#i have a lot of it written actually the hard part is finding the willpower to actually post it bc every time i look at or try to edit it

[geddy-leesbian]

someday I'll post Luis Serra/Annette Birkin smut

[rinneverse]

࿐ ♡ ˚ . 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐰𝐨: 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞. — 𝒔𝒂𝒎𝒑𝒐 𝒌𝒐𝒔𝒌𝒊 ˒ ⊹

series synopsis. your friend, your pal, your fuck buddy—sampo koski seems to be getting closer and closer with every heated exchange. you wonder, briefly, if there’s something more lurking under the surface of it all. you have a strict rule set in place, though: don’t catch feelings.

[ prev chapter. | don't you trust me masterlist | next chapter. ]

syn. you wake up and are left to ponder the repercussions of staying over at sampo’s. bad decisions are made. (5.6k)

cw. fem reader / alcohol + drinking / food mentions (he makes u breakfast!) / petname usage (doll/dollface, darling, pretty girl, baby, my girl) / oral (f!receiving) / v!fingering / allusions to piv intercourse / reader has bad coping mechanisms i fear / reader goes to the cluurbbb / we also get angsty up in the clurb :3

love, oak! ༉‧₊˚. i... did not mean for this chapter to take so long to come out. and to think i hard part of it written when chapter one dropped. i fear chapter three may take three to five business years. regardless; lots of plot development in this one. i hope this lives up to everynyan's expectations :p

MINORS + AGELESS BLOGS DNI. NSFW UNDER THE CUT.

You wake to the pale light of dawn filtering in through the curtained window. 

With a yawn, you clumsily push down your blanket, fingers curling over soft fabric. You begin to twist onto your other side when you realize that something is very wrong.

Very, very wrong, like the you are not in the safety of your home kind of wrong.

Your breath catches in your throat. You don’t dare open your eyes.

There’s a heavy weight slung across your waist and a warmth you’re curled up against that isn’t usually there. It takes you a few seconds of wracking your brain to remember that you never actually made it home last night—that it was Sampo’s bed that you had fallen asleep in, and that was Sampo himself you were currently entangled with. The tension that had seized you quickly dissipates—then it slams back into you with a ferocity as you realize that you and Sampo had fallen asleep curled up together.

That’s not normal. That is so very not normal, and it takes everything in you to not start freaking the fuck out.

Blinking the sleep from your eyes, the only movement you risk is tilting your head up a fraction. You find that Sampo is still sound asleep, chest rising and falling slowly against you with every breath he takes. The urge to run your fingers along the smooth skin of his cheek makes your fingers twitch once, twice. You hesitate.

Because for once, Sampo looked… at peace. No scheming, no stress, just… him. His face looked so gentle, so soft, that perhaps waking him up would be a heinous crime. Yet you hold your breath, inching a hand up, up, up, tracing the column of his neck, his strong jaw, the apple of his cheek—

Whatever was running through your head is swiftly cut off when Sampo starts to stir. You feel panic grip and squeeze your heart with clawed fingertips. Shutting your eyes and forcing yourself slow your breathing, you lower your hand to its original position. You didn’t want to be caught staring at him, let alone caught stroking your fingers along his face—the mere thought of that occurring alone was mortifying enough.

A heartbeat passes. Then two. You feel the blanket shifting around, hear how he sleepily mumbles and yawns, followed by the warmth of his body slowly slipping away. You suppress the shiver that wants to run down your spine at the cold that creeps in, resist the urge to pull the duvet tighter around yourself; instead continuing to pretend-sleep as you listen to Sampo move about.

You’re about to shed your façade when you feel the bed dip. There’s a warm breath that caresses your forehead—a forewarning before you feel his lips gently press against your forehead.

The world freezes entirely.

It takes a willpower of steel (and perhaps then some) to remain in place, to not even stir, to not snatch his wrist and ask him what the hell he’s doing when he slowly lifts his head. You wait for him to fully pull away but he lingers, his thumb coming up to sweep over the apple of your cheek, then lower to brush against your mouth, swiping gently at your lower lip before he’s truly moving out of your reach.

You’re nearly bursting with impatience when you finally hear the door creak open and click shut.

Shoving yourself up into a sitting position, your mouth drops open in shock as you touch where his lips had pressed against your skin. The feeling lingers, burning like a brand, a mark you felt you would carry with you until the end of time. The thought is enough to have you shaking your head violently.

Suddenly feeling very, very warm, you push the duvet to the side. You clutch your shirt in your hands, balling them into fists—or rather, it’s his shirt that you grasp tightly in fisted hands. His scent still curls around you, utterly maddening, only adding fuel to the fire that consumes you.

If you didn’t confirm it last night, you definitely confirm it then—you were perhaps in the deepest pit of shit known to mankind: having feelings for Sampo. Maybe the revelation of having feelings for the one person you’re not supposed to have feelings for has you imagining things. Maybe you were still asleep and this was just a dream.

You hiss quietly as you pinch yourself.

Nope. This was very much reality.

You sigh.

It takes you several minutes to really process what had just happened—and that you didn’t just make it up in your head. You needed to get the fuck home so you could process it some fucking more. It feels like your entire perception of reality has been shattered with one simple moment of secretive intimacy.

In the distance, a faucet creaks on and begins running, followed by the faint clink of silverware clattering against plates. Whistling. Your crisis is momentarily forgotten as you realize Sampo is whistling your favorite song—it snaps you back into the moment, makes you remember just exactly where you are. This revelation could wait. Just a little bit more, and then you can go home and freak out in peace.

It’s only a matter of moments to gather yourself together and change back into your own clothing thanks to the earlier interaction waking you up entirely. You silently slip out of the bedroom and into the main living area, greeted by a sight that warms your heart.

There Sampo is, in all of his shirtless glory, swaying his hips to the little tune he’s humming as he whisks something together. Food sizzles on the stovetop, adding a quiet backtrack to his song. You lean against the archway that leads into the kitchen area, silent as you take a second to admire him, the portrait of domesticity. Your lips pull into a small, serene smile.

An image flashes before your eyes—a glimpse into the future, maybe—where you could have this sight every day. Sleepy good mornings and quiet embraces, shared laughter and lips pressing together—

The squeak you let out finally alerts Sampo to your presence. He’s quick to turn, whisk in hand and bits of what you assume is flour dusted on his hands, his face—“Doll! How long have you been standing there?”

You stammer dumbly, trying to reel in your head from the outrageous daydream that had barged its way into your thoughts. The outrageous daydream that you know you will never attain. “Um, ah…”

Sampo sighs dramatically, pressing a hand to his forehead as he continues, “And here I was, hoping I could surprise you with a little breakfast—I didn’t think you’d wake up so soon!”

He’s quick to set down the bowl and utensils he held as he approaches you. You tilt your head questioningly at him but he doesn’t give you any indication of what he’s up to until he’s a step away from you.

The devious glint in his eyes being your only warning, he’s suddenly twirling you into his arms and dipping you, a firm hand on your lower back as he grips your wrist with a gentle hand. His eyes crinkle with the smile he gives you.

“Sampo!” You gasp out. You’re so startled by the suddenness of his movements that your free hand grips his shoulder for dear life as you inhale sharply with alarm. Sampo laughs, so unlike his other laughs—the ones where he’s charming his way into scamming a stranger, or when it takes on that darker tinge as his schemes unfold just the way he likes—that you’re blinking in confusion, mouth parting with a question you don’t quite know how to ask on your lips.

“I had to surprise you somehow,” he says by way of explanation. He twirls you again, pulling you flush to his body, and sways you to the cheery tune he hums.

The pair of you dance around the kitchen, laughing and giggling together like there’s nothing else in the world—like it’s just you and him in this pretty little bubble.

Sampo dips you again, forcing your gaze to his. When you meet his eyes, there’s something glimmering there—something that you’d perhaps call… adoration, as delusional as it makes you feel. You pause there, chests heaving in sync as you stare at each other.

You see his eyes flick down briefly to your lips. There’s a question that lies in his gaze—something you can’t possibly answer.

It’s enough to have you scrambling out of his grip.

“Don’t forget the uhm,”—you clear your throat hastily—”the food on the stove. It’ll burn if you’re not careful.”

Sampo blinks, looking at you as if he were snapped out of a trance. “Right.” He pauses—abruptly laughing nervously, clasping his hands together. “I need to be careful.”

He nods his head. After a few moments of tense silence, he glides over to the stove, quietly returning to his task of making breakfast.

Flustered, you take a seat on one of the stools nestled by the island countertop and fold your hands in your lap. You bite your lip as you watch Sampo work. His broad back is turned to you, faint red lines streaking down the hard muscles that ripple as he moves around the kitchen. Your face heats up as you remember just exactly how he received those marks.

The silence lingers in the air, heavy and oppressive, a tension that pulls all of your nerves taut. You’ve never been the type to stay after a one night stand, let alone stay after a night with Sampo. This was entirely uncharted territory you were currently in.

If you’re honest? You’re terrified. You’re not equipped to navigate the unfamiliar feeling that burns bright in your chest. Actually, to take your own mental confession just a little bit further, you want to flee. Really bad. But something—you’re not quite sure what—keeps you tethered here, perhaps like a string wrapped around your pinkie finger that tugs and tugs and pleads with you to stay, just this once. It wants you to see where this goes. It wants you to take a risk, blindly jump into the unknown with nothing to shield your heart but the precarious walls you’ve painstakingly built up over the years. Walls that are swiftly crumbling with every moment spent with Sampo Koski.

Your train of thought is interrupted by the clinking sound of porcelain making contact with the countertop before you register the plate sliding towards you. The sight is mouthwatering—eggs cooked exactly how you prefer (how did he know that?), accompanied by a stack of pancakes that feature a smiling face made with blueberries.

You stifle a giggle, earning you a funny look from Sampo.

“What’s so funny, doll? You’re not laughin’ at Sampo’s hard work, are ya?” He pouts dramatically.

You press your lips together, but there’s no hiding the laughter that glimmers in your eyes. “N-No, I would never! It’s just… it’s so…” Your voice wobbles with the effort it takes to stamp down your giggles.

“It’s so what?” He squints.

“The pancakes are just so…” You shrug one shoulder, searching for the right word. “Adorable? I never would’ve expected that from you, that’s all.”

“I’m full of surprises darling, don’t you worry,” Sampo says with a wink. He sits down next to you with a plate of his own and the two of you dig in. The silence between you evolves into something more.. comfortable. Something normal.

You’d beg to differ (eating breakfast after a night with Sampo felt anything but normal), but you can’t deny that you’re enjoying yourself next to him. And you can admit he’s not the worst cook in the world.

The moment passes in what feels like merely a blink and perhaps too soon you’re already scooping up your empty plate, walking over to the sink to take care of the dishes. The moment Sampo realizes what you intend on doing he rushes over to your side and places a hand on your shoulder. “Don’t worry about it doll, let me take care of it.”

You look up at him and shake your head. “No, no, let me do it. It’s the polite thing to do.”

Sampo’s eyebrows furrow. “I insist—you shouldn’t have to even lift a finger.”

He moves to take the plate from your hands but you pull it out of reach. His eyes narrow as they meet yours—a challenge gleaming there that you refuse to back down from.

He takes a step towards you. You step back. A step forward. A step back. You continue this little dance until there’s a countertop behind you and nowhere else for you to go. He cages you into the corner with one broad arm.

Sampo’s lips curl up in a wolfish grin as you both realize that you’re trapped. “The plate, sweetheart.”

“You’re a real prick, you know that?”

Sampo’s grin widens. “Only for you, dollface.”

Head hanging in defeat, you hold the dish out to him. He takes it, none too smugly, and sets it to the side. His attention immediately returns to you.

You look up at him and tilt your head.

“You going to let me go now, or..?”

Sampo shrugs. “Why should I? I like you right where you are here.”

He’s so big. He crowds your space, enveloping your senses, mingling with the lingering scent of breakfast. It’s something deep and musky. Mouthwatering, if you dare to admit it.

There’s a smug lilt to his voice as he continues speaking, “In fact, I’m still a little famished. Think you can help me out, sweetheart?”

Your lips part slightly, but the question you were about to ask dies on the tip of your tongue as Sampo’s large hands grasp your hips, fingers digging into the supple fat as he lifts you onto the countertop. His eyes are heavily lidded as he sinks to his knees, looking up at you with hunger glimmering in his gaze.

“May I?” Sampo’s voice is darkened with lust, a sort of purr that sends a shiver racing down your spine. A flash of pink between his lips—his tongue darting out to wet them, leaving a thin sheen of saliva in its wake. The grin he shoots you has heat quickly pooling in your core.

You weakly nod your head, too breathless to speak. Sampo’s smile widens.

He makes quick work of your jeans, unbuttoning them and sliding them off of you in one smooth motion. Lithe fingers dip under the elastic of your panties, pulling it taut and snapping the band against your skin. You yelp softly as he snickers.

“So reactive,” Sampo murmurs, fingers dipping once again to slowly pull the fabric off of you. You lift your hips dutifully—you know where this is going. You feel your core tighten with desire.

He tucks your panties into the pocket of his sweats, shoulders rippling as he pulls you to the edge of the counter and slings your legs over them. He looks up at you through thick, dark lashes.

“Doin’ okay up there, pretty girl?” He asks, the deep baritone of his voice making your stomach flutter.

“Mhm,” you respond, biting your lip. You ball your hands up into fists, thighs twitching with the urge to press them together. Sampo seems to notice, because broad hands come up to grip your inner thighs, kneading at the supple flesh. He watches your expression for a moment longer before his eyes dip down to the prize in front of him.

“Thanks for dessert, dollface.”

Sampo’s words linger in the air, a promise of what was to come as he leans forward. His breath is hot as it fans across the apex of your thighs. He presses a kiss to your navel, then dips lower, tongue darting out to drag hotly along your weeping slit.

“Fuck,” you hiss at the contact. Your spine curves slightly, a silent plea for more. His chest rumbles with a dark chuckle as he makes another pass, letting his tongue linger at your clit, lazily lapping at it while your hips tremble.

God. He’s criminally good at this.

“Atta girl. Feeling good?” Sampo murmurs as he slips a finger into your tight heat. It draws a low moan from your lips, one that pulls his mouth into a smug smile before he wraps his lips around your clit. One of your hands grips the edge of the counter for dear life while the other entangles itself in Sampo’s hair as you tremble with just how good he’s making you feel. One tug has him groaning into you, a pleasant vibration that makes you throw your head back as you continue to card your fingers through soft blue locks.

“Feels great,” you murmur, exhaling shakily. Each drag of his finger is tortuously slow, the calloused pad crooking and prodding against your sensitive walls. You tug at his hair again, earning a pleasant moan from him.

You swallow thickly as he adds another finger. He takes it nice and slow with you, a teasing pace that makes you want to beg. You buck your hips slightly to urge him along, to give him the hint, but he’s relentless in his pursuit to drag this out as long as he possibly can.

“You want more, pretty girl?” Sampo purrs softly, pressing a chaste kiss to the apex of your thighs.

“Mhm,” you sigh. He makes a contemplative noise, and then…

He stops.

You let out a cry of outrage as he sits back on his haunches with a smug grin.

“Hey—!”

“You can use your words, can’t you?”

Your mouth drops open, and Sampo can’t help the chuckle that escapes him at your look of shock. He tilts his head as you lean back, chest heaving as you catch your breath.

Fuck, you were getting so close—for him to pull back like this…

“Please…” A quiet, desperate plea. He stares at you expectantly.

You gnaw on your lower lip as he watches you with sharp eyes, glimmering pools of emerald that track your every movement; the way your chest rises and falls with each labored breath, the way your hands press against the cool marble countertop beneath you, the way your eyes glimmer with wanton desire for him.

His grin widens.

“Sampo…” you start, your voice coming out in a shaky warble. You’re none too proud of it, but there’s no room for pride when he dangles your orgasm out in front of you so teasingly, so close and yet so far all at once.

Bait.

And you take it, because you know that Sampo can give you what you need with ease.

“Fuck—” your chin dips slightly as you look down at him, face heating with shame. “I need you, Sampo. Please.”

“Need me to what, baby?”

His voice has lowered an octave—and he crooks his fingers inside of you, giving you a preview of what you could have should you comply with his request.

That subtle nudge is enough to make your hips jump slightly. Your breath hitches in your throat.

You wanted it. You wanted him.

“Need you to fuck me,” you finally breathe. “Sampo, baby, fuck me.”

His resulting grin is feral, eyes glimmering with a wild desire that makes your core clench.

“Whatever my girl wants—”

He withdraws his fingers and stands to his full height. Your eyes rove over his figure, the various love bites littered across his fair skin. Marks you’ve left on him. It sends a sick sense of possession zipping through your veins, and paired with the way he says “my girl”, you wonder what it would be like if he truly was yours in that way. A dangerous train of thought.

You’re distracted, long enough for him to pull his leaking cock out from the confines of his sweats; you’re brought back to reality by his tip pressing to your slit, catching against your clit teasingly.

“—my girl gets, yeah?”

You find yourself in the bathroom again.

This time, you are in your own home.

The rush of water pouring from the faucet is near deafening as you stare at yourself in the mirror. The porcelain is cool against the tight grip you hold on your sink. You glance at the hickeys that litter the expanse of your neck, your shoulder, while you retrace your steps throughout the past week.

You had returned home a couple of hours ago. Only now have you brought yourself to start processing things. You’ve been dreading it, really: coming to terms with something you know will end. As things always do.

You can’t have him. It would never work out.

Sampo is sweet. Kind, even, despite the false benevolent demeanor he displays in order to con poor souls into giving him money. But he’s also as fleeting as a sweet nostalgic memory. The kind of person who comes and goes in your life as they please. You’ve quickly become accustomed to the way that Sampo will sometimes disappear for days, even weeks at a time, and then waltz right back into your life as if nothing happened.

And he does this without any qualms, because this is a casual thing to him. You constantly have to remind yourself that you had told him, “No strings attached. I don’t want feelings involved. This is purely physical.” And he had agreed without further thought, because you’re friends. Friends don’t fall in love with each other.

Friends also don’t eat you out until you’re seeing stars, or fuck you on the countertops so good that you’re babbling and crying, but that’s beside the point.

You think back to how easily the words “my girl” fell from his lips. It’s almost malicious, what that does to your psyche. The way it makes your head spin. The way your heart pounds against your ribs at the mere thought of it.

You frown deeply and shove your hands into the sink. The cold water shocks you momentarily, and the thought fades away, to be shoved in a box and locked away in the deepest recesses of your brain.

Then you scrub your face with the freezing water that pours from the tap. It’s refreshing against your balmy skin, not to mention it doubles as a wake up call for your lovestruck head. Whatever feelings you harbored for Sampo were doomed to die. You may as well just get over it now before it can do any real damage.

And the easiest way to get over things?

You give yourself an uneasy smile in the mirror after drying your face with a towel and shut off the faucet.

The bass thrums through your body as you enter the packed club.

You’ve decided on a rather obscenely short black dress for today—something flattering, something that makes you feel good. You would need some confidence with the goal you have in mind for today.

A goal that feels a little stupid, now that you’re physically here and you’ve sat with it for a little bit. It’s not like Sampo is aware of your inner turmoil; nor would he care that you’re planning on going home with someone that isn’t him. You never agreed on being exclusive when your little arrangement first started.

(Maybe there’s just some sick part of you that hopes that he would care—that it would make him jealous.)

You shake the thought from your head as you weave through sweaty bodies. Whatever kind of goal you set for yourself, it doesn’t matter. There’s truly only one thing that you absolutely need to make happen tonight:

You need to get over Sampo Koski.

And if that involves sleeping with some stranger, so be it. Or perhaps just getting so drunk you forget for a little while. Whatever works.

You steal a seat at the bar and order your usual. Your mind wanders as you wait patiently for your drink—gravitating towards how you felt almost… dramatic, childish even, for feeling so strongly about this.

You can’t help it. You’ve never truly let yourself indulge in romance before; you’re not even sure if this is what it was supposed to look like. If it was supposed to be this aggravating. If you’re supposed to feel as miserable as you do right now.

The clink of ice jostling around as a glass is set in front of you pulls you from your brooding. You swipe up the drink with a quiet “thank you”, turning in your seat to survey the room—and more importantly, the people—around you.

Your frequent spot is busy tonight—bodies upon bodies on the club floor, grinding and dancing salaciously to the bass heavy song that pounds through the speakers. The low lights that glimmer along the ceiling cast deep shadows across everything, making everything look much more dramatic than it really is.

You raise your glass to take a sip when suddenly there’s a hand clasping your shoulder.

“Wha—!” you jump, nearly spilling the liquid all over yourself. You turn to glare at whoever had the balls to just come up to you like that when you’re met with a none too pleasant surprise:

Sampo. Fucking. Koski.

“What are you doin’ here, doll? Especially without even inviting your dear old friend?”

His voice is a smug croon, hard to hear above the club music that envelops you in its embrace. You can hear the hint of surprise, though—and you spot the way his eyebrows are raised, eyes wide and shimmering with curiosity.

So much for escaping him tonight. You resign to your fate with a sigh, settling back into your seat and sipping on your drink properly. Sampo immediately takes to your side, invading your personal space with no regards for your feelings on the matter.

(Usually, you don’t mind. Tonight, it grates on your nerves.)

“I wanted to get out of the house n’ I didn’t wanna bother you. Simple as that.”

Your words are clipped, even if you know you don’t have any right to be upset with him. He hasn’t done anything wrong; you just happen to be in a sour mood.

That he caused.

Indirectly.

“You wound me, doll! I’d never say no to your pretty face, you know that.”

(You want to call him a liar.

You don’t. You smile, and you nod, and you clench your drink so tightly your hand starts to tremble.)

You shrug your shoulders, forcing your gaze back out to the dance floor. Your stomach feels heavy with a feeling you can’t quite put a name to.

All you know is that it does not feel good.

“Sorry, Sampo. I’ll invite you next time, ‘kay?”

Maybe he senses how off your energy is tonight, because typically he’d press the issue further. He doesn’t. Instead, he says, “Sounds good, pretty girl. Save me a seat, ‘kay? I’ll be right back.”

He pushes off the bar counter, making a direct beeline towards the restrooms. You let out a deep sigh, a breath you didn’t even know you were holding in the first place.

You turn towards the bartender and move to flag him down, but—

You only get a few moments of peace until a presence returns to your side. You can’t help but scoff, turning to say, “Sampo, what the hell do you—huh?”

You pause as you turn to a person that is very much not Sampo Koski.

Your face blanches.

The stranger offers you a nervy smile, the portrait of bashfulness.

How fucking horrifying—you can feel your face heat up with shame as you stare dumbly at him.

“Sorry if I’m bothering you. I just thought you were really pretty, so I was hoping you’d maybe let me buy you a drink?” he asks, rubbing the back of his neck. His cheeks are stained a pretty red and his big brown eyes are wide with an eagerness that makes you shake off your mortification and force yourself to smile gently.

“Oh! Uhm—yeah, that would be nice,” you gesture to the open seat next to you. “Sit?”

He tells you his name, something you’re sure you’ll forget later, as you paste a pretty smile on your face and lean forward in your seat. You can see the way his flush deepens, hear the way he stumbles over his words—it’s endearing. He’s like a puppy.

You exchange small talk over drinks, and he’s true to his word: he puts your drink on his tab, and even offers to put the next few on him, too. He’s a little bit odd, but he makes good conversation, so you entertain him, idly stirring the straw that came with your drink.

You’re about to answer his next question (a question that was rather.. strange, you note to yourself), but your reply dies on your lips as Sampo returns.

And he looks none too happy.

“Doll!” Sampo exclaims loudly, pressing into your side. He slings an arm around your waist as he casts his glare upon the stranger you were just chatting up. “Who’s this, baby?”

This might be the worst possible outcome. Mortified, your shoulders hunch slightly as you try to grow smaller, cringing at the venom that coats Sampo’s usually honeyed tone.

“Sorry, you are..?” The stranger asks, bewildered.

“Her boyfriend. Who are you?”

You cringe even further, turning your gaze. The words falling from Sampo’s lips feels like a lead ball dropping in your stomach. You think you might be sick. So sick, in fact, that you tune out their ensuing conversation as your head spins.

Abruptly you stand, chair clattering loudly with the motion. Both men stop and turn to look at you.

“I—” you pause, inhaling sharply through your nose, “am going to go now. Bye.”

You turn on your heel and all but scramble out of the situation, heels clacking against tile flooring. Your heart is about to burst from beneath your ribs. Your face is hot—you feel like you might melt and never recover.

You burst through the door and the cold air immediately hits you. It’s refreshing and miserable all at once, cooling down your heated veins and making your skin prickle with goosebumps.

You’re about a couple feet down the sidewalk when hurried footsteps sound behind you. Your head whips over your shoulder, eyes wide as you stare down who approaches you.

What a joke. You know fully well Sampo can mask the sound of his footsteps—he’s letting them ring out for you.

The weight in your stomach increases exponentially. You turn forward and pick up your pace. You think your vision is swimming.

“Doll!” Sampo pleads, reaching out to grab your shoulder. You jerk away and swivel on your heel to face him.

“What? What is it now?” Your voice is downright venomous. It comes out much harsher than you intend, but the words are out now and it’s too late to take them back.

“Pretty girl…” He starts, and then shakes his head. There’s a moment of hesitation, and then:

Your name. Said so softly, falling like a prayer from his lips, and yet it’s an explosion of color in your world. Your eyes widen.

“Sampo,” you respond with equal softness, your voice trembling as you ball your hands into fists. Chest heaving, you stare at him, meeting deep pools of emerald green that look at you with such desperation it makes you want to crumble into pieces.

“I’m sorry if that was too much,” Sampo frowns, a dusty pink blush settling high on his cheeks. There’s genuine remorse in his eyes, so you listen, inclining your head as you wait for him to continue. “You just.. you looked uncomfortable, and you’re my friend. I was just tryin’ to give you an out.”

You’re my friend.

Friend.

Nausea claims you again, hitting you with the force of a freight train. But you force yourself to smile, and nod, and again your hands tremble with the effort of keeping them at your side.

No matter how much you wanted to reach out to him.

