#he still looks gross but the parts that are gross is in fact growing smaller

[nullwork]

man i fucking lobe fish dude

[sunnyikemen]

Smarty Pants

Pairing: IkeVamp Leonardo x MC

Summary: She was surround by constant reminders of how she didn't quite fit in with the others. She had made progress, and with Leonardo's support she was feeling more and more comfortable in the mansion, but still not fully settled. After a heated discussion with Arthur, though, she decides enough is enough. Much to Leonardo's enjoyment.

Word count: ~2400

Warnings: None!

Notes: This is a gift for @technicolorbirds as part of @ikemenlibrary's My Ikemen Valentine Gift exchange!! I hope you enjoy, Birds :)

***

“Arthur, you’re being gross.”

“All I’m saying, sweetheart, is that a lovely, voluminous skirt leaves a little more to be desired-”

“I don’t care. Women DO wear trousers in the 21st century. They’ve been wearing them since like…the 1920s!”

“Those poor, sexually unfulfilled modern day men. A moment of silence for their losses.”

“You…women look hot in trousers!”

“Must be so sad.”

“Weren’t you literally alive during the 1920s?!”

It had been around half an hour since Leonardo stopped reading his book, his eyes peeking above the pages. A smirk had crept up his face as his gaze dashed between the players of this verbal tennis match. He wondered if he should have left the room when this began, but he was finding it far too amusing. The others rarely challenged Arthur these days, often opting for an eye roll or simply walking away, but she never let him get away with anything. It was refreshing.

And attractive, if he was quite honest.

Leonardo had been keeping a watchful eye since she started living in the mansion. He had heard her footsteps grow stronger, more purposeful, as she explored the halls. He had noticed that the pause between those approaching footsteps and the creak of a door had become shorter, in fact now there was barely a pause at all. And his favourite, was she no longer snuck away back to her own room after their nights together, but rather snuggled up next to him to rest. She was finally settling in. However, he knew there was still some work to do.

“As informative and entertaining as this conversation has been, I unfortunately must be taking my leave now. Can’t leave a lass waiting for too long now, can we?”

He watched her roll her eyes before letting out a huff, “Poor girl. Send her my condolences.”

The comment clearly flew right over Arthur’s head, as he blew her a kiss and slipped out of the room.

Leonardo wasn’t expecting the silence that followed, nor to be met with the back of her head when he glanced up from his book, which he promptly shut and placed it on the table next to him. He waited to see if she would speak first, and when she didn’t, he shuffled over on the sofa and patted the space next to him. The sound finally made her look up, and with a slight gesture from Leonardo, she joined him.

“What is it, cara mia?” She had laid her head on the back of the sofa, and he wasted no time smoothing the hair off her face, letting the strands curl around his fingers before cascading across her shoulder, “You know he just likes to rile you up, you should pay him no mind.”

She sighed, lifting her legs to lay across Leonardo’s thighs. “I know, it’s just moments like that where I realise how differently I see the world than you guys. And I know you all come from different times so none of you really think the same either but,” she let her eyelids droop, sinking into the feeling of Leonardo’s expert hands tracing shapes along her calves and lightly scratching against her scalp. How lucky she is to have the hands of an artist and a genius have their attention fixed on her. “I don’t know. I guess the gap just feels bigger and that makes me feel smaller.”

“I don’t understand how you consistently manage to take the things that make you otherworldly and turn them into insecurities.”

She opened her eyes, only to be met with complete and utter sincerity in the shade of amber, “You don’t understand because you’re an artist. You love those things.”

“You’re right, because they make beautiful art. And who enjoys beautiful art, hm?” When she didn’t answer, he filled her silence. “Let me rephrase that, who doesn’t enjoy beautiful art? Can you think of a single person?”

“I understand your point, grandpa,” she said with a grin, which he easily returned when he felt his words getting through to her, “I just want to be desirable to you, that’s all.”

That statement made him stare a little blankly at her. He knew of her feelings of inadequacy, which he’d promptly tried to squash multiple times before, but undesirable? He doesn’t know a time when he ever lacked desire for her, in fact there were many days where his desire for her proved troublesome. The word “silly” sits on the tip of his tongue but he bites it back. She needed more than a knee jerk comment. She deserved his understanding.

“Cara mia, I’ve been around for a very long time. I’ve seen nearly everything, so nearly nothing is exciting to me now,” his voice lowered, and his head leaned in, “and yet, you fill me with exhilaration even at the mere thought of you. And this is only heightened by how much of you I still have yet to discover. The men in this mansion need to have seen a good thing to finally understand just how good it is. But for me I find-”

Before he could finish his thought, before his hand could finish its journey up her arm and before his lips could reach their final destination upon hers, her eyes widened so wide Leonardo nearly felt reason for concern.

“I HAVE THE BEST IDEA,” she shot up from her place, nearly taking out a pile of her books as she dashed to the door, “THANK YOU, LEONARDO!”

Leonardo was almost dumbfounded at the abrupt explosion, but the thought of mischief he had accidentally facilitated was enough to satiate the disappointment that lingered for only a moment. Nevermind, he’ll prove his previous point to her later.

But for now, he picked his book back up and continued reading, his lips curled in a satisfied smirk at the possibilities of what her wonderful brain would come up with. He knew he was in for a treat, and possibly, so were the rest of the mansion.

He felt smug, however, knowing he would be the only one who’d get to taste it.

***

She flew through the halls of the mansion with ease, her mind fixed on one thing and one thing alone. She reached Leonardo’s bedroom, which had been more or less shared in recent months. She had her own space too, but she simply preferred being in his. She preferred his random, almost illegible notes scattered across his wall, and preferred the subtle smell of pencil shavings, well loved candles and fresh flowers that sat on his windowsill. He only started doing that last one when he met her, she imagined. His room never looked the same as it did when she first entered it, and he never looked more comfortable in it, either.

She left the prickling feeling of nostalgia at the door and immediately moved to his chest of drawers, opening each one with great vigour. Leonardo had always said that anything in his room is fair game, that what’s his is hers. And whilst she didn’t imagine he had this particular item in mind, she felt safe in the assumption that he wouldn’t be in the least bit bothered, as he rarely was.

She had been settling into the mansion for the better part of a year now, and the days of tip-toeing around had long since passed. She had found her place, but too often was she bothered by that prickly reminder that she was inherently different. Not only as the only woman in the mansion, but as seemingly the only one who hadn’t adjusted to the era she found herself in. Certainly the only one was still fighting it.

She enjoyed her talks with Comte over tea, as he was the closest one to understanding her life before, though understanding wasn’t just what she was looking for.

And she supposes that’s how she latched onto Leonardo so fast.

Even though he didn’t have that understanding of what her life looked like before, he had this uncanny ability to trace it back to the root. He reassured and comforted her on things she didn’t realise she needed reassurance or comfort on, but she did. Leonardo knew that. Because he understood.

Everything fell into place after that.

It was easy to find what she was looking for: a pair of trousers she knew he wouldn’t miss. In fact, she doubted she’d ever seen them on him in the whole time they’d known each other. Based on the colour alone, she suspected they were a gift from Comte. Considering the sheer magnitude of their history together, she was surprised by how much they were not Leonardo’s taste. Probably an experiment from Comte. It was sweet that Leonardo kept them, though.

Sweetness aside, and with Comte’s experiment clearly concluded as a failure, she took the trousers and all but marched to Comte’s door. With only a few knocks against the wood, he called for her to enter.

The mischief was clearly written all over her face, as Comte immediately put down his papers and raised an eyebrow.

Her grin was simply delightful as she hid the trousers behind her back, “I have a small favour to ask.”

***

The breakfast hustle and bustle was the same as any other day in the mansion, though with an added buzz as Arthur relayed the events that took place a few days prior.

“Honestly, the things that woman comes up with,” he took a sip of his tea, his ocean irises peaking over the teacup at the man sat opposite to him. He placed it back down into the saucer, leaning back in his chair with an air of pride, “I must say, darling Leonardo, that you really have your work cut out for you.”

“How so?” Leonardo swirled the coffee in his cup with no sense of concern. He knew Arthur was simply playing with him and that he was completely harmless. He very well could have ignored the man, but Arthur needed to be challenged every now and then.

And Leonardo liked to play too.

“You just strike me as someone who doesn’t care for a challenge. As if you can’t be arsed with it.”

“Are you saying she’s challenging?”

Most people would have squirmed under Leonardo’s stare, but Arthur’s eyes only twinkled back at him, “Not challenging, just…troublesome.”

“I thought you liked ‘troublesome’.”

“Oh, I do,” another sip, “very much.”

It seems Comte was the only one to notice the miniscule twitch of Leonardo’s hand and the tightening grip around his cup, as he finally interrupted, “Arthur, I recognise that you’re only having your fun, but I encourage you to be more mindful about how you speak to our newest member of the mansion. She doesn’t know you too well yet, and may not understand your…ways.”

“I think the only reason you find her challenging, Arthur,” Leonardo had his arms crossed on the table, leaning in dangerously, head slightly cocked to one side, “Is because she does such a beautiful job at proving you wrong.”

Arthur smirked, “And how exactly does she do that?”

With gorgeous timing, the door to the dining room creaked open. The tension in the room fizzled out as all heads turned to the figure in the doorway, prompting jaws to drop.

The men were not used to seeing a woman in trousers, but in that split second they had almost forgotten how she’d looked wearing anything else.

Leonardo, with a brain as advanced as his, had already suspected what was happening behind the scenes, but even he was almost at a loss for words. He had seen many, many things in his life. A lot of good, and a lot of bad. A woman in trousers was far from shocking to him.

But she stood so tall, so magnificently powerful and with the cheekiest smirk he had witnessed. The emerald material sat on her figure as though she was carved from marble, as every inch was perfectly tailored to her. The power she held to have silenced a whole room and demanded their eyes’ attention. And yet, of all the eyes in the room, of all the points she was currently proving, her gaze was set on him.

He felt goosebumps tickle his spine.

He spared a quick glance at Comte, who was seemingly taking a sip of his own tea. But he would never be able to hide a smirk behind a teacup from Leonardo.

The sound of her heels hitting the floor echoed in the dining room as she made her way to Leonardo. He stood up to offer his seat, but before he could even utter a ‘good morning’, her lips were on his.

She had always been coy with affection in front of the other members of the mansion, even a simple peck would turn her cheeks rosy. But here she was, hands cupping his face as she melted into him. He didn’t dwell on it for too long, his mind going blank as he brushed his hands against the small of her back and gave her hips a light squeeze. He was moments away from deepening the kiss before she broke it off.

“Are you ready to go?,” she chirped, her smile light and easy as if she hadn’t just turned him into a puddle in her hands.

“I guess I am,” he said, giving her a wink as a silent well played.

“I suppose we’ll see you all later then,” she said to the rest of the room, who’s eyes were still fixed on her.

“Enjoy your Valentine’s Day, you two,” Comte said with a grin, “Behave, Leonardo.”

“I don’t think I’m the one you need to be saying that to, by the looks of it.”

Everyone chuckled, allowing the atmosphere to begin to settle to normal. Arthur, who’s smugness had been replaced by amicable surrender, finally spoke up, “I suppose you win this one, sweetheart.”

She smiled, “I suppose I do.”

Leonardo gave her hand a squeeze, and he felt the tension in her release. He knew that spectacle required some courage from her, and she pulled it off beautifully. He felt at peace knowing she was getting closer and closer to settling in completely, without having to leave any part of herself at the door.

***

Bonus:

Mozart: At least you didn't have to listen to her explain fan fiction.

Arthur: Fan fiction?

Napoleon: It's fictional writing based on existing characters or real people.

Arthur: Oh, so like the Sherlock Holmes collection?

Sebastian: I beg your pardon-

[albedossweat]

Me talking about Scaras dick for too long (also not long enough tbh, got sidetracked)

Featuring: Doll Scaramouche, Wanderer and Incel Scara-

Doll Scaramouche

I don’t want to say it but he 100% has a dick joint- I know his body was made to mimic Eis body so he would probably have a clit but I’m too dick-obsessed, sorry.

In general I like to think Doll Scara has a plastic feel to it so I assume it would be like that, i think Scaramouche being a literal sex-toy is hot as fuck and so he wouldn’t be able to cum or produce anything down there but that’s totally fine as he’s just your stupid toy.

Doll Scaras dick would probably be on the smaller end, I would say four-ish inches just because it is sorta always erect and even with four inches he has to make sure his clothes are baggy Af so no one sees it. Scaras did have a tiny bit of pubic hair that was trimmed all the way down (so did Ei when she made him) but he shaved once and cannot grow it back so he’s terrified about cutting any of his hair-

Anyway!! His dick can move up, down and sideways a tiny bit thanks to the ball joint, I would say he has balls but honestly if he did they wouldn’t be able to move or anything and would just be under the ball joint so I’m saying he doesn’t have one, his dick however doesnt have a vein but has the head completely carved so it looks like a normal head of dick.

Wanderer

Wanderers dick is different to his puppet body in the fact that his dick is now 5 and a half inches and as for his pubic hair, he lets it grow out a tiny bit having a tiny bush right above his dick, this patch is the same dark indigo all about half an inch in length.

Wanderers dick is pretty. It slightly leans to the left whenever he’s erect and the tip of it is a super pretty bright indigo, his tip is super sensitive and just a single touch can make precum slowly drip out of it. If you were to even put your hand on his thigh he would instantly be dripping with it, he’s so new to these feelings and desperately wants to explore them.

Wanderers always shaves his balls just because he likes it when they are completely clean, he loves when you put your mouth on them and praise him

Incel Scara (gross)

He doesn’t shave. Scara doesn’t know why he doesn’t he just doesn’t do it, the thought of putting a razor anywhere near that part of his body terrifies him (he’s not against putting other things against that part though!!)

Scaras pubes are long and curly, still the same dark indigo. His pubes stink of sweat and for some reason he can’t have enough of it, he loves it and he knows he’s gross for it. Scaras dick is 5 and a half inches and in general doesn’t leak much precum without a ton of teasing (he doesn’t like teasing himself that much anyway)

(Tired goodnight, might do more dick headcanons with Shoto Todoroki or maybe JoJo characters idk, might do female characters but idk female anatomy sucks and I hate it)

[luvnami]

𝐎𝐜𝐞𝐚𝐧 (here) | 𝐖𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐬 | 𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞 | 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞 - This is my entry for @jjkmag​ Summer Collab! It’s my first long fic in a while but I had a lot of fun writing this (that isn’t to say I think it’s very good. I hope the plot/finality was pulled off decently ok lol). I hope you enjoy it! I chose the prompt 'coming of age', though there are definitely scenes where the other prompts were present as well. Reblogs, comments, shares and likes are really appreciated!!

𝐁𝐞𝐭𝐚 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 - @getousuguruwife​ @amjustagirl​ @aliteama​

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 - Amnesia, Memory loss, Blood, Mild gore, Death, Blood loss, Bullying, Mild Racism (only in the first part), Corpses, Food, Manga spoilers, Pre-canon and canon compliant to a certain extent, Nightmares

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 - Nanami Kento's life has been... Good, bad, and everything in between. He (and many others) thinks he's mature, independent, the definition of what a proper adult should be like. But really, the only way he's made it this far is because you've been holding his hand the entire time.

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 - 6.4k

The first memory Nanami has of you sits in a blurry haze at the back of his mind.

You’re probably four or five years old at best, squatting by a puddle in the empty kindergarten playground. Nanami wonders what made him waddle over to you that warm afternoon.

His shoes, scribbled with ugly caricatures in marker, carry him to the other side of the puddle. A shadow cast by a plastic slide slices your features neatly in half like a Greek theatre mask. Nanami doesn’t speak a word to you as he stares at your chubby fingers that push a fallen leaf around in the water as the surface ripples silently.

You look up at Nanami. He’s an odd child, excluded by the other kindergarteners because of how quiet and strange he is. Nanami’s blond hair is abnormal to the immature local Japanese children. They knee the back of his legs while calling him names like ‘banana-gaijin!’ and making fun of his fancy leather shoes.

“Do you wanna play with me?”

Nanami wonders if the words you speak to him are from your heart or something constructed from a plan to bully him again.

“My mama taught me how to make boats with leaves. See?” You point to the puddle. “We can race them.”

Nanami carefully selects a leaf off of the playground’s floor. It’s still green, freshly fallen from its branch. You grin toothily, your eyes sparkling.

“That’s a perfect leaf!” you declare.

Nanami thinks he wants to play with you forever.

He follows you around in school like a lost puppy after that, clutching his hands nervously when you stand up to the children who bully him. Nanami wonders if you’ll ever turn your back on him. He arrives earlier than you every morning and hurriedly scrubs at your table with his handkerchief to get rid of nasty words and obscene drawings, heart thumping against his cotton polo. When his mother asks him why his new handkerchief is so dirty, he remains silent and grips the hem of his shirt tightly.

Children are children; Nanami learns. Afraid of abnormalities, they defend their right to innocence and ego with harsh words and various schemes. He learns to ignore the whispers behind his back. What he can’t disregard, though, is when they lash out at you.

They jeer when you trip during P.E. classes and bump into you on purpose when you carry your lunch tray. You pretend that it doesn’t hurt when Nanami holds your hand gently and leads you to the nurse’s office with scraped knees, hiccuping and swiping at your eyes roughly.

He wonders why you don’t take the easy way out and just stop being friends with him. What’s wrong with you? You hold him tightly, a bundle of thorns, in your soft hands and pretend that you’re not bleeding.

“Ken-chan?” you sniffle.

He turns.

“You’re my best friend, right?”

Nanami gulps. He doesn’t question why you cry on graduation day, bidding your final farewell to him with vague promises of meeting in the same elementary school. Something in his chest doesn’t sit right; the kind of feeling when his mother threw out his old stuffed toys after she deemed him too old for them anymore.

He watches you grow smaller and smaller in the rear window of his family car till you’re the size of an ant, his knees digging into the leather seats.

“Sit down, Kento,” his father chides.

Nanami ignores him. He watches you wave your hand in the air as the car turns around the corner and lurches into the seat.

☆*: .｡.

Nanami’s genuinely surprised when he finds out that his assigned seat is right next to you on the first day of elementary school. You’re no different, mouth wide open in an ‘o’ as you stare at him.“Ken-chan!”

You almost yell, and Nanami shushes you as his face heats up. He finds out that your mothers had conspired to put the both of you into the same school. He can’t tell if that’s a good or bad thing just yet, but peace settles into his chest the same way the wings of a bird return to its sides after flight when you giggle at his flustered expression.

Through nine years of elementary and junior high school together, Nanami learns that you always arrange the tips of your pencils to face the right side of your pencil box, and you keep the torn bits of movie tickets shoved into your bedside drawer. You find that Nanami has a knack for dry humour — he’s blunt at every moment possible (which caused much distress after he talked back to a teacher that one time) and can usually be bribed for any favour as long as you pay him in food.

What the both of you find oddly shocking, though, is that no one else can see the creatures that swim through walls and perch in dark corners of the school.

They make you sweat whenever they get too close, bulbous eyes and strange bodies twisting in ways that shouldn’t be physically possible. Sometimes they make noises, whispering or coaxing or shrieking or crying in broken sentences.

Nanami learns to treat them as background noise. You, on the other hand, find that a little more complicated. Sometimes you latch onto him when one brushes against your arm, squeaking and swatting at them in an attempt to chase them away.

“They’re so gross!” you’d whine, pressing yourself even closer to Nanami. “Did you see that one in the gym yesterday? It had tentacles!”

In cases like this, the blond clears his throat and ignores you, averting his gaze. He doesn’t admit to anyone, not even himself, that the warmth of your skin through your uniform makes his heart skip a beat. You’ve grown so close to him that you even know that Nanami sleeps with Doraemon pajamas (absolutely, abhorrently embarrassing. He made his mother throw them out the night after you came over for a sleepover). It was inevitable for him to develop feelings.

Nanami shoves his feelings below a lid and sits on top of it, keeping them under lock and key. He’s sure this is just something to do with puppy love or ‘infatuations’ that are underlined in the puberty print-outs the school distributed, alongside scientific diagrams of genitals that the boys in his class giggle at.

Being friends is enough. Or so he thinks, anyway.

☆*: .｡.

It’s a Friday evening when the sky is dark, and street lights flicker in the distance. Nanami munches away on melon bread from a convenience store while you sip on a carton of juice. Your clubs had ended late today, so the sun was down by the time you left school.

“How’s the bread?” you ask, slurping up the last drops of your drink.

Nanami chews and swallows while you dab at your mouth with a yellow cotton handkerchief.

“It’s okay. Not as good as a bakery’s, though. Kinda stale.”

He crumples the plastic packaging in his hand and sticks it into his pocket, planning to dispose of it later. The both of you round the corner to the bus stop, and your feet fall still. A large curse sits in the middle of the road.

Numerous cars are crumpled like drink cans, smoke, and gasoline leaking onto the streets. There’s blood. Too much blood, in fact, that they seem like puddles of rain on the dark tarmac. Your juice box drops from your hand.

The curse turns to you, its teeth split vertically down the centre of what constitutes a face. Multiple eyes run down the length of its engorged body where various hands and feet stick out at random parts.

“Blood… Blood…” it moans in a cryptic voice.

Nanami stands with his feet frozen to the ground, eyes wide in horror. His knuckles turn white as he grips his school bag. Run, run, run! He screams internally, but his limbs don’t listen to him. The curse slides over the road towards him, slipping through the blood easily.

“Give me… Your blood…”

A part of the curse’s body bubbles up into a large hand. It swings itself back before throwing its newly created appendage towards Nanami. RUN RUN RUN! His legs don’t move. He squeezes his eyes shut, awaiting the impact. Except that it doesn’t hit him. Nothing hurts, except the shrill scream that pierces his ears. Nanami’s eyes snap open in horror. 

“Kento!” you yell, dangling upside down as the curse pulls you towards its mouth.

Your school bag lays on the ground below, books scattered as their pages turn red.  

“Run!”

Nanami drops everything as he scrambles towards you, tripping over his own two feet and landing face-first in the blood. His hands and knees sting. He shoves himself and gets up with his teeth clenched. You kick your feet in the air in a poor attempt to escape the curse’s grip but to no avail. Another groan is squeezed out of you as the curse opens its mouth, the foul stench of rotting bodies engulfing you.

“Run, Kento!” you plead.

How can he turn his back on you? Sweat drips down his forehead as Nanami pulls his hand back. The adrenaline that rushes through his blood clears in a split-second moment of raw emotion; anger, disappointment, confusion, sadness. A tingling sort of energy floods his body, and Nanami takes a sharp breath of air. He sees something like a ruler — a line divided equally with ten markings, the seventh one crossed out. His fist connects with it.

The curse lets out a weak moan of pain, shaking you around as it recoils from Nanami’s hit. It’s not much, just a surface injury at most. Nanami’s limbs tremble with exertion. One more time, again and again, until you’re safe-

A thick, gross liquid engulfs Nanami as the curse explodes in front of his very eyes. He coughs, running a slimy hand over his face. It smells like death.

“Woah! You put too much into that again, Satoru.” 

“Shut up!”

Nanami looks up as he hears footsteps move towards him, the quiet splashing of blood beneath shoes.

“Ugh, this place is so gross.”

“You okay there, kiddo?”

Nanami looks up to find a male with his hair pulled back into a bun staring at him. Behind him is a white-haired teenager with sunglasses (strange, hasn’t the sun already gone down?) and an imposing-looking man.

Where are you?

Nanami glances around frantically amidst the dead bodies that lie on the ground. Not you, not you, not- A tiny sliver of hope slips into his heart when he spots your uniform, and he stumbles over.

“Woah! Slow down!”

He calls out your name, slipping and collapsing onto his knees. Your eyes are closed, and a wound on your head oozes blood. A young girl with short hair reaches out to touch you, but Nanami pulls you into his chest, his eyes wide.

“Don’t,” he whispers.

His head spins. Are these good people? How did they just destroy that big monster? He hadn’t even seen them coming. Were they going to hurt you?

“Calm down, man! We’re good guys.”

“No one’s going to trust you when you say that, Satoru.”

The girl stares at Nanami.

“I’ll take care of your injuries. Can you let me see them, please?”

He relaxes. His grip on you loosens, and the girl feels for your pulse, nodding in affirmation.

“Alive.”

Nanami breathes a sigh of relief. At this realisation, his body begins to tremble like a leaf in the wind. He digs his nails into his palms but still they quiver. His heart pounds in his chest and he struggles to take a deep breath, exhaustion overtaking him.

“Hey, you okay?”

His eyes fall shut. 

☆*: .｡.

Nanami finds out over a hot cup of tea that those monsters are called curses, and not everyone can see them.

“Lucky you!” Gojo chimes in.

Lucky? His face wrinkles in despair and Getou laughs so loud at his reaction that he has to step out of the room.

Nanami had sustained minor injuries — nothing beyond a few scrapes and some trauma. You were fine for the most part. After hitting your head on the ground, you remained unconscious for a few more days after Nanami had woken up. You were covered in a few bruises, but otherwise alright. 

Nanami was infinitely thankful for that

Yaga tells him that he has enough aptitude to become a full-fledged sorcerer. The school he teaches at is called Jujutsu High and is located on the outskirts of Tokyo. Since he’s in his final year of junior high, why not give it a thought if he wants to join them? Nanami holds Yaga’s name card numbly.

He looks up at Yaga, only one objective clear in his mind. He doesn’t want to see you hurt any longer.

“Will you teach me how to exorcise curses?” he asks.

Gojo laughs outrightly and Geto snorts. Yaga gives him a confident smile, clapping Nanami on the shoulder (he doesn’t quite like that, but he overlooks it for now).

“You can count on that.”

☆*: .｡.

Nanami’s a little apprehensive about entering Jujutsu High, especially when you decide to enrol as well. Given the ability to see curses, you were adamant about learning to help others with this ability you were gifted with. He relented and sulked for the rest of the day until you gave him a cup of pudding.

The first day Nanami and you enter Jujutsu Tech, you meet a wide-eyed boy named Haibara Yu. He’s overly optimistic and passionate — precisely the kind of person that Nanami tires of interacting with. In fact, the very first thing Haibara says upon meeting the both of you irritates him.

“Woah! Blondie, are you from an emo band or something? Your hair really matches the vibe!” Haibara had gasped.

You struggled to suppress your giggles, biting on your lower lip as you turned to the side. Nanami, on the other hand, didn’t find it quite as funny.

“No, I’m not. Nice to meet you too,” he replied monotonously.

It takes all of the following month for Nanami to get used to Haibara’s eccentricities. He always does his best during training, mingles enthusiastically with the upperclassmen and chows down on at least two bowls of rice during break time. The most annoying part about him is how Haibara seems to get along so well with you.

You laugh too loudly for Nanami’s liking at his jokes, squeeze in between Haibara and him (brushing shoulders with the both of them! Seriously!) when they’re standing together just to listen in on Haibara’s monologuing, and sometimes even end up sparring with him instead of Nanami.

The blond curses that there is an odd number of first years and peers in the mirror after his shower as he wonders what he would look like with a black bowl cut. He even tries to finish more than one serving of ginger pork on one particular day and gets sent to the school nurse for a tummy ache.

Though, the three of you have chemistry that works out when fighting curses. Nanami is the primary damage dealer of the group, while you learn how to provide support with Haibara and create openings for Nanami to attack. So on your first ‘real group mission’ assigned to you by Yaga, you can’t help but set off with overflowing excitement.

It isn’t often that you have the opportunity to step outside of Jujutsu High on your own without supervision. Even on weekends, you’re usually expected to train or study. The sun shines warmly down upon the streets of Asakusa, and tourists and locals alike swarm the city area.

“Hey! We should totally give Sensou-ji Temple a visit later!” Haibara suggests, pumping his fist in the air.

“We’re not here to sightsee,” Nanami sighs.

“That’s what you said the last time we went to Okinawa, and guess what, Nanamin! We didn’t even get to try their sushi!”

“Yeah, and you forgot to bring back souvenirs for me, Ken-chan,” you chime in.

“I told you to stop adding -chan to my name.” 

“Why not? Doesn’t it sound cute?” 

“Mhm!”

