#in any universe in any lifetime in any version of reality

[mononijikayu]

no. 1 party anthem — geto suguru.

“....What about my laugh?” He asks you, his cheeks flustered like cherry wine. “Is…is the sound good?” You matched his flustered cheeks. “It’s…It’s like a song.” “A song?” “My favorite song.” You admitted to him, slowly smiling as you shyly looked up to his flustered gaze. “Your voice is my favorite lullaby. But your laugh? It’s my favorite song.”

GENRE: alternate universe - canon convergence;

WARNING/S: post hidden inventory, pre-jjk 0, heavy angst, romance, falling in love, conflicted feelings, hurt/comfort, break up, slice of life, timeskip, depression, hurt, mourning, loneliness, trauma, pain, humor, guilt, pining, conflicted relationship, emotional distress, grief, profanity, depiction of break up, depiction of grief, depiction of complicated relationship, depiction of loneliness, mention of grief, mention of loneliness, mention of events post hidden inventory, mention of events in jjk 0, cursed user! suguru, jujutsu sorcerer! reader;

WORD COUNT: 7.7k words

NOTE: i've been getting into arctic monkeys again (as you can tell) and i have to say, no. 1 party anthem has done things to me these past few weeks. AM is such a good album. i really don't think that one can get any rawer in story telling about the sorrows of parting the way AM had depicted it. so i hope you listen to it one of these days, if you haven't already. anyway, i hope you all enjoy this. i love you all so much!!! see you on the next one <3

masterlist

if you want to, tip! <3

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IT WAS A SURPRISE, TO SEE HIM TONIGHT. It had been nearly five years since you last saw Geto Suguru, but the weight of his absence still lingered in the quiet moments of your life. And it had taken your breath away, you knew that much. Because you had already resigned yourself to never seeing him again since that night.

But you can’t help but wonder about all the suffering and grief that had carved its way through those five years, shaping the person who stands here now.

The you of the present feels like a stranger sometimes, a mosaic pieced together from shattered moments, each shard reflecting a memory too painful to hold but too significant to discard.

There were nights when you lay awake, your mind replaying fragments of what once were half-formed smiles, laughter that now seemed like it belonged to someone else, and the weight of a bond that had been torn apart, leaving jagged, unclean edges that never truly healed.

You’d press your fingers against the raw places, testing their tenderness, reminding yourself that the pain was real. That he was real. But he wasn’t here anymore. He had chosen his life. He had made his bed with his reality. And so must you. 

It all felt like another lifetime, one so distant it seemed almost like a dream. The person you were then, the one who loved him, trusted him, believed in him. That person feels impossibly far away now. You’d convinced yourself you’d buried that version of you alongside the memory of him. And with time, you believed it.

You never expected to see him again.

And yet, there he was.

The sight of him felt like a blow, like the ground had shifted beneath you and left you unsteady. His presence unraveled the delicate stitches you’d used to bind your wounds, pulling them loose thread by thread. He looked both the same and different, an unsettling contradiction that left you breathless.

Time has not been kind to either of you. You knew that much. Geto Suguru was a handsome man, he always was and he always will be. But you could see things that people wouldn’t. You see everything, you know everything about him. Maybe more than himself.

If time had not been kind to him, you could only judge from afar about things that had happened to him. You could see it in the lines etched into his face, the heaviness in his gaze. But what struck you most was the familiar ache you thought you’d buried. it resurfaced all at once, sharp and unforgiving.

You told yourself you’d moved on. You told yourself he was a ghost, a memory that had no power over you anymore. But standing here now, your heart betrays you.

And for a moment, all the pain, all the nights spent grieving, all the years spent rebuilding—none of it seems to matter. For a moment, you forget the hurt and only remember how it felt to love him.

It happened on a random Friday night at a bar you frequented with your other sorcerer friends. It was a hub for sorcerers to gather after missions. With how Satoru and Shoko were also getting too busy to hang out with you, and Nanami not frequenting such a place, you had no other choice but to find yourself some new people to mingle around too when they weren’t free. Life doesn’t stop when you lose someone.

So, you ended up finding this bar. And over the years, you have become a regular. Even more so, you found new people to meddle life with. You all of course still can’t meet everyday. But it was more regular than most of your other relationships. That gets you through the day most of the time.

The bar in itself wasn’t special. It was a cozy, dimly lit spot with just enough charm to make it feel like a second home. But it was yours, a place where you could laugh, unwind, and forget the world outside. It was ironic that he of all people would show up here. Perhaps the universe had a cruel sense of humor, or maybe fate had finally decided to intervene.

Geto Suguru hadn’t been looking for you that night. Or maybe he had, in some subconscious, desperate way. His sources, mutual acquaintances, whispers from insiders had led him here, for business.

It’s why he had a special grade glamour on. But even he didn’t fully understand why he had stayed for a while. He didn’t need to. Someone else could have done this for him. 

But when he stepped into the inner corners of the bar, his purple eyes scanned the room almost out of habit. Nothing much intrigued him in this place. It was too common, too crowded. It wasn’t his fashion. It wasn’t his scene. 

But then, he looked further away and stopped.

In that moment, he knew that he saw you.

The moment froze. You didn’t notice him at first, too caught up in the warmth of your friends’ laughter. But he noticed everything. The way your smile lit up the room, the easy way you leaned into your conversation, the carefree aura you carried. 

It was a stark contrast to the image he had of you locked in his mind: the you who had walked away from him, or maybe the you he had walked away from. He couldn’t decide anymore. He never made up his mind about that. Perhaps doing so would have hurt more.

When your eyes finally met, it hit you like a tidal wave. Recognition. Shock. Something unnameable. No one else would see the cursed energy glamour the way you would. You would notice.

You would see him. All of him. Only you could do that in a way people will never know how to. No one else could tear apart Geto Suguru the way you have, the way you will for all his life.

For a heartbeat, it felt like no time had passed, like you were back in that shared moment before everything fell apart. But then reality set in, and you turned away. Too quickly, too deliberately. You excused yourself from the table, and when you returned, he was gone.

Geto Suguru had fled back to the club he’d come from, his chest tight with a cocktail of emotions he couldn’t untangle. He should’ve known better. You were no longer a part of his life. He’d lost the right to be. And yet, he couldn’t let it go. 

After downing two more drinks, the gnawing need to see you again overpowered him. He left the club and returned to the bar, heart pounding, searching. Asking the bartender if they’d seen you, scanning every corner of the room for a glimpse of your face. But you were gone.

Suguru wasn’t sure what hurt more: the hope that had flared in his chest when he saw you or the emptiness left in its place when you disappeared.

He hadn’t planned on this—on seeing you, on unraveling in public like this. Life after you had been a blur of responsibility and regret. You’d moved to Fukuoka to teach to get as far away from Tokyo as possible and he focused on his new family, his new vision. 

Geto Suguru poured himself into work, convincing himself that distance was the answer. Just as much as you had thought the same thing. Out of sight, out of mind. But you were never truly gone from his thoughts, and the years only deepened the hollow ache. And perhaps, neither was he. 

Now, both of you are back in Tokyo, perhaps even just for tonight. He was sitting alone at the bar, he stared into his glass, his hands trembling slightly as he gripped the edges. He was alone, so far away from you and your warmth, and your smiles and you who was everything.

The laughter of strangers around him was a cruel echo of the joy you’d shared with your friends just hours ago. He drank to dull the pain, but it only sharpened the edges of his misery. Each sip dragged him further into the pit he’d been clawing his way out of for years.

Suguru hated himself for the way he felt, for the way his chest still tightened at the thought of you, for the way he still longed for something he’d already destroyed. He had made his choices, he stood by them firmly. 

And yet as the night wore on, his mind spiraled further into the what-ifs and could-have-beens, until he was too far gone to remember why he started drinking in the first place, he could only think how miserable he truly was.

By the time Suguru stumbled out of the bar, the night had deepened into an eerie quiet. The streets were nearly empty, save for the faint hum of passing cars and the distant laughter of people heading home.

The cold air stung his skin, but it didn’t sober him. Nothing could cut through the fog in his mind, the haze of alcohol and regret that weighed him down.

He wandered aimlessly, his thoughts circling back to you like a cruel refrain. How could you look so happy? How had you moved on so effortlessly when he was still stuck in the wreckage of what you once shared? Part of him wanted to be angry, but the anger never came. All that remained was the bitter taste of self-loathing.

When Suguru finally stopped walking, he found himself at a familiar park; a place you’d both loved. The benches were worn, the trees towering silhouettes against the starless sky. He sank onto a bench and buried his face in his hands, the chill of the night pressing against his flushed skin.

Memories rushed in unbidden, as vivid as the night you first kissed under those very trees. He could almost hear your laughter, feel the warmth of your hand in his.

It was unbearable, the way the past clung to him like a second skin. He didn’t know if it was the alcohol or the sheer weight of his emotions, but his chest heaved, and he let out a strangled sob, his breath fogging in the cold air.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He had convinced himself that leaving had been the right thing to do, that the distance would save you both from the inevitable pain of being together.

But in his effort to protect you, he had only condemned himself. And now, seeing you happy, surrounded by friends, made him realize just how deeply he had failed.

Meanwhile, you ended up back at your friend’s apartment, all the laughter and enjoyment had come fading as the events of the night replayed in your mind. Seeing Geto Suguru again had been a shock you weren’t prepared for. None else noticed but you. If anything, it was as if he had wanted you to know that it was him. 

You couldn’t help but feel sick at the thought. He’d come back. But for what? Why have he come back? You’d been doing fine for the past ten years. And now in an instant, you find yourself unable to do anything about these tears that just pours out. 

You’d spent years trying to bury the memories, to build a life that didn’t revolve around the void Suguru had left behind. And for the most part, you’d succeeded. But tonight had cracked something so deep within you, like a breaking dam. It was that wound you thought had healed. A wound so deep that maybe you never noticed it never healed.

Your friends noticed your distraction and tried to coax you back into the lighthearted energy of the evening, but it was no use. When it comes to Suguru, you knew you would never be able to pull yourself back from the brink. You left early, along with your friend and retreated to the quiet of your own space in her house. 

Sitting in the dim glow of your living room, you stared at your phone, your thumb hovering over his name in your contacts. It had been years since you’d last spoken, and the silence between you was deafening. But tonight, it felt heavier, like it was begging to be broken.

Suguru, in his drunken haze, finally pulled out his phone. His fingers trembled as he stared at the empty message thread between you from all those years ago. He never changed phones. He just couldn’t. 

Not when this held so much of you, more than you could ever know. And he’d hate to part with it. He hates parting with you. The cursor blinked at him mockingly, daring him to say something, anything. But what could he say? What words could possibly bridge the chasm he had created?

You both sat in separate silences, even far away from each other. Even then, you both carry the weight of your shared history hanging in the air, stifling you both whole. Somewhere between the spaces of what was and what could never be, a thread still connected the two of you in the frayed, fragile, but unbroken echoes of life.

And for the first time in years, you both wondered what it would have been like to say hello.

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IT WAS A LONG TIME AGO, FLASHING IN YOUR MIND SO CLEARLY. Your relationship with Geto Suguru began like a slow sunrise—gentle, almost imperceptible at first. Everyone could see something beautiful about it. You could too.

But it wasn’t something either of you could pinpoint, the exact moment it started, but before long, the light of it had crept in, filling the cracks and chasing away the cold.

At first, you were just kids, thrown together in the chaotic, unforgiving world of jujutsu sorcery. Life and death weren’t just abstract concepts; they were constant, hovering over every breath you took, lurking in the shadows of every mission. But with him, there was something different. Something softer.

It started with stolen glances in the classroom, shared smirks over jokes that only you two seemed to find funny. Then came the late-night conversations that stretched far too long, but neither of you cared. You’d sit on the temple steps, the world silent except for the occasional rustle of leaves in the breeze.

“You ever think about what we’d be doing if we weren’t... this?” he asked one night, his voice low, almost hesitant. He looked at you then, his dark eyes searching yours like he might find some hidden answer there.

“Sometimes, when I have some time. I think about it. With you, me, Satoru and Shoko.” you admitted. “But then I think... would we have ever met? If we were just ordinary people?”

He smiled, that small, almost private smile he saved just for you. “I don’t think the universe would’ve let us miss each other.”

“Even just the two of us?” You wondered at him.

“Especially the two of us.” He grinned even wider, patting your head. 

Those words lingered with you long after that night, as did the quiet weight of his presence. Suguru wasn’t just your teammate or your classmate; he became your confidant, your safe place. The one person who could make you feel human, even when the world tried to strip that away.

There was lightness in your connection, a reprieve from the heaviness that came with your lives. The warmth of his laugh, the way his shoulders relaxed when you were around. It was as if the two of you carried pieces of each other’s burdens without ever having to say it out loud. 

Everytime you were with him, you felt like everything was whole.

The world made sense when you were with him.

And you were proven right each and every single time.

He was the only one for you in this world.

It had been a long day, and exhaustion lingered in the edges of your mind, but he sat across from you, legs crossed lazily, and the smallest smile teased at his lips. You remember telling a joke.

You don’t remember it in its entirety but you knew it was something about the absurdity of the higher-ups’ newest “ingenious” strategy and for a moment, his guarded composure shattered.

He laughed.

It wasn’t just a chuckle or a polite hum. No, it was a real laugh. It was as though life had existed the first time he laughed. It was so bright, unrestrained, and utterly disarming.

The sound was pure, and for a moment, you could almost forget the weight he carried, the things he wouldn’t talk about late at night when the shadows seemed to pull closer.

“God, that laugh.” you murmured, half to yourself, but he caught it.

“What about it?” His voice held a smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling with curiosity.

“It’s… nice. Unexpected.” you said, and you could feel your cheeks warming under his steady gaze.

“....What about my laugh?” He asks you, his cheeks flustered like cherry wine. “Is…is the sound good?”

You matched his flustered cheeks. “It’s…It’s like a song.”

“A song?”

“My favorite song.” You admitted to him, slowly smiling as you shyly looked up to his flustered gaze. “Your voice is my favorite lullaby. But your laugh? It’s my favorite song.”

That was the beginning. That laugh became your favorite sound, a lifeline in the chaos. It became the thing you sought, the thing you tried to coax out of him in fleeting moments between missions or during those rare stretches of quiet.

You had stolen moments, the two of you. Too many to count, too many to want to forget. It was when life wasn’t pressing its cruelty upon you. Late nights stretched into early mornings, both of you lying in the grass, the stars above almost as bright as his gaze.

“You see that one?” you whispered once, pointing to a cluster of stars. “It reminds me of you.”

“Oh? How’s that?” he asked, smirking slightly, his head tilted in mock challenge.

“It burns so brightly you can’t help but stare,” you said without thinking, and the smirk faded into something softer, something almost shy.

“Careful, I might start believing you, you know?” he murmured, looking away, but not before you caught the blush dusting his cheeks.

“But aren’t I correct with what I said?”

“Ah, you’re just as cheeky as Satoru.”

You grinned at him. “But I’m better than him, aren’t I? Because I’m your favorite!”

Suguru laughed, his cheeks warm like a scarlet sunrise. “Yeah, yeah. You are my favorite.”

And then there was the kiss. It happened on an evening like any other. It was only a normal day. A day like any other. Nothing special at all.

