#glad the sheet is updated now at the very least!

[spicyliumang]

✦Finally at a point comfy enough to open simple render c0missions!!!!!♪(´▽｀) if you're interested feel free to DM! 💌 I would be more than happy to make a render of your favs♡

[EDIT]: Now adding RGG OC models! Also NSFW commissions are now available for $60 (USD)! ;) since tumblr is strict, feel free to DM about the price sheet!

[kaiser-author-san-iii]

Star Light, Star Bright | Fatui Harbingers x (Fem)Creator!Reader

A/N: holy Tsarista, I did not think that it would be this popular. Thank you so much!! It's been a couple months since I got into Genshin, but I'm glad that the Harbinger trailer dropped cause otherwise, this probably wouldn't have existed lol. I apologize for the late update. I have been quite stumped in the plot and just taking a moment to come up with one. If I didn't tag everyone, I'm sorry! DM or reply to be added to the taglist! :3

Summary: Caring for children is hard, but it's especially hard when around the Fatui. Getting isekaied was the last thing on your mind after landing in the icy tundra of Snezhnaya all while your nephew is with you. What will happen when you encounter not only a Fatui Skirmisher but a Fatui Harbinger?

Tags/warnings: female reader, God!reader, Cult AU,

Not edited or beta read, we die like Signora.

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Masterlist>>

Chapter 2: The Creator's Welcome

Silence.

What could be said while the entire palace and the surrounding area waited with bated breath for their Grace to awaken?

They were fervent - they waited to leave and search for the "meaner" that has done harm to their Beloved but that would leave their Previous Grace with only the Heir for company and guard.

The Precious Heir - they have heard of them only from what was written centuries ago. He was beautiful - he was innocent and was crying for their Grace to wake up all while the Harbingers stood by with the Tsarista finally making her appearance, rushing towards the bed that their Grace rested in, bending the knee and holding their hand.

"Your Grace. Your Excellency. Oh, my Beloved Creator. What has that Meaner done to you?"

Nugget never left your side as he clutched onto your waist, but being careful with your arms as he was told by the blue-haired man with the mask. He was a doctor and clearly knew what he was talking about so the little one made sure to listen well. The Doctor man and the others gave them a room which is what his Auntie expected and though he was focused more on taking care of you, it was nice to wander around the room all while the Harbin Gingers (It was some word that he had trouble saying) always came to check on him and his auntie and even gave him coloring books and sweets and fruits. It was all so good and he made sure to save you some whenever you were going to wake up.

But he especially loved the Tsarista and Columbia (Colombina)

They were very nice. They held him when you were still asleep and he couldn't be there for the operation.

For what seemed like forever, when it was only a matter of four days, the bed shifted as Nugget was reading the latest book that the guy with the funny hat gave him. He wanted to read it to you when you woke up and his wish was soon coming true as he felt movement and looked over to see your [E/c] eyes. He gasped and immediately snuggled into the sheets and wrapped his small arms around your waist.

"Auntie! You're awake! You're awake!"

Soft wet globs of tears started to stain your shirt as you looked down at the child who held you tightly and didn't want to let go. It would have been endearing if it wasn't for the fact that you had almost died from possible blood poisoning from ignoring your wounds. Your Nephew remembered seeing a lot of gold and despite still learning, he knew for a fact blood was red.

Carefully holding him up and ruffling his hair, you kissed his forehead and wiped his tears away.

"I'm sorry I made you worry, Nugget. I promise, I'll be sure to look after myself but my main concern was you."

That response earned a pout but your nephew thought it was good enough for now. If you weren't healthy and in one piece, how are you supposed to find a husband or a wife?!

"Just don't go to sleep anymore or at least for a long time. You made everyone worry!"

"Everyone?"

At the mention, your Nephew saw the clear confusion on your face and smiled brightly, but with a glint of mischievousness as he swiftly, with his small feet could go, hopped out of bed but careful to stay clear from your arms, rushed to the door and yelled out.

"Auntie [Y/n] is awake!" he said with a bright smile that was quite contagious, but it was last minute that you saw a figure by the door, or make it two figures. They had hoods over their head but it was the masks that covered their identities - the sheer happiness was clear from their body movements and one of them rushed out to who knows where while your nephew ran back to your side and started to share all the books he's read while you were recovering.

He's always had trouble reading so it was a feat itself to see him now reading at his supposed grade level. He still had trouble with certain words but nothing to worry about.

While trying to process all that was happening around you, you heard multiple footsteps before the door flew open, and in walked in about a dozen people.

Your face heated up at seeing all the gorgeous faces quickly surround you, pulling your nephew close to your side, weary of what else could happen. But you could have sworn that there was a hint of sadness in their eyes from your pull away from them.

"Don't be scared. They helped us! They helped you! Especially the Doctor man." Your nephew grinned as he held your hand and decided to make you sit up and face the group properly and pointed at the Doctor. The Doctor that he mentioned was practically preening from the praise like a peacock showing off its feathers.

The grip on his hand lessened as you looked at all twelve people one by one. It didn't take a rocket scientist to distinguish the power that they all radiated. Though at the time, you didn't know of the power you held yourself.

The elegant lady with long white hair, icy blue eyes, and who seemed to scream 'Ice Queen', slowly walked up to your bedside with a gentle smile as her hand moved to slowly hold yours. Now, you wouldn't have minded if it was your nephew or family, but this was a stranger. A stranger with a very firm grip despite how delicate it was.

"Now. How shall we punish the meaner that's done this to you?"

Eh?

-x-

It was... a change to have people cater to your every whim despite half of them being just jokes like bringing you the finest gem. The honor of bestowing such a gem was by none other than the 9th Harbinger, Pantalone.

Your nephew was having a great time, especially when he got to get along with a majority of the Harbingers and the Fatui, who took the mission of entertaining Nugget very seriously.

Once your arms were good as new, you asked for the group of Fatui soldiers that you and your nephew first encountered. At first, they were adamant about having you and Nugget leave the palace but you needed to get back to your car and get the rest of your things.

But funnily enough, you don't remember a palace or an organization going by the Fatui in your life...

Not to mention, these people seemed to recognize you and your nephew despite you two not knowing any of them.

If you thought of it more, a headache occurred and the Tsarista was adamant in asking you to save your energy and that it didn't matter if you recognized them. That all that mattered was that you and the Heir were fine.

While bedridden, your Nephew had the privilege to waltz around like he owned the place and even got you some books to read in the meantime. You saw mentions of a Divine Creator, a God-like figure that was first in creating the world around you and beyond, the one that made the stars and skies. A Divine Creator from the Beyond gave life to a speck in the skies and named it Teyvat and thus, its first child was born.

During a certain period when the Creator was roaming freely, they announced that their sister was with child and so, the Creator named the unborn babe the Heir to Teyvat.

The book was quite the read and wanting to know more about why the people around you and Nugget called you the Divine Creator and the Heir, you took it around with you.

"Your Grace, you must bundle up. Snezhnayan winters are quite brutal. People freeze to death here, quite literally in fact." announced a Fatui sniper, the one that first saw you and Nugget as he came behind you and placed a coat, courtesy of Pantalone of course, on your shoulders and your nephew too.

Stepping out to the brutal snow, instead of the harsh snow that you were expecting, it was a light snowfall that shocked the group of Fatui that decided to travel with you.

[Nephew's Name] stepped out from behind you and cheered happily as he rushed out to the snow and started to play, making snowmen and snow angels with, of course, the Fatui looking out and being won over by the child's heart-felt giggles.

They were all trying to make sense of why the snowfall was reduced to just light snow instead of the blizzards they're used to until they recalled that their Divine Grace and the Heir were right here with them. Teyvat was the Divine Creator's first child and as the loyal child it was, it could always sense where they were. Though Snezhnaya was the domain of the Tsarista, the Cryo Archon, the Divine Creator's word was Law.

Ehe.

Everything came to a slow stop as the world first heard the giggle from the Creator and with each step that you had taken, noticeable patches of green started to appear and grow more and more. The chilled winds of winter called down as the grey skies parted to make way for the rays of the sun.

The Tsarista felt the pause of winter, looking out that the frozen lands of her region have warmed up to what it had been long ago before her ascension.

Her Grace has given warmth back to the frozen tundras of Snezhnaya to the point that the flora and fauna basked in the sunlight. "Nugget. Be careful. The snow is melting."

And like that, the snow stopped melting just enough for your nephew to enjoy making snow angels.

'Welcome to Teyvat, Divine Creator!'

TAGLIST:

@lizzhearthz, @yoshikuno , @anonclyde , @khalhaimdad, @ellenoir

@yunsblog030 , @lsleepysimpl, @potol0ver, @kitty-chan33

[carmenized-onions]

Yap sheet live and in color pt 2!! Um ily this is so fun im actually having such a good week and the fact that U updated also just makes it even better 🫶🫶🫶 also i think to maybe see if it doesn't make the ask so super long on like feeds imma try this with no spaces between maybe idk

1.) This is literally from the tags i haven't even started reading, but hurt,,, some comfort??? UGH okay off i go

2.) WAIT THE OTHER SHOE THING IS SO FUCKING BRILLIANT ONION WTF

3.) Lowk forgot i was doing this for a sec bc im waiting for water to boil cause im making dinner rn BUT OH BOY DID THIS BRING IT BACK FOR ME

CARMY CALLING RICHIE A DEAD BEAT MAN ILL BEAT UP THAT LITTLE RAT BOY i love him so much it hurts but ill kick his ass fr like just bc ur hurting doesnt mean u make everyone else hurt (even tho thats how he was raised :< anyways thats 1 L for carm major L

4.) YEAHH RICH FUCKING SPEAK ON IT SPEAK ON ITTTT oh uh oh not tony catching strays rip us. Double uh oh coming from carmy. Also carmy thats another L don't do richie like that :<

5.) I fucking love you :< AND THEN FOR HIM TO SAY RICHIE IS NOTHING LIKE FUCK RIGHT AWF L MAJOR L

6.) Yk what this chapter is going to be endless Ls for carm i can already tell but :< the whole oh are you gonna fix him too?? Like I can just feel and see like the hurt radiating off of him thru the screen like he's clearly so affected by all the stuff he saw but :< thats still not an excuse CARMEN

7.)The fact that Tony feels like she needs to prove herself, that she can take it, makes me very :<

8.) Also like I'm intrigued bc it almost feels like more than Tony just not charging them for the services out of like the goodness of her own heart or guilt over not being there for mikey like i originally thought like theres something else going on there i am ✨️confused✨️

9.) Noooo not Tony thinking she did something wrong :<<<

10.) i fear im going to jump off a bridge at this rate bc WAAAAAAA carmy is obviously so upset and he CLEARLY doesnt know how to handle that he IS SO ME

11.) MAJOR L MAJOR L

carmy im coming for you count your days that was so uncalled for Carmen what the FUCK onion im coming for u bc I just know I would be sobbing on the floor if carmen said that to me like especially bc Tony very obviously blames herself already :<

12.) Okay my noodles are done so BUT im mildly confused is all this carmy pov happening right after he yelled actually i just glanced back and yes it is and i will say i am glad carmy is at least A LITTLE self aware and that he's completely off the rails anyway

13.) :< i want my comfort neow right neow onion this is making me so sad (im on like point 7) also verbal confirmation that tony is crying like this isnt even a carmy specific L this is just an L

14.) Carmy just major self loathing makes me sad like yes he did this to himself but also like this is just the only way hes ever been shown how to express himself and ugh this better end with him going to therapy (i know it wont)

15.) Um so i read all of tonys thing just now i think uh anyway im gonna kms now tony thinks he hates her :< i really want my comfort now

16.) I know carmy doesnt deserve comfort but also i think he does a little is that too much to ask for

17.) Also the whole heart to heart with Richie makes me so :< i dont have a lot of coherent notes to write except for :< like im very :< right now

18.) Also i LOVE that tony is going to go to the fucking eras tour with richie and eva i LOVE that anyway um ACK ACK ACK

19.) ALSO ALSO ALSO like UGHHHH richie telling tony its not her fault mikey died and them commiserating is so fucking AGH

20.) STOP THE BANTER wait pause

21.) firstly um tony STILL looking out for carmy warms my heart thats fucking cold bc u KILLED ME anyway

22.) Right. UGHHHHH the banter has me just a touch :> bc like syd and tony dogging on richie is so :>. But overall im still :<.

23.) Stop not mikey thinking that tony and carmy would be a good match :< also like i feel like that *kinda* confirms that tony and mikey didnt have a thing bc why tf would he say that if they ever did but anyway

ONION TONY AND CARMY BETTER FUCKING TALK IN THE NEXT ONE IM SO FUCKING SERIOUS

As always i adore you and your writing even if i almost sobbed reading this one there were actual tears in my eyes and i never ever ever cry reading stuff or consuming media so fuck you so hard for that one

🫶🫶🫶 till next time pookie

LETS. GET. INTO ITTT.. Yap Sheet from Just Dropped, I'm excited to hear your thoughts on Something to Do!! Unless you already did-- And I'm just real fuckin slow to churn through my inbox.

THE NO SPACES SEEMED TO HAVE WORKED??? I hope that was easy for you, on your end-- If it's not, simply destroy people's pages it's fine we ball.

I did the.... some comfort because I was like... It does definitely hurt-- Comfort wise, it's definitely there, but you just don't really get it from the person you want it from, yknow?

AND THANK YOU-- I was very happy, when I realized the silly other shoe bit I could do. fun hat trick on my part.

DEAD BEAT BROOOO-- I can't remember if I added that or if it was in the original dialogue. I think I added it? I remember needing a transition line, to get into it-- It was like the Carmen equivalent of Richie's okay donna-- WOOF

I'll just do one point, for the Richie side of the fight, as I the writer don't have much to say about it but yeah it was-- Shit was brutal. It was very interesting to look at the freezer fight again with the perspective of Tony in mind and going,,,, huh,,,, they could both be talking to her, in this. The You're Nothing really also-- I wonder if Carmen will ever actually say that to someone, in canon. I don't think he could. But also they might just be saving it for the biggest explosion.

Writing Carmen's dialogue for this was very tough and interesting, for me-- Because like-- With the information he had, I kinda got it. Like yes 100% self-destructive tendencies but also I think I could sympathize with like, essentially him thinking he was basically some sort of manic pixie to be fixed by Tony. He was wrong, but like-- I get the concern. He shoulda voiced it better but I get him.

YEAAHHHH, YEAAHHHH Tony before this chapter for the most part I think only displayed the good/quirky parts about being the anxious helpful hero type, and this chapter and onward I think really got into the genuinely self-destructive behaviours of her thinking she needs to be able to take shit.

There was in fact, something going on there. With the invoice. LMAO. Tony's nice but she understands the power of a dollar

The repeated 'did i do something wrong' across multiple chapters-- Fuckin, in anything 'did i do something wrong' will always fucking get my ass. Like it's just so. It's. I'm, I'm fuckin sweatin just thinking about it. It always hurts.

CARMEN MAJOR L MOMENT ABSOLUTE L.

It's funny that while writing that line, I had always planned for that line to be like, the spinebreaker but I was worried, when I had actually put it to paper, that readers were somehow not gonna think it was that bad. I'm glad everyone thought it was horrifically bad. He fucked up there.

I won't comment much on Carmen's POV because there's some surprises I have in stock, for you, with that-- But I do agree. I think Carmen is typically slow to realize he fucked it-- But when it's something like that and everyone has a volatile reaction-- He's gonna know immediately that it's over.

Here's the thing, I can't show you any lines from the next chapter, because literally every single line is a spoiler for what the chapter is. but I've realized actually I can show you an old draft-- This was from the original list of the seven things.

I took this out, inevitably, but I did really like the idea of like... Realizing that this moment isn't just a now fuck up, it's a forever fuck up.

14. both of those fuckers went right on the self-loathing train. What could we expect from them? Choo choo, mf.

16. I hate to tell you this. He's gonna have a terrible time. I'm not letting that motherfucker catch a break. You'll see what I mean, in time.

17. WHY'S THE HEART TO HEART MAKE YOU FROWN--- I mean I get it but like BITTERSWEET RIGHT? RIGHT? ANYONE?? IS THIS THING ON?? Do you think the writers knew when they wrote season 2 and Richie getting Swift tickets they knew those things were gonna be like 3000 dollars a pop. I feel like they didn't. I like to go back and read this bit, from time to time. I just really like Richie and Chip. Am I a Rich/Chip believer? Honestly. A little bit I think. I have a wandering eye. I think.

21. Tony will always look out for Carm. It's so lame. get UP girl be PETTY-- HAUNT HIS ASS!!! DO A HAUNT!!!!

23. I love that you say kinda. I love that know one trusts me with a slight confirmation. I have poisoned the water mistrust and I love that.

I'M HONOURED TO GET YA MISTY-- MEANS A LOT, I hope you enjoy/enjoyed the next one. Love you fuck you sorry not sorry at all my bad your fault hugs and kisses THANK YOU BYYYYEE

[your-god-empress-lavender]

Possibly last update on the material:

After a fair amount of testing today, i found that there is no significant reaction to a magnet when the substance is placed on a metal surface. There is also no significant magnetic response when it's placed on paper. The only magnetic response comes when the material is on a plastic card or sheet. After doing a test i should have done months ago, in which i test the relative importance of plain ol' static, i found that an electrically inert powder with no significant magnetic properties (borax) reacted similarly but to a lesser degree than my material (it moved about half as much). Given that my material still moves significantly more than the borax with the magnet but about equally when i used a piece of silver under it, i still believe that there is probably some magnetic or electrical significance to this material, but honestly i think my past ways of looking at this material were just so heavily covered by my need or want that it was an important or at least interesting material that i hardly stopped to check if my tests (and thus results) were any good.

Honestly today has been a weird fucking day and i'm glad i took 20 minutes between writing the first part of this post and now as i write this second paragraph. Not that the tests today haven't shown that i have major issues that i have to fix, but thinking back on everything, i know i have (back when i was using the messy and seemingly worse liquid state synthesis) observed the particles moving on stiff sheets of paper and also seen particles repelled from the edges of my magnets, so idfk. The more i think about it, the more everything feels and sounds absurd. Like, i have no doubt i need to fix things, but i also really ought to get to the bottom of this, because unless i somehow had extremely dramatic changes in testing conditions that i didn't notice (not out of the question, but even if so, it would be useful or at least interesting to find out what these changes were), i did in fact have some magnetic effects that changed based on both composition and yet unknown factors. If i had just stopped thinking about it while i was still thinking as i was in the first paragraph, i would have missed some relatively obvious things from my earlier studies and probably not have realized that at the very least before i halt this project i must entirely rethink and redo the testing protocol given that it is apparently prone to false positives and likely has many more issues that i had been overlooking

[laurenejohnston]

Week 8 Update

What is working?

This week I was able to finish and finalize my ‘example’ sticker sheet and complete more work on two additional standard sheets that I will be selling in addition to the custom sticker sheets. I’ve also purchased the domain name for the website and paid the hosting fee so now I have officially got the page! The order form and plans for the page are coming along nicely. 

What is not working?

This week was a whirlwind and I wasn't able to complete as much work as I’d like to, both on the website and sticker sheet designs. My workspace also was messy and uncoordinated so I ended up cleaning out my whole desk area to create a newer more organized space. 

How do you feel the project is coming?

I think overall it's going well and even without the website running yet I have had lots of friends and family looking forward to orders already! I think that it’s moving a lot more slowly and drawn out than I’d hoped it might be but also that there are a lot of things to consider and it will just take some extra time to get things going a little faster. 

What are you learning about running a business?

Time management is so key! I said it before but finding the time to create products, a website, and manage a business is definitely difficult. I salute those who find the time to juggle everything while staying organized!

What are you learning about yourself?

While I do love organizing and keeping on top of things, I’m finding that managing my time is getting harder and harder as things get busier. I also find, however, that planning ahead on at least the major tasks I have has saved me from making it even harder on myself so I’m very glad for that. I think that I’ve learned I work best when I set deadlines for myself and write out my goals so I can go through things step by step, this way I’m less overwhelmed by it all.

[ikyw-t]

hey! it's been a while since my last proper life update so it's about time for another! 🌸

Soo I started a new job on sunday and it's going rly rly well! I work at a bagel store, and I used to work at a different location for a few months right before covid and while it was by far the least stressful and least bad job I'd had overall, after working here for three days I realize that at the other store we had been understaffed like 99% of the time and that this job is actually a lot less stressful when there's a reasonable number of people working. so I'm glad that I'm working here now! everyone I've met so far has been very nice and it's just overall a very nice and chill atmosphere, I am genuinely so pleased :)

alsooo i started learning "je te veux" on piano a few days ago and according to the sheet music it's supposed to be played at 176bpm and so far I've learned half the song at 120bpm and honestly it still sounds delightful. 176 seems unnecessarily fast. like maybe I'll get it up to 150 but idrc about getting it that fast rly lol. it's been fun tho! the last song i rly took the time to learn all the way thru was "the very last night" over this summer and that was also fun but je te veux is like an actual song lol and it's very festive and jolly so im having a good time with that!

also I've been doing a lot of reading lately! here's some brief reviews!