Haibara nods furiously. Nanami ignores the both of you with a sigh. He slings a bag containing his sword over his shoulder once more as the crowd barely makes space for you to move through.

“We can’t take too long,” he relents.

The cheers and high-fives that you and Haibara give each other make a vein bulge on Nanami’s temple. He tries not to read too much into the way you immediately begin discussing what places to visit and eat at with Haibara — didn’t you care for his opinion? He shakes his head and increases his pace, leaving the both of you behind.

Nanami ignores the cries of ‘Ken-chan!’ and ‘Nanamin!’ that ring out through the crowd. Whatever. If you want to be with Haibara, then Nanami will gladly get out of the way for you. He drags his feet on the pavement and settles for a cup of iced tea in a nearby cafe gloomily.

What Nanami is doing is… childish. He knows, at the very least, that he should be happy the both of you have met a nice new friend. But he can’t help the jealousy that rises in his chest like smoke in a chimney when he sees you cling onto Haibara the same way you used to do to him.

Was Haibara nicer, more good-looking, stronger, funnier, gentler, better than every single trait in Nanami combined? You no longer ask Nanami how he slept the previous night, instead running over to Haibara and greeting him cheerily. Forget about how you used to come over to Nanami’s house to study after school — you and Haibara disappear to who knows where after training everyday.

He bites down on his straw. The bitter taste of a lemon seed fills his mouth and Nanami spits it out onto a napkin with more force than necessary. He takes a deep breath. He should make things clear to you, then, and let you know how he feels about you. To him, it sounds a little like love.

Nanami’s face flushes with embarrassment. Love is… Love isn’t this. It definitely isn’t getting jealous over your relationships with other people, nor is it forcing you to accept his feelings out of spite. He finishes the last bit of his iced tea, the straw making a gurgling noise as it fails to suck up any more liquid. He leaves his money by the counter and walks back outside, returning his heart back to its safe, clicking the lock shut once more. His shoulders sag as he lets out a pent-up sigh.

Nanami squints at his phone. The golden sunlight makes it difficult to read his messages, but he manages to pick out four missed calls from you and a hundred text messages from Haibara. His blood runs cold when he scrolls to the last text that he received.

Haibara Yu, 4.25p.m.:  curse help 6 cho

It’s currently 4.35p.m. 6-chome is a 15 minutes walk away, five minutes if he sprints fast enough. Nanami hopes that you’re okay, that Haibara has enough sense to call for other back-up or avoid the curse.

Nanami’s feet pound under him as he shoves his way through the crowds, earning distasteful looks and swears. He doesn’t care. Not when you and Haibara are facing a possible grade 2 curse alone, and not when it’s because of Nanami’s irresponsibility and useless emotions that had caused the three of you to be separated.

His breath comes quick and hard and his thighs burn, screaming for relief. He makes a sharp turn and almost crashes into a bicycle.

“Watch where you’re going!” an angry housewife yells, but her words fall on deaf ears.

Just a little more, he begs.

Nanami hears the fighting before he sees it. The sound of metal meeting metal and the roar of the curse sound uncharacteristically comforting to him as he draws his sword, racing to bear a fighting stance.

But he’s too late.

“Yu!” you cry out as Haibara crumples onto the ground.

His eyes meet Nanami’s. His uniform is tattered, face bearing wounds and his right arm is bent at an unnatural shape, almost like a knotted tree branch. You seem relatively unhurt, although your breathing is laboured.

“Kento,” Haibara wheezes.

Nanami’s feet don’t move. His chest heaves, perspiration pouring down his face and drenching his uniform. The grip on his sword slips ever so slightly. The curse stands at the end of a ruined district. You aren’t trained to fight in such close quarters, or reduce the number of casualties to a bare minimum. 

And Nanami hadn’t been here to provide damage to exorcise it.

“Who are you? Another small fry?” the curse scoffs.

It takes the body of a geisha, dressed in luxurious robes that whip about in the air. Consciousness? This isn’t a grade 2 by any means — it’s a special grade curse. The will to fight slips out of Nanami like water from a cup, trickling from the top of his head to the tips of his toes.

“Haibara!” Nanami shouts.

The male gives Nanami one last smile from where he is.

“You’ve got it from here,” he whispers, lips barely moving.

The geisha stretches out its hand, a portion of its obi moving along with it. You and Nanami watch in horror as Haibara’s head is neatly decapitated from his body. His blood drips off of the ends of the robes as the curse cackles, his head rolling to a stop as his half-closed eyes stare up at Nanami like a dead fish’s.

“You think you can beat me? Look at your little friend!”

Fury rushes into Nanami like a wave meeting the shore.

“You’ll die here by my hands!” the curse roars.

You take a step back as the geisha prepares to launch another attack, silk sashes drawn back into the sky before they plunge back at you two in an aerial attack. Nanami leaps through the attacks as his body moves faster than he can process it.

You, on the other hand, create a shield out of cursed energy to try and deflect the attacks. At the very least, Haibara deserves a proper burial. There isn’t time for mourning now, and you have to wipe away the tears that pool in your eyes. You try to ignore the way his head rolls closer to your foot and bumps against it gently.

Nanami lets out a yell of anger. His cursed energy swells as he cuts his way through the sashes, movement based on momentum than anything else at this point. His mind is clouded with regret and frustration. Nanami channels his anger into his sword, the ten destined lines appearing before his eyes once more.

The curse lets out a cry of pain as it stumbles back, sashes redrawn as it tries to gauge its wounds. Blood gushes from a slash on its side and Nanami darts forward again — again, again, again, until its dead. His legs, however, are weaker than what he thinks they can bear. Nanami stumbles in his step.

“Ken!” you shout.

The curse grins. It takes little to no time to regenerate, skin overlapping raw flesh as it gets back onto its feet.

“You’re weak,” it taunts. “First your friend, now you. I’ll be sure to savour the last one as well!”

Nanami struggles to get back onto his feet. He gasps, heart ripping a hole through his chest. He’s so exhausted; so worn out, that his arms refuse to raise his sword above chest height. He curses.

You run over to Nanami, grabbing his uniform and dragging him back. The curse starts to chant ominously. Its face turns dark, taking steps that sway its body with thick, lacquered geta. You shove Nanami back as you’re engulfed by its domain, swallowed up by darkness and spit into a tatami room. He barely has time to call your name before you disappear.

“Shit!”

Nanami stumbles back onto his feet, but sinks down onto his knees again. His shoulders quake as he tries to suck in breaths of air, but his throat is too dry. He coughs and adjusts his grip on his sword. Shit, shit, shit. All of his partners tossed themselves at death as if it was an idle thing just to protect him. What was Nanami doing? He would never become a sorcerer like this, never be able to protect you.

He grits his teeth. He’ll never be enough.

Nanami picks up his sword, wrapping his fingers around its hilt one more time. He dashes towards the domain, tasting iron as he hacks and slashes at it. Again, again, and again. His hands turn numb and his cursed energy flickers like a candle’s flame, but there’s one thing Nanami’s insistent on — getting you out of there.

The domain finally collapses as Nanami finally steadies himself on his feet. You roll to the ground, breath shallow. Your uniform is sliced up in different areas and a pool of blood begins to spread where your head meets the floor.

“Ken…?” you whisper.

Nanami smells it — the scent of death. Why did he ever choose to become a sorcerer over an ordinary high school life? He wouldn’t have dragged you into this mess, caused you to be hurt time and time again. Nanami calls out your name tentatively. You don’t respond.

The curse roars with laughter as your eyes fall shut, “Don’t you see how I’m so strong? You’re nothing compared to me-”

Nanami sees red. He launches himself forward, brandishing his sword even if it’s for the last time.

He doesn’t remember what happens afterwards.

Nanami sinks into a pool of blood, head spinning with exertion. Your body lays to his left, Haibara’s head to his right. He collapses to the ground.

☆*: .｡.

When he comes to, Nanami’s eyes struggle to adjust to the white light that floods the room. It smells vaguely like antiseptic. He slowly sits up, body aching with exhaustion with telltale bandages wrapped around most of his exposed limbs.

A drawn curtain separates his bed from the rest of the room, which he assumes to be Jujutsu Tech’s sickbay. He runs a hand over his face and lies back down, letting sleep take him by the hand and lead him a step further from reality.

Nanami wakes up a second time when Shouko returns to the room. He stares at her, blinking once, then twice.

“Nanami?” she asks softly. “Can you hear me?”

He tries to reply, but his throat is parched. He ends up coughing, wrinkling his face as pain spreads through his ribs. Shouko rushes to get him a glass of water and calls the rest (namely Yaga and Gojo) over. Nanami nurses the glass as Yaga takes a seat by his bed.

There are no questions, only condolences and murmured explanations of what had happened. The only thing Nanami picks up is that you’re alive. That’s more than enough for him to relax, nodding dumbly along to Yaga’s words.

The curse had been on the brink of death when Nanami collapsed. However, he had put up enough of a fight for nearby sorcerers to come to his aid and finish it off. There was no doubt about it — it was a special grade curse. Yaga apologises for the miscommunication and loss of Haibara’s life. Nanami doesn’t reply.

No amount of apologies could turn back time and bring Haibara back.

It takes him a few more days before Nanami’s able to hobble around the school, aided by crutches. Gojo pokes fun at how he seems like a grandpa but even his jokes don’t bear the mean edge they usually do. Getou leaves a can of vending machine coffee by his bedside table and Shouko brings him some wildflowers. Nanami leaves the plush cat Yaga had made for him untouched.

Nanami struggles against the nightmares that plague him. In one Haibara cradles his decapitated head in his own arms, asking Nanami why he hadn’t saved his life; in another you die, guts spilling onto the streets with your eyes bulging from your skull. Nanami wakes up in cold sweat. He calms his breathing alone and doesn’t sleep a single wink.

It’s a rainy day when Shouko lets him enter the morgue. Haibara’s body is laid in a shroud of white, his head positioned to appear attached. Had he ever been so pale? Nanami’s fingers grip his crutches, gritting his teeth.

How long his eyelashes had been! A small scar runs down his left temple (“After my sister shoved me in the playground!” Haibara had chirped), and his bangs remain as perfectly cut as they had been when he died. Nanami half expects him to sit up, to grin and laugh at his twisted face.

“Why’re you so stiff, Nanami? It’s just a joke!” 

Justajokejustajokejustajoke.

A chasm opens up in Nanami’s stomach. His crutches clatter to the floor as he races out of the morgue, stumbling when pain shoots up his right leg. He retches dryly and tears pool in his eyes. Shouko silently covers Haibara and closes the door, Nanami’s tears falling alongside the pouring rain.

That night in his dreams, Haibara slices Nanami’s head off. He wakes up with his heart racing and tears slipping down his cheeks.

Nanami visits you the next day. He had been reluctant to do so — what if you blamed him for everything, for Haibara’s death and your injuries? He wouldn’t be able to bear it, to be hated by you. His hand hovers over your dorm doorknob, hesitating. Nanami takes a deep breath as he swallows his anxiety and opens the door.

It’s as if nothing had ever happened.

You sit on your bed, neatly tucked under the covers with a book sitting on your lap. Warm sunshine pours through the open windows and the penguin plush Nanami had won for you at a festival still sits by your desk. You look up when he walks in.

Nanami calls out your name. You stare at him.

“Sorry, but… Who are you?” you ask quietly, a sense of confusion lacing your words.

He stops by the door and Nanami’s heart sinks to his feet.

“I’m Kento. Nanami Kento,” he repeats, words tasting like ash in his mouth.

Checkered curtains flutter in the wind and the pages of your book butterfly open to an unread chapter. You keep your eyes focused on Nanami, eyebrows slightly furrowed in confusion.

“I don’t know anyone by that name,” you reply.

☆*: .｡.

A toxic mix of trauma and a severe head injury had caused your amnesia. Nanami lays in bed at night, staring up at the ceiling. If only he hadn’t let his emotions overtake him, if only he had been there a minute earlier, if only if only if only. Regret dulls his sense of taste and emotions. He no longer takes joy in eating anything (even those croissants Getou had bought while out on a mission), nor does he even crack a smile at Gojo’s antics.

Nanami returns to training once he is physically well again. He becomes the only first-year to attend Yaga’s classes, sparring practice conducted with the second years. He goes out on missions alone and learns to provide both defense and offense for himself. Nanami trains, he exercises curses, he returns to school. He repeats this same cycle mindlessly over and over again. 

Time heals, they say. Nanami wonders how much time it must take for him to let go of everything.

Nanami learns to hide his disappointment. His face becomes a strong facade for whatever his weak heart truly feels. The quiet sigh he lets out when no one’s around, the stretching of his neck after yet another fruitless day of training — Nanami decides that he’ll leave the world of sorcery once he’s graduated.

Seasons change and Nanami becomes a second year, then a third year. Getou falls away. The seniors graduate and new freshmen enter the school. Nanami keeps these things in the back of his mind as he raises his sword for a countless time, striking the training doll with ease.

You work with Shouko in the infirmary, occasionally helping out with office work. The school had deemed it better to keep you under their care than to release you outside. Like a rehabilitated animal, Nanami thinks.

You still remember no memories of him. Nanami brings you sweets and souvenirs from his missions, letting you trace your fingers over the fancy packaging with a sparkle in your eye. At this, Nanami swallows back his confession of love once more. He can’t bear to burden you with his feelings.

You form new impressions of him. Nanami turns into the stone-faced and adorable boy who treats you like fine China, always sticking his hands out awkwardly when he tries to give you something. The tips of his ears burn red when he lies — especially when you ask him, “Nanami, did you buy this for me?” and he shakes his head furiously.

You think he’s kind. He comforts you when you cry over lost memories, unable to remember the faces in photographs that had once been so familiar. The first thing Nanami does after returning from a mission is to rush to you. Were you okay? Did you have your meals? One time, he came over without getting his injuries checked and collapsed by your feet. You scolded him after that, tenderly dressing his wounds.

“Nanami!” you said crossly, a pout on your face.

He tries to forget how he had asked you to stop calling him ‘Ken-chan’. He ducks his head, hissing when you douse his skin in antiseptic.

Some things don’t change, though. You still keep your pencil box immaculately neat — the tips of your stationery always pointing to the right side. Though you don’t have any more movie ticket stubs, you carefully clip the pictures of your childhood Nanami had given to you together and keep them under your pillow. 

One day, you munch on a yummy biscuit Nanami brought back for you. He sits on the floor and polishes his sword, peering at it from every angle to make sure it’s evenly oiled.

“Nanami?” 

He hums.

“Has anyone ever told you that you look like you’re from an emo boy band? Your hair matches it.” 

Your shy laugh rings out in the room as bile rises in Nanami’s throat. He sheathes his sword and lays it on the ground.  

“Yes, they have.”

He struggles to smile, his gut twisting.

☆*: .｡.

On graduation day, no one else but Nanami receives his certificate with a flower corsage pinned to his chest. The room is empty save for him and Yaga, the chirping of spring birds breaking the silence.

“I’m glad to have been able to teach you, Nanami,” Yaga broods. “You’ve grown a lot.”

Nanami does not reply. He bows deeply and strides out of the main building. All of a sudden, the traditional architecture and nature that surround Jujutsu High seems stifling. His skin crawls with the urge to leave as soon as possible. 

“Nanamin!”

He jumps. Turning around, he finds you grinning happily with a bouquet of flowers in hand.

“Congratulations on your graduation!” you chirp.

Nanami accepts the flowers awkwardly and rests them in the crook of his elbow, his other hand clutching his certificate. A gentle breeze rustles the leaves of nearby trees and a wave of sakura petals descend from their branches like rain.

“Nanamin,” your voice grows softer. “Are you leaving forever?”

He swallows, then nods wordlessly.

“Will I ever see you again?”

“I wanna be with you forever, Ken-chan!” you wailed.

“Forever’s a long time,” Nanami replied.  

He handed you his yellow cotton handkerchief, face wrinkling when you honked your nose into it. Gross. His neck hurt from sticking it out of the car window. He can hear his father tapping a finger onto the wheel impatiently, his mother silent as she stares out the front.

“B-but!” 

Your bottom lip quivered and Nanami let out a sigh.

“Fine, fine. I’ll be with you, okay?”

“Really, Ken-chan? Forever?”

“Yeah, really. Forever.”

You grinned in the waning sunlight as your mother tugged you away.

“I’ll never forget you, Ken-chan!” you shouted.

The car window rolled up and he watched you disappear into the horizon, turning as tiny as an ant.  

Nanami swallows his heart into the pit of his stomach.

“Probably.” 

“That’s not a definitive answer, Nanamin.”

“What do you want me to tell you, then?”

There’s a slight tremble in his voice. The plastic wrapping of the flowers crinkle under his grip and waves of emotions rush over him; the biggest out of all of them regret. He struggles to breathe underwater, keeping his eyes squeezed shut and nose plugged up. A sakura petal lands on his shoulder. He doesn’t bother brushing it away. 

“Say,” you whisper, taking a step to close the distance between Nanami and you.

He gulps as you place a hand upon his chest. He can feel the heat of your skin through his uniform and Nanami’s too dumbstruck to respond.

“Why don’t you give me your second button?”

Your eyes meet his. A smile toys with the corners of his lips and suddenly Nanami blurts out a nervous “Okay.”. His mind flickers back to Haibara momentarily; how you had appeared to like him so much back then. But he chooses to shove those memories into the back of his mind once more as you produce a small pair of scissors and snip the thread.

“You always take care of me, Nanamin. It was natural of me to fall in love with you,” you breathe, cradling the swirl patterned button in your hands.

A gust of cool air slips into his unbuttoned shirt and Nanami’s breath hitches.  

“Do you like me too?”

Your question is innocent. With the way you peer up at him, there’s no way that Nanami can lie. Your glittery eyes were the same ones he had fallen in love with all those years ago. He wonders if he still loves you in the same way as he did then; as faultless and innocent it had been. His heart sits on the tip of his tongue.

“Yeah, I do.”

Your eyes crinkle at the edges as you smile, an evident sigh of relief escaping your lips. You slip the button into your pocket before tugging Nanami even closer towards you. He yelps as your chest presses against his and the tips of his ears turn red.

You plant your lips by the side of his.

[bakatenshii]

Blitz

Ushijima Wakatoshi x Reader (Haikyuu!!)

word count: 2.5k

TW: 18+, smut, exhibitionism, a spritz of omorashi

A/N: this is completely diff from what I’m used to and comfy with; it’s truly the softest thing I’ll ever write— for the real angel, Weese, who welcomed me into my first ever fandom with open arms. I wouldn’t be here without you, wouldn’t have met any of my best friends were it not for you. From the bottom of boku no kokoro, Happy Birthday <33

Weese’s Birthday Bash masterlist

blitz

/blits/

a sudden, energetic, and concerted effort, typically on a specific task.

(slang) heavily intoxicated

He gives credit where credit’s due, and in all fairness, you have been well-behaved, glued to his side til 2am that night. Might even be a new record; usually you’d have gone off and disappeared at the strike of midnight like you’ve got a pumpkin carriage awaiting, only it brings you to a different destination each time.

Whiskey mixers generally mean you end up at some twenty-four seven conbini chatting up the cashier to give you the karaage for a discounted price because you’ve ‘lost your wallet’. It’s never lost; Ushijima knows this because he’s chained it to your belt, lil lobster claw too rickety for your drunk fingers to maneuver.

Tequila shots are the killer; the ones that get his protective mode on overdrive, eyes scanning the streets littered with stumbling drunks until he finds his stumbling drunk. 

It’s currently quarter to three, which means it’s been a solid twenty minutes since you’ve wandered off. If he calculates the rate of distance in your drunken state, you couldn’t have traveled that far— two streets down, at most. He hopes, anyways.

Ushijima doesn’t like going out, doesn’t quite get the appeal of being shoved into crowds of people in a cramped room with perspiration mixing with other spilled fluids coating sticky skin. ‘It’s just ‘cause you’re too la-’ a hiccup, a giggle, ‘large, ushi.’ is your usual response. ‘Take up too much space.’

Ushijima goes out because you go out, and when you go out, your Find My Friends icon seems to like playing Pac-Man, navigating through the map like you’ve got dots to clear past every street and building. It worries him. So he goes out.

Tequila shots usually bring you to another club, whichever looks the most bustling, because you flock to crowds, like moth to flame. It’s your first character flaw.

“I’m not that drunk,” he whips his head to see your frame swaying outside the queue of a club entrance, bouncer leaning in close, too close.

Your second character flaw is that you’re too friendly. You tell him he’s too cold, too curt, but he thinks you’re just too outgoing. This is what happens when you’re so sociable.

It only takes him two long strides to cross over the street, extend out one long arm over to your shoulder, and pull you into his chest. The bouncer looks up at him, neck craning probably more than he’s used to, before spitting on the floor and turning back.

“Toooooshi,” he doesn’t think his name has that many vowels, but you’re pawing at his shirt, trying and failing to slither an arm around his waist. “‘m hungry.”

This is standard, this is the usual routine. He’s used to this now, “let’s go home, we have food at home.” After the third night out, he’s made a habit out of cooking before you leave. Because you’re always hungry, you always— “want Maccas,” you’re giggling.

“McDonald’s is going to be closed.” It’s a fact, there’s a slim chance you’ll make it before three, no point in wasting time. Besides, there’s food at home.

But you’re tugging at his arm and dragging him down the street, and he’s letting you, because the best way to appease you is to let you see for yourself. You’re bouncing with excited chirps, skipping down the road with grace that will always impress him given the stilts attached to your feet.

McDonald’s is closed.

It’s like he said, so he allows you to pout and sulk for a minute, run a hand down your back in comfort, before taking out his phone to call a cab. He can feel your shoulder bump into his chest, hands fidgeting with the hem of your short dress, “what’s wrong?”

You’re blushing, cheeks tinting over with a light shade of pink illuminated by the bright yellow lights, and it’d be cute if he wasn’t worried. “What’s wrong?”

Another tug at the black fabric, eyelashes fluttering to point towards the wall, the sign; anywhere except him. “I need to pee.”

It comes out so quietly, so docile, a contrast to your otherwise boisterous drunken state. He leans down, face brushing past your hair until it’s only a mere inch away.

“What’s that?”

He watches as your glossed lips push out into a pout, huffing out a, “I need to pee, Toshi, I need the toilet.” Your heels clack on the gravel a few times as if to prove a point.

“I’m calling a cab right now,” he reassures you, “we’ll be home soon.”

You don’t seem reassured. You seem more anxious, if anything. “No, Toshi, I need to pee now,” he can feel your fingers fidgeting with his shirt, yanking the fabric in nervous twitches.

He watches you chew on your lip, willing a solution out from the pink gloss staining your teeth, any solution—

“Alley.”

It’s barely left his mouth before your head’s whipping to glance at the dark narrow street hidden behind the fast food joint. It’s tight, or maybe you’re right, he’s just too broad, but he barely fits down the cramped road.

You’re not moving, though, just staring up at him expectantly as if sending him a message, a signal. He doesn’t really get it. “It’s fine, there’s no one on the streets right now.”

Your bottom lip snags under your teeth, doe eyes looking up through fluttering lashes as you shake your head. The tint on your cheeks grow darker, and he takes a few steps forward, shadowing your smaller frame in his large silhouette. “I’ll block you, you can go now.”

Ushijima’s not the best with people, he’s always been told this. He knows it himself, but he thinks he knows you pretty well, at least.

He’s lost.

He’s waiting for you to say something, anything, an explanation for your odd behaviour, but instead he feels dainty fingers tug on his shirt again before shoving him lightly.

“Turn around,” you won’t look at him, eyes fixed on the broken bottle on the dingy alleyway floor, “Don’t look.”

People are a mystery to Ushijima, but at this moment, you are an enigma.

All 200 pounds of pure muscle on him is stagnant. He’s confused; he’s seen you naked, seen you from all angles in all sorts of positions, he’s brushed his teeth while you were using the toilet before— he doesn’t get it. So he tells you.

Your fists meekly punch at his arm, at his chest, wherever they can reach, “It’s embarrassing,” you’re pouting now, and he thinks it’s cute. Under any other circumstances he’d lean over and kiss you, but not right now. Right now he wants understand what’s going on up in your mind.

“Why?”

It sets you into a frustrated huff, cheeks puffing out before a dejected sigh, “fine, whatever,” and then you’re squatting down, finally, to his relief. Your dress is hitched up only a fraction before he hears the trickling, but you don’t stand up when it stops.

His whole body freezes at the feeling of a warm hand pawing at his crotch. “What are you doing?” He snatches your hand off by the wrist, pulling it into him to stand you up; you don’t stand up— you fall, on your knees in front of him.

He’s used to you being a handful when you’re drunk, used to you falling all over the place, but the alleyway is soiled, filthy, not entirely appropriate for the thoughts he’s having with you on your knees. So he’s trying again, reaching down to grab hold of both your hands this time, and lugging you up.

You don’t budge, don’t even glance up at him, and he has half the heart to reach down and carry you out, but another hand lands on his crotch again and it’s getting harder and harder to ignore the strain in his trousers.

“Toooooooshi,” you’re still not looking up at him, eyes fixated on the growing tent he’s presenting in front of your face. Another soft touch, another purr, and Ushijima knows he’s a lost cause.

He lets go of your wrists, bending down to wrap an arm around your knees and picks you up before standing you back up against the wall.

“Spread your legs.” It’s not really a suggestion.

He watches as you comply, thighs parting as far as the black lace still bound around them will allow, so he rips it down before pocketing it.

He can hear your whines of complaint, it’s your favourite pair, but it’s all drowned out with a gasp as he buries his face into your wet cunt. His hands wrap behind your thighs, large palms pushing them apart until they rest over his shoulders.

His tongue flicks up your drooling slit, lapping at the juices dribbling out your needy hole and down his chin. You’re whimpering now, hands shoving at his face, “stop, Toshi, I—” he looks up at you, gaze piercing through your flushed expression, “I just peed, ‘ts gross.”

“I know.”

“Toshi we’re—” a moan, nails digging into his scalp when he dips his tongue into your clenching hole, “in public, please,” your face whips to the side, anxiously scanning for passerby’s.

“I know,” he echos with a harsh squeeze of your thighs, fucking you down onto his tongue. He can feel a hand threading through his hair, gripping and pulling while the other is obediently clamped over your mouth in an attempt to muffle wanton moans.

“Toshi, stop,” you’re crying now, legs around his head trembling with every lap and lick into your dripping cunt, nose grazing that sensitive bud as he presses your body into the wall. The fingers meekly pushing at his face are chased by your hips bucking against it, and he can feel your hole clench around his muscle.

He doesn’t stop. 

He doesn’t stop because he can feel you coming undone, feel your tight cunny quiver with every thrust— and you do, with a loud sob of his name, before he removes his hand from under to clamp over your mouth.

“You’re gonna get us caught,” he doesn’t think you can hear him, your eyes rolling back and tongue pressing into the pads of his fingers.

He can still see your hole quivering when he stands back up and unbuckles his trousers. His aching erection springs free with a tug of his waistband, snapping up and wetting his shirt with pre.

Normally he would’ve prepared you better, laid you on your back and fucked you on his tongue and thick fingers until you’re wailing his name, legs shaking with the overstimulation. But he doesn’t have that luxury now, doesn’t have the soft mattress, the plush bedding to sink you into; he only has the brick wall digging into your back in a dingy alleyway.

So he sinks his cock into your drooling cunt, pushing his cockhead through the first ring of muscle. There’s nails clawing at his shoulders, back of his neck, anywhere they can reach, anywhere they can grasp.

It’s tight, so tight he doesn’t think he can fit, thinks he should’ve prepared you after all, but one look down at your tear-stricken face crumbles any inhibitions. His hips snap forward in the same breath his large palms find themselves back under your thighs, lifting you up against the wall.

The jagged wall is probably digging into your back, and normally he would’ve tried to appease the pain, shift the angle so you’re more comfortable, but right now all he can think about are your doughy walls sucking his cock in, one slow inch at a time.

It’s excruciating how tight you are; by the third inch you’re throwing your head into the crook of his neck, nails digging into his back trying to ease the stretch— Ushijima’s trying, too; trying to make sure he doesn’t drown in the feel of your fluttering walls and snap his hips forward until he can feel the kiss of your cervix on his cockhead.