You had been talking, your words flowing so easily it felt as if you were spinning threads of a tapestry you had both been weaving for years. Somehow, you just belonged together.

When he leaned in, his hand brushing the side of your face, it wasn’t a surprise. It felt inevitable, like the tides meeting the shore. Like destiny itself had been guiding you here. You felt like you were home as you found yourself overtaken by him.

When his lips met yours, it was as if the world stopped turning. It wasn’t fireworks or an explosion. It was just warmth that was familiar. The breeze of evening moonlight. it was a sigh, a soft release of tension you didn’t realize you had been carrying. Everything else fell away. It was just him and you.

And in that moment, you knew.

He was the one for you.

He was the love of your life.

“This feels... right, don’t you think?” he murmured, his forehead resting against yours. His voice was so soft you almost didn’t hear it.

“It does. Perfect.” you whispered back. “Like it was always supposed to happen.”

You didn’t just love him. No, you recognized him. Across time, across lives, across every distance imaginable. You had found him, and you would find him again.

Every time. Every lifetime. And you would love him, fiercely, until it burned you alive. Because he wasn’t just a part of your world—he was your world.

For a while, it was perfect. Together, you built a fragile sanctuary amidst the chaos. Even as the missions grew harder and the burden of protecting the world loomed heavier, you found solace in each other.

Geto Suguru would hold you close on nights when the horrors of your work were too much to bear, whispering reassurances that tomorrow would be better.

But tomorrow wasn’t better.

The world began to crack around him. He had blamed himself for Amanai Riko. For Satoru’s brush with death. For failure of a mission that relied so much on him. And that had buried him under, even before he had come and gone to the grim reaper’s arms. 

Everything you had loved about him slowly faded, like memories of yesterday. You saw it in the way his smiles became rarer, in the way his laughter came less easily. He grew quieter, more distant, and when he came back from missions, he wouldn’t talk about them anymore.

Instead, he’d sit in silence, staring at nothing, as if the weight of what he’d seen was too much to put into words. As if nothing in this world mattered at all. As if nothing was worth living for. 

At first, you tried to pull him out of it. You were the only person that could do something like that, if Satoru couldn’t. You have tried hard. You really did.

You did as much as you could to remind him of the ideals that had driven you both to fight in the first place. Of the future that you could have together, where you could be happy. 

But Suguru wasn’t just tired of everything—he was angry.

And he didn’t want to hear anything more about those ideas.

They had failed him, as much as the adults had already done.

He wasn’t in the mind to talk anymore, he was tired of talking.

“They don’t deserve it.” he said  harshly, that one night, his voice low and simmering. “The people we save—they don’t even know what we sacrifice for them. They go about their lives while we bleed for them. It’s not fair.”

“It’s not about fairness, Suguru.” you said, reaching for his hand. “It’s about doing what’s right. They are weaker than us. They don’t know the world of such suffering. But we do. Suguru—”

But he pulled away, shaking his head at you. “Maybe what’s right is letting them fend for themselves. Maybe what’s right is taking back control.”

“Suguru, you can’t—”

“I have had enough of it. I can’t….I can’t have any more of this bullshit. Please.”

You didn’t recognize the man sitting before you. His words were sharp, edged with bitterness that scared you. You tried to argue, to bring him back to the man you had fallen in love with, but Geto Suguru was slipping through your fingers, and no matter how tightly you held on, you couldn’t stop it. The more you tried, the more he pulled away. 

The breaking point came on a mission, one you didn’t share with him. You weren’t there to see the moment he made his choice—the moment he decided that humanity was no longer worth saving.

You only heard the aftermath: Suguru Geto, once a protector, had killed. He had killed too many people. Even his own parents. He had turned his back on everything he once stood for. And all to be free. All to stop those voices in his head. All to stop being miserable.

When you confronted him that day, you were trembling. A part from anger, part from heartbreak. You looked at him, eyes so brimming with tears as he stood there with those dark purple orbs narrowing at you. 

Almost as though he couldn’t care less about it all. It was as if he didn’t carry the world on his shoulders anymore. In that moment, it was better that their suffering freed him. That’s what it looked like to you. And that broke you. More than you could even say. More than you could even understand. 

“Tell me it’s not true, Suguru.” you said, your voice cracking. “Tell me you didn’t do it.”

But Geto Suguru didn’t lie. He’s never been good at lying. If anything, you didn’t need him to say anything. You already knew the truth. You’ve seen the bodies. You’ve seen the reports. But somehow, hearing him say it. 

Perhaps that’s the only way to make it real. That’s the only way to know the truth. He looked at you with calm, unflinching purple eyes, the same eyes that used to hold so much warmth. How could such warm eyes feel so cold, so lifeless, so devoid of the will to live?

“They deserved it.” he said simply, his hands resting on his pockets. “The world needs to change. And I’m going to change it.”

You stepped back, shaking your head, tears streaming down your face. “This isn’t you, Suguru. This isn’t who you are.I know…I know who you are. Please, just…Just…”

“It’s who I’ve always been.” he said, and the certainty in his voice shattered you.

Tears fell from your eyes, to the point that you couldn’t see anymore. You let out a guttering cry, your hand covering your lips as though you know you can’t let it out anymore. You can’t stand like this in front of him. But you couldn’t move. You couldn’t stop staring at him. Where did your Suguru go? Where was he?

“I don’t know you anymore.” you whispered, your voice barely audible. You sobbed, looking at the ground. “Who are you? Where’s my Suguru? Where is he?”

For a moment, just a moment, his mask slipped. You saw the guilt in his eyes, the pain he was trying so hard to bury. Not because he’s hurt others, no. But because he’s hurt you. That burns him more.

That kills him more. But then it was gone, replaced by the resolute facade he had built to shield himself. He knew he couldn't come back. He’s gone too far for him to walk away from it.

“I hope you know that….I’m sorry.” he said to you, watching you close your eyes. As though wanting to pretend that this was just a bad dream. “But this is the only way.”

You wanted to scream, to grab him and shake him until he saw reason. But you knew it wouldn’t make a difference. You always knew better than that. He was resolute. He always has been. And so, he would not turn back. Not even for you. 

The Geto Suguru you loved was gone. He was killed. He was consumed by the darkness he couldn’t escape. And you will never get him back. The last time you saw him, he was walking away, his silhouette fading into the distance. You stood there, rooted to the spot, the weight of his absence crushing you.

In the days and weeks that followed, you replayed every moment, every conversation, every sign you had missed. You blamed yourself, even though you knew, deep down, that this wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have saved him.

But that knowledge didn’t make the loss any easier. You were sure that he was the love of your life. Geto Suguru has been your love, your partner, your everything.

And now he was gone, leaving behind nothing but memories and the ghost of what could have been. And now you had to pick up what’s left from the desolation that swallowed everything whole. If not you, who will?

In the weeks that followed, life moved on around you, but you felt like you were frozen in place. The routines of being a jujutsu sorcerer continued. Day in day out, it was missions, training, meetings. But somehow,  it all felt hollow. 

Every face you saved, every curse you exorcised, felt like a mockery of what you had lost. How could you keep protecting a world that had taken Geto Suguru from you? How could you keep meeting with faces that didn’t know how to protect a child? How could you keep finding yourself living like this over and over?

But you still did it anyway.

You knew it was the right thing to do.

Suffering or not, you had to live.

You had to continue on.

Your nights were the hardest. Sleep became a distant memory, replaced by endless hours of replaying the past. You found yourself going back to the places you had shared with him.

The quiet park where you used to sit and watch the stars, the ramen shop where he’d always order extra broth, the training grounds where you’d spar until you were both breathless with laughter.

But those places were empty now, stripped of their meaning. Without him, they were just shadows of something you could never get back. Things that were just gone, forever lost in the abyss of his own making. An abyss you had sealed just as much, by continuing to live the way you have.

The news of Geto Suguru’s defection spread quickly. Whispers followed you wherever you went, people looking at you with pity, like you were some tragic figure in a story they couldn’t stop retelling.

Some were kind, offering empty condolences that only made you feel worse. Others were cruel, blaming you for not seeing the signs, for not stopping him before it was too late.

But the worst were the people who said nothing, who looked at you like you were a ticking time bomb, as if Suguru’s choices had tainted you by association. You could feel their looks, you could always hear the double entendre in their words. But you could hardly care at that point.

You tried to drown it all out, focusing on your missions, on anything that would keep your mind occupied. But no matter how hard you worked, no matter how many curses you destroyed, the weight of Suguru’s absence clung to you like a second skin.

And then, one day, you saw him again.

It was purely by accident, something you couldn’t expect.

It had only been a mere few months after he had left.

It was on a mission in a remote village, where rumors of a powerful curse had been reported. You had gone in prepared for anything—or so you thought. What you weren’t prepared for was the sight of Geto Suguru standing in the center of the chaos, his presence commanding, his expression unreadable.

Your breath caught in your throat. For a moment, it felt like the world had stopped spinning. He looked the same, and yet so different. There was an edge to him now, a coldness that hadn’t been there before. A brutish layer that protected him from the world.

“Suguru.” you said, your voice barely more than a whisper.

He turned to you, and for a split second, something flickered in his purple eyes—recognition, maybe even regret. But it was gone as quickly as it came, replaced by the calm detachment you had come to fear.

“You shouldn’t be here.” he said, his tone almost gentle.

“You don’t get to tell me where I should be. you shot back, your voice trembling. “Not after what you’ve done.” After what you’ve done to me.

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I didn’t come here to fight you. Leave, and I’ll let you go.”

���Let me go?” you echoed, anger bubbling up inside you. “You don’t get to ‘let me go’ for shit, Suguru. You left. You broke everything, and now you’re standing here like none of it matters. I should kill you right now where you stand like the kill order says.”

“It does matter. Everything I do, it matters. To me, to the world I’m building.” he said, his voice quiet but firm. “More than you’ll ever understand. That’s why I’m doing this.”

“No, Suguru. You aren’t.” you said, stepping closer to him. “You’re doing this because you gave up. Because you let the worst parts of this world consume you. And now you’re trying to justify it by pretending. And I just….I have had enough of that excuse. Even when we fought, you used that excuse.”

He flinched at your words, the only crack in his otherwise unshakable composure. For a moment, you thought you had reached him. But then his expression hardened, and he took a step back from you.

“This isn’t about us, you know that.” he said. “It’s bigger than that. Bigger than you or me.”

“It was never just about us, you idiot.” you said, your voice breaking. “But we could have fought for something better—together. Instead, you threw it all away. You threw me away.”

He didn’t respond. He knew you were right. You could see it in your eyes. He tried to open his mouth, to say something. But instead, he turned and began to walk away, his figure fading into the distance once more.

You wanted to call out to him, to beg him to stay, to fight for the man you once knew. But you didn’t. Because deep down, you knew that man was gone. You would just be lying to yourself if you tried to pretend that it would work. 

And as you stood there, watching him disappear, you realized something: this was the last time you would let him break you. Geto Suguru had chosen his path, and now it was time for you to choose yours. You had to.

Even if it meant living with the weight of his absence for the rest of your life, you would carry it. Because that was what it meant to keep going. He wasn’t willing to live with you, for you. He wasn’t willing to do that. And so, you had to. You had to do it for you. To survive. 

══════════════════

HE FELT LIKE HE WAS GOING TO THROW UP. Geto Suguru stumbled into another bar, his head swimming with alcohol and frustration. The neon lights buzzed overhead, casting garish colors onto the crowd of strangers. 

It was a different place, but it might as well have been the same. Everywhere he went, it felt the same: loud, crowded, meaningless. He was chasing something he couldn’t name, knowing full well it wouldn’t fix the hollow ache inside him.

He spotted a girl at the bar, standing alone for just a moment, and something in him shifted. It wasn't an attraction—not really. It was desperation. I may suggest there’s somewhere I might know her, he thought, smirking to himself, just to get the ball to roll. 

He approached her with a feigned air of confidence, the kind that only comes from being far beyond tipsy. His words slurred slightly as he said something about a shared connection, a vague memory he knew didn’t exist. She tilted her head, intrigued despite herself.

Suguru leaned in closer, his voice low and coaxing. “Come on, before the moment’s gone.” 

It wasn’t like he was falling in love. That wasn’t what he wanted. He didn’t want her heart or her promises. He just wanted her to do him no good, to help him forget for a while. The girl gave him a look—soft, inviting, a subtle tilt of her lips that sent a rush of blood through his veins. 

It turned him on more than it should have. He didn’t care about her name, her life, or her story. It was the thrill of the chase, the electric jolt of fleeting desire. But before he could take another step, a hand clamped down on his shoulder. 

“She’s with me.”

Suguru turned to see a man standing there, tall and stern, his presence like a wall between them. The girl stepped back toward her boyfriend, her gaze dropping in awkward apology. Suguru laughed bitterly, holding his hands up in mock surrender. 

“Didn’t mean to intrude.” he said, though the sting of rejection burned.

He retreated to the edge of the dance floor, his drink in hand, watching the pulsing crowd around him. The music was deafening, the lights dizzying. The club was a house of fun—or at least that’s what it was supposed to be. People were laughing, dancing, losing themselves in the moment. But for Suguru, it was a prison. A trap.

The room spun, not from the alcohol but from the crushing realization that it wasn’t enough. This place wasn’t enough. These people weren’t enough. She’s not you. No, she isn’t. She never will be. No one else can ever be like you.

No matter how many drinks he had, no matter how many strangers he flirted with, the truth was inescapable. You and he weren’t together anymore. You had been the only thing that made sense in the chaos of his life, and now, without you, everything felt hollow.

The club blurred into a mess of sound and light, but all Suguru could feel was the emptiness gnawing at him. He was trapped in this cycle of meaningless nights, trying to fill the void you left behind. And deep down, he knew it would never work. Because no matter how hard he tried, no one could be you.

Nothing here was worth staying for.

So he comes outside, the cold greeting him.

But he could barely feel it stab through him.

The alcohol in his veins dulled everything except the gnawing ache in his chest. He stumbled down the street, the neon lights of the club fading behind him, replaced by the harsh glow of streetlights. His breath came out in uneven puffs, his mind swimming with thoughts he didn’t want to face.

His phone was a familiar weight in his pocket. He pulled it out, his fingers fumbling over the screen until he found your name. He was too drunk to be a coward now. He wasn’t going to let the cursor mock him this time. Not again.

Somehow, it was muscle memory—he didn’t even have to think about it. You were still in his contacts, still in his life in the smallest, cruelest way. If anything, he memorized your phone number. He knew it too well, he’d never forget it. He stared at your name for a long moment, the cursor blinking on the call button.

The voice in his head screamed at him to stop, to put the phone away and walk home.He didn’t need to do this. Not right now. Not ever. But the alcohol silenced that voice, replacing it with raw, unfiltered need. And seeing you tonight….what more did he need to be an excuse? He had to call you. Even if it was wrong, he had to. 

Before he could stop himself, he hit the button. The phone rang. Once, twice. With every passing second, his heart raced, his breathing shallow and unsteady. He almost hung up, almost let the moment slip away, but then you answered.

“Hello?” Your voice was soft, confused. You had changed phones. But you still used the same number. He knew that. But you probably, over time, had forgotten his phone number. He had expected it. He was after all, worth forgetting. “Who is this?”

