#i'm writing so much every day and it still feels like the end just gets farther away dksgjhlrkjag

[golden-cherry]

deal - cl16 (49/?)

Pairing: Charles Leclerc x Reader

Series Summary: Your whole life has gone to shit. Your boyfriend broke up with you, you just lost your job and the Monegasque, who suddenly stands in your doorway, claims that it’s his apartment.

Chapter Summary: Climbing up the mountain can be very freeing.

Warnings: angst (self-doubt, insecurities, mentions of abuse in a relationship, Charles is very insecure about himself), the end is a bit fluffy, but don't expect too much

Word Count: 4.1k

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A/N: I feel like this describes Charles well. I cried when writing this chapter. I hope you like it. feedback is appreciated.

It is the first time in years that Charles has no desire to climb the mountain on those stupid skis. 

His feet hurt, he is cold even though the jacket he is wearing is suitable for even colder temperatures, and his hands are so stiff from the frigid air that they painfully curl around his ski poles. 

The snow blinds him because of the bright sun, his bones feel heavy, somehow his mouth is so dry that he would like to rinse it with water every five meters.

But maybe that's just because he'd rather be at home in Monaco. Because that's where you are. And there is no place he would rather be right now. 

Closing the door behind him and leaving you alone in the apartment was incredibly difficult. He would have loved to put you in his bag and take you with him, but you would only have distracted him from training. 

And if he wants to be world champion one day, he can't afford to make any mistakes. 

It's been two days since he's seen you and heard your voice. In the morning, when he wakes up and gets ready for the day, you are still fast asleep, and during his training, Andrea has his phone so that Charles can collect his thoughts and stay focused. Only in the evening, when Charles is in bed, he manages to text you a few messages before falling asleep, cell phone in hand, completely exhausted. 

He misses you every second. 

Before he met you, he would never have imagined that he could miss someone he had only known for a few days so much. He had missed Annika from time to time, after all, he had definitely loved her at some point, but he had never longed for her or anyone else the way he did for you now. 

As soon as he has a moment to himself, whether it's in the shower or on the toilet or when Andrea isn't bothering him with calories or carbohydrates or protein for a moment, he misses you so much that he can almost feel the physical distance between you. 

But most of all, he misses you in the morning when he wakes up. When he is in that one second when he is neither sleeping nor fully awake. Snuggled up warm in the blanket and against the pillow, where in the evening he imagines it would be your body that he is snuggling up to. And in the morning, for a brief moment, it feels as if you are actually lying next to him, which is why the second he realizes that you are miles away from him hurts the most. 

“Are you okay?” Andrea asks, who has slowed down a little to run up the hill next to Charles. ”You're suspiciously quiet.”

Charles, who hasn't realized that he has slowed down at all, looks at his trainer in confusion. “Yes, I'm fine. Why do you ask?”

Andrea shrugs. ”Usually you're chattering away at me during training. That usually helps you to distract yourself from how exhausting it is.”

He has a point there. Charles pushes himself forward on his skis. “I don't know. This time I don't feel like you're torturing me up this mountain. It's still the same route we usually take, isn't it?” He looks around as if he can recognize the surroundings. 

Andrea raises his eyebrows and also picks up the pace. ‘We're in a completely different area, Charles.’ He points to another mountain with his gloved hand.

If his friend hadn't told him, the man from Monaco would never have noticed, so absorbed is he in his thoughts about you. The mountain Andrea is pointing to seems more familiar to him than the one in front of them. And a lot smaller. If they had taken the familiar route, they would have been at the summit long ago. 

“You asshole,” Charles curses and wipes his face. ‘Why did you choose a different mountain? And especially one that's higher?”

Andrea can't help but grin. ’You came in second in the championship this year. I'm hoping that if we increase your training, you'll come in first next season and...”

“And what?” Charles interrupts his trainer. "The whole thing is useless if my strategists and the whole team mess up so much during the race. I can train as much as I want. It won't work." He gets so caught up in it that he doesn't notice how quickly he pushes himself up the mountain on his skis. 

“Charles –”

“No, Andrea. This whole thing cost me the title. Wrong tires? Last-minute changes in the pit? What the hell?” he gets worked up. He knows that his anger is unfairly directed at the wrong person, after all Andrea is only there for Charles's well-being and not for what happens on the track, but it just comes spilling out. And he can't stop it. 

His ski poles dig deep into the white snow, which Charles barely notices. He only sees the summit in front of him and hears Andrea breathing loudly next to him as he continues to complain. 

“It's not right that I come in second because of such little things! If I had caused accidents, then at least it would have been my fault and I could have dealt with it more easily,” he says, annoyed. ”But what kind of stupid plans were these, anyway? Even a toddler could come up with a better strategy!”

Andrea, who knows full well that Charles needs to vent his anger, walks quietly beside him and lets the storm pass over him. It's not often that Charles gets this angry. And normally he blames himself, but he certainly doesn't take such serious mistakes on his head. 

Charles knows that making mistakes is an inevitable part of competition, and sometimes, they're the difference between standing at the top of the podium and finishing second. Being the runner-up in a championship can feel bittersweet – so close to victory, yet just short of it. 

Being second in the championship feels like a mix of pride and frustration. On one hand, Charles has achieved something incredible – outperforming almost everyone, proving his skill and showing that he deserves to sit in the red car with the horse on it. But on the other hand, there's that lingering thought inside of his head – he was so close. The tiniest mistakes, the small miscalculations in his strategies, or someone else having a slightly better day made the difference in the end. 

There's this ache inside of him, knowing he was almost the champion. The podium felt different when he looked up at Max Verstappen holding the trophy he desperately craved. Charles felt a lot of things in that moment – disappointment, regret and even anger – at himself, the situation, the team and at the margin that kept him from winning. 

“I could have won the title. Max will definitely win the next season too, as strong as Red Bull is. How will I ever live up to my reputation then?” He clenches his jaw. ”I feel like I'm stuck with what I'm doing now. And I'm doing my best, Andrea. I really am. But it's apparently not enough. Do you know how incredibly frustrating that is?”

Being second carries a unique weight – a strange middle ground between triumph and heartbreak. And hell, Charles heart broke with every race that put more distance between his and Max's points. He feels like a failure, like he failed his team, his family and friends. He failed his fans, that support him through every decision he makes on and off track, that defend him whenever he makes a mistake during races. 

And it haunts him. What if he had pushed just a little harder, made one less mistake, reacted a second faster? What if he made a different decision that would've outweighed the mistakes his team made? What if he became world champion in the famous red car he worked so hard to get into? The famous red car that his dad loved so much?

Disappointing his dad was the worst part of it all. It was a different kind of pain, heavy and crushing. It's not just about failing at something – Charles feels like he simply isn't good enough. Like he let someone down who believed in him. He could have been champion this year – he was so close to standing on top of the podium. What if he never gets this close to winning? What if he never holds the big trophy in his hands, dedicating it to his dad, who always wanted to see him drive in the Ferrari?

Charles' anger has been building up for so long that he doesn't know where to put it. If only he had concentrated more on the season and hadn't been so distracted by his personal problems - 

“And Annika. What a waste of time the whole thing was. I should never have gotten involved with her. I should have ended the relationship when I realized that she wasn't the one. When I realized that I couldn't give her the attention that a healthy relationship requires.”

Charles would never admit it, but Annika’s betrayal in their relationship cut deeper than expected. It’s not just about broken promises – it’s about broken trust, the foundation of any meaningful connection. It shook everything Charles believed to be true about Annika – or love in general. 

The worst part wasn’t the act itself or that he caught them right in the act, but the realization that someone he trusted with his heart made the choice to hurt him. After the break-up he questioned everything – was any of it real? Was Annika lying to him the whole time? Even after everything, the wounds linger. 

Some betrayals are survivable with time and effort, but others leave scars that never fully heal. They change people – it changed Charles. It hardened his heart, made love feel dangerous to him and made him create walls where there once was openness. 

He guarded himself like a survival instinct. At first, it was solely for protection – he told himself that if he didn’t let anyone in, nobody could hurt him. The walls became his shield, keeping out disappointment, rejection, and the risk of being vulnerable again. 

But over the course of the weeks, Charles noticed the walls he put up brick by brick didn’t just keep the pain out – they kept everything out. Love. Connection. The chance to feel something real. Hell, he didn’t even tell his Maman that he was back home in Monaco. He pushed his family away, his friends, acting cold and distant – not because he didn’t want love, but because he’s so scared of what happened when he let someone else in. 

It took Charles some time to figure out the truth, that the walls didn’t keep him safe and sound – they kept him stuck. They stopped him from healing, from growing, from experiencing the things that make life meaningful. But he was so scared of breaking them down when it took him so long to put them up, that he didn’t know what to do when he met you. 

It was terrifying, letting you in slowly and hesitantly. He’s spent so long guarding himself, convincing himself that no one except his close ones can be trusted, that it almost felt unnatural to let you in. At first, he resisted, kept his distance. But the fact that you didn’t even know who he was felt so good, made him feel safe to share his story with you and then – you stayed. You didn’t push too hard, but you didn’t walk away either. 

Surely, this friendship has had it’s ups and downs, but this is what happenes when two people, who protected themselves so much that they become too careful, too hesitant to let someone in fully. 

And instead of forcing your way through, you waited. You were there. You proved in small, consistent ways, that you’re not like the woman who made him built those walls in the first place. 

And then, without realizing it, he stopped expecting the worst. He let you see his wounds, his fears, his past, and instead of running, you stayed. You stayed with him through awkward dinner conversations about his ex, you stayed with him when he didn’t correct his family about your relationship status, you stayed when he overstepped the boundaries of your friendship. Your gentle touch, your honest conversations while burning Annika’s things. 

You stayed when he revealed to you who he really is. You see him – the real him – and don’t flinch at what you see. Little by little, cracks form in his defenses. He finds himself wanting to trust again, to love again, even though it scares him to death. 

When you look at him, it feels like sunlight creeping through the cracks in the fortress he thought were unbreakable. It was unsettling at first after being in the dark for some time. But you didn’t break down his walls in a dramatic, earth-shattering way. 

It was quiet. Subtle. It sneaked up to him in moments he didn’t even realize – they way you looked at him when he played your song on the piano in the bookshop, when you let him hold you while you cried like his arms were the safest place in the world, when you showed him that you want him for who he is. 

But even though you broke down most of his walls, he still can’t admit that you’re all he needs. 

He can’t let you in fully after what Annika did to him, he can’t let you touch him like he wants you to. He can’t let himself feel so much for you because what if those feelings he has for you – the feelings he swore he’d never harbour for anyone again – are not enough for you?

What if he gives you his all and you decide that it’s not enough? That he is not enough? He can’t tell you why he doesn’t want you to touch him, because what if you’ll see him differently? What if the things he wants, he needs, are different from what you want? 

He feels like he isn’t good enough. The scars Annika left on him made him question his worth, his value, his ability to be loved. There are moments where he feels too far gone, too damaged, not strong enough to break free from the fear of losing you that he’d rather keep you at arms length hurting himself than push you away and out of his life. 

He can’t let you touch him after Annika, because sex with her felt wrong, like he was broken because he wanted different things than her. Because he craved intimacy like his life depended on it, the safety that comes with it, but it always felt like he needed to deliver, even if he didn’t want to. It felt like a chore, no gentle touches or loving words, only demanding hands and lips and thighs and he swore to himself he’ll never let it happen again. 

If you don’t touch him at all, there’s no chance you could hurt him like that.

He’d rather give you all he’s able to give instead of letting you return anything.

“I could have waited for…”

“Charles.” Andreas‘ voice is gentle and soothing, in contrast to Charles’. When the man from Monaco looks at his friend, he smiles at him. ”We're here.”

The wind howls at the summit, biting and cold, but it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t feel it. He can’t feel anything except the weight that presses down on his chest. He stands there on top oft he world – and all the space in the world couldn’t quiet the chaos inside him. 

Andrea chose this route to help Charles clear his head, the mountain was supposed to be his escape, his victory. He climbed every inch of it, each slide of his skis pushing him further from the mess he feels inside. The view from the top is actually breathtaking: endless stretches of jagged peaks, skies that feel closer than ever. He should feel something – pride, accomplishment, freedom. But instead, there’s only the overwhelming silence that gnawed at him. 

For a moment, everything is still. He pulls his beanie and glasses from his head, closing his eyes and trying to ground himself in the beauty around him, but the images, the memories, everything – it all comes flooding back. The things he can’t outrun. The words that had been sad. The choices that had left him fractured and alone. 

A sob caught in his throat, sharp and unexpected and he falls to his knees in the white snow at his feet. The tries to fight it, but the tears come anyway – slow at first, then faster and harder. They burn against the cold wind, mixing with the salt of the sweat on his skin – and he can’t stop them. 

They stand for everything he hasn’t been able to say, everything he has be scared to face. He thought he could bury it, hide it behind the walls he built, behind the distance from it all. 

His hand tremble on his thighs, his chest tightening with every broken breath. His vision blurred, the edges oft he mountain fading into the background. It doesn’t matter that he’s at the top – he feels smaller than ever. The tears slip down his cheeks like a rush of a river too long dammed. 

„I’m not enough“, he whispered almost unaudibly. A confession only the mountains and his friend could hear. „I’m never going to be enough.“

The world stretched out before him, magnificent and indifferent, and in that moment, he realized that being on top oft he mountain didn’t mean escaping it all. He had climbed all this way, but he couldn’t outrun himself. The hurt, the mistakes, the weight of everything he’d buried deep inside. 

He doesnt flinch when he feels Andrea’s hand on his shoulder, gently squeezing and reassuring him that whatever he feels right now is okay. That the tears that fall down onto the snow have their right to exist after being bottled up for so long. 

The sobs faded, leaving him gasping for air in the stillness of the summit. He wiped his face, trying to wipe away the brokennes, but it lingered in his chest. His hands still trembling from the release, from the rawness that had bubbled to the surface. For a long moment, he just sits there, the wind biting at him, the emptiness inside him as a vast as the world stretched out before him. 

And then it hit him, like a sudden punch that knocked the breath from his lungs. 

You. 

Your laugh. Your smile. The way you always seem to know what he’s thinking, the way you care in the quietest ways – how you’ve been there for him, even when he pushed you away. How, despite everything, you stayed. 

He tried so hard to tell himself that he’s better off alone, that he doesn’t need anyone else to fill the empty spaces inside him. He thought he could bury his feelings, run from the truth. He has told himself that love was something to fear, something that could trap him, break him, leave him just as broken as he’d been before.

But now, sitting on top of the world, it all makes sense. 

He loves you. He always has. He can feel it in every part of him, the truth that has been there all along, buried under layers of fear and pride. It’s not something he can outrun, not anymore. He can’t ignore the way his heart always beats faster when you’re near, the way everything seems to fall into place when you smile at him, the way your presence has been the one thing that feels like home. 

The moment of realization hits him like a wave, sudden and overwhelming. It’s undeniable. 

He loves you.

