#idk i think i like him

[whatthefishh]

Boyfriend, girlfriend

Rydal Keener x f!reader

Self indulgent sick fic, can be read as part of the Oxford Comma AU, or as a stand-alone. ❤️

Warnings: bad words. No smut, just fluff and more run on sentences 🥰

Words: 1.2k

You had missed 4 classes this week already, and it was only Wednesday. Your roommate was out gathering the notes promised to you from your classmates, desperate to be away from you while you sneezed up a storm in the congested space you were meant to share. You desperately needed a shower, having sweat through the t-shirt you were laying in, your hair matted in all directions as you tossed and turned through your illness. Why were the school distributed beds so uncomfortable? Was there a room upgrade option you didn’t know about, only available to the students who had higher up connections? You could’ve sworn Rydal’s bed was never this lumpy when you stayed the night with him.

You can’t help but wonder where Rydal is at the moment. You had told your roommate to let him know not to come by, that you weren’t in a state to see him and to just take notes during lectures for the next midterm. He had apparently taken this information well, but you’re not exactly sure how reliable of a narrator your roomie was, especially when it came to Rydal. She seemed to zone out whenever he was talking and you’re not sure if it’s because he was undeniably pretty or because he was using that voice he would slip into when he needed someone to do something for him. Bitterly, you think of how he would rather not spend his free time with a sickie like yourself, that Chester had probably taken the rare opportunity that you weren’t around to come and set up camp in his room. Might even bring a girl with him. Might bring two. Sigh.

It literally served you no purpose to be this jealous over the other girls in his circles, he’s proved himself time and time again about how he felt about you but you couldn’t help it, especially with the state you were in right now. Thank goodness he wasn’t here to see you like this. Aggressively pulling the blankets over your head and letting out a cry of frustration, you wanted to scream at how it came out entirely garbled with the way your nose was backed up.

You heard a cough from the door. A cough that suspiciously sounded like someone trying and failing to cover up a laugh.

Slowly peeling back the covers, you peeked over the huddled fabric to see none other than your boyfriend – could you even call him that, you’ve never actually said those words out loud but it was unspoken that you were his, and he yours – leaning his back against your door looking entirely too casual.

“Don’t come any closer,” you croaked out.

“Geez, she said you were in bad shape, but I wasn’t expecting you to sound like Gollum,” he sniffed, walking to your bed despite your protests. He ripped back the blanket you were slowly inching up towards your face so that only your eyes were showing and pressed the back of his hand against your forehead before frowning deeply at you. Oh, life wasn’t fair with him looking so statuesque, looming over your sweaty and disheveled form with concern in his eyes. You looked back at him dumbly, inhaling a ragged breath before coughing into your sleeve for half a minute.

When you looked back up, Rydal was walking into your bathroom, the sound of him digging through your cabinets carrying across the room until he started the shower. Emerging from the bathroom, he came back to your wide eyed self with determination set in his gaze. Usually, his features were soft around you, a small smile playing at his mouth at all times, but there was no trace of that right now. You didn’t like it.

Feeling small, like you had somehow disappointed him even in your attempt to take care of all by yourself and not bother him, you looked down avoiding his eye. He lifted you into a sitting position, blankets still wrapped around you, and kneeled in front of you before tilting your face up to look at him.

“You’re gonna go in there and take a hot shower, okay?” and he’s actually waiting for you to respond, like a child listening to a parent give them slow instructions on their first time going to the grocery store by themselves.

You nod dumbly. He starts nodding, too.

“Then when you come out, you’re going to put on clean clothes, not the t-shirt that I gave you last week–”

“Hey!”

His face broke out into a smile at that, finally getting you to rise to his bait, a flicker of yourself flashing before his eyes. When he walked in here, he was genuinely concerned for you at your lack of fight, you didn’t even have the energy to throw any of your usual verbal acid at him. Brushing your hair back gently, despite it being a mess, he nudged you towards the bathroom with a slap on your ass for good measure.

The shower admittedly felt nice, all the sweat and grime from the past day swirling down the drain as you spent an extra five minutes under the hot water, letting it soothe the ache in your muscles. Shutting the water off, you quickly grabbed the towel he had set out for you – really, where did he learn to be so considerate – to wrap yourself up in and go back to your bed.