It doesn’t work, not when you’re chanting his name like a mantra, crying about how full you feel, how much he’s stretching you out— you can feel him in your stomach.

He drops your body down into the thrust of his hips and buries his cock to hilt. Five seconds, then ten, then thirty; he lets you catch your breath, catch his breath, before you’re whimpering in his ear begging him to move.

There’s no time for modesty, an alleyway is hardly the setting for soft gentle sex. With a vice grip in the flesh of your ass, he hugs you into his chest and steadies a hand on the wall behind you.

He can feel your legs attempt to wrap around the width of his hips, his waist, can feel you cooing soft moans into his ears, can hear you sobbing his name like it’s the only word you know. Every piston of his hip echoes in the cramped alleyway, heavy balls papping against your mound.

He’s breathing in your moans, letting himself drown in you desperate whines of his name, “cum in me, Toshi, fill me up”— he’s shoving your pliant body into the harsh wall, arm moving down from the jagged surface to grip the soft flesh under your thigh.

In one swift movement he’s pinned your knees to your ears, limp calves bouncing off his sturdy shoulders as he pounds into you at an unrelenting pace.

Your moans turn to sobs, wails of Toshi, Toshi, Toshi; his breaths turn to grunts into promises to breed you so good, fill you up with his cum until it’s dripping out of your sweet lil cunny. There’s mini crescents marking up the back of his neck, dark purples and yellows running up along yours as he suctions onto new blank patches of skin.

Loud, unrhythmic squelching echos in the alleyway, his arms bouncing you onto his length until you twitch, spasm around his cock, and you’re coming undone for the second time that night with his name spilling out in broken sobs.

Ushijima doesn’t stop, fucks you through your squeals and shoves until he feels your greedy cunt milking his cock again, then he’s spilling into you with hot ropes of cum.

He doesn’t stop until your body’s gone pliant caged inside his, knees still pushed against the wall and saliva dribbling past your lolling tongue down to your messy pussy, mixing with creams of cum and slick and drool.

One limb at a time, he unfolds you and carries you in his arms, cradling your limp body into his chest. He looks down, admires your hazy gaze, pupils blown, and presses a gentle kiss onto your forehead.

A soft hum leaves your lips, or maybe a giggle, but you’re squirming in his arms, body leaning up until he can feel your soft lips grazing his ear.

“Toooshi,” you drawl, and he almost chokes at how fucked out you sound, the rasp in your voice sending dangerous jolts down to his no longer softening cock.

“Hm?” He’s debating on flagging a cab instead of calling one; can’t really reach into his pocket when you’re in his arms.

“Want Maccas.”

[luvdsc]

mark lee sucks at technology.

tap the heart if you have a big, fat, embarrassing crush on your best friend!

pairing :: lee mark x reader genre :: fluff / best friend + social influencer au word count :: 5,883 words warnings :: none playlist :: dumb stuff (lany) ⋆ feeling (coin) ⋆ so far so good (gabrielle aplin) ⋆ electric love (børns) ⋆ love by mistake (bad suns) author’s note :: i was debating if i should post it on his bday instead, but i decided to drop it earlier, so uh, happy (approx. one week early) bday to mister absolutely fully capable (except when it comes to tech stuff) !!!! thank you for blessing us with your god tier raps ♡ ↳ part of the not clickbait series.

In your required upper division business course aptly titled “Essential Marketing Strategies,” you had learned about a concept called personal brands. A personal brand is explained as the first impression a person wishes to perceive based on their own experiences, qualifications, and achievements. Your professor had told you and your classmates to pick three words to define your own brand. For instance, you chose to label yourself as charismatic, fun, and creative.

Your best friend’s brand would be awkward, endearing, and technologically challenged. 

Okay, so that is definitely more than three words, but who’s counting? You might as well tack on “Y/N’s big fat crush” at this rate because everyone and their mother knows that you carry a torch—or more accurately, a blazing wildfire that can easily be spotted from Pluto—for your best friend.

Well, to be more precise, you should probably say everyone, except Mark, knows. And that’s not for lack of trying either. You completely dropped the art of delicate subtlety months ago already. Maybe you should add “hopelessly oblivious” instead.

The rolling end credits to the sixth Harry Potter film are playing on the screen in front of you, signaling the nearing end of your magical movie marathon. You’re seated on the worn down couch in Mark and Donghyuck’s shared apartment, watching the former make his drink with the fancy, gently used Keurig newly settled on the scratched countertop. Johnny dropped it off a few days ago because he had splurged on a better coffee machine (“It even makes Instagram worthy whipped frappuccinos!”) and didn’t want his old, but still perfectly functioning caffeine provider going to waste.

“What’s wrong with this thing?” Mark slaps the side of the machine, and it starts to emit a low whirring noise. “Oh, that’s good, right? That sound is good, you think?”

His question is immediately answered by the sad squirt of hot water speckled with coffee grinds falling into his mug for a few seconds before the machine shuts off.

“What the hell?” he mutters angrily, carding his hand through his hair in frustration, and you finally decide to take pity on your best friend. Getting up from the comfy spot you know you sadly won’t be able to recreate perfectly again later, you stride over to where your best friend stands and flip open the top of the Keurig.

“Hyuck didn’t take out his used coffee pod,” you say, pulling out the incriminating evidence of your best friend’s roommate and disposing it in the trash can next to the refrigerator. “Where’s the espresso one you’re gonna use? Why didn’t you put that in?”

His jaw slackens, and he sheepishly rubs the back of his neck, avoiding your gaze and mumbling, “I thought I’d just open it later and pour it into my hot water.”

“Mark,” you start, placing your hands on his shoulders firmly and staring into his eyes with a serious look on your face. “Please know that I’m saying this in the most loving way possible, but you are an absolute idiot.”

You release your grip on his shoulders and grab the espresso pod dangling from his fingertips before slotting it into the Keurig. You remove the mug he placed underneath the spout and wash out the accidental coffee water before placing it back in its original position and pressing the start button on the machine. With a sigh, you lean against the side of the counter, glancing at your friend who looks like a child being scolded for stealing from the cookie jar.

“If you pour the pod into your mug, are you just going to chug all the loose coffee grinds, too?”

“... I didn’t think that far ahead.” His lips start to unintentionally form a tiny pout, and your eyes (and your heart, too) soften.

You’re very relieved that Donghyuck is off filming with your friend because he definitely would be making fun of your heart eyes that frequently make an appearance around a certain Mark Lee. Which you always deny. Because you certainly do not have a gigantic crush on your technologically inept best friend.

You glance over at him again and have to physically fight yourself to resist the urge to kiss his cute pout away. Okay, so maybe you harbor a very respectable, medium sized crush. But it's no big deal. It’s completely under control. Unless you’re counting the fact that your best friend is still unaware, and you’re running out of ideas to try and see if he likes you back before you actually shoot your shot. Then it’s very much not under control because you’re losing sleep over it and you don’t know what to do to be any more obvious without stating the, well, obvious.

“Well, now you know. If you forget, you can FaceTime me and I’ll give you instructions on how it works.” You pat his shoulder reassuringly before pausing. “Wait, you do know how to FaceTime, right?”

“Yes!” he exclaims, sulking even more before confessing in a quieter, defeated tone, “Hyuck showed me last month.”

Mark grabs his finished drink and follows behind you, settling back onto the couch next to you. The streaming service already has Deathly Hallows Part 1 in the queue and ready to go, and your best friend is ready to click play until he notices your attention being focused on the smaller screen in your hands. He wonders if you’re about to post another one of your popular cooking videos on that app that shares a name with the most iconic song of the 2000s (hint: the name of the song’s singer is made up of four letters and a dollar sign).

“Are you uploading one of your videos?” he implores before taking a sip of his drink with a satisfied smile. Somehow, it always tastes better when you make it, and he can’t figure out why for the life of him. When he went to Johnny’s place, his older friend uses the exact same pod and water ratio for his espresso, and yet, it’s never as good as yours.

“Nah, I’m ordering my grocery delivery before I forget. Do you want anything?” You select the option to load your usual grocery items into your cart before debating on whether or not you should splurge on buying several packages of those seasonal Pillsbury sugar cookies that only come in stock during certain holidays. It seems like such an insult to the entire premise of your Tiktok account based on baking and cooking, but you’re an absolute sucker for those soft pastries.

“Yeah, can you get me a Shin Ramyun ten pack? Hyuck ate the last one two days ago and didn’t tell me.”

“You sure you don’t want ten boxes again?” You decide to get those Pillsbury sugary delights, happily adding three boxes to your cart. Everybody has a weakness, and yours just so happens to be a premade one way ticket to diabetes. You’re here for a good, delicious time, not a long time.

“No! That was an accident!” He objects, flailing his hands around, before falling back against the couch cushions in defeat. “But Hyuck does all the online grocery shopping now.”

“Thank god. You guys finally have quality toilet paper again.”

The past month of bathroom occurrences was plagued with scratchy tissue that felt more like goddamn sandpaper from the horrible depths of hell. To be honest, you probably would have rather used actual sandpaper, given the choice. You even made sure not to drink too much water any time you came over, but today, you decided to splurge on a venti passion fruit iced tea with sweetener from that very popular franchise sporting a mermaid logo and fiscally cosmic name. To your pleasant surprise, your trip to the toilet this time was wonderfully padded with Charmin Ultra Soft, not that absolutely awful off brand one with the gross texture of a dried pinecone from inferno.

“Hey, that toilet paper was a good steal! It was a three for one deal,” Mark protests, and you narrow your eyes at him.

“Wow, I wonder why it was priced so low.” You deadpan, and Mark blanches, recalling all those restroom incidents that were rather rough. Literally.

“Anyway, do you think my viewers wanna see me make chocolate crinkle cookies or mochi doughnuts?” You bring up the two recipes you managed to perfect and add your own spin to on your phone, eyes scanning the ingredient lists.

“Both. And tell me when you’re making them, so I can come over and eat them.” He gives you a wide grin, and you let out a snort at that. His smile only grows as he says happily, “I love your job.”

“You only love it because you can freeload off of me,” you jest, but nevertheless begin to start to add all the ingredients for both recipes to your shopping cart. You always film cooking videos on Tuesdays, edit on Wednesdays, keep Thursdays free for last minute touch ups and emergencies, and post one every week on Fridays with other various random videos uploaded whenever in between. With that in mind, you schedule your upcoming grocery delivery for Monday.

“Hey, you need me. I’m the best taste tester.” He puffs up his chest proudly before hastily tacking on a more genuine reason. “And because I’d starve without you. I can’t live off of instant ramen and frozen chicken nuggets forever. Gordon Ramsay already confirmed my shitty cooking skills. I need you to survive.”

“Oh my god, when I uploaded those pics of your scrambled eggs on Twitter, I lost like a hundred followers in less than a minute.” You confirm the delivery and place your phone on the coffee table, picking up the opened bag of Cheeto puffs before settling back in your seat. “My cooking credibility was completely shot. I had to explain to my fans that I didn’t make those.”

“Yeah, but now everyone calls me Eggy Boi online!” he whines, and you laugh. You have to admit, it’s quite a funny play on the whole “edgy boi” terminology. You wonder if Mark will find it amusing if he discovers his roommate is the culprit behind his new online persona (He probably won’t, and you reckon Donghyuck enjoys living in a safe space where he doesn’t have to sleep with one eye open, so you stay quiet about it. You’ll use it as leverage some other time).

“Okay, Eggy Boi, come by on Tuesday because I’ll be baking in the afternoon,” you say casually, grabbing the remote control from your best friend and pressing play. 

You very narrowly avoid a green gummy bear to the face. It lands somewhere behind the couch, lost forever to the dust bunnies and other snacks that missed its target. You know for a fact that it’ll stay there until the boys decide to move to a new apartment. Mark grumbles at the miss, biting off the head of a red cherry flavored gummy bear perhaps a little harder than necessary.

“I hate you. But I’m still coming over next week because I want a doughnut.”

“No cookie?”

“... and a cookie. Maybe two.”

Wednesday comes faster than you expected, and you’re currently holed up in your apartment’s second bedroom—which you had transformed into a snazzy office space—completing the edits to your second video on mochi doughnuts. You already finished polishing the one about the cookies earlier, thank goodness. If you had to stare at your computer screen for another three hours, you would rather eat those pastries Mark tried to make two months ago, but had mistaken salt for sugar. Adding a cup of salt to any baked good is an extremely effective way to make anyone who tasted your best friend’s brownies experience a trip to the beach. Because they essentially just swallowed a mouthful of sand and ocean water. Because it’s salty as heck. Just like Mark was when you told him.

Speaking of your best friend, he’s currently puttering around in your kitchen doing god knows what. He knows better than to try another recipe and possibly blow up your number one moneymaker—your prized oven—in the process. Your heart nearly drops when your ears pick up the faint chopping sounds of a knife against your wooden cutting board. Is he going to try to temper chocolate again? He nearly burned through your entire stock of dark, milk, and white chocolate last time.

After much contemplation and deciding that you deserve a good procrastination break and a fully intact kitchen, you’re about to go out and see what he’s up to when Mark timidly appears in your doorway, clutching onto a white bowl of watermelon cubes with a fork tucked neatly in it. He shuffles in, dropping the snack on your desk before turning to walk out without a word, not wanting to disturb your work mode. 

Your heart warms up at the sight, and you speak up, a small smile slipping into your face. “What’s this for?”

“Knowing you, you probably haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.” He pauses in the doorway and adds on sheepishly, “And I can't cook anything, so this is what you get.”

Your heart swells tenfold, and your smile widens even more as you spear a piece of fruit with the fork and quickly pop it into your mouth. “Thanks, Marky.”

His cheeks flush with a pretty shade of carmine, and he fails to suppress the little giddy smile that appears on his face at your nickname for him. He walks out of your office, reddened cheeks still rising up higher than ever. “Y-Yeah, of course. No problem.”

By the time you finish adding the final few touches to your edited video, the bowl of watermelon has been picked clean. You save your video and transfer both of your completed projects to your phone, making a mental note to schedule their uploads and add them to your account’s posting queue later. Shoving your phone in the pocket of your sweats after ensuring the successful transfer of your videos, you pick up the empty dish and walk out towards the kitchen, the silver fork clinking against the side of the bowl with every step.

As you wash the dish and utensil, Mark wanders over from his spot on the couch, leaning forward and casually placing his chin on your shoulder. Almost instantaneously, you feel the heat rising to your cheeks as you briefly fantasize about your best friend wrapping his arms around your waist and how domestic and sweet the two of you would look, like one of those cheesy couples the two of you always made fun of.

“What’s up?” you ask, making a conscious effort to hold your voice steady and not waver over the fact that Mark is basically draped over you. After you place the dish on the drying rack, you turn around to face your best friend, sorely miscalculating the distance as mere inches separate your face from his now.

“I—” Puberty decides to make an ugly appearance in the form of an ill timed voice crack, and he internally curses as he takes a step back, willing the incoming blush to go away. Letting out a small cough, he tries again, scratching the back of his neck nervously.

“I, um, Jisung sent me some kind of dance video. He said it’s a challenge? I kinda don’t know what to do with it? Like do I make a new dance, record myself, and send it back? Actually, isn't it easier to just do a dance battle face to face?”

“Can I see the video?” You already have a good idea on what the video will be, but you want to confirm it. Mark fumbles with his phone, pulling up the video in his text messages. He angles the phone towards you for you to see, and you grab his hand, bringing the device a little closer to you for a better look and clicking play.

“Oh, it’s a Tiktok challenge! He’s doing the Say So dance!” you exclaim, recognizing the song almost immediately as your eyes follow the fluid dance moves, completely enthralled. “So a challenge isn’t going up against someone, like a battle. It’s just some kind of trend or concept that you try to copy yourself. You’re supposed to learn the same dance and record yourself for this one. I can show you some other challenges and help you practice and record this one tomorrow if you wanna drop by after work!”

“O-Oh, okay, sounds good.” Mark stumbles over his words, attempting to focus on what you’re saying and the dance Jisung is doing, but all he can think about is the way your body is pressed against his side, hand comfortably wrapped around his. He freezes up as the tips of his ears grow redder and redder with every passing second, and his face sports a similar color. He silently prays for the telltale crimson to go away by the time the dance is over.

When the video ends, you once again realize the close proximity between you and your best friend. Your face burns at this revelation, and you awkwardly take a step back. Clearing your throat, you hastily release Mark’s hand (He inaudibly lets out the breath he’s been holding in this entire time, yet he also already misses the way your hand felt grasping his).

“Uh, anyway, I’m gonna make a latte. Do you want a drink, too?” You walk towards the other side of your kitchen with Mark trailing behind you. You take out a floral, peachy colored mug from your cupboards before pausing and looking at your best friend. “Wait, do you remember how to use a Keurig?”

“Yes!” He says, slightly exasperated as he picks out his own cup from your cabinet. He always uses the same one—a cerulean blue mug with squiggles all over it—and all of your friends and guests know not to use it because it’s unofficially officially Mark’s mug (And perhaps, you did indeed buy it from that overpriced kitschy tableware shop down the street two years ago with your best friend in mind).

“Really?” You select the latte option and press start after you had already positioned the mug beneath the spout and inserted a green tea matcha pod. He finally relents, shoulders sagging and a defeated expression on his face.

“... No.”

You chuckle, taking the mug from him and carefully putting it on the counter. You grab the espresso pod you know he likes from the drawer below and place it next to the cup. “It’s okay, I’ll teach you again.”

Mark tries. He really does. He tries very hard to concentrate on memorizing the simple process, but he keeps getting distracted. His eyes are focused on the correct button to push before they start to trail up to your fingertips. And then, they go from your hand to your arm, then up to the elegant curve of your neck, and finally, to the way your lashes frame your pretty eyes and how the tip of your tongue sticks out slightly as you concentrate until all he can focus on is you, you, you.

Suddenly, in what feels like a blink of an eye, you’re done and handing him his finished drink, complete with a perfectly whipped milk foam on top. You ask him if he knows how to make it now, and all he can do is lie and nod with a barely convincing smile.

After all, how can Mark tell his best friend that the reason he never remembers is because you’re the biggest distraction?

Mark should be here in five minutes, according to his most recent text message. And in the text message below that, your friend had sent you a challenge. More specifically, it’s the one she completed with Donghyuck a few weeks ago. When you said you wanted bold suggestions on how to figure out if your best friend feels the same way about you as you do about him, you didn’t want one this bold. 

Yet, the video link to your friend’s “today I kissed my best friend” challenge along with a winky face from her is staring mockingly at you. While you aren’t one to back down from a challenge, the mere thought of kissing your best friend causes vast colonies of butterflies to erupt in your stomach and your ears to feel as if they have caught on fire. You’re already tongue tied with your head in the clouds, and he isn’t even here yet. How utterly fantastic.

However, your mother definitely did not raise a quitter, so you spring into action when you hear the faint jingling of a key being inserted into your apartment’s door (You had given Mark a copy of your key almost immediately after you had moved in). You move the pretty indoor fern given to you by Jaemin as a housewarming gift last year closer to the edge of your towering bookcase, leaning your phone against it. You quickly position the device to capture a good view of the couch area in your living room and press the record button, arranging a few of the leaves to hide as much of your phone as you possibly can without obstructing the lens.

You run full speed to your bedroom, letting out a sigh of relief when you’re safely inside and hear Mark finally unlocking the door successfully and shuffling in. When he calls out to you, you try to even out your breathing, walking out of your room with your tripod and laptop in hand.

“Hey,” you greet him in the most casual tone you can muster. You place the tripod down and sit before opening your laptop and setting it on the coffee table. “I thought we could watch a few challenges for fun before trying the Say So one. Have you watched Jisung’s videos before?”

“Um, well, no, not really,” he confesses sheepishly, taking a seat next to you on the couch, leg pressing against yours. He squints at the YouTube video you pulled up earlier before he had arrived, reading the title before clicking the space button to start it. “Savage Tiktok dance compilation part two?”

“Wait, hold up.” You pause the video and then turn to face him with an incredulous expression on your face. “You’ve never watched any of Jisung’s dance Tiktoks?”

“No… I don’t even have an account.” His cheeks are dusted with the lightest shade of pink as he quietly admits, “I watch all of yours though.”

Your eyes widen at his confession, face heating up as you stammer out, “O-Oh, well, I can help you make an account later to upload your video.”

“Sounds good.” There’s a few seconds of silence as you mull over his previous words before he speaks up again awkwardly, “Should I, uh, play the video?”

“Oh! Yes, right! Of course, hit play,” you laugh nervously, twisting and playing with the hair tie around your wrist. He starts the video again, and the two of you watch the compilation, slowly relaxing once more as you tap your fingers to the rhythm of the song and he bobs his head to the beat.

“Do I have to change outfits like that?” he questions a few minutes later, eyes growing round as he sees the girl on the screen switch between four different outfits throughout the dance. His closet basically consists of the same five black shirts that he stole from Jaehyun. Even if he did do an outfit swap, there would literally be no difference at all.

“You don’t have to,” you assure him, clicking the enter key to play the next video that’s recommended: another Tiktok dance challenge compilation. “All you have to do is copy the dance.”

Mark nods, taking a glance at the laptop screen before his hand shoots out and he pauses the video, leaning forward to take a closer look at the little recommended video title banner at the top. “Wait! What’s that one?”

He clicks on it, the new video now loading up. The two of you wait patiently for it to begin, waiting for the spinning disc to stop. But it doesn’t. In fact, the whole chrome page goes blank and then, the little pixelated Google Chrome dinosaur pops up on your monitor, announcing that you have no internet connection. Furrowing your eyebrows, you try to reload the page before trying to re-establish your laptop connection to your wifi. Unfortunately, you cannot find your appropriately named “drop it like it’s hotspot” wifi anywhere to connect to.

And that’s when it hits you. Your landlord had sent out a notice to the entire apartment complex last week about the electricity being powered down today from 4 to 6 p.m. for a maintenance check, and a quick glance at the digital clock on your laptop shows that it’s a little past four.

You groan, closing your laptop and flopping back against the couch cushions dramatically. Mark cocks his head, slightly confused, before he pokes you in the arm. “What’s wrong?”

“I completely forgot about the scheduled electricity shutdown for the entire building. We won’t have any wifi for the next two hours.” You pout, your bottom lip jutting out in the slightest, and Mark doesn’t think it’s fair that you get to be this cute and have this much of an effect on his racing heart rate.

“That’s okay, we can… play some board games?” he suggests offhandedly, pushing away the embarrassing thought and nudging your leg with his, and you smile before a sudden idea occurs to you. 

“Or we can still do some Tiktok challenges! What was the challenge you clicked on?” You quickly sit upright, turning to face your best friend, eyes sparkling in excitement. “I memorized a few of the dance ones already! Was it Renegade? I can teach you that one. Jisung showed me how to do it.”

“Um,” he starts, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. His eyes dart everywhere, except you, as he lets out a feigned cough. “It wasn’t a dance one. It was about, uh, going up to your boyfriend… and um, hugging him... when he’s playing video games.”

“Oh.” You answer lamely, not knowing what to say. You unsuccessfully try to push away the image of you attempting that challenge with your best friend. “Those are really cute.”

“Really?” He says doubtfully, wrinkling his eyebrows and fiddling with the frayed sleeve of his sweater. “Wouldn’t the dude get mad?”

You don’t know what suddenly possessed you to do this (you’ll have to ask Renjun and his paranormal loving ass later), but you thank whatever demon did for that split second because you find yourself gently grabbing Mark’s arm and slipping your head underneath it. You swing one leg over his lap and settle down until you’re securely sitting in his lap, bent legs on either side of his hips, hands curled around the soft fabric of his sweater on both sides and resting on top of your thighs. His arms instinctively go around your waist, wrapping around you securely.

You tilt your head to the side slightly, studying the flustered boy in front of you with a teasing, albeit a little anxious, smile on your lips. “Are you feeling mad?”

Splotches of red litter his cheeks and decorate the tips of his ears, but your best friend furiously shakes his head at your question, bashfully ducking his head afterwards and muttering a soft “No.”

You swallow hard, heart pounding erratically in your chest as you timidly ask, “Would you be mad if I do this?”

Mark looks up at that, confusion written all over his face. His arms start to loosen around your figure, hands now resting on your waist. “If you do what?”

You take a deep breath. “This.”

You lean in and gently press your lips against his. Mark freezes in shock, and you quickly retreat soon after, gnawing at the inside of your cheek as you wait anxiously for his reaction. Your heart feels like it’s about to fall out of your chest and be buried six feet under.

A tiny noise of surprise belatedly escapes from him and crimson spreads across his cheeks like wildfire. His doe eyes are wide and sparkling, staring at you in bewilderment. Your best friend lets out a small laugh of disbelief before a full blown smile breaks out across his face. He gazes at you adoringly, breathing out softly, “I’m not mad at that.”

You perk up at that, draping your arms around his neck as you lean forward, beaming. “Really? You’re not?”

“Definitely not.”

This time, Mark meets you halfway, his lips slotting against yours perfectly and making you feel tingles up and down your spine. Your eyes are closed, and you are so hyper aware of the way his hands grip your hips, how he tugs you closer, and how his lips chase after yours. The number of butterflies from earlier multiply in your stomach, and you have ascended past cloud nine by now.

When the two of you break apart, your eyes flutter open, and you nudge your nose against his affectionately. The brightest grin blooms on his face once again, and he buries his face in the crook of your neck, muffling his little giggles and hiding the awfully vibrant cerise that rapidly blossoms on his face.

“Is this a good time to tell you congrats for completing your first challenge?” you say, resting your cheek against the crown of his head. You pull away when he lifts his head up, surprised.

“I wasn’t playing video games though,” he says slowly, processing your words and thinking back to the challenge that started this all.

“It was a different challenge. It’s the one that Hyuck did a few weeks ago,” you confess, and realization dawns on him, his face lighting up for a split second before a look of horror takes over.

“Oh, no. Is that why you had your phone recording on the bookshelf?” Mark asks, dread beginning to cloud his mind.

“Yes…” you say slowly, a little perplexed. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“Oh my god, I ruined your video,” he moans, dropping his forehead onto your shoulder. “I saw your phone when I walked in and thought you were filming earlier and forgot to turn it off, so I turned it off for you.”

When the words finally register in your mind, you can’t stop the laughter from bubbling out of your throat, and he raises his head up to look at you with wide doe eyes at the pretty sound. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to!”

You can’t stop laughing at the situation, and he looks at you worriedly, gnawing on his bottom lip slightly. You force yourself to calm down, a soft chuckle leaving your lips before you beam at him, leaning in and placing the softest kiss on the tip of his nose. “It’s okay, Mark. I’m not mad. That video wasn’t important anyway.”

“But still,” he whines before letting out a groan and slapping his hand against his forehead when the realization sinks in even further. “I’m such an idiot.”

“But you’re my idiot now, right?” you say teasingly, albeit a little shyly as well, as you reach over to tug his hand away from his face and lace your fingers with his.

“I mean, I kinda thought I was always your idiot,” Mark laughs softly and a little embarrassedly, eyes averted and cheeks turning pinker than ever. The largest grin spreads across your face at that, and you turn away slightly to hide it. You didn’t think your best friend can possibly be any more endearing, but he manages to prove you wrong every time.

“Well, then now you can add ‘Y/N’s boyfriend’ to your resume,” you say, and he fails to suppress the pleased smile appearing on his face at your remark, his rosy cheeks rising even taller than skyscrapers.

“So, uh, what sort of job description does that have?” He gazes at your intertwined hands in wonder, still completely giddy at the reality of you being his best friend and something more.

“Sharing hoodies, giving me attention, kissing, holding my hand, going on dates, you know, the basics,” you answer, squeezing his hand tenderly, and his doe eyes instantly light up. Mark feels a little bolder than before, and it shows when he grins widely and says:

“Can we do number three again?”

“Yes, we can, Eggy Boi.”

He wrinkles his nose at the name, disgruntled and unimpressed, as he crosses his arms over his chest, sulking. You let out a laugh before leaning in and crashing your lips against his. He immediately relents at that, enthusiastically responding and hugging you closer to him, and you can’t help but smile into the kiss as you feel his own smile appear as well.

