#even if buddie doesn't go canon

[cescalr]

wait hello?? please elaborate on the green haired lalna, i never watched soi

oh sure!

In... hmmmmm one episode, The Hand? maybe? where Honeydew and Xephos head into an ancient technological ruin (implied to be a giant death robot of some ilk), they find a whole bunch of "evil" honeydew clones that have degraded to mindless violence (implied they're non-sapient, lacking the mental capacity to go beyond base instinct because of how long they've been down there multiplying ad nauseam, each clone generation worsening with nobody to maintain the mechanisms), and tonnes of broken vats. However, one single cloning vat is still working - and there's a guy inside! That guy is fully buttoned up labcoat LividCoffee, with, for some reason, green hair. It's neat :D and fascinating. Lore wise. Extremely fascinating.

I went looking for proof - it's not The Hand (that's the "finale" lol); it's Doppelgängers - for some reason those episodes merged together in my head.

I also appear to be remembering him being alive completely wrong - for a uh, given value of 'alive'. given he's a zombie! and there's two of him. Whoops? I can't actually see good TM (hi, blind here) but people kept saying their hair was green back in the day and i absorbed that information. if it's wrong, I refuse to agree with reality! green haired lalna my beloved.

Also, again, my brain clearly likes to lie flagrantly to me, because while the honeydew clones are made by broken old machinery, that's because honeydew and xephos were fucking around again <3 idiots. I wonder what happens when you stand in the goddamn cloning vat and flick the lever.... buddies..... c'mon.

Anyway - there's two zombie (green haired! I'm not delusional!) Lalna's, which is even more fascinating than my shoddy memory allowed the situation to be, because that implies YogLabs devolved to making clones of clones at some point - along with giant death robots, but they were already doing that - after the Honeydew clone had to replace his original body because Testificate Betrayal Incident, even though Xephos knows with certainty that that's been worsening the quality of the cloning process due to.... well, all the failed Honeydew clones. and the Honeydew graveyard. That he makes Honeydew clones dig up. No he's not gone mental with grief what are you talking about.

Ahem. Judging by the state of SOI!Honeydew's clones, i think it's a mix of SOI!Honeydew being a pretty late-on clone-of-a-clone himself (remember, in Yogs canon all respawns are because of YogLabs, so in SOI for them to respawn - since they can respawn, I should say - they have to be clones.... though the time loop makes me question the metaphysics of it all; do they need vats in the present if the future is the past? Existential. Too existential for me. I like to think they do have vats in the present, in the bowels of what remains of YogLabs, deep in the heart of the desert (imo, it's the source of the desert, given that one YogLabs episode where, surprise surprise, Xephos had his team invent a thing that did the sand-ening process you see in SOI; in SOI, sand is like this organism that eats everything it touches, turning it into more sand, which works with YL lore because, hey, that's what the thing they made did! Tangent. Sorry).) and the machines being super borked. Amnesiac 1st gen clone Xephos* (original Xephos is currently running around as Israphel, imo - protag Xephos is a clone of an earlier, more stable version of the man who did a lil' rebellion <3 because orig!Xeph went. Um. Megalomaniacal) obviously wouldn't know any better than to flick the lever, lol. Just noting all that as I think it corroborates the ideas about YogLabs and cloning the canon gave me. (though i clearly need to rewatch the canon, given all my minor inaccuracies add up pretty heavily towards bad meta, and I hate making bad meta :( I love meta! I have an creative writing degree!!! I don't wanna make bad meta!!!!!!!)

Anyway: Green Haired Lalna! The reason it's so fascinating to see our zombie boy duo is that this is his first and only appearance(s) in SOI; we never meet an alive Lalnable Hector or Lalna LividCoffee. This implies a lot; there's no Lal alive because all his anchor clones are dead, perhaps. Or his clones are the characters Duncan Jones portrayed, made unrecognisable by time, the time-loop amnesia, and mechanical mishaps with the cloning process so they look a lil' different - it could explain why everyone in SOI is.... Like That. (Everyone in SOI acts like a faulty clone(-of-a-clone-of-a-clone-etc); a little not all there, in some respects, and extreme caricatures of themselves besides). There's a bunch of options! All of them pretty valid, 'cause of how fast and loose YogsMC plays with its own continuity, as an improv semi-scripted series with.... plenty of unfinished storylines. More for me to mess with! As a writer i appreciate the sandbox. As an audience member I shake my fist at the sky in great torment! /joke. Am a bit miffed still, though. Over a decade later (jeez. youch. augh. I was 11, holy shit....).

I think I'll have to change what I said in the tags of the Lalnable post, though, because i was working off of bad memory for that opinion.

I still think FB!Lalnable Hector is a direct clone of anchor lalna, but i'm no longer certain either of the lalnas we see in SOI are original lalna - rather, also direct clones of anchor lalna used to created manpower for the operation of the giant death robot; why hire a 12 man crew when you can clone one from the same man at 2x speed? And as we can see in YL 2nd gen (clone-of-clone) clones aren't unstable enough for this to be a bad idea; Honeydew post-replacement may have less.... wherewithal... but he's not entirely incapacitated by clone degeneration - current YL!Honeydew may be a poor imitation friend for Xephos, but he could still pilot a death robot! So I think I'm going with: whatever war YogLabs was fighting in to warrant the death robots (we know Xephos is spending a lot of YL prepping for war with various foreign nations, so this isn't an unlikely event - in some ways he appears to be actively seeking that outcome, because he's speedrunning self-fulfilling time-loop shenanigans i guess.) got desperate enough they used cloning to bulk up manpower numbers, and in typical YL fashion they borked it by cutting corners on the mechanisms of this fact, by using sub-par machinery and clones-of-clones-of-clones, who can definitely pilot death robots but may not have the sheer brilliance of their original (lalnable hector, in this instance, being a certifiable genius, and his clones are smart, but less-and-less so due to the way YL cloning works) so they fuck up more often and thus the systems in place start failing, and lo and behold you have two zombie Lalnas in cloning vats, how did they zombify?????? How??????? What was in the genetic material sludge they were floating in for [time loop confusing the timeline; no actual idea how long it takes for All That to go down] to do that.

Anyway; now i have thoughts!!! So many of them. Thank you for the ask or I'd have gone on with my goldfish sieve memory assumptions about SOI/YL/Lalna and been worse off for it. Also, I just like canon accuracy. Being able to fuck with canon and take it to its logical extremes is what i find fun, personally. Canon complicit, i heard it called - I like that one. Not compliant. That implies bowing under pressure. No no. I'm in on the evil scheme entirely willingly. Enthusiastically, even!

Anyway: Yeah. Green Haired Lalnable Hectors / LividCoffee(s) my beloveds. I do wish one of them had been alive, because I love SOI's silly little grandfather paradox (Xephos = Israphel, and all it's horrible no good brain melting implications) interpretation, and if one of them had been alive then you could infer a second grandfather paradox - lalnable hector's clone is his original existance; wait, what? - because fucking with whatever 'original' timeline absolutely screwed and destabilized this one. And it didn't even work! Xephos, you never cease to amaze me in the many ways you can fail spectacularly at things. Pathetic main character that never wins long-term <3 Doomed by the very narrative he created! Glorious.

... this was a Lalna ask. Lol. Sorry! I never get to talk about yogsmc. I have so many thoughts.

Anyway: that's basically it, I think? Lalnas in vats; do with this what you will! Fascinating stuff, truly.

(That was not particularly well constructed, lol, but i hope it was interesting anyway!)

[whateverthedragonswant]

Let's see...

In first fifteen minutes we get:

Buck and Eddie working together, no weird energy or separation, they're in sync

Eddie shirtless

Buck asking Eddie what plans he has for the weekend because he found a place to go go-karting in the desert (desert = solo, dry, alone basically which makes you wonder)

The minute dating comes up (Eddie turning down Buck's offer to hang out), Eddie starts covering up/dressing

The minute Eddie mentions he has another date with Marisol, Buck covers up

When Eddie mentions Natalie, Eddie is still buttoning up his shirt

Eddie and Christopher both have dates

Math is mentioned again

Eddie and Marisol are going well (shocker)

Buck has already broken up with Natalia offscreen (having finally realized in character what we all did back in the very ooc last two episodes of season 6) - (my wondering from above is over)

Buck broke up with Natalia because she only wanted to talk about his death and Eddie puts a hand on thee shoulder (from 3x03 - this whole moment is a total callback, even with Eddie looking him in he eye and leaving) and welcomes him back to the living, telling him he was missed

Buck gets that smile that he usually gets around Eddie after Eddie walks out

These partner dynamics back to back: Buddie, Madney, Bathena

[unproduciblesmackdown]

come get your levitous sidekick / vicious bastard / funny little guys

[superlustersnew52]

as a trans woman who is on the asexual & aromantic spectrums (not quite either asexual or aromantic exactly though) it sure is wild seeing how defensive some people get over smut rpers writing members of my communities ngl

[himbobuck]

I'm watching Sort Your Life Out (an organizing show) and now I can't stop thinking of Buck and Eddie officially moving in the home they bought together and there are a lot of boxes to go through and decisions to be made because there is not enough space for everything and the angst that would cause. It's easy to get rid of the doubles, they keep Eddie's couch (because it's history) and go for the best quality kitchen equipment (mostly Buck's as he had invested in better stuff since learning to cook from Bobby). Getting rid of the more generic items that come from the loft seems fairly easy and they're making progress. But the mood changes as they make progress. Buck having a lot of crates from storage that he had shipped over from Pennsylvania when he knew he was going to be staying in LA but he never bothered bringing them into the loft because that wasn't the place he was going to settle in (and for the lack of space). And as they're going through stuff and Eddie suggests what to keep and what to donate/sell, maybe holds two items at a time one in each hand, Buck is getting more and more upset and can't let go of the most random things. Like he will be getting tearful over a keychain that came out of a easter egg from the last easter they spent with their grandparents or over the little piggy bank that's peeling apart that he got as a party favour at his bff birthday when he was a kid or over a box of dinosaurs plasters that are yellowish and probably don't stick anymore because his dad bought them for him when he was covered in scraps and bruises from getting hurt again over the set of completely new still boxed up moon/sun mugs he bought when he was 16 thinking one day he was going to drink coffee from with the love of his life sitting at the kitchen table on a sunday morning. And he knows that they have already agreed to keep enough mugs and then these are fully packaged and would be much easier to sell even, but he just can't let go of them. Lots of tears and cuddles ensue (and he wakes up in the morning to the smell of coffee..)

more thoughts? A study published in Pyschotraumatol explains that, since humans are a social species, a history of interpersonal trauma or loneliness can push us to overcompensate, sometimes by buying and forming relationships with possessions instead. This stems from being unable to trust people and instead putting faith in objects, Yap explains. (x)

I know technically Buck had Maddie growing up but that doesn't mean this is not something that could happen (and potentially I'd say maybe Maddie did it too, or went the completely opposite way of getting rid of everything except the most sentimentally valuable things - she did only have two suitcases when she ran away from Doug). I can see Buck using things as a mean of comfort, both random little things he had (not carefully chosen important things from his childhood that his parents didn't bother keeping for a baby box - assholes!!) but also things he accumulated for an imaginary/ideal future the used to dream about - the mugs, but also maybe a picture frame he could see himself displaying in the living room etc etc

feel free to gimme all your thoughts, do your worst cause i wanna cry

[noahwylle]

what we need is for the buck and natalia storyline to get worse (for us) before it gets better. like they get really serious really quickly, she moves in, maybe they even get engaged or something (i am not manifesting pls god no), but then buck panics for some reason, maybe eddie or chris or bobby says something or he compares her and eddie, he realises some things, he realises he shouldn’t have got a couch with her and tells her to keep it lmao etc etc

YESSS these are my hopes exactly, make them move really fast but make it clear that it's not a good decision and have the whole firefam sideeyeing Buck the whole time lmao and then yeah something prompts him to think about why he's moving so fast and then BAM realisation 😌

[marshmellowtea]

not to be on my bullshit again but currently i am entertaining the thought of "incompetent egotistical businessman who think he's hot shit" ron x "younger assistant with a crush who's actually been carrying him the entire time they've been working together" henry

[gaywineauntsstuff]

I love the idea of Dick being all the Batkid's favourite sibling but in violently different fonts.

Jason: Dick and Jay canonically have a pretty solid relationship but i'm partial to the Jason was around for Dick's rebellion stage and so Dick doesn't think he has to worry about the pedestal thing bc Jason has absolutely seen him violently hungover before he was legally allowed to drink font of this

So by the time Jason comes back and is no longer trying to murder Tim (except psychologically) Dick decides... Well he's evil sometimes but also I can finally tell someone all the Titans drama. So him and Jason meet up like once month if they're in the same city and get progressively drunker while shit talking their teams and Bruce.

Also I hate the Dick and Robin!Jason didn't get along. They absolutely did, Dick was like 0.5 seconds away from taking Jason to live with the titans permanently.

Tim: 'Oh Jason is Tims Robin, Oh Dick betrayed Tims trust.' in the name of the orange dude y'all elected twice W R O N G. Tim Drake used to watch VHS tapes of the flying Graysons routine. He wasn't even a batman Stan first. That came after he saw Robin do a quadruple summersault. Tim is a Dick Grayson fanboy first Person second. Like Tim canonically saw Jason die and went lmao skill issue, imagine not being like Dick Grayson i'm better. When Dick first started training him, he'd consistently excuse himself go to the other room, hyperventilate over Dick Grayson teaching him how to train surf. Dick is not just his idol he's also a pretty substantial part of Tim's support system. He calls Dick when he's going through something or is stuck on a case. And he knows that Dick will always have his back. They have like the unrealistic adorable sibling relationships from Tv that don't exist irl. Tim also does that awkward shuffle thing after fights bc they're still siblings and Dick just pretends the fight didn't happen until Tims calm again

Damian: You have to understand Damian thought he'd have to basically do the league all over again. He lands with Bruce and those ideas are soundly rejected and he now has no trust or respect and he has to adjust. And Bruce is doing his holier than thou, you should know better 10yro who literally was brainwashed as a child act, like Tim didn't have to pull him away from straight up becoming a villain and Dick didn't have to put him in his place with his fists a couple times a year (we love Bruce really). Then Bruce gets Time-streamed, Tim runs away and now the circus freak is BATMAN. Except the circus freak is also a sadistic bastard to criminals, despite being made out of marshmallows to you. Dick hangs people upside down off high buildings for information and cackles as Nightwing. He also listens to Damians worries and helps him deconstruct his bias view of the world. Dick canonically set the standard for child heroes and is among one of the most beloved and trusted heroes despite being marshmallowy and refusing to murder people. Dick is kinda like Damians stand in non pretentious moral compass until he learns his own one later on. Hence why Damian adores Dick Grayson more than anyone really.

in summary support my agenda that Dick and Jason are gossipy drinking buddies, Tim absolutely had a Dick Grayson Shrine as a child and Damian calls Dick to double check that he still cannot kill Timothy (its now entirely a joke.... mostly)

[silentscrying]

🐾 snowprints

vet student!megumi x dog owner!reader

summary: when you find yourself in need of an emergency trip to the local vet clinic, it's late and the sign on the door is flipped to closed. luckily for you, animal science student megumi fushiguro is still around, and he's willing to help you and your dog out—and maybe get a little more than he bargained for in the process. but he's not used to letting people in, and you've never been particularly patient. when winter rolls around, will you be spending the holidays alone?

content/warnings: 20.7k words. complete. sfw. f!reader, you have a dog, megumi has his dogs, they are unbearably cute, megumi doesn't know how to communicate for shit, language, no use of y/n, christmas yay!!, aged up characters, including riko, she's in college, and she's a menace, (light) angst with a happy ending, mentions of deceased parents (typical fushiguro canon), soft, fluff, you know when your sister psychoanalyzes you at the kitchen table, car crash, alcohol, reader studies environmental science but can't keep plants alive for SHIT, so much unnecessary pining, gratuitous overuse of italics and em-dashes

note: this takes place in the same universe as out of my mind, but you don't have to read that to know what's going on here! though it may help with some context. happy hella late birthday megumi fushiguro you will always be famous

PART I // BATMAN & ROBIN

IT’S TEN O’CLOCK and dark when Batman decides to cause problems.

Batman, of course, being your three-year-old German shepherd mix, the one currently whining and staring up at you with big, dark puppy eyes while he holds one paw up limply.

“Oh, little buddy,” you sigh as you squat down in front of him, despite the fact that he hasn’t been little in a very long time. He’s been restless all night, so you caved and took him on a late night walk, and it’s so dark you can’t tell what’s wrong with his paw even in the glow of the phone flashlight.

God, fuck. Where’s the closest vet? The one in the city is definitely closed. You’re fairly certain there’s a smaller one somewhere on the outskirts of the JU campus, though, one that the pre-vet students use for clinicals.

“C’mon, champ,” you murmur, tugging gently on Batman’s leash. “Let’s go get you checked out, huh?”

The early September air is chilly, a little bit of a bite to it. You’re glad the temperatures haven’t yet dropped below freezing, so you don’t need to let your car defrost before going. “Up,” you say, patting the passenger seat with the door held open for Batman.

You punch the clinic into maps and pull out of your suburban street into the busier roads. It’s not far, thankfully, and you make a beeline for the door with Batman on your heels, not noticing until you’re right in front of it that the massive sign hanging on the door is flipped to CLOSED.

“No,” you groan, leaning forward and pressing your forehead to the cool glass of the closed door. You close your eyes, wondering what the fuck you’re gonna do, and then—thump.

You nearly jump out of your skin, eyes flying open and gaze raising to meet the amused eyes of a guy on the other side of the door, who’s trying and failing to suppress a smile that feels a little teasing. Oops.

You step back and wave sheepishly, and the boy unlocks the door and swings it open, taking in the sight of you and your limping dog.

“I’m sorry,” you blurt. “I know you’re closed and it’s some ungodly hour on a Tuesday, I just didn’t know what else to do—”

“It's fine,” he says, waving it off. “I’m just cleaning up, it’s not a hassle. Come on.” Batman has no qualms about following the guy through the open door, so you follow, glancing around the small clinic. It’s pretty sparse, save for the bulletin board overflowing with pet photos on one wall.

“Fushiguro,” the guy says in introduction, glancing back over his shoulder at you. He’s got deep blue eyes that match his dark scrubs, and his hair sticks out every which way in a manner that feels intentional. He must be around your age. It takes you a beat to remember yourself and give him your own name, stuttered out as you pass into the back exam room.

There’s a white coat tossed haphazardly over a spinning chair, and the guy—Fushiguro—picks Batman up like he weighs nothing and situates him on the metal table.

“Hey, bud. What’s your name?” he asks, scratching behind Batman’s ears. Your dog is usually weary of vets, but today his tail pounds on the metal of the table as he raises his head to sniff at Fushiguro’s face.

“Batman.”

Fushiguro’s gaze snaps to you and he blinks, evidently thinking you’re joking. “No.”

“Yes.” You hold your index fingers up above your head to imitate your dog’s pointy ears. “Batman.”

“Oh. My god,” he says. “And what, you’re Robin?”

“I am not the sidekick in this situation.”

“Batman dragged you out here at eleven on a school night. You absolutely��are the sidekick.”

You scoff, moving up to the table and stroking Batman’s fur. “Am I just a sidekick to you, little guy?” you coo. “You wanna be a hero so bad?” He noses happily at your palm.

Fushiguro side-eyes you, half-grimacing as he grabs Batman’s paw to look at it. He doesn’t seem to mind, which is honestly a shock. He hates people touching his paws, even you. “You baby talk your dog?”

“You judge your patients?”

“Course not,” Fushiguro says, smirking as he looks back at you. “Just their owners.”

You roll your eyes but can’t help the huff of laughter, and his dark eyes reflect the fluorescent overhead light as he turns away. He’s undeniably attractive—you don’t remember seeing him around campus.

“You go to JU?” you ask, and he nods.

“Sophomore. Pre-vet. D’you?”

“Nah, Kaisen.” Your school is a lot smaller than the neighboring Jujutsu University. They’ve got something of an athletic rivalry with Kaisen College, but you really don’t care. “Environmental science.”

“You know everything there is to know about trees, or what?” His tone is teasing, and you know he doesn’t mean anything by it. The fact is you do know more about trees than normal college students probably should. Doesn’t mean you can keep plants alive for shit, though.

You’d guess there’s actually a fair bit of crossover between your course of study and a pre-vet student’s bio track, but you say, “I specialize in rare long grasses, actually.” It comes out so deadpan that he glances at you, brows knit together, trying to gauge if you’re being serious. You only last a second before you crack under his scrutiny, and he shakes his head and huffs as he turns back to Batman, who is now trying to lick Fushiguro’s nose.

