#it's so fascinating that everything boils down to humanity fucking around and finding out the hard way

[thenightshadowqueen]

Okay I said I had more to say about Victor and Eli and I’m rereading Vicious again so here we go. (This is going to be a long one.)

Okay. I’m going to try and get my thoughts to be coherent but I’m struggling because oh my fucking god I just want to scream about them. That being said, I’m going to try to make sense, but this is mostly just going to be a rambling rant of all my thoughts of them.

The thing is. The thing is. Victor is obsessive by nature. He picks one thing, and he lives for it. For the majority of Vicious, what he lives for is revenge. He never thought about the after. In Vengeful, his obsession is finding a cure. But back at Lockland, his obsession was Eli. He saw this monstrous thing, hidden under this near-perfect façade, and he was fascinated. Eli “stole” Angie (his previous obsession, from the way he talks about her in the few mentions she gets), and Victor couldn’t even find it in himself to be angry, because he was too interested in Eli.

From what we know of Victor, he almost never finds someone he can tolerate, let alone someone he likes. And that must be desperately lonely, living like that, but he wouldn’t have realised that. Not until Eli. So no wonder he can’t let him go, even after everything. And Victor doesn’t keep grudges. He kills people out of necessity, yes, and practicality, but not out of vengeance. He doesn’t hold on to things. Except for Eli. Because when you have that much love for someone, and you base so much of your life around them, and then they betray you (how Victor sees it), you can’t just let that go. You can’t just move on. Victor didn’t just feel betrayed; he lost his best friend (and the man he was in love with). And that’s not something you can forget.

Now, look at it from Eli’s perspective. He’s spent his whole life trying to mimic human emotions, trying to be like everyone else, trying to bury this thing inside him that doesn’t fit in. And then he meets Victor, and he sees himself. And, slowly, he starts to realise that he can open up. He can be himself. I don’t think most of this was conscious for Eli—he’d spent so long masking that I don’t think he even knew he was doing it anymore—but I think it’s a big part of why he was in love with drawn to Victor. Imagine spending your whole life repressing yourself, and then finally finding someone who not only accepts your sharp edges but craves them. That would be so fucking addicting.

And then Victor kills Angie, and it’s like confirmation of everything Eli was afraid of: that this dark thing in you really is evil. After all, its mirror, your best friend, just murdered your girlfriend. (Again, I don’t think this was conscious for Eli, but I do think it played a role in the path he went down.)

But no one has ever understood either of them like the other did, and no one ever will. And because of that, they’re both so deeply, wholeheartedly obsessed with each other. They spend so much of their time planning to murder each other, trying to impress each other, playing these dark games with each other. Victor could have just sent a message to meet up with Eli, but instead, he set up an elaborate riddle game via the police EO database. Entirely unnecessary, but crucial to them and their deepseated obsession with each other. And Eli played along. And in Vengeful, Eli could have told Stell that they were hunting Victor. But he didn’t. He couldn’t, because he needed to be the one to kill Victor. Victor was his, in whatever way you want to interpret that phrase.

And I guess that’s what it boils down to. Victor is Eli’s, and Eli is Victor’s. His to love, and his to hate, and his to kill. And that is the great tragedy of Evervale.

[t3a-tan]

Ryker's Guilt

Ryker is just a man trying to bring change, even if that means being a bad person. Here's what happened with Sammy and Tanner but from his perspective! Enjoy ^^

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Ryker really hadn't meant for this to happen. When he had been told that Cody's mortal child was on Earth he had expected a human. When the people he sent to retrieve her came back with three tiny people he wasn't sure how to react. This was not ideal given his plans, but when the man he hired offered to kill the two tiny children he instinctively decided to keep them.

For the first few days he wasn't sure how to go about things. Ryker knew he was not a good person— it was his burden to bear, and after doing so many heinous things for his research in the hopes that maybe he could make a breakthrough that would stop this damn war he had become numb to it.

He left the children alone, focusing on the target instead; Charlie. First things first he would need to train her so her body was in the right condition. Fighting was the first thing that came to mind… but he wasn't sure what he could make the tiny woman fight exactly.

After some research he found that there were borrower fighting events on the darker parts of the internet, and he decided to meet with one of the men behind the whole event to find out some more information.

Everything went downhill from there.

Whilst the man was inspecting the borrower woman, his guard dog suddenly jumped up and snatched her from his hands. Ryker was taken aback by the sudden attack, leaping to a stand only for it to register what was happening when small screams reached his ears. The man who had been holding Charlie simply chuckled in amusement, remarking something about his dog being hungry. Ryker sensed that it was supposed to be a joke and he felt sick.

“Drop it, boy!” The man commanded and the dog refused, growling and shaking the woman's body again. Ryker could see immediately that he could do nothing to save her in this state. She was dead. Just like that. “Sorry about that… hey uhh— how about I pay you a thousand to make up for the destruction of property and we leave it there?”

Ryker felt his anger boiling over as the incident was dismissed so easily, seething.

“If you cannot control that damned animal then don't have it out in the first place! I thought this was supposed to be professional!” He yelled, grabbing the cage that the kids were in and preparing to leave. Oh god. They saw that… they heard it. What am I doing?

“Woah. Chill out, fuck’s sake… She was older merchandise anyway, she wouldn't have been worth anything. I'd take the thousand if I were you.” He responded defensively, as if a person hadn't just died in such a cruel manner. Ryker felt an overwhelming urge to punch him in the face, but he held back, instead just shaking his head and turning to the exit.

He quickly returned back to his lab, placing the cage down and staring at it for a while, thinking.

Now that Charlie's dead, there is no longer a reason to continue. But I can't just…stop. Because of me these children are orphans. He stood up, pacing around the room as he tried to think it all over. If I stop without actually getting any results, their deaths will have been completely needless. I have to continue.

It took weeks for him to fully commit to that decision and in the meantime he was very quiet whenever he would approach the borrower children. He had bought some chocolates and cookies and other things children liked during that time, hoping it would make them just a little less afraid. And they deserved something nice to eat after what they had been put through. By me.

Sammy was incredibly feisty with him, never letting go of her younger brother. Yet, Ryker knew for a fact that he had heard her crying most nights and the unsteadiness she held herself with was developed by fear. He found her bravery fascinating considering how small she was.

On the other hand, Tanner was much more openly timid. He had a quiet demeanour but his eyes were so observant. He could see how conflicted the young boy was over the situation; happily receiving sweets only to scramble back if Ryker's hand was the thing handing it over.

He hated this. Gods he wished he had never started researching magic in the first place. He wished he had died in the bombings like the rest of his kind. But at this point he had gone too far to stop— he had caused too much suffering and all he wanted was for it to be worth something.

He hoped that Charlie's adaptation to magic had been passed down to her kids somehow and continued his work. He went to another fighting event organiser and spoke to them, this time making sure there were no dogs present. Tanner was simply too young to participate in anything like that, but Sammy was just old enough.

He signed a contract wherein he would be paid and Sammy would be handed off to the organiser every week after she was deemed ready to participate in fights.

Ryker started her off small, bringing in bugs and forcing them to fight. If he thought she was in danger of suffering permanent damage or dying he would remove her from the glass enclosure and put her back in the following day. At times he wanted to comfort her but what was the point in pretending to be a good person? It was better if they both hated him.

Once Sammy was regularly able to kill whatever bugs he put her with, he moved on to slightly bigger things; mice and rats and lizards. She improved with incredible speed, and although she had at first seemed terrified during fights now that it had become routine she just looked determined.

After she had killed whatever it was that Ryker had paired her with that day she would look up at him with a deathly glare, catching her breath. He would simply stare back at her, wondering what she was thinking. Perhaps she was imagining him on the other end of the needle instead of a rat. Sometimes he would imagine the same thing.

Eventually he handed her off to Joseph Wells, the organiser he signed a contract with. Ryker would attend Sammy's fights and watch, disturbed at the way the other spectators looked on with gleeful and amused expressions. He would keep a calm and unaffected frown on his face, arms crossed in contemplation.

When the Kriegerin project was still running many many years ago Ryker used to watch those fights. They were violent and full of death…but it was not for entertainment. It was a necessary evil that Ryker had never claimed to enjoy.

Now, sitting amongst the crowd of humans, Ryker felt anger growing inside of him; resentment. But this was needed for Sammy to be strong enough— if she could not fight well then there would be no point in giving the serum to her. Giving someone magic without ensuring that they would be capable of using it was useless.

In the meantime, Ryker pondered on what to do with Tanner. He wasn't a good candidate for magic as far as he could tell; much too soft. And it would take years before the proper preparations could be made anyway. But could he just treat him nicely?

No. Of course not.

If he started to treat Tanner with kindness whilst putting Sammy through the fighting and humiliation he had signed her up for, that would cause a wedge in their relationship. It was better for them both to hate him than for them to hate each other, and as bad as he felt for doing it he kept reminding himself of how far he was.

There were many times where he considered stopping altogether. Sometimes Tanner would end up falling asleep in his hand whilst he was scribbling down notes and Ryker could feel the guilt overwhelming him all over again. Sometimes he would stare at the pistol in his drawer and consider using it…but it felt selfish to give himself a way out like that.

He felt so frustrated with himself that sometimes it would end up being directed at the children. He felt bad every time he snapped— he would never yell at them but sometimes he was surprised by the words coming out of his mouth. He had never hurt them either. Even if he didn't want them to like him, the thought of doing something like that intentionally made him sick to his stomach.

Sammy had become well known within borrower fighting events, but she had also become more withdrawn. She was as feisty as ever; loud and abrasive towards him for understandable reasons, but Ryker had noticed a shift when he had started to leave her with Wells for longer in between events.

He asked the organiser if something had happened and got a no in response, so he let it be. Almost two years passed before he finally found out the truth.

Sammy had suddenly broken down when Ryker held her down on the desk to take her measurements again. He would measure both of them regularly, but this time was different. She wasn't fighting him in defiance like usual, this time she seemed desperate. Ryker was so taken aback that he released her immediately, watching as a panic attack claimed her.

Once she was breathing properly again, Ryker spoke.

“What happened? Are you injured?” The only thing different from him taking the measurements this time than what he usually did was that he was doing it the day after he retrieved her from Wells. She hadn't ended up participating in a fight this time so he saw no issue with it, but the only idea he had for what might be wrong is that she had been hurt and he had accidentally pressed down on an injury.

As his hands moved in to check her over he saw how she flinched away, defending herself rather than fighting back like she usually would. Ryker stopped again but his brows furrowed as he leaned down.

“Tell me. Now.” He ordered. He couldn't just sit around guessing— if something unexpected had happened he needed to deal with it immediately. If Sammy was injured he needed to treat it immediately. He didn't have time for the cat and mouse act.

She was hesitant as she recounted her experiences at the hands of Wells, and others. Ryker felt like he was in shock hearing about it— his hands withdrawing away from her immediately.

“For how long?”

Almost the whole time. Basically as soon as Ryker had been leaving her alone with the disgusting human.

“T-they said they liked my hair… I hate it now… Sometimes I just want to rip it all out…” She murmured. That was enough. This was too much. He didn't even know how to offer comfort because it was his fault in the first place. She even seemed surprised by his shock, like she thought he knew about it from the start.

That night Ryker went to Wells again; this time with a pistol tucked into his jacket. He didn't say a word when he shot him, simply making sure he was dead by making sure there were no bullets left in the chamber. He vented his anger by kicking and throwing some of his furniture around, then broke down himself.

The next day, Ryker took Sammy to the metal desk. She predictably tried to get away and he sighed, slamming his hand down in her path to throw her off before reaching down to hold her between his forefinger and thumb.

“Stop moving…”

He pinched his fingers around her waist to keep her still and pulled out a pocket knife. At first she struggled, startled by the large blade as he brought it closer, seemingly thinking he was going to stab her.

“Shh. It's for your hair.” He didn't bring it any closer yet, waiting for her to stop squirming so he wouldn't accidentally cut her. He paused for a moment, thinking. “Do you…want me to cut it? If you don't, I won't.”

It was one of the first times he had ever asked for permission, but in this situation he felt it was appropriate. Sammy slowly stopped struggling, peering up at him with confusion. Ryker was frowning but he looked sincere…so she nodded.

He brought the knife closer, slowly, before carefully cutting at the tiny girl's hair. He wasn't a professional by any means and it looked messy, but he tried to keep it even. Once he was done he put her back and left both borrowers alone, only getting close when he was giving them food or water.

It was quiet again. Just like when Charlie died. Ryker could feel his motivation to continue dwindling with each passing day. When Tanner managed to escape and ended up being exposed to the serum Ryker could do nothing about it besides keep Sammy from seeing. With Tanner gone Sammy had become depressed and unresponsive.

After a month of this, Ryker decided to give Sammy the serum. Because of all the training then it should hopefully be compatible rather than doing what it did to Tanner. Ryker didn't even know for certain what had happened to him, just that his body had started to glitch and destabilise, before disappearing entirely.

He was wrong. The same thing happened to Sammy. Somehow the glitches didn't spread over her whole body, but instead it was her left arm that was affected. It wasn't bleeding, but it was no longer there. That was his final straw.

Ryker managed to make a tiny bionic limb to replace the arm that was lost, and although he noticed Sammy had some physical changes after being exposed to the serum; her eyes changing colour and her hair starting to grow in a much lighter colour; he saw no signs of her being able to use magic. It had all been for nothing.

He apologised over and over again despite knowing he could not be forgiven. He destroyed his notes and burned his research in frustration, not knowing what to do now that he was giving up. There was no reason to make Sammy hate him anymore, but there was also no reason for her to not hate him. Where else could she go though?

Because of him she was alone.

When she escaped, Ryker searched everywhere for her, worried that she would get hurt out there. He had seen just how disgusting humans could be— and what if one found her? She hated him, yes, but ultimately she would be safer with him. He wouldn't keep her in a cage or anything anymore, he just wanted to do something to make up for everything he had done.

There was no trace of Sammy anywhere.

Ryker was alone again.

[one-joe-spoopy]

AHHHHHH OKAY I have questions!!!

when you say "hellhounds", does this mean that there is a Hell guarded by them, or is it just a placeholder term for what they are? Or is it like my Purgatory (sort of a hell but you define it yourself)? What are hellhounds anyways? What do they look like? Can you pet them?

So nobody, fae or otherwise, knows which one of them opened the portal or left it open, or if they're still alive. What happens if they find out who opened it? Has anyone ever tried to close it? Or is it just a permanent tear between worlds?

heheheheh the blankie of magic. I can imagine supernatural creatures quite literally pulling on its threads when doing magic, with humans only being able to access certain portions of the blankie of magic. I'd like to imagine them like shimmering silk threads physically being woven into reality as desired (seriously, magic as a blanket sounds like such a soft, soothing sort of thing (if used right)).

Oh boy, the hypocrisy of it all! So hunters use magic everywhere and in anything they possibly need help in but monster magic is where the line's drawn? Seriously?? Sounds like someone's embarrassed of not knowing how to actually wield monster magic than it being unstable.

Yay understandable forms of digital documentation! The nightmare of having everything in physical form sounds like a hell I am not ready to be a part of and I bet the Hunters don't want to either. Juno having no clue where everything is because he didn't make the damn thing? I love that, that's just canon Juno. Also juno's rust bucket of a car my beloved!!! How is it running? Heaven only knows! Does Juno know how much of a miracle it is that his rust bucket's still running? I don't think so!

"Scars around her mouth"? Like... I'm confused. Where did Buddy get those from? Like, I know she has radiation burns but I presume it doesn't exist here because she's an elf and can harness the power of the sun? Wait, does that mean she could potentially use radiation against people? I'm so curious about elves and their powers. Same goes for werewolves—like, are they just oversized wolves? Or do they have more of a human-esque wolf form, kind of like the werewolves in H.Potter? Also vesbud cat-and-mouse chases!!!! (I'm just an absolute idiot for those istg they're my lifeblood)

Hehehehhehe jubo whacked him in the face and now he's got bruises! Serves the bad man right trying to eat juno's face off (in the literal sense). Is it me or does the act of whacking someone in the face give absolute cartoon energy? Like bang! smack! Frypan to the face!

Juno having an epiphany about the hunters and why exactly they're out there murdering monsters that may be innocent and simply victims of circumstances and then having to consider what it means if he actually didn't have to kill the monsters he hunts and whether if they're even monsters to begin with. Don't think juno's ever put much thought into why he's killing monsters to begin with. It makes me think of how many people the hunters have killed purely for not being human. Changelings can't help their nature, werewolves can't help their nature, fae can't help their nature—doesn't mean they deserve to die. Also find it kind of funny that the hunters invaded a space that was not theirs and pillaged and looted indiscriminately and then sat back pretending to be innocent when the creatures they hurt and stole from fought back, and then murdered them for it. Silly humans and silly hunters

I promised to deliver my thoughts about my monster hunter juno au and well, here you are @one-joe-spoopy (@esquemeencanta i got a feeling you'll wanna see this too so here ya go)

To recap from my last post: Juno is a monster hunter. Rita is his right hand lady. Ben is alive. Vespa is human. Rita is human. Juno and Ben are human. Buddy is an elf. Jet is a werewolf. Peter is a changeling.

I also mentioned last post about how changelings work but to recap: changelings are the abandoned children of fae. They are exchanged for a human child and live out their lives until they return to the fae realm or rip of their human parents face.

!This is your obligatory gore and violence warning!

there are different realms, most notably: Waking (where all the living are), Fae (elves, changelings, nymph and dryad, and ofc fae), Slumbering (the place where dead and lost souls wander). There may be others but so far Monster Hunters haven't found a way to cross over to them. Not yet.

Nureyev was found as an abandoned child in the streets of Brahma. Mag (human) took interest and took him in. He trained him to be a thief. Eventually, Peter turned on him and ripped his face off. His instincts had kicked in and he was starving. He had always been hungry, nothing could satisfy him until he held Mag's face in his hands. New Kinshasa monster hunters chased him out of New Kinshasa and hunted him throughout Brahma. He met Slip while on the run

Slip is a monster sympathizer. He sides with Petya and believes in a free world where no more blood is spilled. He turns a blind eye to Petya's bloodlust and has helped him in the past secure meals. Together they've traversed across Brahma to Saraswati and there Peter was cornered by monster hunters. He was captued, drugged, and released for a hunt. He ran back to Slip and in his confusion hurt him, causing Slip to fall unconsious. He was found and recaptured but not executed. They took Slip from him despite his efforts to fight back. For a time Peter wasn't sure if Slip would survive... Slip has since recovered but is wanted by monster hunter associations in Saraswati, Brahma, and New Kinshasa for his betrayal to humanity.

Peter works for monster hunters to evade monster hunters to keep Slip safe. His "Keepers" are a monster hunting duo that are rumored to keep monsters in cages. No one knows about Peter because anyone who did is dead. Either bc Peter ripped their face off or bc the Keepers eliminated them personally. Peter is their most prized possession. The Keepers are the monster hunters that found and recaptured Peter in the first place. They are the ones that took Slip away to be taken care of.

So Peter takes out other monsters bc he's told to. He also takes out Monster Hunters, eliminating his Keeper's rivals. Blood covers the path he's walked. He is very tired of living like this chained to them, but they're withholding Slip. So long as Peter works for them, they ensure Slip is safe. And so long as Slip is safe, that's all that matters to him.

Juno, meanwhile, was a punk turned cop. He worked alongside Puck Falco for the hcpd. A case led to an arrest of a 76 year old monster hunter who babbled things about the apocalypse and how they're all doomed if they let monsters run rampant. While in their custody the monster hunter is killed by a monster and sharpshooter Juno shoots the monster down. He's awarded and recognized and approached by Hyperion Monster Hunter Association, the HMHA. He's told its more high risk high reward than cop work. He wasn't going to accept the offer until they name dropped Benzaiten. "His life will be hell if you don't take this offer Steel. Monsters got their own hunters out there. And if we can find him just by a quick check on you, they'll find him too. It's all about exchange. Eye for an eye. Blood for blood."

Juno becomes a monster hunter to protect Benten. He resigns from the hcpd leaving Puck without a partner, and Rita follows after him. He tells her it won't be safe and he tries to urge her to go back to Puck to the hcpd but she insists that "ain't no one seen the potential in her like he has. And ain't no one taken Rita as seriously as him. And ain't no way she letting him do this dangerous stuff alone, he needs someone for back up and she's just the right Rita for the job."

Juno begins monster hunting. Benzaiten is endlessly worried for Juno but Rita always covers and soothes those fears "he's okay. I'm his back up and so far we've done great together"

Juno as a cop used regular bullets. Juno as Monster Hunter uses special silver bullets bc silver is known to burn and kill most monsters. He's armed with a pistol always but also owns a shotgun and sniper he breaks out for special jobs. He doesn't love his job, but it does indeed pay better than being a cop. He's content with his life and rather reckless.

Rita does not know of the horrors Juno faces in the field. If she did she'd be clutching her pearls and asking him what happened next. She knows its dangerous work but she doesn't have the blood on her hands. The HMHA raised a brow at Juno for bringing her on board, but they didn't question it any further when that was Juno's only condition he wanted to be met

Monster Hunting culture works so that hunters can take up job offers that are posted through their affiliated association, alternatively they can be hired by a third party. Going on "Hunts" is a group effort and usually involves senior hunters from an association capturing a monster, caging it, riling it up (prodding it with weapons, taunting it, starving it, etc) and releasing it to be chased after for sport. Greenhorn hunters frequently get injured or die during their first Hunt. All hunters participating have the opportunity to capture the monster or kill it. Either way they're celebrated. If a greenhorn hunter is the one to successfully kill or capture the monster, they are honored with a feast and recognized by either graduating from the Academy (this is what happened to Sasha), completion of their apprenticeship, or offered a position as part of the association (this is what happened to Juno. He was first approached to join, participated in Hyperion's Hunt, and was the one to kill the Hunt's monster (a gnarled dryad that was more forest than nymph))

Miasma is an eldritch abomination. A non newtonian fluid that solidifies liquid tentacles into sharp points that pierce Juno's skin and poke out his eye. The only way to stop her was to blow her up and contain her in a jar. Juno lost his eye and couldn't walk for months but Ben took care of him and Rita helped out. As soon as he could though he was back on his feet taking on job posting

Ramses O'Flaherty approaches him with an offer of a new eye and job. Juno accepts both (the eye is an organic eye enchanted by monster's magic. Juno is indifferent to having it, but other Hunters look down on him for it. They call him a crooked hunter, a dirty one at that behind his back) the requires Juno to act as a bodyguard. O'Flaherty is running for mayor and worried about being assassinated by monsters for his policies (he believes in a free Hyperion, rid of all the monsters, rid of even its Monster Hunters. Juno questions why hire him then and O'Flaherty asks why work for him if he wants to take away Juno's job. They're at odds sure, but Juno wants to be paid and O'Flaherty wants the peace of mind). Each task Juno is assigned by O'Flaherty, someone dies. Their eyes are scratched out, the tongues clipped, faces torn clean off. Juno thinks it's the Piranha and shoots them dead. Juno uncovers the truth and finds out it was O'Flaherty. O'Flaherty is a monster. He hired Juno to protect him from monster attacks, to keep his hands clean. Jack Takano is the first changeling Juno comes face to face with and never knew it until it was too late. He died starving but Juno buries a silver bullet in him for good measure. There's no reward or pleasure in it. He gets rid of the enchanted eye (gouges it out himself and nearly dies a second time losing an eye) and looks for different work. OldTown falls. A new hunting association moves in, NewTown Monster Hunter Association (NTMHA) and they're backed by Dark Matters. HMHA is not.

Shortly after theres a job posting for an upcoming art gala security. Some of the art on display and for purchase is art by humans. Other pieces are ancient "artifacts" belonging to monsters (humans don't know what they're actually for) Ben insists that he not take the job offer considering how his last venture as bodyguard turned out but alas. Juno doesn't know what's actually good for him or when to quit. He takes the job.

Juno arrives at the gala hours early to monitor set up. There's going to be a lot of elite socialite in attendance. There's a lot of hunters also on security like Juno. The gala starts and Juno is watching the front door. Benzaiten Steel enters the gala in a beautifully tailored suit hanging off the arm of a hot date. Junos stomach drops out from underneath him but ofc tonight should be safe. There's so many hunters in attendance. They'll be safe...

And there is so so so much more but yea know this is already a lot so I'll tuck the rest away for later ^-^

[lea-andres]

Okay so @iamapoopmuffin I will try to really boil this down into layman's terms for ya but let me know if I lose you anywhere lmao. But here's my FNAF OC!

So... I'm the most fascinated by the FNAF series in its later years (2030s according to the timelines I was looking at last night), when it's got fucking pizzeria complexes and training simulator programs and it's after William and Henry are in charge of the company and alive(ish... you know what I mean) so at that point I imagine Fazbear Entertainment has a corporate board running it up at the top who are sure dedicated to finding the line between "the bare minimum" and "absolute jack shit" lmao.

