#it's abusers saying 'i never hit you. you're remembering it wrong'

[gender-euphowrya]

it's been said but people really need to have a basic And thorough understanding of words that have specific precise meanings before they use them

[p4ranormaluv]

INSIDE YOUR MIND — 희승

PAIRING: stalker!heeseung x therapist!reader

GENRE: smut (mdni), angst?

CONTENTS: non-con, f!reader, heeseung rides a motorcycle (brief concept), talk of childhood abuse/ptsd, mentioned past death, house invasion, brief mention of voye.urism, rope restraint, praise?, one pus.sy slap, petnames, very rough treatment/s.ex, oral, finger.ing, mention of blood, hair pulling, threats, choking at the end, creampie, squirt.ing

WC: 4.7k

NOTES: read at your own risk!

COPYRIGHT OF @/P4RANORMALUV. PLAGIARISM NOT TOLERATED.

when heeseung filled out his patient form and you had your first therapy session with him, your first impression of him was ‘boyish’.

he has a charming smile that you’re sure makes most women’s hearts race, but you couldn’t help but notice the melancholy vulnerability in his eyes— or the way he even laughed. but you probably wouldn’t have those thoughts if you hadn’t already read his papers: childhood trauma and neglect, deceased parents (unnatural death), and diagnosed ptsd.

“just write whatever comes to your mind. it doesn’t have to be anything profound.” you said as you handed heeseung a new journal with crisp white pages. “treat it like your best friend, tell it anything you want.”

“uh, okay.” heeseung laughed, a little awkwardly as that adorable smile came across his lips, scratching the back of his neck. “thanks, doctor y/n.”

as your sessions continue to progress, heeseung seems to become more comfortable, even growing an attachment to the journal. you find he’s always carrying it by his side or in his black backpack. likewise, he seems to be growing more fond of you as well.

“i like you…you’re nice.” heeseung whispers suddenly, completely off subject of what you’re talking about.

you blanch in your seat, the leather squeaking beneath you as you adjust your position and stare at him a tad uncomfortably.

your posture is very straight and professional, completely opposite to the man who sits on the small couch across from you, legs spread and body language relaxed as he stares at you.

you have a feeling there's a deeper meaning behind his simplistic words, you just can’t seem to decipher them— even as you take a moment too long to look at heeseung’s expression. the mask he wears over his emotions is much thinner than when he first walked into your office, now sheer like a veil. but still, you just can’t quite identify it. heeseung seems to be a particularly complex patient.

“why do you think i’m nice, heeseung?” you smile, trying to come off as relaxed and casual as he is, to keep him in this malleable state. but really you’re preparing to remember everything he says— so you can write them down in your session notes during a moment when it’s not too obvious. (you try not to make your patients feel like lab rats or some creature you're studying.)

“you’re just…really caring— and kind. like..i can tell you actually give a fuck. you’ve never ignored me or not listened.”

you can’t help but laugh, trying to contain the noise and bite down your smile.

you’re quite literally payed to listen, but it is unfortunately true that there’s many therapists that don’t genuinely listen to their patients. and heeseung isn't wrong, you do genuinely care about him.

“of course i’m not going to ignore you, sweetheart.”

at the pet name, heeseung’s eyes grow wide— and so do yours, the words that just came from your mouth hitting you as you lightly gasp.

“oh, i’m— i’m so sorry, heeseung. it just slipped out.”

heeseung just nods, eyes bambi-like as they remain wider than usual, bottom lip sucked into his mouth as he bites down, continuing to stare at you. it oddly makes you squirm— his eye contact. so you look down at your notebook instead, eventually able to organize your scrambled thoughts enough to actually absorb the notes you’re pretending to stare at.

“do you think perhaps you like women who remind you of your mother?”

“…no,” heeseung all but growls.

you jolt in your seat at the completely foreign tone coming from the man, snapping your head to his direction.

his teeth are clenched firmly, making the contours of his jawline more pronounced. his previously almost doe-like eyes are now hardened and sharp enough to pierce.

it’s sends a chill up your spine— but it’s also…strangely attractive.

you’re surprised at your own thought, disturbed by it as you push it to the back of your mind.

“i hate anyone who reminds me of her.” he adds darkly.

“…alright.” you respond quietly, heeseung’s hawk-like eyes now watching how you quickly scribble something in your notebook. “maybe now’s not the time to touch on that. what else do you like?”

“oh, um….” heeseung hesitates, the question clearly catching him off guard. “music, movies, video games, motorcycles—“

“motorcycles?” you ask, a clear spark of curiosity in your tone that heeseung doesn’t miss. “i’ve always wanted one.”

“yeah! it’s a yamaha r6. i got interested in motorcycles as a kid, used to fix old ones up with my dad.”

‘avoids grieving parents death with anger?’ you quickly jot down. ‘but holds onto the past of his childhood as a way to feel connected to parents?’

the fast drawl of your pen echos in the otherwise quiet room, heeseung watching your smooth legs move from crossed to uncrossed in your pencil skirt.

“that sounds amazing, heeseung! what about movies, what genres are you interested in?”

“oh, mostly horror…slashers. that kind of stuff.”

“anything else?” you ask easily, though you take mental note of the things he’s listed with minor alarm. of course it’s not wrong or an automatic concern if someone is interested in these things, but in your line of work you can’t overlook anything.

“…disney.” he answers, his somewhat thoughtful yet blank expression shifting into that charming grin. “dramas sometimes.”

“what was your taste in movies as a child?”

“the same.” he answers easily. “my parents didn’t really care what i did. if they were watching something r rated and i walked in they wouldn’t turn it off. they wouldn’t even tell me to get out of the room.”

“how did that affect you?”

heeseung’s face falls. it’s minutely, but you certainly don’t miss it. you’ve figured out that heeseung often pulls this expression when talking about his childhood, the things that haunt him still. but he hasn’t admitted that yet— even to himself you think. and it’s too soon to push right now, so you choose not to point it out.

“i knew about everything…by 9 years old i knew all about sex, drugs, murder…everything.”

somewhere along your conversation heeseung’s eyes have turned black, pupils staring so still at you that they almost look dead. and the longer they stay on you, the stronger an air of fear brushes coldly up your spine— like you should be afraid.

you don’t know why. heeseung has never shown any signs of violence or anger issues, nor is that listed in his patient form. it must be the anxiety that simply comes with the job of being a therapist. that’s what you tell yourself as you feel the paranoia ghost its hands across your shoulders as you sink into the unknown behind heeseung’s eyes, succumbing to your morbid curiosity of what awful memories he must have to turn his honey brown orbs black with emotion, or lack of.

and just like that— like the owner has just returned home and turned back on the lights, heeseung’s eyes get that sparkle in them again as he smiles, voice deep yet pleasant as he speaks.

“i don’t think it’s affected me though.”

ㅤㅤ──────────────────────

rain drums against the roof of the clinic, fluorescent lights above you beaming even brighter as darkness has fallen outside.

you glance at the time on your watch, seeing that it’s nearing 8:30.

you chose to stay late to try and organize your messy desk and patient files, which are becoming an inconvenience with how poorly you previously organized them. you’ve made some good progress, but even though you’re not finished, you gather your things and slip back on your heels to exit the building. the rain is pouring down much harder than you thought when you step outside, immediately scurrying back underneath the protection of the clinic’s overhanging roof to shield yourself from getting completely drenched.

you let out a frustrated sigh as you look out into the darkness, a few dim, flickering street lamps your only source light.

you’re about to pull out your phone and call a cab when you hear the growl of a motorcycle, it’s crescent shaped headlights appearing in front of you a moment later.

the man gets off and leans against the bike, removing his helmet and combing his fingers through his tousled hair.

it’s too dark to see, but when he turns his face at a certain angle, the street lights hitting his features just right, you’re able to recognize him.

“heeseung?” you call out amidst the pounding rain, a rumble of thunder almost punctuating his name after you say it.

heeseung glances at you before quickly jogging over, leaving his bike parked on the street as he joins you beneath the roof’s shelter.

“hey, y/n! what are you doing here so late?”

“i stayed overtime.” you explain, voice still a little raised so he can hear you over the heavy downpour. “what are you doing here?”

confusion is laced in your tone, wondering why heeseung would stop right in front of the clinic when he wasn’t even scheduled to see you today— much less after hours.

heeseung smirks, wordlessly pointing to the convenience store across the street.

“oh,” you blush, embarrassed at how you stupidly assumed he was here for you.

“late night drive. i was gonna grab some snacks. but now that i’m here, let me drive you home.”

“w— what? no! i…i can call a cab.”

“it’s late, y/n. it’s not safe getting a ride by yourself at this time of night.” heeseung argues, and you do agree. you usually don’t take cabs when it’s dark and no one else is with you. but…

“it’s unprofessional…” you confess hesitantly. “you're my patient.”

heeseung somewhat cocky expression doesn’t change, eyes making you feel small in a disturbingly good way as he looks down at you. he must be able to sense your lack of conviction, because he’s taking off his backpack to remove his leather jacket and guide your arms through the large arm holes. it rests against you heavily, way too big for your frame, but it makes you feel a little warmer as it shields you from the rain.

“come on, y/n.” he says with finality after asking you to put on his backpack as well, so you can ride on the back of his motorcycle properly.

you squeak when he suddenly lifts you up like you weigh nothing and sits you on the seat, heeseung chuckling at the sound. your cheeks only burn more.

heeseung puts on his helmet before getting on the bike himself, turning to look back at you.

“hold on tight, okay? don’t let go.” he orders, grabbing your hands to wrap them around his torso and pulling you flush against him.

you try to ignore the fluttering you feel in places you definitely shouldn’t be feeling them as your chest presses into his strong, broad back. the thrum of his motorcycle comes to life, vibrations making your thighs clench and your arms tighten around his lithe waist. you only hope you can keep yourself together for the whole ride, and that the heavy rain is enough to cover up the view of the clinic’s security cameras as heeseung drives the two of you off into the night.

ㅤㅤ──────────────────────

when heeseung brings you home you’re rushing to get off, your very inappropriate feelings only growing during the ride— and seeing him on his motorcycle in leather gloves and a helmet doesn’t help at all. especially with how hotly he puts back on his jacket that you hastily return to him, along with his backpack.

you give him a very quick thank you, wishing him a good night before running into your house and hoping he just thinks you're in a hurry to get out of the rain.

you’re ashamed, mentally scolding yourself as you try not to slip and fall in your heels. heeseung is completely innocent in this situation, it’s you who’s the problem. you’re the one getting all hot and bothered when he was just trying to be a decent guy and give you a ride home. he can’t help if he’s hot and attractive and the growl of his motorcycle made the heartbeat between your legs worse.

god, are you that desperate? you must really need to get out of the house more and get laid.

shutting the front door behind you, you toe off your slippery wet heels, leaving them messily by the door before going to your bedroom to take off your drenched clothes and change into more comfortable attire.

you simply put on some underwear and a baby tee, nothing underneath, before going downstairs to make yourself something to eat. your plan for the night is to have dinner, maybe…relieve yourself— and then go to sleep.

the slightly obnoxious yellow tint of your motion sensor light at your front door remains on, shining through the door’s window and casting the entryway in an unpleasant glow. so you walk over and flip the switch off.

“oh…” you whisper, accidentally putting yourself in complete darkness as you realize you didn’t turn on any lights in your hurry to take off your wet clothes from earlier.

blindly sliding your hands across the wall, you try to find the light switch for your kitchen when you trip over something, sending you to fall on the hardwood floor.

“fuck, what the hell?” you say to yourself, annoyed as you try to untangle your foot from whatever you can feel wrapped around it. you have a thought to pull out your phone and use the flashlight, but you left your phone upstairs. you guess that’s what happens when you don’t wear pants and thus curse yourself to have no pockets.

it’s a struggle when you can’t see, but you eventually free yourself and stand up, taking careful steps forward until you meet another wall. your hands finally brush over a light switch and you flip it on, your kitchen illuminating a second later.

…it’s a black backpack.

you almost don’t spot it as it sits in the shadows, but as you step closer, you’re sure now. what you tripped over looks just like heeseung’s backpack, its contents spilling out from the inside thanks to you tripping over it and getting the strap wrapped around your foot.

any doubt of the bag actually belonging to the man vanishes when you see the notebook sitting atop all the rest of the clutter, its cream cover slightly browned and scuffed— probably due to him carrying it wherever he goes.

your brows furrow in confusion as you crouch to your knees. you could have sworn you took off the backpack and handed it to heeseung, but in your hurry to escape you must have forgotten to?

moving to pick up the random items that are scattered on the floor and put it back inside the bag (a package of gum, a couple pens, a pocket knife), the notebook is jostled and slides across the floor, its pages falling open.

you move to grab it, still on your knees as you loom above the notebook. you really do try not to look at the words on the paper— but it’s filled with them, every page packed with as many as heeseung could fit on the page. you’re unable to look away.

what’s written…isn’t what you were expecting— or, you don’t know what you were expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this. page after page of diary logs, dated with the time, all describing…watching someone. what starts out as cute sentiments turn more predatory and carnal as the days go by.

your heart stops when you get to the most recent entry.

its labeled with today's date.

‘you’re always so coy, doctor. sometimes i think i know exactly what you’re thinking, and then you react in a way i don’t expect.

it’s driving me a little crazy wondering what’s going on in your head. it makes me want to crack it open...god, see what you do to me, baby? you’re making me sick in the head. it’s all your fault.

but i don’t want to stop. i want to keep going. i want to hear you beg for more until you’re begging me to stop.

i have a feeling you’ll like it.’

you jump at how hard you slam the journal shut, goosebumps all over your flesh as heat encompasses your face. but it’s not from arousal— it’s fear.

your mind flashes memories too fast for you to keep up with. all your sessions, all those little moments you thought were your own misunderstandings— were they premeditated? did he plan this all along?

wait— when heeseung picked you up….you didn’t even tell him your address. you were so distracted that you didn’t even think to tell him where you live.

and he didn’t need it. he drove you right to your house immediately, like he’s drove that route a hundred times…

you feel the sudden urge to throw up but you suppress it, getting up from the floor to run upstairs and get your phone—

but you run right into the hard chest of someone instead, their strong arms wrapping around your body tightly. you’re horrified, because even without looking you know exactly who it is.

“heeseung?”

“aw, don’t cry, baby. surely you knew this was coming?” heeseung coos, the comforting quality he tries to portray in his voice only making you feel like you’re going to gag. his thumb brushes over your cheek, attempting to wipe a tear away, but they only continue to roll down more rapidly at his touch.

walking you backwards, heeseung shuffles the two of you over to his backpack that still lays sprawled out on the floor.

grabbing your wrists, he turns you around and joins them together behind your back. you turn your head, watching as he bends down and pulls out the pocket knife you noticed earlier. then he reaches in deeper, rustling around until he pulls out a small coil of rope that you evidently missed.

you don’t even try to hold down the sob that rips out of your mouth, almost beginning to hyperventilate as you struggle to accept that this is happening to you and there’s nothing you can do about it.

“heeseung, please.” you cry, looking up at him despite your vision blurred by tears. “you don’t have to do this.”

“it’s just a precaution, y/n.” the man reasons easily, and you can tell by his assured voice that he doesn’t see how incredibly horrible this is— demented. he’s about to commit a tragedy to you, and he doesn’t even get it.

“besides.” he whispers against the back of your neck as he ties the rope around your wrists, tight enough to chafe. “i’ve seen the stuff you watch. i know you like being tied up.”

your throat quivers, brain too much of a mess to even process that he’s just confessed to secretly watching you look at porn and masturbating at some point. shaking your head desperately, your eyes squeeze shut in anguish as pleading words tumble out of your mouth. “no, no. not like this— not like this, heeseung. please!”

“be quiet,” he warns between gritted teeth, leaning over you to make sure you see his face. “drop the act, y/n.”

you hear the click of his pocket knife opening, heeseung raising the blade to cut the excess rope off from the tight knot he’s made. once he’s finished he pushes you by your restraint to the kitchen table, roughly pressing you over it. you suddenly wish you had chosen to wear pants, at least then it would take him a bit longer to expose you.

the sound of ripping fabric and your whimpered cries are the only thing that’s heard as heeseung cuts your t-shirt right down the middle, yanking the article off of you.

you don’t move— other than your uncontrollable trembling as you stay bent over the table, too scared and weak from emotions to try and run away.

heeseung is taking off his pants— you recognize the unmistakable sound of his zipper being pulled down, but you can’t bear to look. you keep your cheek pressed to the cold wood of the table, eyes staring unfocused at nothing.

“be the good girl i know you are, baby.” heeseung says, arousal evident in his tone. “i bet you're soaking your little panties, hm?”

you feel his fingers press firmly against your clothed clit, rubbing up and down just slightly too hard. you whimper, attempting to get rid of his touch by squeezing your legs shut. it’s futile of course, and only proves to anger heeseung. he growls and pries your legs open with his strong hands, slapping your pussy hard enough that it has you letting out a yelped scream.

“i don’t want to, y/n, but if i have to hurt you i will.”

heeseung gets on his knees to be eye level with your cunt, leaning forward and ghosting his teeth over your thinly covered lips. your breath comes out trembled and the man groans. you’re not sure if the action is a threat or a promise, but you really don’t want to find out.

a slow stripe is abruptly being licked up your pussy, catching you off guard as you start to close your legs again on instinct— but luckily you stop yourself in time before you piss off heeseung even more.

you decide in this moment you need to actually listen to at least a part of heeseung’s words— be a good girl, then maybe you can manage to make it out of this.

heeseung’s wet mouth is suctioned to your clothed cunt, sucking and drooling all over you as he teases himself with the faint taste of your slick that you can’t control is becoming more apparent. heeseung’s eager tongue and shameless mouth work on your clit, nose nudging at your entrance as he moans and sighs his hot breath all over your pussy.

finally he’s pulling off your panties with his teeth, groaning when he’s blessed with the sight or your glistening cunt.

“shit. such a perfect pussy.” he marvels, running two fingers between your lips, causing you to flinch and squirm against the rope. you clench your jaw until it aches, wanting so badly to beg him to stop, but you’re too afraid to, not when his sharp teeth are so close to the most sensitive part of your body. heeseung takes his now thoroughly slicked up fingers to circle them around your hole, leaning down to take your cunt in his mouth.

his drawn out, guttural groan has you clenching as shame burns your face, a whimper releasing from your mouth as heeseung starts to suckle at your clit and prod you with his tongue. one finger dips just the fingertip inside you before removing it to massage over your entrance again, applying a bit more pressure.

your body starts to react in ways you can’t control and you pray heeseung doesn’t notice, but you’re pretty sure he does— because when you feel your hole clench again he’s moaning out, sucking and licking your pussy with more vigor as he pushes his entire finger inside your entrance.

your moan comes out forcefully as you try your best to swallow it down, sounding almost pained as heeseung starts moving his finger inside of you.

“fuck, you’re so warm inside, sweetheart.” heeseung mutters, attaching right back onto your pussy after.

his second finger is shoved inside way too suddenly, turning harsh as his appendages fuck in and out of you in a way that makes it feel like you’re going to bruise from the inside.

“ah— ow, heeseung. please.” you beg, face pinching in pain. “it hurts.”

“you’re mine to explore, baby. wanna touch all of you. just bare it.”

tears spring in your eyes at his callous, selfish words. heeseung continues his merciless treatment before disconnecting from your cunt to watch how your hole takes him.

he spits on it, making you simmer in humiliation before cold panic washes over your body as you feel a third finger prodding the outside of your entrance.

“no, no. hee— heeseungie, can’t.”

“shhh, don’t worry, baby. just need to stretch you out for my cock, yeah? that’ll be the good part for you, me fucking this tight little pussy.”

three fingers now delve in and out of your hole, and to make it all worse, heeseung is curving his fingers just right— making you feel confused from the mix of pain and pleasure as you feel your pussy drip against your will.

heeseung laughs, seeming to have caught sight of it. “i knew you had to be a whore. who else would wear such tight, short skirts to work?”

you sob as you feel yourself clench around his fingers, thick and burning as they stretch out your ring.

“just walking around with a nasty little cunt that’s dying to be split open, huh? don’t worry, baby. i know what you want. i’ll give it to you real good.”

all too quickly for your brain to wrap around, heeseung pulls his fingers out and your pussy is being stuffed to the absolute brim with his fat cock. the length and girth is way too much— way more than you could have ever imagined.

you cry out like a wild animal as heeseung starts pounding into your pussy mercilessly, forcing you to take it. you’re pretty sure your wrists are going to start bleeding with how much you pull against the rope, but that’s the least of your concerns.

“oh fuck, hee— heeseung!”

it takes you a moment to realize that’s your voice, your cries sounding more like sounds of…arousal.

and you start to question yourself, why do you sound so turned on, like a porn star getting dicked down— when you feel so scared?