It was late, and you hadn’t expected to hear from him—hadn’t heard from him in years. If anything, you never should expect anything from him. But the sound of you made his chest tighten, and for a moment, he couldn’t speak. He leaned against a lamppost, the phone pressed to his ear like it was his last lifeline.

“S’me again, babe.” he slurred finally, his voice thick with alcohol and emotion. “Suguru.”

There was a pause on your end, heavy and loaded. He could almost feel the weight of your hesitation, the way your breath hitched as you processed his call. It had been a long time. Ten long years. And now, just now, he called. 

“What do you want?” you asked, your tone cautious, guarded. It wasn’t the warmth he remembered, but it wasn’t cold either. It was somewhere in between, and that hurt more than anything.

“I don’t know, honestly.” he admitted, his voice breaking. He laughed bitterly, dragging a hand through his hair. “No, that’s a lie. I know. I just… And I just….I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stop… missing you.”

“Suguru…” Your voice softened, but there was something else there too—sadness, maybe even pity. 

He hated it. He didn’t want your pity. You had known that even when you were younger. But he knew you couldn't help it. Still, just maybe, even just tonight, you’d drop it. You’d pretend, just as he was. He wanted you to tell him that you missed him too, that you still thought about him late at night, that he wasn’t the only one trapped in this endless spiral.

“I saw you tonight.” he blurted, the words tumbling out before he could stop them. “At that bar. Can’t remember the name, honestly. But you just….You looked so happy. Like you don’t even think about me anymore. Like I’m nothing.”

You sighed on the other end of the line, and it cut through him like a knife. “Suguru, it’s been ten years. What did you expect? I….I didn’t expect my life to be frozen, waiting for an impossibility that will never come.”

“I don’t know. I just…” he said again, his voice rising with frustration. “I thought maybe—maybe you’d feel the same. Like… like this thing between us isn’t over. Like it’s still there.”

“It’s not. And you…you know this.” you said quietly, and the finality in your tone made his knees buckle. He sank onto the curb, his head in his hands.

“It is for you, maybe…. he whispered, his voice cracking. “But not for me. It’s not over for me, and I don’t know how to let it be. Babe, I loved you. I still do. Maybe for the rest of my fucking life. But I…I don’t know what to do.”

The silence on your end was deafening, and he filled it with a broken laugh. You had the right to  your silence, you always will. After what he had done, even just last night? Why shouldn’t you just be quiet? Why shouldn’t you just hang up right now? 

But on the other side of the line, you were bitterly weeping in the quiet. Just taking in his words. Everything about your lives had been a tragedy, a tragedy that you could never forget. Both of you were living those past lives that can never come back. And you shouldn’t. You can’t. Not now, not ever.

“I’m drunk, you know?” he said, as if that excused everything, as if it would make you forget the raw, painful truth he’d just laid bare. “I shouldn’t have called. I just… I needed to hear your voice.”

“You need to go home, Suguru.” you said gently. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but it was what he expected.”You have daughters to go home too, remember?”

You’d always been kind, even when you were hurting. Even to people that hurt you. He’d always known that. But somehow, he wondered if that kindness was why you’d stayed in his contacts all these years—because part of you knew he might need it someday. 

Because he knows you’d be merciful to him, no matter what he’d done. No matter what he’d caused you. You’d pick up that phone and answer him. You’d let him hear your voice, like you used to do for hours and hours when you were younger.

“Yeah, you’re right.” he said, dragging himself to his feet. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll go home.”

But as he stumbled down the street, the phone still pressed to his ear, he couldn’t help but say one last thing. “You were the best thing I ever had, you know that? The only thing that ever made sense. In all of my life. And I love you. I’ll love you forever for it.”

He heard you inhale sharply, but you didn’t respond. Not for a while. You took a moment to let out a small sob, as though trying to hold yourself together. And Suguru could imagine it. How it shatters him. Ah, he had made you cry again like this.

“You were the best of my life, Suguru.” You finally say, almost the saddest he’s ever heard you talk. You were still mourning him, he supposed. “The love of my life. You always will be, Suguru.”

The line went quiet, and then, mercifully, you hung up.

Suguru stood there for a moment, staring at the screen, the word “Disconnected” flashing at him in a cruel, mocking rhythm. His hand tightened around the phone, his knuckles turning white as the fury bubbled beneath the surface. He nodded to himself.

He wanted to scream, to hurl the phone into the street and watch it shatter into irreparable pieces, as if that would somehow undo the splintering inside him. But instead, his anger collapsed inward, folding into a hollow resignation. 

He shoved the phone into his pocket with a rough, jerking motion, his breaths shallow and uneven. He reached for a cigarette with the same hand, fingers trembling as they pulled it free. His lighter almost instantly lit the edge into a fiery smoke.

The first drag burned, the bitter smoke searing his throat and filling his lungs. It didn’t matter. He needed the distraction, needed something to keep him grounded when it felt like the world had slipped from beneath his feet. He lit the next one before the first was even finished, the acrid haze curling around him like a suffocating ghost.

He kept walking. The city stretched out before him, a labyrinth of muted lights and shadows that felt more hostile than familiar. The streets were quiet, save for the occasional distant wail of a siren or the shuffle of a stray figure in the dark. Cold wind bit at his skin, cutting through the thin jacket he hadn’t bothered to zip up.

It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.

This was the last time you’ll see each other.

He was going to do his plan soon enough.

And you won’t see him again, not ever again.

[darlasfish]

@deweydewdrop​ (continued from here)

“Ohhh, what is it, what is it?” Dewey asked eagerly, eyes widening in surprise before he forced them shut. He held out his hands as requested, racking his brain for ideas on what this surprise could be from Darla. “Is it a treasure map? Concert tickets? A new dew-tective hat?”

~

     Darla let out a short laugh that was really more of a snort when Dewey posed his guesses as to what his surprise gift was. Just where on earth was she meant to get a treasure map? At least he had provided some great ideas on what to get him next time that he was sure to love. “It’s not concert tickets, but—” She placed a hand-decorated CD case in his hand and finished, “—I hope you like it anyway!”

[ky-landfill]

[flutterbyoz]

It seems there are still some people out there who wish to belittle, disregard and reject Michonne's importance to Rick. So for those who seem to have such a problem with Rick and Michonne let me just say:

This is Michonne Grimes

She is everything to Rick Grimes. His partner, his lover, his confidant, his best friend, his saviour, the mother of his children, his sun, moon and stars, she is his wife, his soulmate and the love of his life. She is his entire universe, his reason for everything and he would choose her in any life and any universe.

Contrary to what I've seen some people say, Rick would not walk away from Michonne if Lori miraculously returned from the dead, he would not do so if Jessie came back either. Had Lori or Jessie lived, Rick and Michonne still would have found their way to each other because they are meant to be, in any lifetime and in any and all versions of reality.

Rick is the man who didn't think of moving on even after 8 years, who wrote love letters and dreamt about her to keep himself going, and lets not forget what he had to do just to be able to go on without her. And for Michonne, she couldn't truly believe he was gone despite the fact she saw the bridge he was stood on literally explode, she kept believing and searching for years, never moved on and went through hell to find him again.

The Walking Dead and especially The Ones Who Live have made it exceptionally clear what their relationship is, how important they are to each other, how deep and unbreakable their love is and how they would go to the ends of the earth for each other. Not everyone is going to feel a connection to Richonne, I get that and I'm not trying to say otherwise (despite the fact I don't think I'll ever understand how anyone can watch their love story and not fall completely in love with their love!) but canon is canon, you can not feel a connection to them and still respect their story and acknowledge that they are 'it' for each other. To disregard that is to ignore their whole story.

Michonne Grimes is Rick Grimes one true love, she is his whole world, she and their children are his priority, he will put them before anyone else, and yes, even above Daryl. So, while we are all entitled to an opinion no one can really deny that Rick and Michonne are completely and utterly head over heels in love, someone's personal view of them as a couple does not change that fact.

This is THE couple of The Walking Dead and IMO the best couple to have ever graced the screen. They are everything to me and they are everything to each other

[garkgatiss]

{{esquivalience}}, The Auteur, and Doctor Who the TV Show

alright so this novella.

First, its provenance: I was googling the Twist at the End song last week because it's catchy as hell. I ended up on the Tardis wiki and realized that there was a song by the exact same name that appeared in a licensed DWU novella that was published April 9th. As in, last month. Which is weird. It's hard to say how weird, but given the timing, it either has to be a) pure coincidence (lol), b) someone who worked on the show abusing their advance knowledge of plot details for personal gain, or c) intentional coordination between showrunner and novella-writer, a la Joe Lidster writing John Watson’s blog for BBC Sherlock.

The likelihood of (a) is decreasing by the week. I feel like I have to entertain the idea of (b) happening, but it's hard to square why a DWU-writing supernerd who is also involved somehow with the production of the show would risk a lifetime of blackballing from DW for a bit of cheap promotion for their extended-universe tie-in novella. I am so sorry to be saying this, but I think (c) might actually have legs.

The novella's title is {{esquivalience}}, which is a fake word invented in real life by editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary. The invented word means "deliberate shirking of one's official duties", and it was added to the dictionary to protect the copyright of the electronic version. In S9, Face the Raven showed us a “trap street", i.e. a fake street drawn on a map by a mapmaker to identify any copyright infringement of said map -- a dictionary entry for a word made up by the dictionary editors operates similarly as a copy-trap. The definition is apt for a copy-trap as well, because anyone illicitly copying a dictionary is themselves shirking a job they ought to be doing themselves... it's clever, it's very fun, we're off to a great start.

{{a crash course in esquivalience below the cut}}

THE STORY:

The unnamed protagonist applies for a custodial job at this library that serves basically as a databank for the history of everything in the universe. If a book about something is thrown away, that something ceases to have ever existed. Exhibit A: Protagonist works in the Dead & Dying Language Department. They throw away The Book of Belgian Dutch, and a) a couple coworkers with Belgian Dutch heritage either disappear or get completely different names/family trees, and also b) everyone quickly forgets that Belgian Dutch was ever a thing to begin with.

The librarians cover for this accidental deletion of reality by copying/fudging a new book on "Belgian Gerench", their name for what they replace Belgian Dutch with. They try to catch most of the people who were deleted, bring them back, and fit them into that new language/culture/ethnicity bucket they just made up.

(The narration explains that because both Belgian and Dutch still exist separately as concepts, there aren't too many knock-on effects in terms of loanwords in other languages that needed to be modified/recovered. It also explains that time-traveling back to make an exact copy of The Book of Belgian Dutch wouldn't work because of the universe's copyright laws or something.)

Protag then comes after the head of their department, the Head Dictionary Contributor, or Head DC. They find him in a hidden room called the Internal Reference Room. Instead of languages, the books here hold the life stories of every employee, which auto-update as the person lives their life, but can also be edited or destroyed to alter that person's reality. Protag sits down with the Head DC's lifebook and starts adding and erasing things.

It turns out that Head DC knows how wrong editing these books can go from personal experience. Years ago, wanting to leave his mark on the universe, the Head DC chose to add his own copy-trap into The Book of Dutch -- the fake word "esquivalience". This action seemingly created the concept of cutting corners at your job, leading to the insufficient vetting of Protag for this job and therefore their subsequent hiring, which results in Head DC's eventual death.

Head DC pleads with Protag for his life, but Protag is undeterred. They finally tear out the final page in Head DC's book, which kills him. Protag then writes themselves in as Head DC. Settling into their new role, they turn their attention to The Book of English (8th to 25th Century). They first look up the dictionary entry for “esquivalience”, which says it came to English from Dutch, and then flips to the entries for “ravel" and “unravel”, described as contranyms from Dutch roots, both “meaning variably to tangle or to fray”.

This is the central story of the novella. There is also a Prelude and Postlude that describe the lives of two young men, first in a reality in which they never meet, and then in a reality in which they do meet and fall in love (their meeting is enabled by one of them skivving off work in time to make it to see the movie where they first meet -- esquivalience!)

Just before the Postlude, there is also printed the lyrics to a song (see below), and an excerpt from The Book of English, this volume covering the 4th to 5th billionth centuries of history. This excerpt again gives the definition of “unravel”, but refers the reader to an appendix for the full list of definition, and notes they are “largely in usage as reference to Unravel, The” and “N.B. to be used with extreme care and caution”.

NOVELLA-SHOW CONNECTIONS:

Mavity [Wild Blue Yonder]: Mavity happened all the way back in Wild Blue Yonder, so it's not necessarily surprising to see it in a novella published in April 9, 2024, but there's a whole scene establishing that the M has seemingly replaced the G in all Romance languages, while Domhantarraingt in Irish-Gaelic is unaffected.

Rope [The Church on Ruby Road]: We're all learning the vocabulary of rope now! The Unravel is what the novella calls the meta-historical revisions caused by making edits to the books. There are also rope/weaving metaphors everywhere. Again, the rope themes of the TV show predate the April 9 novella just far enough that in theory it would have been possible for the novella to have taken inspiration from the 2023 Christmas Special. Except. The wiki page for The Unravel credits ownership of the concept to Jamie H. Cowan, the author of the novella. Not just that, but The Unravel was used – with credit to Jamie – in a DWU short story collection published December 26, 2023 – the day after The Church on Ruby Road aired.

Dot and Bubble [Dot and Bubble] : At this point, “Dot and Bubble” is a contextless episode title to me, first announced on March 31. In the novella, we get this:

The Twist At The End [The Devil’s Chord] : Just before the novella's Postlude, there are the lyrics to a song called “The Twist At The End”. Just listed there, no context, like an azlyrics.com entry. They are not the same lyrics as the song in The Devil's Chord, but then, meta-historical revision would kind of be the point, wouldn't it? There's just this sentence to connect it to anything happening in the narration: "Somewhere, in the far distance, as ______ continued to erase, an old 1960s Earth tune began to play."

EDITED TO ADD: @corallapis has pointed out to me that not only did the existence of the song "Twist at the End" by John Smith and the Common Men leak, but the novella's author tweeted about it in December 2023.

The Chumerian languages of the planet B’llauit, for instance, needed much consideration. Particularly Krulvan. There was still a great deal of work to be done in compiling the post-technoweb aspects of Krulvan. Like how most emotional words and phrases contracted more and more, until finally, they were little more than abbreviations. The old dot-and-bubble effect.

A parent’s love was no longer expressed post-technoweb as “Kal-at lur amoi”, but instead as merely “KLA”. Which needed to be carefully distinguished in the relevant encyclopedia from another abbreviated Krulvan phrase “Kal’ati Lepr’en Acrumpsal” – which was something rather equivalent to the expletives of other languages like “D’Arvit”, or “Bleno”.

It's only a brief mention in the book, so it's possible in theory that it was added after the episode titles were released, or even after the novella’s publication (Amazon allows post-publication changes up to 10% of the text, and it’s not possible to track those changes). I’ve included the second paragraph because it’s interesting that the example they’ve given is the word for a parent’s love, which we can see as a running theme in this season of DW (though Moffat has said before that the only thing he writes about is a parent’s love, so who knows).

Not the strongest evidence of two-way coordination, but we may learn more when the episode airs.