So... it's no surprise Fazbear Entertainment is a fucking dangerous company to work for. Murders, Bites of varying years, malfunctioning animatronics, fruitshark has a series on mostly TikTok (some on YT too) where she finds all the OSHA violations... These guys suck lmao. Also there's been a long history of dismantling, setting on fire, and leaving animatronics to rot so... They're not happy either lmao. (And that's ignoring the ones that had corpses stuffed in them or the child souls possessing them, but we'll come back to child soul possession shortly)

So Fazbear Entertainment went "We totally hear you guys and all of your issues! Look, here's our new Human and Animatronics Resources manager! Take her issues to her, and she will do the best she can to solve them! :)"

Enter Lydia DuPont. I don't know where Fazbear Entertainment found her, but this stupid bitch (/aff) missed EVERYTHING. She knows nothing about Fazbear's history. The murders, the Bites, none of it. Combine that with the extremely limited budget FE gave her to work with, and... Lydia's trying to fix deep seeded psychological trauma with pizza parties and stickers. She MEANS well, she sure wants to help, but... Most of the employees and animatronics find her annoying and off putting lmao. They side eye her while she's running "wellness questionnaires" at best, worst case scenario they're fucking with her by bringing up the terrible things that have happened and watching her squirm with the knowledge she can't fix this with smiles and sparkles.

Lydia's only made progress with one person so far. Well, animatronic really: Helpy.

Ya know, this guy (skip to about :50 to watch Mark abuse the shit out of Helpy lmao):

So... Helpy is very puntable lmao. I could've sworn I saw SOMEWHERE that employees abuse Helpy on purpose for funnies. I can't find it now, but I do what I want lmao. Helpy's puntable, and doesn't like being puntable. Only Lydia is nice to him and uh... That's starting to turn into its own problem with Lydia. Helpy has declared Lydia his mother (we've seen lots of instances of animatronics latching onto kids in various manners, I think it'd be fun to explore the reverse and have one latch onto an adult), and is DEFINITELY too clingy with her. And Lydia is... encouraging the behavior. Probably too much. So NOW anytime you have a "wellness chat" with Lydia, Helpy's there too! STARING at you while Lydia holds him (he wanted uppies and gets upset when she puts him down lmao). So yeah, no one likes Lydia all that much. They want her to take her weird robot son and take a long walk into the trash compactor. 💕 (Also definitely no hurt feelings floating around regarding the child soul possessed animatronics watching Lydia baby fucking Helpy instead of like... any of the actual children lmao RIP)

@doomzday-zone helped me decide last night what horrors I wanted to subject Lydia to (because I wanted to but *gestures at FNAF* there's so many horrors to subject her to lmao). Vanny seems most appropriate considering FNAF timeline era AND *checks notes* maximum amounts of evil toxic yuri attainable. Anyway, so TL;DR Vanny thinks fucking with (in... multiple senses of the term 😏😉) the loser clueless hr manager would be really funny actually, but there's uh... Helpy sized elephant in the room preventing that. And it won't GO AWAY-

If I possessed the power to make a game of this (maybe I'll dust off the text adventure game maker someday)... it'd be a Tattletail/FNAF blend style of the Horrors™ are trying to separate Lydia and her Shit Son™ so Lydia can be subjected to the terrors. 💕

But yeah, that's Lydia DuPont. I love her, I love her awful relationship with Helpy, and I want her to experience the horrors.

[mxvladdy]

Unrepentant: Chapter One

Yoz! Finally, I sat down and edited this! (Yaay I'm slow as fuck)

I loved writing Diavolo's True Form piece (Located Here) so I wanted more and really to write this headcanon I've had since he was introduced! It is suggested to read his true form before this but you do you and live your best life.

Anyway idk how long this will be but all the true form stuff will be in this fanfiction :)

Hope ya like!

Word Count: 4k

Rating: General

The Devildom moons glint high above you outside your bedroom window. Their perpetual radiance casting dancing shadows across the walls. The solace of your empty room envelops you like a warm hug. It pulls the stress of the day away off your shoulders leaving you sleepy. Dropping your book-laden bag to the floor you flop face-first into the freshly washed sheets of your bed.

Exam season was rolling in fast and all of the academy was gearing up for the students' and teachers' inevitable breakdowns. From personal experience, you saw firsthand what happens when a demon gets stressed out. Even the lesser demons you know can cause some major damage when they reach their boiling point, though it pales in comparison to the havoc the big seven cause. Just yesterday Beel lost control in the middle of cram school after the teacher refused to let them out on time for dinner. Poor Lucifer was still scrambling to pay for the damages and trying to find a replacement in time for next week's lessons. Then, on the same day at the other end of the campus, Satan all but totaled a classroom in a fit of rage after another student dared to try and correct him. Bless the Old Gods themselves that at least Levi and Belphie were easy to deal with during these times. They were both book smart and beyond capable with their studies, they just lacked the wherewithal to put the effort in. Well, Belphie was more guilty than Levi when it came down to it. Most of the time Lucifer could be seen dragging Belphie to class by the ankle, face stormy with rage. It was humorous to watch-just from a distance.

As for you, you figure it was best to just be out of the direct line of fire. One too many brushes with death in the Devildom for your comfort. During this time of year, it became almost a sport. You got really good at dodging large pieces of furniture and spells during exam week when the brothers finally start coming to blows. Not that you fault them, they were just letting their aggression out as any good primordial being would. But, the lack of sleep and constant fear of annihilation by bookshelf is murder on your grades. After a few meetings with Lucifer and Diavolo, you all decide you should stay in the palace till after exams.

The palace.

You smile softly to yourself tracing a thumb over your clavicle. Your finger ghosts over the healing black marks running down your skin. It was rocky at first, rebuilding your relationship and trust, with Diavolo after your "run in". He acts like you were made of spun glass and eggshells, physically trying to keep as much distance between the two of you as possible. All the while you had to butt head with seven of the strongest and most bull-headed men you had ever met. Their protectiveness towards you tried your patience in ways you never expected. It took what you are pretty sure was your guardian angel to finally get the brothers to relent. With Simeon acting as your chaperone you start to live again. It was nice to finally feel comfortable around the demon again. Seeing him return to his normal candor and temperament again was a breath of fresh air. Thinking of him makes you flush, the cool air of your room burning your cheeks as you recall all the stolen evenings in his and Barbatos's company. All the hours spent laughing at their outlandish assumptions of modern human social norms while they tried to guess if they were correct or not, and then there were the nights where it was just you and the prince. He was nothing but cordial and proper, just conversations between two friends.

A nice glass of port and dinner...maybe an errant brush of fingers when there was no need to touch a time or two. Perhaps a gaze held too long to be considered appropriate.

You groan into your pillows, feeling your heart flutter. You couldn't deny he was fascinating, and yes, perhaps you were a little infatuated with him. Who wasn't? You say it on the daily how other demons fawn over him. He is one of the strongest of their kin after all. Power is a huge part of the Devildom hierarchy, and he exudes it in spades. To a demon, he is the peak of their ideal. Yet, to you, from a human perspective, you enjoyed his personality and jovial nature. It was a side very few got to see of him and you cherish each moment you got to enjoy in the privacy of his quarters.

Of course, watching him crush an unruly usurper without a second thought was kinda hot. Hmmm-

A sharp rap at your door startles you. Was it time already? "Door's open Simeon!" You yell over your shoulder grabbing your robe and go behind your room divider to undress.

"Good evening!" The angel chirps entering your darkroom. With a wave of his hand, he lights your fireplace. The bright flames dancing to life to chase away the cold of the perpetual night.

"Show off." You come back around your divider to face him. He shrugs with a bashful smile offering you the tray he brought with him. His lithe fingers grab the few bottles he needed, leaving the rest for you. You unscrew the lid on one of the jars of salves specially crafted for you. You inhale, humming in delight, and the fresh scent of honeydew and lavender wafting up at you. "This one is new!" You beam dipping a finger in your eye the soft green goop. It was warm to the touch and made your finger go numb.

Simeon nods, twirling his hand in the air to make you turn around. "You mentioned stiff joints last night so I made something to help." His hand strokes over your back while he mutters to himself. "This is healing up nicely, though the color is becoming more opaque." You nod in acceptance. The curse- taint- whatever it was when Diavolo injured you hadn't stopped at just mental damage when it struck you. It took root on your body, burying itself deep and spreading through you like an uncontrollable flame. It wraps and twists itself around your arms, shoulders, and sides joining and merging with itself to rest around the tender skin of your neck. You found it beautiful in its own right. Like those ornate chokers in Levi's animes or the ones Mammon wore in some of his high-end modeling shoots. Yours was just as gorgeous but very permanent.

"These are coming along nicely," Simeon remarks looking over your back. He rubs some of his sweet-smelling ointment into your sides. He traces over some of the more intricate lines, they radiate power heating his celestial skin in a way you could not sense. The marks pulse in warning, threatened by his celestial power. Simeon frowns, taking his hand away. "It looks like Lucifer marks have been consumed completely now too."

"Really?" You crane your neck trying to see Lucifer's mark at the base of your neck. It figures Lucifer's was the last to be consumed. Solomon had hypothesized that since he was the eldest and thus the strongest it would make sense that it would take longer for Diavolo's blight to consume it. So far he has been correct.

Over time you watch as all the brothers' marks were taken over. Their bright colors bleed out to be replaced with an iridescent black. It was a little unfortunate since you loved the colors of their marks, but there was nothing you could do about it.

Simeon hands you a jar over your shoulder while he inspects the growing marks on your back. "I increased the dosage in this, your arms were still itchy, correct?"

You nod, taking the jar. You grimace as your nails scratch the delicate glass. Your skin wasn't the only thing that physically changed after Diavolo's magic took root. Your nail plates gleam black now, no longer clear and flimsy like human nails normally are. They are sharp now with lethal tips. They could gouge stone like it was tissue paper and even pierce the hard shell of a demon's skin. Beel had been impressed by the nick you gave him during P.E. It healed quickly so no harm was done, but it frightened you still.

Tutting, you shoot your fingers a scathing glance. As a defense mechanism, this new addition was great, but daily life was a pain. Your hands tore through everything if you weren't careful. Delicate pillows and sheets were kept far away from you lest they turn into ribbons. It was beginning to look like the brothers had adopted an unruly cat let loose in the halls.

Asmo fussed over you for days trying to figure out the best way to care for them. He wasted some nice clippers on you until he landed on a heavy-duty nail file. Your manicure only lasts a few days at best, but it was better than turning your pillows into pin cushions. Aside from your skin and nails, you could see better in the perpetual night of the Devildom. The blue haze of the twin moons is cleaner now. Every surface their light lands on shines like a beacon illuminating farther than you could see before. Gave Mammon a good scare walking the halls in complete darkness, you didn’t need a light anymore just the moons.

It was utterly fascinating to you, and Solomon. The mage takes every opportunity he could to poke and prod at your changes and charts them down with feverish excitement. So far, much to his displeasure, you show no more magical prowess than when you first arrived in the Devildom but he was certain you should. For now, no one knew what to expect so you were to just monitor yourself and check-in with Solomon and Simeon daily till they deemed this settled.

"There," Simeon finishes examining your back and neck, making sure he covered the entirety of each mark. "Looks like everything is in order. I'll leave you to rest for the evening." He wipes his hands helping you back into your robe before tidying up the small mess he made.

"You sure?" You ask following him to the door. "I feel like we haven't hung out for ages! I could fetch us some tea." You smile up at his soft face. You miss just hanging out with him. As of late all he has been to you is an on-call nurse. It would be nice to talk with him and Luke about something other than you for an evening.

Simeon smiles but shakes his head. "Perhaps tomorrow, Madame Scream has a few new cakes out this month. Luke has been talking my ear off about them and I'm sure he would love your company too." He eyes the door knowingly. "But for now someone else wishes to steal you away." He bids you goodnight then, leaving you clasping the doorknob and looking about into the pitch-black hallway.

It's in the moment you lock your door and turn to crawl into bed that someone knocks on your door. Your heart leaps in with an indiscernible emotion before beating fast with excitement, your brain following along slowly after it. You couldn't stop the smile crossing your face as you made your way back to the door. Something deep within you knew who it was. "Dia!" You swing the heavy door open and hug him tight. The moment your body makes contact with him you feel amazing. The grind of the day is gone, chased away by his warm arms encircling you. "I thought you were busy all evening?"

He chuckles swaying from side to side. "I was! But, what kind of prince would I be if I didn't throw my weight around every so often?" He leans down and nuzzles his face in your crown. He smiles into your hair. You were smelling more and more like him each day, it was titillating.

Dia breathes deeply taking in your sweet clean scent and savoring how his smokey amber smell was mingling with it. It was faint now, perhaps only strong enough for him, Barbatos and Lucifer can discern. Soon though lesser daemons will take notice of his scent mingling with yours. He makes a quick note to tell Simeon to look into a stronger ointment, it will be needed soon. Diavolo pulls away, clicking his tongue. He glances down at where your nails punched through the thick fabric of his waistcoat to graze his skin. "Do you have time for a drink? Barbatos went topside today and purchased a bottle of whiskey barrel age wine. It smells simply divine ." His gold eyes glance up to the large grandfather clock in the corner of your room. It was far past polite visiting hours, but he couldn't give less of a damn, despite the warning of his closest circles.

The nobles were beginning to notice how much he favored you and thus the court was beginning to talk. They were beginning to question his loyalty to the goal of the program, his fascination with one mere human raised concerns throughout his family members. "Why are you spending so much more time with that one?" They ask claws and fangs clinging as they nash and hiss at him, so many of his bloodline still refuse to use glamour believing it was an insult to their heritage. "They are of no importance, playing favorites could lead to a disaster for your crown." He knows many of them would love that.

For him to lose his neck and the crown so the old ones could rule again was a dream for many of them. Diavolo grimaces inwardly, they weren't wrong either. He was infatuated with you. Even Lucifer was beginning to express concern. While having you and the program was raising his ratings and the morale of the general populace, those of royal blood were beginning to create factions again. So far many were loyal, but the ones starting to make waves were the oldest in the circle.

He had plans in place of course, pieces on the board ready to move at a moment's notice. It would be messy when it happens and with you still in his kingdom...such actions were best to be avoided. No, for now, the brothers were enough protection from potential defectors and nay-sayers. He will do as he pleases, especially when it revolves around you.

"That does sound good," You agree tapping your chin in thought. It's been ages since you last drank a human liquor. All Diavolo's ports and sherries, while delicious, did not affect you. You missed the warmth that settled in your stomach after a good drink. "A good drink could calm my nerves. Give me a minute to change?" You step back into your room to scurry back behind your room partition leaving the massive demon to stand at your doorway.

"Nerves? Do you need more time for your finals?" He lumbers in coming to stand by your bed. He licks his lips staring at your rumpled bedding. It was still warm from you sitting there with Simeon. Deep down in his stomachs turns detecting the cherry sweet scent of the angel covering your sheets. He wanted to rub his body on the bedding, erasing that weakling's scent from what was his- He pulls himself back forcing his fangs back down. He trusted Simeon, no one was better suited for healing demonic wounds than an angel.

The prince observes your shadow scurrying about behind the paper screen. "There!" You jump from behind the screen in an oversized shirt. The fabric drapes down to rest just past your knees, the sleeves long and folded several times. "Ready to go?" You come back to his side slipping on your slippers.

"But of course!" He offers you his arm. "Though I am perhaps a little overdressed for the occasion, no?" He ribs, teeth flashing in jest. You accept his arm squeezing it tight and look him over dramatically.

"Yes, very much so...What good is a nightcap if you are still dressed in your day clothes?" You tug at his pressed white tie. For the first time that day, Diavolo laughed freely.

The walk from your room to his was a long one but filled with idle safe conversation. You jump from talks of the upcoming garden parties to what this week's lunch menu will be. Neither of you was blind to the prying eyes and ears lurking in the shadows of the corridors. You were unfazed by them now after months of coming to visit Diavolo and Barbatos during the evening. You became accustomed to their judgmental gazes and gossip over time. You nod politely to one of the visiting earl's and his entourage. They pass, many eyes looking you over curiously. "Earl Jan and his entourage have taken a liking to you." Diavolo rumbles watching the demons wander off to one of his many smoking parlors. "He finds your many human idioms and stories refreshing."

"Really? I have classes with a few of them they-"

"Young Prince." Diavolo stiffens by your side lurching to a halt. His hackles rise.

"Pleasant evening Lady Marquess?" The prince calls out not bothering to even turn around to acknowledge the baroness. You turn though curious as to who drew such vitriol from the normally genial demon.

The baroness scuttles out from where she had been standing, the shadows around her falling off like an elegant cloak. Her pale mandibles click in distaste when your eyes meet hers. Her hundreds of spider-like eyes latching onto you unblinkingly before flicking to Diavolo's tense back. "You missed our meeting on the upcoming festivities. I have some more requests on the dress requirements for the ball." She pauses head listing down to look at you again. Even without lips, you could feel her scowl of disgust. "It would be good for your little pet. Their dress attire at the last one was... lackluster."

Bull. Asmo and Levi had designed your outfit for the last ball. It had been amazing, the crowds looking on with jealousy and lust as you clung to Dia's arm. You don't have to look at Diavolo to feel his displeasure. "Such asinine topics like that can wait till tomorrow." He sniffs pulling you closer. His free hand comes up to grasp your hand around his bicep. “Good night Madame.”

You keep your eyes forward letting Dia escort you. The Marquess hisses quietly under her breath, something dark and biting in their native tongue. Diavolo goes rigid in head-snapping about inhumanly fast. The temperature in the hallway drops.

"Dia." You call in warning, breath wafting up in great puffs from the chilled air. He ignores you, turning his full attention to the interloper. He replies in turn voice simmering with rage. She wilts, head tilting down into a mockery of the usually appropriate bow when speaking to him. Beneath the fringes of her bangs, you could see a smirk playing on her lips. She struck the exact nerve she was looking for. "Dia," You pull on him more adamantly. "Come please?" His shoulders loosen at your words. His gold eyes drifting down to look at you.

"We will speak of this later matrona." He leaves the matter at that leaving with you in haste. The rest of the walk is tense, his eyes now darting to each shadowy corner in case another guest jumps from them.

"I apologize for that." Diavolo sighs the moment the doors to his private quarters close. He loosens his tie and tosses it to his smoking chair by the fire. "Make yourself comfortable, I'll be out in a moment." He smiles at you before disappearing into his bathroom.

You take a seat kicking off your slippers to dig your toes into the plush hide of some animal you didn't know the name of and pour out two drinks for you and Diavolo. Waiting for him to reappear you eye the treats laid out on the table next to you. They looked too good to ignore. Popping a few tarts into your mouth you groan at the sweet citrus and mint creme that coated your tongue. Your ears twitch at the creak of the bathroom door.

Burly arms drape over your shoulders as Diavolo bends to nuzzle your neck. "Too good to wait?" He chuckles. You flush hyper-aware of the sugar cookie crumbs on the corner of your mouth.

"You said help myself." You reply after swallowing.

The prince hums. "That I did." He raises a thick finger up to collect the crumbs around your lips. "Ah- Barb outdoes himself again." He licks his finger coming around to take the seat next to you. Diavolo busies himself for a moment propping his feet up on his footrest and taking the drink you prepared from the table along with a good handful of sweets. Despite his casual demeanor you still could feel his agitation thrumming through your markings.

"I'm sorry." You blurt out. He looks up at you with a frown. "That confrontation in the hall, what the Marquess said was about me wasn't it?" You didn't know what her heated words meant, but the context of the exchange was quite clear.

A glint of pain flashes through his golden gaze. Diavolo goes for his drink, downing half of it in one large gulp. "You have nothing to apologize for. " He licks his teeth deep in thought before dropping his head back with a grunt. "What are politics like in your realm? Are they all-" He waves his glass vaguely.

You sit for a moment thinking hard on what you remember of human politics. "Most countries are no longer run by royal families. Though they still have a lot of sway with laws and the like." You take a sip. "But, back when royal families were more prevalent I would say they were like this." You mimic his little hand wave with a little smile.

"Homicidal and power-hungry?"

"Quite so." You chuckle looking into the fire. "Perhaps I can take you on a mini trip to go visit some old palaces?" Diavolo perks up intrigued.

"Where do you have in mind?"

"Maybe Italy?"

His eyes grow dark. "And why there?" He bites out. You shrug feeling as though you just crossed an unspoken line.

"Just-well. Your name, at least in human culture, is Italian, and you slip into it so casually. I thought you would like it..."

"I am not looking for you to humor me." He cuts you off. His glass thunking heavily on his oak side table, amber liquid sloshing over the side. "I get enough of that from the court. I only wish to spend time with you." You acknowledge him with a faint nod curling into your seat. "Ah-no, no mi giglio." Diavolo reaches for you, scooping you up to sit in his lap. "Forgive my agitation. If it is somewhere you wish to go then I would be happy to take us... The south is beautiful this time of year I hear." A shuttered look crosses over his eyes before he blinks it away. "Shall I get started with preparations?"

He pulls you in closer, your heat seeping through the thin layers of clothes separating the two of you. He feels you melt into the soft planes of his body. His closeness soothing the itching of your bandaged and oiled skin. Dia falls silent listening to you nod off on his lap but does nothing to stop you. Closing his eyes he instead enjoys the feel of his pseudo mark upon your body vibrating in harmony with his magic. Stroking your neck and spine he is unable to control the flood of unwanted memories bubbling to the surface of his mind. As you sleep peacefully unaware of your wishes he spends the rest of the evening watching the flames die down, lost in a waking nightmare.

[not-me-simping-for-blasty]

Wrong Number, Asshole - A Bakugou Katsuki Soulmate AU 

All Parts

Part 20:

As it turns out, finally finding out the identity of your soulmate was not an easy piece of information to sleep on.

Bakugou had hung up hours ago, hopefully to listen to your advice, and since then you’d done nothing but search up his name. Obsessively. Since apparently that’s who you were now when it came to him. 

You scoffed as you read another shitty headline.

Pro Dynamite saves the day but recklessly endangers 17 innocents in Hosu - Where is the line between hero and villain?

What follows is another biased recap of events that happened over a year ago: Bakugou had stopped an entire group of high-powered villains but was only able to do so by exploding the entire top floor of the building they were hiding out in. He successfully wounded, incapacitated, and captured all of the targeted criminals, but blast debris and smoke inhalation harmed civilians that had chosen not to evacuate.

You rolled your eyes, hardly able to understand why it seemed every news outlet was blaming the injuries on him. From videos and news coverage it seemed like there was no other option Bakugou could have taken, and he’d nearly sacrificed his own life with the blast. You wanted to scream. 

They should be fucking thanking him! You thought.

At least- you did. Until you saw the clip.

Further in the article was a link- a simple, deceptively innocent link that led to a horrifying video.

It was taken on a hand-held camera, the lens pointed at the floor as the recorder enters an alley slowly. They duck behind a garbage bin and tilt the camera up, just minutely, and it falls on Bakugou who’s leaning against the alley wall. He was clearly tired, deep-seated bags rooted under his eyes, with one arm in a sling and the other holding his phone. The person recording held the camera still, bated breath, and kept themselves hidden. Whoever it was, they obviously didn’t want Bakugou to see them recording him.

“No- fucking- I know, Shitty Hair, Jesus!” Bakugou roars, and then his face screws up, and he rubs at his chest. “You think I don’t fucking know? I fucked up! I did! I know, but I just- I couldn’t stop!”

There’s silence again and Bakugou rolls his eyes at whoever is on the other side of the phone.

“You don’t- don’t fucking say that! Of course it fuckin’ matters! I shouldn’t of fucking let them fire me up like that!” Bakugou coughs, voice hoarse as he continues yelling. “They just kept runnin’ their fuckin’ mouths about me being a villain and I was so fuckin’ angry I couldn’t stop- I knew there were people still in there and I didn’t care! I didn’t fucking care!” 

It’s quiet again, the only sound is Bakugou’s ragged breaths. Suddenly his face screws up again, this time not in pain but in anger. Rolling, hot, boiling anger that sets his jaw back and pulls his eyebrows in and darkens his expression into something terrifying. His eyes are voids, shadowed by the dim light of the alley, swirling like vacuous black holes set into his face. He looks murderous- nearly vibrating with rage as he shakes his head so violently you’re surprised he doesn’t snap his neck. Bakugou slams a hand against the alley’s bricks, leaving a steaming indent in the shape of a fist.

“I should’ve killed them.” Bakugou seethes, voice deep and dark like solid steel boiled down. “ Every last fucking one of them. “

 Then he hangs up, violently, and explodes the phone in his grip. The recorder startles, knocking loudly into the garbage can in front of them. 

“Who in the fuck-” Bakugou screams, voice rolling thunder as he launches himself toward the bin.

All you see is Bakugou’s snarling face, a flash of blinding orange light, the sound of a scream, and then a black screen as the recording cuts.

