#ill probably delete this after i wake up

[pubby-paws]

It's just constant. I reblog things I see sometimes that talk about trans women being banned, and every single post is talking about someone new. They're the only ones who get banned at this consistently of a rate. I have seen full cock and balls on this website that doesn't even get flagged(much less deleted), but anything that talks about being trans (ESPECIALLY about transfemmes) in a positive or even "wholesome" way gets flagged. Everything they do is scrutinized under the harshest possible lens for what MIGHT be "fetish content"(read: enjoying being trans), and they just ban them. Afterwards, they say "she was a filthy pervert, we swear, for real! Why would you need proof, just trust us! Not on OUR good Christian website!"

Honestly, even when they pull a reason out, I think they're making up something to justify the reality: they think that the existence of transfemmes is inherently a fetish, and therefore if transfemmes talk about being happy about any aspect of being trans, they are posting sexual content and deserve to be banned. More than anyone else on this website.

[nenelysian]

Just watched "I Saw The TV Glow" in cinemas and boy did I get chest kicked all the way back to my derealisation episodes when I was like 6 years old.

[yooniesim]

fuck i forgot to upload the damn alien eyes

[nhoirr]

𝕱𝖗𝖔𝖒 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝖂𝖆𝖑𝖑

— 𝔖𝔩𝔢𝔢𝔭𝔦𝔫𝔤 ℌ𝔬𝔲𝔯𝔰

drabbles. “GOJO HOURS."

“LOVESICK LOVER — !” : When he's away from you.

GOJO SATORU is not a patient man, especially when he's kept long time away from you.

'I miss you,' 13:42

your phone dings with a message you've been anticipating all this while, all this afternoon you spent fidgeting in place; waiting for something, or well—someone.

'i'll come home soon.' 13:43

the message rings out from a sender that was no other than your lover—GOJO SATORU, who seems to have been impatient at work; he's been gone for less than an hour, though you couldn't blame him when you felt the same.

'I want to be with you." 13:43 — not even two seconds later, your phone gets bombarded with messages.

Often it would be like this when he's gone, busy with exorcising curses.. hours to days of no contact, to sudden barrages of messages come in endless downpour; you couldn't even begin to count how many times he'd say — 'I want to come home.' every time, and every moment he has.

its silly, how he makes the butterflies burst in your stomach. You wonder how he feels so near when he's so far—perhaps distance really does make the heart grow fonder.

'Hey, don't leave me on read!' 13:45

At his reminder, you can't help but imagine him saying this. Bickering about your imprudence to dare leave him on read, you quickly tap away at your phone.

—'take care of yourself,' wouldn't be much too cliche to say right..? should you be adding anything more? it felt like your message was too short, maybe you should throw in a—'ill wait for you.' too, in there.

.. okay maybe too much—you internally cringe at your own words, attempting to delete the message.

Though unfortunately, your finger slips to press send a bit too hastily, not even given a chance to delete the message when he's seen it in a heartbeat; you could only close your eyes and pray he wouldn't tease it out of you all day, he wouldn't let you live this down.

at long last—your phone dings and you couldn't help the curiosity, peeking reluctantly at what he had to say.

'I don't think I can wait.' 13:50

but you could guess he probably won't be able to come home tonight; he probably has a lot to finish, he wont be home anytime soon..

so.. that makes you wonder, during this time of night—just when you were about to close your eyes..

"who.." Theres sudden motion, noise of shuffling before the sheets slowly dip and you sink into the softness of the bed. Although your eye lips felt heavy, you peel open your eyes—the blurred figure of a man answers with his voice, "Are you asleep yet?" he—the familiar voice of a man you've been waiting for all day, whispers in your ear.

He hovers above you, leaning over so much that the bed creaks, "Don't sleep on me, sweetheart." he presses a chaste kiss to your cheek, another one to your neck—till he littered your body, every inch of your skin his lips could find; his lips latches on to you, as if a leech.

and one last time, he presses a long kiss to the side of your lips—as if asking for you to wake up through your groggy state of mind.

"keep your pretty eyes open for me, will ya?"

through your hazy vision, you could make out that charming smile of his that you've engraved into your mind—the image of a man you love so dearly, your heart treasures so.

and you know he loves you too—just as much.

your phone dings with his last text you never got to read before he came home—

'I love you.' 24:59

your impatient lover probably couldn't wait another day to come home, not when you were waiting for him—not when he'd miss your welcome greeting, not when he still hadn't kissed you goodnight.

and god, that was all he could always think of when you're not in his moment of sight.

'I'm coming home.' 00:09

how unfortunate, that the moment you wake in the morning after, you would never get the chance to read this message.

©NHOIRR — DO NOT COPY, TRANSLATE NOR PLAGIARIZE ANY OF MY WORKS!

[📨] — Yes I'm working on the series, but i've been thinking about this scenario for a while.. I had to get it out of my head somehow.

<-. come back to navigation?

[confusedemiposts]

Chuuya sfw alphabet

Notes: Requested by Anon but i accidentally deleted the ask.

Tags: Floof, tiny angst for E,D and W. Not proofread, might be oc, GN! reader

'A' is for Affection (How affectionate are they?)

He's very affectionate, he'll spend any time he can with you and buy you a bunch of gifts, he loves seeing your face light up when he suprised you with a gift, a grin on his own face from your reaction. But his favourite is physical touch. He loves it but he keeps it to a minimum in public, he always has a hand on you no matter what and keep his arm around your waist but nothing too much, only one or two short brief kisses if deemed appropriate, this is even less within the Port Mafia because he wants to keep serious and not seem like some lovesick puppy by his subordinates.

But once in private space? He'll smoother your face In kisses and keep you in his arms for as long as he can

'B' is for Best Friend (What would they be like as a best friend?)

He's litterly such a nice and calm person canonically but only acts like an annoyed hot headed chihuahua to Dazai cause he annoys the shit out of him but also trusts him, so unless you annoy him like Dazai then he's the most loyal and trustworthy friend you can find and he loves hanging out with you. I feel like he's the type of friend to beat the shit out of someone who wronged you and offer to buy all your things and even if you say no several times he will buy it anyways, no repayments back.

'C' is for Cuddles (How would they cuddle?)

He likes to cuddle you like a teddy bear, just letting out all his stess out from the day and let exhaustion consume him while he's in your arms,he holds onto you tightly. I think he prefers to cuddle on top of you so he can embrace all of you and just keep his face in your chest or shoulders, embracing your scent that he cannot get enough of.

'D' is for Domestic (Everyday life with them, do they want to settle down?)

Unless you work in the Port Mafia you won't really be able to see him for hours on end, only before and after work or his day's off. He wakes up really early in the morning and cooks breakfast if you aren't awake, and let me tell you he's a fantastic cook. The evenings are more quiet and gentle, probably cuddling on the couch as you either watch tv or read a book as he drinks a nice glass of wine

I think he wants to settle down and spend his every day with you but realistically he can't unless he somehow retired from the mafia, which I don't think Mori will let happen :(

'E' is for Ending (If they had to break up with their partner)

If he had to break up with you it would be for your safety, dating a mafiaso is dangerous in general, dating a mafia executive is asking for a death wish. Your safety would be in absolute danger if any organisation or even Mori were to know you were close to Chuuya, who knows what they'd do to you if they had ill intentions. He'd talk to face to face about it, calm and collected even though his chest is aching at the thought of even doing this

'F' is for Fiance (How do they feel about commitment?)

If this a long term serious relationship the thought of marriage would come across his mind maybe a year or two in, when he realises he genuinely loves you and wants to spend all his waking hours with you. He would propose to you if your thoughts of marriage are positive and when he feels like the moment is right- unless you propose to him first, leaving him extremely flustered but he will instantly say yes

'H' is for Hugs (What are their hugs like?)

He likes hugs. He loves to wrap his arms around you and feel you close, doesn't matter if you're taller or shorter than him, he loves to bury his face into your neck and feel your warmth and he just loves it when you hug him back with your arms around him.

'G' is for Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

He is very gentle with you physically, touching you as if you were a delicate flower, but there are times where he loses his patience. He tries his best to keep calm and collected but with the amount of stress he goes through and if tension arises he snaps. But he'll try to fix it if he genuinely upset you, he cares too much about you

'I' is for "I love you" (How fast do they say the L-word?)

This isn't a word he throws around carelessly, it's going to take him awhile till he says it and when he says it he means it.

'J' is for Jealous (How jealous do they get?)

He knows there's no need to be jealous since your his and he is yours but he can't help it if he sees someone get physically close to you with a flirtatious intentions, he will put his hand around your waist and pull you close to him, head on your shoulder as he asks "who's this darling?" Giving a quick peck on your neck and cheek, staring at the person with a menacing glare without your notice.

'K' is for Kisses (what are their kisses like?)

Every kiss he means it, often passionate and deep yet gentle. He loves feeling your lips on his and it's something he will never get tired. Wine and your lips are his favourite things.He likes to place soft kisses on your cheeks, neck, shoulders and the back of your hands. He loves every kiss you give him but he loves the one's where you unconsciously kiss his cheek, forehead or even his mouth with no thoughts in your head, just kissing him makes him feel all tingly inside

'L' is for Little one's (How are they around children?)

He is litterly the BEST with children! He knows how to deal with them and let them have fun, he'd be the best dad ever! The thought of having his own children comes into his head if he sees how you interact with children or just seeing your baby photos. He might bring it up in a late night conversation just to see how you feel about children and ask if you'd ever want children. I think he'd love to have children if he's in a good position but he also cares about your comfort and if this is something you want, since this a serious two person descion.

'M' is for Mornings (How are mornings spent with them?)

Mornings with Chuuya are calm but structured, if you aren't awake yet he'll cook you breakfast. I feel like he has a morning routine so he wakes up at the same time every day, though sleeping in for only an hour on days off. He has a skincare routine that he definitely does with you, how else is his skin so smooth?? Definitely works out too in the morning, he may look slim but he's definitely built.

'N' is for Nights (How are nights spent with them?)

Nights after work are also calm (he's just a calm person to be around). He often comes home late or early even depending on how the mafia is doing, he'll call you if he's coming home late so you know he'd okay. When he's home your both eating dinner and filling each other in the on the day. I think he'd take a shower as fast as possible after dinner, he likes to keep himself clean, he prides in his skincare and haircare, genuinely dragging you into it too. After that he likes to relax with a glass of wine and do whatever before bed, he does go to bed at a certain time to get his eight hours

'O' is for Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves?)

He is simultaneously close to others yet at the same time he isn't. He will never reveal everything about himself, but what he does reveal will come when he is ready and feels secure enough to do so. He won't bring this up either if you never bring up a particular topic. He says a lot of things just because you ask.

'P' is for Patient (How easily angered are they?)

He tries his best to be patient with you, always taking into consideration of your feelings but the rare times if you're being unreasonable about something harmless and he's stressed he will snap but nothing that should lead into an extreme argument. He likes to solve things before they escalate

'Q' is for Quizzes (How much would they remember about you?)

He'll memorise every single thing about you, your likes,your dislikes, your behaviours, he remembers every single detail he seems nessecary which is all.

'R' is for Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

His favourite moment with you is the first time he kissed you, just seeing your face from his kiss made him grin. He was addicted to your lips from then on.

'S' is for Security (How protective are they?)

Chuuya is protective but will give you space if you need some, but if you feel bad or threatened, he will definately do something about it. Even unconsciously he's protective, as I said even in public he always has a hand on you and keeping you close.

'T' is for Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

He may be severely busy but he is always trying, using his head to keep a balanced work life and personal life. Always planning free time with you and dates, constantly buying you gifts as if to compensate for the time he wasn't with you, he does it unconsciously I think. If you plan or gift something for him he will absolutely adore it

'U' is for Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

'V' is for Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

I think his worst habit is blowing up? To be honest I'm not really sure about this letter, I think he'd only snap at you specifically if he's stressed or really upset which isn't often, he likes to sort things out

If you don't like smoking that could be a problem, he only smokes to cool off when he's extremely under pressure but he'll try to quit if you really don't like it

This man is not leaving the house without looking perfect, as I said he has a strict skincare and haircare routine- and have you seen his outfit? He could litterly be a model

'W' is for Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

Chuuya has experienced lost before and you certainly won't be the last, Though it leaves him devastated every time,Chuuya has learnt self-control to understand his loss and how he personally experiences grief, since he knows all too well how simple it is to lose people. He bears the weight of loss, yet it is loss that gives him motivation to move forward

'X' is for Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)

Let me just ramble about his ability real quick. If he wants to hide something from you, he'd use his gravity to hide it on high place that neither of you can reach, he'll use it to tease you if you don't have a nullification ability. If you ask he'd put you on the ceiling or just float in general, making sure to comfort you if you get scared or dizzy from blood rush.

'Y' is for Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

Not being trusted back, he is loyal and trusts you so he would hope you would trust him back. Or someone who only sees him for his money as he's quiet loaded

'Z' is for Zzz (What is a sleep habits of theirs?)

He is a sound sleeper, just flat out exhausted one he lands on the mattress, he must get his eight hours worth of sleep. He weirdly sleeps like a mess yet somehow looks ethereal at the same time? He likes holding you close to feel you close and his body is extremely warm like a fire so that sucks during summer

Why is he literally the most perfect boyfriend ever???

[aranock]

I'm tired.

Just sort of in general I am exhausted. I know I put on a brave face a lot, but the hate does get to me. The constant unceasing hatred both offline and online gets to me. I'm human idk what to say. Been thinking a lot about the Bilbo quote, I might be paraphrasing, "I feel like too little butter spread across too much toast."

It's pride month, I should be feeling happy right? I convocated finally after a brutal long degree I should be feeling happy right? I like how my body looks for the first time in my life shouldn't I feel happy?

And I know that's not helpful, that feelings are not a should thing. And yet I feel it anyway :/. Not that I do not feel happy, I would say on average I am better than I have been at any other point in my life. But it does get to me.

I was invited to dinner with a former family member, a blood relative that breached every boundary I placed and even went so far as to accost me in a public space. It's hard watching someone lose all love for you the more you become yourself. Being told I'm an embarrassment to my parents by creeps online stings a lot more now that I had a blood relative say it to my face while aggressively yanking my jacket so I couldn't get away. I know its a lie, I know that this person saying that hurt my parents as much as it did me. Alas, anxiety rarely responds to facts or evidence.