Rydal was waiting with the pair of sweats he had gifted you after you talked mad shit about how privileged people even had better damn sweatpants than the middle class with your favourite printed t-shirt you wore to bed. Why did he have to be so observant, so much so to know which pajamas to pick out of your closet for you when you weren’t there to tell him which ones you wanted. You sat on the bed as he stood before you, barking out orders to you for you to lift your arms so he could dress you, “up!”, and you’ve never felt so small with him. If it were physically possible, you’d shrink yourself to fit in the palm of his hand just so he could keep you safe.

“There’s my girl,” and those three words had no reason to have such an effect on your mood, until he had to follow it with his usual cheek. “Not stinky anymore.”

You broke out into a fit of giggles, not able to help it at his dumb choice of words. Sometimes, he really was like a child, throwing playground insults at you in an attempt to ‘tell you he liked you’, like the bullshit the teachers would feed you after some ill-behaved kid threw sand in your face. Except this time, he wasn’t throwing sand, he was tying your hair into a bun so that you could lie against his chest without it getting in your mouth, and he was putting on your favourite movie on your laptop, and he had a cup of lemon tea waiting for you after your shower, and he had called for Chinese takeout to your dorm building, and he was kissing your forehead even when you called him stupid for staying so close to you because you were going to get him sick.

He was brittle and he was intense and deliberate in his words but he was yours. And you were his.

[heavenbarnes]

thinking about your older bf!simon that cannot cope with being far from you.

when you’re in the shower, he’s sat on the lid of the toilet on his phone (watching those rug cleaning videos) enjoying your faint singing under the stream of water, the smell of your body wash on the cloud of steam- ready to pass you a towel or get your back.

when you’re at your desk, working from home or studying, he’s just on the other side of it reading the paper with one outstretched leg tangled with both of yours. he’s dead quiet when you’re on a call, just happy to be around.

when you’re doing laundry, collecting the clothes in the hamper and crouching to stuff them into the washer- turning around and accidentally colliding with a thick wall of muscle.

“sorry, love”

he steps aside but you can hear his soft footfalls as he continues to follow you throughout your home.

when you’re both watching something on the couch, what starts as his pinky locked with yours turns into his arm around your waist. that turns into your head on his chest, which culminates with you falling asleep in his lap with his cheek on your head and soft snores emanating from his lips.

when you grocery shop, you push the trolley but his chest is to your back, arms either side of you and hands clasped over yours on the handle. you can thank his military training for his uncanny ability to tell exactly when you’ll stop walking.

when he wakes up in the middle of the night, on a rare occasion when you’ve managed to slip out of bed without him realising, he’s immediately in a panic calling your name.

“in here, my love”

as soon as his heart settles, he realises the bathroom light was probably a dead giveaway. you’re taking a wee, you’ll be back in a minute.

that doesn’t stop a sleepy simon from leaning in the doorframe, shielding his eyes from the big light as he waits for you to finish up.

even on the short walk back to bed, you can feel fingers twisted in the back of your shirt- almost like you’re leading the way.

minute you’re both on the mattress, you’re being wrapped up in his arms, slotting you perfectly into the curve of his front- almost like you’re made for him.

(and you are)

[nat-20s]

Ten and Donna end up on a fucked up deadly space newlyweds show despite uh. Not being newlyweds but they get almost all the questions right. They start to sweat when the final question is "what's one secret desire you have involving the other?" And Donna writes "sometimes I wish I could occasionally shrink down the doctor real small so I could carry him around in my pocket and make sure he doesn't get lost' while Ten writes "sometimes I wish I was small enough that Donna could carry me around in like a cat backpack or maybe a shirt pocket" and they look at each other like AYYYYYY because not only are they deeply drift compatible they're also fuckin weird about it 💖

[joshuamj]

Okay, but what if EoW!Zelda had to impersonate Link

[lotus-pear]

ok gayboy

[vinestaff]

sighs. another guy in my brain i guess

[chloesimaginationthings]

Michael Afton draws FNAF tape girl for Vanessa,,

[lazylittledragon]

i said that gale and cyra have disaster romcom energy and now it's all i can think about

[mothmore]

something i am utterly obsessed with is the physical copy of dracula that i recently purchased that has , as part of its foreword , some of the original idea notes that bram stoker had about what dracula’s vampiric powers/traits would be.

one of these is that dracula’s likeness cannot be captured in a painting , he always looks like someone else.

which only leads me to imagine a scenario in which the count lines many of his castle hallways with paintings of himself throughout the centuries but none of them look the same and none of them look like him but jonathan can’t help but notice they all somehow look eerily similar.

he brushes it off , assuming they are simply counts of generations past.