With a sick fascination, you rewind the video, just a few seconds, pausing on the still shot of Bakugou’s face as it nears the camera. He looks senseless and demonic; mouth curled around too-sharp teeth, his jaw shadowed and angular- but it’s his eyes. It’s his eyes that scare you the most. 

Where they were black holes before, dark and empty and void, they’re raging fires now. Red, and dark, and angry like an infected wound, something volcanic and uncontainable rolling viscous and thick just beneath the surface. You’ve never seen anyone else with eyes like his- have never seen anything so hellish in your life. In that moment Bakugou doesn’t look human. He looks evil- like a vengeful war god slowly being consumed by his own bloodlust.

You shiver.

There’s-there’s nothing good about that video. It’s scary and frightening and you’ve never heard his voice sound like that. So angry and full of malice and hard around the edges- like every word is a pointed knife stabbing at you. The Bakugou in that video, his anger scares you more than any explosion of his ever could. 

You want to text him, want to beg him to explain, to say something that will make the sick in your stomach stop festering like a poison. You don’t though. He’s injured again. Recovering again, just like in the video- and no matter how many questions are rattling around in your head, they’re nowhere near as important to you as his health. 

The diseased ill in your stomach didn’t let up though. No matter what you tried, you couldn’t get the look of his eyes out of your head. He looked soulless. Dark and unreachable and so very angry that it scared you. Terrified you. You’d dreamed your whole life of a happy future with a gentle soulmate, but you couldn’t seem to find Bakugou in that picture anymore. You didn’t know who he was anymore.

You closed your laptop, rubbing at eyes that were still puffy from earlier. Your heart was ripped raw, mind rattling in your skull, as your eyes burned. You laid back on your pillow, shutting your eyes and trying to forget the image of your soulmate eyes, untethered and feral as he attacked. 

--/--

Morning came and you didn’t feel any better. You still felt weightless, disconnected and confused by everything around you. 

You stalled through your morning routine, taking an extra long shower, sipping slowly at coffee you would have normally inhaled. It was a Saturday, and usually those were relaxing, but it didn’t feel that way this time. You were still unsettled by that video- that scream and the sound of it abruptly ending as an explosion drowned it out. It was like a horror movie, and you seemed to be caught in the middle of it. 

You understood now- why Bakugou didn’t want to tell you who he was. That video was pretty easy to happen across, even if you just did a little big of digging into Bakugou. It was a stain on his record and you supposed he was right, after all- everything did change the second he told you he that he was a hero. That he was Dynamite.

You sighed, rubbing at your aching eyes. You knew that you had to call him, you just wish it didn’t have to be this complicated. 

Bakugou was calling you before you even set your phone back down.

“Hey.” He said, voice still weak and uncharacteristically quiet.

“Hi.”

“Don’t- fuck, don’t sound like that.” Bakugou sighs a shaking breath, barely masked frustration lacing his tone. “I- you fuckin’ saw it didn’t you?”

“Yes.” 

“That’s-” He starts, and he sounds so desperate it nearly tears your heart in two. “I never wanted you to fuckin’ see that! That’s not- I wasn’t- that’s not me!”

“It was you, though!” You raise your voice. “In the video! Bakugou- you said you wanted to kill people, multiple people, and then you attacked someone! Without even taking a second to think about it! You were just so angry, so fucking furious and mad and y-you didn’t even sound like you! That kind of anger- it’s fucking terrifying, you know that?” 

He’s quiet, and you think you can still hear the beeping of the machine from last night.

“That- it wasn’t- I didn’t,” He struggles, voice cracking. “The camera. Not the person- I- fuck- I didn’t attack the person! Just smashed the fuckin’ camera!”

“You still jumped at them! You know how scary that must have been?” Your fingers shake as you grip your phone. “It’s- they shouldn’t have been there, fine, whatever, but it’s a fuckin’ civillian! It’s your job- as the ridiculously over-powered hero, from what I’ve seen- to protect them! Not attack them!” 

Bakugou says nothing. Minutes pass and you think you hear a poorly-masked sniffle.

“You’re mad at me.” He says, simple and desolate like he’s already convinced himself of it. “Shoulda known you would be.”

“No it’s- I am. I am mad- but I don’t,” You pause, trying to find your words. “I just- I feel like I don’t know you any more! I thought I did? At least a little bit- but now it’s- you were so angry, and I know that must’ve been a bad day from the looks of it but- your eyes. It was your eyes! That kind of anger- that hate- it doesn’t just happen in a fuckin’ day, Bakugou!” 

You hear a choked sound, something tiny and small and caught in the back of his throat, and the grinding of Bakugou’s teeth. 

“I-I can’t. I know- I fuckin’ know, okay?” He bites out. “I- just. Stay. Please- it was- you were supposed to be fuckin’ different! It’s not- I would never- you weren’t supposed to know.”

Something in his voice sounds broken. He’s screaming, tearing his throat just like he always did, but it didn’t feel the same. Bakugou had never asked you for anything before- he’d let you call the shots, let you talk his ear off and bother him, but he’d never, not once, in the entire time you’d known him, asked you for something. 

Your answer was simple- it never really was a choice after all. You would’ve never left, didn’t even think you could at this point; but something had to change. You had to make sure he understood.

“Bakugou- I- I would’ve never left. Not over this. Not over anything, probably.” You swallow thickly, blinking away tears. “But I can’t- I won’t accept the way things were before. When I ask you something, you need to answer me. Honestly and completely, from now on. No more secrets. Ever.” 

He just agrees, something deep and raspy and desperate as it filters through the phone. 

“So I need you to answer me, now,” You begin, taking a shaky breath and steeling your nerves. “How long are you going to be in the hospital for?”

“I-what?”

“Just answer.” 

“It’s-I’m- two days, alright. Two more fuckin’ days on watch and then I’m out.”

“Okay.’ You nodded. “Where are you staying- what hospital?”

“Why?”

“I’m coming to visit. We-we need to talk more and I can’t do it over the phone- I won’t do it over the phone.” You tried to make your voice stronger than you felt. “So, if you feel up to it, I’ll visit. If not, don’t text me until you are. T-that’s- that’s the way we fix this. The only way.”

Bakugou was quiet again, breathing in silence until a cough ripped through his chest.

“I’m- Jaku City. That’s where I am.” He finally says, voice smaller than anything you were used to. “I’ll text you the address.”

“Okay.” You say, still trying to catch your breath. “I- I think I need some time. I’ll call you when I’m almost there, okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

You hang up, fingers shaking as they hit the end call button.

The conversation was short- so short, and hardly even covered anything, but you just couldn’t take it any longer. When all you knew was the sound of his voice, it was a lot easier to get a read on him and what he was feeling. But it wasn’t that way anymore. You knew his face and his smile and his eyes from those clips and pictures and videos you’d seen all night. 

Hearing his voice wasn’t enough to tell you who he was anymore. You wouldn’t be able to read him- not without seeing those angry red eyes.

///-////

whewwwww angstY ;)))

[bestworstcase]

Alright re: how you'd handle popular fanon concepts:

1. Because I know you don't like this one and am curious how you'd handle it: dark princess cass

2. Because I think it would be fascinating to see your take on this: dark raps/corrupted sundrop

cracks knuckles right okay

#1: dark princess cass (canon flavor)

the fanon concept here is straightforward; rather than edmund revealing himself to be eugene’s father he turns out to be cassandra’s, and where most folks tend to go with the idea from there is “…and then cassandra takes the moonstone because she feels it’s her destiny as the long lost princess of the aphelion.”

which i don’t like because 1. cassandra being a commoner is pretty integral to my reading of her and 2. that is a STUPID reason to take the moonstone.

so here is how i would do it:

1. princess…horatia is sent away from the aphelion as an infant, under the alias cassandra, in the care of a nursemaid. for the first few years of her life she knows this woman as her mother and they travel across the continent, seeking a safe refuge. eventually they reach corona and the nurse—let’s call her hala for the sake of having a name—hala decides this seems like a good place to settle down. (also being on the western coast they are now literally as far away from aphelion as it is possible to get.)

2. not a few months later, the coronan princess is kidnapped, and the king imposes a harsh crackdown on crime. while hala herself isn’t caught up in that, she is a…well-educated common woman who has just spent years toiling across an entire continent with a toddler because her king made a single dumb decision that resulted in the utter obliteration of her home and killed thousands, and she sees frederic meddling with magic beyond human ken and punishing his own subjects when the consequences bite him in the ass and she is not impressed.

3. so she goes: fuck it. my daughter now.

4. what hala is supposed to do is raise princess horatia in full knowledge of her heritage and the burden of her royal destiny until such time as she is old enough to return to the aphelion and guard the moonstone. what hala actually does is raise her daughter cassandra to be hard-working and compassionate and deeply skeptical of monarchy as an institution and destiny as a concept. cassandra is well aware that hala adopted her and of the aphelion’s collapse but it’s through the lens of “your birth parents died because our king Fucked Around and Found Out.”

5. when cassandra is, oh, let’s say twenty she happens to cross paths with one moira caine, who doesn’t radicalize her so much as she mentions this awful thing that happened to her dad when she was younger and cassandra is like. thats fucked up. we should start a rebellion.

6. fast forward about two years. rapunzel escapes her tower a la canon and ends up with… er, faith as her lady-in-waiting, an assignment which does not particularly suit either of them. (faith finds rapunzel’s lack of boundaries stressful but unlike cass isn’t brave or blunt enough to push back, and rapunzel reads a lot of things into faith’s constant presence and reluctant acceptance of everything but is also horrifically lonely because there’s no true bond between her and faith.)

7. by this time cassandra and caine are both notorious criminals / dissidents / revolutionaries who have been cooking up plans to topple the coronan monarchy; rapunzel’s return throws kind of a wrench into things because they were going to assassinate frederic and take advantage of the ensuing chaos due to the unclear line of succession.

8. cassandra: so do we uh– do we kidnap the princess or what

9. cassandra and caine crash the coronation and kidnap the princess. they are unprepared for the princess, who has spent the past six months slowly boiling alive in repressed frustration and anxiety, to decide that being KIDNAPPED by a couple of LADY RUFFIANS is the BEST THING THAT HAS HAPPENED EVER.

10. they get rapunzel past the corona walls and shenanigans are had, leading ultimately to a chance discovery of the black rocks, which rapunzel touches out of curiosity, cue explosion and spontaneous hair growth and mad sprint for safety followed by cassandra, who knows exactly what those black rocks were, going: uhh this is probably very bad.

11. rapunzel: so what i’m getting from this is there’s a mysterious connection between my hair and the black rocks so i need to run away and find the aphelion and this moonstone thingy and not go back to corona where i’m trapped in the palace all the time right? RIGHT?!

12. cassandra: uh—

13. and that’s how kidnapping the coronan princess turns into getting dragged along on her manic quest for freedom. they cross paths with adira pretty shortly thereafter and eugene catches up with them fully intending to rescue rapunzel from the vicious criminals only for rapunzel to be all HI EUGENE MEET MY NEW FRIENDS! WE ARE GOING! ON! AN! ADVENTURE!! and he just has to deal with rapunzel’s new besties being a couple of revolutionary lesbians who are now pretty openly mulling a “get the moonstone and use it to topple the coronan monarchy?” plan which rapunzel is fine with for sOME REASON OKAY SUNSHINE I GUESS THIS MIGHT AS WELL HAPPEN.

14. lance gets added to the party via hijinks in vardaros. possibly stalyan also because i love chaos

15. some tension does develop between cassandra/caine and rapunzel/eugene due to them getting on each other’s nerves but because rapunzel has no material power over cassandra’s (or caine’s) life and found being a princess utterly unbearable anyway the entrenched toxicity that emerges in canon… doesn’t. cass does still sustain an injury in the great tree due to reckless experimentation with the withering incantation but the more balanced group dynamic allows for hurt feelings about this to be talked out in a more genuine and productive way; and a little bit after that they hit the shell house, where, well,

16. zhan tiri: so i heard you kids want to destroy corona,

17. rapunzel is ambivalent about the DESTROY part but given the circumstances zhan tiri gets the whole group on board by pretty much just laying her cards on the table: she wants out of acid hell, she needs both the sundrop and moonstone to do it, uniting the drops will kill rapunzel, if cassandra uses her withered hand she can take the moonstone instead, and FINE if they let her out and crush the coronan government she’s willing to negotiate on not slaughtering everyone in corona. (spoilsports).

18. team feral rocks up to the aphelion fully confident in this flawless plan and edmund drops the revelation that cassandra is his long lost daughter and princess of the aphelion on all of them like a goddamn GRENADE. cassandra has a whole existential crisis, snatches the moonstone like they’d all planned but also mostly because FUCK YOU “DAD” and runs away to have loud complicated feelings in the woods by herself.

19. caine, once they’ve caught up with her: so would overthrowing the—

20: cassandra: yes overthrowing the coronan monarchy would help me feel better let’s fucking go

i think if i were to write the fic it would be pretty light-hearted in tone, with the lion’s share of the conflict and drama springing from the development of interpersonal relationships between the mains rather than, like, high-stakes concerns about the fate of the world, and once cass got the moonstone the two big threads would be 1. her reeling through this discovery of being a long-lost princess and figuring out her uh, complicated feelings about that in light of everything else and 2. zhan tiri being a horrible chaotic gremlin who’s, yes, scheming to steal the sundrop and moonstone for herself but also becoming increasingly fond of this horrible chaotic gremlin found family she sort of tripped into (#squadgoals)

cass and rapunzel not having any particular investment in holding onto their magic in this one i think their reactions to zhan tiri yoinking the drops after however many months of shenanigans and feral bonding would be YOU COULD HAVE JUST ASKED

#2: dark princess cassandra (rival kingdoms au flavor)

this is the like, diadem au class of dark princess cassandra wherein the core premise is that rapunzel is corona’s princess and cassandra is the dark kingdom’s and the two nations are at odds with each other in some way. which is a category of au that pretty much just exists to ship cassandra and rapunzel together with star-crossed lovers vibes and whatever shippy aesthetics and tropes float the boats of the people doing them; but what floats my boat is fantasy politics and eldritch horror tropes so thats what we’re going to do.

1. aphelion is ruled by queen calanthe gothel and prince consort edmund. (i will not apologize for how CURSED this concept is.) they have a bunch of children, because royalty; as the eldest, eugene is the crown prince. cassandra is the youngest, and thus so far down the line of succession that she hardly even counts as a “spare,” and she is also, being the only daughter, the one calanthe is the most vicious towards.

1a. no sundrop or moonstone in this setting, so calanthe isn’t and cannot feasibly become eternally young. 100% of her vanity and anxieties about aging and appearance and resentment about what all this childbearing and the demands of ruling a country have done to her looks get channeled into being completely fucking evil to cassandra / treating her like a pretty vessel who through which calanthe can vicariously relive her lost youth.

2. meanwhile over in corona king frederic and queen arianna famously struggled with infertility for YEARS without managing to produce a single heir… until princess rapunzel, whom arianna died giving birth to since there was no sundrop to save her life. even taking into account that she is his sole heir frederic is… very overprotective of rapunzel and has kept her pretty sheltered, to her detriment. she is of course well-educated as one would expect a royal heir to be, but she has zero real life experience and basically hasn’t left the palace ever except for a handful of times in a heavily guarded carriage with the curtains drawn.

3. so both cassandra and rapunzel are fucking desperate to escape their miserable situations but rapunzel has no idea where to even begin getting herself out and calanthe has sunk her claws in deep such that cass is mired in her own sense of guilt and obligation to her family and to her country.

4. on the larger scale corona and aphelion are neighbors who have been entrenched in stalemate territorial / border disputes for longer than anyone alive can properly remember and tensions are flaring up again because calanthe does not like to be told no and does not respect treaties whatsoever and has been quietly setting up to go to war and flat out conquer corona because, well, in for a penny, in for a pound, right?

5. on top of that frederic is juggling domestic problems in the form of lady caine’s nascent rebellion and longstanding ongoing unrest among the conquered saporian minority, and calanthe is having some problems with a mysterious cult that has sprung up in the last few years and has been doing alarming things like trying to wake up the sleeping horror trapped in the caverns beneath the great tree in northern aphelion.

6. the plot kicks off with calanthe’s agents cutting a deal with the saporian dissidents to assassinate frederic and cassandra discovering by accident that one of her handmaidens (sugracha) belongs to the weird tree cult and being like you know what a literal primordial demon can’t possibly be worse than my mother i’m sold and promptly getting sucked into the cult’s garden apocalypse bullshit and the story is a chaotic free for all between a) wildly unprepared eighteen-year-old queen rapunzel, b) queen calanthe who declares war the day rapunzel is coronated, and c) an increasingly feral and unhinged cultist cassandra who maybe starts picking off her own siblings one by one about halfway through once she gets in deep enough that “human sacrifices to wake up god” starts to sound totally reasonable.

i think i would go full eldritch horror with this one rip to everyone.

...

i do aLSO have a little corner of my brain with a lot of very detailed ideas about how i would do the diadem au premise specifically because the diadem premise fascinates and the cliff notes of that is:

1. just really lean in to the vibe that zhan tiri was a very abused child who (in contrast to the rest of her family, who give lip service to wanting revenge to stop the coronan genocide of mages but are clearly content with the present status quo because they're wealthy and comfortable in diadem / fuck you got mine) cares fiercely about the plight of both mage refugees in diadem who have not been as fortunate as her own family and mages still living and being persecuted in the rest of the kingdoms

2. zhan tiri and prince cass were friends, sort of friends, the closest thing either of them were allowed to have to a friend as children but had a horrible falling out a few years prior to the story, in large part due to interference from zhan tiri's family members who were concerned about zhan tiri radicalizing the heir to the throne and potentially jeopardizing the good thing they've got going on here; thus why at the top of the story cassandra is so burnt out on the notion of friendship in general and wary of zhan tiri's attempts to get closer to her again in particular.

3. cass much more aware of, invested in, and concerned about the mage problem but also her mom is queen gothel and she has no friends and despite being a prince very little political agency thanks to the sprawling bureaucratic indifference of the diademese government,

4. zhan tiri the spymaster is watching the sanctions imposed by the other six kingdoms against diadem get sharper every year, watching the aristocratic grumblings about missing their imported luxuries and let's just sign the damn accords already get louder every year, watching her own people languish in poverty and starve and die every even in diadem their last refuge; she's receiving reports of fresh atrocities and pleas for assistance constantly and nobody seems to care and she's getting desperate,

5. and rapunzel has no clue about anything except that she is a mage and she's really scared of it getting out and this diadem place where magic is everywhere and not illegal sounds really nice and wow prince cassandra is very pretty isn't she?!!?!?

6. cass pedestals rapunzel hard because she has literally never met anyone who is so unreservedly sweet and honest and kind before but they are on such different pages and trying to carry on the secret long distance star crossed lovers thing on top of dealing with her mother's abuse and the cutthroat diademese court and being stressed out all the time about the horrific crisis happening all around her is... really bad for her mental health actually! and rapunzel clinging to her as a sole source of emotional support for the mage thing does not help!

7. the final straw is when cassandra is injured during one of their elicit meetings (gets bitten by a wolf or whatever like in diadem proper the details do not especially matter), and rapunzel who is a mage with all of like a year and change of trying to teach herself how to do magic via secret trial and error with zero help and zero resources, is like "yeah i can totally heal that let me try!" only to botch it really badly, because it's one thing to make a torn up arm look all better and quite another to knit all the blood vessels and nerve endings and flesh back together the way they're supposed to be, so it seems okay at first but by the time cass makes it home she's like. in agonizing pain and cannot move her fingers which are starting to go necrotic from lack of blood flow and cass is like: fuck.

8. which brings her to zhan tiri, who has been honing her magical abilities since before she could walk, knows a botched healing when she sees one, and is like "who the hell did this to you"—cue months of painstaking magical surgeries to reconstruct and regrow large parts of cassandra's arm and likewise slow and painstaking rebuilding of old friendship and "well the silver lining is if we spin this to your mother as a failed assassination attempt we can probably get her to declare war on corona and make the world SLIGHTLY LESS FUCKING AWFUL?"

9. diadem's superior military rips a bloody path through corona, gothel dies of matricide totally natural causes, cass takes the throne and cleans house, cass and rapunzel meet again and tip-toe into a civil working relationship, and cass/ziti is endgame because i think they deserve it.

10. caine's still a rebel mage living in corona (also one of zhan tiri's contacts and fairly instrumental in the curbstomping of corona) but her ending does not in any way shape or form involve living in domestic bliss with lance this is important

#3: dark raps / corrupted sundrop au

orig concept yoinked straight from tovanori’s post:

What if the decay spell corrupted Rapunzel and she convinced Cass to take the Moonstone so they could rule together. Cass plays along but is actually looking for a way to get Rapunzel cured from the corruption.

this one was super trendy in cassunzel circles for a hot minute spawned a bevy of dark raps fics and art and then kind of died down. i think the base idea is neat but in execution… well it was very horny ghsdfjk and the fics i read did not engage much or really at all with a lot of the things i like best about the latter half of of s2 and also were very zhan tiri whomst? and none of those things are how we roll here at bestworstcase dot tumblr dot com.

dark raps au is also one where i have a lot already jotted down about how i would handle the concept so i’m going to just, lightly edit my existing notes, broken up into chronological chunks, in lieu of doing a numbered list.

first thoughts:

my immediate instinct is to go for “dark raps, but cassandra has her normal motivations,” i.e. cass takes the moonstone because she’s mad and tired of getting shoved aside. on the one hand you have raps being subsumed by this other personality of ‘zel’ who is possessive and unapologetically selfish and power-hungry, and on the other you have cass who has been boiling in resentment and pain since they left the great tree, trying to figure herself a out a way out of this mess for almost as long, and upon encountering zhan tiri in the house of yesterday’s tomorrow resolves to take the moonstone herself. when cass snatches the moonstone and dips rapunzel feels like cass has taken away something that rightfully belongs to her—not just the moonstone but cassandra herself—and the ‘zel’ persona reveals herself and leaves everyone else behind to chase after cass, and then you’ve got cass and zhan tiri pursuing their own agendas with the moonstone while zel obsessively pursues cass and team corona + the brotherhood are left in the dust wondering what the HELL just happened.

everything i write is secretly a comedy:

something very funny about cass not clocking who ziti is at first and ziti not having any idea zel is coming after them so she has plenty of time to warm cass up to the idea of attacking rapunzel and then zel fucking ambushes them and ziti is like wait WHAT and pulls some demon shit to get cass out of danger because cass hasn’t quite gotten the hang of the moonstone stuff yet … and that’s how cass learns who gremlin baby is cass like zhan tiri did u do this and zhan tiri is like i literally did not see this coming i have no idea. kill her tho

further thoughts:

on reflection i think the most fun way to handle the corruption of rapunzel would be to swap out subconscious!raps for subconscious!zel in rapunzeltopia. rapunzel has all these traits she inherited from gothel, she viciously represses her bad feelings, and she’s the vessel for the sundrop, which gives her various mystery powers. in RATGT she really starts to embrace her more forceful side. forget the decay incantation corruption thing; the events of RATGT & RDO leave rapunzel boiling with guilt and shame under the surface but also give her a massive shot of reinforcement of her worst impulses—everyone, including cass, validate the choices rapunzel makes in both conflicts. then they’re trapped in the shell house and rapunzel gets shoved into this lotus dream where she’s put under intense pressure to go back to being the sweet, spineless, weak little girl gothel trained her to be, which—for completely mundane, non-magical reasons—makes her SNAP. the little mental box where she’s stuffed all her bad feelings explodes and all this repressed anger, distress, selfishness, even cruelty she’s been holding back slams into the conviction (that she’s been clinging to in order to cope with her buried guilt) that she is In Charge, Always Right, The Queen, and Entitled To Make Whatever Decisions She Deems Necessary… …which manifests—again for totally mundane reasons—in her dream as the character of zel. zel is not a split personality or magical corruption she’s literally just a figment rapunzel’s unconscious brain invents to make sense of this huge surge of righteous indignation, anger, and desire to HURT the people who keep trying to control her. after rapunzel wakes up, the particulars of the dream get hazy but she does remember this ‘zel’ character who… was her, but a different, stronger, more self-assured version of herself. all the traits and feelings that zel represented are present in rapunzel’s psyche, and they scare her a little, but they’re the things that saved her from tromus’ machinations. so whenever they bubble into her conscious thoughts during the final leg of the journey, rapunzel embraces them instead of shoving them down the way she used to. so: she’s not subsumed or corrupted, she just accelerates through this spiral of becoming the worst possible version of herself because it feels good, safe, right in some way. it saved her from being controlled and exploited. of course her cheerful demeanor doesn’t change—in fact, she seems outwardly happier and more relaxed than ever before!—so of course none of her friends notice what’s happening in her thoughts, and they can’t step in to go WOAH rapunzel you’re going a little off the rails here, so all the brakes are off. she starts to feel genuinely eager to take the moonstone, because it’s hers, her destiny, right? and then she and eugene encounter demanitus, and demanitus doesn’t just sell rapunzel hard on the destiny narrative—he also says that uniting the sundrop and moonstone will grant her enormous power, the power to shape the world however she wants, and rapunzel wants that. because even after all this time she still feels trapped, she still feels scared, but if she has all that power no one will ever be able to crush her down again. …except then cass steals the moonstone right out from under her and escapes, and rapunzel kind of goes berserk because she’s built up this whole power fantasy in her head about freedom and safety and cass snatched that away. so that’s the moment when she goes well fuck THIS and decides to call herself zel, to stop being nice, to embrace the full range of the sundrop’s powers… including its darker side via the withering incantation. maybe something also about gaining control over the decay magic because she embraces her own darker feelings like this. the corruption not being magical at ALL also gives a reason for zhan tiri to miss it; she just couldn’t care less about what rapunzel was thinking after cassandra got on board, and nothing magically weird happened until cass left and rapunzel exploded. s3/rapunzeltopia implies that rapunzel’s ideal fantasy would be for cass to happily serve as her lady in waiting and i feel like that would be the core of zel’s approach to cass; like getting her back into place and persuading her not just to accept that to be HAPPY with it—subdued compliance a la RDO isn’t good enough.

everything i write is secretly a comedy pt. 2:

zel is just rapunzel’s emo edgelord phase but because she’s a princess and a walking magical nuke the consequences are dire i love the idea of rapunzel not physically transforming herself until after cass has escaped. charging after her to get the moonstone back and calling for her to wait, but then the bridge is broken and cass vanishes and she just kinda :o → :| → >:[ → >:C so a couple weeks later when zel, now all dark har and black schleras and stuff, catches up to her cass is like RAPS WHAT THE HELL ziti gets released like a month later because zel attacks cass again zel is about to yoink the moonstone when fully corporeal zhan tiri falls out of the portal lands on her head and bites her murphy @ancientriverbed: “all of corona just like what the fuck” me: “cass is also like zhan tiri what the fuck”

/old notes

all of this was idle spitballing so i did not think deeply about the plot beyond rapunzel spiraling hard into this awful, toxic headspace and then getting so power drunk that she goes full villain for a while while cass and ziti sort of wrapped back around to being “good guys” by dint of cass being like what in tarnation is wrong with u while zhan tiri goes through an arc of “haha yes i am manipulating this unwitting pawn into doing my bidding so i can steal the m—HEY WHAT THE FUCK” and then “well that’s… convenient but i am suddenly feeling very protective of cassandra for [violently slams fraught history with demanitus into the trunk of forbidden things] NO REASON AT ALL” and then “oh no i care about her. welp i guess i have no choice but to steal the sundrop instead because this will surely solve all of my problems,”

but in re: everything i write is secretly a comedy: the funniest possible ending here is “zhan tiri yoinks the sundrop out of rapunzel during the eclipse, and everybody including rapunzel once she’s come down off the power trip high agrees that this is, bafflingly??, the better option”

[thotinshield]

Danny’s Bagginshield Fic Recs (2021)

I haven’t done a fic rec in literal years, and I keep meaning to, but then I... don’t. This is a massive list - so I will put it under a read more to save your dashes.