Not in the casual, passing way he once tried to convice himself was enough for his relationship with Annika, but in a deeper, truer sense. It’s always been you – only you. Right from the start when the both of you stood in the small apartment. 

But the weight o fit, the sheer force of that truth, felt like it could crush him, especially when he realizes how long he’s been running from it. 

His heart races, pounding hard in his chest, but it isn’t the kind of excitement he thought would come with such a revelation. Instead, it is quiet terror. The terror of feeling too much. Of feeling anything at all. 

His breath comes in shallow gasps as the cold mountain air cuts through him. It isn’t the altitude or the wind that chills him – it’s the fear of being too vulnerable again. Of letting anyone close enough to hurt him. The thought of telling you, of exposing his raw, vulnerable part of himself, feels like standing on the edge of a cliff with no way to climb back down. 

He stares out over the vast horizon, the world stretching out endlessly beneath him, and for a moment, he considers it. The possibility of going back, of telling you everything he has just realized. But the thought of your eyes on him, the weight of the words, the vulnerability—it‘s too much. Too raw. Too dangerous.

So, he stays silent. He stays with the truth, buried deep inside of him. The love he feels for you is now his secret, locked away like a fragile thing, too delicate to share. He can‘t find the courage to let it out—not now, not after everything that had happened.

But there is something about knowing, about feeling it — just knowing that he can love again — that makes the world feel a little less heavy. It isn’t perfect, and it doesn‘t fix everything, but it is enough. For the first time in a long time, he doesn‘t feel so broken. He isn’t empty. He is filled with something — something soft, something he thought was gone forever.

Maybe he isn’t ready to tell you. Maybe he will never be ready. But the knowledge that love still exists in him — that it can still find him, even after everything — is enough to hold onto for now. It isn’t a victory, not in the way he wants, but it is a beginning. And in that, there is a quiet peace. A peace that, despite all the fear and hesitation, he coul still feel, still hope.

And that, for the moment, is enough.

[dyingswanpavlova]

Happier than ever

Part 1

Pairing: Nam-gyu × Reader × The Salesman

Warnings: Drug Usage, Overdose, Death, Violence, Unhealthy Relationships, Manipulation, Suicide, Mentions of Sexual Activities, Mentions of Rape, Domestic Violence, Domestic Abuse, Mental Health Issues, Anger Issues, Depression, Long Backstory, Minors do not interact!

Nam-gyu and you were a couple for the last eight years. But after you decide you had enough of his anger issues, you leave him and try to be happy on your own. Oh, how naïve you are.

Author's note: Okay, everyone.😩 I know you're waiting for the next part of "Your girl" and trust me, I am, too! I'm sorry that I haven't come up with it yet, but I needed to get my mind off of it for a moment, because I don't want to just write anything and publish it like that - the story means too much to me. I can't publish it unless I'm happy with it, but I promise you, I'm working on it. Until then, I started to furiously hit the key board and this happened. Whatever this is, it is Part 1 of it and I'm doing a Part 2, I just don't know when yet. I love you! 🤍 Lana

Loving Nam-gyu wasn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world.

In fact, it was almost impossible on most days.

But there was a part of you, a thing, a quiet voice – something that needed to be reassured, that felt like maybe you were the problem.

There had been good days, hadn’t there? Your birthday and the way he woke you up with pancakes every year. Of course they turned out horrible and were barely edible. They were raw on the inside and somehow, he still managed to burn them. But he made them for you. The memory still made you smile, despite everything.

Then there was the day you had your big ballet performance. You had spent so many months rehearsing, trying to be perfect. You went all Natalie Portman on that performance. Since the moment you’d been told you got to play Odette, you were fire and flame, spending every waking moment trying to be everything you pictured in your head. It was hard, very hard even. But you had the great hope that, if maybe you did well enough, they would come.

Your family would come and watch. They’d finally show you that they did indeed love you, that you weren’t just a burden or an accident. They would come and they would be proud of you. Your father would set his work phone down, your mother her pills. They would be there. For you.

But of course, they didn’t. You should have known better. It was your own fault, hoping and praying for something that was never going to happen. You should have known.

And still, the moment the curtain lifted and you glanced along the rows and rows of people, you felt disappointed. But you didn’t feel disappointed like normal people would, no. It was you after all. You felt devastated. You felt all of your creativity leave your mind. Your body slowly forgot the choreography. Your eyes glistened with tears. And your life was over.

You had your own issues. He had his anger. You had your world endings.

That was until the door flew open after everyone was already seated, waiting for the show to begin. A few heads turned and your gaze quickly flashed towards the now open door, revealing the face of the mysterious newcomer. He was out of breath and his hair was a mess, his cheeks glowing red and the look in his eyes pleading.

It was Nam-gyu.

You had just had the greatest argument of your life so far, throwing around dishes and screaming your lungs out at each other. Not even twelve hours had passed since then, so you were more than sure that he wouldn’t come. After all, he was the least reliable person you knew, alongside your family. And that fight had been particularly bad. You actually didn’t expect to ever see him again.

But there he was, his appearance disheveled and his eyes pleading with you. Pleading with you to forgive him, pleading with you to dance.

Dance.

You remembered the way you felt. The way your disappointment suddenly turned into something different, something hopeful and warm.

Something good.

He was good.

He was yours.

And you were his.

In that moment, there was nothing else. Everything around you faded into a dark cloud and all you could focus on was him and the way he stood in the middle of the audience, staring up at you. The world was quiet and everything smelled like flowers. The perfection you were striving for was suddenly there and it had nothing to do with your performance.

It was a slow dance, slow and sensual, between your souls.

Until suddenly the music started and your body remembered the movements again.

And you were indeed perfect.

Unfortunately though it wasn’t always like that. Most of the time, he was simply complicated. When he wasn’t drugged out of his mind, he was angry. Not at all the time – but easily. All you had to do was say the wrong thing and he’d explode. And you’d explode right back, right into his face.

“I fucking hate you!”

“Shut the fuck up, you dumb slut!”

“Who are you calling a slut?! You son a bitch!”

“Say that again!”

It always ended the same way. You sobbing on the floor, him slamming the door shut and disappearing. That were the good fights.

The bad ones were different. You couldn’t count the times you had been forced to take shelter in the bathroom, quickly locking the door, too afraid to let him even close to you. Of course you knew how to fight back. You didn’t let him get away with slapping you, oh no, you kneed him right in the balls so he’d know better not to fuck with you. He’d normally collapse and the fight would be over. But sometimes, on especially bad days, he got that look on him.

It wasn’t careful or hesitant. No, it was murderous and terrifying. You always knew there was something dangerous about him. That was probably what drew you in at first. But this…It was different. When he got that look, when the drugs clouded his mind like that, you were truly afraid of what he might do. And so you locked yourself in and listened to the way he pounded against the door, ready to break it down. So far, he hadn’t. A part of him was still in there, even when got like that.

But you didn’t want to push your luck.

After eight years of up and down, back and forth and through the gates of Hell, you finally left him for good. At first he probably didn’t believe it. After all, you had pulled the leaving card a million times before. But somehow you always ended up back in his bed, with him fucking your brains out and calling it making up.

But this time, you meant it. It had been a pretty normal Tuesday. You were at work, waiting tables and cleaning up after your mindless customers. It wasn’t the best job in the world, but it paid the bills – albeit, barely.

After your father left and married a woman hardly any older than you and you found your mother on the bathroom floor, cold and stiff, her eyes wide and her chin and hair covered in foam and puke, you decided couldn’t do this anymore. Couldn’t be that anymore.

You moved in with Nam-gyu. It started off well at first. He was as cute as ever, when he was sober. Sure, you had fights already, but they were mostly trivial. Yelling was involved, throwing furniture around as well, but he never got violent with you so far.

He found a job, as did you and you paid your apartment together. It was tiny of course, but it was enough. You bought groceries and washed laundry. You even had some spare money to buy furniture and decorations. It wasn’t much, but it was yours. You did everything the way you always pictured it.

You had been with Nam-gyu since you turned seventeen. You met back in school and immediately fell in love with him. He had been so sweet. Acting overly confident and arrogant, of course, but it was just a front which you immediately realized. Under all that he was actually rather silly. He made you laugh without even trying. Even he seemed surprised by how good you two matched. So far he’d been going through life, acting like everyone was beneath him. But in reality, he wasn’t popular. He was a bully. He was mean, with a cruel streak. But never to you. No, when someone dared to speak up their mind against you, he was there, ready to break their jaw. You formed a friendship of sort. He was protective and extremely possessive, while you were caring. His family was a bunch of assholes, just like yours was and neither of you had any real friends.

Most of your friends were other dancers and neither of those were really sentimental. Sure, it was enough to go out for a salad sometimes, but you really weren’t one for bulimia and cigarettes. Most of them were, unfortunately.

You loved food. You loved to eat and you appreciated every bite. You’d grown up rather lonely on your own, praying every night for a sibling or a real friend. Someone you could talk to, about real problems. Your ballet friends though? Whenever they asked you how you felt, they didn’t actually want to know. They were just being polite.

Nam-gyu was just as lonely, though he wouldn’t have ever admitted it. He had friends, who were to no one’s surprise, also a bunch of assholes. Some of them were just bullies, others were straight-up rapists.

“What do you mean, you changed your mind? Are you dumb? Shut the fuck up and take it. You agreed to this!”

Nam-gyu wasn’t. It was another thing he wouldn’t have admitted to out loud, but the thought of fucking someone while they were out of it was something he wasn’t after. A thing that really turned him on was to see the pleasure on the other person’s face. The moans, the sighs. He wouldn’t get that if he just made them take it. And so he didn’t. But he tried to keep a straight face, when his friends shared their immoral stories of last weekend. He tried to laugh, when they spoke about the way the girls curled up in self-hatred after they left them there, their cum leaking out of them.

That was until one of the girls ended up killing herself.

She had been super sad and melancholic for as long anyone could remember. She was rather quiet and no-one really spoke to her. She wasn’t weird or anything, just really shy. That was enough to get bullied. She was an obvious virgin and rather closed-off. A good challenge. A great bet.

So, one of his friends placed a bet with the others. Fuck the girl.

“No way that weirdo is letting you anywhere close to her.”

And she didn’t, at first. She didn’t trust anyone around, because people normally made fun of her. But that guy, who went by Nic, was a real good actor. He didn’t walk up to her and just made advances. No, he played shy around her. Sweet. Funny. He managed to tickle a smile out of her. A laugh. And he didn’t just do it once. He did it for days. Weeks. Two months. He played her boyfriend. Her sweet, shy boyfriend. Until her front slowly crumbled and she fell in love with him. Deeply. So much that she actually decided to give Nic her first.

According to Nic it had been nothing out of the ordinary, but Nam-gyu knew it was more than that. He could read the people around him fairly well, and he could also see the way Nic’s pupils dilated, the way his heart skipped a beat, whenever his sweet, little girlfriend was around.

But his friends, his friends, they were constantly at his back.

“Did you finally fuck her?”

“Did you stretch that weird little cunt, huh?”

“Don’t tell me you’re falling for that Wednesday Addams bitch.”

Nic had a reputation to uphold. And so he did what he deemed necessary. He had sex with her and then he dumped her. But not like any normal person would. No, he made fun of her in the worst ways and ended up sending her nudes to anyone who was interested.

The same nudes he had begged her to send him, to trust him, for only his eyes.

And the next day, the gruesome news were heard over speaker.

She was dead. Jumped off her apartment building, right into her death.

Nic had a mental breakdown. No-one else from his group really cared. No-one except for Nam-gyu. Nam-gyu spent the rest of the day in his car, staring down at the steering wheel and trying not to throw up.

You had heard the news of course and you were devastated. You hadn’t known the girl, but you had never been mean to her. You actually remembered a few interactions you had. You knew there had been something going on between her and Nam-gyu’s friend. But naïve, little you had had the hope that it wasn’t a trick. How stupid you had been.

You spent the rest of the day looking for him, but he was nowhere to be found. Right when you already thought maybe he wasn’t at school at all, you saw his car. He was inside and God, he looked horrible. With red-rimmed eyes and shaking hands, all day. You tried your best to comfort him, but it was futile. He felt guilty. Someone was dead. And maybe, just maybe, if he had intervened in time…

You tried to make him understand that it wasn’t his fault, not entirely. He never spoke to his friends again.

You’d later find out, that was the day he took his first injection. So far all he had been doing were mushrooms and weed, but Hell, who hadn’t?

You spent more and more time together, because he firmly ignored everyone who was so damn fucked in the head. He was trying to be good, he was trying so hard. Life hadn’t been easy on him, not at all, but he still tried.

A month later, you had your first kiss. Another three days later you had sex. It was your first time and he was being surprisingly gentle and considerate. You loved thinking back to it, because you didn’t regret it at all. No matter what else happened between you afterwards, you could never regret giving your virginity to him, because it meant so much to you. And it seemed to mean even more to him.

Two years later, it was safe to say you were made for each other. Even long after being out of school, you were still a couple. He still got these angry outbursts sometimes, but you tried to understand him. He had grown up, feeling unseen and unloved by anyone. As did you. You weren’t angry per say. But you got angry, when he did. You had these desperate mood swing. And whenever something didn’t go your way, you felt like the world was ending. You felt everything intensely.

Love was great. It was all-consuming. You loved him in the same way he did. You adored him. Anger was different. It felt suffocating. Sadness wasn’t sadness, but depression. And despair was enough to nearly kill you.

You tried going to university, but that didn’t work out, because your father left and so you had no chance to pay the tuition. Nam-gyu never even bothered to try, because he knew he would fail anyway, but he tried whatever he could to make your dream work. You wanted to work with animals, heal them, help them, do whatever you could to make someone’s life better. But despite all your – and his – efforts, it didn’t work out. It was simply too much. He was heartbroken when you were forced to leave school, because of your selfish prick of a father. But it was alright.

You’d find another job. You could still make it in life, even without university. Everything was good.

That was, until you couldn’t afford your dance practice any longer.

That was heartbreaking.

One day, you came home after a long day of playing cashier, only to find your mother had stolen all the money you had saved so far. She took it to buy pills or whatever else. You couldn’t even be mad at her, because she lay passed out in the doorway to her room.

You had no money. And all your dreams were dead.

By the time that happened you were far into twenty-one, so you knew that life was cruel and you turned more and more bitter.

Nam-gyu was simply angry, but there was not much he could do. His parents threw him out at nineteen, so he had been paying his own rent since then. He tried speculating with cryptocurrency, but that didn’t work out. He played it down, but you knew he lost quite the amount of his own savings.

A year later your mother died and you finally moved in together. So far you hadn’t been able to leave her on her own, but now that she was gone, you couldn’t stand to live in the same place where she had died. The cemetery of what could have been. Countless dour memories, not a single one good.

You had never had a particularly good relationship, but she was your mother nonetheless. The sight of her dead body and horrified face, it haunted you in your sleep. You spent more than one night, waking up screaming, sweating and clutching the linens. Luckily, Nam-gyu was there to catch you, before you ever managed to fall into the deep pit that was your mind.

He managed to calm you down somehow, every time. He was perfect. The perfect boyfriend.