“shit— disgusting slut. such a dirty pussy. you deserve to get fucked until you’re raw and ruined.”

you moan. you’re sure you hear it. and it only makes heeseung go rougher, balls slapping against your wet skin that your juices run down from. the zipper and button of heeseungs pants that aren’t even fully pulled down bruise into your skin with every unforgiving thrust, the man literally not holding an ounce of his power back as he fucks you as hard as he can.

his fat cock forces you to submit, for your cunt to take all of it.

your body starts to convulse in the overwhelming sensations of pleasure and fear, your moans starting to crack from your overused throat.

“fuck— fuck!”

“i could get you fired.” heeseung grits between bared teeth, hands squeezing into the flesh of your hips, wanting to leave a bruise behind each finger. “i could tell them that you tried to come onto me during an appointment, that you coerced me. they’d probably get rid of you just for the accusation alone.”

heeseung wraps an aggressive hand around your throat, squeezing and cutting off your airway as his other hand yanks mercilessly at your hair, lifting your head off the table.

“so be a good slut and let me fuck and abuse this pussy whenever i want, yeah?”

your mouth stretches open, an almost silent rasp the only thing coming out from your lack of oxygen as your eyes roll back and you're squirting all over his fat cock.

you feel like you’re dying and exiting your body, the white of your eyes surely showing as you feel pain in the back of your head. fluids rush down your legs and heeseung’s pelvis as his hot load taints the inside of your walls forever.

“we’re not so different, yeah?” heeseung sounds totally unhinged, voice cracked and breathy. “you like to look inside people's minds, y/n. and i want to be inside your guts.”

heeseung finally releases your hair and neck, but his cock never stops impaling your cunt over and over, his over production of cum leaking out of your reddened hole to drip onto the floor, joining the rest of your fluids. you choke around your spit, desperately trying to get just a single breath of air. you have a horrible, dark, heavy pit inside your stomach— one that makes you feel like you’ll be stuck here forever. with heeseung’s cock buried deep inside your assaulted womb.

NOTE: this a nod to ‘inside your mind’ by the 1975, btw. honestly i really hate this…but oh well, at least i persevered?? first and last time writing straight up non-con tho lol.

[restinslices]

Lin Kuei Bros: Play Fighting

Smoke so dramatic-. Anyway, don’t ask why I thought of this. The voices were loud

Bi-Han

Play fighting with any of them is bold as fuck but HIM? You don't like your life 

I'm not saying he's gonna straight up assault you but out of all the brothers, he has the highest chance of hitting you hard as shit on accident 

He probably wouldn't even like play fighting that much. He'd prefer sparring cause at least you're working on your skills. Why you just fucking around?

You gotta catch him on the right day. Some days he's busy and some days he's just legit not in the mood. 

“Imma start it off slow. Imma scope the scenery out-”

If you somehow get this man to cooperate, first of all good job. Second of all, y'all do not stop until you give up. 

The type to pin you down and not let go until you admit he won. If you refuse, you're legit not moving. 

This is a big guy so you're not moving him. You give up, he lets go and you manage to crack a smile out of him

We never see him smile in the game but listen bitch, I'm here for the fantasy-

If he's not in the mood, I can see him just saying “no” like you're a puppy or smth. 

You'd go to swing on him again and he'd either grab your hand or give you a look that tells you he's being serious 

Going back to him accidentally hitting you hard as shit, he's used to sparring with two other buff ass men. Imma guess you're not as buff as them, and some of y'all reading this ain't men. Accidents are bound to happen 

You'd think the Grandmaster would have more control but I just think it slips sometimes. He's stupidly prideful and he's used to sparring so sometimes that's where his mind goes. Also once again, he probably sometimes forgets a hit Kuai Liang could handle is a hit that'll take years off your life. 

I would love to say he gets on his knees and apologizes but this is the same man who betrayed his brothers and was like “why y'all tweaking?” so um… 

You're gasping for air and he's “see why I always say no?”

I feel like I'm making him sound abusive but as someone who's play fought with my older siblings, they hit you hard as shit then tell you you're a bitch when a tear slips out. Why the fuck are you hitting me this hard in my chest? You got 5+ years on me-

He's an older brother. He's gonna hit hard. I swear it's in their DNA 

And if he does apologize it's not really verbal. He checks to make sure your limbs are alright then offers to do something else. 

“Are you gonna say you're sorry?” “For?” “For almost breaking my damn lung” “You started this”

You'd expect that the next time you wanna play fight he'd decline cause he doesn't wanna hurt you again. Wrong. 

Remember he's an older brother. THE older brother. Y'all squaring up again. You don't care about your health so fuck it. 

Honestly would be super fun besides the limb you're gonna lose 

Kuai Liang

Would be more cooperative than Bi-Han but still isn't overly excited to play fight 

Bi-Han is the “tell mom. I don't care” older brother. Kuai Liang is the “wait wait wait, I'm sorry. You can hit me back. Calm down. You want some candy?” older brother 

Fully aware he could cause terrible injuries but as time passes on, he relaxes more 

Definitely play fought as a kid but after Tomas started jumping everytime he heard his voice, he thought “maybe I need new hobbies”.

You’ve interrupted his recovery

He actively focuses on holding back and being soft even if you tell him not to

“Hit me harder” “No❤”

Honestly a fun time though. He holds back when it comes to strength but still tussles with you. Also let's you get hits in even when he could easily dodge them. 

If he accidentally injured you frfr, he's checking up on you immediately and says y'all stopping for today. 

“No, I'm ok” “Can you even breathe right now?” “Uhhh… yes😀” “We're done”

For sure feels like an asshole depending on how bad you're hurt. He's not sliding down the wall in pain but he's like “damn, that was a little too hard”. 

“You can hit me back” “No. I've seen Twilight” “What?” “It's gonna hurt me more than it's gonna hurt you. I'm not doing that”. (Now I wanna write you making them watch Twilight. I'm never gonna be rid of this addiction-)

You gotta hit him back so y'all can be even. It's the only way to move on

Y'all are not doing that shit again for at least another week or so. 

“We gotta scrap right here right now” “No”

Does the thing older siblings do when they put their hand on your head so when you swing at them, you're just hitting air. 

It's so infuriating so you gotta stop. 

The next time though, you swear you're gonna win. You will not. 

Tomas Vrbada

The most willing and having the most fun 

Tomas has two older brothers that probably jumped him on several occasions growing up and you're gonna try and convince me he doesn't have aggression to get out?

People would probably expect he's the softest but no. He's the youngest. As the youngest myself I can assure you, we are used to putting our all in these fights cause we gotta use all our strength to defeat these evil mfs we live with. Sometimes it's not enough-

You're not his older sibling so he's not scrapping like his life depends on it but I do think he's hitting somewhat hard 

Not as hard as Bi-Han, not as soft as Kuai Liang 

You feel his hits but it's not knocking the wind outta you 

Super fun cause he's also using the environment. Definitely is grabbing a pillow and starts swinging it at you. Definitely is running around the couch to chase you. Definitely has thrown you but made sure to aim at something soft. He's probably even turned off the lights then threw a folded blanket at you 

“Cheater” “Don't be upset you didn't think of it first”

You're fighting but laughing at the same time. There's no real tension. Just fucking around. 

Probably starts initiating it too

If he does injure you fr, for a split second he'd actually see it as a victory then he'd remember you're not his older brothers and is like “oh shit-”. 

Injuring those two would mean freedom (or a worse jumping. really depends), injuring you is not good. 

He knows how bad those hits can hurt so he makes sure you're alright. He's not watching you as much as Kuai Liang would but he'd still make sure you're not overly sore. 

He doesn't feel as bad as Kuai Liang would cause he kinda knows this shit happens. Kuai Liang kinda got a little bit of guilt cause Tomas gets into a fighting stance when he raises his hand up. Tomas hasn't victimized anyone so he's more chill about these situations 😭

Tells you random ass stories about when he used to play fight with his brothers. 

“One time Bi-Han threw me in the air and Kuai Liang jumped to catch me only to throw me against the wall”

“This reminds me of when Bi-Han swept my feet from under me and Kuai Liang jumped on me”

“What is it called when someone jumps on you elbow first?”

“This one time I woke up to them standing over me. I knew it was a wrap”

“One time Bi-Han slapped the back of my neck so hard, it was red for at least a week”

“One time Kuai Liang-” “Tomas… you need a therapist” “I don't think that's what it is”

Unlike Kuai Liang who makes you wait, he's cool with scrapping days later. 

Actually says “time out” when he wants a break. Also says “time in” fast as fuck though to catch you off guard 

Legit the most fun brother. I don't make the rules (except I do). 

I did not mean to write the least for Kuai Liang but I was really brain empty for him. Y’all should give me ideas, thanks bookie

[mrsparrasblog]

You're losing me pt.2

pt. 1 pt.3

TW: mention of rape, unprotected sex, drinking, blood, violence, angst

The liquor on his tongue didn’t even burn anymore; too much was already in his system, trying to wash down the events of this day. You were the love of his life, the woman he wanted to marry, even though he didn’t know how it would be legal for you to marry all of them. And now, he lost you. The worst part? He can't even remember how it happened. He felt so disgusted in himself in so many ways—disgusted for breaking your heart. God, your look, how you tried to keep your tears in check, broke him. And then his whole body felt disgusted; it felt like a layer of dirt he couldn’t wash away. He scrubbed and scrubbed, but it didn’t go away; the shame still lingered. It felt like someone had taken something from him, but it was his own fault. He must have said yes and bought those drinks. It was his own fault, he told himself over and over again. Normally, he would talk about this kind of stuff with you; you always knew what to say. But you hated him.

"‚‘nother on’," he said to the barkeeper. This was probably his sixth. Johnny knew how he could handle alcohol; he was never that pissed before to not remember a thing. And there she was, the medic, sitting down next to him.

"Hey, Johnny," she smiled brightly, like she didn’t have any worry in her life.

"I ken a dinnae whit yesterday happened bit tis ne'er aff tae happen again."

"Come on, you enjoyed it yesterday."

"I dinnae remember yesterday."

"What a shame."

He stood up, throwing some pounds on the table, wanting to leave, but she stopped him. "Come on, Johnny. I'll help you forget, make you feel at peace again."

"No."

"Then please, let me invite you for a drink as an apology," she smiled sweetly, pushing the drink towards me. Wait, how had she a drink prepared if she sat only for a minute next to me?

"No."

"Please, a drink won't kill you."

"I said no."

"Just one sip, Johnny, and I'll make you feel good how she never could."

"How come ye're sae persistent fur me tae dram this drink?"

"You're silly, Johnny. I'm just being nice," she looked panicked - weird.

While many people thought of him as someone who is just a silly guy who isn’t able to think properly, you told him all over again that he was so smart, smarter than all of them, if someone would just give him the chance to show. And right now, his brain implanted a sick thought on him. "Dinnae tell me ye put something in mah drink."

Her eyes widened. "Of course not," she mumbled.

"Don't lie to me," his hand immediately went to her throat , choking the truth out of her.

"Knockout drugs," she whispered. She was fighting for air as I let her go; the men in the pub already stood up trying to save the poor woman from getting abused by a man.

"You raped me." His shock hit deep; he always thought something like that wouldn’t happen to him. He was strong and able to protect himself. He was the guy who killed people, the youngest man in the SAS, the guy who beat up an officer because he touched a civi. But now, he was the victim.

"Have fun proving it. No one will believe that a tiny girl like me raped the big bad soldier," she laughed, and screamed for help. "Help, this man doesn’t take no for an answer," He was kicked out of the pub; his face was bloody from all the beating.

All he wanted was to reach you, ask your advice, be in the comfort of your arms, telling him all over again how he is a good man, how he is worth everything and not a dirty soldier. But you didn’t pick up; he came to the realization quickly; that no one would believe him.

**Soap:** Please tell me we used a condom.

**Medic:** ;)

Fuck.

————————————————————————————————-

4 am and you still couldn’t sleep; your head was full of thoughts. Why were you not good enough? Why did he do it? So, you made a thing your friends would kill you for. Calling John, you weren’t sure if he would pick up, but he did.

"What's wrong, love?" Source of habit, he thought.

"Why did you do this, John?" you sobbed.

"I didn't mean for it to happen; it was an accident."

"Then why didn't you say sorry?"

"Love."

"Don't fucking call me love. You cheated on me, and you didn't say sorry. You didn't run after me, you didn't apologize," your sobs broke his heart.

"I'm sorry; it was an accident."

"An accident is making a typo, not sticking your dick in a whore."

"I—"

"I hate you, John. I hate you so much," and you hung up. This wasn’t what you expected. Why doesn’t he feel guilty? Why are you not good enough? Why didn’t Simon say something? Why didn’t Kyle come here? Of course, you broke up, but why don’t they care?

If you only knew how Kyle was, blood-covered in the hospital, too many rookies in his way. How Simon was trying desperately to find Soap to see he didn't drink himself to death, and then he would come to you, he told him self all over again. And how the captain didn't leave his office, not even for food.

And how Soap went into John's office, trying to explain to him the truth, only to see a disarranged office, hands covered in blood after he tried to pick up the liquor he smashed at his wall. He never saw his captain so vulnerable, and if Soap didn’t know better, he would have sworn he saw tears.

"Captain, I—"

"You did already enough, MacTavish. Let me have at least one day to mourn over the loss of the love of my fucking life."

"Captain—"

"LEAVE," and he did, he crawled into his bed, knowing he lost everything in a day, the love of his life, his best friend Kyle, his captain, his pride, and safety, and not even Ghost was there.

[suzukiblu]

Day six of “obligatory sugar baby Kon” behind the cut. tw: implications of past grooming/abuse and the inherent problems in someone who was in that situation trying to flirt with someone actually age-appropriate. prev: (( chrono || non-chrono ))

Tim’s the one who hesitates this time, and Kon looks increasingly mortified and uncomfortable and anxious and like he might be about to just– 

“I do,” Tim says finally, because he does and also because he can’t stand making Kon look like that; because his chest literally hurts, seeing Kon look like that. Did Kon think that wasn’t–did he think that was a question, somehow? “I–yeah. Yes. I like you. That’s not–I definitely like you.” 

He just really hopes that when he says that, Kon isn’t hearing . . . something different. 

Hearing something different than what he means, is what he means by that. 

“But you don't wanna do anything,” Kon says to the alley wall, rubbing a hand up his arm and fidgeting restlessly. “Like–you took me to the planetarium last time and like, it was cool and I dug it, don't get me wrong, I just . . . I thought when you said you had plans for after dinner you wanted to, like, get a room or something. And when I said all that stuff about, you know–when I said you could take, you know, pics and stuff, it seemed like you were into it then, but when I actually, like, you know . . . I just . . . am I doing something wrong? Like–I don’t get it. I'm always the one making the moves and I just–am I fucking something up here or what?” 

“No,” Tim says, and his voice is definitely, definitely too tight now. “Definitely not. I–what about that makes you think you're doing something wrong?” 

“I just–thought you liked me,” Kon says with a helpless wince. 

“I do,” Tim repeats. He just–he doesn’t know what to say here. This isn’t Robin with a victim; this is Tim, and . . . 

Kon’s his friend, even without all the rest of it. Even if they never did any of this at all. 

“But you don’t wanna do anything to me,” Kon says, which is just what he already said except for the part where this time he says the quiet part out loud, and Tim thinks yes, because you just PHRASED it that way.

He hesitates again, then just . . . reaches out–awkwardly, kind of–and takes Kon’s hands. It’s not a natural instinct for him, but–Kon’s tactile, after all. So . . . tactile, Tim figures. Just . . . something tactile, to start. 

And something tactile that does not involve effectively their entire bodies being pressed together, because that is really not a situation in which he can think straight, or possibly even think at all. Just . . . 

Definitely not, yeah. 

He just needs to figure out how to navigate this without making Kon feel shitty about it. He can do that. Robin could do that, so Tim Drake can figure something out. 

“I want to do things with you, to be clear,” he says, clearing his throat again. “Just–establishing that, before anything else. Just, uh, some of this is moving a little . . . fast, for me.” 

He figures that’s an easier way to phrase it without making Kon feel like he’s wrong for . . . acting like this. Figures it’s a better way to ease him into the realization that it’s not . . . necessary behavior, if nothing else. 

It’s definitely wrong, but that’s not Kon’s fault. 

He just really hopes that saying something like that isn’t going to make Tim Drake seem like a prude or boring or–like, Kon’s so eager for attention and specifically flirtatious attention and isn’t used to–

Tim, briefly, remembers the toy store. Remembers thinking that Kon was used to confident older women and the celebrity treatment, and not–“stupid kiddie stuff”, he’d thought then. And he remembers the coffee shop, and thinking that Kon didn’t seem to know how to talk to civilians except by hitting on them. 

He is such an idiot. 

He is such a huge, gigantic, unfathomable idiot.

[tmnt-l0v3rrr]

Punishments

Yan! Rottmnt x Reader Headcanons

Warnings!!

Kidnapping, loss of privacy, being watched, forced touch, unhealthy relationships, abuse, beatings, Obsession, shock collars, and overall yandere and unhealthy topics.

Raphael

Now, he really hates seeing you upset. But, part of him remembers that if you don't learn now you never will, he is an older brother after all.

His punishments aren't near the worst of the bunch. Raph's punishments are more inconvenient than anything, not being allowed to leave his room whatsoever, doing laps around the lair, are the minor ones, they do progress the worst of the action you do.

If you try to run away you lose all and any privacy you had. Zero time alone at all, it's suffocating.

It's time for you to shower? He's right outside the curtain the whole time, he isn't afraid to look in if he hears something out of the ordinary. Bathroom? He's looking away but you can even lose that. Changing? Unless it's undergarments his eyes aren't leaving you.

You aren't allowed to face the door when you two sleep, you're kept facing the wall cradled by Raph, he'll chain you to the bed if he has to.

In summary, privacy loss is one of his most used punishments. He'd never hit you, on purpose….

Leonardo

Now, he isn't super sure how to punish someone humanely… He just isn't sure on how else to get you to listen.

For the little things, like talking back or refusing to do a dumb activity with him, he can be cold or manipulative. He could spit something at you like “Really? All I want to do is love and spend time with you and all you ever do is ignore me or be ungrateful! All I want is to love you, let me love you, dear.”

He will also pinch you for small mistakes, like say you say something he doesn't exactly agree with, Leo will simply pinch, normally on the neck, it works, his pinches hurt like a bitch. Or he'll flick you, those also hurt.

He worries, alot, so if you try to run away?

He throws a fit, screaming, crying the whole ordeal. He will get to you, lock the door on his train car. Yell, so loud your ears ring. Screaming about how mad he is, how you should never do that and how dangerous it is.

In his fit of rage, it will likely get physical.

Maybe grabbing you by the collar… throwing you against the wall, screaming at you, he'll kick your legs and bash until they bleed and are bruised.

He didn't mean to, he is just too worried about you, he can't let you leave. No matter how much it hurts.

Donatello

By far he Is the worst, he knows what you did is wrong and won't feel bad, you did this to yourself. It was your choice.

Now, almost all of his punishments are with a shock collar he made, one like he made for Leo awhile ago, but it has different settings and is remote controlled. (He can also control it with his tech gauntlet) Based on what you do is how bad the shock will be, it is normally at a 2 for small mistakes. A quick zap is it.

Now, if you try to escape? That's where it gets bad. What were you thinking?

Once he finds you, you're in big trouble. The collar will go off, the highest setting. Over and over. You'll be lugged back to where you started being shocked and yelled at.

Like his blue coded brother, he isn't too sure how to be humane. Whatever he does, it's gonna leave a mark.

Mikey

He is somewhere along with Raph, he's more disappointed than anything when you mess up badly. He is rare to punish, he doesn't want to see you in pain or upset. It's just hard for him to see. It hurts.

For small mistakes he'll give you a small scolding and that's it. Nothing to scare you. He doesn't want to scare you anymore then he already has.

If you try to escape, he reminds himself that you're human, you're scared. Your world was torn apart by him. He had to be gentle.

He will take you back to the lair, tied up with his mystic chains, leaving no room to squirm. Along with his older brother, you'll lose privacy and with Mikey, you'll be treated like a helpless child.

You can't do anything alone or without help. It's truly embarrassing. You're not allowed to even brush your own hair. Pretty much everything is taken away from you. It sucks.

[the-case-book-of-fanfiction]

The Only Tally Mark

Ship: Steve Harrington x reader

Summary: The 'You Suck' tallies are getting pretty high, but there's a girl in Scoops Ahoy who knows Robin in wrong. If she can just get the courage to open her mouth, Steve's luck is about to change.

Word Count: 7,250 words

Warnings: Robin's a bit mean, she also has no filter, pining, Steve's failed flirting attempts, blatant staring/pining, implied confession, first kiss

Note: Set pre-s4 and the day Dustin comes back, before the Russian code is cracked.

☟ Continue below the fold ☟

July had only just begun in Hawkins, and you could already tell it was going to be a hot one. Less than twenty-four hours in, temperatures had already hit record-breaking highs—at least, that was according to the weatherman on the television you were sat in front of, sweating and feeling relief from the heat only when the fan beside you swiveled back toward you.