Modern AUs

A Remover of Obstacles by MistakenMagic

"Dis often chided her older brother for being a misanthropist. She did it so often it had become a term of endearment. It was true that Thorin struggled with people; he struggled to form and maintain relationships. Dr. Grey had diagnosed him with this and Thorin hadn’t the heart to tell him this wasn’t a symptom of his PTSD, it was a symptom of his personality. He exercised a sense of apathy with almost everyone he met… But Bilbo was different. Thorin actually found himself wanting to know more about him."

(Note: This fic deals with a lot of mental health stuff, panic attacks, etc, so please please mind the tags.)

By Request by HildyJ

As a musician, Thorin's life can be summed up in tempos. For instance, the concerto he's perfoming on Friday is Allegro - quick and bright, followed by Andantino - slightly slow, and then back to Allegro again.

On the other hand, his relationship with his cute neighbour? Larghissimo - very, very slow.

Stepping Stones by misplacedkisses

It feels like it's fate Thorin's trying to resist, his destiny, his bloodline.

Fresh out of inpatient, Thorin's struck with the urge and maybe it's fate (or therapy) that has him stumbling into a late-night cafe instead. It may be the start of a new life.

Write Me Down Easy by lucyraebrown

Bilbo Baggins, a simple man with a wish for something more than his life teaching high school English, is obsessed with a famous author by the pen-name Oakenshield. Although he knows the future is dim for his chances of finding out about the man behind his favorite book, it's reassuring to know someone has the same thoughts about the world.

Fix-its 

I'll Die to Care for You by thehufflepuffhobbit

His gaze landed on Mahal's eyes once more. "You did your best, Thorin." It was tempting to look away; he wanted to deny that with everything he had. It certainly didn't feel as though falling into Gold Sickness and then dying was doing his best. Mahal smirked, as though he knew Thorin's desire to contradict him, and pinched his cheek before walking over to a table. "Aye, I didn't think you would believe me. I'm not lying, it certainly could have gone better. More according to my plan, but I know you really did try."

"Your plan?" He didn't know if he should ask, really. Knowing that his Maker had set a course for him, he didn't want to think about the ways he had done everything wrong. There were too many examples of mistakes in his long life, too many opportunities that he had missed that had probably been planned for him from the beginning.

Or:

Mahal feels like Thorin fucked up his legacy and gives him a do over.

Roses of Iron by Porphyrios

Two years after Bilbo returned from his adventures, he's made his peace with being back in the Shire. He still wonders what might have happened if things were different, but figures all that is behind him now. A mysterious visitor turns out to be someone he never thought he'd see again, and he's shocked by the news he hears.

Beside Myself by bliboboggins

"What are you doing? Just who do you think you are?" Startled, Bilbo turned around slowly. And there, in a familiar patchwork dressing gown, brandishing a fire poker wildly about, was... Bilbo.

i wouldn't have danced like that with any but you by Percyjacksonfan3

Thorin has survived the Battle of the Five Armies but his relationship with Bilbo is uncertain and precarious, especially in the newly reclaimed kingdom of Erebor. With Kíli set to marry Tauriel, and the Dwarves of Erebor still holding prejudice against outside races, Thorin must choose between his nephew's happiness or his own.

Though he believes sending Bilbo back to the Shire is for the good of everyone, he and the rest of Erebor are thrown into turmoil when 5 years later his nephews secretly plot to bring Bilbo back. Coming face-to-face with Bilbo again makes it impossible for Thorin to stay apart from him any longer- but is Bilbo still willing to be with Thorin once more after he broke both of their hearts?

A Matter of Payment by heartshapeddog

"And Thorin rose from the little table, keeping Bilbo’s fingers crushed gently in his own, and went down to his knee before him. Bilbo was struck with the likelihood that no creature greater than a farm-dog had lowered its head before a Hobbit since the birth of Eä until this very moment. He looked down, fascinated, at the crown of Thorin’s head, bare of royal circlet, and felt at once humbled and strong.

“I swear it,” Thorin said, and Bilbo thought of the vows from Elven history, of the type which followed the oathkeeper to the ends of Arda as a deep and binding magic. Then, he took Bilbo’s knuckles up to his lips. The rasp of his beard and his soft mouth were shocking in their immediacy and contrast. Bilbo could not help his racing heart."

Feet that Wander Have Gone by WednesdaysDaughter

“Run away with me.”

Bilbo turns to see who would say such a cowardly thing only to realize it was his own traitorous mouth which has run away with his heart: They’re already down the mountain and past Mirkwood by the time he realizes no one has objected.

“What a delightful solution my dear boy,” says Gandalf who looks to the east where the eagles are skimming the horizon.

Other AUs

between synapses and circuits by MistakenMagic

Different diagnostic results slowly trickled through and Thorin swiped them all to different corners of the screen depending on their relevance and evidence of abnormality. He paused when a particular chart appeared and smiled to himself.

“What?” Bilbo murmured, sounding genuinely worried.

“Your heterochromia,” Thorin explained, meeting Bilbo’s green and blue gaze. “The irregular algorithm that causes it has been running for almost half a century.”

“Most mechatronics offer to fix it for me,” Bilbo said, looking away, seeming suddenly self-conscious.

“Then they’re idiots.”

(Note: I just love MistakenMagic’s works. That’s all. This one is good and she writes angst so so well.)

past one hundred thousand miles (feeling very still) by childishinquiry

Commander Thorin Oakenshield is the leader of the first Mars mission, Project Golden Eagle, with twelve crewmen. Back on Earth, Specialist Bilbo Baggins is their communications specialist. Making history is easy; it's much harder to deal with falling in love with the person on the other end of the signal.

Hallowbit by batherik

As simple pawn shop owner in the human world, Bilbo isn’t all that thrilled to find himself lost in Thorin’s magical undead kingdom. Lured there by an old man dressed in grey, who turned out to be a wizard, Bilbo is charged with doing a job no one wants to do: fetch the King’s head from the corn maze. The King often loses his head when his temper boils over.

In the House of a Skinchanger by Bardic

Thorin and Company have finally reached a safe house after a few crazy weeks on the road. After three days of goblins, orcs, and a massive bear that's chased them into the home of one of Gandalf's acquaintances the Company is quite exhausted and quite tired of surprises. Unfortunately for them, or fortunately there is another staying there.

Master Baggins is not who the Company expected to find, especially when he claims to be one of the only outsiders Durin allowed a title and a rank to. Although that's the least surprising thing about him.

Thorin makes some discoveries and has some observations.

Basically an AU where Bilbo is a skinchanger and the Company meet him at Beorn's on accident.

It Runs In The Family by Imagined

At first, Bilbo is very glad to hear of the new alliance between Erebor and the Shire. He is even more excited when he learns that some of his family members are coming to the Lonely Mountain to discuss the details.

That is, until the dwarves (and Thorin, who is decidedly not and never shall be his) start getting along a little too well with one of his more adventurous cousins, and Bilbo starts doubting about his place.

[mahixa]

so @maxricciardo messaged me earlier today and maybe possibly probably inspired me to write this cute, fluffy lestappen fic. Listen, she’s great and she deserves to read something nice and comforting about Max after today’s race. And for any of you searching for something sweet and a short fic about the boys being happy together - I hope you will enjoy it as well.

You can read it on ao3 [HERE]

ship: lestappen

word count: 1734

fluff. It’s fluff. Boys kissing. Fluffity fluff. Let there be fluff. Max realises his feelings for Charles and thinks Charles is pretty. We all agree with Max.

The interviewer is someone Max has never seen before during their press conferences. He looks like he could live and survive on drama alone. Beastliness shines dangerously in his eyes and the way he tilts his head before he asks Max the question indicates deviousness.

Max doesn’t like this at all.

“So, Max,” his voice is obnoxious already. “We all know how painfully honest you can be. Let me ask you about Charles Leclerc.”

Something stings Max’s chest. It has been difficult couple of days for Charles, with his bad last racing weekend and a lot of family burden going on right now. The Monegasque, if asked about it, would kindly state that everything is fine and there is nothing to worry about.

But Max knows Charles and he is aware when things become too much for him. And it’s obvious that Charles has his ups and downs. Should anyone be surprised by that? No one. And yet the media keep doing what they do best – they wait for the smallest mistake, the tiniest inconvenience, and they dig deep into the topic. They remind Max of vultures, always ready to find a person during their weak moments and portray such person as the biggest victim possible. A loser. Rend their vulnerable skin and make them bleed for the sake of the headline. Pain them black and white.

For the media everything is zero to one. You either win, or you lose. You drive or you crash. There’s no in between.

And Charles is sitting right next to Max during this press conference, and Max can feel him switching his position uncomfortably as they both hear the begging of question.

“Charles seems to like creating controversy,” the man states the biggest lie Max has heard in a while and dares to continue speaking. “And recently he has been loosing his nerves in the most crucial moments. He is, let’s say, not good under pressure these days. Does it even make him a good driver then?”

Something boils inside Max.

“Does any of it have something to do with the upcoming date of Charles’ father’s death? Should Charles continue to drive during this weekend, or is he a threat to others? Clearly he might be, with his mental condition.”

The conference room goes completely silent.

Max doesn’t take his eyes off of the interviewer. He doesn’t even blink. His gaze must look dangerous enough for everyone to make them to look at him and the man multiple times, anticipating the answer. Max lifts his chin defiantly and squints, and it sends unspoken fulmination all across the room. Someone clears his throat nervously.

“You know,” Max starts, joining his hands together. “I think it takes some fucking audacity to come to this room and say such things about one of the greatest driver of this generation.” Someone gasps in the room and everyone lifts their cameras up. “So you come here, and you have your confidence, and well. You have to be confident, for sure, to ask such dumb questions and state such idiotic statements, clearly not understanding what does it mean to be a normal human in this sport, having better and worse days. So no. Charles is more than the questions about his father, he is more than your silly cheap mind games and neither him, or me, will waste our time on you. And he will drive with us on Sunday. He’s the best person out there when it comes to mental strenght and he doesn’t deserve such crap from the media. So shut up. Next question,” he finishes and points at another man.

His heart is beating incredibly fast and he can hardly hear another question. His mouth is dry, palms sweaty and his legs bouncing nervously.

He does his best to ignore Charles’ stunned look on his face and Lewis’ dropped jaw.

When Max comes back to his hotel room he is exhausted and doesn’t really know why. He has dealt with stupid interviewers on more than one occasion by now, and he thinks he should be able to handle this situation better. Not that he regrets saying what he said.

He just doesn’t know why it caused such him such an emotional response.

Before he can think about it more, there’s a soft knock on the door and there’s only one person who knocks like that.

“Come in, Charles.”

Charles’ smile is small and almost timid, as he enters the room and then looks around. Max smiles to himself, observing a very awkward Charles. As if he wasn’t here yesterday to see the room. And the day before.

“I, eh,” he starts, putting his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I wanted to say thank you, Max.”

Max doesn’t know how to react to his cheeks which turn bright red.

Charles has always been like that. Like that? So like what? Max thinks, forcing himself to finally understand what he has been feeling for so long, searching in his head for the best word to describe the other man.

Lovely. Charles has always been quite lovely, he admits to himself.

That describes Charles pretty well, actually. And now Max thinks about all those moments they shared together, from the early karting days too. Their fights and arguments when they were children, and Charles coming to check on Max after their races. Bringing him his home-made cookies or lemonade, and thanking Max. Or saying he is sorry. And these confessions were always a bit clumsy, always a bit awkward, but the words were always there. Charles might not always look the most confident during moments like this, but he always is there. Ready to speak and be tender when other people hide themselves and run away from confrontation. Charles is ready to say the things Max is often unable to.

Today’s press conference was different, though. It was the first time Max said so many things about Charles. In a room full of people, on top of that – people who were paying attention to his every word. Wasn’t that rather stupid, to go off like that? But that question has to be one of the dumbest and most arrogant he has heard in a long while. And it was about Charles.

No one should ever talk about Charles like that.

Not about Charles. How dare they? Have they ever seen the way he drives? The way he trains? How he can stay under pressure? The way he achieves his goals and keeps his cool even in the most stressful moments?

Have they seen the way Charles smiles? The way he rolls his eyes when he sees something silly or the way he wrinkles his nose when he laughs, but truly, truly laughs? Have they seen the way Charles can’t cook or dance, but he likes to do these things and it makes it even more enjoyable to observe him?

And what about the way Charles sleeps, with his lips slightly parted and his strong chest moving up and down? Or the way he gets excited over the stupidest TV programs Max doesn’t understand, but doesn’t mind when Charles asks him to watch them together, already too fascinated by the way Charles comments on things? And the way he plays the piano. The way he chooses songs and hums to himself when he plays.

The way he sneezes and then apologizes for it. The way Charles can assemble furniture from IKEA, and refuse to use any instruction, but somehow his chaotic energy helps him manage? And Max knows how it looks like.

Because Charles helped him with his furnitures.

Charles has always been there. When Max was sick and didn’t want to take any pills, Charles was there. Brining him his mum’s soup and talking how much he likes the fact that they both live in Monaco now. And when Max got completely wasted in one of those bars they like to go to, it was Charles who helped him get clean from all the unpleasant post-party aspects of the night. And he didn’t complain. He didn’t make a sound. He took off Max’s clothes, leaving him in nothing but his boxers, and helped him shower. He made sure Max made it to bed and he placed a glass of water on his bedside table.

Charles was there when Max won his most important races and he was there to celebrate it with him. He was there when Max argued with his father and when it all looked like a lost cause. He was there to rub soothing circles on Max’s back with his gentle hand and embrace him with his soft voice.

And he always says “thank you” and “I’m sorry” when other people could never do it, for different reasons. Charles has always been brave and able to rise above others. Be a bigger person.

Charles is kind and lovely.

And so damn handsome.

It all makes Max’s head dizzy. The realisation of his feelings washes over him and he has to grab the chair not to stumble. What now?

Charles looks beautiful in his blue hoodie, messy hair and his confused smile. He looks way too soft to remain reasonable or sensible about this.

“Those things you said during the press conference, did you mean them?” he asks, finally breaking the silence between them.

Max nods, coming closer to Charles who doesn’t move away. His eyes are focused on Max’s and he licks his lips.

“I meant every word,” Max says, his voice becoming almost a whisper, as he moves even closer and cups Charles’ face with his hand. “Jesus, Charles.”

Charles closes his eyes at the contact and breathes in through his nose. He looks stunning and Max is mesmerised.

“Kiss me,” Charles whispers, not opening his eyes. “Please.”

Max feels like melting. He slowly cups Charles’ face with both his hands.

“Look at me,” Max whispers back, and when Charles opens his eyes slightly, Max places a kiss on Charles’ forehead.

Then on his cheek. And then the other.

And then they kiss. They kiss and kiss and kiss, Charles’ arms around Max’s shoulders and Max’s hands on Charles’ waist. It’s the softest thing to kiss Charles, his lips eager and opened and lovely, lovely, so, so lovely, and warm.

Max moves them around the room so Charles can fall on the bed, and as soon as he does, Max climbs on top of him. The way Charles’ reaches out for him, the way he holds him closer, kissing him harder and deeper – that definitely goes on top of “the different ways of Charles Leclerc” list Max has made.

And Charles is beautiful under his touch, and he glows like a golden, Autumn sun, and he sounds like the softest, warm melody.

“I meant every word,” Max says between kisses and touches, between moans and sighs. “Every word.”

[keyofjetwolf]

Oh boo-hoo, darkness, get over yourself, or, Rei Hino: Comfort Lesbian

We’ve been building to this for the past several episodes now, this moment where we finally get confirmation of all the turmoil Ami is feeling, about Usagi and about Naru and, especially, about herself. All of which is delicious and complex and everything I wanted but could hardly believe they’d give us. It’s not a good look for Ami! It’s angry and lonely and uncertain!

Ami especially, I think moreso than any other character across Sailor Moon iterations (character who actually gets screen/page time, anyway) is boiled until she’s lost most of her flavour. I think the anime tries hardest, but often replaces “the smart one” stereotypes for “the nice one” and calls it a day. For whatever reason, it’s like Ami’s an action figure they’re afraid to take out of the box because they might get her dirty and diminish her value.

Not PGSM, though. PGSM is just “AW YEAH LET’S PLAY” and pitched everyone in a mud puddle.

I AM ALIVE

I’ve talked about this again and again, how much SENSE this makes for Ami. Completely ostracized for her entire life, she’s got her first taste of what it means to not be alone, and she’s hooked. Usagi is like a drug for Ami, she’s the entire focal point for everything positive Ami’s feeling, and she’s terrified that without Usagi, she’ll go back to the way things used to be, and she CAN’T, she just can’t.

And she needn’t be! PGSM has gone out of its way throughout the series so far in showing us how much Ami has already grown and changed for the better. Fuck, look at just this scene! There’s something wonderful and precious about the bond between Ami and Rei. They’re each other’s first friend that they made THEMSELVES, using the things that they learned through their friendship with Usagi. Ami has reached out to Rei more than once, able to see through her stoicism and bluster and navigate through it (versus, say, Usagi just flat out ignoring it). She allows Rei to keep those defenses while still reaching for her, making Rei that much more willing to reach back.

Rei also sees Ami. She’s never been smitten a day in her life, and Rei isn’t inclined to throw every little questionable thing into the spin cycle until it comes out gleaming and perfect. Ami’s weird and awkward, but so what? She’s a good person, and she tries. Every single time Rei would rather deal with someone who tries too hard rather than not enough.

They can do this. AMI can do this. She HAS. Even in this scene, where she’s confessing to Rei, it’s abundantly clear how much stock she puts in Rei’s opinion. Particularly BECAUSE it’s Rei (really, it had to be Rei), who wouldn’t even know where to start trying to give someone an insincere platitude, Ami trusts what she says, and at no point in any of this, even at her lowest and most intense self-hating, does Ami think Rei isn’t her friend. The problem is that Ami has pinned so much on Usagi, and so little on herself. Usagi is the keystone; pull her out, and it all collapses.

Again, all of my love to PGSM for going here. For looking at Ami, really thinking about how broken her life would have made her, and being willing to follow that thread. She confirmed -- directly, in the text, by her own words -- everything I hoped we were building to.

INCLUDING THIS SORRY BRB HAVE TO RUN AROUND THE OFFICE SCREAMING AGAIN

There’s so much going on, Ami is having a fuck of a day, but this is perhaps the thing she’s most upset about: the realization that she might just be kind of a shitty person. There’s been nothing in Ami’s life that would have even hinted she could be like this. Hell, there’s basically BEEN nothing in Ami’s life before now. But here it is, she finally gets something worthwhile, and this is how she acts? No wonder she went without friends this long, if this is who she is. Usagi was just wonderful enough to try and see past it, that’s all, which only makes Ami feel even worse for “deceiving her”. God, what a beautiful inescapable spiral Ami’s built for herself, I’m almost impressed.

REI HINO IS NOT IMPRESSED

HHHHRNRNNNRRNGGGHHHGNNNNGHHHRR

SHE’S SO NOT HERE FOR ANY OF AMI’S BULLSHIT. Not the deep dark confession, not Ami eating herself up over it all. Ami’s barely started, and Rei’s already had enough.

Sidebar to say how much I fucking LOVE how they shoot all this. Rei’s angry stomp slicing across the camera, interrupting Ami’s efforts to drown herself in all this. Her angry clenched fist (A REI HINO FAVOURITE), the way the camera rises as it follow’s Rei’s towering presence. She carries so much authority in this scene, you can FEEL her and how little she is going to put up with all this. The way Ami gazes up at her, too, once again giving Rei all the power between them. It remains to be seen how much of this will stick, but what’s clear is that Ami will listen to Rei, and believe her, even if just for this moment.

The way Rei completely brushes all of Ami’s angst away though, AAAAAHHHHH I DIDN’T KNOW I COULD LOVE HER MORE BUT SHE ALWAYS MANAGES TO FIND A WAY TO MAKE ME. Ami’s completely undone by this, and Rei’s just “Psshh, whatever, this is entry level ‘dark’, get over yourself.”

But she also makes it an invitation. “Congrats! You’re human.” Ami’s sin here, if she could be said to have one, is in not dealing with it all very well, and she’s basically an emotional newborn, so even there, it’s understandable.

One of the best things about this, though, is how Rei is meeting Ami on much the same level Ami connected with Rei. Not ignoring how they feel, nor dismissing it, just accepting it and moving forward. We STILL don’t know why Rei was so bothered about going to that guy’s house to protect his not-the-ginzuishou, but Ami didn’t chase down the why or convince Rei it wasn’t a problem, she simply offered to go in her stead. Here, Rei doesn’t insist Ami is the purest pure snowflake gumdrop who would never think a bad thought in her life, she just says ���Bitch, you ain’t special.” Usagi’s all-inclusive love is wonderful, and I don’t doubt the power of its constant dopamine hit, but it’s also in so many ways unrealistic and impractical (much like Usagi herself), and once again, I tip my hat to PGSM for being the ONLY Sailor Moon incarnation willing to go there for its main character, too.

(I don’t know if PGSM had a mission statement, but you could tell me it was “Each and every one of these girls is fascinating and wonderful AND DEEPLY FLAWED” and I would just nod in emphatic agreement.)

What about Rei’s darkness? I don’t know! THANK YOU FOR ADDING IN A BARELY RELATED MYSTERY. The specifics aren’t important right now, and maybe never will be. It’s Rei, she’s a constant bubbling cauldron of stewing rage, even here in PGSM where she’s able to keep it to a low simmer. It could be about her mother’s death, all the gossipy assholes, her father’s everything. It could be Usagi bumping into her this morning, IT COULD BE ALL OF THESE.

The point is, Rei knows all about thinking and feeling some negative shit at someone, but she also knows there’s a difference between what you feel and what you DO. You can’t truly be part of life and never fuck up, it’s just not possible.

