#just don’t kill him outright and never bring him back

[lameow-l]

YALL!!!

the leaked boss with the void inside his abdomen has similar movement set to childe’s boss

THEY KILLED MY BOI????

[jeonstudios]

fontana di trevi | 02

you seek out a vampire to help you with something.

pairing: vampire!jk x sadgirl, blood donor!reader

genre: vampire au, angst, fluff (really a sadgirl fic lol)

word count: 9k

warnings: same as last time basically: blood, needles, suicidal thoughts and intentions

rating: NC-17 – Adults Only

masterlist

part 2/2

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© between takes is copyright jeonstudios. this fic can not be modified, re-posted, or translated without my permission.

“Thanks,” you smile politely as you close the car door, hearing the Uber drive off behind you. The walk up to the house is no different than last time, yet it definitely feels different. Both because of what happened almost a week ago, but also since you’re hoping this will be the last time.

What certainly is different is the surprised look on the vampire’s face as he opens the door to see you standing there with your hands in the pockets of your winter coat.

He himself is wearing a black hoodie, and once again, black shorts. His hair looks a little messier than how you’re used to seeing it. Almost like he’s been sleeping. Vampires don’t sleep, though, do they?

“I… didn’t think you’d show,” he admits honestly, nonetheless opening the door wider for you, and as you enter, you can’t help but think that he looks… almost cuddly.

Of course, he still gives off the usual intimidating aura, and he should probably be even scarier to you considering what happened last time you met him, but… you don’t know. Perhaps you’re just so deprived of human touch that a bloodthirsty vampire’s cold embrace seems inviting.

This time, he waits in the hallway while you step out of your shoes and remove your coat. 

“Yeah, I still want this. I just… wasn’t prepared,” you explain rather vaguely, knowing that he understands exactly what you’re getting at anyway. You want to die but on your terms.

“It wasn’t my intention. To do what I did.”

You meet his eyes. It’s not an outright apology, but it feels eerily close to one.

“You were there to… feed, weren’t you?”

He nods. “Didn’t get the chance to on Thursday or Friday.”

It’s your turn to nod in understanding. For a short moment, you stand there, looking at each other. 

Until you break the silence. “So, can we start?”

“Sure,” he agrees, turning around to head toward the kitchen.

Like the first time you showed up to his house when he didn’t think you were going to, he has to bring the supplies from wherever he keeps them. You take your spot at the table, slip off your cardigan, and wait.

The vampire returns with his hands full, placing the stuff down on the table before he pulls out another chair and positions it the same way as always. But his focus lies on your skin.

“These are new bruises?” he asks, carefully grasping your hand and very gently lifting it to better inspect the yellowing marks covering your skin. “You always bruise like this after?”

You follow his gaze. There are currently three bruises on your right arm, none the same as the night he almost killed you. Two are yellow and from when you bumped into a dresser at home a few days ago. The third is purple but smaller and its origin a mystery. If he wanted to see bruises, he should’ve seen the ones on your legs after you fell when he attacked you.

“Not the first time, but yeah. Usually just from the needle site, but lately, it’s all over. I guess I’m a little deficient in something,” you joke quietly, but the vampire doesn't laugh. 

“Why does it interest you so much? Do you have some kind of medical degree?” you ask, thinking back to when he first asked you why you didn’t wonder about his apparent knowledge.

“Not officially, but being dependent on humans like we are to some extent, you tend to pick up on stuff, and having been around as long as I have, it’s even more unavoidable. But I’ve never seen bruising this severe from blood loss.”

Fair enough. Your body should definitely try to keep the little blood remaining inside your veins, where it belongs. 

He starts prepping your arm, but instead of looking away, you close your eyes. Are you imagining things or has he been… softer lately? Making sure you got home safely instead of leaving you to your fate, almost worrying about your bruises, and being gentler in the way he attaches the needle? Then again, he’s only making sure you can give him as much blood as possible, and he also would’ve probably killed you if he’d gotten ahold of you last week.

“I take it you’ve killed before?” 

There’s a few seconds of silence, but then he answers, and there’s nothing hidden in his words or voice that reveals something more.

“I have.”

“How do you…,” you start, unsure of how to phrase your question. “I mean, what do you do… after?”

“Are you asking…?”

“How do you… dispose of them? And… I guess, how will you dispose of… me?”

It’s not really a sensitive question for you, so you’re not sure for whose sake you’re so careful. You doubt the vampire really cares.

You hear him exhale. “I guess it depends on the circumstances. I haven’t planned anything.”

You wince when he sticks you, more painful this time for some reason. The ball is placed in your hand like always, and you start to squeeze it.

Your curiosity isn’t that dire, so you’re not disappointed by his answer. Maybe he’s not even being honest, and it’s for your sake? Which brings you back to why he’s being extra gentle. The only other explanation you can think of is that he feels sorry for you. Maybe he just truly wants to spare you unnecessary pain and worry in the last moments of your pathetic life? Because this is it. With how shitty you’ve been feeling these last couple of weeks and especially since last time, you know it won’t be long. Today’s the day.

One bag. He can take one bag and after that he’ll have to end it. That way, you don’t have to bleed out, and he’ll get as much blood as possible. If he takes your advice about how to drain the rest, well, that’s up to him.

You’re startled by the sound of knocking, opening your eyes to see the vampire rise from his chair, seemingly sharing your surprise. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Nodding, you close your eyes again, getting as comfortable as you can in the chair while wondering who’s at the door. A vampire friend? A vampire partner? Surely, he doesn’t hang out with humans on the regular? You always got the impression, both from him and vampires in pop culture, that they don’t really care for humans. In fact, a dirty human only pesters a vampire’s environment unless they’re actively dying.

Your heart hurts. It’s beating heavily inside your chest, a feeling you’ve grown somewhat used to over the weeks, but it feels undeniably worse. Like every beat is a painful and exhausting accomplishment. Your breaths grow heavier too. 

Surely, it’s been more than a minute. Is he on his way back? If he were a human, chatting with another human at the front door, maybe you would’ve heard them, but you can’t discern anything. 

It feels a little like your head’s in the clouds, and you’re not sure if your eyes are still closed or if they’re open and you just can’t see anything. You have a feeling that not only can’t you hear the vampire, you can’t hear anything anymore.

Realizing that this is it, you try to call for him quietly to tell him so, but although you’re pretty certain you’re dying, for some reason, you don’t want to interrupt whatever he’s doing with his visitor.

“Fine, alright, I’ll talk to him, but please, this is not a good time.”

“But he’s being an ass, and you were the last person he spoke to before he left for fucking Iceland.”

Jeongguk rolls his eyes at his friend, Yuqi. With how much she and Taehyung love each other, there’s a surprising amount of drama. 

“I don’t wanna get involved. I’ll call him later.”

“Fine, get back to me after. If he doesn’t answer, I’m taking the first flight.”

“Vampire?”

Yuqi, who was just about to turn around to leave, stops in her tracks.

“What… was that?” she asks, standing still before discreetly scenting the air. “Is that… blood?”

Jeongguk’s eyes widen. He’s used to smelling blood whenever you’re there to leave it, but not this much. Quickly, and without regard to Yuqi, he turns to rush back into his kitchen, eyes going even wider at the vision in front of him.

“Vampire?” you call out quietly again from the chair, eyes closed and unknowing of his return. You seem out of it, bordering on unconscious, and it’s not without reason. Jeongguk curses himself for not double checking the blood bag when he knows that brand is prone to ripping because the bag isn’t full; it’s broken, and your blood is dripping into a big puddle of red on the floor.

You think… you’re being… carried? By someone firm and… warm. You like that.

“I’m not warm," a low voice comments. "At least I’m not supposed to be.”

“I’m dying… right?” you mumble, feeling how the vampire puts you down on something soft.

“Probably, yeah.”

He does something to your arms, and you can’t figure out what, but you realize it has something to do with collecting the remaining blood when you’re gone.

There’s another voice.

Next time you open your eyes, you feel… different. And upset. You’re not as dizzy as you’ve become accustomed to, and the room doesn’t spin when you sit up on the bed. Your body hurts, but it feels more like you’re simply tired and beat than extremely weak. Most importantly, you feel, which means you’re not dead.

As if he could sense your awakening—or just possesses superhuman hearing—a door opens to reveal the vampire. He's wearing other clothes, grey sweatpants and a black t-shirt, and his face doesn't give you anything.

“What happened?” you question, looking around the room that’s clearly a bedroom. “And where am I?”

“You passed out. There was a hole in the bag, so the blood was just leaking onto the floor. I had my friend steal some from the hospital, and I gave you a transfusion. Yuqi also brought some clothes and stuff for you, so you’re staying here at least until tomorrow. Then you’re free to leave whenever you want.”

“I… don’t understand. Why would you—why not just let me go then?”

“I changed my mind.”

You look at him, bewildered and trying to find the words. “What do you mean you changed your mind? We had an agreement?”

“I know, but I changed my mind. I’m not doing it. If the blood matters to you, the bags are in the freezer.”

“Why–what would I do with blood?” you question in frustration. Is he offering it back in case you want to drink it? Try to put it back inside your veins? Apparently, you’ve already had transfusions, so you have exactly zero use for frozen bags of blood. “Why can’t you just get on with it? Why not let me die?”

“I do not. Want. To,” he hisses.

You stare at him in silence, feeling confused and betrayed. He looks away but doesn't seem affected. No shame, no regret, no anything but a moment of frustration to breach otherwise calm determination.

“Here’s the stuff,” he gestures toward a duffel bag by the foot of the bed. “You have a bathroom right outside, and I’m gonna order some food for you. You should take it easy; I wasn’t able to give you as much blood as you really need, and unfortunately, what I’ve previously collected isn’t fit to give back. Since it’s been frozen and stored improperly for that kind of purpose, there would be a risk of clotting.”

You look at him from where you’re sitting on his bed, and he looks back at you. The irritation you feel grows beyond what you’re capable of conveying, and so it turns into defeat. It makes you angry, how he managed to back out of giving you what you wanted at the very last second. You spent months upholding your end of the deal, and when it finally came time for him to do the same, he didn’t. 

“Don’t bother,” you lie down slowly, your back facing him where he stands at the door. Silently, you curse your body for feeling so tired; ideally, you’d stomp out of there, slamming the door behind you. “I’ll leave tomorrow morning.”

Your own clothes are still wearable. The few stains of blood are relatively small and dried, and the vampire already placed you on his bed, so you don’t feel like you’ll do any more damage by sleeping in them. The house is quiet, but you don’t think he’s left it, which begs the question of where he is. And also if he sleeps and if he does, then… where? He never gave you a tour or anything, so you have no idea what the rest of his house looks like. Whatever; you don’t care, anyway.

His sheets smell clean, though, and it doesn’t take you long to pass out, truly exhausted.

When you wake up, you can’t find your phone, and without any other time measuring device, you don’t know what time it is. It appears like the sun rose not too long ago so that narrows your guess a little bit at least.

Sitting up slowly, you take a deep breath. You feel… okay. A bit sore almost, but more energetic than you have in a while. Unfortunately, it’s not necessarily a good thing in your book.

Sighing, you put your feet to the hardwood floor. They carry you with only a little dizziness, and you set your sight on the bedroom door. It opens smoothly, and you peer out, looking for the bathroom the vampire mentioned. There’s a door immediately to your left which you guess must be it, and so you head toward it. 

After successfully finding the bathroom and using it, you decide to continue the search for your phone. Since you thought last night would be your last and therefore arrived by Uber rather than driving, it means that without your phone, you have no way home.

You make your way down some stairs, recognizing the hallway as the one the vampire has led you through what feels like countless times. Last time you remember having your phone was in the kitchen, so that’s where you steer your steps.

As luck would have it, the kitchen is also where the vampire happens to be. Upon your entrance, your eyes immediately fall on the tall man where he stands, leaning back against the counter. Although he surely heard you approaching a long time ago, he only turns his head slowly toward you when you’re well into the room. He’s hard to read; doesn’t offer much.

“Do you know where my phone is?”

The vampire twists his body to look at the counter behind him, sliding something toward you. You take a step closer, inspecting the device when it’s in your hands. Three percent.

“Do you have a charger I can borrow?”

“Yeah,” he answers with a nod and pushes off the counter, leaving the kitchen. You wait, quietly wondering what exactly goes on inside his head. He seems unfazed by the whole ordeal, which doesn’t necessarily surprise you. But what you still don’t quite understand is why he claimed to have changed his mind. Could it be that he just didn’t want to deal with your body? 

The vampire returns with a white charger in his hand, his skin cold against yours when you accept it from him. Finding a fitting outlet near the table, you plug the charger in and sit down, gazing out through the window while you wait for the phone to charge enough for the trip home. The vampire has gone back to leaning wordlessly against the counter, and you ignore him.

Opening your phone, you find that the only unread notification you have is a spam email. Why are you surprised? With a small sigh, you lock the device again, hoping it’ll charge faster if you don’t use it. Forty percent should be enough.

It’s snowing outside, and you watch the big snowflakes fall slowly and silently to the already white ground. Waiting like this gives you time to go over all the things you’ve done wrong in your life.

Next time you unlock your phone, the battery has reached thirty-seven percent. You open the Uber app to see that a car can arrive in ten minutes. You confirm it, noting the time as eleven twenty-three. You’ll wait five more minutes before you start getting ready, which honestly is just putting your shoes and coat on. 

The seconds pass slowly one after the other. You wonder briefly how long it took the vampire to clean because, although you didn’t notice the blood dripping to the floor while it was happening, you understood that there was a lot of it. Must suck for him to have it wasted like that. The question is also why he would waste even more blood by giving you a transfusion? If he went through the pain of acquiring bagged blood, why not just drink that?

At eleven twenty-nine, your phone’s battery is at fifty-two percent. You unplug the charger from the wall, and as you stand, you place it on the table with a quiet ‘thanks.’

“Going home?” the vampire wonders, black eyes watching you. He looks casual, but there’s that hint of softness shining through again. 

You pass him on your way to the front door. “Yeah.”

“Reconsider,” he encourages, and you know he’s not talking about your journey home. 

You roll your eyes. “No.”

“Yes,” he follows. “Whatever’s troubling you doesn’t matter. There’s so much for you to see and do, so many places to visit and people to meet. Your life is so incredibly short, and you won’t have time to see even a fraction of the world as is.”

“Thanks for the pep talk,” you say, bending down to put your boots on.

“Have you even been outside of this town?”

Why is he trying to control you? He doesn’t know you; he doesn’t care. It’s not like you’ll magically be fine after his ‘cheer up, pal,’ and ending your life is not a decision you have taken hastily or easily.

“No.”

“Don’t you want to see what’s out there?”

“Of course. But it’s not…” you straighten up to look at him, frustration dripping from your words. “Don’t you see that I’m all alone? I don’t have anybody, no one to experience things with, and much less the money to just up and leave. Sure, maybe I could get a loan and travel through Italy for two weeks, but then what? I’ll be miserable and in debt.”

The vampire tilts his head, looking at you with his black eyes but not saying anything. He just doesn't understand. You put your other foot into your boot and reach for your coat before he can try to persuade you again for whatever reason.

“Whatever,” you sigh, “I’ll be going.”

He doesn’t stop you from opening the door, and he doesn’t follow you when you leave, one boot undone and with your coat held to your chest. Irritation turns to sadness and defeat as you wait for the Uber to arrive, taking the opportunity to actually put your coat on and tie your laces properly. Snow falls around you, and when you're done, you stand there, waiting pathetically by the side of the road in the cold. You’re back at square one.

Despite having slept for countless hours at the vampire’s house, you head straight for your bed the moment you return home. For another few hours, you sleep, and then you spend a few more lying there in the dark, thinking. 

It’s seven p.m. on a Saturday. You’ve wasted a lot of time, months even, waiting for the vampire to get what he wanted and follow through on his part. But that’s over now, so what are you waiting for right now? 

Two and a half hours later, you put your boots back on and throw a lighter jacket over your shoulders, one that allows easier access to your neck.

Still not feeling your best, it takes you fifteen minutes to walk what the vampire did in six, carrying you on his back. You don’t understand him. He acted like he didn’t want you to die, but if he cared about you at all, he would’ve backed out earlier and not waited until his actions brought you within an inch of your life for what, the third time? Was he hoping you’d stay alive so that you’d hopefully continue donating your blood, even if less frequently? 

Although nearing his feeding grounds, you’re hoping not to run into him. He did state that he changed his feeding days to Thursdays, and last week, when you did run into him, it seemed like a coincidence. Besides, this place is your best bet tonight; even the vampire admitted that there were others there last time. Surely, they’re around here somewhere tonight as well. 