To touch him, to hold him.

You can’t.

“It’s okay.” You can’t help the way your voice strains, so you keep as quiet as possible, voice coming out in a mere whisper. “Don’t worry about it.”

“It doesn’t seem okay—”

“It’s fine.” You cut him off, shaking your head.

Sampo’s eyes search your face as you stare at him. You need to steel your resolve. So you say:

“I think we should take a break from seeing each other.”

It’s like you’ve dropped a bomb.

The way his face falls makes your stomach twist itself into knots. But this is for the better. Until you can get your shit together.

But fuck, he looks so sad, it makes your heart ache.

“Oh,” is all he says.

You gnaw on your lower lip. You taste a hint of metal on your tongue—you’ve broken skin. You nod your head slowly. You need to steel your fucking resolve. The decision is out there, and you cannot take it back.

“Mhm. Just for a little bit.”

He inhales slowly, and on the exhale he manages to mask the desperation he let you get a flash of. It’s too late, though: the feelings are out there, and he cannot hide it.

“For a little bit,” he echoes. His eyes have lost their spark. Your heart withers in your chest.

The pair of you cannot hide your true feelings from the other. Not for long. Not like you hoped you could. You pray to some long-forgotten Aeon that the space can give you the willpower you need to maintain your walls, at least for a little bit longer.

“For a little bit.” You confirm. “I’ll… see you later, okay?”

He’s silent. Then, he dips his chin. A silent farewell.

This time, his footsteps don’t make a single sound as he walks away.

please don't repost on other platforms. rbs and comments are super appreciated ♡ !!

[dramatisperscnae]

@1rstflight [x]

THE GREEN HAS NEVER BEEN EASY TO DECIPHER. try as he might, years on this madman's duty, hal jordan hasn't really been able to pin it down precisely. it simply is, and now, after how life has been for him, it's become an inseparable part of who he is. will is a synonym to his soul, his essence, but will in its rawest form is inhuman, for no man is one single emotion, one single color in the spectrum. essentially, it's a part of him without being part of his nature and sometimes—sometimes it gets tricky. it's a particularly harrowing battle that takes too much ring power to sustain alone and it happens, too quick to avoid. his body turns a translucent green, embodying willpower itself to give one last boost to finish their fight. before the others can see, he flies off and away from the fray, aware his current status is... alarming. if he, a lantern, can't really tell what the hell is going on, he can't have the other leaguers see. he tries to shift his focus on returning his body into its normal shape, but slowly but surely his mind loses grip. all that is left is the green emanating from his ring and the need to keep himself in one piece rather dissipating fully into light. maybe he can pretend that this was just a trick of the light. but... pretend for what reason? who is pretending, again? he doesn't know how long it has been by the time arthur finds him, but it's dark out so he can presume it's been a while. expression vacant, still mostly hard light, he snaps back into himself at the realization he's been seen. "nothing." he's quick to say, and his body returns to its normal condition, light retreating back into his self-made ring. damn it. arthur of all people would not let this slide, would he? the only possible worse choice to be found by would be bruce. "i mean, it's nothing you need to concern yourself with, your majesty. seriously—it's just. lantern business. pretend you didn't see it."

Arthur has seen some crazy shit in his life. Shakespeare might have written about how heaven and earth contain far more than anyone knows, but even that pales in comparison to what lurks in the depths of the ocean. Outer space might be full of weird shit, but Arthur's fairly certain none of his coworkers in the JLA have ever fought Cthulhu on the regular.

Okay, to be fair, the thing he's fighting probably isn't actually Cthulhu, but it's close enough to give Lovecraft wet dreams.

Or nightmares. Whichever.

So basically, when Hal Jordan suddenly turned translucent green and started glowing like a spotlight Arthur had just shrugged it off as more Lantern weirdness. Sure, why not, that ring does a whole lot of other things, why not whatever the hell that just was? But as time wore on and the battle ended and Jordan didn't come back…then it got a little concerning.

Arthur takes it on himself to track the Lantern down, using it as an excuse to escape the vague bickering the post-mission meeting had turned into. Jordan is a surprisingly difficult man to find for a guy who was last seen doing his best impersonation of a glowstick, but when Arthur does finally catch up to him…

Well, apparently the glowstick thing isn't just more Lantern shenanigans. Either that or Jordan's having trouble turning it off, which is to say the least unusual for the man. Arthur folds his arms, looking the Lantern over skeptically. Nothing, huh?

"Sure as hell didn't look like nothing from over here," he notes, moving to stand at Jordan's side and stare at the view the man had been apparently dissociating at for the past however long. "So, you want to try again? 'cause I'm just going out on a limb here, but something tells me the living glowstick routine isn't exactly normal for you, yeah?"

[northisnotup]

I’m late!!

But I am still gonna play! Thank you @kelliealtogether for tagging me in the ‘five favourite fics that I've written (for writer appreciation day)’ 

This was the kindest thing you could have tagged me in, because as much as I love my fics when I post them, I tend to have a distorted view of them later on, thinking that my writing must have been so much worse, that I’m sure I fucked up the pacing, etc. But having now gone back and re-read a lot of these, I like them just as much - so much that choosing just 5 is gonna be hard! 

1. Pan Cookies

Oldest first - and also because it’s the only Dragon Age fic I have and tbh I adore it. Short and sweet, Dorian and Sera deserve to bond over shitty parents - the end!

Dragon Age Inquisition, Gen.

This is the story of how Sera and Dorian became crazy, drunken, selfie-olympics bffs. Enjoy. 

2. Kisseltoe

This was a holiday exchange fic that I still think is really stinkin’ cute. Did it have to be this long, or complicated? No! But I thrive on turning simple plots into drawn out character studies.

Overwatch, Cole Cassidy/Hanzo Shimada

Trapped under the mistletoe, Cole has now kissed every person at this party but the one person he actually wants to.

3. Rita’s Blessing

First rule of thieving: Know what your mark wants.

The Penumbra Podcast, Juno Steel/Peter Nureyev

First rule of thieving: Do your own research.

First rule of thieving: Know what you, yourself, want.

What Peter Nureyev wants is to wake up next to Juno Steel every day for the rest of his life. He wants to travel the galaxy at his side, day after day, until death at last parts them. He wants so deeply and with such fervor it weighs on his heart like nothing else, save the ring, which stays always in one of his many pockets, feeling like a star attempting to collapse in on itself.

And that is the problem.

FOR INSTANCE. This was supposed to be a short and sweet exchange fic for a friend. It wasn’t supposed to take as long as it did (the better part of a year) but it did! And tbh - I love it a lot. I’m glad it took that long. I’m glad I met them. I’m glad I wrote this. I genuinely think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever written. 

4. We often confuse what we wish for, with what is

“You just have to hope that betraying one another is not in their self-interests?” Juno misquotes back to him, dry.

The Penumbra Podcast, Juno Steel/Peter Nureyev

“This is not the first partner, team, group or crew I have allied with,” Nureyev finally says, clipped and crisp. Weary and wary and just him in place of where Ransom would already be soliciting Buddy’s forgiveness. “And I’m sure you are all familiar with the...self serving nature of those in our line of work.”

He nods. “Quite. And once the job is complete, it’s not uncommon to look into the face of an ally and see an enemy instead."

Second FOR INSTANCE. This was a fic I never intended to write. As many of my fics start, this came from the want of using one particular line and having to figure out WHERE that line fit. Juno saying ‘oh you’re gonna want to think so carefully about what you say next,’ was living in my brain rent free and I had to find a home for it and so came forth this Murderbot-Leverage-esque story of Peter Nureyev, master thief. 

...crap now I have to choose between Captive Prince and The Raven Cycle. Wait. No I don’t. Fuck it. I’m going rogue!

5. Attend Me

This is just fun, silly, modern day fluff. I like the world I made behind it, but mostly I just wanted to see how they fit together.

Captive Prince, Damen/Laurent

Housebound following an accident, Damen prepares an important dinner.

6. Here with You

The Raven Cycle/The Dreamer Trilogy, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish

When Adam received the invitation to Declan Lynch's wedding, he'd known that seeing Ronan again was going to be difficult.

This is one of those fics that has a huge, sprawling backstory that I have no willpower or time to fully write. However, I think this small snippit gives just enough of a look into what was and what could be and I really like it for that.

Alright! That’s enough self indulgence from me, so I’m gonna pass this off to @sanerontheinside @themarchrabbit @parakeatswrites @audikatia @rabbitdarling @the-prince-of-tides and @blue-mood-blue happy ficcing!!

[my-tin-can-mans]

She Knows Part 2, (Wolffe x Reader)

OH BOY. First I'm sorry this took me so long I've been busy with college. But! this is the longest fic or anything really I've written so wow. Hopefully you enjoy.

Warnings: angst, mentions of Alcohol, mentions of cheating slight smut (minors do not interact or read).

Note: italics are flashbacks

“So, what do you usually do during leave?” the question threw you a little of guard. You’d been stationed with the 501st for four months now, four months since you’d broke it off with Wolffe after… everything. You had been the head medic in the 104th battalion, but quickly put in a request for a transfer after the humiliation Wolffe had put you through. The only position available was with the 501st, working under their head medic, Kix. It was a demotion sure, but honestly it took a lot of stress of your shoulders and well, anything to get away from the situation you were in.

Working with Kix almost 24/7 forced you two to grow close and form a close relationship. It was more of a brotherly/sisterly love than anything else, though others saw how well you two had worked together and insisted you would make a good couple, you both were comfortable where you were, which you were grateful for, it was nice to have a friend as kind and understanding as Kix.

Tomorrow the whole battalion would be stationed on Coruscant, the general had some jedi duties to attends to and the war was at a standstill for the moment, giving the men time to relax instead of being thrown under another general for a while.

You had been checking bacta supplies when Kix happened to spring this question on you. Freezing your hand in motion as you had begun to type up an order to restock while planet side. You’d never actually had a leave without Wolffe. Most of the time on leave was spent in that dark corner of 79’s, the other half in a hotel bed.

“Mesh’la, come on, up. I promised the men we’d meet them tonight for a round.”

“But I don’t wanna go Wolffe can’t we just stay here? The sheets are so soft and I don’t feel like wearing clothes.” You’d whined.

“I already told them we would be there, now come up before I drag you out of bed.”

“you wouldn’t,” you peeked your head out from under the covers, narrowing you eyes at him, he stood at the foot of the bed, wearing his blacks sans shirt. He himself had just untangled from you and the sheets. How he had the willpower to do so you had no clue. He dawned his famous predatory smirk on his face

“Are you questioning my word Mesh’la, because you know I always keep my word.” He took a step forward, his thighs now touching the mattress.

“of course not Wolffe,” you gave him a sweet smile, “but I bet I could change your mind.”

“oh?” he raised an eyebrow. “do tell.” He placed his hand on either side of your feet, leaning over the bed

“why don’t you come up here and find out.”

With one swift move Wolffe was on top of you now and you brought your hands to his face pulling him in and kissing him, it was rough and passionate, you really didn’t want to leave and you wanted him to know that, hoping he would see how desperate you were and decide to stay. But after a few moments he pulled back, looking down at you with that damn smirk again, “that was quite convincing.”

Before you could retort anything Wolffe had left from his position on top of you, yanking you up to your feet in the process, “but unfortunately like a said before, I am a man of my word and I already gave it to my brothers, sorry mesh’la but you’ll have to show me your negotiating skills another time, I promise ill make up for it.”

“To be honest Kix I’ve never really done much with my leave time, ya know? I just kinda destress and go out every once in a while.”

“Oh? Well do you have any plans for our first night off then? Me and a couple of the boys are gonna be at 79’s if you’d like to join.”

The mention of 79’s made your heart skip a beat. You hadn’t been back there since you’d found out about Wolffe. “I don’t know Kix,” you sighed, 79’s was a clone bar, and also a favorite hangout spot for the man you had been trying to forget about.

“oh come on, you think Jesse’s a horrible flirt now, just wait till you see him drunk, you’ll be laughing so hard your stomach will be sore in the morning.”

You snorted a laugh in response, Jesse and you were also pretty close, but he was notorious for always trying out stupid pick-up lines on you, he took every opportunity he could to flirt with you, even when he had gotten injured and you were stitching him up, “you look so pretty when your concentrated.” He had said.

But the issue at hand still itched in the back of your mind, what if Wolffe was there? Going back to your holopad, typing up the order you were previously working on to make yourself seem less concerned about your next question you asked him, “the 104th isn’t on leave right now are they?”

“no I don’t think so, why?” Kix had since turned around focusing on organizing medical supplies to help you order.

“Nothing, just, ya know making sure.” You’d told Kix about what happened between you and Wolffe. Just about every clone knew you two were dating, Wolffe always had to make it known you were his. So Obviously everyone was curious as to what had happened.

He turned and looked at you, realizing what you meant, “Oh Kriff, this is your first leave without him isn’t it?”

You nodded, too afraid, after months of finally getting yourself together you didn’t want to revert back to breaking down again.

“Hey listen, if you don’t want to be there I understand. But maybe it would help ya know? We’ll all be wasted you’ll totally forget about him I promise we’ll have a good time.”

It was very convincing, you’d seen the 501stparty and 79’s before, they went hard, unlike Wolffe who was usually more private and reserved. That didn’t mean you two still didn’t have fun in your own way on leave.

Much to your dismay you’d put on a dress and Wolffe had dragged you to 79’s anyways. The second you’d stepped into the place the music and dark lighting consumed you. It was loud tonight. The 501st was celebrating a successful occupy over a separatist world and you could tell. The blue armor was spread throughout the crowd, some at the bar hitting on the women already occupying it, and some on the dance floor.

You wished Wolffe danced more with you, you loved to dance but he only ever accompanied you once, and that was after a drinking competition with Thorne who was hard to beat. He didn’t even remember it in the morning.

Without a second glance to all the men, Wolffe grabbed your wrist and led you back to the booth he always sat at. Instead of the usual commanders, Sinker and Boost sat there awaiting their commanders arrival after being promised a drink with him. You slid into the booth and Wolffe sat right up against you.

He was broad so he took up most of the space, he always presented himself in such a way that he was always there, chest puffed out, shoulders broadened and head held high. When he got situated he spread his legs, taking up more space and knocked his with yours. The two of you practically sat in each other’s lap with how close you were to each other. he placed his hand on your thigh, resting just below the sundress you and reluctantly put on earlier.

It was a last resort to get him to stay in with you. It was his favorite. The first time he saw you in it he’d practically kneeled before you, although you were sure he was just trying to get a peak underneath.

Four shots were already at the table when you two had arrived and Sinker, who was sitting in front of you, had passed one your way while Wolffe grabbed his own downing it without even flinching.

As the night drove on, the men began to become tipsy and Wolffe’s hand grew higher and higher. It was when Boost was at the climax of telling you a story from before you had signed on with them that Wolffe finally breeched your center, rubbing his index finger over the already wet spot in your panties.

You jumped, not expecting him to be so bold as to touch you in front of his men. You turned to look at him but he was looking straight on at Boost, absolutely engrossed in the story he was telling. Without making eye contact he leaned over, giving you a small peck on your temple, while at the same time, he pushed you underwear over to the side and slipped a finger into you.

His face was flushed, from the alcohol or the devious act he was performing you couldn’t tell. It was probably a mix of both. Wolffe rarely showed PDA in public especially in front of him men. So you were practically in shock with what was happening right now.

You went to grab a sip of your drink while he slowly pumped his finger a few times before deciding to add another. You let out a chocking noise.

“Hey you okay?” Sinker seemed concerned at your reaction.

“Yeah, yeah just fine, drink must’ve gone down the wrong piper there” you tried to play it off.

He bought it just fine, resuming the conversation that had started up after Boost’s story. When you turned to look at Wolffe again he was wearing that shit eating grin he often dawned and maker you wanted to wipe it clean off.

When Sinker and Boost were distracted enough, Wolffe leaned into you, “come on now mesh’la, I did say I'd make it up to you, and as I recall we’ve already proved I’m a man of my words.”

“Well I guess a few drinks wouldn’t hurt.” You thought back to all the times you’d seen blue armor on the dance floor and envied the fact you hadn’t been there as well, “but I better get a couple of dances out of you guys”

Kix chuckled, “I can promise you, if you stop by for long enough those men will be fighting over who gets to dance with you next.”

You bellowed out a laugh at that. The thought of Jesse, tup and the rest fighting over you was quite the scenario. “Just comm me what time you boys are gonna be there at.”

He nodded his head in agreement, both of you chatting lightly about other topics as you finished the order.

****************************************************

The ship had landed a few hours ago, longing for a good night’s sleep you had left the barracks for the stay, packing up your necessities and checking into a hotel a few blocks out of the main traffic for some peace and quiet.

As you were getting ready for your night at 79’s Kix had sent you a comm message, letting you know they were on their way and would be arriving in 10 minutes. All you had left to do was dress yourself. You rummaged through the bag of clothes you had. It wasn’t much, mostly GAR issued scrubs and a few dresses. You heart stopped when you saw the dress though. The one that was always Wolffe’s favorite. You picked it out, holding it up so you could see the whole thing.

Kriff. This dress brought back so many memories. It almost hurt to look at it. if you were being completely honest with yourself though, you did look damn good in it. screw it you thought. Time to make better memories in it.

After you slipped the dress on you hailed an air taxi to 79’s once inside you scanned the bar, looking for the men who were going to take up your evening. You spotted them at the bar ordering drinks and from the looks of it Jesse was already on his shit and flirting with the bartender.

You walked up to them and their heads turned. Jesse let out a whistle, “Damn, look at you! If I didn’t know any better I'd say you were trying to entice me.”

Kix shook his head at that. Putting his face into his palm. Tup who happened to be standing beside Jesse elbowed him to which Jesse frowned at. “Could you not flirt with my favorite medic?” he turned to you, “you look nice by the way, but not in a creepy I want to get with you way like he meant.”

You let out a giggle. You were already having a great time and you hadn’t even been in the building for five minutes. You took a seat at the bar between Kix and Jesse, Tup to the other side of him.

As the night ticked by you happened to get pretty tipsy, never getting truly drunk for fear you couldn’t make it back to your hotel safely. The men held their alcohol well though and although they were drinking twice as much, they were probably the same level intoxicated as you were. You all stayed at the bar, cracking jokes and telling insane stories, often Jesse would flirt with you or the bartender but it wasn’t too much and you both welcomed the light heartedness attention he gave.

An hour in you heard a voice behind you, “Hope I didn’t miss too much.” You swiveled in the bar seat, turning around to be face to face with the captain of the 501st.

“Captain!” Kix exclaimed, “what took you so long?”

“Sorry boys had a few reports I needed to fill out before the night ended.”

“Well, were glad you here now.” You said.

You got up to give the captain a hug. Something you defiantly wouldn’t do sober, but the alcohol had given you a little confidence. Rex looked surprised by the affection but embraced you anyways. He leaned down and you put your chin over his shoulder patting him on the back staying like that for a second.

It was then that you wished you hadn’t hugged Rex, hadn’t drank as much to give you a confidence boost, and hadn’t stepped a foot in this maker forsaken bar again.

He sat there, in the seat he always sat in when he came here. Only this time he wasn’t with any of his troopers or the other commanders. This time he was with another girl. She was a purple Twi'lek and she was drop dead gorgeous. And the dress she was wearing, or lack thereof because of how tiny it was , made you look like you had just picked yours straight out of the garbage. And you couldn’t help but wonder.

Was that her?

“Kriff Wolffe, what the actual Kriff!” you screamed, you didn’t care about the other guests in the hotel, you were so mad you were practically seeing stars.

“I'm sorry mesh’la I'm sorry I'm so so sorry.”

“No. No! don’t you dare call me that right now. I can’t – I don’t even have words for you right now.”

“please, please let me explain,”

You whipped you head around to him, seeing a whole new layer of red. “Explain? What is there to explain Wolffe. You cheated on me then proceeded to not tell me while apparently everyone else knew and I found out through one of your brothers! Isn’t that enough of an explanation.”

You sat down on the bed, head in hands. He kneeled down in front of your feet. Placing his hands atop of your knees. “I'm sorry.” He whispered. You slapped his hands off you, the thought of him touching you after another woman practically revolted you.

“you already said that.”

“I know, and I mean it I am, it was a mistake, I- if I could take it back I would, Maker I- I hate myself for letting it happen.”

“you should hate yourself.”

“I do, I do. Please, tell me what I can do to make this better.”

For a man who was supposed to be well tactical he kept making all the wrong moves.

“Wolffe there is no making this better. What’s done is done and now it's time to move on.” you finally made your decision, after debating back and forth in the air cab on how to react.

“Yes of course let’s move on, it was in the past but I love you Mesh’la I want you that’s all.”

Kriff that’s not what you meant. “No Wolffe, I mean I’m moving on. from you. I- I can’t continue to be with someone who has done what you’ve done. It's- it's not fair to me.”

By this point tears were strolling down your face. You turned your head to wipe them, not wanting him to see how much he had broke you. “no, no please I- I love you please we can fix this we can work this out please just stay I- I need you.”

“I love you too Wolffe, but there is no fixing this. I loved you so much that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you, I gave you everything thing, I gave you all of me and you took that and you stomped on it, you might as well of placed my heart in a dumpster and set it on fire.”

He put his head in your lap. A single tear rolling down his face. “please, please don’t go, I'm so sorry.”

“I know Wolffe. But I can’t accept your apology.”

Your head was pounding. He wasn’t supposed to be on Coruscant right now. Kix had said so himself. You pulled back from Rex. He placed his hands on your shoulders his face blocking the view of him. He smiled warmly but his expression quickly changed when he saw yours.

“you look like you’ve seen a ghost” he joked.

But you facial expression didn’t lighten, in fact it only got worse. With every waking second, every harsh beat of whatever hit song was playing over the speakers you drew yourself inwards more and more.

“hey hey what wrong?” Kix had left his seat at the bar quickly coming to your side. Him and Rex both dawned a look of concern.

“You said he wouldn’t be here.” You turned to Kix, channeling you emotions onto him.

He looked confused at first, but the realization hit him and he turned his head to look over Rex’s shoulder. Rex followed his line of vision and they both saw him. Sitting there in the booth, while the woman clung to him, practically in his lap.

She was kissing his neck, which honestly surprised you, Wolffe was never one for public displays of affection. Or maybe that was just with you. Because he seemed to be enjoying this.

Rex turned around to face you again, a look of panic and empathy on his face, “Kriff I'm so sorry I- he was on a solo mission with General Koon and they’re stationed here for the night so I told him I’d be here. I'm so sorry, it was an honest mistake.”

It wasn’t the first time you’d heard that from a man in this room.

You felt like the whole room was spinning, be that the alcohol or the nervousness and upset that came with seeing him again you weren’t sure. All the men you had come here with were suddenly surrounding you with sympathetic looks and it felt like someone had placed a spotlight on you and you just wanted it to go away.

This night was meant to help you forget him, be happy and have fun with your new assigned battalion. Kriff was the so much to ask for!

“hey hey come on now,” Jesse finally broke the silence, “forget about him! If I remember correctly I promised you a dance earlier?”

This made you finally break out of your trance. You needed a distraction, and had been waiting for someone to dance with all night.

“actually I would love to Jesse.”

“right this way then”

He held out his hand for you and took you to the dance floor. The song that was playing was loud and upbeat, you and Jesse moved together to the beat, it was fun and you really enjoyed it, when the beat of the song dropped everyone on the dance floor was jumping to it, you and Jesse did the same

When the song stopped, you were practically out of breath, you let out a laugh of relief, actually feeling a little better. You looked up are Jesse and he was smiling at you.

“Feeling better, huh?” he asked.

“A little, thank you.”

A few second later another song had come on. This time it was more slow, the partners on the dance floor started to grab each other.

Jesse grabbed your waist. “Come on huh? let’s give that son of a blaster something to look at, plus this might be the only time I get to be this close to you, despite my attempts” he smirked at you.

You nodded your head, letting out a giggle at his lame excuse to flirt with you again. You wrapped your arms around his neck and he pulled you in closer, your chest practically touching his. And finally you both started to sway to the beat.

A few seconds in Jesse started rubbing his thumbs on your hips, trying to calm your nerves, and it worked. Caught up in the music you started to lightly grind your hips into his, although it was soft guarded by his armor, he still took notice to it. smirking at you and grinding in time with you. His hands started to rise, growing closer and closer to under your breasts, but never reaching, knowing he would be crossing a line, and although Jesse was a flirt, his last intention was to make anyone uncomfortable.

He nuzzled his head into the crook of your neck. You could feel his breathe on your skin, and his nose rubbing up and down. He placed a soft his on your shoulder and the next thing you knew you were being turned around. His hand were back on your waits, but his cheat was now pressed up against your back. He gave you a harsh grind into your ass and you gasped. His arms now wrapping around you, pulling you impossibly tight into him. His head resumed its spot into your neck.

“is this okay,” he whispered into your ear.

“yeah.” You breathed. He kissed you neck this time. but it was just one short one, it was slow, and hot, you closed your eyes. he placed them all the way up your neck, all the way up to your jaw. All the way close to your mouth, and he whispered again, is this okay.

You nodded your head, eyes still closed and you turned you head towards him a little encouraging him. And his lips met yours.

You hadn’t kissed very many people. Wolffe giving you the majority of your experience. and although they were clones, they felt completely different. When Wolffe used to kiss you he practically stole your breath, he put everything he had into kissing you, and it was almost always hot and it made your insides flip, no matter how many times he kissed you, you always felt dizzy and perfectly happy, like his kissed could cure any problemed you had. To say Jesse was a bad kisser would be a lie, it was a good kiss, but it almost made you feel the opposite, all you could think about was Wolffe.

And when the song ended and you opened your eyes you were facing him again. Him. And he was sitting there with his lounge practically down the woman’s throat. And it hurt, hurt to know that he didn’t even acknowledge you. Hadn’t even cared that the person he once begged to stay with was with someone else now. Even though you weren’t actually. It hurt that he used to kiss you like that and now he was kissing someone else like that.

you weren’t sure if it was the beginning of the next song, or if your head was going fuzzy, but all you could hear was ringing in your ears. Jesse had unwrapped his hands from around you and the moment he did you sprang towards the doors of 79’s.

you heard the faint sounds of Jesse, rex and Kix calling out for you but you couldn’t be bothered to hear what any of them had to say. You left the building and walked a few blocks. Finally coming across an empty alley. You pressed you back against the cool metal of the building you were beside and let out a breathe. The air was cool and crisp against your skin, but it felt good.