“Excuse me,” he says. This only seems to encourage the dog kisses, but Fushiguro decides to just ignore them. He hums, grabbing a pair of tweezers and squinting as he moves to pull something out of Batman’s paw. “Just a splinter. The pad of a dog’s paw is one of the most sensitive parts of their body, so it’s not surprising he was so worked up about it.” You watch as he pulls out a thin sliver of wood, probably from stepping on some splintering twig, and drops it into a tray on the table.

You watch as your dog drops his paw back to the table and stands up, tail wagging at lightning speed, like nothing was ever wrong. He jumps off the table before Fushiguro can grab him and bounds over to you, rubbing himself along the outside of your leg like a giant cat.

“How much do I owe you?” you ask, pulling out your card, but he waves you off.

“It was literally a splinter.”

“But—”

“Honestly, it’d be more work to boot up the payment system again anyway. Don’t worry about it.” He holds your gaze, and you can’t tell if he’s lying about the payment system or not, but you slide your card back into your wallet without complaint.

Something passes between you, some weird spark of recognition—not that you’ve met before. You know you haven’t. But you don’t typically have this kind of easy banter with strangers. Something about this guy intrigues you, and you don’t particularly want to stop talking to him.

But you’ve already kept him past close, and you need to get home.

The moment breaks when Fushiguro clears his throat, leaning over to grab something off the counter. “Right. Well, give me a call if he starts limping again, but he should be alright.” He holds out a hand and you realize he’s offering you a business card, weirdly professional for a student.

M. FUSHIGURO Veterinary Technician Trainee, JU

His number and email are printed beneath it in small sans serif lettering.

“Oh, you’re fancy.” You raise a brow at him, tucking the card into your jacket pocket. “Thank you. Seriously.”

“Well, who am I to refuse Batman?” he says wryly. He walks you to the door, and you try not to think too much of it—he just needs to lock up behind you, probably.

Before you slip out, he leans down and pats Batman on the head, earning a happy little tail-wag in response.

“Drive safe, Robin,” he calls, and you groan at the nickname as you unlock your car.

At home, you key his number into your phone and save the contact as fushiguro (cute vet). You sit there for way too long debating over whether you should text him—Batman’s fine, and it’s late, and he gave you a business card. Not exactly an invitation to flirt, tempting as that might be.

But you really want to.

“Should I text him?” you ask your dog, who’s decided to curl up right beside your bed and look up at you, waiting for an invitation. Your twin bed is not big enough for this and he knows it, but he always seems to think he’s a smaller dog than he really is.

Batman, unhelpfully, tilts his head at you, his perky ears flapping with the motion.

Maybe it’s because it’s past eleven and it’s dark out and you’re exhausted and you don’t have the best sense of judgment right now. Maybe it’s because Fushiguro’s just really cute.

“You’re right,” you say, nudging Batman with a socked foot. “No use waiting. Say cheese.”

you: [1 Image Attachment] you: gotham city’s savior says thank you

It’s kind of embarrassing how you sit and stare at the screen for two minutes, waiting for him to answer. Batman snorts, like he’s making fun of you, and you lock your phone and toss it on the bedside table. “Oh, don’t start.”

Your roommate and best friend, Setsuko Sasaki, is studying abroad in Japan for the semester. It’s been lonely, strange without her occupying the second bedroom of your little rented townhouse. You’d like to say this is why you’ve resorted to talking to your dog, but that would very much be a lie, because you’ve always done this. Sometimes, when she’s home, Suko adopts a gruff, low voice and answers for him.

You jump when your phone buzzes and make yourself count to three before checking the screen.

fushiguro (cute vet): don’t mention it. always had a soft spot for batman, anyway. fushiguro (cute vet): his sidekick’s alright too.

“Oh, he likes you,” you tell Batman. “Wingman. Thanks, little buddy.”

you: well, send a bat signal if you’re ever in mortal peril and i might show up

After that, you try to push Fushiguro to the back of your mind. He doesn’t go to Kaisen, so it’s not like you can stalk him in the university directory. You have no reason to run into him around town. As the semester ramps up and you fall back into your routine of classes and exams and friends, you don’t think too much about the cute vet tech who happened to be around that one night.

Or, you don’t for a grand total of six days.

You’re on a jog with Batman, afternoon sun making up for the fall chill in the air that’s hung around since it stormed last night. You don’t intend to stop, but Batman abruptly sticks his nose in the dirt about halfway through your run and refuses to move.

“Dude.” You backtrack and see that he’s discovered a couple pairs of dog prints, pressed faintly into the damp earth. “Oh, you smell friends, huh?” He tugs you forward, following the scent of these other dogs. “Hey!”

The thing about having a massive German shepherd mix, even one as docile as Batman, is that he is inarguably a lot stronger than you. So you don’t really have much of a choice but to stumble along after him as he bounds across the grass and comes out on the other side of the path—you don’t normally come this way, because there’s a dog park over here and he gets way too excited.

But today he’s on a mission, and you only see two other dogs in the fenced-in park—two huge balls of fluff, one white and one black. “Fine,” you say begrudgingly, undoing the gate and letting Batman off his leash. “Go play. But we aren’t staying long.”

He bounds off toward the other dogs while you latch the gate behind you, and then a familiar voice has you spinning around with your eyes wide. “Bat signal wasn’t me,” Fushiguro says, raising both hands in a gesture of innocence. “They did it.” He points at the other dogs, who are now engaged in a butt-sniffing circle with yours.

“Fushiguro!” You grin, making your way over to him. Once the other two dogs have deemed Batman a worthy playmate, they move on to you, sniffing at your palms and circling around you until the black one jumps up and nearly knocks you over with the force of it. “Oh, hello!”

“Kuro,” Fushiguro chides, rushing forward to tug at his collar. “Hey. Down.”

“It’s okay,” you promise through a fit of giggles as Kuro tries to basically hug you. “Oh, you’re cute, aren’t you? Hi, Kuro.”

Fushiguro huffs out a breath of relief when Kuro finally gets down. “That’s Shiro,” he says, gesturing to the white dog, who is now chasing Batman around the park. “Think she’s found a friend.”

“He dragged me all the way here,” you tell Fushiguro. “Guess he missed you or something.”

“Just him?”

You grin. “What, you think I was out here pining after you?” He only smirks in response. “I don’t even know your name, M. Fushiguro. What good is a business card without your first name on it?”

He hums, shoving his hands into his pockets, considering. “Guess.”

“Guess,” you echo. “Okay. Um. Michael.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Max.”

“Nope.”

“Um, Maverick.”

“What the hell?” He looks at you with furrowed brows. “Who in their right mind would name their kid—”

“Okay, hey,” you interrupt, holding up your hands. “I just watched Top Gun, okay? What do you want from me?”

“M—”

“Nope, out of tries for today. Three strikes, you’re out.” He shrugs, wholly unaffected, like this is just how the world works and he’s got no say it in whatsoever.

You gape at him, planting your hands on your hips in affront. “I hope you know I will be insufferable every single day until I’m right.”

Batman trots back over, prancing between you and Fushiguro until he crouches down to pet him. “You come here a lot?” you ask, glancing around the empty park. “I’ve never seen you here. Or your dogs. I think I’d remember giant balls of fluff like that.”

“Yeah, not often,” Fushiguro says, pushing back to his feet. “But Kuro’s been so restless all day. Had to let him run his energy down somehow.” The dog in question is chasing his own tail in circles while Shiro looks at him, unimpressed. “You live over here?”

“Few blocks out, yeah.” Your place is between the two campuses, an easy walk to both places because Suko takes Japanese classes at JU. Apparently Fushiguro doesn’t live too far away, either, just on the other side of the skate park where you know your friend Hajime hangs out all the time.

By “hangs out,” you mean he probably (definitely) buys weed there, but that’s not your business. Maybe he and Fushiguro know each other—they both go to JU. But Hajime’s a senior, so probably not.

You don’t get the chance to ask because Fushiguro’s phone rings, and he sighs and answers it with a glance at you that might be apologetic or might be mildly irritated. Hard to tell with him.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” he says gruffly. “Okay. See you.” He hangs up and tucks his phone back into his pocket, then whistles for the dogs. “Time to go.”

“Good to see you,” you blurt before he can turn away. He seems a little taken aback, but you don’t break eye contact, and you think he might be on the brink of a smile.

“You too, sidekick.”

—

After that, the two of you start texting more often, gradually moving from photos of your dogs to real conversation. And you keep your promise to be insufferable about finding out his name. You send him new M-names every day, never seeming to get any closer to the truth. For his part, he refuses to call you anything but Robin, cementing your existence as a superhero sidekick and nothing more.

you: new theory you: the M stands for mr you: monsieur you: m’lord

He dislikes the messages in response, and you send him a teary-eyed emoji and hope the guilt is enough to get him to tell you.

It is not.

You and Fushiguro are in some sort of convoluted orbit around one another, sometimes colliding, sometimes drifting away. There’s really no reason you should keep stumbling across him, considering you go to different schools, live in different places, study different things.

But after that first day at the dog park, you might take Batman there a little bit more often.

Every time you talk, Fushiguro starts to take up more and more headspace. You find yourself searching for his flash of ink-dark hair, spiky and disheveled, in every crowd. Every set of fading prints in the grass or mud might be his, might be Shiro’s or Kuro’s. It’s stupid, how much you’re thinking about this boy.

At some point you start dragging your friends out to the coffee shops between your two campuses to do work, rather than the one in the student center. You justify it to yourself with the half-assed excuse that if you run into your friends less, you’ll get more work done, but really you’re just hoping he’ll be there. And your friends are happy to oblige, especially Riko, if it means she’ll get a glimpse of this mystery vet man you don’t shut up about.

Riko’s a year below you at Kaisen, but you know her from back home. She’s a frenetic ball of energy and indignation, and she’s fully prepared to go to every coffee shop in a ten-mile radius for the purposes of what she calls “the mission.”

But the coffee at the second place you try is actually god-tier, and you wind up there regularly after that, hunkering down to grind out your assignments in your spare time. It’s there that he finds you, sliding into the seat right across from yours so abruptly that you nearly fall out of your chair—your noise-canceling headphones really block out the entire world. He smirks as you sheepishly tug them down around your neck, glaring.

“Warn a girl, Jesus!”

“I did,” he drawls, taking a sip of his coffee. “Twice.”

“Boo.” You kind of forgot about your own drink because you were so into your work, and you pick it back up now, mostly for something to do with your hands. “Well, hi. What’re you up to?”

“Same as you, I think.” He nods at your laptop. “Mind if I hang out here?”

“You certainly can, but you’ve just stolen someone’s seat and you might have to fight for your life when she gets back from the bathroom.” His eyes widen almost imperceptibly, and as if on cue, Riko is beelining toward the table from across the room.

“Well hello, Mr. Seat Thief. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Fushiguro seems to be gauging Riko, and you realize this is kind of the first look he’s gotten into your private life outside of your dog, and you’re irrationally nervous about it. But he scoots over and grabs a chair from the next table over, giving Riko a mocking bow in response.

“Better?”

Riko nods, and then grabs his coffee and takes a long drag out of it. He doesn’t object, and that should have been your warning—you can see when the bitterness of it hits her all at once, her face twisting in some combination of shock and despair and mild outrage.

“Oh my god,” you say as Riko grabs her water bottle and chugs to get the taste out of her mouth, aggressively shoving Fushiguro's coffee back toward him. “Of course you drink coffee black, you fucking loser.”

“What, you dump six cups of sugar in yours? That’s not coffee.” You flip him off instead of justifying this with a real response.

“I was gonna use that as payment for your crimes,” Riko gasps dramatically, leaning over the table, “but I was instead punished. You’re in my debt now.” She glares at him fiercely, turning up her nose, before abruptly abandoning the bit and grinning at him. “I’m Riko, by the way.”

He snorts, but a very small hint of a smile appears in a corner of his mouth. “Fushiguro.”

Riko nods and glances from him to you, as if to say really? This guy? You can already hear the analysis she’ll be giving you on the way home. Easy on the eyes, I get it, but does he like, have a personality?

“I did research,” you tell Fushiguro, nudging Riko’s shin under the table in warning. “On you.”

“You stalked me online, is what you’re saying.” You’re learning that he’s not a very expressive person. He treats laughs and smiles like rare currency, and everything you need to know about what he’s thinking is in the tiniest shifts—a downturned brow, a blink, a tilt of the head. You’re still learning, but you like to think you’ve got it down enough to know that this doesn’t actually bother him, despite the resting angry face.

“Yes,” you say, shameless. “Except when I typed in Fushiguro and your school, I got all these results for the editor of your campus paper. You have a sister?”

If he’s surprised, he doesn’t show it. “Tsumiki, yeah.”

He doesn’t offer more, so you push. “Older?” You already know the answer, but best let him believe the depth of your internet stalking is shallower than it really was.

“Two years. She’s a senior.”

“Cool. I don’t know a ton of siblings that go to the same school.”

“You’d be surprised,” he sighs. “My cousin and her twin sister both go there, too. And one my roommates’ half-brothers.”

“Convenient, I guess,” you concede. “Sibling discount or something?”

“Nah, but it was easier this way,” he says, pulling a textbook out of his bag. “Go—uh, our legal guardian works around here anyway.”

Riko raises a brow but doesn’t ask, which is a remarkable show of restraint for her.

Legal guardian. Parents aren’t in the picture, then. You want to ask but you don’t, not yet.

The three of you buckle down and get some work done, casually exchanging conversation over the next few hours, and eventually Fushiguro has to head out. “Rehearsal,” he says.

“Rehearsal?” Riko asks, glancing at you as if you know what he’s talking about. You don’t, but you have some absolutely ridiculous mental image of Fushiguro in choir and you almost laugh out loud.

But he just says, as if it’s nothing at all, “Oh, yeah, I’m in a band.”

“What?” you nearly shout, jumping out of your chair so fast it pushes across the floor with a scrrcck. “You’re in a band? You didn’t think to tell me this before? What’s it called? Can I listen—”

“Nope.”

“But—”

“Nice to meet you, Riko,” he says loudly, cutting you off as he slings his bag over one shoulder. He mock-salutes you, two fingers to his brow as he turns to go. “Robin.”

You sink back into your seat and watch him leave, only turning back to Riko when the door swings closed. She opens her mouth and you hold out a hand. “Don’t start.”

—

At some point you start calling, letting yourself fill the silence of your little townhouse with idle chatter as he listens. He’s not one for small talk, you learn, and he’s a good listener. And he pays attention. He remembers the stupid little details you give him, the names of classmates and professors you can’t stand.

“Katie from Ohio?” he asks when you’re ranting one day about the partner you’ve been assigned in enviro. “We don’t like her, correct?” We.

“We do not.” Katie from Ohio does not pull her weight in group projects, and it’s driving you up the wall.

“You tell your prof about it? Isn’t this your favorite one?”

“Yeah, he is,” you groan. Haibara teaches your conservation bio class, and he also taught ecology your freshman year, and he’s the best teacher you’ve ever had. “But no. I don’t want to bother him about it. It’s whatever.”

He hums, unimpressed. “Is it?”

You groan, feeling like you’re getting lectured by your parents. You hate when other people are right. “You want me to talk to him.”

“I’m just saying, if you get a shit grade and it’s Katie’s fault, don’t come crying to me.”

“I will, though,” you say, putting your phone on speaker and setting it on the counter while you pour dog food into Batman’s bowl. “It’ll be super dramatic. I’ll sob in your arms and everything.”

He snorts. “Talk to your prof, Robin.” You stick your tongue out like he can see you.

But you do talk to your prof, and Haibara is your favorite for a reason. Katie gets a shit grade. You do not. Fushiguro does, in fact, say “I told you so.”

By mid-September, you still have no idea what Fushiguro’s first name is. You’re at the end of your rope.

you: GOOD MORNING MASON fushiguro (cute vet): no. you: MORT fushiguro (cute vet): no. you: why don’t you want me to know. is it crazy you: melvin fushiguro (cute vet): NO. you: marie you: meghan fushiguro (cute vet): … you: well, that’s it you: i’m calling you maleficent until you tell me you: i’m gonna do it in public too you: so loud

INCOMING CALL: FUSHIGURO (CUTE VET)

You don’t greet each other when you pick up—you never have. Instead, Fushiguro just says, “You could’ve picked like, ten other Disney characters and you went with Maleficent?”

“Don’t hate. You’d rather be Mufasa? Boy’s dead.”

“Oh my god.” Everything Fushiguro says sounds long-suffering. You wonder what it sounds like when he laughs, really laughs, if those walls ever break down and he lets himself actually outwardly express his emotions.

“I can call you Mickey Mouse if you really want—” Batman starts barking from his spot at the window, and you groan, waving your hand at him pointlessly as you try to get him to stop. “Hey! No! There is nothing outside, what are you on about?”

“He probably just thinks you’re barking with him,” Fushiguro says unhelpfully.

“Oh, and yours don’t bark out of turn?”

“Not really.”

Now that you think about it, you actually aren’t sure you’ve ever heard Shiro and Kuro bark aside from excited greetings at the dog park. “What the fuck, dude? Do they teach you the secrets of the trade in vet school?”

“Nah, I’m just a natural.” He says it so deadpan you aren’t sure if he’s joking or actually being cocky.

“Come over and help, then,” you say, before you can think it through. It’s a Saturday night, and clearly neither of you have anything better to do.

You aren’t sure what exactly you’re expecting him to say, but for some reason you’re surprised when he just responds, “Okay.”

“Bring the dogs.” You text him your address, and half an hour later he shows up with the dogs in tow. Meeting him at the door, you see his car parked along the curb. It’s small, black, as unreadable and practical as everything else about him.

“That,” he says, pointing to the long-deceased cactus in the pot on your front stoop, “is dead.” Probably because it’s been there since August and you forgot it was there after one week.

“Yes, thank you, very astute.”

“Isn’t keeping plants alive your whole thing? What are they teaching you?”

“Okay.” You start to close the door, but Shiro bounces forward and noses between it excitedly, and you laugh, opening it to let her and Kuro in. “Be nice,” you warn Fushiguro, letting him step inside. He rolls his eyes as he passes, and Batman nearly knocks him over with how excitedly he leaps up to greet him.

He’s also barking, and you raise a brow at Fushiguro expectantly. “Okay, Dog Whisperer. Do your thing.” You close the door behind him, and in the two seconds that you’re turned away, Batman fucking stops barking.

You whirl around, planting your hands on your hips, and find Fushiguro kneeling in front of your very silent, very happy dog.

“What the fuck.”

He looks up at you with the most smug expression on his face, and you throw up your hands in exasperation.

“Hey, don’t pout about it,” he teases, standing and following you into the living room. “That’s what you wanted.”

“I wanted you to teach me how to make him stop, but apparently you just slipped him treats behind my back.”

“Insult to my talents,” he says, hesitating when Kuro leaps onto your couch. “Are they allowed—”

“Ah, yeah, it’s fine.” Batman follows suit. “Got enough dog hair on that couch to make another couch, probably.”

You suddenly find you don’t really know what to say. Because Fushiguro is here, in your house, on a Saturday, your dog is not barking, and you’re alone. Alone with a guy you are very much attracted to. Suddenly you just don’t know any of the words in the English language.

But Fushiguro seems entirely at ease. He always does, really. There’s a quiet sort of confidence about him, and you aren’t sure if it’s fabricated or not. He just looks like he belongs wherever he is, nonchalant about everything.

“Done any more stalking?” he asks, sitting next to Shiro on the floor. You flush a little, feeling weirdly caught out when you aren’t the one bringing it up.

“No, but I might if you don’t tell me more about this band of yours.”

He shakes his head, absently playing with Shiro’s fur. “Just a crazy idea my housemates had. We just practice in the basement. Probably not very good.”

You opt to sit on Shiro’s other side on the ground, and Batman uses the opportunity to lick you directly in the face, since he’s on the couch and you’re now eye-level. “Thank you,” you tell him dryly, shoving his snout away.

“Don’t get humble now,” you tell Fushiguro. “What do you play? Or do you sing?” You really can’t imagine him singing. Everything about this guy screams quiet bass player.

Apparently you’re right. He won’t tell you the name of his band, and allegedly he doesn’t have any gigs this month, so you let it drop—but only for now. “Cagey,” you accuse him, but you’re smiling.

You talk about your courseloads for the semester—his is pretty bio and anatomy-heavy this semester where yours is mostly ecology and conservation-focused, but there’s a bit of overlap in your curriculum, and you find that it’s easy to make conversation about your respective career paths, even though he won’t stop bringing up the fact that you managed to kill a cactus.

“They’re notoriously hard to kill,” he drawls. “Did you try to?”