Until he wasn’t.

You hated when he did drugs, especially so after what had happened to your mother. And so he said he wouldn’t, but it was obviously just to pacify you. You always noticed when he did it nonetheless, you knew the dazed look in his eyes, the paleness of his skin. Whenever he refused a meal, it was obvious to you. Normally, he’d choke down everything you cooked like a starved animal, but there were days when he picked at his food and that was always the first indication.

His short responses, his temper, suddenly so easily flared. It didn’t take long for your first real argument to break out. It was fine, up until the point when you saw his hand twitch. Obviously, you shot him a murderous look, daring him. If he dared to hit you, you’d break his fucking jaw.

And he refrained. For then.

Things went mostly normal, until the next fight. That time he wasn’t so gentle. Things got out of hand and he pushed you against the wall, smashing your head against it in the process. For a moment, you were simply stunned – and even he seemed to be. He stopped before he could cause any greater damage.

Things went between good and bad, it was a constant battle for dominance. One day was good, the next day horrible. You couldn’t even look at him without earning a harsh comment. You’d ignore him firmly for the rest of the day and eventually he’d come crawling back, begging you to let him back inside the bedroom. He didn’t mind the couch, he just missed you. And somehow you always forgave him, far too easily. Sometimes he did change for a while. Surprised you with flowers or his sad attempts at cooking. Every time he messed up a scrambled egg, you couldn’t help but get weak. He was so silly, it was endearing. Yet at the same time, you knew there was something dark within him. Most likely the drugs, but you could never tell for sure.

Maybe this was just who he was.

Things got better and worse again, until one night, he snapped. You had a fight about one of your co-workers, who he considered a threat. You never understood it, because to you it was so obvious that you never wanted anyone else. Despite your problems, you stayed fiercely loyal to him. You loved Nam-gyu. And a part of you still believed that in the end, things would turn out good. Maybe they would, right?

But that night was bad. He got so furious and when he yelled at you, the walls seemed to shake. You were normally so eager to fight back, so strong, but that day something was different. You were on your period and just a few hours earlier, you had met a dance friend of yours. She told you, she was sure that, if you had stayed, you’d be famous by now. But she wasn’t kind about it. She was subtly looking down at you, shaming you for the way your life had turned out. It made a tight knot form in your stomach and you felt your resolve slowly crumble. All you wanted was to cry, but even that didn’t work, because you came home to a furious Nam-gyu.

Your shoulders slumped and you refused to look at him, which only ever made him angrier.

You didn’t see the slap coming, but once it happened, you couldn’t forget it. Couldn’t forget the anger and the disappointment that welled up in you. When you looked up at him, you expected the tiniest bit of regret or guilt, but there was nothing. He was too deep in his bubble of anger and substance, to see clearly. He got more and more furious and you knew; if you didn’t hide then, he’d do something worse. It was the first night you hid yourself away in the bathroom, one of many to follow. You always told yourself it were the drugs. He was so sweet when he was sober, so gentle and loving. You kept telling yourself, things would be good one day. They would turn out well. With time and patience.

Until you snapped.

You were at work, staring off into the distance. You had been out of it all day, because you spent the previous night locked in the bathroom, until he finally passed out around four in the morning. You snuck out and made your way to your workplace, where you opened more than three hours early. You had nowhere else to go. No family, no friends, no one. Only you and your pain. All day you spent trying to cover the dark marks on your wrists, but no one seemed to care anyway. People went about their own lives and problems and you were just their co-worker, their waitress.

You stood silently, watching an elderly couple whose order you had just taken. They were so sweet, like they came right out of a movie. He held the door open for her and pulled her chair back. He caressed her cheek and she never flinched when he reached out his hand for her. They smiled at each other with such a tenderness, it brought tears to your eyes. That was the exact moment. That was the moment you realized you didn’t want to continue on living like this.

You wanted more. You deserved more.

You made your way back and gathered most of your things while he was still at work. Of course it wasn’t the most intelligent approach, but it was all you could do. You knew, the moment you sat down and tried to explain to him that you were going to leave him, he’d find a way to convince you to stay. It had been eight years, after all. Eight years on and off, eight years up and down. Drugs, violence, lies – at least he never cheated on you.

You’d keep that in tender memory of him. As well as the countless times he had comforted and fought for you. All the times he made you laugh, all the times he made you feel loved. The greatest sex you would ever have, no doubt.

But you still packed your things and left like a ghost. After eight years.

He tried to contact you of course, the moment he came home. But you took your paycheck and went to a motel. Whenever he tried to find you at work, you hid in the kitchen. Your co-workers tried to calm him down, to tell him that you didn’t work there any longer, but he saw through the lie. He got loud and furious, which you could kind of understand. You stayed in the kitchen, crying to yourself and feeling incredibly guilty, but you didn’t ever come out.

He kept coming, but it got less and less frequent. From what your co-workers told you, he seemed less and less like himself. The thought broke your heart and nearly made you go back.

You were constantly in your head, making more and more mistakes at work, until your boss’s patience finally snapped. When you messed up the third customers giant bill, he fired you. You instantly panicked, because you were sure, now you had to go back.

You even drove around in your car, trying to get a glimpse of him in the apartment. But to your horror, you didn’t see Nam-gyu in the window. It were other people, some couple actually. And when you tried to call him, the number wasn’t available. Suddenly, he was a ghost and you were knee deep in horse shit.

It didn’t take long for your money to go and so you ended up panicking. You had to leave the motel soon and if you didn’t get a job – you’d end up homeless. Which was as good as dead.

A few days later, after you realized that you seemed to have no special talents and that no one really cared to hire you, you sat at the metro station. You had only one option left or so you thought. Le girls girls girls. You were a dancer. You were graceful. You were too good for this.

But it was all you could do. After all, the girls didn’t have to indulge in any immoral transactions. They were just dancing, right? Fine, in light clothing, but still dancing. You could do that.

You were deep in thought, your eyes closed and your head leaned against the wall behind you, when you heard someone’s voice.

“Care for a game of Ddakji?”

This was when your life took a dark turn.

You eyed the handsome stranger with suspicion. It was super odd. A man going down the path of middle age, slicked-back hair, wearing a suit and a briefcase on him.

And he was asking you to play a game with him?

You frowned and glanced around.

“I don’t know what you want, but you won’t get it from me.”

He smirked and tilted his head to the side innocently.

“I don’t want anything. Just a little game. That’s all. You got something to win here. I got money.”

You narrowed your eyes at him. “I’m not a fucking hooker.”

He smiled again, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “And I told you, all I want is to play a game. Are you scared?”

That made you bristle. You knew the game and you fucking hated it. You were fairly good at playing at, but you didn’t care for this idiot’s audacity. You were about to snap at him again, when you caught sight of the money. Your eyes widened and you sank back against the wall.

“I don’t have any money.” You murmured back.

“Don’t worry. You can pay with your body.”

Your head shot up and you were ready to lunge at him, but he held up his hands in a placating gesture. “I have no intention of fucking you.” He said calmly. “So, I’ll ask again. Are you scared?”

You crossed your arms and got up, giving him a dirty look.

“Get to it, son of a bitch.”

Your eyes fluttered open slowly. You had trouble adjusting your sight to the unnatural, neon light. The smell was odd, somewhat disinfectant. Something was really wrong.

You slowly stretched and turned your head, only to see you weren’t alone. That was enough to nearly make you shriek. You sat up quickly enough to get dizzy. Next to your own bunk was a woman who stared at you through her cat-eyes. She smirked devilishly as she lay on her side.

“Your fate is sealed. There’s no way you can dance your way out of this.”

You tried to ignore the way your heart raced in your chest. This had to be some freakish co-incidence. You took your gaze off her, only to realize you weren’t alone. Countless people surrounded you, some of them awake, others still asleep. They all wore the same green tracksuit, just as you did.

You took a shaky breath and carefully swung your legs over the bed, heading for the ladder.

What, in God’s name, was this? And why did you agree to it?

You only remembered how ashamed you felt and how good the prospect sounded of not having to dance half-naked for strange men.

But was this really better?

You glanced around in the hope of…Of what? The situation was far too fucked up.

The fact that they got you here unconsciously, getting you dressed…

You wanted to throw up. You stumbled through the great hall, hoping to get some answers to your questions, but that hope quickly got crushed.

These were the real strange men. Dressed in pink suits, wearing masks which covered all of their faces and even their voices weren’t their own. Whatever this was, it wasn’t a fun game, you suddenly realized.

That Ddakji playing motherfucker had deceived you.

You lost the first round, which resulted in him slapping you. And that slap, which hadn’t really been a gentle one, awakened some kind of beast in you. You didn’t know what it was, maybe the memory of getting slapped and hunted down your own apartment on a regular basis. Whatever it was, you didn’t lose another round. He gave you money and money and money. But you didn’t want his fucking money. You wanted revenge.

You kept winning, because nothing else was possible. And by the end of the game, he smiled at you while he handed you the damned card.

But right before he turned crawled back into the pit of Hell where he had come from, you called out to him.

“Hey, motherfucker.”

He cocked a brow and regarded you with amusement. “Are you still mad about that tiny, little hit? Come on, you took it like a champ.”

“Then you should, too.”  You slapped him with an intensity, you didn’t think you’d ever possess.

He looked at you like a statue, obviously ready to lunge at and murder you. But he hid his murderous intent behind a well-rehearsed smile.

“That one was free.” He said calmly. “And if I ever do see you again, I want a return match.”

He left and you were left with the card.

And there you were now. This wasn’t some childish game of Ddakji.

No one showed their face. You knew what that meant. Something was wrong – and you were in trouble.

You were about to leave the hall and take part in the first game, following after the others. You wouldn’t even have noticed, had you not bumped into him full-force.

When you pulled back your head, ready to apologize, you froze.

There he was. Your Nam-gyu. Staring back at you with wide eyes, behind them a mixture of something akin to surprise and fury.

“What the fuck?” He hissed.

He rushed forward and grabbed your by the shoulders, backing you up against the wall. Your eyes widened and you tried to push him back, but he was driven by something far stronger than both of you.

“Nam-gyu?” You breathed out.

He frowned deeply and stared at you incredulously.

“What the hell are you doing here?!”

“I didn’t-“

“Oh my God, I’m going to kill you.” He growled. “Where were you? What’s going on with you? Are you fucking-“

“Is there a problem here?” At first, you didn’t see the guy behind him with his ridiculous hairstyle and pouty lips. Immediately, you hated the sight of him.

“Fuck, she’s my-“

The purple-haired guy gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Whatever, man. We should get going, huh? We’ll be late for the game.”

He eyed you in an odd way, but you pushed it down and used the moment to free yourself from Nam-gyu’s grip and run out, rushing after the others and hiding in the crowd. He attempted to follow you and even called out to you, but you were already gone.

Fuck, you thought.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

[organic-bloodbath]

Hi, I apologize in advance for any mistakes, English is not my native language.. I like the way you write. may I ask salesman and his wife. A semi-nswf story about his wife saying the safe word in the process? A little fluff and comfort 👉👈 If you don't write this, then I'm sorry, have a nice day

Pumpkin

Salesman x Wife!Reader

Summary: As above.

Warnings: NSFW 18+, smut -> minors get tf out

A/N: This is a little shorter than my usual fics i think. He might be a hot psycho with others, but he's a total softie with his wife ❤️💙

"Pumpkin," you gasped quickly. "Oh, fuck, Pumpkin!" He immediately stopped and looked at you with a concerned look on his face.

♡♡

He was thrusting in and out of you with as fast pace as he was able to, pinning your hands above your head.

"Hey, what's wrong?" he asked quietly and let go of your wrists, cupping your face with his hand. "Was i being too rough? Did i hurt you?"

"It just," you panted. "It was becoming too much to handle."

"Do you want to stop? We can end this here if you need to."

"No, no," you hurried to say before he managed to pull himself out of you. "Just, a little slower, okay?"

"You sure you want to continue?"

"Yes, please," you nodded and kissed his lips. "Can we switch?"

He lifted his eyebrow but moved to lay next to you on his back. You were almost always the bottom, so he was surprised by your request, though wasn't against it at all. You sat on top of him, burying his cock back inside you, soft moan escaping your lips as you sat down. You put your hands on his chest, and he grabbed the side of your thighs, helping you move your hips back and forth at a right pace.

You closed your eyes and threw your head back, enjoying every inch of him inside you, nails digging on his chest.

"My god, you feel good," he gasped. He didn't close his eyes, unlike you, only looked at your gorgeous figure as you moved on him on a little faster speed now.

He sat up and wrapped his arms around your waist as you kept moving up and down on him. He started peppering kissed on your neck and along your collarbone, sucking marks on your skin on exactly the right spots. You slid your hand in his hair, pressing on the back of his head and gently massaging his scalp.

He brought his face up and took you in a rough kiss. As you let out a deep moan, his tongue found its way inside your mouth. You were starting to get tired, and he seemed to notice it by your slower movements now. He put his hands firmly on your ass, helping you move better.

"Oh my god, i'm so close," you whimpered, breath hot against his face.

"Come for me, baby," he muttered, locking eyes with you.

Soon after, you felt pleasure waving through your entire body like sparks of electricity. Both of you were complete moaning messes in the end, until he collapsed back on the mattress, pulling you with him, his arms tightly around your back. You were panting hard and he brushed your hair with his fingers as you laid on top of him, not able to move a muscle for a moment.

"You were amazing, honey," he whispered and planted a kiss on your temple.

"You too," you said quietly, completely out of energy and breath.

"I love you," he whispered and pressed his chin on top of your head. "I'm sorry if i hurt you."

You turned your head upwards, looking directly in his eyes. "I'm alright, don't worry." You pressed a short kiss on his lips, causing a small smile to spread on his face.

"You sure?" he repeated with furrowed brows, looking concerned.

"I'm good, honey."

"Good. I'll go and make us a hot bath," he said and got up. You pouted a little when he rolled you away from him and left you to lay there alone.

You stayed lying on the bed, wrapping the blanket around you tighter. He always had a bath with you after you'd had sex, every single time, unless you didn't have much time left to spend together. That was usually if he had to leave for work soon, but tonight he was all yours. Even if you would be left alone, he would still prepare a bath for you.

It would take a while until the bath was going to be ready, so you took your phone from the bedside table and noticed a few messages you had received.

Jae: "i'm NEVER again going to a blind date."

Jae: "call me asap i gotta talk."

Mom ♡: "Did you ask your father about the plans next weekend?"

Mi-hee: "i got the day off, wanna do something on sunday?"

You managed to answer to two of the texts, not having the time to deal with Jae right now, and then only stared at the ceiling, slowly gathering your energy back.

Sooner than you expected, your husband came back and you put your phone back to the bedside table.

"Come on, the bath's ready."

"Carry me." You bit your lip. "Pretty please."

He rolled his eyes, but smiled and took you into his arms, bridal style. "How could i ever say 'no' to you?"

You had been married for the past 7 years but it felt much less, like you were forever stuck in your honeymoon phase.