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

We all know the semi-canonical ‘all the Robins know to hide/duck inside of Batman’s cape, even as adults’ thing.

We also know that Danny ‘is LITERALLY a ghost’ Fenton sucks at remembering his own intangibility while ALSO forgetting to look ahead of him.

All I’m saying is, Danny Fenton (or Phantom, if you’d really like) would absolutely SLAM into Batman on accident while running on roof tops and Bruce ‘Brooding Instinct’ Wayne doesn’t even think twice about letting the kid hide and scanning around for danger before there’s a record scratch of ‘wait who tf is this?’ kicks in.

[7roaches]

sorry that took like an hour i stopped to eat dinner heres my idea

[whatthefishh]

the urge to word vomit about your new blorbo

[nettleparade]

his one-sided love for life

[frownyalfred]

thinking about a Damian who was raised his entire life hearing how much he looks like his Father, how he's the blood son, how he's better than any other child Bruce Wayne has taken in, starting to buy into it like a kid does, only to hit puberty and turn out looking like 80% Talia.

[starry-bi-sky]

don't you want to be a cult leader? - danyal al ghul au

this is mostly a joke post but i thought it was funny and had to share so--

his first mistake was, obviously, inheriting his father's inability to see an injustice and stand still. -- actually, danyal's first mistake was his lair being so big. a mountainous island with a large temple in the center resembling his old home in Nanda Parbat? With sprawling foliage and rivers and streams and waterfalls galore? What was he going to do with all that space? Let it go to waste? He had plants there! Native trees of the ghost zone growing from the soil! He couldn't let it all be left unchecked!

So naturally after helping a fellow teenage assassin ghost -- who he later learns is named Akihiko, -- from Walker of all people, he sent them over to hang low at his lair until it was safe enough for them to wander around the Zone. Walker couldn't get through Danyal's astrofield if his life depended on it, and trust him -- he's tried. Danny was clearing out debris from his stupid transport vans for weeks.

Honestly it wasn't so bad, he and Aki really quickly became fast friends and Danny loves having a sparring partner close to his level again -- he hasn't had this much fun fighting since he left the League. Aki was very dedicated and levelheaded, the both of them clicked really well because of it.

Nonono, the real trouble began after Danyal met some long-passed League members and allowed them to come join his island as well. Apparently they had made a few enemies of the zone, and maybe Danyal still felt some loyalty to the League. He couldn't just let them be left to rot. Their zealotry could be overlooked so long as they kept it contained and helped him take care of his island.

And it.. snowballs from there? He meets a teen squire aptly calling himself Ambroise -- whether that was his living name or not is yet to be seen -- who died during feudal france, who is just about as dramatic and passionate as every french stereotype makes them out to be. He calls Danyal "my moon and great muse" -- which is both flattering and little uncomfortable, but Danyal's grown up in the League as the Grandson of the Demon Head, he is used to mild worship. he passes it off as nothing more, nothing less. -- and while his energy is overwhelming on the worst of days, he helps Danny draw out of his shell more in ways that Sam and Tucker still struggle with.

Him and Aki butt heads a lot, but the two seem to hold the other in at least some positive regard, so Danny doesn't worry too much about them fighting while he's gone. It only becomes a mild issue when Aki also begins calling Danny "my moon". It's a little sweet, so Danyal brushes it off.

Then he takes in a troupe of ghosts some time after he defeats Pariah Dark and they begin calling him "great one" just as the yetis do in the far frozen. This is where he meets the twins -- a pair of sibling ghosts who call themselves Trixie and Missy (short for Trick and Mislead) -- who aren't quite as passionate as Ambroise but more energetic than Aki. Eventually they also start calling Danyal "my moon" and attach themselves to his hip, even within the living. They like to hide in his shadow and cause trouble for the rest of the students. He makes sure they don't hurt anyone.

He's pretty sure Aki is jealous, same with Ambroise, but he can't be too certain other than the fact that they become much more lingering (re: clingy) whenever he visits the island.. Something he's trying to do much more often these days due to the increasing amount of people living there now. Since when did he become so popular?

