#i'm glad i'm alive though which is... a lot on it's own

[m0nnypie]

I'VE GOT MY EYES ON YOU

Finnick Odair x fem!reader

Summary: Just the pov of Finnick loving you over the years, and remembering everything about you

Warnings: cute but with a bit of angst on Finn's part. Other than that, all happiness and love.

a/n: Well, excuse any spelling mistakes, English isn't my first language. And I tried my best to make it as much like Finnick as I could, but this is my first fic of his lol. Anyway, I hope you like it and enjoy <3

Words: 1.8k

Finnick remembers the first time he saw you. He was eight and you were only six. Your father had gone to see his for some reason Finnick can't remember — not least because he hadn't been paying attention to them. What he does remember is you glaring at him. It made him laugh, which only deepened your frown.

He imagines it was because you didn't like him very much at the time. He didn’t blame you. With your older brother constantly saying that no boy was any good, it was hard to be friends with anyone he was always badmouthing. Finnick didn’t blame your brother either — in a world like theirs, any protection, even unnecessary, was better than none. Still, nothing changed how cute and funny he had found you at the time. After that day, you never met in person again.

The time he considers the second was when his name was called at the reaping. He remembers your eyes glued to him; you were twelve, and he was fourteen. He could feel your pity seeping through his skin. He didn’t blame you — after all, like it or not, it was still the Hunger Games. But knowing that you were looking at him made it almost funny to him, and it was with that thought in mind that he entered the arena.

The third time was when he returned home victorious. Of course, there were lots of people congratulating him — his relieved family and everyone else — but the only thing he saw was you, walking toward him. He didn't think it was of his own volition, considering you was with your father and brother, but as soon as you approached, you wore the best, most beautiful smile he had ever seen you give. And for the first time in years, you spoke to him.

"Congratulations on winning, Finnick. I'm glad you're back... well, we're glad."

He could see the smile on your father’s face, though he couldn’t say the same for your brother. Not that he minded. So he just smiled back at you — not the smile he reserved for the Capitol, but a real smile.

"Thank you. I'm glad to see you too."

He saw you get embarrassed, and he wanted to laugh at that. But he wouldn’t — not in front of your father. Not yet.

For the rest of the day, he listened to his father talk about how much your father complained about you, because you wouldn't stop talking about Finnick. His father laughed as he ruffled his hair affectionately. And it’s not like Finnick was going to complain.

Everyone said it was normal for girls to have a little crush on boys who won at something — at least, that’s what the people he knew told him. Maybe that’s why, two months later, it was as if Finnick no longer existed to you. You were back in your own world, with your friends, without him. Not that it bothered him — not really.

The next time he really saw you, you were sixteen, and he was eighteen. He was a mentor now, and when your name was called at the reaping, he could see on your face how much you hated it. Most people didn't care or thought that a dead kid from District 4 wouldn't make much difference, since you wasn’t a Career or someone important. Finnick hated it — but he would never say so.

He also remembers how, for whatever reason, you didn't put any effort into your training. He thought it was because of what everyone thought of you as a tribute, or maybe you just didn't give a damn about dying in the arena. He didn't admit it at the time, but he had been terrified that you wouldn't make it out of the arena alive. He also remembers how surprised everyone was by your training score — including him. It was a ten. He remembers it clearly, and you didn't seem to mind.

On the day of the Games, all you did was say goodbye to your stylists. You didn't look in anyone else's direction, but he didn't blame you. If you were going to become one of the last survivors, there would come a point when you would have to kill someone. It wasn't something everyone wanted to face.

He remembers seeing you in the arena — you did well. For the first few days, you kept to yourself, hiding and trying to survive. But at some point — he can't say exactly when — things changed. Perhaps it was when the male tribute from your district was killed, or when you saw a pair of boys, just twelve years old, die.

It wasn't a change that anyone on Capitol had noticed. But Finnick knew you well enough to say that the deaths of people you barely knew had affected you. He still remembers when one of the tributes from District 4 was a twelve-year-old boy - you didn't know him, but you still went to say goodbye. You were only fourteen.

And at that very moment, you had just thrown an axe into the head of the boy from District 3 who had killed the twelve-year-olds. You hadn't thought — you had just acted. Obviously, this had a positive consequence for you in the Capitol's eyes, because a while later, you were sent food that would last for about four days.

He remembers the exact moment you won. He wanted to say he was relieved, but that wouldn't be fair to you. Until you left for District 4, you didn't say a single word to him. Perhaps because no one was looking at you with such high expectations anymore, you felt confident enough to speak.

"Do you regret killing those people to survive?"

"No."

He had to be honest; he couldn't lie. But after that, he didn't hear your voice again for the rest of the journey — you didn't even look at him. Still, when you arrived in District 4, you acted as if you were fine, as if you didn’t care.

He also remembers when you became friends. It was a good thing — a big step, considering that before, you wouldn’t even look him in the face. Now he understood why. Even though it hadn't seemed like it before, you had lots of friends. You were funny, entertaining, and you cooked extremely well. Finnick admitted that he envied your food — and he couldn’t lie about that.

He obviously remembers the following year, when the two of you were mentors. You were only seventeen, but you didn't seem bothered about directing two people toward a possible death. He saw how hard you worked not to get attached to either of the tributes, because if they didn't come back, you wouldn't feel guilty. But when Annie returned, alive and safe, he also saw you break down. You hugged her as if she were going to disappear. And he didn’t blame you for that either. Over the next year, no one ever brought up the subject of Annie becoming a mentor.

When you were nineteen, things went to another level. Once ignored, now he was kissed when no one was watching — well, that was a breakthrough. He remembers every kiss, every smile. He also remembers when you woke him up at dawn to help Annie. He didn't mind; he was spending time with you and helping a friend.

While he was making tea, if he looked over his shoulder, he could see you hugging her, whispering what sounded like a lullaby — the kind you sing to babies when they can't stop crying. He could see how much you loved and cared for Annie, and that always made him fall in love with you a little more, even if he didn’t know it at the time.

He certainly remembers the time he told you he loved you. You had just turned twenty-one. You said it back. And you held each other for the rest of the night.

He also remembers the 74th Hunger Games. He saw your relief when those two young people, madly in love — though he didn't believe in that farce — survived together. You didn’t know them, but you were obviously happy for them.

He also — sadly — remembers the Quarter Quell. When his name was called, he had imagined it would happen. But that day, once again, he saw you. Annie had been called, and before Mags could volunteer, you did. He saw you hugging Annie, comforting her as he heard her whisper "sorry," but you just smiled at her. And as you hugged, he heard you say:

"I'm sorry, but I couldn't let that happen to her again."

"I know..."

He didn’t know. No — actually, he did. He just didn’t want to admit it, because admitting it meant facing the reality that this year, he’d be going into the arena with you. And he didn’t even want to think about that.

In the arena, he did everything he could to protect you, Katniss, and Peeta. He really wanted the plan to work. He believed that you would be fine if they separated. But when he woke up, you weren’t there with him. You were in the Capitol with the others. For the first time in years, he wished he had died in that arena when he was fourteen.

He felt it the moment he got you back — you weren’t really there. He spoke to you, but you didn’t listen. And if he tried to touch you, he saw you despair, screaming as if he had hurt you. And he felt that way — he felt guilty for letting the Capitol lay even a single finger on you. They told him to take it easy. He wanted to tell everyone to fuck off, but when he looked at you, he knew they were right.

At that very moment, he was keeping you company, obviously giving you space — he didn’t want you to get hurt. But when he heard you calling him, he admitted he was desperate; you hadn’t even looked him in the face for days. So probably, if you had asked him to get down on his knees and beg for forgiveness, he would have — even if he didn’t need to. But he held back.

"Finnick?"

"Yes, dear? Do you need anything?"

"I'm sorry..." It came out as a whisper.

"Hey, hey, what are you apologizing for? You have nothing to apologize for."

"I..." You didn’t manage to finish before tears welled up in your eyes.

"Hey, hey, please don’t cry..." He tried his best to comfort you without having to touch you. But before he could decide what to do, you hugged him — a little hesitantly, but you hugged him. And at that moment, he collapsed. He shouldn’t have cried — not when you were in such a fragile moment — but he couldn’t help it.

For a moment in his life, he had thought he had lost you, that he would never see you again. And at that moment, he decided he would never let go of you — not with the possibility of losing you again. He would never let that happen. He would always see you now.

[somekindafairy]

god i know this is a dangerous thought game to go down but sometimes i really do just wish i realized i was trans earlier, like i really am out here feeling like a real person for the first time in my life in my 30's huh. :/

[shyoko]

This writing is my own; no copies, adaptations, or translations are allowed. I hope you like it. (English is not my first language.) 

✦ 2.2K words✧ adult cont! Soft Dom JW* Masterlist˚ Taglist✧ Requests “Open”₊‧ ✦𓂃  ✦Taglist: @lezleeferguson-120 @nuki-riki @ijustwannareadstuff20 @vvenusoncasual @miellette @enhacolor @xxkatsusjinsux @somieverse@ourshin

N/A: I hope you like it a lot. I'm bringing it to you while I'm writing the request, because I don't want to leave you with nothing. By the way, I miss my mystery person 🌸😭 (I'm writing your request, but I still don't know which member to choose 😭 ilsm🩷)

✦Adult content✦

“I've been fucking lost these days, all I could think about was you,” he smiled. ”I'm glad you're back.”

There are people who appear in your life like a sigh: brief, intense, and completely unforgettable. Jungwon was that. A deep breath in the midst of chaos, a pause that made you feel alive in ways you didn't even know you needed.

It wasn't just his smile. Nor his soft hands. Not even his voice, which seemed made to whisper things to you that no one else was meant to hear. It was him, all of him. The way he looked at you as if you were a mystery he longed to solve. As if everything about you deserved to be slowly uncovered.

Weeks passed since that night. But it was enough for your mind to cling to every fragment: the warmth of his body next to yours, the laughter at midnight, the brush of his fingers running over you as if memorizing a secret map.

And yet, when you said goodbye, something in you knew that to return so soon would be to give up. Because his last sentence - the one that still echoed in your head - he didn't say it to you by chance. She challenged you. And your pride wasn't going to let him win so easily.

But there were days, like today, where everything tightened in your chest. Where the memory of him was so strong it hurt. Where your body begged for him and your soul missed him.

Today was one of those days.

The sky was gray, as if it was agreeing with you. After days of debating it with yourself, you came to only one conclusion: there was nothing wrong with going back for more. Maybe your ego would be shattered along the way, but if it meant having him again, even if it was just one more night, it was worth it.

And though you wanted to repeat it over and over again previously, there was something to stop you: his damn last sentence before you walked through the door.

“I'm sure you won't last two days to come back, begging for more.” He told you with that smile of superiority that even today turned your stomach.

You'd been carrying his name dancing in your thoughts all day, and finally, with no more excuses, you dressed in the first thing you could find, got out and walked to his house, without thinking. No plan. Just wanting to.

And now you were standing in front of his door, hesitating whether to knock. But in your chest beat a certainty: It was time to stop fighting the inevitable.

You hesitated. Not because you didn't want to, but because you knew that once you saw him again... there would be no escape.

You knocked.

“Coming!” you heard from inside.

The door opened and there he was.His hair was still damp and tousled, as if he’d just stepped out of the shower. A t-shirt that barely hinted at what was underneath, and pajama pants that did nothing to help keep your determination intact.

“Wow...look who's back,” he said, that ever-present smile on his lips.

You came within an inch of turning and leaving, but his hands closed over yours before your body obeyed your mind. He drew you in with a gentleness that hurt.

“That expression told me you were about to run away,” he murmured as he wrapped his arms around your waist. “But I wasn't going to let you do that, not after all this time I couldn't stop thinking about you.”

His hands found their way under your shirt, tracing soft lines on your back. His words were warm, but his eyes...his eyes burned.

“Do you know what it was like not knowing if you'd come back?”

“You’re the one who challenged me.” 

“You're right, I wish I had had your phone or even knew where you lived” he hugged your body resting his head on your shoulder. “The wait would not have been so long” he laughed making his warm breath hit the sensitive skin of your neck. 

And then you couldn't take it anymore. You took his face in your hands and pulled him away from your shoulder and stood face to face. The intensity of his eyes burned against yours, provoking in you all those feelings you refused to have. 

Your lips sought his as if they were home, as if only there you could breathe. The kiss was slow at first, but soon became desperate, as if you were both trying to regain everything you had denied yourself in those weeks.

“I've missed you,” he whispered, barely audible between sighs. “And I'm going to make sure you don't want to leave this time.”

His lips slid down your neck, leaving kisses that trembled between tenderness and need. His hands found your body with the same familiarity as rereading a favorite book.

He lifted you up with ease, chuckling softly as he felt your legs wrap around his waist. He carried you to his room, never letting you go.

He laid you gently on the bed, and stood for a moment watching you from above. As if he couldn't believe you were there again. 

“I've been fucking lost these days, all I could think about was you,” he smiled. ”I'm glad you're back.”

And you, with your heart beating at an impossible pace, thought only one thing: I don't want to be anywhere else anymore.

His hands grabbed the ends of your shirt, gently pulling it away and letting it fall to the floor. Immediately, his fingers caressed your torso, exploring every curve delicately. 

His lips followed the same path, leaving kisses that caused you to shudder.

Your body felt fragile under his touch, vulnerable in his closeness. For a moment, he paused, observing every detail of you, never looking away.

“Do you realize how beautiful you are?” he murmured, his voice laden with admiration, and you felt your heart pounding under his observation.

A shiver ran down your spine as you heard his soft, yet desire-filled tone. Then his mouth descended to your skin, kissing you with a softness that sucked you in completely.

Your breath quickened as his lips followed his path, slowly descending, while his hands roamed your body with familiarity, marking each place with tenderness.

Jungwon's mouth latched onto one of your nipples, licking and biting it as his other hand squeezed the other. His expert tongue knew exactly what to do to make your body stop working. 

“I want you here, just for me,” he whispered, in a voice that seemed to drag you into a state of complete surrender.

He slowly unzipped your pants and panties, letting the cool air brush against your skin, leaving you completely exposed.  “That’s not fair,” you murmured, tugging at his shirt.He quickly understood what you wanted. He pulled his shirt off exposing his abdomen.

Your fingers explored his torso, stopping at his abs. A soft chuckle escaped from him when he noticed your reaction, he took your hands with one of his hands and pressed them to your chest before descending and pressing his lips to your neck. His lips trailed along your neck with desperate intent, marking you as his.

“You have no idea what you make me feel,” he whispered, as he pulled away from your neck.

Jungwon let out a grunt of surprise when he felt your hand cup his cock through his pants, not knowing at what point you had escaped his grip. 

Your breath hitched as you felt him tremble beneath your fingers, the contact between the two of you increasing the tension in the air. He dropped onto the bed, allowing you to take control and explore at your own pace.

A small giggle escaped your lips causing Jungwon's body to shiver in anticipation, you climbed down from his lap and removed his pants and underwear, leaving him naked in front of you. 

You took his dick between your cold fingers, as you descended to leave kisses and licks along the length, focusing on his tip. Jungwon let out various moans as he stared at you, watching your every move.

His body felt light as if it didn't belong to you. His eyes parted from you as you took a large part of him in your mouth, his head lay back, his eyes closed, as he ran one of his hands through his damp hair. It didn't take him long to take your hair between his fingers harder than he intended, speeding up and deepening your movements.

“You're doing so good for me, baby,” he murmured in a trembling voice, his body tensing as release approached. I pull your hair back, not wanting to finish yet. “Come closer, please.” he whispered softly.