“Every July is this hot,” your father said from the kitchen, where he was drinking his second glass of water in five minutes.

“Oh, sure, but never this early,” your mother retorted. “It’s only the first, and already we’re melting out of the house.”

Sensing an irritable argument birthed from the nearly unbearable heat, you left the living room and headed up the stairs to your bedroom. You picked up the phone you’d begged your parents to let you have years ago, dialing the number of your best friend of four years: Robin Buckley, the band dweeb to your theatre kid.

It was her mom who answered the phone, several dial tones later. “Hello?”

“Hi, Mrs. Buckley—is Robin home?”

“Oh, hi, sweetie! She’s at work right now, her shift ends at seven.”

You stopped yourself from swearing. “Oh, right, I forgot. Thank you!”

“No problem, dear,” Mrs. Buckley said before hanging up.

You leaned against the wall. How could you have forgotten? Robin had been telling you about her new job in the mall—and the sailor’s uniform she had to wear. You’d seen her get ready for work once and had burst into giggles the moment she put the hat on her head.

You glanced at the digital clock next to your bed, checking the time. There was still several hours before the mall closed. You might as well visit Robin and abuse your friendship to get some free ice cream at the same time, right?

So you grabbed your wallet and shoved it in your pocket and bounded down the stairs.

"Hey, I'm going out!" you shouted to your parents.

"Where do you think you're going, young lady?" your father asked, appearing in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen.

"To the mall? Robin works there and I'm going to visit."

"Don't spend too much, dear!" your mother called.

"Sure, Mom!"

You hopped in your car and headed for the mall, following the thick cluster of traffic that always lined the streets leading to the mall, passing through the streets lined with empty, hollow shops.

~❊~

The mall was crowded, as busy as it had always been since the day it opened. You pushed your way through the crowds gathered around storefronts and display windows, trying to remember which floor Scoops Ahoy was on.

You took the escalator down to the first floor and scanned the shops surrounding you. When you spotted the sign for the ice cream store, you headed toward it, maneuvering past a group of pre-teens cackling about manipulating the store's workers into giving them free samples.

There was no one at the counter when you walked in. A majority of the tables were occupied by groups of teens. As you approached the register, you could hear faint bickering from behind the pebbled glass windows, Robin's distinct voice floating out to you.

"...do the job you're supposed to do, I've been scooping so much ice cream my hand's cramped," she was saying.

You stifled a giggle and tapped your hand lightly against the bell in front of you, wincing when it was a little louder than you had been expecting.

The swing door on the left opened with a bang, revealing the back of a boy who was gesturing at Robin, who was quite literally pushing him out the door. She disappeared before you could catch her attention, and the other attendant took up his place in front of the register.

"Ahoy, sailor! Would you like to set sail on this ocean of flavor with me? I'll be your captain, I'm Steve Harrington."

You blinked at him. "Is that company policy like the hat and the outfit?"

He stared at you. "I'm sorry, what?"

You shrugged. "I'm a friend of Robin's, she complains about the, and I quote, stupid company rules that make everyone look stupid."

He stared at you. You stared at him. Awkward silence settled between the two of you.

The introduction hadn't been necessary. You had spent most of your high school experience listening to Robin complain about Steve Harrington and his stupid perfect hair and his stupid easy charm and his stupid actual stupidity. The Steve she'd painted matched up perfectly with the kid you'd seen around in the halls, dressed in his ironed polo shirts and pleated khakis or that stupid basketball uniform and letterman jacket—and Nancy Wheeler on his arm.

You and Robin had watched his life crash and burn with malicious glee—and all the while you had tried to ignore that this was the very same boy you'd crushed on in middle school, and had been so shocked to find out had changed so much when you got to the high school, a year after he did.

Steve cleared his throat, his gaze dropping to the register, firmly away from you. "Um. What can I get you?"

"Uh..." Every ice cream flavor you had ever liked instantly disappeared from your head. It wasn't like the usual mind-blankness that came from being asked a question about your favorite anything. It was like your entire body had stopped, freezing in the pretty face of Steve Harrington, ridiculous as the uniform was. Especially with the hat, which Robin hadn't told you about.

The door swung open again. "Jesus, Steve, what's taking you so damn long?" Robin froze where she stood. A smile lit up her face. "What are you doing here?!"

You grinned. "Visiting!"

Robin hip-checked Steve out of the way. Steve glared at her while she grabbed the ice cream scoop from the pocket at his side.

"Jesus, do you have to be so brutal?" he snapped.

Clearly fighting the urge to roll her eyes, Robin turned back to Steve. "I'm sorry, would you please get out of the way so I can serve my best friend? Thanks," she said, her customer service smile plastered to her face.

Muttering under his breath, Steve pushed away from the counter, leaning on the sill of the window behind him. He crossed his arms, still staring resolutely at the floor.

Robin grinned at you. "I wasn't expecting you to—"

"Be here?" you finished. "I called your house before I realized you were working, so I thought I might as well come visit."

"Glad you did," she said. "You would not believe how much of a headache it is working with dingus over there."

You glanced over her shoulder at Steve, his pink lips forming a pissy pout. Oh, yeah. Still pretty, still a bitch.

"You didn't tell me you worked with him," you said under your breath.

Robin shrugged, shooting you a knowing smile. "Yeah, well, I knew you'd show up and find out for yourself eventually." Her eyes slid to the corners, as if she could see Steve sulking behind her. "We'll talk about him later. What ice cream do you want? On us."

You giggled. "How did I know you'd say that?"

She snorted. "Oh, so you're abusing our friendship for free ice cream?"

"Maybe," you said. "Just this once."

Robin rolled her eyes and grabbed an ice cream cone. "Here—I'll grab your favorite."

And, without you needing to remind her, she lowered the scoop into the tub of ice cream that you got every time the two of you had gotten ice cream after going to see a movie, back before the mall. You wondered how you could have forgotten, until you looked over Robin's shoulder again and found Steve looking up, lips parted and eyes fixed on you. The minute you caught his gaze, he blushed and looked away.

You took advantage of his embarrassment, admiring the pink in his cheeks and how he awkwardly licked his lips. He toyed with the watch on his wrist, crossed and uncrossed his legs. Was he nervous? An even better question—had you ever seen Steve Harrington nervous before?

While you studied Steve, Robin made a second cone of ice cream, a different flavor than yours.

Robin looked behind her. "Hey—man the counter, will you? I'm going on break."

Steve spluttered. "You just came back from break!"

"No, we just finished our lunch break. I still have my federally-required thirty minutes to take. So I'm gonna take 'em." She shoved the scoop at Steve's chest and stepped out from behind the counter.

The pair of you took an unoccupied table near the counter, in case she was needed.

"Should you be leaving him to do it by himself?" you asked, glancing back at Steve one last time.

"What, are you worried about him? He'll be fine," Robin said. She shrugged with a sigh. "He's...he's not as bad as we thought he was in high school. He's less of a douche now, at least."

"Just a dingus?" you asked with a smile.

She nodded. "He's still as stupid as we always thought."

You turned your attention away from Steve at toward your ice cream. "Why didn't you tell me he worked with you?"

She rolled her eyes. "Let's not have that conversation while he's here, okay? For your dignity's sake. I know he's far away, but he's got impressive hearing." She shrugged. "Blame it on four years of listening for gossip, I guess."

Your gaze shifted back to Steve as he raked a hand through his hair, stretching enough for his shirt to lift. Heat rushed to your cheeks and you crossed your legs. Now that he wasn't surrounded by assholes who mocked you and Robin and your friends for their own personal entertainment, it was easier to appreciate how he'd grown into himself since middle school. Taking care of himself had made him a whole new level of handsome.

Robin giggled. "Yeah—that's why we're not gonna talk about this while he's around. You still have a thing for him, don't you?"

Steve relaxed against the countertop, fixing his hair and putting the hat back on with a scowl. You cleared your throat.

"I was hoping you'd forgotten about that."

"Me? Forget about you having the most embarrassing crush on him for years? Only to get to high school and find out he'd become a dick? Never."

You groaned. "Oh, stop rubbing it in!"

A gaggle of girls walked into the store, four of them giggling and talking and rolling their eyes. Immediately, Steve stood up a little straighter and fiddled with his uniform.

Robin snorted. "Oh, watch this. He's been failing catastrophically with every girl that walks in. I keep count."

"You keep count?"

She nodded gleeful, pointing with her chin in the direction of the counter.

"Ahoy, ladies!" Steve said, leaning on the counter. His attempt to be attractive failed dismally, however, when his hand slipped off the side and he lost both his balance and his composure for a moment.

One of the girls giggled with her friend. Steve's cheeks darkened.

"I'm Steve Harrington, I'll be your captain on this ocean of flavor. What can I get you lovely ladies today?"

You glanced at Robin. "I don't see what he's doing wrong."

"That's because this is scripted," Robin whispered back.

The first girl stepped forward. "One scoop of chocolate and one of vanilla, please."

Steve tried a debonaire smile. "Oooh, classic, I like it. I'm all for vanilla myself, you know, all the time."

You winced. "Was...was that supposed to be a double entendre?"

"Yep," Robin said, popping the p with a smirk.

"I see what you mean now," you said. The girl was making a face that said she caught Steve's drift and found it rude. Steve cleared his throat and moved on, scooping ice cream into a cone and handing it to her with a mortified whisper of "here you go." His gaze flicked over to you and Robin, at which point his mortification seemed to grow.

You watched the exchange grow steadily worse. Steve stumbled over his words and tripped over his feet and dropped an empty cone twice. Customers who had already gotten ice cream became onlookers who left, one by one, as the secondhand embarrassment grew.

"God, he's hopeless," you whispered. "Whatever happened to the Steve in high school?"

"You mean the one with a new girl on his arm every week? I'd say that stopping can be blamed on one Nancy Wheeler," Robin said.

You rolled your eyes. "While they were dating, obviously. But now? One relationship shouldn't make him incapable of flirting with a girl."

Robin watched the girls leave, snickering behind their hands. A moment later, Steve groaned, wiping a hand over his face. "You know what I think his problem is?"

"What?"

"He's trying to flirt all of them into submission, not just one girl he likes out of the group."

You nodded slowly. "Sounds about right. I mean...if he flirted with me one minute and then you the next, I don't think I'd want to jump his bones, exactly."

Robin rolled her eyes. "What are you talking about? You've always wanted to jump his bones."

"That was middle school, and that was before any of us gave a shit about sex."

"Yeah, keep telling yourself that," Robin teased. "I saw how you looked at him during gym class."

You shrugged, trying to hide your face behind your hair. Robin knew your expressions better than anyone; your embarrassment was going to be obvious the minute she caught sight of you. "It's gym class! Guys don't wear shirts ninety percent of the time, they practically invite girls to stare." Your gaze slid back to Steve, who was once again staring at the floor. His cheeks were still red, and that pretty mouth of his had once again formed a pout. "Jesus, I don't think I've ever seen him so...despondent."

"He's like that at least five times a shift," Robin said. She played with a small red plastic spoon she had pulled from her pocket. "You know... You could come work here with us. Then you'd get to see Steve every day."

"Robin, you're constantly complaining about how much you hate working your, and I quote, pitiful minimum wage job."

"Yeah, but you like Steve, and eye candy makes the day go by faster."

You swatted her arm discreetly. "Don't objectify him!"

She rolled her eyes. "Hey, Steve!"

Steve looked up so quickly you swore you heard his neck crack, even with some distance between your table and the counter. "What?"

"Come convince her to work with us!"

You glared at her. "Robin, I already have a summer job!" you protested, trying to stop your heart from racing as Steve approached the two of you. You looked anywhere but him, knowing a soft smile and a well-timed flutter of his eyelashes was all it would take for Steve to convince you to do anything he asked.

Steve pulled a chair from the other table for two next to you, spinning it unnecessarily in his hand and dragging it to the edge of your table. He straddled it, leaning his arms against the backrest. Your heart climbed into your throat.

Steve's eyes met yours and every thought melted from your brain. Brown had never been such a pretty color. Although his eyes weren't just brown, they were hazel, mottled with soft greens and blues and greys. You'd never seen such beautiful eyes before, so expressive and kind and interested and attentive and—

"Tell her why she should come work with us," Robin said, breaking your focus on Steve's eyes.

You rolled your eyes. "Robin, I already have a job," you repeated. "A job I like that pays well that I can work at year-round."

Steve snorted, shaking his head absentmindedly. "Then don't come here, that's for sure. The pay is shit, the job is just as bad, and nobody likes ice cream in the winter."

Robin glared at him. "What part of convincing her do you not understand?"

Steve shrugged, ignoring her. "But, then again, you'd get to work with Robin and you might alleviate my boredom from dealing with her all the time." He jerked his head toward Robin. "You wouldn't believe how mean to me she is."

You stifled a giggle as Robin huffed. An easy grin reminiscent of the king he once as slid across Steve's face. You felt slightly giddy, knowing you had been the one to put it there.

More people walked into the store and Robin shot to her feet. "Come on, dingus. We have a job to do." She dragged him to his feet, ignoring his hiss of complaint. He shot you an apologetic shrug as she pulled him behind the register again.

While the two of them got back to work, you sat back in your booth table and finished your ice cream. Once you were done, you discreetly snuck out of the store, leaving a note for Robin at the counter promising to call her after her shift.

As you wrote the note and taped it to the register, you failed to notice Steve pause where he was scooping ice cream to watch you, or that his gaze stayed on you until you left the store and Robin had to snap him out of his reverie.

~❊~

Though it seemed utterly impossible, the next day was even hotter than the last. You lasted all of two hours at the community pool before you got tired of the screaming children and moms flirting with Billy Hargrove and you went home.

You changed out of your bathing suit, dressing more consciously than you had since the eighth grade semi-formal. You selected your jewelry carefully before hopping in your car and heading to the mall for a second time that week.

Scoops Ahoy was significantly less busy when you walked in. Robin looked half-asleep where she stood at the counter, but she brightened when you walked in.

"You just couldn't stay away, could you?" she asked, leaning on the counter with a grin.

You shrugged. "It's hot, ice cream is a solution."

She studied you for a moment. "The pool didn't solve that?"

You scoffed. "Hell no. It's full of tiny children and middle-aged moms and girls who only go so they can take up space and stare at Billy."

"And there's no Steve there, is there?" Robin teased.

You rolled your eyes. "No," you admitted. "Or you."

Robin scooped your ice cream and passed it to you over the countertop. "He'll be back soon, his break ends in a minute. He went to go grab us food."

"He what?"

Robin shrugged. "Yeah, he does that a lot. I hate to say it, but he's actually a nice guy. I think we might have been wrong about him."

You grinned. "So I was right back in middle school! I told you."

Robin rolled her eyes. "Yeah, you did." She cleared her throat. "Behind you."

You heard Steve's footsteps approaching a split second before he said, "Hey, you're back! Applying?"

Turning to face him, you snorted. "Absolutely not. I'm here for ice cream and ice cream alone."

Steve frowned. "What are we, chopped liver?" he asked, gesturing between himself and Robin.

"I'm surprised you know that phrase," Robin said.

Steve made a face. "I do know some things, Robin." He turned back to you. "I told you she's mean to me."

You laughed. "She's mean to everyone sometimes, it's nothing personal."

"Yes it is, dingus," Robin said, and you remembered she had plenty of reasons aside from Steve's years mocking her and her friends to be angry with him.

You just shrugged at him when Steve looked at you for guidance. He copied your shrug and passed Robin a plastic bag that smelled heavenly.

"If I'd known you were coming to visit, I would have gotten you something," Steve said apologetically.

"Oh, it's fine," you promised. "I've got ice cream." He smiled at you, his laughter shining through. "Honestly, I'm surprised you two don't exist off of ice cream."

"We used to," Robin said.

Steve nodded. "It got pretty tiring after a week. It's like when they told us in health class that energy from sugar doesn't last very long. Or something like that."

Robin squinted at him. "You can't remember enough of high school to get to college, but you can remember health class?"

"I remembered enough to graduate," Steve mumbled, cheeks turning pink once again. You were starting to get used to Steve's embarrassment. It was as cute as he always was.

"Stay and eat with us," Robin said, turning back to you. "I'll split my fries with you. You did remember the fries, didn't you, dingus?"

"Of course I remembered the fries," Steve snorted. He dropped the Closed for lunch! sign on the counter and held the swinging door open for you. You thanked him as you walked by, aware of his eyes following you.

You sat in the seat Robin pulled out for you and finished your ice cream before stealing some of the previously offered fries.

"I think we're closing early, Robin," Steve said, glancing out the cracked window. "We've had, what, three people all day?"

"Four if you count the Radio Shack employee across the way," Robin said. "But I don't, because they get it for free."

You frowned. "Do I not count as a customer because you give me ice cream for free?"

Steve shook his head a bit too quickly. "No, you count, Robin just doesn't like the Radio Shack employees."

"Because they're rude," she complained. "They complain about everything and change their minds three times—but always after you've already started scooping, and even when you're done, they don't like it!"

"Sounds like a regular day in customer service," you said, feigning cheerfulness.

"Yeah, a shitty day," Robin said.

"Where do you work?" Steve asked. "I don't think I've ever asked."

"The record store down on Main," you said.

"You know, the one I said I had been planning on working at," Robin said. "But Scoops hired faster."

"Maybe we should switch jobs," Steve muttered.

Robin snorted. "Yeah, like that'll go over well."

"The store won't hire more people, anyway," you cut in. "It got rid of most of the staff, especially the new people, to cut costs because of the mall."

"Is there a record store in here?" Steve asked.

"No, but there is a Sam Goody and a Camelot Music in the mall. We used to have a partnership with the Sam Goody on Main, but then it closed due to the mall, and we started losing business to the one in the mall." You sighed. "I hear about it all the time. It's all the owner ever talks about these days."

Steve munched on a fry, staring at you as you spoke. His eyes were stuck firmly on you. You tried not to squirm under his intense gaze.

Robin leaned back in her chair. "One of these days, I'm gonna visit you at work instead."

You rolled your eyes. "If you ever have a day off," you said.

"Kinda hard to have a day off when we're the only two working here," Steve said.

You nodded. "The constant problem of being short staffed."

"That would be solved if you just came and worked here," Robin muttered into her wrap. You rolled your eyes again, stealing another one of her fries.

"No, Robin."

Robin harrumphed and took a bite of her sandwich more viciously than twas strictly required.

Steve faked a pout. "You just really don't like us, do you?"

"She doesn't," Robin agreed, smirking. You knew that smirk; she was going to do her best to guilt trip you—using Steve, which was perhaps the only way to guilt you into doing what she wanted.

You rolled your eyes. "It's got nothing to do with you, I promise."

"Ouch," they said in unison.

You frowned. "What are you, the same person?"

They both shrugged.

"Alright, that's just weird," you sighed. You glanced down at your watch. "How long does your lunch break last?"

"Thirty minutes. Why?" Steve asked.

You shrugged. "Wouldn't want you to get fired because I'm here distracting you."

Steve propped his head up on his hand. Stray curls of hair fell into his face. Your heart twisted in your chest. He was beautiful. How could he be so beautiful?

Robin watched as you and Steve stared at each other. You were aware of her gaze bouncing back and forth between the two of you, observing the way you were melting under his gaze, your lips parting the longer he looked at you, the barriers you'd put up slowly crumbling. Steve was no better, staring at you with open, asking eyes. He moistened his lower lip with his tongue and it took everything in you not to whimper.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw the look on Robin's face—the look of disgust that crossed her face every time she was disgusted by public affection from straight couples. Your heart did flips at the sight of her expression.

"Would you guys stop that?" she groaned, getting up from her seat.

"Doing what?" Steve asked, still looking at you. You tore your eyes away from him and back to the half-empty container of fries.

"Making eyes at each other," she said. Steve spluttered, instantly losing the lovey look in his eyes.

"Making eyes— Robin, what are you talking about?"

You cleared your throat. "Hey, um, what's the board for?" You hoped your question would steer the conversation away from the feeling bubbling in your chest at the sight of Steve.

Steve groaned, hiding his face in his hands.

"I told you I was keeping score of Steve's failing dating life. This is my scoreboard."

You nearly choked. "You keep track of it on a whiteboard at work?!" You looked at the neatly drawn board, the 'You Rule' and 'You Suck' columns divided by a line.

"Actually, I have to put the one from yesterday on here."

Steve groaned again, cheeks burning very red. He looked like he wanted to crawl under the table and stay there.

You watched her add a line. "Robin..."

"She's right, I suck," Steve sighed. "My luck's been pretty shit recently."

"You don't suck, she's just being mean," you said. You sent her a look, shaking your head slightly. She just shrugged.

"You don't have to be nice about it," he said. "I know how bad I am at this. I haven't gotten laid in months."

"Okay, too much information, Steve," you said with a little laugh.

