#honestly idek if anyone will agree with me

[bbyboybucket]

I’ve thought about this A LOT and I’ve been waiting for this conversation to be had, so I can’t help but add in my two cents here. I do agree with you that he’s probably never attempted because like you said, he would have succeeded. However, I firmly, absolutely believe that he was planning to after he crossed off all the names in his book. I 1000% think that those names, those amends, were Bucky’s loose ends he needed to tie up before committing suicide.

For starters, Dr. Raynor’s actress said in SEVERAL, not one, but SEVERAL interviews that her character’s purpose was to keep Bucky from killing himself. I know there’s AT LEAST 3 different interviews where she says that (and I’m not talking about different places quoting the same thing, she said this multiple times). So thanks to her, we know for sure he was having suicidal thoughts in the series, that part isn’t even just a head snob, it’s legit. I used to have links ready to source cause I planned on doing a post about this, but I’m gonna have to find them again 🥲.

Anyways, another piece of my theory is his lack of furniture and belongings. I think he bought the bare necessities because he wasn’t planning on sticking around long enough to need anything else.

But Bucky’s behavior also fits the statistical

warning signs of suicidal ideation (and the typical behaviors leading up to an attempt). He engages in incredibly risky behavior with lack of regard for his wellbeing, he’s withdrawn socially, there’s increased hostility and anger. But also even though these are symptoms of PTSD/depression/etc. they’re also considered warning signs: being unable to sleep and talking about guiltiness. Because Bucky doesn’t just feel guilty but he expresses it to everyone.

Also Bucky says things that fall in to the warning signs. He said he feels like he has “nothing left”. There’s the “I’m not going to kill you” and sarcastic “imagine my relief” exchange between him and Zemo. These seem like very little things that until you think of them in a larger context. It’d also explain why he seemed to be putting off working on the list…..I think that suicide was his plan until Sam made him feel wanted and gave him a reason to stick around. Anyways that’s just my theory, off the top of my head and probably incoherently cause I’m basically just rambling. But I had to share.

do you think Bucky ever tried to kill himself?

Thanks for the ask Nonnie. Trigger warning for suicide discussion.

I once saw an interview excerpt of Sebastian saying — along the lines of — it’s the thought of Steve that stopped Bucky from killing himself in the 2 years he went on the run. My headcanon is pretty similar to his.

TL;DR - I think Bucky would have had frequent thoughts of suicide, but did not make an attempt, because he would have succeeded. I also think that even though Bucky did not attempt it, he nevertheless engaged in risky, self-sabotaging behaviours that could have killed him.

In real life, while suicide attempts are more frequent amongst women compared to men, deaths from suicide (ie successful attempts) are far higher amongst men than women. This is usually attributed to the fact that men frequently choose more lethal methods. Coupled with the fact that Bucky knows he’s a super soldier, and my view of his personality (efficient with his missions and ruthless towards himself), as well as the one canon mention of a male super soldier attempting suicide (Bruce “I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spat it back out”) I think he would’ve chosen a very deadly method if he made an attempt.

But I think what often happens with men (and women too) is that...sometimes people knowingly engage in behaviours that are unhealthy or highly unsafe. They might not intend to die, but they wouldn’t mind if it kills them. The social norms Steve and Bucky grew up with is that men are not allowed vulnerability and weakness. There was no word for PTSD in those days, nor was there a word for depression. You just kept getting more “melancholic” until it’s bad enough to be classified as “insane”. And when you take that into the eugenic context they grew up with, it is likely their attitude is to cop it on the chin for as long as it takes to avoid a mental health review or diagnosis. But…that means the sense of distress and self-loathing keep building up and need an outlet.

In real life, people sometimes turn to drugs and alcohol, often with full awareness the harm it’s doing to their bodies, and I am partial towards headcanons of Bucky engaging in highly risky behaviour in the immediate aftermath of escaping Hydra. This might be drugs and alcohol, or it could be taking on risky missions with minimal attempts at self-preservation. You could argue the same about Steve after Bucky’s death: Steve jumping across the fire because Bucky yelled at him vs Steve putting the plane in water despite Peggy pleading with him.

When TFATWS first introduced Bucky breaking the law and jeopardising his pardon to terrorise former Hydra agents, that felt real to me. He was self-sabotaging and self-destructive, and his snarl that “if he’s wrong about you then he’s wrong about me” means his identity is tied up with someone who wasn’t there anymore and he was never going to get the approval he needed again.

I think, the other thing to consider too, is Bucky having survived 70 years of Hydra torture suggests an incredible mental and physical resilience. We know he’s not hopelessly optimistic — in CATFA he’s the one trying to dissuade Steve from joining the war — but there must be…a certain kind of faith and relentless hope that keeps him going. The fact that he has had not one, but at least two (or three, if you count Endgame) villain origin character beats and still does his best to fight for the good side, suggests he has an indomitable love for people and the world despite how much hurt it caused him.

So I tend to think that while suicide may have frequently been on his mind, and he may have frequently engaged in highly risky or harmful behaviours, he hasn’t attempted to take his own life because there is something (whether that be Steve or some other thing) that keeps him going and keeps him believing there’s going to be a better tomorrow on the other side.

[messrmoonyy]

don’t mind me thirsting in your ask box but you’re the ultimate tess writer so i figured. idek where this came from but i found an audio on twitter and. pls god i want tess to make me sound like that. you cannot tell me she isn’t an utter master with her hands, she can have you writhing under her touch in minutes. she’s totally the kind of person to get off on that too? enjoying seeing her partner utterly wrecked as a result of her actions? she’d tease you just to watch your reaction. make you tell her how she makes you feel, that you’re close, make you beg her to come. tldr i need her to destroy me xx

Hello my sweet.

First of all, thank you wtf. Secondly, You are all always free to dump your thirsty thoughts into my ask box. I’ll lap them up every single time.

Now lemme give you some h word thots below the cut

I am gonna need you to send me the link to that audio for completely scientific reasons, that’s all. Simple scientific research 👀

But. Yes. You’re so fucking right and I agree with literally everything. She’s a god with her hands idgaf what anyone says. You literally have nailed exactly how I see her and how I write her, she gives off the vibes to me that she honestly doesn’t even care if she gets to come or not. She would quite happily just spend hours turning you into absolute fuckin mush, making you come over and over. Yk just ‘ one more for me baby I know you got one more for me ‘ makes my brain go brrrrrr. She can have it over in minutes or she will drag it out for hours. She’s masterful with those fuckin hands of hers.

Absolute menace when it comes to teasing and edging too tbh. I think she literally loves nothing more than edging you over and over until you’re just a squirming, sobbing mess beneath her. And absolutely makes you beg. Makes you talk. I’ve written her like that already and honestly in all my other smut I have for her she just completely falls into that in my mind. She will make you talk, she doesn’t care that you’re too far gone to form a word. In fact that just makes her want to do it even more ‘ use your words ‘ ‘ tell me how bad you want it ‘ 😮‍💨😮‍💨 She wants to hear you beg. To tell her how you feel. To moan so loud that any fucker nearby knows that she is the one causing that, that you belong to her.

In conclusion, my sweet anon, I too need that woman to destroy me. It’s not a want at this point. It’s a need.

[bbina]

i fckng hate second chances with every fiber of my being and every living cell in my body. once its over, its over. if u fckd up IMMEDIATELY ✂️✂️✂️ i hate it when a characters get second chances after fckng it up real bad like NO U DO NOT DESERVE ANOTHER CHANCE AND OTHER MC ALSO DOES NOT DESERVE TO RISK GETTING HURT AGAIN

on the contrary tho, for btl, i do think yn should get another chance? is it another chance? well, wonbin didnt really give her a chance to explain herself, he went ahead of himself and created assumptions. and i know that every one says yn is the problem cus had she not offered the fake dating set up this wouldnt have happened BUT wonbin had no problem agreeing to it so....wouldnt really say yn is the root problem. the root problem is their lack of effective communication skills, emotional management/control and listening skills!!! wonbin im sorry but running away was a stupid af thing to do and i know ur hurt but u literally made assumptions after seeing 2ppl hug. babes ppl can hug platonically, believe me. thats all i have to say. *bows, drops mic and leaves stage*

im sorry for the sudden rant when this discourse was already over like a week ago i could not help it. ive been following u for a while but i am a silent reader and this is my first time sending an ask to anyone here in general. im so nervous. is my english okay? i swear i know proper punctuations but im too lazy to do it rn rip. i just want to say ive never been so invested in an eng au cus i usually read the ones in my native language cus THEM ANGST HIT DIFFERENT BRO anyway, i love ur writing sm <33 makes me wanna start writing again as well if it werent for my busy af shed (graduating student things). cant wait for the next updates ✨️🫶🫶

but the angst material is tew gewd don’t you think? second chances trope is nice and all if done right 🤪 maybe some groveling here and there and viola! perfection

most valid btl theory ive seen 😫 they’re both dumb 🤝 and did mistakes,, (yn made a bigger mistake tho) but point still stands

nah ur sudden rant about the week old discourse is perfectly okay. any rant about btl is 👌 cus im curious on how each person takes in the story and seeing a bunch of different reactions is what keeps me going 😫🤝 AND AGAIN IM HONORED TO BE ONE OF THE FIRST PEOPLE YOU SENT AN ASK TO 🙏 your english is great!!!! thank you so much for reading!! and i hope whatever i put out or something makes u want to go back to writing 🙏 i myself is a graduating student too but i still find the time to insert my hobby which is this because i love it so much and its honestly my stress reliever (contrary to popular belief i write more eloquently when i’m either stressed or having a headache idek why lol maybe it gets my brain juice all worked up)

[sencubussubs]

Okay, after reading your response to my ask (which was very helpful btw, so thank you so much for that ♡ I WILL stop overconsuming🫣) I couldn't help but wonder about something. So ofc, manifesting magical powers is possible too, so I'm wondering if manifestation would be made much...idk easier if a person were to just manifest a superpower like Essokinesis (the ability to control reality... like, Idk the Scarlet Witch with her chaos magic or something idk anything about her besides that lol) which SOUNDS REDUNDANT I KNOW. But it just seems like having that power would help you change anything, be it you/your 3d right before your very eyes, WITHOUT having to saturate your mind at all. AND I'M NOT ssaying this 'cause I'm lazy to put in the effort or anything, I'm just wondering if manifesting a power like this makes sense, so you can get whatever else you want from that point on🤷 I'm honestly surprised I've never seen anyone talk about doing this before.

Haha honestly this may be a controversial belief (idek why) but considering anything is possible i agree and believe it is possible to manifest powers. That being said, (this gonna make me sound so boring) i personally don’t really feel like having powers, so i can’t say i have given this much thought.

If you are at the point that you wanted to and feel capable of manifesting magical powers just to help you manifest and revise, i personally feel like you could also just put that belief into your manifestations being instant cause then you’ll also see the 3D change instantly/ in front of your eyes (it not entirely the same way though, idk depends on the person and the manifestation.)

Like honestly it is just what you prefer, and if it’s an avenue you feel like going down, go ahead!

I do want to point out that the more you manifest the less you have to saturate your mind because you get used to desiring, deciding and receiving, so if that’s what puts you off, manifesting doesn’t have to be hard work at all. I also really enjoy the process of saturating my mind so i am quite biased.

Love,

Saph

(i feel like that is such a formal outro for how casually and informally this post is written lol)

[zimshan]

august braindump: on the state of tv and heartstopper

the last year has been such a strange time for me and tv. i honestly cannot remember a time i watched less new tv shows. it’s not for lack of trying but every show/season i started, i was just dragging my heels to finish. some of that is because they’re older shows that aren’t as good as their earlier seasons. stranger things s4 took me an entire year to finish. the pacing was just wildly off to me, and that’s disappointing after the incredible structure of s1. some of that is because of subject matter. i haven’t been able to work myself up to watch outlander after the s5 finale because i just don’t have the mental bandwidth for a sexual trauma storyline. babylon berlin i stopped watching because they were threatening to kill another kid. i’ve noped out of so many shows because of the ratcheting stakes, something that i'm so so tired of seeing done just for the hell of it.

of all the shows, i probably watched the great s2 quickest because it was just so off the wall and the tone of s1 still fascinates me. but even that dragged and was partly guilt tripping to justify my hulu subscription, and i could never let my guard down because it was always going for the most outrageous grotesque thing. i’m stalled on s3 now that they’re killing off characters left and right.

i watched shadow and bone s2 like 15-20 minutes at a time in july because i just found it a snoozefest compared to s1. i legit just wanted to finish it to cross it off my list. how terrible is that? the moment i finished, i started the fame game, a bollywood show, literally because of one gifset on my dash. and watched that 4x faster than anything else i’ve seen all year. cementing my idea that the best of netflix is their international shows. but that shit was pretty dark too.

so beginning of august, i opened up netflix sleep deprived and looking for something to get my mind off my impossible deadline and fuel some writing inspiration. someone on my dash was recently talking about Heartstopper, and it reminded me i missed watching it last year when everyone was talking about it. so seeing it pop up on my netflix screen, i absentmindedly thought, "what the hell let’s see what the fuss is about" and started the first episode. and you know it did the impossible. it grabbed me from the first few frames, and i looked up 2 hours later like oh right sleep. and now i just want to analyze it like a bug. what the hell makes it work where others have failed?

the binging culture inherent to streaming tv is fascinating to me because i almost never do it. if there is one anti-binger out there, she is me. i miss the era of one episode a week on a certain night every day for years. my patience maxes out at 45 minutes every time. i think it’s terrible that shows need to be so bingeable millions of people have to watch an entire season in a weekend to get renewed. because even the best shows i can't commit to doing that for. where does anyone find the time or brainspace, idek.

i know most of the coverage and reaction to the show seem to be about representation and i agree. but there’s something about the elements of Heartstopper that just work where other tv shows lately have faltered and i want to break it down for parts. because on paper it does seem so simple. some of it really is just basic storytelling in tv. those first three episodes are key and the pacing is excellent, every second counts and the acting, editing, and music really drive the show and keep it compelling. on rewatch, i can see how the addictive quality is very much in the editing, in the music, to keep it punchy so that you never think to stop watching. but it’s also in the white space, the moments they give to the lead actors to let a moment breathe. i've been beating this drum for decades now but this show gave so many good examples of it.

several 5-minute sequences caught me thinking god that so compelling why how. the one that stood out on rewatch is the texting sequence in 102 after nick’s interception of the assault scene. there’s zero dialogue but the editing, acting, and music work together to feel the weight of the moment and then lift up from there.

all these essentials combine with something unique like the animations as visual representations of emotions and attraction and create some kind of magical alchemy. it’s been a long time since i’ve thought about it but “lightning in a bottle” describes the best seasons of tv i’ve seen: where it feels like everyone on set, all the actors, every one of the crew, writers, directors, care about the story and are working on all cylinders to do their best job. in the age of streaming, this seems to be more rare than ever and learning about mini writing rooms during the WGA strike has helped to understand why. so has seeing those checks to send home the overall state of residuals in the streaming era. to do the best job people need to be paid fairly. full stop.

so i started Heartstopper and watched 4 episodes in the blink of an eye. the next day, 6; the last day 4. then i did a thing i almost never do anymore: i looked up the soundtrack. music has always been a driver for me, a tv show that nails a score or soundtrack is always gonna get under my skin more than one that doesn’t. it’s part of the necessary ingredients for a good show for me. all my forever tv loves, music plays a central role, music that defines and sets the tone for the show and then becomes forever married to it. you can create a list of the songs and play it back and see the show unfurl again in your mind. its my favorite way of revisiting a show without actually watching it, after a good vid that is. but it works best when the music is a dead lock for the scene or character and typically this is sound driven more than lyrically driven. this show uses a 2012 era style sound i already have a strong affinity for, i have multiple work playlists from the last decade to drive me through a deadline with Foster The People, Fitz and the Tantrums, et al.

but it also did a thing i haven't seen in a long while: the lyrics were used as an extension of the script for internal character POV. in the first episode alone you have the following lyrical-visual pairs: -i'll go anywhere you want to go on charlie getting ben's text to meet -i wanna get lovesick with you on nick watching charlie run and asking him to join the team -right before i'm swallowed by my mind and cursing at the sky on charlie out of place on the rugby field before nick pulls him in to the group -what's the point of looking at the view? cause every time i do i just see you on elle and tao missing each other -the world ends it's you and me/in my head if we can be together/maybe we'll live forever on nick tackling charlie and the leaves animations around them -i see the signs of a lifetime on nick getting charlie's thank you x text paired with the flowing bird animations roll to the credits

this is vidding happening here.

so i spent a good two days listening to the soundtrack and related albums as i got through my deadline. and then i started getting some more questions about the timeline on the story (the soundtrack is of a style popular circa 2012 that i associate with 8tracks playlists even though the actual songs are a bit later, 2015 onwards) and looked up the books the show was based on. i started Solitaire after seeing it was the author’s first book and wanting to read tori’s POV after the glimpses in the show got me thinking about her elder daughter role.

then i looked up the comics when i realized the timeline of Solitaire was a year later and wanted to fill in the gaps. and wow, i’m in awe of how much of the show was already here, how much detail went into the show to match certain frames. the comics are basically acting as storyboards for the show. i used to do the most basic storyboarding for vidding a lifetime ago. i’ve recently gotten the storyboarding itch again the last few months after watching some BTS docs on TCM about storyboard artists and remembering how fascinating and underappreciated the skill actually is. there's some beautiful storyboarding out there, but it doesn't have to be beautiful, it's just got to be functional. at its heart, it's about the frame, the shot, the visual that tells the story. and a lot of that is already done in the comics and translated straight to screen.

i’m inspired learning about alice oseman’s story as a young author, how she started and finished Solitaire before graduating high school, writing the story she wished she saw on the shelves. then how she was taken with her two secondary characters and started teaching herself how to draw to visualize and bring to life their own journeys. it’s such a great example of how storytelling takes on a life of its own and how you are not defined by only your current skillset. there are no boundaries on creativity and curiosity but the ones we self-impose on ourselves.

the last few years, i’ve been thinking a lot about why some works fail to resonate while others succeed, especially in regard to book to screen adaptation. it probably started with the absolute fail that was GOT S8 and rereading THG next to the films and grown from there with my TCM pandemic focus. obviously it’s a gamechanger when the author is the showrunner and that alone is rare. the whole nature of Heartstopper as a webcomic first and driven by subscribers and kickstarter donations is unique as well. alice has built up a passionate audience to create for that helped promote the show and that makes a lot of difference.

but the streaming element is an added issue. by the time i finished season 2, my one overriding thought was wow, imagine society if this had aired 20 years ago. i couldn't help but think of the kids this show could have helped, seeing such an sincere example of queer community on screen. but interrogating that further, i know it’s a silly thought. it wouldn’t have gotten made at all. in 2000, dawson's creek kicked up hate over one gay kiss that amounted to almost nothing. my best friend at 15 came out as gay and felt like he had to pirate QaF asap as the only piece of queer rep around but something far outside of our age group. this story is age appropriate for the age that needs it. in 2023, homophobic parents are waging wars on the school board and libraries in our area for carrying books with queer representation including those of oseman's. no network would greenlight 22 episodes of a queer tumblr webcomic. netflix gave the show 4 hours for its first season in the middle of the pandemic. it only gets made in the streaming era. it is a product of the times, even if the story originates 10 years earlier.

[]

the picture of queer community and lifting up and supporting others is essential for the age this is targeting. i know i'm 20 years older than that target and am mindful of that. this show is not for me. but it's been a while since i've watched a teen series, probably skam, which is a big outliner in teen shows. i think from my dash i assumed the show was going to be pure teen fluff but instead was surprised how much texture it has. the love story is the focus of the gifsets, but it does sell the show short imo. the world doesn’t ignore the dark parts---homophobic bullies, abusive partners and clueless parents, trauma and its long tail, anxiety and eating disorders, the ways love and community can uplift and support but not cure. reading Solitaire i can see where it’s coming from, a dark story that starts the verse. the darkness is there not ignored but part of the journey. its presence makes the light more powerful. but its best virtue is that despite its dark parts, it’s at heart a comforting story. and i think this is an overarching reason why it succeeds as a show. the comic does right by each character and in turn cares for the reader. so everyone working on it saw the story as a comfort themselves and did right by the story. that care shows on screen.

the way Solitaire ends is a thesis statement of sorts for the osemanverse: support and lift each other up, you’re not alone and stronger as a community. it matches skam's thesis, and heartstopper continues it. that reminder is a balm to these times. it's the ethos of organizing but it got lost in isolation of the last few years. its simplicity is part of its power. part of lightning in a bottle is timing. i know some people have lived with this story for years, but after 4 long plague years, its sincerity speaks to me. i can’t think of a reminder i needed more than this story at this time. sometimes you really do stumble on the right story right when you need it.

anyway, this verse has gotten in my brain now so fair warning. heartstopper/osemanverse posting ahead.

[lucyandthepen]

i also write nct rpf and your mark barista series is one of my favorite pieces of writing i’ve ever read (truly). that being said i can honestly understand valid criticism against writing smut about real people but i agree it’s weird for the people you were arguing with to enter a space exclusively for rpf and pick fights with random writers 😭 i can understand where they’re coming from but i’m not sure what their goal was lol

i don’t really have a problem with people not being into rpf and smut in rpf in general — i’m generally one of the most tolerant people in terms of just respecting what people like and don’t like. that’s also probably why it pissed me off so much like HDJSKSKKS i’m just minding my own business … to me it’s more of like … if i don’t agree with it but it isn’t harming anyone — especially in terms of fiction, where it’s everyone’s own prerogative what kind of content they want to consume — then i just leave it alone? and it doesn’t give me any grief to scroll past it either so i don’t know why people are so obsessed with trying to shove their opinions and preferences down others’ throat? in the end like … you’re not even my mom idek your name so it doesn’t make sense to me that you should want me to change my mindset by yelling at me HDJSDKKD

there’s more true academic discourse to be had on rpf and smut in rpf is just a small part of that. this is something that’s existed for ages — for instance, with 00s alt / punk bands — there’s actually much to be said about rpf as unique means of negotiating fandom spaces in kpop fandoms where parasocial relationships are very normalized and encouraged by idols who even engage in fanfiction firsthand sometimes and perform certain acts of fanservice as an extension of fantasies that exist in such fictional spaces but it’s not even really about that at the end of the day.

from a purely hobbyist standpoint and as someone who just writes because they have ideas they think suit the image of certain idols i feel like it’s honestly not that deep. again i totally don’t mind if it’s not anyone’s cup of tea and they’re like oh, no i can’t get behind that so they don’t engage with it — like, no one is forced to read anything i write for sure — but it’s one thing to stay away from things that you just don’t vibe with or agree with and another thing to perform a manhunt on all rpf writers with the goal of shaming them / calling them out and implying they’re psychologically ill and need to “get help” (while also gaslighting the same people by saying they never said anything of the sort 🥸). i personally wouldn’t do it, so i just honestly don’t like other people coming at my throat on a friday evening for something that isn’t their business. 😭😭

[gillianthecat]

hi gillian! you have so much to say about all the bls you watch (this is definitely not a bad thing, i enjoy reading what other people think about our shared interests) but i was just wondering how did you survive being a lurker? did you write your thoughts anywhere or did you just kept them to yourself? i struggle with this myself, i feel like i have so much to say about everything, but i don't really say it or share it, i happily read other people's opinions and silently agree or disagree idek where i'm going with this lmao i guess i'm just curious to know such a "talkative" and person as you was once a lurker

Hi Anon!