You moved over his body before you rolled across the bed getting underneath him. “Now it's my turn to take care of you” he tried to climb down but you prevented him by gripping his shoulders tightly. “No, Just take me… please.” you said desperately, not wanting to wait any longer. 

A chuckle came from him making your chest warm. “It's ok honey, I'll deal with you later” he smiled softly. 

He positioned himself on you and before you could even open your mouth he was already deep inside you, deep. He was just as you remembered him, he filled every space in you making you feel full and loved. 

“ Oh God, you're made for me, aren't you baby?” his hips found a perfect rhythm, your bodies collided with euphoria, your thoughts were filled with him, his lips, and how he knew how to make you could only think of him. 

“Your skin, your scent... they make me lose my mind in ways I can’t explain.”

The only thing that filled the room was the sound of your bodies colliding and your moans, you didn't care who could hear, not right now, you would worry about that later. 

His lips pressed against yours, his tongue danced with yours as his soft hands intertwined with yours. The softness he used was the complete opposite of the movements of his hips. How she clung into you claiming you as hers, her own. 

“I love you, fuck I love you so much, I didn't think I could want to be with a person I've known so little time” the intensity of his gaze took your breath away. “You're not just anyone though, you... I want to have you with me, I never want to spend a day without you again” he smiled squeezing your cheeks. “I was stupid thinking I could forget about you” He finally glued his lips to yours biting and licking them, he wasn't kissing you like before now he was kissing you with desire. He wished you wouldn't disappear when this was all over. 

When he broke away, his eyes fixed on yours spoke to you more than any words. There was a clear message, an unspoken promise: “Don't keep me out of your life.”

His brows furrowed in pleasure and despair. He had tried to hold on as long as he could so he wouldn't have to go through the moment when you decided whether to leave or stay by his side tonight, and the next or even every night of his life. 

Your bodies climaxed at the same time, and you were left resting together, in silence. The gasps and sighs slowly faded away, until only the soft, quiet sound of your breaths, now calm and synchronized, remained.

You got up to position yourself comfortably on the mattress but Jungwon sat up quickly grabbing your wrist and staring at you with sad puppy eyes. “Are you leaving?” he asked sadly. 

“Oh! No, don't be like that, I was just going to lie down nicely on the bed” you said stroking his furrowed eyebrows which quickly returned to their natural state. A big smile appeared on her face. 

He positioned himself with you on the mattress and hugged your body tightly entangling his limbs with yours. “I promised I wasn't going to let you go, and I won't.” Laughter was not long in coming. 

“I love you” he whispered over your ear to make you shiver. 

“I love you too Jungwon” you laughed at his silly antics. 

“But I love you more” you smiled and closed your eyes to let sleep catch you.

...

...

...

“Now you were supposed to say that you loved me more,” he started to say in a playful tone. “and then me telling you that actually I that I want you more and then you saying no that you want me more and then me saying of course not that...” 

You were drifting off to sleep, but Jungwon kept talking, his voice playful and overflowing with love. It was a long night, but not for the reasons you were expecting.... 

[thankskenpenders]

At long last, the trailer for Sonic movie 3 is here, giving us our first look at Shadow! It looks like a fun time, though my excitement is probably more tempered than a lot of peoples' due to a few things I have mixed feelings on. Here are my off-the-cuff thoughts about it.

Shadow

Yes, it does seem like they've really nailed Shadow here. Fowler's attachment to the character clearly shows. The action looks cool and really sells Shadow as a serious threat. He's got his bike, he's doing Chaos Control all over the place, it's great. Keanu is very much just doing his regular voice, but it fits well enough. The backstory from SA2 seems to mostly be there, though I'm sure some details will be adjusted. Mostly I'm still just amazed that we're getting a major tentpole blockbuster movie this Christmas starring Shadow the fucking Hedgehog that treats him as a serious character worthy of respect. We've come such a long way...

I mean, just... what an image to see on the big screen.

I also really like the way they're setting Shadow up as a foil for movie Sonic, kind of his dark mirror image as a Mobian hedgehog whose family life on Earth ended in tragedy and turned him into a vengeful antagonist. It's pretty straightforward, but it works well.

Robotnik(s)

Welp. They put Jim Carrey in a fat suit. I suppose we knew this day would come eventually.

I guess a small part of me is glad that movie Eggman finally actually looks like Eggman in every way that matter, but they're completely playing it as a joke at his expense here. And, yeah, the Sonic franchise isn't immune to fat jokes, the early years of the franchise (particularly Western adaptations) gave Sonic tons and tons and tons of jabs about Eggman's weight. But I thought we'd moved past that. But here we are with a depressed movie Robotnik binge eating and gaining a lot of weight like Fat Thor and the other characters think he's so GROSS and look his clothes don't even fit him anymore, haha! There's so much of this crammed into the trailer. I can only pray they don't do this in every fucking scene he's in in the movie.

I do like the plot of Sonic reluctantly teaming up with Robotnik to try and stop Shadow, though. It's very different from SA2, but we knew it would be, and I think that gives the movie some potential for Sonic to have kind of a dark turn of his own that mirror's Shadow's. I have a feeling that Sonic will try to get back at Shadow for something he does - maybe hurting Tom or something like that - and in the end Sonic sympathizes with Shadow and decides they have to stop their cycle of revenge, teaming up to stop some final threat.

Oh, and, of course... Jim Carrey is also playing Professor Gerald. Who might still be alive? Or maybe it's a hallucination on Ivo's part? I don't know, but either way, I'm here for it. Everyone joked about them doing it and then they went and did it. Yes, it risks playing him as a joke character, but the shot of him and Shadow mourning Maria while surrounded by GUN soldiers makes me believe he won't be a total joke. I wouldn't be surprised if he was the true final antagonist of the film, which would diverge a lot from the games but would work as its own version of the story.

And again, WHAT an image to see on the big screen lmao

Everyone else

The human cast is VERY downplayed in this trailer, but let's not forget that they're still going to get a lot of screentime one way or another. The Sonic 2 trailer barely showed anything from Hawaii. Where oh where is my best friend Wade?

Speaking of the Wade show, Knuckles... frankly still seems to be mostly a comic relief character heavily influenced by MCU Thor here, getting some jokes in the trailer but immediately getting Worfed by Shadow when it comes time to fight. Tails seems to be flying the gang around in a real-ass helicopter, and his big pilot's helmet is funny, but otherwise he doesn't really do anything here aside from getting stomped by Shadow. I really hope they don't get sidelined too hard, but frankly I fully expect them to, Tails especially.

And, of course... I can't help but think about who isn't here. Namely: the girls. Yes, three movies and one streaming miniseries into this film franchise, exactly zero of the female (animal) characters from the games have made the jump to live action. Please allow me to bitch about this.

Despite her being both 1) a main character in the game this movie is loosely adapting and 2) my fave, I suppose I can understand why Rouge isn't here. Paramount took one look at that bat cleavage and went "nope," cowards that they are. There was some speculation that Kristen Ritter could be playing Rouge, but we now know she's just playing someone at GUN. But, again, I at least get why they'd be hesitant to include her.

But Amy... Amy is such a glaring omission at this point. There's no excuse. She's the female lead of the franchise. She's one of Sonic's closest friends. (Honestly, these days it's more accurate to say Team Sonic is Sonic, Tails, and Amy, not Knuckles, especially in the comics.) And she's also a key player in Shadow's arc in the game. Shadow has his change of heart because Amy reminds him of Maria! And yet, she's nowhere to be seen. It sucks.

(I know some fans are still holding out hope for Amy, but the toys for the movie already leaked and she didn't get anything, so I have to assume she's not in it.)

It's not like I really expected either of them to be in this movie, but that doesn't make it less disappointing that they set up the film franchise in a way that makes it logistically difficult to include 90% of the characters and conveniently managed to leave all of the girls in the "low priority" pile. Yes, I know everyone points to how much Tails was downplayed in the third act of Sonic 2 as evidence that it's just so impossible to introduce more than one new Mobian character in each movie and give them the focus they deserve. Yes, I know having to come up with a story excuse to bring more characters over to Earth is an obstacle, especially when they're gonna have to devote time to Shadow's backstory. But these are excuses. It's a writer's job to figure out solutions to problems like this. They could make it work if they really wanted to. I'd take Amy having a suboptimal amount of screentime over her not being in it at all. It's just not a priority for them. That's what disappoints me. You can justify these absences from a logical perspective, but I just care way more about Amy and Rouge as characters than I do about Shadow, so there's no way for this to not sting.

But, at the end of the day, for what the movie is actually trying to do, it seems to be pulling it off well. Aside from the fat jokes. I don't like the fat jokes. But the Shadow stuff is good. As always, this live action version of the franchise is never going to be my ideal version of Sonic, but it's turned out far better than it had any right to, and I'll probably have fun when I go see this in theaters and hear Live and Learn.

[happypopcornprincess]

Chapter 4 || The Great War

Pairings - Joaquin Torres X fem!Reader

Premise - will they survive the great war?

Word Count - 4.7K

Warnings: Angst, blood, gore, mentions of death

a/n - so a short storytime about the delay in the updates, well, long short I was off with family for Holi and almost got caught writing smut :) sprained my hand, which is why I couldn't type for days but I pulled through as injuries can wait but not my will to complete Joaquin and y/n's story. also imp. note that the narratives will now skip between a lot of characters so please let me know if there is any confusion :) thank you for sticking around <3 hope you would like this chapter.

<< Chapter 3 || Series Masterlist || Chapter 5 >>

Scorching sun rays on your body, and the hot desert wind on your face, You squinted through the binoculars, but your focus was split. Kingpin’s lavish bungalow, his desert stronghold, was a fortress, and you weren’t just watching—you were breaching it.

You could have done a better job at it, if it wasn't for Joaquin, who'd decided to join you, armed with binoculars.

"You know," you said, your focus unbroken from your screen, "we could have just sent a drone. Less chance of getting sunburned."

"Drones get spotted," Joaquin replied, his voice flat. "Besides, someone has to make sure you don't pass out and roll down this hill."

"Oh, I'm touched," you said, your voice dripping with sarcasm.

“When I said ‘I want to help you Sam’, I meant fighting by his side, not babysitting you.” Joaquin muttered loud enough for you to listen.

“I don’t need a babysitter.” you snapped, your eyes still glued to the scene before you.

“Give me one good reason why I'm stuck with you here and not on the scene with the team?”

“You volunteered for this, very enthusiastically, might I add,” you mutter under your breath.

“I just want to say if this fails… I’ll personally haunt you in the afterlife.” Joaquin growls.

“And I just wanna say if you keep running your mouth I might have to punch you.” you retorted, your fingers flying across the tab. The bungalow’s security system was a labyrinth, but you were navigating it, line by line.

“And I just wanna say, if I had a gun, I’d have already put a bullet through my skull,” Kate interjected, her voice laced with dark humor that made you both whirl around.

She settled between the two of you, pulling out her own binoculars, though her gaze was drawn to your screen. "And before you ask, no, I didn’t crawl up here for the view. I’m here to make sure you two don’t fry a circuit—or each other."

"Oh," you muttered, your focus intensely on the code scrolling across your screen. "Almost got past the third firewall..."

“No, ‘oh kate i’m so glad you’re alive?’ or ‘i’m sorry for being a jerk, kate.’ or, ‘hey how about we go to the movies after this to forget how we almost kicked each other’s butts the other day.’”

“You can just say you want to watch a movie with me,” you muttered, your eyes still trained on the gates.

“Seriously, Y/N?” she whined, but the edge in her voice was gone. “I’m sorry. I was… riled up. Watching Frank and Daredevil crash our mission, and the fact that he wanted to kill Fisk… I took it out on you.”

Kate’s voice dropped, becoming softer, almost hesitant. “And I said some really hurtful things to you. I wish I could take them back. I shouldn’t have said that.”

You took a deep breath, the weight of her apology settling on you, but your hands never stopped typing. "I know," you replied, your voice tight. "It’s alright. I get it." You patted her arm awkwardly, a brief, almost clumsy gesture, before returning to your screen. "Almost there… bypassing the internal sensors… got it!"

Joaquin, however, didn’t miss the subtle shift in your demeanor. His gaze lingered on you as he watched you work. 

"What are you doing now?" He asked.

"Disabling the cameras, and internal sensors." You reply without looking up. "Once I do that, I can let the team know where the blind spots are, and they can go in… Got it!”

You smile, and speak into the comms, “Sam, defenses down. All data is with redwing you can proceed. Good luck.”

Kate tapped both your shoulders, “good luck.” and she went back.

Joaquin stood up, deploying his falcon suit, and you followed, tightening your utility belt and strapping your tab inside your vest.

You winced, “ah!” gripping your wound as it sent a jolt up your body. Joaquin’s hand raised to reach for you, but he retreated as you walked to him, his stance rigid. It was hard to read his eyes, now covered with his visor lenses.

“Don’t you dare drop me.” you state, locking your arms around his shoulders.

He let out a dry laugh, “ha, I wish I could.” saying so, he pulled you in by your waist, harshly, and took off into the sky.

The wind whipped at your face, stealing your breath. As on instinct, you clung to him, burying your face in the crook of his neck. You swore he held you closer, but maybe it was just the wind, or the way your mind was playing tricks on you. It was too easy, the way your body fit against his. 

It was like muscle memory, an echo of a time when you were friends, before the tangled mess of your arrangement. 

On you apartment’s fire escape, Joaquin sat on the stairs, holding out his hand, a teasing grin playing on his lips. “Come on.”

“I can’t!” you whined.

“You can’t be scared of heights when your best friend is the Falcon,” he laughed with a playful challenge.

“Y/N, I thought I was your best friend!” Peter’s voice echoed, and you looked up to see him hanging upside down just above you.

“Can you stop doing that?” you snapped, your stomach twisting with anxiety, a strange warmth spreading through you when you looked at Joaquin.

“Look, it’s only the fourth floor. It’s not that high! You know, I once flew next to an F-15 with Sam. You know how high that is?” Joaquin insisted.

“That does not make me feel better, Joaquin!” you scream.

“I’m here just in case you fall. I’ll web you up!” Peter offered, but his upside-down presence only amplified your anxiety.

“No.”

“Okay, that leaves us only one other way,” Shang-Chi spoke up from behind you, before literally hauling you up and pushing you out onto the fire escape. You screamed and thrashed a bit, but calmed down once you felt Joaquin’s hand hold you tight by your waist.

You breathed hard, but Joaquin let you wrap your hands around him, rubbing your back, his laugh vibrating through you.

“I got you.” he urged you to look at him and you did. His calm demeanor and his touch on your skin should have calmed you, but your heart raced faster. You shift your gaze to the New York skyline, the sun disappearing behind the tall buildings, the bustling crowds beneath you and the cold wind on your face.

Shang Chi sat next to you, placing his arms behind your body, and you calmed down completely.

“Incoming!” Kate laughed before rolling down from the railing above and lying down on your legs, laughing, all while Peter hung upside down.

You saw the new york sunset together, and sat there in silence until the sky turned blue. 

That’s when you hit Shang Chi’s arm.

“Ow!”

“That was for pushing me out.” you laugh.

 Kate gasped, hitting Shang Chi, “You pushed her out on the fire escape?”

“Can you both stop hitting me?” he protests.

“Okay, time out!” Joaquin leaned to make Kate stop hitting Shang Chi, and sneakily made a face, making you laugh.

“Can you move?” Joaquin’s voice vibrates through you, making you realise your legs were touching the ground.

You jerked away from him, as he disengaged his helmet, meeting your gaze with disappointment.

The comms came to life with Bucky’s voice, “we’re in! Y/n, you have 10 minutes tops, starting now!”

You crashed back to reality, all your focus shifting to your mission, “Roger that.” Saying so, you ran with Joaquin on your heels, the lingering warmth of his touch a ghost on your skin.