“No!” You cross your arms over your chest indignantly. “Mean.”

“Honest and mean aren’t the same thing.”

You don’t really notice the sun going down until the living room is swathed in shadow and you have to flip on the floor lamp. It’s been hours by now, but it’s felt like minutes. Every thing you learn about Fushiguro opens up ten new lines of questioning, and you want to know so much more about him. But he shrouds himself in this mystery you can’t seem to get around.

Eventually you stand up to grab snacks from the kitchen, and when you return you find Batman practically on top of Fushiguro, licking his face while Fushiguro just takes it. Cute, you think uselessly.

Batman. But also Fushiguro. And also just the sight of Fushiguro playing with your dog and looking entirely at home on your shaggy living room floor. Fuck, he’s really cute.

“Have you always had dogs?”

He shakes his head as he sits up and nudges Batman off of him, gaze going just a little distant. “Not ‘til I was a teenager.” There’s more there.

“Your idea? Tsumiki’s?”

He shrugs it off, picking at loose threads on his sleeve that don’t exist, some nervous tic he’s developed that seems to only show up when you try to talk about him. Hence, shroud of mystery.

Like you gathered at the coffee shop, his parents aren’t in the picture—dead or absent, though, you’re not sure. He does tell you a little bit about his legal guardian. His name’s Gojo, and according to Fushiguro he is certifiably insane. He says this enough that you know he means it fondly—if he didn’t, he just wouldn’t bring Gojo up at all.

It shouldn’t be possible to talk so much and learn so little, but the hours keep slipping by and finally neither of you can hide the yawns punctuating your conversation. “I should go,” he says, and you reluctantly lead him to the door, crouching to say bye to Shiro and Kuro before you open the door.

“Drive safe, Fushiguro.”

You don’t expect him to respond, but he pauses halfway down your drive, turning to look at you over his shoulder. The moon is out now, and it casts him and his dark clothes in silver. You suddenly find you can’t look away.

Not that you really want to.

“Megumi,” he says.

“What?”

“My name.” He swallows, looking away quickly before looking back. “You can call me Megumi. If you want.”

Chill. Be chill, you tell yourself, trying to school your features into that same neutral expression Fushiguro—Megumi—always has, but you know it’s not working. You can’t help but smile. You feel, weirdly, like you’ve earned something.

“Okay,” you say, leaning on the doorjamb. “Megumi.”

Megumi.

You do one last little bit of internet stalking that night, because you just want to know.

His name means blessing.

—

Everything about Megumi’s house speaks to the collision of three wildly different college-aged boys tempered by the saving grace of one girl.

Remotes for a range of gaming consoles are sprawled across the floor, there are way too many half-empty bags of Doritos, and you’re pretty sure there’s just a single half of a drumstick stuck between two of the couch cushions. But there are also nice, dark tapestries pinned to the walls, string lights bordering the room, a couple plants that are better-kept than any of yours have been.

You know very little about Megumi’s three housemates except that one is a golden retriever in human form, one is a skater boy, and one is a senior named Kirara who somehow keeps them all in check.

“Sorry for the mess,” he says, gesturing at the controllers and chip bags that honestly don’t constitute a mess in your book. Not after all the boys’ dorms you’ve seen, including Hajime’s.

“I like it,” you say honestly. “Also, it smells good in here. I’m proud. Kirara?”

“Kirara.” He nods and leads you to the couch, where you confirm that yes, that’s a broken drumstick.

“I don’t even—Jesus,” Megumi says, pulling it out of the gap between the cushions and tossing it onto the low coffee table. “He breaks more of these than I think is normal.”

“He being skater boy or golden retriever?” you ask as you tug your legs onto the couch to sit cross-legged, facing him. You dragged Batman with you—Megumi said his dogs would appreciate the company—and he’s taken it upon himself to sniff every corner of the house before deeming it suitable for playtime.

“Golden retriever. His name’s Yuji. Skater boy is Ino.” None of his housemates are here—it’s a random Thursday afternoon and the two of you happened to not have classes after two thirty.

“How’d you meet them?”

“Kirara went to my high school, so I knew her before coming here. I knew Ino too, actually. Yuji—I don’t know that anyone really meets him so much as gets forcibly adopted by him?” He somehow manages to make his scoff sound affectionate. “Him and our friend Kugisaki. They’re crazy, but we were all in the same orientation group freshman year.”

“Your friends sound fun.” You like the idea of two outgoing freshmen just deciding Megumi had to be their friend. “How’d you know Ino?”

He tugs at the sleeve of his black henley, picking at a nonexistent string. There’s a bit of a pause before he says, “His—I don’t know, his mentor? Nanami, he knows Gojo. So he was around sometimes.”

You don’t really know what to ask, simply because there’s so much to ask. It doesn’t take a detective to know there’s a lot to unpack in Megumi’s past. “How long have you been…” What’s the proper term for this? “Has Gojo been around, like… since you were a kid, or...?”

Despite your attempt to catch his gaze, Megumi’s eyes are trained on the far wall. “Kind of. Yeah.”

When he doesn’t elaborate, you fight to keep your lips sealed, to not push. You don’t have a right to his past. He can tell you if he wants to. But you’ve always been impatient.

And it’s starting to become a pattern, this strange caginess about his own life. His family, his friends. Every so often he lets something slip, and then it’s like you can see the doors in his mind slam shut—six deadbolts holding you out.

You know a little bit about Gojo, but that’s where the information stops. You drop hints that you want to meet Tsumiki, and whether he’s protective or just too oblivious to pick up on them, you can’t tell.

Maybe, then, the issue is that you haven’t given him much either. He’s met your dog and Riko, but maybe you need to offer him more of yourself before he’s comfortable reciprocating.

So you do. You tell him about your family, sitting on his couch with Shiro at his feet and Batman between you, Kuro unable to sit still. He listens while you talk, unsettlingly attentive eyes intent on you. You live about a half-hour drive away from your parents' place, you tell him, though you don’t go home often.

“It’s not that I don’t like my family,” you sigh, leaning back into the couch cushions and stroking Batman’s fur. “It’s more just that they’re never there, always on business, wrapped up in their own shit. So there’s just… no reason for me to stick around, except a couple times a year on holidays.” You shrug. “At least here it’s not an empty house. Or it’s not usually. When my roommate’s not in fucking Japan.”

“At least Japan’s cool,” he says, shrugging.

You sit up, leaning toward him. “You’ve been?”

He shrugs. “Yeah, once. Gojo said Tsumiki and I weren’t allowed to hit sixteen without having been on a stupid-long flight somewhere. Which sounds insane, but that’s pretty standard Gojo logic for you, I guess.”

“That’s so cool,” you sigh, part of you wishing you could be on a stupid-long flight right now. On the way to somewhere warm, preferably. Fall is starting to give way to an early winter, and you’re not looking forward to running Batman in the cold.

Travel, at least, seems to be a safe topic, and the two of you trade stories about road trips and flights and different cities. You challenge Megumi to Mario Kart at some point and immediately regret it, because why is he so good?

After he thoroughly kicks your ass, you sink back into conversation, walk the dogs, and eventually part ways so you can get some work done.

megumi (cute vet): you know when somebody says they’ll text you when they get home megumi (cute vet): and they don’t? you: SHIT SORRY megumi (cute vet): you’re not dead. you: NOPE you: sorry i got back and then batman knocked over a lamp megumi (cute vet): you don’t have to cover for his vigilantism, sidekick. i already know.

You do feel bad for forgetting to text him, but part of you is a little warmed by the fact that he was worried. Not that he’d ever admit to being worried about anyone, except maybe a dog.

you: okay fine he was stopping a robbery you: happy? megumi (cute vet): depends on what they were trying to steal

The work on your desk says you should stop texting and buckle down on your assignments, but he starts teasing, and you start feeding into it, and then you’re on the phone again, and by the time you finally hang up it’s too late to reasonably get anything done.

You can’t say you’re particularly upset about it.

—

The semester ramps up quickly, and you’re drowning in work. That’s your excuse when your basil plant by the kitchen sink dies a week after you bring it home—you’re just busy.

Megumi notices, and the next time he’s over a rosemary plant mysteriously appears in its place. He denies any involvement.

When you aren’t with Riko or Hajime, on the phone with Suko, or hanging out with friends from class, you’re with Megumi. His place, your place, the dog park, the coffee shop. It hasn’t reached a point where your friends comment on how much time you spend together (except Riko, who has a loud opinion on everything and does not care if other people don’t want to hear it), but you like the hours you steal during the week just walking around or drinking coffee or trading idle conversation.

You even visit him at work one Sunday when the clinic is slow, watching him handle the few dogs and single cat that come through. He’s easygoing with the clients and has that same calming effect on every animal—like he speaks some secret language, understands them in a way other people don’t. You love watching him like this.

You like this guy. It’s not rocket science—you put him in your contacts as “cute vet” the day you met him. The hard part is that Megumi is too difficult to read. If he has feelings for you, you have no idea. You don’t think he’d go out of his way to spend time with someone he didn’t genuinely like, but whether it’s platonic or not is so fucking over your head.

Until you finally meet one of his friends.

It’s Riko’s doing, really. The two of you are at the coffee shop when she strikes up a conversation with a redhead in line, and it doesn’t take long for her to make the connection, probably because they’re both talking ten miles a minute and not holding anything back.

“Oh my god!” Riko screeches, turning to you after you place your order. “Hey! This is Nobara. She’s friends with Fushiguro.”

She beams at you. “How do you guys know Fushiguro?”

Riko answers for you. “The vet. She has a dog, the clinic was closed, he was there. It was probably super romantic.” You groan.

Nobara’s mouth forms a small O and then she says, “Ah, you must be the sidekick.”

You can’t stifle your laugh. “He even calls me that when he’s talking to other people?”

She laughs, shaking her head. “No, he doesn’t tell anyone anything. Ever. But that’s what you’re in his phone as, and I saw his screen before he could hide it.” She leans in conspiratorially. “He won’t tell us who you are, which means he’s into you, y’know that, right?”

“Um. Is he? I don’t really—”

“Girl,” Nobara says flatly. “He doesn’t talk to people. Yuji and I have to force that guy out of the house half the time. If he’s hanging out with you, it’s because he likes you. Not that he knows that, probably. He’s horrible at feelings. I offered to give him a free therapy session and he said he’d rather become a monk.”

Riko mutters something about how that wouldn’t be too far off from whatever aesthetic he has going on right now, but you’re hung up on something else—Yuji and I.

“Oh my god,” you say, realizing something. “You’re Kugisaki.”

Her entire face lights up and she bounces on the balls of her feet. “He told you about me?” she squeals. “Ooh, he does love me! I’m gonna give him so much shit! What did he say? Was it good?”

The three of you end up talking for half an hour, after you all get your coffee and find an empty table. Nobara talks a mile a minute, but you can’t help hanging on to every word she says—she has a lot to say about Fushiguro, and you feel like you might be learning more about him this way than from the numerous conversations you’ve had with him.

She lives down the street from his place. She knows Gojo, who is apparently exactly the way Megumi described him—loud and eccentric and kind of stupid, but a guy who obviously loves his kids. She and Yuji, true to Megumi’s recollection, basically forced their friendship upon him on the first day of school, and they’ve been a trio ever since.

“He doesn’t tell anyone shit,” Nobara says, echoing her own words from earlier. “I feel like I probably know more about him from Gojo than anything. Or reading his notifications over his shoulder.” She smirks. “But he’s a good guy. I wouldn’t put up with his shit if I didn’t mean that.”

“About—what you said earlier, about him… maybe having feelings for me,” you start.

“Definitely having feelings for you,” she corrects. “Whether he knows or not? Undetermined.”

“Right. Uh.” You don’t get the idea that Nobara is a person you ever want to argue with. “Could you not… mention anything about that? To him?”

She sighs. “Course I won’t. Y’know, the guys always say I can’t keep my nose out of things, but two of my roommates have been in love for years and haven’t done anything and I haven’t said a word. Even though it sucks out part of my soul every time they’re in a room together and they just stare longingly when the other one isn’t looking. They’re so stupid.”

“You and Fushiguro are also stupid,” Riko says helpfully. You glare at her, and she throws her hands up in exasperation. “What? You like him, right? You can’t look me in the eyes and say you don’t like him.”

“He is a good friend,” you say, feeling the burn in your cheeks give you away even before Riko starts cackling.

“I like you,” Nobara tells her, sizing her up. “I might regret saying this, but I think I need you to meet one of my housemates. You could be chaos goblins together. I feel it in my bones.”

Riko rubs her hands together like she’s plotting something, and you think you should probably keep her as far away from said housemate as possible.

Eventually, Nobara pushes to her feet, draining the rest of her coffee and slinging her bag over her shoulder. “I gotta go, but I’m so glad I ran into you. I feel like a spy, knowing Fushiguro’s secret girlfriend.” She wiggles her brows at you, and you don’t bother denying it, just burying your head in your hands instead. “You guys should give me your numbers. I can give you Fushiguro intel.”

Riko immediately accepts Nobara’s phone. You wonder how Fushiguro will feel about all this—fond exasperation seems like the default emotion when it comes to his friends. But you give her your number, waving goodbye as she skips out the door, and lean back, thinking as Riko immediately starts to tease you about your boyfriend-not-boyfriend and how at least he has cool friends, even if he doesn’t have a personality.

You just keep looking out the window, trading snarky comments with Riko as it gets dark—earlier now, at the end of September.

“Are you ever gonna tell him?” Riko presses. “I don’t wanna watch you pine for the next six months.”

“We haven’t even known each other that long,” you insist, tracing patterns aimlessly on the tabletop. “And I don’t… I don’t know. I kind of want him to be the one to say something. Because if Nobara’s wrong and he isn’t actually into me, I could fuck everything up—”

“Isn’t actually into you?” Riko exclaims. “Oh. My god.” She waves a hand in front of your eyes. “Can you see? Do you need to get your vision checked? Do you—”

“Okay!” you laugh, swatting her hands away. “Message received, Jesus. Chaos goblin was right.”

“I wear that as a badge of honor,” Riko says solemnly.

Yeah. She can never meet Nobara’s housemate.

—

It’s a Wednesday, and you and Megumi are walking back to your place from the dog park. His car’s at your house, and the dogs have just had a very high-energy playdate that hopefully knocks them out for the night. The air is chilly and the sky dimming, and everything about it feels immaculately fall.

That’s where your conversation has ended up—the upcoming fall break, which is really just a Friday where neither of your campuses have classes. A three-day weekend really shouldn’t be called a break, you think. It’s misleading.

“You’re not going home?” he asks, and you sigh, shaking your head.

“Parents won’t be home. Not really much of a point.”

“We could—” He clears his throat. “We can hang out that weekend if you want. If you need the company.”

“You’re not going home either?” You glance over at him, a little puzzled. “Like—to Gojo’s?” His lips become a thin, tight line, and you wonder if you’ve somehow crossed some invisible boundary. You’re about to tell him he doesn’t have to talk about it if he doesn’t want to, despite being on the brink of insanity because he doesn’t tell you anything, ever.

But then he says, “He’s a bartender. Not around weekends, usually.”

“Ah.” Nobara mentioned that.

You did tell Megumi about running into Nobara in the coffee shop, and he immediately looked like you told him that you hung out with Gojo and saw all his baby pictures.

“She’s nice!” you insisted, and he sighed, raking a hand through his hair.

“She has no filter.”

“She’s fun.”

“She’s Kugisaki.” He shrugged. “Learn anything interesting?”

You told him about your conversation, minus the whole feelings thing, and he agreed that Riko and Toge Inumaki should never, ever meet. “For the good of the entire world,” he said solemnly. “People would die, Robin.”

Now, as the two of you turn onto your street, he glances at you like he’s trying to find something. And maybe it’s how tired you are, maybe it’s the way his eyes look so bright even though they’re so dark, maybe it’s that weird streetlight-night aura that makes everything feel a little bit not real, but you find yourself studying him right back, meeting his gaze without shame.

You want to know him, to be a part of his life in the way he’s become a fixture in yours. You want to meet his housemates. You want to meet his sister, his family. You want him to open the door and stop acting like you’re going to rob him or something the second you get inside. He knows you better than that, right?

He blinks, and you smirk. “I win.”

“Wh—that was not a staring contest.”

“It’s okay,” you tell him sympathetically. “You can’t be good at everything.”

His laugh—his real laugh—isn’t anything like you thought it’d be, but somehow it’s even better. It transforms his whole face, some blink-of-an-eye shift that lights up his eyes and makes everything about him brighter, louder.

You want to make him laugh like that again. As often as you can, really. Always.

“What?” he asks, staring at you, the light lingering in his eyes, some sort of afterimage of his joy.

“I just—I like your laugh.”

He stops, and you realize you’ve reached the end of your driveway. You drop Batman’s leash and let him run around the yard, and Megumi’s dogs follow suit, knowing better than to go far.

“I like your laugh, too,” he says, a crooked smile spreading across his face. And somehow that feels more like a confession than anything he’s ever said to you.

You’re very close.

He’s leaning in and you’re almost subconsciously reaching up to meet him, heels leaving the ground, and he’s still got the slightest curve of a smile lingering on his lips, and—

“Oh!” Shiro jumps on you from the side, tail wagging excitedly.

When you look back up at Megumi, laughter on your lips, his smile is gone, and he’s looking away, hands shoved in his pockets.

“Megumi—”

“That’s my cue,” he says, a forced-sounding chuckle punctuating the sentence. “I should, um. Get back.”

“Oh. Um, right. Yeah. Totally.” You’re kicking yourself now, feeling stupid, foolish. Did you just mess this whole thing up? Was it too soon? Did you read it wrong?

Megumi opens the back door of the car and lets the dogs hop in before circling around to the driver’s seat. “Robin…”

You look at him, trying to squash the hope adamant in your chest. And he looks like he doesn’t know what to say, for a moment, his lips parting and then closing and his eyes darting around before they finally land on you again. “Night,” he says quietly.

“Night, Megumi.” You lift a hand in a half-wave. “See you.”

Batman stares at the street long after the car has disappeared around the corner, and so do you.

“Fuck,” you murmur, and then again, louder, “fuck.”

—

Megumi’s texts over the next week are less frequent and more distant—at least, you think so. Maybe you’re getting too in your own head about it.

From then on, he’s pretty quiet. You wonder if you fucked up. You haven’t talked about it, the kiss. Almost-kiss. Your texts start getting fewer and far between, and in the chaos leading up to midterms you almost don’t notice. Almost.

Lots of almosts, lately.

you: still on for break?

Part of you expects him to go back on his word, say something came up. Especially when he takes a half hour to respond. He’s just busy, you tell yourself. Stop being dramatic.

megumi (cute vet): your place at 5, right?

“Oh,” you say aloud to nobody but Batman, smiling a little. Well, that’s good. You can ask him what’s been on his mind lately. He just seems… preoccupied.

When break rolls around, you spend Friday out with friends and Saturday catching up on schoolwork until Megumi comes over. You’ve hung out so often—you don’t know why you’re nervous.

And it seems contagious. He still shows up at your door and immediately picks up a conversation you left off on the last time you texted him, but he just seems slightly out of reach, somehow. You let it slide for about twenty minutes before you sit him down on the couch and ask.

“Okay. What’s going on with you?”

“What?” You don’t know if he’s playing dumb or just actually doesn’t realize he’s been acting strange.

“You’ve been… look. You’re acting weird. And I feel like we need to talk about whatever happened last week.”

The ensuing silence makes you want to take it back, or say something else, or do anything to create sound in the little bubble of waiting that's formed around the both of you. But you make yourself wait. Give him the space to find words.

“I guess… there is something I wanted to talk to you about,” he says suddenly, flatly, without looking at you. Your mouth slams shut and you find yourself drawing back a little, the remoteness of his voice almost physically distancing.

“Uh,” you say, like the eloquent person you are. “Okay?”

He swallows once, hard, and he looks at you with so much reluctance you almost wish he’d just look away. Your heart is twisting itself into knots.

“I think we should… take a step back.”

“What?” you whisper. “What do you mean?”

He sighs, raking a hand through his hair. “I mean—this is going… do you want a relationship?”

The question feels so abrupt you’re momentarily shocked into silence. But you know where he’s going.

He doesn’t want this. Doesn’t want—you. And it hurts more than you thought it would. It’s not so much a sharp stabbing sensation as a thousand needles worming their way into the crevices of your heart, slow and numerous and deadly.

Because you do want this. You want him.

“Yes,” you admit, quiet.

And he says, “I don’t.”

In general, you want to ask, or with me? But the words stall in your mouth, all blocked up and sticky, and you don’t say anything at all.