When you reached the bathroom, he gently let you down to stand on the soft bathroom rug instead of the cold tiles. You noticed that he had poured you two glasses of red wine.

He went into the water first, you right after. You leaned your back against his chest, his arms wrapping around your waist. You let your head fall on the crook of his neck. The water was warm, and you knew you could fall asleep in his embrace right there and then if you closed your eyes any longer than a few seconds.

"Darling?" he said softly after a short silence and rubbed your shoulder.

"Hm?"

"Would you be ready to... try again?"

You knew what he meant. You had waited for him to start this conversation again, but was also afraid of it.

"Really? You want that?" You turned your head to look at him, and he was looking down at you.

"Of course," he said. "But only if you're ready for it."

Both of you wanted to build a family and have a kid or two. You had been pregnant once, but miscarried your baby couple of years ago on your second trimester. After coming home from the hospital, you had been a total wreck for weeks, even months, and felt like you could never have children, even though it wasn't true, and it would be too scary to try again.

"I mean," you mumbled. "Can i be honest?"

"I want you to always be honest with me," he insisted and caressed your cheek with his thumb.

"I'm just," you started, trying to find the correct word. "Scared."

He pressed a kiss on your temple. "I know. I'm scared too, but it could work out this time, you know."

"What if it doesn't?" you asked, brows furrowed. "I don't think i can handle that a second time."

"If anything bad happens, i'll be here for you on every step," he promised.

You didn't say anything and looked away from him. To be honest, you had thought about trying to get pregnant again, but you felt like you had lost all hope in that area. You knew women could experience miscarriage many times and eventually give birth to a healthy baby, but you didn't have the strength for that.

"Should we go to a doctor first?" you asked, feeling nervous. "You know, to see if i have any problems getting pregnant and with pregnancy overall."

"I can book an appointment if you'd like," he smiled.

"Okay."

♡♡

A/N: I wrote this rather fast but hope it turned out okay. I'm trying to get another part for the Ddakji series but struggling to figure out where the story goes so it'll take a while 👉🏻👈🏻

[woozinhos]

can u write nonidol yunho x reader finding out they’re expecting their first child together pls

Notes: made this one small and cute hehe please request more Ateez hehe I’m in my Ateez era fr

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.

You had been feeling off for a few weeks now, but you couldn't quite put your finger on it. You had a few symptoms, like nausea and fatigue, but you didn't think much of it. One day, as you were getting ready for work, you realized that you were late for your period. You had been keeping track for years, and this was the first time that you'd missed it. You took a test, and when the positive result appeared, you were stunned. You couldn't believe that you were pregnant.

You stared at the test for a few moments, trying to process the news. You were pregnant with Yunho's child. You knew that he had always wanted kids, and you were excited to tell him. You thought about how you would surprise him. You decided to make him breakfast in bed and slip the test in with the food. You woke up early the next morning and made your way to the kitchen. You knew that Yunho would be up soon, so you hurried to prepare breakfast.

As you cooked, you carefully tucked the test into a napkin. You placed the food on a tray and brought it to the bedroom. You set the tray down on the bedside table and crawled back into bed next to Yunho. He was still sleeping soundly, his chest rising and falling with each breath. You couldn't contain your excitement. You leaned over and gently shook him awake. "Hey, baby," you whispered. "Wake up. I have a surprise for you." He groaned and opened his eyes, still half-asleep. "What time is it?" he mumbled.

"Early," you replied, trying to keep your voice light and cheerful. "I made you breakfast in bed." He smiled, his eyes still bleary. "You didn't have to do that," he said, sitting up in bed. "But it smells amazing." He leaned over and kissed you on the cheek before noticing the tray on the bedside table.

"What's this?" he asked, reaching for the napkin. You held your breath as he unfolded it, revealing the pregnancy test inside. He stared at the test for a moment, his eyes wide with shock. "Is this...real?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

You nodded, a huge smile spreading across your face. "It's real," you said. "We're going to have a baby." You were starting to worry. He wasn't saying anything, and he was just staring at the test. "Baby?" you asked, gently touching his arm. "Are you okay?" You could see the tears welling up in his eyes, and you felt a wave of relief wash over you. He was crying because he was happy, not because he was upset.

"We're going to be parents," he said, his voice cracking. "I can't believe it." He reached out and pulled you into a tight embrace. "I'm so happy," he whispered into your ear. "You've made me the happiest man in the world."

You wrapped your arms around him, feeling his body trembling with emotion. You knew that this was a big moment for both of you, and that everything was going to change. He stroked your hair, his fingers tangling in your locks as he kissed you deeply. The kiss was filled with passion and excitement, and you could feel his love for you in every movement. When the kiss ended, he pulled back slightly, still holding you close. "We're going to have a family," he said again, as if he was still in disbelief. "A real family."

[yandere-sins]

Hi there long time lurker here for you blog and all your works! I'm not kidding its been a long time and I love your writings. May I request a Jiaoqiu x vidyadhara reader who is a sassy noble person with a sweet and kind heart but she somehow got severely injured?

Thanks for requesting, I'm so glad that you enjoy my blog enough to ascend from the lurking stage! :D Hope to hear more from you in the future!!

»»———————— ♡ ————————««

♡ It's unlikely that Jiaoqiu is the first person to hear about your injury; however, he's the first one you see by your side once you open your eyes again. He sits there, stern-faced, ears twitching. His hand is holding yours almost a bit too tight, with some of his fingers resting on top of your pulse as if he's afraid you'll slip from his grasp. But you don't get the time to ask him why he looks so sullen because he jumps up and calls out to you the second he notices you waking up. Although he hovers over you when it becomes clear that you have regained your conscience, there is a certain distance between you two, and you can't really understand why. Even if you ask if something is the matter, he won't tell you, brushing you off and leaving if you insist on speaking about it. Not for long, just to cool off. After all, he still has to make sure you're fed and taken care of. Jiaoqiu won't allow anyone else to make your food, and he has to be in the room to review any medicine you receive.

♡ The reason why it feels that he's distant is because he is so angry. Angry at you, angry at the circumstances that put you in danger, and the most angry at anyone who hurt or allowed you to get hurt. Jiaoqiu is trying to keep his feelings in check in front of you, but he always knew things would play out like this. Countless times, he told you how reckless you were. That, no matter how good your heart was, you never thought twice before putting your life on the line. You find him flexing his fingers at the murderous thoughts in his mind or have him touch you just a tad too harshly when the feelings interfere with your treatment. He wants to throw all these accusations and emotions at you but refrains. You are a patient, and your recovery is more important to him than anything else.

♡ Especially when your recovery forms you into an adorable little mess for him to figure out. Vidyadhara are tricky organisms, and Jiaoqiu does everything he has to learn from Bailu how to treat you properly and then use the knowledge to the best of his abilities. He spends almost more time on research than actually treating you, but he won't allow a single mistake. Nobody is allowed to treat you except him, so you are also counting on him, only adding more pressure. It's all worth it, though, when he can observe you slowly regain your strength and liveliness, the bruises turning back into your skin color and your wounds closing up. No matter how much sleep he loses over it, he wouldn't miss the nights he spends with you for anything; protecting your sleep, slipping into your bed and cuddling with you when the nightmares act up, and getting to be with you when you wake up in the morning, feeling a little better every day.

♡ For a while, your conditions are a blessing as he gets to take care of you properly. Even just the mundane things, like brushing your hair or helping you wash up and dress yourself, thrill Jiaoqiu. It's almost a little sad that it has to end. He wants you to be healthy again, he really does! But won't you get yourself in trouble again once you don't need to be on bed rest? Won't you fight again, argue again? Are you going to keep coming back more beat-up than the last time for him to fix? Of course, someone as observant as he is notices your growing restlessness and desire to be up and of help. But this is not just about your self-preservation anymore, it is also about him. What will Jiaoqiu do if, one day, you just don't return at all?

♡ He can push these thoughts aside for a while since it takes time for you to be up and running again. But you begin slipping out of his grasp too quickly for his liking. And when you refuse to even be fed any more, telling him you are ready to go back to "normal" food, Jiaoqiu has to make a decision. "One last meal together," he tells you. One more, and he won't complain about you taking control of your own life again. He insists you take another spoon and another—enough so that the sleeping pill can really take effect.

♡ A patient who's still barely able to wake up can't be released from his care, right? You'll probably not feel so great the next few days, and he can't have you collapse in the street. Jiaoqiu has to at least find out the cause! He tells himself it's only for a few more days. Just one more week. He is merely prolonging the bedrest until you are fully healed—many would beg for a chance to get some good rest, and surely you will appreciate it, too. It's all in your best interest, but he certainly doesn't mind spending some extra cuddle time with you, doting on his favorite person.

♡ And while you are asleep, and he knows you are in a stable condition, he can finally take care of the actual problems that caused you so much harm. Because he still can't and refuses to forgive anyone who put their marks on you and made you suffer. They don't deserve his mercy, and he has feelings that he still needs to flush out of his system so he can give you the love and affection you deserve. Jiaoqiu will make things right, so they won't come to bite you in the butt once you are keeping yourself busy again. Even if it'll take a while longer for you to be back on your feet—that gives him enough time to prolong these wretched people's torture as long as they deserve.

[heleninhha]

TRAPPED IN SHADOWS | I/EN

Feels like we had matching wounds, but mine's still black and bruised and yours is perfectly fine now. The Exit, by Conan Gray

Romantic partner: Azriel (ACOTAR) Summary: After Feyre's first two tasks, she finds herself broken and depressed; Greer feels her pain constantly, but something about that night bothered her more than usual. Approximate reading time: 13min Words: 2,5k Warnings: Angst at the beginning, but with a bit of cuteness (like, I just want to hug Lucien forever), and at the end. Mentions of possible triggers. NOTE: I really believe in second chances, but I don't know if it's Sarah's writing or something else, I can't feel that with Tamlin. I'm sorry, it's just a bad feeling.

I: Hiccups at dawn Masterlist | Serieslist | Last chapter | Next chapter

Currently…

She heard the muffled cries through the walls, unshed tears and an anguished heart. As she combed her hair, she could feel the tension in the human shoulders, the sense of desperation seeping through her veins, chasing an almost imperceptible thread of hope.

Greer had hated himself for many years, so many she didn't know where to begin to explain why she was angry, but there was one being who stole all that anger for herself. The center of his disgust, the reason she couldn't just fly as far away as possible.

Amarantha. The name had a metallic taste in her mouth, like boiling blood; the plague that Tamlin had so eagerly led Feyre to believe was only a sickness in once fertile meadows. But like an eagerly orchestrated game, it wasn't just the red-haired fairy who had made her see the world as a battlefield. Yes, she had longed to strangle the blonde since her mother's death, but an idiotic agreement made her run after him like an obedient dog.

Even though the tattoo on the back of her neck burned every time she felt the need for vengeance, she couldn't ignore the empathic agony in her chest.

More screams and Greer wondered if they were just thoughts. Feyre's mind had always been delicate and innocent to her powers, but ever since she'd had the bright idea to seek her love — something the older woman would never understand — her thoughts had been screaming.

She wished she could help her, but she knew that as soon as she dared to look away from the throne, her brother would suffer the consequences.

"If you even think about lying in bed with that filthy smell of booze, I'll slit your throat."

Lucien muttered in disbelief and stepped around the object with some difficulty. He fell to the floor beside the dressing table and hit his head against the dark wall.

"I'll never drink again."

"Liar," the woman whispered, tucking the comb behind the silver jewelry box. "You're just a poor wine addict."

A hum of derision, as if to say the unclean speaking of the unclean, and a metal eye stared at her.

"You look beautiful."

"And you're drunk."

"Yeah, well…" he sobbed, putting his hand over his mouth. "Don't judge me."

Greer smiled weakly and returned the attention. As much as she wanted to yell at her friend for his lack of responsibility in getting his ass into enemy territory, Feyre's screams and the sense of desperation she radiated were exhausting her. Besides, the male didn't need another jerk trying to control his life, especially when he had come so close to losing it a few days before.

"Go take a quick shower and then we'll go to bed."

Lucien didn't answer at first, just stared at her.

"I would have missed you."

The female snorted and shifted her gaze to the rest of the room. Dark silk curtains and an old wooden headboard, a strangely comfortable bed and a small, worn wardrobe, paintings of obscure landscapes and a spacious attached bathroom; everything was contrasting and frightening, but it didn't make her want to vomit as much as the scene she had been forced to watch less than 60 hours ago.

She still remembered the sick feeling in her stomach, the headache and the racing heart; Lucien's desperate screams and an illiterate human reeking of fear and rage. If it hadn't been for Rhysand…

"I mean it."

"Don't talk nonsense." She watched him again as she got up to crouch down towards his friend. "You attract bad things."

"You and this crazy theory about attracting things… There is no such thing."

"Let's not argue, I'm exhausted."

Before the older man could open his mouth, she pulled him up, wrapped her right arm around his back and supported him. He rested his head on her shoulder, accepting the help only as the wine made him dizzy, and tried to keep up with his friend.

"If you'd just listen to me for five minutes," Greer grumbled, kicking open the bathroom door.

"Let's not argue."

"You bastard!"

Lucien had only had five seconds to laugh before he was thrown into the tub of cold water. She had swallowed him alive, and if it hadn't been for the fire in her veins, she would have died for sure. Those pesky shadows…

Was it sunset or dawn? She didn't know, she just watched as the sun filled the clouds with magenta and purple, the orange and gold rays blending together like a happy dance. An infectious rhythm, full of unmistakable passion and…

Greer fell out of bed, her eyes wide and her hands shaking. She scanned the room for any sign of that cruel trick, but all she found were the curtains swaying in the wind and Lucien's soft snoring on the other side of the mattress.

Her hands were still shaking as she stood up, the music of her childhood filling her senses and driving her through painful memories. No one knew that song, no one present on that mountain knew the origin of one of the most beautiful compositions ever created in the world, so how could they torment her?

Amarantha didn't know that Velaris existed, let alone that Rhysand was capable of such generosity to anyone but himself, and so she followed the line of reasoning; no one had the faintest idea of the true nature of the Night Court — at least the part of it that her father had chosen to benefit.

So... what did that mean?

Greer shook her head, ignoring the latent pain in her chest with a sticky feeling called longing, and sat up in bed. She was about to lie down when the music rose in pitch, as if preparing for a triumphant fall, and she snorted. After a shitty day of being forced to be some kind of sick bodyguard for the queen and her Grand Lord, she just wanted to wallow in the strangely soft sheets.

Cauldron had a dark sense of humor, and maybe the fae hated him for it, but she couldn't deny that part of her enjoying reminiscing about old times.

A memory of a field of flowers, an allergic friend, and a contemptuous, animated laugh. Shadows that looked like yours, a plate of hot food and books on the table. Cozy hugs from an older brother, with a kiss on the forehead and a warm good night.

She felt her stomach turn sour, bile rushing up her throat, but she ignored the bad feeling. Instead of running to the bathroom, she pushed back the covers at the foot of the bed, vaguely hearing Lucien's murmur as he turned the mattress over and hugged the pillow in front of her. Then Greer found herself standing at the door, her hand on the doorknob, the shaking stopped, but her heart still racing.