At that moment, you decide that you want to change Mark’s personal brand. Because his should be “absolutely wonderful, positively amazing, a cute kisser, your boyfriend, and your bestest friend.” And yes, that is most definitely more than the allotted three words, but again, who’s really counting?

Certainly not you when you’re too preoccupied with kissing your best friend. Correction: best friend and new boyfriend.

One new notification: donutkillmyvibe uploaded a new video!

moominjun commented:

so you’re saying the reason why we didn’t get the highly anticipated best friend challenge video is because @ marklyrawr turned the camera off?

donutkillmyvibe replied: yes 😔 I’m sorry to disappoint everyone 🤧

nanaislove replied: omg no bby it’s ok 🥺🥺💞💓💓💝💗 you didn’t have to make an apology video for that 🥺💗💓💘💖

goofys.chuckle replied: yeah it’s mark’s fault. he’s the disappointment here 🥴

morklyrawr replied: hahahahaha stfu hyuck

tytrack commented:

mark is going through puberty. I apologize

dobunny replied: @.@

goofys.chuckle commented:

are we getting whip(ped)lash pt 2 by eggy boi?

morklyrawr replied: YOU’RE THE ONE WHO STARTED THAT NAME?????

goofys.chuckle replied: uh gotta blast 🚀

showmethemonet replied: @ goofys.chuckle does this mean you’re staying over again?

goofys.chuckle replied: @ showmethemonet yes if you want your super cute, mega talented, very handsome boyfriend to still be alive 🥺

showmethemonet replied: @ goofys.chuckle oh my god I didn’t know I was dating bts jin???

moominjun replied: LMFAOOOOO

goofys.chuckle replied: heart 💔 been broke 📉 so many times ⏰ i don’t know 🤔 what to believe 💯 mama 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 said 🗣 it’s my fault 😢 it’s my fault 🤦🏻‍♂️i wear my heart ❤️ on my sleeve 💪 i think it’s best 👍🏻 I put my heart ❤️ on ice 🧊

jenojam commented:

why am I not surprised……

itsmebetch replied: just mark thingz 🍉

suhprisemf commented:

mark your head looks flat af

jungjaeprince replied: 😂😂😂

10vely replied: @ jungjaeprince be quiet don’t cry

letswonwon commented:

whoop whoop

junguwu commented:

OMG CONGRATS ON YOUR RELATIONSHIP SWEETIE 😍😍

takoyaki_prince commented:

MARK!!!!! you look handsome !! 😘

jisungpwark commented:

rip to @ donutkillmyvibe ’s future videos that mark will ruin. press f in the chat to pay respects 🙏🏻

bigheadking replied: F ✊🏻😔

peachyangel replied: f 🥺🥺

yoitslucas replied: F 🤪🤪🤪 but glad you’re happy, man ❤️

donutkillmyvibe replied: F 💔

morklyrawr replied: @ donutkillmyvibe wtf babe????

officialgordonramsay commented:

didn’t i tell you to get back on tinder ?

apado_god commented:

nice 😎👍🏻

[pookiepoodle]

Finding out you’re a Little ft. Inarizaki

I don’t own any art (except the lovely swirly thing). Please check out my masterlist and send in requests. This is an age-regression piece, so expect that kind of content (all non-sexual). Aran’s involves diapers as a medical need. 

Suna

You wanna watch cartoons after a long day of studying for your upcoming university exams.  

Suna smirks a little but doesn’t say anything, shrugging as he pulls you up against his chest, the screen flashing with bright colors. 

You don’t even notice the smirk and you can feel yourself growing smaller, your eyes shining as you giggle at the silly antics of the characters.

 Now, Suna has a faint idea of what’s happening. He’s always on his phone so he sees a lot of different communities and right now, you’re reminding him of something. 

“Ya know Princess, you’re acting really cute right now,” he begins, his hands wrapped around your waist as you stare at the TV. You feel rather small and you can’t help but giggle, snuggling back into his chest. Suna always makes you feel so safe, especially when you feel like this. Though, you don’t tend to regress in front of your boyfriend as he (at least in your mind) doesn’t know anything about your tendencies to do so. 

“You feeling small?”

That question makes you sit up straight, the cartoons forgotten as you realise what Suna said. Suna knew. He knew you were an age regressor. There was no way he asked that and didn’t understand the implications of it. But… he wasn’t freaking out. He wasn’t grossed out or asking her to stop. So shyly, you nod, holding your breath as you wait for his response.

“Alright, how about we order some pizza for dinner and we just cuddle, keep watching your show?” he hums, making you smile brightly at the thought of having delicious pizza. But, even more so at the fact that your boyfriend knows you so well. 

You’ll talk to him more about your age regression tomorrow, when you’re feeling bigger, but for now? 

You simply cuddle him, watching your show with a happy heart.

Kita

You can’t stop staring at the coloring books during your weekly shopping trip at the grocery store. 

Kita doesn’t say anything, letting you look over them all. He notices you keep going back to a specific one and will suddenly grab it, putting it into the cart.

You jump a little, blushing brightly when you realise that a) he caught you staring at children’s coloring books and b) he’s put it in the shopping cart, clearly intending to buy it for you.

Kita isn’t aware of what age regression is per say, so he simply thinks that you want to color. 

“They also do adult coloring books, Y/N,” Kita says, pointing at some of the other ones, but you shake your head no. Those ones are too detailed, too finicky for when you’re little. You’ll only get frustrated and cry, so instead you prefer to use the ones meant for kids.

“That’s alright, do you need crayons or anything?” he continued, acting as if his girlfriend/boyfriend/partner wanting a kids coloring book was normal (AN: totally is). 

“Kita, don’t you think it’s… weird?” you finally said, your voice small as you met his eyes. Kita was a straight-forward man and you expected him to be brutally honest with you. 

“Why would it be weird?”

“Well… it’s a kids coloring book and I’m supposed to be Big-” you began, cutting yourself off at the last word. You’d meant to say adult.

“Big? Y/N, is everything alright?” Kita asks calmly, moving closer to you. You can feel his hand against the small of your back, a comforting gesture.

“Can… can we talk about it in the car?” you ask, trying to keep yourself calm. You knew it was time to tell Kita (you’d been dating for years now) but even so, it was a scary thought. 

“Of course, we’re nearly done with the shopping,” Kita nodded, taking your hand as he led you to get the last few items. Throughout the process of paying and leaving the shop, you didn’t say a word to him, trying to figure out how to best tell him the truth.

“Just sit in the car, darling, I’ll load the shopping,” Kita insists, leaving you to twiddle your thumbs in the front seat, until you hear him get in next to you.

“Y/N, I don’t want to force you to tell me what’s going on, but I want to let you know that you can trust me.”

And with those words, you began to tell him everything about your little side, how you love to color and drink apple juice from your sippy. As you speak, he will ask questions as a lot of the terms you use are unfamiliar to him, but once you’re done, he gives you a small smile, reaching across to grab your hand.

“Y/N, when we get home, may I color with you?”

With a bright smile, you nod, relieved at how accepting your wonderful boyfriend is.

Aran

He finds your “protection” when he’s in your room. 

He was really confused and tried to act like he didn’t see it, simply nudging the packaging further under the bed.

But you saw his eyes widen, his face grow red and you know that he knows. 

With tears filling your eyes, you push him out your way as you run into the bathroom, locking the door as you sink to the ground, sobbing. 

Immediately, he panics, trying the door handle but to no avail.

He has no idea what’s going on, but all he knows is that his beloved girlfriend/boyfriend/partner is upset and he just wants to comfort you. 

You were a mess behind the door, sobbing your heart out as the events just kept replaying in your mind. He saw your “adult protection” which, let’s be honest, were just diapers. The fancy name always made you feel a little bit better when buying them, but now, it was just that. A fancy name for a humiliating product. There was no way that Aran wasn’t going to dump you.

“Y/N, please let me in!”

“No! J-Just g-go…”

“I’m not leaving until we talk about this, okay?”

Aran could be stubborn when he wanted to be and you realised that this was going to be one of those times. He wouldn’t leave until you talked to him, even if it took hours.

“C-Can we talk through the d-door?” 

“Of course, sweetheart,” you heard him say, his tone gentle and reassuring as you try to pull yourself together.

You then proceeded to very shakily explain about your little space. Aran had his phone out and if he didn’t recognise a word, he quickly googled it as to not have to make you answer his questions. In little space, you sometimes had problems controlling your bladder at night and after waking up with wet sheets far too often, you’d decided it was best to get some form of protection. Once you’d finished speaking, there was a silence.

“I-It’s okay if y-you don’t w-want this, I g-get it…” you whispered, tears filling your eyes once more as you waited for Aran to agree.

“Why would I not want you?”

You immediately sit up, shocked.

“Y/N, I love you, a lot. I think it’s amazing that you’re able to find a way to relax and be happy, not everyone can do that. I think you’re adorable already, I can’t imagine how cute you are when you’re little. I’m so lucky, shoot, I’ve got the cutest girlfriend ever…”

“But what about… ya know…”

“The protection? Sweetheart, that’s not your fault. You’re so brave and smart and kind and amazing and I would be a jerk if I dumped you because of something as silly as that. Heck, I used to change my little sister’s diapers all the time, I’m not bothered by it.”

“I-I’m not asking for your help!”

“Ah, wait, I didn’t mean- like if you wanted or needed it, I’d love to take care of you, even if you need help with that, but only if you want to,” he panicked, bright red as he realised that he was probably being a bit too forward.

There was another pause before the bathroom lock clicked and the door opened. 

“L-Let’s t-take it slow… but I’d l-like to watch a movie with you.”

Osamu

You were crying because your mom said she thought she accidentally tossed out your lovie/stuffie.

He was really confused because you were at Miya Onigiri and you just kept crying, so he immediately pulls you into the back room, glaring at the staff to keep them out as he just hugs you. You know that you’re regressing but you’re just in such a panic that you can’t really care, clinging to him as you babble, tears streaming down your face.

 Instinctively, he wraps his arms around you, gently bouncing you on his knee as he pats your back, mumbling that,” Everything’s gonna be alright, Y/N, okay? Yer alright, just take a deep breath…” 

After a while, you manage to calm down, though you’re still trembling in his arms as you catch your breath. Of course, Osamu isn’t the type to just let things like this slip and he will immediately ask if he can talk to you about it.

“Alright, we need to talk about what happened, Angel,” he sighs, shifting you on his lap so that you’re facing him properly, though he refuses to let you go. 

“It’s not that big of a deal…” you mumble, your face now pink and tear-stained as you look away from him. You’d always tried to keep this side of yourself private but hearing that your Mom might have tossed out Bunny… Even thinking about it again was enough to make you tear up, which your boyfriend noticed immediately.

“It seems like a big deal to me,” he replied, moving to wipe away the fresh tears,” C’mon, Y/N, you know I don’t care if it’s embarrassing or something. Remember when I had to call ye because I got food poisoning and that bastard used all the toilet paper?”

You couldn’t help but laugh at the memory, nodding as you let his thumb rub against your cheeks lovingly. 

“So, please, I just wanna know,” he finished, giving you a pleading look.

So, you told him everything. He obviously had questions, interrupting you when you used terms he was unfamiliar with and when he just needed something clarified. You grew sadder when you started talking about your rabbit plushie, explaining what had happened and he hugged you to his chest gently.

“That’s awful, Angel, I’m real sorry,” he mumbled,” Listen though. I’m gonna learn more about this and if ya let me, I wanna be a part of it. I like taking care of ye already, so if yer willing to give me a chance, let me try, m’kay?”

You were so happy, you nearly started crying again as you nodded.

“How about helping me look for Bunny after work?”

And with a nod from Osamu, that’s how he became your Daddy.

(afternote: Bunny had fallen behind the bed and was found!)

Atsumu

You accidentally open the door with your paci in your mouth. 

He notices it and smiles, wrapping his arms around you without even saying something, though he makes sure to close the door quickly so other people don’t see. 

You don’t even realise that you’re wearing your paci until you move to give him a kiss, his hand moving to pull it out before giving you a small peck.

 Immediately, you pull back, eyes widened as you try and grab the mouth piece back, humiliated. 

Atsumu knows that look in your eyes and immediately gives it back, but not before grabbing your hand and dragging you to the living room, where he pulls you onto his lap for snuggles.

“So… nice paci,” he begins, watching you blush adorably as you hide it in your pockets.

“Thanks,” you mumble, unable to meet his eyes as you wish you could disappear right now or that a coconut would fall from the ceiling and hit Atsumu in the head. Just hard enough to wipe his memory of the last 10 minutes. 

“Do ye use it a lot or just sometimes?” he asked. He wasn’t teasing you (as you had expected), seeming to be genuinely curious about your little habit.

“Umm… just sometimes, when I feel like it,” you continue, blushing, nervously playing with your hair as you try to keep calm. 

“If ye wanna keep using it, go ahead,” he smiles, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

“You don’t think I’m a freak?”

“What? Has someone said something to you about it?!” Atsumu suddenly exclaimed, his eyes filled with fire. If anyone had teased you about this, he was ready to kick their ass.

“No, no! I was just wondering, most people think stuff like this is weird for an adult…” you mumbled, feeling self conscious. You were so caught up in your thoughts that you didn’t even feel Atsumu reaching into your pocket and grabbing your paci. At least, not until he gently pushed it into your mouth, making your eyes widen. You went to pull it out, but he stopped you gently holding it in place as he spoke.

“I think yer adorable, Y/N. I’m gonna do some more research n stuff, since I think I’ve heard about this, but only if ye want me to.”

You pause, thinking it over before gently nodding, making him smile brightly.

“Alright baby, lets just relax for now.”

[oliviayamaoka]

The Roseville Murders

Danny “Jed Olsen” Johnson x Female Reader 

After getting yourself into a rather tragic incident, you are reassigned to work elsewhere to protect your young career as a detective.

Your life would sure but slowly change when you meet a bright journalist named Jed Olsen, always looking to get inside information from you regarding the murders in Roseville. Seeking Jed Olsen’s help in finding the Ghostface, a spark ignited between the two of you.

Chapter One: Roseville

Y/N rubbed her eyes, tired from the long car ride you just endured. It was a long car ride from your old home but at least the day was nice. It wouldn’t be long until dusk came. In a way, you were glad. You often thrived in the nighttime and took it as an opportunity to wind down and finally rest. It was a large rental truck that you had taken on your journey to your new home, Roseville. You didn’t necessarily choose the location; you were assigned to go there. After the incident, you were assigned to help in the investigation regarding some gnarly murders. This piqued your interest since you had an interest in crime and journalism, more so crime.

It was quite the strange time, being a junior detective, or that’s what they called you anyways. Your time in the police academy was short-lived, it didn’t take long to become a detective in the nineties. Even so, you managed to impress some detectives and officers. You also had an eye for stuff that would normally slip other people’s mind, the small details were more or less important to you. Admittedly, your interest in detective work stemmed from the fact you loved horror movies and shows. Even books. It would be a silly idea in the eyes of others but you figured you could do some good. You were also extremely annoyed at how incompetent other officers could be, not writing reports in detail or straight up refusing to do a full investigation. It was ridiculous and you figured you’d try and change this.

Johnathan Stevens was the name of your supervisor, an older gentleman. He formerly investigated murders and unsolved crimes in the fifties and sixties, his prime. Some would even consider his work to dabble in the supernatural. You weren’t sure if you believed such things, not that you were a skeptic since there were small things you couldn’t explain growing up. His work was great nonetheless and he saw the potential in you. You admired him and he gave a good word to others on your behalf. He was the reason you got a job in helping the investigation in Roseville. Ah yes, Roseville.

You were excited in a way. Johnathan was able to get you a role in the investigation of the Roseville Murders. The prime suspect was a man in a costume who went by the name Ghost Face. They ultimately branded the series of murders as the Ghost Face Murders. Y/N read the files and you began to think of your own theories on who this mysterious murderer could be. The murders were premeditated and were always executed in a similar fashion. Y/N saw some photos left behind by the Ghost Face, he enjoyed posing and took pride in his work. Your train of thought suddenly ended when you saw the town’s sign.

“Welcome to Roseville.” You subconsciously mumbled. There was a slight feeling of regret and worry that itched at you from the inside but you brushed it off. No going back now, you wanted to be a good detective and help those in need.

Your hands brushed towards your turn signals. The apartment you rented wasn’t too far and you didn’t have too many things you brought with you. Roseville seemed like a quiet little city, very peaceful and tidy. A part of you had trouble even imagining that such grizzly murders could take place in what people would consider a perfect town or city. This seemed like a place where somebody would want to raise a family or live a quiet life, it pretty much had everything you needed. You didn’t blame them, the big city life was horrendous, as were the crimes there committed. Y/N sighed deeply as you pulled into the parking lot of the apartment building. It was red and looked somewhat old. Not that it mattered, you were happy with anything at this point. You rubbed your eyes again before resting your forehead on your steering wheel, putting your car into park.

It was about 6:00 PM, you didn’t have to be at the station until 7:30 PM. Much to your dismay, it was enough time to talk to your landlord. You had met prior on a phone call and you got the apartment rather easily. You saw pictures and were instantly keen on getting a lease for it. You checked your mirror to quickly fix your hair up and refresh yourself. After a moment or two, you got out and walked towards the door. Y/N pushed it open and caught a glimpse of the lobby. It was well-furnished and tidy. It was a lot better than your old apartment building in the city. Your mood lightened up, looking forward to a somewhat quieter life. You figured you had your share of the city bars and nightclubs, other shenanigans you encountered when you were slightly younger. You took a few steps in and walked towards the main office. Your shyer tendencies made you hesitate but you knocked lightly on the door, pushing it open.

“Hello?” You called out as you made eye-contact with a blonde woman.

“How can I help you?” The woman asked you, putting away some papers into a filing cabinet.

Her hair was actually kind of long and seemed natural. Her skin was fair and her eyes were a darker shade of blue. The woman’s dark eyebrows helped in bringing out her beautiful features. She was a thin but tall woman. Her attire consisted of a white turtleneck with a cardigan, dress, and black dress shoes with long, white stockings. It was a healthy mix of coziness and business. Y/N smiled kindly and extended her hand out.

“I’m Y/N L/N. I assume that you’re Deborah?” You asked as she quickly returned the smile, a more charming one. She shook your hand, her touch felt welcoming, something that was needed in Roseville.

“Yes, I am. Lovely to finally meet you! How was the trip?” She asked as you shrugged slightly.

“A bit boring but I made it.” You replied as she giggled a bit.

“Take it from me, Roseville is happy you decided to come. The rumors and murders have driven a few people away. We’re happy to have another officer to help.” Deborah said to you.

“Yeah, well, if anybody ever gives you trouble then you’ll know where to find me.” You said as she perked up. Deborah quickly walked towards her desk and grabbed a set of old, somewhat rusty keys. With a sweet smile, the woman planted the metal in your palm.

“Thank you, Y/N. I appreciate you choosing here to live. If you need help unloading your stuff, my brothers are one call away.” She said. With that voice and attitude, the woman would have made an excellent commercial woman.

“I should be fine.” You assured the woman before exiting the office space.

You swiftly walked out towards the parking lot. It was a rather nice evening so far. The sky was a mixture of pink and red with a nice breeze. You held your forehead for a second, having small flashbacks of a man grunting and swearing. You shut your eyes tightly for a moment before sighing stubbornly. Y/N didn’t want to waste anymore time remembering what happened, it was pointless. A part of you felt gross and weird. Your eyes narrowed in an annoyed manner, looking at the stuff you had to bring in. 

Maybe you didn’t want to bring in that stuff anymore. You looked around, there was a bakery and a coffee shop nearby on the beautifully constructed sidewalks. Each shop had a small garden or some sort of plant in the front. Roseville was old in an industrial sort of way but the shops, houses, and plant life made it have a rather beautiful aesthetic. Not only that but you enjoyed the weather. You sighed softly, deciding that you should just walk to the police station. Ignoring the lazy and depressing feeling you had, you decided to just walk to clear your head of the memories. And so, you locked the doors to the rental truck and began your little adventure.

“You realize what you’ve done, right?” Jonathan questioned you, his nostrils flaring slightly. In his eyes were a deep stare of concentration. You felt numb but remorseless, you kept your head down. 

“He was going to hurt me, Jon.” You mumbled to him, your eyebrows tightly knitted as you looked for any sort of agreement within his eyes. The man sighed deeply, rubbing his eyes with his fingers. Jonathan seemed tired.

“I know he was, kid... but you shot a man. You took a mans life. I understand you did it to defend yourself but the court might not see it that way.” He said.

“Well, I’m glad I did. He would’ve hurt more women. Innocent women.” You replied with bitterness in your voice. He sighed before sitting down, taking a moment to collect his thoughts. His eyes met yours as you looked away.

You thought about the incident a lot. You replayed your own screams in your head before the distinct sound of a gun fired in your ears. Before you even realized it, you were staring dead ahead, reliving it with intense focus. It’s not like you wanted to, it was automatic and you still didn’t process most of it. In fact, it felt like a dream. Y/N shut her eyes, exhaling sharply before looking at the man in front of her. Your eyelids rested, the numbness overcoming the raw feeling of the flashback you had just endured.

“There’s... a case in a city. A smaller city. If I talked to the others and reassigned you somewhere far, would you do it? We’ve known you for years and we care. I know that man could’ve hurt my wife, my daughter, my sister... we understand. Not many people know about this. We could help you.” He said.

“What do you mean? Won’t I be charged for it?” You asked him.

“Np, not if we... sweep this under the rug. But, if we do this then you have to do something in return. Do you want this?” He asked you. Your eyebrows lifted in surprise as you pondered his offer for a moment, you looked around the room.

“I-I do, but... will they actually do this? For me?” Y/N asked as he nodded. He seemed a bit gruff, just tired from the paperwork.

“We’ve discussed it but listen to me. You can’t tell anybody about this. We’re doing you a big favor, a huge one. The director said that more officers and detectives are needed in Roseville, he said they’d be glad to accept you. This will be a lot better than telling the court what happened.” He said.

“I, yeah, yeah.” You said, nodding in slight anticipation. Nonetheless, you were very grateful for this opportunity. 

“Whenever you’re ready then but it might have to be in the next week or two.” Jonathan said to you as he looked around, somewhat nervously.

“Thank you...” You replied a bit awkwardly, not sure how to display your gratitude for him. He only nodded with a small smile, patting your head. 

“Go home, kid. I’ll handle the guy.” He said as you nodded.

You sighed as you looked upwards, the sky was a mixture of purple and blue. This was your favorite type of weather. It brought peace and calmness. A small smile curled onto your lips when you thought of the old times, when you first experienced freedom and happiness. Your hands slid into your pockets as you continued to walk down the sidewalk, your gaze averting to the large building ahead. The Roseville Police Department, your future workplace. 

The building looked rather strange for a police department. It had gates and vines around it, it almost looked like a school. Then again, school was indeed prison. You didn’t think about school much, in fact, you hated it. You never could relate to the other teens. Aside from writing and art, you really enjoyed watching horror movies. Anything horror intrigued you, books and movies alike. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that you were a horror fanatic. Strangely, it sort of inspired you to pursue this career. You were always pretty tough, blood and gore never bothered you. Even when you went to a morgue, it brought a small feeling of peace knowing the deceased were at rest.

You got closer and closer to the station, quickly since you were so lost within your own thoughts. The doors to the station were wooden yet grey, very large. Y/N looked around, there were very few police cars. Maybe being understaffed wasn’t the problem, it’s the fact that they seemed to be very poorly funded. You pushed the large door open, looking around the inside of the station. It was very eerie and quiet but seemed very cozy. A perfect image of the nineties. With your arms crossed, you walked up to the front desk. There was a cup of coffee, you assumed it was cold and took another look around. There were medical beds and tons of chairs stacked together. Not only that but there were statues and paintings. The paintings seemed old but the faces were creepy. Upon staring at them, you soon found inspiration in their haunting gazes.

This was going to be an interesting job, you thought.

Jed Olsen sighed deeply as he looked through different piles of papers that were piled together. It was rather stressful to have to proof-read his coworker’s work. Some of the work he looked over was really badly written. No wonder somebody of his talents got that job really easily. Ever since he arrived at Roseville, he thought he made a good impact on the city. Roseville lived in fear and that’s how he liked it. 

As the young man’s thoughts turned towards his other line of profession, he smiled widely and rested his eyebrows. His name wasn’t actually Jed, it was Danny Johnson. Jed Olsen was the alter ego that Danny created when he came to this place. Aside from killing, writing was one of his professions. Danny was good at it and he even got to write about his own murders. It was exhilarating, to say the least. It brought excitement to this city, it brought excitement into his own life. The journalist façade was a great gig, he needed a job anyways. It was very convenient nobody questioned him or invited him to the bar. Then again, he was a bit younger so his coworkers didn’t bother to hang out with him much.

Danny looked around cautiously before pulling his bag towards him. He only carried around his camera. In his office, there weren’t any cameras and his door actually had a lock. There wasn’t anybody around since it was the evening and he decided to stay late to proof-read papers. His camera was black yet worn out and scratched up. Still, he chose to ignore it since that thing was his prized possession. Danny pretty much checked on it everyday to make sure it wasn’t broken and to just simply admire his work he did on it. 

“Hmm...” He hummed to himself as he clicked through the photos on it. He smirked looking through his work. 

His next murder was going to be perfect. Danny planned on getting more photos of Ghostface doing his heinous crimes. Jed Olsen managed to get photos of the serial killer taking pictures of his murders in rather cocky ways. And of course, the police had no idea that it was him who did it. The police here were amateurs that didn’t do their job right. It was incredibly easy getting away with the murders and surprisingly, the FBI didn’t get involved.  Oh well, the law enforcement probably had other things to deal with right now.

As he clicked through the photos, thinking about his next murders, his thoughts were interrupted when he heard the familiar chime of the front door open. Maybe it was his boss? Danny quickly put his camera away in his desk drawer and rushed to unlock his door. The Roseville Gazette was usually a quiet place. He looked up as he noticed a young woman at the front desk of the gazette. 

“Hey, how can I help you?” He asked, immediately switching to his Jed persona. 

“Hi, I’m Y/N. I was wondering if there was a Jed Olsen around here? I didn’t realize it was quiet here.” She said with a smile.

For a moment, Danny focused on her smile. It was a beautiful and genuine smile. Strange but not everybody was as shallow as his victims or the people he met. His gaze averted to her eyes and then her face. She was indeed a very beautiful person. A pleasant surprise, not that Danny ever indulged in romance. 

“You’re speaking to him.” He replied with a playful shrug.

Y/N stared at him for a second before raising her eyebrows in surprise. 

“Oh. well nice to meet you, Mr. Olsen.” You said as you extended your hand.

“The pleasure is mine.” Danny replied as he shook your hand.

The touch of your hand was rather soft. He didn’t know it yet but he felt slightly flustered. Danny never really met anybody that he considered attractive. Maybe he did but he never paid attention to that sort of thing. 

“Do you have time right now? Or wanna schedule a date to quickly go over your work?” You asked him.

“A date?” He asked blankly. Danny didn’t know what you meant but his brain took it in a romantic way since he thought you were pretty. Your eyebrows furrowed awkwardly in confusion as you nodded slightly with a small smile.

“Um, yeah... I can come back sometime or we can meet at a coffee shop. I’m a detective so... yeah.” You say, automatically getting awkward around people your age. Danny nearly facepalmed himself but his mind quickly went to darker places.

A new detective? A detective who wanted to talk to him one-on-one? None of the detectives decided they wanted to question him. Did this woman find something? Did she suspect him? She looked like she could be a psychologist or something so maybe she wanted to see how he’d react when explaining the Ghostface articles he wrote? He’d have to get her last name and see where she lived. Y/N looked like she’d be easy to kill.

“Jed?” She asked in concern.

“Oh, yeah. Definitely... I have time right now. Sorry, I just get zoned out when I think of the murders and the sick photos he took.” He apologized.

“Don’t be sorry, that type of stuff is something nobody can get used to.” You reassured him. Jed was actually quite handsome.

“Yeah, you’re right. Come into my office.” He said, signaling with his head where his office was. You followed him in.