But as you moved, a dangerous, sudden realization slammed into your chest with the force of a physical blow.

You were falling for him.

And you were terrified.

It was the specific, visceral terror of falling for him. 

Joaquin, the man who had been your friend, your confidant, your… something else entirely. The man who had declared it was over, who had built his own walls, colder and taller than yours.

This was a dangerous game, where the stakes were your heart, and the opponent was someone who knew exactly how to dismantle your defenses.

As you entered the enemy territory, the realization sent a shiver down your spine. You pushed it down, shoved it into a locked box in the deepest part of your mind, where it wouldn't interfere with the mission. 

But the fear lingered, a cold, hard knot in your stomach, a constant reminder of the dangerous path you were now on.

—/—/—

The moment you stepped through the reinforced door, the world shifted, a stark and unsettling contrast to the harsh desert landscape you'd just left. The bungalow’s interior was a crafted miracle, a bizarre blend of mid-century modern and Renaissance, as if a set designer had suffered a stylish, schizophrenic break.

It wasn't just a house; it was a stage. 

The walls painted a blinding, almost clinical white, stretched into high, vaulted ceilings, creating an echoing space. The walls were a gallery, a bizarre collection of paintings that seemed to have been plucked from different eras and styles. The air itself felt different, sterile, a faint tone of rose underlying in it. 

Every surface, every object, was eerily pristine, untouched by dust. It was as if the entire space was a museum exhibit, where nothing was allowed to be out of place. 

The halls of the mansion were empty, no soldiers in sight. You found a staircase leading upstairs, but your focus was to find a hidden wall or a door that leads downstairs; that’s where all the fun was.

Joaquin whispered, “y/n, look.” you turn towards the room he was pointing in, and see it; a huge 9-feet oil painting of Wilson Fisk and Vanessa Fisk, standing ominously, their gaze pouring into you both like a warning of not coming any closer.

Walking closer, you both quickly set to analyze the edges for some mechanism, or a hint towards an opening, moving your fingers around the edges, and suddenly a sharp click broke the silence.

Joaquin and you looked at each other, and he gave you a thumbs up. The painting started to move, slowly opening on the outside to reveal an elevator. You both rush in, and find only two buttons on it; G and -1. Clicking on the -1 button, the doors closed, and the elevator roared to life.

When the doors opened, you found yourself looking at a lavish living room; the walls painted maroon, the furniture all black, and a small kitchen counter on a corner filled with canned food… right next to a computer system with two screens stacked on top of each other.

Gotcha

“It’s a safe house within a safe house.” Joaquin muttered, as you made a run for the computers.

“Y/n!” the comms roared back to life, Peter's voice a shout in the midst of gunfire, “did you find it?”

“Yes!” you scream, your fingers itching to get to work.

“Finish up as soon as you can!” Kate screamed next, grunting, probably shooting arrows, “these soldiers are playing real dirty.”

“Got it.” your fingers fly on the keyboard as you fish out the tab from within your vest, shoving it at joaquin, “find me a passage to the dark web.”

“What?” he looks at you, dumbfounded.

“You heard me.” you command, without removing your eyes from the desktop.

Joaquin got to work, and you bypass the security and passcodes with algorithms to access the files. Writing a code for accessing all files at once, you find both screens filled with every single file from the computer.

And you froze.

Whatever you were expecting, this wasn't it.

“Ay dios mío” Joaquin muttered.

The screens were filled with videos of every single person on your team.

“Goddamn, He'd steal the pennies off a dead man's eyes” you exclaimed, your Texan drawl slipping through.

Bucky and Sam on the Flag Smashers mission, Frank Castle murdering a room filled with mercenaries, Kate with Clint on the streets of new york, but the most shocking one was of Peter changing into his spidey suit in an alleyway, and the Daredevil on a rooftop, pulling off his mask to reveal his identity.

“Mathew Murdock? The lawyer from Hell’s kitchen!” Joaquin’s voice was filled with disbelief, “but he’s blind!”

You shake your head, trying not to get distracted by the sudden revelations, and you type in another code to reveal only the statistical and recorded data over the years; logs of purchases, black money turning white, reports of how many corrupt officials were there in the system, and the most important, proof of all the crimes, and murders he had committed in the past years. You put them all in one, single, mega file, and readied to upload it on the dark web, “Joaquin, how long?”

“30 seconds.” he answers, his hands flying across the tab.

“Looks like you’re winning, y/l/n.”

Your heart leapt into your throat as you turned around, whipping out your gun at the man standing behind you. Joaquin dropped the tablet, kneeling next to you with two Glocks in his hands.

Benjamin Pointdexter, instead of rotting in jail, was standing right infront of you, smirking, his hands twirling two razor sharp knives, “I know you don’t go by that name anymore, it’s just y/n now, right?”

Your mind raced to stall for time, you knew you stood no chance in front of a psychotic individual who could make impossible shots with his knives, earning him the nickname of Bullseye.

“Your folks back in Texas would be sad about you not taking your last name.” he laughed, “traditions and all, you know.”

“How did you find us?” Joaquin grumbled.

“You found me, actually. You really thought Mr. Fisk would leave this room unguarded?” he started to walk towards you, his fingers spinning the knives faster than ever, “any last wishes?”

Joaquin looks at you, and speaks just a single word, “10 seconds.” before opening fire at Dexter.

—/—/—

Those 10 seconds were the longest 10 seconds of your life. 

You leapt towards the tab, pressing upload on all the files to the dark web. Opening the comms, you screamed, “Backup, lower ground… fisk’s portrait!”

You whipped around, and your blood ran cold. A knife was hurtling towards Joaquin's neck. He reacted by twisting away, a blade flashing from his own jacket, plunging into Dexter's thigh. Dexter roared, an agonizing sound leaving his throat, kicking Joaquin away as he grabbed razor-sharp shards from his suit.

"NO!" a sound of pure terror ripped from your throat watching him about to throw them at Joaquin. You lunged, slamming into Dexter, sending you both crashing to the floor. You pound your fists against him, a frenzy of precise but desperate blows, but he just laughed, a chilling, maniacal sound before catching your fist mid-swing, twisting your wrist with brutal force.

A scream tore from your lips, the pain white-hot, unbearable. But you were beyond pain, fueled by rage. You punched him again, ignoring the agony. 

You saw Dexter's smile twist into something truly sinister. Before you could react, before you could even brace yourself, he stabbed you, the knives sinking into the same wound, the same place you'd been shot before.

He kicked you away, the force of it sending you sprawling. He pulled more knives, ready to inflict more damage. But Joaquin was on him with a whirlwind of furious strikes with his knife, only to have Dexter’s own blade slash across his neck. 

A crimson spray burst out of his neck, a horrifying sight.

It was as if time had completely stopped.

Joaquin. Your Joaquin. The one whose laughter echoed in your ears, a constant, comforting sound. The one who had held you steady when you felt utterly adrift. The one you’d treated with a reckless, careless abandon, like a moth drawn to a dangerous flame, even though he deserved nothing but love.

And now, he was hunched over, clutching his neck, his fingers stained crimson. 

The sight was a brutal, visceral punch to your gut, a stark, horrifying image that burned itself into your mind. His comforting embrace after training, his laughter on the fire escape, his glances across the room searching for you at any moment, the night you two first met. Every laugh you’d shared, every moment you spent together, it all seemed to flash before your eyes in that horrifying moment.

The guilt, a heavy, suffocating weight, pressed down on you, threatening to crush you. How could you have been so careless with the man that you…

With the man that you loved.

The image ignited a fire in you, a desperate attempt of adrenaline pumping inside you,and you were moving like a broken thing driven by pure instinct. 

You stumbled at Dexter, your body screaming in protest, but you couldn't stop.

Then Dexter was throwing knives, every blade he had, a lethal rain aimed at you.

You coughed as they pierced through your body, a gurgling sound, blood bubbling up in your throat. Your vision swam, the pain a relentless, crushing wave. Your body was betraying you, cold and numb, but you fought, crawling towards the computer, a desperate last attempt to see if you were successful.

But Dexter was there, a dark shadow, his knives slashing, destroying the system. Sparks flew, screens flickered and died. All that work, all that pain, for nothing.

He loomed over you, a dagger in his hand, his eyes cold and cruel. "Well, this is a shame," he hissed, his voice a low, mocking growl. "I would have loved to have more fun with you."

His twisted smile was the last clear image you saw, before the world dissolved into a blurry darkness.

—/—/—

Gunshots.

A heavy thud of weight landed right next to you.

Shuffling of bodies, and somebody shouted your name from a far away distance.

"Dammit! Peter, get the Quinjet!" Bucky's shout echoed through.

Your name was called out again.

Your body felt lightweight, as if you were floating in air.

And then it was bright all of a sudden.

Your vision returned just to have a look at the crystal blue afternoon sky, the whirl of quinjet’s engine in the distance.

A sob went through your ears, a voice so familiar, "Stay with me y/n, baby, please."

Joaquin.

He was alright.

His voice was the last thing you heard before being catapulted into darkness.

—/—/—

"F.R.I.D.A.Y.!" Bucky roared, his voice cracking, his eyes glued to Y/N's still form on the Quinjet’s platform.

The minute he had entered Kingpin’s den his eyes had landed right on her. She was so pale, her skin like cold, lifeless marble. It sent Bucky to empty his barrel into Dexter who lay dead right next to y/n. The pool of blood beneath her was a sickening crimson stain, enough to send a wave of nausea crashing over him. He'd wanted to snatch her up, hold her close, but Sam's hand on his arm held him back, a silent, firm restraint.

Shang-Chi's rings glowed at that moment, and like a shimmering golden shield cradling her body, the rings lifted her gently off the ground. He was carrying her, floating, trying to minimize any further damage as they rushed her into the Quinjet.

"Scan complete. Multiple organ failure, massive blood loss, ruptured lungs, heart rate decreasing rapidly," F.R.I.D.A.Y. 's flat, emotionless voice filled the cramped space, each word a brutal blow.

"Any damage to the heart?" his voice was tight, strained.

"No critical damage detected."

"Okay... uh... okay..." Bucky's stomach churned. He couldn't look at the knives sticking out of her, couldn't bear the sight of her broken body. He turned away, but it didn't help.

Peter and Frank were with Joaquin, trying to stop the flow of blood from his neck. The cut wasn't deep, just above his collarbone, but his vest was soaked, a dark, horrifying stain. He'd passed out as they boarded the jet, his delirious cries for Y/N echoing in the small space, a desperate, broken sound that tore at Bucky's heart.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y... get the med bay ready," Bucky commanded, his voice rough.

"Shang-Chi—" Bucky started, but Shang-Chi cut him off, his face grim.

"The rings are creating a field to keep her blood from getting out. They will also keep her heart beating, just in case..." He shared a look with Bucky, a look that spoke of unspoken fears, of the very real possibility of losing her. A look Bucky hated.

Kate and Peter were at the controls, their faces tight, Kate occasionally getting a glance back at y/n, flying them back to the compound. Daredevil, mask off, sat huddled in a corner, his gaze fixed on the floor. Bucky was seconds away from snapping, from unleashing his pent-up rage, when he saw the object clutched in Daredevil's hand: a silver cross.

He was praying, silently. He was a man desperately hoping for a miracle.

Bucky's own throat tightened. He remembered a secret, a truth he'd only shared with Sam: Y/N reminded him of a person so close to him back then, it physically hurt him to even think about her; his sister, Beatrice. 

Hauntingly familiar, just like her. The same mischievous grin before she did something mischievous, the same laughter that could fill any room with joy. 

He closed his eyes, a silent prayer escaping his lips, a desperate plea to whatever power might be listening…

Please, save her.

-/-/-

Joaquin's eyes fluttered open to the sterile white of the med bay ceiling, the smell of spirit overwhelming his senses.

He was alive. His forehead ached like he could feel the blood flow in his head, and a sharp sting from the gash on his neck burned as he opened his mouth, but he was alive. 

His first thought, a desperate, clawing panic, was for Y/N.

"Y/N?" His voice was a raw whisper, barely audible. "Is she…"

Shang Chi helped him sit up on the hospital bed, and he was met with Peter and Kate’s grim faces, etched with a silence that sent a chill through him. They avoided his gaze, their bodies stiff, their silence heavy.

"Sam got Kingpin," Peter said, his voice flat, his shoulders slumped. "He's on his way to New York. Going to trial for everything you and Y/N exposed."

Joaquin barely registered the words. A terrifying feeling invaded his heart as it beat faster; why was Peter avoiding his question? His eyes were fixed on them, searching for the truth they were so clearly trying to hide. "And Y/N?" he repeated, his voice strained.

“Joaquin, how about you rest up a bit…” Kate says calmly as she approaches his side, but Joaquin shakes his head, repeating his question.

"She's… she's in surgery," Kate said, her voice trembling slightly. "It's… we can’t tell if she-" she choked on her words, falling on the chair next to his bed.

The words hung in the air. A wave of nausea washed over him, a cold, sickening dread.

Shang-Chi placed a hand on his shoulder, sighing, a gesture that was meant to be comforting, but felt like a lead weight. "She's strong, Joaquin. She'll pull through.”

Joaquin saw the flicker in Shang-Chi's eyes, the carefully neutral expression that masked the unspoken fear. He knew they were holding back about her, trying to shield him from the truth. 

A small part of him still wished this was all a dream. A bad one, but still. Any minute now, he would wake up, right next to her sleeping form, and he’ll hold her, hug her, tell her she’s gonna be okay.

Then he heard Kate and Peter's hushed conversation next to him, the words cutting through the sterile silence of the room. "...we need to contact him."

“But, Kate…”

“Connor is her emergency contact peter, this could be the last time they-”

"Connor?" Joaquin's voice was sharp, a sudden jolt of confusion. "Who's Connor?"

The others exchanged a look, filled with confusion.

"You don’t know about Connor?" Peter said, his voice barely a whisper, “he’s her brother.”

Joaquin's breath hitched. Her brother. He knew she had a brother, but he had never known his name, never had any real details. Why did she never tell him before? Why was her brother the emergency contact? What about her parents?

His heart dropped when he recalled her behaviour. Overtly self dependent, her episode at the apartment, her smile disappearing at any mention of family, the phone call the day before the mission. His mind raced as he joined the dots in his head. Could it be…

"I need to see her," he rasped, his voice thick with emotion.

"Joaquin, you need to stay here," Shang-Chi said, his voice low but stern, "You need to get yourself together."

"Get myself together?" Joaquin's voice rose with his anger, a raw, broken sound, "She's dying! And you want me to get myself together?"

He tried to get out of the bed to stand, but his legs were weak, his body trembling. He stumbled, only to be caught by Shang Chi.

"Joaquin!" Shang-Chi's voice was sharp, a rare scolding tone. "You're not going anywhere. You're lost too much blood, you need rest. You will only make things worse."

Joquin breathed hard, clouded by the single thought of her. y/n smiling down at him from the fire escape, how she fitted right into his arms, her heartfelt laughter ringing in his ears, how her existence made him brighter. 

Joaquin sank back onto the bed, his body shaking, his eyes filled with a desperate, agonizing helplessness. He closed his eyes, hoping to see her image sitting next to him bathed in sunlight… alive.

But instead, he saw her face in the Kingpin's den, frozen, blank, seconds before Dexter's knives plunged into her. A replay of his worst nightmare. He remembered his desperate attempt to reach her before Dexter could do the unthinkable. 

The way her eyes had flickered, then gone blank.

The weight of suffocating darkness that threatened to consume him entirely loomed over him. He was alone, and the only light he ever cared about, was fading away.

To Be Continued...