So interestingly, when I was a lurker I didn't watch BL at all, barely knew what it was. I joined Tumblr because of a hockey romance writer (Taylor Fitzpatrick, I'm still a big fan of her work) and then mostly started following fanfic writers. Because I mostly read fanfic for media I don't read/watch or for sports RPF in sports I don't follow (which I know makes me a bit of an outlier) I didn't have much to say about the source materials. And because my tendency when writing about stuff is to be pretty analytical and to pick works apart even when I love them, that wasn't something I was going to do in public on tumblr where any of the authors (many of whom I followed) could see it. That just felt invasive. All of which is to say, being a lurker came very naturally to me at the time; it honestly didn't really occur to me to do anything else. And I didn't write my thoughts down or share them with anyone else, my fanfic reading (indeed most of my reading) had always felt like a private part of myself. I had plenty of thoughts and comparative analyses, etc, but it just kind of bubbled up in my brain and then disappeared.

My transition into posting on here about BL happened fairly spontaneously, pretty much immediately after I started watching BL; I don't really remember consciously deciding to make that change. Perhaps I did, and it's fallen out of my mind, I do remember being a little anxious the first time I reblogged something with comments of my own, feeling worried that I would bother people or people would think I was weird or something. On the other hand, my reblog was about Pete and Vegas' kink-filled explicit sex scene, so I must not have been that nervous 😂 I do remember tagging a lot of my posts "#my ramblings" early on; that self depreciation helped me mitigate my self-consciousness about whether my words were "worthwhile." Which I've come to the surety (at least on most days) is a meaningless concept here on tumblr, people can follow you or block you, you're not forcing your words in anyone's face. Seeing all the silly stuff that does get posted has helped me get over the feeling that I'm supposed to be making "worthwhile" content.

It's very freeing (especially as a former perfectionist who once felt she had to read and analyze every single one of an author's dozen or so novels* in order to write a term paper on him) to realize that I don't have to be an expert on anything to write about it on here. I can write in the voice that I want to, and use too many adjectives and adverbs and run-on sentences, and not feel like I have to write concisely or "properly" or even "understandably" if I don't feel like it. I can just share my thoughts and reactions and even be wrong (gasp!) or ignorant (the horrors!) and nothing bad will happen. I've been fortunate in that no one has been hateful or even slightly rude to me yet (the QL community seems particularly kind, even for tumblr), but if it ever does happen, that block button is a powerful tool.

One interesting side effect (or perhaps cause, who knows how these chains of causality are linked) is that I almost never watch episodes of shows straight through anymore. I used to be a binge watcher, a whole season (or more!) in one go with barely a break. Now I almost always pause many many times an episode. Sometimes just to take a break, sometimes to write down my thoughts in the notes app or something (i'll often have two devices in front of me at once, or switch back and forth between apps/tabs/programs) or to liveblog here on tumblr. I'm now pretty much incapable of watching a show without feeling the urge to write about it. Which is both good and bad 🤷🏻��♀️

In terms of what actually happened to get me posting: I think sometimes (like today) my brain just overflows and then I start writing and the self-consciousness mostly falls to the wayside. Which isn't a helpful suggestion if that's not what your brain does, but it is what happened.

The Advice Part:

I have a couple of ideas for you, based on possible things that could be holding you back from participating. If it's that you feel self-conscious, you can keep doing what you're doing now and sending anonymous thoughts to other bloggers. Not everyone accepts anon asks, but most people who do are happy to publish them and have a conversation with people on anon. Or you could create a sideblog, or even an entire separate blog that you use to post your thoughts about BL, in a way that might feel even more safely anonymous than your regular tumblr. You don't even have to tag anything or follow anyone if you want the cocoon of being relatively invisible while expressing your thoughts. Then, if that starts to feel more comfortable you could start tagging, or reblogging other people's stuff, and start sharing your ideas more publicly. Or stay in that cocoon forever; there is no reason to leave if that's what feels comfortable!

Or you could start (assuming you don't already) by reblogging stuff and adding comments in the tags. And if that starts to feel less scary, or like not enough room for what you want to say, you could shift to reblogging with comments in the... whatever its called, the not tags. And replying rather than reblogging might feel a little safer - it's not quite so public, only the original poster or those who intentionally look into the notes will see it.

If the issue is that you feel overwhelmed by all your ideas, or all the shows, you could pick one or two shows to talk about. Or one or two bloggers to reply to. Or set a goal for yourself of one post a week/a day/whatever works. Just something to create some structure for yourself to make it feel less overwhelming.

Looking back over your ask, I'm not even sure you were looking for advice, but... uh... here some is anyways? Feel free to write back! With questions about this, anything else, or just to chat some more. Or for an anonymous venue for your thoughts!

(One last piece of practical advice, inspired by my computer just dying on me as I was finishing this up. Save Your Drafts! Save early and often. Save whenever you have to navigate away from the editing page. Most of the time the post editor is pretty good. And it even has an autosave function now, at least sometimes, under certain conditions. Which has saved me before from losing stuff, but it's not a surefire thing. So, since it's a pain to try and recreate something painstakingly written, I do highly recommend saving early and often.)

*the novelist was Ayi Kwei Armah, for anyone curious. and it must have been less than a dozen books. but it felt like a lot. sadly I remember very little of either the books or the term paper now.

p.s. I am like so unbelievably flattered by you coming to me for advice and wanting to know my story. i'm flattered by any and all asks i've ever gotten, really. so thank you 😊

[survivor-marieta-islands]

Episode 7: "I was out having a #hotgirlsummer"—AJ

Antigua 2.0

Zo

Okay because is it literally criminal offensive for Antigua to catch a break one time???? Wish we would!!! I’m so annoyed that we had to vote Shawn out and annoyed we had to go to tribal in the first place AGAIN!! Praying we can get this bag this time though because if i have to do a fifth tribal in a row i’ll pass away (respectfully).

Maddison

okay so!!! barbie’s and ken stayed together last vote which was MUAH beautiful! and thank u good lord above that we aren’t back at tribal tn!! feeling pretty ~ okay ~ right now with how things are going. not sure what my strategy is moving forward tbh i just hope we can ride out a few wins and not worry abt tribal for a lil min

Colin

okay so I've been kinda planting seeds with adeline.

last round, adeline was kinda playing the whole "I didn't really talk to anyone on my original tribe" thing, and honestly I kinda don't believe her, bc she was definitely giving me insider tea on the alliances and drama that was going on over there. but I think it was just a ploy from her so that we'd vote out shawn over her. it worked? maybe?

HOWEVER I was also planting my own seeds, saying that I was the next to go on OG Antigua, I barely survived our last tribal, and I don't have any undying loyalty to them. All true, but definitely played it up more just so that I have an in with some new school players going into merge.

I think if a merge happens I wanna work closely with Zo, Adeline, and Raffy. Those are the three that I feel like i can trust right now. I don't trust Jinx at all, and being on a tribe away from them has been good. I don't know why but they have been COMING for me for several rounds. I wanna trust Amy but shes giving me nothing and i'm giving her everything. it's a two way street and I don't think she's offering as much as she could as an ally.

ultimately, I have my eye on the PRIZE and i can't make the same mistakes I always do, so i'm gonna just play SMART.

Zo

I’d like to thank not only g*d but also jay for believing in us to secure this win FINALLY!! The curse is broken bitches watch out for these barbies!!!!

Elegida

Amy

after last round, my goal this round was to do the absolute least. I checked in with Raffy & Brandi a few times, barely checked in with jinx, I don't think I've spoken to Arvin since the first night of the swap. I saw "idioms" and said nope I will not be doing this challenge if it's only 3 running it. I've completely forgot or had wild scheduling so just haven't don't the idol hunt in like 4 days. Just chilling over here ⛱️ was gonna try to get an advantage for the team but looks like they were absolutely fine without it.

Raffy

I don't know if I've written a confessional for this round tbh. Brandi seems to agree that Arvin should go if we ever went to tribal. I'm hot and that's why I should win.

Arvin

We won another challenge! I hope Trinica, Hairie and Clefford stays.

Sin Sazonar 2.0

Hairie

Word chain challenge is Trinica’s challenge to lose. They’re so iconic for that.

We are at 5 tribe members. My alliances here are with Trinica and Clefford as a trio so the choices are limited with it being AJ or Tanner.

Do we go with strength going into the next challenge?

Or do we potentially cut AJ here because of a potential game threat at merge?

This is a tough one especially when there are just 5 people and there is not much room to hide.

AJ

Wowie I can’t believe this. I sat out because I was out having a #hotgirlsummer and was away from my computer. Aaaaand….we lost. This will be our second tribal and I honestly have no idea what’s going to happen. Considering if I should give my idol to Trinica before tribal or not, maybe I be chaotic and give it to Clefford and tell nobody about it. Though I know if I give it to Trinica she’s the most likely to transfer it back. Well, decisions decisions. Seems like the vote is Tanner but honestly idek at this point.

Trinica

Well, we lost. Which is not at all surprising given the challenge and our tribe's limitations around English idioms and timezones haha.

But that's okay, this is an eventuality I expected and almost wanted in a way. Hairie wants me, Clefford, and Tanner to vote AJ. But Clefford doesn't want to vote AJ because she's better at challenges than Tanner. So the vote will very likely be on Tanner instead. Buuuuut I called AJ and told her Hairie had been saying her name so she'll potentially play her idol, which will HOPEFULLY leave me as the only Sin Sazonar holding an idol. I tried to hint to her that we could idol out someone who's more of a threat but she seemed really uninterested in strategizing because she's sick. Like she was about to just give me the idol and part of me wanted to be like yeeeeah I'll hold it for you but also I think if I had agreed she would've gotten sus.

Sooo idk who will actually go tonight but I'm hopeful it won't be me and an idol will be put back in the hunt (maybe).

[torubeth]

suna rintarou headcanons

why, you ask…cuz i miss him. and i’m not doing so well after dat one shot. honestly idek wat dis is, jus stuff which i wholeheartedly believe ig ? :>

love language : physical touch. his hands are always hanging around your waist or thighs. subtle touches and small kisses from him are everybody’s essentials.

favorite places to kiss : literally everywhere but mostly on the neck, nose, lips, thighs, shoulder and did i say neck ?

nicknames he’d call you : angel, princess, baby, babe and he’s definitely the type to call you cringe names just to piss you off.

his type : he’d go for anyone. that’s it. all he needs is someone who’ll match his vibe, someone who’ll understand him. the quirky, cocky, sarcastic, daredevil personality is his top tier. although he finds the quiet ones cute. at the end of the day, anyone. (cuz y’all are jus *chefs kiss*!!)

you’re gonna tell me the guy’s a smoker ? yeah no. he’s the cool guy who declines it whenever he’s offered.

the type of person to think that making cereal is a talent. and honestly, i agree with him.

his camera roll is full of pictures and videos. of you. the storage definitely exceeded its limit, and he has to upgrade it but he just believes that no storage can contain all the stuff because he’ll just keep on taking them. with no regrets.

his playlist : the type of playlist that gets you hooked from song one. he’d have banger songs. mostly underrated ones. slowed version ? yes, slowed version. it’s his thing. and your playlist is on repeat and oh, y’all’s spotify blend ? constantly played it’s illegal.

he’s a tsundere. not that he isn’t all olaf around the team and your friends. as soon as it’s just the two of you, he’s putty in your hands. absolutely, devastatingly adorable. so very soft, and he sleep mumbles, not sleep talk. every time you thread your fingers through his hair, your voice nothing more than a whisper, his thoughts pour out like rain. it ranges from ‘i’m so lucky to have you baby’ ; ‘fuck, you’re beautiful you know that ?’ ; ‘you have really soft hands’ ; ‘i could stare at you all day- no, forever and never get bored’ to ‘for some odd ass reason, i ship our history teacher and chemistry teacher. do you ?’ ; ‘baby, dick has so many synonyms, i’m jealous’ ; ‘atsumu and osamu fighting is like two gorillas competing for a rotten ass banana’. he’s a talker only around you, and you could listen to him all day, everyday.

if you’re the type to throw on mismatched socks, don’t worry, he does too, we don’t judge here. ‘socks is socks right ?’ he quotes.

sneaky kisses are his favorite. skipping practice to go make out with you ? sign him up.

kisses with him aren’t rushed. it’s the one where each kiss has a very deep meaning to it. like he wants you to know what he’s thinking.

is such a fucking tease, it’s frustrating. but is also the one who’s very needy for your attention. see how the tables turn ?

bullying atsumu about him being single is something you’ve both found amusement in.

midnight drives ? midnight drives. he’ll text you around the wee hours of the morning and ask you to join him for a drive, which you obviously don’t decline. playlist blasting in the back, your head hanging out the rolled down window, screaming the lyrics to your favorite song. cheap store candy wrappers are everywhere, a bottle of water, for which the cap’s already missing and you’re both arguing on who has lost it, the small engine sounds in the background. one more memory added to the album in his storage.

walking home from school, he likes to take the long route so he could be with you just a bit longer. hands intertwined, kicking small rocks and pebbles which is in his path, ears on alert, always listening to you, the quietness of the evening is all something he wouldn’t trade for the world.

conclusion : an amazing boyfriend, amazing human being, who i’m very pissed isn’t existing in this world.

[christinesficrecs]

hi! i was just wondering if you knew of any other fics like Fireman Derek’s Crazy Pie? Thank you for all you do ❤️

Hey! There is a post here with quite a few fics. And then these fluffy fics that make me happy. 😉

Fireman Derek's Crazy Pie [Cheeseburger Baby] by owlpostagain | 11.4K

“He can't blame me for the fact that I live in a building full of people united in the singular effort to ogle Hot Fireman as often as humanly possible." Laura laughs, loud and echoing in the empty restaurant. "Hot firemen can make a girl do crazy things," she agrees, nodding towards her brother's name on the menu. "Derek won't let me date anyone from his company, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the eye candy." "Send them my way," Stiles suggests, finally loading up a forkful of pie. "Apparently I'm incompetent enough that I need to be babysat at all times, because it would be cheaper than dispatching a truck every time I try to use a kitchen appliance."

untitled by thepsychicclam | 2.3K

stiles is a waiter at the diner down the street from the fire station, and fireman!derek comes in frequently for lunch.

Love on the fourth floor by IdontlikeIovsess | 6.4K

It's not really Stiles' fault if the first person he meets when he moves in his new apartment is a hot fireman. He decides to leave a note under his door.

Four Times Derek Saved Stiles From A Spider by ShadowPatronus | 4.1K | Explicit

Stiles has arachnophobia and Derek is always there to rescue him.

everybody loves good neighbors by stilinskisparkles | 7.6K | Mature

What about an "everything run-down and suddenly a guy falls through the ceiling; now there's a hole in the ceiling of my bedroom"-AU thing? c: - ANONYMOUS

[Not Not!Fic] Treed!Stiles/Fireman!Derek by fire_juggler_writes (fire_juggler) | 1.7K

Stiles gets trapped in a tree. Derek is the one who rescues him. IDEK.

Cooking With (a) Fire(man) by literaryoblivion | 2.1K

After a kitchen accident in his dorm, Stiles is forced to take a cooking class as punishment and ends up meeting a very attractive fireman to share his cooking station with... and maybe a few other things.

Derek Doesn't Judge Your Life Choices by eeyore9990 | 1.9K

There’s this guy that lives across from Derek who has the most unusual fetish…

Put Out the Fire (but not the one in my heart) by omelet| 2.8K

Derek thinks this is getting a little out of hand. Because honestly, he never would have guessed that he would one day come to own a firemen-themed calendar.

[writefightandflightclub]

The fourth wall (Dieter Bravo x acting coach!fem!reader)

Summary: They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Is the same premise true for veteran actors? Because trying to coach Dieter Bravo, is a pain in your ass. Maybe though, of all people, you can help to spark some passion in the man?

Author’s note: I WROTE THIS PRE-MOVIE RELEASE DATE (I just didn’t post it in time) so this is WRITTEN BEFORE I SAW THE CANON. I fleshed out my interpretation of Bravo from a few seconds of the trailer, and I kinda like this version of him, personally - he was fun to explore! But, he may be a very different Bravo than the guy in the movie (which I’m gonna watch soon so no spoilers please!) :P I hope you like him anyway!

Word count: it’s 15k. I have NO IDEA if ANYONE will read this and I may regret everything. But it came into my head and wouldn’t leave me so here we are.

Genre / rating: idek what this is? Two people annoying each other then...? Sort of romance / attraction? Sort of platonic? Sort of character study? Sort of character development / emotional arc? Some angst and some steam.

Warnings: reader does most of the emotional labour here. Bravo’s a bit of a dick in this but not all the way through. Steamy themes for definite but NO SMUT. Mentions of loss of loved one. Mentions of therapy / mental health. Mentions of smoking / alcohol / cursing. Mentions of anger. Coach / client relationship (sorta). Lmk if I missed anything.

Rating: 18+ for Mature themes. Not explicit.

GIF:by @pascalsky​

Session One

The bastard doesn’t show.

At least, not until 5 minutes before your class was scheduled to end.

You send him to buy you a coffee for his tardiness, but he doesn’t return.

Session Two

“Do you have passion, Bravo?” you say with energy, your voice reverberating around the fresh interior of your studio theatre - your very own hard-won empire in downtown L.A.. The place is bright and sparse – empty aside from you and your current client. The oppressive late summer heat filters through the wall of latticed windows and makes its presence known too.

A gust from the jittery, rotating floor fan shifts the man’s mop of brown, tousled hair, and he drags his gaze from the tatty script balanced on his ripped jeans and up to you. “You” being his acting coach, for the Godforsaken hour a day he is contractually obliged to spend with you.

It’s a surprise, honestly, that he reacts at all. Bravo had so little energy and presence in the last read through that you had been starting to wonder if he was actually falling asleep. You couldn’t exactly tell - not between the barrier of his D-frame shades and the unmoving, slouched position he had adopted in his chair.

Now, he scrunches his face up as though the sound of your voice causes him physical pain, and he rifles hastily through the pages as though he might find his answers there, looking like a panicked high schooler who didn’t study for a test, now burning under his teacher’s glare.

“Um… He-”

“No,” you say robustly, swiping your arm out to knock the script to the floor, snatching his focus back to you as you shake a (slightly melodramatic) fist in the air. Oh well - all the world’s a stage, and all that. “Not him. Not your character. You, Bravo. You.”

Well, does he? Have even a shred of passion left? The studio certainly doesn’t seem to think so, and even when they’d booked you, they’d agreed that you couldn’t be expected to “work miracles”. Just make him “suck less”, they’d said. With him in the room too!

You fold your arms and exhale deeply as you wait for his response - his response being to sigh emphatically and scuff his ratty sneakers across the shined floor, leaving a rubbery trail behind. You tut inwardly, pretty confident you’d specified non-marking soles. Unsurprisingly, yet another instruction he had failed to heed.

Under you unrelenting stare, Bravo groans softly, collapsing his body to the side as though being crushed by an invisible pressure from above. His hand dives beneath his plaid shirt to scratch at one of his pecs. To rub his own shoulder, in what you can only guess is some kind of self-soothing gesture. (Either that, or he’s simply an especially itchy person?!) His shirt hangs open at the collar, almost entirely futile in its attempt to function as a piece of clothing, since he’s neglected to fasten half of his dratted buttons.

Still, witnessing the slight sheen of sweat on his bared chest makes you conscious that your own clothes feel a little cloying against your skin in the baking room. That the back of your neck prickles with warmth - from the heat as well as the effort of being the only one giving anything in this equation. You’re wearing black, fortunately obscuring any sweat stains, but the room hangs heavy with the odour of bodies exerting themselves.

Maybe it’s exacerbated by the heat setting your nerves on edge, but Bravo irks you. Causes you to lose your cool. There’s nothing you detest more than apathy, and ironically, he is highly enthusiastic in his commitment to it.

He spreads his legs, squirming in his seat as you await his answer. However, you are not averse to making him squirm even more. You think he may even deserve it.

Who the fuck does he think he is, anyway, with his open shirt and his obnoxious little earring? With that perpetually bored, infuriating pout? Wearing his shades inside and slouching in his chair and giving you nothing. Not even his respect.

You’re hailed as the best acting coach on the west coast, and just about every renowned performing arts institution in the western hemisphere - and further afield- is desperate to bag you for a seminar. Your classes and 1:1s are booked out 12 months in advance, with hundreds more people on your waitlist. You’ve coached unknowns to household names. Your students have bagged awards from Oscars to Emmys to Césars.

You’ve worked with the best. More than that, you made them the best - at least, you had a huge part in it. And now, here you are. Apparently, wasting your time with Dieter fucking Bravo.

You can work clients through any number of blocks, so long as they show willing, but this one has you stumped. You’re simply not used to dealing with people who don’t want to be here. You’re used to passion, and Bravo is…

Bravo is a limp fish. A sack of flour. A wet towel. A threadbare robe. Thoroughly uninspired.

“Bravo!” you clap loudly in his face, your voice rich and authoritative, filling the whole space as though the room is your stage. Someone ought to be charismatic, you consider, given this is acting class. Bravo startles a little at the sharp, intrusive sound, jumping in his seat as though he’d forgotten you were there at all. “Yeah. You should make the most of that sound. It might be the last applause you’ll ever fucking get - unless you start taking these sessions seriously.”

Okay. So, you have a reputation as a proponent of the tough love - but, in your defence, only when it’s needed. You’ve offered Bravo a succession of carrots today that he failed to munch on, and so maybe it’s time for some stick.

(God, the fact his name is Bravo is a whole new level of irony.)

You snap your fingers to prompt him this time and the man twists his face up further, slipping it into a grimace until it grows as crumpled and lined as his un-ironed shirt. You’re pretty sure, on inspection, that it’s the same crumpled outfit he had on yesterday. If he had a particularly wild night, you’re not sure you want to get close enough to detect any residual odour of… whatever he may have put in his mouth last night - alcohol or otherwise. Therefore, you lean in, your hand planting on his shoulder but keeping him at arm’s length, just to be on the safe side. He hunches his broad shoulders up towards his ears.

Christ. Quite how someone can look so intensely uncomfortable whilst at the same looking like they’ve just crawled out of bed, is confounding. What’s more, how someone can make you oscillate so starkly between frustration and pity is beyond you. However, when the man isn’t riling you, he’s just so… forlorn, that in some moments you want to pull his head into your lap and rock him all better. At other times, to be fair, you want to slap him around the face; and of course, in reality, you wouldn’t dream of doing either.

You shake your head softly to yourself. Is this really him? The same guy you’d always had a distant celebrity crush on? The one who had always appeared so dapper and suave, whenever you’d see those red-carpet press shots? The same guy who positively wowed you with his monologue in the movie Summer Rain all those years ago? Who delivered one of the most intense and heartfelt scenes you’ve ever seen in your life?

Him?

Of course, you’ve met enough actors to know that internet gossip so rarely paints an accurate picture, but this time it’s so far off the mark it’s a little hard to swallow. This guy in front of you now doesn’t look at all like that version of a man. Honestly, right about now, he looks like a sorry, washed-up, asshole of a guy. In fact, no. It’s even worse than that; a washed-up asshole who didn’t learn his lines.

“Fuck, Bravo,” you chide, and he must sense you’re about to tell him off because you can practically see him doubling down on his apathy. Sinking further into his chair.

“I’m sorry, lady, but these sessions are a joke,” he scoffs, quickly raising his palms in surrender, like a total coward. “No offence.” Maybe you’d have a little bit of respect for him if he had the courage of his convictions, at least.

You begin to shake your head incredulously and he stands then; though, it is hardly a victorious surge to standing. Rather, it is one borne out of petulance. He’s throwing a strop. “I need a fucking cigarette.”

You watch him finger a box of smokes from his jeans pocket, the packet almost as battered as him. Damn. How did this man get to be so crumpled and sad, you wonder? He looks in desperate need of a bubble bath and a tender lay or something.

You might even have been inclined to help him like that, if he wasn’t being so… him.

“These sessions are keeping you in a job,” you say tersely, jabbing your finger in his direction.