Anyone in their right mind would be in their tenth dream at that time of night, the dark sky dimly lit by the moon, but it seemed everyone had decided to run up and down.

She dodged a grey-haired fae, his steps hurrying as he muttered softly, a book in his arms. Behind him, three others were talking, the middle one staggering from the drink of hours before; they saw her with the door ajar, her hand still on the handle, but outside.

"Good night, Shadow." The man on the left smiled, lips closed, bowing his head in respect, and the others followed.

Greer just blinked, confused and annoyed. She hated that ridiculous nickname, even if it was as sincere as possible.

With a tired sigh, she closed the door and ran her hand over her dark satin nightgown. The soft fabric wrapped around her like a glove, and the unnecessary cleavage at the back made her want to scream. If she could, she would have taken Lucien's robe, but she didn't want another argument with Tamlin.

A painful sob echoed in her mind, a sharp pain tearing at her chest. She hoped it would pass after a few hours, that Feyre would overcome her melancholy and raise her head in the darkness, but apparently she was too broken.

Greer sometimes saw herself in her; she remembered Andras' death, how Tamlin had been possessed, but also hopeful. Days later, the human had arrived at the castle, a clear, seething rage that made the female smile in fascination. But those feelings seemed to fade, giving way to the sick love that Feyre believed to be real.

She tried to warn her several times, tried so hard to tell the girl that she was putting herself in a place where she wouldn't come back alive, but her prohibition to see her without anyone around made it difficult. Lucien helped her most of the time, sneaking through the spell of the agreement between his Grand Sire and his friend, but always ended up listening to the older man's bullshit.

Another sob, deeper this time, almost as if she was too exhausted. The fae quickened her pace, letting the music guide her through the dark corridors of the mountain. More drunken men and women, sneaking through the darkness of the night and rushing to the nearest rooms; she thought it was all just one big brothel, the smell of sex permeating every corner she dared to explore, but she couldn't stop at that moment, not when she was so curious to know who was tormenting her.

A low whisper followed by a tight feeling in her chest. Feyre was sitting on her toes, hunched over, staring at her hands as if they had plunged a knife into her stomach. She took deep breaths, trying to reach all the oxygen in the world because it never seemed to be enough, and Greer noticed that her heartbeat was racing as well.

You could call it empathy or pity, but the female crouched down in the darkness, mimicking the position of another, a few steps away from the human's cell, and hugged herself. Staring at the sickening scene before her, murmurs of Tamlin and what am I going to do? followed each other for a few minutes, loud tears fading to silence.

She dropped her head to the wall, letting the weight of her body collapse against the cold, dark stone, and followed Feyre's lost gaze to the ceiling, searching for whatever had caused her that terrible crisis.

Then the music seemed to double in volume, almost as if to greet the older woman. She smiled, holding back her own tears, finally understanding.

Shadows crept across the floor like fog, and Greer sensed the presence of a third person. He didn't need to look to know who the conspicuous essence belonged to, but he allowed himself to blink as Rhysand hid behind a beam of darkness, almost imperceptibly and in the posture he had always worn.

He didn't see her, though, too focused on the shattered human to worry about anyone else. After all, who would be crazy enough to go down there in the middle of the night?

The cold fog wrapped itself around the ankles of the others, becoming agitated and emotional, just like its owner. She wanted to run and hug him, but she knew the consequences, so she just pushed the darkness away from her brother before it didn't look like night anymore. Tightening her embrace, she sank further into that tiny peak and turned her eyes back to Feyre.

She was calmer, her breathing calmer and the whispering stopped. She seemed more melancholy than desperate, and then came the realization: there were only two days left until the last task.

An avalanche of disapproving yet hopeful thoughts flooded the eldest's mind, and she wished desperately that the human could close her mind.

Listening to the reflections of others had always been something to be proud of, but Greer knew it was complete torture to push the boundaries of someone who hadn't built a good wall. It was almost as if they pushed her into the other person's confusion, and at that moment it was Feyre.

Feyre, who had sometimes found her hiding in the library, her glasses at the end of her nose and the smell of tea filling the room, but who hadn't touched her. Feyre who looked at her strangely during the dinners she was forced to attend, but who smiled kindly at her. Feyre, who met her in the bedroom corridor at dawn, but who never judged her by the smell of Lucien on her skin.

More on impulse than anything else, the fae released the shadows again, allowing them to keep her company, and smiled with her lips closed as the mist danced around the human. She sniffed deeply, straightened up to sit with her legs crossed, and ran her hands through the strange smoke. It was icy, almost like fresh snow, but oddly comforting.

A moderately loud laugh filled the room, filling Greer's heart with an almost masculine pride. The younger woman smiled, her thoughts less desperate and melancholy, and turned her wrist, shadows engulfing her arm and the tattoo that had robbed her of her nights of sleep — and all the shit she was going through.

Rhysand frowned, leaning away from the pillar as if it were all an illusion. Then he stood up and looked around to see who else had this rare gift. Azriel was the only one he knew who had it, but this was different; it was more like the darkness being manipulated, duplicated to do the bidding of the person commanding it.

Greer left her hiding place before her brother could find her. She knew she'd be finished if she was caught, especially if he looked into her eyes, those irises she'd never been very good at hiding.

Before she knew it, she was leaning against her bedroom door, shadows disappearing through the cracks as she got rid of the evidence. She took a deep breath, her right hand over her heart, telling it to calm down.

"You look like you've seen a ghost."

Ignoring Lucien, the fae remained leaning against the wood until everything was back to normal. Then she mentally counted, just as her mother had taught her to do in moments of fear.

One, two, three, four, five…

She took a last breath and locked the door before walking over to his side of the bed. The man comforted her, even though he had no idea what had happened, and ran his hand down her back.

"Thank you," she whispered, looking at Lucien with endless gratitude.

"Always." He smiled and pulled her to lie down.

Greer settled down on the mattress, forced herself to close her eyes, and hugged her friend. Grabbing him, she wrinkled the tattered shirt he wore as pajamas, and he continued the caress, always on that particular spot on his back.

You'll be free, he thought, and she sighed, knowing that the lowered wall wasn't out of laziness.

I think I'm in love with Greer… Taglist: @lenasardn @galaxystern08 

[silverselfshippingchaos]

I fucking HATE how the fandom treats m.ine. it's so bad 😭

[longagoitwastuesday]

Rereading my own posts about JJK and the tags I left in those posts is making me want to chew wood. I knew virtually nothing but yeah yeah. The parallels between Gojo and Sukuna not only exist, but they are key. Yeah, Gojo indeed knows, trusts and relies on the people around his age he interacts with in that flippant, intimate and vulnerable way (Ijichi, Shoko, Nanami, Utahime); they were his classmates and childhood friends. Yes, Megumi and Gojo do go way back, I wasn't hallucinating it; in the last chapters, this will weight on the scenes in which Megumi laughs and smiles faintly. Yes, Gojo does sincerely care about things and the kids, and tries his best to do good and be good, even if he's also annoying and rude. Yes, indeed it is all very lonely. Yes, indeed there's ontological alienation. Yes, indeed love is like a curse, it is even stated that way. Yes, indeed last words doom, and keep people going; that too is a blessing and a curse, like love is. Yes, there's significance in Gojo using "boku". Yes, "when granted everything, you can't do anything... but just die peacefully" does apply to Gojo's life miserably. Yes, indeed there is a mix of longing for a normal life and being drunk on power, the feeling that one is hindering the future generations and a desire to make it better for them. Yes, indeed it is a mix of selfish and selfless motives. Yes, Gojo musing about Nobara's power being intriguing is indeed shady. Yes, Gojo's death will be done in a way that imply continuity kinda similarly to Cantor's hypothesis on the cardinality of the Continuum. And so on and on. Unfair how well constructed this manga is. Unfair how much wasted potential there is in it too. I can't stop thinking about it. I can't stop being frustrated about it all. It's so good. It's so unsatisfactory. The last chapter made me smile because oh it made so much sense, of course; it also broke my heart, because of course. I wish I had never gotten into it. It's given me a lot of joy, despite everything. I've drowned in remembrance. I've had a lot of fun. And in short, I love it, quite honestly. I can't even wish I didn't. I resent it, but I can't even wish I didn't. I love it, it's both a blessing and a curse; but that's how it always goes when it comes to love.

[vialism]

.

[lieutenantselnia]

Internet archive I love you❤️❤️❤️

[pyrriax]

ANYWHO goodnight tumblr i'll be back on the art grind tomorrow i think 🙏

[lucyvaleheart]

.

[comfortlesshurt]

shhh, I know I talk about my children too much. but you can't stop my love

forgot to include this at first, whoops, but I also added a little daily par tracker so I can see it all in one place! there's a separate sheet where i update my word count every time i think about it, and then this table uses a vlookup to find the most recent word count and show it as a percent and a daily par to finish by the listed due date. (the par column compares between the overall goal and the subgoal and lists whichever par is higher between the two)

[malusokay]

Little things that improved my life 𝜗𝜚˚⋆

Accepting my sleep schedule. I'm a night owl; I focus at night, I'm calm at night, I'm motivated at night. For a long time, I tried to fight this since everyone always preaches getting up early, but since I started accepting my natural sleep schedule, I've been feeling a lot better and have become way more productive.

"drink more water". TEA. Tea is the secret here. I will be honest, I hate drinking water; it doesn't matter if I have a cute water bottle or a cute glass, I still hate it. TEA.

Replying quickly. I used to be one of those people who get a text message and think, "Oh, I'll reply to that later", and then just forget about it entirely. Now, I text back as soon as I see the message. This has not only improved my texting anxiety (which I cause on my own by now replying and then feeling bad) but also deepened my connection to my friends. <3

Keeping my circle small and being okay with that. Over the past months, I've had this sudden urge to expand my social circle and get to know more and more people, especially after I moved in August. However, this quickly ended in what I like to call my "social burnout". I was tired, annoyed, and overwhelmed. It took a few weeks for it to settle, but I've come to the conclusion that I would much rather have a smaller circle of people who I trust and love deeply than a huge group of friends, and that's totally okay.

Wearing what I like. Even though I live in a big city, I'd still say that my style can sometimes be a bit more extravagant than what most people wear, another point is that I'm very uncomfortable with pants so I only wear skirts, which is also considered a bit odd where I live. But over the past years, I've come to accept that and have become so sure of myself and found such comfort in my style that I now just wear whatever I like, and it makes every day a little bit nicer.

Reading and writing for pleasure. Reading books outside of my studies and spending time researching topics that simply interest me is such a great way to calm your mind. Same for writing, I always like to say that to write is to think; putting your thoughts on paper in cohesive and well-crafted sentences that you can then reread and think over again is such a liberating thing to do.

Reaching out more. fuck the whole "double texting" and "no contact" thing. If you want to speak to someone because they mean something to you, then just do it. Unless they specifically asked for space, you shouldn't feel bad about wanting to be in touch with them. Many even really appreciate it when you show that you truly care. Let's stop the nonchalant act, and instead, let's face deep emotions and true vulnerability. <3

As always, please feel free to share your own little insights and things that helped you improve comments! <3

my insta: @ malusokay

love ya ･:*₊‧✩

[barrenclan]

"The Vaster World"

Well! This is it! The very last epilogue of "Pinepaw and the Forgotten World"!

This epilogue in particular took me awhile to write, because I had to get it exactly how I wanted. Pinewing and Cormorantleaf's relationship is one of the main focuses of the story, and I really felt I needed to explore it the way it deserved. Especially important to me was showing that despite how much they love each other, there's still a ton of baggage and difficulities they needed to work out. I honestly think it would be unrealistic for two characters with so much trauma to just skip off happily together, but I also wanted to emphasize how they could still reconcile in the end. Not all relationships work out, but Pinewing and Cormorantleaf both felt that the other was extremely important to them, and the relationship was something they both wanted. So they were willing to put in the work of building it back up.

I had a ton of fun drawing older Pinewing and Cormorantleaf. I started doodling Pinewing with full facial hair something like a year ago, and I've been so desperate to finally get it into the comic since. It feels so right for him, like his perfect final form. After a life full of pressure and difficulty Pinewing just wants to be a happy old man who gets to kiss his husband every day, and sometimes profesy the future writ flesh. Goodbye, my little blue cat; I'm gonna miss you.

The title of this epilogue comes from "Mimsy Were The Borogoves" by Lewis Padgett: "They would survive, but they would not know how to swim downstream, to the vaster world of the ocean.”

In the end, the whole project wraps up at 64,501 words, 370 pages, and two and a half years of production time. I started this project expecting it to be a minor thing I occasionally drew on the side, something a few people might find interesting. The enormously positive response has absolutely blown me away and continues to do so, and I am forever so grateful that thousands of people can enjoy and meaningfully relate to this story.

Thank you, as always, to everyone who has commented, shared, reblogged, theorized, made fanart, made fanfiction, told their friends, liked it, or just read it at all. Though I won't go into the specific details, PATFW is an extremely personal and cathartic creation of mine, so the fact that many of you have also told me that it connected with you on an emotional level is genuinely heart-touching. I appreciate all your readership through these years. It means a lot.

-Raz

Previous < > You are at the end

[keferon]

Chapter 2 of Blurr storyline >:D

“Actually” says Swerve ”I'm an alien.”

“Heh” giggles Blurr ”sorry, my head is all cloudy, I thought you said you were an alien.”

Part one

Holy shit I actually managed to finish it…..Oh. My god.

Under the cut⤵️

Is it stupid to miss someone who doesn't even exist?

Probably yes, but hey, Swerve already has several degrees, might as well get another one. A degree in Stupidity or something. Who cares?

For the first few days after waking up from his coma, he feels like he's going crazy. Everybody has realistic dreams, right? The ones where you can scrutinize every angle, memorize every face and smell and sound. The ones that make you lie still for a while after waking up, grasping at every thing you can. Trying to memorize everyone you meet, imprint them in your head.

Because apart from your mind, they don't exist anywhere else. So that's your only way to keep them.

It never works. Obviously. Details slip away. Impressions fade. Just a couple days, and you won't be able to recall anything but the main events from memory.

Wait, hell, not days. Cycles.

His life is a weird, pathetic, fantastical circus. Earth term. Heh. There are no circuses on Cybertron, haha!

But Swerve remembers. And the word circus, and the smell of asphalt, and rains that were made of water not acid. Remembers the English language. Can speak it fluently, even if you wake him up in the middle of the night.

Remembers his work schedule and remembers which company makes the best details. And Tailgate with his bright blue uniform and Wheeljack with his endless experiments and Swindle with his expensive coat and of course...yeah, no, don't think of Blurr, don't think of Blurr, don't. Don't.

He'd heard about it. Read about it, too. Mechs waking up from comas and doing wild things. Some forgot how to speak at all, some gained a new skill, some lived a whole life while they slept.

Articles tell Swerve, don't worry, what you've experienced isn't unique. The doctor tells Swerve that the same thing has happened to others before you, it will be okay, it will pass.

Swerve isn't sure he wants it to pass.