The office was old. It seemed rather boring at first but that’s what office jobs are for, anyways. His desk was quite clean. Jed seemed to be a very organized person. It would make sense considering his work on the Ghostface murders. You took a seat across from his desk and smiled a bit as he sat down. You were a pretty diligent worker so got straight to the point.

“So, Jed... as you know, there’s an ongoing investigation on the Ghostface Murders that I was assigned to.” You began. Danny nodded, leaning back in his office chair comfortably. He stared at you intently, watching your expression as he worried.

“I took on the liberty of reading your work on the murders. You write about him in a very peculiar way... admirably, almost.” You said to him. Danny tried to hide his worry but he was trying to figure out a way to kill you quickly. Maybe you were FBI? You were already sharper compared to the other officers/

“Anyways, I really love your work, Jed. I’ve taken a personal interest in the Ghostface. And as a detective, I’d like to get to try and get to know him as best I can.” You said with a hint of excitement in your eyes.

“Get to know him…?” He replied, slowly reaching for the knife taped under his desk.

“With your work and your input, I could put together a psychological report on him. If we want to catch him, we should figure out what type of person he is first.” Y/N said.

Danny’s fingers stopped right above the knife. His hand slowly backed away from the bottom of the desk. So, she didn’t suspect him? Danny almost laughed out of relief and at her. He was stupid for thinking she could’ve found out he was Ghostface. Y/N only seemed to be interested in his work.

“Oh, I see… yeah, that would make sense.” He said to you as you crossed one leg.

“I’m glad you agree. I’m determined to catch him and maybe even see his motivation.” You replied to him. Danny’s eyes sparked for a moment as he stared at you.

“His motivation?” He asked as you thought for a moment.

“Probably sounds strange, I know but… he must have a reason, right? And I find it so interesting how he goes about his murders. I actually have a theory about him.” You explained.

You seemed to trust Jed Olsen. The other officers and detectives said he liked to bug and probe them all the time for more information regarding the murders and what their progress was like. And truth be told? There was very little they could go off of. Ghostface was too methodical and careful, left absolutely no trace of himself besides the pictures Jed retrieved. He was a hard-working journalist and you had a good feeling about him, anywyas.

He was also pretty cute.

“I don’t think it’s strange, at all. I’ve never seen any of the detectives so passionate about the case. They always brush me off… so, what’s this theory?” Danny asked you, watching your expressions.

“Well, I only just saw your work today but I thought about it when I walked here. Ghostface seems to be rather cocky, a common trait in younger men. But, since we never caught him or anything, I know he’s really careful with what he does. The murders are also premeditated. They’re too… clean and carefully executed even if it is a bloodbath.” You sort of rambled on.

A weird feeling tingled inside of Danny as you continued to explain your theory.

“He’s really cunning and methodical. And based on my other observations, I think he uses the murders as a way of expressing himself. I’ve read about other serial killers caught… they usually leave marks, take trophies, and know the victim in some ways. Or they’re just cold-blooded but not in his case. I think he sees the murders as a form of art or something along those lines.” You said to him.

His eyebrows raised in surprise. Who the hell was she? Danny thought for a moment. She was right, he did see his murders as art and something beautiful. Did she see it that way too? This woman was strange, indeed. As as young detective, he admired her naive nature.

“That would actually make sense… he does seem to make an unnecessarily big mess when killing and yet, the police can’t find anything on him? It makes total sense.” Jed replied.

“Right? Anyways, I was going to ask if you can type of a report or something along those lines. Give me every single detail you know about him and your analogy. Your input could be vital to solving this case.” You said, standing up.

“If you don’t mind me asking, detective, why are you so interested in him? You’re really passionate about this.” He said to you.

“I wanna understand him and see more of his artwork… it’s pretty fascinating. Also, you can just call me Y/N. Have that report ready in a week?” She asked him.

“Yeah, definitely.” Danny replied to you.

“See you then, Jed.” Y/N said as she nodded with a confident smile.

Y/N was indeed young and naive. Although, she didn’t share anything confidential, she placed a lot of trust into the journalist. Then again, why should she be untrusting of him? The young woman was so passionate, intelligent, and seemed to have a very strong sense of independence. Danny assumed she came here without any authority, taking matters into her own hands. A by-the-book cop? Maybe, maybe not. Danny found that strangely attractive. However, she might even hinder his efforts and catch him. He couldn’t let that happen, yet…

There was something so intoxicating about her. Danny never met anybody that was so compassionate and understanding to his cause. Maybe, he saw her motivation in his own twisted way. This woman wanted to understand him, to see things as he does. Nobody has ever went to that length for him. Not only that but, she had no problem talking about such grimey things in a way that she didn’t get disgusted. The man had a bit of a crazed stare in his eyes as he began to recall her features.

Detective Y/N, just who were you?

And so, the obsession begins.

[softer-ua]

First Episode Breakdown- part 2

This Is where Katsukis character completly unraveled for me

(Part 1)

We’re 9 minutes in, I’m enjoying the show but the set up was simple so I wasn’t paying that close attention just casually cheering Deku on and having fun hating on Blasty right up until-

This shit came out of left field, I remember my neck popped from how hard I jerked at the blasting noise. Fucker broke Dekus desk, and I’m like ooh okay villain villain I see you

But then it got weird, their shit teacher doesn’t stop them and Katsukis entire demeanor has changed

We know Deku’s quirkless, it’s been hammered in for the lasting 10ish minutes. So why does Deku think Katsuki sees him as competition, why does Katsuki think Deku is a threat when he was just …

Laughing it up cockily ready to go to against his entire class, but suddenly the quirkless kid who we’ve already seen you beat up easily, has no friends, and the teacher just lets students blow up his desk is a threat?

Something isn’t adding up for me. Kid him was completely self assured of his and Dekus place.

He thinks Dekus a little strange for sticking up to him but he’s made to look like he’s actually looking forward to beating up another kid. He makes a snide comment about Deku being unable to be a hero than leaves him in the dirt no problem. Just a awful little shit through and through.

But middle school Bakugo?

He has actual beef. He’s trying to prove a point that as of yet we have no context for.

He’s clearly not doing it for fun and just because he can like a stereotypical bully would. He’s clearly upset and not enjoying this interaction.

Deku can’t just be an easy target to make Katsuki feel better because Katsuki gains nothing from showing him up and wasn’t feeling bad about anything before this happened. Also he doesn’t seem to feel any better afterwards.

I was kinda leaning towards Bakugo just hating quirkless people but “Defenseless Izuku, you’d die in the exams” on top of the “why” makes it seem like it’s more personal, and he never makes any generalizations about quirkless people. If bigotry was the marker he was supposed to hit he’d have said something gross by this point.

Dekus not shown to be a threat to Katsuki on the food chain at all. The class doesn’t like him, he has no power, and the teacher doesn’t care about him. Deku isn’t really rocking the boat in a significant way.

There’s absolutely zero logical reason Katsuki shouldn’t have laughed him off like the rest of the class

But this Katsuki can’t let it be, he’s no longer capable of walking away from Deku

How could he possibly not have made his point earlier? Wtf is his deal, why won’t he leave my broccoli bb alone??????

Katsukis goons actually make it more evident how not stereotypical Katsukis being

They’re have actual fun at Deku expense, making Bakugo seem that much more serious.

No this Katsuki isn’t trying to gain something, he’s trying to insure he doesn’t lose something

Just taking the note book? Too basic.

Singeing it to hell? Not good enough.

Turning it to actual ash? Makes too much sense.

Tossing it out the fucking window?? Sure, why not you weird hellish monster child.

(Fuck anyone sitting under that window you have a point to prove. You need to prove that you the kid with all the power and clout are stronger than the kid with nothing)

“That’s so mean”?? Deku why do you seem at all surprised by his shitheadness ?? He’s a bully?? This is what he does??? Seriously, Honey, get your head in the mf game here

Bakugo: *gives another speech about how great he is*

Also Bakugo:

Bitch tf you so scared of Deku for??

Wow I am supposed to hate him with my entire being, they want me to wish for bad things to happen to him. And it is working

Oh shit Dekus mad? We gonna find out why Bakugo’s so scared??

Nope. I’m just going to be more confused. He shut Deku up right quick and I’m lost af about why the last 5 minutes have even happened.

Now we get Dekus whole background and it is so sad in the most real world mundane way, just a series of beat downs from life and it looks like it’s only getting worse. Nothing more on Katsuki.

Okay first episode is over and I still don’t know why Bakugo’s character did a 180. The teacher said Deku also wanted to get into UA and Katsuki’s bravado flew south for the fucking winter with no explanation or even a farewell message.

Seriously, weirdest personality snap I’ve ever seen. Mostly because they just let it slide, there was no trigger scene to build up to this nor any breakdown or breakthrough. It accomplished nothing for either side, Deku wasn’t dissuaded and Katsuki doesn’t feel any more settled.

Deku was never exposed to be a bigger threat than his other classmates, in fact it’s the exact opposite. He’s also never shown to have more potential than Katsuki in anyway.

Remember at this point we don’t know anything about their relationship.

We don’t know they used to be friends

We don’t know that Katsuki recognizes Deku as a truly heroic person (we get a glimpse of him acting like an even smaller Steve Rogers but it’s immediately made clear that Deku gained nothing except an understanding that other people can kick his ass. Like pre-serum Cap at least makes friends, but the kid who Deku stood up for grows up to be Katsukis lackey)

We don’t know even what Dekus grades are like, we only know that the teacher thought it was appropriate to say Katsuki had good enough grades to get into UA and then the teacher only says Deku wants to apply. A complement for Katsuki, a call out for Deku.

So I’m hooked, I need to know why a clearly essential character has lost their designated markers so early. Like he should have found Deku trying to be a hero actually funny and pointless, no one else in the class took him seriously.

If Katsuki really thought Deku was worse than the rest why would he bother giving a show of strength and another speech? He didn’t seem even slightly bothered by the other kids??

Why would he bother asking if Deku thought UA would take him over Mr.BombThreat

More importantly than everything else though, is how does Deku know to try an assure Katsuki that he isn’t a threat?

Deku would have made a thousand times more sense to be confused by Katsuki even asking the question, or just simply not understanding and trying to explain why he could compete, especially since assuring him isn’t shown to help him.

Why would he try to coddle Katsuki if he gains nothing and it doesn’t mollify Katsuki in anyway?

🕵🏻‍♀️🕵🏻🕵🏼‍♂️

[sushiburritonoms]

I've been having terrible writer's block lately, not enjoying anything I've written, not getting anywhere with WIPs. Poor @darkisrising and @bronze-lorica have had to talk me off edges lately (thanks guys you're the best!). I think I finally have a chapter 3 for Sacred Texts but I'm sitting on it for a while to see if that's the direction I really want to go. I'm soooo sorry for the delay.

In the meantime I was looking through my notes for The Father the Son and the Exile and I found a bunch of scenes I wrote and abandoned as the fic moved in different directions. I figured I'd post some of them because they'll never see the light of day otherwise and because I have nothing else to offer right now.

Originally in Exile, Din and Luke were supposed to make it to Tython. I had them meeting up with Han AND Leia on the planet Ajan Kloss (its the planet Luke and Leia train on in TROS). Its interesting looking back at this, Din and Luke have a different dynamic since I wrote this a long time ago back in March when the story was going in a different direction (I also wrote an homage to one of Writer Owl's fics in the dialogue). I enjoy playful Luke, I don't really write him that often and that's a real shame. Anyways here's wonder wall, enjoy!

Ajan Kloss  was a swampy humid hellhole of a planet that no rational, sentient being should visit, let alone enjoy. Of course that meant that Grogu and Luke were comfortable in the sticky humid environment. In fact there was a rare smile stretched across Luke's face and he sounded almost nostalgic as he talked around their campfire.

“There’s a certain type of moss that grows on the trees here that’s edible.”

Din refused to look up at Luke from where he was cleaning their meal.  “I’m not drinking any tea you make out of it.”

“It’s more of a garnish?”

Din sighed. “Don’t touch my fish.” He forcefully stuck a stick lengthwise through the fish as an emphasis.

“Grogu should really have more vegetation in his diet. Master Yoda used to eat plants.”

Din snorted. “You’re welcome to try.” It wasn’t like the kid never ate vegetables but they were always fried and covered in spices. That probably wasn’t what Luke was getting at.

“Maybe later. He did eat two whole frogs.”  Luke edged himself closer to the fire. “Maybe after this we could swing by Dagobah. You know, assuming we’re not about to trigger some sort of sneak attack or trap. There are tubers I could dig up for him that Master Yoda ate, plus I could pick up more gnarltree bark.”

Din blinked and raised his head up to properly look at Luke. He knew what Luke was doing. He was trying to distract himself with thoughts of the future. It was a tactic Din often used himself--strategize every possible outcome in the hopes the future won’t be as terrifying as it feels.

On the one hand, he was amused and touched by Luke’s continued fixation on Grogu’s eating habits, even if it was hypocritical of Luke given his own poor diet.  It reminded Din of some of the older members of the Covert that used to watch Din when he was little. They always used to harass him to eat everything offered to him and gave him sharp nudges when he tried to skip directly to the occasional sweet treat left out for all the foundlings to share. It was very Mandalorian of Skywalker and it felt good. Familiar.

On the other hand, Din really, really didn’t want any more tree bark in the Wayfinder. So Din didn’t really know what to say.

“Hold this.” Din shoved a fish skewer into Luke’s hand. Yeah that worked.

Luke took the skewer with a hint of a smile.  “Master Yoda used to eat certain mushrooms too, I think I can safely identify them. Or maybe I could put together an aquarium in the Wayfinder and we could take more frogs with us. I bet I can repurpose one of the smaller cloning cylinders I have in the back and add a filtration system...”

Din shuddered at the thought  of living with a cloning vat filled with frogs and the likelihood of frogs, moss and tree bark for dinner several nights a week.  Just no. “This is why our people are ancient enemies,” he shuddered. “You live like animals.”

There was silence. Too long of a silence. Din looked up.

Luke was staring at him with a shocked look on his face. “Our people are ancient enemies?” He whispered.

Ah kriff. Din winced. “So I’ve heard.”

“....Oh.”  Luke looked crushed.  “Nobody told--well. There’s a lot nobody told me,” he sighed. “About being a Jedi.”

Damn damn damn. Din wanted to throw his hands up in the sky.

“I guess that makes sense,” Luke mumbled. He was fiddling with the fish skewer in his hands. “All the other Mandalorians I’ve ever met have tried to capture or kill me. I thought it was just the Bounty…”

“I’m not like other Mandalorians.”  Din interrupted, desperate to turn the conversation. It was technically true, probably just not in a way that helped their relationship. Er--their partnership?  Their--whatever this was.

“I mean I like you…”

Din froze. What.

“You’re really good at fishing and Grogu loves you.  I’d hate to have to kill you.”

Din’s heart restarted in his chest again.  Was Luke...messing with him?   “You wouldn’t leave a mark.”

Luke blinked up at him innocently and fluttered his damn eyelashes.  “I could totally kill you in your sleep.”

The little shit!  “I’ll poison your tea.”

“It’s pretty much already poison. I’m immune.”

Heh, true.  “Your fish then.”

“I’ll just go grab a frog.”

“You’re staying here and eating my damn fish!”

Luke burst out into sudden loud laughter.  It was like a sudden fierce rainstorm in the way it showered over the camp. It startled Grogu, who had been ignoring both of them in favor of playing with some shiny rocks nearby.  He tilted his head and then matched Luke’s laughter with a baby chuckle of his own.

“Sorry! I think it's just my nerves talking but that just sounded wrong and so funny--”

Din just shook his head. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out what had set Luke off but he didn’t care. “Crazy Jedi.”

“Trigger happy Mandalorian.”  Luke gave him a giant smile.  “Hurry up and finish this.” He gave Din back the fish skewer and chuckled again.  Despite his comment about his nerves, Luke’s shoulders were relaxed and his legs were spread out comfortably by the fire. Din could stare at his lopsided smile all evening, especially as the sun set and the fire highlighted the delight in his eyes. The sun shone through the lighter parts of Luke’s shaggy long hair. It was now untied from the neat bun it had started in and looked soft and golden in the light.

Stars above help him.  Luke was beautiful.  Din was tired of denying the thought. He wanted to touch Luke’s face with his bare hands, run his fingers through his hair and that was terrifying. He hadn’t wanted to take off his armor for anyone, besides Grogu, in ages. Maybe with Omera...but this was much different. The feelings he’d had for her were a momentary weakness compared to the colossally bad idea this was to develop an attraction for this damaged Jedi.  Din had no idea what tomorrow was going to bring.  Even if nothing happened, there was the uncertainty of the next day and the next to worry about. Luke was a marked man and every day there was a chance something could take him out. Take him away. The thought burned in him like a chemical fire inside a reactor.  Caged deep inside of him, destructive it released, and burning with an intensity greater than Din could stand.

This was why he never got involved with people before he found Grogu. He didn’t know what to do with the intensity of his feelings and how to fit them into his unpredictable life.

“Din?” Luke’s smile fell slightly. “You ok?”

“..Yeah.”  Din did what he always did. He pushed his feelings away and tried to focus on the present.  What had they been talking about? Food. He sat and thought for a moment. Maybe...

“I have a contact on Tatooine, from a rural town few people have heard of. Mos Epsa.”

“Mos Eps--I thought that was wiped from the planet years ago.” Luke looked impressed.

“It’s still there.”  Din handed Luke a cooked fish skewer and settled back with his own. “We could go there, for a while. We’d be safe. I’m assuming we can both eat Tatooine food.”

Luke picked at his fish. “I do miss blue milk.”

Good.  “I’ll add it to the list.”

Luke chuckled. “You have a list?”

“Of safe planets we can stop at. We should have alternatives to the drop pods and not be reliant on the New Republic. My list is probably different from yours so we have more options.” Din stabbed his fish a little harder with his skewer to make his opinion of Luke’s employers known.

The smile on Luke’s face got impossibly wider. “That makes sense...Thank you.”

Din grunted. The smile on Luke’s face was too distracting.  Instead he looked down at his food. Oh. Right. Damn.

Luke made the exact realization at the same time. “Sorry! I forgot, I can go back to the ship--”

“Shut up and sit down, Jetti.” Din shook his head. He only hesitated for a half second before he reached up to his helmet and unlatched it. He opened it wide enough to take a bite.

“Or you could do that. Of course.” Luke babbled.  He turned his head so he wasn’t looking at Din.  Which was sweet. But also meant he wasn’t looking at his food.

“Eat.” Din growled. “All of it.” How was it this hard to feed a grown adult? Grogu gave him less trouble. Gods help Skywalker, Din was about to channel some of the fiercest warriors he knew to get him to eat more.

Luke gave him a mock solute. “Yes sir.”

Din began to reach for his sidearm.

Luke responded with a rather unnecessarily dainty bite of fish.

Din began to unhook his blaster.

Luke nibbled at one edge of a fin.

The blaster powered up.

Luke kriffing licked his fish.

“That’s disgusting.” Din gave up. He couldn’t help it--he chuckled as he powered down his blaster.

“Yeah it is,” Luke stuck his tongue out. “Fish is gross.”

“I thought you said you’d eat anything.”

“I do. I don’t have to like it.  I didn’t grow up eating fish, it’s both slimy and spikey at the same time.”

“You eat frogs.”

“You can eat a small frog in one bite! I’ve gotten fish bones stuck in my throat.”

“You’re not supposed to eat the bones.”

“Nobody told me that the first time. What part of ‘raised on a desert planet’ does no one understand?”

“You’re an idiot.”

Luke sat back. “I’m done now, mom. May I go now?”

Din sighed. “No.” He held out another fish skewer.

“You got to be kidding me.”

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

“How hard is the har--YIKES! NO! LETGO! ARGHHH!!!!!”

‘Yup’, Din thought to himself as he held the struggling, still too skinny, Jedi in a headlock.  He had it bad and he was going to regret this.

Tomorrow. He’ll regret it tomorrow.

“DJARIN LET ME GO NOW OR YOU’RE GOING IN THE SWAMP!”

Here’s hoping the desert boy could swim.

[silvermoongirl10swfics]

Learning to deal with emotionally crippling pain

For @codywanweek 2021 Day 2: AU (Modern University AU.)

You can also read this fic here on A03.

(The title of the fic will make sense after reading the fic.)

This is set at Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK, where I went to uni. As I wanted to combine the uni I loved going to with one of my favourite ships.

No major warnings, but there is a slight, non-graphic, description of how bodies were buried during the Black Death (this may seem very random, but I don’t want to gross anyone out.)

(I was inspired by @catawampuscorner​ drawing adorable baby clones in animal onesies, the cuteness now lives rent free in my brain and my brain desperately wanted to add baby clones and baby Jedi in animal onesies to this fic due to their wonderful drawings of the baby clones. So, I have referenced codywan and some other clones being youngsters in animal onesies near the end of this fic.)

Also Wolffe and Fox are twins because I thought of the idea about a month ago and loved it so much. 

Cody hefted his kit bag onto his shoulder and nodded in thanks to the bus driver as he stepped off the bus on Oxford Road. He turned hearing a loud thump and rolled his eyes, Fives had, against Cody’s and Rex’s advice, decided to sit on the top deck of the double-decker bus while carrying his heavy rugby kit bag. Unsurprisingly Fives stumbled and hit the wall of the stairs as he tried to walk down the steep steps, his bag over balancing him. Rex threw out an arm to steady their younger brother and then the two of them joined Cody on the pavement.

“We did warn you,” stated Rex with a roll of his eyes.

“Whatever,” griped Fives. Without another word, Fives was walking through All Saints Park, no doubt heading back to the student halls where he shared a flat with his twin Echo and six other first year students.

“I really hope Echo is better soon. I don’t know how much longer I can take Fives in this mood,” sighed Rex shaking his head.

“You and me both,” agreed Cody with a nod of his head at his younger brother.

Cody was the eldest of the four brothers, and was currently in his third and final year of studying his undergraduate history degree at Manchester Metropolitan University. Rex was eleven months younger than him and was in his second year studying law, Echo and Fives were their younger brothers who were twins. The family hadn’t thought that Fives was interested in going to university, which was fine with them as they didn’t want to push him into something he didn’t want. But when Echo announced his intention of going to study mathematics at the same university where Cody and Rex were studying, Fives suddenly announced that he was also going to Man Met to study physiotherapy. The twins were in their first year and two years ago, at eighteen, Cody had thought he would be getting some peace from his three younger brothers, in the end he only got one year of peace before his brothers joined him in quick succession. But thankfully he only had to put up with living with them when they were all home for the holidays. As Cody shared a one-bedroom flat with his long-term boyfriend Obi-Wan who had also chosen to study at Man Met, also in his third year, studying English literature. Obi-Wan and Cody had been best friends since their first day at primary school aged four, later confessing their romantic feelings for each other when they were sixteen, both coming down from the stress of getting their GCSE results. They hadn’t actually told each other where they were applying for university, not wanting to influence each other’s decision. But they still ended up at the same university anyway, not that Cody was complaining.

Like Cody, Obi-Wan had not been able to escape his younger brother. Anakin was friends with Fives and Echo as they were the same age, Anakin was in his first year studying engineering at Man Met. It was funny to Cody, because Echo and Anakin’s subjects were in the same faculty, they often saw each other as their lectures and seminars took place in the John Dalton buildings, whereas Fives went to lectures across the main road on the slightly smaller campus in the Brooks Building. Fives had always been protective of Echo, his reasoning being he was the older twin so had to look out for Echo. But after Echo got hurt in a car accident when they were fifteen driving home with their dad, Fives had grown even more protective, somehow blaming himself because he wasn’t there in the car with Echo. The youngest of the four brothers hadn’t been seriously hurt, but the accident had gained him a constant shadow. So, when the twins applied to the university, they looked at the map of the two campuses and picked Oxford Court for their student halls accommodation because it was pretty much in the middle of where the two of them would have their lectures and seminars.

With another look in the direction Fives had gone, feeling a rare moment of relief at seeing his brother walk away. Cody loved his brothers, but because Echo had gotten injured in their last rugby game, he couldn’t take part in practice and it had left Fives in a mood for the past week. Neither Echo, Cody or Rex could seem to talk Fives out of his mood, leading to Cody thinking he may have to call their parents to talk some sense into Fives. But he didn’t want to worry his mum, which is what would happen if Cody had to tell her Fives still wasn’t okay a week after Echo badly spraining his ankle. So, Cody’s only other option would be to call his twin cousins, Wolffe and Fox who were both in their third and final years of studying at the same university in London. Wolffe was studying sport science, while Fox was studying history like Cody, but with more of a focus on medical history while Cody preferred military history.

Wolffe and Fox were the closest cousins Cody and his brothers had, due to their parents all moving to Britain from New Zealand due to his father and uncle getting jobs with the same tech company before Cody, Wolffe and Fox were born. Leaving the rest of the aunts, uncles and cousins back in New Zealand with their grandparents. Cody then reflected, calling the other twins might not be a bad idea. Wolffe would be gruff but caring in talking to Fives and if that failed, Fox would just beat sense into him either verbally or physically. With there being direct trains from London to Manchester, Cody wouldn’t be surprised if Fox came in person to beat some sense into Fives. Fox had no patience for Fives’ protective older brother routine of Echo and that was down to Wolffe being protective of Fox. Which he hated, but to be fair to Wolffe, he was fully justified going by the amount of coffee and lack of sleep Fox was powering through to work on his assignments and dissertation. Despite the fact it was still January and Fox had three months left until he had to hand in his dissertation.

Thinking of dissertations, Cody waved goodbye to Rex and headed towards the cafeteria in the Business School building to get some tea for his boyfriend. Once he acquired the tea in a take away cup, he went next door to the library where Obi-Wan was working on his dissertation, thankful that their university library allowed food and drink as long as it was silent. Fox was insanely jealous as his university library forbade any food or drink to enter the building, meaning Fox was deprived of his precious coffee. Which was why Wolffe pushed Fox to work in the library as often as he could. Cody didn’t mind plying Obi-Wan with tea, because while he could say Obi-Wan was additive to his tea, he didn’t drink any caffeinated tea two hours before going to bed, unlike Fox who was known to drink a mug of coffee before going to bed if Wolffe hadn’t managed to stop him. It was a wonder Wolffe hadn’t gone grey with the amount of time he spent worrying over his twin brother.

Cody scanned his student card to let him past the barriers and started walking up the two flights of stairs to the floor Obi-Wan liked to work on. The library was massive, with its different wings and five floors, but Cody was glad it was so big because it could be divided into silent study areas and group study areas, where you could talk so long as you were quiet. Obi-Wan, like Cody, hated working in complete silence and in their first year they found a nook between some shelves that had a table where they could bring their own laptops to work on their essays together. But were conveniently close to university computers so they could log on to print their work if needed. It was also a space their brothers had been unable to find them in, although Cody was fairly certain Rex knew where he liked to work, but was kind enough to leave him alone. Anakin, Echo and Fives would not be as considerate.

He walked through the doors into the study area and walked halfway into the big room with its rows of computers and shelves of books, until he found Obi-Wan hunched over his notes and two books he was using for his dissertation. Cody silently reminded himself that he was due to meet with his dissertation supervisor tomorrow to check the progress on his second chapter. He placed the cup of tea on the table beside Obi-Wan’s laptop and pressed a kiss onto the mess of copper hair, noting that his boyfriend hadn’t shaved again, making him wonder if Obi-Wan was committing to growing a beard. If he did, it would be because Obi-Wan was fed up of people thinking he was sixteen or seventeen, rather than being almost twenty-one years old, something that delighted Anakin to no end. Obi-Wan slowly sat up and blinked owlishly at him and rubbed a hand over his face. “Rugby practice is over already?” he asked in confusion as he looked at his watch.

Cody snorted in amusement, “thankfully yes.” Obi-Wan had come to the library just after Cody left their flat for practice, that had been two and half hours ago.

Obi-Wan reached for his tea and sighed in pleasure when he sipped on the hot liquid. “Fives still in a mood then?”

“Yes,” he sighed in exasperation as he sat down beside Obi-Wan and putting his kit bag on the floor with a roll of his shoulder.