- the world cannot give, tara isabella burton; fun read, cool vibes. i read another book by her called "social creature" which i also read in two days and was pretty compelling

- when we were young, richard roper; also a fun quick read! definitely had some laugh out loud moments. it was enjoyable although i think his other book "how not to die" had a more developed story and characters and i liked more in general.

- family of liars, e. lockhart; a pretty good sequel for "we were liars" which i read a year ago or more, but i feel like this had a similar vibe and voice to the first book, and overall the story didn't feel like a forced prequel, but held up just fine on its own.

- currently i'm reading cards on the table by agatha christie, which is the 15th book in the hercule poirot series lol. i started the series earlier this year and altho it's not always very riveting they are pretty quick and fun reads, and it gives me something to read when i don't feel like im the mood for anything else, ya know? also it's kinda interesting to read about domestic life (and death! Lol) in early 20th century england. this book is called cards on the table cause it took place during a game of bridge, and i think if i knew anything about bridge id probably appreciate it a little more though it's been a solid book regardless.

also i read the play "who's afraid of virginia woolf" a couple weeks ago and i finished it cause it was pretty short but it was meh. like. just meh.

anyway! that's my once in a blue moon life update dump lol. would have to say im currently not doing too bad! the rest of the year has been pretty stressful and just miserable but at least the last couple months of 2021 are turning out ok!

[iamthecomet]

Hoot!

Little update on yesterday and today:

I did get some rest but I was super stressed about today on Thursday

But I managed to do everything and now it’s better (I’m gonna have like 2 weeks off now)

Sadly, the trial bass lesson got cancelled. But I’m gonna have my first trial lesson in three weeks at least

It‘s literally the best to “hang out“ with friends like that again. They currently have someone over and after that we‘ll do our first German lesson (I’m very excited to teach them)

I them on here by the way xD

We share the same favourite singer (Wednesday 13) and they are an awesome person

Your day sounds good! I hope you had a good day today as well (or still have. Time zones are weird XD)

I still didn’t start to draw the first drawing for OC-tober yet, and instead decided to practice drawing dicks (so I now have an entire page filled with that and I can never let anyone look through my sketchbook again xD)

I cannot upload it on tumblr ofc but I can send you a pic if you want ^^

(To find references for some drawings I had to look at truly concerning things where there was no way in hell that was safe. I was constantly scared for the people doing it xD)

~ @owlishanon

Yay! I'm glad you were able to get everything done and now you can breathe and relax. That's good. No more stress about that. Bummer about your bass lesson, but you'll get to do it soon.

Yeah the last time I talked to that friend on the phone she was at work cooking dinner (she works in a residential home for disabled adults) and so I got to hear the chaos of that in the background while we were talking and it was honestly kind of lovely (but also loud, we discussed how I would immediately get fired because I would not be able to handle the noise level). Today was also a good one. Went to work and was productive. Got to go have pizza and a little champagne at the new town building with my mom and some other town people (because I helped the other day). And I even got to go to the Halloween store nearby (It's a Spirit Halloween) and got a couple things I did not need but that made me very happy. You can absolutely send me your dick practice sheet if you want!

[always-andromeda]

i would love more writer!reader hcs! it's hilarious how calvin's like my least fav pd character but the requests for him are so good, you made him likable 😭😭

Socialization Pt. II | Calvin Weir-Field’s x fem!Reader

Calvin Weir-Field’s x fem!Reader

Word Count | 1,260

Author’s Note | ugh, I LOVE writing Calvin actually so I’m glad someone finds my version of him likable! again, if anyone wants another part of this little dynamic, I’d love to think about making it a sweet little trilogy of headcanons lol thank you so much, anon, for enabling me to indulge in this man.

Warnings | Calvin is a ball of anxiety, nothing else I can think of!

Calvin hates being late to things. So, of course, he's late to the writer's group you invited him to.

It's not his fault that you wrote one of the numbers in the address wrong. It's not his fault that he spent twenty minutes driving down the same street, craning his neck to find the right place. By the end of the ordeal, he finds the breakfast buffet. Tucked away behind a few pretentious boutiques sits the building. Obviously some sort of historic place that has managed to just escape from LA's glitzy grasp. 

Having led a group of his own for a few years, he thinks he knows exactly what he's getting himself into. A couple dozen twenty somethings who've convinced themselves they're artists and moved to LA to flounder and die. It's partially why he left said group after his dad died and Lila left. 

He parks, gives himself a pep talk, takes a deep breath and enters the restaurant.

A staff member tells him that the meeting had started ten minutes prior in the banquet room. Great. Absolutely fantastic.

Calvin opens one of the doors of the entrance for the banquet room. All eyes are on him within seconds. Shit.

You're standing at a podium, papers in hand and mouth open, obviously midway through a sentence as you glare at him.

Calvin ducks quickly like he's walking in front of a row of people in a movie theater. He finds a table with an empty chair and tries not to meet anyone's gaze as you clear your throat and continue speaking. He quickly realizes that he is very out of place. Most of the attendees are...older. The women dotting the table around him are all white haired with deep wrinkles and wearing their finest clothes.

The next thing he notices is how attentively everyone listens to you. You command the room in such a way that he can tell you've been doing this for a long while. You don't drone on monotonously. And you crack small jokes every so often that makes some bursts of chuckles erupt from various tables.

You give a rundown of different writing workshops that are being held throughout the month, give deadlines for some monthly edition that members can submit pieces to, and read out updates on various projects that some of the members are working on.

Apparently Reginald has a science fiction novel he's been working on for years that is finally in talks of being published. A woman named Maria is in the preliminary stages of research for her book on pigeons. Calvin has no clue who these people are but he's struck by how...not miserable they all look.

You announce a writing exercise. The idea: you're going to give them one word and five minutes to write as much as they possibly can on whatever thought the word reminds them of. Sounds simple enough.

Calvin panics. Because of course he has to feel the frantic grip of anxiety right here and now in an artificially lit banquet hall at 10:38 in the morning. Life very well may have looked kindly upon him up into the very moment he walked into that room and made an absolute fool of himself.

The word you chose? Control.

The timer starts and his mind goes blank.

Control...control control control...he wishes he had control over that stupid timer. It's the only thought he had running through his mind. It's morbid and messy but he doesn't want to be the only one in the room without a word on his sheet of paper. So he scrawls out as much as he possibly can.

He writes about a clock that won't stop ticking. Won't stop taunting. Every time the hands shift, it seems to point and titter at a different failure. Nearly thirty. No high school diploma. No girlfriend. A publisher breathing down his neck. That clock keeps sneaking up behind him and beating him to an indistinguishable pulp. But this time, he catches it. Throws the damned thing to the ground and rips away at the face until it stirs no more. Digging his nails into the inner workings, he tears at all the intricate pieces until he's satisfied that it won't have a chance at coming back. Until he can finally breathe properly.

The timer goes off in reality this time.

And Calvin feels like he's just killed someone. But the tension in his fingers seem to have disappeared.

You say that if anyone would like to read what they wrote aloud, they may. A few people have the guts to do that. Calvin won't be one of the sacrificial lambs; he can't even imagine what kind of horrified stares he'd get this time if he were to describe how he'd murder an anthropomorphic clock. He simply claps along with the other attendees and crumples up his paper, shoving it in his pocket and intending to throw it away when he gets home.

Calvin approaches you after the meeting. You're putting away your notes in a giant, three-ring binder.

Standing in front of you for a solid minute, he's sure that you're deliberately giving him the cold shoulder. He clears his throat. You peer up at him almost dismissively through your lashes.

Returning your attention to your papers, you ask firmly, "If you didn't want to be here then why did you show up, Calvin?"

"Oh, trust me, I did want to be here. I was just...late."

"Okay." you purse your lips and close up your binder before laying your hand on the cover, tapping your nails against the surface and gathering your thoughts. Slowly, you perked back up, "What did you think about the meeting?"

"It was..." Calvin scratched his head before saying with uncertainty, "Enlightening."

His reply makes you snicker. You hadn't actually expected him to attend. And after he was absent for the first meeting after you invited him, you figured that was it. You'd managed to find another snobby writer who looked down his nose at his peers. But with how tall he is, there's no way he can't psychically look down on you. Except instead of disdain in his eyes...it's wonder. Those green eyes look down at you like he’s waiting for you to unveil the secrets of the universe.

You ask with a smile biting at your tone, "What parts did you find enlightening?"

"I thought the five minute writing exercise was fantastic. It loosens you up...forces you to just think of something." Calvin can't help but grin. Sure, he hated what he'd written. But maybe that's what was needed for a creative rut like this. Something messy and terrible and completely wrong. That felt right.

You laughed then. It sends butterflies through his stomach out of nowhere. He joined in, hoping that his nervous grin would convince both you and him that you were laughing with him instead of at him.

"You're a funny person, Calvin Weir-Fields." And a cute person. But he doesn’t need to know that.

"Thank you?"

"You're welcome. I'm glad you enjoyed your time today. I hope you decide to become a member before you go. You can sign up with Donna over there." you nod towards a woman speaking with some other members near the double doors.

Calvin didn't even think about the possibility of spam or extra mail or any of those other annoyances as he gave Donna all of his contact information. All he thought of was writing again. Of seeing you again.

[booksandabeer]

so this isn't on the fic rec asks sheet you posted but I was wondering if you're following any wips at the time? And if yes, do you have one your most excited about about updates?

(english isn't my first language so sorry for any mistakes)

Hello there, inquiring person! 

I do indeed follow some WIPs, let's do a little round-up of what comes to mind right now, shall we? 

(this is by no means a complete list of all the WIPs I follow and there are also quite a few that I haven't even gotten started on but I just *know* will be fantastic, but even I can't read everything all at once.)

Here we go:

the world on fire by burlesquecomposer | 54K, Ch 18/?, Mature

Author’s summary: Steve loves old vinyl records, doodles on his files, and cannot remember a time that he didn't serve the TVA. And that suits him just fine—that is, until stray variant Bucky Barnes, fresh out of HYDRA's grasp, drops into his time theater and makes Steve question everything he believes in.

I've rec'd this one before but I like it so much and I think that it is criminally underread, so I'm just gonna mention it here again. Please read this gem of a story. It's well written, has a super fun premise,  clever plotting, wonderful characterizations, and a firm grasp on the SteveBucky dynamic.

The Hand of a Devil by @tessabennet | 37K, Ch 13/30 Explicit | Part 3 in What I'm Looking For series

Author’s summary: While Steve is buried under Arctic ice, frozen in time, Bucky Barnes is alive; and he has been turned into a weapon by his enemies, living as the Fist of Hydra - the Winter Soldier. It is a half-life, and the years are long and full of pain, as the world keeps on changing. This is part three of the series, [...] it spans the years between 1945 and 2012, following Bucky during his time as the Winter Soldier, but also some other familiar faces along the way.

Can I interest you in 30 chapters (well, currently 13) of PAIN? It is very well-written pain, I promise! With lots of historical details, great mission chapters, lots of insights into the Soldier's and Bucky's mind (whenever he resurfaces), and a really interesting take on how the trigger words were implanted. I *think* this can be read without knowledge of the first two parts, but to get the whole experience and to really understand all the references (which is half the...umm...fun?): do yourself the favor and just start at the beginning.

The Last First Time by seapigeon | 55K, Ch 3/4, Explicit

Author’s summary: In which two men out of time decide to join forces to take down the worst version of the Time Variance Authority, and gain a lot more than just victory. [...] Part post-EG fix-it, part Loki journey of self-discovery, and part ‘Let Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes Be Happy’. Plus plenty of other things. 

I was a bit hesitant to read this at first since it also features Steve/Loki (and even a hint of  WWThreesome, but it’s really only a brief reference, and SteveBucky is very much endgame in this) and that’s usually just not something that I personally like to read. BUT I love and trust this author so I decided to give it a try anyway. And oh, I’m so glad I did. This story is not just an EG-Fix-it, it also improves immeasurably on parts of Loki, TFATWS, and even Wandavision. It is pretty much the smarter, kinder version of the MCU post-EG. 

And then we have two fics that haven’t been updated in a while, but they’re not abandoned (at least to my knowledge). I will literally drop everything and run to my laptop the very moment the next chapters of these get posted:

Let me go to the window by @743ish | 16K, Ch 3/?, Explicit | Part 4 in A Home Game series

Author’s summary: “He feels like he's been reading the whole day from a book, following each line with his finger, and now that they’re alone, in arm’s reach, with the deadbolt turned firmly on the door, he’s lost his place on the page. He doesn’t know how much he can do, how soon Bucky is willing to let him give in to this. How much longer Steve has to pretend he hasn’t been dying all day from wanting him.”

In 1952, Steve Rogers has begun to live again. Down the line, it's gonna cost him.

I guess I could categorize this as a Mid-century Shrunkyclunks AU? Steve still became Captain America in this universe, but he survived the war, and in 1952 he goes to a Baseball game and meets veteran Bucky Barnes, and things go from there. 

I guess you could read this part without the first three, but really why would you want to do this? Start at the beginning! The writing is exquisite & the characterizations are excellent, and on top of that you get an interesting exploration of how Steve would experience the political and social climate of post-war America in the 1950s and his role as a national symbol in it. I feel woefully incapable of conveying just how good this story is. It is so quiet and measured in a way, but also so full of capital-F Feelings. The author tagged this with ‘Intensely Requited Love’ and yes, that’s it. That’s exactly it.     

i will soar, then by @pinballbrain | 61K, Ch 8/9, Teen | Sam/Bucky!

Author’s summary:  Bucky Barnes gets a new therapist. But he's not the only one who needs to. aka Bucky gets his shit together and does right by Sam. 

A Post-TFATWS character study of Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson. Yes, it’s told from Bucky’s POV and it is Bucky-centric, but that doesn’t mean that Sam gets short shrift in this at all. He’s not treated as Bucky’s crutch or his therapist. Instead, they both grow, and learn from, and lean on each other, and it’s written with so much love and empathy for both characters--I honestly never want this to end! 

So there you have it, these are my recs for today. 

You can always send in more requests for recs or other questions if you feel so inclined!

[gb-patch]

Ask Answers: June 6th, 2021

I’m back with more ask responses! You can also check our Frequently Asked Question sheet if there’s something you’re wondering that’s not answered here.

FAQ   Also, if you prefer to just see the main posts without all the asks/reblogs, feel free to follow our side account instead: GB Patch Updates Blog

Thank you for the patience with these questions  ♡

Hey in very beginning of step 3 in the scene where Mr.Holden had a thought dancing on the tip of his tongue but he kept it to himself after MC and Cove were being cute (idk if it makes a difference but this is when they're dating)... Can we know what he was thinking/ wanted to say? It's been bugging me lol 

He would’ve gone into a “look how much you’ve grown”, “your dad is so proud of you”, “I’m so glad things worked out with the MC”, and etc spiel, haha. But he resisted the urge to fawn on his baby boy, at least for that scene.

If we planned to move away for college/future plans in step 3, is it implied that MC and Cove would have a long distance relationship for sure? Could MC have convinced Cove to come with them? How is the dynamic of their relationship going to be addressed in Step 4, if that makes sense? 

Cove is willing to follow the MC where they went after everything is settled for them there, and if they’re sure they want him to come! You’ll get to decide how things shook out during those transitional years just by making choices about it during the opening prologue of Step 4.

Hi! First off, how does it feel to have created one of the best games when it comes to inclusion for lbtq+ peeps? I've never felt as validated with my identity and sexuality when playing a game and I'm seemingly not alone ♥ Second, and this might be a little too specific, but what kinds of drinks does Cove like as well as dislike? Thank you, you're the best ♥

Thank you for very much! It’s really nice to hear the game felt inclusive. Cove likes regular water and fruit juices/smoothies most! He dislikes coffee and cola, and he’s not super into most teas either.

Hi, may i ask what gb patch stands for? Specifically the gb part lol

It stands for my old, silly username I used in places like Neopets as a kid, aha. The company name wasn’t super thought out since it was originally just me making VNs as a hobby. Luckily, “GB Patch” kind of seems like it could mean something reasonable, so I didn’t have to rebrand when it did become a more serious, commercial group.

If we chose to not propose to cove in the step 3 dlc would he propose or would the mc propose in step 4 or the wedding dlc? 

Yeah, you or Cove can propose in Step 4 if you’re not already engaged! The Wedding DLC takes place after the engagement so the proposal scenes aren’t there.

will you guys announce if the early access for the new game is out on patreon ? 

When beta builds of Step 4 or whatever start coming out on the Patreon we will mention it here on social media too.

Heyy I just had a quick question about Baxter if that’s okay :)?

I saw in an ask+answer that it’s possible to casually date Baxter In step 3, but what leads up to that? I have the step 3 dlc and I’ve tried playing them In a different orders and ways but it doesn’t seem to get anywhere ^^;

The Step 3 DLC is Cove-based because he’s the default guy. There’s a separate Baxter romance DLC that’s not out yet. That’s where you can get him to date you. I’m sorry for the confusion!

Will we ever get any LI's or side characters with physical disabilities or deformities? I think your games would be a great place to have them in since they're always so accepting and safe! 

Yeah, we do hope to have representation for that in future projects ^^. Thank you for the confidence in us.

Is it possible to get Cove to take the bed and MC to sleep on the floor? 

Not in Step 3, I’m afraid.

So, I have played the prologue of Our Life countless times and I haven't gotten the [Your Life] achievement, why is that? 

Steam sometimes isn’t connected properly when an achievement unlocks and so it remains locked on your account. If that happens, unfortunately getting the scene again won’t unlock it. The achievement becomes inaccessible because the game thinks you already have it. Playing with the same Steam account on a different device or fully deleting your game data (more than the only the save files) are the only work arounds we’ve found.

Since when you talk with Jeremy in step 3 it's mentioned he goes on dates with someone (which assume is JB because who else would take this boy on dates) that makes him happy, does that sort of make JB and Jeremy the canon relationship in the first game?

The default for XOXO Droplets is that JB casually goes on dates with each of the jerks! Shiloh would’ve been harsher if Jeremy was the only guy getting her attention, haha. But the player can change that default by dating just one person the whole game for their own story and who she ends up with for real has no default.

Hi, hello! Huge OL fan, thank you so much for the wholesome content, it was very much needed during these times. Managed to get several people to join team Cove, so that's very exciting, I always have people to fawn over him with. I have a little question and I'm sorry if it was asked before, but does it ever come up in the game what Cove has told his mom about us? (who knows, with so many options, one can miss it) Or, alternatively, will it come up in the Step 4 DLC? 

Thank you very much for sharing the game with people <3. It’s really great to hear people are liking it. Right now that doesn’t come up in game. Kyra is willing to keep her mouth shut and Cove isn’t gonna have that conversation either. At least not when he’s younger, but yes, perhaps when he’s a fully grown big boy in Step 4 you can ask him about it.

I’ve been thinking about this ever since it has been confirmed that there would be two love interests for OL2, would there be the possibility of forming a polyamorous relationship with both love interests? I’m sorry if you answered this previously, I’m just curious. 

We are considering it, but it’s not a guarantee yet. It’d be really great to have but it’d add so many extra alterations that’d need to made, aha.

Hello! You mentioned how Cove would be uncomfortable with kids at 23, but how old would he be when he’s comfortable with having/adopting kids? (Same goes for the other LI’s.) btw, love your game!! 

He’d want to be at least 25, but even older would be good. Derek would want to have kids when he and his partner could reasonably support them, the age itself wouldn’t matter. If they were doing good at 22 and wanted kids, he’d be up for it. Or they could wait until their 30s or whatever. Baxter is also more of a “when it feels right” guy rather than having a specific age requirement. Cove is just especially wary of being a young parent because of his own parents. I’m happy you like the game!

does step 4 immediately play after you press "end summer" in step 3? or is there another button/transition (like the story text thingy) before the epilogue begins? what happens after the epilogue? roll credits? 😂 

Step 4 will have transition section always and there will be an extra button, if you own the Derek or Baxter DLC. By default the Cove-based version of Step 4 just plays once Step 3 is over. However, having the other guys’ storylines will mean you get to pick which version of Step 4 plays; Cove Step 4 (the basic one), Derek Step 4, or Baxter Step 4.

Happy pride, thank you for all you do for us🥰

I have a quick question though, I recently got a MacBook after my old windows computer broke, and now steam says I cannot download it, but it has no issues with other games, what can I do to download it?? I’m sorry if my English is bad

Happy pride month! Unfortunately, Our Life isn’t available for Mac on Steam right now. To be an approval application Apple requires having special notarization and we as a small group haven’t gotten that. Itch doesn’t care and lets us release the game for Mac there anyway, Steam does care so we’re locked out of putting the Mac build up on their storefront. Feel free to email us and we can try to help the situation out further!

support@gbpatchgames.com

Hello! I was jus wondering if the Baxter and Derek DLCs are still happening? I haven’t heard anything about them on here or patreon in a while so I just wanted to make sure ^^

They’re still coming and we just released a new sprite sketch on the Patreon for the Derek DLC c:. But right now Step 4 is still much more of a priority. Once that’s closer to being done we’ll focus way more on sharing previews for the other guys.

is it possible to tell cove you love him (platonically) at step 3 fondness/selecting him as basically family? i just love the mc and liz sibling interactions and it got me wondering about it (especially if you've selected that option)

You and Cove can be as close as family, but there’s not a specific scene in Step 3 where you say “I love you” in a family context. But there’s always Step 4~

do you intend on ever adding a collectors mode to Our Life? Like a way to collect achievements and CGs for the gallery without it effecting any save files? 