He's been in a coma for who knows how long. The medic said it was caused by an internal trauma that decided to suddenly get worse. One minute he's recharging , the next he's gone. Internal injuries are insidious.

So it turns out. One day he just disappeared from the world because he was busy slowly dying in his room and no one noticed until a thief tried to sneak in. The only one who came to him was a Mech who wanted to steal his stuff. Huh.

That feels revolting. Swerve liked to think he had enough friends. Or at least enough good connections. Enough those who should have noticed his absence, right?

Apparently not. His shifts at work were reassigned, his contacts never texted him first, his...

His small persona wasn't important enough for anyone to notice his disappearance.

Would his human coworkers notice? Would Tailgate have noticed? Or Jazz? Swindle?

Jazz would have noticed, he was always surprisingly attentive when it came to his friends. And he was friends with just about everybody.

Swindle would probably get upset about the money he'd lost.

It's amazing how much his brain-- wait, no, his processor. How much his processor could create to entertain him. It's a more elaborate world than the most complex series Swerve has ever known. And that scrap had forty-six seasons and fifteen encyclopedias!

People, Earth, a bunch of new languages and rules and all for the sake of the end being like, OOPS! ...it was all a dream. Hilarious. Worst plot twist ever. Swerve hates it when stories go in this direction even more than when they kill off their characters.

In his humble opinion, death is better than the revelation that none of the experiences made sense or had any value. In terms of writing scripts obviously. Haha.

He's busy roaming haphazardly through his own memory. He's looking, comparing, trying to find inconsistencies or things that don't make sense. All the stuff that usually gives away the fact that what happened was a dream.

Most of his memories are occupied by--No. Frag.

Don't think about Blurr, don't think about Blurr, don't think..

He's thinking about Blurr. A lot.

Blurr occupies a surprisingly important role in his comatose dreams.

In the time he spent just looking at him, you could hand-build an entire Mech. Maybe even three. Swerve remembers picking up every bit of merch he could reach with his paycheck. Watching hundreds of videos and buying every new themed drink even if it was a flavor he didn't like.

Then spent a surprising amount of time resenting Blurr for not living up to his fantasies.

Blurr's behavior hadn't helped either, of course, but now, looking back at the past himself Swerve thinks that.. Oh wow. You weren't just annoyed at him. You blamed him for ruining your beautiful fantasy. You were having so much fun entertaining yourself with thoughts of this marvelous image, and he came along and corrupted it. Poisoned the well you drank joy from.

But that's not quite true, Swerve thinks.

Blurr was more complicated than that. But exactly how, he'll never know. All he has are his memories, and those memories are cut short at the most interesting point.

Swerve knows this plot twist. The asshole character that no one loves at the last second turns out to not be what everyone thought, but it's too late.

Oh no, he's not an evil jerk, he's actually traumatized. Oh no, he wasn't bad, he was actually secretly helping everyone. You thought he was awful? Well now you're going to feel awful reading fanfics.

Serevus Spayne didn't actually betray the main character's dad, no no, he was in love with him! Bam. Drama.

Swerve isn't a big fan of this stuff. He likes his characters developed properly. But he can't deny the appeal of a character leaving behind a bunch of questions you thought you knew the answer to.

Uggh.

The doctor was wrong. These thoughts don't go away. These memories don't dull.

Swerve just boils in them, constantly getting stuck in his own head. Sometimes he puts English words into his speech and everyone looks at him strangely. Sometimes he reflexively says some inside joke and no one gets it and he's left standing there with an awkward smile. Because. Guys, you don't understand, if my coworkers were here they'd think it's hilarious. I promise, in my fantasy world, it's funny.

When he gets a job on one of the Autobot ships, he accepts it thinking it might be a good distraction from his thoughts.

When he happens to see Prowl with a tiny human on his shoulder in the corridor of that ship, he thinks he's lost his mind.

The whole thing. The whole load-bearing structure on which his picture of the world has been held suddenly gives a lurch. Living your life in a super realistic dream is wild, but meeting a character from your dream in real life??

Freaking cursed.

Jazz looks puzzled by his reaction, but all Swerve can think about are two things.

One, if Jazz is here, does that mean everything else was real, too???

Two - holy shit, Jazz is tiny.

It never occurred to him. But he didn't really know what size humans were. Well, sure, he could measure it in numbers. But he was among humans himself. And about the same size. He was generally even shorter than most of them.

If Jazz is so small, he can't imagine how tiny Tailgate would be. Or--

He can feel his spark freeze. In fact, he can almost hear the sound of a string breaking in his processor. Does that mean Blurr is real too? Real and just as tiny and currently dead? Because Swerve was there but was too convinced it was all just a dream to help?

He's going to get sick.

He needs to talk to Jazz right now.

____________

Swerve taps his fingers nervously on the countertop. Come on. You're good at talking. Talking is your greatest skill. All you have to do is tell someone else about your comatose hallucinations and hope they don't think you're crazy.

They're sitting at a table at the bar. More specifically Swerve and Prowl are sitting at the table, and Jazz is sitting right on the table. (God he's so small).

“So uh. I got injured a while back and...uh...well, it got worse, turned out important systems were affected and I kind of. I was in a coma. For a really long time.”

Jazz frowns

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

He speaks in a mildly wonky Common, Swerve notes to himself. He waves his servo a little too cheerfully in response.

“'Ay it's no big deal really. I saw a whole other world while I was asleep and like. See, I thought it was just my fantasies, but it seemed very real and...”

Swerve mentally crosses his fingers.

“And it was about this planet called Earth and about people who were building their own inanimate huge robots to fight huge aliens and their boss wanted to launch Mechs into space, so he picked the best of the pilots named Jazz and sent him on this test mission and...”

Jazz looks at him with huge eyes before switching to English in surprise.

“Mech, what the hell?”

“...And we lost him...” finishes Swerve with a sad smile.

Before thinking for a bit, and adding.

“I'm going to show you a trick I can do.”

And then projects his holoform onto the table in front of him.

This. It's weird. Not in a way that would tilt it in the direction of unnatural. More like walking around in his comfy indoor pajamas right in the middle of the street. Being human is familiar to him, but being human amongst huge Cybertronians? Strange. And a little creepy.

Prowl looks confused.

Jazz looks absolutely frantic.

“SWERVE????”

Swerve doesn't even manage to respond, only to smile in relief before Jazz rakes him into his arms. In his holoform, Jazz feels right again. He's taller than Swerve and oh boy, he's alive and unharmed. To think everyone thought he was dead, staying up nights trying to find what was left of him, and he was on the other side of the universe the whole time?

Swerve chuckles into Jazz's shoulder. Then picks him up and spins him around a couple times just because he needs something to get his energy out. Man, it's nice to hug people. Warm and soft, eight out of ten.

Jazz pulls away but still stays standing very close. Swerve can literally see the happy stars in his eyes.

“Dude, I'm not complaining but what...how???? You just kinda..."

Swerve laughs and twitches his eyebrows playfully.

“I still speak English, you don't have to torture yourself with Common.”

“Oh thank fuck.” Jazz throws his hands up dramatically “you're my favorite person right now.”

There is a polite click of the vocalizer resetting above their heads.

“I” Prowl says “very glad you two are happy but I'd like some explanation”

Swerve presses his head into his shoulders guiltily. Prowl has the unique ability to always sound like you've done something wrong in front of him.

Although Jazz doesn't seem to feel the same way?

“Short version - I sleepwalked my holoform to another planet.”

He pauses dramatically.

“The long version is...”

Jazz raises his hand

“What's a holoform?”

Swerve sighs.

“It's a holographic avatar that I can project using a holomatter generator. Sort of like a remote controlled game character.”

Jazz whistles impressed. And then immediately turns back to Prowl

“Have you been able to do that all this time too?“

Prowl hums

“I can create an avatar, but it takes a lot of practice to make it at least believable. And to fully perceive the world through it takes even more. It's a whole new technology. What Swerve does is essentially an art form. Sophisticated and impressively detailed may I add.”

Swerve shrugs shyly. He's still using the holoform to stand on the table next to Jazz. Looking up to speak to Prowl isn't exactly comfortable, but Jazz definitely looks like he's been missing the human presence. Swerve isn't human, but he might as well be.

“Thank you. Yes! Uh. Anyway, it seems while I was in a coma my processor projected my avatar onto Earth and I...let's just say I lived there for a while.”

Jazz laughs

“Dude. So you're telling me you were basically sleepwalking the whole time?”

“ I was.”

Prowl frowns.

“But the range limit of the holomatter generator is only four hundred miles...”

“.... I had a lot of practice...”

Jazz claps his hands.

“You learned a whole other language! Got an ID!. You had a job!!!”

“I got carried away,” Swerve admits.

Jazz scratches the back of his head, still looking very amused

“How many degrees did you get? Haha wait no, I have a better question, did you pass your driver's license?”

“Two. And I failed my driver's exam.”

“Dude you are literally a car without a driver's license!” collapses Jazz on the table with laughter.

Swerve blows the hair out of his face

“Says you who retook the physical several times. You couldn't pass the "being human" exam.”

Jazz just wheezes incoherently in response. Prowl looks alarmed.

“Don't worry, that's him getting excited. So...where have I been...”

Swerve nervously shoves his hands into his pockets

“...Do either of you two know where Earth is?”

Prowl twitches his door wings

“No. Since Jazz was teleported we don't have much clues.”

Swerve grimaces. Scrap. Of course nothing's going to be that easy. He's also been, like,....teleported.

He stands there for a couple minutes and just feels fifteen different emotions rise up in his head at once. A crooked, unsteady smile creeps across his face.

He's thinking.

Oh hell, yeah! I knew it wasn't a dream!

Then he remembers the mess he left behind.

Oh, no, it wasn't a dream.

Jazz puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Swer... Swerve? Dude, are you okay?”

“Ah frag..” Swerve says weakly ”it wasn't a dream.”

Jazz looks...puzzled.

“Is that bad?”

Swerve remembers his friends. Remembers the Mecha program. Remembers fire and smoke and screams and rumbling and crackling flames. Ashes flying through the air and the smell of burnt wires. He remembers blood and debris and...

“It's...complicated.”

This wasn't just a stupid plot twist he'd dreamed up because he'd watched too many shows. This wasn't a hallucination or a disembodied fantasy that just happened to linger in his head. This was real. His friends exist out there somewhere. His work and his collections and his little apartment...

And Blurr. Was real. Or still is? Swerve doesn't know. Blurr wasn't a product of his imagination. He was real and what he did was real and Swerve left him there alone, bleeding and trapped in rubble and tiny and...

Hahahahah oh fUCK.

He doesn't like this plot. It's too much. Too much to handle, too complicated, too ambiguous.

It's also probably too late.

But he can't leave it like this, right? Blurr went into the damn burning building just because of the possibility that there might be someone alive in there.

And Swerve doesn't even have to go through the flames. He has to look. He has to try at least.

Jazz glares at him with a worried look on his face

“ That expression you have...”

Swerve puts the smile back on his face.

“I need to get to Earth.”

___________________

Swerve is not an idiot.

Or maybe more accurately an idiot, but with several degrees.

He's well aware that finding Earth in space with only a description of it is impossible. Which leaves him with two options.

Ask the Quintessons. Or look for it himself.

The first sounds like death. The second like coma. Swerve has exquisite enough taste to know which is better.

He just needs to do some preliminary reserch.....

Jazz, now back inside his Mech looks doubtful.

“You're not going to die suddenly and for no reason, are you?”

Swerve laughs.

“Pfffff what, no of course not, would I kill myself hah. No no, look I'll just put myself in stasis for a bit. Send myself to Earth. And try to figure out where it is from there. Get the coordinates. If I'm lucky, I can see what Space Bridge the local Quintessons use. All you'll have to do is wake me up after a while.”

“It's not harmful?”

Swerve makes an uncertain gesture with his hand...servo.

“If I have enough fuel. And an additional connection to an external generator.”

Jazz tilts his head

“ Why are you so eager to get to Earth? Don't get me wrong, I miss it too and want to go back, but.”

Swerve bites his knuckles.

“ I have some unfinished business?”

“Pshhhh you sound like a ghost.”

Swerve only laughs in response.

_______________

Concentration is tricky.

Swerve tries to think about Earth. And not to think about the fact that he doesn't know where it is. If he's already been there once, he might as well go there again yes? In theory? Perhaps?

Except for the possibility that his sleepwalking just takes him to random planets. That would be very inconvenient. It would be a whole new level of lost

Shit. No. Earth. Think Earth.

What's he even gonna do when he gets there? How far away is it? Swerve is very talented with his holomatter generator, but if it's really far away... maybe he should reset some settings.

He mentally starts going through his options. Does he need tangibility? Probably not. Come to think of it, it would only make him more vulnerable and take a lot of energy. Yeah, the tangibility has to go. What else? Touch, too. Sight and hearing should stay, that's not even a question, but colors and textures are not really necessary.

The amount of detail and picture quality can be reduced as well. His holoform will become colorless and grainy and will probably ripple with static, but he'll survive it.

After he finishes making changes to his holoform he thinks about his old stuff left in his house. Then about the posters. Then reminds himself that he needs to focus on the goal or he'll never find Blurr and...oh FUCK his phone! Where was his phone when he disappeared? Was it found?? There were so many personal things on that phone, he's hoping the phone was burned under the rubble. Either that or the arriving investigators will find his browser history and he'll go into another coma from pure embarrassment.

He blinks dazedly when he realizes he has loads of rocks in front of his eyes. Oh..Did he screw up? Did he end up on the wrong planet? Is it a cave or--

Then he notices the odd shape of the “rocks” and. Oh, no. It's not a cave. It's charred concrete debris.

This is the place where he was last.

He hastily looks around. Anxiety creeps up the back of his neck, makes him feel like something slippery and cold is crawling over his skin. There is nothing but ruins all around.

Blurr is not here. The place where his Mech was lying is empty.

Which means he was at least found and dragged out. Dead or alive.

Swerve's bites his knuckles. Okay.

All right.

He's got things to do.

_______________

He's trying to stay out of sight. Which isn't hard, considering he's just a hologram. At first, he just sneaks around in the quiet areas. Then proceeds to do a facepalm and start teleporting. Think, Swerve. Did you read all those comic books for nothing? Superheroes who couldn't really use their superpowers creatively always annoyed him. And he does, in fact, have a superpower. Gotta get creative, right?

He stops and looks at himself again. His holoform is going static and is a dull white color. He thinks for a bit, and then shrinks himself. Thinks some more, and makes himself almost transparent. There's no way he could pass as a normal human right now, so he'd better just do his best to avoid being seen by anyone.

He looks around thoughtfully. Hmm. Even if he's going to be absolutely tiny, he needs to make sure no one sees him, otherwise the whole base will think the Quintessons are now spying on them through holograms or something.

Breaking the rules feels...it's exciting.

All his ..human life here he hadn't thought about it, but if he threw away the rules he was used to about what people could or couldn't do...

He looks up in a sudden rush of sly genius. All people look under their feet when they walk, but how many look up? And how many of them notice the barely visible tiny holoform hiding just behind the blinding lamps?