AND NOW HERE’S WHERE REI SHOWS HOW MUCH SHE’S CHANGING TOO. Her point made, her lecture done, Rei peers down at Ami and sees that it’s just not working the way she wants. Rather than lose her temper, or double down, or wash her hands and walk away, she instead CHANGES TACTICS.

She doesn’t demand Ami immediately bounce to her feet, instead she drops down to Ami. She stops lecturing and tries comforting. NONE of this is natural for Rei, all of it goes against the kind of person she is and always strives to be. Slowly but surely though, Rei’s learning that her way is not the only way, and to temper her impulses.

WHO KNEW WE WOULD GET SUCH JUICY DEVELOPMENT FOR REI IN THE MIDDLE OF ALL THIS AMI GOODNESS WHO AMONG US COULD HAVE PREPARED FOR THE BOUNTY

Still though, Rei is Rei is my beautiful ridiculous marmoset Rei.

Blessed, friends. I am blessed this day.

[theladyscarlettt]

Petals (pt.1)

*I have returned and I bring with me a Bucky x Reader mini series. This takes place during #TFATWS. Also, this is a bit lighter (yet darker) than my regular stuff. Not fluff but sweet because god knows Bucky deserves to be happy every now and then. Also, this does have references to the X-Men comics and WandaVision*

-The Lady Scarlettt

Synopsis: Madripoor had everything you needed to forget your past, and everything you needed to lose your future. 

Part Warnings: suggestive scenes, language, mentions of mutilation

---

Sunlight caught the blinds in a dance of shadows. Her eyes twitched with the familiar warmth of the morning star across her face. She slowly opened her eyes taking in the sight of their small room. It was bland and empty, just like their luck in finding Karli. (For a girl to be everywhere, she was also nowhere.) 

A grunt came from across the room, she sat up in the stiff bed to find Bucky lying on the floor with a blanket barely clinging to his sweaty body. She let out a soft sigh and rubbed her eyes. While he was capable of so much, she found it heartbreaking he had so little, it broke her to see him robbed of even the simplest of things such as rest and a bed. She pulled on his black tee shirt from the night before and snuck over to sit beside him. She watched as his eyes darted side to side behind his dark eye lids. If he didn’t sleep well before, he surely didn’t now with the constant traveling, search for Karli, run in with America’s Next Top Asshole and the literal cause of his night terrors in the next room. 

“Did you know it’s considered an invasion of privacy to watch someone while they’re asleep.” Bucky grumbled, his eyes still closed.

“Good thing you weren’t asleep then.” she stated.

A slight smirk tugged on his lips, “Did you sleep well?”

“I would have slept better if my pillow didn’t wonder off in the middle of the night.” she teased.

He opened one eye to look up at her, “Sorry.”

She only smiled sweetly, her hand finding its way to his stubbled cheek. “You really need a razor.” 

He grabbed her wrist pulling her down to him, and began to nuzzle her neck with his chin.

She gagged at the sensation, “Ugh- for an old man you really behave like a child- hey!” In one swift motion he was on top of her tickling her neck.

“Stop. Stop it.” She hissed as she playfully swat at him to get off her. He chuckled and leaned back still, straddling her waist. 

“You have so much energy in the mornings for literally no reason,” she groaned, rubbing her lightly burned skin. 

He leaned down to her, a smirk on his lips, “I can come up with a few, if you’d like.” 

She rolled her eyes, even though her cheeks began to flush, “Knock it off.”

He made a tch sound with his teeth, and sat back up.

She smiled and sat up on her knees, her hands clasping behind his neck, a finger twirling the slightly grown out hair. He leaned into her, looking up at her from where he sat, a sad expression came across his face. 

“What is it?” she asked, rubbing her nails lazily through his thick hair.

“I just,” he sighed trying to find his words, “I want to stay with you, but I just can’t make myself. I’m afraid of what I might do, if I stay too long.”

She tilted her head, searching his eyes, “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I don’t want to have an episode at night and lash out. Sometimes they feel so real and I get can’t control myself and the last thing I want to do is hurt you and-”

“Hey, Hey, Hey” she interrupted, “Look at me.” She lifted his face up to hers, “Look at me, you could never do anything to hurt me. I know you don’t trust yourself sometimes, but I trust you and I know you. I’m not afraid of the ‘what if’s.” Please, hear me when I say, I want you to let me in, I want to be apart of this, all of it. I want to help you Bucky, but I can only go as far as you’ll let me. And if it takes time, ok but it’s going to take more than a nightmare to make me go anywhere. Ok?”

He stared at her for a long time, a blank expression on his face. She couldn’t tell if she had overstimulated him with her cheesiness or he simply was dead. 

“Bucky? If I’m overstepping, I understand-”

He abruptly wrapped his arms around her back, pulling her small figure to his. She melted into his touch, just as she had the first time he held her. They stayed like that for awhile until she heard him whisper.

“I love you.”

She smiled against his cool skin, “I love you too.”

He brought her face up to meet his and kissed her softly. His lips were always so soft and warm, something you wouldn’t expect. His thumb made tiny circles along her jaw, as she kissed him back. His hand slowly snaked their way down to her thigh where he pulled her onto his lap. She subconsciously, wrapped her legs around his waist and arched her back pulling him upward slightly. He held her thigh with one hand and reclined back with the metal one, smiling into her touch. She pushed forward as he pushed back, every kiss becoming more passionate than the last. She pulled at his hair, causing a longing moan to escape from his lips, exposing his neck. She began to place light kisses along side his neck, his breathing became deep as he massaged her thigh in return.  

He flipped over, now pressing her back against the ground, topping her. He kissed her back deeply, his tongue becoming well acquainted with her mouth. One hand began to find its way in between her thighs. 

Her eyes snapped open, “James.” She grabbed his hand, “It is 4 in the morning.” She hissed.

“HELL YEAH IT’S 4 IN THE GODDAMN MORNING!” Sam blurted out from the next room.

Bucky buckled forward burrowing his head in her neck holding back his horror.

“Shit,” Her face became the next 50 shades of red, as she covered her mouth with her hand to prevent a wave of uncomfortable laughter.

“HERE I THOUGHT AT 11pm I WOULD GET MY BEAUTY SLEEP BUT NOOOO. IF I HEAR THAT DAMN SHIT AGAIN I WILL COME IN THERE AND BEAT BOTH OF YALL’S NASTY ASSES.”

There was a moment of silence as the two looked between each other with mischievous smiles. He rolled his eyes and licked his lips knowingly. She let out a staged moan loud enough to be heard from outside.

“Fuck. Y/N.” Bucky grunted, his face tinted trying to remain collected. She covered her face with her hands moaning back at him.

Seeing her smile only made Bucky ham it up more as he began slapping his hand on the floor to create more of a scene to which she erupted in a fit of choked laughter. Sam yelled something from the other room about Jesus Christ and Sin. Bucky stood up with that smug look on his face, as he did whenever he won at annoying Sam Wilson. He gave her his hand and hauled her off the ground with barely any effort.

She finally settled down from laughing and looked at him, “I think we should do that more often.”

“What? Piss off bird boy or have sex?” He asked.

She grinned, “Can it not be both?”

Bucky made a face as if he was scheduling the next when and where.

She gave him a light slap, “Now don’t get cocky about it. Also, you stink. Go take a shower.”

He looked at her offended then gave a sly look, “Or we could ta-“

“No” she snapped like a mother to her child, “Get.”

He held up his hands up in defense, “Alright, Alright, but I’m going to need my shirt back.”

She groaned and peeled off the shirt and tossed it at his face. He pulled the shirt down and gave her a once over, “I like that color” he said inspecting her black laced undergarments.

“Good Lord, Go.” she shoved him towards the bathroom. He chuckled at her and whipped the shirt over his shoulder, sending her a cocky grin as he left the room.

Once the door closed behind him, she let out a sigh and sat on the edge of the bed. A wave of depression washed over her as she longed for the day they could just stay in bed and not battle some end of the world threat. She looked to the blanket on the floor where he slept the night before. He deserved so much more than this. They deserved so much more than this.

She couldn’t lie, after the blip the thought of going off grid looked truly appealing. With Nat, Tony, Vision, Bruce, Wanda, Thor, and Steve gone, the Avengers felt more like a club then an actual organization. While she had always been closer to Sam, Bucky and Steve the hole left behind by the others made it too hard to go on some days. What was the point? Every time something was fixed something worse happened. And they never were thanked properly, only ridiculed by what should have been done, because everyone always expected them to be heroes; yet they never saw they were also human. The only reason she stayed was for Sam and Bucky, they had become her family, especially after Steve’s passing, who was like a father figure to her.

She pushed away the memories that came rushing in. She could not allow herself to get emotional, their job here needed her full attention. She stood and changed into her suit and left the room. 

Zemo was reclined on a sofa, drinking a cup of tea. When she entered he gave her a solemn nod. She cringed slightly, the anger at what he did to Bucky and T’Challa creeping back in.

“You’re up early.” She stated flatly.

“Hard to sleep with all the noise.” He shot her a look. “I can start you a kettle if you’d like.”

“Sorry, and no thanks, I got it.” She said. Grabbing a kettle and filling it with water.

Zemo stood, “Do you mind? I’ve read of your powers but never have I seen them.”

She shifted on her feet, “Well, sure but it won’t be a firework show or anything like that. It’s still a new thing to me and I can’t really do much.”

“Can’t? Or won’t?” Zemo asked, approaching her, finding a spot at the bar.

She looked at him as to say something but decided against it. She looked back to the kettle and placed her hands along the side. Zemo watched her every move; observing, analyzing. 

She took a deep breath in and reached for a part in her to attract the sensation she feels around her. The kettle began to warm and in a minute it was boiling.

“Fascinating” Zemo whispered, his eyebrows scrunched in concentration.

She poured the steaming hot water into a cup and placed two teabags in it. “See, nothing special.”

Zemo looked at her as if she had said something absurd. “You have a gift.” He countered.

“Feels more like a curse.” She scoffed.

“When did this begin?” He asked.

“I don’t know, I feel like I’ve always had these... these abilities but it wasn’t until after the blip did I truly began to use them.”

“Fascinating.” Zemo repeated.

She pursed her lips, while she loathed everything about Zemo, she couldn’t lie having someone appreciate her abilities felt nice. She normally just felt like a freak, too afraid to show too much emotion, in fear she might lose control.

“Can I have you try something?” Zemo requested.

She scoffed, “Sorry, I don’t feel like playing lab rat today.”

Zemo made a face, “I understand your negative emotions towards me, but to say I have had failures in this field would be an incorrect accusation.”

She rolled her eyes, “Fine. What?”

He leapt off his seat, seemingly excited to play mad scientist again. He fetched a candle from the table and sat it infront of her. She cocked an eyebrow.

“Light it.” He said, gesturing to the wick.

“I- I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“Light it.” He repeated, pushing the candle towards her.

She reached to touch the wick but he slapped her hand away.

“Hey!” She blurted out, glaring at him.

“Without touch.” He said calmly.

She looked at him then back to the candle, frustrated.

“Focus on what you wish for it to be, what it will look like, how it will feel.” Zemo coached.

She shifted on her feet again, finding a more comfortable stance. She focused on her breath and stared at the wick.

“Breath in, and when you breath out try to push your energy at it.” Zemo said.

She closed her eyes feeling a tingling sensation around her, she inhaled slowly, feeling the sensation grow. She opened her eyes and focused the sensation onto her target. She heard a crackle sound, as if a fire was trying to start. She looked to Zemo wide eyed, he never looked up.

“Again.” He said, staring at the wick.

She shifted and this time held out her hand. She took a deep breath and this time flicked her hand at the wick on the exhale, a flame consumed the wick and began to slowly burn. She gasped.

“Beautiful.” Zemo smiled.

“Well shit,” a voice was heard. They looked over to see Sam propped alongside a wall. “You got sparkly fingers, Y/N.”

She laughed, delighted in herself, “Did you see it?”

“I saw it.” He smiled.

She looked to Zemo, “How? How did that happen?”

Zemo held out his hand and she reluctantly lended him hers. He flipped her palm up and traced a distinct ‘M’ she never noticed before, with his finger. “You are a mutant. You were born with this gift and just now have discovered it.”

“A mutant.” She echoed. “How do you know?”

“All mutants have the symbol ‘M’ mapped on their palm. Each with a unique ability. Your friend Wanda, she is a mutant as well.”

“There’s more?” She gasped looking at Sam.

“Many more, we walk beside them each day, yet we do not know it.” Zemo said.

She looked back to Zemo, suddenly desperate for knowledge. She knew she had these powers but half the time she felt it was all coincidence, and was honestly too afraid to attempt to use them. Knowing what happened to Wanda.

“I want to know everything, please tell me what you know.” She said.

“Woah, woah. Look, the magic trick was impressive but I don’t think you should be getting your information from him, Y/N.” Sam said walking towards her.

“Sam, he’s the only one I’ve ever met, who knows about this stuff, besides Wanda and I don’t even know where she is.” She protested.

“I assure you I do not intend to mislead-“ Zemo started.

Sam pointed at him, “No. You do not get to say that after all you’ve done. The only thing you do is mislead. Hell, you’ve probably already done something to sabotage the mission.”

“You think so little of me, Sam.” Zemo pouted.

“Yeah, I do and for good reason.” Sam stated.

“Sam,” Y/N started.

“Y/N! Sam!” Bucky’s voice echoed throughout the small apartment.

The two took off in the direction of the noise immediately. They came into the room to find Bucky staring out the window.

“What is it?” Y/N asked, coming to stand beside Bucky. She looked out the window, her eyes widening in horror.

“My god.” Sam uttered.

Outside the window was a some kind of mutilated animal strung upside down. Blood dripped menacingly to the ground below. 

“What does it mean?” Sam asked.

“It’s an invitation.” A voice said. The three turned around to find Zemo.

“The Power Broker requests our presence.”

Link to Petals (pt. 2)

[kat-katsuki]

Sunflower and White Rose | Bakugou Katsuki x Reader Part 1

Fantasy AU

Genre: Drama

Masterlist

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

WC: 2.4k

The northern tribe of the dragon riders had a tradition. Every year, the tribe holds a fire festival, also known as the coming-of-age festival, to celebrate those step foot into adulthood. All the 16 year olds will gather around the bon fire to dance with their partners. It is said that lovers who dance together will be blessed by the fire god, and their love will last for all their lifetimes to come.

Bakugou Katsuki was prince of the tribe, and the bravest, most skilled dragon rider of their generation. He is the dream man of almost all the young ladies in the tribe. This year, he was to come of age. The young fifteen and fourteen year olds cried to their parents, asking why they weren’t born a year or two earlier.

Little did they know the young prince already had his eyes on someone. You.

You were quite the black sheep of the tribe. The tribe was full of dragon shapeshifters and riders. Your people were known for bravery and freedom. Children were taught at a young age how to soar through the sky, whether it be on their own wings, or riding a winged one. You, on the other hand, were terrified of heights.

You were often made fun of by your peers. Even Bakugou himself had once made fun of you for being a coward when the two of you were just children.

However, you had the kindest soul the world has to offer. Even though you were the laughingstock of your generation, you never got mad or embarrassed. You simply smiled and treated everyone with respect. You weren’t jealous of those who soared the sky. Instead you focused on the wonders the earth had to offer.

Because you were neither a rider nor a shapeshifter, you made good friends with Midoriya Izuku, the young outsider who lived a few miles outside the tribe. He and his mother had moved here when he was very little. Although the tribe had a reputation for being savages and fearful of outsiders, the dragon tribe was actually very welcoming. Bakugou’s mother made friends with Midoriya’s mother almost immediately, and Midoriya was raised alongside of the youngsters of the tribe. However, because Bakugou often made fun of Midoriya for being scrawny and weak, Midoriya had few friends in the village. Midoriya’s mother was a healer, so Midoriya too, studied medicine.

You were always fascinated by herbs and flowers, so you often went to Midoriya’s house to learn from them. When you weren’t at their house, you often laid in the flowerbed, enjoying the scent of nature.

How Bakugou fell for you was an accident, literally. He and Kirishima, his dragon, were soaring through the skies, practicing the new tricks they’ve learned, and that was when the accident happened. Bakugou lost balance, and accidentally steered Kirishima into a large boulder on the top of the mountain, and the two fell right onto the flowerbed you were laying on. Thousands of flowers were crushed under the large red dragon, petals and pollen scattered into the sky and then falling down like rain.

You stood in the sea of flowers, wide eyed. The prince had fallen. The best rider of the tribe had fallen. You quickly rushed over to the fallen prince and his dragon. Kirishima was protected by his strong and sturdy scales, so he only ended up with scratch wounds and maybe a concussion. Bakugou, on the other hand, broke his left arm.

When Bakugou saw you his eyes widened with horror as his face turned into a deep shade of crimson. Someone had saw him fall out of the sky. Of all people to see him embarrass himself, it was you, the loser of the tribe. “Don’t you fucking dare tell anyone about this! Or else I’ll kill you!” he threatened you.

“O-Okay!” You nodded timidly. “B-But your arm is broken. It needs to get treated immediately or-”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP! I DON’T NEED HELP FROM A FUCKING FAILURE!” He slapped your hand away.

“Katsuki that’s not very nice. She’s just trying to help!” Kirishima said when he transformed back into his human form. Despite his insults, you didn’t hesitate to help him and Kirishima to a small cave far away from the village, where they can rest and heal in peace. Normally, when dragons or riders get injured, they’d call a shaman to do a few chants, and let the gods heal their wound. Herbs and medicine are foreign practices that were not used in the tribe, so when you brought the medicine you had made for the prince and his dragon, he refused to let you put it on him.

Kirishima, on the other hand, was very open to these foreign stuff. He let you put your homemade creams on his scrape wounds to stop the bleeding. “Oh man this feels so good! Katsuki you gotta try it!”

After a lot of persuading, Bakugou finally let you put some medicine on his scrape wounds. The cream stung at first, but after the stinging sensation was over, it left a cool feeling on his skin that soothed the pain. Bakugou couldn’t help but notice how the wounds healed much faster with the strange green plant juice you put on him than the chants of the shaman. Eventually, he let you wrap his arm to a stick, which you said will help his arm heal.

You tore the cloth to your dress, shortening it to barely over your butt. You gently raised his broken left arm, placed two straight logs to either side of his arm, and wrapped the cloth around them. Only then did Bakugou finally take a closer look at you for the first time in his entire life. For a failure, you were breathtakingly beautiful. Your (e/c) orbs seemed to sparkle under the moonlight, and from your (h/c) hair, he could smell a faint scent of flowers.

Every day you’d come back with food, water, and medicine. While Kirishima’s wounds were healed a long time ago, he waited with Bakugou for his arm to recover. Before Bakugou knew it, he began looking forward to seeing you everyday.

You almost always had cuts and bruises on you somewhere. Bakugou knew exactly how you got those. Ever since you were a kid you were always bullied by the other children in the village. You and Midoriya were always the targets of their rock throwing and sharp shooting practices. Although Bakugou never bothered to join in, he used to always scoff at your miserable state. Now, seeing those dark purple patches over your skin, he could only feel his blood boil. “Who did it?” he’d ask, but you would only show him that annoyingly goofy smile of yours, telling him that you fell, when you clearly didn’t.

He didn’t know why he felt a strange disappointment inside him when you told him he was fully healed. “You can go back now,” you said.

“Alright! Now we can go flying again!” Kirishima cheered.

Bakugou stared at his left arm, now good as new. Your medicine worked miracles. He couldn’t even find a single scar on his body. You left before he could tell you ‘thank you.’ Just like that, he and Kirishima went back to the village. The moment they arrived, they were surrounded by their friends and family, asking them where they’ve been the past few weeks. It was then that he realized he never once thanked you for saving him and keeping his secret.

Since then he’s had his eyes on you. Every time he spotted you in the crowd his eyes would follow wherever you went. Whenever he went flying with Kirishima, they’d always fly over the same flowerbed to see if you were there.

Kirishima quickly caught onto the feelings of the young prince. Whenever they saw you at the flowerbed, Kirishima would lie that he’s tired and needs a rest. He’d land at the flowerbed just so Bakugou could be with you. However, despite Kirishima’s efforts, Bakugou never seem to know what to say to you. He’d try to ask what you were up to, but the words that came out of his mouth were, “Hey coward, here sniffing flowers again?”

You’d always give him the same goofy, and slightly timid smile with your signature, “Ehehe” chuckle. Kirishima would nudge Bakugou and tell him to go talk to you, but Bakugou just sat there watching you pick herbs, refusing to utter another word to you because he knew nothing good will ever come out of his mouth.

He always sees you bringing home injured little animals: birds, squirrels, rabbits, fawns. Instead of eating them like what the other people in your tribe would do, you treated their wounds and released them back into the wild. You were just so weird, weirder than that outsider Midoriya. But for some reason Bakugou can’t get his mind off of you.

Finally, it was the awaited day before the fire festival. On this day, all the sixteen year olds of the tribe will be participating in the flower exchange event. Flower exchange is the special event held the day before the fire festival for the new adults to find partners. It is also the traditional day where the young adults declare their love for one another. Of course, it is common for some people who don’t have a love interest in mind to partner up as friends, and for some people to wait for their younger significant other to turn sixteen before choosing a partner. However, for most sixteen year olds, this is the most important day of their life.

Bakugou had already planned everything out in his head. He’s going to ask you to be his partner. He practiced day and night so that he won’t accidentally call you harsh names. He swore that this would be the one day where he won’t say anything mean to you. He’ll tell you how he feels, and ask you to be his partner, his lover, the one who would forever be with him for their many lifetimes to come.

He had your favorite flower in his hand, a ghost of a smile on his face. He had watched you pick flowers for months. He had noticed how your eyes would always soften, and your lips would always curve upward when you saw this particular flower. The white rose.

Everyone else were holding such vibrant colors in their hand, red being the most common. Red roses, red salvia, tulips, violets, peonies, buttercups, you name it. He had always wondered why you were so obsessed with this plain looking flower. Your taste in flower was just as unique as your fear of heights.

Flower exchange was held at the center of the village. Every year the entire village would come to watch the youngsters exchange flowers. It can easily be deemed the most important event of the year. A swarm of girls and boys ran up to Bakugou, asking to exchange flowers with him. “FUCK OFF EXTRAS!” Bakugou growled at them as he violently searched for your silhouette in the crowd. Weird… He knew for a fact you turned sixteen this year. Heck he even saw the shitty Deku, who was invited by Mitsuki to join the tradition. He held a sunflower in his hand, and stood at the corner looking almost uncomfortable to be there. His face was a dark shade of crimson, and his legs trembled.

“Pfft! Sunflower? Who brings a sunflower to flower exchange?” Bakugou could hear a few people laugh at the young green haired teenager, and he just scoffed in agreement.

Kirishima had exchanged flowers with his childhood friend, Ashido Mina. You were still nowhere to be found.

Soon, most of the new adults were already partnered up, clearing the area. “Prince, will you be my partner?” girls kept swarming around him, and he had to push past them to find the familiar (h/c) silhouette.

That was when he saw you.

He expected you to stand there awkwardly. He expected you to be without a partner.

He didn’t expect you to show up without a flower.

You stood there kicking the pebble by your feet, a hint of sadness in the depth of your eyes. “(Y/N)-chan where’s your flower?” Mitsuki asked.

“Ehehe~” you smiled at the wife of the chief and scratched the back of your head almost guiltily. “I forgot about that.”

“Bet she knows that no one’s going to partner with her, so she just didn’t bring one,” someone laughed.

The smile never left your face, but Bakugou had a strong urge to punch them in the face. What was he going to do now? Exchange of flower symbolizes exchange of love. Did you not bring any flower because you had no love to give? Or was it true that you just forgot?

Whatever. None of that matters. He was going to give his flower to you no matter what. “(Y-”

“(Y/N)-chan. If you don’t have a flower, I’ll give you mine!” Midoriya stepped in front of you and held out his sunflower to you, pink dusting over his freckled cheeks. Bakugou froze, wide eyed.

“Izuku what about you? Aren’t you going to exchange flowers with someone?” you asked your friend.

“Well, it’s not like someone is going to partner with an outsider like me for something as important as the fire festival. This is such an important tradition to your culture, you should take it,” Midoriya placed the sunflower in your hand. “In fact I was….actually going to give it to you in the first place….”

“Psh! Outsider and loser, how fitting.”

Mitsuki shot a glare at whoever uttered those words.

You just smiled at Midoriya, and asked, “Then you wanna be partners for the fire festival?”

The white rose fell from Bakugou’s hand. At that moment it was as if the sky came crashing down on him, weighing over his shoulders, pinning him to the ground. He was the prince, the next king of the dragon tribe, yet the only person he has ever loved, asked someone else to be her partner. The people around them dove to the ground fighting for the rose that fell. Almost in an instant, the poor flower was torn to shreds, just like his heart.

He ran.

He could only run. He had to get away before he puked on site. Why…? Why? Why?! WHY?!! Why the shitty Deku?!