Raising a knowing eyebrow over the rim of his cup, Obi-Wan asked. “Are you going to call Wolffe and Fox?” Cody nodded in agreement, smiling to himself, happy at how easily Obi-Wan fit into his family. Obi-Wan, Cody, Wolffe and Fox had all gone through school together. Obi-Wan and Anakin’s dad, Qui-Gon, was a friend of Cody’s parents and often came over for dinner. According to his dad, Cody’s mum and Qui-Gon had been having wine nights when they lamented over their empty nests and how it was unfair how quickly their children were growing up. While Cody’s aunt just laughed at them because Wolffe and Fox had left home for university almost three years before.

They lapsed into silence, and Cody just let himself day dream as he listened to the clack of Obi-Wan’s keyboard. He also ran through a mental list of things he needed to do for his dissertation and thought he could do with another trip down to London to go to the National Archives again for some more primary sources. His phone buzzed and Cody snorted at the text message from Echo.

[Echo] Fives is in SUCH a bad mood! Please help me!

[Cody] Sorry Echo. Rex and I had him for two hours, we need a break.

[Echo] WORST BIG BROTHERS EVER!!!!

[Echo] I hope you marry Obi-Wan so I can adopt him as my favourite older brother.

[Echo] You know what. I’m not waiting until you marry him. He’s my favourite brother now.

Cody chuckled to himself, he couldn’t argue with Echo, Obi-Wan was his favourite person too.

[Cody] What WILL Fives say?

[Echo] Right now I don’t care. He’s driving me INSANE!!!!

[Cody] I was going to call Wolffe and Fox to see if they could help.

[Echo] PLEASE!!! I am BEGGING YOU!!!!

[Echo] You know what?

[Echo] Just skip straight to Fox.

[Echo] And record it. I want to relive that future moment for forever. Fox’s position as my favourite cousin will be secured.

Cody snorted in amusement again, Obi-Wan turned to him in question. So, Cody just showed him the messages and Obi-Wan shook his head in amusement, but he blushed slightly. No doubt due to Echo’s comments on Cody marrying Obi-Wan.

“Echo wishing harm on Fives. I never thought I’d see the day,” commented Obi-Wan, his blue eyes sparkling with laughter. No doubt remembering the times Fox lost his patience with bullies and idiots they went to school with and just went for them. Their aunt had to give Fox the disapproving lecture, but she also slipped Fox money for standing up to bullies for other kids. So, Fox’s handling of bullies and idiots had never been stopped, only been encouraged.

“Oh, Echo can be pushed to it,” chuckled Cody, recalling the few times Fives had made Echo lose his temper. Echo was a nice and quiet person, which also made him one of those people you did not want to make angry, because when his patience snapped. It snapped. He could be worse than Fox, and that said something.

“By the way, your dad text me. He’s invited me to a family reunion dinner in a month’s time. So, is anyone coming over from New Zealand?” Obi-Wan asked as he started to tidy his books away and turn off his laptop.

Cody nodded. “My grandparents are coming over in three weeks and are staying until the summer as they want to be here for mine, Wolffe and Fox’s graduations. Then a few of the cousins are coming over in the summer.” He smiled to himself; it would be nice to see his family members again. They all saw each other every year, one year Cody and his family would fly out to New Zealand and the next year the family would fly over to Britain for a few weeks. With all of the cousins now at university, it made sorting out reunions easier due to the longer holidays they all had.

Obi-Wan’s eyes sparkled with amusement again, “anymore family arguments to look forward to?” he laughed.

“Probably,” Cody sighed as he rolled his eyes. Obi-Wan had come out to New Zealand with him last summer and witnessed some truly spectacular family arguments and rather silly ones as well. The most prominent being about Fox and Echo’s names.

When Fox had been a toddler, he and Wolffe had been put into animal onesies (Cody and his brothers also shared that misfortune with their cousins, but the less said about that the better), Wolffe into a wolf onesie and Fox into a fox onesie. Ever since Fox wanted to be called Fox, as he hated his proper name, the name being Frederick. If anyone ever called him Frederick when he was a small child he bit them, leading to his parents to tell their school when they started that it would be best if they didn’t call Fox Frederick for the safety of their own fingers.

Then when Echo had been four and in school, learning about words that began with the letter E, he heard the word Echo and wanted to call himself that, because he didn’t like being called Eli. Cody’s mum had tried to tell Echo his name was Eli, but Echo said Fox picked his name, so why couldn’t he? Cody’s mum tried her hardest to get Echo to forget about calling himself Echo, seeing as he was named after his mum’s father-in-law Elias and didn’t want to offend him. But Echo just started repeating everything everyone said, until the point their dad begged their mum to just let Echo call himself Echo. Fives didn’t want to be left out, and chose the nickname Fives, but he wasn’t involved in the arguments because he let their grandmother still call him Felix. Echo and Fox on the other hand, both refused to answer to their given names. And Obi-Wan had witnessed their grandmother once again getting annoyed when Echo and Fox didn’t answer her when she called them Eli and Frederick. That was also the visit where Obi-Wan learnt just who Echo and Fox inherited their stubbornness from. Grandpa Elias was not offended and found the whole thing hilarious and continued to congratulate Echo on his name every time he saw Echo. Cody was also convinced, his grandmother only continued the argument for the sake of it, he had seen her handwriting in birthday cards calling Echo and Fox by their chosen names. But she still wrote Eli and Frederick on family Christmas cards, again probably just for the drama.

But some uncles and aunts were not happy with Echo and Fox changing their names, albeit not legally, because other cousins began following their lead. Namely their four cousins who were all siblings (two sets of twins), Hunter, Crosshair, Wrecker and Tech. The four of them changing their names and even happily calling themselves the Bad Batch at family gatherings much to the ire of their mother. Fives was blamed for their collective nickname, as Obi-Wan found out and thought it was hilarious. The Bad Batch had invited Echo to play with them when they were small, and Fives who had not been invited to play had been jealous and called them the Bad Batch, the four of them had loved it and adopted it as their group name.

Obi-Wan started to laugh quietly to himself as he put his laptop away in his bag. At Cody’s questioning look he smiled and said. “I’m just wondering who will be the first to say something to disrupt family dinner. Either you, your brothers or your cousins will say something. You have done ever since the first family dinner I was invited to when I was five.”

Cody smirked to himself and nodded, “honestly I’m expecting it to be Fox again. You know he deals with stress in the weirdest ways.”

“You mean like putting everyone else off their food?” teased Obi-Wan, his eyes glinting at the memory of the last dinner everyone had together.

Over the four-week long Christmas holiday, Cody’s parents had hosted numerous family dinners, wanting to spend as much time together as possible. As it was understood with Cody, Obi-Wan, Wolffe and Fox graduating university later that year, they may not get to come home as often anymore. Also, as Cody’s uncle and aunt lived next door to them and Obi-Wan lived five houses further down the road, it was very easy for Cody’s uncle and aunt, Wolffe, Fox, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon and Anakin to join their family for dinner. Which also meant, Cody and Obi-Wan had to suffer the embarrassment of watching Qui-Gon and Cody’s mum tearfully looking at photos of them growing up, mourning the loss of their ‘little ones’. While Cody’s aunt sipped on her glass of red wine and cackled at them, saying it was better to have both her kids leave the nest at once, as she didn’t have to go through kids moving out more than once.

Cody had also been horrified to learn there existed a photo of him in an animal onesie after all, and to make it worse, he was four in the photo. He was at school, but because his mum wanted a picture of all her boys in their animal onesies, he had been put into his old lion onesie (mane included on the hood) that was getting too small for him. But it had interested him to see it was a group photo of all of them sat on the living room floor. Obi-Wan was also in the photo, in a onesie that resembled the fictional varactyl creature he had been obsessed with when he was four. His unimpressed look matching Cody’s, in the photo both of them had their arms crossed as they glared at their parents off camera. Wolffe and Fox were also in the photo, but too busy pulling on each other’s hoods, Wolffe almost taking off one of Fox’s onesie’s ears. Rex, at three, was happily beaming at their mum in his elephant onesie that included a small trunk attached to the hood. Leaning against Rex on his left was Anakin, who at two, was too busy trying to eat his own foot as he sat in his dog onesie. On Rex’s right was the little twins, Echo beaming at the camera in his giraffe onesie as he lifted a hand up to squeeze the felt face of the giraffe attached to the hood and Fives, in a moose onesie (seriously where had his parents found these?), was busy trying to grab one of his felt antlers and eat it. Apparently, their parents had kept all of the onesies, what they planned to do with them Cody couldn’t guess.

But while the onesie group photo had been embarrassing, it hadn’t put anyone off their food. No, that came when Cody’s dad asked all of them how university was going. Everyone listened as one by one, all the boys explained what they had been doing. The adults patiently listened as Cody, Obi-Wan, Wolffe and Fox talked about their dissertations and skilfully manoeuvring the conversation so as to avoid third year meltdowns as the families had taken to calling their tearful, stressed rants. While Rex, Anakin, Fives and Echo stared at them in dawning horror as they realised what was in their immediate future. Fox had given Cody advice on where to find primary sources, as Fox was writing his ten-thousand-word dissertation on the Black Death and at this point, was basically an expert on where to find medical documents from varying time periods. Which was immensely helpful for Cody because his dissertation was on the treatment of shell shock in the First World War.

Dinner seemed to then settle, with all the boys commenting on funny or interesting things they had heard at university. When Fox piped up, “I was reading a chapter for my dissertation when the author commented that they buried people who had died of the Black Death by lying down a layer of bodies, then a layer of soil, another layer of bodies, more soil, more bodies and then the final layer of soil. It was interesting that the author used the analogy of the bodies been buried like how you make a lasagne.”

Everyone stopped, many of the people gathered around the table stared at Fox, with forks paused in the air. Fox, oblivious continued to eat his dinner with a smile on his face. Which was lasagne. Wolffe just shook his head and sighed in exasperation as he stopped eating his portion of lasagne and instead reached for a piece of garlic bread. Obi-Wan, taking interest in the analogy, was asking Fox if he had come across any other analogies like it. Rex, Echo and Fives dropped their forks and looked at their food in faint disgust. Qui-Gon and Anakin, who normally didn’t find anything disgusting, looked down at the lasagne on their plates in muted horror. Cody’s parents and uncle just sighed, with his uncle massaging his forehead in exasperation, while Cody’s aunt lifted her wine glass up and saluted Fox with it before taking a sip (Fox was a lot like his mother). Cody raised an eyebrow at his cousin, Fox smirked and then reached for the serving dish in the centre of the table. “Oh, no one else wants anymore? Guess I’ll finish the lasagne up then,” Fox stated with a mock innocent look on his face. Wolffe just sighed again and thumped his head down onto the table. Leaving Cody with the impression that Fox was hungry and saw how quickly the food was disappearing and decided to take matters into his own hands.

As Cody and Obi-Wan walked out of the library holding hands, Cody turned to Obi-Wan and smirked. “It is safe to say, lasagne will not be on the menu.”

Obi-Wan laughed loudly as they made their way into the cold air outside, wrapping his scarf tighter around his neck. Obi-Wan also admitted that neither his father nor Anakin, had been able to eat lasagne since that dinner. Anakin had seen lasagne being served for lunch at the university one day and had practically fled the cafeteria.

Together they walked to the bus stop that was less than a minute walk from the library and sat in contented silence as they travelled from campus on the short bus journey to their flat. Their shoulders knocked gently together as they swayed as the bus pulled in and out of bus stops. Their hands were still clasped together, and Obi-Wan was looking out of the window with a smile on his face as he watched people go about their day. Cody found himself unable to tear his gaze away from Obi-Wan’s face, watching as his eyes crinkled as he smiled at the sight of a giggling child play peekaboo with their younger sibling. The bright winter sun turned Obi-Wan’s copper hair into flames and it was a sight that always memorised Cody without fail. It was the sight that led to four-year-old him talking to Obi-Wan on their first day at school because he had never seen someone with the same-coloured hair as Obi-Wan before. Cody only realised they had reached the bus stop they needed when Obi-Wan pressed the button to alert the driver to stop. He reached down for his kit bag and swung it up onto his shoulder, they walked off the bus, thanked the driver and continued walking while holding hands. Obi-Wan began to talk about a book he had had to read for one of his modules and while Cody never heard of the book before, he enjoyed seeing how excited Obi-Wan was about it.

Once they got inside their flat, Obi-Wan put his bag, that contained his laptop and some books, on the floor by the door and went into the kitchen. Cody watched him for a moment, glad to see Obi-Wan was distracted making them both some lunch. Cody sat at their table and turned his laptop on and logged into the website where he was creating a photobook of photos of himself and Obi-Wan throughout their lives as a birthday present. There were hundreds of photos of them together over the years they had known each other, there were photos of primary, secondary and sixth form last days. Seeing how they had changed in those years was endearing and funny at the same time. Cody caught Obi-Wan looking over at him and Cody playfully tilted his laptop screen away from Obi-Wan’s view, not that his boyfriend could see it from where he was anyway. Obi-Wan smiled and then turned back to the sandwiches he was making. Obi-Wan knew he was getting his birthday present, just as Cody was aware Obi-Wan was also organising his birthday present, as Obi-Wan’s birthday was two days before Cody’s.

Cody checked through the photobook one last time and then seeing that everything was as he wanted it, he clicked order and waited for the confirmation email to arrive. Once it had, he closed his laptop down and smiled as Obi-Wan, at that moment, walked up to him and handed him a plate with his sandwich and an apple.

“I love you,” Cody said with a smile.

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes fondly, “ah yes. You only love me for my sandwich making skills.”

“You caught me!” chuckled Cody as he held his hands up in defence. They shared a smile and then both began eating their sandwiches in earnest. They chatted about friends from home who had gone to other universities or who went into work, the friends they had made in Manchester, the antics of crazy younger brothers and they also talked about if they wanted to do a Masters degree in their subject and if they did, where should they go? As it wasn’t a question about if they would go together, even if Obi-Wan decided to do a Masters and Cody didn’t, he was still going to move to whichever city Obi-Wan chose to go to for his Masters. But Cody was also liking the idea of doing a history Masters himself. “We could go to London. Wolffe and Fox are both going to do a Masters, we could go to uni with them.”

Obi-Wan frowned at him in amusement. “I thought you loved living in Manchester.”

“I do,” agreed Cody. “But I also want some peace from my brothers.” He added with a faked whining tone.

His boyfriend chuckled and then said. “You could apply to University of Manchester. So, you can stay in the city, but be in a different university to your brothers.”

Cody rolled his eyes. “As if that would stop them just turning up on Uni of’s campus,” he grumbled under his breath. He didn’t even think moving to the moon would stop his brothers from turning up to inconvenience him.

Obi-Wan just chuckled to himself as he shook his head, having to admit that going to Uni of would not stop Rex, Fives and Echo from turning up to see Cody. Within three weeks of starting the academic year, they had already worked out what rooms Cody had his seminars in and at what time they finished, so they could stand outside and wait for him. Despite Cody never once showing them his timetable.

After lunch, Cody began looking through some books for information he could add to his dissertation, while Obi-Wan turned his laptop on to work on one of his assignments. At the sound of an exasperated sigh, Cody looked up with one raised eyebrow to find Obi-Wan glaring at his laptop screen. “Problem?” he prompted lightly.

His boyfriend rolled his eyes and stated, “I hate this. We have a dissertation and other essays we need to complete that count towards our final degree. But then we are asked to write a two-thousand-word essay on the skills we have learnt doing our English degree and how those skills can help us in the workplace. While also having to give examples of jobs that use and need those skills.” Obi-Wan growled in frustration, “it is so pointless, but we have to do it otherwise we can be penalised if we don’t. But it’s wasting our time, we have other more important things to do.”

Cody grimaced and then reached out to squeezed Obi-Wan’s hand. “I totally get your frustration. We have been asked to do the exact same thing.”

Obi-Wan just groaned and thunked his head on the table, “I hate this. This is stress I do not need.” Cody smiled to himself and with his free hand, he ran his fingers through Obi-Wan’s hair, gently scratching at his scalp with his nails.

When Obi-Wan had relaxed, Cody recalled the lecture when he had been told about the assignment and how the career’s department guest lecturer and one of his usual history lecturers asked for people to give examples of skills, they had learnt doing their degree. He must have laughed to himself, because Obi-Wan was turning his head, leaving his face resting against the table top, and gave him an unimpressed glare. “Are you laughing at my pain?”

“No,” soothed Cody, brushing the hair out of Obi-Wan’s eyes. “Just remembering what Bly said in our lecture about the skills we have learnt doing a history degree.”

“Care to share? It might help me out,” asked Obi-Wan.

Cody smirked, “we have learnt to deal with emotionally crippling pain.”

There was a pause, and then Obi-Wan was laughing, his shoulders shaking as he lifted his head up from the table and instead rested it against Cody’s shoulder. “Oh, that’s a good one. I wonder if I could get away with using it?” he mused.

“I have no idea. But like you, I am tempted to use it,” stated Cody, happy to see a bit of life back in Obi-Wan’s eyes. There was nothing more depressing that having to complete a pointless assignment when you had a hundred other things to do that actually mattered for your degree.

They made the collective decision to stop working for the rest of the day, they were both mentally tired and decided they could do with a break. So, they found a film to watch, which led to another film, which led to another, until it was time for them to eat dinner. After they had shared the cooking, eaten and then shared the washing up, they decided to have an early night. Seeing as they both had nine am lectures on campus and arranged to meet in the library afterwards before Cody’s meeting with his dissertation supervisor.

As they stretched out on their bed, Cody pulling Obi-Wan to half lay on top of him, their legs tangled together. Despite the early time of the evening, the warmth and the presence of each other led them both to become drowsy and their eyes flickered heavily.

“Good night Cody,” yawned Obi-Wan, his jaw cracking at the force of the yawn.

“G’night Obi. Love you,” Cody breathed out on a sigh, his eyes closing as he felt himself begin to drift.

“Love you Code,” mumbled Obi-Wan as he pressed his face into the crook of Cody’s neck. With his nose pressed into Obi-Wan’s hair, Cody pressed a kiss against Obi-Wan’s forehead and felt a kiss pressed against his neck in return. With a smile on his face, Cody drifted off into sleep, where university stress faded away until it captured his attention tomorrow, but for now, he was able to sleep peacefully with his boyfriend in his arms.

End note:

I would draw the photo of all the boys in their onesies, but alas I cannot draw so let the image live on in our imaginations. 

Also I really enjoyed writing this AU, so if anyone wants to see more from it (including Rex, Fives, Echo, Wolffe, Fox and Anakin) let me know!

I went to Manchester Metropolitan University and as I loved it there so much, I chose to make it the setting for my AU for codywanweek. The road, buildings, halls and park are real places at the university and writing this fic has just made me want to go back there. I couldn’t come up with a degree for Cody so I just gave him my degree and dissertation focus (so yes there does exist a 10,000-word dissertation on the treatment of shell shock in WWI). At MMU we did call the University of Manchester Uni of, to differentiate between the two universities.

The Black Death lasagne analogy does actually exist in a historical book somewhere. I didn’t actually read it, but one of my flatmates in first year, who also did history, did. He was revising for one of our exams and he excitedly burst into the shared kitchen, saw me and geeked out over the funny analogy, we laughed about it, about how it was such a random analogy to use. (But after a few years I still remember it, so I guess it’s useful.) But then one of our other flatmates, who wasn’t studying history, turned around and complained at us, because she was in the process of making lasagne for her dinner. So, the reactions to Fox’s gleeful explanation of the analogy are based on truth. Our flatmate didn’t want to eat her dinner because of us. As I was writing this fic, the analogy popped back into my head and I felt it would be such a Fox thing to say.

Cody’s line of “we have learnt to deal with emotionally crippling pain” during a career’s lecture. Is something that I heard said in a career’s lecture I had to sit through in my second year. So again, something else in this fic that is based on truth.

[raptured-night]

Do you believe Snape was prejudiced against muggleborns in his teens? I want to believe he was but there are just several facts that don't allow it. For example- He called himself the Half Blood Prince indicating that he was proud of his half blood status. But if he hated muggleborns for having muggle parents or having 'dirty' blood, then why was he so proud of his blood status. Shouldn't he have hated it like Voldemort did?

I believe that Snape’s experience with prejudice was decidedly more complicated than someone like Lucius Malfoy’s or Bellatrix Black’s would have been. Importantly, although Ron does tell us that a larger majority of witches and wizards were either half-blood or possessed some degree of blended Muggle and magical heritage due to the sheer fact that the magical community consisted of a significantly smaller population than the non-magical and there was no way around inter-mingling with Muggles if they hoped to preserve their society (in fact, I would theorize that some of the “eccentricities” and emotional instabilities that we saw from some of the pureblood families were the byproducts of too much inbreeding as a result of a small pool of pureblood families marrying into each other again and again), I would argue that Snape would still have entered Slytherin at a distinct disadvantage.

Significantly, we lack sufficient information on the Prince family to definitively argue whether they were even a pureblood family (if so then it would seem they weren’t counted among “The Sacred Twenty-Eight”) or not and while it has become a popular fanon theory that the Princes were a pureblood family, akin to the Malfoys or Lestranges or Blacks, the absence of information does make it impossible to say that canonically the Prince family were a pureblood family and not just a magical family who may have had a more blended heritage (a more mixed-lineage could even go towards explaining how Eileen came to meet and marry Tobias). Unlike Tom Riddle, Snape’s familial background may not have been vague enough for him to be able to claim ties to any ancient or illustrious pureblood family (as we saw Umbridge do when claiming an unverified connection to the Selwyn family) in order to overshadow his Muggle heritage. Thus, where Riddle was able to enter Slytherin as a half-blood orphan and declare himself Salazar Slytherin’s chosen heir courtesy of his connection to the Gaunt family, at most we see that Snape privately claimed his connection to his mother’s family in the guise of “The Half-blood Prince.” 

Arguably, that provides us with an important contrast to Tom Riddle and some insight into adolescent Snape. Where Tom Riddle uses his connection to the Gaunt family as a means of fully rejecting his father’s Muggle heritage and validating his Muggleborn prejudices by declaring himself Salazar Slytherin’s heir, there are different implications to a young Snape writing: “I am the Half-Blood Prince” in his mother’s old Potions textbook. Rather than using his mother’s magical lineage as a means to entirely divest himself of his father’s Muggle heritage, it would seem that at the point when Snape scrawled that statement into his textbook he was far more set on acknowledging both his magical and Muggle status within the wizarding world in a way that I would argue doubled as bitterly sardonic and challenging. Indeed, the very statement: “I am the Half-Blood Prince” connotes defiance on his part; a suggestion that at one point in his life Snape seemed very set on proving his worth on his own terms as a half-blood from an impoverished background who was nonetheless still “half a Prince,” and that he would defy anyone who might have told him that he did not belong. This does seem to conflict with the idea that all of Snape’s adolescent years at Hogwarts were marked by him having the same deeply ingrained prejudices or the exact ideological beliefs that purebloods like Lucius Malfoy might have. 

If we look at the classifications of Muggle-born, half-blood, and pureblood as allegories for certain racial and ethnic statuses (and that purebloods represented the group with the greatest hierarchal advantage and most privilege) then the extent to which various wizards or witches that came from non-pureblood families could nonetheless still claim some vague status as purebloods could be looked at as allegorical to the concept of “passing privilege.” Ergo, Tom Riddle was able to convincingly “pass” as a member of the pureblood elite by claiming his connections to Salazar Slytherin through the Gaunt family. Furthermore, he completely abandons his more obvious Muggle-given name of Tom Riddle and chooses a name (i.e. Voldemort) that allowed him to further obscure his lineage. I would argue that, in contrast to Voldemort, Snape did not have passing privilege coming into Hogwarts. The very nature of the way he claims his connection to his mother’s magical lineage seems to suggest that an adolescent Snape was aware that his half-blood status was not something he could conceal or entirely rid himself of in the way Tom Riddle was able to do (and again, the very nature of the statement “I am the Half-Blood Prince” does seem to suggest he may not have wanted to pass himself off as more of a pureblood). 

Which brings me to the issues of indoctrination and internalized prejudice. Significantly, I believe that a young Snape may have been aware of anti-Muggleborn prejudice even before he arrived at Hogwarts. The pause after Lily asked Snape if her being Muggle-born would make any difference at Hogwarts was poignant and suggested an existing knowledge on Snape’s part. Which begs the question of how he became aware of the existence of such prejudices? The logical answer is that he learned about them the same way he learned about the other aspects of the magical world, from his mother. It is even possible that in some of the arguments between Tobias and Eileen he may have witnessed both anti-magic and anti-Muggle prejudices from them. When asked by Lily if Tobias liked magic a young Snape deflected by observing Tobias “didn’t like anything much,” so there is a basis to argue that magic might have been a point of contention for Tobias. Likewise, one could make the case that Eileen also lashed out and a young Snape might have overheard her criticizing Tobias on the basis of him being a Muggle. Notably, Snape has to catch himself when he almost dismisses Petunia as “just a Muggle” when Lily is upset after arguing with Petunia (who demonstrated her own seeming magical prejudices by calling Lily a freak) shortly before boarding the Hogwarts Express. 

Overall, I would argue that if an adolescent Snape came to Hogwarts with any overt prejudices they were more likely anti-Muggle prejudices than they were anti-Muggleborn prejudices. Indeed, while a young Snape does hesitate before reassuring Lily that her Muggleborn heritage would make no difference, he does seem rather (naively) convinced that her magical talent would be enough for her to avoid experiencing any anti-Muggleborn prejudice while at Hogwarts. Alternatively, he frequently disparaged Petunia --who in turn targeted him for his class status-- for being a Muggle. I would theorize that a young Snape who might have been disillusioned by a father who is strongly implied to have been potentially abusive to his mother (and quite possibly him) and antagonistic towards magic and who would have potentially overheard any anti-Muggle sentiments spoken by his mother would have arrived at Hogwarts with an existing prejudice against Muggles if not yet Muggleborns.

From there any progression of anti-Muggle to anti-Muggleborn would have been the result a few complicated factors ranging from: his frequency of exposure to a culture of prejudice within Slytherin house by a certain number of vocal and influential peers, the issue of the existing stigma surrounding Slytherin house and how the culture of Hogwarts seems to reward disenfranchisement of Slytherin by the other houses and teachers, Snape’s own growing sense of alienation and disenfranchisement as his bullying by the Marauders escalated and Dumbledore and other figures of authority failed to adequately respond which would have made him more vulnerable to grooming and radicalization, Snape’s own lack of privilege (i.e. his lack of passing privilege, his half-blood status, and his class status) in Slytherin house making it more necessary for Snape to conform with to avoid drawing a target onto himself by members of his house (particularly when he would already feel a lack of security outside of his house due to the Marauders and seeming institutional biases against Slytherin house at Hogwarts), and any internalized prejudices Snape carried as a result of any resentment he may have felt towards his Muggle father, Tobias. 

I’ve written about this before but I believe the road to Snape becoming a Death Eater was a complex one. In contrast to the Malfoys, the Lestranges, or the Black family Snape was not born into wealth and privilege. He had no claims to “The Sacred Twenty-Eight,” and no real social standing. In terms of hierarchy, and to borrow from Slughorn, Snape “did not have much to recommend him.” These aspects of Snape are imperative to understanding what might have led to him becoming a Death Eater and not just in the context of fictional analysis, either. In a very real-world sense, Snape provides us some insight into the ways that adolescents can become radicalized or groomed into extremists groups, gangs, and cults. It is a gross oversight to lump Snape into the same category as Lucius Malfoy because Snape’s reasons for becoming a Death Eater and the outlook of any prejudices he held would have been very different due in large part to his blood status, class status, and social standing. 