"Oh, so this suddenly isn't a safe place to talk about all our life troubles?" he teased.

You laughed fully. He smiled, and the room seemed to light up with the glow emanating from him.

"Get a room," Robin groaned.

Steve turned around. "I'm not flirting, Robin!"

"Yeah, right," Robin smirked. "It's just working this time."

You coughed. "I, um, I have to go."

They both turned back to you, as if they'd forgotten that you were even there.

"Shit, hang on," Steve started, but Robin cut him off.

"No, wait, I didn't mean it like that—" Robin said, realizing she'd practically told Steve you liked him.

"Yeah, right, I know, I just have, uh..." You fumbled for an excuse for a minute. "I have to go drive a friend home! I'll call you later, Robs!" You rushed out the swinging door just as the bell at the counter rang.

Steve pushed his hands through his hair. "Shit."

"Oh, no," Robin whispered. "Steve, ignore that, ignore all of that, I screwed up, I shouldn't have said anything, she's going to be so pissed. It's just that she's liked you since middle school and it's gotten worse now that you're not a douchebag—" Robin clapped a hand over her mouth.

"I won't tell her you said that," Steve said quietly. "Oh, Jesus, Robin..."

"I'm sorry—"

"Stop apologizing to me," Steve said. "If you hadn't said anything, I never would have realized."

Robin made a face. "See, that's why you suck, not because you're bad at flirting with girls. You've just been flirting with the wrong ones, because you're oblivious of the ones that actually like you."

Steve was quiet for a moment. "Yeah. Thanks for pointing that out." He peered out the window, watching you leave the mall, wiping at your eyes and pushing your hair out of your eyes.

Simultaneously, Steve and Robin whispered, "Shit."

At the counter, Erica Sinclair tapped the bell again. "Hello? I want some samples!"

They shouted, "Shut up!"

Steve slammed the glass doors shut.

~❊~

Steve unlocked his front door, stepped inside his house, and put his back to the closed door. He slid down the door with a heavy sigh.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered under his breath. All he had been able to see since you left Scoops was your stricken face, horrified and embarrassed that Robin had spilled your biggest secret. (Which Robin had told him after, in bits and pieces, while they closed up the store.)

Steve couldn't believe it. How had he never noticed? Granted, he hadn't been the most observant for, well, the majority of his life. And his middle school years had been fairly dull, unmemorable. But wouldn't have noticed if you—you, out of everyone in Hawkins Middle—had been crushing on him?

To his utter shame, the most Steve remembered of you in middle school was how you had been a good friend to him, long before any of his high school friends knew who he was, and that he'd ditched you once he got to high school. You'd helped him study a few times, too. He wasn't sure what year it was, but he knew you'd helped him pass both English and History in the same year.

He'd shared a handful of classes with you, too, when classes had been so small they'd mixed grades. Sixth grade science, when the two of you had worked on a minor chemical project together. In seventh grade, you'd had two classes together. Gym, which had been downright brutal so early in the morning, especially when the teachers split up the teams as boys against girls. He remembered you had gotten nailed in the head with a basketball once, and that he'd been asked by your teacher to take you to the nurse. Then there had been math class, where he'd sat behind you, asking you questions and begging you to explain the concepts he didn't understand—even though you didn't understand it much more than he did. Eighth grade history, where Steve had done a presentation on his grandfather's experience in the World War, and you had been the only to actually raise your hand to ask a question.

Steve got up from the door and went up to his bathroom, stripping out of his uniform to take a shower. While the water soaked his hair and skin, warming him up, Steve's mind turned back to you—not that it had ever really left you.

You had been his first crush. Well, his first real crush. You'd been pretty, even when you were young and curious and a year younger than he was. Most of his friends had said that the younger girls were cute, but embarrassing to like. So Steve hid that he liked you. It wasn't until Nancy in high school, when it became cool, that he dated anyone younger than himself.

He wished he'd said something to you then. Would it have saved him a world of hurt? Or would it just have been an even worse broken heart waiting for him?

Steve recalled the way you had looked at him earlier, your eyes practically sparkling and your lips stretching into a gorgeous, content smile. It had stopped his heart to know that he was the reason you looked so happy, that he had brought that smile to your lips and that he had made those smile lines around your eyes appear and that he had been the reason your pupils were blown wide.

Steve shut off the shower and pulled on a new pair of boxers, flopping onto his bed with a content sigh, which matched the happy smile on his face.

You liked him.

Feeling like a teenage girl, Steve rolled until he could hide an excited squeal in his pillow.

You liked him again.

Steve was certain that's what made him so giddy. You'd liked him before he'd become King Steve, before the popularity made him interesting—and you liked him again, now that he'd changed and learned and grown up. Now that he'd learned to be himself without a care in the world for anyone else's opinion.

It was like redemption, but it felt so much better than that.

A sudden feeling overwhelmed Steve.

The next time he saw you, he needed to tell you how he felt about you. He needed to make it clear that Robin's slip-up had not ruined the slow banter, the friendship the two of you had been dancing around.

Resolved, his thoughts stopped spinning. He turned off the lamp on his nightstand and shut his eyes.

Please come back tomorrow, he thought, before falling into a gentle sleep, full of dreams of romanticized meetings, confessions, and kisses.

~❊~

You avoided Scoops for several days, choosing to tough out the warm weather in the overcrowded community pool until your mortification subsided. Robin had called repeatedly to assure you Steve wasn't weirded out or annoyed or embarrassed by your crush on him. In fact, she almost made it sound as if he was pleased by it.

But you still couldn't make yourself go to Scoops Ahoy. Even the mental image of walking in and seeing Steve's face twist with some kind of disgust made your stomach twist.

But a girl could only take so much of Billy Hargrove. So, after nearly a week, you drove to the mall instead of the pool. It still took you nearly ten minutes to force yourself out of your car.

You had thought seeing Steve and Robin in their sailor uniforms had been strange, but there was a far stranger sight directly ahead of you: Robin at the counter, staring in absolute confusion, and Steve jumping with joy at the sight of the small child in the front of the store.

"Henderson!" Steve's smile was huge. The sight made you smile, albeit a bit more confused. "Henderson! He's back, he's back!"

"I'm back! You got the job!"

"I got the job!"

And then, just when you thought this strange scene could not get any weirder, Steve mimed playing a trumpet and both he and the child did a strange miming handshake, giggling all the while.

Robin leaned forward. "How many children are you friends with?"

Steve's overjoyed smile slipped from his face. He gestured to Robin with a strained look on his face, as if he were signaling See what I have to deal with?

"You mean there's more children?" you asked, walking up to them with a shy smile, almost embarrassed to make your return. Your stomach dipped as Steve turned to you, but his smile was back.

"Hey, you're back!" Steve said. "I thought we'd never see you again!"

You shrugged. "Yeah, well, I got tired of Billy flirting with me."

"Max's brother?" the child asked.

You stared at him. "I don't know who that is. Or who you are, actually."

"Oh, I'm—"

"This is Dustin," Steve interrupted. "Dustin Henderson. He's, uh, he's one of my friends." He went behind the counter and started making an ice cream sundae.

You gave Dustin your name and offered him your hand. "Pleasure to meet you."

"How do you know Steve?" Dustin asked.

At the same time, both you and Steve pointed to Robin. She waggled her fingers at him.

"I'm going on break," Steve said, handing the sundae to Dustin. "Your turn to man the counter. Come on, Dustin, my treat!"

The two of them slipped into a booth. You leaned against the countertop with a heavy sigh.

"There's like...five or six of them," Robin said. "Kids, I mean. That he's friends with."

"Jesus," you muttered. "How old are these kids?"

"Like...thirteen, maybe?"

"Oh, boy."

Robin giggled. "Looks like you gotta share your man with children now."

You choked. "He's— He's not my man, Robin!" you hissed, your entire body burning. You glanced at Steve, but he was too engrossed in whatever story Dustin was telling him.

"But that's why you're here, isn't it?" Robin asked. "You came back because you're ready to talk to him again, knowing that you like him and he likes you."

You glanced over at Steve. While you observed him, Robin slipped out from behind the counter, quietly humming to herself as she worked.

"Yeah, I mean, sure," he was saying to Dustin. "It's not really a good idea for me though, gotta keep in shape for the ladies." Was it just your imagination, or did his eye stray over toward you?

"Yeah, and how's that working out for you?" Robin teased.

"Ignore her," Steve said quickly.

"She seems cool," Dustin said.

"She's not," Steve said, even quicker. "But, uh, the girl you just met? She's cool. She's really cool." A smile tugged at your lips. You pushed it away as you looked down at the floor, completely missing Steve's lovestruck glance toward you.

Dustin, however, missed nothing, and raised his eyebrows. "Oh, really, Steve?"

Steve cleared his throat. "Anyway. So, uh, where are the other knuckleheads?"

"They ditched me yesterday," Dustin said.

"No," Steve said, his face falling. Your heart squeezed at the sight of his empathy. The Steve from high school never would have cared about a kid whose friends had abandoned him, but this Steve did.

"My first day back! Can you believe that shit?"

"Whoa, seriously?!" Steve demanded, incredulous. Your heart warmed once again.

You turned back to Robin. "In answer to your earlier question," you said under your breath, "yes, that is exactly what I'm here to do."

She giggled. "I knew it! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!" She paused. "Was Billy Hargrove really flirting with you?"

You nodded. "I guess he doesn't really care about high school social status, as long as he gets laid." You shuddered. "I've never felt more objectified in my life, and I pranced around on stage in fishnets and a bodysuit in front of the entire school last year during Chicago!"

"I'm still convinced that was our best show," Robin said.

"I'd like to know how we got the rights to it," you snorted.

"I'd like to know how we convinced Principal Higgins to let us perform it."

You snorted. "Yeah. Has anybody heard anything about next year's shows?"

"Nothing yet," Robin said.

You harrumphed, your gaze sliding back to Steve and Dustin and found them talking in hushed tones. Steve's face was fixed into an expression of embarrassed confusion.

"Oh, got customers, hang on," Robin said, and served them while you moved off to the side, watching Dustin speak behind his hand. Steve just blinked at him and told him to speak up.

"I intercepted a secret Russian communication!" Dustin said, far too loudly.

The entire store went quiet. You and Robin exchanged a glance.

"Jesus, shhhh!" Steve hissed. "Yeah, okay, that's what I thought you said."

Business as normal resumed and Robin's customers headed for their own table.

You cleared your throat. "Well, I guess I should head out—"

"No, no, no, wait! What about Steve?"

"He's busy, Robs," you said, gesturing to him. Your stomach did flips at the cute, teasing little expression on his pretty face as you caught him saying American heroes. You weren't sure you wanted to know what mischief they were getting into. "I'll just...come back tomorrow."

Robin sighed. "Fine. As long as you let me play matchmaker!"

You rolled your eyes. "You've been doing that for the past, what, four years?"

"Yeah, but this time I might actually be successful!"

You shook your head with a smile. "Catch you later, Robin. Bye, Steve!" you added as you walked past.

Steve's head snapped up. He scrambled up from his seat at the booth. "Hey, wait, wait, where are you going?" He caught your arm and your eyes darted to his fingers on you. Every possible excuse was wiped from your head. "I thought you were gonna stay and...hang out for a little while."

You smiled apologetically. "Yeah, I was going to, but your friend just came back, so I figured I'd just come back another time. So you don't have to...divide your already divided attention, y'know?" You gestured back to the counter.

Though there was understanding in Steve's eyes, he still looked disappointed. "Oh...um... Would you—" He cleared his throat, his cheeks gaining a deep pink shade. "Would you maybe wanna hang out together—" He stopped again. "Would you wanna go on a date? With me? Sometime?"

You couldn't stop the smile that stretched across your face. "When?"

"Oh, you know, whenever you want? If you want to, I mean."

You stopped his rambling with a finger against his lips. His eyes widened. "I want to, Steve. I really, really want to. I always have."

He beamed. "Really?"

"Really," you promised. You patted his chest. "Even in this stupid little uniform."

He laughed. "What do you say to...two days from now? Meet me here at the end of my shift so Robin can make fun of us like always—" You laughed with him. "—and then we can go see a movie?" His thumb caressed the skin of your arm. That single touch alone sent butterflies through your stomach, not to mention the beautiful, sappy look in his eyes.

"I'd like that," you said. "I'd like that a lot."

"And, um, if you'd like, there's a little dinner about ten minutes from here with awesome milkshakes we could go to after."

You beamed. "Oh, Steve."

"Yeah?"

"You're absolutely perfect," you said to him, cupping his cheek and smoothing your fingers over his skin. He hummed happily. "Steve?"

"Hmm?"

"Can I... Do you... Can we kiss? I know it's soon, it's just... I've wanted this for a long time."

Steve beamed. He leaned in, cupping the back of your head and pulling you into him. His lips touched yours, and you swore your body crackled with electricity. A feeling similar to pins and needles, but far more pleasant, spread throughout you.

He made to pull away. You brought both your hands to his cheeks and held him to you, kissing him for all you were worth.

In the booth, Dustin's mouth dropped open. A grin spread across his face.

At the counter, Robin, who couldn't see the kiss but saw your hands slide into Steve's hair, pulled out her whiteboard and added a singular tally into the 'You Rule' column.

She glanced back at you and Steve. Steve had broken the kiss to tug you close to him, hugging you to his chest. You twisted your hand into his hair, smiling over his shoulder, your eyes closed against the rest of the world.

Robin grinned; she guessed the 'You Suck' tallies didn't matter anymore. Steve had found the one his charm worked on.

☞ ❊ ☜

Stranger Things // Steve Harrington

part 2 coming soon!

Taglist: {comment and let me know if you'd like to be added to the S.H. taglist!} @ohatropa@nix-rose@live-the-fangirl-life

[tobiasdrake]

Hi! Absolutely adore your DBZ analyses, thank you so much - just spent a delightful time reading them all. I was wondering, since you've commented on Chi-Chi and Goku's marriage, what do you have to say about Vegeta and Bulma's relationship? (I've always been entranced by it - mostly because as with all his romances, Toriyama had the wisdom not to show any of it onscreen. But I'd love to know your thoughts about it.)

Bulma and Vegeta are a match made in Hell, and they deserve each other. (Which is to say yes, I love this ship.)

Hooking Bulma up with Vegeta was a hell of a narrative swerve. Generally speaking, stories rarely do this; They rarely let characters break up once they're already invested in a romance, unless it's supposed to be like a love triangle thing.

And Bulma? Bulma was invested. At least, to a degree.

This was the birth of the original Bulma romance that ran through about half of the manga. Two teens interesting in the opposite sex suddenly realize the availability of the other and a relationship is born.

Toriyama says he's bad at writing romance but to be honest, this has always hit me as more believable than your typical drawn-out five-seasons-of-pining Will They/Won't They affair. I'm a girl. You're a boy. Wanna go out and see what clicks?

And these two... these two do not click. We only really see their relationship from Bulma's perspective but it's clear that these two are miserable together.

The manga sorta takes Bulma's side, in that we never really get to hear Yamcha's opinion about their relationship one way or another. When he's around, all he wants to do is talk shop about martial arts. Since Toriyama doesn't like to write romance, we simply don't see much of it from them. What little we do hear about it comes from Bulma complaining about how miserable she is.

Bulma is pretty much always pissed off whenever the relationship is in focus at all.

Anime filler tends to take Yamcha's side instead, portraying him as a put-upon victim of Bulma's jealousy and abuse. A nice guy who doesn't deserve the way she treats him.

It's not hard to buy into this interpretation of their relationship since, as noted, we rarely get anything from Yamcha with regard to his relationship to women or Bulma specifically but we know Bulma's a lot. It's easy to accept Bulma as the "bad guy" of this relationship because. Like. Remember that time she enslaved a sentient being? Good times.

Though one particular moment from Yamcha later on kinda stands out as a bit of a retroactive Yikes.

Yeah. Uh. Threatening violence against a woman for rejecting his bro is a bit of a Yikes. Is this who we were supposed to see Yamcha as all this time? Because, if so, it might have helped to let him opine about the relationship more. Just saiyan.

According to Toriyama in interview, Yamcha and Bulma ultimately broke up because she caught Yamcha cheating on her. I guess that's what him being "popular with girls" was supposed to mean: Once he got over his gynophobia and found confidence with the opposite sex, Yamcha became a player.

But that doesn't necessarily come across from the statement, "Bulma can't stand that Yamcha's popular with girls." A lot of fans took that to mean girls just like him for no reason, and Bulma's unreasonably jealous about it. The anime took that position too.

Note that the "Yamcha is popular with girls" thing isn't helped by the fact that we never see it on-panel because he's only ever talking shop when he's around. But we do see a wandering eye from Bulma often enough.

There's nothing wrong with enjoying the aesthetic appeal of another party even when you're in a monogamous relationship, but it doesn't really present the "Other party is a womanizer and cheater" case when you're the only one ever seen doing this.

So it feels like there's a lot about Yamcha and Bulma's relationship that never made it to print yet influenced later decisions. Those decisions ended up being controversial because the foundation for those decisions was never laid. Here, Toriyama's disdain for writing romance worked against him.

But ultimately, regardless of whose side you take, it doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter who the "bad guy" is. A healthy relationship does not have a "bad guy" in it.

Whether or not Yamcha cheated, whether or not Bulma's just an unreasonably jealous hell-beast, it doesn't actually matter. What matters is that once you reach the point where you're taking sides over which party is the most obnoxious asshole and I hate you and I wish we never met... this relationship is not working for anybody.

It doesn't matter who the bad guy is. It doesn't matter who deserves the blame for this relationship being a toxic shithole. That there is blame to throw around in the first place is the problem. Every relationship has its ups and downs but if one party is constantly miserable for years and has possibly been looking for an escape hatch since year 1, that's not a little tiff.

What matters is that these two are not working out. Any time we see their relationship in focus, they are miserable together. The anime tried to do some patchwork on that with audience reception by giving them some cute moments as well, but because those moments aren't canon the pair remained miserable.

And then this happened.

Despite everything, I think we all assumed that Bulma and Yamcha were going to work it out. Fictional relationships are often portrayed as tumultuous. To a writer, nothing says true love like being constantly miserable and despising every waking moment you spend with your awful, nagging ball-and-chain of a spouse. That's just. Like. What the straights think romance is. It's weird.

I think we all thought that was going to be the deal here too. And then Trunks came along and said, "Nope, actually, they finally severed the cord."

Again, Toriyama says he's bad at writing romance but holy shit, the toxic and miserable relationship actually ended. The two characters involved who only got together out of loneliness and desperation later found they were incompatible with each other. That's so real. Much moreso than a lot of fictional romances.

Instead, we got the absolute crack ship that is Vegeta and Bulma. What a wild-ass revelation for Trunks to drop.

Like. Until the end of the Namek arc, this was the only time these two characters even met.

She also saw Vegeta for like two seconds here.

That was it. That was their entire history together until Goku defeated Frieza while Kaio sent everyone to Earth. But that's when everything changed for Vegeta.

Stranded on Earth with no ship, no affiliations, no ability to leave the planet and nowhere to go or be and no obligations to anyone but himself, Vegeta's circumstances were wildly different than they'd ever been before. He had become one of the Namekian refugees.

And Bulma was offering refuge.

Hard to resist, indeed. That moment is absolutely hilarious in retrospect. Bulma rolled a Nat 20 on that charisma check. It's pretty clear who the instigator of this relationship was.

Like. It needs to be stated that at this point, the only thing Bulma knew about Vegeta was that he tried to kill them all multiple times, and also he's kinda hot. But. Like.

It's Bulma. Anyone who doesn't expect this from her by now either hasn't been paying attention or started watching the English dub of the anime when they did Z first.

So, naturally, Vegeta is a kind and loving man and became a phenomenal husband and fa--

Wait. No. I got my notes mixed up. It says here Vegeta's a rotten dirty bastard. Like. Chronically. He has Supreme Dickshit Syndrome. It's genetic.

Most of Bulma and Vegeta's developing relationship happens offscreen. From what snippets we get, Vegeta has a tendency to vanish during the day, but he still lives at Capsule Corp so Bulma sees him around.

By the end of the three-year timeskip, it's official. Or semi-official. Yamcha and Bulma broke up at some point during that timeskip and Bulma's given birth to Trunks.

As for Vegeta, he's evidently moved out of Capsule Corp and into his own place.

I guess he's still keeping contact with Bulma since she knows what his intentions are. Not to mention he found his tranquility during these three years, though it's somewhat ambiguous as to what exactly brought that peace to his heart.

But the relationship is off to a rocky start nonetheless. Clearly something went down between Vegeta and Bulma that drove Vegeta out of Capsule Corp. To. Uh. Somewhere.

I like to imagine Vegeta living in some shitty West City apartment he rents off a stipend Bulma's sending him that he refuses to openly acknowledge. Like, room 101 is a down-on-his-luck tax accountant, room 102 is a couple with a kid trying to make ends meet off two retail workers' salaries, and then room 103 is Vegeta, Prince of All Saiyans. Sometimes he goes to community events and pretends he isn't having fun.