We weren’t considering it before. But if a lot of players would find that helpful, we could start thinking on that!

Sorry if it's a silly question haha, but (in crush/love) is Cove really aware of how cute and cuddly he seems to MC? If so, what does he think or do about it? Or does he just ignore it? 

He isn’t particular aware. Cove never truly stops being surprised that the MC is interested in/attracted to him, haha.

Would you say that the alone ending of xoxo droplets is worth playing again to get? 

Nope, haha. The goal is to make friends/get a boyfriend and so the alone ending is kind of the bad ending for the game. Though there is a consolation prize if you get it by accident.

Is there any possible situation which would ever prompt Pran to bake for his girlfriend? Like I know it's unlikely I mean even if JB broke her leg somehow I'm pretty sure he'd still be like "I considered baking you a cake and doing the frosting the way I think looks interesting but you don't deserve a cake, no one does." right but also ahhh it would be super nice if some day he just surprised her with baked goods one day out of nowhere. JB would be so shocked it would be cute. So is there any possible situation where that could/would be a thing that he would do? 

He might bake out of spite, like if he felt he had to prove her wrong on something. Or if JB used some good reverse psychology on him. Or he might do it in a relatively nice way if he could make his GF so shocked by the kind gesture that his amusement with that overrode his insistence on not being sweet. Pran is very difficult in high school, aha.

Is the "one route (where) it can be seen that Everett will drop his seemingly eternal waging with Jeremy pretty easily and can start getting along without thinking much on it" the Lucas route? I'm curious! 

Yep! Everett will side with Jeremy if it’s between him and Lucas.

Hi I hope you guys are having a great day :) I just had to ask how Cliff would feel about Cove's partner/fiancé Mc calling them dad whether it be accidental or otherwise and secondly I also wanted to ask how he would feel about being asked to be the one to give the mc away at their wedding. 

He would be very touched and excited! I hope you have a good day too :D

Hello! I saw an ask relating to whether Cliff "moves on" after Cove's grown up and stuff (and he stays single), but what about Kyra? Will she be with anyone else or will she stay single? 

She does start dating again, but she takes it slow.

Hi! I absolutely love the art for characters in OL and I wonder is this fine to draw my MC in same drawing style and upload online later? Is this something artists would be okay with? Thank you! 

Yeah, you can certainly do that C:

Hey there!

I wonder if I'm just being stupid here.. Is Step 4 a DLC? And if so, where can I find it? I can't seem to find it on Steam :< Thank you!

Step 4 is a free epilogue! It’s not done yet, but once it is finished you’ll just update your game file and Step 4 will be there after Step 3 ends.

hi! are step 4 and the wedding dlc two different things?

They are. Step 4 is a free epilogue that’ll be a default part of the game once it’s done, the wedding DLC is an optional paid expansion that takes place after Step 4.

Why did Baxter not receive a step 2 sprite seeing how he shows up later

Sprites are time consuming to draw and take money out of the budget that could’ve gone to other things. His tiny appearance in Step 2 wasn’t worth all the effort to make a sprite, aha.

I just realized, what happens if if you get the patreon exclusive moment but at a later date, when you don't have the membership anymore, it's updated (like a bugs fix update for example)? Would you have to get the membership again? 

You would have to get the membership again to redownload the build. But there’s very little chance there’s going to be an update once it’s been out for over a month. If a build gets released with errors, players catch/report them within the first few days. So by the time the first subscription period ends, any problems that were noticeable would already have been fixed. And we’re certainly not gonna be adding new content to it once it’s been released for a long time. There’s no need to worry about missing out on something worthwhile in the future if you cancel your membership. It’s being made with the idea in mind that many players are gonna be getting it and then going.

Hello! Wanted to ask about gaming choice in step 3? Once upon a playthorugh I got the option to buy Cove a bracelet for his graduation present. I played the same basic character again and that option wasn't there anymore. I'm not sure where I went wrong. My Cove wears a bracelet on each hand and my MC is into fashion and jewelry. Do I need to put an earring on him or? Sorry, love your game so much. 

He also needs to have liked bracelets in Step 2 for that to be considered a good gift option for him. Sorry for the confusion! I’m happy you love the game :)

Is Step 4 being released at the same time as the Wedding DLC or will the first come before the latter? Thank you! 

I’m not sure. Ideally they’ll come out at the same time, but the wedding DLC has a lot of art to get done and we may have to release it after Step 4.

Can mc still get confession from Cove at the end of step 3 even if mc casually dates Baxter in step 3? Such as in crush mode? 

I don’t think so. Maybe that’ll change, but generally there’s differences to the Step 3 ending if you were dating Baxter and those differences likely will conflict with getting the Cove confession.

For the patreon moments/dlcs, will it be available for all tiers? 

It’ll be available for tier 2 (Fans) and up!

[l-a-l-o-u]

ohh i haven’t done one of these in ages!! @sabertoothwalrus​ (check her out, gr8 content) tagged me in this art thing

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 8 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome work!  

1 - Korra with Raava staff

this was super fun to finally draw!! i had this idea of an AU where benders use staffs to control their element over 3 years ago (i think) and its great to finally see it beyond random doodles i did in class back then. i really want to design some other staffs too at some point!

2 - Just some gays in a field

This might be the only thing I posted this year that wasn’t fanart... I rarely get motivated to draw original stuff but I somehow finished this one. yeehaw

3 - BoTW Midna

a little before Age of Calamity came out, i started a new BoTW file and as i was replaying & thinking about the Lore, i kept thinking about the love of my life, Midna Twilight Princess..... and for like a week i was obsessed with the idea of a Midna reincarnation showing up in the sequel. my Midzel loving ass immediately shipped this dumbass teen version with Zelda, of course,

4 - My tabaxi child

I started playing D&D regularly this year!! it’s one of my favorite things about 2020!! i absolutely love this character too, druid is my favorite class so far and playing an impolite 13 year old with a bad french accent is SO funny. every other player immediately adopts them its great

5 - The background map & front page art for the Critical Role Wiki

I finished catching up to all of CR earlier this year, and since i had a tendency to zone out and miss stuff, i would look up a ton of stuff on the wiki, and i always thought it looked so bland! it was still using the default theme and i thought it deserved something nicer. so i decided i would just Do That Myself! and since then i started editing the wiki super regularly, it’s one of my main hobbies now (ranked 19th out of the wiki editors babey)

the map i can’t take full credit for, as it’s only a traced version of this map. the original wasn’t big enough to fit the wiki, so i thought, why don’t i just. ya know. trace over the entire thing by hand. that way i could also decide on the colors and font, etc (plus i love drawing lots of lil tedious details). later on i also made this graphic to put on the front page! both of these had to be WAY downsized to fit the wiki formatting but at least i can share the full size files on here

6 - “Human” Raava 

idk who remembers but I used to be OBSESSED with the AU where Raava looked like a human, and became younger as she lost power. i suddenly wanted to redraw the concept after all this time and reworked my old design a bit. twas fun

7 - The unfinished Pearl/Rose comic

in the end I only colored this single panel, but i did post the first 8 pages (which is as far as i got) of an old comic idea from over a year ago. its kinda crazy how hard it is for me to post unfinished stuff.. but in the end i’m glad i did. its very validating to read the tags on that post and see how many people got mad/sad after reading it hehehe

8 - Mighty Nein redesigns

i started this series of character sheets almost exactly one year ago! so far i only finished Jester and Beauregard (altho i need to update with her winter outfit), but i’m actually nearly done with Caleb, idk why i haven’t posted it yet... in my heart i believe that one day i’ll finish them all. but that might be 5 years from now. special shoutout to all the other CR art i made this year!! i actually got featured in the slideshow a couple times which is pretty unreal

Honorable mention -  New Nameless designs

this is the only one i posted, but i actually spent quite a bit of time this year developping a webcomic idea. i made a good amount of concept art and wrote a lot about it. it still feels way too ambitious for me to consider starting the webcomic any time soon (i want to make at least one other comic before) but the idea really grew this year!! anyway this is Nameless and her funky animal companion, they are travelling around a fantasy continent and uncovering mysterious lore

im blanking on who to tag uhhh @officialrocketjumper​, @cadetheespeon​ and @butchlinkle​

[btssaysstudy]

Cheap Sunglasses || jjk

Pairing: Jeon Jungkook (BTS) x reader

Note: Inspired by cheap sunglasses by John K || do let me know if you liked it :)

Summary: Being a teaching assistant for college definitely has it monetary perks but who knew it had other perks in meeting a potential significant other.

Warnings: swearing, mentions of injury (not the reader), angst, jungkook being an annoying player at times, mentions of over-exhaustion from schoolwork

“Thanks y/n!” Mingyu grinned, reaching out for a fist bump. You laughed, returning the gesture. “No problem, just doing my job.” 

“I’ll treat you for a meal soon, you can count on it! I’ll see you around!” He gave you a quick side hug before leaving the lecture hall. You got up from your seat, packing your belongings to head off for lunch. 

“y/n! Could you help me compile the outline for the chapters to read for the semester?” Your professor approached you, handing you the list of chapters that class had to read. “Sure, when do you need it by?”

“Preferably by the end of this week? No rush! As long as it’s before midterms.”

“Okay, sure!” You glanced at the list, it was the same reading list as last semester, you just had to use your own outline for this semester. You smiled, thankful that nothing much changed with the syllabus so you had less work to do as a teaching assistant.

Your professor thanked you and left the hall. “You know, one definite perk of being a TA is tutoring hot students. Mingyu was definitely hitting on you.”

“No he’s not. We’re friends, I already met him for one of my classes last semester.”

“Mm, yea don’t believe you. Anyway, let’s hurry go, I’m starving.” Sooyoung rubbed her stomach and you grabbed your bag, leaving the hall with your friends. 

One definite perk, which was not what Sooyoung said, of being a TA was that you get paid and you definitely needed the money. It was tough to juggle being a TA at first and you weren’t sure if you were cut out for it, but 2 semesters later, you’ve been a TA every semester and it’s become a part of your schedule.

“Chan-mi!” A loud bright voice called out for other friend. The three of you stopped, turning around to find the boy who was dubbed as the “sunshine” of your college.

“Yes?” Chan-mi clearly unfazed by his loudness. Hoseok grinned, saying a brief hello to you and Sooyoung. “Our club manager just texted me that we have an upcoming gig. Just a little insider info for you, you’re on the performing team.”

Chan-mi nodded her head with a short laugh, “He texted me too actually.”

“What?! I thought i’ll be the good news bearer.” Hoseok pouted, his group approached him, patting him on the shoulder to rush him for lunch.

“I’ll see you at next practice then!” Chan-mi waved goodbye as he was being dragged away by his friends.

His friends. That group.

That group was popular and they knew it. They don’t seem to bask in it but they would slip some of the times — easily charming people to get what they need, having girls praying that they’ll become their girlfriends. It was no surprise that they have quite a list of girls they dated.

Despite the list,their reputation wasn’t that bad. They would make it clear to the girls they take out on dates — that they’re not looking to commit. You figured it was the least they could to do the poor girls who were pining for them, laying out the facts immediately.

“So what are we eating? I’m about to die any second.” Sooyoung grumbled once more.

—

“If you’d like to book my TA, I’ve sent you an email with a google sheet for you to find a slot. She’s a popular one so better book a slot asap if you need her help.” Your professor announced to the class, making you feel shy from her comment, your eyes glued to your screen as you felt the stares.

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t know that you were a popular TA. You did put in the effort to help others since you were being paid after all, so, you did deserve the credit.

Throughout class, you could do your own things since you didn’t need to pay attention to the lesson. Halfway through the class, you clicked on the google sheet link to see that your upcoming week has been almost fully booked.

‘maybe i need a pay raise’ you thought to yourself, opening your own calendar to update your own schedule. Your eyes landed on a particular name, shocked that he even bothered to book a slot. 

Jeon Jungkook.

You stopped yourself from whipping your head around to find him. He was part of that group and known to be the very athletic one. You guessed you stereotyped him to be those athletes that didn’t care about studies. You felt slightly uneasy, knowing his reputation in college and the girls.

‘It’s okay, it’s just one time slot.’

Once you noted the ones who booked a time slot with you the upcoming week, you contacted each of them to settle the venue & confirm the timing.

We can meet at my place :) - Jungkook

Yea, I’m not entirely comfortable going to a stranger’s place - y/n

Relax, it was a joke. How about near your place? So you don’t have to travel so much. - Jungkook

That works fine, there’s a cafe near mine. I’ll text you the address later. - y/n

Once class ended your two friends rushed to your seat. “So how’s your schedule Ms. Popular?”

“Really busy.”

“I saw the sheet, Jeon Jungkook booked a slot with you? Perks of being a TA is definitely helping cute students.” Sooyoung giggled like a little pre-teen girl.

“You don’t even need to be a TA to get cute guys, you have so many admirers.” Chan-mi made a very true remark.

“I’ll admit, you’re not wrong. But y/n’s snagging boys of a different league.”

“Stop idolising them like they’re gods.”

“They’re looks are god-like.” Sooyoung countered.

“You’re unbelievable.”

—

“Hey,” someone tapped your shoulder, taking out your earpiece to greet Jungkook. “Hey.”

He was dressed in a typical tired college student, in grey sweats and a black hoodie. Yet, you had to admit he looked cute in them.

“Sorry, did I make you wait long?”

“Oh no, I just came early to make sure we get a good spot. Not too near the rest of the customers.”

“I see you want a little privacy.” Jungkook grinned cheekily, clearly implying something else. You raised a questioning eyebrow at him, “Sorry, just kidding.” He quickly apologised, taking the seat opposite you.

“Anyway, we can just begin immediately. Do you have any questions?”

Jungkook nodded his head, taking out his laptop. “I do actually. Quite a long list if you don’t mind.”

“Well you have me for an hour. Go ahead.” 

Throughout the 2 hours, you realised you really stereotyped him a great amount. You assumed he barely paid attention in class but he did — he even had a list of questions to ask. You honestly enjoyed helping these type of people the most, those that made their own effort to help themselves. 

“You know,” Jungkook spoke, coming back from ordering his drink. “For the past hour and a half, I gotta admit, I stereotyped you to be a super uptight and socially awkward person. Then again, having to help tutor a lot of people would need social skills as well.” 

With a chuckle, you shrugged your shoulders, “I stereotyped you too, so I guess we’re both guilty.”

Curious, Jungkook rested his weight on his arms as he leaned closer to you, “Oh really? What did you stereotype me as then?” A playful smirk clearly threatening to appear on his lips. 

“A dumb jock.” You mischievously grinned back at him, his smile dropped, clearly not expecting that answer. It felt good to bruise that ego of his, even if it was just a split second. “Since I’m asking you to tutor me, I’m not gonna argue that.” He leaned back, regaining his composure and confidence.

You could feel his entire presence exuding with confidence, though he did have something to be confident about. In fact, he had a few things to be confident about - athletically gifted, popular and handsome. Anyone would call you a liar if you said you didn’t think he was handsome. 

“If you don’t have anymore questions, we can wrap this up now.”

Jungkook nodded his head, “Thanks for helping me. Appreciate it.” He reached out his hand, offering a handshake. “A handshake?”

“Are you afraid of a little physical contact?” He teased.

Rolling your eyes, you reached out to give him a firm shake. “Glad I could help you.” He gave you a cute bunny smile, grabbing his things and leaving you behind in the cafe. You stayed for a few more minutes before heading back to your place to prepare dinner for your guests.

Cooking always seemed to make time pass by quickly because before you even realised, your friends were spamming your doorbell, rushing you to let them in. “How was he?” Sooyoung questioned the moment she entered your house. 

“I had a good day thank you.” You sarcastically replied, grabbing a cup for them. “He was alright, he actually came prepared with questions.”

“That’s surprising. I honestly thought he booked a slot just to flirt with you.” Chan-mi commented as she helped you set up the dining table. “Come on, he wouldn’t waste his time on me.”

“Why not? You’re a great catch.” Sooyoung argued.

“Pretty sure I give off the vibe of “date to settle” and not “date for the fun”. So obviously, he won’t even bother.” 

“Mm, you do have a point for that.”

“Anyway, enough about my tutees, let’s just enjoy girls night.” You raised your shot glass of soju, Sooyoung grinned excitedly, “Cheers to us”

-

As every week’s slot was released in the online sheet, Jungkook was always one of the first few to book. You couldn’t help but be surprised every time you saw his name on the schedule. 

“So you picked up the sport by accident?” You clarified again as you took another sip. Jungkook nodded his head, leaning back into his chair. “Seokjin was the one who wanted to learn it, he dragged me to the trial class and the rest was history. He takes credit for it.” He laughed, a reminiscing look on his face.

“From your stories, you guys seem like brothers.” You watched an endearing smile creep onto his face, “They really do seem like it.”

His phone started vibrating and he checked the caller ID before sighing, silencing the call. You furrowed your eyebrows together, “What’s with that annoyed look?”

Jungkook shook his head, running his fingers through his hair, “Nothing much, just someone I went out with a week ago.”

“Trouble in paradise?” You joked.

“There’s no paradise. It was just a date, nothing more to it.” He nonchalantly dismissed it. You felt a bit offended of how casual he was treating their feelings. “If you don’t want to, you don’t have to go out with them, you know? You’re just giving them false hope.”

Jungkook sat upright, “That’s not true. I clearly tell them that I don’t mind going out on a date but that’s nothing. Nothing more than a date out. So it’s on them for still going for it.”

You sighed, “But you already know these people are dating you and hoping that they’ll be the one who will change your mind about the idea of commitment.” Jungkook shrugged, “Maybe that’ll happen one day.”

Narrowing your eyes at the boy in front you, you wondered if that was what he had been secretly hoping for whenever he went out with these girls. “Do you want that to happen? Is that why you’re more than glad to go out on dates?”

He didn’t answer immediately, staring at you as if he was thinking of a reply. Clearing his throat he adjusted his sitting position, “I didn’t say that. I just said maybe it’ll happen.”

“Yea but are you hoping for it to happen?”

Jungkook casted a soft glare, “Okay enough about my love life. How about you? Aren’t you single as well?”

You leaned back, nodding your head, “Yea, what about it?”

“Well, why aren’t you attached?”

Pressing your lips into a thin line as you thought carefully of your answer. “Unlike you, I date to settle.” Jungkook jutted out his bottom lip, internalising your reply as he nodded his head in response. “Interesting. You’ll probably click well with Jimin.”

“Your friend Jimin?”

“Yea, he has the same thought as you. Always nagging at me about the same thing you just did.” Jungkook chuckled to himself, shaking his head as he recalled the countless times Jimin was talking about Jungkook’s active love life. 

“He’s right you know… Doesn’t it get lonely always meeting different people?”

There was a short pause in the conversation, Jungkook’s eyes shifting away, his gaze fixed on the table. “To be honest, yea. But at the same time it’s what keeps me from feeling lonely. Doesn’t make sense, I know.”

You smiled, “It’s cool, I kinda get it. But after our numerous study sessions together, I’m certain you deserve to be in a good relationship.”

Jungkook shrugged, “Thanks but I don’t think I’m cut out for it.”

Confused, you questioned for an explanation. Jungkook’s eyes wandered around as he thought of a response. The athlete randomly took out his pair of shades. “Are the shades part of your answer or something?”

“It’s cheap.”

“Okay?” Your response sounded for confused, wondering if he was trying to change the topic. If he was, it was a very weird way.

“I buy the cheap ones because I know i’m going to lose them sooner or later. Can’t keep the good ones. That’s how I feel about my love life. Sometimes it feels like I can’t have nice things.”

“Man.” You breathed out, leaning back into your seat. “That’s a great analogy and all but don’t be so bleak. Between the two of us? You’re probably going to be first one who gets into a solid relationship.”

Jungkook chuckled, “Thanks for the faith TA. Do you have the same amount of faith in me for this module?”

You pursed your lips jokingly, “I think you’ll need more consultations for the same level of faith.” Breaking into a chuckle right after and so did Jungkook.

The popular athlete reached out his tattooed hand once again, for a handshake. By then, you were used to this gesture, chuckling as you reached across the table to shake his hands. “Tell you what, let’s take a pause on tutoring. You should meet the rest.”

“The rest as in your group?”

“Yea,” He stood up, throwing his backpack over his shoulder and stuffed his hands in his sweatpants’ pockets. You liked his laid-back look, he always wore that similar style whenever he was meeting you and you assumed it was to get comfortable enough to study. 

“Are you going to keep staring at me?” Jungkook smirked. You rolled your eyes, standing up to get your bag. “Come on, don’t be so mean to me.” He playfully pouted and he looked cute. You felt yourself feel shy just from that, “I am not.”

“Yes you are, you always mock me or insult me. Where’s my compliment?”

You pursed your lips, bringing your finger to your lips as you pretended to ponder. “You’re doing well with this class.” 