Lucius Malfoy supported Voldemort and became a Death Eater because he regarded Muggle-borns as a threat to the privilege he already held in wizarding society; he became a Death Eater because he was motivated to hold onto his privilege, which is why both he and Narcissa Malfoy were willing to set aside their blood purity ideologies and turn away from Voldemort when it became clear that Voldemort was an even greater immediate threat to them than Muggle-borns. In contrast, Snape held no significant privilege in wizarding society; he was not a pureblood, he seemingly could not pass as belonging to one of the “Sacred Twenty-Eight,” and he came from poverty and of a low-class standing. Rationally speaking, Snape did not become a Death Eater because he had reason to believe Muggle-borns were threatening his privilege in the wizarding world because Snape did not enter into the wizarding world with significant advantages or privileges (indeed, as a half-blood his position in a world dominated by Voldemort’s ideology would be far more precarious which is why I suspect that the alternate future we saw in Cursed Child where Voldemort won saw a post-war Snape relegated back to a mostly invisible role as potion’s professor at Hogwarts again while someone like Umbridge with more passing privilege was upgraded to the role of Headmistress). I would argue that prejudice against Muggle-borns was not even a driving factor in why he became a Death Eater (although he might have had what he felt were valid reasons to believe that inter-marriages between Muggles and magical people didn’t need to continue and that Muggles like Tobias were only a danger to them and their world) so much as the promise of power, protection, and belonging. 

Which brings me back to the driving force behind a lot of the radicalization of adolescents we encounter in a very real sense. A common factor, the one which renders them most vulnerable, is their feelings of disenfranchisement and their disillusionment with a society that not only seems to not work for them but is unfairly designed to work against them. In a fictional context, Snape manages to encapsulate the idea of the angry young person whose outlook and future prospects seem hopeless (regardless of any innate talents, ambition, or hard work on their part) and who feels unfairly attacked by institutions and systems beyond their control. More than any prejudice as a motivating factor, I would argue that a young Snape would have been very vulnerable to grooming from peers like Lucius Malfoy who could build off any existing anti-Muggle prejudices he might have carried while also promising him a chance for greater social standing and influencing power. 

It is important to keep in mind that even in his own house he was dismissed by Slughorn, who famously cultivated a social networking system of carefully selected students he felt had the most potential. Thus, one can imagine an ambitious young Snape who once looked to Hogwarts as an escape from his circumstances on Spinner’s End and who seemed to defiantly insist upon making a name for himself on his own terms (i.e. “I am the Half-Blood Prince”) having all his childhood ambitions gradually disappointed; over the course of the seven years he would spend as a student at Hogwarts he would be confronted by the cruel reality that life in the magical world was no less fair to him than life in the Muggle world had been. Enter the likes of Lucius Malfoy (who also is symbolically the first person to extend Snape a hand of welcome at Hogwarts after running up against James and Sirius on the train) and other impressive peers from pureblood families and one can begin to see what some of the allure of the Death Eaters might have been (that’s not even getting into the fact that the Marauders had so staunchly aligned themselves on the opposite side so it would also have felt like a natural extension of the lines that had been drawn at Hogwarts in choosing the side in opposition of his school-hood enemies). 

The extent to which Snape carried any significant anti-Muggleborn prejudices (that is not to say that he didn’t carry Muggle-born prejudices to some degree but that those prejudices were not so significant in his consciousness that we could argue they were the main motivating factor in his decision to become a Death Eater) is, I believe, debatable. Certainly, he called Lily a Mudblood in a moment where he had been rendered powerless and emasculated and Lily later claimed that Snape “called everyone” like her Mudbloods (which I suspect was supposition and hyperbole on her part; otherwise, it paints Lily’s character in a less sympathetic light wherein we discover she was willing to overlook Snape’s use of slurs up to the point she was no longer the exception when it came to him using them) but even that instance could stand as an example of assimilation. Whether Snape was remaining silent while his peers used derogatory slurs around him or he chose to use them in his company, the instance where Snape was put under pressure and the language asserted itself is a testament to the way existing in an environment of prejudice and allowing it to go unchallenged can lead to us internalizing those prejudices. Indeed, when Snape later refuses to allow Phineas Nigellus to use the slur in his company can be looked at as an example of Snape having learned from the mistakes of his youth and taken the initiative to proactively challenge prejudice whenever possible as an adult. 

Ultimately, I believe Snape did internalize ideas of anti-Muggle prejudice but I also would argue that that was not the primary reason or driving force for his becoming a Death Eater. I believe there were a number of factors that led to that choice and it was primarily the allure of power and security that proved the most appealing to him. There is also a strong case of naivete to be argued on Snape’s part, in that he --like Draco-- seemed not to fully recognize what he had signed up for until the reality of it hit home. That Voldemort would target someone he knew, a formerly treasured childhood friend, appeared to bring home to Snape the reality of what he had become a part of and who he had pledged his allegiance to. I would also argue that early on, Voldemort appeared to have been willing to recruit gifted Muggle-borns into his ranks, so it is also quite possible that during the first war Voldemort’s rhetoric might have been slanted more firmly against the idea of Muggle incursions in their world or the way the Secrecy Act disenfranchised their people rather than a blatant call-to-arms against members of their community that, while Muggle-born, were still magical and ran the risk of alienating people away from public support. 

That is often the case with extremist organizations; they test the waters and start with more palatable or deceptive “populist” messages with a broader mass appeal before they introduce their more extreme views by degrees. We have seen some of this with the Trump administration, who began under more innocuous slogans like “Make America Great Again” and have only become more emboldened since in their dog-whistles to white supremacy and ideas of nationalism (e.g. Trump has even openly come out and declared himself a nationalist in past interviews following the Charlottesville attack on protestors and his refusal to condemn those actions). Significantly, in the first war, we know that Voldemort had enough popular support his followers were able to outnumber Dumbledore and his Order by twenty-to-one. I would argue that was achievable only if Voldemort first entered the scene under a more flexible message that allowed him to draw in members of the wizarding world with more casual prejudices towards Muggle and build up his inner circle of the more extreme Death Eaters like Bellatrix and Lucius who held the strongest anti-Muggleborn prejudices. 

Finally, I believe that the likelihood of internalized prejudice cannot be underscored. Someone who may have grown up with an abusive Muggle father, like Snape, could have internalized prejudice about his half-blood status as something with the potential to mark him as inferior. His resentment of his father becoming a resentment of Muggles, in general, is the very sort of toxic cocktail that could lead a young Snape to align himself with a Voldemort who his peers assure him can understand him and his hatred of his Muggle father. In that scenario, Voldemort is merely someone sympathetic to his situation; someone who validates his belief that Muggles are a danger to the magical community; that they are to blame for keeping their kind oppressed and forced to remain in the shadows; they are a poison to their society, etc. Additionally, being at Hogwarts and feeling as if the majority of the school were rooting for him --and his house by extension-- to fail would have only strengthened a culture of peer pressure, allowing house-mates from the most influential families to set the tone within the house, decide house politics, and enforce a group-think where the consequences of going against the popular narrative are complete ostracization within one’s house and no protection from the ostracization Slytherin students can expect to face in general. Thus we have Snape, a half-blood from poverty and a preexisting internalized prejudice against his potentially abusive Muggle father coming to Hogwarts and being sorted into a house where his options are to choose between his house being his only respite from the institutional biases of the school at large or a place where he’s further alienated from everyone else except the people out to get him can also get him where he sleeps. Indeed, the very fact that up to SWM, Harry observes that Snape was “clearly unpopular” might suggest that Snape had been reluctant up to that point to fully assimilate into the ideologies of his house and his friendship with Lily led to some friction (it might go towards explaining how Sirius and James could publically humiliate him to onlookers and not a single member of his house come to his defense). 

All this to say that I suspect that Snape’s path towards becoming a Death Eater happened by degrees. I would argue that he might have arrived at Hogwarts with some internalized prejudice against Muggles but an ambition to prove himself on his own terms (i.e. as “the Half-Blood Prince”) and a belief that raw talent and hard work would be enough for him to distinguish himself. When those ambitions proved faulty and when faced with seemingly insurmountable institutional biases within Hogwarts and slim prospects outside of Hogwarts that was when he became disillusioned and more susceptible to the ideological grooming within his house. That is why these contradictions in Snape may not be contradictions at all but rather more insight into the way a small boy who managed to seem impressive talking about his future would become a Death Eater. He may have started off with a certain degree of faith in the idea that gifted people like him and Lily could take the world by storm; that he could succeed as the Half-Blood Prince and she as a Muggle-born and no one would question their right to be there or their place in the world. Sadly, by the time he left Hogwarts, both he and Lily had had that innocence stripped from them and the choices he made would take him far from whatever ideas he once had as a boy for their future. 

[heavenly-roman]

how sweet it is (to be loved by you)

Plot: Prince Virgil makes a new friend.

Warnings: mentions of a dead parent, kissing

Pairing(s): anxceit

Word Count: 2899

for my lovely boyfriend @figurative-siren-song as part of the @sanderssidesgiftxchange !! happy holidays cas, i love you ❤️ (also!! a big thank you to @ratherstarryeyed for acting as a beta!! ur a simp and i appreciate u!!)

chapter one - chapter two

+++

The carriage shakes as the horses trot onto the gravel, Virgil holding his head up with his fist.

“Virgil, please, could you look at least a little interested?” His mother isn’t quite scolding, her tone just edging on exasperated.

“You always told me not to lie, though,” grumbles Virgil. The Queen fixes him with a glare, and he sighs, forcefully smiling. “Better?”

“Much,” she replies teasingly. The carriage comes to a stop, and she turns her full attention to her son. “Please try to be respectful.”

“When have you known me to be disrespectful?” Virgil’s mischievous grin causes his mother to crack a smile.

“Behave, Virgil,” she tells him fondly. The door opens, and the driver helps his mother out of the carriage. He then moves to Virgil’s side, and the Prince grumbles again, something about being able to help himself, thank you very much.

Standing outside of the foreign palace is the royal family, the king and queen—whose names Virgil forgot to remind himself of before they arrived—and their son, Prince Janus. Their guards surround them, and Virgil finds himself counting the amount of men during the small talk.

“A pleasure to see you again, Your Majesties,” Virgil’s mother greets the family, bowing. She flicks Virgil on the back of the head, and he bows as well.

“The pleasure is ours,” replies the King. He faces Virgil and bows, who scrambles to bow again. “Good evening, Your Highness. I believe you’ve yet to meet our son, Prince Janus, who will be your tour guide for this visit. I’m sure you two will get on well.”

Prince Janus bows, and Virgil is getting real sick of bowing already. He holds his gloved hand out, beckoning Virgil. “Our parents have much to discuss, please follow me to your chambers.”

Hesitantly, Virgil takes his hand, letting the Prince lead him to who knows where. Janus doesn’t speak, and Virgil is not about to start a conversation with a near stranger, so the walk is silent.

“Here,” says Janus, stopping abruptly, and Virgil catches himself just in time to not crash into him. “This is your room.”

“You’re a lot less polite than before,” Virgil thinks aloud.

“Congratulations, Einstein, I had no clue,” Janus snarks. “No royal obligation to be polite without my parents around.”

“So no tour?” Virgil asks.

“Not unless you pay me, Prince Purple.” Janus scoffs. “I only willingly spend time with people I like.”

“How do you know you don’t like me if you haven’t spent time with me?”

“Are you royal?”

Bewildered, Virgil gestures to himself. “Clearly.”

“Then I don’t like you,” Janus deadpans.

Before Virgil can defend himself, Janus turns, walking away from the most baffling conversation Virgil has ever had.

+++

“So, Prince Virgil,” the Queen addresses him. “Did Janus give you a satisfactory tour of the palace?”

Janus glares at him from above his wine glass, and Virgil swallows hard.

“Uh, Yes, it was… good,” he says lamely, cringing at his very eloquent word choice.

“Wonderful!” She smiles. “So you’ll have no problem finding your way around for the next few months.”

“Months?” Both Virgil and Janus exclaim, twin expressions of shock on both their faces.

“Yes, well…” Virgil’s mother starts. “We believe the best way to continue the peace between our kingdom would be… a marriage.”

“I don’t have a sister, Mother,” Virgil says, though he’s sure he knows where this is going.

“I do know how many children I have, Virgil,” she says, nearly rolling her eyes. “Dear, do you remember what you told me last month? About your… preferences?”

“Are you saying that we have to get married?” Janus interrupts, his expression a mix of fear and mild disgust.

“Janus, don’t be rude!” his father admonishes. “This is the most sound way to keep the peace.”

“Well,” Virgil shrugs, knowing this is an argument he can’t win. He glances at Janus. “Looks like you’re going to be finding out if you like me.”

+++

Janus, to his credit, does decide to take Virgil on a tour after dinner.

“And here is the library,” Janus says, the same bored tone he’s carried throughout the whole night.

Virgil moves away from Janus’, wandering through the hundreds of bookshelves, awestruck. He plucks book after book, scanning the contents and putting them back.

“What, don’t have a library back home?” Janus snarks, just a hint of fondness in his voice that he will deny if brought up.

“Not as big as this, no,” says Virgil, still starstruck. “I think we have a third of your collection.”

“My father loves reading,” Janus shrugs. “He used to read to me when I was a child.”

“He doesn’t read as much anymore?” Virgil asks absently as he continues flipping through random books he finds.

“No time,” Janus sighs. “Too much responsibility now, being the King and all. Did you ever read with your dad?”

Janus knows he said the wrong thing as he watches Virgil’s shoulders tense and his hands pause.

“No,” he says, his voice tight. “I didn’t get to read with my father.”

“Virgil—“

“Drop it.” He forces a teasing smile. “You may be my fiancé, but save the personal questions for after the wedding.”

Janus lets the silence drag on, watching Virgil once again become mesmerized by the array of novels.

“Virgil?” Janus calls, tentative. His head shoots up, and Janus clears his throat. “We had a nook. Would you like to see it?”

The other prince nods, and Janus grabs his hand—so he doesn’t get lost, shut up—and leads him to a dark corner of the library.

A worn down chair sits there, as well as another, much smaller bean bag chair. There’s a table as well, holding up a desk lamp and a few books, all collecting dust.

“I guess that one was the Kings?” Virgil says, pointing to the bean bag. Janus snorts, shaking his head fondly.

“You’re a handful, Prince Virgil.”

“So I’ve been told, Prince Janus.”

+++

When he’s not being dragged around the palace by his fiancé, Virgil chooses to spend most of his time in his room, overthinking.

The hand holding. The snarky comments laced with fondness. The scooching chairs to sit closer. The flushed cheeks when Janus innocently compliments him—

Fuck.

Virgil has a crush.

Virgil has a crush on someone who he barely even knows.

It’s not like he can help it, with the way Janus smiles at him, and the way his eyes twinkle with mischief before he does something that’s bound to get the two into trouble.

“Virgil?” A knock startles him out of his thoughts, Janus peeking his head in and smiling when his eyes meet Virgil’s. “You okay?”

“Of course!” Virgil says, trying to keep his recent realization to himself. He smiles tightly. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because I knocked on your door about four times before you answered?” Janus raises his eyebrow. He shuts the door and sits opposite of Virgil on the bed. “You’re hiding something.”

“Just lost in thought, I suppose,” Virgil shrugs. At Janus’ skeptical look, he sighs. “Seriously, Jan, I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Janus says after a minute or so. “I trust you to tell me if something is wrong, so I believe you.”

“Wow, thanks,” Virgil’s sarcasm seeps into his words. “So kind of you to trust me after continuous convincing.”

Janus grabs Virgil’s hands, and Virgil’s cheeks do not heat up, thank you very much. “You know I really do trust you, right? You’re one of the few.”

“Of course I do, Jay,” Virgil squeezes his hands. He chuckles. “Gotta trust your fiancé.”

Janus pulls his hands away with a fond head shake, and Virgil resists the urge to pout. “Nope, that’s it, you ruined the moment, we’re getting a divorce.”

“We’re not married yet, you idiot,” Virgil says between laughs.

“You’re right,” Janus ponders. He drops to one knee, miming opening a ring box. “Prince Virgil, will you marry me?”

Virgil gasps, holding an exaggeratedly shocked hand to his chest. “Of course I’ll marry you, Prince Janus!”

“Perfect,” Janus nods. “I want a divorce.”

“You love me too much to divorce me,” Virgil says before he can think about it.

“Gross Virgil, that’s gay,” he scoffs, before leaning in to clarify, “not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. In fact, my own fiancé is gay.”

Virgil is laughing too hard to respond, and Janus joins in, both laughing until their stomachs hurt.

Janus forgets why he came to visit Virgil in the first place.

+++

“Are you even gay?” Virgil blurts one day.

Janus sputters, almost choking on his wine. “I beg your pardon?”

“Do you like men?” Virgil asks, clearly not backing down. He doesn’t hope for a certain answer, absolutely not.

“I…” Janus swallows hard. “I thought we were saving personal questions for after the wedding?”

“Janus.”

“I don’t want to discuss this, Virgil—”

“My father died when I was young.”

“Virgil, you don’t have to—”

“I never read with him because he was gone by the time I knew how. My mother doesn’t like to talk about him, and I don’t remember much about him, so…” Virgil shrugs. “I avoid talking about him.”

“I… Vee, I’m so sorry,” Janus frowns. “I couldn’t imagine my life without my father.”

“I can’t imagine my life with mine,” Virgil sighs. “So, I answered your personal question. You can answer mine.”

“Virgil.” Janus fixes him with an incredulous look. “Did you tell me about your father because you’re nosy?”

“I’m not nosy,” Virgil huffs. “I just want to know if my fiancé is attracted to me.”

Janus smirks, leaning impossibly close to Virgil. “Why do you want to know? Does someone have a little crush?”

“What? No!” Virgil flushes, and hides his hands in his sleeves.

“No need to be embarrassed, dear,” drawls Janus. His smirk grows wider. “It’s cute.”

Virgil pushes Janus’ chest away from him as the latter laughs. “You’re a jerk, Jay.”

“That’s no way to speak to your fiancé, Prince Virgil,” Janus gasps, an offended hand placed on his chest.

“It is when your fiancé is a jerk,” reasons Virgil.

Janus’ offence doesn’t lessen, and the two playfully argue for the next two hours.

Not that either of them are counting.

+++

[sainadazai]

When your crush is angry all the time

Ch.6

"A red haired bitch that glows"

2nd person pov

°•○●○•°•○●○•°•○●○•°

You weren't sure how things could even possibly move so quick, but as fire burned and terrifying creatures tormented citizens, all You could do was stand. Nomus, is what endeavour called them. Some gross being that seemed to have multiple quirks, you'd never seen anything like them. 

Even with all of the times you'd been beaten and interrogated and harassed by villains, nothing like this ever happened. It could have been the fact that you spent most of your young life hiding away in a castel in the middle of nowhere, but seeing all this destruction froze you in place. 

"Kid, help get the citizens out of here! Do not engage in combat, understand? Hey! L/n!"

You broke the terrified stare that was burning into the ruined city streets to meet eyes with your boss. He seemed so calm, even though everything was going wrong. The world was quite literally burning. Those monsters were hurting people. There were screams of horror, and still his calm demeanor was all you could focus on. How was he so calm? 

"Now!"

His yell broke You from your trance and you scrambled around, eyes searching for someone, anyone to get the hell out of here. However there wasn't just one, there were hundreds. Some under building scraps, trapped behind fire burning the streets. Too many people, too much noise, it was never this loud back home. Why could you just focus?! 

One of those boys from earlier today let our scream. You only recognized it because it was the same as how he'd screamed at bakugou earlier. You whipped your head around looking for his sound, body, anything. Spinning in circles until you caught that little red shirt cowering beneath one of those things. 

"Hold on, i'm coming!" You didn't know if he could hear you, the statement was more a confirmation to yourself. You wouldn't stand there cowering. You didnt wanna be the helpless princess waiting to be saved. You were going to save others, it was like an instinct, like you had to. 

Being unsure of your abilities with vines and plants, you opted to use a power long ago mastered. Twirling your pointer finger in a circle to slowly collect wind into a tiny ciclone and build it up bigger and bigger. This action disrupted the wind in the area, some of the bystanders' hair began flowing with the force of it, getting shivers from the chill. 

Then with all the focus you could muster you let your eyes bored right into the head of that nomu aiming with your mind and following the action with your finger. Then, with a snap, the ciclone flew off towards it, lifting it into the air and growing larger the more he struggled. 

You felt the pressure of all that wind, and its body on your back. Hundreds of pounds of pressure on your spine, but adrenaline forced you forward. Sprinting to the boy in the red shirt, crouching down under all that weight to wipe away his tears. You completely ignored how underdressed you were and brought his small form into a tight embrace, whispering sweet nothings to which you didn't know you could say. 

It all felt so wrong, so opposite to what you wanted, but you couldn't help it. Grazing the lasso on your thigh an idea sprouted in your mind as to how you could get this crushing weight off of your back. You let the boy down telling him to stay behind you. 

Don't engage in combat. 

Do not engage. 

Get them out of here. 

Ignoring your mentors words, you snatched the lasso off of your thigh, doing as you were taught and lighting it ablaze, if your mother was thinking straight, she'd have it made of mineral wool- fire retardant and easily manipulated. The flames would not be actually catching on anything but the air, therefore saving her from an uncontrollably fire. 

As it lit up your hair not only changed, but shined a bright red. It was so brilliant that it lit up the area around you, the boy behind you shocked and the people in the vicinity scared. 

However, you had a hero suit on. That meant to them, that you were trustworthy. 

You swing the lasso all but twice above your head before releasing the ciclone, and the pressure on your back, and whipping it towards the monster. 

It had activated some sort of electricity quirk once free from the wind and as the lasso made contact, rather than burning and bringing the nomu to the ground, it sent a high-powered electrical current through your already spent body. 

You should have stopped there, tossed the kid out of the way and called for help. Yet, for some reason you couldn't. Being shocked only numbed the pain on your spine more, and upped your adrenaline. Bad news for mr.nomu, huh? 

"Whew, that's one way to boost your energy huh, kid?"

 You smirked back at the worried boy behind you, hoping a joke would lighting the mood now. Similar to how you would joke in class yo avoid any real emotions or connections. 

Only, now, it held the benefit of an adorable smirk appearing on his face and a little giggle exciting his mouth. 

"Watch this!" 

Despite being electrocuted your lasso was still intact, so you took to attacking it around the monster's leg and pulling back towards you. Once it was too close for your liking, you shot a roundhouse kick into the empty space in front of you. It seemed like a fruitless action, until the surrounding citizens noticed how the wind around them mirrored your actions with equal force. 

The nomu went flying out of the city, likely landing somewhere around hosu (😏Yes, hosu) and you released the pressure on your leg. 

As soon as you took the time to inhale, your back gave out, and you fell to the ground. 

However you hadn't given up, using the little burst you could make with your fingers, you shot several people away from the mess with winds. Then, after what you counted to be person number 34, you gave out and the world went black. 

The heroes in the area who were not distracted by nomus had been paying close attention to your actions, surprised they haven't seen you in the sports festival, or anywhere for that matter. 

Mr. Woods was disappointed at the initiative you took, knowing how injured you must be from being out of practice with most parts of your quirk. However when endeavour informed the other pros of some sort of incident in hosu, he was forced to leave you there. Limp body cold against the concrete. 

When doctors and healers arrived, you were one of the first in an ambulance and on the road to the hospital, and the news reports of your body being wheeled off were matched with that of your battle with the nomu. Streaming across all platforms and displaying on one particular tv screen, in the hotel room of one fire quirked boy. 

A boy who truly was noticing he had no idea what you were capable of. A boy who was angry you'd been holding it back in class. One who had been thinking of the way you spoke of fire to that little boy all day, and above all a boy who was entranced by the glow of your hair when it turned red. 

Bakugou wasn't sure how to process these overwhelming feelings towards you, the stalker girl who said dumb shit about his eyes. Still, after seeing that video, the feeling your own eyes held, staring up at that devilish creature. He could no longer say he didn't know what you meant by being obsessed with the look in his eyes. He was now too. 

A six year old girl struggled against her restraints tirelessly. She has a power that she doesn't know how to use, and yet these men want to take it from her. There is one door exit, it's blocked by tall men in black suits. The whole room echoes with screams from children. It crashes against the walls and her little ears, and she cant get it to stop. 

Why was this happening to her? Why couldn't she do anything to stop it? 

"Please, just let my brother go! Please I'll do anything. Im sorry. Im sorry. Plea-"

Her words are stopped by a suffocating hand, larger than her whole face, it reeks of bleach. Her little eyes can only release so many tears before they are running over the hands knuckles, wetting his skin with her despair. The man doesn't care, though. The men never seem to care. 

Her brother, only two years old, cries in a stranger's arms. The stranger showed her how he could completely disassemble any object, or put it back together. What a horrible powerful quirk. With something like that, she really couldn't tell why he needed hers too. Still, he did. 

So the tiny boy whined in his firm hold, terrified, but not sure why. They both just wanted their Mommy. Mommy always comes to save them, she and her friends will take them home. To the castle, with the comfy beds, the pillowy blankets that their small bodies float on like clouds. 

Not this rough metal wall, with arms chained, and bruises forming from their so-called interrogation. Why didn't they understand? 

She doesn't know how to give her quirk away. She is only six, after all. 

Mommy told her that men are greedy. Men like these have all they want and still need more. They take things, without asking. They took her and her brother without asking, so where was Mommy? To tell these men that you aren't supposed to take things, or hit people. 

Where are their mommies? Did no one tell them hitting people is bad? Especially smaller people. Is that why the men are bad? Because they didn't have a Mommy or daddy to tell them how to be good? The little girl is lost in a pit of sympathy. Sympathy that she does not owe these horrible men, yet she can't help it. 

"I don't give a shit princess, your brother can go home when you give us the quirk."

"Mommy never told me how! I'm sorry míster that you don't have a mo-mommy!" She sobre through the rough palm over her mouth. At the response he removed his grip, though. Opting to allow the girl her voice. 

"P-please. I'm sorry, I'm sorry no one told you not to be mean. It's okay though! My Mommy will come, she'll tell you, okay! Please j-just-" though her words held great meaning to those men in suits-bad men- she couldn't finish. Her sobs were too loud and violent. Her little arms shook, because though she was such a sweet little girl,she was terrified. 

Her cheeks hurt from screaming and tensing to release tears.  Her arms hurt from being suspended at her sides. Her little legs had lost all feeling, gone numb under the pressure of standing for so long. She just wanted to go home, to keep her brother safe. 

Even being only six, she felt so stupid for being so helpless. It was her job to protect their family quirk, but she wanted to give it up. More so, even though she wanted to give it away, she didn't even know how. 

A small, weak girl, helpless really. She never wanted to be helpless like that again. 

"Now!" His hand collided with her cheek. Hard, swinging, jaw snapping pressure. It rang through her ears, like her baby brothers sobs, til she shot up from her bed. 

-

-

-

Sweat covered by/ns face as she jolted awake in her bed. Around her were some unrecognizable faces, or that's what she thought at first. Except, in truth, they were simply blurred in her eyes. 

As she was taught when she was little, she began recounting things to herself that might make her come back to reality. Might help ease the fear of her dream. 

- I am not 6 years old 

-my brother is at home in the castle 

-im not in a warehouse 

-those men are in prison 

-i am alive 

As she was repeating each of those truths in her head, her eyesight began to come back so that she could recognize the faces of those around her. Three boys: todoroki, midoriya, and iida. 

Midoriya was furthest from her, as she now noticed she was on a bed. Then iida, and closest was todoroki. The familiarity of his stone face gave y/n great comfort. However, he looked troubled.

The three boys in the hospital room with her were truthfully at a loss. This girl who had been at their school for one week, had proved more honest and heroic than them. After being scolded by the chief of police, they were each confronting their own feelings about the events.

However, each came to the conclusion that y/n was the only participating hero-in-training that followed the rules and fought earnestly. Little did they know, she had been breaking rules too, except her wouldn't be hid so easily. 

What were the police meant to do, a teenage girl-princess no less- save countless lives, that heroes were neglecting, and its broadcast all over japan. Unlike in the boys' case, where the media didn't even have to know, everyone had already seen her heroism, but they had no idea where she came from. 

Some viewers pointed out her position as a princess, but no one expected to see her in a hero outfit anytime soon. They knew what happened was illegal, but what backlash would they face for arresting her. Could they even arrest her? 

Still, all y/n knew was that she was scared, and she needed to hide it as deep within her as it could reach. No one likes a cry baby, anyway. 

"Oh..uh, hey guys?"

The first to look up was the green haired, face widening in surprise and worry. 

