off to the living room, claiming she has to warn him about what he’s getting into. Tony doesn’t care enough to complain, and when her back is turned, he splashes a plate of suds onto Rhodey’s front. 

Rather than rise to the bait, however, he raises his brows, slipping into what Tony affectionately calls his big-brother-giving-a-stern-talking-to mode. “You have to be a good example for him, Tones.”

Tony blinks. “I’m sorry, did you just say—”

“I’m serious!” They keep their voices mostly down, but Rhodey’s rises a bit with the declaration.

“He’s nineteen—an adult, in case you forgot. He signed the lease all on his own and everything,” he hisses back incredulously.

He thought he dodged the bullet by not disclosing just how underprepared Peter is to live in an apartment, but Rhodey’s head dips. Tony braces himself for the part of his big-brother-giving-a-stern-talking-to mode where he tells Tony he’s making a bullshit excuse and needs to get it together. “Don’t give me that. He’s a baby adult at best, and you know it.”

Yep, there it is.

“That’s still an adult!”

It is! Tony was on his own way earlier than nineteen. This is not a big deal, no matter how outlandish Peter’s circumstances are for moving out of NYU’s dorms.

“Watch his back.”

Tony scoffs. “It’s not like I was going to feed him to the wolves. I’m barely thirty—I’m not his dad.”

“Tony.”

Ah, the final, crushing blow of this version of Rhodey: his name—but with emphasis.

Tony sighs. “Fine,” he acquiesces. “I solemnly swear I will not let him get up to no good.”

A beat. Rhodey squints at him, slowly lowering the plate he’s holding into the sink. “You told me you refused to read Harry Potter.”

Shit.

Back when the books were first coming out, Rhodey was insufferably obsessed with them, and Tony loves him, but emotionally, he couldn’t handle having Rhodey think he was willing to discuss anything having to do with the series for longer than thirty seconds. Thus, he read the books—everyone in the world was doing the same, okay, and he cannot stand being out of the loop—but lied to Rhodey about it.

And now, he’s been made.

Rhodey and he launch into a very spirited discussion that draws Carol and Peter back to the kitchen, and despite the vein throbbing dangerously in Rhodey’s forehead, the promise has been made.

The day after Rhodey moves out, he and Peter manage to flood the bathroom.

In Tony’s defense, he only promised to look out for Peter. He said nothing about curbing his own dumbass tendencies, and it’s not like Bucky’s bedroom is all that damaged by the leak that Tony fixes before it’s really even a problem.

He and Peter settle into a nice sense of camaraderie, and Tony, content with his situation, forgets to take down his Craiglist ad that, logically speaking, someone would have to dig to find at this point, over a week after initially posting it.

Then, he receives a text that is as simple as it is effective: Is there still an available room in the apartment?

Enter the second offender: Stephen Strange.

Ahem, Doctor Stephen Strange, technically, but Tony has six PhDs. Nobody sees him going around making people call him Doctor Stark, and that’s because it makes him sound pretentious and stuffy, both things Tony prides himself on not being. However, Tony likes to push buttons, and very little gets Stephen worked up as fast as someone ignoring his credentials.

It’s a fun set-up, really, but annoying the piss out of Stephen is something that comes a little later—Tony’s not there yet in the story.

He humors the text, and after getting a read on things, he bursts into the living room, startling Peter nearly off the couch. He’s been doing his homework there and on the coffee table in front of it because the Swedish have many things but fast shipping is, apparently, not one of them, not that Peter knows there’s anything to be waiting on, but he’s getting off-topic.

Peter lets out a short yelp and presses a hand over his heart, both things that Tony ignores.

“We have a situation,” he announces.

“I swear I didn’t do it,” Peter defends pleadingly.

Tony is trying to teach him that messing things up is expected and, especially in particularly magnificent cases, admired in Casa Stark-Parker, but it’s a work in progress.

“I know you didn’t—don’t be ridiculous,” he waves his concerns off. “We are talking bigger than setting things on fire by accident. I bring you, my young protege, the proposition of—” A pause for dramatic effect. “—another roommate.”

“Ooh,” Peter says appropriately, setting his textbook down to examine the texts Tony brandishes. He begins to scroll, but while he does, Tony figures he can go ahead and fill him in on the essentials. It’s a very juicy situation, after all, and he can’t help himself.