Unsatisfied, he grumbled, “That’s not a compliment.”

“Of course it is.” You grinned cheekily at him, patting his shoulders. “But alright, you look cute in sweats.” Even though you clearly sounded nonchalant, your heart was racing from admitting that and you hoped that your face wasn’t getting hot. You kept your composure, and made the first move to leave the cafe. 

You realised that you didn’t know where you were going to meet his friends, “Oh yea, where are we going?” You turned around to see Jungkook still standing in place. He cleared his throat and adjust his bag strap. “R-Right, just follow me.”

You didn’t want to tease him further but you clearly saw a pink hue on his cheeks. “Cute.” You muttered to yourself as he led the way.

—

“You want a snack? My treat, for all the tutoring you’ve been giving me.” 

“Jungkook, you don’t have to—“

“Okay I’ll get you your usual.” He winked at you before heading off to the counter. You smiled to yourself, watching his figure walk away. You continued on your own work as you waited for him to come back. 

Jungkook happily came back as if he won a prize. “Guess who just got free cake? We did!” Jungkook cheered, pushing his stuff aside to make way for the food. “Free cake? Why?”

“So the lady who we always see here apparently owns this place. She’s at the counter today and she randomly gave me this cake for us to celebrate Valentine’s Day.”

Confused, you looked at your calendar. “Oh, it’s Valentine’s Day.” “yea it is, didn’t you know?” “Clearly didn’t.” You shrugged, “But you should’ve told her we’re not together. I feel bad for the free cake.”

“No no, you should feel flattered she called us a cute couple. It means you’re cute.” Jungkook’s body froze for a moment realizing what he had just said. You laughed, “Yea right. Good joke, kook.” 

Jungkook frowned, “I’m not joking. I think you’re cute.”

You pointed your pen in his direction, “You know, when I was young I heard that cute meant adorable but ugly.”

“That’s obviously not what I mean. You’re not ugly, that’s for sure.” Jungkook argued without hesitation. You felt flustered this time, retracting your pen. “T-Thanks, I guess.”

The two of you not only spend weekly 2h sessions together, but also became “study buddies”. Jungkook was unsurprisingly super concentrated whenever he started studying. You realised it was his character to always give it his all even if it was something he wasn’t too fond of — like studying. You also noticed his eyebrows would furrow as he tried to comprehend the materials, or sigh and scold himself whenever he found himself stuck. 

He had a lot of endearing habits while studying, you couldn’t help but smile every time you noticed it. 

“It’s Valentine’s Day, why aren’t you on a date today?”

“Because we arranged a study session today.” Jungkook answered as if it was so obvious. 

“It’s just one day of not studying, you could’ve just told me. Plus, I’m sure many girls were hinting you to ask them out.”

“You’re not wrong about that.” He smugly answered and it made you feel a tinge of jealousy that Jungkook saw these girls as “date potential” while you were just his “study buddy”. “Tone down your ego—“

“But I’d rather study with you than go out on a date.”

You found yourself speechless, not knowing how you should be replying to that. Sensing that you were lost for words, Jungkook smiled, “Did I just take your breath away?”

“Shut up.” You snapped out of it, throwing your pen at him.

—

Hey y/n! Sorry i’ll be a bit late later, at the clinic so it might take a while before I’m let off! - jk

Are you sick? We can just reschedule! - y/n

No no! Just sprained my ankle during practice, that’s all! - jk

that’s all?! you’re not traveling today. what’s ur address? i can go over instead - y/n

You bit your lip, wondering if you were overstepping by insisting that and quickly sent another text.

if you’re alright w that of course - y/n

sure i just didn’t want to suggest it in case you weren’t, i’ll text u my address in a bit! - jk

On your way to his place, you felt nervous but you shrugged it off, blaming it on your usual ‘first house visit jitters’ — just like any other time you visited a place for the first time. Or so you told yourself. You ignored that feeling as you rang the doorbell, waiting for the injured athlete to answer the door.

“Hey.” Jungkook greeted you with a smile. You took a good look at his casted ankle, his weight resting on his crutch. A wince crept on your face, “Ouch, looks bad.” 

“Thank you for asking, I feel fine.” 

You stepped in, eyes taking your time to wander around his place. It was cozy, not cluttered as you had assumed. Jungkook pointed to the table placed by the window, well-lit for a good place to study or to wind down and have a meal. “Nice place.”

“Thanks. Didn’t have much time to tidy up the place before you came.”

“It’s alright, looks neat to me.” Your eyes glanced back down to his ankle, “Are you sure you want to have this session today? I feel like you should be resting—“

“You’re already here. I can take a little revision. Don’t underestimate me.” He teased, gently shoving your shoulder. With a light laugh, you nodded and sat down at the table. You watched Jungkook as he tried to find a comfortable position for himself, especially with his injury. Dropping his crutch on the floor, he settled down quickly to begin the session.

“So how do I know which case to use?” 

“It depends on the scenario prof sets for finals. Just a tip, prof loves answers that argues both sides. So, it’s best if you argue with both cases but conclude with which is more relevant or stronger for the scenario.”

Jungkook nodded his head, his bottom lip jutted out once again as he took down your response in his notes. “Thanks, I’m glad I started consultations with you since the beginning of the semester. I would be drowning will all these laws and cases if I didn’t.”

“I’m sure you would’ve managed fine. Your friends are managing well too. Jimin’s pretty good with this module.” You made an off-handed comment about Jimin as you started to pack up your belongings. You failed to catch the slight furrow in his eyebrows and that irritated twitch in the corner of his lip at the mention of Jimin. He knew you two would match well, which he should be happy for Jimin, but instead, he felt annoyed that Jimin was having consultations with you.

He couldn’t help but ask, “He meets you too?”

“Oh yea,” You nodded, your eyes still not meeting his as you scrolled through your schedule, “He meets me lesser than you though, just once a week.”

Just once a week. He repeated your reply. That was enough to get close to you. Hell, he meets you three times a week almost every week. One would question if he really needed that many consultations a week. Jungkook would argue against that, defending that he needed it. But deep down inside, he knew he was lying. 

You thought the same. Chan-mi and Sooyoung would make remarks on why Jungkook needed three sessions a week, hinting that he just wanted to find excuses to meet you. You would deny it every time, saying that he would always come prepared for each session with questions, proving that he really took those sessions seriously. But just like Jungkook, you too had a feeling that it wasn’t true. 

“Anyway, hope your ankle gets better soon. I better give you time to rest.” You checked the time on your phone. Jungkook did the same time, quick to respond, “Do you want to stay for dinner? I’m going to be ordering delivery anyway. You know... With my ankle. You could have dinner before you leave.” He shrugged his shoulders, trying to be casual about it. Jungkook wasn’t sure what was making him particularly nervous to suggest that. He normally wasn’t nervous with his dates. Why was he nervous around you when it was not even a date to begin with?

You contemplated, imagining your schedule in your mind. The pause made him grow nervous, “You don’t have to—“

“I’m down for dinner. My schedule’s not too busy tonight.” You smiled, settling your bag down back on the chair. Jungkook returned an eager grin. “My treat. For coming all the way here to tutor me.”

“Enough with the treats—“

“No negotiations on this one. I really owe you for traveling here, especially on such a last minute notice.” Jungkook shook his head, scrolling through the list of possible food options.

“Alright, thanks kook.” 

That nickname made his lips tug upwards as he tried to fight the smile. “No problem. What do you want to have?”

—

Dinner didn’t take long to arrive, you helped him collect the delivery and set it out on the coffee table. Jungkook had convinced you to watch a movie with him while waiting for dinner. Sinking yourself back onto the couch, the two of you happily enjoyed dinner while watching the movie he had chosen. 

“That’s cute.” You commented as the credits rolled. The movie was a short light one and it helped the both of you de-stress from the upcoming finals season. You really needed that self-care. 

“Thanks for the dinner and movie. I honestly needed it. Haven’t had much time to wind down lately.” 

“Too busy with your consultations?” 

You nodded your head, letting out a long sigh. “Yea, don’t get me wrong. It’s rewarding helping others, especially with the pay. But it’s just during this killer period that makes me regret it.”

Jungkook frowned, sitting upright, “I’m sorry I keep booking you.”

You chuckled, “Don’t be sorry. That is my job anyway. Plus, you’re always prepared for the sessions. I hate sessions when they don’t even know why they booked it. Drives me mad.”

Jungkook hummed, agreeing with you. “That must suck.”

“Yea,” your eyes trailed back down to his ankle once again. “What happened with your ankle anyway?”

“Training today. It’s been tough as well for me. Coach has been increasing the intensity and we don’t really get enough rest with studies as well. I wasn’t in the greatest condition today so I slipped.” 

“Yikes. Hope it heals fast though.” You smiled cheekily, “Do I get to sign it?”

Jungkook laughed, “That’s so childish. No one signs casts anymore.”

“Please? I’ve never done it before!” You pouted, doing your best to convince him to let you vandalize his cast. You didn’t need to do much to convince him, he was willing to give in pretty much from the first time you brought it up. “A-Alright. Just don’t draw a dick or something.”

You hummed, feigning consideration. “I wasn’t planning to but now that you mentioned it...”

He glared, grabbing his throw pillow to toss it at your face. “Don’t you dare.”

“I was kidding.” You laughed, rushing to the table to grab a pen, sitting back down close to him to draw on his cast. 

Don’t flunk my module.

“Done!” You added an “A+” next to it, willing yourself to not draw a heart which you almost did. You pulled away from the cast, looking at your work proudly. Jungkook snorted, “Don’t flunk my module? I won’t. Definitely not after all our sessions together.”

“You better.” You turned to look at him, suddenly aware of how close your faces were next to each other. You watched his gaze drop to your lips before flickering up to meet yours, “May I...?”

You nodded slightly, overcome by the adrenaline and fluttery feeling that was consuming you. You both leaned in, gently kissing each other, making sure you don’t put so much weight against him to avoid hurting his injury. Jungkook’s hand found your waist as he pulled you in, the other cupping your cheek. With your arms snaking around his neck, you both deepened the kiss.

Something in you snapped and made you pull away abruptly. “I-I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have done that.” You quickly got up to take your belongings.

“W-Wait, what do you mean—“ Jungkook called after you, struggling to get up fast with his crutch.

“You’re just going to end whatever we’ll have if we try. We’re looking for different things remember?” You rubbed the nape of your neck, “L-Look, could we just pretend this didn’t happen? I don’t want anything to be awkward between us.”

“W-Wait but...” Jungkook sighed, noting how resolute you were with your suggestion. “If that’s what you want.”

“Thanks Jungkook... Anyway, I should probably go. Get well soon.” You shifted your bag on your shoulder and sent yourself out the door.

After that incident, your schedule you had planned went down the drain. Your brain was foggy and your focus out the window the entire night as you kept thinking about that kiss. How it felt and how happy you felt. But you also reminded yourself that Jungkook was not looking to settle and you didn’t want to put yourself through that. 

You just hoped things would be the same after that day.

—

I’m guessing the usual cafe? :) - jk

Where else would we go? - y/n

Maybe my place? - jk

Good try - y/n

Worth a shot - jk

You couldn’t help but smile to yourself every time you conversed with him. Your usual 2h slot with him would drag on if you didn’t have anything that day. It wouldn’t drag on because of questions, you two would just be talking and enjoying each other’s presence. Ever since you met his friends, you met him more outside your 2h slot with him. Though, it was always off-campus. 

The incident at his place was as if it didn’t even happen. As if it was just a wet dream of Jungkook. You were thankful he stuck to the agreement and acted as if nothing happened. However, a part of you felt that it was the wrong move. 

You look great today btw - jk

But that doesn’t mean you look bad on other days - jk

Just extra great today - jk

Feeling that familiar fluttery feeling in your heart, you chose to ignore the message, promptly closing your chat. You reminded yourself about their reputation with relationships, they weren’t into a serious commitment. You didn’t want to waste your own time either. For some reason you could feel someone staring at you and you could bet anyone 10 bucks that it was Jungkook. 

After that moment, class went by fast and it was finally time for lunch. “Y/n! Do you want to grab lunch sometime this week? I promised I’ll be treating.” Mingyu flashed a very charming smile that made you smile back automatically. Behind him was Sooyoung and Chan-mi approaching you. 

“You really don’t have to treat me, I’m just doing my job—“

“I insist, yn. I still owe you for carrying me on your back last semester for the other class.” He chuckled. “Come on, you pulled your own weight.” You shook your head with a laugh. You glanced at your two friends who were patiently waiting for you and possibly eagerly eavesdropping. Just as you were about to turn away, Jungkook’s group walked behind them.

You could’ve sworn that you made eye contact when you gave him a smile to which he coldly ignored, looking away and leaving the hall with his friends.

“We can go for lunch but you’re not treating me.”

Mingyu reached out to pat your shoulder, “We’ll see! I’ll get you again soon!” He winked at you and headed off. Your two giddy best friends reached out to pull you along with them. “Is that a date?”

“N-No it’s not!”

“Why are you stuttering?” Chan-mi teased, poking your sides. You took a few steps in front of them, turning around to face them as you walked backwards. “I swear it’s not a date. We’re just friends.”

“Alright, alright, now walk properly before you hurt yourself Miss-I-have-a-date-with-Mingyu.” Sooyoung turned you around by your shoulders. Just as she strongly whipped you around, your eyes met with Jungkook’s.

Your mouth opened to say hi but nothing happened when he once again, looked away, not acknowledging your presence. “Hey y/n!” Jimin happily greeted you, pulling you in for a hug. “Thanks for tutoring me yesterday.”

“No problem, just doing my job.” You grinned at him but your thoughts still on Jungkook ignoring you.

Jimin chuckled, ruffling your hair, “You’re cute when you’re humble. Anyway, see you around!” You said bye to the others, noting that Jungkook didn’t say a single word to you. It was as if you weren’t right in front of you and you felt offended.

“Did something happen between you and Jungkook?” 

“No, nothing happened.” You denied as the memory of the kiss flashed in your mind.

“Are you sure?” Chan-mi questioned and you sighed. “Sorry, can we not talk about him? Let’s just have lunch.”

You didn’t notice your two friends sharing a look before collectively agreeing to drop the topic.

—

“Hey.”

“You’re late.” You commented, staring at your screen as you continued your assignment. “Yea sorry, I was on a date with someone and it kinda over ran.”

Oh. A date with someone. “O-Oh, how did it go?”

“Pretty well.” Jungkook took a sit, taking out his laptop, ready to fire his questions. “That’s good!” you sounded happy for him. You weren’t sure if your eyes were just trying to make you feel better but it was as if Jungkook seemed disappointed with your reply, as if he was hoping for a different reaction. 

“Yea... Anyway, I don’t have much questions today so it should be a fast one. If you want, we could go get an early dinner?”

“I don’t think I can... I have quite a lot of things to do today.” 

“Oh... That’s cool.”

Moving on from the topic, you two went through the questions he had smoothly though there was something nagging at the back of your mind. Why was he so cold towards you that day? Why is he acting as if he wasn’t being such a dick towards you that day? 

“You good?”

“Hmm?” You glanced up to see genuine concerned eyes that made your heart flutter once again. “Y-Yea I’m good.”

“You sure? You seem quite out of it today. Are you unwell? Is something bothering you?”

You shook your head, getting frustrated. “Why were you ignoring me today in school?”

“W-What?” Jungkook pulled away, taken aback by your question. You sighed, “You know what I’m talking about.”

Jungkook shook his head, “I was just having a bad morning.”

“A bad morning.” You scoffed, “Right, so a bad morning would make you ignore my entire presence. I’ll take mental note of that.” Jungkook himself got annoyed, crossing his arms as he countered, “You didn’t seem to care about anyone else either when you were chatting up with Mingyu. Didn’t think my moody morning would even be noticed by you.”

You blinked a couple times, processing what he had just said. “W-What? I was just talking with him. Why are you even bringing this up?”

He didn’t answer this time, sighing as he packed his laptop in his bag. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this.” Jungkook got up and so did you. “You can’t do this? Are you jealous or something?”

“What? Of course not.” Jungkook frustratedly ruffled his hair. Not wanting to cause a scene at the cafe, you took your own stuff, chuckling dryly to yourself. “Well, you need to sort out whatever shit’s going on with you. I’m not here to guess how you’re feeling.”

“You’re not here to guess?” Jungkook whisper-yelled. “You were the one who suggested to ignore what happened. I’m here trying to keep my shit together because of that.”

“Jungkook, look. Let’s not talk about it here. Can we just drop it please?” ”Whatever.”

You walked away, not looking back to see Jungkook’s regretful look on his face.

—

Jungkook didn’t contact you after that day and you didn’t want to contact him either. Jimin, on the other hand, was trying to find out what happened between the two of you. 

“He always shuts the conversation down the moment one of us brings you up.” 

You sighed, “Nothing serious happened.”

“If that’s true, you guys wouldn’t be ignoring each other like the plague again. I had to lie to him about where I am today.”

A part of you, admittedly, would want Jungkook to reach out to you to just come clean about snapping at you the other day. You couldn’t understand how he could go on a date and then get pissed that you were talking to Mingyu. 

“You shouldn’t have lied to him.”

“It’s nothing.” Jimin shook his head, “What really happened between you two?”

Defeated, you told Jimin what happened that day at the cafe. “You two are just plain stupid. That poor boy likes you. You like him. Case solved.”

“If that’s true, he wouldn’t have gone on a date right before meeting me.”

“Yes, I agree that part’s fucked up. He just sucks at admitting his feelings to himself. Don’t worry, I’ll sort him out for you.” Jimin draped his arms around your shoulder, “you can count on me to give him a good nagging.”

“Thanks Jimin but you don’t have to do that—“

“Jimin? Y/N?”

The two of you turned around, Jimin immediately retracting his arm when you saw Jungkook standing right behind you. “Oh Kook!”

“I thought you said you’re meeting your Tinder date.”

“R-Right about that—“

“No, forget it, it’s clear who’s your Tinder date. Enjoy.” Jungkook shut him down and walked pass the both of you. Jimin sighed, “Looks like it’s time for me to fix this mess.”

“I think he’ll beat you up if you go after him. I’ll talk to him. You’re right, we need to talk.” Jimin gave you an encouraging smile, patting your shoulders, “Good luck.”

You needed that.

You hurriedly followed after him, calling out to him to stop and wait for you. It wasn’t that hard to catch up to him with his injury as well. 

Jungkook looked hurt and cold, as if he was building up his wall against you. “We weren’t on a date. Jimin didn’t want to tell you that he’s meeting me because apparently you get pissed every time you hear my name. I swear.”

“You don’t need to explain anything—“

“Yea of course I don’t, because I should just leave it to you to make wild assumptions every time some shit happens. I don’t get it. One moment, I think you may like me and the next moment you’re out on a date with someone else. Just tell me what is it and we can stop having this misunderstanding.”

Jungkook ruffled his hair, looking around the campus. “Can we talk somewhere else? And not here in public?”

You gestured with your hands, asking him to lead the way. Jungkook led you to a more secluded area, not too far away from where you bumped into him. You both couldn’t take walking together without clearing things up. 

Jungkook didn’t waste any time, immediately diving straight into it. “I do like you. Hell, there’s nothing to even doubt especially after that night. I wanted to kiss you for so long. I never admitted that to myself until that very moment. But then you said you wanted to drop everything and I thought it was just in the heat of the moment for you so I agreed. I rather be friends than back to strangers.” Jungkook breathed, taking a short pause, “But then I see you with Mingyu, with Jimin, and I know these men are your type. The ones that settle down with the right partner. The ones that don’t go on many dates. But that’s been me. So i figured you regretted it when you said that i didn’t want the same things you wanted. But fuck, i want to settle down with you. Take things slow, see where the future takes us. Three sessions with you was over the top for my studies but I did it because I love our time together. I love studying with you, going off topic and talking about other things. I love teasing you just to see your reaction because it makes me smile. I love it when you tease me back just to annoy me. You annoy me but I love it.” He sighed, looking at the floor before meeting your watery eyes.

“But I know I’m not the type of guy you’re looking for. You made it clear yourself that night when you asked to drop it. So there. That’s why I went on that date before meeting you. Because I was so nervous about seeing your face, I needed to get my mind off of you. I admit, I’m sorry for doing that because that just further proves your point about me.” He trailed off, as the realization sinks in of how he had just fucked up his own chances of being with you.

You didn’t bother interrupting him at all, your heart pounding loudly against your chest as you took in every single word he said. Your brain and heart having a civil war with each other. Not knowing what should your next move be. 

“I’m guessing silence means I’m right.” He spoke after receiving no response from you. “I’ll see you around. Take care of yourself.” He gave a pained smile as he headed off back to his place.

Your knees felt weak as you leaned back against the wall that was hiding the both of you from the others. Your hand brought up to your heart. 

What were you going to do?

With a heavy heart, you made your way back to your place. As you settled your dinner, you aimlessly browsed through the shows on Netflix as Your mind was busy thinking about Jungkook’s confession. 

Why didn’t you go after him? Why didn’t you say anything? Were you scared that it was all words? Were you scared of ruining the friendship you two had established? What was stopping you from doing what you wanted?