After all the time you spent forgetting about him you were practically back at square one. And it pissed you off. How dare he have this effect on you.

You let out a sigh, gathering your emotions. And when you finally felt calm enough you went to comm Kix, letting him know you’d be going back to your hotel for the rest of the night, but you were interrupted.

“Mesh’la.”

ending notes: soooo, im not sure if im gonna do another part on this or not, i have some ideas for other fics but im kinda cramped on time at the moment so we shall see.

Tags

@fandom-garbage @dionysuskid21

[today-only-happens-once]

out of focus

title: out of focus

word count: 3955

summary: 

The actions of a Fire Nation admiral during a meeting causes some problems for Sokka. The words of that admiral causes some problems for Zuko. They try to take care of each other. 

“What did the admiral mean,” Sokka blurts out without really thinking about it, “when he talked about insubordination?” 

Zuko freezes, the rag half-out of the bowl and his other hand still bracing Sokka’s (not quite holding it… far too gentle to be holding it). “What—uh. I, uh.” Zuko stops. Takes a breath. Tries again. He still doesn’t look up at Sokka. “When I was younger, I spoke out at a meeting.”

Warnings: burns (description of), violence, threats of violence, discussion of canonical child abuse, characters curse but no curse words are written, character is non-permanently injured, yelling/arguing, trauma

A/N: me? writing a zukka AtLA fic and posting it an hour short of midnight? Apparently, it’s more likely that you’d think. 

Read on AO3

--

Zuko has the patience of a saint, Sokka thinks to himself.

It’s an unusual thought, he realizes. A year ago, if you’d told Sokka that he’d come to think of the Banished Prince as ‘patient’, he’d probably have thrown his boomerang at you. A year ago, Zuko was one of the most short-tempered people he knew. A year ago, Zuko was the face of the enemy.

A lot changes in a year.

Sokka barely stifles a frustrated sigh. The attempt does not seem to go unnoticed by Zuko, who glances at him quickly before the corner of his mouth twitches with something like amusement. The meeting had been going on for hours, and Sokka can’t help but feel that very little progress on the treaty had been made. It wasn’t for lack of trying, Sokka knows, but war leaves messy problems in its wake. He knows that both the literal and metaphorical shrapnel left behind by a century of conflict can’t be swept away in a night or a week or a month.

It doesn’t make these meetings any easier to sit through.

“I want immediate release of all prisoners of war,” an Earth Kingdom ambassador demands.

“I second that,” Sokka hears his father--sitting across the table from him--add, a bit more calmly but no less firm. “I have men in those prisons that haven’t seen their family in a decade.”

“Of course,” Zuko replies at the same time a Fire Nation soldier snaps, “absolutely not.”

Zuko levels a hard look at him. “Admiral, people who were arrested as prisoners of war have no need to remain so after the war has ended.” He looks to Hakoda, then to the Earth Kingdom ambassador. “I’ll draft that mandate tonight and will ensure it’s circulation as soon as possible.”

“This is an outrage!” The slam of a fist against the table makes Sokka’s hand fly to the boomerang strapped to his hip instinctively. The admiral is on his feet.

“Admiral,” Zuko says, his voice steely as he rises from his own chair. The Fire Nation soldier cuts him off.

“Where is the justice for the Fire Nation families whose sons and daughters were slaughtered by those criminals?”

“Admiral--”

“I remember a time when you cared about Fire Nation soldiers! And it’s hard to believe you’ve forgotten, seeing as you ought to be reminded every time you look in the mirror--”

“Enough!” Zuko snaps. “You will watch your tongue or you will be escorted out. You approach insubordination.”

“You are a child,” the admiral sneers. “Though one that ought to know a thing or two about insubordination, given your father’s attempts to brand you with a permanent reminder of its consequences--”

“Warriors!”

“Then again, he always was twice the leader you will never be. Long live the Phoenix King!”

Sokka sees the warning signs—the slight shift of weight, the clench of the man’s fists—and leaps to his feet. “Zuko--!”

“Sokka!”

There’s a blinding light and scorching heat. Sokka feels something slam onto his shoulder and he dives instinctively for cover as the familiar roar of a fireball explodes in front of him. The flames are bright and lick around him, and Sokka throws a hand up to protect his face. He blinks the spots from his vision as he yanks his boomerang out of his belt.

Zuko is standing beside him, his stance ready and his hand outstretched, having evidently dispelled the fireball that had been launched at him. Sokka leaps back up to his feet and hurls the boomerang in his hands towards the Admiral, hitting his hand right as he moves to launch another attack and forcing it to go wide. A burst of flames slam against the wall to the left.

The room is in chaos.

Sokka barely hears the shouts of alarm and curses over the roar of dying flames. He sees his father, already on his feet, diving underneath a bolt of red fire. Across the room, the Earth Kingdom ambassador jerks their hand. There’s a rumble in the ground before it rises and anchors around the Admiral’s feet, holding him in place.

Sokka sees the admiral’s gaze meet his own and narrow. The Fire Nation soldier bares his teeth in a snarl, his fist shooting out. Before Sokka can blink, Zuko steps in front of him, dispelling the flames just as the door ricochets open. Two Kyoshi Warriors flood in and in a series of quick strikes, the admiral drops. Awake, but limp.

Sokka thinks idly that he’s grateful that Ty Lee taught them how to block chi.

“Your father should have killed you that day!” the admiral shouts as he’s dragged through the doors. “He showed mercy on your pathetic, worthless—” the door slamming shut cuts him off.

The silence that follows makes Sokka’s ears ring. He can still feel stale adrenaline coursing through him, his heartbeat pounding in his chest. For a moment, nobody moves. Zuko awkwardly clears his throat.

“Apologies for the, uh, disruption. It shouldn’t happen again.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Firelord Zuko,” Hakoda assures him, but there’s something odd in his father’s expression when he looks at Zuko that Sokka doesn’t understand.

Zuko says something in response, but Sokka doesn’t catch it. As the adrenaline bleeds out of him, his muscles relaxing, Sokka realizes that his fists are still clenched. Sokka forces them to relax, and hisses as it sends a jolt of hot pain through his left hand. When he looks down, he realizes that the skin on the top of part of his hand near his knuckles is a blistering, angry red.

Sokka’s hiss doesn’t go unnoticed. Zuko looks at him over his shoulder, his brows drawn together in confusion before his eyes fall to Sokka’s hand. Then, they go wide.

Zuko turns back around suddenly to address the room, his back straighter. “We will adjourn the meeting for the afternoon. We will reconvene tomorrow.”

“Firelord Zuko—” an ambassador from the Northern Water Tribe protests, but Hakoda interrupts him.

“I think we could all use a breather, Kovrik. Coming back tomorrow with a clear head is a good decision.”

“Yes… yes, I suppose that’s fair.”

Sokka is finding it increasingly difficult to follow the conversation. His hand hurts, and it’s taking every last drop of his willpower and pride to grit his teeth and swallow back the whimper that wants to push up his throat. It’s not until Zuko’s face is taking up his entire field of vision that Sokka realizes everyone but the two of them and his father have left the room.

“Let me see,” Zuko says quietly, then curses under his breath when he looks at Sokka’s hand. “Where’s Katara when you need her.”

“Do you have anything that can help?” Hakoda asks from behind Zuko.

“Yes, sir,” Zuko replies, his brows still furrowed in concentration. “Though it’s not quite as immediate as waterbending healers. But it should help with the pain, and prevent infection. Follow me.”

Sokka feels Zuko take his elbow and guide him out the door of the meeting room and down the hall. He’s distantly aware that Zuko is moving quickly—not quite a jog, but only barely shy of it—through a network of corridors. His hand feels like it might still be on fire, and Sokka looks down at it again just to be sure that’s not actually the case. He tells himself that he’s endured injuries more painful than this. The broken leg was worse, he thinks, though it does little to actually help with the burning sensation in his hand.

He’s vaguely aware that Zuko says something quickly to two guards that are flanking a set of doors before he rushes in. Sokka looks up and realizes it’s Zuko’s chambers. He’d only been in here a couple of times before, largely while Zuko was still recovering from Azula’s lightning strike in the weeks following the end of the war.

“Wait here,” Zuko tells him before disappearing through another door on the far side of the room.

“You had good reflexes in there,” Sokka hears his father’s low, soothing voice speak up. He’d had almost forgotten he was there. Hakoda moves the chair that had been beside the bed closer to Sokka in a clear direction to sit down.

“Lots of practice,” Sokka replies as he sits. He hisses a little again as his hand flares and grits out a swear behind clenched teeth.

“Easy,” Hakoda says softly. He places a bracing, comforting hand between Sokka’s shoulder blades. It’s grounding, and he’s grateful.

“Wish Katara was here,” Sokka tells him, echoing Zuko’s comment from earlier.

“I know. Unfortunately, I don’t think she’s coming to Caldera for a while. She’s still in Ba Sing Se with Aang.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Her magic water comes in handy though.” Sokka gives his father a tight smile. “Get it? Hand-y?”

Hakoda snorts just as the door opens again. Zuko has his arms full of a large bowl, his hands fisting a few vials and some bandages. There’s something pinched about Zuko’s expression, and the way he doesn’t meet Sokka’s eyes as he kneels in front of him feels odd. The bowl is full of water, Sokka realizes, as he sets it on the ground and begins to empty the vials into it.

“Can I see your hand?” Zuko asks, and the question—for some reason—catches him off guard.

Sokka blinks. “Yeah. Sure.” He grimaces as he places his hand in Zuko’s, but the excessive gentleness surprises him so much that Sokka almost forgets that his hand hurts.

Zuko was many things, but Sokka can’t remember a time—even after he started to get along with the Fire Prince—that he would have described Zuko as gentle. But his grip on Sokka’s hand is careful. Almost excessively so.  

Zuko hums in the back of his throat as he inspects the burns. “I don’t think it’ll have permanent damage,” he says quietly. “But I still need to treat it so it doesn’t get infected. It… might hurt, a little. But then it should feel better.”

“No permanent damage. That’s good,” Sokka says. He swallows, and nods. “Okay.”

For a long moment, the only sounds that fills the room is the quiet splash of water in the bowl as Zuko submerges the cloth rag again and wrings it out. Sokka lets his gaze float around the room.

Zuko has left it mostly bare. There’s a portrait of Iroh and a woman that Sokka remembers being the Fire Lady—Zuko’s mother—hanging on the wall near the headboard of the bed. On the dresser beside it is a drawing that Sokka did of the group of them months ago. He sees a pile of papers on the desk across the room. He thinks one of them has Aang’s signature at the bottom, but it’s too far away for him to know for sure.

Bright, painful heat searing his hand slams his attention back to Zuko in front of him and Sokka yelps, yanking his hand away. Zuko grimaces, retracing his own hand.

“I’m sorry,” he says, sounding more earnest than Sokka expects. “This part is painful, but it’ll stop hurting in a minute.”

Sokka fights to pull his breathing back under his control. In through his nose, out through his mouth. “Right,” he manages, his voice tight. “Right, sorry.”

“Don’t be. I know it hurts.”

Something about that line—and about the fact that Zuko still hasn’t met his eyes since returning from the other room—drags Sokka’s thoughts back to the conversation in the treaty meeting. There were several things that the admiral had said to Zuko that Sokka didn’t quite understand. He could only remember pieces of things said, but they repeat in Sokka’s head like disjointed pieces of a puzzle that he can’t quite make fit together.

seeing as you ought to be reminded every time you look in the mirror… insubordination… your father’s attempts to brand you… consequences…

Sokka’s gaze falls back to Zuko, dutifully bowed in front of him. There had long been pieces about Zuko that Sokka had found puzzling. Things about him that didn’t quite fit together. Sokka considers himself a person pretty good at figuring out how things worked together, and that extended (with less success) to figuring out how parts of people make up the sum of their whole.

Zuko, though… Zuko had always been something of a mystery. But as the words of the admiral ricochet in his mind, there’s a picture beginning to come together that is still just a little too hazy, a little too out of focus, to fill in the spaces that Sokka felt were missing.

“What did the admiral mean,” Sokka blurts out without really thinking about it, “when he talked about insubordination?”

Zuko freezes, the rag half-out of the bowl and his other hand still bracing Sokka’s (not quite holding it… far too gentle to be holding it). “What—uh. I, uh.” Zuko stops. Takes a breath. Tries again. He still doesn’t look up at Sokka. “When I was younger, I spoke out at a meeting.”

Sokka’s brow furrows as Zuko presses the rag to the back of his hand again. Sokka realizes that his hand has stopped hurting, but he’s too preoccupied with what Zuko said to pay it much mind. “After the stuff at Ba Sing Se? When you went home?”

“No, I, uh.” Zuko clears his throat. “Before that. Before… yeah. Earlier.”

Your father’s attempts to brand you…

“What happened?” Sokka asks. The way Zuko’s shoulders seem to tense doesn’t escape his attention, and there’s a part of him that wonders if perhaps he shouldn’t have asked. But it also feels like a question that once asked, is too late to take back.

Zuko pats Sokka’s hand dry with another towel and begins to gingerly wrap a bandage around it. He keeps his gold gaze steady on the work. Sokka keeps his gaze steady on Zuko.

“My uncle allowed me to attend a war meeting where they were talking about some battle strategies to use against an Earth Kingdom battalion. There was a general that wanted our newest fleet to serve as a distraction while we mounted an attack from the rear,” Zuko begins. There’s something off about his voice, though. Something detached and careful. He keeps wrapping the bandage. Around and around and around.

Sokka frowns. “That’s not fair,” he says. “Your newest recruits? They’d be slaughtered by an experienced battalion like that.”

Zuko sighs, his lips pressing into a thin line. “Exactly,” he says in a low voice. “And that’s what I told them. I wasn’t thinking. I just… yelled at him.” Sokka opens his mouth to disagree—it sounds like Zuko was thinking, unlike anybody else at that meeting—but Zuko cuts him off as he secures the end of the bandage to Sokka’s palm. “My father didn’t… take it well. I was challenged to an Agni Kai, and I thought I would be facing the general in it, so I accepted.”

Zuko gathers the bowl and empty vials as he stands, crossing the room to set them on the edge of his desk. Sokka stands up slowly as Zuko does so. The pieces that had been out of focus for so long are starting to come together, and Sokka feels his stomach rolling with a leaden weight against what he can sense is coming.

“No…”

“It wasn’t the general,” Zuko continues, his voice so quiet that Sokka is sure he would have missed it if it hadn’t been dead silence around them. “It was my father.”

“You faced your father in an Agni Kai?”

“Not exactly. I…” Zuko stares down into the bowl of water beside him, his gaze distant. “I couldn’t fight my own father. Instead, I begged him for forgiveness. I was met with a fistful of flames.”

Zuko gestures vaguely at his face, and Sokka’s blood turns to ice.

“He…” Sokka’s throat closes, cutting off the rest of that sentence. All this time being chased by Zuko—all this time being friends with him—and he’d always assumed that the scar was the result of a training accident, or a fight with a firebender he lost. Sokka thinks bitterly and viciously that the second assumption wasn’t far off but his own father—

“I was banished after that,” Zuko says, and his voice is hollow and empty and wrong. And he finally, finally, meets Sokka’s gaze. “I was told to bring the Avatar back and all would be forgiven, or to not come back at all. That was before you and your sister woke Aang up from the iceberg.”

Sokka stands very, very still. He glances down and realizes his hands are trembling. He curls the non-bandaged one into a fist to get the shaking to stop. “How old were you?” he asks, and he doesn’t know why—of everything he could say—that’s the question that tumbles past his lips, but he feels like it matters.

“Thirteen.”

“Thir—” Sokka cuts himself off, scrubbing a hand across his mouth and swallowing hard. “Thirteen. Tui and La, when I was thirteen—”

Sokka breaks off again, his throat closing, his gaze falling to his father. When Sokka was thirteen, his father had left to go fight in the war and told Sokka he couldn’t come along. He’d protected Sokka, and though Sokka had found his way into fighting in the war regardless a few years later, he knows his father had only been trying to keep him safe. The idea of his own father striking him—let alone with a fist full of flames to his face—was incomprehensible.

Hakoda doesn’t look back at Sokka. His gaze is trained on Zuko, and there’s something in his eyes that Sokka doesn’t quite understand. But he’s seen it before. It was the same look Hakoda wears when he hears other water tribe soldiers recount war stories. The late-night ones. The ones where their voices betray the weight on their shoulders and tremble with the generations of nightmares on their backs.

Sokka takes a sudden, faltering step forward, and Zuko instinctively tenses. Sokka freezes. “Zuko…”

Zuko shakes his head. He coughs a little, as if trying to clear his throat. “Anyway. That’s—that’s what the admiral was talking about.”

“You…” Sokka tries again, his voice carrying just the barest hints of hysteria. “You were his kid.”

“Yeah, well.” Zuko’s gaze meets Sokka’s again. “He spent most of my life wishing I wasn’t.”

“Zuko,” Hakoda speaks up, his voice a low, soothing rumble to Sokka’s trembling nerves. “I… hope you understand that you didn’t deserve that.”

“I know, sir,” he replies, sounding steadier than Sokka feels. Sokka feels a little like the ground has shifted beneath his feet as he stares at his friend across the room. Zuko continues, frustratingly calm. “It… I didn’t at first. It took me a long time to understand that it was wrong of my father to do that. But I know now.”

“Where is he?” Sokka demands, flushing with a sudden and intense fury.

Zuko blinks, looking taken aback by the vehemence charged through Sokka’s voice like a steel rod. “Where’s who?”

“Ozai.”

“Sokka, what are you gonna do? Fight him? He already lost.”

“Against Aang, not against—did Aang even know?”

Zuko’s brow furrows and he rubs the back of his neck. “Um. I guess I don’t know. I never told him. I… never told any of you.”

“Yeah—and what’s that about, huh?” Sokka demands. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Sokka,” Hakoda warns, but Sokka’s words are already bubbling up throat and spilling past his lips, hot and bitter and angry.

“What, did you think we wouldn’t care? That it wouldn’t matter?”

“It doesn’t matter!” Zuko waves a hand towards the window that overlooks the courtyard. “My father already lost to the Avatar, Sokka. The war is over. The fighting is over. Aang took his bending. And that—I don’t know about you, but that’s the best, most justified end to his legacy I can think of.”

Sokka is still shaking. He can’t explain why. He knows, logically, that Zuko is right. He’s right. But Sokka can still feel his hands shaking, can still feel his heart hammering in his ribs with the urge to run something through with sword, can still feel the way his eyes sting with tears he won’t let fall. Sokka clenches his jaw and rips his gaze away from Zuko out towards the window, where he can see the sun setting on the horizon and painting the palace courtyard in an orange light.

“Wherever he is, I hope he rots,” Sokka says finally, and yet it still doesn’t feel like enough. “He deserves worse.”

Sokka looks back at Zuko, whose gaze is a little wide. He looks… taken aback. Sokka cocks an eyebrow.

“Don’t tell me you disagree—"

“No,” Zuko replies, shaking his head. “I just… Nothing.” The corner of his mouth tugs upwards in the barest hint of a smile. Sokka doesn’t understand why, just like he doesn’t understand why it uncoils the tight knot of burning anger in his chest.

Sokka takes a deep breath. Wills himself to relax. It helps… a little. There’s a beat, and then Sokka hears his father take a step forward. “Thank you for helping Sokka’s hand, Firelord Zuko.”

Zuko blinks, and Sokka swears his cheeks take a faint pink tint as he rubs the back of his neck. “Oh. Uh, of course, sir. And… just Zuko is fine.”

Sokka glances over and sees Hakoda smile, inclining his head. “Understood.” He looks to Sokka. “I should draft a letter to Bato tonight to update him on the treaty. Will you be okay without me?”

Sokka rolls his eyes teasingly. “Yeah, dad. I think I can manage.”

Hakoda squeezes his shoulder, nods to Zuko again, and quietly slips out of the room. The silence afterward seems to stretch, and Sokka feels the lingering tension bleeding out of him as he looks at Zuko, who quietly shuffles through the papers on his desk. Sokka watches him for a beat, his gaze lingering a little on the scarred tissue across his face. Sokka swallows.

There are other questions Sokka thinks he could ask. Like why—after doing that—Zuko was still so bent on returning home to his father. But there’s a part of Sokka that thinks he maybe understands.

Spirits know that he understood what it was like to crave the approval of your father.

“Hey,” he says, and Zuko’s gaze snaps over to him. “I… thank you for telling me. I… know that wasn’t easy, and… it means a lot that you trust me with that.”

“It… it wasn’t a question of trust, you know,” Zuko replies quietly, averting his gaze. “Not telling you, I mean. It was just—”

“I know,” Sokka says, and means it. “But I also know what it’s like to have things you don’t necessarily… want to relive. So it means a lot that you told me.”

The corner of Zuko’s mouth twitches again. He takes a deep, slow breath. “Thank you for listening,” he says.

“I like to think I’m a pretty good listener,” Sokka teases, shrugging.

“You are,” Zuko says, with far more sincerity than Sokka felt was warranted for what he’d meant to be a joke. Sokka blinks at him, and Zuko clears his throat, ducking his head a little. “I was thinking of getting some tea. There’s a place just outside the palace. It’s not as good as Uncle’s, but um. Did you want to come?”

“Yeah,” Sokka replies with a small smile. “I could use a cup of tea.”  

[intheticklecloset]

A Good Tickling (My Hero Academia)

Primary Universe

This one is a direct sequel to “Wardrobe Malfunction,” as requested above. It’s also officially the longest fic I’ve ever written for any fandom, clocking in at 3,000+ words, so buckle up! I really had fun delving into this one and exploring Kirishima and Bakugou’s friendship on a bit of a deeper level while still turning it into a tickle fic by the end. I sincerely hope you enjoy! <3

6: “You want me to tickle you that bad?”

25: “Let’s see how long you can go without laughing.”

8: “You can run, but you can’t hide.”

20: “Stop resisting!”

19: “I see that smile. Come on, laugh!”

25: “Let’s see how long you can go without laughing.”

You’ll notice for some of the numbered prompts I didn’t use the exact quote, but a variation thereof. This was to help prevent repetitiveness as well as maintain believable story flow. They’re still in the fic, just perhaps not word for word.

Warning: Slight angst.

~

Kirishima was quiet. Like, really quiet. Too quiet. And Bakugou was extremely aware of it.

The silence had come on gradually, over the course of a couple of weeks. At first it was just small pockets of time during which the redhead seemed to shrink in on himself for no discernable reason, but he’d soon bounce back when someone started talking to him, Bakugou included. But as time went on, those pockets of silence became entire hours, which became days by the time two weeks had gone by.

Then Bakugou noticed something even more disconcerting.

Kiri would only be silent around him.

He’d walk into a situation in which Kiri was his normal self, having a good time with their other mutual friends and classmates, and boom. Instant shutdown. It was impossible to ignore after the second time it happened that Kirishima was going silent because of his presence, and Bakugou was actually getting worried about it.

It all came to a head one night when Bakugou went downstairs for dinner, where Kiri and some others were already starting to eat. As soon as he entered the room Kiri’s face went dark and he stopped speaking, which was already bothersome to the atomic teen before the redhead then stood up, put his practically uneaten dinner in the fridge, and left the room.

That was the moment Bakugou realized he’d done something wrong. Somewhere along the line and without knowing it, he’d upset Kirishima so much that his closest friend couldn’t even stand to be in the same room as him anymore.

No, he thought. I have to fix this. So he turned right back around and followed Kirishima to his dorm room.

“It’s open,” Kiri called when Bakugou knocked, and as soon as the door was open enough for him to see who was visiting, he turned his back and didn’t say anything.

Bakugou felt awkward closing the door behind him as he entered the silent space, but he’d resolved to find out what was going on. He hated this rift that existed between them now. He wanted to close it up. To be close with Kiri again. He missed him, dang it.

For a long while words failed him. How was he supposed to approach this when he didn’t know what was wrong? Finally Bakugou cleared his throat. “Hey. Are you mad at me?”

Kiri’s shoulders slumped. “No.”

Well, that was a relief, at least. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

Bull. Bakugou fought back an angry retort and said in his calmest voice, “You can run from me all you like, Kirishima, but at the end of the day you can’t hide that you’re upset with me about something. It’s written all over your face every time you look at me. So…” He sighed. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Kiri still wouldn’t look at him. “It’s nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to you,” Bakugou shot back, “and I don’t like that you aren’t yourself around me lately. Where’s that loud, obnoxious, spiky-haired idiot I usually hang out with?”

“I don’t know.”

Bakugou’s irritation was rising, but he used every ounce of willpower he had to fight it. He tried to think rationally. When had this all started? Not long after that day in the locker room when he called Kiri’s costume stupid. Was that it? “Is this because of what I said about your hero costume?”

Kirishima tensed, but shook his head. “No.” His voice was quieter now. “It’s not that.”

“Well, you started being really weird around me after that, so what gives?”

“It doesn’t matter.” The redhead got up from his seat at his desk and finally turned to look at him, and the look in his eyes – the upset, lost, desperate look – was like a sucker punch to the stomach to Bakugou. Guilt washed over him, and he still didn’t even know why.

“Yes, it does.” Bakugou felt something inside him soften. He dared to take a step closer. “Please, Kiri, tell me what I did wrong. I want to fix it. Whatever it is, I’m sorry.”

Kirishima seemed to have some kind of struggle within himself. He grabbed onto the back of his desk chair and gripped it so hard Bakugou thought it might splinter. Finally he muttered, “It’s just…I’ve tried everything I can think of. Nothing’s working.”

“What isn’t?”