Since you assume vampires don’t want unnecessary attention, you stake out near the same club as last week, but this time, you hide in the shadows around a corner. Then, you wait for a victim.

Thirty minutes to midnight, a woman stumbles out through the door, a bouncer holding it open for her. She’s obviously had a bit to drink, and as she clumsily fixes her little cross body bag and sets off along the street, you look around from your hiding spot.

But you don’t see or hear anything; not a dark figure moving nor the sound of footsteps. Still, you follow her, hoping for the best. Wanting to keep your distance, you instead find it hard to keep up with her, which is saying something about your current health.

About two hundred meters from the club, she suddenly slows down, her attention seemingly drawn to something in an alleyway. You weren’t sure exactly how the vampires hunt, but by how the woman begins to slowly drift inside the dark alleyway of her own accord, you guess they do have some kind of pull. Most women, even when slightly drunk, typically try not to do… that.

You quicken your steps as much as possible without breaking into a sprint. Not only do you want to speak to a vampire; if you can take that woman’s place and leave her unscathed, it’s an added bonus. Before you’ve caught up, the woman slowly and quietly disappears, and when you turn the corner with your phone in hand and flashlight turned on, you spot a man holding her to his body. 

Evidently hearing you approaching, the man has placed them against the wall, halfway obscured by a dumpster and hoping you’d walk past them, which you would have if you weren’t so focused on the woman and your mission.

The man squints in the light, and you very clearly discern long fangs. You take another step into the alleyway, but what you didn’t expect was to be grabbed from another direction. 

Gasping, you feel strong arms hold your back against someone’s chest, effortlessly keeping you immobile. 

“What can we offer? Though you smell like vampire already?” The man who holds you says, sounding surprised, and your phone is taken from your hand and the flashlight turned off. 

Obviously, they assume you’re one of the freaky ones looking for vampires because any normal person would run. Your reason for wanting to find one is different, though. 

“I have a proposition,” you stutter, not too scared but uncomfortable with how the man noses at your neck. Despite knowing that if the vampire bites, it’ll most likely be your neck, you can’t help trying to pull away. It’s just another bodily reaction. 

Your words intrigue him, and he moves, creating just a tad bit more space between your bodies and looking down at you with a curious smirk.

“A proposition, you say?”

“You can have my blood—all of it—if you take it right here and now.”

“What’s the catch?” he asks, raising an eyebrow much like a certain vampire you know. “What’s in it for you?”

“There is no catch. I want to die.”

The other vampire, curiously listening to your conversation, whispers something in the other woman’s ear, and lets her go. She stumbles away from him and then casually leaves the alleyway, turning the corner calmly as if nothing happened. 

You meet the vampire’s puzzled yet curious eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with my blood if you think I’m trying to trick you into something. Except that it’s apparently B positive which I understand is not that desirable, but—”

“You’re Jeon’s human?”

“Uh—what? Who?” you ask, confused but slowly putting two and two together.

“Fuck, should we?” the other vampire questions quietly.

“Jeon,” the closest one to you starts, “is the vampire you smell of. He’s been very persistent no one touches his human.”

“Yeah. Can’t blame him. If I was lucky enough to have someone offer to be a walking blood bag, I wouldn’t let them outside at all.”

“I’m not… I’m not anyone’s, and I’m not a walking blood bag,” you explain, feeling belittled. “He made me a promise that he broke. He was going to help me die in exchange for my blood, but he just used me to collect blood, and then he didn’t deliver.”

The two vampires look at each other, and you feel like they didn’t really pay attention to anything you just said.

“I don’t know, man. I’m not sure I wanna get on his bad side.”

“But he’s too arrogant,” the first one complains. “If I want something, why should he prevent me from getting it? He doesn’t own the supply here. I’m a thousand years old; I shouldn’t need to ask for permission.”

“Dude’s like three thousand years old, though? You don’t need to ask permission; you can literally choose anyone. Except this one, for some reason. I don’t think I would if I were you.”

“Our agreement is over,” you try to enter the conversation the two vampires are holding over your head.

“Well,” the one holding your arms peers down at you, “He said that under no circumstances is anyone allowed to touch you.”

You scoff, growing irritated again, “Okay, well, are there any vampires around that aren’t such wimps? If I can’t find anyone to just snap my neck, I’m going to the train tracks and then my blood will be wasted.”

That’s a lie, of course. There’s a reason you picked death by vampire; you’re too scared to do it any other way, and no matter how much you want to die, you can’t subject anyone else—like a poor train driver—to it. Vampires are cold and heartless. They don’t care.

“Hold on. Wait,” the vampire holds you tighter when you haphazardly try to wiggle out of his grasp.

“Look,” he says to the other, “He can’t tell us what to do. Besides, if he gets angry, we can just say that she said their agreement was over, and we did her a favor out of the goodness of our hearts.”

“You don’t have a heart; you just want to annoy him.”

The vampire grins. At first, it’s a boyish smile directed at his friend, but when he slowly tilts his head down to look at you, it turns almost sinister. “I think I’m gonna do it.”

You gulp. No matter how much this is what you want, it does scare you. Mostly because you’re afraid it will be painful.

“Is there a way you can kill me first? I don’t want it to hurt.”

The smiling vampire shakes his head. 

“No.”

You thought death was supposed to be a void. A void of darkness, devoid of physical matter, emotions, and thoughts. But it hurts. It hurts so much. 

Then, a void does take over.

Jeongguk knew you’d try again. If he wouldn’t kill you, you were going to find someone who would. And despite hoping that you would’ve changed your mind, he was unfortunately right. He spent an hour roaming the dark streets around the town’s attempt at a nightlife, but he didn’t come across you. Not until he visits the same place where you first found him, a place he wouldn’t take as your first choice since you ran into him there a week earlier. 

He’s spent hours and hours these last weeks with you on his mind; the little human who wants to die so badly. It’s just something about you and your willingness to die that doesn’t sit right with him, and you won’t leave his thoughts. It’s not his business, he told himself as he saw you curled up and unconscious in your car. Who is he to tell someone what they should do with their life? If anything, respecting your wishes and consuming freely donated blood is easier and more ethical than taking it from plastered people who aren’t really sure what’s going on, right?

The scenes replaying the most in his head are more recent. It’s the way you suggested he kill and butcher your body, saying no one would look for you anyway, and how you called for him, unknowing that your blood was dripping to the floor but still trying your hardest to squeeze that ball for him. Your fingers were barely moving, but you tried since he wanted that blood. 

He’s not entirely sure what he’s doing, trying to convince you to live, but he guesses that he simply needs to know that you experienced some good things in life too. He can’t let you end it this way, as a lifeless body, discarded somewhere where no one will find you.

Anger, frustration, and an odd feeling of helplessness flood him as he takes in the sight of the vampire in the process of draining you dry. He rushes into the dark alleyway, the vampire looking up from your neck just as Jeongguk strikes. There’s not much of a fight after that. The first vampire stumbles backward, and Jeongguk grabs your lifeless body from him as the second vampire approaches, eyes wide and with his hands raised shoulder height.

“Easy, man.”

“I fucking told you to leave her alone.”

The dazed vampire grumbles something, but Jeongguk doesn’t pay him any attention. He places your body down on the snow-covered ground and looks at your pale face while searching for a pulse right under your jaw. 

“She wanted to die.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Jeongguk growls. “How much did you take?”

There is no pulse.

“At least three fourths. Possibly more.”

Jeongguk shuts his eyes. There’s no coming back from that.

You’ve lost and regained consciousness due to blood loss one too many times by now, but this time, it really feels different. Opening your eyes, the sunlight filling the room irritates your eyes, forcing you to squint for a few seconds. 

Without moving, you focus on something. The vampire. Jeon, was it? You watch as he rummages through his closet, practically soundlessly, taking out a few items and looking them over before settling on what looks like two black shirts, one long-sleeve and one short-sleeve. Then he digs out a pair of shorts and another pair of sweatpants. 

You’re not used to seeing him in direct sunlight, but now, the rays filtering through the half-opened blinds paint him in a new light, and you let your eyes linger on his arms as he folds the clothes. The green t-shirt he wears is doing a great job at highlighting his veiny, muscular forearms as they work. Light and shadows play along those very defined muscles, accentuating them further.

Your first impression of him was a cold one, one that slowly warmed a little over time both physically and mentally. But in this light? Without even touching him, he looks… warmer to you. Inviting, almost like when he wore that black hoodie. 

You sigh quietly and pull the blanket that’s thrown over you closer. The vampire hears and turns around, placing the clothes at the foot of his large bed.

“Hey. How are you feeling?”

You take a moment to consider his question. Though you’ve certainly felt better in a lot of ways, you don’t feel the way you’ve come to associate with severe blood loss. 

“Cold. And tired, but in a weird way.”

Weird is probably the best way to describe how you’re feeling in general. You feel light, but not weak. Tired, but not sleepy. 

He nods understandingly, “It’ll pass.”

You catch his gaze, holding it for a quiet moment. “You changed me, didn’t you?”

It’s the only explanation you can come up with. That vampire was hungry, and you remember slowly losing control in his grasp, both over your body and consciousness. With how many near-death experiences your body has endured in the last weeks—all blood loss related—there just wasn’t any chance you’d survive another draining.

“Yeah.” He looks away, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “I couldn’t…”

You think you understand well enough what he’s trying to say, although you’re not too sure of his reasons or how to feel about it. He couldn’t let you die. In a way, you’re disappointed because you were finally getting what you wanted, and dying has proved itself to be surprisingly difficult for you. 

But you’re not angry; not like you were after the vampire saved you the first time. He mentioned once that not even vampires are immortal, so at least you know that you’re not doomed to an eternal life in suffering; you can always try again if you want. However, you’d be back at square one when it comes to options, but you don’t really feel the urgency anymore. At least not at the moment.

He turns his head toward you, meeting your eyes with his deep, dark ones. “Let me show the world to you.”

Surprised to say the least, you mumble a quiet “What?”

He angles his body further toward you, and you see that despite the softer look on his face, he’s certain. “I want to show you everything the world has to offer. All the good things; the magical places and people.”

Not sure what to say, you just stare at him.

“Vampires are not immortal,” he continues. “If you really don’t want this, I’ll help you die. I promised. But please, think about it. No catch, no expectations.”

“But why… Why would you want that?” 

You’ve been alone for so long, unable to keep people around and interested, so why would this being be?

“Because I found that I really didn’t enjoy draining you of your life, especially when you were already so low to begin with. I want you to get the chance to experience the good things life has to offer, and I can’t help but want to be around when you do.”

“You don’t know me though.”

“I kinda want to,” he says, standing up with the cheekiest smile you’ve ever seen on him. “Think about it, okay? I’m not expecting anything from you other than that you consider.”

Still very much processing his words, you feel a cold shiver wreck your body, something the vampire notices.

“I’ll get you another blanket. Your body is still in the process of changing, and with that comes a decrease in temperature. It’s normal to feel cold.”

He’s about to leave when you call for him.

“Wait. What… What's your name? Your given name?”

He stops, and he smiles again. “Jeongguk. And I know yours already; it was on your door.”

You sleep for a little while longer, but when you start to feel better, you also start to think. You’ve been so certain for so long, and you still are—you think—but… either way, you’d like some answers; a clearer view of the whole picture.

“Jeongguk?” you call, unsure how loud you need to be. It feels strange to use a name for the vampire.

It doesn’t take long before the door opens. “Yeah?”

“I have some… questions.”

He nods, stepping into the darkness that is his bedroom and closing the door behind him. 

“Light sensitive?” he nods toward the window, where you’ve pulled the curtains closed over the blinds.

“Yeah… Is that normal?”

“It is. So is feeling sensitive to sound, touch, smell; basically all the senses. But it will pass pretty quickly.”

“Okay. Well, can you… tell me everything about being a vampire? I didn’t think you slept, but you do? Or why do I still sleep?”

He rounds the bed to sit next to you, and you feel it sink as he gets comfortable. Slowly, you turn to face him, watching him lean back against the headboard.

“So, basically, we can do all the things humans do. For instance, you’re still programmed to breathe, but it’s more of a habit and a way to smell than a means of survival.”

While he speaks, you try it. It’s strange, holding your breath and not feeling that strong, strong urge to take in air after a while.

“You can eat human food, but it’s not what sustains you, so most vampires don’t. It gets kinda boring after a while; you’ll see what I mean. Most also don’t sleep as they consider it a waste of time, but you can if you want to. I do pretty regularly. I find it… peaceful, and when you get older, it can be nice, getting a break between days.”

Hearing him talk so casually and almost… softly has you smiling slightly, unable to help it. So he had been sleeping when you knocked on the door, and his hair was all messy, and he looked so cuddly? You don’t know why, but you like that thought.

“You can exist in sunlight, you can consume garlic. Mirrors work for us as well. We don’t age like humans, but we can die if we’re pierced through the heart by something wooden—”

“—You mean staked?”

He looks at your wide, amused eyes and rolls his. “Yeah. Staked. Anyway, you’ll notice that your senses are heightened, and you’ll become stronger too. Not stronger than me, though,” he grins. “As for the blood, you can survive on any.”

“Any?”

What does he mean by that? Human and animal?

“Human, animal, vampire,” he says, the last one surprising you.

You blink, taken aback. “Vampires drink from other vampires?”

“We can. It’s not as common as feeding on humans as it’s mostly… a pretty intimate thing to do.”

“Oh, okay.” 

Thinking about it, you guess you can see why. Having someone so close, feeding on you without the power imbalance of prey versus predator that feeding on humans entails, must feel… intimate. More of a give and take. 

“You’ll need to feed in about a day or two, so you can choose. I have more human blood than just yours as it might be weird to drink your own blood, and I can get animal blood if that feels easier. Or… if you want to, you can drink from me.”

You look at him questioningly. “Didn’t you just say that it’s an intimate thing?”

He shrugs. “Yeah, but if it would make for an easier transition for you, I don’t mind. I’ve taken a lot of blood from you, after all.”

“Okay,” you nod, briefly biting your lip. “I’ll think about it. About all of… this.”

Is death the thing you wanted above all else, or was it to get out of the life you were living? Now that your old life is, in a way, over, you’re not sure. Regardless, there are other worries still plaguing you. You look—almost stare—at his pretty face. 

“What?”

You bite your lip nervously again. “What if you change your mind? I’m assuming this was quite a rushed decision on your part. What if I don’t live up to your expectations? I barely knew how to navigate this world as a human, there’s no way I could… manage on my own as… as a vampire.”

Say you decide to give it a shot; what do you do if he grows tired of you?

“Changing someone is not something we take lightly. We don’t…” he looks around, seemingly searching for the right words. “We don’t change anyone if we’re not prepared to guide them, at least through the first years. Usually, vampires only end up turning their romantic partners, so for most, it means staying together for life. Regardless, it’s a big decision.”

Noticing your wide eyes, Jeongguk smiles and chuckles. “I’m not saying you have to hang around me for the rest of your life, and I won’t ask you to play my wife or anything, but I won’t abandon you.”

It’s surprising enough to hear that vampires not only regularly fall in love with humans but take changing someone so seriously. But you’re even more surprised to hear him use the word ‘wife.’

“Your wife?” you ask, truly bewildered that word was even in his thoughts. “You said vampirism doesn't make you much prettier?”

He looks at you like you’ve grown another head. “It doesn’t. But you didn’t need to become prettier anyway.”

“Oh, come on.”

“I’m telling the truth? Don’t you remember what I told you when I carried you home that night?”

‘You’re a pretty girl, you know?’

Of course you remember, but it doesn’t mean it was true.

You roll your eyes. “You were feeling bad for me.”

“Hm,” Jeongguk looks away, thinking. “Okay, do you remember the very first thing I said to you?”

“That you weren’t going to turn me?”

“For sex, yeah. But I said I’d still fuck you.”

The smile he gives you reminds you more of the vampire that took your blood once every fortnight than the one who saved you. You don’t know what to say, and he seems to realize that, his smile turning softer.

“Like I said, I would’ve fucked you because you were pretty even as a human. Also, about luring said humans in? You will not have a problem with that if that’s something you’re interested in. I kinda want to see you do that, actually,” he grins, sending a shiver down your spine. “Hot.”

Jeongguk is sitting spread out on the rented apartment’s low couch, reading the back of a bottle of red wine when you pass him. It’s hot—a lot warmer than what you’re used to from your little hometown—and you sigh as you open the door to the balconet wider and fresh air starts to play with your dress. The weather doesn’t affect you like it used to, but some aspects are still more enjoyable than others. 

“I think I like Rome,” you place your hands on the railing, looking down at the scene two stories below you. It’s just after ten p.m., and people are dining outside the restaurant below you, their happy chatter accompanied by the romantic sound of street musicians. The air is humid, and besides the moonlight, the street is mainly illuminated by lights from the restaurant and surrounding shops.