You knew you couldn’t leave things there. You had to do something before you regret. You liked Jungkook. A lot. You were willing to take the risk with him. Just as he was as willing to prove to you that he’s serious. 

You reached out for your phone and key, making your way out the door and to where you needed to be.

Once you had arrived, you were knocking on the door profusely, “Jungkook!” You called out.

The door opened, “W-What are you doing here—“

“I like you too. You’re wrong. I don’t regret that night. I regret saying that we should forget about it. Because i couldn’t. I didn’t. I thought about it everyday. I’m willing to take things slow with you if you’re willing. I don’t want to regret this as well.”

The smile on his face grew as you admitted your own feelings to him, Jungkook pulling you in with his free hand as the other still held on to his clutch.

“I mean it as well. I have zero intentions to play around with you. I’m serious and I’ll prove it. I’m not going to lose you, you’re not cheap sunglasses to me.”

“I trust you.” You said with a laugh, recalling his metaphor as his grin only grew wider. “You just made me a really happy man.”

“Really? I couldn’t tell with that wide grin on your face.”

“You’re annoying.” Jungkook said with no malice in his tone as he leaned in for a kiss. Both of you had been wanting to do that again ever since that incident. Your leg kicking the door shut as you pulled yourself closer to him. 

“I could get used to this.” You smiled as you pulled away. 

“Well, you should. I’m going to be kissing you for a long time.”

[limitlessgojo]

Blood Bound: Blackened Bond (Ch 17)

Warnings: Action, Coarse Language, Fighting, Descriptions of Blood, Death, Gore, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Japanese Mythical Folklore, No Major Character Death, !Character Suicide!

Previous Chapter: Non-Standard

Next Chapter: 百鬼夜行 - Hyakki Yakou

Word Count: 3k

Tags: Kamo Noritoshi x Reader, Soulmates AU, Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Fem!Reader

Taglist: @lessie-oxj @rizzo-nero @whoreuc @fkngkumiko @isl3t @gojoussunglasses @onepotatostand-blog @s-t-f-u-b-i-t-c-h @sunaswife @lordguameow @track5enthusiast @nayydoesthings @a1hina

Notes: If you want to be tagged for every update, and specify if you're okay with NSFW posts or not, please mention it in the comments below ty ❤

Extra Notes: PLEASE CHECK THE TAGS!!! This is one very loaded Chapter. Some might get triggered over the graphic depictions of violence. This is close to a bit of gore.

Chapter 17: Inferno: Flames of Hell

You wake up in the infirmary. Hiroki had healed you beforehand. You abruptly sat up, looking around the room, before finding him, cleaning some medical tools. “Thanks Niichan.” He smiled as he came over to hug you and messed up your hair.

“It’s okay. I didn't think Satoru would push you this hard. He’s a good teacher for you, much as I hate to call him a good teacher. Did you consider going to Tokyo Jujutsu Tech instead? You could’ve gone ya know, we wouldn’t hold you back.”

You mulled it over. “I think I’m staying here. I’ve settled in and everyone around me is amazing. They’re like a second family to me.”

He smiled before looking a bit annoyed. “Yeah well, glad you like them at least. Someone’s been waiting all this time for you. Rude if I don’t let him see ya, right sis?”

Hiroki walked over to the door and opened it, revealing Noritoshi with one hand up as if to knock.

Your mouth opened and closed.

“Y/n.” He was still so determined. What makes him have so much faith in you? You looked back to Hiroki, but he only gave you his trademark "Get your shit together" look and waved you off.

You walked up to Noritoshi by the doorway, and he stood back to let you through. You both ended walking quietly side by side in the hallway.

Noritoshi smiled, you didn’t run away from him for once.

"Y/n, can we… talk if you're up for it?" He asked quietly, a small sad smile on his face.

You took a deep breath, turned to face him and were thrown into a vision.

◇◇◇

"They've found us, run for it, love." Hotaru dragged you away from the small inn you were both staying at.

You stumbled after him and ran off. A member of the Abe clan had seen the both of you in the midst of fighting curses at an abandoned shrine. They tried to chase the both of you down, but you both fought back and ran further away until they’ve lost sight of you.

But currently, you are facing a much larger problem. A shadow in the distance. Just the silhouette of the curse was enough to etch despair deep in your bones.

With four large arms, two faces and a gigantic body, Ryomen Sukuna could be identified easily. You grabbed onto Hotaru and tried to push you both forward with your technique.

"Uraume. After them. I've heard rumours about a fated pair. It seems as if they are the ones." Sukuna smirked.

"As you wish." Uraume quickly caught up to the both of you.

They quickly froze your escape path, sealing you both in a circle of ice. Hotaru held you as you activated Inferno to break the ice and continued running. You were both dangerously running low on cursed energy. Especially as Hotaru had just fought over a dozen of curses.

"Hooh?? The woman does have power. I want her." Sukuna's eyes lit up madly. He shot a flaming arrow, forcing you to push Hotaru behind you.

Sukuna focused and slashed both Hotaru from behind. Uraume shot shards of ice towards you, but Hotaru shifted your positions.

You watched in horror as your lover took the attack for you. He was bleeding profusely and even his technique couldn’t help him from anemia.

“No no no no no, stay with me.” You screamed at him.

“Misaki, my love, for you I’d burn down the world, travel across thousands of miles, and kill anyone who tried to hurt you. I love you and I’m sorry we can’t be together much longer.” He teared up while cupping the side of your cheek.

“No, don’t go.” You leaned down to press your lips against his, trying to give him a bit of air. But it wasn’t enough. His hand fell limp and he breathed his last. Kamo Hotaru died in your arms.

"Hotaru, no." You sobbed out painfully, hugging his cold body to your chest.

"The talk of the town huh? You must be the soulmate pair judging by the marks on your hands." Sukuna stepped up with Uraume right behind him.

He was a terrifying sight upclose.

You froze as he knelt down and lifted your chin, "What a beauty you are. I wouldn't mind playing with you for a while and having you all to myself, before eating you up." He licked his lips lavisciously.

"So young, and such soft skin." Sukuna's hand trailed down your cheek and squeezed along the curves of your trembling body.

You never felt more dirty in your life. A man other than your lover, touching you like this. "Be my toy, would you? Your lover is dead after all. Why not humor me?" Sukuna jeered. He didn’t care about your silent sobs, even relishing in how you looked right now.

Utterly destroyed. With a monster claiming he wants you for himself.

He grabbed your chin roughly and forced a kiss on your lips. You snapped out of your shock, feeling your anger overcome your fear.

‘I'd rather die than let him have me.'

And so, you pushed Sukuna and Uraume far away and built a solid air barrier around you and Hotaru.

You thrust a hand out and an oil lamp came flying your way. It broke in front of you. Inferno was activated to spread the flames quickly. 'We are meant to stay together, my love, even if it means death.' You quickly slit your throat with a harsh cut, not wanting to die a slow death in the flames.

You choked out blood as Sukuna came near. He shattered your barrier easily with Dismantle, reaching for you. You panicked. You weren't going to die in time.

And you did the craziest thing you could think of. Activating Niflheim simultaneously with Inferno. Freezing everything around you, except for the still burning flames consuming you and Hotaru.

It didn't help too much. Sukuna produced flames out of his hand, while Uraume easily manipulated the frost.

Lightning shot out of your hands dangerously in your confusion. You don't know what you just did. But it didn't matter. You were quickly losing consciousness.

Crimson splattered onto the ground and over Hotaru’s corpse. You burned past the limits of your cursed energy, releasing bolts of lightning.

Sukuna’s hand reached out and activated his reverse cursed technique on you. “Not so fast.” He looked angry.

He was able to seal the cut, but with the last of your energy, you used Inferno on your body, bursting into flame before Sukuna and Uraume.

They were forced to back away and stared as you and Hotaru both turned to ash, the heat an insane temperature they couldn’t approach.

Sukuna threw his head back and cackled, "The lengths people go to for love. What fools Jujutsu sorcerers are!"

◇◇◇

The vision ends. You and Noritoshi gasp harshly. The hallway is covered in ice.

You slowly realized you unconsciously activated Niflheim. You swiped your palm through the air. All the windows along the hallway simultaneously opened.

The vision was far too vivid.

You covered your throat with your hands as though to stop a wound from opening, remembering how the dagger dragged through your neck bones. The flames felt painful as they ate at your body without your cursed technique protecting you from them.

Noritoshi kneeled down and touched his gut. He felt the poison of Sukuna's slash and Uraume's ice eat his body. After his past soul had died. Hotaru's spirit watched the events transpire from above you. So he was able to see it from a 3rd person's point of view.

How Sukuna had wanted you. How you ended your life for him.

You staggered back from Noritoshi, face as white as a sheet, running for the bathroom with bile rising up your throat.

That vision was eerily reminiscent of how Sora-nee died in your arms. You were on the borderline of hyperventilating.

Noritoshi ran after you, “Wait!”. You stumbled into the girl’s bathroom, opened a cubicle door and vomited everything out into the toilet.

The sounds of retching were loud even from outside. Noritoshi halted in his tracks when he saw that you’ve gone into the ladies room.

Fuck manners. If it was to take care of you, he doesn’t care about being gentlemanly or if he was called a pervert. He rushed in, wrapped his arms around you, pulled back your hair and rubbed soothing circles on your stomach.

You were vomiting pretty hard, to the point where it hurt your abdomen. “My dear angel, shhhh it's okay, I'm here.” You continued heaving and reached back with one hand to push him away. But Noritoshi was incredibly stubborn, not letting go of you.

“Noritoshi I literally smell like shit, please leave.”

“Nope. I don't care. I will take care of you. As your soulmate I’m responsible for you.”

Your eye twitched at that.

Both of you were still trembling from the aftermath of the vision. How terrible and cursed it was, that past life.

You closed the lid, flushed the toilet, then lifted it again. You leaned over with heavy breaths, but it looks like you’re done puking. Noritoshi just sat behind you, his hands stroking your belly, keeping your body warm.

It was nice. But he’s not yours anymore. It was only then you felt something wet on your shoulder. Noritoshi was crying.

“It almost… felt like I just lost you… My darling...” loud hitches of breath echoed in the bathroom.

You froze, not knowing how to comfort him at a time like this. You patted his head, and he leaned into your hand.

Even as you close your eyes, the images keep racing through the back of your eyelids. Flames. Blood. Lightning. Hotaru.

“I need to wash up in the sink.”

Noritoshi gave a soft grunt in reply, arms tightening around your waist. You stood up and half dragged him out of the cubicle. He never lets go. His arm is still around your waist, making you half waddle around the bathroom with him like a penguin with its child.

You brush your teeth with the spare toothbrush Jujutsu High has for its guests and rinse your mouth with several cups of mouthwash, the strong scent of mint hanging in the air. You spat it all out, but you still felt nauseous.

You turned and wiped away his tears with your sleeve. He bent down and tucked you under his chin, breathing in your scent. You were both alive. It was fine.

You pulled back when the door slammed open. It was Momo and Mai.

“......”

“.....”

The four of you had a stare off before realizing Noritoshi wasn’t supposed to be in there.

“Kamo kun, you’re in the wrong bathroom. Have you dumbed down so much you’ve forgotten?” Momo asked with wide eyes.

Mai stared at you and noticed how sick you looked. You just shook your head at her and quickly walked out of the bathroom, shrugging Noritoshi’s hand off of you.

'To hell with all this.', you thought to yourself

◇◇◇

"Wait!"

Noritoshi caught up to you in the hallway, grabbed your hand and turned you around to face him. He stopped caring about where he was.

"I'm never giving up on you. I won't, because I love you and I know that now."

You sniffed hard, tears running down your cheeks. You've had enough of this confusion. If you're being truthful to yourself, you missed him.

You missed Noritoshi and his kind words. His touch and his kisses. His soft bits of encouragement and picnic dates.

You want him back. It was just as Hiroki had said, you were pushing Noritoshi away without giving him a chance to explain himself.

But the vision completely broke you. You pulled your hand away, "Don't touch me. Don't follow me. Don't come near me." You whispered.

Noritoshi swallowed hard. "Why won't you let me explain myself?" But you just shook your head.

"Maybe we weren't what we thought we were." You didn't mean it, but you still forced the words out painfully.

Noritoshi flinched, "Why would you say that? You believed in us. I still believe in us. In you."

You closed your eyes and took a deep breath, "That vision. Why did we have it? We could be dooming ourselves by staying together, Noritoshi, I can't do that to you. Maybe I am cursed to hurt the ones I love."

He scoffed. "Preposterous. They are our past lives, but they aren't us. We are different people with different choices. You’re not cursed Y/N, since when have you become so narrow minded?"

You stiffened. "Maybe I have always been so. I'm just tired of everything now. Plus I need to take down that damn curse, even if it kills me." You spun on your heel.

Something inside Noritoshi snapped. He now understands how it feels to be pushed away like an outsider. He grabbed your wrist, ignoring your angry whispers as he single-handedly dragged you back into his room.

This man was strong. Not even your hardest tugs threw him off balance. He slammed the door shut once you were both inside and you felt a bit shaken, not having any place to run.

"Why are you trying to do this all by yourself?! You may be a Special Grade Sorcerer, but that doesn't mean you're invincible! A war is not won by one person. Can't you trust me?" He hissed.

"Trust you? Trust you?! How about me? Big words from someone who didn't even want to let me meet or know the people he holds dear to him."

This was the most idiotic argument you had in your life. You didn't even mean half the words that you were saying. Just wanting to win a pointless argument you wished never existed in the first place.

"I thought you agreed to speak to me if that was still bothering you. You said we would work things out together." Noritoshi shook your shoulders.

You held your tongue not knowing what else to say. Noritoshi was still so sweet after all this mess. Pulling you into a warm embrace, patting your head as he cries into your shoulder.

"Will you stay with me at least? During the war.”

"Of course." You didn't even think as you agreed. Even Noritoshi looked surprised at your lack of reluctance. "I won't lose you."

You both stood awkwardly there, not knowing what to do. Noritoshi didn't want you to leave yet, wanting to bask a bit more in your presence. His mark cooled down as his hand slipped into yours.

But you stepped and turned away from him, ignoring how his fingers desperately clung onto the hem of your shirt. "I'll go then… Don’t want to intrude... "

"Would you like to stay for dinner and talk?" He called out hopefully.

"Thank you for the offer, but I'll be with Hiro-nii in my room." You purse your lips.

"I love you." He said once more. There was no room for hesitation in his voice.

You paused, temples throbbing heavily from the onset of a headache. Too many thoughts raced through your head and not all of them were good.

"I don't know what you heard the other day, but I will never take in any concubines. You're my one and only, Angel."

You only half believed him right now, his words going in one ear and leaving through the other. ‘People can lie. He is capable of lying.’ your shitty brain just makes every situation sound worse each time. This type of negative line of thinking was so unhealthy.

He must have understood your thoughts.

"My love please," he's begging you now. You turn to him, face full of confusion and hurt. You opened your mouth, and thought better.

This wasn't the best time to run your thoughts.

"I’m sorry for being in a really bad headspace right now. Are you willing to wait for me?" This time it was you who asked him this. Noritoshi studied your face before nodding. “That’s okay. As you have with me, I will do the same with you.”

You sucked a deep breath, eyes watering. “I’m scared.”

“It’s okay to be scared, we are just kids. We aren’t supposed to bear the weight of saving a nation this early on.”

“I don’t want to lose anyone anymore.”

“You won’t. We won’t.”

“I’m sorry for being such a pain. I know we need to talk about all of this, eventually.” You couldn’t help the whimpers that came out of your mouth.

“I love every bit of you. Even if you're like this… No... Because I understand how you feel. You have a right to be angry, because I held back a lot of things from you. But that doesn’t mean I don’t miss you or love you.” He carefully put out a palm facing up, allowing you to make a choice. You slowly put your hand over his.

“For real?” you whispered so quietly, he had to strain his ears to hear you.

“For real. Since when have I lied to you?”

‘Not once.’ you numbly thought.

Who knew a man could be so delicate. He held your hand lightly, not daring to squeeze it. Just a sign of openness and faith. He lowered his head towards you, eyes hooded.

You shivered as his lips brushed against the back of your hand. Soft, warm and plush. Like the first time he kissed you on the cheek. Shaky yet loving.

"Get some rest then, good night." You left the room.

He wondered if you still loved him now. Gone were the nights you soundly slept in his arms. He could barely pull himself together as he readied himself for dinner and bed.

Back in your room, you sobbed into your pillow. It hurts so much, because your faith in Noritoshi isn’t what it used to be. You wish for yourself to trust him like you did before. It’s frustrating.

There are times you wish you never heard that conversation. But that means staying ignorant to his familial affairs which won't do you any good in the long run.

Love is painful. Love feels like you've filled your lungs with water and you can't breathe. Sometimes it's like that icy inhale of the cold morning air on the winter solstice.

But it also keeps you going. The warmth of being in Noritoshi's arms earlier was more than enough to convince you to stay.

Blood Bound: Table of Contents

[thedistrictsleepsalonetonight]

Cupid is stupid (Or Weiss asks a lot of questions and finds love in all the softer places)

Falling in love, Weiss discovers, rather inconveniently in the middle of a fight, is a lot like wielding a weapon.  

There’s the push and the pull, the drawing blood and taking of it. Weiss is rather inclined to think of it as a violent, bloody dance — the way she’s almost constantly tripping over her own feet trying to follow her partner when she has no idea what her next move will be. Then, of course, there’s the fact that whoever she’s dancing with is equally as clumsy as she happens to be, which Ruby definitely is.

“Thank me later,” she quips, after she’s done saving the idiot’s ass for the millionth time in her life. And then it hits her right in the chest, not a Grimm’s blow, not a weapon, and worse that Cinder’s fiery spear that had impaled her a couple days ago — this is affection. Not the kind she feels for Yang or Blake or any of their other friends, it’s the kind that turns her inside out whenever she so much as sees a malevolent force heading towards Ruby. The kind that automatically reaches out to touch Ruby when she’s near, that draws her eyes, unbidden to search her out in a fight.

Ruby catches her a while later, holding onto her hand as she hangs off a moving train, and Weiss can do nothing other than blink back at her — at her bright eyes, and her hair whipping around in the wind. She then proceeds to whisk them both to between two train carriages, in a flurry of red. When Weiss tries to step away, to catch her breath, she finds she’s stuck to the ground, or more accurately, entangled with Ruby. They’ve got their arms wrapped tight around each other, and with every movement, strands of Ruby’s hair land onto her face. Weiss doesn’t know it then, but all of her molecules have indeed just been rearranged. She has a feeling that stupid thing in her chest has been put back together to form Ruby’s name instead.

*****

It’s almost offensive how easily she feels the cold when she’s supposed to be the Ice-Queen. Yang would say something stupid about her not having a thick skin because she grew up in the literal lap of luxury (and she would be right, but that’s beside the point) and Blake would probably punch her in her arm, but thankfully, nobody’s noticed yet. So she stands in the corner of the porch, looking out at the rapidly falling snow outside the creepy house.

“You’re cold,” Ruby murmurs when she sidles up to her.

Of course. Of course Ruby sees. “Everyone’s cold,” Weiss says back.

Ruby shrugs, gently reaches for her hands, her eyes on Weiss’ the entire time. Is this okay, she seems to be asking, and Weiss, helpless, can only nod.  

Ruby covers Weiss’ hands with her own, raises it to her face and like it’s a secret, breathes warm air into their cupped palms. She’s no longer looking right at Weiss, instead focusing her attention onto their hands, and Weiss, like any other time she’s lucky enough to get to stare at Ruby freely, takes this opportunity to do so. The cold in her bones has instead been replaced with warmth — Ruby warmth, the particular shade that she can only find around Ruby — and even the tremendous crash of Qrow and Jaune breaking down the door registers to her as though coming from far, far away.  

Ruby blows one last gust of warm air into their hands before they make their way inside. She doesn’t let go, though. Weiss realizes she didn’t want her to, anyways.

*****

There are around ten people in the house besides the three people who actually live there, and not enough beds. It’s a logistical nightmare.

“Or,” Nora says, smirking in a very wink-wink-nudge-nudge way while she side-eyes Ren, “it’s an opportunity.”

Ren colors, fiddles with his collar until he’s sunk half into it. They’re all polite enough to look away; the sight of Ren, embarrassed is physically painful to witness.

“We’ll — we’ll manage, won’t we?” Ruby pipes up, smiling brightly, and Weiss sees them all smile back in reflex. Sometimes she wonders if she’s the only one Ruby can twist around her little finger — other times she is reminded that she just has that effect on people. Why else would they follow her to the ends of the planet? When Ruby talks, people believe.  

(When Ruby talks, Weiss physically feels her heart careening out of control, skidding into a blind curve with no idea what lying ahead. On and on and on, like Ruby’s running up ahead and Weiss follows, with just her voice for company)  

They end up cramped in two rooms — Maria gets the bed in the guest room, in honor of her being practically a fossil, a fact that gets Yang’s ears boxed when she says it aloud. Oscar, Jaune, Nora and Ren plant mattresses on the free space on the floor and are snoring in fifteen minutes. Qrow claims he won’t sleep much, and finds a rocking chair that he pulls close to the window, and he sits there, swigging rum ominously every once in a while. The rest of them decide to concede the couch in the living room to Ruby, who looks the most exhausted. And when Weiss gets up because she can’t sleep, she sees Blake and Yang snoozing next to each other, their hands loosely held close to Blake’s chest.