You see his eyebrows pump up once, over the rim of his shades. “Pretty sure they’re paying you for me to sit here.” You huff out air between your teeth. You can hardly believe the audacity of him. Bravo, meanwhile, simply shows his teeth, giving you the fakest of smiles. His whole manner signals despondency. “Now excuse me while I…” -he wafts his hand in the direction of the door- “…fucking leave.”

You stamp your foot. God, you can’t stand him. You’ve never worked with anyone quite so unprofessional. So rude.

“Where do you think you’re going?!” you yell to his back as he saunters towards the door, pushing it open. Anger flares in you as he hoists his arm into the air, delivering you the finger.

“Oh, this?” he asks facetiously, gesturing at the door as it cracks open. “Consider it breaking the fourth wall, sweetheart.”

Your eyes close and you seethe in a breath as the slammed door quakes on its hinges. Clenching your fists and clamping your arms to your sides, you take a few deep, calming breaths in an effort to recompose yourself.

Oh well. It could be worse, you think.

Whatever hellish emotion that was he exhibited… it’s surely gotta be a step up from apathy?

Session Three

Lo and behold, Bravo came back today. Fifteen minutes late -likely just to spite you - but he made it. He had walked in to find you sat cross-legged on the floor of your studio, a cold brew in your hand, various scripts and your laptop spread out before you. You had glanced down towards today’s notes - shuffling them from the pile - and had sighed dejectedly, shooting a pointed look between him and the clock. That was all more wasted prep you could have skipped out on last night - in favour of that screening your friends had invited you to as well.

Bravo looks even more like a lost puppy today. He’s still hanging his head, but this time you think it’s in apology. Because he knows he’s done wrong. Even so, just like a puppy, you’re not entirely convinced the man has learned his lesson just yet.

Adding weight to that theory, he doesn’t bring anything more to the table this session, necessarily; but he at least seems a little more resigned to his fate. You’re guessing the execs may have had a stern word. Reminded him of the clause in his contract.

Today, the shades are off too. It doesn’t make all that much difference – from one brown, glossed-over surface to another, his eyes just as empty of enthusiasm as those lenses. However, at least it’s slightly more obvious that, no, he definitely isn’t paying attention. Nothing much else has changed either. He still has that just-rolled-out-of-bed look about him, but the half-open shirt and that ire-drawing earring seem marginally less obnoxious now that he’s working just a little harder, as though the two things directly correlate.

Bravo runs through the warm-up exercises with relative obedience, but you just know there’s going to be a hiccough at some stage. And, sure enough, you aren’t waiting too much longer. As soon as you push him on anything real - his character’s motivations in the script- he bristles all over again, doing whatever he can to wiggle out of it. To be purposefully obtuse.

Your exchange of words grows heated enough – as hot as the close air in the clammy room- that Bravo stands and begins to pace, his undone shoelace slapping against the floor with each animated step. You gripe at him again, until the bastard decides he has had enough, actually daring to pop a cigarette inside your studio.

He hangs his head out of the cracked window, the blare of traffic intensifying as he pushes it wider still, hurriedly scuffing the lighter with his thumb. Luckily, you manage to hasten over to his side and deftly pinch the smoke from his lips before the flame catches, leaving him looking petulant all over again - his plush lower lip popped in a pout. You even see him longingly eyeing the door as though he might hatch a second escape plan.

Well, nope. No way. You’ve been here before, and you refuse to tolerate such behaviour another time. Determinedly, you pocket his cigarette and fold your arms against your chest. “Consider the fourth wall closed today, hun. Today you work.”

“Look, lady.” You saw your jaw back and forth. It really wouldn’t be hard for him to say your name. “It makes no difference what I do here. I’m Dieter fucking Bravo.” Christ, he even says his own name like it’s scripted. In fact, his arrogance seems to be the only thing about him which is well-rehearsed. The only thing with an ounce of finesse. “I’m signed on for the whole fucking franchise. Every god damn sequel. There is no Cliff Beasts without me.”

His words sound singularly prideful at first; however, you are nothing if not a pro at reading between the lines. You feel his unabashed disdain for the franchise bleeding through. Perhaps even a shame attached to his supposed badge of honour.

He huffs next, waving his arms lazily in the air, the unbuttoned cuffs of his shirt sagging floppily around his forearms. The fan causing his half-fastened shirt to simultaneously balloon and cling to his figure. He’s pleasingly proportioned, you note, underneath his single-handed attempt to start a pirate-grunge fashion trend. “You want passion from me but… come onnnn. Cliff Beasts? Six? Would you feel passionate about that, sweetheart?”

You blink. You mull it over.

You note that his voice is particularly rough and scratchy today. Even more of a deep, scuffed rumble. He sounds tired. Fried. Done. So done.

You almost veer towards pity for him.

Almost.

But your frustration wins out.

You’ve dealt with some characters, but Bravo is up there with the most infuriating of all. In fact, you could swear steam must be coming out of your ears. Hell, even with the price hike you’d negotiated with the studio after yesterday’s diva-ish display, you’re definitely not getting paid enough for this.

You’re working your ass off to try and make him look good. And, meanwhile, he’s getting showered with riches for doing less than the bare minimum. Whinging and whining because the meanies at the studio have affronted his ego by daring to suggest he needs to do better. How long did he really think he could coast for?

“Do you know how deluded you are?” you needle, and he looks at you disdainfully, reaching up to scratch at the pattern of unruly, patchy scruff along his jaw. You notice the peppering of grey hairs there for the first time. That could look quite distinguished. Quite hot, if he wasn’t so… him, just like a lot of features he possesses. Bravo is a man who is undoubtedly less than the sum of his parts. “There’s a break clause, Bravo. Don’t you read your fucking contracts?”

His arms flop limply by his sides, and he lets his jaw go slack, curling his tongue in his mouth like he’s trying to tie up an olive stem. God. You hate it when he does that. Why does he do that? You can’t stand him.

“You might imagine Cliff Beasts won’t continue without you, but I know differently. I know that if you don’t give this a decent go, I don’t sign you off from the programme. I don’t sign you off, and the execs will find another greedy hole to stuff your obscene pay check into. Probably someone younger and prettier and less fucking entitled than you.”

He tousles his mop of brown hair, some sweat-dampened strands clinging to his forehead. “They wouldn’t do that. They need me. I-“

You clamp your hands down firmly on his forearms, shaking him a little. Perhaps hoping to jolt some sense into him. Maybe also to hurt him a little bit -verbally- as retribution for his disrespect. “-They auditioned for your role, Bravo.”

Well, that shuts him up. Clearly, his arrogance has made him short-sighted. Clearly, that’s something he didn’t know.

He takes a step back from you, looking momentarily wounded but quickly smoothing over the emotion brimming in his eyes. (Finally, some hope that maybe he can act!) Then, he freezes to the spot, his hands on his hips and his tongue poking out to wrap around his top lip, dipping the crown of his head towards you as he stares intently at the floor. He stays like that for a moment, until he begins slowly nodding, shaking himself around from the shock of hearing your revelation.

“Fuck this shit,” he curses, sweeping his arm along the windowsill and sending his script tumbling to the floor. “Nine fucking years of my life for this.” Behind his back, you eyeroll so hard you’re worried that it was audible. Of course he’ll deflect blame, you think. Sounds about right. Of course none of this could be his fault.

He stays like that for a moment more, his arms braced against the sill, head hung between his broad, hunched shoulders as his palms grip the edge. The rattle and shush of the fan and the distant blare of traffic envelop the stifling room for a moment, and, given his stillness, you watch the bead of sweat roll down his temple as though in slow motion, the small and very human detail activating your empathy for him in spite of your better judgement. He reaches his elbow up to his face and wipes his brow on his shirt sleeve, before his voice comes back smaller than usual. “Is there no fucking air-con in here?”

“Yeah, sorry about that. Bad time for building maintenance.” Then, silently, you fill him a cup of water from the cooler in the corner and offer it to him. He takes it but doesn’t thank you.

He looks so distressed now that for a split second, you think about shuffling closer to him. About reaching out and smoothing some circles into his slightly sweaty, plaid-adorned back. However, then you remember his antics yesterday and decide better of that. Instead, you simply look on at his sharp side profile as he tips his heads up, staring out of the window wistfully, gazing across the lot. It’s a new layer to him. He even looks as though he might be about to actually care about something for once - even if only the prospect of losing a rather lucrative pay check. However, in the very next instant you chide yourself for holding out any hope of him caring. The man shrugs his broad shoulders up to his ears and drops them emphatically. “Whatever.”

Jeez. He’s like a wet towel. Is there really no fight left in him?

“Goddammit, Bravo,” you sigh. He’s so infuriating. Half your clients would kill to be where he is now. Shit - all of them are working their asses off to try and get there, and here he is flushing it all down the toilet.

The saddest thing is, you think he really does have talent. At least, you believe it’s buried somewhere in there, underneath all the apathy and arrogance.

With a softer, far more disheartened sigh at the intrusive thought you might have failed him, unable to draw that talent out, you drop your gaze to the floor. You slowly tread over to the fallen script, picking it up. You begin to leaf through it solemnly, even though you already know it inside out. Bravo’s copy though, is predictably blank compared to yours. Not a single scrawled note in the margin. No dog-eared pages, no highlighted lines. You shake your head and you have to wonder - did he even fucking read it?

You roll the script into a baton and bat him lightly on the shoulder with it, your tone altogether more gentle this time. Maybe you can try yet another tac. Carrots nor tough love have worked thus far. Maybe there’s something else. “What do you think this movie is about, Bravo?”

He snorts ruefully, face still turned and basking in the golden glow of the late summer sun. “Cliff Beasts. Six of ‘em.”

He turns his head over his shoulder to glance at you, and you throw him the fakest, most disdainful smile you are capable of. “A reminder. Your apathy isn’t cute, sweetheart.” He returns your grin with a smarmy, disingenuous smile.

“You know. You seem stressed,” he snarks bitterly, his half open shirt billowing in the breeze of the adjacent fan, revealing flashes of his smooth, tan chest to you. “I hear pilates is a gamechanger - maybe you should try that. Or was that big in the 90s? I forget. Is it all ASMR and meditation apps now or-?”

“-Bravo,” you interrupt, thrusting the script abruptly towards his chest, leaving his arms to spring up and cradle the crumpled pages like it’s a small baby. His humour is likely a well-rehearsed defence mechanism but it’s one you don’t have time for. “Don’t be a dick. You have $4mil in the bag for reading your lines adequately. The execs still like you. They don’t really want someone else. They just want you ten years ago. They just want someone who doesn’t sound…” -you fish for the right metaphor- “… like they’ve been held hostage and they’re reading the lines at gunpoint.” You snort, but suddenly Bravo doesn’t seem in the mood for humour when it’s at his expense. “I believe in you. Even you can surmount that low of a bar.”

He pushes up from the sill and turns his body so that he’s facing you, squaring off. His brown eyes flick towards you, and at this proximity, meeting yours directly, they’re more disarming than you might have expected. That irks you too.

Despite yourself, you actually find yourself willing this underdog to come through. Even if only to garner you some credit. Is this it? Could this be the tipping point, where he elects to turn it all around?

Maybe?

Except…. No.

No, because Bravo scrunches his face up as if in pain all over again, idly twiddling his earring between his thumb and forefinger and looking thoroughly despondent.

“Well. Therein lies the rub.” Still, only apathy. No reaction. No fire. No attack. No passion. And that, more than any of his arrogance or his snitty comments or that bizarre earring riles you. “I can’t do that.”

Fuck’s sake.

All you require is a spark to nurture, and you have to believe he can muster that much.

Does he simply need more of a push?

“Come on!” you yell, attempting to whip him into more of a frenzy about this. Attempting to provoke him. “Bravo, aren’t you embarrassed that they’re making you take acting lessons? Don’t you have something to prove? A little fucking self-respect?” You clap your hands loudly a few times into the space between you. “Come on, Bravo. Maybe this rockstar attitude flew when you were young,” -he saws his jaw back-and-forth at that sleight- “but now? For god’s sake, everyone has you pegged as some washed-up asshole.” You lean into him, grabbing him by the lapels of his shirt so securely that you actually pop off a button -much to his surprise- hoping that you can shake some life into him. “So what in the hell are you going to do about it?”

You stare deeply, pointedly, into his filter coffee brown eyes, willing some fire to ignite there, amidst the wash of cool and cultivated indifference. Bravo, for his part, doesn’t respond to you. Not verbally, at least, but he does set his jaw. He does meet your gaze right back - which is something. He does alter his stance, standing taller and broader than he has done all week.

His eyes are molten now. The brown in them suddenly rich and full of warmth. Your hands fisting in his lapels automatically relax into smooth palms, momentarily flattened against the warmth and broadness of his chest.

Maybe, just maybe, your pushing is finally getting you somewhere?

You drop your voice low, barely above a whisper, but injecting it with all the intensity of a yell, your hands still resting against him. “What do you want?“

You are willing him so hard to want something. Anything. Your own chest is heaving and so is his, his nostrils flaring as his breath saws in and out of him, a frown sinking into his brow.

Good, you think. That’s good.

You just want him to feel something. To desire something. Even if that’s a cheeseburger, you don’t care anymore. If Bravo would express even some basic, banal desire to you, you’d consider it progress. How can he know his character’s motivations, if he doesn’t even understand his own?

“It doesn’t matter what I want,” he says solemnly, fixing his warm hands over yours, and sliding them from his chest. He holds them momentarily by your sides, the pads of his girthy thumbs pressing lightly into your palms – a slow drag, his skin tacky against you. Then, he tugs in a deep breath and releases his grip, as though this small effort -letting go- pains him.

Doesn’t everything?

You swallow roughly as he shuffles marginally closer, slipping his hand in between the two of you, to where his commandeered cigarette pokes teasingly out of your top trouser pocket. Nimbly, he thieves it back, meeting your eyes the whole while, gaze bouncing from left eye to right. A gasp escapes you as the warmth of his vanishingly brief touch bleeds through the thin linen fabric, and at that point Bravo’s gaze dips towards your lips, his presence suddenly dominating the space -and your focus- as much as the oppressive heat. “Not even I can be me from ten years ago.” His voice sounds thoroughly sunken now. Scraped out. He threads the tip of the cigarette between his plush lips, a heavy weight settling on his brow. The stick bobs with his words, and his eyes narrow a little with derision. “I’m not that good of an actor.”

He hovers close to you for a moment more as you drink him in, his presence suddenly so imposing and his features so captivating that you are arrested there.

It is he who turns from you then, and when your tongue hangs less slack in your mouth you call out, the words spoken to his back, his shoulders hunched over and the scuff of a lighter sounding as he tries to light up.

“I think you are that good, Bravo.”

He turns back towards you, confused ire on his face. “What?” he says grittily through very deliberate puffs on his cigarette, coils of smoke being whipped around him by that rickety, insistent fan, and his features looking sharper almost, in contrast to the delicate wisps and curls of smoke.

“I think you’re pretending not to care,” you venture, throwing your voice across the room as much as you are throwing your deduction out there. You wait for his reaction but of course, none comes. He simply takes another drag, looking down at his sneakers. Looking suddenly vulnerable. Making you think of bubble baths and tender lays again, goddammit. Your tone even softens. Becomes less accusatory. “Is that not tiring, Bravo? Putting on that act?”

Despite the lost puppy look in his eyes, you can see tension roped through his body. Can note the way his eyes are sheening with emotion.

“Bravo?” you say softly, feeling your own face twist involuntarily with concern. You take one small step forward, truly meaning, this time, to reach out to him - but with it he is gone, leaving only smoke swirls behind.

The door swings on its hinges and when he’s gone, you catch a glance of yourself in the mirrored wall and feel ashamed of the look on your face. At the fact he has discombobulated you. At the fact he has left behind one thing a little more substantial than cigarette smoke. He has left you with a longing; or, an echo of it at least.

You even require a moment to gather yourself, laying down in front of the fan and contemplating existence.

“Phewfff!”

You stare up at the ceiling.

It’s far too hot in here, you think.

And, Bravo may be less than the sum of his parts, but there are parts of him that sure are something.

You breathe deeply and you close your eyes, until you no longer see his.

Session Four

The next day, Bravo arrives on time.

He still looks rumpled. His face twisted up and his tongue probing insistently along his own lower lip with a nervous tick, travelling from corner to corner.

However, his energy is different. Upon arrival, he immediately shrugs off his canvas cross-body bag, setting it down on the perimeter of the room. He drains the dregs of his Grande Frappuccino with a slurp and tosses the cup in the trash.

He is in the centre of the floor before you can make it there, tugging his too loose jeans up and tightening the clasp of his belt. Rolling up his floppy shirt sleeves and combing his mop of fluffy hair back from his forehead.

“Let’s run the scene,” he requests, energy coiled through his body, and still pacing on the spot, no slouch or lethargy in him today.

You are so pleasantly surprised it takes you half a moment to catch-up. “Really?” you question, about to make some other offhand quip, but Bravo interrupts you with urgency.

“Let’s run the scene,” he states firmly. “Let’s get this over with.”

Sensing his determination, and wishing to capitalise on his sudden change of heart before you lose him again, you toss your session plan aside and tread to the centre of the room.

Bravo’s eyes are busy with thoughts, and he doesn’t have his script in his hand.

“Which scene are you-?” you ask, offering your own script to him, which he quickly flips to page 43 and thrusts back at you.

“Here. I know the lines.”

You quickly skim the page. The scene between him and his love interest. “Yes. Okay.” You nod curtly. This is pretty much him monologuing, so you dip to slide your own copy of the script across the shined floor until it bumps up against his bag.

His choice of scene is interesting, though unsurprising. This is an emotive scene. One of the few character-to-character scenes he has in the movie, unencumbered by CGI sabre-tooth tigers. Bravo isn’t a character actor - that much is apparent. He puts his own self into his work. The past decade his work had lacked depth and you could argue this was a reflection of the man -shallow- but you hold out hope for something more substantive. Something altogether more raw. If any moment in the movie is his opportunity to shine – this scene is it.

“Is there anything in particular you want to explore with this run-through or-“

When you look back up at him, you see that Bravo is ready to launch. Not thinking, but feeling, and you know that any of your technical questions will be futile in this moment. He’s about to tumble into this scene and he’s primed for it. Practically standing up on his toes and ready to tip into you. His energy -such a shift- makes you excited too. Makes your heart slam just a little faster in your chest. Makes you bounce from foot to foot as a pulse of adrenalin fires through you.

“No. Let’s just try it.” His tongue swipes along his lower lip. “Can I get physical with it?”

You nod. “Fine. Find the gestures that feel natural with the words and-”

“-Can I touch you?”

“Yes.” Yikes you wish your voice wasn’t suddenly shaky. “I’ll tell you if it’s too much. Are you ready?”

Bravo nods in confirmation, and then retreats from you to the perimeter of the room, coming to lean up against the mirrored wall to one side of the studio. He reaches his hands up and plants them against the glass as his forehead comes to rest against it, his hips leant against the ballet barre. You look him over. The way his raised arms hitch his shirt up, revealing a band of tan skin at his middle. The way his ragged breaths fog the mirror, and the glass squeaks as he drags his fingers down like claws, his broad shoulders rippling beneath his thin button-down in a way you didn’t know they were capable of, the taper of him leading your eyes down to his narrow hips and long slim legs.

“Dammit, Sheila,” he rasps, and his voice is altogether darker than you’ve heard it before. The sound of it startles you from your study of him and you marvel at how easily he placed you in the role of spectator, even as you’re meant to be playing opposite him here. The way you jump a little when his voice finally sounds is not at all manufactured. “Don’t you trust me by now?” He pushes up from the glass, still with his back to you, and his body hunched but roped with tension.

“I…” you begin breathily, reciting your line conscientiously. “I know how much you need this win. Those eggs.” God this movie is lame. “I can’t believe you’d choose me over victory.”

Bravo -in character- turns his body towards you then, and you see that his eyes are wet with the beginning of tears. You knit your brows together in concern -your natural surprise at his emotive portrayal aiding you - your eyes shimmering as you searching his, watching his gaze flit all over your face as he begins taking slow but even steps towards you.

“I need this, baby,” he rumbles, and the intensity of him and his physicality tells your feet to move back. You play off of him and follow that instinct, letting him walk you backward until you can go no further. Until you are backed-up against the nearest wall. The press of the cool wall against your bare arms is a relief compared to the close heat of the room. “I need the money more than you could know, but I need you more than that.”

You throw your head to the side, imagining that your character cannot bear to meet the earnestness in his eyes a moment longer. The she does not dare to trust it. Bravo moves closer to you then. Slow and tentative. His movements and micro-expressions subtle. Small. Too small for theatre, but just right for the screen – you imagine the transition to the cropped frame would fit well here. “I’ve heard a lot of pretty words before, only to get screwed over at the last second. How do I know anything is different this time?” You inject an intentional break into your voice, giving his character hope that you may cave yet. That you doubt your denial of him.

“Look at me,” Bravo urges, a whispered ad lib as his warm palm snakes around your neck, his tone hushed and intimate. His thumb strokes circles into the spot just behind your ear, his lips dipping close enough to yours that you can smell the vanilla syrup on his breath.

The sweet, melted honey of him is suddenly cloying, disarming, and his touch on your skin enough that you want more, your lips instinctively chasing his. Despite yourself, desire plummets like a stone through your molten core, weighing your body down. Making your gaze heavy as you look back at him. It is all you can do to shake your head and focus on suspiring his character’s name instead of his own. Especially as he slides his hands between you, slipping them up from your waist, trailing up your sides and capturing your arms, drawing them above your head and pinning them to the wall as you languish beneath him, your legs quaking – not at all part of your performance.

“I want you,” he intones huskily, his lips sinking to graze the column of your neck. It’s a staged action, you know it, his nose and his cheek doing most of the nudging, but still - as you feel the rough brush of his scruff against your throat, the whimper you expel is entirely real. He draws back from you then, cupping your cheek with his hand now, and your arms fall from their pinned position, your palms finding his chest, caressing the bare skin revealed by the open “v” of his collar. “I want you and it scares me so goddamn much. My bravery is famed. I’ve fought dragons in space. But this? I can’t lose you. Not you.”

Dammit, Bravo. You had searched his eyes. Perhaps you had searched them a little too deeply, for he had faltered. And in that moment, the illusion had shattered, ripping you harshly from the scene.

“You’re flat on those lines,” you add efficiently, tapping his chest so that he steps back from you. “Reset. You’ve lost the fucking passion. Go back.”

He huffs, but he does indeed reset, running his lines again. Asking you questions.

“How was the physicality?”

“Fine, but too much too soon. Try and hold it back. So that when you finally touch her, it’s meaningful. Make the audience want it too.”

You make him run it again.

Again, and again.

You rework the lines. You set aside the script. You piece something more genuine together.

The words mean less than the emotion at this stage. You let him play around with it.

It gets better; then it gets worse again.  Next, it’s middling.

You give him tips and notes. You torture him with feedback, seeking perfection. Seeking an unlocking of something you now truly believe is brimming below the surface.

It excites you.

He excites you.

You torture yourself with his proximity. With the scent of him. With his hands on your hot body. The textures of him against your skin. The sound of his voice in your ear. Against your neck.

“No! I don’t believe it. You’re at the end of the line. You love this woman, Bravo. You need more passion.”

“I can’t give you anything else!” he spits, sweat beading on his forehead. The back of his shirt dampened with a pattern of sweat too, creeping down his back.

“I don’t believe that,” you spit right back, circling each other in the space like a bull and a matador. “There’s more. Why this moment, Bravo? Why is it this line that blocks you? I’ve already lost too much-”

“Fine. You fucking want passion, huh?” he snarls, and your eyes spark back. That’s it. Finally. Finally, he’s coming alive. You’d stop antagonising him but it’s working. Something in him is opening up.