<< Chapter 3 || Series Masterlist || Chapter 5 >>

A/N - Thank you everyone for sticking with me till the end of this fic! if you liked it please let me know through the asks and the comments. Next Chapter will be up soon... Love y'all, Take Care!

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[dogcircle-scans]

I'm really curious to know if you have officially dropped the manga. If so (and even if not obvs), I'd just like to thank you for so many amazing years of awesome translations. This manga may not be very popular in the west but I'm glad you kept bringing it for so many of us

Hey, sorry for just now seeing this even though this question was sent back in late November.

No, we haven't officially dropped the manga, and Idk if any group has picked up the series while I was gone. Emphasis on the "I" because our absence was not a consenting choice made by anyone else in this group. So if anyone harbors any kind of resentment, then do not direct it towards anyone but me. If we ever decide to officially drop the series, I'll make an official announcement on this blog. To be honest, I wasn't really gonna make much hubbub about a comeback and just post a chapter as if no time had passed. But, because I got this question and you were very nice about it. I'll give some insight.

- 🦙

The only reason I'm an active part of this fandom (any fandom now really) despite it being against my lurker nature and excessive anxiety issues is because I was encouraged to do so by a friend. If you know me from Discord, then you probably know that aside from running this blog, I'm leader of the scan group and owner of its server, I'm even an admin for the Natsume fan server which is its own separate thing.

I don't know if that sounds already sounds overwhelming, but just to scare you, I also proofread the scripts so the dialogue sounds natural and act as quality checker for each chapter. This means cleaning/redrawing sections of pages if the CLDR forgot or didn't meet the standard of quality I'm looking for. Similar with typesetting, I'll rearrange the text if I feel it could be done better. I'm also the main SFX person. When it comes to the scan server, outside of running and maintaining it, I also act as mod to make sure people aren't posting anything inappropriate or inoffensive + setting up bots and permissions.

When I was in High School and even during my early years of college, I could manage it cause I had the support and energy for it. Plus, my love for Natsume was scary intense. So when life got hard, I found that working on scans acted as a lifeline.

Then I had a messy fallout with the friend who prompted all of this, and things shifted. It didn't help that things in my personal life got really bad and more or less stayed that way for 2/3 years. And because of the association, and the guilt of falling behind, working on Natsume was no longer a stress-relieving activity. It became the source of my stress. I ran away because I was scared and overwhelmed. It wasn't healthy and it only made things worse, honestly.

But, I've been really hard on myself over this past year, and I finally reached the point of wanting to come back, but the guilt from being a deadbeat was still eating me alive. Then I got really sick at the start of this month, and I'm no lie, I'm still sick... but that gave me a lot of time to think and reevaluate all kinds of things. Because honestly? I miss working on scans and the collaborative aspect that I fell in love with because of Natsume.

And literally just this past Saturday/Sunday night, I sent a message to the group, apologizing for what I did and provided a similar explanation of why I did what I did. I trying it as just an explanation and not an excuse - I hope I was able to do that here too.

I told my group to give me several days before I actually start working on scans again, though, because it'll allow me to catch up with everything and figure out what needs to be done next, and it'll also give me more time to recover.

Thank you once again for being kind and understanding! I really appreciate it 🥹💚

[zenithofstories]

so i've just finished watching all the first episodes, so i wanted to give my thoughts on the first Wild Life session:

-so much fun i love it so much. i'm so glad they're all still having fun and continuing the series, and that Mumbo and Lizzie came back, despite dying early in Secret Life (i was a tiny bit worried they might get a bit dejected and pass on this one). also thrilled Ren is able to play this time; he's a blast

-there is a lot of mistrust going around which is very curious to me. most of it stems from previous seasons and has no bearing on what was happening at the time. Pearl straight up telling Cleo she expected her to betray her; Mumbo and Skizz not trusting Martyn, and then Grian; and then not trusting that Martyn just wanted to use their enchanter; the huge immediate aggression towards Scar when he came out of the mountain into Grian, Skizz and Mumbo's base; Mumbo not trusting Skizz (his teammate!) when he asked for someone to pass him a diamond; Scott, Cleo, Pearl and Impulse assuming Joel stole their cows, probably more i'm forgetting. it's definitely obvious to me that these people have learnt how the games work and learnt from the pain (as we do). i'm very curious to see if the general server mistrust grows, and the impact it has on everyone and the people

-i love JImmy, Big B, Lizzie and Ren forming a dnd party and Ren (in true bardic fashion) has a guitar within reach and is willing to break into song at the first campsite (this honestly might be my favourite moment from all the life series at the moment. the guitar within reach, Ren's beautiful voice, how much the others thought it was great. fantastic vibes all around)

-i really want Scar and Martyn to team up. they are both instantly mistrusted, to the point that both of them (in their first episodes, no less) expressed that if people are going to treat them like a villain, then they may as well act like it. if the two of them team up to take revenge on everyone being mean to them in a new series i think they would be a force to be reckoned with

-Skizz and Mumbo is a fantastic team-up. both very genuine people who are so funny together

-i hope they get the lag fixed, or that it was just from the size-changing mod and they don't have to deal with it for the rest of the series

-Gem and Joel's partnership - in the early days Gem is going to be a fantastic counterbalance for Joel; help keep him calmer and curb his wild ideas. But once Gem gives in to her own urges... oh boy

-does Big B know that he can go caving with people? cause he seemed to be under the impression that he had to get geared out before he could make friends and it would suck if he ended up alone all the time because it hasn't occurred to him that he can go caving with people right at the start

-double life thought: i know most people count Pearl as the winner, but did Scott technically win as well? cause they were the last pair alive, and died in the same tick. it probably doesn't matter at all, but i wonder about it sometimes (especially in how it would affect Martyn's lore but that's not canon)

-i don't think Jimmy has broken the canary curse. i subscribe to the theory that cause Lizzie died in the End, the Watchers weren't able to perceive it and then he was the first to die in the Overworld (i'm not counting Real Life as canon; it happened and i enjoyed it but it wasn't a full series and they were deliberately playing it silly as an april fool's joke. very glad that Cleo won though. hope they get a full series win as well)

-i'm glad that Tango and Skizz (deliberately) didn't team together, but i kinda wish Tango had ended up in a different group. him, Etho and Bdubs are fun, don't get me wrong, but a whole lot of the fun of the series is seeing people interact and work with people they don't usually. Tango and Jimmy was a top tier pairing in Double Life, and Tango is hilarious. i would love to see him branch out more and work with some more people

-there is more than just the wild card. Grian said he wasn't going to explain it, and i didn't notice anything else happening (but i'm also not expecting it to be much until they get to the late game). i think that there will be a wild card that affects the players, and then also something that affects the world? we'll see, i guess

-now that everyone who has played is playing (i'm pretty sure? if i've forgotten someone i'm gonna be sad) who is gonna sub in if needed?

-i love Mumbo's "that was sub-one intelligence mate" when they all fell 🤣

-i'm not sure what the purpose of including the creakings or whatever they're called? nevermind i just looked it up and they're going to be in the game at some point. weird. i'm not sure how i feel about creakings coming to minecraft though

-very glad they've got six lives this time. it will both allow them to not worry so much about mistakes and accidents (as evidenced by Pearl) and encourage them to take risks, which will be fantastic

[lemotmo]

I still hate it. I get it from a business standpoint and this makes perfect sense. But he's dad and I'm devastated.

Q. He just signed the death certificate of his own show.

A. I'm going to preface this entire reply by saying I don't think he's really dead but I'm going to answer this way too dramatic ask from a pragmatic standpoint. So for the sake of this reply he is dead. AGAIN I DO NOT REALLY THINK HE'S DEAD BUT SOME OF THESE TAKES ARE INSANELY OVER DRAMATIC SO IM GOING TO REPLY TO THIS AS IF HE IS TRULY DEAD.

Instant reaction being raw and angry is understandable and relatable but the argument that no television show has ever done anything like this and survived is a frankly absurd argument. This is not new for television. It's definitely not new for ABC. In fact if he is truly dead I believe it was an ABC decision and not a Tim decision. There is a legitimate argument to me made for the long term benefit of killing a character like this off. Lots of shows that have run as long as 911 has need a reset at some point. This is an insanely expensive show to make. It will be going into its 3rd season on a new network which means there were probably several cast members who were due for new contracts and given the show's current status on the network those new contracts most likely came with pay increases. If you're a suit in the financial position at ABC it makes sense that something would need to give. Angela and Peter are the two most expensive cast members. And if the choice was between Peter Krause and Angela Bassett you're keeping the movie star every time. That's business. We can all hate it but it is.

As for the people yelling at me that I willed his death into existence by saying he was overused, I cannot help you. There is a drastic difference in saying a character desperately needs a rest and killing the character off. If you don't understand that, I don't know what to tell you. Tommy did not serve any kind of major role in this event. Stop that now. He is a helicopter pilot. They brought him in to fly a helicopter as a distraction, which is what his character was for his entire run of this plot, hello! and to allow Buck to verbally state the EX part out loud. I do think we will get a scene between him and Eddie next week, which I still think was the real reason he was brought back in the first place. Being pissed off at him getting a reaction to the death over Eddie is legitimate, understandable rage. That was inexcusable on every level. And I'm glad even the media is pointing that out. For one the man cannot act. He is incapable of emoting and looked constipated more than anything else. It was bad all the way around. The other problem was it was legitimately not a great episode in general. The plot was absurd with even the slightest bit of critical thinking applied. But moving characters and plotlines along with the use of grief is a media staple. That is common practice so people acting like the show basically has to start over from scratch because Bobby died is ridiculous. I cried hard last night. The dialogue was moving and did its job but the plot overall was absurd and does not feel real in any way. In conclusion I don't think it's real BUT if it is there are legitimate arguments to me made for doing it. We don't have to like it but that doesn't make them less true. I do think hell be alive and back by the season finale though. 🩷🩷

Thank you Nonny!

All right, this is the last ask I'm answering tonight. I'm tired and I need a break. 🥱

I thought this one was fitting to end on for today. 😋

I still hate how they went about this and I'm also still very much in camp 'HE ISN'T DEAD', but yeah... if he is we will have to deal with it in some way.🤷‍♀️ It'll hurt, but I'll get passed it because I still love this show too much to give up on it. ❤️

Heads up! For anyone who is giving me the shifty eyes for reposting Ali's updates instead of reblogging. Read this.

Remember, no hate in comments, reblogs or inboxes. Let's keep it civil and respectful. Thank you.

If you are interested in more of Ali’s posts, you can find all of her posts so far under the tag: anonymous blog I love.

[starrycassi]

Okay, I'm actually obsessed with your 'jayvik works for silko au'. I like that Viktor is the face of their work, the confident one that everyone knows (and fears, as they should). Also, I imagine Jayce like he looked in THAT council room scene in e8s2 (he looks SO hot in those dark clothes and the beard, damn (and I'm ace so that's saying something, lol)). Just slightly longer hair maybe.

I think Jayce would be in denial for a few years about the true situation he's in, regarding not just Viktor and their power dynamics, but their work and Silko and the situation in Zaun in general. But then he would have a epiphany about it and then slowly realizes stuff and accepts it surprising well. By the end of the time skip he's completely on board with what he's doing (though in the same way Viktor is, and the two conspire together).

You said we can ask for more of the au so, if I may maybe request a tender moment between the two? Like their love confession or them getting together. Just Viktor being vournelable with Jayce and it's the firs time ever he is with someone since like really early childhood. And he's freaking out internally about it but just wants to so badly.

Or the scene where Vi and Cait meet them (mainly Jayce) post timeskip (does it happen the same time Vi and Jinx meet for the fist time? Or is it different). I just kind of want to see Caits reaction to Jayce being alive and the whole, he's working for the kingpin, making weapons and is married to an infamous henchman/silkos inventor/the Herald/whatever Viktor is. I think it would be hilarious.

What's your Ao3? Would you consider posting this au there?

First of: I'm SO glad people like this au because it's been on my mind ever since the show barely came out!! This + crow queen + the meadow au are the very first ones I developed for Arcane and I've been slowly going insane over them. Hehehe. I do have to preface this by saying: when originally created, it was done with *League* lore in mind. I've had to tweak and adjust things for them to make sense with some of the newer backstory + revelations. Which is one of the main reasons as to why I've only posted it as ideas/snippets. I don't even want to get into the logistics of how Piltover would evolve without the hexgates (since their creators are buried deep in the underground and refuse to work with anyone in the council) or what the presence of not only one, but now *two* apparent heirs for Silco could entail. It's a very nice idea that I love, but it's nowhere near as fleshed out as it needs to be for me to write a fic :((

One of the main reasons I enjoy it is the subversion of their power dynamic! In this one, is Viktor who has to step out and defend Jayce when needed (there's actually a scene very similar to the last EP of S1, where Viktor has to cement Jayce's standing as his *partner* (meaning, equal, so please stop trying to kill him or undermining him) in front of Zaun's chembarons. Though Jayce eventually ends up earning his own name and reputation! I've actually got a small scene for that in the works, but basically people's perspective of him goes: that's herald's new boytoy (is he going to last?) > that's herald's new lap dog (is he trying to steal sevika's spot?) > He is to Viktor what Sevika is to Silco + they fuck > that's herald's new apprentice (is he good enough for the title) to, finally > He Defender (or smth idk not quite sure of his Zaun Tittle yet), Herald's partner, Jinx's second favorite. Jayce has to fight tooth and nail for his spot at Silco's chain of command, but once he has it no one dares question him. People fear provoking them both because of The Herald's vindictive vein as much as they are terrified of The Defender's (I'm between that and warden really) senseless rage. However, Zaunites do start going to Jayce for help, since he is the kinder and more approachable out of the bunch. Silco lets Jayce run around fixing houses and "playing hero" because it's actually gaining them a lot of sympathy and making more people slowly rally behind his ideals.

I've also given silco a bit more of a political incline. There is a draft of Jayce and Viktor convincing Silco to start a small public school, but it's still a "maybe", since there's the whole child labor aspect and allat.

And, yeah. Jayce is completely in denial for almost a year. He's lost everything he's ever known, was faced with the crude reality that piltover will, can and has turned its back against one of their own. He's bitter and humiliated, after all, Jayce does have a bit of an ego in the og show and everything that transcends here hurts him. Also, Viktor and Silco are both spewing shit about Piltover in his ear every single day (not without reason lol). But you are generally right with that analysis!! When he does have the final breakdown, he bounces back fast as hell. He becomes really codependent with Viktor and Jinx in those times, then gets better and better at accepting the cards he's been dealt.

I'm still debating about the plot point of Viktor and Jayce conspiring to take over Silco's place and *actually* do something for Zaun. In this au we would have: them trying to win over Sevika, secretive plotting, them do their best to properly mold Jinx so she will eventually rebel (or, in case Silco is taken out by that point, she can step in and allow them a place at her side)

Also I'm SO glad S2 gave me a proper image for visualizing Zaunite Jayce. I was screaming at my computer when I realized that all my dreams had been answered. I'm debating giving him streaks of color or something. Idk yet.

I WILL write that as soon as I'm out of finals lol. I also have one of Viktor's efforts to convince everyone of Jayce being treated as his equal and the way they meet. It's all a bit convoluted.

Some things I'm not quite if I should change yet;

Originally, Singed cut off Viktor's leg and gave him a prosthetic, framing this as "getting rid of the bad parts". This would eventually evolve into the whole cyborg-viktor we see in the games. There was also a very homoerotic situation where he got Jayce to cut off his hand when the wrist stopped answering properly. Idk sorry I've a lot of weird kinks in store for them.