Dutch [Space Babies, Boom]: Yeah, as in, the Dutch language. The words “spoor” & “smelt” both get a "oo, good word!" callout, spoor in Space Babies and smelt in Boom. These words both have Dutch roots. Splice, the daughter's name in Boom, is not only from a Dutch root, but also means the joining two pieces of rope. I read this novella just before Boom dropped on Disney+, so I can personally confirm that this is not a post-hoc addition to the novella. It hardly could have been anyway, this element is much more integral to the novella’s narrative than any of the other pieces.

The Auteur

This is where this all becomes relevant to the “Doctor Who is a TV Show” theory.

While the Protag is shredding the Head DC’s book, the Head DC is in the room, and what follows is an extremely meta narrative-aware pre-death monologue from the Head DC. He's pleading with Protag to stop changing things in his book, but he also refers to an "It" whose power surpasses them both.

He held eye contact with them as they looked up, “You didn’t pick up Belgian Dutch by chance. It’s how it plays. In weaving coincidences.”

“Just stop reading. Stop changing things. Stop, and we can be spared. Be free! If you keep going, then it will get what it wants. It is a happening [sic]. Out there, and in here in the basement. Everywhere. It will win if you keep going.”

“One day, you’ll make the same mistakes. Goddamn, you will. Because it’s all already written. It has already written it all. The paths, the choices. Rewrites, erasures, and even the contradictions. If you don't just... stop... it will... Unravel us all."

The "It" in question is presumably the author. Like an author writing a story, "It" plays by weaving coincidences, "It" gets what it wants when we keep reading, "It" has already written everything.

The Head DC mentions a special disposal chute, which had recently appeared as if by magic, which enabled Protag’s destruction of Belgian Dutch. Head DC’s references to this “It” suggest that his decision to create a word meaning cutting corners caused his eventual death, not by inventing the concept of cutting corners, but by creating a set-up that the Auteur, a godlike being that cares only for the rules of narrative, was compelled to write a satisfying follow-through for. The Auteur changed reality in order to weave a narratively-satisfying coincidence.

The Auteur is a character from the DW-spinoff series Faction Paradox. The creator of the Faction Paradox universe describes it as “on the surface an SF universe, but it works on the same principles as traditional folklore.”

I am but a humble Moffat scholar, so explaining the character of The Auteur is immediately getting into lore that I cannot even begin to decipher.

But it seems plausible that in the show we’re dealing with a godlike being, someone along the lines of Maestro or the Toymaker, but instead of caring only for the rules of play, cares only for the rules of narrative.

And this being, The Auteur, is altering reality and creating the narratively-satisfying coincidences in 14’s and 15’s timelines, possibly starting all the way back with the coincidence of 14 regenerating as David Tennant and immediately bumping into Donna Noble.

And it seems plausible that this season was created in cooperation with these DWU authors to whom concepts like The Auteur and The Unravel are licenced, and the novella is a tie-in text full of references to the current season to lead savvy superfans on a merry chase that foreshadows the season’s big bad.

Because I... don't really have another explanation for the existence of this novella at this point.

[ninadove]

🦚 Feligami February 🐉

Day 2: In every universe

"I didn't fall in love with you.

I walked into love with you,

With my eyes wide open,

Choosing to take every step along the way.

I do believe in fate and destiny,

But I also believe we are only fated to do the things we'd choose anyway.

And I'd choose you;

In a hundred lifetimes,

In a hundred worlds,

In any version of reality,

I'd find you and

I'd choose you."

— The Chaos of Stars, by Kiersten White

For my partner in crime @paracosmicat! 💜

[nat-20s]

The Doctor and Donna voice: in any universe I will be in cahoots with you. every lifetime, every reality, every version of us will commit to the bit together

[goldenseresinretriever]

Snitches Get Stitches: Chapter 12

Pairing: Jake "Hangman" Seresin x Reader

Part of the San Diego Dogfighters universe

Summary: Jake Seresin, golden boy of the NHL and Captain of the Dallas Stars makes headlines when he unexpectedly signs with newly-formed San Diego Dogfighters. When your future seems at the verge of crashing down, you receive the opportunity of a lifetime to become the team physician for the Dogfighters. You never expected to be working directly with your favorite hockey player. Jake has a secret and you have a job to do. Will he be able to trust you enough to help and will you be able to trust him with your heart?

Series CW: 18+ ONLY, swearing, violence, sports violence, medical stuff, blood probably, angst, fluff, (eventual) smut, forbidden romance, sexual harassment, suggestive language, medical inaccuracies, hockey inaccuracies etc. No use of Y/N.

Word Count: 3.4k

A/N: This is a repost of my completed series, Snitches Get Stitches. It was originally posted in October-November 2023, and was lost when my blog was deleted.

Previous Chapter // Series Masterlist // Next Chapter

You’re sitting in the same chair you’d sat in a month ago in Cyclone’s office and the atmosphere in the room is somehow more grave than it was last time. Jake is sitting next to you, one of his hands holding yours. You know it’s not helping your case but you need the contact to ground you. Cyclone is sitting across from the two of you, not saying a word, just sitting and watching. The silence is thick with tension and a part of you wishes he would just yell and get it over with. You know it’s coming, but for now, he’s content just watching you squirm. His eyes fall on your laced fingers and finally, he sighs, sitting back in his chair. You brace yourself for the shouting to start but his voice is even and deathly calm as he addresses you first.

“Bugs, I’m incredibly disappointed with your behavior, especially considering the fact that we’ve spoken at length about maintaining a certain level of professional conduct.” You swallow, hard. “I had my doubts when I hired you, but I gave you the chance to prove yourself and surpass your previous indiscretions.” Your free hand clenches into a fist. “And yet here you are, confirming my suspicions and putting me in an incredibly difficult position. You’ve broken not only your contract with the Dogfighters but also your oath as a physician. I have everything I need not only to fire you but also press legal charges.” Your skin goes cold. You knew you would be in trouble if Cyclone found out about you and Jake but the reality is grimmer than you could have imagined. “Mr. Seresin made a bold claim a month ago when he made a move to protect your job here.”

“A claim I still stand by.” Jake interrupts and Cyclone gives him a firm look.

“I could get a lawyer involved and have you fired nonetheless, but the team can’t afford that kind of bad press right now. That leaves us with one option. You can quit your job and terminate your personal relationship with Mr. Seresin and we won’t press any charges. I would suggest you leave with your dignity and reputation intact while you still can.” You feel tears start to press against the backs of your eyes because he’s right. That is your best option but the idea of losing Jake is more painful than you can imagine.

“You can’t do that,” Jake speaks up again and both you and Cyclone turn to look at him. “Bugs is a member of this team and ever since she started to suspect that I had feelings for her, she shut me down and did everything in her power to keep our relationship professional. We fell in love, yes, but that’s despite her efforts not because they didn’t exist at all. And I know you don’t trust Bugs’s version of events when it comes to what happened at her last job but I had the unfortunate privilege of meeting Dr. Anderson, and if you saw the way he treated her, you wouldn’t have a doubt in your mind about how things went down. Not only did he harass her, but he ruined her career simply because he’s a man in power and people were more willing to believe his version of events. But even if I hadn’t met him? All you have to do is take a look at the work Bugs does to know that she’d never stoop that low to get ahead. She doesn’t have to. She’s a hard worker who’s dedicated to her patients and the work she does. The fact that she and I are in a relationship shouldn’t detract from that.” Cyclone shakes his head.

“Son, you already have the press breaking down our doors for the chance at an exclusive interview with you ever since you left the Stars without any official announcement on your part. If any wind of this gets out? This could ruin not just her but your career as well.”

“I don’t give a fuck about my career. What I do care about is Bugs and her career.” Jake’s free hand is white-knuckled against the arm of the chair.

“Then it’s in your best interest to let her go, son. There will be plenty of other women in your career, you’re still young. It’s not like you intend to marry her.” Your heart aches because Cyclone’s right. Jake may be it for you but that doesn’t mean you’re it for him.

“I’d marry her today if she let me.” Cyclone’s eyebrows raise before he looks at you. You’re sure there’s shock written across your face.

“Jake’s it for me, sir. I love him, and it’s as simple as that.” Your voice doesn’t tremble even as more tears gather in your eyes and you feel Jake squeeze your hand, gently. Cyclone looks between the two of you as he sighs deeply, considering what to do with you.

“You realize that there’s nothing I can do about this.” He says finally. “Your personal feelings aside, there are still ethics laws being broken here even if we overlook the broken contract. Bugs, you’re going to have to leave the Dogfighters or I’ll have to fire you.”

“You’re not going to fire anyone.” The door to Cyclone’s office flies open and you watch Jake slump into his seat with relief as Zam charges in, an unfamiliar older man at her heels. She leans on the back of your chair, pausing to catch her breath while the older man waits behind her politely.

“Zam, what’s going on here? Who is this?” Cyclone is past irritated now and you can tell he’d probably be yelling if it weren’t for the stranger in the room.

“This,” she stands back up straight, “is Dr. Solomon Bates.” Your eyebrows go up at that, your heart stopping. “And I just hired him.”

“EXCUSE ME?” Cyclone is sitting up straight now.

“Well more accurately, Ice and I hired him.” She clarifies, squaring her shoulders. “Every other hockey team has multiple physicians, so it’s high time we brought someone else on. Dr. Bates, this is Beau Simpson, our general manager.” Cyclone stares dumbfounded as he shakes hands with Dr. Bates before he collects himself and flashes his most professional smile at the other man.

“Dr, Bates, welcome aboard. We appreciate having you join us as our head physician.” You could hear a pin drop in the room at Cyclone’s declaration. “This here is Bugs, she’ll be working with you as our assistant physician. And this is Jake Seresin, our captain and number one patient right now. You’ll be taking over his care, effective immediately.” Your jaw clenches but you know that there’s nothing you can do. If you’re Jake’s girlfriend, you can’t also be his physician. Zam’s saved your job but you can’t have your cake and eat it too so you put on your brightest smile and extend a hand to Dr. Bates.

“Dr. Bates, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I can’t wait to start working together. I can fill you in on Jake’s condition and care as soon as we wrap up here.” He shakes your hand, giving you a polite nod. He turns to Jake next, shaking his hand before Zam interrupts.

“Dr. Bates, if you wouldn’t mind giving us a minute. I need to talk to these three for a second. I showed you your office downstairs. You can start getting settled and Bugs will meet you there when we finish up.” He excuses himself without much fuss and when you finally hear the elevator doors close down the hall, Cyclone finally fixes Zam with a glare.

“Zam, you've more than overstepped the boundaries of your position on this team.”

She doesn’t even balk as she coolly fires back. “You have me handling not only PR but also internal affairs currently and two of the employees here approached me concerning a consensual workplace relationship and I worked to make that possible for them. We needed another physician. Bugs has been swamped when she’s here and when she was out we didn’t have anyone to cover for her. I hired Dr. Bates based on that need and with him taking over Jake’s care, that eliminates any liability on the part of Bugs and the team. I’ve done my research.” She places a folder on the desk in front of you. “If you two just fill out this paperwork declaring your relationship, everything will officially be above board. Both Bugs and Jake are free to keep their jobs.” Jake jumps to take out the forms, plucking two pens out of the cup on Cyclone’s desk and handing one of each to you. You glance at the paper in front of you. This is real. You get to keep your job AND you get to keep Jake. Sure you just got demoted but you get to stay with the Dogfighters. Signing the declaration papers feels like letting out a sigh of relief. Jake squeezes your hand in his. Whatever comes next, the two of you can make it through if you’re together.

***

It turns out things aren’t as easy as you’d like to think. Handing over Jake’s care to Dr. Bates is harder to stomach than you expected. Zam assures you he’s trustworthy and after doing your own research you sat down with him and explained not only Jake’s situation but your relationship with Jake and how that’s going to affect his care going forward. Thankfully, Solomon was understanding of your story and seemed to be on your side. He made no moves to try and demean or discredit your story and treated you as an equal. Cyclone on the other hand has been taking Dr. Bates’ new position and your subsequent demotion to assistant position as his primary route to punish you for not quitting. You were swamped with unnecessary paperwork and you hadn’t had a conversation with a patient let alone actually seen one as a doctor.

Now you’re running late for a meeting that Cyclone’s holding for the entire team in the locker room. The first pre-season game is tomorrow night and the boys are restless and buzzing. You and Jake share a smile as you walk in and take your place between Nat and Zam.

“Y’all are so cute,” Zam whispers to you, squeezing your arm and you smile at her too. Cyclone’s standing at the front of the room with his arms crossed between Dare and Maverick.

“Alright, everyone let’s settle down.” Cyclone claps his hands to get everyone’s attention. All the eyes in the room are on him. “The pre-season starts tomorrow. We have our first game tomorrow against Nashville. It’s our first game as a team but also as a franchise so let’s get out there and show the NHL what we bring to the table.” The boys let out a cheer at that and you find yourself smiling alongside them. This is what they’ve worked for. “And I’m pleased to announce that our captain will be on the ice for tomorrow’s game.” Your blood runs cold as the other guys cheer. Jake wasn’t supposed to start tomorrow. Sure he’s started attending practices here and there but he still needs rest. He’s nowhere ready to play in an actual game. You’re frozen in place as your brain plays out every worst-case scenario, unable to process what’s going on around you until your eyes accidentally meet Cyclone’s green ones and you see the smirk on his face. There’s no way that Dr. Bates signed off on this, he had agreed with you that what Jake needs right now is rest. You tear your gaze away from Cyclone’s and find Dr. Bates’ to see concern mirrored in his eyes. He’s just as surprised at Cyclone’s announcement. Cyclone’s saying something else but you can’t hear it. You feel like you’re underwater, or simply watching the world carry on around you while you’re frozen in place.

He finishes and swiftly exits the locker room as the conversation buzzes back to life. You’re vaguely aware of Zam shaking you and trying to break you out of whatever trance you’re in. Finally, you move, ignoring her and Nat calling for you as you push past them, following after Cyclone. You hear Jake call your name as the locker room door swings shut behind you. The moment you’re out of there, you’re running. You know people are going to be coming after you and you need to get to Cyclone before they do. Your hand pounds the elevator button so hard you know it’ll bruise, and it’s only once the doors have slid closed that you let yourself breathe. Cyclone undermining you is something you can live with, but directly putting Jake’s health in jeopardy just like his last team? That’s unacceptable. It doesn’t matter if it costs you your job, there’s no way that you’re letting Jake get on the ice tomorrow night.

“BEAU!” You slam open the door to Cyclone’s office and he looks up from where he’s sitting at his desk. “Jake can’t play tomorrow! He’s still on medical rest!” Cyclone just raises a singular eyebrow.

“Bugs, can I help you?”

“You know damn well that Jake can’t play tomorrow! Both Dr. Bates and I agreed that he would wait until the season opener to play! Sure he’s back on the ice for some practices but that’s completely different than playing in an official game!”

Cyclone regards you coolly despite the fact that you’re yelling. “Tomorrow is our first game as a team. I can’t have one of our best players, let alone the captain, sitting out. The whole NHL will be watching us.”

“And you’d rather show them how poorly he’ll play injured than just swallow your pride and let him rest? What if he gets hurt tomorrow? That could set him back much longer than two more weeks!”

“Bugs, my decision is final.” Cyclone gives you a firm look as Maverick and Dr. Bates appear in the doorway. You turn to them, desperate.