You hear Jeongguk put the bottle down on the glass coffee table and stand up, something your human ears wouldn’t have picked up.

“We can stay longer if you want,” he offers quietly from right behind you.

Turning around, you let your gaze travel over his white dress shirt, held together by two single buttons—the rest lazily unbuttoned—and exposing most of his drool-worthy chest. He smirks, looking down at you, and you’re hit by how he hasn’t changed that much since you first met him in that alley. You’ve just gotten to see more sides of him.

You hold your breath, carefully reaching your hand out to pinch the fabric of his shirt between your thumb and index finger, pulling a little on it and nodding.

“Then we’ll stay,” he smiles, slowly stepping back and taking your hand softly in his. His skin feels warm against yours, and it’s almost like some sort of electric current courses through you. You grin as he pulls you toward him, moving to the slow and sensual music drifting up from outside.

Jeongguk lifts your hand above your head and twirls you. It makes you smile even wider, and you decide to place your arms loosely around his neck. He doesn’t object, just looks down at you, still smiling. 

One thing you'll never get used to is how handsome he is. Soft, black hair parted across his forehead, dark eyebrows and eyes, and a dimple that pops out when he smiles. One day, you’ll kiss his nose, you promise yourself. He looks so carefree, peering down at you like nothing else really matters; a mindset not too difficult to follow with him.

“How come everything is so… easy?”

He tilts his head, trying to make sense of your words as he places his hands on your waist. “Well… do you feel cared for?”

You think about it. All the new people—vampires—you’ve met so far are very funny and kind. They see you, and they listen to you. Especially Jeongguk’s friends, and even more so, Jeongguk. He’s easy to be around, and he’s been incredibly sweet to you, understanding that you’re going through a big change and that your previous life wasn’t all that great.

So you nod.

“Do you have anything that worries you?” He continues. “A looming anxiety regarding something?”

“No.” Turns out that Jeongguk and all his friends are filthy rich and also very generous, which means that you have no rent to pay, no stuff to buy, or bills to pay. Nor do you have people to impress or time-sensitive achievements to stress over.

Jeongguk’s smile turns extra cheeky. “Do you perhaps… also care a little bit for someone?”

You’d blush if that was something you could do. “You’d like to know, wouldn’t you?”

He chuckles before he turns a little more serious. “Jokes aside, there could be many reasons. Like I said, not feeling lonely or overly anxious surely helps a lot, but also stuff like… the change of scenery and seasons. But also…”

“Also…?”

He looks at you with a searching gaze, as if he’s trying to figure something out. “Tell me, did you ever see someone about how you felt?”

You shake your head.

“So you never got a diagnosis or medication?”

“No.”

“Then, maybe… you weren’t ‘only’ sad, and vampirism corrected some chemical imbalance in your brain. It could also explain why things are easier.”

Maybe. You thought that your mother dying was the catalyst for your sadness, and without seeing the point of the world, you got “weirder,” and the few people in your life withdrew. Then it was just you, and no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t connect with people anymore. But maybe, like he said, it wasn’t ‘only’ feelings. A small part of you wishes you would’ve tried to get help, but a bigger part—although sad for the years you spent suffering—thinks this ending might be better.

He continues to sway your bodies, and you rest your head against his chest. When you left with him three months ago, one month after he changed you, you weren’t entirely certain where things would lead, because despite definitely feeling attracted to him, you didn’t really know him. But as the days pass, you don’t regret it, and you’re pretty sure you’re more than halfway to head over heels. You can’t deny that he gives you butterflies.

Sighing, you catch the scent of his naked skin against your cheek, reminded of something.

“You smell good. I remember thinking that you didn’t smell like anything?”

He laughs as you move your face slowly over his chest and up to his neck, smelling him.

“Do I?”

“Yeah,” you say, breathing him in and closing your eyes. There’s the same notes of laundry detergent, soap, and cologne, but also something unique to him. He doesn’t smell like a human, but… almost. It draws you in, that’s for certain.

“Are you hungry?” he wonders quietly. 

“Not sure,” you answer honestly. It’s turned out to be harder to tell than you imagined.

“Well, if you want it… go for it.”

“Like this?” you ask, pushing on his chest with a smile. He lets you walk him slowly back toward the couch, and when the back of his knees hit the edge, he sinks down onto it. 

“Mhm,” he hums happily.

High on the vampire equivalent of adrenaline, you straddle his lap, only to be caught off guard by his scent again. “No, but really, you smell so good.”

He chuckles. “Vampires who are more… compatible tend to smell good to each other.”

His revelation has you sitting back, curious but almost a little worried. Despite the details of your relationship being... a bit unclear—mostly due to his unwillingness to pressure you, you think—you can't help but want him to like you. “Does that mean that I smell good to you as well then? I mean, I remember that you didn’t like my blood?”

“You smell incredible to me. Almost addictive,” he reveals quietly, softly, resting his hands on your thighs, and you think your human heart would’ve raced. “And about your blood… I lied.”

Though grinning happily, there’s at least a trace of regret in his eyes.

“You lied? About not liking my blood?”

“Yeah. B is actually one of the more highly regarded blood types. I’m also B, but negative.”

You shake your head at him before carefully leaning in. With a soft touch of your lips, you locate the pulsating artery in his neck, gently angling his head away with your hands. Then, as you’ve done regularly for the last months, you pierce his skin with your fangs.

“I’m kinda surprised you still believed I didn’t like your blood,” he continues, though it sounds a little strained, like he’s trying to keep still. “If I didn’t like your blood, I wouldn’t have needed to change my feeding days to the day before you came. Nor would I have tried to attack you.”

You listen to his words, but you’ll have to process them better later because his blood is pretty much the only thing on your mind. His blood and his body. It took you a few times to get over the mental association with blood and drinking it, but now, it’s not something bad. It tastes and feels good, energizing you in a way food just doesn’t anymore. And it’s a chance to bond, making you feel closer to him. 

He likes it too, if his body language is anything to go by. You know he tries to stay still to give you the best chance to get what you need without distractions, but the little… almost purring sound that reverberates from somewhere deep in his chest is hard to miss. As is the way his hips shift almost unnoticeably, but you haven’t spoken about that.

Being smaller and recently changed, you don’t require nearly as much blood as he does, and as soon as you feel the urge filled, you run your tongue over the wound to close it, just like he’s taught you to.

“Good?” he asks when you pull back, and you nod, licking your lips. 

You keep your eyes on his skin, knowing that it only takes a second for the wound to heal but up to two weeks for the scar from another vampire's teeth to fade to nothing. 

“All of the vampires we’ve met, they’ve looked so… amused when they understand I drink from you. Why is that? I get that it’s ‘intimate’ but they were pretty much all couples, weren’t they? Not that we’re… you know…”

You haven’t spoken about that, either, really.

It confused you, more so since you last week stumbled across a local couple smiling very cheekily when they saw the scar on Jeongguk’s neck that he’d made absolutely no effort to conceal.

He laughs. “It’s because only I have marks.”

You look puzzled. Yeah, sure, but you don’t understand why that would be amusing.

He looks at your confused face and continues. “The fact that you drink from me but not I from you usually means that I’ve submitted to you. That I belong to you. Which is not very common when I’m so much older than you. It’s usually the other way around if anything.”

“Oh,” you exclaim quietly, lifting your hand to your neck. “Should I…? Do you… want to feed from me? Cause I’m not sure that I…”

You don’t like the idea of losing blood. You know that Jeongguk has said that as a vampire, you quite literally can’t run out, but you don’t like it. Thinking about someone biting your neck has images from the night you died flashing before your eyes. You don’t remember much,  but you remember being scared and how much it hurt. Surely, it would be different to let him bite you, but… you don’t know. You can’t help but feel like maybe you should? Don’t you kind of owe it to him?

“I want to, of course I do, but not that badly. I get that it’s an uncomfortable concept for you, so that��s why I haven’t brought it up. If you ever feel comfortable enough, we can try, because it’s very hot, but otherwise, it doesn’t matter.”

You lower your hand, smiling carefully down at him. He runs his hands over your thighs softly.

“So, you’re really just… ancient?”

“Excuse me?” 

“Yeah? You’re literally older than Jesus?”

He rolls his eyes, still smiling.

“Jokes aside, doesn’t it get boring? You were kinda grumpy when I first met you.”

“Truth be told, it does. I’ve seen everything, mostly even many times over. But getting to see everything with you is like getting to experience it for the first time all over again.”

“That’s kinda… cheesy,” you chuckle, but you can’t deny that it makes you feel warm inside. “Yuqi said you probably needed a change of scenery as well.”

“So what if it’s cheesy? It’s true," he grins, and it's your turn to roll your eyes. "And, yeah, she might’ve been right. I guess vampires get lonely too sometimes.”

Although he's still smiling, you can't help but hurt a little, thinking about him feeling lonely too.

“So then, what’s next?" you ask. "When do we leave for Portugal?”

“Depends on when you want to. I’ll just tell Taehyung we’ll meet them later. As for now, you know Fontana di Trevi?”

“Yeah?”

“Wanna take a dip?”

“What? Isn’t it pretty shallow? And probably… illegal?”

“What are they gonna do? Stop us?” He smiles a wide, happy smile, his white fangs almost glimmering in the romantically dimmed light.

<previous | next> author's note: i hope you liked it!! please reblog if you did <3<3<3

[lavandulawrites]

Yandere Alphabet with Il Dottore

Yandere Dottore x reader

This man is something else. (Yandere alphabet request here)

Masterlist

Warnings: murder, violence, torture, experiments, isolation, Dottore is a warning in himself

Word count: 2559

Affection: How do they show their love and affection? How intense would it get?

His love is extremely intense, it swallows you whole. He’s really outright loving, but his eyes reveal his deep obsession. He will gift you expensive gifts. He also loves to engage in intellectual conversations with you and he uses that as a way to bond with you. Of course you cannot even compare to his intellect, but he still enjoys your insights in different matters.

Blood: How messy are they willing to get when it comes to their darling?

He won’t stop at anything. You will be his and that’s final. He will kill everyone standing in his way. He doesn’t care if they are your loved ones or not. He will betray the Fatui and the Taritsa if it so comes down to it. He will even burn down Teyvat and take great pleasure in it.

Cruelty: How would they treat their darling once abducted? Would they mock them?

He loves to mock you. He finds it amusing how you are so utterly naive as to trust him. Sure he did abduct you against your will, but you decided to give the madman a chance. This soon you came to regret. In the earlier stages of your captivity, he won’t miss the opportunity to criticise your intelligence. When you have stayed in his mansion for months, he won’t mock you that much. He really does love you after all, but he still find your naivety and stupidity amusing.

Darling: Aside from abduction, would they do anything against their darling’s will?

He will experiment on you, but worry not he will be gentle. It’s just that Zandik cannot get enough of you. He needs to know anything about you, so if he has to pry you open so be it. He really promises he will be as gentle as can be. He will also do anything in his power to protect your health. He will be strictly monitoring your diet and sleeping schedule, and he will do daily checkups. He can be really overbearing, but he promises he means well. Is just that it can be quite hard to believe so when he’s grinning from ear to ear reveal his sharp teeth, a syringe in his hand filled with your pretty crimson blood.

Exposed: How much of their heart do they bare to their darling? How vulnerable are they when it comes to their darling?

Underneath his big ego, he’s insecure. Though his insecurities aren’t that many, it still bothers him. His childhood still has an imprint on him deep down, even after all those years. He is afraid of you seeing him as a monster (he is well aware that his actions aren’t exactly helping). He hates how an intelligent man as himself allows himself to have such insecurities. Despite his rather well collected being, he will latch onto you at whatever given opportunity. He deep down seeks your approval, though he will never admit that out loud.

Fight: How would they feel if their darling fought back?

Zandik would be both angry and amused. He would laugh as you attempt to kick him and he would grin when you managed to scratch him. He let you fight back till his patient runs thin. You need to remember your place beneath him. He won’t admit it out loud, but he’s hurt when you don’t reciprocate his feelings. He will isolate you further with no human contact for two weeks. Your food would be sent through a hatch in the door.

Game: Is this a game to them? How much would they enjoy watching their darling try to escape?

It is a game for him. He loves watching your pathetic attempts at escape. Who needs a good opera when he can watch you make a fool out of yourself? He will purposely plant ideas off escape in your head. He will laugh when one if his segment brings you back to his feet. Of course he will punish you, but you will also be rewarded for your creative escape method. Don’t be fooled even a man like Dottore has his limits. If you try to escape multiple times after one another, he will reach his limit. He will secure your chambers more thoroughly and spend more time watching over you like a hawk. You are his after all.

Hell: What would be their darling’s worst experience with them?

Your worst experience was when you woke up strapped to a operating table. You had noticed Dottore standing to your left with an expressionless face. His scrubs where speckled with red spots. Your blood. You have tried to kick agains your restraint in an agile attempt at escaping. To your horror your feet didn’t move an inch. When you stretched your neck as far as you could, you could see neat stitches on your heels. Not short after you were thrown into a small room without any windows. The walls where padded in white cushions, keeping you from harming yourself. Your anaesthetic didn’t take long to wear off, leaving you with unbearable pain. He left you in that room for days, having some servants bring you food through a small hatch.

Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?

He wishes for you to truly love him. You will get married after some months. He really doesn’t care about kids, but if you beg enough he may agree to having maximum two. At first he wished for you to contribute to his experiments, but he soon changed his mind when he saw how weak and pathetic you were. You needed to keep your innocence and he will not let you see his experiments unless if they’re completely finished. That is however, only if you have been good. If you as much as think about going against him, he will drag you to his lab. He will have you staying in one of his remote manors, safe form the Fatui.

Jealousy: Do they get jealous? Do they lash out or find a way to cope?

Dottore gets easily jealous. When he sees someone else talking to you, no matter the gender, he will immediately get jealous. How dare they to talk to something that belongs to him? How dare you talking to other people than him? He will creep up behind you and snake his arm around your waist and pull you flushed against him. His grip bruising. He will stare the person down with a gaze as cold as ice. With a tight grip he leads you to your bedroom and bids you farewell with a gentle kiss. It’s not hard to track down the poor soldier in a remote corridor inside the Zapolyarny Palace. Dottore brutally mauls the soldier with a hunting knife making him suffer as much as possible before he leaves him to bleed in the dark and empty hallway.

Kisses: How do they act around or with their darling?

He is found of physical touch only with you. He can be quite doting, but only in the privacy of his mansions. He will give you gifts fitted for you taste, but if he feels like you need a reminder of who he is, he will throw in some morbid gift in order to get a raise out of you. What do you mean by that you don’t like the shrieked bunny head? If you push him enough, he will surprise you with a elegant packet present containing some human limbs or intestines.

Love letters: How would they go about courting or approaching their darling?

He will at indulge in intellectual conversations with you. His obsession will blossom from the first day I sees you, already sealing your fate. It doesn’t take long before he pricks you in the neck with a needle, causing you to subsume to darkness. He will lock you up in his mansion and do his courting there. He’s really confident and he won’t tolerate any snarky comments about his so called flirting.

Mask: Are their true colours drastically different from the way they act around everyone else?

He can be quite the gentleman when it comes to you. He is however not trying to conceal his true personality, so he lets his sadistic tendencies run free. The first time you meet him, he seemed like a sophisticated gentleman with tremendous intelligence and knowledge in both technology and medicine. His gentleman mannerism was however only extended towards you. You quickly became familiar with his rather eccentric personality.

Naughty: How would they punish their darling?

If he hears about you misbehaving from his segments or catches you in the middle of an escape attempt, he will with crazed eyes drag you into the nearest laboratory. He will inject you with liquids that burn inside your veins (don’t worry he won’t use anything that will cause you harm, only pain). If your misdeeds are grander, he will see fit to breaking some of your toes or fingers with great joy. However if you didn’t do too much, he will only lock you in a remote room with no stimuli.

Oppression: How many rights would they take away from their darling?

You have no right to venture outside without him. If you even are allowed outside that is. He will have complete control over your diet. You are not allowed to meet or even mail your family and friends. He lets your read to your heat content, but the books have to be approved by him. When a year has past since your abduction and his trust in you has increased, he will plant a tracking chip in your neck. You can only hope the chip will grant you more freedom.

Patience: How patient are they with their darling?

He prides himself on being an extremely patient man, but when it comes to you he really struggles with being patient. He has a thoroughly thought out plan when it comes to getting his hands on you, but it all seems to crumble quickly. He is not used to not having control over himself and it frightens him. It doesn’t take long for him to isolate you in his big manor.