No lie, I would absolutely watch that as a sitcom.

As for Vegeta himself, he's still a rotten dirty bastard.

Worth noting that Vegeta's saying this as a Super Saiyan which means he's drunk on the form's enhanced aggression. But. Still. Vegeta is an absolute monster being dragged kicking and screaming into a pleasant life that he'll one day resent himself for enjoying. This is his arc moving forward.

It's not so much a redemption arc as it is a domestication arc. The uniquely evil even by Saiyan standards Vegeta is gradually being changed by his new terrestrial life. He doesn't want to own up to how much he enjoys it here. Seven years later, he's still desperate to avoid owning up to it.

He doesn't want to be happy here. He doesn't want a loving wife and a son who looks up to him and the most lavish home wealth can afford him and easy, comfortable days spent with friends and loved ones by his side. He doesn't want a happy ending.

But it's like Bulma warned him: Dragon Ball's queen bee is hard to resist.

Welcome back to Capsule Corp, Vegeta. We hardly even noticed you were gone. Honestly, Future Trunks deserves a lot of the credit for this; Watching him die at the Cell Games was what flipped the switch in Vegeta's head that he wants the family he and Bulma have spawned together.

Sure is a good thing we have Dragon Balls because this is a hell of a time to suddenly decide you love your son. But we see the consequences of that seven years later, since Vegeta moved back into Capsule Corp from... I don't know, wherever he went. They're gonna miss him at the next community poolside summer BBQ event for all tenants.

Part of what makes Vegeta and Bulma work, I think, is that they're on the same page about one crucial point. For Bulma, there is one person who will always take precedent in her life above all others. Romance comes and romance goes, but this is the relationship that matters most to her.

Especially when it comes to martial arts and fighting. Bulma doesn't know a lot about the subject, but she knows that Son Goku is her #1. She has no reservations about saying that to her lover's face either.

When fists start flying, Bulma knows who she's rooting for. If Goku's involved, then it's not her guy. That's. Just. Something that anyone who wants to be with her has to be willing to understand. The single most important relationship in Bulma's life will always be her friendship with Goku.

And the thing about Vegeta is... He kind of agrees? Like. See above, re: I wanted Babidi to destroy my feelings for Bulma so that I could become the warrior that can fight with you, Kakarot.

As much as Goku will always be Bulma's #1, he'll also always be Vegeta's #1. He even gets included into Vegeta's fond farewell to the family he loves.

Goku is basically the platonic third in a two-person polycule. This is the second marriage that this poor ace plays a vital role in despite having no real interest in romance whatsoever.

Bulma is selfish, spiteful, petty, and vain. At one point, DBS: Broly directly compares her to Frieza; A comparison that manages to be unbelievably unflattering to both participants.

They're the same picture. A revelation that would probably be horrifying to both.

And Vegeta. Especially Vegeta. But. Like. She warned you she was irresistible. You didn't take her seriously and now look where you are. Married to the She-Frieza. Maybe you should think about your life choices.

This is just. So much fun. As I said at the outset, Bulma and Vegeta are a match made in Hell who make it work because they're both similar brands of awful.

As for Yamcha, it's a little known fact but Yamcha rebounded and moved on with his life. He stops having much story relevancy after he leaves Capsule Corporation so we see very little of his private life from there. After retiring from martial arts and splitting up with Bulma, Yamcha's left without any story hooks to keep him involved.

But there was this interesting moment, when he realized they had a Shenron wish to spare.

After Krillin comes up with something better to use the wish on, he takes it back and claims it was a joke.

This is, surprisingly, a point of contention in the fandom as some of Yamcha's fans prefer the idea that he died miserable and alone after Bulma ruined his life by leaving him. This takeback gets pointed to as proof that he made up his girlfriend entirely. However, in context, it's clear that a) he's trying to brush off his earlier attempt at making a petty wish and b) the thing he's transparently pretending was a joke is the necklace wish, not the existence of his new girlfriend.

Like Bulma, Yamcha moved on with his life after the break up of their miserable relationship. And that was the final word that was ever uttered on Yamcha's romantic prospects, because this was the last time he was ever meaningfully involved with anything at all.

[bahablastplz]

All in | Chapter 15.5 (Chan)

pairing: Lee Felix x f!reader (mafia au)

summary: You didn't know what you were getting yourself into when you started dating Yang Jungwon, notorious mafia boss. Your life gets flipped upside down when you're found beaten and bloody by SKZ, the rival mafia group, and you're quickly integrated into their lives. What will happen when you try to leave your old life behind and start anew?

chapter summary: How did Chan come to join SKZ?

chapter warnings: depictions of childhood abuse

warnings: please see series masterlist for all warnings

series masterlist ~~ series taglist ~~ main masterlist

<< previous ♡ next >>

Bang Chan:

People have always said that violence is a learned trait, that your child doesn’t just come out of the womb with no sense of morality and the desire to do evil. This is something I can attest to. I remember personally the first time I ever saw my father lay a hand on my mother. 

When I was five years old, my father slapped my mother square in the face. And at the moment I wasn’t exactly sure what was happening or what I was feeling, but I knew that I loved both of my parents very much. I knew that hitting was bad, my parents told me that themselves–but then why would they engage in that very same act they told me that I should never do? I threw myself in front of my mother and told my father to stop. I had that innate desire to protect my own mother at that young age, even with a snotty nose and tear-streaked face, and though my own sense of right and wrong wasn’t completely developed yet, I knew it was wrong when my father hit me in retaliation. When I looked at my mother in awe, expecting her to say something or confirm that my father had just done a terrible thing, she had just turned a blind eye. 

So no, I didn’t come out of the womb with the desire to do evil, but if you were to ask my father, he would have sworn up and down that I was the devil reincarnate. And I sort of felt that that’s who I needed to be–I was the oldest of four. My parents continued to have children when we certainly could not afford to have them and they shouldn’t have continued to have them. There’s always that rage as an older sibling, the one when you know you’re the one who’s going to have to take care of your siblings and protect them from your parents that’s indescribable to anybody who hasn’t experienced it. 

So, whenever my father came home drunk and wanted to take out his anger on my siblings or my mother, I let him take it out on me instead. I encouraged it–and tried to become the target of his anger so that nobody else in my family would ever have to know what that feeling was like. I bore that burden all by myself when nobody asked me to and my father hated me for it. Countless nights I went to sleep beaten and bruised and likely concussed all to keep my family safe. 

If you were to ask me what my childhood felt like, I would have told you that I felt utterly powerless and alone. Although every choice I made was my own, it never really felt like it was a choice. Because how could I just sit back and let that monster lay a hand on my own younger siblings who can’t stand up for themselves or protect themselves?

To begin with, my parents didn’t bring home a lot of money. My father did some sort of hard labor and my mother was a teacher. With four children, we were just barely scraping by most days. When I turned 14 years old, I picked up a part-time job on top of school in order to help out with funds. 

When I was 15 years old, I caught my father cheating on my mother with a prostitute. I never was able to tell her what I saw. How could I? I loved my mother but she was very weak, fragile taking care of us four. She was already a shell of herself after putting up with my father’s physical abuse and drunkenness for years. I didn’t think she could handle the truth so I did not tell her. 

My father finally stopped beating me after that–but somehow I still felt like he was the one with the upperhand. 

One day when I was on my way home from work I heard some commotion in the alleyway outside of our house. Upon closer inspection, I realized that the whimpering lump of body I had come across was none other than my father who had been beaten to a pulp. 

I saw him weak and vulnerable in front of me, the life slowly starting to drain from his body. He begged me, his eldest son and his ‘pride and joy’ to help him and give him a second chance. I didn’t have to ask him to explain himself to me, but as if he knew he were on his deathbed, he admitted all of his wrongdoings to me. The large amounts of money he’s been taking out and borrowing, gambling away, how he had lost his job months ago and they had threatened to take the house if he didn’t pay for his life. 

“Oh shit, there’s a kid,” I had heard. A few men turned down the alleyway, holding bats and guns and a bag of cash. These were the men that had done this to my father. They made him look unrecognizable beyond repair. 

“He’s probably going to beg for his daddy’s life,” one of them laughed. 

“Me?” I blinked at the men, looking in between them and the form of flesh in the alleyway. “I was actually going to thank you. You’ve made this a hell of a lot easier on me.” And while my father was begging for his life, I bashed his skull in and felt good while doing it. And while the loan sharks watched, horrified but also a little bit impressed, I left my father in the alleyway as if he were just any other piece of trash. I would let the police find him and assume that all of his debts had finally caught up to him, and the crime would never be connected to me. 

I never felt any remorse. Not when my mother and siblings mourned his death. Never,

When I was approached by the same men that had beaten my father, I thought for a moment that maybe they would want me to take on his debt and I was already thinking about thirty different ways I could kill them and never get caught. On the contrary, they were hoping I could join them and become a loan shark. At the time, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with myself at first–all I knew was that I wanted to make a lot of money. But I realized quickly that that wasn’t the only thing that I wanted to do, nor was that all I was capable of. If I played my cards correctly, I could rise the ranks quickly and gain a lot of power for myself. I knew I didn’t want to be someone at the bottom of the chain, but rather someone delegating responsibilities and handing out punishments. 

I would weed out the weak and make the organization my own, in time. It would mean leaving my family behind–and I didn’t regret it, knowing that I’d be doing better things. I dropped out of school and never saw my family again, becoming a lackey for the same people my father owed money to. I spent years beating and killing people, proving myself within our own organization that I was worthy of being trusted, gathering my own people and intel and rising up in the ranks just as I wanted–until I killed the leader and took over his position. 

It was here that I was able to reframe things the exact ways that I wanted. We became SKZ, known for our organized and violent crimes, and slowly but surely my hand dipped into almost every bar, casino, and nightclub in the city. My business handlings and financials grew exponentially, and it was as if I had everything I had ever wanted. I was at the top and I had all of the power. 

Until I had met Yang Jungwon’s girlfriend, that is. When I had met with the opposing group ENHA for the first time, something about Y/N L/N drew me in in a way that I couldn’t explain, and she was temporarily out of my reach. I wasn’t below kidnapping or lying in order to get my hands on her, but it seemed I didn’t have to. It took two weeks of thoroughly watching her before Jungwon knocked her out–and I found her unconscious outside of ENHA’s bar. I immediately swooped in and rescued her, knowing that I could have her as my own and use her to my advantage to gain the upper-hand on the ENHA situation. 

I had felt powerless a lot when I was a child, but that was because my father had made me feel that way. Now, I felt powerless around Y/N, and it was because of the way she made me feel… Like I wanted to never let her leave my sight, like I should leave her trapped where she could never get hurt and nobody could ever see her or talk to her. And everytime she talked back to me, I got chills all over my body, and I went to sleep each night dreaming about ways that I could get her to submit to me, to be loyally mine and only mine. 

I realized I was in love and I didn’t like the way it made me feel.

─ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──── ♡ ─── ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──

A/n: tomorrow comes our last mini chapter and then at some point on Sunday we will get our main chapter!! The finale will drop shortly after. I realized it made more sense as I was writing it for our mini chapters to appear back to back <3 thanks for the patience with my break last week

taglist: @shuporanporang ; @purp13st4r ; @eurydiceofterabithia ; @heartsbyandra ; @thicccurls ;

@rylea08 ; @the-sweetest-rose ; @oddracha ; @kapelover ; @goldenmellow ;

@zerefdragn33l ; @uhh-awkward-rightt ; @astudyoftimeywimeystuff ; @kaleigh-2002 ; @thatonexcgirl ;

@mindfreecreator ; @linoalwaysknows ; @velvetmoonlght ; @minahaeyo ; @crystalchuuu ;

@hash2013 ; @skzswife ; @b0bbl3s ; @thecutiepieme ; @bear8585 ;

@moss-the-man ; @softkisshyunjin ; @sylveonitesworld ; @m00njinnie ; @nicoleparadas ;

@starsofasteria ; @klopez01 ; @luvlinos ; @hyunjinnnnnnnnnnnnnn ; @skz-akira ;

@boi-bi-ahaha ; @l33bang24 ; @hermione640 ; @gal82 ; @b-chansbbygirl ;

@kayleefriedchicken ; @notsojourni ; @hogwartslife64 ; @stilltrynafuckingtumble ; @ellelabelle ;

@melleus ; @hyun-bun ; @luminouskalopsia ; @leftovercigarettes ; @sabrina-gal-kpop

@ghostedgameplays ; @wealwayskeepfighting ; @meloncremesoda ; @Lovelino23 ; @honeyybbuubblleess ;

@blossominghunnie ; @sunlitangel777 ; @kkamismom12 ; @slaykanejvetsi ; @eastleighsblog ;

@skzskzskzskzskzskzskzzzz ; @k-keya ; @moonlight-sunrise-channie ; @estella-novella ;

@mbioooo0000 ; @lovemepie67 ; @lemonn015 ; @jaeminie-cricket ; @cookiesandcreammy ;

@jchotch726 ; @cookielixie ; @xxeiraxx ; @chuuyaobsessed ; @anime-addictot8 ;

@raspberrii ; @holdontoitwhileitlasts ; @korthbum ; @nxtt2-u ; @drinkingrumandcocacola ;

@changbokkii ; @1810cl ; @sillyhal ; @abcdefgiwsmctyeliaitaiglykoh ; @justastraymoa

[otherone12]

If You Don't Like My Chemical Romance, Wait Outside For Your Girlfriend

Gerard Way x Reader

-> Masterlist

A/N: Hey!! So… No one asked me to do this, but I remembered an edit that I saw a while ago, and the intro was Gerard saying “if you don’t like My Chemical Romance, wait outside for your girlfriend”. I Had this idea and the urge to write it (because I’m kinda obsessed with Gerard, sue me). Btw, I'm writing a Mikey x Reader Imagine (what was inspired by The Killers "Mr. Brightside" song), so i'll probably post it this week or next... well, hope you enjoy this fic (:

Summary: You have a shitty boyfriend who bother you when you're in a MCR concert. You're in the front row of the show and Gerard notices all that situation. (I imagine this with the 2007 Gerard era, but it doesn't really matter, except for the show's setlist, because it will be songs from Bullets and Revenge).

-Warnings: Abusive relationship. A lot of curse words.

- Word Count: 1.526

- Ps: Idk if it's fluff, confort, angst... i just dont't know lol

- Ps2: I'll not use y/n…

- Ps3: I'm brazilian, so english is not my first language ... sorry if i wrote something wrong.

___________________________________________

1st Person POV

My 25th birthday was last week, and my mom gave me two tickets to my favorite band’s concert, one for me and another for my boyfriend. He is not a fan of My Chemical Romance, he’s into electronic music and some country stuff (i’ve never understood his taste in music), anyways, he is coming with me. I spent the whole week talking with my friends about how amazing the concert is going to be and how excited I was. 

When the day finally came, I wanted to be one of the first in the row, because even with the premium pass I needed to be sure that I’ll be right in front of the stage. 

I heard my name when I was in my room, dressing up as Helena for the concert. I turned around just to see my boyfriend with a mad look on his face.

- You’re really going to dress like this? - The disgust on his face made me feel a bit insecure about the cosplay.

- What’s wrong about it? - I tried to stay calm, even if I was about to scream at him.

- Nothing. But you never wear dresses, neither on my birthday, and I asked you to! - He walked to my bed and sat, sighed sadly and kept talking - I just don’t understand why this is so special. 

- We’ve been together for five years, and you don’t understand why going to see the band who saved my life is special?  - I spoke calmly, took a deep breath and held my tears. I didn't want to cry on what was supposed to be a happy day.  

- I know that means alot for you, babe, but this shit means more than me? - He increased the volume of his voice.

- I… I’ve never said that! - I let his anger infect me, and now I was screaming like him.

- DID YOU FUCKING HESITED?! - He got up and I really thought that he was going to hit me or something.

- WHY DON’T YOU GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE?! I'M TRYING TO GET DRESSED! - At this point, I let my tears pumped out my eyes, accepting the fact that I'll need to redo my makeup.

- FINE! - He slammed the door, leaving me alone in the silent room.

I knew the night wasn’t going to be as good as I planned. 

*** time skip*** 

Arriving at the concert venue, my boyfriend parked the car next to the front door and we got out of the car. I saw just three people. We did it! We were ones of the first to be there.

- Oh my God! I loved your outfit! - The girl in front of us turned to me and said - I was going to dress up like this, but I didn't find the right dress.

- Thank you! I actually made the dress with an old one from my mom’s closet.  

- This is just Impeccable. 

I smiled at her and turned to my boyfriend, who was rolling his eyes. I was so excited that I didn't even care, he wouldn't ruin my day. 

- Are you sure that you want to be here waiting for the show to begin for five hours? - He sounded tired and annoyed, but we were there for just about half an hour. 

- Yeah, I'm sure. You don't have to stay if you don't want to. - I think that if he stays away for a while, he will be nicer or something, but maybe I was a bit rude and he’ll be even more mad - As long as you come for the show when it begins. 

I smiled, trying to make him see that I'm not angry, I was, but he didn't need to know.

- Sure… I'm going to find something to eat. Stay fine, babe.

He gave me a brief kiss and drove away.

*** time skip***

I was finally inside of the building, but my boyfriend didn’t get back for five hours. I was worried because I tried to call him like ten times in the last three hours, but he didn’ answer. I was about to leave, when I saw him coming.

- WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? 

I hugged him in desperation, but he seemed like he just went to the bathroom and got back in two minutes.

- Like I said, I was buying some food.- He gave me a smashed hamburger and I grabbed it with an angry look on my face.

- I was worried! Why didn’t you answer the ten fucking calls?

- My phone was on silent. - The way he seemed to not care made my blood boil. - But I'm here now, right?

- Whatever.

He opened his mouth to say something, but at the same moment, Frank, Mikey, Ray and Gerard stepped on the stage and I couldn't help but scream with the crowd. Without saying anything, “Our Lady of Sorrows” started. I was so close that I could see the color of Gerard's eyes. Was this heaven?

Everything was going really well, but it was a small show, so they kept stopping the show to talk to us. Before playing “Helena” Gerard said:

- Well, the next song is really important for us, and it’s amazing to see that so many people like it too. - He looked down at me and smiled. I forgot how to breathe for a moment. - Your dress is perfect, darling.

I was about to faint.

- T-thanks! - I said, smiling back at him.

My boyfriend gave him a death look, but Gerard just chuckled and started to sing. 

- What the fuck?! - He grabbed my arm and began to talk, loud enough to not be muffled by the music - That was why you dressed like this? to impress him? 

- I dressed like this as a tribute to this song! - I tried to make him let me go, but it didn't work, so he kept holding my arm. - It's not my fault that he noticed!

He huffed and dropped my arm.

- I need a drink.

He walked away to the bar and I stayed watching the show. I was not sure, but I think Gerard saw all that shit happening. By the way, seeing Frank and Ray playing guitar with my own eyes was the most amazing thing ever until now, and Mikey slayed so much with that bass. 

The next song that they played was “The Jetset Life Is Gonna Kill You”, and I was very enthusiastic about this song. But I haven't any idea of how this was going to end.

I was singing along, and weirdly Gerard walked close to where I was and kneew in front of me. He put his hand on my cheeks, which turned red immediately,  and kept singing “Pull the plug. But I'd like to learn your name. When holding on. Oh, I hope you do the same '' He looked deep into my eyes and continued “Aww, sugar”.

The crowd started to scream again, and my boyfriend turned to see what was happening. The scene made him get out of his mind. I know that a good girlfriend would never let this happen, and I should've backed off, but he has been such a dick since the day started, so I didn't feel blame, shame or anything else. 

- You came here five hours early to be in the front because you knew this was gonna happend! You’re a fucking slut, don’t you? - He never talked to me like that. I got so sad that I couldn't even pay attention to the song.

This sadness became anger so fast, and I pushed him away before he could say any other thing. He tried to grip me in his arms, but I dodged him, bumping into someone next to me, and spilling a drink on my dress. I was about to scream something, but I saw Gerard making a sign to the security guard, who ran to my boyfriend and told him to go away.

- It’s fucking over! - I said to him and went back to see the rest of the show.

At the end, I waited for the people at the back of the crowd to leave, so I could have easy access to leave too.

- Hey! 

I heard and didn’t believe it when I felt a touch on my shoulder. 

- I’m sorry about what happened… I shouldn't have done that - It was Gerard. He was in front of me, just us. - Apropos, I'd really like to learn your name.

We laughed with the reference.

- That’s fine, he was being such an idiot since morning. - I said, giving him a shy smile. I said my name to him and kept talking - By the way, the show was amazing! 

I was chatting with one of my favorite people in the world. I needed to make this not about my, now ex, boyfriend.

- Thanks! Good to know that even with all that shit you could enjoy the show. - He’s so cute, and the way he cares about his fans makes him even more wonderful. - It’s kinda weird but, can I get your number? It’s fine if you don’t want to give, but I find you really pretty and the way you dealt with this whole thing..  