“You shouldn’t,” he murmurs, looking down. “Want that. With me, I mean. It’s…”

“It’s what?” you ask, hesitant. Another long, horrible silence.

“It’s never going to work,” he says, detached. Almost cold. “Us. This.” He’s still not looking at you.

“Let me ask you something, then,” you say, hating the unsteadiness of your voice. “Do you want it to?” Do you have feelings for me? You want to know if this is something he’s denying himself or if he really just doesn’t like you.

You know your own intelligence, though. You haven’t made up whatever this feeling is between you.

He doesn’t answer your question. Just murmurs, “You don’t know me.” And somehow it sounds like an accusation.

“You won’t let me!” you burst out, your voice louder than you intended. But all this caginess, this dancing around everything real, it’s got you at the end of your fuse. Shiro looks up and whines, Kuro leaping off the couch to stand in front of the both of you, curious. “I told you everything! I told you about my family and my friends and my classes and my hometown and my car problems and fucking Katie from Ohio, and you don’t say anything, Megumi, you won’t talk about your family, you won’t introduce me to your roommates. You won’t tell me about your band or your childhood, you took weeks just to give me your first name! What—are you just embarrassed of me? Do you think I’ll judge you? Do you not trust me? Is that it?”

“No,” he practically growls. “God, it’s just—you don’t understand—”

“You’re right, I don’t!” you exclaim, throwing your hands up. Batman paws at your leg, wondering why you’re shouting. “So help me understand. I know I’m not patient, but if you have shit you’re not ready to talk about, that’s fine. But just say that. Tell me to wait and I’ll wait. Just—give me something.”

He looks at you and he’s utterly unreadable, doors slammed shut.

“If you don’t want me in your life, just fucking say so,” you spit, but your voice is wavering now, uncomposed and only loud so it doesn’t shatter. If he really said it, said I don’t want you, you don’t know what you would do. It would be too sharp, too painful, too much.

“You don’t want this,” he says instead, averting his gaze. His tone is measured and even and emotionless.

“Don’t tell me what I want,” you seethe, but your words come out quiet. “If you really think I don’t want this, it’s because you won’t let me.” You’re whispering now, worried that if your voice raises any more, it’ll crack the paper-thin walls holding back your tears. “Megumi…”

“S’better this way.” He rubs the heel of his hand over his eyes, a messy movement that seems so at odds with the evenness of his tone. “I… I have to go, Robin.”

And the strange, unstable feelings of betrayal and confusion and hurt morph abruptly back into something hotter, something angrier. Because how dare he come here, spend fall break at your house, listen to you spill your heart onto the carpeted floor? How dare he run away, say he doesn’t want this, and then still call you that stupid, endearing fucking nickname?

“Yeah,” you say icily, glancing away with your arms crossed over your chest. “You do.”

You count to five, silently, before he moves, and you don’t look when he does. You blink tears out of your eyes when Kuro hesitates, nosing at your hip before following Megumi out the door.

It slams, hard, and Batman stays perched at the entry, tracking him as he walks out of your house, your life.

You don’t move for a very long time.

INTERMISSION // A REAL GOOD START

MEGUMI FUSHIGURO IS in deep, deep shit.

That is to say, he’s lost control of the situation, which is the one thing he does not allow to happen. Ever.

He can’t stop thinking about you.

Sleep is hard to come by in the days after he fucks everything up. He keeps thinking about how it could have gone if he’d just—if he’d done anything else. If he hadn’t run off after he almost kissed you, traitorous heart thumping in his chest even while his brain screamed danger!

You became part of his life so fast and so naturally he didn’t know it was too late until the damage had already been done. If he let himself kiss you, he would drown.

But he didn’t. He shut you down instead, on a Saturday night that could have been different.

He makes excuses when Gojo invites him over Sunday afternoon, going into work early just to avoid him. Even if Megumi’s perfected his poker face, nothing gets past Gojo. It’s like he has some sixth sense for when his pseudo-kids are in emotional turmoil. He’ll force Megumi into a talk therapy session (run by the most unqualified bartender of all time) and he’ll die of embarrassment on the couch.

So instead of talking to someone, anyone, he throws himself into his work, into rehearsals, into school. He goes to the clinic early and leaves late. His fingers are sore from plucking the same lines out on his bass until his housemates go to sleep. His eyes are dry from staring at his laptop until three in the morning. But it doesn’t matter what he does. He can’t. Stop. Thinking. About. You.

The thing about being in a band with all of his housemates is that there’s really no world in which they don’t notice something’s off. They’re spending even more time together lately than usual with the Battle of the Bands going on, and his only relief is that none of them say anything—at least not aloud. There are a number of raised brows and the occasional questioning shoulder nudge, but it seems Yuji, Ino, and Kirara know him well enough by now not to push. That, at least, he’s grateful for.

Nobara Kugisaki is a different story.

It’s a Monday when she storms into his living room—she didn’t even bother knocking on the front door. Shiro and Kuro run happily around her legs, and normally she’d be fawning over them, but today she looks furious. He can almost see smoke coming right out of her ears, eyes narrowed to dark slits as she stares him down.

“Fushiguro.”

“You,” he points out, “do not live here.”

“And you,” she seethes, “have one minute to explain to me what the fuck you did.” Before he can say anything, she waves her phone around in the air and says, “Hi, Nobara, I was just wondering if Fushiguro seems okay to you? Things kind of fell off and I would feel weird reaching out but I’m just a little worried.”

She’s quoting you.

Texts from you.

Shit.

Megumi knows that you and Kugisaki have met, but for some reason it just did not cross his mind that you might have exchanged contact information.

Control the situation.

He clears his throat, refusing to break eye contact. “Well, she said it,” he huffs, his usual toneless expression. “Things fell off.”

You still wanted to check on him. He treated you like that and you still…

“You broke up with her.”

“We weren’t together—”

“You broke up with her. Are you a fucking moron? This girl—” She jabs her finger into her phone screen so hard he’s surprised it doesn’t hurt— “is so fucking cool. And she puts up with you. And you like her. And now you’re acting all weird. So what, you go over there and tell her you can’t be together? What the fuck, dude? Why?”

What a loaded question that is.

“Because,” he grits out. “It wouldn’t have worked.”

“It wouldn’t have worked,” Kugisaki repeats flatly, walking over to the couch and making herself at home way too close to him, staring him down. He turns his head away. God, she is so persistent. She is so annoying.

“Yeah, congrats, your hearing works. Can you leave me alone?”

“Tell me you don’t have feelings for her and I will.”

“I—”

“Look at me and say it,” she snaps.

Megumi looks at her. “I don’t,” he mutters.

Kugisaki rolls her eyes so hard Megumi can’t believe they stay in her skull. “Okay, sure,” she says skeptically. He doesn’t like this tone, where it’s going. “So if I set her up with Toge, you wouldn’t mind?”

“I—” He clamps his mouth shut, hands curled into fists. “Kugisaki, that’s not—”

“That’s what I thought.” Normally she’d look smug, victorious after pulling one over on him, but this is worse. She just looks… concerned. He hates it.

“Look,” she sighs. “You’re not going to talk to me, so I’m not going to waste my time. But when you figure this out—and you will figure it out, or I might kill somebody, and it will be you—I’ll be all ears.” Her gaze might as well be pinning him to the wall with how fierce it is. Sometimes he lets himself forget how much of a force Kugisaki can be, and right now, she’s got that glint in her eyes that he hates, the one that makes him feel like she knows something he doesn’t. “Understood?”

“If I say understood, will you get out of my house?” he grumbles. She says nothing, just looking at him, and he thinks maybe she could win a staring contest with a fish. For a long, tense minute, he doesn’t say anything, and neither does she.

Whatever. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She’ll forget about it eventually.

He sighs, tipping his head back against the wall.

“Understood.”

—

Things seem to happen around Megumi, to him, not because of him. The last conscious decision he made was to end things with you, and now he’s just a passive witness to his own life. Ino has something going on with Nobara’s housemate, Yuji’s scrambling to pass his midterms, Kirara bounces between their house and Hakari’s place faster than he can keep track of, and Megumi… he just exists in the periphery, goes through the motions.

He keeps finding his thumb hovering over your contact name. A dog with a silly name comes into the clinic and he wants to text you about it. He hears a song that reminds him of you (every song reminds him of you) and he wants to play it for you.

He wonders if Riko has him on a hit list yet.

A voice in the back of his head that sounds an awful lot like Kugisaki keeps repeating, Why?

Why did he end things? Why did he bite the bullet so fucking hard?

Because you deserve better than him, honestly.

You don’t know me, he told you. What he didn’t say, though—because you wouldn’t want me if you did.

Part of him knows that’s probably unfair to you—your words keep playing back in his mind and not even his music can drown them out. You won’t let me! But there are things he can’t imagine saying out loud. Explaining the way his dad disappeared, not even showing his face again when his mom died—eighteen-year-old Gojo from across the street on their doorstep, promising he and Tsumiki wouldn’t go into foster care. Bloody knuckles from fighting middle school bullies. Gojo and Geto trying to raise a bunch of kids when they were still kids themselves.

Gojo didn’t leave, but he should have. Megumi knows he threw away so much of his life for him, for Tsumiki. He could have done so much more. He could have done anything he wanted. But Megumi held him back.

Maybe he’s holding him back even now. He knows Gojo would deny it.

The point is, Megumi has shit to figure out for himself, and you shouldn’t have to sit by and watch him deal with it. That’s not fair to you. Yeah, he went about it wrong, but—but this is for the best. You can find someone who actually gives you everything you deserve, and he can… whatever.

Megumi’s band, Shibuya Incident, doesn’t perform this Friday at The Fix—Shoko and Geto’s bar. They’ve already made finals. Tonight will just decide who their opponents are. But even if he’s not up there playing, the Battle of the Bands is a welcome distraction. Even if Ino’s just making lovesick puppy eyes at the stage the whole time and Yuji won’t shut up about wanting Taco Bell. Megumi lets himself get a little lost in the music, and Kugisaki’s band is good, really. He votes for them as soon as the digital form opens and then vows to never tell her.

They should win, but Black Flash takes it again. Kasumi Miwa and Maki’s sister and their friends. They won the whole thing last year. Great, Megumi thinks.

The night comes and goes, and he dodges Gojo on his way out of the bar despite knowing he’ll get a text about it later. And then they’re all piled into Yuji’s car on the way to get his beloved Taco Bell, and he’s just about convinced he’s done with feeling anything at all when Kirara screams.

For a second, there’s nothing at all.

And then the world comes back to life around him in a shock of colors and sounds and a lot of cuss words, mostly coming out of his own mouth.

“Holy shit!” Yuji shouts, yanking the wheel hard to the right, and Megumi can barely process the sight of the white car barreling toward them before there’s crunching metal and shattering glass, and it’s like he feels the collision as an aftershock, shaking all his bones back into place. The airbags go off and he’s blind, wind knocked clean from his lungs, and then he’s moving—no, he moves. No more passivity. This is real.

“Everybody out,” he demands, wrenching the passenger door open and taking in the sight of the crash. Smoke is billowing from the hood of Yuji’s car, the vacant passenger side of the other one entirely smashed in. “Everyone okay?”

Yuji circles around the back of the car and Megumi clocks immediately that he’s holding his wrist weird, wrong. “Yuji—”

“Ino, come on—hey. Hey. Ino.”

Kirara’s got one knee on the edge of the backseat and one hand braced on the roof of the car, and Ino is not making any move to get out.

Sirens. Who called the cops?

“Kirara?” Yuji asks, moving to help her, but she holds up a hand and looks back over her shoulder.

“Don’t. I got it. We’re fine. Just—bad memories, I think.”

Megumi knows Ino hates driving. He doesn’t know why, but he can guess. So he doesn’t push it. Kirara’s the psych major, after all. And probably the one with the most emotional intelligence and any semblance of tact. She’s got him.

He’s about to turn to Yuji when somebody stumbles out of the other car. The car that had been driving in the wrong lane,directly toward them. If Yuji hadn’t reacted so quickly, they’d all be dead.

“What the fuck,” he hisses.

It’s his cousin.

“What,” he says, louder, “the fuck? Naoya!” He storms over and grabs Naoya by the front of his shirt—his breath reeks of alcohol, and he’s laughing, like he didn’t just almost commit vehicular manslaughter. “What the hell, man? What’s wrong with you? Are you—”

He hears… screaming?

But not from here. Not in person. It’s…

Megumi looks at the cracked phone on the ground, having been flung straight through Naoya's shattered windshield. He looks at his shitbag cousin, who’s half tipping-over, legs like jelly under him.

“Naoya,” he growls. “Who. Is. That?”

“Hah,” he slurs. “Mm. My ex! My ex. She is… she is.”

He’s not making sense, but Megumi might get back into Yuji’s car and drive it into his cousin on purpose. Naoya was dating this girl—Megumi knows her. She's friends with Yuji. Some brand of art major, he’s pretty sure, and she's nice, way too good for him. And then what, she finally gets away and he still torments her? By drunk calling her from the car, letting her listen as he crashes? The blood in Megumi’s veins might as well be venom.

He shoves Naoya back with a scoff, letting him stumble over himself, and grabs the broken phone off the ground. “Hey,” he says, and she’s still screaming, this poor fucking girl— “Hey! Hey. Calm down. It’s—hello?”

“Naoya? What the fuck, Naoya—”

She’s definitely talking through tears, maybe angry, maybe scared.

“Not Naoya,” Megumi sighs. “Uh, this is Fushiguro.” She’s quieting a little on the other end, and he hears a guy’s voice trying to talk her down. “Listen. Naoya’s fine. Just… drunk. And an asshole. Are you okay?”

After that, the entire night is a blur.

He talks down Naoya’s traumatized ex-girlfriend on the phone, Ino’s girlfriend shows up and calms him down, and then Gojo and Nanami and Shoko are there and Hakari shows up and Gojo’s dragging Megumi to the ER with Yuji to get his wrist checked out and it’s sprained and Tsumiki is running into the waiting room and hugging the life out of him and Maki calls and Naoya’s got a DUI and then finally, finally they’re home. Megumi can barely keep his eyes open. He doesn't know what time it is.

He sleeps harder than he has in months.

—

Megumi is so fucking exhausted that when his phone starts buzzing the next morning at the kitchen table, he doesn’t actually think it’s real for a second.

INCOMING CALL: SIDEKICK

He’s hallucinating. Sleep deprivation, or something. Or maybe he actually got a concussion in that car crash and now he’s seeing things that aren’t real. That’s the only explanation.

That or you butt-dialed.

He doesn’t bother explaining himself to the others as he stands up and retreats to the hallway, almost letting the phone ring out before steeling himself and swiping to accept the call.

“Hey?”

He’s never greeted you like that before. It sounds so fake. He usually picks up the phone and just starts talking about whatever you texted him, or whatever weird thing he saw that he has to tell you about. Not hey. Hey is for people he doesn’t know. Doesn’t care about.

“Um. Hey.” It is stupid, what just the sound of your voice over the phone does to him. “I just saw this article about a car crash? Are you—”

“I’m fine,” he says, too fast, too sharp. Stop it. “Sorry. I’m—yeah. We’re all fine.”

You clear your throat on the other end of the phone. “Okay. That’s—that’s good. I just… wanted to make sure.”

He pushed you out, and you texted Kugisaki to ask if he was alright.

He pushed you out, and you’re calling to make sure he’s okay.

I’m not, he wants to say. I fucked up. I fucked this up.

I miss you.

“Thank you,” he murmurs. “I… appreciate that.”

Maybe he can still salvage this. Still be friends with you, at least. But that’s a slippery slope, isn’t it? He’ll just hurt you again. But…

“It was my cousin,” he offers, not really knowing why he’s saying it. Maybe as a peace offering. He didn’t tell you things before, important things. Maybe he can start now. “Drunk. On the phone with his ex.”

“Oh,” you say. You sound surprised, but Megumi isn’t sure if you’re more shocked about his words or the fact that he gave them to you. “That’s… awful.”

“Yeah,” Megumi breathes. “Um. Yeah, he’s taken care of now.”

“Good. That’s good.” A dog starts barking, and Megumi feels his lips twitch up into an almost-smile.

“There he goes,” he murmurs. You laugh, and he’s actually smiling, now.

“There he goes,” you say fondly. “I should… go calm him down. I’ll…”

“Yeah, yeah, go,” he says, not sure how to end this. “Um, good… luck.” Stupid. That was so fucking stupid.

“Thanks. Bye, Fushiguro.”

“Bye, Robin,” he says, but the line’s already gone dead.

—

Megumi sees you three times in the month of November, and every time he feels ten times closer to a train wreck.

It snows in November, because it’s stupid and cold and winter comes early here, and there are prints leading toward the dog park. Imprints of dog paws and boots, side by side, and he’s a vet student. He knows what size dog those prints mean. He knows exactly who it is.

He lets Shiro and Kuro tug him all the way to the dog park, and he doesn’t even remember letting himself through the gate. He just knows that you see him right after Kuro starts panting excitedly, and you freeze.

He half-waves in the most pathetic, lame response ever known to mankind.

“Robin,” he says, the nickname falling off his tongue like nothing ever changed.

“Fushiguro.” You smile, hesitant, and he wishes it didn’t feel like a needle that you used his last name. He walks over to you—just following the dogs, he tells himself, that’s natural. Batman almost knocks him over in his excitement.

Megumi can’t not smile at a dog. That would just make him a bad vet, wouldn’t it?

“Hey, bud,” he says, crouching down to pet him. “Yeah, I missed you too.” When he looks back up, your gaze is a little distant, and he closes his eyes for a second, collecting himself. He pushes back to his feet and turns to you.

“Did you know I’d be…” You don’t finish the sentence, but he knows what you mean.

“I… snowprints,” he says, shrugging. It seems to be enough of an answer for you.

“Snowprints,” you echo. “We found you with tracks too, the first time. Didn’t we, Batman?” Like he understands, Batman slaps his tail against the ground and flicks his ears forward and back. Yep. Sure did.

He scrambles for something to say in the silence—small talk is the bane of his existence, but is it ever small talk when it’s you?

Small talk doesn’t matter.

Everything you say matters.

“So. They teach you how to keep plants alive yet?” he asks, and has to fight not to physically cringe after he says it. God, it’s like he never learned how to talk. But you laugh, which he counts as a win.

“No, but someone is significantly less barky, so thank you for that.”

He has you for five minutes before your phone rings, and you chuckle, showing him the screen.

“Ah,” he says. Riko. He doesn’t object when you go, slipping out through the gate with your phone pressed to your ear, because he doesn’t have the right.

But you text first, later.

sidekick: it was good to see you sidekick: and the dogs. obviously

“Look at that,” he mutters to Kuro, whose nose is nearly touching his phone screen. “You’re my good luck charm.”

megumi: you too, sidekick. megumi: and batman. obviously.

The second time, you’re crossing paths in the coffee shop, both of you on your way to other places. It’s brief and stilted and still leaves him feeling like a mess.

“Black?” you ask, nodding at his coffee. You’ve got a hat tugged haphazardly over your head to ward off the persistent snowflakes outside, and it’s—you’re cute. Fuck.

He huffs a laugh, looking down at the sleet-stained floor just to avoid staring at you and your cold-flushed cheeks. “What else?”

“Vanilla latte,” he says, glancing at your cup, because he wants you to know he remembers. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but he thinks you look pleasantly surprised.

The third time, you don’t see him.

He knew you had friends at JU, but he’s never seen you around campus before. You’re with the guy with the blue hair, always pulled up into two knots on the top of his head—Hajime, maybe?

You throw your head back and laugh at something he says, and it’s like—fuck. Laughter shouldn’t sound that poetic.

And he knows he can’t lie to himself anymore.

It’s time to talk.

Kirara would probably kick his ass the second he told her anything. Ino’s busy with his new girlfriend, Yuji’s an idiot, Kugisaki is… well, she’s Kugisaki, and he can’t handle that lecture right now. And he sure as hell isn’t gonna talk to Gojo.

Which means he only has one option.

When he knocks on the door of Tsumiki’s apartment, she takes one look at him and sighs, long-suffering.

“You finally ready to talk?”

This was probably a grave miscalculation. If Kirara would kick his ass for the way he treated you, Tsumiki might actually hang him from his ankles out the window and leave him to die. But not before he apologizes to you. So at least he’s got time.

He walks in without responding and ignores her invitation to sit, pacing the kitchen instead in an uncharacteristic show of nerves. “I fucked up.”

“Yeah, I gathered,” Tsumiki says dryly, but she hops up onto the counter and looks at him, patient as ever. Tell me, she doesn’t say, but Megumi hears it anyway.

“I think I might be in love.”