Quit: If their darling dies, leaves, or successfully escapes, would they ever be able to move on?

He would be completely devastated if you ever died. He would work day and night in attempts at restoring you. His long nights do pay off when you finally wake up. If you end up successfully escaping, he will find you. He won’t rest until every stone in Teyvat is turned. He will avoid missions from the Taritsa in favour of bringing you back into his arms where you belong.

Regret: Would they ever feel guilty about abducting their darling? Would they ever let their darling go?

He feels absolutely no guilt for abducting you. Why should he? He takes great joy in your discomfort. You are the most perfect specimen and you need to be protected from the horrors of the world. He will never let you go, no matter what. You will be his for eternity and he will never leave your side.

Stigma: What brought about this side of them (childhood, curiosity, etc)?

Zandik had a terrible childhood. He never fitted in and got driven out off his village with pitchforks. When he first saw you, he was entranced by your kindness and beauty. Kindness didn’t fit in the Fatui and he hadn’t experienced it in all the years that he had lived. He quickly fell in love with you. He is also really curious about all the different emotions you stir in him. It’s all so very new, but not unwelcome.

Tears: How do they feel about seeing their darling scream, cry, and/or isolate themselves?

He finds it both extremely amusing and a little irritating. He will mock you and laugh at your misery. If you get too loud he will get annoyed. If you isolate and refuse to speak to him, he will get extremely angry and punish you. Even though he is cruel, he still wants you to love him.

Unique: Would they do anything different from the classic yandere?

Il Dottore will experiment on you. The experiments he preforms on you are however quite mild (unless it’s a punishment). He doesn’t want to permanently hurt you. He often makes you feel like a rare specimen under a microscope, with his eerie blood red eyes staring at you.

Vice: What weakness can their darling exploit in order to escape?

Zandik have never fitted in. He has always been an outsider and it has greatly affected him even though he claims that it hasn’t (he knows it deep down, but is way to proud to admit it). If you give him a sense of belonging he will trust you almost wholeheartedly. If you use this in order to escape he will be absolutely furious. He will find you and drag you to some remote place and isolate you for how long he sees fit. You will never be able to escape him.

Wit’s end: Would they ever hurt their darling?

Zandik will hurt you if he sees fit (which he most definitely will more than once). He takes great pleasure in seeing you shaking in fear. It makes him feel a need to protect you. He loves being in control and loves to heap you into whatever he pleases, but worry not he will always keep your personality. He does love you after all.

Xoanon: How much would they revere or worship their darling? To what length would they go to win their darling over?

He absolutely adores you, though it can be quite hard to notice. He will do absolutely anything for you (except letting you go of course). He will burn down the entire world in your favour, nothing can escape him, but he won’t need to. Not when his silver tongue convinces you to stay with him. He does however prefer if you put up a fight. He needs excitement in his life after all.

Yearn: How long do they pine after their darling before they snap?

It can either go weeks or years. When he’s younger it’s most likely going to take a year or two before he makes his move. He’s so engrossed in his studies and experiments so he doesn’t have much time for courting you. After a few years he will snap and kidnap you. When he gets expelled from the Akademiya he takes you with him.

When he’s older it will only take weeks from when he saw you, to him kidnapping you. He has lived for so very long and can’t be bothered to wait. He is the second Harbinger after all, he have all the power one could want so he doesn’t need to wait.

Zenith: Would they ever break their darling?

He would break you over and over again if he feels like you needs it. He will fix you again only to break you the next time you disobey him. He doesn’t want you as a shell of yourself since he finds that boring, plus he really does love you in his own twisted way, so he won’t break you too much.

[bomber-grl]

Rock Lee Relationship hc —✩𓏲⋆.🍵✮˚

Pairing(s): Rock Lee x Gn!Reader

Bro is down bad for you, I don’t make the rules

Yknow how he was automatically smitten with Sakura and sent her those weird kisses?

Yea well it’s you, not her

I have two ways I imagine rock Lee being when trying to get with you

He’s either bold and unapologetic about his feelings, he wants you to know how you make him feel!

Or he’s still unapologetic, just shy and more giddy if anything, just at the thought of you

Honestly I’d like to think hes a combination of both

Like at first he’s terribly direct to the point where Tenten is seriously considering giving some advice

Which she does end up doing

He ends up confessing his more than obvious feelings for you with an over dramatic blush and is honestly so sweet

He even has some flowers

You end up accepting and so commences your relationship

If you have some sort of friendship with Naruto he’d ask you if you were seriously dating “bushy brows”

💀 blud can’t even be saying anything when Sakura won’t even give him the time of day (in the anime)

The only people are aren’t really shocked at your relationship is everyone

Yea, everyone

I mean lees devotion to you before you even got together was enough.

Anyway, if you’re more of bold person whose affectionate then Lee is more than delighted

He relishes in the hugs and any sort of affection that you give him.

Honestly I can imagine him trying to be like the gigga chads and stuff 💀

Man just loves you Alr?

In front of you he’s pretty outright giddy but when you’re not looking? Down bad

He’s literally giggling about what you do and say- not exactly to anyone in particular but his teammates and guy are there to witness it anyway

Guy is supportive, tenten lowkey regrets giving him advice and Neji just wants Lee to shut up

Rock lee is lowkey always open with his affections with you

He’s always determined just in general

Which is where you come in

Honestly another possibility of how you two got together

Lee is strong, don’t get me wrong

But the “power of youth” and some flimsy leg warmers aren’t always going to keep him safe

If you’re a ninja and you’re worried about him then he just argues that you can protect him, and him you

Him protecting you is so true no matter who you are- civilian, ninja, whatnot

Literally the only way anyone could ever get to you would be over his dead cold body

Not that he’d let whoever is coming at you to even kill him in the first place

If you’re a ninja he likes to train with you

I was honestly torn between him not wanting to spar with you or him really wanting to and going all out

I’m certain he’d do the latter

You’re a ninja and you’re both trying to improve, so ofc he’d put his all into it

And if you’re not one and you’re a civilian then he’d more than happy to incorporate you into his training

He’d probably have you sit on his back while he does pushups or something similar 😭

Love wise, lee is so passionate

The moment you get together he’s legit never letting go and is seriously devoted to you

I wouldn’t even be surprised if Lee bought an engagement ring before you started even dating

He’s always bringing you gifts, food and making sure you take care of yourself

He’s very serious and determined to take care of you even if you’re fully capable

And if you try to do the same?

Flustered to the max

He gets really flustered when you kiss him too 😭

I wouldn’t be surprised if his soul almost detached the first time you did.

[beneathashadytree]

MESSING AROUND - JOSUKE HIGASHIKATA X READER

Warnings : just two teens being in love and all over each other, reader is gender-neutral!

Genre : puppy love n fluff <3

Word count : 1.1K words

Additional notes : This came to me in a dream. Love the idea of teenagers being sneaky and lazy teehee

Tip jar if you’d like to buy me a Ko-Fi!

Masterlist

They tiredly rubbed at their eyes. What was this, the tenth, or the hundredth time at this? In all cases, it felt like it was a never-ending cycle that they were doomed to stay in.

“Josuke, would it really kill you to study for an hour straight?” Nudging the textbook on the coffee table, they tried to bring his attention back to the long-forgotten syllabus. “We’ve got a quiz in 3 days.”

“Still plenty of time, if you ask me,” he shrugged, not looking away from the television screen where he was trying to beat his high score (again) in one of his video games. “That’s a whole, uh, 72 hours.”

“If you hesitated while doing simple math, then I fear how you’ll face a few calculus problems.” Rolling their eyes, they sidled up to his back. “Come on. Didn’t Miss Tomoko threaten to smash the console if you don’t get at least a B+? With the looks of things, we’ll be lucky if you pass at all.”

Still without looking at them, he scowled. “First off, thanks for your obvious belief in me.” He could be petty when he wanted to, and this seemed like one of the times he wanted to pout and get snarky. “Second of all, she wouldn’t.”

At that, they arched an eyebrow at him. “Oh really? Did you forget that time she threw the television out of the window to keep her word when you flunked that history test?”

A few moments of silence, save for the sound effects coming from his game, and the furious tapping of buttons. “Alright, maybe she will. But still, we have a lot of time to go through the material.”

“Three days. Half of one you’ve already wasted, mind you.” They sighed, carefully wrapping their arms around his midsection and snuggling up to his broad back. A cheap trick, yes, but how else would they grab his attention without outright snatching the controller from his hands? “C’mon, Josuke. Miss Tomoko asked me to come over while she was out for this reason. I don’t wanna let her down, y’know?”

Josuke audibly swallowed, and they had to hold back a smug laugh. They had him right where they wanted him. “H-hey, who are you dating, me or my mom?”

They snorted, teasingly squeezing his waist. “My supposed-boyfriend’s got me right with him, and he’s been practically ignoring me for two hours. I’d say the answer’s currently neither of you.”

Instantly, the controller flew all across the room, landing somewhere unknown as his character on the screen crashed into explosives and died. Bingo, they wickedly thought to themself as Josuke finally turned around in their arms, his handsome face blocking out the ‘GAME OVER!’ flashing behind him.

Heavy eyebrows furrowed and lower lip jutted in a subconscious pout, he leaned in, caging them against the back of the sofa with his arms. “Dirty move.”

“You fell for it, though.” Grinning, they hooked their arms around his neck, tugging him a little closer. “Can’t believe I had to fight for your attention this long.”

“It slipped my mind that we’re finally alone,” he moaned pitifully, nudging their nose with his. “Next time I get distracted from you, punch me in the balls.” At the sinister look he saw in their eyes, he pulled back for a second, alarm on his face. “On second thought, I take that back. Don’t.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll keep my hands to myself.” Cocking their head to the side, they toyed with a few loose strands of hair at the nape of his neck. It was so rare to see his hair anything other than immaculately styled, so the rare chances that they got to touch the soft strands were deeply cherished—by the both of them, it seemed, if the current redness of Josuke’s cheeks was anything to go by. “Or would you rather I keep my hands on you?”

Their boyfriend buried his face in their neck, partially out of embarrassment, and partially out of a desire to press achingly gentle kisses against their exposed skin. “Mm, I don’t know,” he mumbled, “So long as you’re not too rough with me, I’d prefer that, yeah.”

“Oh? So you like to be treated gently, big guy?” Their voice came out a little breathy as he lightly nipped at that one spot on their neck, and they hoped that it wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he had them weak in his arms. Just a little more…

More kisses rained down on them, trailing up to their jaw and sucking at the skin there, just lightly enough to tease them without leaving a mark. A sigh escaped their lips, and their hands trailed down his back, gripping at his yellow tank top in hopes of regaining their sanity. Strong arms embraced them tightly, and arched their back into him.

“Yeah, so what?” he mumbled against the corner of their lips. “Got a problem with that?”

At the very last second before their lips met, they turned their face to the other side and pulled away. “Actually, I do. Because we’re not doing anything at all until you finish studying chapters one through four.”

Groaning, Josuke made to reach out for them as they slipped from his embrace and began to walk off. “Babe, you can’t be serious—“

“I am,” they coolly said, as if they hadn’t been seconds away from pulling him ontop of them. “Would you like me to call your mom and tell her you’re fooling around instead of getting your shit done?”

He shuddered, visibly recoiling at the thought and slumping back in place. “Don’t. She’ll probably put a ban on you ever visiting me when she’s out.”

Still a little shaken up and their nerves slightly tattered by the onslaught of intimacy, they hurried to his room, calling out behind them in a sing-song voice. “Well, these calculus problems aren’t gonna solve themselves!”

Collapsing onto his bed, they muffled a laugh as they heard him swearing and slamming his heavy notebook open, grumbling under his breath the entire time. In the meantime, they curled up into his freshly-made sheets and snuggled their head into his fluffy pillow.

“It smells like him,” they whispered to themself, their face flushed as they squeezed the pillow a little. Somehow, having their boyfriend’s familiar scent surrounding them from everywhere warmed them up to their fingertips, and sent their heart racing in their ribcage. “Wish he’d hurry up and join me before Miss Tomoko gets home…”

Taglist: @blondeboyfriend @mrsgiovanna @boorishbrambling

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[dsmp-lainey]

guys how do we feel about my personal dsmp ending rewrites:

-c!wilbur doesn’t just get to fuck back off to where he came from after doing all that damage (also it never made sense to me because how tf is he the child of death and an angel and living in UTAH?) instead he actually goes and finally kills dream (and probably dies in the process) so tommy can finally start to heal

-c!techno after rescuing micheal starts trying to convince phil to let him talk to kristin to make a deal. philza initially outright refuses but is worn down over time as techno pleads. through possession of phils body kristin is able to meet with techno, and at this time techno proposes a deal. techno will trade his life for ranboo to come back. Kristin agrees to this with some reluctance (knowing that philza will be heartbroken) and brings Ranboo back to life while taking Technos soul. Ranboo comes back and him, tubbo and micheal live happily ever after. Luckily kristin is able to pull some strings and combined with the magic already tied to technos soul, she is able to elevate him into becoming one of the non corporal gods of the world (like her, XD and drista are)

-like i said c!Beeduo gets their happily ever after, they move back into the snowchester mansion with micheal, tubbo apologizes to aimsey and asks her to move in with their little family, tommy lives with them at times but will never fully abandon his little embassy that survived everything. they all begin to heal.

-with the dissolution of the syndicate niki decides to move back to nearby lmanburg, they never try to repair the crater as it serves as a needed reminder of what has occurred. niki is firmly in favor of anarchy at this point but decides that she must also work to build community outside of country’s and sides. her and puffy get back together and build a nice cottage, niki builds a new bakery. many other members of the smp, most notably eret, join and live in the peaceful community

-fundys story ends the same, he finally leaves and finds a place free of his fathers mistakes and influence. he feels like he truly belongs for the first time in his life.

-for quackitys ending, i don’t hate the canon ending as i think it would make sense for the toxic lessons he taught slime to ultimately be his undoing (also bc that speech is amazing) but i think him and schlatt should get to be happy/at least at peace in the afterlife

-c!phil continues to live in technos house for several generations, watching the people he knew grow old and stories be lost to time. eventually he will move on to a new journey but ofc techno and kristin will be watching over him. this is the life of an eternal angel

anywayssss there’s some of my ideas feel free to ask if you have questions or want to add on :)

[little-cereal-draws]

We don’t get much backstory for Polites besides he’s been friends w Odysseus since he was a kid so I thought of a few (progressively angstier) options

1. (Normal option) He’s the son of some noble and spent a lot of time in the palace as a kid. He befriended Odysseus and they’ve been inseparable ever since

2. (Angsty option one) He’s not of any particularly great lineage and his parents died when he was young. They’re the ones that gave him his philosophy of kindness and he’s been clinging to it as a way of remembering them even though violence is everywhere in Ancient Greece. Somehow he makes it to Laertes’ palace (probably with the intent of offering himself as a soldier or servant in exchange for room and board) and Odysseus befriends him.

3. (Even more angsty option) He’s not actually from Ithaca at all. He lived in a neighboring city state that Ithaca waged war against. His parents were killed and he was brought back to Ithaca as a war trophy by a noble. He lives a while in the noble’s house as a slave and is really reserved (read: traumatized). One day the noble gets invited to dinner at the palace and he brings Polites as a display of status/wealth/whatever. Odysseus notices him during the dinner and catches him in the hall later. They’re alone and poor Polites is shaking with stress as he tries to answer all of the princes’s questions. At the end of the dinner, Odysseus asks the noble if he can have Polites. He can’t outright take him bc that would be an insult to the noble’s honor but it’s also unwise for the noble to upset the prince/future king. So with gritted teeth, he gives him over. There’s a series of funny misunderstandings over the next few months as Odysseus tries to get Polites to relax and play with him (race, wrestle, climb trees, swim, etc) and Polites is never quite on the same page bc that’s not how he interacted with his old master. It’s a slow process but but the end of the year, he’s come out of his shell and developed this philosophy of kindness. Odysseus’ one act of kindness drastically changed his life for the better. Why couldn’t everyone be like that? On his birthday, Odysseus announces that he was freeing him. Polites cries. Odysseus wraps him in a bone crushing hug and giggles, “Now we can just be friends!” Polites smiles through the tears and hugs him back. (This also adds a layer of angst/irony to Open Arms. Over the course of the Trojan War, he’s watched Odysseus becomes more violent and jaded. It’s eating Polites alive bc what happened to the boy he used to know? The person who gave him his whole optimistic outlook on life has given up on it. He has to fix this.)

[senseandaccountability]

“Is this truly our prodigal son?” - meta ramblings about Astarion and Cazador and breaking vicious cycles

“I didn’t have a choice… but it seems now I do.” Astarion is indeed the prodigal son in the sense that he has to return to his home in order to find himself and his purpose. 