“I’ve tried tickling you,” Kiri continued, his eyes everywhere but the blonde. “I’ve tried outing you to our friends, I’ve tried tickling you in public, teasing you in public, saying things I thought would make you angry enough to retaliate…nothing!” He shoved his chair into his desk so hard it made Bakugou jump. “And then when you finally tickle me and call it revenge, we’re in the middle of class so I can’t even enjoy it because I don’t want to get in trouble. And I try challenging you openly and still nothing!” The redhead was on a roll now that the words were finally coming. “Even Sero has tickled me nearly to death, and he almost never does that kind of thing. Everyone seems to get it. Everyone can tell when I want it. But even when I outright tell you to do your worst, you do nothing!”

Bakugou was stunned.

“Why is it,” Kiri continued, voice rising, “that all of our friends know that I love being tickled and will tickle me when I want it, but my best friend just stands there even when I’m practically begging him to destroy me? I don’t understand!”

This time, the silence was on Bakugou’s end. He had no idea what to say. He’d never seen Kiri so openly upset, and over something that could have so easily been avoided if he’d just pulled his head out of his butt long enough to see how much damage his apathy was doing.

A long minute passed before he was able to speak.

“I…” Bakugou cleared his throat. “I didn’t know…I mean, I knew you liked it, but…I didn’t realize how much…” He frowned. “You want me to tickle you that bad?”

“Ugh!” Kirishima covered his face with his hands and cried, “Yes!”

“I’m…I’m sorry.” Bakugou took another step closer. “Kiri, I’m really sorry. I didn’t realize how much it meant to you. It…it means a lot, doesn’t it?”

“It’s so stupid,” Kiri growled, but Bakugou could tell even before he turned his back again that his friend was on the verge of tears. Another sucker punch to the gut. “It’s so stupid. It’s just tickling. I shouldn’t be so upset over this, right? It’s so dumb of me.”

“Oh, heck no.” No way was Bakugou letting him go down this path with his thoughts. He strode right up to him and grabbed his shoulders, turning him around. “Do not feel bad about this. This is my fault. This isn’t because you weren’t clear enough. I knew what you were asking for and I just stood there, like you said. Like a complete and total jerk. Do not apologize for my mistakes. Let me do that. Kiri, I’m so sorry.”

Kiri said nothing, but he swallowed thickly, and Bakugou pulled him into a hug before he could think twice about it. He held the redhead close and waited, hoping that his apology would be accepted. The silence stretched on for what felt like forever. Then, finally, Kiri wrapped his arms around him, too, sighing heavily into his shoulder.

“What is it?” Bakugou asked softly, genuinely, trying not to disturb the moment. As much as he hated sentiment, he didn’t want to screw this up any more than he already had. “Why is it so important to you? I want to understand.”

“That’s just it,” Kiri mumbled in reply. “I can’t put my finger on it, exactly. It’s just…it’s so much fun, and it makes me feel good, and when it’s with my friends I know I can feel comfortable and be open about it without judgement, and even when I’m getting absolutely destroyed I know I’m safe and they’ll stop when I really need them to. But until then I can just…laugh until I can’t breathe.” The redhead pulled away from Bakugou, keeping his eyes averted. “I don’t know. It’s just so much fun. And with you, I know you’re good at tickling; I’ve heard Midoriya talk about it, I even experienced it a couple of times. And you’re my best friend, so more than anyone else I want you to tickle me into next year. So when I openly asked you to and all this time has gone by and you’ve had lots of opportunities and you didn’t, I just…” Kiri bit his lip. “I felt like maybe you really didn’t care. You act like it a lot, but this time…this time I wondered if you—”

“I care,” Bakugou said quickly, desperate to bring an end to that train of thought. “I care, Kiri, I’m just a complete jerk.” He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “God, I really screwed things up. I’m an idiot.”

Kiri offered a weak smile. “It’s okay—”

“No it’s not okay!” Bakugou snapped. “Are you kidding me? Look how upset you are over this! How is any part of this okay? No.” He shook his head. “No. I have to fix this. I want to fix this.” He thought for a moment, then met Kiri’s eyes. “Do you still want me to?”

Kirishima stared at him. “W-What? Now?”

“Or later,” Bakugou said quickly. “If I haven’t ruined everything. But – but yeah, I’ll do it now, if you want.”

Kiri took a step back. “Talk about whiplash.”

“I know I’ve been a jerk, and I know you’re upset, but if you’re okay with it I’d much rather make you laugh right now—”

“Bakugou,” Kiri said, “I want you to tickle me. But only if you want to. Don’t do it just because you feel obligated. Do it because you mean it.”

Bakugou nodded once. “I mean it. I’ll tickle you into oblivion now, and then later I’ll do it again and again and again. I do want to make you laugh, Kiri. Really.” He dared to smirk. “But even more, I kind of want to see how much it will take for you to beg me for mercy.”

Kiri frowned. “It will take a lot. I’m not kidding about that.”

“Then bring it on.” Bakugou tackled Kirishima onto his bed, making the redhead yelp in surprise. He swung a leg over to straddle him and paused, just once. “You sure this is okay right now?”

“For the love of god, Bakugou,” Kiri groaned, “if you don’t make good on your promise right here and now I swear I will end our friendship and then end you!”

“Good enough for me.” Bakugou grinned wickedly, shoving Kiri’s arms above his head. “All right, then. When you really can’t take it anymore, tap out. Until then, I will not stop. Got it?”

“Prove it,” Kiri spat, but his eyes were hopeful.

“Keep those arms up there.” Bakugou growled, releasing his hold and sitting back. “Move them and I’ll make it worse.”

“All bark and no bite?”

“Hah.” Bakugou smirked. “One more thing. I want to make you laugh so hard you forget your own name. But before that, I want to see how long you can go without laughing. Bet you’re not going to be very good at that part.”

Kiri smirked back. “Bring it on already.”

Bakugou did, lightly trailing his fingers from Kiri’s underarms down his ribs and sides to his stomach, watching the redhead twitch a little but – surprisingly – do very well in keeping himself in control. “Hmm,” the blonde mused. “Should have had you take your shirt off. That would make this easier.”

“Want to enjoy the view?” Kiri teased. “I told you I look good in my costume as it is.”

Bakugou rolled his eyes. “Give me a break.”

“The shirt stays on. You made me wait this long. Now I’m going to make you work for it.”

“I don’t think that will be hard, considering I can just do this.” The blonde shoved his hands up under Kiri’s t-shirt and raked his nails down his ribs roughly, making Kiri choke on a startled yelp. “Giving in already?”

“No way!”

“We’ll see.”

Bakugou got to work, starting very lightly and increasing the pressure with every pass, making sure to focus on the ribs when he circled back to them each time, knowing that was Kiri’s worst spot and very likely the place that would break him and make him laugh first. Kirishima kept his arms above his head as instructed and his smile widened more and more, but he did better than Bakugou was expecting at keeping his mirth at bay.

“Dang, you’re stubborn,” the blonde muttered after a few minutes of this. “Stop resisting, already.”

“Y-You’re the o-one who wanted m-me to h-hold out,” Kiri stammered. If nothing else, he sounded close to breaking, and that was satisfying just on its own. “I’m c-c-committed n-now.”

“Well, knock it off. I see that smile, but I want to hear you laugh, spiky hair.” Bakugou decided to be a little mean and press his thumbs into Kiri’s bottom ribs, kneading gently. “Come on. Let it out.”

“Agh, n-no,” Kiri’s voice wobbled as he tried to stay in check, his grin splitting his face. He squirmed a little. “That’s cheating!”

“Oh, is it? Too bad. Playing dirty is kind of my thing when it comes to tickling. Ask Deku.”

“I k-know all about that. He’s t-t-told me how r-ruthless you ahare.”

Bakugou kneaded deeper. “Was that a giggle?”

“Ah! N-No, no!”

“It sounded like a giggle.”

“It w-w-wasn’t!”

Feeling evil, Bakugou kept up his kneading pace and began to tease. “Tickle, tickle, tickle~”

Kiri whined. “Oh, y-you so don’t p-plahay fair!”

“Now that was a giggle.”

“You s-s-suck so much--!”

Bakugou dug his fingers in deep to Kirishima’s ribcage, and with a shriek of surprise, the redhead finally broke.

“AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA YOU JEHEHEHEHEHEHERK I WAHAHAHAS DOING SO GOHOHOHOHOHOOD!!”

“Too good,” Bakugou corrected over Kiri’s laughter, impressed his friend’s arms were still above his head, albeit flailing now. “I was getting tired of you showing me up from such a helpless position. Forget resisting. It’s time to make you laugh your guts out.”

“YOHOHOHOHOHOHOU SOHOHOHOHON OF A--!!”

Bakugou slapped a hand over his mouth and tickled wildly with his other hand, enjoying the look of sheer panic that came over Kiri’s face. The redhead started to bring his arms down. “Ah-ah-ah! What did I say? Keep them up.” Kiri whined, fisting his hands into his hair while his legs kicked wildly, the sounds of his distress muffled. “Well now, this is satisfying. You look hilarious, all freaked out like that. Didn’t think I’d pull out all the stops, did you?”

Kiri screeched when Bakugou started pinching his bottom ribs.

“I mean, I suppose I could also tie you up if I really wanted to be mean. But that’s your call, and you can’t talk right now, so I’m not going to assume anything.”

Kirishima started to bring his arms down again, then settled for covering his face with them. His laughter was loud and crazy, even behind Bakugou’s palm over his mouth. The blonde smirked down at his friend, marveling at how much he seemed to enjoy this, despite the obvious ticklish distress he was in.

“You’re probably thinking, ‘I thought you said you wanted to hear me laugh? Why are you covering my mouth?’ Right?” Bakugou chuckled. “I do want to hear you laugh. But it’s so much fun to make you desperate first. You’re just dying to let it out now, aren’t you? No more holding back?”

Kirishima managed a split-second glare in the midst of his muffled hysterics before nodding frantically.

“That’s what I thought.” Bakugou finally pulled his hand away and used both hands to rake up and down Kiri’s ribs.

“SOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOMEWHEHEHEHERE ELSE!! PLEHEHEHEHEHEHEASE, PLEASE GO SOHOHOHOMEWHERE EHEHEHEHEHELSE!!”

Bakugou laughed. “What’s wrong? Can’t take it here anymore? But I want to hear you laugh, Kirishima.”

“I AHAHAHAHAHAHAM LAHAHAHAHAHAUGHING!!” Kiri screamed, his arms flailing wildly above him. “BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAKUGOU!!”

“Honestly, I’m just trying to find the technique that will make you bring your arms down to stop me,” the blonde said with a shrug. “So I can make it worse.”

Kiri’s laughter was wild already, and they were only a few minutes in. He squealed and shrieked and thrashed and kicked but – somehow – kept his arms above him the entire time. Bakugou was impressed. That had to take serious effort on his part.

Now, how to break that concentration?

He’d tried kneading, pinching, and raking – all obviously effective forms of ticklish torture. But nothing had made Kiri’s fight-or-flight instinct kick in the way he’d hoped it would. What was he missing?

“Oh, I think I know what will drive you nuts.” Bakugou laughed, suddenly leaning down to blow the longest raspberry he could manage on Kirishima’s bottom ribs. Sure enough, not a whole second had gone by before he felt Kiri’s hands grabbing at his hair frantically.

“NAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA DOHOHOHOHOHON’T DO THAHAHAHAHAHAHAT!!”

“Well, well. I told you to keep your arms up.” Bakugou smirked, grabbing Kiri’s wrists and pinning them to the mattress by his sides. “Now I’ll have to punish you.”

Kiri gasped for breath while he could, his eyes wide and cheeks pink and hair wild, but behind it all, it was obvious to Bakugou that his best friend was having the time of his life. He couldn’t believe he’d made him wait this long. Made him practically beg for something as simple as a good tickling.

“Y-You’re gonna…b-break me,” Kiri stammered between breaths of air, sounding surprised. “I w-won’t be able to…to take it at this rate!”

“That’s the idea, isn’t it? You wanted me to destroy you, right?”

Kiri beamed. “Yeah.”

“Still good to go?”

“Yeah!”

Bakugou took a big breath, then blew another raspberry. Then another, then another, then another. Then he got to work absolutely destroying Kirishima with tickle torture, digging into his underarms and sides and hips and knees and feet, but especially his ribs, until the minutes added up and added up for nearly an hour, and by the time they were done Kirishima was laughing so hard his voice was giving out and tears streamed down his cheeks and he was pounding the mattress as desperately as he could to gain some shred of mercy from the tickle monster that was Katsuki Bakugou.

And when it was all over and Bakugou finally relented, Kirishima kept giggling even without the tickling stimulation, shaking his head in disbelief and gasping for oxygen. “I c-can’t…breheheathe…”

“You asked for it,” Bakugou reminded him, but he couldn’t help but grin at the mess he’d made of his closest friend. “And I promise, the next time you ask for it, I won’t hesitate to do this to you again. And again and again. As many times as you ask for it, I’ll destroy you, Kiri.”

“W-What about…playful tickles…?”

“Those, too.” Bakugou nodded. “I swear I’ll stop being an idiot about this. You ask, I’ll answer. I promise. I won’t ever let you give me the silent treatment again. I’ll be a best friend worthy of the title.” He wanted to cringe at himself for saying it, but it was all true, and besides that, Kirishima’s response was more than worth it.

“You were already a great best friend,” the redhead replied tiredly, lifting his head off the pillow to grin at him. “This just makes you that much better. Thank you, Katsuki. Seriously.”

Bakugou swallowed, feeling a little awkward due to all the sentiment in the room. He nudged Kiri’s leg. “Thanks for putting up with me. I don’t deserve it.”

“Sure you do. You’re a little rough around the edges but you’re a cool dude, King Explosion Murder.”

Bakugou’s lips twitched. “I told you if you called me that again there would be consequences.”

“Yeah?” Kiri chuckled. He leveled a clear, challenging smirk at the blonde. “Prove it.”

[sigmaleph]

@serinemolecule asked me for hot takes on this 2006 article on Argentinian food, which I am now reorganising into a proper post for y'all's consumption. you're welcome.

First of all: the titular thesis that you should eat two steaks a day. I am forced to clarify that as 'should's go you should eat zero steaks a day, but this is ethical rather dietary advice and I don't follow it as well as I should, so, y'know. I would engage with this on the level it was stated, but I actually have no opinion on it. Moving on...

Argentine beef really is extraordinary. Almost all of this has to do with how the cows are raised. There are no factory feedlots in Argentina; the animals still eat pampas grass their whole lives, in open pasture, and not the chicken droppings and feathers mixed with corn that pass for animal feed in the United States.

This is, as it happens, completely false. There absolutely is plenty of feedlot beef being eaten in Argentina, and this was also the case back when this article was written. There's grass-fed beef too, and maybe the writer structured their life around only eating those, but the claim that there are no feedlots is just not true.

if you let them make the call, you get a two-inch thick of meat[...]The Argentine steak stands alone, towering three inches over the plate,[...]This gorgeous specimen is called a lomito; it's a standard lunchtime steak, clearly so thin that the Argentines are embarrassed to send it out into the world without a protective wrapping of ham and cheese

I have no idea what their obsession with steak thickness is; meat exists at various levels of thick and thin to suit various tastes. If you like yours thick that's fine but quit the projecting, y'know.

As you might expect, vegetarians will have a somewhat rough time here. For most people in Argentina, a vegetarian is something you eat. One's diet will accordingly lean heavily on pastas, gnocchi, salads, and (for the less squeamish ) fish. Vegans will not survive in Argentina.

This is, unfortunately, true (well, hyperbole, but). Rinna had a rather bad time trying to find vegan food when fae came over for visits. The situation is improving slowly, at least.

The homemade cookies bought in the minimarket downstairs taste of steak. [picture of alfajores de maicena[

Jesus. Find somewhere better to buy your snacks.

It should be no surprise that the land of beef also has excellent milk and butter. The milk comes in plastic bags that would give any American marketing department a heart attack. They proudly advertise "GUARANTEED 100% BRUCELLOSIS AND HOOF-AND-MOUTH FREE". One brand even brags that its bacteria count never exceeds 100,000 per mL, and prints daily statistics to prove it (only 82,000 bacteria/mL on Monday! mmm!).

Are you under the impression American milk doesn't contain bacteria and that when it spoils it's because of the molecules' sheer willpower? Or do you just object to the reminder that they exist?

This menu is delicious, but with rare exceptions it is all you are going to get. People coming for more than a few weeks are advised to bring a discreet bottle of Tabasco sauce.

Eat at better restaurants.

With any order from the master menu comes the Bread Basket, which should be treated as you would treat a basket of wax fruit, that is, as a purely decorative ornament. It is considered bad form to actually eat anything from Bread Basket

What are you talking about. Do all your dining companions just suck, eat some bread.

Dulce de leche is a culinary cry for help. It says "save us, we are baffled and alone in the kitchen, we don't know what to do for dessert and we're going to boil condensed milk and sugar together until help arrives". This cloying dessert tar is so impossibly sweet that you wish you were ten years old again, just so you could actually enjoy it. It is everywhere. There is a special dulce de leche shelf in the supermarket dairy case, and the containers go up to a liter in size. Even the churros are stuffed with it - the churros, Montresor!

It is rare that I feel insulted for the sake of my country, but this? How dare you.

Yes, of course we fill churros with dulce de leche; the real question is why anyone doesn't, short of dietary restrictions. Finding out that people do otherwise was like learning that in other countries, "sandwich" just means two slices of bread. Live a little. Eat a real godsdamned churro.

I spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out how meals work in Argentina, and they remain a mystery to me. Dinner is clear enough: people tend to go to restaurants beginning at ten o'clock (for those with small children), with the main rush around eleven, and dinner is pretty much over at one or so in the morning. And breakfast - or rather, its absence - follows as a logical consequence of eating a steak the size of a beagle at midnight. But I have yet to figure out whether people eat some kind of meal in the afternoon, and if so, when.

At... noon? Like. We eat lunch. Usually somewhere around 12:00. I am eating lunch right now, and I have done so essentially every day of my life. This is just baffling.

I've come to think the culprit in the missing Argentine lunch scene is yerba mate.

how.

Where the ignorant foreigner may see just another kind of herbal tea (yerba mate is a very unassuming shrub that grows in the northern parts of the country) the Argentine sees a taste treat of unimaginable subtlety, and a tonic for all his problems. The Wikipedia article on proper mate preparation should give you a warning of the level of obsessiveness attainable here (the Urugayans are even worse). To the virgin palate, mate tastes like green tea mixed with grass clippings. The beverage is traditionally drunk out of a little gourd, through a metal straw called a bombilla, with hot (but not boiling!!) water poured into it (without wetting the surface!! clockwise!!) from a thermos.

Yeah, this is accurate. Well, not the clockwise part, never heard anyone complain about that and I can't imagine it mattering.

What distinguishes mate from coffee and tea is the social context - two or more people share a gourd, with a designated pourer in charge of refilling it with hot water after each turn. The ritual is low-fuss but indispensible. You can buy mate gourds and thermoses in any grocery store, and get your thermos filled with hot water at any convenience store or gas station, but you will never see mate served in restaurants or sold in little disposable paper gourds, to go. it's not that people refuse to drink mate alone - anyone working a solitary shift will have a gourd in hand - but that the concept of being served mate by someone who does not share it with you seems impossible.

This is also true. Attempts have been made to sell to-go mate but it's never very popular, the social ritual is important. Also unfortunately a disease vector, I haven't had any mate in a year and a half.

Mate aficionados will tell you that mate contains a special compound, mateine, that serves as a tonic and mild stimulant, promoting alertness without making it hard to sleep, reducing fatigue and appetite, helping the digestion and serving as a mild diuretic. Scientists will tell you that mateine bears a suspicious resemblance to a chemical called caffeine. Mate aficionados will then grow indignant, explaining that mateine is really a stereoisomer (mirror image) of caffeine, with different effects, which will in turn irritate the scientists, who will snap that caffeine doesn't have a chiral center, so it can't have a distinguishable mirror image, and why don't the mate aficionados just put a sock in it.

The first part of this is true; some people definitely think "mateine" is different from caffeine and it absolutely isn't. Never heard the stereoisomer claim before but googling it does confirm some people say so.

still have no idea what any of this has to do with lunch, though. I promise you nobody skips lunch because mate is just too filling.

The wine here is very good (something has to stand up to that steak), but Argentina has no liquor to call its own, relying on whiskies like Old Smuggler and the low-maintenance Don Juan cognac to carry the flag.

There's a fundamental omission from this list and it's called fernet.

Beer is ubiquitous and comes in a bewildering variety of sizes, although there is a skittishness about the full-on liter. Things level off at 970 mL. In my case, it means I end up drinking 1940 mL of beer as a kind of personal protest, and all is well with the world. To make up for the abundance of sizes, beer comes in only one variety, Quilmes, which inevitably comes served with a tripartite platter of snacks - nuts, salty cylinders, and aged potato chips.

I never had trouble buying beer by the litre, but I confess I never tried to do so in 2006 on account of being under 18 at the time.

Anyway, beer comes in a lot more varieties today, thankfully, because Quilmes sucks. I'll never be a beer person, but at least these days there's options I tolerate.

[original post]

[codenamesazanka]

Warning: Rant, character bashing, lots of opinions

I'm saying it outright. I hate Deku. He is entirely underwhelming as a character, much less as the main character, the shonen protagonist of the series.

It's a 'different' type of dislike, though. I feel like I could've like his character. There's nothing greatly disagreeable about him, he's as inoffensive as can be, he's an optimistic, considerate, and polite boy, he's as plain as he is said to be, and that's fine.

My issue is that he's not the character he's said to be. I, personally, just don't buy that he "possesses a drive to save others that eclipses all common understanding", or that he's super intelligent with great analytical abilities that he actually applies on the battlefield, or, in general, he's as amazing or heroic or compassionate as he's apparently supposed to be. How can he be inspiring if he barely challenges any aspects of the society he lives in. Deku is a super good example of the terrible use of "Tell, Don't Show". We're told about his amazing traits, but he rarely follows through; when we do see hints of it, it's lauded but frankly I think it's typical behavior and (this though is not quite his fault) written so stiffly and awkwardly I'm not convinced.

(Honestly I might even call him a Canon Mary Sue. He has no interesting or distinguishable flaws, unless having a shit for brains attitude is one but that's not acknowledged by the narrative. Breaking bones is not a personality trait. If he has a Hero Complex, it's not even the interesting ones where he fucks things up even more; or carries crippling guilt about circumstances beyond his control; or focuses completely on saving people to the point of rejecting almost all human connections and keeping deadly secrets - which is All Might's big flaw.) (Well fair, he does this in the most recent chapter but did it need to take 300+ chapters? Plus I sense the way it's framed is that it's the radical, but right course of action.)

Say what you want about Villains and redemption/shouldn't be redeemed/too evil to be saved/justice/etc, but I think this 'Incredible Drive To Save' should've included Villains from the start. Why does Deku want to "Save people with a smile on his face"? Assuming it's empathy, he should have felt some towards everyone he encounters, whether it's sensible or not. "Why are you so angry?", "You shouldn't go about things this way", "What caused them to be like this?", "Why is there evil in the world?" even. I'm still fuming over his Mall Encounter with Shigaraki, where Shigaraki pretty much reveals his damage: "All Might acts like there's no one he can't save"; but ultimately Deku goes "Wow, that sure is an opinion."

What kind of inane response is this??? There's little pushback from the narrative either, so this isn't pointed out as a failing of his (because, again, he has no big flaws). And he's supposed to be smart and caring. Yes, he does ask All Might right after the Mall Encounter, "Was there anyone you can't save?"; but essentially the replies he gets is "Don't worry about it" and Deku immediately largely puts it out of his mind "Oh whew, I was about to do some introspection and reflection". There isn't even the daunting, kinda-existential anxiety that people get when they realize it's impossible to save/help everyone - which is something, like, medical workers have to learn to deal with - that sharp sense of the inevitably of death, of loss, failure, guilt. I'm not asking for him to come to the conclusion that everyone should be saved - he could've decided nah, Shigaraki is too ugly to be saved and I would've been fine with that, it's part of the character role and potential development - just that he should've had a conclusion at all.

There are the latest chapters where Deku decides he wants to try saving Shigaraki first (though killing him is still on the table), true. Him wanting to save Shigaraki after seeing AFO merged with him, after seeing The Crying Child - but see, I don't think it qualifies because I think it's the bare minimum about of consideration, the typical response to seeing the body horror of warped, fused flesh, to seeing a small sad little boy. I think it shouldn't require "You look like you needed saving" for a true Hero to consider saving someone. Not for someone who is supposed to be unique and special in this regard.

*

I've complained about this before, but the trouble with Deku was evident from the very beginning.

Again, Deku wants to save people with a smile on his face, and again, I’m assuming it’s empathy. We're shown this on the very first page, as he attempts to protect a friend(?) from bullies, but imo like it felt groundless because who was the kid he was protecting? We never see him again. Did Deku's standing up to Bakugou work, and the kid was saved? Or did they both got beaten up; but afterwards, being the kind boy Deku is supposed to be, he still gets to his feet to help the boy, to apologize for failing.

But more significantly, this theme of saving was overshadowed immediately by his focus on superpowers - that he was quirkless. Next page, his focus was on ‘Woah, giant villain and superpowers!’ Instead of like. Helping people. (Though I chalk this up to early installment weirdness)

What should’ve happened if the theme was ‘SAVE PEOPLE’ Is something like: The opening sentence being “People are not born equal. This is the harsh truth I learned when I was four. I knew that... but despite my powerless, I still wanted to help. That was my first and last setback.” And the panels/images themselves (of little Katsuki and his friends) implies that people on the world thinks you need power to help people.

When he saw the villain attack on way to school, Deku can be wow’ed by the spectacle! But then he notices a kid crying and offers to help find his mom. He can be interrupted by a Hero saying he (the hero) will take over, he can find the mom and realize he’s late for school (and so that shows he’s willing to sacrifice something of his to help others! Because of his altruistic nature!). A scene like that, of him helping the lost kid, we would know that he wants to help *anyone*. At school, though, he still gets bullied for not having powers. So he’s mulling over that when he meets All Might, and asks the question.