—

To her credit, Tsumiki is dead silent for the entirety of Megumi’s rambling explanation. He’s a little hoarse by the end of it—honestly, he never talks like this. He feels like he just dumped his heart onto his sister’s kitchen floor and is awaiting some sort of judgement.

“Also, I think she hates me,” he finishes, finally sinking into a chair at the kitchen table. He tilts his head back and stares at the popcorn ceiling. “And I deserve it.”

For a beat, Tsumiki is silent. And then she says, “You wrote a song about her.”

He snaps his gaze to her so aggressively it hurts his neck. “What?”

She rolls her eyes and pulls something up on her phone, sliding up the volume and pressing play. She scrolls to some random point in the song, and Ino’s voice sings, “She’s got me up late starin’ at my phone, waitin’ for a text, feelin’ all alone.”

“Tsumiki—”

She turns it up, and Megumi looks anywhere but at his sister. There are plants everywhere, warm light filtering in through the windows onto herbs on the kitchen windowsill and succulents in the living room and god, everything reminds him of you.

“And she don’t even know what she’s doin’ to me, all my hopes are high-strung and she’s just gonna leave, no!”

“Okay! Okay, stop, I get it,” he huffs, dragging the heel of his palm down his face and trying to ignore her smug smile. “How did you even know?” he mumbles. “I’m not on the credits.”

“I know you,” she says dryly. “I also know Ino, and his lyrics are not that… I don’t know, poetically nihilistic.”

“I really can’t tell if you’re trying to insult or compliment me right now,” he says, sighing.

“Also,” Tsumiki says pointedly, “because this is what you do, Gumi.” He gives her a quizzical look in lieu of a response. “When people get close to you, you lash out and then you run away.” She hops off the counter and crosses the room to the table, pulling out a chair across from Megumi.

“No, I don’t,” he grumbles, tilting his chair away on its back legs and inadvertently proving her point.

She just looks at him until he relents, burying his face in his hands.

“I don’t think it’s unprecedented,” Tsumiki says gently, “considering the way we grew up. But you can’t keep shutting down good things, Gumi. You wouldn’t even be friends with Itadori and Kugisaki if they hadn’t forced their way past your bullshit. And you love them, right? They’re great. You know they’re not gonna hurt you.”

“Nobody knows that,” he huffs. “College will end and we’ll all go our separate ways and I’ll never hear from—”

“Nope,” Tsumiki says loudly, cutting him off. “Okay. My turn to talk. Shut up.” She glares at him, planting her elbows on the table. He feels stripped raw. “The whole pushing-people-away-before-I-get-hurt thing? You need to stop. You cannot look me in the eyes right now and tell me you don’t have people who would die for you, Gumi.”

He opens his mouth to object, but she swipes a hand through the air, silencing him. “I’m not done.” Megumi has only seen his sister like this a few times in his life, and he is fairly certain that if he tries to interrupt her again he might not leave this apartment alive.

“You have me. You have Gojo. You have Geto and Shoko and Nanami. You have all of your housemates, and Kugisaki, and probably all of her housemates too,” she says. “And none of us are going anywhere, okay? No walking out on the kids, no betrayal, no kicking you to the curb. So you need to get your head out of your ass, Megumi.”

Well.

“Look. It’s a defense mechanism. I get that,” she says, a little gentler now. “But you are not doing yourself any favors. And this girl? You’re in love with her, Gumi. That means she’s pretty special, okay? Because I don’t think I’ve ever even seen you look twice at a girl in your whole life. And I know she doesn’t deserve this, just as much as you know. So you have two choices.”

Megumi doesn’t think he’s going to like either of the two choices.

Tsumiki leans back in her chair, shrugging. “You can let her move on without you and keep screwing yourself over, or you can go tell her you fucked up and ask her to forgive you.”

He’s never liked asking for things. Tries to avoid it, actually. But he’s finding there are a lot of rules he’s willing to break when it comes to you.

“But if you’re going to ask this girl to step back into your life, you need to make sure you’re ready for it,” his sister says firmly. “You need to have your shit together. You need to know how you feel.” She pauses, catching his gaze, and once she has it she might as well be holding his face in her hands. He can’t look away, not when she’s looking at him this intently, like she’s waiting for an answer she already knows. “So. How do you feel?”

When he doesn’t answer right away, Tsumiki knocks on the table, like a dismissal. “Okay. You think about that, and when you know—you know.” She looks at him for a long moment after he stands up, those eternal curled locks of hair falling into her face, and he’s suddenly hit with a wave of affection, of gratitude, so strong he can barely stand it. Yeah, so he doesn’t have a mom. And fuck his dad. But Tsumiki—thank god he has his sister.

“Miki,” he says, before he can stop himself. “Uh—thank you. I…” He swallows once, hard. “Love you.”

Her smile is slow but wide, the kind that makes her eyes narrow just a little. “I love you too,” she says softly, and then she winks. “Hey, those words? That’s a real good start.”

—

When Megumi sees you next, he’s going to be ready. Just like Tsumiki said. He needs to know how he feels. So he thinks, and he thinks, and he thinks.

There’s a notebook in the bottom drawer of his desk, scrawled song lyrics he’ll never let anyone see. He fills page after page after page trying to figure out what’s going on in his head, in his heart, how he can make it make sense. Fit together like two hands, two sets of prints in the snow. He tries to imagine what he’ll say to you, how you’ll react, but every word he thinks of falls short, everything just sounds stupid in the face of how much you deserve and how little he can give.

He keeps thinking.

It’s December 19, Kugisaki’s Christmas party before everyone parts ways for break.

Megumi won’t admit it, but he’s having a good time. He brought the dogs, and he and Yuji have been bouncing around talking to their friends. Tsumiki’s here too, and when he loses track of Yuji he makes his way over to her, leaning silently against the wall.

“They’re cute,” she says fondly, and he follows her gaze to the hall—Ino is standing there with his girlfriend, Skipper, and there’s mistletoe hanging right above them. No doubt Kugisaki’s doing. Skipper laughs and pecks Ino on the lips before he says something and drags her down the hall, and then Maki and Yuta glance up at the mistletoe, look at each other in mutual horror, and pointedly do not walk beneath it. They’re finally together, but they wouldn’t be caught dead kissing in front of other people.

And he wonders what you’d do, if you were here standing under it with him.

He doesn’t have to say anything. Tsumiki reads him like a book.

It’s like this:

Megumi is very well-acquainted with loss. But he’s not sure he can handle this one.

He let his own insecurities ruin a good thing, a bright thing. He shut it down before it could start. He struck first and he fucking regrets it.

That’s it, then. Pity party over. Delusions down the drain. It’s time to get over himself, to get real.

Because the truth of it is that he doesn’t give a shit about his birthday, about Christmas, about the trees and the lights and the stupid fucking carols, if you’re not there with him.

Oh, he thinks. His sister has the audacity to smirk.

He stays, because this is Kugisaki’s party and despite everything, he does love her. He’s getting better about that, about acknowledging it—he has people who care about him, and he has people he cares about.

But when he heads out just a little bit early, after whispering your name in Kugisaki’s ear, she nearly slaps him for not going sooner.

“Shiro, Kuro,” he calls, heading for the door. “C’mon. We’ve got somewhere to be.”

PART II // TO TRYING

FOR A WEEK after Megumi walks out your front door, you drown in self-pity like the flower you killed in September with too much water. 

And then you open your computer and type his name into the search engine with jujutsu university and band. It’s not hard to find—one of the first results is some Instagram advertisement about a Battle of the Bands at JU, from a couple of weeks ago. One of them’s got to be his. You could just ask Nobara, but—it feels weird, somehow. Wrong. Like you’re encroaching on part of his life that he so clearly doesn’t want you to be a part of.

You can’t helping asking her to check on him, though. You just—it’s probably stupid, but you want him to be okay. Not that you think him pseudo-dumping you would tear him up or anything. But there’s a not insignificant part of you that doesn’t believe what he said that day. Part of you that knows a defense mechanism when you see one.

The thing is, you could’ve asked your friends about him. Hajime goes to JU. He might know Megumi, and if not he could’ve found out. But you wanted this for yourself, this mystery of earning his first name and his history and his heart, except you thought you’d gotten two of the three and it turns out he’ll only ever give you one.

You start typing in the bands one by one, figuring eventually one of them has to be his. A search for Black Flash turns up an artist image of a group of people surrounding a grinning girl with bright blue hair. No Megumi, though.

Shibuya Incident, then. You key it into Spotify and rub your eyes when the artist profile comes up, like you’re maybe seeing it wrong. No. It’s him.

There’s a dark-haired girl who must be Kirara leaning on a familiar-looking guy with pink hair, face split open in a smile. Front and center is a brown-eyed boy with a beanie tugged lopsided over his hair. And in the back, standing, looking characteristically bored, is Megumi Fushiguro.

Why are you doing this? You shouldn’t be doing this.

But you’re scrolling before you know it. Most popular songs. They have an EP called Over Duress. And they have a single—released recently, it looks like.

Strike First.

You only allow yourself one second of hesitation before you press play.

“Catch feels real quick,” a voice sings—Ino, must be. “And they go real deep.” You can’t help paying attention the bassline. It’s steady, constant, holding the rest of the band together as Ino sings. The lyrics almost sink into the background until the chorus snags your attention, and you have to go back and replay it.

“I can hear the heartbreak saying, ooh, I’m on my way. So you strike first, strike first ‘cause she’s not gonna stay.”

Oh.

You understand, then, even if his name isn’t listed in the writing credits, even if you have no proof. Megumi wrote this song. You can hear him in the unfamiliar voice of the lead singer. You can feel him in the pattern of the words. It’s his.

He didn’t want you to leave, so he left first. Is that it?

You understand, but it’s not enough. Abruptly, you’re just—you’re angry. What a stupid reason to let something fall apart. You don’t owe him patience. If he’s not ready to commit, that’s not your problem, it’s his. He needs to figure himself out, learn to let people in, and you can’t just sit here and wait for him to do it. It’s not your responsibility.

It’s not.

There’s some sort of grim satisfaction in knowing that there’s nothing else you could have done.

“Forget that,” you mutter, closing out of Spotify and intending to just toss your laptop on the bed. Case closed. Moving on.

But something in your search results catches your eye first.

JU senior issued DUI after crash on 34th and Olson Blvd Friday night

Okay. So. Nothing to do with Megumi, right? Except it’s showing up in your search of his name. You click on the article, heart suddenly pounding.

Jujutsu University Campus Police responded to an emergency call at 11:41 last night after an automobile collision on 34th Street and Olson Boulevard, four blocks from the popular campus live music bar, The Fix.

“No,” you breathe. “What the fuck?” You keep skimming, everything in you loosening up when it says nobody was seriously hurt, but it just—whose car is that, Yuji’s? It’s bright red. Not Megumi’s.

You’re not really thinking when you make the call. It rings for so long, and right as you’re about to give up, he’s there on the other end of the line, and you realize you have no idea what you’re supposed to say.

“Hey?”

“Um. Hey.” You sound more breathless than you should, just sitting here on your bed with your laptop open to a student news publication. You don’t wait for him to ask why the hell you’re calling, barreling on before you lose your nerve. “I just saw this article about a car crash? Are you o—”

“I’m fine,” he says quickly. Defensively. Oh.

Right. This is overstepping, probably. He doesn’t need you checking up on him. You should’ve just texted Nobara. You should’ve just not read the article, actually, shouldn’t have typed his name into your search engine. He probably thinks you’re a creep who put Google alerts on for his name or something. You don’t have any real excuse for how you stumbled across this fucking article.

But then he says, “Sorry. I’m—yeah. We’re all fine.”

Thank god, you think. But you just clear your throat a little and say, “Okay. That’s—that’s good. I just… wanted to make sure.”

The silence is so long you think for a moment that he’s hung up on you. But then, very quietly, he says, “Thank you. I… appreciate that.”

You don’t really know where to go from here. He’s fine. Of course he’s fine. Why the hell did you call him in the first place? It’s not like he’s going to offer you any information. Because he doesn’t tell you anything, which was the whole problem in the first place—

“It was my cousin.”

You blink.

“Drunk. On the phone with his ex.”

“Oh,” you say, more of a surprised noise slipping out before you can bite it down. It’s less shock at the actual words than the fact that he’s giving you something, that he’s offering you this. You scroll down in the article. Naoya Zenin. The senior in the headline who got a DUI. “That’s… awful.”

“Yeah,” Megumi breathes. “Um. Yeah, he’s taken care of now.”

“Good. That’s good.”

Batman chooses this moment to start barking at absolutely nothing out the window. He actually has been a lot better about that recently, but it’s like it’s his mission today to embarrass you on the phone with the guy who dumped-not-dumped you.

“There he goes,” Megumi says lightly, and you laugh a little, because he sounds almost fond when he says it.

“There he goes,” you echo. “I should… go calm him down. I’ll…” What? You’ll what? See you around? No you won’t. Talk to you later? Unlikely.

“Yeah, yeah, go,” he says. “Um, good… luck.” With what? Batman? Life?

“Thanks. Bye, Fushiguro.”

You slam your finger down on the red button before he can reply.

You don’t want to know what he says. Your name, or sidekick, or Robin, or nothing at all.

—

You try to forget about him, but it’s hard.

Every time your phone buzzes with a message from your friends, classmates, family, your heart jumps, foolishly thinking it might be him. You follow Batman to the dog park without making the conscious decision to, and berate yourself when you realize, lead him off in another direction. Your rosemary plant dies and you hear him in your head, teasing you—isn’t the environment your whole career? Better shape up, sidekick.

Riko prepares a half-hour long PowerPoint presentation about all the reasons he didn’t deserve you in the first place. She must’ve told your roommate, too, because Suko calls you in the middle of the night, Japan time, just to check in.

A week into November, it’s dulled a little bit, the hurt. You’re still startled when he shows up at the dog park, but… not unpleasantly so.

“Snowprints,” he says when you ask if he knew you were here. One word, but it means more to you. Snowprints means he knew what he was walking into, and he came anyway. Snowprints means he saw a chance and followed it to you on purpose.

That’s progress, isn’t it?

You see him at the coffee shop and he remembers your order. It shouldn’t mean anything, but it does. Snowprints and a vanilla latte.

He said he didn’t want this, but you just… don’t believe him.

But you’re not waiting for him. If the cute guy from ecology asked you out tomorrow, you’d say yes. This boy isn’t dictating your life while he figures himself out.

You hope he does figure himself out. But you won’t hold on to scraps.

And you do start to forget, a little. The cute guy in your ecology class does not ask you out, but your friends and your studies and your needy dog are enough of a distraction that Megumi isn’t in the front of your mind all the time. The semester is flying by, and you make an effort to keep in touch with Nobara despite everything—she really is fun.

It’s approaching break before you know it, and you’re going home for the holidays soon, though you’ll probably be back before the new year because Setsuko needs a ride. Man, you’re excited to have a roommate again.

Your suitcase is half-packed, poorly folded clothes covering the whole of your bedspread in some futile attempt at organization. Christmas is in six days—well, five, you think idly, glancing at the clock. Half past midnight. You should go to sleep, but your bed is covered in clothes and you need to finish packing for your drive home in two days.

“Hey, no,” you lecture as Batman sniffs at a shirtsleeve dangling over the side of the bed. You can tell he’s considering making the leap and taking a nap on top of all your freshly laundered clothes. “No. Stay down.”

You push to your feet, yawning, and then Batman freezes in place, his ears perking up and forward like he hears something.

“What’s up?” you mutter, and then his head snaps toward the door. “Dude, what? It’s past midnight—”

The doorbell rings.

“The shit,” you mutter, trudging to the front door. Irrationally you wonder if your roommate’s home early, but that’s stupid—she’d have needed a ride from the airport, and she has a key.

You don’t know what you expect when you nudge Batman aside and open the door into the cold night, barely holding him back from the cracked door with your leg.

Oh.

You’re face to face with Megumi Fushiguro, and your heart does a diving, spinning leap into the bottom of your stomach.

His lips are slightly parted like he stopped speaking mid-word, eyes wild with urgency, and you suddenly wonder if he’s in trouble, if something’s really wrong. Snow peppers his dark hair, the porch light bouncing off the white specks and making him look like he’s sparkling.

You can’t find any words. None at all, nothing that can actually articulate the shock and confusion and barely-squashed hope. What is happening?

“Robin,” he says. And then he says your name, your real name, and—it’s like a dam breaks.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so fucking sorry. I—I’ve had some time to think and I really, really messed up and I don’t know how I’m ever going to make it up to you but I have to try to explain, I—it’s me, it was all me, all my fault, you’re amazing and I’m insecure and I let that get in the way of something really fucking good and that was stupid, so stupid, and I like being with you and I like knowing you and I want you to meet my friends and my weird messed-up family and I want you to know me, I want to let you know me, and I’m sorry I didn’t just because I got too in my own head about it, about you. You take up so much headspace it’s insane and I haven’t stopped thinking about you since—since, I don’t know, since I fucking met you, and I—”

The multi-colored Christmas lights strung between the pillars of your front step cast colors and shadows over him as he rambles, his cheeks red from the cold and maybe something else, and you can’t take it, watching him like this, desperate.

“Fushiguro.”

But he’s on a roll now, the words spilling from him like they’ve been building up in the hollow space of his throat for years, and he’s not stopping now. You’re not sure he even hears you over the rapid, panicked lilting of his own confession.

“You should turn around right now, slam the door in my face, I get it, I deserve that, and I don’t have any excuse that matters, but I realized how important you’d become and that scared me more than anything I’d ever felt because that meant I could lose you, you could leave—”

“Fushiguro.”

“And it’s—I fell in love with you months ago,” he breathes. “I’m sorry, and I love you, I’m so in love with you, and I—”

“Megumi.”

He finally stops, panting, every part of him frenzied and undone. His lips are still parted around a word he hasn’t said, freeze frame, the remote in your hands. “Will you just come inside?”

The silent second feels like ages, years, maybe, and you can see the disbelief in his irises, like he’s afraid to trust this, afraid to hope.

“No,” he breathes suddenly, and something comes dangerously close to cracking in your heart. Did he come here, say all this, only to leave you again?

“I—”

“No, because I brought the dogs and they’re sitting in the back of my car right now,” he explains, sheepish. An unbelieving, slightly hysterical laughter bubbles up out of you, warm and surprising and not at all unpleasant.

You grab Megumi by the dark fabric of his coat and yank him toward you, pressing your lips to his cold ones, hand slipping up to tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck. It’s like your warmth leeches into him limb by limb, slowly unfreezing him both from the cold and the frantic fear that you’d turn him away again, and it’s below freezing but he’s melting beneath your touch, and you missed him so, so much.

You pull back, your breath fogging in the air like an echo. “You idiot,” you tell him. “Go get them, I want to see them.” You cross your arms over your chest, leaning on the doorjamb and finally processing how cold it is out here. It’s like it’s sinking right into your bones. “And then get your ass inside.”

He smiles breathlessly, standing still for a moment, and then it’s like he just snaps into action, like he’s afraid you’ll change your mind if he waits another second. The dogs run up the path before he does, and you let them barrel into you and then have their little reunion with Batman while Megumi catches up.

“Come sit down,” you tell him, shutting the door and closing out the cold air. “And tell me more.”

It’s almost like nothing ever changed.

You talk for hours in the lamp-lit living room, surrounded by three tired dogs and a record spinning in the corner. But this time, Megumi talks more than you’ve ever heard him talk. He tells you everything.

How he pushed you away and justified it to himself by saying you deserved better, when really you deserved the truth. How his dad left and his mom died young and Gojo was barely legal when he took him in. How he had a lot of issues with his self-worth growing up, and even now, and how it took him a very long time to accept that people care about him. How it was Tsumiki's idea to get the dogs, because after their mom died he couldn't stop having nightmares. How he wanted to call you every day and then he finally cracked and he went to Tsumiki and she psychoanalyzed him at the kitchen table and he sorted out all his shit so he could show up here like an absolute nuisance and beg you to give him another chance.

“That’s all I wanted, you know,” you tell him, the both of you on the floor, leaning against Shiro and Kuro as they sleep. Batman’s made himself comfortable on the couch, occasionally using his vantage point to lick you right in the face. “You, being honest. You didn’t have to tell me about your parents, y’know, if you didn’t want to. But just…”

“I know that now,” he murmurs sheepishly. “I’m sorry. Really. But I’m trying to get over the whole self-sabotage thing. Trying to… try. In general. With people.”

And he means it. Because the only time Megumi has ever lied to you was the day he told you he didn’t want this, and you knew even then that it wasn’t true. He might try to be all stoic and poker-faced, but he’s not a very good liar. You smile. “That’s a good start.”