Everytime it feels like I'm fine and over it; this person manages to weasel their way around boundaries to fuck up my mental health for a week. And the thing about chronic illnesses like mine is they flare up quite horrendously when you get stressed and anxious. Anxiety means waking up to acid burnt throat from reflux.

It makes my voice dysphoric all day.

I think deep down one of my greatest fears is that I am unlovable, that everyone around me secretly hates me and is just waiting for the excuse to finally be rid of interacting with me. I am terrified that I am a burden. Mortified by the false belief that I am broken.

Despite how horrific my childhood adolescence and some of my early adulthood were, my family was at least a safe place. I recognize that I was privileged to have that. With that said I think the reason this whole thing has rocked me so much is that it violated that one last place I felt safe. It has made me doubt the love of those I never thought I would.

Sometimes transphobia feels like drowning, and if you try to swim for air everyone decides to shove you further down cause actually it's proof you are faking needing breath.

I text someone anytime I go run errands, just to make sure someone knows. Had too many experiences of hate. I get anxious when I go to get groceries; will this be the time I get hit by a vehicle driven by a far right transphobe, am I going to get called a slur again, will the store staff get suspicious of me and search through all my groceries to make sure I actually paid for it. But please, tell me how I don't know what its like to be oppressed. When men sexually harass, catcall, creepily hit on, follow me around clearly I am not at all experiencing sexism. Obviously the real worst thing in the world is that women "cancel" people on the internet, and trans people exist. Did they think sending me hateful articles would suddenly make me go "oh yes clearly its all in my head, please genocide my community, I stand for nothing and have the moral backbone of a slug."

I don't really know why I'm writing this, I dont usually feel or desire to express something like this publicly. I will probably delete it later. Maybe I disappear into writing cause its easier to deal with the feelings that way. That at least then someone gets something out of my pain. That maybe it helps to condense emotional mountains to the mole hills of short strokes of a pen or presses of a key. To let them explode outward in a flurry of thoughts and words that others look at and say "I too have felt this, you are not alone, you are not wrong for feeling this way."

Anything to take the weight of it all off my chest for a second.

Because I am tired.

I'm exhausted really.

I don't want to be brave or strong or resilient. It's tiring to bear the weight of that and a billion projections. Atlas does not bear the heavens upon his shoulders because he is strong or brave. He bears it because he has no other choice. Because people put it on him.

I just want to exist; that is apparently too much to ask for as a trans woman.

If you are concerned, please don't worry I'll be fine, I was fine every other time after all. This too shall pass. But right now it hurts.

And I have had my fill of hurt for many lifetimes.

[tallymali]

trauma dumping and run on sentences

as a teenager i had succhhh big plans for my life about going to university and having a career but then i didnt even finish my a levels because it was just better for me to go work full time and find a safe place to live that isnt a revolving door of weird abusive alcoholic old men hehehehehhh. anyway i had soooooo much shame about being a drop out and not being able to pursue anything i actually wanted in life but then i got a chronic illness so even tho i now have a safe place to live and a partner who makes enough money that i dont have to worry about going homeless or hungry, i still have sweet fuck all control over my life. but this has somehow deleted all the shame and guilt i felt bc after years of living in pain and doctors telling me they dont give a fuck i finally found a clinic that specialises in curing my condition and it generally takes years but the vast majority of their patients do make a full recovery WHICH MEANS ONE DAY IM PROBABLY GONNA BE OKAY AND IM GONNA BE THE HAPPIEST BITCH ON EARTH!!!!! IM GONNA WAKE UP AND FEEL SAFE IN BOTH MY HOME AND MY BODY AND IM GONNA DO WHATEVER THE FUCK I WANT BC I WILL ACTUALLY BE ABLE TO???????? IM SO FUCKING EXCITED

[thedogeveryonehates]

I just had my first ever adult-y 'im sorry but we can't be friends anymore' conversation and it really sucked and it really hurt and I'm writing it down here bcus i feel awful🫠

Long story

So we met on the dating apps years ago and we've kept in contact ever since cause he's genuinely a sweet & cool guy. Also, he was hard of hearing and would teach me cool indo sign language stuff

He lives in another city and only visits occasionally for work reasons but whenever he stopped by we would hang out

Back then it would be hanging out and hooking up but ever since i met my bf he wanted to make it clear that the latter was off the table since he wasnt comfortable with it

The next time we met I had to explain to him that I was no longer in the market for a partner, but I really valued his friendship - trying my best to show that I didn't wanna lead him on if that was the case

Even though he said he understood, it really didn't seem that way over the next few months

We would be having normal conversations and catching up on whatsapp and he'd randomly say "so you don't have feelings for me?" or "what did i do wrong?" - and it really made it awkward like we were literally discussing our spotify albums 2 minutes ago what happened

The worst part is, he would ask these questions very genuinely and sometimes follow up on these questions. So then I would match the tone as best i can - only to get the response "haha yeah i was joking i already know haha". Whenever it happened i would laugh it off and look stupid

But the final straw happened a few hours ago. He was feeling flirty but i was tired so i said to try and find a casual hookup on the dating app. He's genuinely really handsome and he's always been popular on the apps so i said it shouldn't be hard for him and that he'd find someone within the hour

He then straight up LIES to me and says that he deleted the apps a few weeks ago, following that up by writing "you are more than enough"

Afraid that he thought i was leading him on or sending him signals, i tried to shoot that down as fast as possible. Basically going through the motions of rejecting someones advances as respectfully as i possibly could to a good friend i cared about

After a few grueling minutes of silence, he hits me with the "damn i wasnt being serious" and sends me a screenshot of the app still on his phone (full of unread notifications - remember: popular)

Fast forward an hour later and ive blocked him everywhere except instagram dms, where i told him that i needed some space

Yes he apologized profusely and yes i accepted his apology but i just got so stressed and humiliated that I couldn't take it anymore

I still feel awful

This is usually something i would vent to my boyfriend but he's asleep rn so ill just let my [tumblr] mutuals know and probably delete it when i wake up

Writing kinda makes me feel better it turns out

[jqmalikhsgib]

blue skies

chapter:one

note: holy shit this probably won’t be as good as the original i wrote! i cannot believe tumblr fucked me! starting over. haley and aaron relationship is far more toxic in this fic. (not haley’s fault because she’s a saint!) aaron is a bit of a dick in the past (you’ll see why once i re—fucking—write the story thanks to tumblr you bitch 😩) haley and aaron separate around season two and divorce in the beginning of season three. this chapter focuses on 5x10. so yes, it will be haley’s funeral in the beginning so trigger warning for sadness!! foyet will be mentioned. 5x9 will be kinda mentioned as well so again, sadness! hopefully tumblr won’t delete this as well or i swear ill cry 😢

aaron is 43

reader is 33

also: i do not own any of the criminal minds dialogue (obviously) i will be using a few for this story! credit to the criminal minds writers!

you groan as your alarm goes off. you knew you needed to wake before your three year old daughter comes barging into your room and whining. you simply shut your alarm off before slowly lifting your body.

after finishing up your morning routine you head to the kitchen to make breakfast for your princess. you suddenly hear tiny little feet coming towards you. when you look down there was you daughter. she had the biggest brown eyes. her signature scowl on her face. one you knew she inherited from her father.

you smile before turning the stove off and lifting her. she rest her head on your shoulders. her sippy cup clutched to her hand.

“how’d you sleep, baby?”

“good, mamma! what’s for beakfast?” she still had a bit of a hard time pronouncing her ‘r’s.’

“just some eggs. you hungry, bug?” she nods her head simply. you smile before setting her down in her high chair and setting a small plate of eggs in front of her. she grabs her fork with her tiny hand and stuffs her mouth. you smile as you sit right beside her, coffee cup in your hand.

you turn on the news to see if it’s perfect weather for a park day. you knew how much lizzy loved park days on your day off.

your eyes widened when you see a photo of aaron on the screen. you turn the volume up and listen.

“…ley hotchner, wife of fbi agent aaron hotchner was murdered three night ago in their home by the boston reaper, george foyet…” your heart broke for aaron.

despite how much he broke your heart three year ago you still loved him. your best friend didn’t understand why. aaron had ended things with you the night you found out you were pregnant and blocked your number.

he told you he couldn’t love you. you were meant to be a distraction from his life. you lived thousands of miles away from him and he had a family. he told you that he could never be with you because haley will always mean more. that broke you into pieces. after almost two years of sex, cuddles, date night, jewelry you never asked for, and silent ‘i love yous.’ you were never gonna be her. you never blamed haley. you���re almost certain she didn’t know about you.

but when aaron and haley had been separated for awhile, aaron visit your small town in texas for a case, and many many tequila shots once said case was solved, you’d been wrapped in aaron’s arms.

at first you just wanted fun and casual. he was ten years older than you, tall, sexy, and fun. you didn’t expect to fall in love with the fbi agent.

but over time he visited more, he took you to the fanciest places he could find in your small town, sometimes you didn’t even have sex. you just talked and fell asleep in each others arms.

neither of you really knowing what this was. you didn’t wanna bring it up in case it was in your head. but you needed to know when you found out you were pregnant. you asked him what you were and if this was going somewhere.

aaron simply shook his head that night. he stepped back from you and broke your heart, “you and i were nothing more than fun. tell me you understand that yn? tell me you aren’t falling in love? because i cannot love you when i have a family of my own. a wife and a son!”

you had yelled at him stating she’s divorced him. she was no longer his wife. he had to move on. it had been almost a year since the divorce. but he simply shook his head, told you never to call again, and left.

you took his advice for a while. not contacting him for your whole pregnancy. but when you finally brought elizabeth to the world, you thought he should know about her. when you tried calling you’d realized he blocked your number.

your best friend hated aaron since that moment. she’d been the only family you had helped you raise the sweet little girl!

despite your best friends wishes you still gave her his last name.

“mamma?”

you break out of your trance and look over at your daughter.

“we going to the pawk today?”

you look back up at the weather channel and hum softly. “absolutely, bug!”

aaron clears he throat. he looks around to see his team and all of his and haley’s friends and family. he wasn’t sure he was able to do this.

he looks over and sees his ex father-in-law glaring at him. he didn’t blame him. haley’s death was his fault.

aaron opens up the folded piece of paper before he looks down and begins reading,

“w. s. gilbert wrote ‘it’s love that makes the world go round.’ and if that’s true, then the world spun a little faster with haley in it. haley was my best friend since we were in high school. we certainly had our struggles but if there’s one thing we agreed on unconditionally, it was our love and commitment to jack.” aaron continues his speak as everyone watched him.

you can see the grief of the man’s face. he was trying to hold it in for his son. as he finished the speech everyone tries to do their best to comfort him how they can. haley’s father and sister rest a single rose on her casket. aaron and jack were the last ones to do so. jack blows a kiss to his mom one final time before aaron walks away from his wife with his son in arms.

after the funeral everyone was gathered around. people were chatting and giving their condolences to aaron. he simply nods his head thanking everyone who passed by.

david walks over to aaron with two glasses. “i think you could use some air. i saw him with his cousins.”

aaron looks at his son before turning to his ex sister-in-law.

“could you make sure jack gets something to eat?”

jess simply nods as aaron follows behind dave. dave and aaron pass the team.

“you know i broke my promise to haley.”

“what promise?”

“i told her i would catch foyet and that i’d spend the rest of my life making it up to her.”

“you still can. you saved jack.”

aaron sighs before looking over at his son. he sees jess hand him a sandwich.

“you know, i may have the tools to do this job, but i don’t know if i have the tools to help my son.”

“you have to ask yourself, what kind of father you want to be. and when you figure that out. then you’ll know what to do.”

aaron hums. he looks down and plays with the end of his fingertips.

“i meant what i said today. things have changed. and i need to do what’s best for jack.”

dave nods softly. “you will.”

after spending an hour at the park you pick your daughter up gently. she was already exhausted. you smiled as she rest her head on your shoulders.

“mamma?”

“yes, baby?” you set her in her car seat.

“may we have ice cweam today?” she gives you these innocent bug eyes. it’s why you gave her the nickname ‘bug.’ she was too adorable for her own good!

“hmm, maybe! depends if you eat all your veggies tonight.” you shut the back door before getting in the drivers seat.

“i will. pwomise, mamma!” she smiles at you

you smile right back. your heart warming every time you see it. when you arrived home you spot your best friend, and roommate, shoes by the front door.

you were glad she’s home. she’d been on a business trip. gone for a week. you’d miss her.

you knew lizzy missed her as well. she’d ask almost every hour when her auntie jane was coming home.

“jane?!” you call out your best friends name. your daughter gasped. jane soon makes an appearance and smiles widely at you and lizzy.

“is that my favorite lizard?!” jane scoops your daughter up.

“janey!”

“lizzy!”

“miss you so much!” she gave jane a sloppy kiss on the cheek. jane return the favor.

“i miss you too, lizard! thought about you everyday, bug!”

your daughter giggles before jane sets her down.

“mamas gonna get dinner started, baby. why don’t you go and play a little?”

“kay, mamma.” she runs to her room. jane fills you in on the details of her trip. you both worked for a big tech company. you hated your jobs! but it was the best paying job you found. most of it was just sucking up to your bosses. they were the average sleaze bags who sexually harassed you even though they had wife and kids at home. you’d simply ignore it. you were great at your job.

you had plenty of ideas that were obviously stolen from you by your boss and told at conference rooms where the ceos would listen. since you were just an assistant it wasn’t much you could do.

“he made you share a room with him?!”

“yes! ive never been so quick to head to the creepy motel across the street! id rather rats and roaches crawl all over me than james.” she makes a face.

you laugh.

“he needs to be fired. who does something like that?” you shake your head as you finished up dinner.

“i know! we’re both smarter and more capable than james and martin! fire them and give us the high paying jobs!” jane grabs two plates for you and a smaller plate for her god-daughter.”

you hum in agreement. you fill your daughters plate up first.