For at least half the game, he is - at least outwardly - what he has been made to be. A pretty facade to be consumed. In the mirror he doesn’t see himself, he remembers nothing of his past, he can’t even read the words etched into his own back - he is, in all aspects, unwritten, unmade until he starts walking back into his own life. Reclaiming it. Or rather - remaking it. Because there is nothing sustainable there to reclaim, his heritage from Cazador contains nothing but death and violence. And power built on those two ingredients. Even when he claims that’s what he wants - power, walking in the sun, to never be afraid of anyone again, you can hear how hollow the desire is. Isn’t this what you want for me? he asks Tav, equal parts manipulation and the fact that he probably has no idea whatsoever how to figure out if he wants something like that for himself. He’s never had the luxury of choice. Shouldn’t I want this? When Tav later says that considering slaughter of seven thousand spawns isn’t who Astarion truly is he doesn’t even say she’s wrong, he replies: IT SHOULD BE.

“If I can’t have my freedom, then neither can they.”

Astarion is also, to use the same religious myth, the son who remained behind and keeps count. He counts the injustices done to him, he compares, he gathers bitterness and lust for revenge over two hundred years. Nobody ever did anything to help him. Nobody came to his rescue - he even says so himself early in the game that no hero saved him, it was the mindflayers who did. He admits to Gale that he’s prayed to all deities - but no one answered. When Tav prods about the countless of spawn he’ll sacrifice for his own ritual he brings up the same argument - what about what he’s owed? Everything was taken from him, too!

“You’d almost feel sorry for the poor, deluded souls. But they’re idiots who brought this on themselves, so… don’t.” 

Astarion doesn’t want to identify with the victims because then he has to identify as a victim. (Or even worse, someone who willingly accepted the offer of a vampire, aka idiot who brought this on himself.) And no matter how much he talks about what Cazador put him through, he’s not ready to do that, not fully. Instead he pushes them further away from himself, especially as his guilt and pain and self-loathing gets poured into preparing for the Ascension. That one thing that will finally separate him from everyone else, make him safe and untouchable. The others, the victims, they’re weak, pathetic, nothing like him at all, they’re too far gone, they’re different, they couldn’t survive out there so it’s better he kills them so they serve a purpose. It’s not exactly subtext, either, Tav can outright ask him if he really intends to kill them just because they remind him of himself and his voice breaks when he answers that. “They do not. That weakness inside me is dead. It’s dead. I have a higher purpose.” He comes a little bit closer to breaking out of his cycle with the Gur children, they happened not that long ago, he’s visibly moved by the fact that he had forgotten them and felt nothing when he delivered them and when Tav asks about his feelings on the subject, he admits: “I just… I never want to see these little scraps of misery again. The world doesn’t need to know my shame.”

But it takes the encounter with Cazador to truly break out of the pattern.

“Did I not make you who you are?” “Do not slouch before me, boy! Have you no respect for yourself?” he snaps at Astarion when you first enter his ritual. And when the camera pans to Astarion, so full of rage and fully intent on killing Cazador with his bare hands if he has to, we see that he actually does slouch. He’s that boy again.

He’s returned, the boy who caused so much trouble, who screamed the sweetest when he was tortured, who was thrown into a tomb for a year for refusing his order and who eventually stopped fighting back. Godey says: “You always were sharp, little one. Sharp enough to cut yourself.” The boy who Cazador tried to make something of, but to no avail. He was incorrigible. “I fondly remember your empty boasting, your tired jokes, your endless prattle…” All abuse aside, Cazador hurts Astarion in that precise way only a parental figure can hurt a child - through constant disappointment, the cruelty of not caring. The parent that only punishes, that sees nothing but faults. He even tells Astarion that he ought to be begging their forgiveness for coming crawling back after abandoning them. “Forgiveness? You’ve never forgiven anything.” / “No! No, fuck you and fuck everything you’ve ever done to me.”

“I’m so much more than what you made me,” Astarion tells Cazador when he finally has him on his knees, one last attack away from getting the revenge he’s dreamed of for two hundred years. When he asks Tav for help he - again - brings up the “isn’t this what you want?” Because even if he knows he’s more than what Cazador created him to be, he doesn’t know what that “much more” consists of yet. If you detect his thoughts at that moment you learn that he’s afraid, hungry, intoxicated. That all he can see is the power of the ritual and the freedom to do anything - to be anything.

“I want you to live a life you’re proud of,” Tav pleads. “You can’t be proud of this.” Tav who sees someone else in him, a way forward that isn't steeped in Cazador's tyranny. Tav, who treats him like a person, with autonomy.

“I know you think this will set you free, but it won’t. The power will trap you, just like it trapped Cazador.” And it was this Astarion required to truly remake his life. Returning as the prodigal son to the place that was his home, where he was taught he amounted to nothing, that he was a means to an end, that the only way to ever feel safe in life is to hold power over someone else. 

That’s why I found his “No! No, fuck you and fuck everything you’ve done to me” so powerful, because it’s it’s much more than an insult or a protest. It’s an acknowledgement that you were hurt and that you didn’t deserve it. 

And by extension here - that you’ve hurt others in turn and they didn’t deserve it, either. That perhaps you are just the same as the weak, pathetic spawn in the dungeons. That perhaps we all are. That perhaps the true power lies in daring to hope. For forgiveness, for understanding, for more people out there to have a heart like Tav’s. That you, if you’re given a chance to make choices for yourself, can make a life you can feel proud of. Even if it means you have to let others see your shame. To care again is to live again, like Tav says while they're exploring casa Cazador. And Astarion wants to feel alive.

When you can make Astarion realise he can be better than Cazador, he immediately shows  protectiveness towards the spawn, telling his siblings to lead them to the Underdark and then telling the truth to the Gur but making sure to point out that if they come hunting - they’re hunting their own children. Cazador’s been dead for a couple of minutes and Astarion is already doing a better job as some sort of wretched father figure for these poor souls. Because he's given them freedom to make their own choices, treated them as equals. Shown them the care nobody ever showed him before. That's how you break cycles and pack one hell of an emotional punch. Fuck you and fuck everything you’ve done to me, indeed.

[redflagshipwriter]

Halfa Cass 11 pt 1

masterpost

They had a teensy bit of a war council about the new problem when Danny came back from work.

“On the bright side, they did send someone to take away Brick,” Danny said optimistically. He tried, anyway. He had a grim and depressing certainty that he was going to have to do something drastic and violent to solve this problem. That sucked. It sucked so hard. He looked at his knees. “But. Yeah. They probably will come after you to make me make some dumb ugly guns or whatever.”

“Okay,” Jazz said calmingly, “Every problem has solutions, Danny.” 

…He scrunched up his face. He didn’t outright argue but he didn’t really see a great solution off hand.

Jazz’s big brain was clearly churning through the angles. She went quiet for a while, and then broke the silence in a thoughtful tone. “We could theoretically just kill the mob. All of them.” She looked up at the water stained ceiling and mouthed something that might be calculations. How many mob members she thought there might be? A plan to do this?

Danny blinked at her from his perch on the kitchen counter, hunched under the cupboard in a way that made him feel secure. “I thought this was going to go the other way. Like, with you telling me not to overreact.” He watched his big sister with a sort of horrified fascination.

Jazz waved that away with a hand. “I am not starting over again. I’m halfway through with my Gen Eds.” The dark smudges under her eyes looked even deeper in the shitty artificial lighting of their apartment. “The problem with that is that I only make about 1200 a month, and at that rate, we will never get you your identification.” She scowled and dug her fingers onto the tabletop as if she was going to squeeze cooperation out of it by force. “We sort of need that income source to get you into university on time. It’s important for your social development to get you back around your age mates sooner rather than later.”

He raised a hand like he had a question in class. “I thought the problem with that was going to be that murder is bad,” Danny said hesitantly. He was used to Jazz being the voice of morality. Were they doing something different now?

“The worst thing that happens to them is that they have to live near Skulker,” Jazz said waspishly. “Anyway, it’s on them for trying to make you build weapons. They’re the rude ones. They don’t get to throw off my twenty year plan.”

…Danny pinched his lips together to avoid the petty correction that they wouldn’t be living near Skulker, per se. Fair enough. The whole life or death thing did feel a bit less serious when you hung out with lots of dead people and they were just, like, people. Murder was, like, a conversation from a meat existence to a goo existence. It wasn’t nice, but it also wasn’t nice to threaten people’s sisters. 

“Speaking of, I need to get to work so that I have my perfect attendance record for a good recommendation for the next job.” Jazz scrubbed at her face with the back of a hand and then dragged it down, squishing her cheek. “Do you want me to bring back breakfast?”

Yes.

“No,” Danny lied. He shimmied down off the counter and into his shoes. “I’ll walk you there. I’m sick of being inside. Maybe I’ll pick up groceries.”

Jazz snorted and rolled her eyes, but she grabbed her bag without making fun of him. He walked with her down cold, filthy sidewalks and waved goodbye on the street across from her building. Danny pretended not to worry. She did him the favor of not pointing out that he was definitely going to come back at 4:30 am to walk her home. 

Danny locked the door when he got back in, but he felt kinda dumb about it. 

If this mob or gang or whatever (was there a difference?) knew where he lived and wanted in, the door was not going to keep them out. Maybe he should just leave it unlocked so that they didn’t bust it open and break the lock, actually. A lock was what, 40 bucks? He didn’t want to have to replace that.

He went back and unlocked it on that basis. Then he screwed up his face to think.

…There wasn’t really a reason for them to come. He hadn’t made them mad yet. It would be different once they came back and he said he really wasn’t going to make them any weapons. 

Danny locked it anyway and then set a timer for 4 in the morning. It was early for him to turn in but he grabbed the pillow off of the shelf and put it back on the sofa anyways. Hopefully he’d get to sleep like, right away.

[stories-and-chaos]

Shrike: 2582 Days of Hell

[Hazbin Hotel reader insert as Alastor’s “darling life and death partner” Ace x ace relationship, both parties are moderately sex favorable.]

[One shot, word count 3326, Cw: none]

———————

Eleven months. Eleven fucking months since Alastor disappeared after that fight with Vox. And not a word or glimpse of him in that entire time. You knew he was alive. There was a tiny fragment of his shadow magick in the decorative finial of one of your hatpins. The enamel black eighth note at the end of a foot of thin steel was warm to your touch. It felt like your hand resting in the crook of his arm whenever you walked together.

If he’d died, that bit of shadow would have vanished and it would just be cold enamel and metal. So you checked it morning and night. You kept your usual rotation of pins; despite wanting the constant reassurance you didn’t want anyone to notice you favoring one accessory. Maybe you were being overly cautious, but you couldn’t help it with Alastor’s absence.

Niffty had vanished in a puff of ash about two weeks after Alastor had. Presumably your husband had summoned her to…wherever he was. There were other demons that had made deals with him in exchange for their souls. If he’d died all those deals would be void. But not one had dissolved, giving you more hope that he was recovering somewhere.

Which you needed. Every time you ventured beyond your territory or Cannibal Town, every television screen in your vicinity started displaying Vox’s face. The insufferable screen saver enjoyed rubbing Alastor’s absence in your face whenever possible. Sometimes it was just his face following you. Others, he staged talk shows or news stories discussing that last fight. He always circled back to the fact that he was active and your husband hadn’t been seen for months. The longer it was, the more gleeful he became.

Extermination Day was about a month ago. You spent the whole time gripping the music note pin, trying to detect any hint of Alastor running into the angels. Fortunately the shadow was unchanged.

Carmilla Carmine had called a meeting of Overlords to discuss the fallout from this latest attack. Meetings like this generally occurred every few years, often a result from something unusual happening. A drastic increase or decrease in kills, the loss of an Overlord, a particular district being targeted, all had warranted a meeting in the past.

This year it seemed there were several upheavals in territory and Overlords in charge. After Carmilla greeted the assembled demons, her focus turned to you. “Y/N. Will your husband be joining us today?”

Decades of performing allowed you to answer steadily, with a smile even. “No, not today.” Usually you attended these together, occasionally Alastor went alone. This was the first time you were there solo. There was an immediate bray of laughter from the other side of the table.

All three of the Vees were here today. Vox had a confident sneer on his screen (he’d updated his head to be a flat screen television a little over a decade ago). Valentino licked his lips before slowly grinning in what you presumed was meant to be a lascivious manner. Velvette, the youngest of everyone in the room, was texting rapidly on her phone. She’d been the one laughing and continued to snigger.

“Not today?” she asked without looking up. “Don’t you mean never, little Miss Frigid?” She finally glared at you over her shoulder, pink braids falling heavily around her face. “Why don’t you just admit what everyone in Hell fucking knows? Vox killed your twiggy arse husband and you’re useless without him.”

You did your best to keep your cool. This would be easier if you at least knew what Alastor was up to. Outright lies could get you in trouble later on, but admitting you didn’t know where he was? That would bring a shit load of trouble now.

“Surprising that ‘everyone in Hell’ is so eager to believe your tabloid drivel.” You waved a dismissive hand at the trio, launching a slight gust at them that frizzed Velvette’s hair. Not enough to undo her hairstyle, but she wouldn’t be able to fix it without taking it all down. The girl was fanatical about looking perfect in public; the loose hairs would drive her crazy.

Carmilla smacked the tabletop. “Y/N. You know my policy on weapons and magick at these meetings,” she said firmly.

You tilted your head slightly in her direction. “Apologies, cher, I just get annoyed by the chittering of little bugs.” You deliberately avoided saying that it wouldn’t happen again. Velvette growled. “If my darling Alastor was dead don’t you think that all the former members of this group he had ownership of would be coming after me?” You laced your talons together and rested your chin on top of them. “But I haven’t had to bother myself with any of them.”

Vox snorted. “Then why isn’t the pussy whipped fucker here?”

“I’ll admit you got some good hits in during that fight, Vox. So he’s taking a well earned rest.” Hopefully your tone was dismissive enough that they’d stop pushing.

Of course they wouldn’t. Especially not Velvette, she seemed to thrive on pushing buttons. She laughed again. “Ha! An Overlord taking what, an eleven month rest? Pathetic. If he can’t even show up to protect his territory I say it’s free game.”

Apparently the girl hadn’t gotten the message about you. Vox and Valentino exchanged a glance over her head as you smiled sharply at her. “Zut alors cher! Impatient, vapid, and misinformed? On top of being poorly dressed? I suppose you have that chip on your shoulder for a reason, ma petite.” You had the satisfaction of seeing her manicured nails digging into the table. “I’m not some pretty proxy little girl. Our territory is staying ours.”

Velvette was rising from her seat when Carmilla slammed the tabletop. “¡Es suficiente! Thank you for the information, Y/N. Velvette, take your seat. We have other business to discuss.” With that the meeting started in earnest.

A handful of minor players had perished. There were still turf wars going on but it looked like at least one new Overlord was emerging from the fray. Carmilla displayed a map of the city; one contested spot was close to your borders. You really didn’t have the motivation to go after it at the moment however. If you didn’t though, the brats might just do so instead. You could see them slowly creeping closer, putting pressure on you and yours. Although with the anger in Velvette’s eyes it might not be too slow.

The meeting stretched on. Before ten minutes had passed the Vees had pulled out their phones and the pings of text messages filled the air constantly as they texted each other. Despite glares from Carmilla, they kept going. It would almost sound musical if it wasn’t so strident.

There was discussion, offers and counteroffers for territory and cash, all with the undertone of tension. You participated enough to not be dismissed as an easy target. Carmine’s rule extended to the streets immediately around her building. Despite that, you could feel Velvette and her compatriots following you closely once the group started leaving.

Fuck this nonsense. Quickly, your wings flicked open and you pushed off into the sky. You didn’t even have to add anything to the downdraft; the Vees were knocked off balance, Velvette’s hair ripped out of its braids and tangled in the gusts. “YOU FUCKING OUTDATED BITCH!” she shrieked from below. Valentino could follow you but you doubted he would. He didn’t relish pain on his own person, just his employees.

You pushed yourself faster than usual on the flight home. The exertion helped distract you. But once you were home, the door locked securely behind you, all the emotions boiled over.

“Alastor you bastard!” you screamed into the cold dark house. “Where the fuck are you!” You sent out an involuntary rush of air; you could hear items pushed off surfaces, paper and cloth ripping. That was enough to stop you from screaming more, but it didn’t get rid of your twisted knot of feelings.

You didn’t have great night vision but you couldn’t make the effort to turn on the lights. You knew where the item you wanted was. You grabbed a bottle from the sideboard and made your way to the bedroom. You skipped your nightly routine, opting to just shed clothes as you walked. Your hatpin and hat you dropped on your vanity counter. Going by feel, you grabbed the music note pin.