- Sure! 

___________________________________________

~ Well, that's it, lemme know if you like it, and send me your request (;

[howtofightwrite]

What do you think of the squishy wizard trope? Shouldn’t people that travel around and go “adventuring” have some baseline of athleticism?

So, we're back to a game design discussion, again.

The short version is, if it doesn't make sense to you, don't use it.

Squishy wizards are almost more of a gameplay consideration. If you have a game, and you're balancing ranged damage against melee damage, if your ranged damage units do enough damage, you can create a situation where melee damage straight up doesn't work. It's not viable. The 40k meme about the Tau comes to mind: “Sure, they suck in melee; too bad you'll never get there.”

If you tone down ranged unit's damage, that can easily create a situation where they become the ones who are irrelevant. Such was the experience of every level 1 Wizard in AD&D. Once in awhile, you can get into the perfect situation to end an encounter, but most of the time you're just biding your time until you get to level 5 and can learn to accidentally fireball your party's front line, but that is a long time from now.

If ranged units can do a lot of damage, they need to be fragile enough that you can remove them from the board. And the Tau comparison comes back to mind once again.

All of this combines to create a board environment, where melee fighters need to be tanky enough to get into combat and stay there. Ranged units need to be fragile enough that they can remove each other, deal enough damage to harass the melee units, without doing so much damage as to render them completely irrelevant to the board.

And, while you can build a story around that structure, you don't need to.

Gandalf isn't a fragile wizard. He's not some “book nerd,” who spent high school getting shoved into lockers. When the time comes, he goes toe to toe with a Balrog (or, the Balrog, whichever), and doesn't immediately die. He clearly manages to hold his own, in melee combat, with a massive monster. (In fairness, he's also not human. I mean, none of Tolkien's, “the race of men,” are conventionally human, but Middle Earth's Wizards are an entirely different race of beings.)

In a lot of games, solution is to give the frontline fighters a ridiculous amount of health. Now, I'm going to trash on D&D for a second, but consider that a 10th level Fighter should have somewhere around 94 - 114hp. Remember that critical hits represent some kind of significant injury. These are not just blows that connect with your armor and will leave a bruise, this is someone ran you through. Someone could crit on your fighter, with a long sword, and stab them in vital places at least 4, and probably 5 times, before it actually kills them. That's a comical amount of damage someone to suffer. (Now, granted, a 10th level character in D&D is basically a superhero. If you're thinking of Boromir's death in Jackson's Fellowship of the Rings, that is what it takes to put down a relatively high level fighter in D&D. Which is to say, hilarious amounts of abuse.)

If you signed up for that, cool. I'm not going to stop you. I'm not even going to tell you it's wrong. If you want to tear down a super-humanly powerful character through prolonged combat sequences, or due to attrition of multiple fights in quick succession, that works. I mean, hell, that's how DC killed Batman in the 90s.

If your wizard power fantasy is that a wispy intellectual gains cosmic power through hard academic study, cool. Again, that's entirely valid, and as I mentioned, it even fits into a power fantasy. If you were bullied as a teenager for your atypical interests, and habit of reading, here's a character that studies strange and esoteric subjects, and has real power as a result.

At the same time, it's entirely reasonable to have an averagely healthy mage, whether they study magic academically, or have some ingrained talent that they've honed, plop them down next to a veteran swordmaster who's fought in wars on nine continents with the scars to prove it, and while they may look a bit anemic in comparison to their buddy, is still in better shape than the average villager they interact with on a daily basis.

That's where I tend to land in all of this.

When you're creating characters for your writing, it can be helpful to assign them attributes. Now, I don't mean this in the literal RPG stat blocks. (I've tried that a few times, it doesn't really work for me.) But, just a few text descriptors (which, does sound like Fudge, come to think of it.) You might describe your mage as Smart, or Intellectual, Wise (or Absent Minded), Willful. You know, “wizard stuff.” If you describe your warrior as, Strong, Tough, Tenacious, and Cunning, you're not making the wizard squishy, you're making another character less squishy. A lot of the time, we set the base line by what other people are doing. It's reasonable to say your mage is less durable than your soldier. (Unless your mage has a reason to be that tough. Maybe they're from some frozen wasteland, and are just absolutely jacked from surviving in a hostile environment.) But, that comparison doesn't mean that your mage is deficient.

Now, on the other hand, frail characters can be interesting. You're taking out their ability to fight conventionally, so when they do start decisively ending situations, whether that's through their own creativity and guile, or sheer magical power, it can be very gratifying. And, to be clear, I am very fond of flawed characters, especially when they have to work within the framework of their flaws to find solutions, rather than just overcoming them through the power of love, friendship and mescaline.

When handled well, flaws are about creating limitations for how your characters can solve problems. These can also make your story more interesting. If you say, my character can't fight, (and you don't back down from that and just let them cheat so they can fight, because they're so goddamn special), they're going to need to find other solutions. That can result in a better, more interesting, and less predictable story.

-Starke

This blog is supported through Patreon. Patrons get access to new posts three days early, and direct access to us through Discord. If you’re already a Patron, thank you. If you’d like to support us, please consider becoming a Patron.

[wandabear]

the river's daughter

ㅤㅤㅤ Pairing: Natasha romanoff x female reader Summary: You are nothing more than an avatar of a goddess that has lived many years. And even though you think you know everything, there's always something or someone that comes into your life to surprise you. ㅤㅤㅤ natasha's masterlist wanda's masterlist

warnings: mentions of death, violence, angst, fluff and smut. (+18) top!nat

How does it feel? Feeling that every day is the same, over and over again. Anyone would lose their minds with such daily monotony, so many years. But she was okay with it, for a long, long time. ㅤㅤㅤ

Do you want to know how it all started? First of all, you should know that it wasn't easy. Mercy, that's something they never had for her.

ㅤㅤㅤ They stoned her, beat her, spit on her and abused her. They tied the girl up like a pig and burned at the stake, cheering as her skin burned slowly; if a man craved knowledge and discovered something that would change the world, he was a genius. But if a woman did, you were quickly considered a witch.

ㅤㅤㅤ Well, now it isn't the same as before.  Of course they don't burn you for being smart but, let's say that the same ignorant people are always there.

ㅤㅤㅤ

ㅤㅤㅤ 1452 AD.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Witch!” Exclaimed one of the residents of that town, as the girl was carried through those dirty streets, her feet collided, splashing in the rain puddles. The girl was dragged through that place against her will, she cried trying to let go, but the mob pushed her over and over again.

ㅤㅤㅤ

Hitting her. Insulting her. Spitting on her. ㅤㅤㅤ

“You're disgusting! You should be ashamed!” Yelled her own mother, hitting Y/N’s cheek so hard. A dirty face, a broken lip and eyes full of anguish.

ㅤ⠀

“I haven't done anything, I swear. I'm not a witch!” Y/N defended herself, until one of the men took her by the neck, taking her to the stake.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Don't listen to her, she's not herself anymore. A demon has possessed her body and the only way is to purify her.” exclaimed the village priest, raising his hands. “The fire will purify her soul.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Please, it's just me.” Y/N asked through tears. Those tears mixed with the soot on her cheekbones, dark tears falling down her face. She didn't understand why she had to be there, she didn’t do anything wrong.

ㅤㅤㅤ

Showing interest in science, contradicting everything trying to find a coherent answer, was strange. She wanted data, proof, she wanted answers. Y/N wanted to travel the world, wanted to know love.

The love of a girl who was watching her from the crowd, disappointed. 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ

“Do it now!” Alfred yelled, one of the men from the village came up with others, and Y/N’ legs trembled. Just remembering what happened two nights ago, a chill ran through her body.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Help!” The girl screamed desperately as she felt Alfred settle behind her, so intimidating. Those screams and her crying were not going to save her. The decision was made, her fate was inevitable. Her wet eyes allowed Y/N to barely see the faces of each of the people who were in front of the pyre. One by one, the people she knew since she was a child. Looks of disapproval, disgust and pity.

ㅤㅤㅤ

An anguished gasp escaped her dry lips as Alfred picked up one of the torches and flung it at Y/N’s feet, starting the fire. There was no turning back. 

Why did she felt so guilty?  She was the victim here, about to be burned alive.  How could she forgive them?

ㅤㅤㅤ

The flames spread quickly, fear gnawing at her skin as she tried to loosen her grip. Her teeth clenched, jaw aches but she tried to be strong. 

So what? What was the point of fighting? What was the point of crying? What was the point of yelling?

ㅤㅤㅤ

Y/N’s teary eyes rested one more time on the people in the place and then, she looked up at the sky. A huge moon settled in the sky; she had always felt a certain peace at night. ㅤㅤㅤ Her lungs filled with oxygen for one last time, the smoke was beginning to make her cough but that wasn't the worst. Fire licked at skin, hands trembled with pain, so slow. ㅤㅤㅤ Do you know what is the worst thing about dying like that? In addition to wanting to die quickly, the worst is the smell. You start to feel like the first layers of skin burn, every part of you until finally your nerves finally die. That is when you are grateful that death comes, but it will still take time. ㅤㅤㅤ

The moon at midnight witnessed the pain of a woman and the negligence of those people. And her last thought was devoted to what she had loved most in her life, to the wonders she had witnessed. ㅤㅤㅤ

To the frogs in the river that jumped while she looked at the eggs they laid on the plants, marveling at something as simple as a tadpole. 

ㅤㅤㅤ To the bugs in the grass she watched with curiosity, to the crows that prowled the pastures while she came back home in the afternoons. 

People used to call her ‘the river’s daughter’, because she was always there.

ㅤㅤㅤ

And Y/N innocently wished she could live a little longer. Wanting retribution for her life taken so unfairly. She wanted revenge, she wanted to travel, to know, she wanted so much more. And nature responded, but not in the way she expected.

ㅤㅤㅤ

I feel the pain inside of you.

ㅤㅤㅤ

A voice, so soft, like a warm hug in the freezing winter, feeling an absolute calm that she had never felt. Was that part of dying? Because if it was, it was so much better than being alive in a cold place like this.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Who are you?” 

ㅤㅤㅤ

Do you really want to live again?

ㅤㅤㅤ

Y/N thought about that question, of course she wanted another chance. But was it possible?

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ “Yes.” ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ

Do you swear to protect the wild nature and hunt those who would do them harm?

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Yes.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Then now you will be known by many names… Artemis. Medeina. Diana. Aradia. Arduinna. So many names… but it will always be you, Artio.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Rise and live again.”

NOW

ㅤㅤㅤ

“You're getting in trouble, aren't you?  know you so well, Y/N. Just stay outta trouble.” - received from Alena two minutes ago.

ㅤㅤㅤ

The cloaked woman sighed deeply and put away her phone, watching the city from that building. It was a fairly quiet night.

Narrowing her eyes, Y/N quickly shapeshifted into a bat to fly and silently entered through that broken window.

Getting to the fourth floor was easier than she expected, silently killing each of the thugs. One by one, they died under the edge of her blades.

ㅤㅤㅤ

She stopped for a moment to use her powers and listen to how many more were left and specifically, where was what she was looking for.

Y/N took a few more steps until she stopped, hearing gun shots on some lower floors. Someone else had entered the building, a team.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Nice.”  Y/N growled. She was definitely going to have to hurry.

ㅤㅤㅤ

Hearing those shots outside, that big man sighed and turned to see the redhead in front of him. That woman lay tied to the chair, it was clear that she had been interrogated and tortured for hours.

The legendary Black Widow was handcuffed, spending hours in that interrogation in that disgusting and humid room.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“This is not how I wanted this evening to go.”  The man named Lev Nikolayevich, a big arms trafficking leader, sat across from her at the desk. Beside Nat, two of his thugs smirked.

ㅤㅤㅤ

Natasha raised an eyebrow. “They will come for you soon.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Then you better talk fast or you'll be food for my dog.” Lev said in a raspy voice, pointing to the huge dog at the side of the room. That dog with grayish fur due to dust and dirt, the scars and some wounds that were barely healing showed that it was used for fighting.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Who are you working for?” The man asked again. “Spiridonov, right?”

ㅤㅤㅤ

“I thought General Spiridonov was in charge of the business.” Natasha just kept staring at him.

ㅤㅤㅤ

Lev lit a cigarette and inhaled the smoke deeply, playing with the idea of burning her with it. “Your outdated information betrays you.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

Natasha's eyes widened and she swallowed, trying to play the role of a frightened and emotionally vulnerable woman.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“The famous Black Widow…” He smiled, blowing out the smoke on Natasha’s face. “...and she turns out to be just another pretty face.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

Arching a flirtatious eyebrow, Natasha murmured: “Do you think I’m pretty?”

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Ms. Romanoff.” Lev moved the cigar toward Natasha's bare leg. “If you're looking for a confession-”

ㅤㅤㅤ

Before he could say anything else, an arrow pierced the neck of one of his friends. Making him fall to the ground, choking on his own blood.

Startled, Lev turned to see the hooded figure in the doorway carrying a bow.

The first thing Natasha thought about was Clint, and of course she was going to kill him when they got out of there. That was her undercover mission.

ㅤㅤㅤ But seeing how the other thug was brutally beaten by that agile figure and then impaled with an arrow, the widow realized that it couldn't be him. Clint would never kill without mercy.

ㅤㅤㅤ

Lev took a step back, terrified especially when the hooded woman aimed another arrow at his chest.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Wait, we need him!”  Natasha growled, she had gone through all that just to get information from that guy. She needed him alive. 

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Get in line.”  Y/N grunted.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“I don't know who you are, but the Avengers need him. He has some big deal intel about-” The black widow tried to 'manipulate' her but she didn't know that this woman was immune to it. Y/N didn't care in the slightest what happened to that human trash.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“I don't care about your business.” Y/N quickly interrupted her, aiming it straight at the man's throat. “I only came for the dog.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

She hated humans, she didn't care about this guy or any of them. Without further ado, Y/N shot the arrow through Lev's throat and nailing him against the wall. 

ㅤㅤㅤ

The goddess watched as the light disappeared from the man's eyes and then approached to free the dog and get out of that place. 

ㅤㅤㅤ

“That’s okay, boy, we’re leaving.” she cooed. That huge puppy only wagged his tail so happy that someone got him out of that torture. Natasha just watched that scene without being able to believe it, without being able to understand it.

ㅤㅤㅤ Y/N walked to the door with that excited dog by her side until Natasha's voice made her stop:

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Who are you?” The redhead frowned curiously and worried, she couldn't see her face but it was definitely a woman. But the goddess did not answer, she just smiled and left that place.

ㅤㅤㅤ

By the time Natasha managed to free herself from that chair, Y/N had completely disappeared, without leaving any trace of her participation that night. That was a complete mystery to her.

That was the first time she crossed paths with Natasha Romanoff.

After a long journey, Y/N finally returned home with that big pup by her side. Closed the door but stood for a moment, feeling a presence that told her that she wasn't alone.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Go eat something, boy.” Y/N told the dog with a kind look.

ㅤㅤㅤ

The pup lowered his head and walked towards the kitchen, understanding and giving her the space she needed. Y/N turned and walked towards the living room, meeting a woman in front of the huge window. A tall, brunette woman of about thirty-five years old, wearing a suit that made her look spectacular.

ㅤㅤㅤ

ㅤㅤㅤ

“I knew it, I swear...”  Alena shook her head, utterly tired. “I just- I knew you were doing some shit!”

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Look-” Y/N tried, coming closer. The goddess understood how upset Alena could be with her, how many times she saved her ass. 

ㅤㅤㅤ

“No, don’t ‘look’ at me.” 

ㅤㅤㅤ

“He was a bad man.” Y/N exhaled and approached her sister, who just crossed her arms, waiting for a good excuse. “He polluted this planet, trafficked weapons and also had fighting dogs. Can you believe it? I wasn't going to stay still.”

“Y/N…” Alena stood in front of her, rubbing her temple. “We cannot interfere in human affairs. Like that man last time-”

“They were not just human affairs. He loved to kill whales in the Faroe Islands!” Y/N growled.  “Trust me, just because we are here doesn't mean I have to sit around doing nothing, I'm sick of it.”

Alena just sat on the edge of the sofa, sighing. After so many years of being together, Y/N never ceased to amaze her or give the biggest headaches.

ㅤㅤ

Y/N was the avatar of Artio, goddess of the hunt and the wild nature, but Alena was the avatar of Athena. The great mighty Athena, goddess of Wisdom, heroic endeavor and war. Unlike Ares who embodied war in a brutal way, Athena directed war battles in an intelligent and orderly manner. That's why she was in charge now.

And of course, many times she was extremely responsible and kinda bossy, the complete opposite of Y/N.

“Y/N, we made a pact a long time ago and we must keep it that way, or everything is going to be a mess.” The taller brunette sighed, she could easily scold and beat her up, but she just looked at her sister and spoke to her patiently. “We don't interfere. We can't.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

“What do you expect me to do?” Y/N exhaled tiredly, sitting on the couch. “They love Thor.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Thor is a fucking alien.” Alena shrugged, watching that beautiful view from the place. The warm sun shining against her face. “We defy all their beliefs because we are from this very planet. They see Steve Rogers as an old man, a living fossil, imagine what they'll say if they know we've been around for much longer. Hundreds, thousands of years.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

“They don't deserve us anyway. They'd hate us the moment they found out, they're just awful, violent parasites. Sorry for the comparison, poor parasites.” Y/N said, quite annoyed, there wasn't even a human she liked enough. She just used them as she pleased.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Some are really worth it.” the brunette whispered.  “They make mistakes, just like us. The difference is that some of them try to do better, and some of us would never consider it.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

Y/N was silent for a moment, she was right. Well, most of the time, but it was still worth accepting. Especially for a soul as rebellious as Y/N's.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Okay, I’m sorry.” She looked down.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“I know.” But Alena just smiled tenderly and nodded. After all, Y/N was still young. “I did something crazy the other day too.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

Y/N frowned. “Like what?” 

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Well… There was a guy who was going to go free, and I just… I used my powers and I made him confess.”  The goddess got up from the sofa and adjusted her suit. She seemed somewhat embarrassed just saying it, which made Y/N just laughed.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“That’s doing justice, that’s your job. That’s not something crazy.” Y/N still didn't seem to understand. What was the big deal?

ㅤㅤㅤ

Alena looked quite guilty for what she had done. “I didn't follow the rules and I manipulated him, that's a bit wrong, Y/N.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

But Y/N just laughed even louder.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“I thought you'd say something incredibly crazy or have an orgy or something… But, sis, you’re weird and boring.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

ㅤㅤㅤ

The second time Y/N ran into Natasha it was a few years later, and it was even more unexpected.

ㅤㅤ Y/N took a deep breath, feeling the sea breeze against her face. She smiled, she'd always loved Norway. The goddess walked on that road, among the trees and the cliff facing the ocean. She arrived in Norway a week ago for reasons much more difficult to explain, Alena needed her presence in some kind of meeting but being in that place was revitalizing, especially surrounded by so much nature.

ㅤㅤㅤ

The woman stood in front of that cliff, rejoicing at feeling the light drizzle. The song of the birds made her close her eyes, smile widely. Everything was perfect until the sound of a car engine made her grunt a bit annoyed.

ㅤㅤㅤ

In the distance, a small car was slowing down. It was a small Lada Niva driven by a redhead woman who lowered her window to chat with her.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Hi.” Natasha said in a husky voice, watching the woman curiously.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Hey.” Y/N mumbled. 

ㅤㅤㅤ

Natasha Romanoff again. How come of so many people in this fucking world, it had to be just her?

Y/N froze, thinking that the agent might recognize her but then she remembered that Natasha never saw her face.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Are you lost?” Natasha asked a bit worried, not only at the thought of someone hanging around near her trailer, but with that woman near the cliff, what if she wanted to jump? She couldn't just ignore it.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Oh, no… well, I- I think so? My phone just… stopped working.” Y/N chuckled embarrassedly, clearly faking it. “Sorry.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

“It’s okay.” The redhead nodded and relaxed a little more. “Do you need a ride somewhere?”

ㅤㅤㅤ

Y/N licked her lips, looking around. Denying it would be quite suspicious and the last thing she needed was that woman to follow her steps. The brunette smiled tenderly and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“That would be good although my mother taught me not to get into strangers' cars.” Y/N teased, making Natasha smile.

Y/N walked around that car and sighed deeply before getting into it.

ㅤㅤㅤ

The scent of Natasha's perfume reached her, truly exquisite. Could notice some wild raspberry tones. She also saw some bags in the back seat, the russian spy was clearly coming back from the store.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Do you live here?” Y/N cocked her head to look at her. Natasha kept her gaze fixed on the long and lonely road. “Interesting place. It's boring?”