“ill grab her.”

you wash your hands as jane washes both hers and elizabeths hands. you set your daughter down in her high chair before sitting in between her and jane.

the three of you enjoy your dinner. once finished you grab three small bowls and add ice cream to them.

“since you were such a big girl bug, you get ice cream!”

your daughter does a small little dance in her high chair. you coo at her cuteness. she truly was the light of your life.

once you were done with your ice cream you got ready for bed. when you finished bathing your daughter you lie her in her bed and read her a bedtime story.

“goodnight, bug.”

“night, mamma.” she falls asleep soon after. you take your own shower right after.

when you’re done you hear your phone ring. you frown at the unknown caller id. you decide to ignore it. resting your body on your bed. your phone begins to ring once more.

another unknown caller. you sigh before answering.

“yn?”

you knew that voice. you’d recognized it from anywhere.

“aaron?”

[miowritings]

Zzz..

An shiraishi, ena shinonome, rui kamishiro x gn! Sleepy! Reader

A/N: OMG ITS THE ONE AND ONLY!! IM SOOSOSOSO HAPPY YOU REQUESTED!! SORRY I DIDNT REPLY I ACCIDENTALLY DELETED THE DRAFT WITH YOUR COMMENT ON ACCIDENT😭 luckily i took a screenshot enjoy🩷!!

An shiraishi

໒꒱is probably impressed by how easily you can fall asleep, one second ago you were talking and now you're snoring..

໒꒱She would probably take out her phone and take pictures of you, to tease you when you wake up, but if she isnt in the teasing mood she'll play with your hair, would even humm your favorite songs

໒꒱would try to be quiet as much as possible to not wake you up, if you did wake up she'll feel very guilty and would try to make you fall asleep again.

˖ ࣪ . ⋆ * . .   ݁ ˖ ࣪ . ⋆ * .lil story.   ݁ ˖ ࣪ . ⋆ * . .   ݁ ˖ ࣪ . .   ݁*

It was a normal afternoon at weekend garage, you and an both chat about gossips and about your life, everything was going well.. until you started feelling sleepy.. you tried to figh your eyes to stay up but it wouldnt, it would be rude to just fall asleep when your friend is talking

"One sec, ill go get us some water!" An hurries off and grabs a water pitcher and pours some water on two glass for you both, when she came back she found you fast asleep, resting your head on the table, an chuckles and places the glass gently onto the tabe, then sat beside you

"Asleep already?" She chuckles at herself then brushes your hair with her hand gently as not to wake you up, she continued brushing your hair until she heard you groan. She then stops brushing your hair afraid that it might wake you up "continue.." you mumbled, an paused for a moment, then smiled and continued brushing your hair "youre even greedy when your asleep.." she teased

Rui kamishiro

꩜if he sees you sleeping in any place thats not a bed he would carry you and place you on a more suitable area

꩜is very very quiet, when he sees you sleeping, he would put a blanket over you just to keep you warm

꩜if you do happen to fall asleep on him he'll smile to himself, despite looking calm hes screaming eternally inside, giggling and blushing he just cant wait to tell you about this when you wake up

꩜would tease you when youre finally awake, showing you his gallery which is just pictures of you sleeping, he would edit some of the picture and doodle them or add a sticker, "y/n~~ look its a beautiful picture of you~~" he cooes showing you an edited picture of you sleeping

˖ ࣪ . ⋆ * . .   ݁ ˖ ࣪ . ⋆ * .lil story.   ݁ ˖ ࣪ . ⋆ * . .   ݁ ˖ ࣪ . .   ݁*

You recently found yourself tutoring your classmate, you didnt know how you got into this and wanted to escape fast it was soo tiring to tutor him, he always answered with the most stupidest responses, not knowing he was only doing this just to spend more time with you♡

You sighed under your breath, at this point you already give up "i give up.." you mutter, rui looks over at you and pleads dramatically "ehhhh.. why? Dont give up on mee.. pleasee? Lets just take a break!" He suggested You groaned and decided to give him a chance. "Fine, but we're not taking any breaks until you learn a thing or two got it?" Rui quickly nodded with a smile

"this separates the chest cavity from the abdominal cavity. Im giving you three minutes to answer." You said sternly, rui knew the answer to this ofcourse but.. he decided to play dumb for a while.. "hmm... hmmmm.." he thinks while making some humming noise while doing so he suddenly stops when he felt someones head on his shoulder.

"y/n..?" He added, he was about to wake you up but he saw the peacefulness in your face, he didnt wanna ruin your sleep! After all it was his fault you got tired.. He continued sitting there, his hands shaking like crazy, trying to sit still but he cant.. not when someones head is in his shoulder, its not just someone, its his crush.. rui then grabs the blanket from the floor then wraps it around the both of you

"told you we should take a break.." he teases, he then chuckles at himself "have a good rest y/n.." he says before slowly drifting to joining you in your sleep.

Ena shinonome

✿at first she would wake you up when you fallen asleep on her, but as you two kept spending more time together she doesnt wake you up, instead he hums and plays with your hair while your sound asleep

✿if you do manage to fall asleep on her shoulder or lap she would blush like crazy, she wouldn't stop squealing and shifting

✿is she does manage to calm down, she places your head onto her lap and just plays with your, not even glancing at your face cus if she does she'll be a red mess!

˖ ࣪ . ⋆ * . .   ݁ ˖ ࣪ . ⋆ * .lil story.   ݁ ˖ ࣪ . ⋆ * . .   ݁ ˖ ࣪ . .   ݁*

You and ena were sitting on the school bench chatting, and gossiping as usual, ena then heard you yawn, and even sees you rubbing your eyes "y/n.. are you sleepy again? Yknow you should get more sleep.. especially since your in night class.." she says calmly, not even hiding the fact that shes worried.

"im fine ena.. ill just drink some coffee and ill be awake and energized!" You added, ena only sighed "fine.. just.. dont drink too much caffeine okay? I do not want you throwing up all over the place.." you chuckled at her remarks and just nodded

You both continued talking when ena stops "oh! I forgot to tell you something!" She grabs her backpack and searches for her sketchpad "im finished with my- eh?!" She felt you head on her shoulder and was snoring, "y/n.. wake up.." she tries to shake you awake but when she sees your eyebags she just cant leave you like this!

"hmph... fine im letting this one slide.." she groans, she then placed her backpack on her lap, after that she gently holds your head and moved them to her lap, making you lay down and have a comfortable pillow..

"you should get more sleep.. you're sleepier than usual.." she points out, she sighs then looks around to see if no ones around, once the coast is clear she kissed your nose then looks away.

˖ ࣪ . ⋆ * . .   ݁ ˖ ࣪ . ⋆ * .bonus!.   ݁ ˖ ࣪ . ⋆ * . .   ݁ ˖ ࣪ . .   ݁*

"oh my.. what a sight.." someone spoke up, it was her brother, "why do you let them sleep on you? If i was the one sleeping you would've thrown me around.." "shush! What are you doing here anyways? Youre supposed to be home by now.." she asked "you left your phone dumbass.. i am gonna tell that akiyama person what i just saw.. itd be so funny.." "just.. shut up kay? Look if you dont tell anyone about this, ill buy you whatever you want.!" Her brother smirks "deal!" He then walks away with a proud grin on his face.

@nogenderbee 🩷

[cielles-random-vault]

random hobie brown headcanons!

all will be sfw the nsfw/spicy ones will be in pink

trying real hard not to delete this acc and kms bc of a sudden trigger

also this won't be proofread because im in the middle of a mental breakdown

he always looks for you when he performs

he's not the jealous "i show everyone who is my lover" type, more like the subtle "let's go" kind in crowded places to yk do unholy things

also small public demonstrations of affection <3 <3

like holding hands, putting his hand on your waist when you walk, small kisses both on your cheek and on your lips, small notes when he wakes up earlier than you since he's yk a spider man

he gave you one of his very own spike bracelets which i feel would be really dear to him

prob made you one esp for you

no matter how your styles differ he will still find a way to have something that reminds him of you on him whether it's a badge, a hair clip or even rings

taking you to the piercer as a first date!!

despite him being an anarchist he's actually very caring

you're sick? fuck capitalism he will make you his own medicine with some of his teas

unrelated but i feel like he's Jamaican or smth wait lemme check

ok i didn't find anything but ill js hc him as jamaican

so like yea when you're sick he makes you jamaican medicine

"take this shortcake! i know it doesn't seem yummy but i promise you'll feel better in a snap after!

you did feel better in a snap

(for fem aligned readers) when you're on your period he turns into the sweetest man ever

sometimes the two of you meet after his concerts - even though that's smth really important for him he makes sure you know you're his actual priority- you go on a rooftop and he tells you about his parents

feeling dysphoric because you're transmasc and on your period ? he makes sure you're the most handsome person he ever knew

when the two of you are doing it, he always makes sure he has your consent before trying anything new - or even before trying anything at all

he's not afraid to admit he's in love with you and he treats you like ROYALTY

you like this specific song? he'll post you to this song and even write love songs for you. remember that specific cat café you mentioned three months ago? he'll bring you there for your birthday.

going nonverbal and being overstimulated? that's no problem for him he'll sit with you in the dark in silence until you feel better.

THIS MAN IS A MAN OF AFTERCARE "you did so well for me darling <3 now what about we get some sweets and cuddle under the stars?"

he's a top most of the but yk he secretly lives when you're in control

HICKEYS HICKEYS HICKEYS ALL OVER YOUR BODY esp on your neck and in between your thighs

speaking of thighs whenever you feel insecure he turns into your girl best friend

having big thighs ? it's more comfy for when he has his head on his lap. big boobs?more comfy for cuddling. no/small boobs? it's ok clothes fit more easily. the list goes on but he always cheers you up.

UNLABELLED THEY/HE HOBIE‼️‼️‼️‼️

p sure he love when you ride him

like you're on top of him in some way but he somehow keeps control

probably likes to asset his dominance by putting a hand around your neck (wdym i don't have a choke kink i do)

BUT HE ALWAYS MAKES SURE YOURE OK THAT MAKES HIM LITTEALLY SM HOTTER OMG

he's always down for ditching class but he somehow has the best grades

which upsets you bc you're the one who always want to ditch class but your grades ain't following

omg it's giving academical rivals au

so like he sometimes comes at your place to help you w the subjects you have trouble with

eventually you end up pinned down on your desk passionately kissing

+ seeing you in a school uniform makes him go feral

fucking you in your school skirt? boy he sure is turned on

quickies in the school's bathroom ? man he loves danger so he's obviously down

+ he loves the way kissing you makes his piercing feel (idk but if i had healed piercings on my lips id love the way it'd feel)

SLOW BURN MAKE OUT SESSION IN THE RAIN

can you tell i love rain? bc i do

he makes sure you feel loved and says it to everyone he knows

"hey that's (reader's name) did you know they're my partner i love them sm"

he notices small habits and picks them up when he misses you (idk how to explain bit for example i sometimes twitch my nose because of my allergies- in that case if you did he would too)

HIGH PATTERN RECOGNITION even though he won't force you to tell him why you feel bad he instantly notices the changes in your behavior

"can you repeat, darling? i didn't hear what you said"

he makes sure you use your words despite you being overstimulated

+ his hands. they make you go crazy.

he's actually a lonely guy, give this poor man a big hug :(

no but fr tho he went through sm his backstory made me cry

OK bit of a vent now🕺🏻 but first tysm for reading ily ! <3 /p

i suddenly lost all motivation to post full fics bc i keep comparing me to others, most well known posters and it really triggers me so i guess i'll make the lonely series go on a hiatus. also working on requests! but it's getting harder to not kms bc of the pressure im putting on myself 🫠

anyhoo, kaheri there,back to dreamland! see you in the next dream! (new outro who dis?)

[aziraphales-library]

Lost Fic #150

1. Hello, wonderful mods! I have lost a fic with a scene that I vividly remember. I think Aziraphale and Crowley accidentally fell asleep with one another (likely on a couch?) Crowley wakes up, is upset about something (to do with feels?) Aziraphale wakes and starts apologizing, something like, "I'm sorry. Was I squishing you? I know I can be quite heavy" and Crowley responds with, "No, don't be ridiculous. Of course you weren't, and you aren't." Thank you so much for all your time and work! :D - anon

2. Hi all! I read a fic a while back that I can't find. It was after dining at the Ritz and Aziraphale says at one point that of course he loves Crowley, he just, needed to wait till they were safe and he thought Crowley knew. It was a short fic, really great, now I can't find it. I know there must be a lot like this one, and it's pretty vague, but that's all I can remember. Hope you can find it, thanks! - @sharklist

3. So I've been looking for this fic for about 2 days now and I think it's deleted, but can you help me find it? All I remember is that after Crowley preened Aziraphale's wings,  Aziraphale kissed him and Crowley said "Never in 6000 did I think you would make the first move." And then poor Aziraphale was like O.o - @humanbeingwithissues

4. hello there, i looking for the fic where A discover that the book of prophecies has been burned and in the same time that C always loved it (romantically) but i don't remember the name - anon

5. Hi, I know that the mods get a ton of requests for lost fics, but I’d appreciate it if anyone could help me find one in particular (I think this is all one fic? but if it’s not, that is probably my problem). (Feel free to reformat however works best): Here are some notable details: Limbo is basically like a sexual health clinic for supernatural creatures? Crowley has an asexual vampire friend that is also his therapist.Aziraphale visits Crowley’s flat and does some protective sigil, but falls ill since Crowley had measures to keep his flat secure post Hastur/Ligur. Crowley used to be Lucifer/Satan’s throne and actually built parts of Hell. Details I think are still part of this fic:Aziraphale was/is Raphael and is asked (by Michael?) to lead Heaven after Gabriel falls, but declines.Limbo also acts as a neutral third party and Aziraphale and Crowley make an agreement with Satan/Lucifer after he realizes Crowley is his old throne. It was an incredible read, and I hope someone can help find it.Thanks for all you folks do! - anon

If you know any of these fics please include the number in your reply! Thank you :)

- Mod D

[deliciouskeys]

@cozycornerkinktober's prompt lucky #13: Nursing/lactation

Another deleted scene from the Selfish Gene (Butchlander)

Warnings: Everyone's going to write about HL's canon nursing/breast milk fetish for this one. And uh... so am I. But in mine he's the one lactating so trigger warning for that upfront. Mpreg. Supe baby. Injuries. Weird fetishes. Probably a little bit more emo than I intended. @vanshoundd requested this one, but I'm not at all sure they'll be pleased with the result lol, but I tried! AO3 link.