This also meant Viktor giving Jayce modifications. One thing that im definitely keeping is that he gives Jayce sharper canines + possibly adds a "venom" mechanism so he can better defend himself. They experiment on each other as a way to show love okay. Also Jayce gets a piercing. Idk where how or why but I need this man pierced. Maybe him and Viktor get matching ones like Alternate Ekko and Alternate Powder. Gold and Silver little bands. Why not.

There was a whole thing about Viktor just kinda going ham and trying to add body mods to their already shimmered soldiers.

Et cetera

Edit: I want to clarify that I understand that sevika is loyal to ideas, not people. She is loyal to Silco because he is the best bet they have at the moment, and then to Jinx for the same reason (yes she definitely cares for jinx but u get the idea). Still, they would have to work REALLY hard to convince this woman to put her life on the line to betray the biggest mob boss around. She does stand by them and their ideas a lot of times, wanting Zaun's betterment as much as they do.

[tothosewholisten]

Forever Healed | TUA insert

Chapter: 09

<<previous chapter | next chapter>>

Masterlist

…

I went downstairs to see two of my estranged roommates, Allison and Luther with somber looks on their faces. I was about to speak up but stopped once I saw who they were looking at. It was Grace, who no longer moved or sang or comforted us.

She was dead, and I know robots aren’t alive but this felt like another death I'd have to witness.

“The two guys last night, the ones with the mask, did this to her,” Allison said to Luther. The two didn't look up to see me, both were in their heads at the death of their mother.

Grace was sitting in the painting room chair, the space we kids dubbed as her bedroom because she didn’t sleep or have one of her own. The only thing that was missing from her was her signature smile and her normal pale arm. Instead, her arm was sliced open by what looked like a knife and oozed out wires of all different colors.

I don’t remember the two gunmen carrying knives last night but who knows they could've gotten crafty. But It's sad to think If she was a real person, I would’ve been able to save her.

I made my presence known by stomping my shoe and moving closer to the pair. Allison's eyes slightly lit up once she saw me. “You’re okay!” She sighed happily.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I giggled with my arms open as she ran over to embrace me. Luther did not move from Grace's body though, his face was cold and distant. I didn't want to ask but I started to think, what happened last night?

“Oh god, have you seen Mom yet?” She whispered. “This has to do with Five somehow. I mean they were looking for him..”

I frowned. “I haven't seen him or Klaus in some time now and I'm starting to get nervous.”

Allison reassures me that they'll turn up but she turns back to Luther who has something to say. “I know I was arguing to turn Grace off, but it doesn't make seeing her like this any easier.”

“Poor Diego.” I blurt out. “This is gonna be so hard for him.” I couldn’t see eye to eye with him, like ever. But I did see him a bit differently after yesterday.

“Yeah, it's hard on all of us.” He says while walking out of Grace's room.

“Hey, wait,” I called out to Luther before he left. The giant man turns to look at me, uncertainly. “I know it was you last night, the one who saved me. I just want to say thank you for pulling that guy away from me.”

“You’ve saved me in my lifetime more times than I can count. I can tell something is off about you guys today and I don’t think I was awake to hear it but. I just wanted to say thanks.” I smile at him.

“But anyways you guys should talk. I'm going to go look for Klaus.” I shoot Allison one more goodbye before heading out.

“I'm glad you're okay, Y/n” I hear one of them mutter as I leave.

..

“Klaus?” I yell all around the mansion. By now I've checked all his normal spots. His room, my room, Ben’s room, the kitchen, Reginald’s bar, all the bathrooms and all the random nooks and crannies we'd hide in as children with Ben.

Ben.. to think I've been so preoccupied these past days to think about him. And I think about him all the time. He'd know where Klaus was instantly, he was just that type of person.

I go back upstairs to my room to change before heading outside. To check Klaus's frequent spots around town.

First, the alley where he'd buy drugs and all kinds of things. It was dingy and dark but I'd find him here a lot back when I was younger. I left the mansion but never left him. Even let him crash with me at my ex's house whenever he needed to, which my ex was never happy about. We found happiness in walking the streets and laughing with each other till sunrise.

But it wasn't always good, sometimes I'd catch him in a rough spot due to drugs and he'd push me away. I never stopped trying, I would never give up on him and he wouldn't if i was in his spot.

Next was my actual apartment. I hadn't been back in forever, maybe he got tired of the academy and came here? But my apartment was small and didn't have many places for him to hide, it was clear he wasn't there either.

The last place I could think of was a park we used to go to as kids. There'd be days when Reginald was less diligent about watching us, and after dark all of us kids would escape to come here. And have at least a few hours of solace before returning to hell.

I took a seat against a large tree that blocked the sunlight from shining in the park. He wasn't anywhere I'd known he would be. I thought he wouldn't leave town without telling me, but I'm not even sure. I let out small huffs of frustration as I buried my head in my hands.

Suddenly there were more tears on my head than there were in my eyes. I sniffle while looking up. The once-cloudy sky has turned into pouring rain and I'm outside without an umbrella.

..

14 YEARS AGO

“Are we ready to go?” Asked Klaus.

The three of us, Klaus, Ben and I decided we were leaving for the park. After a particularly hard day and mission, it was clear I needed out. Ben asked everyone if they wanted to go, but they all looked at each other then us and snickered.

They told us we should go just the two of us. We actually were about to leave, but Klaus was the only one stupid enough to join us. Just kidding.

The sky was clear this day but dark, meaning it was a clear indication that it was time. Diego and Allison told us they'd distract Reginald if he asked anything. We knew we couldn't go out the front door, instead we went out my window.

Klaus was the first one to jump down; he insisted that he was the bravest out of all of us. And Ben slowly followed after him.

That left me in the window, looking down at the very tall jump I'd have to land. I shook my head at the two. “Why couldn't we have left down Five's window? There are actual steps there!” I whisper yell.

Klaus chuckles. “We're already here, just jump!”

I know when jumping from a high distance without a cushion landing spot, it would help if you didn't look down. But my eyes were glued to the ground anyway. I would be fine if I jumped, any scars would go away but just the thought of it made me shake.

“Unless you're a chicken! That's okay, me and Benny will go without you.” He yells.

“Keep your voice down,” Ben says, elbowing him in the stomach. “Ow!” Klaus cries. Ben looks up at me. “But he's got the right idea! You'll be okay just jump.” He says stuffing his hands in his black jacket.

“Just go without me! I'll go to bed.” I reply, trying to smile at the pair.

“Y/n, listen to me. You'll be okay, jump and..” I didn't hear the last part of what he said.

“What??!” I yell.

“He said he's gonna catch you!” Klaus snickers. “Shut up Klaus,” Ben whispers back. “I will though, if I have to!”

I sigh not wanting to ruin their fun, I'm the one who wanted to go out anyway. “Okay, I'll jump.”

I take a small running start before leaping out of my large window. The wind in my hair felt great, it made me feel like I was almost flying. Until I looked down at the floor I was about to land on. I closed my eyes as I was about to scream and go head-first into the ground. But as I opened my eyes I saw that the cement never smacked me in the face. Instead, I land on someone else.

Ben tried his best but he is still a boy. He held his arms open but it ended with him knocking into the cement and me gripping onto his black hoodie for dear life. I quickly get off him and pull him to his feet as Klaus hollers in laughter at us.

Once he got up I could tell that Ben's head looked a little bruised as well as his hands. I placed my hands on his and watched as yellow wisps of light reached all of his bruises. "Thanks." He smiled and I nodded back. I stopped holding his hands when I heard Klaus almost falling back in laughter.

"You guys-" I cut him off before he embarrasses me by kicking him in the shins with all my might. "Not another word," I mutter.

He held onto his legs and whimpered in pain, now it was our turn to laugh at him on the way to the park. I did eventually heal him that day but seeing him embarrassed was too funny to see go away. We did this several more times, just the three of us. And honestly, it was probably more fun than the whole group.

..

PRESENT DAY

I laugh underneath the now suddenly wilting tree at the thought, but it slowly turns into sobs. I don't have Ben anymore but I've somewhat come to understand that, but now I lost Klaus too. And Vanya is gone, I'm truly all alone. I sit there for what I think is hours, thinking back. Until the constant pour turns into drizzling and I stand up to go back to the academy. Maybe take a bath.

I slowly made it to a crosswalk so lost in thought that I didn't even see that it said I can go. But I am brought back to reality by the sound of a honking car. Some dick in a van was honking his horn at me?

What I did to piss this guy off I do not know, this was above even a catcall. He was demanding I move. Deciding to ignore the shithead I start to cross the road, until he almost runs me over.

“There's a crosswalk sign, do you see that?” I yell at the van. But the ugly vehicle would not stop honking at me, after being soaked in the rain I'm starting to lose my sanity. So I walked over to the van, thinking I was going to lay into this man and give him all the rage I'd been feeling. And maybe kick his car a few times.

I look at the man's window to see it's not a man at all. It's a boy? I know this shithead. “Five? Why are you honking at me!” I scream at the pubescent boy.

“Get in.” He yells back.

..

The two of us sat in silence for a while. I watched this fake teenager drive around and honk at people who were being stupid like a full-grown adult.

“Why are you here?” I ask, feeling uncomfortable in my wet clothes. “I'm looking for someone, I saw you walking.” He mutters.

“Oh okay..” I pause.

“I was calling your name before I started honking at you. You should really look where you're going.”

“I was fine. Aren't you the one who tried to run me over?”

“...”

“I have a question. Where'd you steal this van?”

“I didn't steal it, I borrowed it from a man in an alley.” he insisted. “Very likely story Five,” I remark back.

“I'm going to give it back. whenever I'm done with it.

“Okay new question, how do you know how to drive?”

“I can do everything.”

I scoff. “Yeah okay.”

“Well, I have a question for you. Why are you walking alone without an umbrella?”

“Just for shits and giggles, I'm looking for Klaus, have you seen him?”

“Can't say that I have. Where do you want me to drop you off?” He says while taking a familiar path that will lead us back to the academy.

I turn to look at him with my eyebrows furrowed. “Can't I stay? Join you on your spy missions?” Five looks at me, clearly not keeping his eyes on the road. Almost in shock about me wanting to stay with him. To break the silence I force a cough. “I mean I don't know what else to do right now. I can leave If I'm cramping your style.”

“Okay” is all he says while turning in the opposite direction from the mansion. “Well, that means we are going to find someone.”

“Who?” I ask.

“You'll see,” Five tells me.

Five parked us in another familiar part of town, where Klaus, him and I were not even a day or two ago. “Oh no, Five we're gonna terrorize these people again?” I said while looking around.

“No, we're just going after the main man. I need more answers.” Five peers out the side window to look at a different busy street.

“You really think he's going to give you more information if you just barge into his office again?”

He turns back to me. “We're not going in, we're going to him.”

“Oh my god..”

Five explains that he plans to corner the man in his own car after he comes back from whatever hobby he does while out of the office. I try to tell him that this plan is going to go wrong but of course he doesn't listen. He reached into his glove compartment and grabbed a small pocket knife, and I'm sure he didn't just grab it to look cool.

“You told me you're going to ask for more information, Five,” I questioned while reaching for the knife.

He grabs the weapon back and holds it higher in the air. “Let's see where the night takes us.”

..

Five blinks him and I next to a tree, like the one I was at earlier. The tree faces a blue car that must've belonged to the guy whose name slipped my mind.

Not long after he walks toward us, with a tiny puppy in hand. He looked almost unrecognizable out of his lab coat, but not in a good way. His clothes reminded me of a jogging outfit they also matched his blue car.

He opens the car and places his puppy into the back seat then he starts to get into the car himself. Before he can sit down Five pulls me with him when he blinks into the car. Sitting me down in the backseat with the puppy who surprisingly is not barking at me yet.

Five blinks into the front seat, but the man doesn't even notice him. Only flinching back when Five lunges at him with his pocket knife.

“Oh, Jesus!” He cries out. Five doesn't even give him another moment to think before going straight into grilling. “One chance. That's all you got. One chance to tell me exactly what's going on in that lab.” He yells, putting the knife up to the man's throat.

So much for the peaceful approach. The man moves his eyes towards me for a split second and then back to the terrifying Five. “I… I manufacture prosthetic devices for fake patients. I bill the insurance companies and then sell them for cash on the black market.” He stutters.

“including eyeballs?” Five asked.

The man gulps. “Yeah, they're my biggest seller. I mean they sell like hotcakes. I--I've got a list, a waiting list, probably twenty buyers.”

“So the serial number, my uh, brother gave you..” He finishes my sentence. “Could've already been bought. Yes, off– off the books.” He says.

Five huffs like he's a chain smoker and starts to get more tense, letting the knife get centimeters away from the man's skin.

“I needed that list, Lance. Names and numbers, and I need it now!” Five screeches.

I take my eyes off them to turn to the dog that's nearing closer to me. At first, I tried to keep my distance but this puppy insisted on getting close. Which shouldn't be a big problem. It's a small dog, but something was off. I'm squeezing myself practically against the door to get away from this dog but he keeps getting closer. I close my eyes and I'm back to that day so many years ago.

I'm not there anymore, it's time for me to move on but I can't. My hands start to shake and my body runs cold. I couldn't help but think that this dog knew what I did to the other, way back when and wanted to take revenge.

While taking deep breaths I turned my head slowly to get a better look at the pup.. this dog wasn't going to hurt me, it didn't know what I did, and I was okay. So why do I feel like this?

“I don't have it. I mean, not on me. The only copy is in my safe at the lab.” Lance's words break my deep breaths and I try once again to focus on their conversation. This is for Five, as well as saving the world. Letting my depressing nature go is what I need to do now.

“Well, you start the car, then.” Five whispers. “Cause we're going on a field trip.” He slowly takes the knife off Lance's throat.

“O-Okay...” Lance tries to put himself back together at least enough to put his seatbelt on.

“Now.”

“Okay..”

..

Lance drives us back to the MeriTech headquarters which is also where Five’s van is. I'm the first to hop out of the car with Five and Lance a few steps behind me.

But I stopped in place once I saw dark smoke coming from the building. “Something’s wrong,” I told five. But he never stopped walking, and without a second thought, he rushed over to the fire. “Five wait!” I called out while chasing him down. Leaving Lance to his own devices.

The angry flames weren’t just in one room, it had spread throughout every single room in the building making it impossible to go inside. Five stopped at the entrance of the building when I caught up with him. We both stared at the building on fire.

“Get down!” I screamed over the sound of burning rooms as I tackled him to the ground. The flames rose from not just the building but towards us, causing an explosion of fire that could’ve killed him.

He wailed out at the sudden burst, but safely hit the ground. Me on the other hand, I was covered in marks. But thankfully my clothes were no longer wet, just slowly catching on fire. I dragged him out of the way more towards the street as I heard sirens in the distance.

“We need to move now,” I stress to Five but he doesn’t reply back. His eyes never break from the fire. “I know, I know but let’s go,” I say again hoping he would budge this time. But he didn't, so I grabbed him and pulled him back over to the van.

Once we get to the van without Lance, it is clear that whoever had lit the building on fire knew we were there. And I knew that because the front window was fogged with a message.

It read. “Your brother says hi.. brother? Which one.” I say out loud while thinking. Five finally started to move from his motionless state when I looked over at him. But he wouldn't be any help right now. The look on his face and the dullness in his eyes was a look I've seen on many people's faces before.

But then it hit me. “Klaus.”

…

Would you wanna be on a taglist for this story? Say taglist in comments

[tj-dragonblade]

for the make me write! see, it would be dreadfully predictable of me to submit the 🎓

so I'll offer you a choice, depending on which you deem needs your attention more: 🍪 or 🎓

Oh you know me, if you send me two I'm going to do both. 💖 These follow on directly from the last snippet in their wip tags.