He’s making some poor choices. Misplaying some moments. But his acting is freer and lighter than you’ve seen it since Summer Rain – the role he’d shone so brightly in.

It’s baking in here. The fan tries in vain but your clothes are clinging to your skin. Desire clings to you too, a cruel tension, stoked yet unsated with every fleeting contact. Strands of his hair are flattened against his forehead and you know he wants to quit but you won’t let him. Not now. Not yet. Not when you’re so close.

He can do this. You believe he can do this. You’ve finally seen that spark.

“Can’t hear you, Bravo,” you chide, antagonising him further, and his lips draw back, revealing the line of his lower teeth. “I want to see what it is you want. Show me.”

“You want passion, sweetheart? Huh?” he shouts, pacing like a man undone. “You want me to show you what I want?”

You don’t get an opportunity to reply back as Bravo turns towards you in the next moment, directing the full scope of his feeling towards you. The way your stomach flips is obscene as his manner grows increasingly focussed, determined, casting him as a decisive man. Altering the whole set of his body. The look of his face.

He looks fiery. He looks hot. He tosses his well-thumbed script to the floor and with the heat of his gaze trailing over your form, you feel that he is showing you. He’s making your skin ignite, everywhere his gaze snags leaving a trail of fire.

He barrels towards you and his urgency seems a product of his barrelling want. A desire you feel on your skin and in the pit of you before any confessions leave his parted lips.

“I want you,” he breathes, his face twisted in torment, his whole body primed to touch you but holding back. Holding back so much that you crave nothing but his touch. Feel nothing but the lack of it. “I want you,” he suspires again, his breath shaky and hitching as he lifts his thumb, ghosting it along your lower lip. Tracing the shape of your mouth. You gasp from the contact – this morsel of touch, and you can’t stop the tip of your tongue fleeting out. Contacting the pad of him. Tasting the salt on his skin in a way that makes him groan, deep and low in his chest, the sound turning you molten. It makes you want to open up for him. To truly taste him. Feel him. But, you feel powerless to move, held in a thrall.

His eyes flit over your face in earnest, and you languish against the wall as he shuffles his body closer to yours, only enough space for the quickened rise and fall of your chests. You whimper, your eyes fluttering closed as Bravo swallows roughly. As his face dips towards yours, his shaky breaths fanning over you. The fan billowing the scent of his musk all over you, until it’s surrounding you just like the cage of his body, his arms pressing into the wall either side of your head.

Your heart is hammering apace as his mouth hovers moments from yours, and you whimper as his lips graze against yours; but, in the next moment, you feel him pulling back, your chin jutting out in a futile attempt to chase his kiss.

He’s full of passion now, and his gaze dips to your lips. He settles his warm palms around your elbows. His tongue skims along his lower lip and words writhe through his body, as though he’s finally about to say something with some meaning. As though he’s about to launch a true confession. Something from a place deeper than he’s ever dredged before.

“I want you… a-and it scares me so much.”

His brown eyes look soft and afraid. Molten with it. Soft and liquid, settled amidst the sharpness of his features. You tug in a breath, reaching your hand up to his cheek, settling your palm over the rough brush of his patterned beard, hairs bristling as his eyes close shut and he leans into your touch in a way that suggests he hasn’t felt anything so tender in what feels like a lifetime.

You tug in a breath, wishing to offer comfort for his pain. A balm to his torment. You tug in a breath, and his name is readied in your chest. 

His name is readied in your throat.

His name is readied on your tongue.

His name.

Bravo.

“I want you, Sheila,” he intones, scooping your face up into his warm, broad hands.

Sheila.

The name.

Her name.  

The name from the script.

“And I’ll save you from these cliff beasts if it’s the last thing I do.”

Your skin heats with embarrassment. Heats with the realisation that you had been entirely suckered in. Convinced it was you he wanted. Lost to the moment. Remiss in thinking this was anything but a performance.

“I’ve fought dragons in space, baby. My bravery is famed. But I can’t lose you. Not you. Not you too.”

You exhale your breath on a wave of despair as your all too real want remains unquenched. As the intensity of the emotion he is conveying seeps beneath your skin. Flutters against your bones like late summer butterflies kissing the core of you. Making you feel weak and fragile.

“I’ve already lost too much and…” God, his eyes are shimmering. His eyes are brimming with liquid stars and it doesn’t feel like a line. This doesn’t feel like a character. It simply feels like truth.

Until… “Fuck,” he curses, tearing himself away from you and turning away, the points of his elbows protruding as he raises both hands to claw his hair back from his face. His voice sounds as fragile as the thrum of a butterfly’s wing now. Thrumming with emotion. Sounding fragile, like he may wane and turn to dust with the scarcest confrontation. “I’m sorry. I thought I could do this but I…”

Your brow creases. You don’t understand. You push yourself off the wall and move towards him instinctively, keen to remain within his orbit. “Bravo… Are you kidding? That was… Fucking… Wow. I…. I’m shaking.”

You are. Shaking.

Bravo is too though. You note a tremble in his hand as he sinks down to his knees on the floor, drawing his hand up to bridge across his forehead, massaging into his temples and shielding his eyes from your view.

When he lowers his hand and blinks up at you, you see that his eyes are almost brimming over with glassy tears, his mouth fixed in a grimace as he attempts to quash them, but to little avail.

“Hey,” you half soothe, half exclaim in surprise as you realise his predicament, shaking your head softly with lack of understanding, but instantly dropping to your knees too, settling at a right angle to him and smoothing circles into his shoulder.  “Hey,” you say with infinitely more softness, and that is when Bravo’s resolve collapses. His chest jolts with a sharp intake of breath, and the tears spill over on to his cheeks.

Your eyes search his as he swivels his head towards you -so helplessly- and you are stunned into silence, your mouth falling open with nothing to offer. Instead, your arms offer him something and you cautiously draw him into you, lowering his head into the crook of your neck, and rubbing and patting his back to offer him comfort, even if you don’t fully understand why he needs it.

You pats feel formal at first. Awkward, but soon, your motions across his broad back and shoulders are fluid and sweeping. Slow-moving, splayed finger motions, feeling every contour and muscle and bone of him beneath the path of your fingers. Soon, after a few moments of his tears wetting your shoulder, Bravo is wrapping his own arms around your waist, nuzzling into you. Soon, he is breathing in deeply, inhaling the scent from your skin and exhaling a warm breath which billows down the front of your cleavage.

Soon after that, Bravo’s hands are moving too. Slow hands, beginning as the pads of his fingers working over the notches of your spine – dancing over the fabric of your clothes. Then, his hands are flattened and achingly warm against you. They are sliding up and down your back, and you realise that you should have stopped this slow inch only when it is too late. Only when he pulls back from you and tilts his head, eyes full of a question and lips pouting as though he could answer it himself.

You tell him yes too. Yes, with your tongue, which unconsciously fleets along your lower lip. With the small breath you gasp in, as though you are surprised that something like this could be awakened in you. That a desire so heavy could make you feel so light; so light-headed.

And yet…

He dips his head forward to move in for the kiss and you tear your head away, blinking profusely and dipping your chin to your shoulder. Dropping your arms so that you can push your palms into the shined floor and shuffle away from him. Putting some distance between you – and that is all you can do, as when you look back into his face you are rooted to the spot, only so that you do not crawl back to him.

His warm hands are no longer on you. His shirt hangs open at the collar, his chest glistening with sweat. You are frozen in regret that the moment wasn’t to be. But you couldn’t. You couldn’t.

As soon as you move, Bravo screws his eyes shut in dismay. “Fuck. I’m sorry,” he chides himself, his apology far more earnest than you feel is necessary when you are equally culpable here. “What a fucking asshole.”

“No,” you state clearly, your voice ropey and frayed. You surge to standing even though your legs feel weak and cross to the water cooler, needing something to quench you and needing to put as much distance as possible in the small studio between you and him. “It’s…” You swallow harshly, your mouth infeasibly dry. “We’re projecting.” That’s it, isn’t it? That’s all it is? This isn’t real. “From the scene. We got caught up.”

You’re not sure why the words come out a little strangled, sounding like a question, but you do know that when you look back to Bravo it is a lie when he says “yeah” with a slow nod.

After all… He’s not that good of an actor.

You feel it’s fortunate that you’ve already drained your cup of water, when you note you are squeezing it in your fist as he looks on at you. Forlorn, all over again, as he moves to standing, his hands shoved into the back pockets of his jeans, his hair pleasantly scruffy again from his rifling fingers.

“Again. I’m sorry,” he offers, his hands quickly held up in surrender and maintaining a healthy distance from you. “I thought you might have wanted…” You stare at him unblinking, chewing on your own lip, and a hard swallow trails down his corded neck. He effortlessly reads your signal to leave it there, thank you very much, looking down at a patch of floor – neutral ground between the two of you. “I misread it. I’m sorry.”

“Take a walk, Bravo,” you order, your voice shaking subtly. “Go and cool down, huh?”

He looks wounded, but he doesn’t protest further. He simply nods softly and quietly scoops up his things as you stand on the perimeter of the room, your arms folded tightly against your chest. You watch his every move, even if you’re suddenly unable to meet his gaze, and so you see when he nods towards the clock. “We over-ran anyway. Let’s call it there.”   

“Okay then,” you nod. “Fine.” Christ. It doesn’t sound like it’s fine to you.  Your voice sounds unnatural. A little more shrill. Still, this is not enough on its own to prevent him from leaving. It is not a protest, even as all the butterflies in your body tug towards him.

God, you feel giddy.

He looks back at you over his shoulder, his eyebrows knitted together in concern, but still you let him go, and still he opts to leave.

You try to remind yourself. That he’s an actor, and that in real-life, there’s nothing real about him that he’s prepared to give. Not from what you’ve seen so far. That on screen there’s an honestly, like it’s the only place he dares to share his truth. That none of this is real.

You try to tell yourself that, but his question – in the next moment- catches you off-guard.  

“This?” he asks, his voice robust and grounded and counter to your flighty butterflies. “Is this an act?”

“What?”

“You. Wanting me.”

You scoff. “I do not!” You try to smile. To laugh it off as though the notion is preposterous, but you can barely breathe. You try to put on an act but you are all too aware however, that in real-life, you don’t know how to be anything but honest. You are all too aware that you’re not that good of an actress, and that your face betrays your truth, plain as day.

It’s fleeting, but you think you spot it. The briefest of smiles tipping Bravo’s lips, before he smooths it over. He takes one long look at you, as if you could alone could quench the thirst he has worked up from hours of rigorous rehearsal in this heat trap of a room. “Right. Why would you? Think you’re just projecting, sweetheart.”

When he turns to go you take one step forward - futile as it is. He turns back towards you, looking over his shoulder, but you have no words to offer. At least, none that are bold enough to make it past your chest.

Bravo. Are you alright?

Bravo. Kiss me until I can’t think.

Bravo. You worked so hard today.

Bravo.

Bravo.

Bravo.

Luckily, he finds the words for you, with an ease as though they’re scripted. “Thank you.”

These simple words - after all of his resistance and apathy - suck the air right out of your chest. Still, you shake your head softly, in confusion. “What for?” Lord knows you can’t take credit for teaching him to act. The kind of talent you eventually saw today has to be innate. It had felt indistinguishable from truth, even though you were in on the illusion.

His expression becomes wistful, his voice fissured and fragile all over again. His voice tips up at the end, as though it’s a question. “For making me want something.”

Then, he sets his shades across his curved nose as though, otherwise, you might be able to see all the way into the depths of him, and he shuffles out from the stifling room into the stifling evening.

When he’s gone you release the longest breath, your head suddenly thumping as the rush of adrenalin begins to dissipate.

No, you don’t believe you can take all that much credit for Bravo’s talent. You’re not sure you have succeeded in coaching him at all. After all, this has all been strictly on his terms so far, despite your best efforts. In fact, the only thing you might have succeeded in, is developing the world’s most embarrassing crush on Dieter fucking Bravo. And, to your surprise -and relative dismay- not even a crush on the polished celebrity version of him, this time.

No. You think you have succeeded in developing a crush on the scruffy, hapless version of him. The one with the absurd earring and undone shoelaces, who -you most definitely maintain- is in dire need of a long bubble bath and the very tenderest of lays.

Yikes. For more reasons than one, after that session, you are in serious need of a cold shower.

Session Five

The next day, you have flouted your own personal rules on work attire. You’re wearing a spaghetti strap dress, thin and floaty. It’s too fucking hot. You have even resorted to a bag of ice chips, dabbing it against your chest and neck at intervals.

Your mission today is to keep your cool, in every sense of the word.

To remember why you’re here, as you’re sat cross-legged on the floor opposite Dieter Bravo, your dress hitched up above your knees to cool your clammy thighs.

You’re here to be a professional. You’re certainly not here to lust after the man and get all hot and bothered… Even if he is wearing goddamn EYELINER, so help you, as a result of his hair and make-up test shoot earlier today. Even if he is loosening his collar to dab the bag of ice chips over his bare skin. 

“I want to talk to you. About yesterday.”

“Oh God,” he cringes, plopping the ice chips down in the bowl you nabbed from downstairs’ kitchenette, and crossing his arms over to grip each of his ankles. You can basically see him stiffen, his body wanting to constrict and squirm and tie itself in a knot. This shy, avoidant version of Bravo is becoming much more familiar than the passionate character you had encountered yesterday, even as you battle to reconcile the two. Familiar and safer, you think; until his awkwardness circles all the way around to endearing (and sexy in a pathetic meow meow sorta way) and you suddenly hate yourself for being such a weaky. “About me trying to kiss you? I-”

“No,” you deflect quickly, unwilling to open that can of worms, even as the mere suggestion of his lips on yours sends a heat snaking down your spine. (Christ, didn’t you “hate” him mere days ago? It’s amazing what a little eyeliner will do.) “About the work. I…” You slide your copy of the script towards him, across the meagre expanse of floor between you, and his gaze dips to it – a welcome relief from his eyes on you. “What do you think this movie is about, Bravo? Aside from ‘Cliff Beasts’? ‘Six of ‘em’?”

When you echo his disdainful words from a couple of sessions ago, Bravo smiles. It’s a cute thing – you hadn’t noticed his dimple before. You unconsciously mirror his smile, and you consciously wonder if this is the right approach to take. If finally, you’ve nailed it. You’d initially swallowed the studio line, but that’s not who you are. You work for the actor. With them. Figure out what they need to grow. You now believe that Bravo may have had the right idea all along. That maybe you have been taking this too seriously. In a world of CGI tricks and illusions, maybe what Bravo needs is someone to start being honest with him.

And so, you opt to try it out. “Look. This franchise is bullshit. I know it, you know it. The script is largely drivel. You’d think with all that money they could afford a decent script doctor-“

“-I think the script doctor was the one who fucked it up-“

You laugh lightly along with him, whilst remaining on track. “But, there are undeniably some nice moments in here.” He looks highly cynical, but you take it as a victory that he doesn’t verbally protest, at least. And so, you shuffle on your bum until you are closer to him, leafing through the script and showing him your new additions. “I marked some scenes. Some themes. It’s not about cliff beasts. Not really. It’s about longing.” You turn the pages to your next marker, fingers smoothing over the text as though you could feel the texture of the words themselves. “It’s about greed.” You flip the pages again, a weight settling on your brow. “It’s about loss.”  

When you look up from the page to meet Bravo’s eyes, half-expecting him to have zoned out, you find his gaze intent on you, his eyes subtly smiling. “You really love what you do, don’t you?” he asks softly - with a hint of admiration, even.

“Yes,” you respond wholeheartedly, without hesitation. “Don’t you?”

Bravo simply pumps his eyebrows once in response, deflecting, and then nods downward, directing your attention back to the page. “I’m listening,” he reassures after a sceptical look from you, and your mouth lilts into a pleased smile.

His focus today is surprising you; you really can’t pin him down from one day to the next, can you? “Okay. Well.” You hum, finding your place on the page again, fingertips contacting the roughened paper. “It’s about fear, friendship. Love.” When he returns your look of scepticism -can this shitty movie truly encapsulate all that?- you reach your fingers out unconsciously, brushing his forearm, and finding the texture of him warmer and smoother than the leaves of the script. Dropping your voice, you level with him. “You might think the franchise is a joke, Bravo, but a lot of people adore it. It makes people happy. A lot of people are going to see this. So,” you shrug, “you might have to give a monologue while being pinned by a CGI sabre tooth tiger.” His brows twist in a gesture of self-pity, but you squeeze his arm, delivering your encouragement with gusto. “It doesn’t matter. Make it the best fucking monologue this award season anyway. Sell it, Dieter. I know you can.”

The man’s eyes soften as you search them, and he tugs in and releases a heavy, slow breath. For a moment, he looks down at your fingers resting on his arm with an idle curiosity, until you become self-conscious enough to pull your arm away. “Come on,” he says, voice gruff. “Makes people happy? Who actually likes this shit?”

You examine him with amusement twitching your mouth as he rifles his hand through his mop of hair, and now it is your turn to squirm self-consciously. You wring your hands in front of you. You’d hoped that you wouldn’t have to do this. “Alright,” you declare with a certain finality. “Confession time.” With a giddy grin you reach for your cell, ticking an eyebrow up at Bravo as he eyes you with interest. After a moment, you pass the cell over to him, sliding it into his broad palm.

As he focusses in on the screen, the device dwarfed in his hand, you watch him bashfully. You watch a full-blown smile capture his features as he eyes the photo you have presented him with, and a hint of colour deepens his cheeks. “You’re cute,” he notes, eyes shining wistfully as he lingers on the image, a throaty, delighted chuckle even escaping him as he zooms in for a better look. You feel the strain of a mirroring smile on your own cheeks too, his own mirth hard to resist.

It's an image of you and your friends at the local premiere of Cliff Beasts 4. You are each adorned in franchise-inspired costumes. You are dressed in a rather elaborate attempt at a pterodactyl costume, complete with headdress, winged sleeves… and of course, some little booty shorts to add a touch of sex appeal. “As you can see. I’m a fan.” You’ve never missed a release, in fact.

Your heart flutters a little as Bravo hands the cell back to you, his hand brushing against yours momentarily. The smile lingers on his face, that single dimple still carved out of his cheek reminding you he is, in fact, rather handsome underneath all of his actively repulsive qualities. “The movies are silly, but they’re fun. They have heart.” You blink a few times in rapid succession. “And if nothing else, they have eye candy, let’s be honest.” Bravo’s eyes pump up in interest, and his tongue does that thing, as though he’s trying to tie it in knots. That thing you used to hate, but now… it seems to tie your stomach in knots. Seems to leave you feeling a little tongue-tied too. For a moment you can’t meet his gaze. “People do like them. They like you.”

Bravo blinks rapidly now too, his gaze soft, his body squirming in that familiar way; except this time -despite all his front- it reads as shyness. It reads as uncertainty.

Resisting the urge to slide a comforting hand over his knee, you reassure him verbally. “You can do this, Bravo. You can do this well. Yesterday you-” your voice fractures simply remembering it. “The emotion you had.” You shake your head lightly in disbelief, your voice becoming full of air. “I’ve been thinking a lot about you, Bravo.” You watch a soft swallow trail down his neck. “I have a theory. You can fucking act. This display of talentlessness – the reason you ended up here - is entirely self-imposed.” You surmise he never truly needed an acting coach. A therapist? Maybe yes, in all seriousness, but that’s another conversation. This time, your hand does reach out, resting gently over his knee. Your voice is dropped to little above a whisper now, as breathy as the blow of the rickety fan which waves Bravo’s increasingly untamed locks. “You can do it.”

His voice barely makes it out of his throat, seemingly pinned by shards of emotion; emerging full of holes. His eyes sheen too. “I can’t.”

You actively try not to sigh over Bravo’s self-defeating nature – a stark contrast to the veneer of arrogance he’d presented when he’d first encountered you. The persona he’d built himself as a shield, you think. The greatest act of his life. Yesterday, you feel you’d seen something else. In the scene and without of it. He’d finally shown you some truth, and so, you push him as far as you dare to, in case there is even the slightest chance of seeing it again. “Would you like to talk about what happened yesterday? Something…” you chew on your lip, taking pains to be delicate. “Something is… blocking you?” You might have said “your process”. Blocking “your process”, but you feel that for Bravo, it’s one and the same. He's not a character actor. He brings so much of himself to his roles.

He is blocked.

His voice sinks, low in his chest. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

So there is something?

You snatch your hand back and hold it up in surrender, nodding in understanding. You can see your question has provoked him. His ire rises, tension roping through his jaw and neck, and, as his ire builds, you can see every iota of his effort focussed on directing it away from you. You see him turn it all inwards. Even as he stands and moves to the windowsill, hunching his body over – arms pressed against the surface. You see him twist and squirm and collapse beneath the weight of his burden, until whatever knot has formed in his chest crawls up his throat, and he lets it out in a soft, defeated grunt, slapping his palms against the sill.

For your part, you sigh heartily, no longer attempting to mask your despondency, and you turn away from him, crouching to collect up the rogue, now trodden leaves of paper he had waded through.

He doesn’t want to talk. And you’ve already learned it’s useless trying to encourage Bravo to do something he doesn’t want to do. Even if you think it might be good for him. That isn’t your choice to make anyway. He’s master of his own ship, even if he wishes to dash it against the rocks.

And so, as you gather up the leaves of paper, you opt to tell him something instead. Your sessions are drawing to a close. You might not get another chance. You’re not even sure he’s listening, and part of you doesn’t dare to look. You deliver the words into the room almost as though they’re a soliloquy.

“I never told you this but… Your monologue in Summer Rains?” You huff out a breath. “My God. Bravo? I sobbed. I practically fell in love with you – with your passion- through that screen. I got chills.” You scoop up the final papers, and come to standing, only now turning to face him, where he remains hunched in that now familiar way, shirt billowing in the puff of the fan. Skin sheened with sweat in this godforsaken room. Still, encountering no resistance, you continue on. “I used that monologue in my class for years. I’ve used it with some of the greats; same when I taught at Juilliard.” Bravo’s head angles towards you then. “No-one has ever sold it like you. Not even once.” You look down at the floor. “The reason I’m such a good acting coach? The reason I push my clients so hard and so far? I’m chasing that kinda magic. The kinda magic that you have.”

He remains hunched, but one hand rises to pinch the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. You half expect some smart-ass remark and you brace yourself for it, but you are surprised when instead, you get something genuine. “You saw that? Shit. I never even watched the final cut. Couldn’t bring myself to after-”

He trails off, and you opt to fill the space. “Yeah. I saw it. It’s a beautiful movie.”

He snorts out a breath. “I must have been such a fucking let down.”

“No,” you protest swiftly, taking a few steps towards him, soothing a hand over his shoulder, the fabric of his shirt dampening a little with sweat as you press it flush to his skin. He finally pushes off the sill and meets your gaze again, turning his body to face you. You can’t help the soft smile which blooms on your face then, as counterintuitive as it feels in the face of his despondency. “Not at all. Because yesterday, after years of chasing it, guess what, Bravo? Yesterday I finally witnessed magic.”

Bravo juts up his chin then. Sets his jaw. He sucks a taut breath through his nostrils, and you know it’s to quash the burgeoning shine of tears in those warm coffee-cup eyes of his, tipping up suddenly to the ceiling. He rests his hands on his hips as if to brace himself, his chest protruding forward as his breath expands his lungs. He looks back to you as he releases it, his eyes and expression full of subtleties you have yet to learn the full meaning of.

“What’s blocking you, Bravo?” you probe gently. “I know it’s… different with you.” It’s gotta be. You don’t want to be wrong about him. Not this one. A more playful disposition shifts your face, hoping to lighten the mood. “I know it’s not ‘cause you have the emotional range of an eggplant. Not like some of the talentless hacks I’ve worked with.”