Butcher’s nose was never that sensitive, but he starts to detect it as soon as he’s out of the elevator on the twenty fourth floor of their new hoity-toity high rise condo building. It hits him full force when he opens the door to the apartment, thick, cloying, notes of melted butter and even something a little like apple, all mixing together into a bouquet that now smells like his partner, like their child, like home. Butcher puts away the groceries he brought in before following the overly familiar, obnoxiously loud sound of the pump coming from their bedroom.

Homelander is sitting half propped up in bed, browsing on his phone, the wearable vest with suction cups stuck to his otherwise bare torso, both 150ml milk bottles half-full with creamy white liquid, frothing up slightly from the negative pressure. Lena’s sleeping soundly on top of his body and not in her crib— as far as Butcher knows she’s never been in her crib in the two weeks since being born, Homelander being completely engrossed with taking her everywhere and keeping her close at all times. He hasn’t really left the house except to go out on the balcony, despite having been so enthusiastic about having the house confinement officially nixed a few months ago. At least their new apartment overlooks Central Park and has two spacious bedrooms— not that Homelander has let Lena stay in her nursery yet. Butcher made a token attempt to convince him that sleeping together with your newborn in the same bed was ill-advised, but SIDS was just not something on Homelander’s list of worries. ‘How about you worry about Sudden Dad Death Syndrome,’ he said dismissively. Butcher had no intention to stay away and sleep in another room. If he’s going to get lasered for rolling over on his infant daughter, well, it was a good run. Homelander seems genuinely worried about that eventuality though, and keeps Lena between his own body and a pillow. Butcher’s not sure how much the pillow would really protect him, but he’s learned not to argue about most of these things. He’s also not sure how much Homelander actually sleeps during the night, because he’s still feeding the baby so often, and every time Butcher wakes up groggy during the night, Homelander’s either feeding, burping, changing, or pumping.

At the moment Lena’s sound asleep, positioned along Homelander’s belly, tiny legs flexibly curled up under her diaper, tiny ribcage visibly moving in and out underneath the tiny blanket draped over her.

“I don’t know how she can sleep through that racket going on near her head,” Butcher says as he lies down next to Homelander.

“It’s really not that loud.” Homelander rolls his eyes, finally putting away the phone.

“It’s pretty loud, love. And I think you’re going to break it soon if you don’t stop running it 24-7.”

Homelander huffs. “What am I supposed to do if I can’t store much inside my body?”

Supplement with formula maybe, Butcher thinks but doesn’t say out loud. It’s a really sore topic they’ve been over multiple times over the past couple of weeks. Homelander’s body responded to pregnancy by the textbook, golden colostrum letting down as soon as Lena rut her face into his chest, not even an hour after being born. But his milk supply never came in as plentifully as the lactation coach assured him it would. He produced milk quickly, but had little storage capacity. His chest was only a little bit more swollen and veiny than before pregnancy, and there was apparently just not enough volume for a satisfying feeding, even for a tiny newborn. Butcher had probably never seen him as upset as when he was frantically switching Lena from one nipple to the other, to no avail because she’d drained both in short order and was crying for more. “Why can’t I do this right?!” he’d lamented, sobbing about his failure, rather than the fact that their famished newborn’s suction was apparently strong enough to make his nipples’ skin chafe, pop, and bleed. Butcher fed Lena formula out of a bottle between her breast feedings during those first few days, and Homelander refused to even watch it happen, lying in bed turned away, weeping, depressed, and defeated. The mere sight of the bottle would send him into what, in Butcher’s mind, was irrational hysterics, but suggesting that there might be some postpartum depression at play here was angrily dismissed out of hand. Butcher found what was at least a stopgap solution, buying one of those supplemental nursing systems where breast milk could be mixed with formula to boost the volume and be used to feed the baby through a thin plastic tube taped to align right with the nipple. All the nice physical bonding of not using a bottle, without the anxiety about your baby going hungry, Butcher figured. But Homelander was still a purist, and wanted zero Similac in the mixture. That’s why he’d taken to pumping day and night, every hour except when Lena was actually latched on to him. For better or worse, it seemed to be working, his body slowly adjusting to meet the demand. In the past few days, he finally started having leftovers to freeze. 

“I just feel like I haven’t been able to talk to you without raising my voice over the din of that motor,” Butcher says, cupping Homelander’s face and kissing him on the cheek, then rubbing his hand against the rough beard bristles on his chin. Homelander was so focused on his baby that apparently he stopped prioritizing shaving every morning, brushing his hair, or showering.

“Sorry, I haven’t been taking care of myself today,” Homelander says defensively as Butcher’s hand runs along his jaw.

“D’you want to?” Butcher asks.

Homelander looks down at Lena and sighs.

“I can watch her while you take a fifteen minute shower,” Butcher says, both amused and annoyed. “You can’t keep being this much of a control freak.”

“If she wakes up-”

“I’ll inform you at once, commander-in-chief, Jesus.”

“And if she…”

He trails off but Butcher knows what Homelander is getting at without any more being said. Lena has yet to actually fire off a laser but her eyes have powered up a glow a couple of times in the past two weeks. They haven’t been able to pinpoint what seems to trigger it. Every time it’s happened she was latched on, feeding, and not fussing. Butcher thinks it’s overwhelmed-with-happiness-and-pleasure lasers, not rage-lasers, but they can’t know for sure.

“I’ll be careful and point her away from me. What do you want me to say?”

Homelander nods and slowly sits up. Lena makes a quiet whimper and he freezes but she seems to go right back to sleep, despite being held almost fully upright. Butcher takes her gently into his arms and cradles her. She turns toward his body but thankfully doesn’t wake up and start searching for milk. Homelander walks out of the bedroom with the pump still attached to him.

“Maybe you should take it off before you get in the shower,” Butcher mutters to himself under his breath, but Homelander hears him loud and clear, of course, even with the machine still on and says “Very funny” from the bathroom.

Butcher enjoys the rare opportunity to study this tiny creature snoozing in his arms, a creature he helped make. He leans down and inhales the scent of her head, her wispy dark hairs flying up when he does. He finally hears the pump being shut off and the shower running shortly after. Lena stays asleep, eyes sometimes moving underneath her thin eyelids, long eyelashes twitching slightly. She’s unbearably cute. Holding her, Butcher admits he can understand why her other parent doesn’t seem to want to let go of her for even a minute. He never would have imagined he’d feel like that about anything, let alone a newborn, but there’s some kind of biological or psychological program that’s kicked into gear in his brain once he finally saw her in the flesh. Somewhere in his deep memory he also recalls what it was like to see Lenny for the first time, and feel an overwhelming immediate sense of love for someone so tiny.

As he watches her sleep, his mind starts to drift as well, as if the sleepiness is contagious. He’s in this hypnotized state, so he’s not sure how it happens exactly, but Lena wakes up pretty suddenly. She doesn’t cry, just opens her eyes and next thing Butcher feels is her tiny fist finding and wrapping around the pinky of the hand he’s laid on top of her. Butcher immediately realizes his dire circumstances when he feels powerful force squeezing his finger and bone starting to crack. He stays stoically silent, looking down at her open eyes. They’re huge—sometimes it feels like they’re taking up half of her face— and a piercing blue. He’s heard babies’ eyes often darken as they grow, but as of now they’re the spitting image of Homelander’s. Maybe that’s why he feels just a tiny bit unsettled whenever she fixes them on him– some echo of their old antagonism still buried somewhere deep in his brain.

“Lena, love, let go of Daddy’s hand,” he says quietly through teeth clenching in pain, still smiling at her, already knowing talking like this is futile. He’s fairly sure he feels something fracturing and blinks back tears. She stares up at him, but doesn’t release her grip. He can’t even try to pry her hand off, with none of his hands free. The shower is turned off already, and loath as Butcher is to prove that he can’t watch Lena for fifteen minutes, he gets up and carefully makes his way to the bathroom.

“Can you help me out…” he says as he’s pushing the door open with an elbow and sees Homelander choke on something and press the back of his hand to his mouth. Although he’s at the sink, turned away from the door, Butcher can see in the mirror that he was sipping on one of the milk containers that he detached from his chest.

“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST CAN YOU KNOCK?!” he explodes, apparently before he’s swallowed everything down because the first words come out with a gurgle.

“I actually couldn’t…” Butcher answers sheepishly, wincing because Lena’s grip tightened further around his already broken finger during the yelling.

Homelander looks over and sees the situation and his facial expression twists from anger to distress. He quickly approaches and pries her tiny fingers open, taking her into his own arms almost at the same time, cradling her close.

“She hurt you,” he says, frowning so dramatically that Butcher can’t help but feel amused at their predicament. A baby being able to mangle her father has some kind of dark humor to it.

“She’s fine. I was careless,” Butcher says, almost waving his injured hand dismissively before feeling a jolt of pain in his pinky at any movement.

“Your right hand. You need to go to the hospital,” Homelander laments, starting to sound panicked. 

“Hey, it’s not a big deal, alright? Leave it alone. I’ll take care of it later.”

Homelander looks unappeased by that, and it dawns on Butcher that he’s probably insecure about his child being perceived as a danger to normal people, the public. Perhaps to be locked away in a secure facility until all the powers are under control.

“Hey, I’m okay. I was just careless.” Butcher says, but he’s also starting to survey the scene he walked in on. Homelander’s standing naked, hair still wet, holding Lena in his arms who seems to recognize her feeder parent smell and is starting to root around his chest. Butcher sees the bottle of breast milk, almost drained. He doesn’t say anything, but Homelander seems to catch where his gaze went.

“I make enough for her! I’m not having anything that she needs!” he starts saying and Butcher doesn’t know where to start with this.

“Look, I don’t care what you do with it. You’re the one obsessed with not giving her formula. If you want to drink your own breast milk, I’m not going to be the one to stop you.”

Homelander chews on his lip, face crimson, and Butcher can’t believe that this is, of all the strange things this supe’s done, what he’s going to be mortified by.

“I’m not saying it’s normal, but you’re not harming anyone.”

“You don’t get it,” Homelander says, eyes fluttering when Lena finds his nipple and latches on but then he looks down at her and avoids eye contact with Butcher. “I obsess over it. I- I feel like I get turned on when she’s nursing. I even get a little turned on when I’m pumping. I’ve been wanting to drink it. I have real issues.”

Butcher rubs the bridge of his nose, remembering to use his left hand. “I mean, yeah, that sounds a bit sick, but it’s harmless I guess.”

“You never feel tempted to even just taste it?” Homelander asks. His tone is weird and desperate, as if he’s hoping to hear just a little bit of support for this freaky fixation.

“Can’t say I have,” Butcher says, but then adds. “I kind of like the way it smells. I’ll taste it if it makes you feel better.” He approaches and takes a small sip from the same bottle Homelander was drinking out of, smacking and trying to describe the taste like a connoisseur. “It’s really sweet. It’s not that bad. If I didn’t know what it was I might have though it was some kind of bland custard.”

Homelander watches him, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“What?” Butcher asks. “What do you want me to say?”

“You’re not revolted?” Homelander asks cautiously.

“I don’t know, after watching you be in labor for more than a day and then give the bloodiest birth I’ve ever heard of at home on a shower curtain I spread out on our bed? I think I’m beyond being revolted.”

When they move back to the bedroom, Butcher holds Lena while Homelander puts on fresh sweatpants. He’s rushing, as if every second Butcher is holding her is borrowed time.

“You can’t do everything yourself.” Butcher sighs. “It’s just a broken finger. I don’t even feel like going to the ER. They’ll just put it in a splint.”

“Fix your hand,” Homelander answers him brusquely. “I don’t want you walking around with an ugly crooked finger and have it be this ‘Story’ about how Lena broke your pinky.”

“And here I thought you cared about my well-being.” Butcher chuckles.

“Maybe that too,” Homelander says morosely, as he lies back and switches Lena over to his other nipple. His expression softens whenever she’s latched on. “If you’re not going to the ER, can you…bring the bottles from the bathroom…?”

Butcher shrugs and carries the two containers back into the bedroom.

“Can you…” Homelander’s voice gets really quiet. “Can you feed me with it.”

Now Butcher’s a bit disturbed. “Can I what now?”

“Just put the bottle top on it with the nipple and just hold it to my mouth.”

Butcher sighs, incredulous, but does as he’s asked. He watches Lena sucking languidly on Homelander’s nipple– she’s not hungry, she’s mostly doing it out of habit and for comfort. He watches Homelander slowly downing the remaining milk in one bottle and then the other.

“Yeah, this is a bit fucked, love, I have to tell you.”

Homelander licks his lips when he’s drained everything. Lena leans back at about the same time, and the synchrony is vaguely disturbing to Butcher.

“I know,” Homelander says, looking off into the distance and avoiding eye contact. “But it makes me happy.”

A/N: The oxytocin released by the brain upon the sensation of breastfeeding doesn't bring people to orgasm, but it can turn some people on quite a bit. Socially unacceptable biological phenomena, but honestly it makes a lot of evolutionary sense that you'd get rewarded for feeding your brood.

[jasperjv]

Hey. So 2 years ago Connor Lavery's aka khonjin's psychological torture of me reached fever pitch in my psyche and I was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital in a severe psychotic breakdown that lasted almost 3 months. Now I'm indexed in his long story of his supposed inexplicable persecution. He thinks me, in my psychotic state, demanding monetary compensation for his gaslighting and harassment, was some kind of attempt at "cancellation" and me throwing a tantrum instead of communicating like an adult. However I deleted my entire social media presence after getting back from the hospital and haven't bothered him since. But he still thinks I did something to him.

The man is dangerous. He believes that the worst sin of mankind is the ego, so he makes it his mission to bully the fuck out of everyone until they have no self-esteem, boundaries of their own, or healthy sense of self whatsoever. The elimination of the ego however is what psychosis is, also unable to suppress the flow of the unconscious, identical to a waking dream. But when that happened to me after 2 years of mind games, he retreated into himself and framed it in the most disgusting way possible. Which you will see.