“Can’t sleep either, huh?” she hears from somewhere beside her when she goes out to the porch, and whirls around, only to see Terra sitting in the corner. Adrian is perched on her lap, watching the soft snow drizzling outside.

Weiss smiles at her, feeling a little awkward about the entire thing. Shrugs. “Shouldn’t he be.... asleep?” A quick glance at the clock confirms her suspicions. It’s almost one.

Terra chuckles. “He conked out at seven. He wakes up in the middle of the night at least once. This — this helps him go back to sleep. Plus,” she pauses to bend a little and deposit a tiny kiss on top of his tiny head, “it’s one of the few minutes I get to spend with him in the day.”

Weiss thinks of her own childhood, of nightmares and staying up all night terrified, because there was no way, absolutely no way she was allowed to wake her parents up for any reason besides imminent death. The Schnee estate was vast, confusing and filled with entirely too many showpieces no one would ever use, full of winding staircases that lead nowhere close to comfort.  

This house is tiny and full of love. Every dent on the couch talks of tickle fights and places someone was so happy that they bounced their way into almost breaking it; the lower parts of the walls are scribbled over with crayons and blue hearts and stick figures of smiling people. She thinks back to dinner when Oscar and Nora burned whatever pie abomination they were supposed to be baking and then they’d all crammed into that tiny space to try to salvage it, and Weiss could’ve sworn even the tiny gaps between them were overflowing with love.

(This is a house someone would want to walk into at the end of the day. A place of shelter. A home)

“Jaune did mention you, you know?” Terra says, after a while, and Weiss is startled out of her train of thought. “In his letters to Saphron when you kids were at Beacon. He was particularly effusive in his description of you.”

“Oh dear lord,” she says, burying her face in her hands because that phase of her life seems so far, far away now. “I’m so glad he got over it. Not before singing an awful made-up song on his guitar, though.”

Terra laughs, softly, and Weiss notices that Adrian’s fallen asleep against her chest, his head resting on the arm she’s moved awkwardly to brace him.  

“Saph worries about him,” Terra says. “He makes sure to text her updates, but she can tell when he’s left a lot out. He’ll text her something like roadtrip and she knows to translate it to we’re on the run and have no idea where our next meal is coming from. He’s her only brother and kinda the baby of the family. And she.... she frets.”

“And when she worries, you worry,” Weiss completes.

When Terra looks up at her next, it is with all of her emotions plain on her face to see. Weiss reads consternation, affection, helpless desperation and blinding, blinding love before she bites at her lip and wipes it clean. Nods.

Weiss goes back inside a couple of minutes after they do, Adrian’s head hanging off his mother’s shoulder as they make their way to his room. When she walks in, she catches a glimpse of Qrow, snoring with a blanket now thrown across his torso, and movement off the corner of her eye. Oscar gives her a boyish grin, holds up a finger to his lips, before he disappears back to the guest room. She climbs over Yang and Blake, and finds her way, inexplicably, to Ruby’s side.

At some point in the night, Ruby had apparently kicked off her sheets and they now lay half-thrown over her legs. Weiss kneels at her head, looks on. At her impossibly young features, and her mouth that has fallen open, and the few strands of hair that are strewn across her forehead. Weiss wants to kiss the spot where they meet, wants to kiss the tiny freckle just beside her nose, her snoring mouth. She flushes, and balls her hands up into tight, wanting fists.  

When the urge passes (passes in a way that thirst in the desert passes, always there beneath the surface, just pushed back down enough so one can concentrate on more important things), she pulls the sheets up over her body, and tucks the ends, carefully over her shoulders. Her fingers wander, unprompted, to Ruby’s face, where they trace the path of her hair, and brush it away. Once. Twice.

And Ruby stirs beneath her hand, and then is staring at her, wide-eyed. There is no fanfare to how she wakes up, no protracted sigh or stretching. Weiss guesses it’s a product of their on-the-run lives — when there is no time to breathe, one gets used to waking and sleeping easily. In the end there they are, with Weiss kneeling next to Ruby, their faces shrouded in moonlight, staring at each other.

“I’m sorry I woke you up,” she whispers, after a beat. Her hand is still resting on Ruby’s face. When she moves to bring it back, Ruby stirs. Her hand comes up to cover Weiss’, keeping it there.

“It’s okay,” Ruby whispers back, still holding her goddamned hand close to her face. Weiss can feel her breath tripping all over itself, like it’s not sure what to do in such close proximity. It’s almost intimate, she imagines, the both of them with their heads huddled together. If she leaned forward a smidge, their foreheads would touch. A head tilt — and here the thought makes her feel hot all over — and they would be kissing.

(The distance suddenly feels almost awfully unbearable to her)

Ruby’s still staring up at her, her eyes still wide and serious. When it all becomes too much, Weiss moves her hand to cover her eyes.

Ruby’s lips curve up in a sleepy smile. “What?”

“Stop,” she says, flustered, “stop looking at me.”

“But I like looking at you,” Ruby tells her, sounding amused and Weiss is one hundred percent sure she is going to die tonight.

(She doesn’t mean it she doesn’t mean it she doesn’t mean it she doesn’t — then — she means it in a different way than what you’re hoping for so shut up shut up shut up)

“Shut up,” she says, finally, then adds. “Dunce.”

Ruby giggles, then her mouth stretches open into the hugest yawn ever. Weiss laughs, boops her nose, because she simply must.

“Sleep, okay?” she says, one last time. Then, without thinking too much about it, she leans down and presses her lips to Ruby’s forehead.

She’s not sure, but Ruby looks a little like she’s blushing. She blinks a few times, then says: “Now I will.”

Weiss’ mattress is just below the couch. Five minutes after she lies down on it, she feels Ruby’s hand travel down and rest on her head. It is to the continuous motion of her hand through Weiss’ hair that sleep finally takes her when it does.

*****

Winter is all angles and bones. Not just physically, but also in the way she carries herself. She is sharp edges and words that cut easily. Weiss knows it’s not just her — the Schnee family tends to make knives out of people and then set them upon the rest of the world to hurt and maim. Weiss knows that better than anyone else, knows that some blades draw blood unwillingly.  

Also knows that Winter is trying her very best to change.

But her posture is still ramrod straight, refusal to relax written into every single one of her cells. They’ve all split up after their celebration for their newest promotion to Huntsmen and Huntresses: Yang and Blake having disappeared on a trip to explore the city, Ren, Nora and Jaune off to gorge on Atlesian delicacies, and they’d left Oscar practicing sparring with Ruby. Winter had dropped in to invite her out to a celebratory dinner at Atlas’ finest dining establishment, and so here they were, sitting awkwardly in front of each other, eating whatever was on their plates.

Weiss wonders if Winter would die of shock if she dared to reach over and steal one of the dumplings on her plate. The Weiss of two years ago wouldn’t even have entertained the thought.  

Today, she thinks about it maybe five seconds before picking one up and shoving it into her mouth.

Winter’s eyebrows are arched. “You know Father would disapprove of the declination of your table manners.”

“Good thing I don’t care, then,” she replies, flippantly. “Do you?”

Winter rolls her eyes, takes a sip of her wine. “You’re my sister, Weiss. You could take half my liver and I’d only call you a boob. Or something equivalent.”

That’s how Winter Schnee loves. In casual gestures, in standing behind Weiss, ready to sacrifice herself at a moment’s notice. It is not the unwavering, adoring devotion of Yang and Ruby — Yang wouldn’t even entertain the thought of a potential hurt coming her sister’s way, jumping into action to save her before she even asks. Winter, however, needs to make sure Weiss can take care of herself, only hanging back in case things get too dire.

She smacks her hand with the chopsticks when Weiss reaches for another one. “I offered up a liver, you go looking for my heart? Behave, Weiss.”

It makes her laugh.

And it’s this foreign.... ease, for lack of a better word, that has Weiss’ tongue loose enough for her to shoot Hey, Winter, you ever been in love before an hour later, when they’re walking back to the military complex.

Her sister seems to be choking on thin air — she coughs and squawks and makes all sorts of undignified noises, before smacking Weiss on her head to make her stop laughing.

“I’m sorry,” Weiss says, when that hysterical bout is over. “Just wanted to see the look on your face. You don’t, you don’t have to answer that if it’s too personal.”

“Imbecile,” Winter mutters, but she turns to face her anyway. They’re almost at the building that has their apartment, and they stop almost simultaneously, standing in front of each other and trying very hard to avoid looking into each other’s eyes.

Winter hesitates, then speaks again. “Really want to know?”

Oh. Wow. Okay. “Yes,” she nods, trying to look casual about the whole thing.

“Once,” Winter tells her, running her hands through her perfectly coiffed hair in a very uncharacteristic move. “Before I joined the military.”

“And what happened?” Weiss asks, after a prolonged pause.

Winter’s smile is both sad and amused. “Father found out about her. What do you think?”

And she doesn’t know if it’s the easily dropped pronoun, or the way she can still read the utter loneliness in her sister’s eyes, but Weiss finds herself taking a step forward and wrapping Winter up in a hug.  

(Winter is all angles and bones)

And stiff limbs. “What,” her sister says, hesitantly, “Weiss, what are you doing?”

“Hugging you.”

“We don’t do that,” comes the prim response.

“We also don’t steal food off of each other's plates, Winter,” she replies, easily, still acutely conscious of the way Winter is just pressed against her stiffly. “As far as major changes go, I personally wouldn’t mind seeing a lot more of this.”

Winter’s arms come up, finally and hang loosely off her shoulders. As far as hugs go, it’s not the most comfortable one.  

(As far as hugs go, it’s one of the best Weiss has ever had)

And that’s' the moment, she becomes aware of movement from somewhere up high. Winter’s back is facing the building, so she’s in the perfect position to tilt her head up and see—

(What in God’s name?)

Oscar, Jaune, Nora, Ruby, Blake and Yang and crammed into the same window, peeking out at them, and appear to be giggling furiously. Ren, thankfully, seems to have enough dignity to not stoop to the level of these utter pains in her ass.

“What the—”

“Weiss?” Winter asks, still awkwardly hugging her. “Something wrong?”

She laughs. “Depends on what you define as wrong,” she says, and disentangles, so Winter can turn around and see for herself.

“Oh dear.”

A chorus comes sailing from above. “Hi, Officer Winter!” they all say, and then disperse, laughing madly. Only Ruby remains in the end, waving at them shyly.  

Winter, to her utter surprise (and really, it shouldn’t have been. If the evening had taught her anything, it was that she didn’t give her sister enough credit), waves back. When she turns back to Weiss, she’s even smiling a little.

“I like that one,” she tells her, eyes glinting with what Weiss can only define as mirth.

“Everyone likes her,” Weiss replies, shrugging.

“Do you?” Winter’s eyebrows are raised, and Weiss cannot help dropping her gaze, bringing a hand up to rub at the back of her neck. Winter’s hand falls on her hair, ruffles it up a little.  

Her parting words are Be careful, you boob. Weiss pretends not to understand.

*****

Blake and Yang are easy to figure out. Even Weiss, who has a general tendency of being clueless in these matters, can see the way Blake kind of — withers, when Yang isn’t around. There’s a light in her eyes that’s only visible when Yang’s close to her, a subtle confidence in her shoulders that says Yeah, I’m good now. Blake and Yang carry their love in their bodies, always moulding themselves to the other’s relative position. Weiss is sure even they don’t realize it yet, the way they always seem to come together when they’re in the same room, this unconscious meeting of opposite poles that ends in relief. They’re tangled hands, arms resting around shoulders, feet nudging each other, eventually leading up to secret smiles in team meetings.  

Sometimes, Weiss is sick of the whole thing.

Oftentimes, Weiss wants them to be happy so, so much that she fights the urge to push them into a room together for two hours.

“They’ll be back soon, you know?” she tells Blake, who hasn’t moved from the window since they finally made contact with the rest of the team. Blake whirls around, relaxes, then accepts the coffee Weiss is holding out to her.

“Thanks,” Blake says. “I just—”

“I know, I know. You worry.”

“I just,” she says, tugs at her hair with her free hand, “I just, I don’t know how anyone does it. Stay away, I mean, I — it’s like I can’t breathe properly when I don’t see her.”

And Weiss has done it once, a long time ago, although the magnitude of her feelings wasn’t known to her back then. Back when her father had locked her up in an ivory tower and she had no idea what Blake or Yang or Ruby were doing, if they were even alright. But she still stayed up all night, wondering if Ruby was okay, if she had eaten, if she was thinking about Weiss.

She imagines having to leave Ruby for a moment now, and the melancholy that washes over her almost brings her to her knees.

“Some hypocrite you are,” she says, teasing Blake gently, “with all the find yourself schtick you gave Nora earlier.”

She laughs, and Weiss finds herself hoping it’s taken her mind off of Yang for at least a little while.

“I like your brother,” she says, then. “He’s adorable.”

“Can you say that to him, please?” Weiss begs her. “And can I please be in the room when you do so?”

There’s another moment of levity. “Hey,” she starts, frowning a little. “Do you know where he is right now? Haven’t seen either him or my mother after the whole Grimm debacle.”

“I last saw him with Ruby,” Blake says. “I think he’s.... quite taken to her, actually.”

Weiss sighs. “Of course.”

(Ruby is the pied piper, after all. Everyone would follow her to the ends of the planet)

(Weiss? Weiss would walk with her beyond it)

Blake grins at her.

“What?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she says, mischievously. “Seems he’s not the only Schnee who’s quite taken with her.”

(Blake deserves the massive bump running headlong into the glyph Weiss conjures up in the next second. No doubts about that)

*****

The end of the world comes after the night before the end of the world.

Like a protracted moment of utter calm before the cacophony starts, they all comes together, and eventually split up to the places that give them the most peace. Weiss takes a tour of the house once. Her mother’s sleeping on a chair next to Whitley’s bed; Weiss covers her with a blanket before she moves on. Jaune and Oscar are sitting guard over Penny, next to Ren, who has squeezed himself in beside Nora. Yang smiles at her warmly when she comes upon her and Blake in another room. Blake’s fallen asleep with her head resting on Yang’s lap. She wanders around for a little while more, until she finally comes upon Ruby in her bedroom.

“Why is it,” Weiss says, “that most of the time I meet you, I have to tell you to go to sleep?”

Ruby turns, smiles at her, but the smile is fractured in places. Weiss takes a step forward, closer.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“Nothing, nothing, I,” Ruby takes a deep breath, looks around. “I can’t believe you lived here.”

Weiss lets her change the topic. “What’s so unbelievable about that?”

“Just doesn’t look like you, that’s all.”

“That’s because I don’t exactly belong here.”

“Where do you belong then?” Ruby asks, looking right at her.

With you. “With all of you,” she says. It’s true. “Blake and Yang. And Jaune and Nora and Ren and Oscar. And even — that stupid alcoholic uncle of yours. And—”

“—and?” she asks, a lopsided grin on her face.

“And you.”

Ruby sighs, steps forward so they’re in each other’s personal space.  

“Weiss,” she says once, quietly.

Weiss closes her eyes, takes a step forward of her own, blindly, feeling Ruby’s steadying hands on her shoulders, her back, her hair. She feels a hand carefully moving against the scrunchie holding her hair together.

“Can I?”

She nods, feels her hair pulls free. Ruby helps detangle it, the braid, and ends with tender hands, smiles.

“I like your hair,” she says, then makes a soft sound in her throat, urgent, wanting. “Weiss.”

“Yes, Ruby?”

“Weiss, Weiss, Weiss,” Ruby says, again, and now her forehead is tipped against Weiss’.

“What, darling?” Weiss murmurs, and feels Ruby’s shuddering breath in response. There’s a small, desperate kiss pressed to her hair, then her forehead, and amusingly enough, her nose.

“Weiss, I have to tell you—”

“—wait!” she says, not moving. It’s not like she could. A Grimm could be standing in the room right now and it couldn’t draw her away from Ruby. She touches Ruby’s cheek gently, feels Ruby sigh and sink into her palm. “Please — please don’t say what you’re about to.”

(A part of her, the stupid, hopeful part knows what it is and craves it, dreads it, mourns it already)

“And what am I about to say?” Ruby asks, her eyes burning with something Weiss can’t find the words to define.

“Something incriminating, I fear.”

“You fear?”

“Yes. But I also — I hope.”

“Then let me say it,” Ruby implores. She removes her arms from around Weiss, grabs her hands and raises them to her lips. Kisses her knuckles carefully. “Weiss, you know already. You must know.”

“I do, sweetheart, I do,” she says, resting her head against Ruby’s collarbone. The two of them have been circling each other in some dance that Weiss hasn’t been able to pin down yet, have been hurtling, at alarming speeds towards unknown cliffs, and the same way that Ruby has to know that Weiss would split herself end to end for her, that if cut into pieces, Weiss would bleed for her happily, Weiss knows.

(All love is violence. She knows that better than anyone)

“Tell me,” she starts, “tell me when there is peace.”

“But there will never be peace!” Ruby says, and her voice cracks. Weiss raises her hand blindly to press at her cheek and feels the warm moisture sticking there.

She rises on her toes so they’re level again. “There will be.” Weiss would make sure of it. For Yang and Blake, who need time to get their fledgling love off the ground. For Ren and Nora and Jaune who have lost too many friends already. For Oscar, who deserves a chance to grow up and for Qrow, who deserves a chance to feel young again. For Penny and Maria and Pietro and her mother and Whitley and Winter.  

For the girl she loves.

For Ruby.

When they kiss, Weiss thinks she’s shattering into a million pieces, like she would never be the same again, even if reformed into someone who resembles Weiss Schnee on the surface. How could she, with the memory of the movement of Ruby’s lips now imprinted on hers, her fingers tracking indelible marks through her hair — tomorrow, she will remember, a week later, she will remember, if somehow, she couldn’t see Ruby for another thirty years, her skin would remind her, every day.

*****

The end of the world comes before the day after the end of the world.

Weiss wakes up in the woods, empty handed. She wakes up, and thinks of Ren and Nora and Oscar, hopes they got to safety. Of her mom and Whitley and Winter. She thinks of Jaune who tried carrying her to the door. Of Yang who fell infinite miles into the void before Blake fell an equal distance to her knees, of finding Gambol Shroud and trying her very best to gather her courage to honor her teammates best.

Weiss wakes up in the woods, stumbles to her feet, looks around. There’s water to be searched for, and sustenance to be gathered. She’s got a long journey ahead of her, after all.  

Ruby’s waiting for her.

[ibijau]

Counterfeit AU pt6 / On AO3

Meng Yao makes himself useful after losing his job, and discovers something unexpected

Names are funny things, Meng Yao thinks as he stares at the sheet of paper in his hand. 

Funny things indeed.

-

After everything that went down in the Hanshi, it's Beastie that saves Meng Yao from himself.

Left to his own devices, he would have either wallowed in misery, or waste time proving to himself that everything that happened wasn't his fault, the way he knows he's done in other lives. But when he comes home after having his past lives thrown into his face and losing a job he loves, Beastie’s mother corners him just as he puts his key into his lock. Her daughter is on school holiday, she explains, and was supposed to be looked after by a friend with children of a similar age. But one of the children came down with something contagious, so the whole plan fell through, and the poor woman now desperately needs help finding someone to look after her daughter.

She’s not asking for Meng Yao to play the babysitter, but he knows so many people, he has so many connections, maybe he could pull a favour somewhere, help her out again.

“I can take care of her for a few days,” Meng Yao offers without thinking. “I’m jobless as of today.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry! What happened?”

“My employer died,” Meng Yao replies, which is close enough to the truth. He doesn’t think Nie Huaisang will continue using his Shanzi alias after this, and they’ll never meet again. He might as well be dead. “I don’t plan on looking for a new job right away, so I can babysit for a while, it’s no big deal.”

She tries to insist that he doesn’t need to be doing that, but quickly agrees after some reassurance that Meng Yao doesn’t mind. She looks so relieved she could cry as she says she’ll drop Beastie in the morning. Meng Yao smiles, certain that his mother would be proud of him for doing what’s right.

Having Beastie around is definitely the best choice he could have made. She’s a good kid, but she’s also high energy and needs to be entertained, which means he doesn’t get to think too much about how much he misses Nie Huaisang and Lan Xichen. 

They watch movies together, as they’ve always done when he picked her up after school. They go for walks to a nearby park, and once to a museum to look at old armours and swords. He buys Beastie a fake sword, though they agree to keep it at his place, since her mother already despairs that she so strongly favours boy’s toys. In fact, Meng Yao ends up just spoiling that little girl, the way he would have loved someone to do for him when he was her age. He even has Nie Huaisang’s console repaired so she can play on it, instead of selling it as he’d intended.

The video games are a big hit with her. She’s particularly in love with the same game Nie Huaisang spent too many hours on, that weird little terraforming thing which Meng Yao can’t see the appeal of. He liked that it made Nie Huaisang happy. He likes that it also makes Beastie happy, and that she’s very careful not to ruin the work previously put into it, focused instead on maintaining it and planting flowers

“It looks like home,” she explains when Meng Yao asks about that, and lifts the console for him to see.