The necklaces clattered, and the cape on his back fluttered with the wind. His teeth were clenched and his sharp nails dug into his palm. He was furious at you, furious at Deku, but most of all he was furious at himself. Why didn’t he go up to you before Deku? Why did he run away without even attempting to ask you. He always called you a coward, but he was the true coward.

PART 2 | PART 3 |  PART 4

Also on AO3! A kudos would be greatly appreciated!

[welllpthisishappening]

Three Strikes [you're out]

It was his fault, really.

Wearing that jersey at Citi Field practically required Nina to hate the mass of muscle sitting in front of her on sight. Plus, he didn't know how to score a baseball game. So, honestly, it made sense. To hate him. Ardently, even. To push buttons, metaphorical or otherwise. A game within the game.

And, if, she found herself having fun, well, that was neither here nor there.

———

Rating: T, with sports and kissing because of who I am as a person Word Count: 9.1 K, also because of who I am as a person AN: I don’t know, guys. I got thoughts. I got feelings. The only way I know how deal with either of those things is to write about them with sports and kissing. Did I suggest that being a Mets fan was a bit like being Grisha? Perhaps! Perhaps, I did! If this is out of character just...don’t tell me.

Also on Ao3 if that’s how you roll

———

The suggestion that an idea was capable of boiling a person’s blood, even in the most abstract and metaphorical sense, had always appealed to Nina. Not in a particularly violent way, of course. More in regards to the visual. 

Conjured up all sorts of possibilities. 

Little bubbles beneath her skin, searing emotion through her veins that inevitably led to tufts of smoke pouring out of her ears. Like one of those old cartoon characters, she could now only dimly remember. In moments like this, especially. When she wasn’t quite boiling, but certainly racing toward the vast and admittedly surprising precipice of abject hatred. Directed almost solely toward the mass of muscle who dared to wear a Chase Utley jersey to Citi Field on a Thursday in May. 

He needed a haircut, she thought. 

The muscle. Not Chase Utley. She couldn’t possibly care less about the state of Chase Utley’s hair. Unless he was choking on it, somewhere. Obviously. Then Nina cared very much. About Chase Utley. And this guy. With too-long strands that she was starting to believe fell almost artfully across the back of a vaguely golden-skinned neck, as if they existed solely to torment her. 

On a Thursday in May. 

Sitting there, with a seat digging into the middle of her spine and her frustration threatening the enamel on the back of her teeth, Nina was loath to admit, even to herself, that she couldn’t stop staring at him. Partially because of the hair. Which looked very—pushable, really. As far as her finger’s potential went. But mostly because of everything else. Watching the muscle was a bit like watching a statue at the Met, waiting with bated breath for it to actually surge to life because when she was that same kid who watched cartoons on weekend mornings, she rather strongly believed that the statues at the Met were wholly capable of smiling and turning and living. Artwork prone to the mystical and potentially magical.

She blamed Ben Stiller for that, honestly. 

Amy Adams to a slightly lesser degree. 

Robin Williams would suffer no criticism in this argument, naturally. 

The muscle shifted. 

Twitched just a hint in his seat. Altered the angle of his, frankly, impressively wide shoulders. Rolled his neck between them. The seat was too small. He was too big. That jersey must have been ancient. 

And, really, when it came down to it, Nina hated him most for the pencil. Tucked behind his right ear, it looked comically small whenever he pulled it between his fingers, scratching across a legitimate scorebook because in the thirty-seven minutes or so she’d spent observing this fascinating specimen of humanity, she’d noticed it was, in fact, a scorebook. 

Not a piece of paper.

Not a printout. 

Not even the one she was only vaguely confident they handed out in the rotunda downstairs. 

An actual scorebook. 

That he brought with him to Citi Field. 

She glanced down to make sure she had not actually burst into literal flames in section 205. Row F. Seat 27. No such luck. Weird. 

The pencil was back in his hand. One leg crossed the other, leaving his knee propped in the air, and there was just so much of the muscle that it was a rather small miracle of an exceptionally narrow field of science that it didn’t collide with anyone around him. Instead, it provided a built-in desk, that stupid scorebook propped up against jean-covered skin and even more muscles, pushing against fabric like they were personally offended by the concept of the blue-colored prison. 

Nina bit her lip. 

Tried to keep breathing. Because fires required oxygen, and there could be no boiling without fire and—

“‘Scuse me, ‘scuse me, ‘scuse me, just trying to—” Blood flooded Nina’s mouth, making it impossible for her to open that same mouth and let out the laugh already pushing against her lips. There were at least four little wrinkles pinched across the small expanse of Jesper’s nose, two boxes of popcorn clutched in either one of his hands and a soda between the slight bend of his elbow. He tiptoed his way around disgruntled fans, glaring at a few red jerseys for good measure. As if he actually wanted to be there. Nina kept biting her lip. “Just trying to get back to my seat,” Jesper finished, “won’t bother you again, rest of the game, absolutely, one-hundred percent guaranteed.”

Nina’s lips tilted up. 

Scrambling to her feet, she couldn’t quite balance on the edge of the seat that immediately swung back up. Something sticky stuck to the bottom of her shoe and eventually, she would find herself wondering why she didn’t simply move into Jesper’s seat. For a myriad of reasons, she assumed. 

Some of which might have mystical and potentially. 

Goddamn, Ben Stiller. 

“Accommodating sort of group, isn’t it?” Jesper mumbled, pushing past her and Nina had to applaud his dexterity. Not a kernel lost in the battle. 

“Should have waited ‘til the middle of the inning. This is just bad form on your part.” “And miss all—” He waved an imperious hand toward the field. “What am I missing, exactly?”

Opening her mouth, Nina was certain she’d come up with a reasonable explanation for the romantic nature of baseball, only she was a little busy. Keeping her head connected to the rest of her body. 

Snapping to the left, her breath caught. In that dramatic sort of way that always seemed like the perfect soundtrack to any great sporting moment. Eyes wide and fingers digging into her palm, hope mixed with the bubbles and the boils, and she barely noticed the awkward angle of her bent knees. Or just how close she was to—

Him. 

The muscle. 

She heard his pencil drop, she swore. 

Oh, Gods, but he had blue eyes. Sharp and staring right at her, Nina resisted the very real urge to let herself melt right there. In section 205. Row F. Seat 27. Well, in front of seat 27, technically. 

Pulling her knee back did not do that same knee any favors, muscles almost audibly objecting to the force of Nina’s split-second reaction, but then she forgot about the pain and the concept of depth perception. The yell tore itself out of her lungs, found its way to the rest of the noise circling the stadium, wrapping its way around people until the hope of that one, singular moment settled on the tips of her eyelashes and the backs of her heels and she wasn’t sure if she heard him at first. 

No one should be capable of possessing a voice quite so gruff, that’s why.

“Not going to make it.”

Glaring at the monstrous mass of muscle and questionably good hair wasn’t so much as a decision as something far closer to instinct, pulling her brows together and letting her tongue push at the bottom of her teeth, and he—

Looked. Right at her. And her tongue. 

Shoulders tensing, a hint of nervous energy appeared in those same ridiculously blue eyes, gone almost before Nina had a chance to realize it was there at all and she didn’t see the play. Heard it, though. The groans and the grunts, complete despair, and the first shreds of desolation drowning out the hope and pulling it from a grip that was always a little tenuous. 

No home run. No hit. Just a run-of-the-mill fly ball in center field. 

One side of the muscle’s mouth tugged up. 

“Told you.” “Oh, fuck off.”

Surprise, she thought, was a very good look on him. Most of them would be, she imagined. But right then, on a Thursday in May, with two outs in the bottom of the fourth, Nina relished the surprise. 

And sat back down. 

To be a Mets fan, was to believe in the impossible. 

The amazing, even. 

It was right there in the slogans. The advertising campaigns. On a variety of shirts, both legitimate and those sold at the bottom of the 7-train stairs. To accept the amazing, to wish for it, even, was part and parcel of the history of an organization that relished its underdog status. Thrived in its role, the second team in a city that toed the line between excess and restraint. 

Winning with this team was unexpected and unpredictable. Came without much pomp. Certainly no circumstance. Only a few trades that drew national eyes and back page headlines. More often than not, this was a team that discovered amazing when it simply should not exist. 

Misfits who created something wonderful. Who sparked something among people who, at least for nine innings, believed orange was a worthwhile color to wear. Who smiled at a mascot with a massive baseball for a head. And his wife, who sported some rather impressive eyelashes, actually. 

To be a Mets fan, was to understand heartache. 

To accept being the butt of jokes across decades. 

Every year, the knowing smiles came. Paying goddamn Bobby Bonilla. Cracks about pyramid schemes and owners who couldn’t find their way out of a money-based paper bag, team antics that occasionally drew those headlines, and players who fell in wayward ditches on their farms, ending their season before it ever really began. 

Winning didn’t come often, but it was loud when it did. The crack of a bat and a ball finding the back of a glove, shoulders slamming into the left-field wall with its massive M&Ms ad. Feedback from a microphone as David Wright thanked the Seven Line Army, in all their orange-clad glory, memories of that near-perfect October and what could have been imprinting themselves across a generation. 

To be a Mets fan, was to live and die with each pitch. Each hit. To hold your breath and wait for magic that lingered beneath skin and forced its way into bloodstreams. 

To be a Mets fan, was to hate anyone wearing a Chase Utley jersey. 

“Stew, stew, stewing, a rather hearty beef stew.” Nina narrowed her eyes. “What are you talking about?” “You are stewing,” Jesper said pointedly, as if it was an obvious affliction and they both hadn’t casually descended into madness caused by extra innings. Putting a runner on second was supposed to help avoid all of this. Runs were meant to be scored in extra innings. Nothing had happened yet. “Any more and that little divot between your eyebrows is never going to disappear. Then what will we do?” Answering would only acknowledge that the divot was more like a rather obvious ravine now, and the little half-moon circles left by her nails were going to be permanently etched into Nina’s palm. 

He was still keeping score. 

How he hadn’t run out of columns in his scorebook was beyond her, but Nina figured if the muscle was someone willing to purchase a scorebook, he probably made sure it was one that also included, like, fifteen innings on each page. 

If they made it to the fifteenth inning, she would cry. 

It would be embarrassing. 

Jesper probably wouldn’t come back for the rest of the series. If she cried, that was. And she needed him to come back for the rest of the series. Sitting anywhere else wasn’t all that appealing, even if it might have been warmer up there now. 

She wrapped her arms around herself. Better to stew with, that way. 

“Do games normally last this long?”

Nina shook her head. 

Jesper groaned. Loudly, complete with his head thrown back for extra emphasis and even clearer frustration and she didn’t think she imagined the way the muscle tensed. Staring at him was becoming something of a pastime in the middle of a more acceptable one. Light didn’t quite reflect from the hair she was starting to become just a hint obsessed with, but it certainly appeared determined to try, and his ability to hold so much tension in the region directly surrounding his jaw would have been impressive in any other circumstance. 

As it was, Nina was a little concerned about the state of the muscle’s back molars. 

It was why she didn’t react as quickly as she should have. Or so she would argue for the rest of time. 

Once she got the popcorn off her feet. 

A waterfall of butter-coasted kernels landed on her shoes, a few bouncing as she did, thrust out of her seat like a canon. Whatever bit of her heart that existed solely to document the ebbs and flows of the New York Mets success flew into her throat, where it immediately took up residence directly in the middle. Wide eyes immediately started to water, which brought her straight back to the entirely metaphorical cliff of her potential embarrassment and the muscle was leaning forward. 

With his own brand of emotion. 

No obvious tension, just that steady sort of hope born among the din of baseball-type sounds and, even more importantly, baseball-type feelings and Nina was mumbling. 

“Turn ‘em, turn ‘em, turn ‘em, two, two, two, two, get the—” Suggesting she screamed made it seem as if she weren’t in complete control of her faculties. And despite the potential of extra innings insanity, Nina was just as lucid as ever and just as capable of throwing her hands in the air, while also screaming. 

Undeniably so. 

As soon as the ball jumped over the outstretched glove at short, Francisco Lindor’s lanky and overpaid body stretched out across the infield grass. Curses flowed from Nina’s mouth, some of them sharp enough to make even Jesper choke on whatever bits of oxygen he was able to gulp down, and she didn’t stop. Kept screaming and shouting, increasingly mobile hands and dexterous shoulders, miming her own throw home because whoever was playing left field was not moving quickly enough for her. 

He didn’t make the throw. 

Not in time, at least. 

Dirt flew into the air as a leg stretched over home plate and the umpire’s arms were nearly as impressive as Nina’s. Marking the runner safe and giving the Phillies their first and only lead of the night. 

Frustration mingled with out-of-place despair, far too early in the series and the season to be feeling quite as desolate as Nina suddenly was and, really, she wasn’t sure why she looked. Something about magnets, or simple curiosity, but her eyes drifted and her head tilted and she felt her jaw drop as his stupid, little pencil scratched out E6 in his scorebook. 

“What the hell, man?”

He didn’t turn. Figured. Screaming was becoming her base setting, so Nina wasn’t entirely surprised that the muscle didn’t acknowledge it, but then she was moving and leaning and tapping on a shoulder that somehow seemed sturdier when she had kneed it several innings earlier. 

“That’s not an error.” Moving in slow motion only made sense if the man was, in fact, a piece of marble. Strands of hair stuck to his forehead, acting as little paths toward his eyes and they were still blue. Good, that was good. Bad, that was bad. 

Jesper wasn’t even trying to contain his laughter. 

“Excuse me?” “Not an error,” Nina repeated, careful to pause between each word for emphasis. The muscle didn’t flinch. Stared at her incredulously, though. “Did you not see that hop?” “I saw your multi-million dollar man throw his arm out without much regard to actually making a routine play. Is that what you’re talking about?” “How is that possibly an error?” He lifted a shoulder. She was boiling over. “Should have made the play.” “It was impossible!" “C’mon now,” he chuckled, and the good fought with the bad. A symphony of contradictions blaring between Nina’s ears. Neither of which were steaming, it seemed. “Nothing is impossible in baseball.” “That was!” “Might need to come up with a better argument.” “Home scorer is not going to give Francisco an error on that. He had to dive!” “Maybe he should have been in better position, to begin with.” “The shift was on.” “Well, the shift is ruining baseball, so—” Nina gagged. Let her tongue push between rows of teeth that she couldn’t believe were going to survive the rest of the night if the acid churning in her esophagus was any indication. He looked. Again. Whatever heat lapping at the base of her spine was only marginally distracting. “A baseball purist cannot possibly wear the jersey you are wearing.” “I wasn’t aware of the rules, but, please, go on.” “Fuck. Off.” “Getting less and less creative.” His eyes hadn’t moved. As if he was documenting each twitch of her lips for his own personal posterity. Nina found she didn’t mind the idea as much as she should. 

Jesper was going to crack a rib. 

“Chase Utley is an asshole who doesn’t know how to slide.” “Ok.” “An asshole!” “I heard you the first time,” he said, losing the war with his lips. Curled up, they cut across the serious mask his face had become in the world’s least serious conversation. It was nice that Jesper ended up crying before Nina, honestly. “And he wasn’t a Phil when he hurt your guy, so I don’t think that should count at all.” Nina did not know what noise she made. Wasn’t human. Hurt a little. “Did you just call him a Phil?” “Guys,” Jesper mumbled, but she couldn’t be bothered with something as menial as the bottom of the inning when the muscle in front of her kept doing that thing with his eyes and his hair and—

Reaching out, she managed to bypass his rather impressive reaction time, grabbing the pencil before he could stop her and the crack of it between her fingers was as loud as any grand slam this slightly ugly ballpark had ever witnessed. 

Not that Nina would ever admit she thought Citi Field was slightly to moderately ugly. 

It was the color scheme. Way too much green involved. 

She gave herself exactly seven seconds to relish the look of pure amazement on the muscle’s face. 

“Use a pen,” Nina sneered, “at least stand by your scoring convictions.” “Chase Utley is going to be in the Hall of Fame.” “As a Phil?” “World Series champion.”

His ability to emphasize words with meaningful pauses was far better than Nina’s. “It wasn’t an error.” “You’re paying that guy more than anyone in the world deserves to get paid, if he’s going to lay out for a liner, then he should be able to make the play, don’t you think?” Nina bit her lip. Boiled. Stewed. 

Ah, damn. 

Her silence was an answer in the middle of a sea made up of equally disheartened fans. Who all suddenly remembered how terrible they looked in orange. Always worse after a loss. 

The muscle nodded. Once. Exhaled. Through his nose. As if he’d won, and not just his team, and Nina didn’t offer to replace his pencil. 

On a Friday night in May, Nina genuinely believed that he wouldn’t come back. Hoped for it, even. And something else almost akin to the exact opposite. 

Both were very strange feelings to feel contained in one human, body. Draped, even as it was, in blue and orange and New York City’s less famous pinstripes. With PIAZZA splashed across her back, Nina felt as if she were obligated to sit a little straighter. As if slumping in her seat — by herself tonight because Genya was not at all interested in sitting in the stands and Zoya would have laughed at the suggestion, and Jesper had to get back to the Crow Club — would somehow tarnish the reputation of a name that didn’t belong to her. 

Didn’t it, though? Just a little. Wasn’t that how sports worked? Throwing yourself into the camaraderie with both feet and occasionally flailing arms, willing to sit in an uncomfortable seat that she’d have to mention to Nikolai at some point because these were starting to feel a bit like torture devices masquerading as plastic, and a piece of paper floated onto her lap. 

He’d folded the piece of paper. 

The muscle. Not Nikolai. Who was sitting in the owner’s box, in fact. Nina assumed those seats weren’t rising up in revolt against him. 

The muscle wasn’t wearing a jersey this time. A cup of what smelled like over-brewed coffee, though, was held tightly in his left hand, while the right clutched his scorebook as if it were made of gold. Nina’s tongue swiped her teeth. 

He watched. 

Documented. 

Kept track. 

“What the hell is this?” “Is that your favorite curse, you think?” “Why are you throwing paper airplanes at me?” Lifting shoulders appeared to be his default form of response. “Felt just quirky enough not to be overtly threatening.” “Because of the guns generally associated with fighter planes?” “What do you know about fighter planes?” Rolling her whole head did not get her a smile. Or even a hint of such a thing. It did get him a few grumblings of frustration from those whose view he was blocking. Because there was so goddamn much of him. Imposing, that was the word for it. Taking up space and settling into the seat with a near amazing amount of grace, practically folding in on himself, like he was made of smooth lines and crisp edges, capable of soaring through air in a way that belied that flimsy nature of paper airplanes, and there was that word again. 

“Always liked the ones that had painted teeth on them,” Nina said, somehow fully prepared for the huff of laughter that fell out of him. He pulled a pen out of his jacket pocket. 

To hand to her. 

“You would.” “What is that supposed to mean, exactly?” “It means,” he said, nodding at the pen when she kept gaping at it, “that in my limited experience with you, Ms. Met—”

“Thought we covered lack of creativity last night.” He ignored her. Eventually, it might be a good idea to learn his name. Where that might also be the worst idea in the history of the world. Maybe Nikolai could track him down. Like through ticket sales, or something. That seemed like a breach of power, though. 

“You do have a rather impressive set of teeth on you, yourself.” “Oh, that’s an insult.” “Should unfold the paper airplane.” Most of her wanted to crumple up the piece of the paper, toss it back in his face and then possibly stab him with his own pen. But Nina also didn’t know the muscle’s name, and cold-blooded murder on a Friday night in May required a certain sense of personalization that they hadn’t quite reached yet. So, there was no crumpling. Her fingers didn’t shake. Her heartbeat held steady in her chest. 

Unfolding the paper with his eyes on her, Nina did hold her breath. For eight straight seconds, approximately. Until it all rushed out of her, entirely amazed and perpetually annoyed because the paper airplane left creases between the boxes of what was very clearly her own personal scoresheet. 

With provided pen.

“This is a trick.” “That not being a question gives me pause,” he said, but it sounded like an admission. One tinged with regret. Presumably for Chase Utley’s tendency to be a complete and utter asshole. Prone to injuring Mets’ middle infielders. 

“Is it not?” He shook his head. And the pen in his hand. “Get to stand by the convictions of your scoring actions.” “Errors occur only on routine plays.” “Yuh-huh.” “You’re here by yourself.” “Also not a question.”

“Or an answer,” Nina pointed out.

“Where’d your friend go?” “What do you put in your coffee?” “Nothing,” he answered, “seriously, where’s the friend?” Something lingered on the edge of the question. Something Nina didn’t want to notice, but couldn’t possibly ignore. Not when it came with concave shoulders, curling toward her like they were preparing themselves to block wind and glares in equal measure. The second of which was really a more pressing problem at the moment.

“Had to work.” “As a stand-up comedian?” “Hardy har har,” Nina grumbled. Leaning back against the force of his ensuing smile was as natural as wearing a Mike Piazza jersey and searching for the prize at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box. What she was less prepared for was the ability of that same smile to twist its way between her ribs, lighting another new and imaginary fire and if her mouth dried just a bit, then that was neither here nor there.

Between her and the baseball gods, fickle as they were. 

“You don’t put anything in your coffee?” He shook his head. “Sugar makes me nauseous.” “God, what a depressing way to live life.” “Eh, there are things that make up for it.” “Chase Utley?” “I think you might be obsessed,” he said, dropping into his seat so as to avoid being pelted with cheese fries from Shake Shack. The guy three seats away looked real serious. “Going to write him a letter asking for a game of catch?” “You’re making pop culture references.” “Not a question, either.” “No, a stunned statement of fact.” She wanted that laugh on loop. Wanted it to play as the soundtrack for the rest of the night and the rest of the series and quite possibly the rest of her life, lingering softly in the background of everything she did for the rest of forever. 

Matching in perfect rhythm to the predisposed nature of her blood to boil. 

“Where are all your friends, then?” Nina asked, almost desperate to change the direction of the conversation and her internal dialogue. The blue evolved. Right there in his eyes. Darkened until it looked like the sky before a storm and that was ten-thousand times worse than any other drivel she’d come up with so far. 

Licking her lips was idiotic. Naturally, that’s what she did. 

“Not here,” he replied, “but I know the hitting coach.” Strictly speaking, that should not have been quite as awe-inducing as it was. Nina hadn’t paid for her tickets, after all. Had no intention of paying for tickets ever again, if she was being honest. So, really, seeing how caution swept the muscle’s face was kind of a dick move. 

On her part, specifically. 

“Should I be impressed?” Shoulder lift, right on cue. “I knew him in college. Was, uh—” “—Wait, did you play baseball?” Color didn’t rise on his cheeks. Not in any romantic way. Nothing about it was swepping, which was good because the Phillies had won the night before, meaning any sweeping would also guarantee Mets losses. It arrived in splotches. Bits of pink and nearly-red, tiny pinpricks of unregulated emotion that immediately affected the ability of Nina’s pulse to stay even. 

She grinned. 

Wide and honest, ignoring the strands of hair that fell in her eyes when she let her head fall. 

He didn’t look away. 

She’d think that was important, later. 

“You contain multitudes, Muscle.” “Insulting,” he grumbled. “Quite possibly the tallest man I’ve ever encountered in the flesh.” “That can’t possibly be true.” “You don’t look like a baseball player.” Back to the correct shade of blue. Just for a moment. Disappearing in the haze of a 90 mile per hour fastball. Right up the middle. But Nina had always been fairly good at tracking pitches, and she might not have been a former baseball player, but picking out the slider amongst a never-ending stream of heaters was like her personal superpower. 

“So I’ve heard.” “From scouts?” “Sometimes, yeah.”

“Of the professional variety?” “Every now and then.”

Letting out a low whistle, Nina’s spine relaxed. Tension that had taken root between her shoulder blades loosened, watching the face in front of her and the mask it was so obviously clinging to. Kept slipping, though. While staring directly at her. 

It was, she would argue, why she did what she did. Without mumbling. 

“You wanna sit?” “With you?” “Rude. You threw paper at me.” “It was a well-constructed airplane,” the muscle argued, “so you could also score the game. This was a nice thing I was doing.” “Past tense.” “Am doing,” he corrected. “Currently.”

“That mean you're going to sit?”

She counted. Seconds. Moments. Breaths. Dug her teeth into her lower lip. Against the side of her tongue. He nodded. 

And climbed over the seat. 

So, that was only going to marginally mess with her brain. 

“Alright then,” Nina said, doing her best to flatten her paper against the bend of her knee, “tell me everything about your baseball tale of woe.”

He didn’t. 

At least not at first. 

It took until the fourth inning for them to begrudgingly agree that mowing patterns in the outfield was an abstract art form that did not often get the credit it deserved, before deciding, in no uncertain terms, that the NL East boasted some of the better uniform options in all baseball, even if that was mostly because of the Marlins and—

His hand moved to his shoulder. 

The right one. More than once. Gently massaged the muscle there, a slight grimace that Nina only noticed because she was sitting squarely in the middle of objectification and she didn’t even know his name. Yet, she reminded herself. 