Embedded here is the first video I made myself specifically on this topic. You will see more details in a more recent video, and follow the trail I put in that video's description to get my full story. For the podcast in particular I would give a content warning for assault, sexual assault, ableism ("saneism"?) and general torture and terror.

There's nothing on God's green earth I could do or say to force him to take me seriously. I have probably half of you people blocked because just seeing anything to do with him would make my blood pressure spike. And it's high enough as-is just due to genetics. Maybe the rest of you might be able to be reached.

I'm so sick of fucking self-centered freaks trying to hold me accountable for actual psychosis because they're so desperate to blame anyone or anything but themselves for their part in tragedy. I really get gaslit about my own psychosis, and forced to prove a negative repeatedly (which we know is a lexical impossibility). I'm handed a blatant double-standard about mental health awareness and basic human decency, when in many cases I desperately need it more than most. Schizophrenia sufferers are 1% of the population. We're dwarfed by most, if not all, other mental illnesses. In this I continue to be thrown alone to the wolves. Sometimes even while being laughed at, it truly feels like. So I feel like I have to do all in my power to help make sure that this happens to fewer people than it would otherwise.

The callouts in 2018, the types of points of persuasion they were trying didn't make sense to me. Maybe this, though, could strike others. I'm more specific about how exactly he destroys people from the inside out. Stay the fuck away from him.

He's scared of losing his financial support from Patreon and ad revenue or whatever. I really, truly felt for that for a long time. But now I know that none of us are obligated to keep his ass afloat. It would be nobody's fault but his own if he didn't even try to heal his fucked up mindset and was just a raging misanthrope nobody wants to deal with. When you get to be my age, you become aware of all the ways to make a living. He could get disability. He could get a factory job, for instance. And that paid me an absurd amount of money. He needs to make up his mind about if he wants to be around people or not. Because he can't keep treating them the way that he does.

Oh, and if you're reading this and you happen to have any social connections with him whatsoever, for the love of God, do not let him put you on the defensive. About anything. Over and over again. It chips away at you. He doesn't have the answers. He doesn't have any objective taste like he desperately wants to think. He doesn't know any wisdoms that you couldn't get from someone who won't talk down to you.

Took me quite a while to convince him of the truth that he is only older than me by only a few months. I needed my hope in humanity and the future in order to not go and end it all. He did not give a fuck. He kept accusing me of lying about not being a naïve teenager. Just for that. Ask any well-adjusted and experienced adult and they will tell you to stay far away from people like that. The motivations that drive them to that behavior and opinion are bad, bad news.

He is intelligent, in the scariest ways. Intelligence of that type allows dysfunctional people like him to fabricate lines of logic that justify and enable the abuse they already sought to do. Literally anything can be justified with just the right kind of logic. Trust your gut. Guard your mind. It's the only one you've got.

He leads an excessively stressful life, creates his own dysfunctional world both inside and around him. I truly believe that this causes him many health problems. I've been having nightmares because of him. And as this built up and weighed heavy on my mind I got a fucking hemorrhoid. It went away very quickly after I made this video.

I'm feeling anxious as I type this. But I have to tell myself that anyone who would continue harassment of me over all the truth I've spoken is not worth my time or space. This isn't for them. It's for me, and it's for people who still have basic respect and empathy left in them.

Yours truly,

"slug"

[captainnameless]

Hi I can’t remember my full ask that got deleted but it was something about Max being adorable and small and how he’d react to having his Danny back at red bull??

ahh i’m sorry again for accidentally deleting it. i’m deadly ill atm so i can’t think straight forgive whatever word vomit this is but he’d be so delighted.

just, the bestest boy. he’s just so happy to have his Danny back at the team. he’s waking up early so he and Daniel can catch rides together to the sponsored events, glued to his side, every single question he’s asked he’s looks at Daniel first to see if maybe he wants to answer it, anywhere he has to go Daniel now has to come too.

it’s picture day today and Max hates it, the overwhelming bright lights and flashes always give him a headache and tire him out. he has to get a haircut, which he also hates and is probably why he always cuts it so goddamn short so he doesn’t have to go for one again soon.

but this time Daniel is there, offering support and making him laugh for the camera’s, bouncing around like a lunatic to get something genuine. he convinces Max to keep his hair a bit longer, just how he likes it, promises a bit of quiet time together after. the headache isn’t bad this time because Daniel sneaks them out during lunch for a nap, Max demands the bear they got during the launch joins them, he tries squeezing both the bear and Leo in between him and Daniel but it’s not comfortable and eventually Daniel convinces him the bear can watch over them from the chair. it pulls a pout out of Max but he relents when Daniel gets the bear a blanket too.

[chaotic-tired-cat]

Heads up i have posted!!! a new fic!!! but AO3 seems to have eaten it, which is unfortunate. If the link ever works it's Day By Day We Stumble On - Chapter 1 - Sandtalon - 呪術廻戦 | Jujutsu Kaisen (Manga) [Archive of Our Own] Alas. It does not. I am dealing with the results of my own misplaced trust in technology by cross-posting the first chapter here so there will be a copy of it SOMEWHERE (deleted my copy after posting whoops.)

So, for whoever wants it, here is a tumblr-formatted copy of my terrible comedy jjk & naruto crossover where Shoko does exactly what you may expect given the title.

Summary: Every sorcerer has their own way to cope with the stress tremors quaking the jujutsu world. Satoru stomps his way through paper lines in shifting sand. Mei Mei-senpai draws new ones. Utahime cares for who she can, where she can, to keep from being buried. Nanami makes his peace. None of these methods are wrong, but they don't fit Shoko. She is tired, overworked, and so used to a life judged by the service she provides that she can't imagine functioning without it. Satoru's brother is familiar with the concept.

Friendship can look like two people sitting in a tub of misery, side by side. It works for them.

(Reincarnation AU but it's not about reincarnation or dimension travel. No, that's not on anyone's radar except for the guy it happened to. Shoko is in charge of this story, and she has decided this narrative will focus on the local coffee-addict finally catching a break.)

(This fic includes medical issues, chronic illness, and canon-typical child soldier nonsense, as well as topics like overwork, medical malpractice, smoking & alcohol use, and unhealthy work-life balance. It also includes mention of patricide, child abuse, and strangulation.)

Gojo Satoru has the eyes of a Furby and the soul of a slightly drunk hyena. 

This isn't a facet of her friend that Shoko needs to be paid to confront, necessarily, right up until it really, really is. Those cursed - and sometimes Cursed - occasions are reserved for the worst possible time, like Satoru's all-seeing luck peered directly through Shoko's life to hand-pick her unluckiest days. It's a talent. The worst talent in the world, and sometimes Shoko understands how Utahime wonders why they get along so well. Then again, that's coming from someone who barely considers herself to be reluctant acquaintances, let alone tentative friends with "the local nuisance."

Utahime would have opinions about a lot of Shoko's life decisions. Most of them would be correct, because it's Utahime. Unfortunately, she’s an unreliable source of wisdom due to losing about half her common sense to Satoru’s baiting on the regular. Shoko can understand it sometimes.

Such as now. Three in the ungodly morning is not a good time to test if Shoko's medical license is just for show.

It's just not.

Satoru knows this.

Just as he knows that the only thing that can get Shoko livid enough to act on her anger is functioning on less than two hours of sleep.

He could probably see that she was awake anyway and contemplating just how many shots of espresso puts her on the ungovernable side of a caffeine addiction, but she's refusing to acknowledge that. It's too early for comprehensive thought processing. Too late. Too far on one end of the sun's presence in the sky, but just tired enough to forget if the rise or setting is closer. Time has lost all meaning. Satoru can probably see her brain trying desperately to fire neurotransmitters to wake her up properly. On top of that, he knows she's frustrated at the higher-ups for pushing her working hours into barely manageable configurations when she complains. It shows in the way his voice stays under the headache threshold of volume. She is so damn tired.

Stop.

Drink the damn coffee.

Breathe.

She won't make his life more difficult than it already is. He didn't intend to test her patience and skill by spontaneously threatening the puppet masters of the jujutsu world, taking on a special grade in Hokkaido, and somehow returning with a mysterious brother. Lost sleep isn't personal. Shoko knows this.

Friends don't press each other into this lukewarm hell of overwork unless the situation is dire, which makes her current conundrum just that extra bit of a headache.

She crosses her arms at the cot.

Did-

Did Satoru spawn via mitosis?

She can never tell with him. This is a legitimate question.

Shoko has had the tentatively arguable displeasure of being his friend for years and is firmly of the belief that things like Conservation of Matter apply to Satoru only because they amuse him. It's her leading theory. Generations have passed since the last holder of the Six Eyes, and every moldy text on the abilities they hold is wrapped up in musty ancient language that relies on metaphors more than actual instruction. There is no recipe card for the Gojo clan's sacred technique. Just confusion and a hyperactive teenager who somehow grew weirder with time. He ages like cheese.

"You've cloned yourself," Shoko diagnoses even as her technique rules out that possibility.

Satoru preens. "The world couldn't handle two of me."

He's not wrong.

She listens to his chatter while she checks over the sibling he has managed to pull from thin air. Honestly. Of all the things to make a man who is harder to pin down than the raccoon in her apartment garage – that kind of person – ask for help… well. She wasn't expecting a brother. 

It's impossible to tell if the unconscious brother even looks like Satoru. Satoru covers only his eyes, while this guy covers everything but one of his eyes. A dark mask stretches down from the bridge of his nose, and there's a wide band of fabric pulled over the other eye. Apparently that one got gouged out for some reason Satoru cheerfully seethes over when she notices the old injury. The elder Gojo's got slightly darker grey hair than Satoru’s white, though. A bit more gravity-defying, and thank goodness for that. Identical twins would have snapped her last brain cell clean in half.

Shoko chooses to believe in mitosis. It's easier that way.

Satoru goes quiet when she asks for details as to why his spontaneously new brother is unconscious and needing a doctor. A quiet Satoru is about as good a sign as a harbinger of doom.

"I just need to know what took him out," she assures him. It's Satoru's business what secrets he wants to keep. “That’s it.”

"No." Satoru braces his elbows on his knees and bends over in the uncomfortable chair. He's smiling. Like a kitsune, yeah, but that anger is not her problem. "I'm tired of hiding, and Kakashi has never cared either way."

"Alright."

The story clarifies little.

Gojo Kakashi is three years Satori's elder. Kicked out of the Gojo line of succession due to a weak constitution and being physically incapable of wielding cursed energy, Kakashi should have died from his illness years ago. He did not. As far as Shoko can tell, spite created willpower and that, more than anything, fueled his survival-based cursed technique. It’s very odd. Lupine, lightning-based cursed energy sparks in a blaze of white energy that stitches his health back together like a calamity that is self-sustaining out of luck and little else. It gets tripped up around the eye he keeps covered as if expecting the Six Eyes to spontaneously manifest, but all that's done is fry his optic nerves from the inside out.

In short, Kakashi's body tried so hard to activate a technique it does not have that it blinded him in one eye. He was lucky not to lose both. It probably drained him half to death.

Ouch.

Satoru says in cheerful, acidic words that Kakashi’s worth has always been in his use to the Gojo clan elders. Both brothers have that in common. The crucial difference is that while Satoru got fucked-up eyes, Kakashi got fucked-up cursed energy due to the circle of a family tree the Gojo clan insists on to keep their technique from fading. It puts Satoru's sharp distaste of his own clan's politics in perspective.

Bluntly speaking, the elder brother is considered ‘better off dead’ by those old bastards. 

He's bought survival in unnatural talent for every single weapon put into his hands, but even that is shaky ground. He is chronically ill. Satoru’s pretty sure they’re bleeding his older brother dry, because apparently the second Kakashi was able to perform light exercise, marching orders rolled out. There was no regard for the fact that his health was tentative at best. Pricy medical assistance could not make up for self-destructive cursed energy, though patience was bought in the map of scar tissue and poorly-healed old injuries Shoko notices. It seems this has never mattered. Kakashi has apparently spent his entire life quietly training as a good little bodyguard for the Gojo elders to order around.

A little bit of treason in the form of one child soldier, as a treat to themselves.

It explains so much about Satoru. All the gift shopping and refusal to explain who made the dango he sometimes brought to school suddenly makes so much sense. His cute little bento boxes were always a touch too neat to be made by someone so impatient. Yes, Satoru is the kind of person to cut out nori in a ‘you can do it!’ message across bento onigiri for himself, but he wouldn’t be that protective of it. Wouldn’t have cared when Suguru filched one.

Satoru’s hidden temper boils as he tells a story from the impersonal plastic chairs Shoko uses to make unwanted visitors leave faster. His voice is syrup-happy.

Bitter.

He softens when he talks about his brother, though.

Plain as day.

Kakashi has spent the majority of his life wandering through his little section the Gojo compound, safe under a fairly high-powered barrier. It’s like a lethal hermit lifestyle. They apparently instituted it because Kakashi’s cursed energy and trouble attraction abilities had every medical professional saying, "welp. That's weird," before doing absolutely nothing. This led the Gojo clan to further seal away their eldest heir for twenty or so years, except for when they toss him like a pipe bomb at people they dislike.

You know.

As one does.

A weird assassination tactic, but it apparently works. Kakashi seems very talented at surviving despite the concentrated efforts of nearly everyone he's ever met. Shoko reads his vitals and thinks he's good at surviving despite himself as well. This man has not respected his mortal limits if he has that kind of muscle mass while suffering an untreated illness. 

…He probably didn't have much choice.

Shoko gets why Satoru has been hiding his brother. The inner workings of his clan must be a nightmare.

Ooh, those politics.

So much backstabbing and old-people gossip exists there. The toxic vibes must boost their cursed energy and explain why the six eyes manifested at all. Disgusting. Never shall she ask for details. It makes a bit of Satoru's squirreliness understandable. Just the littlest bit.