It proceeds as usual for the next few events: When the sludge monster attacks Katsuki, he can still go gawk at the scene. He can still hesitate. In canon, it's only when he realized the victim was his friend that he jumps into action, which I thinks undermines the theme of 'wanting to save indiscriminately'. IMO, it would've been better that Deku sees it’s his friend, but he still hesitates. “There’s nothing I can do right? All Might himself said so...” But when he sees Katsuki’s *face* of fear, he runs to help. Instead of seeming like he helps only because he realizes it’s his friend, he helps because he feels too deeply about trying to save Katsuki.

Admittedly these are minor, personal critiques; but all in all, the first chapter fails to establish Deku is the willpowered, champion of wanting to save people he's supposed to be.

--Which is fine, if it's acknowledged in the story later, that maybe he wasn't the True Blue Hero he's supposed to be at first, but he can change and still become one. But it's not - Deku is apparently special, without anything special to show for it.

*

I read the one-shot "My Hero" - the prototype for this series - that Horikoshi published years ago, before My Hero Academia was created. I also found it underwhelming, but that was due to personal tastes (I wanted more explosions and dumb violence); as a story on it's own merit, the logic and progression was solid.

The Villains Heroes fought were 'Aberrations' - true inhuman monsters that showed no sentience that would eat people - so the focus could be solely on saving humans. The main character - Jack Midoriya - his original goal was less 'save people' and more 'become a cool hero', before learning that saving people is what true heroism is about, hero license unneeded. (Moreover, he really did 'save' someone without being a hero - by working hard, he was preventing the company from becoming ruined completely, which the CEO had confessed and thanked him for. )

This version of Midoriya didn't exactly needed deep empathy or compassion for that, just a strong willpower, which he effectively demonstrated by chasing after a childhood dream even as an adult salaryman in a tanking company, even though he had anemia and no training and no license. He insisted on this, to the point of getting hurt by being dumb, of being petty over someone dissing the Hero who inspired him in the first place, of skipping out of work and going vigilante. Not the most upstanding guy, but he came through in the relevant themes of the story, in being the character the story needed him to be.

Jack Midoriya was an unimpressive, weird-looking, weak, pitiful, somewhat selfish, awkward salaryman with no great aspects that 'eclipses all common understanding'. But he was a far stronger character than his incarnation Izuku Midoriya could ever be (so far).

[sweater-daddiesdumbdork]

Saved

Summary- 2.6k Bucky x You. Based on a ASK from anon-Hella Bi Bitch. Hydra tramautized you and you go to Bucky for comfort. Angst/Fluff. Also written for @jtargaryen18​ 4k Challenge. 

“Sweetheart. They are not coming.” Brock leered over your face, his hot breath washing over you, and it was almost impossible to miss the leer in his brown eyes as he cupped your face. If you had the capabilities, you would jerk away, but you were strapped down. All over, even your head was strapped flush to the hard metal table. The only thing you would do that would be satisfactory was work your mouth, draw up that last bit of spittle you had left and spat at him, making him curse while jerking back. 

It would be worth the pain he would cause next, knowing that at least he couldn't break you, just tie you down. Captain would be here soon, Iron Man, Natasha, Bucky… someone, someone would come for you. 

Brock retaliated by slamming an open palm across your face, biting back a cry, a burst of blood interrupted from your nose, racing down your face. 

As parched as you were, you welcomed the hot iron taste swarming your mouth, even through the pain. 

“Rumlow! You will step away from the girl. We need her.” 

Dread filled you as his face went from rage, to a cold smirk, pulling away from you. “Don't worry sweetheart, once they are done breaking you, you and I are going to do great things.” 

Your eyes flickered to the Hydra Agent, laying out his supplies, tools of pain and vials of poison to flood your system. Nauseated, you looked back up to the ceiling, and squeezed your eyes shut, clamping your mouth shut. Tears welled up, you would probably be gone, dead before the team would find you. It was what you hoped for now. 

You would rather die then let them turn you evil. Wasn't there a saying? You either die a hero or turn into a villian. You prayed, prayed for death instead. 

A year you were tested on, preyed on until you became a shell. Moved from base to base, handled by various people. None had a shred of kindness, and Brock especially took joy in your torture. 

He was able to use the various instruments, had access to your cell whenever he wanted. Your personal bodyguard, your personal hell. In these times you sink away from yourself, your body started to work on their command, your mind an empty shell of your former self. Intelligent? Yes, but yourself, no. 

It wasn't complete yet, there was still a shred of you left. Holding on, barely. 

Your rescue happened one sunny afternoon, but you weren't to ever know this. You were deep underground, away from air and light. They had just dumped you in your cell when there coms went off. To weak to pay attention to the Hydra agents fear as they hurriedly locked you in, you crawled to your cot and folded yourself onto it. Another day of survived hell. Squeezing your eyes shut, you really just wished for it to end. At this point in any manner. So much pain. To much.

Alone for a while, you start to drift off into nothingness when metal on metal jolted you awake with a terrified whimper. You heard the clang on your bars and lifted your head up to see Bucky trying to see who was curled up on the cot. 

“B-b-bucky?” You eased up slowly to make sure you weren't seeing things, and then right next to him Steve stepped up, flipping his shield to hang on his back. 

“Doll, we finally found you.” Bucky exclaimed with relief, grasping the bars and wrenching them as hard as he could, the metal whining in protest, but it wasn't strong enough to hold him back from what he wanted. 

Steve kept a watch of Bucky's six, speaking into the com at his ear. “We got her, Bucky is collecting Y/N now, have the jet ready Clint. Nat, you just about done? Sam, cover us when we come up."

“Five more seconds and data is secure, Tony can blow this hell hole to dust.” 

Bucky's arm went around you for support as you went to stand, sore from earlier, he saw you hobble forward and he swept you up. 

“Just faster this way Doll, come on Steve. Before Stark gets trigger happy.” Bolting for the nearest set of stairs, everything became a blur as Bucky and Steve bolted from the building. Hiding your face in Buckys shoulder, you never did see that sunny afternoon. 

A shadow passed over Bucky and Steve bolting across the ground, and when you glanced up, lifting your head off Buckys shoulder, the flash of red and silver covered out the blue sky above, and you smiled to yourself, between Sam, Steve and Bucky, you were safe. Exhaustion dipped your head back to Buckys shoulder.

It wasn't long till you were back at Stark Towers, which hadn't been your home in a year. Bucky carried you down into the medic bay with Sam close by. The rest of the team went to debrief on the mission, knowing you were taken cared of. Bucky easily set you down on the table, hovering nearby, he seemed hesitant to leave you, you who were so quiet, so shut down. Sam hovered close by, his jaw clenched. Quiet at well. Not knowing what to say or do, You just stared at the floor till Bruce came in. 

“Give us some privacy Bucky? I need to give her a full examination.” Bruce said softly, and your eyes welled up with tears, hiding away from them both. Bucky shook his head in refusal. “I'm not leaving her alone.” 

“Okay, but on the other side of the curtain, if Y/N needs you, she will call you.” Bruce looked over at you to confirm that was okay, and you nodded, still unable to look at any of them. Your shame and fear pounding at you. Sam clasped Buckys forearm, nodding his head to the door. "We will just be on the other side." When Bucky stepped on the other side, you could see the worried look flashing across his face, somewhat in recgonition to your pain. Sam gave you a slight nod, and a smile of encouragement.

Why couldnt you be stronger? 

The start of your recovery was rough, locked in your room a lot. It took some time for you to open back up to the team. Bring a sense of normalcy to you again. Your normal for the past year has been to be tortured. Everyday life was a lot. Things so simple, like going to get a glass of water, took all your willpower to do. The team, they did everything they could to make it easier.  Natasha and Clint immediately made you a part of their movie nights. At first you would sit stiffly away from them, not wanting to be touched by anyone. But soon you loosened up. Curling up against Clint while his arm draped over you, your feet in Natasha’s lap while she painted your nails. “How are the nightmares Y/N?” Natasha would ask, and you could feel Clint tighten his arm around you slightly, listening. It was no secret, your nightmares were a nightly occurrence, often waking up screaming and trying to hide somewhere in the room. 

“They are fine, fewer and fewer every day.” You lied, covering your shame. 

Steve, you often went with Steve out for walks where he would find some subject to draw. You would lay in the sun, while your friend sketched away at some piece of nearby building, sometimes a landscape. Once he even did you while you were sitting a bit away, catching your profile watching the clouds above. Often you two would sit in easy silence, not needing to have long intense conversations, you were just happy to be with your friend. Once in a while you would ask him. “Steve, you think I can join the team soon?” 

The blonde man would hum, and his blue eyes would shift over towards you a moment before going back to his paper. “Y/N, don't rush it. You were there for a year. I'm not putting you in the field before you're ready. Here, what do you think?” He would flip his pad around and of course it was his way of saying, No. Not Now. Maybe not ever.

Sam often had you over to his apartment to help with meals. You figured it was to make sure you were eating properly. At least one square meal. When you asked him, he scoffed. "Actually taking these cooking classes, I make enough for two. Lets face it, your better company then I could ask for. Besides Steve and Bucky are not adventurous like you. They wanna boil everything." Sam snorted, stiring his jambalaya. "Chop this up." He said quickly, handing you a knife. You always felt safer with something, Sam noticed this the first time you joined him, and you flinched when he drew out a butchers blade. From then on, you were set on chopping duties. You began to really look forward to cooking nights with Sam.

"No girlfriends to have cooking dates with?" You would tease when you set to chopping and Sam would give you that grin of his.

"Sure, I just test them on you first Precious. Gotts make sure they are decent enough to feed to others."

"Yea, I'm real Precious if your using me as a gineau pig." You stick your tongue out st your friend, but secretly you don't mind.

Tony, he was more energetic. Often you would be sitting down in his workshop, laughing at his attempts to improve the Ironman suit. It became a habit to keep a fire extinguisher nearby. “Tony, I don't think you should try this.” You said warily as he put on his new thruster boots. “Aww come on, what's the worst that can happen?” He grinned, and winked. 

He ended up shooting around the room like a balloon just untied, crashing into walls and bouncing off the floor. When he finally came to a stop, his feet were on fire. 

Jumping down with the extinguisher, you yelled “Tony!” and covered him with the foam, once it ended and the billionaire blinked it away, swiping the foam off his face. 

“I had it under control Y/N.” 

“Sure you did.” You squirted him one last time to retaliate before putting it away, and holding your hand out to him, helping him up. 

“Payback Y/N, payback.” Tony glared before pulling you into a hug, getting you covered to. At first it was fine, until you didnt feel Tony anymore and you struggled. Tony immediately let go, and you covered your face in shame. “Im sorry, I'm so sorry Tony.” He shook his head and gently grasped your wrist just enough to uncover your face. “Y/N, it's okay to feel like that. I should have asked first.” You gave an apologetic smile and he winked. The good thing with Tony was that he moved on from your attacks like they never happened, and for that you were forever grateful to your friend.

Bucky, he was the only one that you would find wandering late at night, like you were. When everyone else was fast asleep, you would be pacing the tower, afraid of sleep. It would happen, eventually. Your body would give into its demands, and you would go under into your nightmares. But until that happened though, you found ways to distract yourself. Sometimes it was video games on mute, you would bake muffins for the teams breakfast, get lost in Tony's library he allowed you access to. It was in these wanderings you found Bucky, bumping into him in random places. 

Eventually you two started to really get to know each other. Your late nights would be spent together. You opened up more and more, talking about what Hydra and Brock did to you during that year, Bucky making similar confessions while you two sat outside, away from the confines of the building. Quite a few times you both watched the sun start to come up far off to the east, and Bucky's arm would settle over you while your head tipped onto his shoulder. 

“Buck, I don't know if I will ever just be okay. Steve doesn't seem to think so.” 

“Doll, I came back from it.” He simply said, and you looked up at him, giving a half smile. 

“Your stronger than me.” 

His brow arched as he looked down at you. “That's not true. I had help, Steve, Shuri. I could have never done it alone. Why I know you will come back from this. Your not alone.” 

It gave you something to think about the rest of that day. 

You were so tired after two days going, you couldn't help but pass out, exhausted. You fell into bed in your sleep shorts and a tank, curling up while the world faded away. 

The nightmares though, flashbacks of all those times you were helpless, unable to fight back and could do nothing more than hold back your screams. It never helped, they still fell from you till you were horse from it, rolling from your bed as visions of various doctors plagued you, Hydra Agents beating on you, and Brock he was always in the darkness, watching with anticipation. When he would finally step from the shadows, you knew it wasn't just a nightmare anymore. It was hell. It was what sent you hiding while you were still sleeping. 

This night the jarring motion falling from your bed woke you, before Brock could get to you. Covering your head, you sobbed into your knees, so completely at a loss of how to fix yourself. Your shoulders shook, and you huddled there on the floor for a moment till your legs and back started to ache from being hunched over. Sniffling, you grasp the side of your bed and pull yourself to sit on the edge, wiping the tears from your face. The room felt cold. Reminiscent of your time with Hydra. No warmth, dark shadows stretching like they were reaching to claim you, in which you withdraw your feet off the floor, trying to talk yourself through what you felt was another oncoming panic attack. You had to get out of there, there was no way you could sleep in here tonight. 

Grabbing a blanket and wrapping it around your shoulders, you edge around your bed, trying not to let yourself get psyched out that Brock might be hiding in your room, he wasn't. He couldn't. It was impossible to break into Stark Towers, right? Into the living room you went, looking over your shoulder at what was your bedroom. Even your couch felt too close to the memories. 

It wasn't even a thought, you eased into the hallway and started down familiar doors. Steve, Natasha, Wanda… when you paused in front of one. It had no special markings, nothing to signify to any other that it was a special door, but for you it was. Hesitating for a second, you reached out and gave a quick rap of the knuckles, waiting. 

Bucky heard it, that quick knock knock. He never slept deeply, always aware of his surroundings, years of training and his own deep rooted fears that something was going to happen. When he opened his door to you, the blanket you had on you just about swallowed you, and your face peeked out, red rimmed eyes and ruddy cheeks. He knew you had been crying, were about to start crying as you were standing there. Bucky stepped back to let you in. 

“Sorry Bucky, I just… don't want to be in my apartment tonight.” Your head dropped as you stepped in, and he softly shut the door behind you. 

Standing there for a moment, you didn't know where to go from there, and he stepped in closer, encircling his arms around your cocooned blanket and you could feel the rush of a sob squeaking from you, pressing in against his t shirt. Bucky tucked you in close, feeling his own eyes prick with tears feeling you break in his arms, your shoulders shaking and even the blanket couldn't seem to keep you feeling safe now. But his arms did. They were strong and hard, encircling you. “Come on Doll, your exhausted I can feel it.” 

You didn't struggle as he led you down the small hallway to the back bedrooms, and  expected him to put you in a guest room that you knew all these apartments had. But he didn't. 

He brought you right into his room, and sat you on the edge of his bed. 

“Are you okay unwrapping from this?” He questioned, his hands resting on the blanket where you clutched it around you like a protective shield. You sniffled and dried your face on it momentarily before nodding, letting your grip go. He eased it off, and folded it. Resting at the end should you want it back. 

“Give me two seconds Doll.” He disappeared into his closet and with the door half shut, pulled on a pair of sweats over his boxers, and switched out his tear wet shirt for a dry one. When he came back out, you were right where he left you, feet dangling over the edge of the bed, and your fingers clasped in your lap. When he came around and stretched out, half propped up on pillows, you looked over your shoulder at him. “Can you leave the light on Buck? Just a little bit?” 

“Of course Y/N. '' Reaching to the lamp, he turned it on a softer setting and saw you visibly relax your shoulders as you looked around, and could still see all the corners of the room. Pushing back to get in the bed, you tucked yourself in against your friend's side, letting your head fall to his shoulder. 

“They must have been pretty bad this time.” Bucky said as he lifted a blanket over the two of you, and you nodded. “I kept seeing Him in the dark, coming for me.” Bucky was well aware who you were talking about, having shared with him before some that had happened to you. You lifted Bucky's arm and placed it around your shoulder, his palm pressing against your arm and tucking you in closer, dropping the softest of kisses on top of your head. “Even when I was awake, it was like he was just out of sight, waiting for me to drop my guard.” 

“We won't let him get to you Doll, not again.” 

There was a soft shuffle of blankets as you got comfier against him, and your arm locked around his middle, your voice muffled against his shirt. 

“I know Buck, that's why I came to you.” 

[iatethepomegranate]

We are not alone in the dark with our demons, Chapter 11

In which Caleb buys a house in Rexxentrum with Beau and Yasha, becomes a professor, and learns to be a person and protect those who have been hurt like he has.

Content warnings: Caleb's backstory, mentions of abuse from teachers, discussions of institutionalisation, implied medical abuse

Chapter summary: Caleb was hurting, but he wasn't the only one. If he could do nothing else, he could care for his friends, and they could care for him.

Chapter notes: Kirschtorte is just Black Forest Cake with the geographic reference removed because Zemnian. Chapter title is from Neptune by Sleeping At Last

Chapter 11: If brokenness is a work of art surely this must be my masterpiece

Dinner was a solemn affair, no matter how much Caduceus and Yasha tried to provide comfort in the food they made. The spiced, fried bugs that Yasha had convinced them all to try were actually very good. And they hadn’t made apple tarts today--Jester would have been furious if they’d tried it in her absence--but they made a different Zemnian dessert instead: Kirschtorte. Layers of chocolate sponge sandwiched with whipped cream, sour cherries and a cherry liqueur unique to the Zemni Fields, with a few cherries placed on top.

It tasted so much like home that Caleb stopped eating, folded his arms on the table, rested his head on them, and cried. He had been too tired to excuse himself.

“Was the cake that bad?” Yasha half-whispered.

“No,” Beauregard said thickly. “It’s good, babe. I don’t think that’s… I think it’s been a long day. Long two days.”

Essek rubbed slow circles into Caleb’s back, but the group let him cry without disturbing him. Caduceus handed him a glass of water when he was finished. Caleb did not miss Beauregard twisting away from him to wipe her eyes. And Caleb was struck by another wave of emotion, grief at how much Beauregard was hurting, that almost brought him to tears all over again.

After dinner, Essek helped Caduceus and Yasha with the dishes. They hadn’t let Caleb or Beauregard help tonight. Caleb caught Beauregard as she left the kitchen, and guided her to the couch. They sat together, quietly at first. Sometimes Caleb felt so many things that it seemed impossible to put them into words. But he couldn’t leave things like this; she had gotten involved because of him. She’d run into a burning house with him, she’d watched Felix so Caduceus could help him try to save the Baumanns, she’d spent a day and night watching over Nico in the same state she knew Caleb himself had once been in. Eleven years in Vergesson, broken under the weight of what he had done to his mother and father. She knew all that. She knew more than almost anyone what he had gone through; she had listened to his story and written it down so they could stop Trent from hurting anyone else, and give Caleb just a little shred of peace. She cared about Caleb. She cared about people like him. And she had also been abused by a powerful man.

And they’d had the chance to help Nico in a way neither of them had been helped when they most needed it (and what help they had received only came years after the damage was done). Then, all their efforts to help Nico had failed. She’d mobilised the monks and done her best to find him, and had come up empty just like Caleb had.

She was hurting, too.

Caleb took her hand in both of his and, feeling awkward about it, kissed her knuckles. Beauregard looked at him strangely.

“Uh, Caleb? You’re being weird.”

“You’re a good friend, Beauregard.” Caleb patted her hand, setting it down on her leg.

“Oh, we’re gonna have one of those talks.”

Caleb’s track record for emotional conversations with Beauregard was, for the most part, horrifying. They were both awkward people who sometimes understood each other well, and other times couldn’t understand each other at all. He had, on more than one occasion, stormed away from a conversation silently screaming.

“Beauregard…” He sighed. Caleb was running on sheer willpower, emotionally bruised and given to cry at a moment’s notice. But he wanted her to know how much he appreciated her, and how sorry he was for her pain. “Thank you.”

“Caleb, we’ve been over this. You don’t need to say this shit.”

“I do, though.” Caleb hadn’t meant for his voice to sound so small. So fragile. But he… Caleb needed her to hear this.

She looked away. “Sorry. I just… you’re going through a lot of shit, and I don’t want you to feel, like, obligated…” She trailed off, staring at the colourful, jewel-toned rug Jester had brought from Nicodranas.

“This is not easy for you, either,” Caleb said, and Beauregard sagged against the couch, looking at him like he had grown another head.

“Caleb, what the fuck?”

“You are a caring person, Beauregard. And you know better than most what those children have been through. You listened to my story and wrote it down for me. You stood with me while I faced Trent in the courtroom and recounted, again, everything he had done to me.” Caleb didn’t know where he found the strength to speak, to build up the steam he needed to spill out all his feelings, but he did it because Beauregard needed to know. For both their sakes. “You and Veth were the first people I ever told. You are… invested. You care. You are kind and good. I need you to know that I am grateful for everything you have done for me, and for people like me.”

“Caleb, I know you’re grateful,” Beauregard said, with that same tired frustration she often had when he was being emotionally obtuse. “You’re also a fucking wreck and need to stop wasting your time on me.”

“I am not wasting anything,” Caleb said. He had to fight down his frustration. Neither of them were comfortable having this kind of focus on them, and she was trying to be a good friend. “That is not all I wanted to say. I want you to know… I see you.” Caleb wasn’t great at eye contact, but he made a special effort now, locking eyes with Beauregard and hoping she got it. Hoping she understood he knew she was suffering, and that it mattered to him.

“Hard not to, man. I’m pretty hot.”

“I’m glad you know that about yourself.” It would have been easy to let her deflect, but Caleb steeled himself to drag this conversation where he intended it to go. “But that is not what I meant. You know that.”

Beauregard averted her eyes once again.

“Yesterday was hard. Today was hard. For all of us. And you…” Caleb reached for her hand, relieved that she let him hold it. “You have been abused as well. And yet, you ran into a burning house with me. You saw Nico unresponsive in Wulf’s arms, knowing I was once like that, too. You watched over Felix while Caduceus and I tried to save Nico’s parents. Then, you watched over Nico and had to witness what I was going through that day, and that night. You have seen me in a bad place before, and that was the worst I have been in a long time, and I know it was confronting for all of you. And you did everything you could to keep Nico from running, and you were there when it all fell apart. I know you are hurt, Beauregard. And you are allowed to be. Please allow that for yourself.”

She squeezed his hand, and some of her guardedness fell away to reveal the sheer depths of sadness in her eyes. “I love you, man.”

“I love you, too, Beauregard. Thank you, and I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.”

“I know. You are a good person. I am sorry for your pain, because I am your friend.”

Beauregard clasped his hand in both of hers, staring down at the tangle of fingers. “I’m worried about you, Caleb. And about the kids. But I can do something about you, at least.”

“You have done a lot already, Beauregard. Thank you.” He tugged her by the hand until she shuffled close enough that he could throw his arms around her and drag her into the tightest hug he could manage. She squeezed him back, and his spine cracked a little in a way he didn’t know he had needed on both a physical and emotional level until relief flooded through his system.

****

Caduceus stayed overnight in case he was needed, and Essek dropped him back at the Grove the following morning.

“Call me any time,” Caduceus had said as his parting words. “Whatever you need, even if it’s in the middle of the night, I’ll be ready.”

The Volstrucker and the monks continued searching for Nico, and Caleb was at a loose end. So he launched himself into preparing for the upcoming semester, his first as a teacher. He split his time at home between his study in the dormer, the floor of Beau and Yasha’s living room, and occasionally the Cobalt Soul Archives while Beau was working, depending on how much his need for privacy warred with his need to have his loved ones close at hand.

Essek stayed. Caleb stewed in silent guilt whenever he let himself think about it too much, but he knew better than to ask Essek to leave when the man was clearly worried about him. More often than not, Caleb left the house with his hair braided, whether it was a single braid at the back or, Essek’s favourite, two narrow braids tucked into a half or full ponytail. Sometimes it felt like Caleb’s mental health hinged entirely on the presence of a braid.

Caleb sent daily messages to Felix and Nico. For Felix, it was simple to find a routine. A question about his day, little tidbits about a spell the boy had indicated an interest in, updates on the search for Nico, and whether either of them had received responses from him (the answer, thus far, was no). He didn’t push Felix for an answer about school. Not yet.

For Nico, Caleb weighed his words far more carefully.

On one day: “Hallo, Nico. It’s Caleb. How are you? I am working from home today. You are welcome here any time.”

A few hours after that: “Hallo, Nico. Caleb again. I just wanted to say: I know how you are feeling. I went through this as well. You’re in my thoughts.”

Another day: “Hallo, Nico. Me again. Are you safe? It’s cold out. Remember to drink water. Boil it first if necessary.”

And another: “Hallo, Nico. I am a teacher at the Academy now. I intend to watch these fuckers like a hawk. Keep the kids safe, ja?”

He burned a second spell for that one: “We deserved better. I will make sure the children who come after us get it. And you… come back when you’re ready. Let me help.”

And countless other messages, little updates about his day, about Felix, about work, about just… coming back in one piece.

And he did not receive a single response. Caleb cried more often than not after going through this. He preferred to be alone in his study in those moments, and the others had learned not to disturb him until he was ready to be around people again.

Overall, he felt he had been pretty good about it. He kept busy, spent time with his friends, let Essek hover around him and take care of him. Caleb let Essek help with his lesson plans, bounce around ideas for a presentation he would have to make in the first week of semester as a new teacher at the Academy. He had already told the Nein they were invited, and had spoken to Astrid to make sure the non-citizens would be welcome.

He also remembered to invite Nico, on the off-chance the boy needed a specific call to action to return to Rexxentrum.

“Hallo, Nico. I am presenting a talk next week at the Academy on the first day of semester. 7 o’clock. You would be welcome.”

Caleb met regularly with Bettina and Alphira to work on their lesson plans together. He spent most of that time with Bettina, given he would literally be taking over one of her classes. He was mostly assisting Alphira, though she was interested to get him in to talk to the senior Evocation students at some point about his experiences with the Sending spell. Including the funny ones with Jester. There was also an interesting discussion to be had about why Sending was considered an Evocation spell while Message was considered a Transmutation cantrip. Both professors spoke carefully in a way that suggested they knew what had happened with Felix and Nico, but they never brought it up. He was relieved they let him keep his academic work separate from that heartbreaking shitshow.