They’d get there. 

They didn’t. Not in that game, anyway. 

A Saturday afternoon in May didn’t present the same sort of chill that required scalding hot coffee with absolutely nothing else in it, but Nina was playing with hope and resting on her not-so-cautious expectations. Seeing how wide his eyes could get was extra. 

Sugar on top, if you will. 

They got very wide. Frozen, even. Stuck halfway down the row, still no jersey, just his dropped jaw and slumped, possibly injured shoulders, ignoring the jabs from nearby season ticket holders who were starting to believe this mountain of muscle existed solely to block their sight lines. 

Nina figured that’s what it was, at least. 

He smiled. 

That smile. Her smile. When she’d begun to claim it, she couldn’t begin to pinpoint, but it might have been six and two-thirds innings into last night’s game when his left arm had bumped her right, just enough warmth wafting off him to be noticeable. To leave goosebumps in his awake, too. 

“There’s no sugar in it,” she promised, “so you don’t have to worry for the state of your stomach.” “I didn’t once think you were trying to poison me.” “High praise.” “Deservedly so.” She flushed. Ducked her eyes. Tried not to chew her tongue in half, or allow the burning-hot blood racing through every single one of her extremities to burst its way out of her skin. That would be off-putting. And traumatic. 

“Here,” he added, tugging another folded piece of paper out of his back pocket, “for you.” “Are you printing these off in the hotel?” “Should be a private investigator, Ms. Met.” “Did your coach make you stay in Queens, Muscle?” The hand that landed on her waist — to move her, just to move her — was warm and blistering and those were two very different words with a pair of very different meanings and even more jarring consequences, and he sat down next to her. 

Huh. 

Huh. 

“Been taking the train in from Grand Central.” “Ugh, he’s making you stay over there? There’s no good food in that part of the city.” “Quiet, though.” Sticking her tongue out when she gagged continued to be one of Nina’s less impressive traits. “I blew my shoulder out my junior year of college.”

One of Nina’s knees buckled. Only one. The right one, actually. She refused to believe that was a sign. From baseball gods, or otherwise. “Hitting?” “Throwing. Probably because of the hitting, but the blowing out actually happened on what was considered by most in the know to be a pretty routine throw from left field. Hurt like hell.” “Yeah, I bet.” “I don’t remember a ton of what happened right after. Might have yelled? Quite possibly blacked out. Definitely heard something snap, which admittedly terrified me, but then there were a bunch of people talking and walking me down the tunnel and more lights and tests. The phrase never the same again was thrown around with alarming regularity.”

Cold. Nina was cold. Freezing beneath a mid-afternoon sun, one of those May days that tease of summer yet to come. They smell like cotton candy and potential, of a distinct lack of responsibility and SPF 70. 

She had sensitive skin. 

“Were you by yourself?” Asking questions she somehow already knew the answer to was equal parts cruel and unusual, particularly when asking it of a man whose name never got to back pages. Or her ears, it seemed. She swallowed whatever was sitting in the back of her mouth. 

“Brum was there,” he said, but it sounded like an excuse. A practiced line that had started to reek of insincerity. “My—well, my parents had been gone for a while. Same old sob story you always hear, y’know? Kid loses everything, finds salvation in the dogma of sports, gets pretty good at it, and then—” “—Loses it all again?” Nina finished. She thought she did. Whoever was talking didn’t sound like Nina. Sounded like someone who had painstakingly refolded her paper airplane the night before. To keep on the nightstand next to her bed. 

“Some of it, yeah. They wanted me to stick around. Stay on staff. Coach. But that was—” He clicked his tongue. Distant eyes stared past that goddamn M&Ms ad, and Nina didn’t think. Wasn’t that how the best athletes were, though? All instinct and lightning-fast reaction times. Responding to a situation before the rest of us mere mortals could even begin to fathom the circumstance. 

He didn’t push her hand off his. 

The coffee was going to go cold. 

“Very maudlin way of approaching things.” She chuckled. Tried not to cry, for entirely new reasons. “Impressive vocabulary for a jock.” “Keep workshop'ing your insults, Ms. Met.”

“Brum, he just got hired by the Phillies, right?” She knew that answer too. “Is this the first game you’ve been to?” His eyes slid to hers. In that same slow motion as before, and that couldn’t possibly have been less than seventy-two hours ago, but life had a tendency to be weird like that and good like that and, well, you can’t predict baseball, Suzyn.  

“Why the Mets?” It wasn’t the question she expected. Felt far too big and more than a little terrifying, jumping into the deep end of the pool from the highest diving board. But that same pool was always crystal clear, the sort of blue they wrote songs about. Summertime and the living was easy. That sort of thing. 

“Because there’s something wonderful in a team that defies every bit of sports conjecture. That breathes in the chaos and spits out something that, every now and then, is absolutely beautiful. That lets me be bigger than myself for nine innings and a minimum of one-hundred and sixty-two games. That takes all my shortcomings and accepts them because one time this team claimed there was a raccoon fighting with a rat in the dugout tunnel. Because they don’t play The Imperial March during lineup announcements.” Something, something—she needed better sunscreen. 

So as to not get burned by the force of his sun-like smile. 

“I think a raccoon could probably take a rat, don’t you think?” “I don’t know,” Nina wavered, “I own a fair amount of Staten Island Pizza Rat merch.” His hand flipped. Fingers curled around hers and held on with an ease that settled her acid and cooled her blood, finally finding that middle ground between frigid and fission. 

“Explain the single seating.” “I had a friend here on Thursday.” “And he had to go back to work. Where does he work?” “Bar in Jersey.” Curiosity flashed in the blue, but then it was gone and Nina must have imagined it, looking for more common ground and mutual understanding. Her fingers looked minuscule between his. 

“If I told you that I know the new owner of the Mets,” Nina started, “because I went to college with his girlfriend, and he’s been listening to me talk about this team for the better part of a decade now, so he decided to spend some of his inherited millions to buy it, and now that same girlfriend is sitting up there perpetually confused why I like to be out here, do you think you’d hate me on principle?” One blink. Two. Head tilt. Jaw clench. His lips popped when they opened. 

“No.” “No?” “No,” he echoed, “Nikolai Lantsov shouldn’t have spent so much money on your shortstop’s contract.” “Wasn’t an error.” Both shoulders lifted.

“Nina Zenik,” she said, a tardy greeting that should have happened well before the hand holding. The hand holding continued. 

“Matthias Helvar.” “Did you bring a pen?” He pulled another one out of his jacket pocket. 

They disagreed on no less than half a dozen calls. Impressive, since they didn’t actually start paying attention to their separate score sheets and books until early in the third inning after Nina had barely cleared the cheese sauce off the corner of her page. 

Introducing themselves made it feel as if they’d crested another level in whatever the proper term for this not-quite relationship was. 

Jabs weren’t nearly as sharp, but elbows brushed and noses scrunched. Makeshift disdain blurred against subtle infatuation, sunshine in his hair and pressing against the barrier of Nina’s consistently reapplied sunscreen. They talked. Laughed. Shouted and screamed, standing at different times. Much to the chagrin of everyone around them. 

She didn’t bother asking about the Chase Utley jersey. Knew that it was as much a part of Matthias’s fandom as the Piazza jersey was to hers. Connecting him to something that was only partially his, because no matter how much this sport might be capable of sweeping over them, of bringing them along with the current, there was a riptide always threatening just below the surface. Capable of drowning and filling lungs, leaving them both taking on water and hastily constructed metaphors. 

Plus, they both hated the Yankees. So, they talked about that. 

Talked about places in the city they liked to go, Nina’s knowledge of hole-in-the-wall restaurants leaving his eyes as wide as she’d hoped they could be, tiny pools she was more than willing to dive into. With perfect form. 

Laughter became the new normal for the pair of them, chancing glances when they thought the other wasn’t looking. They always were. As if those magnets were real and forceful, leaving them both grinning like idiots whenever they were caught in the act. 

Once an inning, then. 

Matthias didn’t sing during the seventh-inning stretch, but Nina was loud enough for the pair of them. Especially when she was standing on her seat, a hand flat on the small of her back. 

“So you don’t fall,” Matthias explained, and the words immediately branded themselves on that corner of her brain where Nina kept good things. 

They shared a plastic helmet of swirl ice cream. With rainbow sprinkles. 

He called them jimmies. 

She made fun of him. 

And then—

It was over. 

No drama. No walk-off hits. No extra innings. Just a Mets win that didn’t require the bottom of the ninth. And she was happy with that, she was. Less so with the way her stomach dropped as soon as her knees bent and her chin lifted, barely tempered hope and the sort of want that did not require magnets to direct her gaze. 

Matthias loomed above her, casting shadows and the desire to finally push her fingers into his hair was nearly too much to ignore. Nina did. In favor of what came next because she knew what came next, and this was not that serious. Sitting on opposing lines of a flimsy at best baseball rivalry did not mean she couldn’t push up on her toes and catch the mouth of someone who no longer felt like a stranger. Until that same mouth inevitably opened and she got to do whatever she wanted with her tongue. 

Only—

One of the season tickets started grumbling, and the sea of fans pushed forward and the only way Nina stayed upright was because of the arm around her waist. Matthias’s nose ticked her skin along the back of her neck. 

“Told ya,” he mumbled, and if he saw the goosebumps, he didn’t mention them. 

That was nice. 

He was nice. 

She was—

A mess, at best. 

Mostly because there was no kissing. Almost like they were nervous of what would happen if they did. Of shattering this tremulous understanding and shaky alliance, but Matthias’s fingers squeezed Nina’s hip before he said, “See you tomorrow.”

She did not see him tomorrow. 

When tomorrow was tonight and now and Zoya and Genya kept doing circles around the room. 

Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN required a certain amount of protocol and it was the first broadcast with Nikolai in the owner’s box, which meant plenty of shots at the owner’s box, and Nina sat in her very plush, decidedly warm seat, with only minimal argument. 

There was champagne, so. That helped. 

Plus, she figured she’d— “Is it a guy?” Genya asked without preamble, propping her chin on her hand. “Is that why you don’t want to hang out?” Nina sighed. “You know me better than that.” “Sure, sure, sure, looked real cozy down there, though.” “Are you spying on me?” “Nah, Zoya was.” Frustration clawed at Nina’s consciousness. Surprise did not. This was par for the course and several other out-of-place sports cliches. 

Zoya finished her drink before adding, “I didn’t leave this suite all afternoon, yesterday, the security guards that Nikolai knows in that section though…” “That’s splitting hairs,” Nina argued. “And they were just doing their job,” Nikolai added, shouting in a way a multi-millionaire absolutely should not. Zoya rolled her eyes. 

“Whatever they were doing,” Nina said, “they didn’t need to be doing it. What if someone got robbed while they were watching me?” “You think people are getting robbed in broad daylight inside this stadium?” “Maybe!” “Were lots of Phillies fans here,” Genya pointed out. Laughter clung to her words, quiet snickers from the rest of the assorted peanut gallery. Before they noticed that Nina wasn’t lacking. Might have paled, if the matching expressions she was met with were any indication. “Oh,” Genya exhaled, “good looking Phillies fan, huh?” Nina grit her teeth. “He knows Brum.” “The bastard,” Nikolai sneered. 

“Most people don’t like him.” “Because he’s a bastard, yeah.” “How’d the Phillies fan know Brum?” Zoya asked, and it wasn’t like Nina wanted to tell them. Words poured out of her all the same, excitement carving its way into the conversation because even if she could rationalize the lack of kissing after a three-day conversation and occasional argument, none of her friends could understand how she didn’t get his number. 

Neither could she, quite frankly. 

“This is either disgustingly romantic,” Nikolai said, “or it’s exceedingly dumb. Of both of you.” Genya clicked her tongue. In agreement, Nina figured. “Second one, for sure. Do we have to go arrest him for something? Bring him up here, nervous and scared—” “Same sentiment,” Nina mumbled. “—Only for him to see you, awash in a sea of moonlight and outfield lights, and then you live happily ever after despite your baseball allegiances?” “He hates the Yankees too.” “Something, at least,” Zoya said, but it was missing the edge. The acid. The anger Nina had almost prepared herself for. “You going to go down there, or….”

Finishing the sentence was pointless when Nina was already standing, Nikolai’s laugh ringing in her ears as she did her best to push her finger straight through the elevator button. She bobbed on the balls of her feet, impatience skittering up her spine and there were too many buttons and too much laughter, but that was likely a good thing, and the security guards didn’t stop her. 

From running into the section. 

Only to find two sets of empty seats. His and hers. A weird, depressing, matching set. 

Nina waited. Stood at the top of the section stairs, waiting for a flash of familiar hair or those eyes that she probably hadn’t dreamed about the night before. Never came. The goosebumps did, for an entirely new and even more depressing reason. 

The security guard asked her to leave. Twenty-eight minutes after the last out. 

Matthias hadn’t been at the game. 

To be a Mets fan, was to wait. 

For wins. For David Wright’s body to heal. For that same rush that came in 2015, only this time, it also came up with a World Series championship attached to it. 

Nina wasn’t very good at waiting. 

Summer crept forward. As it was apt to do. Going back to the ballpark was second nature to Nina, but the Mets were on their West Coast swing, and spending a week and a half with Zoya and Genya touring the greater California coast wasn’t entirely appealing. So, she was in New Jersey. 

Leaning against the bar of the Crow Club, Nina watched the crowd. Most of them saturated with fruity alcohol, drinks that never came with those little umbrellas because the thought of such a thing would have set Kaz’s teeth on edge, but this was Atlantic City and that required a certain level of nonsense to be met consistently. 

Plus, Nina knew Inej liked those drinks. 

And that was that, for Kaz. As they say. 

Heads turned at tables while she watched, conversations that only occasionally acknowledged the baseball games on TVs hanging above them, others recounting beach exploits from that afternoon and plans for the rest of the evening, a steady din of noise and humanity that somehow made it easier for Nina to breathe. 

It smelled like salt when she did. 

“Looking awfully thoughtful,” Inej said, appearing out of nowhere to grin knowingly at Nina. “Give you a nickel for them.” “They’re not worth that much.” “What about one of those tokens from the casino down the boardwalk?” “Does Kaz know Jesper went to play there again?” “Absolutely.” “And?” “And what?” Inej parroted. “Who are you looking for, exactly?” “No one.” It was the wrong answer. A telling answer. An answer Nina didn’t realize she was capable of providing until the very moment those five letters in that specific order passed between lips in desperate need of ChapStick. And kissing. Gods, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t kissed him. 

“Our dear, darling Nina is pining,” Jesper explained. Drink in hand, the soft clink of casino tokens was as absurd as it was not, a mix of youth and age and responsibility and not. The perfect blend of summertime status. 

Nina took a sip of his drink before he could offer. She assumed he would offer. 

“For that,” Jesper hissed, “I’ll tell Inej the rest of the story.” He did. Spared no expense, really. Recounted scorebooks and shouting matches, although some dramatic license was taken at that point, drawing a small crowd that included a guy Nina had never met before, staring openly at Jesper like he’d hung the moon. She’d make fun of him for that. Maybe. After the story. Probably. 

Inej was a rapt audience, taking in details and occasionally letting her eyes flit toward Nina. Who never once disputed anything. There was nothing to dispute. The goddamn paper airplane was still sitting on her goddamn nightstand. 

“And you just never saw him again?” Inej asked. Nina shook her head. “That’s tragic. Not—maybe not grand scheme, world level, but tragic all the same.” “No kissing either,” Jesper added. 

Nina’s heart dropped. Shattered at her feet. Like one of those plates, you could shoot at in the arcade. “How do you know that?” “I didn’t, until right now. Simple assumption, though. Who could pine at your level if there’d been previous making out?” “Two different things,” Inej murmured. 

Jesper hummed in agreement. “And Nina wanted both. Fraternizing with the enemy.” “He hated the Yankees, too.” “So, what? The enemy of my enemy is my friend? My good-looking friend?” “He was good-looking, right?” That earned her another hum — and got Jesper a look of passing consternation from the guy at his side. Nina desperately needed to learn names in a more timely fashion. Determined to remedy at least one situation, she took a deep breath and immediately, very nearly died. 

It was very dramatic. 

Sweeping, even. 

Because the door opened and she knew the music didn’t stop and the Earth didn’t pause mid-rotation, but it felt like her center of balance had been inextricably altered and that wasn’t the bad thing it should have been when Matthias Helvar took his first step into the Crow Club. 

Not falling over really was a rather monumental miracle. 

If she decided to move, Nina did not remember it. Could not bother with something as menial as cognitive reasoning or the ability of the neurons in her brain to properly fire, not when she was twisting around tables and reminding herself of all the very important properties oxygen possessed. In regard to continued consciousness. 

He didn’t move. He waited. Watched. Documented her, it felt like. 

She wasn’t entirely opposed. 

Their shoes nearly brushed. 

“Huh,” Matthias breathed, slumping slightly to get into her eye line. Or just closer to her. The specifics didn’t matter. “I was right, then.” “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” “You said your friend worked at a bar in Jersey.” “This is a bar in Jersey.” “Yeah, we might be going in circles, actually.” “What are you doing here?” Nina was dimly aware of Jesper shouting something, but the buzz between her ears was far too loud and even the concept of pulling her gaze away from Matthias’s made her want to grit her teeth together until she ground them down completely. 

She licked her lips. 

He smiled. “After I got hurt,” Matthias explained, “I didn’t know what way was up. So, I went...up. Best as I could, really, up the Shore.” “Is that a joke?” “No, I thought your friend looked familiar. Was driving me nuts, honestly.” “How?” “Twenty questions, Ms. Met.” “Matthias!”

Her voice cracked. Her foot stomped. Air crackled and the world very likely did shift because the hands on Nina’s cheeks were warm and perfectly sized to pull her that much closer and she was legitimately proud of herself. For not stepping on his feet. He didn’t really give her the chance. 

Rocking against each other, there was a joke about tides and current to be made and Nina pushed them back, down or up, and direction didn’t matter and time didn’t matter. Sports allegiance was the least of her worries. Not when Matthias’s arm found her waist and there was something to be said for the stretch of his upper body. Capable, as it was, of lifting her up and he was ten-thousand times better at any tongue thing than she could have possibly imagined. 

Tracing her lips and twisting around her own, like he was taking a very personal and detailed inventory. One of his thumbs brushed against Nina’s cheeks, but she honestly couldn’t figure out which one. Everything was sensation and feeling, a bases-clearing double that kept the rally alive and the roar in the background wasn’t the crowd at Citi Field, but Inej perched on the edge of the bar and Jesper balanced on the rungs of a rickety stool, and they only broke apart to fall back together. 

Nina closed her eyes. 

Better to remember, that way. 

To let her breath catch whenever Matthias’s neck dipped again, the sort of angle that sonnets were written for, and epic romances documented. Right side up and cross dimensions and Nina’s eyelashes fluttered. Open, closed. Once, twice. 

He was still there. 

“You go down the Shore, everybody knows that,” Nina whispered, still somehow sounding like herself. Good, that was good. And only good, that time. 

“I think you’re getting paid by the disagreement.” “I liked shouting your name.” His eyes—

Sparkled, maybe. 

She didn’t even hate herself for thinking that. 

“Probably about as much as I enjoyed hearing it,” Matthias said, “and I’ve been here before. Spent that summer drinking at,” his head jerked toward the corner where Inej waved, “that corner. This was as far away from school and baseball and everything I thought was gone as I could find.” “Ah, the scorebook makes sense now.” “Does it just?” “You know baseball isn’t often predictable nor nearly that organized. That’s the appeal, so people claim.” “They do,” Matthias admitted, “but I—is that demon-looking guy still working here?” “Kaz owns this bar.” “Of course he does. You know everyone, don’t you Ms. Met?” “Impressive like that.” Humming wasn’t really her favorite of the audible, non-word responses, but Nina heard something different in that sound than she ever had before. Almost like hope and something worth waiting for, if only because the waiting found her first. 

She kissed the bottom of his chin. 

It was all she could reach. 

“I really wanted you to be here, Nina,” Matthias said, “and I’m sorry I wasn’t there Sunday. For that game, I—that wasn’t part of the plan, but...well, Brum had set up this whole interview with a college team in the middle of nowhere, thinking I’d be good with that and—” “You weren’t good with that?” His hair shook when his head did. “Not really, no.” “Did he kick you out of your hotel?”

“Smart too.” “Total package.” “Yeah,” Matthias said, a note of awe that made Nina’s skin prickle, “anyway, I’m pretty much in New York full-time now, but trying to find you there seemed impossible.” “So you figured you’d try a bar in the middle of Atlantic City?” “I leave a very strong impression,” Jesper yelled, practically jumping off the stool when Kaz glared. Inej’s smile was hypnotic. 

“Something like that,” Matthias agreed, “so this is the part where we actually give each other our phone numbers and then—” His arm tightened again, finding a bit of space that certainly hadn’t been there twelve seconds before. Just enough to make sure Nina heard him mumble I like you before he kissed her. Or she kissed him. 

Either or, really. 

They went to Yankee Stadium on Labor Day weekend. 

Nikolai pulled some strings to get them suite seats with complimentary well drinks and never-ending popcorn and both Matthias and Nina wore wholly out of place jerseys. Supporting neither of the teams on the field. Just each other, maybe. At least without much argument. They had better things to do, anyway. Fingers laced together, Nina shouted at the field and Matthias stared at anyone who dared glance in their direction and it was weird and wonderful and exactly what sports was supposed to be. 

Caring about something beyond reason, something bigger and better than any one person was alone. 

[enviedear]

the empty feeling → draco malfoy

DESCRIPTION ⌙ in which malfoy is consoled by a girl who can’t help but fall for him.

PAIRING ⌙ draco x fem!reader

WORD COUNT ⌙ 2.1k

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

you thought the reason your heart never fully recovered was because of the fact you had to see him everyday.

every single day you saw him. he was laughing, bickering, looking out a window, eating, reading, and in conversations. you couldn’t help but watch. you tried not to. you tried to make the love you had for him diminish. or maybe at least dull. it wouldn’t work.

you didn’t mean to fall in love with draco malfoy. however you did. your heart overruled your brain. at least when it came to him.

you think back to the day you knew you loved the slytherin boy. it was a foggy and rainy day that truly began at a slug club meeting.

“dreadful weather we’re having right, miss y/l/n?” slughorn asks you.

the rest of the slug club stares at you as you respond, “i quite like the rain. i get the best sleep when it rains.”

he nods and replies,”ah, just like your father. i remember he loved to listen the rain when he was your age. does he still listen? to the the rain, my dear?”

you didn’t want to talk about your father. not that you didn’t love the man, but you knew there wasn’t much you could indulge. he kept his work close to him and never really told you much. you knew slughorn would eventually lead the conversation to your fathers work.

“sometimes professor. he’s usually busy these days though.” you say, looking down at your ice cream.

busy because of people like zabini and crabbe’s parents. as you looked back up at slughorn you didn’t miss the sly look blaise gave you. you quickly turned your attention back to the professor.

“ah! i wouldn’t expect him not to be. amazing work your father does, making such simple objects into wands. you know my dear, i heard he turned a rusty old spoon into a very powerful wand!” slughorn boasts for you.

you smile as a response and allow the teacher to spark conversation with the other club members.

what slughorn forgets to add is that the wands your father has begun to produce are being used by many deatheater families. since the wands cannot be tracked, and are easy to pass off as illegitimate objects. they buy them for their children and it’s not as if your father or the ministry can do much about it.

plus, your father shouldn’t have to loose his job just because others take advantage of him. and even if he did make the damn things trackable that would be putting a target on his back.

as you mull over your thoughts slughorn stands and bids you all a goodnight. you politely tell the man night, and walk out of the room. you were going to head to the hufflepuff common room, but as you passed moaning myrtle’s bathroom you stopped in your tracks.

you heard crying. and the cries weren’t myrtle’s usual wails, but a boy’s. on further inspection you found that they also weren’t just any boys cries but, malfoy’s.

you slowly creeped into the abandoned bathroom, making sure to not alert malfoy that you were there.

he sat by the sinks and looked utterly distressed. his eyes a deep red. he looked completely broken. you’d never seen the boy like this. and it broke your own heart.

against your better judgement you cleared your throat to make yourself known.

he looked up at you, defeated.

you didn’t say anything as you bent down and gave the boy a hug. he didn’t say anything as he hugged you back. he just let his tears escape onto your shirt.

eventually he let you go. you didn’t have the slightest clue what to say. nothing seemed right.

“don’t tell a soul about this.” malfoy grimaced, getting to his feet.

you looked at him shocked, “i wasn’t. i-“ he cut you off with a scowl.