Then there's Pēnelópeia from the Greater Athens, who ran away from home and joined his Island after he ran into her while she was being chased by Skulker -- and he's pretty sure the reason was because of her chimeric appearance. Her strange eyes and mismatched wings and lion's tail and talons. She assimilates into his friend group very easily, she gets along well with Ambroise and Trixie and Danny usually finds the three of them climbing the trees to pluck the most fruit from the top. They can fly and he knows it, but they prefer to climb.

Then finally there's silent poet Akkara who comes from ancient mesopotamia, who gets along most with Aki -- which is no surprise there considering their similar personality dispositions. he watches Aki and Danyal fight each other and leaves comments on this or that that he notices. He writes Danyal poems on clay tablets and leaves them by his room.

They're one big mismatched group of outcasts, and Danny's got the other ghosts on his island to tend to, because they're living on his island and he wants to be hospitable even if he struggles with that. But he spends the most of his time with them.

Sam and Tucker are making fun of him. Tucker jokingly tells him 'careful Danny, at this rate you're gonna start a cult'. Danny really wishes he had taken that joke more seriously.

He just. keeps. collecting people. Wayward souls lost in the zone, looking for shelter or refuge from something or other -- whether that be another hostile ghost, or a past afterlife, or just a purpose. Danyal finds them, he takes them in, offers them a place on his island until they are ready to leave. Many seldom do. He's not complaining -- he has the space, and it feels like it's only ever growing.

His close friends, his "inner circle" as he's heard the others call them, keep insistently calling him "my moon". He starts calling them his stars, because then it only feels fair. They're his stars, this is his constellation. It becomes a thing; little star halos begin forming behind their heads, picking them out from the rest. He loves them so much, it's hard to place. Sam and Tucker are also his stars, but they reside in the living realm, they're his tie to Life. Meanwhile, his friends here know what it's like to be dead, and sometimes its nice to relate.

Those living on his island keep calling him "Great One" and he's beginning to notice zealotry in their care for his island. He really, deeply appreciates it. His close friends gain nicknames -- as his stars, it's only natural for him to pick them out from the cluster in the skies. Akihiko, his Sirius and bright star. Trix and Missy, Castor and Pollux, the twins and troublemakers. Ambroise, his zealous Antares and close friend. Penelopeia, chimeric and loyal Vega. And Akkara, his Arcturus and strength.

It's ridiculous how long it takes for him to notice; he is, of course, a deadly trained assassin. He is meant to be observant -- and normally he is! But somehow this becomes a blind spot. One that becomes too big to be dealt with by the time he realizes it.

He should've noticed when Aki, his Sirius, stood beside him one day while Danyal looked over his island and saw the sprawling spirits carrying on about their afterlife and bowing to him as they saw him, and said: "I looked down into the depths when I met you; I couldn't measure it." They aren't one for flowing prose, it took him so off guard he was silent for over a minute before he finally spoke.

Danyal should've recognized devotion for what it is, and yet he didn't. He should've recognized it when Antares began spouting praises about him, crowing about his radiance and resplendence to the heavens. He just brushed it off as Ambroise being Ambroise. He should've recognized it when Trix and Missy nearly broke Dash's leg after he knocked Danyal's books out of his hands, he excused it as them being protective. Of them coming from times where such violence may have been customary -- after all, that's what he used to be like. What he was still like, sometimes, when his emotions nearly got the better of him.

He should've noticed it when the people living on his island followed his word like gospel, looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky. When his friends gifted him a shawl with the moon phases delicately embroidered into it, with silver, shimmering thread and moving stars lovingly stitched into it. Their constellations seen clear as day in the dark fabric. When he found small shrines dedicated to him -- but they lacked any image of him beyond stones carved to look like moons, so he ignored it. When the religious imagery began popping up.

He really, really should've noticed it when a bunch of cultists accidentally summoned Antares, and Antares had turned to him when he arrived and called them heretics. But he was so centered on the fact that they had kidnapped one of his stars, that he hadn't paid much attention to what Ambroise had said.

Sages say that faith is blind, they should also say faith in you is even blinder.

It really only hits him one afternoon while he's sitting in Sam's room studying with Tucker, Missy and Trixie lounging at his feet, Aki sat on his right, Penelopeia braiding his hair, Ambroise draped against him, and Akkara lurking over him. Its one of the rare few times they're all in one room together.

It hits him like a bolt of lightning. He looks up from his textbook. "Oh Ancients," he says in no amounting shock. Everyone looks up to him.

"I've become my grandfather."

[wasyago]

various tango doodles