For 🍪:

= "Is this a recipe of your own devising?" Dream is eager, he finds, to hear more of this story of Hob's traditions.

"Oh no, no, this is Oma Franziska's gingerbread recipe." Hob has that fondly-nostalgic look again. "She insisted we call her that, me and Jim. She'd lost contact with her own grandkids when she left Germany, you see, and she sort of adopted us when we moved in next to her. She knew Jim's truth, too, and it was nice to have a neighbor who he could be himself with."

Hob has told Dream of Jim previously. Jim, who had been Hob's wife Peg to the rest of the world but Hob's husband in safe company; Jim, who had loved the sea, who sang bawdy pub songs with the loveliest voice, who left Hob with many fond memories and stories to carry with him as he continued living.

"She looked after us both, in a fashion. Knew her way around the kitchen blindfolded and backwards—I'm very sure food was her love language. Always made sure the neighbors were fed if they needed and was just—she was really something, y'know? I'm glad I got to know her." Hob gives the dough a final roll with a flourish. "Stayed put until she passed, even though I was kind of pushing it for that lifetime. I didn't want to leave her behind when she had so little time left, especially when she'd been there for me after Jim died."

"Your kindness does you credit." Dream is warmed by the tale, by yet another glimpse of the man Hob had worked to become in the past century.

"Heh." Hob beams at him, and something low in Dream's stomach tightens marginally. "Anyway, Oma Franziska was always sharing recipes with us—sending her traditions forward, she called it—and I've kept 'em alive for her. This gingerbread is based on an older recipe, but she tinkered with it quite a lot and clearly she knew what she was about; these biscuits always get rave reviews." He turns, plucks two of the biscuit cutters from the jumble on the counter and presents them to Dream. "Here you go."

And for 🎓:

Dream shivers, makes that sound again, and leans back further on Hob's desk. His feet move from Hob's knees up to his shoulders, the sharp edges of the chunky heels digging in just a bit despite the thick wool of Hob's waistcoat. His knees fall wide and he scoots his arse that much closer to the edge of the desk, angling his crotch up so Hob can get at it better.

And Hob is not about to waste the opportunity.

He buries his face in Dream's knickers, mouthing at Dream through the lace with a happy little groan, warm breath and warm lips gently teasing his 'student'. "Tell me what you'd like," he murmurs, after running the tip of his tongue along the length of Dream's cock, kissing the head. "Tell me what you want me to do for you?"

He glances up to see Dream biting his lip, eyes half closed as he leans back, immersing himself in the part. "I sometimes open myself up with my favorite toy," he says, hesitantly, "then sit on it and pretend that I am. Speared, in your lap, while I jerk myself off."

"Then let's start with that," Hob breathes, dick twitching in his slacks. "Nice and easy, get you open and relaxed before we do anything else." He kisses Dream's cock through the lace again, one last time, then guides Dream's feet down from his shoulders and takes his hand to pull him upright and back to standing. He slides both hands up under Dream's skirt, hooks them in the waistband of his knickers, meets his eyes as Dream braces himself on Hob's shoulders.

"These will have to come off," he says, half-apologetically; it's a sin to lose them so soon.

But Dream, bless him, bites his ruby-red bottom lip and squeezes Hob's shoulders. "Can I suck you first, Professor?"

Make me write!

[haveyouseenthisskeleton]

How would the Horror Skeletons react to meeting the Monarchs from their non Horror Universes. Example: Bear meeting Swapfell's Toriel or Pumpkin meeting UnderSwap Asgore

I'm feeling a little better today, so I wrote a little.

Horrortale Sans - Oak is actually pretty close from Toriel. At first, it was because he couldn't see any difference between his Toriel and that Toriel, and basically thought they were the same person lol. But as time passed, Toriel helped him a lot with his struggle and helped him have access to the healthcare he and his brother desperately needed. He saw Asgore maybe two or three times, but, uh, he has trouble to recognize who that guy him. He knows he's familiar, but he can't put a name on him. That's a long time since he didn't see Asgore so he forgot.

Horrortale Papyrus - Toriel helped them a lot when they ended in that weird universe, and he's glad, but... He's a little uncomfortable with her because of his Toriel, Old Lady. He can tell she is scared the brothers would prefer her younger version to her, and if it's quite obvious it's not the case for Oak, Willow isn't sure how to show he cares more about her. As time passes, he keeps his distance more and more. As for Asgore, it's always weird to see him, especially when Willow catches them talking with his Undyne, from time to time. He hopes this Undyne won't mess up if something happens to that King...

Horrorswap Sans - It's painful, as he was really close to the Queen before she got murdered, and Nugget always thought it was all his fault. Because he helped that damn kid to reach the throne room. Nugget is doomed to watch Blue and his Toriel talk together and have fun, but he's too scared to interact, first because he's not Blue anymore, and second because he did horrible things that he knows Toriel would absolutely disapprove of. He didn't know Asgore was even alive before seeing Honey talking with one in a shop one day lol.

Horrorswap Papyrus - Pumpkin is really close from Blue and Honey, so of course he met both Toriel and Asgore. The Queen was pretty much horrified the first time she saw him and won't stop mothering him every time she can. He's a bit annoyed by that, but he understands. On the other hand, he was really happy to see Asgore again. Well, it's not his Asgore, but he's really close from the Asgore that tried to protect him before everything turned to shit Underground. It's painful, though, as Pumpkin never knew what happened to his friend Underground, just that he wasn't there when the Barrier broke. He's going to grow close to this Asgore really quick, though, as he missed him a lot.

Horrorfell Sans - The first time he saw Toriel, he couldn't hold her stare. That's stupid, how could she know? She's not his Toriel. He didn't send her kid to die stupidly outside of the Mountain. But that doesn't change anything. He broke his promise. He promised he would watch over Frisk, but Frisk was too young to survive on their own out of the Mountain and got lost. Copper won't tell her that, of course. However, whether he meets Asgore or not. Nobody likes that bastard, he hopes he's dead.

Horrorfell Papyrus - He froze when he met Asgore. He's not strong enough to resist against him, or to obey without any question. He was genuinely terrified. Because that monster should be dead. He's the reason everything turned so bad Underground. Chief would give anything to go back and kill him himself instead of letting a child do it. For all he knows, maybe he injured Frisk and the kid died of his injuries once on the Surface, which he could never forgive himself for. Asgore called him weak, so Chief spat on his shoes and then left. He would have never done that before. Not without consequences for him, his brother, his friends... Now he just doesn't care. He doesn't belong to him.

Horrorswapfell Sans - When the Queen showed up while he was hanging out with Nox, Bear went full panic attack mode. I mean, that's because she ordered Alphys to experiment on his eyes that he's blind today. Bear hoped he managed to escape her, finally, even if it meant losing his sight as a punishment. He's not doing that again. He attacks Nox's queen with all he has lol, forcing Nox to physically restrain him and shortcut him away to save his life. It's best if they never met again.

Horrorswapfell Papyrus - So... Tiger is still a little bit (A LOT) bitter about what happened Underground and how the old bitch forced him to join the army. So when she shows up with the younger version of his brother? Tiger starts to yell insults at her face and tells her that despite all her shitty tries to separate him from his brother, they're out of the Underground, entirely free and that they didn't need her to survive. He then grabbed a cow poop on the floor and threw it at her face. That was maybe too much lol. When the Queen gets really mad, Tiger decides that's enough for today and shortcuts away.

[vonbabbitt]

Nothing specific to ask but I just wanted to express how much of an inspiration it has been seeing tetro unfold and get more traction! I didn't have the pleasure of being here before my favourite died (and I did set myself up for failure opening my youtube feed after binging tetro for two days right before the ch3 bda) (again, my fault really) but honestly it never bothered me because the whole time I was just in awe that a series made me care so much about its characters. There has not been a single death in Tetro that hasn't touched me somehow (Chiba's being the most unexpected for me because, wow, I really grew to like her in chapter 2), which both excites me and scares me about what's to come in chapter 5 (I'm in the strange position where a lot of my favourites are still alive which probably means they're dying soon) (doesn't help that I like everyone so I cannot bring myself to actively wish for anyone's downfall T-T)

Chapter 4's deaths were extremely tragic and I cried so much, but I don't think anything can compare to the absolute horror I experienced when the Chapter 3 crime was unveiled. Because it is as Hasegawa said; the crime had so many variables, anything could have gone wrong. Literally if just *one* thing had gone wrong, Kamimura would have made it. Not to mention the timing of it; right when Kamimura gets the will to live, that's when his time is cut short and in a way that would have him positively mortified (not to mention that the next motive was literally the first one that wouldn't negatively affect his health) (the current one would have him foaming at the mouth though). Plus the whole ordeal with the chem lab...

And his death really *was* for nothing. When Okazaki said that my heart just shatterred because, truly, Kamimura didn't need to die.

(can you tell who my favourite is yet?)

And Tsuno. Oh god. The way she died, the reason she died, the fact that in her last moments she probably wasn't even thinking about herself, most likely experiencing guilt. The fact that her attempts to help others would ultimately lead to her death. Tsuno was such a bright person and to see her light blown out so quickly, so violently... She was just trying her best.

And yet, I can't hate Okazaki, not really. Despite making my blood, boil Okazaki is such an interesting, complex and admittedly amusing character in her own right and I appreciate that so much.

(Also thank you for not having Yanagi slash Hiroaki's face in Defense Game, neither my heart nor his would have been able to take it)

Okay, I didn't expect this to turn into a rant and obviously I do not expect a reply because what is one even suppossed to respond to this?

I'm really looking forward to the next installments of the series, Tetro Blue and White (wish I could audition for the latter but with no access to a mic and only my headphones to work with, it would probably be a waste of your time!) Wishing the best to anyone auditioning for White!! Please take care of yourself Von, have a lovely day :>

im really really glad you've enjoyed the series, and thank you for the well-wishes! i hope you enjoy blue and white as well!

[kangen-wanshi]

Recorded Proposals ft. Trey Clover, Leona Kingscholar, Azul Ashengrotto

"I'm glad that that whole mess is done now.. Though I guess it's kind of a shame that I didn't get to actually propose to the bride, huh. I practiced a lot, too..!"

"Oh, don't worry, Prefect! I have all of your practice proposals recorded!"

".. What? Wait, Ortho what do you mean you have it recorded — Ortho- Hey!"

Tags: Separate, proposals and daydream and all the sweet stuff, no gendered pronouns used but reader is mentioned to be wearing make-up and such in Trey's

Trey Clover

"I know that you're no longer alive.. I know that we couldn't enjoy the joy of mortal entertainment and woes, but.. Even after death, I wish to always stay by your side and go through whatever there is ahead and build a bright future with you! So please.. Marry me!"

Trey got the video from Cater. One day the orangette sent him the video through DMs with just a wink emoji and some teasing about his crush on you and he just sort of accepts it with a light blush.

Trey watches that specific part over and over whenever he is about to go to bed (he refuses to watch it anywhere else). Your words stuck to him - whether it is because of the oddly sincere look in your eyes when you speak, or your beautiful attire, or perhaps your styled hair and make-up — He doesn't know why he's so addicted to it.

It became a sort of charm for him to have a good sleep (which sometimes involves having you in his dream). Your words rang and echoed through his mind when Trey finally shut his eyes and cuddled his blanket at night, ready to dream about you after a particularly long day.

Sometimes he likes to daydream that you were saying those words to him, as cringe as it sounds to his opinion. Trey always ended up a blushing mess with a lovesick grin on his face whenever that specific thought came up randomly throughout the day. He always hides himself with a hand over his mouth or his hat being pulled just a little lower. He's blushing? No. The weather probably just got a little warmer..

He's a sucker for anything that involves 'building a future together'. He's a big family man, he wishes to have his own family one day, preferably with you in the picture of course. As his partner. Domesticity is just sort of his thing at this point and he's not even denying it.

Maybe he should come clean to you.. Maybe you managed to spur out these specific words that tug on his heartstrings because you, too, want it for yourself. Perhaps in those silly proposals, you let out a small speck of your desire, which is why it seems so genuine in his eyes..

Either way he still acted normally around you. He would bring up the topic of the video and the proposals every now and then to tease you - without outing himself about the fact that he has a personal copy of it. 

Perhaps he'll invite you to bake more often. Perhaps he'll invite you to various normal 'dates' and activities together. You can study together.. You can watch movies together.. Oh hey look his hand found yours, did he just intertwine your fingers together? You don't mind if he stays there for a while.. Right?

Leona Kingscholar

"I know what other people may say. You and I are.. Different, in every aspect. Yet I couldn't help but be drawn to you. To your beauty, your flaws. The way you love and the way you hate.. All of it..! And I promise you, I'll love you through and through - no matter what people may say. No matter what you'll become. Will you.. Marry me?"

Not sure how he got the video.. Most likely asked Ruggie to get it for him in secret? He made a deal with Azul to get a copy? Who knows. He doesn't really care where he got it from - it's with him now.

Leona watches it in the middle of the night. He likes to snicker and chuckle at your other failed attempts. It's a.. Good pastime. When he feels particularly terrible after a day, he watches your silly acting trying to propose to a dead Princess as a way of entertainment.

He got attached to that specific line of your proposals without even realizing. Whenever he went to watch it, he would usually skip to that part specifically to hear you say those words again and again. Except this time he isn't laughing. Rather he looks quite intense listening to your words.

Why do you have to stare so intently at the camera..? It made the experience a little too realistic to his liking. Now he needs to deal with the hammering noises in his heart, heat that slowly pools on his cheek, and his tail which swish and flick around.. Darn Herbivore you're making his sleep a little more difficult this time and you're not even here with him!

Leona doesn't daydream, but some part of your words does strike a nerve in him. You said you'd love someone despite your differences and their flaws? What a coincidence. You and him have lots of flaws and you're pretty different from each other. Right? He just lets those words keep on repeating over and over in his mind whenever he feels like it.

Actually he listened to your voice so much in his head now that he couldn't handle not hearing your voice. Leona doesn't usually have his phone with him but Ruggie noticed that he's been carrying it with him a lot lately.. Even though Leona still doesn't answer any of his calls or texts. He brought them so he could listen to you when he knew that would have a particularly busy day. He even converted the video to mere audio so he can listen to it.

Leona is also another one who acted mostly normal around you. He doesn't really bring up the event - considering that he failed miserably himself with his proposal attempt, so he doesn't like bringing it up.

But you noticed that his stare has become.. Longer, and that his hold on you linger, followed by his tail which often would cling to you whenever you're within proximity. Hey, what did you mean by you'll love anyone despite your vast differences? Huh? What do you mean those were just fake proposals? Come on answer the question, he's listening. 

Azul Ashengrotto

"I've seen all of you. Your past, and your current self. And I don't doubt that you still have many many sides of you that are hidden from the world. Sides that you love- sides that you hate. I wish to love all of them, all of you - including your future. And.. Well there's no other way than to tie ourselves with love and marriage so that I may achieve this dream of mine.. Right?"

Either he got it from Idia who got it from Ortho, or he straight up asked Ortho, Azul will have his way to watch that video. A determined one, and everyone knows how Azul is when he wants something to be part of his possession. 

At first he keeps telling himself that this is for academic purposes. He failed his own proposal back then despite his careful calculation and thorough planning, he just.. he wants to know how you handle it since you're the charming Prefect of Ramshackle! Of course! You would be a great reference should anything similar like this arise in the future!

Azul clips every part that he deemed important (keeps telling himself that these are bookmarks for the highlight of your proposal but really these are just his favorite parts.) Which includes you giggling at yourself because of how stupid the proposal was, or you being utterly embarrassed because of what you said. He has them in short clips!