“He can’t play tomorrow! You both know that! We agreed that he wouldn’t play until the opener!” Your eyes dart between both older men. Maverick looks just as shaken as you, and Dr. Bates has a grim expression of pity on his face. Maverick reaches out to comfort you but doesn’t say anything to agree with you. You realize you’re not going to get any support from either of them and round on Cyclone again, slamming your hands down on his desk.

“I don’t care what you do to me. I know you want me to quit, and I will if that’s what you really want, but I won’t let you put Jake’s safety and career on the line just to get at me. I’ll resign right now, just don’t make him play tomorrow.”

“I already told you Bugs, my decision is final. You quitting isn’t going to change my mind. Jake is playing tomorrow night. If you’re so concerned with his health, I suggest you spend these available hours making sure he’s in his best shape for tomorrow instead of bothering me.”

“Please,” you’re desperate. You can’t be complicit in Jake getting taken advantage of again. You won’t be. “I can’t be a part of this. I can’t watch another team fail to give him the care he needs, that he DESERVES.”

“Well, you don’t need to worry about that,” Cyclone says. “As the head physician, Dr. Bates will be in the box tomorrow night. You’re off-duty.” You feel sick. If something happens to Jake, you won’t even be able to help. You shake your head. You know you’ve lost but you still can’t believe this is happening. Turning around, you start to leave Cyclone’s office, pausing at the doorway to take one last look at his stone-faced expression.

“If Jake gets hurt tomorrow night, I won’t hesitate to get a lawyer involved. You’re endangering your athletes and I won’t stand for it.” You don’t wait for his response before walking out of the office, not looking back again.

Once the elevator doors have closed yet again, the tears start falling. You’ve failed Jake and you’ve failed yourself. If you had just been able to control your emotions and hadn’t fallen in love with him, he’d still be under your care and maybe you’d have a chance of keeping him off of the ice but you’re helpless now. Your selfishness and your greed had done nothing but make things worse for him, and if something happened to him tomorrow night? You’d never forgive yourself. When the doors open again, you force yourself to exit the elevator and trudge towards your office. You’re not expecting there to be anyone there but when you open the door, Jake stands up from the chair across from your desk, eyes full of concern widening as he takes in your tears. Javy’s leaning against the wall and Zam’s sitting behind your desk, worry furrowing her brow. Jake reaches for you and you go easily, collapsing against his chest as a sob wracks your body as he guides the two of you back down to the chair, pulling you into his lap. He strokes your hair as you cry, hands fisted in the fabric of his t-shirt, inhaling the scent of him to ground yourself but even that can’t bring you the comfort that it usually does.

Finally, you raise your head and find him staring back at you, a rueful smile on his face. “Hey sweet girl, you all cried out?” He asks and you’re reminded of the first time he asked you that and you return his smile, nodding. You don’t loosen your grip on his shirt but shift so your cheek is rested over his heart as you look up at him.

“He can’t do this. He can’t make you play.” Your voice is hoarse and croaky from crying but you see the pain in your voice reflected in his eyes.

“Yes he can baby, but it’s gonna be okay. I’ll be okay.” You can tell he doesn’t believe it.

“I tried, I tried to talk to him but he wouldn’t listen, and Mav and Dr. Bates wouldn’t say anything.” Your voice breaks at the end and Jake’s hold tightens.

“I know Bunny, you did everything you could.” He presses a kiss to your forehead.

“I even told him I’d quit.” You feel Jake stiffen. “I’d do it too if it meant that you’d be safe. I can’t let another team fail you, Jake, I can’t.” You sniffle as his green eyes harden. One of his hands comes to cup your chin and turn it so you’re forced to meet his cold gaze.

“You’re not quitting on me, you hear? We’re a team, remember? If you go, I go.” You nod against his grip.

“I didn’t know what else to do.” You whisper and you watch his heart break through his eyes.

“We’re a team, we’ll figure something out.” You nod again and he leans his forehead against yours until you break away, turning to face your audience.

“Hey, Zam?” She perks up and nods.

“Yeah Bugs, what’s up?”

Your voice is cold and devoid of emotion. “If Jake gets hurt tomorrow, I’m going to a lawyer.” You watch Javy’s eyes widen and the sound of surprise that comes from Jake’s throat. “I’m not letting Cyclone get away with this.”

She nods, already deep in thought before she speaks up. “Thanks for the heads up. I’ll do whatever I can to help.” Her eyes are hard, resolved. At least you have someone else on your side. You climb out of Jake’s lap, crossing the room to stand in front of Javy, crossing your arms across your chest to hide your shaking hands. You tilt your chin up defiantly as you meet his dark eyes with your own. “Keep him safe out there, tomorrow.” He nods firmly before taking you by surprise as he wraps his arms around you, pulling you tight to his chest.

“Thank you,” he whispers in your ear so only you can hear it. “Thank you for always looking out for him.”

“I’m just doing my job, Javy. Loving him only makes my sense of duty stronger. I’ll always protect him.” He gives you a final squeeze before letting you go and he exchanges a look with Jake behind you. One more person on your little team within a team.

“Let’s kick some Predator ass tomorrow!” Jake says and the four of you all nod solemnly before Javy and then Zam exit your office, leaving you and Jake alone. He turns to you then. “You ready, Bunny?” You nod, wrapping your arms around his middle, and snuggling into his chest.

“I’m ready Lola.” You feel his laughter rumble under your cheek and it brings a smile to your lips.

[sissytobitch10seconds]

As It Was

Fandom: The Umbrella Academy Summary: Lila's in too much emotional distress to be any good on this mission, so Five has gone to the next best person. Who else would he take with him on a mission where he could get stranded than the man that has always kept him grounded in reality? Thankfully this time Viktor doesn't have much to loose. Warnings: Isolation, mentions of stomach-related illnesses, injuries, medical malpractice, and trans characters being forced to de-transition due to lack of healthcare Word Count: 8,088 Ship(s): Five Hargreeves/Viktor Hargreeves

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A/N: I don't care if you didn't like Season 4. I did, I loved a lot of it and think that the people who didn't like it are being too loud and making fandom not fun anymore. If you didn't like it, you're still welcome to read this fic but I do. not. want. to. hear. about. it. I will block you. This is simply a fiktor reimagining of the Subway plotline because I have done a lot of fiktor reimaginings for other events in this show. That being said, I hope that you can enjoy this! Stay sissy and bitchy everyone <3

When Five approached Lila with the proposition, her initial reaction was to immediately agree to go with him. She knew that the world was ending, it was something that always happened when all the Hargreeves were back together. She had been partially to blame for causing it the second time, when Viktor had been kidnapped and then blown up the FBI building in a torture-and-LSD infused rage. She had pushed for it in the first timeline too, by coaching certain people to make mistakes when it came to correcting the timeline. An event that big being mishandled would have gotten her mother a promotion, and she was taught her entire life that was a good thing. She knew that with the Hargreeves, there was an apocalypse to be solved. She had been itching for one since the twins were born and she was doomed to another two agonizing years o the kids being so little that they needed her at the home all the time. She wanted to have a crisis to solve, she wanted it so badly that she could feel it in her teeth.

She also knew that she couldn’t handle it. Not only had she aged what felt like an entire lifetime in the half a decade that they had spent in the new universe, but she’d given birth to three kids. She still had the mind of a trained assassin that would be able to deduce what was going on in a scene within minutes of arriving and talking to a couple of people, but she wasn’t sure that her body would be able to keep up with that big of a fight. She also knew that her children were depending on her and she wanted to be the mother that she’d never actually gotten to experience. The twins had toddler gymnastics and Grace had ballet, like they did every single week since they were two years younger. Grace had told her that she loved spending time with her mom after they had dropped the twins off and it was just the two of them in the car, and the thought of letting her daughter down like that ate her from the inside out.

“I have to get back to my family,” Lila said.

“I thought that I was part of your family,” Five huffed, a bit indignantly.

“Why do you want to save the world so badly this time, anyway? When the end of everything was staring you in the face and we had been offered a way to fix it all you kept spouting on and on about how another version of you had told you not to save the world,” Lila retorted. It was so much easier to bring it back to Five and his issues instead of admitting that even though she was bored out of her mind being a housewife, she wouldn’t trade being a mother for a single thing in the entire world or any timeline.

“I finally know what it’s like to live a life! The rest of you got the chance to do that when you were dumped into the sixties, well, not you specifically,” he waved his hand at her dismissively. He ran a hand through his long hair, which she sincerely hoped that he was going to get cut again when he was finished snooping around in the Keepers meetings that she was infiltrating to keep herself busy. “Look, I jumped forward to an apocalyptic wasteland when I was thirteen. I had to make my own way for the next forty-five years, which meant that every moment was spent working to keep myself alive instead of having the normal human experiences. Then I spent a grueling month fighting to stop apocalypses, or let them happen in the case of the Kugelblitz. I never got the chance to know what it was like to be an adult growing up in the world or a human interacting with and meeting new humans without being a member of an Academy. I just got a taste of that these last few years and I want to experience that longer. So I need your help.”

“Why my help specifically?” she asked, raising a brow at him. While it was true that she had kind of forced him down into the time-travel railway before, but that was before she had been reminded of the things that she had to do today. She also remembered the whole ordeal that he had gone through when it came to time traveling without the Commission and briefcase backing him up. She couldn't get lost for any amount of time, not when it might cause her children to start forgetting what type of perfume she used or the way that she laughed. That was what had happened to her with her own parents, she knee the pain that someone went through when they had to face that.

“Because you know how to do missions with exceedingly high levels of efficiency. We may never have worked together, but I did see your name on the leaderboard for most missions done in a day. You were just underneath me,” Five replied.

“Is that a compliment?” Lila asked, waggling her eyebrows at him. She turned around just in time to see Diego and Luther start arguing about something they likely agreed on. She watched the way that Diego’s hands made chopping motions in the air and then how he cupped the head of the stuffed reindeer that he had under his arm. He loved their children so much, he never let them see a sour face despite how much he hated the dead-end, abusive job that he had taken so that he could support them. She loved that man, even if they needed a second apart from each other so that they could figure out the whole mess that their marriage had become.

“It’s the closest thing that you’re going to get from me. That and the admission that you appear to make Diego actually happy,” Five said as he turned in the same direction that she had.

She looked back to him and then stared at her husband. She was a bit worried that she was going to be too intense with that look and accidentally turn on the laser-eyes that she apparently had. She really needed to figure out why she was doing that and how to control it. The last thing she wanted to happen was to cut a person in half when she didn’t want to. “Do you think so?”

Five tilted his head from side to side as he contemplated what he was going to say next. “Well, you don’t really make him happy any longer.”

Lila felt that burning shame in her belly grow even stronger than it had before. She felt it creep up her cheeks and neck so that they were flushed bright red as she put her hands on her hips. “What is that supposed to mean, you little creep?”

“It means that I can see the bullshit he’s putting up with and how miserable he is. You were frustrated with your extended family and the domestic life that was forced upon you, so you decided to have ‘book club’. He doesn’t have anything like that. He goes to work at a job that he hates, that doesn’t respect him and that’s incredibly repetitive. He then comes home to a wife that doesn’t give a shit about him to take care of three kids under the age of ten to give you a break since you did mothering all day and have to get out of the house,” Five replied.

“So?” she asked as she folded her arms over her chest. She could see where he was going with this and she understood what he meant, but she wanted to push him further so that she could deny it a little bit longer. It was so much easier to pretend that she and Diego were absolutely fine that to face the reality that their marriage was falling apart.

“So, he’s bored and boxed into a life that he never wanted. Did you know that he and Viktor had a punk band before Dad sent him to Europe to go to music school? He ditched it and the band broke up because he loved missions so much. The change from being respected, to some extent, and able to help people to only ever being loved by his children has to be difficult,” Five commented. “Perhaps you should have talked to Diego about the high-adrenaline enrichment that you were doing for yourself before you decided that he wasn’t worth it.”

“I love Diego too!” Lila scoffed indignantly. Her husband was the light of her life, he had drawn out a part of her that she had never known existed and then stood steadily by her side as it flourished and flowered.

“You don’t show it. Telling him that you want to take a break because all he does is complain instead of listening to those complaints and assuring him that you don’t hate the way that his body is changing or helping him to fulfill his own needs is not love,” Five informed her.

She knew that she was right, those words struck through her faster than the bullets her mother had pumped into her body when she had turned into more trouble that she was worth. Still, it hurt just as much and she quickly became defensive of her actions. “What would you know about marriage and love?”

Five’s eyes sparked with a kind of fire that she had never seen before. He leaned forward as he spoke to her with a seething hatred. “More than you ever will, Lila. Now I’m going to go find someone else to help me stop this goddamn apocalypse while you reconcile with the husband you allegedly love.”

---

As Five turned on his heel and walked away from Lila, his heart ached. He saw himself in her more than he would ever admit and yet after all this time, she was still so hostile towards him. They both knew isolation, him through the apocalypse and her through being the only child to grow up at the Commission Headquarters. They both knew what it was to work as an assassin that had to choose the life of a couple of the lives of the many. They knew each other inside and out, and yet that similarity had only served to drive them further and further away from each other as time went on.

Five had let himself drift away from his family again. He had romanticized them in his head when he had been fighting so hard to get back to them and out of the Commission. He had forgotten how awful it was to be around Luther and Diego when all they were doing was bickering with each other, how moral-detonating Klaus’ most recent relapse for them could be, the sickening way that Allison thought she was better than all of them even though she no longer had a superpower that allowed her to get whatever she wanted simply by asking for it. Viktor was the only person that was the exact person he remembered in his mind, likely because they had spent the most amount of time together.

Over the last five years in the new universe, he had seen some changes in his brother. Viktor’s body had changed, with his voice deepening and his muscle redistributing itself with the changes in his hormonal balances. His face was more angular and beginning to grow the shadow of a beard as well, especially since they had been working too hard for either of them to find a moment where they could step aside and shave. He had changed quite a lot as a person, too. He was still sweet, caring, and shy as he had been when they were children. However, the amount of shyness that came out of him had been crumbled down into a tenth of what it had been when Five was still living with the rest of the Umbrellas. He was able to stick up for himself against their father, and was quick to defend himself when someone said something unfair.

Five liked the new version of his brother, enough so that it was reigniting feelings that he thought he had long since put away. He had Delores when he was in the apocalypse, but he also had Viktor’s voice ringing through his head in the form of the book that he carried around with him as a reminder about why he had to go home. Those things had kept him alive, and then he had been allowed to find meaning and purpose on his own. Those things were being threatened right now, and that scared the absolute shit out of him.

He hadn’t been that scared in a long time, not since he was a child that barely knew anything outside of missions and the two walls of his home. He knew that he had to do something about it, so he spotted Viktor standing near Allison and Luther and then immediately rushed towards him. He placed his hand on his brother’s shoulder to get his attention and then jerked his head in another direction to show what he wanted.

Viktor peeled away from the siblings that he had since grown closer to, walking a few feet away with Five. “What’s going on, are you okay?” Viktor asked.

“Not really, but I’m surprised that you were able to tell that,” Five huffed. He bit the insides of his cheeks as he realized just how sour and bitter it sounded while coming out of his mouth. He had meant to be saying something that would subtly manipulate Viktor into coming with him because he was the only other person in all of the universes and timelines that Five could imagine going on a dangerous trip with. If he hadn’t gotten antsy all those years ago and blurted it out during breakfast only to have to make a point for his thirteen-year-old pride, he would have taken Viktor with him the first time too.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Viktor asked, reeling back with an indignant expression on his face. Five didn’t fault him, what he had said was objectively rude.