In the past months you had arranged cushions and blankets in the mattress into a comfort nest. You couldn’t bear the empty expanse of the bed. Your nest surrounded you on every side with enough illusion of warmth to let you sleep.

You opened the bottle of whiskey. Not bothering with a glass, you chugged gulps until it was half empty. That wasn’t the way to treat good liquor but this wasn’t a good night. You capped the bottle, placed it on your nightstand for later before burrowing under the duvet.

Not even half a bottle of strong alcohol could keep everything at bay. But there were no Overlords here to mock you, no underlings to gossip, no friends to pester you. No Alastor waiting with a handkerchief after you cried all your emotions out. Just the drone of insects in the bayou and a drop of shadow attached to enamel and steel.

Maybe he could hear you through that fragment. You were going to talk either way. “Alastor? Please come home cher. I miss you. I can do this alone, I know it. I have been. But where’s the fun without you? Come home. S’il vous plaît?” At some point you started crying and eventually fell asleep.

You woke up to a hand on your shoulder and a voice calling your name. For a split second you hoped it was Alastor, but the scent of blood and rose perfume told you who it was. “Rosie,” you mumbled, not removing the duvet. She’d had a key to your house for decades of course.

“Darlin’, how long have you been in there?” she asked gently. She didn’t remove the duvet, perhaps knowing you needed to retreat from everything.

“When was the meeting?” you managed to ask. According to your friend, it had been a full day ago. “Since I got home from that.”

She sighed and rubbed your shoulder gently. “Y/N, dearie, you can talk to me if you’d like. It seems like you have a lot going on.”

You wanted to. Oh how you wanted to just let that knot of emotions loose. But even though you were friends, Rosie was still an Overlord, roughly equal in strength. You were vulnerable enough like this. If she knew Alastor was missing, would she be able to resist the temptation to take over? You hoped so but still didn’t want to take the chance.

A few long moments passed silently. Then: “You don’t know where Alastor is. Do you honey?” You froze. “Of course not, you wouldn’t have been so cagey at that meeting if you did.”

You flipped back the duvet enough to look at her. Nothing calculating in her expression, just worry about two of her friends. Her solid black eyes still managed to express concern. She answered your silent question “I’ve known you both for ages, darlin’. We’ve helped each other out plenty of times! If your man was really that hurt, you’d have let me help by now. So, you must not know what’s going on yourself.”

“Rosie, cher, you really are one amazing demon.”

“Oh honey, you flatter me! Let’s get something in you other than whiskey and we’ll talk.” You asked her to grab your housecoat, not feeling up to getting dressed but you also didn’t want to share every bodily secret, no matter how good of friends you were.

Later the two of you were sharing a pot of coffee, biscuits, and eggs. “Do you think anyone else has figured it out?”

“That not even you know where he is? I don’t think so. You’ve been acting as if he’s with you. And none of the other Overlords know you two like I do,” she said while adding sugar cubes to her coffee. “Alright, details, details. If I’m going to help you out, I gotta know what’s going on.”

There wasn’t much more you could tell her. She had seen the footage of Alastor and Vox fighting, then both backing down and his disappearance into his shadow. Vox had aired every angle he had of the incident multiple times. He’d even made an hour-long special with 3D models recreating the fight with dramatic shots and heroic close ups of his face. Part of the special even went frame by frame through Alastor’s shadows wrapping around him, pointing out every possible detail that Vox could spin as proof the Radio Demon couldn’t have survived.

While Rosie wasn’t about to believe Vox’s word, she did gently ask how you were so sure your husband survived. “Like I said, if the former Overlords he owns were free, they’d be coming for me. But also,” you hand the music note hatpin to her, “we made these in… the 1940’s I think it was.”

You let her examine it. The cannibal turned it over in her hands, gleaming steel flashing between her slim fingers. Before long she noticed the magick in the finial. She brushed her fingertips against the eighth note and felt Alastor’s distinctive green edged black power.

“Alastor has matching cufflinks with my power in them. So I know he’s alive. I just don’t know where.” You took the pin back and sighed. “I’m not about to let everyone know about this however. Especially when he hasn’t contacted me.”

“Well, shit. That makes things harder. Not a word from him?”

You shook your head. “He summoned Niffty a while back. I thought he might send her back with a message, some information, anything. But she’s been gone since a couple weeks after Alastor disappeared. I’m so scared of making something up and it backfiring! And if those brats find out I’m basically alone they’ll all come at me together.” You ran a hand through your hair restlessly. “I can take them on individually. Maybe even two to one. But if all three attack together? I’d be fucked.”

Rosie stayed quiet, letting you vent your fear out as she ate. “Well, one thing I can do is back you up. Both with what you say about Alastor and if those three come calling.”

“You’d…you’d do that for me? For Alastor?” Sure you were friends, but putting yourself on the line for another Overlord was not the norm.

“Of course honey! That’s what allies do; it's what friends do. We’ve done enough favors for each other that I’ve stopped counting, just like you right?” You had to nod at that. At some point it was silly to keep track who owed whom. “Not to mention, you and Alastor are much better neighbors than any of the Vees or their cronies. And you know my people, they don’t care for all that modern junk those brats peddle.”

You hadn’t realized quite how unsteady you’d felt these past months. Just knowing there was someone on your side helped immensely. Enough that you could think of your next steps instead of simply trying to endure what came your way. “Merci Rosie.” She squeezed your hand gently before encouraging you to eat. You hadn’t had much of an appetite recently but you needed to. Especially if you were going to rule your territory alone for now.

You and your friend discussed your options as breakfast disappeared. Rosie, reassured you at least felt a bit more stable, headed home after helping you wash the dishes. You then soaked in the bath, letting the warm water soothe the tension in your body. Your back and wings were sore after that dash home yesterday.

The hatpin was sitting on the bathroom counter. “I’m still mad at you, cher,” you said to it. Sound probably couldn’t travel through that fragment but you decided to act like Alastor could hear you. “And I’m not going to forgive you easily. But I’m not letting everything we’ve done together crumble because I’m upset. And I’m not letting those little bitches from the Vees crush us.”

You kept busy the following days. You quickly annexed that contested area for starters. No need to give the Vees a foothold so close to you and your friend.

Alastor’s broadcast station couldn’t do much without him. But there was space in the building. You moved recording equipment there. While you couldn’t write music, you recognized talent and you had an ability to pick what music would not just be popular, but endure past the moment.

Starting with an album of your favorite songs, you set up Songbird Studios. You leaned into the audio quality of vinyl records and the aura of class and exclusivity. Even though your library of music spanned genres, you were very selective about who could sign with the studio.

With a steady flow of income, you increased your power base. More deals and souls, favors and debts waiting for you to cash in, all of which firmed up your Overlord status.

There were days you cried, days you raged, days you wanted to stay in your nest and days you wanted to tear down the Vees tower brick by tacky brick. You confided in Rosie who continued to give you support and pinkie fingers to crunch when you were particularly upset. You were there when she needed someone to talk to and provide entertainment to Cannibal Town, both on your own and scheduling artists that worked for you.

It took a lot of effort, but you did your best to act indifferent at the Vees’ needling. The less reaction they received, the less fun it was. It took years but eventually they lost interest in messing with you.

You counted the days since Alastor vanished. Even once you knew his location, you kept track until you saw him in person again. Carmilla called a few meetings over those 2,500-plus days. You went to some, skipped others.

The latest one, you saw Velvette entering the building from your vantage point above. You were not in the right headspace to deal with the little bitch, knowing where Alastor was staying but not having seen him yet. Choose your battles.

Of course, when you found out later that your husband had attended that meeting, you wanted to kick yourself. And him. And Velvette but you always wanted to kick Velvette. Might as well add in the other two Vees while you were at it.

Once you reunited with Alastor at Charlie Morningstar’s hotel, you immediately moved into his suite. He kept the same motif as your home and it was easy enough to settle in. That night, you refused to let go of his torso as you laid in bed together. Even so, you were more relaxed than any other time in the past seven years.

“Two thousand five hundred and eighty two,” you said, your face buried into his side.

“Hmm? What was that, cher?” he asked, stroking your arm.

“Two thousand five hundred and eighty two. That’s how many days it’s been since I saw you last.” You sat up a bit to look at him in his vibrant red eyes. “I kept track.”

“I would expect nothing less from you my dear.”

“I’m going to take those days out on the person that separated us.”

His smile turned sharper. His sclera flickered black as his pupils turned into radio dials. “Will you allow my assistance, my dear Shrike?”

You reached up to stroke his face. You could feel your feathers sharpening. “Of course. I’ll need help after all. And who am I to deny the Radio Demon his revenge?”

@whitewolfsoldat @edgyboi10000 @ch3sire-blu3 @clearly-awkward @badatpunz @bengewatch @chewbrry

[writing-mlm]

could you please please please write a jaime reyes fic where reader is sick so jaime takes care of his boyfriend ☹️

Sick Days

Summary: Jaime’s boyfriend is sick and he’s, of course, going to stop everything to help him. Pairing: Jaime Reyes x Male reader Wc: 1k A/n: wrote this while I was (still am) sick so it’s pretty short >:(

“I told him; it’s cold, wear a jacket. It’s cold, don’t go outside with your hair wet. It’s cold, put on thick pants. But did he listen?” Jaime rambles as you’re blowing snot into yet another tissue. He’s not even in your vicinity, you can’t hear him but you can just tell he’s rambling to himself. “No, claro ‘Jaime, I’m from Alaska I’m used to the cold’. You moved to Texas when you were five and haven’t been back since!” 

“You talkin’ ‘bou’ me?” You cough, turning yourself to look into the kitchen. He stops stirring the chicken noodle soup and smiles at you. The tension in his shoulders drops and he shakes his head. 

“Course not, my love. Get your rest,” He cooes, pointing the wooden spoon in your direction. “The soup is almost done.” He adds, killing the fire and covering the pot to let it simmer for a bit longer while he gets a bowl and a plate. 

“Thank you, Jai,” 

“His lymph nodes are swelling, I recommend giving him the water bottle now and a warm rag,” Khaji-Da tells him and he hums in acknowledgment, rushing along the apartment to grab a clean rag and let it run under warm water while he fetches a new water bottle.

When he returns to the living room, he pushes you so you’re lying down and places the rag on your neck. You shudder, eyes closing while he drags the blanket up your body, tucking it under your arms and sides. 

“He needs to be in a more upright position in case he falls asleep and chokes on phlegm,” Hurriedly, he lifts you up a bit, grabbing a throw pillow and shoving it behind your back. He reworks the blanket, tucking your feet under the cover despite you trying to flick them off. 

“You’re gonna stop fighting me on this,” He chuckles while staring over at you. 

“It’s hot,” You whine. “I’m already wearin’ socks, Jaime.” The fuzzy blue and green polka dot socks kick off the blanket again and he sighs, hands on his hips. 

“Blanket over feet or you don’t get to watch TV.” You gasp, although it comes out gagged due to your sore throat. He nods, now crossing his arms and you huff. Fine, if he wants to resort to his evil ways. Again, he tucks the blanket under you and nods when you don’t put up a fuss. 

“I’ll bring you the soup now. Do you want saltine crackers with it?” Shaking your head, he hums and disappears into the kitchen. He reminds himself to clean up his mess later and then to buy canned chicken noodle soup— even if he knew his mother would kill him for making canned soup over the special homemade one. 

With the soup bowl on top of a plate, he cuts up a bread loaf and places it on the plate with a Benadryl for when you’re done eating. 

“Want more tea, cielo?” 

“Y’s plea’e,” He chuckles, although he knows he shouldn’t, and brings the kettle with him. 

He sets the plate and kettle on the coffee table and goes off to grab a chair, placing it between the couch and the table. Sitting down, he pours more tea, letting it steep while he starts feeding you. 

“I can feed m’self,” Turning your head away from the spoon, he scoots closer and puts the spoon back into the bowl. 

It’s bad enough you’re sick, although you won’t outright admit it. Because, sure, maybe it wasn’t the brightest idea to go for a late-night walk during a storm and then walk to work in the light rainfall that came the following morning. But! But, in your defense. You never got sick from doing it before. 

“Considering you couldn’t feed yourself cereal this morning, no you can’t. Let me feed you.” Sighing, you turn your head back, unable to look at him as he holds the spoon out toward your mouth. If you could smell anything you’d know just how tempered Jaime was to eat the soup himself. “Open for the airplane!” He grins. 

“Ja—�� Slipping the spoon into your mouth, you glare at him while he just smiles and pulls the spoon out. The soup is good, you’ll give him that. You couldn’t smell it being made, clogged nose, and all that jazz. 

“Khaji says you’re swallowing too fast, slow down.” With another spoonful, you don’t put up a fuss this time and he’s nearly giddy. He looks away, a sign that Khaji is speaking, and removes the rag from your neck. It had long since gone cold and wasn’t doing anything. And it could make it worse. 

The two of you fall into that rhythm for some time, he talks about random topics during the commercial breaks and you listen with half-lidded eyes. The warmth from the soup already making you feel good enough to take a nap without the worry that you’re going to cough yourself to death.

With the soup and bread gone, he hands you the pill and your cup of tea. This time, he lets you drink on your own and you swallow the pill with the tea as a chaser. He checks, making sure you didn’t slip the pill under your tongue before he nods, confirming to you that you had, in fact, swallowed the pill. 

“Time for bed,” He says, standing to clean up the items. For now, he’ll just place them into the sink. That’s an issue for tomorrow Jaime. 

“Stay with me?” You ask when he walks back around the couch. 

“Of course, baby.” He grins, kissing your forehead before he picks you up. God, you love having a superhero boyfriend who can lift a semi-truck with one arm. Holding his neck, you sigh and lay your head on his chest. 

When he sets you down on your shared bed, you don’t let go of his shirt, too afraid he’s going to leave. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” He promises, squeezing your hand before moving across the room to dig inside one of the drawers. You know what’s coming and work on taking your shirt off. When he turns around with a Vicks VapoRub jar in hand, you’re sure that he’s truly becoming his parents. 

Sniffling, he sits on the edge of the bed next to you and carefully rubs it along your chest. He works in small circles, humming along to the theme song he’d always hear whenever he was sick. When he’s done, he caps the bottle and sets it on the nightstand before going to turn off the lights. You lay on your side, a towel on your pillow to collect any snot that comes out while you’re sleeping. 

“Get some rest, okay?” The bed dips as he crawls in next to you, wrapping an arm around your waist. 

“Mhmm, ‘m tryi’g.” You respond, holding his hand while your eyes slowly close. He kisses your shoulder before he gets comfortable himself. 

“Night, Jai.” 

“Goodnight, mi amor,”

[reiwanwan]

Whispers of the Tide

On a peaceful shoreline, Y/n Shelby awaits her executioner, Luca Changretta.

This is part 2 of Beneath the Streetlamp

content includes: Mentions of guns, blood, mentions of killing

The sun hung low in the sky, casting an orange glow over the water as the waves lapped gently against the shore. Y/N stood at the water's edge, her feet bare, toes sinking into the wet sand. The sea had always been a place of peace for her, a place where she could let her mind drift away from the chaos of life. It reminded her of simpler times—playing with her siblings along the shoreline, laughing, running, and forgetting, if only for a moment, the troubles that always seemed to chase them.

She was so lost in her thoughts that she barely noticed the footsteps approaching from behind. But she wasn’t surprised either. Luca Changretta was the type of man who always found his way to her. It had become almost routine, this quiet dance they shared, knowing what was coming but never acknowledging it outright.

"Always finding me, aren’t you?" she said, her voice calm, as if greeting an old friend rather than a deadly enemy.

Luca smirked as he stepped closer, his hands in his pockets. "I’ve got a knack for it," he replied smoothly, his eyes studying her. There was something about her calmness that always unnerved him.

"How’d you find me this time?" she asked, a faint smile playing on her lips as she turned slightly to face him.

He shrugged, glancing out at the sea. "I’m always finding you, Y/N," he said softly, a strange note of affection in his tone. They stood there in silence for a moment, watching the waves, two people who should have been enemies but seemed more like two weary souls sharing a quiet moment of understanding.

"Do you like the sea?" he asked after a while, breaking the silence.

Y/N nodded, her eyes never leaving the horizon. "I do," she replied. "It makes me forget about everything. Just for a little while, it’s like none of it matters."

Luca stared at her, and for a brief moment, he saw a glimpse of something—something he wasn’t sure he had ever seen in her before. Peace, maybe. Or acceptance. He wasn’t sure.

Y/N’s next words cut through the air like a knife, casual but heavy with meaning. "So," she said softly, "is today the day?"