Bravo’s arms coil around his own middle now, wrapping and tugging his shirt all out of shape.

You blink slowly, in understanding. “It hurts you, doesn’t it?”

“What?”

“I- I don’t know.” You shake your head. “I don’t know, but I can feel it.” It’s coming off of him in waves. It must have been hard for this guy to block all of that feeling for so long. Exuding emotion feels like it’s as natural for him as breathing. The toll it must have taken to mask that? He deserves a fucking Oscar.

And, sure enough, there it is again. Glossing over his pain, his anger rises. His nostrils flare in annoyance, his jaw setting and the line of his lower teeth becoming visible as you take the conversation somewhere he does not like. Still, it’s not a threatening anger. It is one which twists within him. It will not act upon you, you believe. Not in anything more than snarky comments and slammed doors, and you are past that now.

“Anger’s easier, Dieter,” you speak gently, lifting you arm to squeeze his shoulder firmly. Letting him know he is held. “Tell me something. Tell me something real.”

You feel his body sag beneath your palm. A release of the tension in his muscles. Permission, perhaps, to finally abandon the pretence. He first lets out an anguished groan, his first expression of his pain too raw for words. “I used to,” he admits in a small voice, picking a spot on the floor to attach his gaze to. “I used to love what I do. Used to love a lot of things.”

His brown eyes stare deeply into yours, and you are captivated by his stillness, as his perpetual coiling and squirming and constant apology of limbs gives way to standing firmly in his presence. Arriving at it. Your palm slides down his arm and then releases. You are not part of this scene. It his moment to give and your moment to spectate.

Your question is implied, with only a slight parting of your lips and gush of air. What changed?  

“I’ve been shit,” he continues. “I know I’ve been shit.” He circles the heel of his palms over the scruff along his jaw, hairs bristling beneath his touch. His voice grows just as rough and raspy. “But I didn’t want to feel.”

Again, your question hangs in the silence of the room. In the beats between the words, like ripe fruits for him to pluck. And, like, any good actor, Bravo is adept at reading between the lines. Why? Why didn’t he want to feel?

The next line is hard for him to speak. You feel it before the words come. Detect it through the new lines etched into his face as his brow contorts with a weight, and you briefly consider the happy and carefree man he may be without this burden. Your own face, too, grows heavier to mirror his. His foot starts a gentle, accelerated tap on the floor, his fingertips tapping against his thighs; but, when the words are spoken, he is unmoving, as though the pain weighs his flight down completely. You note the undone shoelace meandering next to his rooted feet, and the humanness of this small detail has an affection and a sympathy tangling in your chest even before his words might give you greater cause to feel it.

“I lost someone.” His eyes pool with tears but they do not spillover. “Right after Summer Rain wrapped. I lost my- uh…” He pumps his eyebrows once, searching for the word but deciding that none will do to fill the hole in his chest. What could possibly be adequate enough? Lover? Life? Heart? They each fall short. “My person.”

“I didn’t know,” you breathe. It’s an imperfect thing to say, you realise. You say it as though you’re sorry for your sleight. As though you should have been able to recognise that the feeling hiding behind his eyes was grief, all along. Able to recognise that he was a person bereft of a part of him, as whole as he appears to you.

“The tabloids don’t have the whole story on me,” Bravo responds dismissively, misinterpreting your reaction. Like you imagine you should have known because of the press. Because he’s an actor, and not because you are before him peering into the windows of his soul; because he’s a human. One who is being vulnerable with you. Allowing you to see him. “Not everything the tabloids report is true,” he bumbles hurriedly, deflecting with an attempt at humour. “I didn’t trash that yacht in Monaco.” There’s a beat. “It was in Capri.”

You reach forwards – seemingly to Bravo’s surprise- and grasp his clammy hands in yours. “I’m sorry,” you say earnestly. To your surprise, he doesn’t pull away from your touch. He nods, looking off to the side for a moment, eyes unfocussed and glassy. Dancing with some old honeyed memory, before the sweep of your thumbs over his skin slowly segues his attention back to you.

“It’s an old wound,” he says wistfully. “But I… After. I didn’t want to feel. It hurt. Too much.”

You squeeze his hands in yours and nod in understanding. Once again, your question is implied. He maintains the spotlight. And now?

“Now?” Bravo asks, as if in surprise that he is in the present moment after all, and not in some faraway place and time. Even so, when his eyes find you now, he is very much present. Very much back in the room. With you. A gulp trails down his throat. “It’s taken me some time to realise that not feeling isn’t working out for me. That it’s not exactly possible.”

Your own swallow echoes his. “As an actor?”

He cocks his head to the side. “As a human.” His gaze flits gently over your face, a tentative smile gathering lines around his eyes. “I came here pretty numb. I thought I could coast - I’ve been doing it for so long. I figured…” His tongue curls to nudge at the pillow of his pouty bottom lip. “But you…” His hands become a little more slick in your grasp, and he tugs away from you, folding his palms across his pecs. “You made me feel…” He trails off, as though he’s reaching to find the right word again, and, as he lands on one his eyes glow, his lips curving in a smile.

Magic? That’s what you hope he’s thinking.

But, he swallows the thought. He keeps it to himself. Maybe that was it? You made him feel. Something. Anything. Even irritation.

“These scenes,” he continues, gesturing towards the nearest script. “You’re right. It’s about love. Loss. Longing. That’s been a problem. I signed on for action. I did this shit to myself. I signed on for a decade of something so ridiculous that reality would never be able to touch me.”

That’s what he had wanted - to be buried. Where better to hide his pain than in a franchise? What better place to forget real events than to fight CGI monsters in space? A sound strategy, perhaps, but at the expense of so much more that he has to offer.

“Now. What do you want?”

“To be good,” he says with a conviction so robust that it surprises you, even now. “I don’t want to be a joke anymore. Dieter fucking Bravo.”

You can see the tiredness in him as he says his own name with such disdain. You can see how ready he feels to cut the performance and the persona. That he’s sick of the fakery in his world full of CGI, and masks of so many kinds. You can see how he wants something real too, perhaps. How lonely it must be to pretend when you’re the only one with the script to your illusion.

“As an actor?” you press.

His face drops, his eyebrows and lids slanting to give him a sorry look. “As a human.” He paces away from you, scuffing his feet over the floor, that damned lace slapping all the while, and he perches himself on one of the little wooden stools strewn about the place in a dejected heap.

Damn. There he goes looking all forlorn. Looking like he needs a gentle bubble bath and a tender lay all over again and pulling at your heartstrings.

You draw in a breath, animating at the same moment with sudden purpose. “You’re not,” you insist, falling to your knees where he sits and gently undertaking to uncross his feet - as he looks on with mild confusion. “You’re not a joke,” you say again firmly. He doesn’t believe you, you can tell. Regardless though, your hands carefully shift his foot from where it was tucked behind his opposite calf, planting it flat to the floor. He looks on in awe as you gently loop your fingers in his shoelace, tightening his scratty shoe before deftly tying a bow. It’s a small act of care and reverence, but it’s one which makes the meaning of your words sink a little deeper into him, you think.

Still, he is inclined to protest further, idly spinning that dratted gold hoop between his finger and thumb. “Egh. Maybe I should throw in the towel. They should probably give my part to someone more pretty anyway, like you said.”

It is then you realise that kneeling before him may have been a mistake, as, when you look up at him from your position and he says those words, the only thought which springs to mind is: impossible. You suddenly don’t think anyone could be more pretty than this forlorn, dishevelled, open-collared, eyeliner adorned, pirate-grunge man you see before you.

Looking at him like this makes a heat unfurl in your belly like ribbons. Makes your heart punch you from the inside to remind you you’re alive. “You’re still pretty,” you admit, with a mildly devilish smile. One which sends a deep colour flushing across Bravo’s cheeks as you look up at him from on your knees.

Is that all it takes to make you blush? Oh, honey.

He clears his throat. Looks surprised again. “You think so?”

You brace your hands on the points of his knees to push yourself to standing, delivering him an affirmative. Then, instead of stepping away, you linger a moment as Bravo tips up his chin to you from where he is seated. You push all the other courses of action clamouring for attention aside – your more base desires- and instead, simply opt to brush the back of your hand gently over his cheek. “Thank you, for being real with me.”

At your words, his blush deepens, but he doesn’t recoil from your touch. In fact, as you move to step away, Bravo’s hands clamp gingerly on your hips instead, pinning you in place – even if you could move away at any moment you wished it.

“I… I haven’t been real with anyone in a long time,” he breathes, voice like a long gritted road, rough and drawn-out, taking you in a million directions. Stretching out like possibility in front of you as he looks up at you with big brown puppy dog eyes. “I didn’t think I could ever do this again,” he admits, and you don’t know any more if he means the role or something else, but you recognise the relief and apprehension in him, spinning him in circles all the same.

And so, because you feel he needs it – and perhaps because you need it too – you wrap your arms and draw his head into your stomach, enclosing him in a hug. Bravo releases a long breath, and then, his arms tighten around your hips. He buries his forehead into your stomach as you smooth your flattened palms over his shoulders. Card your fingers like rakes through the unruly mess of grizzled brown hair, until he begins to hum contentedly, safely held in your sturdy circumference.

You don’t let go. You don’t let go because his grip on you tightens as though you are a lifeline, and to let him go would leave him adrift all over again. Like he has been for so long.

“You can do this,” you reassure softly. And, so there can be no doubt what you mean – “You can be the best anyone has ever been in Cliff Beasts.”

The two of you stay there for a stretched series of moments, Bravo melting into your freely given comfort, his hands broad and warm against your back. The contact makes you warmer in turn, and although the room is already close and sticky, you don’t want to break the loop of his arms around you. Don’t wish to lose the softness of his waves between your fingers, slightly crisp with hair and make-ups slew of product. At least, not just yet. Not just yet, because you could cry for him. For the way he clings on, like someone who hasn’t felt a kind, warm touch in longer than he could say; except for the ephemeral heat of a warm coffee cup. Of a photocopied scene rewrite grasped between his palms for a moment before it cools. The kiss of the sun on his face before the sheets next to him cool. A rotation of warm bodies who will never know anything real about him.

You know something though.

You know at least one thing real about him.

“I forgot,” he eventually says, his cheek now pressed against the swell of your stomach. Your question is again implied – what did he forget? “I forgot some feelings can be good.”

Your heart breaks for him then. With your hands placed on his shoulders, you gently create some space between the two of you, his arms dropping away and even leaving you feeling cold and bereft despite the heat you endure in this room. A prickle dances up your spine, as if calling out for more contact.

There’s an energy crackling between you, you think. At least, enough of it to spark your imagination. To think – as his eyes brew with a cautious heat as he tips his chin up at you – about the want building within you. The hot glow of molten arousal in your core, burning dim yet steady.

About how he might announce I want to kiss you and you might respond breathily: It’s too late for scenes. How his soft, needy expulsion of air would follow as he surged up to standing, his hand snaking up your body with him – everything rising. Heat spiking and colliding as he insisted this was no act. That you are his honest desire.

How his mouth might slant against yours -and you have to wonder briefly how he won you over so fast. How his tongue might delve to taste you, as, if you can’t defeat this balmy torment you may as well give in to it. May as well writhe together with slick skin on this shined floor. Watch your bodies combine and convulse in the wall of mirrors until sounds of pleasure drown the rickety rush of the fan, and you each become liquid, the taste of his salt in your mouth like a slick tide swallowing a hot shore and relieving this impossible heat.

That would be nice, you think, and you imagine that the same possibilities might be swimming deep within his dark eyes too, pools too limpid for you to decipher in this moment.

You get the sense there may be something more here. That there could be. Possibly. But, in this moment, you estimate that Bravo needs something quite specific. Perhaps something even more straightforward for now than that bubble bath. You think he needs a friend. Someone to witness and accept the real him, for precisely who he is in this moment. And so, you squeeze his shoulder, the fabric soft and worn and forgiving. Comfortable. He even looks more comfortable now too.

“You need to go to a therapist, by the way.”

His eyebrows leap towards his hairline, and he huffs out air in indignation. “I mean. That’s rude, but probably. Yeah.”

You squeeze and release his shoulder, stepping back and looking away. Looking around the room so that your question can be delivered as casual, rather than pitying. No big deal.

“Hey. Do you want to go for a drink, Bravo?”

He stands from his stool, body pointing towards you as you gather up your bag and keys. “Well… Are we done here?”

He scratches the scruff on the point of his chin, and your face can’t help but split into a frustratingly fond smile. “Yeah. I think we’re done here.”

He smiles too. It’s a nice change. “Then. Yeah. Alright, sarky.”

You each gather up your personal effects, Bravo slinging the cross-body bag over his shoulder. You flip light switches and convey used coffee cups towards the sink or to the recycling. As you do so, you toss bar recommendations between the two of you, wondering where might be best to avoid prying eyes - and the inevitable spate of Hollywood gossip which might follow. Then, you head out into the hallway, Bravo mopping his brow with the loosened cuff of his sleeve.

“Oh!” it occurs to you, when you are a few paces along the hall already. “Hold up. I need to lock the fourth wall, Dieter.” You use his first name, which you’ve generally avoided, but this time you note that the word is not uttered in exasperation. Your tone comes across altogether more convivial, and in the neutral ground of the hallway, you feel able to shed yet more remaining layers of this tutor / client dynamic than you have already.

“Shit. By the way,” Bravo says as you swivel keys, scuffing his shoes across the floor like a nervous senior about to ask you to prom. “If we’re going to hang? Well, this is a little awkward.” Still, he spits it out regardless. “My real name’s Nathan.”

“Oh ho ho ho!” Your bright, hearty laughter bounces giddily off of the walls of the hallway. “What the actual fuck?” You even clasp your hands to your cheeks in shock and disbelief. “Nathan? Nathan Bravo?”

His cheek dimples with an even smile, his brown eyes soft behind his fluttering lashes. “You’re not going to believe this…”

“Hit me.”

“I was born as Nathan Fillion.”

You howl. Folding forward and grasping on to his forearm to steady yourself. “What?!”

“The other fucker had already registered with SAG, so I had to choose a stage name.”

You toss your keys into your purse and you and Bravo fall into step as you make your way out of the building, still plying him with “wows” and statements of disbelief at his reveal.

“And the earring?” you point. “Were you born with that, or is that a stage thing too?”

His face crumples in dismay, hands shoved into his pockets. “You don’t like it?”

“It’s growing on me…” - you opt to try his real name on for size, to see how it fits him – “…Nathan.”.  

It feels a little weird to you, but when you say his real name it stops Bravo in his tracks, his sneakers squeaking to a halt. That is, until you link your arm into his and gently encourage him to keep walking. You can see his face is a little ashen at first, as though he’s been visited by a ghost. Next though, a deep blush of colour paints his cheeks. You can guess why from context. “When was the last time someone called you that? Your real name?”

“A long time ago,” he admits, and you let a contemplative silence hang for a moment, Bravo’s eyes busy with thoughts. Thoughts about you, it seems. “Hey. Listen. I’m… sorry for being as ass to you.”

“Meh.” You appreciate the apology - which sounds genuine - and yet you already feel like you’re over it. Clearly, he’s been going through something. In a very accelerated fashion too, given the intensity of your classes. And, since you’re an acting coach, you’re never not going to be here for some genuine character development. You’re pleased he broke through that wall, and just hope he can truly find some healing. Some passion, related to his gift, but also for himself too. “Thank you for saying that. But you’re not so bad.”

“No?”

“No. In fact, maybe you can come back to mine later? Sign my boxset of Cliff Beasts one through five?” You smile at him hopefully, clenching and shaking your fists a little in anticipatory excitement. His face creases with mirth upon seeing your enthusiasm. After all, from your pterodactyl outfit he knows this isn’t some flimsy pick-up line. He knows that really, you’ve always been a fan of him, ever since that monologue which had blown you away all those years ago. The one which had made you “fall in love” with him. At least, with an illusory version of him. With his passion.

“Is that what you want?” he laughs, looking increasingly handsome to you by the moment as he relaxes in your company. As he sheds the act. The persona. Delivers something real.

In response, you nod enthusiastically as you reach the doorway of the building.

You unlink arms from him so that you can settle your shades across the bridge of your nose, preparing for the searing early evening heat. You step outside, venturing out across the Lot. You stride in a determined trajectory, keen to beeline for the cool, airconditioned interior of the bar situated opposite.

However, Bravo has other ideas, apparently. Having fallen behind, you turn to locate him, seeing him stood in the centre of the Lot, looking up at the sky. His eyes brimming with tears, and his palms held upwards.

“Bravo?” you inquire, your nose crinkling in confusion. That is, until a fat dollop of rain plops down at your feet. Another, then another, in quick succession.  

“It’s raining,” Bravo breathes disbelievingly, awed eyes tipped up towards the sky.

Indeed, the sky is cracking, a building deluge finally fracturing this stifling, oppressive heat. It begins to pour, and everyone else around runs immediately for cover as the water begins to soak them beyond a light relief from the heat – begins to soak them to their skin.

You tug on Bravo’s arm, keen to shelter him too - but he is firmly rooted to the spot. He simply looks at you, repeating his words all over again. “It’s raining.”

You understand suddenly, as soon as you deign to read between the lines.

This is symbolic for him. This is his relieving downpour after a drought. This is his serendipitous portent. His epiphany. This the allegory for his relief. For the way he might grow again; refreshed after the rains. This is his coincidence. His full circle. His new beginning. His cheesy movie climax.

You look on, and you see it plainly now. You see that his passion is reignited; but apparently, it wasn’t a spark that he needed. It was a flood. He just had to release the dam he’d held back for so long. Let himself feel. It must be such a relief, alike to the cool sluice of water down your body.

As the summer rain relieves you of the heat, Bravo looks at you as if you are magic, even as the force of it bedraggles you.

And, you could dare say, in this Summer Rain, as his gaze delivers a wordless monologue, that you fall in love with him all over again.

You take his hand and you revel in his rebirth. No camera trickery or CGI needed – not this time. This is the real thing.

You can feel it. The best thing is, you know that he can finally feel it too.

With a rush of gratitude, he pulls you into a sopping hug, and you rock with him in this moment, your figures cutting a strange scene.

“Are you a bath or shower person, Bravo?” you ask gently, after what feels like an appropriate interval.

“Hmm. I like bubble baths, I guess,” he responds in evident confusion.

At his answer, your smile grows so wide that your face aches.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 313: Deku VS Lady Nagant

Previously on BnHA: Hawks’s super-hot badass murder senpai Lady Nagant showed up to fire a cupid’s arrow into my heart, and a bunch of literal bullets into my son. Deku was all “oh shit it’s Hawks’s super-hot badass murder senpai, what do I do, let me think back to Hawks’s advice for a sec.” Flashback!Hawks was all “anyway Deku so if my super-hot badass murder senpai ever shows up you’re basically screwed so you’d better abscond the fuck out of there.” Present!Deku was all “lol idek why I flashed back to that conversation since I’m just going to do the exact opposite of what Hawks said” and charged directly toward Nagant because WHY NOT. Overhaul was all “waah I need to get back to my boss who I put in a coma out of love” and Nagant was all “jesus christ why did I even bring you here” and had a flashback to AFO who was all “ILU NAGANT IMMA GIVE YOU AN EXTRA QUIRK SO PLEASE CAPTURE DEKU FOR ME PLEASE AND THANKS” and yeah. Shit is all over the place right now and I love it.

Today on BnHA: All Might gets attacked by a pair of discount assassins and is all “Call an ambulance! ...BUT NOT FOR ME” and it’s really badass but also I really wish he would stop tempting fate like this. Lady Nagant is all “[casually flies around town shooting shit]” and I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t read an entire chapter of just that. Deku is all, “[gets shot (≥_<)]” and releases a giant Smokescreen which prompts En to show up. En is all, “( •᷄⌓•᷅ ) (⌣̀ Δ⌣́) ( •̀_•́ )σ (¬､¬) (눈_눈)” which I consider to be a high point of both the chapter and of my life. The chapter ends with Deku using the Third’s quirk to launch a bunch of random objects at Nagant so that he can jump up and grab her arm all sneaky-like, and I’m sure this is going to prompt another week’s worth of discourse that I don’t care about at all, but fuck it, I’m having a good time.

OH WE’RE CUTTING BACK TO ALL MIGHT WELL THAT’S NICE I GUESS. CONGRATS ON NOT BEING DEAD

you named your car??

you named it Hercules??

I love you so much??

please marry me you giant fucking dork???

lmao speaking of huge fucking dorks

who the fuck are you clowns. la dee da we’re gonna murder All Might with our synchronized spear attack!! I mean... they’re clearly trying their best... maybe I should just be nice and politely hype them up like All Might is so clearly trying to do

like okay, but we all agree that this is actually the least intimidating attack any of us has ever seen, right?? these guys zipped up their hoodies all serious-like and are trying to attack All Might and Hercules with their Walmart tiki torches, but just, no?? right?? like the only way this could possibly be effective is if they were trying to kill All Might with secondhand embarrassment

“those are assassins” this is a VERY generous assessment, All Might

OH MY GOD THE TIKI TORCHES ACTUALLY KILLED THE FUCK OUT OF HERCULES

[slaps roof of car] this baby can fit so many weaponized festive backyard lighting solutions in it

and yet, even after watching this with my own two eyes, I still can’t take these dudes seriously. idek what it is. anyways r.i.p. Hercules, I loved you a lot but I guess you weren’t actually a very good armored car were you

omg they didn’t know it was All Might??

okay 1) for a moment there I was like “oh hey maybe they’re not so bad after all” but then a moment later it was like “ah nope, they are.” like, that was an interesting .06 second emotional journey there. anyways 2) All Might you have my permission to kick their asses for this disrespect, and 3) anyone else all of a sudden getting “wouldn’t this be an interesting time for Stain to suddenly show up” vibes?? no?? just me???

(ETA: hmm tbh I’ve still got those vibes and they haven’t gone away lol. Stain?? you out there buddy?? do you want to be cool for just once in your life. ball’s in your court pal.)

OH SNAP ALL MIGHT ARE YOU REALLY GONNA DO IT ARE YOU GONNA KICK THEIR ASSES

PROTECTIVE DAD MODE ACTIVATED?? BECAUSE YOU KNOW I’M HERE FOR THAT SHIT, SO YEAH, FEEL FREE

omg he’s shouting at them about how much Deku has suffered lmao and they’re just like falling over from being scolded

so they have absolutely no idea what he’s talking about though, right? “SIR THIS IS A WENDY’S” well whatever, you killed his pet car so he’s in a bad mood now

OH MY GOD

LIKE, JUST SO WE’RE ALL CLEAR, THESE FOUR PAGES SO FAR HAVE MADE ALMOST ZERO SENSE. LIKE MAYBE 2% SENSE TOPS. BUT ASK ME IF I CARE. GO AHEAD AND ASK. I SAID GO AHEAD, IT’S OKAY. ...NO I DON’T CARE AT ALL THANK YOU FOR ASKING

(ETA: also, the more I look at this panel, the more I’m just like, why the hell would you phrase it like that though, sob. way to doubly tempt fate?? are you trying to give Horikoshi a challenge??)

and now back to Deku who is randomly bouncing around the city and narrating it to himself just in case he was confused about why he was doing this

who are you talking to Deku. but thanks we appreciate it

man you gotta love that overconfidence. the smartest guy in the world warned you away from this lady, so SURE, LET’S RUN RIGHT UP TO HER. “I APPRECIATE YOUR INPUT, FLASHBACK!HAWKS, BUT I’LL TAKE IT FROM HERE” well okay then!!