She doesn't know if it justifies keeping a secret this big. They may be antagonistic, and Satoru may be stuck in a shitty situation, but there's no way he'd hide an entire brother without someone manipulating the game. Shoko has been the one member of their weird little trio to see her friend in nearly all the best and worst moments of his life. He’s done the same for her. Even when she crashed into his weird little abode with rattling bottles and insults for every single professor to gift her the workload of a pre-med disaster, Satoru had decency to commiserate together. They’ve always been more alike than anyone wanted to acknowledge. It makes the secrecy a little less surprising, but still. 

Satoru, a younger brother. 

What?

Who initiated the process of pulling his strings to keep that hidden?

It gets pretty clear as Satoru explains.

Damn.

His father sucks.

Kakashi apparently wasn't meant to survive to adulthood, to ensure Satoru could become the next Gojo head without any opposing factions. It would be logical in a horrible sort of way, if Satoru didn't have the skillset of a mildly over-caffeinated god. There's also the helpful fact that Kakashi is willing and able to kill for his brother.

And he has, though Satoru leaves out what happened. Shoko hears it in the silence anyway. There was a time, when Satoru became clan successor, that Suguru quietly admitted to her that something was wrong. Facts didn't add up. The old Gojo head was decently strong, enough so to win against the curse that supposedly killed him. Satoru was at school when it happened, but… Shoko can guess what Kakashi did.

Patricide.

Lovely.

Kakashi is apparently just as unhinged as Satoru. It must be hereditary.

In response to that cute little murder, the Gojo elders apparently took away medical assistance to help get rid of their former heir faster. This was probably the beginning of the end.

Kakashi's hermit lifestyle lasted a few more years through ailing health out of sheer spite until Satoru had enough and outright threatened his clan elders a week ago. Shoko decides not to ask what caused the escalation, because Kakashi's lungs are ruined from an infection created by his own cursed energy. She already has her answers. It's a marvel he's still alive.

The elders did what they thought was sensible and sent a few special grade curses after Satoru as a slap on the wrist. It had the opposite effect. He met fire with the fire that stunt deserved, and dropped one of the special grades directly into their meeting room.

Right onto the table.

As a gift.

The 'old farts' disliked their brand new centerpiece. They disliked it enough to make sure Satoru was very aware of their big feelings and continued to dislike it while they delt with it. Loudly. Violently. There was allegedly lots of shouting. Satoru gets a little hazy with the details, but apparently his elders came to a quicker decision than he thinks they’d ever managed before in their lives.

They proceeded to take inspiration from Satoru's spite and decided to bait a new curse into Kakashi's cute little hermit abode.

Just for fun.

Kakashi, who is lethal in all ways except for the fact that he cannot handle cursed energy, responded by exorcizing the curse with his bare hands and promptly passing out. He charged reverse-cursed energy into his palms and apparently gave it a mild static shock while he strangled it in his kitchen. Satoru came home from a day out to find his brother dying and a curse already dead, after elders warned him at the gates that he’d find things the other way around.

Shoko wants to dissect that curse so badly. Curiosity itches under her skin.

That leads them to now, after Satoru has followed through on his threat. His clan is short a few elders and one house-arrest heir as of this evening.

Cool.

Shoko's compliant in a revolution now. She is perfectly fine with that.

"Kakashi's cursed energy and reverse-curse are generated at the same time," Satoru says, like he didn't just terraform a feared jujutsu clan's politics in a week. "Normally that should cancel out most of it, but his just kind of doesn't. Like ice cream, you know?"

Shoko does not know. "Ice cream."

"Yeah, like how chocolate and vanilla ice cream swirl!"

"I see," Shoko says, and takes a second to admire the fact that she's not even lying.

Satoru shrugs and hums a nonsensical tune like he isn't willing to burn down the world for those he cares about.

He never really changes in that way.

Shoko runs through the usual procedure and documents it all in the looping scrawl of medical professionals. Satoru is right – cursed energy and reverse-curse energy should cancel itself out slightly. It's why Shoko's technique is so rare: she's able to separate them before that process starts.

Kakashi's does not cancel out or separate.

It combines. The whole process and resulting mixture is, in Shoko's professional opinion, weird as fuck. Curses can probably sense it from across the prefecture. That's outrageous. It’s honestly no wonder he got put under house arrest instead of being exiled when Satoru pissed off the elders. The fallout from Kakashi wandering around outside a barrier would be immense. The Gojo compound would survive his stepping outside their wards, but their family’s reputation would not. 

He could probably annihilate a city just by walking through it.

"Well?" Satoru leans over so his chin is propped on her shoulder. 

"Congratulations," Shoko says flatly as she taps her clipboard with the pen. "He'll live. I might even be able to make him less of a curse-bait, but he'll need to be awake for that."

She's so tired.

Satoru flutters around her like a gangly, unhinged butterfly who refuses to take his hands out of his pockets. "You can fix it?"

Fix it.

Ha.

Shoko’s pen drums a faster rhythm on the paperwork. She can't even comprehend much beyond that this Cursed Energy nonsense is not killing Kakashi any faster than the blood loss. Satoru takes her clipboard and she barely notices.

"He'll survive the night," Shoko says as she finishes the basic first aid to keep her patient stable. "We'll worry about the rest in the morning."

"Not now?"

Shoko holds up a hand and notes the exact moment Satoru realizes how badly she's shaking. "Tomorrow. Doing anything right now lowers chances of success, and I'm not risking your brother."

He's lost enough.

"There's a line of emergency numbers on the desk," she starts. Satoru lets Shoko run through all the things to do if his brother wakes up, what not to touch in the office, who to call if she is too deep in REM sleep to hear her phone ringing-

She is so tired.

Shoko blinks and finds herself in her apartment, already half-forgetting how she got there. It's possible Satoru dropped her off. That was nice of him.

What a fucking day, she thinks as she flops onto her couch.

The next morning, she barely makes it onto Jujutsu High’s main campus before things get complicated. It happens before she can even get inside - an unexpected and unwanted visitor finds her in the foggy predawn chill between parking lot and building. Shoko stands with her coffee, bag, and exhaustion as a wizened old man tries to manipulate her. It is not an auspicious start to the day.

“I trust you know he is of better use resting than healed,” says the council elder with grey hair and Cursed Energy that eats at the morning silence like acid. Unspoken is a threat: you are of use to us. Do not change this.

Shoko looks down at her coffee, then back at the elder.

She raises an eyebrow.

“Are you telling me to ignore my oath?” Not that she cares about it, but still. If she gives ground now, they’ll never stop asking for more.

“I am telling you to listen to your funding.” A grim smile twists up. “It wouldn’t do to lose that.”

Well. Yeah, she can’t lose the only way she's able to keep sorcerers with the self-preservation instincts of lemmings alive. Shoko’s overworked and understaffed. She’s doing the job of four people all alone. School nurse, mortician, autopsy specialist, and on-call Cursed Energy healer. That’s not even counting her research on far too many projects.

“I am very tired,” Shoko says flatly. “So you’re going to have to spell this out for me. Please use small words.”

“Gojo Satoru needs to be controlled,” the old man says, which shows astronomically bad social awareness on his part. That’s her former classmate they’re talking about blackmailing. Her friend. If Satoru finds out about this he’s going to bait the bastards into a homicidal rage, which is not fun, thrifty, or enjoyable in any way. Then Utahime will have to spend a day watching Shoko lie on the floor contemplating her place in the universe. Nobody will have a halfway decent time, except Meimei-senpai, who may actually enjoy it so long as she gets paid time off while the jujutsu world burns and Satoru dances in the ashes. 

This is a terrible marketing pitch. Shoko stares at her coffee and scrambles for any reaction that is not going to make her life harder. She finds nothing in her brain but the most basic rule of surviving a toxic workplace.

“Can you give that to me in writing?” Shoko asks. “In the meantime, I have patients to see. So. Thank you for stopping by.”

She all but forces them to run through the social dance of goodbyes, and walks past him into the building. She has until that email arrives to make her last free move. Better start now.

Shoko climbs the school stairs and texts her med school group chat about the unfairness of the world. One of her friends who went on to be a paramedic immediately sends emoji hearts and commiserating tears in equal measure. It helps.

Those emoji hearts continue helping her all through the paperwork. Help looks like Satoru's hand on her elbow that stops her just shy of walking into a wall. It looks like a filled mug passed into willing hands.

Like unexpected patience.

Shoko wouldn't ask for that last one, so she prioritizes accordingly and shuffles her newest patient to the top of the list. Financial threats and demands of old farts would have her swamped for the week, so Shoko pretends she simply forgot to check her email that morning and gets to work. Her friend has waited long enough.

Besides, Satoru is not a worried person. He stews and giggles like a child attempting to scream defiance. Satoru usually burns the attempts of a world powerless to set him into a nondescript beige box like the rest of them. It is vicious. Spiteful. Petty. Worry on Satoru is a near-imperceptible thing that turns poison into a halberd swung wildly through tightening tripwires. He is uncontrollable, except-

Except.

"You should tell people you care for them," Shoko says lowly as she tugs on blue gloves. Satoru smiles wide and guileless. It is a devastatingly untrustworthy look on him.

"Aw, are you concerned about little old me, Shoko-chan?"

Yes.

Somebody's got to be, but he'll be insufferable if she says that.

Shoko settles for tossing him an unimpressed look, and knows her point is received when his smile grows the tiniest bit more honest. Worry is still settled in the teeth of it. It's almost funny, how there's once again two people Shoko knows of who Satoru can worry like that for. She thought he lost that ability along with Suguru. Turns out, he just learned to hide the lengths to which he can be pushed. It's not her business what alerted Satoru to that danger.

Threats come in many shapes and sizes.

As if to prove that point, Gojo Kakashi's first instinct upon awakening is to try stabbing her with a knife he should not have. 

Luckily, Satoru's first instinct upon seeing his brother wake up is to tackle-hug him right off the hospital bed, so the knife goes wide and Shoko remains uninjured to ignore them and return to her paperwork. Those idiots can figure out they're mortal and breakable without her spelling it out for them. Their terrible choices seem to cancel each other out. It makes a humorous kind of sense.

"You brought me to your school," Kakashi notes once he and Satoru have reached a limpet-shaped stalemate on Shoko's thoroughly sanitized tile floors. He pats his brother on the shoulder and executes a bendy maneuver to extract himself from the hug. It is strangely effective. Unfortunately, now Shoko refuses to believe this weirdo possesses bones.

"Aw, are you intimidated?" Satoru reaches out to pinch his older brother's cheeks and nearly gets stabbed. “All these kiddos to corrupt, and so little time! Don’t worry, nii-san. I believe in you.”

"This is an entire school-"

"Such marvelous powers of observation-"

"-Full of very mortal people-"

"-You can tell we're related, it's all in the eyes-

"-And I'm a curse-magnet," Kakashi stresses, inching suspiciously closer to the window. "This is a terrible idea."

"It kind of is," Shoko agrees, pressing her cheek further into her desk and wishing for a vacation. All she gets is paper stuck to her face.

Kakashi shoots her a thankful look. He is now her favorite of the two.

"Maybe. But then I thought, hey, showing up with a clone would be just the thing to throw those old farts into hysterics." Satoru beams. "Do you think the shock will finally take them out?"

"It won't," Shoko tells them before Satoru can make fools of them all or get his hopes up.

“Aww, where’s your ganbaru spirit? Your gaman-suru? You know, the I can do it!” Satoru says with a little hand gesture that practically sounds like a background chorus of children saying ‘yay!’ in some kind of weekend educational television program. The whole thing shows both terrible grammar and energy that’s not remotely as cutesy as he’s trying to make it.

“Killed it,” Shoko says automatically, just as Kakashi says, “Lost it on the road of life.”

“Besides,” Kakashi adds, “I thought the goal was not to make them stab me. That’s going to take some work, because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I am prime knife real estate.”

“It’s the scarecrow energy,” Satoru says. “Come on, nii-san. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

Kakashi goes quiet, and as one, their attention turns to the edge of a lurid orange book, half-hidden in the pile of fabric abandoned on a nearby chair. Shoko hadn't bothered looking at the visibly bulletproof armor Satoru brought his brother in with. It wasn't her business.

Satoru and Kakashi meet eyes - as much as they can with only one of four eyes visible - and Shoko can physically see the clown-to-clown communication transpire in real time. 

Oh, no. 

There's two of them.

"You're technically an assassin," Satoru notes. Shoko really hates that she's not surprised this is where the conversation is going already.

The lone eye crinkles up as if Kakashi is smiling.

"How many dishes would I have to clean for-"

"Out," Shoko interrupts. When Satoru opens his mouth to confirm something she doesn't want to know about, she adds, "plausible deniability is all I'm asking for. I don't care what's going on so long as it happens outside. Go on."

Kakashi has the utter gall to coyly wave at her while Satoru lifts him up in a princess carry. He is no longer her favorite. She is exhausted by them both equally.

Shoko presses her forehead to the desk and takes a steadying breath.

She wants to sink into the earth. Who invented bones? That was a terrible idea. Actually, who decided they should grow legs and leave the ocean at all? Look at where that’s gotten all of humanity. They have paperwork.

Wait.

The door nearly splinters when she slams it open to point an accusing finger at the brothers. They're only halfway down the hallway. Small mercies.

"Don't walk, don't run, don't do anything more strenuous than eat and breathe, got it?!"

Satoru beams, and Kakashi projects lazy indifference through the mask.

Whatever, they heard her.

Good enough.

It takes three hours for the gossip to reach Shoko that Gojo Kakashi has been instituted as a sorcerer. The movers and shakers of the jujutsu world have found the second Gojo to be steeped in similar potential as his brother. An exhibition match is being planned.

Four hours to know who came up with that bright idea.

Six hours to know they want to test his combat abilities.

Shoko stares through the ink staining her papers and realizes she needs to make a choice.

Shoko's heels click down the hallway's wooden floors like a war anthem. She likes the sound - it's a bit of a reminder to herself that she's allowed to make noise, that her words have worth. After growing up alongside two legends, she carries that with her.

They all used to command attention in different ways.

Satoru and his personality, a noxiously potent force he's crafted as if desperate to be defined by more than the weight of unbeatable power.

Suguru had a kind of danger about him like a riptide current. Hidden and waiting. It dragged him under eventually.