“You’ve been spending an awful lot of time with Allison since this entire endeavor went down. I’m just surprised that you were able to notice a change in my behavior due to that,” he replied as he tried to get the topic back to where he had wanted it to be originally. “I’m glad that you noticed, Viktor, I really am.”

“I’ve been spending a lot of time with Allison because I think that she feels guilty for the way that she treated me in the other timeline. She’s been hanging around me like a bad smell and I’m kind of okay with it. It’s nice to be the person that has to do no work in the relationship, you know?” Viktor shrugged.

As Five looked at him, he saw the twelve-year-old that had sat beside him one day after a mission, bawling his eyes out. He had baked a cake with their mother that day as a special surprise for them, a desperate plea for his family to pay any attention to him so that he didn’t have to be so alone. When the siblings had found out that he was the one that had done the baking, they had all eaten a lot slower and more cautiously, like they were expecting him to somehow have poisoned them. Of course it would be more appealing to Viktor for his siblings to reach out to him when it had been the other way around for his entire life. It was simply another piece of the confidence that he had gained post-medication and coming out.

“I’m glad that she’s the one reaching out. What she did to you was borderline feral and not okay on several levels. I wouldn’t give her as much slack if I didn’t know how hard it was to be a person out of time when you belong to a minority,” Five said. “That being said, I would like to ask you to do just that with me.”

“What do you mean?” Viktor immediately responded. His head snapped towards Five and his dark eyes bore into the other man’s mind, as if trying to read his thoughts from a simple glance. 

It was a startling thing that Five had asked, he knew that for certain. It was frightening enough to be a queer woman back in the sixties, but it was another thing entirely to be a transgender man in any other time (and sometimes including) their own present. “I want to fix the apocalypse. I want to go back and stop the one thing that got us all into this mess so that we can come out the other side alright,” he said.

“Do we even know what’s causing the end of the world this time? Other than Ben and Jennifer, I mean,” Viktor said. The whole explanation that they had gotten from Abigail and Reginald concerning the end of the world had made very little sense to them this time around. Five was sure that they would end up figuring it out, but it wasn’t much to go off of for what he was asking.

“I was thinking that if we go back in time and either reset the universe, if we can find that place again, or stop Ben and Jennifer from touching each other in the van, then we can figure out how to stop The Cleanse from coming,” Five said. 

“I don’t know, Five, it sounds kind of weak. The last time that we went back in time it also didn’t end well,” Viktor shuffled awkwardly. “Are you sure that this is worth all the hassle?”

“Like I just explained to Lila, I want to fight for this life I have. It’s not everything that I had dreamed it was going to be, but it’s still something. I want to be able to have the chance to grow up in a world with other people, where I can have a job to sustain myself instead of having to dig through cans of exploded food and prey that my next meal doesn’t give me botulism,” Five said. He hadn’t realized how desperate he was for all of those things until they were spilling from him with no stop in sight. By the time that he had finished, his chest was having and his mind felt feral.

Viktor reached out and placed his hands on Five’s shoulders, enough to snap his brain out of the haze of memories that were pouring back in. It was so hard to be sick on his own, to be vomiting and not knowing if he was going to be able to find clean water in time to replace the water he had lost, or aching from an infection and hoping against all hope that the penicillin he had made himself would cure him. He had so much terror inside of him, for so long, that it was addicting to live in a world where he could finally be calm and sheltered from the horrors.

“Five, I don’t know if this is going to work. I don’t want you messing around with time and us getting sent somewhere worse. Dad has an idea for how we can get Jennifer and Ben back to him. Maybe Abigail will come up with an idea to extract the durango and shoot it into space or something,” Viktor said.

“What if we could save Ben in another timeline? Stop him from dying?” Five asked. It was kind of stupid, but he had seen the way that their choices butterflied into the future for their family. Clearly, Ben and Jennifer were linked. Viktor had informed him of the memories that Allison and Luther had recovered from that last meeting. If their father had killed Ben before he had even touched Jennifer, then there was a chance that something more was going on that the old man was leading them to believe.

“Wha-what?” Viktor asked. “I thought that Dad just killed him because he was an asshole.”

“Dad was a total dickhead, but that was because he had no regard for other people’s emotions and thoughts outside of his plan. He used our feelings to manipulate us, which was why he brainwashed our siblings on what happened on that mission. He wouldn’t have killed one of us when he needed seven to reset the universe. Even if he knew about Lila or the Sparrows or Phoenixes or whatever, there was very little chance that he would have been able to get them,” Five explained.

He could see the cogs whirring in Viktor’s head as he considered the proposition that Five was laying out for him. The three of them had bee thick as thieves, the people at the end of Reginald’s ranking and the ones that were most prone to studying. Five was certain that after he left, Ben had picked up the slack and chosen to continue to stick by Viktor’s side until Klaus became the one that needed deliberate and constant saving.

Viktor’s lips pursed as he sunk his hands down into his pocket. He turned out towards the fake little town that Reginald had made to hide Jennifer. They had thought that returning there may have helped them find some more clues, but it seemed as though the rest of the agents that they hadn’t managed to kill had come and cleaned everything up in their wake. The town was nothing but peeling paint signs and boarded up windows, waiting for the next purpose that the owner would happen to bestow upon it.

“Okay. Let’s do it,” Viktor nodded. He spoke with his hands despite the fact that they were in his pockets, which was one of the cutest things that Five had ever seen in his entire life. “Ben saved me, when we were in Dallas. He was able to come into my mind and get me to remember my memories so that my powers stopped freaking out and trying to kill everything that they saw as a threat. I think that he deserves a chance to live too, it’s the least that I can do to repay him.”

“If I didn’t know any better I’d say that you were in love with him,” Five joked. It hurt to think about, that the person he had longed after for years, so much that his heart hurt with the effort of it all, had fallen in love with the friend that he had cherished second most in the entire world. He knew that he had left Viktor and Ben behind, but part of him had always hoped that there was a chance Viktor would wait for him. He knew that was stupid, no one would be able to love their thirteen-year-old bodied adopted brother. Still, the idea hit him in the back of the head like a sledgehammer every time it popped back into his mind.

“There was a time where we kind of were. I mean, I’m pretty sure that there’s no a duo in the entire family that hasn’t been tried out once or twice. Well, maybe Luther and anyone who isn’t Allison,” Viktor shrugged. “The only person that he kissed other than her before you came back was Klaus and that was supposed to be for ‘practice,’ but I think that Klaus was just pitting us all against each other to see who was best.”

“Man, this family is so fucking weird,” Five shook his head. He took a deep breath and then rolled his shoulders before he stuck his hand out to his brother. “Are you ready for this?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Viktor replied. He grasped Five’s hand as tightly as he could, squeezing his eyes shut as he prepared for the feeling of the teleportation. Five’s body was made to be dragged through time and space, he had never had to deal with the spins that way that Lila and Allison had. He also didn’t get nauseous or dizzy when he jumped unless someone had done something that caused him to correct while mid-jump. He knew that Viktor didn’t have the same protections on his body, which was why he was bracing himself so hard.

Five reached deep down into his body, to where the marigold was now nestled within his heart. He took a deep breath as he summoned it up so that it was pooling around them in purple energy. They appeared in the subway a moment later, the marigold settling back down where it belonged inside of him.

Viktor dropped his hand and began to look around the same way that Five had when he first appeared. The subway station looked exactly as it had the last several times that he had visited. The tile was white on the floors and the walls, the ceiling was concrete except for the pipes and electrical wires that lined it, fueling the hanging fluorescent lights and vending machines that dotted the terminal. The entire place was clean, despite the lack of people or perhaps because of it. None of the signs were in English or any other language that Five had seen during his time traveling the earth, but they fit the theme of the place well.

“Woah… Do you think that this is the same kind of thing that the Commission was made out of?” Viktor asked. He started forward, toward the massive map that wrapped around one of the wall pillars in the middle of the room.

“What do you mean?” Five asked as he walked after his brother. He had picked Viktor for a reason and this was exactly that, Viktor was already picking up on things that he had dismissed or not even considered. A second set of eyes were better than none, which was another reason that he had decided not to go it alone like he had many times before.

“Well, you kept saying that the Commission was a place out of time and that was how they managed to preserve the timeline,” Viktor said. “If this place can travel between multiple timelines and points in time, then it has to be something like the Commission. Did time move when you were here? Like for the rest of us.”

“No, it didn’t,” Five replied. He felt his brows furrow as his mind began to whirl with thoughts. “I never got the chance to ask the other version of myself why he had created the Commission or how. It’s something drilled into you from the minute that you start working there, that some things just don’t make sense and never will. I suppose that there was a chance that the other version of myself found a way to enhance his powers so much that he created a pocket of the timeline that was removed from it. Maybe he just saved up enough of his power that he was able to travel here. There were doors that we weren’t allowed to access in the main building where all the briefcases and the safe room were kept, it’s likely that there was an entrance to a place like this or this very subway system.”

Viktor began to run the tip of his finger over one of the lines as his eyes followed it. Someone else may have quickly gotten lost, but Viktor was a musician. His mind had been trained to follow a single line of notes even if the piece that he was reading was covered in other information. It was exciting for Five to watch him trail around the board until he tapped a circle and turned to his brother, “What is this?”

“I believe that those are the stations. If you look over here, there’s a sign pointing to this one in the same language as all of the street signs,” Five said as he tapped the glass on the other side of the pillar from Viktor. 

“Do you know how to read that language?” Viktor asked.

“I do not, but I was able to fine this,” he peaked around so that they were on the same side as he brandished the directional pamphlet like it was the mos important thing that had ever existed in any of the timelines.

Viktor took it from his hands and then opened it so that his eyes could scan over the layouts and the rails. “Wow, I never realized how often the timelines intersected with each other,” he commented.

“I suppose that they have to, since every minor decision that the catalyst for this grouping makes splits it into two or more,” Five shrugged. He stepped behind Viktor so that their bodies were almost entirely pressed together.

Somehow that felt more natural than anything he had done in a good long while, so he let himself remain there despite the fluttering anxiety in his stomach. Viktor leaned back into him with as minute movements as he could manage while they tried to decipher the timeline that they could arrive in.

“I think that we need to take this as carefully as we can. We shouldn’t go to any of the other timelines unless we absolutely have to. I don’t want to fuck anything else up, and I’m pretty good at that,” Viktor commented as he flipped the pamphlet over to look at the other side.

“I don’t think that us simply being in another timeline is going to cause issues,” Five shrugged.

“Five,” Viktor replied, giving him a disbelieving and disappointed look.

“What?” Five asked, raising a brow at him. The urge to kiss his cheek overwhelmed him all at once. He almost took a half step back to resist it, but he didn’t know if it would actually work or if raising his foot from where it was planted would send him forward and directly into Viktor’s perfect arms.

“You should know better than anyone that messing with one thing can cause the rest of the timeline tumbling down around it,” he replied. He placed his hands on his hips and looked cross, making a pretty good imitation of what Grace, their robot nanny not their niece, had looked like when she was reprimanding them for breaking something.

“Since when have you become the expert on time travel and apocalypses? Last I checked, I was the only one in this subway station that has actually worked for the Commission,” Five said as he glanced around. If he had brought Lila then she wouldn’t have fought him on this idea so much, but he knew that Viktor was the better option. Out of all their siblings, he was the one that could fight the longest and the hardest while keeping Five grounded properly.

“I’ve started enough end of times to know their insides and outsides,” Viktor joked with a lopsided smile.

Five felt like his breath had been stolen from his lungs and he just nodded his head mutely. “What do you think we should do, then?”

“I think that we should try to work out how this map works, get a good idea of where each of the subways might go, and then try that out,” Viktor said. A studious look overcame his face as he leaned closer to the map so that he could keep track of each of the tiny glowing lines that spanned the surface of the map.

---

Year 1

Time travel had always been taught to them as something that was unattainable. None of them had been allowed to read any sci-fi books that contained the subject, and now Viktor understood why. It was fine and good for people that could never attain that ability to dream about what it might be like and the adventures that could occur, but it was dangerous in the hands of someone that could actually do that.

Despite all the studying that they had done and the pamphlet that they carried around with them, they had still gotten lost. The subways had a mind of their own and they traveled where they wished, not where the voice over the subway or the signs said that they were going. They kept track of the stations that they ended up at, but Viktor still refused to have them go above ground.

They began to make food out of the subway rats so that they could sustain themselves without hunger gnawing at their guts. Viktor was able to get them oranges and chips and candy out of the vending machines when they landed in a station that had enough quality food for them to actually get. It wasn’t the life that he had wanted to lead after all his fighting to make something soft for himself, but he had his best friend with him so it was alright.

They changed in minute ways, for the most part. There was no way that Viktor was going to be able to get the testosterone that he had been taking while they were traveling. Time felt basically meaningless, but he knew that they had been down there for quite some time when he saw that his body was changing its muscle and fat deposit back to what it had been when he could barely even look at his own body. His face and abs softened, his hips widened again. He hated the way he looked but he was glad it was only Five with him, so that they could share complaints about shaggy hair and grimy bodies. Viktor had gotten top surgery during the time that they had spent without their powers in the new universe and so he didn’t notice the beginning of his cycle returning until he woke up with his shorts entirely drenched in blood.

It was the first time that he had let Five upstairs, out of the subway and into the world longer than just to check to see if it was the right one. 

Year 2

Viktor had no idea how things had lasted as long as they did. They began to go up onto the surface for longer stretches of time, to begin to make sure that every single option was crossed off. They would explore the town until they happened across either an alternate version of themselves or an entirely different version of the Academy compared to what they were used to.

Some of the timelines had been very different to the ones that they were used to, which meant that they tried to correct by moving back to one of the timelines that was closer to what they believed was the timeline that they had come from. They still had the pamphlet that they had arrived with, but at this point all the lines and characters didn’t make any more sense than they had when they had first arrived.

They carried backpacks with them now, supplies that they had gotten from the surface when they had ventured up there for the second longest time since they had first arrived. They went up to get things for their survival now, like bottled water and more food than the rats and vending machine food that they had been subsisting off of for the year previous.

As they chugged down another one of the seemingly infinite tunnels, Viktor felt his body sagging and soon found his head resting on Five’s shoulder. It felt just as natural as it had back when they were children and caused the tension and nerves in his shoulders to relax entirely. He let his hand drop down in between them and then felt another palm meet his own. He tilted his head up just enough to see the serene expression that had taken over Five’s face. Was this what it would have been like if Five had taken him with the first time that he had time traveled?

Year 3

It was bound to happen eventually, but when one of them finally got sick it was the most terrifying thing that had happened in a long time. They had been camped out at the edge of the surface of a timeline that they hadn’t explored that much when Five woke up with a sweaty body and a blotchy red face. Viktor had seen that happen enough when they were children to know that Five had picked something up.

Viktor strayed out into the timeline to find that it was one where something had happened, not one where they were waiting for that thing to happen. All of the people seemed to have just gotten up and left the town that they had lived in, leaving behind literally everything that wasn’t attached to them. The cash was all still in the till, the electricity and water worked as well as it could when the maintenance team for the city had gone as well. Viktor was able to pick up medicine and supplies from the local hospital before he returned to the house that he and Five were staying at.