“draco you have to trust me. please i won’t say anything just.. take care of yourself.” you said.

he didn’t reply. he just walked out. leaving you confused.

after that day you couldn’t see draco malfoy as a nuisance. no, after that day you couldn’t help but to romanticize the boy. you didn’t think he bullied because he was hateful. no not at all. you thought he did it because he was lonely, sad, or upset. you found his worst qualities easy forgivable. you knew he was broken. but you also knew it wasn’t an excuse, you just couldn’t help it.

so you continued to watch him daily. eyeing him as much as you could. you began to love the way his face would turn into a sneer at the slighted inconvenience. you loved the way he held his cup. you loved the way he looked over his books. and for some reason you began hoping. hoping that maybe one day he would eye you too.

alas, the boy went and broke your heart by dating pansy. you knew it wasn’t done to be malicious. you knew he didn’t know about your feelings. you knew he was probably very happy with pansy and she with him.

though, you’d still find the boy in the bathroom on a regular basis and have to console him. each time you’d think he’d come around. each time he did not.

you kept hoping though. it proved you detrimental as you went from being a happy and loving person to someone who harbored far too much loathing. you couldn’t help it, you felt so cheated. how could you love and care for this boy and he not even say a word to you?

your friends noticed your behavior.

“y/n you’re taking out whatever is upsetting you on us. and you won’t even tell us what’s wrong.”

then your teachers.

“miss y/l/n your grades are slipping. and you’re not acting like yourself at all. is everything ok?”

then your sibling(s).

“i didn’t do anything to you, stop treating me like this y/n.”

and finally your parent(s).

“honey, are you sure everything is alright at school? you don’t have to go back if something is seriously wrong.”

you were better than before. you were finally home. you didn’t have to see the boy anymore. you didn’t have to be reminded of him every waking moment.

but still, you weren’t you.

you never told any of the people worried about you why exactly you weren’t ok. you hated the thought of being this upset over a boy you genuinely barely knew.

and even though you told yourself repeatedly that you in fact did not know malfoy, your heart proclaimed otherwise.

when you returned to school, this time in your sixth year, you decided that you needed to avoid the problem.

so you did. you ate breakfast and dinner without looking up from your food. you paid far too much attention in class. you never went to hogsmeade. you isolated yourself.

and it worked, more than less. you only caught a glimpse of malfoy a handful of times. each time less painful.

by november you began to forget about your weird fascination with malfoy. but when you received news that he and pansy had broken up your heart fluttered just like it would have a few months ago.

but still, finally you felt more like yourself. you began talking to your friends more. you went on a couple of dates. started helping out first years. everything was falling into place.

you tried to ignore the off feeling of emptiness that still lingered in you.

it’s january when you bump into him, on your way to the astronomy tower to meet your friends.

“sorry.” you say, continuing on your path.

“wait, come here, y/l/n.” he says, causing you to double back.

you turn to face him not even slightly happy that you’re allowing this exchange.

“i- well, i wanted to thank you for never telling anyone about last year. i’m sorry i was so brash to you,” he pauses. “that’s all.” he says.

you look at him stunned. it took him a year to apologize. although you knew he had no idea the amount of internal struggle he has caused you, you feel your blood boil.

“i’m glad you spent an entire year gaining the courage to apologize for your behavior. however, i don’t accept your apology. you’re such a coward, malfoy. i mean, you’re afraid that people would find out i consoled you. as if it’s even a big deal. just leave me alone.” you seethe.

whole-heartedly you couldn’t help your outburst. the boy just aggravated you. how could he apologize now?

“i’m sorry i didn’t apologize sooner, but if i were you i’d take the apology i was given.” he glares at you.

“or what malfoy? what could you possibly do?” you ask.

“i never said i’d do anything! i just suggested you take the apology. i’m sorry i didn’t tell you sooner, okay? you just looked so put off all the bloody time. i didn’t want to bother you.” he groans.

now your ears were hot and eyes stone cold.

“put off?” you spluttered, “it’s your fucking fault i looked so put off. you worried me to no end. i never knew if you were ok! and although i know it’s not my business it still hurt. i was so upset for you. and then you wouldn’t say a word to me. and then you dated parkinson. and-“ you stop yourself.

“you just apologized too late, alright.”

he looks at you bewildered, “i’m sorry i feel like i’m missing something.”

you roll your eyes, “i loved you draco. i don’t know why but i did. i wanted to make sure you were ok. everytime you needed me i was there. i never even asked for anything in return, not even human decency. but i shouldn’t have had to ask for that. you should have been nice to me. i was beyond nice to you.”

he furrows his brows,“i am truly sorry, y/n. i didn’t know. i was being selfish and i can admit i used you for your kindness. but if you’d give me the chance i’d be good to you. good for you. i- i never meant to hurt you.”

your cold gaze didn’t leave, “i don’t believe you.”

he sighs, “come here.”

he holds his hand out to you and you take it cautiously.

he leads you into the place where it all started, myrtle’s bathroom. he begins pulling a book out from his bag, and then he hands it to you.

“just look it over.” he says, his voice barely above a whisper.

you open the book and are immediately greeted by drawings. illustrations littering the pages, and they’re all of you.

you turn to one page, it’s a drawing of you outside studying. underneath the picture sat draco’s neat writing.

she came to calm me down today. fourth time this week. she still hasn’t told anyone. that means a lot to me. i again didn’t tell her why i was upset. it seems stupid to tell her about my problems. she’s too pure for them. i’d never want to upset her. i think i love her. i don’t know how. i barely even talk to her. but her hugs are nice. and she’s always so kind. i just wish i knew how to tell her what’s going on. i wish i wasn’t so scared of her rejection. it’s all too much. at least i have this. all of these pictures of her. now i cant forget her even if i tried. but of course, i’d never want to forget her.

you look up from the page. you cant help the few tears that escape your eyes.

“you loved me? the whole time? and you didn’t tell me?” you ask.

he bites his lip, “you didn’t tell me either. plus i knew i was a prat. i didn’t think you’d even want to be loved by someone like me.”

you huff out a pained breath, “draco i have loved you since the day you allowed me to comfort you. i wanted nothing more than to help you and to make sure you were ok.”

he doesn’t say anything, instead he envelops you in a tight hug. the embrace eases your worry and soothes the empty part of you. the two of you continue to hold eachother for minutes on end, and by the time you pull away you know draco meant every single word.

“please never stop caring.” he tells you.

“never.” you agree.

and you mean it. you can’t stop the way your heart beats for the blonde boy, and you didn’t want to. you love him. almost as if you needed to.

[thiswasinevitableid]

15. Nymph SternClay alternately, Stern is a Dryad residing in a huge forest where a strange creature, similar to humans but different (aka Bigfoot) wanders alone. Ever curious, Stern seeks to understand why this beautiful creature doesn’t seem to have anyone else, and even tries to hide from the few humans who venture deep enough into the woods. Can they be alone together?

Here you go! It’s SFW

Joseph knows he can’t spend every hour in the Great Oak, reading and researching the movements of humans. He still struggles to justify his fascination with creatures that have little contact with his kind. Some of his peers go so far as to insist humans are a myth, or the result of the odd dryad or naiad seeing a bear from the wrong angle. 

This is false, of course, and humans have been getting bold lately, making paths and taking walks deeper and deeper into the trees. This means that dryads assigned to security roles must spend at least six hours a day in their tree to make sure no one threatens their home. Joseph is in a Copper Beech not far from the GreenBriar river, mentally drawing up his to-do list for the week, when heavy footsteps catch his attention. 

At first he thinks it’s a particularly hairy human tromping through the underbrush, decked out in a ratty flannel shirt and what he’s heard humans refer to as “sweatpants.”  But his feet are bare, his limbs and face covered in dark, copper-flecked fur, and his ears are more pointed than those of a human. He leans against Josephs’ tree, drumming his fingers on it as he surveys the area, massive back-pack slung over his shoulders. There’s a flat patch of grass twenty yards away, and this is where the visitor eventually settles. Within fifteen minutes, a small tent sits on the grass. When the creature crawls inside and lays down, his feet stick out of the flap. 

Once snoring filters into the air, Joseph slips from the tree, conjures a blanket from moss, and sets it across his feet. It gets cold here at night.

His kind gesture does not go as planned.

The instant the fabric hits skin, the figure in the tent jolts upright, growling.  Joseph sits back as his guest's head bursts into the open. Then their positions instantly reverse, the other creature scrambling backwards in alarm.

“What the fuck? Where, where’d you come from, I didn’t hear you, didn’t even smell you sneaking up on me.”

Joseph raises his eyebrows, “Probably because I smell like bark and my footsteps are no different from falling leaves.” He holds out his hand for the creature to shark, “Joseph Stern, dryad.” 

“O-kay, so why is a dryad trying to…” he looks at the blanket for the first time, “tuck me in?”

“You’re new to woodland living, I take it?”

“Not really.”

Joseph sighs, “There are specific rules that govern this forest. One of them is that dryads are responsible for everything within a two mile radius of their base” he points to the Beech, “including any residents, visitors, or refugees. Which means you’re my responsibility.”

“Uh, I’m good, you don’t need to, like, babysit me.”

The dryad produces a notebook from his pocket, flipping to the section for his resident intake form, “I’m not babysitting you, I just need some information for my records. Name?”

Deep brown eyes blink, perplexed, and then his guest shrugs, “Barclay.”

“Species?”

“No fucking idea.” Barclay picks up the moss blanket, folding it and setting it next to the tent. 

“Purpose of stay?”

“To get some peace and quiet.” He turns a pointed glare at Joseph. Even with the glower, he’s the most handsome creature the dryad has ever seen. 

“Um. Right. I’ll just fill in the rest myself. If you need anything, I’m just over there.” He walks briskly away, managing to only look over his shoulder once. Barclay is watching him, looking for all the world like a hare waiting for the fox to pounce. 

It’s only when he’s back in the tree that he realizes having a resident will cut down on his research time. Then again, his guest is far more intriguing than any human could ever be.

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

Barclay was so ready to stop feeling bad. He feels bad for stealing the tent from a guy he scared off his campsite two towns back. Bad for yanking clothes off the clothing line of rural houses so he could have two sets to rotate instead of a filthy, single shirt and shorts combo. Bad because it’s been months since he ate anything but MREs, granola bars, and day olds salvaged from dumpsters. 

Now he gets to add “feel bad because you’re crashing on some guys front lawn” to that list. He didn’t even know nymphs were a thing; he thought he was the only weird semi-human in the world. Yet here’s Joseph, hair as dark and shiny as the leaves on his home tree, skin the color of bark, and vines occasionally twining up his arms and legs. Unlike Barclay, his inhuman features make him beautiful, not beastly. 

Barclay came here to be alone. 

Barclay hates being alone. He wants a house full of warmth and voices mingling over a kitchen table, wants people to care for and who care about him. So when Joseph appears the next morning near his small fire and it’s boiling pot of foraged tea, he offers the dryad some. 

They sit, awkwardly sipping from their mugs, when he decides to take advantage of his host.

“I, uh, don’t suppose there’s any herbs growing around here? Like mint, or maybe alliaria? I wanna catch fish for dinner, but they taste better if I can season them.”

“I think there’s some growing upstream. Do you want me to show you?”

“Uh, no, that’s fine. I’m used to finding stuff on my own.”

Joseph nods, finishes his tea, and magics the cup clean before handing it back to Barclay.

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

“What...what’s all this?” Barclay stares, stunned, at the pile of goods sitting by his firepit. He counts a camp stove, teapot, and two boxes of fresh food, including bread and cheese,

Joseph looks up from organizing the supplies, “A few friends of mine, plus the Ashroot Market.” He smiles, Barclay’s stomach flipping like a flapjack when he does, “did you think we live on berries and air?”

“Kinda, yeah.” Barclay rubs his arm, embarrassed, “thanks, Joseph. I, uh, I don’t really have money, so maybe I can pay you back with-” he trails off as the nymph stands and sets a hand on his shoulder. 

“Barclay, you don’t owe me anything. I did this because you keep saying how much you miss cooking from a real pantry and, um, I thought it’d make you happy to have some options.”

“It does.” He freezes as Joseph strokes the fur poking through a hole in shirt, “I can restock your sewing kit the next time, if you want.”

“That’d be great.” He wants so badly to touch him back, to see if he shudders away from his claws or holds his hand. 

Josephs arm drops back to his side, “Ned has a surprising number of camping supplies. I suspect he stole them from humans, which is technically against the rules but” he indicates the stove, “I’ll let it slide for now.” 

A conspiratorial wink and Barclay rumbles out a purr, catching it before Joseph notices.

“Will, uh, will you at least let me make you dinner as a thank you?”

The dryad nods, “That sounds perfect, big guy.”

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

Barclay doesn’t howl often; it draws unwanted attention and there’s no one like him out there to answer anyway. Tonight he couldn’t help it, the loneliness tearing him to bits on it’s climb up his throat. He’s cross-legged on the ground, face to the stars, when Joseph sits down beside him. 

“Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine. Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you. Thought you were out.”

“I was reading.” Joseph scoots closer, rubbing Barclay’s back, “and I can tell you’re lying.”

Barclay delays answering, fixes his gaze on the Beech where Joseph lives. Nymph homes occupy liminal spaces, fitting an entire domiciles within trees. His current hobby is imagining what it looks like on the inside; whether there are books stacked neatly everywhere, whether there’s a nice kitchen, how big the bed is, what the view from the bed is like…

He’s never going to know, Joseph made that clear. 

“It’s not that no other creature is allowed in a nymph home, more that getting them in there takes a dangerous amount of energy.”

“Barclay?” Joseph rests his head on his shoulder, “have you always been alone?”

“No. Or, well, I don’t think so. I get flashes of memory from when I was really little. Like there’s this big house with lots people who look like me, and they’re talking and keep passing me around so the grown-ups can ruffle my fur and make this, this sort of” he breaks off into the low, soft hoots that echo down through the years, “and then...then there’s this gap and the next thing I remember is being dumped on the side of the road somewhere in central California, more or less an adult myself. I spent so long looking for my family, for anyone who looked like or could give me answers and all I got was some scars and a bunch of T.V shows about hunting me.” 

“That sounds awful. I, um, I’m glad you stumbled into my neck of the woods. I know I’m not always the best company and ask more questions about living around humans than you’d probably like but, um, you deserve to have at least one person on your side.”

“Thanks” Barclay tips his head sideways so it’s resting against Josephs’, “Uh if, if you ever want to, we could have a dinner here with Duck and them. I like cooking for people; one of those things I know about myself even if I can’t remember why.”

He must imagine the lips brushing his forehead as Joseph sits up, “I’ll invite everyone first thing tomorrow.”

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

A danger of sleeping in Joseph’s clearing is that Barclay feels safe. Starts sleeping like he has nothing to fear. 

The voices in the distance, jarring him awake in the dead of night, remind him of the truth.

“Shit” he scrambles out of the tent, piles it and all his other possessions into a hollow log and throws the moss blanket over it just to be safe. Then the worst sound in the world reaches him: barking. Not only are the hunters close, they have dogs. And, his acute hearing informs him, he’s their prey. 

Fuck, his scent and fur are all over this part of the woods, no wonder they’re honing in on him so fast. His best chance is to run and cross the river, but there’s an open stretch on the other side, so unless he’s lucky they’ll still spot him. 

“Hey! I think something is moving over here!” 

He flattens against the Copper Beech, narrowly dodging the beam of a flashlight. 

“Shit, shit” he doesn’t want to fight, doesn’t want to hurt anyone. He doesn’t want to be caught. Inhaling, he readies himself to give the loudest roar of his life. 

Then the world tips and twists and he’s no longer in the woods. He is, however, in a tree, if the view from the window is anything to go by.

Gasping sends his attention to the floor and he drops to his knees, scooping a limp, pale Joseph into his arms. 

“Wel, welcome to my house. Sorry it’s such a, a mess.”

He glances at the polished furniture, the neatly stacked books, and the spotless floor.

“Seriously, babe? That’s the first thing you say after saving my neck?” He giggles, tipping towards hysteria. 

“I couldn’t let them hurt you.”

“You could have died.” Barclay adjusts him so he’s mostly upright and hugs him close, “I coulda lost you why, why did you-”

His question is lost in the clumsy kiss Joseph pulls him into. Barclay’s body gives up on adapting to anymore surprises and he falls onto his back, the nymph weakly petting his cheeks as he tries, clearly exhausted, to continue kissing him. 

“You’re the most incredible being in the forest and, and I’ve been so happy since you came to stay. My entire body feels like a leaf beaten limp by the rain and I’d do the same spell this instant, without hesitation, if that’s what it took to keep you safe. Keep you with me.”

Carefully, Barclay guides him into another kiss, vines curling up them both the more he pours all his affection and thanks into the nymphs mouth. When Joseph finally pulls away, he nestles down on Barclays chest, running his fingers through his fur. 

“You, um, you may be here awhile. I’m not sure if I can get you out safely or if Dani and the others will have to help me.”

“No complaints here.” Barclay strokes his hair, which feels like soft leaves and normal locks all at once. 

Joseph answers a few more logistical questions before falling asleep in his arms, which is plenty of answers for one night. And in the morning, when the nymph rolls over to smile at him, he can confirm; the view from the bed is beautiful.

[blouisparadise]

Upon request, here is a rec list of bottom Louis fics that are more plot-heavy in nature. We tried to choose fics that had a plot beyond Louis and Harry’s relationship. Happy reading!

1) Once Upon A Dream | Explicit | 33319 words | Sequel

Louis is psychic and gets caught in the middle of a murder investigation led by FBI Special Agent Harry Styles.

2) Boiling Blood Will Circulate | Explicit | 42420 words

The wait isn’t long before something starts rustling in the bushes. Harry takes aim, squeezes the trigger, body moving unconsciously. They’re motions he’s done a thousand times before, and his body knows how to do it without the input of his brain now. It’s what makes him such a good shot.

He misses. The shot misses.

Something howls in the woods, a pretty clear indication that Harry hit it, but there’s no telltale sounds of a big body dropping, no animal charging out at him to take him out before he can finish the job.

Something does turn and run, though. “Fuck,” Harry spits out, scrambling to his feet and slinging the rifle back over his shoulder, giving chase. He’s not going to lose this hunt.

The trail of blood goes on longer than Harry thought it would. He doesn’t know how long he runs for, but his muscles are burning, chest heaving with exertion, until the trail just - goes dead. No more blood, just like that.

“Fuck,” Harry says.

3) The Fairy Ring | Explicit | 46170 words

A medieval fantasy AU in which Harry is a prince in disguise and Louis is the king of the faeries.

4) Tied Down | Explicit | 48551 words

The most interesting case in Liam and Niall's careers falls directly into their laps, courtesy of an epic fuck-up of one Harry Styles, partner to the almost-infamous drug dealer Louis Tomlinson.   The investigation yields an unexpected yet satisfactory outcome for Liam and Niall.  For Harry and Louis, however, things are far more complicated.

5) Now That This Old World Is Ending | Explicit | 49184 words

Needing a good distraction from his broken heart, Louis Tomlinson goes on a camping trip with his friends to Northern England. However, a different kind of distraction arises when his friends disappear from their camp. Hellbent on finding them, Louis soon discovers that the area has been taken over by a cult and teams up with a resentful archer with fire in his eyes and blood on his hands.

Far Cry inspired AU.

6) It's A Long Way Down | Explicit | 52658 words

It’s June 2013, and the legalization of gay marriage is the most discussed political issue in the country. As a member of parliament Louis Tomlinson has decided to do everything under his power to keep marriage between a man and a woman. Little does he know a boy with green eyes and pink lips from his past is on a mission to change his mind.

7) We’ve Got the World in Our Hands | Explicit | 54964 words

Note: This fic is locked and can only be read by AO3 users.

A mutants/superpowers AU. Louis and his friends attend the Cowell Institute for General Education and Mutant Training in London; when Louis meets Harry, the newest student at the Cowell Institute, he immediately recruits Harry to help play matchmaker for his friend Zayn. Harry and Louis are so caught up in meddling in Zayn's love life, though, that they don't notice that their own friendship is progressing into something more. Meanwhile, an ominous threat up north grows slowly until suddenly, no mutant - or human - is safe.

8) Somethin’ Bout You | Explicit | 59855 words

Of all the government agents in the world, Louis had to go and land the most charming one.

9) Like Real People Do | Explicit | 64175 words

Louis didn’t ask for a lot of things. He didn’t ask for his entire family to die in a car crash that may or may not have been his fault. He didn’t ask to get powers out of that accident, either, powers that eventually led him into a two-year relationship with a man who was far more than met the eye. But one night, he chose to ask for a replacement to a broken camera from someone he hadn’t spoken to in a year and a half. He did ask for that. And that kind of led to everything else.

10) We’ll Cast Some Light (You’ll Be Alright) | Not Rated | 74409 words

There’s a standard procedure for this. Scan, track, kill. But with a solar eclipse and a Greater Demon with unfinished business looming, the path to keeping England safe from harm becomes complicated and shadowed by mystery and secrets. For Harry and his team, times have never been harder, especially when a few old friends turned foes show up. Harry is left with just over forty days to overcome the hurdle of tension between them and reconcile their past, and figure out just what Louis is hiding from him before it’s too late.

11) Waiting On You | Explicit | 76584 words

“Vampires,” Louis says with disgust, glaring over at the vampire who is noisily slurping from the woman’s neck nearby.

 Zayn gives the neat fang marks on Louis’ neck a meaningful look.

“Can’t live with them, can’t live without them,” Louis finishes, ignoring Zayn when he rolls his eyes.

Louis takes a long sip of his milkshake, presses his fingers against the marks on his neck, and definitely doesn’t think about the vampire who left them there.

12) Through Struggles, To The Stars | Explicit | 80582 words

Louis is a Starfleet captain trying to find his place in the universe. Harry is a prince just trying to do what's right.

13) Cameras Flashing | Explicit | 81773 words

With his breakout single platinum three times over and his second album still selling out in stores around the world, Louis Tomlinson has made it to the top. However, his position as Pop Heartthrob of the Decade is threatened by the edgier, more artistic Zayn, who happens to be releasing an album a week after Louis’ upcoming third. Louis needs something groundbreaking- scandalous, even- to push past him in the charts. Much to Louis’ dismay, his PR team calls in The Sexpert.

Consulting with PR firm Shady, Lane and Associates pays the bills so that Harry Styles can spend his down time doing what he really loves: poring over data. On weekends and late into the evenings, he researches gender, presentation, and sexual orientation, analysing the longitudinal study that is his father’s life’s work. That is, until his newest client, the popstar with the fascinating secret, drags him off his couch and frighteningly close to the spotlight.

As the album’s release date approaches, will Tomlinson and Styles be able to pull off the most risky PR scheme of the millennium and beat Zayn in sales or will the heat of their feelings for each other compromise everything?

14) And Down the Long and Silent Street | Mature | 86090 words

Wherein Louis and Harry are on the opposite ends of the social ladder, but their paths still cross on the filthy streets Louis calls his home. The odds are staked against them from the beginning, and even more when Louis' past finally catches up with him.

15) A Taste Of Desire | Explicit | 104414 words

A Victorian ABO where Harry is the owner of the most successful cotton mill in Manchester, and Louis is an opinionated social activist about to disrupt Harry’s world.

16) Saving Symphony Hall | Mature | 124766 words

Note: This fic is locked and can only be read by AO3 users. This fic is also a sequel to this fic, so you probably want to read that fic first.

“I think I have an idea,” Louis said. Slowly, and reluctantly, but with a growing sense of the inevitable. “God damnit, I think I have a really good idea.”

“Oh christ, that's the problem-solving face,” Babs said. “Last time we saw that face, he sold a company.”

“Wait, what?” Zayn asked.

“Right place, right time,” Louis said. “Also, fuck my life,”

“What?” Zayn repeated. Niall patted his hand.

“I usually just roll with whatever Louis is about to do,” he said. “It’s better for us all.”

“That’s the attitude,” said Louis, “I’ll tell you tomorrow. Tonight, I need to do some research. Zayn, give me your number. I’m gonna save our symphony.”

17) Tainted Saints And Velvet Vices | Mature | 126057 words

A self-fulfilling Hogwarts AU in which Louis is new to seventh year and Harry is the resident devil-may-care Slytherin set to make his entire experience a living misery. Due to less than favourable circumstances they're forced to forge an unwilling, tentative relationship for their own survival. Repressed emotions, decidedly unromantic ballroom dancing, Triwizard Tournament tasks, creative jinxes and twilight flying above the Forbidden Forest ensue.

18) Run Like the Devil | Explicit | 138095 words

Note: This fic has BH mentions.

Supernatural AU. Louis hunts demons; Harry's the strangest demon he's ever met, and he keeps fucking meeting him.

19) You Are The Blood | Explicit | 175151 words

Note: This fic has BH mentions.

A seventh-year Hogwarts AU in which Niall gets all the girls, Liam goes on a journey of self-discovery, Zayn falls in love, Harry wants something more, and Louis tries to figure out once and for all why he, a Muggleborn, was sorted into Slytherin.

20) Collision | Not Rated | 209473 words

Mythology/Fairytale!AU in which Louis is a dainty fairy with a temper who wants to be intimidating and Harry hurts people. Naturally, they hate each other.

Check out our other fic rec lists by category here and by title here.