“His name is Stephen Strange. He’s a neurosurgeon, but he got into a pretty bad car wreck that messed up his hands. He’s trying to save money while he goes to physical therapy—he apparently has a chance of recovery, but it’s a ways off—and that includes downsizing on where he lives.”

“I mean, yikes, but that’s an oddly specific backstory.”

“I’m glad you think that too, but I am intrigued. I looked him up, and he’s a real person—has a basically flawless reputation, or at least he did before his accident. Thoughts?”

Please say yes, please say yes, Tony thinks. The chance of a competent human—not including Rhodey, who looks more put together than he really is next to the chaos Tony perpetually dwells in—choosing to live with him is too fascinating to pass up, and he needs Peter to see that too.

Peter shrugs. “I’m down if you are. How old is he?”

Victory!

Satisfaction floods Tony, but he tries to maintain his cool.

“Thirty.”

Peter blows out a long breath, tipping his head back to look at the ceiling. “I didn’t anticipate moving into a nursing home,” he remarks dryly.

What a little shit.

It’s worth noting half the reason Rhodey left so easily is because he said he trusted Peter to keep Tony on his toes. Then again, that Tony likes being snarked at is a large part of why they get along so well despite only knowing each other for a matter of days.

“You’re the worst, Parker. I’m going to feed you to the hooligans downstairs. Steve has a monster appetite, you know.”

Peter hums, picking his textbook back up. “Not if I feed you to them first. And, Tony?”

“What?”

“Only old people say hooligans.”

Tony thinks about that one book, Give a Mouse a Cookie or whatever. Except in his case, it’s Rent a Teenager an Apartment, and Tony doesn’t have to adhere to the literary equivalent of a G-rating.

His response to the dig is creative and colorful, and Peter laughs.

Four days and a brief conversation at a coffee shop later—a formality he and Peter did not do and probably something Tony should’ve thought of as the older adult before giving him the address—Stephen’s team of movers invade the apartment.

The man himself stands like a drill sergeant at the last flights of stairs it takes to get to the apartment, arms crossed, beard wild, conducting activity.

Peter and Tony share their evaluations, peeking their head out from the doorway when it’s unoccupied by movers and Stephen isn’t looking their way. This involves quite a bit of ducking, but they are very careful not to be caught.

(Someone’s whose name may or may not rhyme with Tephen Trange later informs that “they were not at all subtle” and “were, in fact, very embarrassing”, but that’s how things with the three of them generally are, so Tony figures it was a good crash course to how life together goes.)

“He’s kind of scraggly,” Peter whispers, his head under Tony’s because he’s the shorter of the two of them, something Tony delights in refuting Peter’s quips about his age with.

“Kind of? He looks like a hobo.”

It’s true, okay? Facially, at least, the guy is a wreck. He’s not quite to Einstein levels of bad hair day, but he’s getting there.

“Be nice,” Peter chastises him. He’s gentler than Rhodey when he does it, but considering neither of them ever shut the hell up and they have thus bonded very easily over the course of their short relationship, it’s gotten to feel as natural as most of their interactions.

“All I’m saying is that I am happy to retain my place as the most attractive person in the apartment, okay?”

They’re forced to retreat from the entryway as another load comes through, and Peter looks at him disbelievingly. “Dream on,” he replies bluntly.

Tony gasps in offense.

Peter shrugs. “Look, I’m just gonna’ say it—you knew Rhodey before me, and now that I’m here—” he trails off, looking at Tony in faux-sympathy that doesn’t match the mischievous glint in his eyes.

While it is true that Rhodey is a fine specimen of a man—yet another reason Tony can’t, in good conscience, be truly angry Carol mooched him away from the bachelor lifestyle—Tony can’t cede that easily for the sake of his pride, and he scowls. “I am going to pretend you didn’t say that.”

They’re still bickering as the movers finish up and Stephen enters the apartment, dressed in what Tony recognizes as the latest from Armani and Tom Ford.

He may not get invited to fashion week anymore, but he still has taste, alright, even if Rhodey limits him to one designer purchase a month.

(Rhodey isn’t around to see what packages he orders now, Tony thinks but shelves the thought for later.)

Tony and Stephen met over coffee, and all three of them said hi to one another before the moving business officially began. However, there is a little stiffness in the air, make no mistake. It’s not Stephen’s fault, exactly, because he’s just kind of a foreboding guy, but still.