Between work, Caleb found time to catch up with Astrid and Wulf. He pretended not to notice their visible relief whenever they saw him, because he was genuinely unsure what they would do if he brought it up.

At a certain point, meeting in Astrid’s office brought up too many memories, so they moved their meetings to the dance hall. Beauregard, Yasha and even a disguised Essek had “accidentally” wandered in on more than one occasion.

“Are you still talking to Felix?” Astrid asked him as the three of them sat around a table in the farthest corner of the room from the dance floor.

“Ja, he doesn’t tell me everything, but he responds at least.”

“Still nothing from Nico?”

Caleb didn’t need to say it out loud; he couldn’t school his expression to hide the pain there. And Astrid and Wulf had once known him very well.

Astrid reached out, touched the back of his hand where it rested on the table beside his mug of ale. “I’m sorry, Bren.”

Wulf had his eye on Yasha, who was calmly drinking at the bar. “Astrid’s people are still looking for him.”

Caleb did his best to shrug off the hurt. “I know.”

Astrid squeezed his hand once and then retreated. “Now, about your lesson plans…”

She had been teaching for a while, so Astrid had plenty of advice to give. However, she was also hesitant to steer Caleb too much.

“You have good instincts,” she told him every time they spoke about it. “Trust them.”

On their way out of the dance hall, where they had sat for a good three hours, Astrid caught Caleb’s arm.

“One more thing. I have secured a venue at the Academy for the support group, mid-week. I have contacted most of the Volstrucker. We are ready to go ahead when you are.”

“Astrid, the point of this is not for one person to steer it.”

Astrid raised an eyebrow at him. “Bren, we need a dedicated person to drive this. And that person is you.”

The thought of that was frightening. Caleb was barely figuring out how to be a person himself, let alone be responsible for the healing of dozens of people who had been under Trent’s thumb for far longer than he had.

“Astrid.”

“I am not expecting you to have all the answers for them,” she said firmly. “But you have had more time to process than the rest of us have.” She gave a small, wry chuckle. “In fact, you may be the most stable of us all.”

“Astrid, that is horrifying.”

“She’s right,” said Wulf. “Besides, you have a way with people. Always have.”

Caleb was not like Fjord or Jester or Caduceus who always seemed to have something to say when someone was hurting, but he could talk when he had to. He feared some of the Volstrucker would not take him seriously because he had broken, or because he had gotten out long before they had. This would take time. Fortunately, Caleb was one of the few Empire wizards with in-depth knowledge of time, learned from a reliable source.

Astrid still held his arm. She slid down to grip his hand instead. “I know this will not be easy for you. You were always sensitive. But that is why you have a chance with these people. They are not…” She sighed. “Trent made sure we don’t know how to exist in a world without his boot on our throats.”

“We don’t know how to process our emotions,” Wulf said, and it was odd to hear him admit it aloud. “Well, most of us. You do all right.”

Caleb laughed at that, because it sounded like a horrible joke. Caleb, who felt so constantly bruised on the inside that even the slightest inconvenience threatened to send him into tears. Who still woke up gasping in the night. Who was so choked by pain sometimes that words left him. Processing his emotions? It was more likely that his emotions processed him. Like a fucking meatgrinder.

Astrid frowned at him. “Let’s take a walk. Just the three of us.” She glanced back at the door, where Yasha was visible. “If your shadow will allow it.”

“My shadow does what she likes,” Caleb muttered, letting Astrid tug him along. Wulf took his other hand, leaving him little choice to let the two of them take him where they willed.

They wound up in a small park they had used to visit regularly, especially when drunk after a night of dancing. It was strange to see it in daylight, and while Caleb was mostly sober. They sat on the grass beside a small ornamental pond, Astrid and Wulf pointedly bookending Caleb, sitting close enough for their shoulders to touch. The wind played with the strands of Caleb’s hair that had fallen out of his braid. He never bothered to fix them because Essek found it endearing.

“I apologise,” said Astrid. “I did not mean to upset you.”

“I’m not upset, Astrid.” At her doubtful noise, he added, “Not at you.”

“You should get out of Rexxentrum,” she said abruptly. “Just for a few days. We have things well in hand. Your lesson plans are solid. Bettina and Alphira are pleased. You do not need to be here until next week.”

“And if Nico comes back?”

“You will be contacted. I promise.” Astrid looked to Wulf, who shrugged at her, which caused her to roll her eyes. “Jester keeps pestering me to make you visit Nicodranas.”

Caleb had been messaging with Jester regularly, and she had hinted that he should visit, but she was usually a lot more explicit when she wanted to see him. And he knew she was talking to Yasha, Beau and Essek, but none of them had said much about it.

It was odd. “Is there a reason she is pestering you and not the people I literally live with?”

Astrid shrugged. “I may have let a few things slip.”

“Astrid, you do not ‘let things slip.’”

She looked utterly unashamed. “Well, apparently you had not told some of your dearest friends you are going through a rough patch, so I did it for you.”

“In how much detail, exactly?” Caleb did not like to be angry with his friends, especially Astrid, but he needed to work out how much of a problem he needed to have with her.

“Very little, just enough that she knows you are not at your best. I would not rob you of that agency.”

That last part hit Caleb harder than he could have expected. “I… thank you.”

Caleb had to admit he missed his friends terribly. Especially Veth, who of all the Nein had seen him at his worst, helped him put the pieces of his brain together on the days he collapsed, who had cuddled up to him on bad days, who had been the first friend he’d had in many years. And Jester, who knew how to ruin a dark mood. Fjord, with his quiet understanding. Kingsley with his… Kingsleyness that was a little painfully close to Molly sometimes but more than welcome.

He always knew they would be worried sick if he told them even a fraction of what had happened in the last few days. Seeing the pain he brought to Caduceus, Yasha, Beau and Essek was hard enough. But they loved him. Those who did not know what had happened would want to know, so they could help.

And he was touched that Astrid and Wulf had taken the time to sit him down and discuss this with him. He didn’t know what they were now. Maybe he never would. Maybe they were friends again. They had all changed so much, Caleb especially, that it was hard to say if they could even be friends. But Caleb wanted it. He wanted it a lot.

“I suppose I can spare a day or two,” he finally said. It would be good for Essek to get out of Rexxentrum, too. Maybe he could drag Beau and Yasha out for a bit, even if Beau had obligations at the Archive.

Wulf and Astrid looked at each other in a knowing way he had not seen from them in seventeen years. The familiarity was strange, and a little uncomfortable, but also comforting at the same time. He had spent so much time emphasising how much he still cared for them, doing his best to drag them away from Trent, and then gently guiding them through sharing their trauma to put Trent away for good. But he had never forgotten that for such a long time, they were the ones looking out for him and protecting him. He had done the same for them, of course, but there had often been an unspoken understanding that Caleb was just a little bit squishy, needed just a little extra care.

Caleb was also keenly aware that sometimes it was easier to care for someone else than to care for yourself.

Wulf’s large hand found Caleb’s knee. “Good. Say hi to Fjord for me.”

“Tell him yourself,” Caleb muttered, because he knew Wulf would find it more funny than offensive.

Wulf chuckled and squeezed his knee. “Oh, and warn your boyfriend: if he hurts you, I will cut off his balls.”

“You will have to beat me there,” said Astrid.

Okay, this conversation had taken so many twists and turns that Caleb had half a mind to visit the Grove and ask Caduceus to check him for whiplash. Unsurprising, really. Things were complicated between the three of them and likely would be for a very long time.

He wasn’t sure what to say about the fact his exes were on the cusp of threatening his current partner, and not in the way one might expect. Caleb found himself fiddling with the end of his braid while he tried to process what the fuck was happening to him.

Finally, he said, “There are a great many people who would fuck him up if he ever put a foot wrong with me, and he himself is first in line. You need not worry about that. Thank you for your… concern?”

Astrid and Wulf shared another look, much more pained than the last. Then they both looked away, Astrid into the grass and Wulf at the pond.

“He treats you well?” she said quietly.

“Ja, very well. He came back to take care of me.” Caleb had no words for the depths of his gratitude towards Essek. He was always gentle with Caleb, sensitive to his needs. And these last few days, he had been nothing but a source of endless love and support, a soft place to land when Caleb felt like he was in freefall. He always offered this, but every protective and caring instinct in Essek had been cranked upward, like casting an old, reliable third-level spell at eighth level instead. Or ninth, though Caleb and Essek were not quite to that level of magical skill yet.

“Good,” Wulf muttered. “You play with your braid when you talk about him.”

Caleb chuckled, not even embarrassed he had been caught with such an obvious tell. “Ja, he likes to braid my hair for me.”

“Hard to hate a man who braids his partner’s hair.” Wulf’s voice was almost wistful; Caleb’s hair had never been long enough to braid when the three of them were together, but they had occasionally been able to get a small one into Astrid’s hair.

“Good. Don’t.”

Astrid’s hand found Caleb’s other knee. “You’ve been through a lot, even in the past few days alone. And… we know you are capable. You have the willpower and the support you need to get through all of this, and to guide the Volstrucker who agree to attend the support group. But we do worry for you. And we are… glad… you have people in your life who take care of you.” Once again, she could not look at him. “Wulf and I… we are sorry we failed you.”

That was a new one. “Astrid, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“Greater Restoration,” Wulf said quietly.

“If we had found the nerve to talk to a cleric ourselves,” added Astrid, “we could have gotten you out of there years ago.”

Right. Vergesson. “Trent wouldn’t have allowed it. You know that.”

“We could have tried.”

They had been teenagers. Frightened, grieving teenagers at the mercy of a powerful man. Of all the things Caleb could have held against Astrid and Eadwulf, this would never be one of them.

“You could have gotten us all killed,” Caleb said, forcing steel into his tone in the hope it would break whatever spiral Astrid and Wulf had worked themselves into. “You didn’t know that Greater Restoration would have done shit for me. Why would you? That is not the skillset Trent cultivated in us. He taught us how to hurt people, because we were to be his weapons. He had us murder our own fucking parents because all he wanted us to know was violence and pain and fear and utter reliance on him alone. You do not need to apologise for not taking on a fool’s errand.”

They refused to look at him once again. Jaws clenched. Eyes wild and staring holes into the ground.

“We were children,” Caleb reminded them, squeezing their hands where they remained on his knees. “We were children. Of all the things we have done or not done, that is the last thing I will ever let you apologise for. Do not hurt yourselves, hurt me, like this. Please.”

Astrid’s free hand pressed over her mouth, catching a sob. Wulf’s thumb drew a slow circle on Caleb’s knee.

“You’re right,” Wulf said quietly. “It would have been foolish. But we…”

“We were cowards,” Astrid snapped. “We left you there for eleven years. Trent made sure you were cared for, but… it was Vergesson. And you were defenceless.”

“I am well aware,” Caleb said before she could pull up memories that were far too painful for any of them. “I have told you before that I remember little of my time there. I would prefer it remain that way, I think.” Caleb wasn’t sure he could survive remembering that place beyond the flashes of awful that would sometimes come to him.

“I’m sorry, Bren. I’m sorry.”

“Shhhh. Enough of that.”

Astrid cleared her throat, straightened up. Evidently she had remembered they were technically in a public place.

“Do us a favour,” said Wulf. “Go to Nicodranas. Get some rest.”

“I will, if the two of you will also do me a favour.”

Astrid, newly composed, raised an eyebrow at him. “What is this favour?”

“Try to hate yourselves a little less. Hypocritical coming from me, but I think we could all stand to be kinder to ourselves.” Caleb had said almost those exact words to Essek in the Blooming Grove all those months ago, and he was struck by how much he had a type.

“All right,” she said, smiling with so much affection that Caleb was taken back to their first kiss in a freezing cold tower. “You first.”

They parted ways not long afterwards, and Yasha melted out of the shadows to walk Caleb home.

“That looked very intense,” she said, leading him by the hand like he was a small child bound to get lost in a big city. “Are you okay?”

“I think so. Think you can convince Beauregard to visit Nicodranas for a bit?”

Yasha chuckled. “I think I can manage.”

****

Making arrangements for Nicodranas kept Caleb from stewing too much in his talk with Astrid and Wulf. That was welcome. He appreciated the care they still had for him, but there were some things that were still too painful and probably always would be. He had already messaged Jester to confirm the Nein Heroez would be in dock at the time.

“Of course, Caleb! Did Astrid talk to you? She’s super nice, and she really cares about you a lot. I’m sorry I was mean to--” The message cut off at twenty-five words; Jester’s word economy, or lack thereof, would always be a source of joy even on a bad day.

Essek, mercifully, had messaged Veth for him; she would hear the exhaustion in Caleb’s voice and worry herself into a panic.

Despite the flurry of activity, Caleb still found himself occasionally caught, freezing in the act of folding a shirt or cataloguing his spell components. And he’d remember how much the two visits to Vergesson he had made since his escape had rattled him. The few memories he had were bad enough, and he knew so much of the pain the place brought him was buried in his subconscious. Or in moments that his body seemed to remember but his mind didn’t.

The bloodbath he’d caused while on the amulet heist. So on edge that he had forgotten a crucial detail about the Wall of Force spell until he had expended all his spells that he could have used to disintegrate it. Caleb did not forget things like that. Until he did, apparently. And then there had been his complete inability to do anything but fight when Trent had appeared suddenly, temporarily thwarting their escape. He’d fallen back on his training. Always his training. And the violence it entailed.

While part of him was a tiniest bit curious what had happened during those eleven years, if nothing else to further catalogue Trent’s sins on the public record and dig up his accomplices, most of him hoped he never found out.

As he stood a little too long in these thoughts, a pair of dusky purple hands lifted Caleb’s component pouch from his shaking grip, setting it aside. Essek sat Caleb on the end of the bed and wordlessly climbed behind him, knees gently pressing Caleb’s hips as he pulled the braid loose and began it anew. The gentle tugging motions slowly pulled Caleb back into his body, and the present.

Essek finished off the braid and kissed Caleb’s neck. “Do you want to talk about it?”

More like Caleb needed to talk about it before he imploded. “Astrid and Wulf apologised for not getting me out of Vergesson themselves. And… I think they know some parts of what happened to me there. Things I don’t remember. Things I don’t want to remember. Things I might know subconsciously that I don’t think I can handle knowing consciously. I’m just… out of sorts, I suppose.”

Essek slid his arms around Caleb’s chest, pressing himself up against his back, squishing their cheeks together. “I would like to turn them into spaghetti for making you think about this when you have enough to worry about, but you would be upset with me.”

“I’m not angry with them.”

“I know.” Essek kissed his cheek, nuzzling Caleb’s stubble.

“Vergesson is… I do not like the person I became when I was last there. I don’t think I could survive remembering what happened to me.”

“Then don’t try to remember.” Essek flattened his palm over Caleb’s heart and gently pressed down, forcing Caleb to focus more on his breathing. Remembering that his heart still beat. He was here.

More immediate, practical thoughts began to filter back into Caleb’s mind. He remembered he was going to Send to Caduceus and invite him to Nicodranas. Caduceus would hear the rough edges in Caleb’s voice, but he could handle it far better than most of the Nein.

“Hallo, Caduceus. It’s Caleb. We are visiting Nicodranas for a few days tomorrow. Would you like to come? We can pick you up in the morning.”

There was a slight pause, and then Caduceus’s warm, soothing tone filled Caleb’s mind. “Hey, Caleb. That sounds great. I’ll be ready, with fresh tea for everyone. And sunhats. You and Essek will burn in the sun.”

“Caduceus is in,” Caleb said, stifling a yawn. Essek laughed softly, his breath tickling Caleb’s neck. “Now for Yussa.” He cast again, directing a message to Wensforth. “Hallo, it’s Caleb of the Mighty Nein. We are visiting Nicodranas tomorrow. May we use the circle? It would be good to see you both.”

Wensforth replied quickly. “Yes, of course! The master is eager to speak with you at any time. Please… message before you arrive?”

Caleb let himself laugh a little. The Nein were notoriously awful at warning people of their arrival. And Caleb was touched that Yussa, ever a busy man, thought so highly of them now that he would happily drop everything to talk to them. They had spoken a few times since Cognouza, and if Yussa had been a less restrained man, Caleb had the strong impression he would’ve hugged each and every one of the Nein in gratitude for saving him.

And, to think, Caleb had once been so frightened of him that he could barely speak.

He felt better, so he got up and finished sorting his spell components, making a note that he would need to restock his teleportation circle chalk after a few more uses.

Caleb helped Yasha cook Eintopf that evening, a one-pot stew. Caleb had grown up eating dozens of versions of the stew, but he had his favourites. Carrots, leeks and celeriac were key to the base of the soup, as they were preparing their own broth. Along with a bunch of parsley. Yasha had found some excellent pork sausages at the market today, so those went in along with green beans (Caleb’s sentimental favourite), potatoes, and a ton of onion. Lots of garlic. Yasha had also found marjoram at the market today.

This was a recipe Caleb had helped his mother cook even as a boy, so he also insisted they add apple like she always had. For a little bit of sweetness and acidity. And surprise.

Caleb cleaned and steamed the beans while Yasha browned the meat and onions and potatoes and garlic. From there, they tag-teamed to get everything bubbling away until it was all finally ready to put into a pot and simmer away to completion.

It was a good use of the evening, and it kept Caleb busy and enveloped in happy sensory memories of his mother’s kitchen. While the stew bubbled away, he munched on a few green beans he’d set aside for the fun of it after they had steamed.

Essek hovered in the corner, reading a book about sea creatures Jester had brought him last time she was in town. Caleb pulled out his lesson plans and speech preparation, spreading it out across the dinner table, and made edits into the evening.

Beauregard arrived home from work--Yasha had visited her already to persuade her to come with them to Nicodranas. And then they ate dinner together at the table, and the taste of home did not send Caleb into a grief spiral tonight. This time, it just soothed him.

Before bed, Caleb sent one last message: “Hallo, Nico. It’s Caleb. I will be in Nicodranas for a few days. If you need shelter and the house is empty, take the key--” He cast again. “From inside the flowerpot on the right side of the house. I have an illusion set to guide you. Password: Wilkommen. Gute nacht.”

No response, but Caleb hadn’t expected one. He let Essek tuck him into bed. They curled up together, Essek slowly but firmly stroking his back with grounding pressure, until Caleb fell asleep.

[thearvariblues]

The Real Loki Always Chokes Me

Sooo... I might have actually written a fic for @zombieporno​‘s prompt from... last week, I guess. Except that my brain only managed the first part, since I don't have the patience for the asshole avoiding Tony. Bear with me, writing this took me a week. :D I might write an alternate version of this when he does avoid him, though - when I find my patience again, and maybe stop spending my evenings playing Witcher 3 instead of writing. :D

But until then... enjoy this, I guess?

*

Contrary to popular belief, Tony Stark didn’t really enjoy being a superhero. Well, yes, he enjoyed some parts of it, but others he kind of hated.

Like being dragged out of his workshop (when he was getting so fucking close to finding the solution for the problem that had been on his mind for two weeks now) by yet another attempt at world domination.

Though, to be fair, their current opponent wasn’t really trying to sit on the ruler-of-the-whole-world’s throne anymore. He was more or less just being an annoying piece of shit, probably just wanting to have some fun while he was stuck here in ‘Midgard’ as he insisted on calling it.

It was Loki, of course.

For the past five months, it had always been Loki. Almost as if he had bribed all the other villains not to attack.

Since his ‘having fun’ mostly consisted of robbing quite a few banks by teleporting in and out of them, he very well might have had. The guy would soon get richer than Tony himself.

“So what’s our drama queen done this time?” Tony asked as they took off in the quinjet. “Please don’t tell me it’s a dildo rain again.”

“I’ve told you a million times, we don’t call it a dildo rain,” Steve growled.

“It was literally raining dildos, Cap, what do you want to call it?” Clint smirked.

“I… I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. It’s not dildo rain today, so could we just stop talking about it?”

“Sounds like someone should have stolen one of those dildos and taken it home,” Natasha chuckled. “Like Tony did.”

“Like Tony what?!” Bruce blinked.

“What?” Tony shrugged. “Purely technically, Loki stole my credit card and used it to pay for all those… toys.”

“It’s worse somehow when you call them toys instead of dildos,” Steve sighed.

“Yeah, well. They were paid for with my money. So they were mine, weren’t they? I could have taken all of them instead of like… five most interesting.”

“My brother would be delighted to hear someone takes pleasure in his mischief,” Thor commented.

“Oh, yes. Lots and lots of pleasure.”

“Guys. Stop,” Bruce said, clearly fighting a chuckle. “I think Cap’s about to start crying…”

*

It really wasn’t a dildo rain this time. It was more of a… Loki rain. Or a Loki avalanche.

It was a few hundreds of perfect clones of Loki annoying the living daylights out of everyone they could find. They disappeared upon being touched, yes, but they were also extremely good at avoiding being touched in the first place.

As the team found out when Hulk ran straight through three of the clones and into the building behind them. This incident made Tony stop trying to assess the damage and give JARVIS an instruction to just pay for everything the idiots manage to destroy while ‘saving the world’.

Then he proceeded to turn off his comm, fly up to the roof of the nearest high building and just watch the spectacle underneath. Cap would give him hell for that, he was sure, but he kind of didn’t care.

“And what in Hel’s name are you doing here?” asked a growling voice just a few seconds after he had landed.

Tony turned around, let his helmet fold down and cocked an eyebrow.

“Oh, look, a clone Loki. Hey. How you doing?”

The Loki in front of him frowned, tilting his head.

“You’re supposed to be fighting the clones.”

“Nah. Too boring,” Tony shrugged. “You make Loki disappear. Turn around, another Loki. And look, another. Loki, Loki, Loki.”

“That’s the point,” the clone hissed.

“Yeah, I got that much. But hey, look, even though you’re all hot as fuck, the battle isn’t particularly amusing, you know?”

Loki blinked, so puzzled that Tony almost felt sorry for the clone.

“Hot as…” the clone whispered under his breath.

“Yeah, I mean… God, I hope you’re not connected to the real Reindeer Games. Fuck. If you are, can we pretend I never said what I said? I tend to let my mouth talk without my brain controlling it.”

“Connected to the real…” the clone gave an ugly chuckle. “I am the real Loki!”

Now it was Tony’s turn to frown and tilt his head.

“Nah,” he said after a long inspection. “You’re not. Haven’t tried to kill me yet. Not even to choke me. The real Loki always chokes me.”

The clone’s face went completely blank at that.

“Uhm… Hey?” Tony said after a few seconds of silence. “Did I actually manage to break a clone? Error 503: Brain Unavailable?”

The clone shook his head, probably to clear it, and took a step towards Tony.

“You idiot,” he growled. “You impossible mortal. I will crush you underneath my heel, you–”

“See? Now you sound like the real stuff!” Tony grinned. “Just a little angrier… That’s it! Perfect. Now to the crushing, while I’m not exactly into hard BDSM, I do like to get a liiittle kinky… Uhm, back to the question, you really aren’t connected to Loki himself, are you?”

“I am Loki!” the clone snarled.

“Yeah, we’ve been through this. The choking, baby. Except you can’t. Because you can’t touch me. Because if you touch me, poof, you’re gone.”

“Are you asking me to prove to you that I am real?”

“Yup. Indulge me.”

“As you wish.”

A split second later, Tony felt a very real and totally non-disappearing hand close around his throat and he came to a realization that he had made a terrible, terrible mistake.

But before he could utter the words ‘Don’t kill me, it was just a joke’, or even a mere ‘Oh, fuck’, Loki’s lips crashed against his in a wild and passionate and hungry kiss.

Tony’s brain stopped working for a second. Or two. Maybe even ten. Because when he came back to his senses, Loki was just pulling away, breathing heavily, his face a perfect mask of horror.

“Wow,” Tony gasped, licking his lips. “I know I said indulge me, but I haven’t expected that. If I say I’m not entirely convinced yet, can I have more?”

Loki’s eyes went even wider at that, and then he disappeared in a flash of green light.

“Okay,” Tony nodded. “I take that as a no. Shame, really.”

A look down to the street revealed that all the clones were gone, too.

Right. Time to go home.

*

It had been four days since the whole clones-and-kissing incident and if Tony was to be honest, he kind of couldn’t stop thinking about it. Well, he could – but the thought was always somewhere at the back of his mind, always ready to show up and remind him that hey, Loki, as in Thor’s brother Loki, as in the wannabe-world conqueror, kissed you and you liked it.

And he did. Very much.

That was why he didn’t mind when he walked into his penthouse only to find said god sitting on his couch and reading a book.

A fucking book.

“Uhm,” Tony commented. “JARVIS?”

“I tried to alert you, sir,” the AI said. “Two hours ago. But you told me to, I quote, shut the fuck up, J, or you’re gonna spend the rest of your days in a fucking elevator, calling out the number of the floor. End quote.”

“You might have said it was… urgent,” Tony muttered as Loki looked up from his book and smirked.

“I really don’t wish to spend the rest of my days in an elevator, sir.”

“Right,” Tony nodded. “Hey, Lokitty. How you doing? J, I’m gonna need an armor at the ready.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Loki said and the book he was holding promptly disappeared. “I came to apologize, Stark.”

“Uhm… For what? I mean, there’s a long list of things you should be apologizing for, so let’s be specific there. Drink?” he asked, already heading for the kitchen.

“The kiss.”

That actually made Tony stop dead in his tracks. He frowned, turned around and stared at Loki.

“As in I’m sorry I ever kissed you, or…”

Loki sighed, avoiding his gaze. Tony realized the god wasn’t wearing his usual armor – only a pair of simple black jeans and a loose, long-sleeved green T-shirt. He looked… weirdly normal. Almost like a human.

“Oh, dear. No. Never,” Loki said, a corner of his lip twitching. “But I shouldn’t have done it without your permission.”

“Seriously?” Tony laughed, taking a step towards the couch. “You’re apologizing because you didn’t ask for consent first?”

“Well… Yes. It was inappropriate. Improper. Brutish.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Tony said, sitting next to Loki without really thinking about it. “I mean… It’s not perfect, I’ll give you that, but do you see me complaining?”

Loki kept staring anywhere but at Tony.