The answer is probably none.

Swerve projects himself onto the ceiling and mentally pats himself on the shoulder for his impressive intellectual accomplishments. A creativity degree should definitely be a thing.

A degree in spying on the Quintessons' ships wouldn't hurt him either.

Fortunately sneaking onto their ship turns out not to be that difficult. Swerve makes himself absurdly tiny and hides in the darkest corners that no one would ever think to look into. Why hasn't anyone thought of using holoforms for spying before? Could he be the first to think of it? He doesn't know, but he mentally decides to patent the idea.

Finding the Space Bridge is surprisingly easy. The local Quintesson fleet is clearly used to being the dominant force in space. And that's generally logical. Even if humanity collects a mountain of money from somewhere to throw a dozen Mechs into space - there will be thousands of monsters waiting for them. In such a situation, you don't have to hide, the guards are enough.

Well done, well done, don't hide, Swerve thinks, copying the coordinates and address of the space bridge to himself. You have absolutely nothing to fear here, he thinks, so stay where you are and don't move. Please and thank you.

Once the coordinates are obtained, he... has some freedom to explore. And he uses it for probably the most boring-sounding thing in the world. He returns to his usual workplace.

It’s simple. As damning as the Mecha program was, Swerve loved his job in it. He loved his position in the assembly shop. And he missed his friends.

He quickly teleports through several rooms, continuing to hide close to the lamps. Tailgate is here. Alive and unharmed. Wheeljack is too, though his face has some scars added to it. It's great to see them again, even if he can't talk to them right now. No one will probably react well to a grainy unexplainable hologram. He's just glad to know they're okay and honestly, the last thing he needs is paranoid Onslaught installing extra signal jammers.

It takes time to find Blurr. Partly because Swerve is terrified of what he might find if he started looking. So he goes to check the death lists first, and only after flipping through and re-reading them three times does he finally exhale in relief.

Blurr's name isn't there.

So his smug, shiny ass must be around here somewhere.

He checks the hangar. Flips through the Mech launch logs and feels an uncomfortable knot begin to form in his chest. Blurr's Mech has never been repaired or launched even once since the incident. Its plating has been replaced with new, well polished, and put in a prominent place where anyone who wants to can take a picture of it. But all the internal systems are destroyed. This machine hasn't been used for anything other than being a beautiful exhibit.

That's...something's wrong.

He checks offices and schedules as well as eavesdropping on a few conversations and ends up secretly following Swindle, who is arguing loudly with someone on the phone. He says something about deals and how he doesn't need anyone meddling in his business. Then he talks about how he's got everything under control and the person on the phone is “a dumbass who's making drama out of nothing” and that “he doesn't need anyone's handouts". Then he sighs and says, “you know how celebs are. Dumb and dramatic. You can't take their words literally.”

Then drops the call and for a couple seconds looks like he's just had a large bill taken right out of his hand. Curses again, but in a quieter voice. Leafs through his contacts and stops at the one signed 'free ice'.

“Blurr? Where are you? Wha...ah, no wait. No, the advertising agency called. No, liste...Can you shut up for one second?Where are you?

Uh-huh....... Uh-huh.Okay.

Give me half an hour...okay, yeah.”

This is it, Swerve thinks.

He shrinks himself further and teleports under the collar of Swindle's coat.

He wants to take a look. Just. Just a peek. Make sure everything's all right. Then he can go about his original mission in peace. He watches Swindle get in his car and drive off somewhere. Swerve doesn't recognize this part of town. The houses here are much nicer than where he lived. The streets are cleaner.

He tucks himself further under the coat collar. He's not going to be a stalker or anything, but he's worried and he doesn't have time to wait for Blurr himself to show up for work. Just one little look and that's it.

Swindle's car stops outside a beautiful, shiny hospital. Swerve nervously tries to bite his knuckles, but remembers he's disabled touch in his holoform. Shit? Shit.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shi

Blurr looks like a mangled corpse.

Okay, not really. His left side that faces the door to the hospital room looks like a mangled corpse and that's the first thing that catches Swerve's eye when he's inside.

Blurr is pale and thin and his hands are covered in bandages. The left side of his face has been turned into an absolute ugly nightmare. A piece of his ear is missing. In the place of the left eye is a creepy empty hole.

Suddenly Swerve realizes why Blurr didn't show up for work. You can't even show him to his coworkers like that, not just to the public.

Blurr turns his head and the spell breaks. His lips stretch into a cocky smile.

“'Got bored without me Swindle?”

Swindle doesn't show the slightest emotion at the gruesome sight. He casually pulls a chair over to the hospital bed and sits down.

“Shockwave is trying to sneak a new project into the program. And he's slowly swaying investors to his side, using you as an excuse. Tells everyone you're a poor martyr he can save if only he's given the green light from above.”

Blurr wrinkles his nose.

“Not that he's wrong. The doctors say I need to pick a new career because with this...” he jerks his head to the left implying his damaged half, ” neither racing nor piloting is an option for me anymore. I'm out of your project.”

Then he stops talking for a few seconds and raises an eyebrow curiously.

“You wouldn't have come here in person just to say that. Why are you really here?”

Swindle adjusts his glasses

“Have I ever told you why I made the contract with you?”

“Because you like money” Blurr says without hesitation.

Swindle lets out a quiet chuckle.

“Fair point. But money wasn't my only priority.”

He pauses for a second. Gets up. Draws the curtains in the room. Checks to make sure no one is outside the door.

Goes back to his seat.

“You didn't see what the Mecha project was like before. Brutality and absolute disregard for human rights multiplied by a thousand. People were desperate and no one cared to maintain any decency.”

He raises his hand when Blurr rushes to say something.

“No no, listen to me. If you think things are bad now, you're right. But it used to be much. Much, much worse.”

Swindle sighs and adjusts his glasses again

“Vortex was taken as a boy. He wasn't even out of high school when they shoved him into the lab. Me and Onslaught were pulled right out of the college exams. The others were no better, although they were usually a little older. My point is that it was allowed. It's what the superiors could do and no one told them no.”

Blurr tilts his head and gets a little all turned around to see Swindle better with his right eye.

“But you... found a way to change that, didn't you?

Swindle rubs the bridge of his nose

“I have no power over my own superiors. But Onslaught and I have come up with a plan. Look. I'll put it in simple terms for you. Above me is my boss, and above him is another boss, and so on but at the very end of that chain are people from the government. The investors. So we figured out a way to cut through the chain of command and influence them directly. Make them worry about us. It's a kind of social shield. Onslaught is a genius.”

Blurr blinks.

“Why are you telling me all this.”

Swindle takes off his hat and just. Crumples it in his hands. The back of his head shows numerous scars and the glint of tiny metal implants barely visible behind his hair.

“You're that shield right now, Blurr. You can't leave.”

Blurr's eye widens

“Is that why you insisted on ‘befriending’ me with all those bullshitters?”

“I needed to make sure that in their minds we weren't just a military unit. To keep them thinking that we're as human as they are. So I gave Project Mecha a face.” He tugs on the hat again, “Your face.”

Blurr runs his fingers through his hair

“Shockwave can't do whatever he wants cause...because of me his efforts would risk going public and people wouldn't like it and it would ruin the reputation of our investors-and-they'd-cut-off-his-funding.”

Swindle puts his hat back on.

“Exactly.’ That's why he's being so persistent right now. He knows you're vulnerable and he wants to capitalize on the opportunity. Make you part of his new project and tell the world about it. Make publicity his weapon, too.”

The lamp above them flickers faintly. Blurr takes a breath. Long and tired and exhausted and. a bit doomed.

Swindle puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Please. Don't leave. At least not now. And don't let Shockwave get to you. That would open the way for him to get to the rest of the pilots you represent.”

They just. Sit in silence for a while. Blurr quickly taps a finger on his knee. A rapid tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.

Swindle moves his hand away and gets up from his chair.

“There's a press conference coming up. I need you to be there. I've told everyone who needs to know that the problem is exaggerated and you're fine but they need to see you.”

Blurr smiles sourly.

“My lawyer is going to charge you such a handsome sum for that stunt.”

Swindle laughs, but his cardboard advertising smile doesn't reach his eyes.

“We’ll see about that. Seriously though. I need you there.”

Blurr bites his lip.

“I..don’t know...”

Swerve...doesn't know what to think of that.

Blurr shows up for the press conference. Late, but he makes it. Just as Shockwave is presenting his new project in his amazingly well-pitched voice. Blurr swings the door open and waltzes lazily inside, skillfully pretending not to notice the many cameras and eyes instantly directed at him.

Swerve, whose memory is still fresh thinks for a second that no, no this can't be the same person. Past Blurr looked like a wreck. Past Blurr was tense and tired and hunched over. Present Blurr couldn't look more alive. His shoulders are squared proudly, there's that cheerful springiness and grace in his stride. He moves with ease and confidence. Smoothly.

The left side of his face is neatly covered with fresh white bandages. Carefully, without leaving the even the slightest gap through which his injury could be seen. His hands are hidden under a fancy jacket. He smiles wide and bright and squints playfully toward the table.

The very embodiment of nonchalance. The few pilots sitting in the audience roll their eyes.

Swindle breathes out a barely perceptible sigh of relief. Swerve, once again using Swindle's collar as a tactical cover, can't help but let out a silent triumphant laugh. Maybe slightly more nervous than he is supposed to be.

Blurr sends Swindle a sly, sharp smile and even knowing it wasn't meant for him, Swerve feels his cheeks heat up.

Ah, damn it.

Swerve breaks the rules. He tells himself that peeking is fraught with consequences when it comes to military organizations, but he can't stop himself from being curious. And from worry, too.

And now that he knows where to look, he sees things he'd rather not see.

Blurr ... is crumbling.

Swerve doesn't know all the details and consequences, but that incident did leave a mark.

But every time Swindle calls him and says “I need you at some place in two hours” he gets up and assembles himself into a human being. Like a goddamn puzzle. Tapes and covers the burned half of his face. Covers up the bruises and hides the stitches. Fixes his hair and sets off on shaky legs to pretend he's fine.

He smiles so bright and carefree, laughs so sweet and beautiful that no one would ever think that even standing up sometimes hurts.

And continues to act like a jerk of course.

The only difference is that this time Swerve mentally gives him the presumption of innocence before he starts judging.

Blurr does a lot of things that seem rude. He also does a lot of things that are actually rude and figuring them out without resorting to alien superpowers would be nearly impossible.

When the pilots see Blurr sitting right on the table while negotiating with investors, they roll their eyes and make comments about his terrible manners. Or when he stops showing up for even the most basic, rudimentary training.

Or when he develops that stupid habit of leaning his elbows on people standing next to him.

It's the model behavior of a rich, spoiled brat.

It's also an inconspicuous way to stay upright.

Employees say “that dumbass has never heard of personal space.”

Investors say, “I think he likes me.”

Blurr leans on Swindle's shoulder and through a charming smile says “Don't move or I'm gonna fall.”

Swindle also keeping up the smile discreetly holds him back, pretending it's a friendly half hug.

Swerve feels like yelling at both of them, but he's not sure what for exactly. For one thing, Blurr in his condition is very VERY VERY contraindicated to even get out of bed, let alone participate in social activities.

On the other hand, without Blurr, everything is going down the pit.

Without Blurr, all the government sees are dry reports and spreadsheets. Without him, all the high command has is numbers and a sense of impunity. Swerve is sickened by how easily people tend to forget that numbers represent other people.

Most pilots are able to draw a parallel between deteriorating working conditions and Blurr's sudden fondness for staying home instead of working. But they think the rich jerk got scared and ran away. Considering the way Blurr has always behaved at work - Swerve can't even judge them too much for it. They assume Shockwave getting more freedom is the cause of Blurr's absence, not the result.

Blurr's influence only becomes noticeable when it slowly starts to fade away. It's like switching from expensive tea to a cheaper one. The awful flavor only becomes noticeable in contrast.

Blurr doesn't lead the development of new technologies or go out to fight in the field. He doesn't make plans and reports, he doesn't participate in drills, he doesn't cover anyone's back in battle.

But he's the one who puts his hand on the government's shoulders when they're about to sign the next piece of paper. He's the one they have to look in the eye before they have a pen in their hands and a document authorizing Shockwave to stick more needles in people's brains.

It makes a difference. Small one. But still.

It turns a disembodied imaginary “combat units” into a tangible person.

From “do you want to accelerate the combat training of new soldiers” to “are you willing to tell the living, breathing guy standing in front of you that shoving poison under his skin is an idea you approve of.”

More importantly (And Swerve actually admires Swindle for this) Will you be able to explain anything to your families later on, when this same guy is on TV all over the country saying that's what you did to him?

There have been two fronts here all this time, Swerve realizes.

While the pilots were protecting people from monsters wearing teeth and armor, Blurr was protecting the pilots themselves from monsters wearing ties and lab coats.

After another conference, Shockwave stops Blurr in the hallway.

“Good show.”

Blurr laughs. Soundly and proudly.

“Thanks darling~ Sorry I interrupted you. Your speech sounded like something important, but I don't really know much about nerd stuff.”

Swerve, hiding on the ceiling again, snorts.

Shockwave doesn't move. Doesn't give any indication at all if he's offended or upset or whatever.

“It must have been hard getting here with your injuries.”

Blurr shrugs and lazily turns his head around distracted.

“It's just a few bruises here and there. Not the end of the world.”

Shockwave nods slowly. His voice and posture and all, Swerve thinks, looking very uncomfortable.

“Of course it isn't. But hardly good for your career.”

Blurr freezes.

No, Swerve thinks. Shit. No, don't listen to him, don't listen to him, don't listen to him, don't

“Your brilliant achievements have always been a source of admiration to me” continues Shockwave “it would be a pity to lose them.”

Blurr makes an indifferent face and tucks his hands into his pockets.

“Like I said. Not the end of the world.”

Swerve imagines choking Shockwave. Dropping a lamp on his head. Maybe jumping on top of him himself. Shut up, he thinks. Shut up, shut up, stop fucking talking.

Shockwave with a nice, slow gesture pulls out a notebook from somewhere and flips a couple pages.

“Multiple burns, cracked ribs, poisoning from carbon monoxide and combustion products of toxic chemicals...”

Blurr visibly shivers and looks away.

“...loss of vision on one side...” Shockwave continues reading, ”and partial hearing loss. Finally, the impact of neural link malfunctions. And this, if I'm not mistaken, is on top of the already existing memory problems?”

Shockwave takes a step closer. Not fast enough to make it look threatening, but enough to hover.

“It may not be the end of the world, but it is the end of you.”

He writes a set of numbers on the same page, tears it off, and hands it to Blurr.

“You are broken. I can fix you.”

Blurr frowns, but takes the piece of paper.

“That fixing would involve giving you consent to mess around with my head, wouldn't it? It's brave of you to think I'd go for that.”

Shockwave tucks the notepad into his pocket.

“I can assure you, neither I nor anyone else is interested in your brain. I just want to give you back what you're truly valued for.”