Luca’s heart skipped a beat. He looked at her, the faintest hint of regret flickering in his eyes. "Yeah," he said after a moment. "Today’s the day."

She didn’t flinch. She didn’t try to run or fight. She just nodded, as if she had been expecting it all along. "I didn’t bring anything to protect myself," she said lightly, almost like it was a joke, but there was no humor in her voice. "Maybe it’s just my time."

Luca’s grip on the gun tightened, though it remained at his side for now. "I prayed for you once, you know," he said, his voice low.

Y/N’s lips curled into a faint smile. "I remember. I told you to pray." She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. "Thank you for that."

He let out a short laugh, though it held no real amusement. "What are you going to do? Will you tell my father I’m a good boy?" He tried making one last attempt at a joke.

Y/N turned to him fully, her expression soft. "Maybe I will."

"Don’t," Luca said quickly, shaking his head. "That’d be lying. And anyway, he’s probably watching over me right now, seeing everything I’m about to do" He said pointing to the sky.

Silence hung between them again, heavy and suffocating. Luca knew what he had to do, and Y/N…well, she was ready. Or at least she acted like she was. He didn’t know why she wasn’t fighting back, why she wasn’t begging for her life like everyone else had. Maybe she was just as tired of all this bullshit as he was.

The time had come. Luca raised the gun, pointing it at her head. Y/N met his gaze, her eyes unblinking, calm, and full of acceptance. She didn’t say a word, didn’t move a muscle. And in that moment, Luca realized she wasn’t afraid. She had resigned herself to this fate long ago.

He pulled the trigger.

The sound echoed along the shoreline, the seagulls flying off in startled flocks. Y/N fell, her body crumpling to the ground like a rag doll. Luca stood there for a moment, staring down at her. He felt something, but he wasn’t sure if it was regret or relieved. Maybe a bit of both.

After a moment, he knelt down and picked her up, cradling her in his arms. She was gone, her eyes closed peacefully, as if she had simply fallen asleep. He carried her to the nearby hospital, placing her gently on the steps, making sure her body was arranged in a way that looked respectful. Then, without a word, he took off his coat and draped it over her, covering her completely.

It was only when he walked away that he allowed himself to feel anything. He lit a cigarette, his hands shaking slightly as he smoked. He didn’t feel bad exactly. He had to do it. He wanted to do it. It was part of the plan, part of the life they both lived. But there was something about her—about Y/N—that made him wonder if maybe, just maybe, she had been as lost as he was.

He stared at the sea for a long time, thinking of her, of the calmness in her eyes, the acceptance in her voice. He exhaled a long breath, letting the smoke drift away with the wind.

"Maybe she was just as broken as me," he muttered to himself, flicking the cigarette into the sand before turning and walking away from the sea, leaving behind the only person who had ever truly understood him.

[fluentmoviequoter]

Special Edition

Day 4 of 12 Days of Ficmas

Pairing: Jason Todd x vigilante!fem!reader

Summary: Jason Todd doesn't like you. He does like Jane Austen, though.

Word Count: 2.2k+ words

Warnings: angst, arguments, brief description of injuries, fluff, Pride and Prejudice quotes. reader is a vigilante!

A/N: Sorry this is late; thank you for being patient and the encouraging messages!! This is my first Jason Todd fic and I am so excited because I'm madly in love with him. He may be OOC, but I didn't specify which version so you can imagine whichever Jason you want! I hope you enjoy and let me know what you think!

Masterlist | DC Comics Masterlist | Request Info

You are the bane of Jason Todd’s existence. He’s never said it outright, but he shows you constantly that he doesn’t like you, trust you, and certainly doesn’t want to work with you. That doesn’t deter you from trying to bring a little Christmas spirit and friendship to the man in the red hood, though. All he’s missing is a little green and some lights.

December in Gotham is cold, wet, and busy for vigilantes. With Batman breathing down your neck about staying in fighting shape no matter the weather or the time of year, it can be easy to let Christmas slip by unnoticed, and Jason usually does. Since you joined the team, though, you’ve decided it will never happen again.

“Those lights are new,” you point out as you trail behind Jason, cutting through a previously undecorated alley.

“Focus!” he snaps, his helmet turning as he looks over his shoulder at you. “Just because it’s Christmas doesn’t mean we stop to look at pretty lights instead of finding Scarecrow’s new hideout.”

You shrug and jog a few steps to catch up, your eyes focused on his red helmet as he slows. He pulls a grappling hook from his belt and aims it upward.

“You don’t have one do you?” he asks, his voice giving away how annoyed and tired he is.

“Pretty sure Bruce only gives those to his sons,” you answer sheepishly. “I can just take the ladder on the backside of the building. Or we can split up.”

Jason barks a single, harsh laugh. “One, Bruce isn’t sexist like that so maybe he just knows you’re incompetent. And, two, we’re not splitting up.”

“Because I’m incompetent?” you ask, smiling.

Jason’s shoulders rise and fall as he sighs before wrapping his arm around your waist and holding you against his chest until your feet meet the solid roof. His hand raises but lingers by your side as he looks down at you. Nodding to himself, he pulls his arm back and turns to look out over the freezing, dirty streets of Gotham.

“What are the chances he’d go for the water supply again?” you ask quietly.

“Not very good,” Jason answers. “Do you think before you ask those questions?”

“Think? No. But I do see Bane pushing a huge crate into the water department offices down the street.”

Jason jumps from his crouched position and moves toward you, the heat radiating off his body like a warm hug against your skin as he stands behind you. 

There’s a hint of grumbling as he raises his voice to ask, “Why didn’t you just say that?”

“Bane didn’t walk out until after you asked, Jason. I may be incompetent but I’m not a complete idiot,” you answer. 

You blame the December weather for your change in attitude; any other time, you would have made a joke and asked for his help since Bruce was working on your grappling hook and didn’t have a spare (not that you’d ever tell Jason the wire snapped and dropped you three storeys the last time he asked you to split up). But now, you’re tired and cold and want to get away from Jason before you say something you shouldn’t, so you jump off the roof and onto the fire escape as Jason’s yells fall on deaf ears while you rush toward the water department.

When you try the handle, the doorknob twists easily, but as you prepare to open it, a gloved hand wraps around your wrist and pulls you back.

“What are you doing? Trying to get yourself killed?” Jason whispers angrily.

“Why do you care, Jason? If I die, you don’t have to work with me anymore, right?”

“Just because I don’t like working with you doesn’t mean I want you dead,” he snaps.

“Then watch my back and try not to be such a Grinch.”

You tear your wrist away from him, blind to his face dropping and his jaw clenching under his mask. Pulling the door open slowly, you slip into the shadows, grateful to feel Jason behind you.

✯✯✯✯✯

“You found Scarecrow’s new hideout?” Batman asks.

Jason nods, but you keep your eyes on your feet.

“And you went in - without telling anyone - only to get into a fight with Bane and doused with Scarecrow toxin?”

Jason nods again.

“Who made the call to go in without backup?”

“I…” Jason begins.

You don’t look up as you cut him off. “I did. Jason wanted to wait but I went in without him and he followed me. It’s my fault.”

“Hood, you’re dismissed then. Alfred said you need 24 hours of rest before you can patrol again,” Batman says.

Jason turns, stopping to look down at you before walking out of the Batcave. You hear Bruce pull his cowl off, but keep your eyes trained on your shoes.

“Alfred said the only reason Jason got out unscathed is because you took most of the toxin; without a mask. Why did you rush in there, then put yourself in harm’s way when Jason is more prepared to deal with it?”

“I didn’t think about that. I saw a threat and wanted to help my fri- teammate.” He’s not your friend, you remind yourself, no matter how badly you want him to be.

Bruce sighs, then clicks his tongue. You finally look up at him, and he looks like he’s fighting an internal war between Bruce and Batman. The one who wants to bench you for being reckless and the one who wants to hug you for protecting his son, even if he didn’t need it.

“Thank you. Just- call for backup next time, okay?”

You promise that you will. “But if someone is in danger, I will not hesitate to help.”

“I know that. But try to be a little more careful in the future, okay? Are you hurt?”

“No,” you lie, your mind racing on the remnants of the toxin as your face aches from the impact of Bane’s punch.

As you exit the Batcave and cut through Wayne Manor, Jason is leaning against the front door, his mask gone and his blue eyes leveled on you.

“Did he bench you?” he asks.

“No. Just told me not to do it again.”

Jason nods and pushes off the door, walking to you and looking down into your eyes. “That was incredibly stupid and if Bruce didn’t have this attachment to you, I’d be fighting him to get rid of you or stick you with someone else.”

“Sorry you feel that way,” you mumble, skirting around him and walking outside.

You breathe in the fresh air and try to ignore the feeling of your heartbeat in your face. You’ll undoubtedly have a bruise, so maybe it’s time to finally wear the mask Bruce seems keen on convincing you is for your safety. Maybe it’ll get Jason to lighten up, too. 

✯✯✯✯✯

“Bruce must’ve given a powerful lecture if it got you in the mask,” Jason teases.

You hum, hoping you don’t have to say anything and make the pain in your jaw worse.

“Just ordinary patrol today, so we can split up if you still want to,” he offers.

You shrug, watching the helmet tilt as its unblinking eye slits stare at you.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m great,” you say. “Split up, then.”

You take the East side of your quadrant while Jason goes West. As the night goes on and your pain medicine wears off, you want to curl up into a ball on one of the roofs you're jumping across and go to sleep. You slow before stopping in the middle of a roof, gently pressing your hand against the underside of your jaw, trying to alleviate the pain.

“What are you doing?” Jason asks, his voice distorted by the mask as he appears suddenly behind you.

“Nothing,” you say, the word mumbled by your hand holding one side of your jaw closed.

You hear his footsteps as he walks around you, stopping in front of you and pulling your hand away from your face before gently lifting your mask to your nose. His sharp inhale is barely audible through the helmet, but you catch it.

“Look that good?” you joke.

“When did that happen? Tonight?”

“No. Bane punched me two nights ago; it’s getting worse, as usual.”

“You should have told someone; what if he had broken your jaw?”

“Then you wouldn’t have to hear my commentary that you love so much.”

“Can you take anything seriously?”

“Can you stop taking everything seriously?” you argue. “I got hurt, so what? You don’t even like me!”

“I never said- no matter my feelings, you’re my teammate. Just tell me this stuff.”

“Because you’re such a good listener,” you mutter.

“Let’s go. We’ll finish patrolling together.”

You nod, pulling your mask back down and following Jason to a roof with a bird’s eye view. You sit on the edge beside him, looking at the twinkling Christmas lights scattered throughout Gotham.

“What do you want for Christmas?” you ask.

Jason’s mask swings toward you. “What do I want for Christmas?” he repeats incredulously. “Oh, let’s see… a partner who doesn’t rush us both into danger, a life that isn’t marked by death and loss, a team that doesn’t look at me like I’m one second away from becoming a supervillain, and maybe, if there is anything like Christmas magic, a day where you don’t act like my life is worth more than yours!”

You hold your breath as he yells at you, releasing it when he looks back out to the skyline.

“Red, we’re here to relieve you. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night,” Red Robin says through the comm system.

Jason storms off as soon as he hears that, leaving you alone two nights before Christmas.

“I don’t think they have that on Amazon,” you whisper to Gotham, rubbing the good side of your face to stop yourself from crying.

✯✯✯✯✯

Bruce gave you a few nights off, presumably because Jason complained about you. The morning after Jason told you what he wanted for Christmas, you get a package containing the gift you thought he’d like. You wrap it, then set it on your kitchen counter, unsure whether it’s worth it to take it to him or if you should leave it at the manor while he’s gone. Shrugging, you decide you have time to make the decision and walk to your couch, queuing your favorite Christmas movie and trying to push Jason Todd out of your head. Deep down, you always believed he was mean because he cared and kept you safe by keeping you at arms’ distance, but now you’re not so sure.

On Christmas Eve, you find yourself standing outside Jason’s apartment, his gift in one hand and the other hand ready to knock. Taking a deep breath, you hope for the best and knock. The door opens a moment later, and Jason looks at you, his gaze catching on the bruise momentarily.

“Um, I just wanted to bring you this. And say that I’m sorry. Merry Christmas,” you explain as you extend the bag to him.

He takes it, pulling his eyes from yours to peek past the tissue paper. His blue eyes widen as he sees what’s in the bag before he closes the door quickly. You step back, hurt, and prepare to leave when the door opens again. Jason pulls you into his arms and into his apartment, kicking the door closed behind him as he holds you close. Your arms wrap loosely around his waist.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers.

Your arms immediately tighten around him, and you press your uninjured cheek against his chest.

“It’s perfect. Thank you.”

“Of course. Merry Christmas, Jay.”

“No, no,” he begins, pulling back just enough to look into your eyes, his shining like a frozen lake. “You don’t say ‘of course,’ like I deserve it. Not after everything I’ve done to you. I’m sorry. I don’t know how to apologize, but I just..”

“Push people away because you think you’re a bad guy?” you suggest quietly.

“I am a bad guy,” he responds.

“No, you’re not. Jason, do you push people away for you or for them, and their safety, because you care about them?”

Jason is quiet as he stares into your eyes, dropping his gaze to your bruise once. “I care about you,” he whispers. “You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.”

“She began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her. His understanding and temper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes,” you quote.

“Where did you find a special edition of Pride and Prejudice this close to Christmas?” Jason asks, smiling brightly.

“I thought it was going to get here too late.”

“Thank you. For the book and for pushing back.”

“You’re worth it, Jay. Merry Christmas.”

He barely lets you finish before he pulls you in for another kiss the Christmas lights twinkling on the Gotham skyline starkly contrast the streets below, going unnoticed in the background as you realize Jason only pretended not to like you because of how much he cares for you. That, and being wrapped in his arms, is the only Christmas gift you’ve ever needed.

[darkpetal16]

Do you have any head canons of what a relationship with dust after the resets would look/be like? How he shows affection, his struggles, etc,?

Yep!

It takes a long, long time for him to not think this is all one big fantastical dream. There are several moments where he’ll stare at you, or Papyrus, or Toriel as if he’s not certain he believes what he sees.

He’s jumpy. Not in any obvious way, but he has to sit closest to the door, he has to have full view of windows, he cannot have an open space behind him, children laughing makes him tense, etc. It’s really only a change noticed by Papyrus, since he was already like this when you met him.

He doesn’t tolerate human kids. He doesn’t hate them, he just. . . Avoids them.

Sometimes his pranks/jokes go too far. His sense of humor has significantly darkened from the repeated deaths & resets so at times he’ll slip up and say something that makes others in the room uncomfortable or upset. A lot of his humor is centered around death, murder, and gore now. This is most concerning to Papyrus who doesn’t understand what brought this change on.

He evades. Doesn’t matter how often or how sincere someone (ie Papyrus or Toriel) asks about him. . . He won’t give them a straight answer. He’ll deflect, sidestep, or outright ignore their questions.

If in a romantic relationship with him, he’ll sometimes answer you honestly about how he is. You know the full story, so when he says he’s having an off day you know not to ask why. . .

It’s easier to be with you than others. He didn’t kill you, so he isn’t haunted by that image every time he looks at you. They don’t understand the full magnitude of their freedom, or what it cost him.

He’s too tired to be grateful they’re alive. Maybe one day when he’s not so. . . exhausted. . . He can look at the monsters without feeling uncomfortable.

He doesn’t initiate often, but when he does he clings. When he goes to you for affection it’s not a want, it’s a necessity. He needs to touch you. He needs to hear your heartbeat. He needs to feel your arms around him. He needs you to stay put with him where he can see you at all times. He needs to hear you say that you’ll stay with him.

Some days he thinks back to how you literally abandoned everything to be with him and he looks at you like you’re insane. Then he grins. Because he’s insane too. You both make a pair, huh?

He stargazes. He stays up past midnight each and every night to admire the view. He soaks it all in. A part of him is anxious that everything will be RESET and he’ll never see the stars again. He has to admire them now and as often as possible.

He gets jealous easily.

He knows he’s. . . Well, he’s pretty fucked up. He knows you’re nothing short of a saint for not only going back for him and willingly entering isolation, but for patiently dealing with him during that time. He knows he is was an ass.

He doesn’t understand why you want to stay with him. He’s happy and grateful and he cares for you as much as he possibly can. . . But like. . . You can do better. He knows that. The right thing to do would be to let you go so you can find someone who will treat you well.

But he can’t. He can’t bring himself to do that. He selfishly wants to keep you and any hint that someone else might sweep you away has him seething.

He wouldn’t stop you from leaving but. . . It’d devastate him. You are the only one who can understand him, and if even you can’t stand him. . .

. . .