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Not much.” Natasha sighed. “I like the calm.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

Y/N just nodded and turned her gaze to see the beautiful ocean. The waves crashed against the cliff, and with each swell, she felt revitalized.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Are you backpacking? or just a tourist?” Nat asked more incisively, clearly beginning to be suspicious. She noticed that Y/N was carrying a backpack, not too big. “I mean, you don't have a Norwegian accent.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

Y/N smiled a little shy. “You're right, I'm not from here. I am a tourist, I arrived some days ago.” She opened the backpack slowly, noticing how Natasha tensed. “I am a wildlife photographer, I came to learn and see some puffins.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

Y/N took a camera out of the backpack, showing it to her. She had to make a supernatural effort not to laugh when she saw Natasha's face. Maybe thought she'd pull out a gun.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Nice.” The redhead swallowed and smiled sheepishly. “I’m Natalie.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Oh, silly. We know exactly who you are.” Y/N thought and smirked.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“I’m Y/N.” 

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Nice to meet you, Y/N.” Natasha nodded, but then she wrinkled her nose. “What’s a puffin?”

ㅤㅤㅤ

Y/N giggled at her question and stared at the redhead for a moment. 

She carefully observed every part of Nat’s face, those green eyes, her nose, those lips. The adorable red-haired braids contrast with her pale skin. Maybe playing with the humans for a while wouldn't hurt.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Do you have two hours to find out?”  Y/N arched an eyebrow. “Unless you're afraid of a stranger.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

Natasha looked at her somewhat surprised and perhaps interested. Who was that mysterious woman? Why did she feel that she knew her from somewhere?

ㅤㅤㅤ

“This is beautiful.” Natasha's voice showed how amazed she was.

They were both sitting on the grass in front of that beautiful cliff facing the ocean, the blue sky made it even more wonderful. The sound of the birds and the waves was all they could hear.

ㅤㅤㅤ

Natasha had been in Norway for a while, but never experienced anything like that.

A few steps from them, there were some adorable chubby birds. They were black and white, their beaks had some beautiful and vivid colors like orange, red and yellow.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“I’m in love with them.” Nat giggled, maybe happy for the first time in a long time. Perhaps somewhat adorable and clumsy to walk, they just managed to win Natasha Romanoff's heart and that wasn't easy.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“They’re the most punctual bird in the world.” Y/N whispered, smiling at them. “They arrive to spend the summer here on the same day, every year. Nobody knows why.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Some call them 'the clowns of the sea'.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

“That’s a cute clown.” Nat smirked, seeing how an adorable puffin came out of its cave with another and began to rub its beak against its partner's, in a very adorable way. “Oh, look how their beaks collide! Are they kissing or something?!”

ㅤㅤㅤ

Y/N watched as Natasha seemed fascinated, and strangely the goddess felt something inside her. Something new, something she didn’t know. A warm feeling that she swore she never felt before.

Tenderness.

Seeing how those green eyes showed illusion, in perhaps the most deadly person on this planet. The goddess was enormously curious now.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Yes, that’s how they show love.” Y/N laughed, this time she didn't pretend. “They’re quite romantic. Once they’ve mated they stay together forever.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

Nat nodded and smirked. “Quite romantic indeed.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

Biting her lower lip, perhaps a little needy for some little contact with another being, Y/N barely whispered a few words to one of the puffins.

It wasn't any kind of manipulation, she just invited him to come closer and the bird, knowing who she was, gladly accepted.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“What is he doing?” Natasha asked a bit worried, noticing how that bird was getting closer.

With clumsy steps and constant flapping, that puffin slowly approached Natasha until it was facing her.

ㅤㅤㅤ

Opening her eyes wide, Nat stood still, not knowing what to do. She didn't want that bird to hurt her but she didn't want to hurt him either.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“It won't hurt you, it's just curious.”Y/N chuckled at the redhead's nervousness. “Touch his head, very gently.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

“I…” Natasha hesitated for a moment.  She didn't know how to say it.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“You don’t wanna hurt him.” So Y/N said it for her, somewhat surprised. Such a selfless act, she would never have expected.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“No, I don’t.” The redhead sighed. “Isn't it an endangered bird or something? I wouldn't want to ruin it.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Just do it gently.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

Despite her fear, Natasha reached out her hand to that bird and gently caressed its head. That puffin began to flutter happily, snuggling between her legs for a minute and then walking around her.

Y/N just laughed and reached for her camera, taking some pictures of the bird. And though Natasha didn't notice, she took a few of the smiling redhead befriending a curious puffin.

ㅤㅤㅤ

After a few minutes of wandering, the bird decided to fly and return to his family.

Both were silent for a while, enjoying the place and taking pictures until Y/N opened her backpack. She pulled out a small lunch box with sandwiches and a bottle of water.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“You have a lot of food for just one person.” Natasha said somewhat suspiciously.

ㅤㅤㅤ

Y/N arched an eyebrow and handed her the lunch box. “I eat a lot.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

That was true tho.  Noticing how the redhead looked at the food with mistrust, the brunette took a bite first, staring at her.

ㅤㅤㅤ

Natasha gave her a fake smile and took a sandwich. “How about we get to know each other? Let's do some questions.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Sure. Shoot.” Y/N shrugged.

ㅤㅤㅤ

She knew that for a while, Natasha had doubted her since they met. Wasn’t stupid or naive at all, the redhead was one of the best agents of one of the most important agencies in the world.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Are you an agent?” The black widow narrowed her eyes at her, taking a bite of the sandwich. The goddess turned to stare at her, accepting that challenge.

ㅤㅤㅤ

Sincerely, she answered short and concisely. “No.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Are you part of the government? An undercover agent?”

ㅤㅤㅤ

“No.” Y/N blinked slowly, she wasn't even intimidated and that made Natasha feel a bit nervous.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Are you telling me the truth?”

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Yes.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

If Natasha was sure of anything, it was that she knew very well when someone was lying to her.  And so far, the stranger had been passing her test.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Did you come here for me?”

ㅤㅤㅤ

“No.” 

ㅤㅤㅤ

Nat thought for a moment what to say, Y/N seemed to be telling the truth or was better than her at lying, and that was very difficult to accept. But she never broke the connection between their gazes.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Do you know who I am?”

ㅤㅤㅤ

Finally one of the most important questions and at the same time easier to answer.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Who doesn't know you, Natasha Romanoff? A.K.A Black Widow, wanted by many. You’re quite a star on TV… ex-Avenger.” Y/N smiled and took another bite of the sandwich. 

ㅤㅤㅤ

Natasha didn't say anything for a moment, analyzing everything the brunette had said and then sighed. She was telling the truth.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Did I pass your test yet, agent Romanoff? Can I keep eating my sandwich?”

ㅤㅤㅤ

ㅤㅤㅤ

The next thing she knew was how Natasha was taking her inside that trailer, closing the door without even looking. Couldn't take her lips off her or hands from Y/N's body.

ㅤㅤㅤ

Y/N's eyes reflect desire and passion, but above all, how delighted and excited she felt to see Natasha in such a passionate way.

Sex had always been a good way to connect, Y/N couldn't help but feel the need at times, but nothing and no one really mattered to her.

ㅤㅤㅤ

But this time, this one was different.

ㅤㅤㅤ

The way Natasha took off her clothes, the way the widow dominated her whole naked body in that bed.  First, the redhead dedicated herself to devouring her, kissing, touching, biting Y/N's body with devotion and passion, making her feel truly like a goddess. How that tongue made her come over and over again.

ㅤㅤㅤ

As those fingers marked her, running through Y/N’s body with patience and need at the same time. As the widow first invited the woman to ride her on her favorite toy, then being thrusted over and over again, Y/N hid her face in the pillow swallowing to drown her moans but it was impossible. 

ㅤㅤㅤ

Those soft hands held the goddess' hips like she owned her, and far from hating it, for a night, Y/N loved it. Those soft, full lips kissing the back of her neck, her tattooed back as Nat filled her completely.

Cupping Y/N’s breasts that moved with each thrust, each one of them bringing her closer and closer to a new orgasm.

ㅤㅤㅤ

But far from allowing her a break, the redhead captured Y/N’s lips again. One more time. Natasha definitely seemed to need this, she needed to release all that tension and Y/N was the most exquisite way right now.

ㅤㅤㅤ

Fed up with the melancholy and the gray and lonely days far from the Avengers, Natasha spent the night making Y/N hers looking for a little shred of joy. Biting, kissing, devouring, sinking deep inside her. Trying to forget.

ㅤㅤㅤ

The next day, Natasha woke up feeling the warmth of the sun against her face but also an empty cold bed. The redhead sat on the bed confused, being the 'abandoned' one without a goodbye this time seemed to make her ego feel a bit hurt.

ㅤㅤㅤ

Of course she used to do it all the time, but that woman… that woman completely stole her attention and interest from that day on.

Her phone vibrated on the table and for a moment she hoped it was her, but Nat only smiled slightly when she saw that it was just Rick Mason saying:  ‘I have what you asked for.’

ㅤㅤㅤ

ㅤㅤㅤ

Both were in that office in one of the best buildings in New York City, where Alena practiced as one of the best lawyers in that firm. 

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Thank you, Sylvie.” Alena smiled at her assistant as she placed both cups of coffee on the desk. Y/N smiled at the girl before she closed the door.

ㅤㅤㅤ

Once Sylvie disappeared, her sister finally snapped.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“So…”

ㅤㅤㅤ

Alena pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to find patience. “You fucked THE Black Widow.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

“Well… yep.” Y/N smiled toothly, taking the coffee and dropping some sugar into it. “It was worth it.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

“You’re so lucky you only fuck women, or we would be having some serious shit with demigods, like that time… Remember? It was a fucking mess.” Alena growled, maybe being Athena's avatar made her a little grumpy sometimes. “Was it good?”

ㅤㅤㅤ

Y/N laughed at the curiosity of her sister, who narrowed her eyes excited to hear some gossip. “Really good, like… I was very surprised. Best sex i've ever had.”

ㅤㅤㅤ

Alena frowned. “Really surprised? It's the Black Widow, everyone wants a little of that. She’s like sex itself... Just admit that you have a human crush, there's nothing wrong with that. Even Aphrodite loved her. ”

ㅤㅤㅤ

“As if you don't have a secret crush on the little witch.” Y/N teased, enjoying too much to annoy her sister.

ㅤㅤㅤ

“I’m not.” Alena laughed nervously, so nervous that she almost pushed her coffee cup clumsily.  “I just feel that life has been very unfair to her.”

ㅤㅤ

“Yeah, sure.” Y/N rolled her eyes and then looked at the nearest tv, watching the news repeat over and over how the Avengers saved the world again. “They did it again.” 

ㅤㅤ

“Yep, I saw it. That's why I'm trying to work on this.” Alena sighed, typing quickly.

ㅤㅤ

“At least they're giving you a nice tribute.” Y/N teased and scrunched her nose.  “Goddess of heroic endeavor.”

ㅤㅤ

“Fuck you.” Alena sighed and took one of her files, signing some papers.  “Look at me, I was a respected goddess leading battles and now I'm signing these fucking papers to do some justice.”

ㅤㅤ

They both smiled with a certain sadness, times had changed a lot. For the better in many things, and for others, everything remained the same.

ㅤㅤ

“And yet, years later, you still think they're worth it.” Y/N drank some of her coffee.

ㅤㅤ

“I know there's no excuse for what they did to you when you died, but they're not all the same.” Alena took off her glasses to look at her for a moment, crossing her arms on the table. The papers could wait.

ㅤㅤ

“Because you love them.”  Y/N just sighed. Of course Alena loved humans, like half the gods who were barely still alive. But not Y/N, she still couldn't forgive them.

ㅤㅤ

“Because I personally think they can be better.” Alena stirred her coffee and drank some of it. “I'm not the one who fucks them.”

ㅤㅤ

Y/N laughed amused and got up to leave. “You should.”

ㅤㅤ 

“Please, don't get in trouble.” The brunette managed to say before her sister left the office. When Y/N turned around, Alena raised an eyebrow and said: “We don't need to mess with the Avengers.”

ㅤㅤ 

Y/N just grinned and walked out of the office, giving her the middle finger.

But the third time she met Natasha Romanoff, it was memorable. Because it was at that very moment.

[careblairxoxo]

You wanna talk about abuse then like rhysand when he sexually abused feyre and committed acts of reproductive abuse towards her as well. You're just a hypocrite. You have no right to talk about abuse

Oops I hit a nerve,

Hahhahahahahhahahaha 😂😂😂😂

There’s a huge difference between Nesta and Rhys, the “abuse” that Rhys caused and I can admit that what he did was bad because guess what some of us can admit when our fav characters were wrong ( you should try it sometime 👍) but they were the cards he was dealt with, he did everything to help feyre, it was never for his selfish reasons, he got her to dance and drink to get her out of the cell and to forget the horrific things she was seeing and experiencing, because u have to remember this was torture, Feyre was being held in a cage underground for 3 months straight…. she also had trials where she fought monsters, nearly died of infection and was almost the reason her friend died, so yeah I won’t hold it against him for trying to help her in the only way he could in a really shit situation,

If anything blame fucking amerantha … like y is Rhys getting more hate then her for UTM when she is literally the person that started all this ??.

As for the pregnancy I 100% believe he should have told her, but it wasn’t just her and Nyx’s life it was also Rhys’s, so is it understandable y he was scared absolutely, he literally says that he loses everything he loves and he is about to lose his life his wife’s life and their unborn child’s life all in a day if feyre goes into premature labour due to stress …. And at least he’s was trying to do something y’all act like he wasn’t actively doing everything in his power to save her …

And Nesta bullied a child because she was mad at her dad … really…🤨🤨 Ima say it again so it might go into ur head … Nesta ABUSED a CHILD because she was mad at her parents… and u think it’s justified…. Grl be soooo fucking for real ?? Nesta made fun of Cassian for being a child of 🍇, constantly slvt shamed the women around her mostly her own sister and constantly tried to spew hurtful insults at people cause she was mad …. Nesta is NOTHING but an abuser. There is NOTHING understandable about bullying and HATING a CHILD because u are mad at ur parents that’s fucked up wrong and frankly weird af …wtf .

The difference is Rhys did everything for the greater good Nesta did everything for her OWN good, she didn’t gaf about anyone but making herself feel better and if she got that by hurting people then I think she’s sick in the head, she constantly hurt innocent people over and ovER AND OVER again for her OWN selfish reasons… and that’s an abuser darling xx

And I have no right to talk about abuse, y ?? Because I’m actually holding Nesta accountable unlike her stans, Nesta is an abuser end of … but ok stay mad Idgaf 😂😂 I’m still gonna talk about Nesta and how abusive she really is xx

[spiderlover405]

A family with you

Content: Fluff, a little angst

Pairings: rickgrimesxfem!reader

Summary: rick cant help but think about having kids of your own

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

Rick comes in exhausted from a long run, just wanting to lay down and sleep. When he hears laughter coming from the kitchen, it surprises him; he expected everyone to be asleep. He walks in to find you laughing with Carl and feeding Judith. He just stared at the beautiful sight of his kids getting along with the woman he loves. He couldn't stop thinking about having a kid with you but never asked because he was afraid of you saying no, so he never did. You looked up to see Rick's blue eyes looking at you.

You smile widely at him and walk over to him with judith in your arms. You greet him with a kiss. "Hey, how was the run?" you say. He sighs. "It was exhausting, but we got some new medical supplies for the infirmary. he says. You smile, and suddenly all of Rick's worries from the day fade away with your warm smile."Are you hungry? I made some spaghetti, and Carl helped me make it," you say, smiling. "carl cooking." He says, smiling, "Yes, I happen to be a great cook, dad." Carl says, smiling, "No, I'm good. I had something to eat on the way back. I need to take a shower. I reek of Walker guts." He says, "Okay, I'll go put the kids to bed." You say, walking back

"Y/N, let me tell you about the comic I'm reading. It's so crazy." Carl says while walking away with you. A couple minutes later, I came into the room to see a freshly showered Rick lying down on their shared bed. "Hey handsome," I said, laying down to meet those ocean blue eyes I always seem to get lost in. "Can I ask you something?" he said, almost coming out as a whisper, "anything." I said, "Did you ever want kids with your husband?" he asks. This threw you off a bit because Rick knew about your abusive relationship. "No, I didn't; the thought never came to mind. Why?" I say

this broke Rick's heart to hear you didn't want kids "just wondering." He says, "Mmm, well, let's get some sleep, yeah?" I say, "Yeah," he whispers, and I move to cuddle up to him, but I can tell something's off. I blame the stress from his long day and fall asleep. Rick wakes up to an empty bed. He gets up and hears giggles in the bathroom. He goes to see that you're giving Judith a bath and making her bubbles while Judy giggles and pops them. "Hey, I made some eggs if you're hungry," I say, smiling.

"Yeah, I'll get some in a bit. I'm just going to get ready." He says, walking away. You knew something was bothering him, so you decided to get Judy out and change her. As you walk into the kitchen, you see Rick eating while Carl tells him all about the comics he's been reading. "Hey Carl, are you ready to go to Carols today?" I say, "Yeah, let me just get Judith's bag." He says, "What are they going to Carol's for?" Rick says, "I have to go on a run with Daryl, remember?" I say, "Oh," he says, "Cmon, Judy, let's go." Carl says, "Bye, be safe." I say to them as soon as they leave, I turn to Rick. "Are you okay?" I say, concerned, "I'm fine." He says, "What's wrong?" I say he sighs, "Nothing's wrong." He says, looking up to you,

"Are you sure?" I say, "Why don't you want a kid?" He asks, and that's when it hit me the question from yesterday, and i felt guilty. "Oh my love, of course I want to have kids. I always have. It's just that you asked me if I wanted kids with him, so I said no, but I want to have a kid with you. I want a family with you." I say hugging him, and he buried his head in my shoulder. "I'm sorry, I should have worded it differently." He says. I laugh. "Yeah, you should've." I say smiling, and i look into his eyes, and then I see his eyes go from nice to sinful. "We should start making a kid." He says. I laugh. "I've got a couple minutes." I say smiling.

[deputyrook]

Impressions- 2/? Mark Hoffman x Psychic!Reader

(Repost after I accidentally deleted my tumblr 😭)

PART 1.

You're a reluctant psychic. He's a detective. And a serial killer.

(Can I make it any more obvious?)

Word count: 3498

WARNINGS: Gaslightling, corruption, stockholm syndrome, some drug use (painkillers), blackmail, power imbalance, abusive dynamics, overt threatening, general Saw-levels of horror.

this fic is kind of goofy, because I'm writing it for fun and not taking it super seriously! enjoy 💕

“Mark didn’t hit on you, did he?” Kerry asks over the phone, a note of disgust in her voice, “If he did, I’ll kick his ass. Though… you didn't exactly look uncomfortable when you fell into his arms yesterday. Am I wrong?”

Sometimes, you wondered how Kerry could be so oblivious.

You swallow a handful of painkillers before you answer her, washing them down with a swig of stale soda that’s been sitting out on your counter. 

“He's, what, ten years older than us?” You ask, setting down the can and playing with the cord of your telephone.

“That’s not an answer,” Kerry teases, “And he’s early forties, I think. Hey, I won’t stop you. I'll sure as hell judge you, but I won't stop you.”

The events of the prior evening feel surreal now, in the morning light of the next day. Detective Mark Hoffman hasn’t contacted you, and if you didn’t have his phone number saved in your cell, you would have thought the entire car ride had been a bad dream. 

You can’t help but second guess yourself now- had he ever actually admitted to being an accomplice? What if he was just a defensive asshole, and you’d misinterpreted everything again? The doubts creep in, now that your visions have been chased away, back into hiding in the recesses of your mind.

“Not interested,” you mutter. “I wasn’t feeling great last night, you know that. I barely remember getting home.”

Kerry’s tone sobers at that, and you hear her sigh. “Yeah. Sorry about that. I know you don’t like doing that, but we were completely out of leads.”

“And you still are,” you note, “I didn’t dream of anything useful last night, by the way. Total void.” If you’re lucky, you’ll never have another vision about the Jigsaw murders, though you suspect you’ve been plunged headfirst into the thick of it.

The painkillers will keep the flashes at bay, at least for now. The rest will come to you, jumbled and nonsensical, when it’s least convenient.

“Not entirely. But how are you feeling?” Kerry asks. She’s never been the best at heart-to-hearts, or at fielding your psychic nonsense, but you can hear the genuine concern in her voice for you. You wish you could tell her- the killer she hunts is right there, in the office across the hall, she could be in danger- but with the potential risk to both her and you, it’s just not worth it. 

Not unless you manage to get your hands on some hard evidence of Hoffman’s involvement. 

Years of dealing with a surrealist-nightmare-kaleidoscope for a brain had forced you to become patient. You could bide your time and wait carefully until an opportunity to steal some actual proof arose. Until then, you just had to keep breathing.

“Helloooo? Are you there?” Kerry’s voice pulls you out of your thoughts.

“Yeah, sorry Ally. You know how I get. I called in sick today, but I’m alright. I promise. Nothing some rest and relaxation can’t fix,” you try to smile, but you can’t hide the exhaustion in your voice. 