Shoko pushes her limits until they snap, and is very aware this makes her peers view her as terrifyingly impossible to rattle. It's her own brand of danger. A time limit.

Kakashi blinks at her from behind his nearly-neon book, unperturbed despite having been relegated to waiting outside the meeting room like a scolded child. Shoko pauses just long enough to warn him not to stand up from that chair before entering.

"He's not cleared for combat," Shoko announces as she pulls open the door. Yoshinobu-sensei glares up at her from his seat, one eye visible behind drooping white eyebrows. A gnarled hand pauses from stroking his beard, and Shoko knows to the depths of her soul that he's judging her choice of caffeine.

"Shoko-san," Yoshinobu-sensei greets. 

Fuck you, old man.

There's a doctorate that goes with that name and owes her at least the sensei suffix. Yeah, she cheated her way through, but it still fucking counts, doesn’t it? If he has a problem, he can give her another raise that will allow actual retirement to maybe happen soon in her lifetime. Then they’ll all be rid of her. Everybody wins.

She offers the slightest of acceptable bows and pulls the door closed.

Satoru tips his head back on his seat to grin at her, upside down and unrepentant. "Oh?"

"Gojo Kakashi can barely stand, let alone fight." Shoko chews over her words before gritting out, "I'm barring him from using cursed techniques and anything more than bedrest. Estimated two weeks 'till walking or light stretching. If he's gotta go up stairs within the month, there damn well better be a railing."

It's something she does less than she should. Usually she just doesn't give a shit, so Shoko can count on being taken seriously.

Satoru whistles lowly, because he must aggravate every situation he is forced into.

The look Yoshinobu-sense gives her makes it clear that Shoko's next words should be offering to speed up the healing timetable, like that's something she can do easily. "He will be required to undergo a performance review to assess his skill level."

“If you’re putting a sorcerer out there,” Shoko says with all the energy of a commuting salaryman who just got rainwater in his crocs, “then I am healing them. That is my oath.”

Yoshinobu-sensei hunches over his cane. "Unfortunate."

For him?

Maybe.

Shoko, however, could not care less. She has paperwork to fill out and an autopsy to do, unless it's Tuesday. Is it Tuesday? She's planning on spilling hot asphalt over her keyboard as an excuse for missing a conference call then.

Shoko drains the last of her cup and tosses it in the trash. "I can't stay long, but that's my say."

"We will take it under advisement."

Sure.

Shoko turns around and leaves. She needs a smoke.

"You heard the doctor," Satoru says with vicious glee as she slides the door closed. "Hey, hey, did you know that-"

Wood clacks shut; sound oddly muted beyond.

Shoko takes a moment to mourn her lack of beverage, then glances to her right at the eldest troublemaker. The reluctance in his shoulders hints that she is rather lucky to find him where he was left. Kakashi meets her apathetic look with steady resignment and raises his book in a silent toast to mutual suffering. It's the first of many similar moments.

In the end, common sense prevails. Kakashi is not required to partake in an exhibition match, which is fun, fantastic, and fortunate. Shoko loves being listened to. Respect is hard to come by. The politics that accompany both Gojo brothers are horrible and best not thought of, so she switches tasks every time her mind wanders too far and tries to keep this problem in the pocket of her lab coat amongst ink stains and soft lint. It’s the wisest choice.

Shoko submerges herself in work. Days pass, crawling by with email after email until Utahime appears to drag her out of the school.

"They're terrible," Utahime says when they find a precious moment of silence at a bus stop. Aching hands curl over coffee, as if Shoko can leach the warmth into her bones. Decaf, for once.

"Pretty sure mine are worse," Shoko grumbles. "There’s a little international shop just outside the school grounds, and for some hellish reason every last student adores their food violations. They put green food coloring in the guacamole. It’s an insult to the meal."

Utahime frowns. "What?"

"Food coloring."

"Why?"

"To hide that it expired."

Shoko's eyes close.

There's an empty sort of quiet in her head, like the seaside ponds undisturbed by crashing waves a little step away. Her jaw is amber, eyes opal, and there is a crystallized stillness that drifts like swamp water through her chest. It will break under this stress. Cracks and impurities lace structural weakness through her cartilage in the form of weight on her shoulders. Exhaustion is familiar. Waking up after a full night's sleep is not.

Caffeine withdrawal, or she just isn't used to having free time not spent desperately clawing back lost hours of sleep.

Or both.

Both is good.

"Alright," Utahime says. "You've got me there."

Shoko smiles into her cup.

Exhaustion is easy, but life is still so, so good. Days like these are nectar and ambrosia, water in the desert or pulled from the tap in her kitchen sink past 3am and all the sweeter for that late hour.

They go back to Utahime's flat, and Shoko manages to claim cooking duty. She starts the rice cooker and starts rustling through the fridge, only to learn that Utahime has placed her firmly in checkmate.

"Bath's ready," is all the warning Shoko has before Utahime all but marches her down the hallway.

Sweatpants and a shirt Utahime has never worn in her life despite buying them new are dumped into her hands. The lights are all shut off but for a soft nightlight Utahime swears isn't because Shoko lives most of her life with a headache. The large rubber duckie in the corner glows like a nightlight with dim ambient color that’s just soft enough to be comfortable. On her way out, Utahime blows a kiss at Shoko like she’d throw a fastball.

The bathroom door is shut.

Mochi promptly raises a racket.

The door is opened, cat let in, and shut again.

Shoko watches Mochi curl up next to the tub and wonders what kind of hubris that must be. Someday that cat is going to slip into bathwater and emerge a tan-white ball of soaking wrath. There will be claws. Complaints. Maybe even some yelling from multiple species, if it's a particularly fancy occasion.

Everyone gets humbled eventually.

The bath is nice. Tension drains as steam rises. Just for a moment, the strain she carries with her eases, though the weight dragging her down stays. Water to marinate in up past her shoulders can only fix so much. Pain is always a dull ache and constant drag, but her burdens seem to float in the bath, at least.

Pressure becomes manageable.

She used to think everyone felt like this: like there were chains reaching from the center of the earth to wrap around her shoulders, her head, her hips. They anchor in her cheekbones and pull her down with exhaustion. Not everyone struggles so much to stand, to walk, to work. Schedules and medication heal only so much. The rest needs careful attention. Care. Effort and discipline.

Shoko closes aching eyes and wishes she were born a fish.

Fish don't have curses.

Actually, that's not true. Some fish are curses, which kind of sucks for them. Shoko pulled the guts out of one a couple months ago and learned quite a bit about how cursed energy can interact with aquatic species. That one used it to replace oxygen. The whole thing is bizarre. Theoretically she could launch one into space and it’d survive just fine beyond issues like a lack of atmospheric pressure.

…Shoko still wishes she were born a fish.

Tomorrow she will go back to work. She isn't even being called in to do her actual job - no, tomorrow is all for office politics.

What a fucking farce.

Ceramic presses into her cheek as Shoko props her face up beside the cat. One brilliant green eye opens, pupil contracting and expanding as it adjusts to warm yellow lamplight. The cat's nose twitches.

"You don't even have a salary," Shoko whispers. Her voice catches and scrapes like thick paint under a palette knife.

One white paw reaches out, toe pads pressing against Shoko's nose. Mochi rolls, one triangle ear nearly brushing the water. Another paw lands on Shoko's chin. Back feet stick straight up, claws extended and toes wiggling with the stretch.

Yeah.

Mochi's too cute to work.

Would that they all be so lucky.

Shoko exits the bathroom in worn sleepwear to the smell of cooking garlic and onion.

After evening has fallen, she flops onto the empty futon by Utahime's occupied one. It's warm, proof Utahime plugged in her hair dryer and swept it under the blankets like a cheap heating pad. The mellow lamp between their beds stays on for a few minutes of precious silence. Mochi arrives to purr and make biscuits on Utahime's blankets.

These are the good moments.

Almost nothing hurts.

Utahime reaches out of her pile of blankets, hand offered across the floor. Shoko stretches out her own arm, braving cold in the apartment air from where her shirt sleeve ends with its promise of warmth. Their fingers lace together like the stitches holding Shoko's heart in one piece.

"Good night, ‘Hime."

Utahime's free hand blindly slaps at the light until it turns off. She has to twist at an awkward angle to do it, all elbows and the soft clumsiness that only appears with this apartment's safety.

"'Night."

The new sorcerer settles in well enough.

He's a terrible patient and a headache to deal with, but Kakashi seems aware she's regularly pulling overtime to get him functional. He never goes too far out of his way to antagonize her, and Shoko repays it by watching her cruel streak. With a little communication they strike a comfortable balance. From the rumors, she is one of the very few people he's not actively trying to tempt into homicide.

That's a misconception she's never quite understood.

Suffering does not breed wisdom. It does not cultivate patience or serenity. Gojo Kakashi is chronically ill and raging against the world. He sulks and thrashes recklessly against his limits, baiting every sorcerer he meets into a fight with poisonous cheer that mirrors his little brother's habit of smiling though anger. Shoko understands from the depths of her soul. She, too, knows what it is to be defined by too-confining limits, to wake up in the night because everything hurts too much to sleep. People like them are screaming inside, but have only headache and heartache to show for the effort. The only difference is that Kakashi turns to trolling and bad literature while Shoko marinates in apathetic smoke-drunk sorrows.

They are mutually poor role models for this kind of thing.

Kakashi sends off several Valentine's Day glitter bombs. Shoko lets him put down her flat as the return address, if only so she can witness the fallout. It goes as expected. Sheer lethality seems to be keeping the remaining Gojo elders from sniping Kakashi at long range.

Utahime watches it all from Kyoto warily. She and the new guy get along disconcertingly well for all that they logically shouldn’t.

Shoko puts it out of her mind and turns to more important matters. The students are sparring with no regard for their health, and the new first year incoming batch has only two potential recruits. Keeping them alive to adulthood is a fool's errand. Still worth a try, though.

At least it seems all the students are enjoying their summer break.

Something Shoko has never really talked about to anyone but her two closest friends in high school is that there’s an empathy component to her technique.

Cursed energy is created out of emotions. It’s a funny thing, how the nature of those components are mixed and compressed into a tangible form that can interact with the spiritual layer of the world. For an introspective technique like hers, Shoko is very aware of what negative and positive emotions are bleeding into that energy. It’s an awareness that can’t be turned off.

And the survival instinct that’s keeping Kakashi together only shuts off when he gets gleeful enough about annoying the higher-ups. It even halts the grief that follows him like a cloud of mold spores, though that’s not surprising for someone who lost the first twenty or so years of their life to an illness that may never be completely cured.

She really could not care less about who he’s tempting into murder, so long as the fallout does not reach her.

So Shoko shoos Kakashi away and stitches him back together through a series of appointments.

They might be something like friends.

Maybe.

He’s less malevolent than Satoru, more willing to let her pass out on the sofa of his ramshackle house in the woods, when leaving campus would go against her contract but staying awake would lead to injury. In return, she drops the formality and occasionally heals him outside the clinic. The big nerd hates the smell of cleaning chemicals. She bullies him into caring for himself, he adjusts his life to allow her a few seconds of sleep, and they keep each other alive. 

One night he shows up at her window, Utahime behind him and Nanami hauled over one shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and demands they roast a wild boar he somehow hunted and killed for fun. Utahime claimed there was no ethical problem with game animals the government is literally advertising to minimize farm damage, but Shoko is already both not sure enough to ask and too tired of the hereditary Gojo nonsense to question it. Nanami later informs them that boar-hunting alone is ill advised. How he sounds regretfully familiar with the process is a mystery Shoko is content to ignore until she forgets it. Besides, if Kakashi can take out an adult wild boar while alone, he can hunt however he wants.

So.

Friends.

He’s like a feral cat.

But when Kakashi wanders through the door to her infirmary with a book practically glued to his face and a little brother skipping at his heels, Shoko isn't expecting thanks. That's not something doctors get in the jujutsu world when they bar sorcerers from fighting. Theirs is the duty of resupplying soldiers in this never-ending war against curses, and any spare time can be spent in more productive ways than loitering around and recovering.

They get complaints from impatient brats. Pleas for help with fallen teammates and friends. Resentment for failure to fix the world. Demands from their superiors.

Not thanks.

"You didn't have to buy us time back then," Kakashi says vaguely, and it's honest and cheeky like the lethal menace Shoko just knows he'll end up becoming once fully healed. "Thanks."

Sounds fake, but okay. Sure. "Is this because I'm about to operate on you?"

Satoru faux-gasps at her cruelty, but Kakashi just crinkles his visible eye. 

"Maa, didn't you know? It's good to be on decent terms with your doctor."

Shoko rolls her eyes and checks her own reserves of reverse-cursed energy as she drones, "shut up and lie down. Satoru, you can sit in the chair if Kakashi is fine with that, but one step closer and I'll ruin your life."

Satoru parks himself on the chair, elbows on his knees and grin a bit too wide. "That was almost a decent threat."

"I have blackmail and your brother's phone number."

Satoru makes a sound like she just hit him with a rubber chicken, and Kakashi wheezes a laugh until Shoko shoves a clipboard in his face to fill out.

She's nearly finished coaxing his cursed energy into something a little less noxious, and by all accounts he's capable of entering the field physically. He's got enough of a clean bill of health. At the very least, she's not going to limit his exercise anymore.

The problem is that he's still functionally curse-bait. Stepping outside the barrier will make his presence light up like a beacon.

Last night she scraped together just enough sleep for steady hands. It’s not enough to deal with everything, but… enough to let him go without fighting for his life every second he's outside a barrier. She can grant him subtlety. Mostly. Particularly sensitive curses will still notice that something's wrong, though.

It takes three hours of ridiculously delicate focus on Kakashi's cursed and reverse-cursed energy.

Three hours of mind-numbing details, miniscule adjustments, and use of old techniques that are all but crumbled to dust.

But she does it, tells Satoru to keep an eye on his brother while she passes out for five minutes, and tosses her gloves in the trash. He'll notice if anything is wrong. That's pretty much what his technique was made for, after all. Whether he has to climb onto the cot and wrap his spindly brother in a hug is another matter entirely.