It was a nice enough place, even if it was extremely disconcerting that there was literally no one around them. He enjoyed the silence, finally able to shake the rattling of the subway cars moving around them or next to them out of his head. He kept Five’s fever down by dosing him with a fever reducer and soaking his neck and feet in cold water whenever his temperature got a little too high.

By the time it was over, Viktor felt like he had seen a piece of Five that was the closest to his soul that he was ever going to get. They had their backpacks loaded with the supplies that they would need for the next stretch of journey that they took as they tried to find their original timeline.

Year 4

Injuries had become commonplace, but that didn’t mean that Viktor liked what was happening very much. He had his hands down on the ground, gripping the wall behind him so that he didn’t reach out and attack Five for simply trying to help. His boots were off his feet and next to him on the ground, which was the only thing that he was able to look at and yet still reminded him of the thing he was trying to put out of his mind in the first place. Five had a pair of pliers carefully gripped in his fingers, his eyes hardened by the seriousness of the situation and how dedicated he was to the task at hand.

“Ow! That fucking hurts, you asshole,” he growled. He let go of the pillar with one hand and then covered his mouth with his sleeve. Despite how grimy and gross he was from the stretch of nasty subway stations that they had traveled through, he let the fabric fall into his mouth and bit down onto it as hard as he could.

“Well I told you to be careful when you were walking through that glass and you chose not to listen to me,” Five replied, his voice distant and unsteady because of how dedicated he was to the task at hand.

“Not all of us can just pop over it, Five, I had to get there somehow,” Viktor replied. His own voice was tense with the pain and discomfort as he felt the shard of glass being pulled out of the bottom of his foot. Once it was finally over, when he heard the tinkling sound of it hitting the subway floor, he slumped down onto the ground and groaned. “Next time one of us gets hurt, I think that we should just try and find a doctor.”

“Or we could just not get hurt,” Five offered as he began to wrap up the wound with the antiseptic that they had stolen two timelines ago. He laughed when he saw the unamused look that Viktor gave him.

Year 5

Sleeping had never felt like it was something that they had to risk while they were traveling. It was something that came naturally to them, despite the strange place that they had found themselves in. They were only ever in trouble when they went up to the surface because the gates leading down into the subway never let anyone down. They had encountered a handful of people that had chased them to the subway but hadn’t been able to follow after them, or had landed in their own version of the terminal. It was impossible to know for sure, but they did know that they were safe with each other.

The worst that they had ever faced when they were down in the subway and trying to sleep was a surprise train showing up, or the rats that skittered everywhere. They always woke when the rats arrived to make sure that they didn’t get bitten, when Five had during their second year it had almost turned gangrenous, and so that they they could hunt the animals. They were abel to get a decent amount of food from the surface, but nothing enough to fill their bellies with enough energy that they could continue on steadily.

Viktor liked the way that they were sleeping with each other, it felt like it had when they were children. Five had used to pop into Viktor’s room and then cuddle under the fluffy comforter and thick quilts that Grace had placed over their beds. When they had gotten caught like that and Viktor lost the privilege of sleeping with his door shut, they had begun to do it a little differently.

Five would teleport down to Viktor’s room and then bring him upstairs before someone could even notice that he was absent from his bed. They would set up some of the thick quilts down on the ground and then lay next to each other underneath the sheets and comforter, cuddled together for warmth on the floor of their drafty house. That’s what it felt like they were doing now, with several woolen blankets underneath them to support their aging bodies and Five’s arms wrapped around Viktor’s waist to keep them both warm.

Nothing felt more natural than loving Five and taking care of him, he was sure that nothing ever would again.

Year 6

“I’m tired,” Viktor sighed as he let his head hit the pillar behind him. “I’m not sure that I want to do this anymore.”

“What do you mean by that?” Five asked. He gently set down the stick that he had been using to move around the rat that they were eating for dinner that night. “The rats may not be very palatable after all this time, but they taste better than hunger.”

“They taste like hunger,” Viktor said. The two of them smiled at each other, laughing silently in their eyes at the inside joke. “You don’t have to worry about me offing myself, I would never leave you here alone. At least, not if I could help it.”

“I don’t like to think about you dying,” Five shook his head. “You gave me enough of a scare when you slipped underneath the train car while we were trying to get dinner three months ago.”

Viktor sighed again, “I still don’t know how you manage to keep track of time while we’re down here. I thought I was going to be able to feel the differences in the timelines based on the amount of marigold there, but we’re too close to the rest of them. When we’re on the main track like this,” he pulled out the pamphlet and then pointed towards the massive jumbled line of color in the middle. He took another deep breath, “When we’re here it’s all so loud. I feel like they’re rattling around in my chest and they’ve been doing it for so long that I can’t hear any difference.”

Five was quiet for a while before he asked, “Do you remember where we went when I was sick? The timeline where everyone had vanished but there was no destruction or havoc?”

“Of course I do. You being that sick was one of the scariest things to happen while we were down here,” Viktor replied with a nod.

“I think that we should go back there. We should try to backtrack as far out of the main set of timelines as we can, to give you a break. I want to have one too, but I can’t imagine how loud all this has to be for you to deal with,” Five said. He was speaking pragmatically, but his tone was still softer than it usually was.

“Why are you so concerned about me?” Viktor asked, folding the pamphlet back up and setting it down next to them.

“You know why,” Five mumbled.

“I think that I would prefer to hear you say it out loud,” Viktor said. He could feel his heart hammering in his chest and he knew that this time it was from anticipation and excitement instead of another panic attack that was trying to murder him before the surface did.

Five turned to him properly, dropping the stick down to the ground. He brought his soot-coated hand up to Viktor’s face and brushed his thumb over the other man’s cheekbone. Slowly, they both leaned closer together until their lips had touched. Their mouths moved in perfect synchronicity, open and closed, back and forth. It was the most love and care that either of them had ever received in their entire lives and it was exactly the thing that had kept them alive all this time.

Year 7

“Viktor?” Five called through the greenhouse that they had made into their home. 

They had stayed there longer than the couple of days that they had promised each other. It didn’t feel wrong anymore, not when they had suffered through so much to get there. They made things out of the items that they scavenged from the subway and the houses around them. Viktor had been able to get new clothing, jeans and a comfortable t-shirt that had a band he had never heard of it on the front. Five was in a Henley and a pair of slacks, something that he said made him very happy. They had matching golden bands that they had taken from a jewelry shop across time too, the one that had the alarm going off even to that day despite the fact that there was no owner and no cops to come and investigate.

“Yes, love?” he asked as he set the watering can down. He didn’t have a lot of things to do in the new place since there were no other people, but he had picked up the violin and gardening. The music helped the plants grow, or at least that was his theory since everything was so much more lush and green since he had arrived.

“I found something that I think may be of interest to you,” he replied as he pulled a notebook out of the back of his pocket. “This is what I was using to keep track of the timelines that we crossed while we were searching for the one that might have brought us back to the original.

“I don’t think that one exists, but this could help us get back to our siblings. We wouldn’t have to be alone anymore,” Viktor beamed.

“Are you feeling up for it?” Five asked. The worry that creased his brow was cute, so Viktor stepped off the stool he had been on to reach the strawberries in the back and then kissed the lines away. He was met with another pair of lips on his, which filled his heart with so much love that he felt like it might burst.

“I am. I want to go back to where we belong, with people and answers and our siblings,” Viktor smiled.

“Hopefully they haven’t managed to fuck anything up in the time that we’ve been gone. However long that is for them,” Five said. He caught another kiss before the two of them delved into conversation about what they would need to take with them when they began the second part of their two-person odyssey. 

[alephskoteinos]

Tantric synthesis

There's a heuristic coming along that feels close to something I've been wanting to find for a long time. It all comes down to hongaku (original enlightenment) on the one hand, and Tantric and theurgic non-dualism on the other hand, and from there I think I have a way of making some interesting connections possible.

When I read Hellenic Tantra during the last week or so I noticed that Gregory Shaw tries repeatedy to establish a connection between the concept of the theurgist and the jivanmukta at least on the grounds that both meant that the individual practitioner would become divinised while embodied and alive (though only fully joining the gods after death). Well, it turns out there's a Japanese Buddhist concept that's at least somewhat similar to the premise of the Tantric jivanmukta and Neoplatonist theurgy, or at least the way Shaw presents them. The Japanese term "sokushin jōbutsu" means to "become a Buddha in this body", and it seems to have originated in Shingon Buddhism.

"Sokushin jōbutsu" refers to the Shingon doctrine that buddha-nature could be realised in your own present lifetime, in your present body, in your present appearance (maybe now even). This idea is often attributed to Kukai, the founder of Shingon himself, who may have adapted it from Chinese esoteric Buddhism. Different versions of the concept were proposed by Saicho, another Shingon scholar, who accepted a partial realisation of buddhahood, and Annen, a Tendai scholar, who viewed it as the full attainment of buddahood in this life.

For Kukai this involved the practice of mudras, mantra recitation, mental concentration, and visualisations, which were supposed to lead to unification or mutual identity with the Buddha Mahavairocana. If this sounds like how Gregory Shaw talked about Tantra, well...

Maybe it's to do with the fact that Shingon has its roots in Tantric Buddhist traditions, or Kukai's own background in that tradition studying the tantras, or that at a certain point the Japanese concept of Mikkyo (esoteric Buddhism) generally denoted a kind of Tantric Buddhism. That Tantric Buddhism was also very obviously, to some extent, inspired by Hindu Tantra, with its inclusion of Hindu gods and often centrally centering the gods of Shaiva Hinduism. This seems to have been especially true for medieval Tendai given the role of deities like Mahakala and Kojin.

The doctrine of "sokushin jōbutsu" also seems to have involved collapsing any difference between physical and "ultimate" reality, the human body and the "dharma body", and positioning the body (and matter) itself as the site of realisation and a symbol of the entire universe. This form of nondualism probably did align with Tantric Hinduism to some extent. In fact, as Faure notes, Hindu Tantra itself developed from the Vedic tradition and inherited an originally Vedic conception of the human body as a microcosm of the universe.

It is on this basis that Tantra proposed the mutual identity of the human and the universe, and so Faure interprets Tantric Buddhism as having returned to the Vedic micro-macrocosmic vision. The Shingon doctrine of buddhahood involving Mahavairocana seems to match this vision. Faure also interprets this as a departure from earlier and more ascetic forms of Buddhism. In fact, he suggests that, in India, Tantric Buddhism assimilated the gods of Hinduism so successfully that it ended up losing distinctions from Hinduism, and folding back into Hinduism.

This obviously did not happen with Japanese or Chinese esoteric Buddhism. But, in Japan, Tantra can still be seen at the root of Mikkyo, and, as Nobumi Iyanaga observed, Shaiva Hindu deities played a special role in medieval esoteric Buddhism.

Both Tendai and Shingon are accepted as developments of Tantric Buddhism, in the sense that esoteric Buddhist derived from the larger Tantric tradition, and in that sense it seems the concept of hongaku seems was just part of Japanese Tantric Buddhism.

Although the formal concept of original/innate enlightenment did not originate (at least in these terms) in Tantric Hinduism, it seems to have definitely been part of the Tantric Buddhist milieu in Japan. And if you think about it, that makes sense given the logic of hongaku. Tendai hongaku establishes a collapse of the boundaries between ignorance or passion and enlightement or dharmarata, and therefore the distinction between the demons and the buddhas/gods, but it also logically connects to Mikkyo notions of matter as a symbol of the universe or the Buddha-mind. In that sense, it's hard to not connect hongaku to Tantric philosophy and its nondualist logic. And from there you can access the larger significance of the demon gods in Tantric terms. I'd even argue you have all you need for a kind of "Tantric synthesis".

And what's more, you can get to a sense of that kind of cosmic vision in the way Shaw describes theurgy or for that matter its goetic origins and correspondence as elaborated by Kent, and then there's extent to which can actually apply them to each other. After all, in pagan Neoplatonism, the body of the theurgist, while embodied and alive, is to be figured as a synthema for the divine or the creative activity of the Platonic Demiurge or Helios, and in a way you can kind of parallel that with what sokushin jōbutsu entails.

What comes next, of course, is the erotic significance. In Japan, Tantric esotericism that at least allegedly involved outright sexual rituals was called sadō mikkyō, which basically meant heterodox esoteric Buddhism, or "left-handed esotericism", as in the Left Hand Path. That the Left Hand Path should be directly defined by eroticism or sexual ritual is not surprising: it logically follows from the way the terminology was applied in Hinduism. But, in Japan, it also allowed some esoteric Buddhist schools to single out their rivals as heretics. It probably also dovetails nicely with efforts of some schools to define themselves as "pure" schools, focused only on Buddhahood, as opposed to "mixed" schools, allegedly only focused on worldly goals: a line functionally identical to Iamblichus' on theurgy versus goetia.

But this is an area where, real or imagined, the Left Hand Path points to the possibility of religious and magical eroticism as a vital if not fundamental element of the body as the site of spiritual realisation, which is critical to understand socially as a realm of freedom. The heuristic of "Tantric synthesis" here would function as a backdrop for the Left Hand Path as a pursuit of supra-cosmic individualism through an autonomous embrace of eroticism and mystical transgression, divinising the self by collapsing extant normative distinctions.

[crying-fantasies]

No woman, no cry

Masterlist

Many of the stories I do have a specific song that is the base, the bone and the heart of the whole work.

Personally, I feel this song, and any version of the same, to be the goodbye message for a loved one made by the person that is going away, be it for any personal reason or because they are never coming back, trying to comfort the people they are leaving behind, in case of the original one made by Bob Marley a man that is saying goodbye to his little sister, as the "woman, little sister", meaning him, the man of the house, has to go away, "but while I'm gone, everything is going to be alright" and the younger sister now has to grown up, she has to be the new head of the family, be the woman that guides the family, while he reassures her that "everything is going to be alright" over and over, going straight to the "in this great future, you can't forget your past" in how the man wants his dear sister to still be herself and be her best version too, don't forget him, but don't linger in him, the sadness will pass, and she'll be okay.

Now, I'm not exactly a MCU fan, but the version of the trailer for Black Panther 2 and the movie itself destroyed my soul and heart in the most bizarre and beautiful way, and once again you all don't have to like what I do, and that's okay, The Tems version has it's own beauty, giving off vibes of a mother calling for his beloved partner and her children, at least that's how I always felt about that version, but that trailer with the two cents of KL and his "Do you hear me? Do you feel me? We're gonna be alright" in such desperate way.

Maybe that's why I liked this song for Roddy's story, I feel terrible for what I made him go through, maybe I'll always be, but given how things go in that universe and that roulette page on Google where I put it up for destiny's picking who's SO was going to die, well, I was flabbergasted when the first one resulted being Rodimus, I was like: "no me jodas, este man no tiene respiro ni en el fanfiction" but remembering how I wanted to be fair, I went with it, making one of the most sad stories I've done so far.

I feel for Roddy and his little family, he is the epitome of trophy husband if you ask me, and also the type of "he is your husband but also your kid", and given the circumstances, this song goes well with Roddy.

He gets married young, in cybertronian perspective at least, and he chooses someone everyone else asked him: "are you sure? Like, really sure?" Not because of thinking it was bad, but because they were worried for him, by that time the fact that sparks prolonged a human average lifetime for hundreds of years by different bonds (in this reality the Amica endurae and the conjunx endurae rites have this effect in organics), so Rodimus, while being a anxious ball in the inside, said proudly "of course I do!"