Blurr flinches.

“I don't need your help.”

“ If you say so,” Shockwave agrees easily. Nods, slowly and smoothly. Then starts to walk away “But you do need your fame.”

...

“By the way, you might want to wipe the blood off.”

Blurr waits until Shockwave's back disappears around the corner, then quickly pulls a tissue from his pocket and brings it up to his nose.

____________________________

Swerve wakes up looking up at the ceiling of his room. The high, metal ceiling, of a metal room on a metal spaceship.

Holy shit...

Jazz pokes him gently on the forearm

“Are you alive? You've been gone for like quite a while...Did it work?”

“Hey Jazz” frowns Swerve “what do you know about Blurr?”

Jazz laughs

“What are you fanboying over him again? Still??? Dude's smug and arrogant. Good boss though. I was hired to perform at his parties before I became a pilot.”

Swerve sits up and rubs the back of his head.

“Ah...”

“So it worked?”

“Wha...ah! Yes! Yes, it worked! I managed to get the number and codes from the space bridge the Quints used on you. We just need to find another space bridge and we'll have a pretty much direct route to Earth...well. Or rather, to the Quint ship that's located near Earth. You get the idea.”

Jazz rubs his hands together happily.

“I'll take it.”

Swerve jumps to the floor and heads to grab an energon cube. Man, these holoform exercises are burning energy like crazy.

He stares at his metal hands like an idiot for a couple minutes. Just...Contemplates how non-human they are.

He has eight fingers again instead of the human ten. Huh.

Prowl downloads the information he's gotten and immediately runs off to plan a route to the nearest working space bridge and for a while Swerve is just.

Left to himself.

He tries not to think about Blurr. What would he even say to him? Hey, look, I'm sorry I accidentally set you up, see, I'm actually an alien who was sleepwalking and thought you were fictional, surely this won't affect our non-existent strictly professional working relationship? Nah, screw that. If he's going to sound crazy, he needs to at least come up with a good presentation for his insanity.

....

Is it weird to think humans are beautiful if you're not human? If you're kind of human, but only in your soul and only half human?

He looks at Jazz and Prowl.

“You two get along really well.”

Jazz chuckles, sitting on Prowl's shoulder.

“Right now, yes. But we got on each other's nerves quite a bit when we first met.”

Swerve looks up at Jazz's chattering legs from his height and thinks. This is working somehow.

On the other hand, Jazz is the exception rather than the rule. He's friendly with everyone, he's easy to get along with, he's the soul of any company and most importantly, he was a little too much into robots before he discovered they could be alive. If anyone could find common ground with the Cybertronians, it would definitely be Jazz.

_____________________

”Are you a ghost?”

Swerve shrieks in fear and gets covered in static. He hadn't planned on talking. He hadn't planned on being noticed at all. Blurr was supposed to be asleep! And Swerve just wanted to close the curtains and leave, because there's some noisy party going on outside and bright illuminations are very bad for a patient already suffering from neural connection withdrawal.

He freezes in place like that dude from Jurassic Park. Like if he's still enough, he won't be noticed. Oh, or was that from another movie?

“I'm just uh” he awkwardly reaches up and closes the curtains “Lights. Bad for...you...now.”

Blurr chuckles. It sounds suspiciously joyful. His whole posture and facial expression. He looks very relaxed for someone who had a ghost materialize into the room out of thin air.

Swerve traces the line of the IV with his gaze. Oops, that looks like painkillers.

“Yes I am. Uh. A ghost watching the curtains. And now the curtains are fine, so I guess I'd better go?”

Blurr squints amusedly.

“You can walk through walls?”

“Uh, I can teleport into the next room?”

He backs up his words by making himself disappear and reappear in another corner of the room.

“Cool!” says Blurr cheerfully.

Swerve is involuntarily infected by his mood and makes a couple dramatic bows as if he were some kind of magician.

“ Show me more?”

“Hehehe okay eh” Swerve spreads his arms like he's presenting something and then makes himself the size of a soda bottle and teleports to the edge of Blurr's bed “Ta daaaa~”

“Wooooo look at you, you're like an action figure~”

Blurr immediately makes an attempt to touch him, but fails to reach and drops his hand back on the blanket.

Swerve chuckles and steps closer. It's funny to see the usually incredibly agile Blurr struggling with something so simple and ridiculous.

“They really drugged you huh?”

“It's not the drugs” snorts Blurr ”...it's my eye.”

He raises his hand once more and hesitantly pulls it towards Swerve until it bumps into his hair

“... depths Per…percen.. ah, shit. I can't tell how far away things are.”

Swerve just. Lets Blurr fidget at himself, while starting to feel really bad at the same time.

"If you can't tell how far things are, how are you going to drive?

Race???”

He must have a plan right? Something? Let’s-prove-Shockwave-wrong tactic???

Blurr drops his hands back on the blanket

“I won't.”

He freezes when the all too close fireworks rumble outside the window. Then points to his head.

“With this. I can't drive, I can barely walk at all, and I look like horror movie material. Pathetic heeh.”

Swerve sits down quietly cross-legged on the blanket.

“Well...at least you're alive....”

Blurr shakes his head.

“If I had died, it would have been epic. You know? Dharm...dramatic! It would be big news and everyone would be talking about what a hero I was or...or something...”

“...”

“Swindle would be so angry, but he'd figure out a way to make money out of it. He'd make a commercial about how people should be heroes. I'd be remn..remembered for being cool and brave and stuff.”

Fireworks can be heard from the street again. Swerve notices that there is a thin slit between the closed curtains through which a slim, flickering strip of multicolored light streams into the room.

Blurr frowns and leans back against the pillow, looking up at the ceiling.

“I've turned into a boring wreck. My records will be beaten, my career forgotten , and all the guys from work will remember me as a brat. In a--in a--in a way, it's worse than death. Shockwave's right.”

Swerve isn't sure what exactly would be an acceptable gesture of comfort, so he kind of just. Places his hand on the blanket covering Blurr's lap.

“Hey, don't say that. I think what you're doing is great.”

“Liar” smiles Blurr crookedly ”You hated me. I saw your posters collection.”

Oh shit. The ones he ripped off the walls and destroyed in a fit of fan frustration? He didn't even hide them, just shoved them in the back corner. Aw, man...

Swerve folds his arms awkwardly across his chest.

“I can be mad at you and think you're cool at the same time. I'm a multitasker.”

“You're a very specific kind of ghost.” says Blurr. Then, apparently inspired by the painkillers, decides to drop the conversational equivalent of an atomic bomb on Swerve's head “You died because of me?”

Swerve stiffens.

“I...Wwhat?”

“You know.” he makes a gesture with his hand that's ..unclear what it's supposed to mean. “You were working there with everyone else, and then there was that fire and I was sure I saw you down there under the rubble.”

He's silent for a couple seconds before he hesitantly continues

“And then no one could find you so most assumed you either burned or ran away. And now you're here with all your weird ghost stuff, so you must be dead.”

Swerve has.No idea what to think about it. And what to say? He's been so busy blaming himself for Blurr getting hurt that it hasn't occurred to him to think about what it looks like from Blurr's own perspective.

“Actually” says Swerve ”I'm an alien.”

“Heh” giggles Blurr ”sorry, my head’s all cloudy, I thought you said you were an alien.”

Swerve wants to run around and bang his head against the wall.

Instead, he gets up from the hospital bed. Carefully.

“You're high. I'm not going to explain things to you while you're high, you won't understand or remember them. Go back to sleep. It's the middle of the night.”

“You'll tell me later?”

Swerve hums quietly and pulls the curtains all the way closed.

“If future, sober Blurr would want my company.”

---------------

Jazz looks at him. Very intensely.

“Are you going to tell me who this mystery person you keep coming back to Earth for?”

Swerve snorts.

“What makes you think it's anyone in particular?”

“You're right, you're right~” raises his hands in surrender Jazz “So are you going to tell your friend the whole thing?”

Swerve crosses his ..metal arms over his metal chest.

“Is it that big of a deal? He thinks I'm a ghost or something.”

Being a ghost...somehow better, he thinks. If you're a ghost, it kind of automatically implies you're human. Or was a human.

“Sooner or later, he'll put the facts together~” says Jazz in a chant.

Swerve laughs.

“That's unlikely. He's got a pretty bad memory.”

_______________

His plans to stay out of anyone's sight combust with a dramatic pop the next time he projects himself to Earth. He doesn't plan to interfere, he doesn't even plan to linger. He just wants to see what's going on.

He actually just quietly sneaks into the hospital to make sure nothing's happened to Blurr since last time, but when he finally finds him then...oh shit, is that Pharma in the same room with him??? This can't be good.

They don't speak, but Pharma has clearly locked his eyes on Blurr and starts making his way towards him with the relentlessness of a industrial metal press.

Swerve does some rough math in his head. If he briefly gives his holoform back its detail and voice, will that be enough to fry his processor? He's not sure.

Pharma gives a believable impression of a shark getting close. The staff, as if sensing something untoward is about to happen, leaves the room in a hurry.

Blurr looks indifferent, but Swerve's attention is drawn to the way he squints tensely. Man, the lamps are too bright in here.

Pharma smiles sweetly and reaches out for a handshake

“Mind some company?”

Swerve's mental processes fly out the window. Oh no no. Not Pharma. Not in his fucking fanfic. He quickly changes his work clothes into a slightly more business-like looking shirt. Thinks for just a moment and adds a cap to his head to blend in more strongly with the attendants and hide his face to an extent. And then projects himself around the nearest unoccupied corner and runs out of behind it looking as anxious as he feels.

“Blurr!!! Sir, there you are!!! I've been looking everywhere for you!”

Pharma wants to say something, but Swerve doesn't even let him start. He stands in front of Blurr separating him and Farma expressively waves his hands trying to keep his head down.

“The guys you were talking about didn't bring the new hydraulics! It's a disaster, we'll have to use the one on the old models!”

Blurr, to his surprise, backs up his act almost instantly

“Really? But I thought there was nothing to take from the old models?”

“That's exactly the point! I got the paperwork this morning and...oh those assholes are going to screw it up if you don't step in as soon as possible!”

Pharma tilts his head

“Can it wait? We were actually talking here!”

Oh no, thinks Swerve I'll show you who's talking.

“Sir, no offense but this is a matter of extreme urgency. Are you implying that the safety of your patients is not important?”

“What do you mea...”

“Old faulty hydraulics, that's what you want?” raises an eyebrow in horror Blurr.

“No I'm just...”

“I had a better opinion of you, to be honest.”

“I...” opens his mouth Pharma “...WHAT...?”

Swerve shakes his head.

“And I thought his profession was to help people, can you imagine?”

“Wh..”

Blurr rolls his eye.

“Any idiot can get an important position these days.”

“Wait..”

“Tell me about it. Especially doctors.”

Pharma looks like he's about to start pulling the hair out of his head.

“Can at least one of you shut up??”

Swerve adjusts his cap in a businesslike manner

“Sir, I understand you're a bit detached from reality spending so much time in your department, but you need to take better care of your reputation.”

He raises his eyebrows knowingly

“Wouldn't want the rumors about you to turn out to be true. You know what I mean?”

Pharma doesn't even answer anymore. Pharma just looks like a discarded fish.

“…..Wha....there's rumors?”

“Of course” shrugs Swerve ”Ask Norman, he usually knows everything about everyone. And about your interesting tricks with safety, too.”

He leans in conspiratorially, effectively pulling all of Farma's attention to himself

“So if I were you, I'd stay out of any more things you don't understand.”

Pharma wants to say something. Swerve can tell by the look in his eyes. Pharma tries to come up with a witty and context-appropriate response, but this whole conversation has no more context than a typical episode of Teletubbies.

“Where does this Norman guy work?” finally finds the ground beneath his feet Pharma

Swerve shrugs.

“Block C, if he hasn't been transferred yet. He's already been fined several times for spreading harmful information you know? The guy can't keep a secret.”

Pharma throws his hands up angrily and storms away. Probably looking for context. Or revenge.

A quiet cough sounds behind Swerve's back.

“So. Should I be worried about Norman's health?”

Swerve feels the hair on the back of his neck shiver and slowly turns to face Blurr while still looking somewhere on the floor.

“Uh...only if you're concerned about the fate of fictional characters. I made up Norman's wife, she'll be upset if he gets fired for gossiping.”

Blurr chuckles. Then goes silent. Then, after a couple seconds, starts laughing again. That's a good look for him, Swerve thinks. It's not like Blurr's usual velvet-smooth laugh that he uses at social events. It's more like a quick, jerky giggle, and in Swerve's subjective opinion, it's pretty damn cute. He can't help but grin.

Blurr snorts one last time, cutting off the laughter.

Then he reaches out his hand to him.

Swerve reaches back, expecting a handshake, but Blurr ignores his hand and instead goes for his cap and lifts it by the brim.

Swerve, not expecting this, freezes with his hand outstretched.

Blurr freezes as well, still holding the cap in his hand and looking...like he's rethinking his life. A little.

Ugh, and how to explain it all to him....

“Uh...you...uh...probably don't remember me. I...it's...”

Blurr shifts his gaze from Swerve to the cap in his hand. Then back to Swerve.

“You're real???”

Swerve awkwardly waves his hands in front of him

“Ah not.., not really. Do you know why Pharma was looking for you in the first place? He doesn't work with patients anymore, he's been reassigned to the research department, right?”

Blurr shrugs.

“Last time I saw him, he said I might have implant rejection in the third ..uh..what? stage? or something? I think he's trying to get me in for a checkup.”

Swerve twitches.

“Third??? How are you still standing???”

He then quickly reaches up with both hands to Blurr's head and tilts it so he can see his face better. Using one thumb, he pulls his lower eyelid slightly and mentally catalogs. Temperature normal, pupil normal, eyes are steady, no darkening or trace of blood on the eyelid. Implants? He puts both palms up and gently feels the places behind Blurr's ears. No signs of rejection or malfunction.

“No no no” sighs Swerve ”You're fine, it's only stage two. I mean, second sucks too, migraines and all, but you just need to rest and no bright lights and...” he finally notices his hands are still on Blurr's head and pulls them back as fast as if he's been burned ”I MEAN I'm uh...sorry, I didn't mean to, I...”

Blurr laughs quietly.

“I'm glad you're back.”

_____________________

He wakes up in his quarters and can feel his face burning.

When he goes out to get the energon, Jazz throws him a look.

“Is something wrong? You're all kinda...shaky.”

“Hhhhhhuuuuuuuuuuuu” imitates signs of life Swerve “Say, doesn't it bother you that Prowl isn't human?”

Jazz smiles

“ Oh, I went crazy when I found out. But we figured it out.”

“Like...on a scale from ‘bad grade in school’ to ‘an asteroid is coming to Earth’ how crazy was it?”

“Worried about what your human friends will think?”

Swerve swings back and forth on his heels

“Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff. Whatnooooo, no of course not. I'd be worried if I planned on telling them at all.”

Jazz frowns

“No offense, but keeping secrets isn't your strong suit.”

“Haha” Swerve waves his servo “ Watch me.”