Kakashi endures the obnoxious mother-henning with a resigned grace Shoko is very familiar with. Satoru tends to inspire that reaction in his close friends.

It's fine.

It's done.

She can sleep for a few damn minutes.

Shoko's eyes slip closed the second she collapses at her desk. She wonders, as she notes the heavy pull of drowsiness, how this will come back to bite her.

Technically she shouldn't nod off at work.

Technically.

Satoru has the basic decency to keep his voice at a manageable level as she dozes. It's not behavior anyone expects from a man who does his best to embody a lethal court jester to the utmost degree, but people forget that Satoru knows weakness. He knows how easy bones crack and shatter; how fragile lives are when contrasted with Infinity. Untouchability throws the world into stark comparison. He can probably see the buildup of stress in her mind, the blood flow and developing bags under her eyes, and the red tracing over her sclera as capillaries burst from lack of sleep.

So, no.

Satoru's not going to piss off a doctor. Much less his friend, who he saw go from a grungy kid with an attitude problem to the chain-smoking wine aunt she is now.

It is, Shoko thinks as she accidentally drops into a deeper sleep, his most redeeming quality.

She wakes up eighteen hours later with a killer headache on Satoru’s ridiculously expensive couch. Some merciful deity has encouraged Satoru to keep the lights off and leave a paper napkin on the table next to her in their usual signal. Shoko remembers high school. She remembers collapsing in the back of black cars, both her boys beside her after a mission accomplished. They’d all nod off in the wake of an adrenaline high. She can picture it now - Suguru sitting up straight like some kind of monster, Shoko leaning on his left shoulder, and Satoru drooling on his right.

Good times.

Then one died, one lost his anchor, and one lost her way.

Now she's waking up and her mouth feels like something died in it, her eyes are crusted over, and the blanket tossed over her has slipped away to leave her cold as a frozen hell. At least the lights are off.

Small mercies.

Shoko grabs the napkin and finds her way to the fridge, cracking it open to pour holy light across kitchen tiles and countertops. Squinting past illuminated sweets, Shoko fishes out the takeout.

Yakisoba.

Nice.

Dim streetlights pour illumination in from open windows, helping Shoko stumble towards Satoru’s bedroom door. Luck and little else keep her from tripping on the carpet before finding it nearly closed. He even put a nameplate on it. Cute. She does him the favor of opening it past the carpet to preserve the expensive repairs from this exact scenario, which repeats at least biannually. Habit makes her check there’s no weird knives tucked on top of the door frame before stepping back and kicking the door open with little ceremony. Noodles are shoved into her mouth as she peers in.

Satoru’s not there. Kakashi is passed out like a starfish, but Shoko could care less about that one. She’s looking for her honorary brother. The sweet-tooth dumbass.

Oh, that fucking idiot.

She retreats to the room she was in and yep, there he is, passed out while sitting in the window like the world’s most dandelion-shaped target. Some people make the worst decisions. Worse still, they have the skills to half-way justify it, which only makes the dumbass ideas hit slightly different. This feels like a rosemary-flavored mistake. Satoru has herbs growing in a line of pots by his bedroom, though it's only recently that she discovered he isn't at fault for the little garden at all.

She thinks the rosemary is named Bisuke.

Or Pakkun.

Whatever.

Someday Satoru is going to get sniped.

Shoko considers kicking her former teammate for old time’s sake.

Upsides: he’s near indestructible and wouldn’t be hurt by the fall. He also wouldn't be offended - if anything, it'd be nostalgic given what he and Suguru used to pull when they devolved into wrestling.

Downsides: he’d be loud about it.

She kicks him.

Gently.

Really, it's his own surprise and need for drama that tips him out the window. They both know this, but his squirrel brain loves it for some reason.

Once Satoru has been defenestrated, re-fenestrated, and subsequently complained about the entire process, Shoko is feeling a little better.

She spends the next day at Satoru's apartment, sheltering from her responsibilities like she's sixteen years old again. Sixteen and bright. Sixteen and proud. Sixteen and able to shirk these duties without counting the lives her days off cost on tackily painted nails.

But everyone needs a break.

Overwork is a medical condition.

Shoko lies on the scraggly rug in Satoru's apartment, head on a pillow from the couch and blanket on her lap. She watches the wind blow thin curtains into the room like tidal waves. It is the way of things; this push and pull. Sunlight paints the fabric brilliant white, like it's washed the cotton with water, time, and thyme.

Ceramic clinks.

"A medic's first duty is to heal and keep healing until the job is done," Kakashi says as he sets a cup of tea on the floor somewhere by her elbow. "A medic's second duty is to let their comrades hold the fighting far away from them."

Shoko sighs from the depths of her soul.

"A medic's third duty," he says, "is to die last."

"Which old journal did you pull that from?"

Kakashi smiles behind the mask.

It's such a non-answer.

Shoko looks at him with a doctor's mind and notes how the shadow under his visible eye is already lesser. The other is hidden under fabric, because despite whatever injury cost him it, Kakashi scorns real eye patches. He's so weird. Shoko loves that for him. She also fully supports the healthy color he's already regaining.

"Alright, then," she says, too exhausted and aching to really push this or any other matter. "Keep your secrets."

"Headache?"

"Fading." Shoko eyes him, noting the tension he always holds. It's lesser, yes, but not gone. "You?"

Kakashi tips his head to the side. "Better."

Alright.

Shoko debates hauling herself upright and decides against it. "So, how's Satoru treating your new read?"

Kakashi hacks out an oddly lupine laugh and plops down to sprawl just out of reach. They sit on the ground, forsaking the couch entirely, as he tells her exactly how scandalized his little brother is at his newest choice in smutty romance novels.

-

Satoru drags Megumi off on a field trip and comes back with a vessel of Sukuna. 

Shoko hears about it and mourns all the time she'll have to spend patching up a teenager with that kind of risk assessment skills. The kid looked at a shriveled-up finger that radiated pure evil, and said: wouldn't it be wild if someone ate that? Hey. Hey, is anyone gonna…? Let me just… just put this in my mouth like a toddler. 

Then he didn't wait for an answer.

Disgusting.

Who even does that?

Kakashi and Nanami have started a running bet on what kind of monsters Satoru's students will turn into. One of them's already apparently unhinged, and Megumi goes completely wild if he's pushed far enough in a fight. Shinigami users resemble their spirits over time due to the leaking energy of their techniques, and it shows. Kugisaki – the new student Shoko doesn’t know past paperwork – has pride to spare and brutality to match. She's got a technique the higher-ups can market as merciful. Elegant. It hides the blood. 

They're going to be world-shakers.

Do we get paid overtime for this, Nanami types into their group chat. Kakashi sends him a reply made only of assorted emoji hearts.

No💖, he adds like an afterthought.

Ugh.

Shoko would bet on Satoru snapping and killing the elders before Itadori Yuuji consumes all ten fingers, but Kakashi is right there. Waiting. Lurking in the rafters like an evil little patch of mold. Her workload is heavy enough without this all boiling over, because if there's no fatalities due to internal squabbling, Shoko will be honestly surprised. Stress bubbles under her skin.

She needs to do her taxes.

Shoko goes home, flops face-first onto her couch, and screams into the cushions.

An email notification pops up, one solitary light in the dark apartment. Shoko glares at her phone from the corner of her eye and wonders who will die if she calls in sick tomorrow.

She won't.

Some days, Shoko's mind and body calls it quits. She saves her sick days for when she physically can't get out the door. It's not worth wasting time off that will be needed unexpectedly later. Burnout is hard to fight when her cursed technique is holding up half the jujutsu world. Doctors don't sleep enough, but sorcerers push their medical teams to the edge daily. Shoko thinks it's part of the exorcist culture.

There are so many people who are irreplaceable and running on fumes all at once.

Mei Mei-senpai would make the list if she weren't expensive enough to make the elders wary. Self-employed and a prodigious sensory technique, combined with perfect awareness of her value. She answers to nobody but her bank account. It's not a fair comparison when the rest of them trudge along through political quagmire.

Rats in a maze.

Mei Mei-senpai made a place for herself. Suguru cracked under the pressure. Satoru kicks the whole maze around until it rearranges to his liking, damn the consequences and everyone else. Shoko wonders who will be next to shift this house of cards.

It's trembling.

Do the elders see?

She passes out on that couch, too tired to heat dinner in the microwave. It takes most of her energy to plug in her phone and snag a blanket from the floor.

Morning sun drifts through the windows.

Screeching music drills into her ears.

Five, Shoko tells herself. Four. Three, two, one- She pushes herself off the couch and smacks into the floor. A bruised hip and elbow chivvy her upright, then through her morning routine.

Email notifications follow her out the door.

She is halfway awake by the train station.

Three-quarters awake and covering a yawn by the time she reaches the school entrance.

A man in a business suit is waiting at her office door. Shoko scans him for injuries out of habit, notes the regulation white dress shirt, black jacket, black slacks, and wonders who she pissed off this time.

He introduces himself but Shoko's coffee burns her hands, and she misses his name. It feels rude to ask again, so she gets a business card. She finds she does not need it when he steps aside, and a wizened old man appears from behind him in the world’s shittiest magic trick.

An esteemed elder.

Not one she's ever spoken to, though.

He has questions about her two least favorite patients.

About what happened to the last Gojo head.

About how strong Kakashi is. Does she know he beat a special grade with his bare hands and no formal training? How did he do it? Did she detect anomalies while healing him?

Confidentiality is something they seem rather intent on ignoring, no matter how often she cites the law. Not like that could hold anyone back in the jujutsu world, but Shoko is still beholden to her oaths.

In all honesty she really doesn't pay them much notice, but they’re useful. Sometimes.

Like now.

"I am delighted to inform you that the Gojo brothers are none of my business," Shoko says flatly as she flicks on the overhead lights. "It's my new favorite motto. The world is weird, and I'm tired, so I've decided that unless given a good reason, I am minding my own business."

"He is nearly a curse-user," the elder notes, which is a captivatingly bold lie. Kakashi is unhinged as a half-rabid wolf, but he hides it right up until someone threatens his brother.

Besides, what’s the definition of curse-user? Someone who has a technique and uses it in a way that’s not perfectly what the old busybodies want? Big fuckin’ whoop. They can call her when she makes the list. Until then, Shoko is going to sit in her lab sharing a smoke with her wine and her misery.

"Oh?" Shoko says, as if distracted by finding gloves. They're in the same place as always, but she rustles through a cabinet to show proper disdain for the authorities. Ignoring him feels delightfully petty. "Is that all?"

"If he refuses to submit his techniques for testing again, we will take measures."

Satoru would have a field day with that.

She kind of wants them to take those cute little ‘measures’ just so everyone getting comfy with their unquestioned power remembers a bit of humility. There's no need for the jujutsu world to resemble a dictatorship quite so closely.

"I simply do not care about that." The curse she needs to inspect makes a heavy splat sound as she drops it on the dissection table.

The old man pointedly lifts a sleeve over his nose.

He is ignored.

If she cycles her technique internally, Shoko can cleanse her lungs of chemical fumes with every inhale. This ability is not replicable. Sooner rather than later, she will be left alone. Shoko pries cartilage loose from a femur and cracks it open to sniff at cursed bone marrow. 

Apparently he has no clue how to deal with her apathy, because he rambles on as if she didn't say anything. It's annoying. Shoko guts another curse and spills bleach across the floor until he gets the hint and leaves. Good riddance.

Windows are thrown open, fans turned on, the floor cleaned, and Shoko contentedly settles elbow-deep in her research.

She stays there until her lunch break, which Shoko uses to march into the forest towards a tiny little cottage-like residence Satoru recently pushed, prodded, and bullied his way into securing. The idea of giving a former curse-magnet access to a barrier space that can contain that issue should it resurface was just logical enough for the elders. They chose a little scrap of land in the forest, had the beefiest barriers they could think of built up, and seemed content to forget about it entirely. Whether the building appeared within these barriers before or after barrier creation is unclear. It has a coffee machine, a couch, and an owner that doesn't mind her crashing at his place for five blessed minutes.

Kakashi is good like that, even if he's a menace.

Luckily, her friend is sitting outside like usual these days. He's sharpening blades the old-fashioned way with a whetstone, though Shoko ignores this.

"Is anyone listening in?"

Kakashi turns towards her just enough to watch, likely caught off guard by the bluntness. They tend to poke at each other and complain about whatever inconvenience caught their fraying attention. It’s a habit built out of long hours dragging his health into something manageable. They know each other's boundaries; Shoko complains, Kakashi trolls, and they mutually go easy on each other. 

Kakashi leans back until he's leaning on one of the paper ofuda plastered around his little building. "No."

"When this all goes up in flames," Shoko says, "do me a favor? Kill your targets."

Kakashi's hands pause on the blade. "That's treason."

Treason.

What an archaic term for the mercy she's asking. 

"I am so tired," Shoko says quietly. "Please. Don't let them push my technique past its limits in the aftermath."

Stone and steel scrape together one last time before Kakashi chooses another blade.

"Some things never change," he says, so quietly Shoko wonders if she's supposed to hear. Then, louder, "alright."

Thank goodness and good riddance.

Shoko could refuse to heal whoever shows up for emergency treatment in the aftermath of that inevitable conflict. She could pick and choose. Doing so would break many rules, though.

Shoko isn't Kakashi or Satoru. Her worth and use fail if she refuses to offer them up for consumption. It is an exhausting way of life that leaves her feeling hollow and beaten, but she is still standing. Despite it all, Shoko is still here. That matters.

"Thanks," is all she says.

-

A/N: Regarding how/why Kakashi reincarnated: thats really up to you as a reader. I, personally, think the Sage was skipping stones across the tanabata star river and accidentally beaned a ninja in the head with one. A second chance at life is his apology gift. Kakashi remembers none of this. He is living off the goal to someday figure out how to summon his doggos, completely unaware that the ninja world he left is dealing with the fact that several dozen witnesses saw an elite assassin get struck down from the sky. Divine judgement to the extreme. They then saw an old due with horns and unmistakable resemblance to many folktales to show up, scratch his head at the whole aftermath, and go "whoops" before dipping. My basis for this theory is that I think it's funny