You’re facing each other, knees touching, and you reach out, hand palm-up between you. He glances at you before he makes any move, like he’s asking—are you sure? But then he laces his fingers through yours. His hands are way bigger than yours, fingers folding over your own, warm and encompassing. Something about it feels very right.

“So I was wondering,” he starts, and this new side of him that is so hesitant but also hopeful is maybe the most endearing thing you’ve ever seen. You squeeze his hand a little, and that seems to embolden him enough to ask whatever it is waiting on the tip of his tongue. “Uh, would you… want to meet my housemates?”

—

“They’re crazy,” Megumi says, standing outside his house with you the next day. “I mean it. I don’t know how to prepare you for—”

“Megumi,” you cut him off, laughing. “No disclaimers. I’m friends with Riko, remember?” This actually seems to be an effective argument, because he smiles a little, putting his hand on the door.

“Yeah, okay. That’s fair.”

You are tackled the second you cross the threshold.

“Hi!” someone practically shouts in your ear, full-on bear-hugging you as you stumble back, laughing.

“Oh my god,” Megumi groans. “Itadori—”

“Sorry!” he yelps, pulling back and awkwardly offering a hand like he didn’t just squeeze the living daylights out of you. “I’m Yuji. Kugisaki’s told me all about you and Fushiguro said—”

“Itadori,” he says again. You immediately understand what Megumi meant. This boy is legitimately no different than the two dogs who have come to crowd around your legs. Actually, Shiro and Kuro have greeted you significantly more calmly than Yuji has. It’d be difficult not to like him, you think.

“No, you’re fine,” you laugh him off, using the handshake to pull him back in. “You’re fun. I like you.” Yuji grins victoriously at Megumi and lets you go, and you finally move out of the entryway and into the familiar living space.

“Ino,” you say, pointing at the boy in a beanie, and then shift to the girl crouched in front of the TV, rummaging through a bunch of games. “Kirara.”

The conspiratorial smirk Kirara gives you—along with the way the Wii games are scattered all around her like a personal hurricane—makes you think she might not actually be the long-suffering order in a house full of chaos. More likely, she and Ino and Yuji are only kept in check by Megumi’s neat freak tendencies and blunt nature.

“Hey.” Ino grins. “Okay, I gotta ask, is your dog actually named Batman? Because that’s awesome.”

“She’s been here for two seconds,” Megumi chides, but you nod happily. You are very proud of your dog’s stupid name.

“Well, I approve,” Ino shrugs, patting the space next to him on the couch.

And it feels natural, the way you fall into place with the rest of them. For all Megumi pretends they drive him insane, it’s obvious he loves his friends, and he seems relaxed around them even as you waste away the afternoon chatting and arguing and getting your ass kicked in Mario Kart (specifically by Kirara, whose undefeated record pisses off all the boys but makes you even fonder of her).

By the time night falls, you feel like you’ve been friends with all of them for years. You learn all about the band—Megumi didn’t tell you that they won the Battle of the Bands, which you plan to give him shit for later. They ask you about your school and friends and seem to actually, genuinely want to meet them.

You go home for Christmas, getting your annual few rare days of quality family time, but Megumi sends you photos from Gojo’s with Tsumiki and the dogs. You respond with a picture of Batman in a Santa hat.

megumi: they really want to meet you when you get back. if you want.

A smile splits across your face before you can stop it. Because this is exactly what you wanted—for Megumi to want you to meet his family, to know that part of his life.

“What are you smiling about?” your dad asks from the couch, and your blush must be answer enough, because he turns to your mom with a raised brow and mouths boy. You shove your phone in your pocket. You weren’t prepared for the interrogation, but it’s too late now.

The thing is, if your family had asked you if you were seeing anyone even last week, you’d have nothing to say. And maybe you shouldn’t dump all this information on them when it’s still so fresh, so new.

But something tells you this is going to last. He wants you to meet Tsumiki, to meet Gojo. You won’t keep him from your family if he doesn’t keep you from his. Plus, your parents leave on another trip in two days. You’re not sure when else you’ll get the chance to tell them this in person.

“So,” you say, before they can start grilling you. “His name is Megumi.”

—

There are prints in the snow.

It feels uncannily familiar, walking your usual path with Batman and seeing the two sets of paw prints and accompanying boots. You place your own footsteps in their wake, laughing at how they dwarf your own shoe size.

You aren’t supposed to see Megumi until he picks you up to go to Gojo’s tonight, but it seems fate—or Batman—has other ideas.

You let him drag you all the way to a big, snowy clearing, where you see your boyfriend and Kuro standing in the snow. It takes you a whole five seconds longer to make out Shiro, who basically blends right into the landscape.

The dogs, per usual, see you first, and Megumi turns at their excited noises to see you. He wastes no time setting off across the field toward you, and you grin, meeting him in the middle.

“So is this a coincidence, or is someone following me?” he asks, meeting you at eye-level as you crouch to greet the dogs. Batman basically shoves his nose in Megumi’s face in response.

“Snowprints,” you say, gesturing to the trail behind you. “Seems to be a theme.” Behind the wall of Kuro’s dark fur, you plant your hands in the snow, letting a mischievous smile grow on your lips. “Anyway, I’m glad I ran into you, because—”

You throw a massive snowball right at Megumi’s face.

“Oh,” he says, swiping a gloved hand across his eyes but leaving flakes of white stuck in his brows, on his lashes. “You’ve done it now.”

“Protect me,” you whisper to Kuro, and then you run.

All-out war. The dogs are thrilled at every snowball that misses its mark, all of them leaping to catch the wayward projectiles in the air, and you and Megumi chase each other and trip over the snow and wind up in a big, snow-covered mess on the ground, staring up at a shockingly bright afternoon sky.

You can barely breathe, you’re laughing so hard. “You’re crazy,” you pant, pushing yourself up onto your elbows, then your palms. An absolute mess of snowprints—his, yours, Shiro’s, Kuro’s, Batman’s—cross over each other in the snow, revealing patches of browning grass here and there, showing the signs of your battle. “Aw, hey. It looks like a giant heart.”

“Sap,” Megumi snorts.

“Buzzkill.”

“Instigator.”

“Oh, yeah?” You grab a fistful of snow and put it right on his head, letting it melt into his tousled, snow-streaked hair. “Well, I’ll instigate, then.”

He laughs, shaking his hair out like a dog, and tackles you back into the snow. “Then I’ll instigate something else.”

You’re so cold you can barely feel half your face, but it doesn’t matter. Not when he kisses you like this.

—

The first thing you think when Satoru Gojo opens the door is damn, he’s tall.

The second is holy shit, those are the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

“Gumi!” he shouts, enveloping him in a very one-sided hug.

The third thing? Yeah, you like him.

“Gojo,” Megumi grumbles, half-heartedly pushing him away, but the fondness of the interaction doesn’t escape you.

“And I’ve heard all about you,” Gojo grins, pulling you into a hug as well—you don’t hesitate to hug him back, because now you know exactly what this man has done for Megumi and Tsumiki. And he’s important to Megumi, so he’s important to you.

Megumi telling you about his childhood and Gojo was one thing, but him actually wanting you to meet his family is another. You feel warm all over as Gojo ushers you into the apartment, where Tsumiki is already busy making dinner. She nearly drops the pan in her hands at the sight of you. “Hi!”

“You all hug so much,” Megumi says flatly when she hugs you too, and she just grins and forces him into an embrace as well.

“Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”

“Shut up.”

“Love you too.”

“So,” Tsumiki says, turning back to the stove and insisting you sit down and make yourself at home when you offer to help. “Tell me about you.” Instead, she enlists Megumi to be her kitchen assistant, and you aren’t sure why it’s so surprising that he knows how to cook, but it is.

The four of you talk about school and the dogs (who are at home with Suko, now that she’s finally back from Japan) and your families and friends, and you can see Megumi growing more comfortable as the night goes on, once he’s sure that Gojo isn’t about to whip out a bunch of embarrassing pictures of him as a kid or tell you all his darkest secrets. Tsumiki is sweet and you take a liking to her immediately, talking all about her job running the campus paper. Gojo tells you about the bar he works at, about his college friends who founded it.

“Do you have to work tomorrow, then?” you ask between bites of the best meatballs you’ve ever had.

Gojo shrugs. “Yeah. But if I wasn’t, I’d be hanging out with all the same people I work with, anyway. Not so bad, huh?”

“We’re actually probably going to swing by the bar tomorrow,” Megumi says, avoiding Gojo’s gaze in favor of looking at you. Gojo lights up. It’s endearing, how excited he is at the prospect of seeing all of Megumi’s friends. “You coming?” Megumi asks Tsumiki.

“To the bar or the house party?”

“Both,” Megumi shrugs.

“Only if you are,” she says not to Megumi but to you, teasingly.

“Yeah, I gotta meet the rest of his friends. All of Nobara’s housemates.”

“Oh, I love them!” Tsumiki says. “Mm, you’ll get along with Yuta. I mean, everyone does. Oh god, and Toge. And S—yeah, okay, all of them, actually. Have you met our cousin Maki?”

“No, but they all sound great,” you say honestly.

“They are!” Gojo says loudly. “They can give you so much dirt on Megumi.” Megumi glares at him with a complete lack of heat.

“You and my friend Riko would get along,” you say, but as soon as you say it you’re not sure it’s true. Either they would immediately gang up on Megumi and make his life a living hell, or Riko would have the same dynamic with Gojo and they would argue until somebody threw a punch.

Megumi stares at you incredulously. “They can never meet. Ever.”

Except they do, because you bring Riko to the bar the following night. You feel like this might have been a dire miscalculation, because not only does this mean she’s meeting Gojo, but it means she’s meeting Nobara’s housemate who, in her words, is a kindred “chaos goblin.” This means that they’re both comm majors with too much time on their hands and they make it everyone else’s problem.

Toge Inumaki is the very possibly the only person you’ve ever met who can match Riko in terms of sheer chaos. It is terrifying. They’ve known each other for a grand total of five minutes before they’re planning a full-on bracketed Just Dance tournament with Rasputin as the final battle.

“You’re insane,” you tell Riko fondly, and she grins at you.

“I think we’re brushing over the fact that you think Rasputin is the hardest one on there,” Gojo says, leaning over the bar incredulously.

“What, you think your old man knees can handle it?” Riko asks shamelessly, and you excuse yourself as they launch into bickering worthy of siblings.

But nothing explodes, and you meet Shoko and Geto and Utahime and Nanami, and all of Nobara’s housemates, including Megumi’s cousin. She’s very no-nonsense in a way that you appreciate, and after you shit-talk Naoya with her, you feel like you’re probably going to be very good friends.

It’s well past eleven by the time you all get back to Megumi’s place, leaving Gojo to ring in the new year with his own friends. Someone puts the ball drop on the TV in the living room and you all scatter across the space, a swell of conversation and laughter as midnight inches closer.

It’s like this:

A living room full of your friends and his, laughing and smiling and teasing and playing Just Dance really aggressively (but that’s just Toge and Riko, really). Megumi’s knee pressed against yours as Tsumiki forces him to smile for a picture with you. Nobara throwing her arms around you, insisting you settle a debate between her and Yuta about the superior shape of pasta noodle. Sneaking off to Megumi’s room while Yuji is distracted, stealing kisses in the dark. Listening to his whispered commentary in your ear as the drinks and sleep deprivation start hitting Toge and Yuta and they get existential on the floor. Suko telling everyone all about Japan and the occult club she started at her university there. Yuji being way too into the idea of starting one between JU and Kaisen, launching animatedly into a discussion of all his favorite conspiracy theories.

Five minutes to midnight, Kirara pops open a bottle of champagne and passes you a glass, and you wave it in front of Megumi teasingly.

“What, you wanna toast to something?” he teases, leaning in toward you. “You gonna say to us? That’s pretty Hallmark movie of you.”

You hum, swirling the glass, lifting your gaze to meet his. “To trying,” you say. “And also vigilantism?”

And there’s his laugh, better than the ball drop, the streamers, the disco ball that came from god knows where in the corner. “I can get behind that,” he says, clinking his glass against yours. “To your superhero dog,” he says, leaning in closer. “And his pretty cool sidekick.” He kisses you as the countdown hits one, and you’re laughing against his lips, savoring the warmth of his hand on the back of your neck.

When he pulls away, it’s only by centimeters, just enough for him to lock eyes with you. “And,” he breathes against your lips, “to trying.”

directory // my masterlist | out of my mind !

jjk taglist open: just send me a message!

@shutuppeter @mikikkoo @reactwithjan @theclassbookworm @lilactaro @bisforbuse @risararelywrites @idkidk32 @gojodickbig @stargazing-with-choso @anonymity-222 @honeyyhuggs

a/n: sorry this took like twenty years and it's SO LONG. heh. i'm incapable of short-form content. it was fun to write though. let me know what you thought, and be sure to pop over to out of my mind (and, if you're curious about naoya's ex, greta's sukuna spinoff, if you are NOT a minor)! thanks loves :)

[sunsetmaidenwrites]

An Essay on SamBucky

Just got back from seeing Captain America: Brave New World and am full of thoughts. The following contains Sambucky-centric thoughts, head canons, and spoilers based on the movie. (I have a separate post that includes my overall thoughts on the movie but this one is solely Sambucky.)

Sambucky nation--we rise! No divorce era for us! (Though it did provide for some awesome, angsty fics). I hope the trend continues with Thunderbolts*. Bucky is obviously looking rougher there than he did in this movie, so we're not out of the woods yet, but I'm feeling pretty good about our chances.

There's so much to say here. Multiple Bucky mentions (Sam alluding to Bucky when he talks about having a friend who was controlled by trigger words.), a picture of SamBucky prominently displayed at Sam's headquarters, Bucky showing up as emotional support when Sam needs him most, the hug, the "Buck" and the "I love you, Buddy." All of these have already been mentioned a lot, though, so for this post (who am I kidding this is an essay!), I would like to highlight a few points pertaining to the movie. I haven't really seen discussed in the Sambucky tag yet.

First, Sam says the following to Bucky at the hospital:

"Joaquin’s in here. Isaiah’s in prison. And Sterns…I had him. I had Sterns right in my hands but he got away." Bucky is given no additional backstory here, which means he already knows who Sterns is and what Sam is dealing with. This indicates Sam and Bucky are in regular contact with Sam keeping Bucky filled in on what's happening. This isn't just a case of Bucky seeing news footage and immediately going to Sam. Bucky is an active part of Sam's life and support system.

Then we have Bucky's line:

"Steve gave people something to believe in, but you give them something to aspire to." Bucky's admiration and devotion to Sam here is quite evident. I fully believe Bucky Barnes is all in for Sam Wilson and has been probably for longer than even he realizes.

Then toward the end of the scene where we get our iconic "Thanks Buck" and "I love you, Buddy" moment:

We have a wealth of unspoken communication here. Sam and Bucky seem to have a whole conversation with both their eyes and body language before they speak these words. Sam looks at Bucky. Looks down at (presumably) Bucky's outstretched hand. Then his eyes cut back up to Bucky. Then they cut back down as he shakes Bucky's hand, then he looks back up at Bucky. For Bucky's part, his eyes never leave Sam's face during the entirety of this. It's only right before he says "I love you, Buddy" that his gaze cuts down from Sam's face. After saying the words, Bucky proceeds to back away and Sam watches him go. The way this scene plays out, and the choices Mackie and Stan make leave a lot of room for subtext and interpretation, imo.

Right after this scene, we also get the female agent coming in with questions/comments about Bucky to Sam, alluding to a possible interest which Sam shuts down with "He's 110 years old." Look, it might make sense for Sam to try to nip a Bucky/Sarah potential connection in the bud like he did in TFATWS and it not mean anything (that's another essay for another day. I wasn't on Tumblr back then to share my thoughts on that.); after all, that's his sister and Bucky was riding on his last nerve through all the previous episodes at that point. It does not, however, make sense for Sam to insert himself into the narrative at this point and try to dissuade a random CIA agent from showing interest in Bucky if Bucky is just his friend and/or Sam's interest in him is purely platonic. It just doesn't. I cannot come up with a logical explanation for this besides the obvious 'that man is mine, step off' conclusion.

And for my last point:

During Sam's final showdown with the red hulk, with the outcome uncertain, and defeat (and therefore death) potentially eminent, Sam proceeds to bitch about Bucky under his breath. "Bucky is full of so much shit..." I know this is supposed to be funny and snarky, but it's also quite telling. We know that the signature of SamBucky's relationship--whether it's platonic or romantic--is the bickering. Not only is Sam spending his potential last moments ranting about Bucky (again, the staple of their relationship), he's also spending them thinking about Bucky. He's going out there facing odds that seem insurmountable and it's Bucky that's on his mind.

So, in conclusion, they're in love.

[welcometogrouchland]

Its all good man, I'm major busy atm too. Good point about how Steph's gender is a core part of her character in the sense that her female relationships are as important as, say, her experiences with gendered violence. I think a lot about her relationship to female mentorship, re: Cass, Dinah and Babs. All very complex relationships with a lot of rough patches but you can tell that when they're good, especially w/ the batgirls, all of them feel very...seen, I guess. Encouraged.

But yeah Steph and Nocturna's dynamic has been revisited approximately twice since this initial arc and i find both instances interesting but lackluster- there's one post-crisis in the gotham gazette mini, which is sort of a thematic prologue to Steph's batgirl run (lots of talk about how Steph's been left behind by the batfamily but is still fighting, how people return to Gotham despite everyrhing fkr a second chance- all of which shows up in Steph's BG run). Nocturna's comitting a robbery, Steph stops her (and weirdly has invisibility tech?? That she stole and is never brought up again??? Okay?) Its overall not a very significant interaction, just interesting that they pull on nocturna as a rogue for Steph instead of any of her dad's gang. I like that.

(Gotham Gazette: Batman Alive? #1)

Post-Flashpoint (and post-rebirth and infinite frontier...i think?) Steph and Nocturna interact in road to dark crisis #1 where we have a story about Nocturna taking advantage of Batmans 'death' to rob a museum, only to have a sort of hostile heart-to-heart with Steph, who talks her out of it. It's an interesting little appearance for multiple reasons? It seemingly tries to canonize every version of nocturna as one, using pre-crisis nocturna as a reference for flashback art, referencing her robin 93 version by having her already know Steph (and know her civilian name too weirdly? HC that was one of the things Steph told Nocturna on the roof ig) AND referencing her post-52 version just via design and whatnot.

(road to dark crisis #1)

Certainly doesnt work continuity wise but that was kinda the motto with the dark crisis era soft reboot. Also implies Steph was chillin' with Jason's adoptive mom. Funny to me

Anyway it doesn't get too into the weeds of nocturna and Steph's history and in fact most of it is actually about how they're feeling about Batman being gone (so, second time they've reunited post-batman seemingly dying. If i had a nickle, etc etc).

It's interesting to contrast how Steph feels in dark crisis compared to how she expressed herself in, say, world's finest #4, and it's also interesting that even tho Nocturna tries to needle Steph's insecurities (and she doesn't let it get to her, which, good for her!) implying she's inferior to the "real heroes", Nocturna seems to bring out some vulnerability in Steph.

It feels like it could tie into her whole ~lower inhibitions~ thing she had going on (could've been a cute use of the spoiler ninja mask actually) but that's not really said.

(road to dark crisis #1)

(sidenote: Clayton Henry is a very talented artist but man this may be the absolute worst the spoiler suit has ever looked post-flashpoint. Too shiny, Symbol is an off-purple shade and overlapping the paneling, no texture on the paneling. Frightening stuff here)

Again it's just an interesting pull for a Steph rogue and also interesting to me that they keep pairing nocturna with Steph during times of uncertainty/upheaval in Steph's life (not counting their first meeting which is actually one of the more stable periods of Steph's on-page life probably), considering how pre-52 nocturna was all about getting people to Reveal Truths n junk (via her weird girl astrology and pheremone powers).

Neither interaction references the 'sisterhood' they once shared (which makes sense bc it was only a few days in canon and ended w/ nat getting sent to S.T.A.R labs by Steph) but it still feels like there's untapped potential there between the two of them.