I think it would be funny if RHA.com put little Buzzfeed-style polls in between the chapter pages so they could survey people at random intervals as they read their way through the chapter. like, you finish this page and then there’s a little poll there asking “do you think Deku’s plan of catching up to Lady Nagant and finding out where Shigaraki is will work?”, and you click “no” just like everyone else and then nod as the results show that 97% of your fellow readers also picked “no”, and you chuckle to yourself wondering how many of the 3% accidentally clicked on the wrong option by mistake, and then you keep on reading

ANYWAY, SO

HOW’S THAT PLAN WORKING OUT FOR YOU SO FAR DEKU. nice kick, though!!

omggggggg

ouch

update: Deku’s plan not really working out. sources tell me my boy has been fucking shot. this is an ongoing story and we will keep you posted with the latest developments as they come in

wait what

feel free to explain to the rest of us what all of this “UNLESS...” and “THAT POSSIBILITY...” shit means anytime, Deku

oh lol did he realize she could fly??

BREAKING NEWS UPDATE, CNN’s John King reports that Deku is still fucked. eyewitness reports now coming in that Nagant is doing no-look shots and basically not even giving a fuck. sources described her mannerisms and expression as “sexy, but in like an effortless sort of way.” we will continue to bring you the latest

so now there’s basically an entire page of Deku being all “ah fuck so she’s basically closing in and she could already hit me with impossible accuracy even from Far Away, so if that’s the case then her being Up Close is probably going to be even worse!” making good use of that Big Hero Brain there, Deku

so now what, you’re doing some kind of spiraling kick thing?? how is that going to help

oh lol he’s using Smokescreen to create some cover. aww, good for you Deku you named one of your Smokescreen attacks

OH NO LADY DON’T TELL ME AFO DIDN’T EVEN FILL YOU IN ON THE BASICS

seriously, AFO?? you basically told her what Deku’s exact strategy was going to be but then couldn’t be assed to drop that little, small, barely notable piece of knowledge that Deku is rocking multiple quirks?? is it supposed to be a secret or something?? you dropped the ball here man

damn this is getting intense now

(ETA: the way En is poking Deku’s head in that first panel is fucking sending me, I love this guy so much omg.)

well then what are you planning, Deku?? I’m actually really curious!! I am genuinely starting to be invested in this fight scene not only in the “wanting to see who wins and how that impacts the plot” sense, but also in the “wanting to see how it happens because the choreography and strategy is actually pretty cool” sense, which honestly hasn’t happened for quite a while now! this is fun

anyway so what’s up Deku, are you going to use another quirk?? I’ve been speculating that he hasn’t actually unlocked the last two yet (since Two and Three didn’t exactly seem convinced when we last saw them), but maybe I’m about to be proven wrong

(ETA: well he clearly has Three’s obviously, but Two’s is still MIA, and that’s the one I am of course the most curious about. that’s the one we’re all curious about, let’s be real.)

OH SNAP???

AHHHH I’M HYPED LOL. ANOTHER SHINY NEW QUIRK LOL SHOULD I PUT UP THE USUAL DISCOURSE DISCLAIMER

(ETA: so yeah, after thinking on it, I’m not gonna say “please no Deku discourse on my blog” this week, but I probably will ignore any discourse that does come my way though, just because I don’t have much interest in getting involved in what would probably be a pretty repetitive discussion. like, I can just sum up my opinions (which is what they are) here instead. in fact here they are lol:

1) I like the SIXQUIRKS and I like seeing Deku be a badass.

2) I also don’t think Deku is too OP. more like he’s exactly as OP as he needs to be at the moment, given that we’re approaching the end of the series. I expect the other kids will also be pretty damn OP when we see them fight again. we’re just at that point now where they’re all badasses (as well they should be; they’ve grown a lot and they deserve it). it’s just that Deku’s the one we’re getting to see right now.

3) of course I miss Kacchan and the others, but for me this vibes much closer to the MVA arc where even though I missed them, I was still having a blast (as opposed to the dark days of the Basement arc where I was pretty much losing it lol). like, even though Kacchan’s my favorite, I still love Deku a lot and this arc has been amazing for him getting to shine on his own (for like the first time, really).

4) y’all know I love the OFA plot and I’ve never been shy about that lol. I like all of the Vestiges a lot. Banjou and his over the top personality; En and his “guy you thought would be serious and :| all the time but is actually hyper-animated and ALL OVER THE PLACE” energy; Shiro who actually is a :| sort of guy lol; Three who I still expect will be fleshed out in a more detailed flashback at some point; and of course Two, who, well. you know what I think about him lol. Bakuverse is still on the table and I’m still hyped. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we still have yet to see Two actually talk to Deku (as opposed to talking to the other Vestiges while Deku is distracted). did he lend him his power yet?? or is he still holding out?? either way it’s definitely going to be a Big Thing when it finally happens and I can’t wait to see it.

5) Lady Nagant is Everything and just because Deku grabbed her arm doesn’t mean the fight is over yet lol. Overhaul hasn’t come into play yet either. not to mention that even if the fight is over, the “where do we go from here” part still has me excited either way. her connection to Hawks and the HPSC is very intriguing and we’ve barely touched on that as of yet; she definitely has more of a role to play in this.

6) last but not least, I feel like every week the discussion is all about how much focus Deku’s getting, and how OP he is or isn’t, and OFA this and OFA that, but meanwhile I’m actually so invested in the character development here though?? the way Deku has distanced himself from everyone (except for the Vestiges, because of course they’re already dead so it’s not like they can die again lol)?? the way he’s pushing himself far too hard and we can see the shadows in and under his eyes, and the fact that he never smiles, and even All Might has remarked on how he isn’t taking care of himself at all?? the fact that he’s so single-mindedly obsessed with focused on stopping AFO?? the fact that he’s still the same sweet old Deku despite everything and was so kind to that fox lady with the umbrella, but there was also something so sad about that scene because it felt like a reminder of the type of hero that he wants to be, but that he’s not allowed to be right now?? because the stakes are too high and the world is falling apart?? and he feels like he’s the only one who can do something about it?? and that he has to be?? and that he is putting so much pressure on himself right now, and it’s absolutely too much pressure for any one person to bear, and I feel like no one is fucking talking about this lol goddammit.

anyway so yeah. I have feels about this, and every week that slow-burn angst is getting more and more intense behind the scenes, and I feel like it’s all going to hit a breaking point eventually. sooner rather than later. it really feels like a mirror of Katsuki’s post-Kamino arc. where all that angst was just churning below the surface for like twenty chapters and then it finally was like “okay it’s time” and it all came bursting out and we got the best five chapters of the fucking series (in my admittedly biased estimation lol).

basically, I know that most of fandom is billing this as either the “villain hunt” arc or the “solo Deku SIXQUIRKS fighting arc” or whatever. but for me, it’s always been and still is the Deku Angst arc lol. the cool fights are a sexy bonus (the worldbuilding less so because even though it’s interesting to see society at such a low point, it’s also very depressing and gets old pretty fast), but for me the thing that’s really keeping me engaged chapter after chapter is seeing Deku like we’ve never seen him before. seeing him all quiet and withdrawn and brooding and focused on AFO, AFO, AFO, and seeing that “he just doesn’t take himself into account” mentality taken to extremes. I am invested in that. I’m soaking up that angst each and every week, and I’m invested in seeing what comes of it. it’s a big picture thing. week to week this arc might just seem like a bunch of villain fight scenes, sure. but Deku’s emotional journey is the thread that’s going to carry this arc through from beginning to end, and for that I’m willing to be patient.

anyway that turned into a BIG OL’ RANT there but yeah! so those are my thoughts on the disk horse as it currently stands. and like I said, I’m open to discussion, but tbh I will probably just wind up repeating these same talking points endlessly so just a fair warning lol.)

anyway so Three says Deku has yet to use his quirk at ALL but now he’s trying to combine it with another quirk?? damn. also please check out En’s face here you guys

En launching a sneak attack up my favorite character list by the sheer power of his expressions alone. he really knows how to make the most of his screentime

OH DAMN DEKU

at this point the 3% from that hypothetical poll earlier are starting to feel prettttty damn smug, I’ll bet. well shit

what in the fuck

?? so like releasing his chi or whatnot?? isn’t that basically just like base OFA all over again?? also Deku did you seriously just apologize to Gran’s cape

update: Nagant has turned her eyeball into a gun

hm. hmmmmmmm. ...okay yep, still somehow sexy

anyway so she’s just floating up there building suspense, as one does. lord I sure hope she has good reflexes because something tells me she’s going to need them

OH SNAP HE THREW GRAN’S CAPE AS A DECOY WHAAAAT OKAY THAT’S SOME SMART SHIT DEKU

LOL SHE’S MAD NOW

JESUS CHRIST SHE JUST NEVER TAKES A GODDAMN BREAK FROM BEING AWESOME HUH

DEKU ARE YOU JUST THROWING EVERY DAMN THING IN YOUR INVENTORY

but without the cape and the hood how will you continue to look like an enigmatic badass. you really can’t. which means we might finally be moving on from the wandering nomad part of this arc, stay tuned

LOL YOU MANIAC

I hope he went full Kacchan with the dialogue there. his face sure looks like it lol. popped out of a building all mad fdskljlkj omg

well this was fun, shit. I still have basically no idea what Three’s quirk does though lol. like, can he use it to charge up objects with kinetic energy or something?? but then what was all of that talk about combining it with one of the other quirks?? or was that just because he was using Smokescreen at the same time??

(ETA: having seen and read an additional half-dozen explanations of Three’s quirk, I can say with confidence that I still have basically no idea what it is or does.)

anyway so!! Deku is a badasssssss but something tells me not to count Nagant out just yet even so. also I really enjoy seeing Deku flip out on people like he doesn’t have a fucking hole in his torso because it reminds me of A CERTAIN SOMEONE and I always love to see him channeling that feral energy; I feel like it’s been a while

anyways good luck to you both!! I truly wish that both of you could win. but if not, then maybe you can at least become friends instead. you have so much in common, you both can fly and have multiple quirks and you’re both badasses, and plus it would just be really funny to see the look on Hawks’s face lmao

[leviiattacks]

Two Faced | Chapter Ten

↳ levi ackerman, the very person who was about to kindly behead you by a surprising turn of events manages to become your loving husband? you would be elated if this was true love, but it’s all thanks to a mysterious magic spell that your life is spared, for now at least.

pairing :: duke!levi x duchess!reader genre :: royal au ??? (at this point idek) angst, fluff, slice of life etc ?? word count :: 4k author note :: haha.... wowww it's been long since i last updated. honestly my physical and mental health have just been horrible... that's about it, i lost a lot of motivation but if you're still reading i am very thankful and i will try to deliver the story well. i tried my best but writing whilst sick is very tiresome :-) tags :: @patience-is-here​ , @chwlogy​ , @a--nonymousse​ , @imkumichan​ 

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Keeping yourself cooped up within Levi's estate and never daring to step a foot outside should have been what you had done. Blackmailing him to keep you confined within the walls of your bedroom would be much better compared to the problem you have to resolve now. Perhaps if you had done so you wouldn't have collided face first into this muddle.

Jean fiddles with the ends of his button up, he doesn't take the chance to glance up at any of his superiors. He's either much too embarrassed or has nothing noteworthy to start off with.

Erwin chooses to call the shots seeing as neither you or the Viscount by your side wish to begin.

"You both understand why we're here. Correct me if I'm wrong?" The Commander looks between you, Jean and your unfortunate excuse of a husband. Suddenly it looks as if the gears and cogs in Jean's brain move without warning.

Offering a demure nod you expect for him to follow in your footsteps and do the same only he stands there looking between you and Levi.

"Wait...The two of you are? A couple?" Stunned isn't the word, Jean's completely flabbergasted.

"If you figured that out this late, I do not understand why Erwin sees you remotely fit for my team." Levi's beyond insulted at the fact he's only just understood the situation.

Jean, now more intimidated than ever before straightens his back and coughs clumsily, "Sorry." He murmurs chestnut eyes making contact with the hardwood floors.

The Commander's laced hands sit atop his desk, elegant fingers moving similar to honey on a spoon. He sighs not out of fatigue but pride. Whatever plan he's come up with has to be decent at the very least, his body language is telling you that much.

"We have a number of possibilities we can choose from. We owe that pleasure to Mr Kirstein here." Erwin offers him an almost cynical smile, you can't help but gulp thinking about how this is essentially your fault. With all the constant training sessions and team building tasks it makes sense for Jean to have completely forgot about your unspoken rule. Solely blaming him is incorrect.

Raising your arm above your head to intervene you make it known that you're aware of Levi shooting you a look of warning by returning it. It's best he knows you don't care for anyone's opinion let alone his.

"Permission to speak Commander?"

Your request is agreed to immediately with the wave of  Erwin's hand.

"It's my fault for not reminding Jean. I'll take the blame, I hadn't even told him the full story concerning me and Levi."

Levi doesn't enjoy your defense in the slightest. "I don't expect my wife to fling herself at other men and allow for them to snoop around gathering the details of our personal lives."

Scoffing you shield yourself with your arms over your chest.

"Oh dear husband. If you want to get personal do tell me where my family is?" It's an inside joke only Levi will be able to understand.

"If you call those people family your standards are disgustingly low."

"Maybe that explains why I settled for you."

Again, other's opinions are not at the forefront of your priority list. Regardless it's quite enjoyable pushing Levi further into a corner with that sentence. You see the internal struggle play out within him. Jaw clenched, hands balled together. He doesn't have an appropriate response

Jean bursts out unable to hold it in any longer, chest trembling with every quake of laughter that ripples through him you have to shove him with your elbow. For a Viscount his etiquette sure is nonexistent.

"My word, the two of you sound like..."

Levi stares at him most probably expecting something along the lines of "An old married couple."

But, no. It's nothing anyone in the room expects. That includes you.

"It's as if you're unhappy with each other..."

Not a noise is made after that. Jean isn't mistaken, your heart is miserable. You've never had many relationships to begin with, whether it be familial, romantic or platonic and for someone such as your husband to treat you the way he does - it feels futile having to navigate around the complexities. Even if he isn't really your husband it's disappointing to reflect on your marriage so suddenly.

Feeling your face droop a little you bite your bottom lip with your teeth. Hearing the truth from someone you barely expect to hear it from has an effect on you.

You're so caught up analyzing everything it takes you a minute to even register Levi grumbling and lunging forward pilfering the collar of Jean's shirt.

"Every day you prove to be more and more pathetic than I expect." Levi turns to look at you after that. His stare bores into you but he doesn't come off threatening, you assume his last remark is directed solely at Jean.

When he turns back only glaring at Jean now with even more tenacity than before. He's ready to snap but Erwin has clearly had enough of the unwanted altercation in his office.

"Enough. The both of you. This is most bothersome." At the Commander's orders Levi is silenced although it takes all of his resolve to do so.

Finally bothering you take a good look at Jean. He's calm in an incredibly out of character way.

Is this not the man who trembled in his boots the first time he and Levi came into contact? It's almost as if he seems pleased with himself for drawing out such a reaction from his Captain.

Erwin shuffles through stacks of paperwork on his desk. The man needs an assistant at this point. You doubt you could find anything in that haphazard pile. Edges of crumpled paper poke out uncomfortably and Erwin becomes increasingly annoyed when he can't locate what it is he's looking for.

Just as you're about to ask if he requires any assistance it seems he's found what he's been looking for, that's if his eyes are any indication of the relief he feels.

"This." He holds up the paper, all eyes in the room are trained on it. "Under normal circumstances would not have to become an option."

"But these aren't normal circumstances?" Jean's thoughtless question is irksome when the answer is so obviously staring him down in the face.

Nonetheless Erwin nods incapable of losing his cool over something so minor.

"Sign to confirm to my proposition."

The document he places onto the desk isn't what you imagine, you can practically feel the dread climb up your throat once you're done scanning it. Jean's full name placed right next to yours in bold lettering has your stomach lurching. You don't have to read the rest to understand the new circumstances you've landed into.

To make matters worse Erwin places two rings down right in front of the both of you.

A pot of boiling hot water is what you've been thrown in.

Are you supposed to be some sort of replacement for potatoes? What's Jean in this scenario? Carrots?

"It is troublesome to have the two of you put on an act to be involved with one another but I see it as our safest option." Erwin notices your parted lips and slacked jaw. "You need not worry this isn't a marriage contract, you're simply acting."

There's no path out of this pot, you and Jean will simply have to deal with the prospect of being boiled alive.

Ah, you forgot to mention who would act as the hot water but you're sure the suspect is obvious.

Even right now Levi's fury radiates off of him, it's unclear if he was given the details of the Commander's plan beforehand but if his furrowed brow and pursed lips are indicators of the truth he must have had no idea.

Your suspicions are confirmed to be correct once Levi reaches forward plucking the paper away, it just so happens he's snatched it away the very moment Jean leans in to get a closer look at it.

"I was never informed of this."

Erwin gives him a guarded smile. "Do you have any jurisdiction over what I think is best?" Is his freezing reply.

"Yes. When it concerns my wife and another man - Correction. I meant boy."

Jean's taken aback by the subtle jab and shamefacedly shoves his hands into his pockets.

You watch the scene go down with a perplexed look the entire time. Levi's frustration seems to be legitimate yet he has no logical reason for it to ever be present in the first place. Unless he has a plan which outperforms the one you've just been given he's doing this all for nothing.

"I assure you your wife is in safe hands so long as you stop interfering."

Levi's about to bark back until he catches your confusion. He's become aware of your tilted head and telling expression and only then does he silence himself permanently not before sighing deeply, muttering an expletive under his breath.

 "I’ll sign it.” That seems to be Jean’s indirect way of asking what your choice will be.

“I... will too.” Is your hesitant reply.

Levi only becomes avoidant after that. Half way through Erwin explaining how you and Jean have to look believable Levi just ups and leaves without a word. Perhaps you've hurt his pride but for what he's done to you it's a small price to pay and so you do nothing to make amends. He has no reason to feel uncomfortable, you aren't really his wife, you're essentially strangers. Does he even know your favourite colour? Your favourite food? Your favourite pastime?  

You doubt he does.

Jean and you are rather successful with your act. It feels pleasant having him brush your hair out of your face occasionally or lovingly place a hand on your forehead to check if you've come down with a fever. He laces his fingers with yours when others are around and when they aren't he lets the act go. It's satisfying having a cooperative partner.

Naturally Jean is still a tease, even now he makes the odd suggestive comment or two in passing but you can't say you hate it. In fact it excites you to think of a response that borders the edge of teasing and simple fun between friends.

The increasing openness between the two of you is enough for the cadets to deduce that he's most probably the noble man you wed in secrecy.

It's only been a few days since yours and Jean's newfound behaviour, thankfully you haven't been flooded with questions just yet. The higher ups sit nearby during breakfast, lunch and dinner keeping watch over the cadets. It leaves you able to eat and drink without having to handle the constant inquiring of your comrades.

However, you aren't as lucky today. A meeting's taking place and after yours and Jean's convincing act Erwin deems it safe enough to leave you unattended for a short while.

Of course it doesn't go according to plan because when you're involved when does anything ever go according to plan?

The cadets are flocked around your table at dinner as soon as they notice they've been left to their own devices. The opportunity to sit down without everyone invading your space is barely provided to you. Krista is sat to your right leaning into you rather animatedly, Annie has made herself at home sat across you which in itself is completely out of character and slightly unnerving, Annie never and you repeat never concerns herself with you.

"Why did you and Jean hide it?" Armin hovers over your shoulder as per usual. He can't be blamed for naturally being inquisitive and it does give you the opportunity to lay out the foundations of your plan. Now's your time to muster up one of your rehearsed responses.

"It would interfere with work." You respond immediately wanting to appear natural. Pondering on an answer for too long would raise suspicions.

Armin makes a sound of approval and shuffles into the seat next to Krista, that is until Ymir can be overheard telling him to move if he knows what's best for him.

"I have a question." Says a voice across the table, you don't have to look at the blonde parallel to you to know it's her.

For once Annie’s initiated a conversation with you, she’s not particularly great at keeping her intentions discreet. Maybe she doesn’t care if you can tell what she’s up to? But if that’s the case her plan isn’t all that foolproof, there's no way you're to let any details slip away.

Sharply inhaling waiting for what it is she has to say you find that her sentence never comes. Instead she shakes her head and murmurs a "Never mind.". You don't even have the time to ask her to stick around, she's already rose from her seat taking her unfinished plate of food with her, you let her go assuming she feels unwell.

"So how'd you two meet? Jean already told me earlier but I'd like to hear your side." Reiner's taken Annie's empty seat and his gaze is unwavering. The trap they've set up is a clever one. Surveying the hall for Bertholdt you know he has to be observing too. The two never operate alone.

You suddenly hate Reiner. For whatever reason he and his trio are endlessly obsessed with you, they've caught onto something that's for sure but you don't know what it is and now they've completely ensnared you with a backhanded trick. There's no way out of this, you have no idea what it is Jean said to Reiner, the chances of you providing the exact same answer are slim to none.

"My memory is really fuzzy, I don't think Jean gave off much of a first impression so I've forgot." Your horrible excuse doesn't fly by, everyone simultaneously narrows their eyes in disbelief. What you've said isn't convincing at all.

Husband and Wife yet you've forgot how the two of you met?

Fidgeting with the ring adorning your finger the cool metal isn't doing a great job at alleviating the pressure of the situation.

"Jean said the two of you hit it off almost instantly. Who's being dishonest?"

Reiner's either lying to catch you out or he's saying the God honest truth and right now all you can do is hope and pray for a miracle to sweep you off your feet. Mikasa and Jean still aren't within view. At this point you're hoping for Levi to save you, it doesn't matter how so long as you escape unscathed.

"Hey, I think we're just making her anxious with all the questions." Armin is quick to side with you, deep down you know he only does so due to the respect he holds for his Commander. You thank the Heaven's for Erwin's admirable smile and commendable leadership, it seems to be the only reason Armin believes you and Jean.

"Or she's lying." Reiner's resting his head in one of his palms, he's still boring holes right into your frame.

Your eye twitches, this is all unnecessary and uncalled for, whatever it is Reiner wants out of you it better be worthwhile.

He still eggs you on. "You walked out of the Captain's quarters. I saw you."

Standing up and leaning forward you plant your feet to the ground as firmly as you can you.

"And if she did what's it to you?"

Fighting the urge to sigh in relief you've never been happier to hear Jean's voice but something's off. His breathing sounds heavy - like he fought his way to get inside. Turning only then do you notice Mikasa standing by him. She looks equally as exhausted. There's been some sort of a struggle.

"You think it was funny getting Annie to guard the door?" He heaves and runs a frustrated hand through his hair.

"And you think hiding secrets from the rest of us is any better?" Reiner's adamant there's information that the both of you are hiding, he's not wrong but that doesn't change that he's challenging you unprovoked without a reasonable motive.

"We're hiding nothing." Unlike you Jean is sure of his words, he's confident speaking up and he seems to be able to pull off the role of a protective husband perfectly.

“I came out of the Captain’s quarters because he had access to hot water. He said I could use his shower. That’s all it was.”

Reiner quirks an eyebrow upwards and is pleased with your answer. God you’ve said something incriminating haven’t you? It's not incriminating per se but it's without doubt malleable and easy to twist.

“Jean, you were okay with your wife doing that at the dead of night?” Reiner's still leading the interrogation.

“I was the one who suggested it.”

“I don’t believe you’re a couple." If it were Reiner who said that you wouldn't care much, after all it's pretty clear he never believed it but to your displeasure it isn't him who's spoken. Ymir's lopsided grin is all knowing and you're beginning to lose your footing in this argument any second now if any more people start to side against you.

If Ymir disagrees that almost certainly means Krista has her qualms about you too, you've observed beforehand that Ymir tends to speak for Krista on occasion. This happens to be one of those times.

Krista timidly raises her hand and Ymir gives her an approving nod encouraging her to speak.

"I don't like the conflict going on but it is suspicious..."

"Why have I only ever seen you two hold hands?" She asks.