“I’m not some kind of an animal, unable to control my impulses…”

Tony’s brain kept trying to alert him that this was Loki, who was very much wild and unpredictable and, yeah, sometimes even unable to control his impulses. But Tony didn’t listen. Because this wild and unpredictable deity was just sitting there, biting his lower lip and apologizing for something as simple as a kiss.

“Impulses?” Tony repeated after him. “Sorry, just to be perfectly clear, was the impulse a one-off thing, or something you’d like to, perhaps… happen again?”

Loki’s eyes flicked to Tony’s, then to his lips, then up again, and away.

“I should go,” the god said. “I shouldn’t have come. It was stupid of me–”

“Or…” Tony murmured, his own eyes straying to Loki’s lips. His brain was screaming at him to stop, but Tony wouldn’t listen. He’d always been bad at controlling his impulses. “Or you could try again.”

“Anthony, are you seriously suggesting…”

“Fuck,” Tony whispered, a shiver running down his spine. He could have sworn that he hated his full name, but when he heard it from Loki’s lips like this… “Say that again.”

The god’s green eyes were so close and so full of longing that it took all of Tony’s willpower not to simply crash their lips together.

“May I… May I kiss you, Anthony?” Loki smiled.

“Yes,” Tony hissed. “Please. Yes.”

This kiss wasn’t wild and passionate and hungry. It was calm. Sweet. Loving.

And long.

Very… very long.

*

“Six months!” Steve growled. “Loki hasn’t been seen for six months. No attacks, no robberies, no showing-off, nothing. Thor isn’t even sure his brother is still on Earth!”

“I said I think he is,” Thor specified. “But it’s possible that he isn’t.”

Except that Tony knew perfectly well that Thor knew too damn well where Loki was at the moment, having visited the god only a few hours ago.

“Come on, don’t make a big deal out of it,” Clint sighed. “Maybe he’s just grown bored of us.”

“You? Maybe. Me? Never,” Tony smirked. “Everybody knows I’m amusing as hell and completely irresistible even to Norse gods!”

“And so very modest, too,” Natasha added. “But I’m with Clint – I think Loki’s just had enough. He might be back in the future, but for now, we should enjoy not having to see his fucking magic tricks every other day.”

“Agreed,” Bruce nodded. “I don’t think there’s a bigger plan. Just Loki being Loki.”

“I’d like to point out that even before his disappearance, Loki was mainly just causing mischief. I mean, we were the ones who did the most damage during his last, uhm… attack?” Tony shrugged.

“What if he just wanted to lull us into a false sense of security?” Steve asked. “While he prepares for something big?”

Tony sighed and shot a quick look at Thor.

“What do you think, Point Break? Does your baby bro have a great sinister plan to murder us all, or does he just have better things to do than being an annoying little shit?”

“The latter, I’d say,” Thor smiled, because he knew he was right. Loki did have better things to do. Tony, for a start.

And reading.

And watching sci-fi movies and TV shows.

And yelling “That’s not how space works!” at the TV.

Also cooking. Which was something he was surprisingly good at.

And studying all the ancient tomes and spellbooks Thor managed to sneak out of Asgard. There were a lot of those. So many that Tony had to transform a spare room into a study.

And if he was bored, he could always do Tony again. Of course.

Or, well, cause some minor mischief all around the Tower – like hiding Clint’s arrows in weird and random places, replacing Bruce’s herbal tea with mate (and then sulking when Tony spend the whole night in the lab with hyperactive Bruce, working on a project), making the elevator stop working so everyone had to take the stairs…

Or the thing he was doing just now, which was kneeling right in front of Tony, naked from waist up and undoubtedly invisible to everyone but him, stroking the inventor’s thighs not with his hands, but with his magic, slowly getting closer and closer to his crotch...

Tony drummed his fingers on the table and got to his feet.

“Alright, so are we agreed that Loki isn’t dangerous at the moment and his sudden disappearance doesn’t mean he’s got some nefarious secret plan?”

“Agreed,” Natasha said before Cap could even open his mouth.

“Good. If you’ll excuse me now, I gotta go. I also have better things to do.”

Loki, for a start.

The second the elevator door slid closed behind them, Tony felt a pair of hot lips on his neck.

“Let me guess. You got bored?” he chuckled before sighing softly.

“Very much so,” Loki purred. “And don’t even try to pretend that you were having fun, my love.”

“It wasn’t about having fun, sweetie. It was about you being… Oh, god, right there, Loki… It was about you being a threat to all of humanity and…”

“Oh, please. I’ve only been a threat to your fridge and alcohol stash lately.”

“And my poor T-shirts. I’m still waiting for you to find the pocket dimension where you hid the Black Sabbath one, you know.”

“That was one accident, Anthony! And it wasn’t exactly my fault. To think that they call me Silvertongue…”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Tony murmured, burying his fingers in Loki’s soft, curly hair. “I still want it back.”

“I’ll look for it, I promise.” Loki’s long fingers found their way underneath Tony’s T-shirt. “When I’m done with you. But I promise to deal with all your clothes the non-magical, old-fashioned way in the meantime.”

“You’d better,” Tony said.

The elevator stopped in the penthouse. Loki took Tony’s hand and dragged him out, grinning.

“You know what, Anthony? I’m really glad I kissed you on that roof.”

Tony smiled back, his heart suddenly so full of affection that it was almost hard to breathe.

“Yeah, Lokes. So am I.”

[killmytyme]

cherry cola | calum hood

image from this post by @siyahraat​

this fic is brought to you by @myloverboyash​​ absolutely destroying me with this text post, which I reblogged and went off in the tags and then couldn’t get it out of my head so I had to write out the entire scene. is this maybe the most self indulgent thing I have written in a really long time? yes. is this good? probably not. but i saw this whole cozy 3am snack run in my mind and had to get it out here somehow. 

warnings: none except for the most gross amount of fluff

word count: 2.4k

_______________

The thing is, you had been craving a cherry cola slushy all day. It was all you could think about for the whole day, but you knew you didn’t need one, so when you had gone out earlier you summoned your willpower and didn’t indulge. The problem was that now it was 3am and you couldn’t sleep, and all you could think about was the gas station a 10 minute drive away that had the cherry cola slushy you needed. The other problem was that Calum was fast asleep, and you really hated driving alone late at night. It had been hours now of you laying awake and only thinking about the slushy before you decided you couldn’t take it anymore. You rolled over to face him and gently shook his shoulder.

“Cal,” you whispered, watching his face twitch as he started to stir. “Cal, wake up.”

“Hmm?” he questioned, blinking awake slowly. His arm reached out to pull you into him. “’S’wrong? You okay?”

“I need a slushy,” you say, pulling at him to move with you as you sat up. “We need to go get one.”

“Babe,” Calum’s eyebrows raised as he glanced at the clock on the bedside table. You knew what it would say, you knew how crazy this probably sounded. “It’s 3am, we can get slushies tomorrow.”

“No, Cal, I need a slushy,” you whine. “I know it’s 3am, I know it’s crazy, but I think I’m actually going to die if I don’t get a cherry cola slushy right now. Immediately.”

“Cherry cola?” There’s laughter in his voice, and you know you’ve won him over. “Babe, the best slushy flavour is blue raspberry. That’s just an objective fact.”

“Okay, well, it’s an objective fact, Calum Hood, that I am wasting away here without snacks or a slushy to sustain me!” You hop out of bed and grab the hoodie he tossed on a chair before he crawled into bed, throwing it at his face while he laughed at your dramatics. “If you loved me like you say you do, you’d get up and drive me, unless you want me going out at 3 in the morning by myself, which is dangerous and-” 

Your voice is cut off by the feeling of the hoodie you’d just thrown his way coming down over your head, and you squirm your arms up into the sleeves, Calum pulling the sweater down over your body.

“You’re lucky that I love you, you know that,” he says, smiling fondly at you. You grin back at him, the smile not leaving your face as he gets dressed and starts the hunt for his keys. “Who would have thought I’d find someone who drags me out of bed at ridiculous hours because they need a slushy, of all things, and I’m still in love with them.”

“It’s all part of my charm, you know,” you say as you tap your foot impatiently.

“If you say so.” He finally locates his keys and you both make your way out of the house and into the car. The night air is crisp, and the street is quiet in that way that only the middle of the night can be; still and peaceful, knowing you’re likely the only ones awake and moving, feeling alone but nowhere near lonely as Calum starts the car and intertwines your hands, backing out of the driveway.

You start pressing buttons on the radio to bring up some music for the drive, and he laughs when you land on the Top 40s station. At this time of the night it’s a DJ set, some local up and coming DJ getting the 3am slot to play terrible remixes to popular songs. Just your luck, you flipped to the station in time to hear Calum’s voice floating out of the speakers.

“Don’t you love this song?” you giggle, turning up the volume and singing along as the chorus starts.

“I wonder who it’s by,” he comments, playing along with you.

“It’s this band from Australia, they’re not that big so you probably haven’t heard of them. Pretty underground stuff.” You can’t stop giggling, and Calum couldn’t wipe the fond grin from his face if he tried. You get like this when you’re tired, silly and giggly, and it’s one of his favourite ways to see you. “They’re okay, their old stuff is better. Newer albums aren’t their best work.”

“Bold words from someone who hasn’t missed a beat singing along,” he squeezes your hand as he teases you, and even after all this time the simple action stirs up the butterflies that never seem to vacate your stomach when you’re around him.

“Hey, I never said I had good taste!”

“Clearly, you dragged me out of bed at 3am for a cherry cola slushy.” He laughs again at your mock gasp, but you don’t have time to defend your slushy choice before you realize you’ve driven by the gas station.

“Cal! You missed the turn, we need to-”

“Don’t you want other snacks? If we’re up, I kind of want cheese puffs. We can grab slushies on the way back, okay?”

“Calum Hood,” your voice is serious now, and he glances over with concern on his face. “You are a genius. Cheese puffs are exactly what I want. Can we get popcorn, too?”

“You can have everything you want, babe.” Calum turns the car into the grocery store parking lot and you learn your head back against the seat, facing him, and it occurs to you then that everything you want is just him and a thousand more midnight snack runs like this.

Once you get inside the store you both give apologetic waves to the cashier who nods tiredly at you and waves you in. The store is 24-hours but you both still feel that twinge of guilt walking in so late. Calum grabs a basket and starts heading to the snack aisle but you pull his hand back and gesture towards the produce.

“We have to walk the aisles! Like we always do,” you say, staring longingly at the rows of fruit.

“We always do that when we come here at 3 PM, not AM,” he says patiently. You ignore him, still staring at the apples until he sighs and gives in, letting you drag him through every aisle.

You each comment on things as you walk by them, falling into your usual store rhythm. One of the things you’ve always loved about Calum is his ability to make even the most mundane errand fun, the way he plays into your bits and lets you be unabashedly silly. He doesn’t think twice when you pause in front of the assortment of breads, fresh from the bakery, and ask in all seriousness for him to choose which bread he thinks most represents him.

“Kaiser buns,” he says without pausing to think.

“Yes!” you shout, and you both dissolve into giggles when a nearby associate jumps, clearly shocked by the noise. Calum calls out an apology as you continue to laugh. “Suits you. Crusty on the outside, soft on the inside,” you say through your laughter, poking him in the side.

“M’not crusty,” he says, tone offended, but you can tell by the crinkles around his eyes that he’s amused by your antics.

“You said kaiser! Not me!” You grab a bag for yourselves and toss them in the basket, much to Calum’s chagrin.

The rest of the trip goes just like that, pausing every few steps to delve into a deep discussion about white eggs vs brown eggs, or the best breakfast cereals, or the uses for the wide arrange of infused olive oils. By the time you make it to the check out you’ve spent far too much time in the grocery store, but the cashier, a woman with grey hair and kind eyes, smiles warmly at you as she rings you through.

Finally back in the car you dig out the container of cheese puffs and feed some to Calum as he drives. The DJ set is still going, this time the song is a mashup of two popular songs. You do your best to sing along but it’s switching between the two so quickly you can’t quite keep up, and Calum nearly has to pull over from laughing so hard at your attempts to follow along with the lyrics. In retaliation, you refuse to give him any more cheese puffs, pouting in an exaggerated manner at him.

When he pulls into the gas station and parks the car, he leans over and presses a soft kiss to your mouth in apology, murmuring a soft “sorry for laughing” against your lips.

“You’re only saying that so you can get more cheese puffs,” you sigh dramatically.

“You got me,” he smirks, lips still close enough that you can feel it on your skin before he pulls away and - the asshole - snatches the cheese puffs from you as he goes.

“Calum!” Your yell is met with just laughter as he hops out of the car, cheese puffs under his arm, and races into the gas station.

You catch up to him, giggling at how ridiculous your night has turned out, and find him standing in front of the slushy machine clearly deep in thought at his options. Under the cherry cola slushy dispenser sits an already full slushy cup, ready for you. You open your mouth to thank him and he shushes you, eyes squinting as they flick over the 6 flavour options he has to choose from.

The feeling that has been creeping up on you more and more frequently comes back again as you watch him. It’s the butterflies in your stomach, and the feeling that your heart is going to actually come bursting through your shirt with how full and warm you feel just looking at him. An hour ago he was fast asleep, and now here is he is with you, being silly and selecting a slushy flavour like it’s the most important decision he’s ever made. You’re so in love with him sometimes it overwhelms you, and it’s never in the moments you expect. It’s in small moments like these - in the back corner of a gas station at nearly 4am, under fluorescent lighting, wearing your rattiest clothing. It’s single minutes in time that make you positive there is never going to be anyone else for you, you only ever want to spend your 3am moments with Calum.

You’re roused from your staring when he moves towards the machine, moving your cup so he can place his directly under the cherry cola dispenser and flipping the lever. You make an indignant noise, and he shoots a smirk at you.

“You’ve been talking about it all night, I had to get it,” there isn’t even a hint of an apology in his voice for all of his teasing earlier, but you don’t even have it in you to rib him for it because you’re too focused on trying not to let how ridiculously happy these moments make you show on your face.

In fact, you wait to say anything at all until you’re back in the car, happily sipping on your slushies, the music acting as background noise now. Your hands are tangled again, and Calum’s thumb rubs softly on the top of yours.

“This slushy flavour actually is delicious,” he says eventually when you’re close to home, breaking your comfortable silence. “I understand now why you needed to get out of bed to get this. It really was an emergency.”

He’s smiling at you, but not in a teasing way. It’s the smile he gave you when you first met Duke and won the small dog over after hours of patiently sitting on the ground and waiting for him to come see you. It’s the smile he gave on the first night you moved into his house and he looked around at the mess of boxes among his things. It’s the smile he gave you when he walked off the stage the first time you unexpectedly showed up on tour to surprise him.

It’s the smile he can’t control, the one that comes out in his happiest moments. Those moments always include you.

“We should get married,” you blurt out. You feel your eyes widen slightly when you say it. You hadn’t planned it, hadn’t even registered the thought before you were saying it. You knew, though, you wouldn’t take it back. You didn’t want to see 3am without him ever again, and you hoped he felt the same way.

“Okay,” he says easily, his happiest smile still shining bright on his face. “Wait, like now? There are some people who might actually kill us if we got married at 4am in sweatpants. Like, I think Luke might actually kick me out of the band if I rob him of the chance to dress up and attend a wedding. You know how he is.”

“Not now,” you laugh. “You’re right about Luke though. I just mean...we should. You know, at some point I’d like to get married.”

“Me too.” You’ve pulled into the driveway now, but neither of you make a move to exit the car. This moment feels small, but it also feels large and vulnerable in a way that even the sound of a door opening might break. “I kind of want to be woken up by you at 3am for slushies for the rest of my life.”

“Good,” you reply softly. He starts to lean towards you and meet him over the centre console, pressing your lips together. It doesn’t even make the list of the most passionate or heated kisses the two of you have shared, but somehow the soft press of your lips feels like more - feels like everything.

Later that morning you sit on the couch, his head resting in your lap as you chat about everything and nothing, finishing your snacks and watching the sun come up outside of the windows. In a way, this feels like everything, too. From the minute you shook his shoulder a few hours ago until now, it all feels like a moment that needed to happen, like the universe knew you needed this collection of small moments to get you here.

“Hey babe,” you say after a few moments of silence. He hums in response. “Do you think at our wedding we could have a cherry cola slushy machine?”

Calum bursts into laughter, but you can feel him nodding his head where it’s resting on your legs. “You can have everything you want, babe.”

He cuddles into you closer, and you can tell from his relaxed face that he’s drifting to sleep, and all you can think as you close your eyes is that you already have everything you want.

[novantinuum]

Fandom: Steven Universe

Pairing: Steven/Connie

Rating: Teen Audiences 

Words: 2.6K~

Summary: In which Connie’s subconscious, innocent touch helps Steven realize just how nice the sensation of gentle fingertips gliding across the surface of one’s gem can be. (Just a bunch of teen romance fluff, + first kiss)

This is set like... a few weeks before Steven leaves Beach City. I imagine he’s been recovering from what happened in I Am My Monster for at least 6 months by this point.

His days aren’t always great- there’s a lot of ups and downs- but thankfully, today is a markedly pleasant one.

_____

His house is still for once. Impossibly so. No Diamond business, no new arrivals to Earth, no disgruntled Gems kicking down his front door. No more battles, beyond his own internal ones. Admittedly, a part of him is happy for the peace and quiet. He’s appreciative of the way all his family and friends rallied around him in support months back after... erm- after his breakdown, but every guy needs some space eventually.

‘Some space’ never has to mean alone, of course.

Steven sneaks a doe-eyed glance at the girl flopped next to him on the living room couch, her mind lost in the pages of her own fantasy world. It’s a new series, something about a human accidentally falling into the world of the fae. (It’s only been like, half an hour, and she’s almost a hundred pages in already!) A pliable smile teases his lips as he watches her eyes flicker back and forth, digesting each passage with a voracious hunger. Sighing in content, he turns his attention back to his own book, externally making as if he’s busy exploring the world of fiction to hide the sappy fact that instead he’s been thinking about her all along. Honestly? He adores quiet days like these. Even if they’re not doing anything special, it’s just nice to get to spend time alone together. It’s a comfortable together.

Connie shifts, instinctively curling closer, her free arm slung against his side. With a soft hum of content he leans into her welcomed embrace, trying his best (and— caught in her innocently bewitching presence— failing abysmally) to focus on the wandering lines of text.

Everything is peaceful.

No hard knocks, no frenzied phone calls, no family disruptions. The domestic warp hasn’t even activated once this whole lazy afternoon. In recent days, he’s pretty sure that’s a record.

At long last, his house is still... and yet in a flash, his hormone riddled teenage mind— ever foolish— is everything but.

Because Connie’s touch is tickling him.

It’s subconscious, almost imperceptible at first. At some point her free hand has roved so that it’s no longer pressed against his side, but against his midriff— which is currently exposed, his shirt bunched up at the waist from all his slouching. Teasingly, her fingertips dance upon the facets of his gem with the pinpoint expertise of a prima ballerina, encoding an endless rhythm directly into the sum of his being, the feather-light contact sending vibrations almost too faint to notice coursing through his hard light veins. But not too faint for him. Not now, not while host to this kind of silence. Not when the girl draped on the couch next to him unknowingly commands every shard of his attention with the slightest twitch of her index finger.

It’s taking all his willpower not to squirm at this ticklish contact right now. It’s so... weird when other people touch his gem. It’s certainly not something he’s used to.

(Steven promptly buries the memory of the last time someone touched it, refusing to let old terrors tarnish an otherwise pleasurable encounter. He can feel the pink threatening to rise in his cheeks, that instinctual rush of panic he’s grown so numb to over the past months rearing its ugly head. It’s so, so hard to wrestle away from its thrall sometimes, but thankfully his therapist has been teaching him ways to mitigate these sorta reactions. His eyes clamp shut as he breathes deep through his nose and focuses on the tangible, on what he knows: the plump, lumpy cushions of the couch under him, the slight scent of garlic and cumin in the air from the lunch he cooked a few hours ago, the rhythmic crashing of waves outside the house. The warmth of his best friend by his side—)

Tap, taptaptap, tap, taptaptap...

His cheeks bloom a human red as her lulling rhythm continues.

Like he said, it’s obviously subconscious. It has to be, right? It would certainly make sense. From his observations, Connie’s always been a tactile thinker. It’s part of what made her such a quick study in sword fighting. Whenever her mind is alight, those beautiful neurons firing back and forth like a firework display, her body is in motion. Sometimes it’s her foot, tapping impatiently into the dirt as she parses through memory to find the precise words to say. Or it’s like how she memorizes facts for tests easier if she’s jogging, listening to audio recordings of the test materials she made herself. And then there’s times like now, when Connie is reading. When her fingers tap and glide with an almost impish touch across the diamond gemstone in his belly’s center as her eyes— by all appearances entirely disconnected from both her hand’s motion and his reaction— skim effortlessly across the unfolding tale on her page. Her hands... oh, those hands... calloused, warm, digits lithe and curious in their movement. They’re always shifting, always tapping, always twitching to some identifiable rhythm. Is this just another example of her sway towards more kinetic-based thinking? Or... is it something else? A silent yearning that extends its roots from the heart into object reality, innocently unaware of the power of its call?

Stars, Steven thinks, mustering with all his strength to ignore his burning face, so maybe I’ve been thinking a little too much about her lately...

Eventually, it all becomes a bit too overwhelming to handle. If this continues in silence any longer, well... well, heck. He doesn’t even want to imagine what embarrassing things could happen. Mustering up all his courage, he flips his book shut and drops it on the cushion beside him.

“Um, Connie? By the way? That’s kinda ticklish,” he squeaks out, voice high and reedy.

Upon his words, she notices where her fingers are subconsciously tapping and immediately pulls her hand away, her cheeks flushing dark. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” she says, quickly tossing her book aside and shifting upright on the couch. “I didn’t mean to goose ya’! I wasn’t even thinking abo—“

“No, it’s okay!” he interjects with an open hand. “I’m fine, really, I am. I- it’s not like, uh- It isn’t like a bother, and- well, it just—“

Burning up with such a ferocity that he’s about one impulsive decision away from high tailing it out of this fraught social situation and dunking his glowing pink head right into the Atlantic, he forces himself to hush before he says something super stupid and humiliating in front of his best friend in the whole world that he’ll regret and replay in his dreams forever and ever for the rest of his days.

Okay, Steven, stop running your mouth like a lovesick fool for one second and think. How can you say this in a way that doesn’t sound entirely stupid and/or weird?

Watching him closely, curiosity written across every vibrant feature, Connie inclines her head ever so slight, a subtle, wordless gesture— one only a Jam Bud could understand— for him to keep going.

The phantom sensation of her fingers tapping against crystal rushes through his nerves like the physical analogue to a bad ear worm. He reaches up to itch at the side of his neck, unable to fully stifle his nervous laughter.

“Honestly, it uh- it actually felt pretty nice?”

“What, me touching your gem?”

“Yeah,” he manages to croak out, voice cracking like it hadn’t since he was freshly fifteen.

She isn’t able to fully stifle her giggle at this, pressing her hand tight to her mouth far too late.

His heart nearly plummets at the sound of her teasing laughter, the constant thrumming of his hard light veins steadily quickening as a flood of energy pulses just below the surface. He knew he shouldn’t have said anything, he knew it was far too much after every other recent misstep he’s made in their relationship! Why couldn’t he have just kept his trap shut?

“Aw, geeze,” he says, voice thick and his every muscle ready to bolt, “this is so embarrassing—“

“No, no! I shouldn’t have laughed, it’s okay!” she jumps in, pressing her hand to his shoulder to help ground him “It’s just bodies, Steven. It’s not weird. It’s just how skin-to-skin contact works. It’s supposed to feel good, because we’re meant to be social creatures, y’know?”

He hums softly in agreement, taking the offered moment to ease himself down from brink of panic. He focuses intently on the weight of her hand, resting feather-light against him. It’s a small gesture, but a powerful one. More than anything, more than words alone could say, it’s a promise. A reaffirmation, moment by moment. I’m here. We’re here. It’s a truth even the sobering reality of shared trauma can’t hope to erase: that even when the going’s tough, they have each other.

Connie brushes a stray stand of hair behind her ear then, shifting on the couch. Perhaps out of a sum of bashfulness, her eyes drift, not quite able to meet his.

“I- it’s silly, but I guess I never considered that you could even feel sensation through your gem,” she admits.

“Really? But you’ve had a gem before. Well, shared a gem,” he corrects himself, though in the end it’s all semantics.

“Well, sure, but when we’re Stevonnie, they don’t tend to think about stuff like that, because you’re used to it, and I’ve never thought about it. It’s simply... normal for them, I guess.”

“Hahah, yeah. It’s always been that way for me,” he says with a soft chuckle. “I never crawled like a normal kid, d’ya know? Dad says I always used to move around by scooting on my butt. When I tried crawling my gem would scrape against the floor, and apparently? I hated it.”

She laughs for real this time, (with him, not at him), her voice ringing true and beautiful and clear like a bell. His heart swells with joy.

And then...

Connie’s lithe fingers reach towards his midsection, hesitantly at first, before— in careful consideration of boundaries— pausing in their voyage entirely.

Her eyes lock with his, her shy expression wholly giving up the chase on what her request will be before she ever shifts her tongue to ask in words. “Is it okay if-?”

“Always,” he says, gently leading her hand under the hem of his shirt and towards the gemstone at his core.

He can’t help his sharp inhale when he feels her fingertips dance across his facets once more. Even when he knows what’s coming, knows to expect this contact, it’s funny. Not funny in a ‘haha’ way, funny in an ‘I’m not used to this’ way. After all, he’s never exactly made a habit of touching his own gem beyond periodic cleaning, and (almost) no one else has ever had a purpose to. It’s for this reason that a small traumatized segment of his mind still can’t help but spiral in panic about the mere concept of any external being brushing against this treasure, this tangible half of his very essence. Given the nightmares he’s been through, he’d have every right to deny her touch. But with Connie... beyond everything else, allowing her in this way is the greatest show of vulnerability he knows how to give.

It’s his proof to her that in this moment, he trusts her implicitly, without question.