“Good,” she says, resolute, “I won’t ask you to come in again. Not unless something else comes to you. But I won’t believe he’s dead. Not yet.” It doesn’t take psychic abilities to know she’s talking about Eric Matthews, nor to feel the regret she carries with her, punctuating her words.

“And you shouldn’t. You know my hit rate on alive-versus-dead isn’t always the best.” Kerry hums in consideration at your words, and after you both say your goodbyes to one another, you hang up the receiver of the phone.

Once again, you’re left in the silence of your lonely apartment- save for your cat, who brushes up against your leg with a purr. He reminds you so easily that it’s not just your life on the line, here. Would Jigsaw ever try to test a cat...? Reaching down to scratch behind his ears, you try to consider your next steps carefully.

But all it does is make your head hurt. You pluck an ice pack from your freezer and lay down on your sofa, holding it to your head with a soft groan.

You must fall back asleep at some point, because you’re woken up from a dreamless sleep by the ringing of your phone. You check your home phone, and then, realizing it’s not the culprit, rifle through your bag for your cell.

“Hello?” You mumble into the phone as you flip it open, blinking awake.

“What, were you asleep? It’s the middle of the day,” Hoffman says.

“I called in sick. Got in pretty late last night, and I didn’t sleep the best,” You deadpan. Without being right next to him, it’s easier to keep your cool and not get flustered.

“We should talk. Let’s get dinner,” he says, “Six-o-clock. You know Eve’s Diner? On Newhaven street- with the neon sign?”

Your stomach drops. It didn’t seem like he was just asking you out politely. When was the last time you got dinner with a man, anyway? His tone is so casual that it makes you want to squirm.

“Yeah, I know the place. It's pretty close by, right?” At least in public, he wouldn’t be able to do anything overtly threatening to you. It didn’t seem like there was any use in arguing with him, or telling him you weren’t feeling up to it. He knows your address, and he apparently knows Jigsaw. That's enough to secure your compliance.

“Good. I’ll see you there, then.” And he hangs up the phone.

Your head throbs, but it’s lessened in severity since the morning. You consider taking another batch of painkillers, but decide against it. If you’re meeting Hoffman for dinner, it might be better to stay sharp.

—

The sight of Mark Hoffman, sitting in a diner booth, would be almost comical if it wasn’t so nerve-wracking. He’s stirring some sugar into his coffee, hunched against the wall, his hair smoothed back neatly and his police badge hanging around his neck. He looks tired, you think, but otherwise like a normal, upstanding member of society- if not one slightly too large and too dour for the diner table he’s seated at.

“Hi,” you say, sliding into the booth across from him. 

He nods toward you in recognition, before leaning back in the seat. Mark looks at you, up and down, in silent surveyance. You stare back, studying him in return. Both of you size each other up, like the other is the dangerous one.

“I’ve been thinking about you,” He says, “And after some more thought, I’m not convinced. For all I know, maybe you’re workin’ with John Kramer. That seems more likely than you being psychic.”

Ah. You’ve gotten this reaction before. When someone, with time and consideration, doubles back to doubt your abilities. You couldn’t exactly blame him for that. Particularly for skeptics, it’s a hard pill to swallow that you have access to senses that they don’t.

Being accused of being a serial killer was new territory, however.

“I’m not working with Jigsaw,” you sputter, keeping your voice quiet. The diner isn’t too busy, and you’re seated in a corner away from other patrons, but it’s still public enough that you want to be careful. “Shouldn’t you know I’m not?”

He squints at you, like he’s trying to figure out if you’re lying or not. 

“You tell me. You said there were four. Jigsaw, Amanda, myself- according to you- and so who’s the fourth? If it’s not you.” He sounds impatient. You blink at him, trying to process where he’s coming from. And then, it hits you. He doesn’t know. 

For a second, you consider trying to play it off like you are the fourth apprentice. Maybe then, he’d trust you more directly with information that you could use against him. But then, you re-evaluate. Lying to a mass murderer was probably a bad idea. Lying to a cop was arguably worse.

“Well, it’s not me. But yeah, there’s at leastfour involved that I picked up on. Four main...signatures,” You pause, before continuing. “So that’s why you want me to tell you about what I sense. Even you don’t know what he’s planning, or everyone who’s involved.”

“I’ve been on this case since the beginning. Of course I wanna know. Especially since you’re out here accusing me,” He remarks, taking a sip of his coffee before continuing, “Kerry didn’t act any different toward me this morning. Good. Keeping your theories to yourself was smart.”

“Yes, lest you start actually convincing me you’re not Jigsaw, let me not forget how you threatened me last night,” You mumble, crossing your arms in front of your chest protectively.

“You pouting about it?” He asks, teasing, a smirk just barely edging onto his face, “C’mon. Show me your trick. How do you do it?” He beckons you closer, and you find yourself leaning in across the table. Like you’re sharing a secret with him. 

“It’s not like I’m getting visions of the future, per se,” You try to explain, “It’s more like... hyper intuition. I get emotions, mostly. It’s an extreme version of empathy. Sometimes I get flashes of imagery from the past, present, and future, but it’s usually mixed up so I can’t tell which is which. Mainly, I just trust my gut. Which isn’t often wrong- but my interpretation of what I’m seeing can be off. Has been.”

“Hyper-intuition, huh?” He says, mulling it over, “Tell me something else about me, then. Prove it.”

You swallow uncomfortably. “I uh, need to be touching you.”

Mark raises his eyebrows at you. Before he can say anything mocking, the waitress comes by, filling both of your coffee cups. She takes your orders quickly, as though picking up on the vibe that you both want to be left alone. When she leaves, Mark spreads his hands in a gesture as if to say, do your thing, then.

Gently, you reach out and take his hands in yours. Rough, calloused, and strong. You try not to think about it as you close your eyes, and allow the gate to open for the second time in two days.

The chattering in the diner fades away into the background as your intuition takes hold, clouding out your other five senses like the moon passing over the sun in a total eclipse. First, there’s just darkness. Even the sensation of Mark’s skin against yours fading to a dull buzz. Then, sensations begin to spawn, bubbling up from somewhere else.

From the man seated across from you, you think.

“Strawberries,” you murmur, the taste of fresh, wild berries being the first thing that comes to you, sweet and tart, “I think they were picked wild, by mindful fingers. Yours are older, but never as gentle. Her small hands were always more careful than yours, never crushing the berries like you did.”

It’s a kind, well-loved memory -you assume- the impression coming in easy and unambiguous. The next is more muddled.

“Ah- pain. There’s noise, it’s discordant and loud,” You wince, squeezing Mark’s hands. You tilt your head, trying to make out the source, but all you get is scraps of yelling, fighting, shivering hands, the smell of rain. 

It melts then, into that feeling again. The deep, unending well of misery. Loss, in its purest form. Utter loneliness, vast like an unending ocean.

“It’s like the sun went out,” you whisper, voice cracking. Your heart is breaking. The depth of your pain is nearly unbearable, and it makes you want to pull back and disconnect. “It’s like all the light’s been snuffed from this world. Alone.”

“Yeah,” Mark’s voice confirms, calm, quiet and sombre, “You know why that is, don’t you?”

You frown, hands trembling. The smell of blood rises, pungent and sickening. Blood, blood, so much blood. It smells so strong that you can taste it. Then something else- formaldehyde. The words leave your mouth before you can register what they mean.

“He took her from me,” You murmur hoarsely, a pure conduit for the feeling. Dimly, you’re aware of hands squeezing yours back, too tight.

Then, the rage. The despair. An energy trapped, like a feral animal in an enclosure. Desperate to make things right again, to make the world right, with no way to do it that makes sense.

Trapped, trapped, trapped. Starving. Alone again.

You’re lost in the feeling before Mark’s voice pulls you back.

“He deserved what he got,” he says, and you’re redirected. The sun is still gone, the world is still cold. Justice is a fleeting concept, a principle that isn’t achieved until you make it happen.

The world is so cold without the sun, but he died screaming for taking her. That’s justice enough. 

And then, a finality- a sense of purpose.

"They all deserve it," you say.

You open your eyes, and let go of his hands. Hoffman’s expression is hard to read as you settle back in the booth. The despair still lingers over you, like a chill that’s seeped into your bones.

“That your thought, or mine?” He asks finally. “You must have felt a lot of it over the years. Other people’s pain.”

“Sure,” you reply, “Everyone’s got it. Life isn’t fair.”

“Not unless you make it fair,” Mark counters, “You can’t tell me he didn’t deserve to die like that for what he did.”

“Can you just tell me?” You ask quietly, “So I can get the full picture, no missing pieces of the puzzle. The loss...was your sister? He killed her?”

Mark thinks about it for a second. He looks like he’s going to refuse you, not responding for so long that you wonder if he’s deliberately ignoring you. 

Your food arrives before he answers, the waitress bringing your plates and setting them down in front of you both. Mark's ordered a cheeseburger and fries, the all-American classic diner food; you a club sandwich, though your appetite has evaporated since you've arrived here. And after yesterday, it was barely present to begin with.

Then finally, after you both have started to eat, he speaks.

“My sister’s ex-boyfriend murdered her. Seth Baxter. A sick, abusive fuck. He was convicted, got life in jail. Took a couple of years, but he finally went away for it. Well, he filed an appeal. His new lawyer said that the jury was tainted by the evidence of his history of domestic assaults on women, that the evidence was improperly admitted and ‘prejudicial’ to his case. After five years, the case was successfully appealed... and he went free,” A feeling of disgust and rage twists in you, and you can’t tell whether it’s Hoffman’s or yours.

“So you...”

“Jigsaw killed him,” Mark answers, “Cut him in half. He was already dating someone new when he was picked up. Tell me that's not fair.”

The words hang in the air, and you take them in. You’re starting to learn to read Mark’s face better, you think, because you can detect just a hint of smugness in his expression. You try to determine how you feel about this, but your feelings are still all tangled up in Hoffman’s. Extricating them is difficult.

“So he deserved it,” You say finally, “Jigsaw’s not just a vigilante. He kidnaps people who are- who are addicted to drugs, or who only hurt themselves, and he makes them play in these sick games. It's not right,” You can’t believe you’re arguing the philosophy of Jigsaw with one of the murderers himself. It seems unbelievable.

Mark actually rolls his eyes at you.

“It’s either people who deserve it, or people who don’t deserve their lives to begin with,” He murmurs, “think about it.”

Then you remember the feeling you’d gotten before, at the police station. The deep, dark depths of satisfaction. A kind of beast in the heart, ugly and hungry and grinning. The thought that you might have inadvertently given it some purchase in your own mind freaks you the hell out.

“Easy for you to say,” you whisper, the fear keeping your voice barely audible, “You like watching people hurt.”

Mark doesn’t deny it- maybe he sees no use in doing so, when you already know better. He looks at you coldly, calculating.

“Does it matter?” He says, “Keep your word, and you won’t be on the receiving end.”

You take a sip of your water nervously, looking around the diner. Though still not exceptionally busy, you’ve both nearly finished your food (well, Mark has, you've picked away at yours), and more people are trickling in the door. If you continue to talk here, it may become more difficult to avoid being overheard.

Wouldn’t that be a good thing, for you?

“Let’s finish up,” Mark says, as though he’s been reading your mind, “We can meet up again later. I'm going to ask you more about this mystery fourth person. So keep your eyes open," he pauses, and huffs. "Or closed, I guess."

"And Kerry will be fine?" You ask, insistently, "She's a good person, Hoffman."

"Is she?" He challenges, "she wasn't exactly discreet with Matthews. And she knew he was dirty. As far as I can tell, you're her only friend."

"Oh, and you didn't know?" You snap back, defensive, "If she deserves to be tested, we all do."

Mark stands, putting on his coat. "Yeah. Or most, at least." He replies in agreement.

"Come on," he adds, his hand on the small of your back again. You can't tell if it's meant to be possessive, threatening, or whether he's done it without even thinking about it. Perhaps surprisingly, it doesn't feel as uncomfortable this time around. "I'll walk you home. Wouldn't want anything to happen to you."

--

A worm has been planted in your mind, and it feeds.

Over the next week, you feel more torn than you think you've ever felt in your life. Mark Hoffman's words bore into your mind, repeating over and over, with the echos of his pain piercing through you in random intervals. You flit between feeling angry at the situation you're in, and wanting to go to Kerry and lay it all out on the table, to a strange feeling of camaraderie with Mark Hoffman.

It's a downside you've always had to reading someone, and inviting them in- you feel connected with them, permanently. Once you see through their eyes, and feel what they feel, it's hard for you to just pull away again. A piece of them remains.

It was like you were being tested yourself. By connecting with the worst possible person, you were pushing yourself- how strained could the connection be, how adverse to your own interest, while you still feel like you're on the same side?

You lie awake at night, replaying your conversation with Mark in your mind. Thinking of all the hurt you'd ever felt, yours and everyone's, echoing forever.

Needless to say- you weren't doing great. And the fact that you weren't sleeping well didn't help.

Dreams came frequently after that shared dinner with Mark Hoffman. You dreamt alternately of horrible panic, the feeling of being trapped, and physical pain that makes you wake up sobbing. So many images form in your mind that it's hard to keep track- scalpels, keys, case files, teeth, distorted statues, the smell of antiseptic.

You text it all to Mark as it comes to you. Anyone looking at your text log would think you were both insane.

But still, you tell him your dreams, and he listens. You theorize about the fourth person together, like you're trying to solve the case. You trade tidbits, make suggestions, and rule out others.

You kind of... like texting him.

---

[2:33AM - Outgoing] Just woke up with the image of a blonde woman in my head. I don't know who she is.

[2:37AM - Incoming] could be jill tuck. ex-wife.

[2:39AM - Incoming] Photo Message

[2:42AM - Outgoing] Nope, sorry. Not her.

[2:45AM - Incoming] i thought maybe she was the 4th

[2:47AM - Outgoing] Blonde woman didn't feel like the 4th. Looked like a scientist of some kind? Idk. Wearing a white lab coat.

[2:49AM - Outgoing] I also got a red room with a bunch of pictures. Like Polaroids maybe? Hung up I think. Not sure if it was connected to the blonde woman.

[2:50AM - Incoming] that ones a red herring. already happened

[2:52AM - Outgoing] Ugh

[2:56AM - Outgoing] How long is this going to last?

[2:57AM - Incoming] what

[2:59AM - Outgoing] You keeping me as your pet psychic

[3:00AM - Incoming] you think i'm planning to stop?

[3:01AM - Incoming] you'd better get used to me.

[3:02AM - Incoming] remember. delete these.

[3:04AM - Outgoing] Yeah, yeah. Do you ever sleep?

[3:05AM - Incoming] when i'm not being woken up by txts

[3:08AM - Incoming] lets meet this weekend

[3:08AM - Incoming] I want to show you something

--

--

(author's note: the true dynamic is emerging! and yes, I had to go on a little sidebar on how seth baxter's sentence could have actually been reversed. i'm a prosecutor, I can't help myself.)

TAG LIST: @icarusinstatic @honimello @haven-is-happy @thebrideofcaliban

NEXT CHAPTER

[noxexistant]

ai-less whumptober; day nineteen

@ailesswhumptober 19 — disassociation, losing a sense, “I wish I could get you back.” ↳ the farm, intentionally vague word count; 1.2k

cw; violence, abuse, resulting in disability

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

It's just one hit that lands wrong.

Morris is fourteen when it happens.

Both he and Oscar are well-versed in being hit, being beat to absolute shit by their father — and Ma, when she was in the mood — and thus Oscar had always held this misguided belief that they're both toughened up by it all. The hits don't really matter anymore, have lost their weight with their frequency — and they can take it. The same way a scarred knee stops scraping as easily, the same way his arm that Da had once wrenched from its socket no longer seems to hurt as badly when it's wrenched in the exact same way by that same hand. They're strong, toughened, even though Morris still cries most of the time when Da goes at him.

Oscar knows immediately that something is wrong when the usual crying shifts distinctly with Da's last hit.

Da's been laying into him a while, over some stupid little thing that never mattered, but he's got this way of riling himself up when the violence starts. He'll just keep going, spurring himself on, remembering every tiny thing that Morris has ever done until he's furious, and then he'll go at him until he's satisfied. Or exhausted. Whichever comes last.

The final blow is a crack across the side of Morris' face, not particularly more brutal than anything else, but it has him curling up on the floor and wailing, both hands coming up to wind around his head as if to shield himself. But Oscar's seen him take worse. There's a bad feeling in his gut. Morris is making an awful wailing, high-pitched the way he used to screech when he was a baby hurting.

Da walks away, doesn't look back. Oscar scurries over to his crumpled brother's side.

"Mo," he says, reaching for his brother. Morris ignores him. "Mo, c'mon, it's me."

He gets closer, trying to yank his brother's hands away from his head to see what the damage is, but Morris fights him. His one arm finally goes, goes limp as it does, but the other is holding his palm clasped desperate over his ear — the one facing up towards Oscar. The one Da had cracked him across.

"You bleedin'?" Oscar asks him, gentle as he can, and tries again to pull the hand away. He's strong enough that, for a moment, it goes — and he does see blood. But it's not a gouge along Morris' ear or anything, it's blood dripping out of it. And…something else, something paler and more watery. There's something…so distinctly wrong-looking to it, something that makes Oscar's stomach twist.

Morris is still screaming.

"Mo," Oscar says. "C'mon, stop. You're makin' a fuss. It'll get better, okay? It'll stop hurtin' soon."

Losing his patience — panicking, though he'd never admit it — he forcefully rolls his brother over, intending to haul him up, and Morris freezes when he sees Oscar above him like he'd had no idea he was here.

"Os," he says, but it's. Garbled and weird. He doesn't make the sound right, the way people talk when they're sick and real bunged up. "Os. Os—?"

"What? What? I'm here, Mo, alright?"

Morris stares at him for a second, unmoving except for how he seems to be swaying, listing. There's something utterly petrified in his eyes, and in a moment there's tears dripping down his cheeks again. Silent this time.

"Os, p'ease—"

"I'm right here. You're fine, okay? He jus' caught you in a bad spot, but—"

"Os, I can't hear you."

Oscar is initially adamant that it'll fix itself. His own hearing has gone funny before, when he's been sick or after he's been stood too close to Da with the shotgun. He'd been deaf in one ear for days, just like Morris seems to be now. So he calmly cleans and wipes the blood and gunk leaking from his little brother's ear and promises him, mouthing the words real clear, that it'll get better. The pain and ringing will go away and the hearing will come back, be as good as his other ear again.

It doesn't.

Oscar's left to wonder, sometimes, if maybe it would've. If it hadn't been for everything else, if Morris had had the chance to just heal without being hit again and again on that same side of his brutalised head, whatever had been broken in that one ear surely being broken worse and worse. If he hadn't kept being overworked, sent out into the fields in the blinding heat and freezing cold, made to keep working even when he's sick, even when his ear starts leaking again. If they'd had the opportunity to just see a fucking doctor rather than Da ignoring it all, never once saying he's sorry, never once even facing the possibility of what he did.

But it doesn't.

The pain fades, and Morris cries less. Steadily, he stops falling over whenever he walks, though he still bumps into stuff constantly, gets real dizzy real easily. He's shit at following instructions and worse at paying attention, lists to one side when he's zoning out — and, sometimes, he disappears entirely.

It's something Oscar would love to blame on the deafness.

The fact that Morris will go catatonic sometimes, unresponsive, would be so easy to blame on him just not being able to hear Oscar's calling for him. But he knows better. Knows it's Da's fault, just like the deafness is — so maybe that comes together, at least. Morris will shut down rather than face what he can't. Oscar gets that. Wishes he had the same luxuries, but he can't seem to get any respite, awake or asleep — and though Morris is much better now at hearing, knows how to pick out the sounds and read them against lip movements, and Oscar knows how to speak and where to stand so that Morris can always understand him, there's so much that's lost. Been lost.

Oscar's spent every year missing that brother he lost at fourteen. All the time lost to Morris having to relearn how to hear with just one working ear, figuring out how to speak when he can't pick out the sounds he's making. All the worsened abuse from everyone else who never understood, insisted Morris was just rude and ignorant and belligerent when he didn't hear their murmured instructions or failed to respond to their speaking on his deaf side.

It's not fair.

And a part of Oscar knows he's being selfish, making Morris' pain — his own loss — about himself, but. It's for both of them, really. They've always been as much each others' as theirs, always together, and if Oscar is grieving a brother he lost then he's also grieving that Morris lost a version of himself too.

"I wish I could get you back," he says, to the silent air between them. Says it a little low so Morris won't be able to pick it out, but Morris is a million miles away regardless. Exhausted eyes staring straight ahead, glassy and empty, not even seeing the blank wall of their bedroom that he's been locked on all this time. Oscar had only sat beside him, shoulders brushing, ready to weather the emptiness as long as Morris holds it.

As much as Morris has had to relearn how to be himself, they're still relearning how to be them.

They'll figure it out.