Rodimus, being married young, is also a young father, and in the meantime has everyone expecting him to take his title of Prime back and stop wandering in deep space, be a good creator and leader and settle down finally to do things right, he doesn't listen, and ends up going to a dangerous place that destroyed his life.

Rodimus, a young widow and single creator to a new spark that still needs his carrier, has little to no time to mourn before Cybertron is about to fall in another war and the integrity of his only family alive is in danger, full of sorrow and anger he does something he regrets even now, making his legacy as Prime as one deeply criticized and loved in equal parts, stripping Earth, the thirteenth's, Optimus' colony of all the advantages the former Prime gave to the humans, leaving them to take care for their own problems and their own fights, humanity suffers for it, of course, but while he didn't have any hatred to humanity before the incident he now has it as humans of the Lost Light were found in labs on Earth, obviously long deceased, their own people cutting them to pieces in order to know why they didn't have any negative reaction to energon or the natural radiation cybertronians have.

The fact that he left Earth, his conjunx's planet, to the mercy of other organic aliens after humanity tried to conquer and ended up being conquered, is something that haunts him but not something he is exactly judged for as the "they had it coming" comes from mechs and femmes, Rodimus ends up asking for help to the newly recovered Optimus Prime to help Earth once again, and he does, Earth is saved, but still not learning their lesson.

He made mistakes out of anger, out of his own misery, like he did before, but this time, I wanted him to have an ounce of love his beloved would have given him if only in memories, "everything is going to be alright" you would say, comforting him "while I'm gone, everything is going to be alright", as he tries to feel that little fragment of what could be your heart, you soul, something that he could relate to a spark he just swears is still deep in his own, "do you feel me?" the fragment of your soul would call, "do you hear me?" and his spark tries to spin in the same wave as yours shine just enough to find him, trying to answer back desperately, yes, yes I do, "we're gonna be alright" and all he can do is hug Sunset near just knowing his bitlet is soon gonna be a big mech in no time, he wants to cherish the feeling of his little helm above his spark chamber, repeating your words, data banks providing with the recording of your heartbeat, the way your breathing would rouse his armor, how your body is pressed against him, giving himself comfort to go on another day.

[calliesmemes]

QUOTES FOUND ON PINTEREST

ASKBOX PROMPTS OF ASSORTED QUOTATIONS THAT I HAVE FOUND WHILE MAKING BOARDS FOR MY MUSES ON PINTEREST

CHANGE gendered words if necessary.

SPECIFY muse for multimuses.

“   Something in me wants more. I can’t rest.   ”

“   The sword of destiny has two edges. You are one of them.  ”

“   I don’t want worship. I want understanding.   ”

“   Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.   ”

“   The truth is, I pretend to be a cynic, but I am really a dreamer who is terrified of wanting something that she may never get.   ”

“   Your heartbeats set the rhythm for my heart.   ”

“   Because you feel like home to me. That’s why I love you.   ”

“   I feel my soul drawn to you.   ”

“   I have for the first time found what I can truly love. I have found you.   ”

“   I felt there was no point in telling anyone anything that was happening inside me.   ”

“   The world either breaks or hardens the heart.   ”

“   Am I supposed to be grateful to have survived this?   ”

“   You are so brave and quiet I forget you are suffering.   ”

“   It bothers me that no one has the patience to deal with someone who is just sad.   ”

“   I have never understood where the line is drawn, between sacrifice and self-slaughter.   ”

“   Sometimes suffering is just suffering. It doesn’t make you stronger. It doesn’t build character. It only hurts.    ”

“   The past beats inside me like a second heart.   ”

“   My soul and yours are the same. You appear in me, I in you. We hide in each other.   ”

“   You are always haunted by the idea that you have been wasting your life.   ”

“   I am not cruel — only truthful.  ”

“   No one wearing a crown comes in the name of peace.   ”

“   I am starved for tenderness and that is what is the matter with me and has been for months.   ”

“   You? What could one more splash of blood mean to you?    ”

“   Can you hate someone for what they have done, but still love them for whom they had been?   ”

“   I'm sorry you were not truly loved and that it made you cruel.   ”

“   I'd choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I'd find you and I'd choose you.   ”

“   I am not merciful, and I am not kind, and l am not afraid to make you wish that I was.   ”

“   It does me no good; violence has changed me.   ”

“   So heartless, yet so full of feelings.   ”

“   You blossom under kindness, don't you? Like a rose.   ”

“   All suffering originates from craving, from attachment, from desire.   ”

“   I look at you, and it terrifies me. It terrifies me what I would do for you.   ”

“   Forgive me, for all the things I did but mostly for the ones that I did not.   ”

“   Be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.   ”

“   "Sometimes, I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there's no room for the present at all.   ”

“   We all romanticize the people we adore.   ”

“   I've lived too long with pain. I won't know who I am without it.   ”

“   If you know too much, you’ll get old too soon.   ”

“   Cowardice is the most terrible of vices.   ”

“   I am tired of being brave.   ”

“   I have survived. I am here. Confused, screwed up, but here.   ”

“   There isn't always an explanation for everything.   ”

“   Everything will turn out right, the world is built on that.   ”

“   People do not see you. They invent you and accuse you.   ”

“   Never have I dealt with anything as difficult as my own soul.   ”

“   You are a woman marked for sorrow.   ”

“   Rise up, then. Mend your ways, start seeing what you are instead of calculating what you should become.   ”

“   Stop punishing yourself for being someone with a heart. You cannot protect yourself from suffering. To live is to grieve. You are not protecting yourself by shutting yourself off from the world. You are limiting yourself.   ”

“   Very early in my life it was too late.   ”

“   I want to change. I want to stop fear’s subtle guidance of my life.   ”

“   You misinterpret everything, even the silence.   ”

“   Lately many years have passed.   ”

“   You’ll bear it. You’ll last out. You will.   ”

[whoreforsamwilson]

I love you in every universe

Warning: None

Every timeline and every universe I’ve been to I always see him with someone else.

The harsh reality of wanting to be with someone that doesn’t feel the same about you.

That’s in every universe.

Have I tried to figure out what happened to me?

Yes.

Injury after injury, death after death. I can’t stop it and I can’t change it because if I do the timeline is fucked.

And I can’t have that happen.

I watched from a distant where I could be seen, waiting for my moment it has to be right in this one it just has to be.

They sat together at a café in New York, laughter and conversation flowing effortlessly between them.

I watched from across the street, my eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses.

In every universe, it’s the same: Thor is always with someone else, happy and oblivious to my silent vigil.

I’ve lost count of how many timelines I’ve traversed, each one a cruel reminder of my unrequited love.

Every time I try to change my fate, to find a version where Thor feels the same for me, the universe retaliates with unimaginable force.

Injury after injury, death after death—my body and soul bear the scars of countless attempts to alter destiny.

But I can’t stop. I can’t change it. The timeline is delicate, and any interference could cause irreparable damage.

The weight of that responsibility crushes me, a constant reminder that my own happiness must be sacrificed for the greater good.

Yet, in this universe, I feel a glimmer of hope. I’ve studied the patterns, the events, the crucial moments.

I know where to be and when. I know what needs to be done to finally alter the course of my own destiny without unraveling the fabric of time.

As I stand there, waiting for my moment, my heart aches with the memories of all the lives I’ve lived and lost. In one timeline, I died saving him.

In another, I was forced to watch as he loved another.

Each death, each heartbreak, a testament to the futility of my longing.

Today, they sit together, their joy a stark contrast to my despair.

Thor’s laughter rings out, a sound I once believed could be my salvation.

Now, it is a reminder of the unattainable, of the love that will never be mine.

I step forward, my presence finally noticed.

Thor’s eyes meet mine across the busy street, a flicker of recognition passing through them.

He stands, his expression a mix of confusion and something I can’t quite decipher.

I take a deep breath, my heart pounding with the weight of this moment.

“Y/N?” he calls out, his voice a beacon in the chaos of my existence.

I nod, tears blurring my vision.

“Thor, I—” My voice breaks, the words I’ve rehearsed in a thousand lifetimes failing me.

He takes a step toward me, leaving his companion behind. In this moment, all the pain, all the suffering, all the endless loops of time seem to converge.

This is my chance, my one last hope to make him understand.

“Thor, in every universe, I’ve loved you,” I say, my voice trembling with the weight of countless lifetimes.

“But in every universe, you’re with someone else. I’ve tried to change it, but I can’t. The timeline—”

His eyes soften with an emotion I’ve longed to see directed at me.

“Y/N, I don’t understand…”

“I know you don’t,” I whisper, my heart breaking anew.

“But I had to try. I had to tell you.”

He reaches for me, but the universe has other plans.

Time ripples, a cruel reminder of the consequences of my actions. The café, the street, Thor—all of it starts to blur, pulling away from me.

“No!” I cry out, reaching for him. But it’s too late.

The timeline corrects itself, and I’m ripped away from the moment, thrust back into the void of endless possibility and regret.

As I fall through the spaces between universes, my heart shatters anew.

In every timeline, every universe, I will always love him.

And in every one, he will never be mine.

[theemporium]

The poly ships as some of my fave quotes:

Lestappen + reader: And I’d choose you; in a hundred different lifetimes, in a hundred different worlds, in any version of reality, I’d find you, and I’d choose you.

Maxiel + reader: If soulmates do exist, they’re not found, they’re made. People meet, they have a good feeling, and they get to work building a relationship.

Norstappen + reader: You were a risk, a mystery, and the most certain thing I’d ever known.

Charlos + reader: When you’re in love with someone, they are the lighthouse of your universe. Beauty means less when they don’t witness it with you. It’s not as good without them; they illuminate. They make everything more.

IDK, I was in a romantic mood. - 🌸

stop that’s so soft🥹

[crybaby-bkg]

booie🥺i'm sorry if this is random and u don't have time for it, no worries!!! but y'know what i'm always thinking abt???

your fic, "in every lifetime" GOD, IT'S ONE OF MY FAVORITES EVER, but i've always been on the edge of my seat when it comes to villain bakugo showing up at the end. did you have any thoughts on what his life is like with you in another reality? I'VE ALWAYS WONDERED IF YOU HAVE BABIES WITH HIM TOO??? and if it's hard bc he's a villain

(i've always imagined that seeing you in another reality makes villain bakugo wanna get better for u and his daughter in his own reality, bUT THAT'S JUST ME!!) what are your thoughts??? only if you want to explore, ofc!! 🩵🩵🩵

i love u berry much in general!

CAITIEEEE MY BELOVED :D 💜💜

omg thank you so much!!!!! I always beat myself up over that fic bc I was literally like 85% done with it when I thought about villain bakugou and was like. ITS TOO LATE TO TURN BACK NOW cause that would’ve added another 3-5k words aksjdkd

but I’ve never thought about his life with you much???? but I do believe that once he comes in and gets acclimated with the others, he becomes the odd one out, instead of your Katsuki even tho you guys don’t even have kids yet!!!!

but it’s bc villain bkg does have a daughter (just one which already earns him a few scoffs) but he doesn’t….have her as much as the others do. his entire life isn’t revolved around her, he doesn’t take her hunting or show her how the world works. he doesn’t smother you in affection back home (mainly bc you won’t let him anymore) and he just becomes so isolated from the others in that sense.

but when he goes back home to his own universe, he’s a little different. he was hesitant to see his daughter often, didn’t want her to look at him in disgust and horror when he picks her up with his bionic arm, even tho the cold metal is all she’s ever known from him. he’s scared that she’ll be scared of him, that she’ll recognize his destruction on the news when she looks at him for too long. that she’ll run away in terror if he were to smile at her.

he comes over to your house the night he returns. asks if he can see her, even though its past midnight, but you let him in anyway. watch how he stands at her doorway, the soft kiss he presses to her forehead. he sits on your couch in silence for the longest moment before he speaks, his voice quiet, whispering that he wants to be there. that he wants to do better and be better. that he can’t be both a shit person and a shit father.

you give him the benefit of the doubt, but you do start to see improvements in him. he drops off her favorite snacks more, and takes her to secluded parks where he won’t be recognized. he buys her too much ice cream, but it’s only a weak apology for not being there for her beforehand. he doesn’t cause as much destruction in the city anymore, too preoccupied with showing up to parent teacher conferences, ready to cuss out her teacher for giving his baby a 92 instead of the 100 she deserved.

I think bc of his competitive nature, and especially the way the other Bakugou’s damn near cussed him out for being an absent parent and how he must be a defective version of them because none of them are this shitty—that he changes, just a little. it’s not drastic and it’s not overnight, but he realizes that he has to be better. if not for himself, than for his daughter and maybe—maybe a little bit for you too.

[oc-challenges]

Bonjour! Whether you’re single or in a relationship this Valentines Day, most of us have oc couples we love, and we here at oc-challenges want to celebrate those couples with a Valentines Challenge! This challenge is 8 days long, beginning on February 7th and ending on the fated day of February 14th, and @elmunson and @aliverse have come together once again to bring you these prompts!

You know the usual, don’t steal edits. If you feel an edit of yours or someone else’s has been stolen and would like to report it, follow these guidelines.

For any crossovers, make sure the other person is okay with crossovers.

Feel free to ask questions, all prompts are open to interpretation!

In order for your post to be included in this blog, it must be tagged with #ovc2023.

And last but certainly not least, have fun!

Day One: All The Love (7th)

Romance isn’t the only love, and it’s certainly not the most important. To start us on our celebration of love, show off your ocs and their relationships that display the seven different types of love.

Day Two: Same Couple, Different Font (8th)

We all have our favorite and least favorite ships. They may have even inspired some of your oc relationships! Today is about co-co-comparison, what are some canon couples you feel give the same vibes or energy as your oc ship?

Day Three: Another Version of Us (9th)

In a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred realities, in any version of reality... I’d find you and I’d chose you. Or maybe there’s only one universe where we belong together and it’s not this one. Whatever the case may be, it’s all about the ship AUs on the 9th! 

Day Four: Love You Like A Love Song... Or Quote (10th)

You know when you hear a song for the first time and immediately tie it to your otp? Or you see a quote and go “oh my god, that’s so my oc ship!”? Well we want to see them too, pair your oc ship with a song or quote you relate to them.

Day Five: That’s So Us (11th)

Every good couple starts with a solid foundation than adds building blocks to make a strong home out of each other. In OC ships, you could even say these building blocks are ship tropes. Tell everyone what tropes you think your ship is made of!

Day Six: The Language of Flowers (12th)

Flowers mean something, not just a bouquet as an apology, but the flowers themselves have their own symbolism. What is your oc to afraid to say in words? What flowers share a secret language that makes the wedding so much more meaningful? Or maybe they just like pretty flowers. Thank you @ginevranights for this adorable idea!

Day Seven: Love, An Admirer (13th)

Noah wrote Allie 365 letters, we’re only asking you to write one. Show off the valentine card(s) your oc gets from their love interests or maybe go back to elementary and make a little valentine to give to someone else!

Day Eight: Dear Valentine (14th)

It’s time to reach into a bag of chocolates and love yourself a little. For this day, make sure you’ve signed up for @ocpotluck’s valentines exchange to get yourself and someone else a little present!