It doesn’t look like a homely place, he thinks, and more like a military fortress right out of a wuxia drama. But Meng Yao doesn’t get to make that remark, because his phone vibrates, demanding his attention. Beastie, sitting crossed legs on some cushion on the floor, goes back to watering virtual flowers, while Meng Yao checks some news from his bank account. A lump sum has been sent to him, a good deal more than his usual salary, coming from an account registered under a name he doesn’t recognise.

It has been a week since he was fired.

Nie Huaisang kept his promise.

It really is over.

Not that Meng Yao really doubted it. Nie Huaisang has many faults but indecision has never been one, though he’s always been good at pretending otherwise. Once his choice is made he toys with expectations but rarely ever changes his mind.

Rarely, of course, isn’t never. Meng Yao, foolishly, hoped to be one of those few exceptions. 

Those new zeroes on his bank account feel like a divorce, and he never even got a honeymoon. 

That night, Meng Yao allows himself a few hours to wallow in misery, after Beastie went back to her mother. He is only human, and it does feel good to eat take-away in front of a cheesy romance. The film's hero doesn't get the girl, who was dead all along. Meng Yao cries, even though he's seen that movie before. 

By morning, he's in control again, and takes Beastie to the park so she can run around in the sun, and scare pigeons with her sword.

Those holidays are all great fun, until Beastie’s mother reminds them that she has homework to do.

Beastie is a clever kid, there’s no doubt about it, but she doesn’t much like doing her homework, least of all when she feels she could be playing. It takes all of Meng Yao’s negotiation skills to get her to even look at her school books, and he almost resorts to bribery to make her pick up a pencil. But she works hard once she starts, and Meng Yao, wanting to encourage her, sits with her at the kitchen table to update his resume. Beastie will go back to class soon, and inactivity just isn’t in his temper.

When Beastie is done with her work, she gets permission to put on whatever movie she likes while Meng Yao checks what she’s done in case it needs correcting.

But when he picks up the sheet of simple maths she’s expected to give her teacher on monday, all Meng Yao sees is her name.

It’s really funny. He knows her name of course, though he hasn’t heard it in a while. Even her mother took up to calling her Beastie after he nicknamed her that. It just fits her so well, that active little girl who prefers trousers over dresses because they're easier to move in and always wants to play at fighting. She’s a real little monster, and Meng Yao loves her like that. She’s just Beastie.

But according to the homework she’s spent the afternoon on, she’s also Nie Mingjue.

It could just be a coincidence. Names are funny like that, they pop up in unexpected places, they get forgotten and reused. Perhaps in another life, Meng Yao would have just dismissed it as a random incident.

In another life, he wouldn’t have been called Meng Yao.

It’s the first time this happens since that first life they all shared. He’s Meng Yao again, Lan Xichen bears his old name too, and now he’s found a Nie Mingjue, hiding right under his nose. A Nie Mingjue who likes fighting, and claims that her toy sword is actually a sabre, and who always insists a lot on things being fair, even when Meng Yao tries to give her the biggest share of a food she likes.

It can’t be a coincidence.

Meng Yao needs to tell someone.

He needs to tell Nie Huaisang.

He tries, of course, and without surprise his former employer’s number has been terminated. He has the same luck trying to send an email. Nie Huaisang might as well never have existed. Meng Yao feels helpless, torn between tears and laughter. After spending centuries looking for his brother, Nie Huaisang just might have lost his chance due to being so damn dramatic. Serves him right, Meng Yao thinks, still bitter about being discarded so easily, and never getting a chance to see if things might work better in this life.

Bitterness doesn’t last. Meng Yao cares about Nie Huaisang, more than he should if he were a little smarter, and he knows how important finding his brother again would be for him. And if Nie Huaisang can’t be directly contacted, there’s always indirect ways.

It’s not that Meng Yao misses Lan Xichen, he tells himself that night, when Beastie is back with his mother and he starts writing a long text message on his phone. Well, it’s not just that, anyway. He does miss Lan Xichen, sweet and funny and so eager when talking about art. But more importantly, Lan Xichen probably has access to Lan Wangji, who clearly must know how to contact Nie Huaisang. 

Texting Lan Xichen is a strategic choice. 

The way Meng Yao's heart jumps inside his chest when Lan Xichen immediately replies is… it's strategic too. He's just glad that his plan is working. 

How have you been? :)

I could have been worse. I've just realised something and I think it concerns you. I've told you about that kid I babysit, haven't I? 

Little Beastie? Is she okay? D:

She's Nie Mingjue. 

This time, the answer isn't immediate. Meng Yao stares nervously at his phone, wondering if Lan Xichen thinks he's lying, or planning something. Considering their first life, who could blame him? 

But after a few minutes, his phone vibrates again. 

Sorry, I dropped my phone and couldn't get it back from under the couch. Are you sure?? (⊙ˍ⊙)

It all fits. You could come meet her if you want. But it's him, I'm sure. 

Did you tell Nie Huaisang???

I can't contact him. Are you in touch with Lan Wangji? Maybe he can warn him. 

I have his number, I just texted him! I'll keep you updated! It's so wonderful if it's da-ge!! Can I really meet him? ╰(*°▽°*)╯

Her*?

I'll send you my address. If you can come tomorrow, she'll be there.

Are you sure? I don't think da-ge would still want me around. (≧﹏ ≦)

Meng Yao gives that question the consideration it deserves. It's not an unfair worry to have, and he'd be wondering the same if he hadn't known Beastie for so long. 

I literally killed him, and he killed me. If she had to hate anyone it'd be me, but we get along great. We're no longer the same people we used to be. It's the same for her. 

If you're sure, then I'll come! (❁´w`❁)

-

Meng Yao is very sure indeed. 

So Lan Xichen comes. 

It's odd to invite someone to his flat. It's a small place, a bit messy, full of trinkets and DVDs that Meng Yao would never admit to owning, not with the image he wants to create. He's always avoided guests. But having Lan Xichen over is as rewarding as it is terrifying. Lan Xichen brought some charming little cakes, as if he's visiting someone important, and he smiles at the sight of a movie poster on the wall, confessing he watched it so often as a teenager that the tape broke one day. 

"It's my favourite too!" Beastie exclaims. "Meng-ge has it, you know! Can we watch it now?" 

Normally, Meng Yao would point out that it's a little rude to ask that when they have a guest. But he can see that Lan Xichen is nervous and unsure how to act around Nie Mingjue, and maybe a movie will let them all relax. 

In the end, they spend a pleasant afternoon, the three of them. Once Lan Xichen stops worrying that the Nie Mingjue of old will appear and shout at him for getting him killed, he starts chatting with Beastie about her favourite movies, what she's learning in school, what she wants to be when she grows up. She's very happy to answer, and very impressed when he explains he's a teacher, even though she's finding it hard to accept that most of his students are fully adult.

And when Beastie is back with her mother, Lan Xichen lingers for a while, tempted by the offer of Meng Yao's favourite takeaway.

“It’s amazing how much like him she is,” Lan Xichen says as they sit on the sofa to wait for the food to arrive. “It’s the first time he reincarnates, you know. At least, Wangji told me they’d never found any trace of him before.”

Guilt shoots through Meng Yao. It’s his fault if Nie Mingjue’s soul was so fractured it took him this long to be reborn. Or at least, it’s the fault of someone he was, once, which is nearly the same, and yet completely different. Meng Yao has learned from living and dying several times, and he’s lucky enough to live in a kinder world than Jin Guangyao did. It helps.

“She’s also different from him, though,” Lan Xichen continues, moving just a little closer, until they’re almost touching.

“We’ll, for starters she’s a kid,” Meng Yao points out, wondering if he should take the other man’s hand. If this had happened before the Hanshi, he would have, but he’s not sure where they stand now.

“It’s not just that. In that first life, I knew da-ge as a child too and he was…” Lan Xichen sighs and makes a vague hand gesture. “He was a lot. Way too serious sometimes. We all were, I suppose, but him most of all. The Nie tended to grow fast, to compensate for dying young. I’m… I’m glad that he gets to properly be a child this time. That she gets to be a child.”

“The world has changed,” Meng Yao says, finding the courage at last to brush his fingers against Lan Xichen’s. “Things aren’t always easy but they’re… easier, I suppose.”

Lan Xichen’s returns that touch, gentle and careful as always. This, too, is easier now than it was back then. It’s not easy, but there’s less pressure to conform, less demands to be good dutiful sons, and just a little more space to be their own people, to make their own choices.

Maybe in their next life they’ll meet again and it’ll be even easier to be like this. But even now, Meng Yao is ready to take the chances that his past self wouldn’t have dared to dream of. He leans toward Lan Xichen, hoping to kiss him, but a knock on the door interrupts them and he jumps to his feet to go get their food. The delivery man looks at him a little funny, but makes no comment. If Meng Yao is half as red as Lan Xichen, he deserves those odd looks.

Nothing happens again that night. The moment has passed, and after eating, Lan Xichen has to go home because he has engagements the day after that he can’t cancel.

It's not a date that night, no more than any of their previous encounters were. 

It's not a date then, but next time, when Lan Xichen invites him to a restaurant, Meng Yao is informed in no unclear terms that this is, in fact, a date. They go see a movie after, and Meng Yao gets to kiss one of the two most handsome men in the world.

Life is good. 

Life is really good, and yet Meng Yao wants more. 

In spite of their efforts, Lan Xichen and him can't get in touch with Nie Huaisang to inform him that his brother has finally reincarnated. Even Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian are getting worried. From what they told Lan Xichen they haven't had any contact with him since the day they picked him up at the Hanshi. 

"They say he's done that before," Lan Xichen tells him. "They think he'll return in a decade or two, maybe a little longer. Time is hard for immortals, they lose track easily." 

That's all very well for them, but Meng Yao doesn't have a few decades to waste, and neither does Nie Mingjue. They're not immortals. One bad illness, a reckless driver, just tripping in the stairs, and it's all over until they reincarnate again, and Meng Yao is done with missed chances. 

If he can't directly get in touch with Nie Huaisang, Meng Yao can make a few discreet calls to former buyers, and advise them to get their purchase asserted again, just in case. He makes sure to only contact people who bought legitimate artworks of course. He wants to make a wave, not get in trouble. If Meng Yao knows Nie Huaisang even half as well as he thinks he does, then even in hiding Nie Huaisang will be checking what’s happening in the world of art collectors, and he’ll hear about some of his buyers suddenly becoming fearful of fakes.

It’s a little mean perhaps, when Nie Huaisang is so proud of his counterfeits, but kindness has never been Meng Yao’s greatest quality.

Besides, it works.

One afternoon, when Meng Yao is alone at home, checking a job offer that he’s probably going to reject because he deserves better, there’s a knock on the door. Meng Yao considers ignoring it, but some of his elderly neighbours have been coming to ask for help with their phones or whatever new fancy blender their kids got them to make life easier. Usually, five minutes of easy work means free homemade food for his next meal, which is always a great deal.

When he opens the door, there’s a very old man waiting in the corridor alright, but free food is probably out of the question.

“Well, I’m here,” Nie Huaisang says. “Whatever is going on, it’d better be important.”

[writingsonawall]

Falling, fallen chapter 1

Pairings: Spencer Reid x OFC

Story summary: Spencer randomly meets Leah at the library and their first encounter was supposed to be just that; a random one-time occurance. When an unsub lands Spencer in the very same hospital she works at, she feels obligated to take care of him. But what happens when his team notices her everlooming presence and theorises that perhaps she could be the unsub they’re looking for?

Chapter summary: The guy Leah had met at the library just an hour ago suddenly gets wheeled into the ER where she works. 

Warnings: Mention of blood, but not a lot.

Wordcount: 6,6 k

Prologue, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7,

Leah hadn’t even been on call for half an hour when a stretcher was rolled in through the doors of the ER, someone shouting “Male, early thirties! Gunshotwound to the lower abdomen.” That was about all she was able to concentrate on. The ER was a mess of chaos, every available doctor and nurse running between patients. People were running into each other, medicalequipments crashing onto the floor every now and then, some patients screaming out in pain… Leah could feel the beginning of a migraine sneaking up on her. She almost never worked in the ER, usually sticking to Post Op. or the ICU, but there had been a masscollision on the highway that night so it was kind of like an all hands on deck situation. 

Leah was currently working on picking out broken glass from the arm of an elderly woman. It wasn’t a terrible wound, but judging by the way it was bleeding she’d probably need stitches. Still, Leah had no idea why she was there. Her injuries weren’t lifethreatning and the ER was overcrowded with other patients who actually needed their attention more than this woman. She’d be just fine if she had gone to an urgent care, but Leah wasn’t about to argue.

 “Leah, I’m gonna need you with me in traumaroom 2.” Dr. Ruiz called over the noise and it gathered her attention. She caught his glance across the room and saw that he was following the stretcher which had just been brought in by the ambulance. Leah quickly mumbled her apologies to the woman, pulled off her gloves and started to navigate through the sea of chaos. She eventually pushed the doors of traumaroom 2 open, rubbing her hands dry from the sanitizer she’d covered them with. 

“What’s his status?” Leah asked once she entered, quickly making her way over to the man laying across the stretcher. She knew why Dr. Ruiz had called her in here. The patient was a gunshotvictim, which usually meant a lot of blood. Typically, in cases like this, there were two doctors to check the injuries and make medicaldecisions. Gunshotwounds were always messy and it was hard to know what to expect, so two doctors in the room was always ideal, just in case the patient were to crash or there was a lifethreatning injury. But currently all doctors seemed to be otherwise occupied, so Leah understood why Dr. Ruiz had called her in. Blood and gore never bothered her, it actually made her calmer. The more pressure she had on her shoulders, the calmer and more collected she stayed. She was on the traumateam for a reason, although be it as a nurse, so she had seen a thing or two in her past. 

“Oh my God, Spencer!” She exclaimed, surprised to discover the identity of the man sprawled out in front of her. She stood there frozen in place for a moment, wondering what had happened. She had left him at the library not even an hour previously and now he was here, blood pooling slowly from the open wound in his abdomen. 

The surprise only shocked her for a split second before she shook herself out of her thoughts. Stroking a hand over his forehead, she matted his mop of curls out his face. Using a thumb to force one of his eyelids open, she grabbed a small flashlight from the pocket of her scrubs. 

“Spencer, can you hear me?” She asked him, shining the light into his eyes a few times, watching for any sort of unusual reaction of his pupils. She did the same with the other eye. “Spencer?” She asked once more. He was out cold, but his pupils responded as expected so that made her a little more at ease. 

“You know him?” Dr. Ruiz asked over his shoulder, roaming through the cabinets to find all the equipments he’d need to fully check the injuries. 

“Well, kinda,” Leah answered, not knowing what else to say in that moment. There was no use to lie about the fact that she’d met him an hour earlier, but she didn’t exactly know him. 

“Are you gonna be okay with this or do you need to step out?” Dr. Ruiz asked her, finally returning to stand at Spencer’s other side. 

“I’m good,” Leah told him, probably a little too fast to sound convincing. But it was true, she was nothing if not professional. 

“Okay,” Dr. Ruiz nodded. “Ready to move him?” He asked and it was Leah’s turn to nod. She pushed the stretcher closer to the bed in the room as Dr. Ruiz got out of the way. Locking the breaks of the stretcher so it wouldn’t budge, she grabbed a tight hold of the sheet underneath Spencer as the doctor did the same on the other side. They locked eyes and counted. One, two, three. In a split second they had Spencer lifted onto the bed with such ease it looked like they had done it a hundred times before. Which they actually probably had. Dr. Ruiz was one of the doctors Leah worked closest with, since he was typically stationed at Post Op. When they were both on call, Leah was nomally the person Dr. Ruiz would call for if he needed help. They were kind of a dream team; a force to be reckoned with whenever they worked together. 

As the doctor started to cut Spencer’s shirt open, Leah wheeled the stretcher out into the hall to give them space. Locking the door behind her again, she quickly took a look at his medicalfile which another nurse had just delivered in her hand. 

“This is gonna hurt. Let’s push for 10mg Oxycodone,” Dr. Ruiz told her once she returned to Spencer’s side. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Cave morphine,” Leah told him as she started slicing Spencer’s shirt open from his sleeve up to his shoulder. 

“Addiction or allergy?” The dortor asked. 

“Addiction. Dilaudid,” Leah informed him, having just read it in his file. She had already snapped gloves onto her hands and was working on getting the IV-kit ready. “Tramadol would be a safer option, right?” Tramadol was usually the kind of drugs they’d give to patients after minor surgeries or injuries to manage the pain. It was hardly as effective as Oxy-preparations, but it  was usually still enough to take the edge off. They hardly ever used it before they were able to assess the pain level of the patients, but it still seemed to be the least addictive morphinecontaining drug they had at hand. And given Spencer’s injuries some sort of morphine was needed despite what his medicalfile said. He needed something for the pain and NSAIDs weren’t going to cut it in that moment. They could handle whatever addiction-problem he had later; when he wasn’t in a potential life-threatening situation.

Dr. Ruiz nodded his head acutely, ordering her to administer 50mg. Leah worked quickly, finding a usable vein in Spencer’s hand and poking the cannula into it. Taping it down onto his hand, she hooked a bag of ring acetate to the pole by the bed and connected the tube to the IV. She noticed Spencer twitching a little at that and she moved to stand over his head. 

“Spencer, are you awake?” She asked, once again matting his hair back. She noted, even through the gloves she was wearing, that he was warm and sweaty. “I’m gonna give you something for the pain, okay? It’s Tramadol, so I hope that’s okay,” she informed him, even though she highly doubted that he was coherent enough to register her words. She did as she’d said she’d do, pushing a needle Dr. Ruiz had readied for her into the IV-tube and slowly administered the drug. While the painkillers worked its way through his system, she leaned over to help Dr. Ruiz. She put pressure on the wound on his abdomen while the doctor probed around with an ultrasound, trying to look for anything that could indicate whether Spencer had an internal bleeding. 

It didn’t even take a minute before Spencer calmed down, his twitching stopping completely and his breathing evening out. She was glad for that, not wanting him to be more uncomfortable than necessary. 

“You paged me?” A woman's voice startled Leah and she turned to the door which was now wide open. She was another doctor, but Leah couldn’t really recall her name. Not that she really cared either. 

“Yes!” Dr. Ruiz said, tightening the bandage they had just wrapped around Spencer’s wound. It was still bleeding, but the wrappings should be able to hold for the transport to the OR. “GSW to the lower abdomen. Patient is non responding, but stable. No sign of internal bleeding, but I’m sure he needs surgery to remove that bullet,” Dr. Ruiz informed the other woman who nodded along. She moved further into the room and cast a quick look at Spencer, checking the vitals, pupil responses, making sure the oxygenprosentage of his mask was correct before she once again nodded. 

“I agree. He’s stable enough to be moved? Then we should wheel him down to Pre Op.,” she concluded. 

“I’ll go with him,” Leah found herself speaking before she could even register those thoughts. 

“No, no, no, Leah,” Dr. Ruiz said, laying a clean hand on her shoulder. “I need you here in the ER. I’ll go with him and I’ll keep you updated. Don’t worry, he’s going to be fine.” His words reassured her a little. It’s not like Spencer was a friend or anything, but she knew him enough to put a name to the face and that brought this whole case a little closer to home. But she let him go, knowing she was needed more in the ER. 

She kept her hands busy for the next two hours before Dr. Ruiz finally returned, hovering just behind her as she was working on trying to determine if she should send the teenager in front of her up to radiology or not. 

“He’s in surgery now,” Dr. Ruiz informed her, not giving a care to the boy Leah was inspecting. He cried out in pain when she moved his foot at an odd angle. 

“I think he needs to take a trip over to radiology. Do you mind signing the papers?” Leah asked the doctor, not wanting to talk about Spencer right now, especially not in front of another patient. She let Dr. Ruiz take over the patient, but she hovered around until they had sent the boy on his way. She cleaned up after herself and took a glance around the ER. It was getting quiet now. The rush of patients had died down now and she spotted several doctors and nurses just hanging around, chatting and taking a well deserved minibreak. 

“Come on,” Dr. Ruiz said, putting a gentle hand on Leah’s shoulder. “Let’s grab a quick coffee and then you can head up to the ICU.” Leah had never felt more relieved by the idea of a cup of the shitty coffee the hospital had to offer. She really needed coffee now. 

Leah had always liked Dr. Ruiz. She considered him a friend, at least a workfriend. It’s not just that they worked well together, but he was always very considerate; always being there if she needed a shoulder to cry on at the end of a hard day, pushing her to take a break because she always refused to, bringing her powerbars if there was a busy day and they didn’t have time for a real meal. He was nice and she liked how she could always lean on him. 

“I don’t actually know him,” Leah finally spoke up once they had both filled up their cups with the cheap stuff the vendingmachines wanted to pass as coffee. Dr. Ruiz didn’t say anything, just gave a gesture of his hand for her to continue. He leaned back against the wall of the corridor and Leah mirrored him. “We just met earlier today, actually. I forgot my librarycard at the library and he found it, handed it back. We just had a small conversation, nothing big. But then I got called in for the accident, so I had to leave. I mean, I’d seen him just an hour ago and then they wheeled him in,” she explained, not really knowing what to feel. 