Although there is a clip which he finds himself constantly repeating. He found your words to be.. Comforting and flattering. At first he thought that maybe this is his ideal proposal. And then he nodded to himself before continuing his said research. And then he immediately snapped back and realized that Oh Sevens is this his ideal proposal?!

Azul finds the idea that you, perhaps, would be willing to love him no matter the amount of facades he has to put up for his business, to be extremely endearing and beneficial to him. He would have your affection, while he's still able to keep up with his Deals. Why would he hate the idea? If not, it made him want you even more than he already did. (Even though he knew these were probably just you sputtering some romantic nonsense to gain the Princess' heart.. He.. Likes to wish. He just hope he could fulfill this specific wish of his own now..)

Since then he couldn't watch the video seriously anymore. He would be blushing - not to that specific part but to literally every other proposal you practiced (although that has become his favorite).

Azul doesn't daydream. He wants things and he will have them. Including you.

He would become more bold in his advances. He keeps falling in love with you over and over whenever he watches or remembers the video - it's only fair that he should start making you fall for him over and over.

So, Prefect, Azul has this new business idea and it involves you.. Oh don't worry you'll gain plenty of benefit from it! Would you like to at least talk about it or consider it? You would? Brilliant! Meet him in the VIP room he already has everything prepared!.. What do you mean you saw a marriage contract on his table?

[samsayswhatever]

For what it's worth, Saxon, as he remembers more details, looks confused, disgusted, uncomfortable, regretful, maybe even guilty.

When Lochlan remembers he looks afraid. What is he afraid of? His own gay thoughts? The repercussions of this? That Reddit is calling him a rapist? Saxon himself??

Hopefully he's not afraid of Saxon, but since I do want more angst, hopefully he's afraid of Saxon 😶 or at least what he thinks Saxon will think of him once they inevitably talk about it.

I mean it's the internet, everyone claims to be body language experts, but why do people ascribe fear to Saxon's facial expressions during the flashbacks and when he remembers, but ignore the fear in Lochlan's eyes which is obviously what the acting and direction were going for.

This is quickly becoming one of the most braindead fandom spaces I've ever been. It's all shallow analysis, actual misinformation, and lazy thoughtless moralism.

I think Lochlan is likely afraid of a lot of things, but my guess is he's mostly afraid of losing his family's respect and therefore their love and attention. He was so desperate for Saxon's attention that he had a threesome with him, and I hope now he might become aware of that desperation and what it means.

As far as the fandom being "braindead" I'd like to say that 4.2 MILLION people watched ep 6. And it only aired 2 days ago. Which means there are a lot of people making statements about the show in general, and they haven't had much time to analyze it. The show isn't over so not all the context is there for them to make a fair assessment of the characters or the show as a whole. As more people watch it, there are more episodes for them to binge watch rather than wait a week between episodes. So I think the thought put into the show is going to exponentially decrease as time goes on.

And even as much as I would love every person in the world to be fully media literate, even in America 54% of adults have literacy below a 6th grade level. I didn't learn to read english until the 7th grade, so maybe I'm not the most equipped person to say what a "6th grade reading level" actually means. But I do think that media literacy and regular literacy are connected concepts, and without regular literacy, media literacy could prove more difficult.

I would estimate there are about 2 million people who've seen the show that are going to have trouble reading into this shows complex and nuanced themes of desire and identity. This likely increases the amount of shallow analysis and misinformation.

As for the thoughtless moralism, that could maybe be contributed to the rise in conservatism that I've noticed in the last couple years. Maybe not, but it's just a thought. It could also be related to how this show likes to discuss taboo topics more than a lot of other shows I've watched in the same "famous actors, fun setting, murder mystery" type shows. So maybe people who aren't used to these topics are watching this show.

And even though this show has adult themes, I don't think it's only adults watching. I've seen a good number of people interacting with my tumblr content who's profiles say they are minors. So that is also something to take into account.

All that being said, it still sucks that the fandom can be like this. I initially tried finding twl takes on twitter, tiktok, and reddit - but a lot of it was really hard to read/watch. On tumblr its easier to filter out what I don't want to see with tags and blocking and such. I'm so glad I've found a lot of interesting people to interact with for this fandom though.

It's been a year since I participated in a fandom of a new show, and it's so alive. People are constantly making posts and realizations and putting together things I would never have thought to. It's amazing to get to see the fandom in action.

[helloalycia]

𝐈 𝐕𝐎𝐋𝐔𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐑 [𝐓𝐖𝐎] // 𝐋𝐔𝐂𝐘 𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐘 𝐁𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐃

summary: Reaping Day is finally upon you and you know what you have to do, but there's only one problem: Lucy Gray wouldn't let you.

warning/s: again, the usual warnings that come with writing the Hunger Games stuff + potential suicidal themes.

author's note: this is the second and final part - i do hope you all like it. also i hope the person who requested it enjoys!!

one / masterlist / wattpad

Reaping Day was fast approaching, taking place next week, and I still wasn't sure what to do. I hadn't told Lucy Gray nor the Covey of Mayfair's plan, but it was killing me inside. After a lot of thought, I soon made a decision. The only thing I was certain about was that I couldn't allow Lucy Gray to have her life stolen away, not when mine was right there for the taking. So, I was going to take her place. As long as the Capitol had their tribute, they wouldn't care who it was.

But Lucy Gray would. She'd never allow it, never be so selfish as to let someone else volunteer to die for her. But I could never let her go up there to die, so with that in mind, I concocted the perfect plan to keep her alive.

The night before the reaping arrived, I'd managed to convince Lucy Gray to let me sleep over at hers, claiming I was worried and wanted to feel safe on an otherwise horrible evening. Of course, she fell for it instantly, only reminding me of how right I was to do this. She was too sweet for her own good, especially to me.

The rest of the Covey were in their rooms preparing for bed when I returned from the kitchen to Lucy Gray's room with two glasses of water.

"Here," I said, passing her the glass before taking a seat on my makeshift bed on the floor beside her actual bed.

"Thanks," she said, before taking a sip. She pulled a face and looked at her glass. "Does that taste weird to you?"

I sipped my own water and played dumb, shaking my head. "It's alright to me."

She furrowed her brows, "Huh," before downing the rest of it and putting it next to her bed.

I told myself that slipping some of my dad's crushed sleeping pills in her water was for her own good, that it needed to happen to keep her safe, but a small part of me still felt guilty for tricking her like this. I needed her to sleep in though, to miss the reaping, or at least miss the part where they call her name. After all, she couldn't stop me from volunteering if she wasn't there to witness it happen.

We both laid down in our beds, getting comfortable under our duvets. In the quiet of the evening, I could hear Tam Amber snoring from next door and smiled to myself at the familiarity. It would be the last I'd hear of it, ever.

"I don't have a good feelin' about tomorrow," Lucy Gray said quietly, earning my attention.

"Huh?"

She sounded cautious. "Something is tellin' me Mayfair has something' up her sleeve." I widened my eyes slightly, wondering if she knew what I did, but then she let out a deep, tired sigh and said, "I can't wait for it to be over."

I frowned to myself. "Me too."

She yawned, and I knew I didn't have long before she'd fall asleep, which meant I only had so much time left with her before I'd never speak to her again. That thought alone brought tears to my eyes.

"No matter what happens tomorrow, I'm glad you've been my friend, Lucy Gray," I said honestly.

"Shut up," she said lightheartedly, an echo of a laugh present in her tired voice. "You're already sayin' goodbye and nothin' has happened."

"You never know," I said, glad that it was dark so she couldn't see me, because I wasn't sure I could say all this to her face. "Just listen, okay? I need you to know that I love you and I couldn't have asked for a better person in my life. Thank you for always being there for me. For caring."

"I love you, too," she said between a yawn, "more than you know, darlin'. And I'll tell you again tomorrow mornin', when we're still together. Idiot."

A smile formed on my lips at her teasing, but the tears slipped from my eyes because I was going to miss her so much, so much more than she would ever know.

"Y/N?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you, too, for bein' here right now," she said, though she was already slipping away, voice slowing down between each word.

"Of course," I said quietly. "Always."

She chuckled, or an attempt at a chuckle in her exhausted state. "I'll hold you to that," she said jokingly, before yawning again. "Mmm super tired. G'night..."

"Goodnight, Lucy Gray."

When I woke up to the sun shining in my eyes the next morning, I looked over at Lucy Gray and saw her fast asleep in bed. I tried to wake her, but she didn't budge, and I prayed that it would stay that away until the reaping was over.

Quickly getting ready, I could hear the others doing the same in the house. And then a succession of knocks was heard on Lucy Gray's door and Barb Azure poked her head in.

"Y/N, Lucy Gray, we've gotta–" she started, but stopped when she saw Lucy Gray still in bed. "For goodness sake, Lucy Gray, we're gonna be late! You've got–"

"I'll get her up and out of here, don't worry," I reassured Barb Azure with a nod and smile. "We'll meet you in the square."

Relieved, she nodded. "Okay, good. Good luck."

I smiled appreciatively before watching her leave, and then my smile faded and I focused on finishing getting ready. After pulling on my shoes and tying up my hair, I looked over at Lucy Gray who was still out like a light, unbothered by the noise or the daylight. She was lying on her side, duvet half covering her, and her curly hair sprawled across her pillow and in her eyes. I leaned down, moving the loose strand behind her ear, before taking in her appearance once more.

"I'm sorry," I whispered to her, not that it would have made a difference. "I love you, Lucy Gray, and I know you're gonna be angry and upset at first, but you'll get over it. You'll get over me. The Covey, they– they need you."

Swallowing hard and holding back my tears, sick of crying, I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead before standing up and sucking up a deep breath. Pulling the duvet on her a little more, I forced myself to turn and leave, not wanting to linger any longer.

By the time I reached the square, everyone eligible for the reaping was already lined up in order of age. Just as I was about to join them, Barb Azure, who was nineteen and no longer to be considered, caught my gaze and sent me a questioning look.

'She's there', I mouthed, lying, and pointing to the lined up teens.

She didn't seem to understand, but it didn't matter because a Peacekeeper was already yelling orders at me, and then I was shoved into line and the mayor was telling everybody to quieten down. After his usual spiel about the importance of the Games, no doubt a script given to him from the Capitol, he began to dig his hand into a bag of slips with everyone's names on it. Yanking it out, he barely glanced at it before announcing what I feared.

"The District Twelve girl tribute is Lucy Gray Baird."

Murmurs flew around instantly, everyone looking around to find her, and I thanked my stars that she was safely asleep back home.

"Lucy Gray Baird," the mayor repeated, only intensifying the murmurs and leaving everyone confused. That was my chance.

Raising my hand, I said in the most confident voice I could muster, "I volunteer as tribute!"

Nobody knew what to do, but all eyes were on me, including the stupid cameras the Capitol brought with them, televising the whole thing. The mayor seemed surprised because it was absolute insanity that somebody would volunteer – why would you want to die?

The Peacekeepers took a moment to jump into action, eventually guiding me to the stage as they were supposed to. I passed Billy Taupe on the way, who was looking awfully guilty for someone who was once family to the Covey, and then I passed Mayfair, who was silently raging at the sight of her plans falling to pieces.

Once I stepped onstage and turned around, I caught sight of the Covey scattered in the crowd, between those that were potential tributes and those that were too old/young to take part. They seemed shocked, but I found Barb Azure's eyes and smiled a little, offering a reassuring nod. I hoped she would understand.

Lastly, my eyes found my father's, a struggle at first, considering he was tucked away at the back, forced to be present but not wanting to be. He seemed surprised at my volunteering and, for a split second, I thought he cared. But his actions remain still and I know it was probably just good riddance for him, nothing more.

I didn't expect anything less.

Only when I was on the train, being carted away to my death with the other twenty-three tributes, did I feel complete and utter relief for Lucy Gray. She was truly safe, free from the Games for another year at least, which was more than I could ask for. And maybe Mayfair would get over her vendetta by then, who knew?

Of course, now that the relief had settled in, it didn't take long for it to be replaced by concern because now I was in the Games. And I had no plan, no strategy, nothing.

After the Games...

I wasn't sure how I managed it, but I'd won. I'd really done the impossible, and barely a week later, I found myself on a train back to District Twelve with a little money and a broken arm, but otherwise alive.

Even though I'd expected to die, winning never really being an option, my survival instincts kept kicking in and I just kept getting lucky. And now here I was.

I could never forget what I'd witnessed during the Games, ever, and I wasn't sure if it was worth winning if it meant I would be haunted by all I'd experienced. But I couldn't argue with it because I was finally returning home and I didn't know what to think. It had only been a week, but I'd left a girl and was returning a murderer.

After the train pulled into the station, I was on my own and didn't even think about where my feet were taking me until I found myself walking through the Seam, back to my house. I was relieved to find my dad was at work, not in the mood to face him after all this time. I wasn't sure if anybody even knew I was alive, that I'd won, considering nobody here even had a working TV.

After all I'd endured in the Games, my father was the least of my worries. I refused to be pushed around by him anymore and knew I was going to leave as soon as I could. Even if it meant camping outside, living on the streets, I'd go. I'd figure something out, but for now, I was just lucky to be able to see my bedroom again.

As I sat on my lumpy bed and breathed a sigh of relief, I thought of the Covey, and then of Lucy Gray. Oh, how I'd missed her dearly. She was the only thought I'd had this past week, all of this being for her in the first place. I was just glad she hadn't had to endure everything I had. The guilt and shame of my actions to bring me where I was now was eating away at me, but I would have rather it been me than her.

I missed her, so so much. And I knew I couldn't wait any longer, so I immediately got up and headed straight for their house. It wasn't far from my own, though there's was much closer to the woods. When I approached, I saw Maude Ivory and Tam Amber sat outside, the former milking her goat and the latter planting some flowers. It was Maude Ivory who did a double take first, before she shouted my name and immediately ran up to me, startling me with an intense hug.

It had felt like forever since I'd had any human affection, and I couldn't help but return her hug with a relieved smile, missing her.

"I can't believe you're back!" she was saying, as the others soon began to join one by one, hugging me tightly.

"You really won!"

"We saw you on the TV one night, we were so scared."

"Thank you for volunteerin', you saved our Lucy Gray's life."

I could barely keep up with their compliments, unsure how to respond, but touched that they cared enough to be here.

And then I saw Lucy Gray, finally, as she walked out from the back door of the house, mouth agape when she noticed me. My eyebrows raised a little, hopeful, upon seeing her again. It hadn't been long, and yet it had felt like forever since I'd last seen her.

Barb Azure began to motion to the others to follow her back inside. "Let's give them some space, everyone."

They began to leave, doing just that, and without their presence, I suddenly felt exposed before Lucy Gray. I straightened up, trying to look a little more presentable, but acutely self conscious of my black eye, scarred lip and broken arm.

"Hey," I said, embarassed at how quiet it came out.

She stopped before me, watching me like I was a ghost. "You're really here."

I nodded slowly. "Yeah. I didn't think I would be, but somehow, I won."

But it wasn't somehow, was it? I knew what I did to win.

She suddenly frowned, looking betrayed. "You drugged me."

Realising she was upset, I said, "It was only a sleeping pill."

Her stare hardened. "You knew. You knew it was going to be my name."

I cowered away slightly, saying, "I overheard–"

"You lied to me," she cut me off, "drugged me, volunteered like a fool and–"

"It couldn't be you," I told her sternly. "You're needed here. They need you and I couldn't let you be chosen because of some silly feud, not when I found out. It had to be me. Nobody would miss me and–"

"I would!" she shouted, and I realised her eyes were full of tears as she glared at me. "You asshole, I would! I did! I needed you! You don't get to trick me and make that choice for me and just leave!"

I felt horribly guilty as she spoke, but deep down, I didn't regret my actions.

"Lucy Gray, you would've gotten over me," I said calmly, looking between her eyes. "You would've."