Ymir slings her arm over Krista's shoulder affectionately. "Yeah, I tell Krista I'll marry her every day of the week."

Mikasa mumbles something unintelligible, Ymir gives her a look of warning but Mikasa doesn't seem to care. Instead she repeats what she has to say loud and clear.

"Stick to only speaking when Krista is involved."

Krista holds Ymir by her arm so she doesn't get up, she knows how she gets when she's been provoked. Even if Krista has her suspicions it isn't worth Ymir gaining a permanent penalty point on her record.

Thankfully Armin cuts in. "There's no solid evidence to show they're lying and even if they are the Commander's most probably told them to. Don't you think there's a reason? Leave it be if that's the case. I trust him with our lives."

"We have a right to know." Annie's returned and insists to keep this back and forth going.

Just as you're about to fire back Jean takes a hold of your waist, you look down and seeing his large hands planted securely around your frame has your stomach bubbling with anticipation.

"What are you— "

And then he kisses you, he doesn't ask and instinctively your arms move to whack his chest but you stop yourself in time. You realize it's for the sake of your plan not falling through and so you gently place your hands on his shoulders attempting to ground yourself. It becomes increasingly difficult when you sink deeper into the kiss than you'd like to admit. Blood rushes to the tips of your ears and the thumping of your heartbeat makes it difficult to articulate any thoughts, all you really know is that you like this, whatever this is.

Jean's hands don't feel like they were made to rest against your back, they feel slightly out of place as if he's a key and you're an unmatched lock. In spite of that the circles he comfortingly rubs into the sides of your waist are appreciated, you almost forget you're in a room full of people until you're flooded by cold air.

You've been dragged off of Jean and something in the pit of your stomach has you wishing Levi isn't responsible for the interruption.

To your relief it's just Hange, they're glowing in mischief, the grin on their face shows they aren't mad. They might even find this entertaining.

"Well I be damned... maybe they weren't bluffing?" Connie's been persuaded by the looks of it and Krista's busy whispering to Ymir, you hear the faint sound of the word "Romantic" escape her lips, she's equally as convinced as Connie.

Hange smacks your back light-heartedly and looks to the door for a second. "We leave ya' both for a while and you decide to give everyone a show?"

Erwin's stood by the doorway with a humorous smile playing at his lips, Levi however is anything but amused, he glares at you with murderous eyes, he looks like he's ready to end your life then and there but you know he won't dare do so and for a second you feel braver than you ever have before. Without much thought you grab onto Jean's forearm.

"Me and my husband will get going now!" You allow your gaze to loiter when you get to Reiner. He grunts an apology and you're oh so tempted to ask him to repeat himself but you'd rather not instigate anything.

With that said and done you and Jean leave after giving the performance of your lives.

Slowly but gradually the sky outside becomes dark.

The will to sleep left your body long ago. It's by pure luck that you even manage to catch three hours of rest. Training is the only available distraction and dying out in battle isn't favourable by any means, your boredom may as well be used resourcefully - Strapping yourself up in your ODM gear is the best option.

A quarter way through your warm up you can sense a presence behind you, the leaves rustle and the wind feels noticeably quieter. You'd bother to turn around to see who's intruded but Levi's snuck close enough for you to be able to smell his perfume from where you're stood.

"Feel disrespected? Embarrassed even?" You jab at him knowing it'll rile him up, you don't face him not wanting to give him the pleasure of seeing your face.

"Watch your mouth." he warns sharply.

Rolling your eyes you go about your business, it stays that way for a few minutes. All the while Levi stares at you darting from tree to tree, his scrutinizing gaze scalding you repeatedly.

"Y/N!" He yells at the top of his lungs.

For some unknown reason you automatically stop and lower yourself to the ground

"I have something to tell you." Comes his tense follow up. A finger of his latches onto one of the leather straps on your back.

You can't believe he's still denying the undeniable.

"You can wait till tomorrow. I'll be going to bed."

Levi doesn't seem to care for your cold response and proceeds with no warning.

"I'm jealous." His voice shakes. The grip he has on your harness doesn't let up. With your back turned to him you're still somehow able to detect the very obvious crack of pain.

Levi, jealous?

Gritting your teeth together you feel deceived.

How much longer will you have to tolerate Levi's push and pull?

“May I ask, what he is to you, my love?”

Your breathing grows heavy, tensing up you're completely shocked by the term of endearment that falls from his lips. You haven't heard it for so long, Levi sounds eerily different.

You hate to admit it but a flicker of foolish hope lights in your chest.

"Levi why would you ask— "

"Why don't you call me Lev anymore?" He whispers sounding strangled. You can't take it anymore and hesitantly look his way.

His eyes are filled with tears "I'm sorry my love, I don't know what went wrong." you falter for a second not knowing what to think.

At that moment the flicker becomes a flame.

The man who stands right before you is meant to be dead, never to be seen again. By all accounts this should be impossible, but Lev has always been a fighter.

Bitterness stings your heart, the wounds you've collected are still fresh but despite your body's protests you don't flinch when he gently takes a hold of your wrist, bringing it closer to his mouth.

"Lev...? Is that really you...?" You ask desperately.

The warm kiss he presses against your pulse point provides you with the answer you've been longing for.

[just-some-random-blogger]

Curse Of The Tiger King

NCT King!Jung Jaehyun x Zoologist!Reader Characters: Jung Jaehyun, Lee Donghyuck (Haechan), Kim Dongyoung (Doyoung), some tigers n stuff. Summary: Jung Jaehyun was known as the Tiger King of the Joseon Era because of how many men he fearlessly killed on the battlefield that matches how many tigers he said to have killed with his bare hands. Because of this, he was cursed into a eternal life as a tiger spirit with only one way to break it. Word Count: 6k+ Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, animal abuse, war, curses, suicidal thoughts, angst, fluff, etc.

A/N: Idek my mom said the plot is weird but i dig it also listen to tiger inside by superm prolly okie thx. I honestly could have done more research on tigers but like let me live with my inaccuracies okay. Also i may do a pt2 idek

Donghyuck was thankful that it started to storm tonight. Even to the roars of thunder he was indebted to, for it meant his king would not go out and hunt at this hour.

The sycophant adviser Moon Taeil argued with Donghyuck constantly that he was trying to constrain the King of their nation his rights to a glorious hunt of tigers. Why must he dissuade the hunts of the King when he was doing the people a favor and destroying the monsters that could come into their towns and each their children?

It took a lot for Donghyuck not to roll his eyes at the blatant excuse that old minister Taeil had to get the king’s favor. Never in his life had he even heard of a tiger willingly coming out of the wilderness close to human territory had it not been forced out.

It was not that Donghyuck felt sympathy towards tigers either. I mean, who did in this era? It was just that Donghyuck worried the king would strain himself if he immediately goes hunting after just defeating a fleet of usurpers with his army.

He knew how frenzied the king got after drawing blood.

Donghyuck, as the king's right hand man, had a responsibility to keep the nation's sole rule sane.

"Stop worrying," the king said to Donghyuck who was stood not too far behind him.

"I always worry about you, Jaehyun hyung."

Behind closed doors, Donghyuck and Jaehyun were brothers forged by time and not blood. If anyone could help Jaehyun keep his sense, it would be Donghyuck.

Jaehyun was in a dim lit room, kneeled in the middle in front of a slab of stone which he slid his sword back and forth from to sharpen it. Truth be told, it was a habit of his to do this every time he used his sword. But that wasn't what Donghyuck was anxious about. It was the fact Jaehyun didn't wipe the blood on his skin nor did he properly wear his royal robe that keeps goose bumps on his arms.

"It's almost your birthday, Hyuck-ah. Would you like one of my tiger pelts- ah-- should I hunt a tiger for you?" Jaehyun stops sharpening his sword and turns to Donghyuck.

The younger of the two shakes his head and replies, "I couldn't possibly ask for something from my king."

Jaehyun scoffs, "ya you bastard, tell that to all the times you made me buy you noodles when we snuck out the palace as kids."

Donghyuck cleared his throat, "that's on you though for agreeing."

The king chuckles and stands, "there's some rumors going around that there's a white tiger roaming the mountains. They say it is mightier than any ordinary tiger. What do you think? Would you like a white tiger cape?"

"You'd give me something so rare?"

Jaehyun scoffs again and rolls his eyes. He points his sword to Donghyuck, to which he the latter thinks nothing of, "why? Do you think your king is so selfish and keeps everything to himself."

Donghyuck is touched.

But he regrets how pleased Jaehyun's smile was that night. He regrets how he said they should bathe in the royal bath house together and should hunt the white tiger at the break of dawn. He knew in his bones something somehow was going to go wrong with the king.

And even with all his efforts to stay close to him, with all his looney athleticism and determination to catch that white tiger in the mountains, Donghyuck's foot got stuck and twisted upon a tree root.

Of course Jaehyun and he at this point had caught sight of the beast and had scared it off with their numbers. You couldn't possibly believe that the king would be left to hunt alone, would you? But Jaehyun had always been gifted with such immeasurable agility, and well Donghyuck spent most of his life trying to measure up to that. He could not match him however, but much less could the soldiers.

That was why Jaehyun stopped and turned to Donghyuck. He was worried for him like anyone would their younger brother since he deemed Donghyuck as such.

I suppose it was Donghyuck's mistake of trying to talk the king out of catching the white tiger. He knew out of everyone that Jaehyu didn't believe in supernatural or superstitious beliefs simply because they historically worked against his favor. Jaehyun had a knack of proving people wrong with his sheer will, and up to now, he had done nothing but that

Donghyuck had triggered that in him when he muttered to the king, "I have a bad feeling about this hunt. We should turn back, lest you get hurt."

Jaehyun's face ignited at the posing challenge. "Nonsense, I won't let your injury heed nothing. I should definitely catch that tiger no matter what."

So Jaehyun tread off by himself. Donghyuck tried to force himself to go after him. He watched as the king got far enough that he looked like a dot. Still, Donghyuck pushed on. He propped himself up and limped as fast as he could. He thought of simply turning back, but he didn't have much of a choice when he heard the king scream and a tiger roar.

Suddenly, it was silent.

Donghyuk felt like he choked on his heart, "the king is dead."

Jaehyun doesn't remember what he saw, but he remembers what he felt. He felt excruciating pain, like his inside were being pulled from inside out. Then he felt cold. Then there was darkness.

Then he blinked his eyes open and saw the face of a white tiger. His heart dropped and he felt the need to flee. But he was unable to do nothing but wiggle like a worm. He could no longer feel his hands.

The realized then... he had no hands.

The white tiger at this point was above him. It began to lick Jaehyun's body. There was an aroma in the air he recognized as blood. Dear lord, did this tiger devour his body?

But Jaehyun felt no more pain. He tried to scream, but he was only able to make a small sound.

He heard a similar sound next to him, and soon he was kicked in the face by paws. Instinctively, he was annoyed and felt the need to fight back, but he could barely muster the strength to stand on his four feet.

Wait... he had four feet?

The white tiger who had assaulted him with its tongue, laid before him and rolled her belly, revealing pert nipples. It seemed a litter of kittens waddled towards the invitingly plush belly and began suckling. Jaehyun disagreed as it slowly sank in what was happening. He felt his belly rumble in hunger.

Somehow, this large tiger felt Jaehyun's reluctance and clumsily but softly shoved Jaehyun close to its belly. The white tiger was a mother to four cubs, and Jaehyun was one of them.

The mother tiger laid down and yawned, blinking slowly until she shut her eyes. He saw there was an available area where he could suckle in between the two cubs on the left and the one on the right.

Jaehyun screamed, but again, there was only a pathetically small sound that left his throat. After minutes of waiting, he grew weaker and found it was futile. This baby tiger body he was in much strongly disagreed with the emptiness of its stomach.

So he nursed on warm milk and he began to dream he was a white tiger cub.

Except it wasn't a dream, and he remained trapped in this body up he slowly grew stronger and stronger.

Jaehyun began to recall the voice of his mother, his real mother, in his sleep. She warned him of spirits in the rivers, in the trees, in the mountains, and how it was the king's duty to protect the people from it.

It made him think that the white tiger he was following in the mountain may have been a spirit, and this was the punishment for wanting to hunt it. That white tiger spirit made Jaehyun the cub of a real white tiger. He knew this tiger he now trusted like a mother was not the one he had been following in the forest by the mountains, simply because this forest they roamed where not by those mountains.

He knew that place like the back of his hand since he both grew up there and hunted there frequently. Jaehyun found no familiarity in the landscape here. It smelled very similar, but even in that he could tell a difference. There was a repulsive bitterness in the air he could not distinguish. It was unlike any smoke he had breathed in. He began to doubt he was even still in his Joseon borders.

What he was certain of, after moons and suns passed, was there was no way he was getting out of this body. He thought of killing the cubs, but it seems the cub-body he was in was the weakest of the four. And of course, killing the mother came into mind, but he could barely fend himself from the cubs, how could he defeat the largest of them all?

Jaehyun vowed to learn their ways and use it against them once he was large enough. One may think it despicable, especially when Jaehyun trusted the tiger mother would not harm him, but it was his only chance as he could see it.

That was until a storm struck the forest, and it awakened a vivid memory of Jaehyun. It was like his last night with Donghyuck. He had just told him he would catch a white tiger for him. They had bathed in the royal bathing house. Jaehyun shivered under his fur at the memory of the warm water Donghyuck farted it.

Donghyuck.

He could help him.

Why hadn’t he thought of looking for his friend before?

So from the dry safety of this cave they stayed in, Jaehyun ran past the licking cubs and ran into the storm. He didn't know how he could find Donghyuck, but Jaehyun thought he would probably at least find his palace... Right?

It was funny that he heard chuffing from behind. He initially thought it was the rain beating down on him or the water that got into his furry ear, but he realized it was the mother tiger calling out to him. She ran after him and snatched him by the nape to drag him back into the cave.

Jaehyun knew there was no way out of this, since this tiger had done it to him multiple times. He had to wait until she put him down before he could run again.

And she did, gently on the other cubs. Jaehyun made sure to paw the largest of the other three in the face. He was satisfied when he shook his head at the action.

The mother tiger then shook off the water on her coat just as Jaehyun did. She then thought to lie in front of the opening of the cave to block further passage, as if she knew Jaehyun would try it again.

He had to admit, this mother was intuitive, not unlike Jaehyun's own mother. Part of him couldn't help but feel pity of the dumb creature because she genuinely believed Jaehyun was her cub. If she only knew what he did to tigers in his life. She surely would not hesitate to let Jaehyun leave.

Jaehyun suddenly got his head bashed into the mother tiger's arm.

WHO DID THAT?

He turned and saw it was one of the other cubs in the litter that then made one of those playing sounds and began to batter at Jaehyun's face with its paw.

Jaehyun scoffed, you don't know I've been practicing my pouncing.

He then put his front legs down and hind legs up and aimed for the annoying cub. He then jumped to its face and began gnawing at him. Haha, serves him right.

But suddenly the fat cub joined in and went at Jaehyun and the other cub. At this point they were really going at it. Jaehyun screeched for help, knowing it would alert the mother, to which the mother tiger did then sound back a warning to the cubs which made then pull back instantly.

Serves them right.

Jaehyun decided he was too tired to run away today, and wasn't even sure how to catch prey yet, nor was he big enough to kill something larger than sparrows, so he should probably stay and learn that first.

He turned and saw that one of the other cubs were being licked, to that Jaehyun felt vexed because as far as he remembered, he was the one that got wet and needed excess water off his coat.

So he then shoved his cub brother to the side and took all the warm licks from his mother tiger.

It dawned on him why this tiger went after him. Jaehyun had been left to nothing but thinking. Mother tiger wouldn't have been upset that she only three cubs left, she would be upset because she lost one. This tiger, after all, was still a mother, aside from being a beast.

Through time, Jaehyun grew fond of her. Jaehyun realized she was very patient and her favorite food was deer. He even grew fond of the annoying cubs enough that he gave them their own names. The big oaf he named Youngho, the daintier one, Jungwoo, and the more refined one, Taeyong.

He didn't have to name his tiger mother since she was set apart, but Jaehyun decided to call her Aerum, which meant beautiful.

There was a roar of thunder in the sky one day, only it wasn't raining and there were no dark clouds. It was the first time Jaehyun felt palpable fear in this form. It was so intense he ran to his mother.

He saw something moving in the sky. Jaehyun's tiger eyes widened as he decided it was most probably a dragon. His mother did not seem to fear it, and so he thought the five of them could probably kill that dragon if it came near enough. In the clear sky, Jaehyun could not believe what he saw. He began to doubt it was a dragon all together since it looked nothing like one. It had no scales and was silvery smooth, it neither had a head to breathe fire from, nor did it have impressive flapping wings. In fact it wings didn't beat like a bird's at all, which made Jaehyun wonder how it was flying anyway.

He soon forgot about the encounter with that wannabe dragon. Jaehyun knew he had nothing to worry about anyway since he was with his mother.

That is until there was a slipping sound from not too far and it alerted everyone of them.

Jaehyun breathed in deeply and smelled something different in the air. He heard what he could never mistake, the hushed arguments of humans.

He turned to mother tiger and saw her defences were up. They were being hunted.

It somehow made Jaehyun both relieved and concerned that mother tiger knew exactly what was happening.

There was suddenly crack in the air and it made Jaehyun's hair raise. He could not distinguish the sound. It sounded something like a canon, but it was not as loud. He knew arrows would not sound as such, so it frightened him that he did not know what it was.

It all happened so quickly, so quick in fact that it made Jaehyun realize how terrifying it is to be hunted.

They were upon then. There were three hunters with blood shot eyes. Jaehyun wondered what county these people came from that they dressed so awkwardly and held black sticks wherever they went.

But then they aimed at Youngho and head was cracked open. He fell instantly without a sound, and all they could do was run.

Jaehyun heard them laugh for joy, but I knew they would not stop until they got all of us.

The cracking sounds, Jaehyun realized, came from the weapons he thought to be sticks. It smelled hot and malicious. He loathed them.

They were bought to a mountainous area. Surely they could not keep up with them if they climbed high enough. Jaehyun was perturbed when they saw the men in some sort of machine with wheels. It had to be the most terrible thing he had seen.

They thundered towards them. Jaehyun knew they were aiming for their mother. Still, they ran and ran. Jaehyun wondered if he could try and lead them astray if he separated from them. So he did and breathed heavily as he ran with all his legs.

Crack.

Crack.

Jaehyun was scared they were shooting for him but he dared to turn back and jar his teeth out. It was then he saw Jungwoo fell flat and so did Taeyong from behind. His mother was now running towards him.

Their mistake was to stop and gather Jungwoo and Taeyong's bodies. As much as it enraged Jaehyun to see them, it made mother tiger furious. She began to charge towards them, and so did Jaehyun.

The fools somehow did not know it was coming, and the three that had been on their tail were scared for their lives that they had not time to act.

She came for their throats and ripped them off with her mighty power. I came for the leg of the other that tried to flee and when he fell on his face, when for his neck as well.

Crack.

The man shot at mother but only got her leg. She tried to come for him next, but he tried again and then shot at her head. Once she was down, he shot at her again, and again, and again, and again, until he could no longer make a cracking sound with his weapon.

This was his mistake. He realized this when he and Jaehyun caught each other's eye. Jaehyun was pleased he looked terrified beyond compare.

Donghyuck always said he got into a frenzy whenever he's just gotten his sword slick with blood after he's gotten off of the battlefield or done with a hunt. But in truth it was the chase that excited him, and not what he has slain. But Jaehyun knew for certain that he was going to enjoy killing him.

Jaehyun knew he deserved to die a miserable death when he ran like a coward and didn't think to raise up one of the weapons his friends had. He was upon him, but then out came more people. They were in the same machines the three came in, and there were much more of them. Jaehyun would be a fool if he thought he could take them. He had no sword, no army. He barely had fangs and claws.

Jaehyun decided to slow down. He came to a halt when he saw these people were seemingly not on his side. They apprehended his mother’s kill. They shoved him against a tree and bound his wrists behind him. He was half pleased, he would be fully if he could rip his throat out.

But then there was you.

You came out of the same contraptions the ones who killed the tiger brothers did but you came out slowly.

You wore the same thing they did, but you held a different expression.

There was a man next to you that raised a similar weapon the other men had, but you told them to stand down.

You brought out meat. It smelled old, but it made Jaehyun realize he was so hungry. So hungry, and scared.

He knew you were trying to win him over. But he knew better than to easily trust a stranger. Then he thought of how the people on your team apprehended his mother's killer, and how you told off the man who was going to aim at him. Jaehyun decided he could take the meat you had and run.

You slowly crouched down and tossed the meat to him. Jaehyun thought it smelled unlike the meat he had eaten before but decided to eat it.

Jaehyun decided to bolt, but there was a sound of a fired arrow in the air, and he so suddenly he couldn't feel his legs.

When Jaehyun woke up, he was in a cage. It wasn't made of wood, but metal. There was food and water in a metal bowl in front of him, but he knew better than fall for that again.

He looked around the room with white lights that had no flame. There were dried plant stalk on the ground, much like a prison cell but it was only Jaehyun.

"Hi there," you spoke when you came into view. You smiled at Jaehyun’s tiger form and stuck your finger into the cage to point at the food.

Jaehyun thought if he wanted, he could bite it off.

"I'm sorry Dongyoung had to tranquilize you. I'm sure you must feel horrible."

Oh, don't try to sympathize with terms I don't understand.

"You should eat. I promise no one will shoot at you."

Jaehyun and you stare at each other. He decides he would rather get shot and join his tiger mother and brothers that live the rest of his life in this cage with you as his captor

You expected no less than the reaction you were getting. Still, you continued with what yow wanted to say, "You must feel so angered and lonely."

Jaehyun watches as you sit on the floor you stood on. He paces around the cage as you continue, "I saw what you did to the man. You tore his calf and punctured airway, suffocating him with his blood. Impressive for your size, honestly."

I would've killed his friend too had you not taken him.

"And you should know, the poacher who killed your mother is going to spend the rest his life in prison for hunting the last snow tigers in the country."

Jaehyun freezes. Hunting? Jaehyun begins to wonder then who has made the act illegal.

Could it be Donghyuk? Does that mean he ascended to the throne. That seems unprobable, when his cousin Sungchan has been eyeing the throne since he was born and Donghyuk had no desire for power. And why would Donghyuk make it illegal anyway? Could he possibly know his king was turned into a tiger?

A thousand questions ran into Jaehyun’s head.

"Don't worry, I'm fighting to pass a law that can protect you and your kin with the U.N.," you say suddenly, which further baffles Jaehyun.

Who is the world are you to have such a power? And who was this Yooen?

"Now come and eat, tiger cub. The sooner you get big and strong, the sooner we can release you back into the wild."

Based on that, Jaehyun didn't believe you at all at this point. He knew you had to at least be blantantly aware he was not a cub. Sure he was not nearly as large as his mother yet, but he was neither a defenseless suckling baby. You said it yourself, he killed a man.

You watched as the caged tiger continued to pace inside. You knew animals could feel and mourn, but somehow you felt this tiger was scheming. You knew this white tiger was still leaning into maturity, since it took a long time for him to kill the poacher. It excited you that you’d be able to spend a few months with such a rare and majestic creature.

Jaehyun decided to pretend he was going to try and trust you. He might learn a lot about his predicament from you since you shamelessly talked to the him as if he were still human.

His days began like this for a while, there would be food given everyday in what he observed to be the exact same time, and you would randomly come and talk and talk and talk and talk.

Jaehyun supposes he got on your good side when you drew him into a cage and let him into a grander setting. It was in a vast cage outside, not like the stuffy one he was originally in. Prison was still prison, but at least he couldn't see all four walls on one side.

There was initially a drawback with that. In this enclosure, as you called, you were much more present, and became more bolder. You began to touch Jaehyun, which made him shudder. How dare you touch the king of Joseon?