Dates are causal and quiet. Movie nights, stargazing, picnics—he really enjoys picnics, fishing, even scrapbooking. Just as long as it’s quiet and low-energy. He gets too stressed in loud / high paced environments.

He’s very good about reading between the lines / picking up on nonverbal cues so he can consistently read your mood well. When you’re having a bad day, he’ll keep you company. He may not know what to say but he’ll sit with you. He’ll listen, if you want to talk.

Papyrus won’t question you moving in with them.

But you also can’t question it when Papyrus moves in with you two. Sorry, they’re a packaged deal.

PLAY IF DUSTTALE HERE FOR HIS ROUTE

MASTERLIST

[pistatsia]

Isagi Yoichi: problems with anger expression

Clickbait, right? One would think that what kind of anger expression problems could there be with a guy swearing on the field with war-crime level insults and joyfully bringing a child a few years younger to tears?

The kind where one derives from the the other.

Now, let's figure it out.

To do so, we'll have to go back to Isagi's novel (hoshi801_ translation is used for all of the quotes). From it, we know that Isagi grew up as a quiet and shy child. "He never gets into fights with his friends and never disobeys his teachers."

Nevertheless, it ended quite simply then - thanks to Noa, he learnt how to express his anger and negative feelings. Problem? Only on the football field. The novel says he "was fearless in running into his opponents, as if he had never been a crybaby." 

He was winning, and what he liked best about football - his football, Noa's football - was the beauty of Noa’s playstyle brutality. Because that's what made it an acceptable outlet for him - fighting with friends is bad, arguing with teachers is not allowed - but on the football pitch you are free. You can be angry. Football became his safe space.

Except that then Isagi entered the root of all his troubles - Ichinan.

Even before it, the novel mentioned and emphasised Isagi's inability to express himself. For a while, despite this, his plans worked: the coaches let him play the way he wanted, and he didn't have to come into direct conflict with them.

But that trick didn't work in Ichinan - the dream school suddenly turned out to be somehow strange, and Isagi felt that he wasn't allowed to fulfil his potential here.

But no one on the team was unsatisfied by the current system.

Even before the conversation with the coach where he was ridiculed Isagi had tried to test the waters. Specifically to test - he doesn't say anything outright in fear of being rejected. "Uhm, Tada-kun… don’t you think there’s something wrong with this?" he asks his club mate very cautiously, while in thoughts having more direct “Huh? Am I the only one who thinks that this is ridiculous?”. It's written out separately in the novel that "he watches the expression on Tada's face to see how he'll react" - Isagi already has problems. He's already learnt that he can be rejected if his opinion doesn't coincide with the majority - especially since the conversation wasn't taking place in 'football territory', where he was more or less able to talk straight. 

Having an opinion for Isagi means isolation.

But he still tries one last time - one that finally cracks him up, convincing him that the others know better and he just needs to be patient.

In the novel his friends are "Surprized, seeing the quiet and obedient Isagi talk to the coach" - again, he is used to keeping quiet and not risking. Still, he dares to - and is immediately ridiculed for allegedly trying to "show off". 

And this is what finally kills in him the will to resist. Because losing his friends and football is more terrifying for him than losing himself.

What does the novel says about Isagi after this episode? "He is afraid of being disliked for being assertive", "always timid", "compliant". "When his friends get excited, Isagi would say something like this: “Uh, yeah… me too”."

"He just goes with the flow."

Isagi agrees with Tada's taste in girls, agrees to eat what he doesn't want to, pleases in every way possible just so he won't be abandoned. He obeys the coach's strategy, and even on the field - the only thing that gave him joy and was a safe place for him - he ends up obeying the rules his surroundings have imposed on him.

He doesn't try to argue, he doesn't try to prove anything - he just chooses the safest path, the one where he doesn't do anything and doesn't fight, but he stays safe. Not abandoned.

What's the conclusion?

Isagi doesn't know how to express anger at all. He just hasn't learnt it because he hasn't tried it. And most importantly, doesn't know how to express it correctly.

Why is it necessary (and important) to know how to anger correctly in the first place? The point is that for the mentality anger is a kind of marker that lets us know when our interests are violated and our needs are not satisfied. Which by its presence helps us to build boundaries and achieve what we need. Anger is the power and energy to change an unpleasant world to suit us and achieve our goals.

But Isagi was shamed for showing negative emotions and for any attempt to express himself. He was shown non-verbally that any expression of self and attempt to argue, even just a different opinion would be received grudgingly, that you had to agree on everything, that if you tried to argue you would be rejected and not only that, you would lose the football.

And Isagi tamps down the anger inside himself - he no longer stands up for himself, and holds back the anger to the last, storing it up inside for years.

He develops a ban on anger.

And in general, not just anger - any negative emotion. He is unable to express even the despair of losing to Kira correctly; he tries to suppress it, to muffle it, the novel explicitly states that he attempts to lock it up inside, but in the end, having overflowed, this despair against his will burst out in a scream. Isagi suppresses all negative feelings in general. Aside from the crying part, this repressed anger is evident even in the first chapter, when he imagines the goalkeeper in tears from defeat, and dreams of crushing Kira. Without saying it out loud, though.

And in that 'against his will' lies the main problem of why exactly anger needs to be lived out properly. 

Because otherwise it'll spill out just like that scream - desperate, seething, expansive, and the worst part?

Uncontrollable.

What is the danger of not controlling the expression of anger? Why can't we just hide it inside and keep smiling, without causing anyone problems and without wasting the resources of our body on it, just adjusting? Yes, in doing so you lose your freedom of expression - so what? 

Because anger doesn't disappear over time. It is put inside layer by layer, day by day. 

And sooner or later you can't hold it back.

In life this rarely ends well: if a person holds themselves to a completely unhealthy level of control they may at some point experience an episode of derealisation - when repressed feelings become so abundant that the brain rolls out one of the strongest self-defence mechanisms - detachment. If it doesn't? One goes off the rails: he overreacts to the smallest of things, he is thrown from one-time hook-ups to drugs and alcohol. The accumulated anger begins to destroy from the insides.

But Isagi, as an adaptation specialist (unconsciously, most likely) has come up with a great answer to this, learnt from childhood and from the show with Noel Noa. Which one? Express anger where it would be considered normal.

Blue Lock with on-field swearing works for Isagi for many reasons at once. He got Bachira, who showed him that there's nothing wrong with expressing his angry-self - he'll be accepted, he would even be welcomed, it's okay to be angry! He got Chigiri and Kunigami, Nanase and Hiori, dozens of people accepting him no matter what (but in personal conflicts outside the field he usually still doesn't know how to behave - he prefers to withdraw and wait for things to resolve themselves - but that's for another time). Here, also, the issue of survival came into play, as expressions of anger and rage were cultivated by the Ego itself, sometimes specifically manipulating the players to do so.

There's also the application of the familiar pattern of his pre-Ichinan childhood ('I play football as rough as Noa - I'm doing well, I'm not alone, and I achieve my goals because it happens on the field, so it doesn't mean anything'), the general tense atmosphere, and a fair number of trigger characters who would drive even a saint to their grave (heh, Kaiser, heh). Isagi in general has more to do with football than almost all of Blue Lock's characters. Manifestations of anger and determination as a child (on the football field!)? Noa. Manifestations of them now? Blue Lock. He continues to use mechanisms familiar from childhood to protect himself, adapting them to new realities.

(basically, even the fact that Noa is around - who, again, once gave little Isagi the opportunity to express himself openly on the field - can have an impact on the escalation of Isagi's behaviour around Kaiser and Bastards. Whose presence and support is associated with a safe expression of himself)

like father like son

And uncontrollable anger bursts out, but for now like water from a cracked jug - in jolts, strong and those impossible to shut down, but from just one place. The swearing at the match and the opportunity to openly express himself and his objectives (remember how he shouted at Noa that his system doesn't allow him to score goals hahaha) allowed him to relax, to partially release the anger accumulated over the years - all without any realisation on his part. He doesn't even have to do anything - it all resolved itself. He's not being rejected, he's playing the way he wants to play and yet he's angry! That's great!

And everything seems to be fine, right?

The problem is that Blue Lock's setting just isn't going to work in the long run. Ego will be there for the rest of the project - another 2-3 months - and for training for the World Championship, for the Championship itself, and... that's it. The project ends, Isagi flies off to play in another country, but who can guarantee that the environment for such an expression of anger will be replicated there as well?

At one point, access to the field and, in principle, to the competitive and encouraging environment for such expressions of character in Blue Lock is bound to be cut off. There are gaps between seasons, injuries, end of career, and the simple fact that such expression depends on how much the coach allows to players - at some point Isagi may well be silenced.

And then all the accumulated, bubbling anger inside, which is now used to being expressed regularly, will spill out - and not on the safe field, where much can be blamed on adrenaline, but on his loved ones, his career and himself.

[orion-archives]

For the ask meme- all the questions for Bayverse Sentinel please

AAAAAAA–

Sorry for the late response, this took a while:

1. Canon I outright reject

I don’t think I have any. I really like how his character is.

2. A canon or headcanon hill I will die on

He wanted to bring Cybertron not because it was his home or because he loved it like Optimus or Megatron. He wanted to bring Cybertron back because he was adored and worshiped like a god there. On Earth, while he was still a leader and well-respected by the Autobots, he wasn’t looked by humans like a god or even a king.

He was just another machine.

And he didn’t like that.

3. Obscure headcanon

He’s Megatron and Optimus’ biological dad.

4. Favorite line

“We were gods once, all of us! But here there will only be one!”

5. Best personality trait

His intelligence and how he can appear so kind when he wants (if I didn’t know better, I would trust him with my life and to gently hold me)

6. Worst personality trait

His massive ego.

7. Age/height/weight headcanon

Age: He’s older than Megatron and Optimus but not the same age as, for example, The Fallen (that mf is A N C I E N T)

Height: Taking Megatron’s canon height in consideration, I hc Sentinel is 33 feet or around 10 meters (slightly shorter than Megatron [I hc Megatron unconsciously lowers his body to appear smaller or the same height around Sentinel until he snaps] and taller than Optimus)

Weight: No idea, I suck at guessing/making weights.

8. Unpopular opinion about them

He was never in the right, he was not a hero. Just because humanity later turned against the transformers, that doesn’t mean Sentinel was in the right in trying to enslave and wipe out humanity.

Also, he isn’t a false Prime and the Matrix wouldn’t have rejected him. People say he refused it because he knew the Matrix would turn into dust because he was planning to betray the Autobots, but let’s remember the facts that:

A) It floated on his hand, so he is a true Prime.

B) The Fallen was able to not just have it float on his hand but actually TOUCH the Matrix in the second film even after all the things he did.

9. Scene that first made me love (or hate) the character

Love: His talk with Optimus on the mountains/nature.

Hate: When he betrayed the Autobots, killed Ironhide, Mudflap and Skids, threatened Mearing to take her with him and force her to watch as he murdered every single human –no matter if it was a man, woman, elder or child– if he wasn’t given the pillars and almost stomped to death Sam and Lennox (mix of movie, comic and book)

10. Best moment on screen (or in the book)

His final fight with Optimus (and Megatron in the book)

11. Faceclaim for the role

Leonard Nimoy, his VA for Dark of the Moon.

I mean… look at him! They obviously used him as base for Sentinel’s design (I love when that happens)

12. Crack headcanon

His beard is really soft (as soft as metal can be. Soft for cybertronian standards)

13. Dumbest thing they've ever done

Attacking Megatron when he declared they would rebuild Cybertron together. Like, Sentinel, you stupid bitch, HE IS YOUR ALLY. AND HE NEVER SAID YOU WOULD WORK FOR HIM, HE SAID T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R.

If he hadn’t done that (twice in the book), Megatron probably would have never turned against him.

Dumbass.

14. Most heroic moment

Uhh…

15. Worst thing they've ever done

Trying to enslave humanity and commit massive genocide on the rest of Earth.

16. Deepest darkest secret they won’t even admit to themselves

Deep down, a small part of him regrets betraying Optimus and during the Chicago battle, Sentinel wished to have had Optimus on his side instead of Megatron.

17. Quotes, songs, poems, etc. that I associate with them

Hohoho, I actually have a few:

• Good to be King

• Babylon

• Thunder Bringer

• Crucified

18. What they'd go to see a therapist about

God complex (Optimus would have to drag him to see the therapist)

19. Vices/bad habits

There aren’t any canon ones, but I headcanon he overtrains to the point of injury. Following that, I also hc he did this with Megatron in his teenage/young adult years to prepare him to be High Protector of Cybertron once they found the Allspark.

20. Scars

None as far as I know/headcanon.

21. Drink of choice (not just alcoholic)

High grade or normal energon but if he could, he would drink gallons of coffee in a single sitting. I just know it.

22. Best physical feature

…MaY I sPEAK (joking)

I really like his ear-things, the shape of his chest and the things he has on his back.

23. If they were a scented candle, what would they smell like?

He probably smells like smoke, hot metal and burned oil, but Sentinel gives me the vibe of almonds, olive or grapes for some reason.

24. Most annoying habit

Not sure. Maybe constantly feeling his position threatened and reminding others of it (like he did with Megatron and Mearing)?

25. 3 things they'd want to take with them if they were dropped off in the middle of nowhere

The pillars, the Primax Blade and his rust cannon.

26. What they would do if stuck in an elevator with [insert character of your choice from the same fandom]

If it’s Optimus, have a chat with him.

If it’s Megatron, try to be as far as possible from him in the elevator.

If it’s a human, step on them “““accidentally”””

27. Their guilty pleasure

I’m gonna take a guess and say walking through Earth’s landscapes.

28. How they feel about [insert character of your choice from the same fandom]

Optimus: “My favorite, brave, almost perfect, a great cybertronian, my heir… but too soft and not willing in taking difficult decisions”

Megatron: “Good war machine, a firm believer of my words yet I don’t like the rest of him and feel ashamed how he ended up”

Or at least that's how I see it.

29. Eating habits (hc)

Fairly normal, but I headcanon he has a sweet tooth and enjoys cybertronians treats.

30. Sleeping habits (hc)

Terrible. He’s the type of person that will sleep a 10 minute nap and call it enough, though he will recharge at one point for a long period of time when his body can no longer keep up. Then, the cycle repeats.

31. If they had a tumblr what would it look like?

Idk :(

32. Something guaranteed to make them smile/laugh

Spending time with his favorite son, Optimus, a compliment from anyone, any show of respect/devotion to him.

33. Something guaranteed to make them cry

…

34. How they react when they are feeling X emotion (sad, angry, excited, scared, etc.— can specify as many as you like)

Oh, yes, headcanon time!

• Happy: Smiling, ears up, chest puffed.

• Angry: Frowning, ears pinned (the more low they are, the more angry he is), teeth clenched, narrowing eyes, standing straight to full height, the cylinders in his chest roll slowly.

• Excited: Ears twitch, eyebrows lifted, cylinders roll quickly.

• Sad: Ears dropped, eyebrows downwards, eyes shine is dimmer, shoulders go down.

• Scared: Ears can be slightly pinned (danger is visible) or fully erect (sensing danger), pupils shrink, body is tense, cylinders roll quickly.

• Flirty/playful: Ears twitch or point in different directions (one can be lower than the other one), one eyebrow lifted, confident smile.

35. Their idea of a perfect day

On Cybertron, a sunny day without problems, walk around, get a few compliments/bows, chat with Optimus, drink some high grade energon and enjoy the sunset.

36. Their favorite season

I think it would be summer. After living for who knows how long in darkness on Cybertron, I think Sentinel would enjoy summer and the longer days it brings along the warmth.

37. What they really think about themselves

They are above everyone and everything else since creation.

38. Favorite holiday

He doesn’t have one.

39. Favorite game

AmOnG uS (I’m kidding, he’s a boomer)

Cybertronian equivalent of chess, maybe?

40. Favorite book

I don’t know.

41. If they could have lunch with anyone in the world (living or dead, from any fictional universe or the real world), who would it be?

Primus.

42. 3 comfort items

Uh…

43. 3 favorite foods and 3 they despise

UHH…

44. Their happiest memory

Restoring Cybertron by finding the Allspark and becoming ruler of the planet.

45. Their favorite celebrity

Primus (does God count as a celebrity–)

46. The person they most admire

Primus.

47. Their dream job

Being a Prime (he already is)

48. Scariest moment of their life

When Starscream shot down the Ark when he was escaping with the pillars to meet with Megatron.

49. Favorite toy as a child

I don’t know…

50. A memory they've blocked out

He remembers raising Optimus and telling him stories about greatness and the legends of the Primes and the Allspark… but he has long forgotten also raising Megatron with the same tales (half headcanon, half canon)

Ask game here!