She narrowed her eyes with a glare. "Fuck you."

"Lucy–"

"No, fuck you!" she yelled, shoving me backwards. "You don't get to say that! Like you know how I feel about you!"

I pressed my lips together, feeling my heart ache as tears rolled down her cheeks.

"Fuck you," she murmured, before turning around and storming away, past the house and towards the meadow.

I frowned, watching her leave and feeling immense guilt pressing on my chest. I'd never seen her so upset, not in all the time I'd known her, and knowing I was the reason for it only made this whole thing worse.

Barb Azure left the house and approached me with an apologetic frown on her lips.

"I heard what happened," she said sympathetically. "Sorry."

I shook my head. "I didn't mean to upset her."

"We're all grateful for what you did," she said. "She is, too. A small part. But mostly, she's upset because she grieved you. Tried to, at least. She thought you were dead."

"I was supposed to be, if it helps," I mumbled. "I didn't think I'd be coming back here, facing her like this."

It was supposed to be a faceless goodbye. She wasn't supposed to see me again, nor I her. Now, I'd only made things worse.

"She missed you so much," Barb Azure told me knowingly. "She's angry and stubborn, but she missed you, Y/N. Go to her."

I looked up, seeing the encouraging smile on her lips, and figured if anyone knew Lucy Gray more than she did, it was her family. So, with that slight positivity in mind, I followed in the direction of Lucy Gray with hope to fix this. It didn't take long for me to find her in the meadow, sat by her favourite tree and hunched over, crying into her hands.

I tried to approach quietly, but she noticed and suddenly stood up, turning around to glare at me through her tears.

"What do you want? Go away!" she ordered.

I ignored her, taking a step forward, and she only yelled at me more.

"I said go away! I don't wanna speak to you right now!"

Again, I ignored her and continued to approach her.

"Leave me alone, you asshole! I said leave!"

I hugged her before she could protest even more, my good arm tightening around her shoulders desperately, and then she finally stopped shouting and hugged me back just as tightly. I squeezed my eyes shut, tears threatening to spill because I never thought I'd see her again, let alone hug her like my life depended on it.

"I'm sorry," I said into her shoulder. "I'm sorry a million times over, Lucy Gray. I never wanted to hurt you, but I don't regret what I did. I'd volunteer every single time."

She gripped my shirt in response, but didn't say anything. I swallowed hard before pulling away reluctantly, meeting her eyes with regret.

"I'm a fool, I know," I agreed with her words from before. "I'm sorry."

Her lip quivered as her eyes darted around my face, taking it in, fixating on the bruise and my scarred lip. She lifted her hand, touching my cheek tenderly, and my breath was caught in my throat at the attention.

"It weren't supposed to be you," she whispered with a broken voice.

"Nor you," I reminded her. "Mayfair cheated."

She shook her head, frowning and meeting my eyes. "You promised you wouldn't get involved, Y/N."

I exhaled through my nose, a sad smile on my lips. "I couldn't help it."

She didn't say anything, simply stared at me, and then she took a seat on the log next to the tree and I joined her, unsure what to do or say.

"I can't believe you're here," she admitted. "I thought I'd never see you again." Her eyes flickered between mine thoughtfully, before lowering to my broken arm in a sling. "How did it happen?"

I looked down at it, hesitating.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have asked," she said quickly, regretfully, but I shook my head.

"No, it's–" I paused, frowning shamefully. "It's how I won."

She grabbed my hand suddenly, making me look up at her.

"You don't have to tell me," she reassured with a nod.

I looked down at her hand on mine, nerves creeping in. "You wanna know, but... you won't look at me the same. And I don't want to lose you."

"Whatever you did in that arena isn't a reflection of who you are," she said with such a determination that I almost believed her. "It was life or death. And if it meant you're here now, alive, then I don't care."

I closed my eyes, nodding. "You're right. I– you're right."

She was patient, to my relief, and it took a moment for me to find my words.

"I'd spent most of the Games hiding," I began to tell her, comforted by the warmth of her hand in mine. "I avoided confrontation where I could, but one kid, he– he cornered me and had a knife. Managed to cut my lip... I disarmed him and ran with it. Used it to defend myself, injuring whoever got in my way, but never killing. I couldn't– I couldn't do that..."

...I was running, one of the others having found me in the tunnels and chasing me out into the open where they could no doubt kill me with ease. My lungs were screaming for air, burning with each step I took, but I kept pushing myself until I was in the stands. The other tribute followed me though, carrying a spear and swinging it my way.

I avoided each swing, knife in hand but myself unable to do anything with it, not without getting in close. And then they swung again, making me dodge, and slammed the blunt end of their spear into my back, pushing me over the edge of the stands and to the ground below with a loud crack. I would have a screamed at the unbearable pain from my arm, but I'd slammed my head onto the ground, leaving me dazed.

My vision was spinning and my arm was throbbing and I didn't know what was what, but then I heard someone's feet land behind me and I knew I had to play dead, my last chance at surviving. Through one open eye, I could see footsteps approaching, but also the glint of my knife which had dropped beside me during the fall. I stayed still, practically holding my breath as the other tribute leaned down to check if I was alive. And before they could try to turn me over, I grabbed the knife and stabbed the first thing I could touch.

Only when I heard the sounds of gurgling did I look to see what I'd done. My knife was lodged into their neck, their pleading eyes begging mine as I scrambled back out of fear, watching them die a slow and painful death without meaning to. I was certain I could never un-hear those noises, or un-see their death...

Tears wet my face when I finished telling Lucy Gray the story, and I was trembling slightly as the memories flashed in my head.

"I didn't want to," I told her, shaking my head guiltily. "I didn't. But it was the only way. The only way to be done. I– I'm not a murderer. I'm not. I'm–"

She pulled me in for a hug, rubbing soothing circles on my back. "It's okay. It's okay, Y/N."

I cried into her shoulder, but it didn't make me feel any better. I'd murdered someone, and now I'd live with the reminder forever.

"You did what you had to do," she tried to console me, but I knew it wasn't entirely true.

It wasn't over, not really. I'd see their faces everywhere, forever.

"I wish you didn't have to do that," she said after a moment, pulling away but holding my hand between hers. "And I haven't said it yet, but thank you for taking my place, even though I didn't want you to. You saved my life. I just wish it wasn't at the expense of your own."

She kissed my cheek before hugging me again, sighing contently.

"By the way, if you ever try to tell me how I feel, I'll kill you myself," she muttered into my shoulder. "I'm not losing you, ever."

I stayed quiet, wrapping my arm around her instead. I knew I'd do this all again if it meant she was safe. But she wouldn't understand.

By the time word spread about my 'triumph' in the Games and return to District Twelve, I'd already moved out of my dad's place. He barely uttered a word to me, neither did he try stopping me. I wasn't sure if it was because he knew what I was capable of, or if he'd just been waiting for me to leave, but it was easier than I'd imagined.

My only choices were being homeless, moving into the community home full of kids with no parents or staying with the Covey. Naturally, it was easy to choose the latter, especially when Lucy Gray insisted I stayed with them.

It was easy at first, easier than I expected, to make myself at home and try to continue my life as it once was before the Games. I went back to work as soon as possible, even with one arm broken, did as many shifts as I could before the summer ended and I'd be back at school with less time to make money and afford food. I accompanied the Covey to the Hob, helping them prepare for their sets and encouraging people to donate money for their performances. It was almost normal.

But at night, that was when I couldn't seem to escape the true reality of what I'd been through. I'd fall asleep, no problem, and then my nightmares would feature different versions of the Games, bloody kills of the other tributes, the knot of fear in my chest expanding until I woke up in cold sweats and with wet eyes.

I couldn't tell anybody, especially not the Covey or Lucy Gray. I couldn't be a burden to them, not after all they'd done for me, but it was getting unbearable. The faces, they wouldn't stop haunting me. And the scar on my lip that wasn't fading only seemed to serve as a permanent reminder, frightening me because maybe I would never escape it. Maybe I'd suffer forever, a consequence of winning.

It happened again, tonight, and I woke with a start, eyes shooting open and mistaking the shadow on the ceiling for a predator in the dark. It took me a moment to remember where I was, what was real. Lucy Gray's bedroom. I was in the bed they'd set up for me, opposite hers, and the curtains were drawn, casting a ghastly blue glow around the room.

Wiping my eyes, I moved my legs over the side of the bed and glanced over at Lucy Gray, who was sound asleep. I was careful not to wake her as I slipped into some shoes and left the room, practicing the same caution as I left the house completely and sat outside on the garden furniture. The fresh air did much better to wake me up, reminding me where I was, and I simply sat there under the dark sky, trying to collect myself.

It was always the same. Some nights were worse than others, like tonight, where I'd be forced to step outside for some fresh. Other nights I could just brush it off and force myself to sleep. Would it ever get better?

I wasn't sure how long passed, but I heard the back door of the house opening and turned around, ready to apologise to whoever I'd woken. To my surprise, it was Lucy Gray.

"I didn't mean to wake you up," I said quickly, straightening up. "I can go back in. I–"

"Stop," she said softly, before taking a seat on the chair next to me, eyes never leaving mine.

I swallowed thickly, unable to hold her stare.

"I've tried to give you space," she said, the fatigue laced in her voice. "Since you've been here. I've seen you leave in the middle of the night... I'm worried, Y/N. Talk to me. Please."

Embarrassed I'd been caught out, I tried to reassure her. "I'm fine. It's nothing."

She scoffed quietly. "Are we not close enough that you shouldn't lie to me?"

I glanced at her, sighing when I saw the worry looking back at me.

"It's the Games, isn't it?" she asked carefully. "You're dreamin' of them."

I didn't trust my voice, so I could only nod weakly. She tensed her jaw slightly before moving her chair closer to me and pulling me in for a side hug. Leaning her head on my shoulder, she squeezed comfortingly, and I melted under her touch.

"Wake me when it happens," she encouraged. "It's not nice bein' alone when you've just had a nightmare."

"I'm not doing that," I started, a million reasons on the tip of my tongue for why I wouldn't subject her to that, but she cut me off pleadingly.

"Please. It'll make me feel better, knowin' I can at least be with you. Knowin' you're not alone. That I can help."

I didn't reply, unsure I could agree when I knew I just couldn't do it.

"I'm gonna push the beds together if you don't," she added, lightheartedly but with a touch of concern still present.

Nonetheless, it brought a smile to my lips and I exhaled sharply through my nose, a sad attempt at a laugh. "Okay."

She squeezed my shoulder in response and then straightened up, offering me a tired smile. "Come on."

"What?"

"You're not goin' back to sleep, clearly, so let's go," she insisted, grabbing my hand and pulling me up.

"Go where?" I asked, though let her lead me out of the garden.

"The lake, duh."

I didn't fight it and let her tug me along, walking down to the lake. It was quiet out, especially between us, and the mindless task of walking through the woods with her hand in mine gave me something else to focus on other than my nightmares.

When we reached the lake, we took a seat at the edge of the dock again, just like last time.

"No midnight swims, please," I warned her playfully, and she laughed quietly.

"I promise," she muttered, before looking out at the water.

My eyes took in her profile for a moment, following the slope of her nose, the point of her cupid's bow, the curve of her lips... even in the dark, with only a minuscule of moonlight casting shadows across her face, she was stunning. I wondered if she knew the effect she could have on me just by being here.

"Thank you," I said, unable to keep my gratitude in for much longer. "For everything."

She rolled her eyes playfully, continuing to look ahead. "Oh, shut up."

I furrowed my brows. "Huh?"

She gave me a disapproving glance. "After all that's happened, you don't need to thank me."

"I do," I said simply, and she rolled her eyes again.

"Seriously, shut up before I make you."

Knowing I wouldn't win this one, I exhaled softly and looked away, eyes subconsciously tracing the shimmers of light in the still water.

"Why did you do it?" Lucy Gray suddenly asked, playfulness gone.

"What?"

She paused. I wasn't sure she'd continue, and then she said, "Volunteer." I opened my mouth to answer, but she cut me off, adding, "And don't say it's because nobody would miss you. You knew that I would have. So, why?"

I pressed my lips together firmly, suddenly feeling warm. It was such an easy question, with an even easier answer. But I couldn't bring myself to say it for the same reason I'd never told her. I was a coward. But didn't she deserve to know the truth? Didn't I deserve to finally come clean? To lift this weight from my shoulders?

My heart was thumping ever so loudly for the girl next to me. I'd faced life or death situations, surely I could do this.

"Y/N?" she prompted, glancing at me.

I licked my lips, gaze focused on the darkness ahead. "I'm in love with you."

The silence was deafening, unlike before when it was welcomed. Not even a gasp or a slight movement from beside me betrayed her reaction, her surprise. I was too paralysed with fear of rejection to look at her. Instead, I stayed put, certain I'd be stuck there in that moment forever, never hearing a response. But then finally:

"I thought that was it. I just had to hear you say it."

My jaw tensed as I digested her words, eyes still fixated on the water. She knew? This whole time, she knew?

"I love you too," she murmured, and in my peripheral, I could see her staring ahead also. "That's why I hated that you did it."

Unable to act cowardly any longer, I forced myself to look to her. She did the same, knocking the breath from me when her dark eyes met mine. It was horribly intimidating, even though she was doing nothing different. Except now she knew. She finally knew. And I knew that she knew. And that was different enough to terrify me.

"Never again," she muttered. "You have to promise me and actually keep it."

And just like that, I was reminded why I'd volunteered in the first place. Coward or not, it was only ever for her.

"I can't," I admitted.

She scrunched her face with hurt. "And why not?"

I grimaced. "I just told you why."

A frown appeared on her lips, jaw clenching in annoyance. Her eyes flickered between mine defiantly, and I knew I was upsetting her again.

"I'm sorry," I said, tilting my head.

"I hate you," she said lowly.

I shook my head, holding her intense gaze. "Not according to what you just said."

Her lips curled inwards, frustrated, and after one last glance, she leaned forward and kissed me hard. My eyes fluttered close as she caressed my cheek, holding me close. I slipped my uninjured arm around her waist, revelling in her warmth and the softness of her lips. It was the best kiss I'd ever had. The only kiss, yes, but one I'd never want to compete with.

When we pulled apart, her hand was still on my cheek, and mine still on her waist, and I worried that if I opened my eyes, something would go wrong. That this would all be a dream.

"You should've told me sooner," she murmured, lips ghosting mine.

I reluctantly opened my eyes, instantly submerged in hers. "Not everyone can speak their mind as confidently as you can, Lucy Gray."

She licked her lips, drawing my gaze to them yet again. "I can't always. Clearly."

I looked down, shaking my head slightly. "I couldn't."

Her thumb stroked my cheek tenderly. "Not even after? When you came home?"

It was hilarious, how easy she made it all sound. I raised an eyebrow at her, trying not to smile. "You don't know how you make me feel, do you?" Her expression softened, and I continued, "Imagine standing on the edge of a cliff. Then jumping off."

"Scared?" she asked, growing worried, but I shook my head.

"Free," I corrected, growing warm at my honesty, it coming way too easily for once. "And that in itself is scary, isn't it? But scary in a good way. I– I've never felt like that before."

She exhaled softly, a small smile tugging at her lips. "You're not so bad at speaking your mind, it seems."

I breathed out through my nose, mirroring her smile. Her thumb outlined my lips lightly, tracing my scar, and then resting on my cheek again. She was thoughtful, eyes staring at my face, but distant.

"That feeling you described," she started, voice smooth and comforting, "it goes both ways."

I wondered how it could. I'd never imagined myself giving her a similar comfort, nor her feeling so strongly about me as I did with her. But then she kissed me again, and I didn't need to think about it anymore.