Finally re-reading Robin 101-104 (the nocturna arc) bc I remember being intrigued but overwhelmed the first time and looking back I really, really enjoy it (it's timsteph at their most enjoyable and has decent balance between the conflict in Tim's life and the inner workings of Steph's life, which was always unequal in Dixon's robin to the point of being slightly infuriating) but an interesting addendum to what you were saying a bit ago visa vie Steph's costume: Nocturna keeps saying to Steph "I see the colours you wear" as a means of arguing that her and Steph have some Fundamental Aspect in common. Which is potentially connected to womenhood/feminity? Said bc Natalia calls her "little sister" during the second time she mentions the colours Steph wears and bc Steph connects hers and Natalia's experiences of gendered violence in her head. I also mentioned in my comments on that post that the pink/purple colour choice feels connected to Steph's status as the 'young girl' character of the batman cast at the time (since Cass' character actively subverts a lot of teen girl stereotypes that Steph's character more incorporates and is in conversation with, Buffy Summers-style) so that feels like a personal win lol. Tbh a connection between Steph and Nocturna over ~feminine energy~ is kind of fitting from a modern lens considering like, modern tiktok influencer 'woo woo crystal energy' spiritual girlie phrases and buzzwords that sucker young girls into believing a bunch of borderline medievalist garbage.

Which got me thinking about Steph and Nocturna and how brief their relationship is but how interesting it is and how it's been referenced and revisited briefly in modern continuity but that's a whole other can of worms. Wish someone would take the time at DC to sort out the continuity between Nocturna's tbh, pre-crisis post-crisis and post-flashpoint all feel so different I can't reconcile them really, even tho post-crisis and post-flashpoint are meant to be the same(?) now.

Anyway yeah. Random Steph and Nocturna thoughts as I reread this arc! Hope they give some food for thought

Thank you for this! Im always so happy to see I got an ask from you, you always have such great Steph takes and thoughts.

I totally get how this arc can feel overwhelming. On one hand, I adore how much detail and nuance Jon Lewis brings to the table when it comes to Steph, and I definitely appreciate how we get so much of her internal monologue aside Tims, really emphasizing her perspective as a valid and important one. (As you point out, this stands fairly in contrast to Dixons approach). But on the other hand: there’s so much fucking internal dialogue. Swaths of it. It’s a lot sometimes, especially when it’s not broken up, and (for me at least) is sometimes easy to get lost reading.

(Also have to confess something: i didn’t realize Natalia was meant to be a version of Nocturna. Whoops. Definitely good to know, thanks.)

Big fan of the take about Stephs costume and femininity. Especially fun to look at this in contrast to Cass. Like you mentioned, Cass stands in contrast to the expected archetypes and trappings of a teen girl character, while Steph tends to conform to them. (Which is especially ironic to me given Cass begins with the explicitly gendered title ‘Batgirl’ while Spoiler is gender neutral.)

Steph being a female character is (for better or worse) essential to how her character is treated on every level. Misogyny and especially sexualization and sexual violence are kind of core parts of her character. Unlike Cass, Steph isnt detached from femininity, she is constantly reasserted to be part of it and hurt by her association with it, both through the sexual violence she is threatened with consistently and more than that through the way she can be narratively treated, dumbed down and villainized and discarded when convenient.

But Steph’s ‘femaleness’ can also be core to her character in a (somewhat) positive way. Her strongest familal relationship (while rocky) is by far her relationship with her mother. While pretty much every male relative in her life we see is some degree of absolutely shitty, Crystal and Steph’s relationship is deep and compelling and genuinely touching.

One of the first missions she gave herself as Spoiler was to track down Jim Murray: for the specific reason of protecting other young girls he might try to prey upon.

So given that, I’m interested the read of Steph’s femininity as connected to the purple of her costume. Given how often is Steph doomed or defined by her femininity I think it’s interesting to have it grounded in her costumes coloration as well, for better or worse.

Anyways, another bit of the connection between Nocturna and Steph and femininity which you got me thinking of is the moment where Steph tries to contact Natalia’s mother.

Maybe it’s just because I’ve had Crystal and Steph’s relationship on the brain so much recently, but it’s so interesting to me that Steph thinks to try to contact Natalias mom.

Especially as a character who we know spent a long long time seeing Crystal as unreliable or unsafe to confide in, and who Steph is at times more accustomed to seeing as someone she has to take care of instead of Vice versa.

Maybe this is because they’re in between these rough points right now. Steph is probably experiencing a high point in their relationship. (Crystal is clean and present, they’ve commiserated over how shitty Arthur is, and Steph has gotten a lot more time getting used to her mom wanting to be there for her.)

Good point about the whole ‘feminine energy’ spiritualistic stuff w Noctura retaining relevance, huge agree.

Their relationship is just generally very interesting, with the ‘little sister’ of course, and Steph seeing Natalia as a child to some degree, and their connection through music. I also find her convo w Steph with the stars just so enduringly touching, definitely a highlight for me.

(And who fucking knows w continuity at this point. It’s rough out here. Also, didn’t know her and Steph’s interactions had been revisited, that’s very interesting, good to know.)

Anyway great thoughts as always, thanks for the ask, and sorry this took like literally forever to respond to I’ve been stupid busy.

[ckret2]

please more evil ford please i stare with my puppy eyes for this i am obbsessed

Yeah all right, I've been working on some art. (For context, we're talking about this Evil Ford.)

Evil Ford is Evil as in "cheerfully works with Bill even after learning his full plot" and "is totally ready to conquer and/or destroy the world." But other than the shocking lack of basic ethics and the supervillain objective he's mostly the same guy—which means he still cares about his family. He's hoping to get them to join in on the world conquest plan.

Forty-odd years ago he went off to college promising someday he'd be a big shot scientist who changes the world and he'd make his family a fortune. If taking over reality doesn't qualify he doesn't know what does. The family can join him and his buddy Bill and rule the universe together. Pines Pines Pines Pines!

Unfortunately for him, the rest of the family still has normal moral compasses. And also they've met Bill.

Bill can't currently possess Ford due to Reasons; but even though he can't get in the driver's seat he still has permission to ride shotgun at any time. Ford talks to him pretty regularly. He HAS been caught doing this. Stan thinks he's just gone a little nutty from thirty years of isolation.

Naturally, since he was always on Bill's side, Ford's perception of events during Weirdmageddon is a bit different:

I finally made an official Evil Ford New Costume Character Design, check out his exciting totally different brand new look:

I decided that, since Ford is still basically the same person aside from his terrible life goals, he'd probably have the same fashion sense. And so... nothing changes except two tiny details lmao.

But he DOES have tattoos:

I traced a canon character model and took off its top to get a base to slap tattoos on, and then went dang... they gave him a big head and arms. He looks goofy. Anyway,

His forearms have less incriminating tattoos—just a birch tree and a sunrise. (The sunrise looks like the Journal 3 "The Muse Has Spoken" page.) The red text is the "triangulum entangulum" ritual; if anyone asks he'll go "it's uhh an ancient Sumerian poem about how great science is." It's not until he's topless that it's like "oh so he's a CULTIST cultist." The one exception is an unconcealed Eye of Providence on his right palm—but it's in an ink that's only visible in certain lighting. It's there so at any time he can point his hand at something and go "Bill are you seeing this BS?"

Of course, he still has the "hey now, you're an all star" neck tattoo. I didn't have room to draw it.

As you can see, he's made being Bill's right hand man a core part of his personality. Rather than spending 30 years scrabbling around the multiverse desperately searching for a way to destroy Bill, he spent 30 years chilling in the Quadrangle of Qonfusion as Bill's specialest favoritest Henchmaniac, and only scrabbling around the multiverse occasionally for fun & profit.

Here's a photo Bill & Ford took at a Nightmare Realm house party like fifteen years ago, three minutes before Bill started an argument and set the house on fire.

Most people have their wild party years in college, Ford has his in his 40s.

[lover-of-mine]

soooo 👀 the fit of buck's clothes in that bts video 👀 👀 would love to know your thoughts 👀 👀 👀

I know, right? The way his clothes keep getting more oversized is making me vibrate. Usual shoutout to @stagefoureddiediaz, Kym talked about the fit of Buck's clothes changing back in season 7 and we were talking about it earlier, so Kym 🫶🫶

Okay, so before season 7, Buck's clothes were too tight a lot of the time, we all joked about how his buttons were about to pop off or how his arms would rip through his shirts, or how we can see the outline of his muscles perfectly. Like, sometimes it would honestly look like he was one wrong movement from ripping those.

But they changed to putting him in more oversized stuff for season 7 (and started shortening his pants, but I digress) and gets more obvious in s8.

It is partially attached to Tommy and how tommy gives him the right path but isn't the right person, since his clothes start to get looser when he starts dating him. The shirts don't fit right on his shoulders, they don't sit right on his chest, they have the wrong fit in his arms. So his overall aesthetic still doesn't fit exactly right.

The whole thing with the changing the way his clothes fit in the other direction is very indicative of how Buck still doesn't fit in his own skin, he thought dating men was the answer but he was Buck dating Tommy, he didn't look further than that, and he is spiraling further with what we know, spinning like a top one would say lol, and both scenes we saw of his clothes (yesterday's uniform possibly included), include VERY loose shirts.

I keep being drawn to the fit around his arms because my god, for a shirt to look that big on Oliver's biceps it has to be BIG lol. And while his shirts have been looser, they haven't been this big yk? And today's video, with the cropped fit, how lose it is, like, Buck is GOING through it, which makes me think this fit is from 810, just to add the emotional distress of the kidnapping to his abandonment issues being extremely triggered between the breakup and Eddie leaving.

It's all about the way Buck still hasn't gotten it right. We know Buck is on his way to figuring his feelings for Eddie out, and therefore finally understanding the final piece of the puzzle that allows him to stop over-correcting. But he's not there yet. The choices he's making don't fit exactly right. And his clothes will be the wrong size until he's ready to fight for Eddie.

But Anna what makes you think all this means buddie and that Buck's clothes will fit when Buck is ready and buddie is coming?

Well, I believe there are clues about the general idea behind buddie going canon hidden in the coming out scene. I have talked extensively about the blue and yellow elements, the way I believe this is Buck's shade of blue. I think all of it is indicative of what's to come.

And that includes how perfectly that shirt fits. The seams are resting on the right spot on his shoulder, they are the perfect length for his arm, they're not overly tight around his chest or biceps, nothing looks too big or too small.

And this isn't an accident, everything about the show is very intentional, so the clothes getting looser as he lets Eddie go even though he doesn't want to? It makes me very !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Because the oversized fit also plays into the way we haven't exactly seen Buck in his signature jewel tones, the bright reds and blues, this season yet. And I think that once buddie happens he will be walking around with his brighter colors in shit that fits right lol.

So we are on the lookout for Buck in clothes that fit right and in this shade of blue.

As always, if you read all this I love you 🫶

[lemotmo]

Okay 911 fandom...

I feel like I've been very nice about this before and I always figured it would all just disappear after a while, but this insane Ryan Guzman hatred is getting out of hand. And frankly? It is pissing me off!

So, let's get something very clear here:

This whole concept some people have in their head that Ryan is the reason why Buddie won't ever go canon? IT IS WRONG!

The man has screamed Buddie from the beginning. He came up with the name for Christ's sake. Just because some of you only joined the fandom after 7x04, doesn't mean you get to shit on this guy. You don't know the lore or the history. So shut up!

This idea that Ryan is a bad actor and he is botching up his scenes with Oliver, because Oliver clearly plays Buck as in love with Eddie?

Again... WROOOONG!

Buck is sooo much further on the Buddie path than Eddie is. All he has time for right now is his son! Ryan is NOT going to play Eddie smitten with Buck, because he isn't there yet in the narrative. He obviously cares deeply for Buck though and we see it in everything Ryan puts into his acting. He is obviously a talented actor and artist. So again... SHUT UP!

If I see any of you threaten the man over a fucking fictional ship on a TV-show? I will report you on whichever platform you are on and I'll make sure that everyone knows who you are so they can block you accordingly. Are you insane?! You cannot threaten people for doing their job.

And NO! Nobody is going to recast Eddie because you have it in your stupid little ignorant dumb minds that the man is a misogynist, a sexist, a racist, a terrible father (ARE YOU CRAZY! YOU CANNOT CALL A MAN YOU DO NOT KNOW A BAD FATHER! WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN SMOKING!?) and a whole other slew of things that are simply made up in your own head!

He made one single mistake a loooong time ago. He admitted that he was in a very dark place around that time. He even talked about trying to take his own life at a certain point. How much more honesty do you need?

After that mistake he apologised and he has obviously worked really hard to become a better guy. We can hear that in every interview he does. Stop spreading the narrative that people can't be forgiven after they apologise. What age are you? Four??? Of course people can be forgiven. It's called growth. This insane cancel-culture that has been growing rampant for the last couple of years has gone to all of your heads. Wake up and SHUT UP!

Stop these ridiculous claims and please do everyone a favour! Move on to another fandom where miserable people like you are welcome.

For years now this fandom has been a great place to be in. I love it here! But I've had it with the insane hate-campaigns against a guy just doing his job.

I won't even go into the insane Eddie hate I have seen lately.

This has got to stop!

I am still not a Ryan stan, but I am a decent human being and admirer of his work. So whatever has been going on lately? It is NOT right and we should all shout that from the top of our lungs.

If anyone is reading this and recognises themselves in what I have written here? Please step outside, touch grass, look at the sky and if you are following me? Kindly unfollow me. Thank you.

If anyone is reading this and feels the same way? Feel free to follow. I promise that I don't often make posts like this. I try to spread the fandom positivity as much as I can. So expect lots of that here.

Can we now just go back to enjoying what is really important here? Buddie is about to go canon. Let's celebrate and have fun! We've been waiting years for this. This is our time.

[bokettochild]

Linked Universe Enterence p.3

Okay! So I have thoughts!!!!

First off, does anyone remember when JoJo shared those first snippets? How there was a fun little detail that suddenly disappeared when the comic actually became more than doodles?

Yeah, I'm talking about this guy

(Not the grouchy old man being offended, the owl LOL)

I know there's a chance I'm wrong, a big one at that, but I think it would be really cool if, if only for a short while, JoJo brought him back, even if it's just for this era of Hyrule. Let Time have his owl buddy!

Anyways, to the actual comic!

I noticed that the boys are all still together, so I'm guessing they're waiting until they come to a cross-roads to actually split up like Four advised last time. So we have that to look forwards to in the coming updates!

I love that she's really highlighting the similarities and differences in this arc, showing us who knows what and what they've done, but also the little things; both with owls and the antifairy!

I adore the Owlan reference/appearance!

And Time immediately agreeing about the "long, drawn out lectures part" made me laugh. (His expression, my Hylia!!!)

That is the face of a man who kept accidentally asking to "hear it again" and regrets it with every bone of his being LOL

It's good to see more call backs to the last comics too! Having Hyrule be wary of the statue because he remembers seeing it before, and Warriors agreeing, but also reminding that it didn't cause harm. The fact that Hyrule keeps his sword pointed at it though, wary, does say a lot about how cautious he's being all the same (Wild ought to take notes)

And of course this whole panel

Twilight's awkwardly trying to assure the rest without spilling the secret, Sky laughing and turning to look at Legend, and the fact that the vet is just so entirely done with even just the thought of being a rabbit. (I love his face, omgosh).

Te way I screamed "anti-fairy!" when I saw this, and then was so, so delighted that Legend and I had the same thought (I am unwell about this man).

I'm equally unwell about the fact that Legend just has to say "ouch" (which you only say at inconveniences and not real, actual hurts) and immediately everyone's turning, weapons out and ready to help him face...whatever. Like, he's fine, guys, but it's sweet you care (now Legend, please take note and realize you belong, you idiot)

Love that Time hears "fairy" and immediately is all ears. All the more so at the "anti" part. Man was raised by fairies and he absolutely doesn't like the idea of something that would hurt them.

Meanwhile Legend is just being freaking Haku (Spirited Away) over here!

Tell me you don't see it!!!!!!

Also, his casual use of magic to purify something, to just make it no longer a threat, rather than hurting it. That need to save EVERYONE is really showing through here, huh?

And immediately, everyone is shocked that he did that, but also what it means about fairies. About dark magic. But Time and Wars especially!

Gosh, just Legend's little worried face and Time's offense at the idea of fairies being corrupted and harmed. Shows a bit about them here too I think. Time is maybe slightly obsessed with fairies (reasonably so) and hates them being harmed, but he shows his worry on the matter in anger. legend, meanwhile, becomes more sombre, quieter: it bothers him too (maybe reminds him of a certain predecessor?)

Get this man a tiara, he's a freaking Disney Princess over here, good grief!!!! He's carrying fairy food on what? The slim chance he has time to stop and feed them? Honestly, i know he's probably as attached to fairies as Time (although with a healthier relationship with them), but this is just too cute. this man is going to be the death of me!!!

Anyways, here's the bonuses!!!!

SUN APPEARANCE!!!!!!!! We have a canon Sun appearance!!!!! Like, sure, sleepy student Sky, but it's SUN!!!!

This smile. Oh my gosh I adore him. He's just so glad he got to help the corrupted little one become normal again.

JoJo was having fun with Four I see LOL

Man really said "hang on, let me check my purse, I think I have snacks in here"

Freaking Mom Coded

[whoopsyeahokay]

Fifty Seven

summary: prompt fill. between 1982 and 1983, Wally meets and falls completely head over heels for a girl who changes everything. his biggest fan, his greatest love. you. (request)

pairing: Wally Clark x fem!reader

warnings: fluff. AU - pre-canon. dorks falling in love. author doesn't know American football. total disregard for canon lore. HEA.

bon reading, frens

___________________________🏈

Fifty Seven

It was gradual, how things developed between you and Wally. Slow and peripheral at first. Then, like a confetti cannon—pop💥—instant, exciting; a pocket of fresh air in a dense smog. And it was all thanks to Wally's best friend, Rodney.

See, Wally was a baseball guy. Had planned to continue being a baseball guy through high school. He was an excellent pitcher with an impressive BA, and his mama had been over-the-top supportive for Wally to join the team—believed in him so much that she'd even strongarmed Coach Burns to let Wally try out for varsity.

But Rodney? Had wanted to join the football team. And Wally had wanted to do everything with his inseparable since birth best buddy, so he'd found himself donning a helmet and nailing technical drills like it was paint-by-numbers. Obviously, he'd made the team. Had started winning games, gained popularity and praise and attention from girls. Had fast become Coach's MVP only to, in sophomore year, be transferred to the varsity team. Go Devils!

That'd meant training longer, playing harder, and receiving interested elevator-looks from the hottest chicks in school. Seniors who'd graduated out of the awkwardness of puberty and had learned how to flaunt their curves. Don't worry, Rodney had been along for the ride, built like a brick shithouse and equally as formidable on the field, and he'd kept Wally humble.

Not that he'd needed to, because the thing about attention was the more Wally got, the less he was seen.

Yeah, he was the star receiver, the guy whose name everyone knew. But...that was about all they knew about him. People summed him up to the number on his jersey. Shallow. Detached. The girls he took on dates wanted the infamy of having made out with him—"he's such a fantabulous kisser,"—and the guys admired the hell out of him, clapped his back and handed him beers, but no one expressed an interest in peeling back flesh and bone to see what made Wally tick.

Wally wasn't lonely; he had Rodney and Don and Keith. BFFs since kindergarten who gave a real shit about him. It was just that, if people approached him to ask questions, he wanted it to feel less like an interview and more like a connection. Small talk was exhausting.

He'd been contemplating this when you'd first popped onto his radar. Shooting hoops in the gym at lunch to brood over his latest failed effort with a girl—Sarah Miller from History—when, oh shit, look out!, you'd walked through the door the second Wally had decided to unleash his frustration by whipping the ball at the wall. He'd overcompensated. The ball had curved to the left. Smack, you'd taken it square in the head.

Somehow, you hadn't been hurt, though the sound had convinced Wally you should've had a bruise blossoming on the area of impact. He'd run over, eyes wide in panic, visually checking you over to ensure he hadn't concussed you.

He'd rubbed the back of his neck nervously, "Are you okay?"

"Oh yeah," You'd grinned, friendly, not even a little bit upset, "Happens more than you think." Which would've raised flags if Wally hadn't been preoccupied by how your proximity smelled like summer.

After a moment of uncertainty, Wally had stuck out his hand and introduced himself, "I'm Wally Clark. I, uh... I'm better at football." He'd felt like an idiot five seconds later when you'd merrily declared:

"I know," still smiling like he hadn't just thoroughly embarrassed himself. "You always feint left." Then, in general consideration, "I'm surprised no one's figured that out yet."

Wally had stared at you in surprise, "I mean... I do what feels right in the moment."

You'd raised your hands, "I'm just saying, your recovery's weak on your left backfoot, so you might wanna switch it up soon."

Wally had crashed through a gamut of emotions in under a second, beginning with insecurity and ending in shockawe. Because you'd noticed something. And, okay, yes, it'd been jersey-number related, but it hadn't been how well he filled out his uniform.

"You come to the games?" He'd wondered as he'd valiantly ignored how his stomach had started to feel squirmy.

You'd nodded, "You're fun to watch." And you'd said it so...casually. Like it'd been part of the Split River High zeitgeist: The stadium became a sardine can because Number 57, Wally Clark, was fun to watch.