It figures that Peter would break the ice. As Tony’s found and will continue to discover, Peter is just as talkative as him. Granted, that trait usually appears in the form of rambling about something from class, but it’s not surprising that his natural passion for life comes through with someone about to be very, very involved in it. 

“Hi!” he begins. “Are all of the movers gone now?”

Stephen raises an unimpressed brow. “Yes.”

His reply is seriously lacking enthusiasm, but Tony isn’t allowed the opportunity to jump on that as Peter keeps going. 

“Sweet! Okay, so welcome to Casa Stark-Parker.”

Woah, woah, woah—timeout.

Tony frowns, raising a hand in a motion for Peter to stop. “I thought that was my thing?” he interjects.

“Well, it has my name in it, so it gets to be both of our things,” Peter replies, then furrows his brow, looking to Stephen. “Actually, since you’re here now, I guess it’s Casa Stark-Parker-Strange. Order’s based on who got here first, sorry,” he explains with a smile that Tony, now familiar with the fact that Peter has more to him than meets the eye, notes is a touch impish.

Tony is pleased to see, despite his generally wholesome appearance, the kid has at least picked up on the power of staking a claim.

Stephen blinks. His hands, Tony has noticed, don’t stop shaking, not even when he folds his arm across his chest, like a physical barrier between him and Peter’s excitement. “Okay?” he drawls slowly, confusedly.

“Tony’s rules, not mine,” Peter assures him as if he doesn’t just want the satisfaction of having his name not be the last in the line-up.

Tony scoffs. “Oh okay, so now we’re throwing me under the bus?”

“You have to take responsibility for your actions, Tony.”

“Oh, sure thing,” he replies, tone betraying that he does not, in fact, think any responsibility is at all necessary. He looks to Stephen, rolling his eyes. “Can you believe what I have to put up with? And it’s barely been a week.”

Stephen blinks again. “I see it’s a lot,” he says measuredly.

Peter gasps, unaffected. “Oh my God, we should make a sign for it,” he enthuses. “We can put it up on the door, and we’d be so much cooler than Sam and them.”

To say that Peter rose to the challenge of bothering their downstairs neighbors with zeal is something of an understatement. 

Tony is, honestly, a fan of the sign idea, especially if it were to light up, but that is where Stephen cuts in, his hands still trembling as he gestures. “Can we slow down for a moment?” He looks carefully from Tony and Peter and back again, bearing the appearance of a man in the throes of realizing he has made a bad decision. 

Tony knows that look well. It usually shows up when Rhodey agrees to one of Tony’s ideas and doesn’t realize just how badly constructed it is until it’s too late.

“First of all, I am fairly certain my car is parked illegally, and before we get too far, I need to fix it before I get towed. And secondly,” Tony watches Stephen’s lips curl in a self-satisfied, I-totally-think-I’m-better-than-you-even-if-I’m-not-technically-saying-it smile, “I am not here to be part of any Casa. I am waiting for physical therapy to work for me, and then I will be out of your hair. I appreciate being able to live here, but—”

Yeah, Tony’s had enough of that. Personally, he would like to thank Rhodey, who, in a way, begins and ends the story, and truly is the greatest best friend a man could have for teaching him how to properly deal with pompous rich people.

“Nuh-uh, none of that. If you’re living here, you’re a part of Casa Stark-Parker-Strange whether you like it or not.”

Stephen looks downright appalled that someone would dare to interrupt him, which, Tony knows from experience, is exactly the kind of shock rich people need to go through. He splutters for a second before he manages to get out a reply, “That was not in the lease.”

Tony spreads his hands as if to say what can you do? “And you didn’t mention in your texts that you were going to try to be a bump on a log, but here we are.”

Perhaps sensing the mounting animosity in the room or maybe just as excited as Tony to have someone to bother, Peter takes advantage of Stephen’s overwhelmed and bewildered state.

“First day with all three of us!” he shouts. “Picture!”

And before anyone can protest—including Tony, who would prefer to be documented in something other than a Black Sabbath tee and his work pants—Peter leans in with the camera on his phone ready to capture the moment.

In the resulting photo, Tony looks vaguely alarmed, Stephen looks pissed as hell, and Peter wears a grin that stretches across his whole face. The whole thing is blurry, and they eventually get it framed.

It’s a beautiful and fitting start to their time as roommates, and in the humble eyes of the asshole who posted the Craigslist ad, that is how the story of how they came to live together went.