Gracefully, she traces her finger around the edge of his gem, lines each individual facet in turn. It’s ticklish at first, much like before, but as she grows more confident in her gentle exploration he finds himself relaxing under her touch. He feels warm, a faint buzz of content flooding his system through his hard light veins. With her, he feels safe.

“It really is beautiful, you know that?” she says, a peaceful expression settling across her features. “Your gem.”

“Nah, you’re beautiful...” he murmurs bashfully, cheeks flushing.

“So are you,” she replies in swift measure, eyes soft with endless adoration.

His fluttering heart extends its gossamer wings and soars. If it weren’t for her nestled at his side, lithe fingers running across each facet in even measure, her tactile presence tethering him like an anchor to this present reality, he’s pretty sure he’d have floated halfway to the ceiling by now.

Daringly, his gaze locks with hers. He swears his heart’s beating its own drum solo within his chest, but this time it’s not because of fear, not at all.

It’s the feeling of freedom.

His fingers loop around a stray strand of hair that’s fallen in front of her eyes. That seems to happen a lot, he’s noticed. As delicate as he can manage, he hooks it back over her ear.

“Can I...?” he whispers, his warm breath brushing against her lips.

She replies in wordless affirmation, leaning forward to close the narrow gap between them. Hooded eyes drift shut. Her hand still rests on his gem as they finally move to cross that final barrier, that fuzzy, oft indistinguishable line drawn between childhood sweethearts and could-be couple, and kiss.

Well, attempt to, anyways.

To be fair, despite his schmaltzy roots, Steven only has movies and books to pull from as an example.

Their noses bump against each other’s at first. Both giggling, they tilt their heads to compensate and then mash their lips together, reveling in every ridiculous moment of their joint inexperience. It’s definitely sloppy, and he doesn’t have a clue where he’s supposed to put his hands or how long is too long, or how he’s supposed to move his mouth against hers, or— stars, did he even remember to brush his teeth this morning?? He sure hopes so— but because it’s with Connie all of that doesn’t matter. It’s perfect in every way.

“OoooOOOoo, looks like loverboy’s finally gettin’ some!”

He and Connie startle at the interruption, pulling apart from each other with equally flushed faces to match eyes with their surprise visitor.

It’s Amethyst, leaning against the kitchen table with a downright roguish smirk, probably thinking she’s the funniest Gem that’s ever emerged. Of course, who else would it be? (Though, which entrance did she come in from? When did she sneak past them? Were they really so involved with each other that they just... failed to notice??)

“Crude,” he says, brows creased with faint annoyance.

In return, she cups her cheeks and serves him the most ridiculous, schmaltzy expression she can muster. “Sap!”

Connie stifles a laugh at her exaggerated antics, but on his side he can’t help but be salty that her interruption yanked the two of them away from the blissful throes of blossoming teenage romance.

“Oh, get outta here, you,” he chimes back, and playfully tosses one of the couch’s pillow straight towards her face. “Shoo!”

The quartz Gem catches it out of midair and grins, no stranger to tests of reflex these days. Adopting a fake posh voice, she fires back her retort. “Your wish is my command, Sir Sappington...”

Tucking the pillow under her arm, she turns on her heels and skips up and over the warp pad’s platform, stalking towards her room with a victorious air. She doesn’t even try to mask her lovingly teasing snickers as the door splits in two at her command and she crosses the barrier into the temple’s dimension warping interior. The last they hear from her before the passageway shuts is an overly triumphant ‘whoop.’ Steven can’t help but raise a scandalized brow at this. What, were the Gems hosting a betting pool about him and Connie, or something?

But thankfully, in time, the beach house grows peaceful again. They’re alone together, and together they’re content.

“Geeze, sorry about that,” he says bashfully, scratching at the nape of his neck. “You know how Amethyst is, heh heh.”

Connie smirks with loving, mischievous intent, comfortably cuddling up against his shoulder. “She’s kinda right, though...”

“About?”

“You can be pretty sappy sometimes,” she says fondly, and tilts her head so she can smooch his cheek. “Just one of the many reasons I love you.”

____

Notes:

So, given that I’ve also written a fic wherein Steven wakes up feeling a hand against his gem and has a panic attack, a word of explanation with my headcanons-

Ultimately, I imagine there’s a very stark difference between a trusted individual like Connie touching his gem when he’s fully alert and it’s just them, alone, safe... and him waking up and being groggy enough to not immediately realize who it is next to him.

In the end though, I just hope Steven would be able to reclaim a once-terrifying experience (someone else touching his gem) as something that is also able to be loving and comforting when it’s done with consent.

[ppoquita]

Guide Me to Where You Are

Tags: bae seungmin x reader, wandering spirit!seungmin, tw: death, mentioned way of death, character death

Length: 3.3k words

Edited by my beloved @preciousdeerchild !!

This was loosely based on a little indie game called Cozy Grove and my obsessed with seungmin + forests

Seungmin couldn’t remember a lot, which was a shame. For as long as he’s been a wandering spirit, he’s only ever known the overgrown and lonesome forest where he died. (Or so he assumed he died there, he wasn’t quite sure anymore.) His only friends were forest creatures. However, deer and squirrels don’t make great company. He would much rather be in the company of humans. Even better if they could actually see and hear him. Occasionally, when some campers had brave hearts, they’d settle in Seungmin’s favorite area to loiter. Then for a few nights, Seungmin felt close to being alive again. He’d sit with the campers and listen in on their spooky stories and sing along with their cheesy campfire songs. It was fun. Until they left and Seungmin was alone again.

He was truly in a pitiful state of being until he met you. He’d never met a spirit scout as pretty as you. Granted, he’d never met a spirit scout to begin with. At first, he was hesitant to get attached, he figured at some point you’d leave just like the other campers did. However, the fact you could see him and talk to him made him the happiest spirit to ever wander that wretched forest.

Your presence alone slowly made Seungmin’s memory start to jog again. He understood that as a spirit scout, it was your job to help find things that will help him remember his past and then pass over into the afterlife. Seungmin didn’t know such an organization existed. However, you explained it's a private organization for other humans with your gift. It’s tucked away from society and spirit scouts spend more time in deep woodlands and abandoned places. Seungmin liked to think that he must have finally moved up the waiting list for them to finally send you.

Talking to you was probably his favorite pastime other than watching you catch fish and dig up root vegetables. From what he could remember, he was never as good at camping as you were. He could ask you all sorts of questions as he watched you go about your day-to-day tasks to maintain survival. You were a true outdoor adventurer. “It’s all in the training and the endless handbooks.” you’d reply nonchalantly. Regardless of your humility, Seungmin was beyond impressed with your skills.

“A camera!” he remembered one night as he sat by watching you roast some walnuts.

“A camera?” you raised your eyebrows.

He stroked his chin excitedly and got up to pace around. “Yeah, yeah.” He paced back and forth. “I remember… I had a camera, a film camera! I was taking photos of flowers, and I had a friend with me. I don’t remember his name, though.” Seungmin used all his willpower to remember his friend’s name. “Jango? Jongin? What was his name? Ugh, what was his name?!” He squeezed his eyes closed as if his friend’s face was magically going to appear. He couldn’t remember. Too much time had passed.

Instead, when he opened his eyes, they met your shining ones. He blinked a few times before he felt the tip of ears burn red. Your face was so close to his that he could hardly breathe. Even though you couldn’t touch him, he could still feel your energy close to him. It felt nice like a good warm hug from his loved ones, which he missed even if he had forgotten all their faces. He always admired how good-natured you seemed to be. “Can you tell me about this camera? Where could it possibly be?” you asked. He looked deep inside his memories. The only thing that came to mind was a stream of water.

He eagerly told you what he knew and watched as you pressed your lips together while thinking deeply. You adjusted your ascot under your uniform, and looked at him determinedly. Seungmin's heart raced a little as he looked at your serious business face. To him, you were cuter than any little woodland creature. For the first time in a long time, he felt excitement, and it was all thanks to you.

“Alright then, tomorrow I’ll do everything I can to find it,” you promised. “Maybe it’ll help you remember your friend.”

That next day was agonizing. He watched you shoveling up piles of dirt for hours by the nearby stream. His palms were sweaty as the two of you stood closer to the edge of the stream. The distance between where you stood and where the water was made him extremely anxious. To him, it felt as though the stream was babbling forbidden and dead languages. He watched as you took out a metal detector and paced around aimlessly. Despite his worries, he noticed how calm you were. It gave him courage to continue on.

The sun started to set and you were still hard at work. “Forget it, there’s always tomorrow.” Seungmin pouted as he attempted to kick a rock even though he couldn’t touch it. He looked over to see you bent down looking at washed up garbage.

“No, no,” you shook your head. “It’s here… I have a feeling it’s close.” You were so sure of it that Seungmin had no choice but to follow. Although, he worried you were working too hard. He’d much rather watch you happily snuggled up in your sleeping bag after a nice dinner. “Is there anything else you can remember?” you asked.

Seungmin looked around. He bit his lip as he looked at the trees. He tapped his foot rapidly trying to force his own memory to work. “Tree... A sad tree. It was so sad, I had to take a photo.” Just like that you started looking around for any sad looking trees. The tree could have rotted away by now but Seungmin knew you were determined.

Soon enough, the two of you found a very pitiful tree. It had little to no foliage and its branches were thin. It leaned far to the right and overall looked ready to fall over and die. Seungmin remembered his friend again. He saw the distant memory of himself taking a photo while his friend was trying to grab fish with a sharpened staff. “This is the tree, I’m sure of it,” he said. He watched you take your metal detector and pace around the premises. Suddenly, there was a beeping. He watched you quickly dig up a metal box. Seungmin tilted his head with intrigue. He felt a nostalgic energy coming from the box. He felt an undeniable connection to it. He scratched the back of his neck while staring at it.

“Hey, come over here,” you said, motioning for Seungmin to come closer. “The only way to know if it’s really yours is if you touch it.” Seungmin gulped at the sound of your words. He wasn’t ready. Or, at least, he didn’t feel ready. Hesitantly, he walked over to you. You earnestly had the box held out, ready for him to hold. He took it from your hands. Magically, the box began to shine and so did Seungmin. His spirit color changed from monochrome to vibrant hues and he seemed to be more human-like. He no longer looked ice-like and dreary. You stood staring for a moment and Seungmin gave you a nervous smile. “Wow” was the only word that escaped from your lips.

“What’s wrong?” Seungmin asked.

You shook your head. “Nothing, it’s just that… I didn’t know you were so handsome.” Your comment flattered Seungmin. He couldn’t remember if anyone had ever called him handsome when he was alive, but the fact that you did while he was a spirit was something special. You were truly the best thing to have happened to him. If it were up to him, he’d stay with you forever. Help you wherever you went, cozy up next to you by the crackling campfire, stargaze with you on quiet nights - he’d do all that and more. He was starting to think he didn’t really want to pass over into the afterlife.

The two of you sat by the campfire. Seungmin sat close to you as he held the metal box to his chest. He liked campfires because he could actually feel the energy of the heat against his cold spirit. He also liked you because he could feel your warmth as well. “You wouldn’t happen to remember where you left those keys would you?” you asked, referring to the lock on the metal box. Seungmin pressed his lips together as he stared deep in the campfire. He couldn’t remember.

“No,” he sighed. He watched as your shoulders slumped down. In part, he felt bad. It had been almost a year since the two of you met; he started to think you felt homesick.

That night as Seungmin watched over you while you slept, he decided to try and jog his memory. He scratched the back of his head and paced back and forth. He decided to take a walk in the area which he woke up in after he passed. He softly touched the trees and walked around in a circle. He wanted to remember something, anything. Seungmin sat in the middle of the circle he had walked and slumped his shoulders. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something peeking out from a tree. It looked to be a jacket hung from a branch. He got up to investigate it and felt like the jacket had a familiar feeling. He softly touched it and he saw his hands glow brightly. Suddenly, he remembered that it was his jacket that got wet when he and his friend visited the stream. He hung it up to let it dry and forgot it until now. He checked the pockets carefully and found the keys. Bae Seungmin was written on the keychain tag. That was his name.

***

“Your spirit colors changed. You practically look alive,” you said as you looked at Seungmin. Seungmin curiously watched as you put some mushrooms to cook over the fire. He didn’t want to tell you what he found just yet. “You’re a lot more handsome than you sound.” Seungmin only smiled as he rubbed the back of his head.

Seungmin felt guilty. He was being utterly selfish as he kept the found keys a secret from you. He didn’t want to leave you just yet; he wanted to be with you just a little longer. In the long time that he’s done nothing but wander, you made him feel happiness. Afterlife meant nothing to him if you weren’t there. Seungmin bit his lip and disappeared into the forest. He went to an open field where forgotten flowers grew. In a way, he could relate to the field flowers since he was hidden away and untouched by the outside world. Seungmin picked the prettiest flowers just for you. Unlike himself, these flowers were able to die and regrow as many times as they wanted. It was silly that he felt envious over some flowers but when you’re drifting aimlessly for so long, time has a way of kicking you down.

Seungmin returned with the flowers to your campsite. He took a moment to watch you hang up some wet laundry. You were humming a tune that seemed familiar to him but what did he know. He’d been dead too long. “Hey,” he called out. You turned to look at him with a smile. Seungmin held out his flowers. “I got these for you. They’re not much but I really appreciate all the stuff you’ve been doing for me,” Seungmin explained. He watched as you took the flowers from his hands and looked around. He carefully followed behind you. You took a discarded water bottle and put the plants inside. He pressed his lips together with a smile.

“I love them,” you assured him. You looked up at the sky and saw the clouds had turned a dreary grey and sighed. “So much for laundry.” You sat on the log by the extinguished campfire and Seungmin sat next to you. He didn’t know what to say or how to tell you his recent discovery. The two of you only sat in silence.

“I think, after you pass over, I’m gonna give up being a spirit scout,” you suddenly opened up.

Seungmin looked at you with wide eyes. “Why?” he asked.

“Dunno. We’ve been out here for months and I had a lot of time to think and well, I’m just not as passionate as I used to be.” You slumped your shoulders. As if you timed it perfectly, tiny droplets of rain started falling from the sky. Seungmin’s heart was shattered as you spoke. He felt as though he was responsible for you starting to lose your spark. He had no sense of time but you did. The rain started to come down harder and you held your head low. Seungmin shook his head. It was all his fault. You were suffering because he wanted to keep you longer.

“Wait, I-I have something to confess,” Seungmin burst out. You looked at him curiously as the rain was pouring down on you, dampening your hair. “I found a jacket that was mine. Inside the pockets are a pair of keys. I think they’re for the camera.” He watched as your eyebrows furrowed. As if you didn’t believe him. “Wait here.” He quickly went to the location where he hid the jacket and quickly went back to you. He put the jacket over your soaked head and showed you the keys.

“Seungmin, when did you find this?”

“Two nights ago! I promise, I was going to tell you but then I realized if I passed over… I wouldn’t see you anymore and well, you’re the best thing that happened to me. I’m sorry, I was gonna keep you here longer.” Seungmin looked down at the ground. He bit his lip and dropped the keys in your hand. Your energy was still warm, even if you were upset.

“Were you really gonna keep me here hostage?” you asked. Seungmin squeezed his eyes and nodded. “Wow, I didn’t think you were like that. I’m sorry, but my job is to help you pass over, Seungmin. I can’t be with you forever nor can I make any promises.”

“I know, I’m so sorry. Can you forgive me? Even if I do pass, I don’t want to pass on bad terms.” Seungmin looked you dead in the eyes. His eyes might have seemed soulless compared to yours but he was genuine. He didn’t want you to be angry at him forever or quit the spirit scouts because he wronged you.

“Seungmin… I forgive you.” You got up to look at him face to face. “Let’s open that box.” Seungmin picked up the box for you and followed you into your tent. The two of you sat on opposite sides of the box. You slowly inserted the key and turned it. The box popped open and the two of you saw an old digital camera. You turned it on and Seungmin looked over your shoulder. It still had battery life even after all this time. You went to look at the gallery and the camera was full of pictures of flowers, Seungmin, and his friend.

“Jangjun…” Seungmin said. You looked over at him to see a tear running down his cheek. His dear friend who he missed. It had been so long since Seungmin last thought about him. “My friend’s name was Jangjun,” he said as he wiped his tears. He saw you shed a tear as well.

“Do you want to hold it?” You asked. Seungmin hesitantly took it from your hands and his spirit color turned full rich colors. He had turned into what he fully looked like alive before his passing. “Seungmin?” you asked, reaching out your hand to touch him. Seungmin jumped when your hand touched his head. He looked at you, spooked as you held your hand and you looked at him with wide eyes. “I… I touched you… and you felt me.”

Seungmin held out his hand and you hesitantly took it. The two of you were holding hands. Seungmin interlocked his fingers with yours. Just then, it was all coming back to him as he looked at your teary eyed face. “I fell… I fell to my death and died. Jangjun and I… we were hiking… he slipped. I grabbed onto his sleeve to stop him from falling but before I knew it we both fell.” Seungmin started to cry, remembering it all. He tried to hide his face from you but it was no use. It was a flash in his memory. He remembered vividly plummeting to the ground and waking up where he last slept. At first he thought it was a nightmare but Jangjun was nowhere to be found.

“Seungmin… I’m so sorry,” you interrupted his thoughts. He turned to see you, looking just as heart broken as himself.

Seungmin only shook his head as he smiled despite crying harder. “I’m gonna pass over now, thanks to you.” He turned to look at you. He noticed you were still holding his hand. “Thank you for everything. Thank you for teaching me how to feel alive again, for teaching me what it was like to fall in love again.” He smiled.

“Fall in love?” your eyebrows raised with surpise at his comment.

“Yeah, I think I’m in love with you. That’s why I didn’t want to go, but it’s too late.” Seungmin sighed. He felt a tug on his arm and looked over at you. You pulled him into a hug. He hesitantly wrapped his arms around you as well. He didn’t want to go, but he knew he couldn’t stay. Slowly he felt himself slipping from you. He couldn’t feel you anymore, he only felt your warm energy. No skin to skin contact. His eyes started to fog with white shining lights. “Goodbye, my dear friend.”

***

Seungmin woke up again. He blinked a few times as he looked at sunlight shining through trees. Confused, he sat up. His head felt like it was punched over and over. He rubbed his face. It looked exactly like where your campsite was. You were gone though. There were only remnants of a campfire. Seungmin got up and he began wandering around. His wandering turned into panicking. He ran aimlessly. He didn’t understand why but his heart was telling him which way to go. He kept running and running.

Eventually, he saw a way out. There were actual people who were going into the forest. As he ran he saw them turn their heads to look at him. He was never acknowledged by normal people. They could never see him until now. The path led to a parking area. He looked around and saw your worn out olive green spirit scout uniform. Seungmin was full of adrenaline as he called out your name loudly. You turned to look at him with wide eyes. He caught up to you. “Seungmin?” You asked.

“I’m here!”

“Seungmin? I thought… I thought you passed?” you said in disbelief. Seungmin smiled as he looked at you. You leaned over to pinch him and Seungmin jumped. “Oh my gosh. I touched you. Seungmin… you lived? Wait no… you’re alive again? How is this possible?” your eyes started to tear up. Seungmin still stood with a wide smile. He hesitantly got closer to wipe your tears away. He touched you. He felt your skin again. He could finally feel more than just your energy. “Wait! Come here!” You said taking his arm. Seungmin felt you press two fingers under his jaw. “Seungmin, you have a pulse! You’re alive… You’re alive!”

“Yeah, I’m alive. Just like you.”

[chaotic-tired-cat]

world walker to date is one of my most favorite fanfics ever. it's so well-written! not too op, with real difficulties and plot, but still light-hearted and funny! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 i hope life smoothens out for you so we can get an update of this awesome story! :D :D :D

Aaaa thanks Anon!! This ask made me super happy - I'm glad you like World Walker and that it hit the right balance between angst and comedic moments (tbh that's one of the things that's really hard to get right). Things are still hectic but as soon as they're not that chapter is getting finished!!!

Since it might be a while, have a post-World Walker scene from the pov of a couple civilians. It was written to try out Cryptid as Izuku's hero name (/^o^)/

(Note: this scene isn't canon to World Walker and was written before I knew how the story would end.)

“Why do you even think this is going to work?” Yua hovers around Mariko’s efforts in the Denny’s parking lot, careful to avoid stepping on the complicated design taking place under Mariko’s second piece of chalk. The first one was sacrificed to ward off a raccoon. They specifically chose to do this after midnight for the ambiance, but Yua is starting to have second thoughts.

It’s very dark, and they’re both fem-presenting teenagers with emitter quirks in a deserted part of town.

This is not a good place to be.

“I got the pattern off a hero,” Mariko assures her. “You know how I was in the gym when Uravity's fight hit school, right?”

Yes, and Yua is trying desperately to forget the worst day of her life, thank you.

“Uravity and Cryptid dug me out, but it was weird, because he drew this symbol on a piece of the roof and it just- stayed. In the air. Even when nothing was supporting it.” Mariko pauses, beaming at the magic circle that’s mostly made of lines and squiggles to complete the aesthetic. One of the symbols doesn't look right. It slides out of focus, and Yua carefully steps back, because hell no.

“How is that supposed to help us summon a ghost-”

“Finished! Start filming, hurry, hurry, hurry!” Mariko drops her piece of chalk as Yua scrambles to swipe open her camera. Before Yua can stop her, Mariko has drawn a pocket knife, cut the pad of her thumb, and is smearing blood on the unsanitary parking lot ground.

Delightful.

Her hand is going to get so infected.

That’s right about when the air above the circle tears itself apart.

Mariko shrieks. Yua almost runs, then remembers herself and makes sure her phone is pointed at the sliver of starlight shining out of thin air. She knows her horror film tropes. Whatever they released into the world is taking them first, but she can at least get a video account to warn people of what they did.

Eaten by a demon or some shit. That’s a bomb-ass obituary.

Pro Hero Cryptid crashes out of the portal, one hand protectively wrapped around a bowl half-full of salad. His Uravity sweatshirt mostly obscures Froppy sweatpants, but Yua is more alarmed by the fact that Cryptid looks surprisingly human. No needle-sharp teeth, no starlit eyes. Spinach flutters to the ground around the hero in a gentle shower of greenery that nestles in his curly hair as if adding to the foliage. He stares blankly at them, then at the scribbles under his feet, before pointing a truly pissed-off look at the sky.

“Are you serious?” Cryptid yells at the city skyline. A spinach leaf falls off his shoulder. “Right in front of my salad?”

“Holy shit,” Yua whispers, and discovers that she can, in fact, be more embarrassed than the time their teacher made the whole class sing ‘Happy Birthday’ while she stood in silent mortification on a chair. “We summoned him.”

Mariko claps both hands over her mouth to keep in her laughter, eyes wide. “We really did.”

This seems to draw the hero’s attention back to them.

“You two okay? Yes? Nobody’s hurt? Oh, thank goodness.” Cryptid stabs a fork into his vegetables, shoves it into his mouth, and makes grabby hands for the chalk. Mariko passes it over with a potent mix of awe and glee.

“I am so sorry,” Yua breathes.

Mariko sniffs. “I’m not.”

“And I’m glad to be summoned,” Cryptid finishes with a sunshine-smile. He’s very… human. The wrinkled eyebrows he directs at Mariko’s chalk art do not resemble the otherworldly creature that showed up during All Might’s last battle. “Better for me to be dropped here than for y’all to get… hm. Yeah, this is good.”

Hm?

Hm??

What does ‘hm’ mean?

Yua reaches over and frantically swats at Mariko’s sweatshirt in an attempt at telepathically communicating her many, many feelings concerning accidentally summoning a hero into this godsforsaken Denny’s parking lot.

“How did you find a stasis glyph?” Cryptid mumbles around his fork.

“Copied it from you. My quirk lets me mimic actions if I see them without blinking.” Mariko peers around his shoulder at the lines taking form.

“That’s such a cool quirk,” Cryptid tells her instantly. “Do you need a clear line of sight? Is it only capable of copying real-life actions or can you use recordings? Oh, are you limited to your own flexibility and strength, or is this a mirror skill instead of a mimic? You could use that for anything, it’s a very adaptable power.”

Yua cautiously edges closer to give the camera a better angle at the ground while Mariko preens. “What are you even doing?”

“Editing. Here, look- right there, you tied it down with intent contrary to the meaning.” Cryptid shuffles over so she can see and points out a circled section. He smudges out the blurry patch.

Mariko watches eagerly as the hero replaces it with a mishmash of lines that Yua can actually make sense of. “I don’t understand any of what you just said, but hell fuckin’ yeah, you funky lil’ cryptid.”

“Oh, sorry. I get called whenever the void gets angry, and this is the language it speaks,” Cryptid says, like this makes sense. He taps the lines eagerly. “Put a stasis glyph on the ground and continents will stop shifting, which is a whole lot of bad news."

"Uh huh," Mariko says. Yua swats at her again, because there's no way she understands and going along with this for entertainment value alone is going to get them into some sort of horror movie B-Plot.

Cryptid just looks amused. "Next time you need to experiment, use a paper base instead of the concrete. It’s safer. And- is that blood?”

“Maybe,” Mariko says, partially as a dare for him to say anything because she isn’t really the type to listen to anyone, regardless of if they’re a hero. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“Huh. Yeah, you got me there.” Cryptid puts his bowl of salad on the ground and fishes around in his Uravity sweatshirt for a tiny med kit.

“Where’d we go wrong,” Mariko asks, like they are ever going to try this again. Yua hisses for her to stop and is ignored with the extreme confidence of someone determined to keep making the same continuous mistake until success is summoned through stubborn willpower alone.

“You didn’t need to hurt yourself.” Cryptid bandages her hand, slips away the medkit, and says gravely, “Blood never brings anything good.”

“Holy shit,” Yua repeats as Cryptid takes a bite of salad and goes right back to his art project like this happens every other Tuesday. Mariko glares at her, but honestly, this is the wildest thing.

The hero keeps saying things.

“Not to lecture either of you, but it’s a bad idea to mess around with unborn languages without supervision.” Cryptid hands back the chalk and takes another bite of his salad. “This stuff can blow up in your face. So, can I escort you guys anywhere? Because it’s a little dark and this isn’t exactly the safest part of town.”

That’s about when Yua realizes something under the spinach is glowing.