"So, I guess you're gonna be there tomorrow?" He'd asked, the seed of an unfamiliar sense of intrigue planted. He'd watched you tilt your head, watched your eyes light up when you'd smiled. Wally had felt his cheeks heat and his eyes go soppy in response.

"That's the plan, Stan," You'd gleefully confirmed.

That'd been where it'd all started.

You and he hadn't become friends or anything like that, but Wally had felt a connection. Like you and he had clicked. From then on, he'd sought you out in the crowd at every game. Where's Waldo between plays. You'd never been in the same place twice, and as soon as he'd find you, you'd hold up a poster-board boasting a glittery '57' in school blue, and cheer him on with gusto.

It'd swiftly become Wally's favorite part of playing football.

Tonight, Wally was mid-search, batting away Rodney's reminder that the team planned to hit Max's Diner after the game, win or lose, when Number 36, Matt Wilson, advised, "Dude, don't interrupt. It's like a good-luck ritual at this point."

Rodney frowned, "What're talking about?"

Even Wally broke his concentration and swiveled his head to look at Matt in confusion.

With a snort, Matt pointed out, "Clark always looks for the girl, finds her, then plays harder than ever and we win the game. He's been doing it for weeks." He shrugged, "I mean, whatever works, right?"

He did? Huh. He guessed he did...

"You got a girlfriend and didn't say anything?" Rodney accused, a little hurt. "Ouch."

"It's not like that," Wally assured him, though he felt his cheeks flush and his lips curve into a dopey smile.

Rodney studied Wally for a moment and then, "Alright, my man, what's her name?" A big, teasing grin on his face.

Wally opened his mouth to answer before he realized, shit, he actually had no idea. You hadn't given him your name the afternoon he'd accidentally pelted you with a basketball.

"You're not serious." Rodney said flatly, "you don't even know her name?" while Matt slapped his knee and crowed.

Wally was about to defend himself when, just over Rodney's shoulder, there you were, gaze already on him. His insides instantly went gooey, broad smile stretched across his face, and Rodney leveled him with an unimpressed look that Wally refused to acknowledge.

"For the love of God, ask for her name." Rodney commanded before he stuck his mouthguard between his teeth.

The whistle blew and the game continued.

The Devils won.

‗‗‗‗•‗‗‗‗

Taking Rodney's suggestion was somewhat harder than Wally had anticipated. He just couldn't bring himself to do it, nerves piqued whenever he caught sight of you in the hall. He wasn't a nervous guy—Wally was a big, brave boy, thank you very much—but something about you made him stutter and overthink and, aaah, what would he even say!? Hey, thanks for coming to watch me play after I hit you in the face. Also, what's your name, girl who I share a new, ongoing at-game tradition?

Lame.

He needed more information. ✨A r e a s o n✨. Some unavoidable situation wherein Wally had to go up to you that didn't insist upon itself. Or he could actually be a big, brave boy and just say hi as casually as you'd told Wally he was fun to watch.

Between the last game and the next, Wally began gathering facts from a distance (while Rodney's gaze burned a hole into the side of Wally's head).

He learned that you sat with a group of sophomores in the cafeteria, laughing along yet not interjecting, comfortable giving the stage to your friends. Being a year below him explained why Wally hadn't noticed you before, but since that fateful day in the gym, he hadn't been able to stop noticing you.

You were quiet, though not in a shy way. You often spent time in the library—or, rather, you were always in the library when Wally happened to be, nose in a book on the windowsill. You stepped aside to let people go through a door first, and smiled at everyone; and on Mondays and Thursdays your fingers and jeans were smeared with charcoal from your Art class.

Your clothes changed, but your shoes didn't. Beat up Converse you clearly loved to death. You carried around a Sony walkman like the one Keith had, headphones on in the mornings and around your neck in the afternoons. Wally wanted to know what music you listened to.

Truth be told, he wanted to know a lot of things. Like your favorite movie and what you did in your spare time. If you went to parties or preferred to stay home and play boardgames (he wouldn't mind trading a sticky ping-pong ball for a Monopoly shoe). Were you strictly a cassette girl or did you listen to vinyl, too? Bike or license? Star Trek or Star Wars? Tom or Jerry?

God, Wally had it bad. He wanted to know everything. Every detail.

And, finally, after several failed attempts to muster the courage to cold approach you, ✨a r e a s o n✨ fell into Wally's lap and he decided it was now or never.

Practice had just ended. He was loose and warm and in a good mood, and after saying goodbye to the guys on the field, he turned and saw you sitting alone on the bleachers. Headphones on like a headband, the earpieces behind your ears. You scribbled in a notebook, tongue peeking out of the corner of your mouth, clearly 100% focused on whatever you were working on.

Wally's eyes softened and his heartbeat sped up. You were adorable.

Clearing his throat to announce himself, he climbed the bleachers and shuffled across the middle bench to take a seat beside you.

"Hey," He smiled, broad and hopefully not too eager.

Your head lifted and you smiled back.

Wally melted inside.

"Hi, Wally Clark," You said as you closed your notebook and shifted to give him your full attention. "Not practicing your free throws today?" You teased with a glint in your eye.

Wally ducked his head as he chuckled, "Nah, not today. I decided to leave that to the professionals."

"Mm, yeah, that might be for the best," And then, fixing him with a cheeky grin, "You know, if dodgeball ever becomes a recognized sport, you should totally join a team."

Wally pressed his lips together, doing his best to hide how big his smile would be otherwise, before he glanced at you with a raised brow, "Oh. So, you're funny?"

You giggled like sweet melody, "Let's call it observant."

He released his smile, heart fluttering in his chest, eyes flickering across your face to take in every detail. There was something in him—a magnet behind his ribs—that drew Wally toward you. He couldn't explain it. Barely knew you enough to label it as more than attraction, but it was more. His gaze dipped to your lips, traced the shape of your smile, then skirted back up to meet your eyes.

"Alright, let's call it observant." He agreed, his smile somehow widening.

After a moment of comfortable silence, "Your feints are getting better," you commented, "I can't predict which way you're gonna go anymore."

And he positively preened; spine straight, chest puffed out, proud to have earned your admiration. Maybe that's what'd always been missing. He'd never had to work for it, everyone throwing themselves at his feet just for a split second of his attention. Wally had always been approached, never had to do the approaching.

Was that the thrill of the chase?

No. Of course not. You weren't the deer to his crosshairs. But he had to admit, it was nice that he could trust you weren't talking to him to get something out of it. Which is probably why, before he could stop himself, Wally blurted:

"Do you wanna hang out tomorrow?"

You seemed surprised, brows shooting up. Still, your smile remained and, with a chuckle, you nodded, "That would be nice." And then, eyes narrowing, "Nowhere that involves you having to throw things, though, right?"

Hand to his heart, "I'll save it for the field," Wally promised, suddenly feeling giddy and overwhelmed. He had to resist the urge to bite his lip in excitement. Raked his fingers through his hair and glanced bashfully away to compose himself.

"Very appreciated." You bumped your shoulder against his arm.

The brief contact ignited a thousand butterflies to take flight in his belly. He stood, gathered his sports bag and beamed down at you. You looked back, all cute and sweet and appearing nowhere near as affected as Wally felt which made him feel a little silly for the intensity of his body's reactions to you.

"How about the arcade...around 3?" He suggested, putting as much confidence behind his words as he could.

After a moment's thought, "Can we make it in the evening? Say around 6?" You asked.

"Yeah," Wally replied, "Yeah, we can make it 6." He took a couple of backward steps, "I can pick you up at your place."

You shook your head, "I'll meet you there."

"Great, it's a date," He nearly choked when he registered what he'd said, face absolutely flaming, though he didn't take it back. He almost tripped over his own feet when you didn't correct him.

Instead, all you said was, "Can't wait."

You didn't see it—God, he hoped you didn't see it—but as soon as he was off the bleachers and a good enough distance away, Wally fist pumped, practically vibrating out of his skin. Holy crap, he was going on a date with you! He was going to spend time with you, get to know you, connect with you the way he'd always wanted to connect with someone outside of Rodney, Don, and Keith.

It was only when he was in his car and on his way home to shower that he realized he still didn't know your name.

He could hear Rodney's eyeroll from there.

‗‗‗‗•‗‗‗‗

You'd noticed Wally from the start. It was difficult not to, the guy a high-rise human, towering over most of the student body. But, it wasn't just his physical presence. Nor was it how good he was at attracting attention on and off the field with his exuberance and abundance of energy.

It was the moments between the jokes he made with his friends. Between performing for the crowd when he led the Devils to victory. The somber, introspective moments he thought he had to himself. And he did, for the most part. You'd never meant to intrude. It just so happened that he often used the same spaces you did to find peace.

You weren't surprised that he hadn't noticed you before he'd lodged a basketball at your head. Few people did. Not bitterly; that was just simply how things had befallen you and you'd learned to adjust. In fact, you had approximately two people you considered close and had realized that was more than enough. Still, you enjoyed meeting people where you could. They were fascinating. And, these days, none were so fascinating as Wally Clark.

He had hands that swallowed whatever they held; a smile that brightened a room; and eyes that made your skin tingle, their gaze soulful and heavy whenever they landed on you at his games like a prize. You craved those eyes on you, a flower to sunlight, and were excited beyond measure that you'd have them all to yourself for a night.

When he'd asked you out, it'd taken everything in your power not to kick your feet and giggle in delight. Be cool, you'd told yourself, acting as though you hadn't been daydreaming about Wally Clark since you'd first heard his name in the halls. What you wouldn't have given to spend more of Saturday with him, but things were somewhat strange for you, and you'd had to shave the hours down.

As restrictive as it was, you were only able to go out when the town was sleepier. The streets less crowded, the energy laggard; the shadows darker and the moon visible. You had hard rules to follow, but after sundown, you had freedom you didn't otherwise have. You could sneak out unnoticed and do as you pleased so long as you were back before sunrise.

It sucked, but it was what it was and there was nothing you could do about it, so you'd set the time for your date with Wally later and hoped you'd be satisfied with the hours you and he did get to be together.

When you arrived at the arcade, Wally was already there, leaning against the exterior wall, hands shoved in his pockets, his expression transforming from teen mag sultry to puppy bright when he caught sight of you. Don't squeal, don't squeal, don't squeal—you did great, kid—you waved sweetly and took measured steps toward him, matching his expression with a happy one of your own.

"Hey, you made it," Wally said as if he'd been worried you'd flake.

"Like I'd miss the chance to kick your ass at Space Invaders." You scoffed, hands on your hips as you pinned him with a challenging look.

Wally laughed and the sound when straight to your chest, settled between your ribs, and you knew your eyes were likely doing something dreamy and dazed. If he noticed, he didn't comment; held out his arm like a gentleman and escorted you inside.

You did, in fact, kick his ass at Space Invaders.

‗‗‗‗•‗‗‗‗

Whatever, you may have beaten him at Space Invaders, but Wally wiped the floor with you at Time Pilot. To further impress you with his skills, he won you a prize from the claw crane. Overlooking the fact that it'd taken several coins and a lot of cursing, Wally felt like the king of the world having handed over a plastic ball stuffed with enough raffle tickets that you could take home a plastic necklace.

He looked for any and every opportunity to touch you; grazed the back of his hand across yours, then, bolder, squeezed you into his side as you and he moved between machines. Just as you were about to beat his score at Pac Man, he grabbed you around the waist and spun you away from the control panel, watching in triumph when the monitor announced Game Over and Wally's score beat yours by more points than you could come back from.

You shrieked and giggled when he slung you over his shoulder to carry you to the new air hockey table. You sprung into his arms when he defended your honor at the foosball table against another pair of patrons. By the end of the night, he had your hand in his, fingers laced, as he walked you home.

It'd been the most fun he'd had in—God—forever. Yeah, he hung out with the guys, went camping and played videogames and did things. Always busy, always entertained. Or, rather, he did the entertaining. A constant performance to keep people interested. Tonight, with you, it'd been different. He was relaxed, completely at ease, feeling like himself for the first time in too many years. His chest felt lighter.

When you and he reached your house, not too far from the arcade, you stopped and positioned yourself to face him, beautiful smile on your face that softened under his gaze. He didn't want tonight to end. Wished it could go on through tomorrow and the next day and the one after that.

"This was a lot of fun, Wally," You murmured as you stepped closer, bottom lip caught between your teeth in a way that made his heartrate spike and his head foggy.

He nodded, "Yeah," and lifted a hand to trail his fingertips along the slope of your jaw, "I wanna do it again, like, now."

You chuckled, and when did your lips get so close to his? "You just wanna try and beat my Donkey Kong score." You accused, breath hitching when the tip of his nose grazed your cheek.

Wally couldn't refute that, but didn't want to, his mind already on other things. Better things. Things like—his lips brushed yours, soft and gentle at first, testing the waters, and when you gasped so prettily, he pressed in. Kissed you slow, his hand climbing to rest on the back of your head to angle you just right. The kiss let in and took out, over and over, until Wally was breathless and dizzy.

He kept you there, one hand trailing down your side to your hip, the other tangling in your hair, for what felt like hours though it must've only been several minutes. He couldn't let go. Couldn't stop. Your tongue against his the most incredible thing he'd ever tasted.

But, eventually, you had to pull away, "It's late."

He kissed you one more time for the road, watched you stealthily maneuver around the side of your house and disappear around the corner, probably to sneak back into your room before anyone realized you'd been gone. Something about the fact that you'd risked getting in trouble for him thrilled Wally.

Once you were out of sight, Wally turned in the direction of home, an obvious bounce in his step as he replayed the night—the kiss, how your lips had yielded under his—on a loop.

Again, it wasn't until much later that he remembered he still hadn't asked for your name.

Fuck.

‗‗‗‗•‗‗‗‗

In typical 1980s fashion, this movie had a montage that Wally revisited almost obsessively. Sure, things had progressed rather quickly between you and him; one minute you were the stranger he viciously—but not on purpose!—attacked with a ball, and the next you were every thought, desire, emotion, response Wally was capable of.

After sundown, like hoodlums, he took you to the roller rink and skated on legs made of Jell-O because you insisted you needed his limbs to support your stilted efforts. Except, as soon as a single-digit child cried his frustration, there you were, a professional ballerina on wheels, teaching the child how to balance and move. You weren't even sheepish when you fessed up to the ruse.

"I like how it feels," You said simply, shrugged, and tucked yourself into Wally's side to prove the point, "You feel safe."

Yeah, Wally couldn't argue to save his life, addicted to how you felt in his arms as much as you seemed drawn to be there. You and he danced under the colored lights, spun and chased and discoed like divas, deliberately falling into each other at every chance. Wally didn't complain when you brought him to the ground with you after a miscalculated dip.

Days later, you and he jumped and screamed along to live music (the lyrics all totally wrong, but the melody right), crashing bodies pressing you together. Halfway through the concert, the surrounding mania receded as he rocked you gently, kissed you with meaning in the eye of a mosh pit; squawked when you poked his side to tickle him and then booked it through the crowd for an impromptu, wild game of hide-n-seek.

An empty movie theater for a screening of last year's horror films. Popcorn missiles thrown when he dared suggest Halloween was better than My Bloody Valentine. Finger to his lips, his hand firm around yours, crouched as he led you into another theater after the first movie. Four altogether, most of them ignored in favor of making out in the back row until an usher kicked you and Wally out for inappropriate behavior.

Heads close, toes pointed toward opposite walls, listening to Nebraska in a patch of moonlight on Wally's bedroom floor after a grueling week of exams and Wally's mama nagging him to get fitted for new skates before hockey season. He turned his head, admired your profile, lashes fanned on the arches of peach-blushed cheeks. His heart fluttered and his eyes softened as he watched you doze to the music. Between Used Cars and Open All Night, Wally propped himself on an elbow and kissed you upside-down. Chuckled when you nipped his chin and retaliated by adjusting his position, pinning you beneath his body, and kissing you senseless.

Throughout it all, you never missed a game, football or hockey or lacrosse. You'd put an end to the scavenger hunt, now a pillar of motivation—front row, center—and waved that glittery poster with an enthusiasm that outshone his mama's. The new arrangement made it easier for Wally, sweaty and hot, to leap over the barrier and lift and twirl you after each victory. Or, alternatively, for you to hurdle into his arms to comfort and reassure him after each loss.

Over the summer, Wally reminisced fondly on his junior year and everything you and he had done together. He missed you, a deep ache in his heart while your family apparently traveled for the months between school years. You wrote letters and used payphones to speak to him every Wednesday and Saturday, and it helped sustain him until you returned, but, God, he couldn't wait to see you again. To have you cuddled against him on the couch or in his lap on the bleachers at lunch or under him in his bed.

He craved you like a bad habit. Your scent, your touch, your taste. The soft affection you and he traded; lips stamped to a shoulder, fingers carding through each other's hair. How Wally held you, arm banded around your chest, hand under your chin to angle your face up so he could kiss you from behind.

Soon, he reminded himself. Three more days and he'd have his girl at his side again.

His girl whose name continued to elude him.

‗‗‗‗•‗‗‗‗

The night of the '83 Homecoming game, Wally felt a dread unlike he'd ever felt before. A lump of lead in his stomach. He had you in his lap. Light, gentle brushes of his lips memorized the shape of your neck and jaw, his arms tight around you, as you helped distract him from his uncharacteristic pre-game nerves.

"I'll be right there, Wally Clark," You promised with a sweet smile.

And you were. In the seat beside his mama when the crack of bone echoed across the stadium like thunder.

He spent the following weeks oscillating between grief and rage, too consumed by the confusion and fear and loss of his own life to find the strength to seek you out. He didn't want to know how you handled it. Him. His no-longer-thereness. If you were as deeply sad as he was or if you could move on and make it through. Wally didn't think he could handle it if he saw you smile again if he wasn't responsible for it.

Eventually, though, he couldn't deny it anymore. Had to see you. That magnetic pull led him to find you outside, basking in the December sun, no jacket, laying across the middle bench on the bleachers that overlooked the field behind the school.

He climbed up and took a quiet seat beside you. You didn't look any different. Serene, in fact, as you lay there, your notebook rested on the bench above. Wally sighed heavily, traced the air around your cheek as his breath choked and his heart shattered. He had so much he wanted to say to you, but didn't know where to begin—I miss you, I wish I didn't die, I need to hold you again. Sentiments that didn't make a difference anymore. He gazed at your notebook and wondered if you'd written anything about him.

And then, to his surprise:

"I was wondering how long it would take before you'd come find me."

His eyes whipped to you and he saw you staring upside-down at him, neck craned back slightly and a warm grin on your face.

"Y-you can see me!?" Wally gaped as you sat up and scooched closer to him.

"Of course I can." You said so easily that Wally had to think for a second if he was supposed to understand how it was possible. No one else had been able to see him, hear him, feel him.

"...how?"

You giggled, the sound a boon to his despairing soul, "Being dead isn't so bad, you know. I mean, it sucks, but you get used to it pretty quick." Taking his hand in yours, fingers laced, "And, when the memory of you starts to fade, you start to absorb the insane amount of teen angst." You snorted at something Wally assumed was supposed to be funny. "Makes you solid for awhile. You'll even be able leave the school at night which I'd consider something to look forward to, no?"

"I guess," Wally wheezed as his brain tried desperately to catch up to what was happening. He stared at you, bewildered, lost, hopeful, elated, "You're dead?" One, two beats, "You were dead the whole time?"

You smiled and nodded, leaned away from him to hold out your other hand for him to shake. That's when he heard it for the first time, your name, the syllables like angelic melody to his ears. You added, "Class of '57. Nice to meet you."

"But...I walked you home. I saw your house."

"You saw a house." You corrected.

He couldn't believe it. You were dead. You were like Wally. You were with Wally.

Without hesitation, Wally scooped you into his arms and kissed you like he'd wanted to since he'd risen from his body. He soaked up all the comfort and reassurance and love you offered with your lips. The idea of eternity no longer seemed so permanent and awful if you were in it.

You pulled away just enough to bump the tip of your nose against his, that smile he adored melting every worry and fear that'd followed him off the field.

"So, how do you wanna spend your afterlife, Wally Clark? We could play dodgeball now that you know you can't actually hurt me."

He felt a grin form, wide and joyful, and answered, "Whatever you want." After a soft lull that Wally used to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear and cup your cheek, "I just wanna spend it with you." His girl, whose name he would treasure forever in his heart.

fin.

🏈___________________________

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if you enjoyed this, you may also enjoy Cuddle Bug.

fluff. smut lite. a flashfic exploration of Wally's inability to be anything but a plural image when you're within reach. aka: he's codependent as fuck and neither you nor he care.