"Y/n! Y-you're up!? Wait, don't sit up yet..um they said your bac-"

"You left damage on all your thoracic vertebrae. You could have killed yourself with that amount of pressure!" 

Todoroki interrupted. Face still void of emotion, but his voice held anger. 

Making sure to agnowledged how touched she was that he cared at all, y/n then quickly brushed it off. In the mood for jokes, not fights. She just finished fighting, why would she wanna argue some more about it? 

"Aww~todoroki, were you worried about me?"

"Yes. It was stupid of you to use your quirk like that, out of practice and such." 

"Um-"

"There's no um. he is right y/n, i didn't know your quirk could do that, but you obviously haven't been keeping it in practice during class, that was really risky..." midoriya added on in a ramble. 

Feeling a bit cornered she settled for sighing and staring up at the ceiling. 

"Can I walk?"

"No" 

"Why not?"

"Did you not here the whole vertebrae thing, i-"

"No, I did, but I don't feel any pain...is it not healed?"

"I'm not really sure, we can ask.."

So slowly but surely, the boys helped her sit up, and yes, she did feel an immense pain shoot through her. Additionally, she was compensated with shoto conspiracizing about his negativo afecta on peoples hands, getting to know these classmates better. They even let her in on why they were in the hospital to begin with. 

She would have to admit, though these boys being around made her happy, she was still thinking about bakugou. Was he in the area during the fight? Is he okay? Why do I give a shit about that mean old fact face anyway? Oh, right. His eyes. 

The rest of her time was spent ignoring the extreme trauma these events reminded her of, and fantasizing about those angry eyes. 

Bakugou pov 😡

°•○●○•°•○●○•°•○●○•°

There the bitch was, right on my hotel tv screen, fighting the same fight on replay. Those media bastards hasn't stopped talking about her all day. How even when she was barely alive on the ground, she kept saving people. 

I know it wasn't about me, hell, I wasn't even there, but it feels like a taunt. Some karma cause I called her an entitled princess, or her purposefully saying "Look what I can do." 

Well I fucking am. Looked like some sort of wind quirk, but I saw her use fire with those kids, and in class she makes that plant shit. So what the hell is she? She thinks having multiple quirks makes her better than me? Good enough she doesn't have to use them all just to beat me? Thats bullshit. 

I'm just so fucking angry at her for it, but I have to be. Or else, the next time they show her shitty face on that shitty screen, looking

...shitty, i'll start to worry. 

That maybe she has only been here for a week, but she is already gone. That the whole time at school she spent avoiding me, to make me happy. Worrying I'll never hear her say what she looks at in my eyes. 

In her eyes, that night, I saw pure rage. It almost looked as if she couldn't control it. An impending anger that loomed over her, and controlled her; made her strong. Not stronger than me, but strong. 

Still, I can't go "falling for'' every girl that I see with strength. If a dunce 's face hadn't told me that feeling I had at the festival was a crush, I could have spared myself a week worth of it, I don't even know what. 

Stupid dunce face. 

Now, though, that shitty princess, even if she is shitty. Well, she has at least my respect. 

[youtuberswithalex]

Period

Summary: Swallowing his panic, he tried his hardest to take a deep breath. He grabbed a wad of toilet paper and wiped, hoping to scurry to his room and get rid of the evidence of any injury before anyone could find out, but it came back soaked in just as much deep, dark blood as before. Tears sprung to his eyes as he let his hyperventilating take over. 

“Daaaaaad!”

(Trans!Virgil; Adoption AU; Romantic Logicality, Paternal Moxiety, Brotherly Prinxiety, Creativitwins)

Warnings: Blood, periods, crying, explanation of the menstrual cycle, brief mention of sex, implied/referenced past child abuse, brief mention of past character death, Remus Antics (brief, non-graphic mention of a gory scene in an old movie)

Word Count: 2316

A/N: So, this has been a fic I’ve wanted to write for 12+ years, a fic that’s transpired fandom after fandom after fandom: an explanation of what a period is, to help others who won’t get/understand an explanation from other sources. I know this gets a little info-dump-y, but I tried to make it understandable. This fic is for you kids who are nervous about getting yours for the first time, like I was, and I hope seeing characters you love going through it, too, can help!

This is also the first fic I’m posting, I guess, of this Adoption AU I’ve had in my head for a while! I’ve got a couple other ideas in mind, including a part 2 to this focusing more on Roman and Virgil, sooo hit me up for some AU questions, if you have any!

-----

It was true that Virgil hadn’t really been feeling well in the past week.

He didn’t know what it was, but everything just felt… off. He didn’t want to socialize with anyone; being around people had been making a fire of rage burn in his chest, and the fact that he didn’t know why just made it ten times worse. He was exhausted to the point of nearly falling asleep in class, and would have slept through his alarms twice and been late if it hadn’t have been for Roman waking him up when he didn’t come for breakfast.

Speaking of, he hadn’t had much of an appetite, and he’d hardly been eating because of it. Even the idea of eating anything had made him feel a little gross. And his stomach had been cramping a lot.

Realistically, Virgil knew this was something he should tell Patton or Logan, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. It didn’t matter how many times Roman reassured him that their dads wouldn’t be angry at him for getting sick; until he saw it for himself, he wasn’t going to be able to believe him. So what if Patton was a nurse? So what if Roman and Logan had butted heads dozens of times since Virgil had moved in, and it had never dissolved into a screaming match? That didn’t mean they wouldn’t turn on him, or that he was a good enough kid to avoid getting on their bad side!

Besides, he wasn’t throwing up or running a fever! He was just going to waste their time if he said anything. They had more important things to worry about than him. It’s not like he was dying or anything.

…Or, so he’d thought, until Thursday afternoon when he went to the bathroom and found his underwear covered in blood.

Virgil almost screamed at the sight. As soon as he recovered, he frantically searched his body for any sign of a scrape or scratch that could have left such a mess. There was nothing. Maybe… Maybe it had already healed?

Swallowing his panic, he tried his hardest to take a deep breath. He grabbed a wad of toilet paper and wiped, hoping to scurry to his room and get rid of the evidence of any injury before anyone could find out, but it came back soaked in just as much deep, dark blood as before. Tears sprung to his eyes as he let his hyperventilating take over.

“Daaaaaad!”

Footsteps came rushing to the door faster than he’d ever heard in this household. “Virgil, are you okay?”

He choked back a sob. “I-I’m bleeding…!”

“Okay, it’s going to be okay, kiddo,” Patton soothed. “Can I come in?”

Virgil looked at himself, still on the toilet, and set the wad of toilet paper on the tank. He scrambled to stand and pull his pants up before whimpering out an “Uh-huh”.

Patton calmly came in and shut the door behind him. “Alright, where are you bleeding?”

“I-I don’t know!”

“You don’t know?” he asked with a frown.

“I…” Virgil picked up the toilet paper and showed it to him, lowering his voice to a whisper despite no one else being in there with them. “It was all over my underwear,” he explained. “And when I wiped, I…”

He trailed off as Patton tilted his head to inspect the blood, and then understanding faded onto his face as he looked away in thought. While it was only a few seconds, it felt like an eternity; his stomach started to cramp again, and Virgil found himself trembling.

“I-I haven’t been feeling good this week,” he admitted. “My stomach’s been hurting, and—and all I want to do is sleep, and I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to bother you guys, and I’m sorry, I should’ve said something, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to be sick, I don’t want to have to go to the hospital, please—!”

Patton shushed him and ran his fingers through Virgil’s hair. “Hey, hey, relax, it’s alright! You’re okay, Virgil. You’re not going to die, trust me. Especially not on my watch.”

He leaned over, put the toilet lid down, and gently pushed Virgil to sit on it before kneeling in front of him. He took a few seconds to chew on his lip in thought.

“Virgil,” he started, “At your old school, did your teachers ever take an afternoon to talk to you guys about puberty?”

Virgil shook his head.

Patton let out a breath and nodded. “I guess they probably think it’s a little too early to talk about it, huh?” he muttered. “Am I allowed to touch your stomach, honey?”

Virgil hesitated, but he nodded after a moment. Patton reached up and placed his hands on Virgil’s lower belly. When he flinched, he used his thumb to rub gentle circles into it.

“Okay, so, in your body, right down here, you have this thing called a uterus,” he softly explained. “When people are pregnant, that’s where the babies grow before—”

“Am I PREGNANT?!”

“No, no, no—!” Patton had to hold back a laugh, taking his hands away to cover his face for just a second before returning them to their original position. “You’re not pregnant, Virgil, don’t—don’t worry about that!”

Virgil snapped his mouth shut, lower lip still trembling. Patton offered him a reassuring smile as he continued.

“Your uterus has these two things connected to it called ovaries.” He used his two index fingers to draw out where they would be. “They hold a bunch of tiny little eggs inside of them that eventually would turn into people—but only under certain circumstances, at certain times, usually involving another person. If you were to get pregnant, you’d know, understand? It’s not going to happen randomly.”

Patton didn’t move on until Virgil nodded.

“Okay. Now, about once a month, one of these two little guys is going to let one of their eggs go,” he said, “and it sticks to the wall of your uterus. And your body goes…”

Patton threw his hands into the air and waved them around. “’Yay! We’re gonna have a baby!’” he cheered in a cartoony voice. Virgil let out a weak snicker. Patton counted it as a win.

“It starts to get ready for this potential baby by building up this lining around the walls, so that it’ll be extra protected from harm. And for a little while, if you… Ah…” Patton’s face turned red. “Do… certain things, with certain people, that egg might get fertilized, and that’s how pregnancy starts.”

“Like… kissing?”

Patton hummed. “No, you’d have to do a little more than that. More, uh… adult stuff.”

Virgil nodded, looking at the floor very seriously. “Taxes.”

It was a fight to keep his laugh in. “R-Right. Taxes.” He cleared his throat and continued. “Um, anyway, if that egg doesn’t get fertilized, your body says, ‘Oh, darn! Well, maybe next time!’, and it gets rid of the egg, and then it gets rid of that lining so it can make a fresh one for the next egg.” He pointed to the bloody toilet paper still gripped tightly in Virgil’s hands. “That’s what that blood is. It’s not a cut, and it’s certainly not an omen of death. It’s just a sign that you’re growing up.”

Virgil stared at the toilet paper for a long moment. “…Am I going to have to do this every month?”

“Well, not at first,” Patton replied, putting his hands on his knees. “This is a brand new feature in your body right now, so it’ll take a bit for it to fall into a real cycle. For a little bit, you might have a couple within a month, or you might not have it for another three after this. But, eventually, yeah, the body will balance itself out.”

“How long is that gonna take?”

“It depends on your body. If it takes a while, or it doesn’t seem like it’s going to balance at all, we can look into some options to help, like birth control or hormone therapy. Modern medicine is a great thing,” he said with a wink. “How about we save that conversation for a little later, though? See how this pans out for now?”

There was a beat, and then Virgil slowly nodded. He shifted and tipped his head away. “What do I do about my underwear?” he whispered.

Patton hummed and sat back, looking up at the ceiling. “Well… I’ll be honest, kiddo, I can talk your ear off about anatomy and the medical side of things, but I don’t have a clue about the products and stuff. How would you feel if I called Remus’s mom and asked her to come explain that stuff to us?”

Virgil wiped at his eyes. “Okay.”

Offering a gentle smile, Patton held his arms open; there was a moment of hesitation, and then Virgil leaned forward and wrapped his smaller arms around him. Patton held him tight and rubbed his back.

“Thank you,” he whimpered.

“Of course, sweetie. That’s what your Pop and I are here for,” he reassured. “And don’t you ever worry about bothering us if you’re not feeling well, okay? We care about you more than whatever silly things we might be working on. We want to take care of you, okay?”

Virgil shuddered in a manner that was suspiciously similar to that of a repressed sob; when he spoke next, his voice was tight and high-pitched. “Okay.”

They sat like this for a moment, with Patton holding his son close, rubbing a hand over his lower back, until he pressed a kiss into his hair and pulled back.

“Alright, Virge, I need to go call Mrs. Drake,” he said. “Is your stomach still hurting? Or anything else, for that matter? I can get you some medicine to help, if you want.”

Virgil nodded, scrubbing his eyes and taking a deep breath.

Patton nodded and climbed to his feet. “Okay. I’ll be back as soon as I can, promise.”

He stepped out of the bathroom, shutting the door behind him and leaving Virgil alone with his thoughts again. He was still shaking, yes, but the terror of thinking he was going to die was settling into the more manageable fear of learning a new routine…

And maybe, a little, the risk of starting to put his trust into someone.

But maybe there wasn’t so much to fear in that one.

Virgil leaned forward and finally dropped the bloody toilet paper into the trash.

----------

The front door slammed open; Logan and Roman both nearly jumped out of their skin from where they sat at the dining room table.

“Virgil, we got your little butt-diapers!”

There was the sound of a light swat, and then the snatching of a plastic bag.

“Stahp, Remus, he’s already having a hard time with it!”

Snickering echoed through the entryway as the two climbed the half-flight of stairs leading to the main floor. As Remus made a beeline to tackle Roman out of his chair, Logan adjusted his posture to be more formal and nodded at Mrs. Drake.

“Good afternoon, Alya,” he called.

“Hi, boys,” she quickly responded. “Are they still in the bathroom?”

“I believe so, yes.”

Mrs. Drake nodded and hurried off just as Roman wrestled Remus off of him. He glanced at the hallway, and then between his twin and his father.

“Wait, what’s going on?”

“Your baby bro’s anus is bleeding for the first time!”

“No, Remus,” Logan scolded. He turned to Roman. “He’s experiencing his first menstrual period. Your father called Mrs. Drake to help teach him the technical aspects of how to best handle it.”

Roman blinked and sat up straight. “Oh! Is he going to be alright?”

“Yeah, Mom brought a bunch of stuff to help,” Remus replied, waving his hand as he plopped into the open seat next to Roman. “Pads, painkillers, heating rice bag sock things, the whole shebang. And a bunch of chocolate and candy and stuff!”

“Ah, good. I’ve seen studies that dark chocolate helps with cramps,” Logan stated.

Remus sighed. “A shame. I was hoping we’d get to see Virgie’s tiny baby rip out of his stomach. Like that scene in Aliens!”

Roman let out a whine and swatted him. “Dude, that’s my little brother!”

“Oh, come on! Your other dad’s a nurse! He could stitch him back up in no time!”

“That is not how nurses work!”

Logan hummed and adjusted his glasses, turning back to the papers he was grading. “Astounding. In less than two minutes, you’ve expressed your ignorance in both anatomy and the careers of the medical field. I suggest you brush up on them both if you truly wish to study in the field of dentistry.”

“Haa, brush up,” Roman laughed.

Logan shot him a glare over the rim of his glasses; Roman and Remus high-fived.

“Do your homework, Roman.”

Roman grinned and turned back to face his homework, but his mind instead floated back to Virgil’s condition. He bit down on his lip and shifted before looking up and tapping his pencil end against the table.

“Seriously… Virgil is going to be okay, right?” he asked.

Logan let out a soft breath. “Your brother is going to be just fine,” he gently reassured. “This is a natural thing for many people who possess uteri. He might be in pain for a little while, but ultimately, he will be alright.”

“My mom deals with it every month, and she’s not dead yet,” Remus pointed out. Then, with his grin fading a bit, he added, “Our mom probably had them, too. She must’ve, if she had us.”

Roman watched him for a long moment, and then he nodded, swallowing the lump that had snuck into his throat.

“Okay,” he whispered. “Okay.”

---------

Second A/N:

Hey, folks-- So, as it turned out, I made a bit of a mistake in explaining this. So sorry about this! Thank you so much to @romanslunchbox​ for pointing this out and correcting me:

“ It isn’t a huge mistake. However, in your fic you stated that the egg gets stuck in the lining of the uterus. But that is only possible with a fertilized egg. An non-fertilized egg dies in the oviducts before it can even reach the uterus. After the egg dies certain hormones are released to start the menstruation about 2 weeks later (how that works is an entire shit show of hormones and stuff). It takes a while for these hormones to be released, so the uterus keeps producing more lining for the egg to get stuck in. When the uterus finally gets the signale that there is no pregnancy, that is when the menstruation starts. “

[angelicmichael]

Pretty Please

Jim Mason x reader

Summary: Jim and Reader decide to throw a christmas party but get distracted while trying to do so. Christmas fic!!

Words: 2.5k+

Warnings: Hella sexual tension, no smut but almost smut?? Very sexually suggestive hehe, fluff with no plot basically, SO much fluff its gross

A/N: based off this prompt I found in a christmas prompt list 'Making out under the christmas tree because the lights reflecting in their eyes just looked too ethereal for them not to kiss them until they lost their breath' sorry I cant find the specific prompt list this came from. Jim and Reader are both 18+, and this is kinda canon rewrite?? Basically as if the ending in ttopv didnt happen and Jim actually lived.. and got a gf haha. ALSO loosely based on the song 'pretty please' by Dua Lipa. Enjoy 💖 read the tags for more thots

You felt as if the wind had been knocked out of you once you entered the apartment.

The minimalistic decorations that once adorned the small apartment you and Jim owned were now paired and even doubled with new, shiny, Christmas decor. The last thing you were expecting to come home too was christmas decorations, to be completely honest. You knew the decorations were new because prior moving in together- you two had nothing.. christmas decoration wise anyway.

Saying that Jims childhood and even high school years were rough was definetly a understatement; you were thankful you didnt have to see him in that state and that you met him after that time.

You only met his parents once; well his mom anyway and almost immeadietly you knew why it took him so long for him to introduce you to her.

She was a fucking nightmare.

She told you immeadietly about Jim's dark past, probably in a lazy attempt to scare you off. She told you about Jim's father, the drugs, and even the drug overdose that nearly killed him. That didn't scare you off - but what it did do was break the final fucking straw for Jim who happened to overhear everything she said.

He hadn't talked to his mom since.

Medina frequently came over, she was practically your best friend and stayed incredibly close with Jim. In fact, you were supposed to see her in roughly a hour... along with a handful of other Jim and yours close friends.

With Christmas being so soon you and Jim decided to have a spontaneous christmas party. The idea was to decorate together but.. apparently Jim had other plans.

There was a wreath on the front door for one, and multi colored lights and Garland that were kept nearly on every surface of the house. Smaller christmas related knickknacks were placed too on the dining and coffee tables. It looked beautiful. You couldnt believe Jim would do this all for you, you meant to help but work unfortunately ran short so you had to cover a coworkers shift.

The entire living room was kept pretty dark and dim, only candles and the soft lighting from the christmas tree lights allowed you to see at all- but it was still enough. It was romantic if anything.

Jim didnt say anything as he came out to the living room to greet you. He stayed silent, watching you and your reaction as you spun around - trying to admire the apartment from every angle possible.

As you continued to keep walking in the apartment and admiring Jim's work, you couldn't help but dumbly giggle.

"Jim; dont get me wrong, I love the apartment but why didnt you just wait for me"? You marveled.

He smiled shyly, a light blush coating his cheeks.

"I wanted to spend as much time with you that I could when you got back before people started to show up for the party". He admitted, sounding slightly bashful and shy as he spoke.

He approached you, and you couldnt help but to feel butterflies at the closer he got. You dont know why you were suddenly starting to feel nervous at doing a act so simple; like kissing your boyfriend. Perhaps it was because normally when you two kissed or showed affection it was done so quickly and without second thought; it wasnt 'special'. You weren't blaming Jim for that either, you knew that was typical in long term relationships. However - tonight he was actually taking the time to be with you. It was beyond romantic.

He looked delicious. His hair wasnt messy but it wasnt kept up enough to look like he brushed it recently, yet it still managed to look so soft. You were yearning to run your fingers through it.

Once you were within arms reach, he quickly enveloped you in a hug. Forcing you to inhale his scent while you quickly buried your nose in his jacket, trying to take him all in.

He smelt like a hint of weed, but mostly like the ocean. You suspected he must've went surfing a while ago.

Even though the apartment was decorated for christmas and it was currently Winter; the air was still warm, maybe even a little muggy. The sun had finally decided to set, just sinking below the far off treeline - making the sky in a state of in between. Not dark but not quite light out either.

In the part of California you and Jim lived in, it only dropped about 10 degrees in the winter. You wore a warm cardigan since you came just home from outside; along with a pair of jeans and cozy boots that seemed to be your go to outfit in the winter.

Jim on the other hand wore a tight fitted dark navy shirt under his typical Jean jacket which you gently clutched onto.

"I missed you. I hate when you have to work during the holidays". You heard him softly grumble, which made you giggle.

You slowly moved, you backed your head up just enough so that your faces were now right next to each other. You bumped noses - you considered kissing him for a split second but you chose not too. Instead ghosting your lips over his; and gently resting your forehead together.

"Why? It's not like today is a holiday or anything". You asked, a playful tone apparent in your voice.

Your breath hitched in your throat as you felt Jim's lips inch closer, you could nearly taste his breath. Minty mostly, and warm on your lips.

You suddenly were itching to kiss him, unconsciously moving forward to ease the growing tension between the two of you. You jumped a bit when you felt a hand start to rub your back, quickly relaxing when you realized it was just Jim being handsy. You heard Jim's voice, even though you were incredibly close to him, it was so soft you could still barely hear it. A quiet, sultry whisper.

"It doesnt matter if it's a holiday or not". Jim started, he backed up a bit.

Just enough to make eye contact with you, now gently cradeling your face in his hands.

"This is the first Christmas season I've had where I'm not in between my parents trying to break up a fight. I'm so thankful I get to spend it with you, I just wish I had met you sooner". Jim said, with a shy blush starting to dust his tan cheeks again.

By the time he finished talking you were beaming. Pure happiness and joy was coursing through your veins as you stepped forward and fully enveloped yourself in him, your hands grasped his shoulders to steady yourself while your lips feverishly and slowly met his.

Jim's hands quickly adjusted, moving from your face down to your waist. His fingers gripped your skin tightly; the slight pain made you moan. It didnt really hurt persay but you knew your skin would be purple and sore tommorow. However, in this moment you didnt really care about how your skin would look - you just wanted him.

Jim kissed you menacingly slow; his lips working against yours so slowly in a deliberate attempt to make you frustrated and it was working. Your fingers flexed into his shoulders as you let out a throaty moan. You broke the kiss and let out a hiss,

"Stop fucking teasing". You spoke, titling your head slightly and arching your neck out - trying to hint to Jim that you wanted him to start kissing down your neck.

However; that's not what he fucking did.

Instead of feeling Jim's soft warm lips on your neck, you felt his wet tongue lick a fast stripe down your neck - most likely tracing a vein. You yelped and jumped, only realizing after how stupid you probably looked for getting startled. Jim was laughing too, fucker.

"What the fuck, Jim"?! You asked, laughter mixing in with your voice.

Jim giggled before quickly leaning in and stealing another slow kiss from you before mumbling against your lips;

"As much as I would love to sit here and make out with you all day.. we have business to attend too".

He pulled back suddenly, his lips up turning in a smile as if he knew what exactly he was doing.

"Business"? You mused.

"Yes. We have company coming over in 30 minutes, love" Jim reminded you.

You rolled your eyes, completely unamused.

"Do they have to come"? You whined.

"Yes. They do. Now c'mon make yourself useful". Jim said.

He turned around, grabbing a box that sat idly in the living room which you didnt notice previously. Opening it, he pulled out a ornament. You dumbly smiled, knowing exactly what this meant. He approached you, ornament in hand with a corny smile on his face.

"I decorated everything but the tree. I wanted to save something for us to decorate together". Jim stated.

"Your such a sap". You said fully laughing.

You grabbed one of the ornaments out of the box and walking up to the tree. You felt dumb for not noticing how bare the tree was before. No ornaments, no lights, no tinsel.. nothing. Well, nothing execpt for the one shiny ornament that you had just hung on one of the branches right center in the tree.

The one ornament on the tree quickly doubled, and then tripled until the tree was fully adorned with ornaments. You and Jim (mostly Jim) hung a string of lights around the tree. Making the already ambience scene in your living room even more cozy and romantic.

"This was a good idea, babe". You said, quickly kissing him.

You quickly checked the time, there was still 20 minutes before anyone was supposed to show up.. An idea popped up in your mind.

A wonderful, awful idea.

You were already standing comfortably close to Jim; you turned casually around and place your hand square on his chest.

"Its too bad we finished decorating so early, hmm"? You purred.

You didnt dare take a step forward; you knew Jim would make the next move and sure enough he did. He took steps closer to you.

You cheeks were slightly rosy, with the slight embarrassment you felt from suddenly taking the reigns and being in control. Needless to say this wasnt something you were really used too.

"We still have the tinsel to put up, you know". Jim chuckled lightly.

You looked down for a split second and looked back up into his circealean blue eyes, batting your eyes at him.

"Or.. you know, theres something else I can think of we can do that's less boring". You said.

You let your hand slip and travel from his chest up to his shoulder, feeling the muscle that lie underneath your hands as you took your other free hand up to his other shoulder. Your heart skipped a beat when you heard Jim groan.

It's not like you two have never been intimate before; that was far from the issue. Even though you knew Jim for fucking ever and you two have had sex countless of times - he still managed to give you butterflies.

That's how you knew he was the one for you. Even after all this time he still seemed to make you nervous and blush.

"Is that what you think"? You heard Jim say. His voice lowered in a husky manner.

You felt his arms quickly grab you as he gently pushed you onto the ground. He pinned you on your back; his hands on your shoulders as he softly panted above you. His face hovered right above yours - and his legs on your thighs. Not that you were complaining but you certainly couldnt leave or escape even if you desired too.

You merely giggled beneath him at this realization, not really wanting to switch from this position at all.

It sounded incredibly corny but you honestly wouldnt be surprised if you had took a brief visit to heaven. You felt pure, unfiltered ecstasy as you looked into Jims eyes.

The aroma from the pine tree that was directly above you and Jim filled your senses; the smell along with the candles set the atmosphere perfectly. Ornaments hung directly above you two, the rainbow lights from the tree reflecting in Jim's light blue eyes.

Because of the nature of how light Jim's eyes were, typically seeing reflections of other objects or anything really in them was close to impossible... but, maybe it was the already dark lighting in the room or a bit of christmas magic that made seeing the lights in Jim's eyes possible.

It made the already beautiful man look nothing but ethereal. You were left speechless as you could do nothing but stare, and get lost in his eyes.

You couldnt help but feel how lucky you were to even be in this situation, how lucky you were to be loved by him.

You could do nothing execpt for smile cheesily and blush at your new realization. Instead of craning your neck awkwardly to reach his lips, you chose to be smart and innovative instead, by taking one of your hands and pushing his head into yours - gently of course.

His lips met yours and you nearly moaned from the anticipation. You kissed him slowly, relishing in the feeling of being on the floor with non other than Jim Mason. You knew for a fact you would never do this with anyone else, nor did you even want to spend the time thinking about doing so.

His lips were warm and soft - not chapped in the slightest. They danced perfectly with yours; making separating for air almost a painful and undesired act.

When you separated, Jim still didnt let up off of you. He remained on top, breathless. His lips were swollen and pink, and were his cheeks. His eyes still looked beautiful, but even more so now that his pupils were dilated.

You heard him let out a soft, shallow growl. Bending down swiftly, almost animalistically, to the side of your mouth to give you a quick kiss. His lips ghosted and drifted down over your jaw; until you felt them meet your neck in gentle soft kisses.

Your mouth fell open, your fingers gripping the soft tree skirt below you that was riddled with tree nettles.

"Jim, wait". You spoke, barely even able to get the words out of your mouth without moaning.

You saw his head immeadietly snap up, those gorgeous blue eyes meeting yours again.

"Arent we having company over in like.. 10 minuets"? You asked, laughing.

You noticed Jim let out a brief chuckle as well before replying.

"Ugh, your right but if only I could bring myself to get off of you, baby". He spoke, gently attacking your neck in slightly more aggressive kisses than what you were typically used too. Although, you certainly weren't complaining.

You felt Jim slightly push his hips into yours, you automatically opened your legs - wrapping them around his waist and lower half. He gently started to grind into you; and there was no point in even trying to bite down or mask your moans at this point. All you felt was pure, unfiltered love for the man who was on top of you.

"I love you, Jim".

~

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