“And what? You blame yourself or something?” He asked, clearly reading her mind. 

“No, not really,” she told him, which was an obvious lie. “I guess it just shocked me. I don’t know. I mean, maybe it could have been me. I don’t even know what happened to him, but I keep thinking that it could have been me. Or maybe if I had stayed a little longer then this wouldn’t have happened at all.” She hadn’t heard anything about what had actually happened. Maybe it had been a robbery gone wrong, or maybe there had been a shootout and he was in the middle of the crossfire. She didn’t suspect the last one since they hadn’t received any other gunshotwound-patients, but the possibilities were still endless. All she knew was that he was brought in with a bullet in his abdomen and that he would hopefully pull through. 

“You know, you should really stop thinking like that. It’s not healthy,” Dr. Ruiz told her and it was exactly what she needed to hear. No bullshit excuse about how it wasn’t her fault or that there wouldn’t have been anything she could’ve done. Just a plain and simple command to stop overthinking. It made a small smile play on her lips. 

“Yeah, well… How can I not?” She asked him, glancing up. He gave her a sad smile, knowing it was hard to let those thoughts go. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into his body. Leah sighed, leaning her head back into his shoulder while taking a sip of her coffee. He didn’t say anything else and neither did she. They just stayed there in silence for another few moments before he started leading her down the corridor. They said their goodbyes in front of the ICU, Dr. Ruiz promised he’d keep her updated on Spencer’s surgery. 

Leah prepared for a long night. Nightshifts were usually crap because it was so quiet and she was the kind of person who needed things to do. If she didn’t, she usually got all fidgety and restless, which was also why she never liked reading. She couldn’t sit still for longer periods of time. The more things she had to do, the better she felt once she got home at the end of the day. She had also prepared for a doubleshift, knowing the morning would be busy with doctorvisits, family coming to see their loved ones, breakfast coming around and helping certain patients go to the bathroom and get cleaned up. Yeah, she looked forward to the morning, but for right now she dreaded the long night ahead. 

Dr. Ruiz came up a little after two in the morning to let her know that Spencer was out of surgery and was recovering nicely. He’d been lucky, the bullet not hitting any major organs, but it had nicked his bladder so they were afraid of how his bladdercontrol would be. They wanted to keep him catheterized for a few days just to make sure everything was working properly. Apparently, he was also risking the development of internal bleeding and infections. Leah knew that, there was always a risk of that when it came to injuries like Spencer’s, but it rarely ever happened, not unless the bullet had nicked something or the surgery went wrong. But there was still a chance, so they always informed each other of it. She still knew that chances were slim so she wasn’t overly concerned about it. She was mostly happy he was going to be fine. 

Spencer was rolled into his own room at the ICU around 3:30 A.M. and Leah made it her personal business to check up on him. She finished the rest of her round rather quickly after that. Once she finished up the most important tasks she grabbed a fresh cup of coffee and some food from the cafeteria. For the next hour she hid out in Spencer’s room, figuring she’d deserved a nice, long break since she was going to pull a doubleshift. It was a quiet night anyway so she didn’t even feel remotely bad about it. 

He woke up a little before six in the morning, groaning softly from the bed beside her. Leah glanced over at him, giving him a moment to orient himself. She knew that her position was highly unprofessional; sitting a chair beside him with her feet propped up on his bed next to his. But she didn’t care. Her feet were aching and she loved being able to relieve the pressure for a little while. So, she played it cool, deciding it would be worse to drop her legs down in embarrassment. 

“Well, hey there, Stranger!” Leah decided to greet him with the biggest smile she could master. Spencer seemed to be more alert now and he had glanced everywhere imaginable; the door, her feet, the heartmonotor, the IV-bag, the ceiling. Still, his eyes wavered between her feet and her face. 

“You’re wearing mismatched socks,” he finally said. Leah couldn’t help but chuckle at that. That was probably the strangest thing anyone had ever said to her after coming out of surgery. 

“You know, we ruled out braintrauma pretty early on, but maybe we should still call neuro?” She teased. She could see a blush creep up his cheeks, taininting them in under half a second. His eyes roamed around again, finally locking in on the clock hanging above the door. 

“No, that won’t be necessary,” he told her bluntly and Leah felt like he probably wasn’t in jokingmood. “Where are my things? I need to call my boss,” he said trying to move up into a sitting position. Leah decided to just watch him struggle for a moment, finding it highly amusing even though she was still a little worried about him. He was probably still woozy from the anesthesia so sitting up appeared to be a struggle. Finally, Leah dropped her feet from his bed when he groaned out in pain. She walked over to him, putting both her hands on his shoulder and pushing him firmly back. 

“Don’t pull your stitches,” she told him. She took a seat in the chair again, grabbing the remote to bed and began to raise his back. He groaned out again when he was almost sitting, so she lowered the back a few notches again. “Don’t be a baby now,” she teased, but her voice was probably a little harsh. She couldn’t help it. She’d had a long day and she had been really worried about him. 

“I’m not a baby,” he whispered and Leah could see a pout on his lips. It only made her smirk. 

“You sure about that?” She asked, leaning over to snatch his file from the holder at the end of the bed. “You know what they say, right? About doctors being the worst patients?” She raised an eyebrow at him to give him the indication that she knew he was a doctor. It was in his file after all. 

“I’m not that kind of doctor,” he informed her and Leah just chuckled.

“Yeah, I figured that much out. I’ve been around enough real doctors, so trust me when I say you’re definitely not the type,” she laughed. “No offense, of course,” she decided to add as an afterthought. 

“None taken,” he replied, a little slurred. Leah looked over at him. “Can I call my boss now?” He asked and Leah sighed. 

“Spencer, look… they’re already here, your friends I mean-” He cut her off before she even had the chance to say anything else. 

“They’re not my friends. They’re my team.” His words surprised her. She hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to them yet, but she’d heard that they had all been really worried and constantly asked for updates on his condition. They seemed genuinely worried about his wellbeing. 

“And they can’t be your friends because they’re ‘your team’?” She asked, cocking an eyebrow at him. 

“Are you friends with your coworkers?” Spencer asked back, and it should’ve been a witty comeback, but he actually sounded interested in knowing. 

“Can’t say that I am,” she said after pondering the thought for a second or so. “Touché, by the way. But my point is, just take a minute to wake up a little bit. I’ll go get them later so you can see them, okay? Just please… take a breather, alright? And I want the doctor to take a look at you first as well. Do you even remember what happened? You just woke up from surgery after getting shot. Let that sink in before I call them in.” 

“I’m fine,” Spencer insisted, but Leah just shot him a stern look. She stared him down for what felt like too long before he finally caved, leaning a little further back in his seat with a sigh. 

“Good,” Leah smiled. She took a moment to really study him for the first time. He was actually really handsome, with these greenish eyes which got more honeybrown towards the middle and shaggy brown hair which she suspected was always unkept. His nose was straight and his lips slightly plump, skin clean. He actually looked like a specimen. The only negative thing she could point out were the dark circles under his eyes and she felt her heartstring tug a little, wondering what nightmares kept him up at night. The nasal cannula going into his nostrils made him look even sicker than he probably was, but it was still a sight for poor eyes. 

“So, you’re… a nurse?” He asked after a few more moments of silence. Leah couldn’t help the bashful smile that stretched across her lips. 

“Well, isn’t that kind of obvious?” She laughed, adoring how cute he was when he got all awkward. She took a sip of her coffee and decided it was time to call for the doctor, so she reached over Spencer's head to press the green button on the wall. Spencer was giving her a strange look and she had no idea what that meant. “What?” She asked him, cocking an eyebrow. His intense stare was kind of making her uneasy, but there was no way she was going to show him that. 

“I just didn’t take you for the nursing-type,” he mumbled. “No offense,” he quickly added, just as she had done previously. But he looked almost terrified about it, as if he was actually afraid he’d insulted her. Leah could only laugh. 

“Don’t worry about it,” she assured him. “I wouldn’t exactly picture myself as the type either, but here we are. I’m damn good at my job, though.” As if on cue the door to the room opened and Sophie, a young girl who happened to be Leah’s intern, stepped through the door. She decided to have a little fun with that. “Ah! Dr. Reid, meet my intern. Sophie, this is Dr. Reid. You’re in charge of him when I’m not here. Got it?” Spencer gave her an uncertain glance and Sophie had a look of pure horror on her face. She locked eyes with Leah, the ‘Oh dear God, he’s a doctor’ kind of look written over her face. Sophie was a sweet girl, but kind of slouch, and Leah had a tendency to play small little tricks to get her to work just a little harder. Knowing that the patient was a doctor (she didn’t need to know he wasn’t a medical doctor) would definitely nudge her to go the extra mile. 

“You, um, you called?” Sophie asked a little uncertainly and Leah found herself pleased when she noted the not so subtle way she leaned over to take a pump of the handsanatizer hanging on the wall by the door. It had been one of the many things Leah had added to her list of improving areas; always sanitize your hands before entering and leaving a patient’s room. 

“Yeah,” Leah tried to hide her grin. “Who’s on call right now?” She asked, knowing she could just as well walk out the door and find out herself, but she loved torturing her interns just a little bit. She never crossed the line, but she always pushed them around just enough that they’d remember who was in charge. She loved it, a little innocent fun. 

“Uhm, well… There’s you, obviously… and, uh, me and-” Sophie started and Leah resisted the urge to roll her eyes. 

“Sophie, calm down. It’s fine. I mean doctors, who’s on call?” Leah smiled up at Sophie, trying to reassure her that she’d only been joking. Well, at least half-joking. That was another one of Sophie’s flaws; she was too uncertain of herself and could hardly handle a joke. 

“Oh, um. I’m not sure,” Sophie mumbled, but didn’t make any move to find out. Leah just stared at her until she lifted her eyes to glance back. 

“So?” Leah asked and Sophie looked even more confused at that. “Are you gonna find out for me?” That seemed to startle her because she almost jumped. 

“Oh, right! Yes, I’ll be right back.” She was out the door so fast Leah couldn’t help but laugh. She shook her head to herself and stood up from the chair, leaning closer to the heartmonitor and noting down Spencer’s vitals on his chart. 

“That was mean,” Spencer mumbled. Leah looked at him for a second, pausing her hand which was still writing. 

“It’s a bit of innocent fun. I’m their boss and you see that pager behind you,” she pointed her pen at the wall behind his head. She didn’t even wait for him to try to turn around to look at it before she continued. “It makes me their God,” she finished with a smug smile and gave him a wink. Spencer narrowed his eyes at her. 

“She’s your intern. You’re supposed to teach her, not scare her half to death.” He sounded almost angry, despite the uncertainty in his voice. Wow, this guy really couldn’t take a joke. Leah sighed. 

“Look, it’s a bit of innocent fun. We have a good relationship and we always have a little debriefing at the end of the day. She’d tell me if I was being too harsh on her,” she said. She finished the chart and put it down in the holder by the end of the bed. She crossed her arms over her chest and sighed a little. “You probably think I’m too rough on her or whatever, and sure, I probably am. But here’s the thing, and I probably shouldn’t even tell you this, but she’s insecure. She needs to learn how to stand on her own two feet. She’s probably gonna lash out on me one of these days and I’m gonna be so proud of her the day she does. She’s a snowflake and she really needs to learn how to stand up for herself.” She decided it was best to just be honest with him. In all honesty she shouldn’t care what Spencer thought of her, but she did. She didn’t want him to think that she was some heartless bitch. She loved being a mentor and loved looking out for her interns. Sophie, despite all her flaws, was her favourite. Leah could see her potential, if she just worked past her insecurities she’d be a damn fine nurse one day. 

“So, you’re… bullying her to make her, what, stand up for herself?” Spencer asked, surprise lacing his voice, but he didn’t sound angry anymore. That was a good thing, she guessed. 

“I’m not bullying her. Just pushing her buttons a little. Call it reversed psychology or whatever. It always works.” Leah grabbed her zipup hoodie which she had draped over the chair and stuck her arms through. She shook the hood in place so it wasn’t one giant ball in the back of her neck. Spencer gave her a small smile and she wondered what he was thinking. She didn’t want to stay long enough to figure out though. “Okay, well… I’ll go see about that doctor. I’ll go get your friends in a while, so hang out and try to, I don’t know, relax I guess? Call if you need anything,” she told him, placing a gentle hand on his arm just because she could. Grabbing her coffeecup under her armpit she took a few pumps of handsanatizer on the way out. She made her way to the nursesation just as Sophie came practically running down the hall. 

“Jameson’s on call right now,” She said, almost sounding out of breath. Leah wondered if she had been running all over the Goddamned hospital to figure that out. 

“Okay, did you tell him to take a look at 104?” She asked and Sophie’s eyes went wide. Leah realized quickly what that meant. “No, no! Sophie, it’s okay. Seriously. I’ll go find him. Don’t worry about it,” Leah gave her a reassuring smile, reaching out to squeeze both her shoulders. “Did you finish your schedule yet?” She asked, knowing her interns had some kind of schedule, like a plan, they were supposed to follow.

“Uhm, well, I still have to take out the trash in 109 and I have some other small things I haven’t done yet, but-”

“Don’t worry about that,” Leah cut her off with a dismissive wave of her hand. She threw away her now empty papercup and hung her hoodie over the chair by the computer. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry. Take a break or something, get some air, whatever.” Sophie seemed a little reluctant to the idea, but nodded her head acutely. 

“Would you, uhm, like me to bring you back some more coffee? Black right?” Sophie asked and Leah couldn’t help but grin at her. 

“Yes, please. Take your time, though.” With that Sophie took her leave and Leah went to find Dr. Jameson to let him know that Spencer was awake and needed a quick check. She then went back to the nursingstation to check what was next on her to-do list. She finished her round rather quickly, even with Sophie’s small list of things she’d neglected to do, or hadn’t gotten around to do or for whatever other reason just hadn’t done yet. It was just minor things, so she didn’t mind. Sophie seemed to have been doing alright with everything else. 

When she once again returned to the nursingstation there was a steaming papercup with her name on it, decorated with a simple smileyface. Leah smiled at that. She sat down by the computer and started documenting the most important details of the nightswatch so the morningshift would know what had gone down. Just as she was about to finish up, Sophie approached her, fidgeting a little. 

“Thanks for the coffee, Sophie,” Leah told her, hoping that would ease her nervousness a little. 

“Oh, no problem!” Sophie smiled. “Uhm, Jameson took a look at the good doctor in 104 and-” Leah had to cut her off with a chuckle. 

“That’s what we’re calling him now?” 

“Well… he hasn’t yelled at me yet for screwing up and he’s actually been kind of polite, so… I guess?” She sounded so uncertain again. 

“Well, what did you screw up?” Leah wasn’t mad. Everyone made mistakes, even her, and she just needed to know if it was a major blowup she had to document or if it was a small thing that could hardly be called a mistake. 

“Oh, nothing I think? I’m just really afraid of messing up,” Sophie told her, rather nonchalantly and Leah felt a little proud of her for not freaking out.  

“Okay, good. Look, Sophie… You don’t have to be afraid of messing up. Everyone messes up and I won’t get mad or anything, alright? You know I’m only teasing you, right? I don’t mean anything by it.” Leah always felt good about having these heart to heart talks with Sophie. 

“Yeah, I know. It’s just, uhm, I’m kinda awkward, I guess.” Leah laughed at that and Sophie gave a soft chuckle as well. Good thing for her that Spencer seemed twice as awkward as her. Maybe that would help boost her confidence. 

“Anyway, sorry I cut you off. What were you gonna say about the good doctor?” Leah really liked that nickname, it seemed to be suiting him. 

“Oh, yeah! Uhm, Jameson said that everything seemed to be alright, but wants to keep him here under observation at least until tomorrow just to make sure. And he’s still on antibiotics four times a day and we can amp up his painkillers, but he doesn’t want any morphine.” That last part didn’t surprise her whatsoever. “And he decided to switch off the oxygen for now, but to keep it on standby just in case his saturation decreases.” That wasn’t a surprise either. Most patients receive oxygen after surgery because the anesthesia could make them sluggish and their breathing labored. Once it wears off they’d be taken off oxygen as well. 

“Okay, that’s good,” Leah said, nodding along. “Anything else?” 

“Oh, yeah. He, uhm, wants to see his coworkers now and I told him he could only see two at a time, because that’s still the rule, right? He wanted to see Hotch and J.J. first. I guess you could get them?” Leah nodded her head and gave Sophie a pat on the back before returning to finish up her reports. It was around 6:45 A.M. when she headed out to the waiting area with her coffeecup in hand, recently refilled after she’d downed the one Sophie had brought her.

“Do I have a Hotch and J.J. for Spencer Reid?” Leah asked, scanning the waitingarea. She somehow knew the people she was looking for before they rose from their seats to come greet her. The whole group of, wow, six people practically came running for her. 

“Is he okay?” One of the women, dressed in a very colorful dress and an excessive amount of accessories asked, almost screaming out. She must have been very worried. Leah noted the flowers in her hand and grimaced at the thought of having to tell her later that flowers weren’t allowed in the ICU.

“He’s fine. He’s fully awake now,” Leah tried to reassure her. “He’s given me permission to share the specifics of his condition, so I can do that now, or you can wait for the doctorsvisit later today to get some more details. He’s just been checked out by a doctor now, though, and everything seems to be alright. He’ll probably stay in the ICU until tomorrow at least before we consider moving him.” She gave them the rest of what she knew and they seemed pleased that he was doing okay. So was Leah. Bulletwounds to the abdomen were typically gnarly cases, but Spencer had been really lucky. 

“Can we see him now?” The darkhaired woman asked, sounding just as worried as the other one had been just a minute ago. 

“Sure, but he’s in the ICU and we only allow two visitors at a time. We’ve asked and he wanted to see Hotch and J.J. first,” Leah told them, still having no idea who the respective ones were. 

“What, so I don’t get to see him?” The dark skinned man asked. He sounded angry, annoyed and frustrated, but Leah didn’t find him intimidating whatsoever, even despite the fact that he towered over her. 

“As I said, only two at a time. But he can have visitors all day for all I care, so you can take turns to see him, I don’t care how you do it. But only two at a time.” She tried to sound stern, but she also had sympathy for them. They’d been worried sick all night and they probably wanted to storm his room and hug him.

“Come on! That’s a bunch of bullshit!” The man yelled, obviously getting a little agitated. Leah wanted to step forward forward, put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down or something, but before she got the chance the tall man in the suit, yes a Goddamned suit, stepped forward. 

“Morgan,” He raised his hand in a stopmotion which immediately calmed the man down. “We’ll be quick. You’ll get to see him.” That seemed to do the trick because he sighed in defeat and stepped back. 

“Alright then, follow me!” Leah said and turned on her heel, wanting to get out of there as soon as possible. She had other things to do, not really, but she could at least pretend she did. Standing in the waitingroom and arguing with friends and family of patients was not something she wanted to spend her whole day doing. 

“Wait, Sir. Can you bring him these for me?” Leah noticed that it was Flowerwoman who had spoken. 

“Actually, Ma’am… flowers are not allowed in the ICU either. I’m really sorry. If we move him to another unit tomorrow, you can bring him whatever you want, but as of right now I’m gonna have to say no,” she said, turning her body to give the woman an apologetic look. 

“Oh.” She sounded utterly wrecked as she uttered the simple word and it made Leah a little sad. These people cared so deeply for Spencer. How could he possibly claim they weren’t his friends?

She brought J.J,, a young woman a little taller than herself, and Hotch, the man who had calmed down the black man earlier, through the doors of the ICU. She quickly located Spencer’s room and knocked on the door a few times before entering. He seemed pleasantly surprised to see his colleagues following right behind her. 

“Oh, Spence!” J.J. exclaimed, rushing over to his bed. Leah rubbed some sanitizer on her hands as she watched her bend down to give him a gentle hug. She grabbed his chart from the end of his bed again and noted down his vitals as the three of them exchanged their greetings, also reading through what the doctor had written earlier. 

“Dr. Jameson was in here earlier. He explained that we’ve taken you off oxygen, right?” She hated to break up their happy reunion, but she had to give him some information before she bid her farewell. They all turned to look at her as she disposed of the chart again. “You understand that if you experience any shortness of breath, any dizzyness, anything at all you have to call, right?” She asked, looking directly at Spencer. 

“Well, I’m a doctor, so, of course I understand.” His response brought a smile onto her lips. 

“Well, you’re not that kind of doctor,” Leah laughed, throwing his previous words back at his face. “Do you need anything before I leave?” She asked and Spencer shook his head. “Well, if you do, don’t hesitate to call,” she told him seriously while pointing at the caller behind his head. She turned to leave when Spencer spoke up again. 

“Does, uhm, does that mean I’ll be your God?” Leah was stunned a little, not fully understanding what he meant, but then she remembered how she’d previously joked about being a God to her interns. Wow, her brain was working slowly. She needed more coffee. 

“Hey! Don’t push it now.” She tried to be stern, but her lips tugged upwards on their own accord. She then bid her goodbyes, shutting the door on the way out.