"You're such a drama queen," you would quip everytime Jaehyun jumped at your touch from behind the thin rodded cage.

"Maybe I should name you that, huh, drama queen," you jested. Jaehyun rolled his eyes and finished his chicken. You were bold no matter what. You were making fun of not only a white tiger, but the Tiger King. What's more, he found it annoying you gave him old chicken all the time.

"Wang," you said suddenly, which made Jaehyun stop his feeding. King, he hadn't been called that in so long.

You made a sound, "you seem to like that, huh. I guess that can be your name then, Wang."

It felt so sudden to you that Wang grew in to that what you proudly stated a fine tiger specimen. Jaehyun felt proud of himself whenever you would bring what he grew to learn were doctors who studies animals as their profession.

You and Jaehyun at this point had grown comfortable enough that Jaehyun let you sit next to him and stroke his head while he slept. It was only you though. He hated it when that Dongyoung tried to touch him, or when he tried to touch you, especially when you'd let him.

On this breezy afternoon, he was saddened as he put his chin on your thighs. He had never been so vulnerable like so with a woman. Sure he had bedded gisaengs in his time, but he wouldn't let them touch him, much less stroke his head.

It saddened him more when he realized the reason why you and the rest of the people here wore such strange things and had such strange objects was because you no longer lived in the time of Joseon. After all the stories you've told about your day to Jaehyun, he has learned hundreds of years has passed between the time he was king and now.

You now were born into the country of Korea, a nation split in two; you were in its Southern part. You cared deeply for who you called Wang because Jaehyun lived in the body of the last white tiger in the country, the few left in the world. You were a doctor and an officer that protects the welfare of wild animals.

You were going to set him free in a few days.

That is, until this tiger was put in the enclosure next to Jaehyun's. He smelled afraid. He jumped at everything and had lash and burn marks on his body. It was clear to anyone humans inflicted these marks on him.

"Wang, this is Yuta. Be kind to him because all he's ever known is abuse from his captors."

Yuta, beyond smelling like fear, smelled like he was dying. He was clearly unwell. Jaehyun had to make sure you knew this somehow.

Jaehyun was unsure what you thought would happen, but Yuta barely came near him even though Jaehyun chuffed his way. He barely acted like a tiger, if you asked Jaehyun. Trust him, he knew.

You began to focus your time on Yuta more. For once, Jaehyun didn't mind, because he knew the battered tiger needed it. He didn't seem that much older than Jaehyun, which somehow made you think you would be instant friends. For your sake, Jaehyun tried to show him what could be done as a tiger. He flaunted his prowess in running, tree climbing, even in roaring.

Yuta didn't seem to care and stayed in his side of the enclosure.

Strangely enough, Jaehyun still tried to chuff at Yuta, and to his surprise, Yuta chuffed back.

You jumped into Dongyoung's arms upon seeing Jaehyun's victory, to which Jaehyun nearly lashed out for.

It was then, Yuta and Jaehyun slowly became to form a bond. They would meet each other in the middle of the enclosure and would pace around together. You began to suggest bringing each other into the same enclosure, to which Dongyoung strongly disagreed with. Jaehyun wanted a chance to prove that man wrong, and it was eventually given to him.

Everyone was apprehensive with the idea of putting two male tigers into the room, which was why Dongyoung held tightly onto that weapon of his, but you reason you were both not fully adults yet, so there is a chance Yuta and Jaehyun to bond.

And a bond was surely created.

Jaehyun felt his heart swell at the sense of companionship he had with Yuta. It was neither that of what he felt with Youngho, Taeyong, or Jungwoo, but he somehow felt an undefinable closeness with this tiger.

Yuta was not a white tiger like Jaehyun, but an orange tiger. You reasoned that could be a reason why you had a bond with each other, you were different to each other and there was no females present for competition.

Jaehyun began to think of you and Dongyoung, and how he could eat him without getting caught.

Again, the day of the new joint release of Jaehyun and Yuta came close.

You cried on what Jaehyun knew to be your last visit.

You led the two tigers into cages and shipped them into protected forest land.

Yuta waited for Jaehyun before coming out of the cage they were shipped in. Jaehyun felt something indescribable in his paws when he walked out. Recognition came into his senses. He gave out a roar and began running.

He found that he was being followed by Yuta as he wove through the forest. The breeze was not exactly that of his childhood, but there he saw the same mountain he tread upon when he was hunting a white tiger. Suddenly, he began to see a figure of a man running towards him. He held a sword and a determined look. It took a moment to realize that it was him.

He screams and jolts up. It seems he was lying on a leafy ground and sat up.

Donghyuck shouts, "the king is dead. Oh, lord let him not be dead."

Jaehyun snaps his head to the limping figure from afar who was struggling to stalk towards him. He quickly stands from his the ground he was sat on.

"Donghyuck-ah!" Jaehyun calls, running towards him and sealing him into a tight hug.

Donghyuck is nearly taken aback but pats the king's back, thinking the relief he felt was from his brush with death.

"Let's go home," Jaehyun mutters.

Donghyuck is flabbergasted that the king decreed the next day he would make hunting for sport illegal. Everyone is appalled by the sudden decree, but the law is quickly passed.

Donghyuck does not believe the story Jaehyun said, how he saw the white tiger he was following had four cubs and it made him realize that the tiger he was trying to hunt was a mother more than a beast. Still, he couldn't possibly dare try and argue with the king, no one did for that matter.

Since he had no white tiger pelt to offer, Jaehyun instead bought him a house just outside the palace as a birthday gift. On Donghyuck's day, the king even organized a house warming.

The birthday boy was not enjoying it however.

"Hyung, are you sure you're okay? You haven't been the same since we got home from the hunt."

Jaehyun turned to Donghyuck, who scowled at him. The older of the two placed a hand the younger’s shoulder, "It's already been four days since that incident. Drink some alcohol, relax."

Donghyuck sighs, "Why did you even buy me a house when I live in the palace?"

"Consider it your approval for freedom."

"What?"

Jaehyun pours Donghyuck a drink. "I know you find only burden in the throne. You were sent to the palace by your scheming father so he could get his hand in power. But your father is dead, and you are the head of your household." He turns to his own drink and sighs, "I know what it feels to be imprisoned. Follow your own path. You don't have to live the rest of your days worrying for me anymore."

Donghyuck watches as Jaehyun drinks.

"You are my king," Donghyuck says, "but before that, you were my brother and my best friend. I will gladly live my life close to you if you let me."

Jaehyun feels his lips curve and he scoffs out a chuckle, "ya, it's like you want me to marry you."

"Nope. I already have someone in mind to marry."

Jaehyun looks at Donghyuk with a baffled expression. The latter drinks his drink and mutters lowly "you don't possibly believe I don't get around, hyung?"

The king slaps Donghyuk's shoulder, which nearly makes him spit out his drink, "bring the lucky fool to the palace tomorrow."

Jaehyun has never regretted a decision before, but as Donghyuck knelt there with that person he said he wanted to marry beside, he began to regret something wholeheartedly.

Donghyuck wanted to marry... this? This person that had your face.

How... how could he... how could your face exist in this time.

Donghyuck and this person were knelt before him in his throne room. Jaehyun was stiff on his throne and he quite frankly didn’t know what to do. He left the room in a thick silence. His throat was caught in anxiety. Donghyuck noticed his lover was beginning to get uncomfortable, so he snuck a look at the king and found his face was pale.

“Your majesty,” Donghyuck spoke in concern.

Jaehyun snaps out of it, “how long have you been seeing each other?”

“Two years, your highness.”

He hisses, “you have been going behind hiding this from me for two years?!”

Donghyuck knits his brows and his lover squeaks in fear.

“SURE!” Jaehyun shouts and he stands, “you traitors should get married and get out of my sight!”

Jaehyun got drunk that night and wandered out into the mountains. He bought a bottle of alcohol with him and threatened to kill anyone who dared stop or accompany him.

Of course the servants alerted Donghyuck about this, which was why he ran after the king with a torch.

“WHAT KIND OF CURSE IS THIS?” Jaehyun screamed as he slung his alcohol bottle around, “you want my best friend to marry someone with that face?” Jaehyun began to laugh, “I made hunting illegal! What more do you want from me?!”

“MY KING!” Donghyuck shouted when he caught sight of Jaehyun.

When he got close enough, Donghyuck took reached out to Jaehyun with his free hand. Jaehyun splashed alcohol on him, “I don’t to live like this.”

“Like what, hyung? Do you hate Aerum that much?”

“Aerum?” Jaehyun felt sober again.

“My woman, Aerum.”

“That woman’s name is Aerum?”

Jaehyun began to laugh again. Donghyuck grew uneasy. Jaehyun fell to his knees, his friend dashed over to him in concern. Jaehyun shook his head as Donghyuck talked to him like a gong being sounded. Jaehyun whispers, “I don’t want to live like this.”

But he had no choice.

Jaehyun and Donghyuck went back home. Donghyuck threw Aerum away for Jaehyun’s sake, but he began to slip into depression. It was then Jaehyun began to notice things he was blind to, like how Donghyuck always went out of the palace at a certain time, which he no longer did, and how he always smelled like oranges and had messy hair. No longer did his brother suddenly smile for no reason, nor did he ever ask for mooncakes anymore during lunch. It was then Jaehyun realized he had not hidden anything, but that he was blind to Donghyuck’s sentiments.

So Jaehyun told Donghyuck to marry her, to which he firmly declined. Jaehyun reasoned with lies on how he loved a woman with a similiar face when they were younger, but Donghyuck knew nothing of a woman like that. If he had, he wouldn’t have dared liked Aerum in the first place.

“Do you love her?” Donghyuck asked Jaehyun.

Jaehyun saw the desperation in Donghyuck’s eyes as he asked him this. He was praying he’d say no. Jaehyun spoke firmly, “I don’t.”

Donghyuck believed him, but he wasn’t satisfied.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Jaehyun said. He chuckled bitterly to himself, “I don’t even believe myself.”

“The truth can be hard to believe, but it’s still the truth,” Donghyuck said.

Jaehyun looked at his dear friend and licked his lips, “alright.”

Donghyuck believed every word, to Jaehyun’s astonishment. Jaehyun told him that Areum was not you. Donghyuck was still reluctant when Jaehyun gave him a hairpin to offer Areum, but when the lovers met again, it was easy to fall back in love.

They got married a week later, and it wasn’t long until they welcomed a son into the world. The couple allowed the king to name the boy, and so Jaehyun called Haechan, which meant to shine bright uprightly.

Jaehyun watched as the boy grew stonger, taller, and better in archery than he was at this age. He too watched as Donghyuck began to get slower, and he slowly realized that the world was changing and yet he wasn’t.

It was when Donghyuck had a daughter that both Jaehyun and Donghyuck came to terms with the fact the former was not ageing. At this point, Heachan was eight and brave enough to ride a horse. Donghyuck and Jaehyun looked like they were the same age, or how Areum joked, Donghyuck looked older than the king.

Jaehyun at a point realized if he was not aging, he could meet you again.

So when a time of war came, Jaehyun saw it as a chance to disappear. Donghyuck decided greatly against it. Since Jaehyun took no bride, it meant his cousin Sungchan would succeed the throne. He told him not to worry, and that he would keep a close on eye everything once he was gone.

And so he did.

The line of succession shifted. The colors of the sky changed. Haechan had a son, and his son had a son, and his son had a son, but Jaehyun roamed on his own.

“That’s basically the story of the Tiger King,” Jaehyun smiled his dimpley smile that made all the lined up teenager sound out, impressed with the story.

“So, basically, the Tiger King is still alive, Mr. Jung,” one of the students asked as they moved to the next painting in the museum. Jaehyun looked at the child and thought her eyes reminded him of yours.

“Yes. I think so,” Jaehyun spoke.

“Are you the Tiger King?” another voice spoke, pointing at the ancient drawing behind glass, “you look like him?”

Jaehyun hummed and adjusted the glasses he wore for show, “I get told a lot that I look like him. Would you believe me if I said yes?”

The class cheered, “yes!”

Jaehyun chuckled, “okay then. I am the tiger king.” He said, curling his fingers and pretend growling. The teenagers laugh, fully pleased that he was in on what they believed to be a joke.

By the end of the tour, Jaehyun escorted the students to their bus, where their teacher was waiting for them. And for the first time in years, Jaehyun felt his heart pound at the sight before him.

A group of girls ran up to their teacher and muttered to her how cute the tour guide was. They got a chuckle in response.

“Thank you Mr. Jung for taking care of my kids,” you spoke as you made your way towards him from the bus. Jaehyun looked at you for a prolonged moment, which made you raise your brows slightly.

“So you’re their pretty teacher?” Jaehyun spoke.

You froze for a moment, which made Jaehyun feel smug. He placed his hands in his grey pants’ pockets and clarified, “I mean, the kids described you as ‘their pretty teacher’, that must be you.”

You looked at him for a moment and nodded slowly. Jaehyun smiled, “are you teaching science perhaps?”

You again nod slowly.

“I love science, anthropology and biology especially."

You nod and chuckle nervously, unsure of what to say.

Jaehyun decides to clarify again, "are you teaching part time?"

"Uh, I'm actually going to be a full time faculty soon."

He grows a little confused, "I see. I don't know for some reason you pegged me as a zoologist. Maybe it's because your kids kept singing 'In the jungle the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight'."

You blush, "yeah, sorry, I actually studied zoology which is why I am so passionate about teaching animals to my kids. I unironically play that song a lot in class."

Jaehyun smiles, "well, you know. I think you're interesting and I do agree with your students that you're pretty. Could I possibly get your number?"

"SAY YES, MISS!"

You and Jaehyun turn to the kids sticking their head out in the window. Jaehyun snickers lowly. You begin to burn from head to toe, you feel like. You turn to Jaehyun and turn away, "I'm sorry. I-" Jaehyun watches as you fumble for words and he has honestly never seen you in this light before. You've always been so confident around him as a tiger, and yet you were so timid in front of him as a man. "I'm on the job right now."

Jaehyun nods with a soft smile as you turn around and walk away. No hard feelings. It's not like he's been waiting his whole life for you or anything. He calls out, "visit me sometime, okay?" 

The teens squeal.

He watches as the bus drives off and takes note of the school name.

[janiedean]

... please, please, PLEASE write some crack with AA!Davos. And Melisandre losing her entire mind over it ofc.

hello anon this is late and I'm in my inbox trying to catch up with prompts and you're getting something idek what but I gave it my all

--

"No," Melisandre says.

"For the first time in my life," Davos cautiously replies in the silence that has filled the room, "I would be uttermost fucking glad to agree with you."

"I don't think," Jon Snow says very, very slowly, eyes staring at the sword in Davos's hands - seven hells he never even liked using swords for that matter -, "that it's something either you or she can deny." He sounds relieved, for that matter.

"Beg your pardon, your Grace," Davos goes on, wishing he could drop the damned thing and just run and instead there's the entire Great Hall in Winterfell staring at him in various arrays of bewilderment, shock and in two specific cases relief, and one of them being his King - not Jon Snow, King in the North, but Stannis Baratheon - isn't helping any, "that's - you are the one who came back to life. Literally."

"He's certainly not the only one who has, lately," Jaime Lannister mutters from somewhere in the crowd and oh, right, they told them about Catelyn Stark having... come back to life in the Riverlands when he and Brienne of Tarth brought Sansa Stark here and a Valean army along with her good thing because they were about to lose the damned battle when they did, but then the lady obviously throws her elbow in his hip and he shuts up.

"That still - it makes no sense! How is that - I can't be, all right?"

"You did say," Stannis clears his throat, very slowly, oh please no not him, "that when you woke up on that piece of rock after Blackwater you were surrounded by smoke and you were covered in salty water and you were sure you were dead, and that was just - after your sons died in that battle, wasn't it?"

Oh, Seven bloody fucking Hells -

"That doesn't mean I died for real!"

"Well," Jon Snow's friend, fuck, what did he say his name was when he showed up here from Oldtown a few days ago - Samwell Tarly, right, "prophecies... are never exactly straight, my lord. Also, that sword is quite literally glowing. For real."

Why, Davos thinks, why did I ever hold that fucking Valyrian steel sword of Tarly's that he said he stole from his father, why would I do it, I should have kept my bloody hands to myself now -

"This is impossible," Melisandre says again, staring at Davos, then the sword, then Stannis, then Jon Snow, then at Davos all over again, "this is impossible! The Lord of Light never said it was you."

"Well, I doubt he ever said it was me either at this point," Stannis mutters still sounding relieved of it.

"I would like, again, for once, to agree with this red witch, there is no bloody way it's me, I can't - please, didn't Rhaegar Targaryen start an entire war because this supposed prince that was promised or whatever the fuck had to be his son or his relative? Sure as hell I'm not related to a bloody Targaryen now. Sorry but this is insane. King Stannis here is more related to one than I am. He," he motions towards Jon Snow, "is definitely more related to one than I am, and I doubt Lord Reed was lying when he shared that piece of information with us."

"I would not," said Lord Reed protests.

"Well, exactly," Davos goes on, "and - and the lady Brienne here is more related to one than I am if what history my princess used to talk about is true, there is no way -"

"Wouldn't be so sure," wait, was that fucking Sandor Clegane who has come from the Vale with both Lannister, Sansa Stark and Brienne of Tarth, what has he to share now -

"How exactly," Davos groans.

Clegane shrugs. "You're from Flea Bottom."

"Yes, exactly my point -"

"Targaryens were kings until the rebellion," he points out. "Who says that some of them didn't fuck around with the commoners at some point? Doubtful that anyone would go and claim that some king planted a bastard on them, but you can't know."

"You - you can't be saying that some great-grandfather of mine was a Targaryen bastard," Davos tries to protest.

"I'm saying you can't know he wasn't," Clegane shrugs, sounding entirely too gleeful about it. Why. Why would he be. He has no stakes in this. What the -

"This is not happening," he says, at the same time as Melisandre saying the exact same thing.

No one proffers a word for a moment.

Then Stannis clears his throat. "You know," he says, "I would be seriously considering that it's true just because it not being true is the one thing you two ever agreed on since you met. Maybe it's a sign."

Why is he smiling slightly? All right, he does, mostly to Davos only, as far as he's known, and he just wishes it wasn't a point that made sense, but -

Fuck.

Fuck.

If that sword wasn't feeling warm in his hand when everyone else said that it felt burning to them to the point they couldn't touch it he'd just, throw it on the ground and leave, except he can't, and -

He sighs.

"If," he says, "if this has a chance in the Seven Hells of being true, does that mean I have to do what exactly?"

"End the Long Night," Melisandre says, sounding absolutely not happy about it.

"Yes, a bit more detail maybe? That doesn't mean anything!"

"Save the world from the darkness," she goes on, gloomily.

"That still doesn't tell me how!"

"Well, the Lord of Light never was - He never specified the details, if you're it then you should know yourself," she mutters, and -

Davos is just done, all right?

"That's just - I didn't even know I - you know what, I'll just give Lord Tarly here back the sword -"

"My lord," Tarly says taking a step back, "please do keep it, it's not like I'm ever going to use it properly myself. All yours!"

"All - it's Valyrian steel!"

"And it definitely chose you to wield it, so. Really. You can absolutely keep it, my lord. No offense, my lord."

"Maybe," Jon Snow says, "we should leave Lord Davos to think about this instead of nagging him."

Davos is suddenly very thankful for the lad's existence and for the fact that the moment he speaks everyone immediately rushes out of the room.

Everyone except Stannis - Melisandre stalks out repeating that there is no way, and she'll pray some more, and so on, but at this point he's barely hearing her.

Davos lets out a breath the moment everyone else has left. "There is," he says, "no way this is me."

"Davos," Stannis replies, staring straight at him, "let me just say it once."

"... What?"

"That I never wanted to be that and I never thought it could be me, and knowing it's not me is relieving, but - but I couldn't have imagined anyone more suited than you."

"Your Grace, I'm -"

"Maybe," he smiles a tiny bit wider, "I didn't have it wrong when I thought making new lords was a good idea."

"I -"

"Davos, honestly, to everyone at Storm's End... you could have been that. Maybe it was just destiny that it would have to be you."

"And I have no idea of how I would be supposed to do it," Davos sighs, relenting, letting the sword's tip fall on the ground. He has a feeling he cannot exactly... say no now. Not when he's being stared at like... like he was stared at the day he showed up at Storm's End with a ship full of onions and salted fish.

"Why, do you think she told me how I was supposed to do it?"

"... I imagine she didn't."

"Absolutely not. And not like I... believe that this Lord of Light exists, but if whatever is out there chose you then I still don't think it was wrong."

"Now His Grace is flattering me."

"I don't really think I am," he replies, and Davos can't help smiling back even if he doesn't feel like there is anything to be happy about.

Well.

He supposes he'll find out how in the Seven Hells he's going to stop the Long Night when it's time to. For now he lets himself smile back and when Stannis's hand cautiously grasps his elbow he feels warm for it, and -

It could be worse, he thinks.

Much worse.

But he still thinks this entire matter makes no bloody sense at all.

[roonilwazlibweasley]

No, I'm not okay :(

I actually totally like you but the shit you said about Remadora made me really sad :(

Look at this

And this

And that one

This one too

Don't forget that post

Also this is important

And last but not least definitely this one out there

It's really a pity how many people hate Remadora for stupid illogical literally no reasons.

You're despising Drarry, Dramione shippers and Ron, Ginny, Marauders haters because they do it for stupid illogical literally no reasons and I agree with you about that but you're exactly acting like them with what you did.

Just ship Wolfstar in peace and don't attack another ships as long as the shippers aren't coming to your blog and saying "YoU hAvE tO sHiP iT tOo" or as long as you don't see us posting hate posts about your ship.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

No, I'm not okay :(

I actually totally like you but the shit you said about Remadora made me really sad :(

hi!! this is such a weird ask tbh because at the end of the day, my post was respectful and tagged properly <3 but lemme just get into this because literally everything you wrote is wrong <3

Look at this

it's literally a gif of the cast idek what I'm supposed to be looking at

And this

and I agree with this except the last one. like I said in my own post, I got into the lack of experience thing as well. idc about age gaps normally

And that one

okay eat my toilet paper idc it's not tasty

This one too

idk why you're sending all these posts when I never even said this stuff BYE

Don't forget that post

again, what am I looking at?? this proves nothing?

Also this is important

when tf did I threaten to shoot someone what the fuck is wrong with you. and I never called anyone homophobic either

And last but not least definitely this one out there

I didn't do any of that though. like I absolutely hate those people who tag shit wrong. but I don't. so shut up. this ask is irritating and you just seem mad for no reason

It's really a pity how many people hate Remadora for stupid illogical literally no reasons.

I made a whole damn post with valid, canon reasons on why I don't like Remadora but apparently it's "stupid" and "illogical" piss off

You're despising Drarry, Dramione shippers and Ron, Ginny, Marauders haters because they do it for stupid illogical literally no reasons and I agree with you about that but you're exactly acting like them with what you did.

let's clear this up. I hate drarry and dramione (the ships), not the shippers. and idrc about ron haters, ginny haters and marauders haters. and no I'm not. I just made a post about why I don't like Remadora on MY blog, and they can make anti posts on THEIR blog if they want.

Just ship Wolfstar in peace and don't attack another ships as long as the shippers aren't coming to your blog and saying "YoU hAvE tO sHiP iT tOo" or as long as you don't see us posting hate posts about your ship.

LMAOOOO BYE DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO ON MY BLOG. I honestly don't post anti posts that much anymore, but I wanted to clear up my opinions on remadora -> since I haven't talked about it before. and hate posts?? they're quite literally all over tumblr. mine wasn't even a hate post, per say. it was pretty respectful.

filter out the anti remadora tag if this makes you so upset